THE RETURN.
A rude shock awoke me as I lay asleep in the corner of the chaise; a shout
followed, and the next moment the door was torn open, and I heard the
postilion’s voice crying to me:--
“Spring out! Jump out quickly, sir!”
A whole battery of kicks upon the front panel drowned the rest of his
speech; but before I could obey his injunction, he was pitched upon the
road, the chaise rolled over and the pole snapped short in the middle,
while the two horses belabored the carriage and each other with all their
might. Managing, as well as I was able, to extricate myself, I leaped out
upon the road, and by the aid of a knife, and at the cost of some bruises,
succeeded in freeing the horses from their tackle. The postboy, who had
escaped without any serious injury, labored manfully to aid me, blubbering
the whole time upon the consequences his misfortune would bring down upon
his head.
“Bad luck to ye!” cried he, apostrophizing the off-horse, a tall, raw-boned
beast, with a Roman nose, a dipped back, and a tail ragged and jagged like
a hand-saw,--“bad luck to ye! there never was a good one of your color!”
This, for the information of the “unjockeyed,” I may add, was a species of
brindled gray.
“How did it happen, Patsey; how did it happen, my lad?”
“It was the heap o’ stones they left in the road since last autumn; and
though I riz him at it fairly, he dragged the ould mare over it and broke
the pole. Oh, wirra, wirra!” cried he, wringing his hands in an agony of
grief, “sure there’s neither luck nor grace to be had with ye since the day
ye drew the judge down to the last assizes!”
“Well, what’s to be done?”
“Sorra a bit o’ me knows; the shay’s ruined intirely, and the ould divil
there knows he’s conquered us. Look at him there, listening to every word
we’re saying! You eternal thief, may be its ploughing you’d like better!”
“Come, come,” said I, “this will never get us forward. What part of the
country are we in?”
“We left Banagher about four miles behind us; that’s Killimur you see with
the smoke there in the hollow.”
Now, although I did not see Killimur (for the gray mist of the morning
prevented me recognizing any object a few hundred yards distant), yet from
the direction in which he pointed, and from the course of the Shannon,
which I could trace indistinctly, I obtained a pretty accurate notion of
where we were.
“Then we are not very far from Portumna?”
“Just a pleasant walk before your breakfast.”
“And is there not a short cut to O’Malley Castle over that mountain?”
“Faix, and so there is; and ye can be no stranger to these parts if ye know
that.”
“I have travelled it before now. Just tell me, is the wooden bridge
standing over the little stream? It used to be carried away every winter in
my time.”
“It’s just the same now. You’ll have to pass by the upper ford; but it
comes to the same, for that will bring you to the back gate of the demesne,
and one way is just as short as the other.”
“I know it, I know it; so now, do you follow me with my luggage to the
castle, and I’ll set out on foot.”
So saying, I threw off my cloak, and prepared myself for a sharp walk of
some eight miles over the mountain. As I reached the little knoll of land
which, overlooking the Shannon, affords a view of several miles in every
direction, I stopped to gaze upon the scene where every object around was
familiar to me from infancy: the broad, majestic river, sweeping in bold
curves between the wild mountains of Connaught and the wooded hills and
cultivated slopes of the more fertile Munster, the tall chimneys of many a
house rose above the dense woods where in my boyhood I had spent hours and
days of happiness. One last look I turned towards the scene of my late
catastrophe ere I began to descend the mountain. The postboy, with the
happy fatalism of his country, and a firm trust in the future, had
established himself in the interior of the chaise, from which a blue curl
of smoke wreathed upward from his pipe; the horses grazed contentedly by
the roadside; and were I to judge from the evidence before me, I should say
that I was the only member of the party inconvenienced by the accident. A
thin sleeting of rain began to fall; the wind blew sharply in my face, and
the dark clouds, collecting in masses above, seemed to threaten a storm.
Without stopping for even a passing look at the many well-known spots
about, I pressed rapidly on. My old experience upon the moors had taught
me that sling trot in which jumping from hillock to hillock over the
boggy surface, you succeed in accomplishing your journey not only with
considerable speed, but perfectly dryshod.
By the lonely path which I travelled, it was unlikely I should meet any
one. It was rarely traversed except by the foot of the sportsman, or some
stray messenger from the castle to the town of Banagher. Its solitude,
however, was in no wise distasteful to me; my heart was full to bursting.
Each moment as I walked some new feature of my home presented itself
before me. Now it was all happiness and comfort; the scene of its ancient
hospitable board, its warm hearth, its happy faces, and its ready welcome
were all before me, and I increased my speed to the utmost, when suddenly a
sense of sad and sorrowing foreboding would draw around me, and the image
of my uncle’s sick-bed, his worn features, his pallid look, his broken
voice would strike upon my heart, and all the changes that poverty,
desertion, and decay can bring to pass would fall upon my heart, and weak
and trembling I would stand for some moments unable to proceed.
Oh, how many a reproachful thought came home to me at what I scrupled
not to call to myself the desertion of my home! Oh, how many a prayer I
uttered, in all the fervor of devotion, that my selfish waywardness and
my yearning for ambition might not bring upon me, in after-life, years
of unavailing regret! As I thought thus, I reached the brow of a little
mountain ridge, beneath which, at a distance of scarcely more than a mile,
the dark woods of O’Malley Castle stretched, before me. The house itself
was not visible, for it was situated in a valley beside the river. But
there lay the whole scene of my boyhood: there the little creek where my
boat was kept, and where I landed on the morning after my duel with Bodkin;
there stretched for many a mile the large, callow meadows, where I trained
my horses, and schooled them for the coming season; and far in the
distance, the brown and rugged peak of old Scariff was lost in the clouds.
The rain by this time had ceased, the wind had fallen, and an almost
unnatural stillness prevailed around; but yet the heavy masses of vapor
frowned ominously, and the leaden hue of land and water wore a gloomy and
depressing aspect. My impatience to get on increased every moment, and
descending the mountain at the top of my speed, I at length reached the
little oak paling that skirted the wood, opened the little wicket, and
entered the path. It was the self-same one I had trod in revery and
meditation the night before I left my home. I remember, too, sitting down
beside the little well which, enclosed in a frame of rock, ran trickling
across the path to be lost among the gnarled roots and fallen leaves
around. Yes, this was the very spot.
Overcome for the instant by my exertion and by my emotion, I sat down upon
the stone, and taking off my cap, bathed my heated and throbbing temples in
the cold spring, Refreshed at once, I was about to rise and press onward,
when suddenly my attention was caught by a sound which, faint from
distance, scarce struck upon my ear. I listened again; but all was still
and silent, the dull splash of the river as it broke upon the reedy shore
was the only sound I heard. Thinking it probably some mere delusion of my
heated imagination, I rose to push forward; but at the moment a slight
breeze stirred in the leaves around me, the light branches rustled and bent
beneath it, and a low moaning sound swelled upward, increasing each instant
as it came; like the distant roar of some mighty torrent it grew louder as
the wind bore it towards me, and now falling, now swelling, it burst
forth into one loud, prolonged cry of agony and grief. O God! it was the
death-wail! I fell upon my knees, my hands clasped in agony; the sweat
of misery dropped off my brow, and with a heart bleeding and breaking I
prayed--I know not what. Again the terrible cry smote upon my ear, and I
could mark the horrible cadences of the death-song, as the voices of the
mourners joined in chorus.
My suspense became too great to bear. I dashed madly forward, one sound
still ringing in my ears, one horrid image before my eyes. I reached the
garden wall; I cleared the little rivulet beside the flower-garden; I
traversed its beds (neglected and decayed); I gained the avenue, taking
no heed of the crowds before me,--some on foot, some on horseback, others
mounted upon the low country car, many seated in groups upon the grass,
their heads bowed upon their bosoms, silent and speechless. As I neared the
house the whole approach was crowded with carriages and horsemen. At the
foot of the large flight of steps stood the black and mournful hearse,
its plumes nodding in the breeze. With the speed of madness and the
recklessness of despair I tore my way through the thickly standing groups
upon the steps; I could not speak, I could not utter. Once more the
frightful cry swelled upward, and in its wild notes seemed to paralyze me;
for with my hands upon my temples, I stood motionless and still. A heavy
footfall as of persons marching in procession came nearer and nearer, and
as the sounds without sank into sobs of bitterness and woe, the black pall
of a coffin, borne on men’s shoulders, appeared at the door, and an old man
whose gray hair floated in the breeze, and across whose stern features a
struggle for self-mastery--a kind of spasmodic effort--was playing, held
out his hand to enforce silence. His eye, lack-lustre and dimmed with age,
roved over the assembled multitude, but there was no recognition in his
look until at last he turned it on me. A slight hectic flush colored his
pale cheek, his lip trembled, he essayed to speak, but could not. I sprang
towards him, but choked by agony, I could not utter; my look, however,
spoke what my tongue could not. He threw his arms around me, and muttering
the words, “Poor Godfrey!” pointed to the coffin.