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

your house never stooped to a shabby action, Nora; and never one of them sacrificed her honor for gold or anything else; and the men were brave, girleen, very brave, and had never fear in one of them. You remember that, and keep yourself upright and brave and proud, and come back to the old dad with as pure and loving a heart as you have now.”

“Oh, father, of course, of course. But you will miss me? you will miss me?”

“Bedad! I expect I shall,” said the Squire; “but I am not going to fret, so don't you imagine it.”

“Have you,” said Nora in a low whisper—“have you done anything about-about the mortgage?”

“Oh, you be aisy,” said the Squire, giving her a playful poke; “and if you can't be aisy, be as aisy as you can,” he continued, referring to the old well-known saying. “Things will come right enough. Why, the matter is weeks off yet. It was only yesterday I heard from an old friend, Larry M'Dermott, who has been in Australia, and has made a fine pile. He is back again, and I am thinking of seeing him and settling up matters with him. Don't you have an uneasy thought in your head, my child. I'll write to you when the thing is fixed up, as fixed it will be by all that's likely in a week or fortnight from now. But look here, Norrie, you'll want something to keep in your pocket when you are away. I had best give you a five-pound note.”

“No, no,” said Nora. “I wouldn't touch it; I don't want it.”

“Why not? Is it too proud you are?”

“No; mother is helping me to this visit. I don't know how she has got money. I suppose in the old way.”

“Poor soul!” said the Squire. “To tell you the truth, Norrie, I can't bear to look at that jewel-case of hers. I believe, upon my word, that it is nearly empty. She is very generous, is your mother. She's a very fine woman, and I am desperate proud of her. When M'Dermott helps me to tide over this pinch I'll have all those jewels back again by hook or by crook. Your mother shan't suffer in the long run, and I'll do a lot to the old place—the old house wants papering and painting. We'll dance a merry jig at O'Shanaghgan at your wedding, my little girl; and now don't keep me, for I have got to go out to meet Murphy. He said he would look around about this hour.”

Nora left her father, and wandered out into the soft summer gloaming. She went down the avenue, and leaned for a time over the gate. The white gate was sadly in need of paint, but it was not hanging off its hinges as the gate was which led to the estate of Cronane. Nora put her feet on the last rung, leaned her arms on the top one, and swayed softly, as she thought of all that was about to happen, and the glorious adventures which would in all probability be hers during the next few weeks. As she thought, and forgot herself in dreams of the future, a low voice calling her name caused her to start. A man with shaggy hair and wild, bright eyes had come up to the other side of the gate.

“Why, then, Miss Nora, how are ye this evening?” he said. He pulled his forelock as he spoke.

Nora felt a sudden coldness come over all her rosy dreams; but she was too Irish and too like her ancestors to feel any fear, although she could not help remembering that she was nearly half a mile away from the house, and that there was not a soul anywhere within call.

“Good-evening, Andy,” she said. “I must be going home now.”

“No, you won't just yet,” he answered. He came up and laid his dirty hand on her white sleeve.

“No, don't touch me,” said Nora proudly. She sprang off the gate, and stood a foot or two away. “Don't come in,” she continued; “stay where you are. If you have anything to say, say it there.”

“Bedad! it's a fine young lady that it is,” said the man. “It aint afeared, is it?”

“Afraid!” said Nora. “What do you take me for?”

“Sure, then, I take yez for what you are,” said the man—“as fine and purty a slip of a girleen as ever dwelt in the old Castle; but be yez twice as purty, and be yez twice as fine, Andy Neil is not the man to forget his word, his sworn word, his oath taken to the powers above and the powers below, that if his bit of a roof is taken off his head, why, them as does it shall suffer. It's for you to know that, Miss Nora. I would have drowned yez in the deep pool and nobody would ever be the wiser, but I thought better of that; and I could here—yes, even now—I could choke yez round your pretty soft neck and nobody would be any the wiser, and I'd think no more of it than I'd think of crushing a fly. I won't do it; no I won't, Miss Nora; but there's thim as will have to suffer if Andy Neil is turned out of his hut. You spake for me, Miss Nora; you spake up for me, girleen. Why, the Squire, you're the light of his eyes; you spake up, and say, 'Lave poor Andy in his little hut; lave poor Andy with a roof over him. Don't mind the bit of a rint.' Why, then, Miss Nora, how can I pay the rint? Look at my arrum, dear.” As the man spoke he thrust out his arm, pushing up his ragged shirt sleeve. The arm was almost like that of a skeleton's; the skin was starting over the bones.

“Oh, it is dreadful!” said Nora, all the pity in her heart welling up into her eyes. “I am truly, truly sorry for you, Andy, I would do anything in my power. It is just this: you know father?”

“Squire? Yes, I guess I know Squire,” said the man.

“You know,” continued Nora, “that when he takes what you might call the bit between his teeth nothing will move him. He is set against you, Andy. Oh, Andy! I don't believe he will listen.”

“He had betther,” said the man, his voice dropping to a low growl; “he had betther, and I say so plain. There's that in me would stick at nothing, and you had best know it, Miss Nora.”

“Can you not go away, Andy?”

“I—and what for?”

“But can you?”

“I could, but I won't.”

“I don't believe father will yield. I will send you some money from England if you will promise to go away.”

“Aye; but I don't want it. I want to stay on. Where would my old bones lie when I died if I am not in my own counthry? I'm not going to leave my counthry for nobody. The cot where I was born shall see me die; and if the roof is took off, why, I'll put it back again. I'll defy him and his new-fangled ways and his English wife to the death. You'll see mischief if you don't put things right, Miss Nora. It all rests with yez, alannah.”