"Indeed she is, sir; and a pretty story there is about it, too. Miss Busk knows it all," said Mrs. Cronan.
"I have it in confidence, ma"am, from Jemima Davis,--Lady Dorothea"s second maid; but I don"t think it a fit subject for public conversation."
"And ain"t we in committee here?" chimed in Bodkin; "have we any secrets from each other?" The racy laugh of the old fellow, as he threw a knowing glance around the table, rather disconcerted the company. "Let"s hear about Henderson"s daughter."
"The story is soon told, sir. Lady Dorothea detected her endeavoring to draw young Martin into a private marriage. The artful creature, by some means or other, had obtained such an insight into the young man"s difficulties that she actually terrorized over his weak mind.
She discovered, too, it is suspected, something rather more than indiscretions on his part."
A long low whistle from the priest seemed to impart a kind of gratified surprise at this announcement.
"He had got into a habit of signing his name, they say; and whether he signed it to something he had no right to, or signed another name by mistake--"
"Oh, for shame," broke in Bodkin; "that wouldn"t be one bit like a Martin."
"Perhaps you are acquainted with all the circ.u.mstances better than myself, sir?" said Miss Busk, bristling up with anger. "Maybe you "ve heard how the Henderson girl was turned away out of the French duke"s family,--how she was found in correspondence with the leaders of the mob in Paris? Maybe, sir, you are aware that she has some mysterious hold over her father, and he dares not gainsay one word she says?"
"I don"t know one word of it; and if it wasn"t thought rude, I"d say I don"t believe it, either," said Bodkin, stoutly.
"I believe the worst that could be said of her," said Mrs. Clinch.
"Well, well, make her as bad as you like; but how does that prove anything against young Martin? and if you can find nothing heavier to say of him than that he wanted to marry a very handsome girl--"
"A low creature!" broke in Miss Busk.
"The lowest of the low!" chimed in Mrs. Cronan.
"An impudent, upsetting minx!" added Mrs. Clinch. "Nothing would serve her but a post-chaise the morning she arrived by the mail for Dublin; and, signs on it, when she got home she had n"t money to pay for it."
"It was n"t that she left her place empty-handed, then," said Miss Busk.
"Jemima tells me that she managed the whole house,--paid for everything; and we all know what comes of that."
Miss Busk, in delivering this sentiment, was seated with her back to the door, towards which suddenly every eye was now turned in mingled astonishment and confusion; she moved round to see the cause, and there beheld the very object of her commentary standing close behind her chair. Closely wrapped in a large cloak, the hood of which she wore over her head, her tall figure looked taller and more imposing in its motionless att.i.tude.
"I have to ask pardon for this intrusion, ladies," said she, calmly; "but you will forgive me when I tell the reason of it. I have just received very sad tidings, which ought to be conveyed to Miss Martin; she is at the islands, and I have no means of following her, unless Mr.
Clinch will kindly lend me the revenue boat--"
"And accompany you, I hope," broke in Mrs. Clinch, with a sneer.
Kate did not notice the taunting remark, but went on, "You will be grieved to hear that Mr. Martin is no more."
"Martin dead!" muttered the Captain.
"Dead! When did he die?" "Where did it happen?" "How?" "Of what malady?" "Are his remains coming home?" were asked in quick succession by several voices.
"This letter will tell you all that I know myself," said she, laying it on the table. "May I venture to hope Mr. Clinch will so far oblige me?
The fishermen say the sea is too rough for their craft."
"It"s not exactly on the King"s service, I opine, ma"am," broke in Mrs.
Clinch; "but of course he is too gallant to oppose your wishes."
"Faith! if you wanted any one with you, and would accept of myself,"
broke in Bodkin, "I"m ready this minute; not that exactly salt water is my element."
"The young lady is accustomed to travel alone, or she is much belied,"
said Miss Busk, with a sneer.
"I suppose you"d better let her have the boat, Clinch," said his wife, in a whisper. "There"s no knowing what might come of it if you refused."
"I "ll go down and muster the crew for you, Miss Henderson," said Clinch, not sorry to escape, although the exchange was from a warm cabin to the beating rain without.
"Poor Martin!" sighed Bodkin; "he was the first of the family for many a long year that did n"t breathe his last under his own roof. I "m sure it weighed heavily on him."
"I trust his son will follow his example, nevertheless," said the priest. "I don"t want to see one of the name amongst us."
"You might have worse, Father Maher," said Bodkin, angrily.
And now a lively discussion ensued as to the merits of him they had lost, for the most part with more of charity than many of their dissertations; from this they branched off into speculations about the future. Would the "present man" reside at home? would her Ladyship come back? what would be Mary"s position? how would Scanlan fare? what of Henderson, too? In fact, casualties of every kind were debated, and difficulties started, that they might be as readily reconciled.
Meanwhile Kate was hastening down to the sh.o.r.e, followed, rather than escorted, by little Clinch, who even in the darkness felt that the conjugal eye was upon him.
CHAPTER x.x.xI. THE BRANNOCK ISLANDS
A little to the northwest of the island of Innishmore are scattered a number of small islets, some scarcely more than barren rocks, called the Brannocks. One of these alone was inhabited, and that by a single family. No isolation could be more complete than that of these poor people, who thus dwelt amid the wide waste of waters, never seeing the face of a stranger, and only at long intervals visiting the mainland.
Indeed the only intercourse they could be said to maintain with their fellow-men was when by chance they fell in with some homeward-bound ship at sea, and sold the little produce of their nets; for they lived by fishing, and had no other subsistence.
The largest of these islands was called "Brannock-buoy," or the Yellow Brannock, from the flower of a kind of crocus which grew profusely over it. It was a wild, desolate spot, scarcely rising above the waves around it, save in one quarter, where a ma.s.sive column of rock rose to the height of several hundred feet, and formed the only shelter against the swooping wind, which came without break or hindrance from the far-away sh.o.r.es of Labrador. At the foot of this strong barrier--so small and insignificant as to escape notice from the sea--stood the little cabin of Owen Joyce. Built in a circular form, the chimney in the middle, the rude structure resembled some wigwam of the prairies rather than the home of civilized beings.
Certain low part.i.tions within subdivided the s.p.a.ce into different chambers, making the centre the common apartment of the family, where they cooked and ate and chatted; for, with all their poverty and privation, theirs was a life not devoid of its own happiness, nor did they believe that their lot was one to repine at.
Seasons of unprofitable labor, years of more or less pressure, they had indeed experienced, but actual want had never visited them; sickness, too, was almost as rare. Owen Joyce was, at the time we speak of, upwards of eighty; and although his hair was white as snow, his cheek was ruddy, his white teeth were perfect, and his eye--like that of Moses--"was not dim." Surrounded by his children and grandchildren, the old man lived happy and contented, his daily teaching being to impress upon them the blessings they derived from a life so sheltered from all the accidents of fortune; to have, as he called the island, "the little craft all their own."
The traits of race and family, the limited range of their intercourse with the world, served to make them all wonderfully alike, not only in feature but expression; so that even the youngest child had something of the calm, steadfast look which characterized the old man. The jet-black hair and eyes and the swarthy skin seemed to indicate a Spanish origin, and gave them a type perfectly distinctive and peculiar.
In the midst of them moved one who, though dressed in the light-blue woollen kirtle, the favorite costume of the islands, bore in her fresh bright features the traces of a different blood; her deep blue eye, soft and almost sleepy, her full, well-curved lips, were strong contrasts to the traits around her. The most pa.s.sing glance would have detected that she was not "one of them," nor had she been long an inmate of this dwelling.
It chanced that some short time before, one of Joyce"s sons, in boarding an outward-bound American ship, had heard of a young countrywoman who, having taken her pa.s.sage for New York, no sooner found herself at sea--parted, as she deemed it, forever from home and country--than she gave way to the most violent grief; so poignant, indeed, was her sorrow that the captain compa.s.sionately offered to relinquish her pa.s.sage-money if Joyce would take charge of her, and re-land her on the sh.o.r.es of Ireland. The offer was accepted, and the same evening saw her safely deposited on the rocky island of Brannock. Partly in grat.i.tude to her deliverer, partly in the indulgence of a secret wish, she asked leave to remain with them and be their servant; the compact was agreed to, and thus was she there.
Theirs was not a life to engender the suspicions and distrusts which are current in the busier walks of men. None asked her a reason for her self-banishment, none inquired whether the cause of her exile was crime or misfortune. They had grown to feel attachment to her for the qualities of her gentle, quiet nature, a mild submissive temper, and a disposition to oblige, that forgot nothing save herself. Her habits had taught her resources and ways which their isolated existence had denied them, and she made herself useful by various arts, which, simple as they were, seemed marvellous to the apprehension of her hosts; and thus, day by day, gaining on their love and esteem, they came at length to regard her with an affection mingled with a sort of homage.
Poor Joan Landy--for we have not to explain that it was she--was happy,--happier than ever she had been before. The one great sorrow of her life was, it is true, treasured in her heart; her lost home, her blighted hope, her severed affection--for she actually loved Magennis--were griefs over which she wept many an hour in secret; but there was a sense of duty, a conscious feeling of rect.i.tude, that supported her in her sacrifice, and as she thought of her old grandfather"s death-bed, she could say to her heart, "I have been true to my word with him."
The unbroken quiet, the unchanging character of the life she led,--its very duties following a routine that nothing ever disturbed,--gave her ample time for thought; and thought, though tinged with melancholy, has its own store of consolation; and if poor Joan sorrowed, she sorrowed like one who rather deplored the past than desired to re-live it! As time wore on, a dreamy indistinctness seemed to spread itself over the memory of her former life: it appeared little other than a mind-drawn picture. Nothing actual or tangible remained to convince her of its reality. It was only at rare intervals, and in the very clearest weather, the outline of the mountains of the mainland could be seen; and when she did behold them, they brought only some vague recollection to her; and so, too, the memories of her once home came through the haze of distance, dim and indistinct.
It was at the close of a day in June that the Joyces sat in front of the little cabin, repairing their nets, and getting their tackle in readiness for the sea. For some time previous the weather had been broken and unfavorable. Strong west winds and heavy seas--far from infrequent in these regions, even in midsummer--had rendered fishing impracticable; but now the aspect of a new moon, rising full an hour before sunset, gave promise of better, and old Joyce had got the launch drawn up on sh.o.r.e to refit, and sails were spread out upon the rocks to dry, and coils of rope, and anchors, and loose spars littered the little s.p.a.ce before the door. The scene was a busy and not an unpicturesque one. There was every age, from the oldest to very infancy, all active, all employed. Some were calking the seams of the boat, others overhauled sails and cordage; some were preparing the nets, attaching cork floats or sinkers; and two chubby urchins, mere infants, laughing, fed the fire that blazed beneath a large pitch-pot, the light blue smoke rising calmly into the air, and telling those far away that the lone rock was not without inhabitants. To all seeming, these signs of life and habitation bad attracted notice; for a small boat which had quitted Innishmore for the mainland some time before, now altered her course, and was seen slowly bearing up towards the Brannocks. Though the sea was calm and waveless, the wind was only sufficient to waft her along at the slowest rate; a twinkling flash of the sea at intervals showed, however, that her crew were rowing, and at length the measured beat of the oars could be distinctly heard.
Many were the speculations of those who watched her course. They knew she was not a fishing-craft; her light spars and white sails were sufficient to refute that opinion. Neither was she one of the revenue-boats. What could she be, then, since no large ship was in sight to which she could have belonged? It is only to those who have at some one period or other of life sojourned in some lone spot of earth, away from human intercourse, that the anxiety of these poor people could be intelligible. If, good reader,--for to you we now appeal,--it has not been your lot to have once on a time lived remote from the world and its ways, you cannot imagine how intensely interesting can become the commonest of those incidents which mark ordinary existence. They a.s.sume, indeed, very different proportions from the real, and come charged with innumerable imaginings about that wondrous life, far, far away, where there are thoughts and pa.s.sions and deeds and events which never enter into the dreamland of exile! It was a little after sunset that the boat glided into the small creek which formed the only harbor of the island; and the moment after, a young girl sprang on the sh.o.r.e, and hastened towards them.