On a summer evening, twenty years ago, a girl and a youth were
strolling slowly along the strip of yellow sands which leads from the
verge of the Atlantic to the steep line of rock dominated by Kilpatrick
Castle.
The girl, who was not more than seventeen years of age, carried her
hat and parasol in her hand: the first a serviceable article, little
superior in form and material to that generally worn by the superior
peasants of the district; the other a dainty trifle in pale blue silk,
better in keeping with the tailor-made dress and dainty French shoes
in which its owner was dressed. She had a delightfully fair and fresh
complexion, a little freckled by a too free exposure to the sun, and her
dark blue eyes shone from under the rather disorderly waves of her light
golden hair with an expression of harmless audacity and frank gaiety
eloquent of youth and health and innocence.
Her companion, who might have been three or four years her senior, was
a long-limbed, supple youngster of the finest Western Irish type. His
hair, long, black and curly, escaped in natural ripples from under a
battered soft felt hat, and framed an olive-hued face of great strength
and delicacy, lit by a pair of black eyes sparkling with honest, boyish
impudence. The merest shade of callow down darkened his upper lip. He
was clad in rough and rather ill-cut tweeds, stained in brown patches
with salt water, and the collar of a flannel shirt, innocent of stud or
necktie, left to view a sun-tanned, muscular throat. His long legs kept
swinging pace with the tripping lightness of the girl’s walk, and
he looked down at her from his superior height with a mingling of
admiration and protection very pretty to witness, and of which she was
perhaps a shade too obviously unconscious.
‘We shall be late for dinner,’ said the girl, breaking the first silence
which had fallen upon them since the beginning of a long day’s ramble.
‘Uncle will be angry.’
‘Sorra a bit,’ replied the boy. ‘The old gentleman’s temper’s queer at
times, but it has to be mighty bad before he’s angry with _you_. And
as to being angry with _me_, sure I’m used to it. It’s not often he’s
anything else.’
‘My uncle is very fond of you,’ said the girl, ‘and very kind to
you--kinder than you deserve, most people think.’
‘Your uncle!’ repeated the boy. ‘Which of ’em?’
‘Lord Kilpatrick, of course!’
‘Indeed he is, then! He’s been as good as a father to me nearly all my
life. I owe to him all I have and all I am.’
‘Tell me, Desmond,’ said the girl, after another short interval of
silence, ‘why does Lord Kilpatrick take so great an interest in you, and
yet let you run about like--like a young colt? Isn’t it time that you
began to take life seriously, and to think of doing something?’
‘Faith, I suppose it is,’ said Desmond. ‘I’ve been trying for the last
six months to find what kind o’ life I’m fit for. I’ll take to something
by-and-by. As to why Lord Kilpatrick’s so good to me, you know just as
much as I know myself, Lady Dulcie; Mr. Peebles, that knows more of his
ways than anybody else, says ’tis to aise his conscience.’
‘To ease his conscience?’ the girl repeated.
‘Just that,’ said Desmond. ‘An old debt he owed and never paid till
my parents were dead. ’Twas my mother asked him to pay it by looking
after me. He promised, and he’s kept his word--more power to him.’
‘Do you remember your parents?’
‘No. Both died before I could run about. They were gentlefolk,
I suppose, or I’d not be called the Squireen, and I’ve the true
gentlemanly knack o’ getting into scrapes. But let’s talk of something
else, Lady Dulcie; ’tis a subject that always makes me sad.’
‘Why?’ asked Dulcie.
‘Why,’ said Desmond, ‘there’s times when I feel like a boat on the sea,
all alone. I’ve neither kith nor kin, only friends. You’ll laugh at me,
I know, but there’s times, when I’m by myself, I feel the mist rising to
my eyes and the lump in my throat, thinking I’ve never known a father’s
care nor a mother’s love.’
The bright face had lost its merry impudence for the moment, and the
quick, swinging step slackened.
‘Laugh at you!’ repeated Dulcie. ‘I’ll never laugh at you for that. And
_I_ care for you, Desmond.’
‘And that might come to be the bitterest of all,’ said Desmond. ‘You’re
like a star in the sky above me, Lady Dulcie. You’re a rich young lady,
and I’m only a poor boy dependent on strangers. But come, now,’ he
continued after a short pause, ‘I’ve answered your question, will you
answer mine? Is it true what I hear all about the place, that you’re to
marry Richard Conseltine?’
‘Nonsense!’ said Dulcie, flushing redly. ‘I’m not going to marry
anybody!’
‘Ah!’ said Desmond dryly, ‘that’s what all the girls say, but they never
mean it.’
‘I mean it. I think marriage is absurd. Don’t you?’
‘Sure I do,’ responded Desmond. ‘But the priest says it’s convenient,
if the world is to continue. Tell me, now, what d’ye think of Master
Richard?’
‘Think of him?’ said Dulcie slowly. ‘Oh, I think--I think he’s my
cousin, and as stupid as girls’ cousins always are.’
‘That’s mighty hard on boys in general,’ said Desmond laughingly, ‘for
they’re mostly some girl’s cousin. I may be myself, for all I know. But
Richard’s as fond of you as a fox of a goose--a duck, I mean. And that’s
why he hates _me_.’
‘For shame, Desmond! How has he ever shown that he hates you?’
‘Shown it? Faith, he doesn’t need to show it. It just comes out of him
like steam from boiling water. Much I care for the hate or the love of
the likes o’ him! I can run him out of breath, fight him out of time,
gallop him out of hearing, swim him out of seeing, chaff him out of
temper--and as for loving, sure if he loves you, I’ll just adore you,
and so beat him at that as well!’
The girl smiled, with her face concealed by the brim of her sun-bonnet,
and turned a little away from this brisk wooer, whose bursts of
affectionate impudence were generally followed by long intervals of
silence.
‘You adore too many, Desmond,’
‘Sorra one but yourself.’
‘Nonsense!’ cried Dulcie. ‘What were you doing with Rosie this morning
in the stable-yard?’
‘I mistook her for her mistress,’ said Desmond. ‘No, sure,’ he added, as
the girl flushed a little angrily, ‘I don’t mane that.’
‘I should think you didn’t “mane that!”’ said the young lady. ‘I should
like to catch you kissing me.’
‘I’m agreeable to be caught,’ returned the unabashable.
‘Oh, you Irish boys!’ cried Dulcie, with a transparent simulation of
contempt. ‘You kiss anybody, so it’s no compliment.’
‘That depends,’ said Desmond. ‘There’s kissing for duty, and kissing
for interest, and kissing for love. There’s a mighty difference between
kissing a rose and kissing a thorn. But, after all, what’s a kiss but a
salutation?’
‘You’re a great deal too forward,’ said Dulcie, with an almost matronly
air of reproof.
‘Then get behind me,’ responded Desmond, ‘and I’ll go backward.’
The battle of wit was interrupted at this point by the sudden appearance
of a man at the end of the ascent leading to the Castle. As he
approached, the young couple fell apart a little, and advanced to meet
him with a proper and respectful distance between them.
‘It’s Blake of Blake’s Hall,’ said Desmond, as he neared them.
‘In his usual condition of an afternoon,’ said Dulcie.
The man, tall and strongly built, with a mane of black hair and whiskers
streaked heavily with gray, and a flushed face, was reeling and tacking
along the narrow path. His hat reposed at a dangerous angle at the back
of his head, and his waistcoat was open to catch the cooling breeze.
There was an air of jolly ferocity about him; but in spite of that
and of the disorder of his dress and the other signs of dissipation he
carried about with him, the least observant person in the world would
hardly have taken him for anything but a gentleman. As he came level
with the young people he stopped in his walk and in the scrap of
Irish song he was chanting, and saluted the young lady with a wide and
unsteady sweep of the hat.
‘Good morning, Lady Dulcie.’ The voice, though husky, and at that moment
a little thick with liquor, was sound and full and sweet, and the brogue
simply defied phonetics to render it. ‘Ye’re a cure for sore eyes.
Desmond, ye divil, give us your fin.’
‘You have been dining with my uncle, Mr. Blake?’ asked Lady Dulcie.
‘Faith, I have, then,’ returned Mr. Blake; ‘and if the company had only
been as good as the dinner and the wine--and the whisky--’tis not yet
I’d been after leaving it.’
‘And what was the matter with the company?’ asked Desmond.
‘It appears to me, Mr. Desmond Macartney,’ said Blake, with portentous,
drunken dignity--‘it appears to me, sor, that a gentleman of the long
descent and the high breedin’ of Lord Kilpatrick might have thought
twice before inviting a man o’ my blood to sit at the same table with a
low, dirty, six-an-eight-scrapin’ thief of an attorney. The back o’ my
hand and the sole of my foot to ’m! the filthy reptile! I’ve left my
mark on ’m, an’ I’ve spoke my mind of him, and ’twill be a long day
ere he forgets Patrick Blake, of Blake’s Hall.’
‘My uncle?’ cried Lady Dulcie in a tone of half amaze, half question.
‘Your uncle, Lady Dulcie!’ answered Blake. ‘’Tis not in that fashion
that a gentleman of my figure behaves to a gentleman of his. ’Tis not
at the head of a nobleman that I throw bottles, nor, sor,’ he continued
to Desmond, as if the interruption had come from him, ‘’tis not him
I’d call a dirty thief nor a filthy reptile, and that I’d have ye to
know, sor.’
‘You’ve been quarrelling with somebody at his lordship’s table?’ said
Desmond.
‘I have, then! And if Dick Conseltine and that white-livered boy of
his, and old Peebles--may the devil fly away with the whole boodle of
’m--if they hadn’t interfered and spoilt the sport, I’d have had the
ruffian’s blood. By the lud, I’d have smashed him like an egg!’ He
drove one powerful fist into the palm of the other with such force as
to overbalance himself, and was only prevented by Desmond’s restraining
hand from coming to the ground. ‘’Tis an insult before Heaven; ’tis
an insult to ask a gentleman to put his legs under the mahogany with
such a snake as that!’
‘You had your legs under the mahogany a pretty long time before you
found ’twas an insult, from the looks of you,’ said Desmond dryly.
‘Now, look here, Mr. Blake, ’tis not for a boy of my years to be after
offering lessons in politeness to a gentleman of yours, but I’ll just
ask you to remember that the host whose hospitality you’re insulting is
this lady’s uncle.’
Blake’s ferocity vanished with ludicrous suddenness. He began to stammer
apologies to Lady Dulcie.
‘And then, too, Mr. Blake,’ continued Desmond, ‘you’d claim the right
to choose the guests at your own table--if you had one,’ he interpolated
_sotto voce_; ‘and Lord Kilpatrick, or any gentleman, has the same
right.’
‘And that’s true, if the devil spoke it,’ cried Blake. ‘Desmond
Macartney, ye’re a gentleman. Ye can carry a gentleman’s apology to
a gentleman without demeaning yourself. Present my apologies to his
lordship, and tell him that I’ll honour myself by presenting them
personally when I hear that he’s got rid of his present company.’
‘’Tis Mr. Feagus, of Ballymote, that you’ve had the row with?’
‘Faith then, it is, and ye can tell him that if he has the spunk to
stand up at twenty paces I’ll do sufficient violence to my feelings as a
gentleman to honour him by lettin’ daylight into him.’
‘Nonsense, Mr. Blake,’ said Desmond. ‘Men don’t fight duels nowadays.’
‘No, by the saints!’ cried Blake; ‘they stab each other with inky
pens, and suck each other dry with lawsuits, by the help of such
parchmint-scrapin’ vermin as Jack Feagus. ’Tis a dirty world we live
in, Desmond, my boy, but sure that’s all the more reason that the few
decent men should stick together. I’m goin’ on to Widdy Daly’s shebeen,
and if ye’re inclined for a drink at the stone cow, I’ll be proud of
your company.’
‘Later, perhaps,’ said Desmond. ‘I’ve Lady Dulcie to take care of now,
you see.’
‘Ah!’ said Blake, with a vinous smile at the girl, ‘’tis the best end
of the stick that ye’ve got hold of, Desmond Macartney. Whisky’s a good
familiar craythur, but ’tis a mighty poor substitute for the colleens.
Good luck to ye. Lady Dulcie, your obedient servant.’
He swaggered off, his recent anger quite forgotten, and a moment later
the quiet evening air rang tunably with a scrap of Irish song:
‘And thin he’d reply, with a wink of his eye,
“Arrah! Paddy, now can’t ye be aisy
‘’Tis a beautiful voice,’ said Desmond, standing still to listen.
‘’Twould have been better for poor Blake, maybe, if it hadn’t been so
fine; it’s just been the ruin of him.’
‘The horrid old man!’ said Dulcie.
‘I wonder uncle admits him to his table.’
‘Oh, sure, there’s no harm in poor Blake!’ said Desmond. ‘He’s nobody’s
enemy but his own, and there’s no better company in Ireland, till he
gets too much of the whisky inside him, or sees an attorney.’
‘What makes him hate lawyers so?’ asked Dulcie.
‘Sure he has reason,’ returned the boy, who had all an Irishman’s
apparently innate detestation of law and its exponents. ‘He lost one
half of his acres in trying to keep the other half, years ago, before
you and I were born, and Feagus, who acted for him, played him false.
That’s the story, at least, and I don’t find it hard to believe, for
he’s an ugly customer, that same Feagus.’
They passed together through the ruined arch, which had been in former
times the main point of ingress, through the outer wall of the Castle,
the rough and ponderous stones of which had, in these later years of
peace, gone to the building of stables, offices, and peasants’ cottages.
The main building, a huge castellated mansion with an aspect of great
age and rugged strength, contrasted strongly in its air of well-kept
prosperity with most proprietorial residences in that part of Ireland.
Skirting the side of the Castle, they came upon a garden and pleasaunce,
bright with flowering plants and emerald turf, commanding a view of the
sea, now shining with the glaring tints of sunset, which were reflected
too by the bay-windows of the Castle façade.
A heavy-faced, sullen-looking young man, dressed in an ultra-fashionable
dress suit, and strangling in a four-inch collar, was sprawling
ungracefully on a garden seat with a newspaper on his knees and a cup
of coffee on the rustic table at his elbow. He turned at the sound of
footsteps on the garden gravel, and seeing Dulcie, rose clumsily to his
feet.
‘His lordship has been asking for you, Lady Dulcie.’
‘Dinner is over, I suppose?’ said Dulcie.
‘Yes, dinner is over,’ said the young man, scowling, ‘and so is the
fight.’
‘We’ve heard all about the fight from Blake. We met him on the rocks,’
said Desmond.
The young man took no heed of the remark, and did not even look at the
speaker.
‘I’m getting pretty tired of living down here among these savages,’ he
continued to Lady Dulcie, with an attempt at the accent of a certain
type of London men, a drawl which struggled vainly against a pronounced
Dublin brogue. ‘Bottles flying at people’s heads--it isn’t my style, you
know.’
‘Sure,’ said Desmond, ‘if we’re so savage as all that, ’twould be a
charity to stop here among us and civilize us. We’re willing to learn,
Mr. Richard Conseltine, and willing to teach the little we know.’
The young dandy looked at him with a heavy insolence, in which there was
a lurking touch of fear, but did not deign to address him.
‘His lordship’s awf’ly upset. My father’s with him, and the doctor’s
been sent for.’
‘I’ll go and see him,’ said Dulcie.
‘Desmond, you might go and ask Mrs. O’Flaherty for some dinner for both
of us. I’m as hungry as a hunter.’
‘I’ll follow you directly,’ said Desmond.
‘You’ll come at once, if you please,’ she said, with a pretty
imperiousness.
‘Come!’
They went away together, young Conseltine following them with a
deepening of his usual ill-bred, angry scowl.
‘The supercilious brute!’ said Desmond under his breath.
‘One fight a day is quite enough, Desmond,’ whispered Lady Dulcie.
‘Fight!’ said Desmond. ‘Much of a fight ’twould be. I’d-----’
‘Quite so,’ Dulcie interrupted him quietly. ‘I know you’d--and as I
don’t want you to, you’ll just go quietly, and ask to have some dinner
laid for us, and keep out of his way for the rest of the evening.’