One may become accustomed to anything, even the notion of visiting a
real lord in an ancient abbey.
"We owe this to you, Maria," cried Billie ecstatically, as the motor car
climbed slowly up a wooded hill, on the summit of which stood Lord
Glenarm's Irish home.
"Remember how much I owe to you, Billie," answered Maria. "I might never
have been here now, but for you. It was the jewels you guarded so
carefully for me that furnished the funds for my trip abroad and a
year's study in Paris, before I finally began singing again in opera. I
feel that there is nothing too good for the Motor Maids and Miss
Campbell."
"That was just an act of friendship," protested Billie.
"There are not many acts of real friendship," said Maria, "and not many
young girls who would have endured what the Motor Maids endured for my
sake. Lord Glenarm has heard the whole story and I can assure you he is
as proud to know you as I am."
There is no getting around a good, substantial, sincere compliment, and
the four young girls could not conceal the pride they felt in Maria's
praises.
"They are four sweet lassies, as David Ramsay remarked," observed Miss
Campbell, and everybody smiled; for Miss Campbell often quoted David
Ramsay lately and had received two long letters from him since she had
been in the land of the Shamrock.
As they neared the top of the hill, the landscape unfolded before them
in a splendid panorama,--fields and meadows; dark splashes of green
marking forests of oak and beech trees, and here and there a thin haze
of smoke curling up from the chimney of a farm house. Toward the west
was the soft blue expanse of the sea.
"They do say that the good Saint Patrick preached the gospel once on
this hillside and converted a king and hundreds of his people to
Christianity," Maria was saying, when they heard a voice calling
excitedly:
"Billie, Elinor, Nancy, Mary!" and Beatrice Colchester dashed up. She
was riding a fat gray pony which was puffing indignantly like an
apoplectic old gentleman who had been made to climb a steep hill against
his will.
Behind her rode Lord Glenarm on a hunting-horse, and barking and yelping
at his heels were half a dozen dogs.
It was all very jolly and natural,--no pomp and ceremony about visiting
a real lord who was as simple and unaffected as Billie's own father. At
last they drew up at the gate of the Abbey, and for once in his useful
life the "Comet" seemed decidedly out of place and inappropriate.
The left wing of Castle Abbey was a picturesque pile of crumbling ruins
overhung with ivy and climbing rose bushes. Here had been the chapel of
the monks and the cloistered walk wherein they had paced up and down
telling their beads. In this quadrangle, also, had been the original
garden of the monastery and a garden it still was, carefully tended by
an aged Irish gardener and his assistants, and filled with bright masses
of old-fashioned flowers. The other wing of the Abbey, where had once
been many of the cells and the monks' refectory or dining-hall, was now
the dwelling place of Lord Glenarm for at least six weeks in the year.
"Uncle says that one wing is a 'reflectory' and the other is a
'refectory,'" Beatrice informed the four girls, while she conducted them
on a flying trip over the entire place. "The old cloisters are the
reflectory and the refectory is now our living-room, a sort of
dining-room and drawing-room combined."
The ancient dining-hall, however, was quite large enough for all its
present purposes and could have accommodated a good-sized household with
ease. The old carved black oak dining-table was lost in the vastness of
the apartment. Suits of armor were ranged along the walls at intervals,
and Billie was amazed to find that one or two of them were not a whit
taller than she was herself. From a gallery running around two sides of
the hall hung several faded battle flags. There were a few portraits on
the walls of dark-haired, rather fierce-looking knights and their
beguiling ladies, also dark-haired with gentle blue eyes. The only
modern object in the entire room was a grand piano at the far end under
a stained glass window.
"Beatrice, do we sleep in cells?" demanded Mary Price.
"Yes," answered the English girl. "There are dozens of them opening on
the galleries. They are just as they were centuries ago, rather small
for sleeping-rooms, but, as Uncle says, it's quite like camping out to
come up here for a visit; and the cells are much larger than tents."
"Are they haunted?" asked Mary.
Beatrice smiled mysteriously.
"People claim to have seen things," she said, "but I never did. Almost
every castle in Ireland has its banshee, you know, but it only appears
before a death in the family."
"And what is the banshee of Castle Abbey?" the four girls asked in an
excited chorus.
"Now, if I tell you," exclaimed Beatrice, her blue eyes twinkling with
fun, "you will be afraid to go to bed alone, and you know there is only
one bed to a cell and it's a very small bed indeed!"
"Oh, please, please tell!" they cried.
"Well," said Beatrice, "the banshee of Castle Abbey isn't anybody at
all. It's a noise----"
"A what?"
"It's a bell and it rings to announce an approaching death in the
family."
"Where is the bell?"
"It is in the belfry of the old tower. But there is simply no way to
climb to the top if anybody wanted to. No one can remember when steps
have been there."
"Did you ever hear it?" asked Mary.
"No, indeed, and I hope I never shall, but the night Grandpapa died in
London, old Michael, the gardener, claims to have heard it ring out
three times."
It all sounded very remote and interesting to the four young Americans,
who had been brought up in a place that did not antedate a hundred
years, and still had once seemed old enough to them.
"Why don't they take down the bell?" asked Mary.
"Oh, there's a superstition about that, too, and an old verse:
"_'The hour the iron bell doth fall_
_Brings trouble to Kilkenty Hall;_
_If hatred turns to love before,_
_Trouble will not cross the door._'"
"What does that mean?" inquired Mary.
"Nobody has any more idea than you have. It is just an old saying that
has always been connected with the bell. Kilkenty Hall, you know, is the
home of my other uncle, the Duke. You see, the Hall always goes to the
eldest son and the Abbey to the second son for his lifetime."
"Suppose there isn't any second son?" persisted Mary.
"But there always has been," laughed Beatrice.
"Then little Arthur will be master of the Abbey some day," thought
Billie, but as Beatrice had kept well away from the subject of her lost
cousin, the girls were careful not to mention his name. Billie's mind
was filled with vague suspicions and conjectures still too lost in the
mists of uncertainty to put into words. Suppose, for instance, she
sought out the terrible Duke of Kilkenty and told him--well, what would
she tell him? Would it be a friendly act to bring certain disaster on
the heads of probably innocent people just because she had seen a pair
of small-sized man's slippers and a child's book of animals in a
tenement house room in Edinburgh? Wherever little Arthur was, no doubt
he was happier than he had ever been before.
All these thoughts were flying through her head, while she sipped her
tea in the old garden late that afternoon. After tea, the five young
girls went for a walk, Miss Campbell repaired to her room for a nap, and
Maria and Lord Glenarm remained in the garden chatting.
In the valley back of the Abbey, Beatrice pointed out to them Kilkenty
Hall, which was comparatively modern, having been burned to the ground
and rebuilt within the last hundred years. Because it was like walking
on a soft carpet to step on the springy turf and because also the air
was cool and sweet, the friends joined hands and ran down the hillside
laughing and shrieking at the tops of their voices. At the foot,
following a path through a woodland, they presently came out near a
little village, picturesque enough at a distance, but wretched in the
extreme on closer view.
"These are the tenants of the Hall," Beatrice explained. "The Duke has
always detested Ireland and he won't do anything for his Irish tenants."
"What a shame," exclaimed Billie. Everything she heard of this man
painted him in more detestable colors.
As Beatrice led the way down the village street, ragged women and
children, barefooted and unkempt, bobbed and courtesied to her. The
alley, for it was hardly broader than one, widened at length into a
broad sweep of green, on one side of which stood a very old church and,
adjoining that, a small stone cottage in a garden. A priest was standing
at the garden gate intently watching three men at work on the green with
a measuring line and surveyor's instruments.
"Good-day to you, my lady," cried the old priest, whose jovial round
face was wreathed in smiles. "And have you or your uncle heard some of
the good news that's floating about the valley this day?"
"Why, no, Father O'Toole, what is it?" asked Beatrice surprised.
"Thanks be to God and all his holy saints, our prayers have been
answered, and His Grace is turning the green into a new model village
for his tenants. There's to be a schoolhouse on it, your ladyship. It's
myself that has seen the plans with my own eyes, and, what is more, the
church is to be rebuilt and no expense to be spared, and the rectory
greatly enlarged."
"Why, Father O'Toole, I can't believe you!" cried Beatrice. "It seems
too good to be true."
"'Tis true, though, my lady, and more to come. The O'Connors this very
morning returned to their old home and word is out that Feargus may come
back and no fear of arrest at all, at all."
Here was news, indeed, for the Motor Maids!
"But, Father O'Toole," cried Beatrice, "what has happened to His Grace?"
She had never called him uncle in all her life.
"It's maybe a penance to bring back the little Lord Arthur," said the
good priest; "and I'm thinkin', too," he added in a lower voice, "the
lad might be better off where he is, poor child. He wouldn't have lasted
another year under that blackguard of a doctor."
The walk was cut short by the astounding news of the Duke of Kilkenty's
penance. Beatrice could scarcely wait to tell it to her uncle, and the
girls presently left the two together in the garden while they retired
to their rooms to rest before dinner.
This formal meal was served at eight o'clock and Miss Campbell had
earnestly adjured them to wear their very best, having overheard Lord
Glenarm say that some of the county people were driving over for dinner.
"What luxurious lives these people lead," she had exclaimed to Billie,
"and they call themselves poor! Think of their servants and their
housekeepers and their grand old homes. I suppose our little American
homes are like so many rabbit holes to them after their fine castles and
their grand city mansions."
"There are plenty of little rabbit holes over here, too," answered
Billie, recalling the abode of Miss Felicia Rivers and the rickety
houses in the Old Town at Edinburgh.
But who could think of rabbit holes at eight o'clock that evening, when
with fluttering hearts the Motor Maids peeped over the balcony and saw
below the great table, shining with silver and damask, on one side of a
long screen always set up for meals, and on the other side some half
dozen new guests added to the party? There was Beatrice in a simple
white muslin, talking and laughing with a ruddy-faced, delightful young
man with a budding mustache; there was Lord Glenarm, looking every inch
the nobleman he was, conversing easily with the mother of the
ruddy-faced young person; and there was Maria Cortinas, beautiful enough
to be any lord's lady, surrounded by a circle of admiring people.
Was it all a dream, they asked themselves. Were they really four humble
little West Haven High School girls on a tour of the British Isles? And
was that Maria, the daughter of old Mrs. Ruggles, who kept the Sailor's
Inn near West Haven? But it was all real enough, indeed, and presently
Billie found herself seated next to a jovial gentleman with side
whiskers who asked her a hundred questions about their motor trip across
the continent. It seemed that their fame had gone before them, and the
four girls were the objects of much polite and well-bred curiosity.
It was midnight before the last carriage departed. Then, each with a
bedroom candlestick, they filed along the ghostly corridor to bed.
"I am that tired that the ghosts of the good fathers, if they walk
to-night, will have to make a lot of noise to wake me up," thought
Billie, stretching herself in the comfortable little bed. "What would
the monks think if they could see their cells now," her thoughts
continued, "with curtains at the windows and rugs on the floors and
every other cell turned into a luxurious dressing-room? They would say
'_vanitas vanitatum_,' I suppose."
Then she sank into a deep sleep.
As the night wore on and the darkness outside deepened, because the moon
had set and the sky was overcast, Billie had a dream. She thought that
one of the good fathers was leading her by the hand through the long
corridors, across the garden and into the ruined chapel on the other
side. Many monks were in the church, chanting in a deep chorus over and
over again the same words: "_Vanitas vanitatum._" The wind howled and
the air was damp and chill. Suddenly one of the monks held up his hand
for silence; they crouched on their knees and a bell boomed out in the
stillness.
Billie was wide awake in an instant. She sat up in bed and listened. The
ancient abbey was filled with ghostly sounds. The rain beat against the
window and the wind howled mournfully. It seemed to be saying "_Vanitas
vanitatum._"
"That's what I thought was the chanting of the monks," she said to
herself. "I suppose I had one of my usual nightmares."
Back under the covers she crept, glad of the warmth and comfort after
that gruesome dream.