The Tithe-Proctor Part 21

"I pledge my honor to you," replied the proctor, who at once saw through the hoax that his son had played off upon him, "that the young rascal had no authority from me for mentioning a single syllable about it."

"Well, but, I trust, my dear Ma--Mr; Purcel, that you are not angry with him, especially for having mentioned it to me at any rate."

"Why, my dear friend," said the other, "if the time were come, you are the first man to whom I would disclose the circ.u.mstance, but the fact simply is, that it is not ripe yet."

"Even so; you will have no objection, I trust, to let me know something of the nature of it--even now."

"It is impossible!" replied the proctor, "quite out of my power; if I breathe a syllable about it, the whole matter must be blown before the proper time, and then--"

"Well, and what then?--proceed."

"Why, neither you nor I would be one moment safe; and in that case, it is much more prudent that you should not know it--G.o.d forbid that I, above all men, should be the person to involve you in risk and danger.

Your own ardor and excessive loyalty expose you--to dangers enough, and too many."

"You promise, however, when the proper time comes, to make me acquainted with it?"

"Certainly, when the proper time comes; and if the thing ripen at all, you shall hear of it."

"But listen," asked O'Driscol, licking his lips as a man would when thinking of a good dinner; "is the matter you allude to a real, actual, bona-fide conspiracy?"

"An actual live conspiracy," replied the proctor; "and as soon as it has reached maturity, and is full grown, you shall have all the honors of the discovery."

"That will do, Mat--hem, that will do my dear friend. I shall have the Castle dancing with delight--and whisper--but this is honorable between ourselves--any advantages that may result from this affair, you shall partake of. The Castle and I understand one another, and depend upon it, your name shall be mentioned with all the honor and importance due to it."

"This, then, was what you wanted with me?"

"It was, and upon my honor and conscience, you and yours, and I and mine, will have cause to rejoice in it. Government, my dear Mat--ahem--is a generous benefactor, and aided by it we shall work wonders. We shall, I trust, all be provided for--your sons and my own fool--M'Carthy, too, we shall not forget.

"All that will be very pleasant, I acknowledge," replied the proctor, dryly, "and in the meantime good-by, and may G.o.d spare both you and me long life and happiness--until then, and as long after it as we may wish for."

Our friend M'Carthy, who was little aware of the liberal provision which the benevolence of his friend had in contemplation for him, was in the meantime likely to be provided for in a very different manner, and upon principles very much at variance with those of that political gentleman yclept the Castle, an impersonation which it would be exceedingly difficult to define.

CHAPTER IX.--Sport in the Mountains.

In the course of that day Letty Lenehan, who had been musing over Mogue's soliloquy in the barn, felt that kind of impression which every one has felt more or less under similar circ.u.mstances. The fellow's words left a suspicion upon her mind that there was evil designed against young M'Carthy by this smooth-going and pious hypocrite. How to act she felt somewhat at a loss, but as the day advanced, the singular impression we have mentioned deepened, until she could conceal its existence no longer. After dinner, however, she seized upon an opportunity of consulting her friend and lover, Jerry Joyce, who, by the way, had also been somewhat surprised at an expression which escaped Mogue in the morning. On comparing notes, both came to the same conclusion, viz.,--that there existed in the bosom of Mogue some latent hard feeling against M'Carthy.

"I am sure there does," said Jerry, "and I think I know why too--Mogue isn't the only person that has a deadly hatred against Mr. M'Carthy; and indeed, Letty, I have raisons to fear that the poor young gintleman, for so he is by family and blood at all events--is in great danger. However, if it will make your mind aisy, I'll see what can be done to get him safe over it this night."

"This night, Jerry? why what do you mane? what about this night more than any other night?"

"Hut! you foolish girl," replied Jerry, "sure you ought to know that it's only a way of spakin' we have, when we say this night or this day."

"Ay," replied Letty, with great shrewdness and in a spirit of keen observation, "if you had spoken that way, you'd have said this day, and not this night, bekaise it's not night yet."

Jerry smiled, and resolving to put an end to the conversation, exclaimed, "Troth and I'll have a kiss from your lips, this day, and, if you vex me much more, another this night too;" and as he spoke, with a face of good-humor and affection, he contrived to suit the action to the word, after which Letty sprang beyond his reach, but pausing a moment ere she disappeared. "Jerry, listen," she proceeded, "don't let Mr.

M'Carthy come to harm either by night or day, if you can--still an' all remember that your own life is a dearer one--to--to--yourself, at any rate, than anybody else's is."

Jerry nodded, and was about once more to lessen the distance between himself and her, when she immediately took to flight and disappeared, which was precisely what he wanted.

"G.o.d protect the young man!" he exclaimed, after she had gone, "for if that sleeveen villain is bent on doin' him harm, or, as I ought to say, of bringin' him among them, and especially to him that hates him like h.e.l.l, this is the very night for it, and he has him on the spot too; well, we'll see whether they'll be back in time or not, for as Mr.

M'Carthy is to dine here, Mogue at any rate must and ought to be home a little before dusk. I'll make preparation, however, and what can be done for him, I will do."

In the meantime we shall follow our two sportsmen into the mountains for a time, in order to render justice to poor innocent Mogue, who little dreamt that a human being had suspected him.

M'Carthy, on entering the mountain, at first expressed a doubt to his companion that the circuit or sweep road by Shaun Bernha's stables was rather extensive, and would occupy too much time, besides bringing them farther out of their way than it was his (M'Carthy's) intention to go.

"You know, Mogue," he observed, "I am to dine with Mr. Purcel to-day, and, if we go so far, I shall never be home in time for dinner."

[Ill.u.s.tration: PAGE 421-- Just trust yourself to me]

"Never mind, sir," replied his companion, "you don't know all the short cuts of s...o...b..ens as well as I do. My life for yours, I'll take care that you won't want your dinner or your supper aither, sir, I'll go bail. Just trust yourself to me, and if I don't bring you to where the grouse, snipes, and hares is in thousands, never put faith in me again."

M'Carthy, who had every confidence in Mogue, and, also, more than usual respect for him, in consequence of his apparent love of truth and religion, accompanied him without the slightest hesitation; feeling satisfied that his intimate acquaintance with the whole wild locality around them, was a proof that he would be able to keep his word.

The scenery of those mountains, though wild, as we have said, is, nevertheless, remarkable for that poetic spirit of beauty which our learned and accomplished countryman, Dr. Petrie, infused, with such delightful effect, into his landscapes. Even the long stretches of level moor, which lie between the hill ranges, present in summer that air of warm repose which the mind recognizes as const.i.tuting a strong element of beauty; but it is at evening, when the crimson sun pours a flood of golden light upon their sides and tops, turning the rich flowery heath with which they are covered into hues of deep purple, that the eye delights to rest upon them. Nor is the wild charm of solitude to be forgotten in alluding to the character of these soft and gracefully undulating mountains. Indeed we scarcely knew anything more replete with those dream-like impressions of picturesque romance which, in a spirit so perfectly solitary, sleep, still and solemn, far from the on-goings of busy life, in the distant recesses of these barren solitudes. Many a time when young have we made our summer journey across the brown hills, which lay between us and the mountains we are describing, for the express purpose of dreaming away whole hours in their contemplation, and steeping our early imagination in the wild and novel beauty which our heart told us the spirit of solitude had impressed upon them.

How far our sportsmen proceeded, or in, what precise direction, we are not in a capacity to inform our readers. That they proceeded much further, however, than M'Carthy had wished or contemplated, will soon become sufficiently evident. What kind of sport they had, or whether successful or otherwise, it is not our present purpose to say. Be the game abundant or scarce, we leave them to pursue it, and request the reader to accompany us in a direction somewhat removed, but not very far different from theirs.

It may be necessary, however, to state here previously, that these mountains are remarkably--indeed proverbially--subject to deep, impervious mists, which wrap them in a darkness far more impenetrable to the eye than the darkest nights, and immeasurably more confounding to the reason, by at once depriving the individual whom they chance to overtake, of all sense of his relative position. At night the moon and stars may be seen, or even a fire or other light at a distance; but here, whilst enveloped in one of those dark and dismal fogs, no earthly object is seen within two yards of you, and every step made is replete with doubt or danger, and frequently with death itself, in the shape of deep sh.o.r.eless lakes and abrupt precipices. The night had now set in for about two hours, and one of the deep fogs which we have just described began to break into broad gray fragments, which were driven by the wind into the deeper hollows, dissipated almost at once into the thin and invisible air. Sometimes a rush of wind would sweep along like a gigantic arrow, running through the mist, and leaving a rapid track behind it like a pathway. Sometimes again a whirl-blast would sweep round a hill, or rush up from a narrow gorge, carrying round, in wild and fantastic gyrations, large ma.s.ses of the apparently solid mist, giving thus to the scene such an appearance as would lead the spectator to suppose that some invisible being or beings, of stupendous power, were engaged in these fearful solitudes.

The night, we have said, had set in, and the mist was clearing, or had altogether cleared away. Up far in these mountains lived a herd, or caretaker and gamekeeper, all in one, named Frank Finnerty. He was a man of bad character--gloomy, sullen, and possessed of very little natural feeling. The situation in which he resided was so remote and solitary, so far from the comforts and conveniences that are derived from human intercourse, that scarcely any other man in the parish could be induced to undertake the duties attached to it, or consent to live in it at all.

Finnerty, however, was a dark, unsocial man, who knew that he was not liked in the country, and who, on his part, paid back to society its hatred of him with interest. He had been engaged in many outrages against the law, and had been once sentenced to transportation for manslaughter--a sentence which would have been carried into effect were it not for a point made m his case by the lawyer who defended him--His wife was a kind-hearted, benevolent woman naturally, but she had been for years so completely subdued and disjointed, that she was, at the period we write of, a poor, pa.s.sive, imbecile creature, indifferent to everything, and with no more will of her own than was necessary to fulfil the duties of mere mechanical existence.

It was now near ten o'clock; Finnerty and she had been sitting at the fire in silence for some time, when at length she spoke.

"Well, I hope there was no one out on the mountains in that mist."

"Why," said he, "what is it to you or me whether there was or not?"

"That's thrue," she replied, "but one wouldn't like any harm to come to a fellow-creature."

"Dear me," he exclaimed, in harsh tones of hatred and irony, "how fond you are of your fellow-cratures to-night! little your fellow-cratures care about you."

"Well, indeed, I suppose that's thrue enough, Frank; what 'ud make them care about me or the likes o' me, and for all that whether they may think o' me now, I remimber the time when they did care about me, and when I was loved and respected by all that knew me."

There was a touching humility, and a feeble but heart-broken effort at self-respect in the poor woman's words and manner that were pitiful and pathetic to the last degree, and which even Finnerty himself was obliged to acknowledge.

"But where's the use of thinking about these things now," he replied; "it isn't what we were then, Vread, but what we are now, that we ought to think of."

"But, sure, Frank," said the simple-minded creature, "one cannot prevint the memory from, goin' back to the early times, when we wor happy, and when the world was no trouble to us."

There was a pause, and after a little she added, "I dunna is the night clearin'?"

Finnerty rose, and proceeding to the door, looked out a moment, then went to the corner of the house to get a better view of the sky, after which he returned.