Tom Burke Of "Ours" Volume I Part 7

"Athlone is down beyond that low mountain. Now, Ned Malone's is only six short miles from this. You keep this byroad till you reach the smith's forge; then turn off to the lift, across the fields, till you come to an ould ruin; lave that to your right hand, and follow the boreen straight; 'twill bring you to Ned's doore."

"But I don't know him," said I.

"What signifies that? Sure 'tis no need you have. Tell him you 'll stop there till Darby the Blast comes for you. And see, now, here 's all you have to do: put your right thumb in the palm of your lift hand,--this way,--and then kiss the other thumb, and then you have it. But mind you don't do that till you 're alone with him; 't is a token between ourselves."

"I wish you were coming with me, Darby; I'd rather not leave you!"

"'Tis myself mislikes it, too," said Darby, with a sigh. "But I daren't miss going to Athlone; the major would soon ferret me out; and it's worse it would be for me."

"And what am I to do if Mr. Ba.s.set comes after me?"

"If he has n't a throop of horse at his back, you may laugh at him in Ned Malone's, And now good-by, acushla; and don't let your heart be low,--you 'll be a man soon, you know."

The words of encouragement could not have been more happily chosen to raise my drooping spirits. The sense of opening manhood was already stirring within me, and waited but for some direct occasion to elicit it in full vigor.

I shook Darby's hand with a firm grasp, and a.s.suming the easiest smile I could accomplish, I set out on the path before me with all the alacrity in my power.

The first thought that shot across my mind when I parted with my companion was the utter loneliness of my condition; the next--and it followed immediately on the other--was the bold consciousness of personal freedom. I enjoyed at the moment the untrammelled liberty to wander without let or control. All memory of Tony Ba.s.set was forgotten, and I only remembered the restraint of school and the tyranny of my master. My plan--and already I had formed a plan--was to become a farmer's servant, to work as a daily laborer. Ned Malone would probably accept of me, young as I was, in that capacity; and I had no other ambition than such as secured my independence.

As I travelled along I wove within my mind a whole web of imaginary circ.u.mstances: of days of peaceful toil; of nights of happy and contented rest; of friendship formed with those of my own age and condition; of the long summer evenings when I should ramble alone to commune with myself on my humble but happy lot; on the red hearth in winter, around which the merry faces of the cottagers were beaming, as some pleasant tale was told;--and as I asked myself, would I exchange a life like this for all the advantages of fortune my brother's position afforded him, my heart replied, No! Even then the words of the piper had worked upon me, and already had I connected the possession of wealth with oppression and tyranny, and the lowly fortunes of the poor man as alone securing high-souled liberty of thought and freedom of speech and action.

I trudged along through the storm, turning from time to time to see that I was not pursued; for as the day waned, my fear of being overtaken increased, and in every moaning of the wind and every rustle of the branches I thought I heard Tony Ba.s.set summoning me to stop and surrender myself his prisoner. This dread gradually gave way, as the loneliness of the road was unbroken by a single traveller; the wild half-tilled fields presented no living object far or near; the thick rain swooped along the swampy earth, and, in its misty darkness, shut out all distant prospect; and a sadder picture eye never rested on.

At length I reached the ruined church Darby spoke of, and following the track he indicated, soon came out upon the boreen, where for the first time some little shelter existed.

It was only at nightfall, when fatigue and hunger had nearly obtained the victory over me, that I saw, at some short distance in front, the long roof of a well-thatched cabin. As I came nearer, I could perceive that it contained several windows, and that the door was sheltered by a small porch,--marks of comfort by no means common among the neighboring farmers; lights moved here and there through the cabin; and the voices of people driving in the cows, and the barking of dogs, were welcome sounds to my ear. A half-clad urchin, of some seven years old, armed with a huge bramble, was driving a flock of turkeys before him as I approached; but instead of replying to my question, "If this were Ned Malone's," the little fellow threw down his weapon, and ran for his life. Before I could recover from my surprise at his strange conduct, the door opened, and a large, powerful-looking man, in a long blue coat, appeared. He carried a musket in his hand, which, as soon as he perceived the figure before him, he laid down within the porch, calling out to some one inside,--

"Go back, Maurice,--it's nothing. Well, sir," continued he, addressing me, "do you want anybody hereabouts?"

"Is this Ned Malone's, may I ask?" said I.

"It is," answered he; "and I am Ned Malone, at your service. And what then?"

There was something in the cold, forbidding tone in which he spoke, as well as in the hard severity of his look, that froze all my resolution to ask a favor, and I would gladly have sought elsewhere for shelter for the night had I known where to look.

The delay this indecision on my part created, caused him to repeat his question, while he fixed his eyes on me with a dark and piercing expression.

"Darby the Blast told me," said I, with a great effort to seem at ease, "that you would give me shelter to-night. To-morrow morning he 's to come here for me."

"And who are you," said he, harshly, "that I am to take into my house?

In these troublesome times a man may ask the name of his lodger."

"My name is Burke. My father's name was Burke, of Cremore; but he 's dead now."

"'T is you that Ba.s.set is after all day, is it?"

"I can't tell; but I fear it may be."

"Well, some one told him that you took the Dublin road, and another sent him up here, and the boys here sent him to Durragh. And what are you after, young gentleman? Do you dislike Tony Ba.s.set? Is that it?"

"Yes," said I; "I 'm resolved never to go home and live with him. He made my father hate me, and through him I have been left a beggar."

"There 's more than you has a score to settle with Tony. Come into the house and get your clothes dried. But stop, I have a bit of a caution to give you. If you see anything or anybody while you 're under my roof that you did n't expect--"

"Trust me there!" interrupted I, eagerly, and making the sign the piper had taught me.

"What!" cried Malone, in astonishment; "are you one of us? Is a son of Matt Burke's going to redress the wrongs his father and grandfather before him inflicted? Give me your hand, my brave boy; there 's nothing in this house isn't your own from this minit."

I grasped his strong hand in mine, and with a proud and swelling heart, followed him into the cabin.

A whisper crept round the various persons that sat and stood about the kitchen fire as I appeared among them; and the next moment one after another pressed anxiously forward to shake hands with me.

"Help him off with his wet clothes, Maurice," said Malone, to a young man of some twenty years; and in a few seconds my wet garments were hung on chairs before the blaze, and I myself, accompanied with a frieze coat that would make a waistcoat for an elephant, sat basking before the cheerful turf fire. The savory steam of a great mess of meat and potatoes induced me to peep into the large pot over the fire. A hearty burst of laughing from the whole party acknowledged their detection of my ravenous hunger, and the supper was smoking on the board in a few minutes after. Unhappily, a good number of years have rolled over my head since that night; but I still hesitate to decide whether to my appet.i.te or to Mrs. Malone's cookery should attribute it, but certainly my performance on that occasion called forth unqualified admiration.

I observed during the supper that one of the girls carried a plateful of the savory dish into a small room at the end of the kitchen, carefully closing the door after her as she entered; and when she came out, exchanging with Malone a few hurried words, to which the attention of the others was evidently directed. The caution I had already received, and my own sense of propriety, prevented my paying any attention to this, and I conversed with those about me, freely narrating the whole circ.u.mstances of my departure from home, my fear of Ba.s.set, and my firm resolve, come what might, never to become an inmate of his house and family. Not all the interest they took in my fortunes, nor even the warm praises of what they called my courage and manliness, could ward off the tendency to sleep, and my eyes actually closed as I lay down in my bed, and notwithstanding the noise of voices and the sounds of laughter near me, sank into the heaviest slumber.

CHAPTER V. THE CABIN.

Before day broke the stir and bustle of the household awoke me, and had it not been for the half-open door, which permitted a view of the proceedings in the kitchen, I should have been sadly puzzled to remember where I was. The cheerful turf fire, the happy faces, and the pleasant voices all reminded me of the preceding night, and I lay pondering over my fortunes, and revolving within myself many a plan for the future.

In all the daydreams of ambition in which youth indulges, there is this advantage over the projects of maturer years,--the past never mingles with the future. In after life our bygone existence is ever tingeing the time to come; the expectations friends have formed of us, the promises we have made to our own hearts, the hopes we have created, seem to pledge us to something which, if anattained, sounds like failure. But in earlier years, the budding consciousness of our ability to reach the goal doea but stimulate us, and never chills our efforts by the dread of disappointment; we have, as it were, only bound ourselves in recognizances with our own hearts,--the world has not gone bail for us, and our falling short involves not the ruin of others, nor the loss of that self-respect which is but the reflex of the opinion of society. I felt this strongly; and the more I ruminated on it, the more resolutely bent was I to adopt some bold career,--some enterprising path, where ambition should supply to me the pleasures and excitements that others found among friends and home.

I now perceived how unsuitable would be to me the quiet monotony of a peasant's life; how irksome the recurrence of the same daily occupations, the routine of ceaseless labor, the intercourse with those whose views and hopes strayed not beyond their own hedgerows. A soldier's life appeared to realize all that I looked for; but then the conversation of the piper recurred to me, and I remembered how he painted these men to me as mere hireling bravos, to whom glory or fame was nothing,--merely actuated by the basest of pa.s.sions, the slaves of tyranny. All the atrocities he mentioned of the military in the past year came up before me, and with them the brave resistance of the people in their struggle for independence. How my heart glowed with enthusiasm as I thought over the bold stand they had made, and how I panted to be a man, and linked in such a cause! Every gloomy circ.u.mstance in my own fate seemed as the result of that grinding oppression under which my country suffered,--even to the curse vented on me by one whose ruin and desolation lay at my own father's door. My temples throbbed, and my heart beat painfully against my side, as I revolved these thoughts within me; and when I rose from my bed that morning, I was a rebel with all my soul.

The day, like the preceding one, was stormy and inclement; the rain poured down without ceasing, and the dark, lowering sky gave no promise of better things. The household of the cottage remained all at home, and betook themselves to such occupations as indoor permitted. The women sat down to their spinning-wheels; some of the men employed themselves in repairing their tools, and others in making nets for fishing: but all were engaged. Meanwhile, amid the sounds of labor was mixed the busy hum of merry voices, as they chatted away pleasantly, with many a story and many a song lightening the long hours of the dark day. As for me, I longed impatiently for Darby's return: a thousand half-formed plans were flitting through my mind; and I burned to hear whether Ba.s.set was still in pursuit of me; what course he was adopting to regain me within his control; if Darby had seen my friend Bubbleton, and whether he showed any disposition to befriend and protect me. These and such like thoughts kept pa.s.sing through my mind; and as the storm would shake the rude door, I would stand up with eagerness, hoping every moment to see him enter. But the day moved on, and the dusky half-light of a wintry afternoon was falling, and Darby made not his appearance. When I spoke of him to the others, they expressed no surprise at his absence, merely remarking that he was always uncertain,--no one knew when to expect him; that he rarely came when they looked for him, and constantly dropped in when no one antic.i.p.ated it.

"There he is now, then!" said one of the young men, springing up and opening the door; "I hear his voice in the glen."

"Do you see him, Maurice?" cried Malone. "Is it him?"

The young man stepped back, his face pale as death, and his mouth partly open.

He whispered a word in the old man's ear; to which the other responded,--"Where?"

The youth pointed with his finger. "How many are they?" was his next question, while his dark eye glanced towards the old musket that hung on the wall above the fire.

"Too many,--too many for us," said Maurice, bitterly.

The women, who had gathered around the speaker, looked at each other with an expression of utter wretchedness, when one of them, breaking from the others, rushed into the little inner room off the kitchen, and slammed the door violently behind her. The next instant the sound of voices was heard from the room, as if in altercation. Malone turned round at once, and throwing the door wide open, called out,--

"Be quiet, I say; there's not a moment to be lost. Maurice, put that gun away; Shamus, take up your net again; sit down, girls."

At the same instant he drew from his bosom a long horse pistol, and having examined the loading and priming, replaced it within his waistcoat, and sat down on a chair beside the fire, his strongly marked countenance fixed on the red blaze, while his lips muttered rapidly some words to himself.

"Are ye ready there?" he cried, as his eyes were turned towards the small door.

"In a minit," said the woman from within.