"To very little purpose, I am afraid," said her husband; "I don"t like your commencement of the report."
"I suppose not," she replied; "but, thank G.o.d, it is neither your liking nor disliking that we regard, Lindsay. I have seen them, Harry; and I am glad to say that they are civil people."
"Is it only now you found that out?" asked her husband; "why, they never were anything else, Jenny."
"Well, really," said she, "I shall be forced to ask you to leave the room if you proceed at this rate. Children, will you protect me from the interruption and the studied insults of this man?"
"Father," said Charles, "for Heaven"s sake will you allow her to state the result of her visit? We are all very anxious to hear it; none more so than I."
"Please except your elder brother," said Harry, laughing, "whose interest you know, Charley, is most concerned."
"Well, perhaps so," said Charles; "of course, Harry--but proceed, mother, we shan"t interrupt you."
"O, go on," said his mother, "go on; discuss the matter among you, I can wait; don"t hesitate to interrupt me; your father there has set you that gentlemanly example."
"It must surely be good when it comes," said Harry,with a smile; "but do proceed, my dear mother, and never mind these queer folk; go on at once, and let us know all: we--that is, myself--are prepared for the worst; do proceed, mother."
"Am I at liberty to speak?" said she, and she looked at them with a glance that expressed a very fierce interrogatory. They all nodded, and she resumed:
"Well, I have seen these people, I say; I have made a proposal of marriage between Harry and Alice, and that proposal is--"
She paused, and looked around her with an air of triumph; but whether that look communicated the triumph of success, or that of her inveterate enmity and contempt for them ever since the death of old Hamilton, was as great a secret to them as the Bononian enigma. There was a dead silence, much to her mortification, for she would have given a great deal that her husband had interrupted her just then, and taken her upon the wrong tack.
"Well," she proceeded, "do you all wish to hear it?"
Lindsay put his forefinger on his lips, and nodded to all the rest to do the same.
"Ah, Lindsay," she exclaimed, "you are an ill-minded man; but it matters not so far as you are concerned--in three words, Harry, the proposal is accepted; yes, accepted, and with grat.i.tude and thanksgiving."
"And you had no quarrel?" said Lindsay, with astonishment; "nor you didn"t let out on them? Well, well!"
"Children, I am addressing myself to you, and especially to Harry here, who is most interested; no, I see nothing to prevent us from having back the property and the curds-and-whey along with it."
"Faith, and the curds-and-whey are the best part of it after all," said Lindsay; "but, in the meantime, you might be a little more particular, and give us a touch of your own eloquence and ability in bringing it about."
"What did Alice herself say, mother?" asked Charles; "was she a party to the consent? because, if she was, your triumph, or rather Harry"s here, is complete."
"It is complete," replied his mother, having recourse to a dishonest evasion; "the girl and her parents have but one opinion. Indeed, I always did the poor thing the credit to believe that she never was capable of entertaining an opinion of her own, and it now turns out a very fortunate thing for Harry that it is so; but of course he has made an impression upon her."
"As to that, mamma," said Maria, "I don"t know--he may, or he may not; but of this I am satisfied, that Alice Goodwin is a girl who can form an opinion for herself, and that, whatever that opinion be, she will neither change or abandon it upon slight grounds. I know her well, but if she has consented to marry Harry she will marry him, and that is all that is to be said about it."
"I thought she would," said Harry; "I told you, Charley, that I didn"t think I was a fool--didn"t I?"
"I know you did, Harry," replied his brother; "but I don"t know how--it strikes me that I would rather have any other man"s opinion on that subject than your own; however, time will tell."
"It will tell, of course; and if it proves me a fool, I will give you leave to clap the fool"s cap on me for life. And now that we have advanced so far and so well, I may go and take one of my evening strolls, in order to meditate on my approaching happiness." And he did so.
The family were not at all surprised at this, even although the period of his walks frequently extended into a protracted hour of the night.
Not so the servants, who wondered why Master Harry should walk so much abroad and remain out so late at night, especially considering the unsettled and alarming state of the country, in consequence of the outrages and robberies which were of such frequent occurrence. This, it is true, was startling enough to these simple people; but that which filled them not only with astonishment, but with something like awe, was the indifference with which he was known to traverse haunted places alone and unaccompanied, when the whole country around, except thieves and robbers, witches, and evil spirits, were sound asleep. "What," they asked each other, "could he mean by it?"
"Barney Casey, you that knows a great deal for an unlarned man, tell us what you think of it," said the cook; "isn"t it the world"s wondher, that a man that"s out at such hours doesn"t see somethin"? There"s Lanty Bawn, and sure they say he saw the _white woman_ beyant the end of the long _boreen_ on Thursday night last, the Lord save us; eh, Barney?"
Barney immediately a.s.sumed the oracle.
"He did," said he; "and what is still more fearful, it"s said there was a black man along wid her. They say that Lanty seen them both, and that the black man had his arm about the white woman"s waist, and was kissin"
her at full trot."
The cook crossed herself, and the whole kitchen turned up its eyes at this diabolical piece of courtship.
"Musha, the Lord be about us in the manetime; but bad luck to the ould boy, (a black man is always considered the devil, or the ould boy, as they call him,) wasn"t it a daisant taste he had, to go to kiss a ghost?"
"Why," replied Barney with a grin, "I suppose the ould chap is hard set on that point; who the devil else would kiss him, barrin" some she ghost or other? Some luckless ould maid, I"ll go bail, that gather a beard while she was here, and the devil now is kissin" it off to get seein"
what kind of a face she has. Well, all I can say," he proceeded, "is, that I wish him luck of his employment, for in troth it"s an honorable one and he has a right to be proud of it."
"Well, well," said the housemaid, "it"s a wondher how any one can walk by themselves at night; wasn"t it near the well at the foot of the long hill that goes up to where the Davorens live that they were seen?"
"It was," replied Barney; "at laste they say so."
"And didn"t yourself tell me," she proceeded, "that that same lonesome boreen is a common walk at night wid Master Harry?"
"And so it is, Nanse," replied Barney: "but as for Misther Harry, I believe it"s party well known, that by night or by day he may walk where he likes."
"Father of heaven!" they exclaimed in a low, earnest voice; "but why, Barney?" they asked in a condensed whisper.
"Why! Why is he called _Harry na Suil Balor_ for? Can you tell me that?"
"Why, bekaise his two eyes isn"t one color."
"And why aren"t they one color? Can you tell me that?"
"O, the sorra step farther I can go in that question."
"No," said Barney, full of importance, "I thought not, and what is more, I didn"t expect it from you. His mother could tell, though. It"s in her family, and there"s worse than that in her family."
"Troth, by all accounts," observed the girl, "there never was anything good in her family. But, Barney, achora, will you tell us, if you know, what"s the rason of it?"
"If I know?" said Barney, rather offended; "maybe I don"t know, and maybe I do, if it came to that. Any body, then, that has two eyes of different colors always has the Evil Eye, or the _Suil Balor_, and has the power of overlookin"; and, between ourselves, Masther Harry has it.
The misthress herself can only overlook cattle, bekaise both her eyes is of the one color; but Masther Harry could overlook either man or woman if he wished. And how do you think that comes?"
"The Lord knows," replied the cook, crossing herself; "from no good, at any rate. Troth, I"ll get a gospel and a scapular, for, to tell you the truth, I observed that Masther Harry gave me a look the other day that made my flesh creep, by rason that he thought the mutton was overdone."
"O, you needn"t be afeard," replied Barney; "he can overlook or not, as he plaises; if he does not wish to do so, you"re safe enough; but when any one like him that has the power wishes to do it, they could wither you by degrees off o" the airth."
"G.o.d be about us! But, Barney, you didn"t tell us how it comes, for all that."
"It comes from the fairies. Doesn"t every one know that the fairies themselves has the power of overlookin" both cattle and Christians?"
"That"s true enough," she replied; "every one, indeed, knows that. Sure, my aunt had a child that died o" the fairies."