“in islington there was a man,
of whom the world might say,
that still a godly race he ran,
whene’er he went to pray.”
“will you have your tay, plase, miss?”
the words at first mingled with the dreams which had all night disturbed my sleep. on being repeated, the unfamiliar accent, accompanied by the clink of a cup and saucer, made me open my eyes. a pleasant-looking, red-haired girl was standing by my bed, tray in hand.{71}
“you’re after having a great sleep, miss. i was twice here before, and there wasn’t a stir out of you.”
“is it very late?” i asked, with an alarming recollection of my uncle’s punctuality.
“oh, not at all, miss. the masther’s only just after having his breakfast.”
“what!” i gasped. “you should have called me earlier.”
“oh, there’s no hurry, miss! sure he always ates his breakfast by himself, and there’s no sayin’ how late it’ll be before masther willy’s down.”
calmed by this assurance, i did not hurry myself over my dressing, but from time to time stopped to look at the view from my windows.
it was a quiet october day, with a grey yet luminous sky, that lit with a grave radiance the group of yellow elms that{72} divided the avenue from a heathery expanse of turf-bog, with low hills beyond. from the other window, which was almost over the hall door, i could see to the left a dark belt of trees that went round to the back of the house; and in front, at the foot of the lawn, the curve of a little bay. this was separated from the larger waters of durrusmore harbour by a low promontory, along whose ridge a meagre line of fir trees was etched against the grey sky. leaning out of the window, and looking westwards towards the mouth of the harbour, i saw the atlantic lying broad and white under the light of the soft clear morning.
i went downstairs, and as i passed along the corridor, i felt, even on this still day, the air circulating freely through broken panes in the skylight and the staircase window, making it easy to account{73} for the ghostly eddyings of the wind the night before.
willy had apparently made an effort on my behalf at early rising, and i found him making tea when i came into the dining-room. he came forward to meet me with a complacency in which i detected a consciousness of the added smartness of his sunday attire; and, having satisfactorily ascertained the fact that i had slept well, he installed me behind the urn to pour out the superfluously strong tea which he had just brewed.
i experienced undeniable relief in the absence of uncle dominick, whom at this moment i saw pacing up and down a walk leading from the house to the sea. willy saw the direction of my eyes.
“i hope you’re not insulted by only me breakfasting with you,” he said, with ungrammatical gallantry. “you can break{74}fast with the governor whenever you like, but you will have to be down at eight o’clock to do that!”
i intimated with fitting politeness that i was satisfied with the present arrangement, and we began our tête-à-tête meal in great amity. willy, indeed, was an excellent host. he plied me with everything on the table, eating his own breakfast and talking all the time with unaffected zest and vigour, and i began to feel as if the time i had known him could be reckoned in months instead of hours.
the necessity of writing to announce my safe arrival to aunt jane was one that had already forced itself upon my notice.
“i thought you’d be wanting to write a letter,” willy said, conducting me into the drawing-room after breakfast, “and i got the place ready for you.{75}”
i sat down at the old-fashioned writing-table, and found that he had anticipated my wants with a lavish hand. through the window i saw him, a few minutes afterwards, sauntering down the drive towards the lodge, smoking a cigarette, with two little white dogs flashing in circles round him; and as i watched him, i came to the conclusion that at first sight i had underestimated my cousin.
there was something to me half amusing and half touching in the anxiety of his little housewifely attentions to me. he was really unusually thoughtful for others; from various things he had said, it was evident that his father had allowed the whole management of the place to devolve on him, and i fell to idle speculation as to whether he ordered dinner, and if he were particular about the housemaids wearing white muslin caps; and i was only aroused{76} from these, and other equally interesting reflections by hearing the clock strike the hour at which i had been warned i must get ready for church.
my uncle was standing on the steps, with his prayer-book in his hand, when i came downstairs. he wished me good morning, with a polite apology for not having met me at breakfast, and stood looking about him, with eyelids narrowed by the white glare from the sea, till a minute afterwards the wagonnette in which we were going to church came to the door. my uncle and i got in behind; while willy, with mick by his side, sat on the box and drove. once outside the gate, we took a road running at right angles to that by which i had arrived. it went round the head of durrusmore harbour, and, leaving the sea behind, turned inland through large woods, which my uncle told me were{77} part of the demesne of clashmore, the o’neill’s place.
the road was level, and soft with the fallen red beech leaves, and the brown horses took us along it at a pace that showed they were none the worse for their journey the night before. the rough stone walls on either side of the road were covered with moss and small ferns. here and there the wood was pierced by narrow rides—vistas in which the clumps of withering bracken repeated the brown and gold of the trees above.
“we’re going to draw this place on friday,” said willy, pausing in the steady flow of his conversation with mick to give me the information. “blackthorn will carry miss theo right enough, wouldn’t he, mick? and i’ll ride the new mare.”
the village of rathbarry, which we had now entered, consisted of a single street of{78} low, dirty-looking cottages, their squalid uniformity varied at frequent intervals by the more prosperous shuttered face of a public-house. at the end of the street, a gateway led into a graveyard, surrounded by ill-thriven elm trees, in the middle of which stood the church. it was an ugly, oblong building, with a square tower at the west end, from which proceeded a clanging as of a cracked basin battered with a spoon.
“we’re in good time,” said willy, drawing up with a flourish before the porch. “that’s the hurry-bell only begun now, so we’ve five minutes to spare. look, theo! there’s the clashmore carriage. did you ever see such brutes as those chestnuts?”
before, however, i had time to reply, uncle dominick hurried me into the church, and we took our places in opposite corners{79} of a singularly uncomfortable square pew. as we sat confronting each other in the half-empty church, we heard in the porch willy’s voice raised in agreeable converse. apparently his remarks were of a complimentary sort, for a girl’s voice rejoined, “oh, nonsense, willy!” with a laugh.
“disgraceful!” muttered my uncle, under his breath; and the next moment three ladies swept up the aisle, followed by willy, on whose face still beamed a slightly fatuous smile.
he immediately sat down beside me, and in a rapid whisper instructed me as to the more prominent members of the congregation.
“those are the o’neills”—indicating the ladies he had come in with. “connie’s the little fair one. and look! those are the jackson crolys! you’d better sit up and behave, as they’ll be watching you all{80} the time. i know they all want to see what you’re like!”
“hush! don’t talk!” i whispered back. “here’s the clergyman.”
the service was very long. the music, which consisted of the clergyman’s daughter accompanying herself on a harmonium, with casual vocal assistance from a couple of school-children, was of an unexhilarating kind. willy fidgeted, admired his boots, trimmed his nails, and tried to utilize every possible opening for conversation. uncle dominick, on the contrary, devoted his whole attention to the service, and answered all the responses with austere punctiliousness, even going so far as to try and track the clergyman’s daughter in her devious course through the hymns.
from the corner which had been allotted to me in my uncle’s pew i could not see the clergyman, and, though his voice re{81}sounded through the church, his very pronounced cork accent made it difficult for me to understand more than a word here and there in his discourse.
the high sides of the pew debarred me from even the solace of inspecting the congregation, and, in the absence of other occupation, i could not altogether conceal the interest that i felt in the remark which willy was laboriously spelling on his fingers for my edification. becoming conscious, however, that uncle dominick’s eye, while fixed upon the preacher, had included us in its observations, i transferred my attention to the mural tablets, which on either side of the church set forth the perfections of dead-and-gone o’neills and sarsfields.
having studied these for a few minutes with the mild sceptical interest usually excited by the tabulated virtues of the{82} unknown departed, i leaned back in my corner, and, in doing so, noticed a brass upon the wall slightly behind my uncle’s seat. my eye was immediately caught by my father’s name.
in memoriam.
theodore william sarsfield,
who departed this life
january 10, 185-.
and of
owen sarsfield,
son of the above,
who died suddenly in cork,
on his return from america,
january 9, 185-.
————
this monument is erected by their sorrowing son
and brother, dominick sarsfield, of durrus.
i glanced by a natural transition to my uncle, whose head all but intervened{83} between me and the brass. his expression of sombre melancholy harmonized well with the words “his sorrowing brother.”
i could guess what must have been his grief at the death of an only brother, from whom he had been perforce alienated. till then i had scarcely realized how closely linked their lives must once have been, and i resolved that his chilly manner should not deter me from some day inducing him to speak to me of my father.
as i made up my mind to this, the clergyman’s voice ceased, and the congregation rose at the end of the sermon. we walked out of church close behind the o’neills, and outside the porch madam o’neill stopped to shake hands with my uncle. then, turning to me—
“i need not ask to be introduced to you, my dear. i knew your poor father very well indeed in days gone by.” this was{84} said in a dry attenuated voice, but through the elaborate pattern of her maltese lace veil, her eyes looked kindly at me. she was small and refined looking, with little artificial airs and graces which told that she had been a beauty in her day; and what remained of a delicate complexion was carefully sheltered from the harmless light of the grey sky by a thick parasol.
uncle dominick’s impatience to get away only gave me time to say a word or two in answer to her salutation.
“come, theodora,” he said, with the smile that lifted his moustache and showed all his teeth. “we must not keep the horses waiting;” and bidding the madam and her two daughters, who had been standing behind her, good-bye, he led the way down to the gate.
willy was already on the box of the wagonnette, and was talking to a dark,{85} quiet-looking young man who was standing with one foot on the wheel.
“then you’ll see about having those earths stopped,” willy said, leaning over, and emphasizing what he was saying with the handle of the whip on his hearer’s shoulder. “oh, here they are! theo, let me introduce mr. o’neill. i was just telling him he must be sure and have a fox for you at clashmore this week.”
“i shall do my best,” said mr. o’neill, as he took off his hat; but he did not look particularly enthusiastic as he spoke.
we had no sooner driven off, than willy twisted round on the box to speak to me.
“well, what do you think of nugent?” he said rather eagerly.
“he is nice looking,” i replied critically; “but i do not like his expression. i cannot say he is what i should call either cheerful or agreeable looking.{86}”
“oh, he’s not half a bad chap,” said willy, with a leniency which was possibly the result of the pleasure with which young men listen to the depreciation of their fellows. “he’s jolly enough sometimes; but he can put on a bit of side when he likes, and i dare say he thinks he is thrown away down here. henrietta’s like him in that sort of way, but connie has no nonsense about her.”
i decided that connie’s was the laugh that i had heard in the porch before service, and thought that of the two i should be more likely to prefer henrietta.
ever since we had left church the sky had been darkening, and when we reached durrusmore harbour, the distant headlands were almost hidden in a white mist. the south-west wind blew it towards us from the sea, and by the time we got home a thick fine rain was coming steadily down.{87}
lunch, with uncle dominick at the head of the table, was a more serious business than breakfast had been, and old roche’s shuffling ministrations added to the general solemnity. i was, however, amused by the affectionate solicitude with which he nudged me in the elbow with the dish of potatoes, indicating with his thumb a specially floury one, and concluded that this was the singular method he took of showing that his regard for my father had extended itself to me.
when lunch was over willy announced his intention of walking to clashmore, to see about borrowing a side-saddle for me, he said—an act of self-sacrifice which i was not slow to attribute to the fascinations of miss connie o’neill. uncle dominick retired to a private den at the end of a dark passage leading from the hall to the back of the house; and a few minutes later,{88} willy, in a voluminous mackintosh, set forth on his errand, followed by the fox terriers in a state of amiable frenzy, the result of the abhorred sunday morning incarceration. i became aware that i was thrown upon my own resources, and, with the prospect of a wet afternoon before me, i felt my spirits sinking perceptibly.
to finish my letter to aunt jane was at least better than doing nothing. i took up a strong position in front of the library fire, and disconsolately applied myself to filling the big sheet of foreign paper on which i had embarked in the morning.
