"Porter, porter! does this train stop at Tullagh?"
"You're in the wrong thrain, mum; this thrain stops nowhere; this is the
ixpress all the way to Cloyne. Out you get, for we want to be goin' on.
Right, Larry!"
Miss Grimshaw, dusty and tired, seated in the corner of a first-class
carriage, heard the foregoing dialogue, and smiled.
It came to her with a puff of gorse-scented air through the open window
of the railway carriage.
"Now," said Miss Grimshaw to herself, "I really believe I am in
Ireland."
Up to this, at Kingstown, in her passage through Dublin, and during the
long, dusty, dull journey that followed, she had come across nothing
especially national. It is not in the grooves of travel that you come
across the spirit of Ireland.
Davy Stevens, selling his newspapers on the Carlisle pier at Kingstown,
had struck her fancy, but nothing followed him up. The jarvey who drove
her from station to station in Dublin was surly and so speechless that
he might have been English. The streets were like English streets, the
people like English people, the rain like English rain, only worse.
But it was not raining here. Here in the west, the train seemed drawing
out of civilisation, into a new world--vast hills and purple moors,
great spaces of golden afternoon, unspoiled by city or town, far
mountain tops breaking to view and veiled in the loveliness of distance.
"And people go to Switzerland with this at their elbow," said Miss
Grimshaw, leaning her chin upon her palm and gazing upon the view.
She was alone in the carriage, and so could place her feet on the
opposite cushions. Very pretty little feet they were, too.
V. Grimshaw was dressed with plainness and distinction in a Norfolk
jacket and skirt of Harris tweed, a brown Homburg hat, and youth. She
did not look more than eighteen, though she was, in fact, twenty-two.
Her face, lit by the warm afternoon light, was both practical and
pretty; her hair was dark and seemed abundant. Beside her on the
cushions of the carriage lay several newspapers--the _Athenæum_ among
others--and a book, "Tartarin of Tarascon," in the original French.
This was the personage who had replied to Mr. French's advertisement.
There was no deception. She had stated her age plainly as twenty-two in
her first letter to him; the mistake was on his part. In reading the
hundred-and-fifty or so replies to his advertisement he had got mixed
somehow, and had got some other lady's age in his head attached to the
name of Grimshaw.
As for the spectacles, he had drawn in his imagination the portrait of a
governess of forty-four named Grimshaw, and the portrait wore
spectacles.
Miss Grimshaw didn't. Those clear, grey eyes would not require the aid
of glasses for many a year to come.
American by birth, born in the State of Massachusetts, twenty-two years
ago, Miss Grimshaw's people had "gone bust" in the railway collapse that
followed the shooting of Garfield. Miss Grimshaw's father, a speculator
by nature and profession, had been one of the chief "bulls" in Wall
Street.
He had piled together a colossal fortune during the steady inflation of
railway stock that preceded the death of Garfield. The pistol of Guiteau
was the signal for the bottom to fall out of everything, and on that
terrible Saturday afternoon when Wabash stock fell sixteen points
without recovery, Curtis Grimshaw shot himself in his office, and V.
Grimshaw, a tiny tot, was left in the world without father or mother,
sister or brother, or any relations save an uncle in the dry-goods
trade.
He had taken care of her and educated her at the best school he could
find. Four years ago he had died, and V. Grimshaw at eighteen found
herself again on the world, this time most forlorn. The happy condition
remained, however, that Simon Gretry, the dry-goods uncle, had settled a
thousand (dollars) a year on his niece, this small income being derived
from real estate in New York city.
Miss Grimshaw emigrated to Europe, not to find a husband, but to study
art in Paris. Six months' study told her, however, that art was not her
walk in life, and being eminently practical, she cast aside her palette
and took up with writing and literary work generally, working for
Hardmuth's Press Syndicate and tiring of the work in a year.
Just after she had dropped Hardmuth's, Miss Grimshaw came upon Mr.
French's advertisement in a lady's paper. Its ingenuousness entirely
fascinated her.
"He's not literary, anyhow," she said. "It's the clearest bit of writing
I've come across for many a day. Might try it. I've long been wanting to
go to Ireland, and if I don't like it--why, I'm not tied to them."
Mr. French's reply to her application decided her, and so she came.
The train was now passing through a glen where the bracken leaped six
feet high--a glen dim and dream-like, a vast glen, echo-haunted, and
peopled with waterfalls, pines, and ferns that grow nowhere else as they
grow here.
It is the glen of a thousand echoes. Call here, and Echo replies, and
replies, and replies; and you hear your commonplace voice--the voice
that you ordered a beefsteak with yesterday--chasing itself past fern
and pine and fading away in Fairyland.
A tunnel took the train, and then out of the roaring darkness it swept
into sunlight again, and great plains of bracken and heather.
Miss Grimshaw undid the strap of her rug and packed her newspapers and
book inside. The train was slowing. By the time she had got all her
things together it was drawing up at a long platform, whose notice-board
read:--
CLOYNE
The girl opened the door of the carriage and stepped on to the platform
and into a world of sunlight, silence, and breeze.
The air was like wine.
There were few people on the platform; a woman in a red cloak, a priest
who had stepped out of the train, a couple of farmers, and several
porters busily engaged in taking some baskets of live fowl (to judge by
the sound) out of the guard's van, and a seedy-looking individual in a
tall hat and frock-coat, who looked strangely out of keeping with his
surroundings.
"Is there not a porter to take luggage out of the train?" asked Miss
Grimshaw of a long, squint-eyed, foxy-looking man, half-groom,
half-gamekeeper, who was walking along the train length peeping into
each carriage as if in search of something.
"Porthers, miss," replied the foxy person. "Thim things that's gettin'
the chickens out of the van calls themselves porthers, I b'lave."
Without another word he stepped into the carriage and whipped the
travelling-bag, the bundle of rugs, and other small articles on to the
platform.
"You didn't happen to see an ouldish lady in the thrain anywhere between
here and Dublin, miss?" said Moriarty--for Moriarty it was--as he
deposited the last of the bundles.
"No," said Miss Grimshaw, "I didn't."
"Begorra, then," said Moriarty, "she's either missed the train or
tumbled out of it. Billy!"--to a porter who was coming leisurely
up--"when you've done thinkin' over that prize you tuk in the beauty
show, maybe you'll attind to the company's business and lift the young
lady's luggage."
"I expected a trap to meet me from Mr. French, of Drumgool," said Miss
Grimshaw as Billy took the luggage.
"Mr. Frinch, did you say, miss?" said Moriarty.
"Yes. Mr. French, of Drumgool House; he expected me by this train."
Moriarty broke into a grin that broadened and spread over his ugly face
like the ripple on a pond.
"Faith, thin," said he, "it's Mr. Frinch will have a most agrayable
surprise. 'Moriarty,' says he to me, 'take the car and meet the lady
that's comin' by the ha'f-pas' five thrain. You can't mistake her,' he
says, 'for she's an ouldish lady in spicticles.'"
Miss Grimshaw laughed. "Well," she said, "it was Mr. French's mistake.
Let us find the car. I suppose you are going to drive me?"
"It's fifteen miles to Drumgool, miss," said Moriarty. "Mr. Frinch tould
me to say you were to be sure and have some tay at the hotel here afther
your journey; it's only across the road."
"Thanks," said Miss Grimshaw.
She followed Moriarty and the porter to the station gate. An outside
car, varnished, silver-plated as to fittings, and very up to date stood
near the wicket. A big roan mare with a temper was in the shafts, and a
barefooted gossoon was holding on to the bridle.
The station inn across the road flung its creaking sign to the wind from
the moors, seeming to beckon, and Miss Grimshaw came.
The front door was open, and a dirty child was playing in the passage.
Miss Grimshaw passed the child, knocked at a door on the left of the
passage, and, receiving no answer, opened it, to find a bar-room,
smelling vilely of bad tobacco and spirits. She closed the door and
opened one on the right of the passage, to find a stuffy sitting room
with a stuffed dog under a glass case for its presiding genius.
Two clocks stood on the mantelpiece, one pointing to three, the other to
twelve, neither of them going; a sofa covered with American cloth,
chairs to match, a picture of the Day of Judgment, some dusty seashells,
and a drugget carpet completed the furniture of the place. Miss Grimshaw
was looking around her for a bell when the following dialogue between
Moriarty and some female unknown struck her ears.
"Mrs. Sheelan," came Moriarty's voice, evidently from the backyard.
"What do you want?" came the reply, evidently from an upper room.
"What are you doin'?"
"I'm clanin' meself."
"Well, hurry up clanin' yourself and put the kittle on the fire, for
there's a young lady wants some tay."
"Oh, glory be to God! Moriarty!"
"Well?"
"Shout for Biddy; she's beyant there in the cowhouse. Tell her the
kittle's on, and to stir the fire and make the tay. I'll be wid you in
wan minit."
Miss Grimshaw took her seat and waited, listening to the stumping noise
upstairs that told of speed, and wondering what Mrs. Sheelan would be
like when she was cleaned.
Almost immediately Biddy, fresh from the cowhouse, a girl with apple-red
cheeks, entered the room, whisked the stuffed dog on to a side table,
dumped down a dirty table-cloth which she had brought in rolled up under
her arm, dragged out the drawer of a cupboard, and from the drawer
knives, forks, spoons, a salt-cellar, and a pepper caster of pewter.
"You needn't lay all those things for me," said the traveller. "I only
want tea."
"Oh, it's no thrubble, miss," replied Biddy with an expansive smile. She
finished laying the cloth, and then hung at the door.
"Well?" asked Miss Grimshaw.
"I thought, miss," said Biddy in a difficult voice, "you might be
wantin' to--change your hat afther the journey."
As Miss Grimshaw was sitting at her tea some ten minutes later a knock
came to the door. It was Moriarty who entered on the knock and stood hat
in hand.
"I'm sendin' your thrunk by Doyle, the carrier, miss," said Moriarty,
"and I'm takin' your small thraps on the car."
"Thank you."
"If you plaze, miss," said Moriarty, "did you see a man step out of the
thrain wid a long black coat on him and a face like an undertaker's?"
"I did," said Miss Grimshaw, "if you mean a man in a tall hat."
"That's him," said Moriarty. "Bad luck to him! I knew what he was afther
when I set me eyes on him, and when I was puttin' your bag on the car he
ups and axes me if I knew of a Mr. Frinch living here away. 'Which Mr.
Frinch?' says I. 'Mr. Michael Frinch,' says he. 'Do I know where he
lives?' says I. 'Sure, what do you take me for--me, that's Mr. Frinch's
own man?' 'How far is it away?' says he. 'How far is what?' says I. 'Mr.
Frinch's house,' says he. 'A matter of fifteen miles,' says I. 'Bad luck
to it!' says he, 'I'll have to walk it.' 'Up you get on the car,' says
I, 'and sure I'll drive you,' and up he gets, and there he's sitting
now, waitin' to be druv. Bad cess to him!"
"But who is he?" asked the girl, not quite comprehending the gist of
this flood of information.
Moriarty lowered his voice half a tone. "He's a bailiff, miss, come down
to arrist the horses."
"Arrest the horses!"
"It's this way, miss. Mr. Frinch had some dalin's wid a Jew money-lender
in Dublin be the name of Harrison, and only this mornin' he said to me,
'Moriarty,' he says, 'keep your eye out at the station, for it's I that
am afraid this black baste of a Harrison would play us some trick, for
them money-lenders has ears that would reach from here to Clontarf,'
says he, 'and it's quite on the cards he's heard from his agent I've
sold Nip and Tuck, and if he has,' he says, 'it's sure as a gun he'll
have a bailiff in before I can get them off the primises.'"
"Are Nip and Tuck horses?" asked Miss Grimshaw, who was beginning to
find a subtle interest in Moriarty's conversation.
"Yes, miss, as clane a pair of hunters as you'd find in Galway."
"Yes, go on."
"Well, miss, the horses were due to be taken off be the nine train
to-night. Major Sherbourne has bought thim and paid for thim, and now if
this chap nails thim, Mr. Frinch will have to refund the money, and,
sure, wouldn't that be a black shame?"
"And this man has come down to arrest the horses?" said Miss Grimshaw.
"Yes, miss, and that's why I've come to ax you to let him drive with us.
For I'm going to play him a trick, miss, with your leave and licence,
and that's why I've got him on the car."
Miss Grimshaw laughed.
"I'm no friend of money-lenders," said she.
"Sure, I could tell that be your face, miss."
"But I do not wish to see the man injured or hurt."
"Hurt, miss!" cried Moriarty in a virtuous voice. "Sure, where would be
the good of hurtin' him, unless he was kilt outright? You lave it to me,
miss, and I'll trate him as tender as an infant. I've tould him I'll
drive him to Mr. Frinch's house, and I will; but he won't get Nip nor
Tuck."
"Very well," said Miss Grimshaw. "As long as you don't hurt him I don't
care."
Moriarty withdrew, and Mrs. Sheelan appeared. The cleaning process was
evident in the polish of her face. She would take nothing for the tea;
it was to go down to Mr. French's account, by his own express orders.
Having bestowed a shilling upon Biddy, the traveller left the inn.
The seedy personage in the tall hat was comfortably seated on the
outside car reading a day-before-yesterday's _Freeman's Journal_, and a
new gossoon was holding the mare's head vice the old gossoon, who had
been sent on horseback hot foot to Drumgool to give warning to Mr.
French.
Miss Grimshaw got on the side of the car opposite to the bailiff,
Moriarty seized the reins, the gossoon sprang away, and the mare rose on
end.
"Fresh?" said the man in the tall hat.
"Faith, she'll be stale enough when I've finished with her," said
Moriarty. "Now then, now then, what are yiz afther? Did you never see a
barra of luggage before? Is it a mothor-car you're takin' yourself to
be, or what ails you, at all, at all? Jay up, y' divil!"
The Dancing Mistress--such was her ominous name--having performed the
cake walk to her own satisfaction, turned her attention to a mixture of
the "Washington Post" and the two-step.
"Hit her with the whip," said Miss Grimshaw.
"Hit her with the whip!" replied Moriarty. "Sure, it's kicked to
matches we'd be if she heard me draa it from the socket. Now then, now
then, now then!"
"That's better," said Miss Grimshaw.
"Yes, miss," replied Moriarty. "Once she's started nothin' will stay
her, but it's the startin' is the divil."
It was getting towards sunset now, and in the east the ghost of a great
moon was rising pale as a cloud in the amethyst sky.
The moors swept away for ever on either side of the road, moor and black
bog desolate and silent but for the wind and the cry of the plover. Vast
mountains and kingly crags thronged the east, purple in the level light
of evening and peaceful with the peace of a million years; away to the
west, beyond the smoke wreaths from the chimneys of Cloyne, the
invisible sea was thundering against rock and cliff, and the gulls and
terns, the guillemots and cormorants, were wheeling and crying,
answering with their voices the deep boom of the sea caves.
Miss Grimshaw tried to imagine what life would be like here, fifteen
miles from a railway station. Despite the beauty of the scenery there
was over all, or rather in it all, a touch of darkness, desolation, and
poverty, a sombre note rising from the black bog patches, the wretched
cabins by the way, the stone walls, the barren hills.
But the freshness of the air, the newness of it all, made up to the girl
for the desolation. It was different from Fleet-street, and anything
that is different from Fleet-street must have a certain beauty of its
own.
She tried to imagine what trick Moriarty was going to play on the
gentleman whose tall hat was so extremely out of keeping with the
surroundings. That person, who had left the refreshments of the inn
untried, had not come unprovided; he produced a flask from his pocket at
times, fouling the air with the smell of bad brandy, but not a word did
he speak as mile after mile slipped by and the sun sank and vanished and
the moon glowed out, making wonderland of the world around them.
"We're more than ten miles on our road now, miss," said Moriarty,
speaking across the car to Miss Grimshaw. "Do you see that crucked tree
beyant on the right be the bog patch?"
"Yes."
"It was half-way betune that and thim bushes they shot ould Mr. Moriarty
two years ago come next June."
"Shot him?"
"Faith, they filled him so full of bullets that the family had to put a
sintry over the grave for fear the bhoys would dig him up to shtrip him
of his lead."
"But who shot him?"
"That's what the jury said, miss, when they brought it in 'Not guilty'
against Billy the Rafter, Long Sheelan, and Mick Mulcahy, and they taken
with the guns smokin' in their hands--the blackgyards."
"Good heavens! but why did they shoot him?"
"Well, he'd got himself disliked, miss. For more than five years the
bhoys had been warning him; sure they sent him enough pictures of
coffins and skulls to paper a wall with, and he, he'd light his pipe
with them. Little he cared for skulls or crossbones. 'To blazes with
them!' he'd say. 'All right,' says the bhoys, 'we'll give you one
warnin' more.' 'Warn away,' says he, and they warned. Two nights after
they laid him out. Do you see away beyant those trees, miss, thim
towers--there, you see them poppin' up?"
"Yes."
"That's Mr. Frinch's house."
"Why, it's a castle."
"Yes, miss, I b'lave they called it that in the old days."
At a gateway, where the gate was flung wide open, Moriarty drew up.
"Now," said he to the person in the tall hat, "that's your way to the
back primises; down with you and in with you, and sarve your writ, for
it's a writ you've come to sarve, and you needn't be hidin' it in your
pocket, for it's stickin' out of your face. Round with you to the back
primises and give me compliments to the cook, and say I'll be in for me
supper when I've left this lady at the hall dure."
The man in possession, standing now in the road under the moonlight,
examined the car and the horse that had brought him.
"The horse and car are Mr. French's?" he asked.
"They are."
"Well, when you've put 'em in the stables," said he, "mind and don't you
move 'em out again. All the movables and live stock are to be left in
statu quo till my business is settled."
"Right y' are, sorr," replied Moriarty cheerfully, and the man in the
tall hat strode away through the gate and vanished in the direction of
the back premises.
Miss Grimshaw felt rather disgusted at this spiritless fiasco. She was
quite without knowledge, however, of Moriarty's thorough methods and
far-reaching ways.
"I thought you were going to play him a trick," said she.
Moriarty, who had got down for a moment to look at the mare's off-fore
shoe, sprang on to the car again, turned the car, touched the mare with
the whip, and turned to the astonished Miss Grimshaw.
"This isn't Mr. Frinch's house at all, miss."
"Why, you said it was."
"It's his house, right enough," said Moriarty, "but it hasn't been lived
in for a hundred and tin years; it's got nuthin' inside it but thistles
and bats. He axed me for Mr. Frinch's house; well, I've driv him to Mr.
Frinch's house, him and his ow-de-cologne bottle, but Mr. Frinch doesn't
live here; he lives at Drumgool."
"How far is Drumgool from here?"
"It's fifteen miles from here to Cloyne, miss, and fifteen from Cloyne
to Drumgool."
"Oh, good heavens!" said Miss Grimshaw, "thirty miles from here?"
"There or thereabouts, miss; we'll have to get a new horse at Cloyne;
the ould mare is nearly done, and she'd be finished entirely, only I
gave her a two hours' rest before I take you up at the station."
"Look!" groaned the girl.
Far away behind them on the moonlit road a figure had appeared; it was
running and shouting and waving its arms.
"That's him," said Moriarty. "Faith, he looks as if he had seen the
Banshee! Look, miss, there's his hat tumbled off."
Running was evidently not the bailiff's forte, but he continued the
exercise manfully for a quarter of a mile or so, hat in hand, before
giving up. When he disappeared from view Miss Grimshaw felt what we may
suppose the more tender-hearted of Alexander Selkirk's marooners felt
when Tristan d'Acunha sank from sight beyond the horizon.
"What will he do with himself?" asked she, her own grievance forgotten
for a moment, veiled by the woes of the other one.
"Faith, I don't know, miss," replied Moriarty; "he can do what he
plazes, for what I care. But there's one thing he won't do, and that's
lay finger on the horses; and it's sorry I am, miss, to have dhriven you
out of your way. But, sure, wouldn't you have done it yourself if I'd
been you and you'd been me, and that black baste of a chap puttin' his
ugly foot in the master's business?"
Miss Grimshaw laughed in a rather dreary manner.
"But it isn't his fault."
"Whose fault, miss?"
"That man's; he was only doing his duty."
"Faith, and that's the thruth," said Moriarty, "and more's the pity of
it, as Con Meehan said when he was diggin' in his pitata garden and the
pleeceman came to arrist him. I'm disremembrin' what it was he'd
done--chickens I think it was he'd stole--but the pleeceman says to
him, 'Come off wid you to gaol,' says he; 'it's sorry I am to have to
take you,' says he, 'but it's me painful duty.' 'The more's the pity it
gives you such pain,' says Con, 'and where does it hurt you most, may I
ax?' 'In me feelin's,' replies him. 'Faith, I'll aise you,' says Con,
and wid that he knocks him sinsless with the flat of the spade."
"That was one way of relieving him of his painful duty."
"Yes, miss," said Moriarty, and they drove on in silence for a while,
Miss Grimshaw trying to imagine how the case of Con Meehan bore
extenuation to the case of the bailiff and failing.
A long hill brought them to a walk, and Moriarty got down and walked
beside the mare to "aise" her.
Half-way up the hill a man tramping on ahead halted, turned, and stood
waiting for them to come up. He had a fishing-rod under his arm, and
Miss Grimshaw, wondering what new surprise was in store for her, found
it in the voice of the stranger, which was cultivated.
"Can you tell me where I am?" asked the stranger.
"Yes, sorr," said Moriarty, halting the mare. "You're eleven miles and a
bit from Cloyne, if you're going that way."
"Good heavens!" said the stranger, half beneath his breath; then aloud:
"Eleven Irish miles?"
"Yes, sorr; there aren't any English miles in these parts. Were you
going to Cloyne, sorr?"
"Yes; I'm staying at the inn there, and I came out to-day to fish a
stream over there between those two hills; and the fool of a fellow I
took with me got lost--at least, he went off and never came back; and
I'll break his neck when I catch him."
"Was it Billy Sheelan, of the inn, be any chance, sorr?"
"Yes, I believe that was his name."
"Then he hasn't got lost, sorr; he's got dhrunk. This is Mr. Frinch's
car, and if you'll step on to it I'll drive you back to Cloyne, if the
young lady has no objection."
"Not in the least," said Miss Grimshaw.
The stranger raised his cap. He was a good-looking youth, well dressed,
and his voice had a lot of character of a sort. It was a good-humoured,
easy-going, happy-go-lucky voice, and it matched his face, or as much of
his face as could be seen in the moonlight.
"It's awfully good of you," he said. "I'm dead beat, been on my legs
since six, had good luck, too, only I lost all my fish tumbling into one
of those bog holes. Just escaped with my life and my rod." He mounted on
the same side of the car as the girl and continued to address his
remarks to her as Moriarty drove on. "I believe I ought to introduce
myself. Dashwood is my name. I came over for some fishing, and the more
I see of Ireland, the more I like it. Your country----"
Miss Grimshaw laughed.
"It's not my country--I'm American."
"Are you?" said Mr. Dashwood in a relieved voice. "How jolly! I thought
you might be Irish. I say," in a confidential tone of voice, "isn't it a
beastly hole?"
"Which?"
"Ireland."
"Why, I thought you said you liked it!"
"I thought you were Irish. I do like it in a way. The mountains and the
whisky aren't bad, and the people are jolly enough if they'd only wash
themselves, but the hotels--oh, my!"
"You're staying at the inn near the railway station at Cloyne?"
"I am," said Mr. Dashwood.
"Then you know Biddy and the stuffed dog?"
"Intimately--have you stayed there?"
"I had tea there this afternoon."
"You live near here?"
"I believe I am going to live for a while near here. I only arrived this
afternoon."
"Only this afternoon. Excuse me for being so inquisitive, but when did
you arrive at--I mean----"
"Cloyne."
"But you're driving to Cloyne now."
"I know. I've been driving all over the country. We had to leave a
gentleman at a castle, and now we are going back to Cloyne. Then I have
to go on to a place called Drumgool, which is fifteen miles from
Cloyne."
"To-night?" said Mr. Dashwood, looking in astonishment at the wanderer.
"I don't know," said the girl, with a touch of hopelessness in her
voice. "I expect they'll have to tie me on to the car, for I feel like
dropping off now. No, thanks; I can manage to hold on by myself, I was
speaking metaphorically."
Mr. Dashwood said nothing for a few minutes. There was a mystery about
Miss Grimshaw that he could not unravel, and which she could not
explain.
Then he said: "We've both been travelling round the country, seems to
me, and we're both pretty tired and we've met like this. Funny, isn't
it?"
"Awfully," said Miss Grimshaw, trying to stifle a yawn.
"Do I bore you talking?"
"Not a bit."
"That's all right. I know you must be tired, but then, you see, you
can't go to sleep on an outside car, so one may as well talk. How far
are we from Cloyne now?"--to Moriarty.
"Nine miles, sorr."
"Good! I say, you said this car belonged to a Mr. French. I met a Mr.
French six months ago in London--a Mr. Michael French."
"That's him, sorr."
"Well, that's funny," said Mr. Dashwood. "I met him at my club, and he
told me he lived somewhere in Ireland--a big man, very big man--goes in
for horses."
"That's him, sorr."
"Awfully rummy coincidence," said Mr. Dashwood, turning to his
companion. "I lost two ponies to him over the Gatwick Selling Plate."
"That's him, sorr," said Moriarty with conviction.
"Awfully funny; do you know him?"
"No," replied Miss Grimshaw. "At least only by writing to him. I'm
going there for a while to act as governess," she explained.
"And of course I'll call there to-morrow and look him up; well, it's
extraordinary, really. Joke if we met someone else going to see him that
had been lost and wandering about all day; sort of Canterbury
pilgrimage, you know. And we could all sit round the fire at the inn and
tell tales."
"I hope not," said Miss Grimshaw devoutly, thinking of the gentleman
they had left at the old castle and the tale he'd have to tell.
Moriarty was now talking to the Dancing Mistress, telling her of the
feed of corn waiting for her at the inn, and they jogged along rapidly,
the sinking moon at their back, till presently a few glow-worm sparks
before them indicated the lights of Cloyne.
"How long will you be getting the other horse?" asked Miss Grimshaw of
Moriarty as they drew up at the inn, which was still open.
"I don't know, miss. I'll ax," replied Moriarty.
Mr. Dashwood helped his companion down, and she followed him into the
passage, and from there to the sitting-room.
A bright turf fire was burning, and the table was still laid, and almost
immediately Biddy appeared to say that Mr. French had sent word that the
lady was to stay at the inn and make herself comfortable for the night
and to come on to Drumgool in the morning, and to say he was sorry that
she should have been put to any inconvenience on account of the horses,
all of which seemed as wonderful as wireless telegraphy to Miss
Grimshaw, inasmuch as she knew nothing of the gossoon Moriarty had
despatched to his master earlier in the evening, with a succinct message
stating his plan against the bailiff, and the absolute necessity of
taking the governess along, lest the said bailiff, seeing the governess
and luggage left behind at the inn, might smell a rat.
"And what'll you be plazed to have for supper, miss?" asked Biddy.
"What can you give us?" asked Mr. Dashwood.
"Anything you like, sorr."
"Well, get us a cold roast chicken and some ham. I'm sure you'd like
chicken, wouldn't you?" turning to the girl.
"Yes," said she, "as long as they haven't to cook it. I'm famished."
Biddy retired. There was no cold chicken and there was no ham on the
premises; but the spirit of hospitality demanded that ten minutes should
be spent in pretending to look for them.
They had fried rashers of bacon--there were no eggs--and tea, and when
Miss Grimshaw retired for the night to a stuffy bedroom ornamented with
a stuffed cat, she could hear the deep tones of Moriarty's voice
colloguing with Mrs. Sheelan, telling her most likely of the trick he
had played on the bailiff man.
She wondered how far that benighted individual had wandered by this time
on his road to Cloyne, and what he would say to Moriarty, and what
Moriarty would say to him, when they met.
She could not but perceive that the commercial morality of the house
she was going to was of an old-fashioned type, dating from somewhere in
the times of the buccaneers, and she felt keenly interested in the
probable personality of Mr. French.
Moriarty she liked unreservedly; and in Mr. Dashwood, her
fellow-stranger in this unknown land, she felt an interest which he was
returning as he lay in bed, pipe in mouth, and his head on a pillow
stuffed presumably with brickbats.