Beyond the pale. A novel

Front matter

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Chapter One

MRS. SHEA AND MR. MONEY •

‘‘So it’s a boycotted farm ye’s are craving to see!” exclaimed a shrill female voice, and there was a distinct note of defiance in the question. “An’ will ye tell me, what would we be doing with a boycotted farm in this peaceable neighborhood?”

Here Katty Shea turned about, and faced her companion with a hard, indexible eye.

The pair who lounged at their ease ovefr a field gate that fine autumn afternoon were assuredly as oddly matched a couple as could be found within the Isle of Saints. Their very profiles, standing out in sharp relief against a hard blue sky, were so ludicrously different that their owners might reasonably have belonged to a separate period and race. Mrs. Shea’s aggressive “nez retrousse,” wide, excitable-looking nostrils, and loose, shapeless mouth, afforded a violent contrast to Mr. Money’s modeled nose and chin, his fine brow — broad and low — and the perfect outline of his head and throat; in short, he was a singularly handsome young man, whose classical features might have served as a model for Adonis; while those 'of his questioner would have made an admirable study for a good-humored mediaeval gargoyle. Mrs. Shea was a squat, sturdily-built matron, wearing a scanty black skirt and a voluminous pilot coat ; her bare feet were firmly planted on her native soil, and her large, leathery hands grasped the gate with an air of grim possession (although it was no more ];ier property than the land on which she stood). A blue checked handkerchief — not recently from the wash — was carelessly knotted over her frizzy gray hair, and the bowl of a little clay pipe peeped slyly from her breast pocket ; her cheeks were ruddy, and her small, keen eyes shone with a mixture of malice and intelligence. So much for Catherine Shea, widow, tenant of a cottage, and the grass of three cows. On the other hand, Denis Money was about six-andtwenty; he had a slight, well-knit figure, set off to the utmost advantage by an admirable tailor — indeed, his whole get-up, from the toe cap of bis shooting boot to the tweed cap on his head, was studiously correct; and as he held a half-smoked cigarette between his fingers, and surveyed Mrs. Shea with an air of lazy ahiusement, the pair might have posed as the two extreme types of the masses and the classes !

Young Mr. Money was thoroughly “fin de siecle’’ in one respect, and deeply interested in any new sensation or novel aspect of humanity.

and this battered old Irishwoman, with her pipe and her brogue, promised to afford him a rare experience. In the great drama of life, he had never as yet filled any role but that of a mere walking gentleman. To tell the truth, he greatly preferred the place of spectator, and, figuratively, to lounge at his ease in a stage box, while his friends, foes, acquaintances — or even strangers — played their little parts in tragedies, comedies, pieces of strong domestic interest, or slight drawing-room sketches.

Denis Lorraine Money (to give him his full name) had been duly educated at Eton and Oxford, where he had chiefly — nay, entirely— distinguished himself on the river or in the cricket field. If it was a lamentable truth that he gained no honors, he had made many friends — friends for life; these, nevertheless, although they deeply sympathized, did not share his intense surprise when idle Denis was ‘ ‘spun’ ’ for the army. Yes, the “result of all play and no work” rendered Denis for a time a bitterly disappointed, remorseful young man. Although debarred from the delights and excitements of “foreign service,” he was determined to see foreign countries, and roamed far afield, literally from China to Peru —adopting, like many another wealthy youth, the part of sportsman and sightseer in lieu of career or profession. He had twice sailed the inland sea of Japan, yet this was the first time this enterprising traveler had crossed St. George’s Channel. * But then J^pan is remote and fashionable, while the beauties of Ireland are, alas!

G

BEYOND THE PAF-E only appreciated by her own children. Despite the fact that Denis Money had seen many gorgeous and sunny lands, he was now gazing with gravely admiring eyes upon the scene before him ; for once his expectations were surpassed, though in the present instance they had not been exorbitant. It was a critical spectator, heir of a wealthy father, a society favorite and undeniable ‘‘parti” who rested his elbows on the top bar of the gate in close proximity to the formidable arms of old widow Shea.

“I was told that there was a boycotted farm at this side of the hill,” he observed in a clear pleasant voice (an excellent thing in a man), “and I am anxious to see the most remarkable features of the country, as I am a stranger.”

“The Lord knows ye are a stranger!” acquiesced the other emphatically. “Gentlemen with such elegant clothes — and boots,” glancing at the latter enviously, “doesn’t belong to these parts.”

“Then I suppose I have had my walk for nothing, and I gave a little beggar a shilling to point out the way, and he has sold me!”

“Faix then it looks like it,” was the discouiaging response. “Are ye from the Barracks in Bally bawl?”

“No, I am not. Do you live near this?”

“Troth an’ I do, and where else? There just acrost the road.”

The young man turned deliberately, and, leaning his back against the gate, gravely surveyed her residence — a stone and mud-thatched cabin, with two crooked windows, one at either side of the door. In front lay a pool of dark greenish water, in which a party of not too fastidious, ducks were disporting themselves.

‘‘Do you reajly live there?” he asked, after an expressive silence.

“Begorra I do! I came there a young married woman, and I’ve never stirred a toe out of that lone, desolate, island of a place this forty year. ’Tis there I reared five fine childer, ’tis there I lost my man. ’Tis there I’ll die, and likely soon, for I’m enjoying but poor health these times.”

“You look uncommonly fit,” w^-s the unsympathetic rejoinder, “as hard as nails.”

“Glory! ’tis little ye know! I’ve not a pick on me bones. If I was to rip off my jacket,” putting a ready hand to her throat, “you’ll soon see.”

“Oh, never mind. No, I beg you won’t,” with a nervous gesture of dissent. “I’m perfectly satisfied to take your word for it, ma’am.”

“I am cruelly hard set,” she pursued, “just dying on me feet, a poor, lone, delicate widow woman. May be your honor would assist me, and give me the price of a cup of tay?” and she eyed him narrowly.

His honor put a leisurely hand into his pocket, and slowly extracted half-a-crown.

“Oh, then may ye have stores in heav^en!” she cried, with glittering eyes. “And ’tis yourself is the real handsome young gentleman, and the right soort. May be ’tis your lordship I ought to be saying,” she added, with a wheedling grin.

He shook his head with a touch of impatience.

‘^And are ye nothing but just a common gentleman? I’m thinking yer an officer at laste, by yer clipped head. I’ve a nephew myself, in the Connaught Rangers.”

“Sorry to disappoint you a second time, but I’m not even in the army. I suppose you rarely see a red coat in this part of the world?”

“Not nearer than Ballybawl, but we had a few Highlanders down on furlough last year. On account of their petticoats, they made a variety and got great persecution.”

The young man smiled, as he threw away the end of his cigarette, which was instantly bolted by an impulsive white duck.

“Now, can I do anything for ye, dear?” inquired Mrs. Shea, “for I’d be proud to oblige ye in any small way.”

“Yes; tell me something about the neighborhood round here,” fig his hand toward the Vvdde spreading s. - ich lay beneath them.

The prospect * : upremely beautiful like

far-famed Kerrj , ’ ■ gal, or Wicklow. No noble forest-clad hills, deep purple mountains, silver lakes, or wild Atlantic-born seas; no brown strip of bog-land, or rushing salmon river, lay beneath them ; but a rich, deep valley, covered with wide stretches of pasture, and brightened here and there by yellow stubble and gorgeous autumn tints. The low sloping hills were heavily clothed in woods, from among which there occasionally peeped a spire, a turret, or a great mansion. The rising ground on which the couple stood was the spur of a long range, barren, unreclaimed, but gay with furze and heather, and possessed of a certain wild inexplicable charm of its own; and over all the landscape lay a vague shadowy softness — a dreamy golden haze, peculiar to autumn, and to Ireland.

At some distance to the right of Mrs. Shea’s cabin were several cottages, and beyond them again the remains of an ancient castle or mansion — a grim, weather-beaten skeleton, aged, stripped, abandoned, yet not lacking in a certain personal if rugged dignity, although its empty ca^sements resembled eyeless sockets through which the wind (even on that silent warm October day) passed with a fretful whimper. The more modern portion was almost but not entirely roofless, and appeared to be crumbling away piecemeal ; faint traces of dilapidated garden walls, overgrown shrubs, and ruined stabling, were dimly visible; but the venerable square keep, hundreds of years older than this tottering mansion, still held its gray head haughtily to the stars— a landmark for many miles.

“I suppose there is pretty fair hunting,” remarked the young man. “It looks a, good sort of country.”

“Is it fair hunting?” she repeated indignantly. “Sure an’ isn’t it the finest in all Ireland, or the world? In the saison there does be a power of sport. Two packs, no less, and of an odd time the stag hounds. See, there, below the castle, is the best cover of all ; they knock a fox out of it at every draw, and bad luck to them same foxes, rearing families on my hens!”

‘‘And who live in the big places I see here and there; for instance, the white house with a tower?”

“Oh, just common low shopkeepers,” with inexpressible scorn. “Their name is Scanlan; they have plenty of lucre and impidence. Sure, all the rale ould gentry has gone out of the country.”

“I suppose they had no choice — it was go or starve?”

“ And how do ye make that out?” turning on him fiercely.

“If all your money was sunk in land, and you got no rent— where would you be?”

“In the law courts, av course,” was the ready answer.

“Or, if your flock of ducks was not paid for, how would you like thatf"

“No fear!” scornfully. “Mrs. Murphy, of Ballybawl, pa^^^s me a shilling apiece all round, and I take mighty good care not to lave me money after me; but as for rents and payments, what does a lovely English gentleman know of the like? Listen to me, darlin’. The land is for the people and she thumped her fist upon the top bar, “and should be had for the tax, and that’s heavy enough — what with poor rate at three and four pence, and county cess very high, ’tis more than plenty, without talking of rent at all! Come here to me now. Don’t be getting land and politics into your head; ye have to be reared and hand-fed on the Irish question, and you’d be bald, and blind, before you could understand it.”

‘‘No doubt you are right,” admitted her listener, with ironical humility.

“As for the old stock, we have a few of them yet. There’s the Hares of Wilde Park — faix, there’s not much park now; and Sir Dermot French — terribly pinched, no hunters whatever — he attends the meets on his ten toes, and her ladyship goes to church behind an ass — they say as asses is coming into fashion.”

“Possibly, in Ireland!” he acquiesced rather dryly.

“Then the two old Miss Dwyers are shockingly badly off, they never see a sign of butcher’s mate from Christmas to Christmas, an’ they are that proud no one dar’ offer them a trout or a jack snipe; but the grandest come down of all is the O’Biernes, of Carrig, who owned the castle there and the whole side of the country. The last male heir — ’tis the truth I’m telling ye — is a little slip of a girl, without a second shift to her back, and li ving, I may say, on horses — ”

“On horses?” he repeated. “Nonsense!”

“Sure, don’t I know it well! — when me own sister is cook?” she retorted, with considerable heat.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“Begorra, it would be hard for ye! and ’tis a long story entirely.. The O’Biernes were mighty people in the time of the Danes, and went to terrible wars, and built forts and castles, and even ships, and some had their heads cut off, and more was hanged, and all went well till about a hundred years back, or, maybe, a hundred and twenty. They had no hand in the Union — God bless them ! — but they took to racing, and gambling, and every sort of divilment, and deserted ould Carrig there,” pointing to the ruin. ‘‘It was a great place wance, now the crows is flying through it! Some say they left their luck on its ‘ hearthstone ! The new house soaked up many an acre; still there’s a power of spending the thirty mile of country!” and she paused, and stared impressively at her listener.

“Yes, if the rents are paid,” was the cool reply.

“Oh, bedad, you are getting too crabbed entirely! However, between borrowing and cutting trees, they held on well, but the last old man, Brian, was a fright for spending! He ran clean and diver through the timber, and .the farms, ‘^.d poured out money like water. Och, when Mr. Gerald was born, the tierces of porter, the bonfires, the fiddling and dancing, and roast cattle, will never be forgortten. The O’Bierne Brian was a splendid gentleman, near seven foot high, and his teeth the finest i vor}" ! He gave great employment, kep’ hounds, and racehorses, and a coach-and-four and outriders, and God knows what, but it was the building destroyed him. He put a new pair of wings to the house, and ’twas them and the hot- water pipes finished him! He borrowed here and he borrowed there, he borrowed from wan to pay another, and he had an easy-going notion that everything would shake itself out in the long run ; but for all that the mortgagees fell upon him at last and sold him out of house and home, and he died a broken-hearted old man in one of the keepers’ cottages.”

' Here Mrs. Shea paused to take breath, and contribute a hurried sigh to the memory of departed greatness. Then resumed with redoubled vigor.

“The next O’Bierne, Mr. Gerald, his son, made an offer to straighten things out, but it was no manner of use. He had married a little English girl, for all the world like a wax doll; she hadn’t a copper; she was reared poor, and she thought she had heaven by the neck when she married the heir of Carrig. Saints! but she made the money fly! Even old Brian himself was took aback! After he died, Mr. Gerald did his big best to pull up, but it was no good whativer He was killed out hunting — accidental — purpose — some said; and he left behind him r. ho by and a wife. Oh, he was a nate and lovely young man! How did she ever live after him at all — at all?” and Mrs. Shea again paused, and gazed at Mr. Money with an air of tragic interrogation.

“She married again, of course,” he answered placidly.

“Ye’ve said it!” she exclaimed excitedly. “Polks made out that he took the family destruction so cruelly to heart that he had not the spirit to struggle, and he,” lowering her voice, ‘‘just made away with himself when he saw receivers over the property, and the old jewels and silver going every way. It’s not rightly believed, for the O’Biernes were terribly bould riders, and would face a horse at the gate of hell itself ; but anyhow Mr. Gerald was killed jumping a churchyard wall, and faix his widow made a real show‘ of herself, and let herself down altogether ; after being married to the O’Bierne of Carrig, Prince of Inagh — though he hadn’^a copper —to go to take up with a low, mane scutt, a common rapscallion, like Matty Scully, the horse dealer!” Here Mrs. Shea paused once more to swallow her rising wrath.

“ ’Tis true he kep’ her in comfort, silks and satins, a carriage and a buttons, no less; but she lost herself foriver, out of all society; but what could ye expect when she was English.”

“Thank you, ” returned her auditor, with somewhat angry emphasis.

“She had no pride,” continued Mrs. Shea, totally unabashed. “No, nor no dacency whatever; a good fire to warm her shins at, and a good dinner was more in her eyes than nations of dead and buried O’Biernes.”

“To tell you the truth, I think she showed her sense,” observed Money, as he deliberately lighted another cigarette. “A live dog, you know, is better than a dead lion.”

Mrs. Shea looked at him for a moment with an expression of perplexed inquiry, and then replied with severe dignity.

‘‘I don’t know much about live lions, glory be to God! but I can. answer for it that she got a rale cur. She died about six years back, shunned by all the quality, though I believe she made great offers to be visited. Some say she died of annoyance, others that it was the lungs. Howsomever she had a lovely funeral! Scully buried her alongside of Mr. Gerald, and among all the ould O’Biernes; av course she had no call tliere^ I needn’t tell ye — crowdin’ up her betters, and the vaults nigh full. When old Brian was put in, the}^ brought out, and buried, a whole stack of the grandest bones such as ye never see now. The splendid bones of them old O’Biernes, who was seemingly giants — ” and as she spoke her eyes actually blazed with pride.

“I see that you think a great deal of the O’Biernes.”

‘'Ay, I do so, though they are ruinated, and other folks lives in their home, and sits on their chairs, and ates at their tables, and looks at their pictures, and shoots their game. Oh, but Carrig is a mortial splendid place, ye can see the woods there to your right, stretching themselves out over the whole country. Ay, and it’s gone from the O’Biernes forever. It was bought by the mortgagees as had the strongest grip on it— an insurance company; faix, they had fine assurance to lay a hand on' Carrig,” and at the mere thought her face glowed with anger. “They let it every year for sport and style to English folk. The people that’s in it now are not quality at all ! J ust the purest dirt, that old Brian would not clane his boots on. Their Dame is Money, and it’s nothing but their filthy lucre that has set them up, in their bethers’ elegant fine place.”

Denis Money’s brows knit, a momentary and angry light sprang into his eyes. After all, what was the use in flying out, he asked himself philosophically; a new and original opinion of themselves did no one any harm. His slight start and change of countenance was completely lost on Mrs. Shea, who was being rapidly borne along on the current of her own eloquence — careless alike of rocks or shoals.

‘‘And they have lashens of their namesake, and, bedad, they’d want it. Twelve mile of avenues to mind, and the house burns two ton of coal a day, so you may judge of the style and size ! However, these Britishers can’t be expecting to stand in the shoes of the kings of Ireland — for nothing!”

“Do you live in this place all alone?” inquired Money, irrelevantly.

“Well, then, I do not, yer honor. I’ve two little boys in regular work, and a little boy and a little girl in America, and I buried me poor Johnny — he was in service in New York, but he fell into a decline, and he came home unexpected. I was in the market one day, and when I got back I saw just outside the door a new shining box, and there was Mary and Johnny — God! but he was awful bad, it^s a most deceiving disease, that consumption. The doctor he come, and he said, says he, ‘Give him plenty of eggs, and cream, and new milk.’

“ ‘Glory, is that all ye can do for him, doctor, jewel?’ says I. ‘Pm sorry to say it is,’ says he. Well, Johnny lay a good while, but one day he took a notion of getting up, and he asks for his shirt, and he calls for his pants, and he' strove to walk; but it was no use, it was just the restlessness before death, and he fell back calling foi* me— an’ sure it was all I could do for him— let him die in me arms. Oh, Johnny, Johnny!” And suddenly she laid her head down upon her horny hands, and broke into loud, violent sobs, that shook the very gate.

Denis Money abhorred emotional scenes; there was nothing droll or uncommon about this sort of thing, he felt excessively uncomfortable, and undecided what to do — to tender another half-acrown was much easier than to offer sympathy. As he stood pondering the position, Mrs. Shea gradually recovered herself, straightened her back, dried her eyes with her headgear, and, turning brusquely to her companion, said :

‘^Oome hereto me now! Ye was asking about a. boycotted farm; it’s there, that house beyant, living by itself; ye can see it if ye will give yerself the trouble to turn your head.”

He instantly complied, and noticed a solitary cottage with smokeless chimneys, that appeared half buried in furze.

“I didn’t let on at fust,” she resumed, “till 1 just made out what sort ye were, and now there it is for ye,” speaking precisely as if she were making him a gift of the title deeds upon the spot.

“And can you tell me anything about it?”

“Is it me tell you?” in a key of querulous protest. “An’ who better? but come away inside, an’ I’ll explain the whole affair to ye, proper and complate.”

Chapter Two The Boycotted Farm

The “Britisher,” who was eagerly absorbing many new ideas, accepted Mrs. Shea’s polite invitation with alacrity, and followed her into her residence— a low, smoky cabin, with an unev'en mud floor.

He looked about him curiously, and was immediately sensible of a certain air of easy squalor and musty comfort. There were numerous fat flitches hanging from the rafters, a bright turf fire glowed on the hearth (with its inseparable companion, a brown teapot), a profusion of gaudy crockery adorned the dresser, there was a roomy settee, two chairs, a hatching hen, a naked-looking white pig, and a little mottled sheep dog, with a wall eye, who barked vigorously.

“There’s no fear of the dog, ” explained Katty. “She’s of the old Carrig breed, and wouldn’t touch a gentlehian. Go to bed. Worry, ye divil!

She’s a cross little baste with strangers^. There was a man round here yesterday, playing the concertina, and faix she nearly ate the legs from under him,” As she spoke, Mrs. Shea hustled Worry into ‘‘the room,” and next proceeded to offer hospitality to her visitor, who, having declined in turn milk, porter, tea, and, finally, raw whisky in a mug, accepted one of the two chairs, and, lighting a cigarette to tone down the atmosphere, prepared to give his undivided attention to the story of the boycotted farm.

“ ’Tis ten years and more since it happened, though it seems to me like yesterday,” began Mrs. Shea. “There was always a sort of jealousy about the land, poor as it looks; Kelly wanted it, but Foggarty had it, and consequently it . bred a kind of stiffness between them. Howsomever, time passed on, and barring a few batings here and there, everything was quiet in these parts till one evening in October, as it might be this time of year. I was sitting at the fire there, when I heard a dull tramp, tramp, agoing up the road, a slow, heavy march, as never bodes no good, and always gives me a coldness in the bones. Well, I peeped out, and I saw about twelve or more men with masks on their faces, and green baize jackets. They went straight on, and I got a sort of wakeness, for I knew as something not right was goiug to surely happen. Then Bridgie Whelan came running in like a hare, to tell me that the hoys had been round looking for arms, and was gone up to Foggarty’s. Next morning about six o’clock, we heard as how Thady Foggarty, God rest him,” crossing herself, ‘‘was dead, and the whole thing came out.

“First and foremost, the chaps went to Riordan’s, who trated them well, then to Kelly’s, who trated them still better, lashens of whisky no less; from that they went to Foggarty ’s. He and his wife and childer were sitting round the fire, when in came the boys, with masks and guns, a whole houseful. Mrs. Foggarty uprose and offered them chairs, and milk, and every sort of nourishment, but she had no spirits — and Thady being a man of no distinction, never suspicioned as they would hurt him; and he sat and he talked over the weather, and the saison, and the fairs ; at long last they made a move to go, and a little chap with a squeaky voice, as he got to the door turns and says :

“ ‘Number Wan, do your duty!’

“But Number Wan never stirred. ‘Number Two,’ he bawls, and with that Number Two ups with his gun and blazes straight into Thady, where he was standing and smiling on the hearth. He fell down with a terrible groan, and they all walked out. Thady was shot mortally, about the body — awfully mangled with slugs and old nails; but his wife dare not go for help, or for the priest, so she put him on a chair, and happed an old shawl about him, and there he just bled to death — with seven small children crying around him.”

“By Jove!” ejaculated Money, in a shocked voice.

“ ’Tis God’s truth I’m telling ye, and ye can see for yourself the mark of the blood on the hearth to this day,” continued Mrs. Shea grimly. ‘‘No one ever found out who done it, but this I say — that it wasn’t over the farm’he was shot — but the poaching ! He was under ke^er, ye see, and had caught a couple of boys shooting and snaring, and why not?” she demanded with heat. “Didn’t God Almighty put birds in the air, and fish in the sea, and rabbits on the land, for the poor more nor for the rich? Will ye tell me what the rich wants with them at all? Aren’t they oursf^

Her visitor made no reply. He had his own opinion about poaching, which, under the circumstances, he prudently reserved.

“Well,” pursued Mrs. Shea (graciously accepting silence for consent), “the wife was very bitter over it, and showed terrible ill will, and lived under police protection, and strove hard and did her big best to have a couple of the chaps hanged. She left the country years ago, and Kelly, begor! he got a fine slice !ic I Avi — the good land. Some thought as the

boys whisky a-purpose to hearten i ;p for the shootin’, but no one knows the truth, and more folks does be very shy of the Kellys still. Howsomever, it would never do to be black out with them, and so I just pass them the time of day ; for the rest, all we can do is to lave them to God — and the police!” And having enunciated this pious sentiment, Mrs. Shea pulled out h r pipe, and began to smoke.

Money now consulted his watch, and, finding that it was getting late, rose and said, ‘‘Do you think I could see the place?”

“And what, would hinder you, darlin’? I’ll put you on the road meself, and set ye past the farm ; tjjoth and there’s not much to see. Ye can go by the door, but sorra a soul takes that way after dark, though it’s a grand short cut; they do be saying as Foggarty walks.”

“Walks!” repeated her guest.

“Hants it!” she explained impatiently. “Isn’t it all wan? In an old shawl, with his face white and twisted, an awful terrifying specter! Old Tim Ratigan nearly died over it, though some say it was another sort of spirrit as was at Tim.”

“Very likely Mr. Jameson’s spirit.”

“No, dear;” and behind her hand she added, “Potheen, at first cost, too, for he run it himself. He’s dead now, heaven be his bed.”