The O'Donoghue Part 5

"Let me say one word, Master Mark," said Lanty at length, and in a voice subdued to its very softest key--"just a single word in your own ear,"

and with that he led the young man outside the door of the stable, and whispered for some minutes, with the greatest earnestness, concluding in a voice loud enough to be heard by Kerry--

"And after that, I'm sure I need say no more."

Mark made no answer, but leaned his back against the wall, and folded his arms upon his breast.

"May I never if it is not the whole truth," said Lanty, with a most eager and impa.s.sioned gesture; "and now I leave it all to yourself."

"Is he to take the mare?" asked Kerry, in anxious dread lest his enemy might have carried the day.

"Yes," was the reply, in a deep hollow voice, as the speaker turned away and left the stable.

While Lanty was engaged in placing his saddle on his new purchase, an operation in which Kerry contrived not to afford him any a.s.sistance whatever, Mark O'Donoghue paced slowly to and fro in the courtyard, with his arms folded, and his head sunk upon his breast; nor was he aroused from his reverie until the step of the horse was heard on the pavement beside him.

"Poor Kittane," said he, looking up suddenly, "you were a great pet: I hope they'll be as kind to you as I was; and they'd better, too," added he, half-savagely, "for you've a drop of the Celt in your blood, and can revenge harsh treatment when you meet with it. Tell her owner that she is all gentleness, if not abused, but get her temper once up, and, by Jove, there's not a torrent on the mountain can leap as madly! She knows her name, too: I trust they'll not change that. She was bred beside Lough Kittane, and called after it. See how she can follow;" and with that, the youth sprang forward, and placing his hand on the top bar of a gate, vaulted lightly over; but scarcely had he reached the ground, when the mare bounded after him, and stood with her head resting on his shoulder.

Mark turned an elated look on the others, and then surveyed the n.o.ble animal beside him with all the pride and admiration of a master regarding his handiwork. She was, indeed, a model of symmetry, and well worthy of all the praise bestowed on her.

For a moment or two the youth gazed on her, with a flashing eye and quivering lip, while the mare, catching excitement from the free air of the morning, and the spring she had made, stood with swelled veins and trembling limbs, his counterpart in eagerness. One spirit seemed to animate both. So Mark appeared to feel it, as with a bound he sprung into the saddle, and with a wild cheer dashed forward. With lightning's speed they went, and in a moment disappeared from view. Kerry jumped up on a broken gate-pier, and strained his eyes to catch them, while Lanty, muttering maledictions to himself, on the hair-brained boy, turned everywhere for a spot where he might view the scene.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 55]

"There he goes," shouted Kerry; "look at him now; he's coming to the furze ditch into the big field: see! see! she does not see the fence; her head's in the air. Whew--elegant, by the mortial--never touched a hoof to it!--murther! murther! how she gallops in the deep ground, and the wide gripe that's before her! Ah, he won't take it; he's turning away."

"I wish to the Lord he'd break a stirrup-leather," muttered Lanty.

"Oh, Joseph!" screamed Kerry, "there was a jump--twenty feet as sure as I'm living. Where is he now?--I don't see him."

"May you never," growled Lanty, whose indignant anger had burst all bounds: "that's not treatment for another man's horse."

"There he goes, the jewel; see him in the stubble field; sure it's a real picture to see him going along at his ease. Whurroo--he's over the wall. What the devil's the matter now?--they're away;" and so it was: the animal that an instant before was cantering perfectly in hand, had now set off at top speed, and at full stretch. "See the gate--mind the gate--Master Mark--tear-and-ages, mind the gate," shouted Kerry, as though his admonition could be heard half a mile away. "Oh! holy Mary!

he's through it," and true enough--the wild and now affrighted beast dashed through the frail timbers, and held on her course, without stopping. "He's broke the gate to flitters."

"May I never, if I don't wish it was his neck," said Lanty, in open defiance.

"Do you, then?" called out Kerry. "Why, then, as sure as my name's Kerry O'Leary, if there's a hair of his head hurted, I'll--"

What the threat was intended for, cannot be known; for his eye once more caught sight of his idol, and he yelled out--

"Take care of the sheep. Bad luck to ye for sheep, ye're always in the way. That's the darling--'twas myself taught you to have a light hand.

Ah, Kittane, you're coming to rayson now."

"The mare won't be worth sixpence," muttered Lanty.

"Twas as good as a day's sport to me," said Kerry, wiping his brow with the loose sleeve of his coat, and preparing to descend from the elevation, for the young man now entered the distant part of the lawn, and, at an easy canter, was returning to the stable-yard.

"There!" said Mark, as he flung himself from the saddle, "there Kittane, it's the last time you're likely to have a bold burst of it, or myself either, perhaps. She touched her counter on that gate, Lanty; but she's nothing the worse of it."

Lanty grumbled some indistinct mutterings, as he wiped a blood stain from the mare's chest, and looked sulkily at her heaving flanks and sides reeking with foam and sweat.

"Tis a darling you wor," said Kerry, patting her over from her mane to her hind quarters.

"Faix, that cut is ten pounds out of my pocket this morning, anyhow,"

said Lanty, as he pointed to the slight scratch from which a few drops of blood still flowed.

"Are you off the bargain, then," said Mark sternly, as he turned his head round; for he was already leaving the spot.

"I didn't say so," was the answer.

For a second or two Mark seemed uncertain what reply to make, and then, as if controlling his temper, he nodded carelessly, and with a "Good-by, Lanty," he sauntered slowly towards the house.

"Well, Mr. O'Leary," said Lanty, in a voice of affected politeness, Irishmen are occasionally very fond of employing when they intend great self-respect, "may I trouble you to bring out that hack of mine."

"'Tis a pleasure, Mr. Lawler, and no trouble in life, av it helps to get rid of you," responded Kerry, as he waddled off on the errand.

Lanty made no reply; perhaps he felt the encounter unequal--perhaps he despised his antagonist; in any case, he waited patiently for Kerry's appearance, and then, pa.s.sing his arm within the bridle of each horse, he slowly descended the avenue towards the high road.

CHAPTER V. IMPRESSIONS OF IRELAND.

It was not without a feeling closely allied to disappointment, that Sir Marmaduke Travers found the advent to his Irish estates uncelebrated by any of those testimonies on the part of his tenantry, his agent, Captain Hemsworth, had often so graphically pictured before him. The post-horses were suffered to drag his carriage unmolested to its destination; there was no a.s.semblage of people to welcome--not a bonfire to hail his arrival. True, he had come totally unexpectedly. The two servants sent forward to prepare the lodge for his reception, only reached there a single day before himself. But Sir Marmaduke had often taken his Yorkshire tenants as much by surprise, and, there, he always found a deputation, and a cortege of mounted yeomen. There were addresses, and triumphal arches, and newspaper paragraphs, and all the innumerable but well-known accompaniments of those patronizing acts of condescension, which consist in the visit of a rich man to his own home. Now, however, all was different. No cheering sounds broke the quiet stillness of the deep valley. No troops of people on horseback or on foot filled the glen. The sun set, calm and golden, behind the purple hills, unscared by the lurid glow of a single bonfire. Save from an appearance of increased bustle, and an air of movement and stir around the lodge itself, there was nothing to mark his coming. There, indeed, servants were seen to pa.s.s and re-pa.s.s; workmen were employed upon the flower-garden and the shrubbery walks; and all the indications of care and attention to the villa and its grounds easily perceptible. Beyond these precincts, however, all was still and solitary as before. For miles the road could be seen without a single traveller. The mountains seemed dest.i.tute of inhabitants. The peaceful solemnity of the deep glen, along which the cloud shadows moved slowly in procession, increased the sense of loneliness, and Sir Marmaduke already began to suspect, that this last trial of a residence would scarcely prove more fortunate than the previous ones.

Age and wealth are uncomplying task-masters--habit and power endure restraint with an ill grace. The old baronet was half angry with himself for what he felt a mistake, and he could not forgive the country which was the cause of it. He had come expressly to see and p.r.o.nounce for himself--to witness with his own eyes, to hear with his own ears--and yet he knew not how it was, nothing revealed itself before him. The very labourers who worked in the garden seemed uncommunicative and shy.

Their great respect and reverence he understood as a cautious reserve.

He must send for Hemsworth--there was nothing else for it. Hemsworth was used to them, and could explain the mode of dealing with them. Their very idioms required translating, and he could not advance without an interpreter.

Not so his daughter. To her the scene had all the charm of romance. The lone dwelling beside the blue lake, the tall and peaked mountains lost in the white clouds, the waving forest with its many a tangled path, the bright islands that, gem-like, spangled the calm surface of the water, realized many a poetic dream of her childhood, and she felt that visionary happiness which serenity of mind, united to the warm imagination of early life, alone can bestow.

It was a fairy existence to live thus secluded in that lonely valley, where the flowers seemed to blossom for them alone; for them, the summer birds sang their roundelays, and the fair moon shed her pale light over hill and stream, with none to mark her splendour save themselves, Not these thoughts alone filled her mind. Already had she noticed the artless habits of the humble peasantry--their grat.i.tude for the slightest services, their affectionate greetings, the touching beauty of their expressions, teeming with an imagery she never heard before.

All appealed to her mind with a very different force from what they addressed themselves with to her father's. Already she felt attracted by the figurative eloquence, so popular a gift among the people. The warm fervour of fancy she had believed the attribute of highly-wrought temperaments only, she found here amid poverty and privation; flashes of bright wit broke from the gloom of daily suffering; and the fire which gives life its energy, burned brightly amid the ashes of many an extinguished hope. These were features she was not prepared to meet among a peasantry living in a wild unvisited district, and day by day they fascinated her more strongly.

It was not entirely to the difference between father and daughter that these varied impressions were owing. The people themselves a.s.sumed a tone quite distinctive to each. Sir Marmaduke they had always heard spoken of, as a stern-tempered man, whose severity towards his tenantry was, happily, tempered by the personal kindness of the agent. Captain Hemsworth constantly impressed them with the notion that all harsh measures originated with his princ.i.p.al--the favours came from himself only, the exactions of high rents, the rigorous prosecution of the law, he ever a.s.serted were acts compulsory with him, but always repugnant to his own better feelings. Every little act of grace he accompanied by an a.s.surance, that he "hoped Sir Marmaduke might not hear of it," as the consequences to himself might prove ruinous. In fact, he contrived to mislead both parties in their estimate of each other, and their first acquaintanceship, it could not be supposed, should dispel the illusion.

The peasantry, however, were the first to discover the error: long before Sir Marmaduke had made any progress in deciphering the mystic symbols of _their_ natures, they had read _his_ from end to end. They scanned him with powers of observation no other people in Europe can compete with; and while _he_ was philosophizing about the combined influence of their superst.i.tions, their ignorance, and their apathy to suffering, _they_ were accurately speculating on all the possible benefits which might accrue from the residence amongst them, of so very kind-hearted, but such a _mere_ simpleton of a man as himself.

They listened with sincere pleasure--for they love any appeal to themselves--to the precepts he so liberally bestowed regarding "industry" and "frugality;" nor did they ever make the reply, which was ready at every lip, that industry cannot be practised without an occupation, nor frugality be pushed beyond the very borders of starvation. No; they answered with a semblance of concurrence,--"True for you, sir; the devil a lie in it--your honour knows it well."

Or, when pushed home by any argument against their improvidence, or recklessness, the ever-present reply was--"Sure, sir, it's the will of G.o.d;" a piece of fatalism, that rescued them from many a difficulty, when no other aid was near.

"They are a simple set of people," said Sir Marmaduke, as he sat at his breakfast; in the small parlour of the lodge, which looked out upon the glen, "Very ignorant, very barbarous, but easily led--I see through them clearly."

"I like them greatly," said his daughter; "their grat.i.tude knows no bounds for the slightest services; they have a kind of native courtesy, so rare to find amongst a peasantry? how that poor fellow last night wished to climb the cliff, where the eagle's nest is, because I foolishly said I had never seen a young eagle."

"They are totally misunderstood," said Sir Marmaduke, sententiously, rather following out the train of his own reflections, than noticing the remark of his daughter, "all one hears of their absurd reverence for the priest, or the devoted adherence they practise towards the old families of the country, is mere nonsense, You heard how Dan laughed this morning, when I joked with him about purgatory and the saints; and what a droll description they gave of that queer household--the chieftain--what is his name?

"The O'Donoghue."

"Yes; I never can remember it. No, no; they are not so bigoted; they are merely uninformed. We shall soon see many changes among them. I have written to Bradston about the plans for the cottages, and also the design for a school-house; and then, there's the chapel--that reminds me I have not returned the priest's visit; he was here the day before yesterday."