We enter the crumbling portals of the ancient convent of the O’Mahonys for a final visit. The reddened sun, with its promise of a kindly morrow, hangs low in the western heavens and pushes the long shadow of the gateway onward to the very steps of the building. We have no call to set the harsh-toned jangling old bell in motion. The door is open and the hall is swept for guests.
This hour of waning day marked a unique occurrence in the annals of the House of the Hostage’s Tears. Its nuns were too aged and infirm to go to the castle to offer welcome to the newly returned head of the family. So The O’Mahony came to them instead. He came like the fine old chieftain of a sept, bringing his train of followers with him. For the first time within the recollection of man, a long table had been spread in the reception-hall, and about it were gathered the baker’s dozen of people we have come to know in Muirisc. Even Mrs. Sullivan, flushed scarlet from her labor in the ill-appointed convent kitchen, and visibly disheartened at its meagre results, had her seat at the board beside Father Jago. But they were saved from the perils of a party of thirteen because the one-armed Malachy, dour-faced and silent, but secretly bursting with pride and joy, stood at his old post behind his master’s chair.
There had not been much to eat, and the festival stood thus early at the stage of the steaming kettle and the glasses so piping hot that fingers shrank from contact, though the spirit beckoned. And there was not one less than twelve of these scorching tumblers—for in remote Muirisc the fame of Father Mathew remained a vague and colorless thing like that of Mahomet or Sir Isaac Newton—and, moreover, was not The O’Mahony come home?
“Yes, sir,” The O’Mahony said from his place at the right hand of Mother Agnes, venturing an experimental thumb against his glass and sharply withdrawing it, “wherever I went, in France or Spain or among the Turks, I found there had been a soldier O’Mahony there before me. Why, a French general told me that right at one time—quite a spell back, I should judge—there were fourteen O’Mahonys holding commissions in the French army. Yes, I remember, it was in the time of Louis XIX.”
“You’re wrong, O’Mahony,” interrupted Kate, with the smile of a spoiled, favorite child, “’t was nineteen O’Mahonys in the reign of Louis XIV.”
“Same thing,” he replied, pleasantly. “It’s as broad as it is long. There the O’Mahony’s were, anyway, and every man of ’em a fighter. It set me to figuring that before they went away—when they were all cooped up here together on this little neck of land—things must have been kept pretty well up to boiling point all the year round.”
“An’ who was it ever had the power to coop ’em up here?” demanded Cormac O’Daly, with enthusiasm. “Heaven be their bed! ’T was not in thim O’Mahonys to endure it! Forth they wint in all directions, wid bowld raids an’ incursions, b’ating the O’Heas an’ def’ating the Coffeys wid slaughter, an’ as for the O’Driscolls—huh!—just tearing ’em up bodily be the roots! Sir, t was a proud day whin an O’Daly first attached himself to the house of the O’Mahonys—such grand min as they, were, so magnanimous, so pious, so intelligent, so ferocious an’ terrifying—sir, me old blood warms at thought of ’em!”
The caloric in Cormac’s veins impelled him at this juncture to rise to this feet. He took a sip from his glass, then adjusted his spectacles, and produced the back of an envelope from his pocket.
“O’Mahony,” he said, with a voice full of emotion, “I’ve a slight pome here, just stated down hurriedly that I’ll take the liberty to rade to the company assimbled. ’T is this way it runs:
‘Hark to thim joyous sounds that rise.
Making the face of Muirisc to be glad!
’T is the devil’s job to believe one’s eyes—‘”
“Well, thin, don’t be trying!” brusquely interrupted Mrs. Fergus. As the poet paused and strove to cow his spouse with a sufficiently indignant glance, she leaned over the table and addressed him in a stage whisper, almost audible to the deaf old nuns themselves.
“Sit down, me man!” she adjured him. “’T is laughing at ye they are! Sure, doesn’t his honor know how different a chune ye raised while he was away! ’T is your part to sing small, now, an’ keep the ditch betwixt you an’ observation.”
Cormac sat down at once, and submissively put the paper back in his pocket. It was a humble and wistful glance which he bent through his spectacles at the chieftain, as that worthy resumed his remarks.
The O’Mahony did not pretend to have missed the adjuration of Mrs. Fergus.
“That started off well enough, O’Daly,” he said; “but you’re getting too old to have to hustle around and turn out poetry to order, as you used to. I’ve decided to allow you to retire—to sort of knock off your shoes and let you run in the pasture. You can move into one of the smaller houses and just take things easy.”
“But, sir—me secretarial juties—” put in O’Daly, with quavering voice.
“There’ll be no manner of trouble about that,” said the O’Mahony, reassuringly. “My friend, here, Joseph Higgins, of Boston, he will look out for that. I don’t know that you’re aware of it, but I took a good deal of interest in him many years ago—before I went away—and I foresaw a future for him. It hasn’t turned out jest as I expected, but I’m satisfied, all the same. Before I left, I arranged that he should pursue his studies during my absence.” A grimly quizzical smile played around the white corners of his mustache as he added: “I understand that he jest stuck to them studies night and day—never left ’em once for so much as to go out and take a walk for the whole twelve years.”
“Surely, sir,” interposed Father Jago, “that’s most remarkable! I never heard tell of such studiosity in Maynooth itself!”
The O’Mahony looked gravely across the table at Jerry, whose broad, shining face was lobster-red with the exertion of keeping itself straight.
“I believe there’s hardly another case on record,” he said. “Well, as I was remarking, it’s only natural, now, that I should make him my secretary and bookkeeper. I’ve had a long talk with him about it—and about other things, too—and I guess there ain’t much doubt about our getting along together all right.”
“And is it your honor’s intintion—Will—will he take over my functions as bard as well?” Cormac ventured to inquire. He added in deprecating tones: “Sure, they’ve always been considered hereditary.”
“No; I think we’ll let the bard business slide for the time being,” answered The O’Mahony. “You see, I’ve been going along now a good many years without any poet, so I’ve got used to it. There was one fellow out at Plevna—an English newspaper man—who did compose some verses about me—he seemed to think they were quite funny—but I shot off one of his knee-pans, and that sort of put a damper on poetry,............