Sleepless and miserable to Katey Tyrrel was the night that followed her
interview with the Stranger. The fearful and critical position in which
she was placed caused her, for the first time in her life, to go through a
rigid course of self-examination, the result of which but added to her
alarm and anxiety. For some months past the person she had just parted
from had been a sojourner in lodgings at Cahill's under circumstances of
great privacy--rarely venturing out during the day, and in the evening
only with secresy and caution. As that remote country, ill-supplied at the
period with police, (and even those of the most "ancient and quiet"
description,) and wholly inaccessible to bailiffs and all other
functionaries attendant on county sheriffs, was deemed peculiarly
favourable as quarters for that class of magnanimous men whose expenditure
happens to exceed their incomes, to the detriment of their tailors and
their own personal inconvenience, it was soon whispered, and as quickly
believed, that the resident at Cahill's was one of that generous
brotherhood, or in other words, was "a gentleman on his keeping."[24] In
her visits to the shop, which, from her idle though innocent life, were
frequent, Katey had several times encountered him as he sauntered in and
out. An intimacy sprang up. There was a frankness and a half-military air
in his deportment that interested her. He had evidently seen much of the
world and society, his conversation was lively and varied, his knowledge
and accomplishments, to the secluded country girl, seemed extensive, and
round all circled a halo of mystery, not the least of those attractions
for Katey, whose passion for riding to the Kilfane hounds had just been
succeeded by a stronger one for Mrs Radcliffe and romances. Time flew on.
Their daily interviews improved to evening rambles, the interchange of
notes, supplies of books and flowers upon one side, an avowal of love and
tale of lofty but luckless patriotism on the other. To the object of his
passion alone did the stranger confide his story. Fascinated by the
principles of freedom with which France had lately inoculated mankind, and
maddened by the miseries of ill-government under which his own green
Island groaned, he had engaged, full of hope and high aspirations, in that
enterprise for the recovery of her national independence, which terminated
in the martyrdom of as noble and pure-spirited a being as sleeps buried
and unhonoured in "the cross ways of fame"--ROBERT EMMETT. The Stranger
had been dispatched, he said, to the south to forward the movement of his
party in that quarter, when their central Power in the capital prematurely
exploded, carrying dismay and destruction to every remoter organ of the
confederacy. His name--the name of Fergus Hewitt, citizen of the new
Western Republic, and major of brigade--was one of the first upon the list
of the proscribed; a reward was offered for his head; and it was while
lurking a hunted man, amid the fastnesses of Tipperary, that he wooed and
ventured to win the heart and hand of the heiress of Clogheen.
Such was the tale along whose vicissitudes the fair girl to whom it was
imparted now glanced with a bewildered mind. The interview just terminated
will have given the reader some idea of the unsettled state of her
feelings; but it was in the solitude of her chamber, when she found
herself called on to part for ever, or for ever to be united with this
interesting stranger, that she seemed to discover, not without
consternation, how necessary to her happiness he had become. The waste
vacancy of her time and thoughts before she had met him--broken only by
dull and distant visits to duller and more distant aunts, vapid rides
through rude and solitary scenes, and incessant feud and amnesty between
her cousin Lysaght and herself--was this once more to be her portion? or
would she fly with Him who had relieved her from them all, and relinquish
her father and her home? How, she continued to ask herself, would that
beloved parent, so stern to all else, so blindly indulgent to her, endure
her loss? Would he proscribe her for ever? She felt not--assuredly not.
No, her father would once more receive her into his grace and affection;
but Lysaght, who had been reared with her, who loved her so well, so all
the more deeply, she knew, that he had never told her so--what would _he_
feel? How would he look the first morning after her flight, when he came
in to breakfast and found the room solitary, the urn cold, her little
spanniel, Lapwing, moaning about the hearth, and Katey away over the
mountains in the dead of night with a nameless and lawless man? Yes, poor
Lysaght, she felt, would _then_ be to be pitied: her father might once
more be hers; but her cousin--even her little quarrels with him had
something pleasant to her recollection, and on this portion of the
picture, much as she desired to banish it from her mind, she again and
again returned to dwell; nor did she succeed in _overlaying_ it by
painting her reconciliation with Lysaght on her return, and her reparation
in the shape of a large present of real and personal estate which her
father should be induced to make to him, and thereby enable Lysaght to
settle in life. And then his wife--which of all her surrounding country
friends would she choose for him? The sketch was still unfinished, when
the bell announced the morning's repast; and Katey, sleepless, agitated,
and undecided, descended to breakfast.
There was nothing in that meal calculated to allay her anxiety. She found
her father and cousin (the latter having just come in from his matutinal
tour through the farm, and laden, of course, with the news of the
neighbourhood) busily engaged with cold beef and conjectures upon the
sudden flight of the gentleman resident at Curly Cahill's, which had taken
place during the night, half-an-hour previous to a domiciliary visit from
three peace-officers who came from Clonmel, and departed as they came, in
profound silence regarding the object of their expedition, upon
discovering the stranger had left. As Mr Tyrrel had not been consulted by
the authorities on this occasion, the reverend magistrate testified no
very poignant regret at the disappointment of the officers; but as his
curiosity was commensurately excited, he hazarded several ingenious
solutions of the Problem that had been paying eighteen-pence a-week for
"dry-lodgings" at Cahill's, the last four months. Lysaght was loud in his
decision that the fellow was "some coiner or poaching blackguard;" while
his uncle rather inclined to the arson and agrarian-outrage line. Poor
Katey sat behind the coffee-stand stifling her feelings in the manner she
best might, until she heard her father propose "sheep-stealing" as an
emendation of the probable offence of her banished friend, when she could
support it no longer. Little accustomed at any time to hide her emotions,
the high-spirited girl burst into tears, upbraided her respectable parent
and thick-headed cousin for their hardheartedness and want of charity,
ventured at first to disbelieve every sentence they had uttered, proceeded
to confess that she had had the pleasure of the stranger's acquaintance,
and ended by proudly introducing him (in an imaginary way) to her
astonished friends as Major Fergus Hewitt of the Second Republican Brigade
of Artillery, and Commissioner to Mononia from the Provisional Government.
Had a petard from the Major's own brigade been projected into the centre
of the little breakfast table, it could not have played the mischief more
effectually than did this stunning explosion. Lysaght Osborne, after
remaining speechless for some minutes, having helped himself to a cup of
scalding water from the urn, was compelled to retreat upon the pump
outside. His uncle, who had received so large a portion of the shell,
necessarily, too, exhibited much suffering, which his daughter at length
attempted in vain to alleviate. But the spoiled and petted Katey had for
once overcounted. There are in certain minds bursts of passion, which,
like the tempests of tropical islands, are all the more violent and
unsparing from the halcyon seasons that precede them. Such was the storm
of wrath that now for the first time descended from Tyrrel's lips upon his
daughter's head. He raved and stamped at her like a maniac, terrified her
into an acknowledgment that she had listened even to amatory
communications from the unhappy Hewitt, commanded her from his presence,
then recalled her to be reprimanded for retiring so hastily, and again
expelling her, pursued her with all but palpable fire and sword to her own
territory, where, locking her in her bed-chamber, he deposited the key in
his pocket, and set out on foot to finish the work of disaster by
annihilating the "dealer in soft goods," who had, he felt assured, been a
proximate agent in nearly ridding him of his child. His first intention
was to hold no terms whatever in his approaches upon Curly's fortalice,
or, in other words, "to make an open show of him;" but a mile's walk of a
muddy day has a sedative effect, and by the time he arrived at Cahill's Mr
Tyrrel had seen the impolicy of giving any publicity to what _he_
considered the folly of his daughter. His interview, therefore, with Curly
took place in private, and for any satisfaction that resulted from it he
might as well have placed himself in communication with the intelligent
milestone, "Clonmel XII.," which he had passed as he entered the town.
Cahill, on his part, received the first discharge of the clergyman's
indignation with a look of stolid surprise, to which one Liston, a player,
could alone have done justice. For some time he seemed at a loss to
comprehend whether the remarks had reference to his last year's arrear of
tithes, or the projected invasion from Boulogne; and when at length their
real purport _did_ overtake him, the shock was overwhelming. Well it was
for the Fugitive that he was at the moment out of reach of his estimable
host's indignation. To be "skivered," to "have every bone in his body
smashed to smithers," or "to be torn asunder as one would tear a lark,"
was the mildest of the horrible fates he had escaped for attempting to
inveigle the affections of "the darlin' young lady." As to Cahill himself
having ever perceived the remotest approach to any intimacy between the
parties, he "declared to his heart" he never saw them together in his
life; if he had, his instant duty would have propelled him to inform the
rector of it "in a shake;" so that as Mr Tyrrel saw his interview was
likely to be a fruitless one, he cut it short and departed, while Curly
was concluding a declaration, that "if he could go on his hands an' knees
to Clo'mel for his rav'rence, he'd be proud to do it."
During the rest of the day, the discomfited parent had full occupation in
his own self-upbraidings. In his boundless indulgence, he had permitted
his daughter to be perfectly mistress of her time and actions; and the
conviction now pressed upon him, that he had done so to a very culpable
and unfortunate degree. In order to remedy one false step, however, he now
took another in a contrary direction; and Katey, so long the sole object
of his tenderness and love, was henceforth to experience a share of that
hardness in his character, which the rest of the world had so largely
felt. Although he did not persist in keeping her locked up in one
apartment, he forbade her for the present to appear in his presence, and
strictly commanded that she should not, on any account, stir from the
house.
This was the step to the opposite extreme, and it had the effect that
might be expected. His daughter's sensibilities revolted at such
severity--her prepossessions in favour of the hapless person on whose
account she was subjected to it, became more confirmed; she was determined
she would not be thwarted, that, at least, she would attempt to learn some
intelligence of Hewitt's fate, and, if possible, see him once more before
they parted for ever. While, however, she awaited an opportunity of
communicating with a faithful messenger, who had sometimes conveyed notes
from him when accident prevented their meeting, she was attacked with
illness, a smart febrile indisposition--the result, no doubt, of the
mental disquietude she had undergone--and several weeks elapsed before she
was again able to reach the little conservatory, which, opening on the
lower apartments of the mansion, constituted the utmost limits of that
domestic boundary beyond which she was not permitted to proceed.