It was very dark now, and very cold—the cold that precedes the dawn—cold in Nellie's heart within, and cold in the outside world around her. She shivered, and was scarcely conscious that she did so. Was her mother really dead? She knew it, and yet could scarce believe it. For a little while she knelt there still, waiting and holding in her breath in the vague, faint hope that once more, if it were even for the last time, once more that sweet, plaintive voice might greet her longing ear. But it never came again. At last, by a great effort, she put forth her trembling hand and touched her mother's face. It was already growing cold, with that strange, hard coldness which makes the face of the dead like a marble mask to the living hands that touch it. She shuddered; nevertheless, with an instinctive feeling of what was right and proper by the dead, she did not withdraw it until she had pressed it gently on the eyelids, and so closed them without almost an effort.
That done, she knelt down once more, and, hiding her face in the scanty bedclothes, tried to pray.
......
Day began to dawn at last, and a few sad rays forced their way into that gloomy cell; but Nellie never saw them. Sounds began to come in from the newly-awakened city, but Nellie never heard them. The prison itself shook off its slumbers, and there was a slamming of distant doors and an occasional hurried step along the passages; and still she took no heed. She knew, in a vague, careless way, that at one time or another some one would be sent to her assistance, and that was all she thought or cared about it. In the mean time she prayed, or tried to pray; but when at last they did come, they found her stretched upon the floor, as cold almost and quite as unconscious as her dead mother.
Chapter XVII.
"To the memory of Francis, Twelfth Baron of Netterville, one of the Transplanted, and of Mary, the widow of his only son."
Nellie stooped to decipher the inscription, but it may be doubted if she saw aught save the stone upon which Hamish, in obedience to his master's dying orders, had engraved it, for her eyes were full of tears. A hurried journey to the west, another death-bed, and a few weeks more of tears and renewed sense of desolation had followed the events recorded in our last chapter, and then at last a holy calmness settled upon Nellie's soul—a calmness and a happiness which was all the more likely to endure that it was founded upon past sorrows bravely met and meekly borne, in a spirit of true and loving resignation to the will of Him who had laid them on her shoulders. From the day of her departure from Clare Island, the old lord had drooped like a plant deprived of sunshine, and he died on the very evening of her return, his hand in hers, smiling upon her and her brave husband, and leaving for only vengeance on his foes the inscription which heads this chapter, to be engraved upon his tombstone.
Nellie laid him to rest beside her mother; for through the kindness of Ormiston she had been enabled to carry out Mrs. Netterville's dying wishes, and to bear her remains to that western shore which she had so fondly and so vainly fancied was to be her daughter's future home. Ormiston had done yet more. He had obtained a reversal of the sentence of outlawry against Roger, coupled with the usual permission to "beat his drum," as it was called, for recruits to follow his banner into foreign lands, to fight in the armies of foreign kings. It was the evil policy of those evil times.
To rid Ireland of the Irish was the grand panacea for the woes of Ireland, the only one her rulers ever recognized, and of which, therefore, they availed themselves most largely, careless or unconscious of the fatal element of strength they were thus flinging to their foes. As a native chieftain and a well-tried soldier, Roger had a double claim upon his people, and short as had been the time allotted to him for the purpose, fifty men, of the same breed and mettle as the soldiers who fought at a later period against an English king until he cursed, in the bitterness of his heart, the laws which had deprived him of such subjects, had already obeyed his summons. They assembled under the temporary command of Hamish, near the tower, waiting the moment for embarkation, and the ship that was to convey them to their destination was riding at single anchor in the bay on that very morning when Nellie and her husband knelt for the last time beside her mother's grave. It was like a second parting with that mother. But with Roger at her side she could not feel altogether friendless or unhappy, and they prayed for a little time in silence, with a calm sense of sadness which had something of heavenly sweetness in it. At last it was time to go, and Roger laid a warning finger upon his young wife's shoulder. She did not say a word, but she bent down once more and kissed her mother's name upon the stone; then she gave her hand to Roger, and they left the churchyard together. While she had been lingering there, Henrietta had landed with Ormiston at the pier to bid her a last adieu. The quick eye of the English girl instantly perceived the goodly company of recruits assembled near the tower, and with a little smile of malicious triumph she pointed them out to her companion. Ormiston shook his head reprovingly. He was too thoroughly a soldier not to lament the policy which drafted large bodies of men into foreign armies, but he was full at that moment of his own concerns, and had little inclination to waste time in discussing the wisdom of his leaders. The truth was, Henrietta's reception of him on his arrival from Dublin the night before had disappointed him. He had come in obedience to her own written orders, as conveyed to him by Nellie, and instead of the frank, loving meeting which his own frank and loving nature had anticipated, he had found her shy, cold, and, he was forced to confess to himself, almost unkind. At first he consoled himself by attributing this in a great measure to the presence of her father, before whom she always seemed naturally to assume the bearing of a spoiled and unruly child; but when at her own invitation he had rowed her that morning to Clare Island, and her manner, instead of softening, as he had hoped, grew even colder and more constrained than it had been before, he became seriously distressed, and unable to endure the suspense any longer, they had hardly landed from the boat ere he turned short round upon her, and said: