Lewis Wingfield - My Lords of Strogue. Volume 1 of 3

My lord, raising himself upon his elbows, spoke-slowly, with labouring breath; for his life was oozing in scarlet throbs through the sword-gash, and grave-damps were gathering upon his skin.

'Gillin dear!' he gasped, with a diabolical emphasis to disgust his wife. 'I have loved you, for you were always gay and cheerful and forgiving, not glaring and reproachful like that stony figure there! I leave you well provided for. The Little House is yours, with the farm and the land about it; in return for which I lay a duty on you. My lady will not be pleased,' he continued, with a look of hate; 'for she will never be able to drive out of Strogue without passing before your doors. And she must live there-there or at Ennishowen, or by my will she will forfeit certain rights. Lift me up. I can hardly breathe.'

Both Wolfe and Curran made a movement of indignation as the departing sinner exposed his plans. What a fiendish thing, so to shame a wife whose only apparent crime was a coldness of demeanour! Well, well! The Glandores were always mad, and this one more crazy than his forefathers.

My lord marked the movement, and, turning his glazing eyes towards his second son, smiled faintly. 'Not so bad as you think,' he panted. 'I have bequeathed the Little House to your daughter, Gillin, to be held in trust for you, then to be hers absolutely-to pretty Norah, who, at my wish you know, was baptised a Protestant. I will that the two families should live side by side, in order that his mother may do no harm to my second child, whom she abhors. I do not think she would do him active wrong. But we can never tell what a woman will do if goaded. Swear to watch over the boy, Gillin; and if evil befall, point the finger of public opinion at his mother. She will always bow to that, I know. Bring lights. Hold up my little Terence that I may look at him. Lights! It is very dark.'

A candle was brought in a great silver sconce, but my lord had looked his last on earth. Vainly he peered through a gathering film. The child's blonde locks were hidden from his sight; and then, feeling that the portals of one world were shut ere those of the other were ajar, he was seized with a quaking dread like ague. The devil-may-care swagger of the Glandores was gone. He strove with groans to recall a long-forgotten prayer, and the spectators of his death-bed were stricken with awe.

'Gillin,' he murmured, in so strange and hoarse a voice as to make her shudder. 'It is an awful wrong we've done. Why did you let me? Too late now. I cannot set it right, but she-call my lady-why is she not here?'

The tall countess was standing sternly over him, close by, with crossed arms, but he could not see her.

'I am here. What would you?' she said; as white as he, with a growing look of dread.

'That wrong!' he gurgled. 'That dreadful thing. Oh, set it right while you have time; for my sake; for your own, that you may escape this torment. If I might live an hour-O God! but one! We three only know. If I could-'

The wretched man made an effort to rise-a last supreme effort. A spasm seized his throat. He flung his arms into the air and fell back-dead.

Doreen, the brown-eyed girl, cowered against her father and began to cry. The boys, who looked on the work of the White Pilgrim for the first time, clung trembling in an embrace with twitching lips. The two women-so dissimilar in birth and breeding-bound by a strange secret link-scrutinised each other long and steadily across the corpse, as skilful swordsmen do who would gauge a rival's skill. They were about to skirmish now. In the future might one be called upon to run the other through? Who can tell what lurks behind the veil?

The countess winced under the insolent gaze with which Madam Gillin looked her up and down. With a tinge of half-alarmed contempt she broke the silence.

'Arthur,' she said, 'take that chit away. With her mother's craven soul in her, she's like to have a fit. At any rate, save my conscience that. Fear not for me, though they have all run off as if I were plague-stricken. Mr. Curran I dare say, or some one, will see me taken care of. You will have details to look to for me. Take the girl hence. No. Leave the boys.'

Arthur Wolfe departed, taking with him Doreen and his godson Tone; and Mr. Curran, nodding to them, withdrew to the antechamber.

The women were alone with their dead. My lady stood frowning at the usurper, who, no whit abashed, laid a hand upon the corpse and said, in solemn accents: 'So help me God-I'll do his bidding. Do not glare at me, woman, or you may drive me to use my nails. I know your secret, for your husband babbled of it as he slept. It is a fearful wrong. Many a time I've urged him to see justice done, no matter at what cost to you and to himself. But he was weak and wicked too. I suppose it is now too late, for you are as bad as he, and vain as well of your murky half-caste blood!'

Madam Gillin drew back a step; for, stung to the quick by the beginning of her speech, my lady made as if to strike her foe with the toy-bayonet; but, reason coming to the rescue, she tossed it on the ground. This last insult was too much. To speak plainly of such shameful things to her very face! The brazen hardened papist hussy! But vulgar Gillin laughed at the fierce impulse with such a jeering crow as startled Mr. Curran in the antechamber.

'Do you want fisticuffs?' she gibed, with a plump white fist on either hip. 'I warrant ye'd get the worst of such a tussle, my fine madam, for all your haughty airs- you -who should act as serving-wench to such as I. Nay! Calm yourself. I'm off. This is the first time we've ever spoken-I hope it may be the last, for that will mean that you have behaved properly to your second son. I've no desire to cross your path; you cruel, wicked, heartless woman!'

Lady Glandore, her thin lips curling, took Terence by the hand for all reply, and bade him kneel.

'Swear,' she said in low clear tones, drawing forward the astonished Shane, 'that you will be faithful to your elder brother as a vassal to a suzerain, that you will do him no treason, but act as a junior should with submission to the head of his house.'

The little boy had been crying with all his might ever since they brought in that ghastly heap. Confused and awed by his mother's hard manner he repeated her words, then broke into fresh sobs, whilst Madam Gillin stared and clasped her hands together as she turned to go.

'Sure the woman's cracked,' she muttered. 'What does she mean? The feudal system's passed. No oath can be binding on a child of twelve. Maybe she's not wicked-only mad-as mad as my lord was. Well, God help the child! What's bred in the bone will out! Deary me! There's something quare about all these half-English nobles.'

Mr. Curran waited, according to agreement, lest anything should be required by my lady; and though by no means a lady's man, was not sorry so to do, for the conduct of the countess in her sudden bereavement had been, to say the least of it, extraordinary, and he was curious to observe what would happen next. There was something beneath that haughty calmness which roused his curiosity. Was she regretting the past, conscious only of the sunshine, forgetful now of storms; or was she rejoicing at a release? Holding no clue, conjecture was waste of brain-power.

So Mr. Curran resolved to reserve his judgment, and turned his attention to what was going on without, while the servants stole backwards and forwards, improvising the preparations for a wake.

The proceedings outside were well-nigh as lugubrious as those within. A thick mist and drizzling rain were descending on the town, turning the roads to quagmires, the ornamental draperies to dish-clouts, the wreaths to funereal garlands. The illuminations, concerning which expectation had been so exercised, flickered and guttered dismally. Groups of men in scarlet, their powder in wet mud upon their coats, reeled down the greasy pavement, waking the echoes with a drunken view-halloo or a fragment of the Volunteer hymn. Some were making an exhaustive tour of the boozing-kens; some staggered towards the lottery-rooms in Capel Street, or the Hells of Skinner's Row; some were running-a-muck with unsteady gait, and sword-tip protruded through the scabbard for the behoof of chairmen's calves; while some again, in a glimmer of sobriety, were examining the smirched stockings and spattered breeches which precluded their appearance at Smock Alley. Chairs and coaches flitted by, making for Moira House or the Palace of his Grace of Leinster, for all kept open-house to-night, and Mr. Curran's crab-apple features puckered into a grin as he marked how fearfully faces were upturned to Daly's, where one of the elect was lying stiff and stark. But the grin soon faded into a look of sadness, as, like some seer, he apostrophised his countrymen.