Winny Cavana, as far as her own feelings and belief were concerned,
had not made a bad morning's work of it. Hitherto she had supposed
that Kate Mulvey had forestalled her in the affections of
Emon-a-knock. The neighbors had given them to each other, and she
feared that Emon was not free from the power of her charms. With these
doubts, or almost with this belief, upon her mind, she could not have
met her father's importunities about Tom Murdock with the same
careless and happy determination which matters, as they now stood,
would enable her to do. Being assured, from her conversation with
Kate, that there was nothing between her and Emon, she could "riddle"
more easily some circumstances and expressions which, to say the least
of it, were puzzling, with a belief that these two persons were
mutually attached. Winny knew now how to reconcile them; and the view
she took of them was anything but favorable to her father's wishes or
Tom Murdock's hopes.
She could not hope, however,--perhaps she did not wish,--for any
interview with Emon just then, when her change of manner, emanating
from her knowledge of facts, might draw him out, for her heart now
told her that this would surely come. She had some fears that her
father might sound her about Emon, and she wished to be able to say
with a clear conscience that he had never spoken, or even hinted at
the subject, to her; but she was determined, nevertheless, to act
toward her father, and subsequently toward Tom Murdock, as if her
troth and Emon's had been already irrevocably plighted. She was in
hopes that if she had an interview with her father upon the subject of
Tom Murdock in the first instance, the unalterable dislike which she
would exhibit to the match might save her the horrible necessity of
going through the business with the man himself. But poor Winny had
settled matters in her own mind in an order in which they did not
occur; and it so happened that, although she thought her heart had
gone through enough excitement for one day, and that she would, for
the rest of that evening, hide beneath the happiness which was
creeping over her, yet she was mistaken.
Tom Murdock had seen her pass down the road; and hastily putting on
one of his best coats and his very best hat, he followed her,
determined to have good news in return for his father's advice; but he
was disappointed. Before he could overtake her, he perceived that she
had been joined by Kate Mulvey, and that they went coshering away
together. Of course he saw that it was "no go," as he said, for that
time; but he would watch her returning, when he could not fail to meet
her alone.
"Hang me," said he, as he saw them walking away, "if I don't think
Kate Mulvey is the finest girl of the two, and very nearly as handsome
as ever she was--some people say handsomer. If it was not for her
money, and that grand farm she'll have, I'd let her see how soon I
could get a girl in every other respect as good, if not better, than
she is. Look at the two of them: upon my faith, I think Kate is the
lightest stepper of the two."
Tom paused for a few moments, if not in his thoughts, at least in the
expression of them; for all the above had been uttered aloud. Then, as
if they had received a sudden spur which made him start, he muttered
with his usual scowl, "No, no; I'll follow it up to the death if
necessary. That whelp shall never have it to say that Tom Murdock
failed, and perhaps add, where he did not. I'll have her, by fair
means if I can; but if not, by them five crosses," and he clasped his
hands together, "she shall be mine by foul. Sure it is not possible
they are going to meet that whelp this blessed moment!" And he dogged
them at so long a distance behind that, even if their conversation had
been less interesting, they would not have been aware of his stealthy
espionage.
When they turned to return, he turned also, and was then so far before
them that, with the bushes and the bends in the road, he could not be
perceived. Thus he watched and watched, until, to his great
satisfaction, he saw them part company at Kate's house. Winny Cavana,
as we have seen, had still some distance to walk ere she reached the
lane turning up to her father's; and Kate having gone in and shut the
door, Tom strolled on, as if by mere accident, until he met
Winny on the road.
Tom was determined to be as mild and as bland, as cordial and
good-natured, as possible. He felt there had always been a sort of
undefined snappish battle between him and Winny; and he had the
honesty of mind, as well as the vanity, to blame his own harsh and
abrupt manner for this. Perhaps it arose no less from a consciousness
of his personal advantages than from a belief that in his position as
an only son, and heir to his father's interest in a rich and
profitable farm, he had no great need of those blandishments of
expression so generally requisite in making way to a young and
unhackneyed heart. He resolved, therefore, upon this occasion to give
Winny no cause to accuse him of uncouthness of manner; neither was he
inclined to be uncouth when he beheld the glowing beauty of her face,
heightened, as he thought, solely by the exercise of her walk; but not
a little increased, without his knowledge of the fact, by the new
light which had just dawned upon the horizon of her hopes.
Her heart bounced in her bosom as she saw him approach.
"Good morning, Winny," he said, holding out his hand.
"Good morrow kindly, Tom," she replied, wishing to be civil, and
taking it. She knew she was "in for it," as she expressed it to
herself; but encouraged "by the hope within her springing," and
softened by the anticipation of its fulfilment, she was determined to
be kind but firm.
"Have you been walking far, Winny? Upon my life, it seems to agree
with you. It has improved your beauty, Winny, if that was possible."
"Tom, don't flatter me; you're always paying me compliments, and I
often told you that I did not like it. Beside, you did not let me
answer your question until you begin at your old work. I walked about
a mile of the road with Kate Mulvey."
"Kate Mulvey is a complete nice girl. You are not tired, Winny, are
you?"
"Ah, then, what would tire me? is it a mile of a walk, and the road
under my feet? I could walk to _Boher-na-Milthiogue_ and back this
minute."
By this time they had come to the end of the lane turning up to
Rathcash House.
"I'm glad to find you are not tired, Winny. You may as well come on
toward the cross; I have something to say to you."
"And welcome, Tom; what is it?"
Winny felt that the thing was coming, and she wished to appear as
careless and unconscious as possible. When she recollected all Kate
Mulvey had said to her, she was just in the humor to have it over.
Upon reflection, too, she was not sorry that it should so happen
before the grand passage between her and her father upon the same
subject. She could the more easily dispose of the case with him,
having already disposed of it with Tom himself. She therefore went on,
past the end of her own lane; and Tom, taking this for an unequivocal
token in his favor, was beginning to get really fond of her--at least
he thought so.
"Well, Winny, I'm very glad I happened to meet you, and that you seem
inclined to take a walk with me; for to tell you the truth, Winny, I
can't help thinking of you."
"Perhaps you don't try, Tom."
"True for you, Winny dear; I wouldn't help thinking of you if I could,
and I couldn't if I would."
"Is that the way with you, Tom?"
But Winny did not smile or look at him, as he had hoped she would have
done.
"You know it is, Winny dear; but I can keep the truth, in plain
English, from you no longer."
"See that now! Ah, then, Tom, I pity you."
And Tom could not tell from her manner, or from the tone of her voice,
whether she was in earnest or only joking. He preferred the
former.
"Well, Winny Cavana, if you knew how much I love you, you would surely
take pity on me, my own _colleen dhass_."
"Faith, Tom, I believe it's in earnest you are, sure enough."
"In earnest! Yes, Winny, by the bright sky over me--and it is not
brighter than your own eyes--I am in earnest! It is a long day now
since I first took to loving you, though it was only of late you might
have picked it out of my looks. Ah, Winny dear, if you hadn't a
penny-piece but yourself, I would have spoken to you long ago. But
there was a great deal of talk among the neighbors about the joining
of them two farms together, and I was afraid you might think--"
"I understand. You were afraid I might think it was my money and the
farm you were after, and not myself. Was not that it, Tom?"
"Just so, Winny. But I am indeed in earnest, and for yourself alone,
Winny dear; and I'm willing to prove my words by making you my wife,
and mistress of all I have coming Shraftide, God willing." And he took
her by the hand.
She withdrew it at once, after a slight struggle, and replied, "Tom
Murdock, put such a thing totally out of your head, for it can never
be--never, by the same oath you swore just now, and that is the blue
heaven above me!" And she turned back toward the lane.
"I cross, Winny. Don't say that. I know that your father and mine
would both be willing for the match. As to what your father would do
for you, Winny _mavourneen_, I don't care a _boughalawn lui_; for I'm
rich enough without a cross of his money or his land. My own father
will make over to me by lawful deed, the day you become my wife, his
house and furniture, together with the whole of his land and cattle.
Your father, I know, Winny, would do the same for you, for he has but
yourself belonging to him; and although your fortune or your land has
nothing to say to my love, yet, Winny, dear, between us, if you will
consent to my prayer, for it is nothing less, there's few grandees in
the country could compare to you,--I'll say nothing for myself, Winny
dear, only say the word."
"No, Tom, I'll say no word but what I'm after saying; and you are only
making matters worse, talking of grandeur and riches that way. You
would only be striving at what you would not be able for, nor allowed
to keep up, Tom, and as for myself, I'd look well, wouldn't I? stuck
up on a new sidecar, and a drawn bonnet and feathers, coming down the
lane of a Sunday, and the neighbors thronging to mass,--aping my
betters, and getting myself and yourself laughed at. Devil a one, Tom,
but they'd call you Lord _Boher-na-Milthiogue_. No, Tom; put it out of
your head; that is my first and last word to you." And she hastened
her step.
"No, Winny, you won't leave me that way, will you? By all the books
that were ever shut and opened, you may make what you please of me.
I'll never ask to put yourself or myself a pin's-point beyond what we
always were, either in grandeur or anything else. But wouldn't it be a
fine thing, Winny dear, to have our children able to hold up their
heads with the best in the county, in a manner?"
"Ay, in a manner, indeed. No, Tom; they would never be anything but
the Murdocks of Rathcashmore--grandchildren of ould Mick Murdock and
ould Ned Cavana, the common farmers."
"And what have you to say against old Mick Murdock?" exclaimed Tom,
beginning to feel that his suit was hopeless, and flaming up inwardly
in the spirit which was most natural to him.
"Nothing indeed, Tom; you need not be so angry, I meant no offence; I
said as much against my own father as against yours, if there was
anything against either. But we must soon part now, Tom, and let
us part friends at all events, living as we do within a stone's-throw
of each other." She held out her hand, but he took it coldly and
loosely. He felt that his game was up.
"Take my advice, Tom Murdock"--this was the second time she had found
it necessary to overcome her antipathy to pronounce the name--"take
my advice, and never speak to me again upon the subject. Sure, there's
many a fine handsome girl would be glad to listen to you; and I'll now
ask you one question before we part. Wouldn't it be better and fitter
for you to bestow yourself and your land upon some handsome young girl
who has nothing of her own, and was, maybe, well inclined for you, and
to rise her up to be independent, than to be striving to force
yourself and it upon them that doesn't want your land, and cannot care
for yourself? Why don't you look about you? There's many a girl in the
parish as handsome, and handsomer, than I am, that would just jump at
you."
Winny had no sooner uttered these latter words than she regretted
them. She did not wish Tom Murdock to know that she had overheard him.
She was glad however to perceive that, in his anger, he had not
recognized them as a quotation from his conversation with his father
at the gate.
There was a silence now for a minute or two. Tom's blood was 'up; his
hopes of success were over, and he was determined to speak his mind in
an opposite direction.
"Have I set you thinking, Tom?" said Winny, half timidly.
"I'm d--d but you have, Winny Cavana; and I'll answer your question
with one much like it. And would not it be better and fitter for
_you_--of course it would--to bestow yourself and your fortune and your
land upon some handsome young fellow that has nothing but his day's
wages, and was well inclined for you, and to rise him up out of
poverty, than to spoil a good chance for a friend by joining yours to
them that has enough without it? Why didn't you follow up your first
question with that, Winny Cavana?" And he stopped short, enjoying the
evident confusion he had caused.
Winny thought, too, for a few moments in silence. She was considering
the probability of Tom Murdock's having overheard her conversation
with Kate Mulvey from behind some hedge. But the result of her
calculations was that it was impossible.
She was right. It was a mere paraphrase of her own question to him,
and only shows how two clever people may hit upon the same idea, and
express it in nearly the same language. And the question was prompted
by his suspicions in the quarter already intimated.
"Yes, I see how it is," he exclaimed, breaking the silence, and giving
way to his ungovernable temper. "But, by the hatred I bear to that
whelp, that shall never be, at all events. I'll go to your father this
moment, and let him know what's going on--"
"And who do you dare to call 'a whelp,' Tom Murdock? If it be Edward
Lennon, let me tell you that his little finger is worth your whole
head and heart--body and bones together."
"There, there--she acknowledges it. But I'll put a spoke in that
whelp's wheel,--for it was him I called a whelp, since you must
know,--see if I don't; so let him look out, that's all."
"I have acknowledged nothing, Tom Murdock. A word beyond common
civility never passed between Edward Lennon and myself; and take care
how you venture to interfere between my father and me. You have got
your answer, and I have sworn to it. You have no right to interfere
further."
By this time they had reached the end of the lane again; and Winny,
with her heart on fire, and her face in a flame, hurried to the house.
Fortunately, her father had not returned from the fields, and
rushing to her own room, she locked the door, took off her bonnet and
cloak, and "threw herself" (I believe that is the proper expression)
upon the bed. Perhaps a sensation novelist would add that she "burst
into an agony of tears."