Part 6 (2/2)

Friends or social pleasures were beyond their maddest dreams. Their parents' idea of a life for them was one in which hard work should keep them out of mischief. James could never remember in those days a morning when he had risen refreshed; he was always heavy with sleep when following the plough-horses, or feeding the cattle. Food of the coa.r.s.est, sleep of the scantiest, were the rule of the house. Joy, or love, or kindness, never breathed between those walls.

Meanwhile, the father was getting old, and a time came when he sat more and more by the fire in winter, sipping his gla.s.s of grog and reading the country papers, or listening to his wife's acrid tattle.

Mrs. Rooney hated with an extreme hatred all the good, easy-going neighbours who were so soft with their children, and encouraged dancing, and race-going and card-playing--the amus.e.m.e.nts of the Irish middle cla.s.ses. She had a bitter tongue, and once it was set agoing no one was safe from it--not the holiest nor purest was beyond its defilement.

It was about this time that the labourers began to think the young master rather more important than the old one; but for their connivance, James Rooney could never have been drawn into Fenianism.

The conspiracy was just the thing to fascinate the boy's impressionable heart. The poetry, the glamour of the romantic devotion to Mother Country fed his starved idealism; the midnight drillings and the danger were elements in its attraction. James Rooney drilled with the rest, swore with them their oaths of fealty to Dark Rosaleen, was out with them one winter night when the hills were covered with snow, and barely escaped by the skin of his teeth from the capture which sent some of his friends into penal servitude.

Mrs. Rooney's amazed contempt when she found that her eldest son was among 'the boys' was a study in character. The lad was not compromised openly; and though the police had their suspicions, they had nothing to go upon, and the matter ended in a domiciliary visit which put Mrs.

Rooney in a fine rage, for she had a curious subservient ambition to stand well with the gentry.

However, soon after that, as she was pottering about the fowl-yard one bitter day--she would never trust anybody to collect the eggs from the locked henhouse but herself--she took a chill, and not long afterwards died. If she had lived perhaps James would never have had the courage to a.s.sert himself and take the reins of management as he did. But with her going the iron strength of the old man seemed to break down.

He fulfilled her last behest, which was that her funeral was to take place on a Sunday, so that the farm hands should not get a day off; and then, with some wonder at the new masterful spirit in his son, he gave himself up to an easy life.

This independence in James Rooney was not altogether the result of his Fenianism. As a matter of fact, he had fallen in love, with the overwhelming pa.s.sion of a lad who had hitherto lived with every generous emotion repressed. The girl was a gay, sweet, yet impa.s.sioned creature who was the light of her own home. At that home James Rooney had first realised what a paradise home may be made; and coming from his own gloomy and horrid surroundings, the suns.h.i.+ne of hers had almost blinded him. In that white house among the wheatfields love reigned. And not only love, but charity, hospitality, patriotism, and religion. There was never a rough word heard there; even the household creatures, the canary in the south window, the comfortable cats, the friendly dogs, partook of the general sunniness.

They were rebels of the hottest type. The one son had been out with the Fenians and was now in America. His exile was a bitter yet proud grief to his father and mother; but their enthusiasm was whetted rather than damped by the downfall of the attempted rebellion. At night, when the curtains were drawn and the door barred against all fear of 'the peelers,' the papers that had the reports of the Dublin trials were pa.s.sed from hand to hand, or read aloud amid intense silence, accompanied by the flus.h.i.+ng cheek, the clenching hand, often the sob, that told of the pa.s.sionate feeling of the hearers.

Sometimes Ellen would sing to them, but not the little gay songs she trilled so delightfully, now when their friends were in prison or the dock. Mournful, impa.s.sioned songs were hers, sung in a rich voice, trembling with emotion, or again a stave of battle and revenge, which set hearts beating and blood racing in the veins of the listeners. At such moments Ellen, with her velvety golden-brown eyes, and the bronze of her hair, was like the poet's 'Cl.u.s.ter of Nuts.'

I've heard the songs by Liffey's wave That maidens sung.

They sang their land, the Saxon's slave, In Saxon tongue.

Oh, bring me here that Gaelic dear Which cursed the Saxon foe.

When thou didst charm my raptured ear _Mo craoibhin cno!_

Among those admitted freely to that loving circle, James Rooney was one held in affectionate regard. The man who had been the means of bringing him there, Maurice O'Donnell, was his Jonathan, nay more than his Jonathan, for to him young Rooney had given all his hero-wors.h.i.+p.

He was, indeed, of the heroic stuff, older, graver, wiser than his friend.

James Rooney spoke to no one of his love or his hopes. For he had hopes. Ellen, kind to every one, singled him out for special kindness.

He had seen in her deep eyes something shy and tender for him. For some time he was too humble to be sure he had read her gaze aright, but at last he believed in a flood of wild rapture that she had chosen him.

He did not speak, he was too happy in dallying with his joy, and he waited on from day to day. One evening he was watching her singing, with all his heart in his eyes. Among people less held by a great sincerity than these people were at the time, his secret would have been an open amus.e.m.e.nt. But the father and mother heard with eyes dim with tears; the young sisters about the fire flushed and paled with the emotion of the song; the hearts of the listeners hung on the singer's lips, and their eyes were far away.

Suddenly James Rooney looked round the circle with the feeling of a man who awakes from sleep. His friend was opposite to him, also gazing at the singer; the revelation in his face turned the younger man cold with the shock. When the song was done he said 'good-night' quietly, and went home. It was earlier than usual, and he left his friend behind him; for this one night he was glad not to have his company; he wanted a quiet interval in which to think what was to be done.

Now, when he realised that Maurice O'Donnell loved her, he cursed his own folly that he had dared to think of winning her. What girl with eyes in her head would take him, gray and square-jawed, before the gallant-looking fellow who was the ideal patriot. And Ellen--Ellen, of all women living, was best able to appreciate O'Donnell's qualities.

That night he sat all the night with his head bowed on his hands thinking his sick thoughts amid the ruin of his castles. When he stood up s.h.i.+vering in the gray dawn, he had closed that page of his life. He felt as if already the girl had chosen between them, and that he was found wanting.

That was not the end of it, however. If he had been left to himself he might have carried out his high, heroic resolve to go no more to the house which had become Paradise to him. But his friend followed him, with the curious tenderness that was between the two, and with an arm on his shoulder, drew his secret from him. When he had told it he put his face down on the mantelpiece by which they were standing, ashamed to look O'Donnell in the face because they loved the same woman. There was a minute's silence, and then O'Donnell spoke, and his voice, so far from being cold and angry, was more tender than before.

'So you would have taken yourself off to leave me a clear field, old fellow!'

'Oh, no,' said the other humbly, 'I never had a chance. If I had had eyes for any one but her, I would have known your secret, and should not have dared to love her.'

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