"Yes, of course; but I heard, too, how he escaped his would-be a.s.sa.s.sin."
"He did, yes; but poor Tim Maloney, the driver of the car on which he was, he was shot through the heart, instead of him! Oh, Mr. Rodney,"
cries the girl, pa.s.sionate emotion both in her face and voice, "what can be said of those men who come down to quiet places such as this was, to inflame the minds of poor ignorant wretches, until they are driven to bring down murder on their souls! It is cruel! It is unjust! And there seems no help for us. But surely in the land where justice reigns supreme, retribution will fall upon the right heads."
"I quite forgot about the driver," says Geoffrey, beneath his breath.
This remark is unfortunate. Mona turns upon him wrathfully.
"No doubt," she says scornfully. "The gentleman escaped, the man doesn"t count! Perhaps, indeed, he has fulfilled his mission now he has shed his ign.o.ble blood for his superior! Do you know it is partly such thoughts as these that have driven our people to desperation! One law for the poor, another for the rich! Friendship for the great, contempt for the needy."
She pauses, catching her breath with a little sob.
"Who is uttering seditious language now?" asks he, reproachfully. "No, you wrong me. I had, indeed, forgotten for the moment all about that unfortunate driver. You must remember I am a stranger here. The peasants are unknown to me. I cannot be expected to feel a keen interest in each one individually. In fact, had Mr. Moore been killed instead of poor Maloney, I shouldn"t have felt it a bit the more, though he was the master and the other the man. I can only suffer with those I know and love."
The "poor Maloney" has done it. She forgives him; perhaps because--sweet soul--harshness is always far from her.
"It is true," she says, sadly. "I spoke in haste because my heart is sore for my country, and I fear for what we may yet live to see. But of course I could not expect you to feel with me."
This cuts him to the heart.
"I do feel with you," he says, hastily. "Do not believe otherwise."
Then, as though impelled to it, he says in a low tone, though very distinctly, "I would gladly make your griefs mine, if you would make my joys yours."
This is a handsome offer, all things considered, but Mona turns a deaf ear to it. She is standing on her door-step at this moment, and now descends until she reaches the tiny gravelled path.
"Where are you going?" asks Rodney, afraid lest his last speech has offended her. She has her hat on,--a big Gainsborough hat, round which soft Indian muslin is clinging, and in which she looks nothing less than adorable.
"To see poor Kitty Maloney, his widow. Last year she was my servant.
This year she married; and now--here is the end of everything--for her."
"May I go with you?" asks he, anxiously. "These are lawless times, and I dare say Maloney"s cabin will be full of roughs. You will feel happier with some man beside you whom you can trust."
At the word "trust" she lifts her eyes and regards him somewhat steadfastly. It is a short look, yet a very long one, and tells more than she knows. Even while it lasts he swears to himself an oath that he never to his life"s end breaks.
"Come, then," she says, slowly, "if you will. Though I am not afraid.
Why should I be? Do you forget that I am one of themselves? My father and I belong to the people."
She says this steadily, and very proudly, with her head held high, but without looking at him; which permits Geoffrey to gaze at her exhaustively. There is an unconscious meaning in her words, quite clear to him. She is of "the people," he of a cla.s.s that looks but coldly upon hers. A mighty river, called Caste, rolls between them, dividing him from her. But shall it? Some hazy thought like this floats through his brain. They walk on silently, scarcely exchanging a syllable one with the other, until they come within sight of a small thatched house built at the side of the road. It has a manure-heap just in front of it, and a filthy pool to its left, in which an ancient sow is wallowing, whilst grunting harmoniously.
Two people, a man and a woman, are standing together some yards from the cabin, whispering and gesticulating violently, as is "their nature to."
The man, seeing Mona, breaks from the woman, and comes up to her.
"Go back again, miss," he says, with much excitement. "They"ve brought him home, an" he"s bad to look at. I"ve seed him, an" it"s given me a turn I won"t forget in a hurry. Go home, I tell ye. "Tis a sight not fit for the eyes of the likes of you."
"Is he there?" asks Mona, pointing with trembling fingers to the house.
"Ay, where else?" answers the woman, sullenly who has joined them. "They brought him back to the home he will never rouse again with step or voice. "Tis cold he is, an" silent this day."
"Is--is he covered?" murmurs Mona, with difficulty, growing pale, and shrinking backwards. Instinctively she lays her hand on Rodney"s arm, as though desirous of support. He, laying his own hand upon hers, holds it in a warm and comforting clasp.
"He"s covered, safe enough. They"ve throwed an ould sheet over him,--over what remains of him this cruel day. Och, wirra-wirra!" cries the woman, suddenly, throwing her hands high above her head, and giving way to a peculiar long, low, moaning sound, so eerie, so full of wild despair and grief past all consolation, as to make the blood in Rodney"s veins run cold.
"Go back the way ye came," says the man again, with growing excitement.
"This is no place for ye. There is ill luck in yonder house. His soul won"t rest in peace, sent out of him like that. If ye go in now, ye"ll be sorry for it. "Tis a thing ye"ll be thinkin" an" dhramin" of till you"ll be wishin" the life out of yer cursed body!"
A little foam has gathered round his lips, and his eyes are wild.
Geoffrey, by a slight movement, puts himself between Mona and this man, who is evidently besides himself with some inward fear and horror.
"What are ye talkin" about? Get out, ye spalpeen," says the woman, with an outward show of anger, but a warning frown meant for the man alone.
"Let her do as she likes. Is it spakin" of fear ye are to Dan Scully"s daughter?"
"Come home, Mona; be advised by me," says Geoffrey, gently, as the man skulks away, walking in a shambling, uncertain fashion, and with a curious trick of looking every now and then over his shoulder, as though expecting to see an unwelcome follower.
"No, no; this is not a time to forsake one in trouble," says Mona, faithfully, but with a long, shivering sigh. "I need see nothing, but I _must_ speak to Kitty."
She walks deliberately forward and enters the cabin, Geoffrey closely following her.
A strange scene presents itself to their expectant gaze. Before them is a large room (if so it can be called), possessed of no flooring but the bare brown earth that Mother Nature has supplied. To their right is a huge fireplace, where, upon the hearthstone, turf lies burning dimly, emitting the strong aromatic perfume that belongs to it. Near it crouches an old woman with her blue-checked ap.r.o.n thrown above her head, who rocks herself to and fro in silent grief, and with every long-drawn breath--that seems to break from her breast like a stormy wave upon a desert sh.o.r.e--brings her old withered palms together with a gesture indicative of despair.
Opposite to her is a pig, sitting quite erect, and staring at her blankly, without the slightest regard to etiquette or nice feeling. He is plainly full of anxiety, yet without power to express it, except in so far as his tail may aid him, which is limp and prostrate, its very curl being a thing of the past. If any man has impugned the sagacity of pigs, that man has erred!
In the background partly hidden by the gathering gloom, some fifteen men, and one or two women, are all huddled together, whispering eagerly, with their faces almost touching. The women, though in a great minority, are plainly having the best of it.
But Mona"s eyes see nothing but one object only.
On the right side of the fireplace, lying along the wall, is a rude stretcher,--or what appears to be such,--on which, shrouded decently in a white cloth, lies something that chills with mortal fear the heart, as it reminds it of that to which we all some day must come. Beneath the shroud the murdered man lies calmly sleeping, his face smitten into the marble smile of death.
Quite near to the poor corpse, a woman sits, young, apparently, and with a handsome figure, though now it is bent and bowed with grief. She is dressed in the ordinary garb of the Irish peasant, with a short gown well tucked up, naked feet, and the sleeves of her dress pushed upwards until they almost reach the shoulder, showing the shapely arm and the small hand that, as a rule, belong to the daughters of Erin and betray the existence of the Spanish blood that in days gone by mingled with theirs.
Her face is hidden; it is lying on her arms, and they are cast, in the utter recklessness and abandonment of her grief, across the feet of him who, only yesterday, had been her "man,"--her pride and her delight.
Just as Mona crosses the threshold, a man, stepping from among the group that lies in shadow, approaching the stretcher, puts forth his hand, as though he would lift the sheet and look upon what it so carefully conceals. But the woman, springing like a tigress to her feet, turns upon him, and waves him back with an imperious gesture.
"Lave him alone!" cries she; "take yer hands off him! He"s dead, as ye well know, the whole of ye. There"s no more ye can do to him. Then lave his poor body to the woman whose heart is broke for the want of him!"
The man draws back hurriedly, and the woman once more sinks back into her forlorn position.
"Kitty, can I do anything for you?" asks Mona, in a gentle whisper, bending over her and taking the hand that lies in her lap between both her own, with a pressure full of gentle sympathy. "I know there is nothing I can _say_ but can I _do_ nothing to comfort you?"
"Thank ye, miss. Ye mane it kindly, I know," says the woman, wearily.
"But the big world is too small to hold one dhrop of comfort for me.
He"s dead, ye see!"
The inference is full of saddest meaning. Even Geoffrey feels the tears rise unbidden to his eyes.
"Poor soul! poor soul!" says Mona, brokenly; then she drops her hand, and the woman, turning again to the lifeless body, as though in the poor cold clay lies her only solace, lets her head fall forward upon it.
Mona, turning, confronts the frightened group in the corner, both men and women, with a face changed and aged by grief and indignation.