Part 1 (2/2)
Whether it was the archaeological instinct to resurrect the past, or the merely human wish to re-live his own small portion of it, that had prompted him to write to a.s.shlin must remain an open question. It is sufficient that the letter was written and dispatched and that the answer came in hot haste.
It had reached him in the form of a telegram running as follows: ”Come at once, and stay for a year. Stagnating to death in this isolation.
a.s.shlin.” An hour later another, and a more voluminous message, had followed, in which--as if by an after-thought--he had been given the necessary directions as to the means of reaching Orristown.
It was at the point where his musings reached a.s.shlin's telegrams that he awakened from his reverie and looked about him. For the first time a personal interest in the country through which he was pa.s.sing stirred him. He realised that the salt sting of the sea had again begun to mingle with the night mist, and judged thereby that the road had again emerged upon the coast. He noticed that the hedges had become spa.r.s.er; that wherever a tree loomed out of the dusk it bore the mark of the sea gales in a certain grotesqueness of shape.
This was the isolation of which a.s.shlin had spoken!
With an impulse extremely uncommon to him, he turned in his seat and addressed the silent old coachman beside him.
”Has your master altered much in thirty years?” he asked.
There was silence for a while. Old Burke, with the deliberation of his cla.s.s, liked to weigh his words before giving them utterance.
”Is it Mister Dinis changed?” he repeated at last. Then almost immediately he corrected himself. ”Sure, 'tis Mister a.s.shlin I ought to be sayin', sir. But the ould name slips out. Though the poor master is gone these twenty-nine year--the Lord have mercy on him!--I can niver git it into me head that 'tis to Mister Dinis we ought to be lookin'.”
More than once during his brief stay in Ireland, Milbanke had been confronted with this annihilation of time in the Irish mind, and Burke's statement aroused no surprise.
”Has he changed?” he asked again in his dry, precise voice.
Burke was silent while the mare pulled hard on the reins. And having regained his mastery over her, he looked down on his companion.
”Is it changed?” he said. ”Sure, why wouldn't he be changed? With the father gone--an' the wife gone--an' the children growin' up. Sure 'tis changed we all are, an' goin' down the hill fast--G.o.d help us!”
Milbanke glanced up sharply.
”Children?” he said. ”Children?”
Burke turned in his seat.
”Sure 'tisn't to have the ould stock die out you'd be wantin'?” he said. ”You'd travel the round of the county before you'd see the like of Mister Dinis's children--though 'tis girls they are.”
”Girls?” Milbanke's mind was disturbed by the thought of children.
Denis a.s.shlin with children! The idea was incongruous.
”Two of 'em!” said Burke laconically.
”Dear me!--dear me! And yet I suppose it's only natural. How old are they?”
Burke flicked the mare lightly, and the trap lurched forward.
”Miss Clodagh is turned fifteen,” he said, ”and the youngster is goin'
on ten. 'Twas ten year back, come next December, that she was born.
Sure I remimber it well. An' six weeks after, Mister Dinis was followin' her poor mother to the churchyard beyant in Carrigmore. The Lord keep us all! 'Twas she was the nice, quiet creature, and Miss Nance is the livin' stamp of her. But G.o.d bless us, 'tis Miss Clodagh that's her father's child.” He added this last remark with a force that at the time conveyed nothing, though it was destined to recur later to Milbanke's mind.
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