"This is my grandfather. Lord Netterville, and we are, as he has rightly told you, of the old English of the pale," said Nellie, making one step nearer in order to present her certificate. "At first, in common with the other inhabitants of Meath, we were to have been sent into the more eastern baronies of Connaught; but the numbers set down for transplantation to those parts having been found greater than could be accommodated on the land, we were assigned at last our portion in the same barony of Murrisk."
The officer looked at first as if greatly inclined to refuse the paper which she held up for his acceptance; but suddenly changing his intention, he snatched it rudely from her hand, and ran his eye over the contents.
"Humph! ha!" he continued to mutter as he read; and then turning to Nellie, he said in a voice in which, toned down as it was to an affectation of cold indifference, her quick ear detected, nevertheless, a lurking tone of triumph.
"This certificate bears a date, as I see, of some three months earlier in the year. How, then, is it, maiden, that it was not presented sooner?"
"It is five months to-day since we left our home—our pleasant home in Meath," said Nellie sadly; "and "much of that time was spent perforce at Loughrea. At first we were kept there in sore suspense as to the settlement of our just claim for land, and after that we were detained by sickness. Our servant fell ill and died of the plague; my grandfather suffered also much from the same malady, and he has in some measure recovered from it; it has, alas! reduced him from a hale and hearty old age, to the wreck—mind and body—that you see before you. In this way our scanty stock of money was soon exhausted, and when at last he was fit to travel, we had to sell our horses and the best part of our wearing apparel, in order to satisfy the debts incurred during his illness; after which there was nothing for it but to finish the journey as best we could on foot."
"How marvellous are the mercies of the Lord—the mercies which he has laid up for them that fear him," cried the officer, turning triumphantly toward his companions, and yet shrinking, in spite of himself, beneath the angry glances shot at him from the blue eyes of his daughter. "Surely his hand and his wisdom are visible in this matter," he added, in a less openly exultant manner; "for look ye, maiden, had you and the man you call Lord Netterville come hither at the time when, according to the date of your certificate, you should have done, you might, peradventure, have found no one to dispute possession with ye. But behold! instead of that, the Lord hath vexed and troubled ye; he hath forced ye to tarry, even as he forced his rebellious people to tarry in the wilderness; he hath afflicted ye with sickness; he hath even visited ye with death, in order that I, his servant and soldier on the battle-field, might go up and take peaceable possession of that land which ye vainly fancied to be all your own."
"But are not these the very lands—a portion of the barony of Murrisk—which are set down in our certificate?" said Nellie, not even yet comprehending thoroughly the greatness of the impending blow. "How, then, noble sir, do you speak of them as yours?"
"Yea, and indeed," replied the officer, "these are of a certainty those very lands. Nevertheless, maiden, thou hast yet to learn that, if thou hast a certificate, I also am provided with a debenture, signed and delivered to me two months ago. Consequently, my order on the estate being of a later date, doth override and make void thine own, which, moreover, on looking closer, I do perceive to be merely a de bene esse, a poor make-shift for the time being, until something more permanent could be assigned thee."
"God help us, then!" cried Nellie; utterly overwhelmed by this last announcement. "God help us, then, and pardon those who have trifled so cruelly with our fortunes! Strangers we are, and without a place whereon to lay our heads; what then is to become of us in these deserted mountains?"
"Thou shouldst have looked to all that ere coming hither," he answered harshly; "as matters are at present, I would counsel thee to return to Loughrea at thy quickest speed, and to seek some other grant of land from their honors the commissioners, ere all that which is left in their hands has been absolutely disposed of."