Chapter 2

name--and he was always plottin' and schamin' with this, that, and the other; buyin' up the sacrets of others, and gettin' at their sacret papers one way or the other; and at last he begins to thry the same game with us; and as he saw that Mr. Brooke was very fond of high play, and would bet any thing one offered him, the ould Count sends for a great gambler from Vienna, the greatest villain, they say, that ever touched a card. Ye may have heerd of him, tho' 'twas long ago that he lived, for he was well known in them times. He was the Baron von Breckendorf, and a great friend afterward of the Prince Ragint and all the other blaguards in London.

"Well, sir, the baron arrives in great state, with dispatches, they said, but sorrow other dispatch he carried nor some packs of marked cards, and a dice-box that could throw sixes whenever ye wanted; and he puts up at the Grand Hotel, with all his servants in fine liveries, and as much state as a prince. That very day Mr. Brooke dined with the count, and in the evening himself and the baron sits down to the cards; and, pretending to be only playin' for silver, they were betting a hundred guineas on every game.

"I always heerd that my master was cute with the cards, and that few was equal to him in any game with pasteboard or ivory; but, be my conscience, he met his match now, for if it was ould Nick was playin' he couldn't do the thrick nater nor the baron. He made every thing come up just like magic: if he wanted a seven of diamonds, or an ace of spades, or the knave of clubs, there it was for you.

"Most gentlemen would have lost temper at seein' the luck so dead agin' them, and every thing goin' so bad, but my master only smiled, and kept muttering to himself, 'Faix, it's beautiful; by my conscience it is elegant; I never saw any body could do it like that.' At last the baron stops and asks, 'What is it he's saying to himself?' 'I'll tell you by-and-by,' says my master, 'when we're done playing;' and so on they went, betting higher and higher, till at last the stakes wasn't very far from a thousand pounds on a single card. At the end, Mr. Brooke lost every thing, and in the last game, by way of generosity, the baron says to him, 'Double or quit?' and he tuk it.

"This time luck stood to my master, and he turned the queen of hearts; and as there was only one card could beat him, the game was all as one as his own. The baron takes up the pack, and begins to deal, 'Wait,' says my master, leaning over the table, and talking in a whisper; 'wait,' says he, 'what are ye doin' there wid your thumb?' for sure enough he had his thumb dug hard into the middle of the pack.

"'Do you mane to insult me,' says the baron, getting mighty red, and throwing down the cards on the table, 'Is that what you're at?'

"'Go on with the deal,' says Mr. Brooke, quietly; 'but listen to me,' and here he dropped his voice to a whisper, 'as sure as you turn the king of hearts I'll send a bullet through your skull! Go on now, and don't rise from that seat till you've finished the game.' Faix, he just did as he was bid; he turned a little two or three of diamonds, and gettin' up from the table, he left the room, and the next morning there was no more seen of him in Aix-la-Chapelle. But that wasn't the end of it, for scarce was the baron two posts on his journey, when my master sends in his name, and says he wants to speak to Count Riedensegg. There was a long time, and a great debatin', I believe, whether they'd let him in or not; for the count couldn't make if it was mischief he was after; but at last he was ushered into the bedroom where the other was in bed.

"'Count,' says he, after he fastened the door, and saw that they was alone, 'Count, you tried a dirty thrick with that dirty spalpeen of a baron--an ould blaguard that's as well known as Freney, the robber--but I forgive you for it all, for you did it in the way of business. I know well what you was afther; you wanted a peep at our dispatches--there, ye needn't look cross and angry--why wouldn't ye do it, just as the baron always took a sly glance at my cards before he played his own. Well, now, I'm just in the humor to sarve you. They're not trating me as they ought here, and I'm going away, and if you'll give me a few letthers to some of the pretty women in Vienna, Kateuka Batthyani, and Amalia Gradoffsky, and one or two men in the best set, I'll send you in return something will surprise you.'

"It was after a long time and great batin' about the bush, that the ould count came in; but the sight of a sacret cipher did the business, and he consented.

"'There it is,' says Mr. Brooke, 'there's the whole key to our correspondence, study it well, and I'll bring you a sacret dispatch in the evening--something that will surprise you.'

"'Ye will--will ye?' says the count.

"'On the honor of an Irish gentleman, I will,' says Mr. Brooke.

"The count sits down on the spot and writes the letters to all the princesses and countesses in Vienna, saying that Mr. Brooke was the elegantest, and politest, and most trusty young gentleman ever he met; and telling them to treat him with every consideration.

"'There will be another account of me,' says the master to me, 'by the post; but I'll travel faster, and give me a fair start, and I ask no more.'

"And he was as good as his word, for he started that evening for Vienna, without lave or license, and that's the way he got dismissed from his situation."

"And did he break his promise to the count, or did he really send him any intelligence?"

"He kept his word like a gentleman; he promised him something that would surprise him, and so he did. He sent him the weddin' of Ballyporeen in cipher. It took a week to make out, and I suppose they've never got to the right understandin' it yet."

"I'm curious to hear how he was received in Vienna after this," said I. "I suppose you accompanied him to that city."

"Troth I did, and a short life we led there; but here we are now, at the end of our journey. That's Father Doogan's down there, that small, low, thatched house in the hollow."

"A lonely spot, too. I don't see another near it for miles on any side."

"Nor is there. His chapel is at Murrah, about three miles off. My eyes isn't over good; but I don't think there's any smoke coming out of the chimley."

"You are right--there is not."

"He's not at home, then, and that's a bad job for us, for there's not another place to stop the night in."

"But there will be surely some one in the house."

"Most likely not; 'tis a brat of a boy from Murrah does be with him when he's at home, and I'm sure he's not there now."

This reply was not very cheering, nor was the prospect itself much brighter. The solitary cabin, to which we were approaching, stood in a rugged glen, the sides of which were covered with a low furze, intermixed here and there with the scrub of what once had been an oak forest. A brown, mournful tint was over every thing--sky and landscape alike; and even the little stream of clear water that wound its twining course along, took the same color from the gravelly bed it flowed over. Not a cow nor sheep was to be seen, nor even a bird; all was silent and still.

"There's few would like to pass their lives down there, then!" said my companion, as if speaking to himself.

"I suppose the priest, like a soldier, has no choice in these matters."

"Sometimes he has, though. Father Doogan might have had the pick of the county, they say; but he chose this little quiet spot here. He's a friar of some ordher abroad, and when he came over, two or three years ago, he could only spake a little Irish, and, I believe, less English; but there wasn't his equal, for other tongues, in all Europe. They wanted him to stop and be the head of a college somewhere in Spain, but he wouldn't. 'There was work to do in Ireland,' he said, and there he'd go, and to the wildest and laste civilized bit of it besides; and ye see that he was not far out in his choice when he took Murrah."

"Is he much liked here by the people?"

"They'd worship him, if he'd let them, that's what it is; for if he has more larnin' and knowledge in his head than ever a bishop in Ireland, there's not a child in the barony his equal for simplicity. He that knows the names of the stars, and what they do be doing, and where the world's going, and what's comin' afther her, hasn't a thought for the wickedness of this life, no more than a sucking infant! He could tell you every crop to put in your ground from this to the day of judgment, and I don't think he'd know which end of the spade goes into the ground."

While we were thus talking, we reached the door, which, as well as the windows, was closely barred and fastened. The great padlock, however, on the former, with characteristic acuteness, was locked without being hasped, so that, in a few seconds, my old guide had undone all the fastenings, and we found ourselves under shelter.

A roomy kitchen, with a few cooking utensils, formed the entrance hall; and as a small supply of turf stood in one corner, my companion at once proceeded to make a fire, congratulating me as he went on with the fact of our being housed, for a long-threatening thunder storm had already burst, and the rain was swooping along in torrents.

While he was thus busied I took a ramble through the little cabin, curious to see something of the "interior" of one whose life had already interested me. There were but two small chambers, one at either side of the kitchen. The first I entered was a bedroom, the only furniture being a common bed, or a tressel like that of an hospital, a little colored print of St. Michael adorning the wall overhead. The bed-covering was cleanly, but patched in many places, and bespeaking much poverty, and the black "soutane" of silk that hung against the wall seemed to show long years of service. The few articles of any pretension to comfort were found in the sitting-room, where a small book-shelf with some well-thumbed volumes, and a writing-table covered with papers, maps, and a few pencil-drawings, appeared. All seemed as if he had just quitted the spot a few minutes before; the pencil lay across a half-finished sketch; two or three wild plants were laid within the leaves of a little book on botany; and a chess problem, with an open book beside it, still waited for solution on a little board, whose workmanship clearly enough betrayed it to be by his own hands.

I inspected every thing with an interest inspired by all I had been hearing of the poor priest, and turned over the little volumes of his humble library to trace, if I might, some clew to his habits in his readings. They were all, however, of one cast and character--religious tracts and offices, covered with annotations and remarks, and showing, by many signs the most careful and frequent perusal. It was easy to see that his taste for drawing or for chess were the only dissipations he permitted himself to indulge. What a strange life of privation, thought I, alone and companionless as he must be! and while speculating on the sense of duty which impelled such a man to accept a post so humble and unpromising, I perceived that on the wall right opposite to me there hung a picture, covered by a little curtain of green silk.

Curious to behold the saintly effigy so carefully enshrined, I drew aside the curtain, and what was my astonishment to find a little colored sketch of a boy about twelve years old, dressed in the tawdry and much-worn uniform of a drummer. I started. Something flashed suddenly across my mind, that the features, the dress, the air, were not unknown to me. Was I awake, or were my senses misleading me? I took it down and held it to the light, and as well as my trembling hands permitted, I spelled out, at the foot of the drawing, the words "Le Petit Maurice, as I saw him last." Yes: it was my own portrait, and the words were in the writing of my dearest friend in the world, the Père Michael. Scarce knowing what I did, I ransacked books and papers on every side, to confirm my suspicions, and although his name was nowhere to be found, I had no difficulty in recognizing his hand, now so forcibly recalled to my memory.

Hastening into the kitchen, I told my guide, that I must set out to Murrah at once, that it was above all important that I should see the priest immediately. It was in vain that he told me he was unequal to the fatigue of going further, that the storm was increasing, the mountain torrents were swelling to a formidable size, that the path could not be discovered after dark; I could not brook the thought of delay, and would not listen to the detail of difficulties. "I must see him and I will," were my answers to every obstacle. If I were resolved on one side, _he_ was no less obstinate on the other; and after explaining with patience all the dangers and hazards of the attempt, and still finding me unconvinced, he boldly declared that I might go alone, if I would, but that he would not leave the shelter of a roof, such a night, for any one.

There was nothing in the shape of argument I did not essay. I tried bribery, I tried menace, flattery, intimidation, all--and all with the like result. "Wherever he is to-night, he'll not leave it, that's certain," was the only satisfaction he would vouchsafe, and I retired beaten from the contest, and disheartened. Twice I left the cottage, resolved to go alone and unaccompanied, but the utter darkness of the night, the torrents of rain that beat against my face, soon showed me the impracticability of the attempt, and I retraced my steps crest-fallen and discomfited. The most intense curiosity to know how and by what chances he had come to Ireland mingled with my ardent desire to meet him. What stores of reminiscence had we to interchange! Nor was it without pride that I bethought me of the position I then held--an officer of a Hussar regiment, a soldier of more than one campaign, and high on the list for promotion. If I hoped, too, that many of the good father's prejudices against the career I followed would give way to the records of my own past life, I also felt how, in various respects, I had myself conformed to many of his notions. We should be dearer, closer friends than ever. This I knew and was sure of.

I never slept the whole night through; tired and weary as the day's journey had left me, excitement was still too strong for repose, and I walked up and down, lay for half an hour on my bed, rose to look out, and peer for coming dawn! Never did hours lag so lazily. The darkness seemed to last for an eternity, and when at last day did break, it was through the lowering gloom of skies still charged with rain, and an atmosphere loaded with vapor.

"This is a day for the chimney corner, and thankful to have it we ought to be," said my old guide, as he replenished the turf fire, at which he was preparing our breakfast. "Father Doogan will be home here afore night, I'm sure, and as we have nothing better to do, I'll tell you some of our old adventures when I lived with Mr. Brooke. 'Twill sarve to pass the time, any way."

"I'm off to Murrah, as soon as I have eaten something," replied I.

"'Tis little you know what a road it is," said he, smiling dubiously. "'Tis four mountain rivers you'd have to cross, two of them, at least, deeper than your head, and there's the pass of Barnascorny, where you'd have to turn the side of a mountain, with a precipice hundreds of feet below you, and a wind blowing that would wreck a seventy-four! There's never a man in the barony would venture over the same path, with a storm ragin' from the nor'west."

"I never heard of a man being blown away off a mountain," said I, laughing contemptuously.

"Arrah, didn't ye then? then maybe ye never tried in parts where the heaviest plows and harrows that can be laid in the thatch of a cabin are flung here and there, like straws, and the strongest timbers torn out of the walls, and scattered for miles along the coast, like the spars of a shipwreck."

"But so long as a man has hands to grip with."

"How ye talk; sure when the wind can tear the strongest trees up by the roots; when it rolls big rocks fifty and a hundred feet out of their place; when the very shingle on the mountain side is flyin' about like dust and sand, where would your grip be? It is not only on the mountains either, but down in the plains, ay, even in the narrowest glens, that the cattle lies down under shelter of the rocks; and many's the time a sheep, or even a heifer, is swept away off the cliffs into the sea."

With many an anecdote of storm and hurricane he seasoned our little meal of potatoes. Some curious enough, as illustrating the precautionary habits of a peasantry, who, on land, experience many of the vicissitudes supposed peculiar to the sea; others too miraculous for easy credence, but yet vouched for by him with every affirmative of truth. He displayed all his powers of agreeability and amusement, but his tales fell on unwilling ears, and when our meal was over I started up and began to prepare for the road.

"So you will go, will you?" said he, peevishly. "'Tis in your country to be obstinate, so I'll say nothing more; but maybe 'tis only into throubles you'd be running after all!"

"I'm determined on it," said I, "and I only ask you to tell me what road to take."

"There is only one, so there is no mistakin' it; keep to the sheep path, and never leave it except at the torrents; you must pass them how ye can, and when ye come to four big rocks in the plain leave them to your left, and keep the side of the mountain for two miles, 'till ye see the smoke of the village underneath you. Murrah is a small place, and ye'll have to look out sharp or maybe ye'll miss it."

"That's enough," said I, putting some silver in his hand as I pressed it. "We'll probably meet no more; good-by, and many thanks for your pleasant company."

"No, we're not like to meet again," said he, thoughtfully, "and that's the reason I'd like to give you a bit of advice. Hear me now," said he, drawing closer and talking in a whisper; "you can't go far in this country without being known; 'tisn't your looks alone, but your voice, and your tongue, will show what ye are. Get away out of it as fast as you can! there's thraitors in every cause, and there's chaps in Ireland would rather make money as informers than earn it by honest industry! Get over to the Scotch islands; get to Isla or Barra; get any where out of this for the time."

"Thanks for the counsel," said I, somewhat coldly, "I'll have time to think over it as I go along," and with these words I set forth on my journey.