"Faix, an' I could not, Tom, for a very good reason—that I'm not acquainted wid her, except to see her sometimes; an' I know her name, an' who she is, an' her father's name, an' how he med his money. They're as proud as paycocks, I can tell you; an nayther the wan nor the other would look the same side iv the street wid the likes iv us, Tom; but they don't know that at Rathcash; an' shure, if Winny thries to find out about them, she'll find that you're tellin' the truth as far as the names an' money goes, an I'll let on to be as thick as two pickpockets wid them."
Tom was silent. The closing words of his aunt's speech made him wish that he could pick some of their pockets of about a hundred pounds.
The plan, however, seemed a good one, and had the effect of putting Tom Murdock into good humor; and when Bill Wilson joined them at dinner Tom was so agreeable and chatty, that Bill thought his wife, although she was Tom's aunt, had not said a word too much for him; and he regretted more than ever that he had used the words "so far as he could see." He anticipated—nay, he dreaded—that they would be brought up to him again that night with greater force than ever.
CHAPTER XVII.
The most part of ready cash, whatever the sum may have been, which Tom had received at the bank, having been, as he called it, "swallowed up by them cormorants, the attorneys," he had, after all, but a trifling balance in his pocket. He was determined, therefore, to live quietly for some time at his aunt's upon "the lashins and lavins," taking her advice, and arranging with her his plan of operations upon his return to Rathcashmore. And his aunt's advice, in a prudent and worldly point of view, was not to be controverted, if anything could tend toward the attainment of his object; that was the question.
It was impossible, however, that Tom could rest altogether satisfied with the company of his aunt and her husband, and three or four children between ten and seventeen years of age; particularly as the eldest of his cousins was a long-necked boy with big, stuck-out ears, who worked in his father's shop, instead of a graceful girl with dark hair and fine eyes, whose domestic duties must keep her in the house as her mother's assistant, or perhaps enable her, when she could be spared, to guide him through the principal parts of the town, of which he would have feigned the most profound ignorance. But the eldest child just past seventeen, as we have seen. [{209}] happened to be a boy, not a girl, and Tom did not consider this the best arrangement that could be wished. In consequence, he sometimes spent an evening from home, with one or other, or perhaps with all the congenial spirits with whom, as a delegate—for the truth may be confessed—from another county, he could claim brotherhood. On this occasion, however, he was not on official business in Armagh; and whatever intercourse took place between them was of a purely social nature.
Tom was not altogether such a mauvais sujet as perhaps the reader has set him down in his own mind to be, from the inuendos which have been thrown out respecting him, as well as the actual portions of his character which have made themselves manifest. It must be confessed—nay, I believe it has been admitted not many lines above—that he was a Ribbonman; and although that includes all that is murderous and wicked, when a necessity arises, yet in the absence of such necessity a Ribbonman may not be altogether void of certain good points in his character. It is the frightful obligation which he labors under that makes a villain of him, should circumstances require the aid of his iniquity. Apart from this, and from what is termed an agrarian grievance, a Ribbonman may not be a bad family-man, although the training he undergoes in "The Lodge" is ill calculated to nourish his domestic sympathies.
Tom had now been upward of a month enjoying the hospitality of his aunt; and notwithstanding that she had done all in her power to entertain him, and "make much" of him, he was beginning to tire of the eternal smoke and flags, and stacks of chimneys, which were always the same to the eye: no bright "blast of sun," no sudden dark cloud, made any difference in them; there they were, always the same dark color, no matter what light shone upon them. No wonder, then, Tom Murdock began once more to long for the fresh breeze that blew about the wild hills of Rathcashmore, the green fields of his father's farm, and the purple heather of Slieve-dhu, with the white rocks of Slieve-bawn by her side.
Absence too had done more really to touch Tom's heart with respect to Winny Cavana than to wean him from the "saucy slut," as he had called her in pique on his departure. He had "come across,"—this is the Irish mode of expressing, "had been introduced,"—through his aunt's assistance, several of what she called illigant fine girls, nieces of her husband's and others, and his heart confessed that none of them "were a patch" upon Winny Cavana, after all. He thus became fidgety, and began to speak of returning home. Of course the aunt opposed her hospitality to such a step, for the present at least: "Just as we were beginning to enjoy you, Tom avic," said she; and of course her husband made a show of joining her, although he knew there had been more beer drunk in the house in the last month than in the six preceding ones; neither did the cold meat turn out to half the account. He knew this by his pocket, not by his knowledge of the cookery. Tom, however, made no promise of further sojourn than "to put the following Sunday over him," and it was now Thursday. But the next morning's post hurried matters. It brought him a letter from his father, which prevented his aunt from pressing his stay beyond the following day, when it was finally settled by Tom that he would start for home. "It ran thus," as is the common mode of introducing a letter in a novel or story:
"DEAR TOM,—This comes to you hoppin' to find you in good health, which I am sorry to say it does not lave me at present; but thank God for all his mercies. I was very lonesum entirely afther you left me; an the more, dear Tom, as I had not my ould neighbor Ned Cavana to spake to, as used to be the case afore that [{210}] young chisel of a daughter of his cam round him to brake wid us. She's there still, seemingly as proud as ever; but she'll be taken down a peg wan of these days, mark my words. I have wan piece of good news for you, Tom avic; an' that is, that young Lennon never darkened their doore since you went; and more be token, she never spoke a word to him on Sunda's after mass, but went straight home with her father from the chapel. This I seen myself; for although I have been very daunny since you left me, I med bowld wid myself not to lose prayers any Sunda' wet or dhry, for no other purpose but to watch herself an' that chap. So, dear Tom, you needn't be afeared of him. I think, indeed; I seen him going down the road the three Sunda's wid Kate Mulvey; so I think Winny tould the truth to her father about him. Dear Tom, I have not been well at all at all for the last three weeks, an' I am not able to be out all day as I used to be, an' I hardly know how matthers are goin' on upon the farm. I see old Ned a'most every day from the doore or the garden, where I sometimes go out when it's fine; I see him wandherin' about his farm as brisk an' as hard as ever. I think nothin' would give that man a brash. Dear Tom, I did not like writin' to you to say I was lonesum or unwell until you had taken a turn out of yourself at your aunt's; but I am not gettin' betther, an' I think the sight iv you would do me good. Tell your aunt to let you cum home to me now. Indeed, dear Tom, I'm too long alone; an' havin' no wan to spake to makes me fret, though I wouldn't interfere wid you for a while afther you went. If ould Ned Cavana was the man I tuck him to be, he wouldn't let the few words that cum betune us keep him away from me all this time, an' I not well; but he never put to me, nor from me, since you left, nor I to him. Dear Tom, cum back to me as soon as you can, an' maybe we'll get the betther of him an' Winny, afther all. Hopin' your aunt, an' the childer, an' Bill himself, is all in good health, I remain your father till death,