Wayward Winifred

Chapter I. A First Meeting

Perhaps some reader may know the Glen of the Dargle. No boys or girls may know it, but perchance their grandsires may tell them of a mountain stream which threads its way through rugged hills till it falls over a precipice and winds onward through a glen of unspeakable loveliness. They may remember the ravine shut in on either side by hills, covered with gigantic trees, some of which meet across it, forming a natural bridge.

Well, it was upon that bridge that I saw — at first with deep amazement, then with fear and trembling — the slender, graceful figure, the almost eerie loveliness of Wayward Winifred. How she had reached her dangerous position was clear enough; for her feet were like the mountain goat, and her figure wonderfully lithe and active. I stood and gazed at her, afraid to speak lest she should fall from the dizzy height. She looked back at me with clear brown eyes, and spoke in a voice that held just a hint of the Dublin accent to give it sweetness.

“Are you the lady from America ? ”

I answered that I was, and a long pause ensued. The child was evidently studying me, and I in my turn put a question :

A FIRST MEETING.

“How on earth, child, did you get up there? And don’t you know that any moment you might come tumbling down into the water below ? ”

“ The water wouldn’t harm me if I did,” Winifred replied, looking down into the clear depths; “and it knows me well. I come here every day, unless there be a storm.”

“ Is your mother aware of so dangerous a proceeding ? ” I asked with some sternness.

A strange look passed over the girl’s face, and she answered with a little laugh, half merry, half wistful :

“Ah! then, don’t you know? I’m the orphan from the castle.”

“From the castle?” I repeated. I began to think that this creature, after all, was a spirit, such as I had been told lived in the glens and streams of fairy-haunted Ireland.

“Yes,” said she, “I am from the castle.”

“From Powerscourt ? ” I suggested; supposing, of course, that she meant the great mansion which all visitors to the Dargle felt bound to see.

“From Powerscourt!” cried she, with contempt in her voice. “ Oh, it’s easy to see you are from America ! Why, the castle I live in was built hundreds of years before there was any Powerscourt at all.”

I was again struck dumb by this assurance. What castle could she mean? I knew of none in the neighborhood, and yet I had been studying the latest guidebook with the closest attention.

“ If you come with me some day,” she said, “ I will show you my castle, and granny will be very glad to see you.”

She spoke with a grand air, as though she were, indeed, a young princess inviting me to visit her ancestral home.

“ Where is the castle ? ” I inquired.

A FIRST MEETING.

“ Where is the castle?” she repeated, as if in bewilderment. “Well, it is up, up in the hills. Perhaps you haven’t any hills in America ? ”

I assured her that we had.

“Well,” she declared, in the same lofty way, “if you know how to climb hills, and don’t mind if the road is steep. I’ll take you there some time.”

“To-morrow?” I suggested.

“No; to-morrow I’m going away off to the Phoul-a- Phooka.”

“Where is that?”

“ Miles away from here.”

“Are you going alone ? ”

“ I’m going with some one,” she answered, with her clear, musical laugh ; “ but I won’t tell you who.”

“ I have not asked,” I said, provoked a little by her coolness. “ I assure you, dear child, I have no wish to force your confidence.”

“ It’s some one we don’t talk much about,” she said, nodding her head sagaciously. “ Granny says that there are people whom it’s best not to meddle with.”

“And yet you are going to this place with the outlandish name in such company?” I said, almost involuntarily.

She drew herself up.

“ Oh, that is very different ! ” she said. “When I am with this person I am in very good company; and who so well as he can tell me of the Phoul-a-Phooka and all those other things I want to hear ? ”

“ You are a strange child,” I remarked.

She looked at me, surprised and half offended.

“How am I strange?” she demanded.

“ I mean different from others.”

A FIRST MEETING.

An expression almost of sadness crossed her face.

“ I am alone, you see,” she said ; “ and I live up at the castle.”

The explanation was a pathetic one, and I observed the girl with greater interest than ever.

“ I should like to be friends with you,” I declared.

“ I do not often make friends of strangers,” she said, with some return of her former lofty manner — “but, yes, I think I like you.”

“ Very well ; there shall be a compact between us to like each other,” I replied. “And the first fruits of our agreement shall be to arrange what day I may go with you to the castle and see your — relative.”

Something in my speech amused her, and she laughed merrily.

“ Poor old granny ! ” she said. “ You will love her at first sight.”

“ The gift is evidently in the family,” I answered, “ of making people love them at first sight.”

“ In the family ? ” she repeated again, with that look of drollery upon her face which had almost upset my own gravity. Never mind: you shall come and see for yourself, two days from now, when I get home from Phoul-a-Phooka.”

She slipped down as she spoke from her perilous perch and landed safely on the opposite shore, becoming at once embowered in greenness, a very goddess of the woods. She made a graceful gesture of farewell and turned away, light as a young fawn.

I stood spellbound, watching the path by which she had disappeared. Curiosity was aroused within me, and I felt an uncommon attraction for this being who seemed of a different mould from those of common clay. I fell to dreaming

A FIRST MEETING.

ii of her as I walked home through those exquisite scenes of rare and mournful loveliness. The dark story of Erin seemed told in her hills and streams. I was also anxious to discover what was the Phoul-a-Phooka, and who might be the mysterious companion of her journey to that unknown region.

I seemed to tread, indeed, on enchanted ground; and I could hardly believe that I was the same being who a month before had been walking down Broadway, stopping to admire the wonderful products of the century’s genius in Tiffany’s windows, idly surveying the crowds of passers-by, and jostling my way past the Fifth Avenue Hotel. However, I had to keep all my speculations to myself and wait for that visit to the castle, to which I began to look forward with the greatest eagerness. Could the castle itself be a mere myth, the creation of a sensitive imagination? On that point, at least, I determined to satisfy my curiosity as soon as an opportunity occurred.

I found the landlord of the inn alone that evening, his labors done for the day, pipe in mouth, smoking on a bench beside the door. He was a somewhat taciturn man, less loquacious than most of his race and station, and the subject, in some way, did not seem to commend itself to him.

“ The castle ? To be sure, there’s a castle up there beyant. A mighty fine ould place in former times.”

“ But to whom does it belong now ? ”

He looked uneasy.

“ Who is the owner ? Why, that would be hard to tell, though I suppose it’s Miss Winifred herself.”

“ Is she, then, of noble birth ?” I asked.

“ Oh, it’s not easy to say ! ” he replied, evasively. “ Some say she is, and more say she isn’t.”

Here was a mystery with a vengeance.

A FIRST MEETING.

“ Perhaps you can tell me, at least, what is the Phoul-a- Phooka ? ”

The landlord gave me a half-startled look.

“ The blessin’ of God be about us ! ” he ejaculated, piously. “ I wonder now, ma’am dear, why you would care to be inquirin’ into things of the sort.”

“ But what sort of thing is it ? ” I persisted. “ Something, I am sure, which we do not have in America, where we claim to have so much. Our steam-whistles and the roar of our factories have driven from us what Ireland has kept — her legends and her poetry.”

The man did not seem to relish this style of conversation, or, perhaps, to understand it; for he answered somewhat shortly :

“ The Phoul-a-Phooka is a wild horse, the devil himself takin’ that shape; and woe to any one whom he gets upon his back ! ”

“ Oh, it can’t be to see a wild horse that this child is going ! ” I remonstrated.

“ No, ma’am ; ’tis to a wild, solitary spot, with a power of waterfalls in it,” replied the landlord. “ But it gets its name from the beast I’m tellin’ you of.”

“Oh! is that it?” I replied.

“Yes, ma’am; ’twas there that the horse leaped a precipice with the tailor that had about him the priest’s soutane he was after makin’. The horse felt it like a stone’s weight on his back, and down he went with the tailor.”

The man told the story with some hesitation, as if not seeming to believe in it, and yet reluctant to express disbelief openly.

“ It’s a beautiful spot, though, ma’am ; that’s what it is. And mebbe you’d be goin’ to see it yourself some of these days.”

A FIRST MEETING.

“Very likely I shall,” I assented; “but first I want to see the old castle and the woman and child who live there.”

“ It’s a good bit of a walk,” said the landlord ; “ but the weather is fine, so I suppose you won’t mind that.”

“No, I won’t mind it,” I declared — “ not in the least, and Winifred is coming for me in a day or two.”

“And I hope she won’t be a Will-o’-the-wisp to you, ma’am, and leave you in some bog or another.”

He spoke with considerable asperity, and but that he was just then called away I should have questioned him further; for I judged from his manner that he had suffered from some of the pranks of my new acquaintance. I smiled to myself as I wondered if the girl had been leading him a dance over mountain and moor, or what was the nature of the particular trick she had played upon the stony-visaged landlord.

AT THE CASTLE.

Chapter II. At The Castle

It was a lovely May morning when the landlord of the inn came to tell me that Wayward Winifred was waiting.

“Why do they call her by that name ? ” I asked of him.

“ Oh, then, sure, ma’am, it’s just because of her whimsical ways ! You might as well try to stick a pin through the down of a thistle or take a feather from a swallow on the wing, as to know what the crathur will be doin’ next.” He looked all round as if he feared that the walls might have ears; and, seeming in a more communicative mood than before, he continued his narrative : “ There’s them that says,” he whispered, coming close to me, “that all’s not right with her; and it’s as well you should know it before you go off to the castle with her. She knows too much for one of her years, and she’s that wild and whimsical, there’s no stoppin’ her whichever way she goes. And she keeps queer company sometimes.”

“ But who were her parents ? ”

“ Well, you asked me that before, ma’am, but it’s a long story. Some will have it that she’s not of mortal stock at all. But, to be sure, that’s the old people, with their queer consates,” he added, somewhat shamefacedly.

“ Who takes care of her ? ”

“Who? Well, as for that, she mostly takes care of herself,” replied the landlord, with a gesture expressive of the hopelessness of the situation.

“ But she can’t live alone. She has, I believe, a grandmother.”

AT THE CASTLE.

The landlord gave me a queer look.

“ Oh, she lives with Granny Meehan, as you’ll see when you go there ! But she’s gettin’ restive below. I hear her feet patterin’ round, and it’s hard to tell what she might be at, so I’d better be goin’ down.”

“ Say I’m just coming!” I called after the man; and, descending presently, looked out of doors, and saw, sitting in the branches of a lilac tree, the same figure that I had beheld upon the bough which stretched over the ravine. The landlord, honest man, was addressing the girl, with some anxiety, from the window below.

“ Come down here, now — that’s a good child ! — or you’ll be gettin’ a fall, so you will ; and a nasty cut on your head for the doctor to sew up — and breakin’ my fence into the bargain.”

The child laughed, that selfsame musical laugh which rang out upon the air like the sound of bells, and she shook the tree in her mirth, and sent a shower of the fragrant lilac blossoms down upon my head.

“ I ask you pardon ! ” she said, with a shade of gravity crossing her face. “ I didn’t mean to send any down upon your bonnet, for a beautiful bonnet it is.”

She eyed as she spoke the article of headgear which I had purchased at a shop on Fifth Avenue, New York. I was surprised that she should have perceived any beauty in the bonnet, it being quiet in shape and neutral in tint, to suit the exigencies of travel.

When she had descended to the ground, she picked up a cloak from under the tree and wrapped herself in it. It was one of those peasant’s cloaks of blue cloth, enveloping the figure from head to foot, which, as articles of dress, are fast disappearing from Ireland; but which were both beconv i6

AT THE CASTLE.

ing and picturesque. Winifred did not, however, put up the hood ; but showed her delicately formed head, with its rich, dark hair, cut short, and curling in ringlets about her forehead and neck, and forming a fascinating tangle upon the top.

“Shall we gp?” I asked Winifred.

“ Yes,” she answered ; “ if you are ready.”

And so we went. Our course, at first, lay through the lanes strewn with wild flowers, primroses and early violets, with the hedgerows white with bloom. The balmy air of May, fresher and purer in Ireland, it seems, than elsewhere, gently stirred the tender green of the foliage. The lark and the thrush sang together a morning hymn. Soon, however, the scenery became wilder and wilder; rocky passes frowned upon us, and we looked down into ravines that might well make the unwary tremble.

Up the steep path I followed where the girl led with foot as sure as a mountain goat. She spoke from time to time in her soft, liquid accent. Perhaps it was part of her waywardness to show herself more shy and reserved than I had yet seen her, answering my questions in monosyllables, and briefly bidding me to beware of dangerous places. At last, in a winding of the road, we came upon one of those feudal keeps which marked the military character of bygone chiefs. Its walls were still intact, and a great donjon reared its head to the sky, in defiance of time.

We could not enter by the iron gates, still vainly guarding the ruin; for the path beyond them was choked with weeds and overgrown with grass. The child led me instead through a narrow pathway, and a low door in the thickest part of the wall, which had survived all attacks of the elements, and was, perhaps, of a later erection. Walls and roof were alike uninjured; but I had a strange feeling of pass-

AT THE CASTLE.

ing from daylight into chill darkness, when my guide silently ushered me into a stone-paved passage, where all was still and gloomy.

It was a relief, at last, to reach a large square room, appointed somewhat in the manner of a farm kitchen. A peat fire burned upon the hearth, a kettle sang upon the hob, a wooden settle stood close by, and strings of herrings hung from the beams of the ceiling, flanked by a flitch or two of bacon. Homely, comfortable objects they were, making me forget my plunge into the past, and convincing me that here was life and reality and domestic comfort. By the fire sat an old woman, erect and motionless; and though her face was turned toward us, she gave no sign of perceiving me, nor did she respond to my salute.

She wore a plain gown of dark gray, of the roughest material, probably homespun, but scrupulously neat. Across her breast was pinned a handkerchief of snowy white; and a large frilled cap shaded a face, somewhat emaciated, with features clear-cut, and white hair showing but slightly under the frills. Her eyes were of a dull gray, very wide open and seemed to fix themselves upon me with a curious expression, which made me strangely uncomfortable. I began to ask myself : “Who are these people, and why has this strange child brought me here ? ”

My fears were set at rest when the old woman opened her lips, saying:

“Miss Winifred, alanna! And is that yourself ?”

There was something so human and tender in the sound of the voice that I felt at once drawn to that aged figure, which resembled more a statue than a thing of life.

“ Yes, Granny ; and I’ve brought some one with me,” the girl said.

i8

AT THE CASTLE.

A look of something like alarm crossed the old woman’s face.

“A stranger?” she said uneasily.

“ Yes, dear granny; ’tis a lady from America.”

This time the old woman started perceptibly, and her gaze seemed to fix itself on my face, while there was a straightening of her whole figure into rigid attention.

“ I have been staying in the neighborhood,” I put in ; “ and chancing to meet your granddaughter — ”

“ She is no granddaughter of mine ! ” interrupted the old woman, hastily and, as it seemed, almost angrily. “ No, Miss Winifred is not.”

“ Forgive me, please ! I did not know,” I stammered. “ I thought she addressed you as granny.”

“Oh, that’s just her coaxing way! And, besides, it’s a custom hereabouts. Ould women like myself are all grannies.”

Every trace of annoyance or of fear had passed from the serene old face, and the habitual courtesy of the Irish peasant became at once conspicuous.

“Have you a chair for the lady, Miss Winifred, asthore? Mebbe it’s a glass of new milk she’d be takin’ after her walk.”

I accepted this refreshment, partly to establish myself upon a friendly footing with my new acquaintances, and partly because I was really glad of the restorative after a long walk. The milk was brought me by a bare-legged and ruddycheeked girl of about Winifred’s own age, who did much of the rough work about the place ; though, as I afterward learned, Winifred, in some of her moods, would insist on milking the cow, and driving it home from pasture ; or would go forth to gather the peat for the fire, in spite of all remonstrance.

AT THE CASTLE.

There were things that puzzled me about this unusual abode — the scrupulous respect with which the old woman treated the girl, the appearance of comfort and plenty about this strange retreat in the heart of a once warlike citadel, where the chiefs of old had displayed their banners and manned the walls with clansmen and gallow-glasses. Then the singular expression of the old woman’s countenance, and the manner in which she gazed before her, apparently at vacancy, once I had stepped out of her range of vision. Only one of these mysteries was I destined to solve upon the occasion of this first visit.

While I sipped my milk and nibbled at the bit of fresh oaten bread which accompanied it, I conversed with the old woman ; Winifred standing mute, in the shadow of the deep window, as if lost in thought.

“America’s very far off entirely,” said granny, dreamily — “ acrost the ocean ; and they tell me it’s a very fine country, with riches and plenty for all.”

“ It is a fine country,” I said warmly ; “ but there are many there who have neither riches nor plenty and who live and die in misery.”

“ Do you tell me so ? ” exclaimed the old woman. “ Look at that now! And the boys and girls thinkin’ it long till they get out there, and have money in their pockets and fine clothes on their backs.”

“ Well, many of them do succeed,” I remarked ; “ only they have to work hard for it. There’s no royal road to success anywhere.”

“ True for you, ma’am, — true for you ! ” sighed the old woman. “ ’Tis the law, and ’twas a wise God that ordained it.”

“ I know one person that got rich without working,” said

AT THE CASTLE.

Winifred, speaking suddenly and with a kind of imperiousness.

I looked at her in surprise, and the granny said, in a soothing tone :

“Ah, then, asthore, don’t be bringin’ in names ! It’s safer not.”

Winifred, for answer, turned silently to the window, gazing out again, and I was left to conjecture that here was another mystery. What experience of life could this child have had? And who in that neighborhood could have grown rich, suddenly or otherwise? When I rose to go I expressed my desire to come again.

“ Mebbe you’d have a curiosity to see more of the ould place,” said the woman.

“ But the castle is not a show place,” cried Winifred, imperiously. “ It’s private property.”

“ God help your wit ! ” I heard the old woman mutter ; but aloud she said with conciliation, almost deference:

“ Sure you know as well as I do, Miss Winifred dear, that every castle in the country, even where the grand folks do be livin’, is thrown open every now and again to travellers.”

“ This castle is not open to any one,” said Winifred, drawing her slight figure to its height and addressing me ; “ but if you, being from America, would like to see it, I would show it to you.”

I told her that I should very much like to see it, and would certainly come again for the purpose.

“ There’s some stories about the ould place that mebbe you’d like to hear, ma’am,” said Granny Meehan, anxious to make amends for any abruptness on the part of her charge.

I told her that the stories would be an additional attraction ; and as I was about leaving the room, I remarked :

AT THE CASTLE.

“ It’s a glorious day. You should go out, Mrs. Meehan, if only to see the sun shining on the mountains.”

Winifred sprang forward, her face crimson.

“ For shame ! for shame ! ” she cried.

I turned back to the old woman in perplexity. The ghost of a smile was on her face, as she declared:

“ I shall never see the bright sun more in this world, — I shall never see it more. But I like to know that it is shining.”

Here, then, was the solution of one mystery; and as I looked at that fine and placid countenance I wondered at my own stupidity ; for though the eyes were wide open, their expression told the tale very plainly.

“ I am so sorry,” I said ; “ I did not know. Can you ever forgive me ? ”

“ There’s nothing to forgive nor to be sorry for,” she replied, with a smile breaking over her face like sunshine. “ Glory be to God for all His mercies ! I’ve been sittin’ here in the dark for ten years; but all the time, thanks be to His holy name, as happy as a lark.”

I turned away, with admiration mingled with compassion.

“And,” added the old woman, “ I know the purty sight you’re spakin’ of, ma’am dear. I seem to see, as often I saw it, the sun playin’ about the hills in little streams of gold, and the tree- tops brightenin’ in its glow. Oh, I know the hills of Wicklow since I was a wee dawshy ! And there isn’t a tree nor a blade of grass nor a mountain flower that Granny Meehan doesn’t remember from old days that are far off now.”

I saw that Winifred’s sensitive face was working with emotion, while her eyes filled with tears. I also saw that

AT THE CASTLE.

she had hardly forgiven me yet for my blunder. I suggested gently that we had better go, and the girl made no objection. So we pursued our homeward way, silently for the most part. Suddenly, I exclaimed:

“ Oh, what a beautiful nature has that old woman ! ”

“Do you mean granny ? ” Winifred asked quickly. “Oh, she’s as beautiful as — the Dargle ! ”

And even while we talked burst upon us that view, which, once seen, can never be forgotten. Those hills arising on either side, clothed in a superb, living green ; and the loveliest of glens below, with the rippling beauty of its stream fair as the poet’s river of the earthly paradise; and Powerscourt’s splendid demesne to the eastward, and all the mountains about, arising grandly, enlivened with that unsurpassed sunshine.

“ Ye hills, give praise to God ! ” I murmured involuntarily ; and paused, feeling Winifred’s dark eyes upon me, with inquiry in their glance.

“It is a verse from the hymn of thanksgiving sung often in church,” I said. “ Did you ever hear it?”

Winifred shook her head.

“ They don’t sing much in the chapel down below,” she said, “ except simple little hymns. It isn’t like the grand days when the castle was full of people and the abbey church was close by.”

Then she paused, as if she did not care to say more; and as we were now within sight of the hill she suddenly left me, waving her hand in farewell, and swinging herself by the tree-bridge across the mountain-stream.

“ Good-by ! ” she called back to me. “And don’t forget next time that granny is blind.”

WINIFRED ASKS QUESTIONS.

Chapter III. Winifred Asks Questions

The morning after my visit to the castle I set out early to enjoy the beauties of the Glen, having first partaken of breakfast and enjoyed a little chat with my landlord, who was growing accustomed to my American inquisitiveness.

“ Sure she’s a fine woman is Granny Meehan ! ” he said, in answer to some opinion I had given concerning her ; “ an’ a religious woman, too, and very knowledgeable for her station. But her head is full of queer consates. I think it’s most turned by livin’ up beyant alone so long.”

“ How did she come to have the care of Miss Winifred and to live in the old castle ? ” I inquired.

“ Well, none of us knows — that is, to be sure about it. Master Roderick, he was a gay, sportin’ lad. I mind him well, tearin’ about the country on his white horse, stoppin’ a night now at the ould place above; and away agin, no one knew whither. His father, who owned the place before him and lived in it every year for a few weeks, was dead and so were all belongin’ to him.” The landlord drew breath and lowered his voice somewhat. “ Well, in some of his wanderin’s about the country what does he do but get married, an’ we never seen the bride down here at all, at all; but it was the talk of the country-side that she was of a fine ould

WINIFRED ASKS QUESTIONS.

stock an’ a rale lady. But he never brought her next or nigh the ould place. Perhaps it was ashamed of its bein’ ruinouslike or afeard of the gossip of the country-side.”

I listened with the deepest attention.

“ It was on All-Hallow-Eve that Winifred there came to the castle. Mrs. Meehan, who had been nurse to Master Roderick himself, was brought up from the village in haste. Fires were lighted, beds got ready, and toward nightfall a gentleman in black rode up to the castle door. Now, some that saw him say it was the young gentleman himself riding his white horse, but more says it was a stranger ; and coming the way he did and on that night of all nights ! It’s a quare story, and no wonder that the child’s different from other childer.”

“ How old was she when she came ? ”