Marcella Grace ... New, illustrated edition

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" Maybe ye'd like a tkrade to work at, betther nor a husband to aim for ye?" — See page 12. BY ROSA MULHOLLAND, AUTHOR OF "THE WILD BIRDS OF KILLEEVY," "THE WICKED WOODS OF TOBEREEVIL," ETC. NEW, ILLUSTRATED EDITION. LONDON! KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., Ltd., PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD, CHAPTEE I. HER MOTHER WAS A LADY. In that part of Dublin known as the Liberties there lived an old man called Grace with his daughter Marcella. The father, though an educated son of the people, had seen better days, had once been a master-weaver, and had married a lady. But the daughter never had seen better days, her mother, the lady, had been dead before she could walk, and all the good times were gone before she had sense to be aware of their existence. The old man had of late years gradually sunk to Mis original level, and consoled himself with a single loom and his pipe ; and the daughter, while mending his clothes and striving to make him com fortable, had somehow grown into a woman.

They lived in a quaint old part of the .Liberties, called Weaver's square, a spot that reminded one of a dilapidated nook of some ancient foreign town, for the houses of a dark brick were built with high peaked fronts, and flat narrow windows, and had peculiarities of their own which marked them as of a different quality from the ruder and uglier dwell ings that surrounded them. It was a place in habited by poplin weavers ever since the establish ment of the trade iu the neighborhood, by Huguenot settlers in the olden time. Tabinet-weaving, once a flourishing art, is now on the wane and threatening to decay. Michael Grace had gone down with the trade, and was now dragged lower every day by the increasing infirmities of years. Tte house in which they lived stood at the en trance to the square, and was larger than the rest, with some heavy stone-carving about the hall-door, and massive sdls to the windows.

The dwelling had probably been at one time the country-house of gentlefolks, and had got budt up to, and walled around, and had found itself caught iu a network of foul streets, and long left behind by its old frequent ers. Wi th the perpetual frown under it s windo w s and the streams of damp on its walls, it had a brooding, weeping look, which seemed ever to deplore its reverse of fortune. In his -palmy day?>, Grace had bought the old house, and furnished it in a manner which he had considered splendid ; and here he bad brought his wife, who had never, certainly, seen the neighborhood before, who probably had not liked it, and who here had died. Marcella had been born in the house, and there was something' about its aspect which seemed to harmonize with the character of the girl. In spite of its sad and lone some air, it had also its gracious aspect, and held the same relation to the other houses in the streets that Marcella occupied among the people, being one of themselves, though standing a little apart, and, undoubtedly, a good deal the pride, and slightly the envy of its neighbors.

Chapter II. Nothing Wrong

Marcella got up from her seat, and went down into the mddewed old hall, and spoke through the keyhole. " Who wants to get in so late at night ? I cannot open." " Open for God's sake !" said a voice. " 'Tis a matter of life and death.1' More information as to character is sometimes conveyed in the tones of a voice than in the ex pression of an eye, and Marcella, believing instinc tively in the owner cf the voice, opened the door without further hesitation. In an instant it was shut again by a pair of strong hands, and a man was standing in the darkness in the ball beside her. By the very faint ray of lamplight that came through the dusty and broken fanlight, she could just see that he was tall and dark, pale and weary looking. " You have done a good act," he said ; "I am more thankful t'lan I can say.

Will you go further, and find me a hiding-place for a few hours ? I trust myself entirely into your hands. But first of all, let me assure you before God that I have done nothing wrong. "It is a serious thing," said Marcella, hurriedly, for the urgency of his manner pressed her. "I am a young girl, and my father is an old man, and there are only two of us in the house. We are very poor, and I think if you were not good we should hardly be worth your notice. And if you are good and in trouble — " " I do not boast of much goodness, but I am not a wicked man, and I am in a strait. Is there any place in the house where you could conceal me? I have reason to fear I have been watched, and may be searched for here." " There is a place," said Marcella, " though not a comfortable one. Come up stairs and I will show it to you."

She led the way up the worm-eaten stair. Old Michael Grace slept heavily, and the light sound of their feet did not wake him. Marcella knew that the times were troubled, and that it was a moment when a man might be in a strait through bis political opinions. She therefore asked no more questions a^d hoped for the best. At a'l events, once fast ened up in the old secret closet behind the panel in the unused room, at some distance from that in which she and her father lived, the stranger would be safe, and also incapable of delivering him self till she should choose to release him with her own hands. Even if he were a robber — She fetched her small lamp, and holding it over her head rejoined the stranger on the threshold of the mouldy and deserted room, into which she had introduced him. A robber!

What a fool she must be to have allowed such an idea to cross her mind for an in stant, was her thought as she glanced at the face on which the meagre lamplight fell. It was the thoughtful face of a cultivated gentleman, a countenance of no ordinary cast, pale, thin, and worn, with a look of noble resolve and manly determination on the brow and mouth. " Such a man could do, could think no wrong." thought Marcella, with enthusiasm, whde the piercing grey eyes of the stranger scanned her own face and form, wondering much, even in the midst of h:s own anxiety, that so beautiful and intelligent a creature should be found harboring in this rotten old shelter in the midst of the poverty and squalor of the city slums. " The closet is here, si-," she said, putting her hand on the wood that still lined thestrong-builtwalls.

"It was evidently made for a hiding-place in olden times, and I think nobody remembers its existence but me.*' For a moment her words, and unconsciously graceful action as she looked over her shoulder at him, suggested the conceit that this was no woman who had come to his aid, but the ghost of some long dead lady of quality, who had once dwelt in state in the now dilapidated mansion, and who had come back opportunely to reveal to him the secret of her house, pleased that there had occurred yet another opportunity for the service of the once needful hiding-place. Marcella threw open a door, formed by the panel, which creaked on its rusty hinges, and disclosed a small chamber long enough for a man to lie his full length in, and high enough to allow of his standing upright. It smelt of decay and damp, and was as dark as a dungeon.

" It is ventilated through the outer wall," she said ; " so you cannot be smothered. At what time shall I come back to let you out?" " About an hour before daylight, if you will be so good." He was going to say something more when a loud knocking began to resound upon the street door which had so lately admitted him. Marcella instantly closed the closet and extin guished her light, which, as the room was a back one, could not have been yet seen by the new appli cants for admittance to the house. Then she crept away to the little room where she slept, got iuto bed, and lay still. Tbis time she was determined she would not open the door to strangers. The knock ing went on for five or ten minutes, and at last be came so loud that Michael Grace was awakened by it. The old man sat up in his bed aud listened in a-rtonishment.

It did not seem to him that the house was on fire, and what other reason could there be for such au assault upon his house after mid night? Grumbling, and muttering a few charac teristic oaths, he groped out of his room and went stumbling down the staircase, anc. confronted the assailant of his knocker (a knocker that was one of the few relics of grandeur the old fellow had got to be proud of) with a face of thunder. At ihe sight of the police his countenance altered, not for the better, however, and a storm of abuse greeted the stalwart servants of the law. " You great overgrown fools," he said, " what brought you to an honest man's dure at such an hour of the night — ormornin? — bad scran to me if I know which of them it is !" " Aisy, Mister Grace, aisy !" said the head police man. " It's not you we have to do with.

But you see there's been a bad job done to-night " " Of course there has !" sneered Grace. " Many's tho bad job done ivery night that you've got no eyes to see, Mister Omadhaun. Why didn't you take whoever was afther doin' the job that ye're talkin' of, an' not come routin' a dacent man out of his bed to tell him the news that he could wait for till mornin'?" " Come, come," said the policeman. " I tell you I am going to search your house. We have reason to suspect that a person concerned in the affair is hiding here." "Dropped down the chimney, I suppose, or into the letter-box," said Grace, talking in a sarcastic tone, and glancing towards the slit in the massive door (another source of his pride), where a letter box once had been. " Nothing more likely to hap in the world, Misther Peeler, when a dacent man is asleep "j Here the policeman put the master of the house aside, and walked noisily up the crazy stairs, followed by a volley of imprecations of a ludicrous and harmless character from the exasperated Grace.

" You unmannerly giant ; may you grow so broad that no door will be able to recave you ! May ye live to have to boil yer potatoes in that ugly pot of a helmet ye wear on your stupid head !" By this time the policemen were searching the house, followed by Grace threatening and abusing them. " I'll have ye up before the Lord Lif tenant himself, so I wdl. Where's yer warrant ? The law's agin you " " Whist, man," said the second policeman, good humoredly. Do you think ye are in England? Cock ye up with a warrant ! Don't ye know you're livin' under the Coercion Act ?" " Bedad, so I am," said Grace, " an' I forgot it entirely. Well, now, Mr. Policeman, are you satisfied nobody is here? Nicely you've let misthei, what's his name — Captain Moonlight — I beg his pardon — slip through your fingers!"

" There's a room here that we have not opened." " My daughter's room. Then do you want me to brain you ?" But at the same moment Marcella appeared at her door. " Let them come in, father. You know it is the law." " Beg pardon, Miss, but we have to do our duty." In a few seconds the big men of the massive belts and helmets were out on the landing again, admit ting to each other that they had got a wrong scent. The house had been easy enough to search. Ex cept in the corner of it occupied by the weaver and his daughter, there was no furniture behind which a man could hide. A look into the empty rooms, with their decaying ceilings and floors, was suffi cient, and even the inhabited chambers could not have long concealed a cat. With another apology to Marcella the policemen soon turned on their heels and retreated from the place, followed by the gibes and jeers of the master of the ddapidated dwelling.

Marcella stood for a moment irresolute on tho threshold of her room, as her father came grumbling up the sta'r again after fastening the door. Should she tell him what she had done, relieve her mind of the responsibility she had incurred, andplacethe fate of the concealed stranger in his hands ? She felt that she could not doit. There was no knowing what view a man so uncertain . of humor, though with so good a heart as her father, might take of the affair. If he chose to make up his mind in stantly that the refugee was a criminal, skulking from justice, he might deliver him up and undo the good she had done, for she felt assured that it was good. On the other band, a knowledge of what had occurred this night might at some future time in volve the old man in difficulty and danger. He had acted in all sincerity in dismissing the police.

She alone was accountable for misleading them; and so she elected to remain. Let her take the sole responsibility of her impulsive action. Grace returned to his bed, and the girl crept back to her?, to lie awake, counting the hours by the strokes of St. Patrick's bell, waiting for the moment for her prisoner's release, and thinking anxiously over this strange event that had broken upon the poverty-stricken monotony of her existence. Her imagination was possessed by a troubled won der as to the " bad job " that had been done. How had that man with the noble face got himself mixed up in such an affair ? Though she did not read the papers, Marcella heard enough of what they contained from her father, who was a lively politician (as what Irishman is not ?) to be well Marcella threw open a door, formed by the panel, and disclosed a small chamber. — Seepage 18. aware that she was living in troubled times, that a struggle was going on between class and class which she could not understand, and that wicked deeds had been done.

In her secret heart Marcella was on the side of the powers that be. The spirit of her lady-mother's forefathers was at this moment more strong within her than sympathy with the " people," w_o were to her represented chiefly by the drinking, idle and disorderly crowd who made the slums around her hideous on a Saturday night. Her heart yearned towards the beings of nice living, refined habits, and finer perceptions, whom she vaguely knew as the upper classes, and of whose Kind she felt herself to be. More wise, more intelligent, better educated than the others, why should they not be more fitted to regulate the affairs of the world? She trusted them, b.indly following the instinct that was in her blood. She reflected now that if an outrage had been com mitted in the streets, the gentleman in her keeping was little likely to have been concerned in it.

Had the man been of a coarser mould, had he failed, when seen, to match with the vibrations of his voice, which had gained admittance by appeal ing to her charity, she would, she told herself, have awakened her father directly and placed the affair in his hands. But the secret of a person like this she could venture to keep to herself. Something which she could not have described in the stranger's face, an expression not easily ana lyz d even by persons accustomed to ticket and label their thoughts, had impressed the untutored girl so vividly that the countenance must hence forth remain on her memory as the incarnation of all that was strong, chivalrous and stainless in manhood. Quick and keen in her perceptions, she recog nized this fact as she lay thinking, and was glad that she had seen the face.

During .the rest of that life of hers which was to be spent sewing in a garret among coarse surroundings she could hold it in her memory, much as she cherished the picture of her patron saint upon the wall. At last, hearing the hour beginning to toll at which she was to give back his liberty to the in truder, she arose, dressed quickly, and not daring to strike a light, made her way by the glimmer of the faint moonlight into the mouldy recesses of the panelled chamber. The closet was quickly opened, and the stranger stepped out of it. "I heard the police making search," he said, "and I know how prudent you have been for my sake. How is it possible for me to thank you?" "I want no thanks," said the girl. "The poor are accustomed to do any little good turn they can. It was fortunate for you that you happened to knock at this door, though ; for in no other house would there have been a closet like that " "Yes, it was providential; I do not overlook that part of it.

But any other girl would have raised an alarm. I am deeply grateful for your caution, and your trust in me, both of which have been of the utmost service to me." " You may wonder, perhaps, that I did not tell jny father," said Marcella ; and even in the moonlight he could see the vivid color that dyed her face as the idea occurred to her that possibly he thought her less maidenly, even if more self-re liant, than others would have been under the cir cumstances ; " and if you had been any other man I would have done so." Any other man ! Was it possible this girl of the Liberties, whom he had never seen before, could recognize him ? " I do not mean that I know who you are," she said, apprehending his thought, and quick to cor rect the impression her words had made, " but only that I know that you are good by your face.

It was not that I wanted to be bold, but I thought I could venture to take care of myself ; and that it would be sure to be the safest course for you." "I understand you perfectly," said the stranger, trying to conceal the admiratiou aroused in him by the straight, proud glance of her beautiful eyes, the graceful gesture with which she threw out her hand, giving her words a kind of impassioned emphasis. He would try not to distress her maidenly pride by words or looks of masculine compliment. " You are a woman of fine iustincts as well as perfect courage," he went on, wondering at himself for speaking to tbis humble girl in the same language he would have used to an equal. But in manner as well as appearance, he reflected, she was far beyond her class. Even in his owa hour of difficulty, which was not over yet, he could not help feeling curious to know something more of this strange girl with her peculiar beauty, her mournful, steadfast eyes and thrilling voice.

How was her presence to be ac counted for in this abode of poverty, in this neighborhood of wretchedness and vice? "Truly the Irish are a wonderful race," he thought, " when such creatures can spring up in the very cellars of our cities." He glanced around to impress the scene upon his memory with a strong conviction that he would in the future look back upon it with exceeding interest, the decaying old room with its mouldy ceiling, rotting panels, and mysterious and friendly closet, and the dark head and pale brows of the girl dimly seen in the scanty moonlight, as she waited patiently till it was his pleasure to follow her from the chamber, to allow her to finish the task she had undertaken for him by letting him noiselessly out of the house and closing the door as silently behind him. " At all events, I shall never forget this kindness," he said ; " and now if you will allow me to offer you something " Emboldened by the certainty that one so wretchedly dressed and living in such a house must be miserably poor, he attempted to put money in her hand.

But the girl shrank from the touch of it, and quickly drew several steps further away from him. Poor as she was and miserable as were her prospects, she would not take money for this charity she had done. The man whom she had sheltered and succored, unknown as he was, had already become her hero, her protege, in some sort her child, by virtue of her efforts for him. She would not have her part in him blotted out like a settled score. "I cannot!" she said, eagerly, "I cannot! The poor are accustomed to serve others without pay ment. I am glad to have been of any little use to you. Do not spod it all by paying for what cannot be bought." "You are a strange, unusual girl," he said. "Well, I cannot distress my benefactress. You will not refuse, however — I trust you will not refuse — to take some little token of mygra'itude.

This ring is not very valuable," he added, drawing one from his finger. " I have nothing else to offer you at this moment. You will spoil all if you deny me the pleasure of remembering afterwards that you accepted it." She leaned forward, and looked with interest at the ring. Yes, she would take tbis shining circlet as a memorial of this night, which had given a living form and voice to the ideal of her dreams. She held forth her hand for it with sudden eagerness, and he dropped it into her palm. " May I put it on your finger ?" She hesitated, and then held up her long, slim hand, while he placed the ring on a finger too slender to hold it in safety long. The next moment they had passed the threshold of the rotten old chamber, and were descending the staircase in the dark, s'owly and carefully, for fear of awaking the weaver.

As her hand was on the lock of the door, he said to her earnestly : " It is possible that I may never see you again in this world ; but if so, remember, whatever may come to pass, that I repeat I have not been in hiding here because of any criminal thing that I have done." " If I had not been sure of it, I should not have acted as I did," said Marcella, firmly ; and then the door opened and closed and the stranger was gone. Marcella listened anxiously in the hall for a few moments. It was a safe hour, she hoped, for his return to his home, wherever that home might be, an hour when the late people have all gone to rest at last, and the early people have not got up. With a vehement prayer for his safety she went softly back to her own room and lit her lamp and ex amined her ring, the only proof remaining to her that this wonderful adventure was not entirely a dream.

It was a very old, slender hoop set with a lew pearls ; not extremely valuable, as the donor had said, but priceless in the eyes of its new owner. She threaded it on a string and hung it round her neck ; there let it remain forever as an earnest of the happy service she had done. Then she took out her sewing and worked for a_ hour, and thought again and again over every look and every accent of the stranger. No fear that she had done wrong in admitting him troubled her. As she had said to him, the poor are accustomed to do service to each other, and, she miasht have added. they do not always stop to think of the cost. To her mind it was the most simple aud rational thing iu the world to harbor a fellow-creature who was iu trouble. The secrecy from her father had been justified by the exigencies of the case.

The stranger had thought so, and had thanked her for it. "I am deeply grateful for your caution and your trust in me," he had said, " and both have been of the utmost service to me." Again and again she wondered what was the danger from which she had saved him. What was it that he could not openly face with that brave and piercing glance? Six o'clock rang, and the people began to stir in the streets, and Marcella put out her light, and put on her shabby old cloak, and went out to Mass, picking her way through the dirty gutters and seeing the day break over the squalor of the streets. This early hour of the morning, when she could walk alone through a sort of rarified atmosphere not of tbis earth, with her eyes on the red dawn light that just touched the chimneys at a certain street corner as she passed, or on the silvery clouds that floated behind the ugly roofs above her, was the only happy one she knew in the twenty-four.

It led her to the church where she was accustomed to carry all her sorrows and temptations, leaving them at the foot of the altar, and taking away in their place something that en abled her to get through her day, if not with the meekness of a saint, at least with the resignation of a Christian soul. Here, in the dim shades of one of the poorest churches of the peopTe, she found the lamp of Faith ever burning, and the promises of the Lord written all over the walls around her. Why should she despair whom He had saved ? Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. She mourned, and she should be comforted. She would try to be meek that she might arrive at ber heavenly inheritance. If life must be long and bleak, she would endeavor to travel it bravely, following all the way the Stations of the Cross on her knees as now.

As she moved from one dark corner of the church to another, faring along that Dolorous Way, just able to see in the faint dawn the figure in the great tragic drama, her eyes discerning eagerly one form holding ever on its painful road and beckon ing her to come on, her heart grew wonderfully lighter, and she felt a strong conviction that her future would not be made harder for her than she could bear. The church was crowded at that early hour with a multitude of patient toilers and sufferers, delicate and ill-fed girls on their way to a too-long day's work, the hopeless repetition of which was gradually killing them ; careworn mothers of famdies, with piteous faces, praying passionately for help for the souls and bodies they had in charge, with ered and half-starved old men and women who had crept from the wretched dens where they hid from the poorhouse to the feet of Christ in the dim dawn, unwilling to show their faces in the fuller daylight.

To these MarceUa's heart turned from the happier and healthier faces which helped to fill the church. The strong nun and women who had come to get a blessing on the tolerably prosperous work of their day had not the same interest for her as had the wretched. And across her prayer for all who were in trouble or danger came suddenly the sound of the voice of the stranger she had suc3ored and the anxious though fearless expression of his eyes. Finishing her prayer with a hearty supplication for his welfare, she reluctantly left the House of Peace and went home. As she retraced her steps through mud and dirt now painfully visible, the rainbows of the dawn had vanished from above the roofs, and the leaden sky of wintry day looked suddenly down on the city's Blums. Well, what matter did it make, so long as the lights on the everlasting hills could be discerned beyond the roofs of this world by the eyes of Faith.

As she entered the gloomy door of her home Marcella felt buoyed up with hope that she should in some future day which she could not now see live a fuller, nobler and most useful life than she had known as yet, and that her patience in the present moment might go far to prepare her for that day. With a brighter face than usual she prepared her father's breakfast. Presently he came in with a newspaper in his hand. "Look here!" he cried. "The police were not wrong aboui that bad job they were talkin' about. There was a murder done in the city last night — not half a dozen streets away from us." "Murder!" echoed Marcella, turning whiter than the milk she was pouring into his tea. "There now, girl, ye needn't look so frightened. Nobody can say wa harbored or hid the assassins, as they wanted to even to us.