"'Well, then,' said she, giving one hand to me and the other to my boy, 'remember it is with my foster-brother I mean to lead out the dancing to-night;' and troth, my pet, she was as good as her word, and not a soul would she dance with, for all the fine lords and gentlemen who had come to the wedding, until she had footed it for a good half-hour at least with my Andie, Ah! them were times indeed, my jewel," the old crone querulously wound up her chronicle by saying. "And to think that I should have lived to see the day when the young master's father and the master's child are to be hunted out of their own by a Cromwellian upstart with his 'buddagh Sassenachs,' (Saxon clowns,) like so many bloodhounds at his heels, to ride over us roughshod."
So far the young girl had "seriously inclined her ear" to listen, partly to soothe old Grannie's grief by suffering it to flow over, and partly, perhaps, because her own mind, exhausted by present sufferings, found some unconscious relief in letting itself be carried back to those bright days when the sun of worldly prosperity still lighted up her home. The instant, however, that the old woman began, with all the ferocity of a half-tamed nature, to pour out denunciations on the foes who had wrought her ruin, she checked the dangerous indulgence of her feelings by saying:
"Hush, dear Grannie, and listen to me. My mother is to stay here until May, (so much grace they have seen fit to do us,) in order that she may collect our stock and gather such of our people together as may choose to follow us into exile."
"Then, may be, she'll take me," cried old Grannie suddenly, her withered face lightening up into an expression of hope and joy that was touching to behold. "May be she'll take me, a-lannah!"
Nellie Netterville eyed Grannie wistfully. Nothing, in fact, would she have better liked than to have taken that old relic of happier days with her to her exile; but old, decrepid, bowed down by grief as well as years, as Grannie was, it would have been folly, even more than cruelty, to have suffered her to offer herself for Connaught transplantation. It would have been, however, but a thankless office to have explained this in as many words; so Nellie only said: "When the time comes, dear old woman, when the time comes, it will be soon enough to talk about it then—that is to say, if you are still able and willing for the venture."
"Willing enough at all events, God knows," said Grannie earnestly. "But why not go at once with you, my darling? The mistress is the mistress surely; but blood is thicker than water, and aren't you the child of the man that I suckled on this bosom? Why not go at once with you?"
"I think it is too late in the year for you—too cold—too wretched; and besides, we are only to take one servant with us, and of course it must be a man," said Nellie, not even feeling a temptation to smile at the blind zeal which prompted Grannie to offer herself, with her sixty years and her rheumatic limbs, to the unprofitable post of bower-maiden in the wilderness. "It would not do to alter our arrangements now," she continued gently; "but when spring comes, we will see what can be done; and in the mean time, you must go as often as you can to the castle, to cheer my dear mother with a little chat. Promise me that you will, dear Grannie, for she will be sad enough and lonely enough, I promise you, this poor mother, and nothing will help her so much in her desolation as to talk with you of those dear absent ones, who well she knows are almost as precious to you as they can be to herself. And now I must begone—I must indeed! I could not go in peace without seeing you once more, and so I stole out while all the rest of the world were sleeping; but now the sun is high in the heavens, and they will be looking for me at the castle. Good-by, dear Grannie, good-by!"
Sobbing as if her heart would break, Nellie flung her arms round the old woman's neck; but Grannie, with a wild cry of mingled grief and love, slipt through her embraces and flung herself at her feet. Nellie raised her gently, placed her once more upon the settle, and not daring to trust herself to another word, walked straight out of the cottage, and closed the door behind her.