Her eyes have grown darker; her mouth is stern. To Rodney, who is watching her anxiously, she seems positively transformed. What a terrible power lies within her slight frame to feel both good and evil!
What sad days may rest in store for this girl, whose face can whiten at a pa.s.sing grievance, and whose hands can tremble at a woe in which only a dependant is concerned! Both sorrow and joy must be to her as giants, strong to raise or lower her to highest elevations or lowest depths.
"Oh, what a day is this!" cries she, with quivering lips. "See the ruin you have brought upon this home, that only yestermorn was full of life and gladness! Is this what has come of your Land League, and your Home Rulers, and your riotous meetings? Where is the soul of this poor man, who was hurried to his last account without his priest, and without a prayer for pardon on his lips? And how shall the man who slew him dare to think on his own soul?"
No one answers; the very moanings of the old crone in the chimney-corner are hushed as the clear young voice rings through the house, and then stops abruptly, as though its owner is overcome with emotion. The men move back a little, and glance uneasily and with some fear at her from under their brows.
"Oh, the shameful thought that all the world should be looking at us with horror and disgust, as a people too foul for anything but annihilation! And what is it you hope to gain by all this madness? Do you believe peace, or a blessing from the holy heavens, could fall and rest on a soil soaked in blood and red with crime? I tell you no; but rather a curse will descend, and stay with you, that even Time itself will be powerless to lift."
Again she pauses, and one of the men, shuffling his feet nervously, and with his eyes bent upon the floor, says, in a husky tone,--
"Sure, now, you"re too hard on us, Miss Mona. We"re innocent of it. Our hands are clean as yer own. We nivir laid eyes on him since yesterday till this blessed minit. Ye should remember that, miss."
"I know what you would say; and yet I do denounce you all, both men and boys,--yes, and the women too,--because, though your own actual hands may be free of blood, yet knowing the vile a.s.sa.s.sin who did this deed, there is not one of you but would extend to him the clasp of good-fellowship and shield him to the last,--a man who, fearing to meet another face to face, must needs lie in ambush for him behind a wall, and shoot his victim without giving him one chance of escape! Mr. Moore walks through his lands day by day, unprotected and without arms: why did this man not meet him there, and fight him fairly, to the death, if, indeed, he felt that for the good of his country he should die! No!
there was danger in that thought," says Mona, scornfully: "it is a safer thing to crouch out of sight and murder at one"s will."
"Then why does he prosecute the poor? We can"t live; yet he won"t lower the rints," says a sullen voice from the background.
"He did lower them. He, too, must live; and, at all events, no persecution can excuse murder," says Mona, undaunted. "And who was so good to you as Mr. Moore last winter, when the famine raged round here?
Was not his house open to you all? Were not many of your children fed by him? But that is all forgotten now; the words of a few incendiaries have blotted out the remembrance of years of steady friendship. Grat.i.tude lies not with you. I, who am one of you, waste my time in speaking. For a very little matter you would shoot me too, no doubt!"
This last remark, being in a degree ungenerous, causes a sensation. A young man, stepping out from the confusion, says, very earnestly,--
"I don"t think ye have any call to say that to us, Miss Mona. "Tisn"t fair like, when ye know in yer own heart that we love the very sight of ye, and the laste sound of yer voice!"
Mona, though still angered, is yet somewhat softened by this speech, as might any woman. Her color fades again, and heavy tears, rising rapidly, quench the fire that only a moment since made her large eyes dark and pa.s.sionate.
"Perhaps you do," she says, sadly. "And I, too,--you know how dear you all are to me; and it is just that that makes my heart so sore. But it is too late to warn. The time is past when words might have availed."
Turning sorrowfully away, she drops some silver into the poor widow"s lap; whereon Geoffrey, who has been standing close to her all the time, covers it with two sovereigns.
"Send down to the Farm, and I will give you some brandy," says Mona to a woman standing by, after a lengthened gaze at the prostrate form of Kitty, who makes no sign of life. "She wants it." Laying her hand on Kitty"s shoulder, she shakes her gently. "Rouse yourself," she says, kindly, yet with energy. "Try to think of something,--anything except your cruel misfortune."
"I have only one thought," says the woman, sullenly, "I can"t betther it. An" that is, that it was a bitther day when first I saw the light."
Mona, not attempting to reason with her again, shakes her head despondingly, and leaves the cabin with Geoffrey at her side.
For a little while they are silent. He is thinking of Mona; she is wrapped in remembrance of all that has just pa.s.sed. Presently, looking at her, he discovers she is crying,--bitterly, though quietly. The reaction has set in, and the tears are running quickly down her cheeks.
"Mona, it has all been too much for you," exclaims he, with deep concern.
"Yes, yes; that poor, poor woman! I cannot get her face out of my head.
How forlorn! how hopeless! She has lost all she cared for; there is nothing to fall back upon. She loved him; and to have him so cruelly murdered for no crime, and to know that he will never again come in the door, or sit by her hearth, or light his pipe by her fire,--oh, it is horrible! It is enough to kill her!" says Mona, somewhat disconnectedly.
"Time will soften her grief," says Rodney, with an attempt at soothing.
"And she is young; she will marry again, and form new ties."
"Indeed she will not;" says Mona indignantly. "Irish peasants very seldom do that. She will, I am sure, be faithful forever to the memory of the man she loved."
"Is that the fashion here? If--if you loved a man, would you be faithful to him forever?"
"But how could I help it?" says Mona, simply. "Oh, what a wretched state this country is in! turmoil and strife from morning till night. And yet to talk to those very people, to mix with them, they seem such courteous, honest, lovable creatures!"
"I don"t think the gentleman in the flannel jacket, who spoke about the reduction of "rints," looked very lovable," says Mr. Rodney, without a suspicion of a smile; "and--I suppose my sight is failing--but I confess I didn"t see much courtesy in his eye or his upper lip. I don"t think I ever saw so much upper lip before, and now that I have seen it I don"t admire it. I shouldn"t single him out as a companion for a lonely road.
But no doubt I wrong him."
"Larry Doolin is not a very pleasant person, I acknowledge that," says Mona, regretfully; "but he is only one among a number. And for the most part, I maintain, they are both kind and civil. Do you know," with energy, "after all I believe England is most to blame for all this evil work? We are at heart loyal: you must agree with me in this, when you remember how enthusiastically they received the queen when, years ago, she condescended to pay us a flying visit, never to be repeated. And how gladly we welcomed the Prince of Wales, and how the other day all Ireland petted and made much of the Duke of Connaught! I was in Dublin when he was there; and I know there was no feeling towards him but loyalty and affection. I am sure," earnestly, "if you asked him he would tell the same story."
"I"ll ask him the very moment I see him," says Geoffrey, with _empress.e.m.e.nt_. "Nothing shall prevent me. And I"ll telegraph his answer to you."
"We should be all good subjects enough, if things were on a friendlier footing," says Mona, too absorbed in her own grievance to notice Mr.
Rodney"s suppressed but evident enjoyment of her conversation. "But when you despise us, you lead us to hate you."
"I never heard such awful language," says Rodney. "To tell me to my face that you hate me. Oh, Miss Mona! How have I merited such a speech?"
"You know what I mean," says Mona, reproachfully. "You needn"t pretend you don"t. And it is quite true that England does despise us."
"What a serious accusation! and one I think slightly unfounded. We don"t despise this beautiful island or its people. We even admit that you possess a charm to which we can lay no claim. The wit, the verve, the pure gayety that springs direct from the heart that belongs to you, we lack. We are a terrible prosy, heavy lot capable of only one idea at a time. How can you say we despise you?"
"Yes, you do," says Mona, with a little obstinate shake of her head.
"You call us dirty, for one thing."
"Well, but is that altogether a falsehood? Pigs and smoke and live fowls and babies are, I am convinced, good things in their own way and when well at a distance. But, under the roof with one and in an apartment a few feet square, I don"t think I seem to care about them, and I"m sure they can"t tend towards cleanliness."
"I admit all that. But how can they help it, when they have no money and when there are always the dear children? I dare say we are dirty, but so are other nations, and no one sneers at them as they sneer at us. Are we dirtier than the canny Scots on whom your queen bestows so much of her society? Tell me that!"
There is triumph in her eye, and a malicious sparkle, and just a touch of rebellion.
"What a little patriot!" says Rodney, pretending fear and stepping back from her. "Into what dangerous company have I fallen! And with what an accent you say "_your_ queen"! Do you then repudiate her? Is she not yours as well? Do you refuse to acknowledge her?"
"Why should I? She never comes near us, never takes the least notice of us. She treats us as though we were a detested branch grafted on, and causing more trouble than we are worth, yet she will not let us go."
"I don"t wonder at that. If I were the queen I should not let you go either. And so you throw her over? Unhappy queen! I do not envy her, although she sits upon so great a throne. I would not be cast off by you for the wealth of all the Indies."
"Oh, you are my friend," says Mona, sweetly. Then, returning to the charge, "Perhaps after all it is not so much her fault as that of others. Evil counsellors work mischief in all ages."
""A Daniel come to judgment!" So sage a speech is wonderful from one so young. In my opinion, you ought to go into Parliament yourself, and advocate the great cause. Is it with the present government that you find fault?
"A government which, knowing not true wisdom, Is scorned abroad, and lives on tricks at home?"
says Mr. Rodney, airing his bit of Dryden with conscious pride, in that it fits in so nicely. "At all events, you can"t call it,
"A council made of such as dare not speak, And could not if they durst,"
because your part of it takes care to make itself heard."
"How I wish it didn"t!" says Mona, with a sigh.
The tears are still lingering on her lashes; her mouth is sad. Yet at this instant, even as Geoffrey is gazing at her and wondering how he shall help to dispel the cloud of sorrow that sits upon her brow, her whole expression changes. A merry gleam comes into her wet eyes, her lips widen and lose their lachrymose look, and then suddenly she throws up her head and breaks into a gay little laugh.