Lord Kilgobbin Part 110

'My part is in another land; my fortune is linked with America--that is, if I care to have a fortune.'

'Come, come, Donogan,' cried she, calling him inadvertently by his name, 'men like you do not give up the battle of life so easily. It is the very essence of their natures to resist pressure and defy defeat.'

'So I could; so I am ready to show myself. Give me but hope. There are high paths to be trodden in more than one region of the globe. There are great prizes to be wrestled for, but it must be by him who would share them with another. Tell me, Nina,' said he suddenly, lowering his voice to a tone of exquisite tenderness, 'have you never, as a little child, played at that game of what is called seeking your fortune, wandered out into some thick wood or along a winding rivulet, to meet whatever little incident imagination might dignify into adventure; and in the chance heroism of your situation have you not found an intense delight? And if so in childhood, why not see if adult years cannot renew the experience? Why not see if the great world be not as dramatic as the small one? I should say it is still more so. I know you have courage.'

'And what will courage do for me?' asked she, after a pause.

'For you, not much; for me, everything.'

'I do not understand you.'

'I mean this--that if that stout heart could dare the venture and trust its fate to me--to me, poor, outlawed, and doomed--there would be a grander heroism in a girl's nature than ever found home in a man's.'

'And what should I be?'

'My wife within an hour; my idol while I live.'

'There are some who would give this another name than courage,' said she thoughtfully.

'Let them call it what they will, Nina. Is it not to the unbounded trust of a nature that is above all others that I, poor, unknown, ign.o.ble as I am, appeal when I ask, Will you be mine? One word--only one--or, better still--'

He clasped her in his arms as he spoke, and drawing her head towards his, kissed her cheek rapturously.

With wild and fervent words, he now told her rapidly that he had come prepared to make her the declaration, and had provided everything, in the event of her compliance, for their flight. By an unused path through the bog they could gain the main road to Maryborough, where a priest, well known in the Fenian interest, would join them in marriage. The officials of the railroad were largely imbued with the Nationalist sentiment, and Donogan could be sure of safe crossing to Kilkenny, where the members of the party were in great force.

In a very few words he told her how, by the mere utterance of his name, he could secure the faithful services and the devotion of the people in every town or village of the kingdom. 'The English have done this for us,' cried he, 'and we thank them for it. They have popularised rebellion in a way that all our attempts could never have accomplished. How could I, for instance, gain access to those little gatherings at fair or market, in the yard before the chapel, or the square before the court-house--how could I be able to explain to those groups of country-people what we mean by a rising in Ireland? what we purpose by a revolt against England? how it is to be carried on, or for whose benefit? what the prizes of success, what the cost of failure? Yet the English have contrived to embody all these in one word, and that word _my_ name!'

There was a certain artifice, there is no doubt, in the way in which this poorly-clad and not distinguished-looking man contrived to surround himself with attributes of power and influence; and his self-reliance imparted to his voice as he spoke a tone of confidence that was actually dignified. And besides this, there was personal daring--for his life was on the hazard, and it was the very contingency of which he seemed to take the least heed.

Not less adroit, too, was the way in which he showed what a shock and amazement her conduct would occasion in that world of her acquaintances--that world which had hitherto regarded her as essentially a pleasure-seeker, self-indulgent and capricious. '"Which of us all," will they say, "could have done what that girl has done? Which of us, having the world at her feet, her destiny at her very bidding, would go off and brave the storms of life out of the heroism of her own nature? How we all misread her nature! how wrongfully and unfairly we judged her! In what utter ignorance of her real character was every interpretation we made! How scornfully has she, by one act, replied to all our misconstruction of her!

What a sarcasm on all our worldliness is her devotion!"'

He was eloquent, after a fas.h.i.+on, and he had, above most men, the charm of a voice of singular sweetness and melody. It was clear as a bell, and he could modulate its tones till, like the drip, drip of water on a rock, they fell one by one upon the ear. Ma.s.ses had often been moved by the power of his words, and the mesmeric influence of persuasiveness was a gift to do him good service now.

There was much in the man that she liked. She liked his rugged boldness and determination; she liked his contempt for danger and his self-reliance; and, essentially, she liked how totally different he was to all other men.

He had not their objects, their hopes, their fears, and their ways. To share the destiny of such a man was to ensure a life that could not pa.s.s unrecorded. There might be storm, and even s.h.i.+pwreck, but there was notoriety--perhaps even fame!

And how mean and vulgar did all the others she had known seem by comparison with him--how contemptible the polished insipidity of Walpole, how artificial the neatly-turned epigrams of Atlee. How would either of these have behaved in such a moment of danger as this man's? Every minute he pa.s.sed there was another peril to his life, and yet he had no thought for himself--his whole anxiety was to gain time to appeal to her. He told her she was more to him than his ambition--she saw herself she was more to him than life. The whirlwind rapidity of his eloquence also moved her, and the varied arguments he addressed--now to her heroism, now to her self-sacrifice, now to the power of her beauty, now to the contempt she felt for the inglorious lives of commonplace people--the ign.o.ble herd who pa.s.sed unnoticed. All these swayed her; and after a long interval, in which she heard him without a word, she said, in a low murmur to herself, 'I will do it.'

Donogan clasped her to his heart as she said it, and held her some seconds in a fast embrace. 'At last I know what it is to love,' cried he, with rapture.

'Look there!' cried she, suddenly disengaging herself from his arm. 'They are in the drawing-room already. I can see them as they pa.s.s the windows. I must go back, if it be for a moment, as I should be missed.'

'Can I let you leave me now?' he said, and the tears were in his eyes as he spoke.

'I have given you my word, and you may trust me,' said she, as she held out her hand.

'I was forgetting this doc.u.ment: this is the lease or the agreement I told you of.' She took it, and hurried away.

In less than five minutes afterwards she was among the company in the drawing-room.

'Here have I been singing a rebel ballad, Nina,' said Kate, 'and not knowing the while it was Mr. Atlee who wrote it.'

'What, Mr. Atlee,' cried Nina, 'is the "Time to begin" yours?' And then, without waiting for an answer, she seated herself at the piano, and striking the chords of the accompaniment with a wild and vigorous hand, she sang--

'If the moment is come and the hour to need us, If we stand man to man, like kindred and kin; If we know we have one who is ready to lead us, What want we for more than the word to begin?'

The wild ring of defiance in which her clear, full voice gave out these words, seemed to electrify all present, and to a second or two of perfect silence a burst of applause followed, that even Curtis, with all his loyalty, could not refrain from joining.

'Thank G.o.d, you're not a man, Miss Nina!' cried he fervently.

'I'm not sure she's not more dangerous as she is,' said Lord Kilgobbin.

'There's people out there in the bog, starving and half-naked, would face the Queen's Guards if they only heard her voice to cheer them on. Take my word for it, rebellion would have died out long ago in Ireland if there wasn't the woman's heart to warm it.'

'If it were not too great a liberty, Mademoiselle Kostalergi,' said Joe,'

I should tell you that you have not caught the true expression of my song.

The brilliant bravura in which you gave the last line, immensely exciting as it was, is not correct. The whole force consists in the concentrated power of a fixed resolve--the pa.s.sage should be subdued.'

An insolent toss of the head was all Nina's reply, and there was a stillness in the room, as, exchanging looks with each other, the different persons there expressed their amazement at Atlee's daring.

'Who's for a rubber of whist?' said Lord Kilgobbin, to relieve the awkward pause. 'Are you, Curtis? Atlee, I know, is ready.'

'Here is all prepared,' said d.i.c.k. 'Captain Curtis told me before dinner that he would not like to go to bed till he had his sergeant's report, and so I have ordered a broiled bone to be ready at one o'clock, and we'll sit up as late as he likes after.'

'Make the stake pounds and fives,' cried Joe, 'and I should p.r.o.nounce your arrangements perfection.'

'With this amendment,' interposed my lord, 'that n.o.body is expected to pay!'

'I say, Joe,' whispered d.i.c.k, as they drew nigh the table, 'my cousin is angry with you; why have you not asked her to sing?'

'Because she expects it; because she's tossing over the music yonder to provoke it; because she's in a furious rage with me: that will be nine points of the game in my favour,' hissed he out between his teeth.

'You are utterly wrong--you mistake her altogether.'

'Mistake a woman! d.i.c.k, will you tell me what I _do_ know, if I do not read every turn and trick of their tortuous nature? They are occasionally hard to decipher when they're displeased. It's very big print indeed when they're angry.'

'You're off, are you?' asked Nina, as Kate was about to leave.

'Yes; I'm going to read to him.'

'To read to him!' said Nina, laughing. 'How nice it sounds, when one sums up all existence in a p.r.o.noun. Good-night, dearest--good-night,' and she kissed her twice. And then, as Kate reached the door, she ran towards her, and said, 'Kiss me again, my dearest Kate!'

'I declare you have left a tear upon my cheek,' said Kate.

'It was about all I could give you as a wedding-present,' muttered Nina, as she turned away.

'Are you come to study whist, Nina?' said Lord Kilgobbin, as she drew nigh the table.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'I declare you have left a tear upon my cheek,' said Kate]