After canva.s.sing the question for some time, Joe left me for a few minutes, and returned with the information that the highroad to Ennis lay only a couple of miles distant, and that a stage-coach would pa.s.s there in about two hours, by which I could reach the town that evening.
It was therefore decided that he should return with the pony to Murranakilty; while I, having procured a gossoon to carry my baggage, made the best of my way towards the Ennis road.
Joe soon found me an urchin to succeed him as my guide and companion; and with an affectionate leave-taking, and a faithful promise to meet me sometime and somewhere, we parted.
So long as I had journeyed along beside my poor, half-witted follower, the strange and fickle features of his wandering intellect had somehow interrupted the channels of my own feelings, and left me no room for reflection on my changed fortunes. Now, however, my thoughts returned to the past with all the force of some dammed-up current, and my blighted hopes threw a dark and sombre shadow over all my features. What cared I what became of me? Why did I hasten hither and thither? These were my first reflections. If life had lost its charm, so had misfortune lost its terror. There seemed something frivolous and contemptible in the return to those duties which in all the buoyant exhilaration of my former life had ever seemed unfitting and unmanly. No! rather let me seek for some employment on active service. The soldier"s career I once longed for, to taste its glorious enthusiasm--that I wished for now, to enjoy its ceaseless movement and exertion.
As I thought over all I had seen and gone through since my arrival in Ireland--its varied scenes of mirth and woe; its reckless pleasures, its wilder despair--I believed that I had acquired a far deeper insight into my own heart in proportion as I looked more into those of others. A not unfrequent error this. The outstretched page of human nature that I had been gazing on had shown me the pa.s.sions and feelings of other men laid bare before me, while my own heart was dark, enshrined, and unvisited within me. I believed that life had no longer anything to tie me to it--and I was not then twenty! Had I counted double as many years, I had had more reason for the belief, and more difficulty to think so.
Sometimes I endeavoured to console myself by thinking of all the obstacles that under the happiest circ.u.mstances must have opposed themselves to my union with Louisa Bellew. My mother"s pride alone seemed an insurmountable one. But then I thought of what a n.o.ble part had lain before me, to prefer the object of my love--the prize of my own winning--to all the caresses of fortune, all the seductions of the world. Sir Simon Bellew, too--what could he mean? The secret he alluded to, what was it? Alas! what mattered it? My doom was sealed, my fate decided; I had no care how.
Such were my thoughts as I journeyed along the path that conducted towards the highroad; while my little guide--barelegged and barefooted, trotted on merrily before me--who, with none of this world"s goods, had no room in his heart for sorrow or repining.
We at last reached the road, which, dusty and deserted, skirted the side of a bleak mountain for miles--not a house to be seen; not a traveller, nor scarce a wheel-track, to mark the course of any one having pa.s.sed there. I had not followed it for more than half an hour when I heard the tramp of horses and the roll which announced the approach of an equipage. A vast cloud of dust, through which a pair of leaders were alone visible, appeared at a distance. I seated myself at the roadside to await its coming, my little gossoon beside me, evidently not sorry to have reached a resting-place; and once more my thoughts returned to their well-worn channel, and my head sank on my bosom. I forgot where I was, when suddenly the prancing of a pair of horses close to me aroused me from my stupor, and a postillion called out to me in no very subdued accent--
"Will ye hook on that trace there, avick, av ye "re not asleep?"
Whether it was my look of astonishment at the tone and the nature of the request, or delay in acceding to it, I know not; but a hearty curse from the fellow on the wheelers perfectly awakened me, and I replied by something not exactly calculated to appease the heat of the discussion.
"Begorra," said he of the leaders, "it"s always the way with your shabby genteels!" and he swung himself down from the saddle to perform the required service himself.
During this operation I took the opportunity of looking at the carriage, which was a large and handsome barouche, surrounded by all the appurtenances of travel--cap-cases, imperials, etc.; a fat-looking, lazy footman was nodding sleepily on the box, and a well-tanned lady"s-maid was reading a novel in the rumble. Within I saw the figure of a lady, whose magnificent style of dress but little accorded with the unfrequented road she was traversing and the wild inhabitants so thinly scattered through it. As I looked, she turned round suddenly; and, before I could recognise her, she called out my name. The voice in an instant rea.s.sured me: it was Mrs. Paul Rooney herself!
"Stop!" cried she, with a wave of her jewelled hand. "Michael, get down.
Only think of meeting you here, Captain!"
I stammered out some explanation about a cross-cut over the mountain to catch the stage, and my desire to reach Ennis; while the unhappy termination of our intimacy, and my mother"s impertinent letter kept ever uppermost in my mind, and made me confused and uneasy. Mrs. Paul, however, had evidently no partic.i.p.ation in such feelings, but welcomed me with her wonted cordiality, and shook my hand with a warmth that proved, if she had not forgotten, she had certainly forgiven, the whole affair.
"And so you are going to Ennis!" said she, as I a.s.sumed the place beside her in the barouche, while Michael was busily engaged in fastening on my luggage behind--the two movements seeming to be as naturally performed as though the amiable lady had been in the habit of taking up walking gentlemen with a portmanteau every day of her life. "Well, how fortunate! I"m going there too. Pole [so she now designated her excellent spouse, it being the English for Paul] has some little business with the chief-justice--two murder cases, and a forcible abduction--and I promised to take him up on my return from Milltown, where I have been spending a few weeks. After that we return to our little place near Bray, where I hope you "ll come and spend a few weeks with us."
"This great pleasure I fear I must deny myself," said I, "for I have already outstayed my leave, and have unfortunately somehow incurred the displeasure of his Excellency; and unless"--here I dropped my voice, and stole a half-timid look at the lady under my eyelashes--"some one with influence over his grace shall interfere on my behalf, I begin to fear lest I may find myself in a sad sc.r.a.pe."
Mrs. Paul blushing, turned away her head; and while pressing my hand softly in her own, she murmured--
"Don"t fret about it; it won"t signify."
I could scarce repress a smile at the success of my bit of flattery, for as such alone I intended it, when she turned towards me, and, as if desirous to change the topic, said--
"Well, we heard of all your doings--your steeplechase and your duel and your wound, and all that; but what became of you afterwards?"
"Oh," said I hesitatingly, "I was fortunate enough to make a most agreeable acquaintance, and with him I have been spending a few weeks on the coast--Father Tom Loftus."
"Father Tom!" said Mrs. Rooney with a laugh--"the pleasantest crayture in Ireland! There isn"t the like of him. Did he sing you the "Priest"s Supper?"" The lady blushed as she said these words, as if carried away by a momentary excitement to speak of matters not exactly suitable; and then drawing herself up, she continued in a more measured tone: "You know, Captain, one meets such strange people in this world."
"To be sure, Mrs. Rooney," said I encouragingly; "and to one like yourself, who can appreciate character, Father Loftus is indeed a gem."
Mrs. Rooney, however, only smiled her a.s.sent, and again changed the course of the conversation.
"You met the Bellews, I suppose, when down in the west?"
"Yes," stammered I; "I saw a good deal of Sir Simon when in that country."
"Ah, the poor man!" said she with real feeling, "what an unhappy lot his has been!"
Supposing that she alluded to his embarra.s.sment as to fortune, the difficulties which pressed upon him from money causes, I merely muttered my a.s.sent.
"But I suppose," continued she, "you have heard the whole story, though the unhappy event occurred when you were a mere child."
"I am not aware to what you allude," said I eagerly, while a suspicion shot across my mind that the secret of Sir Simon Bellow"s letter was at length to be cleared up.
"Ah," said Mrs. Rooney with a sigh, "I mean poor dear Lady Bellow"s affair--when she went away with a major of dragoons; and to be sure an elegant young man he was, they said. Pole was on the inquest, and I heard him say he was the handsomest man he ever saw in his life."
"He died suddenly, then?"
"He was shot by Sir Simon in a duel the very day-week after the elopement."
"And she?" said I.
"Poor thing! she died of a consumption, or some say a broken heart, the same summer."
"That is a sad story, indeed," said I musingly; "and I no longer wonder that the poor old man should be such as he is."
"No, indeed; but then he was very much blamed after all, for he never had that Jerningham out of the house."
"Horace Jerningham!" cried I, as a cold sickening fear crept over me.
"Oh, yes, that was his name. He was the Honourable Horace Jerningham, the younger son of some very high family in England; and, indeed, the elder brother has died since, and they say the t.i.tle has become extinct."
It is needless for me to attempt any description of the feelings that agitated my heart, when I say that Horace Jerningham was the brother of my own mother. I remembered when a child to have heard something of a dreadful duel, when all the family went into deep mourning, and my mother"s health suffered so severely that her life was at one time feared for; but that fate should have ever thrown me into intimacy with those upon whom this grievous injury was inflicted, and by whom death and mourning were brought upon my house, was a sad and overwhelming affliction that rendered me stunned and speechless. How came it then, thought I, that my mother never recognised the name of her brother"s antagonist when speaking of Miss Bellew in her letter to me? Before I had time to revolve this doubt in my mind Mrs. Rooney had explained it.
"And this was the beginning of all his misfortunes. The friends of the poor young man were people of great influence, and set every engine to work to ruin Sir Simon, or, as he then was, Mr. Simon Barrington. At last they got him outlawed; and it was only the very year he came to the t.i.tle and estates of his uncle that the outlawry was taken off, and he was once more enabled to return to Ireland. However, they had their revenge if they wished for it; for what between recklessness and bad company, he took to gambling when abroad, contracted immense debts, and came into his fortune little better than a beggar. Since then the world has seen little of him, and indeed he owes it but little favour. Under Pole"s management the property is now rapidly improving; but the old man cares little for this, and all I believe he wishes for is to have health enough to go over to the Continent and place his daughter in a convent before he dies."
Little did she guess how every word sank deep into my heart. Every sentence of the past was throwing its shadow over all my future, and the utter wreck of my hopes seemed now inevitable.
While thus I sat brooding over my gloomiest thoughts, Mrs. Rooney, evidently affected by the subject, maintained a perfect silence. At last, however, she seemed to have summed up the whole case in her mind, as turning to me confidentially, with her hand pressed upon my arm, she added in a true moralising cadence, very different from that she had employed when her feelings were really engaged--
"And that"s what always comes of it when a gallant, gay Lutherian gets admission into a family."
Shall I confess, that, notwithstanding the deep sorrow of my heart, I could scarce repress an outbreak of laughter at these words! We now chatted away on a variety of subjects, till the concourse of people pressing onwards to the town, the more thickly populated country, and the distant view of chimneys apprised us we were approaching Ennis.
Notwithstanding all my wishes to get on as fast as might be, I found it impossible to resist an invitation to dine that day with the Rooneys, who had engaged a small select party at the Head Inn, where Mrs.
Rooney"s apartments were already awaiting her.
It was dusk when we arrived, and I could only perceive that the gloomy and narrow streets were densely crowded with country-people, who conversed together in groups. Here and there a knot of legal folk were congregated, chatting in a louder tone; and before the court-house stood the carriage of the chief-justice, with a guard of honour of the county yeomanry, whose unsoldierlike att.i.tudes and droll equipments were strongly provocative of laughter. The postillions, who had with true tact reserved a "trot for the town," whipped and spurred with all their might; and as we drove through the thronged streets a changed impression fled abroad that we were the bearers of a reprieve, and a hearty cheer from the mob followed us to our arrival at the inn door--a compliment which Mrs. Paul, in nowise attributing to anything save her own peculiar charms and deserts, most graciously acknowledged by a smile and a wave of her hand, accompanied by an unlimited order for small beer--which act of grace was, I think, even more popular than their first impression concerning us.
"Ah, Captain," said the lady, with a compa.s.sionate smile, as I handed her out of the carriage, "they are so attached to the aristocracy!"
CHAPTER XLIII. THE a.s.sIZE TOWN