The O'Donoghue: Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ Huston of this town, and is doing remarkably well.”

      “Where’s the sporting news?” said Kerry. “Is not this it, here?” as he pointed to a figure of a horse above a column.

      “Mr. Connolly’s horse, Gabriel, would have been in first, but he stopped to eat Whaley, the jockey, when he fell. The race is to be run again on Friday next. It was Mr. Daly, and not Mr. Crosbie, horse-whipped the attorney over the course last Tuesday. Mr. Crosbie spent the day with the Duke of Leinster, and is very angry at his name being mentioned in the wrong, particularly as he is bound over to keep the peace towards all members of the bar for three years.”

      “Captain Heavyside and Mr. Malone exchanged four shots each on the Bull this morning. The quarrel was about racing and politics, and miscellaneous matters.”

      “It is rumoured that if the Chief Justice be appointed from England, he will decline giving personal satisfaction to the Master of the Rolls; but we cannot credit the report – ”

      “The Carmelites have taken Banelagh-house for a nunnery.”

      “That’s the only bit in the paper I’d give the snuff of my pipe for,” said Mrs. Branaghan. “Read it again, acushla.”

      The boy re-read the passage.

      “Well, well, I wonder if Miss Kate will ever come back again,” said she, in a pause.

      “To be sure she will,” said Kerry; “what would hinder her? hasn’t she a fine fortune out of the property? ten thousand, I heerd the master say.”

      “Ayeh! sure it’s all gone many a day ago; the sorra taste of a brass farthen’s left for her or any one else. The master sould every stick an’ stone in the place, barrin’ the house that’s over us, and sure that’s all as one as sould too. Ah, then, Miss Kate was the purty child, and had the coaxing ways with her.”

      “‘Tis a pity to make her a nun,” said Kerry.

      “A pity! why would it be a pity, Kerry O’Leary?” said the old lady, bristling up with anger. “Isn’t the nuns happier, and dacenter, and higher nor other women, with rapscallions for husbands, and villians of all kinds for childher? Is it the likes of ye, or the crayture beside ye, that would teach a colleen the way to heaven? Musha, but they have the blessed times of it – fastin’ and prayin’, and doing all manner of penance, and talking over their sins with holy men.”

      “Whisht! what’s that? there’s the bell ringing above stairs,” said Kerry, suddenly starting up and listening. “Ay, there it is again,” and, so saying, he yawned and stretched himself, and after several interjectional grumblings over the disturbance, slowly mounted the stairs towards the parlour.

      “Are ye sleepin’ down there, ye lazy deevils?” cried Sir Archy from the landing of the stairs. “Did ye no hear the bell?”

      “‘Tis now I heerd it,” said Kerry composedly, for he never vouchsafed the same degree of deference to Sir Archy, he yielded to the rest of the family.

      “Go see if there be any lemon’s in the house, and lose no time about it.”

      “Faix, I needn’t go far then to find out,” whined Kerry; “the master had none for his punch these two nights; they put the little box into a damp corner, and, sure enough, they had beards on them like Jews, the same lemons, when they went to look for them.”

      “Go down then to the woman, M’Kelly’s, in the glen, and see if she hae na some there.”

      “Oh murther! murther!” muttered Kerry to himself, as the whistling storm reminded him of the dreadful weather without doors. “‘Tis no use in going without the money,” said he slyly, hoping that by this home-thrust he might escape the errand. “Ye maun tell her to put it in the account, man.” “‘Tis in bad company she’d put it then,” muttered Kerry below his breath, then added aloud – “Sorrow one she’d give, if I hadn’t the sixpence in my hand.”

      “Canna ye say it’s no’ for yoursel’, it’s for the house – she wad na refuse that.”

      “No use in life,” reiterated he solemnly; “she’s a real naygur, and would, not trust Father Luke with a week’s snuff, and he’s dealt there for sneeshin these thirty years.”

      “A weel, a weel,” said M’Nab in a low harsh voice; “the world’s growing waur and waur. Ye maun e’en gie her a shilling, and mind ye get nae bad bawbees in change; she suld gie ye twelve for saxpence.”

      Kerry took the money without a word in reply; he was foiled in the plan of his own devising, and with many a self-uttered sarcasm on the old Scotchman, he descended the stairs once more.

      “Is Master Herbert worse?” said the cook, as the old huntsman entered the kitchen.

      “Begorra he must be bad entirely, when ould Archy would give a shilling to cure him. See here, he’s sending me for lemons down to Mary’s.”

      Kerry rung the coin upon the table as if to test its genuiness, and muttered to himself —

      “‘Tis a good one, devil a lie in it.”

      ‘"There’s the bell again; musha, how he rings it.”

      This time the voice of Sir Archy was heard in loud tones summoning Kerry to his assistance, for Herbert had become suddenly worse, and the old man was unable to prevent him rising from his bed and rushing from the room.

      The wild and excited tones of the youth were mixed with the deeper utterings of the old man, who exerted all his efforts to calm and restrain him as Kerry reached the spot. By his aid the boy was conveyed back to his bed, where, exhausted by his own struggles, he lay without speaking or moving for some hours.

      It was not difficult to perceive, however, that this state boded more unfavourably than the former one. The violent paroxysms of wild insanity betokened, while they lasted, a degree of vital energy and force, which now seemed totally to have given way; and although Kerry regarded the change as for the better, the more practised and skilful mind of Sir Archibald drew a far different and more dispiriting augury.

      Thus passed the weary hours, and at last the long day began to decline, but still no sign, nor sound, proclaimed the doctor’s coming, and M’Nab’s anxiety became hourly more intense.

      “If he come na soon,” said he, after a long and dreary silence, “he need na tak’ the trouble to look at him.”

      “‘Tis what I’m thinking too.” said Kerry, with a sententious gravity almost revolting – “when the fingers does be going that way, it’s a mighty bad sign. If I seen the hounds working with their toes, I never knew them recover.”

      CHAPTER IX. A DOCTOR’S VISIT

      The night was far advanced as the doctor arrived at the O’Donoghue’s house, drenched with rain, and fatigued by the badness of the roads, where his gig was often compelled to proceed for above a mile at a foot pace. Doctor Roach was not in the most bland of tempers as he reached his destination; and, of a verity, his was a nature that stood not in any need of increased acerbity. The doctor was a type of a race at one time very general, but now, it is hard to say wherefore, nearly extinct in Ireland. But so it is; the fruits of the earth change not in course of years more strikingly, than the fashions of men’s minds. The habits, popular enough in one generation, survive as eccentricities in another, and are extinct in a third.

      There СКАЧАТЬ