A BOAT being urged onwards—not very rapidly—by a single oar resting in a hollow in the centre of the stern, and worked from side to side by a man in evening dress, is not a sight of daily occurrence. This may have suggested itself to the girl who was seated on the midship beam; but if she was inclined to laugh, she succeeded in controlling her impulses.
He found that he was more adroit at the science of marine propulsion than he had fancied he was. The boat was making quite too rapid progress for his desires, across the lough.
He asked the girl if she did not think it well that she should become acquainted with at least the scientific principle which formed the basis of the marine propeller. It was extremely unlikely that such an emergency as that which had lately arisen should ever again make a demand upon her resources, but if such were ever to present itself, it might be well for her to be armed to overcome it.
Yes, she said, it was extremely unlikely that she should ever again be so foolish, and she hoped that her father would not be uneasy at her failure to return at the hour at which she had told him to expect her.
He stopped rocking the oar from side to side in order to assure her that she could not possibly be delayed more than a quarter of an hour through the loss of the oar.
She said that she was very glad, and that she really thought that the boat was making more rapid progress with his one oar than it had done in the opposite direction with her two oars.
He began to perceive that his opportunities of making her acquainted with the science of the screw propeller were dwindling. He faced the oar boldly, however, and he felt that he had at least succeeded in showing her how effective was the application of a scientific law to the achievement of his end—assuming that that end was the driving of the boat through the waters.
He was not a fool. He knew very well that there is nothing which so appeals to the interest of a woman as seeing a man do something that she cannot do.
When, after five minutes’ work, he turned his head to steer the boat, he found that she was watching him.
She had previously been watching the white glistening cottage, with the light in one window only.
The result of his observation was extremely satisfactory to him. He resumed his toil without a word.
And this was how it happened that the boat made so excellent a passage across the lough.
It was not until the keel grated upon the sand that the girl spoke. She made a splendid leap from the bows, and, turning, asked him if he would care to pay a visit to her father.
He replied that he feared that he might jeopardize the biography of some interesting informer whose name might occur at the close of the letter B. He hoped that he would be allowed to borrow the boat for his return to the cliffs, and to row it back the next day to where it was at the moment he was speaking.
His earnest sculling of the boat had not made all thought for the morrow impracticable. He had been reflecting through the silence, how he might make the chance of meeting once more this girl whose face he had seen for the first time half an hour before.
She had already given him an absurd amount of trouble, she said. The boat was one that she had borrowed from Brian, and Brian could easily row it across next morning.
But he happened to know that Brian was to be in attendance on Mr. Durdan all the next day. Mr. Durdan had come to the West solely for the purpose of studying the Irish question on the spot. He had, consequently, spent all his time, deep-sea fishing.
“So you perceive that there’s nothing for it but for me to bring back the boat, Miss Avon,” said he.
“You do it so well,” she said, with a tone of enthusiasm in her voice. “I never admired anything so much—your sculling, I mean. And perhaps I may learn something about—was it the scientific principle that you were kind enough to offer to teach me?”
“The scientific principle,” said he, with an uneasy feeling that the girl had seen through his artifice to prolong the crossing of the lough. “Yes, you certainly should know all about the scientific principle.”
“I feel so, indeed. Good-night.”
“Good-night,” said he, preparing to push the boat off the sand where it had grounded. “Goodnight. By the way, it was only when we were out with Brian in the afternoon that he told us the story of the Princess and her lover. He added that the cry of the White Lady would probably be heard when night came.”
“Perhaps you may hear it yet,” said she. “Goodnight.”
She had run up the sandy beach, before he had pushed off the boat, and she never looked round.
He stood with one foot on the gunwale of the boat in act to push into deep water, thinking that perhaps she might at the last moment look round.
She did not.
He caught another glimpse of her beyond the furze that crowned a ridge of rocks. But she had her face steadfastly set toward the white cottage.
He threw all his weight upon the oar which he was using as a pole, and out the boat shot into the deep water.
“Great heavens!” said Edmund Airey. “Where have you been for the past couple of hours?”
“Where?” repeated Miss Craven in a tone of voice that should only be assumed when the eyes, of the speaker are sparkling. But Miss Craven’s eyes were not sparkling. Their strong point was not in that direction. “I’m afraid you must give an account of yourself, Mr. Wynne,” she continued. She was standing by the side of Edmund Airey, within the embrace of the mighty antlers of the ancient elk in the hall. The sound of dance music was in the air, and Miss Craven’s face was flushed.
“To give an account of myself would be to place myself on a level of dulness with the autobiographers whose reminiscences we yawn over.”
“Then give us a chance of yawning,” cried Miss Craven.
“You do not need one,” said he. “Have you not been for some time by the side of a Member of Parliament?”
“He has been over the cliffs,” suggested the Member of Parliament. He was looking at Harold’s shoes, which bore tokens of having been ill-treated beyond the usual ill-treatment of shoes with bows of ribbon above the toes.
“Yes,” said Harold. “Over the cliffs.”
“At the Banshee’s Cave, I’m certain,” said Miss Craven.
“Yes, at the Banshee’s Cave.”
“How lovely! And you saw the White Lady?” she continued.
“Yes, I saw the White Lady.”
“And you heard her cry at the entrance to the cave?”
“Yes, I heard her cry at the entrance to the cave.”
“Nonsense!” said she.
“Utter nonsense!” said he. “I must ask Lady Innisfail to dance.”
He crossed the hall to where Lady Innisfail was seated. She was fanning herself and making sparkling replies to the inanities of Mr. Durdan, who stood beside her. She had been engaged in every dance, Harold knew, from the extra gravity of her daughter.
“What does he mean?” Miss Craven asked of Edmund Airey in a low—almost an anxious, tone.
“Mean? Why, to dance with Lady Innisfail. He is a man of determination.”
“What does he mean by that nonsense about the Banshee’s Cave?”
“Is it nonsense?”
“Of course it is. Does anyone suppose that the legend of the White Lady is anything but nonsense? Didn’t you ridicule it at dinner?”
“At dinner; oh, yes: but then you must remember that no one is altogether discreet at dinner. That cold entrée—the Russian salad—”
“A good many people are discreet neither at dinner nor after it.”
“Our friend Harold, for instance? Oh, I have every confidence in him. I know his mood. I have experienced it myself. I, too, have stood in a sculpturesque attitude and attire, on a rock overhanging a deep sea, and I have been at the point of dressing again without taking the plunge that I meant to take.”
“You mean that he—that he—oh, I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean that if he had been so fortunate as to come upon you suddenly at the Banshee’s Cave or wherever he was to-night, he would have—well, he would have taken the plunge.”
He saw the girl’s face become slightly roseate in spite of the fact of her being the most self-controlled person whom he had ever met. He perceived that she appreciated his meaning to a shade.
He liked that. A man who is gifted with the power of expressing his ideas in various shades, likes to feel that his power is appreciated. He knew that there are some people who fancy that every question is susceptible of being answered by yea or nay. He hated such people.
“The plunge?” said Miss Craven, with an ingenuousness that confirmed his high estimate of her powers of appreciation. “The plunge? But the Banshee’s Cave is a hundred feet above the water.”
“But men have taken headers—”
“They have,” said she, “and therefore we should finish our waltz.”
They did finish their waltz.
MR. DURDAN was explaining something—he usually was explaining something. When he had been a member of the late Government his process of explaining something was generally regarded as a fine effort at mystification. In private his explanations were sometimes intelligible. As Harold entered the room where a straggling breakfast was proceeding—everything except dinner had a tendency to be straggling at Castle Innisfail—Mr. Dur dan was explaining how Brian had been bewildered.
It was a profitable theme, especially for a man who fondly believed that he had the power of reproducing what he imagined to be the Irish brogue of the boatman.
Harold gathered that Mr. Durdan had already had a couple of hours of deep-sea fishing in the boat with Brian—the servants were all the morning carrying into the dining-room plates of fish of his catching (audibly sneered at by the fly-fishers, who considered their supreme failures superior to the hugest successes of the deep-sea fishers).
But the fishing was not to the point. What Mr. Durdan believed to be very much to the point were the “begorras,” the “acushlas,” the “arrahs” which he tried to make his auditors believe the boatman had uttered in telling him how he had been awakened early in the night by hearing the cry of the Banshee.
Every phrase supposed to have been employed by the boatman was reproduced by the narrator; and his auditors glanced meaningly at one another. It would have required a great deal of convincing to make them fancy for a moment that the language of Brian consisted of an imaginary Irish exclamation preceding a purely Cockney—occasionally Yorkshire—idiom. But the narrator continued his story, and seemed convinced that his voice was an exact reproduction of Brian’s brogue.
Harold thought that he would try a little of something that was not fish—he scarcely minded what he had, provided it was not fish, he told the servant. And as there was apparently some little-difficulty in procuring such a comestible, Harold drank some coffee and listened to Mr. Durdan’s story—he recommenced it for everyone who entered the breakfast-room.
Yes, Brian had distinctly heard the cry of the Banshee, he said; but a greater marvel had happened, for he found one of his boats that had been made fast on the opposite shore of the lough in the early part of the night, moored at the landing-ledge at the base of the cliffs beneath the Banshee’s Cave. By the aid of many a gratuitous “begorra,” Mr. Durdan indicated the condition of perplexity in which the boatman had been all the time he was baiting the lines. He explained that the man had attributed to “herself”—meaning, of course, the White Lady—the removal of the boat from the one side of the lough to the other. It was plain that the ghost of the Princess was a good oarswoman, too, for a single paddle only was found in the boat. It was so like a ghost, he had confided to Mr. Durdan, to make a cruise in a way that was contrary—the accent on the second syllable—to nature.
“He has put another oar aboard and is now rowing the boat back to its original quarters,” said Mr. Durdan, in conclusion. “But he declares that, be the Powers!”—here the narrator assumed once more the hybrid brogue—“if the boat was meddled with by ‘herself’ again he would call the priest to bless the craft, and where would ‘herself’ be then?”
“Where indeed?” said Lord Innisfail.
Harold said nothing. He was aware that Edmund was looking at him intently. Did he suspect anything, Harold wondered.
He gave no indication of being more interested in the story than anyone present, and no one present seemed struck with it—no one, except perhaps, Miss Craven, who had entered the room late, and was thus fortunate enough to obtain the general drift of what Mr. Durdan was talking about, without having her attention diverted by his loving repetition of the phrases of local colour.
Miss Craven heard the story, laughed, glanced at her plate, and remarked with some slyness that Mr. Durdan was clearly making strides in his acquaintance with the Irish question. She then glanced—confidentially—at Edmund Airey, and finally—rather less confidentially—at Harold.
He was eating of that which was not fish, and giving a good deal of attention to it.
Miss Craven thought he was giving quite too much attention to it. She suspected that he knew more about the boat incident than he cared to express, or why should he be giving so much attention to his plate?
As for Harold himself, he was feeling that it would be something of a gratification to him if a fatal accident were to happen to Brian.
He inwardly called him a meddlesome fool. Why should he take it upon him to row the boat across the lough, when he, Harold, had been looking forward during the sleepless hours of the night, to that exercise? When he had awakened from an early morning slumber, it was with the joyous feeling that nothing could deprive him of that row across the lough.
And yet he had been deprived of it, therefore he felt some regret that, the morning being a calm one, Brian’s chances of disaster when crossing the lough were insignificant.
All the time that the judge was explaining in that lucid style which was the envy of his brethren on the Bench, how impossible it would be for the Son of Porcupine to purge himself of the contempt which was heaped upon him owing to his unseemly behaviour at a recent race meeting—the case of the son of so excellent a father as Porcupine turning out badly was jeopardizing the future of Evolution as a doctrine—Harold was trying to devise some plan that should make him independent of the interference of the boatman. He did not insist on the plan being legitimate or even reasonable; all that he felt was that he must cross the lough.
He thought of the girl whom he had seen in that atmosphere of moonlight; and somehow he came to think of her as responsible for her exquisite surroundings. There was nothing commonplace about her—that was what he felt most strongly as he noticed the excellent appetites of the young women around him. Even Miss Stafford, who hoped to be accepted as an Intellect embodied in a mere film of flesh—she went to the extreme length of cultivating a Brow—tickled her trout with the point of her fork much less tenderly than the fisherman who told her the story—with an impromptu bravura passage or two—of its capture, had done.
But the girl whom he had seen in the moonlight—whom he was yearning to see in the sunlight—was as refined as a star. “As refined as a star,” he actually murmured, when he found himself with an unlighted cigar between his fingers on that part of the terrace which afforded a fine view of the lough—the narrow part as well—his eyes were directed to the narrow part. “As refined as a star—a—”
He turned himself round with a jerk. “A star?”
His father’s letter was still in his pocket. It contained in the course of its operatic clauses some references to a Star—a Star, who, alas! was not refined—who, on the contrary, was expensive.
He struck a match very viciously and lit his cigar.
Miss Craven had just appeared on the terrace.
He dropped his still flaming match on the hard gravel walk and put his foot upon it.
“A star!”
He was very vicious.
“She is not a particularly good talker, but she is a most fascinating listener,” said Edmund Airey, who strolled up.
“I have noticed so much—when you have been the talker,” said Harold. “It is only to the brilliant talker that the fascinating listener appeals. By the way, how does ‘fascinated listener’ sound as a phrase? Haven’t I read somewhere that the speeches of an eminent politician were modelled on the principle of catching birds by night? You flash a lamp upon them and they may be captured by the score. The speeches were compared to the lantern and the public to the birds.”
“Gulls,” said Edmund. “My dear Harold, I did not come out here to exchange opinions with you on the vexed question of vote-catching or gulls—it will be time enough to do so when you have found a constituency.”
“Quite. And meantime I am to think of Miss Craven as a fascinating listener? That’s what you have come to impress upon me.”
“I mean that you should give yourself a fair chance of becoming acquainted with her powers as a listener—I mean that you should talk to her on an interesting topic.”
“Would to heaven that I had your capacity of being interesting on all topics.”
“The dullest man on earth when talking to a woman on love as a topic, is infinitely more interesting to her than the most brilliant man when talking to her on any other topic.”
“You suggest a perilous way to the dull man of becoming momentarily interesting.”
“Of course I know the phrase which, in spite of being the composition of a French philosopher, is not altogether devoid of truth—yes, ‘Qui parle d’amour fait l’amour’’.”
“Only that love is born, not made.”
“Great heavens! have you learned that—that, with your father’s letter next your heart?”
Harold laughed.
“Do you fancy that I have forgotten your conversation in the boat yesterday?” said he. “Heaven on one side and the Lord Chancellor on the other.”
“And you have come to the conclusion that you are on the side of heaven? You are in a perilous way.”
“Your logic is a trifle shaky, friend. Besides, you have no right to assume that I am on the side of heaven.”
“There is a suggestion of indignation in your voice that gives me hope that you are not in so evil a case as I may have suspected. Do you think that another afternoon in the boat—”
“Would make me on the side of the Lord Chancellor? I doubt it. But that is not equivalent to saying that I doubt the excellence of your advice.”
“Yesterday afternoon I flattered myself that I had given you such advice as commended itself to you, and yet now you tell me that love is born, not made. The man who believes that is past being advised. It is, I say, the end of wisdom. What has happened since yesterday afternoon?”
“Nothing has happened to shake my confidence in the soundness of your advice,” said Harold, but not until a pause had occurred—a pause of sufficient duration to tell his observant friend that something had happened.
“If nothing has happened—Miss Craven is going to sketch the Round Tower at noon,” said Edmund—the Round Tower was some distance through the romantic Pass of Lamdhu.
“The Round Tower will not suffer; Miss Craven is not one of the landscape libellers,” remarked Harold.
Just then Miss Innisfail hurried up with a face lined with anxiety.
Miss Innisfail was the sort of girl who always, says, “It is I.”
“Oh, Mr. Airey,” she cried, “I have come to entreat of you to do your best to dissuade mamma from her wild notion—the wildest she has ever had. You may have some restraining influence upon her. She is trying to get up an Irish jig in the hall after dinner—she has set her heart on it.”
“I can promise you that if Lady Innisfail asks me to be one of the performers I shall decline,” said Edmund.
“Oh, she has set her heart on bringing native dancers for the purpose,” cried the girl.
“That sounds serious,” said Edmund. “Native dances are usually very terrible visitations. I saw one at Samoa.”
“I knew it—yes, I suspected as much,” murmured the girl, shaking her head. “Oh, we must put a stop to it. You will help me, Mr. Airey?”
“I am always on the side of law and order,” said Mr. Airey. “A mother is a great responsibility, Miss Innisfail.”
Miss Innisfail smiled sadly, shook her head again, and fled to find another supporter against the latest frivolity of her mother.
When Edmund turned about from watching her, he saw that his friend Harold Wynne had gone off with some of the yachtsmen—for every day a yachting party as well as deep-sea-fishing, and salmon-fishing parties—shooting parties and even archæological parties were in the habit of setting-out from Castle Innisfail.
Was it possible that Harold intended spending the day aboard the cutter, Edmund asked himself.
Harold’s mood of the previous evening had been quite intelligible to him—he had confessed to Miss Craven that he understood and even sympathized with him. He was the man who was putting off the plunge as long as possible, he felt.
But he knew that that attitude, if prolonged, not only becomes ridiculous, but positively verges on the indecent. It is one thing to pause for a minute on the brink of the deep water, and quite another to remain shivering on the rock for half a day.
Harold Wynne wanted money in order to realize a legitimate ambition. But it so happened that he could not obtain that money unless by marrying Miss Craven—that was the situation of the moment. But instead of asking Miss Craven if she would have the goodness to marry him, he was wandering about the coast in an aimless way.
Lady Innisfail was the most finished artist in matchmaking that Edmund had ever met. So finished an artist was she that no one had ever ventured to suggest that she was a match-maker. As a matter of fact, her reputation lay in just the opposite direction. She was generally looked upon as a marrer of matches. This was how she had achieved some of her most brilliant successes. She was herself so fascinating that she attracted the nicest men to her side; but, somehow, instead of making love to her as they meant to do, they found themselves making love to the nice girls with whom she surrounded herself. When running upon the love-making track with her, she switched them on, so to speak, to the nice eligible girls, and they became engaged before they quite knew what had happened.
This was her art, Edmund knew, and he appreciated it as it deserved.
She appreciated him as he deserved, he also acknowledged; for she had never tried to switch him on to any of her girls. By never making love to her he had proved himself to be no fit subject for the exercise of her art.
If a man truly loves a woman he will marry anyone whom she asks him to marry.
This, he knew, was the precept that Lady Innisfail inculcated upon the young men—they were mostly very young men—who assured her that they adored her. It rarely failed to bring them to their senses, she had admitted to Edmund in the course of a confidential lapse.
By bringing them to their senses she meant inducing them to ask the right girls to marry them.
Edmund felt that it was rather a pity that his friend Harold had never adored Lady Innisfail. Harold had always liked her too well to make love to her. This was rather a pity, Edmund felt. It practically disarmed Lady Innisfail, otherwise she would have taken care that he made straightforward love to Miss Craven.
As for Harold, he strolled off with the yachtsmen, giving them to understand that he intended sailing with them. The cutter was at her moorings in the lough about a mile from the Castle, and there was a narrow natural dock between the cliffs into which the dingey ran to carry the party out to the yacht.
It was at this point that Harold separated himself from the yachtsmen—not without some mutterings on their part and the delivery of a few reproaches with a fresh maritime flavour about them.
“What was he up to at all?” they asked of one another.
He could scarcely have told these earnest inquirers what he was up to. But his mood would have been quite intelligible to them had they known that he had, within the past half hour made up his mind to let nothing interfere with his asking Helen Craven if she would be good enough to marry him.
HE meant to ask her at night. He had felt convinced, on returning after his adventure in his dinner dress, that nothing could induce him to think of Miss Craven as a possible wife. While sitting at breakfast, he had felt even more confident on this point; and yet now his mind was made up to ask her to marry him.
It must be admitted that his mood was a singular one, especially as, with his mind full of his resolution to ask Miss Craven to marry him, he was wandering around the rugged coastway, wondering by what means he could bring himself by the side of the girl with whom he had crossed the lough on the previous night.
His mood will be intelligible to such persons as have had friends who occasionally have found it necessary to their well-being to become teetotallers. It is well known that the fascination of the prospect of teetotalism is so great for such persons that the very thought of it compels them to rush off in the opposite direction. They indulge in an outburst of imbibing that makes even their best friends stand aghast, and then they ‘take the pledge’ with the cheerfulness of a child.
Harold Wynne felt inclined to allow his feelings an outburst, previous to entering upon a condition in which he meant his feelings to be kept in subjection.
To engage himself to marry Miss Craven was, he believed, equivalent to taking the pledge of the teetotaller so far as his feelings were concerned.
Meantime, however, he remained unpledged and with an unbounded sense of freedom.
And this was why he laughed loud and long when he saw in the course of his stroll around the cliffs, a small oar jammed in a crevice of the rocks a hundred feet below where he was walking.
He laughed again when he had gone—not so cautiously as he might have done—down to the crevice and released the oar.
It was, he knew, the one that had gone adrift from the boat the previous night.
He climbed the cliff to the Banshee’s Cave and deposited the piece of timber in the recesses of that place. Then he lay down on the coarse herbage at the summit of the cliff until it was time to drift to the Castle for lunch. Life at the Castle involved a good deal of drifting. The guests drifted out in many directions after breakfast and occasionally drifted back to lunch, after which they drifted about until the dinner hour.
While taking lunch he was in such good spirits as made Lady Innisfail almost hopeless of him.
Edmund Airey had told her the previous night that Harold intended asking Miss Craven to marry him. Now, however, perceiving how excellent were his spirits, she looked reproachfully across the table at Edmund.
She was mutely asking him—and he knew it—how it was possible to reconcile Harold’s good spirits with his resolution to ask Helen Craven to marry him? She knew—and so did Edmund—that high spirits and the Resolution are rarely found in association.
An hour after lunch the girl with the Brow entreated Harold’s critical opinion on the subject of a gesture in the delivery of a certain poem, and the discussion of the whole question occupied another hour. The afternoon was thus pretty far advanced before he found himself seated alone in the boat which had been at the disposal of himself and Edmund during the two previous afternoons. The oar that he had picked up was lying at his feet along the timbers of the boat.
The sun was within an hour of setting when Brian appeared at the Castle bearing a letter for Lady Innisfail. It had been entrusted to him for delivery to her ladyship by Mr. Wynne, he said. Where was Mr. Wynne? That Brian would not take upon him to say; only he was at the opposite side of the lough. Maybe he was with Father Conn, who was the best of good company, or it wasn’t a bit unlikely that it was the District Inspector of the Constabulary he was with. Anyhow it was sure that the gentleman had took a great fancy to the queer places along the coast, for hadn’t he been to the thrubble to give a look in at the Banshee’s Cave, the previous night, just because he was sthruck with admiration of the story of the Princess that he, Brian, had told him and Mr. Airey in the boat?
The letter that Lady Innisfail received and glanced at while drinking tea on one of the garden seats outside the Castle, begged her ladyship to pardon the writer’s not appearing at dinner that night, the fact being that he had unexpectedly found an old friend who had taken possession of him.
“It was very nice of him to write, wasn’t it, my dear?” Lady Innisfail remarked to her friend Miss Craven, who was filtering a novel by a popular French author for the benefit of Lady Innisfail. “It was very nice of him to write. Of course that about the friend is rubbish. The charm of this neighbourhood is that no old friend ever turns up.”
“You don’t think that—that—perhaps—” suggested Miss Craven with the infinite delicacy of one who has been employed in the filtration of Paul Bourget.
“Not at all—not at all,” said Lady Innisfail, shaking her head. “If it was his father it would be quite another matter.”
“Oh!”
“Lord Fotheringay is too great a responsibility even for me, and I don’t as a rule shirk such things,” said Lady Innisfail. “But Harold is—well, I’ll let you into a secret, though it is against myself: he has never made love even to me.”
“That is inexcusable,” remarked Miss Craven, with a little movement of the eyebrows. She did not altogether appreciate Lady Innisfail’s systems. She had not a sufficient knowledge of dynamics and the transference of energy to be able to understand the beauty of the “switch” principle. “But if he is not with a friend—or—or—the other—”
“The enemy—our enemy?”
“Where can he be—where can he have been?”
“Heaven knows! There are some things that are too wonderful for me. I fancied long ago that I knew Man. My dear Helen, I was a fool. Man is a mystery. What could that boy mean by going to the Banshee’s Cave last night, when he might have been dancing with me—or you?”
“Romance?”
“Romance and rubbish mean the same thing to such men as Harold Wynne, Helen—you should know so much,” said Lady Innisfail. “That is, of course, romance in the abstract. The flutter of a human white frock would produce more impression on a man than a whole army of Banshees.”
“And yet the boatman said that Mr. Wynne had spent some time last night at the Cave,” said Miss Craven. “Was there a white dress in the question, do you fancy?”
Lady Innisfail turned her large and luminous eyes upon her companion. So she was accustomed to turn those orbs upon such young men as declared that they adored her. The movement was supposed to be indicative of infinite surprise, with abundant sympathy, and a trace of pity.
Helen Craven met the luminous gaze with a smile, that broadened as she murmured, “Dearest Lilian, we are quite alone. It is extremely unlikely that your expression can be noticed by any of the men. It is practically wasted.”
“It is the natural and reasonable expression of the surprise I feel at the wisdom of the—the—”
“Serpent?”
“Not quite. Let us say, the young matron, lurking beneath the harmlessness of the—the—let us say the ingenue. A white dress! Pray go on with ‘Un Cour de Femme’.”
Miss Craven picked up the novel which had been on the ground, flattened out in a position of oriental prostration and humility before the wisdom of the women.
THE people of the village of Ballycruiskeen showed themselves quite ready to enter into the plans of their pastor in the profitable enterprise of making entertainment for Lady Innisfail and her guests. The good pastor had both enterprise and imagination. Lady Innisfail had told him confidentially that day that she wished to impress her English visitors with the local colour of the region round about. Local colour was a phrase that she was as fond of as if she had been an art critic; but it so happened that the pastor had never heard the phrase before; he promptly assured her, however, that he sympathized most heartily with her ladyship’s aspirations in this direction. Yes, it was absolutely necessary that they should be impressed with the local colour, and if, with this impression, there came an appreciation of the requirements of the chapel in the way of a new roof, it would please him greatly.
The roof would certainly be put on before the winter, even if the work had to be carried out at the expense of his Lordship, Lady Innisfail said with enthusiasm; and if Father Constantine could only get up a wake or a dance or some other festivity for the visitors, just to show them how picturesque and sincere were the Irish race in the West, she would take care that the work on the roof was begun without delay.
Father Constantine—he hardly knew himself by that name, having invariably been called Father Conn by his flock—began to have a comprehensive knowledge of what was meant by the phrase “local colour.” Did her ladyship insist on a wake, he inquired.
Her ladyship said she had no foolish prejudices in the matter. She was quite willing to leave the whole question of the entertainment in the hands of his reverence. He knew the people best and he would be able to say in what direction their abilities could be exhibited to the greatest advantage. She had always had an idea, she confessed, that it was at a wake they shone; but, of course, if Father Constantine thought differently she would make no objection, but she would dearly like a wake.
The priest did not even smile for more than a minute; but he could not keep that twinkle out of his eyes even if the chapel walls in addition to the roof depended on his self-control.
He assured her ladyship that she was perfectly right in her ideas. He agreed with her that the wake was the one festivity that was calculated to bring into prominence the varied talents of his flock. But the unfortunate thing about it was its variableness. A wake was something that could not be arranged for beforehand—at least not without involving a certain liability to criminal prosecution. The elements of a wake were simple enough, to be sure, but simple and all as they were, they were not always forthcoming.
Lady Innisfail thought this very provoking. Of course, expense was no consideration—she hoped that the pastor understood so much. She hoped he understood that if he could arrange for a wake that night she would bear the expense.
The priest shook his head.
Well, then, if a wake was absolutely out of the question—she didn’t see why it should be, but, of course, he knew best—why should he not get up an eviction? She thought that on the whole the guests had latterly heard more about Irish evictions than Irish wakes. There was plenty of local colour in an eviction, and so far as she could gather from the pictures she had seen in the illustrated papers, it was extremely picturesque—yes, when the girls were barefooted, and when there was active resistance. Hadn’t she heard something about boiling water?
The twinkle had left the priest’s eyes as she prattled away. He had an impulse to tell her that it was the class to which her ladyship belonged and not that to which he belonged, who had most practice in that form of entertainment known as the eviction. But thinking of the chapel roof, he restrained himself. After all, Lord Innisfail had never evicted a family on his Irish estate. He had evicted several families on his English property, however; but no one ever makes a fuss about English evictions. If people fail to pay their rent in England they know that they must go. They have not the imagination of the Irish.
“I’ll tell your ladyship what it is,” said Father Conn, before she had quite come to the end of her prattle: “if the ladies and gentlemen who have the honour to be your ladyship’s guests will take the trouble to walk or drive round the coast to the Curragh of Lamdhu after supper—I mean dinner—to-night, I’ll get up a celebration of the Cruiskeen for you all.”
“How delightful!” exclaimed her ladyship. “And what might a celebration of the Cruiskeen be?”
It was at this point that the imagination of the good father came to his assistance. He explained, with a volubility that comes to the Celt only when he is romancing, that the celebration of the Cruiskeen was a prehistoric rite associated with the village of Ballycruiskeen. Cruiskeen was, as perhaps her ladyship had heard, the Irish for a vessel known to common people as a jug—it was, he explained, a useful vessel for drinking out of—when it held a sufficient quantity.
Of course Lady Innisfail had heard of a jug—she had even heard of a song called “The Cruiskeen Lawn”—did that mean some sort of jug?
It meant the little full jug, his reverence assured her. Anyhow, the celebration of the Cruiskeen of Ballycruiskeen had taken place for hundreds—most likely thousands—of years at the Curragh of Lamdhu—Lamdhu meaning the Black Hand—and it was perhaps the most interesting of Irish customs. Was it more interesting than a wake? Why, a wake couldn’t hold a candle to a Cruiskeen, and the display of candles was, as probably her ladyship knew, a distinctive feature of a wake.
Father Conn, finding how much imaginary archæology Lady Innisfail would stand without a protest, then allowed his imagination to revel in the details of harpers—who were much more genteel than fiddlers, he thought, though his flock preferred the fiddle—of native dances and of the recitals of genuine Irish poems—probably prehistoric. All these were associated with a Cruiskeen, he declared, and a Cruiskeen her ladyship and her ladyship’s guests should have that night, if there was any public spirit left in Ballycruiskeen, and he rather thought that there was a good deal still left, thank God!
Lady Innisfail was delighted. Local colour! Why, this entertainment was a regular Winsor and Newton Cabinet.
It included everything that people in England were accustomed to associate with the Irish, and this was just what the guests would relish. It was infinitely more promising than the simple national dance for which she had been trying to arrange.
She shook Father Conn heartily by the hand, but stared at him when he made some remark about the chapel roof—she had already forgotten all about the roof.
The priest had not.
“God forgive me for my romancing!” he murmured, when her ladyship had departed and he stood wiping his forehead. “God forgive me! If it wasn’t for the sake of the slate or two, the ne’er a word but the blessed truth would have been forced from me. A Cruiskeen! How was it that the notion seized me at all?”
He hurried off to an ingenious friend and confidential adviser of his, whose name was O’Flaherty, and who did a little in the horse-dealing line—a profession that tends to develop the ingenuity of those associated with it either as buyers or sellers—and Mr. O’Flaherty, after hearing Father Conn’s story, sat down on the side of one of the ditches, which are such a distinctive feature of Ballycruiskeen and the neighbourhood, and roared with laughter.
“Ye’ve done it this time, and no mistake, Father Conn,” he cried, when he had partially recovered from his hilarity. “I always said you’d do it some day, and ye’ve done it now. A Cruiskeen! Mother of Moses! A Cruiskeen! Oh, but it’s yourself has the quare head, Father Conn!”
“Give over your fun, and tell us what’s to be done—that’s what you’re to do if there’s any good in you at all,” said the priest.
“Oh, by my soul, ye’ll have to carry out the enterprise in your own way, my brave Father Conn,” said Mr. O’Flaherty. “A Cruiskeen! A——”
“Phinny O’Flaherty,” said the priest solemnly, “if ye don’t want to have the curse of the Holy Church flung at that red head of yours, ye’ll rise and put me on the way of getting up at least a jig or two on the Curragh this night.”
After due consideration Mr. O’Flaherty came to the conclusion that it would be unwise on his part to put in motion the terrible machinery of the Papal Interdict—if the forces of the Vatican were to be concentrated upon him he might never again be able to dispose of a “roarer” as merely a “whistler” to someone whose suspicions were susceptible of being lulled by a brogue. Mr. Phineas O’Flaherty consequently assured Father Conn that he would help his reverence, even if the act should jeopardize his prospects of future happiness in another world.