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GARRYOWEN
by
H. DE VERE STACPOOLE
Author of "The Blue Lagoon," "The Crimson Azaleas," etc.
[Illustration: Logo]
New York
Duffield & Company
1909
Copyright, 1909
By Duffield & Company
_This book is dedicated to
My little dog "Whisky,"
A thorough sportsman and a faithful friend_
GARRYOWEN
CHAPTER I
The great old house of Drumgool, ugly as a barn, with a triton dressed
in moss and blowing a conch shell before the front door, stands
literally in the roar of the sea.
From the top front windows you can see the Atlantic, blue in summer,
grey in winter, tremendous in calm or storm; and the eternal roar of the
league-long waves comes over the stunted fir trees sheltering the house
front, a lullaby or menace just as your fancy wills.
Everything around Drumgool is on a vast and splendid scale. To the east,
beyond Drumboyne, beyond the golden gorse, the mournful black bogs, and
the flushes of purple heather, the sun, with one sweep of his brush
paints thirty miles of hills.
Vast hills ever changing, and always beautiful, gone now in the driving
mist and rain, now unwreathing themselves of cloud and disclosing sunlit
crag and purple glen outlined against the far-off blue, and magical with
the desolate beauty of distance.
The golden eagle still haunts these hills, and lying upon the moors of a
summer's day you may see the peregrine falcon hanging in the air above
and watch him vanish to the cry of the grouse he has struck down, whose
head he will tear off amidst the gorse.
Out here on the moors, under the sun on a day like this, you are in the
pleasant company of Laziness and Loneliness and Distance and Summer. The
scent of the gorse is mixed with the scent of the sea, and the silence
of the far-off hills with the sound of the billows booming amidst the
coves of the coast.
Except for the sea and the sigh of the wind amidst the heather bells
there is not a sound nor token of man except a pale wreath of peat smoke
away there six miles towards the hills where lies the village of
Drumboyne, and that building away to the west towards the sea, which is
Drumgool House.
The railway stops at Coyne, fifteen miles to the east, as though
civilisation were afraid of venturing further.
Now if you stand up and shade your eyes and look over there to the north
and beyond Drumgool House, you will notice a change in the land. There
is the beginning of the four-mile track--four miles of velvety turf such
as you will get nowhere else in the whole wide world; the finest
training ground in existence.
The Frenches of Drumgool (no relation of any other Frenches) have
trained many a winner on the four-mile track. Once upon a time those big
stables there at the back of Drumgool House were filled with horses.
"Once upon a time"--is not that the sorrowful motto of Ireland?
This morning, as beautiful a September morning as one could wish to
see, a bath-chair drawn by a spirited-looking donkey stood at the front
steps of Drumgool House.
By the donkey's head, Moriarty, a long, foxy, evil-looking personage in
leggings, stood with a blackthorn stick in his hand and a straw in his
mouth. He was holding the donkey by the bridle, while Miss French was
being assisted into the bath-chair by Mrs. Driscoll, the cook and
general factotum of the French household.
Miss French had on a huge black felt hat adorned with a dilapidated
ostrich feather. Her pale, inconsiderable face and large dark eyes had a
decidedly elfish look seen under this structure. She had also on a
cloak, fastened at the neck by a Tara brooch, and Mrs. Driscoll was
wrapping a grebe boa round her neck, though the day was warm enough in
all conscience.
Miss French had a weakness of the spine which affected her legs. The
doctors had given this condition a long Latin name, but the country
people knew what was wrong with the child much better than the doctors.
She was a changeling. Had Miss French been born of poor folk a hundred
years ago she would have undoubtedly met with a warm reception in this
world, for she would have been put out on a hot shovel for the fairies
to take back. She was a changeling, and she looked it as she sat in the
bath-chair, "all eyes, like an owl," while Mrs. Driscoll put the boa
round her throat.
"Now keep the boa round you, Miss Effie," said Mrs. Driscoll; "and
don't be gettin' on the cliffs, Moriarty, but keep in the shelter of the
trees, and go aisy with her. Be sure, whatever you do, to keep clear of
them cliffs."
Moriarty hit the donkey a blow on the ribs with his blackthorn stick
just as a drummer strikes a drum, with somewhat of the same result as to
sound, and the vehicle started.
Mr. French had trained a good many winners, and Moriarty was Mr.
French's factotum in stable matters; what Moriarty did not know about
horses would be scarcely worth mentioning.
Very few men know the true inwardness of a horse--what he can do under
these circumstances and under those, his spirit, his reserve force, his
genius.
A horse is much more than an animal on four legs. Legs are the least
things that win a race, though essential enough, no doubt. It is the
soul and spirit of the beast that brings the winner along the last laps
of the Rowley Mile, that strews the field behind at Tattenham Corner,
that, with one supreme effort, gains victory at the winning-post by a
neck.
It is this intuitive knowledge of the psychology of a horse that makes a
great trainer or a great jockey.
Moriarty was possessed of this knowledge, but he was possessed of many
other qualities as well. He could turn his hand to anything--rabbit
catching, rearing pheasants, snaring birds, doctoring dogs, carpentry.
"Moriarty!" said Miss French, when they were out of earshot of the
house.
"Yes, miss," said Moriarty.
"Drive me to the cliffs!"
Moriarty made no reply, but struck the donkey another drum-sounding blow
on the ribs, and, pulling at its bridle, turned the vehicle in the
direction indicated.
"You'll be afther loosin' thim things," said Moriarty, without turning
his head, as he toiled beside the donkey up the steep cliff path.
"I don't care if I do," said Miss French. "Besides, we can pick them up
as we go back. Come off!"
She was apostrophising the boa. The big hat, the flap of which, falling
on the ground, had drawn Moriarty's attention, was now followed by the
boa, and Miss French, free of her lendings all but the cloak, sat up, a
much more presentable and childlike figure, the wind blowing amid her
curls, and her brown, seaweed-coloured eyes full of light and mischief.
"Now, Moriarty," said Miss French, when she had cleared herself
sufficiently for action, "gimme the reins."
Moriarty unwisped the reins from the saddle of the harness and placed
them in the small hands of his mistress, who, as an afterthought, had
unlatched the Tara brooch and slipped off the cloak.
"Arrah! what have yiz been afther?" said Moriarty, looking back at the
strewn garments as though he had only just discovered what the child had
been doing. "Glory be to God! if you haven't left the half of yourself
behint you on the road. Sure, what way is that to be behavin'? Now, look
here, and I'll tell you for onct and for good, if you let another
stitch off you, back yiz'll go, donkey and all, and its Mrs. Driscoll
will give you the dhressin'. Musha! but you're more thrubble than all me
money. Let up wid thim reins and don't be jibbin' the donkey's mouth!"
The last sentence was given in a shout as he ran to the donkey's head
just in time to avert disaster.
Moriarty sometimes spoke to Miss French as though she were a dog,
sometimes as though she were a horse, sometimes as though she were his
young mistress. Never disrespectfully. It is only an Irish servant that
can talk to a superior like this and in so many ways.
"I'm not jibbing his mouth," replied Miss French. "Think I can't drive!
You can hold on to the reins if you like, though, and, see here, you can
smoke if you want to."
"It's not you I'd be axin' if I wanted to," replied Moriarty, halting
the donkey on a part of the path that was fairly level, so as to get a
light for his pipe before they emerged into the sea breeze on the cliff
top.
Miss French watched the operation critically, she did not in the least
resent the tone of the last few words.
Moriarty was a character. In other words, he had a character. Moriarty
would not have given the wall to the Lord Lieutenant himself. Moriarty
was not a servant, but a retainer. He received wages, it is true, but he
did not work for them; he just worked for the interests of the Frenches.
He had a huge capacity for doing the right thing, and a knack of doing
everything well.
The latter he proved just now by lighting his pipe with a single match,
though the sea breeze, despite the shelter of the cliff top, was gusting
and eddying around him.
The pipe alight, he set the donkey going, and the next minute they were
on the cliff top.