_ CHAPTER SIXTEEN
In a turret chamber in Kilfinnan Castle sat two young ladies. It was apparently their private boudoir. It had been elegantly furnished, but the drapery had somewhat faded, and the air of freshness it had once possessed had long since departed. The window out of which the ladies were gazing looked forth over the wide Atlantic, and the eldest was dressed in deep mourning, apparently her usual costume, while the air of sadness in her countenance seemed to be habitual. The younger one was full of life and animation, though occasionally, as she looked up at her friend, she, too, became sad.
"That is a strange story, Sophy, you were reading just now from the newspaper," said the youngest,--"I mean about Lord Eden; I cannot understand how a man of his rank and position should condescend to marry a girl of low degree, however virtuous or excellent she might be. These _mesalliances_ can never answer. Too soon the one of more refined habits and ideas discovers a degree of coarseness and vulgarity in the other, which must ultimately cause separation. No; my only notion of a happy union is, that where people are of the same rank and education, and all their sympathies are in unison--"
"You know so little of life, dear Nora, that I do not think you are capable of judging," answered her cousin Sophy. "I do not say, however, that in the main you are not right, but there may be exceptions, in which true happiness may be found. I do not say Lord Eden is right in marrying this girl. At the same time, she may have more natural refinement than could be expected. I have heard of such instances."
"I, on the contrary, Sophy, remember hearing my father speak of a very different case, in which a country girl was taken out of her sphere, and educated, and, I think, became the wife of one of our ministers. As long as she was at rest, she appeared very elegant, but if she got at all excited, or, as was sometimes the case, lost her temper, she then exhibited her real condition; and if, as I consider, it is very bad for a man to marry a person of inferior rank, surely it is much worse for a lady to marry one who is her inferior."
Sophy smiled sadly.
"No; I shall hold to my own opinion," said Nora, "and I do not think that anybody would induce me to marry a person, however elegant and refined he might appear, unless I knew he was of gentle blood."
The conversation of the young ladies was interrupted by Sophy exclaiming--
"Bring the glass, Nora; I see a vessel standing in for the bay. Her canvas looks very white and shining. I believe she is a man-of-war."
The telescope, which stood on a stand, had been, for some purpose, removed from the window, and it was now brought to its usual place by Nora. They both looked through it, one after the other.
"Yes, there can be no doubt of the matter," said Nora; "her square yards, her tall masts and white canvas show at once what she is. She does not appear to me to be a frigate. I think she is a smaller vessel--a corvette,--and very beautiful vessels they are."
While this conversation was going forward, the ship rapidly approached the shore, under a wide spread of canvas. They had soon an opportunity of ascertaining her character. At length she stood into the bay, and, furling her sails, came to an anchor. The wind was at that time sufficiently from the north to enable her to obtain perfect shelter, and she floated calmly on the smooth waters. It was still early in the day. They watched for a short time, but no boat could put off to approach the Castle, though they fancied they saw one standing in for another part of the bay.
At that time Ireland was suffering, as she had long been, from her usual chronic disorder--discontent. Disturbances had occurred here and there in the west and south among the Riband Men, or White Boys, or United Irishmen, by which names the rebels were at different times and places known. The Government, therefore, had considered it necessary to send vessels of war to cruise up and down the coast, that their blue-jackets and marines might render such assistance as might be required. This was so generally the case at present, that the arrival of the corvette did not cause any unusual sensation among the inhabitants of the coast who lived near enough to the sea to observe her. Several men-of-war had in the same way entered the bay of late, and, after remaining a few days, had taken their departure. The young ladies had arranged that, later in the day, they would take a ride over the downs, and, after calling on Miss O'Reilly, at the Vicarage, look in upon some of the poor people whom they were in the habit of visiting.
Meantime, we must go to the other end of the bay, where an old man might be seen descending the narrow gorge which led down to the small cove where the Widow O'Neil resided. It was Father O'Rourke. He proceeded on in a somewhat meditative mood, until he reached the cottage. He opened the door, and found the widow sitting on the usual stool, employed in mending her nets.
"And what brings you here, Father O'Rourke?" she said, looking up at him with a glance which showed that he was not a favourite of hers.
"Widow, I have come to speak about a matter of importance," he answered. "I hear, in spite of all my warnings, and all the instruction I have given you, by which you would be sure to find your way to heaven, that you still go to that heretic minister, Mr Jamieson, as you used to do when I before warned you. Now, I tell you, widow, if you love your soul, you must go there no more. I am not going to be warning you for ever. Do you hear my words? Do you intend to obey them?"
"Father O'Rourke," said the widow, looking calmly at him, "I have a great respect for your office, and for the holy religion of which you are a priest; there is nothing I have ever said against that. I am a good Catholic, as I have always been, and you shall not be the person to throw a stone at me; but if I go to the Vicarage, I go to hear the gentle words of that poor blind lady, and the minister never speaks anything to me but what is faithful and true. He is a good man, Father O'Rourke, and I wish I was as sure of going to heaven as he is: that is what I have got to tell you."
"Oh, Widow O'Neil, those are evil words you are speaking!" exclaimed the priest; "you are just disobeying the holy mother Church; you are just doing what will bring you down the road to destruction, and I tell you, I believe it was your obstinacy, and your love for those heretics, that was the cause of the loss of your son. He is gone, and I hope he is gone to glory, for it is not for the want of me saying masses for his soul, if he has not; for sure I am, that, if he had remained here, and listened longer to the instruction of that false heretic, he would have gone the way you are so anxious to go, Widow O'Neil."
The widow now stood up, throwing from her the nets, which had hitherto been on her knees. She stepped back a pace or two, and stretched out her hands.
"Father O'Rourke," she exclaimed, "it is not the truth you are speaking to me! My boy never learned anything but what was good when he went to the Vicarage: and more than that, though you say he has gone from this world, there is something deep down in my heart which tells me he is still alive. If he were dead, my heart would feel very different to what it does now. I tell you, Father O'Rourke, I believe my son is alive, and will come back some day to see me. I know he will. Do you think I doubt his love? Do I doubt my love for him? No. Father O'Rourke, you are a childless man yourself, and you do not know what the love of a mother is for her child, and I do not think you know what the love of a child is for its mother--a fond, loving mother, as I have been,--not such a child as mine. The day will come when Dermot will stand here, as you are standing here; but he will not be blaming his old mother as you are blaming her. He will come to speak words of comfort and consolation into my ear. Instead of that, Father O'Rourke, you have brought nothing but cursing. You tell me I am in the downward road to destruction. Is that the way you should speak to a lone widow, because she loves her son, and likes those to speak who knew him, and who would talk about him to her and praise him, and who tell her what a noble, clever youth he was?"
"Widow O'Neil!" exclaimed Father O'Rourke, an angry frown gathering on his brow, "year after year I have spoken to you as I am now speaking. I have warned you before, I have warned your boy Dermot. I tell you, he would not take the warning, and he would have suffered the consequences of his disobedience, but I do care for your soul, and it is on account of that soul that I want you to put faith in the holy mother Church. If you do, all will be right, but if you go and listen to the words of that Protestant minister, all will be wrong, and you, Widow O'Neil, will have to go and live for ever with the accursed; ay, for ever and ever in fire and torment." With such force and energy did the priest speak, and so fierce did he look, that for the moment he made the poor old woman tremble and turn pale with fear. She quickly, however, recovered herself.
"You may go, Father O'Rourke," she exclaimed. "Once I was your slave, but I am your slave no longer. I am a poor ignorant woman, but I have had the truth told me, and that truth has made me free of you; say what you will, I do not fear you."
The priest on hearing these words positively stamped on the ground, and gnashed his teeth with anger. He was not one of the polished fathers of the Church, who have been taught from their youth to conceal their feelings. He was certainly not a trained disciple of Ignatius Loyola. Again and again he stamped, and then uttering a fearful anathema on the occupant of the hut, he turned round, and slamming the door, left her as he had often before done, and hastened upwards towards the cliffs.
While this scene was enacting below, a young naval officer, who had landed from a boat which had come from the corvette, lately brought up in the bay, had climbed to the summit of the downs, and was taking his way across them towards the gorge, up which the priest was hastening. He had, however, not got very far, when he heard a voice singing a wild and plaintive Irish air. He stopped to listen, and as he did so, a figure, dressed in fantastic fashion, appeared from behind some broken ground in the neighbourhood of the downs. She advanced towards him, and then suddenly stopped, looking eagerly in his face.
"Who are you, stranger--who are you who come to these shores? It is not good for you to be alone here; if you come, come with armed men, with muskets on their shoulders and swords by their sides, for that slight weapon that you carry would avail you nothing against the enemies you are likely to meet here. Go back, I tell you, the way you came. I may seem silly and mad, and mad and silly I am, but I can sing; few can sing like me. Now listen stranger, listen to my song." She burst forth again in the same wild strains which at first attracted the young officer's attention.
"But what reason could you give me why I should follow your advice? I like your song, however; can you not sing me another?"
"Yes," she answered, "mad Kathleen has many a song in her head, but it does not always come when called for, it is only as the fit seizes her that she can bring it forth. Never mind listening to my song, however, but follow my advice. There is your boat even now out in the bay; go, make a signal to it to come back to you, or evil will befall you."
"I can scarcely suppose that, provided I do not leave the shore," answered the officer. "I thank you, however, for your advice, but I do not purpose wandering far from where I now am."
"Even here where you stand you are not safe; but I have warned you once, and I cannot warn you more," exclaimed the mad woman, as with wild gestures she retreated back to the spot from which she appeared to have come. The young officer watched her till she disappeared. A shade of melancholy came over his countenance.
"I might have asked her about some of the people hereabouts," he said to himself. "Her warning perhaps is not to be despised; I will sit down here, and wait till the boat returns."
The officer was approaching the edge of the cliff when Father O'Rourke reached the downs; seeing the stranger, he advanced towards him. The temper of the priest had not calmed down, so it seemed, since his encounter with the poor widow. As he approached the young officer, he looked at him earnestly.
"What brings you here?" he exclaimed. "What business have armed men to come upon our coasts, let me ask you?"
"Really, sir," said the officer, drawing himself up, "I bear his Majesty's commission as commander of yonder sloop of war, and in the performance of my duty, I have landed on the shores of this bay; but I do not understand why I should be thus roughly spoken to by one especially, who, judging from his appearance, is a catholic priest."
"You judge rightly, young man," answered Father O'Rourke, "but I am not to be deceived by appearances, and though you may call yourself what you will, I suspect you to be either the commander of a privateer, if not rather of a vile buccaneer. We have had visits before now from such gentry, and I should advise you to leave our shores without delay."
"I cannot understand your meaning," exclaimed the officer; "I repeat, I came here in the performance of my duty, and I little expected to be treated thus by the first stranger I might meet."
The priest seemed to think that he had proceeded too far; whatever might have been his motive in thus insulting one whom he must have known was a naval officer, or for some reason, he thought fit suddenly to change his tactics.
"Pardon me, sir," he said in a soothing voice, which he well knew how to assume, "I see that I was mistaken in my first supposition, and to prove my sincerity, I shall be happy if I can render to you any service in my power."
"I willingly accept your apologies," answered the officer, regarding the priest intently, as if to ascertain whether he was to be trusted. "On my way along the shore, I intend visiting some of the little coves I see to the northward of these downs, and now, sir, perhaps you can inform me whether I am likely to find any people residing among them?"
"But few, if any," answered the priest, "they are nearly all dead or gone away who once lived there; the curse of your country has been upon them. The aged and the young, the married and the single, the widow and her children, have all been swept away."
"Yes, I have heard that great changes have taken place in this neighbourhood of late years," answered the young officer, a shade of melancholy crossing his countenance. "And now, sir, in spite of the somewhat rough way in which you first addressed me, I wish you good morning, and thank you for your information."
Father O'Rourke had, all the time he was speaking, been examining the countenance of the young officer.
"Ah, to be sure, I was somewhat irritated by a trifle just before I met you, but your politeness has conquered me," he answered blandly, "and I beg you, should you come near my humble abode, to believe that I shall be happy to receive you. We poor, oppressed Catholics have little to offer our guests, but to such as I possess you will be welcome. Our business is to look after the souls of our parishioners. If we can but show them the right way to heaven we should be content."
The young officer seemed somewhat inclined to smile at these remarks of the priest.
"I will not fail to avail myself of your invitation," he answered, "but at present I do not intend to extend my walk along the sea-shore."
"Well then, sir, as you have wished me good morning, I must wish you the same, and a pleasant walk to you, only let me advise you to be cautious where you go; it isn't just the safest part of the country for a king's officer to be found wandering in by himself. However, sir, I have given you a friendly warning, and now again farewell." The priest, somewhat to the surprise of the officer, considering the father's previous greeting, put out his hand, which he was too courteous not to take, then quickly turning round, Father O'Rourke proceeded up the gorge into the country.
Father O'Rourke was not accustomed to explain to others the object of his proceedings. He had good reasons in his own estimation for everything that he did. They were possibly conscientious; but then his conscience might have been a very erring guide, and led him far wrong, as is the case with many other people in the world.
"It cannot be helped," said the priest to himself, alluding to something which was passing in his own mind, "but no harm may come of it to me after all. The boys were to meet at O'Keef's last night, and there will be plenty of them still about there; they will be glad enough of the chance of getting hold of a king's officer, and if he shows fight and some one gives him a knock on the head, or sends a pistol-bullet through him, it will settle the business. He is certain to be down in the cove, and if the boys are quick they will catch him there. I am pretty sure that I am not mistaken, but at all events he will be a valuable prize if he can be got hold of any way."
Such thoughts occupied the mind of the priest as turning off from the beaten path he took his way across a mountainous region which still remained in all its primitive wildness. After proceeding for some distance at a speed which was surprising considering his age, he reached some rude turf-covered huts, scarcely discernible from the rocks and grass amid which they stood. The priest gave a peculiar call, which soon brought out a number of shaggy-looking heads and eager faces with grey frieze-coats beneath them. Father O'Rourke did not take long to explain the object of his visit, which was quickly comprehended, nor did he wrongly estimate the inclinations of his hearers, who gleefully undertook to carry out the plan he proposed to them. All things being arranged to his satisfaction, he returned to his own abode, saying to himself, "I warned him of danger, so that if he is attacked and escapes, he cannot accuse me of having had anything to do in the matter."
The officer was about to prosecute his intention of descending into the cove, when he heard merry voices near him. The speakers seemed to be climbing up the cliffs, and they soon made their appearance on its summit. Touching their caps as they neared the officer--
"The boat has come for you, sir," said one of them.
"Very well," was the answer. "Go down and amuse yourselves on the beach for a short time and I will join you. I am not ready to go off just yet."
The young midshipmen receiving these orders managed to get down the cliffs in a way few but midshipmen could have done without breaking their necks.
"I wonder what our captain's about," said one of them. "I should have thought that he would have gone to the Castle. Lord Kilfinnan lives there, you know; and I remember hearing how constantly he used to be at his house out in the West Indies. Did you ever see Lady Nora?"
"No," answered the other; "I do not remember having heard her spoken of."
"Oh, she is the Earl's daughter, and a very beautiful girl she is, too," observed the first speaker. "There is Lady Sophy Danvers, her cousin, too, who lives with her. She was engaged for a long time to that Captain Falkner, you know, who commanded the _Cynthia_; but, I suppose her relations did not like her to marry him because he wasn't a lord, and intended her for a duke or a marquis perhaps."
"I do not see why they should have done that," answered the other midshipman. "In my opinion, a naval officer is equal to any lord in the land; at all events, a post-captain is. If I were a post-captain, I know, I should not hesitate to pay my respects to any earl's daughter. Why, just think, to have a fine frigate and three or four hundred men under one's orders, and, by-and-by, a line-of-battle ship, and then a post-captain becomes an admiral, remember; and many admirals have been made lords themselves. Why, there is Lord Nelson; he was only a midshipman to begin with; and Lord Collingwood, and Lord Saint Vincent, and Lord Howe, and many others; they were all midshipmen, just as you and I are. Now, just look at our captain for instance; if any one deserves to be made a lord he does. What a gallant fellow he is. Why, if it had not been for him, they say, the _Cynthia_ would have been taken. It was he assisted in lashing the enemy's bowsprit to the frigate's foremast, and then repelling the boarders who were swarming on board; and then, there are no end of things he did in the West Indies, and in other parts of the world. He has been in half-a-dozen cutting-out expeditions, and, since he has been a commander, has taken several prizes. Did you ever hear how, when the French frigate was sinking, he refused to leave her, and stayed on board to assist the captain in keeping her afloat at the risk of his own life. Now, that is the sort of thing to be proud of. I often think more of a man who has done those generous actions than one who has gained a hard-fought battle. However, what do you say to having a race along the sands? Here, we will get most of the fellows on shore, and I am ready to give a prize to the best runner."
"I will give my pocket-knife," said the midshipman; "that will be an encouragement to the men. They are good sort of fellows, and I like to afford them amusement. It is little we or they get these days, kept at sea month after month."
As it may be supposed, the young midshipmen were great favourites on board the corvette, and for some time they kept their crew amused as they had proposed. At length they began to wonder that the captain did not appear, and they began to fear that some accident had befallen him. At last they proposed climbing up the cliff again to look for him. They reached the top at last, and looked round the downs on every side; no one was to be seen. Then curiosity led them a short distance inland. Suddenly, a figure which made them start rose up before them.
"Who are you looking for, young sirs?" exclaimed mad Kathleen. "I know without your telling me. He is gone--gone away, and you must follow to find him; but listen, boys, I have a message for him. Now, don't you fail to give it. Tell him there are enemies watching for him, and that if ever he comes on shore by himself he will be sure to be set upon, and all his strength and courage will avail him nothing. He is a brave man, your captain, and I wish him well."
"Why, how do you know anything about him?" asked one of the midshipmen. "I did not know he had ever been here before."
"Mad Kathleen knows more things than you wot of," answered the mad woman, with a loud laugh, whirling her hands as she spoke. "Now, go to the Castle as I bid you, and give him my message. He would run more risk by neglecting my warning than if he were to fight a dozen battles for his king and country."
Though the midshipmen were little inclined to put much belief in the message of the mad creature, they promised to deliver it as soon as they met their captain. After consulting together, they agreed that their proper course was to row along the bay towards the Castle, in the hopes that he might have gone there. _