The Mystery of Killard. A novel

Part I. The Race Of Lane

CHAPTER PAGE I. an arrival at killard I II. TOM THE FOOL'S NEWS 6 III. A TITLE DEED -- IO IV. A LAST APPEAL l8 V. A CHRISTIAN HEIR 24 VI. THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF CLONMORE - - y] VII. ' TEN GUINEAS !' 46 VIII. A SOUND FROM THE ISLAND - - - - 52 IX. FROM KILLARD TO THE BISHOP'S - - - 66 X. A TRAITOR DISCOVERED - - - - - 71 XI. A NEW FATHER 79 XII. HIEROGLYPHICS - - 86 XIII. CAHILL FINDS AN EMISSARY TO THE ISLAND - 93 XIV. AFTER THE EXPULSION IOI XV. RESTITUTION I07 XVI. JOHN LANE LEARNS TO SPEAK - - - - 1 13

Part II. The Whims Of Plutus

I. THE LOST MARY 127 II. THE HEREDITARY TAINT - - - - - 1 33 III. CHESTNUT HAIR 142 IV. THE LOAD-STONE ISLAND 1 CONTENTS. VI CHAPTER PAGE V. LOW WATER 165 VI. ON THE LEDGE l8o VII. MORNING AND EVENING 187 VIII. A SILLY FAIRY-STORY ..... jg$ IX. JOHN LANE WANTS TO SEE - - - 205 X. CHESTNUT TO GOLDEN 212 XI. A SUMMER SAIL 224 XII. THE RIBBON AND THE EYES - - - - 234 xiii. 'all settled' 247 XIV. THE COTTAGE FIRE - 255 XV. THE ISLAND FIRE ------ 269 XVI. DAVID LANE'S WILL ------ 280 XVII. A DRIVE TO CLONMORE 290 PARTilll. ORDEAL BY GOLD. I. THE RETURN OF THE HEIR 300 II. THE HEIR IN POSSESSION 3H III. THE ALTERED MAN ------ 322 IV. A RECORDER OF WRECKS 332 V. LONDON 337 VI. 'GOOD-BYE FOR EVER' 344 VII. CONCLUSION I THE MYSTERY OF KILLARD.

PART I. THE RACE OF LANE.

Chapter I. An Arrival At Killard

' What a gale !' cried the man of the house, rising from the fire and placing a rush mat against the slit under the door. ' There hasn't been a worse gale this year. Novem ber is always bad, always bad. It's well they took my advice and didn't put out this morning. When I got up I noticed the fire-balls, and the streaks across the sun. Not a boat of them would see land again if they had gone. It's getting worse. God help all poor souls at sea this night.' ' Amen,' responded his wife, with a shudder. The man of the house came back to the fire, sat down, and all was silent save the howling of the wind, and the thunderous tumult of the billows, pierced shrilly now and then by the shrieks of waves shattered into spray against the ramparts of the land. The man of the house was low-sized, thick-set, grizzled, and about five-and-forty years of age.

He had dark-grey blue eyes ; his hair had been dark once ; his body bent slightly towards the left side, and his face was dull in colour and blotched from fronting the rough airs, and meeting the rains of heaven and the salt breath of the winds. Beside him sat his only child, a daughter of fifteen, with pale, quiet face, light-blue eyes and flaxen hair. Opposite him sat his wife, large and broad, full fronted, light-eyed, fair, with hair like her daughter's. The woman was knitting; the daughter's hands hung in her own lap, she leaned her head against the wall behind her, and kept her eyes fixed on the fire. John Cantillon, the man of the house, bent over the fire smoking a short pipe. The words spoken by him had been uttered in Irish. He had referred to the boats of Killard, a small fishing village on the coast of the county Clare.

He himself was a fisherman sailing out of the village on the skirt of which his house stood. He possessed a boat of his own, employed men to assist him, and was proprietor of the nets and tackle ; had purchased them with his savings, and not with money borrowed at interest, as in the case of many of the fishermen of Killard. The chamber in which the family sat discharged the joint duties of kitchen and dining-room. Adoor opened from it to the air. The floor was earthen, a large plate rack, the top of which was covered with the cooking utensils, stood in a line with the door, two sea-chests covered with rush mats made seats for the huge open chimney, down which the wind bellowed, scattering now and then the glittering hail of golden sparks. From a hook, suspended by an iron rod to a cross-beam half way up the chimney, hung a large pot of potatoes over the fire.

AN ARRIVAL AT KILLARD. 3 Dried fish depended from the rafters ; there were four deal chairs and a few three-legged stools. In the (entre of the earthen floor stood a square deal table with stout legs. On a rack facing the door hung some broken fish ing nets and tackle. In the corner lay a pile of cordage and sails, and standing up against the chimney-place were two long slender oars with narrow blades. The table was spread with jugs of milk, knives, mugs, and common blue Delft plates. Opposite the fireplace, and on each side of the plate-rack, was a door, each leading into a small sleeping-chamber. These doors were in a low partition-wall which did not reach to the rafters. Above this wall, and over the sleeping-rooms, yawned a large open space, from which projected boat-gear ; among this gear the dull glare of the peat-fire formed fantastic shapes and made mysterious shadows. ' I think they're done,' said the man, pointing to the pot of potatoes. ' Let us have supper.' The woman rose, lifted the pot off the hook, placed it on the ground, and having thrown a coarse canvas cloth over the steaming water, raised her head awhile, listening to the wind, then looked around, listened again, and shuddered.

Observing her motions, the man of the house stood up, and seizing the pothooks, said : ' It's too wild for you to face the wind, Bridget. I'll take them out and strain them.' Meanwhile the girl had left her place, and was busy arranging the things on the table. Just as the man turned with the pot held in the pothooks at arm's length before him, a loud knocking sounded at the door. The women uttered exclamations. Cantillon placed the pot on the floor and opened the door. I — For an instant the rush of wind deafened all, but it caused the fire to flare up, and showed a tall, broad, lank young man standing hatless against the dark background of the night. He bowed, and made a gesture requesting leave to enter. The master of the house bowed too, and motioned him to come in. He crossed the threshold ; in an instant the door once more closed, and it became possible to hear. ' God save all here,' saluted the stranger. ' God save you kindly, man,' returned Cantillon, looking suspiciously at the unknown face and the powerful frame.

There was a wild expression on the countenance, and the breath of the intruder came short. ' God keep the house, and all that's in it, from hurt or harm,' he continued, gazing around with relief. Now that the wild look yielded a little, Cantillon felt less sus picious. ' Thank you kindly. You're welcome to the house- Take a seat by the fire. You have come a long journey?' With a heavy sigh the traveller threw himself on one of the chests in the chimney-corner, and wiped his fore head with a large blue pocket-handkerchief spotted with circles of white. ' Ay,' he answered, ' I have come a long way to-day ; forty miles on foot, with little to eat, and I've run the last two miles along the cliffs. It's a mercy I didn't go over. They are awful cliffs, full of sudden danger. I steered by the spray.

If there had been no spray I should have been gulls' meat by this, for I could not but run.' He wiped his forehead once more and shuddered. ' But, good man,' demanded Cantillon, from whom all uneasiness had departed by this time, ' what drove you to run two miles in the heel of your heavy day ?' AN ARRIVAL A T KILLARD. 5 'Something I saw,' half whispered the other. ' Something you saw ! What was it ?' ' They told me of it at Cunnager, eight miles south, and that the cliffs were the shortest way, and by them I travelled. It was a bad evening, and when night fell mercy left the elements. The sea was cloud and the clouds were sea, and the land a mist ; and as I came I saw by an island — for there was a young moon struggling for man in the heavens — -I saw in the spray and mist over the waters, by that island, something that stopped my heart and made me wonder if the coast was real or beyond the world.

I saw ' ' We know,' murmured the fisherman, laying his hand kindly on the other's. ' You saw the Spirit of Tears ; she is often seen hereabouts. But she is a good spirit, this Spirit of Tears.' ' The Spirit of Tears,' whispered the two women, drawing closer together. ' There must have been a wreck near the Bishop's Island in this storm. Heaven between us all and harm !' ' Amen,' responded the man devoutly. ' Amen,' whispered the others. Then Cantillon, turning to the stranger, ' You must be fainting for something to eat. Wife, give him milk and bread while I strain the potatoes. When he gets some supper, he'll be for a dance, I warrant.' It was towards the close of November in the year 1843 that the stranger arrived at the house of John Cantillon, in the village of Killard, county Clare. THE M YSTER Y OF KILLARD.

Chapter II. Tom The Fool's News

When supper was over and the table cleared, the four retired to the large chimney-place. This was a kind of interior chamber, open on one side, closed in by the gable of the house at the back, and by two thin walls forming the lower portion of the vast flue. At a height of about five feet from the floor a crossbeam connected the two sides of the flue, and on this beam rested a brick partition, reaching to the roof; this made the fourth side of the chimney. More turf having been heaped on the hearth and the ashes drawn away, the four people assumed easy attitudes. Cantillon sat outside on the same chest as the stranger. Mrs. Cantillon opposite to him, and opposite the young man was Mary, the daughter. The food and rest and warmth had considerably re stored the stranger. In the dull light his countenance looked thoughtful, almost sad.

He was over six feet in height, and had the appearance of great strength, notwithstanding his want of bulk. The two men smoked their pipes. Mrs. Cantillon knitted ; Mary sat leaning her head against the corner, with her hands clasped in her lap. ' No doubt you're wondering what drove me here ?' ' It isn't for us to ask questions. We have bit and sup for those who come, and good welcome, and no questions,' answered Cantillon, with hospitable warmth and still more hospitable humility. ' Well, I'll tell you, anyway. I had a brother named Bill— Bill Martin ' TOM THE. FOOL'S NE WS. 7 ' Bill Martin !' cried the three, rousing up and looking at the speaker with much interest. ' Yes, Bill Martin. He came to these parts four years ago, and was drowned in the spring of this year, he and three others.

As he did well here, and the fishing on the east-coast is bad, I started for Killard across the country, and when I saw the village I rapped at the first house there was a light in ; for I knew that although I was a stranger, and far away from home, the door would be opened, the fire brightened, with a hundred thousand welcomes ; for if I've travelled miles, they were all Irish ones, and, though they tell me the Irish ones are longer than the English, there's always a warm welcome for the stranger at the end of Irish miles, and that shortens the road.' Cantillon had risen ; and when the young man ceased to speak, caught him by the hand and shook him heartily. ' I'm proud to see you. Poor Bill fished in one of my boats, and a carefuller or better hand I never had. But that March gale ; none of us knew 'twas coming.

Poor souls ! — poor souls ! Poor Bill ! Sit down, young man, sit down ; although times aren't here now what they once were, we'll find an oar for you in one of my boats, never fear. Why, I loved poor Bill as if he was my son !' The woman had drawn near Martin ; the arm of the man of the house rested on the stranger's shoulder. Suddenly the door flew open, a wild gust of wind dashed through the room, the women shrieked, the elder dropped on her knees ; she thought the spirit of the living man's brother had come to greet him. In an in stant the door was closed and bolted by a man who had entered ; at the same time his voice was heard crying huskily : ' There, that will keep you out, you bullying vixen ! You won't get at me through that, you cowardly beast ! you she-imp of that black witch !' His tones were fierce and frantic.

Turning and seeing the woman on her knees, he moderated his manner. ' Get up ! Get up, and don't be a fool. Can't you see it's only me, Tom the Fool, and not my she-wolf of a grandmother ? Why is my own flesh and blood always showing the whipcord of the hail where to bite ? Why is that she-wolf of a grandmother always setting the fires of the wind at my ears and neck? Why is that villainous hag always spitting in my face ? Don't be a fool ; it's only Tom the Fool. But I'll be even with my traitor of a grandmother. I'll do what I used to do when she was here ; I'll put snuff in her tea. I'll put snuff in her tea, I will, Mrs. Cantillon, as sure as my name is Tom the Fool !' He uttered this speech in a thick guttural tone, rising to a scream when his vindictiveness predominated, sinking to almost an inarticulate gabble when he spoke to the woman.

In the meantime the latter had risen. ' I come with the tobacco for the man of the house ; real Limerick twist, full of juice, and as lasting as Carri geen moss, only greasier. Smell it. A smell of it would wake a corpse, if he could only be persuaded to draw one breath through his nose. Here's the stockings and stay-laces for the women of the house, and the shawl for the white girl, and here's Stop ! here's the cure for the soldier, but that's not for this house, but for the widow O'Brien — I mean her pigs — between them and all harm.' TOM THE FOOL'S NE WS. 9 From the folds of an ill-fitting oil-coat he produced the articles as he spoke, and handed each to the person for whom it was intended. Tom was the light messenger of the little colony by the sea, and made frequent visits to the small town of Clonmore to purchase articles which the one shop of Killard could not supply.

In winter, when the carts went seldom inland with fish, Tom remained almost the only link connecting Killard with the larger world. As soon as he had delivered all, he sat down on a stool in front of the fire and remained mute. His hands were, however, busy; for drawing one sod of turf out of the fire, he isolated it from the rest, and with the bellows commenced blowing violently at it. ' Any news from Clonmore, Tom ?' demanded Can tillon. Tom took no heed, but went on more vigorously at his blowing. The fisherman repeated his question. Tom's whole faculties were directed to the hissing turf. At length he spoke, in a tone of soliloquy : ' That's the way the she-wolf blew on the Bishop's. That's the way the she-wolf blew on the Bishop's. That way ! that way ! that way ! until she blew him away — blew him away !

Blew him into Killard — blew him into Killard ! Blew the dummy into Killard ; and he's there now, like his father before him, looking for a wife.' Here he flung down the bellows with a loud bang that made all start. ' The dummy looking for a wife in Killard ?' cried Mrs. Cantillon and her husband in a breath. 'Yes; and it must be a dummy wife, too — like his father's; and, faith, the women of Killard aren't much good for dummies, as the men know. So they haven't one that is dumb, or that would act dumbness for half an hour, if you gave her all the red gurnet in the sea ; so he's going inland in the morning to seek farther and fare worse.'

Chapter III

A TITLE DEED. When Tom the Fool had gone, the four people in the fisherman's cottage sat in the same order as before. There was much to talk over — the man's dead brother, the fishing on both the eastern and western coasts, the tackle employed, the kinds, qualities, and value of the fish caught, the winds and currents, and the different sorts of boats used. On the east coast they fished in wooden boats and yawls ; on the west they had currachs of wicker, or slight lath frames, covered with tarred canvas. All this conversation passed between the two men. In a while the subject could yield no more matter for conversation, the traveller was worn out, and volun teered nothing. After a long silence the woman looked at her husband, and said : ' 'Twasn't for nothing the Spirit of Tears was at the Bishop's to-night.

It must have been because that heathen, David Lane, has left it to find a wife like his mother, instead of staying where he is by himself, and letting his bad name and race die out.' ' Hush !' returned the fisherman ; ' it isn't for us to judge. He may be better in the sight of heaven than any one in Killard parish, big as it is. He doesn't do harm to anyone on that lonely island, and who'd grudge him his few hand-lines from the rocks ? Not I ! If I get my bread out of the sea, it isn't I fill the sea with fish, and everyone is free to come and take.' This impartial speech of the man was uttered in a low voice, between whiffs of his pipe ; but towards the end of it there was a twinkle in his blue-grey eye, as though he were talking for a purpose. His object appeared in the tone and purport of his wife's retort. ' As good as any of us !

Well, I like that ! It's yourself all out to say so. My idea is that anyone who could say such a thing is no better than David Lane himself — not, young man, that the heathen has any right to a Christian name, for he never put his feet inside the chapel in all his days, and the blessed water never touched his head, and it's a wonder his head doesn't take fire, the black-hearted unbeliever.' ' That's it,' said the husband, in slow approval ; ' that's it. You see, Bridget, you yourself don't think me more than a bad likeness of him in the way of my talk (though for the matter of that he can't be half so bad, for he doesn't speak an ill word of anyone, and never did), and unless you think there's no one worse than I in the parish, I am, according to your own account, so very near him in badness that you ought to keep your tongue off him, out of respect to his cousin-german in wickedness, that's your husband.' He concealed a smile with his horny hand, and winked solemnly through the firelight at his daughter, who smiled back to him, and clapped her hands softly as they lay in her lap.

Edward Martin saw the wink and the smile. She had not smiled before. He was very tired, but he shook himself up a little, and paid more attention to what was going on. ' Don't mind a word he says, young man,' cried the woman excitedly ; 'he's just as hard on him as anyone else; he's only joking. It's no joking matter, though.' The husband cleared his throat humbly. ' I know,' he replied, keeping his eye fixed on his daughter, ' I know I'm not soft on him, like some of us, because he's a landed gentleman, and owns the Bishop's Island. There's many a girl in the parish would be glad to leave her own people and go there to be lord and master of a whole island, and it isn't clear to me if some of us were widows to-morrow, that we wouldn't jump at David Lane, dumb as he is.' He winked again in the same slow, solemn fashion at his daughter, and she smiled appreciation of his humour. ' There's for you ! there's for you !' cried the wife in exasperation, letting her knitting fall into her lap, and folding her arms. ' I don't mind his making little of me and my taste ; but it ill becomes him to say to my face that I think so meanly of my husband as to put the thought of him and that Lane into one day, let alone anything like a regard for David Lane.

It's too bad, after my years of love and anxiety, and my nights of prayers and dread while he was out in the gales. It's too bad !' Her tone had fallen to one of tearful reproach. The slow, grey eyes of her husband came back to her face, and rested on it tenderly and somewhat proudly. He removed the pipe from his lips, and coughed slightly. ' Whist !' said he ; ' whist, Biddy ! She withdrew her glance from the face of Edward Martin, and for a little while the husband and wife gazed into one another's eyes. His look was a disclaimer of what he had uttered, and an acknowledgment for all her love. Gradually her face lost its look of reproach, and instead showed penitence for not having seen his joke, and behind the penitence confidence and love. When the eyes had done their work, as if by instinct each looked down.

Then the man said in his ordinary way : ' Bridget, tell the traveller about this David Lane, and I won't put it in my last will and testament that you're to marry him, if so be he is a widower. Tell the traveller ; 'twill pass away the time.' The master of the house drew the turf together on the hearth, and refilled his pipe ; the girl unclasped her hands, and placing one against the wall, rested her head on it The young man leaned forward, with one hand on his knee. Outside, the gale still raged and the waters bellowed. Now and then drops of rain hissed in the fire ; but not withstanding exterior tumult, the listening attitudes of all, and the expression of mysterious interest on the countenance of the young man, made the place seem hushed. The fisherman's wife began her tale : ' The Bishop's Island is little more than an acre of land.

There is nothing on it but a low stone hut. It is only two boats' lengths from the shore, and there is no way of getting to it from a boat. Well, long before I was born, this Lane's father used to live in this hut, without paying any rent to the old Lord Clonmore, who owns all hereabouts. The father often came down to the village, and only that he never darkened the door of the chapel, there was nothing against him. You may think that was as bad as it could be, but wait until you hear about what he did later on. ' One winter's day old Lane — he was rising sixty then — gave out that he wanted a wife. Considering the place he lived in, and the smallness of his means (for he made only little by the hand-lines, and plaiting rush-mats wouldn't keep a curlew), everyone in the village was astonished at his boldness ; and, take my word, there was fun to find out who old Lane would get his first refusal from ; all said it would be Ellen Keogh, as she was old and bedridden, and they said that if he married her he needn't take her to the Bishop's, as she'd never run away from him — anyone else, after one month, would be very likely to give him the chance of injuring his health by eating all his earnings.

But he turned the laugh against the village by saying there was nothing in it that would suit him. So he put a stick over his shoulder, and went inland. ' In a month he was back again with his wife. As you may think, all the village went into old Pat Casey's (his son Pat now has the place) on one excuse or another, when they heard of the bride being there. I myself went and saw her. She was a tall, thin, pale-faced, sickly-looking poor creature, who seemed as though she never knew a wholesome day, and had got the Call, and was making ready to go on her long Journey. She had very bright, quick eyes. I noticed them most of all. ' My poor mother spoke to her; the bride smiled, made signs, and shook her head. " He may have got a wife to suit him," thought I ; " but she is as ill-mannered in company as a sow at meals."

Just then in came her husband, and he said, " Don't take offence, neighbours, at her not speaking to you ; she can't — she's a dummy." ' With those words he made signs to her, and she got up, and the bride and bridegroom went out in the wind and rain, and walked across the downs to the Bishop's, he keeping in front to shelter her from the weather. Where he got her no one knew, and why he married a dumb wife no living man or woman ever since found out ; but after this people shunned him, and there were queer stories told about the Island, and fires were seen on it, and voices were heard, and the Spirit of Tears often came there, as you saw her to-night ; and the neighbours said that he sold himself into Darkness, and had dealings with the Evil One. ' In course of time, he brought his wife back to the village, hired old Pat Casey's back-room, and there a son was born to him, and there the young mother, after kissing her baby, put her hand on her poor deaf ears as though she heard at last, though no one had spoken in the room.

It was the Call, and she smiled, and then she died. ' I remember the day well. It was a Monday. I take my token of it by the coming back on the Sunday before of Andy Blake from the wars in Spain, where he lost his right arm. He said he put his sword and his arm into one of the enemy, and broke off the arm in the wound to poison the foeman ; but he was always talking queerly. ' No one in the village cared to have the child (though it was well-grown and hearty), because of the noises and the sights about the Bishop's ; so, after a little time, the man Lane carried the child inland and left it, he said, with his wife's people. ' For four years nothing particular happened. Then one day, while my mother was buying candles at old Pat Casey's, a man in a shawl came in and asked where Lane lived. The man carried a rosy-cheeked boy, gathered in under the shawl on his back.

The stranger was footsore and tired, so old Pat Casey sent some one to call Lane. THE MYSTERY OF KILLARD. My mother waited with an excuse of expecting my father to come there for her on his way to the boats. ' When Lane arrived and saw the boy, he took him in his arms and kissed him. Then, setting him on the floor, he lifted the tin scoop out of the scales, and threw it with all his might on the ground behind where the child stood. The men jumped and my mother screamed. Lane had his eyes fixed on the boy, who never moved nor even winked his lids, but stared around. As soon as the father saw this, he fell on his knees in the middle of the shop, and cried out : ' " Thank God he cannot hear !' " ' It was a mercy the father wasn't struck dead who thanked Heaven for a blight he himself had helped to bring into the world by marrying that dumb creature.