Every hour seemed to complicate the Knight of Gwynne's difficulties, and to increase that intricacy by which he already was so much embarrassed. The forms of law, never grateful to him, became now perfectly odious, obscuring instead of explaining the questions on which he desired information. He hated, besides, the small and narrow expedients so constantly suggested in cases where his own sense of right convinced him of the justice of his cause, nor could he listen with common patience to the detail of all those legal subtleties by which an adverse claim might be, if not resisted, at least protracted indefinitely.
His presence, far from affording any assistance, was, therefore, only an embarrassment both to Daly and the lawyer, and they heard with unmixed satisfaction of his determination to hasten down to the West, and communicate more freely with his family, for as yet his letter to Lady Eleanor, far from disclosing the impending ruin, merely mentioned Gleeson's flight as a disastrous event in the life of a man esteemed and respected, and adverting but slightly to his own difficulties in consequence.
“We must leave the abbey, Bagenal, I foresee that,” said Darcy, as he took his friend aside a few minutes before starting.
Daly made no reply, for already his own convictions pointed the same way.
“I could not live there with crippled means and broken fortune; 'twould kill me in a month, by Jove, to see the poor fellows wandering about idle and unemployed, the stables nailed up, the avenue grass-grown, and not hear the cry of a hound when I crossed the courtyard. But what is to be done? Humbled as I am, I cannot think of letting it to some Hickman O'Reilly or other, some vulgar upstart, feasting his low companions in those old halls, or plotting our utter ruin at our own hearthstone; could we not make some other arrangement?”
“I have thought of one,” said Daly, calmly; “my only fear is how to ask Lady Eleanor's concurrence to a plan which must necessarily press most heavily on her.”
“What is it?” said Darcy, hastily.
“Of course, your inclination would be, for a time at least, perfect seclusion.”
“That, above all and everything.”
“Well, then, what say you to taking up your abode in a little cottage of mine on the Antrim coast? It is a wild and lonely spot, it's true, but you may live there without attracting notice or observation. I see you are surprised at my having such a possession. I believe I never told you, Darcy, that I bought Sandy's cabin from him the day he entered my service, and fitted it up, and intended it as an asylum for the poor fellow if he should grow weary of my fortunes, or happily survive me. By degrees, I have added a room here and a closet there, till it has grown into a dwelling that any one, as fond of salmon-fishing as you and I were, would not despise; come, will you have it?” Darcy grasped his friend's hand without speaking, and Daly went on: “That's right; I'll give orders to have everything in readiness at once; I'll go down, too, and induct you. Ay, Darcy, and if the fellows could take a peep at us over our lobster and a glass of Isla whiskey, they 'd stare to think those two jovial old fellows, so merry and contented, started, the day they came of age, with the two best estates in Ireland.”
“If I had not brought ruin on others, Bagenal—”
“No more of that, Darcy; the most scandal-loving gossip of the Club will never impute, for he dare not, more than carelessness to your conduct, and I promise you, if you 'll only fall back on a good conscience, you 'll not be unhappy under the thatched roof of my poor shieling. My sincerest regards to Lady Eleanor and Helen. I see there is a crowd collecting at the sight of the four posters, so don't delay.”
Darcy could do no more than squeeze the cordial hand that held his own, and, passing hastily out, he stepped into the travelling-carriage at the door, not unobserved, indeed, for about a hundred ragged creatures had now assembled, who saluted his appearance with groans and hisses, accompanied with ruffianly taunts about bribery and corruption; while one, more daring than the rest, mounted on the step, and with his face to the window, cried out: “My Lord, my Lord, won't you give us a trifle to drown your new coronet?”
The words were scarcely out, when, seizing him by the neck with one hand, and taking a leg in the other, Daly hurled the fellow into the middle of the mob, who, such is their consistency, laughed loud and heartily at the fellow's misfortunes; meanwhile, the postilions plied whip and spur, and ere the laughter had subsided, the carriage was out of sight.
“There is a gentleman in the drawing-room wishes to speak to you, sir,” said a servant to Daly, who had just sat down to a conference with the lawyer.
“Present my respectful compliments, and say that I am engaged on most important and pressing business.”
“Had you not better ask his name?” said the lawyer.
“No, no, there is nothing but interruptions here; at one moment it is Heffernan, with a polite message from Lord Castlereagh; then some one from the Club, to know if I have any objection to waive a standing order, and have that young O'Reilly balloted for once more; and here was George Falkner himself a while ago, asking if the Knight had really taken office, with a seat in the Cabinet. I said it was perfectly correct, and that he was at liberty to state it in his paper.”
“You did!”
“Yes; and that he might add that I myself had refused the see of Llandaff, preferring the command of the West India Squadron. But, what's this? What do you want now, Richard?”
“The gentleman upstairs, sir, insists on my presenting his card.”
“Oh, indeed!—Captain Forester!—I 'll see him at once.” And, so saying, Daly hastened upstairs to the drawing-room, where the young officer awaited him.
Daly was not in a mood to scrutinize very closely the appearance of his visitor, but he could not fail to feel struck at the alteration in his looks since last they met; his features were paler and marked by sorrow, so much so that Daly's first question was, “Have you been ill?” and as Forester answered in the negative, the old man fixed his eyes steadily on him, and said, “You have heard of our misfortune, then?”
“Misfortune! no. What do you mean?”
Daly hesitated, uncertain how to reply, whether to leave to time and some other channel to announce the Knight's ruin, or at once communicate it with his own lips.
“Yes, it is the better way,” said he, half aloud, while, taking Forester's hand, he led him over to a sofa, and pressed him down beside him. “I seldom have made an error in guessing a man's character, throughout a long and somewhat remarkable life. I think I am safe in saying that you feel a warm interest in my friend Darcy's family?”
“You do me but justice; gratitude alone, if I had no stronger motive, secures them every good wish of mine.”
“But you have stronger motives, young man,” said Daly, looking at him with a piercing glance; “if you had not, I 'd think but meanly of you, nor did I want that blush to tell me so.”
Forester looked down in confusion. The abruptness of the address so completely unmanned him that he could make no answer. While Daly went on: “I force no confidences, young man, nor have I any right to ask them; enough for my present purpose that I know you care deeply for this family; now, sir, but a week back the ambition to be allied with them had satisfied the proudest wish of the proudest house—to-day they are ruined.”
Overwhelmed with surprise and sorrow, Forester sat silently, while Daly rapidly, but circumstantially, narrated the story of the Knight's calamity, and the total wreck of his once princely fortune.
“Yes,” said Daly, as with flashing eyes he arose and uttered aloud,—“yes, the broad acres won by many a valiant deed, the lands which his ancestors watered with their blood, lost forever; not by great crimes, not forfeited by any bold but luckless venture, for there is something glorious in that,—but stolen, filched away by theft. By Heaven! our laws and liberties do but hedge round crime with so many defences that honesty has nothing left but to stand shivering outside. Better were the days when the strong hand avenged the deep wrong, or, if the courage were weak, there was the Throne to appeal to against oppression. Forester, I see how this news afflicts you; I judged you too well to think that your own dashed hopes entered into your sorrow. No, no, I know you better. But come, we have other duties than to mourn over the past. Has Lord Castlereagh received Darcy's note, resigning his seat in Parliament?”
“He has; a new writ is preparing for Mayo.” “Sharp practice; I think I can detect the fair round hand of Mr. Heffernan there,—no matter, a few days more and the world will know all; ay, the world, so full of honorable sentiments and noble aspirations, will smile and jest on Darcy's ruin, that they may with better grace taunt the vulgar assumption of Hickman O'Reilly. I know it well,—some would say I bought the knowledge dearly. When I set out in life, my fortune was nearly equal to the Knight's, my ideas of living and expenditure based on the same views as his own,—that same barbaric taste for profusion which has been transmitted to us from father to son. Ay, we retained everything of feudalism save its chivalry! Well, I never knew a day nor an hour of independence till the last acre of that great estate was sold, and gone from me forever. Fawning flattery, intrigue, and trickery beset me wherever I went; ruined gamblers, match-making mothers, bankrupt speculators, plotting political adventurers, dogged me at every step; nor could I break through the trammels by which they fettered me, except at the price of my ruin; when there was no longer a stake to play for, they left the table. Poor Darcy, however, is not a lonely stem, like me, riven and lightning-struck; he has a wife and children; but for that, I would not fear to grasp his stout hand and say, 'Come on to fortune.' Poor Maurice, whose heart could never stand the slightest wrong done the humblest cottier on his land, how will he bear up now? Forester, you can do me a great service. Could you obtain leave for a day or two?”
“Command me how and in what way you please,” said the youth, eagerly.
“I understand that proffer, and accept it as freely as it is given.”
“Nay, you are mistaken,” said Forester, faltering. “I will be candid with you; you have a right to all my confidence, for you have trusted in me. Your suspicions are only correct in part; my affection is indeed engaged, but I have received none in return: Miss Darcy has rejected me.”
“But not without hope?”
“Without the slightest hope.”
“By Heaven, it is the only gleam of light in all the gloomy business,” said Daly, energetically; “had Helen's love been yours, this calamity had been ten thousand times worse. Nay, nay, this is not the sentiment of cold and selfish old age; you wrong me, Forester, but the hour is come when every feeling within that noble girl's heart is due to those who have loved and cherished her from childhood. Now is the time to repay the watchful care of infancy, and recompense the anxious fears that spring from parental affection; not a sentiment, not a thought, should be turned from that channel now. It would be treason to win one smile, one passing look of kind meaning from those eyes, every beam of which is claimed by 'Home.' Helen is equal to her destiny,—that I know well; and you, if you would strive to be worthy of her, do not endeavor to make her falter in her duty. Trust me, there is but one road to a heart like hers,—the path of high and honorable ambition.”
“You are right,” said Forester, in a sad and humble voice,—“you are right; I offered her a heart before it was worthy of her acceptance.”
“That avowal is the first step towards rendering it such one day,” said Daly, grasping his hand in both his own. “Now to my request: you can obtain this leave, can you?”
“Yes, yes; how can I make it of any service to you?”
“Simply thus: I have offered, and Darcy has accepted, a humble cottage on the northern coast, as a present asylum for the family. The remote and secluded nature of the place will at least withdraw them from the impertinence of curiosity, or the greater impertinence of vulgar sympathy. A maiden sister of mine is the present occupant, and I wish to communicate the intelligence to her, that she may make any preparations which may be necessary for their coming, and also provide herself with some other shelter. Maria is as great a Bedouin as myself, and with as strong a taste for vagabondage; she 'll have no difficulty in housing herself, that's certain. The only puzzle is how to apprise her of the intended change: there is not a post-office within eight or ten miles of the place, nor, if there were, would she think of sending to look for a letter; there 's nothing for it but a special envoy: will you be the man?”
“Most willingly; only give me the route, and my instructions.”
“You shall have both. Come and dine with me here at five—order horses to your carriage for eight o'clock, and I'll take care of the rest.”
“Agreed,” said Forester; “I'll lose no time in getting ready for the road—the first thing is my leave.”
“Is there a difficulty there?”
“There shall be none,” said Forester, hurriedly, as he seized his hat, and, bidding Daly good-bye, hastened downstairs and into the street. “They 'll refuse me, I know that,” muttered he, as he went along; “and if they do, I'll pitch up the appointment on the spot; this slight service over, I'm ready to join my regiment.” And so saying, he turned his steps towards the Castle, resolved on the course to follow.
Meanwhile Daly, after a brief consultation with the lawyer, sat down to write to his sister. Simple and easy as the act is to many—far too much so, as most men's correspondence would testify—letter-writing, to some people, is an affair of no common difficulty. Perhaps every one in this world has some stumbling-block of this kind ever before him: some men cannot learn chess, some never can be taught to ride, others, if they were to get the world for it, could not carve a hare. It would be unfair to quote newly introduced difficulties, such as how to bray in the House of Commons, the back step in the polka, and so on; the original evils are enough for our illustration.
Bagenal Daly's literary difficulties were manifold; he was a discursive thinker, passionate and vehement whenever the occasion prompted, and as unable to control such influences when writing as speaking; and, with very liberal ideas on the score of spelling, he wrote a hand which, if only examined upside down, might have passed for Hebrew, with an undue proportion of points; besides these defects, he entertained a thorough contempt for all writing as an exponent of men's sentiments. His opinion was, that speech was the great prerogative of living men, all other modes of expression being feeble and miserable expedients; and, to do him justice, he conformed, as far as in him lay, to his own theory, and made his writing as like his speaking as could be. Brevity was the great quality he studied, and for this reason we venture to present the epistle to our readers:—
Dear Molly,—
The bill is carried—or, what comes to the same, the third reading comes on next Tuesday, and they 'll have a majority—d——n their majority, I forget the number. I was told that bribes were plenty as blackberries. I wish they 'd leave as many stains after them. They offered me nothing—they were right there. There is a kind of bottle-nosed whale the Indians never harpoon; they call him “Hik-na-critchka,”—more bone than blubber. Darcy might have been an Earl, or a Marquis, or a Duke, perhaps; they wanted one gentleman so much, they 'd have bid high for him. Poor fellow, he is ruined now! that scoundrel Gleeson has run away with everything, forged, falsified, and thieved to any extent. Your unlucky four thousand, of course, is gone to the devil with the rest. I 'm sick of cant. People talk of badgers and such like, and yet no one says a word about exterminating attorneys! The rascal jumped over in the Channel, and was drowned—the shark got a bitter pill that swallowed him. I have told Darcy he might have “the Corvy;” you can easily find a wigwam down the coast. Forester, who brings this, knows all. We must all economize, I suppose. I 've given up Maccabaw already, and taken to Blackguard, in compliment to the Secretary. I must sell or shoot old Drummer at last, he can't draw his breath, and won't draw the gig. I only remain here till the House is up, when I must be up too and stirring—there is a confounded bond—no matter, more at another time.
Yours ever,
Bagenal Daly.
St. George is to be the Chief Baron—an improvement of the allegory, “Justice will be deaf as well as blind.” Devil take them all!
The chorus of a Greek play, so seemingly abstruse and incoherent to our present thinking, was, we are told, made easily comprehensible by the aid of gesture and pantomime; and in the same way, by supplying the fancied accompaniment of her brother's voice and action, Miss Daly was enabled to read and understand this strange epistle. Bagenal gave himself little trouble in examining how far it conveyed his meaning; but, like a careless traveller who huddles his clothes into his portmanteau, and is only anxious to make the lock meet, his greatest care was to fold up the document and inclose it within an envelope; that done, he hoped it was all right,—in any case, his functions were concluded regarding it, for, as he muttered to himself, he only contracted to write, not to read, his own letter.
Forester was punctual to the hour appointed; and if not really less depressed than before, the stimulating sense of having a service to perform made him seem less so. His self-esteem was flattered, too, by his own bold line of acting, for he had just resigned his appointment on the Staff, his application for leave having been unsuccessful. The fact that his rash conduct might involve him in trouble or difficulty was not without its own sense of pleasure, for, so is it in all rebellion, the great prompter is personal pride. He would gladly have told Daly what had happened; but a delicate fear of increasing the apparent load of obligation prevented him, and he consequently confined his remarks on the matter to bis being free, and at liberty to go wherever his friend pleased.
“Here, then,” said Daly, leading him across the room to a table, on which a large map of Ireland lay open, “I have marked your route the entire way. Follow that dark line with your eye northwards to Coleraine,—so far you can travel with your carriage and post-horses; how to cross this bit of desert here I must leave to yourself: there may be a road for a wheeled carriage or not, in my day there was none; that is, however, a good many years back; the point to strive for should be somewhere hereabouts. This is Dunluce Castle—well, if I remember aright, the spot is here: you must ask for 'the Corvy,'—the fishermen all know the cabin by that name; it was originally built out of the wreck of a French vessel that was lost there, and the word Corvy is a Northern version of Corvette. Once there,—and I know you 'll not find any difficulty in reaching it,—my sister will be glad to receive you; I need not say the accommodation does not rival Gwynne Abbey, no more than poor Molly does Helen Darcy; you will be right welcome, however,—so much I can pledge myself, not the less so that your journey was undertaken from a motive of true kindness. I don't well know how much or how little I have said in that letter; you can explain all I may have omitted,—the chief thing is to get the cabin ready for the Darcys as soon as may be. Give her this pocket-book,—I was too much hurried to-day to transact business at the bank; but the north road is a safe one, and you 'll not incur any risk. And now one glass to the success of the enterprise, and I 'll not detain you longer; I 'll give you old Martin's toast:—
Forester pledged the sentiment in a bumper, and they parted.
“Good stuff in that young fellow,” muttered Daly, as he looked after him; “I wish he had some Irish blood, though; these Saxons require a deal of the hammer to warm them, and never come to a white heat after all.”
If the painter's license enables him to arrange the elements of scenery into new combinations, disposing and grouping anew, as taste or fancy may dictate, the novelist enjoys the lesser privilege of conveying his reader at will from place to place, and thus, by varying the point of view, procuring new aspects to his picture; less in virtue of this privilege than from sheer necessity, we will now ask our readers to accompany us on our journey northward.
Whether it be the necessary condition of that profusion of nature's gifts, so evident in certain places, or a mere accident, certain it is there is scarcely any one spot remarkable for great picturesque beauty to arrive at which some bleak and uninteresting tract must not be traversed. To this rule, if it be such, the northern coast of Ireland offers no exception.
The country, as you approach “the Causeway,” has an aspect of dreary desolation that only needs the leaden sky and the drifting storm of winter to make it the most melancholy of all landscapes. A slightly undulating surface extends for miles on every side, scarcely a house to be seen, and save where the dip of the ground affords shelter, not a tree of any kind. A small isolated spot of oats, green even in the late autumn, is here and there to be descried, or a flock of black sheep wandering half wild o'er these savage wastes; vast masses of cloud, dark and lowering as rain and thunder can make them, hang gloomily overhead, for the tableland is still a lofty one, and the horizon is formed by the edge of those giant cliffs that stand the barriers of the western ocean, and against whose rocky sides the waves beat with the booming of distant artillery.
It was in one of those natural hollows of the soil, whose frequency seems to acknowledge a diluvian origin, that the little cottage which Sandy once owned stood. Sheltered on the south and east by rising banks, it was open on the other sides, and afforded a view seaward which extended from the rocky promontory of Port Rush to the great bluff of Fairhead, whose summit is nigh one thousand seven hundred feet above the sea.
Perhaps in all the sea-board of the empire, nothing of the same extent can vie in awful sublimity with this iron-bound coast. Gigantic cliffs of four and five hundred feet, straight as a wall, are seen perforated beneath by lofty tunnels, through which the wild waters plunge madly. Fragments of basalt, large enough to be called islands, are studded along the shore, the outlines fanciful and strange as beating waves and winds can make them, while, here and there, in some deep-creviced bay, the water flows in with long and measured sweep, and, at each moment retiring, leaves a trace upon the strand, fleeting as the blush upon the cheek of beauty; and here a little group of fisher children may be seen at play, while the nets are drying on the beach, the only sight or sound of human life, save that dark moving speck, alternately seen as the great waves roll on, be such, and, while tossing to and fro, seems by some charmed influence fettered to the spot. Yes, it is a fishing-boat that has ventured out at the half ebb, with the wind off shore,—hazardous exploit, that only poverty suggests the courage to encounter!
In front of one of these little natural bays stood “the Corvy;” and the situation might have been chosen by a painter, for, while combining every grand feature of the nearer landscape, the Scottish coast and even Staffa might be seen of a clear evening; while westward, the rich sunsets were descried in all their golden glory, tipping the rolling waves with freckled lustre, and throwing a haze of violet-colored light over the white rocks. And who is to say that, while the great gifts of the artist are not his who dwells in some rude cot like this, yet the heart is not sensitively alive to all the influences of such a scene,—its lonely grandeur, its tranquil beauty, or its fearful sublimity,—and that the peasant, whose associations from infancy to age are linked with every barren rock and fissured crag around, has not created for himself his own store of fancied images, whose power is not less deeply felt that it has asked for no voice to tell its workings.
“The Corvy” was a strange specimen of architecture, and scarcely capable of being classified in any of the existing orders. Originally, the hut was formed of the stern of the corvette, which, built of timbers of great size and strength, alone of all the vessel resisted the waves. This, being placed keel uppermost, as most consisting with terrestrial notions of building, and accommodated with a door and two windows, the latter being filled with two ship-lenses, comprised the entire edifice. Rude and uncouth as it unquestionably was, it was regarded with mingled feelings of envy and admiration by all the fishermen for miles round, for while they had contributed their tackle and their personal aid to place the mass where it stood, they never contemplated its becoming the comfortable dwelling they soon beheld, nor were these jealous murmurings allayed by the assumption of a lofty flagstaff, which, in the pride of conquest, old M'Grane displayed above his castle, little wotting that the banner that floated overhead waved with the lilies of France, and not the Union Jack of England.
Sandy's father, however, possessed those traits of character which confer ascendency, whether a man's lot be cast among the great or the humble; and he soon not only subdued those ungenerous sentiments, but even induced his neighbors to assist him in placing a small brass carronade on the keel, or, as he now termed it, the ridge of his dwelling, where, however little serviceable for warlike purposes, it made a very specious and imposing ornament.
Such was the inheritance to which Sandy succeeded, and such the possession he ceded for a consideration to Bagenal Daly, on that eventful morning their acquaintance began. In course of time, however, it fell to ruin, and lay untenanted and uncared for, when Miss Daly, in one of her rambling excursions, chanced to hear of it, and, being struck by the beauty of the situation, resolved to refit it as a summer residence. Her first intentions on this head were humble enough; two small chambers at either side of the original edifice—now converted into a species of hall and a kitchen—comprised the whole, and thither she betook herself, with that strange secret pleasure a life of perfect solitude possesses for certain minds. For a year she endured the inconveniences of her narrow dwelling tolerably well; but as she grew more attached to the spot, she determined on making it more comfortable; and, communicating the resolve to her brother, he not only concurred in the notion, but half anticipated his assent by despatching an architect to the spot, under whose direction a cottage containing several comfortable rooms was added, and with such attention to the circumstances of the ground, and such regard for the ancient character of the building, that the traces of its origin could still be discovered, and its old name of “the Corvy,” be, even yet, not altogether inapplicable. The rude hulk was now, however, the centre of a long cottage, the timbers, partly covered by the small-leaved ivy, partly concealed by a rustic porch, displaying overhead the great keel and the flagstaff,—an ornament which no remonstrance of the unhappy architect could succeed in removing. As a sort of compromise, indeed, the carronade was dismounted, and placed beside the hall-door. This was the extreme stretch of compliance to which Daly assented.
The hall, which was spacious and lofty in proportion with other parts of the building, was fitted with weapons of war and the chase, brought from many a far-off land, and assembled with an incongruity that was no mean type of the owner. Turkish scimitars and lances, yataghans, and Malay creeses were grouped with Indian bows, tomahawks, and whale harpoons, while richly embroidered pelisses hung beside coats of Esquimaux seal, of boots made from the dried skin of the sun-fish. A long Swiss rifle was suspended by a blue silk scarf from one wall, and, over it, a damp, discolored parchment bore testimony, to its being won as a prize in the great shooting match of the Oberland, nearly forty years before. Beneath these, and stretching away into a nook contrived for the purpose, was the bark canoe in which Daly and Sandy made their escape from the tribe of the Sioux, by whom they were held in captivity for six years. Two very unprepossessing figures, costumed as savages, sat in this frail bark, paddle in hand, and to all seeming resolutely intent on their purpose of evasion. It would have been pardonable, however, for the observer not to have identified in these tattooed and wild-looking personages a member of Parliament and his valet, even though assisted to the discovery by their Indian names, which, with a laudable care for public convenience, had been written on a card, and suspended round the neck of each. Opposite to them, and in the corner of the hall, stood a large black bear, with fiery eyeballs and snow-white teeth, so admirably counterfeiting life as almost to startle the beholder; while over his head was a fearful, misshapen figure, whose malignant look and distorted proportions at once proclaimed it an Indian idol. But why enumerate the strange and curious objects which, notwithstanding their seeming incongruity, were yet all connected with Daly's history, and formed, in fact, a kind of pictorial narrative of his life? Here stood the cup,—a splendid specimen of Benvenuto's chisel, given him by the Doge of Venice,—and there was the embossed dagger presented by a King of Spain, with a patent of Grandee of the first class; while in a small glass case, covered with dust, and scarce noticeable, was a small and beautifully shaped satin slipper, with a rosette of now faded silver. But of this only one knew the story, and he never revealed it.
If we have taken an unwarrantable liberty with our reader by this too prolix description, our excuse is, that we might have been far more tiresome had we been so disposed, leaving, as we have, the greater part of this singular chamber unnoticed; while our amende is ready, and we will spare any further detail of the rest of the cottage, merely observing that it was both commodious and well arranged, and furnished not only with taste, but even elegance. And now to resume our long-neglected story.
It was about eight o'clock of a cold, raw February night, with occasional showers of sleet and sudden gusts of fitful wind,—that happy combination which makes up the climate of the north of Ireland, and, with a trifling abatement of severity, constitutes its summer as well as its winter,—that Miss Daly sat reading in that strange apartment we have just mentioned, and which, from motives of economy, she occupied frequently during the rainy season, as the necessity of keeping it aired required constant fires, not so necessary in the other chambers.
A large hearth displayed the cheerful blaze of burning bog-deal, and an old Roman lamp, an ancient patern, threw its lustre on the many curious and uncouth objects on every side. If the flashing jets of light that broke from the dry wood gave at times a false air of vitality to the stuffed figures around, in compensation it made the only living thing there seem as unreal as the rest.
Wrapped up in the great folds of a wide Greek capote she had taken from the wall, and the hood of which she had drawn over her head, Miss Daly bent over the yellow pages of an old quarto volume. Of her figure no trace could be marked, nor any guess concerning it, save that she was extremely tall. Her features were bold and commanding, and in youth must have been eminently handsome. The eyebrows were large and arched, the eyes dark and piercing, and the whole contour of the face had that character of thoughtful beauty so often seen in the Jewish race. Age and solitude, perhaps, had deepened the lines around the angles of the mouth and brought down the brows, so as to give a look of severity to features which, from this cause, became strikingly resembling her brother's. If time had made its sad inroad on those lineaments once so lovely, it seemed to spare even the slightest touch to that small white hand, which, escaping from the folds of her mantle, was laid upon the volume before her. The taper fingers were covered with rings, and more than one bracelet of great price glittered upon her wrist; nor did this taste seem limited to these displays, for in the gold combs that fastened, on either temple, her masses of gray hair, rich gems were set profusely, forming the strangest contrast to the coarse folds of that red-brown cloak in which she was enveloped.
However disposed to profit by her studies, Miss Daly was occasionally broken in upon by the sound of voices from the kitchen, which, by an unlucky arrangement of the architect, was merely separated from the hall by a narrow corridor. Sometimes the sound was of laughter and merriment; far oftener, however, the noises betokened strife; for so it is, in the very smallest household—there were but two in the present case—unanimity will not always prevail. The contention was no less a one than that great national dispute which has separated the island into two wide and opposing parties; Miss Daly's butler, or man of all work, being a stout representative of southern Ireland; her cook an equally rigid upholder of the northern province. If little Dan Nelligan had the broader cause, he was the smaller advocate, being scarcely four feet in height; while Mrs. M'Kerrigan was fifteen stone of honest weight, and with a torso to rival the Farnese Hercules. Their altercations were daily, almost hourly; for, living in a remote, unvisited spot, they seemed to console themselves for want of collision with the world by mutual disputes and disagreements.
To these family jars, habit had so reconciled Miss Daly that she seldom noticed them; indeed, the probability is that, like the miller who wakes up when the mill ceases its clamors, she might have felt a kind of shock had matters taken a quieter course. People who employ precisely the same weapons cannot long continue a warfare without the superiority of one or the other being sure to evince itself. The diversity of the forces, on the contrary, suggests new combinations, and with dissimilar armor the combat may be prolonged to any extent. Thus was it here; Dan's forte was aggravation,—that peculiarly Irish talent which makes much out of little, and, when cultivated with the advantages of natural gifts, enables a man to assume the proud political position of an Agitator, and in time a Liberator.
Mrs. M'Kerrigan, slow of thought, and slower of speech, was ill-suited to repel the assaults of so wily and constant a foe; she consequently fell back on the prerogatives of her office in the household, and repaid all Dan's declamation by changes in his diet,—a species of retribution the heaviest she could have hit upon.
Such was the present cause of disturbance, and such the reason for Dan's loud denunciations on the “black north,” uttered with a volubility and vehemence that pertain to a very different portion of the empire. Twice had Miss Daly rung the little hand-bell that stood beside her to enforce order, but it was unnoticed in the clamor of the fray, while louder and louder grew the angry voice of Dan Nelligan, which at length was plainly audible in the hall.
“Look now, see then, may the divil howld a looking-glass to your sins, but I 'll show it to the mistress! I may, may I? That 's what you 're grumbling, ye ould black-mouthed Prasbytarien! 'T is the fine supper to put before a crayture wet to the skin!”
“Dinna ye hear the bell, Nelly?” This was an epithet of insult the little man could not endure. “Ye 'd ken the tinkle o' that, av ye heard it at the mass.”
“Oh, listen to the ould heretic! Oh, holy Joseph! there 's the way to talk of the blessed ould ancient religion! Give me the dish; I 'll bring it into the parlor this minit, I will. I 'll lave the place,—my time's up in March. I would n't live in the house wid you for a mine of goold!”
“Are ye no goin' to show the fish to the leddy?” growled out the cook, in her quiet barytone.
At this moment Miss Daly's bell announced that endurance had reached its limit, and Dan, without waiting to return the fire, hastened to the hall, muttering as he went, loud enough to be heard, “There, now, that's the mistress ringing, I 'm sure; but sorra bit one can hear wid your noise and ballyragging!”
“What is the meaning of this uproar?” said Miss Daly, as the little man entered, with a very different aspect from what he wore in the kitchen.
“'Tis Mrs. M'Kerrigan, my Lady; she was abusin' the ould families in the county Mayo, and I could n't bear it; and because I would n't hear the master trated that way, she gives me nothing but fish the day after a black fast, though she does be ating beef under my nose when I darn't touch meat, and it's what, she put an ould baste of a cod before me this evening for my supper, and here 's Lent will be on us in a few days more.”
“How often have I told you,” said Miss Daly, sternly, “that I 'll not suffer these petty, miserable squabbles to reach me? Go back to the kitchen; and, mark me, if I hear a whisper, or muttering ever so low in your voice, I 'll put you to spend the night upon the rocks.”
Dan skulked from the room like a culprit remanded to jail; but no sooner had he reached the kitchen than, assuming a martial air and bearing, he strutted up to the fire and turned his back to it.
“Ay,” said he, in a stage soliloquy, “it was what it must come to sooner or later; and now she may go on her knees, and divil a foot I 'll stay! It's not like the last time, sorra bit! I know what she 's at—' 'T is my way, Danny, you must have a pound at Avster '—bother! I 'm used to that now.”
“There's the bell again, ye auld blethering deevil.”
But Mrs. M'Kerrigan ran no risk of a reply now, for at the first tinkle Dan was back in the hall.
“There is some one knocking at the wicket without; see who it may be at this late hour of the night,” said Miss Daly, without raising her head from the book, for, strange as were such sounds in that solitary place, her attention was too deeply fixed on the page before her to admit of even a momentary distraction of thought. Dan left the room with becoming alacrity, but in reality bent on anything rather than the performance of his errand. Of all the traits of his southern origin, none had the same predominance in his nature as a superstitious fear of spirits and goblins,—a circumstance not likely to be mitigated by his present lonely abode, independently of the fact that more than one popular belief attributed certain unearthly sights and sounds to the old timbers of “the Corvy,” whose wreck was associated with tales of horror sufficient to shake stouter nerves than “Danny's.”
When he received this order from his mistress, he heard it pretty much as a command to lead a forlorn hope, and sat himself down at the outside of the door to consider what course to take. While he was thus meditating, the sounds became plainly audible, a loud and distinct knocking was heard high above the whistling wind and drifting rain, accompanied from time to time by a kind of shout, or, as it seemed to Dan's ears, a scream like the cry of a drowning man.
“Dinna ye hear that, ye auld daft body?” said Nancy, as, pale with fear, and trembling in every limb, Dan entered the kitchen.
“I do indeed, Mrs. Mac,”—this was the peace appellation he always conferred on Nancy,—“I hear it, and my heart 's beatin' for every stroke I listen to; 't is n't afeard I am, but a kind of a notion I have, like a dhrame, you know “—(here he gave a sort of hysterical giggle)—“as if the ould French Captain was coming to look after his hand, that was chopped off with the hatchet when he grasped hold of the rock.”
“He canna hae muckle use for it noo,” responded Nancy, dryly, as she smoked away as unconcerned as possible.
“Or the mate!” said Dan, giving full vent to his store of horrors; “they say, when he got hold of the rope, that they gave it out so fast as he hauled on it, till he grew faint, and sank under the waves.”
“He's no likely to want a piece of spunyarn at this time o' day,” rejoined Nancy again. “He's knocking brawly, whoever he be; had ye no better do the leddy's bidding, and see who 's there?”
“Would it be plazing to you, Mrs. Mac,” said Dan, in his most melting accents, “to come as far as the little grass-plot, just out of curiosity, ye know, to say ye seen it?”
“Na, na, my bra' wee mon, ye maun ee'n gae by your-sel'; I dinna ken mickle about sperits and ghaists, but I hae a gude knowledge of the rheumatiz without seekin' it on a night like this. There's the leddy's bell again, she 's no pleased wi' yer delay.”
“Say I was puttin' on my shoes, Nancy,” said Dan, as his teeth chattered with fear, while he took down an old blunderbuss from its place above the fire, and which had never been stirred for years past.
“Lay her back agen where ye found her,” said Nancy, dryly; “is na every fule kens the like o' them! Take your mass-book, and the gimcracks ye hae ower your bed, but dinna try mortal weapons with them creatures.”
Ironical as the tone of this counsel unquestionably was, Dan was in no mood to reject it altogether, and he slipped from its place within his breast to a more ostensible position a small blessed token, or “gospel,” as it is called, which he always wore round his neck. By this time the clank of the bell kept pace with the knocking sounds without, and poor Dan was fairly at his wits' end which enemy to face. Some vague philosophy about the “devil you know, and the devil you don't,” seemed to decide his course, for he rushed from the kitchen in a state of frenzied desperation, and, with the blunderbuss at full cock, took the way towards the gate.
The wicket, as it was termed, was in reality a strong oak gate, garnished at top with a row of very formidable iron spikes, and as it was hung between two jagged and abrupt masses of rock, formed a very sufficient outwork, though a very needless one, since the slightest turn to either side would have led to the cottage without any intervening barrier to pass. This fact it was which now increased Dan Nelligan's terrors, as he reasoned that nobody but a ghost or evil spirit would be bothering himself at the wicket, when there was a neat footpath close by.
“Who's there?” cried Dan, with a voice that all his efforts could not render steady.
“Come out and open the gate,” shouted a deep voice in return.
“Not till you tell me where you come from, and who you are, if you are 'lucky.'”
“That I 'm not,” cried the other, with something very like a deep groan; “if I were, I 'd scarce be here now.”
“That's honest? anyhow,” muttered Dan, who interpreted the phrase in its popular acceptation among the southern peasantry. “And what are you come back for, alanah?” continued he, in a most conciliating tone.
“Open the gate, and don't keep me here answering your stupid questions.”
Though these words were uttered with a round, strong intonation that sounded very like the present world, Dan made no other reply than an endeavor to repeat a Latin prayer against evil spirits, when suddenly, and with a loud malediction on his obstinacy, Dan saw “the thing,” as he afterwards described it, take a flying leap over the gate, at least ten feet high, and come with a bang on the grass, not far from where he stood. To fire off his blunderbuss straight at the drifting clouds over his head, and to take to flight was Dan's only impulse, screaming out, “the Captain 's come! he's come!” at the very top of his lungs. The little strength he possessed only carried him to the kitchen door, where, completely overcome with terror, he dropped senseless on the ground.