Glencoonoge. A novel

Front matter

GLENCOONOGE GLENCOONOGE A NOVEL BY R B. SHERIDAN KNOAVLES IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. I. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCXCI All Rights reserved i, CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAP. PAGE I. HORACE SHIPLEY (OP LIVERPOOL) EN ROUTE, . 1 II. ROUGH QUARTERS, ...... 21 III. THE STRANGER'S STORY, ..... 45 IV. INSULA SACRA, ...... 68 V. OLD ACQUAINTANCE, ..... 97 VI. FALSE ALARMS, . . . . . .114 VII. THE LAW AND THE CHURCH, .... 149 VIII. SOUGHT AND FOUND, . . . .183 IX. FOREIGN ELEMENTS, ..... 227 X. A CRISIS, ....... GLENCOONOGE. CHAPTEE I. HORACE SHIPLEY (OF LIVERPOOL) EN ROUTE. Towards the end of last September, I had recovered sufficiently from an attack of illness to be able to set out for Glencoonoge, a village which is near, and gives its name to a tranquil creek off one of the great bays on the south west coast of Ireland.

I had always found the balmy climate of that place to be the best restorative after a visit of the throat affection to which I was at one time very subject, but which returns, I am happy to say, at longer intervals as I get older. My friends ridicule VOL I. A GLENCOONOGE. me, and the doctor smiles, when I talk of Glencoonoge as my panacea. They say it is a fancy, and mention a dozen places in this country more accessible and better suited to my complaint, As it irritates me to argue, I leave them to enjoy their opinion, and take my own way undeterred. Yet now as I sit here reflecting, it occurs to me that fancy may have something to do with my predilection ; but what of that 1 I read the other day that people often fancy them selves into real illnesses, and that sometimes the best medicines are powerless in the presence of fancies ; so that fancies after all deserve to be taken into account.

Perhaps it is not alone the c;enial air — though I'll swear there's none to equal it — that attracts me to Glencoonoge. Very likely associations created by repeated pleasant sojourns there have much to do with the charm which its mere name has for my ears. At the word my spirits rise, I am transported into another world — a world shut off by many a mountainous mile from railways and civilisa tion : a world of opposites — of rocky highlands, of wooded slopes, of ferny glens and rugged gorges, of noisy torrents and of tranquil seas ; and in thought I move among the rural company dwelling there, with whom my first acquaintance as a stranger some years ago has ripened into friendliness and a knowledge tolerably intimate. Fancy or no fancy, it is simple truth that the boat is no sooner out of the Mersey and fairly at sea, than I am forgetting the grimy town behind us and everything connected with it, my ailment included, and am looking ahead full of pleasurable expectancy.

Chapter II. Rough Quarters

A sturdy-looking labourer in corduroys, sitting on a wooden stool in a corner of the room eating his supper of smoking potatoes, and a woman busy at the fire, turned their faces towards the intruders. " Good evening, Mike," cried the jarvey from behind us. The labourer's face brightened. " Good even ing kindly, Thady," he answered ; " and what brings you in this part o' the world on such a night ? " " Och ! you know I am out in all weathers and everywhere at once. Here's two gentle men would like a night's lodgings, and 'tis you can give them what they want, equal to GLENCOONOGE. the best in the country, as I'm after telling them." " You're welcome," said the host, looking at us doubtfully ; " but " " You can give us beds, I suppose ? " said I. " AVe can," said the man, after looking us over again, " if they're good enough for you."

" And can you give us anything to eat ? " said my companion. " Certainly," replied the man. " AAThat, for instance \ " we both asked to gether. Mike, as the jarvey bad called him, looked at his wife, who considered. " Tea ? " she said, tentatively. AVe waited. "And — and eggs ?" she added, growing bolder. " Tea and eggs. Anything else ? " She shook her head. " AVhat ! no bread and butter ? " " Oh ! " she said, drawing herself up with dignity, " bread and butter in plenty." " And potatoes," added the man, pointing to the smoking dish before him. " Let's have a look at the beds," said I, though it was a mere formality, for it would have been impossible to have gone further that night under any circumstances. Mike lighted a rush and led the way through a door in a low wooden partition to another compartment of the cabin, large enough, how ever, to hold two good-sized bedsteads, and allow of a narrow passage between them.

Of wash hand-stand, or other of the usual accompani ments of a bedroom, there was no sign. AVe felt the rustling straw mattresses and called for a look at the sheets. They were of a brown holland stuff, quite new, and very stiff and cold. But when you have no alternative, it is wasting breath to criticise, and besides, there were simple looks bent on us full of anxiety for approval. " I shall sleep soundly here to-night, that's certain," said I. " AVe might do worse," remarked the traveller, looking up at the rafters. There was a great bustle going on in the kitchen. My companion laid aside his wraps, and I took off my waterproof. The woman put a big kettle and a small pot on the fire. The GLENCOONOGE man brought me hot water, and I was soon dryly shod. " I see you have every comfort with you," said my fellow-traveller, as I fastened up my knapsack.

He was regarding me with folded arms from his position before the fire. " AVere you long under that rain? You must have been drenched." "Not so bad as that; my waterproof got most of the rain, and now I am as dry as I see you are. How those clothes are smoking ! We can't eat in a fog like this ! " " Never fear, sir," said the woman ; " I am laying the supper down in the parlour below." Down in the parlour below ! There were un suspected realms then in this habitation, which had looked so unpretending outside, and the mysterious mounds among which I had passed the morning, and my thoughts regarding them, rushed back on me. " The parlour below ! " Gracious ! Once a dungeon, perhaps, the scene of wails and misery in the days of its prime, now in its decadence the pride of the honest folk who own it, and the delight of tired travellers, who hear that supper is preparing "down in the parlour below."

The woman's words did in a vague yet pleasant way suggest all sorts of possibilities. I looked at my com panion to see their effect upon him, but he, lost in thought, had turned his back on me, and was now looking into the fire, shading his face with his hands. At last all was ready. The hostess dis appeared with her final load, and our host, holding a rush-light above his head, civilly informed us that he would now show us the way " down to the parlour below." But, alack ! it was only the people's way of speaking. AVe hadn't to descend at all to get to the apart ment : it was only a pace or two away, a recess behind the chimney, shut off from the rest of the cabin by a door, and in size something larger than a cupboard. The walls had been roughly papered, and pushed up into a corner was a little round table spread for us ; and we were to sit there with our backs to the other three corners, which were near enough to look over our shoulders as we ate.

Volumes of GLENCOONOGE. smoke were pouring from a small modern grate, where an attempt had been made to light a fire. The dim light which our host carried did not make the room less gloomy to our eyes, fresh from the roaring kitchen fire. As I looked around a protest was fast rising to my lips, and it was only checked when my eye fell on the face of the proprietor, who was eagerly following our glances, and looking from one to the other as if he would enjoy our surprise at so much luxury. " A'ery comfortable," said the traveller, in answer to the look ; " all we want now to make us perfectly happy is to have that window open." " I'm sorry to say it isn't made to open. But if you don't like the smoke I can lave the door ajar, so that it will come into the kitchen. Is there anything else I can do for you, gentlemen ?

" AVe said there was nothing. So Mike retired, with a last request that we would call for any thing we might want. " By the way," said I to my companion as we sat down, "what has become of the driver? I must not forget him, for he has done me a good turn to-night." " You are indebted to me, if to any one. Thady and his car are in my service. But you are very welcome ; pray say no more about it." " But I'll share the cost of the car with you. I insist on that." " You are undertaking more than you bargain for," said he, cracking an egg. "I have hired ' o OO this fellow and his car for several days." " You must do a great deal of travelling," I remarked, having settled it in my mind that he was a commercial traveller. I had met many of them at the different hotels where I had stopped. "I have travelled a good deal in my time, " No doubt, sir, you know this part of the country.

Can you tell me " " Ah ! Thady is your man for that. I have never been here in my life before ; but he knows every inch of the ground and the owner of every house and field. And he's willing enough to part with his information. But he claims to GLENCOONOGE. know so much that I suspect he trusts a good deal to his imagination for his facts. He has cousins in this town whom he hasn't seen for some time — one reason, I suppose, w*hy he was so anxious to stop. He has gone to put up his horse and car and spend the evening with his friends. They would never forgive him, it seems, if he were to stay anywhere else." " And a merry party I've no doubt they'll be around the hearth, with plenty to say and hear, and news to learn, and fun and laughter mixed with it all. I envy the Irish their sociability."

He only grunted, and said, " That depends, I should think, on whether you happen to be in the humour for being sociable. If you are not, high spirits are the most wearisome things in the world to my mind." A little astonished, and not sure whether this was intended as a rebuff for my talkativeness, I waited till he might declare himself further ; but he continued to eat and drink in silence, and I followed his example, considering the while whether my benefactor was or was not morose. His shortness favoured the conjecture that he was ; but on the other hand he had allowed his driver to go and see his friends ; he had abstained from so much as a word of dis paragement either of our homely quarters or of our host's idiotic attempts at civilisation ; and had he not lifted me out of a perfect slough of despond ?

Besides, there was every excuse for a man's saying as little as possible in a smoky room ; and I believe we were both equally pleased to exchange the miserable grandeur of Mike's " parlour " for the honest comfort of his kitchen, where we found him placidly smoking his pipe, as far away from the fire as he could get, for it was large enough for a furnace and scorching hot. With a rough courtesy Mike placed a couple of chairs for us, somewhat nearer to the blaze than his own, taking occasion to remark in doing so that the rain had stopped, and the missis had gone across to sit a while with a sick neighbour. And there the three of us sat, soberly smoking and saying little. My fellow-guest indeed was as silent as he had been at supper. His eyes roved about the room, how ever, scanning the rafters, or the whitewash on GLENCOONOGE. the walls, or the bricked floor ; and rested presently on the fire, where he found much matter seemingly for consideration.

The labourer was more disposed for conversation ; but his stock of information, which mostly related to himself and his affairs, was soon exhausted. He told me that the potato crop had been good " the year"; that he himself could neither read nor write, had never been twenty miles beyond where he sat in his life ; and (with much hesitation and wariness, and after several attempts to ascertain what our views might be) that he didn't approve of politics. He had brothers and sisters in America, and nephews and nieces close by who were " good scholards " ; but for his own part he didn't miss the larnin', seeing how without it he was as well off as many that had it, and had no desire to see the world, for he knew them that had travelled and weren't a whit happier than himself. " Nor so happy," he added, after six meditative whiffs, which ended his pipe.

Seeing my companion looking rather dole fully into his tobacco-pouch, which he found on opening to be empty, Mike got up and brought out from somewhere the pot containing his own supply, and requested him to help himself. " Thank'ee," said his guest, breaking silence. " It's very good. AVhere do you get it 1 " " At the store opposite," said Mike ; " and you're right, sir, 'tis very good. I'd never wish for better." " Limerick twist, isn't it ? " " That and none other," answered Mike, with a glance of mixed curiosity and respect at the gentleman who, silent as he was, knew what was what. " Dear me," mused the said gentleman ; " are there stores in an out-of-the-way place like this?" " There are so. And it isn't only tobacco that they sell, but anything you might like to call for. Now I don't think there's anything you can name that they haven't got in that shop.

You'd be surprised." " Oh ! I know well enough what a store is. I keep one myself," and he waved his hand towards the fire, " away in Australia. Let me GLENCOONOGE. recommend you, my friend, if you ever emigrate, to go in for a store. It's the best and quickest way of making money." " Ay, ay ? " said Mike, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, which he laid on the bench beside him, and stretching out his legs, and folding his arms, he composed himself to listen. " It beats gold-digging. Few gold-diggers get rich, and fewer keep their money. Success in the gold-fields is demoralising : it is a flash in the pan. The luck, the suddenness, the ease, the excitement, all carry a man off his legs, and lessen his patience and self-control. Perhaps it is fortunate that so few succeed. I have tried my hand at it myself, but was never lucky."

Mike, to whom all this had been addressed, made no response. His head had fallen on his breast, his eyes were closed, and he saw nothing but his own sweet dreams. The soothing pipe, the comfortable warmth, his hard day's work, and the stranger's voice, had combined to lull him into the most tranquil of slumbers. " Look at that fellow," said the Australian to me, after contemplating the sleeper for a moment, " he is a practical philosopher. I wonder whether he knows how wise he is. Happy man ! living where he was born, among his own people, and enjoying all his life a contentment which some of us have searched for round the world without finding." " I don't know that I envy him much. I shouldn't like to have to smoke that tobacco of his. Throw it away, and take some of mine," and I held out my pouch.

" No, thank'ee ; I like this well enough. It reminds me of times rather pleasant to look back upon — by comparison. I was horribly miserable, but I have more reason to be unhappy now than I had then. Oh yes, I have smoked this, or something quite as bad, before. My experience of tobacco is as varied as my ex perience of occupations. I have been sailor, porter, day-labourer, gold-digger, and shopman. I know what bad tobacco is." These scraps of self-revelation made me look at my companion more closely. In figure be was above the middle height, broad and well built ; his talk was sometimes accompanied by a VOL. I. C GLENCOONOGE. gesture or a motion of the head, the easy vigour of which betokened strength of body, and there was certainly strength of will in the jaw and mouth. Yet now and then, when his thoughts wandered and his face relaxed, certain lines would gather in his forehead, and a look of discontent would steal into the face, weakening the expression.

There was a recklessness in his attitude as he sat there, his clear-cut face embrowned and weather-beaten, his hair falling shaggily across his forehead. He must have felt my examination, which I remember was perfectly undisguised, for, leisurely turning his head, he looked me full in the face. Yes, those brown eyes were not merely thoughtful ; there was fire in them as well as melancholy. But the suggestion of awakening light which I saw died out almost immediately. His coun tenance relaxed, and a smile broke over it — with that pleasing effect a smile nearly always has on a face where it is seldom seen — as he said : " I don't think there has been much trouble or adventure in your life." He was much about my own age, and no doubt that was why I felt slightly piqued at having to own how very limited my experience was of any kind, and that my easy position had been gained otherwise than by my own efforts ; that I had found it ready-made, in fact, and had been content to take things pretty much as I found them.

But I took occasion to let him know I had good reasons for supposing that should I ever be called upon to display energy or meet difficulties, I would not be found wanting, because I came of very energetic stock. And I told him about my father, Ambrose Shipley : how he had started in life as a navvy on a railway, and, with hardly any education, but gifted with a cool head, shrewd sense, and sound health, had always seen his opportunities, and had risen from small successes to greater ones ; and by dint of labour, calculation, nerve, steadiness of thought, promptness in word and action throughout a long period, has become, as a contractor for the carriage of coals, as a promoter and director of several short and paying lines of railway, and as a fortunate speculator in land, one of the wealthiest men in Liverpool.

GLENCOONOGE. " It doesn't take long to speak of all this," 1 concluded ; " but it has been the work of a life time — no sudden success, no mere flash in the pan such as you have just been speaking of; but my hard-headed father's prosperity has been steady and increasing, and at this mo ment there is not in Liverpool a man more respected." " And his energy has not only been strong enough to carve out his own fortune, but to O shape your career as well." " AVhy, hang it all," said I, " I might go farther than the governor's office and fare worse. AVe can't all be originators. But businesses are like dynasties and great families, liable to die out ; and it . is something to have continued them, though the achievement is not perhaps so striking as to have founded them." " Yes," said the traveller, doubtfully.

" A man is sometimes clearly born to certain duties " "Your son, for instance," I shot in, "will naturally succeed you in the management of your store." " If he has an aptitude for it — not otherwise. If ever I have a son, his destiny shall not be artificially decided. AAThile he is young, he shall know as little as possible concerning the careers of those of his blood who have gone before him who have been in any way distin guished. His mind shall have due training, but its growth and bent shall not be forced : its natural tendencies shall be observed and con sidered, but the application of its powers shall not be soon determined ; it shall open of itself, unconsciously, as the rose does — receive its seed at the hand of nature, and produce its fruit in the maturity of time." "You speak as if you had thought and felt about this matter."

"Ay, it is a subject I have thought a lot about," saying which, he replaced his pipe between his lips, and beginning to puff vigor ously, sent out volumes of smoke in quick and vehement succession. Gradually the speed with which the clouds flew forth slackened, and he returned to that reflective mood which it is the boast of smoking to induce. GLENCOONOGE. " You see," he resumed, " I look upon myself as the victim of quite an opposite plan. Almost before the time when I could distinctly remember anything, I was aware of a portrait which used to hang in a room of my father's house. I have never seen the picture since I was a boy, but I have a painful recollection of every feature of it : the white hair, the ruddy beaming face, the stick on which the old man's hands rested one on the other ; the high-collared body-coat he wore, the heavy black neck-cloth, and the bit of white collar appearing just above it ; — above all, the expression on his face, which always held me in suspense — an expression as if he were just going to speak.

As I grew older, I loved to hear my mother talk of him — he was her father — better than of any fairy tale or ghost story that she ever told me. And what was the fascina tion, think you ? Simply that in his career my mother saw the prophecy of mine; and from her I caught the same fancy. I was like him, she said ; the same eyes, and the same look in them— the same temper to a T. And so I used to listen eagerly to accounts, which my mother never tired of repeating, of the incidents of his career. " I should tell you my grandfather's history was a romantic one. AVhen a boy, he ran away to sea— choosing the life of all others that his friends most objected to. For years they heard nothing of him ; when suddenly one day there entered a fine young man, with bronzed face, dark hair, and brown eyes, dressed in pilot-cloth, as my mother never forgot to say, and a cap, round which were bands of gold braid.

Many and many have been the childish tears of delight I shed, as I heard of my great-grandfather feebly rising from his chair, all of a tremble, of my great-grandmother giving a cry, clapping her hands, and falling into a faint. I too jumped about with an excitement of joy as great as that of my grand-aunt, then ten years old, when she heard that the handsome young stranger was her brother, whose loss she had so often heard bew*ailed. ' Oh I ' I used to think, ' only to be the hero of such a scene ! ' ! Again the Australian put his pipe in his mouth, and smoked stoically for a few minutes. GLENCOONOGE. " That lad," he resumed with a sigh, " lived to be an admiral, and he lies buried now in St Paul's, in London. I was never tired of listening to my mother's stories of his battles, of his wounds, of his hair-breadth escapes.

She had heard all his adventures from his own lips in his old age ; and her enthusiasm infected me. I wonder how many hours I have sat or stood alone beneath his picture, looking up at his face, which would vary with my thought, and losing its age become that of a child intent on high designs, of a boy friendless and alone, combating difficulties, winning his way, and achieving success. Now he was the sunburnt youth returning to home and kindred, rejoicing their hearts and filling them with pride ; now the hero of a hundred fights, fearless amidst the thunder of battle ; now the white-haired, kind old man, crowned with fame, telling the story of his life, — the same who looked down upon me from the canvas — me his wondering grandchild. How I loved that good old man ! And he, too he loved me, I could see it plainly; for as I continued to look, that disposition in his lips to move grew stronger every instant, until I could almost hear him say, with a half-searching, half pleased look, ' Is that you, my grandson ?

Can you follow in my steps ? AVill you be gallant, noble, brave, fearless of death, when you are a man ? I think you will ! ' " It was too bad," continued the Australian, bitterly. " The idea developed in me that I was destined to great things. I was myself the hero of all my boyish reading. AVhen I went to college I was noted for' being the most silent and self-absorbed boy in the place, and the most unpopular. My isolation drove me more and more in upon myself, and I read and brooded and spoke little. The romantic visions of adventures, trials, and achievements my brain was full of were no languid dreamings, but fer mented hotly within me. As I have said, I was generally disliked, not only by the boys, but by the masters. But the dislike was ac companied by a certain amount of respect, for I was a good fighter when provoked, and one or two displays of my prowess soon caused me to be respected by the other fellows, amongst whom GLENCOONOGE.

I was suffered thenceforth to mope unmolested. The masters too had heard of me, and for the most part they were men of discretion. And so I passed some years at college, less cuffed and knocked about on the whole than my neighbours. By the time I was fourteen I was the tallest boy in the college, and had settled it in my own mind that it would no longer be consistent with honour to accept anything in the way of bodily chastisement. It was during the holidays, I remember, that I arrived at this conclusion, and it may be that on returning to school I carried my determination in my bearing, and was even less genial than before. There was a new master there, a fellow six feet high, broad in proportion, and a good athlete. I took a strong dislike to him at once. I felt I was not able for him, that was one reason ; and for another, he was very contemptuous in his treat ment of me from the outset.

As ill-luck would have it, he was appointed prefect — that is to say, he presided over the playground and in the study while we were preparing for class. I made no attempt to conciliate him, and he lost no opportunity of pooh-poohing me. All the disfavour of which I was the object in the school gathered around him and poured into his ears stories to show I was proud and sulky and quarrelsome. One day, for what immediate reason I never quite knew, this fellow gave me a clouting with a book he had in his hand. It happened in the study. Furious at the in dignity, and remembering my determination — all eyes were turned on me, my prestige was gone if I tamely submitted — I seized my slate with both hands, and flung it wildly at the man's head. It missed him, and flew crashing through the window.

I looked fearlessly round. No one dared meet my look, and my soul swelled triumphantly within me. Come of it what might, I said to myself, I had not forfeited my self-respect. " Ha ! " he continued, drawing a long breath, and beating his foot quietly upon the ground, " what a merciless thrashing I got to be sure ! and three days' solitary confinement after it on bread-and-water. I must have been strong, I must have had a strong will not to have been GLENCOONOGE. conquered. I never received one word or sign of sympathy from any one. All the world was against me, and I hardened myself against all the world. Once in those long dark hours there flashed out of the blackness the figure of my white-haired grandfather, sitting, as was his wont, with his hands upon his stick-handle, and the eager look of inquiry in his face.