The arrival of a post-letter at the O'Donoghue house was an occurrence
of sufficient rarity to create some excitement in the household; and
many a surmise, as to what new misfortune hung over the family, was
hazarded between Mrs. Branagan and Kerry O'Leary, as the latter poised
and balanced the epistle in his hand, as though its weight and form
might assist him in his divination.
After having conned over all the different legal processes which
he deemed might be conveyed in such a shape, and conjured up in his
imagination a whole army of sheriffs, sub-sheriffs, bailiffs, and
drivers, of which the ominous letter should prove the forerunner, he
heaved a heavy sigh at the gloomy future his forebodings had created,
and slowly ascended towards his master's bed-room.
“How is Herbert?” said the O'Donoghue, as he heard the footsteps beside
his bed, for he had been dreaming of the boy a few minutes previous.
“Who is that? Ah! Kerry. Well, how is he to-day?”
“Troth there's no great change to spake of,” said Kerry, who, not having
made any inquiry himself, and never expecting to have been questioned
on the subject, preferred this safe line of reply, as he deemed it, to a
confession of his ignorance.
“Did he sleep well, Kerry?”
“Oh! for the matter of the sleep we won't boast of it. But here's a
letter for your honour, come by the post.”
“Leave it on the bed, and tell me about the boy.”
“Faix there's nothing particular, then, to tell yer honour--sometimes
he'd be one way, sometimes another--and more times the same way again.
That's the way he'd be all the night through.”
The O'Donoghue pondered for a second or two, endeavouring to frame some
distinct notion from these scanty materials, and then said--
“Send Master Mark to me.” At the same instant he drew aside the curtain,
and broke the seal of the letter. The first few lines, however, seemed
to satisfy his curiosity, although the epistle was written in a close
hand, and extended over three sides of the paper; and he threw it
carelessly on the bed, and lay down again once more. During all this
time, however, Kerry managed to remain in the room, and, while affecting
to arrange clothes and furniture, keenly scrutinized the features of his
master. It was of no use, however. The old man's looks were as apathetic
as usual, and he seemed already to have forgotten the missive Kerry had
endowed with so many terrors and misfortunes.
“Herbert has passed a favourable night,” said Mark, entering a few
moments after. “The fever seems to have left him, and, except for
debility, I suppose there is little to ail him. What!--a letter! Who is
this from?”
“From Kate,” said the old man listlessly. “I got as far as 'My dear
uncle;' the remainder must await a better light, and, mayhap, sharper
eyesight too--for the girl has picked up this new mode of scribbling,
which is almost unintelligible to me.”
As the O'Donoghue was speaking, the young man had approached the window,
and was busily perusing the letter. As he read, his face changed colour
more than once. Breaking off, he said--
“You don't know, then, what news we have here? More embarrassment--ay,
by Jove, and a heavier one than even it seems at first sight. The French
armies, it appears, are successful all over the Low Countries, and
city after city falling into their possession; and so, the convents
are breaking up, and the Sacré Cour, where Kate: is, has set free its
inmates, who are returning to their friends. She comes here.”
“What!--here?” said the O'Donoghue, with some evidence of doubt at
intelligence so strange and unexpected. “Why, Mark, my boy, that's
impossible--the house is a ruin; we haven't a room; we have no servants,
and have nothing like accommodation for the girl.”
“Listen to this, then,” said Mark, as he read from the letter:--“You may
then conceive, my dear old papa--for I must call you the old name again,
now that we are to meet--how happy I am to visit Carrig-na-curra once
more. I persuade myself I remember the old beech wood in the glen, and
the steep path beside the waterfall, and the wooden railings to guard
against the precipice. Am I not right? And there's an ash tree over the
pool, lower down. Cousin Mark climbed it to pluck the berries for me,
and fell in, too. There's memory for you!”
“She'll be puzzled to find the wood now,” said the O'Donoghue, with a
sad attempt at a smile. “Go on, Mark.”
“It's all the same kind of thing: she speaks of Molly Cooney's cabin,
and the red boat-house, and fifty things that are gone many a day ago.
Strange enough, she remembers what I myself have long since forgotten.
'How I long for my own little blue bed-room, that looked out on
Keim-an-eigh P----”
“There, Mark--don't read any more, my lad. Poor dear Kate!--what would
she think of the place now?”
“The thing is impossible,” said Mark, sternly; “the girl has got a
hundred fancies and tastes, unsuited to our rude life; her French habits
would ill agree with our barbarism. You must write to your cousin--that
old Mrs. Bedingfield--if that's her name. She must take her for the
present, at least; she offered it once before.”
“Yes,” said the old man, with an energy he had not used till now, “she
did, and I refused. My poor brother detested that woman, and would
never, had he lived, have entrusted his daughter to her care. If she
likes it, the girl shall make this her home. My poor Harry's child shall
not ask twice for a shelter, while I have one to offer her.”
“Have you thought, sir, how long you may be able to extend the
hospitality you speak of? Is this house now your own, that you can make
a proffer of it to any one?--and if it were, is it here, within these
damp, discoloured walls, with ruin without and within, that you'd desire
a guest--and such a guest?”
“What do you mean, boy?”
“I mean what I say. The girl educated in the midst of luxury, pampered
and flattered--we heard that from the Abbé--what a favourite she was
there, and how naturally she assumed airs of command and superiority
over the girls of her own age--truly, if penance were the object, the
notion is not a bad one.”
“I say it again--this is her home. I grieve it should be so rude a
one--but, I'll never refuse to let her share it.”
“Nor would I,” muttered Mark, gloomily, “if it suited either her habits,
or her tastes. Let her come, however; a week's experience will do more
to undeceive her than if we wrote letters for a twelvemonth.”
“You must write to her, Mark; you must tell her, that matters have not
gone so well with us latterly--that she'll see many changes here; but
mind, you say how happy we are to receive her.”
“She can have her choice of blue bed-rooms, too--shall I say that?” said
Mark, almost savagely. “The damp has given them the proper tinge for her
fancy; and as to the view she speaks of, assuredly there is nothing
to baulk it: the window has fallen out many a day ago, that looked on
Keim-an-eigh.”
“How can you torture me this way, boy?” said the old man, with a look
of imploring, to which his white hairs and aged features gave a most
painful expression. But Mark turned away, and made no answer.
“My uncle,” said he, after a pause, “must answer this epistle.
Letter-writing is no burthen to him. In fact, I believe, he rather likes
it; so here goes to do him a favour. It is seldom the occasion presents
itself.”
It was not often that Mark O'Donoghue paid a visit to Sir Archibald in
his chamber; and the old man received him as he entered with all the
show of courtesy he would have extended to a stranger--a piece of
attention which was very far, indeed, from relieving Mark of any portion
of his former embarrassment.
“I have brought you a letter, sir,” said he, almost ere he took his
seat--“a letter which my father would thank you to reply to. It is from
my cousin Kate, who is about to return to Ireland, and take up her abode
here.”
“Ye dinna mean she's coming here, to Carrig-na-curra?”
“It is even so! though I don't wonder at your finding it hard of
belief.”
“It's mair than that--it's far mair--it's downright incredible.”
“I thought so, too; but my father cannot agree with me. He will not
believe that this old barrack is not a baronial castle; and persists in
falling back on what is past, rather than look on the present, not to
speak of the future.”
“But she canna live here, Mark,” said Sir Archy, his mind ever dwelling
on the great question at issue. “There's no'a spot in the whole house
she could inhabit. I ken something of these French damsels, and their
ways; and the strangers that go there for education are a' worse than
the natives. I mind the time I was in Paris with his Royal------” Sir
Archy coughed, and reddened up, and let fall his snuff-box, spilling all
the contents on the floor.
“Gude save us, here's a calamity! It was real macabaw, and cost twa
shillings an ounce. I maun even see if I canna scrape it up wi' a piece
of paper;” and so, he set himself diligently to glean up the scattered
dust, muttering, all the time, maledictions on his bad luck.
Mark never moved nor spoke the entire time; but sat with the open letter
in his hand, patiently awaiting the resumption of the discussion.
“Weel, weel,” exclaimed Sir Archy, as he resumed his seat once more;
“let us see the epistle, and perhaps we may find some clue to put her
off.”
“My father insists on her coming,” said Mark, sternly.
“So he may, lad,” replied Sir Archy; “but she may ha'e her ain reasons
for declining--dinna ye see that? This place is a ruin. Wha's to say it
is no' undergoing a repair--that the roof is off, and will not be on
for sax months to come. The country, too, is in a vara disturbed state.
Folks are talking in a suspicious way.”
Mark thought of the midnight march he had witnessed; but said nothing.
“There's a fever, besides, in the house, and wha can tell the next to
tak' it. The Lord be mercifu' to us!” added he gravely, as if the latter
thought approached somewhat too close on a temptation of Providence.
“If she's like what I remember her as a child,” replied Mark, “your plan
would be a bad one for its object. Tell her the place is a ruin, and
she'd give the world to see it for bare curiosity; say, there was a
likelihood of a rebellion, and she would risk her life to be near it;
and as for a fever, we never were able to keep her out of the cabins
when there was sickness going. Faith, I believe it was the danger, and
not the benevolence, of the act charmed her.”
“You are no' far wrang. I mind her weel--she was a saucy cutty; and I
canna forget the morning she gave me a bunch o' thistles on my birth
day, and ca'ed it a 'Scotch bouquey.'”
“You had better read the letter in any case,” said Mark, as he presented
the epistle. Sir Archy took it, and perused it from end to end without a
word; then laying it open on his knee, he said--
“The lassie's heart is no' far wrang, Mark, depend upon it. Few call up
the simple memories o' childish days, if they have no' retained some of
the guileless spirit that animated them. I wad like to see her mysel',”
said he, after a pause. “But what have we here in the postscript?”--and
he read aloud the following lines:--
“I have too good a recollection of a Carrig-na-curra household, to make
any apology for adding one to the number below stairs, in the person of
my maid, Mademoiselle Hortense, from whose surprise and astonishment at
our Irish mountains I anticipate a rich treat. She is a true Parisian,
who cannot believe in any thing outside the Boulevards. What will she
think of Mrs. Branagan and Kerry O'Leary?--and what will they think of
her?”
“Lord save us, Mark, this is an awfu' business; a French waiting woman
here! Why, she might as weel bring a Bengal tiger! I protest I'd rather
see the one than the other.”
“She'll not stay long; make your mind easy about her; nor will Kate
either, if she need such an attendant.”
“True enough, Mark, we maun let the malady cure itsel'; and so, I
suppose, the lassie must even see the nakedness o' the land wi' her ain
eyes, though I'd just as soon we could 'put the cover on the parritch,'
as the laird said, 'and make the fules think it brose.' It's no ower
pleasant to expose one's poverty.”
“Then you'll write the letter,” said Mark, rising, “and we must do what
we can, in the way of preparation. The time is short enough too, for
that letter was written almost a month ago--she might arrive this very
week.”
As he spoke, the shuffling sounds of feet were heard in the corridor
outside; the young man sprung to the door, and looked out, and just
caught sight of Kerry O'Leary, with a pair of boots under his arm,
descending the stairs.
“That fellow, Kerry--listening as usual,” said Mark. “I heard him at my
door about a fortnight since, when I was talking to Herbert, and I sent
a bullet through the pannel--I thought it might cure him.”
“I wonder it did na kill him!” exclaimed M'Nab in horror.
“No, no, my hand is too steady for that. I aimed at least two inches
above his head--it might have grazed his hair.”
“By my word, I'll no' play the eaves-dropper wi' you, Mark; or, at
least, I'd like to draw the charge o' your pistols first.”
“She can have my room,” said Mark, not heeding the speech. “I'll
take that old tower they call the guard-room; I fancy I shall not be
dispossessed for a considerable time,”--and the youth left the chamber
to look after the arrangements he spoke of.
“'Tis what I tould you,” said Kerry, as he drew his stool beside the
kitchen fire; “I was right enough, she's coming back again to live
here--I was listening at the door, and heerd it all.”
“And she's laving the blessed nunnery!” exclaimed Mrs. Branagan, with a
holy horror in her countenance--“desarting the elegant place, with the
priests, and monks, and friars, to come here again, in the middle of
every wickedness and divilment--ochone! ochone!”
“What wickedness and what divilment are you spaking about?” said Kerry,
indignantly, at the aspersion thus cast on the habits of the house.
Mrs. Branagan actually started at the bare idea of a contradiction, and
turned on him a look of fiery wrath, as she said:--
“Be my conscience you're bould to talk that way to me!--What wickedness!
Isn't horse-racing, card-playing, raffling, wickedness? Isn't drinking
and swearin' wickedness? Isn't it wickedness to kill three sheep a week,
and a cow a fortnight, to feed a set of dirty spalpeens of grooms and
stable chaps? Isn't it wickedness--botheration to you--but I wouldn't be
losing my time talking to you! When was one of ye at his duties? Answer
me that. How much did one of ye pay at Ayster or Christmas, these ten
years? Signs on it, Father Luke hasn't a word for ye when he comes
here--he trates ye with contimpt.”
Kerry was abashed and terrified. He little knew when he pulled up the
sluice-gate, the torrent that would flow down; and now, would have made
any “amende,” to establish a truce again; but Mrs. Branagan was a woman,
and, having seen the subjugation of her adversary, her last thought was
mercy.
“Wickedness, indeed! It's fifty years out of purgatory, sorra less, to
live ten years here, and see what goes on.”
“Divil a lie in it,” chimed in Kerry, meekly; “there's no denying a word
you say.”
“I'd like to see who'd dare deny it--and, sign's on it, there's a curse
on the place--nothing thrives in it.”
“Faix, then, ye mustn't say that, any how,” said Kerry, insinuatingly:
“_you_ have no rayson to spake again it. 'Twas Tuesday week last I heerd
Father Luke say--it was to myself he said it--'How is Mrs. Branagan,
Kerry?' says he. 'She's well and hearty, your reverence,' says I. 'I'll
tell you what she is, Kerry,' says he, 'she's looking just as I knew her
five-and-thirty years ago; and a comelier, dacenter woman wasn't in the
three baronies. I remember well,' says he, 'I seen her at the fair of
Killarney, and she had a cap with red ribbons.' Hadn't ye a cap with red
ribbons in it?” A nod was the response.
“True for him, ye see he didn't forget it; and says he, 'She took the
shine out of the fair; she could give seven pounds, and half a distance,
to ere a girl there, and beat her after by a neck.'”
“What's that ye're saying?” said Mrs. Branagan, who didn't comprehend
the figurative language of the turf, particularly when coming from
Father Luke's lips.
“I'm saying ye were the purtiest woman that walked the fair-green,” said
Kerry, correcting his phraseology.
“Father Luke was a smart little man then himself, and had a nate leg and
foot.”
“Killarney was a fine place I'm tould,” said Kerry, with a dexterous
shift to change the topic. “I wasn't often there myself, but I heerd it
was the iligant fair entirely.”
“So it was,” said Mrs. Branagan; “there never was the kind of sport and
divarsion wasn't there. It begun on a Monday and went through the week;
and short enough the time was. There was dancing, and fighting, and
singing, and 'stations,' up to Aghadoe and down again on the bare knees,
and a pilgrimage to the holy well--three times round that, maybe after
a jig two hours long; and there was a dwarf that tould fortunes, and
a friar that sould gospels agin fever, and fallin' sickness, and
ballad-singers, and play-actors. Musha, there never was the like of it;”
and in this strain did, she pour forth a flood of impassioned eloquence
on the recollection of those carnal pleasures and enjoyments which, but
a few minutes before, she had condemned so rigidly in others, nor was it
till at the very close of her speech that she suddenly perceived how she
had wandered from her text; then with a heavy groan she muttered--“Ayeh!
we're sinful craytures, the best of us.”
Kerry responded to the sentiment with a fac-simile sigh, and the peace
was ratified.
“You wouldn't believe now what Miss Kate is bringing over with
her--faix, you wouldn't believe it.”
“Maybe a monkey,” said Mrs. Branagan, who had a vague notion that France
lay somewhere within the tropics.
“Worse nor that.”
“Is it a bear?” asked she again.
“No, but a French maid, to dress her hair, and powder her, and put
patches on her face.”
“Whisht, I tell you,” cried Mrs. Branagan, “and don't be talking that
way. Miss Kate was never the one to turn to the likes of them things.”
“'Tis truth I'm telling ye then; I heerd it all between the master and
Master Mark, and afterwards with ould Sir Archy, and the three of them
is in a raal fright about the maid; they say she'll be the divil for
impidence.”
“Will she then!” said Mrs. Branagan, with an eye glistening in
anticipation of battle.
“The never a day's peace or ease we're to have again, when she's
here--'tis what the master says. 'I pity poor Mrs. Branagan,' says he;
'she's a quiet crayture that wont take her own part, and----'”
“Won't I? Be my conscience, we'll soon see that.”
“Them's his words--'and if Kerry and she don't lay their heads together
to make the place too hot for her, she'll bully the pair of them.'”
“Lave it to myself--lave it to me alone, Kerry O'Leary.”
“I was thinking that same, ma'am,” said Kerry, with a droll leer as he
spoke; “I'd take the odds on you any day, and never ask the name of the
other horse.”
“I'll lay the mark of my fingers on her av she says 'pays,'” said Mrs.
Branagan, with an energy that looked like truth.
Meanwhile, Kerry, perceiving that her temper was up, spared nothing to
aggravate her passion, retailing every possible and impossible affront
the new visitor might pass off on her, and expressing the master's
sorrows at the calamities awaiting her.
“If she isn't frightened out of the country at once, there's no help for
it,” said he at last. “I have a notion myself, but sure maybe it's a bad
one.”
“What is it then?--spake it out free.”
“'Tis just to wait for the chaise--she'll come in a chaise, it's
likely.”
But what was Kerry's plan, neither Mrs. Branagan nor the reader are
destined to hear, for at that moment a loud summons at the hall
door--a very unusual sound--announced the arrival of a stranger; Kerry,
therefore, had barely time for a hasty toilet with a pocket-comb,
before a small fragment of looking-glass he carried in his pocket, as he
hastened to receive the visitor.