The Emigrants Of Ahadarra. William Carleton

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      “Eh, Bryan,” she continued, “what has changed your opinion of him?”

      “Oh, nothing of much consequence, mother,” replied her son; “but sometimes a feather will toll one how the wind blows.”

      As he spoke, it might have been observed that he looked around upon the family with an appearance of awakened consciousness that was very nearly allied to shame. He recovered his composure, however, on perceiving that none among them gave, either by look or manner, any indication of understanding what he felt. This relieved him: but he soon found that the sense of relief experienced from it was not permitted to last long. Dora, his favorite sister, glided over to his side and gently taking his hand in hers began to play with his fingers, whilst a roguish laugh, that spoke a full consciousness of his secret, broke her pale but beautiful features into that mingled expression of smiles and blushes which, in one of her years, gives a look of almost angelic purity and grace. After about a minute or two, during which she paused, and laughed, and blushed, and commenced to whisper, and again stopped, she at last put her lips to his ear and whispered:—“Bryan, I know the reason you don't like Hycy.”

      “You do?” he said, laughing, but yet evidently confused in his turn;—“well—an'—ha!—ha!—no, you fool, you don't.”

      “May I never stir if I don't!”

      “Well, an' what is it?”

      “Why, bekaise he's coortin' Kathleen Cavanagh—now!”

      “An' what do I care about that?” said her brother.

      “Oh, you thief!” she replied; “don't think you can play upon me. I know your saycret.”

      “An' maybe, Dora,” he replied, “I have my saycrets. Do you know who was inquirin' for you to-day?”

      “No,” she returned, “nor I don't care either—sorra bit.”

      “I met James Cavanagh there below”—he proceeded, still in a whisper, and he fixed his eyes upon her countenance as he spoke. The words, however, produced a most extraordinary effect. A deep blush crimsoned her whole neck and face, until the rush of blood seemed absolutely to become expressive of pain. Her eye, however, did not droop, but turned upon him with a firm and peculiar sparkle. She had been stooping with her mouth near his ear, as the reader knows, but she now stood up quickly, shook back her hair, that had been hanging in natural and silken curls about her blushing cheeks, and exclaimed: “No—no. Let me alone Bryan;” and on uttering these words she hurried into another room.”

      “Bryan, you've vexed Dora some way,” observed her sister. “What did you say to her?”

      “Nothing that vexed her, I'll go bail,” he replied, laughing; “however, as to what I said to her, Shibby, ax me no questions an' I'll tell you no lies.”

      “Becaise I thought she looked as if she was angry,” continued Shibby, “an', you know, it must be a strong provocation that would anger her.”

      “Ah, you're fishin' now, Shibby,” he replied, “and many thanks for your good intentions. It's a saycret, an' that's all you're going to know about it. But it's as much as 'll keep you on the look out this month to come; and now you're punished for your curiosity—ha!—ha!—ha! Come, father, if we're to go to Sam Wallace's auction it's time we should think of movin'. Art, go an' help Tom Droogan to bring out the horses. Rise your foot here, father, an' I'll put on your spur for you. We may as well spake to Mr. Fethertonge, the agent, about the leases. I promised we'd call on Gerald Cavanagh, to—an' he'll be waitin' for us—hem!”

      His eye here glanced about, but Dora was not visible, and he accordingly seemed to be more at his ease. “I think, father,” he added, “I must trate you to a pair of spurs some of these days. This one, it's clear, has been a long time in the family.”

      “Throth, an' on that account,” replied M'Mahon, “I'm not goin' to part wid it for the best pair that ever were made. No, no, Bryan; I like everything that I've known long. When my heart gets accustomed to anything or to anybody”—here he glanced affectionately at his wife—“I can't bear to part wid them, or to think of partin' wid them.”

      The horses were now ready, and in a brief space he and his son were decently mounted, the latter smartly but not inappropriately dressed; and M'Mahon himself, with his right spur, in a sober but comfortable suit, over which was a huge Jock, his inseparable companion in every fair, market, and other public place, during the whole year. Indeed, it would not be easy to find two better representatives of that respectable and independent class of Irish yeomanry of which our unfortunate country stands so much in need, as was this man of high integrity and his excellent son.

      On arriving at Gerald Cavanagh's, which was on their way to the auction, it appeared that in order to have his company it was necessary they should wait for a little, as he was not yet ready. That worthy man they found in the act of shaving himself, seated very upright upon a chair in the kitchen, his eyes fixed with great steadiness upon the opposite wall, whilst lying between his legs upon the ground was a wooden dish half filled with water, and on a chair beside him a small looking-glass, with its backup, which, after feeling his face from time to time in an experimental manner, he occasionally peeped into, and again laid down to resume the operation.

      In the mean time, Mrs. Cavanagh set forward a chair for Tom M'Mahon, and desired her daughter Hannah to place one for Bryan, which she did. The two girls were spinning, and it might have been observed that Kathleen appeared to apply herself to that becoming and feminine employment with double industry after the appearance of the M'Mahons. Kate Hogan was sitting in the chimney corner, smoking a pipe, and as she took it out of her mouth to whiff away the smoke from time to time, she turned her black piercing eyes alternately from Bryan M'Mahon to Kathleen with a peculiar keenness of scrutiny.

      “An' how are you all up at Carriglass?” asked Mrs. Cavanagh.

      “Indeed we can't complain, thank God, as the times goes,” replied M'Mahon.

      “An' the ould grandfather?—musha, but I was glad to see him look so well on Sunday last!”

      “Troth he's as stout as e'er a one of us.”

      “The Lord continue it to him! I suppose you hard o' this robbery that was done at honest Jemmy Burke's?”

      “I did, indeed, an' I was sorry to hear it.”

      “A hundre' an' fifty pounds is a terrible loss to anybody in such times.”

      “A hundre' an' fifty!” exclaimed M'Mahon—“hut, tut!—no; I thought it was only seventy or eighty. He did not lose so much, did he?”

      “So I'm tould.”

      “It was two—um—it was two—urn—urn—it was—um—um—it was two hundre' itself,” observed Cavanagh, after he had finished a portion of the operation, and given himself an opportunity of speaking—“it war two hundre' itself, I'm tould, an' that's too much, by a hundre' and ninety-nine pounds nineteen shillings an' eleven pence three fardens, to be robbed of.”

      “Troth it is, Gerald,” replied M'Mahon; “but any way there's nothin' but thievin' and robbin' goin'. You didn't hear that we came in for a visit?”

      “You!” exclaimed Mrs. Cavanagh—“is it robbed? My goodness, no!”

      “Why,” СКАЧАТЬ