who was so rich, and whose heir he must be, desired his return without a moment's delay. Even Paul's matter-of-fact employer had looked upon his obedience as a thing of course. "There is no doubt at all," he had said, regretfully, "that a bird in the hand is worth a good many in the bush. A fortune in prospect and in exile is pretty good, but a fortune at home and ready made is better." So Paul had come home; not dragged by a love of gain, but by a hungry heart. By the time he had landed in Ireland, however, the idea of presenting himself to the miser of Tobereevil had grown so repulsive to his mind, that he had almost stepped from one ship to another, and fled back whence he came. And only that that hunger of the heart was unappeased within him, his employer must have received him back ere he had ceased to be missed. It was in the midst of a confusion of attraction and repulsion which seized on him when he thought of the land of his inheritance, that he gave way to that freak of jealous, inquisitive humour, which brought a pedlar over the mountains to the gate of Monasterlea. He would see these women, and he would know if they remembered him. May might be married; he would hear all about it. May might be cold, unamiable, and forgetful. He would see it at a glance. And if either of these speculations proved the right one, then he would go back unknown to the other side of the world. In that case he would not trust himself to the tortures of Tobereevil. The miser might have his gold all buried in his coffin if he pleased. He might will his estate to be kept as a vast burial-ground for his remains, and the mansion of Tobereevil a monument over his bones. He, Paul Finiston, would at least be rid of haunting terrors and worrying superstitions for the remainder of his life. But if May should be found a maiden, still kind, still mindful, with still in her heart all that anxiety for his welfare which had been painted in her face on that morning when she had stretched out her hands to him from the quay, why then Paul would be a man, and brave the curse of Tobereevil. Well, he had gone happy from Monasterlea. He had seen May tender, true, and worthy to be loved. He would shelter himself under her womanhood and defy the curse. His fears had become phantoms. His hopes had taken a lovely form of flesh and blood. He walked towards Tobereevil a royal pedlar, ready to bestow gifts on all whom he might meet. But the long, foul shadow of Tobereevil in the evening sun had been too much for Paul Finiston. The old superstition, the old unaccountable terror that had made him feel himself a murderer when he confronted the miser even in fancy, had fallen upon him with tenfold force, now that he had looked on him in the flesh. May and his good genius were forgotten. The spirit of evil had taken hold of him again. Let him fly from this blight, this temptation, this curse! Let him return to his honest work beyond the sea! So having spent a little his passion in the wood and on the hills, and rested a while by the margin of the lake, he set off to cross the mountains on his way back to Australia. Soon the heat of his eagerness to be gone had abated, and he paused as he went, to look behind and beneath him. The glow of the evening was still ruddy on the land. A golden film had blurred the line of meeting between sky and sea. Higher, long bars of weightier gold had shot from be hind the hills, and laid themselves level along the west, as if barring the gate through which the sun had passed. The hills on the horizon had wrapped themselves in violet, and seemed to nestle close against the warmth of the sky. The midlandscape rose towards the light in every tint of yellow-green, and flame-colour, and tawny brown, and fell under the shadows, saddened with every hue of grey, and olive, and brown-purple. Here and there a lake or a fragment of a streamlet glanced upward, like a flame out of the depths of a hollow. Here and there a farm-house or a cabin stood wrapped in a luminous haze of its own smoke. And the woods curled out and wreathed themselves over all the foreground; one half amber and ruddy, fused in the burning glamour of the hour; the other buried under the sombre purple of their own dense shade. The beauty of the country smote him, like a blow from a friend. All this might be his. All this barren, wasted loveliness might be nurtured into teeming strength. He might do it, with his strong will and arm, helped by the meaner but mightier power that lay rotting and rusting among guineas and title-deeds in the miser's safe. How strange it was that Heaven's work should be defaced by the wickedness of one lean dotard! How strange that Paul Finiston, who panted to give renewed life to a crowd of his fellow creatures, should have to fly from the fear of hurting an old man! know?" said Paul. "I'm a stranger here, and I found this poor fellow lying hurt on He went more slowly now, onward and the heath. He calls out for Nan." upward, higher and higher into the upper "Nan and Bid!" cried Con, joyfully, mountains. The plovers cried, and whirred and with a friendly gaze at the old woman. close to him as they descended to their nests Oh, ay! thrust him for a fool but he among the heather. A few faint echoes came knows his own frinds," said the new-comer. floating up from the valleys; too few and too" I'm Bid, an' I know the way to Nan's: faint to bring a throb of human life into the lonely stillness. Yet there, and quite suddenly, Paul came face to face with a fellow-creature. It was Con the fool, and he was sitting on the heath, one leg gathered up in an attitude of pain, the other extended at full length; the foot quivering and swollen. He grasped the heather with both hands as he leaned on them. He made no complaint, but the tears rolled heavily from his round black eyes, and there was a tragic look upon his broad white face. "Hallo!" cried Paul, "what's the matter, my good fellow ?" "Con's foot killed," answered the idiot. "Con walk no more. Con die too on the mountains." 66 "Die ?" said Paul, nothing of the kind. Come, now, where am I to carry you to ?" By this time he had seated the idiot on his back. "Nan!" cried the idiot. "Where am I to find Nan ?" asked Paul, in a puzzle. He made two steps forward, but seemingly in the wrong direction; for the fool began to cry again. "This way, then," said Paul, and took another course. The idiot laughed, and clapped him on the back. How long he might have strayed over the hills, seeking the way to Con's friends by means of such signs, we need not guess. Chance sent a guide to his aid. Coming up the hill he saw a figure, wending slowly, and with the help of a stick, up the slippery braes. It was a little woman dressed in a long grey cloak which had seen many winters, a scarlet handkerchief on her head, her face brown as a nut, and her hair lying like a white silk fringe along her wrinkled brow. an' if it'd be a thing, young gintleman, that ye would carry him that far-why it's the Lord Himsel' that'll give ye a lift for it in yer need!" Paul laughed, and forgot that he was the miser's heir, and strode on contentedly with the fool on his back, and the old woman for his guide. They struck out on a path which leaned slantwise through a pass between two peaks of a cloven hill. And following along this they heard a soft girlish voice saying, somewhere near: "Come back, now, Patsie! Don't go down there or ould Simon'll catch ye!" "Nan!" cried the fool in a tone of delight. And then they turned the corner of a rock and came upon a rustic scene. CHAPTER XV. BID AND THE HOUSE-MOTHER. It was a scene like one of Mulready's pictures. Against the tall red sandstone cliff a cabin had been propped. It hung clinging to and slipping from this wall at its back, with its slanting thatch wreathed with moss and brilliant weeds, its gables awry, its windows one up and one down, its chimney crowned with an old upturned basket, its smoke hovering upward, its door low and dark, but gilt round with the sunglare like the gate of a royal palace. A slim young girl sat leaning against the wall, weaving a basket, with a pile of rods at her feet. She had a fair, ruddy look of innocence and health, short, saucy features, and large blue eyes. Her loose auburn locks hung in a heap of bronzed flakes upon her neck. The sun had browned her cheeks, her hands, and her naked feet, which were prettily crossed before her, where she sat. But her temples, and her throat, and her little ears were white. Two mahogany-coloured urchins with curly black hair were playing with the rods that lay beside her. Another, younger, swarthier, and sturdier, had wandered to a distance, and looked back over his shoulder with audacity in his arch black eyes. All these wild creatures were clothed in dark red flannel, the girl with a white kerchief across the bosom. In the doorway a woman was spinning wool. All round about them spread the red and purple mountains with their rich tawny patches, where the grass and tender herbage had broken out through the heath. Below lay the sea, and in the distance the white gleam of a village on the coast. And over all, and through all, glowed that after-glare of the sunset, upon red cliffs, ripe cheeks, cabin, heath, and ocean. The repose of this scene was disturbed by the new-comers. The girl sprang to her feet, spilling her rods; the children shrieked and clapped their hands in delight at seeing Con perched on another man's back; the spinning woman ran out from under the shadow of the doorway. There they were laughing, gesticulating, making themselves more picturesque at every turn, till they found that Con was hurt. Then there was a sudden hush, then little cries, and grieved faces, and the scene wore an air of vivid tragedy; till they found that he was not much injured after all. Then the laughter broke out again. The fool was placed reclining on a couch of dried heather, clapped on the shoulder, cheered, pitied, and purred over. Nan fetched a pitcher of water, and bathed and bandaged the hurt foot. "Is he her brother ?" asked Paul of the spinning woman, whom Bid had introduced as Mrs. Kearney, the house-mother of this homestead. "Her brother, is it? No, no, he's no son o' mine. But sure if he isn't what's the differ? He comes an' he goes. We'd be lonesome an' quare without the fool. As for Nan, he's just like one o' the babbies till her. An' he'd kiss the groun' she walks!" "See that now!" said Bid, striking in, "how fools does flourish! Gets purty girls to bathe their feet, an' gintlemen to carry them on their shouldhers." "And kind-hearted women to lead them back to their friends when they are astray," said Paul, smiling. "Och, och! sure I'm only a poor beggar!" said Bid, tossing her head sadly. 66 Beggar!" said the house-mother, indignantly, as if an insult had been flung at her own head. "Thin, Bid, have sinse! Who calls her a beggar, I'd be glad to know, yer honor? If ye seen the purty house she had till Simon put his clutches on it an' threwn her out upon the road! An' if ye seen the fine man she had for a son, afore he died of the cold he caught in the snow that black night. Don't cry, Bid! Keep up yer heart, alanna! Sure I'm not goin' to let ye make little o' yersel' to sthrangers that might believe ye! Whiles ye pay us visits an' it rises our hearts to see ye, an' whiles ye stay away, an' we're lonesome till ye come roun'. That's the way it is wid her, yer honor, she lives among the people; but there's nobody in the whole counthry that would dar' call Bid a beggar but hersel'!" "God love ye, Mary Kearney!" said Bid, drying her eyes and throwing up her head, "an' now I'll have my say. Ye hear that woman, yer honor," she said, addressing herself to Paul. "An' ye'd think maybe she was that well to live that she had nothing to do but hand away her creelfuls o' potatoes, an' her mugfuls o' male to every hungry mouth that comes lookin' a bit through the hills. An' ye don't know that her good man is dead, an' her hunted out o' the nate little houseen that he built wid his own hands. Ye don't know what a waste bitteen o' land this was whin she got it, an' how her an' her soft gossoons hammered it wid their spades till they dug the little fields up out o' the rock. maybe ye don't know, but she has ten childher till her share, an' nine o' them younger nor Nan; all like steps o' stairs. An' her spinnin', an' diggin', an' plantin', an' sewin', an' the agint holdin' a whip over her head all the time! Ye didn't know her afore, yer honor, but maybe ye'll know her now. Look at her there! Mary Kearney; that always has a corner for thim that's worse off nor hersel'!" An Bid gesticulated with her hand, as if she were denouncing Mary Kearney. She stopped, out of breath; and the two women looked away from each other, and cried in a sort of passion over each other's troubles; till Nan's clear voice came ringing between them, like the sound of a pleasant bell across the storm. 'Ye're all thankin' an' praisin' other," said she, blithely, "but here's a poor boy that wants to be praisin' somebody too. Con wants to thank the gintleman that carried him whin his foot wouldn't walk. May the Lord love yer honor an' lift ye clane over yer throubles, if ye have any !" She had risen up from her position on her knees beside Con, and stood, comely and tender, looking from Con to Paul, and from Paul to Con. Paul left the other women to calm themselves, and came forward to offer his further goodwill to the fool. "He's just like to love ye for it his whole life long!" said Nan. But as Paul drew nearer to her Con's face changed. He threw one arm round Nan's little sunburnt feet, and waved Paul backward with the other. "Don't mind him, yer honor," said Nan, smiling indulgently, and patting the fool's rough head with her hand. "There's whiles he's quare, an' ye'd think it's jealous he'd be," she said, blushing instantaneously all over her pretty ripe face, "an' then he don't like anybody to spake to me but hissel'. An' sure it's wicked to teaze the likes o' him; an' maybe dangersome as well." Here Mrs. Kearney stepped forward, without her tears, and invited the young gentleman to join the frugal supper of her family. Bid and she had carried out a table from the cabin, on which they had placed a huge dish of fine new potatoes, some coarse earthen platters, and some salt. "Well would it plase us to offer betther to a gintleman an' a sthranger!" said Mrs. Kearney. Paul declared that nothing could be better. And then they all sat down together in the soft purple twilight; the heir of Tobereevil, the beggar, the fool, the house-mother, the pretty maiden, and a troop of hungry children. By this time Paul was quite at home with the party. He humoured Con by taking no notice of Nan, and giving all his attention to the elder women. He had many questions to ask, not mere idle questions, but in search of information which he felt to concern himself. He had a friendly fellow-feeling for these simple mountaineers. They and he were suffering under the weight of a common curse. 66 I'm a stranger, you know," said Paul, with a blush at his own cunning, “and I want to hear something about this Simon whom you talk about. Tell me about him." 66 The house-mother and Bid looked at one another, as if to say, 66 Where can we begin ?" 'Deed, sir," said Bid, "it's but fool's work to talk o' him. He's the scourge o' the counthry that has the curse o' him for a lan'lord. And if it wasn't that the people has some hopes o' thim that'll come afther him, it'd be well they were all dead an' in their graves." This was the very point that Paul wished to arrive at. He wanted to hear from their own lips what they expected from the miser's heir. "Who is to come after him ?" he said. "He's wan Paul Finiston," began Bid. "A bad name!" groaned the housemother. "Whist wid yer nonsense!" cried the beggar woman ; sure the heart o' a man isn't in his name! He's a young man, yer honor, an' they say he's good, an' some day he'll be comin' here wid the mercy o' God in his two han's for the poor." "How do you know that?" asked Paul. "We're prayin' for it," said Bid, pathetically, "an' we've prayed for it long. It won't give me back what I have lost when it comes, but whiniver I look at one o' Mary's gossoons sittin' there I think he'll live to see the good times!" "Why don't he come home at once ?" cried the house-mother, passionately. "Why couldn't he come wid even a promise that'd keep us alive? What is it that makes quality so hard, I wondher? There's nobody comes here but only to tant us, an' crass us. The last that come here he was a rale fine gintleman, an' he was shootin' for his pleasure over the mountains. An' I lighted his that thing that the quality smokes instead o' a pipe-I lighted it for him, an' he sat down there fornent me, an' he tould me the Irish was a lazy people, an' axed me why didn't I work. An' he faulted the ould basket up on the chimley; sure it was the best that Nan could do for it! and he faulted the stuffin' I had put in a windahole to keep out the cruel blast. I could ha' tould him that I loved a bit o' glass as well as he did, an' that I had wanst a purty houseen wid windas as bright as diamonds. But I sickened ower it someways an' I hadn't a word to say. I couldn't give him an answer. I just turned on my heel an' went in an' shut my door." "Ay, ay!" said Bid, soothingly, "we know the cut o' him. But this gintleman's none o' that sort." "I ax his pardon," said Mary Kearney, humbly, "for maybe he'd think I evened it till him. But we know he's none o' that sort." "And what if this Paul Finiston should turn out to be one o' that sort ?" asked Paul. The woman turned a startled glance upon him, and then cast a look of anguish on her children. Why, thin, if he do, sir," she said, sighing, "thin the best frind that we had'd be somebody that'd take us out, wan by wan, an' shoot us down wid a gun "Heaven forbid!" said Paul, hastily, then added, "I suppose he keeps away in disgust at the whole thing." |