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

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СКАЧАТЬ likely I’d hear any thing such a night as this,” grumbled he to himself, “with the trees snapping across, and the rocks tumbling down! It’s a great storm entirely.”

      “Is there any sign of them, Lanty?” cried Mary, as she held the door ajar, and peeped out into the gloomy night.

      “I couldn’t see my hand fornint me.”

      “Do you hear nothing?”

      “Faix I hear enough over my head; that was thunder! Is there any fear of it getting at the powder, Mary?”

      “Divil a fear; don’t be unasy about that,” said the stout-hearted Mary. “Can you see nothing at all?”

      “Sorra a thing, barrin’ the lights up at Carrig-na-curra; they’re moving about there, at a wonderful rate. What’s O’Donoghue doing at all?”

      “‘Tis the young boy, Herbert, is sick,” said Mary, as she opened the door to admit Lanty once more. “The poor child is in a fever. Kerry O’Leary was down here this evening for lemons for a drink for him. Poor Kerry! he was telling me, himself has a sore time of it, with that ould Scotchman that’s up there; nothing ever was like him for scoulding, and barging, and abusing; and O’Donoghue now minds nothing inside or out, but sits all day long in the big chair, just as if he was asleep. Maybe he does take a nap sometimes, for he talks of bailiffs, and writs, and all them things. Poor ould man! it’s a bad end, when the law comes with the grey hairs!”

      “They’ve a big score with yourself, I’ll be bound,” said Lanty inquiringly.

      “Troth, I’d like to see myself charge them with any thing,” said she, indignantly. “It’s to them and their’s I owe the roof that’s over me, and my father, and my father’s father before me owes it. Musha, it would become me to take their money, for a trifle of wine and spirits, and tay and tobacco, as if I wasn’t proud to see them send down here – the raal ould stock that’s in it! Lanty, it must be very late by this. I’m afeard something’s wrong up in the bay.”

      “‘Tis that same I was thinking myself,” said Lanty, with a sly look towards the roasted joint, whose savoury odour was becoming a temptation overmuch for resistance.

      “You’ve a smart baste in the stable,” said Mary; “he has eaten his corn by this time, and must be fresh enough; just put the saddle on him, Lanty dear, and ride down the road a mile or two – do, and good luck attend you.”

      There never was a proposition less acceptable to the individual to whom it was made; to leave a warm fire-side was bad enough, but to issue forth on a night it would have been inhumanity to expose a dog to, was far too much for his compliance; yet Lanty did not actually refuse; no, he had his own good reasons for keeping fair with Mary M’Kelly; so he commenced a system of diplomatic delay and discussion, by which time at least might be gained, in which it was possible the long-expected guests would arrive, or the project fall to the ground on its own merits.

      “Which way will they come, Mary?” said he, rising from his seat.

      “Up the glen, to be sure – what other way could they from the Bay. You’ll hear them plain enough, for they shout and sing every step of the road, as if it was their own; wild devils they are.”

      “Sing is it? musha, now, do they sing?”

      “Ay, faix, the drollest songs ever ye heerd; French and Roosian songs – sorra the likes of them going at all.”

      “Light hearts they have of their own.”

      “You may say that, Lanty Lawler; fair weather or foul, them’s the boys never change; but come now be alive, and get out the baste.”

      “I’m going, I’m going; it’s myself would like to hear them sing a Roosian song. Whisht! what’s that? did ye hear a shout there?”

      “Here they are; that’s them,” said Mary, springing towards the door, and withdrawing the bolt, while a smart knock was heard, and the same instant, a voice called out —

      “Holloa! house ahoy!”

      The door at the moment flew open, and a short, thick-set looking man, in a large boat cloak, entered, followed by a taller figure, equally muffled. The former dropping his heavy envelope, and throwing off an oil-skin cap from his head, held out his arms wide as, he said —

      “Marie, ma mie! embrasse moi;” and then, not waiting for a compliance with the request, sprang forward, and clasped the buxom landlady in his arms, and kissed her on each cheek, with an air compounded of true feeling, and stage effect.

      “Here’s my friend and travelling companion, Henry Talbot, come to share your hospitality, Mary,” said he in English, to which the slightest foreign accent lent a tone of recitative. “One of us, Mary – one of us.”

      The individual alluded to had by this time dropped his cloak to the ground, and displayed the figure of a slight and very young man, whose features were singularly handsome, save for a look of great effeminacy; his complexion was fair as a girl’s, and, flushed by exercise, the tint upon his cheek was of a pale rose colour; he was dressed in a riding coat, and top boots, which, in the fashion of the day, were worn short, and wrinkled around the leg; his hair he wore without powder, and long upon his neck; a heavy riding whip, ornamented with silver, the only weapon he carried, composed his costume – one as unlike his companion’s as could be.

      Captain Jacques Flahault was a stout-built, dark-complexioned fellow, of some four or five and forty; his face a grotesque union of insolence and drollery; the eyes black as jet, shaded by brows so arched, as to give always the idea of laughing to a countenance, the lower part of which, shrouded in beard and moustache, was intended to look stern and savage.

      His dress was a short blue frock, beneath which he wore a jersey shirt, striped in various colours, across which a broad buff leather belt, loosely slung, supported four pistols and a dirk; jack boots reached about the middle of the thigh, and were attached to his waist by thongs of strong leather, no needless precaution apparently, as in their looseness the wearer might at any moment have stepped freely from them; a black handkerchief, loosely knotted round his neck, displayed a throat brawny and massive as a bull’s, and imparted to the whole head an appearance of great size – the first impression every stranger conceived regarding him.

      “Ah! ah! Lawler, you here; how goes it, my old friend? Sit down here, and tell me all your rogueries since we parted. Par St, Pierre, Henry, this is the veriest fripon in the kingdom” – Talbot bowed, and with a sweetly courteous smile saluted Lanty, as if accepting the speech in the light of an introduction – “a fellow that in the way of his trade could cheat the Saint Père himself.”

      “Where’s the others, Captain Jack?” said Mary, whose patience all this time endured a severe trial – “where’s the rest?”

      “Place pour la potage! Ma Mie!– soup before a story; you shall hear every thing by and by. Let us have the supper at once.”

      Lanty chimed in a willing assent to this proposition, and in a few moments the meat smoked upon the table, around which the whole party took their places with evident good-will.

      “While Mary performed her attentions as hostess, by heaping up each plate, and ever supplying the deficiency caused by the appetite of the guests, the others eat on like hungry men. Captain Jacques alone intermingling with the duties of the table, a stray remark from time to time.

      “Ventre bleu! СКАЧАТЬ