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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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A young Englishman fleeing heartbreak seeks solitude at remote Blackstone Castle—only to find himself drawn into the lingering sorrow of Diarmid Chittock, a once-jovial Irish landowner now haunted by a love he could never win. As Cyril Danson settles into the wild Atlantic landscape, whispers of a vanished inspector, a melancholy governess walking miles each day, and the strange, shifting moods of the castle itself weave together into a tale of mystery, wounded pride, and unspoken devotion. "Diarmid Chittock's Story" unfolds as a quietly haunting drama in which past choices echo through lonely rooms and from storm-swept cliffs....
SINCE the beginning of this century civilization has advanced by such leaps and bounds that we may well ask how much further it can go.
In less than a hundred years we have on the sea learnt how to dispense with sails, and on land to travel at a speed which would have appalled our forefathers. Like Ariel, we have put a girdle round the world, so that messages can be flashed from earth's remotest corners in a few hours. All the luxuries of the East are brought to our doors. The cottager now possesses a more comfortable house than kings in the old days dreamt of. And yet the curious outcome of all this civilization, all this luxury, all this comfort, is that the natural man—the strongest, bravest, staunchest, most masculine man, the man to whom one's heart turns instinctively—seems continually trying to escape from their trammels.
In the earlier stages of civilization he liked to dance and attend mild parties, to don gorgeous dress, and, with a similarly minded friend, to lounge up and down Bond Street; but now all these things are to him pain and weariness.
By preference he wears a tweed suit and a pot hat, he shirks afternoon tea, and hostesses are at their wits' end to find a sufficient number of partners for their "pretty girls."
Girls themselves have for the most part now to do the love-making, and often fail to do it successfully, while the "natural" man is considering how he can best get away to tempt the ocean, to shoot big game, to explore strange lands, where civilization was never so much as heard of, and camp out, and eat rough food, and lead as wild and savage a life as possible.
It is rare, on the other hand, for women to seek seclusion from the world nowadays.
When they do, it is, as a rule, in company with their fellows, especially their fellows of the male persuasion. With them they will for a time gladly chase the wild deer and follow the roe, climb cliffs, and scale mountains; but they have no fancy for the lonely days and nights men not merely endure but love, which is probably only another proof that Mohammedans are right when they say women are not possessed of souls.
It is perhaps the terrible thoughts that dwell in many a male soul which drive modern men out into desolate lands, as the unimaginable terrors of morbid or stricken consciences drove of old both saints and sinners into hermits cells and awful fastnesses, such as we can at this time of the world only faintly realize.
However this may be, and perhaps a mere teller of stories has no right even to conjecture, it is certain that in the year of our Lord 1883, Mr. Cyril Danson, well known in London society, felt a consuming desire to change his surroundings.
He was sick of them—sick of the men, more sick of the women; sick of the talk, sick of the streets, sick of the newspapers, sick of everything!
In modern society he was one of those individuals who seem to hang between heaven and hell. He was not rich enough to hunt with the hounds or poor enough to run with the hare. He came of good people, and was possessed of an independent income, which he lacked the business ability necessary to increase; he was not a director on the board of any company; it had never occurred to him to speculate; he did not feel inclined to go in for mines, or horses, or gambling, or concessions, or politics—in a word, he was only an honest English gentleman who held strictly by his own notions of honour and had grown tired of everything, merely because the one flower he fancied in that garden of beauty, "London in the season," was plucked by a newly made lord with a fabulous rent-roll.
He had known and loved her a long time, and thought she loved him.
In the slang of today he was "hit very hard"—hit so hard that at first his brain reeled under the blow.
After the lapse of a few weeks, however, he was able to see things in their true proportions and to feel the lady had been a very happy loss; but "going out into the wilderness" was a fancy which nevertheless came to him and stayed with him, and, unlike his faithless love, refused to leave him.
Yes, he would go into the wilderness—he quite made up his mind on that point—but then a very pertinent question arose, viz. "Into what wilderness should he go?"
It was impossible for him to seek his desert in Africa, or India, or even America.
He had enough money to live at home quietly like a gentleman, but he did not possess such means as would enable him to start as a modern apostle. Things have changed a good deal since St. Paul's time, besides which the Apostle of the Gentiles throughout his Epistles merely indicates that his expenses were not extravagant, and never tells us the amount to which they totted up.
Mr. Danson could have wished to go round the world—to visit stray groups of almost unknown islands, to spend a summer at the South Pole, to make his way across the interior of Africa, to see Siberia; but as it was necessary to stint his desires and keep them low like a weaned child, he decided to shake the London dust off his feet, and, taking only his soul for companion, talk confidentially with that too long neglected friend, conscience, when they reached some "void place" situated in Wales, Scotland, or—Blackstone Castle, Chittock's place.
Ah! a capital thought. Chittock's house was no doubt vacant, for Chittock nearly three years before, very hard hit himself, had tried whether the wilderness of London could not minister to a mind diseased as well as any other desert.
Mr. Danson knew Blackstone Castle well. In the days of his early youth he had spent a month there so pleasantly that the memory remained with him like some sweet tune heard of yore.
No lonelier or lovelier place than Blackstone Castle could well be imagined. It stood on a cliff from which, to the nearest continent, stretched straight as a crow could fly a thousand miles of sea.
There was excellent shooting in the neighbour hood, to say nothing of lake and river fishing, a sandy beach, great stretches of bog land, mountains covered with purple heather, and deep wide valleys, where Fin M'Coul and his children might have been playing "bowls" for centuries with huge fragments of granite for balls.
Yes, Blackstone Castle, situated almost at the world's end, was, if still lacking a tenant, precisely the hermit's cell he desired to find, and, having made up his mind on this point, he repaired to the "Cashel Club," where he thought he should probably meet his man.
As it happened, he did meet him on the threshold, and they walked into St. James's Park together, Mr. Danson, though "down," looking much as usual, but Mr. Chittock, after nearly three years' experience of the great city, appearing so little the better for such a decided change, his companion felt shocked to notice the alteration a comparatively short time had wrought.
Formerly he had been a fine, handsome, jovial fellow, with a hearty ring in his cheery voice and a kind word for everyone.
Now he was thin, haggard, dull, with a far-off sad expression in his blue eyes, seemingly twenty years older than his actual age.
LOVE serves her votaries many a strange trick. She strips the flesh off one, and plumps another up like a Christmas turkey!
In a very few words Mr. Danson explained what he wanted, and in an even shorter sentence Mr. Chittock told him the house had only been let one season for the shooting, and was at that moment empty, and quite at his service.
"Of course," he went on after an instant's pause, "I shall be charmed if you will take the place, but it is desolation made visible. It is twelve miles from anywhere. Personally, I would not go back again and live in my old house for any consideration. Had you not better think twice about the matter?"
Mr. Danson would not think twice. He was done up; he craved for quiet; he was tired of people; he desired utter solitude.
"Cannot you compass that in London?" asked Mr. Chittock, with a grave, curious smile.
"No-I must get quite away," was the answer.
"Is it so bad as that?"
"So bad as that! Just as you, Chittock, found it necessary to leave Ireland, so I feel I cannot stop in London. It is not that I am heart-broken," he added, moved by some impulse he was unable to resist, "but I want to get to some out-of-the-way place where people won't look as if they saw 'JILTED' printed in big type all over me."
Mr. Chittock nodded. Though he had not been jilted, he understood.
"I want to change my life, too," went on Mr. Danson, a little ashamed of his outburst. "I could wish to be of a little use in the world—to know I had made a few persons the happier. If I were to die tomorrow not a creature, except perhaps my man, would be sorry. Did I only possess an estate like yours, even! But such good things are not for poor men."
Mr. Chittock walked on for about a dozen paces as though he did not hear—or, hearing, failed to understand. Then he said in those slow, melancholy tones, which contrasted so forcibly with his former utterances—
"Things are changed as well as myself, and you might have Blackstone at a very low figure. I do not intend, however, to take any man in, unless indeed a millionaire, such as your lost love's lord," he added, with a forced laugh, "Go and try how you like living in my old barrack all alone; then if, after a fair trial, you still desire to buy, I will meet you more than half-way."
Something he could not comprehend in Mr. Chittock's voice and manner struck Mr. Danson with a strange surprise, but he only answered—
"All right, old fellow, state your figure. Let the lawyers put all shipshape, and if I can be your man I will—anyhow, I'll take the place for a twelvemonth. By-the-by-—"
"By-the-by what?"
"Did your young woman marry a lord?"
"Certainly not."
"Did she marry anybody, then, or what is she doing?"
"She never married at all, and is governessing, I believe."
"She preferred governessing?"
"Not very complimentary to me," returned Mr. Chittock, "but a fact. And I loved her, Danson. She had no fortune; I wanted none, I only wanted her, and her father and mother wished her to marry me, but she wouldn't," he added with a sort of gasp. "There is something about me women don't like, I suppose. Anyhow, she would have nothing to do with me—not at any price."
"Poor old chap! Was she very pretty?"
"I think not—I do not know. She was pretty enough for me, and I loved her. Do not let us talk about it any more."
Mr. Danson asked no further questions. Here was a trouble deeper than any he had felt—a trouble he failed exactly to understand, and one with which he knew he lacked all right to inter-meddle.
"My dear Chittock, I wish I could bring you balm of Gilead," he said earnestly.
"If you could I am sure you would," was the answer, "but not a man living can do that—there is no balm for me anywhere."
DESPITE its pretentious name, Blackstone Castle was really a rather modest mansion. A few crumbling walls and a ruined tower adjacent to the house bore picturesque testimony to the fact that some sort of fortress had in old, old days occupied its site; but the modern Blackstone Castle was merely a square, roomy country mansion, big enough to hold a large family of small sons and daughters when young, and welcome plenty of high-spirited, laughing, joyous guests when the little people grew old enough to think of love-making—of marriage and giving in marriage!
It was in his "calf days"—which are, after all, the sweetest, pleasantest, most innocent days man can ever know, full of the fresh immaturity of morning and the happy, half-conscious expectation of a glorious noon to come—that Mr. Danson had been made "free" of Blackstone Castle, where he accompanied Diarmid Chittock when both of the young fellows were leaving school.
Forever the recollection of old Mr. Chittock standing on the great doorstep and welcoming first his grandson's friend and then, well-nigh with tears, his grandson, remained in Mr. Danson's memory.
Stalwart fellow as he was, his own eyes filled when he beheld once again the well-remembered place where that gracious, old-world man could never welcome friend nor grandson more.
A splendid old man—one of the best breed of gentry this world ever saw, and which it is unlikely the world will ever see again, belonging as it did to an impossible-to-return, long gone-by-a gone-by it is well never can return, but which was a magnificent painting nevertheless, full of gorgeous colouring and soft tender tints, deep shadows, and wrongs, alas! unimaginable.
As he entered the spacious hall—architectural grandeur was at one time a thing no good house in Ireland ever wanted—Mr. Danson felt himself to be a very fortunate hermit, for while seeking solitude it was borne in upon him he need be no anchorite. His own man stood there to wait on him, just as if he had only stepped across Pall Mall; his horses were in the stables; his servants in the kitchen; certainly the rooms lacked all modern aesthetic refinement, but Mr. Danson was weary of aesthetic refinement as well as of many other things.
He knew he was not in the van of civilization, and he did not wish to be; nevertheless, on the other hand, he had not dropped quite to the rear. It was early summer; and while he smoked a quiet cigar after dinner he looked out over thousands of miles of ocean, and felt as if some soft hand were being laid on his heart and drawing something of its bitterness away.
That night, wearied with his journey, and believing he had reached a desired goal, he slept, lulled by the gentle murmur of Atlantic waves, the deep restful sleep of youth.
Next day the rector called, next day the priest, the third the doctor.
The wilderness was not so absolutely desolate as he had intended, but still three visitors in seventy-two hours could not be regarded as exactly a "rush" of society. Besides they were, each in his way, all interesting men, who had something to tell and were willing to hear.
Before the week was over, Mr. Danson had quite settled down to the routine of a dull country life. He who had squirmed at afternoon teas, and garden parties, and days up the river, and four-in-hand expeditions to whatever race might be on; who had objected to assist at the laying of foundation-stones, to hearing of speeches, to receptions, to dinners, to balls; who had grown to detest with a deadly detestation London gossip and even London itself—found himself taking an interest in the post, and walking down to the village each morning for his daily paper, returning the mail-car driver's salute with ceremonious civility and chatting to the local shopkeeper in the most affable manner possible.
So far as we have ever been told, saints and sinners who in the early days went out into the wilderness of this wicked world did none of these things; but, then, history is silent on many of those subjects about which we should all, no doubt, like to hear a great deal. Distance probably lends a considerable amount of enchantment to the holy men of old. Near at hand they were presumably much like their descendants. They could not have been considering their shortcomings, and contemplating the mysteries of life and death, day and night for forty years. Possibly, among those of the number who were sincere, their voluntary withdrawal from the world was only an attempt to coax back the mental strength of which a too long sojourn in it had temporarily bereft them—just as Nature taught Mr. Danson he ought to leave London and talk quietly with the wise old mother of us all if he wished ever again to have a sane mind located in a sound body. Her remedies are of the simplest; and quite unconsciously this man, who had been turning night into day, burning his candle at both ends, working harder than any horse in a mill, was taking them regularly.
The solitude could not be considered perfect; but though, properly speaking, it was out of character for him to take an interest in the rector's college reminiscences, in the priest's stories, or the doctor's recollections of Ballyragshanan dispensary, the hermit's cell he had chosen answered its purpose admirably, and
"He ate and drank and slept—what then?
He ate and drank and slept again."
And there were times when he actually wondered why he had come to the "back of beyond," and fancied it must have been for pleasure!
The face of his false lady-love and her wealthy lord soon grew faded and blurred like shadowy old photographs. He could read their names in the Times and never turn a hair. That great stretch of sand, that vast expanse of ocean, became pleasanter day by day, and he began to like his "constitutional" beside the Atlantic as he had once never thought to like anything except the "sweet shady side of Pall Mall."
"Each morning when returning home with my paper" (posted to him regularly from London), Mr. Danson said one day to the constabulary officer, with whom he was on particularly good terms, "I meet a girl—not tall, not pretty, not striking-looking, but yet a girl who attracts me, because she has the quietest, saddest expression I ever saw on a woman's face, You can tell me who she is, no doubt?"
"Dressed in black Steps out, too?"
"Yes, and walks well."
"That is Miss Oona Rosterne."
"Miss—?" suggested Cyril Danson, puzzled. "Oona Rosterne," repeated Mr. Melsham, "the daughter of my predecessor, who disappeared."
"Good heavens! I thought that poor lady was a governess somewhere."
"So she is—daily governess at Fort Cloyne. Walks three miles out and three miles in—hail, shine, or snow-five times a week. If she would leave her mother she might get a large salary, for she can teach everything. As it is, the Mustos pay her fifty pounds a year, which is thought unbounded wealth hereabouts."
"Was any trace of her father ever discovered?"
"Not a trace."
"How very strange!"
"Why strange? There are bogs enough about here to engulf a whole army, let alone one inspector."
"Do you mean that he lost his way?"
"Lost his way on a starlight night! Why, he knew every inch of the country," scoffed Mr. Melsham. "No; someone knocked him over quietly and put him where he will, maybe, be dug up a couple of hundred years hence."
"I thought people imagined he had left the country."
"People over the Channel might, but not a soul about here did. He was over head and ears in debt, to be sure; but a man needs money when starting on foreign travel, and Rosterne never had any. Then he loved both wife and daughter after his fashion, and nobody was pressing for payment, because it was well known Miss Oona had but to say 'Yes,' and Chittock would have found every penny that was needed to rid her father of debt.—No; the whole business is a mystery. One day, perhaps, when the fellow who did away with him is dying, or someone who knows gets tired of keeping the secret, we may hear more about the matter; but the likelihood is, not a soul now living will ever learn what it was happened between seven p.m., when he left Letterpass to walk home, and the next morning, when he had not got home. He was seen about two miles from Letterpass striking down to the shore, but never after by anyone we can trace." A blank ensues. "That is the whole story."
"It is a terrible story. If his body had been found, dead or alive—"
"But it was not, you see. No wonder Miss Oona looks as she does. Yes"—reflectively—"she walks three Irish miles out and three Irish miles in, five days a week, hail, rain, or shine, and her grandmother was a O'Considine, too!"
"Oh! was she?" said Mr. Danson, who had not the faintest idea the O'Considines had ever been reckoned grand people—in fact, had never even heard of them till that moment.
"Indeed she was," replied Mr. Melsham, who received the remark as a tribute of respect to the great house mentioned. "Her grandfather was about the last of the race—the last, that is, who could and did stick to the estate—drove his four-in-hand, kept open house, and never wanted for anything as long as there was a shot in the locker or an acre of land to be mortgaged."
Though Mr. Danson as yet knew but little of the "first gem of the sea," it seemed to him this had been the practice of many excellent Irish gentlemen, and one apparently that had secured for them the esteem of their contemporaries and even the admiration of posterity. Right royally they had lived on their capital while it lasted.
And for those who came after?
Why, those who came after have ever since been paying for the piper's merry tune, to which men and women danced such joyous measures in the old days departed.
It was less, however, with those old days Mr. Danson occupied his mind the while he strolled leisurely towards Blackstone Castle than with that girl who walked thirty miles each week and toiled all day, instructing, probably, many young ideas how to shoot, in order to add fifty pounds a year to her mother's income.
And all the while there was a man in London breaking his heart because this sad-faced governess would have nothing to do with him; and Blackstone Castle remained without a mistress, who would have lacked no manner of good thing had she married its owner. Mr. Danson's soul yearned over the pair; he longed to bring them together and make them happy—aye, even in spite of themselves.
Certainly a remarkable-looking girl, not strictly pretty, perhaps, but a girl not easily to be forgotten for all that. Though Mr. Danson had not spoken to her, he knew those dark grey eyes, that curious melancholy expression, that sensitive, troubled mouth, would never pass quite out of his recollection.
Of course it was the knowledge that she ought to become Chittock's wife which attracted and riveted his attention.
Without some interest, he told himself, he would never have looked at her twice, and it was a long time before he remembered he had looked at her more than twice before he learned she was the woman of Chittock's life.
It would be an excellent work, he decided, to make the divided pair one, to bridge the river of their unhappiness, and bring about a happy reconciliation.
He could do this, he felt confident, and then he remembered that Mr. Musto had called a week previously, while the new tenant of Blackstone Castle was exploring the Blackstone caves, and that his visit ought to be returned.
When people have an object in view they can take very prompt action. Accordingly Mr. Danson, having an end to gain, decided to ride over to Fort Cloyne that very afternoon.
Only to meet with a check, however. Mr. and Mrs. Musto, he was informed, had left the same morning for Switzerland, and would be absent for two months, or perhaps longer.
Two months! For the second time that year life stretched before Mr. Danson as a perfect blank.
Foiled both in love and friendship, what could he do?
Why, get acquainted with Mrs. Rosterne. How stupid not to have thought sooner of that simple plan!
"Gorey," he said, pulling up his horse to a walk, and beckoning the man so called, who was at once his own groom and Mr. Chittock's foster-brother, to come beside him, "I was talking to Mr. Melsham this morning about Captain Rosterne's extraordinary disappearance."
An English servant, had such a piece of information been vouchsafed to him, would have answered vaguely and discreetly, "Yes, sir;" but Gorey replied after a different fashion—
"Mr. Melsham was not here then, sir. He only came when Inspector Hume left."
"And who was Inspector Hume?" asked Mr. Danson, as utterly ignorant of the whole affair as anyone could be.
"Just about as sharp and clever a gentleman as any poor fellow in trouble would wish not to meet."
"Meaning, I suppose, anyone who had stolen a sheep or killed a landlord?"
"Or done anything else your honour pleases to think of."
This was a nice way of putting things! As if his honour was pleased with or had a love for people who stole sheep, or shot a landlord, or did "anything else."
And yet Mr. Danson felt convinced Gorey could only be considered a willing, faithful, honest, capable servant, and a law-abiding man. Such was the character Mr. Chittock had given him, and such, it may at once be said, was the character he deserved, with higher praise to the back of it.
"I suppose Mr. Hume inquired into the whole matter?"
"He did, sir. He was at it day and night, after a manner of speaking. I don't think he had right rest all the time he was there, or the master either, for Mr. Hume was forever at the castle."
"And he never got a clue?"
"Not a one of any good at all. He went here and he went there, but the end was the same as the beginning."
"And what is your own notion, Gorey Come, now, what do you think became of Captain Rosterne—where did he go? or if he did not go, where was he taken?"
The afternoon sun was blazing into Mr. Danson's eyes while he asked this question, and he might, he thought, have been in error. Nevertheless, he could not shake off the impression that just for one moment the guard of Gorey's impassive face changed, that his eyes flickered, as one may say, and the muscles of his mouth twitched.
The whole thing was instantaneous and perfectly incapable of description—a little transformation scene Mr. Danson felt rather than saw—for the sun, as has been said, was in his eyes and blinding him, and when Gorey spoke his voice was calm and natural.
"Indeed, sir, I couldn't say. I don't know where he would want to go away from wife and child; and though he wasn't too well liked, I am very sure nobody ever wished him enough ill to put a bullet in his heart."
"Oh! he wasn't well liked, then," said Mr. Dan son, who felt at the moment as if he were a second Columbus.
"He wasn't hated, sir, if that is what you are thinking about," returned Gorey in a moment, taking all the wind out of Mr. Danson's sails; "for he never did any man a serious wrong, so far as I heard. He was just, and often and often stood up for the poor when they had no other to speak for them. But still and for all that he wasn't liked. He had come from nothing, yet still took a heap on him. Many a one such as him does that."
"He was bumptious, in fact?" suggested Mr. Danson.
"People about here said he was an arbitrary gentleman," said Gorey, substituting what he considered, and what was, a better word. "No man had a keener notion of justice, no man was civiller. If a beggar touched his hat to him, up went his stick or umbrella or finger in return. He had the best of manners, sir; but yet there are those that feel good manners and the height of justice are not a patch on the love of God. And he had no love of God or of God's creatures."
"That is a hard saying, Gorey," remarked Mr. Danson, impressed in spite of himself.
"It's true, your honour, for all that. Now, I'll tell you. Supposing he was driving on his car and he saw a string of loaded carts on the wrong side of the road, where it was not metalled, he'd whistle them all to get out of the way—aye, and if they didn't, summon them. And all the same, I've seen her Grace the Duchess when she was driving her pair of cobs sign to the men to make no shift and walk her own horses over the stones, and was there a soul in the barony did not say, God bless her!"
"Still, in Captain Rosterne's position he might have thought it his duty to see that the rule of the road was observed."
"Maybe, sir; but the Almighty is much easier with those who go a bit wrong than he was. Still, though nobody much cared for him, I never heard a man, woman, or child that hadn't the soft word for him when he forgot to come back—aye, and the wet eye too for the wife and child he left lamenting."
"And what did chance to the unhappy man, Gorey?"
"Not a one was able to say, sir—not a one. Pat Harrigan met him on the shore road walking home, but he never got home, poor gentleman."
"He did not drink?"
"No, sir, not to say drink; he took his glass like anybody else, but it was never said that he took a glass too much."
"Or gamble?"
"He might a little, but not beyond the common."
Mr. Danson wondered what "the common " might be, but held his tongue. So far he had not made a single point. Of course, if Gorey knew nothing, there could be nothing to tell. If, on the other hand, he suspected foul play, it was quite evident he did not intend to share that suspicion with anyone.
Moreover, the man had been questioned and cross-questioned, and no doubt Mr. Chittock and he had talked the matter over exhaustively. The probability was he really had not a word to say, and yet Mr. Danson could not feel satisfied concerning that strange flicker.
"Mr. Chittock must have taken the affair terribly to heart," he observed at last.
"He did so, sir; he never to say has been the same man since—and small wonder. There was no one in these parts he was as intimate with as the Captain; he'd have been his son if all had gone as it might have done."
It was all very well to speak to Gorey about Captain Rosterne's disappearance, but Mr. Danson felt he could not let a servant talk concerning Captain Rosterne's daughter.
It seemed to him dreadful that such a girl should be the subject of common gossip. He would have set her on a pedestal high above the reach of vulgar tongues, which looked very much as if Mr. Danson had conceived a marvellously high opinion of his friend's wife that was, he hoped, to be.
Very possibly he thought Captain Rosterne had for reasons of his own left the country. Some painful scandal, some terrible misfortune, might be at the bottom of the mystery, which he had better not try to search out further.
But it could do no harm to try and bring the divided pair together again, and, full of this intention, he proceeded at a good round trot to Blackstone Castle, followed by Gorey, who had dropped behind to a respectful distance.
MR. DANSON did not owe the rector a visit, but he thought he would walk down to the village and call on the rector's sister, a lady of uncertain age, though certainly not under fifty, who always amused Mr. Danson immensely. Her one great desire, poor soul, was to see London; her one great regret that her brother's lines had been cast in such a primitive parish as Lisnabeg.
"Ah, if he were only in or near London now," she said, "where he could mix with men of his own calibre!"
It had never occurred to Mr. Danson that the rector's intellectual capacities were so great he could hope only to meet with one equally mighty among the most cultured classes in a great city; but it would have needed a much harder heart than that which beat in the Englishman's breast even to hint that Miss Heath perhaps overrated her brother's abilities. He contented himself with remarking, therefore—
"Sometimes London proves a little disappointing."
"But why? How can it? Is not all the thought of the world there?"
"Much of it, certainly; but a person may live a long time in London without meeting with a vast amount of thought, or any indeed," he added.
"I scarcely understand how that can be at the fountain-head of everything."
"True; but if you consider the fountain-head has a population almost equal to that of Ireland, you will understand many of the inhabitants have to remain at a considerable distance from the well."
"Ah! that wouldn't be the case with Phil; he could make his way to the centre at once."
"I am sure he would, whenever he was known," answered Mr. Danson, heartily.
And then Miss Heath went on to tell him how he could not conceive—he who had so recently left "the thought of the whole world, and still felt its invigorating breeze fanning his cheek"—how deadly dull their village really was.
"You have not to live in it, Mr. Danson," she went on; "you can leave it whenever you like—run over to London or Paris, or New York, for that matter; but we who, fettered by pecuniary trammels, are compelled to tread the same monotonous round week after week and year after year, alone understand its weariness."
Mr. Danson thought he had felt the full weariness of fashionable London's monotonous round; but that was a subject on which he did not care to enter, so he seized the opportunity presented of saying—
"The Mustos have taken wing, I find. I rode over today, only to hear they left this morning for Switzerland."
"Oh, yes," answered Miss Heath, "and will be away for two months. They always start in this sudden fashion, just as the whim seizes them. We shall miss them very much, because, though they are not exactly—well, you know they are not of the old gentry—"
"I suppose the old gentry were new once also. Everything must have a beginning," suggested Mr. Danson.
"Quite so; and, as I was about to add, the Mustos are kindness itself—hospitable, charitable, and considerate. Why, the very carriage that took them to the station called on its way back for Mrs. Rosterne."
"Why for Mrs. Rosterne?" asked Mr. Danson.
"Because she and her daughter always stay at Fort Cloyne when Mr. and Mrs. Musto are absent. They are quite members of the family, I assure you. Mrs. Musto says she has never an anxious thought concerning the children when Oona Rosterne is in the house with them."
"Miss Rosterne must be a very exceptional young lady," Mr. Danson forced himself to say, though he felt that day had been but a series of disappointments.
"Indeed she is. My brother says another girl like her could not be found in the three kingdoms, and he ought to know, because he prepared her for confirmation. Still I feel myself I never can forgive Oona the way in which she treated poor Mr. Chittock."
"But I always understood—and remember, no one can feel more sorry for Chittock than I—that she was straightforward from the first—told him plainly she had no love to give him," answered Mr. Danson, eagerly.
"And what right had a chit like Oona to set herself up against those older and wiser than she was?" asked Miss Heath. "Look what a match it would have been for her—the salvation, after a fashion, of her heartbroken, overworked father; a husband she could have led about with a string; a home for her mother; the best of marriages any girl need have desired. But no; my lady had her own fancies, and would pay heed neither to father nor mother, lover nor friend. When I was young, Mr. Danson, girls took advice; Oona would take none, and you see the result."
"But still, if she could not care for Chittock—" pleaded Mr. Danson.
"Could not care, indeed!" repeated Miss Heath. "I have no patience with such nonsense. What was there about the dear kind fellow to dislike?"
"I cannot tell you, Miss Heath. I always liked him, and my dearest wish is to see him married to Miss Rosterne."
"Then you may give it up, Mr. Danson. So long as the sea ebbs and flows she will have nothing to do with him. Sorrow has not taught her; poverty has not changed her. Since her father's death—for no one believes the poor man is alive—she has been more set against Mr. Chittock than ever. Would you believe it?—he wanted to allow Mrs. Rosterne an annuity, and the foolish girl wouldn't let her mother take a penny. What do you think of that in one so young For Oona can't be reckoned old even now, though she is nearly three and twenty. I call that young even for a governess."
"If she did not care for Chittock, I think she was right."
"But why did not she care for him? A man who was, as one may say, a specimen man—quiet and well-living, good to look at, and pleasant to listen to—a man who could not drink if he wished, because a glass of punch got into his head at once. Mrs. Rosterne told me the only reason Oona ever gave for saying 'no' was that she felt afraid of his temper; but, then, what is a husband who has no temper? and his was just a flash and over. It's a saint, I suppose, she's expecting to get, and I wish she may succeed."
"Is there some suitor, then, Miss Rosterne favours?"
"I'd like to have seen the man except Diarmid Chittock dare look at, much less speak to her, when her father was alive. And who do you think she'd take up with would throw a thought her way now No, she's let her chance slip—a grand chance, too. She'll never get another, so she'll just have to go on drudging through life. I am sorry for her, but she wouldn't take advice. You are not going yet, though, Mr. Danson, Surely? You will stop till my brother comes in? He won't be long."
No, Mr. Danson was much obliged, but he must get home; in fact, he had only called to bid a short good-bye. He intended to walk through Connemara. He wished to see that part of Ireland particularly, and might probably include in his programme Killarney and the Golden Mountains.
"Tired of Blackstone Castle already," decided Miss Heath, as she watched him walking fast towards that desirable residence. "Well, it's natural—no one can say it is not."
FASHIONS change, but not to such extent as many people imagine. A stout pair of walking-shoes now represents the picturesque sandal of old, and a well-made knapsack serves the pedestrian's purpose much better than any wallet ever did that of pilgrim; while the modern tourist is, seen from an artistic point of view, most distinctly merely an improved copy of the long-bearded, not over-clean, very often extremely lazy, peripatetic gentleman who formerly made a living by piously doing nothing.
The same restlessness that drove the devotee into void places and caused him to make his home among the graves now sends his smart, well-set-up, well-dressed, but much happier nineteenth-century prototype to scale mountains, to stem rivers, to cross oceans, and to live in unfamiliar countries.
There is, to put the matter in a sentence, as much human nature running loose about the world now as there was nineteen hundred years since, or, for the matter of that, as when, nearly forty centuries ago, Abraham "sat in the tent door in the heat of the day."
It was the human nature in Mr. Danson that made him tell Miss Heath he intended to walk through Connemara—an idea which had never entered his mind till the rector's sister drove him to the verge of desperation by speaking with the voice of the world concerning Oona Rosterne.
He felt he could not endure to hear Chittock's dear love gossiped about in such fashion, and that he could still less endure waiting two long months before it would be possible to make Mrs. Rosterne's acquaintance.
Therefore he resolved to go away, and he did; clad in a serviceable suit of frieze, well shod, admirably financed, he tramped from Castlebar to Galway by zigzag routes, which enabled him to see every place of interest in the county; then he took train to Dublin, and returned to Blackstone Castle. He only remained there, however, long enough to find matters were going on as usual, and that likewise, as usual, Time was sitting on the cliff with folded wings brooding over Mr. Rosterne's disappearance perhaps, but more possibly brooding over nothing.
Having satisfied himself on these points, he went away again, first to Dublin, where, chancing to pick up Le Fanu's "House by the Churchyard," he explored Chapelizod reverently and with a deep feeling of sadness, thinking all the while Chittock's future wife ought to be a second Lilian. Then through the too little-known County Wicklow, and afterwards to beautiful Killarney. From thence he bent his vagrant steps to the Golden Mountains, and finally made his way back to Blackstone Castle, firmly convinced Ireland was the loveliest country on earth.
Nature seemed a pleasant change to this man, who had lived so much in society and been disappointed by it. Perhaps if he had lived as long with Nature she would have disappointed him also cruelly. Who can say?
When he last left Blackstone Castle, sea and land and sky lay bathed in mellow sunshine. It was the "Green Isle's" golden season, when grain, ready for the sickle, and bound by the reaper into sheaves, was to be seen on every hillside; when the mountains looked purple, clad as they were with heather in full flower; and the Atlantic rippled in over a shell-strewn shore, quietly, as though storms and tempests had never ruffled its peace.
When he returned the whole landscape was changed. Stern mountains looked darkly away to a swelling sea trying in vain to calm itself after wild Equinoctial gales. Afar out the white sea-horses were chasing each other like living things, while on the sunken rocks nearer at hand wild billows expended their fury by dashing over them in showers of spray; black and green, crested as if with snow, they rushed to their doom, succeeding each other with the solemn regularity of an advancing army.
Above, a grey sky kept mournful watch over the scene of desolation.
"Could anything be grander?" thought Mr. Danson, as he walked along the cliffs and surveyed the mighty panorama spread below. "What a magnificent country, what a glorious land!"
He was in excellent spirits—in such spirits as would have caused him to look favourably on even a much humbler picture.
The Mustos were at Fort Cloyne, and Mr. Musto at once hastened to Blackstone Castle, and gratified the new tenant by asking him to join their house party before it broke up.
"Just a few crack shots," he said; "men who enjoy a country like this, and never mind how long or how far they have to tramp after their game. Do come. We shall be so glad, though we have no inducement to offer beyond good sport. There are only four lady guests—two old friends of my wife, and Mrs. and Miss Rosterne. You have heard of the latter, I dare say?—Yes. Poor Chittock—such a pity! We may expect you, then, tomorrow?"
Mr. Danson said yes, saw his guest off, and then in a state of great exultation took his way along that high path which commanded so fine a prospect.
All things seemed possible to him then. He could see, he could talk to the girl Chittock loved so well. He would be his friend's ambassador, find out where the trouble lay, and put everything that was wrong right.
As a rule, people who essay meddling in the affairs of others make great mistakes. Perhaps the mere fact of adventuring on such delicate ground proves their unfitness for the self-imposed task. But Mr. Danson knew no fear. The cause was so good, his own intentions so excellent, that success must ensue; and it was, therefore, with a light heart he sat down to dinner next evening, having on his right hand Mrs. Musto and on his left Mrs. Rosterne. Obliquely across the table he saw Miss Rosterne, who looked as though she would have been much happier anywhere else. The dinner was rather a success. People talked freely, and when the ladies left the room and the gentlemen drew closer together, Mr. Danson felt he had assisted at many far more stupid entertainments when the London season was in full swing, in the days before he determined to give up this world's pomps and adopt the rôle of hermit.
Later on in the drawing-room, after some of the elder ladies had played and sung, a veteran colonel entreating Miss Oona, whom he seemed to know very well indeed, for one Irish ballad, "If it must be only one, my dear," Mr. Chittock's obstinate fair, after a few preliminary notes of introduction, began—
"Ah! 'tis all but a dream at the best;" and immediately a hush fell on everyone present, which lasted till the spell of Miss Rosterne's voice was broken by—utter silence.
The song itself is not specially pathetic, and yet the listeners did not at first seem inclined to speak.
"Isn't she wonderful?" at last Mrs. Musto asked Cyril Danson almost in a whisper; but that gentleman could only look an answer, because the charm of the girl's rare voice held him dumb.
When at length he sought his room he did it with the feeling that Chittock's infatuation was justified. Nevertheless he fell asleep while endeavouring to discover wherein the secret of Miss Rosterne's curious fascination lay. She was not handsome or beautiful, or even strictly pretty. She had no becks and nods and wreathed smiles for the outside world; she spread no lures to attract; her singing even lacked the little artifices with which quite legitimately many a woman tries to win admiration. No; he could not tell how or why it was she touched all the hidden fountains of his heart and drew virtue from them, only he knew her voice haunted his dreams, that he heard it during the course of an exhaustive conversation with her concerning Mr. Chittock—a conversation that removed all misapprehensions, put all mistakes right!
When he awoke he could not, however, at all remember the arguments he had used, the misconceptions he had explained away. He only knew he had seen those strangely pathetic eyes uplifted to his, and heard that low rich voice assuring him, "I always loved Diarmid—always, from the time I was a little girl."
Which was well enough as a dream. In waking life, however, Mr. Danson found at the end of seven pleasant days he had not advanced one step. With the other ladies he soon became on terms of friendly intimacy, but with Norah his progress was absolutely nil.
She did not repulse or snub him, it is true, but the masterly inactivity she displayed repelled his advances more effectually than any open antagonism could have done.
"I am afraid Miss Rosterne dislikes me," said Mr. Chittock's friend to Mrs. Musto on the day when his visit was to terminate.
"Do you think so?" returned the lady.
"Yes, I do—or rather I am sure she does," he answered, "and I cannot imagine the reason, for I have always endeavoured to conciliate her."
"Yes," said Mrs. Musto.
"Cannot you help me to solve the enigma?" he asked. "Ladies understand each other so much better than we do. I most earnestly wish to be on friendly terms with her, for poor Chittock's sake."
"I imagine that is where the trouble lies."
"I beg your pardon—I fear I am very dense."
"You are thoroughly kind. Still, if you will forgive me for saying so, you made a mistake when you took Miss Heath into your confidence."
"Miss Heath!" Mr. Danson repeated, mystified; "when did I take her into confidence?"
"You told her the dearest wish of your heart was to see Mr. Chittock and Miss Rosterne man and wife."
"Did I? Very possibly. I do not remember using such a phrase, but the matter has lain very close to my heart, and Miss Heath and I talked about the trouble once."
"Precisely, and poor dear Miss Heath is a sad gossip. She does not mean to make mischief, but she is always repeating things that vex people, and I have no doubt what you said in such good faith has been told to Miss Rosterne with the inevitable additions, so that it hurt her very much."
"I am extremely sorry. What can I do to repair my blunder?"
"Nothing much, I fear; but I should certainly refrain from speaking of Mr. Chittock's rejected suit to anyone except myself. I except myself." she added, with a pleasant little laugh, "because I am quite on Oona's side. I consider she was right; everyone else believes she was wrong."
"But why do you consider she was right, Mrs. Musto?"
"Because she did not love the man."
"And why did she not love him?"
"That is a question I am unable to answer positively, but I think because she knew him too well, and also because he wooed her after a some what masterful fashion—took too much for granted, in fact. Till she refused his hand, not once or twice or thrice, Mr. Chittock's opinion of himself was exactly the opinion of everyone about here—namely, that he had but to ask and have. Now, to a girl brought up in the way Norah Rosterne was, that seemed utterly intolerable. Perhaps you do not know how she was brought up, Mr. Danson?"
"I do not," he answered humbly.
"Well, I will tell you. It seems to me a strangely pathetic story. Up to her ninth year she was just Oona Rosterne, which meant she was Oona anybody. Then Sir Thomas Glanmyre died in India, and his widow, an O'Considine, returned to Ireland and bethought her of the relative who had married Mr., or, as the people hereabouts always called him, Captain Rosterne. She came down here, took a fancy to the little girl, and adopted her. From that day, for seven years Oona lived amid luxury, saw only people moving in good society, was taught by the best masters and mistresses, and grew to be, to all intents and purposes, a child of the upper ten thousand."
"Naturally."
"Lady Glanmyre resided for the most part in Paris," continued Mrs. Musto, "and only occasionally came to Ireland. It was always understood she would provide for Oona, but a short time before her death the bank in which her husband had invested his money failed, with the result that everything went except Lady Glanmyre's pension.
"The shock killed her. She left her young relative what she could—her jewellery, plate, furniture—but after the debts were paid only a mere trifle remained, which Captain Rosterne promptly spent.
"Then Mr. Chittock appeared on the scene, and the girl would have none of him. Between her and her father there were several disagreements. Oona felt he was wanting to sell her, and Mr. Chittock's very kindness about money estranged her more from him.
"After Mr. Rosterne's death or disappearance, over head and ears in debt, very angry letters from Mr. Chittock, written evidently under great irritation, were found among the missing man's papers, refusing to lend any more money, and asking why he should be expected to do so. They were disagreeable letters—letters which Mr. Rosterne ought to have burnt at once, but which he did not, and Oona saw them, and the iron entered into her very soul, so Mrs. Rosterne told me.
"I have only given you a mere sketch. You can fill in the details for yourself, and when you have done so you will understand why the way to make Miss Rosterne dislike you is to plead Mr. Chittock's cause."
Mr. Danson remained silent for a minute.
"Still I believe, if she could see poor Chittock now," he began at last.
"It would make no difference whatever," interrupted Mrs. Musto. "I spoke to her once—only once—on the subject, and gathered nothing could reconcile her to the idea of marrying him. 'And believe me, Mrs. Musto,' she said, 'no one wishes less to marry me now than Mr. Chittock; we quite understand each other.' What she meant I do not know; but I suppose even a devoted lover may weary of a hopeless pursuit. At all events, what I have told you—in strict confidence—is absolutely correct. If you want Miss Rosterne to treat you more graciously, you must try to be less Mr. Chittock's friend."
"I can't be that," said Mr. Danson.
"Ah well, then, I am afraid the case is hopeless," answered Mrs. Musto.
But when she came to think matters over, she did not feel quite certain on that point.
Like a wise woman, however, she said nothing.
FINDING his scheme for making Mr. Chittock happy was impracticable, Cyril Danson began to consider that a winter enlivened only by an occasional visit to Fort Cloyne and a continual prospect of the Atlantic might, to use Miss Heath's expression, prove "monotonous," and accordingly, following Mr. Musto's excellent example, he wrote to a few men he knew would enjoy the wild sport, the desolate country, and the utter liberty of the life he could offer—for a time.
He was right—each and all, they accepted his invitation. At the moment they were unfortunately engaged; but the moment they had, to quote one Curled Darling's expression, "done their time," he might depend on receiving a wire.
"It will be very jolly. Thank you, old fellow. It is good of you, who are off the treadmill, to remember those who are less lucky. We shall like to see your bogs and climb your mountains."
So said the Curled Darling afore mentioned, and so in effect said the others.
Then, for the first time, Mr. Danson took an exhaustive survey of Blackstone Castle, and considered its capabilities.
"I will change my quarters, and sleep in the oak room as soon as it can be got ready, Chenery," he said.
"Yes, sir," answered Chenery, who was that servant Mr. Danson had referred to as the only person likely to miss him. Then, after an almost imperceptible pause, "Gorey says the oak chamber is very cold indeed."
"Possibly—but I like cold. And, Chenery, you had better have the dining-room put in order."
"Yes, sir." And Chenery turned, as if to commence operations forthwith.
If such were ever his intention, he must have changed his mind very speedily, for ere reaching the door he stopped to observe—
"Beg pardon, sir, but Gorey says the wind is amazing blusterous in the dining-room, which is like a barrack in the wintertime."
"Can you remember anything else Gorey has been pleased to remark?" asked Mr. Danson.
"Well, no, sir, not at the moment, except that the library and the bedroom you occupy at present are the only two comfortable apartments in the house when stormy weather prevails, as it generally does in these parts from September to April."
In spite of himself Mr. Danson could not help smiling, even while he said—
"You are becoming demoralized, Chenery, I am afraid. Do precisely what I have ordered, without any further reference to Gorey's opinions."
"Yes, sir," replied Chenery meekly, and departed.
But for the fact that he had so peremptorily signified his determination to be master in Blackstone Castle while he rented it, Mr. Danson might within a week have returned to his former sleeping apartment.
Each room in a house, whether the house chance to be in town or country, has its own peculiar set of noises; and Mr. Danson, who had occupied as many rooms in different houses as most men, was perfectly aware of this fact. Nevertheless, all previous experience proved quite insufficient to account for the sounds appertaining to the oak chamber.
They were always varying, yet scarcely with the variation which might well belong to the same family. Such unaccountable noises he had never heard before anywhere; but then he recollected he had never previously slept on the top of a rock within sound of any ocean's roar.
At last, unable longer to refrain from speech, he said to Gorey one morning—
"I did not know there was any right of way up those steps from the beach."
"No more there is, sir; but maybe once in a while some poor fellow does make so free as to take them as a short cut. It was done in the old gentleman's time now and again, and neither he nor Mr. Diarmid made any disturbance more than a shake of the head or 'I can't let this go on.'"
"Oh!" returned Mr. Danson, drawing a long breath. "And when all that is settled," he went on, as if talking to himself, "what I should like to know is why anyone thinks fit to tramp up those steps in the dead of night."
"Indeed it would be hard to tell, your honour, for the way is none too safe, even in the daytime," Gorey made answer, though the question had not been addressed to him.
"I wonder sometimes," observed Mr. Danson, looking speculatively straight in the man's face, "whether you are very simple or very wise?"
"It would not be becoming in me, sir, to say," replied the groom modestly, "though there have been some thought I knew as much about horses as any man in the county. Colonel Jerome, that took Blackstone Castle after the master went away, was that well pleased with my handling of his mare -who had, saving your presence, a devil of a temper—he wanted me to go with him to Worcestershire, and offered me good wages too."
"Why did you not take his offer, then?" asked Mr. Danson.
"I can give you no better reason, sir, than that I thought I would rather stay here."
"Which, I suppose, was reason enough for you?"
"It was, your honour, and that's why I didn't go."
There ensued a short pause, during the continuance of which Mr. Danson considered the position, and Mr. Chittock's foster-brother stood at ease.
"Gorey," began his latest employer at length.
"Yes, sir!"
"I wish very much you would answer me one question straightforwardly—if you can?"
"You may depend I'll do my uttermost, your honour," answered the man, unconscious, apparently, of the slur cast on his veracity.
"Then tell me who you suppose would wish to come up those steps after dark, to say nothing of midnight."
"If I was never to speak another word, I don't know, sir. At this time of the year there is hardly a man, unless among the gentry, out of his bed after nine o'clock, unless it might be a constable or a gauger."
"Why, there's no smuggling here?"
"Not this many a year; but then there would be, the gaugers say, if it wasn't for them."
"And do you mean to tell me any exciseman would risk his neck up those steps in such pitch-dark nights as we have been treated to of late?"
"Indeed, it is hard to say where they wouldn't go, for they are just like cats, and have as many lives. You see, sir, it is not so much smuggling they are keen on now as illicit stills. They got up a story once about there being a still in the dungeons of the old castle."
"And was there?"
"They never found one, or any dungeons either. All the same, everybody round about these parts believes the ruins are like a rabbit warren, and just burrowed with secret passages."
"And what is your notion, Gorey?"
"I have none, sir; strange things were done in the old times, Mr. Diarmid always did say. But I know I've heard old people sit and tell a parcel of nonsense over the fire till young girls and boys, for that matter, were afraid to turn their heads for fear of what might be standing behind them."
"But not merely do I hear the sounds mentioned on the steps, but there are the strangest noises in the dining-room."
"It is all according to the wind, sir, as I made bold to tell Chenery. The east side of Blackstone Castle isn't fit to live in the whole winter through. Colonel Jerome said he'd as soon try to sleep on the seashore; and indeed, Mr. Danson, if you'd take the lower path any evening after dusk, when the wind sets from the north-east, not even blowing a gale, but just a moderate breeze, you would wonder what could be going on out in the Atlantic. My old grandmother used to say it was the dead—drowned people, I mean—talking to each other, and making ready for the company the coming storm would send them. I'll take your honour down any night you like, and you can hear for yourself."
"Thank you; I hear quite enough above," returned Mr. Danson, coldly. And he went away feeling very doubtful concerning Mr. Daniel Gorey's strict adherence to truth.
When once a man gives imagination the rein, whether in the matter of love, hope, suspicion, jealousy, or any other master passion, it would be difficult to say where that artful sprite will take him. He may only pause to look at a glorious sunset, and behold, before the pomp of gold and crimson is chased away by clouds of darkness, fancy will have taken him round the world, and shown him such marvels as in his sober moments he never could have so much as thought of.
It was thus with Mr. Danson; from the moment when he saw, or believed he saw, that flicker in Gorey's expression he began to mistrust the man, and every word he spoke subsequently seemed confirmation that the truth was not in him.
His answers to questions were always shifty, Mr. Danson considered, and hitherto that gentleman, could not understand the reason. Now a light broke upon him—Gorey was engaged in some unlawful enterprise. Gorey wished to keep Blackstone Castle empty. The presence of any stranger interfered with his illegal operations. Possibly the excise officers were not far wrong when they suspected the existence of an illicit still on the premises, and who would be better able to baffle all search for it than a man who had known from childhood the house, the ruins, the caves, the coast, and every inch of the country? Imagination had already taken Mr. Danson on a wild chase, but it was inevitable but that fancy should lead him still further. Evidently, Gorey knew something about Captain Rosterne's disappearance. What more likely than that the unfortunate inspector had come across the potheen manufacturers and been done to death lest his revelations should stop their trade?
From all he, Mr. Danson, had heard, Captain Rosterne was a man who would have died sooner than make terms with such people, and very probably—nay, very certainly—Gorey knew the whole of the circumstances.
So far, Mr. Chittock's tenant did not suppose that Gorey assisted at Captain Rosterne's murder, or was even present at it, but who could tell the length to which imagination might yet take him? Once a man lets that jade get the bit between her teeth, he might as well be mounted on the Phoul-a-Phooka.
Three mornings later, Gorey asked his employer if he could "spare a minute," and Mr. Danson reluctantly intimating it might be possible for him to do so, the groom led him to the top of that rude flight of steps which gave access to the beach.
"I know now," said Gorey, "what it was your honour heard. It was that"—and he pointed to an upright piece of iron, to which was fitted a sort of broken wheel, which revolved when caught by the wind, and gave forth a sound as if of many feet hurrying up a stone staircase.
"D'ye hear, sir? Wait a minute, and the wind'll be on it again."
"Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Danson, thereby freezing the glow of Gorey's enthusiasm. "And how did that invention come there?"
"No man now living could tell, I am thinking," was the reply. "It's bedded in the solid rock, and that is all time has left of it, but I said to myself I'll never rest till I find out the English for those steps, for I couldn't make head nor tail of the constant running up and down you said you heard."
"Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Danson, again giving the iron wheel, which would have served well to frighten birds, a careless touch with his stick, when clatter, clatter, clatter, clang it went as if a dozen men in hobnailed boots were running post-haste over the stones.
"Bring round the dog-cart in half an hour; I shall want you to go with me to Letterpass," he said, in that peremptory-courteous, pleasant English way Gorey had learnt to know and dread.
It was disappointing, the groom felt; but, then, he knew Mr. Danson had long lost confidence in him.
And he was quite right. Since the hour when he, in the dazzling sunlight, first fancied Gorey's face changed for an instant, the Englishman had not felt at ease concerning Mr. Chittock's foster-brother.
To use a lovely phrase, he "misdoubted" him, which involves a hard ordeal for the misdoubted man or woman to pass through.
The conclusion Mr. Danson had come to was this: "When first one sees the Irish they seem quite open and above board; they charm by their apparent frankness, and are cheerful to a fault, if cheerfulness ever can be called a fault. As day after day passes, however, the reverse of the shield presents itself, and they show themselves in their true colours—shifty, plausible, false, unreliable, but pleasant—to a certain point," he mentally finished, "though there is no more reliance to be placed on them than in their climate."
Poor climate! Poor Ireland! Poor Irish! Poor Gorey!
And yet Mr. Danson's feelings were natural enough. He had come to Ireland carrying his heart in his hand, and that hand open. He had come prepared to like, prepared to give, wishful to make those he came in contact with happy, desirous most of all to remove a load of care from Mr. Chittock; and of the two persons he thought could best have helped him to compass the last wish, one coldly thwarted his endeavours, while the other evaded his most simple question.
Often he marvelled why he remained amid such unsatisfactory surroundings. But Mrs. Musto did not wonder; she knew!
There is no truer saying than that "it never rains but it pours," and accordingly the post-bag one morning rained such a number of coming guests that Mr. Danson for the moment felt appalled.
Not merely did the three men he had invited herald their early arrival, but two out of the number proposed to bring a friend with him.
"Adson wants to see your cell so awfully," said one; "may I bring him?" "Mayford, who is the best fellow on earth, has never been in Ireland; can you take him in? If not, wire at once."
Mr. Danson telegraphed that he would be glad to see them all, and then set Chenery to work to make things ready for the expected guests. Immediately the whole economy of Blackstone Castle underwent a change—fires blazed in hitherto unoccupied apartments, the housemaid looked up her stores of linen, and asked for assistance. The cook told Chenery she must have more pots and pans, and a woman in to help. Chenery himself had to report an absence of sufficient glass and crockery ware. Gorey spent his time scouring the country in order to bespeak provisions and "making ready" for the moment when he should receive orders to "meet the train" at Letterpass, while to Mr. Danson the bustle and excitement proved delightful after nearly six months' absence from the hurly-burly, and diverted his attention completely from the noise of mysterious footsteps and the strange wailing sounds that rendered the dining-room well-nigh uninhabitable.
The dining-room at that time really was in the possession of Chenery, who served his master's meals in the library, and was making many changes which cost little more than a good deal of personal trouble, in the apartments devoted to the reception of company.
Chenery was in his element. His master gave him carte blanche, and he had men up from the village to shake, and clean, and hammer, and tack, as well as arrange goods ordered down from Dublin; and, in short, as the cook joyously expressed herself, "It is like the good old times come again, God bless them!" while Gorey said, though not audibly, "He'll have something now to take his mind off Captain Rosterne and the din there is about the place sometimes. Lord send these gentlemen may entice him back with them to where he came from!"
Charlie Langley, the curled darling, dreaded by fashionable mothers, beloved of daughters, a sad, unscrupulous detrimental who danced like an angel and was a very bad boy without a bit of harm in him, was the first to arrive at Blackstone Castle.
He appeared one afternoon carrying a modest portmanteau, which, he explained, had, with himself, been "tooled over from Letterpass by a delightful old Presbyterian minister who might have drawn up the Westminster Confession of Faith. He travelled in the compartment with me from Rathstewart, and we got into friendly relations immediately. I told him where I was going, and he told me the distance.
"'Which I must tramp, I suppose?' I said, 'for Mr. Danson doesn't know I am coming by this train.'
"'You needn't do that,' replied Martin Luther, 'for if you don't object to an old-fashioned gig, I can give you a lift.'
"I told him if there were one conveyance I loved more than another it was a gig of the pre-Adamite build; and then he said he liked young people with no nonsense about them, and that he knew you very well."
"I am afraid I have not the honour of the gentleman's acquaintance," interposed Mr. Danson.
"By sight, by sight, my arrogant friend," exclaimed Mr. Langley. "He lives at Cloyne Vale, and has seen you riding over to Fort Cloyne; pray, observe how pat I have your heathenish names already. My divine proceeded to say you were a fine-looking man; 'would make three of you,' he remarked so disparagingly that I felt constrained to answer, 'I know I am very small, but indeed I am very good.'
"He shook his head as if he did not believe my assurance, but only looked at me as a father might at a naughty child, more in sorrow than in anger, and we parted on the best terms. I said I would do myself the honour of calling on him, and I want you to ask him up here."
"Very well," agreed Mr. Danson; "only, Langley, there is one warning I must give you—the Irish do not like chaff."
"I don't know about chaff," returned Mr. Langley, gaily, "but they will like me."
THE fulfilment justified Mr. Langley's prediction. Before the week was out he had conquered the village. No one could be said to have a chance beside him. All the children, and they were many; all the dogs, likewise numerous; all the beggars, ditto, adored the lively young Englishman. Old women rose up and called him blessed. Men would have risked breaking their necks at his bidding. He knew everyone—the rector and the baker, the publican and the sinner, the doctor and his patient. Miss Heath was his sworn ally. Mr. Danson discovered him on one knee holding her worsted while she wound. Mr. and Mrs. Musto and the little Mustos were enchanted with the new-comer, while he walked in and out of Mrs. Rosterne's cottage as though an inmate of the house, and Miss Rosterne, whom he dubbed the "blessed damosel," was actually seen to laugh at one of what Mr. Danson in his inmost heart called Langley's senseless sallies.
It was then a sword pierced Mr. Danson's soul; then for the first time he asked himself a very serious question; then he began to understand what his feelings had always been towards the girl who held him at such a distance! "And who now encourages that mountebank?" he reflected most unjustly, for Miss Rosterne did not encourage, only laughed, and that but once, as she might at the gambols of a frolicsome child. Then her face grew grave again as was its wont.
How tired Mr. Danson soon felt of his visitors it would be difficult to tell. Their talk, their jokes, their liveliness, jarred upon him like merriment in church. What a roistering set they were to bring to a hermit's cell! How could he ever return to a world of which they were rather favourable representatives?
For they all could but be considered kindly, honourable men, who were doing nothing wrong except enjoying themselves thoroughly; who would have been quite as ready to condole with the sorrowful as they were to rejoice in their own youth.
"Jolly companions every one," they tramped across bogs and over heather; they walked long miles; they never grumbled if rain swept down upon their devoted heads; they were charmed with the scenery, delighted with the people; vowed they would ask nothing better than to spend years in Blackstone Castle, and voted their host by acclamation the best fellow living!
They sat up late and rose early; walked and rode when the weather proved propitious; lounged, chatted, and played billiards when it was wet; after dinner they amused themselves with cards, smoked cigars, and drank punch, which the doctor brewed scientifically; they made themselves as contented and happy as children; they declared they would never have such a good time again; and who could say they were mistaken? Christmas—a green Christmas—came and passed; and then one night the storm-fiends, which had been laid to rest for a long time, were let loose in their power and might. Through all the hours of darkness there raged a furious gale from the north-east, and when morning came Mr. Danson saw "what he had never seen."
"The wild waves tossing their foam to the stormy sky"—earth and heaven seeming to meet, giant billows madly chasing each other and rushing in-shore as if steadily purposed to sweep over and destroy the land.
He stood looking out on the magnificent spectacle in absorbed admiration till he suddenly remembered this was the wind which, according to Gorey, rendered the dining-room as well as his own sleeping apartment unfit for human habitation. Well, he knew what the night had been to him, and he regretted not having told Chenery to lay breakfast in the library.
"Danson," shouted Mr. Langley up the wide staircase as soon as his host appeared, "have you a cell underneath the dining-room where you keep all the winds that blow! I never heard such a din. Do make haste; the noise is glorious—better by far than anything I ever heard at sea. Just listen;" and he held his friend on the threshold while what one of the others called "an infernal row" broke on his ears and fairly appalled him.
"No one could stand this," Mr. Danson said at last; "let us go into the library."
"No, no, I wouldn't miss the fun for anything," declared Mr. Langley; "all the powers of hell seem to be warring against us. Talk of the Swine's Gun! Not to be compared with the concerted music at Blackstone Castle!"
"But what in the name of everything wonderful is it?" asked Mr. Tankerton.
"The cry of the wind," answered Mr. Danson, feebly.
"Have you ever heard anything like this before?"
"No, but Gorey warned me this room was unfit for occupation during the winter."
"I am going to occupy it, for one," said Mr. Langley, seating himself at the table. "Here, who will have toast?"
"I will have potato cake—a good thing, and one I shall probably never taste again," answered Mr. Adson.
"The strangest part of the affair to me is that, spite of the saturnalia somebody is holding, the house still stands. It does not even rock," contributed Mr. Mayford to the conversation.
"I do not profess to understand or explain the noises about Blackstone Castle," said Mr. Danson, "They seem to have been here before I came."
"After breakfast I shall make it my business to understand them," declared Mr. Langley, attacking a huge sirloin.
"Gorey knows more about Blackstone than anyone else," remarked Mr. Danson, not without a feeling of grim satisfaction at the idea of pitting the wits of his guest and his groom against each other.
"Then Gorey shall share his knowledge with me," was the confident reply.
Mr. Danson went to the sideboard and helped himself to fried cod.
The luncheon hour arrived and found Mr. Langley comparatively silent. Yes, he had talked to Gorey. "Yes," in answer to pressing questions, Gorey had personally conducted him to that unsafe, rocky staircase leading to the beach, where his hat was blown off instantly, and he had to hold his hair tight lest that should follow also.
Gorey seemed favourably impressed with the devil's own triangles, which were making the most awful clatter he, the Curled Darling, ever heard. Gorey had offered to take him that evening, after dark, to a place where he would be able to hear quite distinctly the dead talking to the dead, but Mr. Langley had refused the charming invitation.
He did not care for great sensations. He told Gorey, he said, he was young and easily frightened, and liked his bed; so if Gorey of his kindness, instead of dragging him miles along the seashore, would come in and tuck him up and sing him to sleep, and remain beside him during the night lest he should wake up and be terrified at finding himself "all his lone"—a delightful Hibernian phrase—he would feel much more grateful than if taken to the grandest ghost-party ever given by the Atlantic.
"Gorey tells me he knows a lot of ballads," finished Mr. Langley, "so I intend to make arrangements for a musical evening when next Danson and his rough team are invited to Fort Cloyne."
"Of which I will give you due notice, and hope you may enjoy your sing-song," said Mr. Danson.
"I only wish the blessed damosel would come up and assist," remarked Mr. Langley.
"I should love to hear her rare voice mingling with Gorey's in 'Fight on, ye brave heroes, fight on,'" said Munro. "I can just fancy how she would give that line."
"Miss Rosterne has endured a great trial, and I think we ought to respect her sorrow," remarked Mr. Danson, severely.
"I respect Miss Rosterne. She seems to me the pluckiest girl I ever met," answered Mr. Langley. "But concerning her 'trial' I am not quite so sure. At one coup it rid her of an unwelcome lover and a father who, if all accounts be true, was the most undesirable of 'stern parients.'" No one replied. Mr. Danson did not care to do so, and the other men were not sufficiently interested.
"One thing I do like about Gorey," resumed Mr. Langley, "is that he has the most loyal regard for my 'dear damosel.' He says if she and the master, meaning Mr. Chittock, could have 'sorted matters, it would have been the making of Blackstone Castle and all these parts."
"Very likely," assented Mr. Danson. "Judging from appearances, Blackstone Castle as well as poor Chittock want someone badly to 'make them.'"
"The whole business seems to me so unaccountable!" observed Mr. Tankerton. "I always thought any girl would marry any man if only he were rich enough."
Mr. Danson winced, but said nothing. Mr. Tankerton remembered and stopped—too late.
Mr. Langley hummed, "I am a loyal subject, brave as any in this nation," and remarked calmly, "Gorey has certainly a great repertory."
THE storm had sobbed itself to rest. Worn out, the Atlantic lay almost calm under a cold winter sky; the dead were quiet in their ocean graves, or at least no sound of their terrible discourse broke the evening stillness; while Peace seemed for a time at least to have taken up her abode among the headlands of that iron-bound coast.
"But this weather is a delusion," said the doctor, who, at the earnest desire of Mr. Charles Langley, had, with the priest and Mr. Melsham, been invited to relieve the monotony of Blackstone Castle, and was in the act as he spoke of mixing that famous brew which was known and esteemed within a circuit of fifteen miles—"a complete delusion; it is not going to last. I saw three gulls today on the Cronan Bog, and we know what that means. Eh, Father John?"
"It means mischief," answered the other. "Are you sure they were gulls?"
"Quite; I was close to them, and I thought to myself, 'There is a fine storm brewing up at the North Pole, and it'll be here before Mr. Langley bids us good-bye.'"
"How jolly!" exclaimed that gentleman.
"You would not think it jolly if you were out on the Atlantic with only a plank between you and eternity," observed the priest, gravely.
"Pooh!" was the reply; "what is between us and eternity sitting in this room? After all, by land or by water, it is but a step from the world we know to the world we don't know."
"It is a very serious one, my young friend."
Mr. Langley did not answer, and as no other person spoke for a few seconds, there ensued a brief silence, which was at last broken by the irrepressible Charlie.
"I am sorely vexed that duty calls," he began. "I don't remember ever being so sorry to leave a place in my life. When I am back in London I shall be always thinking of this grim old spot—the lonely mountains, the stretch of sad seashore, and the 'wild waves raging high.' And one was able to enjoy it in peace and comfort," he added, throwing up his arms and laying his head on his hands, clasped lazily behind, "because there were no women to spoil the fun."
"Hear him!" exclaimed Mr. Tankerton. "Why, the fellow is never happy unless he is making love to half a dozen girls."
"I don't like the sport, though—I don't, upon my word. When a man gets to my age—there is nothing to laugh at," he added, as his friends grinned in mockery—"when a man gets to my age he begins to tire of all that sort of thing. Wherever I went since the 1st August last there were women, women, women—women, old and young, plain and pretty, women who rode, women who drove, shot, fished, stalked, swam, handled an oar, danced, dressed, spouted on platforms—and never left one a moment in peace. I don't know what the world is coming to—petticoats here, petticoats there, petticoats everywhere. Enough to make a man go hang himself!"
The last word was barely spoken before there echoed through the room a long, wailing sigh—a sigh as if someone's suffering heart were being literally rent in twain.
"Heaven preserve us!" said the priest.
"What the ——— is that!" exclaimed the doctor, with such an excess of profane expression that Father John crossed himself, the while Mr. Melsham sprang to his feet—an example followed, indeed, by every person present.
"Was anyone in the room trying to play a bad practical joke?" asked Mr. Adson, sternly. "Good Lord! the house must be coming down," he suddenly added, as a tremendous crash, followed by the sound of bitter gasping sobs, struck consternation into all present.
Mr. Langley was the first to recover his composure.
"Faith, Danson," he said, "all the winds of heaven were bad enough, but this is worse. There must be something very wrong somewhere, and you ought to see about it."
"Gorey warned me this room was uninhabitable during the winter," said Mr. Danson, trying to speak calmly, though a terrible idea had come into his mind—viz. that Captain Rosterne still lived, and was dragging out a miserable existence in some dungeon known only to his captors.
It was an absurd idea—one he would have felt ashamed to mention. Yet the mystery of the inspector's disappearance, the crumbling ruins of the old castle, the utter desolation of the new building, the unearthly sounds, the weird stories he had listened to concerning the unquiet dead, had prepared his mind to receive any impression, no matter how wild and impossible.
"It must have grown uninhabitable very lately, then," said the doctor, in answer to Mr. Danson's remark, "for many a pleasant evening I have spent here, both in storm and shine, and never heard a sound except of the wind or the rain beating against the glass."
"If I had not gone into the cellars and found them as quiet as family vaults I'd have sworn there must be one beneath this room, where Mr. Danson kept a few Atlantic tempests for his own especial benefit," remarked Mr. Langley. "Just hark! Can Gorey's drowned have come on shore to hold their revel?"
The party had not resumed their chairs, and stood looking stupidly at each other and into the dark corners which the fire and lamplight failed to penetrate.
"I think there is something very suspicious about all this," said Mr. Melsham, speaking for the first time.
The priest's lips moved, though no word was audible. The doctor's glance wandered along the east wall with a curious intentness.
"I wonder—" he began at last.
"What do you wonder?" asked Mr. Melsham.
"Well, there used to be a door behind where that sideboard now stands. It has been papered over, and I was wondering—but that is all nonsense. Old Mr. Chittock was in the habit of opening it often enough, and I never heard an uncanny sound."
"Where did the door lead to?"
"To the island of Madeira—in other words, to a small cellar where the old gentleman kept some marvellous wine he produced on special occasions only."
"We will find that door," said Mr. Langley. "Tankerton, Adson, Mayford, bear a hand. Here you are," he cried, tapping the wall, from which a heavy sideboard had been dragged. "Has anybody a knife?" And, one being forthcoming, in a trice the canvas over which the paper had been hung was cut away, and some light boarding stood revealed.
"That covers the door," said the doctor, oracularly.
"We will soon get to that," declared Mr. Melsham, ripping off a length of the match-boarding.
"There it is, right enough. We must have the rest of this woodwork down, though."
"I was here for a month when a lad," observed Mr. Danson, puzzled, "but I never remember noticing that door."
"A screen always stood in front of it," said the doctor; "besides, you were not a wine-bibber in those days, I suppose, and if you had been, Mr. Chittock would scarcely have produced his old Madeira for a boy's benefit."
"Here we are, then," interrupted Mr. Langley, "face to face with a locked door, and a deuce of a wind blowing through the keyhole. How it moans, like a lost soul in torment! Who keeps the key?"
"Gorey, I conclude. Let us have him in."
And Gorey accordingly was summoned.
As he saluted the company, his eye caught the gaping rent in the paper, and his attitude instantly stiffened.
"Where is the key of that door, Gorey!" asked Mr. Danson.
"I never had it, sir."
"Fetch an axe, then."
"What for, your honour—if I may make so free?"
"To get into the cellar beyond."
"Begging your pardon, I can't do that, sir."
"Why not?"
"Because I am Mr. Chittock's servant before I am yours, and I dursn't break any lock in this house without his authority."
"There is something in that," muttered Mr. Melsham.
"Of course, if you take that line, Gorey, there is nothing more to be said," returned Mr. Danson.
"But I am sure Mr. Chittock would not object," urged Mr. Langley. "Now, seriously, Gorey, do you believe he would wish any gentlemen to sit over a cauldron bubbling such infernal noises as we have been listening to for the last half-hour?"
"I do not suppose he would, sir; but, all the same, there are plenty of other rooms in the house, and it is not likely he would be best pleased to see his property wrecked this way. If Mr. Danson will get my master's leave, I'll try to knock down the castle, if that is all."
"You need say no more; you can go," remarked Mr. Danson, coldly.
"Might I speak one word, sir, first?" pleaded the man. "It doesn't take long for a letter to travel from here to London, and maybe you'd be glad afterwards to think you hadn't destroyed the place."
"You had better leave the room," repeated Mr. Danson, more than ever determined not to be thwarted, and Gorey reluctantly departed.
What did Mr. Chittock's friend expect?
If the truth must be told, he had been straining his ears to catch a cry for help, a word of thankfulness, passionate entreaties for release, and instead there came at intervals only that strange sobbing, that pathetic, long-drawn sigh.
"It is just the wind that's rising," said the doctor, "but where it comes from is beyond me. The house was as tight as a drum in the old days."
"What are we going to do now?" asked Mr. Danson, though indeed he knew perfectly what he meant to do. "What should you advise, Mr. Melsham?"
"I can scarcely advise," was the reply. "The way that fellow put the matter seems to me right enough. You are not the owner of this house, and it is a risky thing to burst open any place the rightful possessor has locked up. There may be wine in that cellar, or whisky, or—or anything, and indeed I think if I were in your place—"
"You'd see the matter through," finished Mr. Langley.
"No, nothing of the sort. I should communicate with Mr. Chittock."
"Well, it is of no use writing till tomorrow, so meantime I vote we have some punch," cried the young misogamist. "Let me carry the flowing bowl, Danson; the doctor's brew will taste better in the library. Follow, gentlemen all, please. We are going to make a night of it."
Despite this assurance, however, the village guests were walking sedately home when the church clock struck eleven, and gravely opining something had given way in the cellar which ought to be seen to. But it could only be considered right and proper in the first instance to communicate with Mr. Chittock, who would probably come over.
"It is a deuced awkward thing to tamper with locks and bolts," declared Mr. Melsham. "No, it would not have done to break in that door. Put it to yourself, Father John."
"I should not stand anything in my house being meddled with," declared that worthy.
"And I am sure you wouldn't, doctor?"
"No. All the same, I'd like to see the inside of that old cellar. It is built with slabs, which formed part of the original castle, and which look on the outside just like rough pieces of rock flung together anyhow."
"I suppose there is some foundation for that legend about a secret passage?" said Mr. Melsham, tentatively.
"There may be. Listen to the 'sea's trouble,' as the poor people about here call it, which always seems to me the saddest, most impressive sound on earth," and the doctor stood still while he spoke. "It is like a deep grief which no words could tell; a lost soul might make such a lament."
"Well I know it," capped the priest. "Many a night when I have been coming home from some far-away cabin where my help was needed I have wondered what sore trouble the great deep was trying to express, for hers is an awful wail!"
"Let us get on," said Mr. Melsham impatiently, "and leave the ocean to manage its own affairs. What a chilly night!"
Whether Mr. Danson found the night chilly or not has never been recorded. One thing only is certain—it seemed very long.
Disturbed by doubt, distracted by conjecture, he sought rest and did not find it. When utterly exhausted he fell into an uneasy slumber, it was but to go over all the old weary ground again.
Ceaselessly Mr. Chittock, Captain Rosterne, Gorey, and Blackstone Castle, with its mysterious noises and various unknown passages, flitted across the field of his dream-seeing eyes.
The real and the imaginary mingled together in such awful fashion that he felt glad when the first faint streak of dawn declared that the time of dreams was over, and the period for action close at hand.
More than once during the passage of an apparently endless night he had, moved by some impulse he could not analyse, risen and bent his steps to that room which, he felt assured, held the key to his perplexity.
Well, if it did contain anything in the shape of a mystery, ere many hours passed the doubts which had taken his mind captive would be either justified or laid to rest.
After the departure of Doctor Gage and his friends, it had been decided at a council composed of the Blackstone Castle house-party at all hazards to force an entrance into what Mr. Langley styled the "mysterious cave." "And I will go down to the village quite early tomorrow morning," proceeded that young gentleman, "and get a couple of stalwart fellows, armed with picks and crowbars," which promise he fulfilled so admirably that even before Mr. Danson left his sleeping apartment he heard sounds in the dining-room betokening preparations were being made for the siege.
On the landing he came face to face with Gorey, who looked as if he had not slept for a month.
"I beg pardon, sir, for making so free to ask," began the groom, "but is it true you are going to batter in the cellar door without writing to Mr. Chittock?"
"Quite true," answered Mr. Danson.
"I suppose, then, it is no use my saying a word more?"
"Of no use whatever, unless you give me some good reason for staying my hand. What is the secret you are trying to keep, Gorey?"
"What secret could there be, your honour?"
"That is precisely what I want to know."
"If you were away on a journey, sir, you would not be best pleased to find when you came home we had picked the lock of your dressing-box."
"I will account to Mr. Chittock for my present action, but not to anyone else," replied Mr. Chittock's friend, passing Gorey with a gesture of dismissal.
"I hope you'll never rue this morning's work, sir," said Gorey, in a voice which struck Mr. Danson unpleasantly even while he replied—
"I must take my chance of that."
"What am I to do? what am I to do at all?" muttered the groom, as he turned despairingly to leave.
Mr. Danson could not catch the words, but he heard the pitiful sorrow in their tone, and saw the blank hopelessness written on the man's face.
"Gorey," he said, retracing his steps so as to speak without being overheard.
"Yes, sir."
"Is there any place you would like to go—never mind where—but should you like to go?"
"What for would I want to go away from Blackstone Castle?"
"You alone can tell that. Understand, however, if you do, I will give you ten pounds. That would take you a long distance."
"It would, and thank you kindly; but I have no conceit to leave Blackstone Castle. There is only one thing," he added, "that your honour could do for me this morning, and that is, send word to my master about what you have in your mind."
"Unless you give me some better reason than I have yet heard I need not trouble your master."
For a moment Gorey hesitated—then, "I can't do that, sir," he said.
"Very well;" and Mr. Danson walked into the dining-room and closed the door.
Already the men had turned back the carpet prior to commencing operations.
"It will be a tough job," remarked Mr. Langley. "Hillo! where is Gorey off to in such a hurry?"
Mr. Danson turned to one of the windows in time to see Mr. Chittock's foster-brother running down the castle slope as fast as his legs would take him.
"He has gone," thought the Englishman, relieved.
But Gorey had not gone far. Ere he reached the village he slackened his speed, and walked sedately enough up to the door of Mrs. Rosterne's cottage, where he asked if he could see Miss Oona for a minute, and then, when she came into the narrow hall, if he could speak a word with her alone.
"Certainly," said the girl, taking him into a little drawing-room not much larger than a band-box.
"Are you in trouble Is there anything I can do for you?" she asked.
"Yes, miss, in sore trouble, and I want you to write a line of a telegraphed message for me."
"Of course," producing a slip of paper and a pencil. "What am I to say?"
"It is for Mr. Chittock, miss."
"Oh! And what am I to write?"
"Mr. Danson is breaking open the door that was papered up in the dining-room—the door leading into the old cellar."
Gorey stopped. Miss Rosterne was looking at him with a sort of questioning horror—not writing, but resting her elbows on the table and holding the pencil between her fingers.
"For the Lord's sake, put down what I tell you," gasped Gorey.
She did not answer. She sat like one deaf, slowly twirling the pencil round and round, round and round.
"You never were hard, Miss Oona. Write, and God'll reward you. It's a man's life," he added hoarsely.
Still she did not speak or move, save to twirl that pencil slowly, slowly round.
"I thought you'd have done it; I never deemed you would deny me; but I can't be wasting my time here," he went on in an access of passionate disappointment. "I'll go to the Church minister or the doctor. I'll find somebody that'll do that much for me;" and he was rushing out of the room, when the girl said—
"Stop, Dan, I will do what you ask. It was not that—no, it was not that."
"I spoke too sudden, but there's no time to spare," Gorey was beginning, with a quick revulsion of feeling, when she made a sign for him to remain silent, while she wrote rapidly without waiting for any dictation.
"Will this do?" she asked, when she had finished reading the message aloud.
"Yes."
"Then go back to the castle and I will send the telegram from Terrig. Leave all to me. I promise you," she finished, seeing his hesitation.
And Gorey went out and made his way back to Blackstone by various lonely paths, crying like a child.
Nothing had happened during his absence. When he returned the lock was still intact, Chenery told him, and the hinges had not given. Sitting on some trusses of straw, he trembled in his stable, as even there he heard the thud of the pickaxe, the grind of the crowbar. A mist lay over the Atlantic. The morning was warm and lowering, the gulls were flying inland, and the ocean's lament sounded mournful as some wild death keen; but Gorey did not see shore or sea or sky, or aught save the interior of that vault, which, during the passage of the last few years, he had often longed to enter.
Suddenly there came one tremendous crash, and then silence. He knew what had happened, and instinctively rose to his feet, placing a hand on one of the stalls to steady himself.
"Why, Gorey, I thought you were out," cried Mr. Langley, jubilantly rushing in. "We are through, and I have come for the stable lantern."
"I will bring it in, your honour," answered the man in a dull, slow voice.
"Come along, then. Never mind stopping to light it; we can do that ourselves."
Like one walking in some horrible nightmare, Gorey followed the lively young fellow across the yard, through the back passages, into the front hall and the dining-room beyond, where they were met by a rush of strangely chill air, and a sound as of the wash and sob of many waters against the rocks.
In a moment Mr. Langley had taken the lantern out of his hand, lighted it, and disappeared through the gaping doorway into the cavernous darkness beyond.
Every man present followed him save Gorey, who stood by the threshold waiting.
There was a noise as if of the crunching of glass underfoot, then ensued a pause while one stooped apparently to pick up something.
"Why, it is a spoon," said Mr. Tankerton, which remark caused a laugh that awoke every unearthly echo in the place.
Still, with Mr. Langley as leader, the search-party went forward, squeezing into a passage beyond the cellar, the door opening into which stood ajar.
No one spoke. The darkness and the mystery seemed to daunt even Mr. Langley. Gorey strained his ears to listen. All at once a voice said, "What is this?" then, "My God!"
The long strain was over. The worst had come. Sight and hearing deserted Gorey, and for the first time in his life he fell back in a dead faint.
When he came to himself he was lying on a sofa in the dining-room, where many people were standing around.
Mr. Langley chafed his left hand, while Dr. Burke felt his right pulse, and as from a great distance came the sound of Mr. Melsham's voice speaking earnestly to Mr. Danson.
"Quiet, gentlemen, if you please," said the doctor. "He is regaining consciousness."
Immediately a dead silence ensued, a silence broken at last by Gorey, who, struggling to a sitting position, exclaimed—
"I done it. Take me where you please."
About the time he made this statement a gentleman resident in London sat in a pleasant room overlooking Holland. Park busily engaged in finishing his correspondence for the day.
For more than an hour he wrote on steadily, but at length he laid down his pen, closed and sealed the last envelope, then placed that letter with others in a conspicuous position. He seemed weary. A glass of water stood beside him. Into this he poured a few drops of something which diffused a strange yet not unpleasant odour through the room, and immediately drained the tumbler. After doing so he laid his head back and died. The man was Diarmid Chittock, and the liquid poison.
NEARLY twenty years have come and gone since that grey dull morning on which the house-party at Blackstone Castle passed gaily into the mysterious darkness of Madeira Island to find a corpse. Yet the story of Mr. Chittock's crime, and of his foster brother's loyal attempt to take the burden and the punishment on his own shoulders, remains fresh in the memory of Lisnabeg as the green grass growing on Captain Rosterne's grave.
Mr. Chittock's heir-at-law now resides at the castle. He has blocked up the passage leading from the caves to the cellar. He and his friends have drank all the old Madeira. There are boys and girls in the familiar rooms, young men and maidens tread the cliffs and uneven steps, but the tale of their relative's sin and sorrow means nothing to them save that it gave to their father a property he might never otherwise have owned. On a fair estate in Hampshire Cyril Danson lives the quiet, happy life of an English country gentleman.
Not alone, however. After long and patient wooing he won for his wife the girl who "walked three miles Irish out, and three in, five days a week, and she an O'Considine," and is the angel of that fair home.
Gorey says there "never was her like for goodness," and declares the master is not far behind. Yet, though he is happy enough and well-to-do, his heart clings with fond faithfulness to the memory of that poor sinner who received his death-warrant when the telegram carried by Norah Rosterne to Terrig reached its destination.
And yet she had hoped to save him—she did all she could to save him!
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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