Duchess - Mrs. Geoffrey

Opposite to her is a pig, sitting quite erect, and staring at her blankly, without the slightest regard to etiquette or nice feeling. He is plainly full of anxiety, yet without power to express it, except in so far as his tail may aid him, which is limp and prostrate, its very curl being a thing of the past. If any man has impugned the sagacity of pigs, that man has erred!

In the background partly hidden by the gathering gloom, some fifteen men, and one or two women, are all huddled together, whispering eagerly, with their faces almost touching. The women, though in a great minority, are plainly having the best of it.

But Mona's eyes see nothing but one object only.

On the right side of the fireplace, lying along the wall, is a rude stretcher, – or what appears to be such, – on which, shrouded decently in a white cloth, lies something that chills with mortal fear the heart, as it reminds it of that to which we all some day must come. Beneath the shroud the murdered man lies calmly sleeping, his face smitten into the marble smile of death.

Quite near to the poor corpse, a woman sits, young, apparently, and with a handsome figure, though now it is bent and bowed with grief. She is dressed in the ordinary garb of the Irish peasant, with a short gown well tucked up, naked feet, and the sleeves of her dress pushed upwards until they almost reach the shoulder, showing the shapely arm and the small hand that, as a rule, belong to the daughters of Erin and betray the existence of the Spanish blood that in days gone by mingled with theirs.

Her face is hidden; it is lying on her arms, and they are cast, in the utter recklessness and abandonment of her grief, across the feet of him who, only yesterday, had been her "man," – her pride and her delight.

Just as Mona crosses the threshold, a man, stepping from among the group that lies in shadow, approaching the stretcher, puts forth his hand, as though he would lift the sheet and look upon what it so carefully conceals. But the woman, springing like a tigress to her feet, turns upon him, and waves him back with an imperious gesture.

"Lave him alone!" cries she; "take yer hands off him! He's dead, as ye well know, the whole of ye. There's no more ye can do to him. Then lave his poor body to the woman whose heart is broke for the want of him!"

The man draws back hurriedly, and the woman once more sinks back into her forlorn position.

"Kitty, can I do anything for you?" asks Mona, in a gentle whisper, bending over her and taking the hand that lies in her lap between both her own, with a pressure full of gentle sympathy. "I know there is nothing I can say but can I do nothing to comfort you?"

"Thank ye, miss. Ye mane it kindly, I know," says the woman, wearily. "But the big world is too small to hold one dhrop of comfort for me. He's dead, ye see!"

The inference is full of saddest meaning. Even Geoffrey feels the tears rise unbidden to his eyes.

"Poor soul! poor soul!" says Mona, brokenly; then she drops her hand, and the woman, turning again to the lifeless body, as though in the poor cold clay lies her only solace, lets her head fall forward upon it.

Mona, turning, confronts the frightened group in the corner, both men and women, with a face changed and aged by grief and indignation.

Her eyes have grown darker; her mouth is stern. To Rodney, who is watching her anxiously, she seems positively transformed. What a terrible power lies within her slight frame to feel both good and evil! What sad days may rest in store for this girl, whose face can whiten at a passing grievance, and whose hands can tremble at a woe in which only a dependant is concerned! Both sorrow and joy must be to her as giants, strong to raise or lower her to highest elevations or lowest depths.

"Oh, what a day is this!" cries she, with quivering lips. "See the ruin you have brought upon this home, that only yestermorn was full of life and gladness! Is this what has come of your Land League, and your Home Rulers, and your riotous meetings? Where is the soul of this poor man, who was hurried to his last account without his priest, and without a prayer for pardon on his lips? And how shall the man who slew him dare to think on his own soul?"

No one answers; the very moanings of the old crone in the chimney-corner are hushed as the clear young voice rings through the house, and then stops abruptly, as though its owner is overcome with emotion. The men move back a little, and glance uneasily and with some fear at her from under their brows.

"Oh, the shameful thought that all the world should be looking at us with horror and disgust, as a people too foul for anything but annihilation! And what is it you hope to gain by all this madness? Do you believe peace, or a blessing from the holy heavens, could fall and rest on a soil soaked in blood and red with crime? I tell you no; but rather a curse will descend, and stay with you, that even Time itself will be powerless to lift."

Again she pauses, and one of the men, shuffling his feet nervously, and with his eyes bent upon the floor, says, in a husky tone, —

"Sure, now, you're too hard on us, Miss Mona. We're innocent of it. Our hands are clean as yer own. We nivir laid eyes on him since yesterday till this blessed minit. Ye should remember that, miss."

"I know what you would say; and yet I do denounce you all, both men and boys, – yes, and the women too, – because, though your own actual hands may be free of blood, yet knowing the vile assassin who did this deed, there is not one of you but would extend to him the clasp of good-fellowship and shield him to the last, – a man who, fearing to meet another face to face, must needs lie in ambush for him behind a wall, and shoot his victim without giving him one chance of escape! Mr. Moore walks through his lands day by day, unprotected and without arms: why did this man not meet him there, and fight him fairly, to the death, if, indeed, he felt that for the good of his country he should die! No! there was danger in that thought," says Mona, scornfully: "it is a safer thing to crouch out of sight and murder at one's will."

"Then why does he prosecute the poor? We can't live; yet he won't lower the rints," says a sullen voice from the background.

"He did lower them. He, too, must live; and, at all events, no persecution can excuse murder," says Mona, undaunted. "And who was so good to you as Mr. Moore last winter, when the famine raged round here? Was not his house open to you all? Were not many of your children fed by him? But that is all forgotten now; the words of a few incendiaries have blotted out the remembrance of years of steady friendship. Gratitude lies not with you. I, who am one of you, waste my time in speaking. For a very little matter you would shoot me too, no doubt!"

This last remark, being in a degree ungenerous, causes a sensation. A young man, stepping out from the confusion, says, very earnestly, —

"I don't think ye have any call to say that to us, Miss Mona. 'Tisn't fair like, when ye know in yer own heart that we love the very sight of ye, and the laste sound of yer voice!"

Mona, though still angered, is yet somewhat softened by this speech, as might any woman. Her color fades again, and heavy tears, rising rapidly, quench the fire that only a moment since made her large eyes dark and passionate.

"Perhaps you do," she says, sadly. "And I, too, – you know how dear you all are to me; and it is just that that makes my heart so sore. But it is too late to warn. The time is past when words might have availed."

Turning sorrowfully away, she drops some silver into the poor widow's lap; whereon Geoffrey, who has been standing close to her all the time, covers it with two sovereigns.

"Send down to the Farm, and I will give you some brandy," says Mona to a woman standing by, after a lengthened gaze at the prostrate form of Kitty, who makes no sign of life. "She wants it." Laying her hand on Kitty's shoulder, she shakes her gently. "Rouse yourself," she says, kindly, yet with energy. "Try to think of something, – anything except your cruel misfortune."