A vast sunlit landscape under a smiling April sky--a landscape beyond
the uses of mere painters with their tubes and brushes and camp-stools,
where leagues of mountain ranges melted away into the shimmering haze
of distance, and where the myriad armlets of the blue Atlantic in view,
winding themselves about their lovers, the headlands, and placidly
nursing their children, the islands, marked as on a map the coastwise
journeys of a month--stretched itself out before the gaze of young
Bernard O’Mahony, of Houghton County, Michigan--and was scarcely thanked
for its pains.
The young man had completed four-fifths of the ascent of Mount Gabriel,
from the Dunmanus side, and sat now on a moss-capped boulder, nominally
meditating upon the splendors of the panorama spread out before him, but
in truth thinking deeply of other things. He had not brought a gun, this
time, but had in his hand a small, brand-new hammer, with which, from
time to time, to point the shifting phases of his reverie, he idly
tapped the upturned sole of the foot resting on his knee.
From this coign of vantage he could make out the white walls and
thatches of at least a dozen hamlets, scattered over the space of thrice
as many miles. Such of these as stood inland he did not observe a second
time. There were others, more distant, which lay close to the bay,
and these he studied intently as he mused, his eyes roaming along the
coast-line from one to another in baffled perplexity. There was
nothing obscure, about them, so far as his vision went. Everything--the
innumerable croft-walls dividing the wretched land below him into
holdings; the dark umber patches where the bog had been cut; the serried
layers of gray rock sloping transversely down the mountain-side, each
with its crown of canary-blossomed furze; the wide stretches of desolate
plain beyond, where no human habitation could be seen, yet where he knew
thousands of poor creatures lived, all the same, in moss-hidden hovels
in the nooks of the rocks; the pale sheen on the sea still further away,
as it slept in the sunlight at the feet of the cliffs--everything was as
sharp and distinct as the picture in a telescope.
But all this did not help him to guess where the young woman in the
broad, black hat lived.
Bernard had thought a great deal about this young woman during the
forty-eight hours which had elapsed since she stood up in the boat and
waved her hand to him in farewell. In a guarded way he had made some
inquiries at Goleen, where he was for the moment domiciled, but only to
learn that people on the east side of the peninsula are conscious of no
interest whatever in the people reputed to live on the west side. They
are six or eight Irish miles apart, and there is high land between them.
No one in Goleen could tell him anything about a beautiful dark young
woman with a broad, black hat. He felt that they did not even properly
imagine to themselves what he meant. In Goleen the young women are not
beautiful, and they wear shawls on their heads, not hats.
Then he had conceived the idea of investigating the west shore for
himself. On the map in his guide-book this seemed a simple enough
undertaking, but now, as he let his gaze wander again along the vast
expanse of ragged and twisted coast-line, he saw that it would mean the
work of many days.
And then--then he saw something else--a vision which fairly took his
breath away.
Along the furze-hedge road which wound its way up the mountain-side
from Dunmanus and the south, two human figures were moving toward him,
slowly, and still at a considerable distance. One of these figures was
that of a woman, and--yes, it was a woman!--and she wore, a hat--as like
as could be to that broad-brimmed, black hat he had been dreaming of.
Bernard permitted himself no doubts. He was of the age of miracles. Of
course it was _she!_
Without a moment’s hesitation he slid down off his rocky perch and
seated himself behind a clump of furze. It would be time enough to
disclose his presence--if, indeed he did at all--when she had come up to
him.
No such temptation to secrecy besets us. We may freely hasten down the
mountain-side to where Kate, walking slowly and pausing from time to
time to look back upon the broadening sweep of land and sea below her,
was making the ascent of Mount Gabriel.
Poor old Murphy had been left behind, much against his will, to nurse
and bemoan his swollen ankle. The companion this time was a younger
brother of the missing Malachy, a lumpish, silent “boy” of twenty-five
or six, who slouched along a few paces behind his mistress and bore the
luncheon basket. This young man was known to all Muirisc as John Pat,
which was by way of distinguishing him from the other Johns who were
not also Patricks. As it was now well on toward nine centuries since the
good Brian Boru ordained that every Irishman should have a surname,
the presumption is that John Pat did possess such a thing, but feudal
Muirisc never dreamed of suggesting its common use. This surname had
been heard at his baptism; it might be mentioned again upon the occasion
of his marriage, though his wife would certainly be spoken of as Mrs.
John Pat, and in the end, if he died at Muirisc, the surname would be
painted in white letters on the black wooden cross set over his grave.
For all the rest he was just John Pat.
And mediaeval Muirisc, too, could never have dreamed that his age and
sex might be thought by outsiders to render him an unsuitable companion
for Miss Kate in her wanderings over the countryside. In their eyes, and
in his own, he was a mere boy, whose mission was to run errands, carry
bundles or do whatever else the people of the castle bade him do; in
return for which they, in one way or another, looked to it that he
continued to live, and even on occasion, gave him an odd shilling or
two.
“Look, now, John Pat,” said Kate, halting once more to look back;
“there’s Dunbeacon and Dun-manus and Muirisc beyant, and, may be if it
wasn’t so far, we could see the Three Castles, too; and whin we’re at
the top, we should be able to see Rosbrin and the White Castle and the
Black Castle and the strand over which Ballydesmond stood, on the other
side, as well. ’Tis my belafe no other family in the world can stand
and look down on sevin of their castles at one view.”
John Pat looked dutifully along the coast-line as her gesture commanded,
and changed his basket into the other hand, but offered no comment.
“And there, across the bay,” the girl went on, “is the land that’s
marked on the Four Masters’ map for the O’Dalys. Ye were there many’
times, John Pat, after crabs and the like. Tell me, now, did ever you or
anny one else hear of a castle built there be the O’Dalys?”
“Sorra a wan, Miss Katie.”
“There you have it! My word, the impidince of thim O’Dalys--strolling
beggars, and hedge teachers, and singers of ballads be the wayside!
’Tis in the books, John Pat, that wance there was a king of Ireland
named Hugh Dubh--Hugh the Black--and these bards so perplexed and
brothered the soul out of him wid claims for money and fine clothes and
the best places at the table, and kept the land in such a turmoil by
rayson of the scurrilous verses they wrote about thim that gave thim
less than their demands--that Hugh, glory be to him, swore not a man of
’em should remain in all Ireland. ‘Out ye go,’ says he. But thin they
raised such a cry, that a wake, kindly man--St. Columbkill that was to
be--tuk pity on ’em, and interceded wid the king, and so, worse luck,
they kept their place. Ah, thin, if Hugh Dugh had had his way wid ’em
’t would be a different kind of Ireland we’d see this day!”
“Well, this Hugh Dove, as you call him”--spoke up a clear, fresh-toned
male voice, which was not John Pat’s--“even he couldn’t have wanted a
prettier Ireland than this is, right here in front of us!”
Kate, in vast surprise, turned at the very first sound of this strange
voice. A young man had risen to his feet from behind the furze hedge,
close beside her, his rosy-cheeked face wreathed in amiable smiles. She
recognized the wandering O’Ma-hony from Houghton County, Michigan, and
softened the rigid lines into which her face had been startled, as a
token of friendly recognition.
“Good morning,” the young man added, as a ceremonious afterthought.
“Isn’t it a lovely day?”
“You seem to be viewing our country hereabouts wid great complateness,”
commented Kate, with a half-smile, not wholly free from irony. There
really was no reason for suspecting the accidental character of the
encounter, save the self-conscious and confident manner in which the
young man had, on the instant, attached himself to her expedition. Even
as she spoke, he was walking along at her side.
“Oh, yes,” he answered, cheerfully, “I’m mixing up business and
pleasure, don’t you see, all the while I’m here--and really they get so
tangled up together every once in a while, that I can’t tell which
is which. But just at this moment--there’s no doubt about it
whatever--pleasure is right bang-up on top.”
“It _is_ a fine, grand day,” said Kate, with a shade of reserve. The
frankly florid compliment of the Occident was novel to her.
“Yes, simply wonderful weather,” he pursued. “Only April, and here’s the
skin all peeling off from my nose.”
Kate could not but in courtesy look at this afflicted feature. It was a
short good-humored nose, with just the faintest and kindliest suggestion
of an upward tilt at the end. One should not be too serious with the
owner of such a nose.
“You have business here, thin?” she asked. “I thought you were looking
at castles--and shooting herons.”
He gave a little laugh, and held up his hammer as a voucher.
“I’m a mining engineer,” he explained: “I’ve been prospecting for a
company all around Cappagh and the Mizzen Head, and now I’m waiting to
hear from London what the assays are like. Oh, yes--that reminds me--I
ought to have asked before--how is the old man--the chap we had to carry
to the boat? I hope his ankle’s better.”
“It is, thank you,” she replied.
He chuckled aloud at the recollections which the subject suggested.
“He soured on me, right from the start, didn’t hee?” the young man went
on. “I’ve laughed a hundred times since, at the way he chiseled me
out of my place in the boat--that is to say, _some_ of the time I’ve
laughed--but--but then lots of other times I couldn’t see any fun in it
at all. Do you know,” he continued, almost dolefully, “I’ve been hunting
all over the place for you.”
“I’ve nothing to do wid the minerals on our lands,” Kate answered. “’T
is a thrushtee attinds to all that.”
“Pshaw! I didn’t want to talk minerals to _you_.”
“And what thin?”
“Well--since you put it so straight--why--why, of course--I wanted to
ask you more about our people, about the O’Mahonys. You seemed to be
pretty well up on the thing. You see, my father died seven or eight
years ago, so that I was too young to talk to him much about where he
came from, and all that. And my mother, her people were from a different
part of Ireland, and so, you see--”
“Ah, there’s not much to tell now,” said Kate, in a saddened tone. “They
were a great family once, and now are nothing at all, wid poor me as the
last of the lot.”
“I don’t call that ‘nothing at all,’ by a jugful,” protested Bernard,
with conviction.
Kate permitted herself a brief cousinly smile.
“All the same, they end with me, and afther me comes in the O’Dalys.”
Lines of thought raised themselves on the young man’s forehead and ran
down to the sunburnt nose.
“How do you mean?” he asked, dubiously.
“Are you--don’t mind my asking--are you going to marry one of that
name?”
She shrugged her shoulders, to express repugnance at the very thought.
“I’ll marry no one; laste of all an O’Daly,” she said, firmly. Then,
after a moment’s hesitation, she decided upon a further explanation.
“I’m goin’ to take me vows at the convint within the month,” she added.
Bernard stared open-eyed at her.
“I-gad!” was all he said.
The girl’s face lightened at the sound of this exclamation, bringing
back as it did a flood of welcome memories.
“I know you by that word for a true O’Mahony,--‘an American O’Mahoney,”
she said, with eager pleasure beaming in her deep-gray eyes. She turned
to her retainer: “You remimber that same word, John Pat. Who was it used
always to be saying ‘I-gad?’”
John Pat searched the landscape with a vacuous glance.
“W’u’d it be Father Harrington?” he asked.
“Huh!” sniffed Kate, in light contempt, and turned again to the young
engineer, with a backward nod toward John Pat. “He’s an honest lad,”
she said, apologetically, “but the Lord only knows what’s inside of his
head. Ah, sir, there _was_ an O’Mahony here--‘tis twelve years now since
he sailed away; ah, the longest day Muirisc stands she ’ll not see
such another man--bold and fine, wid a heart in him like a lion, and yit
soft and tinder to thim he liked, and a janius for war and commence and
government that made Muirisc blossom like a rose. Ah, a grand man was
our O’Mahony!”
“So you live at Muirisc, eh?” asked the practical Bernard.
“’T was him used always to say ‘I-gad!’ whin things took him by
surprise,” remarked Kate, turning to study the vast downward view
attentively.
“Well I said it because _I_ was taken by surprise,” said the young man.
“What else could a fellow say, with such a piece of news as that dumped
down on him? But say, you don’t mean it, do you--_you_ going to be a
nun?”
She looked at him through luminous eyes, and nodded a grave affirmative.
Bernard walked for a little way in silence, moodily eying the hammer in
his hand. Once or twice he looked up at his companion as if to speak,
then cast down his eyes again. At last, after he had helped her to cross
a low, marshy stretch at the base of a ridge of gray rock, and to climb
to the top of the boulder--for they had left the road now and were
making their way obliquely up the barren crest--he found words to utter.
“You don’t mind my coming along with you,” he asked, “under the
circumstances?”
“I don’t see how I’m to prevint you, especially wid you armed wid a
hammer,” she said, in gentle banter.
“And I can ask you a plain question without offending you?” he went on;
and then, without waiting for an answer, put his question: “It’s just
this--I’ve only seen you twice, it’s true, but I feel as if I’d known
you for years, and, besides, we’re kind of relations--are you going to
do this of your own free will?”
Kate, for answer, lifted her hand and pointed westward toward the
pale-blue band along the distant coast-line.
“That castle you see yonder at the bridge--” she said, “’t was there
that Finghin, son of Diarmid Mor O’Mahony, bate the MacCarthys wid great
slaughter, in Anno Domini 1319.”