PHIL REDMOND OF BALLYMACREEDY.
“Whisht!” exclaimed the blind hostler attached to the Derralossory Arms. “There’s a car rowlin’ along the Bray Road, an’, from the sperrit that’s in the baste, it’s Luke Finnigan that’s dhrivin’ him. Ay, faix,” he added with a self-satisfied chuckle, “an’ that’s Luke Finnigan’s note. I’d know it from this t’ Arklow.”
A wild whoop and a sound of wheels in the direction indicated announced the approaching vehicle, and, ere the sightless hostler could grope his way from the snug corner in which he had been ensconced by the roaring kitchen fire—it was the middle of July—an outside car dashed up to the principal door of the hotel, stopped with a jerk as if on the edge of a precipice, and the driver, throwing the reins upon the neck of the panting horse, cried out as he gaily entered the hostelry:
“Now, thin, Misther Murphy, be nimble wud the liquor. There’s a rale gintleman goin’ for to stand, an’ I’m as dhry as a cuckoo.”
Upon the vehicle sat a young man whose exquisitely-fitting frock-coat, faultless linen, diamond studs, soft hat, and square-toed boots bespoke the American. He was fair, with soft and expressive eyes, and wore a Henri Quatre beard which admirably became his long and pensive face.
“Yer welkim to the County Wicklow, sir,” cried the hostler, who had approached the car and was engaged in giving a drink to the jaded animal. “It’s an illigant place for rocks an’ rivers an’ threes an’ scenery. Sorra a forriner that cums into it but is loath for to lave it. It takes a hoult av thim.”
“It is a very, very beautiful place,” exclaimed the new-comer enthusiastically, as he sprang to terra firma. “So green, so fresh, so—but you cannot enjoy it, my poor fellow!” suddenly perceiving the sightless orbs which were turned toward him.
“It’s many a day sence I seen it, sir,” responded the man, with a weary moan in his utterance—“many an’ many a day.”
“Thrue for him,” added the driver, emerging from the hotel and swabbing his mouth with the back of a bronzed and blistered hand, while bright beads twinkled like fallen stars in his merry eyes. “He’s dark sence he was a gossoon! An’ it’s a sight for to see him along wud the horses in the stable; he’ll go into stalls, an’ the bastes kickin’ thim to smithereens, but sorra a word they’ll say to him, though they’d be afther knockin’ sawdust out av any other tin min. He thravels the roads day an’ night. To be sure it’s all wan to him in regard to his bein’ dark, but he’ll work his way down to Lake Dan below—ay, an’ to the Sivin Churches, begor.”
“God is good to me, sir,” said the hostler; “an’ whin it plazed him for to take me eyesight, he gev me sight in me ears an’ hands.”
“Here, my poor fellow.” And the stranger placed a coin in the other’s horny palm.
“A five-shilling bit! Och, thin, may the saints light ye to glory, an’ may ye never die till they sind for ye! It’s lonely they’ll be till ye go to thim.”
By this time the car was surrounded by a motley group of tatterdemalions of all ages, sizes, and sexes, in every stage of decrepitude and every variety of raggedness.
“Throw a few coppers to an ould widdy, an’ the Lord reward ye!” exclaimed one.
“Ye’ll never miss a fourpenny bit,” added another.
“A sixpince to an orfin will take a bag o’ coals from undher ye in purgathory,” chimed in a third.
“Give us the price av an ounce av tay,” droned a fourth.
“More power to the stars an’ sthripes! Three cheers for Ameriky, boys!” roared a leathern-lunged dwarf, throwing a rabbit-skin cap into the air. This appeal was responded to with an enthusiasm that brought the fire into the stranger’s eye. Turning round upon the steps of the hotel—along, thatched, whitewashed, two-storied building—he made a sign as if desirous of addressing the assemblage.
“Be jabers! he’s going for to spake.”
“I riz him wud the stars an’ sthripes,” joyously chuckled the dwarf.
“Faix, it’s more nor a speech we want,” wheezed a little old fellow on crutches.
“The Home-Rulers has stuffed us like turkeys.”
“Ordher! Ordher in the coort!” yelled the dwarf. “Be aisy, Billy McKeon. Lave off scroogin’ me, Mary Nayle, an’ let the cripples in front.”
A few additional facetiæ, and the silence became complete.
The new-comer had removed his hat, and his massive white forehead stood out from beneath his soft brown, curly hair.
“I thank you for the cheer which you have given for the country of my birth.” (“That’s half a crown to me, anyhow,” muttered the dwarf.) “I hope that cheer was an honest one. It was not my intention to bestow ten cents among you, as I do not encourage mendicants; and once a beggar, always a beggar.”
This was received with very audible manifestations of dissatisfaction.
“Musha, but ye’ve come far enough for to tell us that,” growled the old man with the crutches.
“I have come a long way to tell it to you,” retorted the stranger, “and I’ll tell you more. It is positively sickening to travel through this beautiful country, on account of you and the like of you. From Cork to Killarney, from Killarney to Dublin, from Dublin to—”
“Boys, let’s make up a subscription for him,” interrupted a little fellow whose rags depended for support upon a straw rope—technically termed a “suggawn”—fastened around his waist.
“Th’ hostler 'll hed it wud five shillin’s,” observed a bystander with a droll, malicious grin.
“Begorra, we’ll tell the landlord for to put it in the bill.”
“Are ye goin’ for to give us anything?” demanded the dwarf. This query was backed up by a unanimous murmur of approval.
“I am.”
“Well, that’s raysonible, anyhow.”
“I’m going to give you some sound, wholesome advice,” said the stranger.
A yell of anger, disappointment, dissent, and derision followed this announcement. Crutches were brandished, sticks flourished, fists shaken, and general denunciations upon this “nagurly” conduct were indulged in, in terms as pungent as they were personal.
“You won’t hear me?” he resumed during a lull in the storm.
“Sorra a hear.”
“Well, good-afternoon.” And making them a low bow, he turned into the house, whither execrations loud, prolonged, and deep rapidly followed him.
The accommodations at the “Derralossory Arms”—for so the hostelry was named—were somewhat pretentious. Opening a door with the word “coffee-room” imprinted thereon in brazen letters, the new-comer found himself in a long, low-ceilinged apartment. A cracked mirror, the surface of which was scratched from frame to frame, like an ice rink, by amorous owners of diamond rings, stood over the mantel-piece, and above it a smoke-dried card containing the announcement of the meets of the Wicklow Harriers of the preceding season. Upon a mahogany sideboard shone a brave array of glassware interspersed with pickle-jars and some mysterious specimens of the ceramic art. Facing the sideboard was a huge antiquated sofa whose springs revealed themselves like the ribs of a half-starved horse, and opposite the sofa an ancient but uncompromisingly upright pianoforte. But not upon the mirror, sideboard, sofa, or piano did the eyes of the stranger continue to rest. The window had been lowered, and a young girl was leaning her arms upon the sash, gazing out upon the tatterdemalion crowd beneath. Her figure was petite, but of that faultless outline which no amount of drapery can conceal. A long plait of lustrous brown hair hung down her back. She was attired in black, and a huge Puritan cambric collar and cuffs adorned her wrists and neck.
“If her face is as her figure, she must be enchanting,” thought the new-comer.
“He should have given them something,” she murmured half aloud. “Poor creatures! hoping and fearing is weary, weary work.” And she slowly faced him.
He gazed at features as regular as the classic model, and whose paleness almost imparted to them the calm, impassive beauty of marble. She flushed and was about to withdraw when he blurted forth:
“I—I beg your pardon, but I overheard what you said. I am not so mean as you think.” And striding to the window and attracting the attention of the mob, who received him with a yell of derisive defiance, he flung a handful of silver among them.
A scarlet flush mantled over her face and throat. “I was but speaking to myself, thinking aloud—and—but nevertheless on the part of those poor miserable people, I beg to thank you, sir. I am sorely to blame, and your generosity only rivets the fetters that bind them to beggary.” And with a low courtesy, old-fashioned but witching grace itself, she swept from the apartment, leaving the stranger lost in admiration.
“What is that young lady’s name who was here just now?” he asked.
“Her name is Miss O’Byrne—wan av th’ ould anshint O’Byrnes that fought hard agin’ the Danes an’ Crummle—bad cess to thim, body an’ bones!” replied the waiter.
“Does she live near this place?”
“Beyant four mile, over be the side o’ Lake Dan. It’s an illigant place, wid no ind av ruins, an’ a darlin’ ghost that walks whinever sorra is comin’ to the race; an’ be me song, they’ve supped lashins av it.”
“Is Mr. O’Byrne wealthy?”
“Well, now”—here the waiter scratched a very shock head—“he’s not rowlin’ in goold, but he’s warm and”—brightening up—“as proud as a paycock. But there, I’m forgettin’ me message to ye.”
“To me? exclaimed the stranger with a start, half hoping it might be from Miss O’Byrne.
“Yes, sir. There’s two gintlemin cum here in regard o’ the fishin’, though sorra a haporth they ketch; an’ they cum regular wud rods an’ hooks an’ nets, an’ all soarts av cumbusticles. Wan av them is an attorney, a gay man, an’ th’ other houlds a situation in the Four Coorts beyant in Dublin, an’ he’s as nice a mannered man as there’s in the four walls o’ Wicklow this blessed minit.”
“But the message?” interrupted the stranger.
“That’s it. Yer to dine wud thim—no less. Misther Minchin tould me to prisint his respects an’ to hope ye’d favor him wud yer company; an’ don’t be hesitatin’, mind ye”—here the waiter winked an indescribable wink, such as an augur might have indulged in consequent upon a successful omen; “there’s lovely chickens, an’ the elegantest bacon, wud a filly av cabbage, an’ a dancing leg o’ lamb.”
“But I don’t know these gentlemen, and—”
“Permit me to introduce myself, sir,” exclaimed a small, elderly man with a merry eye, a bulbous nose, a very stiff, old-fashioned stock, and a stiffer rim of shirt-collar which kept his head as erect as though he was hung up by the chin, entering and bowing very courteously. “Minchin—Dominick Minchin. Hearing from this shock-headed retainer that you were a stranger, and having experienced on more occasions than one, especially during piscatorial excursions, the thrice-accursed loneliness of an inn, I beg, sir, that you will favor us by coming where glory waits you and—a bit of dinner.”
This was uttered with a quaint cheeriness that bore everything before it.
“Really, sir, I am quite impressed by your consideration, and accept your invitation most gratefully. My name is Philip Redmond.” And he handed the other his card.
“Redmond is not an American name, sir?”
“No, sir; my father was Irish.”
“Anything to the Redmonds of Ballymacreedy?”
“I am Redmond of Ballymacreedy.”
Mr. Minchin seized him warmly by both hands and shook them repeatedly. “By Jupiter, sir! this is positively glorious—sublime, sir! I knew your father well; and when he thought fit to part with his property—”
“His property parted from him, Mr. Minchin. It is gone, and I am now here to try and repurchase it at any cost. However, we’ll talk of that by and by. I feel that dinner is not very far off, and that you are only half as anxious about it as I am.”
Mr. O’Hara, Mr. Minchin’s companion, was a tall, handsome, florid-faced man of about five-and-thirty, with a profusion of sandy hair which stood out from his head like quills upon the fretful porcupine, and a smile like sunlight. In five minutes Redmond was as much at home with the two anglers as if he had known them all his life, and had planned two excursions with them.
“I’m afraid you’ll have some trouble about getting back this property,” observed O’Hara. “It’s now in the possession of a man who doesn’t want money, and who would call you out if you proposed to purchase it.”
“Every man has his price, has he not, Mr. O’Hara?” asked Redmond.
“True; but there are exceptional circumstances connected with this case which hedge it round with an impenetrable chevaux de frise.”
“Of what nature?”
“Family pride, which will never consent to confiscate the old acres.”
“But the lands of Kilnagadd and Derralossory belonged to our family.”
“That may be, Mr. Redmond, but they were part and parcel of other territory before the Redmonds came north of Vinegar Hill. I know all about them, as I rented a fishing lodge from one of the tenants, and, being anxious to purchase it, inquired into the title.”
“I made my dying father a solemn promise that I would get back the old place. Money is no object, Mr. O’Hara. My father operated both in real estate and in gold, and died wealthy, so that a few thousands will not balk me.”
“You can try it,” was the rejoinder, accompanied by a shake of the head.
It was late when they separated, Minchin warbling “The young May moon,” and insisting upon shaking hands with the “young boss,” as he designated him, over and over again.
The summer’s morning was bright and balmy, and Redmond, after a yeoman’s breakfast—consisting of trout fried with bacon, fresh eggs, and tea in which the cream was pre-eminent—started out into the glorious sunlight which was irradiating hill and dale, mountain and valley. The forget-me-nots told their tale to the crystal pools, the graceful ferns languidly embraced the lichen-covered stones, an occasional cur basking in the heat and glow opened a lazy eye as Phil passed along the road, and compromised a bark with a prolonged yawn. The hawthorns threw their shadows across the path, and the “blossoming furze unprofitably gay” sent forth that fresh, quaint, and delicious perfume that tells us with speechless eloquence that we are out in the bright green country and away from the heat and turmoil and loathsomeness of the over-crowded human hive. Having promised to join his newly-found friends at Lough Dan, Phil took the steep and romantic road that leads to the lake direct from the village of Roundwood. Far away to the left in the summer haze lay the picturesque village of Annamoe, and farther still the sweet, sad valley of Glendalough, guarded by the giant Lug na Culliagh, while the deep-tinted groves of Castle Kevin lent a delicious contrast to the purple heights of the heather-covered Derrybawn; on his right the grim gray crags of Luggelaw, and, as he gained the crest of the hill, the blue waters of Lough Dan lay mirrored beneath him, reflecting the giant shadows of Carrig-na-Leena. The exquisite loveliness of the scene fell upon the young American like a dream or a perfume. It was refreshing, yet almost intoxicating. He thought of the color glories of the Hudson in the fall, of the blood-reds and orange-yellows and wine hues of the autumn foliage, and they seared his mental vision when he came to contemplate the soft, cloudy green, the odor-laden atmosphere, pure yet filmy as a bridal veil, and the delicious completeness of the coup d’œil, so satisfying, so soothing, and so enravishing. Somehow or other he associated all this perfection with the fair young girl whose pale face and mantling blush still haunted his imagination like a sweet strain of music. These scenes were a suitable setting for her beauty. She would comprehend them, she would commune with nature in this wild, secluded spot, so lonely and yet so lovely. As his ideas glided in this rosy channel, his revery was suddenly disturbed by the sound of wheels, and close upon him came a basket-phaeton attached to a very diminutive pony. His heart gave one violent bound—the object of his immediate and gushing thoughts was the occupant of the vehicle. Would she pass without noticing him? There had been no introduction. He could expect no recognition, and yet—
Chance fills up many a gap in life, solves many riddles, and hastens many dénoûments.
The pony, evidently a wilful, over-petted, hand-fed little brute, took it into its stubborn head that a rest at this particular spot in the road would admirably suit his inclinations; and as he feared no whip, and, save a gentle chuck upon the reins and a solemn admonishment from his fair mistress, his whim could be indulged in with comparative impunity, he proceeded forthwith to carry his idea into execution, and stopped with a jerk right opposite where Philip Redmond stood.
“Do go on, Doaty!” exclaimed Miss O’Byrne, shaking the reins. “Do go on, there’s a pet. You shall have a lump of sugar when we get to stable.”
Doaty shook his head and stolidly gazed at the lake beneath him.
“Permit me to try and persuade him,” said Phil, stepping forward and lifting his hat, which, by the way, doubled up in his hand, clumsily concealing his face and utterly destroying his bow.
“Oh! thanks; I seem destined to give you trouble, sir.”
This was a delicate recognition.
“I have to thank you for making me the most popular man in Roundwood,” retorted Redmond. “I feel like the lord lieutenant. I held quite a levée this morning.”
“And your courtiers, instead of looking for place, were seeking for pence.”
“A distinction without much difference.”
“Except in the viceroy,” she laughed.
Doaty was as good as gold—at least so thought one of the party—and manifested no intention of budging an inch.
“What a tiresome pony!” exclaimed Miss O’Byrne. “I shall have to beat him.”
“Let me try and get him along.” And Phil, taking hold of the shaggy mane, lugged the unwilling Doaty along in the direction of the lake.
“This is really too bad, sir,” remonstrated Miss O’Byrne. “I cannot tax you in this way.”
“It is no tax, I assure you. I have nothing on earth to do but to revel in the especial sunshine of this moment.”
This was said with ever so slight an emphasis; nevertheless it bore a scarlet blossom in the rich blush which came whispering all over the young girl’s charming pallor.
“You—you are a stranger here?”
“I am, and yet I ought not to be.”
“This savors of a riddle.”
“Very easily solved. My fore-fathers hunted these hills and fished that lake. My father was reckless, extravagant, and new men came into possession of the old acres. My father emigrated, and made a great deal of money in New York, and—”
“I have been in New York,” interposed the young lady.
Here was a bridge for thought-travel. Here was a market for the disposal of mutual mental wares.
“Did you like it?” he asked.
“Like it!” she exclaimed enthusiastically. “Who could dislike it? It is the most charming city, perhaps excepting Paris, that I have ever lived in. And how are Fifth Avenue and Broadway, and the ash-boxes?” she added with a ringing laugh.
Doaty made another stop, and no earthly inducement would stir him until he so willed it himself. His fair mistress relinquished the idea and the reins, and, stepping from the vehicle, clambered, with the assistance of Redmond, to a moss-grown bank, from which she pointed out some objects of special interest in the scenery.
“That is Billy Doyle’s cottage at Shinnagh, down far in the valley by the edge of the lake. See the amber thatch glowing in the sunlight, and the red flag. That flag shows that poor Mr. Fenler is on the lake fishing.”
“Who is poor Mr. Fenler?” asked Phil.
“He is a man who was a great merchant in Dublin, but who lost all his property, and his wife and all his children. He saved as much from the wreck as enabled him to purchase one-half of that cottage—the slated half—and to support himself. He came here seven years ago, having made a vow never to leave the valley again.”
“And has he kept it?”
“Religiously. He goes nowhere, and spends his whole time in fishing. Do you see that golden strand at the head of the lake?”
“Yes.”
“Well, there is a legend about that which you should hear. Any old crone in the valley will do it ample justice.”
“I should prefer to hear it from a fairy on the hill,” said Redmond gallantly.
“Pas des compliments, although yours was nearly French.”
“You beat me at my own weapons,” laughed Redmond. “But whose palatial residence is that right over in the cleft between those two hills?”
The fire lighted up in the young girl’s eye, the delicate nostril expanded, the rich, ripe lips quivered, as she proudly replied: “That is my home.”
Her home—the nest in which she had been nurtured. What a precious flower in that gloomy valley! What a world of love and joy and beauty in that lone and sequestered spot!
“I envy you,” murmured Phil. “The tranquil loveliness of your home is—” he was going to send the words from his heart to his lips, but luckily they encountered Prudence upon the road, and altered themselves to suit that cold, passionless, interfering busybody—“is—just as it ought to be. You have made no vow to leave this valley?” he added.
“No, but I have often thought it.”
“Such a determination would be a calamity, Miss O’Byrne.”
“How do you know my name?” she quickly demanded.
“I asked the waiter after you had left.”
“Now for an exchange,” she laughed. “Let us trade. What is your name?”
“Philip Redmond, son of Redmond of Ballymacreedy.”
“Why, that is Ballymacreedy,” exclaimed the young girl, pointing to a fir-covered mountain, upon the side of which, as though perched on a shelf, stood a gaunt, uncompromising-looking, square-built mansion, all roof and windows.
Phil Redmond’s feelings, as he gazed on the home which he had never known save by hearsay, were of a very varied and conflicting nature. He had pictured it a feudal stronghold towering over an extensive lake such as America boasts of—a diminutive ocean—a battlemented castle, with keep and moat and drawbridge, ivy-grown in the interests of the picturesque, and plate-glassed in the interests of modern sunlight.
“Good heaven!” he exclaimed involuntarily, “how unlike what I conceived it to be. What a cruel disappointment!”
So rudely were his ideas shattered, and so bitterly the pride of baronial halls mortified, that the poor fellow’s heart felt quite crushed. Whether Miss O’Byrne saw this or whether Doaty saw it is not the question here; but certes, that admirable little brute gave a loud neigh as a trumpet-call to Redmond’s scattered senses, and evinced for the first moment during the preceding half-hour a desire to proceed upon his homeward journey.
“Papa does not visit, Mr. Redmond,” said Miss O’Byrne as she grasped the reins upon resuming her seat in the basket upon wheels, “but I shall ask him to call upon you, when I may hope for something like a formal introduction. How half an hour flies upon the wings of sans cérémonie!” And with a delicious inclination of the head, half-saucy, half-dignified, and wholly piquante, she disappeared at a turn of the road leading into the valley.
“Heigh-ho!” sighed Philip Redmond of Ballymacreedy.
While all this—shall we say nonsense?—was going on upon the hill, Mr. Minchin and his fidus Achates, O’Hara, were busily occupied upon the lake; and although not a single rise greeted their longing vision, like true sportsmen they lived in hope.
“That’s a very good style of man,” observed O’Hara.
“Redmond?”
“Yes.”
“The son of an Irish king, sir. By Jupiter! a fine fellow. A noble fellow!” exclaimed Minchin, whacking the lake with his line in emphasis.
“He’ll go back to New York without as much of his father’s property as would sod a lark.”
“You are still of opinion that the O’Byrne will not sell?”
“He’d burn the land first,” was the sententious rejoinder.
“Well, sir, the next best thing that Redmond can do is to purchase Glenasluagh. It adjoins Ballymacreedy, and he will enjoy the right of fishing the Clohogue—an enjoyment fit for the gods. Yes, by George! fit for the gods.”
“I never thought of that. Are you sure it’s for sale?”
“A scoundrelly attorney, one of those pitiful miscreants with whom it is my bane to be officially associated, knowing that I loved the gentle sport, endeavored to curry favor with me by mentioning this. I listened to the scoundrel and made inquiries elsewhere—in fact, I own I felt my way towards the Clohogue myself, but the figure was too high, sir.”
“We must put Redmond on to it at once.”
“There’s our man crossing the bridge. George! how I envy him his sensations upon beholding this cherished spot, 'where all save the spirit of man is divine.’” And Minchin glowed again in the summer light.
Redmond instinctively paused upon the quaint old lichen-covered bridge, in the worn interstices of which dainty little ferns of emerald green toyed with the pale blue loveliness of the forget-me-not, and gazed across the sheening waters of the tranquil lake. All was sleeping in sunlight, even the deep, clear shadows of the purple-covered mountains, while the melodious hum of glowing insect-life lent its peculiar charm to the peaceful surroundings.
The boat, by direction of Mr. Minchin, was turned for the bridge, and a few lazy strokes from the oar of the ragged urchin who acted as waterman brought it bump against a projecting bowlder which served as a landing-place.
“The top of the morning to you, Mr. Redmond!” cried Minchin. “You are just in the nick of time. Nature abhors a vacuum, and we were about to pass the rosy. This, sir, is a very dry country.” And the cheerful old biped laughed until the crags of Shinnagh re-echoed his jovial hilarity. At this moment a cart attached to a donkey appeared upon the bridge, and two formidable-looking hampers jostled each other for supremacy.
“Jump in, Mr. Redmond. We shall take our pick on that lovely little neck of land just under the stronghold of the O’Byrnes yonder.”
“Have you room for two friends of mine?” asked Phil.
“Any friend of yours is my friend, sir,” exclaimed Minchin with the pompous mannerism of the old school.
“Then lend a hand,” to the boat-boy, “to get these hampers on board.”
“What does all this mean?” asked Minchin as the baskets were safely stowed away.
“A liberty I have taken,” said Philip. “I want you and Mr. O’Hara to lunch with me to-day, as I dined with you yesterday.”
“O’Hara,” exclaimed Minchin, “what shall we do with this dog? Pitch him into the lake, hampers and all?”
“I should say not,” laughed the other.
“'My foot is on my native heath,’” cried Redmond; and, taking an oar, a pull of twenty minutes keel-grated them upon a silvery strand beneath the shady foliage of a gigantic horse-chestnut tree.
“A lobster-salad, George!” cried Minchin, unloading the basket. “A chicken-pie, Jupiter! A magmain of salmon! Why, hang it, man! this never was raised at the Derralossory Arms.”
“How was it done?” asked O’Hara.
“I sent a man into Dublin for it.”
“Ah!” with a long-drawn breath of admiration. “You Americans do things in the right way.”
“By the nine gods! champagne,” ejaculated Minchin as he extracted the golden-necked bottles from their wicker cradles. “Heidsieck extra dry. I am extra dry too. Per Bacco, Redmond! you are the son of an Irish king.”
Where is the mortal who does not enjoy a picnic?—that picnic where the food is laid upon the grass, and with the green leaves or the sky for a canopy; where fingers do service for forks, and the wild flowers for napkins; where the food is ambrosia and the drink nectar. Ay de mí, we have changed all that, and now we must have silver and cutlery and napery, and servants to wait upon us, and hot dishes ad nauseam. We must don our best and encase our sweltering hands in delicate-hued gloves, and icy etiquette now reigns where nature’s happy freedom heretofore presided.
They were busily engaged with the chicken-bones, and Redmond, as host, was uncorking the second bottle of champagne, when Minchin exclaimed: “Jupiter Olympus! here’s the O’Byrne and his daughter.”
Now, to be caught, under ordinary circumstances, in a stooping posture, wrestling with an infrangible wire, almost black in the face, and with the drumstick of a chicken stuck saltier-wise in your mouth, your hat anywhere, and your hair in the wildest and most elfin disorder, is embarrassing enough in all conscience; but, in the condition of feeling under which our romantic hero labored, to be thus detected was simply horrible. As Redmond beheld the tall and stately form of a man of about fifty, with a pair of fierce black eyes beneath still fiercer brows, advancing towards him, and by his side, gliding with that graceful undulation which is almost exclusively confined to the women of Spain, the young girl for whom the portals of his heart had been cast wide open, his desire to sink beneath the daisies was about the only sensation left to him.
“We have invaded the land of the O’Byrnes,” said Minchin, rising and bowing to the châtelaine.
“You seem tolerably well armed,” observed the O’Byrne, casting a comical glance at the champagne bottles.
“Permit me the honor of crossing swords,” cried Minchin.
At this moment Miss O’Byrne interposed by exclaiming: “That gentleman is Mr. Redmond of Ballymacreedy.”
The O’Byrne took a short, sharp survey of Philip from beneath his shaggy brows, and, advancing with outstretched hand:
“Mr. Redmond, I am glad to meet one of the old stock. You resemble your father very strongly.”
“You knew my father, sir?” asked Redmond eagerly.
“Yes.” The monosyllable spoke for itself. It shut down on the subject like an iron door.
“The old stock are thinning out, like my brown hairs,” laughed Minchin.
“Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto,” was the rejoinder.
“Per Bacco! you must taste the Falernian. I am Dominick—”
“Minchin,” interposed the O’Byrne, “the best angler in Wicklow. We disciples of the rod and reel scarcely need a formal introduction.”
Somehow or other, while the O’Byrne and Dominick Minchin were bandying quaint and courtly compliments, Philip managed to pull himself together and to engage in conversation with the daughter of the house.
“You perceive, Mr. Redmond, how fate is against our being introduced—so dead against as to compel me to make you and my father acquainted as if you and I were old friends.”
“I do feel as if I had known you for ever so long, and that a void—”
“Do look at the trout jumping. What perfect circles they make in the still water!”
She had interrupted with a woman’s tact. Redmond was unversed in the subtle distinctions which form the rungs of the ladder of love. Most of the girls whom he met in society were as so many agreeable nothings—exquisitely-attired statuettes, whose ideas were bounded by silk, satin, feathers, and lace. With them he had nothing in common save the weather and ice-cream; and being imbued with a feeling of aversive contempt for the whole sex, the revelation of light and love which now burst upon him revolutionized his whole being and begat an enthusiasm that forgot impossibilities. A child of nature sounds very well in poesy, but the article attired in broadcloth is very rapidly put down as a bore, if not a nuisance.
“I drink with you on one condition,” said the O’Byrne to Minchin, who presented a bottle at his head.
“Condition me no conditions, chieftain!”
“I shall; and the condition is this: that you, with Mr. Redmond and Mr. O’Hara”—to whom he had been introduced by Minchin—“will help me to punish a cooper of claret after a seven o’clock dinner.” O’Hara excused himself on the plea of being compelled to reach Dublin by the night mail from Rathdrum. Minchin called a number of the Olympian deities to witness that so superb an offer should not be lightly considered, and Redmond thought of his dress and hesitated to say yes, when his whole soul was in that solitary word.
“I want to have a gossip about New York, and surely you will not refuse me that boon?” urged Miss O’Byrne, and this decided the question.
“Are you of the true faith, Mr. Redmond?” she asked, as some hours later, in acting as cicerone through the old castle, she took him to the private chapel.
“I should be a recreant Redmond if I were not,” was his proud reply.
Coolgreny, the stronghold of the Clan O’Byrne, was as picturesque as a round tower, an ivied keep, a battlemented outer wall, a dry moat, a veritable carpet of bright flowers, solemn old yew-trees whose branches had supplied many a sturdy bow wherewithal to resist the incursions of the O’Tooles, and a rookery, could make it. As he crossed the drawbridge and gazed at the oaken door with its rusty iron rivets, at the massive archway telling an imperishable tale, at the inner quadrangle, its gray stone lighted up by blood-red geraniums and deeply, darkly, desperately blue forget-me-nots, and from thence to the high-bred-looking girl by his side, Philip Redmond felt the old blood in his veins as the old, old story began to whisper itself to his heart.
They passed into the old banqueting-hall, rich in oaken tracery and wainscoted up to the ebon-colored ceiling. Portraits of doughty warriors in the grim panoply of battle-axe and shield, suits of Milan steel, and buff jerkins of the later periods adorned the walls—formidable O’Brinns who stood in many a gap, and fought the rocky defiles of Auchavana inch by inch; who displayed their prowess on many a tented field; who followed the fortunes of the luckless house of Stuart even after the unhappy disaster at the Boyne; and who, nobly fighting, fell against the hated usurpation of the Orange William. Here, too, were soft, silken-bearded representatives of the house who attached themselves to the Irish Brigade and covered themselves with glory at Lannes and Fontenoy.
“Now for the ladies, monsieur!” exclaimed Miss O’Byrne. “I see that you are lost in admiration of my male ancestors. Prepare now to be enchanted by the beauty of their wives and daughters.”
“I need no preparation,” said Phil with a low bow. “I see all their perfections concentrated in their charming descendant.”
“Admirably done!” cried the young lady, with heightened color; “but 'bide a wee.’ Look at that little dame. There is fire for you. She was Countess of Ovoca in her own right—a Geraldine. She defended this castle against two attacks of Cromwell’s crop-eared curs, and when it was intimated to her that the defence jeopardized her husband’s life, she naïvely replied: 'I could replace my husband, but I could not replace Coolgreny.’ 'Wasn’t that complimentary to that ill-looking fellow opposite leaning upon his sword? I do believe that he steps out of that frame occasionally for the purpose of upbraiding her, poor dear!”
Redmond laughed heartily as he replied that he thought the cavalier was likely to get the worst of it.
“Here is a Lely—my great, great, great, ever-so-great grandmamma. Isn’t she lovely? Look at her cool blue pastoral drapery, her bright brown hair, her matchless eye, and her ivory complexion.”
“I am looking at her,” said Redmond, gazing earnestly at Miss O’Byrne, “and she is lovely.”
It was as if the portrait had been painted for herself.
“Mr. Redmond, you are incorrigible. I absolutely refuse to act as cicerone. Tyrconnel was madly in love with her.”
“Of course he was; and if he wasn’t he ought to have been,” laughed Philip. “Pray who is that sparkling brunette, with the color glowing beneath her swarthy skin, and with the head and hair of Cleopatra?”
“That is Mistress Lettice O’Byrne, who received King James in this very hall, as, blood-stained and travel-sore, he honored our poor house by resting here after the disaster of the Boyne. He heard Mass in our little chapel before he started at daybreak.”
They wandered from portrait to portrait, she chatting gaily, brilliantly, until they came directly opposite that of a very young man attired in a gorgeous hussar uniform.
“This is a picture of today,” said Redmond. “Who is he?”
A bright diamond-drop welled into her eyes as she replied:
“It is my only brother. He took service with our kinsman, Field-Marshal Nugent, in Austria, and fell at Magenta. God be merciful to him!”
“Amen!” And the response was a prayer, so fervently and reverentially was it uttered.
“Let us go to the chapel and say an Ave Maria for the repose of his soul.” And, leading through a long, dark passage, and thrusting aside a scarlet velvet curtain which hung over the entrance, she ushered Redmond into the church. Pure Gothic, the oaken traceries of its pulpit and chancel rails were worthy of the hand of Verbruggen, while the altar, of white marble, was decorated with constellations of the rarest hot-house flowers and plants.
As they emerged from the chapel the hideous clamor of a gong announced that dinner would be served in a quarter of an hour, and Redmond was ushered by his host to an apartment to prepare as best he might for the all-important ceremony. For after all “the dine” is a very serious piece of business, and it is only such foolish young fellows as Redmond—who spoiled his appetite at luncheon—or such delicately-nurtured young ladies as Miss Eileen O’Byrne, who can afford to turn up their noses at the mention of the word, and wish with a sigh that the noble institution yclept eating had never been invented.
When Redmond descended to the drawing-room he was formally presented to the Rev. Father O’Doherty, the parish priest “of as wild a district as lies between this and New York,” gaily added his reverence. “I am proud to meet you, sir; and let me tell you that the Redmonds of Ballymacreedy have left a name behind them respected, loved, and honored. Have you come to stop with us?”
“Not—that is, I’m—I’m so enchanted with all that I have seen of Ireland, and with all whom I have met here”—he sought the eye of his hostess (it should be mentioned that her mother had died in giving birth to Eileen)—“that if I do not return to it, it will not be my own fault.”
This was doing pretty well—much better than he could have hoped. It was very prononcé, but Phil liked to be understood. He was straight in everything, and was perfectly prepared to step into the O’Byrne’s library and explain himself right away. But he was not to get the chance. Father O’Doherty took the châtelaine into dinner and presided at the foot of the table. The dinner was not à la Russe, and, although served with extreme elegance, the guests were allowed the privilege of seeing what they were about to partake of, and to make a judicious selection according to palate. The wine was, as Minchin subsequently remarked, “of the rarest and choicest vintage.” To hear her speak, to listen to the music of her laugh, to gaze upon her when her looks were turned in another direction, was rapture to poor Philip, who drank his wine, eating nothing, being wholly and solely absorbed in the radiance of her presence. It was rack and torture to him when she arose to leave the room, and, as he opened the door to permit her egress, the words, “Do not remain too long over your wine,” rang into his senses like a peal of sweet bells.
“Push the claret, Mr. Redmond,” exclaimed his host; “you may get richer but you won’t get softer wine across the Atlantic.”
“Per Bacco! this is bottled velvet,” said Minchin, smacking his lips—“the odor of the violet, and the gentle tartness of the raspberry. By the nine gods! a bottle of this makes a man look for his wings to fly, sir—to fly like a bird.”
After some considerable time, during which Minchin and the O’Byrne had indulged in a very serious potation of the Château Lafitte, “Are you here on a pleasure trip, Mr. Redmond?” asked Father O’Doherty.
“Well, my good fortune has made it one of pleasure, but I came originally on business. I came to endeavor to rescue some of my poor father’s property,” replied downright Phil.
“What do you mean by rescue, Mr. Redmond?” asked the O’Byrne, flushing darkly red.
“I mean, to purchase it from the man who now holds it.”
“Oh!” And his host tossed off a bumper of the wine. “Do you refer to Ballymacreedy?”
“I do, and to the lands of Kilnagadd and Derralossory.”
The beetling brows of the Irish chieftain met in a black scowl.
“And suppose this man who holds these lands were unwilling to sell?”
“Oh! every man has his price,” said the unconscious Philip.
The O’Byrne rose, and, stretching himself to his full height, haughtily exclaimed:
“When I sell one rood of Ballymacreedy, Kilnagadd, and Derralossory, may I be shattered into fragments like that wine-glass,” casting, as he spoke, the crystal goblet upon the oaken floor, where it shivered into ten thousand pieces.
Had a thunderbolt fallen upon the épergne, and, splitting roof and ceiling, descended into their midst, the luckless hero of this narrative could scarcely have been less scared and astonished. The admonitory winkings of Minchin, the ankle-rubs of the good priest, had been lost upon him. He had rushed upon his fate and had impaled himself. Fool that he was, never to have conjectured that the haughty possessor of the land of his ancestors was the fiery, fierce old chieftain who now sat scowling at the ceiling and quaffing goblet after goblet of the rich red wine! Everything pointed to the fact—the conversation of the previous evening, the exclamation of Eileen upon the hill overlooking Lough Dan, the references of Father O’Doherty. He was a senseless idiot, and had planted the thorn of offence where he would have sown the bright seed of friendship. Could he apologize? How? Could he explain? He must.
“The fact is—” he commenced, when his host pulled him up:
“A word of advice to you, Mr. Redmond. When you enter a man’s house do not turn appraiser and play the amateur auctioneer.”
“But-” burst in Phil.
“Pardon me. If you consider that because you have scraped a few greenbacks together—Heaven knows how; I don’t want to inquire—that you can come over here to dictate insulting terms to a man with reference to his own goods and chattels, upon his own hearth, let me tell you, sir, that—”
“Hear me,” exclaimed Father O’Doherty. “I am certain that our young friend had no intention of giving annoyance when he made those observations.”
“On the honor of a man,” roared Redmond, who was in a white heat of mortification, “I meant no offence, and furthermore—”
“Let us drop the subject, sir, and go to the drawing-room for coffee,” said the O’Byrne, rising.
“But I will not drop the subject until I explain myself.”
“Mr. Redmond, do not press my endurance in my own house.” And the haughty host motioned to the door.
“Not a word,” whispered Father O’Doherty. “You can make it all right by and by, and if you fail I will succeed.”
Still, Philip was not satisfied. He was the outraged party. He demanded redress for a cruel wrong. Was he to remain in the pillory and be pelted with the mistrust and dislike of the man whom of all others he was most desirous of conciliating. What would she think of him when her father came to tell her his version of the affair? Would he not suffer and stand convicted, however innocent he might be? It was maddening, and Redmond, following his host, brusquely demanded a few minutes’ conversation.
“'Forbid it, Heaven, the hermit cried!’” exclaimed Minchin, playfully seizing our hero by the shoulders and twisting him teetotum-fashion, while the priest engaged the attention of the O’Byrne in another direction.
“Are you mad, Redmond?” said Minchin in a low tone. “On this subject he has a craze. Why, in the name of Jupiter Olympus, did you introduce it?”
“Am I to lie under the imputation of being a peddler, an auctioneer, a blackguard?” asked the other excitedly.
“The thing will be as dead as Queen Anne in five minutes, if you will only let it cross the Styx.”
“But I did not know that Mr. O’Byrne was the present proprietor of Ballymacreedy.”
“Then why didn’t you say so?”
“I would not be listened to.”
“It’s easily explained.”
When Redmond entered the drawing-room the host was speaking to his daughter, and that it was about him he had little doubt from the expression of surprise, pain, and anger which flitted across her face.
Determined not to be baffled in his purpose this time, he strode across the apartment, and, confronting the O’Byrne, said:
“If you will kindly permit me a word of explanation—”
“Do take a cup of coffee, Mr. Redmond,” interrupted Miss O’Byrne; “and—and you will excuse me if I—I wish you good-night.” And courtesying very low, she turned from him and swept out of the room.
A choking sensation seized our hero. A something in his throat—anger, mortification, bitter mortification—clutched him and held him fast.
“I’ll be hanged if I’ll stop here any longer!” he said; and so earnest was his rage that, without waiting to bid his host farewell or to hint his intention to Minchin, he strode out into the quadrangle, through the arched entrance, across the drawbridge, and onwards he knew not in what direction, reckless, hopeless, and hatless.
Why had he met her? His path had been calm and peace. Why had she treated him in this way? What had he done to her? He knew how her father would vamp up his version of the story. Was ever innocent man so deeply wronged? He would leave Ireland next day, and place the broad Atlantic between him and this—ay, this lovely, bewitching girl. Why was she so captivating? Where did the charm lie?
Thoughts all-conflicting, all-contradictory surged through his brain as he marched onward. The summer dew failed to soothe his fevered mind; the soft night-wind sighing across the Shaughnamore mountain did not cool his burning brow. The gray dawn of glorious day still found him plodding onwards, and the sun was high above the horizon when he entered the picturesque little village of Enniskerry. He had left Coolgreny fifteen Irish miles behind him across the mountains.
When he had succeeded in arousing the inmates of the Powerscourt Arms, he demanded writing materials and a messenger.
“Is it pin an’ ink at this time o’ day, sir?” demanded the sleepy handmaiden.
“Yes; here’s half a crown for you. Open your eyes and hurry up.”
He wrote the following note to the O’Byrne, and despatched it by a ragged gossoon, who started on his errand, up the hill that leads by the Dargle, like a mountain deer. He also forwarded an order for his luggage to the landlord of the Derralossory Arms.
Sir: As you would permit me no explanation last night, I insist upon making it now. I did not know that you were the possessor of the lands of my forefathers until you yourself announced it. In thanking you for your hospitality I cannot refrain from saying that I wish I had never enjoyed it, as it has been a source of intense pleasure and likewise of bitter pain.
I am, sir,
Your obedient servant,
Philip Redmond.
The messenger returned in a few hours with his luggage.
“Did you deliver my letter at Coolgreny?”
“I gev it to wan av the boys, sir.”
“Did you see any of the—family?”
“None o’ them, barrin’ Miss Eileen’s pony that does be dhruv be her in a sthraw shay, yer honner.”
Happy pony! thought Redmond, as he gazed into the past and beheld Doaty coming to a standstill despite the musical remonstrances of his mistress.
“They axed me if your honner’s name was Ridmond, an’ I sed I didn’t know; an’ I was axed if ye cum wudout a hat, an’ I sed yis. 'That’s him,’ sez Luke Byrne, the boy. 'A low-sized man,’ sez he. 'No,’ sez I, 'he’s a cupple o’ yards high anyhow’; an’ Luke tould me they wor draggin’ the lake beyant at Shinnagh for ye, an’ that Miss Eileen was roarin’ an’ bawlin’ the whole mornin’.”
A thrill went through every fibre in Redmond’s body as this last announcement fell upon his ear; and although the idea was coarsely expressed, that the tender girl might be sorrowing for him caused an unutterable sensation of joy. She could not believe him capable of insulting her father beneath the same roof which shut the stars from her; and yet—pshaw! he would shake the whole thing off as a disagreeable yet delightful dream.
His immediate resolve was to proceed to Dublin, and from thence to Queenstown and back to his native shores; but second thoughts, always so sober, so full of judicious counsel, whispered that the long, lonely days and nights upon the Atlantic would but serve to increase his fever, and that his best chance lay in the distracting influence of European travel. Seven o’clock that evening found him on board the mail steamer for Holyhead; and as he gazed at the soft outlines of the Wicklow hills receding from his wistful glance, and thought of her in that secluded, peaceful valley, he would willingly have parted with a moiety of his existence to be once again in the sunlight of her presence.
While our hero was on the road to Enniskerry Father O’Doherty found an opportunity for comparing notes with Minchin, and, fully convinced of the truthfulness of the young American’s statement, proceeded at once to disabuse the diseased mind of the O’Byrne. This he ultimately succeeded in doing, but not without a deal of powerful and full-flavored argument. “I do believe, Father, I took too much wine. Where is Mr. Redmond, until I make the amende honorable?”
“Strolling about the grounds, I believe.”
“Let us go in search of him.”
“You can go, O’Byrne; I want to have a chat with my fair young child,” said the clergyman, who had witnessed Eileen’s stately courtesy and exit.
Minchin and O’Byrne strolled out into the summer night, making sure of finding Redmond on the terrace overlooking the moat.
“We have bail for his appearance,” said Minchin, “as his hat is decorating the antlers of a lordly stag in the entrance hall.”
The two gentlemen smoked their cigars as they leisurely went in quest of the missing one, and from terrace they proceeded to garden, from garden to pleasaunce, and from pleasaunce to gate-house, but no trace of him could be found. “He is in the stables,” suggested the O’Byrne; and they returned to the enormous quadrangle in which the houses were quartered, but none of the helpers had seen him, and the stables were all locked for the night.
“He is a romantic, hot-headed young dog, and is just taking a cooler. He will turn up by and by, I warrant me; or mayhap he has hied him to my lady’s bower.” And Minchin laughed at the conceit.
“Where is Redmond?” asked Father O’Doherty, as they regained the drawing-room.
“We were going to ask you,” said the O’Byrne. “Where is Eileen?”
“The poor child has a bad headache and has gone to lie down.”
“Come along, Mr. Minchin, and we’ll take our cruiskeen lawn. In the meantime I shall send some of the men to scour the wood in pursuit of this invisible guest. I needn’t ask you to join us, father?”
“No, sir; a little wine at dinner is my quantum.”
As the night rolled over considerable uneasiness was felt about Philip’s non-appearance; but Minchin’s theory, that he had, in his agitation, returned to the Derralossory Arms minus his hat, was gladly accepted, and the O’Byrne insisted upon driving with Minchin into Roundwood in order to set matters right.
It is scarcely necessary to say that the worthy proprietor of the hostelry had nothing of Redmond’s but a small nickel-mounted valise, which he described as set in solid silver.
This increased the anxiety, and as a portion of the lands of Coolgreny abutted upon the lake in sheer precipices of two and three hundred feet, fears began to be entertained that poor Philip in his ignorance of the country might have taken this unfortunate path. There was nothing for it but to await the advent of daylight, and then to scour the country, and, if necessary, to drag the lake at this particular place.
The morning brought no Redmond, and as traces of recent footsteps were very distinct in the neighborhood of the precipice, and the heather rudely torn away at the edge of the cliff, as though by a despairing clutch, the idea that he had fallen into the lake grew into a certainty. A grapnel was got ready, and the melancholy process of dragging rapidly commenced.
The relief which Redmond’s letter brought produced immediate reaction. Father O’Doherty at once started with his car to Enniskerry, with a very courteous note from the O’Byrne and a message from Eileen, but arrived about an hour after our hero had quitted the village. Later on, when the good priest had returned with this intelligence, the O’Byrne telegraphed to the Shelborne Hotel, Dublin, on chance, writing also to that address. Philip was on board the steamer when the telegram arrived, and in London when the missive reached Ireland’s capital. Had he received either, he would have flown back to Coolgreny; but it was not to be.
It was Sunday forenoon, and a great human wave surged out of the Madeleine Church, Paris. Instinctively one pauses beneath that noble portico and gazes across the Place de la Concorde, taking in the glittering Boulevard and the whole brilliancy of the coup d’œil. Philip Redmond had been amongst the worshippers, and was now on his way to the Hôtel du Louvre, so different in every respect to the white-washed, thatch-covered hostelry in the heart of the County Wicklow, and at the door of which he was introduced to the reader. He had indulged in a lazy tour, commencing with the quaint old cities of Belgium, whence he proceeded to Cologne and up the Rhine to Mayence, and after a wandering of two months found himself in the gay and fascinating capital of the world. Philip’s wound had been healed; his heart ceased to throb at the recollection of the “tender light of a day that was dead”; and if the image of Eileen O’Byrne did come back to him, he felt inclined to place himself in the pillory of his own thoughts and pelt himself with ridicule. It was a delightful thing to be heart-whole. He had played with fire and had passed through the red-hot furnace, badly burnt, no doubt, but cured at once and for ever. He used to amuse himself by imagining what the effect of his letter upon the haughty chieftain might be, and would not her vanity be ruffled by the utter absence of the mention of her name? He had done his devoir in stating that the day was one of intense enjoyment; this she could easily translate by the aid of her own dictionary. Heigh-ho! it was a pity the dream did not last a little longer, he thought, as he prepared to descend the steps of the church upon that lovely August forenoon. As he descended, his foot became entangled in the skirt of a young girl right in front of him. He turned to apologize—his heart gave one fearful bound and his brain reeled till he became dizzy. He felt himself grow pale and cold, but, lifting his hat with a cold salutation, he passed down and onwards. It was Eileen O’Byrne!
When he reached the hotel—and he felt as if treading on air—he repaired to his apartment and flung himself into a chair in a whirl of conflicting emotion. The old wound which he had imagined healed had broken out afresh beneath the sad, reproachful glance of those lovely gray Irish eyes. There was but one chance left, and that was to fly. To be in the same city, country, hemisphere with her would be torture. He felt as if some great sea should divide them, and then that the joyous serenity of the last few weeks would be restored to him. He had very little packing to do, as he had not unpacked, and he at once proceeded to the bureau to settle his bill. As he was passing along a corridor in order to reach the vestiaire, he became almost rooted to the ground. A turn in the passage brought him face to face with her whom he was doing his uttermost to avoid. She was deadly pale, and she passed him with a scarcely perceptible inclination of the head, cold, glacial, haughty. There was a cry of anguish in Phil Redmond’s heart, and, acting upon an unconquerable impulse, he turned after her and almost fiercely demanded: “What have I done to deserve this?”
The same bright rush of crimson which flashed across her face like a rosy sunset when first he met her covered her now as she panted forth:
“You seemed to wish it so.”
“I!” And Phil Redmond blurted out something with reference to explanation and unfair treatment in his usual brusque way.
It was chill October, and a huge log burned in the cavernous fire-place in the banquet-hall at Coolgreny. The claret was upon the ebon-colored oak table, and round it sat no less a party than that which was assembled upon the memorable night when Phil Redmond so innocently brought the wrath of his host upon his devoted head.
“To think,” said Minchin in a state of ecstatic glow, “that we should meet here under such remarkable circumstances. Ye gods!”
“Yes,” said the O’Byrne, rising, “I wanted the same party exactly, and I have been fortunate. You all heard me swear that I would never sell a rood of Ballymacreedy, Kilnagadd, or Derralossory; but”—with a smile—“that oath does not prevent my giving them away, and, please God, when you, Father O’Doherty, unite my honest young friend Philip Redmond to my only child, he shall be restored to the lands of his fathers through his wife.”