The end was nearer than even the doctors had expected. Frankie caught
cold on the journey, and two or three days after his departure a
broken-hearted letter came from his poor mother saying that they were
at an hotel in Dublin; they could get no further, for Frankie was
dangerously ill. It was the first time she had ever admitted that there
was danger in his illness, and when Mr. Blair gave the letter to Nessa
to read, he said: "It was a matter of months before, now I am afraid it
is a matter of days. Poor Jane!"
Poor Jane, indeed! Even while Mr. Blair was speaking, she was sitting
in dumb despair in the darkened hotel bedroom holding her dead son's
hand in hers. But at Castle Blair they did not yet know this, and
neither Mr. Blair nor Nessa had thought it necessary to communicate
to the children the bad news they had received of little Frankie's
state. On the contrary, Nessa kindly devoted herself to cheering and
amusing them in order that they might feel as little as possible the
disappointment of not accompanying their cousin.
In this instance she succeeded marvelously. Winnie and Murtagh began
to forget the trouble into which Frankie's words had thrown them. When
they were alone and quiet it came back to them, but they had repeated
to no one what he had said, and somehow in the midst of all their
occupations the words began to seem unreal.
So it happened that three or four days after Frankie's departure, the
children, having been with Nessa and Royal for a scramble across the
fields, came in quite rosy with racing, and in a mood to think of some
improvements that they desired to make in the fireplace of the island
hut.
"There's no time like the present," said Murtagh, and as the others
were of his opinion they left Nessa to enter the house alone, and
started off with Royal to spend the rest of the afternoon upon the
island.
Nessa was glad to be alone. Good-natured as she was, she was too little
accustomed to children's society not to be a little fatigued by it, and
to-day, especially, for though she had not chosen to seem one bit less
bright, she had thought often of Cousin Jane's sad letter about little
Frankie.
She was thinking of it again now as she stood by the schoolroom window.
But Nessa did not pay much attention to the landscape. She was thinking
of the bright, gentle little boy who had so lately been with them, and
she, too, felt awed at the thought of death. But she could not believe
that he would die; it seemed impossible.
No, no, it would not be; he would get well; he could not die when his
mother loved him so. So she persuaded herself; but when, after standing
a long while by the window, she happened to look out, the gray dampness
of the landscape made her shudder, she did not quite know why, and with
a sudden impulsive movement she pulled down the blind. She came over
to the fire and poked it into a blaze. Poor little fellow! But, yes,
she felt certain he would get well. In Dublin he would be near the best
doctors.
She rang for Peggy to put the room in order, and went up-stairs to take
her things off and to fetch a book. A quarter of an hour later she was
comfortably established on the big brown sofa by the fire, and her
unpleasant impressions were forgotten in a book that interested her
immensely.
But as she was coming to the very climax of the story she was startled
out of her abstraction by Peggy's entrance with a tray of rattling
tea-things.
"It wants ten minutes of dinner-time, Miss," remarked that maiden in a
tone of respectful admonition.
"What!" exclaimed Nessa. "The whole afternoon gone already! And the
children, too; they have not come in!"
But there was no time for exclamations; climax or no climax, the nine
pages that remained of her book had to be left till after dinner; and,
as it was, her evening toilette had to be made with a truly fairylike
rapidity.
When after dinner she returned to the schoolroom and found tea still
untouched, she only concluded that their fireplace had taken longer to
build than they had expected.
Her mind was still full of her book, and having piled fresh wood upon
the fire, she settled down contentedly to finish it.
The children left her just time. She was reading the last lines, when
a banging of doors, a sudden clatter of little feet across the hall, a
confusion of voices and laughter mixed with the short, playful barks
of a dog, announced that they were coming. The next minute Bobbo burst
open the schoolroom door and rushed in, followed by the two girls, all
rosy--laughing, panting, and all trying to talk at the same time. Royal
jumped round them and barked in chorus, till the sounds became so mixed
that it was difficult to say who was barking and who was talking.
"Down, Royal; be quiet, my beauty!" cried Winnie, at last, while
Bobbo exclaimed: "Oh, Nessa, we've had such fun, and Royal behaved
so splendidly. You never saw such a dog. He does every single thing
Winnie tells. He's the best king of our tribe we could possibly have;
he flew at them like--Oh, it was glorious to see how they ran!"
Here all the children again tried to tell what had happened, and
Bobbo's voice was lost in the Babel that ensued.
Nessa had shut up her book on their entrance, and laughingly put her
hands to her ears.
"How can I hear a single word," she exclaimed, "if you all talk at
once?"
"All right; give me something to eat, and I'll be as quiet as a lamb,"
cried Bobbo, sitting down to the tea-table as he spoke, and seizing
upon some bread and butter. "I _am_ starving."
"But do just listen," cried Winnie. "It was such fun to see them.
You'd have thought Royal was a wild bea--Oh, where's the milk?" she
exclaimed, suddenly interrupting herself. "He must have some supper."
"Here's the milk," said Nessa. "And where is Murtagh? And what is it
that Royal has done?"
"Oh, Murtagh! He'll be here in a minute. Well, we were on the island,
and we'd got some big stones out of the river, and we were building
away when we heard some one coming. First we thought it was you, and
we thought that was jolly, so we called out: 'Here we are, awfully
busy. Are you going to help us?' But then Royal jumped up and began to
growl, and a man called back again: 'I think we'll help ye with the
wrong sides of our shovels;' and lo and behold! there were two of the
men--Hickey and that red-headed donkey, Phelim--with picks and shovels
on their shoulders, and would you like to know what they wanted?"
Nessa looked her surprise and attention, but did not even attempt to
guess the preposterous design.
"To pull down our hut!" shouted all the children together. "Our own
very hut that we've had ever since we came here!"
Bobbo opportunely choked over a mouthful of toast, and Rosie patted
his back, while Winnie continued: "Did you ever hear of such a thing
in your life? There was a wall to be mended somewhere, they said, and
Mr. Plunkett had told them to take the stones from our hut. But we soon
let them see their mistake. We told them they might go to London for
their stones if they liked, but they weren't going to have one of ours.
Phelim began to laugh in his stupid, aggravating way, and he said: 'Oh,
ay, we've found our master now, you know, and what he says has got to
be. The quality is no account at all now alongside o' the agents.'
"So then Murtagh started up from the fireplace and he came to the door,
and he said: 'All the agents in Ireland may go to the bottom of the
sea for all I care. But if you touch one stone of the hut, I'll set
the dog upon you.' And Royal knew quite well what Murtagh was saying,
for he wagged his tail and looked as pleased as possible. Phelim was
frightened; but Hickey said he couldn't help it, and he came up nearer
to the hut; and Murtagh called out to him to stay where he was. And
Royal growled; he growled just like a _bear_, so he did. And Hickey
would come on. So then Murtagh and me called out, 'At them, Royal; good
dog!' and he sprang straight at them.
"They both turned and ran; but just as they got to the edge of the
island he seized Phelim, and down he went with him into the river.
Oh, Nessa, if you could have seen Phelim!" continued Winnie, with a
merry peal of laughter. "His great red head went down and his heels
went up; there was a tremendous splashing and gurgling, and then he
roared! he roared just like a child, at the very top of his voice,
and Royal--Royal laughed at him! he did, really, upon my word; we all
saw him; he regularly shook himself with laughing; because he got out
of the water and stood on the bank, and Phelim sat there in the river
just roaring till--till--" But the remembrance of the scene made Winnie
laugh so much that her words became incoherent.
"Till Hickey pulled him out, and they both took themselves off," said
Murtagh's voice behind her.
"And Royal?" said Nessa, laughing.
"Oh," said Winnie, recovering herself, "Royal was too much of a
gentleman to have anything more to say to him; only when Hickey was
going to help him up, Royal ran at Hickey; so then Hickey took to his
heels, and so did Phelim, and Royal just stood on the shore and barked
and barked as much as to say, 'You know what you have to expect if you
come worrying my tribe.' Didn't you, my beauty?" and Winnie's story
ended with a hug to Royal as she knelt down before him with his supper.
"But you had better take care," said Nessa, "or you will be getting
Royal into trouble."
"Oh," said Winnie, "that doesn't matter. You're my precious one, and
nobody can touch you without my leave."
While Winnie continued to speak, Murtagh had flung himself silently
into a great arm-chair by the window, and Nessa saw by his face and
manner that he was in one of his proud, angry moods. She attended
to the wants of the other children, who were ravenously hungry, and
then seeing that he did not stir, she said, "Your tea is poured out,
Murtagh."
"I don't want any tea, thank you," replied Murtagh, from the depths of
his arm-chair.
Then ashamed, perhaps, of the tone in which he had spoken, he sprang up
and came to the table.
"But let me cut the bread and butter for them," he said, taking the
loaf from her; "see what red marks the knife makes on your hands." He
looked up as he spoke with a pleasant smile.
"Did you ever know any one like Mr. Plunkett?" remarked Rosie. "Just
imagine him wanting to take the stones of our hut!"
"He's not going to get them," said Murtagh, shortly, his brow clouding
over again.
"It's the most ridiculous idea I ever heard in my life!" exclaimed
Winnie,--"knock down our hut that we've had ever since we've been here,
to mend some silly old wall. They'll be knocking down this house next
to build up Mr. Plunkett's. I think they've all gone mad."
"And besides," said Murtagh, "papa built that hut with his own hands
when he was a little boy. He told us all about it before we came here.
Pat O'Toole's father helped him, and they collected every single stone
that's in it one by one out of the river. It took them more than six
months getting all the stones, and building."
"Why don't you tell that to Uncle Blair?" said Nessa. "You may be quite
sure nobody remembers who built it, or they would not pull it down
to mend a wall. Shall I tell him for you this evening and ask him to
explain to Mr. Plunkett?"
Murtagh's face relaxed a little, and Rosie exclaimed:
"Oh, yes, do. I think it's much nicer to be a peaceful tribe. It is so
like savages, fighting and fighting."
"Listen to Rosie talking good!" burst out Winnie, contemptuously. "Do
you suppose Nessa means we ought to try and not fight, just to make
ourselves more comfortable?"
Rosie reddened, but made some sharp reply, and then ensued one of their
ordinary sparring matches, while Nessa, paying no attention to them,
was busy at the fire toasting a slice of bread.
The sparring passed into a din of continuous remarks which every one
made and nobody listened to; but Murtagh stood silent cutting bread,
till Nessa returned from the fire, and a plate of buttered toast was
laid on the table beside him, with a smiling, "After all, I believe you
are hungry, Murtagh." Then he took a bit of toast, and continued in the
same tone as his last remark:
"Papa knows the shape of every one of the biggest stones. He made a
picture for us once, of the inside of the hut, and he used to tell us
stories in the evenings when there wasn't any one there, about his
adventures when he went in the river looking for stones."
"And you know that three-cornered white one, just a little bit on the
right-hand side, inside the door!" cried Winnie. "Well, he was nearly
drowned getting that. They thought he was drowned first, only Grannie
O'Toole got him round (she's dead now, you know), and they never told
papa's papa and mamma, for fear they mightn't let him go in the river
for any more."
"And then," said Murtagh, his anger rising again at the remembrance,
"they think they're going to get it to put in some beastly wall. But
Mr. Plunkett's greatly mistaken if he supposes I'm going to let him
touch a single one of papa's stones."
"Not while we have Royal to protect us," said Winnie. "I'd rather stay
up there day and night."
"There's one thing," put in Bobbo, "even if he did get the stones, we
could knock the wall down and take them back and hide them."
"He'll get a good many duckings from Royal before he gets a stone out
of the hut," returned Murtagh, fiercely. "And if he's held under a
little too long by mistake, it would be a good riddance," he added,
half under his breath.
"Murtagh!" exclaimed Nessa, almost involuntary, but in a tone that
expressed her dismay.
"I _can't_ help it," returned Murtagh, "he makes me feel--" And the
tone of Murtagh's voice finished his sentence for him.
"Come and sit by the fire, and let us try and forget all about him
just for the present. It is no use to talk about him, is it?" she said
kindly.
"Do you know what I have been doing all this afternoon?" she remarked
presently. "I have been reading the most wonderful--But no, you shall
just guess. Guess what it was about."
"Easy to guess," said Winnie, "if you got it out of the library. Some
horrible dry stuff or other, out of a book a yard long."
"No, it wasn't," said Nessa. "The book was not bigger than one of your
story-books, and--"
"Horrid squinny little print, then, and yellow paper all over stains,"
replied Winnie, laughing. "_I_ know Uncle Blair's books; they make one
feel dusty to look at them."
"No, it wasn't," replied Nessa, shaking her head. "It had--well, yes,
it had a dreadfully ugly binding, but lovely white paper."
"Long _s_'s," suggested Murtagh.
"Oh, yes, yes," cried Winnie. "Long _s_'s, and funny little pictures
of girls with parasols over their heads and trousers down to their
boots. Now wasn't it, Nessa?"
"No," said Nessa, laughing, "not one single long _s_, and the pictures
were all of robber castles in the mountains, and men fighting, and
women fainting, and shipwrecks, and dungeons."
"Oh, I say, how jolly!" exclaimed Bobbo. "That's something like a book.
What was it all about?"
"Couldn't you tell us some of it?" said Rosie. "It's so nice being told
stories."
"Oh, yes," cried Winnie. "If it's something dreadful, do please tell
us. I feel just in the very humor to put out the candles and poke
up the fire, and have something--something that'll make our flesh
regularly creep and our hair stand up."
Nessa was not accustomed to story-telling, but she acquitted herself
wonderfully well. Sure that the subject would charm the children, she
was delighted to find something which would take them completely out of
their everyday troubles.
Murtagh alone paid little attention. His thoughts were full of his
own troubles, and he lay on the hearth-rug brooding over them with
a bitterness that excluded every other feeling. Soon, however, some
sentences that he overheard aroused his interest. He began to listen,
and before she had gone very far, he had rolled himself over and was
lying stretched out at her feet, his elbows planted firmly on the
ground, his chin resting on his hands, and his burning black eyes fixed
upon her face with an expression that might well have startled her had
she seen it.
Murtagh's face as she proceeded was a curious study. It seemed at first
with restless indignation to reflect every passion she described, but
when she began to speak of John of Procida, and entered upon his
resolute and devoted efforts for the freedom of his country, there
came over it an eager, exalted look, a look of fixed and passionate
sympathy, that never faded till she brought the story to its climax.
"I would rather read you the end," she said, pausing to look down at
their flushed faces, and eager eyes, and tousled heads, ruddy in the
firelight. "The book will tell it better than I can."
The book was still on the sofa; she had only to open it. The children,
all wondering what was to come next, were too much interested to speak,
and she read:
"In the year 1282, Easter Monday fell on the 30th of March. The people
of Palermo, according to their custom on holidays, flocked out in
hundreds to the meadows in the direction of the church of Montreal,
intending to hear vespers and to witness also the marriage of a
beautiful young girl, the daughter of one Roger Mastrangelo.
"Mixed among the crowd of Sicilians were many Frenchmen who had come
out to see the marriage and to join in the games that were to fill
the evening. But, as usual, the French were behaving roughly to the
Sicilian men and impudently to the women, causing the Sicilian faces to
look black and angry.
"It was one of the vexatious laws of the French that no Sicilian should
carry arms, and presently a Frenchman cried out:
"'These rebellious Paterins must have arms hidden upon them or they
would never dare to look so sulky. Let us search them.'
"The idea was instantly caught up, and in another moment the festival
would have been disturbed by a general search, when an admiring murmur
running through the crowd turned all thoughts to another direction.
The bride was coming, and every one turned to look.
"Dressed in her pretty wedding finery, her gold ornaments glinting in
the sunlight, she leaned upon her father's arm, while her lover and
the friends who were asked to the wedding walked behind; blushing and
smiling she advanced towards the church. Suddenly a Frenchman stepped
out of the crowd, and crying out with a coarse laugh, 'I daresay she
has got arms hidden about her somewhere,' he tore open her dress and
thrust his hand into her bosom. Terrified and insulted the poor girl
fainted into her lover's arms, but her father sprang upon the offender,
and tearing his sword from him stabbed him with it, crying as he did
so, 'Let the French die.'
"Then every Sicilian in the place echoed the shout, 'Let the French
die.' They had broken at last from their slavery, and more like wild
beasts than men they took their revenge. In a moment the French were
overpowered. Their arms were dragged from them and they were killed
with their own swords. Back into the town went the Sicilians shouting
everywhere, 'Let the French die,' and before they laid down their arms
that evening they had killed four thousand."
Murtagh's eyes were fixed eagerly upon Nessa, and as her voice ceased
he drew himself up suddenly on to his knees and exclaimed:
"Oh, how I wish I had been there! I _would_ have fought with all my
might and main against those mean French thieves. Did John of Procida
succeed in the end?"
"Yes," said Nessa. As she answered she looked at him and was startled
by the almost feverish interest of his face. His cheeks were flushed,
his eyes bright, and he continued with rapid, passionate utterance:
"How could they bear it so long? How could they live not free in their
own beautiful country? But John of Procida was true, he was brave; he
knew that it is better to die than to live like slaves."
The other children looked at him in surprise; his enthusiasm had
astonished them too.
"Why, Murtagh," said Rosie, "how awfully hot you look! your cheeks are
as red as fire."
"Yes," said Nessa, bending forward and arranging his hair that was
standing up on end, "I think you are quite excited by my story."
"If you please, Miss," said Brown, at the door, "tea has been in the
drawing-room for a quarter of an hour, and Mr. Blair desired me to let
you know."
Murtagh started up.
"Why, Nessa, I had no idea it was so late!" he said, with a certain
amount of ordinary surprise in his voice, but his eyes still full of
suppressed excitement. "Good night," and without more words he went.
His abrupt departure disturbed Nessa; she feared that with the
intention of distracting his thoughts she had really excited him too
much.
Her disquietude would not have lessened if she had been able to see
into Murtagh's mind.
He had entered the schoolroom in a tumult of rage, indignation, and
rebellion. Bitterly repentant for the scene in the barn-yard which
had caused so much unhappiness, he believed that it was nothing but
deliberate persecution on Mr. Plunkett's part to pretend still to
consider him guilty.
With his wild little heart stirred to these depths he had listened
to Nessa's story. The barbaric independence, the despairing savage
struggle for freedom of the oppressed and devoted Sicilians, had
appealed to his imagination in a way that it would have done at no
other time. His own spirit seemed to be put in action; his wrongs were
somehow merged in theirs; and in the tempest of their vengeance he was
whirled along, feeling almost as though he too were at last taking just
revenge for all the injuries that rankled in his mind.
Alone in his room he walked up and down in the darkness, absently
undressing, and dropping the various articles of his clothing upon
the floor. Absorbed as he was he could not have told his thoughts;
they scarcely were thoughts at all; his mind was carried along by some
stronger power. Nessa's story possessed him; he was living in that, and
confusedly mixed up with it was the indignant remembrance of his own
troubles.
At last he threw himself upon his bed, but too excited to sleep he
tossed and turned for hours, seeing over and over again in the darkness
all the details of the story. Unconsciously he fell into imagining
himself the leader of the Sicilians; he felt the enthusiasm and the
savage joy that must have burned in them. His cheeks grew hot, his eyes
flashed, as with vivid fancy he saw the fighting round him; the only
thing worth doing in this world seemed to be to die for freedom, and
through all the excitement there flashed across his mind, from time to
time, a feeling of something like impatient despair at the thought that
there was nothing for him to do.