The Sundays, however, were still available, and Emon did not lose the chance. He now because so regular an attendant at Rathcash chapel, and went up so regularly with old Ned and his daughter after prayers, that it was no wonder if people began to talk.

"I donna what Tom Murdock says to all this, Bill," said Tim Fahy to a neighbor, on the road from the chapel.

"The sorra wan of me knows, Tim, but I hear he isn't over-well plaised."

"Arrah, what id he be plaised at? Is it to see a Shanvilla boy, without a cross, intherlopin' betune him an' his bachelor?"

"Well, they say he needn't be a bit afeared, Lennon is a very good workman, {106} and undherstan's dhrainin', an' ould Ned's cute enough to get a job well done; but he'd no more give his daughter with her fine fortin' to that chap, than he'd throw her an' it into the say--b'lieve you me."

"There's some very heavy cloud upon Tom this while back, any way; and though he keeps it very close, there's people thinks it's what she refused him."

"The sorra fear iv her, Tim; she has more sinse nor that."

"Well, riddle me this, Bill. What brings that chap here Sunda' afther Sunda', and what takes him up to ould Ned Cavana's every Sunda' afther ma.s.s? He is a very good-lookin' young fellow, an' knows a sheep's head from a sow's ear, or Tim Fahy's a fool."

"_Och badhershin_, doesn't he go up to walk home wid Kate Mulvey, for she's always iv the party?"

"And _badhershin_ yourself, Bill, isn't Phil M'Dermott always to the fore for Kate?--another intherloper from Shanvilla. I donna what the sorra the Rathcash boys are about."

Other confabs of a similar nature were carried on by different sets as they returned from prayers, and saw the Cavanas with their company turn up the lane toward the house. The young girls of the district, too, had their chats upon the subject; but they were so voluble, and some of them so ill-natured, that I forbear to give the reader any specimen of their remarks. One or two intimate a.s.sociates of Tom ventured to quiz him upon the state of affairs. Now none but an intimate friend, indeed, of Tom's should have ventured, under the circ.u.mstances, to have touched upon so sore a subject, and those who did, intimate as they were, did not venture to repeat the joke. No, it was no joke; and that they soon found out. To one friend who had quizzed him privately he said, "Suspend your judgment, Denis; and if I don't prove myself more than a match for that half-bred _kiout_, then condemn me."

But to another, who had quizzed him before some bystanders in rather a ridiculous point of view, he turned like a bull-terrier, while his face a.s.sumed a scowl of a peculiarly unpleasant character.

"It is no business of yours," he said, "and I advise you to mind your own affairs, or perhaps I'll make you."

The man drew in his horns, and sneaked off, of course; and from that moment they all guessed that the business had gone against Tom, and they left off quizzing.

Tom felt that he had been wrong, and had only helped to betray himself. His game now was to prevent, if possible, any talk about the matter, one way or the other, until his plans should be matured, when he doubted not that success would gain him the approbation of every one, no matter what the means.

The preface to his plans was, to spread a report that he had gone back to Armagh to get married to a girl with an immense fortune, and he endorsed the report by the fact of his leaving home; but whether to Armagh or not, was never clearly known.

Young Lennon went on with his job, at which old Ned told him "to take his time, an' do it well. It was not," he said, "like digging a plot, which had to be dug every year, or maybe twice. When it was wance finished and covered up, there it was; worse nor the first day, if it was not done right; so don't hurry it over, Emon-a-wochal. I don't mind the expense; ground can't be dhrained for nothin', an' it id be a bad job if we were obliged to be openin' any of the dhrains a second time, an' maybe not know where the stoppage lay; so take your time, and don't blame me if you botch it."

"You need not fear, sir," said Lennon. (He always said "sir" as yet.) "You need not fear; if every drain of them does not run like the stream from Tubbernaltha, never give me a day's work again."

{107}

"As far as you have gone, Emon, I think they are complate; we'll have forty carts of stones in afore Sat.u.r.da' night. I hope you have help enough, boy."

"Plenty, sir, until we begin to cover in."

"Wouldn't you be able for that yourself? or couldn't you bring your father with you? I'd wish to put whatever I could in your way."

"Thank you, sir, very much. I will do so if I want more help; but for the lucre of keeping up his wages and mine, I would not recommend you to lose this fine weather in covering in the drains."

"You are an honest boy, Emon, and I like your way of talkin', as well as workin'; plaise G.o.d we won't see you or your father idle."

Up to this it will be seen that Emon was not idle in any sense of the word. He was ingratiating himself, but honestly, into the good graces of old Ned; "if he was not fishing, he was mending his nets;" and the above conversation will show that he was not a dance at that same.

It happened, upon one or two occasions, that old Ned was with Emon at leaving off work in the evening, and he asked him to "c.u.m' up to the house and have a dhrink of beer, or whiskey-and-wather, his choice."

But Emon excused himself, saying he was no fit figure to go into any decent man's parlor in that trim, and indeed his appearance did not belie his words; for he was spotted and striped with yellow clay, from his head and face to his feet, and the clothes he brought to the work were worth nothing.

"Well, you'll not be always so, Emon, when you're done wid the scoopin'," said old Ned; and he added, laughing, "The divil a wan o'

me'd know you to be the same boy I seen c.u.min' out o' ma.s.s a Sunda'."

Emon had heard, as everybody else had heard, that Tom Murdock had left home, and he felt as if an incubus had been lifted off his heart. Not that he feared Tom in any one way; but he knew that his absence would be a relief to Winny, and, as such, a relief to himself.

Emon was now as happy as his position and his hopes permitted him to be; and there can be little doubt but this happiness arose from an understanding between himself and Winny; but how, when, or where that understanding had been confirmed, it would be hard to say.

Old Ned's remarks to his daughter respecting young Lennon were nuts and apples to her. She knew the day would come, and perhaps at no far distant time, when she must openly avow, not only a preference for Emon, but declare an absolute determination to cast her lot with his, and ask her father's blessing upon them. She was aware that this could not, that it ought not to, be hurried. She hoped--oh, how fervently she hoped!--that the report of Tom Murdock's marriage might be true: that of his absence from home she knew to be so. In the meantime it kept the happy smile for ever on her lips to know that Emon was daily creeping into the good opinion of her father. Oh! how could Emon, her own Emon, fail, not only to creep but to rush into the good opinion, the very heart, of all who knew him? Poor enthusiastic Winny! But she was right. With the solitary exception of Tom Murdock, there was not a human being who knew him who did not love Edward Lennon. But where is the man with Tom Murdock's heart, and in Tom Murdock's place, who would not have hated him as he did?

CHAPTER XXIX.

Tom Murdock, seeing that his hopes by fair means were completely at an end, and that matters were likely to progress in another quarter at a rate which made it advisable not to let the leading horse get too far ahead, {108} determined to make a rush to the front, no matter whether he went the wrong side of a post or not--let that be settled after.

He had left home, and left a report behind him, which he took care to have industriously circulated, that he had gone to Armagh, and was about to be married to "a young lady" with a large fortune, and that he would visit the metropolis, Fermanagh, and perhaps Sligo, before he returned. But he did not go further than an obscure public-house in a small village in the lower part of the county of Cavan. There he met the materials for carrying out his plan. The object of it was shortly this--to carry away Winny Cavana by force, and bring her to a _friend's_ house in the mountains behind the village adverted to. Here he was to have an old buckle-beggar at hand to marry them the moment Winny's spirit was broken to consent. This man, a degraded clergyman, as the report went, wandered about the country in green spectacles and a short, black cloak, always ready and willing to perform such a job; doubly willing and ready for this particular one from the reward which Tom had promised him. If even the marriage ceremony should fail, either through Winny's obstinacy or the clergyman's want of spirit to go through with it in the face of opposition, still he would keep her for ten days or a fortnight at this _friend's_ house, stopping there himself too; and at the end of that time, should he fail in obtaining her consent, he would quit the country for a while, and allow her to return home "so blasted in character" that even "that whelp" would disown her. There was a pretty specimen of a lover--a husband!

It was now the end of June. The weather had been dry for some time, and the nights were clear and mild; the stars shone brightly, and the early dawn would soon present a heavy dew hanging on the bushes and the gra.s.s. The moon was on the wane; but at a late hour of the night it was conspicuous in the heavens, adding a stronger light to that given by the clearness of the sky and the brilliancy of the stars.

Rathcash and Rathcashmore were sunk in still repose; and if silence could be echoed, it was echoed by the stillness of the mountains behind Shanvilla and beyond them. The inhabitants of the whole district had long since retired to rest, and now lay buried in sleep, some of them in confused dreams of pleasure and delight.

The angel of the dawn was scarcely yet awake, or he might have heard the sound of m.u.f.fled horses' feet and m.u.f.fled wheels creeping along the road toward the lane turning up to Rathcash house, about two hours before day; and he must have seen a man with a dark mask mounted on another m.u.f.fled horse at a little distance from the cart.

Presently Tom Murdock--there is no use in simulating mystery where none exists--took charge of the horse and cart to prevent them from moving, while three men stole up toward the house. Ay, there is Bully-dhu's deep bark, and they are already at the door.

"That dog! he'll betray us, boys," said one of the men.

"I'd blow his brains out if this pistol was loaded," said another; "and I wanted Tom to give me a cartridge."

"He wouldn't let any one load but himself, and he was right; a shot would be twiste as bad as the dog; beside, he's in the back yard, and cannot get out. Never heed him, but to work as fast as possible."

Old Ned Cavana and Winny heard not only the dog, but the voices.

Winny's heart foretold the whole thing in a moment, and she braced her nerves for the scene.

The door was now smashed in, and the three men entered. By this time old Ned had drawn on his trousers; and as he was throwing his coat over his head to got his arms into the sleeves he was seized, and ere you could count ten he was pinioned, with his arms behind him and his legs tied {109} at the ankles, and a handkerchief tied across his mouth. Thus rendered perfectly powerless, he was thrown back upon the bed, and the room-door locked. Jamesy Doyle, who slept in the barn, had heard the crash of the door, and dressed himself in "less than no time," let Bully-dhu out of the yard, and brought him to the front door, in at which he rushed like a tiger. But Jamesy Doyle did not go in. That was not his game; but he peeped in at the window. No light had been struck, so he could make nothing of the state of affairs inside, except from the voices; and from what he heard he could make no mistake as to the object of this attack. He could not tell whether Tom Murdock was in the house or not, but he did not hear his voice.

One man said, "Come, now, be quick, Larry; the sooner we're off with her the better."

Jamesy waited for no more; he turned to the lane as the shortest way, but at a glance he saw the horse and cart and the man on horseback on the road outside; and turning again he darted off across the fields as fast as his legs could carry him.

Bully-dhu, having gained access to the house, showed no disposition to compromise the matter. "No quarter!" was his cry, as he flew at the nearest man to him, and seizing him by the throat, brought him to the ground with a _sough_, where in spite of his struggles, he held him fast with a silent, deadly grip. He had learned this much, at least, by his encounter with the mastiff on New Year's day.

Careless of their companion's strait, who they thought ought to be able to defend himself, the other two fellows--and powerful fellows they were--proceeded to the bed-room to their left; they had locked the door to their right, leaving poor old Ned tied and insensible on the bed. Winny was now dressed and met them at the door.