Luttrell Of Arran Part 16

"I wish I could deny that I don't like this conversation," said Vyner.

"My friend and I never came here to discuss questions of politics or polemics. And now about dinner. Could you let us have it at three o'clock; it is just eleven now?"

"Yes, it will be ready by three," said O'Rorke, gravely.

"The place is clean enough inside," whispered Grenfell, as he came from within, "but miserably poor. The fellow seems to have expended all his spare cash in rebellious pictures and disloyal engravings."

"He is an insupportable bore," muttered Vyner; "but let us avoid discussion with him, and keep him at a distance."

"I like his rabid Irishism, I own," said Grenfell, "and I intend to post myself up, as the Yankees say, in rebellious matters before we leave this."

"Is that Lough Anare, that sheet of water I see yonder?"

"Yes," said O'Rorke.

"There's a ruined tower and the remains of seven churches, I think, on an island there?"

"You'd like to draw it, perhaps?" asked O'Rorke, with a cunning curiosity in his eye.

"For the present, I'd rather have a bathe, if I could find a suitable spot."

"Keep round to the westward there. It is all rock along that side, and deep water close to the edge. You'll find the water cold, if you mind that."

"I like it all the better. Of course, George, you'll not come? You'll lie down on the sward here, and doze or dream till I come back."

"Too happy, if I can make sleep do duty for books or newspapers," yawned out Grenfell.

"Do you want a book?" asked O'Rorke.

"Yes, of all things. What can you give me?"

He returned to the house, and brought out about a dozen books. There were odd volumes of the press, O'Callaghan's "Celts and Saxons," and the Milesian Magazine, profusely ill.u.s.trated with wood-cuts of English cruelty in every imaginable shape that human ingenuity could impart to torture.

"That will show you how we were civilised, and why it takes so long to do it," said O'Rorke, pointing to an infamous print, where a celebrated drummer named Hempenstall, a man of gigantic stature, was represented in the act of hanging another over his shoulder, the artist having given to the suffering wretch an expression of such agony as no mere words would convey.

"This fellow is intolerable," muttered Vyner, as he turned away, and descended the rocky path. Grenfell, too, appeared to have had enough of his patriotic host, for he stretched himself out on the green sward, drawing his hat over his eyes, and giving it to be seen that he would not be disturbed.

O'Rorke now retreated to the kitchen to prepare for his guest's entertainment, but he started with astonishment as he entered. "What, Kitty, is this you?" cried he; "when did you come?"

The question was addressed to a little girl of some ten or eleven years old, who, with her long golden hair loose on her shoulders, and her cheeks flushed with exercise, looked even handsomer than when first we saw her in the ruined Abbey at Arran, for it was the same child who had stood forward to claim the amber necklace as her right.

"My grandfather sent me home," said she, calmly, as she threw the long locks back from her forehead, "for he had to stay a day at Murranmore, and if he's not here to-morrow morning I'm to go on by myself."

"And was that all you got by your grand relation, Kitty?" said he, pointing to the necklace that she still wore.

"And isn't it enough?" answered she, proudly; "they said at the funeral that it was worth a king's ransom."

"Then they told you a lie, child, that's all; it wouldn't bring forty shillings--if it would thirty--to-morrow."

"I don't believe you, Tim O'Rorke," said she, boldly; "but it's just like you to make little of what's another's."

"You have the family tongue if you haven't their fortune," said he, with a laugh. "Are you tired, coming so far?"

"Not a bit; I took the short cut by Lisnacare, and came down where the waterfall comes in winter, and it saved more than four miles of the road."

"Ay, but you might have broken your neck."

"My neck was safe enough," said she, saucily.

"Perhaps you could trust your feet if you couldn't your head," said he, mockingly.

"I could trust them both, Tim O'Rorke; and maybe they'd both bring me farther and higher than yours ever did you."

"There it is again; it runs in your blood; and there never was one of your name that hadn't a saucy answer."

"Then don't provoke what you don't like," said she, with a quivering lip, for though quick at reply she was not the less sensitive to rebuke.

"Take a knife and sc.r.a.pe those carrots, and, when you've done, wash those radishes well."

The girl obeyed without a word, seeming well pleased to be employed.

"Did she leave any money behind her?" asked he, after a pause.

"No, none."

"And how did he treat you?--was he civil to you all?"

"We never saw him."

"Not see him!--how was that? Sure he went to the wake?"

"He did not. He sent us 'lashins' of everything. There was pork and potatoes, and roast hens and ducks, and eggs and tea, and sugar and whisky, and cakes of every kind."

"But why didn't he come in amongst you to say that you were welcome, to wish you a good health, and the time of the year?"

"I don't know."

"And your grandfather bore that?"

She made no answer, but her face became crimson.

"I suppose it was all right; he wanted to show you that it was all over between him and you, and that when she was gone you didn't belong to him any more."

Two heavy tears rolled along the hot and burning cheeks of the child, but she never spoke.

"Your old grandfather's well changed, Kitty, from what I knew him once, or he wouldn't have borne it so quietly. And what did you get for your journey?"

"We got all her clothes--elegant fine clothes--and linen--two big boxes full, and knives and forks, and spoons and plates, that would fill two dressers as big as that. And this," and she lifted the amber beads as she spoke, with a flashing eye--"and this besides."