Chapter 13

great county--when the proudest and the best in the land stood uncovered when he addressed them, and deemed the highest honour they could receive, an invitation to this house. In the very room where we are sitting, I've seen thirty guests assembled, whose names comprised the rank and station of the province; and yet, all--every man of them, regarded him as their chief, and he was so, too--the descendant of one who was a king.”

The animated features of the young man, as he listened, encouraged the O'Donoghue, and he went on. “Thirty-seven thousand acres descended to my grandfather, and even that was but a moiety of our former possessions.”

“Enough of this,” interrupted Mark rudely. “It is but an unprofitable theme. The game is up, father,” added he, in a deep stern voice, “and I, for one, have little fancy to wait for the winner to claim the stakes. Could I but see you safely out of the scrape, I'd be many a mile away, ere a week was over.”

“You would not leave me, boy!” cried the old man, as he grasped the youth's hands in his, and gazed on him with streaming eyes. “You would not desert your poor old father. Oh, no--no, Mark; this would not be like you. A little patience, my child, and death will save you that cruelty.”

The young man's chest heaved and fell like a swelling wave; but he never spoke, nor changed a muscle of his rigid features.

“I have borne all misfortunes well till now,” continued the father. “I cared little on my own account, Mark; my only sorrow was for you; but so long as we were together, boy--so long as hand in hand we stood against the storm, I felt that my courage never failed me. Stay by me, then, Mark--tell me that whatever comes, you'll never leave me. Let it not be said, that when age and affliction fell upon the O'Donoghue, his son--the boy of his heart--deserted him. You shall command in every thing,” said he, with an impassioned tone, as he fixed his eyes upon the youth's countenance. “I ask for nothing but to be near you. The house--the property--all shall be yours.”

“What house--what property--do you speak of?” said Mark, rudely. “Are we not beggars?”

The old man's head dropped heavily; he relinquished the grasp of his son's hand, and his outstretched arm fell powerless to his side. “I was forgetting,” murmured he, in a broken voice--“it is as you say--you are right, Mark--you _must_ go.”

Few and simple as the words were, the utterance sunk deep into the young man's heart; they seemed the last effort of courage wrung from despair, and breathed a pathos he was unable to resist.

“I'll not leave you,” said he, in a voice scarce louder than a whisper: “there's my hand upon it,” and he wrung in his strong grasp the unresisting fingers of the old man. “That's a promise, father, and now let us speak no more about it.”

“I'll get to my bed, Mark,” said the O'Donoghue, as he pressed his hands upon his throbbing temples. It was many a day since anything like emotion had moved him, and the conflict of passion had worn and exhausted him. “Good-night, my boy--my own boy;” and he fell upon the youth's shoulder, half choked with sobs.

As the O'Donoghue slowly ascended the stairs, towards his bedroom, Mark threw himself upon a chair, and buried his face in his hands. His sorrow was a deep one. The resolve he had just abandoned, had been for many a day the cherished dream of his heart--his comfort under every affliction--his support against every difficulty. To seek his fortune in some foreign service--to win an honourable name, even though in a strange land, was the whole ambition of his life; and so engrossed was he in his own calculations, that he never deigned a thought of what his father might feel about it. The poverty that eats its way to the heart of families seldom fails to loosen the ties of domestic affection. The daily struggle, the hourly conflict with necessity, too often destroy the delicate and trustful sense of protection that youth should feel towards age. The energies that should have expanded into homely affection and mutual regard, are spent in warding off a common enemy; and with weary minds and seared hearts the gentler charities of life have few sympathies. Thus was it here. Mark mistook his selfishness for a feeling of independence; he thought indifference to others meant confidence in himself--and he was not the first who made the mistake.

Tired with thinking, and harassed with difficulties, through which he could see no means of escape, he threw open the window, to suffer the cool night air to blow upon his throbbing temples, and sat down beside the casement, to enjoy its refreshing influence. The candles had burned down in the apartment, and the fire, now reduced to a mere mass of red embers, scarce threw a gleam beyond the broad hearth-stone. The old tower itself flung a dark shadow upon the rock, and across the road beneath it, and, except in the chamber of the sick boy, in a distant part of the building, not a light was to be seen.

The night was calm and star-lit: a stillness almost painful reigned around. It seemed as if exhausted nature, tired with the work of storm and hurricane, had sunk into a deep and wearied sleep. Thousands of bright stars speckled the dark sky; yet the light they shed upon the earth, but dimly distinguished mountain and valley, save where the' calm surface of the lake gave back their lustre, in a heaven, placid and motionless as their own. Now and then, a bright meteor would shoot across the blue vault, and disappear in the darkness; while in tranquil splendour, the planets shone on, as though to say, the higher destiny is to display an eternal brightness, than the brilliancy of momentary splendour, however glittering its wide career.

The young man gazed upon the sky. The lessons which, from human lips, he had rejected with scorn and impatience, now sunk deeply into his nature, from those silent monitors. The stars looked down, like eyes, into his very soul, and he felt as if he could unburthen his whole heart of its weary load, and make a confidence with heaven.

“They point ever downwards,” said he to himself, as he watched the bright streak of the falling stars, and moralized on their likeness to man's destiny. But as he spoke, a red line shot up into the sky, and broke into ten thousand glittering spangles, shedding over glen and mountain, a faint but beauteous gleam, scarce more lasting than the meteor's flash. It was a rocket sent up from the border of the Bay, and was quickly answered by another from the remote end of the Glen. The youth started, and leaning out from the window, looked down the valley; but nothing was to be seen or heard--all was silent as before, and already the flash of the signals, for such they must have been he could not doubt, had faded away, and the sky shone in its own spangled beauty.

“They are smugglers!” muttered Mark, as he sank back in his chair; for in that wild district such signals were employed without much fear, by those who either could trust the revenue as accomplices, or dare them by superior numbers. More than once it had occurred to him to join this lawless band, and many a pressing invitation had he received from the leaders to do so; but still, the youth's ambition, save in his darkest hours, took a higher and a nobler range: the danger of the career was its only fascination to him. Now, however, all these thoughts were changed: he had given a solemn pledge to his father never to leave him; and it was with a feeling of half apathy he sat, pondering over what cutter it might be that had anchored, or whose party were then preparing to land their cargo.

“Ambrose Denner, belike,” muttered he to himself, “the Flemish fellow, from the Scheldt--a greedy old scoundrel too, he refused a passage to a poor wretch that broke the jail in Limerick, because he could not pay for it. I wish the people here may remember it to him. Maybe its Hans 'der Teufel,' though, as they call him; or Flahault--he's the best of them, if there be a difference. I've half a mind to go down the Glen and see;” and while he hesitated, a low, monotonous sound of feet, as if marching, struck on his ear; and as he listened, he heard the distant tramp of men, moving in, what seemed, a great number. These could not be the smugglers, he well knew: reckless and fearless as they were, they never came in such large bodies as these noises portended.

There is something solemn in the sound of marching heard in the stillness of the night, and so Mark felt it, as with cautious breathing he leaned upon the window, and bent his ear to listen. Nearer and nearer they came, till at last the footfalls beat loudly on the dull ground as, in measured tread, they stepped. At first a dark moving mass, that seemed to fill the narrow road, was all he could discern, but as this came closer, he could perceive that they marched in companies of divisions, each headed by his leader, who, from time to time, stepped from his place, and observed their order and precision. They were all country people; their dress, as well as he could discern, the common costume of every day, undistinguished by any military emblem. Nor did they carry arms; the captains alone wore a kind of white scarf over the shoulder, which could be distinctly seen, even by the imperfect light. They, alone, carried swords, with which they checked the movements from time to time. Not a word was uttered in the dense ranks--not a murmur broke the stillness of the solemn scene, as that host poured on. The one command, “Right shoulders forward--wheel!” being given at intervals, as the parties defiled beneath the rock, at which place the road made an abrupt turning.

So strange the spectacle, so different from all he had ever witnessed or heard of, the youth, more than once half doubted lest, a wearied and fevered brain had not called up the illusion; but as he continued to gaze on the moving multitude, he was assured of its reality; and now was he harassed by conjectures what it all should mean. For nearly an hour--to him it seemed many such--the human tide flowed on, till at length the sounds grew fainter, and the last party moved by, followed, at a little distance, by two figures on horseback. Their long cloaks concealed the wearers completely from his view, but he could distinctly mark the steel scabbards of swords, and hear their heavy clank against the horses' flanks.

Suffering their party to proceed, the horsemen halted for a few seconds at the foot of the rock, and as they reined in, one called out to the other, in a voice, every syllable of which fell distinctly on Mark's ears--

“That's the place, Godfrey; and even by this light you can judge of its strength.”

“But why is he not with us?” said the other hastily. “Has he not an inheritance to win back--a confiscation to wipe out?”

“True enough,” said the first speaker; “but eighty winters do not improve a man's nerve for an hazardous exploit. He has a son though, and, as I hear, a bold fellow.”

“Look to him, Harvey: it is of moment that we should have one so near the Bay. See to this quickly. If he be like what you say, and desires a command--” The rest was lost in the sound of their retreating hoofs, for already the party resumed their journey, and were in a few minutes hidden from his view.

With many a conflicting doubt, and many a conjecture, each wilder than the other, Mark pondered over what he had seen, nor noted the time as it slipped past, till the grey tint of day-dawn warned him of the hour. The rumbling sounds of a country cart just then attracted his attention, and he beheld a countryman, with a little load of turf, on his way to the market at Killarney. Seeing that the man must have met the procession, he called aloud--

“I say, my good man, where were they all marching, to-night--those fellows?”

“What fellows, your honour?” said the man, as he touched his hat obsequiously.

“That great crowd of people--you could not help meeting them--there was no other road they could take.”

“Sorra man, woman, or child I seen, your honour, since I left home, and that's eight miles from this,” and so saying he followed his journey, leaving Mark in greater bewilderment than before.