The Macdermots of Ballycloran Part 30

After breakfast he wandered forth, striving to attend to his usual work, but the incentives to industry were all gone; he had no longer any hope that industry would be of service to him; he walked along the hedges and ditches, unconsciously planning in his mind the different ways of committing the crimes which he really so abhorred, but in which he was about to pledge himself to join. He thought, if it should be his lot to murder Keegan, how he would accomplish it.

Should it be at night?--or in the day?--would he shoot him?--and if he did, would not the powder or the gun be traced home to him?--would not his footsteps in the bog be tracked and known?--if he struck him down on the road, would not the blood be found on his coat, or his s.h.i.+rt be torn in the struggle?--and, above all, would not his own comrades betray him? He had, some short time since, heard the whole of a trial for murder at Carrick a.s.sizes, and though he had not then paid particular attention to it, all the horrid detail and circ.u.mstances of the case now came vividly before his mind's eye. He planned and plotted how, had he in that case been the murderer, he would have foreseen and provided against the different things, the untoward accidents, which then came in evidence against the prisoner; he thought how much more wary he would be than the poor wretch who was then tried, and of what benefit the experience he had gained would be to him. Then he remembered that the princ.i.p.al witness in the case was an ill-featured, sullen-looking fellow, who had been called king's evidence--one who, in answering the tormenting questions put to him, had appeared almost more miserable than the prisoner himself;--that this man had been the friend and a.s.sistant of the murderer--the sharer and promoter of all his plans--the man who had led him on to the murder--his sworn friend. He remembered how it had come out on the trial, that the two had for months shared the same bed--tilled in the same field--eat from the same mess--and had sinned together in the same great sin. Yet this man had come forward to hang his friend!--and Thady shuddered coldly as he thought how likely it might be that his a.s.sociates would betray him. He had not slept, eat, and worked with them--he was not leagued to them by equal rank, equal wants, and equal sufferings. If that wretched witness had been induced to give evidence against the man so strongly bound to him, how much more likely that Byrne or Reynolds should hang him! or Pat Brady! And as Brady's name occurred to him, he remembered Ussher's caution respecting that man, and his a.s.surance that he was in Keegan's pay. If this were true, he had already committed the oversight to guard against which he had calculated that his superior cunning would be sufficient; and then the cold perspiration trickled from his brow, and he abruptly stopped, leaning against a bank, to meditate again on the position in which he stood.

It was not that during this time Thady had been absolutely planning murder. He had not been making any definite scheme, to be carried into immediate execution against any individual. He was not a murderer, even in mind or wish; he would have given anything to have driven the idea from his mind, but he could not; he could not avoid thinking what he would do, if he had resolved to do the deed--how the crime would be most safely perpetrated--how the laws most cunningly evaded. Then he half resolved to have nothing more to do with Reynolds and his followers, and to quiet his conscience while yet he possibly could; but the insolence of Keegan, the injuries of Ussher, and the sure enmity of those whom he had sworn to join, and now scarcely dared to desert, stifled his remorse, and destroyed the resolution before it was half made. He thought of enlisting--but he could not desert his sister; of going to Father John, and confessing all; but would Father John befriend him after his late conduct to him? Thus he wandered on, through the whole long morning. Twice he returned to the house, and creeping in through the back door, got himself a gla.s.s of spirits, which he swallowed, and again sallied forth, to find if movement would give him comfort, or his thoughts suggest anything to him in mitigation of his sorrows.

As he was returning, the third time, for the same bad purpose,--for the short stimulus of the dram was the only relief he could find to the depression which seemed to weigh him down and make his heart feel like a cold lump within him,--and just as he was turning from the avenue to the back of the house, he met Ussher walking down. He did not know what to do; he remembered that the evening before he had defied this man; he even recollected that he had arrogantly declared that he should not again set his foot on Ballycloran; he had forbad him the house, as if he had been the master; and at the present moment he felt as though he did not dare address him, for it seemed to him as if every one now would look down on him, as he looked down on himself,--as if every one could see what was in his breast, as plainly as he saw it himself.

This annoyance, however, was of short duration, for Ussher pa.s.sed him with a slight unembarra.s.sed nod, as if nothing had pa.s.sed between them on the previous evening--as if they were still good friends, and had met and been talking together but a short time before. Ussher had walked by quickly, and there was a look of satisfaction or rather gratified vanity in his face; he seemed, also, absorbed with the subject of his thoughts; Thady, however, as soon as he had pa.s.sed, took but little notice of him, but walked on into the kitchen, at the rear of the house.

Here, on a small settle by the fireside, where he had been placed out of the way by Biddy or Katty, sat a ragged bare-legged little boy, known as Patsy, the priest's gossoon; he was the only a.s.sistant Judy had in the management of Father John's _menage_. He ran on errands to Drumsna, and occasionally to Carrick-on-Shannon--fetched the priest's letters--dug his potatoes--planted his cabbages, and cleaned his horse Paul. He had now come up to Ballycloran with a message to Thady, and having been desired to stay there till he could see him himself, he had been quietly sitting in the kitchen since a little after Thady had first left the house; he now jumped up to give his message.

"Misther Thady, yer honer, Father John says as how he'll be glad av yer honer'll come down to dinner with him at six; and he says as how you must come, Mr. Thady, because divil a bit he'll ate himself, he says, till you're in it."

"For shame, Patsy!" interposed Biddy, "putting those words into his riverence's mouth. I'm sure thin Father John wasn't cursing that way."

"Faix thin, ma'am, thim wor his very words--'Tell Mr. Thady, av he don't come down to the cottage to his dinner this day, divil a bit will I ate till he does.'"

"Well, to hear the brat!" continued Biddy, shocked at the indecorous language which was put into her priest's mouth.

"And who's to be at Father John's else?" said Thady.

"Sorrow a one av me rightly knows thin, for I wasn't hearing; all I wor told wor, I warn't to come out of this widout yer honer."

"But I can't go to-night, Patsy."

"But Father John says you must, Mr. Thady."

"Tell Father John, Patsy, that I am very much obliged to him, but that I'm not just well enough to come out to-night. I couldn't go to-night, do you hear; go down and tell him so, or he'll be waiting dinner."

"But, Mr. Thady," said the boy, half sobbing, "Father John said as how I warn't to come at all widout you."

"Do as I tell you, you fool; but mind you tell Father John I'm very much obliged to him, only I'm ill."

"Well," muttered the boy, at length taking his departure, "I know Father John 'll be very mad, but any way it ain't my fault."

Thady was gratified with the priest's invitation, for it showed that he at least had forgiven him; but he did not dare to face him by accepting it.

He got himself another gla.s.s of whiskey, and lighting his pipe, sat down to smoke by the kitchen fire; after he had been some time sitting there, Pat Brady came into the kitchen. Thady, however, took no notice, except muttering something in answer to Pat's usual salutation. They remained both some time silent, till at last Brady observed that, "They'd all of them had ilegant divarsion last night--most of them stayed a power later nor you, Mr. Thady."

This allusion to last night was not at present the subject most likely to make Thady talk freely, so he still continued silent. At last Pat said,

"Could I spake to you a moment, Mr. Thady?"

"Spake out--what is it?"

"Oh, it's business, yer honer; it's something about money--wouldn't you step out to the rint-office?"

"Don't you see I'm just going to dinner; besides, I ain't well--it'll keep till to-morrow, I suppose?"

"But it won't keep, Mr. Thady."

At this moment, Biddy, who had been taking some smoking viands out of a big black pot and transferring them to a dish, went out of the kitchen with them on her road to the dining-room, and Pat took the opportunity of whispering to his master that, "the boys wor to meet at Mulready's on the next evening."

"What of that?" answered Thady; "I suppose some of them meet there mostly every night?"

"But to-morrow's the night, Mr. Thady, when yer honer's to be inisheated among us sworn brothers."

"I shan't be in it at all to-morrow, then."

"Not be in it! why you promised; and the boys is all noticed now.

Didn't you take the oath, Mr. Thady?" and he whispered down close to his ear.

"I took no oath about any day. I suppose I needn't come before I choose?"

Biddy now returned, and Thady got up to go to his dinner; Pat followed him, and renewed the conversation in the pa.s.sage. Thady, however, would give no definite promise to come to-morrow, or the next day, but said he meant to come some day. Pat observed that the boys would be furious--that they would think themselves deceived and betrayed--then urged the necessity of taking steps to prevent their paying the rent to Keegan--hinted that Ussher had been with Miss Feemy that morning--and at last departed when he found that his master was not in a proper mood to be persuaded, remarking that "he would come up again in the morning, when perhaps his honer would be thinking better of it, and not break his promised word to the boys, as there would be a great ruction among them, av he didn't go down jist to spake a word to them afther what had pa.s.sed; besides, Mr.

Thady," he added, "av you wor to go back now, some of thim boys as wor in it last night, would be going to Jonas Brown's, thinking to get the first word agin you--thinking, you know, as how you would 'peach agin thim, may be."

After this threat, Pat took his leave, and Thady, with a sad heart, and low spirits, which even three gla.s.ses of whiskey had not raised, went in to dinner. After swallowing a few hasty morsels, without speaking either to his father or his sister, he returned to the kitchen and again sat there smoking, till one of the girls came in, telling him that Father John was on the steps of the hall-door waiting for him--that he couldn't come in, but that he said he had important business to speak of, and must see Mr. Thady.

"Confound you," muttered Thady, in a low voice, "why didn't you say I was out?"

"Shure, you niver told me, Mr. Thady."

Thady considered a moment, whether he should escape through the back door; at last, however, he plucked up his courage, and went out to meet the priest.

CHAPTER XVI.

PROMOTION.

As soon as Father John had gone, Mrs. McKeon prepared to persuade her refractory daughter to agree to the propriety of what she was going to do with respect to Feemy, and to inform her husband of the visitor she intended to ask to her house; she had not much difficulty with either, for though Louey was indignant when Father John hinted at her want of a beau, she was not really ill-natured, and when her mother told her that Father John had said that this invitation would be the performance of a Christian duty, she soon reconciled herself to the prospect of Feemy's company, in spite of Mr. Gayner and his bed. And as for Mr. McKeon, he seldom interfered with the internal management of his house, and when his spouse informed him that Feemy was coming to Drumsna, he merely remarked that "no wonder the poor girl was dull at that old ramshackle place up there, and that though Drumsna was dull enough itself, it was a little better than Ballycloran, especially now the Carrick races were coming on;" and so the three ladies put on their best bonnets and set off on their journey of charity.

Feemy was in her own sitting-room, and was somewhat more neat in her appearance than the last time we saw her there, for Ussher had said he would call early in the morning; but she was employed in the same manner as then--sitting over the fire with a novel in her hand, when she heard the sound of the car wheels, and on going to the window, saw Mrs. McKeon and her daughters.

That lady managed her business with all the tact and sincerity for which Father John had given her credit; she made no particular allusion to Ussher, but merely said that they should have a party to the race-course, as Mr. McKeon had a horse to run, and that afterwards they should all go to the ball at Carrick; and Mrs. McKeon added, "You know, Feemy, you'll meet your old friend Captain Ussher there."

She then a.s.sured Feemy how glad she would be if she would stay a short time at Drumsna, after the races were over, as her two daughters were now at home, and that if she would, she would try to make the house as pleasant as possible for her.

This was all said and done so pleasantly, that Feemy did not detect any other motive in her friend's civility than the one which was apparent, and after a little pressing, agreed to accept the invitation. It was agreed that Mrs. McKeon was to call for her on the Monday following, when, if her father made no objection, she would accompany her home to Drumsna.

As soon as they were gone, Feemy made her father understand who had been there, and obtained his consent to her proposed visit, which he gave, saying at the time, "G.o.d knows, my dear, whether you'll ever come back, for your brother's determined to part with the owld place if he can, in spite of all your poor father can say to the contrary."

She then returned to her room, resuming her novel, and waiting with what patience she could for Ussher's coming. About two o'clock he made his appearance, and she was beginning gently to upbraid him for being so late, when he stopped her, by saying,

"Well, Feemy, I have strange news for you this morning."

"Strange news, Myles! what is it? I hope it's good news."