Only an Irish Girl, Margaret Wolfe Hungerford [early reader chapter books txt] 📗

the end of the walk and turned to go back, when the sight of a tall slight figure, coming rapidly down the steps not many yards away, brings him to a sudden halt.

"Ah!" he says, as he recognizes Honor. "Then it was not without cause that I've been so uneasy! A warning, these people would call it, I suppose."

It is a terrible blow to him, striking to the very root of his love. He hates mystery; and to find this girl, whom he had thought perfect in her maidenly pride and purity, stealing out in the dark from her father's house fills him with dismay.

For an instant he feels tempted to follow and speak to her, then he turns back. He can hardly control himself so far as to speak calmly, and every faint far-away noise makes him start.

"She is safe enough," he tells himself a dozen times; but he finds no comfort in his own assertions.

In his heart he feels convinced that she has gone to meet Power Magill; and in his jealous fury he almost hates her for it.

"Where is Honor?" her father asks fretfully; and then, as time goes on and she does not come in, he says again, "Where can Honor be?"

"I will go and find her for you," Brian says at last--he can bear the suspense no longer. "She cannot have strayed very far. I was talking to her a while ago."

He speaks lightly enough, but his heart is not light. A curious depression has come upon him. It seems to him that his love for this girl has died, and that half the brightness of his life has died along with it. He has not the least idea in what direction to begin his search.

The heavy iron gates at the end of the avenue are closed, but not locked, and he opens them and walks out into the high-road. Once, as he passes a narrow lane, he fancies he hears a slight rustle in the bushes that grow close and low at the side of the path; but, when he stops to listen, he can hear nothing, and so sets it down to fancy.

"Surely she has not gone into the village on a night like this," he says to himself at last, daunted by his want of success; and at the bare surmise he feels his face burn hotly.

Turning, he walks rapidly back--for the village lies in the opposite direction, past Donaghmore--and, as he comes near the gates, he is startled to see a car drawn up by the side of the high wall, and evidently waiting for somebody.

The driver has been standing beside his horse, and at the sound of Brian's step he leads the animal slowly forward. Apparently he does not wish to be seen; and indeed he might easily escape the notice of any one less quick of sight than Brian Beresford.

"Hallo!" Brian shouts; but he receives no answer; and, taking a stride or two, he gains the horse's side. The man walks on the other side of the animal, close by the wall; and, what with the darkness and the way his hat is pulled down over his eyes, his own mother might be pardoned for not recognizing him.

"Whose car is this?" Brian demands sternly, "and for whom are you waiting here?"

"Sorrer a sowl I'm waiting for, your honor! The best face in Derry wouldn't tempt me this minute. I'm just dead beat meself--and the baste! It's to Boyne Fair we've been this day, and a terrible time entoirely we've had of it."

Brian looks at the man and stops. He seems to be speaking the truth; and, if he is not, Brian knows the Irish peasant too well by this time to expect to force it from him.

With a short "Good-night," he turns away, and the man looks after him with a scowl.

"It's a bullet in yer skin that I'd give yez this blessed night if I dare take my own way," he mutters savagely.

Very slowly Brian Beresford walks back to Donaghmore. He is not so calm now, not so sure of Honor's safety. His fears are rising with every step he takes through the murky darkness. He feels that, if she is not in the house when he reaches it, he shall be able to keep silence no longer. Even at the risk of betraying her secret the squire must be told.

As he is passing the ruins a faint sound reaches his ear. He stops instantly and listens, his head bent, every sense on the alert. He is not thinking of Honor now--not in his wildest dreams would he connect her in any way with these weird unholy old ruins; but he is anxious--as anxious as ever Launce was--to solve the mystery that attaches to the place. Again it comes, a long-drawn, gasping cry, with this time a ring of fear in it.

"Good heavens, it is a woman!" he says, and goes quickly, but very quietly and cautiously, in the direction of the sound.

He has gained the low-browed gateway leading into the great quadrangle, when a dark figure dashes past him, and the next instant there is a loud report. He feels a sharp pain in his shoulder, and knows that he has been hit; but he does not give a thought to that in his intense excitement. He is conscious of but one thing--Honor's voice calling his name.

"Brian--oh, Brian, come to me!" The shrill clear tones ring through the ghostly silence.


CHAPTER X., AND LAST.

Honor hastens down the avenue, looking neither to the right nor left. Her head is dizzy, her heart beating heavily in this nervous dread that has come upon her. She starts at every shadow that crosses her path; the sound of the wind in the pine-trees almost makes her scream, and when, just as she reaches the ruins, a low whistle breaks the quiet, a sharp cry of terror escapes her lips.

"Whist, miss! It's a friend," a deep voice whispers close beside her, though she can see no one; and the next moment Power Magill comes out from the low doorway and calls her gently by name.

"My darling, this has been too much for you!" he says, seeing the dread on her face as she stands close beside him. "I should not have asked you to come here; but I felt that I could not go away till I had seen your face, and heard you tell me with your own lips that you have forgiven me."

He has led her across the great paved court to a corner where they can stand together without being seen by any one passing along the avenue.

There is something awful in the silence that broods round them; but the girl's nerves are too much shaken for her to be quite conscious of her surroundings. The man standing beside her is no less agitated.

"Honor, you know that, in acting as I did, I brought suffering upon myself--horrible suffering--apart from all social considerations! You have never doubted my love? You are true to me still; and I'm thankful for it. I would rather see you dead at my feet than know you were false to your solemn promise!"

The passionate voice, speaking so close to her ear that she can feel his hot breath on her cheek, the pale eager face peering into hers, as if to read its secret even in the darkness, strikes a sudden chill through the girl. For the first time personal fear--fear of the man before her--assails her.

"Have you no word for me?" the man pleads wistfully. "You stand there like a spirit, and say no word of comfort or of pity! By heavens, if I did not know all that you dared for my sake, I should swear that you had no love in your heart for me!"

"Love for you!" she cries at last, speaking on the impulse of the moment, as it is in her nature to speak. "Why should I love you? What love had you for me when you shot my father--when----"

But he steps her almost savagely.

"I fired only one shot that night; but-- [lack in the text] ses on my false aim!--that missed the man I hated."

"And that man was Brian Beresford?"

"Yes," he answers slowly, defiantly, even, "it was Brian Beresford. It is no fault of mine he is alive to-night."

"And you would have killed him?" she cries, drawing back from him.

"Why not? He would have sent me to Kilmainham."

He is changed already--the girl divines this instinctively, and shrinks still farther away from him against the damp wall. This life that he has led--separated from friends and equals--has done its work.

"And now, Honor, we have no time to lose. Everything is ready for me to get away to-night, but"--with a sudden break in the passionate voice--"oh, my love, I cannot go without you!"

"You cannot go without me, Power?" the girl gasps. In her wildest dreams no such fancy as this had risen to trouble her. "But you must go without me! I cannot go with you!"

"And why not, if you love me?"

"But I do not love you," the girl says calmly. "I am very sorry for you; but all love is done with between us. Surely, Power, after that night you knew it would be so?"

He does not answer her, and his silence fills her with more anxiety and fear than could any passionate outburst.

He has walked to the end of the court, and stands there, looking over the broken parapet. Once she fancies that he raises his hand, as though beckoning to some one, but she is not certain, because it is so dark and he is so far off. As she stands shivering, she hears a step go slowly past. Surely it is Brian's step? Oh, what would she not give for the sight of his face now? And then his warning comes back to her--"He's a dangerous man--a man not to be trusted." Can it be that he knew him better than she did? Power himself has not been careful to keep this meeting from his friends. More than once she has caught a glimpse of dark figures passing to and fro at the farther end of the court, where the pillars are still standing; and, as she realizes the fact that she is alone, a helpless girl, in the midst of these men, desperate and lawless as she knows them to be, it is only by an immense effort she keeps from screaming aloud. It would be useless, she knows--it might even bring about the very results she has most to dread.

"Honor," her lover says, coming back to her, "I have no time to plead with you, and sure I have no need to tell you again how I love you. I thought and hoped you would have come with me this night of your own free will; but since you will not do that, by St. Joseph, you shall come without it!"

From the road comes a sudden shrill whistle, and the girl's heart sinks within her. Oh, how mad she has been to put herself in the power of this man and his associates!

For an instant, as she leans against the wall behind her, a faintness steals over her. Her eyes grow dim, and there is a sound in her ears like the rush and roar of the weir down the river.

When this feeling has passed