Читать книгу Doreen, The Story of a Singer - Ada Ellen Bayly - Страница 5

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"Rent in other countries means the surplus after the farmer has been liberally paid for his skill and labour; in Ireland it means the whole produce of the soil except a potato-pit. If the farmer strove for more, his master knew how to bring him to speedy submission. He could carry away his implements of trade by the law of distress, or rob him of his sole pursuit in life by the law of eviction."—Charles Gavan Duffy, Young Ireland.

After dinner that evening, the talk naturally enough turned upon the story which little Doreen had told. It was not difficult to fill in the gaps that had occurred in the child's account, and John Desmond seemed well up in all the details of the Irish troubles five years before.

"One has grown so accustomed to regard Fenian and fiend as equivalent terms," said Miriam, "that it almost took one's breath away to hear that pretty little girl talking of the arrest as she did, and counting the days till her father is released."

"Yet to Irish ears Fenian suggests all sorts of memories of the heroic deeds of the Feni, or companions of Finn, one of the noblest of all the warriors in Irish history," said Desmond. "I have no doubt Doreen O'Ryan could tell you plenty of the legends connected with his name."

"But her father," said Mrs. Hereford. "Do you imagine he is one of those desperate wretches who caused the explosion at Clerkenwell?"

"No; those were a few desperadoes, and the genuine Fenians utterly repudiated all connection with them. He must, of course, have been mixed up with the insurrection in some way—possibly was on the staff of that paper of theirs."

"'Tis almost enough to make one pardon the wildest schemes for reform to see the state of things in this place," said Max. "I wonder what sort of man Lord Byfield is to allow it."

"Oh, he is a good enough fellow," said Desmond. "But he detests this place. They say he hasn't been here for years, and leaves everything to that brute Foxell, his agent. I hate that man, with his arrogant manner, and his way of talking of the tenants as though they were pigs."

"The pigs that pay the rent!" said Max, with a laugh. "He is a bully, and the people detest him. I don't know which is the greater brute, himself or his dog."

"You are very rough on the dog," said Desmond; "the man's not worthy to be named in the same day with him!"

"Come, Max," said Mrs. Hereford, "let us have our game of backgammon; I must have my revenge on you for last night."

The tutor wandered away to the other end of the drawing-room, where Miriam was playing a sad little Polish melody of which he was specially fond. She looked up at his approach, with smiling welcome in her brown eyes. Her grandmother had been a Jewess, and Miriam had inherited her beauty: there was something very fascinating about her, and few could resist the spell. Max had been under it more or less all his life, though he knew Miriam's faults well enough; even Mrs. Hereford, though strongly disapproving of some of her niece's proceedings, clung to the girl with an affection which she could not feel towards some perhaps more deserving of favour. That Miriam after a brilliantly successful London season should be in danger of falling in love with the tutor never occurred to her aunt. Desmond was poor and plain,—a sallow man with a very high but somewhat narrow forehead, and dark wild-looking eyes, which seemed out of keeping with the quiet, sedate manner and ordinary face. "He is a mixture of the Quaker and the brigand," had been Miriam's naughty criticism when she had first met him. But little by little his silent admiration began to tell upon her; she began to look up to him, to value his opinion. A reverence which she had never before felt for any one took possession of her heart; she realized that his love for her was something more than admiration for her face, and that afternoon, as little Doreen had sung to them, she had known for the first time that she loved John Desmond. A sort of delicious, dreamy happiness filled her heart as he sat beside her in the dimly lighted room. She played, every now and then, quiet, dreamy music in accordance with her mood, but for a great part of the time they talked—that new, sweet, confidential talk that was infinitely more charming to her than the badinage and the compliments of which she had grown very weary in London.

She slept little that night, but kept living over again all the delicious hours of the afternoon and evening, so that naturally enough the morning found her worn and tired and quite in a mood to yield to her aunt's advice, and keep in bed for a few hours in the hope of curing her cold.

Desmond, finding that there was no chance of seeing her before five o'clock tea, proposed that he and Max should walk across the mountains to Lough Lee, where he had hopes of finding a certain rare plant for which he had long sought in vain.

"Let us at the same time keep our promise to Doreen, and take her with us on the pony," said Max. "The child is longing to see that lake about which she was telling us some old legend."

Doreen's delight when the tutor and his pupil arrived at the little gray lodging-house, leading a mountain pony for her special use, was pretty to see. She came running out to meet them.

"You are sure the day will not be too much for you?" asked Max; "the lake is many miles off, even by this short cut over the mountains."

"Oh no," she protested, "I could go all day long on a pony, it is only such a pity that it's too far for Michael; but I've promised to tell him all about it, and to bring him a great bunch of flowers. I believe he thinks Lough Lee is a sort of fairy place, and he will expect me to see Ugly Gilla Dacker and his horrible horse, or Dermot of the Bright Face, or some of those people."

Max made her tell them about the brave Feni, in the days of old. Her silvery voice would have made the dullest legend charming; and though Desmond was all the time longing for another voice and another face, he was fain to own that the child was a delightful companion.

The day was fine though somewhat gray; but as they climbed higher over the rock-strewn ground, the sun came out brightly for a time, glorifying the well-known outline of the range of hills which were seen from the Castle windows, and revealing exquisite glimpses of the Kerry mountains. By and bye they descended to the right, into a valley, and emerging upon a rough tract, wound down into the road which led to the gloomy and desolate lake.

Doreen's face was a curious study. Here was the place she had dreamed of so long, and it was not the least like her dreams. It was indescribably sad-looking; its very beauty seemed so steeped in melancholy, that all her romance of the past was stricken dead, and a sense of oppression fell upon her, sadly spoiling her happiness.

Max, to distract her attention, began to tell her about the walks near his home at Monkton Verney, of the little lake in the garden with its water-lilies, and the old ruined priory in the park, and of the heath hills and fir hills down which she would enjoy running.

And soon in the excitement of getting into the boat and of being allowed to steer, Doreen recovered her spirits and began to sing merry songs in spite of the excessive gloom of this desolate spot. It was impossible to be melancholy for any length of time with a companion like Max. It was not that he was specially witty, but his whole aspect was so full of cheerfulness, he so thoroughly enjoyed life, that he carried about him a sort of atmosphere of lightheartedness which insensibly affected his companions. They laughed and talked and sang and jested, while John Desmond, intent on spoils, made them land him every few minutes to search for that insignificant but rare plant which their careless eyes were little likely to discover. Doreen, cosily ensconced in the stern, looked with the innocent admiration of a child at the sunburnt, glowing face opposite her, with its light brown hair and the incipient moustache of which the owner was secretly vain, and the well-opened, fearless eyes which seemed full of sunshine. And Max felt strangely drawn to this merry little girl in the familiar red cloak; the sweet voice and the rippling laughter fairly bewitched him: little did he think that this hour on the lake was destined to be the last hour of her childhood and the last hour of his own careless youth.

"Let us row across to the further side," said Desmond; "steer for that cabin from which the smoke is rising."

Doreen glanced across the water and saw that from a little roughly built cabin the turf fire was sending up a curling column of blue smoke.

"What a dreary place to live in!" she exclaimed; "but see, there is a nice clearing all round it at the back. I don't see where you can land very well, for the rocks fall sheer away down to the water from the cabin."

Max turned, and descried a possible landing-place a few yards to the right of the hut, and Doreen, anxious to steer them with the utmost precision, broke off in the midst of singing the "Minstrel Boy," and concentrated her whole attention on her work. In the silence that followed, the sound of voices reached them distinctly from the shore.

"There is a woman crying!" exclaimed Doreen, a startled, pitying look stealing over her face.

Desmond turned round to see whence the noise proceeded, and they soon perceived two men standing on the little patch of ground before the cabin, while in the open doorway a woman, with her apron thrown over her head, was sobbing aloud with a wild, unrestrained grief that shook her from head to foot. The men were talking together, evidently on some vexed question.

"What's up, I wonder," said Max. "Why, look, 'tis Mr. Foxell, the agent; see how the fellow blusters, and how he threatens the old man!"

"It's old Larry, our potato man!" exclaimed Doreen. "He comes every week with his donkey-cart and sells us things. Oh, look! look! how angry he is with him!"

"Pull to shore as fast as you can," said Desmond, a look of fury in his dark eyes. He leapt out, and Max followed him, eager to see what was passing.

"You had better stay in the boat," he said to Doreen. "The agent seems in such a temper, I should not like you to come near him."

The child obeyed, not much liking to be left all alone, but too much absorbed in the loud altercation which she could plainly hear from the little plateau above her to have much leisure for fear. She let the boat drift out a little, so that she could see what was passing by the cabin. Max stood by the open door, among a whole litter of little pigs, talking to the woman, whose wailing had ceased; but John Desmond had stepped in between old Larry and the agent, and was vehemently arguing in the poor old peasant's defence.

"Because the man has made a garden out of a wilderness, because he has toiled while the landlord played, and starved while the landlord feasted, you double his rent. That is your devilish plan!" he cried, in a voice that appalled Doreen.

"Allow me to remind you, sir," said the agent angrily, "that 'tis not the part of a meddlesome tourist to interfere."

"Look at my petaty patch, yer honour," moaned old Larry. "Sure it was just a disused stone quarry, with niver a grain o' soil, till on me own back I carried the airth to it, little by little, and a mortal time it took, and now he asks rint for the land I made wid me own hands, and if I don't pay it,—and the blissed saints know it's just that I can't do that same,—he will pull down the cabin that I built myself. Sure, and I'm an ould man to begin all over again." He turned away and began to sob like a child.

"You d——d hypocrite!" said the agent. "Have done with that nonsense, and don't waste any more of my time. The place is worth double what it was, and you shall pay or go."

"I'll not go!" wailed the old man, facing round upon the agent, in a passion of wrath and grief. "It's bin my home long years before your cruel face was iver seen at Castle Karey, and I'm cursed if I'll lave it."

"Then I shall have it pulled about your ears," said the agent.

"Shame! Shame!" cried Desmond. "I'll have this case exposed in the papers—'tis not to be borne."

"No cockneys here, please," said Foxell insolently, his bull-dog face darkening with anger.

"I, too, am an Irishman," said Desmond, for the first time feeling that thrill of patriotism which reminded him that although English by education, he had yet Irish blood in his veins.

"Then one stick will serve for the two; for insolence there's not a pin to choose between you," said Foxell, irritated to the last degree; and, seizing Larry by his shirt collar, he was about to bring his knotted walking-stick down on the old man's bent shoulders, when Desmond, maddened by the sight, sprang forward and wrenched it from his hand. Both were now beside themselves with anger; they closed with each other and fought with a fury which terrified Doreen. She saw Max hurry down from the cabin door and try to induce them to stop. He might as well have spoken to two wild beasts; for their blood was up, and nothing now would quiet them. The fight, though it seemed long, was in reality brief enough; nearer and yet nearer the two struggling figures drew to the verge of the rock overhanging the lake: it seemed to Doreen that they would both be hurled over into the water, and in deadly terror she rowed close into the little cove where they had landed.

The combatants were still visible. She could plainly see Desmond's wild eyes with their horrible, gleaming light; then suddenly she saw the agent's grip relax; his hand fell back from Desmond's throat; she caught just one glimpse of a dreadful, distorted, blackened face, as he fell back from the rock. There was a splash, an exclamation of horror from Max; then the waters of Lough Lee closed over James Foxell.

For a minute Doreen sat motionless; she seemed paralyzed with horror; it was with intense relief that she saw Max plunging down between the arbutus trees that surrounded the landing-place.

"Steer to the place where he sank," he exclaimed, springing into the boat and pushing off from the shore. With trembling hands Doreen grasped the tiller, ashamed of the terror that seized upon her when she thought of again beholding that dreadful face. "Perhaps he is not really dead; perhaps we may save him," she said to herself, fixing her eyes steadily on the spot where the agent had disappeared, and putting force upon herself to steer to the very best of her ability. All at once a little cry escaped her; for, looking steadfastly at the water, she saw that dreadful vision rise again to the surface. Max made a desperate but ineffectual effort to lay hold of the body; for one moment he grasped the short wet hair, but it was dragged downwards; it slid through his fingers, and again the waters closed over Foxell. The boy—pale through all his sun-burning—dropped back into his place in the boat, panting for breath.

"He was quite dead," he said after a moment, glancing up at Doreen. "But perhaps he will rise again; we will wait and see."

They waited in silence for what seemed to Doreen a long time; the dreadful gloom of the place grew more and more intense. If she looked at the purple mountains surrounding them, she fancied fiends hideously staring at them from among the gray boulders; if she looked into the lake, its dark waters seemed as though peopled by endless repetitions of that dreadful, distorted face which must for ever haunt her memory.

"It's no use waiting longer," said Max at length. "I suppose it must have caught in the reeds at the bottom and will not float up again."

"But what will they do to Mr. Desmond?" cried Doreen, her eyes dilating, as a terrible thought for the first time occurred to her. "They will say he murdered that man; he will be hung or kept in prison!"

"They will probably call it murder," said Max with a shudder. "But, Doreen, if ever I saw a man mad,—for the time quite mad,—why, it was he. Did you see his eyes?"

"Yes," said Doreen, "they looked wild and dreadful; he was quite changed. If people ask us how it all happened, we can explain to them that he was mad. Oh, don't leave me alone in the boat," she added, as Max sprang ashore at the landing-place.

He was too much agitated to have very much thought for her just then, but he turned and held out his arms to her, and lifted her on to dry ground; then, with knees trembling beneath her, she toiled after him up the bank, among the holly bushes and the arbutus trees, and followed him across the open ground beyond, to the cabin. Every one had gone inside, even the pigs, and old Larry and his wife were talking fast and eagerly. John Desmond sat on a three-legged stool beside the turf fire; his face was flushed; there was a strange look in his dark eyes; he was quite silent, and took no notice of their entrance.

"He must have been unconscious when he fell," said Max to Larry. "The body only rose once to the surface, and I couldn't lay hold of it."

"All the better, sir," said Larry gravely. "'Tis eighty feet dape, and it do be makin' a safe grave. I take it he'll lie as aisy down there among the reeds as iver he'd a done in churchyard mould; and may God have mercy on his sowl!"

As he spoke, the old man thrust into the fire the knotted stick that the agent had let fall when he closed with Desmond.

"What do you do that for?" asked Max.

"Sure thin, yer honour, 'tis the last of the man that's lift," said Larry. "His hat was made fast with a string through his buttonhole and will tell no tales. And now this stick is kindlin' fine, and there won't be the laist little small bit to git his honour there into throuble."

Desmond looked up. "What is that you are saying?" he asked, as if his mind had just awaked to the present.

"We say, your honour, that we will niver spake one word of what we heard and saw awhile since. You stood by us, and, by the cras o' Christ, we'll stand by you. Norah, swear the same."

The old woman crossed her forefingers with a gesture which impressed Doreen strangely.

"By the cras o' Christ," she repeated solemnly, "neither to man, woman, nor child—no, nor even to the praist himself—will I tell what I saw and heard this day."

Desmond rose from his place by the fire. "Thank you," he said, in a voice unlike his own. Then, staggering a little as though seized by giddiness, he put his hand within his pupil's arm. "I must go away," he said; and with hurried farewells to the old peasant and his wife, they left the cabin and once more got into the boat.

"Steer for the landing-place," said Max; and poor little Doreen fixed her eyes bravely on the rude causeway at the far end of the lake, and tried not to let herself think of what lay beneath the cold gray waters over which they were gliding.