“To save my uncle from the gallows. They told me that witnesses who must convict him and others were sheltered in this house; and that could they but be carried off and concealed until after the assizes, then the prisoners’ lives were safe. They stated that they only wanted the arms deposited in Knockloftie;—that they would swear you to quit the country—and thus intimidate those who had followed your example and ventured to remain. Before I consented to carry the letter which my brother wished to have conveyed to Hackett, he swore upon the chapel-altar where the party had collected, that not one hair of your head should suffer injury. May God forgive him!”
“To that prayer, Mary, I add a sincere amen! He is gone to his account—a perjurer!”
“Gone to his account!” exclaimed the girl. “Is he dead? Who killed him?”
“He fell by the hand of one whom he would have more than murdered!”
“Then am I now indeed alone upon the world!” A long and liar-rowing silence followed. “Denis,” she said, “I dare not curse, and cannot bless you. Four short years have passed. How bitterly have all things changed?”
“Stop, Mary! From my soul, I pity and believe you. You tell me that you did not know the purport of this night attack!”
“God knows, I did not. You wrecked my happiness; but still I would not—could not subdue feelings now best forgotten. Forgotten, said I?—never!”
Mary Halligan had spoken to my father in her native tongue; and those who are intimate with that portion of the kingdom where the Celtic language is still retained, will remember with what poetic imagery, the Irish peasantry at times detail their mingled story of grief and joy, wrong and suffering.
Mary was one of those on whom nature stamps the grace which art idly or imperfectly can simulate. Her voice had all “The sweetness of the mountain-tongue and more affecting still, all that it uttered seemed to come directly from the heart.”
“I loved you, Denis—ay, loved in all the madness with which woman loves. The peasant girl never dreamed that birth and rank had divided us immeasurably. She never thought that she should be wooed and won, and cast aside for others. She knew nothing of the world. Those, for whom Heaven had designed her, sought her, and sued, and were rejected. You came. Six years had changed us—the child had become a girl—the boy had become a man. There was joy and merriment at Knockloftie—I was your chosen partner in the dance—and you would leave your dogs upon the moor, to steal to the bouillee, and sit for hours beside me. Is it to be wondered at that I loved with the ardour of a first passion—and the undoubting confidence of woman? While no sound was heard above the rushing waterfall, you plucked heath and wild-flowers from the bank, placed them in my hair, and swore you would be constant. Fool that I was! I believed you,—hid them in my bosom,—and before they faded, I found myself deserted and betrayed.” She paused,—her agitation was fearful; but a flood of tears relieved it, and she thus continued:—“You went to another land,—the sea rolled between us,—and were you forgotten? Oh, no! In fancy, I saw you still upon the moor—in sleep, I sate beside you on the heather—your name was mingled in my prayers—and when one was offered for my own sins, three were poured warm from the heart, to implore a blessing on the absent one. Well, well; the dream is over,—the spell is broken,—and in this world you and I shall never meet again. Farewell, Colonel. There were two beings between whom this heart once was shared. I look my last upon the living one—and, too soon, I shall have looked my last upon the dead. I dare not press that hand—there’s blood upon it; and—oh, God! that blood—a brother’s!”