Beth's great eyes settled upon him with sudden fixity.

"I suppose you never heard of the devil?" he proceeded.

"Oh yes, I have," was Beth's instant and unexpected rejoinder. "The devil is a bad road."

There was an explosion of laughter at this.

"But you said so, papa," Beth remonstrated indignantly.

"My dear child, I said just the reverse."

"What's the reverse?" said Beth, picturing another personality.

"There now, that will do," Mrs. Caldwell interposed. "Little bodies must be seen and not heard."

Mr. Macbean stroked Beth's head—"There is something in here, I expect," he observed.

"Not much, I'm afraid," Mrs. Caldwell answered. "We've hardly been able to teach her anything."

"Ah!" Mr. Macbean ejaculated, reflecting on the specimen he had heard of the method pursued. "You must let me see what I can do."



CHAPTER V

In a few days all the bustle of getting into the new house began. The furniture arrived in irregular batches. Some of it came and some of it did not come. When a box was opened there was nothing that was wanted in it, only things that did not go together, and mamma was worried, and papa was cross.

The workpeople were wild and ignorant, and only trustworthy as long as they were watched. They were unaccustomed to the most ordinary comforts of civilised life, particularly in the way of furniture. When the family arrived at the house one morning, they found Mrs. Caldwell's wardrobe, mahogany drawers, and other articles of bedroom furniture, set up in conspicuous positions in the sitting-room, and the carpenter was much ruffled when he was ordered to take them upstairs.

"Shure it's mad they are," he remonstrated to one of the servants, "to have sich foine things put in a bedroom where nobody'll see thim."

The men came up from the coastguard station to scrape the walls, and Ellis, the petty officer, used the bread-knife, and broke it, and papa bawled at him. Beth was sorry for Ellis.

The house was built of stone, and very damp. There was a great deal of space in it, but little accommodation. On the ground-floor were a huge hall, kitchen, pantry and sitting-room, all flagged. The sitting-room was the only one in the house, and had to be used as dining-room and drawing-room, but it was large enough for that and to spare. There was a big yard and a big garden too, and Riley was in the stable, and Biddy and Anne in the kitchen, and Kitty in the nursery. This increase of establishment, which meant so much to the parents, was accepted as a matter of course by the children.

Kitty told Riley and Biddy and Anne about what Beth had seen on Gallows Hill, and they often asked Beth what she saw when she used to sit looking at nothing. Then Beth would think things, and describe them, because it seemed to please the servants. They used to be very serious, and shake their heads and cross themselves, with muttered ejaculations, but all the time they liked it. This encouraged Beth, and she used to think and think of things to tell them.

Beth was exceedingly busy in her own way at this time. Her mind was being rapidly stored with impressions, and nothing escaped her.

The four children and Kitty were put all together in one great nursery, an arrangement of which Kitty, with the fastidious delicacy of a strict Catholic, did not at all approve.

"Indeed, m'em," she said, "I'm thinkin' Master Jim's too sharp to be in the nursery wid his sisters now."

"Nonsense, Kitty," Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed. "How can you be so evil-minded? Master Jim's only a child—a baby of ten!"

"Och, thin, me'm, it's an ould-fashioned baby he is," said Kitty; "and I'm thinkin' it's a bit of a screen or a curtain I'd like for dressin' behind if he's to be wid us."

"I have nothing of the kind to give you," Mrs. Caldwell rejoined. And afterwards she made merry with papa about Kitty's prudishness.

But Kitty was right as it happened. Jim had been left pretty much to his own devices during the time he had been alone with his father at Castletownrock. Captain Caldwell's theory was that boys would look after themselves, "and the sooner you let 'em the sooner you'd make men of 'em. Blood will tell, sir. Your gentleman's son is a match for any ragamuffin"—a theory which Jim justified in many a free fight; but, during the suspension of hostilities he hobnobbed with the ragamuffins, who took a terrible revenge, for by the time Mrs. Caldwell arrived Jim was thoroughly corrupted. Kitty took precautions, however. She arranged the nursery-life so that Master Jim did not associate with his sisters more than was absolutely necessary. She had him up in the morning, bathed, and sent off to school before she disturbed the little girls, and at night she never left the nursery until he was asleep. Out of her slender purse she bought some print, and fixed up a curtain for his sisters to dress behind, and all else that she had to do for the children was done decently and in order. She had almost entire charge of them, their mother being engrossed with her husband, whose health and spirits had already begun to suffer from overwork and exposure to the climate.

Kitty was teaching her charges dainty ways, mentally as well as physically. When she had washed them at night, she made them purge their little souls of all the sins of the day in prayer, and in the morning she taught them how to fortify themselves with good resolutions. Beth took naturally to the Catholic training, and solemnly dedicated herself to the Blessed Virgin; Mildred conformed, but without enthusiasm; the four-year-old baby Bernadine lisped little Aves; but Jim, in the words of Captain Keene, "the old buffalo," as their father called him, sneered at that sort of thing "as only fit for women."

"Men drink whisky," said Jim, puffing out his chest.

"True for ye," said Kitty; "but I've been told that them as drinks whisky here goes dry in the next world."

"Well, I shall drink whisky and kiss the girls all the same," said Jim. "And I wouldn't be a Catholic now, not to save me sowl. I owe the Catholics a grudge. They insulted me."

"How so?" asked Kitty.

"At the midnight Mass last Christmas. Father John got up, and ordered all heretics out of the sacred house of God, and Pat Fagan ses to me, 'Are ye a heretic?' and I ses, 'I am, Pat Fagan.' 'Thin out ye go,' ses he, and, but for that, I'd 'a' bin a Catholic; so see what you lose by insulting a gentleman."

"What's insulting?" Beth asked.

Jim slapped her face. "That's insulting," he explained.

Beth struck him back promptly, and a scuffle ensued.

"Oh, but it's little divils yez are, the lot of ye!" cried Kitty as she separated them.

During fits of nervous irritability Captain Caldwell had a habit of pacing about the house for hours at a time. One evening he happened to be walking up and down on the landing outside the nursery door, which was a little way open, and his attention was attracted by Beth's voice. She was reciting a Catholic hymn softly, but with great feeling, as if every word of it were a pleasure to her.

"What's the meaning of this?" he demanded, breaking in on her devotions. "What papistical abominations have you been teaching the child, Kitty?"

"Shure, sorr, it's jest a bit of a hymn," said Kitty bravely; but her heart sank, and the colour left her lips.

Captain Caldwell was furious.

"Caroline!" he called peremptorily, going to the head of the stairs, "Caroline, come up directly!"

Mrs. Caldwell fussed up in hot haste.

"Do you know," Captain Caldwell demanded, "that this woman is making idolaters of your children? I heard this child just now praying to the Virgin Mary! Do you hear?"

Mrs. Caldwell's pale face flushed with anger.

"How dare you do such a thing, you wicked woman?" she exclaimed. "I shall not keep you another day in the house. Pack up your things at once, and go the first thing in the morning."

"O mamma!" Beth cried, "you're not going to send Kitty away? Kitty, Kitty, you won't go and leave me?"

"There, you see!" Captain Caldwell exclaimed. "You see the influence she's got over the child already! That's the Jesuit all over!"

"An ignorant woman like you, who can hardly read and write, setting up to teach my children, indeed—how dare you?" Mrs. Caldwell stormed.

"Well, m'em, I am an ignorant woman that can hardly read and write," Kitty answered with dignity; "but I could tell you some things ye'll not find out in all yer books, and may be they'd surprise ye."

"Kitty, ye'll not go and leave me," Beth repeated passionately.

"Troth, an' I'd stay for your sake if I could," said Kitty, "fur it's a bad time I'm afraid ye'll be havin' once I'm gone."

"Do you hear that?" Captain Caldwell exclaimed. "Now you see what comes of getting people of this kind into the house. She's going to make out that the child is ill-treated."

"One of my children ill-treated!" Mrs. Caldwell cried scornfully. "Who would believe her?" Then turning to Beth: "If I ever hear you repeat a word that wicked woman has taught you, I'll beat you as long as I can stand over you."

Kitty looked straight into Mrs. Caldwell's face, and smiled sarcastically, but uttered not a word.

"How dare you stand there, grinning at me in that impertinent way, you low woman?" Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed with great exasperation. "I believe you are a Jesuit, sent here to corrupt my children. But go you shall to-morrow morning."

"Oh, I'll go, m'em," Kitty answered quietly. She knew the case was hopeless.

"There, now," said Mrs. Caldwell, turning to her husband. "Do you see? That shows you! She doesn't care a bit."

Beth was clinging to Kitty, but her mother seized her by the arm, and flung her half across the room, and was about to follow her, but Captain Caldwell interfered. "That will do," he said significantly. "It's no use venting your rage on the child. In future choose your nurses better."

"Then, in future, give me better advice when I consult you about them," Mrs. Caldwell retorted, following him out of the room.

Beth clung to Kitty the whole night long, and had to be torn from her in the morning, screaming and kicking. She stood in front of her mother, her eyes and cheeks ablaze:—

"I shall pray to the Blessed Virgin—I shall pray to the Blessed Virgin—every hour of my life," she gasped, "and you can't prevent me. Beat me as long as you can stand over me if you like, but I'll only pray the harder."

"For God's sake, m'em," Kitty cried, clasping her hands, "let that child alone. Shure she's a sweet lamb if you'd give her a chance. But ye put the divil into her wid yer shakin' an' yer batin', and mischief'll come of it sooner or later, mark my words."

When Kitty had gone, Mrs. Caldwell shut Beth up in the nursery with Baby Bernadine. Beth threw herself on the floor, and sobbed until she had exhausted her tears; then she gathered herself together, and sat on the floor with her hands clasped round her legs, her chin on her knees, looking up dreamily at the sky, through the nursery window. Her pathetic little face was all drawn and haggard and hopeless. But presently she began to sing—

"Ave Maria! Mother of the desolate! Guide of the unfortunate! Hear from thy starry home our prayer: If sorrow will await us, Tyrants vex and hate us, Teach us thine own most patient part to bear! Sancta Maria! When we are sighing, When we are dying, Give to us thine aid of prayer!"

As she sang, comfort came to her, and the little voice swelled in volume.

Baby Bernadine also sat on the floor, opposite to Beth, and gazed at her, much impressed. When she had finished singing, Beth became aware of her sister's reverent attention, and put out her tongue at her. Bernadine laughed. Then Beth crisped up her hands till they looked like claws, and began to make a variety of hideous faces. Bernadine thought it was a game and smiled at first, but finally she ceased to recognise her sister and shrieked aloud in terror. Beth heard her mother hurrying up, and got behind the door so that her mother could not see her as she opened it. Mrs. Caldwell hurried up to the baby—"The darling, then, what have they been doing to you?"—and Beth made her escape. As she crossed the hall, some one knocked at the front door. Beth opened it a crack. Captain Keene was outside. When she saw him, she recollected something she had heard about his religious opinions, and began to question him eagerly. His answers were apparently exciting, for presently she flung the door wide open to let him in, then ran to the foot of the stairs, and shouted at the top of her voice—

"Papa, papa, come down! come directly! Here's old Keene, the old Buffalo, and he says there is no God!"

Captain Caldwell descended the stairs hurriedly, but, on catching a glimpse of his countenance, Beth did not wait to receive him.

She had to pass through the kitchen to get into the yard. It was the busy time of the day, and Biddy and Anne and Riley, all without shoes or stockings, were playing football with a bladder.

Biddy tried to detain Beth.

"Arrah, bad luck to ye, Biddy," Beth cried, imitating the brogue. "Let me go, d'ye hear?"

"Holy Mother, preserve us!" Biddy exclaimed, crossing herself. "Don't ye ever be afther wishin' anybody bad luck, Miss Beth; shure ye'll bring it if ye do."

"Thin don't ye ever be afther stoppin' me when I want to be going, Biddy," Beth rejoined, stamping her foot, "or I'll blast ye," she added as she passed out into the sunlight.

Fowls and ducks and Jim's pet pigeons were the only creatures moving in the yard. Beth stood among them, watching them for a little, then went to the cornbin in the stable, and got some oats. There was a shallow tub of water for the birds to drink; Beth hunkered down beside it, and held out her hand, full of corn. The pigeons were very tame, and presently a beautiful blue-rock came up confidently, and began to eat. His eyes were a deep rich orange colour. Beth caught him, and stroked his glossy plumage, delighting in the exquisite metallic sheen on his neck and breast. The colour gave her an almost painful sensation of pleasure, which changed on a sudden into a fit of blind exasperation. Her grief for the loss of Kitty had gripped her again with a horrid twinge. She clenched her teeth in her pain, her fingers closed convulsively round the pigeon's throat, and she held him out at arm's length, and shook him viciously till the nictitating membrane dropped over his eyes, his head sank back, his bill opened, and he hung from her hand, an inert heap of ruffled feathers. Then the tension of her nerves relaxed; it was a relief to have crushed the life out of something. She let the bird drop, and stood looking at him, as an animal might have looked, with an impassive face which betrays no shade of emotion. As she did so, however, the bird showed signs of life; and, suddenly, quickening into interest, she stooped down, turned him over, and examined him; then sprinkled him with water, and made him drink. He rapidly revived, and when he was able to stand, she let him go; and he was soon feeding among his companions as if nothing had happened.

Beth watched them for a little with the same animal-like expressionless gravity of countenance, then moved off unconcernedly.

She never mentioned the incident to any one, and never forgot it; but her only feeling about it was that the pigeon had had a narrow escape.



CHAPTER VI

Beth was a fine instrument, sensitive to a touch, and, considering the way she was handled, it would have been a wonder if discordant effects had not been constantly produced upon her. Hers was a nature with a wide range. It is probable that every conceivable impulse was latent in her, every possibility of good or evil. Exactly which would predominate depended upon the influences of these early years; and almost all the influences she came under were haphazard. There was no intelligent direction of her thoughts, no systematic training to form good habits. Her brothers were sent to school as soon as they were old enough, and so had the advantage of regular routine and strict discipline from the first; but a couple of hours a day for lessons was considered enough for the little girls; and, for the rest of the time, so long as they were on the premises and not naughty, that is to say, gave no trouble, it was taken for granted that they were safe, morally and physically. Neither of their parents seem to have suspected their extreme precocity; and there is no doubt that Beth suffered seriously in after life from the mistakes of those in authority over her at this period. People admired her bright eyes without realising that she could see with them, and not only that she could see, but that she could not help seeing. But even if they had realised it, they would merely have scolded her for learning anything in that way which they preferred that she should not know. They were not sufficiently intelligent themselves to perceive that it is not what we know of things, but what we think of them, which makes for good or evil. Beth was accordingly allowed to run wild, and expected to see nothing; but all the time her mind was being involuntarily stored with observations from which, in time to come, for want of instruction, she would be forced to draw her own—often erroneous—conclusions.

Kitty's departure was Beth's first great grief, and she suffered terribly. The prop and stay of her little life had gone, the comfort and kindness, the order and discipline, which were essential to her nature. Mrs. Caldwell was a good woman, who would certainly do what she thought best for her children; but she was exhausted by the unconscionable production of a too numerous family, a family which she had neither the means nor the strength to bring up properly. Her husband's health, too, grew ever more precarious, and she found herself obliged to do all in her power to help him with his duties, which were arduous. There was a good deal that she could do in the way of writing official letters and managing money-matters, tasks for which she was much better fitted than for the management of children; but the children, meanwhile, had to be left to the care of others—not that that would have been a bad thing for them had their mother had sufficient discrimination to enable her to choose the proper kind of people to be with them. Unfortunately for everybody, however, Mrs. Caldwell had been brought up on the old-fashioned principle that absolute ignorance of human nature is the best qualification for a wife and mother, and she was consequently quite unprepared for any possibility which had not formed part of her own simple and limited personal experience. She never suspected, for one thing, that a servant's conversation could be undesirable if her appearance and her character from her last mistress were satisfactory; and, therefore, when Kitty had gone, she put Anne in her place without misgiving, Anne's principal recommendation being that she was a nice-looking girl, and had pretty deferential manners.

Anne came from one of the cabins on the Irish side of the road, where people, pigs, poultry, with an occasional cow, goat, or donkey herded together indiscriminately. The windows were about a foot square, and were not made to open. Sometimes they had glass in them, but were oftener stopped up with rags. Before the doors were heaps of manure and pools of stagnant water. There was no regular footway, but a mere beaten track in front of the cabins, and this, on wet days, was ankle-deep in mud. The women hung about the doors all day long, knitting the men's blue stockings, and did little else apparently. Both men and women were usually in a torpid state, the result, doubtless, of breathing a poisoned atmosphere, and of insufficient food. It took strong stimulants to rouse them: love, hate, jealousy, whisky, battle, murder, and sudden death. Their conversation was gross, and they were very immoral; but it is hardly necessary to say so, for with men, women, children, and animals all crowded together in such surroundings, and the morbid craving for excitement to which people who have no comfort or wholesome interest in life fall a prey, immorality is inevitable. It was the boast of the place that there were no illegitimate children; it would have been a better sign if there had been.

Mrs. Caldwell, true to her training, lived opposite to all this vice and squalor, serenely indifferent to it. Anne, therefore, who knew nothing about the management of children, and was not in any respect a proper person to have the charge of them, had it all her own way in the nursery: and her way was to do nothing that she could help. She used to call the children in the morning, and then leave them to their own devices. The moment they were awake, which was pretty soon, for they were full of life, they began to batter each other with pillows, dance about the room in their night-dresses, pitch tents with the bed-clothes on the floor, and make noise enough to bring their mother down upon them. Then Anne would be summoned and come hurrying up, and help them to huddle on their clothes somehow. She never washed them, but encouraged them to perform their own ablutions, which they did with the end of a towel dipped in a jug. The consequence was they were generally in a very dirty state. They took their meals with their parents, and papa would notice the dirt eventually, and storm at mamma in Italian, when words would ensue in a tone which made the children quake. Then mamma would storm at Anne, for whom the children felt sorry, and the result would be a bath, which they bore with fortitude, for fear of getting Anne into further trouble. They even made good resolutions about washing themselves, which they kept for a few days; then, however, they began to shirk again, and had again to be scrubbed. The resolutions of a child must be shored up by kindly supervision, otherwise it is hardly likely that they will cement into good habits.

Beth suffered from a continual sense of discomfort in those days for want of proper attention. All her clothing fitted badly, and were fastened on with anything that came to hand in the way of tape and buttons; her hair was ill brushed, and she was so continually found fault with that her sense of self-respect was checked in its development, and she lost all faith in her own power to do anything right or well. The consequence was the most profound disheartenment, endured in silence, with the exquisite uncomplaining fortitude of a little child. It made its mark on her countenance, however, in a settled expression of discontent, which, being mistaken for a bad disposition, repelled people, and made her many enemies. People generally said that Mildred was a dear, but Beth did not look pleasant; and for many a long day to come, very few troubled themselves to try and make her look so.

It cannot be said that Beth's parents neglected their children. On the contrary, her father thought much of their education, and of their future; it was the all-importance of the present that did not strike him, and so with her mother. Neither parent was careless, but their care stopped short too soon; and it is astonishing the amount of liberty the children had. They were sent out of doors as soon as they were dressed in the morning, because sunshine and air are so essential to children. If they went for a walk, Anne accompanied them; but very often Anne was wanted, and then the children were left to loiter about the garden or stable-yard, where, doubtless with the help of reasoning powers much in advance of her age, Beth had soon heard and seen enough to make her feel a certain contempt for her father's veracity when he told her that she had originally been brought to the house in the doctor's black bag.

After Kitty's departure Beth had many a lonely hour, and the time hung heavy on her hands. Mildred, her senior by four years, was of a simpler disposition, and always able to amuse herself, playing with the Baby Bernadine, or with toys which were no distraction to Beth. Mildred, besides, was fond of reading; but books to be deciphered remained a wonder and a mystery to Beth.

Jim went to the national school, the only one in the place, with all the other little boys. The master was a young curate who gave Mildred and Beth their lessons also, when school-hours were over. Beth used to yearn for lesson-time, just for the sake of being obliged to do something; but lessons were disappointing, for the curate devoted himself to Mildred, who was docile and studious, and took no special pains to interest Beth, and consequently she soon wearied of the dull restraint, and became troublesome. Sometimes she was boisterous, and then the tutor had to spend half his time in chasing her to rescue his hat, a book, an ink-bottle, or some other article which she threatened to destroy; and, sometimes she was so depressed that he had to give up trying to teach her, and just do his best to distract her. In her eighth year she was able to follow the church-service in the prayer-book, and make out the hymns, but that was all.

Sunday-school was held in the church, and was attended by all the unmarried parishioners. Mildred taught some of the tiny mites, and Beth was put into her class at first; but Beth had no respect for Mildred, and had consequently to be removed. She was expected to learn the collect for the day and the verse of a hymn every Sunday, but never by any chance knew either. No one ever thought of reading the thing over to her, and fixing her attention on it by some little explanation; and learning by heart from a book did not come naturally to her. She learned by ear easily enough, but not by sight. The hymns and prayers which Kitty had repeated to her, she very soon picked up; but Kitty had true sympathetic insight to inform her of what the child required, and all her little lessons were proper to some occasion, and had comfort in them. What Beth learned now, on the contrary, often filled her with gloom. Some of the hymns, such as,

"When gathering clouds around I view, And days are dark, and friends are few,"

made her especially miserable. It was always a dark day to her when she repeated it, with heavy clouds collecting overhead, and herself, a solitary little speck on the mountain side wandering alone.



CHAPTER VII

It is significant to note that church figures largely in Beth's recollection of this time, but religion not at all. There was, in fact, no connection between the two in her mind.

Both Captain and Mrs. Caldwell protested strongly against what they called cant; and they seemed to have called everything cant except an occasional cold reading aloud of the Bible on Sundays, and the bald observance of the church service. The Bible they read aloud to the children without expounding it, and the services they attended without comment. Displays of religious emotion in everyday life they regarded as symptoms of insanity; and if they heard people discuss religion with enthusiasm, and profess to love the Lord, they were genuinely shocked. All that kind of thing they thought "such cant," "and so like those horrid dissenters;" which made them extra careful that the children should hear nothing of the sort. This, from their point of view, was right and wise; in Beth's case especially; for her unsatisfied soul was of the quality which soon yearns for the fine fulness of faith; her little heart would have filled to bursting with her first glad conception of the love divine, and her whole being would have stirred to speak her emotion, even though speech meant martyrdom. Thanks to the precautions of her parents, however, she heard nothing to stimulate her natural tendency to religious fervour after Kitty's departure; and gradually the image of our Blessed Lady faded from her mind, and was succeeded by that of the God of her parents, a death-dealing deity, delighting in blood, whom she was warned to fear, and from whom she did accordingly shrink with such holy horror that, when she went to church, she tried to think of anything but Him. This was how it happened that church, instead of being the threshold of the next world to her mind, became the centre of this, where she made many interesting observations of men and manners; for in spite of her backwardness in the schoolroom, Beth's intellect advanced with a bound at this period. She had left her native place an infant, on whose mind some chance impressions had been made and lingered; she arrived at Castletownrock with the power to observe for herself, and even to reflect upon what she saw—of course to a certain extent only; but still the power had come, and was far in advance of her years. So far, it was circumstances that had impressed her; she knew one person from another, but that was all. Now, however, she began to be interested in people for themselves, apart from any incident in which they figured; and most of her time was spent in a curiously close, but quite involuntary study of those about her, and of their relations to each other.

Church was often a sore penance to the children, it was so long, and cold, and dull; but they set off on Sunday happy in the consciousness of their best hats and jackets, nevertheless; and the first part of the time was not so bad, for then they had Sunday-school, and the three Misses Keene—Mary, Sophia, and Lenore—and the two Misses Mayne, Honor and Kathleen, and Mr. and Mrs. Small, the Vicar and his wife, and the curate, were all there talking and teaching. Beth remembered nothing about the teaching except that, on one occasion, Mr. Macbean, the rector, tried to explain the meaning of the trefoil on the ends of the pews to Mildred and herself; but she could think of nothing but the way his beard wagged as he spoke, and was disconcerted when he questioned her. He had promised to be a friend to Beth; but he was a delicate man, and not able to live much at Castletownrock, where the climate was rigorous; so that she seldom saw him.

When Sunday-school was over, the children went up to the gallery; their pew and the Keenes', roomy boxes, took up the whole front of it. Mrs. Caldwell always sat up in the gallery with the children, but Captain Caldwell often sat downstairs in the rectory-pew to be near the fire; when he sat in the gallery he wore a little black cap to keep off the draught. He and Mr. O'Halloran the Squire, and Captain Keene, stood and talked in the aisle sometimes before the service commenced. One Sunday they kept looking up at the children in the gallery.

"I'll bet Mildred will be the handsomest woman," Mr. O'Halloran was saying.

"I'll back Beth," Captain Keene observed. "If all the men in the place are not after her soon, I'm no judge of her sex, eh?"

"Oh, don't look at me!" said Captain Caldwell complacently. "I can't pretend to say. But let's hope that they'll go off well, at all events. They'll have every chance I can give them of making good matches."

Beth heard her father repeat this conversation to her mother afterwards, but was too busy wondering what a handsome woman was to understand that it was her own charms which had been appraised; but Mildred understood, and was elated.

Mr. O'Halloran, the squire, had a red beard, which was an offence to Beth. His wife wore bonnets about which everybody used to make remarks to Mrs. Caldwell. Beth understood that Mrs. O'Halloran was young and pretty, and had three charming children, but was not happy because of Sophia Keene.

"Just fancy," she heard Mrs. Small, the Vicar's wife, say to her mother once. "Just fancy, he was in a carriage with them at the races, and stayed with Sophia the whole time; and poor Mrs. O'Halloran left at home alone. I call it scandalous. But you know what Sophia is!" Mrs. Small concluded significantly.

Mrs. Caldwell drew herself up, and looked at Mrs. Small, but said nothing; yet somehow Beth knew that she too was unhappy because of Sophia Keene. Beth was not on familiar terms with her mother, and would not have dared to embrace her spontaneously, or make any other demonstration of affection; but she was loyally devoted to her all the same, and would gladly have stabbed Sophia Keene, and have done battle with the whole of the rest of the family on her mother's behalf had occasion offered.

She was curled up among the fuchsias on the window-seat of the sitting-room one day, unobserved by her parents, who entered the room together after she had settled herself there, and began to discuss the Keenes.

"You did not tell me, Henry, you spent all your time with them before we came," Mrs. Caldwell said reproachfully.

"Why should I?" he answered, with a jaunty affectation of ease.

"It is not why you should," his wife said with studied gentleness, "but why you should not. It seems so strange, making a mystery of it."

"I described old Keene to you—the old buffalo!" he replied; "and I'll describe the girls now if you like. Mary is a gawk, Sophia is as yellow as a duck's foot, and Lenore is half-witted."

The Keenes were ignorant, idle, good-tempered young women, and kind to the children, whom they often took to bathe with them. They were seldom able to go into the sea itself, for it was a wild, tempestuous coast; but there were lovely clear pools on the rocky shore, natural stone baths left full of water when the tide went out, sheltered from the wind by tall, dark, precipitous cliffs, and warmed by the sun; and there they used to dabble by the hour together. Anne went with them, and it was a pretty sight, the four young women in white chemises that clung to them when wet, and the three lovely children—little white nudities with bright brown hair—scampering over the rocks, splashing each other in the pools, or lying about on warm sunny slabs, resting and chattering. One day Beth found some queer things in a pool, and Sophia told her they were barnacles.

"They stick to the bottom of a ship," she said, "and grow heavier and heavier till at last the ship can make no more way, and comes to a standstill in a shining sea, where the water is as smooth as a mirror; you would think it was a mirror, in fact, if it did not heave gently up and down like your breast when you breathe; and every time it heaves it flushes some colour, blue, or green, or pink, or purple. And the barnacles swell and swell at the bottom of the ship, till at last they burst in two with a loud report; and then the sailors rush to the side of the ship and look over, and there they see a flock of beautiful big white geese coming up out of the water; and sometimes they shoot the geese, but if they do a great storm comes on and engulfs the ship, and they are all drowned; but sometimes they stand stockstill, amazed, and then the birds rise up out of the air on their great white wings, up, up, drifting along, together, till they look like the clouds over there. Then a gentle breeze springs up, and the ship sails away safely into port."

"And where do the geese go?" Beth demanded, with breathless interest.

"They make for the shore too, and in the dead of winter, on stormy nights, they fly over the land, uttering strange cries, and if you wake and hear them, it means somebody is going to die."

Beth's eyes were staring far out beyond the great green Atlantic rollers that came bursting in round the sheltering headland, white-crested with foam, flying up the beach with a crash, and scattering showers of spray that sparkled in the sunshine. She could see the ships and the barnacles, and the silent sea, heaving great sighs and flushing with fine colour in the act; and the geese, and the sailors peering over the side and shooting at them and sinking immediately in a storm, but also sailing into a safe haven triumphantly, where the sun shone on white houses, although, at the same time, it was dark night, and overhead there were strange cries that made her cower—"Beth!" cried Sophia, "what's the matter with you, child?"

Beth returned with a start, and stared at her—"I know who it will be," she said.

"Who what'll be, Miss Beth?" Anne asked in awe.

"Who'll die," said Beth.

"You mustn't say, Beth; you'll bring bad luck if you do," Miss Keene interposed hastily.

"I'm not going to say," Beth answered dreamily; "but I know."

"You shouldn't have told the child that story, miss," Anne said. "Shure, ye know what she is—she sees." Anne nodded her head several times significantly.

"I forgot," said Sophia.

"She'll forget too," said Mary philosophically. "I say, Beth," she went on, raising herself on her elbow—she was lying prone on a slab of rock in the sun—"what does your mother think of us?"

Beth roused herself. "I don't know," she answered earnestly; "she never says. But I know what papa thinks of you. He says Mary's a gawk, Sophia is as yellow as a duck's foot, and Lenore is only half-witted."

The effect of this announcement astonished Beth. The Misses Keene, instead of being interested, all looked at her as if they did not like her, and Anne burst out laughing. When they got in, Anne told Mrs. Caldwell, who flushed suddenly, and covered her mouth with her handkerchief.

"Yes, mamma," Mildred exclaimed with importance, "Beth did say so. And Mary tossed her head, and Sophia sneered."

"What is sneered?" Beth demanded importunately. "What is sneered?"

"O Beth! don't bother so," Mildred exclaimed irritably. "It's when you curl up your lip."

"Beth, how could you be so naughty?" Mrs. Caldwell said at last from behind her handkerchief. "Don't you know you should never repeat things you hear said? A lady never repeats a private conversation."

"What's a private conversation?" said Beth.

Mrs. Caldwell gave her a broad definition, during which she lowered her handkerchief, and Beth discovered that she was trying not to smile.

This was Beth's first lesson in honour, which was her mother's god, and she felt the influence of it all her life.

Later in the day, Beth was curled up on the window-seat among the fuchsias, looking out. Behind the thatched cabins opposite, the sombre mountains rolled up, dark and distinct, to the sky; but Beth would not look at them if she could help it, they oppressed her. It was a close afternoon, and the window was wide open. A bare-legged woman, in a short petticoat, stood in an indolent attitude leaning against a door-post opposite; a young man in low shoes, light blue stockings, buff knee-breeches, a blue-tailed coat with brass buttons, and a soft high-crowned felt hat, came strolling up the street with his hands in his pockets.

"Hallo, Biddy," he remarked, as he passed the woman, "you're all swelled."

"Yes," she answered tranquilly, "I've been drinking buttermilk."

"Well, let's hope it'll be a boy," he rejoined.

The woman looked up and down the street complacently.

Presently Beth saw Honor and Kathleen Mayne come out of the inn. The Maynes used to pet the children and play the piano to them when they were at the inn, and had been very good to Jim also when he was there alone with his father before the family arrived. Their manners were gentle and caressing, and they did their best to win their way into Mrs. Caldwell's good graces, but at first she coldly repulsed them, which hurt Beth very much. The Maynes, however, did not at all understand that they were being repulsed. A kindly feeling existed among all classes in those remote Irish villages. The squire's family, the doctor's, clergyman's, draper's, and innkeeper's visited each other, and shook hands when they met. There was no feeling of condescension on the one hand, or of pretension on the other; but Mrs. Caldwell had the strong class prejudice which makes such stupid snobs of the English. It was not what people were, but who they were, that was all important to her; and she would have bowed down cheerfully, as whole neighbourhoods do, and felt exhilarated by the notice of some stupid county magnate, who had not heart enough to be loved, head enough to distinguish himself, or soul enough to get him into heaven. She was a lady, and Mayne was an innkeeper. His daughters might amuse the children, but as to associating with Mrs. Caldwell, that was absurd!

The girls were not to be rebuffed, however. They persevered in their kindly attentions, making excuses to each other for Mrs. Caldwell's manner; explaining her coldness by the fact that she was English, and flattering her, until finally they won their way into her good graces, and so effectually too, that when they brought a young magpie in a basket for Beth one day, her mother graciously allowed her to accept it.

Beth liked the Maynes, but now as they came up the road she slid from the window-seat. She knew they would stop and talk if she waited, and she did not want to talk. She was thinking about something, and it irritated her to be interrupted. So she tore across the hall and through the kitchen out into the yard, impelled by an imperative desire to be alone.

The magpie was the first pet of her own she had ever had, and she loved it. At night it was chained to a perch stuck in the wall of the stable-yard. On the other side of that wall was the yard of Murphy the farrier. The magpie soon became tame enough to be let loose by day, and Beth always went to release it the first thing in the morning and give it its breakfast. It came hopping to meet her now, and followed her into the garden. The garden was entered by an archway under the outbuildings, which divided it from the stable-yard. It was very long, but narrow for its length. On the right was a high wall, but on the left was a low one—at least one half of it was low—and Beth could look over it into the farrier's garden next door. The other half had been raised by Captain Caldwell on the understanding that if he raised one half the farrier would raise the other, but the farrier had proved perfidious. The wall was built without mortar, of rough, uncut stones. Captain Caldwell had his half neatly finished off at the top with sods, but Murphy's piece was still all broken down. The children used to climb up by it on to the raised half, and dance there at the risk of life and limb, and jeer at Murphy as he dug his potatoes, calling his attention to the difference between the Irish and English half of the wall, till he lost his temper and pelted them. This was the signal for a battle. The children returned his potatoes with stones by way of interest, and hit him as often as he hit them. (Needless to say, their parents were not in the garden at the time.) They had a great contempt for the farrier because he fought them, and he used to go about the village complaining of them and their "tratement" of him, "the little divils, spoilin' the pace of the whole neighbourhood."

There was a high wall at the end of the garden, and Beth liked to sit on the top of it. She went there now, picked up her magpie, and climbed up with difficulty by way of Pat Murphy's broken bit. Immediately below her was a muddy lane, beyond which the land sloped down to the sea, and as she sat there, the sound of the waves, that dreamy, soft murmur for which we have no word, filled the interstices of her consciousness with something that satisfied.

She was not left long in peace to enjoy it that afternoon, however, for the farrier was at work in his garden below, and presently he looked up and saw the magpie.

"There ye are agin, Miss Beth, wi' yer baste of a burrd; bad luck to it!" he exclaimed, crossing himself. "Shure, don't I tell ye ivery day uf your life it's wan fur sorrow."

"Bad luck to yerself, Pat Murphy," Beth rejoined promptly. "It's a foine cheek ye have to be spakin' to a gentleman's daughter, an' you not a man uv yer wurrd."

"Not a man o' me wurrd! what d'ye mane?" said Murphy, firing.

"Look at that wall," Beth answered; "didn't ye promise ye'd build it?"

"An' so I will when yer father gives me the stones he promised me," Murphy replied. "It's a moighty foine mon uv his wurrd he is."

"Is it my father yer maning, Pat Murphy?" Beth asked.

"It is," he said, sticking his spade in the ground emphatically.

"Ye know yer lying," said Beth. "My father promised you no stones. He's not a fool."

"I niver met a knave that was," Pat observed, turning over a huge spadeful of earth, and then straightening himself to look up at her.

Beth's instinct was always to fight when she was in a rage; words break no bones, and she preferred to break bones at such times. It was some seconds before she saw the full force of Pat's taunt, but the moment she did, she seized the largest loose stone within reach on the top of the wall, and shied it at him. It struck him full in the face, and cut his cheek open.

"That'll teach ye," said Beth, blazing.

The man turned on her with a very ugly look.

"Put yer spade down," she said. "I'm not afraid of you."

"Miss Beth! Miss Beth!" some one called from the end of the garden.

Murphy stuck his spade in the ground, and wiped his jaw. "Ye'll pay for this, ye divil's limb," he muttered, "yew an' yours."

"Miss Beth! Miss Beth!"

"I'm coming!" Beth rejoined irritably, and slid from the wall to the ground regardless of the rough loose stones she scattered in her descent. "Ye'll foind me ready to pay when ye send in yer bill, Pat," she called out as she ran down the garden.

The children were to have tea at the vicarage that day, and Anne had been sent to fetch her.

In the drawing-room at the vicarage there was a big bay-window which looked out across a desolate stretch of bog to a wild headland, against which the waves beat tempestuously in almost all weathers. The headland itself was high, but the giant breakers often dashed up far above it, and fell in showers of spray on the grass at the top. There was a telescope in the window at the vicarage, and people used to come to see the sight, and went into raptures over it. Beth, standing out of the way, unnoticed, would gaze too, fascinated; but it was the attraction of repulsion. The cruel force of the great waves agitated her, and at the same time made her unutterably sad. Her heart beat painfully when she watched them, her breath became laboured, and it was only with an effort that she could keep back her sobs. It was not fear that oppressed her, but a horrible sort of excitement, which so gained upon her on that afternoon in particular that she felt she must shriek aloud, or make her escape. If she showed any emotion she would be laughed at, if she made her escape she would probably be whipped; she preferred to be whipped; so, watching her opportunity, she quietly slipped away.

At home the window of the sitting-room was still wide open, and as she ran down the street she noticed some country people peeping in curiously, and apparently astonished by the luxury they beheld. Beth, who was picking up Irish rapidly, understood some exclamations she overheard as she approached, and felt flattered for the furniture.

She ran up the steps and opened the front door: "Good day to ye all," she said sociably; "will ye not come in and have a look round? now do!"

She led the way as she spoke, and the country people followed her, all agape. In the hall they paused to wonder at the cocoanut matting; but when they stood on the soft pile carpet, so grateful to their bare feet, in the sitting-room, and looked round, they lowered their voices respectfully, and this gave Beth a sudden sensation of superiority. She began to show them the things: the pictures on the walls, the subjects of which she explained to them; the egg-shell china, which she held up to the light that they might see how thin it was; and some Eastern and Western curios her father had brought home from various voyages. She told them of tropical heat and Canadian cold, and began to be elated herself when she found all that she had ever heard on the subject flowing fluently from her lips.

The front door had been left open, and the passers-by looked in to see what was going on, and then entered uninvited. Neighbours, too, came over from the Irish side of the road, so that the room gradually filled, and as her audience increased, Beth grew excited and talked away eloquently.

"Lord," one man exclaimed with a sigh, on looking round the room, "it's aisy to see why the likes of these looks down on the likes of us."

"Eh, dear, yes!" a woman with a petticoat over her head solemnly responded.

"The durrty heretics," a slouching fellow, with a flat white face, muttered under his breath. "But if they benefit here, they'll burn hereafter, holy Jasus be praised."

"Will they?" said Beth, turning on him. "Will they burrn hereafter, Bap-faced Flanagan? No, they won't! They'll hunt ye out of heaven as they hunted ye out o' Maclone.

"Oh, the Orange militia walked into Maclone, And hunted the Catholics out of the town. Ri' turen nuren nuren naddio, Right tur nuren nee."

She sang it out at the top of her shrill little voice, executing a war-dance of defiance to the tune, and concluding with an elaborate curtsey.

As she recovered herself, she became aware of her father standing in the doorway. His lips were white, and there was a queer look in his face.

"Oh! So this is your party, is it, Miss Beth?" he said. "You ask your friends in, and then you insult them, I see."

Beth was still effervescing. She put her hands behind her back and answered boldly—

"'Deed, thin, he insulted me, papa. It was Bap-faced Flanagan. He said we were durrty heretics, and—and—I'll not stand that! It's a free country!"

Captain Caldwell looked round, and the people melted from the room under his eye. Then Anne appeared from somewhere.

"Anne, do you teach the children party-songs?" he demanded.

"Shure, they don't need taching, yer honour," said Anne, disconcerted. "Miss Beth knows 'em all, and she shouts 'em at the top of her voice down the street till the men shake their fists at her."

"Why do you do that, Beth?" her father demanded.

"I like to feel," Beth began, gasping out each word with a mighty effort to express herself—"I like to feel—that I can make them shake their fists."

Her father looked at her again very queerly.

"Will I take her to the nursery, sir?" Anne asked.

Beth turned on her impatiently, and said something in Irish which made Anne grin. Beth did not understand her father in this mood, and she wanted to see more of him.

"What's that she's saying to you, Anne?" he asked.

"Oh—sure, she's just blessin' me, yer honour," Anne answered unabashed.

"I believe you!" Captain Caldwell said dryly, as he stretched himself on the sofa. "Go and fetch a hair-brush."

While Anne was out of the room he turned to Beth. "I'll give you a penny," he said, "if you'll tell me what you said to Anne."

"I'll tell you for nothing," Beth answered. "I said, 'Yer soul to the devil for an interfering hussy.'"

Captain Caldwell burst out laughing, and laughed till Anne returned with the brush. "Now, brush my hair," he said to Beth; and Beth went and stood beside the sofa, and brushed, and brushed, now with one hand, and now with the other, till she ached all over with the effort. Her father suffered from atrocious headaches, and this was the one thing that relieved him.

"There, that's punishment enough for to-day," he said at last.

Beth retired to the foot of the couch, and leant there, looking at him solemnly, with the hair-brush still in her hand. "That's no punishment," she observed.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean I like it," she said. "I'd brush till I dropped if it did you any good."

Captain Caldwell looked up at her, and it was as if he had seen the child for the first time.

"Beth," he said, after a while, "would you like to come out with me on the car to-morrow?"

"'Deed, then, I would, papa," Beth answered eagerly.

Then there was a pause, during which Beth rubbed her back against the end of the couch thoughtfully, and looked at the wall opposite as if she could see through it. Her father watched her for a little time with a frown upon his forehead from the pain in his head.

"What are you thinking of, Beth?" he said at last.

"I've got to be whipped to-night," she answered drearily; "and I wish I hadn't. I do get so tired of being whipped and shaken."

Her little face looked pinched and pathetic as she spoke, and for the first time her father had a suspicion of what punishment was to this child—a thing as inevitable as disease, a continually recurring torture, but quite without effect upon her conduct—and his heart contracted with a qualm of pity.

"What are you going to be whipped for now?" he asked.

"We went to tea at the vicarage, and I ran away home."

"Why?"

"Because of the great green waves. They rush up the rocks—wish—st—st!" (she took a step forward, and threw up her little arms in illustration)—"then fall, and roll back, and gather, and come rushing on again; and I feel every time—every time—that they are coming right at me!"—she clutched her throat as if she were suffocating; "and if I had stayed I should have shrieked, and then I should have been whipped. So I came away."

"But you expect to be whipped for coming away?"

"Yes. But you see I don't have the waves as well. And mamma won't say I was afraid."

"Were you afraid, Beth?" her father asked.

"No!" Beth retorted, stamping her foot indignantly. "If the waves did come at me, I could stand it. It's the coming—coming—coming—I can't bear. It makes me ache here." She clutched at her throat and chest again.

Captain Caldwell closed his eyes. He felt that he was beginning to make this child's acquaintance, and wished he had tried to cultivate it sooner.

"You shall not be whipped to-night, Beth," he said presently, looking at her with a kindly smile.

Instantly an answering smile gleamed on the child's face, transfiguring her; and, by the light of it, her father realised how seldom he had seen her smile.

Unfortunately for Beth, however, while her countenance was still irradiated, her mother swooped down upon her. Mrs. Caldwell had come hurrying home in a rage in search of Beth; and now, mistaking that smile for a sign of defiance, she seized upon her, and had beaten her severely before it was possible to interfere. Beth, dazed by this sudden onslaught, staggered when she let her go, and stretched out her little hands as if groping for some support.

"It wasn't your fault!—it wasn't your fault!" she gasped, her first instinct being to exonerate her father.

Captain Caldwell had started up and caught his wife by the arm.

"That's enough," he said harshly. "You are going altogether the wrong way to work with the child. Let this be the last time, do you understand? Beth, go to the nursery, and ask Anne to get you some tea." A sharp pain shot through his head. He had jumped up too quickly, and now fell back on the sofa with a groan.

"Oh, let me brush it again," Beth cried, in an agony of sympathy.

Her father opened his haggard eyes and smiled.

"Go to the nursery, like a good child," he said, "and get some tea."

Beth went without another word. But all that evening her mind was with her parents in the sitting-room, wondering—wondering what they were saying to each other.



CHAPTER VIII

Next day Beth jumped out of bed early, and washed herself all over, in an excess of grateful zeal, because she was to be taken out on the car. As soon as she had had her breakfast, she ran into the yard to feed her magpie. Its perch was in a comfortable corner sheltered by the great turf-stack which had been built up against the wall that divided the Caldwells' yard from that of Pat Murphy, the farrier. Beth, in wild spirits, ran round the stack, calling "Mag, Mag!" as she went. But Mag, alas! was never more to respond to her call. He was hanging by the leg from his perch, head downward, wings outstretched, and glossy feathers ruffled; and below him, on the ground, some stones were scattered which told the tale of cruelty and petty spite.

Beth stood for a moment transfixed; but in that moment the whole thing became clear to her—the way in which the deed was done, the man that did it, and his motive. She glanced up to the top of the high wall, and then, breathing thick through her clenched teeth, in her rage she climbed up the turf-stack with the agility of a cat, and looked over into the farrier's yard.

"Come out of that, Pat Murphy, ye black-hearted, murthering villain," she shrieked. "I see ye skulking there behind the stable-door. Come out, I tell ye, and bad luck to you for killing my bird."

"Is it me, miss?" Pat Murphy exclaimed, appearing with an injured and innocent look on his face. "Me kill yer burrd! Shure, thin, ye never thought such a thing uv me!"

"Didn't I, thin! and I think it still," Beth cried. "Say, 'May I never see heaven if I kilt it'—or I'll curse ye."

"Ah, thin, it isn't such bad language ye'd hev me be using, and you a young lady, Miss Beth," said Pat in a wheedling tone.

"'Deed, thin, it is, Pat Murphy; but I know ye daresn't say it," said Beth. "Oh, bad luck to ye! bad luck to ye every day ye see a wooden milestone, and twice every day ye don't. And if ye killed my bird, may the devil attend ye, to rob ye of what ye like best wherever ye are."

She slid down the stack when she had spoken, and found her father standing at the bottom, looking at the dead bird with a heavy frown on his dark face. He must have heard Beth's altercation with Murphy, but he made no remark until Mrs. Caldwell came out, when he said something in Italian, to which she responded, "The cowardly brute!"

Beth took her bird, and buried it deep in her little garden, by which time the car was ready. She had not shed a tear, nor did she ever mention the incident afterwards; which was characteristic, for she was always shy of showing any feeling but anger.

Captain Caldwell had a wild horse called Artless, which few men would have cared to ride, and fewer still have driven. People wondered that he took his children out on the car behind such an animal, and perhaps he would not have done so if he had had his own way, but Mrs. Caldwell insisted on it.

"They've no base blood in them," she said; "and I'll not have them allowed to acquire any affectation of timidity."

Artless was particularly fresh that morning. He was a red chestnut, with a white star on his forehead, and one white stocking.

When Beth returned to the stable-yard she found him fidgeting between the shafts, with his ears laid back, and the whites of his wicked eyes showing, and Riley struggling with his head in a hard endeavour to keep him quiet enough for the family to mount the car. Captain and Mrs. Caldwell and Mildred were already in their seats, and Beth scrambled up to hers unconcernedly, although Artless was springing about in a lively manner at the moment. Beth sat next her father, who drove from the side of the car, and then they were ready to be off as soon as Artless would go; but Artless objected to leave the yard, and Riley had to lead him round and round, running at his head, and coaxing him, while Captain Caldwell gathered up the reins and held the whip in suspense, watching his opportunity each time they passed the gate to give Artless a start that would make him bound through it. Round and round they went, however, several times, with Artless rearing, backing, and plunging; but at last the whip came down at the right moment, just the slightest flick, Riley let go his head, and out he dashed in his indignation, the battle ending in a wild gallop up the street, with the car swinging behind him, and the whole of the Irish side of the road out cheering and encouraging, to the children's great delight. But their ebullition of glee was a little too much for their father's nerves.

"These children of yours are perfect little devils, Caroline!" he exclaimed irritably. Mrs. Caldwell smiled as at a compliment. She had been brought up on horseback herself, and insisted on teaching the children to regard danger as a diversion—not that that was difficult, for they were naturally daring. She would have punished them promptly on the slightest suspicion of timidity. "Only base-born people were cowardly," she scornfully maintained. "No lady ever shows a sign of fear."

Once, when they were crossing Achen sands, a wide waste, innocent of any obstacle, Artless came down without warning, and Mildred uttered an exclamation.

"Who was it made that ridiculous noise?" Mrs. Caldwell asked, looking hard at Beth.

Beth could not clear herself without accusing her sister, so she said nothing, but sat, consumed with fiery indignation; and for long afterwards she would wake up at night, and clench her little fists, and burn again, remembering how her mother had supposed she was afraid.

Artless went at breakneck speed that day, shied at the most unexpected moments, bolted right round, and stopped short occasionally; but Beth sat tight mechanically, following her own fancies. Captain Caldwell was going to inspect one of the outlying coastguard stations; and they went by the glen road, memorable to Beth because it was there she first felt the charm of running water, and found her first wild violets and tuft of primroses. The pale purple of the violets and the scent of primroses, warm with the sun, were among the happy associations of that time. But her delight was in the mountain-streams, with their mimic waterfalls and fairy wells. She loved to loiter by them, to watch them bubbling and sparkling over the rocks, to dabble her hands and feet in them, or to lie her length upon the turf beside them, in keen consciousness of the incessant, delicate, delicious murmur of the water, a sound which conveyed to her much more than can be expressed in articulate speech. At times too, when she was tired of loitering, she would look up and see the mountain-top just above her, and begin to climb; but always when she came to the spot, there was the mountain-top just as far above her as before; so she used to think that the mountain really reached the sky.

When they returned, late that afternoon, Riley met them with a very serious face, and told Captain Caldwell mysteriously that Pat Murphy's horse was ill.

"What a d——d unfortunate coincidence," Captain Caldwell muttered to his wife; and Beth noticed that her mother's face, which had looked fresh and bright from the drive, settled suddenly into its habitual anxious, careworn expression.

Beth loitered about the yard till her parents had gone in; then she climbed the turf-stack, and looked over. The sick horse was tied to the stable-door, and stood, hanging his head with a very woebegone expression, and groaning monotonously. Murphy was trying to persuade him to take something hot out of a bucket, while Bap-faced Flanagan and another man, known as Tony-kill-the-cow, looked on and gave good advice.

Beth's fury revived when she saw Murphy, and she laughed aloud derisively. All three men started and looked up, then crossed themselves.

"Didn't I tell ye, Pat!" Beth exclaimed. "Ye may save yourself the trouble of doctoring him. He's as dead as my magpie."

Murphy looked much depressed. "Shure, Miss Beth, the poor baste done ye no harm," he pleaded.

"No," said Beth, "nor my bird hadn't done you any harm, nor the cow Tony cut the tail off hadn't done him any harm."

"I didn't kill yer burrd," Murphy asserted doggedly.

"We'll see," said Beth. "When the horse dies we'll know who killed the bird. Then one of you skunks can try and kill me. But I'd advise you to use a silver bullet; and if you miss, you'll be damned.—Blast ye, Riley, will ye let me alone!"

Riley, hearing what was going on, and having called to her vainly to hold her tongue, had climbed the stack himself, and now laid hold of her. Beth struck him in the face promptly, whereupon he shook her, and loosening her hold of the wall, began to carry her down—a perilous proceeding, for the stack was steep, and Beth, enraged at the indignity, doubled herself up and scratched and bit and kicked the whole way to the ground.

"Ye little divil," said Riley, setting her on her feet, "ye'll get us all into trouble wid that blasted tongue o' yours."

"Who's afraid?" said Beth, shaking her tousled head, and standing up to Riley with her little fists clenched.

"If the divil didn't put ye out when he gave up housekeeping, I dunno where you come from," Riley muttered as he turned away and stumped off stolidly.

During the night the horse died, and Beth found when she went out next day that the carcass had been dragged down Murphy's garden and put in the lane outside. She climbed the wall, and discovered the farrier skinning the horse, and was much disgusted to see him using his hands without gloves on in such an operation. Her anger of the day before was all over now, and she was ready to be on the usual terms of scornful intimacy with Murphy.

"Ye'll never be able to touch anything to eat again with those hands," she said.

"Won't I, thin!" he answered sulkily, and without looking up. He was as inconsequent as a child that resents an injury, but can be diverted from the recollection of it by anything interesting, only to return to its grievance, however, the moment the interest fails. "Won't I, thin! Just you try me wid a bit o' bread-an'-butter this instant, an' see what I'll do wid it."

Beth, always anxious to experiment, tore indoors to get some bread-and-butter, and never did she forget the horror with which she watched the dirty man eat it, with unwashed hands, sitting on the horse's carcass.

That carcass was a source of interest to her for many a long day to come. She used to climb on the wall to see how it was getting on, till the crows had picked the bones clean, and the weather had bleached them white; and she would wonder how a creature once so full of life could become a silent, senseless thing, not feeling, not caring, not knowing, no more to itself than a stone—strange mystery; and some day she would be like that, just white bones. She held her breath and suspended all sensation and thought, time after time, to see what it felt like; but always immediately there began a great rushing sound in her ears as of a terrific storm, and that, she concluded, was death coming. When he arrived then all would be blotted out.

* * * * *

The country was in a very disturbed state, and it was impossible to keep all hints of danger from the children's sharp ears. Beth knew a great deal of what was going on and what might be expected, but then a few chance phrases were already enough for her to construct a whole story upon, and with wonderful accuracy generally. Her fine faculty of observation developed apace at this time, and nothing she noticed now was ever forgotten. She would curl up in the window-seat among the fuchsias, and watch the people in the street by the hour together, especially on Sundays and market-days, when a great many came in from the mountains, women in close white caps with goffered frills, short petticoats, and long blue cloaks; and men in tail-coats and knee-breeches, with shillalahs under their arms, which they used very dexterously. They talked Irish at the top of their voices, and gesticulated a great deal, and were childishly quarrelsome. One market-day, when Beth was looking out of the sitting-room window, her mother came and looked out too, and they saw half-a-dozen countrymen set upon a young Castletownrock man. In a moment their shillalahs were whirling about his head, and he was driven round the corner of the house. Presently he came staggering back across the road, blubbering like a child, with his head broken, and the blood streaming down over his face, which was white and distorted with pain. They had knocked him down, and kicked him when he was on the ground.

"Oh! the cowards! the cowards!" Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed. Beth felt sick, but it was not so much what she saw as what she heard that affected her—the man's crying, and the graphic description of the nature and depth of the wound which another man, who had been present while the doctor dressed it, stopping at the window, kindly insisted on giving them, Mrs. Caldwell being obliged to listen courteously for fear of making herself unpopular. The man's manner impressed Beth—there was such a solemn joy in it, as of one who had just witnessed something refreshing.

There were two priests in the place, Father Madden and Father John. Captain Caldwell said Father Madden was a gentleman. He shook hands with everybody, even with the curate and Mr. Macbean; but Father John would not speak to a protestant, and used to scowl at the children when he met them, and then Mildred would seize Bernadine's hand and drag her past him quickly, because she hated to be scowled at; but Beth always stopped and made a face at him. He used to carry a long whip, and crack it at the people, and on Sunday mornings, if they did not go to mass, he would patrol the streets in a fury, rating the idlers at the top of his voice, and driving them on before him. Beth used to glance stealthily at the chapel as she went to church; it had the attraction of forbidden fruit for her, and of Father John's exciting antics—nothing ever happened in church. Chapel she associated with the papists, and not at all with Kitty, whose tender teaching occupied a separate compartment of her consciousness altogether. There she kept the "Blessed Mother" and the "Dear Lord" for her comfort, although she seldom visited them now. Terms of endearment meant a great deal to Beth, because no one used them habitually in her family; in fact, she could not remember ever being called dear in her life by either father or mother.

Since the day when she had run away from the great green waves, however, her father had taken an interest in her. He often asked her to brush his hair, and laughed very much sometimes at things she said. He used to lie on the couch reading to himself while she brushed.

"Read some to me, papa," she said one day. He smiled and read a little, not in the least expecting her to understand it, but she soon showed him that she did, and entreated him to go on; so he gradually fell into the habit of reading aloud to her, particularly the "Ingoldsby Legends." She liked to hear them again and again, and would clamour for her favourites. On one occasion when he had stopped, and she had been sitting some time at the foot of the couch, with the brush in her hand, she suddenly burst out with a long passage from "The Execution"—the passage that begins:—

"God! 'tis a fearsome thing to see That pale wan man's mute agony."

Captain Caldwell raised his eyebrows as she proceeded, and looked at his wife.

"I thought a friend of ours was considered stupid," he said.

"People can do very well when they like," Mrs. Caldwell answered tartly; "but they're too lazy to try. When did you learn that, Beth?"

"I didn't learn it," Beth answered.

"Then how do you know it?"

"It just came to me," Beth said.

"Then I wish your lessons would just come to you."

"I wish they would," said Beth sincerely.

Mrs. Caldwell snapped out something about idleness and obstinacy, and left the room. The day was darkening down, and presently Captain Caldwell got up, lit a lamp at the sideboard, and set it on the dining-table. When he had done so, he took Beth, and set her on the table too. Beth stood up on it, laughing, and put her arm round his neck.

"Look at us, papa!" she exclaimed, pointing at the window opposite. The blinds were up, and it was dark enough outside for them to see themselves reflected in the glass.

"I think we make a pretty picture, Beth," her father said, putting his arm round her.

He had scarcely spoken, when there came a terrific report and a crash; something whizzed close to Beth's head; and a shower of glass fell on the floor. In a moment Beth had wriggled out of her father's arm, slid from the table, and scrambled up on to the window-seat, scattering the flower-pots, and slapping at her father's hand in her excitement, when he tried to stop her.

"It's Bap-faced Flanagan—or Tony-kill-the-cow," she cried. "I can see—O papa! why did you pull me back? Now I shall never know!"

The servants had rushed in from the kitchen, and Mrs. Caldwell came flying downstairs.

"What is it, Henry?" she cried.

"The d——d scoundrels shot at me with the child in my arms," he answered, looking in his indignation singularly like Beth herself in a stormy mood. As he spoke he turned to the hall door, and walked out into the street bareheaded.

"For the love of the Lord, sir," Riley remonstrated, keeping well out of the way himself.

But Captain Caldwell walked off down the middle of the road alone deliberately to the police station, his wife standing meanwhile on the doorstep, with the light behind her, coolly awaiting his return.

"Pull down the blind in the sitting-room, Riley, and keep Miss Beth there," was all she said.

Presently Captain Caldwell returned with a police-officer and two men. They immediately began to search the room. The glass of a picture had been shattered at the far end. Riley pulled the picture to one side, and discovered something imbedded in the wall behind, which he picked out with his pocket-knife and brought to the light. It looked like a disc all bent out of shape. He turned it every way, examining it, then tried it with his teeth.

"I thought so," he said significantly. "It wouldn't be yer honour they'd be afther wid a silver bullet. I heard her tell 'em herself to try one."

"And I said if they missed they'd be damned," Beth exclaimed triumphantly.

"Beth!" cried her mother, seizing her by the arm to shake her, "how dare you use such a word?"

"I heard it in church," said Beth, in an injured tone.

"Look here, Beth," said her father, rescuing her from her mother's clutches, and setting her on the table—he had been talking aside with the police officer—"I want you to promise something on your word of honour as a lady, just to please me."

Beth's countenance dropped: "O papa!" she exclaimed, "it's something I don't want to promise."

"Well, never mind that, Beth," he answered. "Just promise this one thing to please me. If you don't, the people will try and kill you."

"I don't mind that," said Beth.

"But I do—and your mother does."

Beth gave her mother a look of such utter astonishment, that the poor lady turned crimson.

"And perhaps they'll kill me too," Captain Caldwell resumed. "You see they nearly did to-night."

This was a veritable inspiration. Beth turned pale, and gasped: "I promise!"

"Not so fast," her father said. "Never promise anything till you hear what it is. But now, promise you won't say bad luck to any of the people again."

"I promise," Beth repeated; "but"—she slid from the table, and nodded emphatically—"but when I shake my fist and stamp my foot at them it'll mean the same thing."

It was found next morning that Bap-faced Flanagan and Tony-kill-the-cow had disappeared from the township; but Murphy remained; and Beth was not allowed to go out alone again for a long time, not even into the garden. All she knew about it herself, however, was, that she had always either a policeman or a coastguardsman to talk to, which added very much to her pleasure in life, and also to Anne's.



CHAPTER IX

One of the interests of Captain Caldwell's life was his garden. He spent long hours in cultivating it, and that summer his vegetables, fruits, and flowers had been the wonder of the neighbourhood. But now autumn had come, vegetables were dug, fruits gathered, flowers bedraggled; and there was little to be done but clear the beds, plant them with bulbs, and prepare them for the spring.

Now that Captain Caldwell had made Beth's acquaintance, he liked to have her with him to help him when he was at work in the garden, and there was nothing that she loved so much.

One day they were at work together on a large flower-bed. Her father was trimming some rose-bushes, and she was kneeling beside him on a little mat, weeding.

"I'm glad I'm not a flower," she suddenly exclaimed, after a long silence.

"Why, Beth, flowers are very beautiful."

"Yes, but they last so short a time. I'd rather be less beautiful, and live longer. What's your favourite flower, papa?"

She had stopped weeding for the moment, but still sat on the mat, looking up at him. Captain Caldwell clipped a little more, then stopped too, and looked down at her.

"I don't get a separate pleasure from any particular flower, Beth; they all delight me," he answered.

Beth pondered upon this for a little, then she asked, "Do you know which I like best? Hot primroses." Captain Caldwell raised his eyebrows interrogatively. "When you pick them in the sun, and put them against your cheek, they're all warm, you know," Beth explained; "and then they are good! And fuchsias are good too, but it isn't the same good. You know that one in the sitting-room window, white outside and salmon-coloured inside, and such a nice shape—the flowers—and the way they hang down; you have to lift them to look into them. When I look at them long, they make me feel—oh—feel, you know—feel that I could take the whole plant in my arms and hug it. But fuchsias don't scent sweet like hot primroses."

"And therefore they are not so good?" her father suggested, greatly interested in the child's attempt to express herself. "They say that the scent is the soul of the flower."

"The scent is the soul of the flower," Beth repeated several times; then heaved a deep sigh of satisfaction. "I want to sing it," she said. "I always want to sing things like that."

"What other 'things like that' do you know, Beth?"

"The song of the sea in the shell, The swish of the grass in the breeze, The sound of a far-away bell, The whispering leaves on the trees,"

Beth burst out instantly.

"Who taught you that, Beth?" her father asked.

"Oh, no one taught me, papa," she answered. "It just came to me—like this, you know. I used to listen to the sea in that shell in the sitting-room, and I tried and tried to find a name for the sound, and all at once song came into my head—The song of the sea in the shell. Then I was lying out here on the grass when it was long, before you cut it to make hay, and you came out and said, 'There's a stiff breeze blowing.' And it blew hard and then stopped, and then it came again; and every time it came the grass went—swish-h-h! The swish of the grass in the breeze. Then you know that bell that rings a long way off, you can only just hear it out here—The sound of a far-away bell. Then the leaves—it was a long time before anything came that I could sing about them. I used to try and think it, but you can't sing a thing you think. It's when a thing comes, you can sing it. I was always listening to the leaves, and I always felt they were doing something; then all at once it came one day. Of course they were whispering—The whispering leaves on the trees. That was how they came, papa. At first I used to sing them by themselves; but now I sing them all together. You can sing them three different ways—the way I did first, you know, then you can put breeze first—

The swish of the grass in the breeze, The whispering leaves on the trees, The song of the sea in the shell, The sound of a far-away bell.

Or you can sing—

The sound of a far-away bell, The whispering leaves on the trees, The swish of the grass in the breeze, The song of the sea in the shell.

Which way do you think the nicest?" She had rattled all this off as fast as she could speak, looking and pointing towards the various things she mentioned as she proceeded, the sea, the grass, the trees, the distance; now she looked up to her father for an answer. He was looking at her so queerly, she was filled with alarm. "Am I naughty, papa?" she exclaimed.

"Oh no," he said, with a smile that reassured her. "I was just thinking. I like to hear how 'things come' to you. You must always tell me—when new things come. By the way, who told you that fuchsia was salmon-coloured?"

"I saw it was," she said, surprised that he needed to ask such a question. "I saw it one day when we had boiled salmon for dinner. Isn't it nice when you see that one thing's like another? I have a pebble, and it's just the shape of a pear—now you know what shape it is, don't you?" He nodded. "But if I said it's thick at one end and thin at another, you wouldn't know what shape it is a bit, would you?"

"No, I should not," he answered, beginning to prune again, thoughtfully. "Beth," he said presently, "I should like to see you grow up."

"Shan't I grow up?" said Beth in dismay.

"Oh yes—at least I should hope so. But—it's not likely that I shall be—looking on. But, Beth, I want you to remember this. When you grow up, I think you will want to do something that only a few other people can do well—paint a picture, write a book, act in a theatre, make music—it doesn't matter what; if it comes to you, if you feel you can do it, just do it. You'll not do it well all at once; but try and try until you can do it well. And don't ask anybody if they think you can do it; they'll be sure to say no; and then you'll be disheartened—What's disheartened? It's the miserable feeling you would get if I said you would never be able to learn to play the piano. You'd try to do it all the same, perhaps, but you'd do it doubtfully instead of with confidence."

"What's confidence?" said Beth.

"You are listening to me now with confidence. It is as if you said, I believe you."

"But I can't say 'I believe you' to arithmetic, if I want to do it."

"No, but you can say, I believe I can do it—I believe in myself."

"Is that confidence in myself?" Beth asked, light breaking in upon her.

"That's it. You're getting quite a vocabulary, Beth. A vocabulary is all the words you know," he added hastily, anticipating the inevitable question.

Beth went on with her weeding for a little.

"And there is another thing, Beth, I want to tell you," her father recommenced. "Never do anything unless you are quite sure it is the right thing to do. It doesn't matter how much you may want to do it, you mustn't, if you are not quite, quite sure it is right."

"Not even if I am just half sure?"

"No, certainly not. You must be quite, quite sure."

Beth picked some more weeds, then looked up at him again: "But, papa, I shall never want to do anything I don't think right when I'm grown up, shall I?"

"I'm afraid you will. Everybody does."

"Did you want to, papa?" Beth asked in amazement.

"Yes," he answered.

"And did you do it?"

"Yes," he repeated.

"And what happened?"

"Much misery."

"Were you miserable?"

"Yes, very. But that wasn't the worst of it."

"What was the worst of it?"

"The worst of it was that I made other people miserable."

"Ah, that's bad," said Beth, with perfect comprehension. "That makes you feel so horrid inside yourself."

"Well, Beth, just you remember that. You can't do wrong without making somebody else miserable. Be loyal, be loyal to yourself, loyal to the best that is in you; that means, be as good as your friends think you, and better if you can. Tell the truth, live openly, and stick to your friends; that's the whole of the best code of morality in the world. Now we must go in."

As they walked down the garden together, Beth slipped her dirty little hand into his, and looked up at him: "Papa," she said solemnly, "when you want to be with somebody always, more than with anybody else; and want to look at him, and want to talk to him, and you find you can tell him lots of things you couldn't tell anybody else if you tried, you know; what does it mean?"

"It means you love him very much."

"Then I love you, papa, very much," she said, nestling her head against his arm. "And it does make me feel so nice inside. But it makes me miserable too," she added, sighing.

"How so?"

"When you have a headache, you know. I used only to be afraid you'd be angry if I made a noise. But now I'm always thinking how much it hurts you. I wake up often and often at night, and you are in my mind, and I try and see you say, 'It's better,' or 'It's quite well.'"

"And what then, Beth?" her father asked, in a queer voice.

"Then I don't cry any more, you know."

She looked up at her father as she spoke, and saw that his eyes were full of tears.



CHAPTER X

That was almost the last of those happy autumn days. Winter fell upon the country suddenly with nipping cold. The mountains, always sombre, lowered in great tumbled masses from under the heavy clouds that seldom rose from their summits. Terrible gales kept the sea in torment, and the voice of its rage and pain filled Castletownrock without ceasing. Torrents of rain tore up the roads, and rendered them almost impassable. There was stolid endurance and suffering written on every face out of doors, while within the people cowered over their peat fires, a prey to hunger, cold, and depression. Draughts made merry through the large rooms and passages in Captain Caldwell's house; the wind howled in the chimneys, rattled at the windows, and whistled at the keyholes, especially at night, when Beth would hide her head under the bed-clothes to keep out the racket, or, in another mood, lie and listen to it, and imagine herself out in the storm, till her nerves were strung to a state of ecstatic tension, and her mind fairly revelled in the sense of danger. When her father was at home in the evening, she would sit still beside the fire in the sitting-room, listening in breathless awe, and excitement wholly pleasurable, to the gale raging without; but if Captain Caldwell had not returned, as frequently happened now that the days were short, and the roads so bad, well knowing the risks he ran, she would see the car upset a hundred times, and hear the rattle of musketry in every blast that shook the house, and so share silently, but to the full, the terrible anxiety which kept her mother pacing up and down, up and down, unable to settle to anything until he entered and sank into a seat, often so exhausted that it was hard to rouse him to change his dripping clothes. His duties, always honourably performed whatever the risk to himself, were far too severe for him, and he was rapidly becoming a wreck;—nervous, liverish, a martyr to headache, and a slave to stimulants, although not a drunkard—he only took enough to whip him up to his work. His digestion too had become seriously impaired, and he had no natural appetite for anything. He was fond of his children, and proud of them, but had hitherto been too irritable to contribute anything to their happiness; on the contrary, his name was a terror to them, and "Hush, papa has come in!" was enough at any time to damp their wildest spirits. Now, however, he suffered more from depression than from irritability, and would cower over the fire on stormy days in a state of despondency which was reflected in every face, taking no notice of any of them. The children would watch him furtively in close silent sympathy, sitting still and whispering for fear of disturbing him; and if perchance they saw him smile, and a look of relief came into their mother's anxious face, their own spirits went up on the instant. But everything was against him. The damp came up from the flags in the sitting-room through the cocoanut matting and the thick carpet that covered it, which it defaced in great patches. Close to the fire the wires of the piano rusted, and had to be rubbed and rubbed every day, or half the notes went dumb. The paper, a rare luxury in those parts, began to drop from the walls. Great turf-fires were constantly kept up, but the damp stole a march on them when they smouldered in the night, and made mildew-marks upon everything.

Good food and cooking would have helped Captain Caldwell, but the food was indifferent, and there were no cooks to be had in the country. Biddy had never seen such a thing as a kitchen-range before she took the situation, and when she first had to use the oven, she put the turf on the bottom shelf in order to heat the top one. Mrs. Caldwell made what were superhuman efforts to a woman of her training and constitution, to keep the servants up to the mark, and grew grey in the endeavour; but Mrs. Caldwell in the kitchen was like a racehorse at the plough; and even if she had been a born housewife, she could have done little with servants who would do nothing themselves except under her eyes, and stole everything they could lay their hands on, including the salt out of the salt-cellars between meals, if it were not locked up.

Towards the end of January, Captain Caldwell was ill in bed; he had wet cloths on his head, and seemed as if he could hardly speak. Beth hung about his door all day, watching for opportunities to steal in. Mamma always sent her away if she could, but if papa heard her, he would whisper, "Let the child come in," and then mamma would let her in, but would still look cross. And Beth sat at one side of the bed, and mamma sat on the other, and no one spoke except papa sometimes; only you could seldom understand what he said. And mamma cried, but Beth did not. She ached too much inside for that. You can't cry when you ache so much.

Beth day after day sat with her hands folded on her lap, and her feet dangling from a chair that was much too high for her, watching her father with an intensity of silent anxiety that was terrible to witness in so young a child. Her mother might have beaten her to death, but she could never have dislodged her from the room once she had her father's leave to stay there. Mrs. Caldwell rarely beat her now, however; she generally ignored her; so Beth came and went as she chose. She would climb up on to the bed when there was nobody in the room, and kiss the curls of papa's thick glossy black hair so softly that he never knew, except once, when he caught her, and smiled. His dark face grew grey in bed, and his blue eyes sunken and haggard; but he battled it out that time, and slowly began to recover.