The O'Donoghue Part 31

"Is that Lanty Lawler?" cried Mark, as he recognised the voice; "I say, did you meet with a young officer riding down the glen, in the direction of Carrig-na-curra?"

"No, indeed, Mr. Mark--I never saw living thing since I left Bantry."

The young man paused for a few seconds--and then, as if anxious to turn all thought from his question, said, "What have you lost thereabouts?"

"Oh, more than I am worth in the world!" was the answer, in a deep, heart-drawn sigh--"but, blessed heaven! what's the pistols for? Oh, Master Mark, dear--sure--sure----"

"Sure what?" cried the youth, with a hoa.r.s.e laugh--"Sure, I'm not turned highway robber! Is that what you want to say? Make your mind easy, Lanty--I have not reached that point yet; though, if indifference to life might tempt a man, I'd not say it is so far off."

"'Tis a duel, then," cried Lanty quickly; "but, I hope you wouldn't fight without seconds. Oh, that's downright murder--what did he do to you?--was it one of the fellows you met in Cork?"

"You are all wrong," said Mark, sullenly. "It is enough, however, that neither of us seem to have found what he was seeking. You have your secret; I have mine.

"Oh, faix, mine is soon told--'twas my pocket-book, with as good as seventy pounds in goold, I lost here, a three weeks ago, and never set eyes on it since; and there was papers in it--ay, faix, papers of great value--and I darn't face Father Luke without them. I may leave the country, when he hears what happened."

"Where are you going now?" said Mark, gloomily.

"I'm going as far as Mary's, for the night. Maybe you'd step down there, and take a bit of supper? When the moon rises, the night will take up fine."

The young man turned without speaking, and bent his steps in the direction Lanty was travelling.

The horse-dealer was too well versed in human nature to press for a confidence, which he foresaw would be, at last, willingly extended to him; he therefore walked along at Mark's side, without uttering a word, and seeming to be absorbed in his own deep musings. His calculation was a correct one. They had not gone many paces forward, when young O'Donoghue unburthened his whole heart to him--told him, with all the eloquent energy of a wounded spirit, of the insult he had received in his own home, before his younger brother's face. He omitted nothing in his description of the overbearing impertinence of Frederic Travers's manner--with what cool a.s.surance he had entered the house, and with what flippant carelessness he treated his cousin Kate.

"I left home, with an oath, not to return thither unavenged," said be, "nor will I, though this time luck seems against me. Had he but come, I should have given him his choice of pistols, and his own distance. My hand is true from five paces to thirty; but he has not escaped me yet."

Lanty never interrupted the narrative, except to ask from time to time some question, the answer to which was certain to develope the deeper indignation of the youth. A low muttering commentary, intended to mean a heartfelt sympathy with his wrongs, was all he suffered to escape his lips; and, thus encouraged in his pa.s.sionate vehemence, Mark's wrath became like a phrenzy.

"Come in now," said Lanty, as he halted at the door of Mary's cabin, "but don't say a word about this business. I have a thought in my head that may do you good service, but keep a fair face before people--do you mind me?"

There was a tone of secrecy and mystery in these words Mark could not penetrate; but, however dark their meaning, they seemed to promise some hope of that revenge his heart yearned after, and with this trust he entered the house.

Mary received them with her wonted hospitality--Lanty was an expected guest--and showed how gratified she felt to have young O'Donoghue beneath her roof.

"I was afeard you were forgetting me entirely, Mr. Mark," said she--"you pa.s.sed the door twice, and never as much as said, G.o.d save you, Mary."

"I did not forget you, for all that, Mary," said he, feelingly. "I have too few friends in the world to spare any of them; but I've had many things on my mind lately."

"Well, and to be sure you had, and why wouldn't you? 'Tis no shame of you to be sad and down-hearted--an O'Donoghue of the ould stock--the best blood in Kerry, wandering about by himself, instead of being followed by a troop of servants, with a goold coat-of-arms worked on their coats, like your grandfather's men--the heavens be his bed.

Thirty-eight mounted men, armed, ay and well armed, were in the saddle after him, the day the English general came down here to see the troops that was quartered at Bantry."

"No wonder we should go afoot now," said Mark, bitterly.

"Well, well--it's the will of G.o.d," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mary, piously, "and who knows what's in store for you yet?"

"That's the very thing I do be telling him," said Lanty, who only waited for the right moment to chime in with the conversation. "There's fine times coming."

Mary stared at the speaker with the eager look of one who wished to derive a meaning deeper than the mere words seemed to convey, and then, checking her curiosity at a gesture from Lanty, she set about arranging the supper, which only awaited his arrival.

Mark ate but little of the fare before him, though Mary's cookery was not without its temptations; but of the wine--and it was strong Burgundy--he drank freely. Goblet after goblet he drained with that craving desire to allay a thirst, which is rather the symptom of a mind fevered by pa.s.sion than by malady. Still, as he drank, no sign of intoxication appeared; on the contrary, his words evinced a tone of but deeper resolution, and a more settled purpose than at first, when he told how he had promised never to leave his father, although all his hopes pointed to the glorious career a foreign service would open before him.

"It was a good vow you made, and may the saints enable you to keep it,"

said Mary.

"And for the matter of glory, maybe there's some to be got nearer home, and without travelling to look for it," interposed Lanty.

"What do you mean?" said Mark, eagerly.

"Fill your gla.s.s. Take the big one, for it's a toast I'm going to give you--are you ready? Here now, then--drink--

A stout heart and mind, And an easterly wind, And the Devil behind The Saxon."

Mark repeated the doggerel as well as he was able, and pledged the only sentiment he could divine, that of the latter part, with all his enthusiasm.

"You may tell him what you plaze, now," whispered Mary in Lanty's ear; for her ready wit perceived that his blood was warmed by the wine, and his heart open for any communication.

Lanty hesitated but a second, then drawing his chair close to Mark's, he said--

"I'm going now to put _my_ life in your hands, but I can't help it. When Ireland is about to strike for liberty, it is not an O'Donoghue should be last in the ranks. Swear to me you'll never mention again what I'll tell you--swear it on the book." Mary, at the same moment, placed in his hand a breviary, with a gilt cross on the binding, which Mark took reverently, and kissed twice. "That's enough--your word would do me, but I must obey them that's over me;" and so saying, Lanty at once proceeded to lay before the astonished mind of young O'Donoghue, the plan of France for an invasion of Ireland--not vaguely nor imperfectly, not in the mere language of rumour or chance allusion, but with such aids to circ.u.mstance and time, as gave him the appearance of one conversant with what he spoke on. The restoration of Irish independence--the resumption of forfeited estates--the return of the real n.o.bility of the land to their long-lost-position of eminence and influence, were themes he descanted upon with consummate skill, bringing home each fact to the actual effect such changes would work in the youth's own condition, who, no longer degraded to the rank of a mere peasant, would once again a.s.sert his own rightful station, and stand forth at the head of his vast property--the heir of an honoured name and house. Lanty knew well, and more too, implicitly believed in all the plausible pretension of French sympathy for Irish suffering, which formed the cant of the day. He had often heard the arguments in favour of the success of such an expedition--in fact, the reasons for which its failure was deemed impossible. These he repeated fluently, giving to his narrative the semblance of an incontestible statement, and then he told him that from Brest to Dublin was "fifty hours' sail, with a fair wind"--that same "easterly breeze," the toast alluded to, that the French could throw thirty, nay, fifty thousand troops into Ireland, yet never weaken their own army to any extent worth speaking of--that England was distracted by party spirit, impoverished by debt, and totally unable to repel invasion, and, in fact, that if Ireland would be but "true to herself,"

her success was a.s.sured.

He told, too, how Irishmen were banded together in a sworn union to a.s.sert the independence of their country, and that such as held back.

or were reluctant in the cause, would meet the fate of enemies. On the extent and completeness of the organization, he dwelt with a proud satisfaction, but when he spoke of large ma.s.ses of men trained to move and act together, Mark suddenly interrupted him, saying--

"Yes, I have seen them. It's not a week since some hundreds marched through this glen at midnight."

"Ay, that was Holt's party," said Mary, composedly; "and fine men they are."

"They were unarmed," said Mark.

"If they were, it is because the general didn't want their weapons."

"There's arms enough to be had when the time comes for using them,"

broke in Mary.

"Wouldn't you show him--" and Lanty hesitated to conclude a speech, the imprudence of which he was already aware of.

"Ay will I," said Mary. "I never mistrusted one of his name;" and with that, she rose from the fire-side, and took a candle in her hand, "Come here a minute, Master Mark." Unlocking a small door in the back wall of the cabin, she entered a narrow pa.s.sage which led to the stable, but off which, a narrow door, scarcely distinguishable from the wall, conducted into a s.p.a.cious vault, excavated in the solid rock. Here were a vast number of packing-oases, and boxes, piled on each other, from floor to roof, together, with hogsheads and casks of every shape and size. Some of the boxes had been opened, and the lids laid loosely over them.

Removing one of these, Mary pointed to the contents, as she said--

[Ill.u.s.tration: 209]

"There they are--French muskets and carabines. There's pistols in that case; and all them, over there, is swords and cutla.s.ses. 'Tis pike-heads that's in the other corner; and the casks has saddles and holsters and them kind of things."

Mark stooped down and took up one of the muskets. It was a light and handy weapon, and bore on its stock the words--"Armee de la Sambre et Meuse"--for none of the weapons were new.

"These are all French," said he, after a brief pause.

"Every one of them," replied Mary, proudly; "and there's more coming from the same place."