Kate Vernon: A Tale. Vol. 1 (of 3) by Mrs. Alexander (trending books to read .TXT) 📗

Said I, laughing, and too much elated at the week's freedom and enjoyment before me to be damped by his lugubrious tone. We shook hands, and I left him whistling with a reflective air.

I little thought where we would meet again.

[Pg 163]

Though I loitered about at the Hotel as much as possible, I found I had made the usual mistake of impatient people; wasted as much time by too rapid as by too slow a movement; and it still wanted some minutes to twelve o'clock when I took the now familiar path to the Priory, smiling to myself at the natural home-like feeling with which I looked forward to seeing them all again. It is extraordinary what rapid strides[Pg 164] to intimacy sympathy enables one to make! All was profoundly still in the churchyard as I opened the wicket and bent my head to enter the low arch. All looked as neat and well kept as ever.

Nurse answered my ring, in bonnet and cloak, and welcomed me with a joyous "Ah! Captin jew'l, is it yerself that's in it?"

Her loud exclamations brought Miss Vernon to the drawing-room door. She paused for a moment; and, then advancing, seconded nurse's greeting very warmly.

"We did not expect you quite so soon; and grandpapa has gone with Mr. Winter to look at a farm of his a little way out of the town; I hope Cyclops will not upset them," she added, laughing. "I am so glad you are come."

"And I have been counting the hours till I escaped from Carrington to the ecclesiastical repose of your retreat," said I, following her into the the drawing room, as usual redolent of flowers.

[Pg 165]

"You are the most tranquilly disposed Dragoon I ever met," she returned; "but I see you have got your portfolio."

"Yes, I have brought you the sketches you wished for."

"Oh, thank you, Captain Egerton, it is so good of you; you do not know what pleasure you give me; let me look at them."

"Here is a view of the house from the east."

"Oh yes, yes, how like! that was my school room window, and the flower garden down here. Nurse must see this; come here, Nurse."

Mrs. O'Toole came at the call.

"Did you ever see any place like that?" asked her young mistress.

"Musha, then it makes me heart sore to look at it there, an' the rale place so far away," said Nurse, crossing herself. "Och! God be with ould times! The blessin' of Heaven rest on ye, Dungar! Many's the bright day I seen in ye! Och! Miss Kate, avourneen, look at the little garden gate, where we used to go listen to Paddy[Pg 166] Doolan's fairy tales, an' the crather so dirty I darn't let him up into the house; an' the Captin dhrew it himself!"

Here Mrs. O'Toole ceased her comments, perceiving from her young lady's silence, and glistening eyes, that her memory was even more vividly awakened.

"There is the old church yard where the people were so fond of burying their relatives; with a peep at the round tower," said I, substituting a less "home" scene, to assist her in recovering herself. "Do you recognise this view? the cliffs near the shore, and the broad Atlantic, with the Cruakmore hills in the distance?"

"Oh yes, yes! and this one; look, Nurse, the dingle, and Andy the fisherman."

"The Lord save us, is'nt the very moral of Andy; the ould thief, to have a right honourable drawing him."

"Very rude sketches, Miss Vernon; I was then even a greater tyro than now."

[Pg 167]

"They are worth whole galleries of Raphaels and Titians to me," said she with a sigh.

My sketch of the view from the window was much admired; Miss Vernon pronounced it excellent, quite worthy of Mr. Winter's approval. After a few more remarks, I observed that I would not detain her, as I perceived she was in walking costume.

"We were going across the river," she replied, "on an errand I should like to accomplish; what are you going to do? Grandpapa and Mr. Winter both away, you had better come with us."

To this frank invitation I replied, "Most willingly, wherever you choose to lead me."

A message being left with Mrs. O'Toole's sub, for Colonel Vernon, informing him of my arrival, in case his return should precede ours, and Nurse having crammed some additional articles into a basket already overflowing, Miss Vernon stepped through the open window, calling Cormac, who soon made his appearance, noticing me in a grave and dignified manner. Mrs. O'Toole and I fol[Pg 168]lowed our fair conductress down the sloping pleasure ground, now gay with many coloured dahlias; at the bottom of which a small door led into a road by the river side. Nurse produced a ponderous key, and carefully locked it after us. We turned to the left, and I walked between Mrs. O'Toole and her nursling, who looked charmingly in her cotton morning dress and her cottage straw bonnet, with its white ribbon; her luxuriant brown hair doing away with all necessity for the curious floral exhibitions ladies usually display under theirs.

"Nothing new or strange has occurred here since you went," said Miss Vernon, in a quiet, confidential tone; "grandpapa has been very well, and quite looked forward to seeing you again. Mr. Winter has been very busy driving Cyclops hither and thither, and twice got into a ditch; and Miss Araminta Cox and Mrs. Winter agree in saying you are not at all the sort of person they expected a Cavalry officer to be."

"Errah! what do the likes of thim know[Pg 169] about Cavalry officers?" exclaimed nurse, en parenth�se.

"What did they expect?" said I, laughing, "something very terrific, in the raw head and bloody bones style, I suppose?"

"I told them I had always found Dragoons very harmless, inoffensive people," replied Miss Vernon, an arch glance displacing the pensive depth of expression her eyes had assumed when gazing at the sketches of her old home.

"Indeed!" said I, with some pique, "well meaning creatures, useful about a house."

Miss Vernon laughed, "I see you would prefer being dreaded by Miss Araminta Cox, so I'll not take your part any more."

We had by this time reached a sort of rude pier, shaded by a few old thorn trees, limes, and horse chesnuts; an irregular rugged red stone wall, which, sometimes retiring, sometimes advancing, followed the course of the road, formed a very suitable back ground; and just here an arch of heavy stone work sheltered a clear and[Pg 170] deep well; beside the little landing place lay a large flat-bottomed boat, and at its bow sat a huge, rough, grizzled boatman, in a hairy cap and horn spectacles, (looking coeval with the Priory Tower, which was visible above the trees), intently reading a well thumbed book.

"Elijah!" called out Mrs. O'Toole. I started at the scriptural appellation. "Elijah! The onfortunate ould sinner is making his sowl; he's as deaf as a stone. Elijah Bush, I say!"

"Ho, Cormac," said Miss Vernon.

The old man looked up, as the hound stepped on the gunnel and shook the boat; and raising his cap, came forward, apologising respectfully for his pre-occupation.

"It bai'nt so often I get a sight of the Ward," said he, in a broad Cumberland accent, "but I'm main glad to see you."

Miss Vernon replied courteously.

"Elijah, honey, is there e'er a throut to be got to day," said Nurse.

"Not as I knows on, Marm; I did see Davy[Pg 171] Jones passing on here, sure enough, with the rods; but he hadn't took nothink then."

"A'then, just look out for him like a good Christian, and tell him if he's caught even the ghost of one, to have it up at the house, mind, now."

"Ay sure," said Elijah.

"Ah! what'll I do at all at all," said Mrs. O'Toole to Miss Vernon, in accents of great concern, "if I can't get a throut for the Captin?"

"I dare say he will kindly endeavour to dine without one," she replied.

"Then I am to have the pleasure of dining with you," said I.

"Of course," said Kate, opening her eyes, "where else would you dine?"

I handed her into the boat, and after carefully assisting Mrs. O'Toole, who accepted my petits soins with a "Musha, but I'm well attinded," took my seat beside her.

A few vigorous strokes from Elijah's oars[Pg 172] brought us across, and we were standing at the foot of the broken rocky bank visible from the windows of the cottage.

"Is there much custom at your ferry now?" asked Miss Vernon as we paid him.

"Not much to speak of, but I gets my crust; and at all events the Lord will provide," he said, raising his cap.

"Holy Vargin, listen to that now!" said Mrs. O'Toole with much fervour, "you're a mighty religious man entirely, Elijah; faith, Father Macdermott could'nt hould a candle to you, tho' he laid the Divil at Innishogue."

"Good bye," said her young lady, "we will be back in about an hour, Elijah."

Climbing the steep bank, we stood for a few moments at the top to look at the cottage, peeping prettily out from between the ivy-grown old church and the spreading oak I have before described; then following the path across the meadow where they were cutting the after grass,[Pg 173] we fell into marching order, Mrs. O'Toole at one side of Kate, and I at the other, Cormac walking soberly between us.

It was a regular autumnal day—clear, calm, and grey, with a slight crispness in the air, an avant courier of frost. The wood through which the path soon led us, brilliant with all the variegated tints peculiar to the season, and fragrant with the odour of the gums exuding from the fir trees and young larches, seemed of tolerable extent, and now and then a pheasant would rise suddenly, with a whirr through the air, almost from our feet. A few withered leaves already strewed the ground, and nature appeared in her fullest beauty, though it was evident she was on the turning point. Occasionally we caught a glimpse of the river, and frequently heard it fretting against the rocks, which here and there opposed its progress.

Miss Vernon often paused to draw my attention to any picture, as she termed it, that struck her fancy; sometimes it was a long glade almost[Pg 174] over-arched with leafy boughs, still retaining in their sheltered position the freshness of early summer, with a line of blue country beyond; sometimes it was a single tree of peculiar beauty, now a few old moss-grown trunks forgotten by the woodcutter, now a peep at a cottage chimney, with blue curling smoke at the other side of the river; every thing, from the rich green grass, and the endless variety of wild creepers, to the dry exhilarating atmosphere, seemed to be a source of joyous, grateful pleasure to her happy nature, gifted, as it appeared to be, with so deep a power of enjoyment. I found something contagious in her airy gaiety, and the extraordinarily keen sense of nature's beauty with which she was endowed, and asked her why it was she did not pursue drawing more steadily.

"I do not know," she replied; "it does not seem to come so naturally to me as music, though no one revels in scenery more delightedly than I do. Are you not obliged to me for this walk?"

"Indeed I am, I shall not soon forget it."

[Pg 175]

"What strange mixtures we are," said Miss Vernon; "I felt so sad after looking at those drawings of Dungar; and now it seems to me as if the mere sense of existence is happiness enough. Ah, there is a great deal that is delightful in this life of ours, let poets and popular preachers say of it what they will."

"It's only hearts like yours, avourneen, that draw the sunshine round them," said Mrs. O'Toole.

"True, Miss Vernon," I observed; "but what long intervals of much that is unpleasant—what bitter mortifications!"

"Yes," she replied; "but there is no life so sad that it has not something sweet also."

"When the curse of poverty falls on you, and holds you back from the accomplishment of all your soul most longs for," I said.

"Ah,