CHAPTER XXVIII

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OUT OF THE WEB.

We were in the wood, and the boggy ground under our feet was giving way at every step. The wood seemed all bog except for the uneven pathway which gave, in dry weather, a solid resting place. On every side, under the tangled boughs, the ground was a brilliant treacherous green. No rabbits scutted from under our feet as in Brandon Woods, no squirrel ran lightly from bough to bough. We did not hear a bird chirp; all the naked boughs of the branches showed here and there a startling white surface, as though the tree had been stripped by lightning. A wind had got up, and the whole wood was creaking and groaning. The trees were many of them very old, and had flung themselves in strange unnatural postures; the knots and gnarls on the old oaks were like the grinning faces in gargoyles. It was easy to see why the country people were afraid of Angry Woods.

Even in the cold light of morning the woods were eerie. In dusk they must look as if peopled by a multitude of mocking manikins, with here and there among them a towering white ghost. From the green and slimy bog, on which if you trod you might find a grave, a thousand gaily-coloured fungi sprang, and from the joints of the trees immense fairy mushrooms had burst out and thriven gigantically.

"Quiet, quiet, Neddy!" I heard Mike O'Flaherty say to the donkey, whose little hoofs he was guiding upon the pathway.

"If there's another downpour," he called out to us, "the path'll be washed back into the bog. We're not a day too soon, maybe, about our business."

We answered him cheerfully over our shoulders; but the wind that had now sprung up was not conducive to conversation, let alone that the noise of the trees was like the shrieking and groaning of wretches under the knout.

"'Twould be as well," I said to Esther, "that the bog should swallow it. This is a horrible place, this wood!" And she nodded for answer.

Presently we were clear of it, and climbing up the safer way through the ravine, and there above us on its plateau was Castle Angry frowning. It looked livid in the watery lights. It was partly stucco and partly ugly yellow brick, and the tracks of the rains on its stuccoed face were like great veins, as you saw it from a distance, or like green and dropping tears.

The ravine had a rocky ridge for its pathway that seemed as if at some time it had been the bed of a river which had scooped the earth out and left only the bones of it. We trod there more dry-foot, despite the little pools on the surface of it, but our wet boots as we walked squished and squirted uncomfortably.

"You'll be having a new cold to-morrow, Esther," I said.

"Not I," she said; "if Harry is safe I shall have no more ills. We will change as soon as ever we get back."

And now we were on the bright-green plateau, where the grass grew coarse and rank, and again the water bubbled about our feet. The face of Castle Angry turned this way was eyeless, and I was glad of it, for I would have imagined evil faces at the windows, if windows there had been.

We all kept closely together as we neared the gate, at least we all did except Esther, for she ran forward lightly and pulled the great iron bell-pull. We heard the bell sound somewhere deep inside the Castle, and then there came a roar from the dogs in the court-yard.

Mike O'Flaherty moved nearer to Esther, as if to protect her, but she did not seem to have heard the dogs. She was listening against the heavy gateway, with the intent expression of one whose heart listens.

Then we heard a voice speak to the dogs, and the baying ceased. There was the rattle of a chain and the drawing of a bolt, and then Harry De Lacy stepped through the postern and was in the midst of us.

I was startled at the change in him. His face had lengthened and grown hollow. There was a sparse growth of beard about his young cheeks, and his eyes had sunk far back into deep spaces. He was huddled in a great-coat, and it was evident that in thus escaping from Castle Angry he was expending all his remaining strength, for he trembled violently as he stood.

Then, with a moan of compassion, Esther put both her arms around him.

"Come, Mike," she said, "he is exhausted."

And indeed the boy's eyes had closed, and he seemed to be swooning.

"Easy now, Miss Essie," said Mike O'Flaherty; "give him to me."

He took the slight figure in his arms and lifted it into the donkey-cart. His wife settled the pillows and tucked in the blankets, with just such an expression as her face must often have worn when Harry De Lacy was a helpless child.

"They've nearly murdered you, acushla," she said, half to herself; "an' to think your Maggie was near, an' not knowing till 'twas too late."

While they were making the invalid easy, I stepped through the open door into the court-yard. Opposite to me frowned the low, prison-like door that led to the Castle itself. I longed to enter it, to see the places about which there were so many legends, but there was no time.

The court-yard itself was like a deep well into which little light entered. Round about it were little staring windows, unprotected by ivy. Not a green thing grew in the place, though the broken pavement was slimy with damp.

At one side the dogs were chained to heavy staples in the wall--great, lumbering, piteous-looking brutes, with their eyes full of blood. I did not feel afraid of them, and they showed no hostility. One, an old yellow dog, with sharp fangs, was, I thought, the one Sir Rupert had called "Venom" that day he had ridden under my tree long ago, but I could not be sure.

The dogs looked beyond me to the postern, through which Harry De Lacy had passed, and their eyes were full of despair. I could well believe that they knew they were losing their one friend.

"Poor brutes!" I said to them. "I wish we could take you too."

But they looked away from my voice still towards the postern-gate.

"Come, Hilda," said Esther, close to me, "we are ready now, and it is time we were gone."

I looked round the place once more, and then stepped back across the threshold and pulled-to the door. As I did so the dogs set up a dismal howling, and as long as we were within earshot of the place the sound followed us.

Larry now went in front, leading the donkey. On either side of the cart Esther and Mrs. O'Flaherty walked, each watching absorbedly the face so dear to both of them, the face of the dead it might be, as it lay helplessly on the pillows, but moving to and fro with the motion of the cart.

Mike O'Flaherty and I walked behind, and the peasant's florid face wore an unusually grave look.

"'Twill be too bad, Miss Hilda," he said, as the cart disappeared from us round the bend of a path, "if we've only got him out to lose him after all."

"It will, Mike," said I; "but, please God, that won't be."

"Amen, Miss Hilda; but he looks mortal bad."

"He is young, Mike, and, God willing, he will recover. Your wife's nursing will do wonders for him."

"Oh, the woman'll do her best! 'Tis wonderful what nature is in women for the childher they've rared. I doubt now if she's as much took up wid her own Johnny."

"Oh, I am sure she is!" said I, fearing a tinge of jealousy in the speech of the good-natured giant; "only, you see, Johnny hasn't the great need of her that her foster-son has just now."

"True for you, Miss Hilda. The woman's love goes where the need is greatest, an' thank God for that same."

"Your Johnny did us a great service, Mike," I said. "I know my sister will never forget it."

"He did so, the young thief o' the world,--an', would you believe it, when it was all done herself threatened the boy with the belt, and left him bawlin' melia murther."

"I suppose Mrs. O'Flaherty thought discipline should be maintained at all costs."

"Indeed she's the wonderful woman entirely," said her spouse admiringly.

"What will you do, Mike," said I, "if Sir Rupert finds out your share in kidnapping his grandson, and makes trouble?"

"Show the ould villain the barrel o' me blunderbuss," said Mike. "Oh, indeed, Miss Hilda, I'm a stout man on me own hearthstone! I wouldn't be half the man to face him up there, though he's ould, an' I could twist Gaskin's neck as easy as a chicken's. But the place sends the cowld to my heart."

"It does to mine too, Mike," said I.

"Ah, see there now! There was a power o' wickedness done in it in ould times. 'Tis the smell of it about the place makes your blood run cowld."

"I suppose there was," I said.

"You may say it. There's a hole under it, I hear, where they used to sling prisoners in the ould times. It went right through into the heart o' the world, maybe as far as the fires, for all I know. There was no end to it anyhow, an' they say you could hear the poor souls slippin' an' screechin' long after they fell. I never seen it meself," added Mike impartially.

We were now come to the wood, where the trees were still creaking and groaning, while now and again a broken branch flapped in our faces.

"'Tis well they may lament," said Mike. "A-many a fine fellow hung on them in ould days wid the feet of him kickin' in air. There's a Curse on the place, that's what there is, Miss Hilda, an' I'd never have come next or nigh it but that herself shamed me to it."

"I hope Mr. De Lacy will escape the Curse, if there is one," said I.

"Och sure, if we can get him well an' marry him to Miss Essie the ould Curse 'll rowl off him like water off a duck's back. Sure he's not like a De Lacy at all. His father before him took the turn against the ould bad ways, an' himself here is the better man. If we can only get him well," he added.

There was a patter of rain in our faces, and the wood trembled before a fresh onslaught of wind.

"Glory be! I hope it's not going to rain again," said Mike. "If it does, there's no knowin' what'll be happenin'. I've never seen the country under such rain before. The year o' the big rain they might be callin' it."

"It's hard on you, Mike," I said sympathetically.

"It is. The seed's nigh washed out of the earth, an' I never knew as hard a season for the lambs. But 'tis worse wid some others. I've a stout roof over me, thank God, an' fine foundations. If the rain comes on again there'll be many a little rickety cabin washed out to sea. The fear's on them already, the crathurs."

"The fear, Mike?"

"Aye, the fear. They're as frightened as sheep of somethin' that's goin' to happen, they don't know what. There's keenin' an' manifestations by night, they say, an' some say the dead rises out o' their graves night after night in the Bawn churchyard an' walks the world."

"Oh dear!" I said, shivering with infectious superstition, "I'd no idea there were such stories about."

"Well, there might be. They say some of the coffins have been washed out of the graves. The Bawn lies on a shelf o' land, as you know, Miss Hilda; an' people comin' on them things by night in the middle o' the road is apt to be onraisonable afraid."

"I should think so, indeed," said I.

"Father Cleary's in an' out among the people constant. All the sick an' aged people is wanting the last sacrament, like as if the world was comin' to an end. He spoke agin the fear that's on the people last Sunday from the altar, an' said it was a delusion of the Powers o' Darkness. But 'tis no use his talkin'. They say the priest has great power over heaven and hell, but there's a world that's nayther, nor yet earth, an' he can't put his _comether_ on that."

Mike had entertained me but gloomily. I knew the superstitions among the people, superstitions that rose as naturally out of the damp earth as the mists and the vapours. Our valleys are hemmed in by immense and lonely mountains, round which the clouds hang like a winding-sheet. Our people are fishers or small farmers, engaged for ever in the struggle to win a bare subsistence against all the forces of nature. A wet summer means death and famine by land. A wild winter the same doom by sea. No wonder that superstition flourishes, that the belief in fairy and ghost and wraith is wrought up so inextricably with the belief in saints and angels, that one could hardly pull up one without the other, the weeds without the golden corn.

It was weather to foster the Celtic melancholy, and if it were going to rain again then it might well be that calamity would follow.

But now we were at the Inch Farm, and presently in the roomy kitchen with its leaping wood fire. Mike and his son lifted the feather-bed bodily out of the donkey-cart and carried it to a bedroom where a fire had been lit. Esther watched all this hungrily as if she would have fain done everything herself.

Mrs. O'Flaherty meanwhile issued her orders like a general. Johnny was despatched for Dr. Rivers, and Esther and I were installed in big chairs before the fire. Our wet shoes and stockings were pulled off quickly and replaced by fleecy stockings of Mrs. O'Flaherty's own knitting.

While she was doing this her daughter Katie was serving up a meal of toasted bacon and eggs on a table at our elbow.

"Now eat, jewels," said our kind hostess, "while I look after my baby. Larry'll rowl yez back to Brandon on the side car as soon as ever Dr. Rivers has gone, an' the sooner yez are back the better, for I'm sore afraid of the weary ould rain beginnin' again."

Then she bustled off to see to her baby, as she still called Harry De Lacy.

I was glad that Esther seemed content to leave him in her charge. Dr. Rivers had come before we were ready to start, having fortunately been at home when Johnny arrived. He was a much more efficient doctor than poor old Dr. Devine, and it was fortunate that when he left the army he had decided to settle down in our neighbourhood.

He came into the parlour to us after he had seen his patient.

"Well, Dr. Rivers, what do you think of him?" Esther said, jumping up as soon as the door opened.

"Oh, Miss Brandon, how do you do?" he said. "I see you have not lost interest in Mr. De Lacy."

He looked at her with his keen, man-of-the-world eyes.

"We are to be married, Dr. Rivers," said Esther, with a pathetic little air of dignity.

The doctor's face changed, and became full of sympathy.

"Oh, indeed!" he said; "no wonder you are anxious. There is nothing really the matter except that his vitality has been greatly reduced. What have they been doing to him since I put him out of my hands at Brandon, well on the way to recovery?"

Esther told him briefly of the young man's detention at Castle Angry, and of our rescue of him. He nodded at intervals during the telling.

"Ah! Miss Brandon," he said when she had finished, "one comes on strange happenings in one's profession, but this is like a tale out of a book, and no sober nineteenth-century business at all. Can you explain Sir Rupert's rancour against his grandson?"

"There is enmity of long standing between Sir Rupert and our family. He probably thought that if he could keep his grandson long enough from his friends the matter of our engagement would fall through."

"He would have slipped through his fingers very soon," said the physician grimly. "The man must be mad. If the lad had died of neglect and semi-starvation it would have been manslaughter at least. As it is," he said hastily, noticing that my sister had turned pale, "I believe you have saved him, Miss Brandon, though there is a lot of building-up required. Still, he is young, and happiness is a wonderful cure. You are leaving him in Mrs. O'Flaherty's care?"

"Till he is a little stronger. She is his foster-mother, and will watch over him with the utmost tenderness."

"And afterwards?"

"We will be married as soon as possible, and I shall take him abroad."

I wondered for the hundredth time at the power and resolution that had come into Esther with her love. Here she was arranging the future for herself and her lover as I should never have dared to do.

"Ah! that will be good," said Dr. Rivers. "Get him away from places that are painful by association, as soon as possible. Above all, keep him from any conflict with his grandfather."

"I don't think he will come into our lives again," said Esther, her face darkening. "If he should, we must protect ourselves at any cost. But at present you understand, Dr. Rivers, we are anxious to avoid publicity and scandal."

"The matter is safe with me, Miss Brandon," said the physician, bowing. "We have to hear so many strange things in the course of our profession that it would never do if we were not men of discretion."

"Thank you, Dr. Rivers," said my sister heartily, as he took leave of us.

Larry drove us home on a jaunting-car that reminded me of our equipage long ago at Annagassan Races. As we drove along, the mountains were gray with rain, and the first fine sweep of it came in our faces.

"How shall I get back to Annagower if it comes on to rain heavily?" said Esther, as we leant close together under an umbrella.

"Don't go back to-night, Essie," said I. "Sleep with me as in the old times. We can send word to Lady O'Brien that the weather has kept you."

"I should like to stay," she said.

"I have such wonderful things to tell you, Essie," I whispered, "_about myself_."

She looked at me with wonder.

"More literary successes, Hilda?" she asked.

"No, Essie, not literary successes."

"And what, then, Hilda?"

She turned straight round, letting the umbrella drip upon our heads, unnoticed, and looked into my eyes.

"Not that, Hilda?" she said, incredulously.

"And why not that?" I cried. "I suppose you think no one in the world has a lover but yourself."

"You darling!" she said; "and to think I can't hug you because of this umbrella!"

"You might as well, Essie, for the rain has been pouring down my spine in a perfect cascade for the last five minutes."

"Oh, I am sorry, you poor child! But here we are at Brandon. Find me a messenger for my godmother, Hilda, and I shall stay, and we shall have a dearer talk than ever we had in the old days. Oh, to think," she cried, as she furled, much to my relief, that most inefficient umbrella, "that all our dreams should have come true! Oh, how good God is, Hilda, how good God is!"

I looked at her glowing face in wonder. Clearly there was no misgiving for the future in it. Her joy and faith were infectious, and I too felt my heart singing a song, despite the rain and the gloom, and despite my memory of the worn and haggard young face of Esther's lover.

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