CHAPTER XXX

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WEDDING-BELLS.

The bog-slide claimed but one other victim, and that was Thomas Hanrahan, the widower, in his lone cabin over to Barnagee. His "fetch" had not come to him for nothing. The inhabitants of the other cabins that stood in its path had received timely warning, or it had skirted them. Many wonderful escapes were recorded, for the bog had crept in and out like a snake, sometimes almost washing the threshold of a house, and sparing it; and again it had widened to swallow the bits of hillside farms that had been made out of blood and sweat.

It took its heavy toll of cattle, and crops, and sheep, and of little thatched cabins; but its human sacrifice was small---just Thomas Hanrahan and these two men up at Castle Angry. The long _détour_ it had to make round the foot of our noble mountain had saved many lives. The hill had stood guarding the people till the warning reached them, and now we Brandons held in greater love, if that were possible, the beneficent mountain which was called by our name.

Thomas Hanrahan's body was flung up by the bog after some days, and received Christian burial; but of Sir Rupert and his bailiff nothing was ever heard. The bog had swallowed them, and when at last it stopped moving and was quiet, the ravine over which Castle Angry had stood was all a quaking bog, a menace to any living thing that should set foot upon it. With Castle Angry went all Sir Rupert's gold, the immense price which he had received long ago from the English company for the mines, of which he had robbed us Brandons. I, for one, did not grudge the evil gold to the bog.

And so Harry De Lacy entered into his patrimony--a modest one now--of Angry Mountain and a score of rack-rented farms.

"We shall be as poor as church mice," said Esther with dancing eyes, and red roses of happiness blown into her cheeks, "but for all that we shall make the people forget that once they hated our name."

She was not a Brandon to be afraid of poverty, though her estate would be wealth compared with what we had known all our days. Harry De Lacy was growing stronger every day, and the air of beauty and race which he had worn when first we saw him was coming back to him now. As Mrs. O'Flaherty said, they would be the handsomest couple ever seen in our countryside, "and that," added the good woman, "meaning no disrespect to the handsome Brandons."

They were to be married on the threshold of Lent, and to have their honeymoon in Paris, where, after a little interval, Lady O'Brien, with her faithful Martha, would join them for the Easter in Rome. It was a lovely mild February, with the snowdrops in snowdrifts under the trees in Brandon woods and primroses in sheltered places with troops of celandines, violets, and marsh marigolds. Esther was not to have a flowerless wedding.

It was wonderful how Harry De Lacy recovered under the influence of happiness. The shock of the manner of his grandfather's death was but a passing one, and with his marriage waiting upon his convalescence it was wonderful what strides he made towards recovery. Dr. Rivers' pride and pleasure in his patient's progress lifted up our hearts, who had been anxious about Harry De Lacy's ultimate recovery.

"He has a constitution," the doctor pronounced, "and rare recuperative powers. I should never have dared to hope for so rapid a recovery."

So, after all, thank God, Esther was not to have a delicate husband, with the martyrdom of fear which that would have meant to her.

It was only long afterwards that Esther gathered bit by bit, and told me, something of the circumstances of Harry De Lacy's imprisonment, for imprisonment it had been, till he was so weak that his bonds might safely be relaxed. He had been ill before that day when Lady O'Brien had sent for Sir Rupert. After that he found himself a prisoner, with Gaskin for his jailer; and the wretch hated him since his chastisement for his cruelty to the dogs.

For many weeks Harry had lain, as he thought, slowly dying and half-delirious from want of proper food and care. In those weeks he was conscious, like one in a dream, of Gaskin's malevolent visage as he flung him food and drink twice a day. It might be years, he said, during which he had watched the short winter daylight creep up the walls and linger and vanish, and had endured the feverish torments of the night.

Once he had thought he heard voices beside his bed.

"'Tis only to loosen a plank 'idout on the lobby," said one, "an' lave the door open, an' before he knows where he is he'll be on the stones o' the hall below."

The speech was followed by a crackling laugh, and the speaker rubbed his hands in glee.

Then another voice, harsh and deep, answered:

"No tricks, Gaskin, or by heavens, man, I'll tie you up like a dog in a sack and fling you to the hounds. Venom would make short work of your bones."

Then the other voice answered surlily:

"'Tis all the wan thing, only quicker, as lavin' him die in his bed."

"And who said he was to die, you scoundrel? If he dies through any fault of yours, so much the worse for you!" growled the other voice.

And then the speakers drifted off into the phantasmagoria of dreams and terrors which were the background of the sick man's life.

After that he conceived a resolution to save himself. Instead of rejecting the food that was brought him he forced himself to eat, and while feigning unconsciousness or sleep when Gaskin came with the food, he held himself in readiness to guard his life, so far as his feeble strength would allow, if it were threatened, and watched for an opportunity to deliver himself out of the hands of his would-be murderer. In time Gaskin relaxed his guard of the door, believing his prisoner past helping himself, and this was Harry's opportunity.

He had followed Gaskin one night, and listened to him and Sir Rupert talking over their whisky. From their talk he gathered that they would be at a distance on a certain day--that day of January on which, indeed, we effected his rescue. But for the happy accident of Johnny O'Flaherty's venturous approach to Castle Angry he would have made the attempt to escape unaided, and would probably have died under the rains if he had not been recaptured.

It comforted him to think in those days that his grandfather had stood between him and death, for he was sure that it was only Gaskin's fear of Sir Rupert had held his hand from murder. To me it seemed but a small compunction in the wicked old man, and I could not help believing it a part of his pride that found it insufferable for a worm like Gaskin to lift its head against one of his blood. If Harry had died in his bed at Castle Angry it seemed to me that it would have been murder, just as much as if he had crashed through the upper floor, as Gaskin had wished it, on to the flags of the hall. But the quality of gentleness which Harry De Lacy must have inherited from his other saintly old grandfather, and which, I know now, implies no lack of courage and true manliness, makes it easy to him to forgive Sir Rupert, and even to regret him a little after all.

They were married very quietly one morning by Mr. Benson, in our old parish church. Esther had wanted to wear her travelling dress, but Lady O'Brien would not have it.

"You will be the handsomest bride in this part of the country," she said, "since I stood up with poor Peter. Hilda there won't be a patch on you, meaning no disrespect to her. And you sha'n't be defrauded of your bridal glories. 'Twould be a shame to me for ever if I let you."

So Esther had white poplin, with a train of white velvet, and the poplin delightfully sprigged with silver shamrocks. And I, the solitary bridesmaid, had also my frock from Paris, a creamy embroidered muslin trimmed with lace, which looked the embodiment of simplicity, but I am sure cost a very pretty penny for all that. It was Lady O'Brien's gift, and I cried out when she gave it to me that I would keep it against my wedding, but she said no, that I should have a wedding-dress of my own, and that she was to give it to me.

"What," said she, "are you to give my daughter Esther rubies, and a minx like you be too proud to accept from an old woman a tuppenny-ha'penny silk frock."

So I laughed and said I wasn't a minx, and would try to swallow the frock.

Lance and I were to be married at Whitsuntide. I would not have it earlier, because I could not bear that we should all hurry away from Aline. He grumbled a good deal because I would not fix the same day as Esther's for our wedding, which most auspiciously was Valentine's Day, and after he had seen me in my bridesmaid's frock he was more unwilling to wait than ever.

Still, as I put it to him, since we saw each other every day, and as he and the General were so busy over those mysterious preparations at Rose Hill, into which I was never allowed to pry, the time would pass quickly enough. And it really did. We were going to have husband-and-wife days all our life, and I wanted my share of "lovering" days like any other girl, and so I had them in spite of my grumbling lover.

I wish I could tell you something of the state of felicity in which the General spent those days. I should have thought Rose Hill lovely enough for anybody, but the General said that when he was fitting it up--only last autumn--he had never thought of such a person as a bride, and it seemed there was a lot to be done for a bride.

I used not to know whether to laugh or cry over the General's diplomacy in those days. I was supposed to be in the dark entirely about the suite of rooms which was being prepared for me, but really I knew beforehand almost everything they would contain. The General's way of finding out my tastes was to describe minutely a wall-paper, a chintz, a carpet, or a piece of furniture, and ask me if I thought such a thing would "please a lady". His craft would not have imposed on Paudeen; but for all that those rooms were going to be a tremendous surprise to me.

I was always wondering in those days--indeed I wonder still--what those two men could see in me to be so absorbed in and delighted over. Esther's beauty now, or Aline's goodness, I could understand exciting such enthusiasm,--but Hilda! Ah, well, it is a great thing that people have such tender delusions about us; and surely no one could have loved better than I. My love was adequate if nothing else was, and that was the thought that used to comfort me.

The time really flew round till it was May, and within a week or two of our marriage. Whitsuntide fell in May, and though people say it is an unlucky month for a marriage, I was not daunted. As I said to Lance, I was more afraid of keeping him waiting longer than of the ill-luck, to which he replied that if I suggested a further postponement he'd be obliged to abduct me.

Early in May our bride and bridegroom came home. Lady O'Brien and Martha had preceded them by about a fortnight, and had been very busy with preparations, for they were to live at Annagower. Harry De Lacy was going to farm a large slice of land about Angry. Poor land that even our peasant makers-of-land would despair of, but he was full of theories and full of hope, and it was pleasant to see him beginning his new life with such energy, and Esther's boundless faith in him. After all, their poverty proved to be quite relative, because between them they possessed an income of nearly a thousand a year, which is affluence in our quiet country, whatever it might be in London. Lady O'Brien had treated Esther exactly like a daughter, saying that she preferred to ensure her future against an old woman's whims.

"For who knows," she said in her whimsical way, "but I might forget Peter after all those years, and go off and marry some fellow, and make a fool of myself over him."

In this season of regeneration, a full share of new brightness had come to our dear old friend. Her rheumatism she said she had danced off at Essie's wedding, and when one of the literal twins gravely remarked that there had been no dancing, Lady O'Brien answered her that it was only because she had not had eyes to see.

Meanwhile I had been getting ready my very modest trousseau. Aline had found a little hoard somewhere for that, and as we live in the centre of a sewing industry, my things were fine and delicate as heart could desire. My frocks were few but pretty, and I was satisfied with them, though I knew that Lance's fingers were tingling against the day when he should bestow on me Parisian gowns and bonnets. I told him I wouldn't repay fine dressing, that it would but accentuate my insignificance, at which he would smile darkly.

My wedding gown only arrived from Annagower the evening before my wedding, and when it had been carried up to my bedroom, and Martha, who was in charge, spread its glories upon the bed, there it was, to my amazement, a replica of Esther's splendour. Accompanying it was a veil, shoes and gloves, and a tiny wreath of orange blossoms. There was no full-dress rehearsal. Martha was to stay the night in order to assist at my toilette in the morning, lest anything should require readjusting. And though I was brave enough to marry in May, I did not see the good of doubly defying the superstitious by trying on my wedding dress beforehand.

No bride ever had so many dressers before. I am sure the business-like Martha was rather irritated by having so many eager assistants, though she was too admirable to betray it. All my sisters, except Freda, were about me, and Lady O'Brien was sitting in state downstairs, while the boys waited in the corridor, getting in the way of the twins, who were darting up and down incessantly on all manner of unnecessary messages.

When I was quite dressed, even to the General's diamond star, and Aline's pearl brooch, to say nothing of my bridegroom's two splendid bracelets, Esther stepped forward, and, kissing me, clasped about my neck a lovely string of pearls with a diamond clasp. I recognized them as those her godmother had given her the night of her first ball, and cried out in protest, but she laughed and kissed me, saying they would become me better than her, for whom rubies of all things were the very gems.

So Lance did not see my splendour till we met at the altar.

Of course he was delighted, but then he is always delighted, and I am not sure that he doesn't like me better in the old frock in which he first found me seated on the steps in Rose Hill library; or in a pink gingham, which reminds him, he says, of me lying all crumpled up in the ditch the day of Annagassan Races.

One of my thoughts when I stood at the altar was whether Pierce in heaven knew of my happiness, and rejoiced in it, but I am sure he did. I said so to Aline afterwards, when I was alone with her for a minute, and she kissed me closely, and said she was sure he knew, and then she said sweetly that she was so happy in the two dear new brothers we had given her.

So, if I had tears in my eyes as our carriage drove off, as Lance said I had, they were tears of pure happiness and thanksgiving.

Oona always said that if Heaven meant a girl to be married, the husband would find her, though she were hidden in a bandbox. And here were we two girls fulfilling that wise saying of hers, and marrying the dearest of husbands after living the life of nuns. I said something of this to Oona, and she was well pleased.

"You couldn't have done better, Miss Hilda," she said, "nor yet Miss Esther. The people do be saying they couldn't pick between your gentlemen, for though Sir Harry is as handsome as a picture, the Captain's that big an' strong an' kind-looking."

So everybody seemed to smile upon our happiness.

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