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223 e ' THE SHAN VAN VOCHT.
he came into a room I could tell he was there without lifting my
eyes for a look. Child, dear, when you feel like that tovards a man
and he feels the same to you in return thank God on your knees
for a great blessing and value, it night and day. ’Tis love-the
best of love, and God help me, I have had a long time to understand
the worth of the treasure I cast from me that black, bitter night.
Hughie used to meet me in the evenings going to the school after
.his day’s work was over, for we had classes in the evenings so as
to give the boys who couldn’t be spared from the field-work and
the girls who were slaving all day a chance. He was a clever lad,
was Hughie, and used to help me with the others because he knew
I was timid, and because he cared for me so much. He often talked
to me of his ambitions and what he hoped to do in the world, for
he meant to go away and then come back to me when he had made
his fortune. That was the conclusion always. ‘I will come back
to you, Shiela.’ Ah, well he has made his fortune long since, I
suppose, but he never came back.”
“Yes, he has made his fortune,” said Mamie. “ He is very rich,
and his place at San Francisco is one of the most beautiful to be
seen. But he is almost always silent, and his expression is very
sad. lVe often wondered why it was so.”
“ Poor Hughie,” whispered Shiela to herself softly, “ always sad;
have I been merrier than you, I wonder, lying here useless day after
day? VVell, child, Pat, his brother, came to the school also, and I
was joked about them both in turn--some said it was one, some the
other, that was my sweetheart. But I had no doubts on the sub-
jcct. One night a. rich farmer’s daughter living near joined the
classes, and then the trouble began. She had been boarding at a
convent, but her mother became an invalid, and the daughter was
brought home to see after the house. It was dull for her, and the
school at evening was a slight diversion. From the first She C85!
her eye on the O’Dohertys, and before long I knew that she cared
for Hughie.” .
Mamie bent her dark head and kissed the chill hand caressrngty.
“Then people set stories going about them. I was told that he
had been seen with her here and there, and at first I was too proud
to question him as to the truth of these reports, but at last I could
bear it no longer. He laughed my fears away, and I was content.
Then one evening he did not come as usual. I made excuse after
excuse to my heart for him-I think a woman’s life is spent in
making excuses for the man she loves-and when Pat offered to see
me home my pride would not allow me to accept the kindness.
No, I had a visit to pay a friend, and was quite safe without an
- escort. He started before me, and when I had tidied my desk I
locked the door and stepped into the moonlight. I have never
looked at the moon without a shudder since. As I walked along an
the frostv clearness I heard voices and a peal of laughter from a
woman. ’Then I saw two figures strolling in front arm in arm. I
smiled in sympathy, and tried to steal gently past them, when the
man turned at sound of my step, and-it was Hughie. I recog-
nised then the woman’s laugh--it had often hurt my heart in the
schoolrcom at night.” I
Her voice had grown so faint by this time that the girl leaned her
car down to the pillow to listen. . -
“I got home somehow, and when he came with an explanation
I would not believe him. He had merely met her, he said, by
accident, and she had asked him to see her part of the way. He
lovedme only; but I thought of her wealth, and so I wronged my
love. Thm he grew angry at my obstinacy, and accused me of
cmina more for his brother than for himself. ‘It must have been
a graiification for you to have the two O’Doherty’s strings to your
bow ’ he said, and I laughed in his face for answer. For a week
I
I never heard of him; then the news came to me that he was gone.
I married Pat :1. year after, and he has been the best of husbands;
but only for my folly in letting Hughie believe that I cared le-s
for himself he would never have gone [mm the Gap. I was lonely
and miserable, and Pat looked at me with the same‘ grey eyes, so
he -got my promise. I’ve had more than my share of trouble, God .
knows, for all the children were delicate and died young except
my son Pat. His wife is very good to me, and the little boy is
great company, but I’ll not be long here now. I feel it. Maybe it
is in answer to my prayers that God has let me live to see this
day and send a message.” I
She drew the girl closer and kissed her.
“Tell him, dearie, that Shiela loved him always and only; that
she sent him her dying blessing and asked his forgiveness, and take
him this bit of hawthorn-it is from the old trysting tree. -"at
gathers it for me fresh every day in May, though he doesn’t guess
why I desire it from that particular tree, and he keeps me sur-
rounded with flowers and leaves the whole year long. Now go to
the others, child; I am tired.” '
Meantime Nell and Jack had been ‘making a tour of the farm,
accompanied by the father and son, with Nedecn Kearney acting as
pioneer. The girl felt as if she had strayed into some strange new
world, which did not altogether agree with her view of the fitness
of things. Last week she had been roaming around Paris-the rich
young American-revelling in operas and dances to her heart’s con-
tent; now she was being claimed by this old peasant and his sturdy
son as a near kinswoman, to whom the relationship should be as
deep a source of pleasure as it was to them in their honest sim-
' plicity. Her pampered childhood had developed a vein of selfish-
ness, and she resented bitterly any resurrection of the memories
connected with the poverty-stricken days of her father’s lifetime.
She had come to Carrickmagrath filled with gay desires of ingratiat-
ing herself into the good graces of her relatives. Now she found ‘
them impossible-just impossible; there was no other word for it.
How could Jack enter so completely into their common country
talk-listen to him?
“ And you say the fairies hold revels there on midsummer nights?”
“Ay, indeed; no doubt at all of it. I can’t say that I ever saw
them myself, but there‘s apower of stories goin’ about them. Ye
daren’t labour :1 fort, ye see, for it would be terrible unlucky, and
you’d be left a sight 0’ some sort till the end of your days. Ah, yes,”
continued the old fellow, “when Hughie an’ me were boys :1 man
used to be goin’ round the country called Twisty-his own name
was Denis Creelin-an’ his head was turned on his neck with the
face of him siguintin’ over his left shoulder. He was marked that
way because he had meddled with a fairy fort, people said, an’
wc’d run whenever we’d see him coming limpin’ along, the crathur,
for they all reckoned he had the evil eye into the bargain.” ‘
They had stopped beside the Fort, and Nedeen stood in open-
mouthed enjoyment of Pat’s wonderful incident. Howisuch an un-
pretentious slope of grass could awaken this‘ dread in thc minds of
sensible human beings was a revelation to Nell. She only saw the
green ridge before her topped with a stinted hawthorn in scanty
flower, and stretching away for miles a boggy, lonely land that ended
in high desolate mountains. ‘
“ Uncleef-Iugh told‘ us often about this Fort, but he said that the
thorn tree on its summit was the loveliest he had ever seen when the
blossoms were on it in May,” she exclaimed, suddenly.
‘ “Ah, yes, an’ so it is, darlin’ dear. Where would you see the
likes of it? Look at the sweet wee bunches of blossoms, an’ ye can
smell them standin’ here when the wind’s blowin’ this way. Sure, it’s
the beautiful country, God be thanked, an’ I’m always praisin’ Him
that He let me spend my life here where I was born, and didn’t drive
me away to a foreign land, where my heart would have broken. An’
when I fretted sor’e over my poor Shiela lyin’ there inside-her that
is the pulse o’ my heart-I used to come out an’ look beyond at the
quiet M115, an’ thc company 0’ them was grateful to me. Indeed,
ay, when I go to my long home, in God’s good time; I’ll be glad to
get under the daisy quilt with my own people, and the kind old
neighbours-an’ my wife. Safe at home--an’ I only wish poor Neil
an’ Hughie would be lyin’ alongside of us-an’ the little shamrocks