The Macdermots of Ballycloran Part 28

"Why then, Father John, not to tell you a lie, it is because you do be going on with your gagging at me so."

"Nonsense, man;--how can you say you are not going to lie, when you know you've a lie in your mouth at the moment."

"Sorrow a lie is there in it at all, Father John,--I wish the tongue of me had been blistered this morning, before I said a word of it."

"I wish it had been. Why, Cullen, it was only last night that he wanted to persuade me that a lot of boys were to meet at the place where he was married, to agree to murder Ussher; and to hear the man, you'd think it was all arranged, who was to strike the blow and all; and now here he is with you, with a similar story about Keegan! He was afraid to come to me, because he knew he'd half humbugged me with his other story last night."

"But I tell you, Father John, I heard it all with my own ears this time."

"And I tell you, you were dreaming. Do you think you'd make me believe that such a young gentleman as Mr. Thady would turn murderer all of a sudden? Now go home, and take my advice; if you don't want to find yourself in a worse sc.r.a.pe than Captain Ussher, or Mr.

Keegan, don't repeat such a tale as that to any one."

McGovery sneaked off with his tail, allegorically speaking, between his legs. He didn't exactly know what to make of it; for though, as has been before said, he did not wish on this occasion to make Father John the depositary of his fears, he did not expect even from him to meet with such total discomfiture. He consoled himself, however, with the recollection that if anything did happen now, either to the revenue officer or the attorney,--and he almost hoped there would,--he could fairly say that he had given warning and premonitory tidings of it to the parish priests, which, if attended to, might have prevented all harm. With this comfortable feeling, to atone for Father John's displeasure, and now not quite sure whether he had overheard any allusion last night to Keegan and a bog-hole or not, he returned to his wife.

As soon as he was gone, Cullen, as much surprised as McGovery at the manner in which Father John had received the story, asked him if he thought it was all a lie.

"Perhaps not all a lie," answered the priest; "perhaps he heard something about Keegan--not very flattering to the attorney; no doubt Thady was asking the boys about the rent, and threatening them with Keegan as a receiver over the property, or something of that sort; and very likely one of those boys from Drumleesh said something about a bog-hole, which may be Thady didn't reprove as he ought to have done. I've no doubt it all came about in that way,--but that fellow with his tales and his stories, will get his ears cut off some of these days, and serve him right. Why, he wanted yesterday, to make me believe that these fellows who are to drown Keegan this morning, were to shoot Ussher last night! He's just the fellow to do more harm in the country than all the stills, if he were listened to.--Well, Cullen, good day, I'm going into Mr. McKeon's here;"--and Cullen went away quite satisfied with Father John's view of the affair.

Not so, Father John. For Thady's sake--to screen his character, and because he did not think there was any immediate danger--he had given the affair the turn which it had just taken; but he himself feared--more than feared--felt sure that there was too much truth in what the man had said. Thady's unusual intoxication last night--his brutal conduct to his sister--to Ussher, and to himself--the men with whom he had been drinking--his own knowledge of the feeling the young man entertained towards Keegan, and the hatred the tenants felt for the attorney--all these things conspired to convince Father John that McGovery had too surely overheard a conversation, which, if repeated to Keegan, might probably, considering how many had been present at it, give him a desperate hold over young Macdermot, which he would not fail to use, either by frightening him into measures destructive to the property, or by proceeding criminally against him. Father John was not only greatly grieved that such a meeting should have been held, with reference to its immediate consequences, but he was shocked that Thady should so far have forgotten himself and his duty as to have attended it. But with the unceasing charity which made the great beauty of Father John's character, he, in his heart, instantly made allowances for him; he remembered all his distress and misery--his want of friends--his grief for his sister--his continued attempts and continued inability to relieve his father from his difficulties; and he determined to endeavour to screen him.

His success with McGovery, whom he had made to disbelieve his own senses, and with Cullen, who was ready enough to take his superior's views in any secular affair, had been complete; and he did not think that either would now be likely to repeat the story in a manner that would do any injury. We shall, in a short time, see what steps he took in the matter with Thady himself. In the meanwhile, we will follow him into Mrs. McKeon's house, at whose door he had now arrived.

CHAPTER XV.

THE M'KEONS.

When Father John opened the wicket gate leading into the small garden which separated Mrs. McKeon's house from the street, he saw her husband standing in the open door-way, ruminating. Mr. McKeon was said to be a comfortable man, and he looked to be so; he was something between forty-five and fifty, about six feet two high, with a good-humoured red face. He was inclined to be corpulent, and would no doubt have followed his inclination had he not accustomed himself to continual bodily activity. He was a great eater, and a very great drinker; it is said he could put any man in Connaught under the table, and carry himself to bed sober. At any rate he was never seen drunk, and it was known that he had often taken fifteen tumblers of punch after dinner, and rumour told of certain times when he had made up and exceeded the score.

He was comfortable in means as well as in appearance. Though Mr.

McKeon had no property of his own, he was much better off than many around him that had. He had a large farm on a profitable lease; he underlet a good deal of land by con-acre, or corn-acre;--few of my English readers will understand the complicated misery to the poorest of the Irish which this accursed word embraces;--he took contracts for making and repairing roads and bridges; and, altogether, he contrived to live very well on his ways and means. Although a very hard-working man he was a bit of a sportsman, and usually kept one or two well-trained horses, which, as he was too heavy to ride them himself, he was always willing, and usually able, to sell at remunerating prices. He was considered a very good hand at a handicap, and understood well--no one better--the dangerous mysteries of "knocking." He was sure to have some animal to run at the different steeple-chases in the neighbourhood, and it was generally supposed, that even when not winning his race, Tony McKeon seldom lost much by attending the meeting. There was now going to be a steeple-chase at Carrick-on-Shannon in a few days, and McKeon was much intent on bringing his mare, Playful,--a wicked devil, within twenty yards of whom no one but himself and groom could come,--into the field in fine order and condition. In addition to this, Mr.

McKeon was a very hospitable man, his only failing in that respect being his firm determination and usual practice to make every man that dined with him drunk. He was honest in everything, barring horse-flesh; was a good Catholic, and very fond of his daughters--Louey and Lydia. His wife was a kind, good, easy creature, fond of the world and the world's goods, and yet not selfish or n.i.g.g.ardly with those with which she was blessed. She was sufficiently contented with her husband, whose friends never came out of the dining-room after dinner, and therefore did not annoy her; she looked on his foibles with a lenient eye, for she had been accustomed to such all her life; and when she heard he had parted with her car in a handicap, or had lost her two fat pigs in a knock, she bore it with great good-humour. She was always willing to procure amus.e.m.e.nt for her daughters, and was beginning to feel anxious to get them husbands; she was a good neighbour, and if she had a strong feeling at all, it was her partiality for Father John. Her daughters had nothing very remarkable about them to recommend them to our attention: they were both rather pretty, tolerably well educated, to the extent of a two years' sojourn in a convent in Sligo; were both very fond of novels, dancing, ribbons and potato cakes; and both thought that to dance at a race-ball with an officer in his regimentals was the most supreme terrestrial blessing of which their lot was susceptible.

We have, however, kept the father too long standing at his own door, while we have been describing his family.

"Well, Father John," said McKeon, "how are you this morning?"

"Why then, as luckily I didn't dine with you, Mr. McKeon, I'm pretty much as I usually am,--and, thank G.o.d, that's well. I'm told you had those poor fellows that were with you last night, laid on a mattress, and that you sent them home that way to Carrick on a country car, and that they couldn't move, leaving this at six this morning."

"Oh, nonsense, Father John! who was telling you them lies?"

"But wasn't it true? Didn't they go home on one of the cars off the farm, and young Michael driving them, and they on a mattress?"

"And sure, Father John, you wouldn't have had me let them walk home to Carrick after dinner?"

"They were little fit for walking, I believe; why they couldn't so much as sit up in the car. Will you never have done, Mr. McKeon; don't you know the sin of drunkenness?"

"The sin of drunkenness! me know it! Indeed I don't then. When did you ever see me drunk? Come, which was a case last, Father John--you or I?"

"G.o.d forgive me, but I believe some boys did make me rather tipsy the first day I ever was in France; and my head should have been full of other things; and I believe if you were to swim in punch it wouldn't hurt you; but you know as well as I can tell you, it's worse for you to be making others drink so much who can't bear it as you can, than if you were hurting yourself."

"And you know, as well as I can tell you, that yourself would be the last man to take the whiskey off the table, as long as the lads that were with you chose to be drinking it; and I think when I sent them boys off to Carrick as comfortably asleep as if they were in bed, so that they wouldn't be too late at business this morning, I acted by them as I'd wish anybody to act by me if I had an accident; and if that an't being a good Christian, I don't know what is. So lave off preaching, Father John, and come round to the stables, till I show you the mare that'll win at Carrick; at least, it 'll be a very good nag that 'll take the s.h.i.+ne out of her."

"I hope you'll win, Mr. McKeon, in spite of your villany in making those young fellows drunk. But I'll not look at the mare just at present; more by token I'm told she's not very civil to morning visitors."

"Arrah, nonsense, man! she's as quiet a mare as ever went over a fence, when she's well handled."

"But you see I can't handle her well; and as I want to see the good woman that owns you, if you please, I'll go into the house instead of into the stable."

"Well, every man to his choice; and I'll see Playful get her gallop.

But I tell you what, Father John, if you don't mind what you're after with Mrs. McKeon, I'll treat you a deal worse than I did those two fellows I sent home to Carrick on a mattress."

So Mr. McKeon walked off to superintend the training of his mare; and the priest, in spite of the marital caution he had received, walked into the dining-room, where he knew that at that hour he should probably find the mother and daughters surrounded by their household cares.

When the usual greetings were over, and the two girls had asked all the particulars of Mary Brady's wedding, and Mrs. McKeon had got through her usual gossip, Father John warily began the subject respecting which he was so anxious to rouse his friend's soft sympathies.

Mrs. McKeon had gone so far herself as to ask him whether anything had been settled yet at Ballycloran, about Ussher, and whether he thought that the young man really intended to marry the girl.

The way this question was asked, was a great damper to Father John's hopes. If there had been any kindly feelings towards poor Feemy at the moment in her breast, she would have called her by her name, and not spoken of her as "the girl;" it showed that Mrs. McKeon was losing, or had lost, whatever good opinion she might ever have had of Feemy: and when Louey ill-naturedly added, "Oh laws!--not he--the man never thought of her," Father John felt sure that there was a slight feeling of triumph among the female McKeons at the idea of Feemy's losing the lover of whom, perhaps, she had been somewhat too proud.

Still, however, he did not despair; he knew that if they spoke with ill-nature, it arose from thoughtlessness--and that it was, at any rate with the mother, only necessary to point out to her the benefit she could confer, to arouse a kindly feeling within her.

"I think you're wrong there, Miss Louey," said Father John; "I think he not only did think of her--but does think of her; and I'll tell you what I know, that if Feemy Macdermot had the great blessing which you have, and that is a kind, good, careful mother to the fore, she'd have been married to him before this."

"But, Father John," said the kind, good, careful mother, "what is there to prevent them marrying, if he's ready? I always pitied Feemy being left alone there with her father and brother; but if Captain Ussher is in earnest, I don't see how twenty mothers would make it a bit easier for her."

"Don't you, Mrs. McKeon!--then it's little you know the advantage your own girls have in yourself. Don't you think a man would prefer taking a girl from a house where a good mother gave signs that the daughter would make a good wife, than from one where there was no one to mind her but a silly old man, and a young one like Thady?--a very good young man in his way, but not very fit, Mrs. McKeon, to act a mother's part to a girl like Feemy."

"That's true enough; but then why did she make all the world believe he was engaged to her, if he wasn't?--And if he wasn't, why did she let him go on as though he was, being at all hours, I'm told, with her at Ballycloran?--and if they are not to be married, why does her brother let him be coming there at all? I know you're fond of them, Father John, and I'd be sorry to think ill of your friends; but I must say it begins to look odd."

"You're right any how, in saying I'm very fond of them; indeed I am, and so is yourself, Mrs. McKeon; and I know, though you speak in that way to me, you wouldn't say anything that could hurt the poor girl, any where but just among ourselves. If it wasn't in a kind mother, with such a heart as your own,--especially in one she'd known so long,--in whom could a poor motherless, friendless girl, like Feemy, expect to find a friend?"

"G.o.d forbid I should hurt her, Father John! And indeed I'd befriend her if I knew how; but don't you think, yourself now, she's played a foolish game with that young man?"

"Why, as I never was a young lady in love, I can't exactly say how a young lady in love should behave; but, my dear woman, look at it this way; I suppose there's no harm in Feemy wis.h.i.+ng to get herself married, more than any other young lady?"

"Oh! dear no, Father John; quite right she should."

"And every one seems to think this Captain Ussher would be a proper match for her."

"Why, barring that he's a Protestant, of course he's a very good match for her."

"Oh! as to his being a Protestant, we won't mind that now. Well then, Mrs. McKeon, under these circ.u.mstances, what could Feemy do better than encourage this Captain?"

"I never blamed her for encouraging him; only she should not have gone the length she has, unless he downright proposed for her."