"But why did you accept him?"

"Oh, Frank! do not be too hard. How am I to tell you—you, of all men, what my reasons were? I was alone in the world; alone with such dangers before me as that which Mr. Moss brought with him. And then my profession had become a reality, and this lord would assist me. Do all the girls refuse the lords who come and ask them?"

Then he stood close over her, and shook his head.

"But I should have done so," she continued after a pause. "I recognise it now; and let there be an end of it. There is a something which does make a woman unfit for matrimony." And the tears coursed themselves down her wan cheeks. "Now it has all been said that need be said, and let there be an end of it. I have talked too much about myself. What has brought you to London?"

"Just a young woman," he whispered slowly.

A pang shot through her heart; and yet not quite a pang, for with it there was a rush of joy, which was not, however, perfect joy, because she felt that it must be disappointed.

"Bother your young woman," she said; "who cares for your young woman! How are you going on in Galway?"

"Sadly enough, to tell the truth."

"No rents?"

He shook his head.

"Nothing but murders and floods?"

"The same damnable old story running on from day to day."

"And have the girls no servants yet?"

"Not a servant; except old Peter, who is not quite as faithful as he should be."

"And,—and what about that valiant gay young gentleman, Captain Clayton?"

"Everything goes amiss in love as well as war," said Frank. "Between the three of them, I hardly know what they want."

"I think I know."

"Very likely. Everything goes so astray with all of us, so that the wanting it is sufficient reason for not getting it."

"Is that all you have come to tell me?"

"I suppose it is."

"Then you might have stayed away."

"I may as well go, perhaps."

"Go? no! I am not so full of new friends that I can afford to throw away my old like that. Of course you may not go, as you call it! Do you suppose I do not care to hear about those girls whom I love,—pretty nearly with all my heart? Why don't you tell me about them, and your father? You come here, but you talk of nothing but going. You ain't half nice."

"Can I come in yet?" This belonged to a voice behind the door, which was the property of Mr. O'Mahony.

"Not quite yet, father. Mr. Jones is telling me about them all at Morony Castle."

"I should have thought I might have heard that," said Mr. O'Mahony.

"The girls have special messages to send," said Rachel.

"I'll come back in another ten minutes," said Mr. O'Mahony. "I shall not wait longer than that."

"Only their love," said Frank; upon which Rachel looked as though she thought that Frank Jones was certainly an ass.

"Of course I want to hear their love," said Rachel. "Dear Ada, and dear Edith! Why don't you tell me their love?"

"My poor sick girl," he said, laying his hand upon her shoulder, and looking into her eyes.

"Never mind my sickness. I know I am as thin and as wan as an ogre. Nevertheless, I care for their love."

"Rachel, do you care for mine?"

"I haven't got it! Oh, Frank, why don't you speak to me? You have spoken a word, just a word, and all the blood is coming back to my veins already."

"Dearest, dearest, dearest Rachel."

"Now you have spoken; now you have told me of your sisters and your father. Now I know it all! Now my father may come in."

"Do you love me, then?"

"Love you! That question you know to be unnecessary. Love you! Why I spend every day and every night in loving you! But, Frank, you wouldn't have me when I was going to be rich. I ought not to have you now that I am to be poor." But by this time she was in his arms and he was kissing her, till, as she had said, the blood was once again running in her veins. "Oh, Frank, what a tyrant you are! Did I not tell you to let poor father come into the room? You have said everything now. There cannot be another word to say. Frank, Frank, Frank! I have found it out at last. I cannot live without you."

"But how are you to live with me? There is no money."

"Bother money. Wealth is sordid. Washing stockings over a tub is the only life for me,—so long as I have you to come back to me."

"And your health?"

"I tell you it is done. I was merely sick of the Jones complaint. Oh, heavens! how I can hate people, and how I can love them!" Then she threw herself on the sofa, absolutely worn out by the violence of her emotions.

Mr. O'Mahony was commissioned, and sat down by his girl's side to comfort her. But she wanted no comforting. "So you and Frank have made it up, have you?" said Mr. O'Mahony.

"We have never quarrelled so far as I am concerned," said Frank. "The moment I heard Lord Castlewell was dismissed, I came back."

"Yes," said she, raising herself half up on the sofa. "Do you know his story, father? It is rather a nice story for a girl to hear of her own lover, and to feel that it is true. When I was about to make I don't know how many thousand dollars a year by my singing, he would not come and take his share of it. Then I have to think of my own disgrace. But it enhances his glory. Because he was gone, I brought myself to accept this lord."

"Now, Rachel, you shall not exert yourself," said Frank.

"I will, sir," she replied, holding him by the hand. "I will tell my story. He had retreated from the stain, and the lord had come in his place. But he was here always," and she pressed his hand to her side. "He could not be got rid of. Then I lost my voice, and was 'utterly dished,' as the theatrical people say. Then the lord went,—behaving better than I did however,—and I was alone. Oh, what bitter moments there came then,—long enough for the post to go to Ireland and to return! And now he is here. Once more at my feet again, old man, once more! And then he talks to me of money! What is money to me? I have got such a comforting portion that I care not at all for money." Then she all but fainted once again, and Frank and her father both knelt over her caressing her.

It was a long time before Frank left her, her father going in and out of the room as it pleased him the while. Then he declared that he must go down to the House, assuring Frank that one blackguard there was worse than another, but saying that he would see them to the end as long as his time lasted. Rachel insisted that Frank should go with him.

"I am just getting up from my death-bed," she said, laughing, "and you want me to go on like any other man's young woman. I can think about you without talking to you." And so saying she dismissed him.

On the next morning, when he came again, she discussed with him the future arrangement of his life and hers.

"Of course you must stay with your father," she said. "You do not want to marry me at once, I suppose. And of course it is impossible if you do. I shall go to the States with father as soon as this Parliament affair is over. He is turned out of the House so often that he will be off before long for good and all. But there is the mail still running, and remember that what I say is true. I shall be ready and willing to be made Mrs. Frank Jones as soon as you will come and fetch me, and will tell me that you are able to provide me just with a crust and a blanket in County Galway. Whatever little you will do with, I will do with less."

Then she sat upon his knee, and embraced him and kissed him, and swore to him that no other Lord Castlewell who came should interfere with his rights.

"And as for Mr. Moss," she added, "I do not think that he will ever appear again to trouble your little game."



CHAPTER XLV.

MR. ROBERT MORRIS.

One morning, a little later in the summer, about the beginning of August, all Galway were terrified by the tidings of another murder. Mr. Morris had been killed,—had been "dropped," as the language of the country now went, from behind a wall built by the roadside. It had been done at about five in the afternoon, in full daylight; and, as was surmised by the police, with the consciousness of many of the peasantry around. He had been walking along the road from Cong to his own house, and had been "dropped," and left for dead by the roadside. Dead, indeed, he was when found. Not a word more would have been said about it, but for the intervention of the police, who were on the spot within three hours of the occurrence. A little girl had been coming into Cong, and had told the news. The little girl was living at Cong, and was supposed to be in no way connected with the murder.

"It's some of them boys this side of Clonbur," said one of the men of Cong.

No one thought it necessary after that to give any further explanation of the circumstances.

Mr. Robert Morris was somewhat of an oddity in his way; but he was a man who only a few months since was most unlikely to have fallen a victim to popular anger. He was about forty years of age, and had lived altogether at Minas Cottage, five or six miles from Cong, as you pass up the head of Lough Corrib, on the road to Maum. He was unmarried, and lived quite alone in a small house, trusting to the attentions of two old domestics and their daughter. He kept a horse and a car and a couple of cows and a few cocks and hens; but otherwise he lived alone. He was a man of property, and had, indeed, come from a family very long established in the county. People said of him that he had L500 a year; but he would have been very glad to have seen the half of it paid to his agent; for Mr. Morris, of Minas Cottage, had his agent as well as any other gentleman. He was a magistrate for the two counties, Galway and Mayo, and attended sessions both at Cong and at Clonbur. But when there he did little but agree with some more active magistrate; and what else he did with himself no one could tell of him.

But it was said in respect to him that he was a benevolent gentleman; and but a year or two since very many in the neighbourhood would have declared him to be especially the poor man's friend. With L500 a year he could have done much; with half that income he could do something to assist them, and something he still did. He had his foibles, and fancies, but such as they were they did not tread on the corns of any of his poorer neighbours. He was proud of his birth, proud of his family, proud of having owned, either in his own hands or those of his forefathers, the same few acres,—and many more also, for his forefathers before him had terribly diminished the property. There was a story that his great great grandfather had lived in a palatial residence in County Kilkenny. All this he would tell freely, and would remark that to such an extent had the family been reduced by the extravagance of his forefathers. "But the name and the blood they can never touch," he would remark. They would not ask as to his successor, because they valued him too highly, and because Mr. Morris would never have admitted that the time had come when it was too late to bring a bride home to the western halls of his forefathers. But the rumour went that Minas Cottage would go in the female line to a second cousin, who had married a cloth merchant in Galway city, to whom nor to her husband did Mr. Morris ever speak. There might be something absurd in this, but there was nothing injurious to his neighbours, and nothing that would be likely to displease the poorer of them.

But Mr. Morris had been made the subject of various requests from his tenants. They had long since wanted and had received a considerable abatement in their rent. Hence had come the straitened limits of L250 a year. They had then offered the "Griffith's valuation." To explain the "Griffith's valuation" a chapter must be written, and as no one would read the explanation if given here it shall be withheld. Indeed, the whole circumstances of Mr. Morris's property were too intricate to require, or to admit, elucidation here. He was so driven that if he were to keep anything for himself he must do so by means of the sheriff's officer, and hence it had come to pass that he had been shot down like a mad dog by the roadside.

County Galway was tolerably well used to murders by this time, but yet seemed to be specially astonished by the assassination of Mr. Morris. The innocence of the man; for the dealings of the sheriff's officer were hardly known beyond the town land which was concerned! And then the taciturnity of the county side when the murder had been effected! It was not such a deed as was the slaughtering of poor Florian Jones, or the killing of Terry Carroll in the court house. They had been more startling, more alarming, more awful for the tradesmen, and such like, to talk of among themselves, but the feeling of mystery there had been connected with the secret capacity of one individual. Everyone, in fact, knew that those murders had been done by Lax. And all felt that for the doing of murders Lax was irrepressible. But over there in the neighbourhood of Clonbur, or in the village of Cong, Lax had never appeared. There was no one in the place to whom the police could attribute any Lax-like properties. In that respect, the slaughtering of Mr. Morris had something in it more terrible even than those other murders. It seemed as though murder were becoming the ordinary popular mode by which the people should redress themselves,—as though the idea of murder had recommended itself easily to their intellects. And then they had quietly submitted—all of them—to taciturnity. They who were not concerned in the special case, the adjustment that is of Mr. Morris's rent, accepted his murder with perfect quiescence, as did those who were aggrieved. Nobody had seen anything. Nobody had heard anything. Nobody had known anything. Such were the only replies that were given to the police. If Mr. Morris, then why not another—and another—till the whole country would be depopulated? In Mr. Morris's case a landlord had been chosen; but in other localities agents and sheriffs' officers,—and even those keepers on a property which a gentleman is supposed to employ,—were falling to the right and to the left. But of Mr. Morris and his death nothing was heard.

Yorke Clayton of course went down there, for this, too, was in his district, and Hunter went with him, anxious, if possible, to learn something. They saw every tenant on the property; and, indeed, they were not over numerous. There was not one as to whom they could obtain evidence that he was ever ferocious by character. "They've got to think that they have the right to it all. The poor creatures are not so bad as them that is teaching them. If I think as the farm is my own, of course I don't like to be made to pay rent for it." That was the explanation of the circumstances, as given by Mrs. Davies, of the hotel at Clonbur. And it was evident that she thought it to be sufficient. The meaning of it, according to Captain Clayton's reading, was this: "If you allow such doctrines to be preached abroad by Members of Parliament and Landleague leaders,—to be preached as a doctrine fit for the people,—then you cannot be surprised if the people do as they are taught and hold their tongues afterwards."

This Mr. Morris had been the first cousin of our poor old friend Black Tom Daly.

"Good God!" he exclaimed, as soon as he read the news, sitting in his parlour at Daly's Bridge; "there is Bob Morris gone now."

"Bob Morris, of Minas Cottage!" exclaimed Peter Bodkin, who had ridden over to give Tom Daly some comfort in his solitude, if it might be possible.

"By George! yes; Bob Morris! Did you know him?"

"I don't think he ever came out hunting."

"Hunting, indeed! How should he, when he hadn't a horse that he could ride upon? And Bob knew nothing of sport. The better for him, seeing the way that things are going now. No, he never was out hunting, poor fellow. But for downright innocence and kindness and gentleness of heart, there is no one left like him. And now they have murdered him! What is to be the end of it? There is Persse telling me to hold on by the hounds, when I couldn't keep a hound in the kennels at Ahaseragh if it were ever so."

"Times will mend," said Peter.

"And Raheney Gorse fired so as to drive every fox out of the country! Persse is wrong, and I am wrong to stay at his bidding. The very nature of mankind has altered in the old country. There are not the same hearts within their bosoms. To burn a gorse over a fox's head! There is a damnable cruelty in it of which men were not guilty,—by G——! they were not capable,—a year or two ago. These ruffians from America have come and told them that they shall pay no rent, and their minds have been so filled with the picture that its magnificence has overcome them. They used to tell us that money is the root of all evil; it proves to be true now. The idea that they should pay no rent has been too much for them; and they have become fiends under the feelings which have been roused. Only last year they were mourning over a poor fox like a Christian,—a poor fox that had been caught in a trap,—and now they would not leave a fox in the country, because the gentlemen, they think, are fond of them. The gentlemen are their enemies, and therefore they will spite them. They will drive every gentleman out of the country, and where will they be then?" Here Tom Daly sat quiet for a while, looking silent through the open window, while Peter sat by him feeling the occasion to be too solemn for speech. After a while Tom continued his ejaculations. "Gladstone! Gladstone! There are those who think that man to be great and good; but how can he be great and good if he lets loose such spirits among us? They tell me that he's a very amiable man in his own family, and goes to church regular; but he must be the most ignorant human being that ever took upon himself to make laws for a people. He can understand nothing about money, nothing about property, nothing about rents! I suppose he thinks it fair to take away one man's means and give them to another, simply because one is a gentleman and the other not! A fair rent! There's nothing I hate so much in my very soul as the idea of a fair rent. A fair rent means half that a man pays now; but in a few years' time it will mean again whatever the new landlord may choose to ask. And fixity of tenure! Every man is to get what doesn't belong to him, and if a man has anything he's to be turned out; that is fixity of tenure. And freedom of sale! A man is to be allowed to sell what isn't his own. He thinks that when he has thrown half an eye over a country he can improve it by altering all the wisdom of ages. A man talks and talks, and others listen to him till they flatter him that another God Almighty has been sent upon earth." It was thus that Tom Daly expressed himself as to the Prime Minister of the day; but Tom was a benighted Tory, and had thought nothing of these subjects till they were driven into his mind by the strange mortality of the foxes around him.

Poor Mr. Morris was buried, and there was an end of him. The cloth merchant's wife in Galway got the property; and, as far as we can hear at present, is not likely to do as well with it as her husband is with his bales of goods. No man perhaps more insignificant than Mr. Robert Morris could have departed. He did nothing, and his figure, as he walked about between Cong and Clonbur, could be well spared. But his murder had given rise to feelings through the country which were full of mischief and full of awe. He had lived most inoffensively, and yet he had gone simply because it had occurred to some poor ignorant tenant, who had held perhaps ten or fifteen acres of land, out of which he had lived upon the potatoes grown from two or three of them, that things would go better with him if he had not a landlord to hurry him for rent! Then the tenant had turned in his mind the best means of putting his landlord out of the way, and had told himself that it was an easy thing to do. He had not, of his own, much capacity for the use of firearms; but he had four pound ten, which should have gone to the payment of his rent, and of this four pound ten, fifteen shillings secured the services of some handy man out of the next parish. He had heard the question of murder freely discussed among his neighbours, and by listening to others had learned the general opinion that there was no danger in it. So he came to a decision, and Mr. Morris was murdered.

So far the question was solved between this tenant and this landlord; but each one of the neighbours, as he thought of it, felt himself bound to secrecy pro bono publico. There was a certain comfort in this, and poor Bob Morris's death seemed likely to be passed over with an easy freedom from suspicion. Any man might be got rid of silently, and there need be no injurious results. But men among themselves began to talk somewhat too freely, and an awe grew among them as this man and that man were named as objectionable. And the men so named were not all landlords or even agents. This man was a sheriff's officer, and that a gamekeeper. The sheriffs' officers and gamekeepers were not all murdered, but they were named, and a feeling of terror crept cold round the hearts of those who heard the names. Who was to be the keeper of the list and decide finally as to the victims? Then suddenly a man went, and no one knew why he went. He was making a fence between two fields, and it was whispered that he had been cautioned not to make the fence. At any rate he had been stoned to death, and though there must have been three at least at the work, no one knew who had stoned him. Men began to whisper among each other, and women also, and at last it was whispered to them that they had better not whisper at all. Then they began to feel that not only was secrecy to be exacted from them, but they were not to be admitted to any participation in the secrecy.

And with such of the gentry as were left there had grown up precautions which could not but fill the minds of the peasantry with a vague sense of fear. They went about with rifle in their hands, and were always accompanied by police. They had thick shutters made to their windows, and barred themselves within their houses. Those who but a few months since had been the natural friends of the people, now appeared everywhere in arms against them. If it was necessary that there should be intercourse between them, that intercourse took place by means of a policeman. A further attempt at murder had been made in the neighbourhood, and was so talked of that it seemed that all kindly feeling had been severed. Men began to creep about and keep out of the way lest they should be suspected; and, indeed, it was the fact that there was hardly an able-bodied man in three parishes to whom some suspicion did not attach itself.

And thus the women would ask for fresh murders, and would feel disappointed when none were reported to them, craving, as it were, for blood. And all this had come to pass certainly within the space of two years! A sweeter-tempered people than had existed there had been found nowhere; nor a people more ignorant, and possessing less of the comforts of civilisation. But no evil was to be expected from them, no harm came from them—beyond a few simple lies, which were only harmful as acting upon their own character. As Tom Daly had said, these very men were not capable of it a few months ago. The tuition had come from America! That, no doubt, was true; but it had come by Irish hearts and Irish voices, by Irish longings and Irish ambition. Nothing could be more false than to attribute the evil to America, unless that becomes American which has once touched American soil. But there does grow up in New York, or thereabouts, a mixture of Irish poverty with American wealth, which calls itself "Democrat," and forms as bad a composition as any that I know from which either to replenish or to create a people.

A very little of it goes unfortunately a long way. It is like gin made of vitriol when mingled with water. A small modicum of gin, though it does not add much spirit to the water, will damnably defile a large quantity. And this gin has in it a something of flavour which will altogether deceive an uneducated palate. There is an alcoholic afflatus which mounts to the brain and surrounds the heart and permeates the veins, which for the moment is believed to be true gin. But it makes itself known in the morning, and after a few mornings tells its own tale too well. These "democrats" could never do us the mischief. They are not sufficient, either in intellect or in number; but there are men among us who have taught themselves to believe that the infuriated gin drinker is the true holder of a new gospel.



CHAPTER XLVI.

CONG.

In those days Captain Clayton spent much of his time at Cong, and Frank Jones was often with him. Frank, however, had returned from London a much altered man. Rachel had knocked under to him. It was thus that he spoke of it to himself. I do not think that she spoke of it to herself exactly in the same way. She knew her own constancy, and felt that she was to be rewarded.

"Nothing, I think, would ever have made me marry Lord Castlewell."

It was thus she talked to her father while he was awaiting the period of his dismissal.

"I dare say not," said he. "Of course he is a poor weak creature. But he would have been very good to you, and there would have been an end to all your discomforts."

Rachel turned up her nose. An end to all her discomforts!

Her father knew nothing of what would comfort her and what would discomfort.

She was utterly discomforted in that her voice was gone from her. She would lie and sob on her bed half the morning, and would feel herself to be inconsolable. Then she would think of Frank, and tell herself that there was some consolation in store even for her. Had her voice been left to her she would have found it to be very difficult to escape from the Castlewell difficulty. She would have escaped, she thought, though the heavens might have been brought down over her head. When the time had come for appearing at the altar, she would have got into the first train and disappeared, or have gone to bed and refused to leave it. She would have summoned Frank at the last moment, and would submit to be called the worst behaved young woman that had ever appeared on the London boards. Now she was saved from that; but,—but at what a cost!

"I might have been the greatest woman of the day, and now I must be content to make his tea and toast."

Then she began to consider whether it was good that any girl should be the greatest woman of the day.

"I don't suppose the Queen has so much the best of it with a pack of troubles on her hands."

But Frank in the meantime had gone back to Galway, and Mr. Robert Morris had been murdered. Soon after the death of Mr. Morris the man had been killed as he was mending the ditch, and Captain Clayton found that the tone of the people was varied in the answers which they made to his inquiries. They were astounded, and, as it were, struck dumb with surprise. Nobody knew anything, nobody had heard anything, nobody had seen anything. They were as much in the dark about poor Pat Gilligan as they had been as to Mr. Robert Morris. They spoke of Pat as though he had been slaughtered by a direct blow from heaven; but they trembled, and were evidently uncomfortable.

"That woman knows something about it," said Hunter to his master, shaking his head.

"No doubt she knows a good deal about it; but it is not because she knows that she is bewildered and bedevilled in her intellect. She is beginning to be afraid that the country is one in which even she herself cannot live in safety."

And the men looked to be dumbfoundered and sheepfaced. They kept out of Captain Clayton's way, and answered him as little as possible. "What's the good of axing when ye knows that I knows nothing?" This was the answer of one man, and was a fair sample of the answers of many; but they were given in such a tone that Clayton was beginning to think that the evil was about to work its own cure.

"Frank," he said one day when he was walking with his friend in the gloom of the evening, "this state of things is too horrible to endure." The faithful Hunter followed them, and another policeman, for the Captain was never allowed to stir two steps without the accompaniment of a brace of guards.

"Much too horrible to be endured," said Frank. "My idea is that a man, in order to make the best of himself, should run away from it. Life in the United States has no such horrors as these. Though we're apt to say that all this comes from America, I don't see American hands in it."

"You see American money."

"American money in the shape of dollar bills; but they have all been sent by Irish people. The United States is a large place, and there is room there, I think, for an honest man."

"I'll never be frightened out of my own country," said Clayton. "Nor do I think there is occasion. These abominable reprobates are not going to prevail in the end."

"They have prevailed with poor Tom Daly. He was a man who worked as hard as anyone to find amusement,—and employment too. He never wronged anyone. He was even so honest as to charge a fair price for his horses. And there he is, left high and dry, without a horse or a hound that he can venture to keep about his own place. And simply because the majority of the people have chosen that there shall be no more hunting; and they have proved themselves to be able to have their own way. It is impossible that poor Daly should hunt if they will not permit him, and they carry their orders so far that he cannot even keep a hound in his kennels because they do not choose to allow it."

"And this you think will be continued always?" asked Clayton.

"For all that I can see it may go on for ever. My father has had those water gates mended on the meadows though he could ill afford it. I have told him that they may go again to-morrow. There is no reason to judge that they should not do so. The only two men,—or the man, rather, and the boy,—who have been punished for the last attempt were those who endeavoured to tell of it. See what has come of that!"

"All that is true."

"Will it not be better to go to America, to go to Africa, to go to Asia, or to Russia even, than to live in a country like this, where the law can afford you no protection, and where the lawgivers only injure you?"

"I know nothing about the lawgivers," said Clayton, "but I have to say a word or two about the law. Do you think this kind of thing is going to remain?"

"It does remain, and every day becomes worse."

"An evil will always become worse till it begins to die away. I think I see the end of things approaching. Evil-doers are afraid of each other, and these poor fellows here live in mortal agony lest some Lax of the moment should be turned loose at their own throats. I don't think that Lax is an institution that will remain for ever in the country. This present Lax we have fast locked up. Law at present, at any rate, has so much of power that it is able to lock up a Lax,—when it can catch him. As for this present man, I do hope that the law will find itself powerful enough to fasten a rope round his neck. No Galway jury would find him guilty, and that is bad enough. But the lawgivers have done this for us, that we may try him before a Dublin jury, and there are hopes. When Lax has been well hung out of the world I can turn round and take a moment for my own happiness."

Yorke Clayton, as he said this, was alluding to his love affair with Edith Jones. He had now conquered all the family with one exception. Even the father had assented that it should be so, though tardily and with sundry misgivings. The one person was Edith herself, and it had come to be acknowledged by all around her that she loved Yorke Clayton. As she herself never now denied it, it was admitted on all sides at Morony Castle that the Captain was certainly the favoured lover. But Edith still held out, and had gone so far as to tell the Captain that he could not be allowed to come to the Castle unless he would desist.

"I never shall desist," he had replied. "As to that you may take my word." Then Edith had of course loved him so much the more.

"I don't think this kind of thing will go on," he continued, still addressing Frank Jones. "The people are so fickle that they cannot be constant even to anything evil. It is quite on the cards that Black Tom Daly should next year be the most popular master of hounds in all Ireland, and that Mr. Kit Mooney should not be allowed to show his face within reach of Moytubber Gorse on hunting mornings."

"They'd have burned the gorse before they have come round to that state of feeling. Look at Raheeny."

"It isn't so easy to destroy anything," said the philosophic Clayton. "If the foxes are frightened out of Raheeny or Moytubber, they will go somewhere else. And even if poor Tom Daly were to run away from County Galway, as you're talking of doing, the county would find another master."

"Not like Tom Daly," said Frank Jones, enthusiastically.

"There are as good fish in the sea as ever were caught. Tom Daly is a first-class man, I admit; and he had no more obedient slave than myself when I used to get out hunting two or three days in the session. But he is a desponding man, and cannot look forward to better times. For myself, I own that my hopes are fixed. Hang Lax, and then the millennium!"

"I will quite agree as to the hanging of Lax," said Frank; "but for any millennium, I want something more strong than Irish feeling. You'll excuse me, old fellow."

"Oh, certainly! Of course, I'm an Irishman myself, and might have been a Lax instead of a policeman, if chance had got hold of me in time. As it is, I've a sort of feeling that the policeman is going to have the best of it all through Ireland." Then there came a sudden sound as of a sharp thud, and Yorke Clayton fell as it were dead at Frank Jones's feet.

This occurred at a corner of the road, from which a little boreen or lane ran up the side of the mountain between walls about three feet high. But here some benevolent enterprising gentleman, wishing to bring water through Lower Lough Cong to Lough Corrib, had caused the beginnings of a canal to be built, which had, however, after the expenditure of large sums of money, come to nothing. But the ground, or rather rock, had so been moved and excavated as to make it practicable for some men engaged, as had been this man, to drop at once out of sight. Hunter was at once upon his track, with the other policeman, both of whom fired at him. But as they acknowledged afterwards, they had barely seen the skirt of his coat in the gloom of the evening. The whole spot up and behind the corner of the road was so honeycombed by the works of the intended canal as to afford hiding-places and retreats for a score of murderers. Here, as was afterwards ascertained, there was but one, and that one had apparently sufficed.

Frank Jones had remained on the road with his friend, and had raised him in his arms when he fell. "They have done for me this time," Clayton had said, but had said no more. He had in truth fainted, but Frank Jones, in his ignorance, had thought that he was dead. It turned out afterwards that the bullet had struck his ribs in the front of his body, and, having been turned by the bone, had passed round to his back, and had there buried itself in the flesh. It needs not that we dwell with any length on this part of our tale, but may say at once that the medical skill of Cong sufficed to extract the bullet on the next morning.

After a while one of the two policemen came back to the road, and assisted Frank Jones in carrying up poor Clayton to the inn. Hunter, though still maimed by his wound, stuck to the pursuit, assisted by two other policemen from Cong, who soon appeared upon the scene. But the man escaped, and his flight was soon covered by the darkness of night. It had been eight o'clock before the party had left the inn, and had wandered with great imprudence further than they had intended. At least, so it was said after the occurrence; though, had nothing happened, they would have reached their homes before night had in truth set in. But men said of Clayton that he had become so hardened by the practices of his life, and by the failure of all attempts hitherto made against him, that he had become incredulous of harm.

"They have got me at last," he said to Frank the next morning. "Thank God it was not you instead of me. I have been thinking of it as I lay here in the night, and have blamed myself greatly. It is my business and not yours." And then again further on in the day he sent a message to Edith. "Tell her from me that it is all over now, but that had I lived she would have had to be my wife."

But from that time forth he did in truth get better, though we in these pages can never again be allowed to see him as an active working man. It was his fault,—as the Galway doctor said his egregious sin,—to spend the most of his time in lying on a couch out in the garden at Morony Castle, and talking of the fate of Mr. Lax. The remainder of his hours he devoted to the acceptance of little sick-room favours from his hostess,—I would say from his two hostesses, were it not that he soon came to terms with Ada, under which Ada was not to attend to him with any particular care. "If I could catch that fellow," he said to Ada, alluding to the man who had intended to murder him, "I would have no harm done to him. He should be let free at once; for I could not possibly have got such an opportunity by any other means."

But poor Edith, the while, felt herself to be badly used. She and Ada had often talked of the terrible perils to which Yorke Clayton was subjected, and, as the reader may remember, had discussed the propriety of a man so situated allowing himself to become familiar with any girl. But now Captain Clayton was declared to be safe by everybody. The doctors united in saying that his constitution would carry him through a cannon-ball. But Edith felt that all the danger had fallen to her lot.

In the meantime the search for the double murderers,—unless indeed one murderer had been busy in both cases—was carried vainly along. The horror of poor Mr. Morris's fate had almost disappeared under the awe occasioned by the attack on Captain Clayton. It was astonishing to see how entirely Mr. Morris, with all his family and his old acres, and with Minas Cottage,—which, to the knowledge of the entire population of Cong, was his own peculiar property,—was lost to notice under the attack that had been made with so much audacity on Captain Yorke Clayton. He, as one of four, all armed to the teeth, was attacked by one individual, and attacked successfully. There were those who said at first that the bars of Galway jail must have been broken, and that Lax the omnipotent, Lax the omnipresent, had escaped. And it certainly was the case that many were in ignorance as to who the murderer had been. Probably all were ignorant,—all of those who were in truth well acquainted with the person of Mr. Morris' murderer. And in the minds of the people generally the awe became greater than ever. To them it was evident that anybody could murder anybody; and evident also that it was permitted to them to do so by this new law which had sprung up of late in the country, almost enjoining them to exercise this peculiar mode of retaliation. The bravest thought that they were about to have their revenge against their old masters, and determined that the revenge should be a bloody one. But the more cowardly, and very much the more numerous on that account, feared that, poor as they were, they might be the victims. No man among them could be much poorer than Pat Gilligan, and he had been chosen as one to be murdered, for some reason known only to the murderer.

A new and terrible aristocracy was growing up among them,—the aristocracy of hidden firearms. There was but little said among them, even by the husband to the wife, or by the father to the son; because the husband feared his wife, and the father his own child. There had been a feeling of old among them that they were being ground down by the old aristocracy. There must ever be such an idea on the part of those who do not have enough to eat in regard to their betters, who have more than plenty. It cannot be but that want should engender such feeling. But now the dread of the new aristocracy was becoming worse than that of the old. In the dull, dim minds of these poor people there arose, gradually indeed but quickly, a conviction that the new aristocracy might be worse even than the old; and that law, as administered by Government, might be less tyrannical than the law of those who had no law to govern them. So the people sat silent at their hearths, or crawled miserably about their potato patches, speaking not at all of the life around them.

When a week was over, tidings came to them that Captain Clayton, though he had been shot right through the body,—though the bullet had gone in at his breast and come out at his back, as the report went,—was still alive, and likely to live. "He's a-spending every hour of his blessed life a-making love to a young lady who is a-nursing him." This was the report brought up to Cong by the steward of the lake steamer, and was received as a new miracle by the Cong people. The fates had decreed that Captain Clayton should not fall by any bullet fired by Lax, the Landleaguer; for, though Lax, the Landleaguer, was himself fast in prison when the attempt was made, such became more than ever the creed of the people when it was understood that Captain Clayton, with his own flesh and blood, was at this moment making love to Mr. Jones's youngest daughter at Morony Castle.



CHAPTER XLVII.

KERRYCULLION.

Captain Clayton was thoroughly enjoying life, now perhaps, for the first time since he had had a bullet driven through his body. It had come to pass that everything, almost everything, was done for him by the hands of Edith. And yet Ada was willing to do everything that was required; but she declared always that what she did was of no avail. "Unless you take it to him, you know he won't eat it," she would still say. No doubt this was absurd, because the sick man's appetite was very good, considering that a hole had been made from his front to his back within the last month. It was still September, the weather was as warm as summer, and he insisted on lying out in the garden with his rugs around him, and enjoying the service of all his slaves. But among his slaves Edith was the one whom the other slaves found it most difficult to understand.

"I will go on," she said to her father, "and do everything for him while he is an invalid. But, when he is well enough to be moved, either he or I must go out of this."

Her father simply said that he did not understand it; but then he was one of the other slaves.

"Edith," said the Captain, one day, speaking from his rugs on the bank upon the lawn, "just say that one word, 'I yield.' It will have to be said sooner or later."

"I will not say it, Captain Clayton," said Edith with a firm voice.

"So you have gone back to the Captain," said he.

"I will go back further than that, if you continue to annoy me. It shall be nothing but plain 'sir,' as hard as you please. You might as well let go my hand; you know that I do not take it away violently, because of your wound."

"I know—I know—I know that a girl's hand is the sweetest thing in all creation if she likes you, and leaves it with you willingly." Then there was a little pull, but it was only very little.

"Of course, I don't want to hurt you," said Edith.

"And, therefore, it feels as though you loved me. Of course it does. Your hand says one thing and your voice another. Which way does your heart go?"

"Right against you," said Edith. But she could not help blushing at the lie as she told it. "My conscience is altogether against you, and I advise you to attend more to that than to anything else." But still he held her hand, and still she let him hold it.

At that moment Hunter appeared upon the scene, and Edith regained her hand. But had the Captain held the hand, Hunter would not have seen it. Hunter was full of his own news; and, as he told it, very dreadful the story was. "There has been a murder worse than any that have happened yet, just the other side of the lake," and he pointed away to the mountains, and to that part of Lough Corrib which is just above Cong.

"Another murder?" said Edith.

"Oh, miss, no other murder ever told of had any horror in it equal to this! I don't know how the governor will keep himself quiet there, with such an affair as this to be looked after. There are six of them down,—or at any rate five."

"When a doubt creeps in, one can always disbelieve as much as one pleases."

"You can hardly disbelieve this, sir, as I have just heard the story from Sergeant Malcolm. There were six in the house, and five have been carried out dead. One has been taken to Cong, and he is as good as dead. Their names are Kelly. An old man and an old woman, and another woman and three children. The old woman was very old, and the man appears to have been her son."

"Have they got nobody?" asked Clayton.

"It appears not, sir. But there is a rumour about the place that there were many of them in it."

"Looking after one another," said Clayton, "so that none should escape his share of the guilt."

"It may be so. But there were many in it, sir. I can't tell much of the circumstances, except the fact that there are the five bodies lying dead." And Hunter, with some touch of dramatic effect and true pathos, pointed again to the mountains which he had indicated as the spot where this last murder was committed.

It was soon settled among them that Hunter should go off to the scene of action, Cong, or wherever else his services might be required, and that he should take special care to keep his master acquainted with all details as they came to light. For us, we may give here the details as they did reach the Captain's ears in the course of the next few days.

Hunter's story had only been too true. The six persons had been murdered, barring one child, who had been taken into Cong in a state which was supposed hardly to admit of his prolonged life. The others, who now lay dead at a shebeen house in the neighbourhood, consisted of an old woman and her son, and his wife and a grown daughter, and a son. All these had been killed in various ways,—had been shot with rifles, and stoned with rocks, and made away with, after any fashion that might come most readily to the hands of brutes devoid of light, of mercy, of conscience, and apparently of fear. It must have been a terrible sight to see, for those who had first broken in upon the scene of desolation. In the course of the next morning it had become known to the police, and it was soon rumoured throughout England and Ireland that there had been ten murderers engaged in the bloody fray. It must have been as Captain Clayton had surmised; one with another intent upon destroying that wretched family,—or perhaps only one among its number,—had insisted that others should accompany him. A man who had been one of their number was less likely to tell if he had a hand in it himself. And so there were ten of them. It might be that one among the number of the murdered had seen the murder of Mr. Morris, or of Pat Gilligan, or the attempted murder of Captain Clayton. And that one was not sure not to tell,—had perhaps shown by some sign and indication that to tell the truth about the deed was in his breast,—or in hers! Some woman living there might have spoken such a word to a friend less cautious in that than were the neighbours in general. Then we can hear, or fancy that we can hear, the muttered reasons of those who sought to rule amidst that bloody community. They were a family of the Kellys,—these poor doomed creatures,—but amidst those who whispered together, amidst those who were forced to come into the whispering, there were many of the same family; or, at any rate, of the same name. For the Kellys were a tribe who had been strong in the land for many years. Though each of the ten feared to be of the bloody party, each did not like not to be of it, for so the power would have come out of their hands. They wished to be among the leading aristocrats, though still they feared. And thus they came together, dreading each other, hating each other at last; each aware that he was about to put his very life within the other's power, and each trying to think, as far as thoughts would come to his dim mind, that to him might come some possibility of escape by betraying his comrades.

But a miracle had occurred,—that which must have seemed to be a miracle when they first heard it, and to the wretches themselves, when its fatal truth was made known to them. While in the dead of night they were carrying out this most inhuman massacre there were other eyes watching them; six other eyes were looking at them, and seeing what they did perhaps more plainly than they would see themselves! Think of the scene! There were six persons doomed, and ten who had agreed to doom them; and three others looking on from behind a wall, so near as to enable them to see it all, under the fitful light of the stars! Nineteen of them engaged round one small cabin, of whom five were to die that night;—and as to ten others, it cannot but be hoped that the whole ten may pay the penalty due to the offended feelings of an entire nation!

It may be that it shall be proved that some among the ten had not struck a fatal blow. Or it may fail to be proved that some among the ten have done so. It will go hard with any man to adjudge ten men to death for one deed of murder; and it is very hard for that one to remember always that the doom he is to give is the only means in our power to stop the downward path of crime among us. It may be that some among the ten shall be spared, and it may be that he or they who spare them shall have done right.

But such was not the feeling of Captain Yorke Clayton as he discussed the matter, day after day, with Hunter, or with Frank Jones, upon the lawn at Castle Morony. "It would be the grandest sight to see,—ten of them hanging in a row."

"The saddest sight the world could show," said Frank.

"Sad enough, that the world should want it. But if you had been employed as I have for the last few years, you would not think it sad to have achieved it. If the judge and the jury will do their work as it should be done there will be an end to this kind of thing for many years to come. Think of the country we are living in now! Think of your father's condition, and of the injury which has been done to him and to your sisters, and to yourself. If that could be prevented and atoned for, and set right by the hanging in one row of ten such miscreants as those, would it not be a noble deed done? These ten are frightful to you because there are ten at once,—ten in the same village,—ten nearly of the same name! People would call it a bloody assize where so many are doomed. But they scruple to call the country bloody where so many are murdered day after day. It is the honest who are murdered; but would it not be well to rid the world of these ruffians? And, remember, that these ten would not have been ten, if some one or two had been dealt with for the first offence. And if the ten were now all spared, whose life would be safe in such a Golgotha? I say that, to those who desire to have their country once more human, once more fit for an honest man to live in, these ten men hanging in a row will be a goodly sight."

There must have been a feeling in the minds of these three men that some terrible step must be taken to put an end to the power of this aristocracy, before life in the country would be again possible. When they had come together to watch their friends and neighbours, and see what the ten were about to do, there must have been some determination in their hearts to tell the story of that which would be enacted. Why should these ten have all the power in their own hands? Why should these questions of life and death be remitted to them, to the exclusion of those other three? And if this family of Kellys were doomed, why should there not be other families of other Kellys,—why not their own families? And if Kerrycullion were made to swim in blood,—for that was the name of the townland in which these Kellys lived,—why not any other homestead round the place in which four or five victims may have hidden themselves? So the three, with mutual whisperings among themselves, with many fears and with much trembling, having obtained some tidings of what was to be done, agreed to follow and to see. It was whispered about that one of the family, the poor man's wife, probably, had seen the attack made upon poor Pat Gilligan, and may, or may not, have uttered some threat of vengeance; may have shown some sign that the murder ought to be made known to someone. Was not Pat Gilligan her sister's husband's brother's child? And he was not one of the other, the rich aristocracy, against whom all men's hands were justly raised. Some such word had probably passed the unfortunate woman's lips, and the ten men had risen against her. The ten men, each protecting each other, had sworn among themselves that so villainous a practice, so glaring an evil as this, of telling aught to the other aristocracy, must be brought to an end.

But then the three interfered, and it was likely that the other, the rich aristocracy, should now know all about it. It was not to save the lives of those unfortunate women and children that they went. There would be danger in that. And though the women and children were, at any rate, their near neighbours, why should they attempt to interfere and incur manifest dangers on their account? But they would creep along and see, and then they could tell; or should they be disturbed in their employment, they could escape amidst the darkness of the night. There could be no escape for those poor wretches, stripped in their bed; none for that aged woman, who could not take herself away from among the guns and rocks of her pursuers; none for those poor children; none, indeed, for the father of the family, upon whom the ten would come in his lair. If his wife had threatened to tell, he must pay for his wife's garrulity. Pat Gilligan had suffered for some such offence, and it was but just that she and he and they should suffer also. But the three might have to suffer, also, in their turns, if they consented to subject themselves to so bloody an aristocracy. And therefore they stalked forth at night and went up to Kerrycullion, at the heels of the other party, and saw it all. Now, one after another, the six were killed, or all but killed, and then the three went back to their homes, resolved that they would have recourse to the other aristocracy.

Between Galway and Cong and Kerrycullion, Hunter was kept going in these days, so as to obtain always the latest information for his master. For, though the neighbourhood of Morony Castle was now supposed to be quiet, and though the Captain was not at the moment on active service, Hunter was still allowed to remain with him. And, indeed, Captain Clayton's opinion was esteemed so highly, that, though he could do nothing, he was in truth on active service. "They are sticking to their story, all through?" he asked Hunter, or rather communicated the fact to Hunter for his benefit.

"Oh, yes! sir; they stick to their story. There is no doubt about them now. They can't go back."

"And that boy can talk now?"

"Yes, sir; he can talk a little."

"And what he says agrees with the three men? There will be no more murders in that county, Hunter, or in County Galway either. When they have once learned to think it possible that one man may tell of another, there will be an end to that little game. But they must hang them of course."

"Oh, yes! sir," said Hunter. "I'd hang them myself; the whole ten of them, rather than keep them waiting."

"The trial is to be in Dublin. Before that day comes we shall find what they do about Lax. I don't suppose they will want me; or if they did, for the matter of that, I could go myself as well as ever."

"You could do nothing of the kind, Captain Clayton," said Edith, who was sitting there. "It is absurd to hear you talk in such a way."

"I don't suppose he could just go up to Dublin, miss," said Hunter.

"Not for life and death?" roared the sick man.

"I suppose you could for life and death," said Hunter,—with a little caution.

"For his own death he could," said Edith. "But it's the death of other people that he is thinking of now."

"And you, what are you thinking of?"

"To tell the truth, just at this moment I was thinking of yours. You are here under our keeping, and as long as you remain so, we are bound to do what we can to keep you from killing yourself; you ought to be in your bed."

"Tucked up all round,—and you ought to be giving me gruel." Then Hunter simpered and went away. He generally did go away when the love-scenes began.

"You could give one something which would cure me instantly."

"No, I could not! There are no such instant cures known in the medical world for a man who has had a hole right through him."

"That bullet will certainly be immortal."

"But you will not if you talk of going up to Dublin."

"Edith, a kiss would cure me."

"Captain Clayton, you are in circumstances which should prevent you from alluding to any such thing. I am here to nurse you, and I should not be insulted."

"That is true," he said. "And if it be an insult to tell you what a kiss would do for me, I withdraw the word. But the feeling it would convey, that you had in truth given yourself to me, that you were really, really my own, would I think cure me, though a dozen bullets had gone through me."

Then when Ada had come down, Edith went to her bedroom, and kissed the pillow, instead of him. Oh, if it might be granted to her to go to him, and frankly to confess, that she was all, all his own! And she felt, as days went on, she would have to yield, though honour still told her that she should never do so.



CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE NEW ARISTOCRACY FAILS.

From this moment the mystery of the new aristocracy began to fade away, and get itself abolished. Men and women began to feel that there might be something worse in store for them than the old course of policemen, juries, and judges. It had seemed, at first, as though these evil things could be brought to an end, and silenced altogether as far as their blessed country was concerned. A time was coming in which everyone was to do as he pleased, without any fear that another should tell of him. Though a man should be seen in the broad daylight cutting the tails off half a score of oxen it would be recognised in the neighbourhood as no more than a fair act of vengeance, and nothing should be told of the deed, let the policemen busy themselves as they might. And the beauty of the system consisted in the fact that the fear of telling was brought home to the minds of all men, women, and children. Though it was certain that a woman had seen a cow's tail mangled, though it could be proved beyond all doubt that she was in the field when the deed was done, yet if she held her peace no punishment would await her. The policeman and the magistrate could do nothing to her. But Thady O'Leary, the man who had cut a cow's tail off, could certainly punish her. If nothing else were done she could be boycotted, or, in other words, not allowed to buy or sell the necessaries of life. Or she could herself be murdered, as had happened to Pat Gilligan. The whole thing had seemed to run so smoothly!

But now there had come, or would soon come, a change o'er the spirit of the dream. The murder of Pat Gilligan, though it had made one in the necessary sequence of events, one act in the course of the drama which, as a whole, had appeared to be so perfect, seemed to them all to have about it something terrible. No one knew what offence Pat Gilligan had given, or why he had been condemned. Each man began to tremble as he thought that he too might be a Pat Gilligan, and each woman that she might be a Mrs. Kelly. It was better to go back to the police and the magistrates than this!

I do not know that we need lean too heavily on the stupidity of the country's side in not having perceived that this would be so. The country's side is very slow in perceiving the course which things will take. These ten murderers had been brought together, each from fear of the others; and they must have felt that though they were ten,—a number so great when they considered the employment on which they were engaged as to cause horror to the minds of all of them,—the ten could not include all who should have been included. Had the other three been taken in, if that were possible, how much better it would have been! But the desire for murder had not gone so far,—its beauty had not been so perfectly acknowledged as to make it even yet possible to comprise a whole parish in destroying one family.

Then the three had seen that the whole scheme, the mystery of the thing, the very plan upon which it was founded, must be broken down and thrown to the winds. And we can imagine that, when the idea first came upon the minds of those three, that the entire family of the Kellys was to be sacrificed to stop the tongue of one talkative old woman, a horror must have fallen upon them as they recognised the duty which was incumbent on them. The duty of saving those six unfortunates they did not recognise. They could not screw themselves up to the necessary pitch of courage to enable them to enter in among loaded pistols and black-visaged murderers. The two women and the children had to die, though the three men were so close to them; so close as to have been certainly able to save them, or some of them, had they rushed into the cabin and created the confusion of another advent. To this they could not bring themselves, for are not the murderers armed? But an awful horror must have crept round their minds as they thought of the self-imposed task they had undertaken. They waited until the murders had been completed, and then they went back home and told the police.

From this moment the mystery by which murders in County Galway and elsewhere were for a short period protected was over in Ireland. Men have not seen, as yet, how much more lovely it is to tell frankly all that has been done, to give openly such evidence as a man may have to police magistrates and justices of the peace, than to keep anything wrapped within his own bosom. The charm of such outspoken truth does not reconcile itself at once to the untrained mind; but the fact of the loveliness does gradually creep in, and the hideous ugliness of the other venture. On the minds of those men of Kerrycullion something of the ugliness and something of the loveliness must have made itself apparent. And when this had been done it was not probable that a return to the utter ugliness of the lie should be possible. Whether the ten be hanged,—to the intense satisfaction of Hunter and his master,—or some fewer number, such as may suffice the mitigated desire for revenge which at present is burning in the breasts of men, the thing will have been done, and the mystery with all its beauty will have passed away.

At Castle Morony the beginning of the passing away of the mystery was hailed with great delight. It took place in this wise. A little girl who had been brought up there in the kitchen, and had reached the age of fifteen under the eyes of Ada and Edith,—a slip of a girl, whose feet our two girls had begun to trammel with shoes and stockings, and who was old enough to be proud of the finery though she could not bear the confinement,—had gone under the system of boycotting, when all the other servants had gone also. Peter, who was very stern in his discipline to the younger people, had caught hold of her before she went, and had brought her to Mr. Jones, recommending that at any rate her dress should be stripped from her back, and her shoes and stockings from her feet. "If you war to wallop her, sir, into the bargain, it would be a good deed done," Peter had said to his master.

"Why should I wallop her for leaving my service?"

"She ain't guv' no notice," said the indignant Peter.

"And if I were to wallop you because you had taken it into your stupid head to leave me at a moment's notice, should I be justified in doing so?"

"There is differences," said Peter, drawing himself up.

"You are stronger, you mean, and Feemy Carroll is weak. Let her go her own gait as she pleases. How am I to take upon myself to say that she is not right to go? And for the shoes and stockings, let them go with her, and the dress also, if I am supposed to have any property in it. Fancy a Landleaguer in Parliament asking an indignant question as to my detaining forcibly an unwilling female servant. Let them all go; the sooner we learn to serve ourselves the better for us. I suppose you will go too before long."

This had been unkind, and Peter had made a speech in which he had said so. But the little affair had taken place in the beginning of the boycotting disarrangements, and Mr. Jones had been bitter in spirit. Now the girls had shown how deftly they could do the work, and had begun to talk pleasantly how well they could manage to save the wages and the food. "It's my food you'll have to save, and my wages," said Captain Clayton. But this had been before he had a hole driven through him, and he was only awed by a frown.

But now news was brought in that Feemy had crept in at the back door. "Drat her imperence," said Peter, who brought in the news. "It's like her ways to come when she can't get a morsel of wholesome food elsewhere."

Then Ada and Edith had rushed off to lay hold of the delinquent, who had indeed left a feeling in the hearts of her mistresses of some love for her little foibles. "Oh! Feemy, so you've come back again," said Ada, "and you've grown so big!" But Feemy cowered and said not a word. "What have you been doing all the time?" said Edith. "Miss Ada and I have had to clean out all the pots and all the pans, and all the gridirons, though for the matter of that there has been very little to cook on them." Then Ada asked the girl whether she intended to come back to her old place.

"If I'm let," said the girl, bursting into tears.

"Where are the shoes and stockings?" said Ada.

But the girl only wept.

"Of course you shall come back, shoes or no shoes. I suppose times have been too hard with you at home to think much of shoes or stockings. Since your poor cousin was shot in Galway court-house,"—for Feemy was a cousin of the tribe of Carrolls,—"I fear it hasn't gone very well with you all." But to this Feemy had only answered by renewed sobs. She had, however, from that moment taken up her residence as of yore in the old house, and had gone about her business just as though no boycotting edict had been pronounced against Castle Morony.

And gradually the other servants had returned, falling back into their places almost without a word spoken. One boy, who had in former days looked after the cows, absolutely did come and drive them in to be milked one morning without saying a word.

"And who are you, you young deevil?" said Peter to him.

"I'm just Larry O'Brien."

"And what business have you here?" said Peter. "How many months ago is it since last year you took yourself off without even a word said to man or woman? Who wants you back again now, I wonder?"

The boy, who had grown half-way to a man since he had taken his departure, made no further answer, but went on with the milking of his cows.

And the old cook came back again from Galway, though she came after the writing of a letter which must have taken her long to compose, and the saying of many words.

"Honoured Miss," the letter went, "I've been at Peter Corcoran's doing work any time these twelve months. And glad I've been to find a hole to creep into. But Peter Corcoran's house isn't like Castle Morony, and so I've told him scores of times. But Peter is one of them Landleaguers, and is like to be bruk', horse, foot, and dragoons, bekaise he wouldn't serve the gentry. May the deevil go along with him, and with his pollytiks. Sure you know, miss, they wouldn't let me stay at Castle Morony. Wasn't one side in pollitiks the same as another to an old woman like me, who only wants to 'arn her bit and her sup? I don't care the vally of a tobacco-pipe for none of them now. So if the squire would take me back again, may God bless him for iver and iver, say I." Then this letter was signed Judy Corcoran,—for she too was of the family of the Corcorans,—and became the matter for many arrangements, in the course of which she once more was put into office as cook at Castle Morony.

Then Edith wrote the following letter to her friend Rachel, who still remained in London, partly because of her health and partly because her father had not yet quite settled his political affairs. But that shall be explained in another chapter.

DEAREST RACHEL,

Here we are beginning to see daylight, after having been buried in Cimmerian darkness for the best part of two years. I never thought how possible it would be to get along without servants to look after us, and how much of the pleasures of life might come without any of its comforts. Ada and I for many months have made every bed that has been slept in in the house, till we have come to think that the making of beds is the proper employment for ladies. And every bit of food has been cooked by us, till that too has become ladylike in our eyes. And it has been done for papa, who has, I think, liked his bed and his dinner all the better, because they have passed through his daughters' hands. But, dear papa! I'm afraid he has not borne the Cimmerian darkness as well as have we, who have been young enough to look forward to the return of something better.

What am I to say to you about Frank, who will not talk much of your perfections, though he is always thinking of them? I believe he writes to you constantly, though what he says, or of what nature it is, I can only guess. I presume he does not send many messages to Lord Castlewell, who, however, as far as I can see, has behaved beautifully. What more can a girl want than to have a lord to fall in love with her, and to give her up just as her inclination may declare itself?

What I write for now, specially, is to add a word to what I presume Frank may have said in one of his letters. Papa says that neither you nor Mr. O'Mahony are to think of leaving this side of the water without coming down to Castle Morony. We have got a cook now, and a cow-boy. What more can you want? And old Peter is here still, always talking about the infinite things which he has done for the Jones family. Joking apart, you must of course come and see us again once before you start for New York. Is Frank to go with you? That is a question to which we can get no answer at all from Frank himself.

In your last you asked me about my affairs. Dear girl, I have no affairs. I am in such a position that it is impossible for me to have what you would call affairs. Between you and Frank everything is settled. Between me and the man to whom you allude there is nothing settled,—except that there is no ground for settlement. He must go one way and I another. It is very sad, you will say. I, however, have done it for myself and I must bear the burden.

Yours always lovingly,

EDITH.



CHAPTER XLIX.

It is not to be supposed that Mr. Jones succumbed altogether to the difficulties which circumstances had placed in his way. His feelings had been much hurt both by those who had chosen to call themselves his enemies and by his friends, and under such usage he became somewhat sullen. Having suffered a grievous misfortune he had become violent with his children, and had been more severely hurt by the death of the poor boy who had been murdered than he had confessed. But he had still struggled on, saying but little to anybody till at last he had taken Frank into his confidence, when Frank had returned from London with his marriage engagement dissolved. And the re-engagement had not at all interfered with the renewed intimacy between Frank and his father, because the girl was absolved from her singing. The father had feared that the son would go away from him, and lead an idle life, enjoying the luxuries which her rich salary would purchase. Frank had shared his father's feelings in this respect, but still the squire had had his misgivings. All that was now set to rights by the absolute destruction of poor Rachel's voice.

Poor Mr. Jones had indeed received comfort from other sources more material than this. His relatives had put their heads together, and had agreed to bear some part of the loss which had fallen upon the estate; not the loss, that is, from the submerged meadows, which was indeed Mr. Jones's own private concern, but from the injury done to him by the commissioners. Indeed, as things went on, that injury appeared to be less extensive than had been imagined, though the injustice, as it struck Mr. Jones's mind, was not less egregious. Where there was a shred of a lease the sub-commissioners were powerless, and though attempts had been made to break the leases they had failed; and men were beginning to say that the new law would be comparatively powerless because it would do so little. The advocates for the law pointed out that, taking the land of Ireland all through, not five per cent.,—and again others not two per cent.,—would be affected by it. Whether it had been worth while to disturb the sanctity of contracts for so small a result is another question; but our Mr. Jones certainly did feel the comfort that came to him from the fact. Certain fragments of land had been reduced by the sub-commissioners after ponderous sittings, very beneficial to the lawyers, but which Mr. Jones had found to be grievously costly to him. He had thus agreed to other reductions without the lawyers, and felt those also to be very grievous, seeing that since he had purchased the property with a Parliamentary title he had raised nothing. There was no satisfaction to him when he was told that a Parliamentary title meant nothing, because a following Parliament could undo what a preceding Parliament had done. But as the arrangements went on he came to find that no large proportion of the estates would be affected, and that gradually the rents would be paid. They had not been paid as yet, but such he was told was the coming prospect. Pat Carroll had risen up as a great authority at Ballintubber, and had refused to pay a shilling. He had also destroyed those eighty acres of meadow-land which had sat so near Mr. Jones's heart. It had been found impossible to punish him, but the impossibility was to be traced to that poor boy's delinquency. As the owner of the property turned it all over within his own bosom, he told himself that it was so. It was that that had grieved him most, that which still sat heavy on his heart. But the boy was gone, and Pat Carroll was in prison, and Pat Carroll's brother had been murdered in Galway court-house. Lax, too, was in prison, and Yorke Clayton swore by all his gods that he should be hanged. It was likely that he would be hanged, and Yorke Clayton might find his comfort in that. And now had come up this terrible affair at Kerrycullion, from which it was probable that the whole mystery of the new aristocracy would be abandoned. Mr. Jones, as he thought of it all, whispered to himself that if he would still hold up his head, life might yet be possible at Castle Morony. "It will only be for myself,—only for myself and Ada," he said, still mourning greatly over his fate. "And Ada will go, too. The beauty of the flock will never be left to remain here with her father." But in truth his regrets were chiefly for Edith. If that bloodthirsty Captain would have made himself satisfied with Ada, he might still have been happy.

In these days he would walk down frequently to the meadows and see the work which the men were doing. He had greatly enlarged them, having borrowed money for the purpose from the Government Land Commissioners, and was once again allowing new hopes to spring in his heart. Though he was a man so silent, and appearing to be so apathetic, he was intent enough on his own purposes when they became clear before his eyes. From his first coming into this country his purport had been to do good, as far as the radius of his circle went, to all whom it included. The necessity of living was no doubt the same with him as with others,—and of living well. He must do something for himself and his children. But together with this was the desire, nearly equally strong, of being a benefactor to those around him. He had declared to himself when he bought the property that with this object would he settle himself down upon it, and he had not departed from it. He had brought up his children with this purpose; and they had learned to feel, one and all, that it was among the pleasures and the duties of their life. Then had come Pat Carroll, and everything had been embittered for him. All Ballintubber and all Morony had seemed to turn against him. When he found that Pat Carroll was disposed to be hostile to him, he made the man a liberal offer to take himself off to America. But Mr. Jones, in those days, had heard nothing of Lax, and was unaware that Lax was a dominant spirit under whom he was doomed to suffer.

"I did not know you so well then," said Captain Clayton to Mr. Jones, now some weeks hence, "or I could have told you that Pat Carroll is nobody. Pat Carroll is considered nobody, because he has not been to New York. Mr. Lax has travelled, and Mr. Lax is somebody. Mr. Lax settled himself in County Mayo, and thus he allowed his influence to spread itself among us over here in County Galway. Mr. Lax is a great man, but I rather think that he will have to be hanged in Galway jail before a month has passed over his head."

Mr. Jones usually took his son with him when he walked about among the meadows, and he again expressed his wishes to him as though Frank hereafter were to have the management of everything. But on one occasion, towards the latter half of the afternoon, he went alone. There were different wooden barriers, having sluice gates passing between them, over which he would walk, and at present there were sheep on the upper meadows, on which the luxuriant grass had begun to grow in the early summer. He was looking at his sheep now, and thinking to himself that he could find a market for them in spite of all that the boycotters could do to prevent him. But in one corner, where the meadows ceased, and Pat Carroll's land began, he met an old man whom he had known well in former years, named Con Heffernan. It was absolutely the case that he, the landlord, did not at the present moment know who occupied Pat Carroll's land, though he did know that he had received no rent for the last three years. And he knew also that Con Heffernan was a friend of Carroll's, or, as he believed, a distant cousin. And he knew also that Con was supposed to have been one of those who had assisted at the destruction of the sluice gates.

"Well, Con; how are you?" he said.

"Why thin, yer honour, I'm only puirly. It's bad times as is on us now, indeed and indeed."

"Whose fault is that?" said the squire.

"Not yer honour's. I will allys say that for your honour. You never did nothing to none of us."

"You had land on the estate till some twelve months since, and then you were evicted for five gales of rent."

"That's thrue, too, yer honour."

"You ought to be a rich man now, seeing that you have got two-and-a-half years' rent in your pocket, and I ought to be poor, seeing that I've got none of it."

"Is it puir for yer honour, and is it rich for the like of me?"

"What have you done with the money, Con,—the five gales of rent?"

"'Deed, yer honour, and I don't be just knowing anything about it."

"I suppose the Landleaguers have had some of it."

"I suppose they have, thin; the black divil run away with them for Laaguers!"

"Have you quarrelled with the League, Con?"

"I have quarrelled with a'most of the things which is a-going at the present moment."

"I'm sorry for that, as quarrels with old friends are always bad."

"The Laague, then, isn't any such old friend of mine. I niver heerd of the Laague, not till nigh three years ago. What with Faynians, and moonlighters, and Home-Rulers, and now with thim Laaguers, they don't lave a por boy any pace."

* * * * *

POSTSCRIPT.

In a preliminary note to the first volume I stated why this last-written novel of my father's was never completed. He had intended that Yorke Clayton should marry Edith Jones, that Frank Jones should marry Rachel O'Mahony, and that Lax should be hanged for the murder of Florian Jones; but no other coming incident, or further unravelling of the story, is known.

H. M. T.

THE END.

Charles Dickens And Evans, Crystal Palace Press.



* * * * *



Transcriber's note:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected without comment.

Specific changes in wording of the text are listed below.

Volume I, Chapter V, paragraph 5. The word "peasant" was changed to "present" in the sentence: In regard to Ireland his theory was that the land should be taken from the PRESENT proprietors, and divided among the peasants who tilled it.

Volume I, Chapter XIII, last paragraph. The word "evidence" was changed to "guilt" in the sentence: She could understand that it must be taken down in some form that would be presentable to a magistrate, and that evidence of the guilt of Pat Carroll and evidence as to the possible GUILT of others must not be whispered simply into her own ears.

Volume I, Chapter XIV, paragraph 6. The word "danger" was changed to "dangers" in the sentence: Like the other letter it was cheerful, and high-spirited; but still it seemed to speak of impending DANGERS, which Frank, though he could not understand them, thought that he could perceive.

Volume I, Chapter XV, paragraph 4. The word "President" was changed too "Resident" in the sentence: He had lately been appointed Joint RESIDENT Magistrate for Galway, Mayo, and Roscommon, and had removed his residence to Galway.

Volume II, Chapter XVIII, paragraph 20. An em-dash was moved from after the word "shillings" to after the word "said" in the sentence: To tell the truth,—and as he had said,—to earn a few shillings was the object of his ambition.

Volume II, Chapter XXIV, paragraph 65. The word "daughter" was changed to the plural in the sentence: There would be nothing unusual under ordinary circumstances in your DAUGHTERS going to a ball at Galway.

Volume II, Chapter XXVI, paragraph 64. The word "thought" was changed to "said" in the sentence: "I ought to have said 'my lord,'" she SAID; "but I forgot. I hope you'll excuse me—my lord." Also, a comma after "forgot" was changed to a full stop.

Volume II, Chapter XXVII, next-to-last paragraph. The word "is" was deleted from the sentence: There's [IS] no knowing what a policeman can't do in this country.

Volume III, Chapter XXXVI, paragraph 14. The astute reader will forgive Trollope, who was quite ill, for here calling Pat Carroll's brother Jerry instead of Terry, as he has been called up to now and will again be called later in the novel. The name has been changed back to Terry in the sentence: The murder of TERRY Carroll at the moment in which he was about to give evidence,—false evidence, as the Leaguers said,—against his brother was a great triumph to them.

Volume III, Chapter XXXIX, paragraph 4. "Jerry" was changed to "Terry" (v.s.) in the sentence: Nothing had ever been made out in regard to the murder of TERRY Carroll in the Court House at Galway.

Volume III, Chapter XXXIX, paragraph 5. "Jerry" was changed to "Terry" (v.s.) in the sentence: "Did the Crown intend to pretend that they had any shadow of evidence against him as to the shooting of TERRY Carroll?"

Volume III, Chapter XXXIX, paragraph 6. "Jerry" was changed to "Terry" (v.s.) in the sentence: Even presuming that Lax's hand cannot be seen visible in the matter of TERRY Carroll, there is, we think, something to connect him with the other murder.

Volume III, Chapter XLVIII, paragraph 18. The word "jail" was changed to "Galway court-house" in the sentence beginning: Since your poor cousin was shot in GALWAY COURT-HOUSE . . .

THE END