The Heir of Liscarragh

Front matter

THE HEIR OF LISCARRAGH. THE f§EIR OF UlSCARRAGH ■ffn cA BY VICTOR O'D. POWER AUTHOR OF " BONNIE DUNRAVEN," ETC. " Foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes." Hamlet, I. LONDON art an& Booh Company? AND LEAMINGTON NEW YORK : BENZIGER AND COMPANY 1891. TO My Friend and Comrade T. RICHARD HAMMOND IN memory of the HAPPY DAYS WE HAVE SPENT TOGETHER THIS STORY IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED CONTENTS. Chapter Page I. Midnight in the Ruined Abbey ... i II. The Return of the Traveller ... 9 III. The Tidings from Abroad ... ... 24 IV. The New Heir ... 32 V. An odd Interruption ... 41 VI. Sir Rooke Markham ... ... 51 VII. A Portrait of the Dead ... ... 59 VIII. Leaves from Mona's Diarv ... 71 IX. Mona's Diary Continued ... ... 79 X. Mona's Diary Concluded... ... 88 XI. The Omen in the Sky... ... ... 97 XII.

Outside the Locked Door ... 107 XIII. Leonard Markham's Confession ... 117 XIV. The Figure on the Wood Road ... 127 XV. Sir Rooke's Stratagem 135 XVI. Mona's Letter ... ... ... 143 XVII. The Path of Destiny .. ... ... 156 XVIII. The Haunted Chateau ... ... CONTENTS. XIX. Madame Fontaine's Cough ... ••• '73 XX. Madame Fontaine's Room... ... 183 XXI. Within the Lusmore Vault & without 191 XXII. Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot? 202 XXIII. The Blow falls 212 XXIV. Sir Rooke completes the Chain ... 218 XXV. Sir Rooke's Revenge ... ... ... 227 XXVI. A Ghastly Discovery ... ... 236 XXVII. Leonard Markham's Fate ... ... 243 XXVIII. One August Evening ... ... JHE JlEIR Of Jal^CA^AQH.

Chapter I

Midnight in the Ruined Abbey. A wintry moon flitting in and out behind vapoury and flying clouds cast its fitful shafts of pallid light upon the ruined walls and Gothic towers of Kilcora Abbey where it stood — and still stands — at the mouth of a wild glen which opens upon the shelving beach, the broken shingle, and the rolling surge of the Atlantic. It was close on midnight; the time of the year was November, and a wild storm, which had raged since the previous day all along that rock-bound Irish coast, was now dying away in stern mutterings amid the mountains and long wailing sobs through the roofless cloisters, Gothic windows and desolate arches of the ancient Abbey of Kilcora. Founded by the noble MacCarthys, lords of Carbery, far back in the dim past — about the year 1320 — this lone Abbey of the Franciscan Friars had been then the seat of learning, piety, charity, the nursery of virtue, the abode of Christian peace.

Through the round cloistered corridors A-many a midnight hour, bareheaded and unshod, Walked the Grey Friars, beseeching from their God Peace for these Western shores ! Alas ! Alas ! how dark the change ! Now round its mouldering walls, over its pillars low The grass grows rank, the yellow gowans blow, Looking so sad and strange ! Tempest and Time — the drifting sands — The lightning and the rains — the seas that sweep around These hills in winter nights — have awfully crowned The work of impious hands ! Yet still the abbey stands there through the centuries — a silent, stern memento of glorious days for ever gone. With in the ruined walls, in the roofless choir, are the grey tombs and mouldering vaults of the noblest of the ancient Irish families of that district of wild Carbery. Now and then a fitful gleam of moonlight trembled in through the great southern window and touched mistily the lichen and moss-grown slabs and monuments, the recum bent stone figures of knights and chieftains, the rank grass and nettles which throve between the tombs.

Then the scudding cloud-rack obscured that fitful moon-ray and all was again lost in shadowy semi-darkness; arches, towers, tombs, crumbling walls, vanished like a vision, while all the time the Atlantic surge fretted and foamed upon the rocks and shingle, the night-wind caoined through the tall grasses, bracken, and heather, now and then the cry of the curlew thrilled the ear, adding its own wild poetry to the awful solemnity of the spot. In a country so superstitious as Ireland — and more Midnight in the Ruined Abbey. 3 especially at that epoch, now well-nigh fifty years ago — it was no wonder that Kilcora Abbey, the abode of tombs, traditions, mystery and desolation, was shunned darkly by the inhabitants of the place for miles round. That the abbey was haunted was firmly maintained by all.

Foot-steps were heard echoing along its mouldering aisles, white woful faces peered seaward through its pointed windows, motionless figures stood at times within its shat tered arches, and on certain nights a far-away, thrilling swell of organ-music sounded from the shadowy choir, and the voices of the Grey Friars, blending in celestial harmony, floated forth over the shivering sea. Furthermore, it was maintained that all members of the ancient Irish families buried within the abbey who, peradventure, had died abroad, and whose bodies had not been carried home to the family vaults of Kilcora, returned in spirit to the consecrated spot, and wandered there at night, and should so wander until such time as their bones were removed from their foreign graves and placed beside the remains of their kinsmen in Kilcora.

Yet another tradition stated that in some cases the spirits of these departed kinsmen travelled in far countries — in Spain, France, Africa — until they found the resting-places of their dead relatives, and removing them from the alien soil brought them back to the vaults of the sacred abbey by the Atlantic Sea. There were people who, in quaking tones and with blanched faces, told of having actually seen a spectral boat rowed by spectral hands, gliding in over the sleeping ocean to the pebbly beach below Kilcora, and of a spectral coffin carried up over the shingle and deposited within some hidden vault of the abbey. Then the Office for the Dead was chanted by the spectral choir, and then all was once again still as death itself! So that it was no wonder the place should be deserted by the living when once the shadows of night had fallen over mountains, glen, and sea; no wonder that the peasantry of that wild south-western coast would have gone miles out of their way rather than pass at night by Kilcora Abbey, or even within view of its haunted walls.

So it stood alone, forsaken save by the wheeling sea-birds and the crashing breakers, the owls which hooted at night within the mouldering belfry, and the bats which flitted in and out through the dusky cloisters. So it stood on this lonesome November night, now revealed dimly in the pallid glimmer of the moon, now plunged in darkness when the tattered rack flung its sable veil over the wan face of the Queen of Night. As the hour of midnight approached a great calm settled over land and sea, the wailing gusts died away to an eldritch whisper which ran shivering through the grasses and ferns, as if breathing forth the tidings of some dire horror drawing nigh. The angry Atlantic breakers gave place to long heaving swells, which the moonbeams changed to burnished silver, gleaming ever brighter as the black cloud-rack faded away into the dark blue vault of the midnight sky.

The wild hills and glens of the inland world, rolling away behind Kilcora Abbey, were now mistily revealed in the white radiance of the moon. From amid dark, clustering trees, a quarter of a mile away from the abbey, rose the dim outline of the twisted chimneys and ivied gables of an ancient country-house, the only human habitation to be seen in this spectral radiance; and from one of the upper windows of this house a ruddy light glimmered cheerfully through the leafless trees and relieved in some wise the prevailing desolation of the scene. Midnight in the Ruined Abbey. 5 And still the winds and ocean grew calmer the moon sailed forth in all her cloudless majesty, the long, burnished ocean-swell broke into silvery wavelets which lapped musically on the glistening pebbles of the beach. Save for that shuddering whisper of the night-wind, all was hushed — a strange, sinister silence, as of the ominous calm which precedes a storm.

And into that brooding hush a sound suddenly broke, a sound that was not the shudder of the wind nor the lapping of the surge on the shore, a sound like the distant plash of oars, faint, yet measured, drawing nearer and nearer from the silvered shadows of the sea. Then a dark speck appeared on the moonlit water It grew larger, still larger. It was a boat containing dark figures, and though the plash of the oars was almost noise less, the shadowy prow clove the surf swiftly, evenly, making direct for the beach below Kilcora. A boat, at midnight, coming swiftly and noiselessly to Kilcora Abbey ! What did this mean ? And the crew so silent too — for no sound of speech or laughter travelled over the sea, although four men were now distinctly visible as the boat drew nearer and nearer to the shore.

Two of the men wielded the oars, the remaining two sat in the bow. No word passed between them. Nearer, still nearer. Athwart the stern a dark object was placed — a long, narrow sea-chest, was it ? And could these silent figures be smugglers, and was this the booty which they were bringing furtively to shore? Still nearer. Ah ! What was this dark box strapped or chained across the stern ? A long, dark box, narrow at one end, wide at the other ; a box draped with a pall of black, which the night-wind caught at times and lifted a little, then fled shivering and moaning to tell the secret to the sea. For the box was a coffin, and by this time the spectral boat had glided in to the beach, and two of the men had noiselessly stepped to shore. Still in silence, the coffin was lifted from the boat, and in silence carried upon the shoulders of the four men across the silvered shingle to the haunted cloisters of Kilcora.

The boat rocked idly on the wavelets below ; the brood ing hush became more ominous and eerie. Had the storm and ocean been awed to stillness by the approach of this phantom boat carrying this phantom coffin? Were these the awful tidings which the winds had whispered through the shivering grasses ten minutes before? Yet still that red star twinkled from the ancient house at the head of the glen — a reminder of a human presence, of domestic peace, even here, so close to this haunted solitude of mystery and shadows. Through the southern windows of the abbey the wan moonlight struggled in and trembled upon the huge grey vault of the Lusmores, of Liscarragh Castle, one of the noblest families amid West Carbery's hills and glens. The door of the vault stood open now, and the black coffin was being carried in by the four silent men.

Down the stone steps they moved slowly, almost noiselessly, and were lost to sight. In the stillness which ensued the moan of a torrent far away amid the hills mingled with the stern dirge of the sea. Once an owl hooted in the belfry, a rat thrust forward its dark head from a grave and skurried away into the shadows of the inner cloisters. The silver shaft of light lay quiver ing upon the tombs, revealing in its misty radiance half of the place of burial, while the other half was plunged in shadow. Here and there along the roofless aisles patches of silver light fell tremulously from windows and arches and Midnight in the Ruined Abbey. 7 breaches in the ruined walls, and long dark shadows crouched like evil spirits shrinking back from the pure, cold, spectral gleam. The vault of the Lusmores was situated almost in the centre of the choir, and right in the flood of moonlight streaming through the window.

The door still stood open; and presently one dark figure re-appeared, then another, and the four men emerged from the interior below. Long black cloaks hung from their shoulders; broad brimmed hats, with sable plumes, hid their faces. Not a word was spoken. Thus they stood for a moment beside the open door. Then one of the men — a tall, gaunt figure, with purple black locks creeping upon his shoulders like writhing snakes — listed his head a little and began to intone the last Office for the Dead. The last Office for the Dead, was it? It may have been so ; but, to mortal ears at least, that hoarse grating voice, the peculiar inflection of the words, the exaggerated drawl of the chant, would suggest a hideous travesty of the sacred Office, the vilest of mimicries, carrying in every word a blasphemy which sounded shocking and demoniac in that consecrated spot.

Aroused by this unholy interruption upon the hush of their lone retreat, the white owls hissed and hooted and flitted restlessly about the ivied belfry. A long wail of the night-wind came from the inner cloisters, and the tall grasses and nettles shivered as the gust passed like ghostly foot steps through their rank masses. Then a little cloud sailed over the moon, as if to shut off that heavenly light from the sable figures by the Lusmore vault, and at the same instant the voice of the chaunter ceased. He stopped abruptly and closed and locked the vault. Then still in silence he moved away from the spot and emerged through the yawning door of the south chancel, followed by his three companions. The ominous hush of land and sea was at an end. Black clouds were again trooping across the wan face of the moon.

The Atlantic muttered fretfully and tossed the boat to and fro upon its shadowy swells. Shrill, sharp gusts of wind whirled along through the furze and heather, catching up the dark cloaks of the four men, and even lifting the snaky black locks of the foremost figure, who had by this time crossed the shingle and stepped into the boat. The others followed in dead silence. The boat was noiselessly pushed into the deep; the oars rose and fell, and in five minutes carried the phantom crew — if such, in truth, they were — away into the shadows and the mystery of the sea. The abbey was again deserted. The owls returned to their roosts in the belfry. The rat crept forth from its hiding place and prowled undisturbed among the graves. The wind and the ocean, the lights and shadows of mid night, had the wild scene to themselves again after that odd interruption. Yet still the red star glimmered from the dark-massed trees surrounding that "home of ancient peace" at the head of the winding glen of Kilcora.

Chapter II

The Return of the Traveller. That red light which twinkled so cheerfully from the dark trees at the head of the glen issued from one of the cosiest little rooms you can well imagine — a low-ceiled room, panelled in oak, with crimson window-hangings, a faded crimson carpet, a bright fire of mingled peat and wood in the low, broad grate, a shaded lamp upon the table. A big basket of wools, silks, tatting-shuttles, and many other appliances of feminine fancy-work was placed im mediately beneath the lamp, and in a low chair by the fire, close to which the table had been drawn, sat the owner of this comfortable old room — a singularly charming-looking girl, whose ebon-dark hair and complexion of ivory whiteness were still further enhanced by the lustre of the dark-blue Celtic eyes; eyes which could melt with compassion or dream with poetry, flash in indignation or burn with enthusiasm; the eyes of a high-born, noble-hearted girl, in short, the daughter of an honoured, ancient Irish race, once as powerful as beloved throughout the wilds of the south west, — now, alas, tottering on the verge of ruin.

Such was Mona O'Brien, as we find her seated by her cheerful fireside on this fateful November night. For the past hour she had laid aside her work and was now gazing far into the red heart of the embers, dreaming dreams, it might be, or watching the wondrous pictures which are always to be found between the glowing bars if we only have patience to look for them. And yet her dreams and pictures did not seem to please the girl overmuch, for her emotional lips quivered at times, and at times she sighed heavily. Her eyes, too, half veiled by the long, dark up-curling lashes, were full of anxiety and sadness, and her small slender hands were clasped tightly together across her heart, as if to still its painful throbbing. Now and then the night-wind sighed at the casement and moaned in the ancient trees about the house.

To Mona's ears to-night that sound was an awful dirge which filled her heart with a deepening misgiving and stole every vestige of colour from her face. The household was at rest, or so Mona believed; yet still she kept her melancholy vigil. In her present mood she felt that it was best for her to be alone. Yet when, after a quarter of an hour or so, a light rapid footstep sounded upon the lobby without and came on direct to her door, the girl's sad eyes glowed a little, the shadows were partly lifted from her face ; she turned her head with a wistful smile as the door was opened without ceremony and a tall young man of singularly prepossessing appearance entered the room. " Reading pictures in the fire as usual, Mona ! " said the new-comer, in a voice which fell like music on the ear. "Ah, so I expected, sister mine; and just as I was turning into my room for the night, I took a second thought and ventured here to have a little chat with you."

"And you are welcome," was the girl's sincere and simple reply ; and now her eyes were kindling, and into the ivory whiteness of her face had stolen the soft hue of the rose's heart. " I thought you were sleeping the sleep of the innocent and the light-hearted, Gerald, while I sat here moping and building up phantom terrors — all for my own amusement." The Rclui n of the Traveller. 11 She laughed a little as she said these words, and her brother, as he drew a chair to the hearth, heard clearly the ring of bitterness in that laugh, and saw now, as he gazed at his sister, the lines of care and anxiety in her beautiful, speaking face, and in her eyes the melancholy shadows which had gathered so speedily over their momentary brightness. So a little silence fell between them, for Mona knew that she was discovered.

Her brother Gerald — so like her in appearance and in character — had ever been her companion and confidant, her counsellor and her hero. From him she could have no secrets. She dared not, even if she would ; for, by the force of that subtle sympathy of Gerald's nature, he was capable of reading his sister to the very soul, and Mona felt and acknowledged this power and yielded to it with scarce a struggle. " Mona, what is this about, dear?" Gerald said, after that little silence, and his dark, blue eyes, so like his sisters, were suddenly clouded, and his face — a beautiful, emotional face, full of nobility and courage, generous to a fault, and open as God's day — was taking to itself his share of the shadow which darkened hers. "You are not yourself to night ; you are troubled about something.

I hear it in your voice and read it in your eyes. For the past few weeks, indeed, I have had my misgivings, and truth to tell, dear heart, it was to know this secret sorrow that I waited up to-night until all were a-bed and then came here to you." He caught up one of her slender hands in his honest grasp, and as he did so his sister's eyes filled with tears and her lips quivered. But in a moment she had conquered this emotion, for she shrank from causing Gerald un necessary pain. " May I answer for you, dear?" Gerald resumed, perceiving her emotion, and wishing to make her confession as easy for her as might be. " Yes, I will ! You are filling your mind and heart with foolish fears concerning Richard Lusmore. It is only natural, dear," he added, hastily, " that you should feel anxious about the man whose engage ment ring you wear, and whose life and yours are to be so soon intertwined for ever.

But surely, Mona, you are giving yourself unnecessary and unreasonable pain. Richard has written regularly to you since he left Liscarragh eight months ago and went to France. Tell me, sister, has he not ? " "Yes; he wrote regularly until — until last month," she answered, her eyes falling to the hearth, for she felt the tears coming again, and she wished to hide that sign of her inward unrest; "but for the past month — nay, for the past five weeks, I have heard from him but once only." "A letter may have miscarried; letters often do," Gerald said hastily, but in spite of his efforts to suppress the odd seeling, his heart sank and the shadow of a sinister presenti ment crept over his spirit and silenced any further words of comfort and hope. " No, Gerald dear," Mona made answer, speaking now with a strange, impressive calmness, which stirred the heart of the listener more than an outburst of passionate emotion.

" Every letter he wrote I have received. Of that I feel no doubt. Gerald, since you have asked me, I will tell you the truth. I know — I feel — there is something wrong. For the past three weeks, or more, I have feared it. For the past fortnight I have been almost certain of it. Believe what I say, Gerald: When Father James left here a fortnight ago and started for France on that secret mission, he had heard more than he cared to tell. His kind heart bled for me, and he was silent. Ah, but his eyes could not be silent! nor yet the eloquent pressure of his hand when he was leaving. They told me what his lips refused to tell. They told me " — and her voice suddenly sank away to an almost inaudible whisper, and a shiver passed through her every limb — " that Richard Lusmore was dangerously ill — maybe, dying !

" " Oh, Mona dear, not that !— surely not that ! " " Ah, do not try to persuade me against my heart's con viction ! " was her almost wild reply, and her eyes were tearless, but her lips were pale as ashes. "I know that what I say is true. Richard left Liscarragh for the good of his health. He feared hereditary consumption ; for that fatal disease killed his mother six months after he was born " "Nay, nay, Mona," Gerald put in here; "Richard's object in leaving Ireland was not for his health's sake alone. He went to try to do some good for his unfortunate Aunt Katherine, who, since her husband's death, was leading the life of a gambler and an adventuress abroad. He reclaimed her, and she died five months ago — a blessed, peaceful death." " Yes, dear, I know, I know," Mona returned still with averted eyes; "but apart from that, Richard's health frighten ed him and he was recommended to try the mild climate of the south of France or Italy.

His letters were full of hope until the end of September last. Then I noticed a change. Although he did not say so, I knew, I knew that something was wrong. One letter only have I received since then — and the very writing told me the miserable truth. The hand of the writer was failing, Gerald. Wait ; you shall judge for yourself!" She sprang to her feet and ran to a writing-desk of rose wood and mother-of-pearl, which was placed in an oaken cabinet near the window. She unlocked the desk and with trembling hands withdrew a packet of letters tied with a piece of silver braid. With this in her hand she returned to the fire ; but as she untied the braid — as she actually touched the precious letters which had come from his loved hands, as the thought rushed to her sensitive heart that she should never again, perhaps, see his dear hand-writing in this world of darkness and misery — she could no longer control her emotion.

Her face fell forward upon the packet of letters and she burst into tears, bitter, hopeless tears, which shook her slender figure cruelly, and which her brother — shocked and distressed at the outburst — knew that it was useless to even attempt to quell. So, very pitifully and with many a heavy sigh, he moved his chair nearer to his sister's and placed his arm about her bowed neck and tenderly drew her dark head upon his breast. He said no word. Silence, he knew, was better now than any sentences of hope and comfort which his, or anyone else's, lips could frame. The inward anxiety, misery, doubts, and fears of the past weeks had burst forth at last from Mona's heart, and Gerald felt that it was all for the best. Anything was preferable to that silent brooding which feeds upon the very vitals of the sufferer, and debarred from any outward expression saps the springs of life within.

So he waited, gazing sadly into the fire, until his sister should choose to speak again. And during this silence we may as well glance briefly at the circumstances which had led up to this painful scene in Mona O'Brien's room to-night. The Lusmores of Liscarragh and the O'Briens of Rath munny had at one time been the wealthiest, as they were the noblest, of the ancient families in that part of the country — one of the most purely Celtic districts of Celtic Munster. But during the past fifty years or more the fortunes of the Rathmunny family had waned and waned, until, at the time we now treat of, the ancient house at the head of the glen was mortgaged to the chimneys, and still darker misfortune seemed to impend above its unhappy roof. To leave Rathmunny — to see it wrested from their hands by strangers! — That was the awful thought which ran at times in an ice-cold current through Gerald's and Mona's hearts and bowed down their father's prematurely silvered head unto the dust.

Jerome O'Brien had not been a spendthrift; but when he inherited the property at his father's death, it was so heavily involved in debt that he felt it a well-nigh hopeless task to drag it forth again from the slough. Still he struggled hard and perseveringly, and for many years succeeded so far at least as to pay up regularly the interest upon the heavy mortgages, and also to refund portions of the principal amounts. But the struggle had told upon the man and aged him before his time. His wife's death was a still more cruel burden of sorrow; and the thought that his loved children, Gerald and Mona, had, alas ! but a gloomy prospect before them in life was an inward cancer which ate into his heart with a keener and keener agony as the months and years rolled by. During this time of gradual decay for the Rathmunny household, the fortunes of the Lusmores of Liscarragh had proportionately flourished.

Hugh Lusmore and Jerome O'Brien had always been staunch friends, but though Hugh frequently urged upon O'Brien to allow him to assist him in his pecuniary difficulties, O'Brien's pride refused to entertain the proposal, even when his circumstances seemed to have reached a crisis. Young Richard Lusmore, Hugh's only son, and heir to Liscarragh, almost lived at Rathmunny ; for the two houses were situated within a couple of miles of each other. And when Hugh Lusmore died — about a year before this Novem ber night in question — Richard came to Jerome O'Brien and told him for the first time that he loved Mona and wished to make her his wife, that his dead father and him self had often spoken of this matter, and that Hugh Lusmore highly approved of his son's choice, and would himself have introduced the matter to O'Brien were it not that the illness to which he had succumbed was sudden, and he had died without revealing to his old friend his son's wishes and his own.

And so Richard and Mona were plighted each to each. They had, in truth, always loved each other, even as children, and Jerome O'Brien felt his heart thrill with hope, and his eyes glowed with a kindling happiness once again. The gloomy shadows seemed to pass away from Rath munny, and every one within its ancestral walls rejoiced with the lovers' joy. But happiness seldom comes without its attendant shadow ; there is always the ugly black cloud at the other side of the silver lining. Richard Lusmore's health began to fail, just a little at first ; but the change was soon noticeable. People whispered and nodded as he passed, and reminded one another that his mother had died of consumption ; and at last Richard was advised by the family physician to leave Ireland and seek change of air in the sunny south of France.