Chapter III.
Sleepless and miserable to Katey Tyrrel was the night that followed her interview with the Stranger. The fearful and critical position in which she was placed caused her, for the first time in her life, to go through a rigid course of self-examination, the result of which but added to her alarm and anxiety. For some months past the person she had just parted from had been a sojourner in lodgings at Cahill's under circumstances of great privacy—rarely venturing out during the day, and in the evening only with secresy and caution. As that remote country, ill-supplied at the period with police, (and even those of the most "ancient and quiet" description,) and wholly inaccessible to bailiffs and all other functionaries attendant on county sheriffs, was deemed peculiarly favourable as quarters for that class of magnanimous men whose expenditure happens to exceed their incomes, to the detriment of their tailors and their own personal inconvenience, it was soon whispered, and as quickly believed, that the resident at Cahill's was one of that generous brotherhood, or in other words, was "a gentleman on his keeping."[24] In her visits to the shop, which, from her idle though innocent life, were frequent, Katey had several times encountered him as he sauntered in and out. An intimacy sprang up. There was a frankness and a half-military air in his deportment that interested her. He had evidently seen much of the world and society, his conversation was lively and varied, his knowledge and accomplishments, to the secluded country girl, seemed extensive, and round all circled a halo of mystery, not the least of those attractions for Katey, whose passion for riding to the Kilfane hounds had just been succeeded by a stronger one for Mrs Radcliffe and romances. Time flew on. Their daily interviews improved to evening rambles, the interchange of notes, supplies of books and flowers upon one side, an avowal of love and tale of lofty but luckless patriotism on the other. To the object of his passion alone did the stranger confide his story. Fascinated by the principles of freedom with which France had lately inoculated mankind, and maddened by the miseries of ill-government under which his own green Island groaned, he had engaged, full of hope and high aspirations, in that enterprise for the recovery of her national independence, which terminated in the martyrdom of as noble and pure-spirited a being as sleeps buried and unhonoured in "the cross ways of fame"—Robert Emmett. The Stranger had been dispatched, he said, to the south to forward the movement of his party in that quarter, when their central Power in the capital prematurely exploded, carrying dismay and destruction to every remoter organ of the confederacy. His name—the name of Fergus Hewitt, citizen of the new Western Republic, and major of brigade—was one of the first upon the list of the proscribed; a reward was offered for his head; and it was while lurking a hunted man, amid the fastnesses of Tipperary, that he wooed and ventured to win the heart and hand of the heiress of Clogheen.
Such was the tale along whose vicissitudes the fair girl to whom it was imparted now glanced with a bewildered mind. The interview just terminated will have given the reader some idea of the unsettled state of her feelings; but it was in the solitude of her chamber, when she found herself called on to part for ever, or for ever to be united with this interesting stranger, that she seemed to discover, not without consternation, how necessary to her happiness he had become. The waste vacancy of her time and thoughts before she had met him—broken only by dull and distant visits to duller and more distant aunts, vapid rides through rude and solitary scenes, and incessant feud and amnesty between her cousin Lysaght and herself—was this once more to be her portion? or would she fly with Him who had relieved her from them all, and relinquish her father and her home? How, she continued to ask herself, would that beloved parent, so stern to all else, so blindly indulgent to her, endure her loss? Would he proscribe her for ever? She felt not—assuredly not. No, her father would once more receive her into his grace and affection; but Lysaght, who had been reared with her, who loved her so well, so all the more deeply, she knew, that he had never told her so—what would he feel? How would he look the first morning after her flight, when he came in to breakfast and found the room solitary, the urn cold, her little spanniel, Lapwing, moaning about the hearth, and Katey away over the mountains in the dead of night with a nameless and lawless man? Yes, poor Lysaght, she felt, would then be to be pitied: her father might once more be hers; but her cousin—even her little quarrels with him had something pleasant to her recollection, and on this portion of the picture, much as she desired to banish it from her mind, she again and again returned to dwell; nor did she succeed in overlaying it by painting her reconciliation with Lysaght on her return, and her reparation in the shape of a large present of real and personal estate which her father should be induced to make to him, and thereby enable Lysaght to settle in life. And then his wife—which of all her surrounding country friends would she choose for him? The sketch was still unfinished, when the bell announced the morning's repast; and Katey, sleepless, agitated, and undecided, descended to breakfast.
There was nothing in that meal calculated to allay her anxiety. She found her father and cousin (the latter having just come in from his matutinal tour through the farm, and laden, of course, with the news of the neighbourhood) busily engaged with cold beef and conjectures upon the sudden flight of the gentleman resident at Curly Cahill's, which had taken place during the night, half-an-hour previous to a domiciliary visit from three peace-officers who came from Clonmel, and departed as they came, in profound silence regarding the object of their expedition, upon discovering the stranger had left. As Mr Tyrrel had not been consulted by the authorities on this occasion, the reverend magistrate testified no very poignant regret at the disappointment of the officers; but as his curiosity was commensurately excited, he hazarded several ingenious solutions of the Problem that had been paying eighteen-pence a-week for "dry-lodgings" at Cahill's, the last four months. Lysaght was loud in his decision that the fellow was "some coiner or poaching blackguard;" while his uncle rather inclined to the arson and agrarian-outrage line. Poor Katey sat behind the coffee-stand stifling her feelings in the manner she best might, until she heard her father propose "sheep-stealing" as an emendation of the probable offence of her banished friend, when she could support it no longer. Little accustomed at any time to hide her emotions, the high-spirited girl burst into tears, upbraided her respectable parent and thick-headed cousin for their hardheartedness and want of charity, ventured at first to disbelieve every sentence they had uttered, proceeded to confess that she had had the pleasure of the stranger's acquaintance, and ended by proudly introducing him (in an imaginary way) to her astonished friends as Major Fergus Hewitt of the Second Republican Brigade of Artillery, and Commissioner to Mononia from the Provisional Government.
Had a petard from the Major's own brigade been projected into the centre of the little breakfast table, it could not have played the mischief more effectually than did this stunning explosion. Lysaght Osborne, after remaining speechless for some minutes, having helped himself to a cup of scalding water from the urn, was compelled to retreat upon the pump outside. His uncle, who had received so large a portion of the shell, necessarily, too, exhibited much suffering, which his daughter at length attempted in vain to alleviate. But the spoiled and petted Katey had for once overcounted. There are in certain minds bursts of passion, which, like the tempests of tropical islands, are all the more violent and unsparing from the halcyon seasons that precede them. Such was the storm of wrath that now for the first time descended from Tyrrel's lips upon his daughter's head. He raved and stamped at her like a maniac, terrified her into an acknowledgment that she had listened even to amatory communications from the unhappy Hewitt, commanded her from his presence, then recalled her to be reprimanded for retiring so hastily, and again expelling her, pursued her with all but palpable fire and sword to her own territory, where, locking her in her bed-chamber, he deposited the key in his pocket, and set out on foot to finish the work of disaster by annihilating the "dealer in soft goods," who had, he felt assured, been a proximate agent in nearly ridding him of his child. His first intention was to hold no terms whatever in his approaches upon Curly's fortalice, or, in other words, "to make an open show of him;" but a mile's walk of a muddy day has a sedative effect, and by the time he arrived at Cahill's Mr Tyrrel had seen the impolicy of giving any publicity to what he considered the folly of his daughter. His interview, therefore, with Curly took place in private, and for any satisfaction that resulted from it he might as well have placed himself in communication with the intelligent milestone, "Clonmel XII.," which he had passed as he entered the town. Cahill, on his part, received the first discharge of the clergyman's indignation with a look of stolid surprise, to which one Liston, a player, could alone have done justice. For some time he seemed at a loss to comprehend whether the remarks had reference to his last year's arrear of tithes, or the projected invasion from Boulogne; and when at length their real purport did overtake him, the shock was overwhelming. Well it was for the Fugitive that he was at the moment out of reach of his estimable host's indignation. To be "skivered," to "have every bone in his body smashed to smithers," or "to be torn asunder as one would tear a lark," was the mildest of the horrible fates he had escaped for attempting to inveigle the affections of "the darlin' young lady." As to Cahill himself having ever perceived the remotest approach to any intimacy between the parties, he "declared to his heart" he never saw them together in his life; if he had, his instant duty would have propelled him to inform the rector of it "in a shake;" so that as Mr Tyrrel saw his interview was likely to be a fruitless one, he cut it short and departed, while Curly was concluding a declaration, that "if he could go on his hands an' knees to Clo'mel for his rav'rence, he'd be proud to do it."
During the rest of the day, the discomfited parent had full occupation in his own self-upbraidings. In his boundless indulgence, he had permitted his daughter to be perfectly mistress of her time and actions; and the conviction now pressed upon him, that he had done so to a very culpable and unfortunate degree. In order to remedy one false step, however, he now took another in a contrary direction; and Katey, so long the sole object of his tenderness and love, was henceforth to experience a share of that hardness in his character, which the rest of the world had so largely felt. Although he did not persist in keeping her locked up in one apartment, he forbade her for the present to appear in his presence, and strictly commanded that she should not, on any account, stir from the house.
This was the step to the opposite extreme, and it had the effect that might be expected. His daughter's sensibilities revolted at such severity—her prepossessions in favour of the hapless person on whose account she was subjected to it, became more confirmed; she was determined she would not be thwarted, that, at least, she would attempt to learn some intelligence of Hewitt's fate, and, if possible, see him once more before they parted for ever. While, however, she awaited an opportunity of communicating with a faithful messenger, who had sometimes conveyed notes from him when accident prevented their meeting, she was attacked with illness, a smart febrile indisposition—the result, no doubt, of the mental disquietude she had undergone—and several weeks elapsed before she was again able to reach the little conservatory, which, opening on the lower apartments of the mansion, constituted the utmost limits of that domestic boundary beyond which she was not permitted to proceed.
Chapter IV.
It was late in a dreary night of November. The wind blew a perfect hurricane, rushing up the thick avenue which led to the Glebe house of Clogheen, driving before it in its fury vast clouds of withered leaves it had collected on its way, and showering them in impotent wrath against the doors and windows of the house, which shook and clattered as if each had its own separate assailant. Midnight—black midnight had passed, and the faint light of a rising moon was beginning to mingle with the disturbed and dismal air. It was no night for mortals to forsake quiet and comfortable beds, and, least of all, delicate female invalids; yet Katey Tyrrel, shadowy and wan as a ghost, was standing at this hour watching the roaring tempest from the windows of the conservatory, that looked upon the front lawn of the dwelling. She had not, however, been long stationed there, when the darkness of the spot in which she stood (for there was no candle) was made still murkier by the shadow of a man who appeared outside. Katey softly undid the Venetian door, and Hewitt stood before her.
"Dear, dear girl! how am I to thank you?" he murmured as he pressed with impassioned eagerness the hand she extended to him.