The Landleaguers Part 11

Cecil Street, Christmas-day, 1880.

DEAREST FRANK,

You do love me, don't you? What's the use of my loving you, and thinking that you are everything, only that you are to love me? I am quite content that it should be so.

Only let it be so. You'll ask me what reason I have to be jealous. I am not jealous. I do think in my heart that you think that I'm--just perfect. And when I tell myself that it is so, I lay myself back in my chair and kiss at you with my lips till I am tired of kissing the s.p.a.ce where you ain't. But if I am wrong, and if you are having a good time of it with Miss Considine at Mrs. McKeon's ball, and are not thinking a bit of me and my kisses, what's the use? It's a very unfair bargain that a woman makes with a man. "Yes; I do love you," I say,--"but--" Then there's a sigh. "Yes; I'll love you," you say--"if--" Then there's a laugh. If I tell a fib, and am not worth having, you can always recuperate. But we can't recuperate. I'm to go about the world and be laughed at, as the girl that Frank Jones made a fool of. Oh! Mr. Jones, if you treat me in that way, won't I punish you? I'll jump into the lough with a label round my neck telling the whole story. But I am not a bit jealous, because I know you are good.

And now I must tell you a bit more of my history. We got rid of that lovely hotel, paying 6 10s., when that just earned 1. And I have brought the piano with me. The man at Erard's told me that I should have it for 2 10s. a month, frankly owning that he hoped to get my custom. "But Mr. Moss is to pay nothing?" I asked. He swore that Mr.

Moss would have to pay nothing, and leave what occurred between him and me. I don't think he will. 30 a year ought to be enough for the hire of a piano. So here we are established, at 10 a month--the first-floor, with father's bedroom behind the sitting-room. I have the room upstairs over the sitting-room. They are small stumpy little rooms,--"but mine own." Who says--"But mine own?"

Somebody does, and I repeat it. They are mine own, at any rate till next Sat.u.r.day.

And we have settled this terrible engagement and signed it. I'm to sing for Moss at "The Embankment" for four months, at the rate of 600 a year. It was a Jew's bargain, for I really had filled the house for a fortnight. Fancy a theatre called "The Embankment"! There is a nasty muddy rheumatic sound about it; but it's very prettily got up, and the exits and entrances are also good. Father goes with me every night, but I mean to let him off the terrible task soon. He smiles, and says he likes it. I only tell him he would be a child if he did.

They want to change the piece, but I shall make them pay me for my dresses; I am not going to wear any other woman's old clothes. It's not the proper way to begin, you have to begin as a slave or as an empress. Of course, anybody prefers to do the empress. They try, and then they fail, and tumble down. I shall tumble down, no doubt; but I may as well have my chance.

And now I'm going to make you say that I'm a beast. And so I am. I make a little use of Mahomet M. M.'s pa.s.sion to achieve my throne instead of taking up at once with serfdom. But I do it without vouchsafing him even the first corner of a smile. The harshest treatment is all that he gets. Men such as Mahomet M. will live on harsh treatment for a while, looking forward to revenge when their time comes. But I shall soon have made sure of my throne, or shall have failed; and in either case shall cease to care for Mahomet M. By bullying him and by treating him as dust beneath my feet, I can do something to show how proud I am, and how sure I am of success. He offers me money--not paid money down, which would have certain allurements. I shouldn't take it. I needn't tell you that. I should like to have plenty of loose sovereigns, so as to hire broughams from the yard, instead of walking, or going in a 'bus about London, which is very upsetting to my pride. Father and I go down to the theatre in a hansom, when we feel ourselves quite smart. But it isn't money like that which he offers. He wants to pay me a month in advance, and suggests that I shall get into debt, and come to him to get me out of it. There was some talk of papa going to New York for a few weeks, and he said he would come and look after me in his absence.

"Thank you, Mr. Moss," I said, "but I'm not sure I should want any looking after, only for such as you." Those are the very words I spoke, and I looked him full in the face.

"Why, what do you expect from me?" he said. "Insult," I replied, as bold as bra.s.s. And then we are playing the two lovers at "The Embankment." Isn't it a pretty family history? He said nothing at the moment, but came back in half an hour to make some unnecessary remarks about the part. "Why did you say just now that I insulted you?"

he asked. "Because you do," I replied. "Never, never!"

he exclaimed, with most grotesque energy. "I have never insulted you." You know, my dear, he has twenty times endeavoured to kiss my hand, and once he saw fit to stroke my hair. Beast! If you knew the sort of feeling I have for him--such as you would have if you found a c.o.c.kroach in your dressing-case. Of course in our life young women have to put up with this kind of thing, and some of them like it. But he knows that I am going to be married, or at any rate am engaged, Mr. Frank. I make constant use of your name, telling everybody that I am the future Mrs. Jones, putting such weight upon the Jones. With me he knows that it is an insult; but I don't want to quarrel with him if I can help it, and therefore I softened it down. "You hear me say, Mr. Moss, that I'm an engaged young woman. Knowing that, you oughtn't to speak to me as you do." "Why, what do I say?" You should have seen his grin as he asked me; such a leer of triumph, as though he knew that he were getting the better of me. "Mr. Jones wouldn't approve if he were to see it." "But luckily he don't," said my admirer. Oh, if you knew how willingly I'd stand at a tub and wash your shirts, while the very touch of his gloves makes me creep all over with horror. "Let us have peace for the future," I said. "I dislike all those familiarities. If you will only give them up we shall go on like a house on fire." Then the beast made an attempt to squeeze my hand as he went out of the room.

I retreated, however, behind the table, and escaped untouched on that occasion.

You are not to come over, whatever happens, until I tell you. You ought to know very well by this time that I can fight my battles by myself; and if you did come, there would be an end altogether to the 200 which I am earning.

To give him his due, he's very punctual with his money, only that he wants to pay me in advance, which I will never have. He has been liberal about my dresses, telling me to order just what I want, and have the bill sent in to the costume manager. When I have worn them they become the property of the theatre. G.o.d help any poor young woman that will ever be expected to get into them. So now you know exactly how I am standing with Mahomet M. M.

Poor father goes about to public meetings, but never is allowed to open his mouth for fear he should say something about the Queen. I don't mean that he is really watched, but he promised in Ireland not to lecture any more if they would let him go, and he wishes to keep his word. But I fear it makes him very unhappy. He has, at any rate, the comfort of coming home and giving me the lecture, which he ought to have delivered to more sympathetic ears. Not but what I do care about the people; only how am I to know whether they ought to be allowed to make their own petticoats, or why it is that they don't do so? He says it's the London Parliament; and that if they had members in College Green, the young women would go to work at once, and make petticoats for all the world. I don't understand it, and wish that he had someone else to lecture to.

How are you getting on with all your own pet troubles? Is the little subsiding lake at Ballintubber still a lake?

And what about poor Florian and his religion? Has he told up as yet? I fear, I fear, that poor Florian has been fibbing, and that there will be no peace for him or for your father till the truth has been told.

Now, sir, I have told you everything, just as a young woman ought to tell her future lord and master. You say you ought to know what Moss is doing. You do know, exactly, as far as I can tell you. Of course you wouldn't like to see him, but then you have the comfort of knowing that I don't like it either. I suppose it is a comfort, eh, my bold young man? Of course you want me to hate the pig, and I do hate him. You may be sure that I will get rid of him as soon as I conveniently can. But for the present he is a necessary evil. If you had a home to give me, I would come to it--oh, so readily! There is something in the glitter of a theatre--what people call the boards, the gaslights, the music, the mock love-making, the pretence of being somebody, the feeling of mystery which is attached to you, and the feeling you have that you are generally unlike the world at large--which has its charms.

Even your name, blazoned in a dirty playbill, without any Mister or Mistress to guard you, so unlike the ways of ordinary life, does gratify one's vanity. I can't say why it should be so, but it is. I always feel a little prouder of myself when father is not with me. I am Miss O'Mahony, looking after myself, whereas other young ladies have to be watched. It has its attractions.

But--but to be the wife of Frank Jones, and to look after Frank's little house, and to cook for him his chicken and his bacon, and to feel that I am all the world to him, and to think--! But, oh, Frank, I cannot tell you what things I think. I do feel, as I think them, that I have not been made to stand long before the glare of the gas, and that the time will certainly come when I shall walk about Ballintubber leaning on your arm, and hearing all your future troubles about rents not paid, and waters that have come in.

Your own, own girl,

RACHEL O'MAHONY.

CHAPTER IX.

BLACK DALY.

Frank Jones received his letter just as he was about to leave Castle Morony for the meet at Ballytowngal, the seat, as everybody knows, of Sir Nicholas Bodkin. Ballytowngal is about two miles from Claregalway, on the road to Oranmore. Sir Nicholas is known all through the West of Ireland, as a sporting man, and is held in high esteem. But there is, I think, something different in the estimation which he now enjoys from that which he possessed twenty years ago.

He was then, as now, a Roman Catholic,--as were also his wife and children; and, as a Roman Catholic, he was more popular with the lower cla.s.ses, and with the priests, who are their natural friends, than with his brother grand-jurors of the country, who were, for the most part, Protestants.

Sir Nicholas is now sixty years old, and when he came to the t.i.tle at thirty, he was regarded certainly as a poor man's friend. He always lived on the estate. He rarely went up to Dublin, except for a fortnight, when the hunting was over, and when he paid his respects to the Lord Lieutenant. The house at Ballytowngal was said, in those days, to be as well kept up as any mansion in County Galway. But the saying came probably from those who were not intimate in the more gloriously maintained mansions. Sir Nicholas had 5000 a year, and though he did manage to pay his bills annually, spent every shilling of it. He preserved his foxes loyally, and was quite as keen about the fishing of a little river that he owned, and which ran down from his demesne into Lough Corrib. He was particular also about his snipe, and would boast that in a little spinney at Ballytowngal were to be met the earliest woodc.o.c.k found in the West of Ireland. He was a thorough sportsman;--but a Roman Catholic--and as a Roman Catholic he was hardly equal in standing to some of his Protestant neighbours.

He voted for Major Stackpoole, when Major Stackpoole stood for the county on the Liberal interest, and was once requested to come forward himself, and stand for the City as a Roman Catholic. This he did not do, being a prudent man; but at that period, from twenty to thirty years ago, he was certainly regarded as inferior to a Protestant by many of the Protestant gentlemen of the country.

But things are changed now. Sir Nicholas's neighbours, such of them at least that are Protestants, regard Sir Nicholas as equal to themselves. They do not care much for his religion, but they know that he is not a Home-Ruler, or latterly, since the Land League sprang into existence, a Land Leaguer. He is, in fact, one of themselves as a county gentleman, and the question of religion has gone altogether into abeyance. Had you known the county thirty years ago, and had now heard Sir Nicholas talking of county matters, you would think that he was one of the old Protestants. It was so that the rich people regarded him,--and so also the poor. But Sir Nicholas had not varied at all. He liked to get his rents paid, and as long as his tenants would pay them, he was at one with them. They had begun now to have opinions of their own upon the subject, and he was at one with them no longer.

Frank Jones had heard in Galway, that there was to be a difficulty about drawing the Ballytowngal coverts. The hounds were to be allowed to draw the demesne coverts, but beyond that they were to be interrupted. Foxes seldom broke from Ballytowngal, or if they did they ran to Moytubber. At Moytubber the hounds would probably change,--or would do so if allowed to continue their sport in peace.

But at Moytubber the row would begin. Knowing this, Frank Jones was anxious to leave his home in time, as he was aware that the hounds would be carried on to Moytubber as quickly as possible. Black Daly had sworn a solemn oath that he would draw Moytubber in the teeth of every Home-Ruler and Land Leaguer in County Galway.

A word or two must be said descriptive of Black Daly, as he was called, the master of the Galway hounds. They used to be called the Galway blazers, but the name had nearly dropped out of fashion since Black Daly had become their master, a quarter of a century since.

Who Black Daly was or whence he had come, many men, even in County Galway, did not know. It was not that he had no property, but that his property was so small, as to make it seem improbable that the owner of it should be the master of the county hounds. But in truth Black Daly lived at Daly's Bridge, in the neighbourhood of Castle Blakeney, when he was supposed to be at home. And the house in which he lived he had undoubtedly inherited from his father. But he was not often there, and kept his kennels at Ahaseragh, five miles away from Daly's Bridge. Much was not therefore known of Mr. Daly, in his own house.

But in the field no man was better known, or more popular, if thorough obedience is an element of popularity. The old gentry of the county could tell why Mr. Daly had been put into his present situation five-and-twenty years ago; but the manner of his election was not often talked about. He had no money, and very few acres of his own on which to preserve foxes. He had never done anything to earn a shilling since he had been born, unless he may have been said to have earned shillings by his present occupation. As he got his living out of it, he certainly may have been said to have done so. He never borrowed a shilling from any man, and certainly paid his way.

But if he told a young man that he ought to buy a horse the young man certainly bought it. And if he told a young man that he must pay a certain price, the young man generally paid it. But if the young man were not ready with his money by the day fixed, that young man generally had a bad time of it. Young men have been known to be driven not only out of County Galway, but out of Ireland itself, by the tone of Mr. Daly's voice, and by the blackness of his frown. And yet it was said generally that neither young men nor old men were injured in their dealings with Mr. Daly. "That horse won't be much the worse for his splint, and he's worth 70 to you, because you can ride him ten stone. You had better give me 70 for him." Then the young man would promise the 70 in three months' time, and if he kept his word, would swear by Black Daly ever afterwards. In this way Mr.

Daly sold a great many horses.

But he had been put into his present position because he hunted the hounds, during the illness of a distant cousin, who was the then master. The master had died, but the county had the best sport that winter that it had ever enjoyed. "I don't see why I should not do it, as well as another," Tom Daly had said. He was then known as Tom Daly. "You've got no money," his cousin had said, the son of the old gentleman who was just dead. It was well understood that the cousin wished to have the hounds, but that he was thought not to have all the necessary attributes. "I suppose the county means to pay for all sport," said Tom. Then the hat went round, and an annual sum of 900 a year was voted. Since that the hounds have gone on, and the bills have been paid; and Tom has raised the number of days' hunting to four a week, or has lowered it to two, according to the amount of money given. He makes no proposition now, but declares what he means to do. "Things are dearer," he said last year, "and you won't have above five days a fortnight, unless you can make the money up to 1,200. I want 400 a day, and 400 I must have." The county had then voted him the money in the plenitude of its power, and Daly had hunted seven days a fortnight. But all the Galway world felt that there was about to be a fall.

Black Daly was a man quite as dark as his sobriquet described him. He was tall, but very thin and bony, and seemed not to have an ounce of flesh about his face or body. He had large, black whiskers,--coa.r.s.e and jet black,--which did not quite meet beneath his chin. And he wore no other beard, no tuft, no imperial, no moustachios; but when he was seen before shaving on a morning, he would seem to be black all over, and his hair was black, short, and harsh; and though black, round about his ears it was beginning to be tinged with grey. He was now over fifty years of age; but the hair on his head was as thick as it had been when he first undertook the hounds. He had great dark eyes in his head, deep down, so that they seemed to glitter at you out of caverns. And above them were great, bushy eyebrows, every hair of which seemed to be black, and harsh, and hard. His nose was well-formed and prominent; but of cheeks he had apparently none.

Between his whiskers and his nose, and the corners of his mouth, there was nothing but two hollow cavities. He was somewhat over six feet high, but from his extraordinary thinness gave the appearance of much greater height. His arms were long, and the waistcoat which he wore was always long; his breeches were very long; and his boots seemed the longest thing about him--unless his spurs seemed longer.

He had no flesh about him, and it was boasted of him that, in spite of his length, and in spite of his height, he could ride under twelve stone. Of himself, and of his doings, he never talked. They were secrets of his own, of which he might have to make money. And no one had a right to ask him questions. He did not conceive that it would be necessary for a gentleman to declare his weight unless he were about to ride a race. Now it was understood that for the last ten years Black Daly had ridden no races.

He was a man of whom it might be said that he never joked. Though his life was devoted in a peculiar manner to sport, and there may be thought to be something akin between the amus.e.m.e.nts and the lightness of life, it was all serious to him. Though he was bitter over it, or happy; triumphant, or occasionally in despair--as when the money was not forthcoming--he never laughed. It was all serious to him, and apparently sad, from the first note of a hound in the early covert, down to the tidings that a poor fox had been found poisoned near his earth. He had much to do to find sport for the county on such limited means, and he was always doing it.

He not only knew every hound in his pack, but he knew their ages, their sires, and their dams; and the sires and the dams of most of their sires and dams. He knew the const.i.tution of each, and to what extent their noses were to be trusted. "It's a very heavy scent to-day," he would say, "because Gaylap carries it over the plough.

It's only a catching scent because the drops don't hang on the bushes." His lore on all such matters was incredible, but he would never listen to any argument. A man had a right to his own opinion; but then the man who differed from him knew nothing. He gave out his little laws to favoured individuals; not by way of conversation, for which he cared nothing, but because it might be well that the favoured individual should know the truth on that occasion.

As a man to ride he was a complete master of his art. There was nothing which a horse could do with a man on his back, which Daly could not make him do; and when he had ridden a horse he would know exactly what was within his power. But there was no desire with him for the showing off of a horse. He often rode to sell a horse, but he never seemed to do so. He never rode at difficult places unless driven to do so by the exigencies of the moment. He was always quiet in the field, unless when driven to express himself as to the faults of some young man. Then he could blaze forth in his anger with great power. He was constantly to be seen trotting along a road when hounds were running, because he had no desire to achieve for himself a character for hard riding. But he was always with his hounds when he was wanted, and it was boasted of him that he had ridden four days a week through the season on three horses, and had never lamed one of them. He was rarely known to have a second horse out, and when he did so, it was for some purpose peculiar to the day's work. On such days he had generally a horse to sell.

It is hardly necessary to say that Black Daly was an unmarried man.

No one who knew him could conceive that he should have had a wife.

His hounds were his children, and he could have taught no wife to a.s.sist him in looking after them, with the constant attention and tender care which was given to them by Barney Smith, his huntsman. A wife, had she seen to the feeding of the numerous babies, would have given them too much to eat, and had she not undertaken this care, she would have been useless at Daly's Bridge. But Barney Smith was invaluable; double the amount of work got usually from a huntsman was done by him. There was no kennel man, no second horseman, no stud-groom at the Ahaseragh kennels. It may be said that Black Daly filled all these positions himself, and that in each Barney Smith was his first lieutenant. Circ.u.mstances had given him the use of the Ahaseragh kennels, which had been the property of his cousin, and circ.u.mstances had not enabled him to build others at Daly's Bridge.

Gradually he had found it easier to move himself than the hounds. And so it had come to pa.s.s that two rooms had been prepared for him close to the kennels, and that Mr. Barney Smith gave him such attendance as was necessary. Of strictly personal attendance Black Daly wanted very little; but the discomforts of that home, while one pair of breeches were supposed to be at Daly's Bridge, and the others at Ahaseragh, were presumed by the world at large to be very grievous.

But the personal appearance of Mr. Daly on hunting mornings, was not a matter of indifference. It was not that he wore beautiful pink tops, or came out guarded from the dust by little ap.r.o.ns, or had his cravat just out of the bandbox, or his scarlet coat always new, and in the latest fashion, nor had his hat just come from the shop in Piccadilly with the newest twist to its rim. But there was something manly, and even powerful about his whole apparel. He was always the same, so that by men even in his own county, he would hardly have been known in other garments. The strong, broad brimmed high hat, with the cord pa.s.sing down his back beneath his coat, that had known the weather of various winters; the dark, red coat, with long swallow tails, which had grown nearly black under many storms; the dark, buff striped waistcoat, with the stripes running downwards, long, so as to come well down over his breeches; the breeches themselves, which were always of leather, but which had become nearly brown under the hands of Barney Smith or his wife, and the mahogany top-boots, of which the tops seemed to be a foot in length, could none of them have been worn by any but Black Daly. His very spurs must have surely been made for him, they were in length and weight; and general strength of leather, so peculiarly his own. He was unlike other masters of hounds in this, that he never carried a horn; but he spoke to his hounds in a loud, indistinct chirruping voice, which all County Galway believed to be understood to every hound in the park.

One other fact must be told respecting Mr. Daly. He was a Protestant--as opposed to a Roman Catholic. No one had ever known him go to church, or speak a word in reference to religion. He was equally civil or uncivil to priest and parson when priest or parson appeared in the field. But on no account would he speak to either of them if he could avoid it. But he had in his heart a thorough conviction that all Roman Catholics ought to be regarded as enemies by all Protestants, and that the feeling was one entirely independent of faith and prayerbooks, or crosses and ma.s.ses. For him fox-hunting--fox-hunting for others--was the work of his life, and he did not care to meddle with what he did not understand. But he was a Protestant, and Sir Nicholas Bodkin was a Roman Catholic, and therefore an enemy--as a dog may be supposed to declare himself a dog, and a cat a cat, if called upon to explain the cause for the old family quarrel.

Now there had come a cloud over his spirit in reference to the state of his country. He could see that the quarrel was not entirely one between Protestant and Catholic as it used to be, but still he could not get it out of his mind, but that the old causes were producing in a different way their old effects. Whiteboys, Terryalts, Ribbonmen, Repeaters, Physical-Forcemen, Fenians, Home-Rulers, Professors of Dynamite, and American-Irish, were, to his thinking, all the same.

He never talked much about it, because he did not like to expose his ignorance; but his convictions were not the less formed. It was the business of a Protestant to take rent, and of a Roman Catholic to pay rent. There were certain deviations in this ordained rule of life, but they were only exceptions. The Roman Catholics had the worst of this position, and the Protestants the best. Therefore the Roman Catholics were of course quarrelling with it, and therefore the Roman Catholics must be kept down. Such had been Mr. Daly's general outlook into life. But now the advancing evil of the time was about to fall even upon himself, and upon his beneficent labours, done for the world at large. It was whispered in County Galway that the people were about to rise and interfere with fox-hunting! It may be imagined that on this special day Mr. Daly's heart was low beneath his black-striped waistcoat, as he rode on his way to draw the coverts at Ballytowngal.

At the cross-roads of Monivea he met Peter Bodkin, the eldest son of Sir Nicholas. Now Peter Bodkin had quarrelled long and very bitterly with his father. Every acre of the property at Ballytowngal was entailed upon him, and Peter had thought that under such circ.u.mstances his father was not doing enough for him. The quarrel had been made up, but still the evil rankled in Peter's bosom, who was driven to live with his wife and family on 500 a year; and had found himself hardly driven to keep himself out of the hands of the Jews. His father had wished him to follow some profession, but this had been contrary to Peter's idea of what was becoming. But though he had only 500 a year, and five children, he did manage to keep two horses, and saw a good deal of hunting.

And among all the hunting men in County Galway he was the one who lived on the closest terms of intimacy with Black Daly. For, though he was a Roman Catholic, his religion did not trouble him much; and he was undoubtedly on the same side with Daly in the feuds that were coming on the country. Indeed, he and Daly had entertained the same feelings for some years; for, in the quarrels which had been rife between the father and son, Mr. Daly had taken the son's part, as far as so silent a man can be said to have taken any part at all.

"Well, Peter." "Well, Daly," were the greetings, as the two men met; and then they rode on together in silence for a mile. "Have you heard what the boys are going to do?" asked the master. Peter shook his head. "I suppose there's nothing in it?"

"I fear there is."

"What will they do?" asked Mr. Daly.