Roland Cashel Volume I Part 25

"I really comprehend nothing of all this," said Cashel, who now began to suspect that she had overheard some speech reflecting upon him, and had, without intending, revealed it; "at the same time, I must say, if I had the right, I should insist on knowing what you heard."

"Perhaps he has the right," muttered she, half aloud, as if speaking unconsciously; "I believe he has."

"Yes, yes, be a.s.sured of it; what were the words?"

"Oh, I shall die of shame. I 'll never be able to speak to you again; but don't look angry, promise that you 'll forget them, swear you 'll never think of my having told them, and I'll try."

"Yes, anything, everything; let me hear them."

"Well,"--here she hung her head till the long ringlets fell straight from her fair forehead, and half concealed the blushing cheek, which each moment grew redder,--"I am so terrified, but you 'll forgive it,--I know you will,--well, she said, looking towards you, 'I am not acquainted with this young gentleman yet, but if I should have that honor soon I 'll take the liberty to tell him that the worthy father's zeal in his service is ill-requited by his stealing the affections of his youngest daughter.'" Scarcely were the words uttered, when, as if the strength that sustained her up to that moment suddenly failed, she reeled back and sank fainting on a sofa.

Happily for Cashel's character for propriety, a very general rush of ladies, old and young, to the spot, prevented him taking her in his arms and carrying her to the balcony for air; but a universal demand for sal volatile, aromatic vinegar, open windows, and all the usual restoratives concealed his agitation, which really was extreme.

"You are quite well now, dearest," said her mamma, bathing her temples, and so artistically as to make her pale face seem even more beautiful in the slight dishevelment of her hair. "It was the heat."

"Yes, mamma," muttered she, quite low.

"Hem! I thought so," whispered Lady Janet to a neighbor. "She was too warm."

"I really wish that young ladies would reserve these scenes for fitting times and places. That open window has brought back my lumbago," said Lord Kilgoff.

"The true treatment for syncope," broke in the Dean, "is not by stimulants. The want of blood on the brain is produced by mechanical causes, and you have merely to hold the person up by the legs--"

"Oh, Mr. Dean! Oh, fie!" cried twenty voices together.

"The Dean is only exemplifying his etymology on 'top side t'other way,'"

cried Linton.

"Lord Kilgoff's carriage stops the way," said a servant. And now, the first announcement given, a very general air of leave-taking pervaded the company.

"Won't you have some more m.u.f.fling?--nothing round _your_ throat?--a little negus, my Lord, before venturing into the night air."--"How early!"--"How late!"--"What a pleasant evening!"--"What a fine night!"--"May I offer you my arm?--mind that step--goodbye, good-bye--don't forget to-morrow."--"Your shawl S is blue--that's Lady Janet's."--"Which is your hat?"--

"That's not mine. Thanks--don't take so much trouble."--"Not your carriage, it is the next but one--mind the draught."--A hundred good-nights, and they are gone! So ends a dinner-party, and of all the company not a vestige is seen, save the blaze of the low-burned wax-lights, the faded flowers, the deranged furniture, and the jaded looks of those whose faces wreathed in smiles for six mortal hours seek at last the hard-bought and well-earned indulgence of a hearty yawn!

CHAPTER XIII. TUBBER-BEG.

He was, the world said, a jovial fellow, Who ne'er was known at Fortune to repine; Increasing years had rendered him more mellow, And age improved him--as it did his wine.

Sir Gavin Gwynne.

The Shannon, after expanding into that n.o.ble sheet of water called Lough Derg, suddenly turns to the southward, and enters the valley of Killaloe, one of the most beautiful tracts of country which Ireland, so rich in river scenery, can boast. The transition from the wide lake, with its sombre background of gray mountain and rocky islands, bleak and bare, to the cultivated aspect of this favored spot, is like that experienced in pa.s.sing from beneath the gloom of lowering thunder-clouds into light and joyous sunshine. Rich waving woods of every tint and hue of foliage, with here and there some spreading lawns of deepest green, clothe the mountains on either side, while in bright eddies the rapid river glides in between, circling and winding as in playful wantonness, till in the far distance it is seen pa.s.sing beneath the ancient bridge of Killaloe, whose cathedral towers stand out against the sky.

On first emerging from the lake, the river takes an abrupt bend, round a rocky point, and then, sweeping back again in a bold curve, forms a little bay of deep and tranquil water, descending towards which the rich meadows are seen, dotted with groups of ancient forest trees, and backed by a dense skirting of timber. At one spot, where the steep declivity of the ground scarce affords footing for the tall ash-trees, stands a little cottage, at the extremity of which is an old square tower; this is Tubber-beg.

As you sail down the river you catch but one fleeting glance at the cottage, and when you look again it is gone! The projecting headlands, with the tall trees, have hidden it, and you almost fancy that you have not seen it. If you enter the little bay, however, and, leaving the strong current, run into the deep water under sh.o.r.e, you arrive at a spot which your memory will retain for many a day after.

In front of the cottage, and descending by a series of terraces to which art has but little contributed, are a number of flower-plots, whose delicious odors float over the still water, while in every gorgeous hue are seen the camellia, the oleander, and the cactus, with the tulip, the ranunculus, and the carnation,--all flourishing in a luxuriance which care and the favored aspect of this sheltered nook combine to effect. Behind and around, on either side, the dark-leaved holly, the laurustinus, and the arbutus are seen in all the profusion of leaf and blossom a mild, moist air secures, and forming a framework in which stands the cottage itself, its deep thatched eave, and porch of rustic-work trellised and festooned with creeping plants, almost blending its color with the surrounding foliage. Through the open windows a peep within displays the handsomely disposed rooms, abounding in all the evidences of cultivated taste and refinement. Books in several of the modern languages are scattered on the table, music, drawings of the surrounding scenery, in water-color or pencil,--all that can betoken minds carefully trained and exercised, and by their very diversity showing in what a world of self-stored resources their possessors must live; the easel, the embroidery-frame, the chess-board, the half-finished ma.n.u.script, the newly copied music, the very sprig of fern which marks the page in the little volume on botany,--slight things in themselves, but revealing so much of daily life!

If the cottage be an almost ideal representation of rustic elegance and simplicity, its situation is still more remarkable for beauty; for while Art has developed all the resources of the ground, Nature, in her own boundless profusion, has a.s.sembled here almost every ingredient of the picturesque, and as if to impart a sense of life and motion to the stilly calm, a tumbling sheet of water gushes down between the rocks, and in bounding leaps descends towards the Shannon, of which it is a tributary.

A narrow path, defended by a little railing of rustic-work, separates the end of the cottage from the deep gorge of the waterfall; but through the open window the eye can peer down into the boiling abyss of spray and foam beneath, and catch a glimpse of the bridge which, formed of a fallen ash-tree, spans the torrent.

Traversed in every direction by paths, some galleried along the face, others cut in the substance of the rock, you can pa.s.s hours in rambling among these wild and leafy solitudes, now lost in shade, now emerging again, to see the great river gliding along, the white sails dotting its calm surface.

Well did Mr. Kennyf.e.c.k observe to Roland Cashel that it was the most beautiful feature of his whole demesne, and that its possession by another not only cut him off from the Shannon in its handsomest part, but actually deprived the place of all pretension to extent and grandeur. The spreading woods of Tubbermore were, as it seemed, the background to the cottage scene, and possessed no character to show that they were the property of the greater proprietor.

The house itself was not likely to vindicate the claim the locality denied. It was built with a total disregard to aspect or architecture.

It was a large four-storied edifice, to which, by way of taking off from the unpicturesque height, two wings had been planned: one of these only was finished; the other, half built, had been suffered to fall into ruin. At the back, a high brick wall enclosed a s.p.a.ce intended for a garden, but never put into cultivation, and now a mere nursery of tall docks and thistles, whose gigantic size almost overtopped the wall.

All the dirt and slovenliness of a cottier habitant--for the house was occupied by what is misnamed "a caretaker"--were seen on every hand. One of the great rooms held the family; its fellow, on the opposite side of the hall, contained a cow and two pigs; cabbage-stalks and half-rotting potato-tops steamed their pestilential vapors beneath the windows; while half-naked children added the discord, the only thing wanting to complete the sum of miserable, squalid discomfort, so sadly general among the peasantry.

If one needed an ill.u.s.tration of the evils of absenteeism, a better could not be found than in the ruinous, damp, discolored building, with its falling roof and broken windows. The wide and spreading lawn, thick grown with thistles; the trees broken or barked by cattle; the gates that hung by a single hinge, or were broken up piecemeal for firing,--all evidenced the sad state of neglectful indifference by which property is wrecked and a country ruined! Nor was the figure then seated on the broken doorstep an unfitting accompaniment to such a scene,--a man somewhat past the middle period of life, whose ragged, tattered dress bespoke great poverty, his worn hat drawn down over his eyes so as partly to conceal a countenance by no means prepossessing; beside him lay a long old-fashioned musket, the stock mended by some rude country hand. This was Tom Keane, the "caretaker," who, in all the indolent enjoyment of office, sat smoking his "dudeen," and calmly surveying the process by which a young heifer was cropping the yearling shoots of an ash-tree.

Twice was his name called by a woman's voice from within the house before he took any notice of it.

"Arrah, Tom, are ye asleep?" said she, coming to the door, and showing a figure whose wretchedness was even greater than his own; while a certain delicacy of feature, an expression of a mild and pleasing character, still lingered on a face where want and privation had set many a mark.

"Tom, alanah!" said she, in a tone of coaxing softness, "sure it's time to go down to the post-office. Ye know how anxious the ould man is for a letter."

"Ay, and he has rayson, too," said Tom, without stirring.

"And Miss Mary herself was up here yesterday evening to bid you go early, and, if there was a letter, to bring it in all haste."

"And what for need I make haste?" said the man, sulkily. "Is it any matther to me whether he gets one or no? Will _I_ be richer or poorer?

Poorer!" added he, with a savage laugh; "be gorra! that wud be hard, anyhow. That's a comfort old Oorrigan hasn't. If they turn him out of the place, then he'll know what it is to be poor!"

"Oh, Tom, acushla! don't say _that_, and he so good to us, and the young lady that was so kind when the childer had the measles, comin'

twice--no, but three times a day, with everything she could think of."

"Wasn't it to please herself? Who axed her?" said Tom, savagely.

"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" sighed the woman. "Them's the hard words,--'to please herself!'"

"Ay, just so! When ye know them people as well as me, you 'll say the same. That's what they like,--to make themselves great among the poor; giving a trifle here, and a penny there; making gruel for this one, and tay for that; marchin' in as if they owned the house, and turning up their noses at everything they see. 'Why don't you sweep before the door, Nancy?'--'Has the pig any right to be eating there out of the kish with the childer?'--'Ye ought to send that child to school'--and, 'What's your husband doing?'--That's the cry with them. 'What's your husband doing? Is he getting the wheat in, or is he at the potatoes?'

Tear and ages!" cried he, with a wild energy, "what does any one of themselves do from morning till night, that they 're to come spyin'

after a poor man, to ax 'Is he workin' like a naygur?' But we 'll teach them something yet,--a lesson they 're long wanting. Listen to this."

He took, as he spoke, a soiled and ragged newspaper from his pocket, and after seeking some minutes for the place, he read, in a broken voice:--

"'The days to come'--ay, here it is--'The days to come.--Let the poor man remember that there is a future before him that, if he have but courage and boldness, will pay for the past. Turn about's fair play, my lords and gentlemen! You 've had the pack in your own hands long enough, and dealt yourselves all the trumps. Now, give us the cards for a while.

You say our fingers are dirty; so they are, with work and toil, black and dirty! but not as black as your own hearts. Hurrah! for a new deal on a bran-new table: Ireland the stakes, and the players her own stout sons!' Them's fine sintiments," said he, putting up the paper. "Fine sintiments! and the sooner we thry them the better. That's the real song," said he, reciting with energy,--

"'Oh! the days to come, the days to come, When Erin shall have her own, boys!

When we 'll pay the debts our fathers owed, And reap what they have sown, boys!'"

He sprang to his feet as he concluded, shouldering his musket, strode out as if in a marching step, and repeating to himself, as he went, the last line of the song. About half an hour's brisk walking brought him to a low wicket which opened on the high road, a little distance from which stood the small village of Derraheeny, the post-town of the neighborhood. The little crowd which usually a.s.sembled at the pa.s.sing of the coach had already dispersed, when Tom Keane presented himself at the window, and asked, in a tone of voice subdued almost to softness,--