Kitabı oku: «Lord Kilgobbin», sayfa 20

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE EXCURSION

The little village of Cruhan-bawn, into which they now drove, was, in every detail of wretchedness, dirt, ruin, and desolation, intensely Irish. A small branch of the well-known bog-stream, the ‘Brusna,’ divided one part of the village from the other, and between these two settlements so separated there raged a most rancorous hatred and jealousy, and Cruhan-beg, as the smaller collection of hovels was called, detested Cruhan-bawn with an intensity of dislike that might have sufficed for a national antipathy, where race, language, and traditions had contributed their aids to the animosity.

There was, however, one real and valid reason for this inveterate jealousy. The inhabitants of Cruhan-beg – who lived, as they said themselves, ‘beyond the river’ – strenuously refused to pay any rent for their hovels; while ‘the cis-Brusnaites,’ as they may be termed, demeaned themselves to the condition of tenants in so far as to acknowledge the obligation of rent, though the oldest inhabitant vowed he had never seen a receipt in his life, nor had the very least conception of a gale-day.

If, therefore, actually, there was not much to separate them on the score of principle, they were widely apart in theory, and the sturdy denizens of the smaller village looked down upon the others as the ignoble slaves of a Saxon tyranny. The village in its entirety – for the division was a purely local and arbitrary one – belonged to Miss Betty O’Shea, forming the extreme edge of her estate as it merged into the vast bog; and, with the habitual fate of frontier populations, it contained more people of lawless lives and reckless habits than were to be found for miles around. There was not a resource of her ingenuity she had not employed for years back to bring these refractory subjects into the pale of a respectable tenantry. Every process of the law had been essayed in turn. They had been hunted down by the police, unroofed, and turned into the wide bog; their chattels had been ‘canted,’ and themselves – a last resource – cursed from the altar; but with that strange tenacity that pertains to life where there is little to live for, these creatures survived all modes of persecution, and came back into their ruined hovels to defy the law and beard the Church, and went on living – in some strange, mysterious way of their own – an open challenge to all political economy, and a sore puzzle to the Times commissioner when he came to report on the condition of the cottier in Ireland.

At certain seasons of county excitement – such as an election or an unusually weighty assizes – it was not deemed perfectly safe to visit the village, and even the police would not have adventured on the step except with a responsible force. At other periods, the most marked feature of the place would be that of utter vacuity and desolation. A single inhabitant here and there smoking listlessly at his door – a group of women, with their arms concealed beneath their aprons, crouching under a ruined wall – or a few ragged children, too miserable and dispirited even for play, would be all that would be seen.

At a spot where the stream was fordable for a horse, the page Larry had already stationed himself, and now walked into the river, which rose over his knees, to show the road to his mistress.

‘The bailiffs is on them to-day,’ said he, with a gleeful look in his eye; for any excitement, no matter at what cost to others, was intensely pleasurable to him.

‘What is he saying?’ asked Nina.

‘They are executing some process of law against these people,’ muttered Donogan. ‘It’s an old story in Ireland; but I had as soon you had been spared the sight.’

‘Is it quite safe for yourself?’ whispered she. ‘Is there not some danger in being seen here?’

‘Oh, if I could but think that you cared – I mean ever so slightly,’ cried he, with fervour, ‘I’d call this moment of my danger the proudest of my life!’

Though declarations of this sort – more or less sincere as chance might make them – were things Nina was well used to, she could not help marking the impassioned manner of him who now spoke, and bent her eyes steadily on him.

‘It is true,’ said he, as if answering the interrogation in her gaze. ‘A poor outcast as I am – a rebel – a felon – anything you like to call me – the slightest show of your interest in me gives my life a value, and my hope a purpose I never knew till now.’

‘Such interest would be but ill-bestowed if it only served to heighten your danger. Are you known here?’

‘He who has stood in the dock, as I have, is sure to be known by some one. Not that the people would betray me. There is poverty and misery enough in that wretched village, and yet there’s not one so hungry or so ragged that he would hand me over to the law to make himself rich for life.’

‘Then what do you mean to do?’ asked she hurriedly.

‘Walk boldly through the village at the head of your pony, as I am now – your guide to Croghan Castle.’

‘But we were to have stabled the beast here. I intended to have gone on foot to Croghan.’

‘Which you cannot now. Do you know what English law is, lady?’ cried he fiercely. ‘This pony and this carriage, if they had shelter here, are confiscated to the landlord for his rent. It’s little use to say you owe nothing to this owner of the soil; it’s enough that they are found amongst the chattels of his debtors.’

‘I cannot believe this is law.’

‘You can prove it – at the loss of your pony; and it is mercy and generous dealing when compared with half the enactments our rulers have devised for us. Follow me. I see the police have not yet come down. I will go on in front and ask the way to Croghan.’

There was that sort of peril in the adventure now that stimulated Nina and excited her; and as they stoutly wended their way through the crowd, she was far from insensible to the looks of admiration that were bent on her from every side.

‘What are they saying?’ asked she; ‘I do not know their language.’

‘It is Irish,’ said he; ‘they are talking of your beauty.’

‘I should so like to follow their words,’ said she, with the smile of one to whom such homage had ever its charm.

‘That wild-looking fellow, that seemed to utter an imprecation, has just pronounced a fervent blessing; what he has said was, “May every glance of your eye be a candle to light you to glory.”’

A half-insolent laugh at this conceit was all Nina’s acknowledgment of it. Short greetings and good wishes were now rapidly exchanged between Donogan and the people, as the little party made their way through the crowd – the men standing bareheaded, and the women uttering words of admiration, some even crossing themselves piously, at sight of such loveliness, as, to them, recalled the ideal of all beauty.

‘The police are to be here at one o’clock,’ said Donogan, translating a phrase of one of the bystanders.

‘And is there anything for them to seize on?’ asked she.

‘No; but they can level the cabins,’ cried he bitterly. ‘We have no more right to shelter than to food.’

Moody and sad, he walked along at the pony’s head, and did not speak another word till they had left the village far behind them.

Larry, as usual, had found something to interest him, and dropped behind in the village, and they were alone.

A passing countryman, to whom Donogan addressed a few words in Irish, told them that a short distance from Croghan they could stable the pony at a small ‘shebeen.’

On reaching this, Nina, who seemed to have accepted Donogan’s companionship without further question, directed him to unpack the carriage and take out her easel and her drawing materials. ‘You’ll have to carry these – fortunately not very far, though,’ said she, smiling, ‘and then you’ll have to come back here and fetch this basket.’

‘It is a very proud slavery – command me how you will,’ muttered he, not without emotion.

‘That,’ continued she, pointing to the basket, ‘contains my breakfast, and luncheon or dinner, and I invite you to be my guest.’

‘And I accept with rapture. Oh!’ cried he passionately, ‘what whispered to my heart this morning that this would be the happiest day of my life!’

‘If so, Fate has scarcely been generous to you.’ And her lip curled half superciliously as she spoke.

‘I’d not say that. I have lived amidst great hopes, many of them dashed, it is true, by disappointment; but who that has been cheered by glorious daydreams has not tasted moments at least of exquisite bliss?’

‘I don’t know that I have much sympathy with political ambitions,’ said she pettishly.

‘Have you tasted – have you tried them? Do you know what it is to feel the heart of a nation throb and beat? – to know that all that love can do to purify and elevate, can be exercised for the countless thousands of one’s own race and lineage, and to think that long after men have forgotten your name, some heritage of freedom will survive to say that there once lived one who loved his country.’

‘This is very pretty enthusiasm.’

‘Oh, how is it that you, who can stimulate one’s heart to such confessions, know nothing of the sentiment?’

‘I have my ambitions,’ said she coldly, almost sternly.

‘Let me hear some of them.’

‘They are not like yours, though they are perhaps just as impossible.’ She spoke in a broken, unconnected manner, like one who was talking aloud the thoughts that came laggingly; then with a sudden earnestness she said, ‘I’ll tell you one of them. It’s to catch the broad bold light that has just beat on the old castle there, and brought out all its rich tints of greys and yellows in such a glorious wealth of colour. Place my easel here, under the trees; spread that rug for yourself to lie on. No – you won’t have it? Well, fold it neatly, and place it there for my feet: very nicely done. And now, Signer Ribello, you may unpack that basket, and arrange our breakfast, and when you have done all these, throw yourself down on the grass, and either tell me a pretty story, or recite some nice verses for me, or be otherwise amusing and agreeable.’

‘Shall I do what will best please myself? If so, it will be to lie here and look at you.’

‘Be it so,’ said she, with a sigh. ‘I have always thought, in looking at them, how saints are bored by being worshipped – it adds fearfully to martyrdom, but happily I am used to it. “Oh, the vanity of that girl!” Yes, sir, say it out: tell her frankly that if she has no friend to caution her against this besetting wile, that you will be that friend. Tell her that whatever she has of attraction is spoiled and marred by this self-consciousness, and that just as you are a rebel without knowing it, so should she be charming and never suspect it. Is not that coming nicely,’ said she, pointing to the drawing; ‘see how that tender light is carried down from those grey walls to the banks beneath, and dies away in that little pool, where the faintest breath of air is rustling. Don’t look at me, sir, look at my drawing.’

‘True, there is no tender light there,’ muttered he, gazing at her eyes, where the enormous size of the pupils had given a character of steadfast brilliancy, quite independent of shape, or size, or colour.

‘You know very little about it,’ said she saucily; then, bending over the drawing, she said, ‘That middle distance wants a bit of colour: you shall aid me here.’

‘How am I to aid you?’ asked he, in sheer simplicity.

‘I mean that you should be that bit of colour. There, take my scarlet cloak, and perch yourself yonder on that low rock. A few minutes will do. Was there ever immortality so cheaply purchased! Your biographer shall tell that you were the figure in that famous sketch – what will be called in the cant of art, one of Nina Kostalergi’s earliest and happiest efforts. There, now, dear Mr. Donogan, do as you are bid.’

‘Do you know the Greek ballad, where a youth remembers that the word “dear” has been coupled with his name – a passing courtesy, if even so much, but enough to light up a whole chamber in his heart?’

‘I know nothing of Greek ballads. How does it go?’

‘It is a simple melody, in a low key.’ And he sang, in a deep but tremulous voice, to a very plaintive air —

 
‘I took her hand within my own,
I drew her gently nearer,
And whispered almost on her cheek,
“Oh, would that I were dearer.”
Dearer! No, that’s not my prayer:
A stranger, e’en the merest,
Might chance to have some value there;
But I would be the dearest.’
 

‘What had he done to merit such a hope?’ said she haughtily.

‘Loved her – only loved her!’

‘What value you men must attach to this gift of your affection, when it can nourish such thoughts as these! Your very wilfulness is to win us – is not that your theory? I expect from the man who offers me his heart that he means to share with me his own power and his own ambition – to make me the partner of a station that is to give me some pre-eminence I had not known before, nor could gain unaided.’

‘And you would call that marrying for love?’

‘Why not? Who has such a claim upon my life as he who makes the life worth living for? Did you hear that shout?’

‘I heard it,’ said he, standing still to listen.

‘It came from the village. What can it mean?’

‘It’s the old war-cry of the houseless,’ said he mournfully. ‘It’s a note we are well used to here. I must go down to learn. I’ll be back presently.’

‘You are not going into danger?’ said she; and her cheek grew paler as she spoke.

‘And if I were, who is to care for it?’

‘Have you no mother, sister, sweetheart?’

‘No, not one of the three. Good-bye.’

‘But if I were to say – stay?’

‘I should still go. To have your love, I’d sacrifice even my honour. Without it – ’ he threw up his arms despairingly and rushed away.

‘These are the men whose tempers compromise us,’ said she thoughtfully. ‘We come to accept their violence as a reason, and take mere impetuosity for an argument. I am glad that he did not shake my resolution. There, that was another shout, but it seemed in joy. There was a ring of gladness in it. Now for my sketch.’ And she reseated herself before her easel. ‘He shall see when he comes back how diligently I have worked, and how small a share anxiety has had in my thoughts. The one thing men are not proof against is our independence of them.’ And thus talking in broken sentences to herself, she went on rapidly with her drawing, occasionally stopping to gaze on it, and humming some old Italian ballad to herself. ‘His Greek air was pretty. Not that it was Greek; these fragments of melody were left behind them by the Venetians, who, in all lust of power, made songs about contented poverty and humble joys. I feel intensely hungry, and if my dangerous guest does not return soon, I shall have to breakfast alone – another way of showing him how little his fate has interested me. My foreground here does want that bit of colour. Why does he not come back?’ As she rose to look at her drawing, the sound of somebody running attracted her attention, and turning, she saw it was her foot-page Larry coming at full speed.

‘What is it, Larry? What has happened?’ asked she.

‘You are to go – as fast as you can,’ said he; which being for him a longer speech than usual, seemed to have exhausted him.

‘Go where? and why?’

‘Yes,’ said he, with a stolid look, ‘you are.’

‘I am to do what? Speak out, boy! Who sent you here?’

‘Yes,’ said he again.

‘Are they in trouble yonder? Is there fighting at the village?’

‘No.’ And he shook his head, as though he said so regretfully.

‘Will you tell me what you mean, boy?’

‘The pony is ready?’ said he, as he stooped down to pack away the things in the basket.

‘Is that gentleman coming back here – that gentleman whom you saw with me?’

‘He is gone; he got away.’ And here he laughed in a malicious way, that was more puzzling even than his words.

‘And am I to go back home at once?’

‘Yes,’ replied he resolutely.

‘Do you know why – for what reason?’

‘I do.’

‘Come, like a good boy, tell me, and you shall have this.’ And she drew a piece of silver from her purse, and held it temptingly before him. ‘Why should I go back, now?’

‘Because,’ muttered he, ‘because – ’ and it was plain, from the glance in his eyes, that the bribe had engaged all his faculties.

‘So, then, you will not tell me?’ said she, replacing the money in her purse.

‘Yes,’ said he, in a despondent tone.

‘You can have it still, Larry, if you will but say who sent you here.’

‘He sent me,’ was the answer.

‘Who was he? Do you mean the gentleman who came here with me?’ A nod assented to this. ‘And what did he tell you to say to me?’

‘Yes,’ said he, with a puzzled look, as though once more the confusion of his thoughts was mastering him.

‘So, then, it is that you will not tell me?’ said she angrily. He made no answer, but went on packing the plates in the basket. ‘Leave those there, and go and fetch me some water from the spring yonder.’ And she gave him a jug as she spoke, and now she reseated herself on the grass. He obeyed at once, and returned speedily with water.

‘Come now, Larry,’ said she kindly to him. ‘I’m sure you mean to be a good boy. You shall breakfast with me. Get me a cup, and I’ll give you some milk; here is bread and cold meat.’

‘Yes,’ muttered Larry, whose mouth was already too much engaged for speech.

‘You will tell me by-and-by what they were doing at the village, and what that shouting meant – won’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said he, with a nod. Then suddenly bending his head to listen, he motioned with his hand to keep silence, and after a long breath said, ‘They’re coming.’

‘Who are coming?’ asked she eagerly; but at the same instant a man emerged from the copse below the hill, followed by several others, whom she saw by their dress and equipment to belong to the constabulary.

Approaching with his hat in his hand, and with that air of servile civility which marked him, old Gill addressed her. ‘If it’s not displazin’ to ye, miss, we want to ax you a few questions,’ said he.

‘You have no right, sir, to make any such request,’ said she, with a haughty air.

‘There was a man with you, my lady,’ he went on, ‘as you drove through Cruhan, and we want to know where he is now.’

‘That concerns you, sir, and not me.’

‘Maybe it does, my lady,’ said he, with a grin; ‘but I suppose you know who you were travelling with?’

‘You evidently don’t remember, sir, whom you are talking to.’

‘The law is the law, miss, and there’s none of us above it,’ said he, half defiantly; ‘and when there’s some hundred pounds on a man’s head, there’s few of us such fools as to let him slip through our fingers.’

‘I don’t understand you, sir, nor do I care to do so.’

‘The sergeant there has a warrant against him,’ said he, in a whisper he intended to be confidential; ‘and it’s not to do anything that your ladyship would think rude that I came up myself. There’s how it is now,’ muttered he, still lower. ‘They want to search the luggage, and examine the baskets there, and maybe, if you don’t object, they’d look through the carriage.’

‘And if I should object to this insult?’ broke she in.

‘Faix, I believe,’ said he, laughing, ‘they’d do it all the same. Eight hundred – I think it’s eight – isn’t to be made any day of the year!’

‘My uncle is a justice of the peace, Mr. Gill; and you know if he will suffer such an outrage to go unpunished.’

‘There’s the more reason that a justice shouldn’t harbour a Fenian, miss,’ said he boldly; ‘as he’ll know when he sees the search-warrant.’

‘Get ready the carriage, Larry,’ said she, turning contemptuously away, ‘and follow me towards the village.’

‘The sergeant, miss, would like to say a word or two,’ said Gill, in his accustomed voice of servility.

‘I will not speak with him,’ said she proudly, and swept past him.

The constables stood to one side, and saluted in military fashion as she passed down the hill. There was that in her queenlike gesture and carriage that so impressed them, the men stood as though on parade.

Slowly and thoughtfully as she sauntered along, her thoughts turned to Donogan. Had he escaped? was the idea that never left her. The presence of these men here seemed to favour that impression; but there might be others on his track, and if so, how in that wild bleak space was he to conceal himself? A single man moving miles away on the bog could be seen. There was no covert, no shelter anywhere! What an interest did his fate now suggest, and yet a moment back she believed herself indifferent to him. ‘Was he aware of his danger,’ thought she,’ when he lay there talking carelessly to me? was that recklessness the bravery of a bold man who despised peril?’ And if so, what stuff these souls were made of! These were not of the Kearney stamp, that needed to be stimulated and goaded to any effort in life; nor like Atlee, the fellow who relied on trick and knavery for success; still less such as Walpole, self-worshippers and triflers. ‘Yes,’ said she aloud,’ a woman might feel that with such a man at her side the battle of life need not affright her. He might venture too far – he might aspire to much that was beyond his reach, and strive for the impossible; but that grand bold spirit would sustain him, and carry him through all the smaller storms of life: and such a man might be a hero, even to her who saw him daily. These are the dreamers, as we call them,’ said she. ‘How strange it would be if they should prove the realists, and that it was we should be the mere shadows! If these be the men who move empires and make history, how doubly ignoble are we in our contempt of them.’ And then she bethought her what a different faculty was that great faith that these men had in themselves from common vanity; and in this way she was led again to compare Donogan and Walpole.

She reached the village before her little carriage had overtaken her, and saw that the people stood about in groups and knots. A depressing silence prevailed over them, and they rarely spoke above a whisper. The same respectful greeting, however, which welcomed her before, met her again; and as they lifted their hats, she saw, or thought she saw, that they looked on her with a more tender interest. Several policemen moved about through the crowd, who, though they saluted her respectfully, could not refrain from scrutinising her appearance and watching her as she went. With that air of haughty self-possession which well became her – for it was no affectation – she swept proudly along, resolutely determined not to utter a word, or even risk a question as to the way.

Twice she turned to see if her pony were coming, and then resumed her road. From the excited air and rapid gestures of the police, as they hurried from place to place, she could guess that up to this Donogan had not been captured. Still, it seemed hopeless that concealment in such a place could be accomplished.

As she gained the little stream that divided the village, she stood for a moment uncertain, when a countrywoman, as it were divining her difficulty, said, ‘If you’ll cross over the bridge, my lady, the path will bring you out on the highroad.’

As Nina turned to thank her, the woman looked up from her task of washing in the river, and made a gesture with her hand towards the bog. Slight as the action was, it appealed to that Southern intelligence that reads a sign even faster than a word. Nina saw that the woman meant to say Donogan had escaped, and once more she said, ‘Thank you – from my heart I thank you!’

Just as she emerged upon the highroad, her pony and carriage came up. A sergeant of police was, however, in waiting beside it, who, saluting her respectfully, said, ‘There was no disrespect meant to you, miss, by our search of the carriage – our duty obliged us to do it. We have a warrant to apprehend the man that was seen with you this morning, and it’s only that we know who you are, and where you come from, prevents us from asking you to come before our chief.’

He presented his arm to assist her to her place as he spoke; but she declined the help, and, without even noticing him in any way, arranged her rugs and wraps around her, took the reins, and motioning Larry to his place, drove on.

‘Is my drawing safe? – have all my brushes and pencils been put in?’ asked she, after a while. But already Larry had taken his leave, and she could see him as he flitted across the bog to catch her by some short cut.

That strange contradiction by which a woman can journey alone and in safety through the midst of a country only short of open insurrection, filled her mind as she went, and thinking of it in every shape and fashion occupied her for miles of the way. The desolation, far as the eye could reach, was complete – there was not a habitation, not a human thing to be seen. The dark-brown desert faded away in the distance into low-lying clouds, the only break to the dull uniformity being some stray ‘clamp,’ as it is called, of turf, left by the owners from some accident of season or bad weather, and which loomed out now against the sky like a vast fortress.

This long, long day – for so without any weariness she felt it – was now in the afternoon, and already long shadows of these turf-mounds stretched their giant limbs across the waste. Nina, who had eaten nothing since early morning, felt faint and hungry. She halted her pony, and taking out some bread and a bottle of milk, proceeded to make a frugal luncheon. The complete loneliness, the perfect silence, in which even the rattling of the harness as the pony shook himself made itself felt, gave something of solemnity to the moment, as the young girl sat there and gazed half terrified around her.

As she looked, she thought she saw something pass from one turf-clamp to the other, and, watching closely, she could distinctly detect a figure crouching near the ground, and, after some minutes, emerging into the open space, again to be hidden by some vast turf-mound. There, now – there could not be a doubt – it was a man, and he was waving his handkerchief as a signal. It was Donogan himself – she could recognise him well. Clearing the long drains at a bound, and with a speed that vouched for perfect training, he came rapidly forward, and, leaping the wide trench, alighted at last on the road beside her.

‘I have watched you for an hour, and but for this lucky halt, I should not have overtaken you after all,’ cried he, as he wiped his brow and stood panting beside her.

‘Do you know that they are in pursuit of you?’ cried she hastily.

‘I know it all. I learned it before I reached the village, and in time – only in time – to make a circuit and reach the bog. Once there, I defy the best of them.’

‘They have what they call a warrant to search for you.’

‘I know that too,’ cried he. ‘No, no!’ said he passionately, as she offered him a drink, ‘let me have it from the cup you have drank from. It may be the last favour I shall ever ask you – don’t refuse me this!’

She touched the glass slightly with her lips, and handed it to him with a smile.

‘What peril would I not brave for this!’ cried he, with a wild ecstasy.

‘Can you not venture to return with me?’ said she, in some confusion, for the bold gleam of his gaze now half abashed her.

‘No. That would be to compromise others as well as myself. I must gain Dublin how I can. There I shall be safe against all pursuit. I have come back for nothing but disappointment,’ added he sorrowfully. ‘This country is not ready to rise – they are too many-minded for a common effort. The men like Wolfe Tone are not to be found amongst us now, and to win freedom you must dare the felony.’

‘Is it not dangerous to delay so long here?’ asked she, looking around her with anxiety.

‘So it is – and I will go. Will you keep this for me?’ said he, placing a thick and much-worn pocket-book in her hands. ‘There are papers there would risk far better heads than mine; and if I should be taken, these must not be discovered. It may be, Nina – oh, forgive me if I say your name! but it is such joy to me to utter it once – it may be that you should chance to hear some word whose warning might save me. If so, and if you would deign to write to me, you’ll find three, if not four, addresses, under any of which you could safely write to me.’

‘I shall not forget. Good fortune be with you. Adieu!’

She held out her hand; but he bent over it, and kissed it rapturously; and when he raised his head, his eyes were streaming, and his cheeks deadly pale. ‘Adieu!’ said she again.

He tried to speak, but no sound came from his lips; and when, after she had driven some distance away, she turned to look after him, he was standing on the same spot in the road, his hat at his foot, where it had fallen when he stooped to kiss her hand.