How Monica studies the landscape.
"Is it thrue, ma'am, what I hear, that ye'll be wantin' a maid for Miss
Monica?" asks Mrs. Reilly, the cook at Moyne, dropping a respectful
courtesy just inside the drawing-room door. "Ryan let dhrop a word to me
about it, so I made so bould, ma'am, as to come upstairs an' tell ye I
think I know a girl as will come in handy to ye."
"And who is she, Reilly?" asks Miss Priscilla anxiously.
"She's a very good girl, ma'am, an' smart, an' nate, an' I think ye'll
like her," replies cook, who, like all Irish people, finds a difficulty
in giving a direct answer to a direct question. Perhaps, too, there is a
little wiliness in her determination not to name the new servant's
parentage just at present.
"I daresay; I place great reliance upon your opinion, Reilly. But who is
she? Does she come from the village, or from one of the farms? I should
prefer the farms."
"She's as tidy as she can be," says Mrs. Reilly, amiably but still
evasively, "an' a bit of a scholard into the bargain, an' a very civil
tongue in her head. She's seventeen all out, ma'am, and never yet gave
her mother a saucy word."
"That is as it should be," says Miss Priscilla, commendingly. "You feel
a great interest in this girl, I can see. You know her well?"
"Yes, miss. She is me uncle's wife's sisther's child, an' as good a girl
as ever stepped in shoe leather."
"She is then?" asks Miss Priscilla, faintly, puzzled by this startling
relationship.
"She's that girl of the Cantys', ma'am, and as likely a colleen as ever
ye met, though I say it as shouldn't, she being kin-like," says Mrs.
Reilly, boldly, seeing her time is come.
"What! that pretty, blue-eyed child that called to see you yesterday?
She _is_ from the village, then?" with manifest distaste.
"An' what's the matther wid the village, ma'am?" By this time Mrs.
Reilly has her arms akimbo, and has an evident thirst for knowledge full
upon her.
"But I fear she is flighty and wild, and not at all domesticated in any
way."
"An' who has the face to say that, ma'am? Give me the names of her
dethractors," says Mrs. Reilly, in an awful tone, that seemed to demand
the blood of the "dethractors."
"I feel sure, Reilly," says Miss Priscilla, slowly, "that you are not
aware of the position your arms have taken. It is most unbecoming." Mrs.
Reilly's arms dropped to her sides. "And as for this girl you speak of,
I hear she is, as I say, very flighty."
"Don't believe a word of it, ma'am," says cook, with virtuous
indignation. "Just because she holds up her head a bit, an' likes a
ribbon or two, there's no holdin' the gossips down below," indicating
the village by a backward jerk of her thumb. "She's as dacent a little
sowl as you'd wish to see, an' has as nate a foot as there is in the
county. The Cantys has all a character for purty feet."
"Pretty feet are all very well in their way," says Miss Priscilla,
nodding her head. "But can she sew? and is she quiet and tractable,
and----"
"Divil a thing she can't do, ma'am, axin' yer pardon," says Mrs. Reilly,
rather losing herself in the excitement of the moment. "Just thry her,
ma'am, an' if ye don't like her, an' if Miss Monica finds even one fault
in her, just send her back to her mother. I can't say fairer nor that."
"No, indeed. Very well, Reilly, let her come up to me to-morrow; and see
that her inside clothes are all right, and let her know she must _never_
be out after dark."
"Yes, ma'am," says the triumphant Reilly, beating a hasty retreat.
Half an hour afterwards she encounters Monica upon the avenue.
"Why, where are you going, Mrs. Reilly?" asks Monica, seeing that cook
is got up in all her war-paint, regardless of expense.
"To mass first, miss," says Mrs. Reilly.
"Where's that?" asks Monica, with foreign ignorance.
"Law! to the chapel, miss," says Reilly, with an amused smile.
"But it isn't Sunday?"
"No, miss. It's a saint's day--may they be good to us!" crossing
herself. "It's different with you, miss, you see; but we poor folks, we
must say our prayers when we can, or the Virgin will dhrop us out of her
mind."
"Is your chapel pretty?" asks Monica, who has now been a week in the
country, and through very weariness feels a mad desire to talk to
somebody or anybody.
"Faix, it's lovely, miss, since Father Jerry took it in hand! There's
the finest pictures ye ever saw on the walls, an' an altar it 'ud do ye
good to look at."
"Would it? Then I'll go some day to see it," says Monica, smiling, not
knowing that her aunts would as soon let her enter a pandemonium as a
Roman Catholic chapel.
Dear old ladies! frightened by shadows, they have been bred in the
belief that the Evil One dwells beneath the shade of the Romish Church,
and will therefore surely die in it.
"Do, then, agra!" said Mrs. Reilly, who has, of course, like all the
other servants, gone down before Monica: "it's proud we'd be to see ye
there."
There is no thought of conversion in the woman's mind, you must
remember,--merely a hospitable desire to let her know she will be
welcome anywhere.
"By the same token, Miss Monica," says she, "there's something I was
near forgettin' to tell ye."
"Yes!" says Monica.
"Ye're goin' to have me uncle's wife's niece for yer own maid, miss."
"Am I? I'm glad of that," says Monica, with a native courtesy. "Is
she"--with some hesitation and a faint blush--"is she pretty, Reilly?"
"She's the purtiest girl ye ever set eyes on," says Mrs. Reilly, with
enthusiasm.
"I'm glad of _that_; I can't bear ugly people," says Monica.
"Faix, then, there's a bad time before ye wid the ould ladies," mutters
Mrs. Reilly, _sotto voce_, gathering up her cloak and stepping onwards.
She is a remarkably handsome woman herself, and so may safely deplore
the want of beauty in her betters.
Monica, turning aside, steps on a high bank and looks down towards the
village. Through the trees she can see the spire of the old cathedral
rising heavenwards. Though Rossmoyne is but a village, it still can
boast its cathedral, an ancient edifice, uncouth and unlovely, but yet
one of the oldest places of worship in Ireland.
Most of my readers would no doubt laugh it to scorn, but we who belong
to it reverence it, and point out with pride to passers by the few
quaint marks and tokens that link it to a bygone age.
There is a nave, broad and deep, comprising more than a third of the
whole building, with its old broken stone pavement, and high up, carven
upon one of its walls the head of St. Faughnan, its patron saint,--a
hideous saint, indeed, if he resembled that ancient carving. How often
have I gazed upon his unlovely visage, and wondered in my childish
fashion why the grace that comes from so divine an origin had not the
power to render his servant's face more beautiful!
In these later years they have improved (?) and modernized the old
structure. A stone pulpit, huge and clumsy, erected by subscription to
the memory of some elderly inhabitant, stands like a misshapen blot
before the altar rails; a window, too broad for its length, and
generally out of proportion, throws too much light upon the dinginess
within; the general character of the ugly old place has lost something,
but assuredly gained nothing, by these innovations. It is hard to put "a
piece of new cloth on an old garment" successfully.
The village itself stands upon a high hill; the ocean lies at its feet.
From Moyne House one can see the shimmer of the great Atlantic as it
dances beneath the sunbeams or lashes itself into furious foam under the
touch of the north wind. The coastguard station, too, stands out,
brilliant in its whitewash, a gleaming spot upon the landscape.
To the left of the station lies Ounahincha,--a long, deep line of
sea-beach that would make its fortune as a bathing place under happier
auspices and in some more appreciated clime.
Monica, looking down from her height, takes in all the beauties of the
landscape that surround her, and lets the music of the melancholy ocean
sink into her very soul.
Then she lets her eyes wander to the right, and rest with pardonable
curiosity upon Coole Castle, where dwells the ogre of her house. Above
Coole, and about two miles farther on, lies Aghyohillbeg, the residence
of Madam O'Connor, that terrible descendant of one of Ireland's kings;
whilst below, nestling among its firs and beeches, is Kilmore, where the
Halfords--a merry tangle of boys and girls--may be seen at all hours.
Then there is the vicarage, where the rector lives with his family,
which is large; and nearer to the village, the house that holds the
curate and his family, which, of course, is larger. Besides which,
Monica can just see from her vantage-ground the wooded slopes of
Durrusbeg that have lately called young Ronayne master,--a distant
cousin having died most unexpectedly and left him all his property.
+ + + + +
Six months ago, Ulic Ronayne was spoken of by anxious matrons as a wild
lad, with nothing to recommend him save his handsome face and some
naughty stories attached to his name. Now he is pronounced charming, and
the naughty stories, which indeed never had any foundation, are
discovered to have been disgraceful fabrications. Marriageable daughters
are kinder to him than words can say, and are allowed by the most
cautious mothers to dance with him as often as they choose, and even to
sit unlimited hours with him in secluded corners of conservatories
unrebuked.
Truly, O Plutus! thou art a god indeed. Thou hast outlived thy greater
brethren. Thy shrine is honored as of old!
After a last lingering glance at the distant ocean and the swelling
woods that now in Merry June are making their grandest show, Monica
jumps down from her bank again and goes slowly--singing as she
goes--towards the river that runs at the end of Moyne.
Down by its banks Moyne actually touches the hated lands of Cooles, a
slight boundary fence being all that divides one place from the other.
The river rushes eagerly past both, on its way to the sea, murmuring
merrily on its happy voyage, as though mocking at human weals and woes
and petty quarrels.
Through the waving meadows, over the little brook, past the stile,
Monica makes her way, plucking here and there the scarlet poppies, and
the blue cornflowers and daisies, "those pearled Arcturi of the earth,
the constellated flower that never sets."
The sun is tinting all things with its yellow haze, and is burning to
brightest gold the reddish tinge in the girl's hair as she moves with
dallying steps through the green fields. She is dressed in a white gown,
decked with ribbons of sombre tint, and wears upon her head a huge poky
bonnet, from which her face peeps out, half earnest, half coquettish,
wholly pure.
Her hands are bare and shapely, but a little brown; some old-fashioned
rings glisten on them. She has the tail of her gown thrown negligently
over her arm, and with her happy lips parted in song, and her eyes
serene as early dawn, she looks like that fair thing of Chaucer's, whose
"Berthe was of the womb of morning dew,
And her conception of the joyous prime."
And now the sparkling river comes in sight. Near its brink an old
boat-house may be seen fast crumbling to decay; and on the river itself
lies, swaying to and fro, a small punt in the very last stages of
decline. It is a very terrible little boat, quite at death's door, and
might have had those lines of Dante's painted upon it without libel:
"Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."
But Monica, in happy ignorance of rotting timbers, thinks only of the
joy she felt last evening when the discovery of this demoralized
treasure was made. In the mouldering boat-house she had found it, and so
had claimed it for her own.
She had told no one of her secret, not even Kit, who is, as a rule, her
prime minister, her confidante, and her shadow. She has, indeed, had
great difficulty in escaping from "her shadow" just now, but after much
diplomatic toil had managed it. To find herself upon the calm and gentle
river, to dream there her own sweet thoughts beneath the kindly shade of
the pollard willows, to glide with the stream and bask in the sunlight
_all alone_, has been her desire since yester-eve.
To-morrow, if to-day proves successful and her rowing does not fail her,
of which she has had some practice during the last two years of her
life, she will tell Kit and Terry all about it, and let them share her
pleasure. But to-day is her own.
The boat is connected with the shore by a rope tied round the stump of a
tree by most unskilful hands. Flinging her flowers into the punt, she
strives diligently to undo the knot that she herself had made the night
before, but strives in vain. The hard rope wounds her tender hands and
vexes her gentle soul.
She is still struggling with it, and already a little pained frown has
made a wrinkle on her smooth brow, when another boat shoots from under
the willows and gains the little landing-place, with its pebbly beach,
that belongs equally to Coole Castle and to Moyne.
This new boat is a tremendous improvement on our heroine's. It is the
smartest little affair possible, and as safe as a church,--safer,
indeed, as times go now. Not that there is anything very elaborate about
it, but it is freshly painted, and there are cushions in it, and all
over it a suppressed air of luxury.
Besides the cushions, there is something else in it, too,--a young man
of about six and twenty, who steps lightly on to the bank, though it is
a miracle he doesn't lose his footing and come ignominiously to the
ground, so bent is his gaze on the gracious little figure at the other
side of the boundary-fence struggling with the refractory rope.
It doesn't take any time to cross the boundary.
"Will you allow me to do that for you?" says the strange young man,
raising his hat politely, and taking the rope out of Monica's hand
without waiting for permission.