Charles Lever - The O'Donoghue - Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago

For an instant Lanty was confounded. He could not utter a word, and looked around him in the vain hope of aid from any other quarter, but none was forthcoming. Kerry was the only unoccupied witness of the scene, and his face beamed with ineffable satisfaction at the turn matters had taken, and as he rubbed his hands he could scarcely control his desire to laugh outright, at the lamentable figure of his late antagonist.

“Let me say one word, Master Mark,” said Lanty at length, and in a voice subdued to its very softest key – “just a single word in your own ear,” and with that he led the young man outside the door of the stable, and whispered for some minutes, with the greatest earnestness, concluding in a voice loud enough to be heard by Kerry —

“And after that, I’m sure I need say no more.”

Mark made no answer, but leaned his back against the wall, and folded his arms upon his breast.

“May I never if it is not the whole truth,” said Lanty, with a most eager and impassioned gesture; “and now I leave it all to yourself.”

“Is he to take the mare?” asked Kerry, in anxious dread lest his enemy might have carried the day.

“Yes,” was the reply, in a deep hollow voice, as the speaker turned away and left the stable.

While Lanty was engaged in placing his saddle on his new purchase, an operation in which Kerry contrived not to afford him any assistance whatever, Mark O’Donoghue paced slowly to and fro in the courtyard, with his arms folded, and his head sunk upon his breast; nor was he aroused from his reverie until the step of the horse was heard on the pavement beside him.

“Poor Kittane,” said he, looking up suddenly, “you were a great pet: I hope they’ll be as kind to you as I was; and they’d better, too,” added he, half-savagely, “for you’ve a drop of the Celt in your blood, and can revenge harsh treatment when you meet with it. Tell her owner that she is all gentleness, if not abused, but get her temper once up, and, by Jove, there’s not a torrent on the mountain can leap as madly! She knows her name, too: I trust they’ll not change that. She was bred beside Lough Kittane, and called after it. See how she can follow;” and with that, the youth sprang forward, and placing his hand on the top bar of a gate, vaulted lightly over; but scarcely had he reached the ground, when the mare bounded after him, and stood with her head resting on his shoulder.

Mark turned an elated look on the others, and then surveyed the noble animal beside him with all the pride and admiration of a master regarding his handiwork. She was, indeed, a model of symmetry, and well worthy of all the praise bestowed on her.

For a moment or two the youth gazed on her, with a flashing eye and quivering lip, while the mare, catching excitement from the free air of the morning, and the spring she had made, stood with swelled veins and trembling limbs, his counterpart in eagerness. One spirit seemed to animate both. So Mark appeared to feel it, as with a bound he sprung into the saddle, and with a wild cheer dashed forward. With lightning’s speed they went, and in a moment disappeared from view. Kerry jumped up on a broken gate-pier, and strained his eyes to catch them, while Lanty, muttering maledictions to himself, on the hair-brained boy, turned everywhere for a spot where he might view the scene.

“There he goes,” shouted Kerry; “look at him now; he’s coming to the furze ditch into the big field: see! see! she does not see the fence; her head’s in the air. Whew – elegant, by the mortial – never touched a hoof to it! – murther! murther! how she gallops in the deep ground, and the wide gripe that’s before her! Ah, he won’t take it; he’s turning away.”

“I wish to the Lord he’d break a stirrup-leather,” muttered Lanty.

“Oh, Joseph!” screamed Kerry, “there was a jump – twenty feet as sure as I’m living. Where is he now? – I don’t see him.”

“May you never,” growled Lanty, whose indignant anger had burst all bounds: “that’s not treatment for another man’s horse.”

“There he goes, the jewel; see him in the stubble field; sure it’s a real picture to see him going along at his ease. Whurroo – he’s over the wall. What the devil’s the matter now? – they’re away;” and so it was: the animal that an instant before was cantering perfectly in hand, had now set off at top speed, and at full stretch. “See the gate – mind the gate – Master Mark – tear-and-ages, mind the gate,” shouted Kerry, as though his admonition could be heard half a mile away. “Oh! holy Mary! he’s through it,” and true enough – the wild and now affrighted beast dashed through the frail timbers, and held on her course, without stopping. “He’s broke the gate to flitters.”

“May I never, if I don’t wish it was his neck,” said Lanty, in open defiance.

“Do you, then?” called out Kerry. “Why, then, as sure as my name’s Kerry O’Leary, if there’s a hair of his head hurted, I’ll – ”

What the threat was intended for, cannot be known; for his eye once more caught sight of his idol, and he yelled out —

“Take care of the sheep. Bad luck to ye for sheep, ye’re always in the way. That’s the darling – ‘twas myself taught you to have a light hand. Ah, Kittane, you’re coming to rayson now.”

“The mare won’t be worth sixpence,” muttered Lanty.

“Twas as good as a day’s sport to me,” said Kerry, wiping his brow with the loose sleeve of his coat, and preparing to descend from the elevation, for the young man now entered the distant part of the lawn, and, at an easy canter, was returning to the stable-yard.

“There!” said Mark, as he flung himself from the saddle, “there Kittane, it’s the last time you’re likely to have a bold burst of it, or myself either, perhaps. She touched her counter on that gate, Lanty; but she’s nothing the worse of it.”

Lanty grumbled some indistinct mutterings, as he wiped a blood stain from the mare’s chest, and looked sulkily at her heaving flanks and sides reeking with foam and sweat.

“Tis a darling you wor,” said Kerry, patting her over from her mane to her hind quarters.

“Faix, that cut is ten pounds out of my pocket this morning, anyhow,” said Lanty, as he pointed to the slight scratch from which a few drops of blood still flowed.

“Are you off the bargain, then,” said Mark sternly, as he turned his head round; for he was already leaving the spot.

“I didn’t say so,” was the answer.

For a second or two Mark seemed uncertain what reply to make, and then, as if controlling his temper, he nodded carelessly, and with a “Good-by, Lanty,” he sauntered slowly towards the house.

“Well, Mr. O’Leary,” said Lanty, in a voice of affected politeness, Irishmen are occasionally very fond of employing when they intend great self-respect, “may I trouble you to bring out that hack of mine.”

“‘Tis a pleasure, Mr. Lawler, and no trouble in life, av it helps to get rid of you,” responded Kerry, as he waddled off on the errand.

Lanty made no reply; perhaps he felt the encounter unequal – perhaps he despised his antagonist; in any case, he waited patiently for Kerry’s appearance, and then, passing his arm within the bridle of each horse, he slowly descended the avenue towards the high road.

It was not without a feeling closely allied to disappointment, that Sir Marmaduke Travers found the advent to his Irish estates uncelebrated by any of those testimonies on the part of his tenantry, his agent, Captain Hemsworth, had often so graphically pictured before him. The post-horses were suffered to drag his carriage unmolested to its destination; there was no assemblage of people to welcome – not a bonfire to hail his arrival. True, he had come totally unexpectedly. The two servants sent forward to prepare the lodge for his reception, only reached there a single day before himself. But Sir Marmaduke had often taken his Yorkshire tenants as much by surprise, and, there, he always found a deputation, and a cortege of mounted yeomen. There were addresses, and triumphal arches, and newspaper paragraphs, and all the innumerable but well-known accompaniments of those patronizing acts of condescension, which consist in the visit of a rich man to his own home. Now, however, all was different. No cheering sounds broke the quiet stillness of the deep valley. No troops of people on horseback or on foot filled the glen. The sun set, calm and golden, behind the purple hills, unscared by the lurid glow of a single bonfire. Save from an appearance of increased bustle, and an air of movement and stir around the lodge itself, there was nothing to mark his coming. There, indeed, servants were seen to pass and re-pass; workmen were employed upon the flower-garden and the shrubbery walks; and all the indications of care and attention to the villa and its grounds easily perceptible. Beyond these precincts, however, all was still and solitary as before. For miles the road could be seen without a single traveller. The mountains seemed destitute of inhabitants. The peaceful solemnity of the deep glen, along which the cloud shadows moved slowly in procession, increased the sense of loneliness, and Sir Marmaduke already began to suspect, that this last trial of a residence would scarcely prove more fortunate than the previous ones.