When Thady reached the end of the avenue, where the fracas had taken place between himself and Keegan, he met Pat Brady.
As I fear that this talented young man must by this time be subject to heavy suspicions; that his faith and honesty must be greatly doubted; and as, even with those who may still look upon him as a trusty servant, it would be impossible to keep up the delusion much longer, I may as well now make his character no longer doubtful, by explaining some passages which had occurred in his life during the last few months.
In the first place, however, we must return for a short time to Mr. Keegan.
It will be remembered that this gentleman was the son-in-law of Larry Macdermot’s creditor, Mr. Flannelly; and it had been arranged between the two worthy relations that if, by some law-craft or other means, Keegan could obtain possession of the estate of Ballycloran in payment of the debt due by the proprietor, it should become his, Keegan’s, property.
Now, this gentleman had long looked forward to the day when he should be able to describe himself as Hyacinth Keegan, Esq., of Ballycloran — having been aware that, after his father-in-law’s death, all right in the property would become his own; but since he had induced the old man to make a gift instead of a legacy of the debt, his passion to become an estated gentleman had hourly increased. An ambitious man in his own way was Hyacinth Keegan: he had first longed to obtain admission into the more decent society of Carrick-on-Shannon — that he had some time since achieved; he then sought to mix among the second-rate country gentlemen; and by making himself useful to them, by plausibility, by some degree of talent, and by great effrontery, he had become sufficiently intimate with many of them to shake hands with them at race-courses and ordinaries, and to talk of them to others as “Blake,” “Brown,” and “Jones.” To some few, who now usually called him “Hyacinth,” and occasionally invited him to drinking parties at their houses, he had lent small sums of money on good security; and now he was looking to obtain the sub-shrievalty of the county, and to be Hyacinth Keegan, Esq., of Ballycloran.
Since the immediate probability of realizing this brilliant vision had occurred to him, he had left nothing undone which could, as he thought, lead to its completion. From the constant business which he had with Thady, he pretty well knew all the difficulties of the Macdermots, and the great poverty of their house; and he had observed how completely Pat Brady was in young Macdermot’s confidence. He also knew that if any direct legal steps were necessary in selling the estate under the mortgage, or if any underhand scheming should be required to drive the Macdermots into further difficulties, Pat Brady could, and probably would — for a consideration — give him his zealous cooperation. There were also other reasons why he desired the assistance of our friend Pat. It was a part of Mr. Keegan’s daily practice to obtain what information he could of the habits of those with whom he was likely to form any connection; and it was generally believed through the county, that he could usually tell those who were, and who were not, guilty of the common crimes of the times — illicit distillation, and secret conspiracies among the poor to injure their superiors, or to redress their fancied wrongs. It was from his accurate information on these points that he was usually employed in their defence when they were brought to trial, and that he had been able to detect and punish those by whom he had himself been attacked. This, moreover, as his character became known, had materially led to his own safety; for the boys knew that he knew everything through the county, and thus had learnt to become afraid of him.
He felt, therefore, that as it was probable that Ballycloran would become his own, Pat Brady’s assured services might be of great utility; and he found but little difficulty in obtaining them. Pat was clever enough to foresee that the days of the Macdermots were over, and that it was necessary for him to ingratiate himself with the probable future “masther;” and though he, of course, made sufficiently good market of his treachery, he felt that in all ways he consulted his own interest best in making himself useful to Keegan. He had dim prospects, too, of great worldly advantages which might accrue from being chief informer to so conspicuous a man as Mr. Keegan was likely to prove himself, and, with no false self-vanity, he felt himself qualified for such a situation. There was considerable danger in being always among people of a wild and savage nature, to entrap and ensnare whom would be his duty, and he felt that he had the requisite courage. Moreover, there was a certain cunning and prudence necessary, and in that also he, with some truth, fancied himself not deficient; and as Mr. Keegan’s scheme opened upon him, the idea of entrapping his young master into the difficulties which lay around, offered not a bad opportunity for the display of his talents.
That such a man as Brady is described to be, should exist and find employment in a country, is a fact which must shock and disgust; but that it is a fact in great parts of Ireland, those who are most conversant with the country will not pretend to deny. It is true, that by paid spies and informers, real criminals may not unfrequently be brought to justice; but those who have observed the working of the system must admit that the treachery which it creates — the feeling of suspicion which it generates — but, above all, the villanies to which it gives and has given rise, in allowing informers, by the prospect of blood-money, to give false informations, and to entrap the unwary into crimes — are by no means atoned for by the occasional detection and punishment of a criminal.
Let the police use such open means as they have — and, God knows, in Ireland they should be effective enough; but I cannot but think the system of secret informers — to which those in positions of inferior authority too often have recourse — has greatly increased crime in many districts of Ireland. I by no means intend to assert that this system is patronised or even recognised by Government. I believe the contrary most fully; but those to whom the execution of the criminal laws in detail are committed, and who look to obtain advancement and character by their activity, do very frequently employ what I must call a most iniquitous system of espionage.
A very few years since I was walking down the street of a small town with a gentleman who was at that time in the immediate employment of the Government. It was a fair day, and we were strolling through the crowd, which was moving slowly hither and thither, as though in absolute idleness. The dusk was fast commencing, and he pointed out to me two or three men, who had come in from the country like the others, telling me that they were waiting till it was dark to speak to him; that they did not dare to speak to him during the light; that they were in his pay; and that they had information to give him respecting illegal societies, and hidden arms. He ridiculed me when I questioned the propriety of his system; in fact he was so accustomed to it that he could not conceive the possibility of going on without it. In the same way I have had men pointed out to me by the officer leading a party of revenue police in quest of illicit stills, who were dressed as policemen though not belonging to the force, and who were brought in that disguise that they might not be known by their neighbours whose haunts they were going to disclose.
The momentary success no doubt reconciles this usage to the officer employing it; but the result must be to create suspicion of each other among the poor, and fearfully to increase instead of diminishing crime.
Now that our friend Brady’s character is perfectly understood, we will return to our story; first, however, explaining that he had witnessed the scene between the attorney and his master, and had determined to make the most of it.
Thady had turned on the road towards the priest’s house without taking any notice of his dependant, but this Pat could not allow.
“Well, Mr. Thady, you’ll live to be even with him yet — the born ruffian! faix and a good sight more nor even; else it’ll be no one’s fault but yer own.”
“Even with who?”
“With who now? why didn’t I see it with my own eyes? — the born thief of the world! Didn’t he knock flashes out of yer shoulther with the shilaleh he had — Mr. Keegan, I main? And if it worn’t that you hadn’t — bad cess to the luck of it! — your own bit of a stick in your hand, wouldn’t you have knocked the life out of him for the name he put on your sisther, Miss Feemy? — the blackguard!”
“And did you hear him, Pat?”
“Shure I did, yer honer.”
“And did you see him?”
“See him, yes, shure; I seed him riz his big stick, and I thought it was nigh kilt you were.”
“And you heard him call your misthress the name he called; and you saw him sthrike at me the way he did, and I having nothing but my fist to help me; and were you so afraid of a man like Keegan, you wouldn’t step forward to strike a blow for me?”
“Afraid of Keegan! No, Masther Thady, I arn’t afraid of him; but you wouldn’t have had me come up, jist to witness that you war the first to strike at him.”
“Nonsense! wasn’t he the first to call my sisther the name he did?”
“Ah! but that warn’t a braich of the pace. You see, Mr. Thady, thim divils of lawyers is so cute; and av I had come to help you, or sthrike a blow, or riz my stick, he’d have had both before old Jonas Brown tomorrow morning; and where’d we’ve been then? But, Mr. Thady, as I said before, you’ll be more nor even with Mr. Keegan yet, any way.”
“How’ll I be even with him, Pat?”
“But where are you going, Mr. Thady? shure an’t it your dinner time at the house? and remimber you’ve to be at the wedding to-night.”
“Oh! d —— n the wedding. Do you think I’d be playing the fool at weddings to-night, afther what just took place? I want to see Father John; and I’ll go and catch him before he goes down to your sisther.”
“What, Mr. Thady! to tell about the blow, and the dishonour the ruffian put on you and Miss Feemy? — shurely you wouldn’t be doing that.”
“And why not? — won’t all Carrick have it before long?”
“That’s no rule why you should be going and telling Father John about it yourself. And won’t he be putting you against revenging yourself; and you wouldn’t, Mr. Thady, with the owld blood in your veins, and in Miss Feemy’s — may the divil’s curse blacken him for the name he give her! — you wouldn’t be putting up quiet and aisy with what he’s done? — and the like of him too!”
By this time Thady had stopped, and was beginning to waver in his determination of going to the priest. He felt that what Brady said was true — that the priest would implore him not to avenge himself, in the manner in which his heart strongly prompted him to do. He felt he could not forego the impulse to inflict personal punishment on Keegan. And after all, what could Father John do for him?
“Besides, Mr. Thady, now I think of it, Father John an’t in it at all, for he was to be at Drumsna before the wedding; and I know he’s to dine with Mrs. McKeon; he does mostly when he’s in Drumsna this time of day, so I’m sure he arn’t in it.”
Satisfied by this, Thady allowed himself to be led back again; and they walked together in silence a little way.
“You’ve only to say the word,” continued Pat, in a low voice, “you’ve only to say the word to them boys as’ll be there to-night, and they’ll see you righted with Keegan.”
“What boys — and how righted?”
“How righted! why how should you be righted afther what he’s afther doing? — and I tell you them’s the boys as will not see your father’s son put upon that way.”
“Which them d’ye main, Pat?”
“Oh! there’s a lot of them up to anything. There’s Jack Byrne and Joe Reynolds is mad to be having a fling at Ussher; you know their brothers is in gaol about the malt they found away at Loch Sheen; and there’s Corney Dolan, and McKeon, and a lot more of them; I knows them all, and it’ll be jist as good to them to be making a job of Keegan, as the other.”
“I wouldn’t have the ruffian murthered, Pat; you don’t think I want to have him murthered?”
“Whist, Mr. Thady; may be the children about in the trees there would hear you. Who says anything of murdher? No, but just give him a bating that would go nigh taching him the taste of being murdhered — and the same for Master Ussher; for I tell ye — may the tongue of the cowardly ruffian be blisthered for putting the name he did on your sisther! — but he was only repating what Ussher has said hisself, and that more nor once nor twice.”
Thady made no reply, but walked on slowly; he gave no assent, but he showed no indignation at the kind of revenge which was proposed to him.
“And what was he saying about the estate — Keegan, I main, Mr. Thady — before you came to be quarrelling that way?”
“He was saying what’ll be thrue enough — that Ballycloran’ll be sold, right away, before next May; and that he himself will be the purchaser — and that we’ll be wandering the road like any other set of beggars.”
“And did he say he’d buy Ballycloran?”
“He did.”
“And turn you all out, Mr. Thady?”
“And he’ll do it too,” said Thady.
“Tunder and ages! man, and would you be letting him come over ye that way? If any blackguard of a lawyer could be selling an estate that way, because money may be a little scarce or so, would there be so many gintlemen in the counthry, enjoying themselves in their own houses, just keeping the right side of the door? Only take care the owld man don’t be showing hisself that way he does be doing on the big steps there; and take care the door is kept shut, instead of right open; and make Biddy understand she an’t to open it for any one at all, at all — except yerself jist, and Father John, or the like, who wouldn’t mind going round to the back door. I tell ye that all the Flannellys and Keegans in Ireland can’t sell Ballycloran, unless they first get hould of the owld man.”
“But can’t they put resavers on every acre of the land, and wouldn’t that be all one as selling it?”
“Oh! let the boys alone for that; stick to them, and they’ll not let a resaver do much among them; faix, I’m thinking I for one wouldn’t like to go resaving rents up to Drumleesh for any one but the Masther hisself. But any way you’ll be coming down to the boys and spaking to them yerself this night — you wouldn’t go, Mr. Thady, not to be at Mary’s wedding?”
“You know that ruffian Ussher’ll be there; and I don’t want to be meeting him.”
“But that’s jist it; don’t let him be there playing what tricks he plazes with Miss Feemy, and you not there to purtect her — and there’s all them boys expect you. You won’t let Keegan run off with land and house, and all without a blow sthrick?”
“They’ll all be up at Ballycloran tomorrow, and I’ll hear what they have to say then.”
“But I tell you, they won’t be there at all tomorrow, unless you come down to them to-night,” answered Pat.
“Do they main to say they refuse out and out to pay the rint?”
“Not at all; but they’ll be getting stiff if they think you’re so thick with him as is their inimy — and isn’t that natural too? It’s only to come down and say a kind word or so to ’em yourself, and you’ll find them all right — and ready to stand by you and yours to the last, Mr. Thady.”
“Well, Pat, I’ll be down there. Father John would think it odd if I weren’t there.”
By this time they had got round to the back of the house, where the outhouse stood; and the young man told Brady to go into the kitchen and get him a coal for his pipe, and to tell the girl to say he wouldn’t be in to dinner.
“And won’t you be wanting your dinner, Mr. Thady?”
“No, Pat; I’ll jist sit and have a smoke in the stable, till it’s time to go down to you. I couldn’t face the owld man and Feemy, afther what jist happened.”
So we will for the present leave him smoking in the stable, and return to the inmates of the house.
It will be remembered that when Father John left Feemy after his morning visit, she remained alone till Mr. Keegan came: and that she was dismissed from the dining-room when they began to talk on business. She then betook herself to dress for the evening amusement; that is, to make herself something decent before she met Ussher; to brush her hair, and to dismiss all the traces of that disenchanting dishabille which I have attempted to describe. Whilst at her toilet Feemy turned over in her mind all that her brother and Father John had said, and firmly resolved not to let the evening pass without telling her lover the comfort it would be to have some decided steps taken as to their engagement: and yet she almost shuddered at the thoughts of doing so; there was a frown which occasionally came over Ussher’s face, which made her dread him; and she couldn’t but feel that if he wished to take any such steps, he would do so without her asking him; in fact, that it would be much better that he should do so unasked. And then, if he got angry — if he should tell her that as she could not wait and trust him, they must part; how could she bear the idea of losing him? What could she say or do, if he answered her sternly? — if he scolded her, or perhaps worse, absolutely quarrelled with her? Poor Feemy began to wish the evening over to which she had looked forward as the source of so much pleasure; she feared to neglect the warnings she had received, and she felt that things could not go on always as they were; but she trembled at the idea of telling this to Ussher.
Her silent dinner was soon over; she made her father’s punch, and sat down to wait for her lover. Larry kept up a continual growl about Thady’s absence, suggesting that Keegan had cozened him off to Carrick, to sign the estate away; accusing him of conspiracy with the attorney, to rob him, his father; wondering why he wouldn’t come to dinner, &c.: to all which Feemy made no reply; she never noticed his grumblings; she sat absorbed in her own thoughts, meditating what she would say to Ussher, till she heard his horse’s feet at the head of the avenue, and then she jumped up to meet him at the hall-door.
“How are you, Myles?” and “Well, Feemy, how’s yourself?” and then, having reached the hall door, he took the fond girl in his arms and kissed her. “Ah; don’t then, Myles; there’s Katty on the stairs; come in then, and take your punch;” and they entered the room where Larry was sitting over the fire.
“How are you this evening, Sir?” said Ussher, “this fine night.”
The old man always brightened up a little when Ussher came in.
“How d’ye do, Captain? — I’m glad to see you. Did the Captain get his dinner then, Feemy? — you don’t ask Captain Ussher whether he got his dinner.”
“Feemy knows she needn’t ask about that; that’s one of the things I always take care of. But where’s Thady, Mr. Macdermot? I wanted to speak to him about Keegan, that sworn friend of his:” and Ussher began to make himself comfortable with the hot water, sugar, &c.
“Thady is it you’re axing afther? ‘Deed then, I don’t know where he is. And as for Keegan — but you don’t make your punch, Captain — as for Keegan, the ruffian, he was here this blessed morning — wanting me, and Feemy, and Thady too, to walk clane out of the place! but I walked him off. The like of him to be buying Ballycloran; and his father a process-server, and his wife’s father that d —— d bricklayer Flannelly!”
“Holloa! Mr. Macdermot; so you’ve had a breeze with the attorney, have you? And was Thady here at the time?”
“He was in it all the time; and divil a word he’d say for himself, or Feemy, or his father, or the owld place either; but just wanted me, Captain, to give it all up to them at once, the ruffians! and when I wouldn’t, he went off with Keegan to Carrick. There’s my own son joined with ’em agin me; and he’ll help to dhrive me out, he will — and Feemy too, poor girl!”
In vain Ussher endeavoured to make him believe that his son had not conspired against him, to deprive him of his property. The old man had taken it into his head that Thady had gone off to Carrick with Keegan, and was determined to make the most of this new grievance, and would not be comforted. He seemed cunning enough in his determination to thwart the attorney in his plan of buying the estate, and explained to Ussher that he had made up his mind not to be taken personally; assuring him, that from that time nothing should induce him to leave his own fireside, or so much as show himself at the hall-door; that he would have the hall-door barricadoed; and, in short, that he would himself take all those precautions which Brady had enumerated to his son, as proper to be put in practice on such an occasion. And from that time, with one sad exception, it was many months before Larry Macdermot was seen to cross his threshold; he strictly adhered to his resolution; and although during that time many attempts to arrest him were made, he eluded them all. He could not, however, be brought to understand that, for the present, this was useless — that no one could arrest him till after Christmas. The dread of losing his property had come upon him, and he would not allow himself even to be seen by any one but those of his own household, and by Ussher.
After listening to his grievances as long as he thought necessary, Ussher followed Feemy into her own room, and here we will leave them, till we meet them again at Denis McGovery’s wedding; merely remarking, that poor Feemy, though more than once she prepared to make her dreaded speech to her lover, each time hesitated and stopped, and at last made up her mind that it would be just as well to put off the evil hour till her pleasure was over; and finally determined to have the conversation on the return home, for she well knew that Ussher would walk back with her to Ballycloran, where his horse would be left.
When Ussher first came into the parlour at Ballycloran, he asked after Thady, and it will be necessary to explain why he did so; the terms on which the two men stood towards each other not being such as to render it probable that either should be very anxious for the presence of the other.
It had come to the knowledge of Denis McGovery that Brady had asked to the wedding a lot of men from Drumleesh, and some also from Mohill — characters with whom Denis was not apt to consort himself, and whom he looked on as paupers and rapparees. He had also made out, it is presumed with the aid of his affianced, that some other motive was probably ensuring their attendance than merely that of doing honour to his, Denis’s, nuptials. Pat Brady was not likely to have made a confidant of his sister or of Denis on the occasion; but nevertheless, the bridegroom had discovered that the meeting was, to some extent, to be a political one, and moreover, that Thady Macdermot was expected to be there.
Now McGovery, although it must be presumed that, in common with all Irishmen of the lower order, he conceived that he was to a certain degree injured and oppressed by the operation of the existing laws, nevertheless had always thought it the wiser course to be with the laws, bad as they might be, than against them. When, therefore, he learnt that the brothers of the men whom Ussher had put into prison were to be of the party, and that many of their more immediate neighbours would be there, and remembered also that Captain Ussher himself had promised to come to the “divarsion,” mighty fears suggested themselves to him, and he began to dread that the occasion would be taken for offering some personal injury to the latter! In which case, might not all be implicated? — and among the number that dear person for whom Denis felt the tenderest regard — viz., himself?
Actuated by these apprehensions, Denis, on the morning of the wedding, had gone to Ussher to unfold his budget of dreadful news — to assure the Captain that his only object “was to get himself married,” and to see that the “pigs and the thrifle of change were all right,”— and strongly to advise the Captain to stay away; “not that it wouldn’t be a great honer for a poor boy like him to see his honer down there, for he had the greatest rispect in life for him, and all that wore the King’s sword; but there war no knowing what them boys might be afther when they got the dhrink in them.”
Ussher thanked Denis for his communication, but at the same time begged him not to disquiet himself — told him that there was no danger in life; and declared that he felt so confident of the good feeling of the men through the country towards him, particularly those at Drumleesh and Mohill, that he should always feel perfectly safe in their company — in fact, that he looked on their presence as a protection. Poor Denis stared hard at him; but as he soon perceived that the Captain was laughing at him for his solicitude, he retreated with a grin on his face, remarking that he had meant all for the best.
Though Captain Ussher affected to set no value on McGovery’s tale, he nevertheless thought that there might be something in it. He determined, however, not to be deterred from going to the wedding. Though in many respects a bad man, Ussher was very vigilant in the performance of his official duties, and, as has been before said, was possessed of sufficient courage. It had been part of McGovery’s disclosure that Thady Macdermot was to be at the wedding, and it occurred to Ussher, that at any rate no personal violence would be offered as long as young Macdermot was with him; he therefore determined to see him first, and tell him what he had heard. It is true he had no great love for the poor fellow; still he would have been sorry to see him, from any cause of uneasiness or distress, throw himself into the hands of men who might probably induce him to join in acts which would render him subject to the severest penalties of the law. Ussher understood Thady’s character tolerably well; and though he had no real sympathy for his sufferings, still he had manly feeling enough to wish to save him, as Feemy’s brother, from the danger into which he believed him so likely to fall.
It was for the purpose of talking on this subject that he asked for Thady; but when he found he was not in the house, nor expected home to dinner, he was obliged to postpone what he had to say till he met him at Mary Brady’s wedding.
About seven o’clock, Feemy and her lover arrived at Mrs. Mehan’s little whiskey shop, where the marriage was to take place. The whole party were already there: Father John was standing with his back to a huge turf fire, in the outer room — the usual drinking room of the establishment — amusing the bystanders with jokes, apparently at the expense of the bridegroom. Mary Brady was dressed in a white muslin gown, which, though it was quite clean, seemed to have been neither mangled nor ironed, so multitudinous had been the efforts to make it fit her ungainly person. She had a large white cap on her head, extending widely over her ears; and her hair, parted on her left brow, was smeared flat over her forehead with oil: her arms were bare, and quite red, and her hands were thrust into huge white cotton gloves, which seemed to make them so ashamed of themselves as utterly to unfit them for their ordinary uses. Everyone that entered, said, “Well, Mary,” or, “Well, alanna, how’s yourself?” or some greeting of the kind, to which she answered only with a grin. She and her future husband seemed totally unacquainted with each other, for since he came in he hadn’t spoken to her. In fact, poor Mary, as she expressed herself to Feemy, “Couldn’t get her sperrits up at all, and felt quite cowed like.”
Biddy, from Ballycloran, was her bridesmaid, and she, though she did not emulate the bride in her white dress, had also thrust her head into a huge cap, which, if it did not much add to her beauty, at any rate made her sufficiently remarkable to show that she was one of the principal characters of the evening.
Denis had procured himself a second-hand light brown coat, with metal buttons; this was the only attempt at wedding finery which he had made; but even this seemed to make him somewhat beside himself, and gave him a strong resemblance to that well-known martyr to unaccustomed grandeur — a hog in armour. Pat seemed to scorn the party altogether, though he was to officiate in giving away the bride; he was talking apart to Reynolds and one or two others, and seeing to the proper arrangement and distribution of the good things which were to follow the wedding. Thady was not in the place; he had not yet arrived.
“Ah! Feemy,” began Father John, as she walked in, followed by Ussher, “how are you? and this is kind of you, Captain.”
“Long life to you, Miss Feemy! and you, too, Captain dear,” said Mary, at last excited to speak by the greatness of the occasion.
“Your honers are welcome, Miss; your honers are welcome, Captain Ussher,” said Denis, forgetting that, for the present, he was only a guest himself; and then Brady, and then Shamuth na Pibu’a, the blind piper from County Mayo, “who had made the music out of his own head, all about O’Connell”— and then Biddy, and Mrs. Mehan, and all the boys and girls one after another, got up, and ducked their heads down in token of kindly welcome to the “young misthress and her lover;” and though most of those present, at other times, would have said that it was a pity their own Miss Feemy should be marrying “a born inimey of the counthry, like a Revenue officer, and a black Prothestant too,” it wasn’t now, when she had come to honour the wedding of one of themselves, that they would be remembering anything against her or her lover.
“Well, Mary, so the time’s nearly come,” said Feemy, as she sat down on the bench by the fire, that Mary, regardless of all bridal propriety, wiped down for her with the tail of her white dress; saying, as she did so, “What harum? sure won’t the dust make it worse, when the dancing comes on, and —”
“Whisper, Mary.”
“What is it, Miss?
“Whisper, then.”
“Ah, now! you’ll be at me like the rest of ’em;” and she put her big face down over Feemy’s. “Are the sheets done, Mary?”
“Ah now! Miss, you’re worse than ’em all!” and Mary put her big hand with the big cotton glove, with the fingers widely extended, before her face to hide the virgin blush.
“What’s that, Feemy?” said Father John; “what’s that I heard?”
“Go asy, now, Father John, do;” and Mary gave the priest a playful push, which nearly put him into the fire; “for God’s sake, Miss, don’t be telling him, now; you won’t, darlint?”
“What was it, Feemy? all’s fair now, you know.”
“Only just something Mary was to get ready for her husband, then, Father John — nothing particular. You’ll never be married yourself, you know, so you needn’t ask.”
“Oh! part of the fortune, was it? Trust Denis, he’ll look to that; is it the pigs, eh, Denis?”
“No, Father John, it jist a’nt the pigs,” said Mary.
“Come, what is it? — out with it Denis.”
“Sorrow a one of me knows what you’re talking about,” said Denis.
“It a’nt the calf at last, Denis, is it?”
“Bad luck to it for a calf!” exclaimed McGovery; and then, sidling up to the priest, “you wouldn’t be setting all the boys laughing at me, Father John, and thim sthrangers, too.”
“Well, well, Denis, but why didn’t you tell me the whole?”
When Ussher had first entered, Brady had come up, expressly to welcome him; and there was something in his extreme servility which made Ussher fear all was not quite right. But Ussher had become habituated to treat the servility of the poor as the only means they had of deprecating the injuries so frequently in his power to inflict; he had, too, from his necessity of not attending to their supplications, acquired a habit of treating them with constant derision, which they well understood and appreciated; and the contempt which he always showed for them was one of the reasons why he was so particularly hated through the country. Though now a guest of Brady’s, he could not help showing the same feeling. Moreover, Ussher, who as far as the conduct of man to man is concerned had nothing of treachery about him, strongly suspected Pat’s true character, and was therefore less likely to treat him with respect.
“Thank you, Brady, I’ll do very well; don’t you expect Mr. Thady here?”
“Is it the young masthur, Captain? In course we do. Mary wouldn’t be married av he warn’t to the fore.”
“Indeed! I didn’t know you’d so much respect for Mr. Macdermot as that.”
“Is it for the masthur, Captain?”
“For the matter of that, Brady, you wouldn’t much mind how many masters you had if they all paid you, I’m thinking.”
“And that’s thrue for you, Captain,” said Pat, grinning in his perplexity, for he didn’t know whether to take what Ussher said for a joke or not.
“Keegan, now, wouldn’t be a bad master,” said Ussher.
“And what puts him in your head, Captain Ussher?”
“Only they say he pays well to a sharp fellow like you.”
“‘Deed I don’t know who he pays. They do be saying you pay a few of the boys too an odd time or two yourself.”
“Is it I? What should I be paying them for?”
“Jist for a sight of a whiskey still, or a little white smoke in the mountains on a fine night or so. They say that same would be worth a brace of guineas to a boy I could name.”
“You’re very sharp, Mr. Brady; but should I want such assistance, I don’t know any I’d sooner ask than yourself.”
“Don’t go for to throuble yourself, for I don’t want to be holed of a night yet; and that’s what’ll happen them that’s at that work, I’m thinking; and that afore long — not that I’m blaming you, for, in course, every one knows it’s only your dooty.”
“You’re very kind; but when will Mr. Thady be here?”
“‘Deed I wonder he a’nt here, Captain; but war you wanting him?”
“Not in particular. Is it true the brothers of those poor fellows I took up at Loch Sheen are here to-night?”
“They is, both of ’em; there’s Joe Reynolds, sitting behind there — in the corner where I was when you and Miss Feemy come in.”
“It’s lucky he wasn’t with his brother, that’s all: and he’d better look sharp himself, or he’ll go next.”
“Oh, he’s a poor harmless boy, Captain. He never does nothing that way: though, in course, I knows nothing of what they do be doing; how should I?”
“How should you, indeed! though you seem to be ready enough to answer for your friend Reynolds. However, I don’t want to be taking any more of the boys at Drumleesh; so if he is a friend of yours, you’d better warn him, that’s all:” and he walked away.
“And it’s warning you want yourself, Captain, dear,” said Pat to himself; “how clever you think yourself, with your Mr. Keegan and your spies, and your fine lady Miss, there; but if you a’nt quiet enough before Christmas, it’s odd, that’s all.”
They were called into the inner room now, as Father John was going to perform the ceremony; and such marshalling and arranging as he had! — trying to put people into their proper places who would be somewhere else — shoving down the forms out of the way — moving the tables — removing the dishes and plates; for the supper was to be eaten off the table at which the couple were to be married. And though all the company had probably been at weddings before, and that often, they seemed new to the proceedings.
“Denis, you born fool, will you come here, where I told you? and don’t keep the mutton spoiling all night;” and he shoved McGovery round the table.
“Mary Brady, if you wish to change the ugly name that’s on you this night, will you come here?” and he seized hold of the young woman’s arm and dragged her round; “and who’s wanting you, Biddy?” as the girl followed close behind her principal.
“Shure, Father John, a’nt I to be bridesmaid then?”
“You, bridesmaid, and Miss Feemy to the fore! stay where you are. Come, Feemy.”
“Oh! Father John, I a’nt bridesmaid.”
“Oh! but you will be; and, as Thady a’nt here, Captain Ussher’ll be best man; come round, Captain,”— and Ussher came round. “And mind, Captain,” he added, whispering, “when I come to ‘salute nostra’— those are the last words — you’re to kiss the bride; you are to kiss her first, and then you’ll be married yourself before the year’s out.”
“But I am not all ambitious that way.”
“Never mind, do as I tell you; and don’t forget to have a half-crown in your hand, or so, when I bring the plate round. Come, Pat, where are you? you’ve to give her away.”
“She’ll jist give herself away, then, Father John; by dad, she’s ready and willing enough!”
“Do as I tell you, and don’t stand bothering. You want to keep those shiners in your pocket — I know you;” and Brady, shamed into compliance, also went into his place.
“Now, Denis, the other side of her, boy; why, you’re as awkward to marry as shoeing a colt.”
“Why then, Father John, that’s thrue; for I shod many a colt, and never was married.”
“You’ll not be so long, avick; and may be you’ll know more about it this time next week. But here’s the plate; what do you mean to give the bride? you must put something handsome here for Mary.”
“Faix then I forgot about that;” and he put his hand into his pocket and forked out half-a-crown, which, with a sheepish look, he put in the plate.
“Half-a-crown, indeed, for a tradesman like you! There’s Corney Dolan there, who don’t seem to have a coat that fits him too well, would do more for his wife, if it was God’s pleasure he was to have one this night.”
“Well, there;” and Denis put down another half-crown. This money, which is always put down just before the marriage, is a bridal present to the bride, and becomes her exclusive property.
“Well, Mary, you must be getting the rest of it from him another time.”
“Let her alone for that, yer riverence,” said Corney Dolan — who considered that Father John’s allusion to his coat privileged him to put in his joke —“let her alone for that; she knows how to be getting the halfpence, and to hoult them too.”
“It’s a great deal you’re knowing about it, I’m thinking, Mr. Dolan,” retorted Denis; “it’s a pity you couldn’t keep the hoult of any yerself.”
“Wisht, boys! how am I to marry you at all, if you go on this way? Come, Mary, off with that glove of yours; now for the ring, Denis:” and Mary hauled away at the glove, which the heat of her hand prevented her from pulling off.
“Drat it for a glove, then!”
“Ah, alanna, gloves come so nathural to your purty hand, they don’t like to lave it at all.”
At last, however, Mary got her hands ready for action; the ring was in the plate with the two half-crowns; Father John was standing between the two matrimonial aspirants; Ussher and Feemy were close behind Mary, and Brady was sitting down on the right hand of Denis; and the priest opened his book and began.
The marriage ceremony took about five minutes; but during this time Father John found occasion to whisper Ussher to come up close to the bride; and then, after hurrying over a great part of the service almost under his breath, he pronounced the final words —salute nostra— in a loud voice, adding at the same time to Ussher, “Now, my boy!”
Ussher, in obedience to the priest’s injunction, seized hold of the bride at one side, to kiss her; while McGovery, determined to vindicate his own right, pounced on her on the other; justly thinking that the first kiss she should have after her wedding ought to be given to her by her lawful married husband.
But, alas! both aspirants were foiled, and Mary got no kiss at all. She, in her dismay at the energy of the two aspirants, ducked her head down nearly to the level of the table, and Denis, in his zeal and his hurry, struck Ussher in the face with his own forehead with no slight force. The Captain retreated, half-stunned, and not very well pleased with the salute he had received; and Denis was so shocked at what he had done, that he forgot his wife — and, apparently even the pigs and the money — in his regrets and apologies.
“Egad, Captain,” said Father John, “that’s more of a kiss than I meant to get you; why, you’re as awkward, McGovery, as a bullcalf. Who’d have thought to see you butting at the Captain, like an old goat on his hind legs!”
“Faix then, yer riverence, I didn’t intend to be trating the Captain in that way; but any way the Captain’s head is ‘amost as hard as my own, for the flashes isn’t out of my eyes yet.”
“Never mind,” said Ussher; “and if you always take care of your wife the same way, my good fellow, you’ll be sure she’ll not come to any harm, for want of looking after.”
In the meantime Mary had escaped from the salute intended for her, and was, with the aid of Biddy, Mrs. Mehan, and sundry others of her visitors, engaged in extricating two legs of mutton, a ham, and large quantities of green cabbages from the pots in which they had been boiling in the outer room.
“God bless you, Sally dear, and will you drain them pratees? they’ll be biled to starch. And Mrs. Mehan, darling, my heart’s broke with the big pot here, will you lend me a hand? good luck to you then. There’s Denis and Pat, bad manners to them, they’d see me kilt with all the bother, and stand there doing nothing under the sun.”
And poor Mary McGovery, as we must now call her, toiled and groaned under the labours of her wedding day till the perspiration ran from under her wedding cap; and her wedding-dress gave manifold signs of her zeal in preparing the wedding-supper.
Whilst Mary was dishing the mutton, &c., Father John was employed in the not less important business of collecting his dues.
Between McGovery and Pat Brady he had succeeded in getting two thirty-shilling notes, which lay in the bottom of the plate, and formed a respectable base for the little heap of silver which he would collect; and if he did not get as much as the occasion would seem to warrant, the deficiency arose from no delicacy in asking, or want of perseverance in urging.
“Now, Captain, you’re the only Protestant among us; show these Catholics of mine a liberal example — show them what they ought to do for their priest,”— here Captain Ussher put a couple of half-crowns in the plate. “There, boys, see what a Protestant does for me. Well, Feemy, I never ask the ladies, you know, but I shan’t let Thady off; though he ain’t here, I shall settle that in the rent.”
“Oh, yes, Father John; make Thady pay for himself and me; Mrs. Brennan has got all my money.”
“But where’s Thady, Feemy dear? I hope you and he are good friends now.”
“Oh yes, Father John; that is, I didn’t see him since morning.”
“But will he be here to-night?”
“He said he would; but you’d best ask Pat, he knows most about him.”
This conversation took place in an under tone, and the priest walked on with his plate.
“Come, Mr. Tierney, how’s yourself? I see you’re waiting there, quite impatient, with your hands in your pocket. It’s nothing less than a crown piece, I’ll go bail.”
“‘Deed then, crown pieces a’nt that plenty in the counthry, these days, Father John; the likes of them”— and he put half-a-crown in the plate —“are scarce enough.”
The speaker was an old man, rather decently dressed in knee-breeches and gaiters; he was one of those who, even in bad times, manage by thrift and industry to get, among the poor, the reputation of comparative wealth.
“And that’s true for you, Mr. Tierney, and thank you kindly; they do however say, that however scarce they are in the country, you’ve your share of them.”
“Go on, Father John, go on, you do be saying more than you know.”
And by degrees the priest went through them all. From most of them he got something; from some a shilling, from some only sixpence; some few gave nothing at all: these in general endeavoured to escape observation behind the backs of the donors, but Father John let none of them off; and those who were unprepared, and who alleged their poverty, and their inability, he reproved for their idleness, and hinted rather strongly that their visits to Mrs. Mulready’s, or similar establishments, were the cause of their not being able to do what he called their duty by their priest.
Standing in a corner, at the further end of the room, and resting against a wall, was Joe Reynolds: as Father John had a bad opinion of this man, and as he was not a parishioner of his, he was returning without speaking to him, when Joe said,
“You’re in the right of it, Father John, not to be axing such a poor divil as me; you know, betwixt them all, they’ve not left me the sign of a copper harp.”
“I know, Reynolds, you’re too fond of Mrs. Mulready’s to have much for your own priest, let alone another.”
“Faix then, Father John, you shouldn’t spake agin mother Mulready, for she’s something like your riverence; and a poor boy with an empty pocket will get neither comfort nor good words from either of ye.”
Father John did not think it to be consistent with his dignity to answer this sally; so he returned to the other end of the room, carefully counting as he went, and pocketing the money which he had collected. In the meantime the bride, with such assistance as she could get, had succeeded in putting the supper on the table: a leg of mutton at the top, reclining on a vast bed of cabbage; a similar dish at the bottom; and a ham, with the same garniture, in the middle. The rest of the table was elegantly sprinkled with plates of smoking potatoes; and what knives and forks and spoons and plates could be spared from the head of the table, where a few were laid out with some little order for the more aristocratic of the guests, were collected together in a heap. At first, no one seemed inclined to sit down; every one was struck with a sudden bashfulness, till Father John, taking up the knife and fork at the top of the table, called McGovery to bring his wife to supper.
“Now, Denis, my man, don’t be thinking of those two pigs, but bring your better half with you, and let’s see how you can behave as a married man.”
“Come, Miss Feemy,” said Mary, “if you and the Captain now would jist sit down, and begin — there’s a dear, Miss, do.”
“Oh, Mary, nobody must sit down before you, to-night.”
“Never mind me, Miss — if I could only get you and the Captain seated; yer honer,” and she turned round with a curtsey to Ussher, “there’s Denis and Pat there will do nothing in life to help me!” and the poor woman seemed at her wit’s end to know how to arrange her guests.
At last, however, Ussher and Feemy sat down at one side of the priest, Denis and his wife at the other, and by degrees the table got quite full; so much so, that when the boys saw one another taking their seats, they were as eager as before they had been slow; and they hustled each other at the bottom of the table, till they were so crowded that they hadn’t room to use their arms. Pat sat at the bottom, and he and the priest emulated each other in the zeal and celerity with which they cut up and distributed the joints before them.
At Pat’s end of the table plates were scarce, and the boys round him took the huge lumps of blood-red mutton in their fists, and seemed perfectly independent of such conventional wants as knives and forks, in the ease and enjoyment with which they dispatched their repast. At last Brady had done all to the joint that carving could do, and having kept a tolerably sufficient lion’s share for himself, he passed the bone down the table, which was speedily divided into as many portions as nature had intended that it should be.
Matters were conducted in a rather more decorous manner among the aristocrats at Father John’s end of the table — though even here they were carried on in a somewhat rapid and voracious fashion. The priest helped Feemy and Ussher, Mary and her husband; and then remarking that he had done all the hard work of the evening, and that he thought it was time to get a bit himself, he filled a moderate plate for his own consumption, and passed the joint down to be treated after the same manner as its fellow.
As long as the eating continued there was not much said; but when the viands had disappeared, and the various bottles came into requisition, the clatter of tongues became loud and joyous; and though the first part of the entertainment had to all appearance come to a rather too speedy termination for want of material to carry it on, there seemed, from the quantity of whiskey produced, little chance of any similar disappointment in what the greater portion of the guests considered the more agreeable part of the entertainment.
“Well, Denis,” said Father John, “I believe I’ve done all I can this time; and as I know you’ll want to be looking after the cow that’s in calf — no, not the cow, but the pigs — I’ll be off.”
“Folly on, Father John, folly on; it’s always the way with yer riverence — to be making yer game of a poor boy like me! But you’re not going out of this till you’ve dhrunk Mary’s health here, and heard a tune on the pipes, any way.”
“Not a drop, Denis, thank ye,” and Father John got up; “and now, boys and girls, good night, and God bless you — and behave yourselves.”
“Faix, then, yer riverence,” said Joe Reynolds from the bottom of the table, “you may tell by the way the boys take to the bottle, that they’ll behave themselves dacently and discreatly, like Christians.”
“Indeed, then, Reynolds, where you are, and the whiskey with you, I believe there’s likely to be little discretion but the discretion of drunkenness — and not much of that.”
“Thank ye, Father John, and it’s you have always the kind word for me.”
“But, Father John,” began Mary, “you’re not really going to go without so much as a tumbler of punch?”
“Not a drop, Mary, my dear; I took my punch after dinner — and I can’t stand too much. Good night, Feemy — you’ll stay and have a dance I suppose; good night, Captain Ussher.”
And Father John got up from table, and went out of the room. As soon, however, as Denis saw that he was really going, he rose and followed him out of the door.
“Sit down, Denis, sit down — don’t be laving your company such a night as this.”
“But I want to have jist a word with yer riverence.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Jist step outside then, Father John.”
“Well, Denis; is it anything about Betsy Cane? or has Ginty come home, and is he wanting the pigs?”
“No, but would you just step outside here, Mr. McGrath; where those long-eared ruffians won’t be hearing me?” and he and the priest walked a little distance from the door of Mrs. Mehan’s house.
“I’m afeard, Father John, them born divils from Drumleesh and Mohill, as Pat brought here to-night, are maning more than good to Captain Ussher.”
“And what makes you think that, Denis?”
“Why, Father John, Mary was saying that Pat towld her a lot of his own frinds would be up with him, and that if they war talking together, she and those as are with her dancing and the like, warn’t to be disturbing them; and then I knows them boys is very mad with the Captain about that whiskey business up at Loch Sheen; and then Joe Reynolds and Jack Byrne are in it, and their brothers are two of them as war sazed and are now in Ballinamore Bridewell; — and I know there is something of the sort going on through the counthry; and faix, Father John, I wouldn’t for money that anything happened, and I in it the while; for a poor boy is always made to be mixed up in them affairs, if by bad luck he is anywhere near at the time.”
“But what do you think they’d do to the Captain to-night, Denis?”
“Faix then, yer riverence, I don’t know what they’d be doing — murther him, maybe.”
“God forbid! But, Denis, those men from Drumleesh could hardly know Captain Ussher was going to be at the wedding to-night.”
“Oh! yer riverence, they’d know it well enough from Pat Brady.”
“But you don’t think your wife’s brother would join a party to murder Ussher?”
“Why then, Father John — I think it’s just he that would be putting the others up to it.”
“Good gracious, Denis! and what would he get by such deeds as that? Isn’t he comfortable enough.”
“It isn’t them as is poorest, is always the worst. But any how, Father John, if you’d come back, and yer riverence wouldn’t mind for the onst jist sitting it out — jist dhrinking a dhrop at an odd time, or colloguing a bit with owld Mr. Tierney, till we get the Captain out of that, shure they’d never be doing anything out of the way as long as yer riverence is in it.”
“It isn’t here — in the house, where there are so many together — they’d attack him, even if they meant to do so; and I don’t think they mean it to-night; but it’s on his way home — and my going back would not in any way prevent that. But why don’t you at once tell Captain Ussher, and warn him that you fear he is not safe among those fellows at night.”
“That’s jist what I did then; but he’s so foolish, and so bowld, there’s no making him mind what one would say. I did tell him, Father John, that I was afeared that there would be some lads in it wouldn’t be his well-wishers. But he laughed at me, and towld me there were none of the boys through the counthry war so fond of him as those Reynoldses and Byrnes, and all them others down at Drumleesh.”
“Well, Denis, and what can I do more; if he laughs at you, why wouldn’t he also laugh at me?”
“Why, yer riverence, you and he are frinds like; besides, he wouldn’t trate the like of you as he would such a one as I; why I believe he don’t think the poor are Christians at all.”
“It’s true enough for some of them; but what would you have me do? I couldn’t walk back to Mohill by his horse’s side; — and I tell you if they attack him at all, it will not be at the house there, but on his way home.”
“‘Deed then. Father John, any way I wish he was well out of that.”
“It seems, Denis, it’s yourself you’re thinking of, more than the Captain.”
“Shure, and why wouldn’t I— and I just married? A purty thing for me just now, to be took up among a lot of blackguard ruffians for murthering a king’s officer.”
“Well, Denis, I won’t go back now — it would look odd and do no good; so do you go back and drink a tumbler of punch with the men, and dance a turn or two with the girls, as you should on your wedding night; and by and by I’ll come down again as if to see what was going on — and to walk home with Miss Feemy. The Captain must go back to Ballycloran for his horse; and if he can be persuaded that there is any danger, he can go up and sleep at the cottage; for I tell you, if they mean to hurt him at all, it’s on the road home to Mohill they’d make the attempt. Do you go in and say nothing about it, and I’ll be down by and by.”
Father John walked away towards his house, and Denis McGovery went back with a heavy heart to dance at his own wedding; for though his solicitude for the “king’s officer” would not have been of the most intense kind, had he thought that he was to be murdered anywhere else, he had a great horror at the idea of any evil happening to that important personage, when it could in any way affect his own comfort.
When Denis returned into Mrs. Mehan’s big kitchen, the amusements of the evening — dancing and drinking — were on the point of commencing. Shamuth of the pipes, the celebrated composer and musician, was sitting in the corner of the huge fireplace, with a tumbler of punch within reach of his hand, preparing his instrument — squeaking, and puffing, and blowing in the most approved preparatory style. Mary was working and toiling again for the benefit of her guests — carrying kettles of boiling water into the inner room — emptying pounds of brown sugar into slop-basins and mugs — telling the boys to take their punch — taking a drop herself now and again, with some one who was wishing her health and happiness, and comfort with the man she’d got — inciting the girls to go and dance — and scolding her brother and husband, because, “bad manners to them, divil a hand they’d lend to help her, and she with so much to do, and so many to mind.”
“And now, Miss Feemy, if you’d only get up and begin, dear, the others would soon folly; come, Captain Ussher — would yer honer jist stand up with Miss Feemy?”
“Oh, no, Mary — you’re the bride you know; Captain Ussher must dance with you first.”
“Oh! laws, Miss, but that’d be too much honour intirely.”
“No, Mrs. McGovery, but it’s I that’ll be honoured; so if you will be good enough to stand up with me, I shall be glad to shake a foot with you:” and the gallant Captain led Mary into the middle of the floor.
“But, Captain, dear, sorrow a sup of dhrink did I see you take this blessed evening; shure then you’ll let me get you a glass of wine before we all begin, jist to prevent your being smothered with the dust like; shure, yer honour hasn’t taken a dhrop yet.”
“I won’t be so long, Mary; but I won’t have the wine yet, I’ll wash the dust out with a tumbler of punch just now. Here’s your husband, you must make him dance with the bridesmaid.”
“I’m afraid then he ain’t much good at dancing.”
“Oh! but he must try. — Come, McGovery, there’s Biddy waiting for you to take her out; and here’s Shamuth waiting — you don’t think, man, he’d begin till you’re ready.”
“Come, Denis,” said his gentle spouse, “I never see sich a man; can’t ye stand up and be dancing, and not keeping everyone waiting that way?”
“Mind yourself, Mary, and you’ll have enough to mind. Come, Biddy, alanna, let us have a shake together, all for luck;” and the happy husband led forth Biddy of Ballycloran — she with the big cap — who was only now beginning to regain the serene looks, which had been dispelled by Father John’s not permitting her to act as bridesmaid.
And now Shamuth — his preparatory puffs having been accomplished — struck up “Paddy Carey” with full force and energy. As this was the first dance, no one stood up but the two couple above named; there were therefore the more left to admire the performance, and better room left for the performers to show their activity.
“Faix then, Mary,” said one, “it’s yerself that dances illigant — the Lord be praised — only look to her feet.”
“Well, dear — Denis, shure no one thought you were that good at a jig; give him a turn, Biddy — don’t spare him — he’s able for you and more.”
“Ah! but see the Captain, Kathleen; it’s he that could give the time to the music; a’nt he and Mary well met? — you must put more wind into the pipes, Shamuth, before they’re down.”
“But if you want to see the dancing, wait till Miss Feemy stands up — it’s she that can dance; you’ll stand up with the Captain, Miss Feemy, won’t you?”
“Indeed I will, Corney, if he asks me.”
“Axes you! ah, there’s little doubt of that; it’s he that’s ready and willing to ax you, now and always.”
“Ah! Mr. McGovery, shure man, you’re not bait yet! you wouldn’t give in to Biddy that soon?”
Poor Denis was giving signs of having had enough of the amusement. There was a tolerably large fire on the hearth, near which he had been destined to perform his gyrations — which, if not very graceful, had, at any rate, been sufficiently active; and the exertion, heat, and dust were showing plainly on his shining countenance.
“Ah! Mr. McGovery,” panted Biddy, “shure you’re not down yet, and I only jist begun!”
“Indeed, then, Biddy, I am, and quite enough I’ve had, too, for one while. Here, Corney, come and take my place;” and Denis deposited a penny in a little wooden dish by the piper’s side.
“By dad, Denis,” said Corney, “you’ll sleep to-night, any ways — to look at you.”
“That’s jist what he won’t, then; for it’ll be morning before he’s in bed, and Mary’ll have too much to say to him, when he is there, to let him sleep.”
“Never mind, boys; do you dance, and I’ll get myself a dhrink, for I’m choked with the dust; — and here’s Mr. Thady. Why, Mr. Thady, why didn’t you come in time for the supper, then?”
Just as Denis McGovery gave over dancing, Thady entered the house, having anything but a wedding countenance. He had been, since the time we parted from him after his interview with Keegan, lying in the stable, smoking. He had eaten nothing, but had remained meditating over the different things which conspired to make his heart sad.
His father’s state — the impossibility of carrying on the war any longer against the enmity of Flannelly and Keegan — his own forlorn prospects — the insult and blow he had just received from the overbearing, heartless lawyer — but, above all, Feemy’s condition, and his fears respecting her, were too much for him to bear. After his sister and Captain Ussher had left Ballycloran, he had gone up to the house and had swallowed a couple of glasses of raw whiskey, to drive, as he said to himself, the sorrow out of his heart; and he had now come down to seek the friends whom Brady had recommended to him, and determined, at whatever cost, to revenge himself, by their aid, against Keegan, for the insults he had heaped upon him, and against Ussher for the name which, he believed, he had put upon his sister.
It was with these feelings and determinations that Thady had come down to McGovery’s wedding; and, as he entered the room, Ussher and Feemy were just standing up to dance.
When Thady entered the room where the party was dancing, the welcomes with which he was greeted by McGovery and his wife prevented him from immediately seeking Pat Brady, as he had intended; for he was obliged to stop to refuse the invitations and offers which he received, that supper should be got for him. And it was well for those that made the offers that he did refuse them; for every vestige of what was eatable in the house had been devoured, and had he acceded to Mary’s reiterated wishes that he would “take jist the laste bit in the world,” it would have puzzled her to make good her offer in the most literal sense of the words.
Luckily, however, Thady declined her hospitality, and was passing through to the inner room when he was stopped by Ussher, who, as we have before said, was standing up to dance with Feemy. The last time the two young men had met was at the priest’s house, when, it will be remembered, Thady had shown a resolution not to be on good terms with the Captain, and subsequent events had not at all mollified his temper; so when Ussher good-humoredly asked him how he was, and told him he wanted to speak to him a word or two as soon as he should have tired Feemy dancing, or, what was more probable, Feemy should have tired him, Thady answered him surlily enough, saying that if Captain Ussher had anything to say to him, he should be within, but that he didn’t mean to stay there all night, and that perhaps Captain Ussher had better say it at once.
“Well, Macdermot, perhaps I had; so, if your sister’ll excuse me, I won’t be a minute. — Just step to the door a moment, will you?” and Thady followed him out.
“Well, Captain Ussher, what is it?”
“I don’t know why it is, Macdermot, but for the last two or three days you seem to want to quarrel with me; if it is so, why don’t you speak out like a man?”
“Is that what you were wanting to say to me?”
“Indeed it was not; for it’s little I care whether you choose to quarrel or let it alone; but I heard something to-night, which, though I don’t wholly believe it, may like enough be partly true; and if you choose to listen, I will tell you what it was; perhaps you can tell me whether it was all false; and if you cannot, what I tell you may keep yourself out of a scrape.”
“Well.”
“McGovery tells me that he thinks some of the boys that are here to-night are come to hold some secret meeting; and that, from the brothers of the two men I arrested the other day being in it, he thinks their purpose is to revenge themselves on me.”
“And if it war so, Captain Ussher, what have I to do with it?”
Ussher looked very hard at Thady’s face, but it was much too dark for him to see anything that was there.
“Probably not much yourself; but I thought that as these men were your father’s tenants, you might feel unwilling that they should turn murderers; and as I am your father’s friend, you might, for his sake, wish to prevent them murdering me.”
“And is it from what such a gaping fool as McGovery says, you have become afraid that men would murder you, who never so much as raised their hand agin any of those who are from day to day crushing and ruining them?”
“If I had been afraid, I should not have come here. Indeed, it was to show them that I am not afraid of coming among them without my own men at my back that I came here. But though I am not afraid, and though it is not what McGovery says I mind — and he is not such a fool as some others — nevertheless I do think, in fact, from different sources, I know, that there is something going on through the country, which will bring the poor into worse troubles than they’ve suffered yet; and if, as I much think, they’ve come here to talk of their plans to-night, and if you know that it is so, you’re foolish to be among them.”
“Is that all you’ve to say to me, Captain Ussher?”
“Not quite; I wanted to ask you, on your honour, as a man and an Irishman, do you know whether there is any conspiracy among them to murder or do any injury to me?” Ussher paused for a moment; and as Thady did not answer him, he went on —“and I wanted to warn you against one who is, I know, trying his best to ruin you and your father.”
“Who is that, Captain Ussher? I believe I know my own friends and my own inimies,” said Thady, who thought the revenue officer alluded to Keegan.
“Answer my question first.”
“And suppose I don’t choose to answer it?”
“Why, if you won’t answer it, I cannot but think you are aware of such a conspiracy, and that you approve of it.”
“Do you mean to say, Captain Ussher, that I have conspired to murdher you?”
“No, I say no such thing; but surely, if you heard of such a scheme, or thought there was such an intention in the country, wouldn’t you tell me, or any one else that was so doomed, that they might be on their guard?”
“You’re very much frightened on a sudden, Captain.”
“That’s not true, Macdermot; you know I’m not frightened; but will you answer the question?”
Thady was puzzled; he did not know what to say exactly. He had not absolutely heard that the men whom he was going to meet that night, and whom he knew he meant to join, intended to murder Ussher; but Brady had told him that they were determined to have a fling at him, and it was by their promise to treat the attorney in the same way, that Thady had been induced to come down to them. It had never struck him that he was going to join a body of men pledged to commit murder — that he was to become a murderer, and that he was to become so that very night. His feeling had been confined to the desire of revenging himself for the gross and palpable injuries with which he had been afflicted, whilst endeavouring to do the best he could for his father, his sister, and his house. But now — confronted with Ussher — asked by him as to the plots of the men whom he was on the point of joining, and directly questioned as to their intentions by the very man he knew they were determined to destroy, Thady felt awed, abashed, and confused.
Then it occurred to him that he had not, at any rate as yet, pledged himself to any such deed, or even in his mind conceived the idea of such a deed; that there was no cause why he should give his surmises respecting what he believed might be the intentions of others to the man whom, of all others — perhaps, not excepting the lawyer — he disliked and hated; and that there could be no reason why he should warn Captain Ussher against danger. Though these things passed through Thady’s mind very quickly, still he paused some time, leaning against the corner of an outhouse, till Ussher said,
“Well, Macdermot, surely you’ll not refuse to answer me such a question as that. Though — God knows why — we mayn’t be friends, you would not wish to have such ill as that happen to me.”
“I don’t know why you should come to me, Captain Ussher, to ask such questions. If you were to ask your own frinds that you consort with, in course they would feel more concerned in answering you than I can. Not that I want to have art or part in your blood, or to have you murdhered — or any one else. But to tell you God’s holy truth, if you were out of the counthry intirely, I would be better plased, as would be many others. And since you are axing me, I’ll tell you, Captain Ussher, that I do think the way you do be going on with the poor in the counthry — dhriving and sazing them, and having spies over them — isn’t such as is likely to make you frinds in the counthry, except with such as Jonas Brown and the like. And though, mind you, I know nothing of plots and conspiracies among the boys, I don’t think you’re over safe whilst staying among thim you have been trating that way; and if they were to shoot you some night, it’s no more than many would expect. To tell you the truth, then, Captain Ussher, I think you’d be safer anywhere than at Mohill.”
Thady considered that he thus made a just compromise between the faith he thought he owed to the men with whom he was going to league himself, and the duty, which he could not but feel he ought to perform, of warning Ussher of the danger in which he was placed.
Ussher felt quite satisfied with what Thady had said. He was not at all surprised at his expressions of personal dislike, and he felt confident, from the manner in which young Macdermot had spoken of his perilous situation, that even if any conspiracy had been formed, of which he was the object, there was no intention to put it into immediate operation, and that, at any rate in Macdermot’s opinion, no concerted plan had yet been made to attack him. A good many reasons also induced Ussher to think that he stood in no danger of any personal assault. In the first place, though the country was in a lawless state — though illicit distillation was carried to a great extent — though many of the tenants refused to pay either rent, tithes, or county cesses till compelled to do so — the disturbances arising from these causes had not lately led to murder or bloodshed. He had carried on his official duties in the same manner for a considerable time without molestation, and custom had begotten the feeling of security. Moreover, he thought the poor were cowed and frightened. He despised them too much to think they would have the spirit to rise up against him. In fact, he made up his mind that Thady’s intention was to frighten him out of the country, if possible, and he resolved that he would not allow anything he had heard on the subject either to disturb his comfort, or actuate his conduct.
“Well, Macdermot, that’s fair and above board — and what I expected, though it’s neither friendly nor flattering; and I am not vexed with you for that; for if you don’t feel friendly to me you shouldn’t speak as if you did, and therefore I’m obliged to you. And I will say that if I am to be shot down, like a dog, whilst performing my duty to the best of my ability, at any rate, I won’t let the fear of such a thing frighten me out of my comfort before it happens. And now if you’ll let me say a word or two to you about yourself —”
“I’m much obliged to you, Captain Ussher, but if you can take care of yourself, so can I of myself.”
“Why how cranky you are, man! If you hate me, hate me in God’s name, but don’t be so absurd as to forget you’re a man, and to act like a child. I listened to you — and why can’t you listen to me?”
“Well, spake on, I’ll listen.”
“Mind, I don’t pretend to know more of your affairs than you would wish me; but, as I am intimate with your father, I cannot but see that you, in managing your father’s concerns, put great confidence in the man within there.”
“What! Pat Brady?”
“Yes, Brady! Now if you only employed him as any other farm servant, he would not, probably, have much power to injure you; but I believe he does more than that — that he collects your rents, and knows the affairs of all your tenants.”
“Well?”
“I have very strong reason to think that he is also in the employment, or at any rate in the pay, of Mr. Keegan, the attorney at Carrick.”
“What makes you think that, Captain Ussher?”
“I could hardly explain the different things which make me think so; but I’m sure of it; and it is for you to judge whether, if such be the case, your confidence will not enable him, under the present state of affairs at Ballycloran, to do you and your father much injury. He is also, to my certain knowledge, joined in whatever societies — all of them illegal — are being formed in the country; and he is a man, therefore, not to be trusted. I may add also that if you listen too much to his advice and counsels, you will be likely to find yourself in worse troubles than even those which your father’s property brings on you.”
“Don’t alarm yourself about me; I don’t be in the habit of taking a servant’s advice about things, Captain Ussher.”
“There’s your back up again; I don’t mean to offend you, I tell you; however, if you remember what I have said to you, it may prevent much trouble to you:"— and Ussher walked into the house.
“Prevent throubles,” soliloquised Thady; “there is no way with me to prevent all manner of throuble — I believe I’ll go in and get a tumbler of punch;"— and determined to adopt this mode of quieting troubles, if he could not prevent them, he followed Ussher.
Ussher was now dancing with Feemy, and the fun had become universal and incessant; there were ten or twelve couple dancing on the earthen floor of Mrs. Mehan’s shop. The piper was playing those provocative Irish tunes, which, like the fiddle in the German tale, compel the hearers to dance whether they wish it or no; and they did dance with a rapidity and energy which showed itself in the streams of perspiration running down from the performers’ faces. Not much to their immediate comfort a huge fire was kept up on the hearth; but the unnecessary heat thus produced was atoned for by the numerous glasses of punch with which they were thereby enabled to regale themselves, when for a moment they relaxed their labours.
This pleasant recreation began also to show its agreeable effects in the increased intimacy of the partners and the spirit of the party. All diffidence in standing up had ceased — and now the only difficulty was for the aspirants to get room on which to make their complicated steps; and oh, the precision, regularity, and energy of those motions! Although the piper played with a rapidity which would have convinced the uninitiated of the impossibility of dancing to the time, every foot in the room fell to the notes of the music as surely as though the movements of the whole set had been regulated by a steam machine. And such movements as they were! Not only did the feet keep time, but every limb and every muscle had each its own work, and twisted, shook and twirled itself in perfect unison and measure, the arms performed their figure with as much accuracy as the legs.
“Take a sup of punch now, Miss Tierney; shure you’re fainting away entirely for the want of a dhrop.” The lady addressed was wiping, with the tail of her gown, a face which showed the labour that had been necessary to perform the feat of dancing down the whole company to the tune of the “wind that shakes the barley,” and was now leaning against the wall, whilst her last partner was offering her punch made on the half and half system: “Take a sup, Miss Tierney, then; shure you’re wanting it.”
“Thank ye, Mr. Kelly, but I am afther taking a little jist now, and the head’s not sthrong with me afther dancing;” she took the tumbler, however. “Faix, Mr. Kelly, but it’s yourself can make a tumbler of punch with any man.”
“‘Deed then there’s no sperrits in it at all — only a thrifle to take the wakeness off the water. Come, Miss Tierney, you didn’t take what’d baptize a babby.”
“It’d be a big babby then; one like yerself may be.”
“Here’s long life to the first you have yerself, any way, Miss Tierney!” and he finished the glass, of which the blushing beauty had drunk half. “Might a boy make a guess who’d be the father of it?”
“Go asy now, masther Morty,”— the swain rejoiced in the name of Mortimer Kelley. “It’ll be some quiet, dacent fellow, that an’t given to chaffing nor too fond of sperrits.”
“By dad, my darling, and an’t that me to a hair’s breadth?”
“Is it you a dacent, asy boy?”
“Shure if it an’t me, where’s sich a one in the counthry at all? And it’s I’d be fond of the child — and the child’s mother more especial,” and he gave her a loving squeeze, which in a less energetic society might have formed good ground for an action for violent assault.
“Ah don’t! Go asy I tell you, Morty. But come, an’t you going to dance instead of wasting your time here all night?” and the pair, reinvigorated by their intellectual and animal refreshment, again commenced their dancing.
Whilst the fun was going on fast and furious among the dancers, those in the inner room were not less busily engaged. Brady was still sitting in the chair which he had occupied during the supper, at the bottom of the table, though he had turned round a little towards the fire. At the further end of it Thady was seated, with a lighted pipe in his mouth, and a tumbler of punch on the shelf over the fireplace. Joe Reynolds was seated a little behind, but between Thady and Pat Brady; and a lot of others were standing around, or squatting on the end of the table — leaning against the fireplace, or sitting two on a chair, wherever two had been lucky enough to secure one between them. They were all drinking, most of them raw spirits — and all of them smoking. At the other end of the room, three or four boys and girls were standing in the door-way, looking at the dancing, and getting cool after their own performances; and Denis McGovery was sitting in the chair which Father John had occupied, with his head on the table, apparently asleep, but more probably intent on listening to what was going on among them at the other end of the room, whom he so strongly suspected of some proposed iniquity. The noise, however, of the music and the dancing, the low tones in which the suspected parties spoke, and the distance at which they sat, must have made Denis’s occupation of eaves-dropping difficult, if not impracticable.
Thady had just been speaking, and it was evident from the thickness of his voice that the whiskey he had drunk was beginning to have its effects on him. Instead of eating his dinner, he had been drinking raw spirits in the morning, to which he was not accustomed; for though when cold, or when pressed by others, he could swallow a glass of raw whiskey with that facility which seems to indicate an iron throttle, he had been too little accustomed to give way to any temptation to become habitually a drunkard. Now, however, he was certainly becoming tipsy, and, therefore, more likely to agree to whatever those around him might propose.
“Asy, Mr. Thady!” said Pat; “there’s that long-eared ruffian, McGovery, listening to every word he can catch. Be spaking now as if you war axing the boys about the rint.”
“And isn’t it about that he is axing?” said Joe. “But how can he get the rint, or we be paying it, unless he gives us his hand to rid the counthry of thim as robs us of our manes, and desthroys him and us, and all thim as should be frinds to him and the owld Masther, and to Ballycloran?”
“You know, all of ye, that I never was hard on you,” continued Thady, “when, God knows, the money was wanted bad enough at Ballycloran. You know I’ve waited longer for what was owed than many a one has done who has never felt what it was to want a pound. Did I ever pull the roof off any of you? And though queer tenants you’ve most of you been, an’t the same set on the land now mostly that there was four years ago? There’s none of you can call me a hard man, I think; and when I’ve stuck to you so long, it isn’t now I’ll break away from you.”
“Long life to you, Mr. Thady!” “Long life to yer honer — and may ye live to see the esthate your own yet, and not owe a shilling!” “It’s thrue for the masther what he says; why should he turn agin his own now? God bless him!” Such were the exclamations with which Thady’s last speech was received.
“And I’ll tell you what it is,” and he now spoke in a low thick whisper, “I’ll tell you what’s on my mind. Those that you hate, I don’t love a bit too well. You all know Hyacinth Keegan, I think?”
“‘Deed we do — may the big devil fetch him home!”
“Well, then, would you like him for your landlord, out and out? such a fine gentleman as he is!”
“Blast him for a gintleman!” said Joe; “I’d sooner have his father; he war an honest man, more by token he war no Protestant; he sarved processes for Richard Peyton, up by Loch Allen.”
“Well then,” continued Thady, “if you don’t like him, boys, I can tell you he don’t like you a bit better; and if he can contrive to call himself masther at Ballycloran, as I can tell you he manes to try, it’s not one of you he’ll lave on the land.”
“Did he tell you that himself, Mr. Thady?” whispered Brady. Now though young Macdermot was nearly drunk — quite drunk enough to have lost what little good sense was left to him, after being fool enough to come at all among those with whom he was at present drinking — still what Ussher had said about his follower was not forgotten, and though he did not absolutely believe that Brady was a creature of Keegan’s, what he had heard prevented his having the same inclination to listen to Pat, or the same confidence in what he said.
“Faith then, he told me so with his own mouth; and it isn’t only the others ‘d be going, but you’d have to walk yourself, masther Pat.”
“And why wouldn’t I? D’ye think I’d be staying at Ballycloran afther you war gone, Mr. Thady?”
“Don’t be making any vows, Pat; maybe you wouldn’t be axed, and maybe, av you war, you wouldn’t refuse to ate yer bread, though it war Keegan paid for it.”
“That the first mouthful may choke me that I ever ate of his paying for!”
“Well, however, boys, Hyacinth Keegan will sthrip the roof off every mother’s son of you if he ever conthrives to put his foot in Ballycloran; but, by God, he never shall! Mind, boys, he can never do that till he can lay his hands on the owld man; and where’ll you all be, I wonder, to let him or any one he sends do that, or take a sod of turf, or a grain of oats off the land either?”
“By dad, you’re right, Mr. Thady,” said one of them. “Shure wouldn’t we have him in a bog-hole, or as many as he’d send; and then they might take away what they could carry in their mouths.”
“I’ll tell you what, Sir,” said Joe Reynolds, and he laid his hand on Thady’s knee, and leant forward till his mouth was near the young man’s ear — so near, that not only could not McGovery overhear his words, but of the whole party round the fire, only Brady and Byrne, besides Thady himself, could catch what he said; “I’ll tell you what, Sir, Keegan shall never harum you or yours, if you’ll be one of us — one of us heart and sowl; and I know you will, and I know it’s not in you to put up with what they’re putting on you; an’ dearly he’ll pay for the blow he strik you, an’ the word he said — surely, Mr. Thady!” And he whispered still lower into his ear, “Let alone the esthate, an’ the house, an’ all that, you’d niver put up with what he has been about this day, paceable an’ in quiet?”
“You’re thrue in that, Joe, by G——d!”
“Well then, won’t we see you righted? Let the bloody ruffian come to Ballycloran, an’ then see the way he’ll go back again to Carrick. Will you say the word, Mr. Thady? Will you join us agin thim that is as much, an’ a deal more, agin you than they are agin us?”
“But what is it you main to do?”
“That’s what you’ll know when you’ve joined us; but you know it isn’t now or here we’d be telling you that which, maybe, would put our necks in your hand. But when you’ve taken the oath we’ve all taken, we’ll be ready then not only to tell you all, but follow you anywhere.”
The young man paused.
“Isn’t it enough for you to know that our inimies is your inimies — that thim you wishes ill to, we wishes ill to? Isn’t Keegan the man you’ve most cause to hate, an’ won’t we right you with him? Don’t we hate that bloody Captain that is this moment playing his villain’s tricks with your own sisther in the next room there? and shure you can’t feel very frindly to him. By the holy Virgin, when you’re one of us, it’s not much longer he shall throuble you. If you can put up with what the likes of them is doing to you — if you can bear all that — why, Mr. Thady, you’re not the man I took you for. But mind, divil a penny of rint’ll ever go to Ballycloran agin from Drumleesh; for the matter’s up now; — you’re either our frind or our inimy. But if, Mr. Thady, you’ve the pluck they all says you have — an’ which I iver see in you, God bless you! — it’s not only one of us you’ll be, but the head of us all; for there isn’t one but’ll go to hell’s gate for your word; an’ then the first tinant on the place that pays as much as a tinpenny to Keegan, or to any but jist yourself — by the cross! he may dig his own grave.”
What Thady immediately said does not much signify; before long he had promised to come over to Mrs. Mulready’s at Mohill with Pat Brady, on an appointed night, there to take the oath of the party to whom he now belonged.
Though it was agreed that the secret determinations of the party were not to be divulged to him until he had joined them there, it nevertheless was pretty clearly declared that their immediate and chief object was the destruction of Ussher, and, if possible, the liberation of the three men who had lately been confined in Ballinamore Bridewell, for the malt that had been seized in the cabin by Loch Sheen. However, to prevent the evil arising from this carelessness in the performance of their duties as conspirators, Thady was requested to swear on a cross made with the handles of two knives, that he would not divulge anything that had occurred or been said in that room that night — with which request he complied.
By the time this was done most of them were drunk, but none were so drunk as poor Macdermot. His intoxication, moreover, was unfortunately not of that sort which was likely to end in quiescence and incapability. It was a sign of the great degradation to which Macdermot had submitted, in joining these men, that in talking over the injuries which Ussher had inflicted on them all, he had quietly heard them canvass Ussher’s conduct to his sister, and that in no measured terms. This had gone much against the grain with him at first, because he could not but strongly feel that, in abusing Ussher, they were equally reproaching Feemy. But the fall of high and fine feelings, when once commenced, is soon accomplished, even when the fall is from a higher dignity than those of Thady’s had ever reached; and though, a few hours since, he would have allowed no one but Father John, even to connect his sister’s name with Ussher, he had soon accustomed himself to hear the poorest tenant on his father’s property speak familiarly on the subject, when urging him to join them in common cause against his enemy. But though he had so far sacrificed his sister’s dignity in his drunken conversation with these men, he was not the less indignant with the man whose name they had so unceremoniously joined with hers; and he got up with the resolution to inform Ussher that the intercourse between him and Feemy must immediately cease. The spirits he had taken gave him a false feeling of confidence that he should find means to carry his resolution into effect without delay.
When he got into the outer room, Ussher and Feemy were not there. The dancing and drinking were going on as fast as ever; Shamuth, the piper, was in the same seat, with probably not the same tumbler of punch beside him, and was fingering away at his pipes as if the feeling of fatigue was unknown to him; and Mary, the bride, was still dancing as though her heart had not been broken all the morning with the work she had had to do. Biddy also, the Ballycloran housemaid, was in the seventh heaven of happiness — for hadn’t she music and punch galore? and though the glory of her once well-starched cap was dimmed, if not totally extinguished by the dust and heat, her heart was now too warm with the fun to grieve for that, especially when such a neat made boy as Barney Egan was dancing foranenst her. It did not, however, add to her happiness, when, after being addressed once or twice in vain, she heard her young master’s voice.
“Biddy — d’ye hear, and be d —— d to you! — is your misthress gone home?”
“‘Deed, Mr. Thady, I think she be.”
“And why the divil, then, a’nt you gone with her? d’you mane to be dancing here all night?”
Now Thady was in general so very unobservant — so little inclined to interfere with, if he could not promote, the amusements of his dependants — moreover, so unaccustomed to scold — that Biddy and the others round her soon saw that something was the matter.
“What are you staring at, you born fool? If Miss Feemy’s gone up to Ballycloran, do you follow her.”
Thady’s thick voice, red face, and sparkling eyes showed that he was intoxicated, and Biddy, if not preparing to obey him — for the temptation to stay was too strong — was preparing to pretend to do so, when Mary McGovery, by way of allaying Macdermot’s wrath, said,
“I don’t believe then, Mr. Thady, that Miss Feemy’s gone home, at all at all. I think she and the Captain is only walked down the lane a bit, jist to cool themselves, for sure it’s hot work dancing —”
Thady did not stop to ask any more questions, but hurried out of the door, and turning away from Ballycloran, walked as fast as his unsteady legs would carry him towards Mohill; and, unfortunately, Ussher and Feemy were strolling down the lane in that direction.
When Pat Brady saw Macdermot hurry out of the house, he said to his sister, “Begad! Mary, you’d better hurry down the lane — if Captain Ussher and Miss Feemy is in it — jist to take care of her; for he and the masther’ll have a great fight of it this night. The masther’s blood’s up, and the two’ll be slating one another afore they’re parted.”
“Goodness gracious!” exclaimed Mary, “why don’t you go yourself, Pat? Mr. Thady’s taken a dhrop, and maybe he’ll be hurting Miss Feemy or the Captain. Denis, dear,”— her husband came in the room just then — “there’s a ruction between the Captain and Mr. Thady; in God’s name go and bring away Miss Feemy!”
Ussher and Feemy had not been out of the house many minutes; it was a beautiful mild moonlight night in October, and as the girl had said, they had come out to cool themselves after the heat and noise and dirt of the room in which they had been dancing. Myles was in one of his best humours; he had persuaded himself that he had no real danger to fear from the men who, as he was told, were so hostile to him. Feemy, too, had looked very pretty and nice, and had not contradicted him; and whereas what Thady had drunk had made him cross, Ussher had only just had enough to make him good-humoured. Feemy too was very happy; she had contrived to forget her brother’s croaking and Father John’s warning, or at least the misery which they had occasioned her, and was very happy in Ussher’s good-humour. It were bootless to repeat their conversation, or to tell how often it was interrupted by some unchided caress on the part of Ussher. Feemy, however, had not forgotten her resolution, and was bringing up all her courage to make some gentle hint to Myles on the subject on which she had promised Father John to speak to him, when her heart sunk within her, on hearing her brother’s voice calling to her from behind.
“Good heaven, Myles, there’s Thady! what can he be wanting here?”
Ussher’s arm fell from the fair girl’s waist as he answered, “Never fear, dear, don’t you speak to him; leave him to me.” By this time, Thady had nearly joined them.
“Is that you, Feemy, here at this hour? What the d —— are you doing there, this time of night? Here, take my arm, and come home; it’s time you had some one to mind you, I’m thinking.”
Feemy saw that her brother was intoxicated, and was frightened; she turned, though she did not take his arm, and Ussher turned too.
“Your sister’s not alone, Macdermot; as I’m with her, I don’t think you have much cause to fear, because she is about a mile from Ballycloran.”
“May be, Captain Ussher, you’re being with her mayn’t make her much safer; at any rate you’ll let me manage my own affairs. I suppose I can take my sisther to her own home without your interference,” and he took hold of his sister’s arm, as if to drag it within his own.
“Good heavens, Thady, what are you afther? shure an’t I walking with you; don’t be dragging me!”
“It appears to me, Macdermot,” said Ussher, “that though your sister was in want of no protector before you came, she is in great want of one now.”
“She wanted it thin, and she wants it now, and will do as long as she’s fool enough to put herself in the way of such as you; but, by G——d, as long as I’m with her, she shall have it!” and he dragged her along by the arm.
“But, Thady,” said the poor girl, afraid both of her brother and her lover, and hardly knowing to which to address herself; “but, Thady, you’re hurting me, and I’ll walk with you quiet enough. I was only getting a little cool afther the dancing, and what’s the great harm in that?”
“Well — there,” and he let her go, “I’m not hurting you now; it’s very tender you’ve got of a sudden, when I touch you. Captain Ussher, if you’ll plaze to go on, or stay behind, I’ll be obliged, for I want to spake to Feemy; and there’s no occasion in life for my throubling you to hear what I’ve to say.”
“You can say what you like, Macdermot, but I shan’t leave you; for though Feemy’s your sister, you’re not fit to guide her, or yourself either, for you’re drunk.”
“And there you lie, Captain Ussher! you lie — that’s what you’re used to! but it’s the last of your lies she’ll hear.”
“Ah! you’re drunk,” replied Ussher, “besides, you know I’d not notice what you’d say before your sister; if, however, you’re not so very drunk as to forget what you’ve called me tomorrow morning, and would then like to repeat it, I’ll thrash you as you deserve.”
“Then, by Jasus, you’ll have your wish! you asked me to-night if I had a mind to quarrel with you, and now I’ll tell you, if I find you at Ballycloran schaming agin, you’ll find me ready and willing enough.”
“That’s where you’ll find me tomorrow morning then, for I’ll certainly come to ask your sister how she is, after the brutal manner you’ve frightened her this night; and then perhaps you’ll have the goodness to tell me what you mean by what you call ‘schaming.’”
“I’ll tell you now, then; it’s schaming to be coming with your lies and your blarney afther a girl like Feemy, only maning to desave her — it’s schaming to go about humbugging a poor silly owld man like my father — and it’s the higth of schaming and blackguardness to pretend to be so frindly to a family, when you know you’re maning them all the harum in your power to do. But you’ll find, my fine Captain, it an’t quite so asy to play your thricks at Ballycloran as you think, though we are so poor.”
Feemy, when the young men had begun to use hard words to one another, had commenced crying, and was now sobbing away at a desperate rate.
“Don’t distress yourself, Feemy,” said Ussher, “your brother’ll be more himself tomorrow morning; he’ll be sorry for what he has said then — and if he is so, I am not the man to remember what any one says when they’ve taken a little too much punch.”
They had now come near enough to Mrs. Mehan’s to see that there were a number of people outside the door. As soon after Thady’s departure as Denis McGovery and the rest had been able to make up their minds what it would be the best to do in the emergency of the case, Denis and his wife sallied forth; the former to carry home whichever of the combatants might be slaughtered in the battle, and Mary to give to Feemy what comfort and assistance might be in her power. Pat Brady prudently thought that under all circumstances it would be safest for himself to remain where he was. The married pair, however, bent on peace if possible, and if not, on assuaging the horrors of war, had barely got into the road, when they encountered Father John returning to the wedding party.
“Oh, and it’s yer riverence is welcome agin this blessed evening. God be praised that sent you, for it’s yerself’ll be wanted, I’m afeard, and that immediately.”
It was some time before the priest could learn what was the matter. At last he discovered that Ussher and Feemy had gone out walking — that Thady had got drunk, and had gone after them; and he was inquiring whether he had gone towards Mohill, or towards Ballycloran, which none of them knew, when the three came in sight.
Father John instantly walked up to them, and if he had learnt it from nothing else, soon discovered from Feemy’s tears, that something was the matter.
“How are you, Thady?” he said, putting out his hand to take the young man’s, which was given with apparent reluctance; “how are you? is there anything wrong, that Feemy is crying so?”
“Oh, you know, Father John, there is a d —— d deal wrong, and I’ve jist told the Captain what it is, that’s all. I’ll not have the girl humbugged any longer, that’s all.”
“There must be a great deal wrong, Thady, when you’d curse that way before me.”
“I can’t be picking my words now, for priest or parson.”
They were now surrounded by the whole crowd out of the house, who were staring and gaping, and absolutely shocked at Thady’s impudence to his friend and priest. Feemy was sobbing, and on Ussher offering her his arm to take her from the crowd, took it.
“By G——d!” exclaimed Thady, “if you touch that ruffian’s arm again, I’ll niver call you sisther, or shall you iver call me brother; so now choose betwixt us.”
Feemy dropped her hand from Ussher’s arm, but turning to the priest, she said, “For heaven’s sake take him away, Father John, he’s drunk!”
“Drunk or sober, you may choose now; it’s either me or him; but if you disgrace yourself, you shall not disgrace me!”
Father John took Feemy’s arm on his, and telling the people to go back to their dancing, laid his hand on Thady’s shoulder, and said,
“At any rate, Thady, come a little out of this; if you must speak to your sister in that way, you don’t wish all the parish to hear what you’re saying.”
“What matthers, Father John; what matthers? Shure they’ve all heard too much already; — don’t they all say she’s the blackguard’s misthress?”
“Oh, Thady, how can you repeat that word of me?” sobbed the poor girl.
“Why did you let them say it? Why don’t you tell the man that’s blackening your name while he’s desaving you, to be laving you now, and not following you through the country like a curse?”
By this time the whole party, consisting of Father John, the two young men, and Feemy, were walking on rapidly towards Ballycloran. Feemy was crying, but saying nothing. Ussher was silent, although Thady was heaping on him every term of abuse he could think of; — and Father John was in vain attempting to moderate his wrath. Thus they continued until they came to the avenue leading up to the house, and on Ussher’s proceeding with them through the gate, Thady put himself in the way, stopping him.
“You’ll not come a step in here, Captain, if I know it; you might follow us along the road, for I couldn’t help it — but, by G——d, you don’t come in here!”
“Nonsense, man; do you think I’ll stop out for a drunken man’s riot? let me pass.”
“Set a foot in here, you blackguard, and I’ll stretch you!”
Thady had an alpine in his hand, and was preparing to strike a blow at the Captain, exactly on the spot where Keegan had struck him, when the priest pushed his burly body in between them. “I’ll have no blows, boys, at any rate while I’m with you; put your stick down, Thady,” and he forced the young man’s stick down; “run up to the house, Feemy, and get to bed; I’ll see you in the morning.” Feemy, however, did not move. “Now, Captain Ussher, I am not saying a word on the matter, one way or other, for I don’t well know how the quarrel began — but do you think it’s well to be forcing your way in here, when the master desires you not?”
“But, Mr. McGrath, I’ve yet to learn that this drunken fellow is master here; besides, I suppose it is not a part of his project to rob me of my horse, which is in his father’s stable.”
Thady was at length persuaded to allow Ussher to go to the stables for his horse, and the Captain, after what had passed, did not now wish to go into the house. He was, however, going up to Feemy to shake hands with her, when the priest caught him by the arm, saying —
“Why would you anger a drunken man, and that too, when the feeling in his heart is right? I’ll tell you what, Captain, if what that young man fears is true, you’re almost as much worse than him as vice is than virtue.”
“Spare me your sermon now, Father John; if I see you tomorrow I’ll hear it in patience,” and he galloped down the avenue.
Thady and Feemy went into the house, and we hope each got to bed without further words; and Father John walked slowly home, thinking of all the misery he saw in store for his parishioners at Ballycloran.
As soon as he had finished his breakfast on the morning after the night’s events just recorded, Father John took his hat and stick, and walked down to Drumsna, still charitably intent on finding some means to soften, if he could not avert, the storm which he saw must follow the scenes he had witnessed on the previous evening. Ussher would have considered it want of pluck to stay away because Thady had told him to do so; Feemy also would encourage his visits, and would lean more to her lover than her brother — especially as her father, if it were attempted to make him aware of the state of the case, would be sure to take Feemy’s part. Father John felt it would be impossible to induce the old man to desire Ussher to discontinue his visits, and he was confident that unless he did so, the Captain would take advantage of the unfortunate state of affairs at Ballycloran, and consider himself as an invited guest, in spite of the efforts Thady might make to induce him to leave it. But what the priest most feared was, that the unfortunate girl would be induced to go off with her lover, who he knew under such circumstances would never marry her; and his present object was to take her out of the way of such temptation. Father John gave Feemy credit for principles and feelings sufficiently high to prevent her from falling immediately into vice, but he at the same time feared, that with the strong influence Ussher had over her, he might easily persuade her to leave her home, partly by promising at some early time to marry her, and partly by threatening her with desertion. He thought that if she were at present domiciled at Mrs. McKeon’s, Ussher might then be brought to hear reason, and be made to understand that if he was not contented to propose for and marry Feemy, in a proper decent manner, he must altogether drop her acquaintance.
He was not far wrong in the estimate he formed of both their characters. Though Ussher loved Feemy, perhaps as well as he was ever likely to love any woman, circumstances might easily have induced him to give her up. It was the impediments in the way, and the opposition he now met with, which would give the affair a fresh interest in his eyes. He certainly did not intend to marry the poor girl; had she had sufficient tact, she might, perhaps, have persuaded him to do so; but her fervent love and perfect confidence, though very gratifying to his vanity, did not inspire him with that feeling of respect which any man would wish to have for the girl he was going to marry. I do not say that his premeditated object had been to persuade her to leave her home, but Father John was not far wrong in fearing, that unless steps were taken to prevent it, it would be the most probable termination to the whole affair.
With regard to Feemy, he was quite right in thinking that her love of Ussher was strong enough to induce her to take almost any step that he might desire; and that that love, joined to her own obstinacy and determined resistance to the advice of those to whom she should have listened, was such as to render it most unlikely that she should be induced to give him up; but though he so well understood the weakness of her character, he was not aware of, for he had had no opportunity of trying, its strength.
As long as Feemy had her own way, as at the present time she had, she would, as we have seen, yield entirely to her strong love; but this was not all; had circumstances enabled her friends to remove her entirely out of Ussher’s way, and had they done so, her love would have remained the same; her passion was so strong, that it could not be weakened or strengthened by absence or opposition. When Father John calculated that by good management Ussher might be brought to relinquish Feemy, he was right, but he was far from right, when he thought that Feemy could be taught to forget him. She literally cared for no one but him; her life had been so dull before she knew him, and so full of interest since — he so nearly came up to her beau ideal of what a man should be, for she had seen, or at any rate had known, no better — he so greatly excelled her brother and father, and was so much better looking than young Cassidy, and so much more spirited than Frank McKeon, that to her young heart he was all perfection.
She had lately been vexed, tormented, and even frightened; but her fear was merely that Ussher did not love her as she did him — that he might be made to leave her; and she was learning to hate her brother for opposing, as she would have said, the only source of her happiness. As to being induced by prudence or propriety to be cool to her lover — as to taking the first step herself towards making a breach between them — nothing that her brother or the priest had said, nothing that they could ever say, could either make her think of doing so, or think that it could be advisable, or in any way proper, that she should do so. For this strong feeling Father John did not give our heroine credit; but he still felt that she was headstrong enough to make it a very difficult task for him to manage her in any way. But as his charity was unbounded, so were his zeal and courage great.
His present plan was to induce his friend, Mrs. McKeon, to ask Feemy to come over and spend some time with her and her daughters at Drumsna. There were difficulties in this; for, in the first place, although Feemy and the Miss McKeons had been very good friends, still the reports which had lately been afloat, both about her and the affairs of her family, might make Mrs. McKeon, a prudent woman, unwilling to comply with the priest’s wishes — though indeed it was not often that she contradicted him in anything; then, after he had talked Mrs. McKeon over, when he had aroused her charitable feelings and excited the good nature, which, to tell the truth, was never very dormant in her bosom, he had the more difficult task of persuading Feemy to accept the invitation. Not that under ordinary circumstances she would not be willing enough to go to Mrs. McKeon’s, but at present she would be likely to suspect a double meaning in everything. Father John had already mentioned Mrs. McKeon’s name to her, in reference to her attachment to Ussher; and it was more than probable that if he now brought her an invitation from that lady, she would perceive that the object was to separate her from her lover, and that she would obstinately persist in remaining at Ballycloran.
As Father John was entering Drumsna, he met his curate, Cullen, and McGovery, who, considering that he had only been married the evening before, and that if he had not been dancing himself, he had been kept up by his guests’ doing so till four or five in the morning, had left his bride rather early; for, according to custom, he had slept the first night after his wedding at his wife’s house, and, though it was only ten o’clock, he had been on a visit to Father Cullen, with whom he was now eagerly talking.
On the previous evening, when feigning to be asleep, he had managed to overhear a small portion of what had passed between Thady, Joe Reynolds, and the rest; but what he had overheard had reference solely to Keegan; for when they began to speak of Ussher, everything had been said in so low a voice, that he had been unable to comprehend a word. He had contrived, however, to pick up something, in which Ballycloran, rents, Keegan, and a bog-hole were introduced in marvellous close connection, and he was not slow in coming to the determination that he had been wrong when he fancied that Ussher was the object against whom plots were being formed, and that Keegan was the doomed man; but what was worse still, he was led to imagine that the perpetrators of Mr. Keegan’s future watery grave were instigated by young Macdermot! He was well aware that Flannelly and Keegan, for they were all one, had the greater portion of the rents out of Ballycloran, and he now plainly saw that the more active of this firm was to be made away with, while collecting, or attempting to collect, the rent.
Denis was puzzled as to what he should do; his conscience would not allow the man to be murdered without his interference; he had no great love for Mr. Keegan, and his sympathies were not more strongly excited than they had been when he thought Ussher was to be the victim. Should he tell Mr. Keegan? that would be setting the devil in arms against his wife’s brother — against his wife’s brother’s master — and against his wife’s brother’s master’s tenants; this was too near cutting his own throat, to be a line of action agreeable to Denis. Then it occurred to him to have recourse again to Father John: but Father John had made light of his former warning. Besides, the fact of his having been wrong in his last surmises, would have thrown stronger doubts on those he now entertained. Father John too was always quizzing him, and Denis did not like to be quizzed. After much consideration, McGovery resolved to go to Father Cullen, and disclose his secret to him; Father Cullen was a modest, steady man, who would neither make light of, or ridicule what he heard; and if after that Keegan was drowned in a bog-hole, it would be entirely off Denis’s conscience.
When Father John met the pair, they had just been discussing the subject; Cullen was far from making light of it; for, in the first place, he believed every word McGovery told him, and in the next, he was shocked, and greatly grieved, that one of his own parishioners, and one also of the most respectable of them, should be concerned in such a business: he felt towards Keegan all the abhorrence which a very bigoted and ignorant Roman Catholic could feel towards a Protestant convert, but he would have done anything to prevent his meeting his death by the hands, or with the connivance, of Thady Macdermot.
As soon as Cullen had heard McGovery’s statement — which, by the by, had been made without any reference to his previous statement to Father John, or his warning to Captain Ussher — he determined to tell it all to the parish priest, and to take McGovery with him. This plan did not, however, suit Denis at all, and he used all his eloquence to persuade Father Cullen, that if he told Mr. McGrath at all, he, Denis, had better not make one of the party; and he was at the moment considering what excuse he could give for refusing to go into the priest’s cottage, when they met Father John on the road coming into Drumsna.
Denis was greatly disconcerted — but Cullen, full of his news, and as eager to communicate it as if it had been arranged definitely that Keegan was to be put into the bog-hole at noon precisely, was very glad to see him, and instantly opened his budget.
“I’m very glad to meet you this morning, Mr. McGrath,” he began, “and it’s well since you’re out so early, that it’s not the other way you went — for I’d been greatly bothered if I hadn’t found you.”
“But here I am, you see — and if it was only after me you were going, I suppose you can turn, for I’m going to Drumsna.”
“Oh to be sure I can; don’t you be going, Denis McGovery.” Denis had taken off his hat, and muttering something about his wife, and “good morning, yer riverence,” was decamping towards Ballycloran.
“Why, man,” said Father John, “what business have you so far from your wife at this hour of the morning, after your wedding? Have you been to take the two pigs home?”
“He, he, Father John, you’ll niver have done with them pigs! — But the wife’ll be waiting for me, and, as yer riverence says, I mustn’t be baulking her the first morning.”
“Stay a while — as you’ve come so far without her, you can stop a moment.”
“Oh yes,” said Cullen, “wait till you’ve told Mr. McGrath what you told me.”
Denis was unwillingly obliged to remain, and repeat to Father John the whole story he had told Cullen. Though he could hardly tell why himself, he softened down a little the strong assurance he had given Cullen that Thady himself had been urging the boys to make away with Keegan. Father John listened to all in silence, till Denis ended by wishing “that the two young men got home safe last night, and that there war nothing worse nor harder than words betwixt them.”
“Get home safe, you fool!” answered Father John, “and why wouldn’t they? — don’t you know the difference yet, between a few foolish words, said half in fun, and a quarrel? To be sure they got home safe; — and let me tell you, Denis, for a sensible fellow as you pretend to be, you’d be a deal better employed minding your business, than thinking of other people’s quarrels, or trying to pick up stories of murders, and heaven knows what — filling your own mind and other people’s too with foolish fears, for which there are no grounds. And now, if you’d take my advice, you’ll go home, and leave your betters to take care of themselves, for you’ll find it quite enough to take care of yourself; — and mind, McGovery, if I find this cock and bull story of yours gets through the country, so as to reach Mr. Keegan’s ears, or to annoy Mr. Macdermot, I shall know where it came from; and perhaps you’re not aware, that a person inventing such a story as you’ve been telling Mr. Cullen, might soon find himself in Carrick Gaol.”
It would be impossible to say whether Cullen was most astonished, or McGovery disconcerted, by Father John’s address.
“But,” began Cullen, “if the man really heard the plan proposed, Mr. McGrath, and if Mr. Thady was one of them —”
“Ah, nonsense, Cullen.”
“But I haven’t invented a word, Father John,” said McGovery; “I heard it every word; and shure, afther hearing it all with my own ears, was I to let the man be shot into a bog-hole, without saying a word to no one about it, Father John?”
“Ah, you’re a nice boy, Denis — and why did you pass my gate to come all the way down to Father Cullen, to tell him the dreadful tale? why didn’t you come to me, eh — when you knew, not only that I was nearer you than Mr. Cullen, but also nearer to the place where all this was to happen?”
“Why then, Father John, not to tell you a lie, it is because you do be going on with your gagging at me so.”
“Nonsense, man; — how can you say you are not going to lie, when you know you’ve a lie in your mouth at the moment.”
“Sorrow a lie is there in it at all, Father John — I wish the tongue of me had been blistered this morning, before I said a word of it.”
“I wish it had been. Why, Cullen, it was only last night that he wanted to persuade me that a lot of boys were to meet at the place where he was married, to agree to murder Ussher; and to hear the man, you’d think it was all arranged, who was to strike the blow and all; and now here he is with you, with a similar story about Keegan! He was afraid to come to me, because he knew he’d half humbugged me with his other story last night.”
“But I tell you, Father John, I heard it all with my own ears this time.”
“And I tell you, you were dreaming. Do you think you’d make me believe that such a young gentleman as Mr. Thady would turn murderer all of a sudden? Now go home, and take my advice; if you don’t want to find yourself in a worse scrape than Captain Ussher, or Mr. Keegan, don’t repeat such a tale as that to any one.”
McGovery sneaked off with his tail, allegorically speaking, between his legs. He didn’t exactly know what to make of it; for though, as has been before said, he did not wish on this occasion to make Father John the depositary of his fears, he did not expect even from him to meet with such total discomfiture. He consoled himself, however, with the recollection that if anything did happen now, either to the revenue officer or the attorney — and he almost hoped there would — he could fairly say that he had given warning and premonitory tidings of it to the parish priests, which, if attended to, might have prevented all harm. With this comfortable feeling, to atone for Father John’s displeasure, and now not quite sure whether he had overheard any allusion last night to Keegan and a bog-hole or not, he returned to his wife.
As soon as he was gone, Cullen, as much surprised as McGovery at the manner in which Father John had received the story, asked him if he thought it was all a lie.
“Perhaps not all a lie,” answered the priest; “perhaps he heard something about Keegan — not very flattering to the attorney; no doubt Thady was asking the boys about the rent, and threatening them with Keegan as a receiver over the property, or something of that sort; and very likely one of those boys from Drumleesh said something about a bog-hole, which may be Thady didn’t reprove as he ought to have done. I’ve no doubt it all came about in that way — but that fellow with his tales and his stories, will get his ears cut off some of these days, and serve him right. Why, he wanted yesterday, to make me believe that these fellows who are to drown Keegan this morning, were to shoot Ussher last night! He’s just the fellow to do more harm in the country than all the stills, if he were listened to. — Well, Cullen, good day, I’m going into Mr. McKeon’s here;"— and Cullen went away quite satisfied with Father John’s view of the affair.
Not so, Father John. For Thady’s sake — to screen his character, and because he did not think there was any immediate danger — he had given the affair the turn which it had just taken; but he himself feared — more than feared — felt sure that there was too much truth in what the man had said. Thady’s unusual intoxication last night — his brutal conduct to his sister — to Ussher, and to himself — the men with whom he had been drinking — his own knowledge of the feeling the young man entertained towards Keegan, and the hatred the tenants felt for the attorney — all these things conspired to convince Father John that McGovery had too surely overheard a conversation, which, if repeated to Keegan, might probably, considering how many had been present at it, give him a desperate hold over young Macdermot, which he would not fail to use, either by frightening him into measures destructive to the property, or by proceeding criminally against him. Father John was not only greatly grieved that such a meeting should have been held, with reference to its immediate consequences, but he was shocked that Thady should so far have forgotten himself and his duty as to have attended it. But with the unceasing charity which made the great beauty of Father John’s character, he, in his heart, instantly made allowances for him; he remembered all his distress and misery — his want of friends — his grief for his sister — his continued attempts and continued inability to relieve his father from his difficulties; and he determined to endeavour to screen him.
His success with McGovery, whom he had made to disbelieve his own senses, and with Cullen, who was ready enough to take his superior’s views in any secular affair, had been complete; and he did not think that either would now be likely to repeat the story in a manner that would do any injury. We shall, in a short time, see what steps he took in the matter with Thady himself. In the meanwhile, we will follow him into Mrs. McKeon’s house, at whose door he had now arrived.
When Father John opened the wicket gate leading into the small garden which separated Mrs. McKeon’s house from the street, he saw her husband standing in the open door-way, ruminating. Mr. McKeon was said to be a comfortable man, and he looked to be so; he was something between forty-five and fifty, about six feet two high, with a good-humoured red face. He was inclined to be corpulent, and would no doubt have followed his inclination had he not accustomed himself to continual bodily activity. He was a great eater, and a very great drinker; it is said he could put any man in Connaught under the table, and carry himself to bed sober. At any rate he was never seen drunk, and it was known that he had often taken fifteen tumblers of punch after dinner, and rumour told of certain times when he had made up and exceeded the score.
He was comfortable in means as well as in appearance. Though Mr. McKeon had no property of his own, he was much better off than many around him that had. He had a large farm on a profitable lease; he underlet a good deal of land by conacre, or corn-acre; — few of my English readers will understand the complicated misery to the poorest of the Irish which this accursed word embraces; — he took contracts for making and repairing roads and bridges; and, altogether, he contrived to live very well on his ways and means. Although a very hard-working man he was a bit of a sportsman, and usually kept one or two well-trained horses, which, as he was too heavy to ride them himself, he was always willing, and usually able, to sell at remunerating prices. He was considered a very good hand at a handicap, and understood well — no one better — the dangerous mysteries of “knocking.” He was sure to have some animal to run at the different steeple-chases in the neighbourhood, and it was generally supposed, that even when not winning his race, Tony McKeon seldom lost much by attending the meeting. There was now going to be a steeple-chase at Carrick-on-Shannon in a few days, and McKeon was much intent on bringing his mare, Playful — a wicked devil, within twenty yards of whom no one but himself and groom could come — into the field in fine order and condition. In addition to this, Mr. McKeon was a very hospitable man, his only failing in that respect being his firm determination and usual practice to make every man that dined with him drunk. He was honest in everything, barring horse-flesh; was a good Catholic, and very fond of his daughters — Louey and Lydia. His wife was a kind, good, easy creature, fond of the world and the world’s goods, and yet not selfish or niggardly with those with which she was blessed. She was sufficiently contented with her husband, whose friends never came out of the dining-room after dinner, and therefore did not annoy her; she looked on his foibles with a lenient eye, for she had been accustomed to such all her life; and when she heard he had parted with her car in a handicap, or had lost her two fat pigs in a knock, she bore it with great good-humour. She was always willing to procure amusement for her daughters, and was beginning to feel anxious to get them husbands; she was a good neighbour, and if she had a strong feeling at all, it was her partiality for Father John. Her daughters had nothing very remarkable about them to recommend them to our attention: they were both rather pretty, tolerably well educated, to the extent of a two years’ sojourn in a convent in Sligo; were both very fond of novels, dancing, ribbons and potato cakes; and both thought that to dance at a race-ball with an officer in his regimentals was the most supreme terrestrial blessing of which their lot was susceptible.
We have, however, kept the father too long standing at his own door, while we have been describing his family.
“Well, Father John,” said McKeon, “how are you this morning?”
“Why then, as luckily I didn’t dine with you, Mr. McKeon, I’m pretty much as I usually am — and, thank God, that’s well. I’m told you had those poor fellows that were with you last night, laid on a mattress, and that you sent them home that way to Carrick on a country car, and that they couldn’t move, leaving this at six this morning.”
“Oh, nonsense, Father John! who was telling you them lies?”
“But wasn’t it true? Didn’t they go home on one of the cars off the farm, and young Michael driving them, and they on a mattress?”
“And sure, Father John, you wouldn’t have had me let them walk home to Carrick after dinner?”
“They were little fit for walking, I believe; why they couldn’t so much as sit up in the car. Will you never have done, Mr. McKeon; don’t you know the sin of drunkenness?”
“The sin of drunkenness! me know it! Indeed I don’t then. When did you ever see me drunk? Come, which was a case last, Father John — you or I?”
“God forgive me, but I believe some boys did make me rather tipsy the first day I ever was in France; and my head should have been full of other things; and I believe if you were to swim in punch it wouldn’t hurt you; but you know as well as I can tell you, it’s worse for you to be making others drink so much who can’t bear it as you can, than if you were hurting yourself.”
“And you know, as well as I can tell you, that yourself would be the last man to take the whiskey off the table, as long as the lads that were with you chose to be drinking it; and I think when I sent them boys off to Carrick as comfortably asleep as if they were in bed, so that they wouldn’t be too late at business this morning, I acted by them as I’d wish anybody to act by me if I had an accident; and if that an’t being a good Christian, I don’t know what is. So lave off preaching, Father John, and come round to the stables, till I show you the mare that’ll win at Carrick; at least, it’ll be a very good nag that’ll take the shine out of her.”
“I hope you’ll win, Mr. McKeon, in spite of your villany in making those young fellows drunk. But I’ll not look at the mare just at present; more by token I’m told she’s not very civil to morning visitors.”
“Arrah, nonsense, man! she’s as quiet a mare as ever went over a fence, when she’s well handled.”
“But you see I can’t handle her well; and as I want to see the good woman that owns you, if you please, I’ll go into the house instead of into the stable.”
“Well, every man to his choice; and I’ll see Playful get her gallop. But I tell you what, Father John, if you don’t mind what you’re after with Mrs. McKeon, I’ll treat you a deal worse than I did those two fellows I sent home to Carrick on a mattress.”
So Mr. McKeon walked off to superintend the training of his mare; and the priest, in spite of the marital caution he had received, walked into the dining-room, where he knew that at that hour he should probably find the mother and daughters surrounded by their household cares.
When the usual greetings were over, and the two girls had asked all the particulars of Mary Brady’s wedding, and Mrs. McKeon had got through her usual gossip, Father John warily began the subject respecting which he was so anxious to rouse his friend’s soft sympathies.
Mrs. McKeon had gone so far herself as to ask him whether anything had been settled yet at Ballycloran, about Ussher, and whether he thought that the young man really intended to marry the girl.
The way this question was asked, was a great damper to Father John’s hopes. If there had been any kindly feelings towards poor Feemy at the moment in her breast, she would have called her by her name, and not spoken of her as “the girl;” it showed that Mrs. McKeon was losing, or had lost, whatever good opinion she might ever have had of Feemy: and when Louey ill-naturedly added, “Oh laws! — not he — the man never thought of her,” Father John felt sure that there was a slight feeling of triumph among the female McKeons at the idea of Feemy’s losing the lover of whom, perhaps, she had been somewhat too proud.
Still, however, he did not despair; he knew that if they spoke with ill-nature, it arose from thoughtlessness — and that it was, at any rate with the mother, only necessary to point out to her the benefit she could confer, to arouse a kindly feeling within her.
“I think you’re wrong there, Miss Louey,” said Father John; “I think he not only did think of her — but does think of her; and I’ll tell you what I know, that if Feemy Macdermot had the great blessing which you have, and that is a kind, good, careful mother to the fore, she’d have been married to him before this.”
“But, Father John,” said the kind, good, careful mother, “what is there to prevent them marrying, if he’s ready? I always pitied Feemy being left alone there with her father and brother; but if Captain Ussher is in earnest, I don’t see how twenty mothers would make it a bit easier for her.”
“Don’t you, Mrs. McKeon! — then it’s little you know the advantage your own girls have in yourself. Don’t you think a man would prefer taking a girl from a house where a good mother gave signs that the daughter would make a good wife, than from one where there was no one to mind her but a silly old man, and a young one like Thady? — a very good young man in his way, but not very fit, Mrs. McKeon, to act a mother’s part to a girl like Feemy.”
“That’s true enough; but then why did she make all the world believe he was engaged to her, if he wasn’t? — And if he wasn’t, why did she let him go on as though he was, being at all hours, I’m told, with her at Ballycloran? — and if they are not to be married, why does her brother let him be coming there at all? I know you’re fond of them, Father John, and I’d be sorry to think ill of your friends; but I must say it begins to look odd.”
“You’re right any how, in saying I’m very fond of them; indeed I am, and so is yourself, Mrs. McKeon; and I know, though you speak in that way to me, you wouldn’t say anything that could hurt the poor girl, any where but just among ourselves. If it wasn’t in a kind mother, with such a heart as your own — especially in one she’d known so long — in whom could a poor motherless, friendless girl, like Feemy, expect to find a friend?”
“God forbid I should hurt her, Father John! And indeed I’d befriend her if I knew how; but don’t you think, yourself now, she’s played a foolish game with that young man?”
“Why, as I never was a young lady in love, I can’t exactly say how a young lady in love should behave; but, my dear woman, look at it this way; I suppose there’s no harm in Feemy wishing to get herself married, more than any other young lady?”
“Oh! dear no, Father John; quite right she should.”
“And every one seems to think this Captain Ussher would be a proper match for her.”
“Why, barring that he’s a Protestant, of course he’s a very good match for her.”
“Oh! as to his being a Protestant, we won’t mind that now. Well then, Mrs. McKeon, under these circumstances, what could Feemy do better than encourage this Captain?”
“I never blamed her for encouraging him; only she should not have gone the length she has, unless he downright proposed for her.”
“But he has downright proposed for her.”
“No! Father John,” said Louey.
“Has he though, really!” exclaimed Lyddy.
“Then, why, in the name of the blessed Virgin, don’t he marry her?” said the mother.
“That’s poor Feemy’s difficulty, you see, Mrs. McKeon. Now if any man you approved of were to make off with Miss Lyddy’s heart — and I’m sure she’ll never give it to any one you don’t approve of — why of course he’d naturally come to you or her father, and the matter would be settled; but Feemy has no mother for him to go to, and her father, you know, can’t mind such things now.”
“But she has a brother; in short, if he meant to marry her, it would soon be done. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
“But that’s where it is; you know young men, and what they are, a deal better than I do; and you can understand that a young man may propose to a girl, and be accepted, and afterwards shilly shally about it, and perhaps at last change his mind altogether — merely because the girl’s friends don’t take care that the affair is regularly and properly carried on; now isn’t that so, Mrs. McKeon?”
“Indeed, Father John, it’s all true.”
“Well, that’s just Feemy’s case; may be, after, as you say, having given the young man so much encouragement, she’ll lose him because she has no mother to keep him steady as it were, and fix him; and no blame to her in the matter either, is there, Mrs. McKeon?”
“Why, if you look at it in that way, of course, she’s not so much to blame.”
“Of course not,” said Father John, obliged to be satisfied with this modicum of applause; “of course not; but it’s a pity for the poor girl.”
“You think he’ll jilt her altogether, then?”
“I don’t think he means it yet; but I think he will mean it soon — unless, indeed, Mrs. McKeon, you’d befriend her now.”
“Me, Father John!”
“If you’d take a mother’s part with her for a week or so, it would all be right; and I don’t know a greater charity one Christian could do another this side the grave, than you could do her.”
“What could I do, Father John?” said the good woman — rather frightened, for she would now be called on to take some active part in the matter, which perhaps she might not altogether relish; —“what could I do? You see Ballycloran is three miles out of this, and I couldn’t always be up there when Ussher was coming. And though I believe I’d be bold enough where one of my own girls was concerned, I’d be shy of speaking to a man like Captain Ussher, when it was no business of my own.”
“As for that, I believe you’d never want wit or spirit either, to say what you’d wish to say to any man, and that in the very best manner. It’s true enough, though, you couldn’t be always up at Ballycloran; but why couldn’t Feemy be down at Drumsna?”— Father John paused a minute, and Mrs. McKeon said nothing, but looked very grave. —“Now be a good woman, Mrs. McKeon, and ask the poor girl down here for a fortnight or so; I know Lyddy and Louey are very fond of their friend, and Feemy’d be nice company for them; and then as you are acquainted with Captain Ussher, of course he’d be coming after his sweetheart; and then, when Feemy is under your protection, of course you’d speak to him in your own quiet lady-like way; and then, take my word for it, I’d be marrying them in this very room before Christmas. Wouldn’t we have dancing up stairs, eh, Miss Louey?”— Mrs. McKeon still said nothing. —“And even supposing Ussher did not come down here, and nothing was done, why it would be evident the match was not to take place, and that Ussher was a blackguard; then of course Feemy must give up all thoughts of him. And though, maybe, she’d grieve awhile, it would be better so than going on as she is now up at the old place, with no one to give her any advice, or tell her what she ought to do or say to the man. Any way, you see, it would be doing her a kind service. Come, Mrs. McKeon, make up your mind to be a kind, good neighbour to the poor girl; and do you and the two young ladies go up to Ballycloran, and ask her to come down and spend a week or two with you here.”
“But perhaps,” said Louey, “Feemy won’t like to leave Ballycloran, and come so far from her beau; because she couldn’t see him here as she does there, you know, Father John.”
“Why, Miss Louey, I don’t think you know how she sees him. I believe he goes and calls there, much as you’d like your beau to come and call here, if you had one.”
“Indeed, Father John, when I do have one, I hope I shall manage better than to be talked about as much as she is, any way. I hardly think it would do to ask her at present, mother. You know Mr. Gayner is to be here the night of the race-ball, and we’ve only the one bed.”
“Come, come, Miss Louey, I didn’t expect to hear you say a word against your old friend; why should you be less good-natured than your mother? You see she’s thinking how she can best do what I’m asking.”
“As for old friends,” said Louey, “I and Miss Macdermot were never so very intimate; and as for being ill-natured, I never was told before that I was more ill-natured than mother. But of course mamma will do as she likes, only she can’t very well turn Mr. Gayner out of the house after having asked him to come for the races, that’s all:” and Miss Louey flounced out of the room.
“Come, Mrs. McKeon,” continued Father John, “think of the benefit this would be to Feemy; and you can’t have any real objection; the race-ball is only for one night, and the girls will be too tired after that, to think very much of sleeping together.”
“But you seem to forget — very likely Mr. McKeon wouldn’t like my asking her; you know I couldn’t think of doing it without asking him.”
“Oh! Mrs. McKeon, that’s a good joke! You’ll make me believe, won’t you, that you’re not as much mistress of your own house as any woman in Ireland? As if Mr. McKeon would interfere with your asking any one you pleased to your own house.”
“But you see the girls are against it.”
“I hope they are not against anything that would be charitable and kind in their mother; but if they were, I’m quite sure their mother shouldn’t give way to them. Wouldn’t you be glad to have Miss Feemy here a short time, Miss Lyddy?”
“Indeed, I’d have no objection, if mamma pleases, Father John.”
“There, you see, Mrs. McKeon; — I am afraid I said something rude which set Miss Louey’s back up, but I am sure in her heart she’d be glad of anything that would be of service to Feemy. Come, Mrs. McKeon, will you drive over to Ballycloran this fine morning, and ask her?”
“But suppose she won’t come?”
“Then it won’t be your fault; — you can tell her it’s just for the races and the ball you’re asking her — that she may see Mr. McKeon’s horse win the race, and dance with Ussher at the ball afterwards. Oh! if you mean her to come, she’ll come fast enough; — let you alone for carrying your point when you’re in earnest. I know your way of asking, when you don’t mean to take a refusal; — and to give you your due this day, I never heard you give an invitation you didn’t mean to be accepted.”
“Well, Father John, as you think it will be of so much service to Feemy, and as, as you say, she has no mother, poor girl, of her own, and no female friend that she can look to, I’ll ask her over here. But it mustn’t be for a week or a fortnight, but till the affair of Captain Ussher is finally settled. And if the girl behaves herself as she ought, when once she is here, Tony won’t see her wronged by any man.”
“That’s my own friend!” said Father John with tears in his eyes. “What could any poor priest like me do in a parish, if it wasn’t that there were such women as yourself to help him?”
“But, Father John — whisper here,” and she took him aside into the window, and spoke in a low voice; “you can’t have helped hearing the stories people have been talking about Feemy. As I have heard them, of course you must.”
“Heard them! of course I have — but you know what lies get talked abroad.”
“But they say she walks with him after dark; and goes in and out there at Ballycloran, at all hours, just as she pleases. Of course I can have none of those doings here.”
“Of course not; it is because she has no one there to tell her what is right or wrong that I wish her to be here. Of course you have regular hours here, and you’ll find you’ll have no difficulty with her that way.”
“Well, Father John, I’ve only one more thing to say, and you’ll answer me that as a priest and a Christian. God knows, I wouldn’t believe any ill-natured story against any poor girl situated as Feemy is; but you know, such things will get about:— people say Ussher speaks of her as his mistress, instead of as his wife. Now, Father John, if this unfortunate girl, whom I’m ready and willing to help, has done anything really wrong, you would not be the means of bringing her into the house with my own dear girls! Have you, Father John, told me all you know about her attachment to this man?”
“Indeed then if she was unfit to associate with your girls, Mrs. McKeon, I’d be the last man on earth to ask you to invite her here. If Feemy has been imprudent in going out too much alone with Ussher, it’s the most that with truth can be said against her; and as you ask me to tell you all, I’ll tell you one thing I didn’t wish to mention before the girls.” And Father John told her how Thady had got drunk, and insulted Ussher, telling him not to come to Ballycloran again, and all that: but he did not tell her how strongly he suspected that Thady was right in his fears for his sister, and that his chief object in getting Feemy away from Ballycloran was to remove her as far as possible from Ussher’s influence.
“Well, Father John, I’ll go to Ballycloran, and ask her here; I suppose she’ll hardly be ready to come today, but if she pleases, I’ll drive over again for her after tomorrow. I’ll go now and talk Louey over, for you and she seem to have quarrelled somehow.”
“And God bless you, Mrs. McKeon; it’s yourself is a good woman; and you never did a kinder action than the one you’re going to do this morning!” and Father John took his leave.
The breakfast party at Ballycloran the morning after the wedding was not a very lively one; indeed the meals at Ballycloran seldom were very gay, but this was more than usually sombre.
Larry was brooding over Keegan’s threats, his fears that Thady meant to betray him into the attorney’s hands, and his determination never from that day forth to stir from his fireside, lest the horrid myrmidons of the law should pounce upon him.
Feemy was intent on the insults which had been offered to her lover, and her temper was somewhat soured by the remembrance that she had not effected her purpose of questioning Ussher about his intentions. Thady, however, was the blackest looking of the family. Everything was dark within his breast. He thought of the ruffians with whom he had leagued himself; and though previously he had only considered them as poor, hard used, somewhat lawless characters, they now appeared to him everything that was iniquitous and bad. Secret murder was their object — black, foul, midnight murder — and he was sworn, or soon would be sworn, not only to help them, but to lead them on. What he had already done might hang him. He felt his life to be in the power of each of those blackguards, with whom, in wretched equality, he had been drinking on the previous evening. And what had led him to this? If he had been wronged and injured, why could not he redress himself like other injured men? If revenge were necessary to him, why could he not avenge himself like a man, instead of leaguing with others to commit murder in the dark, like a coward and a felon? And then he thought of his position with Keegan and Ussher. There was something manly in his original disposition; he would have given anything for a stand up fight with the attorney with equal weapons; if it had been sure death to both, he would have fought him to the death; but he had no such opportunity; the dastardly brute had trampled on him when he could not turn against him. And then with rancorous hatred he thought of the blow that Keegan had struck him — of the manner in which he had insulted his father, and worse than all, of the name he had applied to his sister; and, remembering all this, he almost reconciled himself to the only means he had of punishing the wretch that had inflicted all these injuries on him. Then he thought of Ussher, and the scene which had passed between them last night; he knew he had been drunk, and had but a very confused recollection of what he had done or said. He remembered, however, that he had insulted Ussher; this did not annoy him; but he had a faint recollection of having committed his sister’s name, by talking of her in his drunken brawl, and of having done, or said something, he knew not what, to Father John.
Though Thady had never known the refinements of a gentleman, or the comforts of good society, still he felt that the fall, even from his present station to that in which he was going to place himself, would be dreadful. But it was not the privations which he might suffer, but the disgrace, the additional disgrace which he would bring on his family, which afflicted him. How could he now presume to prescribe to Feemy what her conduct should be, or to his father in what way he should act respecting the property? He already felt as though he was unworthy of either of them, and was afraid to look them in the face. After breakfast he wandered forth, striving to attend to his usual work, but the incentives to industry were all gone; he had no longer any hope that industry would be of service to him; he walked along the hedges and ditches, unconsciously planning in his mind the different ways of committing the crimes which he really so abhorred, but in which he was about to pledge himself to join. He thought, if it should be his lot to murder Keegan, how he would accomplish it. Should it be at night? — or in the day? — would he shoot him? — and if he did, would not the powder or the gun be traced home to him? — would not his footsteps in the bog be tracked and known? — if he struck him down on the road, would not the blood be found on his coat, or his shirt be torn in the struggle? — and, above all, would not his own comrades betray him? He had, some short time since, heard the whole of a trial for murder at Carrick assizes, and though he had not then paid particular attention to it, all the horrid detail and circumstances of the case now came vividly before his mind’s eye. He planned and plotted how, had he in that case been the murderer, he would have foreseen and provided against the different things, the untoward accidents, which then came in evidence against the prisoner; he thought how much more wary he would be than the poor wretch who was then tried, and of what benefit the experience he had gained would be to him. Then he remembered that the principal witness in the case was an ill-featured, sullen-looking fellow, who had been called king’s evidence — one who, in answering the tormenting questions put to him, had appeared almost more miserable than the prisoner himself; — that this man had been the friend and assistant of the murderer — the sharer and promoter of all his plans — the man who had led him on to the murder — his sworn friend. He remembered how it had come out on the trial, that the two had for months shared the same bed — tilled in the same field — eat from the same mess — and had sinned together in the same great sin. Yet this man had come forward to hang his friend! — and Thady shuddered coldly as he thought how likely it might be that his associates would betray him. He had not slept, eat, and worked with them — he was not leagued to them by equal rank, equal wants, and equal sufferings. If that wretched witness had been induced to give evidence against the man so strongly bound to him, how much more likely that Byrne or Reynolds should hang him! or Pat Brady! And as Brady’s name occurred to him, he remembered Ussher’s caution respecting that man, and his assurance that he was in Keegan’s pay. If this were true, he had already committed the oversight to guard against which he had calculated that his superior cunning would be sufficient; and then the cold perspiration trickled from his brow, and he abruptly stopped, leaning against a bank, to meditate again on the position in which he stood.
It was not that during this time Thady had been absolutely planning murder. He had not been making any definite scheme, to be carried into immediate execution against any individual. He was not a murderer, even in mind or wish; he would have given anything to have driven the idea from his mind, but he could not; he could not avoid thinking what he would do, if he had resolved to do the deed — how the crime would be most safely perpetrated — how the laws most cunningly evaded. Then he half resolved to have nothing more to do with Reynolds and his followers, and to quiet his conscience while yet he possibly could; but the insolence of Keegan, the injuries of Ussher, and the sure enmity of those whom he had sworn to join, and now scarcely dared to desert, stifled his remorse, and destroyed the resolution before it was half made. He thought of enlisting — but he could not desert his sister; of going to Father John, and confessing all; but would Father John befriend him after his late conduct to him? Thus he wandered on, through the whole long morning. Twice he returned to the house, and creeping in through the back door, got himself a glass of spirits, which he swallowed, and again sallied forth, to find if movement would give him comfort, or his thoughts suggest anything to him in mitigation of his sorrows.
As he was returning, the third time, for the same bad purpose — for the short stimulus of the dram was the only relief he could find to the depression which seemed to weigh him down and make his heart feel like a cold lump within him — and just as he was turning from the avenue to the back of the house, he met Ussher walking down. He did not know what to do; he remembered that the evening before he had defied this man; he even recollected that he had arrogantly declared that he should not again set his foot on Ballycloran; he had forbad him the house, as if he had been the master; and at the present moment he felt as though he did not dare address him, for it seemed to him as if every one now would look down on him, as he looked down on himself — as if every one could see what was in his breast, as plainly as he saw it himself.
This annoyance, however, was of short duration, for Ussher passed him with a slight unembarrassed nod, as if nothing had passed between them on the previous evening — as if they were still good friends, and had met and been talking together but a short time before. Ussher had walked by quickly, and there was a look of satisfaction or rather gratified vanity in his face; he seemed, also, absorbed with the subject of his thoughts; Thady, however, as soon as he had passed, took but little notice of him, but walked on into the kitchen, at the rear of the house.
Here, on a small settle by the fireside, where he had been placed out of the way by Biddy or Katty, sat a ragged bare-legged little boy, known as Patsy, the priest’s gossoon; he was the only assistant Judy had in the management of Father John’s ménage. He ran on errands to Drumsna, and occasionally to Carrick-on-Shannon — fetched the priest’s letters — dug his potatoes — planted his cabbages, and cleaned his horse Paul. He had now come up to Ballycloran with a message to Thady, and having been desired to stay there till he could see him himself, he had been quietly sitting in the kitchen since a little after Thady had first left the house; he now jumped up to give his message.
“Misther Thady, yer honer, Father John says as how he’ll be glad av yer honer’ll come down to dinner with him at six; and he says as how you must come, Mr. Thady, because divil a bit he’ll ate himself, he says, till you’re in it.”
“For shame, Patsy!” interposed Biddy, “putting those words into his riverence’s mouth. I’m sure thin Father John wasn’t cursing that way.”
“Faix thin, ma’am, thim wor his very words —‘Tell Mr. Thady, av he don’t come down to the cottage to his dinner this day, divil a bit will I ate till he does.’”
“Well, to hear the brat!” continued Biddy, shocked at the indecorous language which was put into her priest’s mouth.
“And who’s to be at Father John’s else?” said Thady.
“Sorrow a one av me rightly knows thin, for I wasn’t hearing; all I wor told wor, I warn’t to come out of this widout yer honer.”
“But I can’t go to-night, Patsy.”
“But Father John says you must, Mr. Thady.”
“Tell Father John, Patsy, that I am very much obliged to him, but that I’m not just well enough to come out to-night. I couldn’t go to-night, do you hear; go down and tell him so, or he’ll be waiting dinner.”
“But, Mr. Thady,” said the boy, half sobbing, “Father John said as how I warn’t to come at all widout you.”
“Do as I tell you, you fool; but mind you tell Father John I’m very much obliged to him, only I’m ill.”
“Well,” muttered the boy, at length taking his departure, “I know Father John’ll be very mad, but any way it ain’t my fault.”
Thady was gratified with the priest’s invitation, for it showed that he at least had forgiven him; but he did not dare to face him by accepting it.
He got himself another glass of whiskey, and lighting his pipe, sat down to smoke by the kitchen fire; after he had been some time sitting there, Pat Brady came into the kitchen. Thady, however, took no notice, except muttering something in answer to Pat’s usual salutation. They remained both some time silent, till at last Brady observed that, “They’d all of them had ilegant divarsion last night — most of them stayed a power later nor you, Mr. Thady.”
This allusion to last night was not at present the subject most likely to make Thady talk freely, so he still continued silent. At last Pat said,
“Could I spake to you a moment, Mr. Thady?”
“Spake out — what is it?”
“Oh, it’s business, yer honer; it’s something about money — wouldn’t you step out to the rint-office?”
“Don’t you see I’m just going to dinner; besides, I ain’t well — it’ll keep till tomorrow, I suppose?”
“But it won’t keep, Mr. Thady.”
At this moment, Biddy, who had been taking some smoking viands out of a big black pot and transferring them to a dish, went out of the kitchen with them on her road to the dining-room, and Pat took the opportunity of whispering to his master that, “the boys wor to meet at Mulready’s on the next evening.”
“What of that?” answered Thady; “I suppose some of them meet there mostly every night?”
“But tomorrow’s the night, Mr. Thady, when yer honer’s to be inisheated among us sworn brothers.”
“I shan’t be in it at all tomorrow, then.”
“Not be in it! why you promised; and the boys is all noticed now. Didn’t you take the oath, Mr. Thady?” and he whispered down close to his ear.
“I took no oath about any day. I suppose I needn’t come before I choose?”
Biddy now returned, and Thady got up to go to his dinner; Pat followed him, and renewed the conversation in the passage. Thady, however, would give no definite promise to come tomorrow, or the next day, but said he meant to come some day. Pat observed that the boys would be furious — that they would think themselves deceived and betrayed — then urged the necessity of taking steps to prevent their paying the rent to Keegan — hinted that Ussher had been with Miss Feemy that morning — and at last departed when he found that his master was not in a proper mood to be persuaded, remarking that “he would come up again in the morning, when perhaps his honer would be thinking better of it, and not break his promised word to the boys, as there would be a great ruction among them, av he didn’t go down jist to spake a word to them afther what had passed; besides, Mr. Thady,” he added, “av you wor to go back now, some of thim boys as wor in it last night, would be going to Jonas Brown’s, thinking to get the first word agin you — thinking, you know, as how you would ‘peach agin thim, may be.”
After this threat, Pat took his leave, and Thady, with a sad heart, and low spirits, which even three glasses of whiskey had not raised, went in to dinner. After swallowing a few hasty morsels, without speaking either to his father or his sister, he returned to the kitchen and again sat there smoking, till one of the girls came in, telling him that Father John was on the steps of the hall-door waiting for him — that he couldn’t come in, but that he said he had important business to speak of, and must see Mr. Thady.
“Confound you,” muttered Thady, in a low voice, “why didn’t you say I was out?”
“Shure, you niver told me, Mr. Thady.”
Thady considered a moment, whether he should escape through the back door; at last, however, he plucked up his courage, and went out to meet the priest.
As soon as Father John had gone, Mrs. McKeon prepared to persuade her refractory daughter to agree to the propriety of what she was going to do with respect to Feemy, and to inform her husband of the visitor she intended to ask to her house; she had not much difficulty with either, for though Louey was indignant when Father John hinted at her want of a beau, she was not really ill-natured, and when her mother told her that Father John had said that this invitation would be the performance of a Christian duty, she soon reconciled herself to the prospect of Feemy’s company, in spite of Mr. Gayner and his bed. And as for Mr. McKeon, he seldom interfered with the internal management of his house, and when his spouse informed him that Feemy was coming to Drumsna, he merely remarked that “no wonder the poor girl was dull at that old ramshackle place up there, and that though Drumsna was dull enough itself, it was a little better than Ballycloran, especially now the Carrick races were coming on;” and so the three ladies put on their best bonnets and set off on their journey of charity.
Feemy was in her own sitting-room, and was somewhat more neat in her appearance than the last time we saw her there, for Ussher had said he would call early in the morning; but she was employed in the same manner as then — sitting over the fire with a novel in her hand, when she heard the sound of the car wheels, and on going to the window, saw Mrs. McKeon and her daughters.
That lady managed her business with all the tact and sincerity for which Father John had given her credit; she made no particular allusion to Ussher, but merely said that they should have a party to the race-course, as Mr. McKeon had a horse to run, and that afterwards they should all go to the ball at Carrick; and Mrs. McKeon added, “You know, Feemy, you’ll meet your old friend Captain Ussher there.”
She then assured Feemy how glad she would be if she would stay a short time at Drumsna, after the races were over, as her two daughters were now at home, and that if she would, she would try to make the house as pleasant as possible for her.
This was all said and done so pleasantly, that Feemy did not detect any other motive in her friend’s civility than the one which was apparent, and after a little pressing, agreed to accept the invitation. It was agreed that Mrs. McKeon was to call for her on the Monday following, when, if her father made no objection, she would accompany her home to Drumsna.
As soon as they were gone, Feemy made her father understand who had been there, and obtained his consent to her proposed visit, which he gave, saying at the time, “God knows, my dear, whether you’ll ever come back, for your brother’s determined to part with the owld place if he can, in spite of all your poor father can say to the contrary.”
She then returned to her room, resuming her novel, and waiting with what patience she could for Ussher’s coming. About two o’clock he made his appearance, and she was beginning gently to upbraid him for being so late, when he stopped her, by saying,
“Well, Feemy, I have strange news for you this morning.”
“Strange news, Myles! what is it? I hope it’s good news.”
Ussher had not quite his usual confidence and ease about him; he seemed as if he had something to say which he almost feared to disclose at once, and he did not give Feemy a direct answer.
“Why, as to that, it is, and it isn’t. I suppose it’s good news to me — at least I ought to think so; but I don’t know what you’ll think of it.”
Poor Feemy’s face fell, and she sat down on the chair from which she had risen, as if she had not strength to stand. Myles stood still, with his back to the fire, trying to look as if he were not disconcerted.
“Well, Myles, what is it? won’t you tell me?” And then, when he smiled, she said, “Why did you try and frighten me?”
“Frighten you! why you frightened yourself.”
“But what is it, Myles?” and she walked up to him, and put her two hands on his shoulders, and looked up in his face —“what is your strange news?”
“In the first place, I am promoted to the next rank. I’m in the highest now, next to a County Inspector.”
“Oh! Myles, I’m so glad! but you couldn’t but know that would be good news to me; — but what else?”
“Why, they’ve sent me a letter from Dublin, with a lot of blarney about praiseworthy energy and activity, and all that —”
“That’s why they’ve promoted you: but you don’t tell me all.”
“No, that’s not all: then they say they think there’s reason why I’d better not stay in this immediate neighbourhood.”
“Ah! I thought so!” exclaimed the poor girl; “you’re to go away out of this!”
“And they say I’m to commence in the new rank at Cashel, in County Tipperary.”
Feemy for a time remained quiet. She was endeavouring to realize to herself the idea that her lover was going away, and then trying in her mind to comprehend whether it must follow naturally, as a consequence from this, that he was going away from her, as well as from Ballycloran. Ussher still stood up by the fireplace, with the same smile on his face. What he had told Feemy was all true; he had unexpectedly received an official letter that morning from the Dublin office, complimenting him on his services, informing him that he was to be moved to a higher grade, and that on his promotion he was to leave Mohill, and take charge of the men stationed at Cashel. All this in itself was very agreeable; promotion and increased pay were of course desirable; Mohill was by no means a residence which it would cause such a man as Ussher much regret to leave; and though he had made up his mind not to fear any injury from those among whom he was situated, he could not but feel that he should be more assured of safety at any other place than that at which he now resided. All this was so far gratifying, but still he was perplexed to think what he should do about Feemy. It was true he could leave her, and let her, if she chose, break her heart; or he might promise to come back and marry her, when he was settled, with the intention of taking no further notice of her after he had left the place; — and so let her break her heart that way. But he was too fond of her for this; he could not decide what he would do; and when he came up to see her at the present time, the only conclusion to which he could bring himself with certainty was this — that nothing should induce him to marry her; but still he did not like to leave her.
He was, however, rather perplexed to know what to say to her, and therefore preferred waiting to see what turn she herself would give to the conversation. At length Feemy said,
“And when do you leave this?”
“Oh! they’ve given me a month’s leave of absence. I’m to be in Cashel in a month.”
Even this seemed a reprieve to Feemy, who at first thought that he would have to start immediately — perhaps that evening, a good deal might be done in a month; now, however, she regretted that she had promised to go to Mrs. M’Keon’s.
“Then, Myles, you’ll not leave this for a month?”
“I don’t know about that; that depends on circumstances. I’ve to run up to Dublin, and a deal to do.”
“But when do you mean to be out of this?”
“Why, I tell you, I haven’t settled yet — perhaps immediately after the races.”
Again they were silent for some time; Feemy longed for Ussher to say something that might sound at any rate kind; he had never met her before without an affectionate word — and now, on the eve of his departure, he stood at the fire and merely answered her questions coldly and harshly. At length she felt that this must be the time, if ever, for saying to him what she had made up her mind to say on the previous evening, when her courage failed her. So, plucking up all the heart she could, and blushing at the time to the top of her forehead, she said,
“An’t I to go with you, Myles, when you go?”
Ussher still remained silent; he did not know how to answer to this question. “Come, Myles, speak to me. I know you came down to tell me your plans. What am I to do? You know you must settle now, if you’re going so soon. What are your plans?”
“Why, Feemy, it’s not two hours or more since I’ve received the letter; of course I couldn’t think of everything at once. Tell me; what do you think best yourself?”
“Me! what do I think? — you know I’d do anything you bid me. Won’t you step in and tell father about it?”
“Oh, you can tell him. I couldn’t make him understand it at all, he’s so foolish.”
Feemy bore the slur on her father without indignation.
“But, Myles, if you go so soon, am I to go with you?” and when after a few minutes he did not answer — “Speak, Myles, an’t we to be married before you go?” When she said this, she sat down on the old sofa, looking up into his face, as if she would read there what was passing in his mind. That which was passing in his mind must be the arbitrament of her fate.
“Why, Feemy, how can you be so foolish? — How can we be married in eight days’ time? I must go, I tell you, in eight days from this.”
“But you won’t go to this new place then. You’ll be back here, won’t you, before you go to Cashel?”
“How can I be back again? — No, I could not be back again then; besides, Feemy, I wouldn’t be married in this place after what your brother and Father John said to me last night. If we are to be married at all, it can’t be here.”
“If we are to be married!” exclaimed Feemy, rising up —“if we are! Why, Myles, what do you mean?” and rushing to him she threw her arms round his neck, and hiding her face on his bosom, she continued, “Oh, Myles! you don’t mean to desert me! Myles — dear Myles — my own Myles — don’t you love me? — you won’t leave me now — say you won’t leave me!” and she sobbed and cried as though her heart was breaking.
Ussher put his arm round her waist and kissed her; he seated her on the sofa — sat down by her — and tried to comfort her by caresses: but he still said nothing.
“Why don’t you speak, Myles? I shall die if you don’t speak! Only tell me what you mean to do; I’ll do anything you bid me, if you’ll only say you don’t mean to desert me.”
“Desert you, Feemy! who spoke of deserting you, dearest?”
“Then you won’t leave me, my own Myles? You won’t leave me here with those I hate! I love no one — I care for no one but you; only say you won’t leave me here when you’re gone!” and again she clung to him as though she could have detained him there for ever by holding him.
“But, Feemy, what can I do? — you see I’ve told you after what passed I couldn’t be married here.”
“Why not, Miles? why not? — never mind what Thady said — or Father John. What does it signify? — you’ll be soon away from them. I’ll never treat you that way, my own Myles — I’d put up with more than that for you — I wouldn’t mind what the world might say to me — I’d bear anything for you!”
“I tell you, Feemy, there are reasons why I couldn’t be married before I get to Cashel. There — to tell you the whole, they wouldn’t let a man take his rise from one rank to another if he’s married. They can’t prevent the officers in the force marrying, but they don’t like it; and it’s a rule that they won’t promote a married man. You see I couldn’t marry till after I was settled at Cashel.”
Feemy received the lie with which Ussher’s brain had at the moment furnished him, without a doubt; she believed it all, and then went on.
“But when you’ve got your rank, you’ll come back, Myles, won’t you?”
“Why that’s the difficulty — I couldn’t well again get leave of absence.”
“Then, Myles, what will you do?”
And by degrees he proposed to her to leave her home and her friends, and trust herself to him, and go off with him unmarried, without her father’s blessing, or the priest’s — to go with him in a manner which she knew would disgrace herself, her name, and her family, and to trust to him afterwards to give her what reparation a tardy marriage could afford. She, poor girl, at first received the offer with sobs and tears. She proposed a clandestine marriage, but he swore that when afterwards detected, it would cause his dismissal; — then that she would come to him at Cashel, when he was settled; but no — he told her other lies equally false, to prove that this could not be done. She prayed and begged, and lay upon his bosom imploring him to spare her this utter degradation; but now that the proposal had been fairly made, that he had got her to discuss the plan, his usual sternness returned; and at last he told her, somewhat roughly, that if she would not come with him in the manner he proposed, he would leave her now and for ever.
Poor Feemy fell with her knees on the ground and her face on the sofa, and there she lay sobbing for many minutes, while he again stood silent with his back against the fireplace. During this time, old feelings, principles, religious scruples, the love of honour and fair fame, and the fear of the world’s harsh word, were sorely fighting in her bosom; they were striving to enable her to conquer the strong love she felt for Ussher, and make her reject the disgrace to which he was alluring her. Then he stooped to lift her up, and as he kissed the tears from her face, passion prevailed, and she whispered in his ear that she would go.
He stayed there for a considerable time after that; at first Feemy was so agitated and so miserable, that she was unable to converse with him, or listen to his plans for her removal. She sat there sobbing and crying, and all he could say — all his protestations of love — all his declarations that it was his firm intention to marry her at Cashel — all his promises of kind and good treatment, were unable to console her. He tried to animate her by describing to her the pleasure she would have in seeing Dublin — the delight it would be to her to leave so dull a place as Ballycloran, and see something of the world, from which she had hitherto been excluded. But for a long time it was in vain; she was thinking — though she rarely thought of them — of her father and her brother; of what the old man would feel, when she, his only joy, had gone from him in such a manner; of what Thady would do and say, when he found that the suspicions, which she knew he already entertained, were too true. She could not bring her heart to give up Ussher; but the struggles within her breast at length made her hysterical, and Ussher was greatly frightened lest he should have to call in assistance to bring her to herself. She did not, however, lose her senses, and after a time she became more tranquil, and was able to listen to his plans. She first of all told him that she had promised Mrs. McKeon to go to her house for a short time, during the races, and suggested that she should now send some excuse for declining the visit; but this he negatived. He desired her to go there — to go to the races and the ball — and, above all, to keep up her spirits, and at any rate seem to enjoy herself there as if nothing particular had happened. This she promised to do, but with a voice and face which gave but little sign of her being able to keep her promise.
He told her that he would occasionally call at Mrs. McKeon’s, so that no remark might be made about his not coming to see her; he desired her to tell no one that he was going permanently to leave the country, and that he should not himself let it be known at Mohill till the day or so before he went; and he added that even when it was known that he was going, there would be less suspicion arising respecting her, if she was at Drumsna, than if she remained at Ballycloran.
To all this she quietly submitted. He was to meet her at the ball at Carrick-on-Shannon, and then tell her what his definite plan of carrying her off would be; but he added that the ball night would be the last she would spend in the country, for that they would leave the next evening.
About five o’clock Ussher took his leave; she begged of him to come and see her the next day — every day till they went; but this he refused; she said that unless she saw him every day to comfort her, she would not be able to keep up her strength — that she was sure she would fall ill. It was now Friday, and she was to go to Mrs. McKeon’s on Monday; on Tuesday he said he would call on her there; the races and ball were to be on the Tuesday week. In vain she asked him how she was to bear the long days till she saw him again; Ussher had no true sympathy for such feelings as were racking Feemy’s heart and brain; he merely bid her keep up her spirits, and not be foolish; — that he would see her on Tuesday, and that after Tuesday week she would have nothing more to make her unhappy. And then, kissing her, he went away — and as we have seen, Thady met him in the avenue, so satisfied in appearance, so contented, so triumphant, that he was able to forget the words which had been applied to him on the previous evening, and to nod to Feemy’s brother with as pleasant an air as though there were no grounds for ill-feeling between them.
Poor Feemy! those vain words that “after Tuesday week she would have nothing more to make her unhappy,” sounded strangely in her ears. Nothing more to make her unhappy! Could she have anything more, then or ever, to make her happy? Could she ever be happy again? All that had happened during the last few days passed through her mind, and added to her torment. How indignant had she been when her brother had hinted to her that Ussher did not intend honestly by her; into what a passion had she flown with Father John, when he had cautioned her that she should be circumspect in her conduct with her lover; what an insult she had felt it when Mary Brady alluded to the chance of Ussher’s deserting her! And now so soon after all this — but a few hours after this strong feeling — after the indignation she had then shown, she had herself submitted to worse than they had even dared to suspect; she had herself agreed to leave her father’s house as the mistress of the man, of whom she had then confidently boasted as her future husband! And it was not only for her own degradation, dreadful as that was, that she grieved, but Ussher himself — he of whom she had felt so fond — whom she had so loved — was this his truth, his love? — was this the protection he had sworn to give her against her father’s folly, and her brother’s violence? — and, as he had basely added, against Father John’s bigotry? Was this the protection — roughly to swear he’d leave her, desert her for ever, unless she agreed to give up her family, her home, her principles, and follow him, a base low creature, without a name? And was it likely that after she had agreed to this — after she had so debased herself, that he who had already deceived her so grossly would at last keep his word by marrying her?
She was lying down with her face buried in her hands, tormenting herself with such thoughts, when Biddy came to tell her that dinner was on the table. Feemy did not dare to refuse to go in lest something should be suspected; so she rubbed her red eyes till they were still redder, and went into the parlour, where she alleged that she had a racking headache, which would give her no peace; and having sat there for a miserable half hour till her father and Thady had finished their dinner, she went up stairs to her bed-room, and after laying awake half the night, at last succeeded in crying herself to sleep.
When Thady came from the kitchen, on being told that Father John was waiting for him at the hall-door, he left his pipe behind him, swallowed a draught of water to take off the smell of the spirits, and prepared to listen to the priest’s lecture, as he expected, with sullenness and patience; but he was surprised out of his determined demeanour by the kindness of the priest’s address. He came forward, and taking his hand, said,
“What, Thady, are you ill? What ails you?”
“Not much, then, Father John; only a headache.”
“Are you too bad, my boy, to take a turn with me? I’ve a word or two I want to say; but if you’re really sick, Thady, and are going to bed, I’ll come down early tomorrow morning. Would you sooner I did so?”
Father John said this because he thought that Thady really looked ill. And so he did; his face was yellow, his hair unbrushed, his eyes sunken, and the expression of his countenance sad and painful; but he was overcome by the kindness of the priest’s manner, and replied,
“Oh no! I’m not going to bed. I believe, Father John, I did not come up to you because I was ashamed to see you afther last night.”
“So I thought, my boy; and that’s why I came down. I’m not sorry for your shame, though there was not much cause for it. If it was a usual thing with you to be drinking too much, you wouldn’t be thinking so much of it yourself the next day.”
“But I believe I said something to yourself, Father John.”
“Something to me! Egad, I forget what you said to me, or whether you said anything. Oh no! you weren’t so bad as that; but you were going to eat Ussher about something. But never mind that now; don’t get tipsy again, if you can help it, and that’s all about it. It’s not the drinking I’m come to talk to you about; for you’re no drunkard, Thady; and indeed it’s not as your priest I want to talk to you at all, but as one friend to another. And now, my dear boy, will you take what I’ve to say in good part?”
These gentle words were the first comfort that had reached Thady’s heart that day, and tears were in his eyes as he answered,
“Indeed I will, Father John, for you’re the only friend I have now.”
It was a fine moonlight evening, and they were on the road leading to the Cottage.
“Walk up this way, Thady; we’ll be less likely to be interrupted in the little parlour than here;” and they walked on to the priest’s house, Father John discoursing the while on the brightness of the moon and the beauty of the night, and Thady alternately thinking with pleasure of his kindness, and with dread of the questions he was about to be called upon to answer.
When they were in the parlour, and Thady had refused his host’s offers of punch, tea, or supper, and the door was close shut, Father John at once struck into the subject at his heart.
“I told you, Thady, that I thought but little of your having been drinking yesterday evening; not but that I think it very foolish for a man to make himself a beast; but what I did think of was the company you were drinking in. Now I heard — and I know you won’t contradict me unless it’s untrue — that the party consisted of you, and Brady, and Joe Reynolds, and Byrne, and Corney Dolan, and one or two others from Drumleesh, your own or your father’s tenants, and the very lowest of them — all of them infamous characters — men never, or seldom, seen at mass — makers of potheen — fellows who are known to be meeting nightly at that house of Mrs. Mulready, at Mohill, and who are strongly suspected to be Ribbonmen, or Terryalts, or to call themselves by some infernal name and sect, by belonging to which they have all become liable to death or transportation.”
The priest paused; but Thady sat quite still, listening, with his eyes fixed on the fender.
“Now, Thady, if this is so, what could you gain by mixing with them? You weren’t drunk when you went among them, or I should think nothing about it — for a drunken man doesn’t know what he does; and it wasn’t from chance — for a man never seeks society so much beneath himself from chance; and it wasn’t from habit — for I know your habits well enough, and that’s not one of them; but I fear you were there by agreement. If so, what could you get by a secret meeting with such men as those? You know their characters and vices; are you fool enough to think that you will find comfort in their society, or assistance in their advice?”
“I didn’t think so, Father John.”
“Then why were you with them? I know the most of your sorrows, Thady, and the most of your cares; and I also know and appreciate the courage with which you have tried to bear them; and if you would make me your friend, your assistant, and your counsellor, though I mightn’t do much for you, I think I could do more, or show you how to do more, than you are likely to learn from the men you were with yesterday; and at any rate, I shall not lead you into the danger which will beset you if you listen to them, and which, you may be sure, would soon end in your disgrace and destruction. Can you tell me, Thady, why you were with them, or they were with you?”
“I was only just talking to them about —” Thady began; but he felt that he was going to tell his friend a falsehood, and again held his tongue.
“If you’ll not tell me why you were there, I’ll tell you; at least, I’ll tell you what my fears are. You went to them to talk over your father’s affairs respecting Keegan and Flannelly; you went to induce those poor misguided men not to pay their rent to him; and oh! Thady, if what I’ve heard is true, you went there to consult with them respecting a greater crime than I’ll now name, and to instigate them to do that which would lead to their and your eternal shame and punishment.”
Thady now shook in his chair, as though he could hardly keep his seat; he felt the perspiration stand upon his brow, and he wiped it off with his sleeve; he did not dare to deny that he had done this, of which Father John was accusing him, though he felt that he had been far from instigating them to any crime like murder. Father John continued:
“If you have joined these men — if you have bound yourself to these men by any oath — if there is any league between you and them, let me implore you to disregard it; nothing can be binding, that is only to bind you to greater wickedness. I do not ask you to tell me any of their secrets or plans, though, God knows, what you tell me now would be as sacred as if I heard it in the confessional; but if you have such secrets, if you know their signs, whatever may be the consequence, at once renounce them.”
“I know no secrets or signs, Father John, and I don’t belong to any society.”
“Then, if you don’t, you can have nothing to bind you. Is it true that you were rash enough, mad enough, to speak to these men about murdering Keegan? Tell me; have you a plan made to murder Keegan? Have you had such a crime in your thoughts?”
It had been in his thoughts all day: what answer should he make? should he lie, and deny it all? or should he confess it all, just as it was?
“If you’ll not tell me, I must, for Mr. Keegan’s sake, take some step to secure his safety. Come, Thady, come; you know it’s not by threats I wish to guide you; you know I love you. I know well enough your patient industry — your want of selfishness. I know, if you have for a moment thought of this crime, you have now repented it: tell me how far you have gone, and if you are in danger; — if you have done that which was very, very wicked. I will still try and screen you from the effects of a sin, which I am sure was not premeditated. Is there any plot to murder Keegan?”
“There is not.”
“As you are a living man, there’s none?”
“There is not.”
“What were you saying about Keegan, then, to those men yesterday?”
“I don’t know what I said — I don’t know I said anything; they were threatening him, if he came on Drumleesh for rent; if they have a plot, I don’t know it.”
“But, Thady, are you to join them again? do you mean again to renew your revellings of last night? have you agreed to see them again?”
“I have.”
“And where?”
“At Mulready’s in Mohill.”
“And when?”
“They sent today to say it was tomorrow night, but I have refused to go.”
“You have refused?”
“Yes, Father John. I got the message from them just before dinner, and I said I’d not go tomorrow.”
“But have you said you’d never join them again? have you sent to them to say you’d never put your foot in that hole of sin? did you say you were mad when you promised it, and that you would never keep that promise? did you say, Thady, that you would not come? or are you still, in their opinion, one of their accursed set?”
“I’ll niver go there, Father John. I’ve not had one moment’s ase since I said I would; it’s been on my heart like lead all the morning; indeed, indeed, Father John, I’ll niver go there.”
“I will not doubt you, Thady; but still, that you may feel how solemnly you are bound not to peril your life and soul by joining them who can only wish to lead you into crime, give me your honour, on the sacred word of God, that you will never go to that place; — or join those men in any lawless plans or secret meetings.”
And Thady swore most solemnly, on the sacred volume, that he would do as the priest directed him respecting these men.
Father John then gradually drew from him in conversation what had really taken place. He told him what he had heard from McGovery — how he had quieted that man and Cullen — and advised him by his own demeanour to his tenants, to pass over what had been said, as though it had been a drunken frolic. He asked him, however, whether he considered that Mr. Keegan or Ussher were in any real danger; and Thady assured him that he did not think they were — that there was no plot laid — that the men were angry and violent, but that, unless further instigated, he did not think they would commit any act of absolute violence. These opinions were not given spontaneously, but in answer to various questions from the priest, who at last satisfied himself that in confirming the horror with which Thady evidently regarded what he had already done, and in preventing him from following any further the course he was about to pursue, he had done all that was possible in the case to prevent crime.
Whether he thought that either of those who had been named as the object of hatred to these unruly men might ultimately fall a victim to the feeling to which their actions had given rise in the country, is another question. If he did, he could not prevent it — nor was it his especial business to attend to it; but he felt tolerably sure that to whatever bad feelings hardships and cruelty might have given rise in Thady’s breast, he would not now gratify them by such atrocious means as those which McGovery’s statement had induced him to apprehend.
Under this impression he bade him good night, with another kind shake of the hand; telling him that though, at present, there might be much to sadden and distress him, if he confronted his difficulties with manly courage and honest purposes, he would be sure sooner or later to overcome them.
Thady returned home more comfortable than he had been in the morning, but he could not bring himself to that state of mind in which Father John had hoped to dismiss him. He felt, that though he was determined not to go to Mrs. Mulready’s, the affair could not rest there. He felt himself to be, in some horrible manner, in the power of Brady and Joe Reynolds — as though he could not escape from them. A general despondency respecting all his prospects weighed him down, and when he reached Ballycloran, he was nearly as unhappy as he had been in leaving it.
Carrick-on-Shannon, the assize town of County Leitrim, though an assize town, is a very poor place. It consists of one long narrow, irregular street, lying along the Shannon, in which slated houses and thatched cabins delightfully relieve each other, and prevent the eye from being annoyed with sameness or monotony. The houses are mostly all shops, and even the cabins profess to afford “lodging and entherthainment;” so that it is to be presumed that the poverty of the place is attributable to circumstances and misfortune, and not to the idleness of the inhabitants. The prevailing feeling, however, arising in any human mind, on entering the place, would be that of compassion for the judges, barristers, attorneys, crown clerks, grand jury, long panel, witnesses, &c., who have to be crammed into this little place, and lodged and fed for five or six days, twice a year during the assizes.
There is, however, a tolerably good hotel in the place, and we at present beg to take our reader with us into the largest room therein, which was usually dignified by the name of the Ball Room. It was not, however, by any means dedicated solely to the worship of Terpsichore: all the public dinners eaten in Carrick were eaten here; all the public meetings held in Carrick were held here; all the public speeches were spoken here. Here committees harangued; Gallagher ventriloquised; itinerant actors acted; itinerant concert-givers held their concerts; itinerant Lancashire bell-ringers rang their bells. Here also were carried on the mysteries of the Carrick-on-Shannon masonic lodge, with all due zeal and secrecy.
On the present occasion the room was, or rather had been, devoted to the purpose of feeding; an ordinary had been held here previous to the races; and most of those who were in any way interested in the coming event were there. The cloth had been just taken away, decanters of whiskey and jugs of boiling water alternated each other down the table, and large basins of white sugar were scattered about unsparingly. The party were evidently about to enjoy themselves. There were about thirty of them there, some of them owners of horses, some of them riders, some of them backers; the rest were eaters, drinkers, and spectators.
The chair was filled by Major McDonnell, one of the stewards — a little man, who had probably never crossed a horse himself, and had nothing of the sportsman about him. He had, however, lately inherited an estate in the neighbourhood, and having some idea of standing for the county on the Tory interest at the next election, was desirous of obtaining popularity, and had consequently given forty pounds to be run for — had agreed to wear a red coat at the races, and call himself a steward — sit at the top of the table and carve for thirty hungry sportsmen today, with each of whom he had to drink wine — and get partners for all the ugly girls, if there be any in County Leitrim, on the morrow. This was certainly hard work; in reward for which he was probably destined to have his head broken at the next election, if he should have sufficient courage to show himself as a Tory candidate for the county.
There, however, he sat on this day, very unfit to take the chief part among the spirits by whom he was surrounded.
Opposite to him, at the other end of the room, sat our big and burly friend, McKeon, a very different character. Whenever six or eight were talking aloud together, his voice might always be heard the loudest. Whenever a shout of laughter arose — and that was incessantly — his shout was always the longest. It seemed that every bet that was offered was taken by him, and that every bet taken by any one else had been offered by him. He was always scribbling something in that well-worn book of his, and yet he never had his hand away from his tumbler — except when it was on the decanter. All the waiters came to him for orders, and he seemed perfectly competent to attend to them. If any man finished his punch and did not fill again, McKeon reminded him of his duty — and that not only by preaching, but by continual practice. In fact, he was just in his element, and enjoying himself.
There was an empty chair next Mr. McKeon, where his friend Mr. Gayner had been sitting — I won’t say during his dinner, for he had not swallowed a mouthful. He was now standing up against the fireplace, sucking a lemon. He had a large great coat on, buttoned up to the neck, and a huge choker round his throat. He was McKeon’s jockey, and was to ride Playful for the forty pounds on the morrow.
Bob Gayner, as he was usually called, was one of the best gentlemen riders in the country. He came from County Roscommon — the county, by the by, which can probably boast the best riders in Ireland — where he had a small property of his own, near Athlone; but the chief part of his time was spent in riding races and training for them. He had been at it all his life — and certainly, if there be any merit in the perfection of such an art, Bob was entitled to it, for he rode beautifully. It was not only that he could put his horse at a fence without fear, and sit him whilst he was going over it — any man with practice could do that; but Bob had a sympathy with the animal he was riding, which enabled him not only to know what he could do himself, but also what the horse could do. He knew exactly where a horse wanted assistance from his rider. And he had another knack too, not unfrequently made use of in steeple-chases — Bob seldom let his own horse baulk, but he very generally made those that others were riding do so. And then, at a finish, how admirable was Bob! In leap races the finish is seldom so near a thing as in flat races; but when it did come to be neck and neck at the post, there was no man in Ireland could give a horse a stretch and land him in a winner like Bob. He had also an exquisite genius for tumbling. Horses will occasionally fall, and when they do, riders must follow them; but no one fell so safely, recovered so actively, and was again so instantly in the saddle as our friend; and, consequently, wherever there was a steeple-chase to be run, where pluck, science, and practice were wanting, there Bob was in requisition, and there he usually was found. It was a great thing to secure his services; and knowing this, Tony McKeon had, in his own way, long since, made Gayner his fast friend; how, I cannot say, for Bob was much above being bought, and though, no doubt, he made money by his races, he would have thought little of shooting any one who was bold enough to offer to pay him for riding. When in his cap, jacket, boots, and breeches, he would, if he thought occasion required or his interests demanded it, wrangle like a devil. Though its back were turned to him, he could see a horse go on the wrong side of a post; and woe betide the man who came to the scales as a winner an ounce below the weight. Bob, from long practice, knew all these dodges, and he made the most of them. But when once his cap was off, and his coat was on, he was a quiet, easy, unassuming fellow — liked and petted by all he knew; for he never spoke little of others nor bragged of himself.
He was now talking to another member of the same confraternity, but of a very different character. He also had been sitting dinnerless — for both these gentlemen, in the pursuit of their amusement, were obliged to starve and sweat themselves down to a certain standard, about twenty pounds below their ordinary weight — and he was now also sucking a lemon. George Brown was the second son of Jonas Brown, of Brown Hall, the magistrate by whom Tim Reynolds and the others had been committed to Ballinamore, and, like his father, was most unpopular in his own country. He was arrogant, overbearing, conceited, and passionate — without any rank which could excuse pride, or any acquirement that could justify conceit. It is, however, as a gentleman jockey that we are at present to make his acquaintance, and in that capacity he was about as much inferior to the grooms by whom the horses were trained as Bob was superior to them. He had courage enough, however, and would ride at anything; and as his own relations and friends, for whom he rode, were tolerably wealthy, and he was therefore generally well mounted, he sometimes won; but he had killed more horses under him than any man in Ireland — and no wonder, for he had a coarse hand and a loose seat; and it was no uncommon thing to see George coming the first of the two over a fence headlong into the next field as if he had been flung there by a petard, leaving the unfortunate brute he had been riding panting behind him, with his breast cut open, or his knees destroyed by the fence, over which his rider had had neither skill nor patience to land him. He was now going to ride his own horse, Conqueror, and had talked himself, and had been talked, into the belief that it was impossible that anything could beat him.
These two were standing talking at the fireplace, and as they also had their little books in their hands, it is to be presumed that they were mixing business with amusement.
There were others there, sitting at the table, who were to ride tomorrow, but whose usual weight allowed them to do so, without the annoyance to which Gayner and Brown had to subject themselves. There was little Larry Kelly, from Roscommon, who could ride something under eight stone; Nicholas Blake, from the land of the Blakes, Burkes, and Bodkins; Pat Conner, with one eye, from Strokestown, who had brought his garron over under the speculation that if the weather should come wet, and the horses should fall at the heavy banks, she would be sure to crawl over — knowing, too, that as the priest was his second cousin, he could not refuse him the loan of a stable gratis.
There was Ussher there also, sitting next to George Brown, who was a friend of his — much more intent, however, on his own business than that which had brought the others here; and Greenough, the sub-inspector of police, from Ballinamore; and young Fitzpatrick, of Streamstown, who kept the subscription pack of harriers; and a couple of officers from Boyle, one of whom owned a horse, for which he was endeavouring to get a rider, but which none of those present seemed to fancy; and there was Peter Dillon, from beyond Castlebar, who had brought up a strong-looking, long-legged colt, which he had bred in County Mayo, with the hope that he might part with it advantageously in a handicap, to some of those Roscommon lads, who were said to have money in their pockets; and there were many others apparently happy, joyous fellows, who seemed not to have a care in the world; and last, but not least, there was Hyacinth Keegan, attorney at law, and gent.
There he was, smiling and chatting, oily and amiable; getting a word in with any one he could; creeping into intimacy with those who were not sharp enough to see what he was after; jabbering of horses — of which he considered himself a complete judge — and of shooting, hunting, and racing, as if the sports of a gentleman had been his occupation from his youth upwards.
“Well, boys!” said McKeon; “I suppose we’re to have an auction. What’s it to be? the owld thing — half-a-crown each, I suppose?”
“An auction, Mr. McKeon!” said the chairman. “What’s an auction?”
“We’ll show you, Major. All you’ve to do is to give me half-a-crown.”
Now, as many may be as ignorant as Major McDonnell respecting an auction in sporting phraseology, I will, if I can, explain what it is.
It has but little reference or similitude to those auctions from which Sir Robert Peel has removed the duty.
Supposing there may be twenty members, each having half-a-crown; and six horses to run. Twenty bits of paper are placed in a hat, on six of which are written the names of the running horses — the others are blanks — and they are then drawn, as lots, out of the hat. The tickets bearing the horses’ names are sold by the auctioneer; the last bidder has to pay twice the sum he bids — one moiety to the man who drew the horse, the other is added to the fund composed of the twenty half-crowns. After the race, the happy man holding the ticket bearing the name of the winning horse receives the whole. There are, therefore, different winners in this transaction; the man drawing the name of the favourite horse of course wins what is bid for the ticket; any one drawing the name of any horse would probably win something, as his chance, if the beast have more than three legs, must be worth at least five shillings. Such, however, is an auction, and on the present occasion it was a very animated one.
The thirty half-crowns were now collected and handed over to McKeon; the names of the eight horses expected to start scrawled in pencil on the backs of fragments of race-bills; and those, together with the blanks, deposited in the hat, which was carried round by one of the party.
“Ah! now, Pat, come to me last,” said Gayner; “I’ve never any luck with the first haul; never mind, I’ll take it,” and he drew a lot, “and, by the Virgin, Tony, I’ve got my own mare!”
“Have you got Playful, Gayner?” said a dozen at once. This made their chance less, for Playful was second favourite.
Brown was next, and he got a blank; and the next, and the next.
“I’ve drawn Brickbat,” said Fitzpatrick, “a d —— d good horse; he won the hunters’ plate at Tuam last year.”
“Oh! I wish you joy,” said Gayner, “for he won’t start tomorrow, my boy: he’s at Tuam now.”
“Begad! he’ll start as soon as yourself, Bob,” said little Larry; “he came to Castleknock last night, and he’s at Frenchpark now: Murphy from Frenchpark is to ride him.”
These details brought Brickbat up in the market.
“They might have left him at Tuam then, and saved themselves money,” said Gayner. “Why, he hadn’t had a gallop last Tuesday week; I was in his stable myself. If Burke’s cattle had been as fat at Ballinasloe, he’d have got better prices.”
“I say, McKeon,” said Fitzpatrick, “what odds will you bet Bob doesn’t buy Brickbat himself?”
The hat went round, and others got blanks. Ussher got Miss Fidget, Larry Kelly’s mare, and was advised in a whisper by that cunning little gentleman — who meant to buy Conqueror by way of a hedge, and who therefore wanted to swell the stakes — to be sure and buy the mare himself, for she didn’t know how to fall; “and,” he added, “you know she’s no weight on her;” and when Ussher looked at Larry Kelly, who was to ride her himself, he couldn’t but think the latter part was true.
Then Nicholas Blake drew Kickie-wickie, the officer’s mare, whereupon the gallant Captain, who knew Blake was a sporting fellow, thought this was a good opportunity to sound that gentleman about getting him a rider, and began whispering to him all the qualities of the mare; how she could do everything a mare should do; how high she was bred and how well she was trained, and how she was like the poacher, and could “leap on anywhere;” for all which, and Kickie-wickie herself, with her owner into the bargain, Blake did not care a straw; — for he was confident of winning himself with the Galway horse, Thunderer.
Then some one else drew Thunderer; and Peter Dillon got Conqueror, greatly to his joy, for he reckoned that his expenses from Castlebar would thus be mostly paid, even if he couldn’t sell the long-legged colt. The Major drew Crom-a-boo, a Carrick horse, who had once been a decent hunter, and whose owner had entered it at the instigation of his fellow townsmen, and by the assurance that these sort of races were often won by your steady old horses; and Mr. Stark, the owner, since he had first made up his mind to pay the ￡5 stake, had gradually deceived himself into the idea that he should probably win; and having never before even owned a horse — for this was a late purchase, or rather the beast had been taken in lieu of a debt — had now, for the last three weeks, talked of nothing but sweats, gallops, physics, training, running, and leaping: and having secured the services of a groom for the day, who was capable of riding his horse, had entirely given himself up to the delights of horse-racing. Lucky was it for Mr. Stark that Crom-a-boo was sure to lose; for had he won, Stark would have been a ruined man; nothing would have kept him from the Curragh and a conviction that the turf was his proper vocation.
The Major was delighted at his prize; he had not drawn a blank, and that was sufficient for him.
Then, at last, Keegan got Pat Conner’s mare from Strokestown. She was called Diana, and his was the last paper drawn.
“Faith, Keegan, you’re in luck,” said McKeon, “for the mare can’t but run well. Pat’s been training her since May last. I was over there going to Castlereagh, and I saw Pat at her then.”
“‘Deed, then, Mr. McKeon,” said Conner, “maybe she’ll beat your own mare, much as you think of her.”
“Oh! I’m sure she will; there’s so much running about her. Was she at plough after last winter, Pat?”
“She had other work to do, then, for she had to carry me twice a week through the season; and that she did — and that’s not light work, I think.”
“Carry you, Pat!” said Gayner; “why, you don’t mean to say you hunt that old garron you call Diana? Faith, man, you’re too bold; your friends ought to look to you; what would the country do if you broke your neck?”
“It’s your own is in most danger, I’m thinking,” replied Pat; “faith, I wouldn’t take all the pick up tomorrow, to ride that devil you’re to ride over the course.”
“And I’ll take devilish good care you’re not asked,” said McKeon: “but now, boys, as I fear the Major’s hardly up to it, I’ll dispose of the prizes. Come, which shall I put up first? which was drawn first?”
“Your own mare, Tony; Gayner got Playful at the first start.”
“Well, gentlemen, here’s the mare Playful. I believe I’m to say all the good I can about her, and upon my word she doesn’t want spirit.” Here he whispered Gayner, whom he told to bid for themselves conjointly. “Come, gentlemen, what do you offer? people say she’s wicked, but she’ll not kick you if you don’t come in her reach. She can go if she likes, and she can, I suppose, if she likes, stand still; but upon my soul, I never saw her to do so in the field.”
“I’ll say thirty shillings, Tony,” said Bob.
“Five and thirty,” said young Brown.
“Two pounds,” said Bob.
“I’ll not go beyond that,” said Brown.
“Two pounds — who’ll give more than two pounds for Playful? Gentlemen, the horses are all favourites, and the pool will consequently be a large one. Who’ll give more than two pounds? Bob, you’ve got the mare; hand me two pound, and hand yourself two more.”
Then Brickbat and Miss Fidget were sold, both at good prices; for the horse had won the last race at Tuam, and that put him up in the market, in spite of Bob’s vile comparison between him and his owner’s bullocks; and the mare was a favourite among the Roscommon gentry, who knew little Larry could ride when he meant it.
Kickie-wickie was the next put up, but in spite of all that had been said about her by her gallant owner, she was in very little request, and was purchased cheap.
Thunderer fetched a good price; Galway horses always do; and it was easy to see that Nicholas Blake was in earnest, and Nick was a man that wouldn’t come from Loughrea to Carrick-on-Shannon, and lose a day with the Galway dogs for nothing; George Brown made the purchase, for if anything could beat Conqueror it was Thunderer.
Then came Conqueror, and bidding began in earnest. George offered two pound to frighten the field; but both Larry Kelly and McKeon wanted to hedge, and they raised the price against each other by half crowns, till at last little Larry Kelly got the winner, that was to be, for three pound ten, much to Gayner’s satisfaction, who felt no such confidence in George Brown’s invincibility, and was very glad to see the pool increased by those who did.
When Crom-a-boo was put up — his owner rashly offered five shillings — for which sum he was allowed to retain him. He could not, however, comprehend that, because he had bid five, he was to pay ten — however, he had to do it, and began to find that the pleasures of the turf were not entirely unalloyed.
The Strokestown garron did not create much emulation, but Peter Dillon, knowing that though Pat had only one eye, that one was a good one, and that he wouldn’t lose the race for want of hard work and patience, and having little Larry’s three pound ten in his pocket to back him, at length doubled Keegan’s offer of half-a-crown which he made to keep his own ticket, and Diana was knocked down to him at the same price that Crom-a-boo had fetched.
Then the fun grew fast and furious, and calls for hot water and spirits were loud and incessant.
“By the holy poker, boys, I’m thirsty after that,” said McKeon; “you should stand me a bottle of champagne among ye, no less — just to take the dryness out of my throat, before I begin drinking.”
“Champagne, indeed, Tony; wouldn’t a bucket of brandy and water serve you?”
“Indeed, Fitz, if you’re to pay for it yourself, a mouthful of brandy and water wouldn’t be a bad thing — for I want something more than ordinary afther that work. Ah! Conner, it was the bidding afther that mare of your’s that broke my heart entirely — why, man, you see, every one wanted her.”
“Niver mind, Mr. McKeon, niver mind!” said Pat, with his one eye fixed on his punch. “She’s a nice, good, easy creature, anyway. I don’t have to be sending a boy down through the rack to be cleaning her, as they say you do with the one you’re going to start tomorrow — pray God she don’t kill any of us, that’s all.”
“Pray God she don’t, Pat, and especially you. Well, Fitz, where’s this brandy and water you’re talking about?”
“To hear Tony talking,” said little Larry, “one would think he didn’t drink this week; when he got a sup at every bid that was made, and finished a tumbler as every horse was knocked down; why that was eight tumblers of punch!”
“Water, Larry, all water to clear my throat — ask the waiter else.”
“It’s little of that cure you take, I’m thinking — waiter, bring some tobacco here.”
And now the party began smoking as well as drinking; and an atmosphere was formed, which soon drove the Major out of the room — not, however, before McKeon implored him to stay just for one handicap, as he wanted to challenge the bay gelding he drove under his gig; and as the Major was waiting for his hat, Tony threw a shilling on the table.
“Come, Major, cover that, just for luck; I must have a shy at that gig horse; I want him for Mrs. McKeon’s car. Come, I’ll tell you every beast I’ve got, and you may choose from them all, from the mare that’s to win tomorrow, down to the flock of turkeys that’s in the yard at Drumsna.”
But the Major was inexorable; he thought the ￡40 and the red coat which he had had to buy for tomorrow’s use, together with the hard work he had to do, was enough for popularity; and may be he had heard of Tony’s celebrity in a knock, and he did not wish to sacrifice his own nag, for a chance selection out of those in McKeon’s yard, nor yet for a flock of turkeys.
However, though the Major wouldn’t join in a handicap, others would — and McKeon wasn’t baulked of his amusement. Men soon had their hands in their pockets, waiting the awards of the arbiter, which were speedily pronounced; and various and detailed were the descriptions given of the brutes which were intended to change hands; but not in general such as made those who got them satisfied with their bargains, when they afterwards became acquainted with their real merits.
Peter Dillon threw away sundry shillings in endeavouring to part with the Mayo colt, but either he had been there before with the same kind of cattle, or he priced him too high; he couldn’t get his money for him, either from little Larry Kelly, or his elder brother who was there.
Tony, before the evening was over, gave the Boyle officers two or three most desperate bargains. First, he got the celebrated mare Kickie-wickie for a pair of broken down gig horses, to run tandem: engaged to go quiet and not kick in harness. They couldn’t be warranted sound: but then, as Tony said, what horse could? and he was so particular — he would never say a horse was sound, unless he knew it; in fact, he never warranted a horse sound; which was true enough, for Tony knew no one would take his warrant; and then when the Captain was in the first fit of grief for Kickie-wickie, some good-natured friend having told him that the two gig horses weren’t worth a feed of oats, Tony gave her back again for a good hack hunter, and a sum of money to boot, about the real value of the mare. Again, late in the evening — when the punch had made further inroads upon the poor warrior’s brain — he gave him back his own hunter for the two gig horses and a further sum of money: from all which it will be seen by those who understand the art, that the officer from Boyle could not have made a great deal, and that Tony McKeon could not be much out of pocket.
This fun continued till about two, when half the party were too drunk to care about winning and losing — and the other half, mostly consisting of the married men, too wary to attempt business with those as knowing as themselves. Gayner and Brown had gone home to bed, as they had to be up and walk ten miles before breakfast, with their great coats on; after which, as Gayner had told Mrs. McKeon, he would trouble her for the loan of two feather beds, and three or four buckets of turf; as he thought that after laying between them for an hour or so before a roaring fire, and then being rubbed down with flannels by Tony and his two men, there was little doubt but he’d be able to ride 11 stone 4; and he was to be up at that weight on the next day.
Keegan had become very drunk and talkative, had offered to sing two or three songs, to make two or three speeches, and had ultimately fallen backwards, on his chair being drawn away, from which position he was unable to get up, and little Larry’s brother was now amiably engaged painting his face with lampblack. Mrs. Keegan the while was sitting in her cold, dark, little back parlour, meditating the awful punishment to be visited on the delinquent when he did return home.
Vain woman, there she sat till four, while Hyacinth lay happy beneath the table; nor did he return home, till brought on the waiter’s back, at eight the next morning.
Pat was winking with his one eye, and nodding on his chair, with his pipe still stuck in his mouth. Little Larry was laughing till he cried at his brother’s performance. Peter Dillon and young Fitzpatrick, each with a whiskey bottle in his hand, were guarding the door, at which Stark, the unfortunate owner of Crom-a-boo, was vainly endeavouring to make his exit, which he was assured he should not be allowed to do till he had sung a song standing on the sideboard. And the younger son of Mars, conquered by tobacco and whiskey, was leaning his unfortunate head on the table, and deluging Keegan’s feet with the shower which he was unable to restrain.
Ussher was detailing in half drunken glee to his friend Fred Brown, George’s brother, his plan for carrying off poor Feemy; and Brown, always as he said, ready to help a friend in necessity, was offering him the loan of his gig to take her as far as Longford, at which place he could arrive in time to catch the mail, if he could manage to take Feemy away from Ballycloran immediately after sunset. “And I’ll send a boy to bring the gig back from Longford,” added Fred, “so you’ll have no trouble at all; and I’ll tell you what it is, you’re taking the prettiest girl out of County Leitrim with you — so here’s her health.”
Tony, Nicholas Blake, and Greenough were the only three left who were still able to drink steadily, and they kept at it till about four, when they all agreed, that if they meant to do any good at all tomorrow, they’d better be getting to bed; they consequently took one tumbler more, because it was to be the last, and made towards the door, out of which Stark had at length escaped, after having a bottle of whiskey poured over his head. As they passed the Captain, who was snoring against the wall, McKeon slightly touched his foot with his toe, and said to Blake, “Well; if I was as soft as that fellow, I’d have my head boiled in a pudding-bag. By gad, the Colonel oughtn’t to let him out without his nurse.”
“You oughtn’t to talk then, Tony, for you didn’t make a bad thing of him to-night.”
“Oh, d —— n his money,” said McKeon; “I’d much sooner be without such a fellow. I’d sooner by half have a bargain with a man that knew how to take care of himself, than a greenhorn, who’d let you rob him of his eyes without seeing you.”
By this time they’d got to the front door, at which was now standing Tony’s buggy and servant; Greenough was going to walk to his lodgings, and Blake had come to the door to see his friend off; when they heard a loud shrieking down the street, and they saw the unfortunate Stark running towards the hotel, still followed by Fitzpatrick and Dillon, each with an empty bottle in his hand.
When he had escaped from the inn, his persecutors had followed him, still swearing that he should sing. Stark had run towards his home, but before he got there his pursuers headed him in the street and turned him back, and now as he rushed along, half blinded by the spirits in his eyes, they followed him, whooping and yelling like two insane devils, and were just catching him near the door of the hotel, when poor Stark, striking his foot against the curb stone, fell violently on his face, and Dillon, who was just behind him, stumbled and fell upon him.
“Halloo, Fitzpatrick, is that you?” said Tony, “what in G——d’s name are you doing with that poor devil? I believe you and Dillon have killed him.”
By this time Dillon had got up; and McKeon and Blake together helped the other man to his feet; his wrath was by this time thoroughly kindled, and he was swearing all manner of vengeance against Fitzpatrick — the other man’s name he did not know. They, contented with their sport, carried the decanters, wonderful to relate, unbroken in triumph into the hotel — and McKeon, bidding the boy to bring the gig after him, helped Stark, whose face was dreadfully bleeding, to his home, trying to console him, and assuring him that the mischief was all owing to Dillon, and that Fitzpatrick, who was a neighbour and friend of Tony’s, had had little or nothing to do with it; and having left him at his hall-door, he drove quietly home to his own house, and went soberly to bed.
The day after Ussher had obtained Feemy’s consent to go off with him, she passed in the same manner as she had that afternoon — sometimes sitting quiet with her eyes fixed on vacancy — sometimes sobbing and crying, as though she must have fallen into an hysterical fit. Once or twice she attempted to make some slight preparation for her visit to Mrs. McKeon’s, such as looking through her clothes, mending them, &c., but in fact she did nothing. The next day, Sunday, she spent in the same manner; she omitted going to mass, a thing she had not done for years, unless kept at home by very bad weather, or real illness; she never took up a book, nor spoke a word, except such as she could not possibly avoid, to the servant or her father. Of Thady she saw nothing, except at her meals, and then they took no notice of each other. They had not spoken since the night when Thady had upbraided her whilst walking in the lane with Ussher.
On the Monday morning she was obliged to exert herself, for she had to pack the little trunk that was to carry her ball-room finery to Mrs. McKeon’s, and prepare everything that was necessary for her visit.
Biddy, the favourite of the two girls, had once or twice asked her mistress what ailed her, and whether she was ill; but Feemy only answered her crossly that she was bothered with that horrid headache, and the girl could only believe that either this was actually the case, or else that she had quarrelled with her lover; and as it was now three days since he had been at Ballycloran, she at last determined that this was the case.
During these three days, Feemy had frequently made up her mind, or rather she fancied she had made up her mind to give Ussher up — to go and confess it all to Father John, or to tell it to Mrs. McKeon; and if it had not been for the false pride within her, which would not allow her to own that she had been deceived, and that her lover was unworthy, she would have done so. His present coolness, and his cruelty in not coming to see her, though they did not destroy her love, greatly shook it; and had she had one kind word to assist her in the struggle within herself, she might still have prevented much of the misery which her folly was fated to produce.
When Mrs. McKeon and her daughters came for her about one o’clock on Monday, the small exertion necessary for putting up her clothes, had made her somewhat better — something more able to talk than she had been before, and they did not then observe anything particular about her; but she had been but a very short time at Drumsna, before it was evident to Mrs. McKeon, that something was the matter with her. When she questioned her, Feemy gave the same answer — that she had a racking headache; and though this did very well for a time, before the evening was over, the good lady was certain that something more than a headache afflicted her guest.
The next day, according to his promise, Ussher called, but of course at Mrs. McKeon’s house he could not see her alone; that lady and her daughters were present all the time. When he came in, Ussher shook hands with Feemy as he would with anybody else, and began talking gaily to the two other girls. He had regained his presence of mind completely, and however deficient Feemy might be in that respect, he now proved himself a perfect master of hypocrisy. He did not stay long, and as he got up to go away, he merely remarked that he hoped he should meet the ladies that day week on the race-course, and at the ball; and the only thing he said especially to Feemy was, that he should call at Ballycloran on his way to the races, and that when he saw her on the course, he would tell her how her father and brother were; and he remarked that he should not go home that night, as he had been asked to dine and sleep at Brown Hall.
The week passed on, and Feemy remained in the same melancholy desponding way; saying nothing to Mrs. McKeon, and little to the two girls, who, in spite of Feemy’s sin in having a lover, did everything in their power to cheer and enliven her.
Father John usually dined at Mrs. McKeon’s on Sunday, and she came to the determination of having another talk with him about Feemy. So before dinner on that day, she opened her mind to him, telling him the state in which Feemy had been the whole of the week, and that she thought the sooner she could be made to understand that she must give up all thoughts of Ussher, the better.
Feemy had been at mass with the family, and when she met Father John afterwards, she exerted herself to appear before him as she usually did, and to a certain extent she succeeded. Father John was himself usually cheerful, and he spoke to her good humouredly, and she made an effort to answer him in the same strain; this deceived the priest, and when Mrs. McKeon spoke to him about Feemy’s deep melancholy, and suggested the propriety of speaking to her on the subject which they supposed was nearest her heart, he said,
“Better let her alone, Mrs. McKeon; I think you’d better let her alone, and time will cure her. You see Feemy is proud, and perhaps a little too headstrong, and I don’t think she’d bear just as quietly as she ought, any one speaking to her about the man now. It isn’t only the losing him that vexes her; it isn’t only that she has been deceived: but that everyone knows that she has lost him, and has been deceived. It’s this that hurts her pride, and talking to her about it will only make her more fretful. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll just leave her to herself, take no especial notice of her, and let her go to this ball; and when she sees the man paying attention to others — dancing and philandering with them, and neglecting her — her pride will make her feel that she must at any rate appear to be indifferent; and when she has once enabled herself to appear so, she will soon become really so. Just let her go to the races, and the ball; and your kindness and the girls’ society will soon bring her round.”
All Monday Feemy spent in bed, but Mrs. McKeon and her girls took no notice of it, except carefully tending her — offering to read to her, and bring her what she wanted. They soon, however, found that she preferred being left alone; and they consequently allowed her to think over her own gloomy prospects in solitude and silence.
Feemy had, however, declared her intention of going both to the races and to the ball. Ussher had desired her to do so, and she feared to disobey him; besides, at one of these places he had to give her final instructions as to their departure. She was, therefore, dressed for starting on the Tuesday morning, when the other girls were ready; and though her eyes and nose were somewhat red, and her cheeks somewhat pale, and though she did not now deserve the compliment that Fred Brown had paid her, when he told Ussher that he was going to carry off the prettiest girl in County Leitrim, still she did not look unwell, and Mrs. McKeon kindly comforted herself by the reflection, that as she was both able and willing to dress herself for amusement, there could not be much really the matter with her.
In the meantime Thady had been honestly firm to the promise he had made to Father John, not to join the Mulreadyites. His sister’s absence from Ballycloran at the present time had been a relief to him; and on the morning after his visit to the priest he had returned to his work, not certainly with much happiness or satisfaction, but still with his mind made up to struggle on in the best way he could — to do nothing which he knew to be wrong, and come what come might, to leave Reynolds and his associates to their own schemes and villanies. He felt determined, if he could not protect himself and his family from his enemies by honest means, to leave it to circumstances to protect him; and though he could not shake off a deep desponding as to the future, still there was a kind of contentment in the feeling that he knew he had to suffer, and that he had made up his mind to do so firmly and bravely.
On the Saturday morning, Pat Brady had again come to his master, informing him that all the boys were to be on that evening at the whiskey shop, and using all his powers of oratory to induce him to come down; but Thady was firm, and he not only refused to come then, but plainly told Pat that he had entirely altered his mind, and that he did not intend to go down to them at all. He advised Pat also to give them up, hinting that if he did not, they two, viz., Pat Brady and Thady Macdermot, would probably soon have to part company.
This was a threat, however, for which Pat did not much care; for he knew that there was little more to be made by his old master; and, like a wise man, he had already provided himself with a new one, and a more prosperous and wealthy one than him he was going to leave. Rats always leave a falling house, and Brady was a real rat.
Still, however, though he did not expect to get much more from his service with Thady, he was, for his own reasons, anxious that his present master should not be quit of the companions with whom he had been so anxious to join him: and therefore when he found that he could no longer work on his master’s mind by the arguments he had hitherto used, he began to threaten him — telling him of the different perils from the law which he would have to encounter by having joined the party, and various dangers to which he would subject himself by deserting it. But in vain — Thady was firm; and when Pat got violent and inclined to be impertinent on the subject, he told him that he would knock him down with the alpine in his hand if he said another word about it.
On Sunday, Thady went to mass, and afterwards took a walk with his friend the priest, who said everything he could to raise his spirits, and to a certain degree he did so. On the next morning, as he was going to his work, a messenger brought a letter from Keegan to his father. This was a legal notice on Flannelly’s part, that on some day in November, which was named, he — Flannelly — would require not only the payment of the interest money which would then be due, but also the principal; and in this notice was set forth the exact sum to be paid for principal, for interest, for costs; and it further stated that if the sum was not paid on or before that day, writs would be issued for his body — that is the body of poor Larry Macdermot — and latitats, and sheriff’s warrants, and Heaven knows what besides, for selling the property at Ballycloran; and that the mortgage would be immediately foreclosed, and the property itself disposed of for the final settlement of the debt.
This agreeable document was very legibly addressed to Lawrence Macdermot, Esq., &c. &c. &c., Ballycloran; and its unusual dimensions and appearance made Thady at once feel that it was some infernal missile come still further to harass him, and leave him, if possible, more miserable than it found him. However, such as it was, it was necessary that it should be read; so he took it to his father, and having broken the seal, said —
“Here’s a letter from Keegan, Larry; shall I read it you?”
“D——n Keegan,” was the father’s consolatory reply, “I don’t want his letters. I tell you he can’t call for his money before November, and this is October yet.”
“That’s thrue,” said Thady, when he had spelt through the epistle; “that’s thrue, father; but this is to say that he manes to come in ‘arnest, when that time comes.”
“And don’t he always come in ‘arnest? is it in joke he comes, when he axes for a hundred pound every half year? come in ‘arnest! why, d —— n him, he’s always in ‘arnest!”
“But, father, it’s not only the hundred pound now, but the whole debt he demands;” and, at last, Thady succeeded in reading the letter to his father.
Larry at first got into a violent passion, swearing fearfully at Keegan, and hinting that he, Larry, knew well enough how to take care of his own body; and that he, Keegan, might get more than he bargained for, if he came to meddle with it. After that he began to whimper piteously and cry, complaining that it was a most grievous thing that his own son should bring such a letter to him; and he ended by accusing Thady of leaguing with the attorney to turn him out of his own house, and even asked him whether, when they had effected their purpose, he and Keegan intended to live at Ballycloran together.
All this was not comfortable. Thady, however, quietly folded up the letter, put it in the old bureau, left his father to his pipe and his fireside, and went out again to his occupations.
Nothing new occurred at Ballycloran for a few days, and he began to flatter himself that Mrs. Mulready’s boys and their threats would annoy him no more, and he was even thinking of sending Pat down to Drumleesh to notice the tenants again to come up with the rents, if it were only to see what steps they would then take. As he was returning home, however, on Friday evening, across the fields, a little after dusk, he saw the figure of a man standing in a gap through which he had to pass, and when he came close to him, he perceived it was Joe Reynolds.
Thady had been rather surprised that he had not seen Joe before, and had been inclined to think that that worthy gentleman had been intimidated, when he heard of his own defection; but Joe was not a character so easily frightened. The truth was that he had for the last few days left his own cabin at Drumleesh, and had been engaged with others in the mountains which lay between Loch Sheen and Ballinamore, in making potheen in large quantities, and drinking no small portion of what they made. The morning after the wedding, he had been boasting to his comrades there of the success he had had in bringing over his landlord to their ranks; and he had brought down a large party of them from that quarter, all sworn friends, to be present at his proposed initiation — and great was their wrath and loud were their threatenings when they found that Thady would not come. Joe had, however, been obliged to join them again at their business, and though he had heard the ill success of Brady’s second attempt, he had not been able till now to try the effects of his own eloquence.
He had now come down for that purpose, and had been for the greater portion of the evening watching Thady, till he could get a good opportunity of talking to him undisturbed; and he was now determined not to leave him, till he had used every means in his power of inducing him to change the resolution to which he had so suddenly come.
When Thady came close to him he respectfully raised his old battered hat, and said —
“Long life to ye, Mr. Thady; I hope yer honer is finding yerself well this evening.”
“Quite well thank you, Joe,” and Joe walked on with him a few steps.
“Have you the rint ready for me yet?” continued Thady.
“Rint is it? faix then I have not — not a penny; but it wasn’t rint I was wanting to talk to your honer about just now; not but what the rint’ll be coming, and that right soon, Mr. Thady, and plenty too — if you’ll only listen to me.”
“Those ‘d be glorious times, Joe, when the rint came that way,” and Thady walked on faster, for he didn’t want to prolong the conversation beyond what he could help.
“Stop, Mr. Thady; what are ye in sich a hurry for? I’ve come a long way to spake to you — and we’ll both talk pleasanter av’ you’d go a little aisier.”
“Well, Joe, what is it then? I’m in a hurry.”
“In a hurry is it? but why wor ye in sich a hurry to break the promise you made us all, at Mrs. Mehan’s, Thursday night week past. Ah! Mr. Thady, you worn’t in a hurry when you said you’d come down and be one of us at Mohill — ay! and swore it too on the blessed cross; you worn’t in sich a hurry then, and what hurries you now so fast?”
“Now, Reynolds, it’s no use you’re saying more of that. I sent you word by Pat that I wouldn’t come, and I won’t — so there’s an end of it.”
“But that an’t an end of it; no, nor nigh the end of it; I suppose, Mr. Thady,”— and he paused, and, resuming his respectful tone, said, “and didn’t you say you niver had deserted us and niver would, and that you’d always stick to us that you’ve known so long? Shure, Mr. Thady, you’ll not change your mind now.” And Reynolds paused in the little path they were walking in, and Thady was obliged to stand too, for Reynolds had got before him, and he couldn’t pass unless he pushed the man aside. “And shure — do you mane to let Keegan off, and Ussher, the black ruffians, that way; do you intend to put up with everything from the likes of them? Come, Mr. Thady, say the word — only say the word you swore before, and by the holy cross you swore on, before next week is over Keegan shall be put where he’ll never spake another bad word, or do another bad deed.”
“Come, Reynolds, out of this, and let me pass,” said Thady, perceiving that he must now absolutely make the man understand that he was not to be talked over, “out of that, and let me pass. And I’ll tell you what, I’ll not have my neck in danger; and if I hear you threatening murdher, I’ll have you before the magisthrates,” and he pushed by the man, who, however, still walked close behind him.
“And is that the way with you now? Have me before the magisthrates will you? and where’d you be all the time? Why there’s not one of them that was in it, at Mrs. Mehan’s that night, but could have you before the magisthrates, and I’m thinking thim folk would make a deal more of you than they would of me. Av you talk of magisthrates, Mr. Thady, may be you’ll find there’s too many of them in the counthry for yerself.”
Thady walked on fast, but did not answer him, and Reynolds continued —“Come, Mr. Thady, I don’t intend to anger you, or affront you; and av I’ve said anything that way, I axes your pardon; but just answer me — will you come down there only for once, av it wor only becase you swore it afore them all on the holy cross?”
“No, Joe, I will not; av I took any oath at all, I was dhrunk: besides, I said I wouldn’t, and I won’t; so now good night.”
“But, Mr. Thady, av you’d only come there to tell the boys so themselves, it would be all right. Shure you’re not afeard to trust yerself among them.”
“Not a foot, Joe.”
“Well, then, I tell you, you’ll be sorry; not that I’d say a word agin you myself, becase though you’ve ill-trated me now, you wor always a kind landlord, and becase it’s not in your heart to hurt a poor man; but I tell you, and you’ll find it comes thrue enough, there were them there that night at Mrs. Mehan’s as will turn agin you, unless you do as I’m axing you now.”
“Well, Joe, I cant help it if they do, so good night.”
They had now come to a lane, and as Thady was going to jump on the bank to get over, Joe put his hand on his coat.
“One more word, yer honer, may be yet you’ll change your mind.”
“Indeed, I shall not then.”
“May be you will, and I’m thinking when you find Keegan too hard on you it’ll come to that. Well, av you do, let me know, and I’ll make it all right for you. Just tell Corney Dolan, and he’s still at Drumleesh, that you’re wanting me, and I won’t be far off.”
Thady did not answer him, but merely saying, “Good night, Joe,” jumped into the road, and Joe by some devious path, through bogs and bottoms, betook himself to Mrs. Mulready’s, and drowned the feeling of his ill success in whiskey.
Thady went home to his dinner or supper — rather glad that he had had the interview, for the man’s manner was not so insolent as he had expected it would be; and he now felt tolerably confident that he should not again be solicited to keep the unfortunate promise which he had made.
His father, however, was still muttering over the misfortunes which he was doomed to bear from the hands of his own son. Thady took all the pains he could, and all the patience he could muster, to prove to the old man that he was only desirous to do the best he could for him and Feemy. He had even told him that he had absolutely quarrelled and come to blows with the attorney, on the day of his visit; but it was all in vain, and when he got himself to bed he was puzzled to think whether Keegan and Ussher, or his father and Feemy, caused him most trouble and unhappiness.
Although we have hitherto only seen Ussher as a guest at Ballycloran, or figuring as a lion at Mary Brady’s wedding, he was, nevertheless, in the habit of frequenting much better society, and was not unfrequently a guest at the houses of certain gentlemen in the neighbourhood of Carrick-on-Shannon.
For Ussher could assume the manners of a gentleman when he chose, and moreover, be a lively and agreeable companion; and this, perhaps, quite as much as the attribute, made him somewhat of a favourite among many of the surrounding gentry. He was, however, more intimate at Brown Hall than at any other house; and he had now been asked over there, to spend the few days previous to his final departure from County Leitrim.
The establishment at Brown Hall consisted of Jonas Brown, the father — an irritable, overbearing magistrate, a greedy landlord, and an unprincipled father — and his two sons, who had both been brought up to consider sport their only business; horses and dogs their only care; grooms and trainers the only persons worthy of attention, and the mysteries of the field and the stable the only pursuits which were fit to be cultivated with industry or learnt with precision. They could read, as was sufficiently testified by their intimate knowledge of the information contained in “Nimrod upon Horses,” and the Veterinary Magazine; and the Clerk of the Course at the Curragh could prove that they could write, by the many scrawls he had received from them — entering horses, and giving their particulars as to age, colour, breeding, qualifications, &c., but beyond this they had no acquirements. For the elder son, who was only intended to be a landlord and a magistrate, and to spend about a thousand a year, this did not signify; but for the younger it afforded but a melancholy prospect, had his eyes been open to see it.
For the estate, which was all set at a rack rent, was strictly entailed; and as Jonas had always lived beyond his income, there would be little to leave to a younger son. When their mother died the two young men, together with a sister, had been left to the father’s care. She also had learnt to ride, and ride hard — to go to the stable and see that her own horse was made up — and to rate her groom in no gentle terms, if things in that department were not as they should be. She also could be eloquent on thrush, sand-cracks, and overreaches — could detect a splint or a spavin at a glance — knew all the parts and portions and joints of a horse much more accurately than she did of a sheep, and was a thorough judge of condition. Rumour also not unfrequently hinted, among the tabbies of Carrick-on-Shannon, that Miss Julia could not only ride with her brothers in the morning, but that she was also occasionally not ill inclined to drink with them of an evening.
Things were in this state, when it occurred to Jonas and his favourite son Fred, that it were well for all parties if they could get Miss Julia off from Brown Hall, as there was reason to fear she was coming out a little too fast; and that if they did not get rid of her now, she might in a short time become a card somewhat hard to play. They consequently invited a squireen of three or four hundred a year to the house, who had rather unequivocally expressed his admiration for Di Vernon; and under the fostering auspices of father and brother, the two soon made up matters together, though the lady was unable to follow her prototype’s example, by wooing her lover over the pages of Dante. However, though Dante was wanting, opportunity was not, which for one so well inclined as Miss Julia was sufficient; and before the young gentleman had been three weeks in the house, Fred was enabled to hint to him one day, as he was pulling off his boots before dinner, that of course he presumed his intentions to his sister were honourable and explicit, now that things had gone so far. Toby Armstrong — for such was the name of Di Vernon’s admirer — not relishing pistols and coffee, made no objection to the young lady; but he absolutely refused to take her empty handed, and, in consequence, Jonas and Fred had to hand him over their joint bond for two thousand pounds, before he would be induced to make her mistress of Castle Armstrong. There she now reigned supreme, and it is to be hoped, for the sake of the future generation, that she had by this time learnt to transfer her attention from the stable to the nursery.
The Browns were at any rate quit of the young lady, and had Brown Hall now wholly to themselves; and this was a satisfaction. Still the hundred a year which they had to pay their dear brother-in-law, Toby, was a great loss to them, and made it more improbable that when the old man should be gathered to his fathers, George should have anything to subsist on except his brother’s affection and bounty.
As Fred inherited all his father’s love of money, joined to an irresistible passion for everything that he called pleasure; and as he was already continually quarrelling with his younger brother, who was as continually impertinent to him, George’s prospect in life was not particularly bright. As to turning his mind to any useful pursuit — studying for any profession, or endeavouring in any way to earn his own bread honestly — he would have been as angered and felt as insulted by such a proposition, as though any one had asked him to turn cobbler, and sit cross-legged at the window of one of the little shops at Carrick-on-Shannon.
As, however, he at present had food to eat, wine to drink, horses to ride, and usually cash to bet with, he concerned himself but little for the future; and we, therefore, may fairly be equally apathetic respecting it. It would not, however, be difficult to foretell his fate. Should he not break his neck before his father’s death, he will quarrel with and slander his brother; he will ride for those who are young and green enough to trust their horses to him, and pay him for mounting them; he will spunge upon all his acquaintance till he is turned out of their houses; he will be a hanger on at the Curragh and all race-courses; he will finally become a blackleg and swindler; and will die in the Marshalsea, if he does not, as he most probably will, break his neck by a fall from the saddle; for, to the last, George will preserve his pluck — the only quality on which he could ever pride himself.
On the morning of the races the two brothers and Ussher were sitting over a very late breakfast at Brown Hall. The father had long since been out; careful to see that he got the full twelve hours’ work from the unfortunate men whom he hired at five pence a day, and who had out of that to feed themselves and families, and pay their rent; we will not talk about clothing them, it would be a mockery to call the rags with which the labouring poor in that part of the country are partially covered, clothes, or to attach value to them, though I suppose they must once have cost something.
“Why, what nonsense, Ussher,” said Fred, “to be sending that mare of yours down to Munster; she’d never be fast enough for that country — not the thing at all for Tipperary fences — all gaps and breaks; besides the expense of sending her, and the chances that she’s lamed on the road. You’d better let me have her; she’s only fit for this country. I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I’ll give you the horse and gig you’re to take that girl of yours to Longford in tomorrow for her.”
“Hush, man, for G——d’s sake! If the servants hear you talking that way, I’m dished. If it once got abroad about my taking her off, I’d have the devil to pay before I got out of the country.”
“I believe Ussher thinks,” said George, “no one ran away with a girl before himself. Why if you were going to seize a dozen stills, you couldn’t make more row about it.”
“I shouldn’t make any about that, for it would come natural to me; and I’d a deal sooner be doing that, than what I have to do tomorrow night. I’m d —— d, but I’d sooner take a score of frieze-coats, with only five or six of my own men to back me, than drive twenty miles in a gig with a squalling girl.”
“If you’re sick of the job, I’ll take her off your hands,” said the good-natured Fred.
“Thank ye, no; as I’ve got so far with it, I believe I’ll go on now.”
“Well, if you won’t take a kind offer about the girl, will you take the one I made about the mare? To tell the truth, I’d sooner have the mare than the girl myself.”
“Thank ye, no; I believe I’ll keep both.”
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Fred, getting anxious in his hankering after the mare, “I’ll throw the harness into the bargain — spick and span new from Hamilton’s. I paid eight pound ten for it not a month since. All the new fashion — brass fittings and brass haines. You could have the crests taken out, and new ones put in, for a few shillings; only send me down the old ones.”
“What would I do with a gig and horse? Besides, the gig’s shook, the shafts are all loose, and the boxes are battered; and the horse was saying his prayers lately, by the look of his knees.”
“Never down in his life, by G——d,” said George, willing to help his brother in a matter of horseflesh; “it’s only a knock he got when I was trying to put him over the little wall beyond the lawn there; but I couldn’t make the brute jump, though he’s the sweetest horse in harness I ever sat behind.”
Ussher was not to be done; and Fred consoled himself by assuring him that he’d be sorry for it, when he found the mare was not the least use in life down in Munster, and that no one would give him a twenty-pound note for her.
A drag now came round to the door. George was making his toilet before the fire, having eaten about half an ounce of dry toast after his morning exercise under the three great-coats. He was adjusting his boots and breeches — and George was not a little proud of his appearance in his riding costume; the jacket and cap were carried loose; and after many exclamations from Fred, that they would be late, and that as he had backed Conqueror, it was a shame for his brother to give the stewards the chance of starting the horses without him, which were answered by rejoinders from George that they wouldn’t dare to do so — showing that he didn’t care how much all the rest might be inconvenienced by his delay, so long as he didn’t suffer himself, the three got into the conveyance at the door, about an hour after the time at which the horses were advertised to start punctually; and Fred drove them to the course, which was not above a mile distant.
I cannot say that the ground displayed much that was elegant in the way of equipages, or anything very refined in the countenances belonging to the race-course.
The weighing stand consisted of the scales in which potatoes and oats were usually weighed in the market-place in Carrick, and were borrowed from the municipality for the occasion. The judge’s chair was formed of a somewhat more than ordinary high stool, with a kind of handle sticking up at one corner, by holding on to which he was barely able to keep his place, so constantly were the mob pressing round him.
There was a stand, from which a tolerable view of the race could be obtained, admission one shilling; but few ascended it, and long before the start, the price had fallen to sixpence.
There were two or three carriages; one containing Counsellor Webb’s family. He himself was one of the stewards, and, consequently appeared on horseback in a red coat. Another belonged to Sir Michael Gipson, who owned the greater part of the town, and who drawing about six thousand a year from this county and the next, had given ten pounds, to be run for by farmers’ horses, contriving thereby to show them that he thought they ought to indulge in expensive amusements, and to stimulate them to idleness and gambling. As, however, the land in the country was chiefly let in patches under twenty acres each, and to men who were unable to feed the sorry beast necessary to keep them in tillage, Sir Michael’s generosity had not the effect which it might be presumed to cause; and his ten pound was annually won by some large tenant, who might call himself a farmer, but who would make a desperate noise if another man presumed to call him anything but a gentleman. Of cars there were plenty, crowded with pretty faces, all evidently intending to be pleased; not invariably, however, for there was Mrs. Keegan in one of those altogether abominable affairs called inside cars, not because you had any of the comforts of an inside place in case of rain, for they have no covering, but because the inmates, sitting on each side, have full power to kick each other’s shins, and no liberty to stretch their legs. There she sat alone, as sour as at the moment when she had first seen her Hyacinth as he was deposited by the hotel waiter on the mat inside her hall-door.
She looked little as if she was there for amusement, and, in truth, she was not. After a time, Hyacinth had come to himself; and by dint of continual scolding, much soda-water, and various lavations, he had enabled himself to make a very sickly appearance on horseback; but the wife of his bosom was determined that he should not escape from thence to another ordinary, or even to any hospitable table where he might get drunk for nothing; and, consequently, she was there to watch him.
There was but one other there that did not seem bent on enjoyment, and this was poor Feemy. There she was, sitting on the same side of the car with Lyddy McKeon; and the good-natured mother had taken care that this should be the side facing the horses; but Feemy took no interest in them. She had given over crying and sobbing; but she was silent, and apparently sullen, and would much have preferred her own little room at Ballycloran.
There were to be three races. Had there been a prospect of thirty, and among them a trial of speed between all the favourites of the Derby, there could not have been a greater crowd, or more anxiety; every ragged, bare-footed boy there knew the names of each horse, and to whom he belonged, and believed in the invincibility of some favourite beast — probably from attachment to its owner — and were as anxious as if the animals were their own. Among this set, McKeon or little Larry Kelly were booked to win; — they were kind, friendly masters, and these judges thought that kind men ought to have winning horses.
“Shure thin,” said one half-naked urchin, stuck up in a small tree, growing just out of one of the banks over which the horses were to pass; “shure thin, Playful’s an illigant swate baste entirely. I’ll go bail there’s nothin’ll come nigh her this day!”
“That Tony may win the day thin!” said another. “It’s he is the fine sportsman.”
“Bedad, ye’re both out,” said a third, squatting as close on the bank as the men would let him; “it’s Mr. Larry’ll win, God bless him! — and none but him — and he the weight all wid him, and why not? There’s none of ’em in the counthry so good as the Kellys. Hoorroo for the Kellys! them’s the boys.”
“They do say,” said the second speaker, who was only half way up the tree, “that Conqueror’ll win. By Jasus, av he do, won’t young Brown be going it!”
“Is it Conqueror?” said the higher, and more sanguine votary of McKeon. “Is it the Brown Hall horse? He can’t win, I tell ye! I saw him as Paddy Cane was leading him down, and he didn’t look like winning; he hasn’t got it in him. That he may fall at the first lep, and never stir again! Tony’ll win, boys! Hurroo for Tony McKeon.”
The weighing was now accomplished, and jockeys mounted. Major McDonnell had to look after this part of the business, of which he knew as much as he did of Arabic. However, he was shoved about unmercifully for half an hour — had his toes awfully trodden on, for he was told he should dismount to see the weighing — narrowly escaped a half-hundredweight, which was dropped within three inches of his foot, and did, I daresay, as much good as stewards usually do on such occasions.
Counsellor Webb was to start them, and, though a counsellor, he was an old hand at the work. He always started the horses at the Carrick races, and usually one of his own among the lot. The Counsellor, by the by, was a great favourite with all parties, and what was more, he was a good man and a gentleman.
Major Longsword from Boyle was the third steward, and he, like his military colleague, was rather out of his element. He was desired to keep the populace back and preserve the course; but it seemed to Major Longsword that the populace didn’t care a button for him and his red coat, and though he valiantly attempted to ride in among men, women, and children, he couldn’t move them; they merely pushed the horse back with their hands, and the brute, frightened by their numbers, wouldn’t go on. They screamed, “Arrah, sir! go asy; shure you’re on my foot; musha thin, can’t you be quiet with the big horse? faix I’m murdhered with you, sir — is you going to ride over us? shure, yer honer, won’t you go over there? look how the boys is pressing in there.” The Major soon saw he could do no good, so he rode out of the crowd, mentally determining that the jockeys might, if they could, clear the course for themselves.
And now they were off — at least seven of them; for when the important morning came, the Captain had in vain used every exertion to get a rider for Kickie-wickie. His ambition had at first soared so high that he had determined to let no one but a gentleman jockey mount her; but gradually his hopes declined, and at the ordinary he was making fruitless inquiries respecting some proper person; but in vain, and now he had been from twelve to one searching for any groom in possession of the necessary toggery. He would have let the veriest tailor in Carrick get on his mare if he had merely been legitimately dressed. Really, his exertions and his misery were distressing, for at last he was obliged to send her back to Boyle, after having paid the stakes and the stable charges for her, and console himself by telling his friends that the gentleman from Galway, who was to ride for him, had deceived him, and that he could not possibly have put any one he did not know upon Kickie-wickie.
But the seven are off. There they go, gently cantering, looking so pretty, and so clean — the riders so steady — the horses so eager. How different they will look when three or four, or more probably only two, are returning to the post! The horses jaded, the men heated, with whip speedily raised, and sharply falling — spurs bloody — and jackets soiled, by perhaps more than one violent fall; and yet in ten minutes this will be their appearance.
“There they go — Hurroo! they’re off. Faix, there’s Playful at her tricks already — by dad she’ll be over the ropes! steady, Bob — steady, or she’ll back on you — give it her, Gayner, my boy, give it her, never spare her — laws! did you see that? Well if he gets her over the course, he’d ride the very divil. Well done, Bob, now you’ve got her — Hurroo, Tony, my boy, you’re all right now:"— and the mare, after a dozen preliminary plunges, joined the other horses. “Faix, they’re all over that — did you see that big brown horse? He’s Thunderer — he’s a good horse intirely; did you see the lep he took at the wall?”— and now they had come to a big drain; all the horses being well together as far as this, excepting Crom-a-boo, who having been forced through a breach made by some other of the horses in the first wall, had baulked at a bank which came next, and never went any further. Some one told poor Stark on the course that the horse didn’t run today nearly so well as his owner did last night; and it was true enough.
“There goes Conqueror — he’s over! Faith then, George is leading. — Brown Hall against the field!”
“Never mind,” said some knowing fellow, “he’s a deal too fond of leading — he’s a deal oftener seen leading than winning.”
“There’s little Larry — my! how sweet the mare went over the water. There’s Brickbat in it; — no, he’s out. He’s an awkward beast. That’s Thunderer — Holy Virgin, what a leap! He goes at everything as if there were twenty foot to cross, and a six foot wall in the middle.”
“There’s Playful at it again — he’ll never get her round. Bad cess to you, you vixen — what made me bet on you? There, she’s over — no she’s not; — there’s Diana — did you see Pat walk her through? Faith, she’d crawl up a steeple, and down the other side. There’s Playful over — no, she’s not; — right in the middle, by heavens!”
“And Bob under her — come away. My God, he’ll be drowned!”
“Gracious glory! did you see that? He’s up again; — d —— n it but he dived under her; well, I never saw the like of that; she’s out.”
“And look, look! Bob’s in the seat — you’ll win your money now. Well, Bob Gayner, afther that you’ll never live till you’re drowned! Come away to the double ditch; that’s where they’ll show what they’re made of — the mare’ll be cooled now, and she’ll run as easy as a coach-horse.”
And the two rode away to the big fence mentioned, which consisted of a broad flat-topped bank between two wide dry ditches; while the horses went the round of the course over four or five intermediate banks.
“Here they come! there’s Blake leading. What a stride that horse has! but you’ll see he’ll die away now. Larry’s second — no, George is second, but Larry’s well up.”
“Faith, and he’s been down too — he and the mare. There’s Playful, how she pulls — where’s Brickbat? now then!”
And the Galway horse came at the big fence — Blake pulling him off a little as he came to it, then stuck his spurs into his horse’s flank — gave a lift at his head, and threw his left hand to the tree of the saddle. The horse gave a terrific leap on the bank — paused for a moment — and clearing the second ditch, came down safe on his legs with a shock that seemed to shake the field.
“Hurroo! well done! beat that George — now for Brown Hall; no, by Jasus, little Larry’s next — now, Larry, the Virgin send you safe over!” The mare with the light weight on her back made nothing of what seemed in the horse so tremendous a jump, and without losing her running, skimmed on to the bank and off it, and collared the horse before he had regained his stride.
“Good luck to you, masther Larry, it’s you that can ride. Hurroo for the Kellys! — Oh, by the holy, they’re both dead!” This last exclamation referred to Conqueror, who had come up to the fence much heated, but at a great pace. George, never attempting to pull him off, or give him a moment of breath, using his whip and riding forward over his horse’s neck, hurried him on. The gallant brute leapt with all his force, but not being able to master the height, breasted it violently, sending his rider a dozen feet into the next field, and falling himself into the ditch, his head on to the field, with a broken heart, and dead! George, however, was soon on his feet, for his head was hard and he was used to tumbling.
Before he was on his legs, however, up came Playful, awfully rushing, her neck out — her nose forward — her nostrils open — her eye eager — covered with foam, but showing no sign of fatigue, nor any further inclination to baulk. Gayner was sitting her beautifully, not attempting to hold her, for he knew that if he stopped her, whipcord wouldn’t make her run again; but with a firm, steady pull on her mouth — his hands low, and both on the reins, and his legs well tucked in. There she came, on at the leap without easing her pace for a moment, and going over the carcass of the dying animal, cleared it all, bank and ditches at one leap — two and thirty feet at one stride! There are the marks to this day, for Tony McKeon, in his pride, measured the ground, and put in stakes to point out the spot where his mare showed herself so worthy of all his trouble.
Brickbat had quarrelled with some of his namesakes at a wall, and was now nowhere; Diana still persevered, and got well over the big fence, but her chance was out, unless some unaccountable accident happened to the three other horses that were still running. On they went; there were only three more fences, two small banks, and a five foot wall. Thunderer and Miss Fidget neck and neck took the two banks, the big horse making awfully high leaps at them, Playful nearing them at every stride, galloping over the banks as though they were but a part of the level field. Now for the wall. “Now, Nicholas Blake, now, show them how little they think of a five foot wall in Galway. Faith though, Larry’s first — bravo, Roscommon!” He’s over, and a couple of bricks only falling show how lightly Miss Fidget touched it with her hind feet; not so Thunderer; again the horse made an awful leap, but the pace had been too much for him, he struck the wall violently with his knees, and, bursting through, gave Blake a fall over his shoulders. Galway, however, was soon in his saddle again, but not before Bob was over, and had long passed him.
And now there was a beautiful race in between the two mares; and oh! how charmingly both were ridden! But though Miss Fidget was so favoured in weight, and had begun with the lead, her elder rival collared her, and beat her at the post by a head. “And why shouldn’t she win?” as Tony said in triumph to his friends, “for hadn’t she the dhrop in her? wasn’t she by Coriander, out of Pink, by Highflyer? Of course she’d win — hadn’t he known it all the time?”
“That’s all very well,” said Larry, as he stood with his saddle in his hand, waiting till Bob got out of the scales, “it was only her d —— d long nose and neck that won after all, fur I’ll swear my head was past the post before Bob’s.”
“Well then, Larry, we’ll make a case for the stewards, whether it’s your head or the horse’s the judge should go by.”
“There’s two of ’em,” whispered Gayner, “wouldn’t know if you were to ask ’em.”
Thunderer came in third, and a couple of minutes afterwards, Diana; — and Pat Conner, when he was laughed at as to his place, truly boasted that at any rate he was the only one that had been able to ride round the course without a fall.
The chief and most exciting race of the day being over, the more aristocratic of the multitude seemed with one accord to turn their attention to luncheon. The ladies began to unpack the treasures with which the wells of their cars had been loaded — cold hams — shoulders of mutton — pigeon pies — bottles of sherry — and dozens of porter soon made their appearance; and pretty girls putting cork-screws and carving knives into the hands of their admirers, bid them work for their food before they ate. Woe betide the young man there who had no female friends on the course — no one to relieve the pangs of his hunger, or to alleviate that intolerable delay which seems always necessary between races.
Then were made engagements for the ball; quadrilles and waltzes were given in exchange for sandwiches and ale — Lieutenants were to be had for sherry — a glass of champagne would secure a Captain.
Great was the crowd round Mrs. McKeon’s car, and plentiful the partners who solicited the honour of dancing with Lyddy, Louey, and Feemy. McKeon was there in all his glory, shaking hands with every one — praising his mare with his mouth full of ham, and uttering vehement eulogiums on Gayner between the different tumblers of porter, which in his joy he seemed to swallow unconsciously. Then Bob came up himself, glowing with triumph, for he knew that he had acquitted himself more than ordinarily well. He had changed all his clothes, for he had been completely drenched by his fall in the brook; and now, having nearly altogether fasted for the last forty-eight hours, was not at all disinclined to assist at Mrs. McKeon’s banquet.
He shook hands with her, and all the three girls round, and with Tony — although he had already done that three times before; and he began a full history of the race, which we needn’t repeat.
“I knew Brickbat was as fat as a bullock; he couldn’t keep the pace up; but I’ll tell you what, Tony, if any horse there could beat Playful, it was Conqueror. But George can’t wait — I win fifteen pound from him — he’s made a bad thing of it — lost his horse and all.”
“Did you see the horse, Bob, when you came to the big ditch?”
“By my honour, then, I didn’t see anything from the time I got out of the brook. I’d enough to do to sit where I was, and keep the mare’s head straight. When she made the great leap, I hardly felt her feet come to the ground, she came down so lightly.”
While he was speaking, Ussher came up to the car, and began congratulating them. He had now openly stated that he was to leave the country altogether, and that he had been ordered to Cashel. Mrs. McKeon was therefore no longer at a loss to account for Feemy’s melancholy; and whilst she felt a cordial dislike to the man, who she thought had so basely deceived Feemy and was now going to desert her, she was heartily glad for her sake he was going, and reflected that as he was to be off tomorrow, it was useless for her now to begin to be uncivil to him.
“I’m glad to congratulate you, Mr. McKeon — I’m glad you won, as my friend Brown didn’t; a bad thing his losing his horse, isn’t it?”
“Thank ye, Captain; and I’m to congratulate you too. I hear you’re promoted, and going away from us — very glad for one, sorry for t’other. Take a bit of cold pie; d —— n it, I forgot — the pie’s all gone, but there’s cold mutton and plenty of sherry. Lyddy, give Captain Ussher a glass of sherry.”
And Ussher went round to the side of the car where Feemy was sitting, and shook hands with her and the other girls. It was the first time through the whole long morning he had come near her; indeed, it was the first time he had seen her since his short visit at Mrs. McKeon’s, and very cruel poor Feemy had thought such conduct. Yet now, when he merely came to speak a few words, it was a relief to her, and she took it actually for a kindness. She felt herself so fallen in the world — so utterly degraded — she was so sure that soon every one else would shun her, that she shuddered at the idea of his ill-treating or deserting her. He soon left her, having got an opportunity of desiring her in a whisper to dance the first quadrille with him, as he didn’t think he should remain late at the ball.
As for Ussher himself, he would now have been glad if he had been able to have got rid of Feemy altogether. As I said before, when he started for Ballycloran on the day that he heard he had to remove his quarters, he had by no means made up his mind as to what he would do: it was not at that time at all his purpose to induce Feemy to leave her home, or go with him in the scandalous manner he had at last proposed. It was the warmth of her own affection, and the vanity which this had inspired, or rather strengthened in his breast, that had at the moment induced him to do so; and now he could not avoid it. He had told his sporting friends of his intention, and if even he could have brought himself to endure their ridicule by leaving her behind him, he had gone so far that he could not well break off with Feemy herself.
He was considerably bothered, however, by his position; he felt that she would be a dreadful chain round his neck at the place he was going to, and he began already to dislike her. Poor Feemy! she had already lost that for which she had agreed to sacrifice her pride, her family, her happiness, and herself.
Ussher now returned to his two friends, whose tempers were by no means improved by the calamity which had occurred. Fred declared it was all George’s fault — that he had ridden his horse too fast or too slow — that he had been too forward, or not forward enough. His temper was by far too much soured by the loss of his own bets, to allow him to console his brother for the more serious injury he had suffered.
At length, however, the three got into the drag, and returned to Brown Hall. After dinner, each endeavoured to solace himself by no stinted application to the bottle. George declared, that as he had been able to drink nothing for the last three days, he’d make up for it now, and that he wouldn’t allow himself to be disturbed to dress for the best ball that could be given in Ireland. Fred, however, was not so insatiable, and at about eleven he and Ussher dressed and again drove into Carrick.
The ball at Carrick passed off as such balls always do. There was but little brilliancy, but a great deal of good humour. The dresses were not the most costly, nor possibly the most fashionable, but the faces were as pretty, and the figures as good, as any that could be adorned for Almack’s by a Parisian head-dresser or milliner. The band was neither numerous nor artistic, but it played in good time, and never got tired. The tallow candles, fixed in sconces round the walls of the room, in which a short time since we saw some of our friends celebrating the orgies of Bacchus, gave quite sufficient light for the votaries of the nimble-footed muse to see their partners, mind their steps, and not come in too rude collision with one another. Quadrilles succeeded waltzes, and waltzes quadrilles, with most unceasing energy; and no one dreamt of giving way to fatigue, or supposed that it was at all desirable to sit down for a single dance. From ten to two they kept it up without five minutes’ pause, and then went joyfully to supper — not to drink half a glass of wine, and eat a mouthful of jelly or blanc-manger standing — but to sit down with well-prepared appetite to hot joints — ham and chicken, veal pies, potatoes, and bottled porter. And then the songs that were sung! It would have done your heart good to hear young Fitzpatrick sing the “Widow Machree;” and then all the punch that was mixed! and the eloquence that was used, not in vain, to induce the fairer portion of the company to taste it!
This state of things was not, however, allowed to remain long. It was not at all the thing that men — at any rate unmarried men — should waste their time in drinking when they had come there to dance; and after the ladies had left them about ten minutes, messages came hot and thick from the ball-room, desiring their immediate presence; nor were they so bold as to neglect these summonses, excepting some few inveterate sinners, who, having whiskey and hot water in their possession, and looking forward to a game at loo, neglected the commands which were brought to them.
Soon again the fiddles sounded, and quick feet flew round the floor with more rapidity than before. The tedium of the quadrille was found to be too slow, and from three till six a succession of waltzes, reels, and country dances, kept the room in one whirl of confusion, and at last sent the performers home, not from a feeling of satiety at the amusement, but because, from very weariness, they were no longer able to use their feet.
Feemy, early in the evening, had danced with Ussher, and received his final instructions respecting their departure on the morrow. He was to leave Brown Hall early for Mohill, and Fred’s gig and horse were to be sent over to him there. He was to send his heavy luggage on by the car, and leaving Mohill about seven, when it would be dusk, drive by the avenue at Ballycloran and pick Feemy up as he passed, and they would then reach Longford in time for the mail-coach during the night.
Ussher calculated that Feemy would not be missed till he had had two hours’ start, and that then it would be impossible to catch him before he reached Dublin.
“But, Myles,” said Feemy, “how am I to get home? You know I am at Mrs. McKeon’s now.”
“Why how helpless you are,” replied he; “can’t you easily make some excuse to get home? say you are ill — and sick — and want to be at home. Or if it must come to that, say you will go home; who’s to stop you?”
“But I wouldn’t like to quarrel with them, Myles; just now, too, when they’ve been so kind to me.”
“Well, dearest, you needn’t quarrel with them; say you’re ill, and wish to be at home; but don’t make difficulties, love; don’t look so unhappy; you’ll be as happy as the day is long, when we’re once away — that is, if you still love me, Feemy. I hope, after all I’m doing for you, you’ll not be sullen and cold to me because you’re leaving such a hole as Ballycloran. If you don’t love me, Feemy, say so, and you may stay where you are.”
“Oh! Myles, how can you say such words now! you know I love you — how much I love you — else I wouldn’t be leaving my home for you this way! And though Ballycloran is —”
Here the poor girl could say no more; for she was using all her energies to prevent herself from sobbing in the ball-room.
“Good G——d! you’re not going to cry here; come out of the room, Feemy;” and he led her into the passage, where, under the pretence of looking at the moon, they could turn their faces to the window. “What are you crying for now?”
“Don’t you know I love you? why else would I be going with you?”
“Well, don’t cry then; but mind, I shan’t see you again before the time, for I’m going out of this at once now. I shall be at the avenue at a quarter before eight; don’t keep me waiting. If you are there first, as you will be, walk a few steps along the Mohill road, so as to meet me; no one will know you, if you should meet any one, for it will be nearly if not quite dark; the moon won’t rise till past ten; do you understand, Feemy?”
“Oh, yes, I understand!”
“Well, good night then, my own love, for I must be off.”
“But, Myles, I want to say one thing.”
“Hurry then, dear, what is it?”
“What’ll I do about my things?”
“What things?”
“Why, Myles, I must bring some things with me; clothes, you know, and things of that sort.”
This puzzled Ussher rather; he had considered that he should have enough trouble with Feemy herself; he had quite forgotten the concomitant evils of the bandboxes, bundles, and draperies which it would be necessary for Feemy to take with her.
“Ah! you can get clothes in Dublin; you can’t want to take much with you; you can bring a bundle in your hand just that distance. Can’t you, eh, Feemy?”
Feemy could not but think that a week since he would not have asked her to carry all her travelling wardrobe in a bundle, in her hand. However, she only said,
“Why, not well, Myles; I shall have so many things to think of; but I shan’t have much, and if you’ll let me, I’ll send Biddy to meet you with what I must take. She’ll meet you on the road, and put it into the gig.”
“Good heavens! what do you mean! would you tell the girl what you’re going to do? Why she’ll tell your father, and Thady, and raise the whole country on me.”
“No, she wouldn’t, Myles; she wouldn’t tell anybody a word, when I told her not. You don’t know those sort of people; she’d not say a word; so if you’ll let me, I’ll send her on to meet you with my things.”
With a good deal of reluctance Ussher agreed to this; and then, again enjoining Feemy not to keep him and the gig waiting in the road, he took his leave, and departed, with his friend Fred, for Brown Hall; first of all taking Feemy into the refreshment-room, and making her drink a glass of sherry. This did her much good, and when she got back into the ball-room, she was able to dance with tolerable spirit; and Mrs. McKeon, who had been watching her, and had seen her dance with Ussher, was glad to think that her protegée had made up her mind to part with her lover in good spirits, and before the evening was over she assured Louey, with great glee, that, in spite of all that had been said, she foresaw that as soon as that horrid man had been gone three or four days, Feemy would be as well and as cheerful as ever.
Feemy was, nevertheless, very glad when she was told to get her cloak on, and found herself on the car going to Drumsna. She then told her friend that she wanted to be home with her father on the morrow — that she had promised to be home the day after the ball. She even pretended that she had received a message that evening from her father, begging her return. Mrs. McKeon did not think much about it, supposing that Feemy’s presence might be necessary for household purposes at Ballycloran, and she readily promised her the loan of the car, at four in the afternoon, on condition that she would return to Drumsna at least in a day or two. This Feemy promised, rejoicing that her expected difficulties as to getting to Ballycloran were so easily overcome, and going to bed, she slept more soundly than she had yet done since she had given her fatal consent to Ussher’s proposal.
Late the next morning, Feemy and the other girls got up; they had slept together to make room in the house for the victorious Bob, but as Father John had prophesied, they were all too tired to be much inconvenienced by this. Immediately after breakfast the car came round, and Feemy, afraid to wish her friends good bye too affectionately lest suspicion should be raised, and promising to come back again in a day or two, returned to Ballycloran.
Thady was out when she got there, but he was expected in to dinner. Her father was glad to see her, and began assuring her that he would do all in his power to protect her from the evil machinations of her brother, and then again took his grog and his pipe. She went into the kitchen, and summoning Biddy, desired her to follow her up to her bedroom. When there, she carefully closed the door, and sitting down on the bed, looked in her attendant’s face and said,
“Biddy, if I told you a secret, you’d never betray me, would you?”
“Is it I, Miss Feemy, that’s known you so long? in course I wouldn’t,” and the girl pricked up her ears, and looked all anxiety. “What is it, Miss? — Shure you know av you tould me to hould my tongue, never a word I’d spake to any mortial about anything.”
“I know you wouldn’t, Biddy; that’s why I’m going to tell you; but you mustn’t whisper it to Katty, for I think she’d be telling Thady.”
“Niver fear, Miss; sorrow a word I’ll whisper it to any one, at all at all.”
“Well, Biddy, did you hear Captain Ussher’s going away from this intirely?”
“What! away from Ballycloran?”
“No, but from Mohill, and from County Leitrim altogether. He’s going a long way off, to a place called Cashel.”
“And what for is he going there, and you living here, Miss Feemy?”
“That’s the secret, Biddy; I’m going with him.”
“My! and is you married in sacret, Miss?” said the girl, coming nearer to her mistress, and opening her eyes as wide as she could.
Feemy blushed up to the roots of her hair, and said, “No, we’re not married yet; we’re to be married in Dublin; we couldn’t be married here you know, because Captain Ussher is a Protestant.”
“Holy Mary! Miss, you’re not a going to lave the ould religion; you’re not a going to turn Prothesthant, is you, Miss Feemy?”
“No, Biddy; why should I turn Protestant? but you see there’s rasons why we couldn’t be married here; we’re to be married in Dublin, tomorrow.”
“To-morrow!” ejaculated Biddy; “what, is you going to-night?”
“This very evening; and now I want you to help me, and when we’re settled, Biddy, if you like to lave this ould place, I mane you to come and live with us.”
“To be shure, Miss; and wouldn’t I go the world round wid you? and why not? for it’s you was always the kind misthress to me. But what’ll I be doing to help you?”
And then Feemy explained to her her plans, and began to pack up the few treasures she could take with her, in a box small enough for Biddy to carry; and the two kneeled down together to the work.
Feemy’s tears dropped quickly on the little things she was packing, and the poor girl soon followed the example her mistress gave her.
“Ochone! ochone! Miss Feemy, alanna, what’ll we be doing widout you?” and she came round and began kissing her mistress’s dress, and hands, and face, “What shall we do widout you at all then? what will the ould man be doing, when you’re not to the fore to mix his punch?”
“Don’t talk that way,” said Feemy. “Shure, won’t I be coming back to see him when I’m married?”
“In course you will; but it’ll be a great miss, when he and Mr. Thady finds you’re gone. What’ll I say at all, when I come back from seeing you off — and they finds that you are gone?”
“But you mustn’t stay to see me off at all. When you’ve put the box in the gig you must go on to Mrs. Mehan’s, and when you come back you can say you’d been down to look for something that was left the day of Mary’s wedding; but mind, Biddy, don’t say a word about it at Mrs. Mehan’s, and above all, don’t mention it to Katty.”
“Not a word, Miss; niver fear: but what’ll I be doing when you’re gone? But I suppose it’s all for the best; may sorrow seize him thin av he don’t make you the good husband.”
It was then settled that Feemy’s bonnet and shawl were to be brought down into the sitting-room opposite the dining-room — that dinner was to be put off as late as possible — that when Larry and Thady were at their punch, Feemy was to escape unobserved. Biddy was enjoined, when she slipped out with the box, to leave the front door ajar, so that her mistress could follow her without making any noise. The girl was also to carry down her mistress’ cloak — so that she might the easier run down the avenue.
When these things were all settled, Biddy returned to the kitchen, big with the secret; but she was too prudent to say or hint anything which could create a suspicion in her colleague’s breast.
Thady came in about the usual dinner-hour, and Feemy spoke good-humouredly to her brother — more so than she had done since the day he had desired her not to walk with Captain Ussher. Thady himself was less gloomy than usual, for he had been rejoiced by hearing that the revenue officer was immediately going to leave the country. He had only been told it that morning at Mohill, as a secret, and he therefore presumed that Feemy did not know it. He thought that he would not distress her by telling her of it now — that he had better leave her to find it out herself after he was gone; but the reflection of the misery it would occasion her when she did know it, gave rise to a feeling of pity for her in his heart, which made him more inclined to be gentle and tender to her than he had felt for a long time.
After sitting over the fire with their father for some time, Thady said,
“Well, Feemy, these are fashionable hours you’ve brought with you from Drumsna. Does Mrs. McKeon always dine as late as this? Why it’s half past six!”
“The stupid girl forgot the potatoes, Thady. You could have them now; but you know, you wouldn’t eat them as hard as stones. I’ll go and hurry her.”
“‘Deed and I’m starving,” said the father. “Why can’t we have dinner then, Feemy dear? Why won’t they bring dinner in?”
And Feemy went out, not to hurry them, but to cause grounds for fresh delay. At last, a little after seven, she allowed dinner to go in, and following it herself, she sat down and made as good a meal as she could, and endeavoured to answer Thady’s questions about the races and the ball with some appearance of having taken interest, at any rate in the latter. If she did not altogether succeed, the attempt was not so futile as to betray her; and the dinner passed over, and the hot water came in, without anything arising especially to excite her alarm. At last she heard the front door open, and she listened with apprehension to every creak the rusty hinges made as Biddy vainly endeavoured to close it without a noise; but the sounds, which, in her fear, seemed so loud and remarkable to her, attracted no notice from her father or brother. Then she mixed their punch. Had Thady been looking at her he might have seen a tear drop into the tumbler as she handed it to him; but his eyes were on the fireplace, and she slipped out of the room without her tell-tale face having been observed.
It was now, as she calculated, about the time that she should start; and with trembling hands she tied on her bonnet. Having thrown her shawl over her shivering shoulders, she opened her book upon the table with a handkerchief upon it — placed her chair by the fire, and leaving the candle alight, slowly crept through the hall-door, down the front steps, and into the avenue leading to the road. She shuddered when she found herself alone in the cold dark air; but soon plucking up her courage, she ran down as quickly as she could to the spot where the old gate always stood open, and leaning against the post, listened intently for the sound of the gig wheels. She stood there, listening for three or four minutes, which seemed to her to be an hour, and then getting cold, she thought she’d walk on to meet Ussher as he had directed her; but before she had gone a dozen yards the darkness frightened her, and she returned. As soon as she had again reached the gateway she heard a man’s footstep on the road a little above; and still more frightened at this, she ran back the avenue towards the house till the footsteps had passed the gate. She did not, however, dare again to stand in sight of the road, though it was so dark, that no one passing could have seen her if she were a few yards up the avenue; so she sat down on the stump of a tree that had been lately felled, and determined to wait till she heard the sound of the gig.
There she remained for what seemed to her a cruelly long time; she became so cold that she could hardly feel the ground beneath her feet; and her teeth shook in her head as she sat there alone in the cold night air of an October night, with no warmer wrapping than a slight shawl thrown over her shoulders. There she sat, listening for every sound — longing to catch the rattle of the wheels that were to carry her away — fancying every moment that she heard footsteps approaching, and dreading lest the awful creak of the house-door opening should reach her ears.
She could not conceive why Ussher did not come — she had absolutely been there half an hour, and she thought it must be past ten — she had long been crying, and was now really suffering with bodily pain from cold and fright; and then the whole of Ussher’s conduct to her since that horrid morning passed through her mind — she saw things now in their true light, which had never struck her so before. What would she not have given to have been safe again at Mrs. McKeon’s; to have been in her own room, of which she could still see the light through the window; in fact, to be anywhere but where she was? She did not dare, however, to return to the house, or even again to walk down the road. Poor, unhappy Feemy! she already felt the wretched fruits of her obstinacy and her pride.
At last she absolutely heard the front-door pushed open, and could plainly see a man’s figure standing on the threshold. It must be Thady! They had discovered her departure, and he was already coming to drag her back! She heard his feet descending the hall steps; but they were as slow and as deliberate as usual; and she could perceive that, instead of coming down the avenue, he turned towards the stables. This was a slight relief to her — it was evident she was not yet missed; but she was dreadfully cold, and what was she to do if Thady heard the noise of the gig, and perceived that it had stopped at their gate?
Ussher had driven over to Mohill early in the morning, and had gotten everything ready for his departure in the manner he had proposed; but when the time for starting came, he had been detained by business connected with his official duties, and it was eight o’clock before he was able to bid adieu to the interesting town of Mohill. He had then, at the risk of his own neck, driven off as fast as Fred Brown’s broken-knee’d horse could take him, and was proceeding at a gallop towards Ballycloran, when he was stopped near Mrs. Mehan’s well-known shop by Biddy, who was standing by the road-side opposite.
He stopped the horse as quick as he could, and Biddy came running to him with Feemy’s bundle.
“Is that yer honer, at last? Glory be to God! but I thought you wor niver coming. The misthress’ll be perished with the could.”
“Never mind — hurry — give me what you’ve got!” And Biddy handed in the bundle and cloak, and Ussher again drove on.
“Musha then, but he’s a niggardly baste!” soliloquised Biddy, “not to give me the sign of a bit of money, after waiting there for him these two hours by the road-side, and me with his sacret and all, that could ruin him if I chose to spake the word, only I wouldn’t for Miss Feemy’s sake. But maybe it was the hurry and all that made him be forgitting, for he was niver the man for a mane action. I wish he may trate her well, that’s all; for he’s a hard man, and it’s bad for her to be leaving the ould place without the priest’s blessing.”
Ussher was at the gateway; but when he got there, he could not see Feemy. He waited about a minute, and then whistled — a minute more, and he whistled again. What should he do? It would be so foolish now for him to go without her! He knew the horse was steady and would stand; so he got out and walked up the avenue till he saw the figure of Feemy, still sitting on the root of the tree where we left her. There was a light colour in her shawl, and the little white collar round her neck enabled him to see her at some distance; and she saw, or at any rate heard him, but she neither moved to or from him.
She had caught, some time since, the sound of the gig wheels; but just as she did so, she again saw the figure of Thady as he came round from the stables; and he evidently had heard it also, for he stood still on the open space before the house. He was smoking, for she caught the smell of the tobacco, and she plainly heard the stones on the pathway rattle as he now and then struck them with the stick in his hand. He didn’t move towards her; but there he stood, as if determined to ascertain whether the vehicle which he must have heard, would pass along the road by the gate.
Then the sound ceased. It was when Biddy was putting in it the cloak and bundle, and again it continued closer and closer. The road came round the little shrubbery through which the avenue passed; the gig was therefore at one time even nearer to Feemy than it would be when it stopped at the avenue gate; and when it passed this place, she fancied she could hear Ussher moving in his seat. She did not dare to stir, however, for there still stood Thady, listening like herself to the sounds within forty yards of her; and had she risen he must have seen her.
And now the gig stopped at the avenue gate. Feemy was all but fainting; what with the cold and her former fear, and the dreadful position in which she found herself, she could not have moved if she had tried; she just preserved her senses sufficiently to torture her, and that was all. Plainly she heard her lover whistle; and plainly Thady heard it too, for he kept his stick completely still, and took the pipe from his mouth: then the second whistle — then she heard Ussher’s foot on the ground — heard him approaching, and saw his figure draw nearer; in vain she endeavoured to make signs to him, in vain she thought she whispered, “keep back;” for when she tried to speak, the words would not come. On he came till he was close to her, and in a low voice he said,
“Feemy, is that you? why don’t you come? what are you here for?” and he put down his hand to raise her. Feemy tried to rise and whisper something, but she was unable, and when Ussher stooped and absolutely lifted her from her seat, she had really fainted. “Come, Feemy,” said he, still unaware of Thady being near, “come; this is nonsense — hurry, there’s a love. Come, Feemy, stand, can’t you?”
When Thady had first come out of the house, it had merely been for the purpose of going into the stable, as was his practice, to see the two farm horses fed; as he returned, he caught the sound of Ussher’s gig; but it was more for the purpose of smoking his pipe in the open air than from any curiosity that he lingered out of doors. When, however, the vehicle stopped at Ballycloran gate, and he heard the whistle twice repeated, his interest was excited, and he thought that something was not right. He then heard Ussher’s footsteps up the avenue, and he fancied he could hear him speak; but he had no idea who he was; nor had he the slightest suspicion that his sister was so near him.
But when Ussher stopped, Thady gently came down the avenue unperceived; he saw him stoop, and lift something in his arms, but still up to this time he had not recognised the voice. It was Thady’s idea that something had been stolen from the yard, which the thief was now removing, under cover of the darkness. By degrees, as he got nearer, he perceived it was a woman’s form that the man was half dragging, half carrying, and then he heard Ussher’s voice say loudly, and somewhat angrily, “This is d —— d nonsense, Feemy! you know you must come now.”
These were the last words he ever uttered. Thady was soon close to him, and with the heavy stick he always carried in his hand, he struck him violently upon the head. Ussher, when he had heard the footsteps immediately behind him, dropped Feemy, who was still insensible, upon the path; but he could not do so quick enough to prevent the stunning blow which brought him on his knees. His hat partially saved him, and he was on the point of rising, when Thady again struck him with all his power; this time the heavy bludgeon came down on his bare temple, and the young man fell, never to rise again. He neither moved nor groaned; the force of the blow, and the great weight of the stick falling on his uncovered head as he was rising, had shattered his brains, and he lay as dead as though he had been struck down by a thunder-bolt from heaven.
Though it was so dark that Thady could not see the blood he had shed, or watch how immovable was the body of the man he had attacked, still he knew that Ussher was no more. He had felt the skull give way beneath the stroke; he had heard the body fall heavily on the earth, and he was sure his enemy was dead.
At first he felt completely paralysed, and unable to do anything; but he was soon aroused by a long sigh from poor Feemy. The cold had revived her, and she now regained her senses. Thady threw his stick upon the ground, and stooping to lift her up, said,
“Oh! Feemy, Feemy, what have you brought upon me!”
When she recognised her brother’s voice, and found that she was in his arms, she said,
“Where am I, Thady? What have you done with him? Where is he?”
“Never mind now. He’s gone — come to the house.”
“Gone! — he’s not gone; don’t I know he would not go without me?” and then escaping from her brother’s arms, she screamed, “Myles, Myles! — what have you done with him? I’ll not stir with you till you tell me where he is!” and then the poor girl shuddered, and added, “Oh! I’m cold, so miserably cold!”
“Come to the house with me, Feemy; — this is no place for you now.”
“I’ll not go with you, Thady. It’s no use, for you shan’t make me; tell me what you’ve done with him — I’ll go nowhere without him.”
Thady paused a minute, thinking what he’d say, and then replied: “You’ll never go with him now, Feemy, for Captain Ussher is dead!”
Feemy only repeated the last word after her brother, and again fell insensible on the ground.
Thady at length succeeded in getting her to the house; and pushing open the front door, which was still unlatched, with his foot, took her into her own room on the left hand side of the passage, and deposited her still insensible on the sofa. He then went into the kitchen, and sent Katty to her assistance.
Pat Brady was sitting over the kitchen fire, smoking. Though this man was still hanging about the place, and had not come to an actual rupture with his master, still there had been no cordiality or confidence between them since Brady had failed to induce Thady to keep his appointment at the widow Mulready’s; and for the last two days not even a single word had passed between them. Now, however, there was no one else but Pat about the place, and Thady felt that he must tell some one of the deed that he had done. It would be useless to consult his father; his sister was already insensible; the two girls would be worse than useless; besides, he could not now conceal the deed; he could not leave the body to lie there on the road.
“Brady,” said he, “come out; I want to spake to you. Is there a lanthern in the place at all?”
“No, Mr. Thady, there is not,” said he, without moving; “what is it you want to-night?”
“Come out, and bring a lighted candle, if you can.”
Brady now saw from his master’s pale face, and fear-struck expression, that something extraordinary had happened, and he followed him with a candle under his hat; but the precaution was useless, the wind blew it out at once.
“Pat,” said Thady, as soon as the two were out before the front door; “Pat,” and he didn’t know how to pronounce the thing he wished to tell.
“Good God! Mr. Thady, what’s the matther? has anything happened the owld man?”
“What owld man?”
“Your father.”
“No, nothing’s happened him; but — but Captain Ussher is dead!”
“Gracious glory — no! why he was laving this for good and all this night. And how did he die?”— and he whispered in his master’s ear —“did the boys do for him?”
“I killed him by myself,” answered Thady, in a whisper.
“You killed him, Mr. Thady ah! now, you’re joking.”
“Stop!” said Thady — for they were now in the avenue —“joking or not, his body is somewhere here; — and he had Feemy here, dragging her along the road, and I struck him with my stick across the head, and now they’ll say I’ve murdhered him.”
Brady soon touched the body with his foot; and the two raised it together, and put it off the path on the grass, and then held a council together, as to what steps had better be taken.
Brady, after his first surprise and awe at hearing of Ussher’s death was over, spoke of it very unconcernedly, and rather as a good thing done than otherwise. He recommended his master to get out of the way; he advised him at once to go down to Drumleesh and find out Joe Reynolds; he assured Thady that the man would even now be willing to befriend him and get him out of harm’s way. He told him that Reynolds and others had places up in the mountains where he might lie concealed, and where the police would never be able to find him; and that if he only got out of the way for a time, it might probably not be found murder by the Coroner, and that in that case he could return quietly to Ballycloran.
Thady listened sadly to Brady’s advice, but he did not know what better to propose to himself. He remembered the last words which Reynolds had said to him, and he made up his mind to go down at once to Corney Dolan’s, who was a tenant of his own, and from him find out where Reynolds was.
“But, Pat,” said Thady, when he had made up his mind to the line of conduct he meant to pursue, “what shall we do with the man’s body? We can’t let it lie here. As I trust in God, I had no thoughts to kill him! and I would not run away, and lave the body here, as though I’d murdhered him.”
“Jist lay him asy among the trees, Mr. Thady, till you’re out of the counthry; and then I’ll find it — by accident in course, and get the police to carry it off. Thim fellows is paid for sich work.”
“No, Pat; that wouldn’t do at all. I won’t have them say I hid the body; every one’ll know ’twas I did it; mind, I don’t ask you to tell a lie about it; and I’ll not have it left here, as though I’d run away the moment afther I struck him. We must take him into the house, Brady.”
“Into the house, yer honer! not a foot of it! why, you’d have Miss Feemy in fits; and the owld man’d be worse still, wid all thim fellows coming from Carrick and sitting on the body, discoursing whether it wor to be murdher or not.”
“Well, then; we’ll take it to Mrs. Mehan’s.”
“Av you do, Mr. Thady, the country’ll have it all in no time. Howsomever, they must take it there if you choose, as it’s a public; but you’d better lave it where it is, and let me send it down by and by — jist to give you an hour’s start or so.”
This Thady absolutely refused, stating that he would not leave the body till he had seen it deposited in some decent and proper place; and the two men took it up between them and carried it away, meaning to take it to Mrs. Mehan’s. But at the avenue gate they found Fred Brown’s horse and gig, exactly where Ussher had left it, excepting that the horse was leisurely employed in browsing the grass from the ditch side.
Brady soon recognised both the horse and gig as belonging to Brown Hall; and he then proposed putting the body of its former occupant in it, and driving it to the station of the police at Carrick-on-Shannon, and restoring at the same time the horse and gig to its proper owner at Brown Hall. To this scheme Thady at last agreed; but he made the man promise him, that when he got to the police at Carrick he would tell them that he, Thady, had desired him to do so; and that, instead of running away, he had not left the body till he had seen it put into the vehicle, to be carried into Carrick-on-Shannon. And with these injunctions Brady departed with his charge.