CHAPTER II
The horseman of whom we have spoken in the last chapter rode slowly on about two hundred yards farther, and there the servant advanced and opened a gate, by means of which the path they were then upon communicated with a small road between two high banks leading down to the sea-side. The moment that the gentleman rode forward through the gate, his eyes fell upon a figure coming up apparently from the sea-shore. It was that of a woman, seemingly well advanced in life, and dressed in the garb of the lower orders: there was nothing particular in her appearance, except that in her gait and figure she was more decrepit than from her countenance might have been expected. The tears were streaming rapidly down her face, however; and though she suddenly paused on perceiving the stranger, she could not command those tears from flowing on, though she turned away her head to conceal them.
The stranger slightly pulled in his horse's rein, looked at her again, and then gazed thoughtfully down the road towards the sea, as if calculating what the woman could have been doing there, and whether she could have seen the departure of his two late companions.
The servant who was behind him seemed to read his master's thoughts; for being close to him shutting the gate, he said in a low tone, "That's the old woman with whom the young gentleman lodged; for I saw her when the Colonel went there this morning to fetch him away."
The moment the man had spoken, his master pushed forward his horse again, and riding up to the woman, accosted her at once.
"Ah, my good woman," he said, "you are grieving after your poor little boy; but do not be cast down, he will be taken good care of."
"God bless your honour," replied the woman, "and thank you, too, for comforting me: he's a dear good boy, that's true; but the Colonel has taken him to France, so I shall never see him more."
"Oh yes, you may, my good lady," replied the stranger: "you know I am his cousin—his father's first cousin; so if you want to hear of him from time to time, perhaps I could put you in the way of it. If I knew where you lived, I would come and call upon you to-night, and talk to you about it before I go on to Dublin."
"Your honour's going to Dublin, are you?" said the woman, suddenly and sharply, while the blood mounted into the cheek of her companion, as if from some feeling of embarrassment. She continued, however, before he could reply, saying, "With a thousand thanks to your honour, I shall be glad to see you; and if I could but hear that the poor boy got well to France, and was comfortable, I think I should be happy all my life."
"But where do you live, my good woman?" demanded the horseman: "we have not much time to lose, for the sun is going down, and the night is coming on."
"And a stormy night it will be," said the woman, who, though she had very little of the Irish accent, seemed to have not a little of that peculiar obliquity of mind, which so often leads the Irishman to follow the last idea started, however loosely it may be connected with the main subject of discourse. "As to where I live," she continued, "it's at the small neat cottage at the end of the lane; the best house in the place to my mind, except the priest's and the tavern; and for that matter, it's my own property, too."
"Well, I will come there in about an hour," said her companion, "and we will talk it all over, my good lady, for I must leave this place early to-morrow."
Away went the stranger as he spoke, at a rapid pace, towards an Irish village or small town of that day, which lay at the distance of about a mile and a half from the sea-shore. It was altogether a very different place, and bore a very different aspect, from any other collection of houses, of the same number and extent, within the shores of the Sister Island. It was situated upon the rise of a steep hill, at the foot of which ran a clear shallow stream, from whose margin, up to the top of the acclivity, ran two irregular rows of houses, wide apart, and scattered at unequal distances, on the two sides of the high road. They were principally hovels, of a single story in height; a great proportion of them formed of nothing but turf, with no other window but a hole covered with a board, and sometimes not that. Others, few and far between, again, were equally of one story, but were neatly plastered with clay, and ornamented with a wash of lime; and besides these, were three or four houses which really deserved the name—the parish priest's, the tavern, and what was called the shop.
These rows of dwellings were raised on two high but sloping banks, which were covered with green turf, and extended perhaps fifty yards in width between the houses and the road: this long strip of turf affording the inhabitants plenty of space for dunghills and dust-heaps, with occasional stacks of turf, and a detached sort of summer-house now and then for a pig, in those cases where his company was not preferred in the parlour.
Here, too, the chickens used to meet in daily convocation; and here the priest's bull would occasionally take a morning walk, to the detriment of the dunghills and the frailer edifices, to the danger of the children, and the indignation of the other animals, who might seem to think that they had a right prescriptive to exclusive possession.
Between these two tracts of debatable land was interposed a paved high road, twice as broad as it needed to have been, and furnished with a stone gutter down the centre, into which flowed, from every side, streams not Castalian; while five or six ducks, belonging to the master of the shop, acted as the only town scavengers; and a large black sow, with a sturdy farrow of eleven young pigs, rolled about in the full enjoyment of the filth and dirt, seeming to represent the mayor and town council of this rural municipality.
At the top of the hill two or three lanes turned off, and in one of these was situated the cottage which the old lady had indicated as her dwelling. The stranger, however, rode not thither at once, but, in the first place, stopped at the tavern, as it was called (being neither more nor less than a small public-house), and throwing his rein to the servant, he dismounted, and paused to order some refreshment. When this was done, he took his way at once to the house of the priest, which was a neat white building, showing considerable taste in all its external arrangements. The stranger was immediately admitted, and remained for about half an hour; at the end of which time he came out, accompanied as far as the little wicket gate by a very benign and thoughtful-looking man, past the middle age, whose last words, as he took leave of the stranger, were, "Alas, my son! she was so beautiful, and so charitable, that it is much to be lamented that she was in all respects a cast-away."
The stranger then returned to the tavern, and sat down to a somewhat black and angular roasted fowl, which, however, proved better to the palate than the eye; and to this he added somewhat more than a pint of claret, which—however strange it may seem to find such a thing in an Irish pot-house—might, for taste and fragrance, have competed with the best that ever was found at the table of prince or peer: nor was such a thing uncommon in that day. This done, and when five or six minutes of meditation—that kind of pleasant meditation which ensues when the inner man is made quite comfortable—had been added to his moderate food and moderate potation, the stranger rose, and with a slow and thoughtful step walked forth from the inn, and took his way towards the cottage to which the old woman had directed him.
The sun was by this time sinking below the horizon, and a bright red glow from his declining rays spread through the atmosphere, tinging the edges of the long, liny, lurid clouds which were gathering thickly over the sky. The wind, too, had risen considerably, and was blowing with sharp quick gusts increasing towards a gale, so that the stranger was obliged to put his hand to his large feathered hat to keep it firm upon his head.
In the meantime, the old woman had returned home, and her first occupation was to indulge her grief; for, sitting down at the little table in her parlour, she covered her eyes with her hands, and wept till the tears ran through her fingers. After a time, however, she calmed herself, and rising, looked for a moment into a small looking-glass, which showed her face entirely disfigured with tears. She then went into a little adjacent room, which, as well as the parlour, was the image of neatness and cleanness. She there took a towel, dipped it in cold water, and seemed about to bathe away the traces from her cheeks. The next moment, however, she threw the towel down, saying, "No, no! why should I?" She then returned to the parlour, and called down the passage, "Betty, Betty!"
An Irishwoman, of about fifty years of age, clothed much in the same style, and not much worse than her mistress, appeared in answer to her summons; and, according to the directions she now received, lighted a single candle, put up a large heavy shutter against the parlour window, and retired. The mistress of the house remained for some time sitting at the table, and apparently listening for every step without; though from time to time, when a heavier and heavier blast of wind shook the cottage where she sat, she gazed up towards the sky, and her lips moved as if offering a prayer.
At length, some one knocked loudly at the door, and starting up, she hurried to open it and give entrance to the stranger whom we have mentioned before. She put a chair for him, and stood till he asked her to sit down.
"So, my good lady," he said, "you lived a long time with Colonel and
Mrs. Sherbrooke."
"Oh! bless you, yes, sir," replied the woman, "ever since the Colonel and the young lady came here, till she died, poor thing, and then I remained to take care of the boy, dear, beautiful fellow."
"You seem very sorry to lose him," rejoined the stranger, "and, doubtless, were sadly grieved when Mrs. Sherbrooke died."
"You may well say that," replied the woman; "had I not known her quite a little girl? and to see her die, in the prime of her youth and beauty, not four-and-twenty years of age. You may well say I was sorry. If her poor father could have seen it, it would have broke his heart; but he died long before that, or many another thing would have broken his heart as well as that."
"Was her father living," demanded the stranger, "when she married
Colonel Sherbrooke?"
The woman, without replying, gazed inquiringly and steadfastly on the stranger's countenance for a moment or two; who continued, after a short pause—"Poo, poo, I know all about it; I mean, when she came away with him."
"No, sir," replied the woman; "he had been dead then more than a year."
"Doubtless," replied the stranger, "it was, as you implied, a happy thing for him that he did not live to see his daughter's fate; but how was it, I wonder, as she was so sweet a creature, and the Colonel so fond of her, that he never married her?"
The woman looked down for a moment; but then gazed up in his face with a somewhat rueful expression of countenance, and a shake of the head, answering, "She was a Protestant, you know."
The stranger looked surprised, and asked, "Did she always continue a Protestant, my good woman? I should have thought love could have worked more wonderful conversions than that."
"Ah! she died as she lived, poor thing," replied the woman, "and with nobody with her either, but I and one other; for the Colonel was away, poor man, levying troops for the king—that is, for King James, sir; for your honour looks as if you were on the other side."
The stranger was silent and looked abstracted; but at length he answered, somewhat listlessly, "Really, my good woman, one does not know what side to be of. It is raining very hard to-night, unless those are the boughs of the trees tapping against your window."
"Those are the large drops of rain," replied the woman, "dashed against the glass by the south-west wind. It will be an awful night; and I think of the ship."
"I will let you hear of the boy," rejoined the stranger in an indifferent tone, "as soon as I hear of him myself;" and taking up his hat from the table, he seemed about to depart, when a peculiar expression upon the woman's countenance made him pause, and, at the same time, brought to his mind that he had not even asked her name.
"I thought your honour had forgotten," she replied, when he asked her the question at length. "They call me Betty Harper; but Mrs. Harper will find me in this place, if you put that upon your letter: and now that we are asking such sort of questions, your honour wouldn't be offended, surely, if I were to ask you your name too?"
"Certainly not, my good lady," he replied; "I am called Harry Sherbrooke, Esquire, very much at your service.—Heavens, how it blows and rains!"
"Perhaps it is nothing but a wind-shower" replied the woman; "if your honour would like to wait until it has ridden by."
"Why, I shall get drenched most assuredly if I go," he answered, "and that before I reach the inn; but I will look out and see, my good lady."
He accordingly proceeded into the little passage, and opened the door, followed by his companion. They were instantly saluted, however, by a blast of wind that almost knocked the strong man himself down, and made the woman reel against the wall of the passage.
Everything beyond—though the cottage, situated upon a height, looked down the slope of the hill, over the cliffs, to the open sea—was as dark as the cloud which fell upon Egypt: a darkness that could be felt! and not the slightest vestige of star or moon, or lingering ray of sunshine, marked to the eye the distinction between heaven, earth, and sea.
Sherbrooke drew back, as the wind cut him, and the rain dashed in his face; but at that very moment something like a faint flash was seen, apparently at a great distance, and gleaming through the heavy rain. The woman instantly caught her companion's wrist tight in her grasp, exclaiming, "Hark!"—and in a few seconds after, in a momentary lull of the wind, was heard the low booming roar of a distant cannon.
"It is a signal of distress!" cried the woman. "Oh! the ship, the ship!
The wind is dead upon the shore, and the long reef, out by the Battery
Point, has seen many a vessel wrecked between night and morning."
While she spoke, the signal of distress was seen and heard again.
"I will go down and send people out to see what can be done," said the stranger, and walked away without waiting for reply. He turned his steps towards the inn, muttering as he went, "There's one, at least, on board the ship that won't be drowned, if there's truth in an old proverb! so if the vessel be wrecked to-night, I had better order breakfast for my cousin to-morrow morning—for he is sure to swim ashore." It was a night, however, on which no hope of reaching land could cheer the wrecked seamen. The tide was approaching the full; the wind was blowing a perfect hurricane; the surf upon a high rocky beach, no boat could have lived in for a minute; and the strongest swimmer—even if it had been within the scope of human power and skill to struggle on for any time with those tremendous waves—must infallibly have been dashed to pieces on the rocks that lined the shore. The minute guns were distinctly heard from that town, and several other villages in the neighbourhood. Many people went to the tops of the cliffs, and some down to the sea-shore, where the waves did not reach the bases of the rocks. One gentleman, living in the neighbourhood, sent out servants and tenantry with links and torches, but no one ever could clearly distinguish the ship; and could only perceive that she must be in the direction of a dangerous rocky shoal called the Long Reef, at about two miles' distance from the shore.
The next morning, however, her fate was more clearly ascertained; not that a vestige of her was to be seen out at sea, but the whole shore for two or three miles was covered with pieces of wreck. The stern-post of a small, French-built vessel, and also a boat considerably damaged in the bow, and turned keel upwards, came on shore as Harry Sherbrooke and his servant were themselves examining the scene. The boat bore, painted in white letters, "La Coureuse de Dunkerque."
"That is enough for our purpose, I should suppose," said the master, pointing to the letters with a cane he had in his hand, and addressing his servant—"I must be gone, Harrison, but you remain behind, and do as I bade you."
"Wait a moment, yet, sir," replied the man: "you see they are bringing up a body from between those two rocks,—it seems about his size and make, too;" and approaching the spot to which he pointed, they found some of the country people carrying up the body of a French officer, which afterwards proved to be that of the commander of the brig, which had been seen during the preceding day. After examining the papers which were taken from the pockets of the dead man, one of which seemed to be a list of all the persons on board his vessel, Sherbrooke turned away, merely saying to his servant, "Take care and secure that paper, and bring it after me to Dublin as fast as possible."
The man bowed his head, and his master walked slowly and quietly away.