THE M'KEONS.
When Father John opened the wicket gate leading into the small
garden which separated Mrs. McKeon's house from the street, he saw
her husband standing in the open door-way, ruminating. Mr. McKeon
was said to be a comfortable man, and he looked to be so; he was
something between forty-five and fifty, about six feet two high, with
a good-humoured red face. He was inclined to be corpulent, and would
no doubt have followed his inclination had he not accustomed himself
to continual bodily activity. He was a great eater, and a very great
drinker; it is said he could put any man in Connaught under the
table, and carry himself to bed sober. At any rate he was never seen
drunk, and it was known that he had often taken fifteen tumblers of
punch after dinner, and rumour told of certain times when he had made
up and exceeded the score.
He was comfortable in means as well as in appearance. Though Mr.
McKeon had no property of his own, he was much better off than many
around him that had. He had a large farm on a profitable lease; he
underlet a good deal of land by con-acre, or corn-acre;--few of my
English readers will understand the complicated misery to the poorest
of the Irish which this accursed word embraces;--he took contracts
for making and repairing roads and bridges; and, altogether, he
contrived to live very well on his ways and means. Although a very
hard-working man he was a bit of a sportsman, and usually kept one
or two well-trained horses, which, as he was too heavy to ride
them himself, he was always willing, and usually able, to sell
at remunerating prices. He was considered a very good hand at a
handicap, and understood well--no one better--the dangerous mysteries
of "knocking." He was sure to have some animal to run at the
different steeple-chases in the neighbourhood, and it was generally
supposed, that even when not winning his race, Tony McKeon seldom
lost much by attending the meeting. There was now going to be a
steeple-chase at Carrick-on-Shannon in a few days, and McKeon was
much intent on bringing his mare, Playful,--a wicked devil, within
twenty yards of whom no one but himself and groom could come,--into
the field in fine order and condition. In addition to this, Mr.
McKeon was a very hospitable man, his only failing in that respect
being his firm determination and usual practice to make every
man that dined with him drunk. He was honest in everything,
barring horse-flesh; was a good Catholic, and very fond of his
daughters--Louey and Lydia. His wife was a kind, good, easy creature,
fond of the world and the world's goods, and yet not selfish or
niggardly with those with which she was blessed. She was sufficiently
contented with her husband, whose friends never came out of the
dining-room after dinner, and therefore did not annoy her; she looked
on his foibles with a lenient eye, for she had been accustomed to
such all her life; and when she heard he had parted with her car in
a handicap, or had lost her two fat pigs in a knock, she bore it
with great good-humour. She was always willing to procure amusement
for her daughters, and was beginning to feel anxious to get them
husbands; she was a good neighbour, and if she had a strong feeling
at all, it was her partiality for Father John. Her daughters
had nothing very remarkable about them to recommend them to our
attention: they were both rather pretty, tolerably well educated,
to the extent of a two years' sojourn in a convent in Sligo; were
both very fond of novels, dancing, ribbons and potato cakes; and
both thought that to dance at a race-ball with an officer in his
regimentals was the most supreme terrestrial blessing of which their
lot was susceptible.
We have, however, kept the father too long standing at his own door,
while we have been describing his family.
"Well, Father John," said McKeon, "how are you this morning?"
"Why then, as luckily I didn't dine with you, Mr. McKeon, I'm pretty
much as I usually am,--and, thank God, that's well. I'm told you had
those poor fellows that were with you last night, laid on a mattress,
and that you sent them home that way to Carrick on a country car, and
that they couldn't move, leaving this at six this morning."
"Oh, nonsense, Father John! who was telling you them lies?"
"But wasn't it true? Didn't they go home on one of the cars off the
farm, and young Michael driving them, and they on a mattress?"
"And sure, Father John, you wouldn't have had me let them walk home
to Carrick after dinner?"
"They were little fit for walking, I believe; why they couldn't so
much as sit up in the car. Will you never have done, Mr. McKeon;
don't you know the sin of drunkenness?"
"The sin of drunkenness! me know it! Indeed I don't then. When did
you ever see me drunk? Come, which was a case last, Father John--you
or I?"
"God forgive me, but I believe some boys did make me rather tipsy the
first day I ever was in France; and my head should have been full of
other things; and I believe if you were to swim in punch it wouldn't
hurt you; but you know as well as I can tell you, it's worse for you
to be making others drink so much who can't bear it as you can, than
if you were hurting yourself."
"And you know, as well as I can tell you, that yourself would be the
last man to take the whiskey off the table, as long as the lads that
were with you chose to be drinking it; and I think when I sent them
boys off to Carrick as comfortably asleep as if they were in bed, so
that they wouldn't be too late at business this morning, I acted by
them as I'd wish anybody to act by me if I had an accident; and if
that an't being a good Christian, I don't know what is. So lave off
preaching, Father John, and come round to the stables, till I show
you the mare that'll win at Carrick; at least, it 'll be a very good
nag that 'll take the shine out of her."
"I hope you'll win, Mr. McKeon, in spite of your villany in making
those young fellows drunk. But I'll not look at the mare just at
present; more by token I'm told she's not very civil to morning
visitors."
"Arrah, nonsense, man! she's as quiet a mare as ever went over a
fence, when she's well handled."
"But you see I can't handle her well; and as I want to see the good
woman that owns you, if you please, I'll go into the house instead of
into the stable."
"Well, every man to his choice; and I'll see Playful get her gallop.
But I tell you what, Father John, if you don't mind what you're after
with Mrs. McKeon, I'll treat you a deal worse than I did those two
fellows I sent home to Carrick on a mattress."
So Mr. McKeon walked off to superintend the training of his mare; and
the priest, in spite of the marital caution he had received, walked
into the dining-room, where he knew that at that hour he should
probably find the mother and daughters surrounded by their household
cares.
When the usual greetings were over, and the two girls had asked all
the particulars of Mary Brady's wedding, and Mrs. McKeon had got
through her usual gossip, Father John warily began the subject
respecting which he was so anxious to rouse his friend's soft
sympathies.
Mrs. McKeon had gone so far herself as to ask him whether anything
had been settled yet at Ballycloran, about Ussher, and whether he
thought that the young man really intended to marry the girl.
The way this question was asked, was a great damper to Father John's
hopes. If there had been any kindly feelings towards poor Feemy at
the moment in her breast, she would have called her by her name,
and not spoken of her as "the girl;" it showed that Mrs. McKeon was
losing, or had lost, whatever good opinion she might ever have had of
Feemy: and when Louey ill-naturedly added, "Oh laws!--not he--the man
never thought of her," Father John felt sure that there was a slight
feeling of triumph among the female McKeons at the idea of Feemy's
losing the lover of whom, perhaps, she had been somewhat too proud.
Still, however, he did not despair; he knew that if they spoke with
ill-nature, it arose from thoughtlessness--and that it was, at any
rate with the mother, only necessary to point out to her the benefit
she could confer, to arouse a kindly feeling within her.
"I think you're wrong there, Miss Louey," said Father John; "I think
he not only did think of her--but does think of her; and I'll tell
you what I know, that if Feemy Macdermot had the great blessing which
you have, and that is a kind, good, careful mother to the fore, she'd
have been married to him before this."
"But, Father John," said the kind, good, careful mother, "what is
there to prevent them marrying, if he's ready? I always pitied Feemy
being left alone there with her father and brother; but if Captain
Ussher is in earnest, I don't see how twenty mothers would make it a
bit easier for her."
"Don't you, Mrs. McKeon!--then it's little you know the advantage
your own girls have in yourself. Don't you think a man would prefer
taking a girl from a house where a good mother gave signs that the
daughter would make a good wife, than from one where there was no one
to mind her but a silly old man, and a young one like Thady?--a very
good young man in his way, but not very fit, Mrs. McKeon, to act a
mother's part to a girl like Feemy."
"That's true enough; but then why did she make all the world believe
he was engaged to her, if he wasn't?--And if he wasn't, why did she
let him go on as though he was, being at all hours, I'm told, with
her at Ballycloran?--and if they are not to be married, why does her
brother let him be coming there at all? I know you're fond of them,
Father John, and I'd be sorry to think ill of your friends; but I
must say it begins to look odd."
"You're right any how, in saying I'm very fond of them; indeed I am,
and so is yourself, Mrs. McKeon; and I know, though you speak in that
way to me, you wouldn't say anything that could hurt the poor girl,
any where but just among ourselves. If it wasn't in a kind mother,
with such a heart as your own,--especially in one she'd known so
long,--in whom could a poor motherless, friendless girl, like Feemy,
expect to find a friend?"
"God forbid I should hurt her, Father John! And indeed I'd befriend
her if I knew how; but don't you think, yourself now, she's played a
foolish game with that young man?"
"Why, as I never was a young lady in love, I can't exactly say how
a young lady in love should behave; but, my dear woman, look at it
this way; I suppose there's no harm in Feemy wishing to get herself
married, more than any other young lady?"
"Oh! dear no, Father John; quite right she should."
"And every one seems to think this Captain Ussher would be a proper
match for her."
"Why, barring that he's a Protestant, of course he's a very good
match for her."
"Oh! as to his being a Protestant, we won't mind that now. Well then,
Mrs. McKeon, under these circumstances, what could Feemy do better
than encourage this Captain?"
"I never blamed her for encouraging him; only she should not have
gone the length she has, unless he downright proposed for her."
"But he has downright proposed for her."
"No! Father John," said Louey.
"Has he though, really!" exclaimed Lyddy.
"Then, why, in the name of the blessed Virgin, don't he marry her?"
said the mother.
"That's poor Feemy's difficulty, you see, Mrs. McKeon. Now if any man
you approved of were to make off with Miss Lyddy's heart--and I'm
sure she'll never give it to any one you don't approve of--why of
course he'd naturally come to you or her father, and the matter would
be settled; but Feemy has no mother for him to go to, and her father,
you know, can't mind such things now."
"But she has a brother; in short, if he meant to marry her, it would
soon be done. Where there's a will, there's a way."
"But that's where it is; you know young men, and what they are, a
deal better than I do; and you can understand that a young man may
propose to a girl, and be accepted, and afterwards shilly shally
about it, and perhaps at last change his mind altogether--merely
because the girl's friends don't take care that the affair is
regularly and properly carried on; now isn't that so, Mrs. McKeon?"
"Indeed, Father John, it's all true."
"Well, that's just Feemy's case; may be, after, as you say, having
given the young man so much encouragement, she'll lose him because
she has no mother to keep him steady as it were, and fix him; and no
blame to her in the matter either, is there, Mrs. McKeon?"
"Why, if you look at it in that way, of course, she's not so much to
blame."
"Of course not," said Father John, obliged to be satisfied with this
modicum of applause; "of course not; but it's a pity for the poor
girl."
"You think he'll jilt her altogether, then?"
"I don't think he means it yet; but I think he will mean it
soon,--unless, indeed, Mrs. McKeon, you'd befriend her now."
"Me, Father John!"
"If you'd take a mother's part with her for a week or so, it would
all be right; and I don't know a greater charity one Christian could
do another this side the grave, than you could do her."
"What could I do, Father John?" said the good woman,--rather
frightened, for she would now be called on to take some active part
in the matter, which perhaps she might not altogether relish;--"what
could I do? You see Ballycloran is three miles out of this, and I
couldn't always be up there when Ussher was coming. And though I
believe I'd be bold enough where one of my own girls was concerned,
I'd be shy of speaking to a man like Captain Ussher, when it was no
business of my own."
"As for that, I believe you'd never want wit or spirit either, to say
what you'd wish to say to any man, and that in the very best manner.
It's true enough, though, you couldn't be always up at Ballycloran;
but why couldn't Feemy be down at Drumsna?"--Father John paused a
minute, and Mrs. McKeon said nothing, but looked very grave.--"Now
be a good woman, Mrs. McKeon, and ask the poor girl down here for
a fortnight or so; I know Lyddy and Louey are very fond of their
friend, and Feemy'd be nice company for them; and then as you are
acquainted with Captain Ussher, of course he'd be coming after his
sweetheart; and then, when Feemy is under your protection, of course
you'd speak to him in your own quiet lady-like way; and then, take my
word for it, I'd be marrying them in this very room before Christmas.
Wouldn't we have dancing up stairs, eh, Miss Louey?"--Mrs. McKeon
still said nothing.--"And even supposing Ussher did not come down
here, and nothing was done, why it would be evident the match was not
to take place, and that Ussher was a blackguard; then of course Feemy
must give up all thoughts of him. And though, maybe, she'd grieve
awhile, it would be better so than going on as she is now up at the
old place, with no one to give her any advice, or tell her what she
ought to do or say to the man. Any way, you see, it would be doing
her a kind service. Come, Mrs. McKeon, make up your mind to be a
kind, good neighbour to the poor girl; and do you and the two young
ladies go up to Ballycloran, and ask her to come down and spend a
week or two with you here."
"But perhaps," said Louey, "Feemy won't like to leave Ballycloran,
and come so far from her beau; because she couldn't see him here as
she does there, you know, Father John."
"Why, Miss Louey, I don't think you know how she sees him. I believe
he goes and calls there, much as you'd like your beau to come and
call here, if you had one."
"Indeed, Father John, when I do have one, I hope I shall manage
better than to be talked about as much as she is, any way. I hardly
think it would do to ask her at present, mother. You know Mr. Gayner
is to be here the night of the race-ball, and we've only the one
bed."
"Come, come, Miss Louey, I didn't expect to hear you say a word
against your old friend; why should you be less good-natured than
your mother? You see she's thinking how she can best do what I'm
asking."
"As for old friends," said Louey, "I and Miss Macdermot were never so
very intimate; and as for being ill-natured, I never was told before
that I was more ill-natured than mother. But of course mamma will do
as she likes, only she can't very well turn Mr. Gayner out of the
house after having asked him to come for the races, that's all:" and
Miss Louey flounced out of the room.
"Come, Mrs. McKeon," continued Father John, "think of the benefit
this would be to Feemy; and you can't have any real objection; the
race-ball is only for one night, and the girls will be too tired
after that, to think very much of sleeping together."
"But you seem to forget--very likely Mr. McKeon wouldn't like my
asking her; you know I couldn't think of doing it without asking
him."
"Oh! Mrs. McKeon, that's a good joke! You'll make me believe, won't
you, that you're not as much mistress of your own house as any woman
in Ireland? As if Mr. McKeon would interfere with your asking any one
you pleased to your own house."
"But you see the girls are against it."
"I hope they are not against anything that would be charitable and
kind in their mother; but if they were, I'm quite sure their mother
shouldn't give way to them. Wouldn't you be glad to have Miss Feemy
here a short time, Miss Lyddy?"
"Indeed, I'd have no objection, if mamma pleases, Father John."
"There, you see, Mrs. McKeon;--I am afraid I said something rude
which set Miss Louey's back up, but I am sure in her heart she'd
be glad of anything that would be of service to Feemy. Come, Mrs.
McKeon, will you drive over to Ballycloran this fine morning, and ask
her?"
"But suppose she won't come?"
"Then it won't be your fault;--you can tell her it's just for the
races and the ball you're asking her--that she may see Mr. McKeon's
horse win the race, and dance with Ussher at the ball afterwards.
Oh! if you mean her to come, she'll come fast enough;--let you alone
for carrying your point when you're in earnest. I know your way of
asking, when you don't mean to take a refusal;--and to give you your
due this day, I never heard you give an invitation you didn't mean to
be accepted."
"Well, Father John, as you think it will be of so much service to
Feemy, and as, as you say, she has no mother, poor girl, of her own,
and no female friend that she can look to, I'll ask her over here.
But it mustn't be for a week or a fortnight, but till the affair of
Captain Ussher is finally settled. And if the girl behaves herself as
she ought, when once she is here, Tony won't see her wronged by any
man."
"That's my own friend!" said Father John with tears in his eyes.
"What could any poor priest like me do in a parish, if it wasn't that
there were such women as yourself to help him?"
"But, Father John--whisper here," and she took him aside into the
window, and spoke in a low voice; "you can't have helped hearing the
stories people have been talking about Feemy. As I have heard them,
of course you must."
"Heard them! of course I have--but you know what lies get talked
abroad."
"But they say she walks with him after dark; and goes in and out
there at Ballycloran, at all hours, just as she pleases. Of course I
can have none of those doings here."
"Of course not; it is because she has no one there to tell her what
is right or wrong that I wish her to be here. Of course you have
regular hours here, and you'll find you'll have no difficulty with
her that way."
"Well, Father John, I've only one more thing to say, and you'll
answer me that as a priest and a Christian. God knows, I wouldn't
believe any ill-natured story against any poor girl situated as Feemy
is; but you know, such things will get about:--people say Ussher
speaks of her as his mistress, instead of as his wife. Now, Father
John, if this unfortunate girl, whom I'm ready and willing to help,
has done anything really wrong, you would not be the means of
bringing her into the house with my own dear girls! Have you, Father
John, told me all you know about her attachment to this man?"
"Indeed then if she was unfit to associate with your girls, Mrs.
McKeon, I'd be the last man on earth to ask you to invite her here.
If Feemy has been imprudent in going out too much alone with Ussher,
it's the most that with truth can be said against her; and as you ask
me to tell you all, I'll tell you one thing I didn't wish to mention
before the girls." And Father John told her how Thady had got drunk,
and insulted Ussher, telling him not to come to Ballycloran again,
and all that: but he did not tell her how strongly he suspected that
Thady was right in his fears for his sister, and that his chief
object in getting Feemy away from Ballycloran was to remove her as
far as possible from Ussher's influence.
"Well, Father John, I'll go to Ballycloran, and ask her here; I
suppose she'll hardly be ready to come to-day, but if she pleases,
I'll drive over again for her after to-morrow. I'll go now and talk
Louey over, for you and she seem to have quarrelled somehow."
"And God bless you, Mrs. McKeon; it's yourself is a good woman; and
you never did a kinder action than the one you're going to do this
morning!" and Father John took his leave.
The breakfast party at Ballycloran the morning after the wedding was
not a very lively one; indeed the meals at Ballycloran seldom were
very gay, but this was more than usually sombre.
Larry was brooding over Keegan's threats, his fears that Thady meant
to betray him into the attorney's hands, and his determination never
from that day forth to stir from his fireside, lest the horrid
myrmidons of the law should pounce upon him.
Feemy was intent on the insults which had been offered to her lover,
and her temper was somewhat soured by the remembrance that she had
not effected her purpose of questioning Ussher about his intentions.
Thady, however, was the blackest looking of the family. Everything
was dark within his breast. He thought of the ruffians with whom he
had leagued himself; and though previously he had only considered
them as poor, hard used, somewhat lawless characters, they now
appeared to him everything that was iniquitous and bad. Secret murder
was their object--black, foul, midnight murder--and he was sworn, or
soon would be sworn, not only to help them, but to lead them on. What
he had already done might hang him. He felt his life to be in the
power of each of those blackguards, with whom, in wretched equality,
he had been drinking on the previous evening. And what had led him to
this? If he had been wronged and injured, why could not he redress
himself like other injured men? If revenge were necessary to him,
why could he not avenge himself like a man, instead of leaguing with
others to commit murder in the dark, like a coward and a felon? And
then he thought of his position with Keegan and Ussher. There was
something manly in his original disposition; he would have given
anything for a stand up fight with the attorney with equal weapons;
if it had been sure death to both, he would have fought him to the
death; but he had no such opportunity; the dastardly brute had
trampled on him when he could not turn against him. And then with
rancorous hatred he thought of the blow that Keegan had struck
him,--of the manner in which he had insulted his father, and worse
than all, of the name he had applied to his sister; and, remembering
all this, he almost reconciled himself to the only means he had of
punishing the wretch that had inflicted all these injuries on him.
Then he thought of Ussher, and the scene which had passed between
them last night; he knew he had been drunk, and had but a very
confused recollection of what he had done or said. He remembered,
however, that he had insulted Ussher; this did not annoy him; but he
had a faint recollection of having committed his sister's name, by
talking of her in his drunken brawl, and of having done, or said
something, he knew not what, to Father John.
Though Thady had never known the refinements of a gentleman, or the
comforts of good society, still he felt that the fall, even from his
present station to that in which he was going to place himself, would
be dreadful. But it was not the privations which he might suffer, but
the disgrace, the additional disgrace which he would bring on his
family, which afflicted him. How could he now presume to prescribe
to Feemy what her conduct should be, or to his father in what way he
should act respecting the property? He already felt as though he was
unworthy of either of them, and was afraid to look them in the face.
After breakfast he wandered forth, striving to attend to his usual
work, but the incentives to industry were all gone; he had no longer
any hope that industry would be of service to him; he walked along
the hedges and ditches, unconsciously planning in his mind the
different ways of committing the crimes which he really so abhorred,
but in which he was about to pledge himself to join. He thought, if
it should be his lot to murder Keegan, how he would accomplish it.
Should it be at night?--or in the day?--would he shoot him?--and if
he did, would not the powder or the gun be traced home to him?--would
not his footsteps in the bog be tracked and known?--if he struck him
down on the road, would not the blood be found on his coat, or his
shirt be torn in the struggle?--and, above all, would not his own
comrades betray him? He had, some short time since, heard the whole
of a trial for murder at Carrick assizes, and though he had not
then paid particular attention to it, all the horrid detail and
circumstances of the case now came vividly before his mind's eye. He
planned and plotted how, had he in that case been the murderer, he
would have foreseen and provided against the different things, the
untoward accidents, which then came in evidence against the prisoner;
he thought how much more wary he would be than the poor wretch who
was then tried, and of what benefit the experience he had gained
would be to him. Then he remembered that the principal witness in the
case was an ill-featured, sullen-looking fellow, who had been called
king's evidence--one who, in answering the tormenting questions
put to him, had appeared almost more miserable than the prisoner
himself;--that this man had been the friend and assistant of the
murderer--the sharer and promoter of all his plans--the man who had
led him on to the murder--his sworn friend. He remembered how it had
come out on the trial, that the two had for months shared the same
bed--tilled in the same field--eat from the same mess--and had sinned
together in the same great sin. Yet this man had come forward to hang
his friend!--and Thady shuddered coldly as he thought how likely it
might be that his associates would betray him. He had not slept,
eat, and worked with them--he was not leagued to them by equal rank,
equal wants, and equal sufferings. If that wretched witness had been
induced to give evidence against the man so strongly bound to him,
how much more likely that Byrne or Reynolds should hang him! or Pat
Brady! And as Brady's name occurred to him, he remembered Ussher's
caution respecting that man, and his assurance that he was in
Keegan's pay. If this were true, he had already committed the
oversight to guard against which he had calculated that his superior
cunning would be sufficient; and then the cold perspiration trickled
from his brow, and he abruptly stopped, leaning against a bank, to
meditate again on the position in which he stood.
It was not that during this time Thady had been absolutely planning
murder. He had not been making any definite scheme, to be carried
into immediate execution against any individual. He was not a
murderer, even in mind or wish; he would have given anything to have
driven the idea from his mind, but he could not; he could not avoid
thinking what he would do, if he had resolved to do the deed--how the
crime would be most safely perpetrated--how the laws most cunningly
evaded. Then he half resolved to have nothing more to do with
Reynolds and his followers, and to quiet his conscience while yet he
possibly could; but the insolence of Keegan, the injuries of Ussher,
and the sure enmity of those whom he had sworn to join, and now
scarcely dared to desert, stifled his remorse, and destroyed the
resolution before it was half made. He thought of enlisting--but he
could not desert his sister; of going to Father John, and confessing
all; but would Father John befriend him after his late conduct to
him? Thus he wandered on, through the whole long morning. Twice he
returned to the house, and creeping in through the back door, got
himself a glass of spirits, which he swallowed, and again sallied
forth, to find if movement would give him comfort, or his thoughts
suggest anything to him in mitigation of his sorrows.
As he was returning, the third time, for the same bad purpose,--for
the short stimulus of the dram was the only relief he could find to
the depression which seemed to weigh him down and make his heart feel
like a cold lump within him,--and just as he was turning from the
avenue to the back of the house, he met Ussher walking down. He did
not know what to do; he remembered that the evening before he had
defied this man; he even recollected that he had arrogantly declared
that he should not again set his foot on Ballycloran; he had forbad
him the house, as if he had been the master; and at the present
moment he felt as though he did not dare address him, for it seemed
to him as if every one now would look down on him, as he looked down
on himself,--as if every one could see what was in his breast, as
plainly as he saw it himself.
This annoyance, however, was of short duration, for Ussher passed him
with a slight unembarrassed nod, as if nothing had passed between
them on the previous evening--as if they were still good friends, and
had met and been talking together but a short time before. Ussher had
walked by quickly, and there was a look of satisfaction or rather
gratified vanity in his face; he seemed, also, absorbed with the
subject of his thoughts; Thady, however, as soon as he had passed,
took but little notice of him, but walked on into the kitchen, at the
rear of the house.
Here, on a small settle by the fireside, where he had been placed out
of the way by Biddy or Katty, sat a ragged bare-legged little boy,
known as Patsy, the priest's gossoon; he was the only assistant Judy
had in the management of Father John's _menage_. He ran on errands to
Drumsna, and occasionally to Carrick-on-Shannon--fetched the priest's
letters--dug his potatoes--planted his cabbages, and cleaned his
horse Paul. He had now come up to Ballycloran with a message to
Thady, and having been desired to stay there till he could see him
himself, he had been quietly sitting in the kitchen since a little
after Thady had first left the house; he now jumped up to give his
message.
"Misther Thady, yer honer, Father John says as how he'll be glad av
yer honer'll come down to dinner with him at six; and he says as how
you must come, Mr. Thady, because divil a bit he'll ate himself, he
says, till you're in it."
"For shame, Patsy!" interposed Biddy, "putting those words into his
riverence's mouth. I'm sure thin Father John wasn't cursing that
way."
"Faix thin, ma'am, thim wor his very words--'Tell Mr. Thady, av he
don't come down to the cottage to his dinner this day, divil a bit
will I ate till he does.'"
"Well, to hear the brat!" continued Biddy, shocked at the indecorous
language which was put into her priest's mouth.
"And who's to be at Father John's else?" said Thady.
"Sorrow a one av me rightly knows thin, for I wasn't hearing; all I
wor told wor, I warn't to come out of this widout yer honer."
"But I can't go to-night, Patsy."
"But Father John says you must, Mr. Thady."
"Tell Father John, Patsy, that I am very much obliged to him, but
that I'm not just well enough to come out to-night. I couldn't go
to-night, do you hear; go down and tell him so, or he'll be waiting
dinner."
"But, Mr. Thady," said the boy, half sobbing, "Father John said as
how I warn't to come at all widout you."
"Do as I tell you, you fool; but mind you tell Father John I'm very
much obliged to him, only I'm ill."
"Well," muttered the boy, at length taking his departure, "I know
Father John 'll be very mad, but any way it ain't my fault."
Thady was gratified with the priest's invitation, for it showed that
he at least had forgiven him; but he did not dare to face him by
accepting it.
He got himself another glass of whiskey, and lighting his pipe,
sat down to smoke by the kitchen fire; after he had been some time
sitting there, Pat Brady came into the kitchen. Thady, however,
took no notice, except muttering something in answer to Pat's usual
salutation. They remained both some time silent, till at last Brady
observed that, "They'd all of them had ilegant divarsion last
night--most of them stayed a power later nor you, Mr. Thady."
This allusion to last night was not at present the subject most
likely to make Thady talk freely, so he still continued silent. At
last Pat said,
"Could I spake to you a moment, Mr. Thady?"
"Spake out--what is it?"
"Oh, it's business, yer honer; it's something about money--wouldn't
you step out to the rint-office?"
"Don't you see I'm just going to dinner; besides, I ain't well--it'll
keep till to-morrow, I suppose?"
"But it won't keep, Mr. Thady."
At this moment, Biddy, who had been taking some smoking viands out
of a big black pot and transferring them to a dish, went out of the
kitchen with them on her road to the dining-room, and Pat took the
opportunity of whispering to his master that, "the boys wor to meet
at Mulready's on the next evening."
"What of that?" answered Thady; "I suppose some of them meet there
mostly every night?"
"But to-morrow's the night, Mr. Thady, when yer honer's to be
inisheated among us sworn brothers."
"I shan't be in it at all to-morrow, then."
"Not be in it! why you promised; and the boys is all noticed now.
Didn't you take the oath, Mr. Thady?" and he whispered down close to
his ear.
"I took no oath about any day. I suppose I needn't come before I
choose?"
Biddy now returned, and Thady got up to go to his dinner; Pat
followed him, and renewed the conversation in the passage. Thady,
however, would give no definite promise to come to-morrow, or the
next day, but said he meant to come some day. Pat observed that the
boys would be furious--that they would think themselves deceived and
betrayed--then urged the necessity of taking steps to prevent their
paying the rent to Keegan--hinted that Ussher had been with Miss
Feemy that morning--and at last departed when he found that his
master was not in a proper mood to be persuaded, remarking that "he
would come up again in the morning, when perhaps his honer would be
thinking better of it, and not break his promised word to the boys,
as there would be a great ruction among them, av he didn't go down
jist to spake a word to them afther what had passed; besides, Mr.
Thady," he added, "av you wor to go back now, some of thim boys as
wor in it last night, would be going to Jonas Brown's, thinking to
get the first word agin you--thinking, you know, as how you would
'peach agin thim, may be."
After this threat, Pat took his leave, and Thady, with a sad heart,
and low spirits, which even three glasses of whiskey had not raised,
went in to dinner. After swallowing a few hasty morsels, without
speaking either to his father or his sister, he returned to the
kitchen and again sat there smoking, till one of the girls came
in, telling him that Father John was on the steps of the hall-door
waiting for him--that he couldn't come in, but that he said he had
important business to speak of, and must see Mr. Thady.
"Confound you," muttered Thady, in a low voice, "why didn't you say
I was out?"
"Shure, you niver told me, Mr. Thady."
Thady considered a moment, whether he should escape through the back
door; at last, however, he plucked up his courage, and went out to
meet the priest.