CHAPTER II.

Let the world take note

You are the most immediate to our throne;

And with no less nobility of love

Than that which dearest father bears his son

Do I impart toward you.

How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

Affection! pooh! you speak like a green girl.

Hamlet.

WHEN the head of a community has, after due deliberation, resolved upon the carrying out of any bold social step, he may expect to meet with the opposition that invariably obstructs the reformer's advance; so that one is tempted—nay, modern statesmanship compels one—to believe that secrecy until a projected design is fully matured is a wise, or at least an effective, policy. The military stratagem of a surprise is frequently attended with good results in dealing with an enemy, and as a friendly policy why should it not succeed?

This was, beyond a question, the course of thought pursued by The Macnamara before he uttered those words to Eugene. He had not given the order without careful deliberation, but when he had come to the conclusion that circumstances demanded the taking of so bold a step, he had not hesitated in his utterance.

Eugene was indeed surprised, and so also was Standish. The driver took off his hat and passed his fingers through his hair, looking down to his bare feet, for he was in the habit of getting a few weeks of warning before a similar order to that just uttered by his master was given to him.

“Do you hear, or are you going to wait till the horse has frozen to the sod?” inquired The Macnamara; and this brought the mind of the boy out of the labyrinth of wonder into which it had strayed. He threw down the whip and the reins, and, tucking up the voluminous skirts of his coat, ran round the house, commenting briefly as he went along on the remarkable aspect things were assuming.

Entering the kitchen from the rear, where an old man and two old women were sitting with short pipes alight, he cried, “What's the world comin' to at all? I've got to put on me boots.”

“Holy Saint Bridget,” cried a pious old woman, “he's to put on his brogues! An' is it The Mac has bid ye, Eugene?”

“Sorra a sowl ilse. So just shake a coal in iviry fut to thaw thim a bit, alana.”

While the old woman was performing this operation over the turf fire, there was some discussion as to what was the nature of the circumstances that demanded such an unusual proceeding on the part of The Macnamara.

“It's only The Mac himsilf that sames to know—. knock the ashes well about the hale, ma'am—for Masther Standish was as much put out as mesilf whin The Mac says—nivir moind the toes, ma'am, me fut'll nivir go more nor halfways up the sowl—says he, 'Git on yer boots;' as if it was the ordinarist thing in the world;—now I'll thry an' squaze me fut in.” And he took the immense boot so soon as the fiery ashes had been emptied from its cavity.

“The Mac's pride'll have a fall,” remarked the old man in the corner sagaciously.

“I shouldn't wondher,” said Eugene, pulling on one of the boots. “The spring is patched with hemp, but it's as loikely to give way as not—holy Biddy, ye've left a hot coal just at the instep that's made its way to me bone!” But in spite of this catastrophe, the boy trudged off to the car, his coat's tails flapping like the foresail of a yacht brought up to the wind. Then he cautiously mounted his seat in front of the car, letting a boot protrude effectively on each side of the narrow board. The Macnamara and his son, who had exchanged no word during the short absence of Eugene in the kitchen, then took their places, the horse was aroused from its slumber, and they all passed down the long dilapidated avenue and through the broad entrance between the great mouldering pillars overclung with ivy and strange tangled weeds, where a gate had once been, but where now only a rough pole was drawn across to prevent the trespass of strange animals.

Truly pitiful it was to see such signs of dilapidation everywhere around this demesne of Innishdermot. The house itself was an immense, irregularly built, rambling castle. Three-quarters of it was in utter ruin, but it had needed the combined efforts of eight hundred years of time and a thousand of Cromwell's soldiers to reduce the walls to the condition in which they were at present. The five rooms of the building that were habitable belonged to a comparatively new wing, which was supported on the eastern side by the gable of a small chapel, and on the western by the wall of a great round tower which stood like a demolished sugar-loaf high above all the ruins, and lodged a select number of immense owls whose eyesight was so extremely sensitive, it required an unusual amount of darkness for its preservation.

This was the habitation of The Macnamaras, hereditary kings of Munster, and here it was that the existing representative of the royal family lived with his only son, Standish O'Dermot Macnamara. In front of the pile stretched a park, or rather what had once been a park, but which was now wild and tangled as any wood. It straggled down to the coastway of the lough, which, with as many windings as a Norwegian fjord, brought the green waves of the Atlantic for twenty miles between coasts a thousand feet in height—coasts which were black and precipitous and pierced with a hundred mighty caves about the headlands of the entrance, but which became wooded and more gentle of slope towards the narrow termination of the basin. The entire of one coastway, from the cliffs that broke the wild buffet of the ocean rollers, to the little island that lay at the narrowing of the waters, was the property of The Macnamara. This was all that had been left to the house which had once held sway over two hundred miles of coastway, from the kingdom of Kerry to Achill Island, and a hundred miles of riverway. Pasturages the richest of the world, lake-lands the most beautiful, mountains the grandest, woods and moors—all had been ruled over by The Macnamaras, and of all, only a strip of coastway and a ruined castle remained to the representative of the ancient house, who was now passing on a jaunting-car between the dilapidated pillars at the entrance to his desolate demesne.

On a small hill that came in sight so soon as the car had passed from under the gaunt fantastic branches that threw themselves over the wall at the roadside, as if making a scrambling clutch at something indefinite in the air, a ruined tower stood out in relief against the blue sky of this August day. Seeing the ruin in this land of ruins The Macnamara sighed heavily—too heavily to allow of any one fancying that his emotion was natural.

“Ah, my son, the times have changed,” he said. “Only a few years have passed—six hundred or so—since young Brian Macnamara left that very castle to ask the daughter of the great Desmond of the Lake in marriage. How did he go out, my boy?”

“You don't mean that we are now——”

“How did he go out?” again asked The Macnamara, interrupting his son's words of astonishment. “He went out of that castle with three hundred and sixty-five knights—for he had as many knights as there are days in the year.”—Here Eugene, who only caught the phonetic sense of this remarkable fact regarding young Brian Macnamara, gave a grin, which his master detected and chastised by a blow from his stick upon the mighty livery coat.

“But, father,” said Standish, after the trifling excitement occasioned by this episode had died away—“but, father, we are surely not going——”

“Hush, my son. The young Brian and his retinue went out one August day like this; and with him was the hundred harpers, the fifty pipers, and the thirteen noble chiefs of the Lakes, all mounted on the finest of steeds, and the morning sun glittering on their gems and jewels as if they had been drops of dew. And so they rode to the castle of Desmond, and when he shut the gates in the face of the noble retinue and sent out a haughty message that, because the young Prince Brian had slain The Desmond's two sons, he would not admit him as a suitor to his daughter, the noble young prince burnt The Desmond's tower to the ground and carried off the daughter, who, as the bards all agree, was the loveliest of her sex. Ah, that was a wooing worthy of The Mac-namaras. These are the degenerate days when a prince of The Macnamaras goes on a broken-down car to ask the hand of a daughter of the Geralds.” Here a low whistle escaped from Eugene, and he looked down at his boots just as The Macnamara delivered another rebuke to him of the same nature as the former.

“But we're not going to—to—Suanmara!” cried Standish in dismay.

“Then where are we going, maybe you'll tell me?” said his father.

“Not there—not there; you never said you were going there. Why should we go there?”

“Just for the same reason that your noble forefather Brian Macnamara went to the tower of The Desmond,” said the father, leaving it to Standish to determine which of the noble acts of the somewhat impetuous young prince their present excursion was designed to emulate.

“Do you mean to say, father, that—that—oh, no one could think of such a thing as——”

“My son,” said the hereditary monarch coolly, “you made a confession to me this morning that only leaves me one course. The honour of The Macnamaras is at stake, and as the representative of the family it's my duty to preserve it untarnished. When a son of mine confesses his affection for a lady, the only course he can pursue towards her is to marry her, let her even be a Gerald.”

“I won't go on such a fool's errand,” cried the young man. “She—her grandfather—they would laugh at such a proposal.”

“The Desmond laughed, and what came of it, my boy?” said the Macnamara sternly.

“I will not go on any farther,” cried Standish, unawed by the reference to the consequences of the inopportune hilarity of The Desmond. “How could you think that I would have the presumption to fancy for the least moment that—that—she—that is—that they would listen to—to anything I might say? Oh, the idea is absurd!”

“My boy, I am the head of the line of The Munster Macnamaras, and the head always decides in delicate matters like this. I'll not have the feeling's of the lady trifled with even by a son of my own. Didn't you confess all to me?”

“I will not go on,” the young man cried again. “She—that is—they will think that we mean an affront—and it is a gross insult to her—to them—to even fancy that—oh, if we were anything but what we are there would be some hope—some chance; if I had only been allowed my own way I might have won her in time—long years perhaps, but still some time. But now——”

“Recreant son of a noble house, have you no more spirit than a Saxon?” said the father, trying to assume a dignified position, an attempt that the jerking of the imperfect spring of the vehicle frustrated. “Mightn't the noblest family in Europe think it an honour to be allied with The Munster Macnamaras, penniless though we are?”

“Don't go to-day, father,” said Standish, almost piteously; “no, not to-day. It is too sudden—my mind is not made up.”

“But mine is, my boy. Haven't I prepared everything so that there can be no mistake?”—here he pressed his tall hat more firmly upon his forehead, and glanced towards Eugene's boots that projected a considerable way beyond the line of the car. “My boy,” he continued, “The Macnamaras descend to ally themselves with any other family only for the sake of keeping up the race. It's their solemn duty.'

“I'll not go on any farther on such an errand—I will not be such a fool,” said Standish, making a movement on his side of the car.

“My boy,” said The Macnamara unconcernedly, “my boy, you can get off at any moment; your presence will make no difference in the matter. The matrimonial alliances of The Macnamaras are family matters, not individual. The head of the race only is accountable to posterity for the consequences of the acts of them under him. I'm the head of the race.” He removed his hat and looked upward, somewhat jerkily, but still impressively.

Standish Macnamara's eyes flashed and his hands clenched themselves over the rail of the car, but he did not make any attempt to carry out his threat of getting off. He did not utter another word. How could he? It was torture to him to hear his father discuss beneath the ear of the boy Eugene such a question as his confession of love for a certain lady. It was terrible for him to observe the expression of interest which was apparent upon the ingenuous face of Eugene, and to see his nods of approval at the words of The Macnamara. What could poor Standish do beyond closing his teeth very tightly and clenching his hands madly as the car jerked its way along the coast of Lough Suangorm, in view of a portion of the loveliest scenery in the world?