“Ah! how can ye!” expostulated the old man, shaking his head reproachfully at her as he left the room.
CHAPTER XIII.
CONCLUSION.
It was September—the loveliest month of all the year in Ireland. On the hillsides the ripe corn stood gathered into golden sheaves. In the meadows—whence the small stacks had just been carried, to make the great ricks that caused many an humble farmyard to look full and wealthy—cattle browsed the rich pasture in a very ecstasy of content. Clear and distinct the summits of the distant mountains could be seen rising to meet the blue cloudless sky. Almost without a ripple, the Atlantic washed gently into sheltered bays, over sandy and pebbly shores. With as easy a flight as that of the sea-birds, the white-sailed vessels in the offing cleft their homeward or outward way; whilst, on the hill-tops, the purple heather and the yellow gorse mingled their colours together, and wild thyme gave forth its perfume in solitudes where there was no passer-by to inhale its fragrance.
On the top of a slight eminence, from which the ground, clad in a robe of emerald green, sloped down to the water’s edge, stood a lonely-looking house, which commanded a view—so its admirers said—of the Atlantic straight away to Newfoundland,—two thousand miles of ocean without a strip of earth; two thousand miles of water resting quiet and silent, waiting for the stormy weather, when the billows should rise up mountains high, lashing themselves like a lion in his fury, and rushing white crested to devour their prey.
This house had been taken by Mrs. Hartley for the autumn, and to it, by slow stages, Mrs. Brady and Grace Moffat were brought to regain health and strength; the former with pale face, and hair cut close like a boy’s; the latter weak as a child, after the mental excitement and bodily fatigue she had gone through.
By the time Mrs. Brady was pronounced out of danger, she had begun to droop; walking about Maryville—so Doctor Girvan said—like one more dead than alive, till Mrs. Hartley came and put a stop to her exertions.
It was marvellous to see the change that energetic lady wrought in the aspect of affairs. Before a fortnight was over she had discovered the house I have mentioned, which the gentleman who owned was glad to let, “in order to have the furniture taken care of,” was his way of putting it; she had despatched Marrables, a cook, and her maid to have all in readiness for the arrival of the invalids; she had disposed of Nettie’s children by sending them to a lady of limited income, who was “thankful,” so she said, “to have it in her power to do anything to oblige dear Mrs. Hartley and, finally, she had established herself and party at that precise part of the coast where Doctor Murney stated the air would be most bracing for Miss Moffat.
“Of course,” said Mrs. Hartley to Nettie, “it does not matter to you where we go, provided we leave Maryville.”
“No,” Mrs. Brady answered; and that morning they drove down the gloomy avenue, and away from the gates of that house which had proved so wretched to her. She waved her hand back towards it with a gesture of farewell.
“Good-bye, Maryville,” she said; “I may see you in my dreams, but never again with my waking eyes, I trust.”