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 BERNA BOYLE
 
 London : 
 robson and sons, prikters, pakcras road, n.w
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 % l0iu Stor]) 0f lljt Countij ^oton. 
 
 sv 
 
 MRS. J. H. RIDDELL, 
 
 AUTHOR Oi' ••GEORGE GEITH," "THE SENIOR PARTNER," ETC. 
 
 IN THKEE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. 1. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 KICHAKD BE^TLEY AND SON, 
 
 ipttbh»l)ng in ©rtJinarp to i)er ittajeatp ttje ©.urcn. 
 
 1884. 
 
 lAll Rights reserued.]
 
 8^3 
 v./ 
 
 BEENA BOYLE 
 
 S f oiJt 5torg 0f tbc Counts Qoiuii. 
 
 '^ CHAPTER I. 
 
 ^ Reverse the glass of the nineteenth century, let 
 
 the sands of time sift swiftly backwards for nearly 
 
 ,'«' thirty-four years, and I will show you a tiny 
 
 1 village nestling among the green slopes of Down. 
 
 But the merest hamlet ! Spite of the railway 
 
 ' station less than a mile distant ; the post-office 
 
 and public-house combined, situated just where 
 
 the Comber Road branches off from the New- 
 
 tonards ; the smithy hard by ; the church, perched 
 
 aloft on one of those quaint low hills that have 
 
 won for the county a not inapt comparison to a 
 
 basket of eggs ; the police barracks, the remark- 
 
 able-looking Rectory, the mail-car running along 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 ii BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 the highway twice a day, the Preshyterian meet- 
 ing-house — surely, the smallest and most unpre- 
 tending of picturesque villages ! 
 
 Only one side to it, and that extremely im- 
 perfect! First a row of one-storied cottages, 
 where dwelt the local cobbler and tailor, both 
 deadly jealous of town ways and town notions. 
 Then fields advanced boldly to the front, suc- 
 ceeded, after a short space, by the police barracks, 
 a couple of its occupants, privates in the Irish 
 constabulary, being generally encountered loung- 
 ing on the footpath opposite. A little further, a 
 few more cottages were scattered beside the road ; 
 at the extreme end of the village, beyond the lane 
 which still winds up to the gate of the graveyard, 
 stood proudly forth the shop, where nothing could 
 be bought, it might have been supposed, that 
 any human creature would desire to purchase. 
 Close to the turning leading to the Kectory was a 
 second smithy, for the neighbourhood was (and is) 
 one much given to farming, and found constant 
 need of a farrier's services; a few detached houses, 
 farm and otherwise, lay back from the left-hand
 
 BERN A BOYLE, 
 
 side of the road — the right being skirted, as stated, 
 by humble cottages; the whole place looked 
 green and white by reason of the green fields and 
 the white-washed houses. Up on the hillsides 
 lay great masses of trees and belts of plantation, 
 and higher still you could see roads winding over 
 the heights whence lovely views were to be ob- 
 tained of Belfast Lough, and the Antrim moun- 
 tains, of Scrabo close at hand, and, on a clear 
 day, a glimpse of Scotland — as the crow flies, 
 little more than twenty miles distant from that 
 extreme point of the county Down, close to which 
 the English steamers plough their way, while, 
 keeping between the Copelands and Donaghadee, 
 they shape an almost direct course southward 
 down the Channel. 
 
 It was a summer's morning in the July of 
 1850 ; the barley and the flax both needed sun ; 
 the potatoes, anxiously watched for signs of that 
 fatal blight, could have borne any amount of heat 
 and been the better for it. The grass had grown 
 well and was more than ready for the scythe, and 
 the rain was coming down in torrents. It was
 
 4 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 a morning to make sad the heart of any farmer. 
 All through the district, from the Rectory to the 
 hovel, there was " mourning and lamentation and 
 woe :" the labourers could not work ; the horses 
 were standing idle in the stable, eating their 
 heads off. Masters and men, for once of one 
 mind, looked mournfully out at the weather. 
 Steadily the rain held on — dripping through the 
 leaves, plashing into the pools, swelling the 
 streams, soaking the earth. In the whole of that 
 village there were no creatures happy but the 
 ducks, which waddled about quacking, literally 
 embarrassed by the wealth in the way of dirt 
 Providence was providing for them. 
 
 About a mile out of the village, in the Craig- 
 antlet direction, which is the nearest route to 
 Bangor — not on the crest of the rising ground, 
 that opens to any one who has patiently toiled up 
 the long incline such an unexpected and magni- 
 ficent stretch of sea, and mountain, and head- 
 land, and smiling, restful land; but admirably 
 placed on the slope of the hill, so as to be pro- 
 tected from the north-east wind — stood a house of
 
 BERNA BOYLE. O 
 
 some pretension. It was embowered in trees. 
 It was approached by an avenue upon which the 
 foot fell almost as noiselessly as on the turf of the 
 lawn. There was a great silence about the place. 
 AVhen you entered the gate the world seemed left 
 behind. It was an old mansion — once the Dower 
 House of a noble family — but it had descended in 
 the social scale, till it simply " went with the 
 land " — was thrown in as a mere makeweight 
 with the farm. Scarcely charged for in the rent 
 — the tenant was continually grumbling concern- 
 ing the expense entailed upon him by the '^ tumble- 
 down old barrack " — where ladies in stomachers 
 and farthingales, and patches and high-heeled 
 shoes, and powdered hair, once rustled through 
 the wainscoted rooms ; and handsome gallants 
 came wooing, and dark deeds, it was said, were 
 done — notably one which caused the imprint of a 
 blood-stained hand on the wall, and the drip of 
 blood on the black oak staircase ; and the legend 
 that now and then the ghost of a murdered 
 woman might be seen by some human being more 
 especially favoured than his fellows.
 
 U BERNA BOYLK. 
 
 Through the years the house had been per- 
 sistently falling from its once high estate. As the 
 family to whom it belonged grew greater it grew 
 less. Time went on, and the mansion, as the 
 winters and summers came and went, got more 
 and more dilapidated; each successive tenant 
 refused it even one poor coat of paint ; each occu- 
 pier left it in worse plight than his predecessor. 
 The ladies of the great family had long ceased to 
 inhabit a nook so utterly out of the world. In 
 London, or Bath, or Paris, or any other favourite 
 resort, they spent the few pounds the Dower 
 House brought them by way of rental. The 
 memory of man could not extend to the time 
 when a Dame Bountiful, residing under the 
 shadow of those ancient trees, blessed the neigh- 
 bourhood with her gracious presence. 
 
 The former days were gone, and the prestige 
 of the old Dower House with them. It had sunk 
 surely, if slowly. First it was let to a New- 
 tonards man, who, having gone out to India 
 without a penny, came back, to quote the country- 
 side gossip, possessed of " millions and millions."
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 7 
 
 Unfortunately, he brought back in addition a 
 native wife and half-a-dozen dark-skinned black- 
 eyed children, all of whom, being regarded as 
 intruders, and treated as such, the "rajah" — so 
 his neighbours generally called him — sold off his 
 furniture, packed up his belongings, and took 
 boat for England. Then a sporting character, in 
 great request at mess and bachelor dinners, who, 
 it was credibly asserted, fought mains of cocks in 
 the dining-room and had boxing matches in the 
 great barn, remained in Ardilaw for the space of 
 two years, at the expiration of which term he 
 drank himself to death, greatly to the satisfaction 
 of many worthy people. After that the place was 
 let for the summer to persons able to drive across 
 to Holy wood " for the bathing." Then it went 
 down another step, and was rented by a Belfast 
 shopkeeper, who wanted country air for his 
 children, and grass where those children could 
 tumble about and grow up wild. 
 
 When it had been knocked almost out of 
 human recognition by the young fry, their papa 
 died; his business collapsed, and Ardilaw was
 
 8 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 again in the market. This time a gentleman 
 farmer thought he would essay a wrestle with the 
 poor hillside land, and a contest with ignorance 
 and the elements ; but five successive bad seasons, 
 to say nothing of relays of incompetent labourers 
 and dishonest bailiffs, compelled his departure. 
 
 For a year and four months the house stood 
 empty. Weeds grew rank in the orchard and 
 kitchen garden, roses bloomed and faded in the 
 parterres once tended by My Lady, moss covered 
 the drive, the leaves lay where they had fallen 
 on the lawn, from the windows no men or 
 women's eyes looked out upon a landscape 
 destitute of the attraction of human life and 
 human movement. Some few persons came to 
 view, but no one remained to rent. Then 
 suddenly the whole village was astounded, and 
 possibly shocked, to hear Hewson Muir, of Kil- 
 moon Farm, had rented the Dower House — stock, 
 lock, and barrel ; land, water, wood, and bog — as 
 tenant-at-will, under the great family, who 
 " ought to have known better " than let the "old 
 place to a man little more nor a labourer." Pre-
 
 BERN A BOYLE. 9 
 
 sumably the great family, like lesser families, 
 understood its own business at least as well as its 
 critics. It was a family which had its personal 
 interests at heart, and always found a way, spite 
 of settlements and entails, of getting rid of un- 
 remunerative and troublesome property. To cut 
 a long story short, before Mr. Muir had been a 
 year in possession, Ardilaw changed hands, and 
 passed into the keeping of a certain Lyle Garn- 
 sey, commonly reported to be the " wickedest 
 man in the county." 
 
 The sinister reputation of that gentleman who 
 fought cocks in his dining-room, and hob-nobbed 
 with the Heenan of his day, paled when contrasted 
 against the scorching sins of Lyle Garnsey. In 
 Mr. Garnsey's case distance lent enchantment to 
 the view : what were a few cocks mangled and 
 bleeding near Belfast in comparison with crimes 
 committed in Dublin and London and ''furrin 
 parts "? 
 
 Over many a turf fire the misdoings of '' the 
 Squire " were spoken of with bated breath, the 
 future of his only child, a daughter, discussed,
 
 10 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 and his own eventual destination more than 
 hinted at. 
 
 Between this new landlord and Mr. Muir the 
 most friendly relations were soon established; 
 though the former was almost an infidel and the 
 latter a red-hot Orangeman, though one was a 
 Liberal and the other a Tory, Mr. Muir sternly 
 maintained " ye might chance to meet worse nor 
 Lyle Garnsey," while Mr. Garnsey was wont to 
 declare he considered '' Mr. Muir a most excellent 
 person." Twice a year, when he went to pay his 
 rent, Mr. Muir dined at Beechfield, and it was a 
 sight to behold him gravely accepting viands he 
 did not like, served in a fashion to which he was 
 not accustomed, from the hands of a footman who 
 had much ado to conceal the disgust he felt at 
 having to wait " upon such a fellow." 
 
 The years went by, and Mr. Muir, at all 
 events, made money out of Ardilaw. If nobody 
 else had ever managed to extract a profit from the 
 land, Mr. Muir did. He rarely worked himself, 
 but he was without peer in the matter of seeing 
 that other people "wrought" as they should.
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 11 
 
 Sometimes he might have been seen guiding the 
 plough, dressed in decent black, bis coat a 
 swallow-tail, and his shirt white as snow ; but, as 
 a rule, he preferred watching the turning up of the 
 clods, and following while some one else harrowed 
 and cast seed into the ground. 
 
 He was tall, over six feet in height — " six 
 feet two in my stocking soles," he often stated — 
 of spare habit, long limbed, loosely made, with no 
 depth in his shoulders and no width across his 
 chest; a man who looked as if he had been 
 thrown together instead of built ; a person no 
 human being could have called handsome. 
 
 On that wet July morning he stood beside one 
 of the windows in the old wainscoted dining-room, 
 splicing the handle of a gig whip and looking out 
 at the weather. It was indeed, as has been said, 
 a day to try the faith of any farmer. Ordinarily, 
 Mr. Muir — as became a man who hated the Pope, 
 and loved " Protestant Boys," Orange Lilies, and 
 the rousing cry of "No Surrender!" — had suffi- 
 cient faith in the wisdom and justice of his 
 Maker; but as he watched the rain coming down
 
 12 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 faster and faster, the avenue getting wetter and 
 wetter, the heavens growing darker and darker, he 
 felt there must he something utterly wrong some- 
 where. Could it possibly have happened (trying 
 circumstances will give rise to doubt even in 
 minds not ordinarily prone to scepticism) that 
 Providence, finding the whole scheme of creation 
 too vast for individual attention, had given Ire- 
 land, as regarded its weather, over to a sort of 
 Viceregent, who was making as great a mess of 
 physical matters as Lord Lieutenants usually do 
 of political ? 
 
 This was a view of the question which in the 
 then state of the hay crop seemed to Mr. Muir so 
 extremely probable, he felt he should have liked 
 to *' threep " it out with '* some sensible person ;" 
 but as there chanced to be no human being in 
 the room except his eldest daughter ''Bell," the 
 farmer, though big with thought, decided he had 
 best hold his tongue, ''women folk being as a 
 rule fools to talk to." 
 
 Miss Bell Muir was a lady who might have 
 been guessed at any age, according to the fancy
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 13 
 
 of the spectator. Really but six-and-twenty, she 
 had that hard and battered appearance it is com- 
 petent for even quite young women to assume 
 who have always cultivated the utile to the exclu- 
 sion of the dulce. There was not much dulce 
 about Miss Muir. She never could be considered 
 happy except when half-killing herself, and har- 
 assing everybody about her, with a perfect plague 
 of labour. Like her father, she loved to see 
 other persons hard at work ; unlike her father, 
 nothing pleased her better than to work harder 
 than them all. About the house she was a 
 " besom of destruction." She thought it the 
 height of bliss to spend hours in a hurricane of 
 sweeping, scouring, bustling, grumbling, scold- 
 ing. On those evil occasions the cats were har- 
 ried from the hearth ; the dogs, if they put their 
 noses inside the kitchen door, were received with 
 the contents of a pail of water ; chanticleer, lead- 
 ing his wives across the threshold with great cur- 
 a-rooing and much uplifting of his feet like a 
 high-stepping horse, had to retrace his way at a 
 different pace and in a different fashion; while
 
 14 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 Mr. Muir himself was constantly asked "if he 
 couldn't come into the house some different road 
 nor across the wet flags." 
 
 Not a labourer on the farm but knew and 
 detested Saturday — till the evening, that is to 
 say — when Bell, refreshed and satisfied with the 
 results of her campaign against the powers of 
 dirt, either took to baking griddle-bread, which 
 scented the whole neighbourhood with a sweet 
 wholesome smell ; or else, when one of her 
 sisters offered to make " fadge," or wheaten or 
 oaten cake, sat down to knit coarse stockings in 
 a leisure so thoroughly earned. 
 
 On that particular wet morning in July, Miss 
 Muir, occasionally looking at her father askance, 
 the while a certain bright and brisk number 
 seven needle glanced in and out of some fine 
 white "shirting," was adorned in the fullest war- 
 paint she had ever assumed when merely arming 
 herself for domestic conflict. 
 
 It consisted of a clean and stiffly- starched 
 print dress — colour, lilac ; tone, dark ; pattern, 
 hideous ; a calico apron, white as soft water and
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 15 
 
 grass-bleaching could make and Iccep it ; a small 
 woollen shawl, checked black and red, pinned 
 securely across her bosom ; and a linen capj with 
 two goffered borders made of the same uncom- 
 promising material, tied under her chin by a pair 
 of linen strings about two inches wide, drawn into 
 a cravat bow, framing her face till she looked like 
 some sunburnt old baby. 
 
 This was Bell — the eldest female hope of Mr 
 Muir's three matrimonial essays — this was Bell, 
 secretly dreaded even by her stern papa, who had 
 not '^much opinion of any of the sex" — meaning 
 the softer portion of creation — this was Bell, so 
 famous through all the country-side for her 
 powers of work and management, that many a 
 man had cast sheep's eyes upon her, and would 
 have proposed long enough before, but for the 
 knowledge that Miss Muir had a high opinion of 
 her value in the matrimonial market, and for a 
 doubt as to the amount with which Mr. Muir 
 meant to endow her. 
 
 " Carry's first steed in his stable," said many 
 a canny father and mother, when discussing
 
 16 BERN A BOYLE. 
 
 matters over with sons anxious to better their 
 position; *' Carry and Kobert '11 have the pick 
 off Ardilaw. For all she's been to him, for all 
 she's done for him, the old man hasn't the heart 
 for Bell Muir he ought, considering there's not 
 such a hand for butter in the county as hers." 
 
 It was the butter question Miss Muir was 
 considering, while she sat '^ working on" anew 
 shirt of her father's. Nevertheless, magnani- 
 mously ignoring her own anxieties, she essayed 
 to converse with her parent as he stood beside 
 the window commanding a comprehensive view 
 of the village, the lawn, the trees, the drive, and 
 the rain. 
 
 "Have you had any further word from Sam 
 Dopp about the cottage ?" she asked, her voice 
 sounding much older and harsher than the voice 
 of so young a woman had any right to sound. 
 
 " Ay — his brother came over yesterday be- 
 tween the lights, and said Sam would agree to 
 rising the pound there was between us if I would 
 put him up a pigstye ; but I told him I would 
 do no such thing; that if Sam wanted to keep
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 17 
 
 pigs he must do it some place else than at my 
 cottage." 
 
 " Why, what ails you at the pigs, poor 
 things ? What would the Dopps do with all the 
 leavings from so hig a family without a pig to 
 eat them up?" 
 
 "I don't know, and I don't care," answered 
 Mr. Muir defiantly. ''I'll neither have pigs 
 rooting up the garden nor children destroying 
 the clean papers and the fresh paint in the 
 house. Mr. Orr made a sort of small paradise 
 of the place, and if I can't get somehody that 
 will keep it as it ought to be kept, why, it shall 
 stay empty, that's all." 
 
 Miss Muir put in a few energetic stitches 
 before she observed, 
 
 "You set great store by the cottage." 
 
 *' And what would hinder me to set great 
 store by it ? Where could you find its like — a 
 picture inside and out ? I just stood and looked 
 at it the other day, and thought the man did 
 right well to call it Clear Stream. The birds 
 were singing, and the flowers were all abloom, 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 18 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 and the air was scented with them, and the bit of 
 grass was green as a fairy ring, and smooth and 
 soft like the velvet in Miss Garnsey's mantilla, 
 and the stream was running away under the 
 plank bridge as hard as it could go, laughing 
 back at the sun and making merry as it went ; 
 and the myrtle-tree was a sheet of blossom — it 
 looked for all the world as if there had been a 
 heavy snowstorm ; and tufts of it were hanging 
 so thick as to hide the polished green leaves — 
 the very ground below the tree was white. I 
 made up my mind at that minute Dopp and his 
 swarm of children should never spoil what Mr. 
 Orr spent such a lot of time and thought over." 
 
 "What are you going to do, then? Let it 
 stop idle till the wet is running down the walls, 
 and the garden is a wilderness, and you might 
 stand up to your middle in the grass ?" 
 
 Mr. Muir winced a little ; he knew such 
 things had happened before, and he saw no great 
 cause to doubt such things might happen again ; 
 but still he replied with dogged determination, 
 
 " I have not wholly decided ; only Dopp's not
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 19 
 
 going to be any tenant of mine, and I told John 
 as much." 
 
 '* Sam will be finely pleased when he hears 
 the notion you have taken." 
 
 " I don't care whether he's pleased or dis- 
 pleased; and there's no reason that I'm aware of 
 why I shouldn't have my way as well as another." 
 
 " You're right there ; there is no reason at all." 
 
 " Still, there is no call why the house should 
 stand empty, if that can be helped; so I've put 
 an advertisement in the News Letter that Clear 
 Stream Cottage, Dundonald, is to be rented by 
 the year." 
 
 " The whole of Belfast will be running after 
 it," commented Miss Muir, with a fine sneer. 
 
 "It may, but I hope it won't be on a day like 
 this;" and, having got a confession off his mind 
 which had been weighing upon it, Mr. Muir 
 resumed his occupation ; while Miss Muir, pro- 
 ceeding with her sewing, considered how she 
 could " pay her father off for not letting the 
 cottage to that decent man Sam Dopp." 
 
 "It's * teeming* still," she began, seizing the
 
 20 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 ©pportuuity threading her needle afforded for 
 changing her attitude and "looking fair" at 
 the author of her heing. 
 
 "An' the Lord alone knows when it intends 
 to leave off," said Mr. Muir, so entirely suspend- 
 ing the business of splicing that the released 
 length of string immediately uncoiled itself. 
 " But what the deuce can ye expect when it rains 
 on Sant Swethen's Day — Devil take him, who- 
 ever he was ! He couldn't have been much of 
 a Sant, in my opinion, or he'd have given a 
 thought to honest folk trying to make an honest 
 
 living between and the north-east wind, as 
 
 somebody says." 
 
 "You don't believe in all that old story, I'm 
 very sure, father," observed Miss Muir, who, like 
 her surviving parent, had her own special form 
 of scepticism. 
 
 " What would hinder me believing it ? My 
 father and my grandfather, and, I'm very sure, 
 my great-grandfather before that, believed in St. 
 Swethen's Day ; and I never was one to fly in 
 the face of my elders. Why wouldn't I — "
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 21 
 
 " It's just a legend got up by the Eomans for 
 their own ends," persisted the lady. 
 
 "Have your way in the matter, as I'm very 
 sure you will," said Mr. Muir; "but ye can't 
 deny it mostly does rain on the fifteenth of July, 
 Old Style—" 
 
 "Ay, and it rains many an odd time besides," 
 retorted Bell. 
 
 " Well, it's an ill wind blows nobody good. 
 If it hadn't been for the wet, you and Carline 
 and Sail would have had to do the churning 
 among ye this morning." 
 
 " Me and Sail you mean ; it's little help, but 
 disturbance, we'd have got from Carline." 
 
 "What's the young officer doing with himself 
 now he can't limp out to the lawn or down to the 
 river ?" asked Mr. Muir, discreetly changing the 
 subject. 
 
 " He's just painting the beech-tree from the 
 passage window ; Carline carried him out a table, 
 and set his things ready after breakfast ; and as 
 for limping, he can put his foot to the ground as 
 weU as either of us when he likes. I saw him
 
 22 BEKNA BOYLE. 
 
 yesterday going up the stairs three at a time, but 
 he didn't know I was near. If he had, it's hold- 
 ing on by the baluster he'd have been, and groan- 
 ing with the pain." 
 
 Having completed which vivid outline, a vast 
 deal more true to nature than any Ensign Ludham 
 ever sketched. Miss Muir proceeded with her 
 work, and left her father to fill in such details as 
 pleased, or did not please, him at his leisure. 
 
 '' It's just awful to look at yon rain," observed 
 the farmer, when he had quite finished splicing 
 the whip, and stood, idly twisting the lash round 
 the handle, looking out at the steady downpour 
 which bade fair ere long to swell the rivers, and 
 bring a second curse of water over the land. 
 
 ''It is that," agreed Miss Muir. *' What a 
 pity you would mow that grass in the long 
 meadow ! it'll every bit rot on the ground ; I 
 doubt if it'll even come in for litter." 
 
 *' Ye've a pleasant way of putting things, my 
 woman." 
 
 " Well, w^hat I say's true. You wouldn't 
 have me tell you a lie, would you ?"
 
 BERXA BOYLE. 23 
 
 '' I'm not just so sure it's always agreeable to 
 hear the truth." 
 
 "We're not of the same way of thinking, 
 then," observed Miss Muir, in a spirit of the 
 sternest virtue. 
 
 "I don't know that, either. Bell. For in- 
 stance, if one said you were a very ordinary sort 
 of woman to look at, it wouldn't be a lie ; but I 
 doubt if you'd be best pleased, after all." 
 
 " I never did set up to be anything beyond 
 the common," returned Miss Muir, with a sublime 
 composure, though her father's remark cut her to 
 the quick. 
 
 " Maybe it was just as well," retorted her 
 father. 
 
 On hearing which remark, Miss Muir — Chris- 
 tian name Isabella — rose with great dignity, and, 
 observing, " As you are in the mind to pay me 
 such fine compliments, I think I'll go and print 
 the butter; my hands are cool now," left the 
 room. 
 
 ''Your hands may be cool," soliloquised Mr. 
 Muir, " but your temper isn't." An idea appar-
 
 24 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 ently so comforting that though, looking at the 
 sodden earth, he again anathematised the good 
 St. S within, it was not with half the fervour 
 which distinguished his previous utterances.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A DELUGE of summer rain was sweeping the Bel- 
 fast streets clean. Dawn bad appeared, clad in 
 delicate gray wrappings of sad misty cloud, and it 
 is only fair to say the fulfilment of day did not 
 belie the promise of morn. The sun remained 
 resolutely ought of sight, the heavens were leaden, 
 the earth was sodden ; Devis, the Cave Hill, and 
 the Black Mountain had not merely " put their 
 nightcaps on," but retired altogether from view. 
 
 A good stream, swift as a mountain torrent, 
 was running down each filthy gutter. On Lettuce 
 and Carrick Hills rosy, curly-headed, barefooted 
 children were in the turbid water which rushed to 
 flush the sewers, disporting themselves like duck- 
 lings. Upon the Crumlin Road, past the Court- 
 house, where Justice — her eyes bandaged with a 
 stone fillet — sits high aloft, holding her scales, 
 utterly crooked, car-drivers, with shout and whip,
 
 26 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 urged fast horses recklessly; Hercules Street, 
 then lined with butchers' shops, was foul with 
 garbage, borne onward to the gullies; in Sandy 
 Eow peace reigned ; the weather was so bad the 
 Orangemen had not a thought to spare for their 
 friend Pious William or their foe the Pope; at 
 the Docks wretchedness unspeakable prevailed, 
 miserable cattle awaiting shipment were .penned 
 together in sheds open to wind and rain ; in the 
 air there was that raw, moist chilliness which 
 makes the Irish climate so trying; the Lough 
 resembled a sea of liquid mud, where white-crested 
 billows tossed restlessly ; the soft green slopes of 
 Down and the bold scenery of Antrim were alike 
 impartially hidden from mortal eye. Belfast was 
 looking its worst — and that worst can be very bad 
 indeed — on the dreary summer's morning when 
 Mr. Muir stood splicing the handle of his whip 
 and contemplating the pouring rain, and thinking 
 of his rotting hay, and saying injurious things 
 concerning St. Swithin. 
 
 In a room on the first floor of Cunningham's 
 Hotel, which commanded the spectacle of York
 
 BERNA BOTLE. 27 
 
 and Donegall Streets being swept by "sheets" of 
 rain, sat two ladies dressed in deep mourning. 
 Not the slightest likeness could be traced between 
 them, yet they stood in the relation of mother 
 and daughter. The latter was tall; her com- 
 plexion pale, with the delicate creamy pallor of 
 Mary's lilies ; her eyes large, liquid, and of that 
 dark deep blue rarely seen out of Ireland, shaded 
 with long brown lashes that would have made 
 them at times look black, had it not been for 
 their tender melting softness ; her face was of the 
 truest shape of Irish beauty, narrowing somewhat 
 to a perfect chin. (Those of my readers who have 
 seen at Hardwicke Castle the portrait of that 
 famous lady, Georgina Duchess of Devonshire, 
 will understand what I mean.) Her forehead was 
 broad, not high ; her nose short, straight, and 
 decided ; her upper lip short also, and perhaps a 
 trifle scornful, telling of a latent pride which 
 might have been fully developed in her character 
 had circumstances proved propitious ; her mouth 
 — but ah, how can I — with the mists of years 
 rising between that frank sweet mouth, with its
 
 28 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 thousand suggested loves and griefs, and to-day — 
 hope, through the cold, hard medium of pen and 
 ink, to do justice to that most exquisite mouth I 
 The light and shadows playing at hide-and-seek 
 on a hillside, or chasing each other over the 
 water, or coming and going, flickering and chang- 
 ing on the turf through a tracery of green leaves, 
 could not have told more surely the story of cloud 
 and sunshine than did the sweet lips and the sen- 
 sitive curves reveal, to an understanding eye, the 
 joy or the trouble agitating the girl's young heart. 
 For though she had known bitter sorrow, and 
 shed those salt tears wrung from the deepest 
 depths of human suffering, the anguish of which 
 can never be quite forgotten during the happiest 
 after experience, she was still young — little more 
 than seventeen — with only her face for her for- 
 tune, a face which, in the opinion of her mother, 
 could by the most partial individual only be con- 
 sidered a most contemptible dowry. 
 
 Twenty years previously Mrs. Boyle's beauty 
 had been of the pink shepherdess type ; what it 
 was on that wet morning when, after an absence
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 29 
 
 long as the period of her married life, she sat 
 looking at the dreary vista of York Street, swept 
 by driving rain, might have tried the courtesy of 
 her old admirers to say. Under the most favour- 
 able circumstances it is a style too apt to fade, 
 and certainly the widow had faded a good deal. 
 The delicate rose-pink of her earlier womanhood 
 having left her cheeks, and settled in the tip of 
 her nose, gave to that feature a somewhat exas- 
 perating prominence not originally contemplated 
 by Nature; her eyes, once "blue as harebells," 
 had, with twenty years' hard wear, become, as 
 regards the iris, well-nigh colourless ; there were 
 at the corners of her mouth and across her fore- 
 head suspicious lines, strange to see in a woman 
 who professed to have got only half-way through 
 the seventy years allotted to man. For thirty-five 
 she looked extremely old ; but then some persons, 
 many persons, do look older than their actual age. 
 Besides, she might have made a mistake concern- 
 ing the date of her birth. It is only charitable to 
 suppose she was eternally making mistakes on 
 this subject, since, while that awkward entry in
 
 80 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 the baptismal registry showed a steady tendency 
 to advance, the years to which she owned exhi- 
 bited an even greater decision in the matter of 
 retrogression. 
 
 Her figure was light and trim as in the days 
 when she never lacked partners at the great 
 Dublin parties so often referred to in the paternal 
 home near Ballyclare ; or when, in the Belfast 
 streets, she was viewed and admired afar; and 
 many men would have proposed to a girl who 
 fulfilled their idea of feminine loveliness, had 
 they been sure of the fortune with which her 
 father — an exceedingly vulgar attorney, in rather 
 shady practice — meant to endow his charming 
 daughter. 
 
 The deep crape she wore " out of compliment " 
 to her dead husband was almost new, yet already 
 she had begun to consider his possible successor. 
 Belfast having been the scene of her earliest con- 
 quests, she felt an assured conviction the moment 
 Bridge Street and Donegall Place knew her once 
 more, fresh victories would follow. 
 
 Twenty years' daily association with persons
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 31 
 
 well born, well educated, well mannered, and well 
 cultured had failed to refine Mrs. Boyle's accent 
 or tone of thought. Good books might never 
 have been written, good music never composed, 
 good pictures never painted, high aspirations 
 never conceived, for all contact with them had 
 done for her. 
 
 In every essential, save appearance, she was 
 still the Milly Vince who had, between the years 
 of grace 1820 and 1830, laughed and coquetted 
 and giggled, and, in her own exhaustive phrase- 
 ology, "put her best foot foremost," till, at the 
 mature age of nine-and-twenty, she snared, by 
 means of her " endearing young charms," the 
 susceptible heart of Ulick Boyle. Whether those 
 charms alone would have ever carried the afi'air 
 beyond the confines of flirtation is open to doubt ; 
 but backed by a stern parent, who, declaring he 
 did not mean to stand any shilly-shallying, threat- 
 ened an action for " breach," they proved irresis- 
 tible. Some women might have felt a delicacy 
 about marrying when the man had to be brought 
 to church only by dint of a legal pistol held at his
 
 32 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 ear. But the fair Milly, spite of her pink-and- 
 white complexion and blue eyes, and fragile 
 person and little affectations of timidity, did not 
 allow any scruples of that sort to come between 
 her and happiness. *' Though, indeed, taking 
 Ulick Boyle was the worst day's work I ever did," 
 she had said not less than three hundred and 
 sixty-five times a year during the course of her 
 married life. " I often wonder he has the face to 
 look at me, deceiving a girl as he did. If my 
 poor father hadn't thought he was just rolling in 
 riches he'd never have let me said a word to him;" 
 which was, indeed, a most unjust libel on the 
 excellent sense of that astute individual. 
 
 '' I wonder if Richard's never coming," began 
 Mrs. Boyle, after vainly craning her head so as to 
 try to obtain a glimpse of the open door below. 
 " I am tired out waiting for him." 
 
 " It is not twelve yet, mamma," answered 
 Miss Boyle ; " and Mr. Yince's note said he 
 could not possibly call before noon." 
 
 " There you go with your mammas, and your 
 noons, and your Mr. Vinces. Why can't you
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 33 
 
 talk plain English, and speak as I do ? and if 
 I've told you once I've told you a hundred times 
 not to be calling me * mamma, mamma, mamma,' 
 for ever and ever. What's the good of setting 
 people wondering to see a young woman like my- 
 self with a great maypole of a girl by my side ? 
 I can't be telling every stranger I was married at 
 fifteen, and indeed before." 
 
 " I am very sorry," murmured the " maypole." 
 "I forgot." 
 
 *'You forgot, indeed! it's always forgot, for- 
 got, forgot with you. If I forgot as you do I 
 wonder what would become of us. It's well I 
 have head enough for a dozen ; and that minds 
 me, I'm fairly starving with the hunger. Fetch 
 down that bone of the turkey. I had scarcely 
 a bite at breakfast. I've got bread I cut before 
 the waiter came up to take the things away. 
 You'd never have thought of doing that, I'll be 
 bound." 
 
 "I do not think I should," answered Miss 
 Boyle. 
 
 " You won't do much good in the world if 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 you do not keep your wits about you. There 
 never was a Vince yet hadn't more than his 
 share. Put them where you like they're sure to 
 light on their feet. Now run up-stairs and fetch 
 that morsel of food. I'm fit to faint. What are 
 you waiting for ? You've got the key of the box." 
 
 " Do you think it would be well to bring it 
 down just now ? Supposing Mr. Vince came — " 
 
 " Well, supposing he did ? The man is aware 
 we must eat sometimes — though it's little enough 
 contents me, goodness knows; and don't anger 
 me by calling him Mr. Vince. He was christened 
 Richard, and nobody I ever heard of, except my 
 father, shortened the name to Dick." 
 
 *' But I really could not—" 
 * ** Why couldn't you ? What would hinder 
 you?" 
 
 " It would seem such a liberty." 
 
 " Liberty, indeed!" repeated Mrs. Boyle, with 
 a sarcastic laugh. " Liberty ! and Richard Vince 
 my own father's brother's son !" 
 
 "Yes; but I have never seen him, and he 
 must be years older than I am, and — "
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 35 
 
 "0! get along with you, do; never let me 
 hear you talking folly like that again ; and don't 
 he putting affronts on my relations, who are the 
 only people now ahle and willing to help us. 
 Where would you he at this minute, I should 
 he glad to know, if it wasn't for my cousin 
 Richard?" 
 
 Judging from the expression of Miss Boyle's 
 face, she would have preferred almost any other 
 place to that precise portion of the earth where 
 she stood, through no wish or fault of her own. 
 
 ** Shall I get the turkey?" she inquired, in 
 the tone of a person who did not much relish the 
 commission. 
 
 ''Shall you get the turkey?" repeated the 
 widow, with withering scorn. "Yes, you will 
 get the turkey, if you don't want to see me drop 
 down with exhaustion ; and when you come hack 
 shoot the bolt, that Richard mayn't catch us. 
 Now make haste, and don't let me have to speak 
 to you again." 
 
 Facing the inevitable as if it had been a tiger. 
 Miss Boyle braced her courage for the event, and
 
 3G BEKNA BOYLE. 
 
 proceeded in search of the remains of that 
 TN'retched bird, for twenty-four hours previously 
 the cause of much care and trouble. Less 
 diplomacy has served to annex a state or cede 
 a territory than was rendered necessary by Mrs. 
 Boyle's determination at once to eat fowl and yet 
 keep it out of the hotel bills. 
 
 Her daughter could not have touched a morsel 
 of the creature had even great interests depended 
 on her doing so ; while the widow considered it 
 the correct thing largely to partake of the delicacy. 
 Most of the bird was gone — indeed, the whole of 
 it, except one leg of goodly proportions, and Mrs. 
 Boyle had herself consumed the whole, save the 
 bones, which she in an unpretending and primi- 
 tive manner picked very bare indeed. 
 
 " Do have a bit, Berna," she hospitably 
 entreated, unfolding a newspaper wrapping up the 
 bird, and spreading it like a tablecloth over her 
 knees. ^' It's a beautiful turkey, and we needn't 
 be leaving any of it over. We'll be in clover now, 
 we are here. Richard '11 see to us. I wouldn't 
 wonder if he took us straight off in a covered car
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 37 
 
 to Craigvallen. I've told you before he has a 
 place there just a very sight for beauty, lawns as 
 smooth as velvet, flowers the scent of which is 
 enough to take away your breath ; fishponds, as if 
 there were not fish of all sorts and to spare in the 
 Lough. You've heard talk of Carrick oysters ; 
 you'll taste them now. 0, there are grand times 
 in store for you if only you won't be turning your 
 back on good luck, as your father was so fond of 
 doing ! Well, as I was telling you about Craig- 
 vallen, there's not a tree or shrub you could name 
 but's in the grounds. They're just for all the 
 world, as far as I can understand, like the garden 
 of Eden, only Eichard has no wild beasts. Why 
 don't you eat, girl, and get some colour in your 
 cheeks? I'm sure I dread my relations seeing 
 you — they'll say you can be no child of mine. 
 But that you're well grown — though you're slight 
 and useless as a willow wand — I'd think the 
 fairies had changed you in 3'our cradle. There 
 now, take that away; why don't you heed what I 
 say, and your cousin's foot on the stair? For 
 goodness' sake, Berna, put the bone somewhere
 
 88 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 — anywhere ; and, stop a minute ; is my hair 
 smooth ? this cap — this cap, that makes the 
 best of looking women frights, w^eary on it, and 
 just when I was wanting to he at my best, too ! 
 Do you mean to open that door to-day ? Don't 
 you know the man's bruising his knuckles rap- 
 ping? and all the Vinces had nice hands. — I'm 
 so sorry, Eichard, you were kept waiting. There's 
 something wrong with the catch, I think;" and 
 uttering this huge falsehood, Mrs. Boyle, simper- 
 ing coquettishly, ambled up to her cousin and 
 presented her hand for his acceptance, a kindness 
 she would have supplemented with the addition of 
 her cheek, but that Mr. Vince looked so unlikely 
 a person to feel grateful for such an attention, the 
 delicate idea was nipped in the bud. 
 
 *' And so here's yourself at last," said the 
 widow, in a light and sportive manner. " How 
 are you ?" 
 
 With grave deliberation Mr. Vince intimated 
 he was pretty well; he considered the weather 
 trying, but, upon the whole, he felt thankful to say 
 he could give a tolerably good report of his health.
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 39 
 
 " I wish I could say as much," sighed Mrs. 
 Boyle, with a downward glance at her crape : ** I 
 have had so much to go through, I wonder I'm 
 alive." 
 
 " I was very sorry indeed to hear of your 
 loss," said Mr. Vince — he had previously written 
 to state as much, and he now most heartily wished 
 that rash proceeding could be undone. 
 
 " You needn't tell me you were sorry," cried 
 the widow effusively; " all my family had feeling 
 hearts. 0, this is Berna — his daughter, you 
 know ! You did not see her when you were 
 with us." 
 
 No, Mr. Vince had not seen the young person 
 thus introduced; and something in his tone, and 
 the way he shook hands, conveyed the idea that 
 if he had not seen her then he could have 
 survived the disappointment. 
 
 " I was greatly surprised to find you were in 
 Belfast," he remarked to Mrs. Boyle after these 
 amenities, at the same time, in compliance with 
 that lady's earnest entreaties, "sitting down off 
 his feet."
 
 40 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 "And where else could we come except to 
 Belfast ?" asked the widow. 
 
 " Kather a difficult question to answer off- 
 hand ; but I should have thought there were 
 many places more agreeable and attractive." 
 
 ''My own notion," retorted Mrs. Boyle, ''is, 
 no place is so pleasant as among your own people, 
 if you are rich; and I don't consider any place 
 can be so suitable if you are poor." 
 
 " I trust the latter is not your case," said Mr. 
 Vince, who was becoming seriously uneasy. 
 
 "Why, don't you know? — haven't you 
 heard V" 
 
 " Certainly not ; how should I know or 
 hear ?" 
 
 " I made sure somebody had told you I was 
 thrown on the world without a sixpence. As I 
 said to Bern a when your letter came, apologising 
 for not attending the funeral, and trusting I would 
 write if you could be of any assistance, ' Now, 
 that's the Yinces all over — they're never behind 
 when any friend is sick or sorry.' " 
 
 To judge from the expression of Mr. Vince's
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 41 
 
 grim face, no man ever lived less desirous of 
 playing the part of *' Good Samaritan." 
 
 *'I scarcely understand," he remarked, ignor- 
 ing the inferred compliment to his own excellent 
 qualities. " Do you mean that Mr. Boyle made 
 no provision for you in the event of his death ?" 
 
 " That's just what I do mean — and I don't 
 wonder at your being indignant at the way I've 
 been treated. If I'd only known — but there's no 
 use fretting over spilt milk; and nobody can 
 deny it's spilt milk for me to be left a widow 
 with a great girl to keep, on a paltry sixty pounds 
 a year." 
 
 " But I thought you said you had nothing ?" 
 " And what's sixty pounds ?" ' 
 " Over twenty-three shillings a week — '* 
 " Just about enough to buy boot-laces — " 
 " I think you could scarcely spend twenty- 
 three shillings a week on boot-laces," remon- 
 strated Mr. Vince, with the most absurd and 
 anxious gravity. " Many persons live on less." 
 
 " And I wouldn't have had even that pittance 
 if it hadn't been for my father," explained Mrs.
 
 42 
 
 BEKNA BOYLE. 
 
 Boyle, who felt the aspect of affairs was getting 
 serious ; "he insisted — 0, he knew the nature of 
 the man I was marrying ! — that Ulick should 
 insure his life. He didn't want to do anything of 
 the sort, and he wouldn't put his money like 
 another person in the office the old man recom- 
 mended. No. The ' Scottish Widows ' was the 
 only thing that took his fancy. 
 
 * It seems to me, Boyle,' said my father — you 
 know he always would have his joke — * you might 
 just as well put your premiums at the back of the 
 fire. I don't know about Scottish widows, but I 
 don't think an Irish widow would stop one long.' 
 It was just a harmless piece of fun, but Ulick 
 sulked for a week about it." 
 
 Involuntarily Mr. Vince turned towards the 
 sofa where Berna sat, leaning against the cushion 
 she knew concealed the bare thigh-bone of that 
 horrible bird. He fancied she had spoken; but 
 she was utterly still, her head turned towards 
 the window, her hands clasped tight together in 
 her lap. 
 
 " I do not suppose the question of marriage
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 43 
 
 would affect your annuity," he remarked ; beyond 
 all other things Mr. Yince was practical — " busi- 
 ness to the backbone " declared his admirers. 
 
 " 0, it is not of myself I'm thinking !" ex- 
 plained Mrs. Boyle ; " it's that girl. What would 
 become of her if I was taken — and as the Holy 
 Bible truly says, * In the midst of life we're in 
 death ' — I can't imagine ; she hasn't a bit of 
 pluck in her." 
 
 " Do not trouble yourself about me, mamma," 
 entreated Miss Boyle, again forgetful of the mater- 
 nal mandate. 
 
 ** It's all very well to say don't trouble, but 
 how am I to help troubling ? If you can tell me 
 that, I'll be very much obliged to you." 
 
 " Will not your husband's grandmother ? — I 
 always thought — " hesitated Mr. Vince, finding 
 the girl seemed unable or unwilling to solve the 
 conundrum proposed. 
 
 "And you thought right enough," said Mrs. 
 Boyle ; " the old lady is just rolling in wealth. 
 She has her servants, and her carriages, and her 
 fine house, and her gold, and her silver, and her
 
 44 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 plate, and her jewels ; and is wrapped up in her 
 money, when she ought to be considering her 
 sinful soul, and how soon she'll have to appear 
 before her Maker. And Berna had the finest 
 chance ever w^as of coming in for the whole of it. 
 I declare when I think of her foolishness I could 
 sit down and cry my eyes out. When she wanted 
 a day or two of sixteen she had her choice. All 
 the Dowager asked her to do was to give up her 
 home and me and be made for life ; and she 
 wouldn't. As if I hadn't trouble enough without 
 her making more for me." 
 
 " But, surely, you cannot find fault with your 
 daughter because she refused to give up her 
 mother," expostulated Mr. Vince, who felt, how- 
 ever extraordinary Miss Boyle's preference might 
 be, it was one he ought to commend. 
 
 *' I'm not finding fault with her for that ; as I 
 told her, where would you find a mother like me ?" 
 
 Mr. Yince was about as destitute of all sense 
 of humour as an Irishman ever can be. Yet 
 Mrs. Boyle's question tickled his fancy to such a 
 degree he could not avoid smiling as he said,
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 45 
 
 ** There is a good deal in that, to be sure." 
 "There's everything," answered the widow; 
 *' and for that reason she ought to have taken 
 advice, and been led by one a little older and ever 
 so much wiser than herself. But she's her 
 father's daughter all over — looks and nature — 
 headstrong as he was. If he'd only listened to 
 me he might have been spared to see whether 
 there was nothing he could for us ; but he never 
 thought of anybody but himself — " 
 ** Mamma !" interposed Berna. 
 "You needn't fire up. I'm not speaking 
 against him. Only if he hadn't, just for con- 
 trariness, ridden that chestnut — " 
 
 " Keally, I do think, Mrs. Boyle—" 
 " And you call me Mrs. Boyle — me, your 
 father's brother's own child — what'll become of 
 us ! — and I made sure you'd be as glad to see me 
 as my husband was you. Why, if I'd let him, 
 he'd have turned the house out of window to do 
 you honour, he was that pleased to see one be- 
 longing to me inside his doors. Not ten minutes 
 ago I was saying to Berna, Richard 11 be ordering
 
 46 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 an inside car and taking us straight off to Craig- 
 vallen, and showing us his grand place, and mak- 
 ing us acquainted with his fine wife." 
 
 The peril was so imminent, Mr. Vince felt he 
 dare not lose a moment. 
 
 " I am excessively sorry," he said, " but it's 
 quite impossible I should ask 3'ou to my house. 
 Mrs. Yince would not hear of such a thing for a 
 moment." 
 
 For about the space of time it could have 
 taken any one to count five, Mrs. Boyle re- 
 mained gazing at her kinsman with wild incre- 
 dulity, then exclaiming, " And here am I stranded 
 on the faith of what you'd do for me," she burst 
 into a perfectly real and unaffected passion of 
 tears. 
 
 " Mamma, mamma !" cried Berna, and, forget- 
 ful of the dreadful thing wrapped up in newspaper 
 buried beneath the sofa pillow, she hurriedly 
 crossed the room, and, kneeling on the carpet, 
 threw her arms around a mother whose " like " 
 she would, happily, have found it difficult to find.
 
 CHAPTEK III. 
 
 Mr. Kichard C. Vince was a gentleman " uni- 
 versally respected." In other words, he had done 
 remarkahly well. 
 
 "By dint of indefatigable industry and an 
 extraordinary aptitude for business " — vide the 
 local papers when on one occasion it became 
 expedient for them to laud their respected fel- 
 low-townsman — "he had raised himself from 
 comparative obscurity to the topmost rung of 
 the commercial ladder. Men such as he had 
 made Ulster what it was. Men such as he would 
 preserve Ulster as it was. So long as men of 
 the stamp of Kichard Charles Vince remained in 
 their midst," editors felt there " could be no 
 reason to despair of the future of Ireland." 
 "Public spirit, private charity, a generosity as 
 unstinted as unfailing," were all united in the 
 person of Mr. Vince ; and when that good man 
 and true gave a fete and threw his grounds open
 
 48 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 to the masses, on the "never-to-be-forgotten oc- 
 casion " of his entering into possession of Craig- 
 vallen, a correspondent of the Lagan Flying Post 
 actually drivelled while shedding inky tears over 
 the wealth and virtues of Kichard Charles. 
 
 If there were persons who, in narrow town 
 houses and small suburban villas, said Mr. Yince 
 had on occasion sailed remarkably near the wind, 
 the observation proved nothing, except that they 
 were poor and non-successful. All great men 
 have their detractors ; and, in his way, Mr. 
 Vince was a very great man indeed. 
 
 Whatever the course he sailed may have been, 
 it enabled him to arrive in port with a rich 
 cargo. When first he took his seat on a stool in 
 the office of Messrs. Hughes, the great corn mer- 
 chants, his weekly stipend only amounted to five 
 shillings ; and less than thirty years later he was 
 in a position to buy Craigvallen from Sir Hum- 
 phrey Trevane, Baronet, and to marry Marcella 
 Kobina, third daughter of the late Theophilus 
 Carpenter, Esq., of Cherryfield, a gentleman who 
 travelled the road to ruin in a coach-and-four.
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 49 
 
 It was this lady, popular opinion believed, 
 who " turned " Kichard Charles from Presby- 
 terianism to the "Establishment;" but that 
 estimable man's enemies sneeringly said he was 
 glad enough to go the way he wanted under 
 shelter of a woman's petticoats. 
 
 The Eev. Dr. Cooke — affectionately nick- 
 named "the Cock of the North" — declared that 
 "when people got rich enough to set up a 
 jaunting-car, they ceased walking to meeting and 
 drove to church." 
 
 Mr. Yince's conversion was delayed till after 
 the purchase of a carriage-and-pair. If he could 
 have combined the society of great persons and 
 the Westminster Confession of Faith, it is pos- 
 sible he might never have left his old religion ; 
 but it was easier to step from church into the 
 grand houses, the doors of which were opened for 
 him and his wife ; and he retained the good 
 word and will of the Presbyterians by benefac- 
 tions which they styled "princely," and deeds 
 properly described as " worthy." 
 
 His life was, indeed, spent in "conciliating" 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 60 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 — irreverent persons said something about Vince 
 trying to hedge for this world and the next, and 
 quoted that text which warns a person to fear 
 when all men speak well of him ; but there can 
 be no question Mr. Vince did an enormous 
 amount of good, and charity is a gift-horse that 
 certainly ought not to be looked too closely in 
 the mouth. 
 
 Sprung almost from the people himself, his 
 greatest pride was to associate with those vaguely 
 designated by the lower orders in Ireland " the 
 quality." He did like a man able to trace a long 
 line of aristocratic ancestors. Ulick Boyle, of 
 Boyle Court, county Mayo, had always been a 
 great feather in his cap ; and when he wrote to 
 his cousin, whom he had never, even in his 
 youngest and her best days, either liked or 
 admired, offering his condolences on the death 
 of a man descended not merely from an old but 
 a wealthy stock, he was perfectly sincere in say- 
 ing, if he could take any trouble off her hands 
 she might command his services. What he 
 meant was that as the Boyles had property in
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 51 
 
 the county Down he could see to anything con- 
 nected with it for her ; the idea that she would 
 come rushing to Belfast herself never entered his 
 mind. The imagination of woman is, however, 
 quicker than that of man ; and the moment Mrs. 
 Vince heard of Mrs. Boyle's advent, she said, 
 " She has come intending to plant herself on us 
 for a long visit." 
 
 "Then her expectations will be disappointed," 
 thought Mr. Vince, but he possessed his soul in 
 silence. 
 
 He had known his cousin Milly as maid and 
 matron, and he did not wish his wife to know her 
 as a widow. He had seen her giggling, flirting, 
 coquetting with many sorts and conditions of 
 men ; and he secretly determined the sacred 
 threshold of Craigvallen, once inhabited by "the 
 best in the county," should not be crossed by 
 her profane feet. Without ever actually turning 
 a cold shoulder to the whole dreadful Vince con- 
 nection, he had managed to keep his many, many 
 relations at arm's length. He helped, advised, 
 and occasionally found money for them ; but they 
 
 LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLIN'
 
 52 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 thoroughly understood such benefits were not to 
 be presumed upon, or made the excuse for any 
 *'hail, fellow, well met" sort of familiarity. 
 Eichard Charles was Mr. Vince to them all 
 round ; indeed, Richard Charles was Mr. Vince 
 to most persons except Mrs. Vince, who, con- 
 sidering formality between man and wife bad 
 form, called him Richard from the day she con- 
 sented to be his. 
 
 " I am very sorry, Mrs. Boyle," he began, a 
 little awkwardly, for the spectacle of Ulick Boyle's 
 widow dissolved in tears, and the sight of Ulick 
 Boyle's generous heart looking at him through 
 the dead man's daughter's eyes, seemed for the 
 moment rather more than he could bear. 
 
 " No, Richard Vince, you are not sorry," 
 sobbed Mrs. Boyle ; *' and it is no use your 
 sitting there and telling me what you know is 
 not true. All you want is to give me the cut 
 go-by ; and you ought to be ashamed of yourself, 
 sitting there calling your first cousin on the 
 father's side Mrs. Boyle. But it is just what 
 I might have expected ; when poverty comes in
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 53 
 
 at the door, friends jump out of the window. 
 They do, as if it was a fire. Get up, Berna; 
 don't be kneeling there, spoiling your crape on 
 the dusty carpet; you'll have to be careful of 
 your clothes, for dear only knows when you'll 
 get any more." 
 
 "It is a very hard position," ventured Mr. 
 Vince, who felt it was exceedingly hard for him ; 
 "but if you would only look it sensibly in the 
 face, we — " 
 
 " Talk's cheap," interrupted the widow. 
 "From a boy you'd always a gift of the gab. 
 No, it's no use, Berna; 111 just say out what's 
 in my mind, and then if I'm no richer I'll be 
 easier — for goodness' sake, girl, let go hold of 
 my arm, you'll have it black and blue, pinching 
 it like that ; you know a fair skin like mine 
 marks in a minute." 
 
 "I assure you — " tried Mr. Vince, in vain 
 expostulation. 
 
 " I tell you it's no manner of use thinking to 
 deceive me. I have known you all my life, and 
 I never knew much good of you ; and it is a
 
 54: BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 burning shame for you to treat your own full- 
 blood cousin, whose father gave you the first 
 shove you ever had from shore, as if she was dirt 
 under your feet, not fit to be spoken to. I 
 wouldn't be as unkind to a dog as you have 
 been to me ; and after me always sticking up 
 for my own family too. I never said an ill word 
 about one of the Vinces. Did I, Berna?" 
 
 "I never heard you, mamma," agreed Berna, 
 who had, after that little misfortune in regard to 
 her mother's " fair skin," risen from the floor and 
 resumed her seat beside the turkey's thigh-bone. 
 
 " There now, you hear what she says ? You 
 mightn't take my word, but you can't be off 
 believing her. Not but what I could have found 
 plenty bad to tell if I'd liked to tell it. I haven't 
 forgot how your father took Cripple's Farm over 
 the head of that quiet decent woman, Tom Dun- 
 nan's widow; ay, and sure enough he hadn't a 
 day's luck after it, and maybe your luck, Kichard, 
 may turn yet. And I mind me how Tim Vince — 
 that's your uncle and mine, you know — cheated 
 young Craig over the black mare he sold him at
 
 BEB^'A BOYLE. OO 
 
 Straid, and how if it hadn't been for my father, 
 whose daughter you think so little of — " 
 
 " If you have the slightest influence over your 
 mother," said Mr. Yiuce, addressing Berna, and 
 drowning the final portion of Mrs. Boyle's denun- 
 ciation with his harsh deep tones, "will you 
 advise her to cease this crazy rambling, and let us 
 discuss her future plans in a reasonable spirit ?" 
 
 The sneer with which his kinswoman greeted 
 a suggestion, by no means ridiculous, amounted 
 to a snort. Construing the words of Eichard 
 Charles into a sign of weakness, she determined 
 to have another round, and accordingly recom- 
 menced. 
 
 *' It'll be a fine story for me to tell Matilda 
 Sheill, and the rest of them, how, not content 
 with turning up your nose at me yourself, you 
 tried to set my own child against her mother. 
 She was self-willed enough, goodness knows, 
 before. I don't know what she'll be like now 
 she's got the master of Craigvallen and the hus- 
 band of old Theoph. Carpenter's daughter to back 
 her up in her undutiful ways."
 
 56 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 ''0 mamma, I'm not undutiful; indeed, 
 indeed, I am not !" said the girl. 
 
 " And lest I should, for the second time, 
 prove inadvertently the cause of arousing your 
 resentment against a young lady I most sincerely 
 l^ity, I will bid you good-morning," remarked Mr. 
 Vince, in his best and most stately manner. 
 
 *' You're not going off in that way!" cried 
 Mrs. Boyle, jumping up as she saw Kichard 
 Charles advancing to shake hands with her 
 daughter, whose eyes were swimming in tears. 
 ''You're never going to leave me, without a 
 friend in the world I can turn to, and with a child 
 who hasn't the faintest chance of making a good 
 match and setting us all up again ! I didn't 
 mean to anger you. I wouldn't give 'Tilda 
 Sheill, or one of them, the satisfaction of saying, 
 * The Vinces have been at it again. It's Milly 
 and Kichard aren't on speaking terms now.' " 
 
 " I am afraid, if your friend Miss Sheill con- 
 fines herself to the truth, that is precisely what 
 she will have to say," retorted Mr. Vince. 
 
 "Don't go !" entreated the widow; " don't go
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 57 
 
 for any sake, and don't be vexed with me. Sure 
 that was only my fun about Craigvallen. I. 
 wouldn't be paid to drive out there — tiring my- 
 self looking at things that can never do me any 
 good. All I want is a roof to cover my head and 
 put my boxes under. I w^as thinking we, maybe, 
 might get some quiet lodging at Mount Pottinger, 
 or along the Botanic Eoad. I don't care what it 
 is like, so that we can just turn ourselves round." 
 
 Instantly there arose before Mr. Vince's mind 
 a vision of the fascinating Milly, as he remem- 
 bered her in that evil time departed, ere Mr. 
 Ulick Boyle at one and the same moment tied 
 such a millstone round his own neck and relieved 
 the Yince connection from the burden of a woman 
 who had rendered the lives of all her relations a 
 weariness and a terror. 
 
 He could see again her veil floating in the 
 wind, her scarf dropping off her shoulders, her 
 unduly short and scanty skirts, beneath which 
 sandalled shoes and " clocked " open-work stock- 
 ings were as much in evidence as her pink cheeks 
 and golden curls, and " heavenly " blue eyes
 
 58 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 under the brim of the enormous bonnets in vogue 
 when she was in her teens, and long after. She 
 knew a family resident in the Shankhill Koad, 
 and from the fastnesses of that locality she was 
 wont to make desperate descents on the youth 
 and manhood of Belfast. 
 
 Twenty times a day she was to be seen in 
 company with two or three girls of her acquaint- 
 ance passing and repassing the news-room. Her- 
 cules Street, High Street, Bridge Street, Donegall 
 Street, North Street, Kosemary Street, and High 
 Street again, that was the usual round of the 
 charming damsels, with occasional forays along 
 Donegall Place and a rush for raspberry-puffs into 
 the Corn Market and Kitty Linden's, from whence 
 a strategic movement was often made into Ann 
 Street, in order to see whether any fresh supplies 
 could be wrung from papa. 
 
 And now she was a widow, and the world had 
 gone on; and poor Mr. Vince, compelled con- 
 stantly to frequent all these places of public 
 resort, thought how awful it would be to meet a 
 streaming crape veil, and a voluminous black
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 59 
 
 shawl, and that little lithe figure, and that washed- 
 out complexion at high noon " where men do 
 congregate." 
 
 He could not do it. Life would not be worth 
 having. He must make some terms with her; 
 money was no object in comparison to getting rid 
 of Mrs. Boyle. 
 
 ** There are many places," he began, " where 
 living is so much cheaper than in a large town, 
 that—" 
 
 *'No, thank you," interrupted the widow; 
 *'it was bad enough when there was plenty and 
 to spare, where we'd be a month at a time without 
 a soul, besides beggars coming to the house, 
 except the priest and the rector ; and now I'm in 
 a manner destitute, I don't mean to settle myself 
 down where there's not a creature to speak to, 
 and not a thing to see but bog and the Atlantic." 
 
 " Then why not go to Dublin—" 
 
 " Why not go to New York ?" 
 
 "Why should you not?" asked Mr. Vince 
 eagerly, too eagerly by far. 
 
 " For the same good reason I'm not going to
 
 60 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 Dublin. What ^YOuld become of me, wliere I 
 don't know man, woman, or child? No, I've 
 friends here, and here I mean to stay ; and when- 
 ever it clears up a bit I'll put on my bonnet and 
 call on a few I know, and maybe they'll put me in 
 the way of getting a couple of cheap rooms, for an 
 hotel is ruin ; there's no other name for it." 
 
 '^ My time is valuable, and as I cannot possibly 
 assist you in your search for lodgings, I will bid 
 you good-bye," said Mr. Yince, with great de- 
 cision. 
 
 " Well, you have the temper !" exclaimed Mrs. 
 Boyle. ^' I wouldn't own one like it for all the 
 money in the Bank of Ireland ; ay, that's the way 
 your father went off the morning — " But her 
 words fell only on Berna's unwilling ears — Mr. 
 Yince, in despair, had left the room, and was 
 half-way down-stairs. The widow was too much 
 for him. What sin could he have committed to 
 call down this judgment? He had been too 
 prosperous, too much uplifted ; he had gone once 
 to a Catholic church in Paris ; he had discharged 
 a clerk in anger, and refused to give him a
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 61 
 
 character, and he believed that man was now in 
 the workhouse. 
 
 He would see what he could do for him ; he 
 would try to get into Parliament, and move 
 Heaven and earth, to rush a bill through the 
 House doing away with all relationships except 
 those of man and wife, parent and child. He 
 knew he could make a telling speech on such a 
 subject. It was awful, it was most unjust, that a 
 man like himself, who had worked hard all his 
 life, and been reasonable, and made the name of 
 Vince respected and respectable, should, now he 
 was past fifty, have such a cousin as Mrs. Boyle 
 planted down in his locality. It was horrible. 
 Even in a nightmare he had never suffered such 
 agonies, and all because he would not ask her to 
 Craigvallen. He felt he should prefer, if it came 
 to that point, to sell Craigvallen and go abroad, 
 rather than have the dread and fear of his cousin 
 Milly on his mind. That day all things went 
 wrong with Mr. Vince. If the ever-vernal Milly 
 had come into Belfast with sound of trumpet and 
 beat of drum and proclamation of herald he could
 
 62 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 not more utterly have been possessed by the 
 feeling that the whole Corporation was aware of 
 the fact the charming widow was stopping in 
 Cunningham's Hotel. It would not be long— at 
 all events, his reason told him so — before half the 
 town was aware of her presence. 
 
 He had boasted about the Boyle connection; 
 he had talked familiarly concerning the view from 
 Boyle Court ; the speed and stay of Mr. Boyle's 
 hunters, the number of acres he owned, his shore 
 and mountain rights, his tenants, his grand- 
 mother, his second cousin, Sir Herbert Boyle, 
 who, having done great deeds out in Afghanistan, 
 was knighted by her gracious Majesty Queen Vic- 
 toria ; and now here was the widow of that same 
 Mr. Ulick Boyle back again in Ulster, lacking a 
 penny, figuratively speaking, to bless herself with, 
 and by far a greater fool — so it seemed to the 
 unhappy merchant — than before her marriage. 
 
 Kichard Charles felt that altogether the 
 humiliation was more than he could bear; the 
 business salt even lost its savour, and there 
 seemed nothing left wherewith the desert of his
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 63 
 
 life could be fertilised. As for blossoming like 
 the rose, that was now impossible. Never — never 
 since Good Fortune (seeing what a nice, steady, 
 sanctimonious, utterly respectable young man had 
 come up from Ballynure) adopted him for her 
 own — did a sensation of more utter wretchedness 
 paralyse all his energies. Irritable himself, he 
 was the cause of irritability in others. " The 
 weather had got into his temper," the clerks 
 declared ; and then they cursed the weather in a 
 most improper manner, and made the office-boys 
 scapegoats on whom they laid all manner of 
 crimes and shortcomings, and drove them out into 
 the rain without compunction, as, of old, the 
 Israelites cheerfully sent the sin-laden beast over 
 the burning sands of that terrible wilderness their 
 own feet had trodden. 
 
 " You poor dear man !" said Mrs. Vince, when, 
 after dinner, she was told the whole story (Mr. 
 Vince did not even try to keep the full horror of 
 what had come to town from his wife's know- 
 ledge). " Somehow you have managed to totally 
 mismanage your delightful relation. I shall go
 
 64 
 
 BERXA BOYLE. 
 
 and see her. I am very, very sure she won't 
 talk that sort of nonsense to me." 
 
 "But, Marcella, I really do not like your 
 coming into contact with such a woman," replied 
 her husband. 
 
 *' Leave all that to me," was the cheerful 
 answer; and happy now he had confessed the 
 worst, and feeling assured he could not possibly 
 leave the whole matter in better hands, Mr. Vince 
 leant back in his solid mahogany morocco- 
 covered easy-chair, and sank into a blissful nap.
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 Having, as it seemed, done his best to ruin the 
 hay crop of the whole of the North of Ireland, the 
 good Saint Swithin suddenly relented, and, except 
 for an occasional shower, called, according to the 
 taste of the speaker, a '' dribble," a " spurt," or a 
 " few drops for heat," did no further real injury. 
 
 The rich, long grass, "laid " so hopelessly by 
 twenty-four hours' incessant rain, was at length 
 cut, and '' in swath." Much of it had, however, 
 still to be scattered and dried; ''but if," said 
 Mr. Muir, " with the Lord's help, we're able to 
 get it into cock before more rain comes, we'll 
 do yet." 
 
 It was at breakfast, seven anxious days after 
 that morning when he stood splicing his gig- 
 whip and " threeping " with Bell, who, in the 
 long-run, generally got the best of such en- 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 GQ BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 counters, that Mr. Muir made this statement for 
 any one to appropriate who pleased. 
 
 As it happened, no one did appropriate or even 
 verbally notice it. " The Ensign " shot a telling 
 glance at Carline, which Miss Muir intercepted. 
 The five children invited over for *' the hay- 
 making, to toss and ted," were looking ruefully at 
 their messes of semi-cold porridge — served in 
 soup-plates. Mr. Muir's second daughter was 
 absent, superintending the frying of a further 
 supply of bacon and eggs — fat bacon, salt, more- 
 over, and eggs fried in that fat — and there was no 
 one else present. 
 
 As a rule, Mr. Muir so far unbent as to take 
 his meals in the kitchen. It was a cheerful 
 kitchen, well lighted, with red-tiled floor, walls 
 coloured a tint of warm yellow ochre, a fireplace 
 large enough to roast an ox, generally well filled 
 with blazing peat, over which, on a massive crane, 
 hung suspended a huge pot, or burly kettle, or 
 leviathan griddle, according to the nature of the 
 food in preparation. There was nothing to object 
 to about the kitchen, with its well-scrubbed
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 67 
 
 dresser ornamented to overflowing with homely 
 delft, its walls decorated with lids of copper and 
 tin, in which, as in convex mirrors, the faces of 
 the family were reflected lugubriously lengthened, 
 its warmth, its look of plenty increased by the 
 flitches of bacon and rounds of hung beef depend- 
 ing from great hooks in the ceiling ; its hearth 
 littered with feathery ashes from the glowing turf; 
 its look out into the farmyard, with just a glimpse 
 of orchard and waving trees beyond ; the great 
 oven, in which myriad tarts and tartlets, destined 
 to be consumed by " the best in the land," had 
 been baked to a turn in the days which were 
 departed; but when the young officer declared 
 himself sufficiently recovered from the efl'ects of 
 the awful accident, that threw him maimed and 
 insensible on the hospitality of a man he only 
 knew as a sort of eccentric horse-dealer, to be 
 able to leave his sleeping apartment and join the 
 family circle, Mr. Muir's fiat went forth. 
 
 " We'll eat in the parlour while the Ensign 
 stops here. Bell," said that estimable maiden's 
 papa ; " and don't be stinting us in the tea, and
 
 68 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 we'll have white sugar instead of brown ; I'll fetch 
 it for you from Forster Green's ; and get out the 
 good cloths your mother brought me, the Ardoyne 
 damask, with the beautiful wreaths of con- 
 volvulus running all over it as natural as 
 among the gooseberry bushes ' out by ' in the 
 garden." 
 
 " I like the two with the rose, shamrock, and 
 thistle in posies dotted about, or that pair where 
 the bunches of lilies are tied up by true lovers' 
 knots, best myself," urged Miss Muir, the spirit 
 of contradiction and a hatred of anything flowing 
 and unsymmetrical stirring well within her heart. 
 " Never mind you, Bell, what you like or dis- 
 like," returned her genial parent ; " you do what 
 I tell you. Bring out the finest and best Ardoyne 
 can do, and some day we'll ask the young man 
 who has dined with Baronets and Earls whether 
 England, spite of all her money, can show 
 better work than Michael Andrews turns out in 
 the old place at Ardoyne, where the sun peeps in 
 through the low wide sashes, and the men can 
 see the tremble of green leaves and hear the
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 69 
 
 songs of wild birds standing before their Jacquard 
 looms." 
 
 " If you go on praising Ireland that way to 
 the Ensign, he'll be telling you one day she's just 
 what the English make her out." 
 
 " And that's — ?" said Mr. Muir, interrogatively 
 and defiantly. 
 
 "Not much to boast about," returned the fair 
 Bell, reluctantly leaving the room to find those 
 hoarded cloths, concerning which her father had 
 spoken. 
 
 Between herself and the young officer there 
 existed a sort of armed neutrality, the lines of 
 which were being constantly overstepped by one 
 or other of the high contracting powers : now it 
 was Miss Muir who stealthily made a sly flank 
 movement ; again it was her opponent, who gave 
 the lady what she called a " slap with his tongue." 
 There was no possible subject concerning which 
 they failed to disagree ; and Mr. Muir was wont 
 to sit enjoying the war of words, glad at heart to 
 hear Bell getting the worst of the encounter. 
 ** The Ensign has a calm sort of way with him
 
 70 BEKNA BOYLE. 
 
 you can make no head against," the farmer con- 
 stantly told his daughter; *'you had best take 
 advice, my woman, and let him alone." 
 
 "He won't let me alone," answered Miss 
 Muir; "and it is just beyond my patience to see 
 him treated, as he is, like some wee god. He 
 hasn't a thought to spare for anything but him- 
 self, as 3^ou'll maybe find out to your cost some 
 day. Look at the money we've been out already 
 over him ; and all the thanks you need ever look 
 for will be just a jeer. I don't know what you 
 see about him, I'm sure ; and as for Carline — " 
 
 " What of her ?" asked Mr. Muir sharply. 
 
 " 0, not much ; but likely you'll find it 
 enough !" retorted Bell, who was wildly jealous of 
 her half-sister's lovely face, and whose accusations 
 generally took the form of hint and innuendo. 
 According to Bell the wit and wisdom and sagacity 
 of the whole household were concentrated in her 
 own homely person. She thought more than 
 anybody ; she suspected things which no one else 
 ever thought of ; she was a detective officer and a 
 prophet of evil conjoined ; and Mr. Muir disliked
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 71 
 
 her as much as he could " one of his own 
 blood." 
 
 " If you speak at all, Bell," he said, " it would 
 be as well if you'd speak out." 
 
 "I make no doubt I could find plenty to speak 
 about," she replied; ''but it mightn't be quite 
 agreeable." 
 
 Mr. Muir thought of this oracular utterance 
 as he looked at Carline and the officer, who faced 
 each other. He had thought of it and various 
 other dark sayings let drop from time to time by 
 the immaculate Bell ; but the hay and the 
 weather, and a perplexity he was in about his 
 son, had hitherto prevented that fitting of two and 
 two together he felt necessary to make a good job 
 of the matter. Now, however, a something inde- 
 finable about Carline' s downcast eyes, and the 
 manner in which she handed bread across to the 
 officer, caused him to wonder w^hen that young 
 man would be well enough to return to head- 
 quarters. 
 
 He wanted him to buy a horse before leaving 
 Ardilaw, but Ensign Ludham seemed to be in no
 
 V 3 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 more violent hurry to conclude that purchase than 
 to confess himself quite off the sick list. " I 
 must do something," was Mr. Muir's mental 
 conclusion, and then he asked his guest, 
 
 " Are you not for any porridge, Ensign, before 
 you've your breakfast ? There is nothing like a 
 basin of it and about a pint of milk for starting 
 the day." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Muir. I am sure you are 
 sincere in your views ; but if the day can only be 
 started satisfactorily on porridge, I should prefer 
 never starting it at all." 
 
 " Some day you may be glad to get porridge," 
 broke in Miss Muir. 
 
 " I have sinned, I admit," returned her adver- 
 sary ; "but I really do not think I have sinned 
 sufficiently to deserve such a punishment." 
 
 "It is a shame to hear you abuse good food 
 that way, and before the children, too," persisted 
 Bell. 
 
 "Ah, I forgot the children; and one ought 
 always to be moral before the young ! My dears, 
 if you eat a few pounds of boiled meal every
 
 BERXA BOYLE. 73 
 
 morning you will grow up healthy, happy, and 
 wise ; if you do not you will fall into evil courses, 
 and probably come to want even a cold potato. 
 There, Miss Muir, could your favourite minister 
 have delivered a better discourse ?" 
 
 " They'll have to make haste and finish, or 
 we'll have night on us before they get out into 
 the fields," interposed Mr. Muir, who did not at 
 all relish this incursion of innocent life, and often 
 informed his daughter the ''imps spoilt more 
 nor they made." " What with burying one an- 
 other in it, and rolling and stretching themselves 
 their length, the hay is not fit for a cow to eat, 
 let alone a horse. I had to take a whip to them 
 yesterday ; the grass in the upland had just 
 been put into cop when they came tearing down 
 from the paddock, leaving the gate wide after 
 them. In five minutes, ay, in two, every cop 
 was flat, the three colts galloping about like mad, 
 and the children clapping hands and hurrooing 
 till you'd have thought the Siege of Derry was 
 on again. Yes, just let me catch you at such a 
 game a second time, and I'll not merely chastise
 
 74 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 you myself, but I'll walk you over to your father, 
 and you'll see what he'll give you." 
 
 " It is the unknown which is always terrible," 
 observed Ensign Ludham, as the small sinners 
 drooped their heads, and meekly devoured their 
 messes of pottage. 
 
 " I'm thinking they know all about it well 
 enough," said Miss Muir, eager for another 
 round. " They've felt the weight of their father's 
 hand often enough." 
 
 •'How touching! What a delightful thing 
 to possess such a father !" 
 
 " Here's Sam Dopp," exclaimed all the chil- 
 dren in a breath. 
 
 " They are not able to make any noise, are 
 they ?" said the young officer. " There are few 
 things more exhilarating than to hear five sets of 
 lungs shouting as with one mouth." 
 
 " Would you have the poor things never open 
 their lips?" asked Miss Muir, in stern reproach. 
 f "I wonder what can be bringing Sam over 
 here to-day, and his own hay only half cut?" 
 mumbled Mr. Muir.
 
 BEKNA BOYLE. 75 
 
 Mr. Sam Dopp put in a personal appearance 
 in answer to that question. Just as the farmer 
 finished his sentence the veritable Sam — who was 
 a rather slouching sort of individual, with eyes 
 that did not exactly match — opened the door and 
 looked solemnly in. Then, he said he wouldn't 
 intrude — he wanted to speak a word, but there 
 was no hurry — he would step " out by " and 
 " throw his eye " over the stable — he had break- 
 fasted — " thank you all the same." 
 
 '* Come in and sit down, man," expostulated 
 Mr. Muir; "if you won't eat you can look on, 
 and it is not totally impossible you might fancy 
 a bit of bacon after your walk. This is Ensign 
 Ludham, that got the smashing fall you've heard 
 tell of." Whereupon, with cruel and elaborate 
 civility. Ensign Ludham rose, bowed and offered 
 Mr. Sam his chair, but Sam would have none of it. 
 
 " Don't put yourself out of the way, sir, for 
 me," he entreated. " I'll do very well here;" and 
 he took a seat as remote from the table and as 
 inconvenient for purposes of conversation as was 
 procurable.
 
 76 BERXA BOYLE. 
 
 "Now, cliildren," began Mr. Muir, "if you 
 can find nothing to do here but to sit staring, 
 you might as well go into the field. Mind what 
 I told you," he added, as they filed out of the 
 room; "you'll go home, sure as you're living, if 
 you don't behave yourselves." 
 
 "If I behave myseJf very well indeed, Mr. 
 Muir, may I not go into the field and toss hay 
 too?" asked the Ensign. "I think it would 
 make me feel quite young again." 
 
 "And I think you had better take care of 
 yourself for a day or two more. The sooner you 
 get strong, the sooner you'll be able to go back 
 to your work. I am sure your colonel must be 
 breaking his heart to see you again." 
 
 " I imagine he must. As you are aware. Miss 
 Muir, I am universally loved and respected." 
 
 " That is a good hearing," sneered Bell. 
 
 " I had to pass the office this morning, and so 
 I thought I might as well ask if they had a letter 
 for you," said Mr. Dopp, wrestling with the torn 
 lining of his coat before he could find the pocket 
 where he had deposited something belonging to
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 77 
 
 Mr. Muir. *' 0, here it is ! They said it was 
 from your son, and you'd be glad to get it early." 
 
 " Do they open your correspondence at the 
 post-office, then, .Mr. Muir ?" asked his guest. 
 
 " They know the writing," answered the far- 
 mer, even more curtly than was his habit. 
 
 He did not open the letter, though his fingers 
 were itching to do so ; but sat twirling it round 
 and round, waiting for Mr. Dopp's next word. 
 
 Finding that word did not come, however, he 
 himself took the initiative. 
 
 " And what can I do for you this fine morn- 
 ing ?" he asked. 
 
 "Well, I just stepped round to know if you 
 had thought better about the cottage;" and Mr. 
 Dopp turned his head and stared straight out of 
 the window while waiting for Mr. Muir's reply, 
 which did not immediately ensue. "I don't 
 think the pigs would do vou any hurt," went on 
 Sam, in a mournful monotone; "they're whole- 
 some creatures, and I'd build the stye myself. 
 You see, I must be clear out by November; and 
 is ill to have to be looking for a house at
 
 78 BEBNA BOYLE. 
 
 that time of the year if you've a lot of young 
 ones." 
 
 This remark, which seemed addressed to the 
 landscape rather than to Mr. Muir, was received 
 by that gentleman in dead silence. He drank a 
 cup of tea, while Bell sat eyeing him eagerly, 
 before he answered. 
 
 " We've no call to argue the matter any more, 
 Sam. If I had the will I could not set you the 
 place now. It is out of my hands. I've set it." 
 
 *' Preserve us !" exclaimed Miss Muir. "When 
 did you do that ?" 
 
 " The last day I was in the town." 
 
 " And you never ' let on ' a word of what you 
 had done !" 
 
 "Why would I be talking about my concerns? 
 There are plenty of women going open-mouthed 
 about the world." 
 
 " But you couldn't keep it a secret for ever, 
 and you might as well have told us about your 
 good fortune at first as at last." 
 
 " I am the best judge of that." 
 
 " Let us hope your father has found a tenant
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 79 
 
 to his mind, Miss Muir," mischievously suggested 
 Ensign Ludham, who indeed felt jubilant over 
 Bell's discomfiture. 
 
 "It is early days to know much about him, 
 whoever he may be," retorted the lady. 
 
 "If you must know, it is not a him at all. 
 It is a widow woman, with the best of relations." 
 
 " You had better be careful, Mr. Muir," said 
 the officer, laughing. 
 
 " I mean to be ; there is not the woman born 
 I'd care to bring home again. I've had three 
 wives, and that's enough for me." 
 
 " You do not want to be too greedy." 
 
 "No; I'll content myself now; but all this 
 won't get the hay up. I must be going ;" and 
 with a nod to Mr. Dopp, who, since the uprooting 
 of all those hopes so sedulously nursed by Bell, 
 had sat like one dazed by some startling intelli- 
 gence, the farmer left the room, and proceeding 
 to the kitchen, which was entirely deserted, sat 
 down to read his letter. He went over its con- 
 tents three times, then he went up to his bedroom 
 and locked it away. After that he walked briskly
 
 80 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 to a meadow already dotted with those pictur- 
 esque haystacks the climate of Ireland necessi- 
 tates ere the crop can he safely gathered into 
 great ricks, where he remained harrying his 
 labourers and the women, who also were hard 
 at work, till dinner-time approached, when he 
 thoughtfully retraced his steps towards the house. 
 
 As he came within sight of an angle formed 
 by the garden hedge, he caught just the flutter 
 of a woman's skirt whisking off as fast as its 
 wearer could hurry away. 
 
 Changing his own course and entering the 
 garden, he saw the Ensign apparently engaged 
 in rapt contemplation of a currant-bush, on which 
 the young fry had not left a single berry. 
 
 "I am glad to find you are able to walk so 
 far," said the farmer. "I hope you'll not do 
 yourself any injury." 
 
 The officer, turning as though he had not 
 heard the sound of Mr. Muir's footsteps, smiled 
 as he answered, 
 
 " no ; I really am getting quite strong
 
 BERN A BOYLE. 81 
 
 " That will be good news for all your 
 friends." 
 
 "You are very kind to say so, Mr. Muir. If 
 it had not been for the nursing and hospitality 
 received in your house, my friends would scarcely 
 have heard that good news for many a long day." 
 
 Perfectly well the young scamp knew war 
 would shortly be declared by the man who had 
 accorded him shelter and a welcome ; but so long 
 as it suited the farmer to keep his claws hidden, 
 Ensign Ludham determined to take no notice of 
 such things being in existence. 
 
 " If you have not been tiring yourself out, 
 maybe you'd have a mind to walk with me as far 
 as the field, after dinner," suggested Mr. Muir. 
 
 "Nothing I should like better. Had it not 
 been for your prohibition I should have followed 
 you this morning; but I really do want to get 
 well and strong. I must not presume on such 
 kindness as I have received here for ever." 
 
 Mr. Muir was wary enough not to commit 
 himself to anything which might be construed 
 into a further invitation, but yet he belonged to 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 a people too genuinely hospitable to remain to- 
 tally silent. 
 
 *' That's nothing — nothing at all," he said, in 
 a courtly spirit of compromise. 
 
 "Nothing!" repeated his guest. "I'd like 
 to know who would have done for a total stranger 
 what you have." 
 
 "I'd be very sorry to think any one of the 
 neighbours wouldn't have done as much, at any 
 rate," answered Mr. Muir, feeling he had scored 
 another trick against the English. 
 
 " Bell wants to know if she'll put the dinner 
 down again." 
 
 It was one of the children who ran across 
 the yard to put this question in all its original 
 force. 
 
 "We're coming — we're coming. You see," 
 added Mr. Muir, by way of indirect apology, 
 " she's thinking about the crop. My daughter 
 Bell is a very thrifty young woman." 
 
 " I never before had the pleasure of meeting 
 any one more thrifty," said Ensign Ludham. 
 ''Admirable in every relation of life."
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 83 
 
 Mr. Muir did not feel quite satisfied on this 
 latter point, so he wisely held his tongue. 
 
 "Won't you draw up your chair?" suggested 
 Miss Muir to the officer as he entered the room, 
 where she was already seated at the head of the 
 festive board. " I hope you can eat boiled beef 
 and greens. Lizzie, just set the Ensign a plate 
 for his skins." 
 
 " I assure you. Miss Muir, I have only one," 
 said the irrepressible Ensign ; but he did not look 
 across at Carline as he spoke. Since breakfast 
 matters had progressed to a stage in which glances 
 are rather avoided. 
 
 " Ay, ay," thought the farmer, on whom no 
 sign, however trivial, was now lost; "it's time 
 you got your marching orders, my boy." 
 
 For a few minutes there was little said ; 
 scarcely a sound broke the stillness but the clatter 
 of knives and forks, and an occasional request for 
 potatoes. Even Miss Muir, who had some small 
 household care on her mind, refrained from what 
 her father was wont to term " side wipes." She 
 did not fling indirect taunts at the Ensign for
 
 84 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 preferring water to milk in any form ; the chil- 
 dren having happily heen provided with a suffi- 
 cient meal in the kitchen, it was not possible for 
 her to bid them sit up, or eat properly, or in any 
 other way instruct them in the way they should 
 go ; whilst during the whole of dinner she spoke 
 no word of scorn even to Carline, whose short- 
 comings usually furnished an interlude whenever 
 conversation flagged, as it had often a knack of 
 doing — not wholly peculiar to Ardilaw. 
 
 " That beef's not bad, Bell ; I think I could 
 take another cut," said Mr. Muir, after a silence 
 devoted entirely to the benefit of his inner man ; 
 then, as the red-armed, rough-handed Phyllis 
 called Poll carried his plate round for that second 
 supply of food he felt the case required, he added, 
 as a casual piece of information of no great im- 
 portance, 
 
 " I've got a bit of news for you all. You may 
 look to see Gorman next week. That's my only 
 son, you know. Ensign — my first-born." 
 
 The bit of news dropped like a shell amongst 
 those present. Miss Muir sat with carving-knife
 
 BERN A BOYLE. 85 
 
 and fork suspended in mid-air ; Sarah and Car- 
 line turned and stared at their father in amaze- 
 ment; Molly nearly let the plate she was holding 
 drop, so great was her astonishment ; while for a 
 moment even Ensign Ludham failed presence of 
 mind to say, 
 
 *' I remember ; that is the gentleman you 
 told me had been adopted when quite a child by 
 his uncle." 
 
 " That's quite right. His mother's uncle 
 took him from me when he was only two years 
 of age." 
 
 " And he has never been in this part of the 
 country since, Ensign," observed Miss Muir. 
 
 "How glad you will be to see him!" com- 
 mented the Ensign, with a benignant smile, 
 happy to think there were evil days in store for 
 Bell— days during the course of which his own 
 many grievances would be amply avenged.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " I HAVE been thinking that, as your son is at 
 last returning to his ancestral roof - tree, the 
 sooner I take my departure the better. Charm- 
 ing as no doubt I have made myself, it is, I fear, 
 a melancholy fact that under the circumstances 
 you will find my room even pleasanter than my 
 company." 
 
 *'It is out of the way considerate of you 
 mentioning such a thing," said Mr. Muir, who 
 had not yet quite made up his mind whether he 
 most desired Ensign Ludham's absence or pre- 
 sence. 
 
 Two o'clock had struck, the afternoon sun was 
 as hot as any sun ever can be in Ireland, only 
 two or three pure white clouds flecked the blue 
 expanse of heaven, the green of the meadows had 
 become vivid, a westerly wind caressed the sun- 
 burnt cheeks of lowly haymakers; down in the
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 87 
 
 glen a trickling stream flowed slowly to music 
 of its own making ; the peaceful stir of country 
 life pervaded the whole landscape, and Mr. Muir 
 and his guest were, according to agreement, 
 sauntering over the grass in order that the former 
 might see " with his own two eyes," to quote 
 Miss Bell, how work was progressing. 
 
 No figure less like the typical Arcadian than 
 Mr. Muir's probahly ever before crossed the sweet 
 summer fields. 
 
 Tall, gaunt, erect, uncompromising, clad in a 
 suit of evening black, white linen shirt, black 
 stock, and high hat, he stalked solemnly beside 
 Ensign Ludham, who wore a pair of loose gray 
 trousers, no waistcoat, an old velvet shooting- 
 jacket much the worse for wear, a broad-brimmed 
 straw hat pushed back from his forehead, a turn- 
 down collar fastened with a gold stud, carried a 
 notched and gnarled blackthorn lent him by his 
 host, and halted perceptibly as he struggled on- 
 ward. 
 
 Mr. Muir looked askance at the youth as they 
 walked along. He would not have thought much,
 
 88 BEPtNA BOYLE. 
 
 or indeed at all, about '' the boy " limping, if it 
 had not been for what Bell had said concerning 
 him. Bell's utterances were, as a rule, so emi- 
 nently disagreeable, she found it quite unneces- 
 sary to add to their unpleasantness by falsehood ; 
 therefore her friends had not even the satisfaction 
 of believing there might not be a grain of truth 
 in what she said. Miss Muir's conclusions might 
 be open to doubt, but her facts were incontro- 
 vertible. If she stated, not that she thought, but 
 that she had seen, a thing, there could be no 
 question on the subject; and Bell, a full week 
 back, declared the Ensign went up-stairs three 
 steps at a time. Mr. Muir had never beheld him 
 doing anything of the sort; but that proved 
 nothing. He was getting to feel " dubious " 
 about the officer's straightforwardness. He had 
 *' a pleasant way with him," and he came of 
 ** decent people," and his ways were " agree- 
 able," and his manners beyond the common 
 affable; yet, still — the farmer thought a great 
 deal as he noticed Ensign Ludham's, painful walk, 
 and at last he said.
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 89 
 
 "I am afraid you're not as strong on that 
 bad leg as we could wisli." 
 
 "0, it's getting all right," answered the 
 young hypocrite. "I ought not to have stood 
 on it so long this morning, that's all." 
 
 " I believe you're correct there," agreed Mr. 
 Muir, in a tone which meant much more than 
 his words. 
 
 "At any rate," answered the officer, "I shall 
 be well enough to relieve you of my company 
 very shortly. I should like, if I may, to remain 
 here over Sunday. Then, supposing you could 
 give me a lift as far as Holywood, I'd charter a 
 boat across the Lough — Skirton is at Carrick- 
 fergus, in command of our company, and I ought 
 to join him there." 
 
 " Carrick's a fine heartsome place," returned 
 the farmer, more perplexed in his mind than 
 ever, now .the hour of parting seemed imminent, 
 as to whether he most wished the officer to go 
 or to stay. 
 
 *'I am very glad indeed to hear you say so, 
 Mr. Muir, for I have always been given to under-
 
 90 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 stand the officers' quarters faced the east, which, 
 as we all know, is a peculiarly healthy aspect 
 for delicate people." 
 
 "But, Ensign, you're surely not just that 
 delicate yourself?" suggested Mr. Muir anxi- 
 ously. 
 
 *' I put the matter generally," ohserved Mr. 
 Ludham, with a lofty composure; "but, if we 
 must descend to particulars, I am not strong. 
 When I am at home, my mother is always asking 
 the doctor about my heart and lungs (no interest- 
 ing disease, as you must be well aware, ever 
 attaches itself to the liver) ; and that good gentle- 
 man makes a point of tapping my chest, as a 
 woodpecker does a tree, and with a like result. 
 He says something about me is hollow." 
 
 "Maybe he's not so far out," remarked Mr. 
 Muir. 
 
 " And as mine," calmly continued Ensign 
 Ludham, too wise to take any notice of Mr. 
 Muir's nasty sarcasm, " is considered a very valu- 
 able life — only five healthy persons intervene 
 between me and a baronetcy — I am tormented to
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 91 
 
 put my feet in hot water, and wear flannels, and 
 beware of damp, and go to bed with the lamb, and 
 lie ever so late in the morning ; so, you see, I 
 can't be strong, Mr. Muir, I can't indeed. It is 
 only the enormous care you have taken of me 
 which has preserved its brightest ornament to 
 the Kutlandshire RagamujBfins, as the — th regi- 
 ment is affectionately nicknamed." 
 
 " If you're tired, won't you sit a bit ?" in- 
 quired Mr. Muir, hospitably pointing to a felled 
 tree lying near a thorn hedge close at hand. *' I'd 
 be vexed if a man that's held of such account 
 came to harm as long as he stops at Ardilaw." 
 
 With an appreciative grin, the young fellow 
 stretched himself full length on the trunk, his 
 once injured leg well in evidence, his hat tilted 
 over his eyes — his whole attitude that of utter 
 rest and contentment, presenting a marked con- 
 trast to the stiff figure seated bolt upright at his 
 feet. 
 
 " As you urge me so strongly, I think I will 
 indulge in a cigar," said the Ensign, putting one 
 lazy hand into his pocket and drawing out his
 
 92 BEENA BOYLE. 
 
 case. " Can't I tempt you, Mr. Muir ? I don't 
 think I have eyer seen you smoke." 
 
 " No ; and I don't think you ever will," re- 
 turned Mr. Muir. "There was a time — once — 
 when I liked a smoke as well as any man ; but I 
 gave it up because a lyoman could not bear the 
 smell of tobacco, and I've never had pipe or cigar 
 between my lips since." 
 
 " Eeally ? How very interesting ! I hope I 
 am not indiscreet in concluding you were in love 
 with the lady." 
 
 *' I was, or you may be sure I wouldn't have 
 given up my will to her pleasure." 
 
 " What a touching reminiscence ! I wonder 
 whether I shall ever be sufficiently in love to 
 relinquish anything for the sake of my fair." 
 
 "It is not over and above likely," answered 
 the farmer, with saturnine enjoyment of his own 
 wit ; and there ensued a pause, during the con- 
 tinuance of which the song of the grasshoppers 
 became distinctly audible, and the officer's 
 thoughts went flitting about like the butter- 
 flies flashing through the summer air.
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 93 
 
 " She was my first mfe," observed Mr. Muir, 
 at length breaking silence. 
 
 " She ! "Who ? Good gracious, what are you 
 talking about?" cried Ensign Ludham. "0,1 
 leg your pardon. I had quite forgotten. You 
 mean, of course, the lady you preferred to to- 
 bacco." 
 
 "Just that," said Mr. Muir, a httle down- 
 heartedly, for he felt himself repulsed, as hard 
 natures often do when they lapse into sentiment. 
 
 " You were rery fond of her?" hazarded the 
 officer, raising himself on his elbow — shallow 
 waters can reflect cloud and sunshine even 
 better than great oceans, which sometimes seem 
 almost to absorb both. 
 
 " Ay, and so would 3'ou have been if you'd 
 seen her," answered the farmer, grimly in earnest. 
 For once he had scraped the mould out of his 
 dead wife's grave, and raised her coffin lid, and 
 looked on the dust therein, while smiling through 
 the years he beheld the fair bright face which had 
 thrilled his youth with rapture. That, at least, 
 was not lying under the sod. Though cold.
 
 94 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 hard, and stern might be the religion he pro- 
 fessed, yet the poetry and the passion which 
 underlie all Celtic nature told him, in tones 
 more convincing than any creed, that somewhere, 
 somewhere, he would again see that face glorified, 
 all traces of tears wiped away, all sorrow dis- 
 pelled. Between them — for his Calvinist Phari- 
 saism could not at such a supreme moment blind 
 him to the fact that he was, keeping within the 
 law, as coldly wicked a man as ever drew breath 
 — there might yawn a gulf deep and long as that 
 dividing heaven from hell ; nevertheless, he felt 
 with his eyes he should behold her, even from 
 afar, as certainly as at that moment memory gave 
 him back a glimpse of dark laughing eyes, and 
 red pouting lips, and cheeks the southern sun 
 seemed to have been kissing, and wavy hair, with 
 little more than the suspicion of a curl about it, 
 and a heart — God ! what had that heart not 
 been ere it broke, and in breaking made no sign ! 
 "It is a most fortunate thing I never did 
 know her." Thus Ensign Ludham all unwit- 
 tingly dispelled the vision Mr. Muir had con-
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 95 
 
 jured up out of the depths of thirty years spent 
 in sin and hard work. " Of course I should at 
 once have fallen over head and ears in love — a 
 feeling you will understand she must immedi- 
 ately have reciprocated — and there never lived a "^ 
 man less desirous of disturbing conjugal peace 
 than myself. On the whole, Heaven knows what 
 is best for us, Mr. Muir." 
 
 " You've a light way of talking. I wonder if 
 it covers a depth of evil-doing ?" 
 
 ** You need not wonder. There never was so 
 childlike and innocent a young fellow as myself. 
 Bless you, I know nothing concerning the sins cff 
 this wicked old world. An idyllic life is the life 
 for me. I could make myself happy at Ardilaw 
 for ever, doing nothing useful, of course. Do 
 tell me all about your first wife, your love's 
 young dream, if talking on the subject will not 
 distress you." 
 
 Ensign Ludham bit the end off his cigar, lit 
 a match, placed himself in a more comfortable 
 position, while Mr. Muir sat with bowed head, 
 hands loosely clasped, wrestling hard with thought
 
 96 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 and memory. For any one who knew something 
 of humanity it must have been apparent that be- 
 tween the two men there stretched centuries of 
 civilisation. There sat a savage — reluctantly 
 conforming to law, influenced by a vague religion. 
 Stretched at his ease, full length, upon a fallen 
 tree, lay a reprobate out of whom modern scepti- 
 cism and social culture had crushed every spark 
 of manhood, save superficial courtesy and physical 
 courage. 
 
 The first scarcely understood the full meaning 
 of social restraint, the second had outstepped its 
 l5oundaries. He was as dangerous an inmate as a 
 man possessed of a pretty daughter could have 
 desired within his doors, as cool a hand, as 
 thoroughpaced a blackguard, as ever, when the 
 hour came for mere brute daring to assert itself, 
 rode cheerily through the Valley of Death to spike 
 an enemy's guns, or marched on bravely to the 
 front, knowing full well that every bullet has its 
 billet. 
 
 "I'd like well to tell you some little about 
 myself, if it wouldn't tire you over-much," said
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 97 
 
 Mr. Muir, in a low bushed voice, as if he were 
 talking in a church. 
 
 " Should be only too charmed," murmured his 
 guest, turning himself indolently, so as the better 
 to catch such words of wisdom as might on that 
 summer's afternoon be wandering about Ardilaw. 
 
 " My father and my grandfather before him 
 were bailiffs on the Manor of Clonmellin, in the 
 service of the Gorman family — that you may 
 never have heard tell of?" 
 
 " Frequently," murmured the officer, who, till 
 that hour, was unaware such a place as Clonmellin 
 existed. 
 
 " The Gorman s had a grand domain. I don't 
 say it brought in much money — for it was mostly 
 seashore and mountain, all but the made land 
 about the house — but you could walk and ride for 
 hours, days almost, over their property. There 
 were parts where a sheep would have starved — 
 but the wild fowl fattened. I've myself killed, on 
 a cold, quiet night, thirty wild duck. Lord ! 
 what was there in the way of game you might not 
 have found on those hills !" 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 " You never by chance met with a lion or a 
 tiger when you were prowling about poaching ?" 
 suggested Ensign Ludham. 
 
 ''I never did; but if I had I wouldn't have 
 been afraid," said Mr. Muir. "No more afraid 
 than to answer to the charge of ' poaching ' in any 
 of your English courts. We had leave to shoot 
 what we liked ; if we hadn't, my father would 
 have shot me for bringing home what I did. He 
 was a faithful servant. He wouldn't have wronged 
 his master of an ear of corn. The agent for the 
 property lived in Dublin, and came down twice a 
 year to see how things were going on ; but my 
 father was really the managing and capable man ; 
 he had all things under his hand — money, and 
 stock and crop, and land." 
 
 "And all this time, may one inquire what the 
 Gorman of Clonmellin was about ? Was he quite 
 content to leave everything under your father's 
 hand, and ask no inconvenient or unseasonable 
 questions ?" 
 
 " Yes, quite content," said Mr. Muir, with 
 conviction.' ; "Where there's no fraud, a master
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 99 
 
 has no need to ask questions. My great-grand- 
 father was Scotch, and they hanged him on a tree 
 in front of his own house because, being a Cove- 
 nanter, he wouldn't go against his convictions." 
 
 '' What a plucky old gentleman !" commented 
 the Ensign. 
 
 " He was that ; my father used to sit by the 
 hour and tell me stories about him — stories he 
 had heard from his father, you understand." 
 
 "All of which, perhaps, one day soon you will 
 tell me, Mr. Muir ; just at present I am dying to 
 hear something of your wife." 
 
 '' I am coming to her, but you do just as well 
 to whip me on a bit. I'll tell you what the country- 
 side called her — Miss Katty Gorman — bonny, 
 bright, beautiful Katty Gorman." 
 
 *' Really ! and you were glad, no doubt, to 
 marry her, spite of the bar sinister." 
 
 "What do you mean? Do you think she 
 wasn't the man's daughter ?" 
 
 *' Pray, don't be so vehement, Mr. Muir. I 
 intended no offence. I had no doubt of the fair 
 Katty being Mr. Gorman's child; but — " And
 
 100 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 tlie Ensign's pause suggested more than any 
 words he could have spoken. 
 
 Up into the farmer's face surged a dull and 
 passionate red, which for a moment tinged fore- 
 head and cheeks with a wholly foreign colour. 
 For a moment he felt as though some one had 
 slapped him with an open hand — the suggestion, 
 though false, affected him more painfully than the 
 keenest truth could have done, since it seemed to 
 imply so certainly no one who belonged of right 
 to decent people could possibly have mated with 
 himself. Just for a moment he hesitated, then — 
 
 " You are out this time, Ensign," he said, not 
 without a certain triumph. " My wife was Mr. 
 Terence Gorman's eldest child, born in lawful 
 wedlock, and her mother as grand and high a lady 
 as your own. There was nothing wanting on hei' 
 side, and if her people had only given me the ghost 
 of a chance, I'll swear they would have found 
 nothing wanting on mine.'' 
 
 " The Gormans were blind, then, Mr. Muir, 
 to your manifold excellences, inherited and other- 
 wise," said the officer, taking the cigar out of his
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 101 
 
 mouth, and again raising himself on one elbow, 
 the better to contemplate at his leisure a man 
 detested at Clonmellin. 
 
 " They couldn't read me as I was, more's the 
 pity," explained the farmer. " They were looking 
 for thoughts and notions that had no place in 
 me. 
 
 " Without wishing for a moment to side with 
 these unappreciative Gormans, might I inquire 
 how you managed to secure the eldest daughter of 
 such a house ? Of course the fact of having had 
 a great-grandfather who was hung would score 
 immensely in your favour; but descent isn't 
 everything. As a rule, rich folk have a detest- 
 able way of asking the length of your purse. Am 
 I wrong, Mr. Muir, in imagining you were, in 
 your first youth, not exactly a millionaire ?" 
 
 " I had not much money, but I had something 
 else. You jnight not think it to look at me now, 
 Ensign ; but when I wanted a few years of being 
 your age all the women were running after me. 
 Now, that's a statement might astonish you." 
 
 "Quite the contrary; it only proves what I
 
 102 BEENA BOYLE. 
 
 have always thought, that the dear creatures pos- 
 sess an instinct as true as rapid." 
 
 "I'm well aware," proceeded Mr. Muir, "that 
 no one could call me exactly handsome at this 
 present time— " 
 
 " I don't want to make you hlush ; so I will 
 only say you are greatly mistaken," said the 
 Ensign, without a change of countenance. 
 
 " I know I am not," maintained the farmer 
 stoutly ; " but that was all different once. I had 
 a notion of setting myself off, too. I mostly 
 carried a flower in my batton-hole ; and — " 
 
 " Excuse my interrupting you ; but did the 
 proposal come from Miss Gorman ?" 
 
 " No ; that it didn't. I wouldn't say but she 
 met me half-way. She was a free, innocent sort 
 of girl — had not a thought of harm. I could 
 not just tell you now how it all began ; but I 
 know how it ended. AYe made a match of it; 
 and you may be very sure that day I thought my 
 fortune was made." 
 
 "And had none of the lady's friends a sus- 
 picion of what was going on ?"
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 103 
 
 " Not a suspicion. She had not a friend near 
 at hand but an old aunt of her father's, half blind 
 and whole doting. Her mother was dead; Mr. 
 Gorman was married the second time to a 
 daughter of Lord Dunfelde, and the pair lived in 
 London, making the first wife's money spin. Ay, 
 you might say there was not an egg laid on 
 Clonmellin manor, or a pat of butter printed, but 
 the price of it went across the Channel. Why, 
 Mr. Gorman hadn't been in Ireland for years till 
 he came back to turn my wife out of doors." 
 
 " I see — and so your fortune was not made, 
 Mr. Muir." 
 
 "Faith, no. I got something in my hand, 
 but not much — and my father lost his situation, 
 which was a crying shame, for the man knew no 
 more of what had happened than his employer. 
 And they behaved cruelly to my wife — cruelly. 
 They broke her heart; she only lived three 
 months after her child was born — that's Gor- 
 man, you know." 
 
 " He was brought up by some relation, was he 
 not ?"
 
 104 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 " Yes, by his mother's uncle, Mr. Trevasson, 
 of Mount Michael, county Kilkenny. The 
 Trevassons were originally Cornish folk. I've 
 never set eyes on the lad since he was two years 
 of age, and now he must be getting on for eight- 
 and-twenty." 
 
 "What does he do?" 
 
 " He does not do anything but amuse himself. 
 He wanted to be an officer like yourself, but the 
 old man wouldn't hear of it." 
 
 " !" said Ensign Ludham. *' What a plea- 
 sure it will be to him to make acquaintance with 
 his family !" 
 
 *' I'm not so sure of that," answered the 
 farmer ; " you see our way of living is scarcely 
 such as he has been used to, and I could have 
 wished — " 
 
 "If he is of my mind, you need wish no 
 greater happiness for him than a month at Ardi- 
 law," said the young man politely. 
 
 " I feel obliged to you. If you think you are 
 rested, perhaps we might move on." 
 
 They " moved on " over the newly-mown
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 105 
 
 field — the Ensign carrying his hat in his hand 
 and still limping painfully ; the farmer warning 
 him not to step into any drain, and to beware of 
 worm-casts. 
 
 What with the haymakers, the carts, the 
 L^xbes, the dogs, and the children, that hill field 
 presented a most picturesque appearance. 
 
 " I'd like to sketch this," said the officer. 
 
 " Well, what would hinder you ? Lizzie '11 
 run in and bring anything you need." 
 
 " Thank you, greatly. Here, Lizzie ; I want 
 the drawing-book you'll find on my table, and a 
 couple of pencils, and — but whom have we here, 
 Mr. Muir ? By Jove, what a horse !" 
 
 Turning, Mr. Muir looked down the field, and 
 saw, entering by the " gap " made for the carts 
 to pass through, a man and horse. The horse 
 was jet black ; except for the star on its forehead 
 the creature had not a white hair about it. The 
 man dismounted, and passing his arm through the 
 bridle came straight on towards the haymakers. 
 
 *'This is likely some friend of yours. Ensign," 
 suggested the farmer.
 
 106 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 *' He is no friend of mine, I think. He is a 
 fine-looking fellow, though, let him he who he 
 may. Let us go to meet him." 
 
 When the stranger got close to them he 
 stopped, and said a little doubtfully, *' Is Mr. 
 Muir here ?" 
 
 ** My name is Muir," answered the farmer. 
 There was the slightest perceptible pause — then, 
 
 " You do not know me ?" 
 
 "Well, I can't say that I do. Surely you're 
 not—" 
 
 *' I am Gorman Muir," was the answer; and 
 father and son shook hands.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ''It is a bad job," said Mr. :\Iuir ; " a very bad 
 job." 
 
 "It is so bad it could not well be worse,'' 
 answered his son. 
 
 The quiet night had stolen softly on, gradu- 
 ally enfolding in its dusky mantle the azures and 
 the gold light of a perfect summer's day. A 
 tender silence, broken only by the ripple of the 
 river, the rustling of the leaves, or the scurry of 
 a rabbit, brooded over Ardilaw. Late and hard 
 the haymakers had worked, but they lay now 
 asleep at home ; the children, whose holiday was 
 drawing to an end, were all abed. The Misses 
 Muir had retired to rest ; the kitchen fire had 
 long been " slacked," ready in a few hours to be 
 once again blown up into a flame with the help of 
 a pair of wheezy bellows ; the servaut-of-all-work 
 was sleeping the sleep of utter weariness, the
 
 108 EEEXA BOYLE. 
 
 soiled and dog-eared dream-book, conned by the 
 light of a guttering dip before she lay down, still 
 clutched in one red unlovely hand, that yet was 
 not without its pathos ; eleven o'clock p.m. had 
 come and passed, and still Mr. Muir and his son 
 sate in the parlour — once upon a time my lady's 
 dining-room — talking earnestly. 
 
 Ensign Ludham was gone. *' Chains and 
 fetters," as Miss Muir poetically remarked at a 
 subsequent period, " couldn't have kept him after 
 he set eyes on Gorman." Go he would ; and, 
 spite of all persuasion, go he did. Old Ned, the 
 blind horse, that could well-nigh have counted 
 years with Miss Bell, had, after a long day's work 
 in the hay-field, been " shoved " into the gig, so 
 that the officer and his fortunes might be jogged 
 comfortably to the railway station. He had de- 
 clined the pleasure of Mr. Muir's company on the 
 ground that he could not think of taking him 
 away from his son ; and he negatived the son's 
 offer of " tooling him " because that gentleman 
 must " be so overjoyed to meet his father." 
 
 Bag, if not baggage, the Ensign was gone.
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 109 
 
 Laughingly he had tossed Bell's last taunt back 
 to that charming maiden; he had distributed 
 largesse all round; found time and opportunity 
 to whisper a word in Carline's ear ; he had once 
 more expressed his obligations to Mr. Muir, and 
 accepted Gorman's help into the gig ; then, ac- 
 companied to the gate by the children, who all 
 " tore down " the avenue like " mad things " to 
 unfasten and click the latch, he departed from 
 Ardilaw. 
 
 And now another person sat in Ensign Lud- 
 ham's accustomed chair, and stared out through 
 the windows, destitute of blind or curtain, into 
 the semi-darkness of the summer's night. 
 
 Any person looking into the room would, by 
 the light of an oil lamp suspended from the ceil- 
 ing, have seen a strange interior. On the centre 
 of an oaken floor, off which the passage of heavy 
 boots had scraped well-nigh all the polish, was 
 spread a small square of worn and faded carpet. 
 The panelled w^alls were destitute of ornament 
 of any kind, sort, or description. Above the 
 chimney-piece, which was of Sienna marble, a
 
 110 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 richly-carved over-mantel rose to the cornice. 
 Into this a few nails had been driven, and these 
 supported, as on a rack, a cane and couple of 
 riding-whips, and the blade of a sword-fish. On 
 the mantelshelf stood a couple of valuable old 
 china basins, used as receptacles for bills, letters, 
 receipts, screws of tobacco, broken pipes, and 
 odds and ends of string ; to a hook just above 
 hung suspended the "tawse," by means of which 
 Mr. Muir had driven his progeny along the way 
 they should go. On a chiffonier, placed in a 
 recess beside the fireplace, were ranged a few old 
 books, the family Bible, and a workbox which 
 belonged to Mr. Muir's mother. The rest of the 
 furniture consisted of one of those dining-tables 
 of which the flaps can be dropped down at plea- 
 sure, the legs under all circumstances constitut- 
 ing themselves a distinct nuisance, an ancient 
 sofa, originally upholstered in shiny horsehair 
 like the fourteen uneasy chairs that formed the 
 suite, but which Bell's industrious fingers had 
 re-covered with sundry breadths taken out of the 
 many " good " dresses left behind by her mother
 
 BERNA BOYLE. Ill 
 
 when that sainted woman departed this wicked 
 world. 
 
 In one of the uncomfortahle armchairs be- 
 longing to the " horsehair and solid mahogany- 
 suite " sat Mr. Muir, a glass of punch smoking 
 at his elbow, perplexity engraven in the clearest 
 letters on every line and wrinkle of his face. 
 Opposite to him, in another armchair of the 
 same recondite and mysterious build, the younger 
 man lay nearly at full length, his legs stretched 
 out, his feet crossed, his head resting on the 
 sharp edge of the back rail of the chair, a tumbler 
 of whisky and cold water standing, scarcely 
 touched, at his elbow; a half-smoked cigar held 
 between the finger and thumb of his right hand ; 
 his whole weary attitude that of a man thoroughly- 
 permeated with his conviction that ■" the job " to 
 which his father had referred was indeed one 
 difficult to make worse. 
 
 " What could have possessed the man ?" said 
 Mr. Muir, in continuance of the conversation. 
 
 " A woman," was his son's pithy explana- 
 tion.
 
 112 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 ** And at his time of life, too ! Dear, . 
 dear !" 
 
 " The older a man the more likely he is to 
 make a fool of himself." 
 
 " Couldn't you have stopped the match by any 
 manner of honest means ?" 
 
 "Not unless I had married her myself." 
 
 " And why didn't you ? Man alive, why 
 didn't you ?" 
 
 " For one reason, because I should not have 
 been any better off. A single pauper does not 
 cost so much to keep as two." 
 
 " That's true enough. I had forgotten every- 
 thing except how you might have kept your uncle 
 from committing such wickedness." 
 
 "And, besides," continued Mr. Gorman Muir, 
 putting his dead cigar in his mouth and puffing 
 as though it had been alight, " I hate her." 
 
 "Do you, though? That is bad. The 
 Scriptures say we ought to hate no man, and I 
 suppose that means we ought to hate no woman 
 either." 
 
 " I don't know what the Scriptures say — and
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 113 
 
 I don't mucli care. It is human nature to hate 
 what is hateful, and Mrs. Trevasson is detest- 
 ahle." 
 
 "My word, not even handsome, then ?" 
 
 "I did not say she was not handsome. She 
 is. So were Delilah and Jezebel, and a whole 
 host more of delightful ladies of that type, unless 
 the painters have played us very false indeed. 
 For my own part, however, I do not like Delilahs 
 or Jezebels, or, for that matter, Judiths either, 
 even at a distance ; and when we come to close 
 quarters I hate them;" and, as if it had been one 
 of the historical dames in question, Mr. Gorman 
 Muir flung his half-finished cigar under the grate 
 in a rage. 
 
 Though he did not smoke, Mr. Muir, ere 
 seeking the solitude of his own chamber, recovered 
 the fag end of that cigar, observing to himself as 
 he carefully wiped it clear of soot and dust, 
 " He must have been accustomed to awful 
 waste." 
 
 " Wasn't there any way you could have made 
 friends with Mrs. Trevasson, so that you still 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 BERN A BOYLE. 
 
 might have got the run of your teeth and kept a 
 roof over your head at Mount Michael ?" 
 
 Mr. Muir junior threw up his arms, put his 
 hands under his head, stretched himself out a 
 little longer, and laughed a laugh which had in it 
 more of anger than amusement. 
 
 "Couldn't you?" repeated his father earnestly. 
 " Though I was not so had-looking once, I never 
 in my best days had the advantages you possess. 
 You are well put together, ' suple,' strongly knit, 
 far-and-away from ill-favoured, smooth in your 
 speech, and as fit to talk to any lady as the Ensign 
 himself. What would have hindered your pleas- 
 ing your uncle's young wife ? When I was your age, 
 I'd like to have seen the woman I couldn't cajole." 
 
 " ' Give me twelve hours,' " quoted Mr. 
 Gorman Muir, " * and I'll distance the hand- 
 somest man in England.'" 
 
 " Then why in the name of fortune didn't you 
 make the new mistress (bad luck to her!) that 
 fond of you she wouldn't let your uncle part his 
 nephew ?" said Mr. Muir, speaking in that series 
 of ellipses of which the Irish are so fond.
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 115 
 
 *'If you must know, the new mistress, as you 
 call her, was too fond of me already." 
 
 ''Ho, ho!" ejaculated Mr. Muir; "I deemed 
 you were keeping some cat snug in a bag. I 
 thought to myself, from the first, there's more yet 
 he's not telling me." 
 
 '' I shouldn't have told you now," retorted his 
 son, '' only I want you to understand clearly there 
 is no good in thinking matters can ever be made 
 up wdth my uncle." 
 
 ''I am not so sure I just understand the whole 
 business yet," answered Mr. Muir, w^hose strongest 
 point was obstinate antagonism. "How did the 
 old man come to the rights of the affair ?" 
 
 " He has not come to the rights of the affair. 
 He never will come to the rights of the affair." 
 
 " Lord, man ! you're worse nor Samson and 
 his honey in the lion's carcase. Can't you speak 
 out, and say in so many plain words what you 
 mean ?" 
 
 "I mean, in plain words, that Dora Antrim 
 was in love with me.'" 
 
 " You needn't raise your voice that way here ;
 
 116 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 lam not deaf," said Mr. Muir. ''In love with 
 you, and then — " 
 
 " Finding I would have nothing to do with her, 
 she got hold of my uncle — " 
 
 " She was no fool. Better he an old man's 
 darling, you mind, than — " 
 
 "And to cut a long story short, they were 
 married." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " They had not been back a week before I 
 found out that she cared for me still." 
 
 "Surely, then, you might have had things 
 pretty much your own way ?" 
 
 " I never pretended to be a saint," said Mr. 
 Gorman Muir, " but I am not a villain." 
 
 " Aren't you, now ?" retorted Mr. Muir; " but, 
 of course, you know best." 
 
 "I know that, at any rate." 
 
 " And so I suppose you went to your uncle, 
 and made a clean breast of it." 
 
 " I did no such thing. The secret was not 
 mine to tell; and if it had been, I should not 
 have told upon a , woman. Further, the story
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 117 
 
 could not have done me any good. His mind was 
 60 warped against me he could not have believed 
 me right in saying black was black." 
 
 " My own opinion is, you have bungled the 
 whole business. Couldn't you have spoken the 
 woman fair, and kept in with her a bit till your 
 own turn was served ?" 
 
 " I tell you I am not a villain, though my poor 
 uncle thinks me one. I told her the same county 
 could not contain both of us, and that I would 
 go ; and I was just trying to get some assurance 
 from her husband as to some future help from 
 him, when she took the wind out of my sails by 
 making the vilest accusations against me." 
 
 '' Ay, ay ; the old case of Joseph and his 
 mistress over again, no doubt," said Mr. Muir, 
 nodding sapiently. 
 
 " She did not go so far as Mrs. Potiphar," 
 answered his son, an evil light flashing from his 
 dark-brown eyes; "but she went far enough. 
 She declared she would have her revenge upon me, 
 and she has got it now." 
 
 ''I can't say Joseph was a young man I ever
 
 118 BERNA BOYLE, 
 
 particularly took to myself," observed Mr. Muir. 
 " There seemed to me a great deal of foolishness 
 about him." 
 
 " Probably you would not have acted as he did." 
 
 " I'm very sure I would not go to gaol if by 
 whiles flattering of any woman I could keep out 
 of it." 
 
 " Then there we join issue," retorted Gorman. 
 
 ''Well, see what your precipitancy has done 
 for you I" 
 
 " Sent me adrift with fifty pounds certain in 
 hand and a thousand pounds possibly ahead." 
 
 "And what you're to do, I'm sure I don't 
 know." 
 
 " Neither do I ; but I mean to think. May I 
 stay here for awhile till I have thought ?" 
 
 " Where would you stop but in your father's 
 house ?" returned Mr. Muir. " You're heartily 
 welcome to all I can give you, and though I don't 
 set myself up to be anything beyond the common, 
 I have managed to save enough to keep me and 
 mine out of the workhouse. There's no call for 
 you to starve while you are here ; and now that I
 
 BERNA EOYLE. 119 
 
 know the worst, I think we raa}^ as well be think- 
 ing of going to bed. I'll show you the room 
 where Bell has had fresh sheets laid for you, and 
 fine and sweet you'll find them. Things are 
 scarce so straight as they might be if the Ensign 
 had not left in such hot haste, leaving most of his 
 j)roperty lying loose behind him. I wish he had 
 stopped a day or two louger, so that you might 
 have got acquainted. Of all the easy, careless, 
 happy-go-lucky young fellows I ever met, he is 
 the chief. Just look at the silver fittings out of 
 his dressing-case lying loose without a lock turned 
 on them. Good-night ! I hope you'll have a sound 
 rest." 
 
 " I have no doubt of that, for I am very 
 tired. Good-night !" And then Gorman Muir, 
 standing in the very middle of the room, sighed 
 heavily. 
 
 All around him were carelessly strewed out- 
 ward signs of the rank he was leaving, while, 
 short as had been his experience of Ardilaw, he 
 understood pretty well the sort of thing he must 
 expect to meet. Utterly weary, utterly wretched,
 
 120 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 utterly disheartened, he undressed as rapidly as 
 possible, and, flinging himself into Miss Bell's 
 snow-white and lavender-scented linen, soon forgot 
 his troubles in a deep and dreamless sleep.
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 " Well, this is a place !" It was Mrs. Boyle who 
 spoke, and she had for audience only that insignifi- 
 cant person, her daughter. " Little feeling as your 
 father ever had for anybody but himself, I think 
 if he knew his widow was exiled like that girl 
 Elizabeth I read about once, to such a Siberia as 
 Clear Stream Cottage, even he would rise up from 
 his grave and try to do justice by a woman who 
 did her duty by him only too well. Early and 
 late I'm sure I was at him to mend his ways." 
 
 Berna made no answer while her mother fired 
 this volley over her head; she was unpacking a 
 box, and she did not look up, lest some bullet in 
 mid-career should pierce her brain. 
 
 Further, if there were a girl w^ho had learned, 
 in the bitterest school of experience human beings 
 can attend, the beauty of silence and the fooHshness 
 of speech, that girl was Berna Boyle.
 
 122 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 *' Some women might not mind it," continued 
 the widow. " Now there's that Miss Craig we 
 saw at the Whitefords'. I'll be bound she'd 
 consider herself made if anybody said he'd pay the 
 rent of a house like this for her, let alone offer to 
 put a few things in the rooms to make them 
 habitable ; but then she never knew the meaning 
 of a different sort of life. By what I can under- 
 stand, she and her old father — he was some sort 
 of a minister near Derry — never saw anybody 
 but poor fisher people, year out, year in ; never 
 went about the world, nor put themselves in the 
 way of getting into good society. You might tell 
 by her manners she had never been further than 
 three miles from home." 
 
 " I thought her rather a nice person — homely, 
 but quiet." 
 
 " 0, she's quiet enough, I grant you, and that's 
 the very reason what would content her wouldn't 
 content me. She knows no better than to sit 
 sewing or knitting the live-long day, without a 
 soul to speak to, or a thing to see. Since I have 
 been standing here, Berna, I have not beheld man.
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 123 
 
 woman, or child passing along the lane but an old 
 fellow driving a donkey-cart." 
 
 *'But the place is so sweet, mamma," pleaded 
 the girl. " Of its size, I never saw so pretty a 
 cottage." 
 
 " I have nothing so much to say against it, if 
 it wasn't, in a manner of speaking, on the coast of 
 Africa. There's not a creature to pass even the 
 time of day to. Then, the rooms are that small 
 you might reach a book off the opposite wall while 
 you're sitting with your feet on the fender. What 
 we're to do here in the winter, alone with ourselves 
 and old Ruth, goodness only knows, for I don't. 
 And to tell me I'm not to be going to Belfast or 
 calling at Richard Yince's office ! It's a crying 
 shame, and I don't care who hears me ! It's a 
 crying shame — jast as if I had some disease on 
 me like leprosy, only worse, or the mark of Cain 
 stamped deep in my forehead. If I'd committed 
 a murder, I couldn't have been worse treated. 
 What have I done ? 0, what have I done, to be 
 sent down to a place where there's not even a 
 scullery to the kitchen, nor a bit of grass where
 
 124 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 we could feed a cow? (Milk itself does give a 
 feeling of plenty about a Louse.) If we got oue, 
 and tethered lier on the slope there— the grazing 
 would not last her a da}', and she'd be slipping 
 into the stream and breaking her leg, maybe. 
 What's that you say ? Don't I think you had 
 better try to tidy up the room a little ? Why, of 
 course I do. If I wasn't so tired, I can hardly 
 drag myself along the passage, I'd have turned to 
 myself and made it fit for anybody to come into ; 
 not, goodness knows, that there's much use 
 making anything look well here. Nobody will 
 ever come to such an out-of-the-way hole." 
 
 "For our own pleasure, mamma, we may as 
 well have things as comfortable as possible." 
 
 " Ah ! and indeed it's little pleasure or comfort 
 we need ever look for here. If only I had felt 
 that I dare trust you with that money, we 
 "wouldn't have been here as we are this minute. 
 I shall always say it was Richard Yince's wife 
 brought bad luck for us iu her hand that day. I 
 wonder if I'll ever forget the shock I got. Why, 
 an infant in arms mio^ht have knocked me down."
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 125 
 
 *' Don't think of it," entreated Berna; ''and 
 really Mrs. Vince has heen most kind. 
 
 " 0, yes, you're sure to say that, taking part 
 against your own mother ! You'll be telling me 
 next, I suppose, the woman is handsome. Why, 
 she's as dark as a negro ; how could she miss 
 being, when her own grandmother was a black? 
 That was the one brought the great fortune into 
 the Carpenter family Theoph spent in sinful extra- 
 vagance — driving four-in-hands and giving dinner- 
 parties where you might have swum in the wine. 
 Well, well ; wilful waste, you know — not that the 
 saying came true with me, for a more careful, 
 saving woman never married herself to sorrow and 
 poverty. What in all the wide world do you see 
 out there ? — staring as if your great eyes were 
 starting out of your head ! My gracious goodness, 
 girl ! lay down that duster, and be off and see if 
 you can't make yourself look a bit decent ; and look 
 here, Berna, tell Ruth to slip on a clean cap and 
 a white apron before she opens the gate to Mrs. 
 Vince. Who, in the name of wonder, would have 
 thought of her coming down ? I wish she had
 
 126 BEBNA BOYLE. 
 
 stayed away. No less tlian a pair would content 
 her, either ;" and so Mrs. Boyle murmured on to 
 space, for Berna had vanished. 
 
 Fortune favours the brave. Mrs. Vince could 
 on occasion be very brave, and the fickle goddess 
 rewarded her. 
 
 Early on the morning following Mr. Vince's 
 ignominious defeat, she ordered round her brougham 
 and, dressed in rich though plain apparel, drove 
 straight to Cunningham's Hotel. Spite of Mrs. 
 Boyle's verdict, Mrs. Vince was a very handsome 
 woman. Unlike the widow's, her beauty had not 
 faded with the years — quite the contrary ; the tints 
 of a somewhat ungenial summer mellowed under a 
 gracious sun of late prosperity into the rich hues 
 of a glorious autumn. She was large, tall, com- 
 manding of aspect, dark — though not in the way 
 Mrs. Boyle implied — with blue-black hair coiled 
 into great masses at the back of her head, straight 
 black brows, eyes of the truest, deepest violet, a 
 decided nose, a wide mouth which could expand 
 into a frank, pleasant smile, firm chin, head well 
 poised on a round, shapely throat — a woman
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 127 
 
 who looked best in sweeping velvets and trailing 
 silks, wrapped up in costly fars, or gathering rich 
 laces round her portly figure. 
 
 Armed for conquest, she found no one to con- 
 quer — no one but poor Berna, who had been left 
 at home by her mother to see the luggage was not 
 meddled with, and also perhaps by fate in order 
 that Mrs. Vince might see what sort of stuff the 
 girl was made of. 
 
 Though young, Berna had served her time in 
 the social workshop, and knew who was who and 
 what was what. 
 
 As a kindred spirit, Mrs. Vince surveyed her 
 with astonishment. 
 
 '' Great heavens !" she thought. " Here is a 
 creature out of whom one might evolve anything — 
 anything. God grant some of my own children 
 may attain to her stature." 
 
 True, the girl was timid ; but as her shyness 
 proceeded from no lack of breeding, but rather 
 from the misery caused by that constant blister 
 her mother never would allow to close, there were 
 minutes when nature asserted itself, and the true
 
 128 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 Berna — who had been so loved by the lonely old 
 lady living in desolate state near Cheltenham, and 
 who had ridden beside her father into the wild 
 fastnesses of Mayo — peeped through the barred 
 windows of the prison-house to which she was, by 
 her own loyal choice, consigned. 
 
 For many a weary day, spent in battling with 
 her young vehement grief and listening to her 
 mother's senseless complaints and maundering 
 conversation, she had not spoken to any woman 
 of her own rank in life. 
 
 From Mrs. Boyle, as from a plague, even the 
 kindest and most tolerant of her own sex, if well- 
 bred, fled appalled. Sympathy withered in her 
 presence; charity wide enough to consort with 
 sinners, and carry sweet words of hope and help 
 into dark dens of wickedness, could not pardon 
 the faults thrust as virtues in its face. 
 
 There was pity for Berna — but " society " felt 
 that daughter could not be dissociated from mother, 
 more especially in a case where the daughter, 
 turning her back on the Boyles, elected to cast in 
 her lot " with that horrible woman."
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 129 
 
 " Despite her external refinement, there must 
 be a great vein of commonness in the girl, or she 
 never could continue to live with Mrs. Boyle :" so 
 argued the world. 
 
 Even before Mr. Boyle's death this was said, 
 and after that accident, which left Berna father- 
 less, the words were spoken more frequently and 
 with greater emphasis. 
 
 " My dear," exclaimed Mrs. Yince, after they 
 had talked on many subjects, '^ we must be friends. 
 Come and stay at Craigvallen for a time, and let 
 us get thoroughly acquainted." 
 
 Then, in a moment, a black, gloomy cloud 
 swept the tender sunshine off Berna's face. 
 
 " Thank you," she murmured ; " you are very 
 kind ; but I do not think — " and as their eyes 
 met she stopped suddenly, while a torrent of pain- 
 ful colour dyed her shamed cheeks and forehead. 
 
 For once Mrs. Yince proved unequal to the 
 occasion. She had forgotten — as nearly as pos- 
 sible she had walked into a pitfall of her own 
 digging ; but for Berna, she could scarcely have 
 escaped the peril. As it was, the danger had been 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 too imminent for her instantly to regain self-pos- 
 session, and she was just considering what kind 
 word she could say that might enable her to back 
 gracefully out of the dilemma, when the door 
 opened, and Mrs. Boyle appeared. Mrs. Boyle, 
 flushed, excited, exhausted, yet still with a certain 
 glow of victory about her whole person, which in- 
 dicated a belief on her part that she had not again 
 traversed the scenes of her early victories "for 
 nothing." Towards Mrs. Vince her manner was 
 defiant, while familiar. 
 
 "I hope you haven't been waiting long," she 
 began, after she had coldly received Mrs. Vince's 
 first friendly advances, and, as she afterwards 
 remarked to her daughter, taught that lady '' to 
 keep back a bit." ''Berna's not much of a one 
 to talk. As the morning turned out fine, I 
 thought I'd let some of my friends know I had 
 come back again." 
 
 "It must be a considerable time since you 
 saw any of them," said Mrs. Vince politely, 
 merely by way of saying something. 
 
 "That's true enough; but time wouldn't
 
 BEKNA BOYLE. 131 
 
 make any difference to my friends ; friends aren't 
 like relations, you know, ready to turn the cold 
 shoulder the minute they get up in the world. 
 Not but what some of the people I was acquainted 
 with when I was a girl have got on as well as 
 they could desire. There's the Pirns, now," 
 added the widow, turning to Berna, as though 
 that young person had been acquainted from 
 childhood with the celebrated family thus sud- 
 denly introduced on the carpet ; " Miss Sheill 
 tells me they have got that rich they scarcely 
 know what to do with their money. The uncle 
 has built himself a house fit for any nobleman at 
 Holywood, and they are all living together there 
 till Mr. Pirn gets possession of the estate of 
 Doch-na-Beg, that belonged to the great Dublin 
 barrister Shane Ross. Many a time I've heard 
 my father talk of him, and the way he could turn 
 any witness inside out in less than five minutes. 
 Mr. Pirn has paid for the place long enough ago, 
 but there's an end of a lease or something to run 
 out before he can get possession." 
 
 '' Doch-na-Be*? commands a beautiful view of
 
 132 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 the Lough," said Mrs, Vince, seeing Berna was 
 temporarily stricken dumb. 
 
 "You need not tell me that," answered Mrs. 
 Boyle. "William Pirn's the man to have every- 
 thing of the best. That was always his way; 
 and no blame to him either, if he could afford it ! 
 I did not see anybody but Miss Sheill, though, 
 Berna. The Whitefords are down at the shore, 
 old Mr. Campbell is not expected to live, and the 
 Dowies have fever in the house. Matilda Sheill 
 wouldn't have been in town herself only she's got 
 a cough you'd be frightened to hear, and is forced 
 to stop in her own room. She tvas glad to see 
 me. She couldn't believe her ears when the ser- 
 vant told her Mrs. Boyle was below. ' Why,' she 
 said, 'you don't look a day older ! If it wasn't 
 for the weeds you've on, I'd think you were Milly 
 Vince I had such fine goings-on with at Bally- 
 clare stepped in to see me !' I did not tell her I 
 could not return the compliment. It is astonish- 
 ing how she has altered. She is not so many 
 years older than me, yet she looks quite a middle- 
 aged woman."
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 133 
 
 Mrs. Vince felt she could not smile, even 
 mentally, her pity for Berna was so intense. 
 
 '' But she has lost none of her merry ways," 
 proceeded Mrs. Boyle, who believed she was 
 planting daggers in the heart of Richard's 
 " grand wife " by directing her conversation to 
 Ulick Boyle's daughter ; " she's just as heartsome 
 as ever ; to have heard us, you'd have thought we 
 weren't more than twelve years old ; it was ' Do 
 you mind this ?' and ' Have you forgotten that ?' 
 We were in fits of laughing all the time, and 
 'Tilda not able to speak, almost, for the cough- 
 ing; all her lament was she couldn't help me 
 look for lodgings. 0, such a hunt as I've had 
 since I left her — up one street and down another 
 — and the price they ask for the smallest room 
 would eat up our whole income ! Never did I 
 come across such a set of harpies — one worse nor 
 another. They all took me for English by my 
 accent ; and, indeed, I told one of them, after 
 the extortion I had listened to, I felt ashamed to 
 call myself Irish. Everything extra, for all the 
 world like England, only dirtier. I heard,
 
 134 BERXA liOYLE. 
 
 though, on my way home, of some decent lodg- 
 ings in the Ormeau Road, that I'd have gone to 
 see, only I felt my knees giving under me. I 
 was told of them by a crossing-sweeper in Arthur 
 Street, who minded my father well. I asked 
 him " — but what Mrs. Boyle asked, or the gentle- 
 man who "minded" her father answered, will 
 never be known on this side heaven, for just at 
 that point the widow suddenly paused ; thrust her 
 hand in her pocket ; turned first red, then white ; 
 and finally, as she afterwards told Miss Sheill, 
 *' Let a screech out of her you might have heard 
 up at the Xew Gaol," which caused Mrs. Yince to 
 start to her feet with more celerity than she had 
 ever before displayed. 
 
 '* "We're done for now, Berna ; we're done for 
 now," cried Mrs. Boyle, in a hysterical falsetto. 
 " I'm a lost and ruined woman ;" after vouchsaf- 
 ing which lucid explanation she would have 
 rushed down-stairs and into the street had Mrs. 
 Vince not seized her by the shoulder. 
 
 " What on earth is the matter ?" inquired that 
 lady, almost breathless with surprise and terror.
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 135 
 
 '' It's a matter of two hundred and seventy- 
 eight pounds," screamed Mrs. Boyle, as furiously 
 as if " Eichard's wife " had been the thief. *'Let 
 me go, I bid you. Why do you hinder me, and 
 my good money lying there out in the street? 
 Let me go, woman. Don't you hear me?" and 
 striking Mrs. Vince's hand a smart blow with her 
 clenched fist, the widow released herself; and, 
 crape strings, which she had unfastened, stream- 
 ing loose, and shawl falling from her shoulders, 
 fled madly from the room. 
 
 " Stay where you are," said Mrs. Vince to 
 Berna, as the girl was about to follow; ''you can 
 do no good. She must be at the end of Donegall 
 Street by this time." And then, for the second 
 time, the pair looked straight each in the other's 
 eyes. 
 
 Suddenly Berna's steady glance wavered, 
 drooped, fell ; for a moment she seemed as if 
 struggling with some cruel pain. 
 
 " Sit down, dear," entreated Mrs. Vince, ten- 
 derly touching her breast, " and if you want to 
 cry, cry — don't mind me ;" and, walking to the
 
 136 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 window, she turned her head away from Mrs. 
 Boyle's daughter, and appeared to be looking out 
 upon the street. 
 
 But Berna did not want to cry. The fox she 
 carried within her bosom gnawed too fiercely and 
 constantly for tears. To this girl was denied the 
 poor solace even of sympathy, which she had no 
 choice but to thrust aside. All she asked from 
 her fellows was leave to hide the wounds, long 
 and wide, of which that proud and sensitive 
 heart bore the scars through life. Could she 
 have wept and made lament, and confided her 
 trouble to any woman, it had not been the keen 
 dagger she felt piercing her very soul, cutting 
 through each quivering nerve, and stabbing in its 
 most vital part every instinct her birth and train- 
 ing had taught her to respect. 
 
 Out of such warp and woof as went to com- 
 pose her character great women have been made ; 
 and Mrs. Yince, who felt she might, but for cir- 
 cumstances over which she had no control, have 
 been a great woman too, admired Berna, when 
 with quiet step she crossed the carpet and said,
 
 BERN A BOYLE. 137 
 
 " If you do not mind, I think I had better 
 put on my bonnet and see whether I cannot be 
 of some use to mamma."' 
 
 With that splendid decision which ladies in 
 possession of a handsome income, whose rank is 
 beyond dispute, can on occasion exhibit to some 
 purpose, Mrs. Yince flashed round on the girl, 
 whose only weak point was a finer and more deli- 
 cate mental organisation than her own. 
 
 "You do not know where your mother is," 
 she said ; " and if you did, you would not be of 
 any use. What could have induced her to carry 
 such a sum of money about with her ?" 
 
 " She never mentioned to me she had any 
 money." 
 
 " Where do you suppose she got it ?" 
 
 "I have not an idea," answered Berna, " un- 
 less Sir Herbert — " and she flushed crimson. 
 
 " I see — I see," commented Mrs. Vince; and 
 she thought for a moment ere adding, " I came 
 here to-day, Berna — I may call you Berna, may I 
 not, child ? — to talk over matters and decide what 
 had better be done. It is an utter impossibility
 
 138 BERNA BCYLE. 
 
 you and your mother can live on sixty pounds a 
 year." 
 
 "0, if mamma would only let me go out 
 as a governess or companion !" gasped the girl. 
 "Could 'you induce her, do you think, Mrs. 
 Vince ? You do seem so clever and strong,, she 
 might listen to you. I should scarcely care what 
 I did, and I really have been pretty well educated. 
 I can play and sing, and draw and dance, and 
 talk French ; and I am able to ride and drive." 
 
 " The two latter accomplishments not of 
 much use to a governess, I am afraid," re- 
 marked Mrs. Vince, with a smile which hid tears 
 she would not let fill her eyes. 
 
 " They might be to a companion though," 
 urged Berna. "Dear Mrs. Yince, if you only 
 — only could induce mamma to let me try, I 
 believe I could make money, and I should only 
 want a little out of my salary for dress ; and she 
 might live with some of those friends she talks 
 about. We could be together in the holidays, 
 and I really do not think she would miss me 
 very much."
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 139 
 
 "Why won't she let you he a governess?" 
 asked Mrs. Yince. 
 
 "Because she is afraid it would offend my 
 grandmother, or my great-grandmother, rather. 
 Mamma does so keep on harping ahout Mrs. 
 Boyle leaving me money ; and she won't. She 
 told me herself she had made her will, leaving 
 everything to Sir Herhert ; and quite right too," 
 added Berna, with a quite involuntary uplifting of 
 her head. " The money should go with the land." 
 
 Mrs. Yince laughed. "From the depths of 
 a bitter experience," she answered, " I can assure 
 you I do not think you will be left anything. 
 All the land and all the money and all the power 
 are sure to be in the hand of a single individual. 
 And now, as I fancy I understand the position 
 pretty clearly, I shall go. Do not let anything 
 tempt you to go in search of your mother. She 
 will return safe and sound. Tell her, if you 
 please, I mean to call quite early to-morrow. 
 Nov\', good-bye, Berna, and — " 
 
 She clasped her arms round the girl's neck, 
 and stood silent.
 
 140 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 "And — " questioned Berna, with dumb lips 
 and eloquent eyes rather than with sound. 
 
 "Always remember that while I live you haYe 
 a friend in Marcella Yince. Good-bye now, good- 
 bye ! Kiss me, dear. God bless you !" and Mrs. 
 Vince strained Berna to her heart; and then, 
 with veil drawn close, passed down the staircase 
 to her carriage, the door of which an obsequious 
 waiter stood ready to open.
 
 CHAPTEK Vin. 
 
 Next morning Mrs. Yince, armed with great 
 powers, once more alighted at the door of Cun- 
 ningham's Hotel. 
 
 She was received with almost royal honours. 
 Cunningham's felt it a fine feather in its cap to 
 see the wife of Richard Charles Yince, Esq., step 
 across its threshold. Mrs. Yince, as the daughter 
 of that sinful Theoph Carpenter honourably men- 
 tioned by Bema's mother, was in her own right 
 a " person," but when she came to lack a five- 
 pound note that fact would not long have availed 
 her. After her marriage, however, Belfast liked 
 to'remember she had been ''born in the purple.'' 
 
 She reflected a certain glory on business ; and 
 the money made out of business conferred a very 
 necessary additional charm on the lady. There 
 were daughters of other dilapidated old families 
 living [on narrow incomes, in what they considered
 
 142 BERXA BOYLE. 
 
 stately poYerty, who wondered how Marcella 
 could have stooped so low. But then Mr. Vince 
 had not asked them to preside over his establish- 
 ment. In such case they might have been per- 
 suaded to stoop too. When the picking up of 
 money is in question some people are not un- 
 willing to stoop very low indeed. 
 
 At any rate, Mrs. Yiuce was even more uni- 
 versally respected than her husband. She had 
 raised Kichard Charles, stated his admirers, into 
 the sphere for which he was " intended by 
 nature." 
 
 " Nature indulges in some queer vagaries," 
 said the malcontents who did not believe in this 
 righteous man. She gave great balls ; she patro- 
 nised concerts, and always presided over a stall 
 when a fashionable bazaar was on the tajns. She 
 did not buy her dresses in London or Paris, or 
 even Dublin, but gladdened the hearts of the 
 Belfast shopkeepers and milliners. She was 
 kind to the poor; she kept Eichard Charles up 
 to the mark, and made a man of him. At public 
 meetings he felt himself a person of considerable
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 143 
 
 importance. He was a J. P., and dispensed 
 justice tempered with mercy. When that peti- 
 tion in the Litany relating to magistrates was 
 read each Sunday in Craigvallen Church, Mr. 
 Vince uttered the response very loud indeed, and 
 with considerahle emphasis. Though accustomed 
 from his youth to leave the whole service in the 
 minister's hands, and utter nothing save an 
 "Amen " at rare intervals, Mr. Yince had learned 
 to take his part in church, and spoke out audibly, 
 with an idea that he was setting a " good example 
 to the lower orders." He also sang — not Yery 
 melodiously, but with much fervour. Though he 
 had no voice, he had plenty of money ; and the 
 rest of the congregation felt that in his square, 
 well-cushioned pew, filled with hassocks of all 
 sorts and sizes, Richard was the right man in the 
 right place. 
 
 To quote the sexton, who handed round the 
 poor-box (an affair like a small warming-pan, with 
 half the lid cut off, attached to a handle long 
 enough to enable the money receptacle to be 
 thrust under the nose of the most distant wor-
 
 144 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 shipper), as much as five shillings was "lifted" 
 every Sahbath morning out of the Craigvallen 
 pew ; and on '' collecting days they all give gold, 
 down to the youngest child !" 
 
 Mr. Vince felt his to be a very valuable life, 
 and it was for this reason, and not because he 
 realised in the smallest degree he was truly a 
 miserable sinner, and required mercy, that he 
 prayed so devoutly for a body of which at Craig- 
 vallen he was the solitary representative. 
 
 "Has Mrs. Boj-le heard any tidings of her 
 purse?" asked the wife of this great man, as she 
 followed the waiter, who slowly preceded her up 
 the staircase. 
 
 '' No, Mrs. Boyle has heard nothing of her 
 purse, ma'am," answered the waiter, pausing in 
 his ascent so as to allow time for the fashionable 
 lady's still more leisurely pace. 
 
 " That is very sad," observed Richard Charles' 
 wife, and though she did not feel sorry she looked 
 grave. 
 
 "Very sad, indeed, ma'am," replied the 
 waiter, after the exchange of which amenities
 
 BEENA BOYLE. 145 
 
 and confidences be threw the door of Mrs. Boyle's 
 sitting-room wide. 
 
 What he said turned out to be too true ; the 
 widow had heard nothing of her money, and 
 "what's more," she added, *'the police" — which 
 word she pronounced as if the accent were on the 
 first syllable — *' don't think I ever will. It was 
 in Bank of Ireland notes ; and they say by the 
 time I can find out the numbers they'll be 
 changed into gold — ay, and spent, too, may- 
 be." 
 
 *' But did you not telegraph to Dublin to stop 
 payment ?" 
 
 " And me without a farthing of money in the 
 wide world, and 'Tilda Sheill hadn't as much as 
 five shillings she could lend me, and you gone 
 when I got back here, and your husband left his 
 office for the day, and the people here saying it 
 would be of no good telegraphing because the 
 bank would be shut ! Ah, it's easy to talk ! If 
 you'd been running round the town like me, out 
 of your senses with trouble, you'd know better 
 than ask such a question as that." 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 BERXA BOYLE. 
 
 "Surely, however, you have done something? 
 — written to the bank, for example." 
 
 "Berna has. I told her it was just throwing 
 away a stamp, and we'd none to spare ; but, of 
 course, she knew best. Like yourself, she thinks 
 she's cleverer than anybody else. You'll see, 
 though, if any good comes of it." 
 
 "What do you intend to do now?" asked 
 Mrs. Vince. 
 
 "Indeed, you may just do what you like with 
 me. Take me on a car to the old poor-house 
 and leave me there, or let me lie out on some 
 doorstep till I'm dead with starvation and ex- 
 posure. Maybe your husband would for very 
 shame provide me a plain funeral. He surely 
 wouldn't like it to be said his own cousin was 
 buried as a pauper." 
 
 " Your mother takes a very gloomy view of 
 affairs," observed Mrs. Yince, turning to Berna, 
 whose contribution to the conversation so far had 
 been nil. 
 
 " Her mother would like to be told what she 
 has left to make her take a bright view of any-
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 147 
 
 thing ?" interrupted Mrs. Boyle ; "with the money 
 gone that was all stood between me and destitu- 
 tion, I think I have good cause for gloom. Me 
 and 'Tilda Sheill had settled how we'd start a sort 
 of boarding-house for young gentlemen. She 
 knows lots of clerks would have been proud to 
 come. 'Tilda's a wonderful hand at cooking — 
 you should have tasted the apple cakes she used 
 to make ! — and she says she's as good and quick 
 as ever she was ; so she could have seen to the 
 dinners. She has got her wits about her. She 
 planned it all in less than ten minutes. I was to 
 see the rooms were kept straight and do the 
 marketing and receive visitors, and we laid it out 
 that Berna should do most of the sewing, and 
 play and sing and make the evenings a bit lively ; 
 and then, after a while, perhaps some of the 
 lodgers might have taken a fancy to her. As 
 unlikely things have come to pass. There's no 
 accounting for the girls that take a man's eye.'' 
 
 Mrs. Vince darted a quick glance in the direc- 
 tion of the young person whose future had been 
 sketched out thus agreeably, and beheld Berna
 
 148 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 staring, with parted lips and horror-stricken ex- 
 pression, at her mother — the whole pleasing pro- 
 gramme being evidently as new to her as to the 
 lady of Craigvallen. 
 
 ''I would never have done that, mamma," she 
 said, with a firm ring in her voice Mrs. Vince had 
 not before noticed. 
 
 "Indeed, miss; and what would you have 
 done ?'' 
 
 "I do not know. Gone out as governess, or 
 servant even, rather than live such a life as that 
 amongst a number of young men." 
 
 " You're wonderfully set against young men. 
 It is to be hoped the old ones won't be set against 
 you." 
 
 The girl did not answer. She had uttered her 
 protest, and now relapsed into silence, while Mrs. 
 Boyle rambled on recounting some delightful 
 reminiscences of various Peters and Pats and 
 Cons, who had all, if her own account might be 
 believed, fallen under the spell of her beauty, and 
 "gone to the bad," or "taken to drink," or 
 married " out of spite," or " shot themselves
 
 BERXA BOYLE. 149 
 
 through the forehead," because she "wouldn't 
 have a word to say to them." 
 
 From this ramble through the days departed 
 she suddenly returned to the present. 
 
 "It's little I thought then," she said, "I'd 
 ever be as I am now — left at the mercy of the 
 world, without a creature to stand up for me, or 
 say as much as ' Here's a pound to you, Milly.' " 
 
 " Still, you are not utterly destitute." 
 
 "I suppose you will tell me next three of us 
 can live on sixty pounds a year ! I'll go bail you 
 pay your gardener the double of that, and find him 
 a house, maybe, into the bargain, to say nothing 
 of coals and potatoes. But, of course, you've a 
 right to do what you like with your own, only let 
 me be a warning to you. Never put it in the 
 power of any living man to leave you penniless. 
 If you do, grand as you are now, the day'll likely 
 come you may want even a ' bap,' and find your- 
 self not able to buy one." 
 
 "What a terrible picture you draw, Mrs. 
 Boyle ! You seem to have the lowest opinion 
 of men."
 
 150 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 "I've not been treated the way to make me 
 have a high opinion of them. First of all, my 
 own husband dying in debt, and not leaving a 
 penny, so to speak, between me and destitution ; 
 and then, when in the fulness of my heart I come 
 back, thinking to hear a kind word spoken, my 
 father's brother's son as good as says, ' You're 
 not fit even to sit under the dinner-table, like 
 those I\ings without thumbs mentioned in the 
 Bible. Get off! I won't have you near me.' 
 He might find me near him yet, when he least 
 expects it." 
 
 " My husband is a little peculiar," deprecated 
 Mrs. Yince. 
 
 " You needn't tell me that. I knew him be- 
 fore ever you did, when neither he nor his father 
 was much to boast of — or much thought of, if you 
 come to that." 
 
 " He is a self-made man," went on Mrs. Yince, 
 without showing even a trace of white feather, 
 " and as such, perhaps, attaches somewhat undue 
 value to the possession of wealth and the externals 
 of rank. But his heart is sound, Mrs. Boyle ;
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 151 
 
 and I am sure, if you would onl}- take him the 
 right way, he could be induced in this extremity 
 to help you." 
 
 ''The right way! Why, I took him fifty- 
 ay, a hundred — ways ; and I might just as well 
 have been talking to Macarthy's Fort. Ah ! if 
 ever a man was hardened by the things of this 
 world, that man's name is Richard Charles Yince. 
 And what will they do for him in the long-run ? 
 that is all I'd like to know. You may put silver 
 and gold on his coffin, but he can't carry silver and 
 gold with him into the next world, no matter what 
 part of it he's bound for." 
 
 " That's very true, indeed," said the better 
 half of Richard CharLs Yince; "but whilst my 
 husband is here, and in the command of money, 
 do you not think it would be politic on your part 
 to conform a little to his wishes ? I see no 
 reason to doubt but that he might be induced to 
 add to your income if you would only concede 
 something to his prejudices." 
 
 " Concede ! Why, there never was so soft 
 and yielding a creature as myself. As my poor
 
 152 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 father used to say, ' You're for all the world like 
 hot butter, Milly ; there's no knowing where to 
 take hold of you.' 0, he was the funny man ! I 
 think I can see him sitting by the fire telling 
 some of his stories now." 
 
 With exemplary patience, Mrs. Yince, while 
 declining to be drawn into any argument concern- 
 ing the wit and wisdom of Yince senior, so hap- 
 pily deceased, led the widow on and on, till at 
 length she contrived to get that lady into a cor- 
 ner, when she was forced to make full confession 
 on the subject of ways and means. To extract 
 anything from Mrs. Boyle she did not wish to 
 tell was a proceeding fraught not merely with 
 dif&culty but danger — difficulty, because she could 
 scarcely be pinned to any point ; danger, for the 
 reason that her reprisals were of the most nasty 
 and unexpected nature. But Mrs. Yince had not 
 steered her course amongst this world's sunken 
 rocks and perilous shoals for nothing. 
 
 If the widow's retorts sometimes were hard to 
 bear, her opponent smiled even while wincing. 
 Mrs. Boyle could not taunt, or daunt, or cow her
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 153 
 
 into retreat. Always the same calm and un- 
 broken hollow square, always a bristling bayonet 
 ready for use at a moment's notice, always a cool, 
 unmoved front. Mrs. Boyle, at length, was well- 
 nigh crying with vexation ; while Berna, though 
 torn with shame and grief, could not but admire 
 the consummate address with which Mrs. Yince 
 surely, if slowly, advanced upon the widow's out- 
 posts, and captured them one by one, putting 
 each entrenchment behind her as she marched 
 triumphantly on, just as a good chess-player lays 
 aside his captured pieces. 
 
 At the last, Mrs. Yince said, in her suavest 
 accent, 
 
 " You really do seem in a position of consi- 
 derable difficulty, my dear Mrs. Boyle. Let me 
 see if I quite understand ; correct me, please, if I 
 am wrong. There is your annuity, the first pay- 
 ment of which will not be due until November. 
 Beyond that you have nothing ; no money, no 
 furniture, very little jewelry, no friend, except 
 my husband, likely to prove of use at such a 
 juncture. You see it is best to look matters
 
 154 BEEXA BOYLE. 
 
 straight in the face. Immediately after your 
 husband's death you wrote to the Dowager, as 
 you call her, explaining the position fully, and 
 requesting help. For answer, she sent the family 
 solicitor to represent her at the funeral, and 
 authorised him to give you fifty pounds — it was 
 fifty, I think — and an intimation she would do 
 no more for you — " 
 
 "Not if I went down on my bended knees," 
 added Mrs. Boyle. 
 
 " Something to that effect, if not conveyed in 
 exactly such terse language," said Mrs. Yince. 
 " Then Sir Herbert Boyle, after stating he was 
 not bound to give you sixpence, handed you two 
 hundred and fifty pounds to — I forget the exact 
 consideration." 
 
 "Be shut of me," explained Mrs. Boyle, with 
 an awful candour. 
 
 "And he further agreed to pay such house- 
 hold bills as might be outstanding, and the cost 
 of your and Berna's mourning — don't cover your 
 face, child ; old women like your mother and my- 
 self must be practical, you know."
 
 BERNA BOl'LE. 155 
 
 ''Old women!" cried Mrs. Boyle. ''If you 
 choose to talk of yourself as old, I'm sure I've no 
 objection ; but do not put me in the same boil- 
 ing, if you please." 
 
 "Very sincerely I beg your pardon, and will 
 amend my phrase. Young women, then, like 
 3'ou and myself, ought to have sense enough to 
 look circumstances in the face. To sum up, you 
 have lost all the money sent you by Mrs. and Sir 
 Herbert Boyle, less your travelling and hotel ex- 
 penses, and there is no source from which you 
 can reasonably expect fresh supplies till Novem- 
 ber, which supplies will then be of the most 
 meagre description." 
 
 "While you are rolling in riches," said Mrs. 
 Boyle. 
 
 " Which we have certainly not taken from 
 you," retorted Mrs. Vince, equal to that or any 
 other occasion. " And now, on certain recog- 
 nised lines, I may tell you that both my husband 
 and myself desire to make your lot a little plea- 
 santer. We will talk the situation over, and con- 
 sider what we can do. Meantime, as you must
 
 156 BERXA BOYLE. 
 
 be short of money, do not be vexed with me for 
 leaving five pounds ; and while you stop here 
 have everything, in moderation, you may require. 
 I feel quite sure Mr. Vince will pay your bill." 
 
 And so, in fact, to cut a very long conversa- 
 tion short, Mrs. Vince departed, empowered to 
 execute terms of almost unqualified submission 
 on the part of that too fascinating person, Mrs. 
 Boyle, if only Richard Charles would agree to 
 make things a ''bit better for her." 
 
 Mrs. Vince did not again delight Cunning- 
 ham's with her presence ; instead, she wrote a 
 letter to Mrs. Boyle, which that lady characterised 
 as her ''death warrant." On certain conditions, 
 Mr. Vince professed himself willing to pay his 
 cousin's rent, and, in addition, allow her forty 
 pounds a year. Further, Theoph Carpenter's 
 daughter thought enough furniture could be spared 
 from Craigvallen to render the cottage her hus- 
 band had in view habitable. 
 
 "And that's all," commented Mrs. Boyle, "a 
 man just wallowing in money can do for his own 
 flesh and blood. Well, some day it'll maybe
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 157 
 
 come home to him, and then he'll think of the 
 way he treated me. Now, just take a pen in your 
 hand, Berna, and write to the man ; I'm that 
 poor and miserable, I must accept whatever terms 
 are offered me. Lord only knows where this 
 place is they mean to put us ; and I'm very sure 
 Richard Vince doesn't care what it's like. And 
 you saw, Berna, what she says — that if I agree to 
 Mr. Vince's terms — Mister, indeed ! — we're to 
 move without delay. That's to save the hotel 
 bill. If I'd money enough I'd just order my 
 winding-sheet at once, and have done with every- 
 thing." 
 
 It was in this pleasant frame of mind that 
 Mrs. Boyle entered upon the occupancy of Clear 
 Stream Cottage. Mr. Vince knew the place well. 
 He had been acquainted with that previous tenant, 
 esteemed by Mr. Muir, who converted a howling 
 wilderness of neglected kitchen-garden, full of 
 cabbage-stumps, weeds, stones, and old shoes, 
 kettles, broken delft, and refuse of all sorts into 
 a smiling paradise, and considered it a suitable 
 residence for the impoverished Mrs. Boyle.
 
 158 BERN A BOYLE. 
 
 " You will be near jom friends the Pirns," 
 suggested Mrs. Vince pleasantly, as she sat tete- 
 a-tete with the widow. " Holy wood is within a 
 walk from here." 
 
 Mrs. Boyle shook her head. "It's little 
 walking I'll do," she said. "The best thing for 
 me would be to gather a pile of sticks and set 
 alight to myself, as the widows do out in India." 
 
 Not even the most genial of women could long 
 have supported conversation conducted on such 
 lines ; and after she had for the fourth time 
 inquired whether there were any other little thing 
 which could be sent from Craigvallen likely to 
 render the house more comfortable, and on each 
 occasion being compelled to listen to a long tirade 
 concerning the shortcomings of Ulick Boyle, the 
 perfections of Millicent, relict of that unfeeling 
 personage, and the tendency of most people, when 
 they "get up a bit in the world," to "forget 
 themselves," Marcella, daughter of Theophilus 
 Carpenter, deceased, remarked she had no idea it 
 was so late, and rose to go. 
 
 In the tiny hall she met Berna.
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 159 
 
 "I was gathering some flowers for you," said 
 the girl. ''Are they not sweet?" and she gave 
 Mrs. Vince a bouquet, which that lady accepted 
 with a smile. 
 
 '' What's the use of sending such simple 
 things to Craigvallen, Berna ?" asked her mother ; 
 *' they'll be reckoned nothing better than common 
 weeds in that grand place. Just throw them on 
 the road, Mrs. Vince, when you get outside ; it'll 
 save you the trouble of bidding your servants put 
 them to the back of the kitchen fire." 
 
 " They shall certainly not go there," said 
 the lady thus advised. '* I mean to take them 
 with me to a dinner-party this evening — and think 
 of the giver often," she added in a lower tone to 
 Berna. 
 
 Happily for all concerned, Mrs. Boyle de- 
 clined to accompany her guest to the garden- 
 gate. 
 
 " The sun would be sure to ' peel ' my face," 
 she was good enough to explain. "I don't know 
 how you can go driving about, Mrs. Vince, with- 
 out a bit of veil, or even a parasol ; but to be sure
 
 160 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 that's one advantage you swarthy people have 
 over us fair — you don't tan." 
 
 " No," answered the wife of Kichard Charles, 
 with unruffled good-humour, "I don't tan. Do 
 you ?" she added, turning to Berna. " No ; then 
 walk with me to the phaeton." 
 
 They walked together along the path leading 
 to the narrow bridge, beneath which the stream 
 rippled joyously on its way, and then through a 
 mimic plantation of broom, syringa, gum-cistus, 
 sumach, and roses. 
 
 " What a darling little place !" said Mrs. 
 Vince. " I hope you like it ?" 
 
 "Very, very much; particularly after that 
 dreadful town." 
 
 "You must come and stay at Craigvallen ;'' 
 but Berna shook her head. 
 
 " Could we not persuade your mother to]{do 
 without you even for a week ?" 
 
 " It is not that," hesitated the girl. " But it 
 would not be right ; I should not like — " 
 
 " To visit us unless your mother were invited 
 also. Is that what you mean ?"
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 161 
 
 ''Yes, that is what I mean." 
 
 ^' You are again quite right. I beg your par- 
 don ;" and nothing more was said on the subject. 
 
 In the lane, close by the rustic gate, stood 
 a groom, in front of as pretty a pair of cream- 
 coloured cobs as the heart of woman need have 
 desired to possess, 
 
 " What beauties !" exclaimed Berna, passing 
 her hand caressingly over the hog's mane of the 
 creature nearest to her. 
 
 "What a pity!" thought Mrs. Vince, as she 
 looked at the slight girlish figure, at the well- 
 poised head, with its wealth of glossy hair, the 
 pure fair face, and the eyes divinely, deeply, 
 darkly blue, and considered the mother to whom 
 Berna was tied till death parted them. 
 
 At that moment a man, mounted on a stout 
 roan horse — which he managed with much more 
 ease than any one might have expected, from his 
 loose build, long limbs, and generally awkward 
 appearance — passed by, and bestowed a thoroughly 
 critical and appreciative glance upon the Craig- 
 vallen turn-out. 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 Holding his reins and a heavy cutting whip 
 in one hand, he touched his hat with the other — 
 not out of deference to the two ladies, but from 
 respect to Mr. Vince's money. 
 
 "What an extraordinary -looking person!" 
 said Mrs. Vince, turning a backward glance after 
 him. " Who is he ?" 
 
 "That is Mr. Muir," answered Berna, "the 
 landlord of Clear Stream Cottage — a dreadful 
 person y
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Having renewed that long- interrupted acquaint- 
 ance with the author of his heing — '' Come to the 
 knowledge of three strange sisters," as Miss Bell 
 very truly remarked — turned his horse out to 
 grass in one of the pleasant meadows lying down 
 hy the river, unpacked his effects and stowed 
 them away in a roomy cupboard assigned to his 
 use, Mr. Gorman Muir "took himself off" to 
 Derry, in which maiden city there resided a 
 gentleman, called Baird, he had frequently met 
 in Kilkenny, who would, he hoped, help him to 
 obtain that post so universally coveted by various 
 impecunious and incapable persons in Ireland — 
 viz. an agency. 
 
 He was too old for the constabulary ; he knew 
 his chance of getting that vague " something 
 under Government " — also a pitfall in the way of 
 Irish youth and enterprise — was of the slenderest;
 
 164 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 but he felt sure he should make a capital 
 agent. 
 
 He liked riding, driving, shooting, dining out, 
 dancing, and the best society. He could sing a 
 good song ; tell a good story. He had been popu- 
 lar amongst the poor down in Kilkenny, and he 
 believed he could get rent easily enough out of 
 men bred and born in Ulster. Yes, an agency 
 was the very thing. He would be almost his own 
 master, and yet in the receipt of a fair salary. 
 If it were necessary for him to work at all — and 
 the young man could not close his eyes to the 
 painful truth that such a misfortune was immi- 
 nent — nothing could suit his abilities and tem- 
 perament better than the management of a large 
 estate. 
 
 He had not conceived the idea more than 
 three days ; he had but just taken his ticket at 
 the York Street Terminus in Belfast, yet already 
 that jade. Imagination, was at her old tricks. 
 No experience seemed able to protect the young 
 man from her. Over and over again he found 
 nothing save disappointment and confusion ensue
 
 BEKXA BOYLE. 165 
 
 from her antics. Nevertheless, once again she 
 had him safely on her back, and only waited 
 opportunity to take tlie bit bet\Yeen her teeth and 
 bolt with this bold rider — over "bank, bush, and 
 scaur ; " through thorn and through water, till 
 she at last found a convenient spot in which to 
 throw him ignominiously into some black bog or 
 quagmire which seemed bottomless. 
 
 To many minds, however, there is such a 
 pleasure in the mad pace she goes and the wild 
 excitement men can never know, save when fol- 
 lowing the lead of fancy in full flight, that they 
 would compound for a good deal of disaster at 
 the "finish" for the sake of the stretching gallop 
 and the rattling pace after that wiliest of wily 
 foxes — Possibility. 
 
 Mr. Gorman Muir, at all events, enjoyed his 
 "spin" through fairyland. Having once quite 
 decided an agency would suit him, and that he 
 would suit an agency, nothing more remained to 
 do save to settle the sort of agency he should 
 prefer, and the smallest amount of salary he 
 would condescend to receive. A small and highly
 
 166 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 cultivated estate he thought could scarcely give 
 him sufficient scope. He wanted something with 
 great tracts of mountain, and heath, and moor — 
 with darkling lakes, the existence of which was 
 unknown, save to the inhabitants — something 
 where other men had failed to win love and con- 
 fidence or woo prosperity — wide expanses of land, 
 where the houses of hospitable and primitive 
 gentry, possessed of pretty daughters and sons 
 who " feared nothing and were willing to go at 
 anything," were sparsely scattered — where the 
 Atlantic thundered in upon the coast, and the 
 original stunted and red - haired Irish Celt, 
 who could speak no English, was still to be 
 stalked. 
 
 The man was nearly eight-and-twenty, yet 
 romance was as strong in him as in a school-boy. 
 He devoutly believed in Tom Burke of Ours and 
 the doings of Charles O'Malley. ' ' The Collegians " 
 woke a responsive echo in his soul — and he could 
 sing the song, ''A place in thy memory dearest," 
 with such mournful pathos that old ladies wept, 
 and at the same time with such seductive tender-
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 167 
 
 ness that young ladies felt they could almost have 
 gone off with him on the spot. He was full of 
 daring and poetry. " The Charge at Fontenoy " 
 thrilled his very soul. He felt more than half- 
 rebel when he read the short and stirring story of 
 that gallant, if mistaken, band of " United Irish " 
 gentlemen who paid the penalty of their lives for 
 their patriotism ; but when he turned back the 
 page of Irish history to the siege of Derry he felt 
 he saw written there a grander narrative still — of 
 endurance as well as courage — a tale of well-nigh 
 incredible patience and persistent fortitude Eng- 
 land seems always to have considered it rather 
 " good form " to ignore. As some men live be- 
 fore their time, so Gorman Muir was living after 
 his. Not one of Sir Walter Scott's novels but 
 appealed to something within him that only echoed 
 to the strain of wild adventure, the clang of 
 armour, and the sound of martial music. He 
 was one left over, as it might have seemed, 
 by mistake from a generation long dead and 
 gone, and yet with a love of pleasure and a 
 capacity for settling to no work, and a thorough
 
 168 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 enjoyment in idleness which is the proud pos- 
 session of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Such as he was, however, he had won his 
 father's heart. Once again he could see in the 
 flesh Katty Gorman's eyes shining like stars — 
 dark, merry, dancing, wicked eyes. Not a tone, 
 or gesture, or movement of the son but reminded 
 him of that dead mother her '' family " had re- 
 jected in life, but whose body they reluctantly 
 received when it mattered little to her what be- 
 came of it. Himself suspicious, mean, hard, cal- 
 culating, he liked Gorman, because the young 
 fellow was unworldly, generous, impressionable, 
 and open-hearted. 
 
 " And I'm very sure, for all he says, that he's 
 got a spice of the devil in him," considered Mr. 
 Muir, as though that were the crOwning grace a 
 man might aspire to possess. 
 
 That he lacked the lighter accomplishment 
 of persiflage, possessed to such perfection by 
 Ensign Ludham, was a fault the farmer felt will- 
 ing to condone. 
 
 ''He hasn't just such pleasant talk," con-
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 169 
 
 sidered Mr. Muir; ''but there's a heap more in 
 what he says," which was indeed quite true. Just 
 at that time Mr. Gorman Muir's utterances con- 
 tained a depth of bitterness and a knowledge of 
 the worst side of human nature Solomon him- 
 self in his most hlasc moments might have 
 envied. 
 
 "It's to be hoped he will soon get something 
 to do," observed Miss Muir, about ten days after 
 Gorman's departure, ''for I'm sure he'll never 
 bear himself here. Of all the restless men I ever 
 did come across, he's about the worst. A young 
 chicken wanting its mother couldn't seem less 
 content than he does." 
 
 " Maybe if you had been cast out into the 
 wilderness like a second Ishmael you mightn't be 
 just content either," said Mr. Muir. 
 
 " I'm very certain, if he had behaved himself, 
 his uncle wouldn't have turned him from the 
 door," persisted the lady, who still knew nothing 
 of the real cause of quarrel between Gorman and 
 Mr. Trevasson. "It doesn't stand to sense a man 
 well on in life will put up with being told he's
 
 170 
 
 BEKNA BOYLE. 
 
 not to marry by one he has fed aud seen to from 
 a child." 
 
 " I don't say anything against that, Bell. I 
 might one fine morning want to get married my- 
 self, and I'd take it ill if anybody was to say, 
 * There are fools enough in the world ; don't you 
 make one more.' The man, as you remark, had 
 a clear right to marry if he liked ; but I don't 
 consider it was either right or just to send one 
 about his business that he had brought up like 
 his son." 
 
 " I'm very sure he would never have done 
 anything of the sort if Gorman had behaved him- 
 self," repeated Miss Muir. 
 
 " 1 don't see any call you have to say Gorman 
 didn't behave himself. Though he wasn't over 
 fond of the new mistress, he would have left her 
 alone, if she'd have left him. Of course we know 
 all she wants is the old man's money ; but the 
 old man ought to have considered he had brought 
 the boy up 'delicately,' as you've heard read out in 
 Proverbs, without trade or profession whereby to 
 earn his living ; and I say it is hard on Gorman
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 171 
 
 to be cast adrift at his age, and forced to buckle 
 to work, after having had his hands kept soft and 
 white like a lady's all his life long." 
 
 " Gorman's everything to you now," sneered 
 the amiable Bell. 
 
 *' I wouldn't go so far as to say he's every- 
 thing, but he's a good deal," answered Mr. Muir. 
 
 ''I'm not a bit surprised. That's only what 
 was to be expected. But if you'd been less taken 
 up with him and able to afford time to look about 
 you at some goings on near home it might have 
 been telling you." 
 
 " If anything was going on near home. Bell, 
 it concerned me to know, you ought to have 
 spoken." 
 
 "0, I can't be expected to have eyes and 
 ears for the whole house." 
 
 "All I want at this minute is your tongue. 
 What is it I ought to have been looking after? 
 Who is it you deem is stealing from me now?" 
 
 " I'm not aware that I said anybody was steal- 
 ing from you, though I did notice yesterday a bag 
 of cruffles set up against the back gate. I bid
 
 172 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 Isaac empty them out on the heap ; and they were 
 the very pick of the potatoes." 
 
 " You gave Nally, then, the trouble of sorting 
 them all out again," retorted Mr. Muir; *'forI 
 bid him take three or four stone of the finest he 
 could find over to Mr. Garnsey. He has a won- 
 derful ' conceit * of the Ardilaw cruffles." 
 
 "He has a wonderful conceit of anything he 
 can get for nothing," amended Bell. 
 
 '' So maybe," said Mr. Muir, harking back to 
 the original question. " That other matter you've 
 on your mind mightn't turn out of much more 
 consequence than the potatoes." 
 
 "It might not," answered his daughter, in a tone 
 which implied she meant precisely the opposite. 
 
 "Well, well, whatever it is, let's hear; we'll 
 never get at the rights of the affair till you tell me 
 what it is. Has it do with the fresh tenants at 
 the cottage ?" 
 
 "No, it has nothing to do with the fresh 
 tenants at the cottage ; though I make no doubt 
 there will be plenty to do with them before we're 
 much older. As I remarked a minute ago, you've
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 173 
 
 been so taken up with Gorman, and Gorman's 
 horse, and Gorman's plans, and Gorman all the 
 rest, you could not see what was going on under 
 your own eyes. From the first I gave you as plain 
 a warning as I could ; but, of course, nothing I 
 say is ever thought worth listening to." 
 
 " For the Lord's sake say what you've got to 
 say, and have done with it. What's going wrong 
 now ? It can't be Carline — " 
 
 "No, to be sure it can't be Carline !" mocked 
 Miss Muir. "You thought, I suppose, when you 
 sent the last of the Ensign's luggage to Belfast, 
 you had sent the harm he had done away with his 
 bags and trunks." 
 
 " What harm did the man do ?" 
 
 " 0, if you want telling just like a child it is 
 no use coming to me ! I suppose you'll make out 
 next you didn't know he'd filled Carline's empty 
 head so full of nonsense she's never been one bit 
 of use since he came into the house ; she thinks 
 he's going to make a lady of her, and that some 
 day soon she'll be driving in her carriage drawn by 
 four galloping horses like the Marchioness. If it
 
 174 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 wasn't for me you think so little of, she might have 
 heen off with him for all anybody would have known. 
 You forget, I'm thinking, there's such a thing as a 
 mail car passes the end of this road twice a day." 
 
 *' Do you mean that the Ensign sends her 
 letters?" 
 
 " And that she sends the Ensign back letters." 
 
 "I think you're under some mistake, Bell," 
 hinted the farmer mildly. " No letters have come 
 to this house for Carline. Gorman, as you know, 
 went to the office every morning of his life while 
 he was here, and it has so chanced since he left 
 us I've been often passing that road and called 
 in myself to see whether Mr. Liggett had any- 
 thing for us." 
 
 "I know you were that anxious for news from 
 Gorman you went to the post before there was time 
 for a letter to come from him," scoffed Miss Muir. 
 **And I know something more: that an old wo- 
 man, I've told you over and over again, came 
 about the house for no good, lives near Craig- 
 antlet. She's able enough to walk to the village, 
 and she doesn't forget to call here as she goes and
 
 BERXA BOYLE. 175 
 
 comes back, I'll warrant you. It'll not be long 
 before you see her, or I'm much mistaken. Car- 
 line's writing a letter to him now." 
 
 "Where is she?" asked Mr. Muir, taking a 
 step forward and then stopping. 
 
 " She's in the kitchen. I knew she had some- 
 thing in her mind this morning, she was so 
 anxious to get up by herself into Gorman's room. 
 I thought I'd put a stop to that, and set her to 
 mind the apple-jam. I dared her to leave it one 
 minute ; so what she's doing is writing a note on 
 the bellows. She slipped the paper and pencil 
 into her pocket as I passed through, and pre- 
 tended to be afraid the fire was getting too low.'' 
 
 " If I could just make sure of it," said the 
 farmer, with a set look on his stern face. 
 
 '^ Why don't you make sure of it, then ? You'll 
 do more harm than good if you say anything to 
 Carline ; she'd have the note in the fire before 
 you could look at her. She is a sly young cat." 
 
 " You are positive, Bell, Nanny Gribben 's the 
 go-between ?" 
 
 " Hasn't she bouorht herself a new stuff dress ?
 
 176 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 and didn't I see the silk square Mrs. Sinton 
 bought Carline last Easter, pinned round Nancy's 
 throat ?" 
 
 Mr. Muir groaned at what he could but con- 
 sider confirmation strong as Holy Writ. It was 
 Miss Muir's hour of triumph, and she did not 
 understand the meaning of mercy. 
 
 "Am I positive ?" she said, quoting her father's 
 question with fine efi'ect ; '*' yes, I am as positive 
 as I am that I know why Gorman wouldn't go to 
 meeting with us." 
 
 " You are aware. Bell," suggested Mr. Muir, 
 now quite cowed, "his uncle brought him up 
 Church." 
 
 " yes, I'm aware ; and he was going to 
 church till I said, in joke, I'd as soon go to one 
 place as another, and that nobody could get any 
 harm by listening to old Mr. Crommles. I did 
 it to try my gentleman ; for I had no more inten- 
 tion of going with him than of flying ; but, if you 
 remember, he did not go to church here, then or 
 since — walking off to Comber, and Holywood, and 
 Castlereagh. He was ashamed to be seen out
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 177 
 
 with US ; that's what comes of one of a family 
 being brought up with notions above the rest." 
 
 Having fired which shot, Miss Muir departed 
 to pursue those domestic vocations in which she 
 shone as signally as in playing the congenial part 
 of private detective. 
 
 Left to himself, Mr. Muir strolled down the 
 avenue and out into the lane. There he lounged 
 about for some time, after which he reentered the 
 gate, closing it behind him. 
 
 Presently there came down the hill an elderly 
 woman, decently dressed, carrying a covered basket 
 on her arm. As if just arriWng on the scene, Mr. 
 Muir sauntered forth, and accosted her with, 
 
 *' "Well, Nanny, and how's all with you to- 
 day ?" 
 
 She gave him a little bobbing curtsy, thanked 
 him kindly, and said " all " was pretty well. 
 
 " You looked in as you passed, I suppose ?" 
 
 Yes; Mrs. Gribben had looked in. 
 
 *' Did you see any of my daughters ?" 
 
 Mrs. Gribben had only seen Miss Carline. 
 She was making the beautifullest apple-jam ; but 
 
 VOL. I. . N
 
 178 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 then, to be sure, the Ardilaw apples had always 
 been famous. 
 
 *' How did you think she was looking ?" 
 
 "Her face was all scorched up standing over 
 the fire." 
 
 "And writing a letter you're taking- to the 
 post for her. I want that letter, Nanny. Better 
 stop, and rest yourself a minute." 
 
 They had reached a point where a small 
 stream meandered beneath the lane, and a low 
 stone parapet protected the road on each side. 
 
 " Put down your basket," proceeded Mr. Muir. 
 "It's fine and heavy; you ought to have some- 
 thing worth while in it." 
 
 The woman did not answer as she obeyed ; 
 she was white to her lips. 
 
 " Now you can give me that letter. I know 
 who it's to ; but I want to know what it's about, 
 and I do not mean to stand arguing the matter 
 with you. Hand out that letter, or I'll take you 
 straight down to the barracks, and see what the 
 sergeant will say to the things you've got in your 
 basket."
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 179 
 
 " I've nothing, Mr. Muir — I've nothing, I'll 
 take my gospel oath, but a few apples Miss Car- 
 line gave me to — " 
 
 "We'U see about that. Come along; the 
 police will soon make you give up that 
 letter." 
 
 *'You can have the letter, Mr. Muir ; but 
 don't damage me, or be cross with the girl ; 
 she's—" 
 
 " Hold your tongue !" said Mr. Muir, pocket- 
 ing the letter. "Now open that basket. Well, 
 you have got a fine assortment of my property, I 
 must confess — eggs, oats, whetstone, and curry- 
 comb. Why, I blamed Isaac for taking the dandy 
 brush last week. As I'm going back to the house, 
 I can carry the curry-comb and whetstone in my 
 hand. You may keep the eggs and the oats, if 
 you send no word to my daughter about what 
 has passed between us. Her lover shall get his 
 letter safe enough, never fear — after I've had a 
 look over it. And now mind my last word, 
 Nanny : if ever I catch you inside my place again, 
 it'll be worse for you."
 
 180 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 Having uttered which dark threat, the farmer 
 retraced his steps, never once looking back to the 
 spot where Mrs. Gribben stood shaking her fist 
 after him.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The following evening Mr. Muir announced his 
 intention of next day repairing to Belfast. " So, 
 if there's anything you want brought out, Bell," 
 he added, " you'd best tell me before bed- time, as 
 I'll be starting early." 
 
 It was in accordance with this arrangement 
 that Carline had the satisfaction of seeing her 
 parent drive off in his old-fashioned gig (bought a 
 bargain), the jingling of which could be heard 
 half a mile away. Never did music sound sweeter 
 in the ear of any girl than the rattling of those 
 loose spokes did to Carline as she ran into the 
 house and hurried over her morning tasks, and 
 afterwards, singing carelessly, passed through the 
 front door, which stood wide, and strolled in the 
 direction of the river. Once out of sight of any 
 window, she quickened her steps and walked 
 quickly up the glen till she reached a spot
 
 182 
 
 BERXA BOYLE. 
 
 where the banks were high and the trees thick. 
 Then she made her way down a winding foot-path 
 to the bed of the stream, and, standing quite 
 still, listened. 
 
 Instead of being but four miles distant, Bel- 
 fast might have lain four hundred from the spot 
 where she stood ; not a sound, save the rustling 
 of the leaves and the low murmur of the stream, 
 broke the silence. It was noon of a glorious 
 August day. Over the fields lay an utter still- 
 ness. Even the cattle lay at rest, chewing the 
 cud lazily ; the gorse-hedges on the hillsides were 
 sheets of golden splendour ; down where Carline 
 stood nut-trees grew thick. The girl put out her 
 hand and gathered a leaf; then she dropped it 
 into the stream, and saw it float gently away. In 
 fancy she followed it till it reached Strangford 
 Lough. 
 
 *' I spent a happy day there once," she 
 thought, " when T was a child. But I am 
 happier now than I was then." And she lifted 
 her eyes, which were full of a tender love-light, 
 and looked up into the azure vault above her head.
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 183 
 
 She would have made a fair picture as she 
 stood there beside the trickling water, with the 
 trees bending down as if longing to touch her 
 cheeks, their branches at times interlacing across 
 the glen. She was young and foolish, and had 
 not, perhaps, much in her ; but she was beauti- 
 ful. She had looked in the glass, and thought 
 there was not anybody so pretty in the country, 
 no girl with such long dark lashes, and eyes that 
 — so said the Ensign — were deep and unfathom- 
 able as Glendalough ! When she unbound her 
 hair it fell almost to her knees ; the Ensign had 
 seen it loose in this way once, by accident, and 
 she felt ashamed. For ever afterwards he raved 
 about that hair. Poor little girl ; poor, simple, 
 silly little woman, who believed she needed no- 
 thing beyond dress, and jewels, and a carriage, 
 and servants to be as fine a lady as any that ever 
 went to Court ! She stood there patiently waiting 
 for her lover, and wondering which way he would 
 come ; and while she waited and wondered, her 
 lover stole softly upon her from behind, and 
 caught her in his arms.
 
 184 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 " Dear good Carline — best, kindest Carline !" 
 lie said, as the girl, clingiDg to him, convulsively 
 murmured, with passionate affection, 
 
 " I am so glad ! I am so glad !" 
 
 "Glad are you, darling? Then you have 
 missed me a little." 
 
 "A little!" she repeated. ''0, I have 
 thought such long for you ! The days seemed 
 as if they never ivould go by." 
 
 *' You are the sweetest, you are the dearest, 
 the loveliest little soul!" exclaimed young Lud- 
 ham, emphasising each term of endearment with 
 the full stop, for which grammar has no equiva- 
 lent, that seems to those uninterested in the text 
 the height of folly. 
 
 " I was so afraid I mightn't be able to give 
 Bell the slip," said the girl shyly, her Irish 
 idiom sounding very pretty ; and her manner, 
 though countrified, coy and feminine, and, beyond 
 all, utterly guileless. 
 
 " And how is the dear Bell ?" he asked, draw- 
 ing Carline once again close to him. 
 
 *' Bell has nothing to complain of, thank you,
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 185 
 
 Ensign," at this juncture interpolated 'a per- 
 fectly unexpected voice; " and she'll he proud, I 
 make no douht, to think you've kept a memory of 
 her in your mind. You needn't disturb yourself. 
 You had a hold of my daughter's waist a minute 
 ago. You can keep your arm where it was if 
 you like, for me." 
 
 '' I assure you, Mr. Muir — " 
 
 " You needn't trouble yourself. I'm sure of 
 all I want to be sure concerning. There's no 
 call for you to put yourself about, Ensign. Un- 
 less I'm greatly mistaken, my daughter's not the 
 first you've made love to, any more than she'll be 
 the last. I think, though, you have, maybe, 
 made a bit of a mistake, which it might be as 
 well to rectify before we go further." 
 
 '' I fear I scarcely follow you, Mr. Muir," 
 stammered the officer, for once unequal to the 
 occasion. 
 
 " That's all a pity ; but I'll try to make my 
 meaning clear. Don't run away, Carline," added 
 the farmer, laying a grip of iron on his daughter. 
 *'I want you to hear all the pleasant talk, girl,
 
 186 BERNA EOYLE. 
 
 your sweetheart and myself are going to have 
 together. I mean to go a piece back with you, 
 Ensign. You won't mind that, I hope ?" 
 
 " How could you think otherwise ?" mur- 
 mured the Ensign, who, if he failed to grasp the 
 beauty of the Irish idiom as well from the mouth 
 of a man as from the honey-laden lips of a girl, 
 could at least hazard a conjecture as to what was 
 coming. 
 
 "You may remember" — and there was. an 
 unconscious dignity in Mr. Muir's gaunt, un- 
 gainly figure as he stood beside the river, with 
 the arching branches above his head and the sun- 
 light streaming through the leaves and flickering 
 upon his hard-set features, looking straight at 
 the man who would have done him the cruellest 
 wrong one person can inflict upon another — " a 
 day when you were out with the stag-hounds, and 
 got staked instead of your horse ?" 
 
 " My memory is not so short for kindness, 
 Mr. Muir," the Ensign was beginning ; but Mr. 
 Muir motioned him to keep silence, and pro- 
 ceeded,
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 187 
 
 . ''It SO happened I was driving past, and, 
 without knowing who jou were or what you were 
 — except a young English officer, far from your 
 home, a stranger in a strange country — I brought 
 you to Ardilaw, as there was not a house at 
 hand where you could have been properly done 
 by—" 
 
 "Is it necessary to go on heaping coals of 
 fire upon my head ?" asked the young sinner. 
 
 "It is. If you had minded what the book 
 out of which you got those words tells you, I 
 should not have found you standing with your 
 arm about my daughter. I want to say nothing 
 concerning gratitude, or anything of that sort. 
 What we did, we did without thought of fee or 
 reward. As you know, you offered to pay, and 
 your mother offered to pay ; and I said I'd take 
 nothing. Money could not have bought the heart 
 and the will with which we did for you when you 
 could do nothing for yourself. In your father's 
 house you might have got better lodging and 
 richer food, but you could have had no more care- 
 ful nursing than you got when you were that bad
 
 188 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 you could not lift a cup to your lips or turn your- 
 self in your bed." 
 
 " Have you no pity ?" 
 
 "Not a bit for one like you. We tbougbt 
 nothing of what we did ; we asked nothing ; we 
 took nothing. I never looked for gratitude any 
 more than I looked for wrong. I never deemed 
 the young fellow I took to for his good looks and 
 pleasant ways — you were, beyond ordinary, patient 
 and considerate for a sick man — would try to 
 bring disgrace upon me. I'd have knocked any 
 one down that had evened such a thing to you in 
 my hearing — I would," and the farmer's brow 
 knit and his voice deepened and trembled as the 
 rage surging within him tried to break the bounds 
 he had set for it. 
 
 " Mr. Muir — " 
 
 " My daughter ought to have been to you, in 
 a manner, like your own sister. No lady in the 
 land was entitled to more respect at your hands. 
 If she had been light and flighty — which my girl 
 never was — it would have been your place to keep 
 her at arm's length sooner than give her an hour's
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 189 
 
 heartache. My God !" suddenly cried out the 
 man in a voice hoarse with passion, '^ I could find 
 it in my heart to strike you dead where you stand 
 when I think of the depth you would havQ dragged 
 her down to before you flungj her off as vou miofht 
 a glove." 
 
 " Upon my soul, you wrong me. You are 
 quite mistaken — " 
 
 " Mistaken, am I ? Then I humbly beg your 
 pardon. It was only, you see, my want of conceit 
 led me astray. I didn't think, I didn't reall}^ 
 that you wanted to marry my daughter. She's 
 not ill-looking ; but she has no fortune that you 
 would account a fortune ; and I did not possess 
 the money, even if I had wanted to do such a 
 thing, to give her the education you've been used 
 to among those you've consorted with. Such 
 things needn't trouble me, though, if they don't 
 trouble you. She's quick enough, and she'll soon 
 learn something of the ways of those above her. 
 Why did you not come and ask me long ago ? 
 I'd have made no objection. She is promised, 
 as you know, to a decent man's son; but we
 
 190 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 will get over that some way. Ladies jilt their 
 lovers, so I am told. Why wouldn't a farmer's 
 daughter take a better offer when she could 
 get it ?" 
 
 The officer stood silent. Speech failed him. 
 
 " You're not so ready as I've heard you, 
 Ensign," said Mr. Muir; ''the prospect of such 
 happiness makes you dumb. When is it to be ? 
 No need to stop for the wedding garments. ' A 
 bonny bride,' you know, ' is soon buskit,' and 
 Carline is as bonny a girl as a man need wish to 
 marry, though I say it." 
 
 " Mr. Muir—" 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Muir's listening; what have you 
 got to say to him ?" 
 
 "May I speak to you for a minute or two, 
 alone ?" 
 
 " Not without my daughter. It's the right 
 of the girl you want to make your wife she should 
 hear what we are talking about." 
 
 " Well, then, Mr. Muir, you must be quite 
 aware I am totally dependent upon my father. I 
 have not a shilling beyond my pay, except the
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 191 
 
 amount he allows me ; and should I marry with- 
 out his consent — " 
 
 "I quite comprehend; you needn't say an- 
 other word. You want to be married privately. 
 I have no objection. Of course I should have 
 preferred the whole thing to be open and above- 
 board ; still, you know your father best, and I 
 make no doubt you're right not to cross him. 
 Take her as quietly as you like. There are plenty 
 of churches in Belfast. Get a license, and I'll 
 drive her up some morning, and nobody need be 
 a bit the wiser. Why, that doesn't seem to 
 please you either. Ensign. Hadn't you better 
 speak out plain, and tell the girl and me what's 
 on your mind ?" 
 
 "You are totally mistaken, Mr. Muir," said 
 Ensign Ludham, now fairly at bay. " You must 
 be perfectly well aware that in all ranks a man may 
 have a flirtation with a pretty girl, and yet — " 
 
 " Go on, Ensign." 
 
 " It does not necessarily follow because a man 
 admires a girl, and has paid a few compliments 
 to her, that — "
 
 192 BEBNA BOYLE. 
 
 " I am listening, Ensign ; won't you finish 
 what you've begun ?" 
 
 " In plain English, then, Mr. Muir — " 
 
 "Yes, Ensign, in plain English, what have 
 you got to say about my girl ?" 
 
 " That— that— " 
 
 "You want the marriage deferred, maybe? 
 Xo ; never stamp your foot. You've only to say 
 what you mean, and — " 
 
 " Mr. Muir, you are pretending to be labour- 
 ing under a great delusion." 
 
 " Am I ? Then it's all your own fault. "^Tiy 
 don't you speak out your meaning plain ?" 
 
 " I have. In so many words, I have told you 
 I am in no position to marry." 
 
 " You hear that, Garhne ?" 
 
 The girl did not answer — no, not a word ; she 
 only stood looking at her lover, an expression 
 of dumb anguish on her pretty face, a plaintive 
 terror in her dark-gray eyes. 
 
 " So you were only making game of her, 
 Ensign, after all ? Taking your diversion, and 
 never caring what it might cost the girl. After
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 193 
 
 that I think we may go. Now she knows from 
 your own lips, I'm not afraid she'll ever meet 
 you again. She might not have taken my word 
 for all this, hut she can't he off believing you. 
 He led you to believe, Carline, he meant to make 
 a fine lady of 3'ou, didn't he ?" 
 
 She formed an assent with her lips, but her 
 tongue refused its office. 
 
 *' Well, well ! Your betters have been de- 
 ceived before now by such as him. I think we'll 
 be going, Ensign ; we've heard about enough." 
 And without another word Mr, Muir turned on 
 his heel, and, motioning his daughter to precede 
 him, ascended the bank, and began wending his 
 way back to the house. 
 
 He walked a little distance in silence, then 
 looked at Carline, who was dragging herself 
 wearily by his side. 
 
 " Let this be a warning to you, girl," he 
 said, and stretched out his hand, which she took 
 and held in silence. 
 
 ''When you get indoors," he went on, ''put 
 what you are likely to need together. I am goino- 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 to take you after dinner to Mrs. Sinton for a 
 while, where that young rascal won't find you, 
 and beyond the reach of Bell's tongue. You'd 
 like well to go to Mrs. Sinton, wouldn't you?" 
 
 • "Yes," she murmured; "I'd like to go to 
 her — any place out of this." 
 
 " She's a good sort of a woman," observed 
 Mr. Muir ; " and I can trust her with you ;" and 
 no further remark passed between them on the 
 subject. 
 
 That night Mrs. Sinton was awakened by the 
 sound of a wailing cry, 
 
 " 0, I wish I hadn't plucked it ! What made 
 me pluck it ?" • 
 
 " What are you moaning over, Carline ?" 
 asked Mrs. Sinton, who was a widow. 
 
 " I was thinking about a leaf I plucked to- 
 day and threw in the water. It has been tossing 
 from place to place all the day long, and it's out 
 in the weather and the dark by itself. I wish I 
 had taken thought, and left it alone." 
 
 Mrs. Sinton did not answer in words; she 
 only took the girl close in her arms, and drew
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 195 
 
 the tired head on lier breast, and kissed the 
 fresh young lips, and sighed " dear, dear !" 
 at intervals, as she lay awake thinking till long 
 after day had dawned.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The confession of failure can never, under any 
 circumstances, be other than disagreeable ; but 
 such a confession becomes doubly unpleasant 
 when it has to be made to those of a man's own 
 household. 
 
 There were many things Gorman Muir would 
 have preferred to returning home and telling his 
 father that Mr. Baird had seemed more inclined 
 to flout than to favour him. The news that he 
 was in disgrace must, the young fellow fancied, 
 have flown from Kilkenny to Derry ; at all events, 
 the fact met him the moment he crossed Mr. 
 Baird's threshold. 
 
 " If you are wise you will try to make matters 
 up with your uncle," said that gentleman. " As 
 for an agency, Mr. Trevasson would have helped 
 you to that or anything else in reason." 
 
 The cold shoulder is not a palatable dish ; and
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 197 
 
 Gorman had almost too much of it. In every 
 possible form it was served up for his delectation. 
 No matter where he went or what he applied for, 
 a morsel of the abhorred food was thrust under 
 his nose. Those acquainted with his origin had 
 grudged him his prosperity ; and now he was 
 down many a foot was raised to give him a sly or 
 open kick. As a matter of course, the Gormans 
 had never looked kindly upon Mr. Trevasson's 
 adoption scheme; and there was rejoicing all 
 through their borders when they heard the gates 
 of Mount Michael were closed upon the son of 
 Hewson Muir. 
 
 Gorman had not been accustomed to such diet 
 as was now provided for him, and he made credit- 
 able efforts to refuse it. All in vain, however. 
 The story of Mr. Muir's marriage, more than a 
 quarter of a century old though it was, might 
 have been a perfectly fresh tale, so frequently was 
 it repeated, so- eagerly was it listened to. 
 
 The son of that ill-assorted union had better 
 have stayed away from Derry, where all the facts 
 were as well known as the appearance of the
 
 198 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 cathedral clergy. In provincial towns a scandal 
 never dies ; and upon the ins and outs of the 
 Muir-Gorman alliance, nine-and-twenty years' 
 gossip had conferred a dramatic and unholy 
 immortality. It was there Gorman heard the 
 whole story in its integrity; there, for the first 
 time, he saw the broad lands and stretching moors 
 of Clonmellin ; there he sat in the bailiff's house 
 whence his grandfather had been driven in dis- 
 grace ; there, by feeing the housekeeper, • he was 
 permitted — an entire stranger — to w^alk through 
 the room where Miss Katty, the gipsy, as she was 
 still called, had danced and laughed, and deceived 
 the *' old lady," and gone out for the last time, 
 cursed by her father, in company with a man who 
 was " no fit match for such as her." 
 
 There, also, he met with one of his cousins 
 "over for the shooting" — a tall, lanky-looking 
 fellow, with long face, small shrewd blue eyes, and 
 hair as nearly red as hair can be — who directed him 
 on his road, unwitting they were of the smallest 
 kin to one another. An alien and a stranger, he 
 paced the seashore over which, with girlish glee,
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 199 
 
 bis mother had once watched the white-lipped 
 waves chasing each other. 
 
 He felt lonely in his veiy soul. Had there 
 been one to sav, '' God save \o\\ kindly," or 
 " Welcome to the old place," he could have borne 
 it better. It was the sense of utter desolation, 
 the feeling that none knew, none cared what had 
 become of Catherine Gorman's child, which seemed 
 to kill all manliness within him. As he looked 
 out over the Atlantic lying still and peaceful like 
 a giant asleep, he could have wept tears Salter 
 than the salt sea's brine, thinking of the mother 
 he had never known, and his own past, which 
 could come back no more. A few months pre- 
 viously what had he not been ? what had he not 
 hoped ? what had he not expected ? and now — now 
 — with an impatient gesture, he dug his heel into 
 the shingle, remembering all that brief time had 
 taken from him. He was an outcast from the 
 home and the rank to which he had been accus- 
 tomed since childhood. He was too old to take 
 life in his hand and go out to meet fortune. He 
 had been brought up to great expectations, and
 
 200 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 behold ! in a moment, those expectations resolved 
 themselves into fifty pounds, and a possible thou- 
 sand to the back of them. 
 
 Like his poor young dead mother, to whom 
 such terribly bitter fortune — ^all of her own choos- 
 ing — came before she counted one-and-twenty 
 years, he had heard the portals of " home " clang 
 behind him, and listened to the echoes of a curse 
 that still seemed to float around his head. 
 
 He remained mooning about Derry and its 
 neighbourhood longer than the hospitality ex- 
 tended to him or the slender state of his purse 
 seemed to warrant, merely because he could not 
 summon up courage to return to Ardilaw. 
 
 Though far from happy in the maiden city, he 
 knew he was less miserable there than must prove 
 to be the case under his father's roof. He had 
 been prepared to meet with many things certain 
 to be antagonistic to every taste and habit of his 
 previous life ; but he found it well-nigh impossible 
 to think with equanimity of the man who called 
 him son, and who at length urged his return 
 home, saying.
 
 BERXA BOYLE. 201 
 
 ''You're just spending your substance for 
 naught up where you are now. Better come 
 back, and we'll try whether there is nothing you 
 can get to do in Down. Mr. Garnsey will give 
 you a commission that may put a few pounds in 
 your pocket. As for going to Dublin, as you talk 
 of — go if you like, but take Ardilaw in your way. 
 I mean to try and get the most of the corn cut 
 next week. If the weather holds up, the crop 
 needn't be despised. No word from your uncle 
 yet ? I am afraid you have nothing in writing 
 about that thousand pounds." 
 
 "No," said Gorman, when Mr. Muir repeated 
 this question verbally; "I have nothing in writ- 
 ing ; and, moreover, if I had, I would not enforce 
 my claim." 
 
 "It is little use putting yourself out about 
 what you might do, as it does not lie in your 
 power to do anything," commented Mr. Muir, 
 with exasperating coolness. " And there's no 
 call to get angry wdth me because I ask you a 
 simple question. I don't throw it up to you that 
 your luck's out at elbows. That's not exactly
 
 202 
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 your own fault. All that troubles me now is what 
 you are to turn to." 
 
 "I wish to heaven I knew," said his son. 
 
 "You know you are more than welcome here; 
 but—" 
 
 "I could not remain here idle; it" would 
 kill me." 
 
 "I see that — and I see, too, you've been 
 brought up with the idea of doing no work which 
 is not pleasure. It's a very good notion of life in 
 its way, but I'm afraid it won't find a man in 
 victuals and pocket money, for all that." 
 
 " I am quite willing to work. I'll follow the 
 plough, if need be," said Gorman, with some 
 temper. 
 
 " We won't begin ploughing much before 
 November, but you can try your hand then if 
 you like," answered Mr. Muir dryly. 
 
 '' I will go to Dublin first, and see whether 
 there is not any chance of an agency." 
 
 *' Best keep your travelling expenses in your 
 pocket," advised his father. "Who have you got 
 that you could go to outside your uncle's friends?
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 203 
 
 and 3'ou know what they'll say to you. The 
 wisest thing for you to do is, lie quiet for a bit, 
 and keep out of sight and hearing of the old man's 
 acquaintances till he begins to be anxious about 
 you. There are things to be done hereabouts, if 
 you'd only do them — and money to be made, 
 granting you were willing to make it." 
 
 " If you wish me to turn horse-dealer, of 
 course I ought to raise no objection." 
 
 " Man alive ! only to hear you. Horse-dealer, 
 indeed ! And if you icere a horse-dealer, come to 
 that, were w^ould be the disgrace ? Why, look at 
 old Cleery, out on the road to Comber — you've 
 seen the fine house he has built himself, with the 
 big greenhouse full of flowers, and his daughters 
 able to play and sing and talk French, and they 
 dress as well as the Marchioness, though, of 
 course, there's a something about them by which 
 you can tell they're not just real born ladies — 
 well, he started in life as stable-boy at Purdy's 
 Burn, but he'd a taste for horses and a judgment 
 about them, and has worked himself up and on 
 till he's made himself what you see — "
 
 204 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 *'A pattern for imitation," said Gorman, with 
 grim distinctness. 
 
 '' His name is in everything about. His Lord- 
 ship's agent has always a civil word for him. 
 It's Cleery this and Cleery the other ; and ' What 
 do you think of '"'the favourite"'?' or ' Why are 
 they laying such odds against King at Arms ?' 
 No, you needn't wrinkle up your brow and let 
 down your mouth. I don't say you would be 
 proud of notice like that, but if you had not been 
 brought up soft you would know it is scarce to be 
 despised." 
 
 " I am afraid I could not hope to emulate the 
 extraordinary success Mr. Cleery has achieved," 
 remarked Gorman, his voice sounding hoarse and 
 hard as he spoke. 
 
 *' You might do something, at any rate," an- 
 swered Mr. Muir, too wise to take any notice of 
 the bitter ring in his son's tones. *' Mr. Garnsey 
 made you a fair offer ; and I'm very sure there 
 was nothing in his offer the best gentleman 
 in the land need have drawn a thraw mouth 
 over."
 
 BEllNA BOYLE. 205 
 
 " I shall be glad to accept Mr. Garnsey's offer," 
 said Gorman slowly. " Beggars, you know, must 
 not be choosers." 
 
 " If I was young like you, if I had a face such 
 as yours, and a figure such as yours, and ways 
 such as yours, it's not of beggars or beggary I'd 
 be talking," exclaimed Mr. Muir. " I'd be cast- 
 ing about instead to see where there was a young 
 woman possessed of a fine fortune and the best of 
 relations, and, when I found out, ask her to be 
 my wife." 
 
 "Ay, indeed?" 
 
 " Faith, and indeed ; and you wouldn't have 
 far to look. Up at Beechfield there's just the 
 wife for you, if you don't let her slip. An only 
 daughter, too — and never a son !" with which 
 final statement Mr. Muir felt so charmed he had 
 to stop in his discourse and laugh to himself, 
 the while Gorman regarded him with abhorrent 
 astonishment. 
 
 " I hate Miss Garnsey," he said, at last, " a 
 degree more than I do Mr. Garnsey. I think 
 him the greatest blackguard I ever spoke to, and
 
 206 BEENA BOtLE. 
 
 I consider his daughter the least feminine woman 
 a man need desire to meet." 
 
 '•' What ails you at her ? You might travel 
 Down through, you might travel Ireland through, 
 before you'd meet with a better-natured, freer- 
 spoken young woman than Miss Lydia Garnsey." 
 " The Lord be praised for that, at any rate." 
 ''I'd have thought, now, she and you would 
 have hit it o£f from the first minute you met. 
 She's not to say handsome, I allow ; but by the 
 time a man's married three months he finds looks 
 make little odds to him ; no, not if a woman was 
 Venus herself — and — " 
 
 '* Look here," interposed Mr. Gorman Muir, 
 ''if we are to agree, let us keep clear of the 
 subject of matrimony altogether." 
 
 " Well, well ; I see you are hard to drive — " 
 " I am, and the devil himself couldn't lead 
 me along any road at the end of which I might 
 have to take Miss Garnsey for better or worse. 
 I'll do what her father wants, as it may please 
 you ; but I wouldn't marry that girl if she was 
 hung with diamonds."
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 207 
 
 " I wonder what you want. She's good to 
 the poor, and she's fit to consort with the rich. 
 It does not signify a farthing to her, whether 
 there's fever or smallpox in any house : in 
 she goes with her little can of soup, or pot of 
 jelly, or custard pudding, or — " 
 
 " What she does or leaves undone is nothing 
 to me." 
 
 "Faith, you are hard-mouthed, Gorman. I 
 wonder what's the sort of bit you would answer 
 to. It is quite unreasonable the way you talk, 
 about a girl, too, who can go across country like 
 a bird. Where would you find her like in the 
 saddle ?" 
 
 " Nowhere, I hope," retorted Gorman. " It's 
 no use, I tell you, talking about Miss Garnsey to 
 me. If ever I start a wife — which is most un- 
 likely — I'll look out for a woman who can talk 
 about something else than horses and dogs — a 
 quiet girl, who would be ashamed to joke with 
 grooms and helpers and vets., as Miss Garnsey 
 does." 
 
 '* Whoever you marry, man, steer clear of the
 
 208 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 quiet ones. Why, my third wife, CarliEe's 
 mother, was as quiet-looking and soft-spoken a 
 creature as ever made a man's life a terror to him. 
 Well I mind the first hour I ever set eyes on her. 
 It was very early of a summer's morning, in the 
 first part of June. The dew was not off the grass, 
 and the hawthorn was in full flower ; the air was 
 laden with it. I was living at Kilmoon then, 
 and had to be in Donaghadee by seven, and so 
 started off betimes. There were not many stirring 
 on the road, and I was driving steady, for I knew 
 the mare would have a hard time of it before our 
 day's work was done ; when, just as I was passing 
 Summerfield, I saw a female sitting on the bank 
 in a bare place of the hedge." 
 
 Mr. Muir paused. For his son's edification, 
 he had raised a ghost from out the past, and he 
 did not seem to like its aspect. 
 
 " And she was — " 
 
 "Carline's mother. Some daj^ maybe, I'll 
 tell you the whole story, though I have never 
 cared to talk much about the three years I passed 
 with her. What I started to say was, give the
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 209 
 
 woman that speaks low and slow — scarce raising 
 her voice ahove a quiet whisper — the widest berth 
 you can manage. The Atlantic wouldn't be too 
 much space to keep between you. Miss Garnsey 
 mightn't be just to your mind ; but, at any rate, 
 you see in the first ten minutes all the harm 
 there's in her. As for the good, that story 
 couldn't be told out in a day. There's not an 
 old wife for miles round but could find something 
 to say to her credit." 
 
 " When is Carline coming home ?" asked 
 Mr. Gorman Muir, who put the question, not 
 because he felt anxious for his sister's return, but 
 simply for the reason that he desired to end the 
 Miss Garnsey controversy. 
 
 " I'm not just sure," answered the farmer. 
 " If it suits Mrs. Sinton to keep her, I'd like well 
 for her to stop where she is till all is settled for 
 the wedding." 
 
 " What wedding ?" 
 
 "Why, hers. She has been promised for the 
 last two years to young Kobert Cragland. He 
 has been away in Dumfriesshire, learning more 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 BERXA BOYLE. 
 
 about sheep and suchlike than he could do here ; 
 and his father and me weren't able to agree 
 exactly about the money I am to pay down with 
 Carline. I have made up my mind, though, 
 now to stretch a point and give what he wants — 
 for I couldn't and wouldn't be troubled looking 
 after her here. A husband is the fittest person 
 to see a woman keeps straight." 
 
 " She is certainly very pretty," remarked Gor- 
 man, thinking he was expected to say something. 
 " She's not bad looking," agreed Mr. Muir ; 
 '' and though she does not strain after her 
 mother in her ways, yet I shall never feel quite 
 easy about her now. There's always somebody 
 to put notions in a foolish girl's head ; and the 
 lesson she got over the Ensign may not last her 
 as long as it should.*' 
 
 " What did the Ensign do ?" 
 "Why, he got making love to her; and they 
 began writing to one another on the sly, and 
 making appointments to meet, unknown, as they 
 thought, to anybody. A hint was given me, so I 
 came back one day, and made a third in the party.
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 211 
 
 I asked him a few plain questions that he could 
 not exactly answer, and I compelled the girl to 
 stop and hear him confess what a hound he was. 
 That's why I sent her away. As for the Ensign, 
 I thought it best to clench that nail ; so I made 
 it my business to see his Colonel, and get my 
 gentleman leave for a while." 
 
 " Why did you not send for me ?" exclaimed 
 Gorman. ''I'd have taught him a lesson he 
 wouldn't have forgotten in a hurry. It's not too 
 late to horsewhip him now." 
 
 " Just you sit quiet. There's no need to dis- 
 tress yourself. If I'd thought a flogging was the 
 best thing, I could have laid into him myself, but 
 I wanted no stir made over the matter. Old Crag- 
 land was never to say too sweet about the match, 
 and Carline's not likely to fall in with so good a 
 chance again. Upon the whole, I think I'll bring 
 her home soon. If she stops away too long people 
 might begin to talk, and I don't think anybody 
 will come skulking round the place for a while, at 
 any rate." 
 
 '' He'd better not," said Gorman, '' if he has
 
 212 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 any respect for liis bones. Talk or no talk, I'd 
 
 make him repent the day he tried to fool Carline." 
 
 " Don't put yourself out. The Ensign won't 
 
 show his face again in a hurry at Ardilaw, nor his 
 
 Colonel neither. He rode down to tell me he had 
 
 given Mrs. Ludham a hint of what was going on, 
 
 and arranged the young man should not come 
 
 back while the regiment stopped at Belfast. We 
 
 put up his horse, and he looked over the place, 
 
 and made as though he had a notion of buying 
 
 one of the colts ; and he went round the garden, 
 
 and seemed pleased to see damsons again, and I 
 
 asked him if he could eat a mouthful of cheese and 
 
 some good oat-cake, and he said yes, and had that 
 
 and a jugful of milk, and sat a long time talking 
 
 most agreeably. I declare he took me in, if ever 
 
 a man did. I had not a notion of what he was 
 
 waiting for till he said, ' I hope Miss Carline is 
 
 quite well.' I answered that she was ; and then 
 
 I just laughed in his face, and told him she wasn't 
 
 at home, and that if she was he shouldn't see her. 
 
 ' I didn't get rid of the Ensign to be bothered 
 with the Colonel,' I remarked. * I couldn't write
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 213 
 
 to your mother if 3-ou've got one ; and who would 
 I apply to to give you leave of absence ?' 
 
 " You never saw a man so taken aback in your 
 life. He tried to make light of my notion, but it 
 was the right one. He didn't stop long after that, 
 and he never said another word about the colt ; 
 and I haven't heard a syllable from him from that 
 day to this." 
 
 With a muttered oath, Gorman Muir sprang 
 from his chair, plunged his hands fiercely in his 
 pockets, and commenced walking up and down the 
 room. 
 
 " Man alive !" exclaimed his father, who had 
 only the vaguest idea as to what was the matter, 
 " you can put on an awful look. Don't bend your 
 brows and set your mouth like that. The Evil 
 One himself could scarce have a worse cast of 
 countenance than you at this minute." 
 
 " The Evil One liimself could scarce feel worse 
 than I do at this minute," retorted Gorman, with 
 a sudden gust of fury Mr. Muir deemed it best 
 '* to let blow by " ere adventuring upon any other 
 topic of conversation.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Carrying a bouquet of hot-house flowers in one 
 hand, and a fancy basket filled with autumn fruit 
 in the other, Mrs. Boyle entered the only sitting- 
 room Clear Stream Cottage boasted, where Berna 
 sat sewing diligently. At sight of her mother the 
 girl rose, and placing both bouquet and basket on 
 the table, would have assisted to remove shawl 
 and bonnet, but that Mrs. Boyle waved her im- 
 patiently back. 
 
 " Can't you let me alone ?" she inquired. 
 *' Don't you see I've hardly a leg left to stand on ? 
 I must rest myself before I take ofi" my things. 
 It is a drag from that railway station — if ever 
 there was an out-of-the-way place, it's this. 
 Eichard Vince needn't have been afraid of meet- 
 ing me in Belfast often when it's a day's journey 
 to the train from here before a body has walked a 
 step in the town. I'm just fit to drop off my feet,
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 215 
 
 having to carry such a burden all along that dusty 
 road, and hold my dress up into the bargain." 
 
 ''I am so sorry. If I had only known which 
 train you were likely to come by I would have 
 met you, mamma," said Berna. 
 
 "Yes; and it was so likely a thing I'd know 
 the train I could come by," answered Mrs. Boyle, 
 with a pettish impatience by which her daughter 
 knew too well things had not been going quite to 
 her mind. '' If you'd been like any other girl, 
 I needn't have gone by myself, or travelled back 
 by myself; but it's well seen who you take after. 
 Not me, I'm very sure. It's no wonder the Pirns 
 think little of me when my own child won't visit 
 my friends." 
 
 " They have given jou some beautiful flowers," 
 remarked Berna, bending over the bunch, and 
 touching the buds tenderly. 
 
 '' That's only to show that they have got such 
 things, and to break my heart thinking of what 
 good fortune falls to other people, and nothing 
 but ill-luck to me ! Though they have their 
 carriages and their horses, they couldn't offer to
 
 216 BEKNA BOYLE. 
 
 drive me home ; and not a word about my stop- 
 ping to dinner and stay over the night, as I made 
 up my mind to do, if for nothing but to oblige 
 them. It's a hard world, B'erna; and, maybe, 
 you're just as wise to keep out of it. Mr. Pirn 
 did let drop a word hoping you would go to a 
 dance there ; but I threw cold water on the 
 notion. I said, if you didn't go to my own cousin's 
 at Craigvallen, it wasn't over and above likely 
 you'd go to tJiem. I know that cut Mrs. Pirn, for 
 she'd give anything if she could only get asked to 
 Kichard's." 
 
 Berna made no comment ; she merely moved 
 back to her seat, and would have resumed her 
 work if Mrs. Boyle had not interposed : 
 
 " What are you sewing now ? Can't you leave 
 off for even a minute, when you know how it tries 
 me to see you stitch, stitch, stitching, as if you 
 had to earn your bread by your needle ? I can't 
 talk a bit while you keep on with that seam, and 
 my heart just bursting with vexation. They've 
 set up a butler and footman, if you please ; and 
 everything is as genteel and precise as if they
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 217 
 
 were lords and ladies. It's enough to make any- 
 body laugh ! Many's the time I've seen Mrs. 
 Pirn's old aunt hanging out the clothes — and a 
 beautiful colour she kept them ; I'll say that for 
 her. Poor old girl ! it would put the surprise 
 on her if she could come back and see the house, 
 fit for any nobleman, her niece has got into now." 
 
 "Had I not better put those flowers into 
 water?" suggested Berna. 
 
 " The — flowers — can — wait," said Mrs. Boyle, 
 with a drawling intonation peculiarly aggravating; 
 " considering the time they have been on the 
 road here, and the heat of my hand, a few minutes 
 more can't hurt them ; and, indeed, I was in two 
 minds to throw the things away as I came along, 
 I felt so angry when I thought of the distant way 
 the Pirns treated me. Mrs. Pirn told me the best 
 story, though, I've heard this many a day, and 
 all about Mrs. Yince. Ah ! it's no wonder she 
 tries to be civil to me, considering she owes 
 everything she has in the world to my own cousin. 
 It's a poor way she'd have been in this day if it 
 hadn't been for Eichard Yince."
 
 218 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 " I think Mr. Yiuce was very fortunate to meet 
 with so nice a wife." 
 
 "I'm not so sure of that; by w^hat I under- 
 stand, he might have had the pick of the North 
 of Ireland. It's wonderfully gratifying to hear 
 how much he is respected, and the heaps of 
 money he has got, and the grand people he knows ; 
 and you may be sure I didn't open my mouth 
 and tell Mrs. Pirn he wouldn't look to the side of 
 the street I was on if he could help it. I made 
 her think they were fairly crazy to get us to 
 Craigvallen, and that it was only our pride 
 wouldn't let us go there constantly." 
 
 For the second time Berna took up her work, 
 but, remembering her mother's objection, laid it 
 down again. 
 
 "What was I wanting to tell you? What 
 was I saying"? You've put it clean out of my 
 head. What in the world could it be ?" 
 
 " Something about Mrs. Vince." 
 
 " To be sure ; how could I forget ? You would 
 never guess the way she got to be mistress of 
 Craigvallen."
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 219 
 
 " No ; I cannot guess," said Berna. 
 
 " Yv^ell, it's just a proof of tlie things people 
 ■v\-ill do for money — and people that have held 
 their heads high enough too. AYhv, in the 
 county Antrim there wasn't a family thought 
 more of themselves than the Carpenters of 
 Cherryfield. There were not wanting those that 
 said the first of the name had risen from low 
 enough ; but every family must have a beginning, 
 as it mostly has an end, and the Carpenters were 
 grand people when I first remember them, I can 
 tell you that." 
 
 " One has only to hear Mrs. Yiuce speak to 
 be sure of that," agreed Berna. 
 
 " Sure of it"? Yes; you might be sure of it 
 if you'd never set eyes on Mrs. Yince. I'm not 
 in the habit of telling you anything but what's 
 sacred truth ; and, after living all my life in the 
 best of society, I wouldn't need an ignorant slip 
 of a girl like you to instruct me in speaking." 
 
 '' I never thought of doing anything of the 
 kind," said the " ignorant slip," appalled. 
 
 " See you don't, then. I never was one that
 
 220 
 
 BEENA BOYLE. 
 
 had mucli liking for being bidden, and I am not 
 going to begin now. Well, as I was remarking, 
 in all our part of the country the Carpenters were 
 allowed to be the grandest people out. There 
 was nothing they stood still for — carriages and 
 dress, and governesses and masters, and servants, 
 and I couldn't tell you what all. Many's the 
 time when I was a young child, about three years 
 old, I have seen Miss Marcella — that's Mrs. 
 Vince, you know — galloping past my father's 
 house on her pony with her sisters — they were 
 older than her, you understand. She used to 
 wear a blue habit, and a cap like a boy's ; and 
 you'd have heard them all laughing as they went 
 tearing across the commons like mad things. I 
 wonder if Eichard ever thinks now of how they 
 used to splash him as they rode by. I have 
 heard him swear against them awful, though you 
 would think, to look at him liow, a bad word had 
 never passed his lips." 
 
 "And how did they lose their money?" asked 
 Berna, who, while conversing with her mother, 
 was always searching about for six inches of safe
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 221 
 
 ground to stand upon, and always someliow slip- 
 ping into water. 
 
 ''How did tbey lose it? I declare you're 
 enough to drive anybody mad. If I've told you 
 once I've told you a hundred times the way Theo- 
 philus Carpenter squandered his substance. He 
 bet on races ; he would go to London and lose 
 as much over a game of cards in one night as 
 would have kept a moderate family for a year. 
 He had his hunters and his hacks, and the house 
 full of extravagant company, and wine such as 
 my father often said the King needn't have been 
 ashamed to set before his Lords, temporal and 
 spiritual ; and if ever anybody ought to have 
 known about spirits it was my father — he rarely 
 went to bed a night of his life sober." 
 
 Mrs. Boyle paused a moment in ecstatic con- 
 templation of her parent's virtues ere she re- 
 sumed : 
 
 " The extravagance of that house, he used to 
 say, might have made a bald man's hair stand on 
 end. And so things went on and on and on, till 
 at last there came a crash. It was one night
 
 222 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 when they were playing cards, a private note 
 came to Mr. Carpenter, and he asked some 
 gentleman to take his hand for him while he 
 sent an answer. Well, my dear, nobody in that 
 room ever set eyes on him again. What does he 
 do but start away without even a change of linen, 
 and get himself clean off to France. He never 
 came back. In a minute the whole of the glory 
 of Cherryfield was snuffed out, like the wick of a 
 candle. The bailiffs went into the house, and 
 the family left it. For a while Mrs. Carpenter 
 and her daughters lived among their friends, but 
 they soon tired them out. One girl was glad 
 enough to marry a poor curate she had turned up 
 her nose at when she could look at nothing 
 lower than marquises and baronets ; another was 
 taken out to India by some great lady they had 
 influence with ; a third died. I don't know what 
 was done for the sons, but they were drafted 
 off abroad; and so, to cut a long story short, at 
 last they all dwindled down to this Marcella, who 
 stopped with her mother on a trifle of money that 
 was scraped some way together out of the estate."
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 223 
 
 *' Well, mamma?" inquired Berna, really in- 
 terested in a story which possessed some family 
 features in common with her own. 
 
 ^'Well.' — w^hat do you mean by well? I 
 never heard anj'body like you. I daresay Mar- 
 cella thought it ill enough when the old lady 
 died, and she was left with little more than the 
 clothes she stood up in." 
 
 '' It was very hard," murmured Berna. 
 
 *'I make no doubt she thought so; but it 
 wasn't any harder for her than it has been since 
 for other people. Remembering her own troubles, 
 anybody might have concluded she'd have had 
 some feeling for mine. It seems she tried and 
 tried to get something to do. Mrs. Pirn did say 
 she heard she went as a nursery governess, but 
 she couldn't be just sure ; and she might have 
 gone out as nurse next if she had not bethought 
 her of my cousin Eichard. One fine morning 
 she knocks at his door and asks to see him. You 
 may be sure she had put on her best manners as 
 well as her best gown. He was at his breakfast, 
 and, not to seem high, he told the servant to
 
 224 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 show her in ; and as he coaldn't just forget, low 
 as she had come down, that he was talking to 
 Miss Carpenter, once upon a time of Cherrjfield, 
 he made her take a chair, and poured her out 
 some tea, and made as much of her as though 
 she was Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. At 
 last the mischief was revealed. She wanted a 
 situation as housekeeper : could he tell her of 
 any one needing such a thing, and would he re- 
 commend her? He thought a while, and said, 
 * Yes, if she wished, he would endeavour to for- . 
 ward her views; but,' he went on, 'I think you 
 might do better.' 
 
 'In what way?' she asked, as if she hadn't 
 a notion of his meaning. 
 
 * Why, come and keep house for me,' he 
 made answer. And then in so many words he 
 said, would she be his wife ? And the upshot of 
 the matter was that, three months after, they were 
 married, and all the country-side was at the wed- 
 ding ; and who so grand and affable as Mrs. Kich- 
 ard Vince, and who so proud as the foolish man 
 who had let himself be caught so neatly ?"
 
 BEPvXA BOYLE. 225 
 
 " I do not believe the story, mamma," declared 
 Berna indignantly. " Mrs. Pirn must be mis- 
 taken." 
 
 " Z believe it, then ; and that's enough. Things 
 are coming to something, I'm sure, when chil- 
 dren fly in the face of their parents, and settle 
 what's to be said and what's to be told. You wait 
 till Mrs. Vince comes out here next, and I'll give 
 her a sly hint I know all about how she got my 
 cousin. I know the way I'll do it." 
 
 " You never shall have the chance of doing 
 it," thought Berna; but she made no comment. 
 She only took up her work, this time with the 
 firm intention of getting on with that seam, 
 which, if left to Mrs. Boyle's idle fingers, would 
 never have been finished. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 " I THINK," said Mrs. Boyle, after a silence 
 broken only by the sound of Berna's busy needle 
 and her own sighs, " I might take a cup of tea 
 now, if it was hot and not too much milk in it." 
 
 Berna laid aside her work. *' I wdll tell 
 Buth," she eagerly proposed. " She is baking 
 soda-bread. Shall I butter you some ?" 
 
 *' If you do, mind you bring me in no more 
 than the breadth of my finger. I never can eat ; 
 I don't know what is to become of me, as I was 
 telling Mrs. Pirn no later back than one o'clock." 
 
 " You must try," answered her daughter ; and 
 she left the sitting-room and passed into the 
 kitchen, where Ruth was washing the flour off her 
 hands while the soda-bread was rising to a satis- 
 factory thickness as it baked upon the girdle 
 suspended from a crook over the fire. 
 
 "I want to make mamma some tea, Ruth ; 
 and have w^e got a new-laid egg ?"
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 227 
 
 " The eggs could not be fresher, Miss Berua; 
 and the mistress can't he off liking the cake. 
 I'll set the tray in a minute." 
 
 *' You need not take in a cup for me, nurse ; 
 I do not want any tea ;" and Berna leaned her 
 head against the chimney-piece and looked into 
 the glowing depths of a clear turf fire. 
 
 Ruth paused in her occupation to survey the 
 girl. She had nursed her ; she loved her. She 
 knew — who that lived in the same house could 
 help knowing? — the daily, hourly fret Mrs. 
 Boyle was to her. The old servant possessed 
 that subtle sympathy and quick tact which 
 is the birthright of the Irish, and, without 
 asking a question as to what had gone wrong, 
 remarked, 
 
 "If your head is bad. Miss Berna, why don't 
 you go for a turn in the meadow, instead of 
 standing in this hot kitchen ? I'll take in the 
 mistress's tea, and tell her where you are." 
 
 " Thank you, Ruth ; I will go into tha 
 meadow. I need not put on a bonnet. I shall 
 not meet any one out there."
 
 228 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 The meadow thus referred to — which belonged 
 to Mr. Muir, being a portion of Kilmoon Farm 
 — lay at the rear of Clear Stream Cottage, and 
 could be entered from the garden of that house 
 through a low rustic gate made of green^unbarked 
 fir. 
 
 Just as she was, without shawl or bonnet, in 
 her sad, black dress, adorned by nothing save 
 youth and beauty, Berna passed in the calm even- 
 ing light on to the grass, which had again been 
 cropped almost as close by the cattle as a couple of 
 months previously' by the mowers. There was 
 a delicious crispness in the air ; soft and peace- 
 ful the tender rural landscape lay spread before 
 her. What an exquisite world it was ! How fair 
 the heights of Gilnakirk in the near distance 
 looked, with the corn-stooks clustered thick upon 
 them ! It was a rich, happy country that met 
 her gaze — blessed by God, well cultivated by 
 man. For such as Berna, the face of Nature 
 wears a smile everywhere ; and as she walked the 
 girl's heart grew lighter, and hope whispered life 
 was not yet over, and that while life remains
 
 BERXA BOYLE. • 229 
 
 something of happiness may still be in store 
 or the saddest soul that ever carried its burden 
 of sorrow in silent anguish. 
 
 For a long time she paced slowly up and down 
 the field. She knew exactly what was passing 
 indoors. Mrs. Boyle sat taking her tea, and at 
 the same time discoursing to Ruth concerning the 
 splendour of Mr. Pirn's house, mingling her 
 descriptions with such questions and exclamations 
 as — '^Will 3'ou ever forget her old auut?"' and 
 *' I wonder what my father would say if he knew 
 the Pirns had grown too big to care to keep 
 company with Mrs. Boyle, of Boyle Court ?" 
 
 She would not be missed, and even if she 
 were, Ruth, dear old Ruth, the only person able 
 to manage her mother, could make things straight 
 for her. 
 
 For the time she felt free to let her mind 
 wander over the past and the future — over the 
 beautiful mournful past, and the future still 
 shrouded amid the vague romantic mists in 
 which for the young, Time cunningly enfolds 
 coming events. What did she see written, on
 
 230 BERXA BOYLE. 
 
 the clouds, dyed with the gorgeous tints left 
 behind by the departed sun ? Heaven only 
 knows, save that it was some tender poem — 
 some sweet unreality which caused her lips to 
 part, and her eyes to grow larger, and their 
 depths to deepen, and brought her lingering 
 footsteps to a standstill, because she would not 
 disturb the illusion with movement. 
 
 The glorious tints faded gently out of the sky. 
 Twilight stole softly on, the distant landscape 
 stole imperceptibly out of sight, a slight wind 
 stirred the trees in the hedgerow, yet Berna 
 stood motionless, till suddenly, with a little 
 cry of affrighted surprise, she sprang backward. 
 
 A great black horse, which in the dark looked 
 higher and bigger than was actually the case, 
 with a man on its back, who seemed scarcely 
 less startled than herself, had shied suddenly at 
 sight of the girl, and, though a hand of iron was 
 on the bridle, went on plunging violently. She 
 had not heard the sound of coming hoofs, and at 
 that hour, in that lonely place, in that mysterious 
 light, horse and rider loomed on her through
 
 BERN A BOYLE. 231 
 
 the semi-darkness with the effect of an appari- 
 tion. 
 
 "I have frightened 3'ou," said the man, at 
 last succeeding in quieting his horse, coming 
 close up to where she stood. 
 
 "Not much," answered the girl, though she 
 felt as if her heart were in her mouth. 
 
 " I am very sorr}", indeed," he proceeded, 
 trjdng to get a nearer glimpse of this extraordi- 
 nary young person who, hare-headed and all alone, 
 was wandering through the quiet fields at such an 
 hour. " I did not expect to meet any one here." 
 
 "Nor I," she murmured apologetically. 
 
 "It is late for you to he out. May I not see 
 you safe home ?" and he drew his feet out of the 
 stirrups as if with the intention of dismounting. 
 
 " 0, no, no, thank you !" exclaimed Berna. 
 "I have only a few steps to go. Good-even- 
 ing!" 
 
 He did not answer. He only took off his hat, 
 thrust his feet again into the stirrups, watched her 
 till she passed out of his sight, and then, wheel- 
 ing his horse round, rode back into the lane
 
 232 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 whence lie had come, and started at a sharp trot 
 for Ardilaw. 
 
 As Berna reentered the cottage she heard her 
 mother's voice still in full progress. Kuth stood 
 just within the parlour door, the tea-things had 
 not been removed, Mrs. Boyle's bonnet and cloak 
 lay on a chair, as she had thrown them off, and 
 Mrs. Boyle herself was giving nurse a vivid 
 description of Kichard Yince's interview with the 
 lady he now called wife. 
 
 At sight of Berna the widow's words froze on 
 her tongue. The ''sayshes" and "says shes " 
 of the familar long ago — when Euth used to come 
 in and help with the Vince sewing, and Ulick 
 Boyle and Boyle Court were still perfectly un- 
 known quantities — never flowed quite glibly off 
 Mrs. Boyle's lips when her daughter was of the 
 company. 
 
 But the widow was seldom what she called 
 "taken at a short," and, stopped in the midst of 
 her own exciting narration, it did not take her a 
 moment to change the front of battle, and, attack- 
 ing Berna, carry war into the enemy's country.
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 233 
 
 " Well, and perhaps you will tell us where you 
 have been," she began, " stopping out for hours, 
 and coming home in the clouds of darkness, look- 
 ing as if you were bewitched. Just see there, 
 Ruth, wouldn't anybody think she'd seen a ghost ? 
 What do you mean by those white cheeks and 
 great eyes — enough to frighten anybody?" 
 
 " I have a headache, mamma." 
 
 "And haven't I the headache often enough, 
 and the heartache too, for that matter? and yet 
 you never hear me complain. Here have I been 
 forcing myself to eat — eating and drinking when 
 I thought every mouthful would choke me — so 
 that I mightn't be laid up and put to the expense 
 of a doctor — though goodness only knows where 
 we'd get a doctor, in this back-of-the-world place; 
 while you, for all you've a hearty appetite, won't 
 take your meals regular, but just pick a bit at odd 
 times, when you think you will." 
 
 " Indeed, indeed — " Berna was beginning, when 
 Ruth interposed, 
 
 " You'll have a glass of milk and a piece of 
 hot cake, won't you. Miss Berna ? And there's a
 
 234 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 bright fire in the kitchen ; I was out looking at it 
 a minute ago. And if I were you, I would warm 
 myself and get to bed. There's nothing for a 
 headache like sleep." 
 
 "Ah! she'll never leave off her languid ways 
 while you're living, Ruth," said Mrs. Boyle. 
 "You encourage her in her laziness. Why, 
 when I was your age," she added, addressing 
 her daughter, "I'd have thought shame to go 
 to bed for a headache. I used to dance my 
 headaches ofi". If we could get nothing but 
 girls to make up a set, why, we took them for 
 partners ; and we'd sing the music in turns ; 
 and such screaming and laughing and diversion 
 as we had ! Well I mind my father, when he 
 was lying ill up-stairs, rapping on the floor 
 with a stick to know if Bedlam had broken loose. 
 Ah ! those were days — when I think of them I'm 
 sure I wonder, as I was saying to Mrs. Pirn only 
 to-day, bow I ever came to marry, to have all the 
 spirit crushed out of me, and to rear a daughter 
 more like a mute at a funeral than anything else." 
 
 " Don't heed the mistress. Miss Berna dear,"
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 235 
 
 entreated her nurse ; " your laughing days are all 
 to come." 
 
 " Indeed, and I hope I may live to see them," 
 said Mrs. Boyle. " It would be wonderful to hear 
 Berna laughing and making merry like any other 
 girl." 
 
 " She'll be merry enough 3-et," answered Ruth. 
 " Come, Miss Berna dear, and have a bit of hot 
 soda-bread, I've kept it warm beside the fire, and 
 go to your bed. The mistress is tired, too, though 
 she has such a spirit she won't own to it ; and the 
 sooner she lies down and rests herself the better." 
 
 Though Ruth's advice was as good as advice 
 could be. Miss Boyle merely followed it because 
 she wished to avoid discussion, and longed to be 
 alone. The glamour of that sky, brilliant with 
 the trail of glory left behind by the departed sun, 
 had not quite left her. The peace and beauty of 
 the quiet scene, which had filled her soul with 
 rapture, still lingered there in memory ; the 
 dream she had dreamed while gazing with wide- 
 open eyes on the tender softness of the evening 
 light was not for many days to seem wholly an
 
 236 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 illusion ; while the appearance of that horse and 
 rider in the mystical twilight, so soon to merge 
 into night, imported just the touch of romance 
 into the story so necessary to a nature like 
 Berna's, out of which her mother had nipped 
 every green shoot, every bud of promise, so soon 
 as it ventured to show even the semblance of a 
 leaf. 
 
 Poetry and imagination, both starved in actual 
 life, struck deeper and stronger roots for the 
 reason they could only seek for nourishment in 
 the girl's own heart. She had her friends, though 
 Mrs. Boyle knew none of them ; from out the 
 pages of the past they came and comforted her. 
 Knights and ladies, gentle maidens, noble 
 heroines, loyal men, human beings sorely 
 tempted, hard beset ; people who suffered 
 and triumphed, who rejoiced, and who, when 
 the worst came to the worst, knew how to 
 die. 
 
 Poor in this world's goods — a mere cipher in 
 the estimation of her fellows — God had given her 
 a kingdom better than houses, or gold, or land ;
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 237 
 
 boundary it knew none, save the limits of right 
 and honour ; in it women were all fair and vir- 
 tuous, and men great and noble and chivalrous ; 
 flowers never faded there, sorrow never entered. 
 It was in the mysterious land through which 
 poets wander at will and romancers dwell ; where 
 wrong is set right, and truth triumphs, and beauty 
 is cherished, and youth tenderly cared for, that 
 Berna Boyle so often sought refuge when her 
 mother wounded her pride, and lashed her temper, 
 and trampled everything which seemed to the 
 girl worth having, level with the dust. 
 
 She did not say a word to any one concerning 
 the apparition she had seen in Mr. Muir's 
 meadow. Close to herself she kept the memory 
 of that voice, soft with the tones of the melting 
 south. She could not bear the story to become a 
 topic of common conversation, to hear wonder 
 expressed on the subject, and a thousand con- 
 jectures hazarded as to who the stranger might 
 be. 
 
 From a ganger to an Earl — she knew her 
 mother was capable of running the gamut on such
 
 238 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 a theme ; and the stronger her own curiosity grew 
 the more determinedly she resolved to refrain from 
 endeavouring to gratify it. 
 
 And certainly as the days of that week went 
 by she had ample cause for curiosity. 
 
 Three, sometimes five, times between break- 
 fast and tea she saw that horse and rider pass 
 along the lane ; and the rider never once passed 
 without looking wistfully over the hedge in search 
 of something beside the autumn flowers and the 
 babbling stream that still went singing the same 
 song — only louder — it had with such laughing 
 delight flowed merrily to in the golden summer 
 time. 
 
 He was looking for her. Berna knew that as 
 well as though she had possessed the experience 
 of half-a-dozen London seasons. It was a know- 
 ledge which kept her out of the garden, and caused 
 her to refrain from those long walks in which, 
 when her mother was too tired to go out, she had 
 been in the habit of indulging, but it did not 
 prevent her from stealing unobserved glances at 
 the handsome, audacious stranger, or marvelling
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 239 
 
 who be could be, and witb whom be was staying 
 in tbe neigbbourbood. 
 
 At last ber resolve gave way, and on tbe 
 Saturday evening following tbeir meeting, wbile 
 Mrs. Boyle was indulging in one of tbose naps 
 sbe " dropped off" into " merely to save lighting 
 a candle," Berna looking into tbe peat fire, over 
 wbicb bung tbe eternal girdle witb a batch of 
 potato cake " soaking," as Euth expressed tbe 
 process of gradual baking necessary to insure tbe 
 bread being perfectly " done," asked, 
 
 " Have you seen a strange gentleman, riding 
 a black horse, nurse, pass here several times 
 lately r 
 
 Nurse paused in her operations for a moment 
 before she answered, 
 
 " I can't say that I have. Miss Berna. What 
 like was be ?" 
 
 *'Yerydark, good-looking; handsome, indeed. 
 He wears no whiskers, only a moustache, has 
 brown eyes, and rides splendidly ."" 
 
 '' !" said Euth grimly. " Has the horse 
 no hair of white about it except a small star on
 
 240 BEENA BOYLE. 
 
 its forehead, and lias it got a headband worked 
 with beads instead of leather ?" 
 
 "Yes, that is the horse; do you know who 
 the gentleman is ?" 
 
 "He is not a gentleman — ^he is no one for 
 you to be taking notice of or thinking about." 
 
 " I have not been taking notice of him,'* 
 replied the girl, indignantly refuting the first 
 accusation, but maintaining a wise silence with 
 regard to the second. " Still, I certainly should 
 like to know where he comes from." 
 
 " He does not come from very far," was the 
 answer ; " and it's like his impudence staring 
 over this place as Tve seen him do." 
 
 "Why, who in the world is he, nurse ?" 
 
 " He's just Mr. Muir's son — who else would 
 jje be ? — and a worse man than his father, so 
 the story goes. They say he was sent home in 
 disgrace by the uncle that reared him. That's 
 neither here nor there, though. Whatever he is, 
 and whatever he has done, you must not be 
 troubling your head about him. There's not a 
 Boyle belonging to you but would turn in their
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 241 
 
 graves if they tliouglit you could take up with 
 such as him. If he comes prowling about here 
 much longer, please or displease, I'll give him a 
 piece of my mind he won't like." 
 
 " Not on my account, nurse," said Berna, 
 with an uplifting of her head nurse had been well 
 acquainted with since she was a mere child ; "I 
 would not have my name brought into such a 
 matter for the world." 
 
 " That's right, dear. It's not right for the 
 like of you to waste a thought on the like of 
 him." 
 
 " I was only curious, nurse ; and I am curious 
 no longer." 
 
 Nevertheless, Berna sighed as she walked out 
 into the darkness and stood for a minute beside 
 the stream. 
 
 After all, it is hard to have an illusion shat- 
 tered ; and it seemed a great humiliation to 
 Ulick Boyle's daughter to see her dream knight 
 vanish away and take the shape of Mr. Muir's 
 son. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 All told, the congregation in Dun don aid Church, 
 even on those gala days and high festivals when 
 the parish put its best foot foremost to do honour 
 to Easter and Christmas, or to welcome the few 
 notable divines who on rare occasions lost their 
 way thither, never amounted to more than fifty 
 souls. From that number it dwindled, according 
 to the state of the weatjier and the physical and 
 religious condition of the public, down to, say, 
 half-a-dozen. There were always the Rector, a 
 good easy-going old clergyman, whom it certainly 
 could not, as Miss Muir truly said, do anybody 
 any harm to go and listen to ; the clerk, who 
 struck the note with a pitch-key always too high, 
 who always sang wrong, and who thought he 
 knew a great deal more than Mr. Crommles ; the 
 sexton, who stoked a huge stove set in the middle
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 243 
 
 of the church, who inducted the parishioners into 
 their pews, tolled the bell at intervals in the 
 porch, where he exchanged cordial greetings with 
 his friends, and who was sure he knew more than 
 Mr. Crommles and the clerk put together ; the 
 Rector's churchwarden, who wanted to see fair 
 play about the few halfpence collected every Sun- 
 day, which halfpence were divided, after service, 
 between two old women representing the poor of 
 the parish ; and a certain magistrate, who always 
 attended divine worship, ''hail or shine." The 
 church, as has been previously mentioned, was 
 "set on a hill." It could not be considered old 
 in 1850, having replaced one that had been burned 
 down a few years previously, which fact was not 
 certainly to be regarded as a miracle ; the only 
 miracle seemed that it failed to burn every Sun- 
 day during the winter months. The pews around 
 the stove were usually as scorchingly hot as pews 
 can ever be without flaring into flame. It was a 
 deliciously warm church. Even Dissenters, driven 
 to the top of the hill either by choice or necessity, 
 felt there was a good deal of comfort about The
 
 244 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 Establishment, as they called that form of wor- 
 ship watched over by Victoria by the Grace of 
 God ; and were certainly of opinion, as they walked 
 demurely home, that if they got no rousing doc- 
 trine, they had received the benefit of a capital 
 fire. There was a tower to the church, and in 
 the graveyard a monument which looked higher 
 than the tower, whether it was or not. With 
 bated breath the inhabitants used to tell the story 
 of that monument, and how it cost a matter of 
 over three hundred pounds ! 
 
 Dear, simple, primitive village : could there 
 ever on earth have been a more delightful place 
 for one, world-tired and weary, to pause for a mo- 
 ment and take breath ? 
 
 On the ascent of the funny little hill, not so 
 high as the church, as befitted its degree, or so 
 low as the village, likewise the correct position, 
 stood the Meeting-House, approved of by the 
 inhabitants, and supported by that Act passed by 
 William of Orange, as a matter of gratitude to 
 the Presbyterians of the Black North. It was 
 that pious individual's Regium Donum which kept
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 245 
 
 the minister to a certain degree independent of 
 his hard-mouthed congregation, and enabled him 
 to maintain a decent roof over his head. Not 
 that there was any lack of a congregation there. 
 The Meeting-House swept in the bone and sinew 
 of the country-side. When nineteen- twentieths 
 of a population are Presbyterians and the odd 
 twentieth consists of Dissenters of other denomi- 
 nations — Eoman Catholics and outside sinners 
 who loaf about and go nowhere — it is clear that 
 the " Church minister " cannot expect a large 
 audience. 
 
 Mr. Crommles had no expectations of the sort. 
 If he had he would have been disappointed. As 
 he was a person who loved his ease, perhaps the 
 last thing he desired was an overflowing congre- 
 gation, involving visiting. He was what the 
 Dissenters called a "moderate sort of man," 
 holding no strong opinions except on the vexed 
 subject of tithes, fond of digging his own glebe- 
 land, and as ready to exchange cordial good- 
 mornings with the rankest Dissenter as the 
 staunchest upholder of Church and State — with
 
 246 BERXA BOYLE. 
 
 the wife of a labourer as "The Marchioness" 
 when the blessing and privilege of greeting 
 that lady came in his ^^y. 
 
 Such as the Church was, and such as the Rector 
 was, however, Berna Boyle loved both.. Though 
 Kilmoon Farm contributed its modest quota to 
 the clergyman's income, the lapse of long years 
 had wiped the Kilmoon pew off the wardens' 
 books ; and it was only " out of compliment," 
 so Mrs. Boyle declared, a fitting position was 
 allotted to her close to the grandees of the 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 "We are next but one to the square pews," 
 she said. " I suppose the old man wasn't able 
 to do any better for us !" 
 
 Whatever else she left undone, the widow 
 attended church regularly. In her heart she 
 felt she should have preferred going to Meeting, 
 on account of the larger congregation and also 
 because of the less stiffness and greater friend- 
 liness which there obtained; but in this imper- 
 fect w^orld people cannot combine every advantage, 
 and Mrs. Boyle, wishing to be '"genteel," was
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 247 
 
 forced to forego the delights attaching to Dis- 
 sent. 
 
 The widow helieved that in her deep mourning, 
 with her small, sharp, washed-out face, she was the 
 observed of all observers ; and when she clasped 
 her praj^er-book, where the metrical version of the 
 Psalms held its honoured place, she felt as a cele- 
 brated singer may do when closing her music and 
 bowing grateful acknowledgments to an apprecia- 
 tive audience. As a rule, there was not much 
 variety to be met with in the little church. 
 Strangers came that way seldom, and when they 
 did chance to come, rarely stopped long in the 
 neighbourhood ; so it w^as certainly with no ex- 
 l)ectation of novelty or of '' seeing any living 
 creature worth seeing " that Mrs. Boyle carefully 
 pinned her crape bows on the Sunday morning 
 following her visit to Mrs. Pirn. 
 
 "I am sick and tired of the place," she said to 
 her daughter as they walked through the village in 
 a silence only broken by the clang-clang of the 
 church bell. "As Matilda Sheill says, it's not 
 the sort of thing I ever expected to have to come
 
 248 BELNA BOtLE. 
 
 down to. If I wasn't the most cheerful and con- 
 tented woman in the wo: Id I'd have drowned 
 myself long ago." 
 
 "We might be much worse off," ventured 
 Berna. 
 
 "I don't very w^ell see how; not unless we 
 were on the parish, and had to break stones on 
 the road. And such a church ! Never even a 
 new bonnet to be seen in it. That's Mr. Garnsey 
 just turning up the Church Road. I wonder how 
 it is the daughter's not with him to-day. She 
 seldom misses showing herself, though, goodness 
 knows, she's not much of a show. Come on,- 
 Berna, we'll be late. Ah ! just what I thought, 
 there's the last tinkle of the bell." 
 
 They were not very late, however. Mr. 
 Crommles was only walking across to the 
 reading-desk as mother and daughter entered 
 the church, and they were devoutly kneeling 
 when he began " When the wicked man " — a 
 statement the worthy clergyman always uncon- 
 sciously emphasised by looking hard at Mr. 
 Garnsey, who, if popular rumour could be re-
 
 BERN A BOYLE. 249 
 
 lied ou as correct, had still very little chance of 
 "saving his soul alive." 
 
 It was while the Rector was reading the Ex- 
 hortation that a young man entered the church 
 and stood waiting, with a not ungraceful shyness, 
 in expectation of being shown to a seat. There 
 were but two aisles in the church, and all the 
 pews were situated between them. The young 
 man, either by choice or design, elected to w^ait 
 in that isle farthest from w^here Mrs. Boyle w^as 
 standing, the admired of all admirers. Just for 
 a moment the sexton failed to see the new-comer, 
 then he hurried towards him, and was about 
 placing this unexpected worshipper quite at the 
 rear of the building, when suddenly Mr. Garn- 
 sey's pew-door flew open, and that gentleman 
 made a sign for the fresh arrival to come up 
 higher. 
 
 It might all be strictly Biblical; the sexton 
 had nothing to say against that when discussing 
 matters afterwards, but he felt greatly exercised 
 in his mind nevertheless. 
 
 '' Lyle Garnsey,'' he remarked in The Stag;
 
 250 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 for those to hear who pleased, ''has no doubt 
 a right to ask any man he likes to sit down with 
 him at his own table, but I deny he has any right 
 to throw our church all into confusion by inter- 
 fering with my province, and beckoning the son 
 of Hewson Muir to sit among the first in the 
 county. Young Gorman had no call to come to 
 church, anyway. Why couldn't he have stopped 
 below and listened to what was going on in the 
 Meeting ? Set him up, indeed, putting his silver 
 shilling in the box like any gentleman." 
 
 Which was all hard on Mr. Gorman Muir, 
 w^ho certainly had not put himself forward, and 
 who looked much more like a gentleman than 
 even Lyle Garnsey himself. All through the 
 service he listened with apparently devout atten- 
 tion to every word which fell from Mr. Crommles' 
 lips. He had a rich mellow voice, and joined in 
 the music, greatly to the disgust of the clerk, who 
 tried to drown his tones. Without thought of 
 ostentation, he dropped his " silver shilling " into 
 the poor-box, and when the sermon began, crossed 
 his arms and turned a rapt gaze upon the Kector,
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 251 
 
 who preached a sermon v,-hich had done loyal duty 
 on many a previous occasion. 
 
 No man could outwardly have behaved better 
 than Mr. Muir junior, and it was not his fault 
 if the attention of all in the church was diverted 
 by his presence from the original purpose which 
 had brought them out. 
 
 As for Berna, she kept her eyes fixed on her 
 prayer-book, on Mr. Crommles, on the clerk, on 
 the trees clad in their glorious autumn foliage 
 which she could see through the window close 
 at hand, on anything rather than the man in 
 Mr. Garnsey's pew, who had frightened her 
 •much less when he loomed through the dark- 
 ness of that remembered night than now, when, 
 in the face of day, he came to the last place she 
 ever expected to see him. 
 
 As she and her mother walked homeward she 
 did not say one word. Almost in an agony she 
 waited to hear what comment would be made 
 upon his appearance in church. 
 
 They were opposite the police barrack be- 
 fore Mrs. Boyle spoke ; then, turning to Berna
 
 252 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 with a pleased and conscious simper, she 
 asked, 
 
 "You don't see any spot or anything on my 
 face, dear, do you ?" 
 
 ''No," answered the girl, ''not any." 
 
 " And is my bonnet on right ?" 
 
 " Quite right." 
 
 " Then ichat that strange gentleman found to 
 stare at is a mystery to me /"
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 All the way to Clear Stream Cottage — and the 
 way was long — Mrs. Boyle's discourse ran a tur- 
 bulent and excited stream on the stranger who 
 had appeared in church. Her talk consisted of a 
 series of ejaculations and questions. " It was 
 many a long day " since she had seen so hand- 
 some a man — his eyes seemed to " pierce her 
 through." " Did you ever behold their equal ?" 
 she asked her daughter. 
 
 " I did not look at him, mamma," answered 
 Berna. 
 
 " Well, I'm not finding any fault with you for 
 that," said Mrs. Boyle. " It's as well even for 
 so young a girl as you are to keep her eyes to 
 herself. Still, it's a pity you did not just take 
 a glance. I wonder who he can be ? Some 
 grandee, I shouldn't be a bit surprised ! I never 
 did see anything like the way that Mr. Garnsey
 
 254 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 puts himself forward — tlirowiiig wide the door 
 just as if the whole church belonged to him." 
 
 " His pew does, I suppose," ventured the 
 girl. 
 
 " I don't think it. Beechfield can't be in the 
 ■ parish ; and it's a burning shame he should have 
 a square seat, and better people than he ever 
 came of forced to put up with the box we are shut 
 into. Ah, one of these days I'll have a few words 
 to say to Mr. Garnsey he won't like ; and I'll not 
 forget to mention that square pew when I am 
 about it !" 
 
 " Why, how has Mr. Garnsey offended you, 
 mamma ?" asked Berna. 
 
 " By his ungentlemanliness, if you must 
 know. He nearly rode over me a while ago, and 
 when I spoke to him about it he asked me why I 
 did not keep out of the road ; as if the road wasn't 
 as much mine as his." 
 
 Berna did not answer ; she must indeed have 
 been dense had she failed ere that moment to 
 understand most of her mother's little tricks. 
 
 **I never saw more shapely hands on a man,"
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 255 
 
 said Mrs. Boyle, recurring to the hero question. 
 " Mr. Garnsey's looked coarse Reside them. I'll 
 warrant those hands have never done any hard 
 work; and 0, the beautiful diamond ring he 
 wore on his little finger, flashing and glittering 
 till it fairly dazzled me. I wish I knew who he 
 was. I am afraid old Mr. Crommles will be no 
 wiser than myself!" 
 
 Like the single line of epitaph which could be 
 read a hundred and forty-four different ways, Mrs. 
 Boyle contrived out of one man's appearance to 
 ring the changes for two Irish miles, and when 
 she reached home the subject seemed as far from 
 being exhausted as ever. 
 
 " Have you heard about the handsome stranger 
 we had to-day in church, Kuth ?" she asked, when 
 that elderly handmaiden came in to lay the 
 cloth. " He was a proper sort of man. Did you 
 tell nurse about the way he stared me out of 
 countenance, Berna ?" 
 
 "No, mamma," murmured the girl; and 
 one swift glance at her downcast face told Ruth 
 who the stranger was.
 
 256 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 "Anybody might tliink," said Mrs. Boyle, 
 addressing her daughter, '' we were seeing stran- 
 gers every day, for all you seem to think or care 
 about them. I declare I did not know which way 
 to look. His eyes seemed to be in every place at 
 once. I couldn't lift mine without meeting his 
 full. I wonder he wasn't ashamed of himself, 
 and in church, too. As I was telling this girl 
 coming along, it's not often we see anything 
 like him. Mr. Garnsey, of course, put himself 
 forward, setting the pew-door wide, as if there 
 wasn't another seat — quite empty seats where 
 he'd have been far more at home than w^here he 
 was. I do wish you could have seen him, Ruth — 
 coal-black hair, not curly, but with just a wave in 
 it ; bright dark eyes ; a skin like a gipsy's, only 
 clearer; and a ring you wouldn't match in any 
 jeweller's in Belfast. I don't know that I ever 
 saw his equal ; and there are fine men, and plenty, 
 to be met any afternoon in Sackville Street. I 
 wonder who in all the wide world he can be. 
 I would like well to know where he comes 
 from."
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 257 
 
 " Should you, mem ? I think I could tell 
 you," said Kuth. 
 
 " That's a good joke ; and you never set eyes 
 on him in your life." 
 
 "I'm not so sure of that, mem. By your 
 description of him, if he's not Mr. Muir's son, he 
 might be that son's twin brother ; and a pretty 
 sort of character he is, if we're to believe all the 
 tales that are told about him." 
 
 " But he can't be Mr. Muir's son !" ex- 
 claimed Mrs. Boyle. " Berna, you know he 
 can't." 
 
 " How should I know, mamma ?" 
 
 " You're quite right. Miss Berna," said Kuth ; 
 " how should you know anything about Mr. 
 Muir's son ? It's not very likely. For all his 
 good looks, I'm told he's as wild a lot as ever 
 went headlong to destruction. His old uncle took 
 and reared him, and gave him the best of training 
 and of schooling — paid his expenses at the col- 
 lege in Dublin, and meant to start him as a 
 gentleman ; but he couldn't do it. The bad 
 blood came out, and he was forced to turn him 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 out of doors for his ill-behaTiour. And now lie's 
 no better than a common jockey, going about to 
 fairs and markets, and consorting with all sorts 
 of characters but respectable. Mr. Garnsey ought 
 to think shame of himself, having the young man 
 at Beechfield. To be sure, Mr. Garnsey's not 
 much to boast of in the way of respectability; 
 but he should think of his motherless daughter. 
 People are laughing already, and saying Gorman 
 Muir has as keen an eye for money as ever his 
 father had." 
 
 Having finished which criminating sentence, 
 Ruth placed the spoons and knives and forks on 
 the table wdth great energy, and retired from the 
 field, where Mrs. Boyle remained for a -moment 
 stricken dumb. 
 
 " Did you ever hear, Miss Berna," asked 
 Ruth that night, as she was brushing the girl's 
 long hair with tenderly caressing hand, '' how 
 Mr. Muir fell in with his first wife, and money 
 to start him in this farm ? And he has got on 
 past the common ; for when he came first to these 
 parts he never thought to live at Ardilaw."
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 259 
 
 No. Berna had not heard anything about Mr. 
 Muir's antecedents. 
 
 " Well, it seems that there was up in the 
 county Donegal a young lady, motherless, like 
 Miss Garnsey, but more lonely still, because her 
 father was married for the second time, and spent 
 all his time in England with his grand wife and 
 the sons she bore him." 
 
 " Yes, nurse ; and the young lady — " 
 
 " She couldn't have been much account," went 
 on Kuth, '' or she never could have so far forgot 
 herself as to talk like an equal to one such as 
 Hewson Muir, the son of her father's bailiff. Don't 
 you think that yourself. Miss Berna ?" 
 
 " Indeed I do," answered the girl. Her face 
 was half hidden by a veil of hair ; but in the 
 glass Ruth could see it flush crimson as she 
 spoke. 
 
 " Well," resumed the woman, " by what I can 
 understand, this went on for a long time, till at 
 last he persuaded her to marry him, making sure 
 she would have her mother's fortune. Instead of 
 that, not a penny of it came to her, and you may
 
 260 BERNA BOTLE. 
 
 be sure that was a fine disappointment to young 
 Muir." 
 
 *' You mean Mr. Muir, our landlord — " 
 
 '' Of course I do ; lie was young once ; he was 
 far younger than his son is now when he got so 
 far over the poor girl as to induce her to do such 
 a thing as marry him — the wicked wretch that he 
 was. However, the secret was kept for a while ; 
 but it leaked out in time, and Mr. Gorman — that 
 was the father's name — came over from London 
 and turned his daughter out of doors, and wouldn't 
 forgive her, though she begged and prayed him 
 to do so on her bended knees." 
 
 " Ah !" exclaimed Berna, with a little gasp. 
 
 "I don't say it was right," said Ruth; "for, 
 after all, no matter how far wrong she had gone, 
 she was still his own flesh and blood ; but still it 
 must have been hard for one like Mr. Gorman to 
 find his child had so demeaned herself. Anyway, 
 he wouldn't forgive her, and Muir found himself 
 married, and his father discharged from his situa- 
 tion, and little between them all and beggary." 
 
 '' What did he do ?" asked Ruth's auditor.
 
 BEKNA BOYLE. 
 
 261 
 
 " He took a cottage in the neighbourhood and 
 laid himself out to annoy his father-in-law. You 
 may be sure the Gormans didn't like the notion 
 of having Mr. Muir settling down at their very 
 gates. So the family lawyer was taken into 
 counsel ; and they proposed among them that if 
 the pair would go away to Australia they should 
 have something to begin the world out there on." 
 
 " How was it they did not go ?" 
 
 "He agreed to go. The lawj'er paid the 
 passage-money, and never gave Muir the amount 
 they promised till he was on board the vessel. 
 Then he managed somehow to give them the slip, 
 and the first thing they heard from him was that 
 he had taken this farm, that his wife had a son, 
 and that she was d^dng. She couldn't stand the 
 life, poor thing ! She had been delicately nur- 
 tured — never knew what it was to put her hand 
 to anything, or do a turn for herself. Then 
 his father and mother lived with them : and 
 it must have been cruel work for one reared 
 as she was. They say she died of a broken 
 heart. She made one appeal to Mr. Gorman for
 
 2G2 BERXA BOYLE. 
 
 the boy ; but he'd have nothing to do with him 
 or her. She just d^Yined away and died. The 
 person that told me said she wasn't heavier nor a 
 child when they lifted her into her coffin. Her 
 mother's brother, Mr. Trevasson, shamed Mr- 
 Gorman into having her buried amon^ her own 
 people ; but I don't know that did her much 
 good. He had just come home from abroad, and 
 he took the boy and brought him up like his own 
 son, and they say he'd have done well by him, and 
 left him money at his death, only the cloven foot 
 peeped out. This young man's worse nor his father 
 ever was, I understand — a wild reckless devil — 
 God forgive me for calling one of His creatures 
 such a name ; and 0, Miss Berna, my dear, have 
 a care, and remember you've no father living to 
 look after you, and the mistress, in a manner of 
 speaking, wants to be looked after herself; and 
 though it's no use crying over spilt milk, why did 
 you ever refuse the old lady's offer to go and live 
 with her in honour and comfort ? I can't bear to 
 think of all you threw away, and just for nothing. 
 You see yourself the mistress could content
 
 BERXA BOYLE. 263 
 
 herself better among those she was used to 
 once than if she had a choice of the first in the 
 land." 
 
 Berna did not answer for a moment. Slowly 
 and thoughtfully she drew a strand of her hair 
 through her fingers, before she said, 
 
 ''If it had to be done over again, nurse, I 
 should still say I would never leave mamma." 
 
 " Well, dear, it's a pity, that's all. You'll 
 have to be wonderful wise to keep yourself to 
 yourself, if you don't want to get into trouble. It 
 is a wicked world, and besides — " 
 
 " Are you going to talk all night ?" asked Mrs. 
 Bojde, entering the room ; " and do put up your 
 hair, Berna. Anybody would think it was some- 
 thing wonderful, to see how fond you are of sitting 
 with it all streaming down your back." 
 
 " Nurse was telling me about Mr. Muir's first 
 wife, mamma," said Berna, gathering her ob- 
 noxious tresses together and coiling them round 
 her head. 
 
 " Nurse might find something better to do 
 thau stand repeating idle gossip — on a Sunday,
 
 264 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 too," retorted Mrs. Boyle, with a good deal of 
 acrimony. "For my part, there is nothing in 
 the world I think so ill of as evil speaking and 
 backbiting. It would be a great deal more fitting 
 for nurse to sit down and read her Bible than to 
 stand there encouraging you in vanity, and telling 
 stories that likely have not a word of truth in 
 them." 
 
 "It is gospel truth, mem, that a lady married 
 Mr. Muir, and never rued doing so but once," 
 replied nurse stoutly. 
 
 " We should but speak about people as we find 
 them," persisted Mrs. Boyle; "and I can only 
 say I consider Mr. Muir a most obliging and 
 agreeable person." 
 
 "Well, mem," said Kuth, with the familiar 
 freedom of an old servant, " each one to her taste. 
 I only know Mr. Muir wouldn't be mine."
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The equinoctial gales had swept over Ardilaw; 
 all the flowers, fuchsias, marigolds, dahlias, and 
 hollyhocks, which during the autumn made even 
 Mr. Muir's neglected garden one mass of colour 
 and beauty, were lying sodden and dead, awaiting 
 the great ''redding up," which only took place 
 when nothing else about the farm required atten- 
 tion. Brown and yellow leaves littered the lawn 
 and the meadows lying beside the stream. On 
 the apple-trees there still remained a few russets 
 Miss Muir was letting "hang" while the dried-up 
 stalks would bear their weight. The hay and 
 corn had long been carted into the yard and built 
 into great stacks, where already a colony of mice 
 and rats were snugly ensconced in winter quar- 
 ters. The potatoes were all stored in the spa- 
 cious outhouses, not "clamped," as is the English 
 custom. Not a thing was in the fields, save man-
 
 266 BERXA BOYLE. 
 
 golds and swedes. A pause had ensued in country 
 life ; and under the gleams of a water}' sun in 
 late Octoher the rural landscape looked strangely 
 still and lonely. 
 
 Even at Beechfield, not a scrap of mignonette 
 or bit of heliotrope remained to greet the passer- 
 by with a whiff of the departed summer. In the 
 greenhouses there was little to be seen but chry- 
 santhemums. Nature seemed taking a rest be- 
 fore covering her head and disappearing from 
 sight under the snows of December and the frosts 
 which so bless the earth when they come early in 
 the year. 
 
 One fine morning, not three months after that 
 day when he came across the hay field, leading 
 his horse by the bridle, Gorman Muir and his 
 father walked slowdy up the hill leading to Craig- 
 antlet. They had paced the length of the back 
 avenue at Ardilaw, and wandered out into the 
 Bangor Eoad more for the convenience of uninter- 
 rupted conversation than with any idea of exer- 
 cise. 
 
 Very early the younger man had, according to
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 267 
 
 his wont, gone doAvn to the post-office for his let- 
 ters, and it so chanced that he brought one back 
 with him which Mr. Muir imagined might change 
 all his plans. 
 
 It was from Mr. Trevasson's solicitors, en- 
 closing the long-deferred order for one thousand 
 pounds. Gorman had expected this order for 
 such a period that he at length relinquished all 
 hope of getting it; then, in a moment, as so often 
 happens, when the matter was well-nigh forgotten, 
 fortune came to him in the guise of a lawyer's 
 letter. Since its arrival he had been very quiet 
 and thoughtful, and Mr. Muir fe]t he could know 
 no rest till he heard what his son meant to do. 
 
 " Now you've got the money," he said, "I 
 suppose you'll be for leaving us." 
 
 Gorman looked at him, and hesitated a mo- 
 ment before he answered, 
 
 " I'm not so sure of that !" 
 
 " Why, I've heard you say a score times, if 
 you'd the means, you would start for the wild 
 West within a week." 
 
 "Yes; but you see I had not the money then.
 
 268 
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 Now that I haye got it, I shall think twice before 
 I leave Ireland." 
 
 " What ! Do yon mean you'll stop on here V 
 *'Is there any reason why I should not?" 
 ''No; no reason at all in the world; only I 
 thought you were not just content." 
 
 " I was not; hut I am growing more and more 
 content every day. Money, as you have often 
 told me, makes more ; and I fail to see why, with 
 this thousand pounds, I should not do a great 
 deal of good for myself." 
 
 " That you might, man — that you might. And 
 so 3'ou really have made up your mind to stick to 
 the old county of Down, instead of rushing off to 
 a country where you know nobody, and where, as 
 far as I can tell, nobod}^ particularly wants 
 you ?" 
 
 '' That is precisely my intention," said his 
 son; ''if the county of Down will stick to me, I 
 will stick to the county of Down. I have come 
 round to your opinion that there is gold to be 
 dug out of the earth here, without crossing the 
 ocean to find a mine in America."
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 269 
 
 "I am sure and certain that there is,' an- 
 swered Mr. Muir. 
 
 "And I want to make a lot of money." 
 
 ''And some day, perhaps, you'll be thinking 
 of marrying ?" 
 
 ''Someday. Yes; no doubt ; but not till I 
 grow a good deal richer than I am." 
 
 " Maybe if you make up to the right woman 
 you mightn't require to be so rich, after all." 
 
 " I should never like to be dependent on my 
 wife." 
 
 " Well, I don't say that might be exactly 
 necessary either," said Mr. Muir, laughing in his 
 sleeve at the thought of how matters were taking 
 the course he desired. "It is early days to be 
 considering that part of the business, and I'm 
 heart glad to find you've no thought of leaving 
 us all. I was afraid when that letter came you'd 
 be for packing and starting off at once." 
 
 " No," replied Gorman. " I will not go — yet, 
 at any rate." 
 
 "I hope you'll never go at all — I'd miss you 
 now as I never thought to miss anybody " — and
 
 270 BEHXA BOYLE. 
 
 there ensued a moment's silence ; while Mr. Muir 
 turned his head in the direction of Scrabo to 
 conceal an emotion of which, perhaps, he felt 
 ashamed, and Gorman looked steadily up the hill, 
 feeling also ashamed of himself, though from a 
 perfectly different reason. 
 
 It was Gorman who spoke first. 
 
 " Then I may remain at Ardilaw ?" he said. 
 
 "Where else would you stay but in your 
 father's house till you've a house of your own ?" 
 retorted Mr. Muir. 
 
 "If I stop, as I shall stop, since you are so 
 kind, I do not think it would be right — " 
 
 " Speak out ! What's on your mind ? What 
 is it you think would not be right ?" 
 
 " Now that I have money and am in the way 
 of making money to remain a burden on you." 
 
 " What sort of a burden ?" 
 
 " Well, my keep must cost something. I do 
 not profess to be able to live on air — and — " 
 
 " You want to pay me for your board, I 
 suppose. Now let one word serve : put that 
 notion out of vour head. Child of mine shall
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 271 
 
 never giye me money for his bite and sup. When 
 I can't iifford to bid those welcome I brought into 
 the world, I hope I'll be nearly out of it. Besides, 
 about a house like this, what do you think the 
 keep of one "more can signify? It's not like as 
 if we'd to go to market for the things we need ; 
 and we make no stranger of you. Just what 
 we're used to ourselves we set before you, so never 
 speak a sentence of that sort again. When you 
 are any charge to me I have the use of my tongue, 
 and can tell you, don't be a bit afraid." 
 
 ''Thank you! I'm sure you are very 
 generous." 
 
 " Generous ! Nobody ever accused me before 
 of being that, and I am very sure nobody will 
 again. I'd be sorry, though, to act like old Mrs. 
 Monro, who, after asking her son and her son's 
 wife and the child and its nurse on a visit, 
 quarrelled wdth them, and brought in a bill for 
 six weeks' board and lodging. Faith ! and she 
 got it, too, for she processed them at the court." 
 
 "Well, if ever 3'ou repent, you won't have 
 to process me, for I will pay without a murmur,"
 
 272 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 laughed Gorman ; "but there is something I want 
 you to give me leave to have and pay the ex- 
 pense of." 
 
 "And that is?" 
 
 " I should like a corner to myself, where you 
 and I could talk over any matter we wanted to 
 discuss without the chance of being interrupted 
 Now if I might furnish that room opposite to 
 where we sit, and call it my own while I stop at 
 Ardilaw, I should be very glad indeed." 
 
 Instantly that deep dull red which always gave 
 the idea he must have received some heavy sudden 
 blow overspread Mr. Muir's face, and though he 
 struggled to answer calmly he could not command 
 his voice, and was forced to keep silence. 
 
 " I am sorry," exclaimed his son. "I would 
 not have said a word had I thought it could vex 
 you. It was thoughtless of me. I will never 
 mention a thing of the sort again." 
 
 " Wait a minute ; don't be in such a hurry," 
 entreated Mr. Muir with a mighty effort, tem- 
 porarily strangling the demon of pride that had 
 been choking him. " Between father and son
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 273 
 
 there ought to be no huff taken when no offence 
 was meant. You did put me out for a bit, I'll 
 not deny ; but that's all over now. You're quite 
 right ; the house is not what you've been used 
 to. I felt how it would be before you came here; 
 but I never thought you would find as little fault 
 as you have done. In the first blush of it, though, 
 if you consider, no man likes to be told his house, 
 or his horse, or his furniture, or his manners 
 might be mended; and I suppose I'm just as 
 great a fool as my neighbours in that particular. 
 But mind, Gorman, I'm not such a fool as to 
 expect what conteuted me to content you ; and 
 there was a time once when I'd have liked well to 
 gather handsome things about me, and hold my 
 head higher it may be than I'd any right to hold 
 it ; but I was forced to give up that notion, as 
 many another has had to forego his notion. 
 When I first took possession of Kilmoon Farm, 
 after paying for the tenant-right and a few odd 
 things about the premises — all the best had been 
 auctioned off — I found myself with a trifle over 
 two hundred and eighty pounds to get cattle and 
 TOL. I. T
 
 274 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 implements and necessary furniture. You know 
 it is reckoned the least any man can stock a farm 
 with is ten pounds to the acre ; so you can cast 
 that out at your leisure. I had my father and 
 mother to keep ; and I've huried three wives, and 
 spent a small fortune in doctor's bills ; and the- 
 girls have all had some sort of education ; and I 
 don't owe one in the world sixpence, except the 
 rent that'll be due to Mr. Garnsey next gale-day^ 
 and that's lying ready for him in the bank. I 
 don't know how it has been done, upon my con- 
 science, I don't ;" and Mr. Muir, overwhelmed 
 with the remembrances of struggle which lay be- 
 hind and the evidences of success spread around, 
 paused in his vehement recital as though he had 
 been suddenly struck with lightning. 
 
 *' It certainly seems very wonderful," agreed 
 Gorman, with hearty warmth. 
 
 ''But I have run far away from what we 
 started talking about," said Mr. Muir, taking 
 himself well in hand like a horse inclined to bolt. 
 " Do what you please with that room where the 
 grand ladies used to sit, as I've heard, with their
 
 BERN A BOYLE. 275 
 
 hoops, and their hair powdered, playing the 
 harpsichord and spinet, and working their sofa 
 cushions, and suchlike, just as other ladies do 
 to-day, only with a different sort of wool. Many's 
 the time I've felt vexed myself to see it turned to 
 no better use than a store for seed corn and beans 
 and peas. There's not much doing now, so I'll 
 tell Ned to begin and clear everything out, and 
 after dinner I'll break the news to Bell, who'll, 
 maybe, not be best pleased. She has a wonder- 
 ful temper of her own. Bell, and I'm not just so 
 fond of crossing' it." 
 
 ''If you think my having the room will put 
 her out we had better think no more about it. 
 We ought not to cross Bell — she is such a capital 
 manager." 
 
 *' Sometimes it strikes me she is a bit too 
 much of a manager. I've often lately had my 
 doubts about the butter." 
 
 "About the — " suggested Mr. Gorman Muir, 
 dumfounded. 
 
 "About the butter — don't I speak plain 
 enough ? — you see it's a serious matter : she has
 
 276 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 the whole management of the dairy, and though 
 we have more cows than we used, I don't find that 
 the quantity we sell increases as it ought." 
 
 ''But Bell wouldn't do a thing like that," 
 remonstrated the young man. 
 
 " Her mother vrould, at any rate ; and there's 
 no use hliuking facts: children take after the 
 mother, more's the pity ; you're the very ' moral ' 
 of yours ; Bell is her own mother, as one might 
 say. I can't tell who Sarah strains after — no- 
 body worth talking about, anyhow — while Carline, 
 she has a way of gathering lovers round her just 
 like what her mother had. Bell can't bear any- 
 body to have anything or be made of but herself ; 
 and her mother, if she'd heard me remark a girl 
 was pretty, would never have ceased scolding for 
 a week. She was beyond the common jealous, 
 and of me, too!" added Mr. Muir, in righteous 
 astonishment ; " while as for Carline's mother, it 
 was I had reason to be jealous of her. She just 
 did it with a look and a trick of the eye, and a 
 little half smile, so faint you'd have scarce noticed 
 it. No matter who came, he stopped. No matter
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 277 
 
 Tvhere we went, she was accounted a sort of saint, 
 she had such pleasant manners and such winning 
 ways ; and I swear to you, Gorman, the happiest 
 day of my whole life was the day I saw her a 
 corpse. But I am talking folly and nonsense. 
 What's the use of raking over dead ashes ? We'll 
 make a picture of that room yet ; but if you take 
 my advice you will just get off to Belfast as soon 
 as you've had your dinner and hank that money ; 
 then, when you get home, don't heed a single 
 word Bell says." 
 
 " I'll get off", I think, without waiting for any 
 dinner," replied the young man. " The days 
 draw in so soon now I sha'n't have too much 
 time in town." 
 
 "It might he just as well," agreed Mr. Muir, 
 who preferred, when war seemed impending be- 
 tween himself and Bell, that the combat should 
 be got over in private. " Go in and brush your- 
 self a bit. The horse'll be ready by the time 
 you are. Ned shaU have him for you at the 
 iront door." 
 
 With the cold sunlight falling upon him
 
 278 BERNA BOYLE. 
 
 through the leafless branches, Gorman Muir rode 
 slowly down the avenue, as fine-looking a man, 
 possessed of as untrained a nature as ever, in the 
 old days when might was right, spurred on in 
 tournament or battle. A thousand wild projects 
 floated through his brain ; dreams bright and 
 fair deluded him with their false, smiling faces. 
 He would be rich, honoured, courted ; he would 
 woo, and win, and wed the onl}^ girl he had ever 
 «een he felt he could marry ; he would build a 
 great house, and buy a fine estate, and mix on 
 equal terms with the descendants of those who 
 once in hoop and powder held festival at Ardilaw ; 
 he would — But at that point he was recalled to 
 the realities of life. 
 
 A small woman, dressed in widow's weeds, 
 with faded blue eyes and a pinkish nose^ was 
 fumbling over the latch, trying to open the gate. 
 
 " Allow me," said Gorman ; and in a trice he 
 was on the ground and holding the gate wide for 
 her to pass through. 
 
 *' Is Miss Muir within ?" she asked with 
 modest trepidation.
 
 BERNA BOYLE. 279 
 
 Hat in hand, the young man assured her she 
 NTOuld find Miss Muir at the house ; then, leading 
 his horse through, and closing the gate behind 
 him, Gorman sprang into his saddle, and, satisfied 
 concerning Mrs. Boyle's whereabouts, selected the 
 least traversed road to Belfast, which took him 
 straight past Clear Stream Cottage. 
 
 He paused where the rivulet ran under the 
 lane ; and, rising in his stirrups, looked over the 
 tiny domain. Not a soul was in sight — the place 
 was utterly still. The very birds had hushed 
 their songs and were quiet. Beside the parlour 
 window Berna sat reading some book which evi- 
 dently enchained her interest, for she never 
 moved, though he watched her for some time. 
 
 At length, however, the curious influence one 
 human being's scrutiny has over another asserted 
 itself. Suddenly she looked up — saw a familiar 
 face peering at her over the hedge ; then, w^hile a 
 vivid blush mounted to her forehead, she closed 
 the book and swiftly left the window, never to sit 
 near it again. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
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