CHAPTER V
ENGLISH IDEAS AND IRISH WAYS
It was broad daylight when Norah woke next morning, and she sat up and stared about her, bewildered for a moment by finding herself in the strange, old-fashioned room, with its low ceiling crossed by heavy beams, and its dark mahogany furniture. The next instant, however, she remembered that this was Kilshane, and that they were really at home in Ireland at last. Soft regular breathing by her side made her aware that Anstace was still wrapped in soundest sleep, but Norah was fully awake now, and quite too much on fire with excitement and curiosity to yield herself to slumber again.
The room had only one lattice-paned window, opening in casement fashion, and even that was darkened and encroached on by the luxuriant growth of clematis and climbing roses which mantled the walls outside and flung their long trails across the narrow window space, so that but a comparatively small amount of cool, greenish light could find its way in.
Norah slipped down out of the lofty bed, and pattered across the floor in her bare feet. Pushing the casement open, she leant far out, regardless of the shower of dewdrops which she shook down upon herself, drinking in in one gasp of delight the freshness of the early morning, the salt sea-breeze that blew in her face, and the undreamt-of beauty of the prospect that lay outstretched before her.
Immediately below her the green lawn sloped down to the cliffs, though from the window at which she stood nothing could be seen of the dizzy precipice; the low wall that bounded their little domain stood out against the mid-sea, as though one could have stepped from it far out upon that shining blue plain which stretched away to the far misty horizon, its solitude unbroken by even a single sail. Upon the left rose the great purple mountains which had been invisible the night before, and beneath them lay a wide tract of heathery moor, of gorse-clad hills and green pasture land. Lower still was a long range of woods, and below them the bold coast line, with its lofty headlands, its sheer black cliffs and jagged rocks, over which even on that calm and sunny morning the long Atlantic surges broke in foam.
Anstace's voice behind her recalled Norah to herself.
"You will catch your death of cold, child, hanging out of the window in your night-gown. Come in and dress yourself. You will have plenty of time to look at the view afterwards."
Norah reluctantly drew her head in.
"Oh, Anstace, it's the loveliest place in the whole wide world, and we are the very luckiest people to have got it all for our own."
Anstace laughed.
"Well, that sounds more cheerful than your remark when we were driving: here last night. Do you remember how dismal you were then?"
Norah gave her shoulders an unwilling shake.
"As if one could know what anything was like, sitting in pouring rain with a shawl over one's head. And you haven't half looked at the view, only given it a sort of glance out of the corner of your eye."
"My dear, the view won't run away," said practical Anstace, "and we shall be late for breakfast if we don't hurry on. Do begin to dress yourself!"
The dressing operations partook something of the nature of the famous race between the hare and the tortoise. Norah's toilet should have occupied far less time than Anstace's, seeing that she had no long tresses of hair to brush out, to plait and coil up; but there was so much to attract her attention in the room, that she was making dives hither and thither to examine some fresh object of interest between each garment that she put on. Now she was perched on a chair peering at one of the discoloured prints in black frames which hung upon the wall, now exploring the drawers and pigeon-holes of the tall old mahogany bureau which stood in one corner, and now she was scrutinizing her face in the little clouded mirror above the chimney-piece; so that Anstace, proceeding steadily all the while with her dressing, had put in the last hair-pin, and stood faultlessly neat from her smoothly-parted hair to the tie of her shoes, in the same moment that Norah, wriggling into her frock after a fashion peculiarly her own, and dragging the buttons and button-holes together in haste, proclaimed herself ready. Just then, too, Roderick's door was heard to open, and his step and whistle sounded on the stairs, so Anstace and Norah lost no time in following him down to the little parlour where they had had supper the night before.
The window, which was embowered in green, like that of their bedroom above, stood wide open, letting in the fresh morning breeze and all the sweet spring-tide scents, but there was no appearance of breakfast, and Biddy, who came from the kitchen in a state of morning deshabille, declared "She'd niver had a thought their honours would be that early, an' they desthroyed wid cowld an' hardship the night before ".
Seeing that there was likely to be some delay before their morning meal was ready for them, the new-comers strolled out of doors and down by a moss-grown path which led to the edge of the cliffs. Viewed from without, the house was a rambling, irregular structure, two stories high in some parts, only a single story in others, but overgrown everywhere with the same luxuriant green mantle of roses, jessamine, and ivy, all matted and intertwined.
Anstace's eyes soon wandered back from the house to Roderick's face, on which they rested anxiously. She was afraid he might have caught a chill from the exposure of the previous evening, but he laughed her fears away.
"I feel another man already," he said, drawing a deep draught, as he spoke, of the vigorous sea air; "I shall write to Dr. Trafford and tell him I have tossed all his tonics and physic bottles over the cliffs. It was that stifling city den, and the everlasting scribble, scribble from morning till night, which were doing for me."
Whilst toil had been needful, Roderick had worked on bravely and uncomplainingly, but now that those months of drudgery were laid behind him, he could not conceal how irksome his life in the lawyer's office had been to him.
Norah interposed here to ask what the dark woods were which stretched along the cliffs some two miles away.
"Those are the woods of Moyross Abbey, where our father lived when he was a boy, and Uncle Nicholas lives now," Roderick answered. "Do you see how, on beyond, just this side of the headland—Drinane Head it's called—the cliff is all scarped and cut away, and the red earth thrown out upon the hillside? That is the copper-mine which Uncle Nicholas set going, and there is an iron pier down below that he made, for ships to lie at to load the ore."
"It was a wonderful undertaking," said Anstace, following the direction in which her brother pointed.
"It was, indeed, for one man to plan and carry out. He deserves all the wealth which the mine has brought him in. See, Norah, you can just make out the chimneys of Moyross House above the trees. The ruins of the abbey where the monks used to live in old times are close to it, and behind the abbey there is a little wooded glen, with a steep path winding down through it to a little cove below, one of the very few places along the coast where a boat can find shelter in rough weather. I suppose that was one of the reasons why the monks chose that particular site for their abbey. Some of the steps going down to the sea are the very ones, I believe, that the monks put there, and the stones have deep hollows worn in them by all the feet that have gone up and down for hundreds of years."
"But Roderick, when did you see it all?" cried Norah.
A cloud came over Roderick's face.
"I walked down through the glen that one day that I was at Moyross, the day of poor old Cousin Ansey's funeral. I had heard our father talk so often of that Monks' Walk, as it is called, and I wanted to see as much as I could of his old home."
"And you'll take me to see it all some day, won't you?—the old abbey and the Monks' Walk, and all?" pleaded Norah, hanging coaxingly on his arm.
Roderick shook his head.
"Not unless Uncle Nicholas invites us there, and that, I think, is hardly likely. He has made it plain that he has not forgiven our father, even in his grave, for the wrong he did him, nor us, for being our father's children."
Roderick spoke with a bitterness very unusual to him, but, after all, it was hard that whilst almost all he could see around him—great mountains, wide sweeps of moorland, woods and farms, and rocks rich in minerals—had belonged to his ancestors, he himself should be an alien and a stranger there. Even that low creeper-covered house, with its two or three fields stretching along the edge of the cliffs, had only come to him by the bequest of a distant relative, and in all probability, if the old man who now held the great O'Brien estate in his grasp had had the power to keep it from them, not even that one small corner of the family domain would have descended to his own kith and kin.
"Uncle Nicholas is an old horror!" said Norah with energy; "and if he doesn't want to have anything to say to us, I'm sure we don't want him either."
And just then Biddy appeared in front of the house, and by vehement waving of her arms gave them to understand that the tardy breakfast was at length ready.
Their first morning repast in the quaint old-fashioned parlour was a very gay and cheerful one, though Anstace's housewifely eye detected many things that did not please her: the little heaps of dust in the corners which no intrusive broom could have disturbed for a very considerable period, and the long cobwebs that hung down from the ceiling and swayed slowly to and fro as the fresh breeze blew in at the open window. When breakfast was ended, they started to explore the old house which had come into their possession with all that it contained. Opposite the parlour was the drawing-room, a long, low-ceiled room, furnished with spindle-legged tables and chairs, with tall old cabinets, black with age, ranged against the walls. A glass door opened out into what had once been the garden but was now a wilderness, where evergreen shrubs, tall weeds, and a few hardy flowers which had survived years of neglect struggled with each other for the mastery. Ragged fuchsia hedges fenced in the little plot, and in the kitchen-garden beyond, the old fruit-trees stretched out their branches, laden with snowy blossom, over the sea of tangled vegetation that grew about their roots.
"There will be no lack of work there for some time to come," said Roderick cheerily.
After his months of drudgery at a desk and of close confinement in a city office, occupation of any sort in the open air was alluring, and he opened the glass doors as he spoke and stepped out upon the grass-grown walk, eager to commence the herculean task of digging and uprooting without even a moment's delay. Anstace turned down the flagged passage which led towards the back of the house, in quest of Biddy, and Norah followed her.
At the kitchen door Anstace stopped short and gave a little exclamation of dismay, involuntarily gathering her skirts about her, and undoubtedly anyone accustomed to the neatness and cleanliness of an English kitchen was likely to receive a shock at the first sight of the premises presided over by Biddy. A cavernous fireplace without a grate occupied almost the whole of one wall. The turf fire was built upon the hearthstone, and a huge three-legged pot was suspended over it by a hook and iron chain, whilst a low stone hob in front kept the burning peats from falling on to the floor. The walls had once been whitewashed, but time and turf smoke had mellowed them to a warm yellowish tint, which deepened near the hearth to a rich dark brown, and it must have been long, very long indeed, since the floor had made acquaintance with soap and water or a scrubbing-brush.
Biddy had not allowed herself to suffer from loneliness, at least in so far as dumb companionship went, for a large and motley family were lodged within the kitchen. A mongrel collie, blind of an eye, had been arrested on its way in from the yard by Anstace and Norah's sudden appearance, and stood regarding them mistrustfully out of its remaining orb. A large black cat, snugly curled up in front of the fire, was sleepily keeping watch out of one eye on the gambols of two kittens as they rolled each other over and over on the floor; and on the top rail of a chair beside her, over the back of which some articles from the wash-tub had been hung to dry, a chicken was perched, shaking out its feathers and pluming itself in evident enjoyment of the warmth. It seemed to Anstace, in a rapid survey of the kitchen furniture, that this was the only chair possessed all at once of a back, a seat, and the full complement of legs, all others being destitute of one at least of these appurtenances. An old-fashioned mahogany wine-cooler in one corner had been turned to a use for which it had not originally been intended, for at that moment a hen flew up out of it, and with loud and long repeated cackles made everyone within hearing aware that she had laid an egg. Another hen, with a dozen yellow balls of chickens running at her feet, was stalking about the floor, pecking hither and thither in hope of finding something to eat; and the door of a cupboard which stood open revealed a turkey seated in a basket within and engaged in the important business of bringing out a clutch of eggs.
Norah subsided on to the floor with a little cry of delight, divided in her ecstasy between the soft, furry kittens and the softer, downy chicks; but Anstace remained standing, her skirts still gathered up, gazing with a face of rueful disgust at the kitchen and its denizens, and at the collection of miscellaneous articles which were piled pell-mell upon each other in the corners. There were old fishing-nets and fishing-lines, chairs without seats and jugs without handles, empty bottles and broken plates—even odd boots and shoes were stored up with the other lumber.
Biddy came in just then from the yard, carrying a pail of water, which she splashed freely round her as she walked. She smiled broadly upon the girls, quite unconscious that there was anything amiss with herself and her surroundings, and with a flourish of her disengaged arm drove out the hen, which was still loudly and insistently proclaiming its feat just achieved.
"Quit out o' this, this minnit, the noisy crayther that y' are! Who wants to be hearin' ye, d' ye think?"
Anstace's feelings had been too deeply stirred to permit her to keep silence, and she broke out impatiently:
"Biddy, is there not a hen-house outside to keep the fowl in, instead of having them in the kitchen?"
"Och, yis sure, Miss Anstace, but the roof's bin off it this long start; Tom tuk the rafthers away for firin' one winther whin the turf was scarce. An' what wud ail the craythers bein' in the kitchen? 'Tis warm an' snug for them, an' handy for me to throw them a praty whin I'd be at me dinner."
"But I cannot possibly have hens sitting and laying in the kitchen," protested Anstace. "I will ask Mr. Roderick to have the hen-house put to rights, and then the fowl must go out there."
"Well, plaze yerself, alannah," said Biddy resignedly, "but 'tis kilt they'll be wid the cowld an' the lonesomeness."
"And Biddy," went on Anstace, with all the zeal of a young reformer, not understanding that it is sometimes well to introduce reforms gradually, and one at a time, "there is surely no need to have all this litter piled up here. Why, one can hardly turn round with the quantity of things collected in the kitchen."
"Och, darlin' dear, 'tis just for convaniency, that they'd be there for me to put me hand on whin I'd be in a throng of a hurry."
"But there are some things here which you could never want to put your hand on, whether you were in a hurry or not."
And Anstace, still holding up her dress to keep it from any possible contact with the grimy floor, stepped daintily across the kitchen and lifted the battered remnant of a basket without bottom or handle out of the rubbish heap.
"Now what use could that ever be to anyone?"
"Trath, yis, Miss Anstace, 'twill be jist iligant for lightin' the fires some marnin' whin the shticks is wantin'."
"Well then, Biddy, this won't light fires, and I don't know what else it could be good for;" and Anstace's next dive into the accumulated rubbish produced a rusty, lidless kettle, which she held up to view.
"Well, maybe no, Miss Anstace," admitted Biddy, "unless 'twud be for givin' the hens a dhrink out ov, for 'tis treminjous the crockery thim fowl does break. 'Twas but yisterday, whin I was runnin' twinty ways at a time to git the clanin' done an' all set to rights afore yous 'ud come, that I put their mate for them in the vegetable dish that was ould Miss Ansey's, an' I declare to ye, Miss Anstace, I hadn't it but jist set down out ov me hand than thim divils had it broke wid their fightin' an' their carryin' on, an' it more years in the house nor ye could count."
And with a tragic gesture Biddy pointed to some broken fragments lying amongst the ashes on the hearth, the rich colouring and quaint design upon them proclaiming that they were of rare old china. Before Anstace could attempt any further remonstrance, however, or suggest that in future the fowl should be given their food in less costly feeding-vessels, there was a shrill cry from Norah, who all this while had been goading the kittens into frenzy by trailing her handkerchief slowly before them, and flicking it suddenly high out of their reach just as they were in the very act of pouncing upon it.
"The dog! the dog!" she cried, with a shriek of laughter. "Look at the dog!"
The one-eyed collie, finding that no one was paying him any attention, had crept across the kitchen and in under the table, and was engaged in licking up the tempting sediment of grease which remained in the frying-pan in which the breakfast bacon had been cooked.
"Ye tory! ye thief o' the world!" screamed Biddy, turning round quickly and hurling the first missile which came to her hand—a battered tin candlestick as it chanced—at the offender, with so true an aim that he fled with a yelp of pain and terror, his tail between his legs, and was seen no more.
The speckled hen, startled by the sudden clatter, flew shrieking across the kitchen, her yellow brood scuttling after her; the chicken which had been pluming itself before the fire sought refuge upon the chimney-piece; the two kittens bounded into the recesses of the piled-up lumber, whence they peeped out in much alarm; the old cat alone refused to allow her sleepy dignity to be discomposed, and merely opened her other eye for a moment to see what the disturbance was about. Norah sat back on the floor and laughed till the tears ran down her face, and even Anstace, vexed though she was, could not help joining in her merriment. Judging, however, that no further remonstrances were likely to prove of much effect just then, she drew the reluctant Norah on to her feet and out of the kitchen, declaring that it was time they should get their boxes unpacked and the contents put away in their bedroom upstairs.
Anstace was a good deal disconcerted by the laughter with which Roderick received her account of her first visit to Biddy's domain. It was when they met again at their early dinner that she gave it to him, and it was chiefly the horror-stricken air with which she told of the discoveries she had made, and the condition of things which prevailed there, which diverted Roderick, but Anstace was provoked none the less. And when Norah, looking up from her mutton chop, said: "I suppose all Irish people keep their kitchens like that, Anstace, and the best we can do is to get used to Irish ways as fast as we can, then it will seem quite natural to us too;" she answered, with a sharpness very unusual to her: "My dear, you and Roderick can do as you please, but I must remind you that our mother was an Englishwoman, and we are as much English as Irish. For my own part I trust I shall always remain sufficiently English in my ideas not to find it natural that hens should lay in wine-coolers, and dogs lick the frying-pans clean."
And in her own mind the young mistress of Kilshane determined that her first act after taking over the reins of government should be to institute such a cleaning-down and clearing-out of the old house as it had probably never known since it was built.
In the afternoon the two girls started to make further explorations, and went through the long unused rooms upstairs, where the furniture was still standing exactly as it had stood in the days when the elder Anstace O'Brien had dwelt in the little lonely house upon the cliffs. The family lawyer had furnished Roderick with a huge bunch of rusty keys, and Norah and Anstace went about fitting them to the doors of cupboards and presses. The locks and hinges that had grown stiff with years of disuse creaked dismally as they yielded and disclosed to view long-hidden services of quaint old china, old-fashioned silver that bore the O'Brien crest and was worn by the handling of generations of dead and gone O'Briens, antiquated jewels in faded velvet-lined cases,—all covered thickly with dust that had filtered slowly in on them through cracks and crevices. There were filmy laces too, and embroideries, and richly-coloured Indian shawls, all carefully laid away in the bedroom that had been old Miss Anstace's, and smelling still of the lavender and sandal-wood that had been put amongst them to preserve them. It seemed almost like sacrilege to the two girls to be going about thus letting in the light of day on these hoards, the cherished possessions of the poor old woman whose life had been a living death for twelve years before she died.
Biddy had invited herself to assist in the researches, and each fresh store-place that was opened produced a torrent of exclamations and recollections from her.
"Troth, I mind them well, ivery fork and ivery spoon that's in it. Many's the time I've seen all the quality in the county sittin' down-stairs aitin' their dinner wid that silver an' off that chaney, an' Miss Ansey herself sittin' at the top of the table in her silks an' her lace, as grand as ye plaze, while me an' the other girls wud be peepin' in at the door to get a sight of the ladies' fine dresses. 'Twas always Miss Ansey we called her, for all that she'd the right to be Miss O'Brien, an' carriage an' demanour she had enough to fit a duchess. To see her sweepin' along wid her head in the air an' her silk gown a yard on the ground behind her! 'I must keep up my poseetion, Biddy,' says she to me times an' agin; 'sure any wan as marries an O'Brien looks to marry into wan o' the first families o' Clare, nor they'll not be disappinted by me,' says she. An' all the while her heart was aitin' itself oot wid sorra an' lonesomeness, an' miny's the hour I've seen her stannin' where ye're stannin' this minnit, Miss Anstace, starin' oot over the say as if that 'ud dhraw the man she was waitin' for back to her. But he niver come for all her watchin', an' at the last she tuk to goin' bansheein' about the cliffs, ballyowrin' and wringin' her hands till we was feared 'twud be throwin' herself over she'd be."
"Poor Cousin Ansey!" sighed Anstace; "and so they had to take her away from here and shut her up where she would be safe?"
"Yis indade, Miss Anstace. 'Twas yer own uncle, Mr. O'Brien of Moyross beyant, that fetched a gran' gintleman a' the way from Dublin to see her; an' between them they tuk an' carried her away, an' sure that was the last that any of us here iver seed of her. Thin yer uncle he come down, an' locked all up, an' give me the charge, an' not a key's bin turned nor a ha'porth stirred till this blessed day that yer own hands has done it—an' who'd have the betther right?"
"And have you and your husband lived here in Kilshane ever since old Cousin Ansey went mad and was taken away to Dublin?" asked Norah.
Biddy turned to regard her with amazement.
"Musha, what's come to the child? Husband, says she! Sorra wan o' me iver was married, Miss Norah, or iver will be nayther."
"But the man who lifted me off the car and carried me into the house last night, I thought he must be your husband. Who was he, then?"
"Och, that's jist Tom, me brither Tom, that was coachman to Miss Ansey, an' dhruv her in her own carriage—more be token the carriage is in the coach-house yit, only the mice—bad scran to thim!—has th' inside of it ate out an' desthroyed. He's livin' noo in his own house, that yez passed upon the road, if there'd been light to ha' seen it, an' his sivin orphins wid him—herself's been dead this twal'month past. Sorra tak ye, Lanty! What d'ye come stalin' into people's hooses, an' frightenin' the sinses out o' them, an' me spakin' about ye this very minnit?"
They had descended by this time from the upper regions to the pantry beside the kitchen, and Anstace had been opening the presses in the wall and bringing to view dusty hoards of glasses and decanters of the fashion of fifty years before. A slight noise behind them had made them turn to behold a red-headed, loutish-looking lad standing in the doorway, a string of fine rock-codling in his hand. With an awkward bow to the young ladies, he muttered something about having been at the fishing with his father, and thinking their honours might like a few fresh fish; and having deposited the codling on the flagstone at his feet, he lost no time in making off, without awaiting Anstace's thanks.
"Yis, that's Lanty, that's the ouldest of the sivin, an' not his ekal in the counthry for divvlement an' mischeeviousness," said Biddy, looking dispassionately after her nephew's retreating form. "He's for iver sthreelin' an' sthravagin' aboot i'stead o' doin' an honest day's work. Theer, if it's not foive o'clock as I'm a livin' woman, an' the hins, the craythers, niver fed yit!"
And away Biddy hurried.
Two or three days passed over very busily and very happily. Anstace was hard at work within doors and Roderick no less hard at work without, digging, pruning, clearing away the tangled overgrowth in the neglected garden, or else walking about the two or three fields which comprised the little domain of Kilshane, deep in consultation on farming matters with Tom Hogan, Biddy's brother, who, since those bygone days of state when he had driven Miss Ansey in her own carriage, had acted as steward, gardener, shepherd, and farm-labourer all in one to the little property.
They were halcyon days for Norah. No one had much leisure to attend to her, there were no lessons, no irksome school-room restraints; she was free to wander where she pleased, Roderick's prohibition against going near the cliffs being the only restriction laid upon her. From time to time she proffered her valuable services to her elder brother or sister, but her efforts to assist them in their labours were somewhat spasmodic, and in general she proved fully as much a hindrance as a help, so that Roderick and Anstace were generally glad to dismiss her to amuse herself as she could.
She had speedily made acquaintance with most of the dwellers in the cabins near at hand, welcomed wherever she went with Irish heartiness and good-will. She was on a specially friendly footing, however, with the Hogan family, and had soon come to know all the seven "orphins", from red-haired Lanty down to Kat, the two-year-old bare-legged baby, which spent its time for the most part seated on the door-step scooping water in a broken cup from the stagnant pool in front of the door. A very few days had demonstrated the impossibility of retaining Biddy as servant, indeed she herself had no wish to remain, declaring "she'd be kilt wid the clanin'" which Miss Anstace seemed to consider indispensable. She had departed, therefore, to the family residence of the Hogans, to keep house for her brother, carrying her cats, her hens, and her other belongings with her, and the orphan next in age to Lanty, a bashful, rosy-cheeked girl of whom Anstace hoped in time to make a neat little hand-maiden, had come to Kilshane in her stead.
It was quite wonderful, even by the end of the first week, how much had been effected towards making the little house upon the cliffs more home-like. Open windows and well-polished window-panes, fresh air and light let in everywhere, had done much; Anstace's taste and skill even more. Heavy and dusty hangings had been taken down and fresh muslin curtains put up in their place, bright chintz covers fashioned by Anstace's deft fingers concealed the faded upholstery of the chairs and couches in the little drawing-room. Some rare old china jars and bowls which had been discovered amongst Miss Ansey's belongings had been brought down from the hiding-places where they had been stowed away so long, and were disposed upon the old-fashioned cabinets and whatnots; and such books and photographs and other knick-knacks as they had brought from London were scattered here and there. Norah had borne her part in the decoration of the drawing-room, for it was she who had brought in all the spring-tide spoils—the purple violets and pale primroses, the delicate wood anemones, the silvery catkins and branches of larch just breaking into their first vivid green—which were set everywhere, on the tables, the chimney-piece, the window-sills, and gave grace and beauty to the little room.
It was perhaps no wonder that Anstace, lying back in her chair when Saturday evening came, said in a voice that was tired but triumphant:
"Well, I do think we may feel proud of our little home."
CHAPTER VI
COUSINS
Another week or two sped by, very happily and very busily. Most of the neighbouring families, though they all lived at considerable distances, had come to visit the O'Briens and to express their pleasure at seeing them established at Kilshane. But by those who were nearest to them both in kinship and propinquity no notice of their existence had been taken—no sign had come from Moyross Abbey of any desire for truce or reconciliation, and it seemed only too clear that Roderick had been right when he said that Nicholas O'Brien could not forgive his brother even in his grave for the wrong that he had done him.
The old rector of the church which stood on the cliff's midway between Moyross Abbey and Kilshane—a weather-beaten, gray building which seemed as though it had been specially built to withstand the wild Atlantic winds—Mr. Lynch, and his wife, had been the first to call, and they remained the O'Briens' chiefest friends. From them the new-comers learned that matters were not running altogether smoothly upon the Moyross property. New machinery had recently been introduced at the mine, the great undertaking which Mr. O'Brien had built up from its first commencement, and of which he was justly proud, and with the machinery had came a Scotch manager to assume the control, which Mr. O'Brien had hitherto kept in his own hands, but which was beginning to prove too heavy a burden to him. The new functionary had loudly expressed his scorn of the easy-going fashion of working which had prevailed hitherto, and his intention of introducing an entirely new system. The ire of the whole country side had been roused, and reprisals of a sort but too common in Ireland had followed: the new machinery had been broken, and a skull and cross-bones painted on the manager's hall-door.
"If Nicholas O'Brien were the man he was ten years ago, it would not have happened," Mr. Lynch said, with a shake of his head. "He understood the people and how to deal with them, but they've put his back up now, and he'll uphold M'Bain through thick and thin. A thoroughly determined man Nicholas O'Brien always was—there's no turning him aside when once his mind is made up—and M'Bain is another of the same sort. But if they're as tough as steel, the people are like tinder, and between them I shouldn't wonder if there was a big flare-up one of these days."
"Oh, Mr. Lynch, do tell us something about the Wyndhams who live at Moyross Abbey!" called out Norah, who was perched on the window sill, and had not understood much of the previous conversation. "They are a kind of cousins of ours, you know, and we have never even seen them; it is so funny."
"Cousins of yours? Of course they are," said the old clergyman briskly. "Their grandmother was Jess O'Brien, the eldest of the family. She married and went out to India while your father was in petticoats. I knew your father before he was the height of that," holding up his walking-stick for Norah's inspection, "and I'd have known you for his child anywhere: you've just got his eyes and the cock of his nose. As to the Wyndhams, Harry and Ella, why, they are a nice, pleasant-mannered pair of young people. I shouldn't wonder but there might be trouble in that quarter too. Your uncle has been drawing the rein too tight with the boy—just the mistake he made long ago with your father, Roderick. He thinks no will but his is to prevail, and he has made up his mind that Master Harry is to undertake the management of the mine some day; but I've a notion that that young gentleman has different views of life for himself. However, he's been sent off to some Austrian mining works to be trained for a couple of years, and we'll see what comes of it."
"It must be very lonely for Ella, poor child, living in that big house at Moyross with no other society than old Mr. O'Brien, and that good soul they call Brownie," said Mrs. Lynch, a very trim little old lady in the neatest of black silk mantles and bonnets. "She was the children's governess years ago, and came home with them from India after their mother died. She manages the servants and the housekeeping, and is quite wrapped up in Ella."
"She's as little like a brownie as anyone I ever saw," laughed the old rector. "Come along, my dear, it's time for old folks like us to be getting home. Miss Anstace, you and your brother and sister are to dine with us to-morrow after church—nonsense, we'll take no excuse! We're not new acquaintances to be paying calls and leaving our pasteboards on each other. Bless me, we're old friends! I boxed your father's ears over his Latin grammar forty years ago!"
And the kindly old pair trotted off together.
Anstace and Norah, and indeed Roderick too, had a great curiosity to see the relatives of whom they had heard so much and who were so closely connected with themselves, but there did not seem much likelihood of their desire being gratified. In the church the Moyross family occupied a pew in a recess of the chancel, where they were invisible to most of the congregation, and passed in and out by a side-door, and nowhere else was there much chance of their meeting.
The trio at Kilshane were at breakfast one morning when the post brought a letter to Roderick addressed in Manus's round schoolboy hand. Roderick opened it, and a look of some vexation gathered on his face.
"There is nothing wrong with Manus, I hope?" asked Anstace, pausing in her occupation of pouring out the tea.
"Not with Manus himself, but it is a most unfortunate business, and worse for other people than ourselves. Diphtheria has broken out at the school, and the doctor has ordered all the boys to be sent home at once."
Norah let her bread and butter fall, and jumped to her feet, clapping her hands.
"Then Manus will be coming home, coming here at once! How splendid!" she cried. "Oh, Roderick, don't sit with that terrible long face, as if it was a misfortune."
"It is certainly a misfortune for poor Dr. and Mrs. Ford, and for the boys who are ill," said Anstace. "Does Manus say whether any of the cases are serious?"
"No; the young rascal is so taken up with the idea of coming over here that he does not seem to have been able to think of anything else."
Roderick picked up Manus's letter, and read it through again with a frown.
"Really, Manus's writing is disgraceful, the lines are all up and down the paper. Surely a boy of twelve ought to know better than to spell 'diftheria' with an f, and 'hollidays' with two ll's. I must try and find time to give him some teaching while he is here, for I suppose we shall have him on our hands for three months at least."
"Oh, but Manus need not begin lessons at once. I'm sure after all the hard work he's had at school a little rest will be good for him," said Norah, with the funny old-fashioned manner she put on at times.
"I don't think Manus is likely to have worked hard enough to injure himself," said Roderick grimly; "it's about the last thing we need be afraid of."
"It is very unlucky this interruption coming just after Dr. Ford had written to you that Manus was beginning to settle down properly to his school work. However, we can only be thankful that he has not fallen ill himself," remarked Anstace. "Does he say what day he will be over?"
"He speaks of starting 'to-morrow', whatever day that may be," said Roderick, turning over the leaf. "I suppose as usual he has not dated his letter, so that we might know what he meant. Yes, he has though—'Monday!' Why, that's two days ago. The letter hasn't been posted in time, of course. Then in that case—"
"He must have started yesterday, and he'll be here to-day, this very, very day!" cried Norah, jumping from her seat and skipping round the table, almost beside herself with joy.
"My dear Norah, do sit down and finish your breakfast like a reasonable mortal," said Anstace. "I suppose she is right, Roderick, and Manus will arrive this evening. Someone must drive into Ballyfin to meet him. Will you go?"
Roderick shook his head.
"I have to go off with Tom after breakfast to arrange about letting the grazing of a couple of the fields for the summer, and there's that article for the Piccadilly besides, which must be finished to-night."
Roderick had inherited a considerable share of his father's talent as a writer, and his contributions to newspapers and periodicals promised in time to bring in material aid to the slender resources of the family.
"I don't think I can go either," said Anstace. "Mrs. Lynch is bringing Lady Louisa Butler over to tea this afternoon. She knew Father in old times, and wants to make our acquaintance."
"But there's not the least necessity for anyone to go to Ballyfin. I'll tell Connor, who drove us here the night we came, to meet Manus at the station; that's all that's needful."
"But I can go. Oh, Roderick, do let me drive in to meet Manus," cried Norah eagerly.
"Well, I suppose there is no reason why you should not," said her brother good-naturedly. "You won't tumble off the outside-car, I suppose?"
"Of course not. How can you be so silly?" returned Norah, drawing her little self up with much dignity.
"All right, I didn't mean to offend your ladyship. I'll tell Connor to be here with his car at three."
And Roderick left the room laughing.
Probably there was no prouder little girl in all Connaught than Norah that afternoon, as she drove from the door, sitting up very straight on one side of the car, her hands folded on the rug which Roderick had wrapped round her before starting. She and Connor, who was sole occupant of the other side, had become quite confidential before the ten miles' drive was accomplished. Connor had acquainted her with all his family affairs, and Norah had promised to pay a visit on the earliest opportunity, partly to his old mother, but more especially to the litter of a dozen little pigs which had been born only a few days before.
Very important Norah felt, too, as she went in and out of the two or three shops of which Ballyfin boasted, executing various small commissions with which Anstace had entrusted her. She had more than an hour in which to wander about the little country town, as Connor's horse required rest and a feed before commencing the homeward journey. And as Ballyfin did not possess very many attractions and objects of interest, she found herself at the station a full half-hour before there was any possibility of the train's arrival. A porter pointed it out obligingly to her at last, almost at vanishing point upon the track that stretched away with undeviating straightness through the flat bog-land. Norah watched its gradual approach, a prey to fears that after all it might not contain Manus, that he might have arrived late at Euston or been left behind somewhere on the journey. Her mind was relieved of this anxiety, however, long before the train reached the station, by seeing Manus's close-cropped, bullet head protruding from one of the windows. Norah ran to the end of the platform to meet the train, and then had to run back for her pains, keeping up with the carriage at the door of which Manus was standing. Almost before Manus had time to alight she had thrown her arms round his neck and was kissing him with all the fervour that was possible, seeing that she had to stand on tiptoe even to reach the point of his chin.
"There, hold on, don't squeeze the breath out of a fellow!" said Manus, striving to disengage himself from Norah's embraces, and looking round rather sheepishly to see if anyone was observing their meeting.
"Oh, Manus, and I haven't seen you for such an age, not since Christmas!" said Norah reproachfully, withdrawing her arms, but continuing to devour her brother with her eyes.
"You needn't make a gazabo of yourself all the same!" retorted Manus. "Come along, and let's see after my traps. I suppose you have some sort of shandrydan outside?"
And Manus sauntered towards the luggage-van with an easy man-of-the-world air which filled Norah with admiration, but accorded none too well, if the truth be told, with his broad, sunburnt face and squat schoolboy figure. As for Norah, she danced along by his side, for in her present ecstasy of delight it was quite impossible for her feet to pace along at an ordinary walk.
Once, however, that they were seated side by side on the car and driving over the bog road, Manus condescended to relax in some degree from his new-born dignity and to become more like his former self. He even permitted Norah to hold one of his hands under cover of the rug, but rebelled when in an outburst of affection she rubbed her cheek against his sleeve.
"The driver fellow is looking," he muttered ungraciously, jerking her off with his shoulder.
Connor, however, who occupied the other side of the car conjointly with the carpet-bag and large brown-paper parcel, which contained all Manus's worldly goods, and were by him somewhat grandly designated his "traps", kept his eyes stolidly fixed upon his horse's ears, and seemed to take no heed of the pair across the well. The drive home was a very silent one for him, for Norah and Manus had so much to tell each other that their tongues never once ceased wagging during the whole of the drive, and Connor did not seem called upon to take any part in the conversation. It was after dark when they drove up to Kilshane, and found Roderick and Anstace at the door waiting to welcome the traveller.
"This is a long way jollier than school," observed Manus half an hour later, when he was seated at the supper-table with Anstace smiling at him from behind the tea-urn, and Norah hovering round, herself unable to eat in her excitement, and her desire to pile his plate with dainties.
That brief remark brought balm to his little sister's heart, for Norah had been troubled by terrible misgivings that the brother who had come back to her would prove quite different from the Manus of old. She had feared that after a term of school-life and of the companionship of other boys he would look down upon her as being "only a girl"—an inferiority which Norah fully recognized and the irremediableness of which she most deeply deplored—and refuse her the place in his affections and his confidence which she had hitherto enjoyed.
The next day was wild and boisterous, with fierce rain squalls sweeping in from the Atlantic and beating on the window-panes. To venture on any distant expedition was therefore out of the question, and Norah had to content herself with showing off the house and garden to Manus, and taking him down to gaze over the cliffs into the wonderful clearness of the green depths below, where the great forests of sea-weed could be traced lying like purple shadows far beneath the water. Upon the following day, however, she proposed that he should accompany her upon her promised visit to old Mrs. Connor and the family of infant pigs, and Manus was graciously pleased to accede to the suggestion.
The Connors' abode was situated at the end of a long boreen or lane, very narrow and muddy, with high furze-topped banks on either side. It had originally been a tolerably well-built and comfortable cabin, but was much impaired by dirt and neglect. The thatched roof was fastened down by ropes elaborately interlaced, and weighted with stones to prevent its being swept bodily off in the wild Atlantic gales, and the approach to the house was by a causeway with a manure-heap on one hand and a pool of stagnant filth upon the other. Mrs. Connor, an old woman in a wondrously-quilled night-cap, came to the door on hearing steps and voices outside, and welcomed the children with great heartiness and good-will. It was quite unnecessary to express a wish to be taken to see the interesting family of pigs, since on entering the kitchen they and their grunting old mother were found to be in possession of the most comfortable place in front of the fire. Mrs. Connor, whilst edging them to one side with her foot to enable her to set chairs for the visitors, explained that this was necessitated by the cannibalistic tastes of the old sow, who had on one or two previous occasions demolished some of her offspring soon after their birth.
"It takes Thady an' me, turn an' turn, day an' night, to kape an eye on her, the ould villin; but glory be to goodness the craythers is growin' that fast they'll put it beyant her to ait them soon."
Then, whilst Norali eyed the unnatural parent with horror, Mrs. Connor proceeded to hang a griddle—a round iron plate—above the turf fire, and to arrange upon it a goodly supply of potato scones, in the kneading of which she had been engaged when interrupted by the children's arrival.
"Thady—that's the boy that dhruv ye, Miss Norah—'ull be fit to break his heart he wasn't here, but he's away to the bog to cut turf since cockshout, an' I was gettin' his tay ready agin he'd come home. Yez'll take bite an' sup now afore yez go."
Looking at the table on which the cakes had been prepared, and the smoky interior of the cabin, Norah had some qualms about accepting the proffered hospitality. She hardly saw her way to refusing it with politeness, however, and Manus manifestly was not troubled by any inconvenient fastidiousness, for he was sniffing the fragrant smell of the potato bread, as the old woman moved it to and fro and turned it in the griddle, with evident satisfaction. Norah thanked Mrs. Connor, therefore, with the best grace that she could, and having once overcome her scruples, was fain to admit that she had never tasted anything more delicious than potato scones buttered hot from the fire, and accompanied by draughts of new milk, the seasoning imparted by a previous walk in the sea-breezes not being omitted. It was with promises of paying another visit before long to see the progress of the little pink porkers that Manus and Norah took their leave at last.
They had reached the confines of Kilshane, and were discussing whether to go round in orderly fashion by the gate, or to attempt a short cut by scrambling through the hedge, when they heard the sound of horse hoofs coming full gallop down the road.
"Whoever that is, they're going a stunning pace," observed Manus.
The next instant a black pony, stretched out like a greyhound, came tearing round a bend in the road. The girl who rode it was sitting back in the saddle, pulling with all her might on the reins. Her hat was gone, and her fair hair had become loose and was flying in a cloud about her. As she flashed past them, Manus and Norah had an instant's glimpse of a white, set face and eyes wide with terror. Even to their inexperience the peril of the situation was manifest. A few hundred yards farther on, the road ran steeply downhill, turning sharply at the foot of the descent over a bridge which spanned a little stream. Going at its present pace, it would be little short of miraculous if the pony took that turn in safety.
"That girl will be killed, she will indeed!" gasped Norah, clutching her brother by the arm. "Oh, Manus, can't something be done?"
"Nothing whatever," said Manus, from whose ruddy face the colour had faded. "Cart ropes wouldn't stop that pony." Then in a tone of sudden relief: "Oh look, Norah, there's Roderick; he's rushing across the field! Oh, I say, I do hope he'll be in time."
Norah said nothing, she only tightened her hold on Manus's arm, and in silence both children strained their eyes on their brother as he raced at top speed towards the road. Would he reach it before the pony in its frantic gallop had passed him by? Another minute would bring it to the brow of the hill. There was a second or two of sickening suspense, then they saw Roderick vault over the gate of the field and almost in the same instant catch the pony by the bridle. He let himself be dragged along by it for a few paces, then with a sudden jerk brought it up short in its career. The terrified animal made an attempt to rear, but Roderick's hand was at its nostrils, squeezing them with an iron grip, and feeling itself mastered it dropped on its forefeet and stood still, panting and quivering all over.
"She's saved! Hooray! hooray, three cheers! Well done, Roderick!" cried Manus, beginning to run, and Norah ran too, keeping up with him as well as she could.
When they came up, the stranger was sitting in her saddle, deadly pale and trembling from head to foot. It was evidently only by a great effort that she succeeded in keeping back her tears. Roderick, somewhat out of breath, and hardly less pale, stood at the pony's head.
"You saved my life, I think," the girl said tremulously, as soon as she had regained sufficient self-control to speak; "I should have thrown myself off in another minute if you had not caught Sheila, I knew it was my only chance. I am very, very grateful to you."
"There is nothing to be grateful about," Roderick returned lightly. "It was most fortunate I was near enough to reach the road in time; anyone who had been where I was would have done just the same."
"You saved me all the same," the girl repeated; "and poor little Sheila, too, she must have been killed. Even if I had escaped, she never would have got over the bridge safely." And she leant forward to pat the pony's mane.
"The little brute hardly deserves so much commiseration after running away with you," said Roderick.
"Oh, but it was not Sheila's fault," the girl cried eagerly, "it was mine quite as much as hers. She has not been out of the stable for two or three days, and that made her fresh and fidgety; she is generally as quiet as a mouse. I was riding carelessly, not keeping a look-out as I ought to have done. A wheel-barrow which someone had left upside down on the road frightened her and made her shy, and before I knew what I was about she had got her head and was tearing down the road."
She stopped short with a shiver she could not repress.
"Don't think any more about it," Roderick said cheerily. "Our house is close by, and you must let me lead the pony there and give you into my sister's charge till you have recovered from the shock you have had."
"Oh, thank you, I must go home. Brownie—Miss Browne, I mean—would be so frightened if I did not come back at the right time; she is always nervous when I am out by myself, and she would be sure something dreadful had happened to me," and the stranger laid her hands on the reins as if she wished to take them into her own keeping again.
Roderick, however, held them fast.
"Something dreadful very nearly did happen," he said gravely, "and you are quite too much shaken to attempt riding anywhere at present. I can send a message to Miss Browne to assure her of your safety, and meanwhile you must rest at Kilshane."
"But—but," and the girl's eyes grew big with alarm, "you must be Mr. Roderick O'Brien."
This time Roderick could not forbear laughing.
"So I am, but I am not a very formidable personage notwithstanding."
"Oh, indeed, it is not that," and confusion and distress brought the colour back into her cheeks, "but I ought to tell you who I am; my name is Wyndham—Ella Wyndham—and I live at Moyross Abbey."
"In that case, Miss Wyndham," said Roderick courteously, but making no attempt to claim relationship, "the best arrangement will be to have a carriage sent for you from Moyross Abbey. You are really not fit to ride back, and I hope you will not mind waiting at our house till it comes. Manus, run up the road and see if you can find Miss Wyndham's hat."
Perhaps Ella was too shy to make any further resistance, perhaps in her secret soul she was not sorry that fate had willed that she should make acquaintance under their own roof with the kinsfolk from whom she had hitherto been kept apart. At any rate she offered no opposition when Roderick turned the pony's head towards Kilshane. He kept a careful hand on the bridle all the way to the house, though Mistress Sheila, who had had the fire taken out of herself very effectively by her wild race, walked along very soberly and evinced no inclination for any further pranks. With a thoughtfulness which Ella fully appreciated, he left her to herself to recover her composure in some degree, and chatted gaily with Norah as they walked along, questioning that small personage about her ramble and her visit to old Mrs. Connor.
Anstace was nailing up a rose-tree on the porch when the party arrived, but she took prompt possession of Ella, and conveyed her upstairs to the quiet of her own room, where she made her lie down upon the bed. Ella submitted very docilely; she was very young and evidently still accustomed to be looked upon and treated as a child. When, however, Anstace, having seen her comfortably settled, was about to leave the room, she stretched out imploring hands to detain her.
"Do stay with me," she pleaded, "and don't call me Miss Wyndham, it sounds so cold and distant. We are cousins, you know, though we have never seen each other before, and why should we not be friends, you and I?"
"Why not indeed?" said Anstace pleasantly; "that is, if you will do as you are told, and not talk or excite yourself, otherwise I shall have to be angry and scold you, as I do Norah."
"I don't think I should mind being scolded by you," returned Ella, looking up into Anstace's face. "Norah is your little sister, I suppose, and you are Anstace. I heard your brother call you so downstairs. It is such a pretty, quaint name, and it suits you so well. No, I will not talk any more if you will sit where I can see you."
And with a sigh of contentment Ella lay back amongst her pillows.
Roderick meanwhile had written a hasty note to Miss Browne at Moyross Abbey to tell her what had occurred. Pride forbade his thrusting himself in any way upon the notice of the uncle, who hitherto had not deigned to take any notice of his existence. A messenger to convey the note to Moyross Abbey was found in the person of Lanty Hogan, Biddy's red-headed nephew, who, since Manus's arrival at Kilshane, was generally to be found hanging about the back door or the out-offices.
Lanty had already fired Manus's imagination full by the accounts he gave of the breeding-places of the sea-birds upon the coast, well-nigh inaccessible spots all of them, where the gannets, the gulls, and the kittiwakes in thousands laid their eggs on narrow ledges high above the boiling surf—fastnesses which could only be scaled by the most experienced and most daring climbers.
Manus saw himself in fancy returning to school the possessor of a collection of birds' eggs which should make him the envy of every other boy there. Lanty threw out other hints, too, that were no less alluring, about the enormous trout which peopled a trout stream a couple of miles away, real "breedhauns" in Lanty's speech, who seemed acquainted with the exact haunts of each of these monsters of the finny tribe and with the fly that would infallibly land him in the angler's basket.
"He knows a good deal more about it than he has any business to do, I'll be bound, the poaching young rascal!" was Roderick's comment when some of these wondrous tales were repeated to him by Manus; but that did not cause Manus to take any less delight in Lanty's society.
Half an hour's rest had so far composed Ella's nerves that she would not allow Anstace to bring tea up to her as she proposed, but insisted on accompanying her down to the little drawing-room, where she was received with general acclamation. Roderick pulled the most luxurious chair which the room boasted of forward beside the tea-table for her, and Norah, who was always ready to strike up friendships upon the briefest acquaintance, established herself upon a footstool at her side, with her small black head on a level with the arm of Ella's chair and her eyes fixed admiringly upon her. Manus had returned triumphant from his search after Ella's hat, which he had found reposing in a pool by the roadside.
As he and Norah had already had their afternoon repast at Mrs. Connor's, and as not even Manus's powers, though prodigious in that direction, were equal to commencing a second meal after so short an interval, they were able to contribute even more than their usual share to the conversation, and their tongues ran on so persistently that Anstace asked Ella, laughing, if she had ever heard so much nonsense talked before, and Roderick proposed to banish them both summarily from the room.
"Oh, don't stop them, please don't!" Ella said earnestly, laying her arm round Norah's shoulders. "I like to listen to them. I wish I had a little sister like Norah to live with me at home. It's so quiet and so silent at Moyross since Harry—that's my brother—went away. Uncle Nicholas lives almost entirely in his own rooms, and there are only Brownie and I to sit together in the evenings."
She stopped short and flushed painfully, afraid that she had betrayed more than she had intended of her home life to these strangers. In truth, she had been contrasting the cosy, home-like air of the little drawing-room, shabby and faded though its furniture might be, with the chill stateliness of the great rooms at Moyross Abbey, where tables and chairs and ornaments were set out with the formality and precision which Miss Browne deemed correct.
Before another word could be said, the crunching of wheels was heard outside, and an open carriage, with a gray-haired lady as its solitary occupant, drew up at the door.
"That is Brownie; she has come for me herself. Oh, I do hope she has not been frightened about me!" exclaimed Ella, starting up anxiously.
Miss Browne on her part had alighted almost before the carriage had drawn up. She entered the house without any of the ordinary formalities of knocking or ringing, and came straight into the drawing-room. She was a tall, thin woman with a slight stoop, and light blue, near-sighted eyes which compelled her to wear glasses. She would have been a ludicrous figure had it not been for her manifest anxiety and distress, for her bonnet was put on backwards, and in her haste she had caught up a table-cover to put about her in place of a shawl.
"Oh, Ella, my darling child, then you are not so very badly hurt after all!" she exclaimed, seizing her by both hands and peering nervously into her face. "I was so afraid I had not been told the worst, and that you were seriously injured—or even killed."
"Brownie, dear, why will you always worry yourself for nothing?" Ella returned, smiling. "I am not the very least bit hurt, and you have not spoken to Miss O'Brien yet, and to Mr. O'Brien, who caught Sheila and stopped her."
"You must never ride her again, never. I should not have an easy moment if I knew you were on her back," declared poor Miss Browne vehemently.
She drew a long breath of relief notwithstanding, and her eye wandered round the room, taking in the paraphernalia of the tea-table, and the family group which her unceremonious entry had disturbed.
"Dear me! I think I did allow myself to be alarmed needlessly. I am always so nervous where dear Ella is concerned. How do you do, Miss O'Brien; we have not met before. How do you do, Mr. O'Brien. I am most obliged to you for your services to Ella."
It was all said very jerkily and awkwardly, for as poor Miss Browne's fears and anxieties subsided, she became painfully aware of the eccentricities of her attire, and of the open-eyed amazement with which Norah was regarding her, while Manus had only too evident difficulty in suppressing his laughter. Ella, too, looked annoyed, and made one or two furtive but vain attempts to pull the unlucky bonnet right. Miss Browne prided herself on her neatness and her habits of order, and to have appeared in such guise before strangers was therefore to her unspeakably mortifying.
"No, thank you, we cannot stay," in answer to Anstace's invitation to sit down and partake of tea. "We must not keep the horses standing, and Ella's uncle is coming from Dublin by the evening train, and will expect to find us at home. If you have finished your tea, dear, we had better start at once. I must thank you once again, Mr. O'Brien, for the assistance you rendered Ella this afternoon."
"It is quite unnecessary, I assure you," Roderick said rather loftily, as he escorted Miss Browne to the carriage. "I am very glad to have been of service to Miss Wyndham; my being at the spot was a mere accident."
Ella had lingered in the drawing-room to say good-bye to Anstace and Norah.
"Thank you so much for all your kindness to me," she said, holding out both her hands to Anstace. "It was so nice to be here with you all."
"Then I hope you will come and pay us another visit before very long," said Anstace cordially, as she kissed her. "We shall always be very glad to see you."
"Oh yes, you must come back very soon!" chimed in Norah, holding up her face in turn to be kissed; "and when you do, I will show you the bantam cock and hen which Mrs. Lynch gave me, and the cliffs, and the garden—oh, and lots of things besides!"
"I should like dearly to come and see you again," said Ella, but as she spoke she looked round the little room into which the westering sun was streaming, and wondered if she would be allowed to enter it again.
"Ella, my dear, make haste, I am waiting for you," came from the carriage, in which Miss Browne was already seated, and with a brief nod of farewell the girl hurried out.
CHAPTER VII
MOYROSS ABBEY
Miss Browne's feelings, as she drove homewards with Ella, were of a somewhat mixed nature. Roderick in his note had made as light of Ella's adventure, and of his own share in it, as possible; he had not the least wish to glorify himself, or to endeavour to pose as a hero in his uncle's eyes. None the less, had he been anyone else, Miss Browne would have been ready to fall at his feet in her gratitude to him for having rescued Ella from any position of peril. She had made up her mind from the first, however, that the O'Briens of Kilshane were an artful, designing family, who had come over to the little lonely house upon the cliffs specially to work their way into their uncle's good graces, and to oust Ella and her brother from the place which they held in his affections. Miss Browne, ordinarily the most simple-minded and unsuspicious of mortals, was almost inclined to imagine that it must have been by some crafty and deeply-laid plot that Ella's pony had been made to run away just at the gate of Kilshane, thereby forcing on an acquaintanceship between the two families.
Poor Miss Browne had been left an orphan without near relations, and had therefore become a governess at a very early age. She had taken charge of many children, and had been tossed to and fro in many directions before fate drifted her out to India to Mrs. Wyndham's bungalow at Dinapore upon the Ganges. For the first time in her lonely and unconsidered life she found herself treated with real kindliness and thought, for it was gentle Mrs. Wyndham's way to endeavour to make everyone dependent on her happy. Miss Browne repaid her employer's good-will by lavishing all her starved affections on her, and on the two fair-haired children who were in her charge. Before she had been two years with Mrs. Wyndham, the dread scourge cholera smote the cantonment. Captain Wyndham was amongst the first of its victims, and a few days later his young wife was stricken too. Miss Browne nursed her with unbounded and fearless devotion, and Mrs. Wyndham's last whisper to her was:
"You love the children, Brownie, and there is no one else. Promise me to stay with them always—promise."
Miss Browne had promised, and had kept her promise faithfully; indeed it might be doubted if their own mother could have devoted herself to the two children, gentle dreamy Ella and her handsome high-spirited brother, more unselfishly than she had done. She had come home with the two little orphans from India, and for their sakes she had dwelt for the past dozen years in what was to her a wilderness, shut in between the wild mountains and the wilder sea. For the grandeur of the scenery she had no appreciation, a trimly-kept suburban road would have been a far more pleasing prospect to her than the wide stretch of rugged coast that Moyross House looked out upon; and the Irish peasantry, with their guttural language, and their disregard of dirt and disorder, repelled her almost more than the dusky natives of India had done.
If Miss Browne had ever had any hopes or aspirations for herself, they were dead long ago. All her aims and ambitious projects were for the charges whom their dying mother had left to her care. From her first coming to Moyross Abbey she had made up her mind that Harry was to be his grand-uncle's heir, and succeed to the old heritage of the O'Briens. She was certain that Piers O'Brien had been a very worthless and undeserving person, and that his family were no better than himself. Indeed Miss Browne entertained but a poor opinion of Irish people in general, the only flattering exception she made being in favour of old Mr. O'Brien himself, and the commendation that she was wont to pass upon him to Ella was:
"Indeed, my dear, no one would ever imagine that your uncle was an Irishman."
During the past few months poor Miss Browne had been painfully aware that the fair castle in the air which she had built up was only too likely to fall in ruin. There had been serious differences between Harry Wyndham and his uncle, since the former had left school and come to live permanently at Moyross Abbey. The boy was hot-headed and wilful, and not inclined for either the steady work or the implicit obedience which Mr. O'Brien expected from him. As an outcome he had been despatched to Austria for a couple of years' training in practical mining.
"He's likely to come to his senses there," Mr. O'Brien had remarked grimly.
And now whilst Harry was absent, banished, and more or less in disgrace, here were these formidable rivals of the old name established close by, and eagerly on the watch, no doubt, to seize every advantage for themselves. Quite unconsciously to herself, Miss Browne's prejudice against the new-comers had been aggravated just a little by the mortifying recollection of the laughable figure she had cut in the drawing-room at Kilshane. Nature certainly had never intended her for a conspirator, but just as a timid moorhen will ruffle up her feathers and peck fiercely at the enemy who menaces her brood, so, for what she conceived to be the interests of her charges, poor Miss Browne was ready to plot and scheme, and accordingly, as the carriage turned in at the entrance gates of Moyross Abbey and bowled up the smoothly gravelled drive, she said impressively to Ella, "My dear, I would say as little as possible to your uncle of what took place this afternoon. Of course you were not to blame in any way; still, I am afraid he will not be pleased to hear that you have made the acquaintance of a family with whom he evidently wishes to have nothing to do."
"But that is such a pity," said Ella, looking at her with wide, innocent eyes, "and if he could only see them, and how nice they all are, I am sure he would wish to be friends. Their father was his own brother, and they are the only relations he has of his own name—Oh, Brownie, wouldn't it be delightful if we could persuade Uncle Nicholas to make up that dreadful old feud, you and I?"
Miss Browne gave an embarrassed cough; this was hardly according to her mind.
"One must be careful not to let one's self be influenced too much by outward appearances, dear," she said in judicial tones; "I am sure the young O'Briens were very pleasant and polite to you this afternoon, they would be anxious to make as good an impression as possible. Their father was not Mr. O'Brien's own brother, you must always remember, but only his step-brother, which is quite a different thing, and we all know how shamefully he behaved, after your good, kind uncle had educated him, and done everything for him. Indeed, he was a very extravagant, good-for-nothing person, from all I have ever heard; he wrote for magazines and newspapers and things of that sort." Miss Browne brought this forward as if it were an undoubted proof of an idle, ill-regulated life. "I should doubt if his children were much better than he," she went on; "they have no sooner inherited that little property of Kilshane than that young Mr. O'Brien throws up whatever employment he had in London, and comes over here, no doubt to set up as an Irish country gentleman, and lead the same sort of spendthrift, wasteful life that too many of his ancestors did."
"I am very glad he was on the road to-day, and not in London, or Sheila and I would have fared very badly," Ella answered, rather more sharply than was usual to her, and in her heart she thought that whatever the sins and follies of bygone generations of O'Briens might have been, Roderick and Anstace did not look as if they were likely to embark on any wild career of debt and dissipation.
The carriage swept round the last bend of the avenue and came in view of the house, a square erection, solidly built of gray stone. On one side, and separated only from the house by a stretch of smoothly shaven greensward, rose the old abbey from which Moyross had its name, with its broken arches and cloisters—grand even in its desolation. Behind it lay an old, old graveyard, with great beech-trees stretching their long branches out over moss-green tombstones. And at the back, where the path wound down through the little glen to the shore below, an opening in the trees allowed the blue plain of the sea to be seen, tracked with glistening streaks and wavy tide-marks.
The butler, who came down the steps to open the carriage door for the ladies, informed them that Mr. O'Brien had arrived from Dublin half an hour previously, and had asked for Miss Ella.
"I will go to him at once then, before I change my dress," Ella said, gathering up her riding habit. "I am not very untidy, am I, Brownie?"
"No, my love, you look very nice, as you always do," said Miss Browne, gazing at her with fond admiration. "But as I said before, be cautious, Ella, and don't make too much of the little occurrence this afternoon, or you may vex your uncle."