Overcome by his rage, he followed Rickards out of the room, declaring that he"d make all England ring with the narrative of this outrage.
The legal mind, overbalanced for an instant, suddenly recovered its equanimity, and he began to reflect how far he was justified in a forcible detention. Would "a claim lie" for false imprisonment? Were he to detain them, too, what should be his charge? Was it a trespa.s.s? Had they been warned off? "Wait a moment, Rickards," said he; "I must think a minute or two. There"s a difficulty here. Where a person, pa.s.sing in the street, smashes accidentally--it must be accidentally--a pane of plate-gla.s.s, of the value of, let us say five-and-twenty or thirty guineas, the law only holds him responsible for the damage of an ordinary window-pane; so that here it will be quite open to the defence to show that this man imagined he was breaking a common jug, a mere earthenware pipkin. It is, then, to the trespa.s.s we must look. Call the lodge-keeper; say I wish to have a word with him."
While Rickards hastened on his errand, Mr. M"Kinlay sat down to ponder carefully over the case. Your men conversant with great causes in equity and weighty trials at bar, are nervously fearful of meddling with the small cases which come before petty tribunals. They really know little about them, and are almost certain to fail in them; and they feel--very naturally--ashamed at the sorry figure they must exhibit in such failures.
"They"re all gone, Sir--they"ve made a regular retreat of it--not one left."
"Who--who are gone?"
"Them tourists, Sir. They overtook me as I went down the avenue, and made George open the gate; and away they are, the whole of "em."
"I"m not sorry for it, Rickards. I declare I"m not sorry. It would cost more time and more trouble to follow them up than they"re worth; and I am certain, besides, Sir Gervais wouldn"t have the affair in the newspapers for ten times the amount of all the damage they"ve done him.
What"s that noise without--who"s coming now?"
"My Lady!" exclaimed Rickards, and hastened out to receive her. Mr.
M"Kinlay could notice that a short dialogue took place between the ladies and the butler before they entered the door, and that they both laughed at something he was telling them. Was the story that amused them of him, or of the invasion? He had not time to consider, when they entered.
"How d"ye do, Mr. M"Kinlay?" said Lady Vyner, quietly. "We"ve kept you very long waiting, I fear. You may serve dinner at once, Rickards. Mr.
M"Kinlay will excuse our dining in morning dress, Georgina."
"I should hope so," said her sister, with a very saucy toss of the head.
"Your Ladyship will excuse my not remaining to dinner," said he, with a marked coldness. "I only wanted to see you, and ask if you had any commissions for Sir Gervais."
"No, there"s nothing, I fancy. I wrote yesterday--I think it was yesterday."
"Tell him not to meddle with Irish property, and come away from that country as soon as he can," said Georgina.
"Say the garden is looking beautiful since the rain," said Lady Vyner, rising. "Good-by, and a pleasant journey!"
"Good-by!" said Georgina, giving him the tips of her fingers.
And Mr. M"Kinlay bowed and took his leave, carrying away as he went very different thoughts of cottage life and its enjoyments from those he might have felt had he gone when he had finished the last gla.s.s of Madeira.
CHAPTER X. THE SHEBEEN
Just as we see on the confines of some vast savage territory one solitary settlement that seems to say, "Here civilisation ends, beyond this the tracts of cultivated man are unknown," so there stood on the borders of a solitary lake in Donegal--Lough Anare--a small thatched house, over whose door an inscription announced "Entertainment for Man and Beast," the more pretentious letters of the latter seeming to indicate that the accommodation for Beast was far more likely to prove a success than that intended for mere humanity.
What imaginable spirit of enterprise could have induced Mr. O"Rorke to have established an inn in such a region is not easy to guess. To the north of Lough Anare lay a vast untravelled, almost roadless district.
Great mountains and deep valleys, wild plains of heather, enclosing lakes, with islands, sometimes mere rocks, sometimes covered with an oak scrub--last remnants of primeval forests--succeeded each other apparently without end. A miserable shealing, usually padlocked on the outside, was all that betokened habitation, and a living being was rarely met with. It is true there was scenery which for grandeur and beauty might have vied with the most vaunted spots on the island.
Mountain gorges far finer than Dunluce, lakes more varied in shape, and with margins bolder in outline and richer in colour than Killarney, and coast-line with which the boasted Glengariff could not for a moment compete, all destined to remain as unknown as if they lay thousands of miles away in some Indian sea.
A great proportion of this territory was the property of the University of Dublin--endowment made in the time of Queen Elizabeth, when probably all lands without the pale had about the same value; some of it pertained to a wealthy English n.o.ble, who, until the accident of a governmental survey, had never so much as cared to ascertain his limits, and who made the first use of his knowledge by announcing for sale the lands of Mac-na-Morroch, Knochlifty, Eilmacooran, and Denyvaragh; in all, nigh fifty thousand acres of mountain, bog, callow, and lake, whose great capabilities, whether for sheep-farming, fishing, for the quarries of marble, or the immense mineral resources, were vouched for by a roll of scientific names, whose very t.i.tular letters enforced conviction. If the pen of an imaginative writer might have been employed in depicting the stores of wealth and fortune that lay here entombed, no fancy could have exaggerated the natural loveliness of the landscape. All that was wild and grotesque in outline, with all that was most glowing in colour, were there; and when on the nameless lakes the setting sun added his glory to the golden purple of their reflected lights, the scene became one of such gorgeous splendour as Art would not have dared to imitate.
The little inn we have just mentioned stood on a rocky eminence which projected from the mountain-side, and could be seen for miles off, more conspicuous, besides, by a large green flag, with a harp in the centre, which by the patriotism of Mr. O"Rorke flaunted its folds to the wild mountain breezes, as though enjoying in the solitude an immunity which the Saxon might have resented elsewhere. Tim O"Rorke was indeed one who had "suffered for Ireland." Four several times had he figured in Crown Prosecutions, and both fine and imprisonment had been his portion. On the last occasion, however, either that national enthusiasm was cooling down, or that suspicions of Tim"s honesty were getting abroad, the subscription for his defence was almost a failure. No imposing names headed the list, and the sums inscribed were mean and contemptible.
Unable to fee the great bar, to retain which, perhaps, formed the grandest triumph of his life, O"Rorke decided to defend himself, and in the course of his defence launched forth into a severe and insulting castigation of his party, who, after using up his youth and manhood in their cause, left him, when old and broken and dispirited, to the merciless cruelty of his enemies. He read aloud in open court the names of the powerful and wealthy men who at first stood by him, and then, with a shameless insolence, contrasted them with the ign.o.ble friends who remained to him. He recited the proud sums once contributed, and, amidst the laughter of the court, ridiculed the beggarly half-crowns that now represented Irish patriotism. The verdict was against him, and once more was he sent back to Kilmainham, to serve out a two years" sentence, this time unalienated by the sympathy of any friends, or the kind wishes of any partisans. His sentence completed, he made two to three efforts to reinstate himself in public esteem; he established an eating-house called "The Rebel"s Home," he inst.i.tuted an evening paper ent.i.tled the _Pike_, he invented a coat-b.u.t.ton marked "98, but somehow friends and enemies had become wearied of him. It was seen that he was one of those who neither have the power of good nor evil, that he could be of no use to his own, no injury to others, and the world dropped him--dropped him as it does its poor and disreputable relatives, taking no heed of his gaunt looks nor his tattered raiment, and by its tacit indifference showed that the ma.s.s of mankind can behave on certain occasions pretty much as would an individual man. Tim threatened, stormed, and reviled; he vowed vengeance and menaced disclosures; he swore that his revelations would impeach some of the highest in the land, and he intimated that up to a certain day he was yet appeasable. Threats, however, were not more successful than entreaties, and Tim, gathering together a few pounds, under the plea of departure for Australia, quitted the scene he had so long troubled, and was heard of no more.
For years he had continued to exist in some fashion or other--poaching the chief source--in the wild spot we have just described; and it was on the rock in front of his door, with a short pipe in his mouth, that he now lay stretched, on a fine autumn morning, lazily gazing down the valley, where at a great distance off he could detect a small speck upon the road, intimating that rarest of all events, the approach of a jaunting-car. He threw his glance upwards to see that his flag disported its folds to the air, and to the sign over his door--"The Vinegar Hill, by T. O"Rorke, Entertainment for Man and Beast"--to be sure that all was in order, and he then smoked quietly on and watched the road.
By a landslip which had occurred several years before, and whose effects had never been remedied, the road was blocked up about a mile from the little inn, and travellers desirous of its accommodation were obliged to continue their journey on foot. Whether from the apathy of hope deferred, or calculating on the delay that must thus intervene, Mr.
O"Rorke saw two persons descend from the car, and, each taking his carpet-bag, set out to walk, without the slightest movement on his part to provide for their reception; and this, though he was himself cook, waiter, and housemaid--all that the inn possessed of master or attendant.
Mr. O"Rorke"s experience of travellers included but two categories, each of them rare enough in their visitations. They either came to shoot grouse or convert the natives. All who were not sportsmen were missionaries. A certain amount of peril attended both pursuits. The people were a wild, semi-civilised set, who saw with jealousy a stranger amongst them, and certain hints, palpable enough not to be mistaken, intimated to the lovers of sport, as well as the distributers of tracts, that their pursuits were dangerous ones; and thus, in time, the numbers decreased year by year, till at last the advent of a traveller was a rare event.
The two who now ascended the rocky pathway had neither guns nor fishing-tackle--as little had they of missionaries in their aspect--and he watched them with a lazy curiosity as they approached.
"Are you Mr. O"Rorke?" cried the first who came forward, who was our acquaintance Sir Gervais Vyner.
"Yes, my name is O"Rorke."
"And the owner of this inn, I take it?" asked Grenfell, somewhat haughtily.
"The same."
"Is this your usual way of receiving strangers, my friend, or is your present manner an especial politeness to ourselves?"
"Can you let us have a dinner, and make up a couple of rooms?" broke in Vyner, hastily. "We should like to stop here a few days."
"You can see the rooms, whether they"ll do for you or not; such as they are, you can have them, but I can"t make them better."
"And for eating, what can you give us?"
"Mutton always--fish and game when there"s the season for them--and poteen to wash them down."
"That is the illicit spirit, isn"t it?" asked Grenfell.
"Just as illicit as anything else a man makes of his own produce for his own use; just as illicit as the bread that is made of his own corn."
"You"re a politician, I see," said Grenfell, with a sneering laugh. "I half suspected it when I saw your green flag there."
"If I hadn"t been one, and an honest one too, I"d not be here today,"
said he, with an energy greater than he had shown before. "Have you anything to say against that flag?"
"Of course he has not. Neither he nor I ever saw it before," said Vyner.
"Maybe you"ll be more familiar with it yet; maybe the time isn"t far off when you"ll see it waving over the towers of Dublin Castle!"
"I"m not aware that there are any towers for it to wave over," said Grenfell, mockingly.
"I"ll tell you what there are! There are hills and mountains, that our fathers had as their own; there are plains and valleys, that supported a race braver and better than the crafty Saxons that overcame them; there are holy churches, where our faith was taught before we ever heard of Harry the Eighth and his ten wives!"
"You are giving him more than the Church did," said Grenfell.
"I don"t care whether they were ten or ten thousand. He is your St.
Peter, and you can"t deny him!"