The handsome Brandons

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE LAST OF CASTLE ANGRY.

We captured little Tim Brophy from Brandon village, just as he turned away after delivering his basket of eggs at the kitchen-door, and kept him till Esther's note to her godmother was written.

"Run fast, Tim," said Esther as she gave it to him, "or you'll be drenched before you get back."

"Never fear, Miss Esther," he answered cheerfully. "I'll be back before I'm gone."

And, to judge by the rate of speed at which his bare legs and red head disappeared, he would keep his word in the spirit, if not in the letter.

We sat with Aline in her lamp-lit room over the teacups, and Esther made her confession, even to the events of the morning.

Poor Aline looked bewildered as the tale proceeded.

"Well," she said at last, "you seem to have been making your own life, Esther. I hope you are going to be happy, my dear, but"—with a little hurt look—"I am so much in the dark nowadays. First it is Freda, and now Essie who has a story to tell, and I am the last to hear it. Perhaps it is my own fault that I do not understand you girls."

Now at this I had a great qualm, for here was I, too, keeping Aline in the dark.

"It is only because they had troubles, darling, that they kept secrets from you," I cried impulsively. "You have always been carrying the whole of us on your shoulders, and have had so much trouble already."

And with that I burst out with the whole story of my own lover, which I had indeed intended to tell no one but Esther, until he returned. When I had finished, Aline kissed me and then laughed.

"It is too much for one day, children," she said. "Perhaps even now the twins are on their way to me with news of their betrothal."

Then I knew she was pleased that I was to marry Lance. Indeed, when did she ever think of anything but our happiness? To both Esther and myself she was full of sweetness, but I could see that she was anxious lest further trouble should be on its way to poor Essie, though she said frankly that she believed Harry De Lacy was as good as his grandfather was wicked. Still, his delicate health troubled her, and I imagine that in her heart she dreaded further evil from Sir Rupert.

While we sat in the white-panelled room we heard the rain beating sharply against the windows, and as the evening darkened came the rumbling of distant thunder. Aline sent hurriedly to know if all her little flock was safe indoors. Yes, the boys were amicably engaged in teaching the twins to play chess, in the comfortable downstairs room which belonged to the younger ones, and which we seldom invaded.

"Ah!" said Aline with a sigh, "we ought to be thankful, this inclement night, that the tempest threatens no head dear to us."

We said nothing, for we knew she was thinking of Pierce, who had been out in the wind and rain so many comfortless nights, and who was now safe and warm within his Father's House.

After dinner we sat in the dining-room till nearly bed-time, all of us together. Outside, the rain still poured, and there was an incessant flashing of lightning across the drenched country, so that at last we drew the heavy curtains to shut it out.

The boys had heard the tales that Mike O'Flaherty had been telling me, and eerier stories still. One was that Mathew Hanrahan, a sad-faced widower whom we all knew, had seen his own corpse brought to his door by Brandon river. Another was that when they were waking a young woman over by Barnacree side, the tide had risen and carried the dead with it out to sea.

"I wish we had the money," said Hugh the practical, "to see to those old upper rooms. The rain is in them to-night, I daresay, and some night of high wind we shall have the chimneys through the floors down upon our beds."

"Ah! dear boy," said Aline, "many things come to Brandon, but never money: I believe we shall be the poor Brandons to the end of time."

"And to think," grumbled Donald, "that there are chests full of gold in Angry—at least so the poor people say—which ought to be ours by right!"

"We don't grudge Sir Rupert his gold," said Aline with a little shrug of her shoulders.

"Not if the other things must be thrown in, you mean," said Hugh shrewdly. "But, Aline, we—Donald and I—are going to save the old place yet."

"But how, dear boy? You don't know how much money we should want."

Hugh, who had been lying on the hearth-rug, stretched himself all his young length, with a suggestion of a creature cramped for space.

"You must let us go, Aline. We are no longer children, and there are fortunes to be made in the world."

"But where would you go?" asked Aline in a hushed voice. Her face had grown a little paler, but she hardly seemed surprised. Perhaps she had been dreading some such thing for long.

"We will go to Africa to Mr. Desmond. He told us long ago that he should have room for us when we were men. Now we are men, and he has room for us. He has opened up a new diamond field, as you would know, Aline, if you ever read the newspapers."

"Must both of you go?" said Aline in the same hushed voice. "We are only women and children here, and Pierce left us to you, Hugh."

"There is nothing for a man to do here, and we will stick together till we bring home the ransom of Brandon in our hands. We have friends now. It is not as in the old days when we knew no one. There is the General, and there is Captain MacNeill always at hand."

Hugh looked at me curiously. It made me suspect that he knew something of the state of affairs.

"They will befriend you," he went on earnestly. "Captain MacNeill knows, and thinks we are right. The General wanted me to go into the army, but that means cadging on him, and I prefer, and so does Donald, to make our fortunes."

"How do you know Mr. Desmond will help you?" said Aline. "He helped Pierce, and they quarrelled."

"He would not remember it against us," cried the boys together.

"He is coming home, Aline," said Donald, suddenly turning all the contents of a miscellaneous pocket on to the table.

There were five pocket-handkerchiefs, a clay pipe, a roll of string, a pocket-knife, some loose matches, a piece of shag tobacco, a book of flies, and several more or less dilapidated wads of paper. He smoothed out one of these with his hands, and pointed to the conclusion of a paragraph.

"It is rumoured that Mr. Desmond will spend a portion of next summer in revisiting his native country."

He read it aloud, and then handed it to Aline.

"We have known it for some time," said Hugh. "We shall wait till he comes, and ask him if he has room for us. If he says he has not, we must go somewhere on our own hook. We want no more from him, Aline, than anyone else, but it would be less lonesome if he were our friend."

"The old nest will soon be deserted," said Aline, looking round on us. "I shall be like the wood-pigeon we saw last summer after the hawk had eaten her mate and the young ones, and she used to call them about the empty nest."

"The hawk is the world, Aline," I said, "but the world shall not swallow us. We shall be with you, and the boys will return."

"Ah, yes!" said Aline, "they will return, perhaps."

She got up suddenly and went out of the room, and after a little while, when we went to look for her we found she had gone to her room for the night.

We went to bed somewhat melancholy in consequence, and I think Esther and I were glad to have each other's company. With the night the wind had risen, and as we went along the corridors to our bedrooms it raved and shrieked outside, and whistled through every key-hole as though it were trying to drown the noise of the thunder. We scurried fast along the upper floor, for the lightning made the well of the staircase as light as day with its almost incessant flashing, and the ragged tapestry on the walls trailed out like banners, and flapped in our faces as we passed by.

When we had reached my room at last, I ran to draw the curtains and shut out the night. Very vividly in the white lightning I saw the sister mountains of Brandon and Angry, for now that the trees were leafless the latter showed its frowning head.

I paused an instant to gaze at them, and as I did so the lightning passed, leaving a gulf of profound blackness. The side of Castle Angry was towards us as we stood, and I could see the flashing of a light travelling apparently from floor to floor.

"Come, Esther, and look," I said. "There is a light in Angry. I wonder how they are feeling over there about the escape of the captive."

Esther looked with me an instant, and then cried to me to come away, for a zigzag of blue lightning smote the head of Angry, and then seemed to leap down the chasm. As the thunder rattled and roared behind it, I closed the shutters and then stirred the fire, so that the room was cheerful.

We went to bed after praying for the poor people who were in danger from the night's storm. We lay awake for long talking of our own affairs, and of the boys and their resolution. Esther was the first to sleep. I looked at her where she lay in the shadow, smiling in sleep—for I had kept a lamp burning to mitigate the glare of the lightning,—and I thanked God for the peace the events of the last twenty-four hours had brought to my sister's heart. Mine, too, felt at peace about her and her love. I remember thinking, the last thing before I slept, that God was stronger than Sir Rupert De Lacy, and the thought sent me asleep smiling.

When I awoke the room was dark, for the lamp had died down. Paudeen, who always sleeps on a mat at my door, was howling in the most melancholy way, but, full of horror and omen as a dog's howl is, I did not think it was that which had wakened me. For a second or two I lay dazed and terrified. Then Esther stirred at my side.

"Oh, Hilda! what is it?" she cried. "What a horrible night it is! I think something terrible has happened."

"I will see," said I, getting out of bed in the dark.

As my foot touched the floor Paudeen again raised his voice. I ran to the door and opened it, and spoke to the dog. He was trembling as he came in fawning against my feet. The house outside was full of the gray dawn, and on the glass skylight overhead I heard the rain streaming.

But another sound than the rain was in our ears. There was a roaring as of many waters, a groaning and rumbling as of the earth itself. One could hardly say if it was near or distant; it seemed all about us.

I opened the shutters with a hand that shook.

"Oh, Hilda," moaned Esther again, "what has happened? It is like the Day of Judgment."

"Something has happened," I replied, "or is happening, but old Brandon is safe. I'm afraid there must be a great flood, or an earthquake, or something, but we are firm. There is not a tremor in the house."

I took up Paudeen, who was shivering miserably, and put him into my bed.

"There, you two poor frightened things," said I, "comfort each other."

But I did not feel at all so brave myself. Just then there came a knocking at the door, and Hugh's voice.

"Are you awake, Hilda?"

"Yes, and up," I answered. "What has happened?"

"I can't tell yet, except that I believe we are safe. Dress yourself and come out till we see. The rain is leaving off."

Esther and I dressed ourselves hastily, and joined the two boys. As we went downstairs the twins came flying after us, and we met Oona coming up from below.

"Go up and see if Miss Aline is awake," I said to her. "We must not leave an empty house."

"Don't go into any danger, childher," she said with a groan, and then broke out into a string of wirra wirrasthrues.

But Donald, who had been the first to open the hall door, came running back.

"There is a flood or something over at Angry," he cried. "Stay back, you young ones, you can look from the windows; but there may be help needed, and men. Keep them at home, Hilda," he said to me.

"No," I said, "I will go to watch over you boys. I dare not let you go alone."

"It is the bog! it is the bog!" cried Oona suddenly; "an' there are little houses in its thrack, an' little childher, an' men an' women! Oh, Lord, have mercy! The time the bog was out at Docra five-an'-forty years ago, my own sister and her three little childher were among the dead!"

She flung her apron over her head, and began rocking herself to and fro. I pushed her into a great chair that was in the hall.

"There, you children," I said to the twins, "stay with Oona, and comfort her. And here, keep Paudeen; he must not follow us."

We shut the door on the disappointed twins, and hurried away down the long avenue. The rain had indeed stopped, and the air was sweet with a salt breeze from the sea. Every minute the day grew clearer about us, and the morning would have been sweet and gentle enough, save for the menace and fear of the roaring bog.

By the time we had reached the road it was day, and we came upon groups of men, women, and children, all hurrying one way, and that way towards Angry. We joined the hurrying groups with a hasty word or two.

"'Tis the bog, sure enough," said a woman to me, "an' in its track to the sea there is many a cabin. Lord, have mercy!"

All this time we were under the walls and the trees of Brandon Woods. Now we emerged from them, and came on the climbing road that winds between Brandon and Angry, skirting the slope of Brandon. As we reached it we saw people standing in motionless groups, all looking towards Angry. Below them a little way the bog was widening like a sea.

"There is nothing to be done here," I heard Hugh cry suddenly. "But there is time yet to warn some of the people that the bog is coming. Here, you boys that are fast runners, cut across the mountain for your lives to Docra and Doorish. And any of you men that have a horse, mount it and ride to Adeelish and Araglen, and let them know the bog is out."

The crowd scattered in many directions, and as I saw the lads, fleet as mountain goats, speed up the pathways, I felt sure that by my brother's presence of mind many lives would be saved.

"Ropes and ladders may be useful," he said, "but not here. I think there is nothing to be done here."

From where we were we could see Angry Woods, but not Castle Angry, and the woods were tossing as in a tempest, though there was no wind. Hitherto the woods had offered some barrier to the bog. Now, as we watched, they bent one way, as though they would lay their faces against the earth, and then with a huge groaning and tearing, a great slice of the centre of the woods began to move.

We who saw this terrible sight ran back aghast at the terror of it. We climbed Brandon higher and higher, though we were already far out of reach of the bog. Then at last we flung ourselves on the sward exhausted, and some of us gained courage to turn and look. I found Esther by my side. Hugh and Donald had vanished. They were seeing what could be done to save life, I knew, as Brandons ought, and I would not be afraid for them.

But Castle Angry! where was it? I stood up in the cold white light, that showed everything in sharp lights and shadows, and looked with amazement upon Angry Mountain. The ravine was full of the bog, moving, a great black sluggish mass. Now that the wood no longer held it back, it came on narrower and swifter. Below us in the valley there was an inextricable mass of tree-trunks, mixed up with debris of all kinds. But where Castle Angry had lifted its gateway with the two square towers there was nothing now, nothing but bog.

I seized Esther's hand and pointed.

"Look!" I cried; "see how God saves the innocent! If the bog had moved a day earlier, where would Harry De Lacy have been?"

And now something more terrible than all happened, for as the flood came down from Angry through the gap in the wood, someone cried out that there was a man or a body floating. We were all women, and panic-stricken, yet with some vague feeling that life might be saved, we turned back as impetuously as we had come, and ran, outstripping each other, as near as we dared to where the bog had filled the valley, as though it were the bed of a river. Then we waited.

And presently there came down with the bog the wretch we were unable to help. He was crouched on something, a plank, or a tree-trunk, what it was we could not rightly see, for all was equal in the black bog-water. There he sat, as one astride a raft, an awful image of fear.

Nor was he alone. Facing him on his raft was a great yellow dog, with bared fangs and bristling hair, as though terror had driven the creature mad.

"It is Gaskin!" said someone, and then a moan broke from the crowd, but no one spoke, though many there had cause to curse his name. The doomed wretch gave us a horrible glare of appeal as he swept by, and his raft, caught by the current, swayed this way and that way. But we could do nothing. He was in mid-stream, and so he and the dog that was called Venom swung on with the bog, round the foot of Brandon Mountain, and out of the sight of man.

CHAPTER XXX.

WEDDING-BELLS.

The bog-slide claimed but one other victim, and that was Thomas Hanrahan, the widower, in his lone cabin over to Barnagee. His "fetch" had not come to him for nothing. The inhabitants of the other cabins that stood in its path had received timely warning, or it had skirted them. Many wonderful escapes were recorded, for the bog had crept in and out like a snake, sometimes almost washing the threshold of a house, and sparing it; and again it had widened to swallow the bits of hillside farms that had been made out of blood and sweat.

It took its heavy toll of cattle, and crops, and sheep, and of little thatched cabins; but its human sacrifice was small—-just Thomas Hanrahan and these two men up at Castle Angry. The long détour it had to make round the foot of our noble mountain had saved many lives. The hill had stood guarding the people till the warning reached them, and now we Brandons held in greater love, if that were possible, the beneficent mountain which was called by our name.

Thomas Hanrahan's body was flung up by the bog after some days, and received Christian burial; but of Sir Rupert and his bailiff nothing was ever heard. The bog had swallowed them, and when at last it stopped moving and was quiet, the ravine over which Castle Angry had stood was all a quaking bog, a menace to any living thing that should set foot upon it. With Castle Angry went all Sir Rupert's gold, the immense price which he had received long ago from the English company for the mines, of which he had robbed us Brandons. I, for one, did not grudge the evil gold to the bog.

And so Harry De Lacy entered into his patrimony—a modest one now—of Angry Mountain and a score of rack-rented farms.

"We shall be as poor as church mice," said Esther with dancing eyes, and red roses of happiness blown into her cheeks, "but for all that we shall make the people forget that once they hated our name."

She was not a Brandon to be afraid of poverty, though her estate would be wealth compared with what we had known all our days. Harry De Lacy was growing stronger every day, and the air of beauty and race which he had worn when first we saw him was coming back to him now. As Mrs. O'Flaherty said, they would be the handsomest couple ever seen in our countryside, "and that," added the good woman, "meaning no disrespect to the handsome Brandons."

They were to be married on the threshold of Lent, and to have their honeymoon in Paris, where, after a little interval, Lady O'Brien, with her faithful Martha, would join them for the Easter in Rome. It was a lovely mild February, with the snowdrops in snowdrifts under the trees in Brandon woods and primroses in sheltered places with troops of celandines, violets, and marsh marigolds. Esther was not to have a flowerless wedding.

It was wonderful how Harry De Lacy recovered under the influence of happiness. The shock of the manner of his grandfather's death was but a passing one, and with his marriage waiting upon his convalescence it was wonderful what strides he made towards recovery. Dr. Rivers' pride and pleasure in his patient's progress lifted up our hearts, who had been anxious about Harry De Lacy's ultimate recovery.

"He has a constitution," the doctor pronounced, "and rare recuperative powers. I should never have dared to hope for so rapid a recovery."

So, after all, thank God, Esther was not to have a delicate husband, with the martyrdom of fear which that would have meant to her.

It was only long afterwards that Esther gathered bit by bit, and told me, something of the circumstances of Harry De Lacy's imprisonment, for imprisonment it had been, till he was so weak that his bonds might safely be relaxed. He had been ill before that day when Lady O'Brien had sent for Sir Rupert. After that he found himself a prisoner, with Gaskin for his jailer; and the wretch hated him since his chastisement for his cruelty to the dogs.

For many weeks Harry had lain, as he thought, slowly dying and half-delirious from want of proper food and care. In those weeks he was conscious, like one in a dream, of Gaskin's malevolent visage as he flung him food and drink twice a day. It might be years, he said, during which he had watched the short winter daylight creep up the walls and linger and vanish, and had endured the feverish torments of the night.

Once he had thought he heard voices beside his bed.

"'Tis only to loosen a plank 'idout on the lobby," said one, "an' lave the door open, an' before he knows where he is he'll be on the stones o' the hall below."

The speech was followed by a crackling laugh, and the speaker rubbed his hands in glee.

Then another voice, harsh and deep, answered:

"No tricks, Gaskin, or by heavens, man, I'll tie you up like a dog in a sack and fling you to the hounds. Venom would make short work of your bones."

Then the other voice answered surlily:

"'Tis all the wan thing, only quicker, as lavin' him die in his bed."

"And who said he was to die, you scoundrel? If he dies through any fault of yours, so much the worse for you!" growled the other voice.

And then the speakers drifted off into the phantasmagoria of dreams and terrors which were the background of the sick man's life.

After that he conceived a resolution to save himself. Instead of rejecting the food that was brought him he forced himself to eat, and while feigning unconsciousness or sleep when Gaskin came with the food, he held himself in readiness to guard his life, so far as his feeble strength would allow, if it were threatened, and watched for an opportunity to deliver himself out of the hands of his would-be murderer. In time Gaskin relaxed his guard of the door, believing his prisoner past helping himself, and this was Harry's opportunity.

He had followed Gaskin one night, and listened to him and Sir Rupert talking over their whisky. From their talk he gathered that they would be at a distance on a certain day—that day of January on which, indeed, we effected his rescue. But for the happy accident of Johnny O'Flaherty's venturous approach to Castle Angry he would have made the attempt to escape unaided, and would probably have died under the rains if he had not been recaptured.

It comforted him to think in those days that his grandfather had stood between him and death, for he was sure that it was only Gaskin's fear of Sir Rupert had held his hand from murder. To me it seemed but a small compunction in the wicked old man, and I could not help believing it a part of his pride that found it insufferable for a worm like Gaskin to lift its head against one of his blood. If Harry had died in his bed at Castle Angry it seemed to me that it would have been murder, just as much as if he had crashed through the upper floor, as Gaskin had wished it, on to the flags of the hall. But the quality of gentleness which Harry De Lacy must have inherited from his other saintly old grandfather, and which, I know now, implies no lack of courage and true manliness, makes it easy to him to forgive Sir Rupert, and even to regret him a little after all.

They were married very quietly one morning by Mr. Benson, in our old parish church. Esther had wanted to wear her travelling dress, but Lady O'Brien would not have it.

"You will be the handsomest bride in this part of the country," she said, "since I stood up with poor Peter. Hilda there won't be a patch on you, meaning no disrespect to her. And you sha'n't be defrauded of your bridal glories. 'Twould be a shame to me for ever if I let you."

So Esther had white poplin, with a train of white velvet, and the poplin delightfully sprigged with silver shamrocks. And I, the solitary bridesmaid, had also my frock from Paris, a creamy embroidered muslin trimmed with lace, which looked the embodiment of simplicity, but I am sure cost a very pretty penny for all that. It was Lady O'Brien's gift, and I cried out when she gave it to me that I would keep it against my wedding, but she said no, that I should have a wedding-dress of my own, and that she was to give it to me.

"What," said she, "are you to give my daughter Esther rubies, and a minx like you be too proud to accept from an old woman a tuppenny-ha'penny silk frock."

So I laughed and said I wasn't a minx, and would try to swallow the frock.

Lance and I were to be married at Whitsuntide. I would not have it earlier, because I could not bear that we should all hurry away from Aline. He grumbled a good deal because I would not fix the same day as Esther's for our wedding, which most auspiciously was Valentine's Day, and after he had seen me in my bridesmaid's frock he was more unwilling to wait than ever.

Still, as I put it to him, since we saw each other every day, and as he and the General were so busy over those mysterious preparations at Rose Hill, into which I was never allowed to pry, the time would pass quickly enough. And it really did. We were going to have husband-and-wife days all our life, and I wanted my share of "lovering" days like any other girl, and so I had them in spite of my grumbling lover.

I wish I could tell you something of the state of felicity in which the General spent those days. I should have thought Rose Hill lovely enough for anybody, but the General said that when he was fitting it up—only last autumn—he had never thought of such a person as a bride, and it seemed there was a lot to be done for a bride.

I used not to know whether to laugh or cry over the General's diplomacy in those days. I was supposed to be in the dark entirely about the suite of rooms which was being prepared for me, but really I knew beforehand almost everything they would contain. The General's way of finding out my tastes was to describe minutely a wall-paper, a chintz, a carpet, or a piece of furniture, and ask me if I thought such a thing would "please a lady". His craft would not have imposed on Paudeen; but for all that those rooms were going to be a tremendous surprise to me.

I was always wondering in those days—indeed I wonder still—what those two men could see in me to be so absorbed in and delighted over. Esther's beauty now, or Aline's goodness, I could understand exciting such enthusiasm,—but Hilda! Ah, well, it is a great thing that people have such tender delusions about us; and surely no one could have loved better than I. My love was adequate if nothing else was, and that was the thought that used to comfort me.

The time really flew round till it was May, and within a week or two of our marriage. Whitsuntide fell in May, and though people say it is an unlucky month for a marriage, I was not daunted. As I said to Lance, I was more afraid of keeping him waiting longer than of the ill-luck, to which he replied that if I suggested a further postponement he'd be obliged to abduct me.

Early in May our bride and bridegroom came home. Lady O'Brien and Martha had preceded them by about a fortnight, and had been very busy with preparations, for they were to live at Annagower. Harry De Lacy was going to farm a large slice of land about Angry. Poor land that even our peasant makers-of-land would despair of, but he was full of theories and full of hope, and it was pleasant to see him beginning his new life with such energy, and Esther's boundless faith in him. After all, their poverty proved to be quite relative, because between them they possessed an income of nearly a thousand a year, which is affluence in our quiet country, whatever it might be in London. Lady O'Brien had treated Esther exactly like a daughter, saying that she preferred to ensure her future against an old woman's whims.

"For who knows," she said in her whimsical way, "but I might forget Peter after all those years, and go off and marry some fellow, and make a fool of myself over him."

In this season of regeneration, a full share of new brightness had come to our dear old friend. Her rheumatism she said she had danced off at Essie's wedding, and when one of the literal twins gravely remarked that there had been no dancing, Lady O'Brien answered her that it was only because she had not had eyes to see.

Meanwhile I had been getting ready my very modest trousseau. Aline had found a little hoard somewhere for that, and as we live in the centre of a sewing industry, my things were fine and delicate as heart could desire. My frocks were few but pretty, and I was satisfied with them, though I knew that Lance's fingers were tingling against the day when he should bestow on me Parisian gowns and bonnets. I told him I wouldn't repay fine dressing, that it would but accentuate my insignificance, at which he would smile darkly.

My wedding gown only arrived from Annagower the evening before my wedding, and when it had been carried up to my bedroom, and Martha, who was in charge, spread its glories upon the bed, there it was, to my amazement, a replica of Esther's splendour. Accompanying it was a veil, shoes and gloves, and a tiny wreath of orange blossoms. There was no full-dress rehearsal. Martha was to stay the night in order to assist at my toilette in the morning, lest anything should require readjusting. And though I was brave enough to marry in May, I did not see the good of doubly defying the superstitious by trying on my wedding dress beforehand.

No bride ever had so many dressers before. I am sure the business-like Martha was rather irritated by having so many eager assistants, though she was too admirable to betray it. All my sisters, except Freda, were about me, and Lady O'Brien was sitting in state downstairs, while the boys waited in the corridor, getting in the way of the twins, who were darting up and down incessantly on all manner of unnecessary messages.

When I was quite dressed, even to the General's diamond star, and Aline's pearl brooch, to say nothing of my bridegroom's two splendid bracelets, Esther stepped forward, and, kissing me, clasped about my neck a lovely string of pearls with a diamond clasp. I recognized them as those her godmother had given her the night of her first ball, and cried out in protest, but she laughed and kissed me, saying they would become me better than her, for whom rubies of all things were the very gems.

So Lance did not see my splendour till we met at the altar.

Of course he was delighted, but then he is always delighted, and I am not sure that he doesn't like me better in the old frock in which he first found me seated on the steps in Rose Hill library; or in a pink gingham, which reminds him, he says, of me lying all crumpled up in the ditch the day of Annagassan Races.

One of my thoughts when I stood at the altar was whether Pierce in heaven knew of my happiness, and rejoiced in it, but I am sure he did. I said so to Aline afterwards, when I was alone with her for a minute, and she kissed me closely, and said she was sure he knew, and then she said sweetly that she was so happy in the two dear new brothers we had given her.

So, if I had tears in my eyes as our carriage drove off, as Lance said I had, they were tears of pure happiness and thanksgiving.

Oona always said that if Heaven meant a girl to be married, the husband would find her, though she were hidden in a bandbox. And here were we two girls fulfilling that wise saying of hers, and marrying the dearest of husbands after living the life of nuns. I said something of this to Oona, and she was well pleased.

"You couldn't have done better, Miss Hilda," she said, "nor yet Miss Esther. The people do be saying they couldn't pick between your gentlemen, for though Sir Harry is as handsome as a picture, the Captain's that big an' strong an' kind-looking."

So everybody seemed to smile upon our happiness.

CHAPTER XXXI.

ONCE AND FOR EVER.

Freda had not been able to come to our wedding, to my grief. She had now been six months with Mrs. Des Vœux in Devonshire, and seemed at last to have found quiet happiness. She wrote to us that the old blind lady treated her more like a daughter than a dependant, and if she did not come to our wedding it was because she could not bear to leave her in her darkness, even for a little while.

So after Lance and I had been three weeks at Killarney, which is, I am sure, the most beautiful place on earth, I acquiesced cheerfully when he suggested that we should cross to England from Cork, and wander about Cornwall and Devonshire for the remaining weeks of our honeymoon.

"Oh, yes!" I said, "and we shall see Freda, shall we not? I have wished it of all things."

For somehow I had felt sad about Freda being outside our happiness during those momentous times at Brandon.

"As you will, my sweetheart," Lance had said, as he would have said, I believe, to any proposal of mine that did not involve our separation.

I wrote to Freda to tell her of our plans, and by return of post I had a letter from her so full of delight, that I felt how her distance from us all must have hurt her during those years. She wrote:

It is the most ideal arrangement, for Mary Vincent and Jacky are to be here in June. But as for going to an inn, no such thing. There is a little summer cottage attached to this house, and just hidden in the combe beyond the garden-hedge. Mrs. Des Vœux has invited Mary and my boy to spend the summer there, and when she heard of you, she begged me to ask if you two would make use of it—Mary will take care of you both—you know how admirable a housekeeper she is, and she is the soul of discretion. Let me know when you will come. I am longing to see you and to meet my new brother.

We arrived at Wyncombe one lovely June afternoon and found our cottage a very delicious place. It was built of wood with a verandah running around it, and the whole hidden in creepers. The little valley was wooded to the top, and in front of the cottage door ran a little brown stream which might have been one of our trout streams at home. There was a small boy of a very martial aspect standing a-straddle in the trellised porch when we arrived, with an unhappy-looking fat puppy pressed tightly to his breast.

"Hello!" he hailed us. "Where is Old Soldier? This is a soldier dog, Moustache is his name. He has to learn to shoulder arms, but he always rolls over."

"Old Soldier didn't come this time, Jacky," said I.

"You are to come to see him in Ireland. But this is his son, who is also a soldier."

"He has got no medals," said Jacky, as he shook hands gravely. "Are you greedy at your dinner, or will you not have your hands washed?"

From this speech I learned that Jacky had been insubordinate, and had perhaps lost a stripe or two since coming to Wyncombe.

Half the cottage was allotted to us, and I discovered very soon that so excellent was Mrs. Vincent's discipline that even Master Jacky respected our frontier, and was only in evidence when desired—admirable small boy! However, Lance capitulated to Jacky the minute he saw him, so I expected to have him tolerably often in evidence.

Freda came over to dinner in a pretty black gauze dinner-gown, and looked very fair and sweet and comely. She brought a message from Mrs. Des Vœux that she thought we would be happier together this one evening, but that she hoped we would come over and dine the next day, and excuse her not calling first.

My sister was delightfully changed for the better. She seemed brimming over with quiet happiness, and I could not wonder. After her hard and disillusioning experiences of the world, after the stony streets of London, it must have been indeed delicious to be in this quiet place, surrounded by everything that kindness and consideration could give.

After dinner we sat in the verandah and talked. Lance romped on the grass with Jacky and Moustache, who seemed a very jolly little puppy when he wasn't half stifled by his master's loving embraces. However, as Freda said, a dog will stand a good deal done in the way of love. Mrs. Vincent had gone over to keep Mrs. Des Vœux company, so we had a long quiet comfortable chat, lounging in our rocking-chairs, and with nothing to disturb us but the singing of the birds and the shrill laughter of Freda's boy.

I had a long story to tell her, the details of all that had been happening to us at Brandon. Then when I had done, I had to hear all about her since she came to Wyncombe.

"When you see Mrs. Des Vœux," she said, "you will know what an angel she is. She has it written in her dear face. She has had such sorrows, Hilda, but they have only made her more heavenly. It is a privilege to be with her, and though she takes occasion many times in the day to send me out, for she is obliged to sit in a darkened room,—she is not altogether blind, you know,—yet I always come back into the shadows with joy. I have nothing to do but read to and write for her; she has many friends, out in the world, as she says, who are always needing her counsel and comfort. Yes, and I have to gather her roses, as Lady A—— said. Wait till you see our roses, Hilda. You will be out of conceit with Rose Hill."

"Never!" I cried.

"Ah, well!" she laughed, "I suppose immortal roses have grown there for you."

Then she told me how Mrs. Des Vœux's only son had died in India.

"Her grief," she went on, "has made her profoundly tender and sympathetic to all mothers. She wanted me to have Jacky under the same roof with me, but I was afraid his high spirits might oppress her sometimes. Still, she loves to have him with her now and again, and he behaves sweetly to her; and would you believe it, Hilda, she has offered me the cottage for him and Mary to make their home there? She put it so delicately, that they would keep up the place and save it from going to pieces with damp during the winter. I shall be the happiest woman on earth. Think of this place for Jacky after Parson's Green!"

"You accepted, of course?"

"I cried with joy. She only suggested it this evening before I came over, and I was already so full of joy at the prospect of seeing you. 'Ask your friend Mrs. Vincent, my dear,' she said in her humble way, 'if she will do me this great favour.' And I just took up her dear old hands and kissed them, and said, 'You shall ask her yourself when she comes this evening, and see what she will say.'"

"She will like it, Freda?"

"Like it!" cried Freda. "It is what we have dreamt of for our old age! We used to plan that when Jacky was grown up and a successful man, he would make just such provision for us two old ladies. But that it should come while Jacky was still a little boy and dependent on us, with years of his childhood still to come,—we never dreamt of such happiness as that."

"You poor dear!" said I, "the Hazeldines ought to have done that for you. It would not have cost them much."

"Oh, that reminds me!" said Freda. "Since I came here Lady Hazeldine heard from a friend of Mrs. Des Vœux of me and what I was doing. She wrote me, for her, a really humble letter, saying how shocked she and Sir John had been to learn that their son's widow had had to earn her bread and her child's. She implored me to forgive anything that had occurred between us, and to come to them to live with them, or to make arrangements to live independently as I would. Poor woman, when I read the letter all resentment faded out of my heart.

"I explained that I couldn't leave Mrs. Des Vœux just at present, but it was love which kept me, not servitude. I said I was happier in my working life, and did not feel now that I should care to give it up, but said I would come whenever Mrs. Des Vœux could spare me. I am going to them in the autumn for a while with Jacky, while Mary takes my place with Mrs. Des Vœux. I am very glad to be at peace with Jim's people. The difference between us has hurt me all those years."

"They will be delighted with Jacky," I said.

"Lady Hazeldine has seen him. She drove down to Parson's Green as soon as she heard where he was, making, I've no doubt, a fine sensation for Grove Avenue with her carriage and pair. She cried over Jacky, poor woman, and he, ungrateful monkey, just wriggled out of her embrace. 'You aren't my grandmother,' he said flatly. 'I've a mother and a Gran, (that's what he calls Mary when he doesn't call her by her Christian name) and lots of aunties, but I've no grandmother.' Poor Mary was horrified, and tried to persuade him of the relationship, but he stuck to his own opinion. 'If you were my grandmother," he said, 'you'd have taken me for a ride in that carriage long ago.' The poor woman felt it acutely. She wrote and told me about it. Your boy was right, Freda, she wrote, that is the sting of it. But for Jim's sake you will teach him to love and forgive me."

"Oh, poor woman," said I, "I am sorry for her!"

"So am I," said Freda, "but Jacky is terribly uncompromising. And how strange it is that the Hazeldines' good-will comes to me now that I am independent of it! Last year, or the year before, it would have meant deliverance."

The next evening we went over to the Court to dine. It was a delightful house in the midst of rose gardens, and when we had gone into the shaded drawing-room, we found roses everywhere, in bowls and vases and baskets, so that the room was as sweet as the sunny garden. In the midst of all the sweetness sat the dear white-haired old lady, with her thin hands in the lap of her black silk gown, and her figure wearing the ineffable look of patience that comes to the blind. Freda introduced us, and then the dear old lady made me sit beside her, and held my hand and patted it.

"I can't make out your face, my dear," she said, "but I always think I can imagine what people are like from touching them. Even your hands tell me you are fair and soft and sweet like your dear sister, who has done so much to brighten my life since she came."

Then she held Lance's hand a minute and congratulated us so sweetly on our happiness, and read us a little homily on the married life, to which we both listened as reverently as if we were in church.

Jacky, who had been specially invited, arrived just then looking very spruce. He came in with the most sedate little air imaginable, and getting round to Mrs. Des Vœux's side, bent down and kissed her hand.

"You dear boy," she said, putting her hand on his curls, "where did you learn your pretty, pretty ways?"

"It is Jacky's way of expressing affection," said Freda proudly, "and no one taught him. It just came to him untaught."

Beyond the shaded drawing-room we saw the dining-table through an arch with looped-up curtains. Candles with green shades were lit among the profusion of roses, though it was still broad sunlight.

"You won't mind, my dears," said the old lady, "my not dining with you. I can't stand the light nor condemn others to darkness, so I have a little wheeled table brought in here with my dinner."

Just then a tall dark gentleman stepped in by the French window, as if he were very much at home.

"Hello, Trefusis!" cried Jacky, from where he was squatted on the ground by Mrs. Des Vœux.

"Is that you, John, my dear?" said Mrs. Des Vœux, as he came up to her chair.

Then she introduced him to us as "Our squire and neighbour, Mr. Trefusis."

I was rather surprised, for Freda hadn't said a word of this neighbour, who was evidently very much at home in the house.

Mr. Trefusis dined with us, and we found him extremely pleasant. He was a grave, thoughtful-looking man, with melancholy eyes. Freda told us afterwards that he had lost his wife in the first year of their marriage, and had since spent a life absorbed in study and reading.

"He is much younger than he looks," she added.

I could quite believe that, if it were only because of the terms of camaraderie on which he was with Jacky. Jacky, indeed, treated him precisely as if they were of an age, and it was delightful to see them playing cricket together—Jacky about the height of his bat, and the two as grave as possible.

I said one day to Mrs. Des Vœux how much we liked Mr. Trefusis.

"John Trefusis is a good man, my dear," she said, "a good man, and one can't go beyond that. He has suffered a great deal, but I pray there may be happiness in store for him yet."

That first opened my eyes to the fact that Mr. Trefusis was in love with my sister. Indeed it was patent enough once we had the clue. But Freda—that was quite another matter. That she knew I could not doubt, from the little half-vexed consciousness she betrayed once or twice under his regard, but of love I could find no slightest sign.

One day Freda and I were together, and Freda's son was delivering his mind on many matters, as was his way when his commanding-officer was not present.

"Aunty Hilda," said he to me suddenly, "have you long, beautiful hair like mother's? And would you mind very much if I were playing with you and pulled it all down?"

"Of course she would mind," said Freda. "No lady likes to have a rowdy little boy like you pulling her all to pieces."

"'Cept you," said Jacky; "but then, of course, you're not a lady, you're only mother. You remember that day I had pulled down all your hair when Trefusis came in."

"Jacky!" said Freda, with a little blush of annoyance, "you are talking too much, and you know you must say Mr. Trefusis. I am always telling you so."

"I shan't," said Jacky flatly. "He calls me 'Shaver', and I call him Trefusis. We understand each other."

Freda's eyes twinkled. She was used to Jacky's insubordination with her, and I'm afraid rather condoned it.

"Well," said Jacky, embarking on his tale, "mother and I was playing at bears in the hall one wet morning. 'Cause it was so wet we didn't think anyone would come. Mother was going round on the floor growling, with all her hair down. I'd pulled it down in the bear's hug, and she wanted to put it up, but I said to her,—'I say, you leave it down 'cause I think it pretty', and so she left it."

"Oh, Jacky, Jacky, you silly boy!" cried Freda laughing.

"Well, all of a sudden I looked up," said Jacky, "and there was Trefusis in the doorway. 'Hello, Trefusis!' said I. But instead of saying 'Hello, Shaver!' he never said a word, but stood staring at mother. I s'pose he couldn't see her because her hair was all over her, or else he was 'mazed at her for playing bears. Then mother got up and just twisted her hair round anyway, and went out of the room, and didn't come back for a long time. And Trefusis stood staring at the door, till at last he 'membered me, and looked at me and said, 'Hello, Shaver!' though it was quite hours since I'd said to him 'Hello, Trefusis!'"

"Jacky, Jacky!" cried Freda, "here comes Gran, and not a minute too soon. Do you think your Aunty Hilda wants to be bored by an egotistical little boy like you?"

Jacky was carried off incontinently to have a fresh toilet made—his toilet seemed always in need of readjustment—and after he had gone I turned and looked at Freda.

She looked back at me steadily, and again the wounded and angry flush, which I had seen once before, rose in her cheeks. Her foot tapped the ground impatiently.

"It would be a good thing for Jacky," I said wistfully, for I liked Mr. Trefusis.

"Never, Hilda, never!" said Freda. "How can you think of it, loving your husband as you do? The Hazeldines will take care of Jacky, but if they did not, I could still refuse him such a sacrifice as that. I will meet Jim with my marriage vow to him unbroken."

The tears flashed in her eyes as I bent to kiss her.

Poor Mr. Trefusis!

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE RESTORATION OF BRANDON.

After all, who do you think it was of all the Brandons that brought the fortune back to Brandon? You would never guess. Well, it was Aline, and now I will tell you how that came about.

During the months that elapsed between my marriage and the autumn when Mr. Desmond was expected to revisit the "old country", Hugh and Donald worked quietly but indefatigably to fit themselves for anything that might turn up in the life of a new continent. They were already expert riders, and could handle a gun, as they could an oar, with absolute dexterity. They had grown to be big, sunburnt, handsome lads in their free and wholesome life, and never knew an ache or a pain, so they were made of the fine raw stuff of pioneers. But in the last months, acting on my Lance's advice, they set themselves to learn the rough-and-ready rudiments of the simpler trades, to shoe a horse with Teddy Murphy at the forge, to cobble a shoe or mend a joint in a horse's harness with Farrell the brogue-maker and Byrne the harness-maker, and many such useful arts.

They were full of the joy of the new life that was coming to them, scenting the battle of the world far off like the horse in the Scriptures, and yet preparing for it with a gravity and responsibility which came of their deep-rooted conviction that they were going to redeem Brandon. They had time now to make their own and their family's fortunes, now that the gray old wolf was no longer at Castle Angry waiting upon our need.

"If Sir Rupert had lived," Hugh said to me once, "one or other of us must have stayed to watch him, but now we shall go with minds at rest."

Poor Aline watched their quiet preparations with unprotesting pain. In her heart I think she was proud that they had asserted their manhood, though that heart bled all the time with fear of how that dragon, the world, might overcome them. We were always trying to console her, pointing out to her how this and that mother's son went and conquered and returned in safety.

"Ah!" she would say, "is it easier for me because other women suffer? I shall be glad when they return, but let me have my grief now that they must go."

Then the time came when we heard that Mr. Desmond had come back, and was staying in the Brandon Arms, as he had done six years ago before he took away our Pierce. And when we heard he was there Lance suggested that we should go and call on him and ask him to take up his quarters at Rose Hill, seeing that he had been Pierce's friend. Lance was keen also to see the man of whom he had heard so much, whose qualities of all others were those that appealed to him.

But when we arrived at the rough little place they call the Brandon Arms we found that Mr. Desmond had gone out. As we turned away rather disappointed, the landlady, Mrs. Fahy, came hurrying after us.

"I think, ma'am," she said, "that Mr. Desmond may have gone to Brandon, for there was a boy here with a bit of a note from Miss Brandon herself in the morning, and when Mr. Desmond came in and read it he just ordered his chop and immediately after went out again. I shouldn't be surprised now if you were picking him up, if so be you took it into your head to walk towards Brandon."

"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Fahy," said I, "I think we shall."

And, sure enough, when we went into the drawing-room at Brandon there was the man himself sitting astride a spindle-legged chair, and talking earnestly with Aline.

They made a curious contrast, he with his big frame and rugged face, his great hands, with their look of grasp, resting on his knees, and his rough colonist's clothes, and she so fair and dainty and refined, with her almost old-world dignity. She was wearing a tea-gown which had been easily adapted from our great-grandmother's wardrobe, a brocade of the colour the French call ashes of roses, a queer, elegant, faded thing, with old lace at the neck and wrists. I saw at once that Aline had made a toilette for Mr. Desmond, and guessed at her tender reason. She did him so much honour in the hope that he would more surely be a friend to her boys.

As we came through the ante-room unannounced Mr. Desmond was speaking, and I signed to Lance not to disturb him till he had finished.

"I can only say, Miss Brandon, that I loved the lad like a son, and would have saved him from pain and trouble just as if he had been my son. But I have had a rough life, and did not know how to manage a lad like him when it came to a delicate matter. I can only say what a deep grief it has been to me."

"Oh, no, no!" said Aline with her handkerchief at her eyes. "He said that no one could have been more patient, more wise, and tender with him than you were. I can never thank you enough."

"I wish to Heaven I could have saved him," the man answered in his deep and musical voice.

Then we went in, and Aline introduced us to Mr. Desmond. He and Lance fraternized at once, if one can talk of fraternizing in a case like this, where my husband sat and looked at the elder man with a boyish expression of hero-worship on his face, and listened with such deference.

There was a curious nobility and simplicity about the man. Whatever his successes had been in the world, it was easy to see that they had not been obtained by craft and guile or by trampling on weaker men. Seeing that we were interested in what he had to tell he talked with simple unconsciousness fully and freely.

"Yes," he said in answer to Lance, "it is lonely to come back. There are nettles growing round the hearthstone of the little cabin where I was born, and the last of my kin is laid to rest long ago in Brandon Abbey. Still, the mountains and the woods are the same; it is the same country. I sat to-day for a long time on the stile where I used to sit when I fetched the water from the well for my mother, and I remembered how, the day I was leaving her, she ran after me to the stile to kiss me again, for the last time it proved. Yes, it is lonely to come back, but the old memories are sweet too."

He said nothing at all of what we knew, how his wise and generous benefactions had made many a one rejoice at his coming back.

After a time Lance told him how we had looked for him at the Brandon Arms with the hope that he would come and stay with us at Rose Hill, but he declined, although very cordially.

"I never know when the fit will take me," he said laughing, "to roam about, and I should hopelessly disorganize your hours and your servants' ways. Besides, my old school-fellow, Mary Fahy, would take it as a slight upon her place if I were to desert her. Let me instead come in of evenings to smoke a pipe when I like,—may I? May I, Mrs. MacNeill?"

"Indeed you may," said I.

Just then the boys came in, full of repressed excitement. They shook hands with Mr. Desmond, and then retired into a distant corner, where they sat and glowered at their great man, in whose hands, although he did not yet know it, their fate lay. But he seemed almost as much interested in them as they were in him. His keen eyes followed them into their obscurity.

"Those great fellows," he said to Aline, "they were little lads when I was here before. Yet they were ready to follow me into the wilderness."

For a minute the silence was electrical. Then one or other of the boys broke silence.

"We are ready to follow you now."

Mr. Desmond stood up slowly, revealing his great height.

"What, still of the same mind?" he said. "Come over here till I look at you."

The boys came out of their corner and stood before him side by side, their eyes bright with excitement. The thing had come about much sooner than we expected, and as I turned to look at Aline I saw that her head was drooping, and her fingers plucked nervously at the lace of her gown.

Mr. Desmond looked at the boys a minute or two, and they looked back at him.

"Yes," he said, "I remember. You wanted to come with me, and I said that I had room for men, and that when you were men, if you were still of the same mind, I would find room for you."

"And now we are men," said Hugh, "and we are still of the same mind."

"We have been learning smith-work, and mason-work, and carpentry, and other things that we thought might be useful to us when you had found room for us," said Donald, "and we are ready to go."

"What, both?" said Mr. Desmond, and then he turned to Aline. "You would trust them to me, Miss Brandon?"

"Yes," said Aline in a low voice, "I have told them they might go if you would have them."

"Thank you!" he said, and his voice was full of feeling. We knew he felt that she had trusted him with Pierce, and Pierce had come home only to die, and now she trusted him with those two.

"Thank you!" he said again. "God helping me, I will fulfil your trust."

After that we saw a great deal of Mr. Desmond, and he was often at Brandon. There were naturally many arrangements to be made about the boys, and Aline confessed to me that Mr. Desmond's affection for Pierce and grief for his death had brought the silent strong man of the people closer into her friendship than perhaps any man had ever penetrated before.

He was to leave in October, and the boys' simple outfits were ready, and we had begun to dread the coming parting, for Aline more than for ourselves. It was no unusual thing now to find Mr. Desmond at Brandon when we went over of an afternoon, so that when we went in one of those last evenings, and saw him standing by the mantel-piece looking down at Aline's bent head, and Aline visibly agitated, we felt no surprise. The air was surcharged with emotion just then.

We sat down, and made some ordinary remarks, and then I asked if it had been settled about the date of departure, a matter which had been still under discussion when last we had met.

"Mrs. MacNeill," Mr. Desmond answered me in a half-shy, half-humorous way, "it is possible that the sailing may be indefinitely postponed after all."

"What do you mean?" I cried, without a glimmer of the truth.

He bent and lifted Aline's hand and kissed it.

"Your sister has done me the immense honour," he said, "of consenting to be my wife."

Well, we were all delighted beyond measure—all but the boys, who were bitterly disappointed at being cheated out of their fortune-hunting, so disappointed, indeed, that Mr. Desmond at last persuaded Aline to consent to their going out to the charge of his lieutenant, Mr. Allen, whom he trusted entirely, for such time as they chose to stay.

"If they have the spirit of the thing, they will be happy nowhere else. If not, it will take the edge of the appetite off, and they can come back to any career they choose, that I can open for them."

So Aline was married—by poor, faithful Mr. Benson, who had the sympathy of us all—and the boys went. A year later Hugh returned, but Donald stayed where he was. He is in Cape Town now, managing that part of John Desmond's immense business, and next year he will be in London, so that you may say we will all be reunited again. Hugh entered Sandhurst, and is now a very handsome young soldier, much in love with his profession.

But as soon as Aline and he had settled down after their marriage Mr. Desmond set about restoring the ancient glories of Brandon. Bit by bit, and with the utmost reverence, the dear old house was restored, and made more beautiful than our wildest dreams could have imagined.

Aline is now quite a great lady, much sought after in Society, beside whom her younger sisters are quite humble folk. But more than that, she is a happy and proud woman, and as for the good she and John Desmond do unostentatiously, that is written in the hearts of the poor, and in the books of Heaven.

The twins, by the way, were of the débutantes this year, and are counted among the beauties of the Season. But I don't think admiration or newspaper paragraphs will make them vain or worldly, for have they not been brought up by Aline, who, like a certain royal saint, goes splendidly to honour her husband's position, but directs the eyes of her most meek spirit ever towards the Kingdom of Heaven.

THE END.

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