Light O' the Morning: The Story of an Irish Girl, L. T. Meade [drm ebook reader txt] 📗

a place it is! Look at the beauty of it! Look round, Norrie, and see for yourself; the mountains over there; and the water rolling up almost to our doors; and the grand roar of the waves in our ears; and those trees yonder; and this field with the sun on it; and the house, though it is a bit of a barrack, yet it is where my forebears were born. Oh, it's the best place on earth; it's O'Shanaghgan, and it's mine! There, Nora, there; I can't stand it!”

The Squire dashed his hand to his brow. Nora looked up at him; she was feeling the exposure and excitement of last night. Her pallor suddenly attracted his attention.

“Why, what's the matter with you, colleen?” he said. “Are you well—are you sure you're well?”

“Absolutely, perfectly well, father. Go on—tell me all.”

“Well, you know, child, when I came in for the estate it was not to say free.”

“What does that mean, father?”

“It was my father before me—your grandfather—the best hunter in the county. He could take his bottle of port and never turn a hair; and he rode to hounds! God bless you, Nora! I wish you could have seen your grandfather riding to hounds. It was a sight to remember. Well, he died—God bless him!—and there were difficulties. Before he died those difficulties began, and he mortgaged some of the outer fields and Knock Robin Farm—the best farm on the whole estate; but I didn't think anything of that. I thought I could redeem it; but somehow, child, somehow rents have been going down; the poor folk can't pay, and I'm the last to press them; and things have got worse and worse. I had a tight time of it five years ago; I was all but done for. It was partly the fact of the famine; we none of us ever got over that—none of us in this part of Ireland, and many of the people went away. Half the cabins were deserted. There's half a mile of 'em down yonder; every single one had a dead man or woman in it at the time of the famine, and now they're empty. Well of course, you know all about that?”

“Oh, yes, father; Hannah has told me of the famine many, many times.”

“To be sure—to be sure; but it is a dark subject, and not fit for a pretty young thing like you. But there, let me go on. It was five years ago I mortgaged some of the place, a good bit, to my old friend Dan Murphy. He lent me ten thousand pounds—not a penny more, I assure you. It just tided me over, and I thought, of course, I'd pay him back, interest and all, by easy stages. It seemed so easy to mortgage the place to Murphy, and there was nothing else to be done.”

The Squire had been walking slowly; now he stopped, dropped Nora's hand from his arm, and faced her.

“It seemed so easy to mortgage the land to Dan Murphy,” he said, dropping his voice, “so very easy, and that money was so handy, and I thought—”

“Yes, father?” said Nora in a voice of fear. “You said these words before. Go on—it was so easy. Well?”

“Well, a month ago, child, I got a letter from Murphy's lawyer in Dublin, to say that the money must be paid up, or they would foreclose.”

“Foreclose, father. What is that?”

“Take possession, child—take possession.”

“A month ago you got that letter? They would take possession—possession of the land you have mortgaged. Does that mean that it would belong to Squire Murphy, father?”

“So I thought, my dear colleen, and I didn't fret much. The fact is, I put the letter in the fire and forgot it. It was only three days ago that I got another letter to know what I meant to do. I was given three months to pay in, and if I didn't pay up the whole ten thousand, with the five years' interest, they'd foreclose. I hadn't paid that, Nora; I hadn't paid a penny of it; and what with interest and compound interest, it mounted to a good round sum. Dan charged me six per cent, on the money; but there, you don't understand figures, child, and your pretty head shan't be worried. Anyhow, I was to pay it all up within the three months—I, who haven't even fifty pounds in the bank. It was a bit of a staggerer.”

“I understand,” said Nora; “and that was why you went the day before yesterday to see Squire Murphy. Of course, he'll give you time; though, now I come to think of it, he is very poor himself.”

“He is that,” said the Squire. “I don't blame him—not a bit.”

“But what will you do, father?”

“I must think. It is a bit of a blow, my child, and I don't quite see my way. But I am sure to, before the time comes; and I have got three months.”

“But won't he let you off, father? Must you really pay it in three months?”

“God help me, Norrie! I can't, not just now; but I will before the time comes.”

“But what did he say, father? I don't understand.”

“It's this, Nora. Ah, you have a wise little head on your shoulders, even though you are an Irish colleen. He said that he had sold my mortgage to another man, and had got money on it; and the other man—he is an Englishman, curse him!—and he wants the place, Nora, and he'll take it in lieu of the mortgage if I don't pay up in three months.”

“The place,” said Nora; “O'Shanaghgan—he wants O'Shanaghgan?”

“Yes, yes; that's it; he wants the land, and the old house.”

“But he can't,” said Nora. “You have not—oh! you have not mortgaged the house?”

“Bless you, Nora! it is I that have done it; the house that you were born in, and that my father, and father before him, and father before him again, were born in, and that I was born in—it goes, and the land goes, the lake yonder, all these fields, and the bit of the shore; all the bonny place goes in three months if we cannot pay the mortgage. It goes for an old song, and it breaks my heart, Nora.”

“I understand,” said Nora very gravely. She did not cry out; the tears pressed close to the back of her eyes, and scalded her with cruel pain; but she would not allow one of them to flow. She held her head very erect, and the color returned to her pale cheeks, and a new light shone in her dark-blue eyes.

“We'll manage somehow; we must,” she said.

“I was thinking of that,” said the Squire. “Of course we'll manage.” He gave a great sigh, as if a load were lifted from his heart. “Of course we'll manage,” he repeated; “and don't you tell your mother, for the life of you, child.”

“Of course I will tell nothing until you give me leave. But how do you mean to manage?”