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An Irish Cousin 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHORS. 
 
 SOME EXPERIENCES OF AN 
 IRISH R.M. 
 
 With 31 Illustrations by E. CE. Somerville. 
 Crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 THE REAL CHARLOTTE. 
 
 Crown Svo, 35. 6d. 
 
 THE SILVER FOX. 
 
 Crown Svo, 35. 6d. 
 
 ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE. 
 
 IRISH SKETCHES. 
 
 With 10 Illustrations by E. CE, Somerville. 
 
 Crown Svo, 6s. 
 
 SLIPPER'S A B C OF HUNTING. 
 
 By E. GE. somerville. 
 
 With Illustrations in Colour by the Author. 
 Oblong ^to, boards. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO., 
 
 LONDON, NEW YORK AND BOMBAY. 
 
An Irish Cousin 
 
 By 
 
 E. CE. Somerville and Martin Ross 
 
 Authors of " Some Experiences of An Irish R.M.," etc. 
 
 New and Revised Edition 
 
 Longmans, Green, and Co. 
 
 39 Paternoster Row, London 
 
 New York and Bombay 
 
 1903 
 
This book was originally published by Messrs. Bentley &' Son 
 in i8Sg, as by ^^ Geilles Herring" and ^'Martin Ross," and has 
 been out of print for several years. 
 
AN IRISH COUSIN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 There had been several days of thick, murky weather ; 
 dull, uncomplaining days, that bore their burden of 
 fog and rain in monotonous endurance. Six of such 
 I had lived through ; a passive existence, parcelled 
 out to me by the uncomprehended clanging of bells, 
 and the, to me, still more incomprehensible clatter 
 which, recurring at regular intervals, told that a hungry 
 multitude were plying their knives and forks in the 
 saloon. 
 
 But a change had come at last ; and on Saturday 
 morning, instead of heaving ridges of grey water, I saw 
 through the port-hole the broken green glitter of sun- 
 lit waves. The S.S. Alaska's lurching plunge had 
 subsided into a smooth unimpeded rushing through 
 the water, and for the first time since I had left New 
 York, the desire for food and human companionship 
 
 awoke in me. 
 
 I 
 
2 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 It was early when I came on deck. The sun 
 was still low in the south-east, and was spreading 
 a long road of rays towards us, up which the big 
 steamer was hurrying, dividing the radiancy into 
 shining lines, that writhed backwards from her 
 bows till they were lost in the foaming turmoil 
 astern. 
 
 A light north wind was blowing from a low-lying 
 coast on our left, bringing some faint suggestions of 
 fields and woods. I walked across the snowy deck, to 
 where a sailor was engaged in a sailor's seemingly 
 invariable occupation of coiling a rope in a neat 
 circle. 
 
 '' I suppose that is Ireland ? " I said, pointing to 
 the land. 
 
 " Yes, miss ; that's the county Cork right enough. 
 We'll be into Queenstown in a matter of three hours 
 now." 
 
 " Three hours more ! " I said to myself, while I 
 watched the headlands slowly changing their shapes 
 as we steamed past. This new phase of life that 
 had once seemed impossible was now inevitable. My 
 future was no longer in my own control, and its secret 
 was, perhaps, hidden among those blue Irish hills, 
 which were waiting for me to come and prove what 
 they had in store for me. 
 
 " First breakfast just ready, miss," said one of the 
 
An Irish Cousin. 3 
 
 innumerable ship-stewards, scurrying past me with 
 cups of tea on a tray. 
 
 I paid no attention to the suggestion, and made my 
 way to a deck chair just eagerly vacated by a hungry 
 old gentleman. I could not bring myself to go 
 below. The fresh kind wind, the seagulls glancing 
 against the blue sky, the sunshine that gleamed 
 broadly from the water and made a dazzling mimic 
 sun of each knob and point of brasswork about the 
 ship, — to exchange these for the fumes of bacon and 
 eggs, and the undesired conversation of a fellow-pas- 
 senger, seemed out of the question. 
 
 The sight of the land had given new life to expec- 
 tations and hopes from which most of the glory had 
 departed during the ignominious misery of the last 
 six days. I lay in my deck chair, watching the black 
 river of smoke that streamed back from the funnels, 
 and for the first time found a certain dubious enjoy- 
 ment in the motion of the vessel, as she progressed 
 with that slight roll in her gait which the sea confers 
 upon its habituSs. 
 
 Most people appear to think that sea-sickness, if 
 spoken of at all, should be treated as an involuntarily 
 comic episode, to be dealt with in a facetious manner. 
 But for me it has only two aspects — the pathetic and 
 the revolting ; the former being the point of view 
 from which I regard my own sufferings, and the latter 
 
 T * 
 
4 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 having reference to those of others. In the dark 
 hours spent in my state-room, I had had abundant 
 opportunity to formulate and verify this theory, and 
 I have never since then seen any reason to depart 
 from it. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 " To Miss Sarsjield, S.S. 'Alaska^' Queenstown. From 
 
 W. Sarsfield. 
 " Awfully sorry I will not be able to meet you. 
 Drive to Foley's Hotel. Will be waiting you there." 
 
 This despatch was put into my hand before I left 
 the steamer at Queenstown. Its genial tone and ec- 
 centric grammar were quite in keeping with my ideas 
 of an Irishman. These were at once simple and 
 definite. All Irishmen were genial ; most of them 
 were eccentric. In fact, had my uncle and cousin 
 met me on the pier, clad in knee-breeches and tail- 
 coats, and hailed me with what I believed to be the 
 national salutation, " Begorra ! " I should scarcely have 
 been taken aback. 
 
 The outside car on which I drove from the Cork 
 station to the hotel was also a realisation of precon- 
 ceived ideas. In response to the bewildering proffers 
 of " Inside or outside ? " I had selected an " outside," 
 and was quite satisfied with the genuineness of the 
 difficulty I found in remaining on it, as we rattled 
 
6 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 through the muddy streets. The carman himself was 
 perhaps disappointing. His replies to my questions 
 were not only devoid of that repartee which I had 
 understood to be the attribute of all Irish carmen, 
 but were lacking in common intelligence ; and on his 
 replying for the third time, " Faith^ I dunno, miss," I 
 concluded I must have hit on an unlucky exception. 
 
 The day had lost none of the brilliancy of the early 
 morning. It seemed to me that the sun shone with 
 a deliberate intention of welcome, and the unfamiliar 
 softness of Irish air was almost intoxicating. Every- 
 thing was conspiring to put me into the highest 
 spirits ; I laughed when my new dressing-bag was 
 flung on to the pavement by the dislocating jerk with 
 which the car pulled up in front of Foley's Hotel. 
 
 As I walked into the hotel, the porter who had 
 taken in my boxes went over to a tall young man 
 who was leaning over the bar at the end of the 
 narrow hall, and whispered something to him. He 
 immediately started from his lounging position, and, 
 furtively glancing at the mirror behind the bar, he 
 came up to me. 
 
 " How do you do ? I'm very glad to see you over 
 here," he said, with an evident effort to assume an 
 easy cousinly manner. " I hope you didn't mind not 
 meeting me. I was awfully sorry I couldn't get down 
 to Queenstown, but I had important business in 
 
An Irish Cousin. 7 
 
 town." It was perhaps a consciousness of the inter- 
 ested scrutiny of the young lady behind the bar that 
 caused him to blush an ingenuous red as he spoke. 
 *' You'd better come on and have some luncheon," he 
 continued, without giving me time to answer him. 
 " We've only got an hour before the train starts." 
 
 I followed him into the coffee-room, thinking as I 
 did so how different this well-dressed, rather awkward 
 young man was from the picturesque and vivacious 
 creature I had somehow pictured my Irish cousin to 
 be. His accent, however, was unmistakably that of 
 his native country ; or, rather, as I afterwards found, 
 that of his particular part of it. His quick, low way of 
 speaking was at first rather unintelligible to me, and 
 almost gave me the idea that what he said was in- 
 tended to be of a confidential nature ; but on the 
 whole I thought his voice a singularly pleasant one. 
 
 By the time our luncheon was put on the table he 
 was more at his ease, and had even, with a sheepish, 
 half-deprecating glance from his light grey eyes, ad- 
 dressed me as " Theo ". The fraternal familiarity of 
 the head waiter was, on Willy's explanation that I 
 was his cousin from Canada, extended in the fullest 
 degree to me. 
 
 " Indeed, when I seen her coming in the door, I re- 
 marked to Miss Foley how greatly the young lady 
 favoured the Sarsfield family," he observed blandly ; 
 
8 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 " and Miss Foley said she considered she had a great 
 likeness to yourself, captain." 
 
 This was a little embarrassing. I did not quite 
 know what I was expected to say, and devoted my- 
 self to my mutton-chop. 
 
 " I did not know that you were a soldier," I said, as 
 soon as the waiter had gone. 
 
 " Oh, well," replied my cousin, giving a conscious 
 twist to his yellow moustache, " I'm only a sort of one 
 — what they call 'a malicious man'. I'm a captain 
 in the West Cork Artillery Militia," he explained ; 
 " but nobody calls me that but the buckeens here- 
 abouts." 
 
 I wondered silently what a buckeen was, and why 
 it should be so anxious to maintain the prestige of the 
 militia, but did not like to betray too much ignorance 
 of what might be one of the interesting old courtesy 
 titles peculiar to Ireland, 
 
 Looking at my cousin as he rapidly devoured his 
 luncheon, I noticed that, in spite of his disclaimer of 
 military rank, he took some pains to cultivate a martial 
 appearance. His straw-coloured hair was clipped 
 with merciless precision, and on his sunburnt forehead, 
 a triangle of white, obviously cherished, marked the 
 limit of protection afforded by an artillery forage-cap. 
 
 " I think I'd better be looking after your luggage 
 now," he said, bolting what remained of his second 
 
An Irish Cousin. 9 
 
 chop, and getting up from the table with his mouth 
 full. " I was quite frightened when I saw those two 
 big mountains of trunks coming along on the car after 
 you. And then when I sdiw you walk in " — he laughed 
 a pleasant, foolish laugh — " I didn't think you'd be 
 such a swell ! " he ended, with confiding friendliness. 
 
 The terminus of the Cork and Esker railway, the line 
 by which we were to travel to Durrus, was crowded 
 on that Saturday afternoon. We had ten minutes to 
 spare, during which I sat at the window and watched 
 with the utmost interest the concourse on the plat- 
 form. It had all the appearance of a large social 
 gathering or conversazione. Stragglers wandered 
 from group to group, showing an equal acquaintance 
 with all, and displaying entire indifference as to the 
 intentions of the train, while the guard himself bustled 
 about among them with an interest that was evidently 
 quite unofficial. My carriage soon became thronged 
 with people, between whom and their friends on the 
 platform a constant traffic in brown-paper parcels was 
 carried on ; and I was beginning to think there would 
 be no room for Willy, who had disappeared in the 
 crowd. But the ringing of the final bell set my mind 
 at rest, as I found that, contrary to the usual usage, 
 this sound had the agreeable effect of almost emptying 
 the train. 
 
 Willy returned at the last moment, emerging from 
 
lO An Irish Cousin, 
 
 the centre of a group of young ladies, with the well- 
 pleased air of one whose conversation has been ap- 
 preciated. 
 
 " Did you see those girls I was talking to ? " he said, 
 as we moved out of the station. "They're cousins of 
 the O'Neills, people in our part of the world. They 
 came down to see me off There was a great mob 
 there to-day, but there always is on a Saturday." 
 
 " The O'Neills are neighbours of ours," Willy con- 
 tinued. "They live at Clashmore — that's four miles 
 from us — and they're very nice people. Nugent, the 
 brother, used to be a great pal of mine — at least, he 
 was till he went to Cambridge, and came back thinking 
 no one fit to speak to but himself." 
 
 Not feeling particularly interested in the O'Neills, I 
 did not pursue the subject ; but Willy was full of 
 conversation. 
 
 " I'm just after buying a grand little mare in Cork. 
 It was that kept me from going to meet you," he 
 observed confidentially. " I suppose you learnt to ride 
 at your ranch, Theo ? I tell you what : I bought her 
 for the governor to drive, but she'd carry you flying, 
 and you shall hunt her this winter if you like." 
 
 My cousinly feeling for Willy increased perceptibly 
 at this suggestion. 
 
 " But," I said, " if your father buys her, he will want 
 to ride her himself, won't he ? " 
 
An Irish Cousin. 1 1 
 
 "Is it the governor?" — with an intonation of con- 
 tempt. " You never see him on a horse's back. He's 
 always humbugging in the house over papers and 
 books. I believe he used to be a great sportsman and 
 fond of society, but he never goes anywhere now." 
 
 The two ladies who had started from Cork with us 
 had got out a station or two afterwards, and we had 
 the carriage to ourselves. But the extraordinary jolt- 
 ing and rattling of the train were not conducive to 
 conversation, and, seeing that I was not inclined to 
 talk, Willy relapsed into the collar of his overcoat and 
 the Cork newspaper, and ended by going unaffectedly 
 to sleep. 
 
 It grew slowly darker. I sat watching the endless 
 procession of small fields slipping past the window, 
 until the grey monotony of colour made me dizzy. 
 I leaned back, and, closing my eyes, tried to imagine 
 the life I was going to, and to contrast its probabilities 
 with my past experience. But a strange feeling of 
 remoteness and unreality came upon me. I suppose 
 that the mental exhaustion caused by so many new 
 sights and impressions had dazed me, and I began to 
 doubt that such a person as Theo Sarsfield had ever 
 really existed. Willy, my Uncle Dominick, and my 
 father flitted confusedly through my mind as inconse- 
 quently as people in a dream. I myself seemed to 
 have lost touch with the world ; my past life had slid 
 
12 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 away from me, and the future I had not yet grasped. 
 I was a solitary and aimless unit in the dark whirl 
 that surrounded me, and the sleeping figure at the 
 opposite end of the carriage was a trick of imagination, 
 and as unreal as I. I became more and more remote 
 from things actual, and finally fell from all conscious- 
 ness into a sleep as sound as Willy's. 
 
 My slumbers were at length penetrated by a shriek 
 from the engine. I sat up, and saw that Willy was 
 taking down his parcels from the rack ; and in another 
 minute we were in the little station of Esker. 
 
 A hat with a cockade appeared at the window. 
 
 " Hullo, Mick. Is it the dog-cart they've sent ? " 
 
 " 'Tis the shut carriage, Masther Willy," said Mick ; 
 " and 'tis waiting without in the street." 
 
 With some difficulty I followed Mick through the 
 crowd of carts in the station yard, to where a landau 
 and pair were standing in the road. The moonlight 
 was bright enough for me to see the fine shapes of 
 the big brown horses, who were evincing so lively an 
 interest in the caprices of the engine that the coach- 
 man had plenty to do to keep them quiet 
 
 "You're welcome, miss," said that functionary, touch- 
 ing his hat ; and I got into the carriage, followed by 
 Willy, with the usual impedimenta of male travelling 
 youth. 
 
 " It's a good long drive," he said, arranging rugs 
 
An Irish Cousin. 13 
 
 over our knees — " twelve Irish miles. But we won't 
 be very long getting there. You won't have time to 
 be tired of me — I hope not, anyhow." 
 
 This was more like my idea of the typical Irishman, 
 but was, nevertheless, rather discomposing from a 
 comparative stranger. It was said, moreover, with a 
 certain conquering air, which plainly showed that 
 Willy was not accustomed to being found a bore. I 
 could think of no effective reply, so I laughed vaguely, 
 and said I hoped I should not. 
 
 We had been driving at a good pace for about an 
 hour, when we left the high road and began the ascent 
 of a long steep hill. At its summit the carriage turned 
 a sharp corner, and I saw below me, on my right, a 
 great sheet of water all alight with the misty splendour 
 of a full moon. Black points of land cut their way 
 into the expanse of mellow silver, and the small islands 
 were scattered like blots upon it. 
 
 "That's Roaring Water Bay," said Willy; "and 
 that mountain over there's called Croagh Keenan" — 
 pointing to a shadowy mass that formed the western 
 limit of the bay. " You haven't anything to beat that 
 in Canada, I'll bet ! " An assertion which I refrained 
 from combating. 
 
 Our road now lay for a mile or two along the top 
 of a hill overlooking the bay, and though Willy had 
 spared no efforts to beguile the way for me, I was tired 
 
14 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 enough to be extremely glad when the carriage swung 
 sharply between high gate-posts, and we entered the 
 avenue of Durrus. 
 
 As we passed the lodge, I caught, in the moonlight, 
 a glimpse of the pretty face of a girl who opened the 
 gates, and asked who she was. 
 
 " She's the lodgekeeper's daughter," said my cousin. 
 
 " She looked very pretty." 
 
 "Yes, she's not bad looking," he said indifferently. 
 " There are plenty of good-looking girls in these parts." 
 
 The drive sloped down through a park to the level 
 of a turf bog, which it skirted for some distance, and 
 then entered a thick clump of trees, through which the 
 moonlight only penetrated sufficiently to let me see 
 that they were growing in a species of reedy swamp, 
 from which, on this cold night, a low frosty mist was 
 rising. We were soon out again into the moonlight, 
 the horses quickening up as they came near their 
 journey's end. I saw a sudden gleam of sea in front, 
 and on the left a long, low house, looking wan and 
 ghostly in the moonlight. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 As the carnage drew up at the hall door it was opened 
 by a stout elderly man, who came forward with such 
 empressement that for a moment I thought it was my 
 uncle. Providentially, however, before I had time to 
 commit myself, he exclaimed : — 
 
 " Your honour's welcome. Miss Sarsfield ! " 
 
 Willy checked further remark on his part by shovel- 
 ling our many parcels into his arms ; but as soon as 
 we had got into the hall, he let them all go, and caught 
 hold of my hand and kissed it. 
 
 " Glory be to God that I should have lived to see 
 this day ! I never thought I'd be bringing Masther 
 Owen's child into this house. Thank God ! thank 
 
 God ! " He hastily let go my hand, as a tall bowed 
 
 figure came across the hall to meet me. 
 
 " Well, my dear Theodora, so you have found your 
 way at last to these western wilds," said my Uncle 
 Dominick, and kissed me on the forehead, taking both 
 my hands in his as he did so. 
 
 His manner was an extreme contrast to Willy's 
 
1 6 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 affable familiarity, and I was struck by the absence of 
 Irish accent in his voice, which was of a mellifluous 
 not to say alarming propriety. 
 
 He led me into the room he had just left, a small 
 library, and placed a chair for me in front of the fire- 
 place. 
 
 "You must be cold after your long journey. Sit 
 down and warm yourself," he said politely, adding 
 another log to the furnace that was blazing in the 
 brass-mounted grate. 
 
 He rubbed his long white hands together and drew 
 back, so as to let the light of the lamp fall on my face. 
 
 "And your uncle and aunt in Canada — Mr. and 
 Mrs. Farquharson — you left them quite well, I hope? 
 I daresay they resent your desertion very bitterly?" 
 
 I explained that the two years of ranch life that I 
 had spent in Canada since my mother's death had not 
 appealed to me, and that, in a household of twelve, 
 the blank caused by my departure could not be 
 irreparable. " In fact, I am thankful to get back to 
 Great Britain again ! " I concluded, warming one 
 frozen foot after another, while my uncle stood with 
 his back to the lamp, and surveyed me with guarded 
 intentness. From his letters I had expected him to 
 be formal, in an old-world, courteous way, but this 
 strained and glacial geniality was a very different 
 thing, and it disconcerted me considerably. 
 
An Irish Cousin. in 
 
 4-' 
 
 It was a distinct relief when, at this juncture, Willy 
 came in, and offered to show me the way to my room. 
 We passed through the dark entrance-hall, whose 
 depths were inadequately lighted by a cheap lamp, its 
 orange light forming a dingy halo that contended 
 hopelessly with the surrounding gloom. At the end 
 of the hall was a broad flight of stairs, that at the first 
 landing branched into two narrower flights leading to 
 a corridor running round the hall. Passing along one 
 side of this corridor, Willy opened a door at the end 
 of it. 
 
 " Here you are," he said ; " and I told them to 
 bring you up a cup of tea; I thought you looked 
 as if you wanted it" — with which he took his de- 
 parture. 
 
 I was touched by Willy's unexpected hostess-like 
 thoughtfulness in the matter of the tea. My uncle's 
 reception had chilled me. I was tired by my long 
 journey, and the darkness and silence of the house had 
 a depressing effect upon my spirits. For weeks this 
 arrival at my father's old home had been constantly in 
 my mind, staged and acted by myself with a vast out- 
 lay of enthusiasm and hope ; now that it was over the 
 enthusiasm had gone as dead as flat champagne, the 
 hope was drowned in disillusionment, even in fore- 
 boding. 
 
 I looked round me as I sipped my tea, and did not 
 
1 8 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 feel enlivened by what I saw. The room was large 
 and bare. The paper and the curtains of the two 
 windows were alike detestable in colour and pattern. 
 The enormous bed had once been a four-poster, but 
 the posts had been cut down, and four meaningless 
 stumps bore witness to the mutilation it had under- 
 gone. A colossal wardrobe loomed in a far-off corner ; 
 a round table of preposterous size occupied the centre 
 of the room. Six persons could comfortably have 
 dined at the dressing-table. In fact, the whole room 
 appeared to have been fitted up for the reception of 
 a giantess, and was quite out of proportion to my 
 moderate stature of five feet seven. 
 
 I have always disliked more than one door in a 
 bedroom, as it seems to me to afford to ghosts and 
 burglars unnecessary facilities; and my dislike of my 
 gaunt apartment reached its climax when I saw a 
 door in the corner on the farther side of the fireplace 
 from the door into the corridor. It had been papered 
 over along with the walls, and was almost suspiciously 
 unobtrusive. I opened it, and found that it led into a 
 moderate-sized bedroom. The moonlight which came 
 through the uncurtained window lay in greenish-white 
 patches on the uncarpeted floor, and showed a few 
 pieces of furniture, shrouded in sheets and huddled in 
 one corner. In spite of its chill bareness, an effect 
 of recent occupancy was given to it by a chair that 
 
An Irish Cousin. 19 
 
 stood sideways in the window, a few tattered books 
 on the floor beside it. 
 
 I went back to my own room with an unexplainable 
 distaste, slamming the door behind me, and proceeded 
 to dress for dinner with all speed. 
 
 With the unfailing punctuality of a newcomer, I left 
 my room as the gong sounded, and, hurrying down, 
 found my uncle and Willy waiting for me in the 
 library. 
 
 The dining-room was a large and imposing room. 
 A moderate number of portraits of the most orthodox 
 ancestral type hung, interspersed with mezzotints of 
 impassioned Irish clergymen, on its panelled walls. 
 A high old sideboard of what seemed to me an un- 
 usual shape stretched up to the ceiling on one side of 
 the room, and the plate upon it twinkled in the blaze 
 of the fire. 
 
 We sat down at the long table ; and while Willy 
 and his father were absorbed in overcoming the usual 
 embarrassments offered by soup to the wearers of 
 moustaches, I amused myself with speculations as to 
 who was responsible for the subtle combination of 
 yellow and magenta dahlias that adorned the table. 
 I concluded that the artist must have been the old 
 butler, Roche ; and as, at the thought, I involuntarily 
 looked towards him, I found his eyes fixed upon me 
 with the abstracted gaze of one who is trying to trace 
 
20 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 a likeness. Our eyes met, and he shuffled away, but 
 I felt sure that he had been searching for a resem- 
 blance to the irregular attractive face which, from a 
 miniature of thirty years ago, I knew must be what 
 he remembered of my father. I sincerely hoped he 
 found it. 
 
 " It is quite an unusual pleasure to Willy and me to 
 see a charming young lady at our bachelor-table — eh, 
 Willy ? " said Uncle Dominick, lifting his face from his 
 now empty soup-plate, and smiling at me. 
 
 Willy, whose flow of language seemed checked by 
 his father's presence, gave an assenting grunt. 
 
 " It is a long time since there has been a Miss 
 Sarsfield at Durrus, and it is thirty years since she 
 died. You will find Willy and I are sad barbarians, 
 and we shall have to trust to you to civilise us." 
 
 I am quite unfitted to deal with the compliments of 
 elderly gentlemen. On this occasion I failed as sig- 
 nally as usual to attain the requisite quality of playful 
 confusion, and diverted the conversation by a question 
 about a claret-coloured ancestor, who had been staring 
 at me from his frame over the fireplace ever since we 
 had sat down to dinner. 
 
 " That is my grandfather," said my uncle. " Dick 
 the Drinker, they called him. He neither is nor was 
 an ornament to the family ; but his wife, the beautiful 
 Kate Coppinger, is worth looking at. In fact, my 
 
An Irish Cousin. 21 
 
 dear " — with another smile and a little bow — " directly 
 I saw you I was reminded of a miniature which we 
 have of her." 
 
 " I hope she looks Irish," I responded. " I have 
 always tried to live up to my idea of an Irish girl ; 
 but though my hair is dark, I haven't got violet eyes." 
 
 " No, nor any one else either. I never heard of them 
 out of a book," said Willy, abruptly. 
 
 It was almost his first contribution to the conversa- 
 tion ; but his father took no more notice of him than 
 if he had not spoken, and went on eating his dinner, 
 taking longer over each mouthful than any one I had 
 ever seen. 
 
 " Then, am I not like the Sarsfields ? " I asked. 
 
 My uncle paused and looked hard at me for a 
 second or two, letting his heavy eyebrows drop over 
 his eyes, with a peculiar change of expression. 
 
 " In some ways, perhaps," he said shortly. Then, 
 turning to Willy, " Nugent O'Neill was here this after- 
 noon to see you about the stopping of some earths. 
 I told him to come over and dine here some day next 
 week. Not " — turning to me — " that he is much of a 
 ladies' man, but he is a gentlemanlike young fellow 
 enough ; very unlike his father," he added, in a bitter 
 tone. 
 
 " Why, is Mr. O'Neill very objectionable ? " I said. 
 
 I felt an unmistakable kick under the table, and 
 
2 2 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 Willy, with an admonitory wink, slurred over my 
 question by saying : — 
 
 " I can tell you, O'Neill would be pretty mad if he 
 heard you calling him Mr. He's The O'Neill, and 
 his wife's Madam O'Neill, and they wouldn't call 
 the queen their cousin." 
 
 My uncle silently continued his dinner, but I noticed 
 how unpleasant his expression had become since The 
 O'Neill was mentioned. 
 
 I finally made up my mind that his face was one I 
 should never care for. He was decidedly a handsome 
 man, though unusually old-looking for his age, which 
 could not have been more than sixty. 
 
 His thick dark eyebrows lay like a bar across his 
 high forehead. A long hooked nose dropped over an 
 iron-grey moustache, which, when he smiled, lifted in 
 a peculiar way, and showed long and slightly promi- 
 nent yellow teeth. His unwholesomely pallid skin 
 was deeply lined, and hung in folds under the dark 
 sunken eyes, giving a look of age which was further 
 contributed to by the stoop in his square shoulders. 
 As I glanced from him to Willy, I concluded that the 
 latter's blonde commonplace good looks must have 
 been inherited from his mother. 
 
 Rousing himself from the morose silence into which 
 he had fallen, my uncle proceeded to apply himself to 
 the task of entertaining me by a dissertation on the 
 
An Irish Cousin. 23 
 
 trade and agriculture of Canada. I soon found that 
 he had all the desire to impart information which 
 characterises those whose knowledge of a subject is 
 taken from pamphlets ; but I listened with all polite- 
 ness to his description of the country in which I had 
 spent the past two years. Willy maintained a discreet 
 silence, but from time to time bestowed on me glances 
 of sympathy and approbation. Evidently Willy did 
 not know how to talk to his father. 
 
 As dinner progressed, I observed that, if Roche 
 allowed his master's glass to remain empty, he was 
 at once given a sign to refill it, and my uncle became 
 more and more diffusely instructive. 
 
 During dessert a pause at length gave me an oppor- 
 tunity of changing the conversation. 
 
 " I saw such a pretty girl at your gate lodge as we 
 drove in," I said. ''She looked delightful in the moon- 
 light, with a shawl thrown over her head." 
 
 If Uncle Dominick had looked black at the mention 
 of The O'Neill, he became doubly so at this appar- 
 ently inoffensive remark. Glancing for explanation 
 to Willy, I was amazed to see that he had become 
 crimson, and was elaborately trying to show his want 
 of interest in the subject by balancing a fork on the 
 edge of his wine-glass. 
 
 " Yes," said my uncle ; " she is a good-looking girl 
 enough, and no one knows it better than she does. 
 
24 A^ Irish Cousin. 
 
 When people in that class of life are taken out of their 
 proper place" — with great severity — "they at once 
 begin to presume." 
 
 Willy upset his wine-glass with a sudden jerk. For 
 my part, I was so taken aback by this tirade, that 
 I thought my safest plan lay in immediate flight. 
 Willy got up with alacrity, and, following me from 
 the room, opened the drawing-room door. He looked 
 confused and annoyed. 
 
 " Can you take care of yourself in there for a while ? " 
 he said. " I'll be with you in a few minutes." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The room was cold ; I at once made for the fire, and, 
 to my surprise, found the hearthrug occupied by an 
 untidy Httle girl, who was engaged in dropping grease 
 from a candle over the coals to make them burn. On 
 seeing me she sprang to her feet, and, with apologetic 
 murmurs, she gathered up a coal-box and retired in 
 confusion. 
 
 I concluded that, improbable as it appeared, this 
 was the under-housemaid, and reflected with some 
 astonishment on the incongruities of the Durrus es- 
 tablishment. However, I afterwards found she held 
 no official position, but was a satellite of the under- 
 housemaid's, privately imported by her as a species 
 of body-servant or slave. In fact, at the risk of di- 
 gressing, I may here add that in process of time I 
 discovered that the illicit apprenticeship of a young 
 relation was a common custom of the Durrus servants, 
 and in the labyrinthine remoteness of the servants' 
 quarters they could be concealed without fear of at- 
 tracting the master's eye. 
 
 25i 
 
26 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 In spite of its top dressing of grease, the fire was not 
 a tempting one to sit over, and I roamed round the 
 large ill-lighted room, taking in with amazement the 
 varied style of its decorations. It was, in startling 
 constrast to the rest of the house, painted and papered 
 in semi-aesthetic hues, pale sage-green and pink being 
 the prevailing colours. This innovation of culture had 
 not, however, extended itself to the furniture, which 
 was of the solidly ugly type prevalent fifty years ago. 
 Heavy mahogany tables, each duly set forth with 
 books and daguerreotypes, stood uncompromisingly 
 about, causing a congestion among the lesser furniture. 
 The pictures, which had been taken down at the re- 
 papering of the room, leaned against the wall with 
 their faces inwards. I turned one of the nearest to 
 me, expecting to come upon a family portrait, but 
 found it represented a Turk of truculent aspect, worked 
 in Berlin wool — a testimony to the amount of spare 
 time at the disposal of the ladies of Durrus. The 
 thick coating of dust on my fingers which was the 
 result of this investigation did not encourage me to 
 make any further researches, and an examination of 
 the old china on the marble chiffonnier between the 
 windows had equally disastrous results. In one 
 corner there was an ancient grand piano, which to 
 my astonishment proved to be in good tune. I 
 had not been playing for very long when Willy 
 
An Irish Cousin. 27 
 
 came in, and, without speaking, placed himself beside 
 me. 
 
 " Well, I declare ! " he said, as I finished playing one 
 of Schubert's impromptus, "it's a long time since I 
 heard that old piano. I got it tuned the other day on 
 purpose for you, and you know how to knock sparks 
 out of it, anyhow ! I heard Henrietta O'Neill playing 
 that piece once, and it didn't sound half so well — 
 though, I can tell you, she thinks no end of herself." 
 
 " By-the-bye, Willy, why did you stop me when I 
 began to speak of Mr. O'Neill?" 
 
 " O'Neill," corrected Willy. 
 
 " Oh, well, O'Neill, but what was the harm of talking 
 about him ? " 
 
 " No harm, as far as I am concerned, but the gover- 
 nor hates him like poison. I believe they had some 
 row in my grandfather's time — I don't know exactly 
 what — and they never made it up since. But there's 
 no regular quarrel ; I go to all their parties, and I 
 think the governor rather likes Nugent and the girls." 
 
 "What is Madam O'Neill like?" 
 
 "Oh, / get along with her first-rate," said Willy, 
 stretching out one of his long legs, and serenely 
 studying the gold-embroidered clock on his sock. 
 " But other people say she's rather a bitter old pill ; 
 and I can tell you, she has the two girls in great 
 order ! " 
 
2 8 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 I began to play as he finished speaking ; but his 
 thoughts had travelled on to my other unlucky remark 
 at dinner, for he presently interrupted me by saying 
 in an uncertain way : — 
 
 " Oh ! you know that girl we were talking of at 
 dinner, the one you saw at the gate — Anstice Brian her 
 name is — her mother is a bit queer in her head, and 
 she'd be very apt to give you a start if you didn't 
 know her ways. She's a harmless poor creature, but 
 she wanders about these bright nights, and she gets 
 into the house sometimes." 
 
 I probably looked as alarmed as I felt, for he laughed 
 protectingly, and, drawing his chair a little closer to 
 mine, said reassuringly : — 
 
 " Never fear ! She's not half as silly as they say ; 
 and do you think I'd let her be about if there was any 
 chance at all of her frightening you ? " 
 
 " What is she like ? Is she an old woman ? "— 
 ignoring the reproachful warmth of this last observa- 
 tion. 
 
 " Is it old Moll Hourihane ? She's as old as two 
 men — or she looks it, anyhow. She used to be my 
 nurse till she went off her head." 
 
 " I thought you said her name was Brian," I said. 
 
 "That's only her husband's name. The women 
 mostly stick to their own names in this country when 
 they're married." 
 
An Irish Cousin. 29 
 
 " And you're quite sure she's not dangerous ? " I 
 said, feeling only half reassured. 
 
 " No more than I am myself" — with a glance to see 
 if I were going to contradict this assertion. " She has 
 a sort of dumb madness — like a hound, you know — 
 and she'll never speak ; though I dare say after all 
 that's no great loss," he concluded. 
 
 I was by this time feeling very sleepy, and hoping I 
 should soon be able to escape to my own room, when 
 the door opened, and my uncle came solemnly in. 
 
 " I have come, Theodora, my dear, to suggest an 
 early retirement on your part." 
 
 He avoided looking at Willy, and I felt that the 
 effects of my ill-timed remarks at dinner had not yet 
 died out. He looked haggard and troubled, and a 
 sudden pity and sense of kinship impelled me to raise 
 my cheek towards him as he took my hand to say 
 good-night. He stooped his head as if to kiss me, but 
 checked himself, and after an instant of hesitation his 
 moustache touched my forehead. He turned and left 
 the room, and I heard him go back to the library and 
 shut himself in, the sound of the closing door em- 
 phasising his solitariness. 
 
 I went upstairs with the feeling of isolation again 
 strongly upon me. The wind had risen, and on the 
 walls of the draughty corridor each gust made the old 
 pictures shake in their shabby frames. At intervals, 
 
30 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 through the panes of the large skylight overhead, the 
 moon's light dropped in pale wavering squares on the 
 floor on the hall below. I leaned over the balustrades, 
 watching the spectral alternations of light and darkness, 
 as the clouds swept across the moon, till the objects 
 beneath me seemed to take intermitting motion from 
 the flitting of the moonbeams. 
 
 As I looked, the dim lamp in the hall flickered and 
 went out. A gust from below circled round the 
 corridor, lifting the hair upon my forehead and almost 
 extinguishing my candle as it passed me. 
 
 Perhaps I was overtired and nervous, but the old 
 childish dread of some vague pursuit out of the dark- 
 ness clutched me. I gave a terrified glance over my 
 shoulder at the swaying pictures, then, shielding my 
 candle with my hand, I ignominiously ran down the 
 corridor into my own room. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 " Will you have your tay, plase, miss ? " 
 
 The words at first mingled with the dreams which 
 had all night disturbed my sleep. On being repeated, 
 the unfamiliar accent, accompanied by the clink of a 
 cup and saucer, made me open my eyes. A pleasant- 
 looking, red-haired girl was standing by my bed, tray 
 in hand. 
 
 "You're after having a great sleep, miss. I was 
 twice here before, and there wasn't a stir out of 
 you." 
 
 " Is it very late ? " I asked, with an alarming re- 
 collection of my uncle's punctuality. 
 
 " Oh, not at all, miss. The masther's only just after 
 having his breakfast." 
 
 "What!" I gasped. "You should have called me 
 earlier." 
 
 " Oh, there's no hurry, miss ! Sure he always ates 
 his breakfast by himself, and there's no sayin' how late 
 it'll be before Masther Willy's down." 
 
 Calmed by this assurance, I did not hurry myself 
 
 31 
 
32 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 over my dressing, but from time to time stopped to 
 look at the view from my windows. 
 
 It was a quiet October day, with a grey yet luminous 
 sky, that lit with a grave radiance the group of yellow 
 elms that divided the avenue from a heathery expanse 
 of turf bog, with low hills beyond. From the other 
 window, which was almost over the hall door, I could 
 see to the left a dark belt of trees that stretched to 
 the back of the house ; and in front, at the foot of the 
 lawn, the curve of a little bay. This was separated 
 from the larger waters of Durrusmore Harbour by a 
 low promontory, along whose ridge a meagre line of 
 fir-trees was etched against the grey sky. Leaning 
 out of the window, and looking westwards towards the 
 mouth of the harbour, I saw the Atlantic lying broad 
 and white under the light of the soft clear morning. 
 
 I went downstairs, and as I passed along the corridor, 
 I felt, even on this still day, the draught from broken 
 panes in the skylight and the staircase window, making 
 it easy to account for the ghostly eddyings of the wind 
 the night before. 
 
 Willy had apparently made an effort on my behalf 
 at early rising, and I found him making tea when I 
 came into the dining-room. He came forward to 
 meet me with a complacency in which I detected a 
 consciousness of the added smartness of his Sunday 
 attire ; and, having ascertained the fact that I had 
 
An Irish Cousin. 33 
 
 slept well, he installed me behind the urn to pour out 
 the superfluously strong tea which he had just brewed. 
 
 There was immense relief in the absence of Uncle 
 Dominick, whom at this moment I saw pacing up and 
 down a walk leading from the house to the sea. 
 Willy followed the direction of my eyes. 
 
 " I hope you're not insulted by only me breakfasting 
 with you," he said, with ungrammatical gallantry. 
 " You can breakfast with the governor whenever you 
 like, but you will have to be down at eight o'clock to 
 do that ! " 
 
 I intimated with fitting politeness that I was satis- 
 fied with the present arrangement, and we began our 
 tete-d-tete meal in great amity. Willy, indeed, was an 
 excellent host. He plied me with everything on the 
 table, eating his own breakfast and talking all the 
 time with unaffected zest and vigour, and I began to 
 feel as if the time I had known him could be reckoned 
 in months instead of hours. 
 
 The necessity of writing to announce my safe arrival 
 to Aunt Margaret was one that had already forced 
 itself upon my notice. 
 
 " I thought you'd be wanting to write a letter," 
 Willy said, conducting me into the drawing-room 
 after breakfast, " and I got the place ready for you." 
 
 I sat down at the old-fashioned writing-table, and 
 found that he had anticipated my wants with a lavish 
 
 3 
 
34 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 hand. Through the window I saw him, a few minutes 
 afterwards, sauntering down the drive towards the 
 lodge, smoking a cigarette, with two little white fox 
 terriers flashing in circles round him ; and as I watched 
 him, I came to the conclusion that at first sight I had 
 under-estimated my cousin. 
 
 There was something to me half amusing and half 
 touching in the anxiety of his little housewifely atten- 
 tions to me. He was really unusually thoughtful for 
 others ; from various things he had said, it was evident 
 that his father had allowed the whole management of 
 the place to devolve on him, and I fell to idle specula- 
 tion as to whether he ordered dinner, and if he were 
 particular about the housemaids wearing white muslin 
 caps ; and I was only aroused from these, and other 
 equally interesting reflections, by hearing the clock 
 strike the hour at which I had been warned I must 
 get ready for church. 
 
 My uncle was standing on the steps, with his Prayer- 
 book in his hand, when I came downstairs. He wished 
 me good-morning, with a polite apology for not having 
 met me at breakfast, and stood looking about him, with 
 eyelids narrowed by the white glare from the sea, till 
 a minute afterwards the waggonette in which we were 
 going to church came to the door. My uncle and I 
 got in behind ; while Willy, with Mick by his side, sat 
 on the box and drove. Once outside the gate, we 
 
An Irish Cousin. i^t^ 
 
 took a road running at right angles to that by which 
 I had arrived. It went round the head of Durrusmore 
 Harbour, and, leaving the sea behind, turned inland 
 through large woods, which my uncle told me were 
 part of the demesne of Clashmore, The O'Neill's 
 place. 
 
 The road was level, and soft with the fallen red beech 
 leaves, and the brown horses took us along it at a pace 
 that showed they were none the worse for their journey 
 the night before. The rough stone walls on either side 
 of the road were covered with moss and small ferns. 
 Here and there the wood was pierced by narrow rides 
 — vistas in which the clumps of withering bracken re- 
 peated the brown and gold of the trees above. 
 
 "We're going to draw this place on Friday," said 
 Willy, pausing in the steady flow of his conversation 
 with Mick to give me the information. " Blackthorn 
 will carry Miss Theo right enough, wouldn't he, Mick ? 
 and I'll ride the new mare." 
 
 The village of Rathbarry, which we had now entered, 
 consisted of a single street of low, dirty-looking cot- 
 tages, their squalid uniformity varied at frequent in- 
 tervals by the more prosperous shuttered face of a 
 public-house. At the end of the street, a gateway led 
 into a graveyard, surrounded by ill-thriven elm-trees, 
 in the middle of which stood the church. It was an 
 ugly, oblong building, with a square tower at the west 
 
 3 * 
 
36 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 end, from which proceeded a clanging as of a cracked 
 basin battered with a spoon. 
 
 " We're in good time," said Willy, drawing up with a 
 flourish before the porch. " That's the hurry-bell only 
 begun now, so we've five minutes to spare. Look, 
 Theo ! there's the Clashmore carriage. Did you ever 
 see such brutes as those chestnuts ? " 
 
 Before, however, I had time to reply, Uncle Domi- 
 nick hurried me into the church, and we took our 
 places in opposite corners of a singularly uncomfortable 
 square pew. As we sat confronting each other in the 
 half-empty church, we heard in the porch Willy's voice 
 raised in agreeable converse. Apparently his remarks 
 were of a complimentary sort, for a girl's voice rejoined, 
 " Oh, nonsense, Willy ! " with a laugh. 
 
 "Disgraceful !" muttered my uncle, under his breath ; 
 and the next moment three ladies swept up the aisle, 
 followed by Willy, on whose face still beamed a slightly 
 fatuous smile. 
 
 He immediately sat down beside me, and in a rapid 
 whisper instructed me as to the more prominent mem- 
 bers of the congregation. 
 
 " Those are the O'Neills " — indicating the ladies he 
 had come in with. " Connie's the little fair one. And 
 look ! those are the Jackson-Crolys ! You'd better sit 
 up and behave, as they'll be watching you all the time. 
 I know they all want to see what you're like ! " 
 
An Irish Cousin. 37 
 
 "Hush! don't talk!" I whispered back. "Here's 
 the clergyman." 
 
 The service was very long. The music, which con- 
 sisted of the clergyman's daughter accompanying her- 
 self on a harmonium, with casual vocal assistance from 
 a couple of school-children, was of an unexhilarating 
 kind. Willy fidgeted, admired his boots, trimmed his 
 nails, and tried to utilise every possible opening for 
 conversation. Uncle Dominick, on the contrary, de- 
 voted his whole attention to the service, and answered 
 all the responses with austere punctiliousness, even 
 going so far as to try and track the clergyman's 
 daughter in her devious course through the hymns. 
 
 From the corner which had been allotted to me in 
 my uncle's pew I could not see the clergyman, and, 
 though his voice resounded through the church, his 
 very pronounced Cork accent made it difficult for me 
 to understand more than a word here and there in his 
 discourse. 
 
 The high sides of the pew debarred me from even 
 the solace of inspecting the congregation, and, in the 
 absence of other occupation, I could not altogether 
 conceal the interest that I felt in the remark which 
 Willy was laboriously spelling on his fingers for my 
 edification. Becoming conscious, however, that Uncle 
 Dominick's eye, while fixed upon the preacher, had 
 included us in its observations, I transferred my at- 
 
38 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 tention to the mural tablets, which on either side of 
 the church set forth the perfections of dead-and-gone 
 O'Neills and Sarsfields. 
 
 Having studied these for a few minutes with the 
 mild sceptical interest usually excited by the tabulated 
 virtues of the unknown departed, I leaned back in my 
 corner, and, in doing so, noticed a brass upon the wall 
 slightly behind my uncle's seat. My eye was imme- 
 diately caught by my father's name. 
 
 IN MEMORIAM 
 
 THEODORE WILLIAM SARSFIELD, 
 
 WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE 
 
 JANUARY 10, 1 85-. 
 
 AND OF 
 
 OWEN SARSFIELD, 
 
 SON OF THE ABOVE, 
 
 WHO DIED SUDDENLY IN CORK, 
 
 ON HIS RETURN FROM CANADA, 
 
 JANUARY 9, 1 86-. 
 
 THIS MONUMENT IS ERECTED BY THEIR SORROWING 
 SON AND BROTHER, DOMINICK SARSFIELD, OF 
 DURRUS. 
 
 I glanced by a natural transition to my uncle, whose 
 head all but intervened between me and the brass. 
 
An Irish Cousin. 39 
 
 His expression of sombre melancholy harmonised 
 well with the words "his sorrowing brother". 
 
 I could guess what must have been his grief at the 
 death of an only brother. Till then I had scarcely 
 realised how closely linked their lives must once have 
 been, and I resolved that his chilly manner should not 
 deter me from some day inducing him to speak to me 
 of my father. 
 
 As I made up my mind to this, the clergyman's 
 voice ceased, and the congregation rose at the end of 
 the sermon. We walked out of church close behind 
 the O'Neills, and outside the porch Madam O'Neill 
 stopped to shake hands with my uncle. Then, turn- 
 ing to me : — 
 <^^— ^ " I need not ask to be introduced to you, my dear. 
 I knew your poor father very well indeed in days gone 
 by." This was said in a dry, attenuated voice, but 
 through the elaborate pattern of her Maltese lace veil, 
 her eyes looked kindly at me. She was small and 
 refined looking, with little artificial airs and graces 
 which told that she had been a beauty in her day ; 
 and what remained of a delicate complexion was 
 carefully sheltered from the harmless light of the 
 grey sky by a thick parasol. 
 
 Uncle Dominick's impatience to get away only gave 
 me time to say a word or two in answer to her salu- 
 tation. 
 
40 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 "Come, Theodora," he said, with the smile that 
 lifted his moustache and showed all his teeth. "We 
 must not keep the horses waiting." 
 
 Willy was already on the box of the waggonette, 
 and was talking to a dark, quiet-looking young man 
 who was standing with one foot on the wheel. 
 
 " Then you'll see about having those earths stopped," 
 Willy said, leaning over, and emphasising what he was 
 saying with the handle of the whip on his hearer's 
 shoulder. " Oh, here they are ! Theo, let me introduce 
 Mr. O'Neill. I was just telling him he must be sure 
 and have a fox for you at Clashmore this week." 
 
 " I'll do my best," said Mr. O'Neill, as he took off 
 his hat ; but he did not look particularly enthusiastic 
 as he spoke. 
 
 We had no sooner driven off, than Willy twisted 
 round on the box to speak to me. 
 
 "Well, what do you think of Nugent?" he said 
 rather eagerly. 
 
 " He is nice-looking," I replied critically ; " but he 
 looks as if he thought a good deal of himself." 
 
 " Oh, he's not half a bad chap," said Willy, with a 
 leniency which was possibly the result of the pleasure 
 with which young men listen to the depreciation of 
 their fellows. " He's decent enough sometimes ; but he 
 can put on a bit of side when he likes, and I dare say 
 he thinks he is thrown away down here. Henrietta's 
 
An Irish Cousin. 4I 
 
 like him in that sort of way, but Connie has no non- 
 sense about her." 
 
 I decided that Connie's was the laugh that I had 
 heard in the porch before service, and thought that of 
 the two I should be more likely to prefer Henrietta. 
 
 Ever since we had left church the sky had been 
 darkening, and when we reached Durrusmore Harbour, 
 the distant headlands were almost hidden in a white 
 mist. The south-west wind blew it towards us from 
 the sea, and by the time we got home a thick fine rain 
 was coming steadily down. 
 
 Lunch, with Uncle Dominick at the head of the 
 table, was a more serious business than breakfast had 
 been, and old Roche's shuffling ministrations added to 
 the general solemnity. I was, however, amused by the 
 affectionate solicitude with which he nudged me in the 
 elbow with the dish of potatoes, indicating with his 
 thumb a specially floury one, and concluded that this 
 was his singular method of showing respect for my 
 father's memory. 
 
 When lunch was over Willy announced his intention 
 of walking to Clashmore, to see about borrowing a 
 side-saddle for me, he said — an act of self-sacrifice 
 which I was not slow to attribute to the fascinations 
 of Miss Connie O'Neill. Uncle Dominick retired to 
 a private den at the end of a dark passage leading 
 from the hall to the back of the house ; and a few 
 
42 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 minutes later Willy, in a voluminous mackintosh, set 
 forth on his errand, followed by the fox terriers in a 
 state of amiable frenzy, the result of the abhorred 
 Sunday morning incarceration. I became aware that 
 I was thrown upon my own resources, and, with the 
 prospect of a wet afternoon before me, I felt my spirits 
 sinking perceptibly. 
 
 To finish my letter to Aunt Margaret was at least 
 better than doing nothing. I took up a strong position 
 in front of the library fire, and disconsolately applied 
 myself to filling the big sheet of foreign paper on which 
 I had embarked in the morning. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Willy did not come home till dinner-time, when he 
 reappeared in exceedingly good-humour. I, on the 
 contrary, felt the vague ill-temper of a person who has 
 spent a wet Sunday afternoon in solitude, and I found 
 dinner long and dull. In the drawing-room, after 
 dinner, I sought the resource of music to raise my 
 spirits ; but I was debarred from even this last con- 
 solation, for Willy implored me to "let the piano 
 alone," as his father disapproved of music on Sunday. 
 We finally settled down in arm-chairs, and I dis- 
 covered that Willy possessed in a high degree the 
 feminine faculty of sitting over a fire and talking about 
 nothing in particular. He pretended to no superiority 
 to the minor gossip which forms the ripples in the 
 current of country life, and he had quite a special gift 
 of recounting small facts with accuracy and detail, and 
 without any endeavour to exalt his talent as a story- 
 teller. His tales had, in consequence, a surprising 
 freshness and merit, and till bedtime we maintained 
 a desultory, but on the whole enjoyable conversation. 
 
 43 
 
44 ^^ Irish Cousin. 
 
 When I got up to my room, I found it full of smoke 
 and extremely cold. The window had been opened 
 to let out the smoke, and the chintz curtains rustled 
 and flapped in the draught. Making up my mind after 
 a few minutes that even turf smoke was preferable 
 to the cold disquiet of the wind, I went to the window 
 to close it, and discovered that, the pulley being broken, 
 the housemaid had supported the sash with one of my 
 brushes. 
 
 There was something in this misplaced ingenuity 
 which was eminently characteristic of the slipshod 
 manner of life at Durrus, and by force of contrast my 
 thoughts travelled back to my mother's orderly house- 
 hold. I leaned against the shutter and looked out, 
 beset by poignant recollections of a time when life 
 without my mother seemed an impossibility, and 
 when Durrus was no more to me than a place in a 
 fairy story. 
 
 The wind had blown away most of the fog, and the 
 rain had ceased, but a thin haze still blunted the keen- 
 ness of the moonlight. I gazed at the dark shapes of 
 the trees in the shrubbery till I lost the sense of their 
 reality, and they came and went like dreams in the 
 uncertain light. In my ears was still the throb and 
 tremor which seven days and nights spent in listening 
 to the screw of the Alaska had imprinted on my brain, 
 and my thoughts and surroundings seemed alike hurry- 
 
An Irish Cousin. 45 
 
 ing on in time to that inveterate pulsation. I was at 
 length aroused to realities by a sound which at first 
 seemed part of the light chafing of the laurel leaves, 
 but which in a few moments became detached and 
 distinct from the vague noises of the autumn night. 
 
 It came nearer, and gave the impression of some 
 stealthy advance in the wet grass under the trees. At 
 length, at the verge of their shadow, just opposite my 
 window, I heard the gravel crunch under a soft foot- 
 step. A woman's figure slid into the dim light, and 
 came out across the broad gravel sweep with a swaying 
 gait, as though moving to music. 
 
 Half-way to the house she stopped, and, raising her 
 arms above her head with a wild gesture, she began to 
 step to and fro with jaunty liftings and bendings of 
 her body, as though she were taking part in a dance. 
 Backwards and forwards she paced with measured 
 precision ; then, placing her hands on her hips, she 
 danced with incongruous lightness and vigour some 
 steps of a jig. Suddenly she checked herself ; she knelt 
 down, and, turning a pale face to the sky, she crossed 
 her hands on her breast and remained motionless. 
 
 Her absolute stillness was almost more dreadful 
 than the strange movements she had previously gone 
 through, and I stood staring in terror at the grey 
 kneeling figure, with the rigid face turned skywards 
 in what appeared to be the extremity of supplication. 
 
46 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 Just then the moon shone sharply out, hardening and 
 fixing in a moment the limits of light and darkness, 
 and, as if with a sudden movement, it flung the shadow 
 of the praying woman on the ground before her. She 
 started, and slowly rose to her feet, and, with her hands 
 still crossed on her bosom, turned her face towards me. 
 I saw the moonlight glisten in her wide-open eyes, 
 which were fixed, not on me, but on the window of the 
 room next to mine. Then, opening her arms wide, she 
 let them fall to her side with an elaborate curtsy and 
 sidled back into the impenetrable shadow of the trees. 
 
 I stood bewilderedly staring at the spot where the 
 darkness had swallowed up her figure ; before I had 
 time to collect my ideas, she reappeared at a little 
 distance, and, as well as I could see, turned up a path 
 which led through the shrubbery in the direction of 
 the lodge. 
 
 As she passed out of sight, I remembered in a flash 
 what Willy had said to me about Anstey's half-witted 
 mother. It was a simple explanation, and perhaps a 
 humiliating one ; but, in spite of my anxiety to possess 
 a ghost-story of my own, I accepted it with relief. I 
 shut the window and locked my door, and, though 
 still trembling all over with cold and fright, I went to 
 bed, thankful that " Mad Moll " had introduced herself 
 to me from without, instead of first appearing to me 
 within the walls of Durrus. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " And so she gave you a great fright ? Well, now, 
 wasn't that too bad ? I wish I'd caught her at her 
 tricks, and I'd soon have packed her about her business. 
 You know, they say she was the best step-dancer in 
 the country when she was a girl ; and to think of her 
 going dancing under your window, and you taking 
 her for a ghost ! " 
 
 Willy's amusement overcame his sympathy, and he 
 laughed loud and long. 
 
 I had been impelled to confide my alarm of Sunday 
 night to him when we were on our way round to the 
 stables to see the horses, on the following morning, 
 and I now rather resented his refusal to see anything 
 but the absurdity of the incident. 
 
 " You are very unsympathetic. I am sure you 
 would have been just as frightened as I was," I said. 
 " She looked exactly like a ghost ; and in any case I 
 should like to know why she selected my window to 
 dance under ? " 
 
 " She meant it for a compliment, of course. I sup- 
 
 47 
 
48 An Irish Cousin, 
 
 pose she thought you'd be a good audience. /Ve seen 
 her now and again jack-acting there in front of the 
 house, but I'm afraid all I said was to tell her go 
 home. But then, I'm not sympathetic like you ! " 
 
 We had stopped to discuss the point at the spot 
 whence I had seen Moll emerge, and now walked on 
 past the untidy old flower-garden to the yard. 
 
 It was a large square, of which three sides were 
 formed by stables and cowhouses, the house itself 
 being the fourth, and was only redeemed from absolute 
 ugliness by a row of four great horse-chestnut trees, 
 which grew out of a grassy mound in the middle. 
 We arrived in time to surprise the two little fox 
 terriers, Pat and Jinny, in the clandestine enjoyment 
 of a meal with the pig, whose trough was conveniently 
 placed by the scullery door. On seeing us, they at 
 once endeavoured to dissemble their guilty confusion 
 by an unworthy attack on their late entertainer. This 
 histrionic display did not, however, deceive Willy in 
 the least. The dogs were ignominiously called off, 
 and the pig was left master of the situation. 
 
 I wondered, as I looked round, if all Irish yards 
 were like this one. Certainly I had never before seen 
 anything like the mixture of prosperity and dilapida- 
 tion in these solid stone buildings, with their rickety 
 doors and broken windows. Through the open coach- 
 house door I saw an unusual amount of carriages, 
 
An Irish Cousin. 49 
 
 foremost among them the landau in which I had driven 
 from Esker, with a bucket placed on its coach-box in 
 order to catch a drip from the roof. A donkey and a 
 couple of calves were roaming placidly about, and, 
 though there was evidently no lack of stable-helpers 
 and hangers-on, everything was inconceivably dirty 
 and untidy. 
 
 The horses were, however, well housed and cared 
 for. My future mount, " Blackthorn," was the first to 
 be displayed. He was a strong black horse, with a 
 roach back and an ugly head, but he had a wise face 
 and a kind and quiet eye. In the next box, the bay 
 mare Willy had bought in Cork was pushing her 
 nose through the bars over the door to attract our 
 attention. 
 
 " That's the one kept me from going to meet you 
 at Queenstown," said Willy, opening the door, and 
 catching the mare by the head. " She's a smart little 
 thing, but I'll know better another time than to throw 
 you over for her. Stand, will ye ! " as the mare made 
 a vigorous remonstrance at being deprived of her 
 sheet. 
 
 " She looks as if she knows how to go," I said. 
 " What are you going to call her ? " 
 
 " Don't you think you might christen her for me ? " 
 Willy answered, with an insinuating glance at me 
 from under his black eyelashes. " Just to show you 
 
 4 
 
JO An Irish Cousin. 
 
 don't bear malice for my leaving you to cross Cork 
 all alone." 
 
 Notwithstanding the access of brogue with which 
 this was said, there was something in the look which 
 accompanied it at which, to my extreme annoyance, 
 I felt my colour rise. 
 
 " Of course I don't bear malice. I never even ex- 
 pected you to meet me," I said, turning to stroke the 
 mare's shoulder. "If you really want a name for her, 
 suppose you call her * Alaska '. That was the steamer 
 I came over in, and they say she's the fastest on the 
 line." 
 
 Willy received this moderate suggestion with en- 
 thusiasm. " If she turns out half as good as she 
 looks," he said, as we walked out of the yard, "you 
 shall have her for yourself to ride." 
 
 " I think you are very rash to put me up on your 
 horses when you don't in the least know how I can 
 ride." 
 
 " Ah ! well, I'll trust you ! Though, indeed, after 
 the funk you were put into by poor old Moll, I suppose 
 I may expect to see you turning back at the first 
 fence." 
 
 To this sally I vouchsafed no reply. 
 
 " I must take the mare out this afternoon," he 
 continued, " to try can she jump. Blackthorn wants 
 shoeing, or you should ride him ; but I thought 
 
An Irish Cousin. 51 
 
 perhaps you'd like to walk up to the farm to see me 
 schooling the mare. It's only as far as those fields 
 opposite the lodge that I'll go." 
 
 This was, I thought, a very good suggestion. A 
 prospective day with the hounds made me extremely 
 anxious to see what Irish fences were like, and my 
 experiences at my uncle's ranch in Canada had not 
 included double banks and stone walls. 
 
 At lunch Uncle Dominick was more conversational 
 than I had yet seen him. 
 
 " What have you been doing with yourself this 
 morning, Theo, my dear ? " — for the first time adopting 
 the more familiar form of my name. " The roses in 
 your cheeks do credit to our Irish air." 
 
 Uncle Dominick's faded gallantry always had the 
 effect of making me feel like a fool, and before I could 
 rise to the occasion Willy struck in : — 
 
 " She was round to the stables with me, sir." 
 
 " Oho ! so that was it, was it ? " said my uncle, 
 with the smile I disliked so much ; and I felt that at 
 that moment my cheeks more resembled peonies than 
 roses. 
 
 " I was showing her the new mare," said Willy, " and 
 we're going to call her ' Alaska,' because that's the ship 
 that" — here he stopped — "because that's the fastest 
 ship between this and America." 
 
 " Why, is not that the vessel that brought you to us 
 
 4* 
 
52 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 from America ? " said Uncle Dominick, pursuing his 
 advantage with unexpected facetiousness. " I think 
 it is an admirable name, and will always have pleasant 
 associations for you and me, eh, Willy ? " 
 
 Willy made no reply, and my uncle rose from the 
 table, apparently well satisfied with himself, and left 
 the room humming a tune. 
 
 It was a softly brilliant afternoon. I thought, as I 
 started for the farm where I was to see Alaska put 
 through her paces, that I had never, even in Canada, 
 seen anything like the glow of the yellow leaves 
 against the blue sky — a blue so intense that it seemed 
 to press through the half-stripped branches. The 
 thick drifts of fallen leaves rustled like water about 
 my feet, and floated on the surface of the pools which 
 the rain of yesterday had formed in the low swampy 
 ground under the clump of elms at the bend of the 
 avenue. Just here a deep dyke ran parallel with the 
 drive, separating it from the great tract of turf- 
 bog that I had seen from my bedroom window. At 
 right angles from it another similar weedy water-way 
 stretched starkly across it to the distant silver of a 
 small lake. Where the two joined there was a rough 
 pier of large stones, and a dilapidated flat-bottomed 
 boat, used for bringing turf for the house, was tied to 
 an alder tree. Across the dyke was a bridge of logs, 
 from which a raised cart track wound over the bog 
 
An Irish Cousin, 53 
 
 like a long brown serpent. I crossed the bridge and 
 leaned upon the rusty iron gate that closed the ap- 
 proach to the bog road ; the keen scent of the sea 
 came to me across the heathery expanse, mingled 
 with the pure perfume of the peat, and I regretted 
 that my promise to Willy prevented me from following 
 the devious course of the cart track over the head- 
 land to where I heard the hollow draw of the sea on 
 the rocks at the other side. 
 
 Retracing my steps, I went up the avenue, and 
 found Willy, seated on Alaska, and accompanied by 
 the two dogs, waiting for me outside the entrance 
 gates. In the fence on the other side of the road was 
 an opening partially filled by a low wall of loose 
 stones — locally called a gap. 
 
 " I'll take her in at this gap," Willy said, turning the 
 mare to give her room, and then putting her at the 
 gap. Alaska, however, had probably her own reasons 
 for preferring the road, for she refused with an adroit 
 swerve, and a lively contest between her and her rider 
 ensued. 
 
 The latter's difficulties were considerably compli- 
 cated by Pat and Jinny, who, with ostentatious 
 activity, insisted on crossing and recrossing the gap at 
 the most critical moments. When Jinny at length 
 took up a commanding position on its topmost stone, 
 in order to watch, with palpitating interest and ejacu- 
 
54 ^^ I^^sh Cousin. 
 
 latory yelps, Alaska's misbehaviour, it seemed time for 
 me to intervene, and snatching her from what she 
 doubtless felt to be the front seat in the dress circle, I 
 held her wriggling in my arms, until at length Alaska, 
 with a bound that would have cleared a five-barred 
 gate, went into the field. 
 
 I climbed on to a gate-post, from whence I could 
 conveniently see the schooling process. Neither my 
 school days at Stuttgart, nor various sojournings in 
 Swiss pensions with my mother, not even my two 
 years of ranch life in Canada, had equipped me as a 
 critic of the performance, but it was not difficult to 
 see that Willy was master of the situation, and that 
 Alaska had realised the fact in all its bearings. It 
 was interesting to watch, but it was also rather cold, 
 and after a chilly quarter of an hour spent on my 
 gate-post, I left Willy in search of further educa- 
 tional difficulties and decided to go home without 
 him. 
 
 Outside the Durrus entrance gates was a large 
 gravel sweep, with high flanking walls, forming a 
 semicircular approach, and in these, at some height 
 from the ground, several niches had been made, large 
 enough to hold life-sized figures. As I climbed down 
 from my gate-post I saw that a young girl was stand- 
 ing in one of the niches. She was leaning slightly 
 forward, steadying herself with one hand on the wall, 
 
An Irish Cousin. 55 
 
 while with the other she shaded her eyes, as if looking 
 after Willy's departing figure. 
 
 On seeing me, she jumped quickly down, and ran 
 to open one of the small gates. I recognised the shy, 
 charming face of Anstey Brian, and stopped inside 
 the gate to speak to her. 
 
 " If Mr. Sarsfield comes, will you tell him I have 
 gone home ? " I said ; and was turning away, when 
 Anstey, with a nervous blush, said, in a soft, deprecat- 
 ing voice — 
 
 " Oh, miss, I beg your pardon ! I was very sorry 
 to hear you got anny sort of a fright from my mother 
 last night. It's just a little restless she is, those last 
 few nights, and my father'd be greatly vexed if he 
 thought you got anny annoyance by her." 
 
 I told her I had not really been frightened, while I 
 wondered a little how she had heard anything about 
 it. 
 
 " Indeed, miss, she'd hurt no one. She's this way, 
 foolish-like, this long time." 
 
 " How long is it since it began ? " I asked, while I 
 wished my hair would curl as attractively as hers. 
 
 " I never remember her anny other way, miss, 
 though my father says she was once a fine, hand- 
 some girl, and as sensible as yourself, miss." 
 
 "Did her mind go from an accident?" I asked. 
 
 " Why, then, indeed, miss, I don't rightly know. 
 
56 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 She had some strange turn in her always, and afther 
 I was born she got quare altogether ; and that's the 
 way she is ever since. Dumb, like she couldn't spake, 
 and silly in her mind." 
 
 I was looking in the direction of the lodge while 
 she spoke, half unconsciously noting how thickly the 
 ivy trails hung over its small windows, when I be- 
 came aware of a face looking out at me through one 
 of them. 
 
 I could distinguish little of it beyond the wide-open, 
 pale eyes, which were fixed upon me with concen- 
 trated, half-terrified intentness ; but with a moment- 
 ary return of last night's panic, I knew it to be the 
 face of the woman of whom we were speaking. Some- 
 thing of this must have been shown in my expression, 
 for Anstey, following the direction of my eyes, said — 
 
 " Don't be frightened at all, miss. Will I bring her 
 out here for your honour to see ? " 
 
 But I had no wish for any close acquaintance, so 
 hastily saying that, as it was already dark, I had no 
 time to stay, I wished Anstey good-night. 
 
 I must confess that, as I walked away from the 
 lodge, I was haunted by the frightened stare of Moll 
 Hourihane's eyes. There had been something in 
 their expression which, beneath the oblivion of 
 insanity, seemed almost to struggle into recognition. 
 At the remembrance of them, I felt the same pursuing 
 
An Irish Cousin. 57 
 
 dread creep over me again, and I hurried along the 
 avenue towards home. To my imagination, the 
 patches of grey lichen on the trees repeated in the 
 growing twilight the effect of the grey face at the 
 darkened window. The dead leaves awoke as I trod 
 on them, and followed me with whisperings and 
 cracklings. It was a relief to leave the little wood 
 behind, and to see in the library windows the flicker- 
 ing glow which told of a good fire, and suggested tea. 
 
 I was surprised and annoyed by the nervousness 
 which had lately come upon me. I prided myself 
 upon being a singularly practical, unimaginative per- 
 son ; and yet now, for the third time since my arrival 
 at Durrus, my self-possession had been disturbed by 
 a trivial event, which I should formerly have laughed 
 at. I walked rapidly to the house, determined for 
 the future to give no toleration to my foolish fancy, 
 and to 
 
 " Here you are ! " said Willy's voice from the hall 
 door. " Come on and have some tea." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 It occurred to me several times during the next few 
 days how strangely little I saw of my uncle. Except 
 at luncheon and dinner, he seldom or never appeared, 
 even in the evenings preferring to sit alone over his 
 wine in the gloomy dining-room, while Willy and I 
 were in the drawing-room. At ten o'clock regularly 
 the door would open, and his tall austere figure would 
 appear, holding my candle ready lighted ; and with 
 the same little speech about the advantages of early 
 hours for young people, he would wish me good- 
 night, politely standing at the foot of the stairs as I 
 went up. As a rule, I did not see him again until 
 luncheon next day, and I wondered more and more 
 how he spent his time. 
 
 Willy seemed to know little more about his father's 
 occupations than I did. 
 
 " Oh, / don't know what he's up to," he had said, 
 when I asked him. " He prowls about the place from 
 goodness knows what awful hour in the morning till 
 
 breakfast, and he sits in that den of his all day, 
 
 58 
 
An Irish Cousin. 59 
 
 more or less. I've plenty to do besides watching 
 him." 
 
 Whether or not this was Willy's real reason for 
 avoiding his father, it was a sufficiently plausible one. 
 All outdoor affairs at Durrus were under his control, 
 and at any time during the morning he might be seen 
 tramping in and out of the stable, or standing about 
 the yard, giving orders and talking to the numerous 
 workmen in a brogue in no way inferior to their own. 
 
 I may mention here that Willy, in common with 
 many Irish gentlemen when speaking to the lower 
 orders, paid them the delicate, if unintentional, com- 
 pliment of temporarily adopting their accent and 
 phraseology. I had plenty of opportunities of notic- 
 ing this, as Willy evidently considered that the 
 simplest method of providing for my amusement 
 was to take me about with him as much as possible. 
 I had at first rather dreaded the prospect of these 
 constant tete-d-tetes^ but I soon found that my cousin 
 had always plenty to talk about, and was one of the 
 few men I have met who were good listeners. 
 
 He contrived to include me in most of his comings 
 and goings about the place. He took me down to 
 the cove to see the seaweed carried up the rocks on 
 donkeys' backs to be spread on the land ; or I watched 
 with deep interest while the great turf-house was 
 slowly packed for the winter with the rough brown 
 
6o An Irish Cousin. 
 
 sods ; or, standing at a little distance, I listened with 
 __respect to his arbitration of a dispute between two of 
 the tenants, who generally accepted his verdict as if it 
 had been a pronouncement of the Delphic oracle. 
 He was very popular with the country people, as 
 much perhaps from his invincible shrewdness as from 
 his ready good-nature, and subsequent observation has 
 shown me that nothing so much compels the respect 
 and admiration of the Irish peasant as the rare astute- 
 ness that can outwit him. 
 
 Thursday was fair day at Esker, and Willy, who 
 regarded the attending of fairs as both a duty and 
 privilege, proceeded thither with the first light of day. 
 To say at cock-crow would scarcely be an exaggera- 
 tion, for, knowing well the absurdity of expecting any 
 servant within the walls of Durrus to call him, he had 
 — so he informed me — resorted to the device of 
 putting over-night a vigorous barn-door cock on 
 the top of his wardrobe. The cock's conscientious 
 announcement of dawn was, as may be imagined, of 
 a sufficiently rousing character, and in consequence 
 Willy's arrival at even the most distant fairs was as a 
 rule timely. 
 
 The result of his absence was a solitary morning 
 for me, and lunch alone with Uncle Dominick. Al- 
 though faintly alarmed at the latter prospect, I was 
 at the same time glad of the chance which it offered. 
 
An Irish Cousin. 6i 
 
 I had not yet abandoned the romantic hope of 
 winning the heart of my father's only brother. 
 
 But, regarded as a first step in this direction, luncheon 
 was a disappointment. My uncle did not abate an 
 atom of his usual impenetrable civility, and conversed 
 with me on entirely uninteresting topics, with a fluency 
 that was as admirable as it was provoking. I was 
 absolutely at a loss to understand him, and puzzled 
 myself a great deal as to what he thought about me. 
 The compliments which he never lost an opportunity 
 of making, and his evident desire that Willy should 
 do all in his power to make my visit agreeable to me, 
 were not, I felt sure, any real indications of his feelings. 
 That he took an interest in me, I was certain. Often 
 I surprised in his cold eyes a still scrutiny, a watchful 
 appraising glance that suggested mistrust, if not dis- 
 like ; and although his manner was distant and self- 
 engrossed, I had a conviction that little that I said or 
 did escaped him. 
 
 It was a depressing day. A quiet rain trickled 
 steadily down, and through the blurred windows the 
 trees looked naked and disconsolate against the threat- 
 ening sky. I made up my mind that it was not a day 
 to go out, and, with a pitying thought of Willy at the 
 fair, I heaped turf and logs upon the library fire, and 
 determined to fall back upon the last refuge of the 
 destitute, and to write a foreign letter. 
 
62 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 After a period of virtuous endeavour with this 
 intent, I discovered that I was becoming bored to 
 stupefaction, and gave up the struggle. There was 
 something in the air of Durrus antagonistic to letter- 
 writing ; or perhaps it was the impossibility of writing 
 about a place which was so different from anything 
 that I or my correspondents had been accustomed to, 
 and was at the same time so devoid of interest for 
 them. I bethought me of a certain old book of field- 
 sports which Willy had commended to my notice, and 
 I wandered round the dusty shelves, looking for it 
 among the exceptionally uninteresting collection of 
 books which formed my uncle's library. Not being 
 able to find it, I took the bold step of going to his 
 room to ask him if he could tell me where it was. 
 
 As I went down the long dark passage that led to 
 his room, I was keenly alive to the temerity of the 
 proceeding, and knocked at the door with some trepi- 
 dation. 
 
 " What is it ? " came an unencouraging voice from 
 within. 
 
 " Oh ! I only wanted to ask you about a book. 
 Uncle Dominick," I began. 
 
 The door was opened almost immediately. 
 
 " Come in, my dear Theo," said my uncle, with 
 what was intended for a smile of welcome. " What 
 book is it you want ? " 
 
An Irish Cousin. (y'^ 
 
 I explained, adding that Willy had recommended 
 the book to me. 
 
 " Oh, Willy told you of it, did he ? " said my uncle, 
 with interest ; " and you cannot find it in the library ? " 
 — turning towards a large cupboard that filled a recess 
 on one side of the chimney-piece. " Perhaps I have it 
 in here." 
 
 I heard a faint jingle of glass as he opened it ; but 
 the doors of fluted green silk, latticed with brass wire, 
 prevented, from where I was standing, my seeing 
 inside. My uncle ran his finger along one of the 
 shelves in search of the book I wanted. Meantime I 
 looked curiously about me. 
 
 It was a small, dingy room, disproportionately high 
 for its size, with county and estate maps hanging on 
 its damp-stained walls. A handsome old escritoire 
 stood in the corner to the right of the lofty window 
 that faced the door by which I had entered. On one 
 or two tables, dusty pamphlets and papers lay about 
 in a comfortless way. Right in front of the fire was a 
 battered leather-covered arm-chair, in which my uncle 
 had been sitting, though there was no book or news- 
 paper to indicate that he had been occupied in any 
 way. 
 
 " It is an unusual thing to hear of Willy recom- 
 mending a book. I suppose this is due to your 
 civilising influence ? " said my uncle, emerging from 
 
64 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 the recesses of the cupboard with the book in question 
 in his hand. 
 
 " Oh, well," I replied, laughing, " this is not a very 
 high class of literature." 
 
 " It is, nevertheless, a classic in its way," he said, 
 opening the book ; " and the prints are very good 
 indeed." 
 
 I came and stood beside him, looking at the illus- 
 trations with him. 
 
 "The Regulator on Hertford Bridge Flat," "The 
 Race, Epsom," " The Whissendine Brook " — we 
 studied them together. Uncle Dominick becoming 
 unexpectedly interesting and friendly in his reminis- 
 cences of his own sporting days when he was a young 
 man at Oxford. 
 
 As he paused in looking at the pictures to enlarge 
 upon an experience of his own, the pages slipped from 
 his stiff bony fingers, and, turning over of their own 
 accord, remained open at the title-page. There I saw, 
 in faded ink, the words, " Owen Sarsfield, the gift of 
 his affectionate Brother, D. S.". 
 
 My uncle looked at the inscription for half an in- 
 stant, and, drawing a quick breath, closed the book. 
 
 " Uncle Dominick," I said, with a sudden impulse, 
 " won't you tell me something about my father ? My 
 mother could never bear to speak of him, and I know 
 so little about him." 
 
An Irish Cousin. 6^ 
 
 He turned his back to me, and replaced the book 
 in the cupboard, feeling for its place in the shelves in 
 a dull, mechanical way. 
 
 " I hate to give you pain," I went on ; " but if you 
 knew how much I have thought about him since I 
 have been here ! I have always so connected him and 
 Durrus together in my mind." 
 
 He walked back to the fireplace, and placed one 
 hand on the narrow marble shelf before answering. 
 
 "There are many circumstances connected with 
 your father which make it painful for me to speak of 
 him," he began, in a quiet, measured voice. " I loved 
 him very dearly ; we were always together until his 
 lamentable quarrel with my father." 
 
 He walked to the window, and stood looking out 
 through the streaming panes, with his hands behind 
 his back. After a few moments of waiting for him to 
 speak again, I could bear the silence no longer. 
 
 "But what was the quarrel about? Was it my 
 father's fault ? " 
 
 " It is a hard thing to say to you," replied my uncle, 
 turning round and looking past me into the fire, " but, 
 under the circumstances, I feel that it is my duty to 
 let you know the truth. Your father unfortunately 
 got into money difficulties while at Oxford, which he 
 was afraid to mention to my father. He went to 
 London to study for the Bar with these debts still 
 
 5 
 
66 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 hanging over him, while I came home and undertook 
 the management of the property." He paused, and 
 passed a large silk handkerchief over his face. " Owen 
 always had a passion for the stage ; he got entangled 
 with a theatrical set in London, and finally he took 
 the fatal step of making himself responsible for the 
 expenses of an — in fact, of a travelling company of 
 actors, with, I need hardly tell you, what result. 
 Instead of the enterprise paying his debts, as he had 
 hoped, he found himself liable for large sums of 
 money." 
 
 Uncle Dominick came back to the fireplace, where 
 I was standing nervously grasping the shabby back of 
 the leather arm-chair. I suppose my face told of the 
 anxious conjectures that filled my mind, for, looking 
 at me not unkindly, my uncle went on : — 
 
 " I did all I could for him with my father, but he 
 was a man of very violent temper, and was absolutely 
 infuriated with Owen. He paid the debts, but he re- 
 fused to see Owen again, and insisted on his leaving 
 the country. I contrived to see him before he left 
 England, and a few years afterwards he wrote to tell 
 me of his marriage with your mother, but from that 
 day until I heard of his death in Cork, I neither heard 
 of nor from him." 
 
 " But," I broke in, " why did he never write to you ? " 
 
 My uncle hesitated, and drew his hand heavily over 
 
An Irish Cousin. 67 
 
 his moustache. I saw that it trembled. He sat down 
 in the chair by which I stood, and did not answer. I 
 put my hand on his shoulder. 
 
 "Surely he had not quarrelled with you, Uncle 
 Dominick ? Or was it that you — that you thought 
 
 he had behaved too " I could not finish the 
 
 sentence. 
 
 " No, no, my dear," he said quickly ; " I had no such 
 feelings. I would have done anything in the world 
 for him at that time." He cleared his throat and con- 
 tinued huskily : " It was Owen who misjudged me, 
 who misconstrued all my efforts on his behalf, who 
 ignored my offers of assistance. I cannot bear to 
 think of what I went through," he ended hastily, leav- 
 ing his chair and again walking to the window. It 
 was a French window, and a few stone steps led from 
 it to the grass outside. He opened one door and 
 looked down the drive. 
 
 It was getting darker, and the rain came driving 
 in from the sea in ghost-like white clouds ; he stood 
 there motionless, and apparently oblivious of the drops 
 that fell from the roof on his head and shoulders. 
 
 " Are you looking out for Willy ? " I said at length. 
 
 " Oh, Willy ! Yes ; is he not home yet ? " he 
 answered absently, closing the window. 
 
 " Is there any portrait of my father in the house?" 
 I asked, as he turned towards me, ignoring his remark 
 
 5* 
 
68 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 about Willy in my anxiety to put a question that 
 since my arrival at Durrus I had often wished to ask, 
 and feeling that it might not be easy to find another 
 opportunity of reopening the subject. 
 
 " There is one, taken when he was a child ; it hangs 
 in the corridor outside your bedroom door." 
 
 " But I think there are two portraits of boys there," 
 I persisted. " I am afraid I should not know which 
 was his." 
 
 My uncle rose wearily from his seat. "If you wish, 
 I will show it to you now," he said. "If you will go 
 upstairs, I will follow you in an instant." 
 
 I went slowly up the passage, and before I had 
 reached the foot of the stairs he overtook me, and we 
 went up together. He had his crimson silk handker- 
 chief in his hand, and I remember wondering why he 
 kept pressing it to his mouth as we walked along the 
 corridor side by side. 
 
 A faint light shone through the open door of the 
 room over the hall door, the one that opened into 
 mine, and against the grey light I saw in the window 
 a crouching figure indistinctly silhouetted. 
 
 My uncle saw it too. With a muttered exclamation 
 of anger, he walked quickly past me to the open door- 
 way. 
 
 " What are you doing here ? " he said sternly. 
 " You know I desired you not to come upstairs, and 
 
An Irish Cousin. 69 
 
 this is the second time this week I have found you 
 here." 
 
 He stepped back to one side, and a tall woman 
 with a shawl covering her bent shoulders shuffled out 
 of the room. I had already guessed that it was Moll 
 Hourihane, and I shrank back into the doorway of 
 my own room ; but she stopped, and, stretching out 
 her neck towards me, she fixed her eyes upon my face 
 with an expression of hungry eagerness. 
 
 " Did you hear what I ordered you ? Go down at 
 once," repeated my uncle, placing himself between her 
 and me. " Let me never find you here again." 
 
 She immediately turned and slunk away round the 
 far side of the corridor, and, looking back once more 
 at me, disappeared through the door that led to the 
 servants' quarters. 
 
 I gave a sigh of relief. " That woman terrifies me," 
 I said. " I wish she would not look at me in that 
 dreadful way." 
 
 " You need not be alarmed " — he spoke breathlessly 
 and with unusual excitement — " she is perfectly harm- 
 less ; but I do not choose to have her roaming about 
 the house. These are the pictures of which we were 
 speaking," he continued. " The one to the right was 
 done of me, and this — this is the other " — pointing to 
 an old-fashioned looking portrait of a pretty dark- 
 haired boy holding a spaniel in his arms. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 *' On the first day of March 
 
 In the year '43 
 The first recreation 
 In this counthry, 
 The King's County gentlemen 
 O'er hills, dales, and rocks, 
 They rode out so gallantly in search of a fox ! " 
 
 Willy's voice was light-hearted enough to match my 
 own feelings, as Blackthorn, looking sedately amiable, 
 was led up to the hall door next morning. In spite 
 of a fast-beating heart I felt as I looked at him that 
 I might safely trust him to initiate me into the 
 mysteries of cross-country riding in the county Cork. 
 
 The day was lovely — sunny and mild, with a linger- 
 ing dampness in the air that told of light rain during 
 the night. I settled myself in the saddle, intoxicated 
 by the idea that I was actually going out hunting for 
 the first time, though I could not help a tremor of 
 anxiety as I wondered if Willy would find his con- 
 fidence in me had been misplaced. 
 
 I could hear him now in the hall, knocking down 
 
 umbrellas and sticks in search of his whip, and 
 
 70 
 
An Irish Cousin. 71 
 
 presently, in response to his shouts, old Roche came 
 shuffling to his aid. 
 
 " I was putting up your sandwiches, sir," he said. 
 
 "Go on, and give hers to Miss Theo, and hurry," 
 said Willy's voice, in a tone indicative of exasperation. 
 
 Roche bustled out on to the steps with a small 
 packet in his hand, a jovial smile on his face. He 
 looked at me, and his face changed. 
 
 "My God! 'tis Master Owen himself!" he said, 
 as if involuntarily. " I beg your pardon, miss," he 
 continued, coming down the steps and putting the 
 sandwiches into the case. " I suppose 'twas the man's 
 hat, and the sight of you up on the horse, made me 
 think of * Heir Sarsfield,' as we called your father." 
 
 Willy, at all times a carefully attired person, was 
 to-day absolutely resplendent in his red coat and 
 buckskins, and as we rode slowly down the avenue, 
 I was impelled to tell him how beautiful both he and 
 the mare looked. He beamed upon me with a simple 
 satisfaction. 
 
 " Do you think so ? Well, now, do you know what 
 / was thinking ? That no matter how good-looking 
 a girl is, she always looks fifty per cent, better on a 
 horse ! " 
 
 " That is a most ingenious way of praising your own 
 horse," I said. 
 
 " Ah now, you know what I mean quite well," re- 
 
72 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 joined Willy, with a look which was intended to be 
 sentimental, but, by reason of his irrepressibly good 
 spirits, rather fell away into a grin. 
 
 The meet was to be at the Clashmore cross-roads, 
 and we passed many people on their way there. 
 White-flannel-coated country boys and young men 
 — "going for the best places to head the fox," as 
 Willy explained, and chattering swarms of National- 
 School children. Every now and then a young farmer 
 or two came clattering along, on rough, short-necked 
 horses, whose heavy tails swung from side to side as 
 they trotted at full speed past us, and an occasional red 
 coat gave a reality to the fact that I was going out fox- 
 hunting. The cross-roads were now in sight, and I 
 saw a number of riders and people who had driven to 
 see the meet, waiting for the hounds to come up. 
 
 "Why, I declare, here are the two Miss Burkes 
 coming along in that old shandrydan of theirs with 
 the bedridden grey pony ! " said Willy, looking back. 
 " Hold on, Theo. I must introduce you to them ; 
 they're great specimens." 
 
 We allowed the pony-carriage to overtake us, and 
 Willy, pulling off his hat with as fine a flourish as his 
 gold hat-guard would allow, asked leave to introduce 
 me. 
 
 "With the greatest of pleasure, Willy. Indeed, we'd 
 no idea till yesterday, when we met Doctor Kelly in 
 
An Irish Cousin. 'j^ 
 
 town, that Miss Sorsefield had arrived." This from 
 the elder Miss Burke, a large, gaunt lady with a good- 
 humoured red face and an enormous Roman nose, 
 and a curiously deep voice, whose varying inflec- 
 tions ran up and down the vocal scale in booming 
 cadences. 
 
 "You ought to be riding the pony, Miss Burke. 
 She looks in great form." 
 
 " Oh, now, Willy ! you're always joking me about 
 poor old Zoe. You're very naughty about him. 
 Isn't he, Bessy?" 
 
 The younger Miss Burke, thus appealed to, replied 
 with a genteel simper, " Reely, Mimi, I am quite 
 ashamed of the way you and the captain go on. 
 Don't ask vie to interfere with your nonsense ! We 
 hope. Miss Sarsfield " — turning a face that was a pale 
 dull replica of her sister's towards me — " to have the 
 pleasure of calling upon you very soon. But oh, my 
 gracious ! there are the dogs and Mr. Dennehy com- 
 ing ! And look at us keeping you delaying here ! 
 Good-bye, Miss Sarsfield. I hope you'll obtain the 
 brush ! " 
 
 At the cross-roads we found the master of the Esker 
 hunt, a big, wild-looking man with a long reddish-grey 
 beard and a moustache, seated on an ugly yellow horse 
 with a black stripe, like a donkey's, down his back. 
 
 "How do you do, Mr. Dennehy?" said Willy, as 
 
74 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 we rode up. " Nice day. This is my cousin, Miss 
 Sarsfield. I hope you'll show her some sport. Morn- 
 ing, Nugent. How are you. Miss Connie? Do you 
 see the new mount I have ? " and Willy forgot his 
 duties as my chaperon, in congenial conversation with 
 Miss O'Neill. 
 
 Mr. Dennehy, with what was, I believe, unwonted 
 condescension, began to speak to me. 
 
 " I'm delighted to see you out, Miss Sarsfield," he 
 said in a slow, solemn brogue. " I hope we'll have a 
 good day for you, and if there's a fox in Clashmore at 
 all, these little hounds of mine will have him out." 
 
 I did not know much about hounds, but even to 
 inexperienced eyes these appeared to be a very motley 
 collection. Mr. Dennehy saw me look with interest 
 at two strange little dogs, somewhat resembling long- 
 legged black-and-tan terriers. 
 
 "Well, Miss Sarsfield, those are the two best hounds 
 I have, though they're ugly creatures enough. And 
 there's a good hound. Loo, Solomon, good hound ! 
 That's a hound will only spake to game." 
 
 Here Mr. Dennehy produced a battered little horn, 
 and with two or three bleats upon it to collect his 
 hounds, he put the yellow horse at a yawning black 
 ditch that divided the road from a narrow strip of 
 rough ground, perpendicularly from which rose a 
 steep hill covered with laurels. The yellow horse 
 
An Irish Cousin. 75 
 
 took the ditch and the low stone wall on its farther 
 side with unassuming skill, and he and Mr. Dennehy 
 were presently lost to sight in the wood. 
 
 Willy now came up to me with Miss O'Neill and 
 her brother, and I was introduced to the former, a 
 small, fair-haired girl in a smart habit, with brown 
 eyes and a high colour. She nodded to me with 
 cheery indifference, and continued her conversation 
 with Willy, leaving me to talk to her brother. 
 
 This I found to be a somewhat difficult task. His 
 manner was exceedingly polite, but he appeared to be 
 engrossed in watching the covert, and we finally re- 
 lapsed into silence. At intervals Mr. Dennehy's red 
 coat showed between the low close-growing trees as 
 he led his horse through the covert, and we could hear 
 his original method of encouraging his hounds. 
 
 "Thatsy medarlins! Thatsy-atsy-atsy ! Turrn him 
 out, Woodbine ! Hi, Waurior, good hound ! " 
 
 I felt inclined to laugh, but as no one else seemed 
 amused, I concluded that this was classical " hound- 
 language " and waited respectfully for further develop- 
 ments. Presently, with a few words to Willy, Mr. 
 O'Neill put spurs to his bay horse and galloped off. 
 In a moment or two. Miss O'Neill, without further 
 ceremony, followed her brother to the other end of the 
 covert, and Willy and I remained with about twenty 
 other riders on the road. 
 
76 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 " See here ! " he said in low, excited tones. " You 
 keep close to me. Old Dennehy's got a beastly trick 
 of slipping away with his hounds directly they find, 
 and making fools of the whole field, leaving them the 
 wrong side of the covert. But I think we're in a good 
 place here. Whisht ! wasn't that a hound speaking ? 
 Come on this way." 
 
 We clattered down the road helter-skelter, but were 
 stopped by an excited rush of country boys with shouts 
 of, " He's gone aisht ! He's broke the far side ! " and 
 at the same instant Mr. and Miss O'Neill came pound- 
 ing down a ride out of the covert. 
 
 " It's just as I thought ; Dennehy's gone away with 
 the hounds by himself," called out Mr. O'Neill. " A 
 country fellow saw the fox heading for Braad, and 
 Dennehy all alone with the hounds, going like mad ! " 
 
 At this juncture I think it better not to record 
 Willy's comments. 
 
 " It's all right, Nugent," said Connie, whirling her 
 mare round. " I know a way over the hill lower down." 
 
 " Don't mind her, Theo," said Willy in my ear ; "just 
 you stick to me." 
 
 We had galloped past the eastern bound of the wood, 
 and as he spoke he turned his horse and jumped the 
 fence on the right of the road. Blackthorn followed 
 of his own accord, and I found that an Irish bank did 
 not feel as difficult as it looked. 
 
An Irish Cousin, 77 
 
 Willy turned in his saddle to watch me. 
 
 " Well done ! that's your sort," he shouted. " Hold 
 him now, and hit him ! This is a big place we're 
 coming to." 
 
 We were over before I had time to think, and to m}'' 
 horror I saw that Willy was making for a hill that 
 looked like the side of a house, covered with furze. 
 
 " There's a way up here, but you'll have to lead. 
 Nip off! I'll go first." 
 
 I was fearfully out of breath, but Willy allowed no 
 time for delay. Up the hill we scrambled. Blackthorn 
 leading me considerably more than I led him. After 
 the first few seconds of climbing, I felt as if it would 
 be impossible to go on. My habit hindered me at 
 every step. Blackthorn's jerks and tugs at the reins 
 nearly threw me on my face, and the fear of Willy 
 alone prevented me from letting him finish the ascent 
 by himself. When at last we reached the top, Willy 
 and I were both so much out of breath that we could 
 not speak, and I wished for nothing so much as to lie 
 down and have apoplexy comfortably. But Willy, 
 with a blazing face, made signs to me to mount at 
 once, and, jerking me into the saddle, we again set off. 
 
 The top of the hill which we had now gained was 
 rough, boggy ground. Down to our right lay the 
 gleaming laurel covert, and in front of us the hill 
 sloped gradually down into a low tract of bog and 
 
78 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 lakes, with hills beyond. We could see nothing of 
 any one, but a countryman, on the top of a bank 
 above the wood, waved semaphore-like directions that 
 the hounds were running to the north-east. 
 
 " Hullo ! here's Nugent," said Willy, in a not over- 
 pleased voice, and as he spoke I saw Mr. CNeill's 
 bay horse coming along over the hill. He soon over- 
 took us, looking, I was glad to see, as heated and 
 dishevelled as Willy and I. 
 
 " 1 knew that way of Connie's was no use, so I came 
 back and went up the hill after you. Where are the 
 hounds ? " 
 
 " Going north-east, a fellow told me. Look ! Look 
 at the brutes ! There they are on the hill across the 
 bog, going straight for Braad ! " 
 
 "There's only one way to pick them up," said 
 Nugent, with what seemed to me unnatural calm — 
 " we must cross the bog." 
 
 " The bog is it ? " echoed Willy. " Try it if you like, 
 but if you once get in you'll not get out in a hurry ! " 
 
 " Do you mind trying. Miss Sarsfield ? " demanded 
 Mr. O'Neill. 
 
 " Whatever Willy likes,'* I said, diplomatically. 
 
 " Oh, all right," said Willy. " Fire away, but you'll 
 have to pay for the funeral, Nugent." 
 
 We had now reached the foot of the hill, and we 
 galloped along the verge of the bog for a short distance 
 
An Irish Cousin. 79 
 
 till we came to where a broad and broken bank tra- 
 versed it in a north-easterly direction. 
 
 " Here's the place. If we can get along the top of 
 this, we might just hit them off," Mr. O'Neill said. He 
 went first, and the horses picked their way along the 
 top of the bank like cats, though the sides crumbled 
 under their feet, and sometimes the whole structure 
 tottered as if it were going to collapse into the deep 
 dykes on either side. At last it broke sharp off, at 
 a pool of black mire. Our guide dismounted and 
 jumped down into the bog, pulling his horse after him, 
 and we slowly dragged our way through the heavy 
 ground to the farther side of the bog. 
 
 Here we were confronted by the most formidable 
 obstacle we had yet come to. It consisted of a 
 low, soft-looking bank, with a wide boggy ditch 
 beyond it. 
 
 " We've got to try it, I suppose," said Willy, " but 
 it's a thundering big jump, and there's a deuced bad 
 landing beyond the water." 
 
 He and Mr. O'Neill remounted, and the latter put 
 his horse at the place. The bay's hoofs sank deep 
 in the bank, but he made an effort that landed him 
 safely on the opposite side on comparatively firm 
 ground. My turn came next. 
 
 " Whip him over it ! " exclaimed Willy. 
 
 I did so as well as I was able, but the treacherous 
 
8o An Irish Cousin. 
 
 ground broke under Blackthorn's feet, and he all but 
 floundered back into the ditch as he landed. 
 
 " Oh, Willy ! " I cried, " I'm afraid you'll never get 
 her over now that the bank is broken." 
 
 But Willy was already too much occupied with 
 Alaska to make any reply. She refused several times ; 
 finally, yielding to the inevitable, she threw herself 
 rather than jumped off the bank, and the next moment 
 she and Willy were in the ditch. 
 
 I was terrified as to the consequences, and was much 
 relieved when I saw Willy, black from head to foot, 
 crawl from the mare's back on to the more solid mud 
 of the bank on our side. Without a word he caught 
 Alaska by the head, and began to try and pull her 
 out. His extraordinary appearance, and the fact 
 that he was much too angry to be in the least con- 
 scious of its absurdity, had the disastrous effect of 
 reducing both Mr. O'Neill and me to heartless laughter. 
 
 " I am very sorry, Willy," I panted, " and I am 
 delighted you're not hurt ; but if you could only see 
 yourself!" 
 
 Willy silently continued his efforts. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. O'Neill, do get down and help him," I 
 continued. 
 
 " I don't want any help, thank you," returned my 
 cousin, with restrained fury. " Come up out of that, 
 you brute ! " — applying his hunting-crop with vigour 
 
An Irish Cousin. 8i 
 
 to the recumbent Alaska, who thereupon, with two or 
 three violent efforts, heaved herself out of the slough. 
 All this time Mr. O'Neill had been grinning with that 
 unfeigned delight which all hunting-men seem to derive 
 from the misfortunes of their friends. 
 
 " You have toned down that new coat, Willy," he 
 remarked ; " and I must say the little mare takes to 
 water like an otter." 
 
 " Oh, I dare say it's very funny indeed ! " retorted 
 Willy, leading Alaska on to the higher ground where 
 we were standing ; " but if you'd an eye in your head 
 you'd see the mare is dead lame." 
 
 " By George ! so she is. That's hard luck. She 
 must have given herself a strain." 
 
 "Well, whatever ails her, there's no use in your 
 standing there looking at me," replied Willy. " I 
 can get home all right. I don't want Theo to lose 
 the run, and you'll head them yet if you put on the 
 pace." 
 
 His magnanimity was almost more crushing than 
 his wrath. I was filled with contrition, and begged 
 to be allowed to stay with him. But I was given no 
 voice in the matter ; my offer was scouted, and before 
 I had fairly grasped the situation I was galloping up 
 a narrow mountain road after Nugent O'Neill. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 After we had gone about a quarter of a mile, my 
 companion pulled up. 
 
 " I think our best chance is to wait here," he said. 
 " From the way the hounds were running, they are 
 bound to come this way." 
 
 The road up which we had ridden formed the only 
 pass between the hills on either side of us, and beyond 
 was a low-lying level stretch of country. 
 
 " If he'll only run down that way " Mr. O'Neill 
 
 began, but suddenly stopped, and silently pointed 
 with his whip to the hill at our right. 
 
 '' What is it ? " I asked, in incautiously loud 
 tones. 
 
 He looked for an instant as if he were going to 
 shake his whip at me, and again pointed, this time to 
 a narrow strip of field beside the road. I saw what 
 looked like a little brown shadow fleeting across it, 
 and in another moment the fox appeared on the top 
 of the wall a few yards ahead of us. He looked about 
 
 him as if considering his next move, and then, seeing 
 
 82 
 
An Irish Cousin. 83 
 
 us, he leaped into the road, and, running along it, 
 vanished over the crest of the hill. 
 
 Mr. O'Neill turned to me with such excitement 
 that he seemed a different person. " Here are the 
 hounds ! " he said, " and not a soul with them ! " 
 
 Down the hill the pack came like a torrent, and 
 were over the wall in a second. They spread them- 
 selves over the road in front of us as if at fault ; but one 
 of the little black-and-tans justified Mr. Dennehy's 
 good opinion by picking up the line, and at once the 
 whole pack were racing full cry up the road. 
 
 I have often looked back with considerable amuse- 
 ment to that moment. I was suddenly possessed by 
 a kind of frenzy of excitement that deprived me of all 
 power of speech. I heard my companion tell me to 
 keep as close to him as I could, but I was incapable 
 of any response save an inebriated smile and a wholly 
 absurd flourish of my whip. 
 
 As this does not purport to be a hunting story, I 
 will not describe the run which followed. I believe it 
 lasted fifteen minutes, and included some of the tradi- 
 tional " big leps " of the country. But to me it was 
 merely an indefinite period of delirious happiness. I 
 scarcely felt Blackthorn jump, and was only conscious 
 of the thud of the big bay horse's hoofs in front of 
 me and the rushing of the wind in my ears. At last 
 
 a wood seemed to heave up before me ; the bay horse 
 
 6 * 
 
84 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 was pulled up sharply, and I found myself almost in 
 the middle of the hounds. 
 
 " By George ! he's just saved his brush," said Mr. 
 O'Neill, breathlessly ; " he's gone to ground in there, 
 and we'll never get him out. I hope you are none the 
 worse for your gallop," he continued politely. " It 
 was pretty fast while it lasted." He dismounted as 
 he spoke, and began to investigate the hole in which 
 the fox had taken refuge, and while he was thus en- 
 gaged I saw Mr. Dennehy on his yellow horse coming 
 across the next field. When he came up he was, 
 rather to my surprise, amiably pleased at our success 
 in picking up the hounds, and regretted we had not 
 killed our fox. 
 
 "You two and meself were the only ones in this 
 run," he said. 
 
 My thoughts at once reverted to poor Willy. I 
 asked Mr. Dennehy if he had seen anything of him, 
 and heard that he had passed my cousin, slowly 
 making his way home. 
 
 " Oh, 1 think I ought to go home at once," I said 
 to Mr. O'Neill. " I might overtake him if you will 
 tell me where I am to go." 
 
 " If you will allow me, I think you had better let 
 me show you the way," he answered, with a resump- 
 tion of the stiff manner which had at first struck me. 
 It was only too obvious that politeness alone had 
 
An Irish Cousin. 85 
 
 prompted this offer, but my ignorance of the country 
 made it impossible for me to refuse it. I could but 
 hope that by speedily overtaking Willy I should be 
 able to release my unwilling pilot, and with affectionate 
 farewells from Mr. Dennehy, we proceeded to make 
 the best of our way to the nearest road. 
 
 Our way lay through what seemed to me a chess- 
 board of absurdly small fields. I could not imagine 
 where all the stones came from that were squandered 
 in the heaping up of the walls that divided them from 
 each other, nor did I greatly care, so long as the 
 necessity of jumping them gave me something to 
 amuse me, and made conversation with Mr. O'Neill 
 disjointed and unexacting. 
 
 What little I had seen of him at the covert-side had 
 not inspired me with any anxiety to pursue his ac- 
 quaintance, and once we had got out on to the road, 
 with all the responsibilities of a tete-d-tete staring us in 
 the face, my heart died within me. Never had I met 
 any one who was so difficult to talk to. I found that 
 I was gradually assuming the ungrateful position of a 
 catechist, and, while filled with smothered indignation 
 at my companion's perfunctory answers, I could not 
 repress a certain admiration for the composure with 
 which he allowed the whole stress of discourse to rest 
 upon my shoulders. I at length made up my mind 
 to give myself no more trouble in the cause of polite- 
 
86 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 ness, and resolved that until he chose to speak I would 
 not do so. 
 
 A long silence was the result. We rode on side 
 by side, my companion staring steadily between his 
 horse's ears, while I wondered how soon we should 
 be likely to meet Willy, and thought how very much 
 more I should have preferred his society. 
 
 " I suppose you find this place rather dull ? " Mr. 
 O'Neill's uninterested voice at last broke the silence. 
 " I have always heard that Canadian young ladies had 
 a very gay time." 
 
 I at once felt that this insufferably old young man 
 was trying to talk down to my level — the level of a 
 " Canadian young lady " — and my smouldering re- 
 sentment got the better of my politeness. 
 
 " I very seldom find myself bored by places. It 
 is, as a rule, the people of the place that bore 
 me. 
 
 " Really," he returned, with perfect serenity. " Yes, 
 I dare say that is true ; but ladies do not generally 
 get on very well without shops and dances." 
 
 " Strange as it may appear, neither of those en- 
 trancing occupations is essential to my happiness." 
 
 I felt this to be very crushing. So, apparently, did 
 Mr. O'Neill, for he turned and looked at me with faint 
 surprise, but made no reply. Another pause ensued, 
 and I began to repent of my crossness. 
 
An Irish Cousin, 87 
 
 It was clearly my turn to make the next remark, 
 and I said, in a more conciliatory voice — 
 
 " I suppose you don't have very much to do here, 
 either ? " 
 
 " Oh, I am not here very much, and I can always 
 get as much shooting and fishing as I want ; but I 
 fancy my sisters find it rather dull." 
 
 " Are your sisters fond of music ? I was very glad 
 to find a piano at Durrus." 
 
 His face assumed for the first time a look of interest. 
 
 " My eldest sister plays a good deal ; and Connie 
 has a banjo, though I can't say she knows much about 
 it ; and I play the fiddle a little. I believe in these 
 parts we are considered quite a gifted family." 
 
 I felt that I had, so to speak, "struck ile". 
 
 "Do you play the violin?" I said, with excite- 
 ment. " I delight in playing accompaniments ! I 
 hope you will bring your music with you when you 
 come to dinner." 
 
 " Oh, thanks very much ; my sister always accom- 
 panies me," he responded coolly. 
 
 His deliberate self-possession was infinitely exas- 
 perating in my then state of mind, and I repented 
 the enthusiasm that had laid me open to this snub. 
 I was hurriedly framing an effective rejoinder, when 
 he again spoke, this time in tones of considerable 
 amusement. 
 
88 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 " Do you see that man leading a lame horse down 
 the road ? He may be a chimney-sweep, but I am 
 inclined to think it is Willy." 
 
 As we came nearer, I was secretly unspeakably 
 tickled by Willy's inky and bedraggled appearance ; 
 but I was too proud to join in Mr. O'Neill's open 
 amusement, until I noticed for the first time the 
 incongruously rakish effect imparted to Willy's forlorn 
 figure by the fact that his hat had been crushed in. 
 My injured dignity collapsed, and, holding on to my 
 saddle for support, I laughed till the tears poured 
 down my cheeks. 
 
 It was at this singularly unpropitious moment that 
 Willy, hearing our horses' feet, turned round. 
 
 " Oh, there you are ! " he called out. " Did you 
 meet the hounds ? " Then, in a voice which showed 
 his good temper had not returned, " You seem to be 
 greatly amused, whatever you did." 
 
 I thought it better to ignore the latter part of the 
 sentence, and dashed at once into a confused account 
 of our exploits, Mr. O'Neill helping out my narrative 
 with a few geographical details ; to all of which 
 Willy listened with morose attention. 
 
 "And Blackthorn jumped splendidly, Willy," I 
 said. " I was so sorry you weren't there." 
 
 " H'm ! " said Willy ; " very sorry indeed, I've no 
 doubt!" 
 
An Irish Cousin. 89 
 
 Mr. O'Neill saw that the situation was becoming 
 strained. 
 
 " As I can't be of any further help to you or 
 Miss Sarsfield," he said, " I think I will go back and 
 look for the hounds;" and, wishing us good-bye, he 
 rode off. 
 
 " Well," Willy began viciously, " you seem to find 
 O'Neill cheerful enough, after all." 
 
 ''Indeed! don't, Willy," I said, with vigour; "he 
 was perfectly odious^ 
 
 " You didn't look as if you thought him so a while 
 ago, when you were both near falling off your horses 
 with laughing. I suppose" — with sudden penetration 
 — " that it was at me you were laughing." 
 
 " Oh no, Willy ; at least, it was not exactly you — 
 indeed, it was only your hat." 
 
 Even at this supreme moment the air of disre- 
 putable gaiety of Willy's headgear was too much 
 for me, and my voice broke into an hysterical shriek. 
 This was the last straw. With a wrathful glance, he 
 turned his back upon me, and stalked silently on 
 beside Alaska. Blackthorn and I followed meekly in 
 the rear, and in this order we sombrely proceeded to 
 Durrus. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 A LOWERING grey sky succeeded the sunshine of the 
 day of the hunt I crawled down late to breakfast, feel- 
 ing agonisingly stiff after the previous day's exertions, 
 and was on the whole relieved to find that Willy had 
 gone out for a long day's shooting, and that till lunch 
 at least I should have no one to entertain but myself. 
 The evening before had been, as far as Willy had 
 been concerned, of a rather complicated type. I had 
 done all in my power to efface from his mind the 
 memory of my unfortunate laughter, but until dinner 
 was over he had remained implacable. Uncle Domi- 
 nick, on the contrary, had been unusually bland and 
 talkative. It appeared that Madam O'Neill and her 
 eldest daughter had called on me while I was out, and 
 my uncle, having met them on the drive, had brought 
 them in, given them tea, and had even gone so far as 
 to ask the two girls to come with their brother to 
 dinner the next night. He had given me to under- 
 stand that this unusual hospitality was on my account 
 
 — " Although," he added, " I have no doubt you two 
 
 90 
 
An Irish Cousin. 91 
 
 young people are quite well able to amuse each other ". 
 The look which accompanied this was, under the cir- 
 cumstances, so peculiarly embarrassing, that, in order 
 to change the conversation, I made the mistake of 
 beginning to describe the hunt. Too soon I discovered 
 that to slur over Willy's disaster would be impossible, 
 and my obvious efforts to do so did not improve 
 matters. 
 
 " So you went off with young O'Neill," my uncle 
 had said, with a change of look and voice that 
 frightened me ; and nothing more was said on the 
 subject. 
 
 My discomfiture was perhaps the cause of the 
 alteration in Willy's demeanour after dinner. Success 
 far beyond my expectations, or indeed my wishes, 
 was the result of my conciliatory advances. I went 
 to bed feeling that I had more than regained the 
 position I had held in Willy's esteem, and a little 
 flurried by the difficulties of so ambiguous a relation- 
 ship as that of first cousins. 
 
 From all this, it may be imagined that when I heard 
 from Roche that " the masther was gone to town, and 
 would not be home for lunch," I regarded the combined 
 absences of Willy and his father as little short of 
 providential. 
 
 I observed that the magenta and yellow dahlias 
 which had decorated the table on my arrival still held 
 
92 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 their ground, albeit in an advanced stage of decay ; 
 and, remembering the glories of the autumn leaves, I 
 suggested to Roche that with his permission I might 
 be able to improve upon the present arrangement. 
 
 A little elated by the expectation of surprising 
 Willy with the unusual splendour of the dinner-table, 
 and not without an emulative thought of the O'Neills, 
 I determined to ransack the shrubberies for the most 
 glowing leaves wherewith to carry out my purpose. 
 A few minutes later I left the house with a capacious 
 basket in my hand, feeling a delightful sense of freedom, 
 and full of the buccaneering pleasure of a solitary and 
 irresponsible voyage of discovery. 
 
 I wandered down the nearest path to the sea, and, 
 keeping to the shore, came to the little promontory 
 which, with its few ragged trees, I could see from the 
 windows of my room. There was a romance about 
 this lonely wind- and wave-beaten point that from the 
 first had appealed to me. When, in the early light, I 
 saw the fir-trees' weird reflection in the quiet cove, 
 I used to wonder if they had ever been a landmark 
 for some western Dick Hatteraick ; and now, as I 
 scrambled about, and tugged at the tough bramble- 
 stems that trailed in the coarse grass, I was half-per- 
 suaded that any one of the rough boulders might close 
 the entrance of a smuggler's long-forgotten " hide ". 
 
 I had soon gathered as many blackberry leaves as 
 
An Irish Cousin. 93 
 
 I wanted, and, sitting down beside one of the old trees, 
 I leaned my cheek against its seamy trunk and looked 
 across the grey rollers to the horizon. 
 
 A narrow black line stole from behind the eastern 
 point of Durrusmore Harbour, leaving a dark stain on 
 the sky as it went, and from where I sat I could hear 
 the beat of machinery. 
 
 It was the first time I had noticed the passing of 
 one of the big American steamers, and I watched the 
 great creature move out of sight with a strange conflict 
 of feeling. Uppermost, I think, was the thought of 
 what my regret would be if I were at that moment on 
 board her, bound for America. I was a little ashamed 
 when I reflected how soon the newer interests had 
 superseded the old. I had been but a week in Ireland, 
 and already the idea of leaving it was akin to that of 
 emigration. What, I wondered, was the charm that 
 had worked so quickly ? Was this subtle familiarity 
 and satisfaction with my new life merely the result of 
 aesthetic interest, or had it the depth of an inherited 
 instinct ? 
 
 I could not tell ; I could only feel a strange pre- 
 sentiment that my existence had hitherto been nothing 
 but a preface, and that I was now on the threshold of 
 what was to be, for good or evil, my real life. 
 
 I picked up my basket and retraced my steps down 
 the little slope, till I again found myself in the 
 
94 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 shrubbery walk. On one point my mind was clear. 
 My liking for Durrus was in no perceptible degree 
 influenced by my feeling for my uncle and my cousin. 
 I reiterated this to myself as I strolled along in the 
 damp shade of over-arching laurels towards the plan- 
 tation which lay between the sea and the lodge. 
 
 Uncle Dominick was anything but a person to 
 inspire immediate affection ; and then Willy — well, 
 Willy certainly had many attractive points, but, al- 
 though he was a pleasant companion, he could not be 
 said to be either very cultured or refined. 
 
 I left the path and strayed through the wood, 
 stopping here and there to rob the branches of their 
 lavish autumn loveliness. A sluggish little stream 
 crept among the trees, and along its banks the ferns 
 grew thickly. I knelt down in the stubbly yellow 
 grass beside it, where the pale trunk of a beech-tree 
 stooped over the water, and picked the small delicate 
 ferns that were clustering between its roots. Having 
 gathered all within reach, I still knelt there, watching 
 a little procession of withered beech-leaves making 
 their slow way down the stream, and studying my 
 own dark reflection on the water. 
 
 I was at length startled by the sound of voices that 
 seemed to come from the path I had just left, but from 
 where I was, the thickness of the intervening laurels 
 prevented me from seeing to whom they belonged. 
 
An Irish Cousin. 95 
 
 It soon became evident that one of the speakers 
 was a country girl. She was talking rapidly and 
 earnestly ; but what she said was unintelligible to 
 me till she and her companion came to the point in 
 the path which was nearest to me, when, after a 
 momentary pause, the soft voice broke out — 
 
 " Ye won't lave me for her, will ye, now ? Ye said 
 ye'd hold by me always, and now " 
 
 Something between a sob and a choke ended the 
 sentence. Several sobs followed ; and then the girl's 
 voice went on excitedly — 
 
 " Ah ! 'tis no use your goin' on like that ; ye know 
 ye want to have done with me entirely ". 
 
 I could hear no reply ; but that reassurance and 
 consolation were offered was obvious, for as the foot- 
 steps died away I heard something like a broken laugh 
 from the girl, with some faint echo of it from a man's 
 voice. 
 
 "Who can she be?" I thought, compassionately. 
 There was a perplexing familiarity in the low pathetic 
 voice, and I walked home, feeling unnecessarily de- 
 pressed and troubled by what I had heard, and 
 wondering with all the self-righteousness of inex- 
 perience at the self-abandonment which had led to 
 such an appeal. 
 
 The path by which I returned skirted the garden 
 and formed a loop with the one by which I had first 
 
96 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 entered the wood. As I approached the broader 
 walk, I saw a girl's figure flit down the other path, 
 and I had just time to recognise it as being that of 
 Anstey Brian. Simultaneously came the recollection 
 of the pleading voice in the wood, and in an instant I 
 knew why it had been familiar. 
 
 " Then it must have been Anstey," I thought, feel- 
 ing both sorry and startled. The entreaty in her 
 voice had made it very plain how serious a matter 
 her trouble was to her, and the helplessness of her 
 quick surrender showed that she had lost all power 
 of resistance or resentment. I was astonished to 
 think that so pretty a girl as Anstey should have 
 cause to reproach her sweetheart with want of con- 
 stancy. " Who could he be ? " I wondered. Then, 
 remembering that the path she was on was a usual 
 short cut from the lodge to the yard, I came to the 
 conclusion that one of the Durrus stablemen must 
 have been the object of that broken-hearted appeal. 
 I determined that I would try and find out something 
 further about Anstey and her lover, and wondered if 
 it would be of any use to mention the subject to Willy. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 In spite of the incontestable success of my decora- 
 tions, which drew forth the admiration of even the 
 superior Henrietta O'Neill, I felt, before we had 
 arrived at the period of fish, that the dinner-party 
 was likely to be a failure. 
 
 Uncle Dominick had, of course, taken in the elder 
 Miss O'Neill, and as far as they were concerned 
 nothing was left to be desired. Conversation of a 
 fluent and high-class order was evidently her strong 
 point. She at once entered upon a discussion of 
 Irish politics with my uncle in a manner deserving of 
 all praise, and as I surreptitiously studied her pale, 
 plain, intellectual face, with the dark hair severely 
 drawn back, and heard her enunciate her opinions in 
 clearly framed sentences, I became deeply conscious 
 of my own general inferiority. 
 
 Nevertheless, I did what in me lay to talk to 
 
 Nugent O'Neill, who had taken me in, thus leaving 
 
 to Willy the necessary and, as I thought, congenial 
 
 task of entertaining Miss Connie. Nothing could 
 
 7 97 
 
98 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 apparently be better arranged. Nugent had ex- 
 changed his frigid, uninterested civility of the day 
 before for an excellent semblance of sociability, be- 
 neath which, as it seemed to me, he concealed a 
 curious observation of all that I said. He had a dark 
 clever face, strong well-cut features, and blue eyes, 
 with a pleasanter expression in them than I had at 
 first expected to see there. His voice would have 
 been monotonous in its quietness and unexcitability 
 had it not been for a certain humorous turn which 
 now and then made its way into his sentences. He 
 annoyed me, but at the same time he was interesting ; 
 moreover — which was to me a very strong point in 
 his favour — he was evidently as much alive as I to the 
 fact that for the next hour and a half it would be our 
 solemn duty to amuse each other, and to that intent 
 we both performed prodigies of agreeability. 
 
 But Willy was the cause of disaster. I became 
 gradually aware that silence was settling down upon 
 him and Connie, and that, instead of devoting himself 
 to her, he, with his eyes fixed on me and my partner, 
 was listening moodily to what we were saying. When 
 this had gone on for some minutes, during which 
 Connie crumbled her bread and looked cross, I was 
 exasperated to the point of bestowing a glance upon 
 him calculated to awaken in him a sense of his bad 
 manners. Far, however, from accepting my reproof, 
 
An Irish Cousin. 99 
 
 Willy returned my look with a gaze of admiring 
 defiance, and projected himself into our conversation 
 by flatly contradicting what Nugent was saying. 
 The latter rose many degrees in my estimation by 
 ignoring the interruption till he had reached the end 
 of his sentence. Then, with a tolerating smile, he 
 looked past me to Willy, and asked him what he had 
 said. 
 
 Willy's dark eyebrows met in a way that un- 
 pleasantly reminded me of his father. 
 
 " If it wasn't worth listening to, it's not worth re- 
 peating," he said aggressively. 
 
 Terrified by the turn things were taking, I struck 
 in quickly, " Oh, Willy ! have you told Miss O'Neill 
 what you heard to-day about the Jackson-Crolys giv- 
 ing a ball ? " 
 
 " No ; I thought she'd have heard it herself," he 
 returned ungraciously. 
 
 " As it happens, I had heard nothing about it," said 
 Connie, from the other side of the table ; " but I can- 
 not say that \ feel much excited at the prospect of 
 one of their dances." 
 
 " I am looking forward to it immensely," I said, 
 persevering with my topic. " I want very much to 
 see a real Irish ball." 
 
 " Yes," said Nugent, reflectively, " you will see that 
 at the Jackson-Crolys'. They excel in old Irish 
 
loo An Irish Cousin, 
 
 hospitality. They do that kind of thing in quite 
 the traditional way. Little Croly offers you whisky 
 the moment you get into the hall ; and Mrs. Jack- 
 son-Croly orders champagne to be put into all the 
 carriages when people are coming away. The guests 
 are generally pretty happy by that time, and she says 
 it is to keep their hearts up on the way home." 
 
 " That's quite true," observed Connie ; " and, as well 
 as I remember, you were not at all above drinking it 
 next day." 
 
 " Do they dance jigs at these entertainments ? " I 
 asked. "If so, I am afraid I shall be rather out 
 of it." 
 
 " Oh yes," said Willy, with what was intended to 
 be biting sarcasm; "and hornpipes and Highland 
 flings. They always do at Irish dances." 
 
 " Nonsense, Willy ! They don't really, do they, 
 Mr. O'Neill?" 
 
 " It is always well to be prepared for emergencies," 
 he answered, " so I should advise you to have some 
 lessons from Willy. I have been told that step- 
 dancing is his strong suit." 
 
 " Who told you that ? " demanded Willy. 
 
 " One of our men was at McCarthy's wedding the 
 other day, and said he saw you there." 
 
 " Oh yes," supplemented Connie. " He said, * The 
 sight would lave your eyes to see Mr. Sarsfield and 
 
An Irish Cousin. loi 
 
 that little gerr'l of owld Michael Brian's taking the 
 flure, and they so souple and so springy '." 
 
 Willy did not appear to be at all amused by this 
 flattering opinion, or by the admirable accent in which 
 it was repeated. On the contrary, he looked rather 
 disconcerted, and, with a glance towards the other end 
 of the table, he said awkwardly — 
 
 " Oh, one has to do these sort of things now and 
 then. The people like it, and it doesn't do me any 
 harm." 
 
 " On the contrary," said Nugent, " I am sure it is a 
 most healthy exercise. But I thought it rather spoiled 
 your leg for a top-boot." 
 
 Willy was known to favour knee-breeches as being 
 especially becoming to him, and at this, to my great 
 relief, he turned his back upon us, and plunged into 
 an ostentatiously engrossing conversation with Connie. 
 At last we were in smooth water, and with almost a 
 sigh of relief I heard Nugent take up the thread of our 
 discourse at the point where Willy had broken it off. 
 
 It was evident that he could be pleasant enough 
 when he chose ; and though I felt that this new 
 development was almost as offensive in another way 
 as his deliberate dulness yesterday, I was now very 
 grateful for its timely help. At the same time, I 
 bore in mind with resentment my unremunerated toil 
 during our ride, and reflected bitterly on the fact that 
 
I02 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 people who only talk when it pleases them, receive 
 far more credit when they do so than those who from 
 a sense of duty exhaust themselves conversationally. 
 
 Uncle Dominick and Henrietta had up to this not 
 caused me a moment's anxiety. We were now at 
 dessert, and yet the flow of their discourse had never 
 flagged. In fact, my uncle seemed at present to be 
 delivering a species of harangue, to which Henrietta 
 was attending with a polite unconvinced smile. This 
 was all as it should be, and my respect for Henrietta's 
 social gifts increased tenfold. Unfortunately, however, 
 it soon became evident that the discussion, whatever 
 it was, was taking rather too personal a tone, and my 
 uncle's voice became so loud and overbearing that 
 Nugent and I were constrained to listen to him. 
 
 "You amaze me," he was saying. " I cannot 
 believe that any sane person can honestly hold such 
 absurd theories. What ! do you mean to tell me that 
 one of my tenants, a creature whose forefathers have 
 lived for centuries in ignorance and degradation, is 
 my equal ? " 
 
 " His degradation is merely the result of injustice," 
 said Miss O'Neill, coolly adjusting \\Qr pince-nez. 
 
 " I deny it," said my uncle, loudly. His usually 
 pale face was flushed, and his eyes burned. " But 
 that is not the point. What I maintain is, that any 
 fusion of classes such as you advocate would have the 
 
An Irish Cousin. 103 
 
 effect of debasing the upper while it entirely failed to 
 raise the lower orders. If you were to marry your 
 coachman, as, according to your theories of equality, I 
 suppose you would not hesitate to do, do you think 
 these latent instincts of refinement that you talk 
 about would make him a fit companion for you and 
 your family ? You know as well as I do that such an 
 idea is preposterous. It is absurd to suppose that the 
 natural arrangement of things can be tampered with. 
 This is a subject on which I feel very strongly, and it 
 shocks me to hear a young lady in your position 
 advance such opinions ! " 
 
 Henrietta's face assumed an aggravating expression, 
 clearly conveying her opinion that further argument 
 would be thrown away. Uncle Dominick gulped 
 down a glass of wine, and glared round the table. 
 There was a general silence, and I took advantage of 
 it to make a move to the drawing-room. 
 
 I was wholly taken aback by my uncle's violence, 
 and could not help fearing that the number of times 
 his glass had been replenished had had something to 
 say to it. Willy's temper had also been so uncertain 
 that I dreaded an outbreak between him and his 
 father, and, in the interval of waiting for their reap- 
 pearance, I found myself making the most absent and 
 ill-chosen answers to Henrietta's questions upon the 
 culture and political status of Canadian women, while 
 
I04 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 I listened anxiously for the sound of the opening of 
 the dining-room door. My only consolation was that 
 Nugent would, for his own sake, do his best to keep 
 the peace, and I was surprised to find how much I 
 relied on his powers of doing so. 
 
 In my preoccupied state of mind, it is not to be 
 wondered at that Henrietta soon appeared to come to 
 the conclusion that I was incapable of giving her any 
 information on the subjects in which she was inter- 
 ested, and that I was generally a person of limited 
 abilities. She leaned back in her chair with the 
 exhausted air of one who relinquishes a hopeless task, 
 and, taking up a photograph-book, she tacitly made 
 me over to her sister. 
 
 Connie's ideas ran in less exalted grooves. The 
 run of the day before was to her a topic of inexhaust- 
 ible interest ; and when she found that my humility 
 in the matter of hunting equalled my ignorance, she 
 expanded into extreme graciousness, and was soon in 
 the full tide of narration. The story-teller who treats 
 of hunting with any real enthusiasm generally loses 
 all mental perspective, and sacrifices artistic unity to 
 historical accuracy. Then, as now, I was amazed at 
 the powers of memory and merciless fidelity to detail 
 with which those who have taken part in a run can 
 afterwards describe it, and I listened with reverence 
 befitting the neophyte to Connie's adventures by flood 
 
An Irish Cousin. 105 
 
 and field. Foxes and fences, hounds and hunters, 
 were revolving in my brain, when the opening of the 
 door brought the story to a conclusion, and Willy 
 came into the room, followed by Nugent. He marched 
 directly to the sofa where I was sitting, and deposited 
 himself beside me with such determination that the 
 rebound of its springs almost lifted me into the air. 
 
 This behaviour was really intolerable. Willy had 
 not before shown any very pronounced partiality for 
 me, and why he should have selected this evening for 
 a demonstration of affection it would be hard to say. 
 One thing was clear : it must be suppressed with a 
 strong hand, or a deadlock would ensue. Nugent was 
 standing on the hearthrug, with apparently no prospect 
 of entertainment before him save what he could derive 
 from talking to his sisters ; while those two young 
 ladies were well aware that no reasonable hostess could 
 ask them to dinner and expect them to devote their 
 evening to conversing with their brother, and, pending 
 action on my part, were sitting in expectant silence. 
 I turned upon Willy in desperation. 
 
 " You must talk to them," I hissed in his ear. 
 
 To which, with equal emphasis, he whispered back, 
 " I won't ! " fixing upon me a blandly stubborn gaze 
 that infuriated me beyond the bounds of endurance. 
 
 I leaped from my seat, and, with a timely recollec- 
 tion of Nugent's violin, I walked over to him and 
 
io6 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 asked if he had remembered to bring it. He admitted 
 apologetically that it was in the hall, adding, with 
 unexpected modesty, that he had only brought it 
 because I had asked him to do so. I had some 
 acquaintance with the ways of amateur violinists, and 
 speedily recognised the diffidence which conceals a 
 yearning to play at all hazards. My intention to 
 dislike him was softened by the discovery that he was 
 not at all points so superior as I had believed, and I 
 was pleased to notice some hurry and trepidation in 
 his manner while he was tuning his violin. Henrietta 
 advanced upon the piano with an air of sisterly resig- 
 nation, and, concealing a yawn, tapped a note for 
 Nugent to tune by. 
 
 While he was thus engaged, I cast an anxious eye 
 round the room. My uncle had now come in, and, 
 with his elbow on the chimney-piece, was looking into 
 the fire. Connie had taken possession of the ancient 
 photograph-book which her sister had put down, and, 
 in company with Willy, was silently and methodically 
 turning over its yellow pages. Well did I know its 
 contents. Ladies in preposterously inflated skirts, 
 with rows of black velvet round the tail ; and gentle- 
 men clad from head to heel in decent black, each with 
 his back to an Italian landscape, and his tall hat on a 
 Grecian pedestal near him — all alike undistinguishable 
 and unknown. I felt sincerely for Connie ; but other 
 
An Irish Cousin. 107 
 
 occupation there was none, and I had done my best 
 on her behalf. 
 
 I was at first incHned to agree with Nugent in his 
 own estimate of his playing, and I saw with unworthy 
 amusement that he was extremely nervous ; but as he 
 went on he steadied down, and played with sweetness, 
 and with what was almost more surprising, sentiment. 
 The keen notes vibrated in the dim, lofty room, and 
 tingled in the many hanging crystals of the old glass 
 chandelier. I forgot the indignation which he had 
 yesterday aroused in me, and remained leaning on the 
 piano, conscious only of the pleasure I was receiving, 
 until the player ceased, and began to unscrew his bow 
 preparatory to putting it away. 
 
 " Please play something else," I said hastily. 
 "Won't you try this Suite of Corelli's? I know it 
 so well." 
 
 " I am afraid my sister doesn't know the accompani- 
 ment," he answered, with a dubious look at Henrietta, 
 who was rising from the piano. 
 
 Her bored manner had already told me that she 
 looked on accompanying her brother as a task beneath 
 her powers, and the thought struck me with paralysing 
 conviction that I ought to have asked her to play a 
 solo. However, this was not the moment to rectify 
 the error ; Nugent was lingering over the putting away 
 of his violin, with an obvious desire to play again. 
 
io8 An Irish Cousin, 
 
 " I suppose it would be too much to ask you to try- 
 it ? " he said to me, after another glance at Henrietta's 
 unresponsive face. 
 
 " Perhaps if it was not very difficult I might be 
 
 able " I said, and checked myself, remembering 
 
 the snub I had received on that very subject. 
 
 But now that I had admitted so much, Nugent 
 held me to my word, and firmly proceeded to arrange 
 the piano part on the desk for me. 
 
 " I don't envy you, Miss Sarsfield," remarked 
 Henrietta, with a cold little laugh ; " Nugent's ideas 
 of counting are excessively primitive." 
 
 Decidedly Henrietta was annoyed. 
 
 " I am the class of savage who cannot count more 
 than five," he replied, addressing me ; " but I do my 
 best." 
 
 Miss O'Neill laughed again. "You will have to 
 play it for him," she said, moving away from the 
 piano ; " Nugent is a regular bully." 
 
 We played the piece I had asked for, as well as several 
 others, before I remembered my duties as hostess. 
 Willy had forsaken Connie and the photograph-book, 
 and had again left her and Henrietta to talk to each 
 other, while he propped himself against the chimney- 
 piece, and gazed moodily at Nugent and me. 
 
 I could not have believed that he would have left 
 me in this dastardly way to bear the burden and heat 
 
An Irish Cousin. 109 
 
 of the entertainment, and I made a second effort to 
 keep things going by begging Miss O'Neill to play. 
 But this time I was unsuccessful ; she would not be 
 propitiated. A look passed between her and her 
 sister, whose banjo I now had little doubt had been 
 secreted in the hall ; while I, in violation of all the 
 laws of civility, had myself been monopolising the 
 piano. They both got up from their places. 
 
 " I should have been delighted," said Henrietta, 
 " but I am afraid it is getting rather late. My dear 
 Nugent" — calling to her brother, who was carefully 
 swaddling his violin preparatory to putting it away — 
 " we really ought to be getting home. The carriage 
 must have been waiting some time ; and I am sure " 
 — in a lower voice — " that Mr. Sarsfield has had quite 
 enough of us." 
 
 I looked at my uncle, who during the violin-playing 
 had sunk into an arm-chair, and had shaded his eyes 
 with his hand, as if listening attentively. He had not 
 moved since we stopped, and looked almost as if he 
 were asleep ; but there was something in his attitude 
 that conveyed the idea of deep dejection rather than 
 of slumber. 
 
 The general stir of departure roused him. He 
 rose slowly, and said good-night with a little more 
 than his usual gloom. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 One day at Durrus was very like another. By the 
 time I had been there three weeks or a month, the 
 days stretched out behind me into indefinite length, 
 separating me more and more from my past life. 
 
 Looking back to that time, it seems to resolve 
 itself into one long tete-a-tete with Willy. Quiet rides 
 with him through the damp brown woods, or now and 
 then a day with the Esker hounds ; drives to return 
 the visits of such of the natives as had called upon 
 me ; walks across the turf bog to where the old 
 graveyard hung over the sea, to watch the sun drop 
 below the horizon. " Bound for America," says 
 Willy. " I wonder if you'd like to be going back 
 with him ? " I had no doubts in my own mind on 
 the subject, though I did not feel called upon to say 
 so to him. I was now quite certain that, in spite of 
 various drawbacks, I enjoyed my life at Durrus very 
 much. 
 
 I have said that I had had callers. After the 
 O'Neills, among the first to come and see me were Mrs. 
 
 no 
 
An Irish Cousin. 1 1 1 
 
 Jackson-Croly and her daughters, the Burkes, whose 
 acquaintance I had already made, and Mrs. Barrett, a 
 monumental old lady, who having been established 
 by Willy in the most reliable chair in the room, 
 remained there in mammoth silence, motionless, save 
 for her alert eyes, which wandered from face to face, 
 and suggested to me the idea of a restless intelligent 
 spirit imprisoned in a feather bed. 
 
 The imposing voice of Mrs. Jackson-Croly domin- 
 ated the room. 
 
 "Yes, Miss Sarsfield," she said, "I'm thinking of 
 taking the girls to Southsea. There's such nice mili- 
 tary society there. I always like to take them to 
 England as often as I can, on account of the accent. 
 I loathe a Cork brogue ! My fawther took me abroad 
 every year ; he was so alormed lest I'd acquire it, and 
 I assure you, when we were children, he used to insist 
 on mamma's putting cotton wool in our ears when we 
 went to old Mr. Flannagan's church, for fear we'd 
 ketch his manner of speaking." 
 
 " Dear, dear ! " said Miss Burke, sympathetically, 
 " Poor old Johnny Flannagan ! He had a beautiful 
 voice in the pulpit. I declare" — turning to me — 
 "sometimes you'd think the people out in the street 
 would hear him, and the next minute you'd think 
 'twas a pigeon cooing to you ! " 
 
 It would have been pleasant to have led Miss Burke 
 
112 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 on to further reminiscences of this gifted divine, but 
 another and more exciting topic presented itself to her. 
 
 " Oh Miss Sarsfield ! and what's this we hear about 
 you and Mr. O'Neill ! Springing away through the 
 country after the fox, and leaving poor Willy in the 
 ditch ! Oh fie ! " 
 
 I feel that it is hopeless to convey an adequate idea 
 of Miss Mimi's voice by any system of spelling. It 
 must be enough to mention that " fie " she pronounced 
 "foy," and "Sarsfield" in her sonorous tones became 
 " Sorsefield ". 
 
 The eyes of Mrs. Barrett rolled upon me speech- 
 lessly, and those of Mrs. Jackson-Croly and her two 
 daughters were fixed upon me with such an access of 
 interest that I hastened to explain how it was that 
 Willy had been left behind. My unadorned narrative 
 fell singularly flat, and Miss Burke broached another 
 theme that came as a magnum of champagne after 
 my small beer. 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Croly, and is it true that you are going 
 to give us a dance at Mount Prospect?" she began. 
 " Why, you're a grand woman ! we'd all be dying down 
 with dulness only for you ! " 
 
 Mrs. Jackson-Croly, metaphorically speaking, de- 
 scended with one leap from the pedestal on which 
 she had hitherto posed for my benefit. She dragged 
 her chair, still seated upon it, across the floor, till she 
 
An Irish Cousin. 1 1 3 
 
 had placed herself knee to knee with Miss Burke, and 
 they were soon deep in calculation as to the number 
 of" dancing gentlemen " who could be relied on for the 
 forthcoming ball. Whether as a "dancing gentleman," 
 or as a host, Willy could certainly be relied upon. 
 He was now entertaining the Misses Jackson-Croly 
 to the pitch almost of hysterics by sitting on the floor 
 in front of them with his mouth open, while they 
 endeavoured to throw pieces of tea-cake into it, 
 shrieks of laughter announcing equally the success or 
 failure of their aim. I considerately turned my back, 
 and fell to a long and dull monologue as the only 
 method of dealing with our remaining guest, the 
 massive and speechless Mrs. Barrett. 
 
 A few days afterwards Mr. O'Neill rode over to ask 
 Willy and me to lunch at Clashmore. I had met 
 him and Connie once or twice out hunting. On these 
 occasions my acquaintance with Connie had made 
 rapid progress, but with her brother I seemed to have 
 come to a standstill. I must admit to having felt 
 rather disappointed at this, as since the night of the 
 dinner-party I had believed that, given favouring 
 circumstances, and a few more Corelli Suites, we 
 might have become reasonably good friends. On 
 this occasion he certainly did not carry out my theory. 
 After a great deal of profoundly uninteresting con- 
 versation with Willy, in which a self-respecting wish 
 
 8 
 
114 ^^ I^^^^ Cousin. 
 
 not to be out of it alone induced me to make a third, 
 they both went round to the stables, and I watched 
 him ride away with a return of my old resentment 
 towards him. 
 
 Nevertheless, I had to allow to myself that he had 
 not been more dull than was suitable to the subject 
 on which Willy had chosen to harangue him. The 
 question of how and where best to lay out and level a 
 tennis-ground in the lawn at Durrus was not one which 
 lent itself to a display of epigram, but I could not see 
 why they should have talked about it the whole time. 
 
 I speculated with a good deal of interest on Nugent's 
 probable demeanour at luncheon the next day. I 
 could not make up my mind if his unenthusiastic 
 manner was the result of conceit or of an inborn dis- 
 trust of " Canadian young ladies ". It was certainly 
 provoking that the one Irishman I had hitherto met 
 who seemed to have a few ideas beyond horses and 
 farming was either too uninterested or too distrust- 
 ful to expend them upon me. In the first place I 
 was not a " Canadian young lady," and in the second 
 I failed to see why that should be considered a draw- 
 back. 
 
 " I suppose it is the arrogant timidity of these 
 eldest sons," I reflected, scornfully. " I wish I could 
 tell him that he can talk to me without fear of ulterior 
 designs on my part." 
 
An Irish Cousin. 115 
 
 The day of the Clashmore repast was bright and 
 cold. Willy had put Alaska into the dog-cart to 
 drive me there, and we all three started very cheer- 
 fully. 
 
 "Willy," I said, as we spun along the hard road, 
 " you have never told me anything about The O'Neill. 
 I am rather nervous at the idea of meeting an Irish 
 chieftain in his own lair. Ought I to kiss his hand ? 
 I am sure you ought to have driven over a couple of 
 fat oxen and a he-goat as propitiatory offerings." 
 
 " By the hokey ! I'll do nothing of the sort," said 
 Willy. " I can tell you, he is not the sort to refuse 
 them if I did ! But I've no objection to your kissing 
 his hand, if you like." 
 
 " How kind of you ! " 
 
 " And he'll have still less. Mind you, he's a great 
 old buck, and expects every girl who goes to Clash- 
 more to make love to him." 
 
 " For goodness' sake don't let him come near me ! " 
 I cried, in acute anxiety. " I never have anything to 
 say to old men, and yet they invariably want to talk 
 to me." 
 
 " Then, my dear, you'd better look out ! The 
 madam will have it in her sleeve for you if he's too 
 civil ; she doesn't approve of his goings on." 
 
 " Well, one comfort is, I shall probably be in his 
 
 black books in five minutes, as you say it is one of the 
 
 8* 
 
ii6 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 seven deadly sins to call him Mister O'Neill. I could 
 no more call him ' O'Neill ' than I could fly ; I should 
 feel as if I were talking to a coachman." 
 
 " Oh, I dare say he'd put up with more than that 
 from you ! You're just his sort. I know he'll tell 
 every one you are * a monstrous fine girl '. You know, 
 he likes them tall and dark and hand " 
 
 " Do hold your tongue ! " I interposed. " You are 
 most offensive." 
 
 " Well, never mind," said Willy, consolingly. 
 " May-be he won't look at you, after all. There's that 
 big English girl we saw in church with them last 
 Sunday — Watson, I think Nugent said her name was 
 — I dare say he devotes himself to her all the time. 
 Though," he added, " I don't see why I shouldn't go 
 in for her myself" — with a glance at me to see how 
 his shaft had sped. 
 
 " Oh, I hope you will ! " I said ; " it would interest 
 me so much ! " 
 
 I thought Willy looked a little crestfallen, and he 
 said no more on the subject. 
 
 As I walked cautiously across the highly polished 
 floor of the Clashmore hall, preceded by an eminently 
 respectable young footman, I was amused to find that 
 my mind was occupied in unfeigned admiration of 
 the cleanliness of the house. This, then, was the 
 result of six weeks' residence at Durrus. I had 
 
An Irish Cousin. 117 
 
 become so inured to untidiness, and a generally- 
 lenient system of cleansing, that the most ordinary 
 household virtues had acquired positive instead of 
 merely negative value. 
 
 The big, bright drawing-room seemed full of 
 strangers, v^ho, as I came in, all stopped talking. I 
 caught, however, my own name, spoken in a voice 
 unmistakable, even in the undertone in which it said, 
 " I declare, there's Miss Sarsfield herself!" and I had 
 the uncomfortable conviction that Miss Mimi Burke, 
 in common with the rest of the room, had been dis- 
 cussing me. 
 
 I advanced with uncertain speed across the wide 
 space of glowing carpet which separated me from 
 Madam O'Neill, my last few steps being considerably 
 accelerated by the sudden uprisal from under my feet 
 of an abnormally lengthy dachshund, which had lain 
 coiled unseen in my path. 
 
 " That detestable dog of Henrietta's ! " said Madam 
 O'Neill, as she shook hands with me ; " he is always 
 getting in the way ! How do you do, Miss Sarsfield ? 
 Robert dear, here is Miss Sarsfield." 
 
 A stout, elderly gentleman, in a light suit of clothes, 
 and with one of the reddest faces I have ever seen, 
 stepped forward with a very polite bow and expansive 
 smile, and shook hands with me. This was my host, 
 but the warning I had received against encouraging 
 
1 1 8 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 his attentions had so alarmed me, that as soon as was 
 decently possible I turned my back upon him and 
 began to talk to Henrietta. I had been aware all the 
 time of Willy's observation, and now, as I turned and 
 met his malevolent eye, I felt with dismay that my 
 face was slowly turning a good fast colour, analogous 
 to Turkey red. Deeply conscious of this, and of the 
 unsparing glare of light from the large plate-glass 
 windows, I spent some singularly uncomfortable 
 moments, until the booming of the gong interrupted 
 Miss O'Neill's comments on the weather. 
 
 I suppose that every one has at some period of life 
 felt the absurdity of being led forth processionally to 
 dinner, to which one is quite capable of walking un- 
 assisted on one's own legs. But to move in pomp and 
 a tweed dress to luncheon was an unexpected ordeal. 
 I was never more keenly alive to my own absurdity 
 than on the present occasion, when, thrusting my hand 
 with some difficulty inside The O'Neill's bulky arm, 
 and feeling at least a head taller than he, we with all 
 dignity led the way into the dining-room. 
 
 I looked round the luncheon-table to see how people 
 had arranged themselves. My neighbour on the right 
 was the Reverend Thomas Horan, Rector of Rath- 
 barry, a dull-looking man, with a saffron complexion, 
 and hair and beard of inky blackness, whose speech 
 in private life was little less unintelligible than his 
 
An Irish Cousin. 119 
 
 pulpit utterances. Opposite to me sat Nugent O'Neill 
 and Miss Watson. She was an ordinary type of 
 English girl, tall, fair, fluffy-haired and well dressed, 
 and apparently rather fond of the sound of her own 
 high, unmodulated voice. I caught from time to time 
 fragments of their discourse, which flowed without a 
 check from Wagner to hockey. She, evidently, had 
 no difficulty in talking to Nugent. 
 
 The view to my right was impeded by the portly 
 form of Miss Mimi Burke, who was next Mr. Horan, 
 she and that divine interchanging much lively badi- 
 nage, in tones suggestive of a duet between two 
 trombones. Beyond her I could just discern the 
 feeble profile of Mr. Jimmy Barrett, a red-haired youth 
 of nineteen or twenty. 
 
 The O'Neill had been up to this too busy in dissecting 
 two ducks of unusually athletic physique to speak to 
 me ; but he had from time to time — 
 
 Looked upon me with a soldier's eye, 
 That liked, but had a rougher task in hand. 
 
 And when the last limb had been distributed, he 
 turned his crimson face and gleaming eyeglass upon 
 me. 
 
 " And why haven't we seen you out with the hounds 
 lately, Miss Sarsfield ? " he began, in a wheezy, luscious 
 voice, with a suspicion of brogue in it. " Nugent 
 brought home such accounts of your doings that I 
 
I20 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 went out myself in hopes of seeing you show us all 
 the way." 
 
 I modestly disclaimed all credit for the glories of 
 the run which had made such a sensation. " And I 
 have only been able to go out once or twice since," I 
 added ; " the meets have been so far away, and Willy 
 has only two horses." 
 
 " Ah ! I wish you'd let me %\n^ you a mount. 
 Your grandfather has done as much for me many a 
 day when I was a youngster ; and I think you and I 
 ought to be great friends " — this with a gaze of deep 
 feeling from the unglazed eye. 
 
 " Thank you ; you are very kind," I murmured 
 discomposedly, looking towards the little madam to 
 see if she were noting the behaviour of her lord. 
 
 But no ; the pink ribbons and marabout tufts of 
 her elaborate cap were nodding complacently towards 
 Willy, who was talking to her with enviable ease and 
 fluency. 
 
 Willy's skill in talking to elderly ladies amounted to 
 inspiration. At present both Madam O'Neill and Miss 
 Bessie Burke were hanging on his words, with every 
 appearance of rapt interest ; while I, the beloved of old 
 men, could make no fitting rejoinder to the advances 
 of my host. " But then," I reflected, in self-extenuation 
 "old women are infinitely preferable to old men." 
 
 " Ah yes ! " The O'Neill went on, " how much you 
 
An Irish Cousin. 121 
 
 remind me of your father ! The same wonderful dark 
 eyes " 
 
 " Mine are grey," I interrupted, in as repressive a 
 manner as possible. 
 
 The objects in question immediately underwent a 
 close scrutiny. 
 
 " No matter — no matter ; they have the same depth 
 of expression. * That eye's dark charm 'twere vain 
 to tell,' eh ? Isn't that what Byron says ? " 
 
 Of the appropriateness of the quotation my plate 
 alone was in a position to give an opinion, as on it 
 my eyes were immovably fixed. 
 
 " I say, sir," said Nugent, suddenly, from across the 
 table, " did you know that Miss Watson was a great 
 fortune-teller ? You ought to show her your hand." 
 
 Nothing loth, O'Neill laid his fat white hand on the 
 table for Miss Watson's inspection. She at once opened 
 the campaign in a masterly manner, by pronouncing it 
 to be that of a "flirt," and I felt that the chieftain's enter- 
 tainment need no longer be a matter of anxiety to me. 
 
 Looking at his father with a peculiar expression, in 
 which amusement seemed to predominate, Nugent 
 listened for a minute or two to Miss Watson's 
 ingenious insinuations and pronouncements. Then 
 he turned to me. 
 
 " Do you believe in chiromancy. Miss Sarsfield ? 
 It seems to me a useful sort of science." 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Luncheon was over. The elders of the party had 
 returned to the drawing-room, where they were seated 
 in a state of contented satiety, discussing their 
 servants, their gardens, and the Church of Ireland 
 Sustentation Fund, according to their age and kind. 
 
 In the billiard-room, a four-handed game was going 
 on. Willy and Miss Watson were playing Connie 
 and Mr. Barrett ; and, as billiards was not one of my 
 accomplishments, I preferred, notwithstanding polite 
 offers of instruction, to sit in a window-seat and look 
 on. 
 
 Nugent at first undertook the office of marker ; but 
 as he tried at the same time to explain the intricacies 
 of the game to me, complications in the scoring soon 
 arose, accompanied by violent altercations with the 
 players. Finally, he was expelled with ignominy, 
 it having been proved that he had marked Miss 
 Watson's most brilliant break to her opponents. 
 
 " I thought I should never have come alive out of 
 that," he said, sitting down in the window beside me ; 
 
 122 
 
An Irish Cousin. 123 
 
 " Miss Watson looked as if she was going to convince 
 me with the butt end of her cue, and I have no 
 ambition to have a row with Willy. I shouldn't have 
 much of a chance." 
 
 I thought, nevertheless, that he looked well able to 
 take care of himself, as he leaned back against the 
 window-shutter, and began to roll a cigarette, while 
 the sun slanted in upon his light, firm figure and well- 
 shaped head, striking a pleasant dazzle into his blue 
 eyes as he glanced at the players. 
 
 "Do you know Mr. Jimmy Barrett?" he asked, 
 in cautious tones, as that youth, his freckled face pink 
 with anxiety, sprawled across the table to play his 
 stroke. 
 
 " No, I don't know him, but I remember seeing 
 him out hunting." 
 
 " He can ride, that's about all he's good for. From 
 the look of things at present, he will have cut the 
 cloth to ribbons by the end of the game. If Connie 
 is going to give lessons in billiards, she ought to keep 
 a private table for her disciples." 
 
 Nugent lighted his cigarette. " Do you know," 
 he continued, " I got some new fiddle music to-day. 
 I wonder if you could come and have a look at it ? 
 Perhaps we could try over some ? " 
 
 " I am afraid it is rather late," I said, eyeing the 
 players hesitatingly. " I should like it very much, 
 
124 ^^ Irish Cousin. 
 
 but I think the game must be nearly over, and we 
 ought to go home then ; it gets dark so quickly." 
 
 " Oh, you've got lamps," said Nugent, getting up. 
 " You needn't be in such a hurry ; and I know you like 
 playing accompaniments, you told me so yourself!" 
 
 I did remember saying so quite well, and also the 
 manner in which the information had been received, 
 but the idea was none the less attractive. Nugent 
 saw the wavering in my face. 
 
 " It's really rather a decent piano," he said persua- 
 sively, " and we should have the hall to ourselves '' 
 
 It must have been quite an hour afterwards, when, 
 with an unexplainably uneasy conscience, and a face 
 scarlet from the mental and physical effort of reading 
 music at sight, I obeyed Connie O'Neill's summons 
 to tea. 
 
 In the drawing-room we found Madam O'Neill, 
 Henrietta and Mr. Horan sitting at the tea-table, 
 the latter with his handkerchief spread over his knees 
 and a general greasiness of aspect suggestive of 
 buttered toast. The Burkes had departed and, to my 
 unbounded relief, The O'Neill did not appear. Willy 
 and Miss Watson were standing apart from the 
 others ; Miss Watson was holding my cousin's hand 
 and was looking into it with a magnifying glass. He 
 did not even look towards me, for which reason it 
 seemed advisable that I should join them. 
 
An Irish Cousin. 125 
 
 " Have you had your fortune told, Willy ? " I asked, 
 with guilty solicitude. 
 
 " Yes," he said shortly. " Are you quite sure you've 
 told me everything?" — turning from me to Miss 
 Watson. 
 
 " Oh dear no ! not more than half. I shall think 
 about your hand, and tell you the rest another day," 
 said Miss Watson, with great suavity. " Irishmen's 
 hands are so puzzling — so contradictory, you know ; 
 but I suppose all Irish people are that, aren't they ? " 
 
 It was obvious that I was quite superfluous to this 
 conversation. I retired upon tea and my hostesses, 
 with the comfortable assurance that my cousin was in 
 practised and capable hands. 
 
 I had but just succeeded in instructing Madam 
 O'Neill as to my nationality, a point about which the 
 neighbourhood was both bewildered and inquisitive, 
 when Willy abandoned Miss Watson, and came and 
 stood implacably before me. 
 
 "Are you nearly done your tea?" he demanded. 
 " The trap is at the door some time." 
 
 He remained standing before me, as if he expected 
 me to get up at once. That he was not in the best of 
 tempers was evident, and, feeling that delay was un- 
 advisable, I swallowed my tea with all possibledespatch, 
 and made my adieux. 
 
 Nugent came to the hall door with us. 
 
126 An Irish Cousin, 
 
 "Then, may I come over on Tuesday?" he said, 
 tucking in the rug for me, while Willy silently picked 
 up the reins, and took the whip out of the rest, " or 
 
 any other day that would suit you would do for " 
 
 The rest of the sentence was lost, as Willy, without 
 further ceremony, drove away. 
 
 "Very well — Tuesday!" I screamed back, as we 
 whirled down the avenue. " My dear Willy, I don't 
 know why you were in such a desperate hurry," I went 
 on, rather crossly. 
 
 " Well, how was I to know he had anything more 
 to say ? " retorted Willy, with equal ill-temper. " I'm 
 sure he had plenty of time to settle everything before 
 we left the house. I wasn't going to keep the mare 
 standing, if he chose to go on prating there." 
 
 " I don't suppose another five seconds would have 
 done her any mortal injury, and I think you might 
 have risked it for the sake of civility." 
 
 He did not answer, and we drove along in silence, 
 Willy maintaining a demeanour of unbending severity, 
 and affecting to be altogether occupied with his driving. 
 
 " Very well," I said to myself, " if he likes to sulk, 
 he may ; I won't take any notice of him." 
 
 No word was spoken for at least a mile. Alaska 
 trotted steadily on, under the leafless beeches, and 
 along the road by the sea, till she at length slackened 
 to walk up a hill. 
 
An Irish Cousin. 127 
 
 "Are you cold, Theo?" Willy did not turn his 
 head, but I felt that the olive branch had been ex- 
 tended. 
 
 " Not particularly," I said, as indifferently as possible. 
 
 " I put a wrap into the trap for you " — stretching a 
 long arm over the back of the seat, and dragging a 
 cloak from the depths. "You must be perished in 
 that thin coat. Here, let me put this round you." 
 
 He wrapped me in it with unnecessary care, and 
 while he was doing so he said suddenly : — 
 
 " I'm awfully sorry if I was rude to you. You know 
 that " His voice broke, and he stopped as sud- 
 denly as he had begun. I put up my hand to fasten 
 the cloak for myself, and was rather startled to find it 
 caught and fervently squeezed. 
 
 " Oh ! " I said, withdrawing my hand sharply, 
 "you were not in the least rude to me. I did not 
 mind a bit. We had a very pleasant day on the 
 whole, I think," I continued inconsequently ; " and 
 did you see how beautifully I behaved to The 
 O'Neill?" 
 
 Willy looked a little disappointed at his apology 
 being disposed of so quickly. 
 
 " No, I can't say I did," he answered, in an injured 
 way. " I had plenty to do talking to the Madam." 
 
 "Yes, I saw you. I was looking at you with the 
 deepest admiration all through lunch. And, by the 
 
128 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 way, what do you think of Miss Watson ? She seems 
 to be a wonderful billiard-player." 
 
 " I thought you were too busy talking to Nugent to 
 notice what we were doing," said Willy, with some 
 return of sulkiness. " It didn't look as if you found it 
 so hard to talk to him, as you're always saying you do." 
 
 " But I assure you we did look at the game, Willy. 
 You couldn't expect me to stay and watch every 
 stroke ! " 
 
 " Well, I only know that I spoke to you one time, 
 and you were so much taken up with talking about 
 music or something, that you never even heard me." 
 
 "Then you must have said it absolutely in a 
 whisper," I said, in heated self-defence. " Mr. O'Neill 
 was not saying anything in the least interesting, only 
 that Jimmy Barrett was cutting the cloth to ribbons, 
 which wasn't even true." 
 
 " H'm ! " said Willy, acridly, " I suppose that's why 
 you went off with him for the whole of the afternoon. 
 Musical flirtations are his line. I've heard many a 
 queer story of how he carried on with a musical 
 Yankee girl at Cannes last winter." 
 
 We rounded a turn in the road, and in the twilight I 
 could see the Durrus woods spreading darkly down 
 to the sea. It would take another ten minutes to 
 reach home, and I knew that we were still on danger- 
 ous ground. 
 
An Irish Cousin. 129 
 
 "What did Miss Watson say of your hand?" I 
 asked, with the view of changing the conversation. 
 " Did she tell you that you had ' no sense of humour, 
 and homicidal tendencies combined with unusual con- 
 scientiousness ? ' That's what a man once told me." 
 
 "No," answered Willy, rising to the fly sulkily, 
 " she didn't say very much about my character. She 
 was looking at my line of heart most of the time, I 
 think. She told me that I would have 'two great 
 passions' in my life, and that I was to be married 
 soon." He stopped, and looked at me. 
 
 " How exciting ! " I said hurriedly. " My man 
 did not tell me any of those interesting sort of things." 
 
 "She said my line of fate was broken," resumed 
 Willy, "whatever that may mean. She told me 
 I had a very good line of intellect, but it wasn't 
 properly developed. I dare say the last part of that's 
 true enough," he added, with a sigh. " I never got a 
 chance to learn anything when I was a boy, if my 
 mother had lived it would have been different. The 
 governor sent me from one dirty little school to an- 
 other for a couple or three years, and then the 
 National School master had a go at me, and that's 
 about all the education I ever had." 
 
 " I dare say you get on just as well without being 
 very good at classics and those sort of things. And, 
 you see, you passed your exam, for your captaincy in 
 
 9 
 
130 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 the West Cork quite easily," I said, with a lame 
 attempt at consolation. 
 
 " That's quite a different thing ; any fool could do 
 that. What makes me sick is to see Nugent and 
 chaps like him, who have been to Harrow and Oxford, 
 and all the rest of it — and here I've been stuck all my 
 life, without a chance to get level with them. It's 
 when I'm talking to you that I feel what an ignorant 
 brute I am ! " 
 
 "■ I hate to hear you talk like that," I said, hurt 
 by the pain in his voice. " / never thought you so 
 — not for an instant. On the contrary, I think you 
 know more than any one I ever met — about practical 
 things ; and if you don't look where you're going, you 
 will drive over old Moll — " as we turned sharply off 
 the road at the Durrus lodge. 
 
 " A good job too ! " said Willy, roughly, " — teach 
 her to keep out of the way ! " 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 It was early in December, a showery, blustery after- 
 noon ; but I was sitting out of doors in the hay. The 
 men had been cutting away the great rick in the 
 haggard ; they had taken a slice off it, down almost 
 to the ground, and I had burrowed myself a comfort- 
 able bed among the soft trusses, with my back against 
 the bristling, newly shorn wall of hay that towered 
 above me like a gable. The dogs were standing 
 beside in different attitudes of intensest attention, 
 their eyes fixed, like mine, upon a hole in the founda- 
 tions of the rick, from which at this moment a pair of 
 legs in corduroys and gaiters were protruding. 
 
 " Have you come to them yet ? " I called out. 
 
 A muffled grunt was all that I could hear in 
 answer ; but after a moment or two, the body belong- 
 ing to the legs was drawn out of the hole. 
 
 " I've got one of the brutes," said Willy, holding up 
 
 his hand, with a ferret hanging limply from it. " I 
 
 don't know how I'll get the other ; those rats must be 
 
 miles back in the rick. I'll have to go up for one of 
 9* 131 
 
132 An Irish Cousin, 
 
 the young Sweenys to help me to move some of the 
 stones under the rick." 
 
 " I think in that case I shall go home," I said. " I 
 suppose you'll take hours over it." 
 
 " Oh no ! Do wait a bit ; we won't be any time. 
 You can have my coat if you're cold," said Willy, 
 dropping the reclaimed ferret into its bag. " I'll be 
 back in half a minute." 
 
 He climbed the wall of the haggard, and took a 
 short cut across the field to where the whitewashed 
 walls of Sweeny's cottage showed through the twigs 
 of the leafless fuchsia hedge that incongruously sur- 
 rounded it and its manure heaps and pig-stys. 
 
 I took out my watch as soon as he had started, and 
 saw that it was half-past three. Willy seemed to 
 have forgotten that this Tuesday afternoon was the 
 one on which Nugent had said he would come over. 
 I had taken care to say something about it at break- 
 fast, but had done it so lamely and inopportunely 
 that I was not sure whether Willy had heard me ; 
 and moral cowardice had prevented me from remind- 
 ing him of it when he had asked me after luncheon 
 to come out with him to the haggard, where a thriv- 
 ing colony of rats had been that morning discovered. 
 
 Willy and I were now on terms of the most abso- 
 lute intimacy. His daily companionship had become 
 second nature to me — something which I accepted as 
 
An Irish Cousin. 133 
 
 a matter of course, which gave me no trouble, and 
 was in all ways pleasant But, for all that, I had 
 begun to find out that in some occult way I was a 
 little afraid of him. He was unexpectedly and 
 minutely observant, and, where I was concerned, 
 appeared to be able to take in my doings with the 
 back of his head. It was this gift, combined with 
 his unostentatious acuteness, that made me some- 
 times feel foolish when I least wished it, and lately 
 had made any mention of Nugent's name a difficulty 
 to me. 
 
 At all events, at this particular moment I did not 
 feel disposed to explain matters, and I settled myself 
 again in the hay, hoping that the capture of the 
 ferret would allow me, by the natural course of things, 
 to get home in time without having to remind Willy 
 of my expected visitor. 
 
 The demesne farm, as it was called, was at some 
 distance from the house — at least ten minutes' walk 
 down a stony lane, worn into deep ruts by the passing 
 of the carts of hay ; and now that the ruts had been 
 turned into pools by heavy showers, it was anything 
 but a pleasant walk. The boreen passed through 
 the fields in which Willy had schooled Alaska ; it 
 came out into the road near the lodge, and thence 
 led directly to the house, whose gleaming slate roof 
 and tall chimneys I could see above the trees of the 
 
134 A^ Irish Cousin. 
 
 plantation, from where I was sitting. The short 
 December day was already beginning to close in ; 
 the setting sun was level with my eyes, and was 
 sending broad rays up the long slope that lay between 
 the farm and the sea. Everything for the moment 
 was transfigured ; all the wet stones and straw lying 
 about the yard shone and glistened. The pigs were 
 splashing through pools of liquid gold ; and the 
 geese, who were gabbling in an undertone near the 
 hayrick, looked blue on the shadow side, and silver- 
 yellow on the side next the sun — one could believe 
 them capable of laying nothing but golden eggs. 
 The wind was going down with the sun, and it seemed 
 as if we should have no more rain ; but there was a 
 dangerous-looking black cloud over Croagh Keenan. 
 I wondered if Nugent had come. That cloud certainly 
 meant rain ; perhaps it would serve as an excuse to 
 get home. 
 
 Willy was as good as his word about coming back 
 quickly, and brought with him not one, but two small 
 sons of the house of Sweeny, with shock heads of 
 hair, as fluffy as dandelion seed, and almost as white, 
 and big grey eyes that looked doubtfully at me from 
 under the blackest lashes and out of the dirtiest faces 
 I had ever seen in my life. 
 
 " Come, Timsy," said Willy, to the smaller of the 
 two, " in you go ; and if you get a grip of him at all, 
 
An Irish Cousin. 135 
 
 hold on to him, no matter if he eats the nose off your 
 face." 
 
 In no wise discouraged by this injunction, Timsy 
 crawled into the hole, until nothing but the muddy 
 soles of his bare feet was visible. But the ferret was 
 evidently beyond human reach, I sat impatiently 
 enough, looking on, and trying to summon up courage 
 to say that I would go home, when I felt a drop or 
 two of rain on my hand, and saw that the heavy cloud 
 now shut Croagh Keenan altogether out of view, and 
 that a thick shower was coming across the sea and 
 along the slopes of Durrus. In another instant we 
 were enveloped in a gusty whirl of rain. 
 
 " Run to the Sweenys', Theo ! " cried Willy, jump- 
 ing up from his knees, and abandoning his attempt 
 to push little Sweeny deeper into the hole ; " we must 
 shelter there." 
 
 "Couldn't we get home?" I said, standing un- 
 decidedly in the downpour, and thinking with despair 
 that my deserted visitor was possibly arriving at 
 Durrus now. 
 
 " No ; you'd be drowned getting there. Come on." 
 
 We ran up the lane as fast as was possible from 
 the nature of it, with the mud splashing up at every 
 step, the rain trickling down the back of our necks, 
 and the dogs racing along with us, getting very much 
 in the way by ridiculous jumps at the bag in which 
 
136 An Irish Cousin, 
 
 Willy carried the ferret, and evidently believing that 
 this unusual rushing through the mud was only a 
 prelude to something far more thrilling. I picked 
 my way after Willy through the Sweenys' yard, 
 along a path which ran precariously between a manure 
 heap and a pool of dirty water, and saw Mrs. Sweeny 
 flinging open her door to receive us. 
 
 " Oh, ye craytures ! ye're dhrowned ! Come in as- 
 thore ! Get out, ye divil ! " — slapping the bony flanks 
 of a calf which was trying to thrust itself into the house. 
 " Turn them hins out, Batty ! Indeed, 'tis a disgrace 
 to ask ye into that dirty little house, and me afther 
 plucking a goose." 
 
 We entered the low, narrow doorway ; and the hens, 
 seeing that they were hemmed in, and disdaining even 
 at this extreme moment to yield to Batty's practised 
 pursuit, took to their wings, and flew past our heads 
 through the doorway with varying screams of con- 
 sternation. 
 
 "Did anny one ever see the Hke of thim hins?" de- 
 manded Mrs. Sweeny, dramatically, while she dragged 
 forward a greasy-looking kitchen chair. " I'm fairly 
 heart-scalded with them — the monkeys of the world ! 
 Sit down, ochudth, sit down why ! " she went on, 
 addressing me, her broad red face beaming with pride 
 and hospitality. " Indeed, me little place isn't fit for 
 the likes of ye ! Sure, wouldn't ye sit down, Masther 
 
An Irish Cousin. 137 
 
 Willy, till I get ye a dhrink of milk? Run away, 
 Bridgie" — this in an undertone to a grimy little girl — 
 " and dhrive in the cows." 
 
 She produced another chair for Willy, the discre- 
 pancy in the length of whose legs was corrected by a 
 convenient dip in the mud floor of the cottage, and 
 Willy sat down, and at once began a diffuse and cheer- 
 ful conversation with her. 
 
 The Fates certainly seemed to be against me. This 
 shower would probably last for some time, and it 
 would be impossible to say that I wanted to go home 
 until it was over. I looked at my watch ; it was al- 
 ready nearly four. Nugent would very likely come 
 early — he had said that he would be over some time 
 before tea — and would hear that I had gone out, and 
 had left no message or explanation of any kind for him. 
 It was very exasperating, but, as long as this deluge 
 of rain lasted, all I could do was to sit still and possess 
 my soul in as much patience as possible. 
 
 The cabin had more occupants than, in its doubtful 
 light, I had at first noticed. In the smoky shadow of 
 the overhanging chimney-place was huddled, on a 
 three-legged stool, a very small old man in knee- 
 breeches and a tail-coat, who was smoking a short 
 pipe, and still held in his hand the battered tall hat 
 which he had taken off on our entrance. He was our 
 hostess's father-in-law, one of the oldest tenants on the 
 
138 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 estate, and he sat, as I had often seen the old country- 
 men in the cabins sit, smoking and dozing over the fire, 
 and looking hardly more alive to what was going on 
 than the grey, smouldering lumps of turf on the hearth. 
 In the dusky recess at the foot of a four-poster bed, 
 which blocked up one of the small windows. Batty and 
 two other children were hiding behind each other, and 
 were staring at us as young birds might. Pat and 
 Jinny were vulgarly snuffing among Mrs. Sweeny's 
 pots and pans, with an affectation of starvation which 
 but ill-assorted with what I knew of their recent 
 luncheon. Now they had come, with stunning un- 
 expectedness, on a cat, crouched on the dresser, and, 
 when called off by Willy on the very eve of battle, 
 remained for the rest of their visit shaken by parox- 
 ysms of shuddering, in agonised contemplation of her 
 security. From a hencoop in the corner by the bed 
 came faint duckings ; the goose which Mrs. Sweeny 
 had been plucking lay with its legs tied beside the 
 red earthen pan, in which it might have seen its 
 own breast feathers, and tried to console itself by peck- 
 ing feebly at the yellow meal which had been spilt on 
 the ground in front of the chicken's coop. 
 
 Mrs. Sweeny was sitting on a kind of rough settle, 
 between the other window and the door of an inner 
 room. She was a stout, comfortable-looking woman 
 of about forty, with red hair and quick blue eyes, that 
 
An Irish Cousin. 139 
 
 roved round the cabin, and silenced with a glance the 
 occasional whisperings that rose from the children. 
 
 " And how's the one that had the bad cough ? " 
 asked Willy, pursuing his conversation with her with 
 his invariable ease and dexterity. " Honor her name 
 is, isn't it ? " 
 
 " See, now, how well he remembers ! " replied Mrs. 
 Sweeny. " Indeed, she's there back in the room, lyin' 
 these three days. Faith, I think 'tis like the decline 
 she have, Masther Willy." 
 
 " Did you get the doctor to her ? " said Willy. 
 " I'll give you a ticket if you haven't one." 
 
 " Oh, indeed, Docthor Kelly's afther givin' her a 
 bottle, but sure, I wouldn't let her put it into her 
 mouth at all. God knows what'd be in it. Wasn't I 
 afther throwin' a taste of it on the fire to thry what'd 
 it do, and Phitz ! says it, and up with it up the 
 chimbley ! Faith, I'd be in dread to give it to the 
 child. Sure, if it done that in the fire, what'd it do 
 in her inside ? " 
 
 " Well, you're a greater fool than I thought you 
 were," said Willy, politely. 
 
 " May-be I am, faith," replied Mrs. Sweeny, with a 
 loud laugh of enjoyment. "But if she's for dyin', the 
 crayture, she'll die aisier without thim thrash of 
 medicines ; and if she's for livin', 'tisn't thrusting to 
 them she'll be. Sure, God is good — God is good " 
 
140 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 "Divil a betther!" interjected old Sweeny, un- 
 expectedly. 
 
 It was the first time he had spoken, and having 
 delivered himself of this trenchant observation, he 
 relapsed into silence and the smackings at his pipe. 
 
 " Don't mind him at all, your honour, miss," said his 
 daughter-in-law, to me. " Sure, he's only a silly owld 
 man." 
 
 " He's a good deal more sensible than you are," said 
 Willy, returning to the subject of Honor. 
 
 The rain poured steadily down. I thought of 
 Nugent, and could fancy his surprise at hearing that 
 I was not at home. It was not, I argued to myself, 
 so much that I was sorry to miss him, as that I hated 
 being rude ; and it certainly was rude to have gone 
 out on the day he had settled to come, without even 
 leaving a message. What an amazing gift of the gab 
 Willy had ! Rain or no rain, it was clear that he and 
 Mrs. Sweeny meant to talk to one another for the rest 
 of the afternoon. 
 
 The old man in the chimney-corner had watched 
 me during all this time, and muttered to himself every 
 now and then — what, I could not understand. We 
 must have been sitting there for ten minutes at least, 
 when the two boys whom Willy had left to look for 
 the ferret came dripping in, with the object of their 
 search safely housed in a bag, and silently stationed 
 
An Irish Cousin. 141 
 
 themselves along with their brothers and sisters in the 
 corner by the bed. 
 
 " Is the rain nearly over ? " I asked the elder. 
 
 " I dunno, miss," he replied, bashfully rubbing the 
 sole of his foot up and down the shin of the other leg. 
 
 " I can tell you that," said Willy, getting up and 
 going to the door. " I don't think it looks like clear- 
 ing for another quarter of an hour." 
 
 "Then I don't know what I can do," I said, in 
 unguarded consternation. 
 
 " Why," said Willy, turning round and looking at 
 me with his hands in his pockets, " what's the hurry ? " 
 
 "There is no hurry exactly," I said, feeling very 
 small and cowardly ; " but I thought you knew — at 
 least, I think I told you this morning, that Mr. O'Neill 
 said he would come over to-day." 
 
 I wondered if this simple sentence gave any indica- 
 tion of the effort it was to me to say it. 
 
 " I can't say I remember anything about it," Willy 
 answered, in what I am sure he thought a crushingly 
 chilly voice. 
 
 " Oh yes, indeed I did tell you," I said, getting up 
 and following him to the door ; " but you sneezed just 
 as I was saying it, and the voice is not yet created 
 that could be heard through one of your sneezes." 
 
 I knew that he was rather proud than otherwise of 
 his noisy sneezes, and I laughed servilely, and looked 
 
142 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 up, hoping that he would laugh too. But there was 
 nothing approaching to amusement in his face. It was 
 red and forbidding, as he looked out into the rain that 
 was thrashing down in the dirty yard. He had still 
 a good deal of hay and hayseed about his coat and cap, 
 and altogether I thought it was not one of his most 
 becoming moments. 
 
 " I don't know if you'd like to start in that," he 
 said ; " but if you would, I'm quite ready to go with 
 you." 
 
 If I had been alone, I should probably have faced 
 a wetting in order to get back to the house ; but now 
 I was both too proud and too shy to accept Willy's 
 offer. 
 
 " I think I shall wait a little longer," I said, going 
 back to my chair by the fire. 
 
 " Himself's afther sayin'," said Mrs. Sweeny, as I 
 sat down, " that he'd think 'twas your father he was 
 lookin' at, an' you sittin' there a while ago." 
 
 Old Sweeny removed his pipe from his lips, and 
 cleared his throat. 
 
 " Manny's the time I seen Heir Sarsfield sit there," 
 he said, in a harsh whisper, turning his bleared and 
 filmy old eyes towards me — " the way she " — he 
 pointed a crooked forefinger at me — "is now, afther 
 he bein' out shootin' or the like o' that ; * Be domned 
 to ye. Sweeny, ye blagyard,' he'd say to me, * dickens 
 
An Irish Cousin, 143 
 
 a shnipe is there left on yer land with your dhraining ; 
 I'll have ye run out of the place,' he'd say. That's 
 the very way he'd talk to me, as civil and pleasant 
 as yerself. Begob, ye have the very two eyes of him, 
 an' the grand long nose of him ! " 
 
 I acknowledged the compliment as well as I knew 
 how, and old Sweeny went on again, punctuating his 
 sentences with long and noisy pulls at his pipe. 
 
 " Faith, there was manny a one of the Durrus tinants 
 would rather 'twas their own son was goin' to Ameriky 
 than him when he went ; and manny a one too that'd 
 have walked to Cork to go to his funeral. That was 
 the quare comin' home that he had — to die an' be 
 berrid in the town o' Cork. I'll niver forget that time. 
 Sure the night he died in Cork — 'twas the night 
 afther the owld masther dyin' too — I wasn't in me bed, 
 but out in the shed with a cow that was sick. There 
 was carriages dhriving the Durrus avenue that night," 
 he said, his voice getting lower and huskier ; " I heard 
 them goin' the road, an' it one o'clock in the morning ! 
 And the big shnow com minced afther that agin." 
 
 " What carriages were they ? " I asked, with a 
 creeping at my backbone. 
 
 The old man looked furtively round, and took his 
 pipe out of his mouth. 
 
 " God knows ! " he said mysteriously ; " God knows ! 
 But they say there do be them that wait for the 
 
144 ^^ ^^^^ Cousin. 
 
 Sarsfields agin they're dyin'. There was one that 
 seen the black coach and four horses goin' wesht the 
 road, over the bog, the time the owld man — that's 
 Theodore's father — died ; and wansht," he went on 
 impressively, "there was a Sarsfield out, that time 
 the Frinch landed beyond in Banthry Bay, and the 
 English cot him an' hung him ; but Those People took 
 him and dhragged him through hell and through 
 det'th, and me mother's father heard the black coach 
 taking him wesht to Myross Churchyard." 
 
 Old Sweeny had let his pipe go out during the 
 telling of the story, and he paused to poke about for 
 a piece of burning turf wherewith to rekindle his pipe. 
 Willy was still standing by the door. 
 
 " I think it's cleared up enough for you to start 
 now," he said coldly, " and if you want to get back 
 to the house, you'd better start before it comes on 
 heavy again." 
 
 " Oh, very well, if you like," I answered, with equal 
 indifference. " Good-afternoon, Mrs. Sweeny." 
 
 Mrs. Sweeny was taking a bowl from the dresser, 
 from which haven of refuge she had driven her cat 
 with one swing of her brawny arm. It shot past 
 Willy out of the door, followed by a flying white 
 streak, which inference rather than eyesight told me 
 was composed of the pursuing Pat and Jinny. 
 
 " Look at that, now ! " remarked the cat's mistress ; 
 
An Irish Cousin. 145 
 
 " that overbearin' owld cat'd be sittin' there, thwarting 
 thim dogs, and she well able to run for thim ; an' I 
 wouldn't begridge them to ketch her nayther. She's 
 a little wandhering divil that have no call to the 
 place." She came forward with the bowl in her hand. 
 " See here, Masther Willy ; here's eight beautiful 
 pullet's eggs, the first she ever laid, an' you'll carry 
 them wesht to the house for Miss Sarsfield to ate for 
 her brekfish — mind that, now ! " She gave him a 
 slap on the back. " Och, there's no fear but he'll 
 mind ! " she said, winking at me. " He'd do more 
 than that for yourself, and small blame to him ! " 
 
 Willy took the bowl from her without taking any 
 notice either of the innuendo or the slap which accom- 
 panied it, and marched out of the house with sulky 
 dignity. 
 
 10 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The rain was not by any means over when we came 
 out into the field. It was half-past four, but, though 
 the sun had sunk, the clouds had lifted, and the misty 
 orange light of the after-glow filled the air. A slim 
 scrap of a moon had slipped up over the hill to the 
 eastward, and the bats were swooping round our 
 heads as we picked our way across the muddy yard 
 of the demesne farm. 
 
 " I think you'll find the field drier than the 
 bohireen," said Willy, in the same distant voice with 
 which he had last spoken ; " we can get over the wall 
 here." 
 
 He took my hand to help me over, but dropped it as 
 
 quickly as possible, and walked on with unnecessary 
 
 haste, keeping a little in front of me. The field was, 
 
 as he had said, rather better than the lane, but my feet 
 
 sank in the soaked ground, the pace at which we were 
 
 going took my breath away, and I began to be left 
 
 behind. Willy still stalked on unrelentingly, with the 
 
 enviable unpetticoated ease of mankind in wet weather. 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't go so fast," I called out at 
 
 146 
 
An Irish Cousin, 147 
 
 last. " I can't possibly keep up if you go at that 
 pace." 
 
 He slackened at once. 
 
 " I thought you wanted to go fast," he answered, 
 without looking back. 
 
 " I don't particularly care," I said, as I struggled 
 up alongside of him. " I should think Mr. O'Neill 
 must have gone home some time ago." 
 
 Willy made no comment. I took out my handker- 
 chief and wiped the last raindrops from my face, 
 feeling a good deal aggrieved by his behaviour. 
 
 " Your cap's all wet too," he said, looking down at 
 me from under his eyelids — " soaking, and so is your 
 coat," putting his hand on my shoulder for a moment. 
 " I think I ought to have carried you home in a turf- 
 basket Look at this bad bit here we've got to go 
 through." 
 
 " Thank you," I said snappishly, taking off my wet 
 cap and shaking the rain from it as I went, " I should 
 rather not. I am about as wet as I can be now. It 
 certainly was capital weather to go out ferreting in." 
 
 We were now at the " bad bit " of which Willy had 
 spoken, — a broad, dark stripe, vivid green by daylight, 
 — across a hollow in the field, with a gleam of water 
 here and there in it. 
 
 "You'd much better let me carry you over this," 
 
 said Willy, stopping. 
 
 10 * 
 
148 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 "No, thank you," I said again, eyeing, however, 
 with an inward tremor, the long distances between 
 the tussocks of grass which might serve as stepping- 
 stones. " You have the eggs to carry, and I have no 
 wish to be dropped with them into the bog." 
 
 " Ah ! nonsense now ; you know there's no fear of 
 that," he said, and put his arm round me as if to lift 
 me. " Do let me." 
 
 " I am not going to be carried," I said, with deter- 
 mination. "If you'd only let me alone, I should get 
 over quite well." 
 
 He did not take his arm away, and bent down over 
 me. 
 
 " You're always getting angry with me these times," 
 he said. 
 
 " No, indeed I'm not," I answered, trying to speak 
 pleasantly, and to move forward at the same time. 
 
 His quick breathing was at my ear, and for one 
 moment his lips touched my hair ; the next I was 
 floundering with a burning face through the deepest 
 of the quagmire. At every step my feet sank ankle- 
 deep ; I dragged out each in succession with an effort 
 that nearly pulled my boots off, and when I gained 
 firm ground again, my feet had become shapeless 
 brown objects, weighed down with mud, with which 
 my skirt was also thickly coated. Willy had made no 
 further effort to help me, and, having followed me 
 
An Irish Cousin. 149 
 
 across with caution, walked silently beside me as I 
 hurried along, trying to ignore my uncomfortable and 
 ignoble plight. 
 
 But one field now divided us from the road, and as 
 I scrambled up on to the high fence I heard wheels, 
 and saw something moving along it away from the 
 Durrus gate. 
 
 " That must be Mr. O'Neill's trap ! " I cried ex- 
 citedly, jumping down after Willy, who was already 
 in the field. " Oh, Willy, do run and stop him ! I 
 must explain " 
 
 " There's no earthly use in trying to catch him now," 
 Willy answered morosely. " I'm not going to kill 
 myself running after him, like a fool, for nothing at 
 all." 
 
 " Very well," I rejoined ; " if you won't go, I will." 
 
 My indignation with Willy alone sustained me 
 through that dreadful run. I had to cut diagonally 
 across the field in order to intercept Nugent. The 
 ground was soft and sticky ; my mud-encumbered 
 skirt clung round me ; and I should have had scant 
 chance of catching him but for the fact that the road, 
 curving a little at this point, led over a steep and 
 stony bit of hill. I reached the wall of the field just 
 as the horse was breaking into a trot at the top of the 
 hill ; but, fortunately for me, the groom at the back of 
 the dog-cart saw the walking-stick which I feebly 
 
150 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 brandished to attract his attention — I had no breath 
 wherewith to shout — and, recognising me, called to 
 his master to stop. 
 
 Nugent pulled up, and, turning round, took off his 
 hat with a face of such astonishment that I became 
 all at once aware of the appearance which I must 
 present, but I came forward with a gallant attempt 
 to appear unconscious of my heated face and general 
 dishevelledness. 
 
 " How are you ?" I panted. " I intended to be at 
 
 home. Won't you ?" Here my breath failed 
 
 me, and I was obliged to eke out my sentence with 
 a gesture in the direction of Durrus. 
 
 " Oh, thanks ; it doesn't matter in the least. Don't 
 let me take you back any sooner than you had in- 
 tended," replied Nugent, in a voice that told he had 
 been nursing his wrath to keep it warm. 
 
 " I was going home," I said, more intelligibly. " I 
 am very sorry, but we were delayed by the rain." 
 
 He got out of the dog-cart and shook hands with 
 me across the low wall, on the farther side of which I 
 was standing. 
 
 " There has certainly been a pretty heavy shower," 
 he said, looking at me uncertainly, but, as I thought, 
 with a dawning amusement. 
 
 " Hasn't there ? Awful ! " I said, smearing my wet 
 hair back behind my ears, and putting on the cap 
 
An Irish Cousin. 151 
 
 which I had clutched convulsively in my hand during 
 my run across the field. " We had to shelter in a 
 cottage for ever so long." 
 " Who are we ? " 
 
 I looked round for my late companion, but he was 
 nowhere to be seen. 
 
 " Willy was with me," I said ; " but he declared 
 that it was no use trying to catch you, and — and I 
 suppose he has gone home." 
 
 Nugent said nothing, but climbed on to the wall 
 with as much dignity as his mackintosh would permit 
 and helped me over it. I was very unfortunate, I in- 
 wardly reflected ; I first got wet through, and then one 
 cross young man after another dragged me over these 
 horrible wet stone walls. However, I said aloud — 
 
 " You must come back and have some tea ; it is 
 quite early still ". 
 He hesitated. 
 
 " Thanks, I am not sure if I shall have time ; but 
 perhaps, in any case, you had better let me drive you 
 home." 
 
 The step of the dog-cart was a very high one, and 
 as I put my foot on it to get up, the full beauties and 
 proportions of my boot — a shapeless mass, resembling 
 a brown-paper parcel — were revealed. My eyes met 
 Nugent's, and we both laughed, he unwillingly, I with 
 hopeless realisation of my appearance. 
 
152 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 " I am not fit to get into anything better than a 
 pig-sty or a donkey-cart," I said apologetically. " I 
 really am ashamed of myself from every point of view, 
 moral and physical." 
 
 " But what on earth have you been doing ? " he 
 asked, as we turned and drove towards Durrus. " Have 
 you been out snipe-shooting in the bog with Willy ? " 
 
 "No," I answered cheerfully; "something much 
 more vulgar." 
 
 " It certainly does look more as if you and he had 
 been digging potatoes, but I did not quite like to 
 suggest that." 
 
 Something in his manner offended me. 
 
 " That was just it," I said, not choosing to explain. 
 " Willy is rather short of farm hands just now, and I 
 have had my first lesson in ' sticking ' potatoes." 
 
 " I should have thought ' sticking ' horse-dealers 
 was more in Willy's line ! " 
 
 " I mean to learn that as well," I said combatively. 
 " Probably the next time you see me, I shall be selling 
 pigs in the fair at Esker ! " 
 
 "Very likely. I believe Americans — I beg your 
 pardon, I mean people from Canada — like to do a 
 country thoroughly when they get there. I suppose 
 you go in for experiments as much as the others ? " 
 
 " Why, certainly ! I'm experimentalising all the 
 time." 
 
An Irish Cousin. 153 
 
 " Really ! " said Nugent, without appearing to notice 
 my elaborate Americanisms. "And is your experi- 
 ment successful so far?" He looked me full in the 
 face as he spoke. 
 
 "Yes, so far," I answered, with an unexplainable 
 feeling that sincerity was required of me, and noting 
 inwardly the blue impenetrability of his eyes. 
 
 He said nothing for a minute or two ; then, without 
 any apparent connection of ideas — 
 
 " Is Willy coming home to hear us play ? " he asked. 
 " Have you taught him to appreciate high-class music 
 yet?" 
 
 " I don't think he wants any teaching," I said, with 
 an instinctive wish to stand up for my cousin ; " he 
 has a wonderful ear, and his taste is really very 
 good." 
 
 "Really!" 
 
 The manner was unimpeachable, but there was 
 challenge in the voice. 
 
 " Yes," I said positively ; " I believe he has a real 
 talent for music, if he had only been given a chance." 
 
 " He did not get much of a chance at anything, I 
 believe," Nugent said, in what seemed to me a patron- 
 ising way. 
 
 " No, he certainly did not. I think very few people 
 know all the disadvantages he has had, and I am quite 
 sure that very few people would have done as well as 
 
154 ^^ I^^^h Cousin. 
 
 he has if they had been in his place." This with some 
 warmth. 
 
 " I am sure I shouldn't, for one," replied Nugent, 
 quietly taking to himself the generality which I had 
 thought both telling and impalpable. "But then, I 
 
 dare say Why, there he is ! " interrupting himself, 
 
 as we turned into the avenue and came in sight of 
 Willy, who was walking very fast towards home. 
 
 He got out of our way without looking back, and 
 only nodded to us as we passed. I saw the bowl of 
 eggs in his hand, and knew by the defiant way in 
 which he carried it that he was ashamed of it. 
 
 " Your fellow-labourer seems to have had a peaceful 
 time in the hen-house whilst you were sticking the 
 potatoes," said Nugent, with again the suggestion of a 
 sneer. " He certainly does not look as if he had done 
 as much hard work as you." 
 
 " No ; he has not run all the way across a field, as I 
 did just now." 
 
 Nugent coloured. " I deserved that," he said, and 
 laughed. Then, after a moment's pause, " And I don't 
 think I did deserve your taking such trouble to stop 
 me . 
 
 " Of course, you may have some inner sense of un- 
 worthiness," I answered, mollified, " that must remain 
 between you and your own conscience ; but it was 
 very rude of me not to have been at home, and I did 
 
An Irish Cousin. 155 
 
 not mind the run half so much as writing the letter of 
 apology which I should have felt you had a right to." 
 
 "And which I should not have believed," said 
 Nugent. " It was so wet that I should have been 
 quite certain that you were sitting over the fire with 
 Willy all the time, and told Roche to send me away 
 because you felt as if playing violin accompaniments 
 would be a bore." 
 
 "Appearances would have been against me," I 
 admitted ; " but I should have enclosed my boots as 
 circumstantial evidence " — advancing one disreputable 
 foot from beneath the rug — " and perhaps also one of 
 the potato cakes that I had ordered specially for your 
 benefit." 
 
 A loud twanging snap from the violin-case under 
 the seat startled us both. 
 
 " By Jove ! " exclaimed Nugent, " that is the E 
 string, and I have not another with me." 
 
 "Then we can't have any music," I said, with 
 unaffected dismay. " What a pity ! So I brought 
 you back for nothing, after all." 
 
 " Don't say nothing," he said ; " think of the potato 
 cakes ! " 
 
 "That may be your point of view," I said regret- 
 fully ; " but when I was running across that field I 
 was thinking of Corelli." 
 
 " I had hoped," remarked Nugent, looking sideways 
 
156 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 at me, as he pulled up at the hall door, "that you 
 might have had some incidental thoughts about the 
 way in which you had treated me." 
 
 " I cannot argue any more until I have had my 
 tea," I said, getting out of the trap, and trying to 
 stamp some of the mud off my boots on the steps. 
 
 "Perhaps I had better go home," he suggested. 
 " As Corelli is out of the question, I suppose I shall 
 not be wanted." 
 
 "Just as you like." 
 
 " But I want the potato cake you promised me." 
 . " Then, I think you had better come in and get it," 
 I said, going into the house ; " I don't approve of out- 
 door relief ! " 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 November 20th was Willy's twenty-fifth birthday, 
 and he and I fitly celebrated it by going out hunting, 
 and, having come home hungry after a good day's 
 sport, were now, in consideration of having had no 
 lunch, indulging in poached eggs at afternoon tea. 
 
 " The men in the yard tell me that there are to be 
 great doings to-night in honour of me," Willy re- 
 marked, when the first sharp edge had been taken 
 off his appetite. " There's to be a bonfire outside the 
 front gate, and Conneen the piper, and dancing, and 
 everything. It means that I'll have to send them a 
 tierce of porter, and that you'll have to turn out after 
 dinner and go down and have a look at them." 
 
 " So long as they don't ask me to dance, I shall be 
 very glad to go. But would your father mind ? " 
 
 " Mind ? Not he ! You're such a ' white-headed 
 
 boy' with him, you can do what you like with him. 
 
 By Jove, he's a deal fonder of you than he ever was of 
 
 me ! " said Willy, with ungrudging admiration. 
 
 " I am sure he is not," I said lazily, and as much 
 
 157 
 
158 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 for the sake of contradiction as from any false modesty. 
 ** It is most unlikely. I know if I were he, I should 
 naturally like you better than I like myself." 
 
 " What on earth are you trying to say ? " said Willy. 
 " Would you mind saying it all over again — slowly ? " 
 
 " I mean," I said, slightly confused, but sticking to 
 my point — " I mean that if I were your father, I 
 should see a great many more reasons for being fond 
 oi you than I should of me!' 
 
 " Well, as far as I can make that out," said Willy, 
 grinning exasperatingly, "it seems to me that it's a 
 pity you're not my father." 
 
 " You know perfectly well what I mean. Just sup- 
 pose that I was your father " 
 
 " I'd rather not, thanks." 
 
 I did not heed the interruption. " I should be much 
 fonder of you " 
 
 " Then, why aren't you ? " 
 
 " I don't care what you say," I said, feeling I was 
 getting the worst of it ; "I know what I mean quite 
 well, and so would you, only that you choose to be an 
 idiot." And, getting up, I left the room with all 
 speed, in order to have the last word in a discussion 
 which was taking a rather difficult tone. 
 
 The sea-fog had crept up from the harbour towards 
 evening, and it fell in heavy drops from the trees upon 
 Willy and me as we walked down the avenue after 
 
An Irish Cousin. 159 
 
 dinner to see the bonfire. There was no moon visible, 
 but the milky atmosphere held some luminous sugges- 
 tion of past or coming light. It was a still night ; we 
 could hear the low booming of the sea in the caves 
 below the old graveyard, and the nearer splashing of 
 the rising tide among the Durrus rocks. 
 
 " There's no sound I hate like that row the ground- 
 swell makes out there at the point," said Willy. "If 
 you're feeling any way lonely, it makes you want to 
 hang yourself." 
 
 " I like it," I said, stopping to listen. " I often lie 
 awake and listen to it these nights, when the westerly 
 wind is blowing." 
 
 " May-be you'd get enough of doing that if you were 
 here by yourself for a bit, and knew you'd got to stop 
 here. I tell you you've no notion what this place is 
 like in the winter. Sometimes there's not a creature 
 in the country to speak to from one month's end to 
 another." 
 
 " I ought to know something about it by this time." 
 
 " You think you do," he answered, with a short 
 laugh. " But you can't very well know what it was 
 like before you came, no more than you can tell what 
 it will be like when you're gone." 
 
 We moved on again. 
 
 "Cannot you ever get away?" I asked sympa- 
 thetically. 
 
i6o An Irish Cousin. 
 
 " No ; how could I leave the governor ? I tell you," 
 he went on, " that if you were boxed up here with no 
 one to talk to but him, you'd go anywhere for com- 
 pany." He stopped for a moment. " Do you know 
 that, before you came here last October, I was as near 
 making a fool of myself as ever a chap was " — breaking 
 off again, but continuing before I could speak — " I 
 believe I didn't care a hang what I did with myself 
 then. I suppose you'll think that I'm an ass, but it's 
 very hard to have no one at all who cares about 
 you." 
 
 " I am sure it must be," I said, feeling rather un- 
 comfortable, and walking quickly on. Confidences of 
 this kind from Willy were quite new. They were also 
 embarrassing, and the friendly and cousinly footing 
 that I thought we had arrived at seemed more pre- 
 carious than it had been. 
 
 We were now near the gate, and could already hear 
 the squeals of the bagpipes, and see the glare of the 
 bonfire in the fog. All round the semicircular sweep 
 outside the lodge, a row of women and girls were 
 seated on the ground, with their backs to the ivy- 
 covered wall, while a number of men and boys were 
 heaping sticks on to a great glowing mound of turf 
 that was burning in the middle of the road. The 
 barrel of porter which Willy had sent was propped up 
 in one of the niches in the wall, and in the other 
 
An Irish Cousin. i6i 
 
 niches, and along the top of the walls, were clustered 
 innumerable little boys. 
 
 As Willy and I came through the open gates, a sort 
 of straggling cheer was set up by the men, which was 
 shrilly augmented and prolonged by shrieks from 
 the children in the niches. Willy walked up to the 
 bonfire. 
 
 " Well, boys," he said, " that's a great bonfire you 
 have. I'm glad to see you all here." 
 
 At this moderate display of eloquence there was 
 another cheer, and as it died away, a very old man, in 
 knee-breeches and tail-coat, came forward, and, to my 
 intense amazement, kissed Willy's hand. 
 
 " I'm a tenant in Durrus eighty-seven years," he 
 said, " an' if I was dyin' this minute, I'd say you were 
 the root and branch of your grandfather's family ! 
 Root and branch — root and branch ! " 
 
 Here his eloquence was cut short by an old woman, 
 who darted forward and snatched Willy's hand from 
 the man. She also began by kissing it resoundingly, 
 but, in a transport of adoration, she flung it from her. 
 
 " On the mout' ! on the mout' ! " she screamed, 
 flinging her arms round him ; then, dragging his face 
 down to hers, she suited the action to the word. 
 
 Willy submitted with admirable fortitude ; but, in 
 
 order to avoid further demonstrations of a similar 
 
 kind, he called upon Conneen the piper to play a jig. 
 
 H 
 
1 62 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 I heard from the other side of the road a long pre- 
 liminary drone, and the piper, a crippled hunchback, 
 with long black hair and a sallow face, seated on a 
 donkey, began to produce from his bagpipes a suc- 
 cession of grunts and squeals of varying discordancy, 
 known as "The Foxhunter's Jig". 
 
 I drew back into the smaller gateway to watch the 
 dance. The figures of the four dancers showed darkly 
 against the background of firelit, steamy fog, and the 
 flames of a tar-barrel which had just been thrown 
 upon the bonfire glared unsteadily on the faces of 
 the people, and on the glowing network of branches 
 overhead. Willy was one of the four who were 
 dancing, and was covering himself with glory by the 
 number and intricacy of his steps. He had chosen as 
 his partner the buxom Mrs. Sweeny, in whose cottage 
 we had once sheltered from the rain, and above the 
 piercing efforts of the bagpipes to render in "The 
 Foxhunter's Jig " the various noises of the chase, the 
 horn, the hounds, and the hunters, the plaudits of the 
 audience rose with more and more enthusiasm. 
 " More power, Masther Willy I " 
 " Tighten yourself now, Mrs. Sweeny ! " 
 " God knows Mrs. Sweeny's a lovely dancer ! She'd 
 dance on a plate ! " 
 
 " Ah ha ! d'ye mind that for a lep ! Re's the divil's 
 own dancer ! " 
 
An Irish Cousin. 163 
 
 I looked on and listened to it all from the gateway, 
 feeling, in spite of my Sarsfield blood, a stranger in a 
 strange land. I did not recognise many of the people 
 about me ; beyond some of the junior members of 
 the Durrus household, who nodded to me with the 
 chastened, reserved friendliness of the domestic servant 
 when away from her own roof, and Bridget Courtney, 
 the washerwoman, whose white teeth shone in a broad 
 grin when I looked at her, I knew no one. Neither 
 Anstey nor her mother were anywhere to be seen, 
 though I had looked up and down the row of faces 
 several times for them. A grizzled, bearded man, 
 whom I knew to be Michael Brian, the lodge-keeper, 
 was in charge of the barrel of porter. I noticed during 
 the dance that, although he never took his eyes off the 
 dancers, he did not applaud, and before it was over he 
 left the barrel in the care of a subordinate, and went 
 past me into the lodge. 
 
 In a minute or two he returned, bringing Anstey 
 
 with him, and she began to help him in dispensing 
 
 the porter. The niche in which it was placed was 
 
 quite near to where I was standing, and I could 
 
 hear him scolding her in a low voice. She looked 
 
 frightened and unhappy ; I thought with a kind of 
 
 horror of the dumb and distraught mother, alone in 
 
 the darkened lodge. 
 
 When the jig had ended with a long squeal from 
 
 II * 
 
164 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 the pipes, intended, I presumed, to represent the fox's 
 death-agony, Willy led his breathless partner back to 
 her place, and slowly made his way to me, amid a 
 shower of compliments and pious ejaculations. 
 
 " Phew ! I'm mostly dead ! " he said, leaning against 
 the gatepost beside me, and fanning himself with his 
 cap. " Mrs. Sweeny has more going in her than ten 
 men, and dancing on the gravel is no joke." 
 
 While he was speaking, I saw that his eye had 
 fallen on Anstey, and almost imperceptibly he faced 
 more and more in my direction, till his back was 
 turned to her and her father. Another dance began, 
 but, instead of joining in it, he lighted a cigarette and 
 went on talking to me. 
 
 "Perhaps we'd better be getting home," he said 
 presently. "You must have seen about enough of 
 it." 
 
 We moved from where we were standing into the 
 carriage-drive, and he said a general good-night to the 
 assemblage. The jig was stopped, and one of the 
 dancers shouted — 
 
 " Three cheers for Masther Willy ! " 
 
 " Huzzay ! " rose the chorus. 
 
 " And three cheers for Miss Sarsfield ! " called out 
 another voice, which, with deep gratification, I recog- 
 nised as that of Mrs. Rourke, the Durrus cook, and 
 another " Huzzay ! " arose in my honour. 
 
An Irish Cousin. 165 
 
 Willy looked at me with a beaming face. 
 
 "Do you hear that, Theo? You see, they think a 
 good deal of you too." 
 
 " It's very kind of them," I replied, retreating pre- 
 cipitately into the darkness ; " but I hope they don't 
 expect me to make a speech." 
 
 " Masther Willy ! " 
 
 I heard a hoarse whisper behind me, and, looking 
 back, I saw that Michael Brian had followed Willy 
 through the gates. 
 
 " Masther Willy, aren't you goin' to dance with my 
 gerr'l ? " 
 
 " No, I'm not ; I'm going home," said Willy, roughly. 
 He turned away, but Brian caught his sleeve. 
 
 " Ah ! come back now and dance with her," he said, 
 in a part bullying, part wheedling voice ; " don't ^wo, 
 her the go-by." 
 
 Willy wrenched away his sleeve. 
 
 " Go to the devil ! You're drunk ! " he said, in a 
 low angry voice. 
 
 " Dhrunk is it ? Wait a while, and you'll see if I'm 
 dhrunk," said Brian, following him as he turned from 
 him, and speaking more threateningly. "Dhrunk or 
 sober, there'll be work yet before ye're done with me." 
 
 Willy made no remark on what had taken place as 
 he joined me where I was standing a few paces in 
 advance of him. I did not know what to say, and 
 
1 66 ^n Irish Cousin. 
 
 we walked silently away up the avenue. The noise 
 of the bagpipes died away behind us in the fog, and 
 the moaning rush of the tide, now full in, on the 
 strand, was again the only sound to be heard. We 
 had got into the darkness of the clump of elms, when 
 Willy stopped short. 
 
 " I thought I heard some one there in the trees," he 
 
 said. " I wonder if that blackguard " He did 
 
 not finish the sentence, and we both listened. 
 
 " I don't hear anything now, whatever," he said, 
 moving on. But before we had gone more than a few 
 steps, I heard a twig snap. 
 
 " There is something there," I said apprehensively, 
 coming closer to him. He felt for my hand, and put 
 it into his arm. 
 
 " Never mind ; very likely it's only a stray jackass ; 
 don't be frightened at all." 
 
 We walked on quickly until we were in the open 
 beyond the little wood, and we were near the house 
 before he spoke again. 
 
 " Theo, I think I've made the most miserable hash 
 of my life that ever any one did. Why didn't you 
 come here long ago ? " he broke off, and laid his hand 
 on mine that was resting on his arm. " You needn't 
 think I'm going to bother you about myself — but I 
 just feel that everything's gone against me." 
 
 " Oh that's nonsense, Willy ! " I said, trying to 
 
An Irish Cousin. 167 
 
 speak with more cheerfulness than I felt. " That is a 
 very poor way of looking at things." 
 
 " Very likely, but it's the only way I've got." We 
 were on the steps by this time, and he opened the 
 hall door. " Anyhow, it doesn't make much difiference 
 how I look at them ; I suppose it will all come to the 
 same sooner or later." 
 
 He shut the door with a bang, and I went upstairs. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 It was the day of the Jackson-Crolys' dance, for 
 which we had in due course received our invitations, 
 gorgeously printed on gilt-edged cards. Willy and I 
 were sitting over the library fire after tea, and had 
 already begun to contemplate the combined horrors 
 of dressing for a ball and eating a half-past six o'clock 
 dinner, when Uncle Dominick stalked in, with a 
 basket in his hand, which he handed to me with a 
 note, saying austerely that one of the Clashmore 
 servants had just ridden over with it. 
 The note was from Connie. 
 
 " My dear Theo," it began — I had seen a good 
 deal of the O'Neills lately, and Connie and I had 
 arrived at calling each other by our Christian names 
 — "we are sending you over some yellow chrysan- 
 themums, as you said you were going to wear white. 
 Mamma will, of course, be delighted to chaperon you, 
 and thinks you had better come here first, and drive 
 on in our carriage ; and we can take you home and 
 put you up for the night, as Willy may want to stay 
 
 i68 
 
An Irish Cousin, 169 
 
 later than you do. Nugent is very proud of the 
 bouquet. He constructed it himself, and has spent 
 the greater part of the morning over it in the con- 
 servatory. Certainly, as far as wire goes, it is all that 
 can be desired ; there are at least ten yards in it." 
 
 "I should have thought you might have found 
 some flowers for your cousin here, Willy," remarked 
 Uncle Dominick, while I was reading the letter. 
 
 " There's nothing fit for any one to wear," answered 
 Willy, gloomily. " I was out this morning to see, and 
 there was nothing but a few violets." 
 
 " I am sorry you did not pick them," I said, with 
 pacific intention ; " I should have been very glad to 
 wear them. They think it would simplify matters if 
 I slept at Clashmore to-night," I went on. " I think 
 it would be a good plan, if you don't mind, Uncle 
 Dominick ? " 
 
 " It is entirely for you to decide, my dear," he said 
 coldly ; " you can make any arrangements that you 
 like. The man is waiting for an answer." 
 
 " Well, I will sleep there," I said, goaded to decision 
 by his ungracious manner. 
 
 With the aid of the ministrations of Maggie, the 
 red-haired housemaid, who had developed a deep 
 attachment for me, I was arriving at the more ad- 
 vanced stages of my toilet, when I heard a knock at 
 my door. 
 
170 An Irish Cousin, 
 
 " I've got you some violets," said Willy's voice, " but 
 I'm afraid they're not up to much. I've left them 
 outside." 
 
 I heard him run down the passage to his own room, 
 and, opening the door, I saw a small bunch of violets 
 lying on the ground. I picked them up ; there were 
 very few of them, and they were drenched with rain. 
 Willy must have been all this time toilsomely search- 
 ing for them with a lantern in the dark. 
 
 " Has it been raining, Maggie ? " I asked. 
 
 "'Deed, then, it has, miss, and teeming rain this 
 half-hour." 
 
 So he must have gone out in the rain to pick them 
 for me. Poor Willy ! 
 
 I fastened them into the front of my dress with an 
 ache of pity, and looked at those other flowers on my 
 dressing-table, the feathery golden chrysanthemums 
 showing through a mist of maiden-hair, with something 
 that was near being distaste. Their coming had not 
 been altogether a surprise to me ; in fact, I had been 
 more or less looking out for them all day. But some- 
 how Willy's bunch of violets had taken away most of 
 my pleasure in them, and when I came downstairs I 
 laid the bouquet with my wraps out of sight, on the 
 hall table. 
 
 We hurried through our early dinner, but before we 
 left the dining-room I received a mysterious intimation 
 
An Irish Cousin. 171 
 
 from Roche to the effect that Mrs. Rourke would like 
 to see me outside. 
 
 Mrs. Rourke was the cook, and, inly marvelling 
 what she could have to say to me, I went out into the 
 hall. There, to my no small surprise, I was confronted, 
 not only by Mrs. Rourke, but by the whole strength 
 of the Durrus indoor establishment. There they all 
 were — housemaid, dairymaid and kitchenmaid, with 
 their barefooted subordinates lurking behind them, 
 and from them, as I appeared, a low-breathed murmur 
 of approval arose. 
 
 " Well, miss," began Mrs. Rourke, in tones of solemn 
 conviction, "ye might thravel Ireland this night, and 
 ye wouldn't find yer aiqual ! Of all the young ladies 
 ever I seen, you take the sway ! " 
 
 " Glory be to God ! 'tis thrue ! " moaned the kitchen- 
 maid, in awestricken assent. 
 
 " Why, you can't half see her there, Mrs. Rourke," 
 said Willy, coming out of the dining-room ; " hold on 
 till I get a lamp." 
 
 He came back with the tall old moderator lamp 
 from the middle of the dinner-table, and, holding it 
 up, stood so that the light should fall full on me. 
 Seldom have I felt more foolish than I did at that 
 moment ; but I did my best to live up to the position. 
 "And what I say, Masther Willy," continued Mrs. 
 Rourke, taking up her parable in the manner of a 
 
172 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 prophetess, " is that I never seen a finer pair than the 
 two of ye, and ye do well to be proud of her ! And I 
 hope it won't be the last time I'll see herself and 
 yourself going out through that door together — nor 
 coming in through it nayther ! " 
 
 This dark saying was received by the chorus with 
 various devotional expressions of satisfaction. 
 
 " Yes, Mrs. Rourke," said my uncle's voice from 
 behind me, in tones of unusual affability, " I think we 
 have no reason to be ashamed of our representatives." 
 
 I was beginning to feel that I could bear this dread- 
 ful ceremonial no longer, when, with sincere inward 
 thanksgiving, I heard the grinding of wheels on the 
 gravel. 
 
 " There's the carriage," I said, turning to Willy, who 
 had all this time been silently holding up the lamp ; 
 " do put down that thing, and get me my cloak." 
 
 My uncle himself put my wraps upon me, and stood 
 with me in the open doorway, while Roche laid a strip 
 of carpet down the wet steps. As I stood waiting in 
 the doorway, I saw a woman standing in the rain, 
 just outside the circle of light thrown from the carriage 
 lamps. She pressed forward as I came down the 
 steps, and then drew quickly back with what sounded 
 like a sob. The momentary gleam of the carriage 
 lights had shown me who it was. 
 
 " Willy," I said, as we drove away, " did you see 
 
An Irish Cousin, 173 
 
 Anstey Brian standing there ? I am almost sure she 
 was crying. What could have been the matter with 
 her?" 
 
 " You must have made a mistake," he said ; " may-be 
 it wasn't Anstey at all. Anyhow, if she wants to cry, 
 there's no need for her to go and stand out there in 
 the rain to do it." 
 
 He spoke with an impatience that puzzled me. I 
 was quite certain that I had seen Anstey ; but, re- 
 membering that for some reason the subject of Moll 
 Hourihane and her daughter had always been an 
 unfortunate one with Willy and my uncle, I said no 
 more. 
 
 We had been asked to the Jackson-Crolys' for nine 
 o'clock, but, although it was not much more than 
 half-past when the Clashmore carriage arrived at 
 Mount Prospect, several heated couples whom we 
 encountered in the hall were proof that the dancing 
 had already been going on for some time. On com- 
 ing down from the cloak-room, we saw at the foot 
 of the stairs a small, bald-headed gentleman, mov- 
 ing in an agitated way from leg to leg, and apparently 
 engaged in alternately putting on and taking off his 
 gloves, 
 
 " That's Mr. Jackson-Croly," whispered Connie, 
 rapidly ; " he's an odious little being ! Don't dance 
 with him if you can possibly help it. I always tell 
 
174 ^^ I^^^h Cousin, 
 
 lies to escape him ; I lose less self-respect in that 
 way than by dancing with him." 
 
 She had no time to say more, as Madam O'Neill 
 had by this time advanced upon our host with a 
 benignity of aspect born of the consciousness of a 
 singularly becoming cap and generally successful 
 toilette. For a moment I thought he was going to 
 make her a courtesy, so low was his reverence on 
 shaking hands with her. 
 
 " It was so kind of you to come, Madam O'Neill," 
 he said, speaking through tightly closed teeth in a 
 small, deprecating voice ; " and the weather so un- 
 pleasant, too ; yes, indeed ! But we've quite a nice 
 little number of friends dancing in there already, and 
 we're expecting another earful of partners for the 
 young ladies " — with a bow to Connie and me — " from 
 Doctor Foley's Seminary in Esker." 
 
 " That will be delightful ! " said Connie, with a 
 brilliant smile, giving me at the same time an ex- 
 pressive pinch. 
 
 She was looking very pretty, and was in the highest 
 spirits, consequent, as I soon found, on an advanced 
 flirtation with a Captain Forster, then staying at 
 Clashmore. Pending his arrival, however, she con- 
 descended to dance with Mr. Jimmy Barrett, who, 
 his usual red-hot appearance accentuated by the fact 
 that he was wearing the hunt coat, had waylaid us in 
 
An Irish Cousin. ij^ 
 
 the hall, and he now carried Connie off, while I 
 followed the Madam and Mr. Jackson-Croly into 
 the drawing-room. There we were received by Mrs. 
 Jackson-Croly, imposingly attired in ruby silk and 
 white lace. Unlike her obsequious spouse, Madam 
 O'Neill's diamonds and acknowledged social standing 
 had no overawing effect upon her, and in her greeting 
 to us she abated no whit of her usual magnificence 
 of manner. 
 
 "'Twas too bad Miss O'Neill was from home and 
 couldn't come," she observed condescendingly. " I 
 have lots of gentlemen looking for partners — quite an 
 embarras de richesses. There were so many asking 
 for invitations, and I didn't like refusing. You must 
 let me present some of them to you. Miss Sarsfield." 
 
 The two rooms in which the dancing was going 
 on were brightened by the red coats of several mem- 
 bers of the Esker Hunt, and one of these was pre- 
 sently captured by Mrs. Croly and introduced to me. 
 While I was putting his name down for a dance, the 
 rest of our party were ushered in by Mr. Jackson- 
 Croly. 
 
 " The Clashmore gentlemen, Louisa, my dear," he 
 announced, with chastened pride. 
 
 The O'Neill soon made his way to me. 
 
 " Well, Miss Sarsfield, what are we to have ? I see 
 the next is a polka. I can't manage these new- 
 
176 An Irish Cousin, 
 
 fashioned waltzes, but I flatter myself I can dance a 
 polka." 
 
 With inward trepidation I consented, and was 
 occupied with the usual difficulty of refastening my 
 pencil to my card, when card and all were quietly 
 taken out of my hand. 
 
 " Now, Theo, how about those dances you promised 
 me ? I'm just going to put my name down for them " 
 — scribbling away on my card as he spoke. 
 
 " Nonsense, Willy ; give me back my card at 
 once." 
 
 " No fear ; not till I've done with it. Well, this 
 
 will do for a start," he said, at length returning me 
 
 , my card, black with his initials, and departing without 
 
 giving me time to remonstrate. As he went away, 
 
 Nugent came up. 
 
 " Can you give me a dance ? " he asked. " I am 
 afraid it is not very likely, after the amount of time 
 Willy has spent over your card. I never saw him 
 write so much before in his life ; he looked as if he 
 were writing a book." 
 
 " Oh, I think I have some left," I said, resolving to 
 do as I thought fit about Willy's dances. 
 
 "Then, may I have 6, 11, 13, and 18, if you are 
 here ; and supper ? " 
 
 " I am afraid I can't give you supper," I said, glanc- 
 ing at the large "W" scrawled through the four 
 
An Irish Cousin. 177 
 
 supper extras on my card ; " but you can have the 
 others, I think." 
 
 " Thanks ; that is very good of you. I think the 
 next thing to be done is to ask Mrs. Croly for a 
 waltz" — making a survey of the room as he spoke. 
 " I always do, and she always pretends to strike me 
 with her fan, and says, * I suppose you're mistaking 
 me for Sissie,' and is arch. I should watch if I were 
 you ; I am sure you would like to see her looking 
 arch." 
 
 I was, unfortunately, not privileged to see this 
 phase of my hostess, as The O'Neill had already 
 stationed himself beside me, so as not to lose a bar of 
 his polka. 
 
 He danced with the determination peculiar to small 
 fat men, and we stamped and curvetted round the 
 room in circles so small that I found it difficult to 
 keep on my feet. 
 
 " That wasn't bad," he gasped complacently, as we 
 staggere# to a corner and rested there, while he 
 mopped his purple forehead. " You dance like a 
 fairy, Miss Sarsfield. But, upon my soul, I think they 
 get more pace on every year. That woman at the 
 piano — Mrs. What's-her-name ? Whelply, isn't it ? — 
 why, she's rattling away as if the devil was after her." 
 
 Looking about me, I saw with deep amusement 
 
 that Willy had selected Miss Mimi Burke as his 
 
 12 
 
178 An Irish Cousin, 
 
 partner, and was charging with her through the throng 
 at reckless speed. Her face, blazing with heat and 
 excitement, showed no unworthy fears for her own 
 safety ; and as, with her chin embedded in Willy's 
 shoulder, they sped past, she cast an eye of exhilarated 
 recognition at me. 
 
 " By Jove ! " wheezed O'Neill, still breathless from 
 his exertions ; " old Mimi's got a wonderful kick in 
 her gallop still ! She's getting over the ground like 
 a three-year-old ! " 
 
 To me the appearance of my cousin and his partner 
 was more suggestive of a large steamer going full 
 speed through smaller craft. Miss Mimi's rubicund 
 face representing the port light ; but I kept this 
 brilliant idea to myself 
 
 " I hope Willy knows how to steer," I said. " He 
 does not take things so easily as your son appears 
 to do." 
 
 Nugent was performing what was only too evidently 
 a duty dance with one of the Misses Jackson-Croly — 
 a very young lady, with fuzzy hair and a pink frock. 
 They wound sadly along, as much as possible on the 
 outskirts of the darting crowd, Nugent's expression of 
 melancholy provoking his more agile parent to a 
 laugh of mingled contempt and self-complacency. 
 
 " Take things easily ! " he repeated ; " why, he's a 
 regular muff. Who'd ever think he was a son of 
 
An Irish Cousin. 179 
 
 mine ? If / were dancing with a spicy little girl like 
 that, I wouldn't look as if I were at my own funeral. 
 Shall we have another turn ? " and before I had time 
 for a counter suggestion we were again hopping and 
 spinning round the room. 
 
 I had no reason to complain of lack of attention on 
 the part of my hostess, and I and my card were soon 
 in a state of equal confusion. The generic name of 
 Mrs. Jackson-Croly's " dancing gentlemen " appeared 
 to be either Beamish or Barrett, and had it not been 
 for Willy's elucidation of its mysteries, I should have 
 thrown my card away in despair. 
 
 " No, not him. That's Long Tom Barrett ! It's 
 English Tommy you're to dance with next. They call 
 him English Tommy because, when his militia regiment 
 was ordered to Aldershot, he said he was ' the first of 
 his ancestors that was ever sent on foreign service '." 
 
 Willy's dances with me were, during this earlier 
 part of the evening, sandwiched with great regularity 
 between those of the clans Beamish and Barrett, and 
 I found him to be in every way a most satisfactory 
 partner. He was in a state of radiant amiability, and 
 proved himself of inestimable value as a chronicler of 
 interesting facts about the company in general. He 
 was, besides, strong and sure-footed — qualities, as I 
 had reason to know, not to be despised in an assem- 
 blage such as this. I carried for several days the 
 
 12 * 
 
i8o An Irish Cousin, 
 
 bruises which I received during my waltz with English 
 Tommy. It consisted chiefly of a series of short 
 rushes, of so shattering a nature that I at last ventured 
 to suggest a less aggressive mode of progression. 
 
 "Well," said English Tommy, confidentially, "ye 
 see, I'm trying to bump Katie ! That's Katie " — 
 pointing to a fat girl in blue. " She's my cousin, and 
 we're for ever fighting." 
 
 There seemed at the time nothing very incongruous 
 about this explanation. There was a hilarious infor- 
 mality about the whole entertainment that made it 
 unlike any I had ever been at before. Every one 
 talked and laughed at the full pitch of their lungs. 
 An atmosphere of utmost intimacy pervaded the as- 
 semblage, and Christian names and strange nicknames 
 were bandied freely about among the groups in the 
 corners. The music was supplied by volunteers from 
 the ranks of the chaperons, at the end of each dance 
 the musicians receiving a round of applause, varying 
 in volume according to the energy and power of en- 
 durance displayed. The varieties of style and time 
 thus attained were almost unimaginable, and were 
 only equalled by the corresponding vagaries of the 
 dancers, whose trampings and shufiflings and runnings 
 were as amazing as they were unexpected. 
 
 I could see Madam O'Neill sitting in state at the 
 end of the room, surrounded by lesser matrons, her 
 
An Irish Cousin, i8i 
 
 boredom only alleviated by the acute disfavour with 
 which she viewed the revels. 
 
 " Do you know where Connie is, my dear ? " she 
 said with pale asperity, as I came up to her after a 
 dance. " I have not seen her for the last four dances." 
 
 I was well aware that Connie and Captain Forster 
 had long since established themselves in the conserva- 
 tory, but Madam O'Neill was too full of her grievance 
 to give me time to reply. 
 
 " I am perfectly horrified at what you must think 
 of all this," she went on. " Even here I never saw 
 such a noisy, romping set. You know, we are quite 
 in the backwoods here — all the nice people live at the 
 other end of the county — and you mustn't take these 
 as specimens of Irish society." 
 
 I was spared the necessity of replying by the 
 appearance of Nugent. 
 
 " Nugent, where is Connie ? " demanded the Madam 
 again. "It is too bad of her to make herself so 
 remarkable in a place like this." 
 
 " Oh, she's all right ; she's with Forster somewhere," 
 he answered, with the incaution of total indifference. 
 " Here's your host coming to take you in to supper, 
 and I advise you to avoid the sherry. This is our 
 dance. No. ii," he said to me. "We had better not 
 lose any more of it." 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 We were at supper. The chaperons had at length 
 completed their well-earned repast, and had returned, 
 flushed and loquacious, to the dancing-room, yielding 
 their places to the hungry throng who had been wait- 
 ing outside the door. 
 
 The last waltz had been played by Miss Sissie 
 Croly, in good time and with considerable spirit, an 
 act of coquettish self-abnegation which elicited many 
 tender reproaches from her forsaken partner. Making 
 the most of the temporary improvement in the music, 
 Nugent and I had danced without stopping, until a 
 series of sensational flourishes announced that the 
 end of the waltz was at hand. After it was over, he 
 had suggested supper, and we had secured a small 
 table at the end of the supper-room, from which, in 
 comparative quiet, we could view the doings of the 
 rest of the company. I was guiltily conscious of the 
 large " W " scrawled across the supper extras on my 
 card ; but a latent rebellion against my cousin's ap- 
 propriation conspired with a distinct desire for food to 
 
 182 
 
An Irish Cousin. 183 
 
 harden my heart. I made up my mind to do what 
 seemed good to me about one at least of the extras, 
 and dismissed for the present all further thought of 
 Willy and his possible grievances. 
 
 Meanwhile, the centre table was surrounded by what 
 looked like a convivial party of lunatics. Miss Burke 
 and Doctor Kelly had set the example of decorat- 
 ing themselves with the coloured paper caps contained 
 in the crackers, and the other guests had instantly 
 adopted the idea. Mob-caps, night-caps, fools'-caps 
 and sun-bonnets nodded in nightmare array round 
 the table, Miss Burke's long red face showing to great 
 advantage beneath a pale-blue, tissue-paper tall hat. 
 
 " I feel I have been very remiss in not offering to 
 pull a cracker with you," said Nugent, "but I am 
 afraid they have all been used up by this time ! " 
 
 "' Why did I not go in to supper with Doctor 
 Kelly ? " I said regretfully. "If the worst came to the 
 worst, I am sure he would have taken off his own sun- 
 bonnet and put it on my head ! " 
 
 " Go in with him next time," suggested Nugent. 
 " He always goes into supper two or three times, and 
 works his way each time down the table like a 
 mowing-machine, leaving nothing behind him. At 
 the masonic ball in Cork he was heard saying to his 
 sisters, as they were going in to supper, 'Stuff, ye 
 divils ! there's ice ! ' " 
 
184 ^« I^^h Cousin. 
 
 " Quite right, too," I said, beginning upon the tipsy- 
 cake which Nugent had looted for our private con- 
 sumption. " I always make a point of stuffing when 
 there is ice. However, I think on the whole I have 
 had enough of Doctor Kelly for one evening. I have 
 danced once with him, and I suppose it is because he 
 is at least a foot shorter than I am that he makes 
 himself about half his height when he is dancing with 
 me. But I think all small men do that ; the taller 
 their partner, the more they bend their knees." 
 
 Nugent laughed. " 1 have been watching you 
 dancing with all sorts and conditions of men, and 
 wondering what you thought of them. I also wondered 
 if you would find them sufficiently amusing to induce 
 you to stay on till No. 18?" he said, putting his 
 elbows on the table and looking questioningly at 
 me. 
 
 " Oh, I hope so — at least — of course, that depends 
 on your mother," I answered. 
 
 " Should you care to stay ? " 
 
 " It would be better not to bother your mother 
 about it, perhaps — of course, it might be very pleasant 
 to stay," I answered confusedly. 
 
 The way in which he had asked the question had 
 given me a strange sensation for a moment. "For 
 one reason, I should like you to see what it gets like 
 towards the end " 
 
An Irish Cousin. 185 
 
 I went on with the buttoning of my gloves without 
 answering. 
 
 " And for another — I daresay it's not any argument 
 — I shall be very sorry if you go." 
 
 His eyes were fixed on mine across the intervening 
 woodcock and tipsy-cake with more inquiry than 
 seemed necessary, but as he finished speaking a little 
 troop of men came in together for a supplementary 
 supper, and I forgot everything but my own guilt, as 
 among them I saw Willy. It was evident that he 
 had not come with any gluttonous intent, and, after a 
 cursory look round the room over people's heads, he 
 walked out. 
 
 " Did you see Willy ? " I said, in a scared whisper. 
 
 " Yes, perfectly. He was probably looking for you." 
 
 " Oh, I know he was ! " I said, beginning to gather 
 up my fan and other belongings. " I ought to go at 
 once. I am engaged to him for the extras." 
 
 " Are you afraid of Willy ? " returned Nugent, with- 
 out taking his elbows off the table, or making any move. 
 
 " No, of course I'm not. But I don't like to throw 
 him over." 
 
 " Oh, I see ! " he said, still without moving, and re- 
 garding me with an aggravating amusement. 
 
 " Well, / am going " I began, when a hand was 
 
 laid on my arm. 
 
 " I am delighted to hear it," said Connie's voice. 
 
1 86 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 "as we want this table. Get up, Nugent, and give 
 me your chair. Nothing would induce me to sit 
 at that bear-garden " — indicating the larger table. 
 " What do you think I heard Miss Donovan say to 
 that little Barrett man — English Tommy — as I was 
 making my way up here ? ' Now, captain, if you say 
 that again, I'll pelt me patty at you ! ' And I haven't 
 the least doubt that at this moment his shirt-front is 
 covered with it." 
 
 "Oh, all right," said Nugent, slowly getting up, 
 "you can have this table : we were just going. Miss 
 Sarsfield is very anxious to find Willy. She says she 
 is going to dance all the extras with him." 
 
 "Then she is rather late," replied Connie, uncon- 
 cernedly. " Captain Forster, go at once and get me 
 some game-pie. Don't tell me there's none ; I 
 couldn't bear it. Well, my dear," she continued, 
 "perhaps you are not aware that the extras are all 
 over, and No. 12 is going on now ?" 
 
 " Have you seen Willy anywhere ? " I asked, feeling 
 rather than seeing the sisterly eye of facetious insinu- 
 ation that Connie directed at her brother. " I am 
 engaged to him for No. 12." 
 
 " At this moment he is dancing with Miss Dennehy," 
 answered Connie, " but I know he has been looking 
 for you. He has prowled in and out of the conserva- 
 tory twenty times." 
 
An Irish Cousin. 187 
 
 " He was in here too," said Nugent ; " and I think 
 he saw you," he added, as we walked into the hall. 
 "What would you like to do now? Willy has 
 evidently thrown you over, and I expect my partner 
 has consoled herself. I think the safest plan is to 
 hide somewhere till this is over, and, as 13 is ours, we 
 can then emerge, and dance it with blameless com- 
 posure." 
 
 The doors of the conservatory at the end of the hall 
 stood invitingly open, and a cool, fragrant waft of 
 perfume came through them. Without further de- 
 liberation, we mutely accepted their invitation, and 
 finding, by the dim, parti-coloured light of Chinese 
 lanterns, that two arm-chairs had been placed at the 
 further end, we immediately took possession of them. 
 
 " Occasionally rest is vouchsafed even to the 
 wicked," said Nugent, leaning back, and picking up 
 my fan, which I had laid on the floor, and beginning 
 lazily to examine it. " Looking at a ball in the 
 abstract, I think it involves great weariness and vex- 
 ation of spirit. Out of twenty-four dances, there are 
 at most four or five that one really looks forward to. 
 You are going to stay for No. 18, you know," he 
 added quietly. " I shall settle that with the Madam." 
 
 " Give me my fan, please," I said, taking no notice 
 of this assertion. " I can see you know just the right 
 way to break it." 
 
1 88 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 He sat up, and, instead of returning it, began slowly 
 to fan me. There was a brief silence. The rain 
 pattered down on the glass overhead. We could just 
 hear the music, and the measured stamping of the 
 dancers' feet. 
 
 " Do you know," he said suddenly, " you are curiously 
 different from what I expected you to be." 
 
 " Why ? Had you formed any definite idea about 
 me?" 
 
 " Not in the least. That was what threw me so out 
 of my reckoning. I thought I knew pretty well, in a 
 general way, what you were going to be like ; but 
 somehow you have made me reconstruct all my 
 notions." 
 
 "If you had only told me in time, I should have 
 tried to be less inconsiderate. It is so painful to have 
 to give up one's ideas." 
 
 " I did not find it so," he said seriously ; " on the 
 contrary. I wonder" — continuing to flap my fan to 
 and fro — " if you ever had a kind of latent ideal — a 
 sort of thing which seems so impossible that you never 
 try to form any very concrete theory about it ? I 
 suppose it very seldom happens to a man to find that 
 an idea he has only dreamt about is a real thing after 
 all. Can you imagine what an effect it would have 
 upon him when he found that he had unexpectedly 
 met his — well, his ideal ? " 
 
An Irish Cousin. 189 
 
 He folded up the fan, and looked down at me, 
 waiting for an answer. 
 
 " I should imagine he would think himself very 
 clever," I said, feeling rather nervous. 
 
 " No, not clever, I don't think, so much as fortunate ; 
 that is to say " — he drew a short breath — " of course 
 the ideal may have ideas of her — of its own that the 
 man can't live up to — independent schemes, in fact ; 
 and then — why, then that man gets left, you know," 
 he ended, with a change of tone. 
 
 As he finished speaking, the far-off banging of the 
 piano ceased. I did not know how to reply to what 
 he had said ; I was not even sure of what he had 
 meant, and while I sat awkwardly silent, the dancers 
 came crowding into the conservatory, all in turn 
 exhibiting the same resentful surprise, as they found 
 the only chairs occupied. Willy was not among 
 them, nor did I see him during the ensuing dance, 
 and, as his late partner was in the room, I could only 
 conclude that he was sitting out by himself. I began 
 to feel unhappy about him, and half dreaded meeting 
 him again. The dance seemed interminably long. 
 I kept my eyes fixed on the door to see if he were 
 among the string of black and red-coated men who 
 wandered partnerless in and out, but could see no sign 
 of him. Nugent was silent and preoccupied, and it was 
 almost a relief to me when at length the music ceased. 
 
190 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 " It is very strange that I do not see Willy any- 
 where," I said, as we came out into the hall again. 
 
 "Who? Oh! Willy," he said. "Are you still 
 looking for him ? Is not that he coming out of the 
 supper-room ? " 
 
 It was Willy. I dropped Nugent's arm. " I must 
 speak to him for a minute," I said hurriedly. " I want 
 to explain to him " 
 
 By this time Willy had met us, and looked as if he 
 were going to pass me by. 
 
 "Do you know that this is our dance?" I said, 
 stopping him. " You are not going to throw me over 
 again, are you ? " My heart beat rather fast as I made 
 this feeble endeavour to carry the war into the enemy's 
 country. He was looking grey and ill, and I did not 
 think that his pleasant face could have taken on such 
 an expression of gloomy coldness. 
 
 "Really? Is it? I did not know that I was to 
 have the honour of dancing with you again," he re- 
 sponded, with a boyish attempt at frigid dignity. 
 
 " Of course it is," I said cheerily, though I felt rather 
 alarmed. " Look at it in black and white." 
 
 Willy did not look at the card which I held towards 
 him. 
 
 " It doesn't appear that my name being written 
 there makes much difference," he answered, making a 
 movement as if to pass on. 
 
An Irish Cousin, 191 
 
 " Oh, Willy, that isn't fair ! You know I danced 
 ever so often with you before supper, and afterwards 
 I was looking for you everywhere ; was I not, Mr. 
 O'Neill ? " — turning for corroboration to Nugent. He, 
 however, had left me to fight my own battles, and 
 was at a little distance, deep in conversation with Mr. 
 Dennehy. I saw that, whether verified or not, my ex- 
 planation had but little effect upon Willy, and I boldly 
 assumed the offensive. " You know, I never said that 
 I was going to give you all those dances that you took." 
 
 " Of course you were at perfect liberty to do what 
 you liked about them," returned Willy, without look- 
 ing at me. 
 
 " Don't be absurd ! You know quite well what I 
 mean, and if you had wanted to dance with me you 
 might very easily have found me. I was only in the 
 supper-room." 
 
 He said nothing, and just then we heard the first 
 few notes of the next waltz. 
 
 " You will dance this with me, won't you ? " I said, 
 thoroughly unhappy at the turn things were taking. 
 " I am very sorry. I didn't think you would mind. 
 Don't be angry with me, Willy," I ended impulsively, 
 putting my hand into his arm. 
 
 He looked at me almost wildly for a moment ; and 
 then, without a word, we joined the stream of dancers 
 who were returning to the ball-room. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Mrs. Jackson-Croly's party had reached its climax 
 of success. 
 
 "The supper's put great heart into them," little Doctor 
 Kelly remarked confidentially to Willy, as he passed 
 us, leading a stout elderly matron forth to dance. The 
 chaperons, with but few exceptions, had abandoned 
 the hard chairs and narrow sofas on which they had 
 hitherto huddled in chilly discomfort, and were, again to 
 quote Doctor Kelly, " footing it with the best of them ". 
 
 Mrs. Croly herself was playing " Sweethearts," and 
 
 by way, as I suppose, of receiving this favour with 
 
 proper enthusiasm, the guests, as they danced, sang 
 
 the words of the refrain — 
 
 Oh, lo — ove for a year, 
 A we — eek^ a day, 
 
 as often as it recurred, Mrs. Croly from the piano 
 lending her powerful aid to swell the chorus. Madam 
 O'Neill was sitting alone upon her sofa, and had closed 
 her eyes during this later development of the enter- 
 tainment, whether in real or simulated slumber I did 
 
 192 
 
An Irish Cousin. 193 
 
 not know ; but an expressive glance from Connie, 
 whom, to my surprise, I saw circling in the arms of 
 our host, told me that the latter was more probably 
 the case. The O'Neill I had lately espied sitting in 
 an arm-chair on the landing of the stairs with a very 
 pretty young lady, the instructress of the younger 
 Misses Jackson-Croly. He, at all events, was enjoy- 
 ing himself, and as far as he was concerned I felt none 
 of the qualms of conscience at the lateness of the hour 
 which assailed me at sight of my chaperon's tired face. 
 
 Willy had not spoken since we had begun to dance, 
 but I thought it best to behave as if nothing were the 
 matter. 
 
 "This is the most amusing dance I ever was at in 
 my life," I said, in the first pause that we made. 
 
 " I don't see much difference between it and any 
 other." 
 
 " I don't mean to say that I have not enjoyed 
 myself," I said, anxious to avoid any semblance of 
 superiority, ''but you must admit that one does not 
 usually meet people who are able to sing and dance a 
 waltz at the same time." 
 
 At this point there came a sudden thud on the floor, 
 followed by a slight commotion. 
 
 " Hullo ! Croly's let Connie down ! " exclaimed 
 Willy, forgetting for an instant his offended dignity. 
 
 I was just in time to catch between the dancers a 
 
 13 
 
194 ^^ Irish Cousin. 
 
 glimpse of Connie struggling, hot and angry, to her 
 feet, while her partner lay prone on his back on the 
 floor. The catastrophe had taken place just in front 
 of Madam O'Neill, whose eyes, now wide open, were 
 bent in a gaze of petrified indignation on Mr. Jackson- 
 Croly. Nugent had not been dancing, and, on seeing 
 Connie fall, had gone round to pick her up, and now 
 made his way towards me. 
 
 " Did you see them come down ? " he said. " Croly 
 hung on to Connie like a drowning man to a straw, 
 and Connie, not being exactly a straw, nearly drove 
 his head into the floor. She won't speak to him now, 
 which is rather hard luck, considering she all but 
 killed him ! Wasn't I right in advising you to stay 
 on till the end." 
 
 Exceeding laughter had deprived me of all power 
 of speech, but, in any case, Willy did not give me time 
 to reply. 
 
 " Come out of this," he said roughly ; " I'm sick of 
 it." He gave me his arm as he spoke, and elbowed 
 his way past Nugent out of the room. He walked 
 without speaking through the hall towards the con- 
 servatory, but stopped short at the door. " It's full of 
 people in there. Croly's study's the only place where 
 you've a chance of being let alone," he said, turning 
 down a passage, and leading the way into a dreary 
 little room, lighted by a smoky paraflin-lamp, and 
 
An Irish Cousin. 195 
 
 pervaded by the odour of tobacco and whisky. On 
 the inky table, two or three tumblers with spoons in 
 them, and a bottle and decanter, were standing in 
 shining patches of spilt whisky and water. A few 
 office chairs were drawn up in front of the remains of 
 a smouldering turf fire. Long files of bills hung be- 
 side an old coat on some pegs, and Mr. Croly's cloth 
 slippers showed modestly from under a small horse- 
 hair sofa. A more untempting place to sit in could 
 not well be imagined ; but Willy did not seem to 
 notice its discomforts. He sat down on one of the 
 chairs, and began aimlessly to poke the fire ; while I, 
 gingerly drawing my skirts together, established my- 
 self on the sofa. 
 
 " I can't say I think this an improvement on the 
 conservatory," I said at length, seeing that Willy did 
 not seem inclined to talk. " When did you discover 
 it?" 
 
 He threw down the poker, and, standing up, began 
 to examine a specimen of ore that lay on the chimney- 
 piece. 
 
 " If you want to know particularly," he said, in a 
 hard and would-be indifferent voice, " I came and sat 
 in here by myself while those extras were going on." 
 
 "That wasn't a very cheerful thing to do." 
 
 " Well, I didn't feel very cheerful," he answered, still 
 with his back to me, and beginning to scrape the 
 
 13 * 
 
196 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 marble mantelshelf with the piece of ore which he 
 held in his hand. 
 
 " Some one appears to have found a certain solace 
 here," I said, looking at the whiskey and water. " I 
 am sure poor Mr. Croly has crept in from time to 
 time, and put on his old coat and slippers, and tried 
 to forget that there was a dance going on in his 
 house." 
 
 No answer from Willy. 
 
 " Then perhaps it was you'^^ I continued, with ill- 
 assumed levity. " I am sorry to think that you have 
 taken to such evil courses." 
 
 He went on hammering at the chimney-piece with- 
 out replying. 
 
 " It's very rude of you not to answer ; and you are 
 ruining Mr. Croly's mantel-piece." 
 
 He put down the piece of ore suddenly, and, leaving 
 the fireplace, came and stood over me. 
 
 " Theo ! " he said, in a breathless sort of way, and 
 stopped. I looked up at him with quick alarm, and 
 saw that he was trying to get mastery enough over 
 himself to speak. " Don't look at me like that," he 
 said, almost in a whisper. " I'm nearly mad as it is. 
 I can't bear it any longer ; I must say it." 
 
 " Don't, Willy," I said ; " please don't. It would be 
 better for us both if you didn't." 
 
 " I don't care," he said, kneeling down beside me, 
 
An Irish Cousin. 197 
 
 and taking hold of both my hands. " You've got to 
 listen to me now. You needn't think that I don't 
 know I haven't a chance. I've seen that plain enough 
 to-night, if I didn't know it before. Oh, I know, 
 Theo ; I know very well," he ended brokenly. 
 
 I could find nothing to say. I liked him so much 
 that I could not bring myself to frame the truth which 
 he would have to hear. I suppose my silence en- 
 couraged him, for in the same breathless, abrupt way 
 he went on. 
 
 " I know I'm an ignorant brute ; but if you would 
 only just try me. Oh, Theo, if you could only know ! 
 I'm such a fool I can't get hold of the right words to 
 tell you, but you might believe me all the same. 
 Indeed I do love you — I love you," he repeated, with 
 a sort of sob, gathering both my hands into one of his 
 and kissing them passionately. 
 
 " Willy," I said despairingly, trying to free my hands 
 from his grasp, "you must stop ; you make me miser- 
 able. I can't bear to hear you talk like that. You 
 know how much I like you and respect you, and 
 everything. I am fonder of you than any one I know 
 almost, but not in that way." 
 
 " But if you were fond of me at all, I wouldn't mind 
 how little you liked me at first, if you'd let me care 
 for you. May-be it would come to you afterwards ; 
 and you know the governor would like it awfully," 
 
198 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 said the poor boy, lifting his white face, and gazing at 
 me with desperate eyes. 
 
 " It's no use, Willy ; I can't let you say any more 
 about it. I'm not worth your caring for me like that," 
 I said unsteadily. 
 
 His hands relaxed their grasp, and, drawing mine 
 away, I stood up. He got up also, and stood facing 
 me in the smoky light of the lamp. He leaned his 
 hand on the table beside him, and the ringing of the 
 spoons and glasses told me how it trembled. When 
 he next spoke, however, his voice was firmer. 
 
 " That's no answer. You're worth more to me 
 than everything in the world. If it was only thaf^ — 
 with a shaky laugh — "but I know that's not your 
 reason. Look here — will you tell me one thing ? " — 
 coming closer, and staring hard at me. " Is it another 
 fellow ? Is it — is it Nugent ? " 
 
 " It is nothing of the kind," I said angrily, but at 
 the same time flushing hotly under his scrutiny. 
 " You have no right to say such things. If I had 
 never seen him, I should feel just the same towards 
 you." 
 
 I turned to take my bouquet from the sofa with the 
 intention of leaving the room, but before I could do 
 so, Willy snatched it up, and, taking a stride forward, 
 he flung the flowers into the fire, and crushed them 
 with his foot into the burning embers. 
 
An Irish Cousin. 199 
 
 " How dare you, Willy ! " I said, thoroughly roused. 
 " What right had you to do that ? " 
 
 " And what right have you to say you don't care 
 for him, when you carry his cursed flowers in your 
 hand ? I see how the land lies well enough. I've 
 been made a fool of all through ! " 
 
 " You have not been made a fool of," I said, with 
 equal energy. " It is cruel of you to say that." 
 
 "Cruel? It comes well from you to say that ! I 
 dare say you think it doesn't matter much ; but may- 
 be some day, when I've gone to the devil, you'll be 
 sorry." 
 
 He walked to the door, as if to go. 
 
 " I am sorry, Willy," I said, the tears rushing to my 
 eyes. " Don't go away like that. Oh, why did I ever 
 come to Durrus ? " 
 
 He stood irresolute for a moment, with the handle 
 of the door in his hand, looking at me as if in a daze. 
 Then, with an inarticulate exclamation, he came back 
 to where I was standing, and, before I had time to 
 stop him, took me in his arms. I was too much un- 
 strung and exhausted by what had gone before to 
 resist, and I stood in a kind of horror of passive 
 endurance while he kissed me over and over again. 
 He let me go at last. 
 
 " It's no use," he said, in a choked voice, which 
 sounded almost like a groan ; "it's no use." His eye 
 
200 An Irish Cousin, 
 
 fell on the bunch of violets in my dress. " Give them 
 to me," he whispered. 
 
 I silently took out of my dress the bunch he had 
 given me, and handed them, all limp and faded, to 
 him. He took them without looking at me, and, 
 turning- his back to me, walked to the chimney-piece. 
 He leaned both his arms upon the narrow shelf, and 
 laid his head upon them. 
 
 When I left the room, he was still standing motion- 
 less in the same position. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The old graveyard on the promontory was at most 
 times the forlornest and least frequented spot about 
 Durrus. The dead people who lay in crowded slumber 
 within the grey, briar-covered walls seldom heard any 
 disturbing human voice to remind them of the life 
 they had left. Their solitude was ensured to them 
 by the greater solitude of the sea, which on three 
 sides surrounded them, and by the dreary strip of 
 worn-out turf bog which formed their only link with 
 the rest of the world. There was nothing to mark 
 for them the passing of time except the creeping of 
 the shadow thrown dial-wise by the gable of the 
 broken-down chapel, or the ever-increasing moaning 
 in the caves beneath, which told of the yearly en- 
 croachments of the sea. 
 
 Between the verge of the cliff and the wall of the 
 graveyard was only a narrow space, along which the 
 sheep had worn themselves a track among the thickly 
 lying shells and debris^ flung up by the waves during 
 autumn storms. I had wandered round this narrow 
 
 20I 
 
202 An Irish Cousin, 
 
 path, holding with a careful hand to the wall as I 
 went ; and now had clambered on to it, and, with 
 Pat seated in my lap and Jinny on the tail of my 
 gown, I was watching the quick dives and casual 
 reappearances of the slim black cormorants in the 
 sunlit water beneath me. The murmur of the sea, 
 lightly lipping the rocks, and an occasional bleat 
 from the sheep in the graveyard behind me, were the 
 only definite sounds I heard, and the soft wind that 
 rustled in my ears in little gusts seemed the expres- 
 sion of the pervading stillness. 
 
 This delicate breezy morning was the first of the 
 new year. Yesterday's sunset had been a wild one ; 
 it had gleamed angrily and fitfully before me through 
 packs of jagged cloud while I drove home from Clash- 
 more, and my heart had sunk low as I watched the 
 outlines of Durrus growing darker against it. But 
 that was already a thing of last year. The long 
 uneventful darkness had made everything new, and 
 on this first of January the sunshine was lying purely 
 and dreamily on sea and bog, and was even giving 
 something like warmth to the head-stones, whose 
 worn " Anno Dominis " were since yesterday more 
 remote by a year. 
 
 It was a desire for this freedom and freshness which 
 had driven me out of the house on this, the second 
 morning after the dance at Mount Prospect. When 
 
An Irish Cousin. 203 
 
 I came back to Durrus the evening before, I had 
 found the house empty and desolate. Willy was not 
 there ; he had gone to Cork, Uncle Dominick had 
 told me, looking at me, as he spoke, with a questioning 
 glance that showed me his anxiety to know if I could 
 account for this unexpected move. 
 
 All the morning at Clashmore the thought of the 
 inevitable meeting with Willy had hung over me. 
 It had made me absent during a lesson at billiards, 
 and stupid in a violin accompaniment ; and, combin- 
 ing with the guilt which I felt at enjoying myself, as, 
 in spite of what had happened, I could not help doing, 
 it had made me unnecessarily and awkwardly deter- 
 mined in refusing several invitations to stay on. As 
 I sat beside Nugent in the dog-cart on the way home, 
 and felt that every step of the horse was bringing me 
 nearer to Willy, I had become silent in the attempt 
 to nerve myself for the dreaded first few minutes. If 
 I could struggle through them creditably, things 
 might not afterwards be so bad. I think Nugent 
 must have seen that something was troubling me. 
 Having told me that he was afraid I was very much 
 done up by the dance, he had considerately left me 
 to myself, and scarcely spoke until we were at the 
 Durrus hall door — an act of thoughtfulness for which 
 I could almost have thanked him. He refused my 
 invitation to come in to tea — an invitation so faintly 
 
204 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 given that he could hardly have accepted it — but 
 asked if he might come over some other afternoon, 
 perhaps the day after to-morrow, and with an excuse 
 for not coming in, which he had obviously fabricated 
 to help me out of the difficulty, he had driven away. 
 
 My first question to Roche as the hall door 
 closed behind me, was to know where Willy was. 
 He was away ; he had gone to Cork that morning, 
 and it was uncertain when he would be at home. 
 Then I might have stayed at Clashmore after all — 
 that, I am afraid, was my first thought ; and then 
 came the feeling of blank collapse, the blending of 
 relief and disappointment, which is the usual result 
 of needless mental strain. I had for an instant an 
 insane desire to run down the avenue after the dog- 
 cart, and say that I would go back to Clashmore ; 
 
 that there was no reason now 1 laughed drearily 
 
 to myself as I took off my wraps. What would 
 Nugent have said when I had overtaken him with 
 such an excuse ? It amused me to think of it ; but 
 yet, I thought, I should have liked to have known. 
 
 The restlessness of over-fatigue and excitement was 
 upon me. I did not know how to endure the long 
 dull dinner, and the solitary evening which followed 
 it. I tried to play the piano, but the tunes of the 
 waltzes of the night before still rang in my ears, and 
 the unresponsive silence of the room as I ceased was 
 
An Irish Cousin. 205 
 
 too daunting to be faced a second time. Between my 
 eyes and the columns of the newspaper came a vision 
 of Mr. Croly's dark little room, and my tired brain 
 kept continually framing sentences which might have 
 averted all that had taken place there. I could not 
 even think connectedly, and finally went to bed, as 
 lonely and miserable as I have ever felt in my life. 
 
 In the morning my thoughts had confusedly shaped 
 themselves into one problem. Would it be possible 
 to go on staying at Durrus ? Half the morning had 
 slipped away, and I had still found no answer to the 
 question. My head ached, and I felt I could come 
 to no decision until I was, for the present at least, out 
 of the depressing atmosphere of the house. 
 
 I put the perplexing subject away from me in my 
 half-hour's walk across the bog, and thought of the 
 dogs, the sea-gulls, the patches of white cloud and 
 blue sky that seemed so out of place reflected in the 
 black pools by the side of the road — of anything, in 
 fact, rather than the difficulty which was troubling 
 me. I thought that when I got to the edge of the cliffs, 
 with nothing but the open sea before me, I should be 
 able to take a steadier view of the whole position. 
 
 But I had been sitting in perfect tranquillity for 
 half an hour, and yet no inspiration had been brought 
 to me on the breath of the west wind that was coming 
 softly over the sea from America. " I suppose I 
 
2o6 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 ought to go back to Aunt Margaret," was my last, 
 as it had been my first, thought ; " but it will be very 
 hard to have to leave Ireland. Besides, if I go away 
 now, Willy will think that I am going out of kindness 
 to him, and I could not bear that." 
 
 Here Pat, who had found the distant observation 
 of the cormorants a very tantalising amusement, 
 looked up in my face with a whimpering sigh, and 
 curled himself up with his head on my arm and his 
 back to the sea. As I stooped over and kissed his 
 little white and tan head, a crowd of insistent mem- 
 ories rushed into my mind. In every one Willy's 
 was the leading figure ; his look, his laugh, his voice 
 pervaded them all, but with a new meaning that made 
 pathos of the pleasantest of them. I wondered, 
 with perhaps some insincerity, why I had not liked 
 him as well as he liked me. He had said that, if I 
 were to try, I might some day ; but though I should 
 have been glad for his sake to believe it, every 
 feeling in me rose in sudden revolt at the idea with 
 a violence that astonished myself. " We shall never 
 have any good times again," I thought. " I sup- 
 pose he is miserable now, and it is all my fault. 
 Oh, Willy ! I never meant to be unkind to you," 
 I ended, almost aloud, and the bright reaches of sea 
 quivered and dazzled in my eyes as the painful tears 
 gathered and fell. 
 
An Irish Cousin, ■ 207 
 
 I have always found that tears rather intensify a 
 trouble than lessen it, and they now gave such keen 
 reality to what I was feeling that I could bear the 
 pressure of my thoughts no longer. I got up quickly 
 to go home, and as I turned I saw a string of three 
 or four boats heading for the little strand at the foot 
 of the cliff, just below where I was standing. They 
 were the cumbrous rowing-boats generally used for 
 carrying turf, and came heavily on through the bright 
 restless water, loaded, as well as I could see, with men 
 and women. 
 
 The pounding and creaking of the clumsy oars in 
 the rowlocks grew louder ; I was soon able to make 
 out that the long dark object, round which several 
 figures were clustered in the leading boat, was a 
 coffin, and I now remembered that Willy had told 
 me that this little cove was called " Tra-na-morruf," 
 the Strand of the Dead, from the fact that it was the 
 landing-place for such funerals as came by boat to 
 the old burying-place. The people were quite silent 
 as the boats slowly advanced to the shore ; but 
 directly the keel of the first touched the shingle, the 
 women in the others raised a sustained, penetrating 
 wail, which rose and fell in the sunny air, and made 
 me shiver in involuntary sympathy. 
 
 I thought I had never heard so terrible a cry. 
 I had often been told of the Irish custom of " keening " 
 
2o8 An Irish Cousin, 
 
 at funerals, but I was not prepared for anything so 
 barbaric and so despairing. It broke out with in- 
 creasing volume and intensity while the coffin was 
 being lifted from the boat and was toilfully carried up 
 the steep path in the cliff, the women clapping their 
 hands and beating their breasts, their chant rising and 
 swelling like the howl of the wind on a wild night. 
 The small procession halted at the top of the cliff, 
 and another set of bearers took the coffin, and carried 
 it with staggering steps across the irregular mounds 
 of the graveyard, to where, behind the ruined chapel, 
 I now noticed, for the first time, an open grave. The 
 dark crowd closed in round it, and, after a few stifled 
 sobs and exclamations, I heard nothing but the 
 shovelling of the earth upon the coffin. 
 
 It was soon over. The throng of heavily cloaked 
 women and frieze-coated men opened out, and I saw 
 the long mound of brown earth, with a couple of 
 women and a man kneeling beside it. The rest, for 
 the most part, made their way down the cliff to the 
 strand, from which a clatter of conversation soon 
 ascended. About half a dozen of the women, how- 
 ever, remained behind ; each sought out some special 
 grave, and, kneeling there, began to tell her beads and 
 pray with seemingly deep devotion. 
 
 I moved away from where I had been standing, with 
 the intention of going home, but stopped at the gate- 
 
An Irish Cousin. 209 
 
 way to look again at the effect of the black figures 
 dotted about among the grey stones, with their back- 
 ground of pale blue sky. Near the gate was the ugly 
 squat mausoleum in which lay many generations of 
 Sarsfields, and as I passed through the gate I saw, 
 kneeling at the farther side of it, a mourner dressed 
 like the others in a hooded blue cloak. She was 
 clapping her hands and beating her breast as if keen- 
 ing, but she made no sound. A country woman at 
 this moment passed me, curtsying as she did so, and, 
 feeling a natural curiosity to know who had taken 
 upon herself the office of bewailing my ancestors, I 
 said — 
 
 " Can you tell me who that woman at the Sarsfield 
 tomb is ? " 
 
 " Faith, then, I can, your honour, miss ! But sure 
 yourself should know her as well as me. 'Tis Moll 
 Hourihane, that lives below at the lodge of the big 
 house." 
 
 " Oh yes, of course, so it is," I said, recognising her 
 as I spoke ; " but what has she come here for ? " 
 
 "Throth, I dunno, miss. But there's never a 
 
 buryin' here that she's not at it, and that's the spot 
 
 where she'll always post herself. Sure she's idioty-like ; 
 
 she thinks she's keening there, and the divil a screech 
 
 out of her, good or bad, all the time." 
 
 My informant gave a short laugh. She was a tall, 
 
 14 
 
210 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 handsome woman, with a strong Spanish type of face 
 and daring black eyes, and she had a grimly humor- 
 ous manner. 
 
 "Why does she pick out the Durrus tomb?" I 
 asked, as much to continue the conversation as for 
 any other reason. 
 
 " Glory be to God, miss ! how would I know ? " — 
 darting at me, however, a look of extreme intelligence, 
 combined with speculation as to the extent of my 
 ignorance. "'Twas she laid out the owld masther 
 afther he dying, whatever — yis, an' young Mrs. 
 Dominick too. Though, fegs ! the sayin' is, she cried 
 more for her whin she was alive than whin she was 
 dead." 
 
 We were walking slowly along the uneven bog road 
 towards Durrus, my companion trudging sociably 
 beside me, with her hood thrown back from her coarse 
 black hair. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " I said, hoping to hear at 
 last something of the origin of Moll's madness. 
 
 "There's many a wan would cry if they got the 
 turn out," she responded oracularly. 
 
 "Why, what was she turned out of?" I asked. 
 
 " Out of the big house, sure ! 'Twas there she was 
 till the young misthriss came." 
 
 " I suppose she was a servant there ? " 
 
 She gave a loud laugh. " Och ! 'twasn't thrusting 
 
An Irish Cousin. 211 
 
 to being a servant at all she was ! She was in it ever 
 and always till Misther Dominick got marri'd, and 
 then, faith, she had to quit." 
 
 I was rather puzzled. 
 
 " I suppose Mrs. Sarsfield liked to choose her 
 servants for herself." 
 
 The woman gave a derisive snort. " It 'ud be a 
 quare thing if she'd choose her whatever ! " she said. 
 " Annyway, she never came next or nigh the house 
 till after Mrs. Dominick dyin', and thin she was 
 took back to mind the owld masther and Masther 
 Willy." 
 
 " But I thought she was weak in her head ? " 
 
 " Och ! the divil a fear ! She was as 'cute as a 
 pet fox till the winther the owld masther died ; but 
 whatever came agin her thin I don't rightly know. 
 'Twas about the time she marri'd Michael Brian it 
 began with her. She looked smart enough ; but the 
 spaych mostly went from her, and she was a year that 
 way." Here she looked behind her, and crossed her- 
 self with a start. "The saints be about us!" she 
 exclaimed, in a whisper ; " look at herself follying 
 us!" 
 
 I also turned, and saw Moll Hourihane close behind. 
 
 She was walking on the strip of grass by the side of 
 
 the road, and, without looking at us, she passed by, 
 
 moving with a sliding shuffle. She hurried along in 
 
 14 * 
 
212 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 front of us until she came near the gate in the Durrus 
 avenue, when she left the road and turned aside into 
 the bog. She made her way across it until her farther 
 progress was stopped by the turf-boat dyke. Turning, 
 like a dog on a trail, she followed its course till 
 stopped again by the dyke that met it at right angles. 
 There, opposite the old turf-quay, she knelt, and folding 
 her hands on her breast, as she had done on the first 
 night I had seen her, she remained there without 
 moving. 
 
 " Look at her now," said my companion, supersti- 
 tiously, " saying her prayers there down by the wather, 
 as if 'twas before the althar she was. Faith, whin she 
 had her sinses she wasn't so great at her prayers ! " 
 
 " I suppose that place is deep enough to drown 
 her?" I said, regarding it and her with exceeding 
 disfavour. 
 
 " Is it Poul-na-coppal ? Sure it's the deepest hole 
 in the country ! Wasn't it there a fine young horse 
 backed down in it one time, and a car o' turf on 
 him, and they never seen the sight of him again, nor 
 the car o' turf nayther ! There's no bottom in it, 
 only mud. Throth ! if she got in there she'd stay in 
 it ; and it'd be a good job if she did too — God forgive 
 me for sayin' such a thing ! " 
 
 " Don't you think we ought to try and get her 
 away from there?" I said, still watching Moll with a 
 
An Irish Cousin. 213 
 
 kind of fascination, as she rocked herself to and fro 
 close to the edge. 
 
 "Wisha, thin, I'd be in dhread to go near her at 
 all. Faith ! there's times when she wouldn't be said 
 nor led by her own daughther." 
 
 " It was after Anstey was born that she went com- 
 pletely out of her mind, wasn't it?" I said, as we 
 walked on. 
 
 " Well, 'twas thin the sinse left her entirely, miss ; 
 but she wasn't all out right in her head, as I'm tellin' 
 ye, for a year before that. There was a big snow 
 came afther the little gerr'l was born, and they say, 
 whin she seen that she let one bawl out of her, and 
 never spoke a word afther, nor put a hand to the 
 child, good nor bad. And indeed poor Anstey's a 
 good little gerr'l. 'Tis the Brians — that's the father's 
 family — she favours entirely, and the Brians was nice 
 quiet people always." 
 
 We had by this time come to the little gate that 
 led out of the bog. 
 
 " Good-evening to your honour, miss. May the 
 Lord comfort your honour long, and that I may 
 never die till I see you well married," with which 
 comprehensive benediction and an impressive curtsy 
 my companion tramped off down the avenue. 
 
 I felt lonelier for the cessation of her rough, vigorous 
 voice ; and, turning, I leaned on the gate, and looked 
 
214 An Irish Cousin, 
 
 back over the sunshiny bleakness of the bog. It 
 looked now very much as it had looked on the day 
 when I had gone out to see Willy put Alaska through 
 her paces, and as the fragrant wind brought the sea 
 murmurs to me, I almost cheated myself into the 
 belief that this was still that brilliant October after- 
 noon, and that Willy was now riding down to meet 
 me at the lodge. 
 
 My eyes fell on the solitary figure down by the 
 dyke. It recalled in a moment the funeral, the grave- 
 yard, my futile tears, and all that had led to them. 
 I turned towards home with the same feeling of 
 uncertainty and dejection with which I had set 
 out. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 " No news from Willy ? I thought you would have 
 been sure to have heard from him." 
 
 " No, Uncle Dominick, he never even told me he 
 was going," I replied, with a full consciousness of the 
 emphasis laid on the *'you". 
 
 " Really ! How very strange ! I thought Master 
 Willy seldom did anything nowadays without con- 
 sulting a certain young lady." 
 
 I went on with my lunch without speaking. These 
 pleasantries on my uncle's part were not uncommon, 
 and, as there was no mistaking whither they all 
 tended, I hated and dreaded them more every day. 
 In this particular instance, I believed I saw very 
 plainly a real anxiety to find out the state of affairs 
 between Willy and me, and I thought it best to hold 
 my tongue. My silence did not discourage Uncle 
 Dominick. 
 
 " I forgot to tell you last night that I met Miss 
 
 Burke yesterday," he said. " She gave me a great 
 
 deal of news about the ball, and told me that every 
 
 215 
 
2i6 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 one said that you and Willy were ' the handsomest 
 couple in the room '. I told her that as far as one of 
 you was concerned I could well believe it ; and, 
 indeed, Willy is not such a bad-looking fellow, after 
 all, eh?" 
 
 " I think Miss Burke herself and Willy were a 
 much more striking pair," I answered, evading the 
 question, and anxious to show him that I disliked 
 the way in which I was for ever bracketed with Willy. 
 " Oh, by the way, Uncle Dominick," I went on, re- 
 gardless of a conviction that I was saying the wrong 
 thing, " I heard from Mr. O'Neill this morning. He 
 says that he is coming over here this afternoon, to 
 fetch some music which he left here the other day." 
 
 Uncle Dominick gave me a sharp look from under 
 his bushy eyebrows. It was one of those unguarded 
 glances which, for the moment, strip the face of all 
 conventional disguises, and lay bare all that is hidden 
 of suspicion and surmise. I noticed suddenly how 
 bloodshot his eyes were, and how very pale he was 
 looking. There was dead silence. By way of ap- 
 pearing unconscious and indifferent, I took out of 
 my pocket Nugent's letter, and began to read it ; 
 but I felt in every fibre that my uncle was watching 
 me, and a maddening blush slowly mounted to my 
 forehead, and spread itself even to the tips of my 
 ears, Uncle Dominick cleared his throat with omin- 
 
An Irish Cousin. 217 
 
 ous severity, and pushed back his chair from the 
 table. 
 
 " At what hour do you expect Mr. O'Neill ? " 
 
 If he had asked me at what time in the afternoon 
 I contemplated committing a burglary, he could not 
 have spoken with more concentrated disapproval. 
 
 " I have not the least idea," I said, getting up with 
 as much dignity as I could muster. " I suppose 
 about the time people usually come." 
 
 " H'm ! I suppose one cannot expect young ladies 
 to be very lucid in their statements about such 
 matters," he replied, with a singularly unpleasant 
 smile. 
 
 " I suppose not," I retorted obstinately. 
 
 " Well, I suppose one must only expect him when 
 he comes," said my uncle, with a return of suavity, 
 as distasteful to me as his former manner. I called 
 the dogs away from their assiduous polishing of the 
 plates on which they had had their dinners, and left 
 him to finish his wine alone. 
 
 " How detestable he can be when he likes ! " I 
 thought, seating myself before the drawing-room fire. 
 " I wonder why he dislikes Nugent so much ? I 
 don't suppose it can be on account of Willy ; after 
 all, there is really no reason for that." My cheeks 
 were still hot, and I put my hands over them, look- 
 ing through my fingers into the fire. "If Uncle 
 
21 8 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 Dominick is going to make himself unpleasant in this 
 kind of way, I shall have to go back to Canada no 
 matter what Willy thinks about it." 
 
 My ideas as to leaving Durrus were still as hazy as 
 they had been yesterday morning at the old grave- 
 yard, and this was a fresh complication. I had, how- 
 ever, made up my mind on one point — until I saw 
 Willy again, I would settle nothing. That was at 
 least definite ; and so was the fact which at this 
 moment occurred to me — that I should break down 
 in one of the more difficult of the violin accompani- 
 ments if I did not practise it before Nugent came. 
 I gave the fire an impatient poke, and, mentally 
 throwing my reflections into it, went over to the 
 piano. 
 
 I had said to my uncle that I supposed Nugent 
 would come at the usual time, but I was forced to the 
 conclusion that his views on the subject differed from 
 those of most people. Tea-time came, and, after wait- 
 ing till the tea was bitter, and the buttered toast half 
 congealed, I partook of it in solitude. I began to 
 wonder if it were possible that he could have made a 
 mistake about the day, and again taking out his 
 letter, I read it over. The strong handwriting was 
 not that of a person who made mistakes, and it set 
 forth plainly the fact that on this afternoon the writer 
 intended to come and see me, and would come^^as 
 
An Irish Cousin. 219 
 
 early as he could. The sprawling minute-hand of 
 the ormolu clock was now well on its way towards 
 half-past five ; something must have happened to 
 prevent him from coming, unless, indeed, he had for- 
 gotten all about it. I did not think it likely that he 
 would forget, but the possibility was not a pleasant 
 one. I sat in the cheery light of the fire until the 
 minute-hand had passed the illegibly ornamental 
 figure which marked the half-hour, and, feeling a good 
 deal more disappointed than I cared to own to my- 
 self, I was going to ring for the lamp and settle down 
 to a book, when I heard the sound of quick trotting, 
 and the light run of a dogcart's wheels on the avenue. 
 
 " I know I'm very late," said Nugent, as he shook 
 hands with me, " and I meant to be very early, but it 
 wasn't my fault. I am sure you are going to tell me 
 that the tea is cold, but I don't care ; I prefer it with 
 the chill just off." 
 
 " Then you will be gratified," I said, pouring it out. 
 " I began to think you were not coming, and was re- 
 penting that I had wasted half an hour in practising 
 that awful accompaniment of Brahms'." 
 
 "Did you really? It was very good of you. I 
 did my best to get away early, but I had to stay and 
 see Captain Forster off. I can't say that he seemed 
 to appreciate the attention, as he was out for a walk 
 with Connie up to the last minute. I was very sorry 
 
2 20 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 afterwards that I had been such a fool as to lose the 
 whole afternoon on his account." 
 
 " I think you might have left him in Connie's hands," 
 I said, sociably beginning upon a second edition of tea, 
 
 " I want to know if you are all right again," said 
 Nugent, looking at me scrutinisingly. " I thought 
 you seemed awfully played out the day before yester- 
 day." 
 
 " Did I ? " I said. " I wasn't in the least— I mean I 
 was very tired, but that was all." 
 
 " You scarcely spoke to me all the way over here. 
 I don't know if you generally treat people like that 
 when you are very tired." 
 
 " No," I said ; " when I know people well enough, 
 I am simply cross." 
 
 " That means that you don't know me very well." 
 
 " No, I don't think I do," I said, with unpremedi- 
 tated truthfulness. " By the way, is it true that you 
 are all going away from Clashmore soon ? You said 
 something about it in your letter." 
 
 " Yes ; I believe they are all off next week," he 
 replied ; " but I think I shall stay on here for a bit. 
 I don't want to go away just now." 
 
 I was on the point of saying that I was very glad 
 to hear he was going to stay, but stopped myself, and 
 said instead that I should have thought he would find 
 it rather dreary by himself. 
 
An Irish Cousin. 221 
 
 " I don't expect I shall," he answered. " I shall ask 
 you to let me come over here very often. You know, 
 we agreed at Clashmore that you were to take my 
 music in hand, and teach me to count." 
 
 " If I try to do that, we shall certainly have plenty 
 of occupation," I said, laughing at the prospect with a 
 foolish enjoyment. 
 
 " All right, so much the better " — looking at me and 
 laughing too. " By the way, Connie wants to know if 
 you will ride over to Mount Prospect with her and me 
 the day after to-morrow, to pay our respects after the 
 dance." 
 
 " I shall be very glad, I have not had a ride for a 
 long time. Should you mind ringing the bell ? We 
 shall want the lamps for the piano." 
 
 " I should mind very much," he said, without moving 
 from the substantial arm-chair in which he was sitting. 
 " I think it would be a much better scheme to sit over 
 the fire instead. You were in such an extraordinary 
 hurry to get away from Clashmore the day before 
 yesterday, that you did not give me time for more 
 than half the clever things I had prepared to say about 
 the Jackson-Crolys' dance." 
 
 "Very well," I said, dragging out a little old- 
 fashioned, glass-beaded footstool, and settling myself 
 comfortably with my feet on it in front of the fire. 
 " You can begin now, and say them all one after the 
 
222 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 other ; but you needn't try to be clever. Nothing that 
 any one could invent could be half as amusing as the 
 truth!" 
 
 " You must not fancy that all our county Cork enter- 
 tainments are on the Mount Prospect pattern," he said, 
 anxiously. " I dare say you think we are all savages, 
 but we don't often have a war-dance like that." 
 
 " Well," I said, checking an inclination to sigh as 
 the thought crossed my mind, " I shall always be glad 
 that I saw at least one before I went back to Canada." 
 
 He got up and put down his cup ; then, drawing his 
 unwieldy chair closer to me before sitting down, " But 
 you are not thinking of going back to Canada ? " he 
 said slowly. 
 
 " Oh ! well, of course I shall have to go back sooner 
 or later," I replied, as airily as I could. " I don't mean 
 to spend my whole life here." 
 
 " Don't you ? " he said, in a low voice, leaning for- 
 ward and trying to intercept my eyes, as I looked 
 straight before me into the fire. " I wish you would 
 tell me if you really mean that." 
 
 " 1 certainly do mean it," I answered, with decision. 
 "And, after all, I can't see that it much matters 
 whether I do or not." 
 
 " Why do you say it doesn't matter ? " he said 
 slowly. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," I answered idiotically. 
 
An Irish Cousin. 223 
 
 *' But I think you ought to know before you make 
 assertions of that kind," he persisted. " I dare say 
 there are several people who would think it mattered 
 a good deal." 
 
 He spoke with an intention in his voice that I had 
 never heard before. 
 
 My heart paused, as if a hand had clutched it. Did 
 he mean Willy ? 
 
 "Don't you remember my telling you the other 
 night of one person who had changed his mind ? 
 Have you quite forgotten what I said to you then ? " 
 
 He was very near to me, so near that he must 
 almost have felt my breath as it quickly came and 
 went. My heart was beating fast enough now — 
 hurrying along at such speed that I could not be sure 
 enough of my voice to speak. 
 
 " Can you not think of any one to whom it would 
 make a good deal of difference if you went back to 
 Canada? Couldn't you?" He hesitated. "Don't 
 you know it would make all the difference in the world 
 to— to me ? " 
 
 His hand found mine, and, as it closed upon it, I 
 felt in one magical moment that there was but one 
 hand in the world whose touch could send that strange 
 pang of delight through me. His eyes lifted mine to 
 them in spite of me. I do not know what he read in 
 them, but in his I thought I saw something quite new 
 
224 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 — something that made me giddy, and took away my 
 power of speaking. 
 
 " Don't you know it ? " he whispered. " Theo " 
 
 He stopped at the sound of a footstep outside the 
 door. I recognised it in an instant. 
 
 " Here is Willy ! " I gasped. The door opened, 
 letting in a blaze of light, and Willy, followed by 
 Roche with a lamp, came into the room. 
 
 The necessity of the moment gave me a fictitious 
 courage. Pushing back my chair, I jumped up to 
 meet him with an ease and cordiality intended to 
 cover his embarrassment and my own. 
 
 " So here you are back, Willy ! We have been 
 wondering what had become of you." 
 
 He did not look at me as we shook hands, but he 
 answered, in a voice as successfully friendly as my 
 own : — 
 
 " I was forced to go up to Cork on business. I 
 thought I could get down last night, but I couldn't 
 manage it. How are you, Nugent?" he went on 
 stiffly. "You'll have a pretty wet drive home. It 
 was pouring when I came in." 
 
 Nugent at once took the hint thus broadly given. 
 
 " Yes, I dare say I shall," he said coolly. " Would 
 you order my trap, please ? " — turning to Roche, who 
 had not yet left the room. " Good-night, Miss Sars- 
 field. Does that ride hold good ? " 
 
An Irish Cousin. 225 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Sir," put in Roche, " the 
 masther says he'd be glad to see you before you 
 go". 
 
 " All right," said Nugent. 
 
 He took my hand in his, and held it with a strong 
 pressure. 
 
 " Then you'll come ? " 
 
 Something weighed down my eyelids — I could not 
 meet his eyes again, and I answered hurriedly : — 
 
 " Yes — oh yes, I hope so ! Good-night." 
 
 IS 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 I THINK I must have been very deficient in the power 
 of self-analysis. I had always taken my life as it 
 came, without much introspective thought of its effect 
 upon me, and on the one or two occasions when I had 
 been confronted with the necessity for knowing my 
 own mind, I had never found the need for searchings 
 of heart to discover if the germs of any unsuspected 
 feelings were hidden there. I had taken for granted 
 that I must be a hard-headed, hard-hearted person ; 
 I used to listen with an amused sympathy to the 
 intricacies of sentimental detail with which many of 
 my friends recounted their experiences, and I had 
 often offered, not without a certain sense of superi- 
 ority, the cold-blooded counsels of common-sense. 
 
 It was to me the remotest of chances that I should 
 ever be driven to weigh, as they did, the value of a 
 sentence, a word, or a look ; and yet, now, not three 
 months after I had left Canada, this was precisely 
 what I found myself doing. 
 
 I knew, as I awoke, the morning after Nugent's 
 
 226 
 
An Irish Cousin. 227 
 
 visit, that some strange and delightful thing had 
 befallen me ; but I waited in dreamy security, till the 
 tremor of happiness stirred me to a clearer knowledge 
 of itself Slowly it all came back to me. In imagi- 
 nation I lived again through what had happened 
 yesterday. The long afternoon of waiting, the tension 
 of the trivial talk, thinly interposed between two hearts 
 that every instant brought nearer to one another ; the 
 uncertainty as to his meaning ; and then — I put my 
 hand over my eyes, dizzy even at the remembrance 
 — the certainty that he loved me. 
 
 Looking back over the time I had known him, I 
 could not understand how this improbable, this in- 
 credible thing had come about. Until the night of 
 the Jackson-Crolys' dance I had never admitted to 
 myself that I did more than like his society, and till 
 then I had had still less idea that he did more than 
 care for mine. 
 
 With a shamefaced smile at my own foolishness, I 
 got out my diary, and searched through it for some 
 mention of Nugent on the days on which I remem- 
 bered to have met him. But its bald and unimaginative 
 record had chronicled no description of him beyond 
 one pithy entry after the first day's hunting : — 
 
 " Mr. O'Neill piloted me. Dull and conceited." 
 
 I remember quite well the satisfaction with which I 
 
 had permitted myself this brilliant analysis of char- 
 
 15 * 
 
22 8 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 acter ; and I laughed outright as I thought how the 
 girl who had written that would have despised her 
 future self, if she could have foreseen in what spirit it 
 would again be referred to. 
 
 I slowly thought over the various stages of our 
 acquaintance, ending, as I had begun, with the events 
 of yesterday, and that unanswered question of his. 
 Well, I should certainly see him to-morrow ; perhaps 
 even to-day, I thought, and trembled at the thought. 
 
 When I went down to breakfast I found that Willy 
 had finished his. This was practically our first tete-d.- 
 tite since he had come home. Last night he had not 
 come into the drawing-room after dinner, and I had 
 gone to my room early. He was standing in the 
 window, reading a letter, when I came into the room, 
 and, with a keen dart of memory, my first morning at 
 Durrus came into my mind. He had been standing 
 in just that position as I came in to breakfast that first 
 morning after my arrival, and I well remembered the 
 smile with which he had come forward to meet me. 
 The contrast of his present greeting jarred painfully 
 on me, and dashed a little the serenity in which I had 
 tried to enwrap myself. The old boyish friendliness 
 was all gone, and in its place was a spasmodic, con- 
 strained politeness, which was so foreign to his nature, 
 and so hardly assumed, that it seemed to me the most 
 pitiful thing in the world. I came near wishing that I 
 
An Irish Cousin. 229 
 
 had never seen Nugent, and I thought with humiliation 
 of what Willy would feel when he knew how much my 
 denials about him had been worth. 
 
 " I breakfasted earlier to-day," he said awkwardly. 
 " I have to be in Esker at eleven o'clock. Is there 
 anything I can do for you there ? " 
 
 " No, thank you. But, Willy " — as he was leaving 
 the room — "that reminds me, the O'Neills want me 
 to ride with them to Mount Prospect to-morrow. 
 Could I have Blackthorn ? " 
 
 " Of course you can," he answered gruffly ; " you know 
 you've only to order the horse when you want him." 
 
 " Would you come with us ? " I went on timidly. 
 
 " No, thanks ; I'm very busy about the farm just 
 now." 
 
 He opened the door and went away. 
 
 I had no heart to eat any breakfast. All the glad- 
 ness of the morning had died ; but it had struck deep, 
 and by its preciousness it had taught me once and for 
 ever what suffering might mean. I was still dawdling 
 over my teacup when Roche came in to clear away 
 the breakfast-things. His professional eye at once 
 detected my unused plate. 
 
 " Will I get another t^g'g biled for you, miss ? 
 Them's cold." 
 
 " No, thank you, Roche. I'm not very hungry this 
 morning." 
 
230 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 Roche turned a shrewd eye, like a parrot's, upon 
 me. 
 
 " Fie, fie, miss ! That's no way for a young lady 
 to be. And Masther Willy wasn't much better than 
 yourself. You have a right to be out this fine morn- 
 ing, and not sitting that way over the fire." 
 
 As much to escape from Roche's acute and sympa- 
 thetic observation as for any other reason, I left the 
 dining-room, and wandered aimlessly into the hall. 
 
 Whinings and scratchings outside the door de- 
 cided me to try what the day felt like, I wrapped a 
 carriage rug round my shoulders, and, putting on 
 the cap which Willy had once made over to me, I 
 opened the hall door, and was at once assaulted by Pat 
 and Jinny. Having exhausted themselves in ambitious 
 attempts to lick my face by means of perpendicular 
 leaps at it, they proceeded to explain to me their wish 
 that I should take them to the garden, to hunt, for 
 the hundredth time, a rabbit which had long set at 
 naught the best-laid plots for his destruction. I 
 followed them to the old gate — a structure in itself 
 very characteristic of Durrus — and opened it in the 
 usual way, by kicking away a stone that had been 
 placed against it, and by then putting my hand 
 through a hole to reach the latch, whose catch on 
 the outside had been broken. 
 
 I did not feel disposed to-day to help Pat and Jinny 
 
An Irish Cousin. 231 
 
 in their hunt, by struggling, as Willy and I had so 
 often done, through the rows of big wet cabbages, 
 whose crinkled white hearts showed the devastations 
 of the enemy, and, leaving the dogs to form their own 
 plan of campaign, I sauntered up and down the path 
 between the lichen-crusted gooseberry-trees. In spite 
 of Roche's recommendation of the weather, I thought 
 it a very cheerless morning. There was a bite in the 
 chilly air, and each time I turned at the end of the 
 walk and faced the gate, the breeze that met me was 
 sharp and raw. 
 
 It was early in January — the deadest time of all 
 the year, I thought, looking round. Not a sign of 
 spring, no feeling even of the hope of it ; and some- 
 how, in this cold, leaden atmosphere, my own happi- 
 ness began to lose some of its radiance. I turned 
 and once more walked towards the gate, thinking 
 that I would call the dogs from their futile yelpings 
 at the mouth of the hole to which the rabbit had long 
 since betaken himself, and would go for a walk. I 
 was not more than half-way down the path, when 
 I saw a hand put through the hole in the gate. As it 
 felt for the latch, I quickly recognised its lean pallor ; 
 the gate opened, and Uncle Dominick came into the 
 garden. 
 
 "Good-morning, my dear," he said. "I thought I 
 saw you going into this wilderness of ours that we 
 
232 An Irish Cousin, 
 
 call a kitchen garden, and I followed you in the hopes 
 of having a little chat." 
 
 He was evidently in the best of humours — nothing 
 else could have accounted for this unwonted desire 
 for society, and, in spite of the dark rings under his 
 eyes and the yellow sodden look of his skin, he looked 
 unusually benign and cheerful. 
 
 " Perhaps you will take a turn with me round the 
 garden," he continued affably. " I can see you are 
 not dressed for a longer walk ; although I do not for 
 a moment wish to disparage your costume. Indeed, 
 I do not know that I have ever seen you wear any- 
 thing that becomes you more than that cap of Willy's ! " 
 
 I turned with him, and we walked slowly round the 
 grass-grown paths which followed the square of the 
 walls, stooping every now and then to save our eyes 
 from the unpruned boughs of the apple-trees. 
 
 " Dear me ! this place is shockingly neglected," my 
 uncle said, twitching a bramble out of my way with 
 his stick ; " in old days it was a very different affair. 
 My mother used to have four men at work here, and 
 I remember well when it was the best garden in the 
 country." 
 
 We had by this time come to the dilapidated old 
 hothouse, and we both stood and looked at it for a 
 few seconds. Through the innumerable broken panes, 
 and under the decaying window-sashes, the branches 
 
An Irish Cousin. 233 
 
 of a peach-tree thrust themselves out in every direction, 
 as if breaking loose from imprisonment. 
 
 " Ah, the poor old peach-house ! " said Uncle Domi- 
 nick, digging a weed out of the path with the heel of 
 his boot — " that was another of my mother's hobbies. 
 I wish I had the energy and the money to get this 
 whole place put to rights," he continued, as we walked 
 on again ; " but I have neither the one nor the other. 
 I shall leave all that for Willy to do some day ; for 
 he is fond of the old place. Do you not think so, my 
 dear?" 
 
 " I am sure he is," I answered, rather absently ; my 
 thoughts had strayed away to to-morrow's ride. 
 
 " I suppose you have seen Willy this morning ? 
 Did he seem in better spirits than he was in last 
 night ? I don't know that I ever saw him so depressed 
 and silent as he was at dinner," said my uncle. 
 
 " Did you think so ? " I replied guiltily. " I think 
 he seemed all right this morning." 
 
 " I am very glad to hear it. I was quite distressed 
 by his manner ; indeed, latterly I have frequently 
 noticed how variable his spirits have been." 
 
 I did not speak, and Uncle Dominick went on 
 again with a little hesitation — 
 
 " I will confess to you, my dear Theo, that before 
 you came Willy had been causing me very serious 
 anxiety. You see, this is a lonely place ; the O'Neills 
 
234 ^^ I^^^h Cousin. 
 
 are much away from home, and he had no companions 
 of his own age and station." 
 
 " No, I suppose not," I said, considerably puzzled 
 as to the drift of all this. 
 
 My uncle stroked his long moustache several times. 
 
 " Well, my dear, you know the old proverb, * No 
 company, welcome trumpery'; that, I am sorry to 
 say, is what the danger was with Willy. It came to 
 my knowledge that he was in the habit of — a — of 
 spending a great deal of his time in the house of — " 
 — he hummed and hawed, ending with suppressed 
 vehemence — "in the house of one of my work-people." 
 
 I held my breath, with perhaps some presentiment 
 of what was coming. 
 
 " Yes," my uncle said, bringing his stick heavily 
 down on the ground ; " I heard, to my amazement 
 and horror, that the attraction for him there was the 
 daughter, an impudent girl, who was evidently using 
 every means in her power to entangle him ! " 
 
 " An impudent girl ! " What was it that he had 
 once said about a girl who had been taken out of her 
 proper place, and had at once began to presume ? In 
 the same instant the answer flashed upon me — 
 Anstey ! Of course, it was she. How had I been so 
 blind ? 
 
 My uncle was silent for a few moments, and my 
 thoughts raced back to incidents, unconsidered at the 
 
An Irish Cousin. 235 
 
 time, but now fraught with a new meaning. I under- 
 stood it all now — the girl standing in the niche at the 
 lodge gate ; the words which I had overheard at the 
 plantation ; the figure in the rain at the hall door on 
 the night of the dance, and Michael Brian's threats 
 after the bonfire. 
 
 " I was delighted to see, after you came, what an 
 influence for good you at once seemed to exert over 
 him," Uncle Dominick began again. " I cannot say 
 how grateful to you I have felt. The thought that 
 Willy might be led on into doing anything to lower 
 the family preyed upon me more than I can tell you, 
 and it gave me the greatest pleasure to see what his 
 feelings for you were." 
 
 What could I say ? Horror at this revelation, pity 
 for Anstey, bitter, sick disappointment in Willy, 
 together with the knowledge of what my uncle so 
 obviously expected of me, were pursuing each other 
 through my mind. 
 
 " I feared, from his behaviour last night, that there 
 had occurred some misunderstanding between you." 
 He stood still, and looked at me interrogatively. 
 " Of course, I do not ask for your confidence in the 
 matter, but I think you know as well as I do what 
 effect anything serious of that kind would have on 
 him." 
 
 Honesty compelled me to speak. " I ought to have 
 
236 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 told you before," I began falteringly, " that I was 
 thinking — I had almost settled that I was going back 
 to Canada." 
 
 " To Canada ? Impossible ! " he exclaimed, in a 
 startled but dictatorial voice ; then, forcing a laugh, 
 " Of course, I know you are a very independent young 
 lady, but I have belief enough in you to think that 
 you would not desert your friends." 
 
 " I cannot do what you want me to," I said inco- 
 herently ; " I should be staying here on false pretences. 
 I must go away." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " he said impatiently. " I beg your 
 pardon, my dear, but your ideas of duty appear to 
 me a little peculiar. I think, all things considered^ you 
 could scarcely reconcile it — I will not say with your 
 conscience, but with your sense of honour — to let 
 Willy ruin his whole life without stretching out a 
 hand to stop him." 
 
 " But I don't know what you mean. You know 
 I would do almost anything for Willy ; but why 
 should I be bound by my ' sense of honour ' to stay 
 here?" 
 
 I spoke stoutly, but in my inmost soul I dreaded 
 his answer. 
 
 " Well," said my uncle, with a disagreeable expres- 
 sion, " I think that most people would agree with me, 
 that a young lady is bound in honour not to give 
 
An Irish Cousin. ii^-j 
 
 such encouragement to a man as will raise hopes that 
 she does not mean to gratify." 
 
 There was truth enough in what he said to make 
 me feel a difficulty in replying. We had come to 
 the gate, and he opened it for me. 
 
 " I do not wish to press you on this subject, my 
 dear, but I am sure that, after you have thought it 
 over a little, your fairness, as well as your kind heart, 
 will make you feel the truth of what I have been 
 saying to you." 
 
 That was all he said, but it was enough. I went 
 back to the house, feeling that, whatever happened, 
 trouble was before me. 
 
 Roche met me on the steps with a note on a salver. 
 I knew the handwriting, and opened it with a pulse 
 quickened by a delightful glow of confidence and 
 expectancy. I read it through twice over ; then, 
 mechanically replacing it in the envelope, I went up 
 to my own room, and, throwing myself on my bed, 
 I pressed my face into the pillow and wished that I 
 were dead. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 The fire in the library was dying out. I had been 
 sitting on the hearthrug in front of it for some time, 
 with my elbows resting on the seat of a low arm-chair, 
 from whose depths Jinny's snores rose with quiet 
 regularity. The window had been grey with the last 
 of the dull light when I first sat down there, and, without 
 stirring, I had watched the grey fading by imperceptible 
 changes from mere blankness into an absolute dark- 
 ness, that invaded the room and filled it like a cloud. 
 
 The turf fire, with soft noises of subsidence, had 
 sunk lower and lower in the grate, and, abandoning 
 its effort to light up the heavy lines of bookshelves, 
 now did little more than edge with a feeble glow the 
 shadow of the chimney-piece upon the ceiling. A few 
 minutes before, a flicker had leaped up from the red 
 embers ; it had not lasted long, but the transient glare 
 had made my eyes ache. For two or three seconds 
 afterwards the blackened fragments of a sheet of note- 
 paper had been shaken and lifted uncertainly by the 
 
 thin turf smoke, and they were now drifting away 
 
 238 
 
An Irish Cousin. 239 
 
 with it up the chimney. My hand, lying open upon 
 my knee, still retained the sensation of holding some- 
 thing which had been clasped tightly in it all the 
 afternoon — the letter which I had just burnt — and it 
 seemed to me that in my heart there was the same 
 sense of emptiness and loss. 
 
 It had cost me something to burn it, and as the 
 flame crept over the pages, I had come near snatching it 
 back again. But after all there was no need to keep it ; 
 its contents were not so long nor so intricate, I thought 
 bitterly, that there was any fear of my forgetting them. 
 
 " Dear Miss Sarsfield " (it began), 
 
 " My sister has asked me to tell you that she 
 has been obliged to change her plans, and is leaving 
 Clashmore to-morrow instead of next week. She 
 desires me to say how sorry she is at having to give 
 up the ride to Mount Prospect, and to go away 
 without seeing you. She would write herself, but is 
 too much hurried. I fear that I must make the same 
 apologies on my own account, as I find that I shall 
 have to go to London in a few days, and may pos- 
 sibly not return before the summer ; and, as I am 
 afraid I shall not be able to get over to Durrus, per- 
 haps you will kindly let me say good-bye by letter. 
 
 " Sincerely yours, 
 
 "Nugent O'Neili,," 
 
240 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 Nothing could have been more simply put ; nothing 
 could have expressed more incisively the writer's mean- 
 ing. Even in the first moment of reading it, I had 
 been at no loss to understand it. He had gone a 
 little farther than he had intended, and he now lost 
 no time in removing any undue impression that his 
 words might have made upon me. What was it that 
 Willy had told me long ago — how long ago? — of the 
 " musical flirtation with the Yankee girl at Cannes ! " 
 
 Possibly he would now be able to add another 
 " queer story " to his record — how, in the course of a 
 most ordinary flirtation, he had discovered one after- 
 noon that the girl was losing her head, and how he 
 had been obliged to leave the country so as to avoid 
 further difficulties. 
 
 The last scrap of the letter fluttered upwards out 
 of sight as this idea, which it had suggested, came 
 into my mind. The intolerable sting of the thought 
 acted on me like physical pain. I started up, but by 
 the time I was on my feet I was ashamed of it. 
 " No," I said to myself vehemently, " he would never 
 do that ; I have no right even to think it of him. 
 He was in earnest when he was speaking to me ; I 
 know it ! Perhaps he lost his head too, and then 
 when he got home he thought better of it, and felt it 
 was only fair to let me understand as soon as possible 
 that he meant nothing serious. Why was I a fool — 
 
An Irish Cousin. 24 1 
 
 an utter fool ? " I asked myself desperately. " What- 
 ever he meant, I had better begin at once, as he has 
 done, to forget it all," I thought, as I groped my way 
 out of the room ; " but just now I feel as if it would 
 take me all my life." 
 
 As I dressed for dinner, I shrank from the prospect 
 of the long difficult hours that lay between me and 
 the solitude of my own room. But I think that my 
 powers of further suffering must have been exhausted ; 
 a benumbing weariness was my only sensation as I 
 sat at the dinner-table, and, looking from my uncle to 
 my cousin, felt, in some far-off way, that our lives 
 were converging to their point of closest contact, 
 perhaps to their climax of mutual suffering. 
 
 I had not energy to talk, and I occupied myself 
 for the most part in efforts to keep up the semblance 
 of eating my dinner. Willy went on with his in a 
 kind of resigned surliness, taking as little notice of 
 me as was compatible with common politeness. This 
 state of things I should much have preferred to any 
 open signs of enmity or friendship, if I had not noticed 
 that my uncle was narrowly observing us, and was 
 even making various attempts to involve us both in 
 the conversation, which had hitherto been little more 
 than a monologue upon his part. Beyond an occa- 
 sional grunt, Willy did not even try to respond ; and 
 
 as for me, though I did my best, utter mental and 
 
 16 
 
1^1 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 bodily fatigue made the framing of a sentence too 
 laborious for me. 
 
 Several times during the progress of dinner, I found 
 that Roche was looking at me with anxious interest ; 
 and once or twice he came to my rescue by quietly 
 changing my plate as quickly as possible, so that my 
 uncle should not see how little I had eaten of what he 
 had sent me. 
 
 Dinner was longer, and Uncle Dominick more de- 
 terminately talkative, than usual ; but at last there 
 came a break in his harangue, and I took advantage 
 of it to make my escape into the drawing-room. I sat 
 for a long time over the fire by myself, lying in an 
 arm-chair without any wish to move. I felt as if 
 I had sunk to the bottom of a deep sea, whose 
 waves were rushing and surging over my head, and I 
 wondered dully if this was what people felt like when 
 they were going to have a bad illness. My mind 
 kept stupidly repeating one short sentence, " Let me 
 say good-bye ! Let me say good-bye ! " They were 
 the last words I had seen of Nugent's letter as it 
 curled up in the flame of the library fire, and they 
 now beat to and fro in my brain with sing-song 
 monotony. 
 
 I believe I must have dozed, for the noise of the 
 door opening aroused me with a shivering start. Willy 
 came into the room with a newspaper in his hand, and, 
 
An Irish Cousin. 243 
 
 sitting down at the other side of the fire without 
 speaking to me, began to read it. I fell back in my 
 chair again, waiting till the striking of ten o'clock 
 should give me a reasonable excuse for going to bed. 
 The crackling of Willy's newspaper and the sleepy 
 tick of the clock were the only sounds in the room. 
 I had never before seen Willy read a newspaper so 
 attentively, and I watched him with languid interest 
 from under my half-closed eyelids, while he steadily 
 made his way through it. Now he had turned it 
 inside out, and was reading the advertisements ; 
 certainly it did not take much to amuse him. Could 
 he have felt, on that day after the dance, as dead to 
 all the things that used to interest him as I did now ? 
 
 Here I found myself face to face with the problem 
 that has tortured many women. How could Willy 
 be in love with me, with any sincerity — and yet I 
 could not doubt his sincerity — when only a month 
 before he had, by his own admission, been in love 
 with a country girl ? It could not torture me, but I 
 was young and enthusiastic, and it cut at the heart of 
 my belief in human nature. 
 
 It was only four evenings ago since I had listened 
 
 miserably to the passionate words that I had not been 
 
 able to prevent him from saying ; he must have 
 
 forgotten them already, or how else could he sit there 
 
 with such stolid composure? If he could recover his 
 
 16* 
 
244 ^^ Irish Cousin. 
 
 equanimity in four days, perhaps in a week I should 
 have begun to forget that persistent sentence which 
 still kept pace with my thoughts. 
 
 The dining-room door opened and shut with a loud 
 bang, and I heard the sound of uncertain footsteps 
 crossing the hall. The crackling of the newspaper 
 ceased, and a sudden rigidity in Willy's attitude 
 showed me that he was listening. The step paused 
 outside the door, and then, after some preliminary 
 rattling, the handle was turned. Willy jumped up 
 and walked quickly to the door, as if with the inten- 
 tion of stopping whoever was there from coming in. 
 Before he reached it, however, it opened, and I saw 
 that it was his father whose entrance he had been 
 trying to prevent. 
 
 " It's not worth while your coming in, sir," he said ; 
 "Theo's awfully tired, and she's going to bed." 
 
 " Tired ! what right has she to be tired ? " said my 
 uncle, loudly, coming into the room as he spoke. He 
 put his hand on Willy's shoulder and pushed him to 
 one side. " Get out of my way ! Why should I not 
 come in if I like ? " 
 
 He walked very slowly and deliberately to the 
 fireplace, and stood on the rug with his back to the 
 fire, swinging a little backwards and forwards from 
 his toes to his heels. There was some difference in 
 his manner and appearance which I could not account 
 
An Irish Cousin, 245 
 
 for. His face was ghastly white ; a scant lock of 
 iron-grey hair hung over his forehead ; and the dark 
 rings I had seen about his eyes in the morning had 
 now changed to a purplish red. 
 
 "And what have you two been doing with your- 
 selves all the evening ? Making the most of your 
 time, Willy, I hope? Perhaps that was why you 
 tried to keep me out just now?" 
 
 He began to laugh at what he had said in a way 
 very unusual with him. 
 
 " Theo," Willy said abruptly, interrupting his father's 
 laughter, "you're looking dead beat ; I'll go and light 
 your candle." 
 
 " What are you in such a hurry about ? " demanded 
 Uncle Dominick, turning on Willy with unexpected 
 fierceness. " Don't you know it is manners to wait 
 till you're asked ? " 
 
 Willy did not answer, but went out into the hall ; 
 and I, feeling both scared and angry, got up with the 
 intention of following him as quickly as possible. 
 
 " Good-night, Uncle Dominick," I said icily. 
 
 He bent forward and took hold of my arm, leaning 
 his whole weight upon it. 
 
 " Look here," he whispered confidentially ; " how 
 has that fellow been behaving ? You haven't forgotten 
 our little talk this morning, eh ? " 
 
 " I remember it quite well. Good-night," I repeated, 
 
246 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 trying to pull my arm from his detaining hand, and 
 move away. 
 
 The action nearly threw him off his balance ; he 
 gave a stagger, and was in the act of recovering him- 
 self by the help of my arm, when Willy came back 
 with the lighted candle. 
 
 " For goodness sake, let her go to bed," he said, 
 striding over to where we were standing, and looking 
 threateningly at his father. 
 
 Uncle Dominick dropped my arm. "What the 
 devil do you mean by interfering with me, sir?" he 
 said. " Let me tell you that I will not stand this 
 behaviour on your part any longer ! I suppose you 
 think you can treat your cousin and me as if we were 
 no better than your low companions ? I know where 
 you spent your afternoon to-day. I know what those 
 infernal people are plotting and scheming for. But I 
 can tell you, that if they can make a fool of you they 
 shall not make one of me ! This house is mine. And 
 you may tell them from me, that as sure as I am stand- 
 ing here" — emphasising each word with a trembling 
 hand, while he clutched the mantel-shelf with the 
 other — "you shall never set foot in it, or touch one 
 penny of my money, if " 
 
 " Look here ! " said Willy, stepping forward between 
 me and his father, " that's enough ; you'd better shut 
 up." 
 
An Irish Cousin. 247 
 
 " How dare you speak to me like that ? Your con- 
 duct is not that of a gentleman, sir ! — not that of a 
 
 gentleman ! I say, sir, it is not — that — of " His 
 
 voice had grown thicker and more unsteady at every 
 word. 
 
 " Here's your candle," said Willy, thrusting the 
 candlestick into my hand ; " you'd better go." 
 
 " She shall not be ordered about by you ! " thun- 
 dered my uncle, making an ineffectual step or two to 
 stop me. " She shall stay here as long as I like. I 
 will be master in my own house. Come back here ! " 
 
 He spoke with such fury that I was afraid to go, and 
 looked irresolutely to Willy for help. But before he 
 could speak, my uncle's mood had changed. 
 
 " Let her go if she likes," he said suddenly, staring 
 at me with a sort of stupefaction. " Good God ! Let 
 her go if she likes ; let her go ! " he cried, covering his 
 eyes with his hands and dropping into a chair. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 I DO not often get a headache, but the one which 
 woke me next morning seemed determined to bring 
 my average of pain up to the level of that of less 
 fortunate people. All day long it pressed like a 
 burning cap over my head, till my pillow felt as if it 
 were a block of wood, and the thin chinks of light 
 that came through the closed shutters cut my eyes 
 like the blades of knives. The infrequent sounds in 
 the quiet house — the far-off shutting of a door, the 
 knocking of the housemaid's broom against the wains- 
 cot in the corridor, or an occasional footstep in the 
 hall — all jarred upon my aching brain as if it had 
 lost some accustomed shelter, and the blows of sound 
 struck directly upon its bruised nerves. 
 
 The wretchedness of the day before had given way 
 to the supremacy of physical suffering. I lay in my 
 darkened room, thinking of nothing except how best 
 to endure the passing of the slow hours. Once, as 
 the clock in the hall struck three, I was conscious of 
 
 some association connected with the sound, and re- 
 
 248 
 
An Irish Cousin. 249 
 
 membered that this was the hour at which I should 
 have been starting for Mount Prospect. 
 
 But it had all lost reality. Even the horror of that 
 scene with my uncle and Willy in the drawing-room 
 had been for the time obliterated, wiped out by the 
 pain of which it had partly been the cause. All that 
 I felt was that some trouble surely was there, and, 
 though in abeyance for to-day, it was already in pos- 
 session of to-morrow, and of many to-morrows. 
 
 When, on the next morning, after breakfast in bed, 
 I made my way downstairs, I felt as if a long time 
 had gone by since I had crossed the hall. The house 
 was cold and deserted. I dreaded meeting my uncle, 
 but I saw no one ; there was not even a dog to wish 
 me good-morning. In the drawing-room, the fire 
 had only just been lighted ; the blinds were drawn to 
 the top of the windows, showing the various layers of 
 dust in the room, from the venerable accumulation 
 under the piano, to the lighter and more recent coat- 
 ing on the tables. I went straight to the writing- 
 table, and, regardless of the cheerless glare from the 
 sheet of grey sea, I began a letter to Aunt Margaret. 
 
 Upstairs, in the early hours of the morning, it had 
 seemed an easy and not disagreeable thing to do — to 
 write and tell her that my Irish visit was over, and 
 that, as soon as her answer had come, I should be 
 glad to go back to Canada. But when the letter was 
 
250 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 closed and directed, I sat looking at it for a long time, 
 feeling that I had done something akin to making 
 my will. The best part of my life was over ; into 
 these past three months had been crushed its keenest 
 happiness and unhappiness, and this was what they 
 had amounted to. They had none the less now to 
 fall into the background, and soon would have no 
 more connection with my future life than if they had- 
 never been. 
 
 I had convinced myself so thoroughly that by 
 writing to Aunt Margaret I had closed this epoch in 
 my life, that when, a few minutes afterwards, Willy 
 came into the room, I was almost surprised to find 
 that he was as awkward and constrained as when I 
 had seen him last. 
 
 " Oh ! I didn't know you were in here, Theo," he 
 said apologetically, stopping short half-way across 
 the room. " I only came in to look for a pen." 
 He rolled his cap in his hands and looked at the 
 ground. 
 
 " I hope your head's all right to-day ? The 
 governor was asking after you yesterday. He was 
 very sorry to hear your headache was so bad." 
 
 I knew that he was trying, as well as he could, to 
 apologise for his father's outbreak and its too obvious 
 cause. 
 
 " That was very kind of him," I said quickly. " My 
 
An Irish Cousin. 251 
 
 headache is quite well. I was thinking of going out, 
 as it looks as if the east wind had gone." 
 
 " Yes, it's a nice day. I dare say it would do you 
 good to go out." 
 
 Nothing could have made me feel more plainly the 
 break that had come in what had been such " a fair 
 fellowship " than his making no offer to come with me, 
 and I realised with sharp regret that I had done well 
 in writing that letter to Aunt Margaret. 
 
 Willy turned to leave the room. 
 
 " I wanted to tell you about this letter," I said. " I 
 have just written to Aunt Margaret to say that I am 
 going back to Canada in about a fortnight." 
 
 His back had been towards me when I began to 
 speak, but he faced round with an exclamation of 
 astonishment. 
 
 " What ! going away ? Why are you doing that ? " 
 
 His face was red with surprise, and he had for- 
 gotten his shyness. 
 
 " I thought Uncle Dominick would have told you. 
 I spoke to him a couple of days ago." 
 
 " He never said so to me. On the contrary " 
 
 Willy stopped. " I mean, he didn't give me the least 
 idea you were going." 
 
 " For all that, I am afraid I must go. I have been 
 here an immense time already," I said, finding some 
 difficulty in maintaining an easy and conventional tone. 
 
252 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 " Indeed, you haven't ! " he blurted out. " You 
 know you told me you meant to stay on into the 
 spring, and — and you know " — looking steadily over 
 my head out of the window while he spoke — " there's 
 no reason why " 
 
 " Oh yes, there is," I said, interrupting him. 
 " Aunt Margaret wants help with all those children. 
 I ought not to leave her alone any more." 
 
 " Well, and won't you be leaving us alone too ? " — 
 still without changing the direction of his eyes. 
 
 " Oh ! you will be no worse off than you were 
 before I came," I answered, with the hasty indiscre- 
 tion of argument, and not without a biting thought of 
 Anstey Brian. 
 
 He did not reply, and I had time to be sorry, 
 before he said, with an assumption of carelessness : — 
 
 " Well, I'm going out now, and I advise you to do 
 the same." He left the room ; but, reopening the 
 door, put his head in — " I say, don't send that letter," 
 he said, and shut the door again before I could 
 answer. 
 
 I did not meet Uncle Dominick at lunch. Roche 
 told me not to wait for him, as he was not well, and 
 would probably not come in ; and I had almost finished 
 my solitary meal before Willy appeared. He and I 
 were both more at our ease than we had been at our 
 first meeting that morning. I do not know what had 
 
An Irish Cousin. 253 
 
 operated in his case, but for myself, I felt more than 
 ever that I had become a different person — a person 
 to whom nothing mattered very much, whose only 
 link with the everyday life of the past and present was 
 a very bitter and humiliating pain. 
 
 " I have to go into Esker this afternoon," said Willy, 
 occupying himself very busily with the carving of the 
 cold beef. " I was wondering if you might care to 
 ride there. The horse wants exercise, and I thought 
 perhaps — you said something about wanting fresh 
 air " 
 
 I did not know how to refuse an invitation so 
 humbly given, although my first inclination had been 
 to do so. 
 
 " It is rather a long ride," I began doubtfully. 
 
 " Well, you can turn back whenever you like." 
 
 I debated with myself As I was going away so 
 soon, it could not make much real difference to any 
 one ; and Uncle Dominick had specially asked me 
 not to neglect Willy. Besides — I could not help it 
 — some faint hope struggled up in my heart that in 
 Esker I might hear something of the O'Neills. 
 
 " Very well," I said finally, " I will go with you." 
 
 Willy and I had often ridden to Esker. It was a 
 long ride, and we had established a short cut across 
 the fields, though experience had shown us that the 
 amount of jumping it involved, and the rough ground 
 
2 54 ^^ /w/^ Cousin. 
 
 to be crossed, did away with any great saving of time. 
 To-day we went in off the road at the usual gap, and 
 as we cantered over the grass to the accustomed spot 
 in each fence, the free stride of the horse, and the 
 tinghng of the wind in my cheeks, brought back the 
 old feeling of exultant independence, the last remnant 
 of my headache cleared away, and for the time I even 
 forgot that quiet, incessant aching at my heart. 
 
 One or two successful conflicts with his horse had 
 done much to restore Willy's confidence and self- 
 possession. 
 
 " It's a long time since we had a ride now," he said, 
 after we had come out over a bank on to the road again 
 
 " Yes ; I was just thinking the same. I am very 
 glad I came out." 
 
 " We must try and get a look at the hounds next 
 week ; they meet pretty close — that is to say " — con- 
 tinuing his sentence with something of a jerk — "if 
 you're not too busy packing then." 
 
 I did not answer, and Willy said nothing more 
 until we had pulled up into a walk on some rising 
 ground, from which we could see the town of Esker 
 straggling out of an opening between two hills, its 
 whitewashed houses showing dimly through the blue 
 smoke that lay about it like a lake. 
 
 "And did you send that letter, after all?" Willy 
 said, in an unconcerned way. 
 
An Irish Cousin. 255 
 
 " Yes," 1 answered ; " you know I always write to 
 Canada on Friday." 
 
 "Then you mean to say you are really going 
 back ? " 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 " Well, I suppose you know best," he said coldly. 
 
 Alaska put her foot on a stone, and stumbled 
 slightly. 
 
 " Hold up, you confounded fool ! " he said, chucking 
 up her head roughly, and digging his spurs in. 
 
 The mare reared and plunged, and to steady her we 
 broke into a trot, which brought us into the crooked, 
 crowded streets of Esker. 
 
 It was market-day, and the carts that had come in 
 with their loads of butter, turf, fowls and old women 
 blocked our way in every direction. I remained on 
 my horse's back while Willy went off about his 
 business, and for the next half-hour I only caught 
 glimpses of him, doubling round the immovable 
 groups of talkers, and eluding the beggars with 
 practised skill as he dived in and out of the little 
 shops. Willy's satisfaction and confidence in the 
 warehouses of Esker, and the amount of shopping 
 which he contrived to do there, had always been a 
 matter of fresh surprise to me. 
 
 Beggars pestered me ; little boys exasperated me 
 by offers to hold Blackthorn, regardless of the fact 
 
256 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 that I was on his back ; and women clustered round 
 me on the pavement and discussed my lineage and 
 appearance, but I was too dispirited to be much 
 amused by their comments. The glow of my gallop 
 had faded out ; I felt cold and tired, and thought that 
 Willy had never before been so long over his shop- 
 ping- 
 
 At last he appeared unexpectedly at my horse's 
 shoulder. 
 
 " I was thinking that you must be dead for want 
 of tea. I've just ordered some at Reardon's, and you 
 must come and have it before we go home." 
 
 I assented without much interest, and began to 
 push Blackthorn through the crowd. At the hotel 
 I dismounted, and followed Willy listlessly into the 
 dark, unsavoury commercial room. Its sole oc- 
 cupant got up in obedience to a whisper from the 
 boots, and hurriedly conveyed himself and his glass 
 of whisky and water from the room which had been 
 allotted to him and the gentlemen of his profession, 
 and I sat down at the long oilcloth-covered table and 
 began to pour out the tea, while Willy battered the 
 fire into a blaze. He had evidently made up his 
 mind to be cheerful, but as evidently he was not quite 
 certain as to what to talk about. 
 
 I listened with as much intelligence as I could 
 muster to such pieces of news as he had picked up 
 
An Irish Cousin, 257 
 
 during his shopping, but our conversation gradually- 
 slackened, and finally came to a full stop. I slowly 
 drank the contents of my enormous teacup, wondering 
 why it was that at country hotels the bread and 
 butter and the china were alike abnormally thick. 
 I noticed that Willy had looked at me undecidedly 
 once or twice during the last few minutes, and at 
 length he said, in a way that showed he had been 
 framing the question for some time — 
 
 " I suppose, if you went away, you'd be coming 
 back again ? " 
 
 "Come back!" I echoed. *' No, I do not think 
 there is the least chance of my doing that." 
 
 I had finished my tea, and got up as I spoke. 
 
 "Then you've done with this country altogether?" 
 
 " Yes ; altogether," I answered resolutely, turn- 
 ing aside to study one of the oleographs on the 
 walls. 
 
 I could not have said another word, and, in a sort 
 of defiance of my own weakness, I began to hum a 
 tune, one that had been in my mind unrecognised all 
 day. Now as I hummed it the straining sweetness 
 of the notes of a violin filled my memory, and I knew 
 where and how I had heard it last. 
 
 Willy said nothing more, and, getting up, rang the 
 bell and ordered the horses to be brought round. 
 We had to stand for a minute in the doorway while 
 
 17 
 
258 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 they were coming. A cold wind was springing up 
 with the sunset ; the pale yellow light was contending 
 with the newly lighted street-lamps, and over my head 
 a large jet of gas flickered drearily behind the name 
 " Reardon " on the fanlight. 
 
 " Hullo ! look at the Clashmore wagonette," Willy 
 said suddenly. " It's coming along now behind that 
 string of turf-carts. I suppose they're going to the 
 station." 
 
 The turf-carts lumbered slowly to a full stop and 
 the chestnuts and wagonette had perforce to pull up 
 opposite the hotel. On the box, sharply outlined 
 against the frosty sky, I saw Nugent's figure, and 
 inside was a huddled mass of furs, which I supposed 
 was Madam O'Neill. My first instinct was to shrink 
 back into the hall, but it was too late ; Willy was 
 already taking off his hat, and I bowed mechanically 
 as Nugent lifted his. 
 
 " You're off to-night, I suppose ? " Willy called 
 out, " will you be away long ? " 
 
 " Yes, I dare say I shall not be home for some time, 
 I'm thinking of going abroad for a bit." 
 
 " Abroad ? Where to ? Is it to Cannes again ? " 
 
 " Quite possibly," said Nugent. 
 
 The turf-carts moved on, and the chestnuts pranced 
 impatiently. 
 
 " Good-bye," said Nugent, in a voice as chill as the 
 
An Irish Cousin. 259 
 
 frosty air of the evening. He lifted his hat and the 
 carriage was gone. 
 
 We rode quickly and steadily homewards through 
 the darkening hills, without a word to break the 
 silence between us. I had no wish to speak, no 
 wish for anything but to escape from this miserable 
 place and to forget all that had happened to me since 
 the night when I had first driven along this very road. 
 This was the fulfilment of the insane unacknowledged 
 hope which had been my real reason for to-day's ride. 
 I had met Nugent, and could take home with me the 
 certainty that I had made no mistake as to what his 
 letter had meant, and that he, for his part, would be 
 quite sure that having failed with him, I was now 
 consoling myself with my cousin. 
 
 Itjwas quite dark when we got to Durrus, but, as 
 the gates swung back, I could see that it was Anstey 
 who had opened them for us. I rode through a little 
 in advance of Willy, who had checked his horse in 
 order to let me go first. I thought I caught the 
 sound of a whispered word or two from Anstey, and, 
 with the clang of the closing gate, I distinctly heard 
 Willy say in a low voice, " No, I can't." 
 
 I rode fast up the avenue so that he should not 
 overtake me. Here, had it been needed, was further 
 confirmation of what my uncle had told me. Every- 
 thing was going wrong. I had spoilt my own life, 
 
 17 * 
 
26o An Irish Cousin. 
 
 and now I had to stand by and see Willy ruin his, 
 knowing that I had it, perhaps, in my power to save 
 him, and yet feeling incapable of doing so. 
 
 When I met Uncle Dominick at dinner, his manner 
 was more blandly affectionate that I had ever known 
 it, and but for the recollections which his haggard 
 face called up, I should have thought that the scene 
 of two nights ago had been a dream. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 I LAY awake for a long time after I got into bed, and 
 I had not been long asleep when some sound wakened 
 me. I was at first not sorry to awake ; I had been 
 sleeping uneasily and feverishly, and my dreams had 
 been full of disasters and difficulties. I did not 
 trouble myself much as to what the sound was — 
 probably a rat, as the house was overrun with them 
 — and I tried to see the face of my watch by the 
 light of the fire, which was still burning brightly. 
 I had made out that it was half-past one, when I 
 again heard a sound. It was a movement in the 
 next room, as if a chair had been pushed against by 
 some one moving cautiously in the dark. I do not 
 pretend to being superior to irrational terrors at night, 
 and now the blood rushed back to my head from my 
 heart, as I sat up in bed and tried to persuade myself 
 that what I had heard was the effect of imagination. 
 
 There was dead silence for a few seconds, and then 
 a hand was passed over the other side of the paper- 
 covered door, as if feeling for the latch. 
 
 26 1 
 
262 An Irish Cousin, 
 
 I have had some bad moments in my life, but I 
 have known nothing much worse than the possibilities 
 of those seconds while the invisible hand groped for 
 the latch. The door was weak and badly fitting, 
 made of single planks, and it at first refused to open, 
 but it had finally to yield to the pressure applied to 
 it. It opened with a jerk and I saw by the firelight 
 that the figure which appeared in the doorway was 
 neither ghost nor burglar ; it was Anstey Brian's 
 mother. 
 
 " What do you want ? " I demanded, as firmly as I 
 could. 
 
 She stood still and looked at me. The firelight 
 flickered on her face, I saw her lips moving inces- 
 santly, but no sound came from them. With a 
 tremendous effort I broke through the cold trance of 
 terror, and said loudly, " If you don't go away at 
 once, I shall call the master ! " 
 
 At this, to my unspeakable relief, she looked hastily 
 over her shoulder, and drawing the hood of her cloak 
 over her head, she retreated into the room from which 
 she had come, closing the paper-covered door after 
 her. 
 
 I listened intently, and presently heard the rustle 
 of her cloak against the walls as she went down the 
 corridor, and soon afterwards a door at some distant 
 part of the house opened and shut. 
 
An Irish Cousin. 263 
 
 I drew a long breath ; she was out of the house 
 now. I got up, and, with shaking limbs, dragged 
 my big trunk against the papered-covered door, and, 
 having locked the other one, felt comparatively- 
 secure. 
 
 But my heart alternately thumped and fluttered 
 against my side ; fright, combined with indignation 
 with Willy, with Uncle Dominick, and chiefly with 
 the Brians and their inveteracy as disturbers of the 
 peace of Durrus kept me awake till morning, seething 
 with a resolve to escape as soon as possible from this 
 disastrous household. 
 
 At breakfast I told Willy what had happened. He 
 was out of spirits, and not like himself, and I had 
 put off saying anything to him about it until we had 
 almost finished breakfast. When I had ended my 
 story, he pushed back his chair from the table and 
 got up. 
 
 " I'll make them sorry for this," he said vindictively, 
 his face flushing darkly as he spoke. " I'll teach that 
 old scoundrel Brian to let Moll come up here frighten- 
 ing you ! You look as white as a sheet this minute." 
 
 " I am sure I am nothing of the kind," I answered, 
 trying unsuccessfully to look at myself in the silver 
 teapot ; " there is nothing the matter with me. If 
 you will fasten up that little door into the other room 
 before this evening, I shall be perfectly happy." 
 
264 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 " Never fear but I will," he said ; " and it'll be very 
 queer if I don't fasten up that old hag too." 
 
 He stalked out of the room. I heard him go up- 
 stairs and along the corridor, and presently the noise 
 of hammering echoed through the house. 
 
 I met him in the hall soon afterwards, putting on 
 his cap to go out. 
 
 " I fixed that door the way it won't be opened 
 again in a hurry," he said, with grim satisfaction, 
 " and I've locked the other. Here's the key for you. 
 Now I'm going to be off to fix Moll herself. She's 
 not such a fool but she'll understand what I'm going 
 to say to her ! " 
 
 " I wonder what the attraction in that room was for 
 her ? " I said. " I have seen her in there several times." 
 
 " Goodness knows ! There was nothing in it, only 
 an old broken chair she had by the window, and 
 there were a couple of books on the floor that I 
 suppose she stole out of the study to play with. 
 One looked like an old diary, or account-book, or 
 something. I meant to bring them out of it, but I 
 forgot them." 
 
 " I am very much obliged to you for shutting up 
 that door," I said, with sincere gratitude. " I had no 
 idea you were going to do it for me at once. You 
 are a most reliable person." 
 
 He had taken his stick out of the stand, and had 
 
An Irish Cousin. 265 
 
 opened the hall door ; but he stopped and looked 
 back at me. 
 
 " I think I'd do more than that for you," he said, 
 almost under his breath, and went out of the house. 
 
 It was a fine morning, and I finally went for a walk 
 along the cliffs with the dogs. I expected to hear 
 all about Willy's encounter with Moll at luncheon ; 
 but, on my return to the house, I heard, to my sur- 
 prise, that he had driven into Esker, with his port- 
 manteau, to catch the train for Cork, and would not 
 be home till the following evening. 
 
 The afternoon lagged by. I had tea early, in the 
 hope of shortening it ; but the device did not have 
 much success. As the evening clouded in, rain began 
 to beat in large drops against the windows, and the 
 rising wind sighed about the house, and sent puffs of 
 smoke down the drawing-room chimney. I despised 
 myself for the feeling of forsakenness which it gave 
 me ; but I could help it no more than I could hinder 
 some apprehensive recollections of Moll's entry into 
 my room. A childish dread of having all the dark- 
 ness behind me made me crouch down on the hearth- 
 rug, with my back to the fire, and rouse Pat from a 
 satiated slumber to sit on my lap for company. 
 Something about the look of the fire and the sound 
 of the rain was compelling my thoughts back to the 
 afternoon when I sat and waited here for Nugent. 
 
266 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 I did not try, as I had so often tried before, to drive 
 away those thoughts, or to forget the withheld pos- 
 sibilities of that afternoon. Once more I gave myself 
 over to the fascination of unprofitable remembrances, 
 yielding to myself on the plea that it was to be for 
 the last time. After to-day they would be contra- 
 band, made outlaws by the power of a resolution 
 which I had newly come to — a resolution that I had 
 been driven to by the combined forces of pity and 
 sympathy and conscience ; but to-day, for one final 
 half-hour, I would allow them to have their way. 
 
 Dinner-time came, and with it no appearance of 
 Willy. Uncle Dominick had for some time given up 
 his custom of waiting in the library to take me in to 
 dinner, and Willy and I usually found him sitting by 
 the fire in the dining-room when we went in. To- 
 night, however, he was not there. 
 
 " The master's not coming in to dinner ; he's not 
 well at all, miss," said Roche mysteriously. " I was 
 telling him a while ago that 'tis for the docthor he 
 should send ; but indeed, he was for turning me out 
 of the room when I said it." 
 
 " Do you think he would like to see me ? " 
 
 " Don't go near him at all to-night, miss," Roche 
 answered, with unexpected urgency. " He'll be 
 betther to-morrow — you'll see him then." 
 
 But I did see my uncle again that night. When I 
 
An Irish Cousin. 267 
 
 went upstairs to bed, I was startled by seeing his tall 
 figure, in his dressing-gown, standing outside the door 
 of the room which Willy had locked. He had a large 
 bunch of keys, and was trying them one after the 
 other in the lock. 
 
 " Perhaps you can help me with these," he said, 
 looking round as I came up to him. " I am almost 
 sure that one of these keys opens this door, but I 
 cannot find it." 
 
 His hand trembled so much, that the keys were 
 shaking and jingling as he held them out to me. 
 
 " I am afraid the key is not on this bunch " I 
 
 began. 
 
 " But, my dear, I think it is very probable that we 
 shall find Willy in that room," he said, in a low con- 
 fidential voice, pressing the keys upon me. " I cannot 
 think why he remains in there. I have tried several 
 times to-day to open the door, but that fellow Roche 
 keeps pestering me. I believe he is in league with 
 Willy." 
 
 My own hand was trembling almost as much as my 
 uncle's, but I did not dare to refuse to take the keys, 
 and I made a pretence of trying one in the lock. 
 He watched me anxiously for a moment. 
 
 " No, my dear, I see it is no use trying to-night. 
 You are tired, and so am I " — he sighed deeply, and 
 put his hand to his chest, — " this oppression that I 
 
268 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 am suffering from tries me terribly. I will go to my 
 room and see if I can get a little rest. I need rest 
 sadly." 
 
 " Yes, you look very tired," I said, in as ordinary 
 a voice as I could manage, handing the keys back to 
 him. 
 
 " Do I ? Well, to tell you the truth, I have been 
 quite unable to sleep lately. I am so much disturbed 
 by these hackney carmen who make it a practice to 
 drive past the house at all hours of the night ; I hope 
 they do not annoy you ? I have told them several 
 times to go away, but they simply laugh at me. And 
 the strange thing is," he continued, leaning over the 
 rail of the corridor, and looking suspiciously down 
 into the hall, " that though I gave orders that the 
 lodge gates should always be locked at night, it does 
 not stop them in the least — they just drive through 
 them. Well, good-night, my dear," he said, nodding 
 at me in a friendly way ; " we must give it up for to- 
 night, but we shall unearth Master Willy to-morrow." 
 
 He nodded again, and walked away down the 
 corridor. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 That night the wind shifted to the south-west, and 
 the storm that came thundering in from the Atlantic 
 was the worst I had known since I came to Durrus. 
 The rain had been coming down in furious floods 
 ever since sunset, and as the night darkened in, the 
 wind dashed it against my window till I thought the 
 sashes must give way. The roaring of the storm in 
 the trees never ceased, and once or twice, through the 
 straining and lashing of the branches, I heard the 
 crash of a falling bough. The house was full of 
 sounds ; the rattling of the ill-fitting windows, the 
 knocking of the picture-frames against the walls of the 
 corridor, the loud drip of water from a leak in the 
 skylight. Somewhere in the house a door was bang- 
 ing incessantly. It maddened me to hear it, more 
 especially now, when I was trying to determine by 
 the sound if the door which had just been opened was 
 that of Uncle Dominick's room. His door had been 
 open, and his room dark, when I had passed it on my 
 
 way up to bed an hour ago. 
 
 269 
 
270 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 The next day was Tuesday. The storm raged 
 steadily on, putting out of the question all possibility 
 of going out. The shutters on the western side of 
 the house were all closed, and I sat in the semi- 
 darkness of the library, trying to read, and looking 
 from time to time through the one unshuttered 
 window out on to the gravel sweep. Broken twigs 
 and pieces torn from the weather-slated walls were 
 strewed over the ground. A great sycamore had 
 fallen across the drive a little below the house, and 
 the other trees swung and writhed as if in despair at 
 the long stress of the gale. 
 
 Roche came in and out of the room on twenty 
 different pretexts during the day, and made each an 
 occasion for ventilating some new theory to explain 
 Willy's absence. I was kneeling on the window-seat, 
 looking out into the turmoil, as the wind hurried the 
 black rain-clouds across the sky, and the gloomy day- 
 light faded into night, when he came into the room 
 again. 
 
 "There's a great dhraught from that window, 
 miss," he remarked. "You'd be best let me shut 
 the shutthers. You'll see no sign of Masther Willy 
 this day, unless he's coming by the last thrain. 
 The master's asking for him the whole day. He's 
 very unaisy in his mind. He's roaming, roaming 
 through the house all the day, and he's give ordhers 
 
An Irish Cousin, I'll 
 
 to have his dinner sent to his own room. He wasn't 
 best pleased when he found Masther Willy had locked 
 up the room that's next your own, and twice, an' I 
 coming upstairs, I seen him sthriving to open the 
 door." 
 
 " Masther Willy did that to prevent Moll getting 
 in there," I explained. " I will tell the master so 
 myself." 
 
 " Don't say a word to him, miss, good nor bad," said 
 Roche, shaking his knotted forefinger at me expres- 
 sively. " He'll forget — he'll forget " He sniffed 
 
 significantly, and, as if to prevent himself from saying 
 any more, he shuffled out of the room. 
 
 But Willy did not come by the last train ; indeed, 
 the storm was still too violent for any one to travel. 
 I lay awake the greater part of the night, filled with 
 feverish fears and fancies. Several times I could have 
 been sure that I heard some one wandering about the 
 house, and once I thought there was a shaking and 
 pushing at the locked door of the room next to mine. 
 
 When I awoke next morning, I found that the wind 
 had been at length beaten down by a deluge of rain, 
 which was descending in a grey continuous flood, as 
 if it never meant to stop. The day dragged wearily 
 on. Roche had spoken truly in saying that Uncle 
 Dominick was uneasy and restless. It seemed to me 
 that he never stopped walking about the house. I 
 
272 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 heard him constantly moving backwards and forwards, 
 from the library to his own study ; and once the sound 
 of footsteps in Willy's room overhead startled me for 
 an instant into wondering if Willy had come home. 
 
 The long waiting and suspense had got on my 
 nerves, and the gloom and silence made the house 
 seem like a prison. I could neither read nor play the 
 piano. I was debarred from even the society of Pat 
 and Jinny, as, on the first day of the storm, their 
 muddy footmarks in the hall had made my uncle 
 angrily order their exile to the stable. By luncheon- 
 time the rain had nearly spent itself. The wind went 
 round into the north-west, and a wet gleam of sun- 
 shine suddenly shone out on the trees, making every 
 branch and twig show with pale distinctness against 
 the bank of purple cloud behind. A pilot-boat was 
 beating in to Durrusmore Harbour in the teeth of the 
 cold wind ; the curlews screamed fitfully as they flew 
 inland. It was not a pleasant afternoon, but I was 
 thankful for the chance of getting out of the house. 
 
 The shrubberies were chilly and dripping, and their 
 walks were covered with soaking withered leaves, but 
 they were sheltered from the wind. I had come to 
 the place where I had once left the path to gather ferns 
 by the stream, when, at the angle where the two paths 
 meet, I came suddenly upon Willy. 
 
 He was sitting on a tumble-down old rustic seat, 
 
An Irish Cousin. 273 
 
 with his elbows on his knees, and his face hidden in 
 his hands. 
 
 " Willy ! " I cried, starting forward, " where have 
 you been ? what is the matter ? Are you ill ? " 
 
 He raised his head, and looked at me vacantly, and 
 for the moment I felt almost as great a shock as if I 
 had seen him lying dead there ; if he had been dead, 
 his whole look could hardly be more changed than it 
 was now. A bluish-grey pallor had taken the place 
 of his usually fresh colouring ; his eyes were sunk in 
 dark hollows, but the lids were red ; and I saw, with 
 shame at surprising them there, the traces of tears on 
 his cheeks. 
 
 " I'm all right," he answered, turning his face away 
 without getting up; "please don't stay here, Theo. 
 It's only that my head's pretty bad." 
 
 A discoloured sheet of blue foolscap paper was 
 lying on the seat beside him, and he put it into the 
 pocket of his coat while he was speaking. I was too 
 bewildered to move. 
 
 " You'd better go in," he said again ; " it's awfully 
 cold and wet for you to be out here." 
 
 The feeling that I was prying upon his trouble, 
 
 whatever it was, made me take a few undecided steps 
 
 away from him ; but, looking back, I saw that he had 
 
 again relapsed into his old position, and with an 
 
 uncontrollable impulse I came back. 
 
 18 
 
274 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 " I won't go away, Willy," I said, sitting down 
 beside him ; " I can't leave you here like this. Won't 
 you tell me what has happened ? What has kept you 
 away ? We've been awfully anxious about you ! " 
 
 He neither lifted his head nor spoke, but I could 
 hear the quick catchings of his breath. A thrust of 
 sharp pity pierced my heart. 
 
 " Do tell me what it is, Willy," I repeated, careless 
 of the break in my voice, putting one hand on his 
 shoulder, and trying with the other to draw one of his 
 from his face. 
 
 He was trembling all over, and when I touched him 
 he started and let his hand fall, but he turned still 
 further from me. 
 
 " Don't," he said huskily. " You can't do any good ; 
 nothing can " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " I said, horror-struck at the 
 settled despair in his voice. " What has happened to 
 you ? " 
 
 " It's no use your asking me questions," he answered 
 more calmly. " I tell you there's nothing the matter 
 with me." 
 
 " I don't believe you," I said. " Something has 
 happened to you since I saw you. Is it anything 
 that I have done? Is it my fault in any way?" 
 
 " No, it is not your fault." He stood up, and went 
 on wildly, without looking at me, " But I wish I had 
 
An Irish Cousin, 275 
 
 died before you came to Durrus ! I wish I was in the 
 graveyard out there this minute ! I wish the whole 
 scheming, infernal crew were in hell — I wish " 
 
 " Oh, stop, Willy ! " I cried—" stop ! You are 
 frightening me ! " 
 
 He had been standing quite still, but he had flung 
 out his clenched hand at every sentence, and his grey 
 eyes were fixed and dilated. 
 
 " I don't know what I'm saying ; I didn't mean to 
 frighten you," he said, sitting down again beside me. 
 " I had no right to say that — about wishing I was dead 
 before you came. Your coming here was the best 
 thing ever happened to me in my life. I'll always 
 thank God for giving me the chance of loving you ; 
 and no matter what happens, I always will love you — 
 always — always " 
 
 He caught my hand as if he were going to draw me 
 towards him, but, checking himself, he let it fall with 
 a groan. 
 
 "It's all over now," he said. "Everything's gone 
 to smash." 
 
 A rush of wind shivered through the laurels, and 
 shook a quick rattle of drops from the shining leaves. 
 
 " Why should it all be over ? Why should not it 
 begin again ? " 
 
 I said it firmly, but it seemed to me as if I were 
 
 listening to some one else speaking. 
 
 18 * 
 
276 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " He stared at me. 
 
 " I mean that perhaps I made a mistake," I said, 
 beginning to hesitate — " that perhaps, that night at 
 Mount Prospect, I was wrong in what I said to 
 you " 
 
 " You're humbugging me ! " he said fiercely, with- 
 out taking his eyes from my face. " You don't know 
 what you're saying." 
 
 " Yes, I do know," I answered, still with that feeling 
 that another person was speaking for me. " I've 
 thought about it before now, and I thought perhaps 
 if you would forgive " 
 
 " Forgive ! I don't understand you. Do you mean 
 to say you would marry me ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 He looked at me stupidly, and staggered to his feet 
 as if he were drunk. 
 
 " I'm having a fine time of it ! " he said, with a loud 
 harsh laugh. " She says she'll have me after all, and 
 I've got to say ' No, thank you ! ' " 
 
 He swayed as he stood opposite to me, and then, 
 falling on his knees, he laid his head on my lap, and 
 broke into desperate sobbing. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 I FOUND my uncle standing in the hall when I came 
 downstairs to dinner. 
 
 " What a terrible day this has been ! " he said, as he 
 offered me his arm. " This rain makes the air so op- 
 pressive," he sighed, " and I have much to trouble me." 
 
 He helped me to soup, and having done so, got up 
 and walked over to the fireplace. " I have no appetite 
 at all," he said, " I suppose it is caused by want of 
 sleep, but I really have a positive horror of food." 
 
 He turned his back to me and leaned his forehead 
 against the high mantel-shelf, while I went on with 
 dinner as well as I could. 
 
 Since Willy had left me, left me sitting stupefied on 
 the shrubbery seat, with the rain beating down through 
 the laurels upon me, I had not seen or heard anything 
 of him. He had gone without another word of ex- 
 planation ; all was dark and threatening, and my 
 heart was heavy with apprehension. 
 
 I think I never was as fond of Willy, or as truly 
 
 unhappy about him as now, just after I had, in- 
 
 277 
 
27B An Irish Cousin. 
 
 credibly, asked him to marry me, and had, inexplic- 
 ably, been rejected. My own point of view was 
 forgotten in the consuming desire to understand the 
 mystery. There was no adequate solution, but the 
 gusty booming of the wind in the chimney, and the 
 drumming of the many-fingered rain against the 
 window, brought home the one tangible fact that 
 Willy was still out of the house on one of the worst 
 nights of the year. 
 
 Uncle Dominick raised his head as if listening, and 
 came back to the table. 
 
 " I am forgetful of my duties," he said, speaking 
 very carefully, and as if he were saying a lesson, " will 
 you not take a glass of wine ? you must be tired after 
 your long drive in the snow from Carrickbeg." 
 
 I stared. " But I have not been out driving to-day." 
 He put his hand to his head. " How forgetful I 
 am ! " he said hastily, " but the fact is I am so upset 
 by anxiety about Willy that I scarcely know what I 
 am saying. I confused Carrickbeg with Esker — till 
 a few years ago Carrickbeg was our nearest station, 
 and in those days travellers did not arrive here till 
 one o'clock in the morning — one o'clock on a cold 
 snowy morning," he slowly repeated to himself 
 with a shudder. He poured himself out a glass of 
 port, and, having drunk it, again left his chair and 
 stood by the fire, fidgeting with a trembling hand 
 
An Irish Cousin. 279 
 
 with the objects on the mantel-shelf. Dinner was 
 soon over, and, not liking to leave Uncle Dominick, I 
 drew a chair over to the fire and sat down. He did 
 not seem to notice me, but began to pace up and 
 down the room, stopping now and then by one of the 
 windows as if listening for sounds outside ; but the 
 noisy splashing of the water that fell from a broken 
 eaveshoot on to the gravel, was all that was to be heard. 
 
 " There ! " he said at last, in a whisper ; " do you 
 hear the footsteps ? Do you hear them coming ? " 
 
 I jumped up and listened too. " No, I can hear 
 nothing." 
 
 " I did hear them," he said positively. " I know 
 they are beginning." 
 
 I could not understand what he meant, but I went 
 to the nearest window, and was beginning to unbar 
 the shutters, when there came a loud ring at the hall- 
 door bell. 
 
 '' I told you he was coming," my uncle said. " I 
 must get out some brandy for him after his long drive 
 in the snow." 
 
 The hall door was opened, and I heard Roche's 
 voice. I ran to the door, and, opening it, met Willy 
 coming into the room. 
 
 His face was all wet with rain, and his hair was 
 hanging in damp points on his forehead. He walked 
 past me into the room. My uncle stood still by the 
 
2 8o An Irish Cousin, 
 
 window, holding with one hand to the heavy folds of 
 the red curtain. 
 
 "What! Willy!" he said, coming forward, and 
 staring at Willy with wild eyes in which frightened 
 conjecture slowly steadied into reassurance. " Was 
 it you who came to the door?" A sort of sob shook 
 his voice. " My dear boy, I am rejoiced to see you ; 
 but, good heavens, how wet you are ! " — going to the 
 sideboard and pouring out a glass of brandy. " Here, 
 you must drink this at once." 
 
 " I don't want it," said Willy ; " I don't want any- 
 thing." 
 
 He stood still, looking at his father, who, from some 
 cause or other, was shaking in every limb. 
 
 "Where have you been since I saw you, Willy?" 
 I faltered. 
 
 " I don't know — walking about in the rain. I've got 
 something to say to you," he went on, addressing his 
 father. " You needn't go away, Theo ; you might as 
 well hear it too." 
 
 Uncle Dominick lifted the glass of brandy to his 
 lips, and swallowed it at a gulp. 
 
 " Well, my dear boy," he said, with a smile, and in a 
 stronger voice, " let us hear what you have got to say." 
 
 " It's easy told," Willy said, putting his hands into 
 his pockets. " I was married to Anstey Brian at the 
 priest's house this morning." 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 There was dead silence for some seconds. Uncle 
 Dominick was the first to break it. 
 
 "You married her?" he said slowly, the words 
 falling from his lips like drops of acid. " You mean 
 to say she is your wife ? " 
 
 Willy nodded stubbornly. 
 
 My uncle stood looking at him, the blood mounting 
 in dark waves to his pale face, till I should scarcely 
 have known him. He made a stammering attempt 
 to speak, and moved some steps forward towards 
 Willy, groping with his hands in front of him as if he 
 were blind, before the words came. 
 
 " Leave the house ! " he gasped, in a high, shrill 
 voice — '' leave the house ! " — swaying as if shaken by 
 the passion that filled him — " or I will kick you out 
 like a dog ! " 
 
 He stopped again to take breath, but recovering 
 
 himself caught at the collar of Willy's coat as if to 
 
 put his threat into execution. 
 
 " You needn't trouble yourself," said Willy, raising 
 
 281 
 
282 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 his arm and retreating before his father's onslaught. 
 " You've seen pretty nearly the last of me now ; but, 
 whether you like it or no, I'm going to stay here for 
 to-night." 
 
 Uncle Dominick grasped at the edge of the side- 
 board to steady himself, his face so dark and swollen 
 that I thought he was going to have a fit. 
 
 "Stay here!" he roared. "Stay here! I'll see 
 you damned before you spend another night in this 
 house ! " 
 
 " Now, look here," said Willy, in a hard, overbearing 
 voice, keeping his eyes fixed on his father's face, " it'll 
 be the best of your play to keep quiet. I'm going to 
 stay here, and that's the end of it ! " 
 
 His insolent manner appeared to cow my uncle. 
 The colour began to fade from his face, and his ex- 
 pression became more controlled, though it was more 
 evil than ever when he spoke next. 
 
 " And your bride ? May I ask if she has done me 
 the honour of coming here ? " He wiped a thin foam 
 from his lower lip with his trembling hand. " Or is 
 she perhaps at her father's residence ? " 
 
 Willy turned his face so that I could not see it. 
 " She's gone to Cork," he said. " And I'm going to 
 Australia with her to-morrow." 
 
 " I suppose you intend eventually to return here 
 after your honeymoon ? " my uncle went on, with a 
 
An Irish Cousin. 283 
 
 nasty smile, pouring out and drinking another glass 
 of brandy, while he waited for Willy's reply. 
 
 " I've done with this place for ever," answered Willy 
 steadily, looking straight at his father. " I married 
 Anstey Brian for a reason that may-be you know as 
 well as I do ! " 
 
 " What do I know about your reasons for degrading 
 yourself?" interrupted my uncle, dashing his hand 
 down upon the sideboard with a return of his first 
 fury. " I know the reason you'll be given credit for — 
 and very rightly too, no doubt ! " 
 
 " I say once for all," said Willy, whiter than ever, 
 but standing like a rock, "and I say it before God, 
 that you or any one else who says that is a liar ! " 
 
 " Very heroic ! very chivalrous ! " said my uncle, 
 with an attempt at chilly sarcasm that was belied by 
 his panting breath. " That is of course as it may be, 
 but I know at all events one thing about her, and 
 that is, she shall get no good of her infamous 
 
 plotting ! " the glasses on the sideboard clashed 
 
 and rang as he struck it again. " You shall never 
 own a stick or a stone of Durrus ! " he shrieked. 
 " Your cousin shall have it all — your cousin shall get 
 everything I have ! I will see to that this very 
 night ! " 
 
 " Oh, all right," Willy answered coolly ; " the sooner 
 the better. But I may as well tell you that if you 
 
284 ^^ J^^^^^^ Cousin. 
 
 went down on your knees to me this minute, I wouldn't 
 touch a halfpenny, nor the value of one that belonged 
 to you. I've money enough to take me to Australia, 
 and when I go away to-morrow morning it will be for 
 good and all." 
 
 I had up to this stood by a scared and silent spec- 
 tator ; but now I tried to make my voice heard. 
 
 " I won't have it," I said, half choked with my own 
 eagerness. "It is no use leaving it to me ; I won't 
 have your money ! " 
 
 Uncle Dominick took no notice of me at all. He 
 had sunk down on the chair nearest him, his passion 
 having seemingly exhausted his strength, and his 
 hand on the table beside him shook and twisted as 
 if he had lost all control over its muscles. 
 
 Willy spoke to me for the first time. 
 
 " See here, Theo," he said gently, also ignoring my 
 protest, " you'd better go on upstairs out of this ; you 
 can't do any good here." He glanced at his father. 
 " Do go now, like a good girl ; he and I have got 
 things to settle before I go." 
 
 He put his hand on my shoulder, and half pushed 
 me to the door. 
 
 " Promise you won't let him do that," I said, trying 
 to hold the door as he opened it. " Tell him I won't 
 have it." 
 
 He did not answer ; but, disengaging my fingers 
 
An Irish Cousin. 285 
 
 from their grasp of the door, he held them in his for 
 an instant. 
 
 " ril see you again," he said ; and then shut the 
 door and left me standing outside. 
 
 I waited for a long time in the drawing-room, but 
 Willy did not come. Ten and eleven struck ; the 
 fire died out, and the candles on the chimney-piece 
 burned down till the paper which fitted them into 
 their sockets took fire and began to flare smokily. I 
 went out into the hall and listened, but could hear no 
 sound of voices. Some one was moving about up- 
 stairs. Perhaps Willy had gone up by the back stairs 
 from the dining-room. Perhaps he had changed his 
 mind and did not want to see me after all, I thought, 
 making my way up to my room in a stupor of fatigue 
 and misery. 
 
 There was a light under his door when I passed, 
 and I stopped uncertainly outside. He was dragging 
 boxes about, and opening and shutting drawers ; 
 evidently he was packing. Should I call him ? This 
 would be my last chance of seeing him, as he was 
 going away by the early train in the morning. But 
 with the thought, the remembrance of Anstey fell like 
 a shadow between him and me. What could I say 
 to him if I were to see him ? How could I ignore 
 the subject which must be uppermost in both our 
 minds ? And yet, how could I bring myself to speak 
 
2 86 An Irish Cousin, 
 
 of it ? Most likely he had felt this same difiiculty, 
 and had purposely avoided meeting me. 
 
 I went slowly on from his door, and into my own 
 room, trying to realise the impossible thought that I 
 had seen the last of Willy. Willy, the trusty com- 
 rade of many a day's careless pleasuring ; who had 
 taken me out schooling and ferreting, and had 
 ransacked every hedge to cut for me superfluous 
 members of the flattest of blackthorns, and the 
 straightest of ash plants — Willy, with whom I used 
 to gossip and wrangle and chaff in the easiest of in- 
 timacy ; who had been, as he himself would have 
 expressed it, the "best play-boy" I had ever known. 
 Willy married to Anstey Brian, and going away for 
 ever to-morrow morning, and going without even 
 saying good-bye ! — these were things too hard and 
 too sorry to be taken in easily. 
 
 A knock came at my door. 
 
 "Theo, are you there? Could I see you for a 
 minute ? " 
 
 I opened the door and went out into the corridor. 
 Willy was standing there in his shirt-sleeves. 
 
 " I heard you coming up," he began quickly, " and 
 I came to say ' Good-bye '." 
 
 " Oh, Willy ! " I said wretchedly, " are you really 
 going?" 
 
 "Yes; I'm off by the early train," he answered. 
 
An Irish Cousin. 287 
 
 " It's late now ; I won't keep you up." He put out 
 his hand to me. " Good-bye," he said. 
 
 I took his hand, and held it, unable to say a word. 
 
 " Good-bye," he repeated, in a whisper. 
 
 "Willy," I cried suddenly, "why did you do it? 
 Why did you do it ? " 
 
 " I can't tell you — I had to. May-be, some day " 
 
 he broke off. " One thing I can tell you, anyhow, is 
 that this place belongs to you, or ought to. I was 
 shown a will two days ago by — by those who had 
 stolen it — or what I consider as good as a will, and I 
 was told more besides — Please God you, nor no one'll 
 ever know ! It's all right now, anyhow, I've stopped 
 their mouths, and the Governor's left the place to you. 
 He did it this very night." 
 
 " Never ! Never ! " I said, scarcely able to get the 
 words out, but possessed by one unshakeable de- 
 termination, " I don't care what has happened or what 
 anyone may have done. I will never have it ! " 
 
 " You don't know what you're saying," he said with 
 a strange gentleness ; " if you've any regard for me 
 you'll say no more now. I've had about as much as 
 I can stand." Then with an effort : " I must go. 
 Will you say * Good-bye' to me ? " 
 
 " I will," I said, carried away by the restrained misery 
 of his voice, and putting my arms round his neck. 
 " You've been too good to me — oh, Willy, my dear, 
 I've brought you nothing but bad luck. Good-bye." 
 
288 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 I kissed his cheek — he was my only cousin, and I 
 was never going to see him again — and then I tried to 
 draw myself away from the grasp that was tightening 
 round me, but it was too late. 
 
 " I'll never say ' Good-bye ' to you," he said fiercely, 
 straining me to him. " I won't let you go till you tell 
 me if you meant what you said to me in the wood. 
 Was it me you cared for, after all ? " 
 
 "Don't ask me," I implored. " Let me go ! " 
 
 " I won't ! " he answered, recklessly, trying to press 
 his lips against mine. 
 
 I put my hands over my face, with a shrinking 
 which told me in a moment the depth of the self- 
 delusion which had carried me to the point of saying 
 I would marry him. He must be told the truth now, 
 no matter what it cost. 
 
 " I meant that I was fond of you," I said ; " but I 
 never was in love with you." 
 
 " I see," he said bitterly. He let me go at once. 
 " Then it was Nugent, after all." 
 
 I turned away without answering. At my own 
 door I stopped, and again held out my hand. 
 
 " Willy," I said, breaking into tears, " say ' Good- 
 bye'." 
 
 He snatched my hand again, and kissed it many 
 times ; he was crying too. 
 
 " God help us both ! " he said. " Good-bye." 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 In the thick dark of the January morning I heard 
 Willy go. 
 
 Doors opened and shut ; gleams of candle-light 
 went past my bedroom door ; luggage bumped down 
 the stairs. The house was alive with footsteps and 
 low voices. At last, and still in thick darkness, the 
 grinding of the wheels on the gravel. Blackthorn's 
 methodical, unconcerned trot dying away on the 
 avenue, and, in the silence, the heart-shaking sobs 
 of an old man — the sobbing of Roche in the hall 
 as he shut the door upon the son of the house. 
 
 The day came at last, the implacable day, that 
 must be lived and dealt with. I crept downstairs, 
 feeling twenty years older, and on the hall table saw 
 an unfamiliar hat and umbrella. The dining-room 
 door opened and Roche met me. 
 
 " It wasn't eight o'clock this morning when I had 
 
 to send for the docthor," he whispered hoarsely. 
 
 "The masther's very bad. Yourself had better see 
 
 the docthor ; he's inside, ateing his breakfast now." 
 19 289 
 
290 An Irish Cousin, 
 
 " What was the matter with the master ? " I said, 
 prepared now for any calamity that might befall. 
 
 Roche looked at me strangely. His collar was 
 crumpled and his coat was torn. 
 
 " He was near killing the pair of us ! " he whispered. 
 " The docthor can tell ye ! " 
 
 Little Doctor Kelly's vulgar, authoritative voice 
 was quieter than I had ever known it, and his hot- 
 tempered, light blue eye had in it the deference of 
 sympathy. 
 
 " Sit down now," he said. " I asked Roche to send 
 you here. I'm sorry to have to trouble you, but 
 
 under the circumstances " he hesitated, " it's an 
 
 unfortunate business altogether " 
 
 I silently awaited his tidings. 
 
 " Your uncle's in a very bad way," he said. " I've 
 wired for a nurse — a man to look after him. He 
 mustn't be left alone." 
 
 " What's the matter with him ? " I said dully. " Is 
 he dying ? " 
 
 " I think not," said Doctor Kelly slowly. He looked 
 hard at me. " I'm afraid, Miss Sarsfield, I must tell 
 you that your uncle has been for years in the habit of 
 drinking pretty hard, more than any one suspected, 
 and this trouble about his son seems to have brought 
 matters to a climax." 
 
 I had thought myself hardened against bad news, 
 
An Irish Cousin. 291 
 
 but I had not looked for anything so ugly, incon- 
 gruous, degrading. 
 
 " Ought I to stay with him ? " I said faintly. " I had 
 made up my mind to go away this week, but I couldn't 
 leave him like this." 
 
 " If you don't mind me telling you so," said Doctor 
 Kelly, "it would be the best thing you could do. 
 You're not fit for a business of this kind. I understand 
 all about the state of the case and you're better out of 
 it. Your uncle must be got into a private hospital, 
 for the present at all events." He paused and rubbed 
 his truculent red moustache. " Terrible affair this is 
 about young Mr. Sarsfield," he went on. "Those 
 people were too clever for him, and indeed I'm sorry 
 for it. A fine young fellow if he'd been properly 
 handled ! " 
 
 My averted and quivering face must have told its 
 story ; he went abruptly back to the subject of my 
 uncle. 
 
 " I'll go on and see The O'Neill now, and I'll speak 
 
 to him about getting Mr. Sarsfield moved. I know 
 
 he and his son have come back about a case he has in 
 
 the Land Court. After all, he's his oldest friend here, 
 
 and he's more fit to deal with the matter than you are. 
 
 I wouldn't go near Mr. Sarsfield at all if I were you. 
 
 He's quiet now, but you never can tell. Do nothing 
 
 at all until O'Neill sees him." 
 
 19 * 
 
1^1 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 Roche was waiting in the hall, and I heard Doctor 
 Kelly's last words to him. 
 
 "Mind now there's somebody with him always. 
 I'll send over the medicine." 
 
 I got through some breakfast, and went up to my 
 room, with the intention of getting out my trunks and 
 doing some preliminary packing. They had been 
 taken into the empty room next mine, the room that 
 had been my father's, and that had, for her own in- 
 scrutable reasons, been haunted by Moll Hourihane. 
 I fetched the key and went into it to look for them. 
 It felt cold, yet oppressively close ; I opened the 
 window and looked out into the mild still air. The 
 sky was dark and sullen, with layers of overlapping 
 clouds roofing it down to the horizon, and on the 
 lonely sea stretches there was not so much as a 
 fishing boat to be seen. I looked out at the woods of 
 Durrus, motionless, bare, and wrapped in a quiet that 
 it seemed nothing could break. By this time next 
 week Willy and I would both be on the sea, speeding 
 to opposite ends of the earth ; it was I who had driven 
 him from his home, and I abhorred the inheritance 
 that he wished to thrust upon me. The tears crept 
 to my eyes, and I turned from the window. 
 
 A book was lying on the floor, open at the title- 
 page and my father's name, in his own handwrit- 
 ing, caught my eye. I took it up and found that it 
 
An Irish Cousin. 293 
 
 was an old-fashioned pocket-book diary, shabby and 
 battered, with dog's-eared leaves. It was dated the 
 year of his death and there were entries in his writing 
 on the first eleven days of the year, but the rest of the 
 book was blank, save for the defilement of dirty finger- 
 marks and the name " Mary Hourihane " written in 
 pencil over and over again in an almost illegible 
 scrawl. Here was Moll's handiwork again ; she had 
 haunted what had been my father's room, and had 
 mauled and defaced a relic that would have been 
 priceless to my mother. 
 
 I sat down by the window and began to read the 
 diary. Ten of the entries were merely brief records 
 of the weather on his voyage from America, but on 
 the nth of January was written: — 
 
 " Arrived in Cork. Weather very cold. Wrote to 
 Helen. Have caught severe cold but hope to get on 
 to Durrus by to-morrow night. Am beginning to feel 
 nervous as to my reception by my father and Domi- 
 nick." 
 
 "'January 12. Did not feel up to leaving by early 
 train. Travelled on by later. Very cold, roads deep 
 in snow. Had difficulty in hiring a car; did not get 
 to Durrus till i A.M. and then found that my impulse 
 of reconciliation had come to me too late. My father 
 died two days ago and was buried this afternoon." 
 
 The diary's record ceased. 
 
294 ^^ Irish Cousin, 
 
 "January I2th !" I repeated to myself in bewilder- 
 ment, " but my father died on the 9th, and he died in 
 Cork ! " So my mother had told me, so the brass in 
 Rathbarry Church set forth, stamping it into my 
 memory during many Sunday mornings. My tired 
 head struggled with the conflicting dates, and strained 
 to recover possession of what it was that my mother 
 had once said to me about the strange chance by 
 which my father had missed inheriting the property. 
 She had said that it was an unjust will, and an insult- 
 ing one ; more I could not remember. I turned to 
 the diary again, and re-read the meagre sentences. 
 Then I noticed that there was a pocket in the cover 
 with something in it. It was an envelope, addressed 
 to my mother, with unused stamps on it ; it had been 
 torn open, and there was only one sheet of note-paper 
 in it. The ink had faded and the writing was weak. 
 
 *' DuRRUS, I'^th jfanuary, 18 — 
 
 " Dearest, 
 
 " I am at Durrus as you see. Would to God 
 I had come here last year as you wished. My poor 
 old father died the day before I landed at Queenstown, 
 and my hope of being reconciled to him is now for 
 ever at an end. I fear that my arrival was not only 
 unexpected but undesired. Dominick received me 
 very coldly, which was the more distressing as I felt, 
 and still feel very unwell. I have not been out of 
 
An Irish Cousin. 295 
 
 bed since my arrival ; I fear I have a touch of pleurisy, 
 brought on by a terrible cold drive here through snow 
 in the middle of the night. Don't be frightened, it is 
 not serious. 
 
 " The house is strangely deserted, and the only 
 servant in it is that woman, Moll Hourihane, of whom 
 I think I have spoken to you. She has always as- 
 serted herself to be the daughter of my Uncle Dick, 
 and my father, whether rightly or no, has believed 
 her to have a claim on the family, and has let her live 
 in the house as a sort of housekeeper, a mistaken 
 kindness, as I have always held. She has always 
 been devoted to D. and my father, but has never 
 liked me, nor I her, and as an attendant I find her 
 neglectful and dirty. I asked D. for my friend Pat 
 Roche, who was pantry-boy here when I was a child, 
 and he said he had got so drunk at my father's funeral 
 he had to send him home. I haven't seen little 
 Willy. He was sent to the O'Neills when my father 
 was taken ill. You must begin to think of coming to 
 me with the baby. Of course the place is mine now. 
 D. has showed me the will. My father left the 
 property to me, but expressly said that if I died 
 before he did it was to go to Dominick. However 
 there is no question of that now, and I will draft a 
 will at once, and as soon as I can I shall have every- 
 thing settled properly. I can hardly realise that in 
 
296 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 a month's time you and I may be together in the old 
 home ! Moll is waiting to post this for me, and in- 
 deed I do not feel up to writing more to-day. Good- 
 bye, my dearest. I wish you were with me now. 
 Your loving husband, 
 
 " Owen." 
 
 Hot anger and impotent compassion at first drove 
 out every other feeling. My father had lain helpless 
 in this very room, victim of lies, of neglect, and low 
 conspiracy. What loneliness, what longing for a 
 tender and familiar hand had been his on his uncared- 
 for death-bed, while his only brother and the hateful 
 woman who had been his confederate looked on with- 
 out pity. I sat down by the window and covered my 
 face with my hands, afraid of these dark places of 
 guilt in which I found myself Was this what Willy 
 had meant ? Was this the secret for which he had 
 sacrificed himself? 
 
 A stealing foot on the gravel outside made me 
 start up again. I leaned out of the window, and saw 
 Moll Hourihane approaching the French window of 
 my uncle's study with stealthy swiftness. I had just 
 time to notice that one of the doors was open, when 
 Roche rushed out of it, and ran full against Moll, 
 whose foot was already on the step. Something fell 
 from under her shawl and crashed on the stone ; a 
 
An Irish Cousin. 297 
 
 tall brandy bottle, and the liquor splashed on the 
 steps and over her bare feet. Roche flung her to one 
 side. 
 
 " The masther ! " he shouted. " He's gone ! He's 
 gone ! " 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 I WAS downstairs and out of the hall door in a moment. 
 
 I heard Roche's voice in the yard calling for help, 
 and I ran to him. Already it seemed as if every 
 soul in the establishment had congregated there, and 
 Roche was loudly explaining what had happened. 
 
 " He was asleep, an' I slipped out to fill the hot 
 bottle for his feet, an' when I come back he was gone, 
 and the window open. I wasn't five minutes away 
 from him. Run every side now, the whole o' ye ! 
 My God ! don't stop lookin' at me ! Let ye run. 
 Ye wouldn't know what would he do ! " 
 
 I turned and made for the back avenue, a quiet 
 and shaded way, by which my uncle used to walk to 
 the farm. I panted along it, and at every step my 
 own inadequacy to cope with this horror daunted me, 
 and the loss of Willy cut me to the heart. The anger 
 had died in me ; I saw only the wretched and dis- 
 traught old man, driven by the devil that possessed 
 him, wandering in a humiliation of grey hairs that 
 
 was unbearable to think of. 
 
 398 
 
An Irish Cousin. 299 
 
 There was no sign of him in or about the back 
 avenue ; I turned back and saw that Roche was 
 behind me, not far away. He turned too. The 
 house was below us, and we could see searchers com- 
 ing out of the shrubberies, obviously at fault. 
 
 " It's into the woods he's gone ! " called out Roche, 
 flinging up his hands. " We must gether the counthry 
 to look for him ! " 
 
 Last year's briars grew thick and strong in the 
 woods, fencing the drenched thickets of dead bracken. 
 The paths were slippery with mud, the deep stillness 
 was full of secrecy and hopelessness. Fallen trees, 
 victims of the storm of two days ago, barred my 
 aimless rangings with their prone branches, and the 
 muddy pits from which their roots had been torn had, 
 in many places, swallowed up the paths. I do not 
 know how long or how far I wandered in the delusive 
 network of tracks, but I was aware that wherever I 
 climbed, or struggled, or waded, Roche was not far 
 from me. Every now and then he called to me ; it 
 was obvious that he did not mean to leave me alone. 
 The messengers that he had sent forth for help had 
 brought back reinforcements ; from the number of 
 voices calling to each other it seemed that there must 
 be by this time about twenty or thirty men engaged 
 in the search. They were in the big woods on the 
 farther side of the house, advancing in line, like beaters. 
 
300 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 It was in these woods that my uncle was in the 
 habit of walking ; he had lately been marking trees 
 in them for thinning, and the probabilities pointed 
 to his mechanically following his usual custom. The 
 wood in which Roche and I were searching was a 
 smaller strip, bordering on the bog. It was some 
 distance from the house, and I had selected it partly 
 because no one else had done so, and partly, if the 
 truth were known, because it seemed an unlikely 
 place for my uncle to have wandered to, and I shrank 
 from being the first to come upon him. 
 
 But, nevertheless, it was I who found the fugitive. 
 The twistings of a path brought me to a small open 
 space where half a dozen tall pine trees stood to- 
 gether. Uncle Dominick, in his brown dressing- 
 gown, was leaning against one of them, looking at a 
 book. I stood, rigid, with a thumping heart, and he 
 looked up and saw me. 
 
 " Yes, they are capital prints," he said, as if in 
 continuance of a conversation. " I am glad you have 
 come." 
 
 He held the book towards me, and I saw that it 
 was the old volume of The Turf, the Chase, and the 
 Road, that my father had given him, and that he had 
 once shown to me in his study. He looked desper- 
 ately, even appallingly, ill and wasted ; he was 
 shaking -from head to foot, and his feverish, blood- 
 
An Irish Cousin. 301 
 
 shot eyes kept roving from the book to the trees 
 above. 
 
 " You will have time to look at this before you go," 
 he said, turning over the leaves vi^ith suppressed 
 eagerness, " this now, do you remember showing 
 me this ? " 
 
 "Yes, I remember it very well," I answered as 
 quietly as I could. " Won't you come back to the 
 house with me now ? It is wet and cold for you out 
 here." 
 
 He looked shrewdly up at the branches over his 
 head. 
 
 " I find it snug enough here, my dear," he said. 
 His eyes met mine for the first time, and their shifty 
 remoteness changed to a concentrated stare. 
 
 " Owen ! " he said, stepping backwards, and groping 
 with a tremulous hand for the tree behind him, " how 
 did you get here ? You're dead ! — I know you're 
 dead ! You were dead when she brought me into 
 the room " — he began to talk so fast that I could 
 scarcely catch the words — "and then down at the 
 edge of the pier, when she was tying the four-stone 
 weight round your neck, I asked her if she were sure 
 about it ; she said you were, and that you'd not come 
 out of it till Poul-na-coppal ran dry. Is it dry?" he 
 screamed, " Is it dry ? No one ever saw it dry ! Is 
 this the end of the world " 
 
302 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 He collapsed on to his knees, and the book fell on 
 the grass beside him. 
 
 " Almighty God ! " he babbled deliriously, " who 
 has caused all Holy Scripture to be written for our 
 learning No ! that comes before the sermon " 
 
 I heard the brushing and trampling of some one 
 near us in the wood. My uncle's head was bent, he 
 was muttering rapidly in some dark labyrinth of con- 
 fusion and distress. He had forgotten me ; I crept 
 in the direction of the footsteps. The first turn of the 
 path took me out of sight of my uncle ; I began to 
 run, calling in a low voice for Roche. 
 
 He answered with a shout, fifty yards away in the 
 tangled scrub, and before I could reach him he had 
 called out : — 
 
 " Did ye see him ? Where is he ? " 
 
 When we reached the glade with the pine trees 
 Uncle Dominick was gone. There was nothing there 
 except the book, that sprawled face downwards on the 
 grass. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 Soon afterwards I found myself standing at the edge 
 of the wood, by a gateway that opened on to the bog. 
 The gate had been flung wide open, and the wood 
 was full of searchers. It was impossible that this 
 could go on much longer. I leaned against the gate- 
 post, and knew that I had come to the end of my 
 strength. 
 
 Since yesterday afternoon blow upon blow had 
 been dealt me, and the stupor of accumulated fatigue 
 had fallen upon me. There was a weight in the air, 
 the sky was low and foreboding, and a watery streak 
 of yellow lay along the horizon behind the bog. A 
 rook rustled close over my head with a subdued 
 croak ; I dully watched him flying quietly home to 
 the tall elms by the lodge ; he was still circling round 
 them before settling down, when a long, wavering cry 
 struck upon my ear, a sound that once heard is never 
 forgotten, the cry of a woman keening. It came from 
 the bog ; every pulse stood still as I heard it, and I 
 
 clung to the gate for support, while the varying 
 
 303 
 
304 ^^ Irish Cousin. 
 
 ominous cadences filled the air. I knew, above and 
 beyond reasoning, that it meant the end. 
 
 Already a messenger was running towards me along 
 the bog track, shouting for help as he came. 
 
 " He's drowned ! He's drowned ! He's into Poul- 
 na-coppal ! " 
 
 It was one of the stablemen, hatless, splashed with 
 black mud. 
 
 " I was in the far wood," he gasped, " an' I seen him 
 come to the edge of Poul-na-coppal, and Moll Houri- 
 hane foUying him, an' when he seen her he jumped in ! 
 There's no sign of him — I put a branch down in it — 
 He's gone ! My God Almighty ! Do you hear her 
 keening him now! Her that never let a sound for 
 twenty years ! " 
 
 Haifa dozen men were now out of the wood, running 
 across the bog, others pressed past me in the gateway. 
 Roche caught me by the arm and thrust me back. 
 
 "Don't come in it, asthore!" he said, the tears 
 pouring down his ghastly face, " it's no good for ye." 
 
 Suddenly they were all gone ; I was alone, sitting 
 on the edge of the path in the wood. One or two 
 people ran past me, and I tried to follow them, but 
 my knees failed me, and I sank down again, shivering 
 and sick. I do not remember realising anything very 
 clearly, except that I had reached the end of every- 
 thing, and that there was no future. All that remained 
 
An Irish Cousin. 305 
 
 for me was to drag myself back to the desolate house 
 on which I had brought ruin ; I lay prone on the 
 dead leaves with my face on my arms, and the dry 
 sobs tore at my chest. 
 
 " All right, that will do," said an authoritative 
 voice at the gateway, " I can find her now." 
 
 I sat up, snatched again into the present by the 
 ineradicable instinct that prompts us to hide our pain, 
 startled into composure by the recognition of the 
 voice. 
 
 " They told me you were here," said Nugent, 
 standing in front of me, and speaking in a low and 
 much moved voice. " I want you to come away from 
 this — you mustn't stay here." 
 
 " I was going back to the house," I said, struggling 
 to steady myself. " I shall be all right in a moment." 
 
 I tried to stand up, but almost failed ; he caught 
 
 my hand and helped me. He did not release it, and 
 
 that clasp became suddenly a living thing, telling 
 
 what the pent heart could not utter. We stood, 
 
 without a word to say, and convention fell from 
 
 between us in the intense meaning of that silence. 
 
 I had to raise my eyes to his ; they met, and there 
 
 could no longer be any doubt. In spite of what 
 
 seemed impossibility, in spite of all that fate had 
 
 done or could do, we knew that we loved each other. 
 
 20 
 
3o6 An Irish Cousin. 
 
 The drawing together, the meeting of the lips, the 
 outrush of soul came without a word, irresistible 
 and unexplainable ; the deepest, the dearest moment 
 of life was ours, with calamity hemming it in, and 
 powerless to touch it. 
 
 "Why did you send me away?" he whispered. 
 
 " I never sent you away," I answered, bewildered. 
 
 " I was told that you were going to marry Willy." 
 
 " Who told you ? " 
 
 He hesitated. " It wasn't Willy," he said at last. 
 " It doesn't matter now. Nothing matters now." 
 
 The means by which tenderness and healing can 
 flow from heart to heart can never be tracked ; by 
 some unknown sense they steal to us, beyond all 
 power of expression, beyond what kisses can say. 
 
 " I believe you cared a great deal more for Willy 
 than you did for me," Nugent said to me one evening 
 when the hawthorn was in blossom, and the Clash- 
 more woods were green. 
 
 " I don't know why I didn't," I answered, " but 
 somehow, I always liked you best," 
 
 The End. 
 
 THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED. 
 
NEW AND REVISED EDITION. Crown 8vo, 65. 
 
 AN IRISH COUSIN. 
 
 BY 
 
 E. (E. SOMERVILLE and MARTIN ROSS. 
 
 *^* This book was originally ptiblished by Messrs. Bentley <&» Son 
 in i88g, as by ^^Geilles Herring'^ and ^^ Martin Ross," and has been 
 out of print for several years. 
 
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 The Red Cockade. With Fron- 
 tispiece and Vignette. 6s. 
 
 Shrewsbury : a Romance of the 
 Reign of William III. With 24 
 Illustrations, ds. 
 
 BY G. J. WHYTE-MELVILLE. 
 
 The Gladiators. 
 
 
 The Interpreter. 
 
 
 Holmby House. 
 
 
 Kate Coventry. 
 
 
 Digby Grand. 
 
 
 General Bounce. 
 
 
 Good for Nothing. 
 
 
 Queen's Maries. 
 
 
 Price is. 6d. each. 
 
 
 BY S. LEVETT YEATS. 
 
 
 The Chevalier d'Auriac. 
 
 3s. 6d. 
 
 The Traitor's Way. 
 Frontispiece. 6s. 
 
 With 
 
 BY J. H. YOXALL, M.P. 
 The Rommany Stone. 6s. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY. 
 
 4 
 


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