The O'Donoghue: Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago. Lever Charles James

put a piece of tindir in it; I gave them an ould rag, and they rubbed it over with powder, and set it burning.’

      “Who were they that did this?”

      “The fellows that threw me down – what fine pistols they had, with silver all over them! They said that they would not beat me at all, and they didn’t either. When I gave them the rag, they said, ‘Now, my lad, we’ll show you a fine fire;’ and, true for them, I never seen a grander.”

      In this vague, rambling strain, did Terry reply to every question put to him, his thoughts ever travelling in one narrow circle. Who they were that fired the haggard, how many, and what kind of appearance they wore, he knew nothing of whatever; for in addition to his natural imbecility of mind, the shock of the adventure, and the fever of his wounds and bruises, had utterly routed the small remnant of understanding which usually served to guide him.

      To one question only did his manner evince hesitation and doubt in the answer, and that was, when Sir Marmaduke asked him, how it happened that he should have been up at the Lodge at so late an hour, since the doors were all locked and barred a considerable time previous.

      Terry’s face flushed scarlet at the question, and he made no reply; he stole a sharp, quick glance towards Miss Travers, beneath his eyelids, but as rapidly withdrew it again, when his colour grew deeper and deeper.

      The old man marked the embarrassment, and all his suspicions were revived at once. “You must tell me this, Terry,” said he, in a voice of some impatience; “I insist upon knowing it.”

      “Yes, Terry, speak it out freely; you can have no cause for concealment,” said Sybella, encouragingly.

      “I’ll not tell it!” said he, after a pause of some seconds, during which he seemed to have been agitating within himself all the reasons on either side – “I’ll not tell it.”

      “Come, sir,” said Sir Marmaduke angrily, “I must and will know this; your hesitation has a cause, and it shall be known.”

      The boy started at the tones so unusual to his ears, and stared at the speaker in mute astonishment.

      “I am not displeased with you, Terry – at least I shall not be, if you speak freely and openly to me. Now, then, answer my question – What brought you about the Lodge at so late an hour?”

      “I’ll not tell,” said the youth resolutely.

      “For shame, Terry,” said Sybella, in a low, soothing voice, as she drew near him; “how can you speak thus to my father. You would not have me displeased with you?”

      The boy’s face grew pale as death, and his lips quivered with agitation, while his eyes, glazed with heavy tears, were turned downwards; still he never spoke a word.

      “Well, what think you of him, now?” said Sir Marmaduke in a whisper to his daughter.

      “That he is innocent – perfectly innocent,” replied she, triumphantly. “The poor fellow has his own reasons – shallow enough, doubtless – for his silence; but they have no spot or stain of guilt about them, Let me try if I cannot unfathom this business – I’ll go down to the boat-house.”

      The generous girl delayed not a moment, but hastened from the room as she spoke, leaving Sir Marmaduke and Terry silently confronting each other. The moment of his daughter’s departure, Sir Marmaduke felt relieved from the interference her good opinion of Terry suggested, and, at once altering his whole demeanour, he walked close up to him, and said —

      “I shall but give you one chance more, sir. Answer my question now, or never.”

      “Never, then!” rejoined Terry, in a tone of open defiance.

      The words, and the look by which they were accompanied, overcame the old man’s temper in a moment, and he said —

      “I thought as much. I guessed how deeply gratitude had sunk in such a heart. Away! Let me see you no more.”

      The boy turned his eyes from the speaker till they fell upon his own seared and burned limb, and the hand swathed in its rude bandage. That mute appeal was all he made, and then burst into a flood of tears. The old man turned away to hide his own emotions, and when he looked round, Terry was gone. The hall door lay open. He had passed out and gained the lawn – no sight of him could be seen.

      “I know it, father, I know it all now,” said Sybella, as she came running up the slope from the lake.

      “It is too late, my child; he has gone – left us for ever, I fear,” said Sir Marmaduke, as in shame and sorrow he rested his head upon her shoulder.

      For some seconds she could not comprehend his words; and, when at last she did so, she burst forth —

      “And, oh, father, think how we have wronged him. It was in his care and devotion to us, the poor fellow incurred’ our doubts. His habit was to sit beneath the window each night, so long as lights gleamed within. Till they were extinguished, he never sought his rest. The boatman tells me this, and says, his notion was, that God watches over the dark hours only, and that man’s precautions were needed up to that time.”

      With sincere and heartfelt sorrow Sir Marmaduke turned away. Servants were despatched on foot and horseback to recover the idiot boy, and persuade him to return; but his path lay across a wild and mountain region, where few could follow; and at nightfall the messengers returned unsuccessful in their search.

      If there was real sorrow over his departure in the parlour, the very opposite feeling pervaded the kitchen. There, each in turn exulted in his share of what had occurred, and took pains to exaggerate his claims to gratitude, for having banished one so unpopular and unfriended.

      Alarm at the attack of the previous night, and sorrow for the unjust treatment of poor Terry, were not Sir Marmaduke’s only emotions on this sad morning. His messenger had just returned from Carrig-na-curra with very dispiriting tidings of Herbert O’Donoghue. Respect for the feelings of the family under the circumstances of severe illness, had induced him to defer his intended visit to a more suitable opportunity; but his anxiety for the youth’s recovery was unceasing, and he awaited the return of each servant sent to inquire after him, with the most painful impatience. In this frame of mind was he as evening drew near, and he wandered down his avenue to the road-side to learn some minutes earlier the last intelligence of the boy. It was a calm and peaceful hour; not a leaf moved in the still air; and all in the glen seemed bathed in the tranquil influence of the mellow sunset. The contrast to the terrific storm which so lately swept through the mountain-pass was most striking, and appealed to the old man’s heart, as reflecting back the image of human life, so varying in its aspect, so changeful of good and evil. He stood and meditated on the passages of his own life, whose tenor had, till now, been so equable, but whose fortunes seemed already to participate in the eventful fate of a distracted country. He regretted, deeply regretted, that he had ever come to Ireland. He began to learn how little power there is to guide the helm of human fortune, when once engaged in the stormy current, and he saw himself already the sport of a destiny he had never anticipated.

      If he was puzzled at the aspect of a peasantry, highly gifted with intelligence, yet barbarously ignorant – active and energetic, yet indolent and fatalist – the few hints he had gathered of his neighbour, the O’Donoghue, amazed him still more; and by no effort of his imagination could he conceive the alliance between family pride and poverty – between the reverence for ancestry, and an utter indifference to the present. He could not understand such an anomaly as pretension without wealth; and the only satisfactory explanation he could arrive at, to himself, was, that in a wild and secluded tract, even so much superiority as this old chieftain possessed, attracted towards him the respect of all humbler and more lowly than himself, and made even his rude state seem affluence and power. If in his advances to the O’ Donoghue he had observed all the forms of a measured respect, it was because he felt so deeply his debtor for a service, that he would omit nothing in the repayment: his gratitude was sincere and heartfelt, and he would not admit any obstacle in the way of acknowledging it.

      Reflecting thus, he was suddenly startled by the sound of wheels coming up the glen – he listened, and now heard the low trot of a horse,