_ 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 circumstances. 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.
"God 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 hell, 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."
"Never mind, sir," replied his companion, "you don't know all the short cuts of Sloebeens 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 constituting 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 shoreless 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 masses 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, passive, 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.
"The mist is gone," he observed, "from the mountains, and I suppose the boys will soon begin to come."
"Throth, Frank," she replied, "I hate these nightly meetin's that you hould here--all this plottin' and plannin' isn't nor can't be good."
"You hate them! an' who the ould diaoul cares whether you do or not? I allow them this house to meet in, bekaise it's large and far from the polis. A house down in the country, where they might pop in on them, wouldn't be so safe; here, however, no one would suspect them of meetin', and from the way the house is situated, no one could come upon us widout bein' known or seen. You hate! that indeed!"
"An' what do they meet for, Frank? if it's a fair question!"
"It's not a fair question, an' you have no business to ax; still if you want to know, and if it can make you anything the wiser, you shall hear. It's to break a Millstone they meet."
"To brake a millstone,
inngh! Oh, sorra a word of that I believe. Sure there's no millstone here?--if you want to break millstones you must go farther up--to Carnmore, where they make them. Sorra millstone's here, I know."
"You know--oh, how much you know! I tell you, there's a great Millstone that covers and grinds the whole kingdom, or at least the greatest parts of it--that's the Millstone we want to brake, and that we will brake."
"When did you hear from Mark Ratigan, or see him?"
"Mark Ratigan is snug and comfortable as a laborin' boy wid Magistrate Driscol that's in--hem--but listen to me, now if you should meet Mark anywhere down the country, you're neither to call him Mark nor Ratigan, otherwise you may be the manes of hangin' the poor boy."
"Throth, an' by all accounts, he'll come to the gallows yet."
"Well, and many a betther man did. I expect him and Hourigan both here tonight."
"An' what name does he go by now?" she asked.
"By the name of Phil Hart; and remember when there's any stranger present, you're never to call him anything else--but above all things, and upon the peril of your life, never call him Mark Ratigan."
"And do you think," replied his wife, "that I won't take care not to do it? But, Frank, tell me what was Mogue Moylan doin' here the night before last?"
"Only to let me know that he and a Misthor M'Carthy--a great friend of his and of two good creatures--Magistrate Driscol and Procthor Purcel--wor to come out shootin' on the mountains to-day and to ax if I would prevent them."
"An' did you give them lave?" she inquired.
A very peculiar expression passed over the dark grim features of her husband. "Did I give them lave?" he replied; "well, indeed, you may take your davy, I did. Why would I refuse a dacent gintleman, and a friend of Mogue Moylan's lave to shoot? Poor dacent Mogue, too, that loves thruth and religion so well--ha! ha! ha!--whisht!--here's some one."
The words were scarcely uttered, when our friends, M'Carthy and Mogue, made their appearance in the caretaker's house, both evidently in a fatigued state, especially M'Carthy, who had not been so well accustomed to travel over mountain scenery as his companion.
"Well, blessed be God that we have got the roof of a house over us at last!" exclaimed Mogue. "Frank Finnerty, how are you? an' Vread, achora, not forgettin' you--my hand to you both, but we're lost--especially this gentleman, Mr. M'Carthy--a great friend of Mr. O'Driscol's and Procthor Parcel's--but a betther man than either o' them, I hope."
"I am fairly knocked up, I admit," said M'Carthy--"in fact, I am more jaded than I ever was in my life."
"Take a chair, sir," said Finnerty; "you are welcome at all events, and I am glad to see you, or any friend of Mogue's; take this chair, sir--and--here, Mogue, do you take a stool; you must be both in a sad state, sure enough."
"Thank you, Frank," replied Mogue, "oh, then, bad cess to it for a dirty mist--God pardon me for cursin' the poor mist though, for sure it wasn't it's fault, the crathur of a mist we oughn't to curse anything that God has made, but indeed I'm a great sinner that way, God forgive me; howandever as I was sayin', only for it afther all, Mr. Francis, it's atin' your comfortable dinner, or rayther drinkin' your fine wine you'd be now at Mr. Purcel's illigant table, instead of bein' here as you are, however, sure it's good to have a house over our heads any way."
Finnerty and his wife heaped more turf on the fire, and the poor woman, with that kind spirit of hospitality and sympathy for which her countrywomen are so remarkable, told them that they must necessarily be hungry, and said she would lose no time in providing them with refreshment.
"Many thanks," replied M'Carthy, "it is not refreshment, but rest we require; we have had more refreshments of every kind with us than he could use, and it is well we were so provident, otherwise we never would or could have reached even this house alive. Such a day I have never spent--we have done nothing but wade through this d--d mist for the last six or eight hours, without the slightest knowledge of whereabout we were."
"Well, well, Mr. Francis, sure it's one comfort that we're safe at all events," said Mogue; "only I'm frettin' myself about the onaisiness they'll all feel at home, I mane in Mr. Purcel's, about you. Do you know now, that a thought strikes me, sir; I'm fresher than you are a good. deal. Now what if I'd run home and make their minds aisy in the first place, and get Jerry Joyce to bring the car up for you as far as the mountain road? You can rest yourself here in the manetime, and Frank Finnerty will see you safe that far. I'll carry the gun and things with me too--so that you'll have a lighter tramp down the hills."
This arrangement was precisely what M'Carthy could have wished.
"Thank you, Mogue, for thinking of this--you are a considerate kind fellow, and I cordially admit that I owe my life to you this day. Had you not been with me I must have lost my way and perished in the mountains."
Mogue and Finnerty exchanged glances, which, however, did not escape the observation of the wife, who thoroughly understood those changes of expression, which reflected her husband's darker and sterner purposes.
"Why, then, Misther Frank, that I may be happy but I am glad I was with you, so I am, for indeed only for me I don't think, sure enough, that ever you'd see this house to-night. There's some spirits left here still, and as I'm for another stretch, I don't think a glass of it will do me, or for that matther, Frank Finnerty here, any harm. You can see me down the hills a piece, Frank; and you, Mr. Francis, might throw yourself on the bed a while, and get an hour's sleep or so."
This too was agreed to--Mogue and Finnerty took each a glass of whiskey, as did Mrs. Finnerty, by permission of her husband, and in a few minutes she and M'Carthy were left by themselves.
After the two worthies had been gone a few minutes, she proceeded to the door, and as the night had now become tolerably light, she looked out, but with a great deal of caution. At first she saw no person, but in walking in the shadow of the house, along! the sidewall to the left, she was able to observe five or six persons coming towards her husband and Moylan in a body; she saw that they stopped and were in close conversation, pointing frequently towards the house as they spoke. She returned to M'Carthy with the same caution, and, approaching him, was about to speak, when dread of her husband supervened for the moment, and she paused like a person in doubt. The peculiar glare and the satanic smile which her husband gave to Mogue, who, by the way, seemed perfectly to understand it, oppressed her with an indistinct sense of approaching evil which she could neither shake off, nor separate from the strange gentleman to whom their glances evidently referred. She remembered also to have heard her husband say upon one occasion when he was drunk, that Mogue Moylan was the deepest villain in the barony--ay, or in the kingdom; and that only for his cowardice he would be a man after his own heart. 'Twas true, she knew that he had contradicted all this afterwards when he got sober, and said it was the liquor that caused him to speak as he did, that Mogue was a good kind-hearted crature, who loved truth, and was one of the most religious boys among them.
This, however, did not satisfy her; the impression of some meditated evil against their temporary guest was too strong to be disregarded, and on recollecting that Mogue had been up with her husband only the evening but one before, as if to prepare him for something unusual, the conviction arose to an alarming height.
We have said that this woman was a poor passive creature, whose life was a mere round of almost mechanical action. This, to be sure, so far as regarded her own domestic duties, and in general every matter in which her husband's opinions and her own could clash, was perfectly true. She was naturally devoid, however, of neither heart nor intellect, when any of her fellow-creatures happened to come within the range of her husband's enmity or vengeance, as well as upon other occasions too, and it was well known that she had given strong proofs of this. Her life in general appeared to be one long lull, but, notwithstanding its quietude, there was, under circumstances of crime or danger, the brooding storm ready to start up into action.
"Sir," said she, on returning into the house, "I'm a plain and ignorant woman, so that you needn't feel surprised or alarmed at anything I am goin' to say. I hope you will pardon me, sir, when I ax if you seen my husband before, or if you know him either more or less?"
M'Carthy did feel surprised, and replied in the negative to both points of her question--"I do not know your husband," he said, "nor have I to my knowledge ever seen him until to-night; may I beg to inquire why you ask?"
"It's not worth your while," she replied, "it was a mere thought that came into my head: but you and Mogue Moylan never had a dispute, sir?"
"Why, what can put such a notion into your head, my good woman? Certainly not. Mogue and I have been always on the best of terms."
She paused again for some minutes, after which, she said, in a voice not audible.
"There's something in the wind for all that.
"Sir." she proceeded, "you'll think me odd, but will you let me ax if you wor ever threatened or put on your guard, of if you know of any enemy you have that would wish to injure you?"
M'Carthy now started, and, looking at her with a gaze of equal curiosity and astonishment, replied, "Your language, my good woman, is beyond doubt very strange--why do you ask me these questions?"
"Answer me first, if you plaise," she replied.
"I have certainly been put on my guard," he returned, "and informed that I ought to be cautious, for that I had an enemy and that danger was before me."
"When, and in what way did this happen?"
"I shall make no further communication on the subject," he replied, "until you speak more plainly."
"Then," she proceeded, "I'm afeard there's danger over you this night, if God hasn't said it."
"Not, I trust, while I am under the protection of your husband and Mogue Moylan."
She shook her head. "If you haven't something better to depend upon, I wouldn't think myself overly safe; but you didn't answer the last question I axed you. How wor you warned, and who warned you?"
He then gave her a brief account of the rencounter he had with the Whiteboys, and alluded to the unknown but friendly individual who had put him on his guard.
"I knew it," she exclaimed, "I knew it; I couldn't mistake the look that passed between them. Now, in God's name," she said, "if you're able to drag a limb afther you at all, start out o' this and save yourself, and, let what will happen, I entreat, for the love of God, that you won't mention my name."
This he faithfully promised; "But," replied he to her warning, "I really am not able to escape, and I cannot think that your husband would injure a man who never offended him."
"But that's not the way they do sich things; it's not the man you offended that will injure you, but some blackguard stranger that he gets to do it for him, and that you'll know nothing about. In God's name, I say, be off out o' this. Even as a stranger you can hardly be safe, and if you wish to know why, whisper," and she spoke so low as only barely to be heard, "there's a meeting of Whiteboys to be here to-night; anyhow, you're the friend of O'Driscol and Procthor Purcel, and that same would be enough to make them give you a knock. Don't face home," said she, "or you'll be likely to meet them, but take the mountains wanst more on your head. Get out upon the road at Altanaveenan and you may be safe. God of Glory!" she exclaimed, "here they are--but watch my face and be guided by me--here, throw yourself into that bed below and pretend to sleep--I'll do what woman can, but I'm afeared we lost our chance."
M'Carthy distinctly heard them laughing as they approached the door, and, in accordance with the advice he had got, he went to the lower part of the house and lay down on the bed, where he closed his eyes and breathed like one asleep. He now began to investigate Mogue's conduct, in persisting to bring him by so circuitous a sweep such a distance out of his way, and decidedly contrary to his wishes. He hesitated, however, to inculpate Mogue, who certainly could not have anticipated or brought on the fog, which had occasioned them to wander for such a length of time among the mountains. Then, on the other hand, he deprived him of his gun and ammunition, but might not that also have been from motives of kindness?
In the meantime, eight or ten men came into the house each and all with their faces blackened, and some of them as before wearing shirts outside their dress; and this he could see from the position of the bed where he lay. The chat among themselves and with Mrs. Finnerty was not, as is the case in romances, either mysterious or awful. On the contrary, it was light and pleasant, and by no means calculated to heighten McCarthy's fears; who, to say truth, however, although resolute and full of courage, would as lief been spending the evening with his friend the proctor.
"Well, Vread," said one of them, "any news in the mountains?"
"News in the mountains!" exclaimed Vread, "well, indeed, that's good."
"Any deaths or marriages among the grouse, eh?"
Vread, as we have said, had got a glass of spirits, a circumstance which, to a low heart but a kind one like hers, may probably have accounted for a portion of her energy, as well as of her sympathy with the apprehended danger to M'Carthy.
"Troth," she replied, with more vivacity than might have been expected from her, "when you spake to a dacent woman it ought to be with a clane face at any rate."
"Why, Vread, how can you say it's dirty," replied the fellow, "when you know I washed it before I came out?"
"It must be in the divil's basin, then," she replied, "for if one can judge by their eyes, you're more like one of his childre than your honest father's, whoever he was or is. Troth, I'm afeard it's a dirty business you're; all about to-night, if a body is to take you by your looks."
"Why, then," observed another, "who 'ud think that poor die-away Vread had so much spunk in her? Vread," he proceeded, "you must a been a great beauty wanst upon a time; a very purty face you had, they say."
"Whatever it was," she replied, "I thank God I was never ashamed to show it like too many of my neighbors."
"Don't be too sure that we're your neighbors, Vread."
"Troth, I hope not," she returned; "I don't think my neighbors 'ud be consarned in sich disgraceful work, as I'm afraid brings yez out. Faugh upon you all! its unmanly."
Her husband, accompanied by six or eight more, now made his appearance; a circumstance which at once put an end to the part that his wife was disposed to bear in their conversation.
Other chat of various character then took place, in which, however, M'Carthy, who now watched them closely, could observe that they did not all join.
"Whisht," said one of them, "is there anybody asleep in the house? I think I hear some one snorin!"
"There is," said Finnerty, "a gentleman that was out shootin' to-day wid a servant-man of Mr. Parcel's the procthor--named Mogue Moylan."
"And a very great scoundrel is Mogue Moylan," said one of them, with a wink at the rest.
"Well, no," said Finnerty, "I think not--poor Mogue's a daecnt, quiet crature, and has a great regard for truth and religion."
M'Carthy, from his position the bed, had, by means of a fortunate rift in the blankets, a complete view of the whole party, and he could mark with accuracy, in consequence of their black faces, every grin now made distinctly visible by their white teeth.
"Who is the gentleman that snores so beautifully?" asked another of them.
"He is a gentleman named O'Connor," replied poor Vread, anxious, if possible, even at the risk of much subsequent abuse and ill-treatment, to conceal his name.
"Ay," said Finnerty, corroborating her; much, indeed, to her astonishment, "he is a Mr. O'Connor, I believe, a very handsome-lookin', fine young fellow."
"What the blazes," said another of them, "keeps him? Surely he ought to be here before now. Had Mr. O'Connor good sport?"
"How could he," replied Finnerty, "wid the fog that was on the mountains?"
At this moment an individual made his appearance, whom it was impossible to look upon without being most forcibly struck by his figure. He was a broad-shouldered, muscular, powerful man, with immensely large limbs; his hair was black, and a huge pair of whiskers of the same color stretched across his cheeks, met at his chin, and ran down in an unbroken line round a huge and remarkably well-set neck. The moment he entered, and before he had time to speak, two or three of them instantly placed their fingers significantly upon their lips, as if to indicate silence, apprehensive, as M'Carthy at the time thought, lest his voice might be recognised. Another of them then whispered something to him, and whatever the secret was, it caused him to glance for a moment, and involuntarily, towards the bed. All that he spoke afterwards was uttered in whispers. _