Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  “To a nicety,” ejaculated the fellow, with a sly grin.

  “You know your powers under this warrant — eh?” inquired the magistrate.

  “Och, bloody wars! — what id ail me?” answered he, impatiently. “Then I shall place it in your hands, leaving all to your discretion,” continued Garrett, with marked significance, while he applied himself to draft the necessary document, which — having dried it carefully at the fire, and read it through — he handed to the applicant, observing, as he did so, with emphatic deliberation —

  “I have no choice in this matter, Mr. Hogan. As a justice of the peace I have no choice — but to grant your application, and, as a justice of the king’s peace, I wish you success. You say you have an appointment for tonight elsewhere, touching this untoward business, so it were poor courtesy to press your farther stay; should you desire it, however, you can have the same bed in which you last night slept.”

  “Well, Miles Garrett, a bochal,” cried the ruffian, exultingly, as he pinned the paper in his waistcoat pocket, “never believe me if you don’t hear of quare news before a week is past and gone — and if I don’t do all you want, and may be a bit to the back of it— “

  “What do you mean, sir?” said Garrett, with stern abruptness, and staring full in the fellow’s face, until the familiar gaze of the ruffian sank for a moment abashed and subdued under the steadier and more commanding eye of the superior villain. “Execute that warrant as seems most consistent with the king’s service and your own interest; and again, sir, I wish you may succeed in recovering your cattle.”

  “Well, well,” said the other, “take your own way — it’s all one — we both of us know what we want, and that is every thing; and so, your worship, I wish you a good night and the best of good luck, and peace and plenty; and here’s towards your good health.”

  He had approached the wine-flask, as he spoke, and filling a bumper, with a grin of savage meaning he nodded to Miles Garrett, quaffed it down to the last drop, and then, looking in vain into the unmoved countenance of his host for a single ray of corresponding significance, he muttered —

  “Well, well, well, but you’re a quare boy and so, turning upon his heel he left the room, and was, in five minutes after, riding slowly along a broken and narrow way, which led through the heathy steeps and wilds of the savage and desolate mountains of Slievephelim.

  Miles Garrett, meanwhile, arose, and paced the stone floor of the hall with an exulting stride.

  “All goes smoothly and steadily onward,” said he with an ill-favoured smile: “by this time tomorrow night, the better part of all his cattle and his other substance will be driven or waste, and thus the first act of the tragic drama will have been completed; and if he resist their entrance, demanded in virtue of the king’s warrant — then, in that case, comes the second act — the second and the best — for all the rest flows smoothly on from thenceforth to the crowning scene — the tragic catastrophe — stupid, headstrong, helpless hound!”

  With a pale face, dilated nostril, and a grim smile, Miles Garrett paced the floor from wall to wall. His ruminations seemed to afford him no small delight, for he slapped his forehead, exultingly, and muttered —

  “It’s all the brain — the brain — the brain!” He relapsed into sience for some minutes, and his countenance grew darker and darker every moment. At last he spoke again— “And as for thy daughter” — he continued, with an ugly scowl, and biting his thin lips at every pause— “as for thy daughter, if I but choose to have her, I shall have her, in spite of all thy frantic bluster. Bah! Hugh Willoughby, you ought to know me by this time and he smiled in the malignant consciousness of his own dogged and resolute sagacity and daring. “Yes, Hugh Willoughby, you shall know within a month all you have lost in madly repelling my proffered hand. Old scores of vengeance and bright hopes of profit and advancement I was willing to forego; but like an idiot you repulsed your fortune. You have had your miserable triumph. Make the most of it; for now — now something tells me MY triumph is at hand. Yes, Hugh Willoughby, you have made your bed, and you shall lie in it!”

  While Miles Garrett thus chewed the cud of sweet and bitter fancy — as with downward, ominous glance, and heavy stride, he stalked backward and forward through his gloomy hall — his recent guest and companion was under the hazy moonlight, pursuing his lonely and uneven road. This track, little better than a broken pathway, wound along the elevated surface of the broad range of hills, deep among whose vast and heathy undulations the horseman was soon tracing his solitary and melancholy progress. The sense of loneliness is nowhere so awful as among the gigantic and monotonous solitudes of mountain scenery, especially when the exaggerating and uncertain radiance of the moon shrouds the vast undulations of the bleak and mighty hillsides, and invests their dusky outlines with undefined immensity of distance and magnitude. There the solitary traveller — lifted high above the sounds and sights of human habitation, with savage and gigantic scenery looming in deserted sublimity above and around him — feels, amid the vastness and the utter solitude of nature, awestruck with a fearful sense of his own nothingness. An intruder, as it were, among elements and influences, stupendous, desolate, and unsocial, he loses all sense of companionship with the things around him, and a feeling of isolation and of undefined danger steals solemnly and fearfully upon him.

  The horseman whom we are bound to follow, now found himself in the lap of a broad misty hollow, around which, as he proceeded, seemed to gather and thicken the dark and swelling summits of the hills like monstrous forms closing him in to intercept his escape, and sailing slowly onward to overwhelm him in their awful confluence. Here and there the inequalities of the heathy flat, over which his course lay, were marked by huge strata of naked rock, lifted above the dark brown surface in vast riven masses, and strewn along the soil in gray shimmering lines, like the fragments and foundations of some Titanic fortification; and the grandeur and desolation of the scene were heightened by the rush and moan of the upper currents of the air, as they swept among the hill tops, and through the rocky glens, and solitary ravines.

  The cavalier had heard of “phookas” and other malignant sprites, who, in desert places, encounter, scare, and even smite with decrepitude or madness the benighted traveller. He was familiar, too, with a thousand wild stories of the freaks, the delusions, and the malice of “the good people.” He had heard how farmers, returning alone from distant fairs or travelling pedlars pursuing their benighted way, had been met and accosted on these lonely hills by ugly dwarfs, or intercepted by calves or dogs of unearthly kind, and other strange beings, who had terrified or abused them, so that, by the morning light, they had lost either their wits or their lives. All these tales of preternatural terror floated in gloomy succession through his mind, as he rode slowly onward through the vast and misty solitudes of the mountain-tracts. Often, as he pursued his way, he drew bridle and paused, fancying that he had heard a woman’s shriek, and uncertain whether the shrill and distant sound might not have been the cry of some wild bird, scared by the night-owl from its rest; and listening on with a horrible misgiving, lest the sound should prove some phantom-wail, and be succeeded by some wilder spectral freak of unequivocal and insupportable terror; again he would turn and gaze behind him, as the hushed breeze hovered like close whispers in his ear, and scowling breathless, with blanched cheeks and parted lips, into the bleak void, subduing the half-muttered curse which instinctively rose to his lips, and mumbling a word or two of a forgotten prayer; and then, with an effort to reassure himself, giving his hat a new set, squaring his shoulders, planting his arm a-kimbo, and whistling a snatch of some favourite tune, he would once more resume his way, again to interrupt it as before.

  It was, therefore, with a sense of relief which he would scarcely have confessed even to himself, that at last, after more than an hour’s lonely progress, he found himself within a mile of the spot at which he knew he should find human companionship. Inwardly congratulating himself upon his proximity t
o his journey’s present termination, he pressed onward at a brisker pace — still, however, very far from being altogether freed from those visitings of awe and doubt which he had, during his long and lonely night-ride, in vain endeavoured entirely to suppress vVhile he thus spurred onward, now traversing the soft elastic peat, with noiseless tread, and now clanging over the naked rock, a strange and dwarfish figure, which fancy might well have assigned to one of the malignant fairly brood, on a sudden started — he knew not how — as it seemed from the very soil beneath his horse’s hoofs. A thrill of superstitious terror for a moment unnerved him, and it was not until he had gazed for some seconds upon the wild and startling apparition, that he recognised the elf-looks and smoke-dried visage of the ill-favoured boy, whose unexpected appearance had that day so affrighted Sir Hugh’s fair daughter at Glindarragh bridge.

  “God bless us!” said the horseman, recovering from an indistinct attempt to cross himself; “and so it’s only you, you devil’s whelp.”

  And indulging the irritation which often follows causeless alarm, the burly horseman dealt the urchin a sharp blow of his switch across the head, which made him howl and caper in so unearthly and uncouth a fashion, that one unacquainted with his eccentricities of mien might well have felt his supernatural doubts confirmed, rather than allayed by the wild and grotesque exhibition.

  “Never mind it, Shaeen dhas, never mind it, purty boy,” said the man, as the urchin gradually abated his strange demonstrations. “I did not know you, asthora — never mind it; but tell me, like an honest gossoon, is he down in the glin?”

  “He is — what id ail him,” said the boy— “himself an’ two or three more, Leam a rinka and Shaun Laudher, an’ a boy iv the Kellys, an’ a quare little gossoon like myself, and the old Shan-a-van, an’ that’s all that’s in it.”

  The horseman spurred his steed into a clattering canter, the boy running lightly and easily by his side; and thus they continued in silence to advance, until the track which they pursued swept into the course of a narrow glen, at first presenting a declivity so slight as to be scarcely distinguishable from the heathy level of the higher region, but gradually becoming more and more defined, until at last it deepened into a dark and craggy pass, precipitous and rocky, clothed with furze and heath, and traversed at the bottom by a stream, now dwindled to an attenuated thread, and whose gravelly bed supplied the broken and precarious roadway over which they dashed and scrambled. An abrupt turn of this defile brought them on a sudden to the object of their search.

  From the door of a wretched hovel perched halfway up the steep and narrow pass, there streamed a strong red light, which flooded the rocky fragments and tufted furze, crowded closely about it, with warm and cheery crimson; and as it lay at the shadowy side of the deep ravine, the dusky light relieved the few objects on which it fell in fiery distinctness, and rendered the surrounding darkness but the denser and blacker by the contrast. Placing his horse’s bridle in the hand of the uncouth and savage urchin who attended him, Hogan ascended the steep path which led to the cabin-door, and in a few moments he stood beneath the roof-tree of the hovel.

  In the strong red light of the fire sat, or rather reclined, three men in coarse frieze, listlessly chatting in the strong gutturals of their native tongue; and thus disposed around the hearth in such attitudes as suited each, they occupied the hard earthen floor beneath the chimney, and warmed themselves the while. An old, smoke-dried, puckered hag cowered at the back of the hearth, showing through the filmy turf smoke scarcely more substantial than the pale blue and yellow flames which flickered above the red embers. Pacing the uneven earthen floor at the front of this rude and comfortless chamber, and from time to time glancing sharply through the open door as he arrested his measured pace, was a personage, of whose appearance we must say a word or two. He was rather above than below the middle size, his structure compact, well-knit, and wiry; and as he measured the floor with a firm and elastic tread, and turned his quick and fiery glance from object to object, there was a restless excitability and energy in his whole air and mien, as well as a piercing shrewdness, a promptitude and decision in his marked and swarthy countenance, which stamped him at once as a man of action and of daring. His dress, though considerably worn and weather-beaten, was alike in fabric and fashion that of a man who pretended to the rank of a gentleman. His own coal-black hair escaped from under the broad leaf of his hat, and added to the effect of his dark and sharply-marked features, which alike from the intense brightness and activity of his dark eye, and from the peculiar conformation of the strongly developed under jaw, bore a character of sternness and even of cruelty which impressed those who looked upon him with feelings bordering upon fear, aversion, and distrust. As he strode backward and forward, he seemed wrapped in exciting meditation; one hand was buried in his bosom, the other held the slender stem of a tobacco-pipe, from which he drew the smoke, which, in dense and rapid volumes, he puffed into the eddying air. With downward aspect and knitted brow, and flashing glance, he thus traversed the breadth of the dreary hovel to and again, as Hogan reached the door.

  A curt but cordial greeting passed betw een these two personages thus brought together, and a close and earnest conference followed, partly carried on in English, and partly in the “mother tongue.” Through this it is not necessary to follow them; it is enough for our purpose to state its concluding words —

  “You’ll be able to gother the boys in time?” asked Hogan, doubtfully.

  “With one whistle I’d bring them round me from Keeper to Monaster-owena, and from Doon to Killaloe,” rejoined he, scornfully.

  “And you’ll not fail me?” continued Hogan.

  “When did O Moel Ryan fail of his promise?” returned “Ned o’ the Hills” — for he was the speaker — with tranquil disdain.

  ‘Hand and word,” cried the brawny visitor, as with emphatic energy he smote his broad hand upon the extended palm of his companion —

  “hand and word, and the bargain’s clenched.”

  At a word from Ryan, one of the followers at the hearth sprung to his feet, and filling out two drams of brandy, carried them to the door where the two principal persons stood.

  “I drink to you, Mr. Hogan,” said Ryan.

  “And here’s towards your good health,” replied Hogan, in a voice of thunder, “an’ success to us both, an’ smashing to smithers be the luck of our inemies.”

  With these words he dashed off the liquor, and, with a wild hurra, he flung the glass high into the dewy night-air, whence descending, it burst into jingling shivers in the craggy depths of the bleak glen — a type of the savage malediction to which he had just pledged its contents.

  “Tomorrow night, and half an hour before the moon goes down,” said our new acquaintance, shaking back his long dark locks, as a lion might his mane, when he scents the prey afar off, “in the wood of Glindarragh, and under the Carrig-na-Phoka — and so, God send you safe home.”

  Thus they parted, Hogan to pursue, in his long and solitary night-ride, the purpose which occupied his mind; and his confederate to complete, in the hurried interval, the vast and deadly arrangements of their desperate enterprise.

  Meanwhile, in her chamber in the old castle of Glindarragh — books, music, and oldfashioned tapestry work all neglected — sits, in her ponderous high-backed chair, her soft eyes resting in deep reverie upon the changing embers of the hearth, the sweet Grace Willoughby, pensive, pale and mournful — she who before that night scarce ever knew what one grave thought or one transient cloud of sorrow might be. What thoughts are now chasing one another through the clear stillness of her mind? The agitating dangers of the evening have ceased to quicken her pulse and flush her cheek; the flutterings of her proud and timid heart are quiet now, and yet she sits absorbed in the deep enchantment of her reverie. Her beautiful face, late so radiant and dimpling with the pleasant smiles of arch and girlish merriment, is now touched for the first time with the loftier character of pride and melancholy — yet both combine
d so softly, and in so lovely a look, that nothing but the nobleness of pride and the gentle sweetness of sorrow reign in its pure and mournful tranquillity. As she leans her graceful head upon her small white hand, on which falls thickly the golden shower of her rich hair, her memory is busy with the words, the looks, the gestures, aye, with the very plumes and spurs and gold lace of the handsome champion who had rescued her that day. She hears him as he spoke — every accent of his rich manly voice is sounding in her ear; he stands before her, in all his proud and martial beauty, as she that day beheld him — she sees again his looks of chivalric, respectful tenderness, as he led her toward her home; and then, again, oh! sudden, painful change, she beholds the stern and proud aspect, the averted look, with which her transformed deliverer took his abrupt departure. Innocent girl! as thus she muses, she persuades her willing heart that she but yields to the promptings of her simple curiosity; yet if she will but look into that heart, she will find a deeper interest there. What makes it happiness to thee to recall his lightest word, or look, or gesture; and when his sudden parting rises in thy memory, why that pang of wounded pride, and whence that rising sigh? Oh! girl, bethink thee ere it be too late; he is thy father’s foe — the devoted enemy of all thy house; beware, sweet Grace, beware; love not where thou canst not be loved again; guard well the portals of thy warm and gentle heart; oh, dwell not on his words and looks so fondly; but banish that image from thy mind with fear and horror, as a snare of Hell.

  CHAPTER XIII.

  SUNSET AND MOONLIGHT ON THE TOWERS OF GLINDARRAGH.

  THOUGH the meditated attempt on the castle of Glindarragh was vaguely known among the surrounding peasantry, and though it supplied the material of gossiping discussion at every forge and hedge shebeen-shop for miles around, yet, neither to Sir Hugh nor to one individual of his household, was one hint of danger spoken — absolute mystery sealed the lips of every peasant; and had it not been for the warning of which we have already spoken, the castle of Glindarragh might easily have been surprised, and all within it lain at the mercy of a wild banditti.