the road from the brow of the hill down to the plain wound in such devious courses through rock-lined defiles and bog-paths shrouded with stunted tangles of scrub-trees, that an hour elapsed before the o’mahony again saw the fires which had been lighted to greet his return. this hour’s drive went in silence, for the way was too rough for talk. darkness fell, and then the full moon rose and wrapped the wild landscape in strange, misty lights and weird shadows.
all at once the car emerged from the obscurity of overhanging trees and bowlders, and the travellers found themselves in the very heart of the hamlet of muirisc. the road they had been traversing seemed to have come suddenly to an end in a great barn-yard, in the center of which a bonfire was blazing, and around which, in the reddish flickering half-lights, a lot of curiously shaped stone buildings, little and big, old and new, were jumbled in sprawling picturesqueness.
about the fire a considerable crowd of persons were gathered—thin, little men in long coats and knee-breeches; old, white-capped women with large, black hooded cloaks; younger women with crimson petticoats and bare feet and ankles, children of all sizes and ages clustering about their skirts—perhaps a hundred souls in all. though the o’mahony had very little poetic imagination or pictorial sensibility, he was conscious that the spectacle was a curious one.
as the car came to a stop, o’daly leaped lightly to the ground, and ran over to the throng by the bonfire.
“now thin!” he called out, with vehemence, “have ye swallowed ye’re tongues? follow me now! cheers for the o’mahony! now thin! one—two—”
the little man waved his arms, and at the signal, led by his piping voice, the assembled villagers sent up a concerted shout, which filled the shadowed rookeries round about with rival echoes of “hurrahs” and “hurroos,” and then broke, like an exploding rocket, into a shower of high pitched, unintelligible ejaculations.
amidst this welcoming chorus of remarks, which he could not understand, the o’mahony alighted, and walked toward the fire, closely followed by jerry, and by malachy, the driver, bearing the bags.
for a moment he almost feared to be overthrown by the spontaneous rush which the black-cloaked old women made upon him, clutching at his arms and shoulders and deafening his ears with a babel of outlandish sounds. but o’daly came instantly to his rescue, pushing back the eager crones with vigorous roughness, and scolding them in two languages in sharp peremptory tones.
“back there wid ye, biddy quinn! now thin, ould deludherer, will ye hould yer pace! come along out o’ that, pether’s mag! lave his honor a free path, will ye!” thus, with stern remonstrance, backed by cuffs and pushes, o’daly cleared the way, and the o’mahony found himself half-forced, half-guided away from the fire and toward a tall and sculptured archway, which stood, alone, quite independent of any adjoining wall, upon the nearest edge of what he took to be the barnyard.
passing under this impressive medi忙val gateway, he confronted a strange pile of buildings, gray and hoar in the moonlight where their surface was not covered thick with ivy. there were high pinnacles thrusting their jagged points into the sky line, which might be either chimneys or watch-towers; there were lofty gabled walls, from which the roofs had fallen; there were arched window-holes, through which vines twisted their umbrageous growth unmolested; and side by side with these signs of bygone ruin, there were puzzling tokens of present occupation.
a stout, elderly woman, in the white, frilled cap of her district, with a shawl about her shoulders and a bright-red skirt, stood upon the steps of what seemed the doorway of a church, bowing to the new-comer. behind her, in the hall, glowed the light of a hospitable, homelike fire.
“it is his honor come back to his own, mrs. sullivan,” the stranger heard o’daly’s voice call out.
“and it’s kindly welcome ye are, sir,” said the woman, bowing again. “yer honor doen’t remimber me, perhaps. i was nora o’mara, thin, in the day whin ye were a wee bit of a lad, before your father and mother—god rest their sowls!—crossed the say.”
“i’m afraid i doen’t jest place you,” said the o’mahony. “i’m the worst hand in the world at rememberin’ faces.”
the woman smiled.
“molare! it’s not be me face that anny boy of thirty years back ’ud recognize me now,” she said, as she led the way for the party into the house. “there were thim that had a dale of soft-sawderin’ words to spake about it thin; but they’ve left off this manny years ago.”
“it’s your cooking and your fine housekeeping that we do be praising now with every breath, mrs. sullivan; and sure that’s far more complimintary to you than mere eulojums on skin-deep beauty, that’s here to-day and gone to-morrow, and that was none o’ your choosing at best,” said o’daly, as they entered the room at the end of the passage.
“thrue for you, cormac o’daly,” the housekeeper responded, with twinkling eyes; “and i’m thinkin’, if we’d all of us the choosin’ of new faces, what an altered appearance you’d presint, without delay.”
a bright, glowing bank of peat on the hearth filled the room with cozy comfort.
it was a small, square chamber, roofed with blackened oak beams, and having arched doors and windows. its walls, partly of stone, partly of plaster roughly scratched, were whitewashed. the sanded floor was bare, save for a cowskin mat spread before the fire. a high, black-wood sideboard at one end of the room, a half-dozen stiffbacked, uncompromising looking chairs, and a table in the center, heaped with food, but without a cloth, completed the inventory of visible furniture.
mrs. o’sullivan bustled out of the room, leaving the men together. the o’mahony sent a final inquisitive glance from ceiling to uncarpeted floor.
“so this is my ranch, eh?” he said, taking off his hat.
“sir, you’re welcome to the ancesthral abode of the o’mahony’s of muirisc,” answered o’daly, gravely. “the room we stand in often enough sheltered stout conagher o’mahony, before confiscation dhrove him forth, and the ruffian boyle came in. ’tis far oldher, sir, than ballydesmond or even dunmanus.”
“so old, the paper seems to have all come off’n the walls,” said the o’mahony. “well, we’ll git in a rocking-chair or so and a rag-carpet and new paper, an’ spruce her up generally. i s’pose there’s lots o’ more room in the house.”
“well, sir, rightly spakin’, there is a dale more, but it’s mostly not used, by rayson of there being no roof overhead. there’s this part of the castle that’s inhabitable, and there’s a part of the convent forninst the porch where the nuns live, but there’s more of both, not to mintion the church, that’s ruined entirely. whatever your taste in ruins may plase to be, there’ll be something here to delight you. we have thim that’s a thousand years old, and thim that’s fallen into disuse since only last winter. anny kind you like: early irish, pray-norman, posht-norman, elizabethan, georgian, or very late victorian—here the ruins are for you, the natest and most complate and convanient altogether to be found in munster.”
the eyes of the antiquarian bard sparkled with enthusiasm as he recounted the architectural glories of muirisc. there was no answering glow in the glance of the o’mahony.
“i’ll have a look round first thing in the morning,” he said, after the men had seated themselves at the table.
a bright-faced, neatly clad girl divided with mrs. o’sullivan the task of bringing the supper from the kitchen beyond into the room; but it was malachy, wearing now a curiously shapeless long black coat, instead of his driver’s jacket, who placed the dishes on the table, and for the rest stood in silence behind his new master’s chair.
the o’mahony grew speedily restless under the consciousness of malachy’s presence close at his back.
“we can git along without him, can’t we?” he asked o’daly, with a curt backward nod.
“ah, no, sir,” pleaded the other. “the boy ’ud be heart-broken if ye sint him away. ’twas his grandfather waited on your great-uncle’s cousin, the o’mahony of the double teeth; and his father always served your cousins four times removed, who aich in his turn held the title; and the old man sorrowed himsilf to death whin the last of ’em desaysed, and your honor couldn’t be found, and there was no more an o’mahony to wait upon. the grief of that good man wud ’a’ brought tears to your eyes. there was no keeping him from the dhrink day or night, sir, till he made an ind to him-silf. and young malachy, sir, he’s composed of the same determined matarial.”
“well, of course, if he’s so much sot on it as all that,” said the o’mahony, relenting. “but i wanted to feel free to talk over affairs with you—money matters and so on; and—”
“ah, sir, no fear about malachy. not a word of what we do be saying does he comprehind.”
“deef and dumb, eh?”
“not at all; but he has only the irish.” in answer to o’mahony’s puzzled look, o’daly added in explanation: “it’s the glory of muirisc, sir, that we hould fast be our ancient thraditions and tongue. in all the place there’s not rising a dozen that could spake to you in english. and—i suppose your honor forgets the irish entoirely? or perhaps your parents neglected to tache it to you?”
“yes,” said the o’mahony; “they never taught me any irish at all; leastways, not that i remember.”
“luk at that now!” exclaimed o’daly, sadly, as he took more fish upon his plate.
“it’s goin’ to be pritty rough sleddin’ for me to git around if nobody understands what i say, ain’t it?” asked the o’mahony, doubtfully.
“oh, not at all,” o’daly made brisk reply. “it’s part of my hereditary duty to accompany you on all your travels and explorations and incursions, to keep a record of the same, and properly celebrate thim in song and history. the last two o’mahonys betwixt ourselves, did nothing but dhrink at the pig-market at dunmanway once a week, and dhrink at mike leary’s shebeen over at ballydivlin the remainding days of the week, and dhrink here at home on sundays. to say the laste, this provided only indifferent opportunities for a bard. but plase the lord bether times have come, now.”
malachy had cleared the dishes from the board, and now brought forward a big square decanter, a sugar-bowl, a lemon fresh cut in slices, three large glasses and one small one. o’daly at this lifted a steaming copper kettle from the crane over the fire, and began in a formally ceremonious and deliberate manner the brewing of the punch. the o’mahony watched the operation with vigilance. then clay pipes and tobacco were produced, and malachy left the room.
“what i wanted to ask about,” said the o’mahony, after a pause, and between sips from his fragrant glass, “was this: that lawyer, carmody, didn’t seem to know much about what the estate was worth, or how the money came in, or anything else. all he had to do, he said, was to snoop around and find out where i was. all the rest was in your hands. what i want to know is jest where i stand.”
“well, sir, that’s not hard to demonsthrate. you’re the o’mahony of muirisc. you own in freehold the best part of this barony—some nine thousand acres. you have eight-and-thirty tinants by lasehold, at a total rintal of close upon four hundred pounds; turbary rights bring in rising twinty pounds; the royalty on the carrigeens bring ten pounds; your own farms, with the pigs, the barley, the grazing and the butter, produce annually two hundred pounds—a total of six hundred and thirty pounds, if i’m not mistaken.”
“how much is that in dollars?”
“about three thousand one hundred and fifty dollars, sir.”
“and that comes in each year?” said the o’mahony, straightening himself in his chair.
“it does that,” said o’daly; then, after a pause, he added dryly: “and goes out again.”
“how d’ye mean?”
“sir, the o’mahonys are a proud and high-minded race, and must live accordingly. and aich of your ancestors, to keep up his dignity, borrowed as much money on the blessed land as ever he could raise, till the inthrest now ates up the greater half of the income. if you net two hundred pounds a year—that is to say, one thousand dollars—you’re doing very well indeed. in the mornin’ i’ll be happy to show you all me books and mrs. fergus o’mahony.”
“who’s she?”
“the sister of the last of the o’mahonys before you, sir, who married another of the name only distantly related, and has been a widow these five years, and would be owner of the estate if her brother had broken the entail as he always intinded, and never did by rayson that there was so much dhrinking and sleeping and playing ‘forty-five’ at mike leary’s to be done, he’d no time for lawyers. mrs. fergus has been having the use of the property since his death, sir, being the nearest visible heir.”
“and so my comin’ threw her out, eh? did she take it pritty hard?”
“sir, loyalty to the o’mahony is so imbedded in the brest of every sowl in muirisc, that if she made a sign to resist your pretinsions, her own frinds would have hooted her. she may have some riservations deep down in her heart, but she’s too thrue an o’mahony to revale thim.”
more punch was mixed, and the o’mahony was about to ask further questions concerning the widow he had dispossessed, when the door opened and a novel procession entered the room.
three venerable women, all of about the same height, and all clad in a strange costume of black gowns and sweeping black vails, their foreheads and chins covered with stiff bands of white linen, and long chains of beads ending in a big silver-gilt cross swinging from their girdles, advanced in single file toward the table—then halted, and bowed slightly.
o’daly and jerry had risen to their feet upon the instant of this curious apparition, but the the o’mahony kept his seat, and nodded with amiability.
“how d’ do?” he said, lightly. “it’s mighty neighborly of you to run in like this, without knockin’, or standin’ on ceremony. won’t you sit down, ladies? i guess you can find chairs.”
“these are the ladies of the hostage’s tears, your honor,” o’daly hastened to explain, at the same time energetically winking and motioning to him to stand.
but the o’mahony did not budge.
“i’m glad to see you,” he assured the nuns once more. “take a seat, won’t you? o’daly here’ll mix you up one o’ these drinks o’ his’n, i’m sure, if you’ll give the word.”
“we thank you, o’mahony,” said the foremost of the aged women, in a deep, solemn voice, but paying no heed to the chairs which o’daly and jerry had dragged forward. “we come solely to do obeisance to you as the heir and successor of our pious founder, diarmid of the fine steeds, and to presint to you your kinswoman—our present pupil, and the solitary hope of our once renowned order.”
the o’mahony gathered nothing of her meaning from this lugubrious wail of words, and glanced over the speaker’s equally aged companions in vain for any sign of hopefulness, solitary or otherwise. then he saw that the hindmost of the nuns had produced, as if from the huge folds of her black gown, a little girl of six or seven, clad in the same gloomy tint, whom she was pushing forward.
the child advanced timidly under pressure, gazing wonderingly at the o’mahony, out of big, heavily fringed hazel eyes. her pale face was made almost chalk-like by contrast with a thick tangle of black hair, and wore an expression of apprehensive shyness almost painful to behold.
the o’mahony stretched out his hands and smiled, but the child hung back, and looked not in the least reassured. he asked her name with an effort at jovialty.
0089
“kate o’mahony, sir,” she said, in a low voice, bending her little knees in a formal bob of courtesy.
“and are you goin’ to rig yourself out in those long gowns and vails, too, when you grow up, eh, siss?” he asked.
“the daughters of the o’mahonys of muirisc, with only here and there a thrifling exception, have been ladies of the hostage’s tears since the order was founded here in the year of our lord 1191,” said the foremost nun, stiffly. “after long years, in which it seemed as if the order must perish, our prayers were answered, and this child of the o’mahonys was sent to us, to continue the vows and obligations of the convent, and restore it, if it be the saints’ will, to its former glory.”
“middlin’ big job they’ve cut out for you, eh, siss?” commented the o’mahony, smilingly.
the pleasant twinkle in his eye seemed to attract the child. her face lost something of its scared look, and she of her own volition moved a step nearer to his outstretched hands. then he caught her up and seated her on his knee.
“so you’re goin’ to sail in, eh, an’ jest make the old convent hum again? strikes me that’s a pritty chilly kind o’ look-out for a little gal like you. wouldn’t you now, honest injun, rather be whoopin’ round barefoot, with a nanny-goat, say, an’ some rag dolls, an’—an’—climbin’ trees an’ huntin’ after eggs in the hay-mow—than go into partnership with grandma, here, in the nun business?”
the o’mahony had trotted the child gently up and down, the while he propounded his query. perhaps it was its obscure phraseology which prompted her to hang her head, and obstinately refuse to lift it even when he playfully put his finger under her chin. she continued to gaze in silence at the floor; but if the nuns could have seen her face they would have noted that presently its expression lightened and its big eyes flashed, as the o’mahony whispered something into her ear. the good women would have been shocked indeed could they also have heard that something.
“now don’t you fret your gizzard, siss,” he had whispered—“you needn’t be a nun for one solitary darned minute, if you don’t want to be.”
