was some talk of papa going to New York for a few weeks, and he said he would come and look after me in his absence. "Thank you, Mr. Moss," I said, "but I'm not sure I should want any looking after, only for such as you." Those are the very words I spoke, and I looked him full in the face. "Why, what do you expect from me?" he said. "Insult," I replied, as bold as brass. And then we are playing the two lovers at "The Embankment." Isn't it a pretty family history? He said nothing at the moment, but came back in half an hour to make some unnecessary remarks about the part. "Why did you say just now that I insulted you?" he asked. "Because you do," I replied. "Never, never!" he exclaimed, with most grotesque energy. "I have never insulted you." You know, my dear, he has twenty times endeavoured to kiss my hand, and once he saw fit to stroke my hair. Beast! If you knew the sort of feeling I have for him – such as you would have if you found a cockroach in your dressing-case. Of course in our life young women have to put up with this kind of thing, and some of them like it. But he knows that I am going to be married, or at any rate am engaged, Mr. Frank. I make constant use of your name, telling everybody that I am the future Mrs. Jones, putting such weight upon the Jones. With me he knows that it is an insult; but I don't want to quarrel with him if I can help it, and therefore I softened it down. "You hear me say, Mr. Moss, that I'm an engaged young woman. Knowing that, you oughtn't to speak to me as you do." "Why, what do I say?" You should have seen his grin as he asked me; such a leer of triumph, as though he knew that he were getting the better of me. "Mr. Jones wouldn't approve if he were to see it." "But luckily he don't," said my admirer. Oh, if you knew how willingly I'd stand at a tub and wash your shirts, while the very touch of his gloves makes me creep all over with horror. "Let us have peace for the future," I said. "I dislike all those familiarities. If you will only give them up we shall go on like a house on fire." Then the beast made an attempt to squeeze my hand as he went out of the room. I retreated, however, behind the table, and escaped untouched on that occasion.
You are not to come over, whatever happens, until I tell you. You ought to know very well by this time that I can fight my battles by myself; and if you did come, there would be an end altogether to the £200 which I am earning. To give him his due, he's very punctual with his money, only that he wants to pay me in advance, which I will never have. He has been liberal about my dresses, telling me to order just what I want, and have the bill sent in to the costume manager. When I have worn them they become the property of the theatre. God help any poor young woman that will ever be expected to get into them. So now you know exactly how I am standing with Mahomet M. M.
Poor father goes about to public meetings, but never is allowed to open his mouth for fear he should say something about the Queen. I don't mean that he is really watched, but he promised in Ireland not to lecture any more if they would let him go, and he wishes to keep his word. But I fear it makes him very unhappy. He has, at any rate, the comfort of coming home and giving me the lecture, which he ought to have delivered to more sympathetic ears. Not but what I do care about the people; only how am I to know whether they ought to be allowed to make their own petticoats, or why it is that they don't do so? He says it's the London Parliament; and that if they had members in College Green, the young women would go to work at once, and make petticoats for all the world. I don't understand it, and wish that he had someone else to lecture to.
How are you getting on with all your own pet troubles? Is the little subsiding lake at Ballintubber still a lake? And what about poor Florian and his religion? Has he told up as yet? I fear, I fear, that poor Florian has been fibbing, and that there will be no peace for him or for your father till the truth has been told.
Now, sir, I have told you everything, just as a young woman ought to tell her future lord and master. You say you ought to know what Moss is doing. You do know, exactly, as far as I can tell you. Of course you wouldn't like to see him, but then you have the comfort of knowing that I don't like it either. I suppose it is a comfort, eh, my bold young man? Of course you want me to hate the pig, and I do hate him. You may be sure that I will get rid of him as soon as I conveniently can. But for the present he is a necessary evil. If you had a home to give me, I would come to it – oh, so readily! There is something in the glitter of a theatre – what people call the boards, the gaslights, the music, the mock love-making, the pretence of being somebody, the feeling of mystery which is attached to you, and the feeling you have that you are generally unlike the world at large – which has its charms. Even your name, blazoned in a dirty playbill, without any Mister or Mistress to guard you, so unlike the ways of ordinary life, does gratify one's vanity. I can't say why it should be so, but it is. I always feel a little prouder of myself when father is not with me. I am Miss O'Mahony, looking after myself, whereas other young ladies have to be watched. It has its attractions.
But – but to be the wife of Frank Jones, and to look after Frank's little house, and to cook for him his chicken and his bacon, and to feel that I am all the world to him, and to think – ! But, oh, Frank, I cannot tell you what things I think. I do feel, as I think them, that I have not been made to stand long before the glare of the gas, and that the time will certainly come when I shall walk about Ballintubber leaning on your arm, and hearing all your future troubles about rents not paid, and waters that have come in.
CHAPTER IX.
BLACK DALY
Frank Jones received his letter just as he was about to leave Castle Morony for the meet at Ballytowngal, the seat, as everybody knows, of Sir Nicholas Bodkin. Ballytowngal is about two miles from Claregalway, on the road to Oranmore. Sir Nicholas is known all through the West of Ireland, as a sporting man, and is held in high esteem. But there is, I think, something different in the estimation which he now enjoys from that which he possessed twenty years ago. He was then, as now, a Roman Catholic, – as were also his wife and children; and, as a Roman Catholic, he was more popular with the lower classes, and with the priests, who are their natural friends, than with his brother grand-jurors of the country, who were, for the most part, Protestants.
Sir Nicholas is now sixty years old, and when he came to the title at thirty, he was regarded certainly as a poor man's friend. He always lived on the estate. He rarely went up to Dublin, except for a fortnight, when the hunting was over, and when he paid his respects to the Lord Lieutenant. The house at Ballytowngal was said, in those days, to be as well kept up as any mansion in County Galway. But the saying came probably from those who were not intimate in the more gloriously maintained mansions. Sir Nicholas had £5000 a year, and though he did manage to pay his bills annually, spent every shilling of it. He preserved his foxes loyally, and was quite as keen about the fishing of a little river that he owned, and which ran down from his demesne into Lough Corrib. He was particular also about his snipe, and would boast that in a little spinney at Ballytowngal were to be met the earliest woodcock found in the West of Ireland. He was a thorough sportsman; – but a Roman Catholic – and as a Roman Catholic he was hardly equal in standing to some of his Protestant neighbours. He voted for Major Stackpoole, when Major Stackpoole stood for the county on the Liberal interest, and was once requested to come forward himself, and stand for the City as a Roman Catholic. This he did not do, being a prudent man; but at that period, from twenty to thirty years ago, he was certainly regarded as inferior to a Protestant by many of the Protestant gentlemen of the country.
But things are changed now. Sir Nicholas's neighbours, such of them at least that are Protestants, regard Sir Nicholas as equal to themselves. They do not care much for his religion, but they know that he is not a Home-Ruler, or latterly, since the Land League sprang into existence, a Land Leaguer. He is, in fact, one of themselves as a county gentleman, and the question of religion has gone altogether into abeyance. Had you known the county thirty years ago, and had now heard Sir Nicholas talking of county matters, you would think that he was one of the old Protestants. It was so that the rich people regarded him, – and so also the poor. But Sir Nicholas had not varied at all. He liked to get his rents paid, and as long as his tenants would pay them, he was at one with them. They had begun now to have opinions of their own upon the subject, and he was at one with them no longer.
Frank Jones had heard in Galway, that there was to be a difficulty about drawing the Ballytowngal coverts. The hounds were to be allowed to draw the demesne coverts, but beyond that they were to be interrupted. Foxes seldom broke from Ballytowngal, or if they did they ran to Moytubber. At Moytubber the hounds would probably