THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
IT was a small and desolate room, with bare rafters overhead, and the
wind rattling fiercely at the old casements, while Denis was trying
to keep a sickly fire of green wood alive upon the hearth. The floor
was of stone, cold and bare, save for a few rushes strewn beside the
truckle bed, and there was no light but that from the sputtering logs
and one poor taper; there were only two chairs and one small table in
the room beside the bed, but all was scrupulously clean, though barren
and chilly beyond description.
And on the bed lay Lord Clancarty, his cheeks flushed with fever,
his hair dishevelled, his eyes shining, and his hands ever and anon
clutching at the coverlet fiercely whenever any chance movement gave
him pain.
If the aspect of the place was poor, it was also desolately lonely;
no sound reached their ears but the rustling of the wind in the tree
tops without and the creaking of the old building itself. It was an
old farmhouse, the dwelling of the widow of a Jacobite—for England
was honey-combed with conspiracies and counter-conspiracies—and this
woman, a rigid believer in the old order of things, had the courage
to take the wounded nobleman under her roof; she could give him
shelter, but as for comforts she had none to give. Here, too, with
her connivance, Denis smuggled a young surgeon, one of the faithful,
to tend the wound that the famous Radcliffe had dressed with his own
hands on the field. The young practitioner shared the doubts of his
senior, and shook his head gravely; the wounded man might live, but he
was quite as likely to die. So, with these gloomy predictions, and the
still more gloomy aid of the solemn visaged widow, Denis was left with
almost an empty purse to guard and nurse the feverish patient.
Stricken with profound anxieties, the faithful Irishman fed the fire,
kneeling before it, his back toward his master, to hide a face that
betrayed his feelings too plainly. On the table lay Lord Clancarty’s
cloak and plumed hat and the hilt of the sword that had served him so
ill and there, too, was his pistol primed and ready for use. He lay
watching Denis, fever flushed but in his senses, though more than once
that night his mind had wandered.
The stillness of the place was broken by the stamping of a horse’s feet
at no great distance.
“What is that?” the wounded man asked sharply.
“Our horses, sir,” replied Denis, still kneeling at the hearth;
“they’re in the shed outside, me lord, an’ indade ’tis fitter fer thim
than fer yer lordship here.”
Clancarty smiled sadly. “It matters little, Denis, and is like to
matter less. How far are we from Newmarket?”
“Not far, sir, this house stands off th’ road ter Bishop-Stortford,
a half mile loike from the road, in a patch of timber; a very pretty
hiding-place—I’ve hed me eye on it fer a couple of wakes.”
“You thought I would come to this, then? Ah, Denis, I fear you know me
too well, old rogue!”
“Indade, sir, I’ve known ye from a boy in Munster, an’ I nivir knew
ye to take care of yerself. Faix, it’s a broken head ye’ll be afther
havin’ more often thin a whole wan.”
Clancarty laughed softly, his feverish eyes on the fire.
“Denis,” he said dreamily, “do you remember the wild rides over the
green fields of Ireland?”
Denis bent low over the hearth fanning the blaze, fighting the damp and
the green wood.
“I’m afther remimbering, yer lordship,” he replied hoarsely.
“It’s a long way back, to those days,” said Lord Clancarty; “the skies
were blue then. I’m a poor devil now, Denis, and like to die—” his
voice died away, more from faintness than emotion, and after awhile he
asked for water.
Denis rose and gave it to him, lifting his head as gently as a woman,
and as he took the glass from the wounded man’s lips he turned his own
head away—but not soon enough, a hot tear fell on the earl’s forehead.
“Saint Patrick, Denis, I must be far gone when you weep!” Clancarty
said, touched in spite of himself, “I did not know you could, you old
heart of oak!”
Denis brushed the moisture from his eyes.
“I remimber an ould man in County Kerry, me lord, who nivir shid a tear
until his wife was coming out of a fit, and thin he took on loike anny
wild gossoon. He’d bin gitting ready fer a wake an’ hed ter give it all
up, and whin his neighbors accused him of it, he said he nivir wept
unless a person was gitting well, an’ thin he wept fer joy—’tis so
with me, me lord.”
Lord Clancarty smiled, turning his face to the wall. He was deeply
touched at the simple fellow’s devotion. There was silence for awhile;
the fire crackled and leaped up the chimney, lighting up the room just
in time, for the single taper sputtered and went out.
It was at this time that Lady Clancarty and Sir Edward were searching
the streets of Newmarket.
Lord Clancarty turned his head wearily and looking down at his own hand
remembered.
“Denis,” he said in a low tone, “did you give the ring and the message
to my lady?”
Denis had his back to him again, his square sturdy outline between him
and the blaze.
“Yes, me lord,” he answered stolidly.
“And she?” the fever burned on Clancarty’s cheeks, his eyes shone; “how
did she take it?”
“Very quiet loike, me lord,” replied Denis bluntly, “she wanted to
know what hed happened, but I dared not tell her ladyship.”
“She inquired, though? she was anxious?” asked the earl eagerly.
Denis was stubborn. “Me lord, she asked what hed happened—nothing
more. She’s a great lady, sir, and as proud as anny quane.”
The wounded lover sighed and turned again to the wall: here was no
consolation, and in his bitterness he called her heartless. The
desolate place, his almost exhausted resources, his painful wound,
all combined to shake even his proud resolution; he was lonely and he
was desperate. In his fevered brain rose many visions of Betty, the
beautiful, the careless, charming Betty that he had known. What heart
there was beneath that beautiful exterior he did not know; but this he
knew—he was an outcast from home and friends, a desperate and forsaken
man and dangerously wounded. He was no novice in affairs of this kind
and knew well the nature of his hurt and what lack of care would do
for it. His life passed in quick review before him; its ambitions,
its wild adventures, its dark spots of reckless dissipations, and now
this end—this wretched, thwarted, forsaken end—creeping away like a
wounded beast to die alone. It might well bring bitterness to so proud
and daring a spirit as his. He cursed his fate, but it is to be feared
that he did not pray. His religion had been a matter of convenience,
like the religion of many gay young soldiers of his time. It failed him
now and she failed him too,—the woman who had taken such possession of
his heart and swept him out of the common way into a higher passion.
He loved her—and she despised him. He groaned sharply as if in bodily
pain; the faithful Irishman was at his side in a moment, but he waved
him away. His soul was wrestling with despair and with hunger for
the sight of her. He, a strong man and a proud one, in that hour of
physical agony and loneliness, longed to see her, to hear her voice
before he died—if die he must, yet he would have died rather than send
for her—such was his pride.
The night wore on; the horses stamping restlessly in the shed, the wind
increasing in violence until the old house creaked, quivering like a
broken reed. Denis sat staring at the fire, his honest face distorted
with grief and now and then a slow tear creeping down his furrowed
cheek. The wound was a desperate one, and counting all the things
against the patient,—exposure, lack of nursing and food and comforts,
the man did not believe he would live, and he loved him like a son; he
had carried him on his shoulder as a baby; he had taught the little
lad to sit his horse and use his sword, and he had followed him in
Ireland, in France, in Flanders, through weal and woe—to this! Poor
Denis, he too had his night of tears and lamentations.
Toward midnight Clancarty’s mind wandered a little and he babbled like
a child of the green turf of Ireland and the streams where he had
paddled barefoot, and of the wild birds overhead. He talked of battles
and sieges and at last of her, of Betty, and Denis cursed her in his
heart as their evil angel, the lodestar that had drawn the young earl
to his fate. Now and then through the night the wounded man called for
water, but toward morning he fell asleep, and Denis dropped on his
knees, praying to all the saints to send healing on the wings of that
fitful slumber.
But with the night the delirium and the weakness of spirit passed
together. At daybreak the earl opened his eyes and looked quietly into
Denis’s worn face. He smiled, the old reckless smile, if somewhat
weaker and paler than usual. He groped feebly under his pillow and
handed the man his purse.
“A small store, Denis,” he said, “but ’tis yours now, to do with as
you can. If I die—ah, you must even bury me here, I suppose, though I
long for Irish soil to cover me! For the rest—go home, Denis, take no
risks for my sake. Faith, a dead man will not need you.”
Denis said nothing, he could not; he stood staring at the floor.
Lord Clancarty laughed a little bitterly.
“Go tend the horses, man,” he said; “you saw Neerwinden—why do you
stand there like a woman? Death comes but once.”
“Ah, my lord,” said Denis, and the tears ran down his cheeks, “ye shall
not die.”
Clancarty turned his face to the wall lest he, too, should show
weakness.
“My dark Rosaleen,
My fond Rosaleen!
Would give me life and soul anew,
A second life, a soul anew!
My dark Rosaleen!”
he murmured faintly,
“My own Rosaleen!”
So Denis went to tend the horses, drawing his sleeve across his eyes
and hating Lady Clancarty from the bottom of his simple devoted heart.
“The foine lady,” he muttered; “faix—I’d loike ter make her shid a
tear or two—fer all her bright eyes an’ her red cheeks—th’ heartless
colleen!”