"From Joe--Joe Atlee! I believe we have talked you over--every one of you--till I know you all as well as if I lived in the castle and called you by your Christian names. Do you know, Mr. Kearney"--and his voice trembled now as he spoke--"that to a lone and desolate man like myself, who has no home, and scarcely a country, there is something indescribably touching in the mere picture of the fireside, and the family gathered round it, talking over little homely cares and canva.s.sing the changes of each day"s fortune.
I could sit here half the night and listen to Atlee telling how you lived, and the sort of things that interested you."
"So that you"d actually like to look at us?"
Donogan"s eyes grew gla.s.sy, and his lips trembled, but he could not utter a word.
"So you shall, then," cried d.i.c.k resolutely. "We"ll start to-morrow by the early train. You"ll not object to a ten miles" walk, and we"ll arrive for dinner."
"Do you know who it is you are inviting to your father"s house? Do you know that I am an escaped convict, with a price on my head this minute? Do you know the penalty of giving me shelter, or even what the law calls comfort?"
"I know this, that in the heart of the Bog of Allen, you"ll be far safer than in the city of Dublin; that none shall ever learn who you are, nor, if they did, is there one--the poorest in the place--would betray you."
"It is of you, sir, I"m thinking, not of me," said Donogan calmly.
"Don"t fret yourself about us. We are well known in our county, and above suspicion. Whenever you yourself should feel that your presence was like to be a danger, I am quite willing to believe you"d take yourself off."
"You judge me rightly, sir, and I am proud to see it; but how are you to present me to your friends?"
"As a college acquaintance--a friend of Atlee"s and of mine--a gentleman who occupied the room next me. I can surely say that with truth."
"And dined with you every day since you knew him. Why not add that?"
He laughed merrily over this conceit, and at last Donogan said, "I"ve a little kit of clothes--something decenter than these--up in Thomas Street, No. 13, Mr. Kearney; the old house Lord Edward was shot in, and the safest place in Dublin now, because it is so notorious. I"ll step up for them this evening, and I"ll be ready to start when you like."
"Here"s good fortune to us, whatever we do next," said Kearney, filling both their gla.s.ses; and they touched the brims together, and clinked them before they drained them.
CHAPTER XXVIII
"ON THE LEADS"
Kate Kearney"s room was on the top of the castle, and "gave" by a window over the leads of a large square tower. On this s.p.a.ce she had made a little garden of a few flowers, to tend which was of what she called her "dissipations."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Is not that as fine as your boasted Campagna?"]
Some old packing-cases filled with mould sufficed to nourish a few stocks and carnations, a rose or two, and a ma.s.s of mignonette, which possibly, like the children of the poor, grew up st.u.r.dy and healthy from some of the adverse circ.u.mstances of their condition. It was a very favourite spot with her; and if she came hither in her happiest moments, it was here also her saddest hours were pa.s.sed, sure that in the cares and employments of her loved plants she would find solace and consolation. It was at this window Kate now sat with Nina, looking over the vast plain, on which a rich moonlight was streaming, the shadows of fast-flitting clouds throwing strange and fanciful effects over a s.p.a.ce almost wide enough to be a prairie.
"What a deal have mere names to do with our imaginations, Nina!" said Kate.
"Is not that boundless sweep before us as fine as your boasted Campagna?
Does not the night wind career over it as joyfully, and is not the moonlight as picturesque in its breaks by turf-clamp and hillock as by ruined wall and tottering temple? In a word, are not we as well here, to drink in all this delicious silence, as if we were sitting on your loved Pincian?"
"Don"t ask me to share such heresies. I see nothing out there but bleak desolation. I don"t know if it ever had a past; I can almost swear it will have no future. Let us not talk of it."
"What shall we talk of?" asked Kate, with an arch smile.
"You know well enough what led me up here. I want to hear what you know of that strange man d.i.c.k brought here to-day to dinner."
"I never saw him before--never even heard of him."
"Do you like him?"
"I have scarcely seen him."
"Don"t be so guarded and reserved. Tell me frankly the impression he makes on you. Is he not vulgar--very vulgar?"
"How should I say, Nina? Of all the people you ever met, who knows so little of the habits of society as myself? Those fine gentlemen who were here the other day shocked my ignorance by numberless little displays of indifference. Yet I can feel that they must have been paragons of good-breeding, and that what I believed to be a very cool self-sufficiency, was in reality the very latest London version of good manners."
"Oh, you did not like that charming carelessness of Englishmen that goes where it likes and when it likes, that does not wait to be answered when it questions, and only insists on one thing, which is--"not to be bored." If you knew, dearest Kate, how foreigners school themselves, and strive to catch up that insouciance, and never succeed--never!"
"My brother"s friend certainly is no adept in it."
"He is insufferable. I don"t know that the man ever dined in the company of ladies before; did you remark that he did not open the door as we left the dinner-room? and if your brother had not come over, I should have had to open it for myself. I declare I"m not sure he stood up as we pa.s.sed."
"Oh yes; I saw him rise from his chair."
"I"ll tell you what you did not see. You did not see him open his napkin at dinner. He stole his roll of bread very slyly from the folds, and then placed the napkin, carefully folded, beside him."
"You seem to have observed him closely, Nina."
"I did so, because I saw enough in his manner to excite suspicion of his cla.s.s, and I want to know what d.i.c.k means by introducing him here."
"Papa liked him; at least he said that after we left the room a good deal of his shyness wore off, and that he conversed pleasantly and well. Above all, he seems to know Ireland perfectly."
"Indeed!" said she, half disdainfully.
"So much so that I was heartily sorry to leave the room when I heard them begin the topic; but I saw papa wished to have some talk with him, and I went."
"They were gallant enough not to join us afterwards, though I think we waited tea till ten."
"Till nigh eleven, Nina; so that I am sure they must have been interested in their conversation."
"I hope the explanation excuses them."
"I don"t know that they are aware they needed an apology. Perhaps they were affecting a little of that British insouciance you spoke of--"
"They had better not. It will sit most awkwardly on their Irish habits."
"Some day or other I"ll give you a formal battle on this score, Nina, and I warn you you"ll not come so well out of it."
"Whenever you like. I accept the challenge. Make this brilliant companion of your brother"s the type, and it will test your cleverness, I promise you. Do you even know his name?"
"Mr. Daniel, my brother called him; but I know nothing of his country or of his belongings."
"Daniel is a Christian name, not a family name, is it not? We have scores of people like that--Tommasina, Riccardi, and such like--in Italy, but they mean nothing."