LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 306, 5 June 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

KATHLEEN’S REVENGE,

By E. J. Curtis.

The county of Sligo is one of the most picturesque in Ireland ; it has mountain, wood, and water—the three graces of landscape, and if it has not attracted much attention from the mighty host of tourists whom we meet going to and fro upon the earth in search of crumbling ruins, inaccessible mountain peaks, sourceless rivers, and the like, it is because fashion, the irresistible, has turned the tide to the cabinet pictures of Killarney—gems in their way, no doubt—and has left the wide canvas of the west, with its rugged outlines, and bold lights and shadows, unnoticed.

Sligo and the adjoining county of Mayo afford, or rather did afford, for the trade has considerably diminished of late years, considerable advantages for the illicit distillation of whisky. H’gh up in the mountains the “stills” were secretly and constantly worked by men -who were enabled, by the sale of their contraband produce, to live far better than the really hard-work-ing inhabitants of the valleys below. Wild and lawless in the extreme were these mountaineers, they lived entirely apart from their fellows a sort of gipsy life, keeping at defiance alike the laws of God and man, and a raid made upon them by the revenue officers was a work of both danger and difficulty ; such raids were, however, sometimes effectual, so far as the seizure of the “ still ” was concerned, but rarely without loss of life on both sides; the men would, when driven to bay, defend their property with extreme ferocity, obliging the police to fire upon them in defence of their own lives. Many years ago, the family of one of the most determined of these law-breakers, by name Donovan, had built for themselves a cottage in a secluded glen upon one of the Curlew mountains ; it was by no means a comfortless abode, considering' the wildness of its snrroundings, for although thoroughly well screened from observation, it was, to a good walker, within comparatively easy reach of the town of Sligo. The Donovans had prospered in their illicit trade, having worked at it with an amount of energy and skill worthy of a more honorable enterprise. The family consisted of the father, who was a man of almost gigantic proportions, wild and rather ferocious inaspecj, but by no means idlooking ; on the contrary, to see h’m on the rare occasions when he was dressed in his best clothes, which consisted of kneebreeches of cord, long stockings of blue-grey worsted, a long dark b l ae coat with a double cape, and a tall napless hat, he was a remarkably fine specimen of the “ finest peasantry in the world.” His two sots, Phelim and Ross, were like him in being tall and well-proportioned, but the soft and even kindly expression which was sometimes to be seen in the dark blue eyes of the old man was wholly absent in those of the brothers, who had grown up in their mounta'n home strong in limb, ready of resource, full of the stealthy courage of tire tiger, and without one gentle or, it might be said, one human feeling in their heart. Mrs Donovan had been dead for many years, and the remaining member of the family was a daughter, a girl of great beauty; in face and figure she was really remarkable—tall and faultlessly made; she walked erect, with a grace and dignity of movement which on posture mistress could impart; her small head was perfectly set upon her slender neck and sloping shoulders, and even her ill-made drees could not disfigure the beautiful round waist which had not been made, or marred, by tight lacing. She had but rude and rough training, poor girl, but she knew that she was beautiful, and instinct had early taught her the powerful magic of her eyes, which could both “melt and burn,” supplemented by the pathetic sweetness of her voice, which never sounded half so full of music as when she uttered some word of endearment in her native tongue. As a child, she had been contented to stay in her mountain horns, never seeing any one but her father and brothers; but as she grew up, a longing came upon to see more of the word which lay below—a wide world to her, and one in which she found soon enough temptation, in the gratification of her vanity. Being the idol of her old father, she was always able to coax money from him to spend in dress, and she made many an excursion to Sligo to buy finery, and when satisfied that her clothing would not suffer in comparison with that of other girls, she began regularly to attend mass at the nearest chapel—not, I fear, from any desire to spend Sunday in a profitable manner, but because she could there see and be seen.

Her road from [the mountain, either to Sligo or to chapel, led her past the ‘ grand gate ’ —as it is the custom to say in Ireland —of Inane, at that time the residence of the Edward O’Brian, a gay and handsome gentleman of five-and-twenty. When he and Kathleen Donovan —then a beautiful girl of twenty—met for the first time upon the high road, not half a mile from Inane, he was on horseback returning from a hard day with the hounds. His white breeches, so spotless in the morning, were covered with mud, his red coat also showed that he at least had not watched the brilliant run from the top of a hill, his handsome face was flushed with exercise, and his eyes were still sparkling with the excitement of the day’s pleasure.

He was walking his horse along, and softly whistling, when coming round a sharp turn of the road, he suddenly met Kathleen Donovan; so close was die that he had to pull in his horse with a sharp jerk to avoid riding over her. A flush, half of fright and half of surprise, was quickly added to the flush of exercise upon her beautiful face ; the hood of her cloak fell back from her head, and her splendid hair fell with it over her shoulders.

O’Brian dropped b ; s whip, a thing often done as an e::cuse for Tigering; or to bring about an introduction ; but in his case there was no acting, the whip fell from his lingers, and before Kathleen could stoop for it, he was off his horse, had picked it up, and was searching for a handkerchief vi Ith which to wipe off the mud. Kathleen took up her apron and said, “ Let me, s'an’ don’t divty yer white har’iercher.” ‘ With a cead millc afaltha,’ he answered, gallantly, *if I may thank you in my own way.’ The road was lonely, and Kathleen’s rosy lips were a strong temptation—at twenty-five 1

‘ I don’t want yer thanks,’ she answered, with a saucy toss of her head ; and when she gave back the whip O’Bxian made no

attempt to kiss her, but he asked her a great many questions, and finally, slipping his arm through the bridle of his tired horse, he turned and went with her fully a mile upon her lonely road towards home. When they parted it was with a silent hope on her part that they might —and a strong determination on his, that they should—meet again. It was then just the beginning of spring ; the hunting season was almost overhand Kathleen Donovan had not occasion again to spoil her apron by wiping with it the mud off Edward O’Brian’s whip ; but she and he met again—not once or twice, but times without number —not by accident, but by prearrangement, and the result was—well, happily, not quite, the old, old story. She very soon loved with him all her heart, and would have trusted him implicitly had he demanded trust from her, and it never occurred to her that in his position it would be impossible for him to make her his wife. He was not nearly so much to blame as men too often are under similar circumstances. He was not the man to betray a girl like Kathleen, and to drag her down to misery and shame; but being only human, and young, it was hard to read in her beautiful eyes the deep devotion she felt for him, and to remain himself altogether unmoved. So at last he took what seemed to him the only course open to him—he went away, and went, too, without bidding Kathleen good-bye. —He had known her just a year, and when it came to the point it was hard enough to go without just one more meeting; but he felt if he told her that it was his intention to travel for a time, which meant that he intended to be absent from Inane for a year, if not more, his resolution would stand a fair chance of being shaken if Kathleen showed any grief, or if she asked him to stay. Never before did discretion so plainly show its better part. Edward O’Brien was attached to his home, and country life had many charms for him —far more, it must be confessed, than Kathleen’s bright eyes possessed; but he saw, if he stayed, entanglement for him of the worst kind which could befall a young man in his position, and ruin for her, which included the vengeance of her lawless relations, to whom, as to all Irishmen of their class, the honor of their women is very dear; so he went. I may here mention that O’Brien did not know of the trade in illicit whisky carried on by the Donovans ; Kathleen was incapable of betraying her people, even to him.

When it began to dawn upon her that O’Brian had actually left Inane, her feelings were a wild mixture of anger, misery, and despair—anger at his cruelty in having gone away so abruptly, misery at the thought that she was nothing to him after all, and despair at the conviction which took possession of her that she should never meet him again as she had been in the habit of doing, her untutored heart rebelled hotly against her hard fate in being thus deserted and made little of; and with the rebellion mingled some half-developed sentiment of womanly shame at having lavished so openly such devoted love upon one who had, as she thought, proved himself indifferent. She was wholly incapable of appreciating the self-denial of O’Brian, and the honourable feeling which had, before it was too late, prompted him to withdraw from the pitfall which he had seen yawning before her feet and his own.

O’Briau went abroad for a year, and made new frends for himself ; it was not a difficult matter for him to do so, for he was rich and handsome, and his sweet manner and musical Irish brogue carried all before them. The second winter of his absence from Ireland he spent at Cheltenham ; he sent to Inane for his horses, and soon became as well known for a bold rider in Gloucestershire as he was in Connaught ; and at Cheltenham, at one of the numerous balls for which that gay town is famous, he fell in love with a girl, who, if not possessed of the beaute do diable of wild Kathleen Donovan, was very lovely, and fulfilled, moreover, O’Brian’s ideal of what he wished his wife to be. There were no difficulties to surmount, the handsome and popular young Irishman had been looked upon as a “catch ” by all the wary chaperons of Cheltenham, so everything was soon arranged, and by the end of May the O’Brians had finished their honeymoon, and were about to start for Ireland, and their future home, Inane.

The young bride was full of happy anticipations. Surely the country to which her handsome, good tempered, and altogether fascinating husband belonged must be a charming place. Edward himself was not less happy ; a wilderness would have been a paradise to him if only he could have his pretty young wife there with him ; how perfect, then, would be his own beautiful home when it was her home also !

Once or twice, as they came towards the end of their journey, the thought of Kathleen occurred to him, and he hoped most sincerely that by that time she was the wife of some stout young farmer, or that she had emigrated. He had not much to blame himself for regarding her ; on the contrary, he felt conscious of deserving praise, for he had behaved as not one man in fifty would have done under the same circumstances ; but re membering the wild, passionate nature of the girl, he hoped she had outlived the folly of two years ago. However, by the time Sligo was reached, he had forgotten all about her; his own carriage was in waiting at the principal inn in the town, an open barouche, one of his most recent presents to his bride, and with many “ God save yees,” and “More power to yees,” from the beggars who crowded about the hotel door, they started for Inane.

As they drove along, O’Brian pointed out, with great pride, to his wife the beautiful, and to him familiar, features of the country; and then, as they drew near the house, he showed her a concourse of people assembled upon the road, evidently waiting to bid the travellers welcome.

‘You must not be frightened.’ he said, ‘if they ran along beside the carriage to have a good look at you; I think I can say that I am a favorite with them, and I know you will be popular for your own sake—there is notning Paddy likes better than a pretty face ? ’

Her arch reply, ‘As if I did not know that already,’ was drowned in the shouts of ‘ Welcome, my lady! ’ which met them from the crowd of men, women, and children upon the road ; the men Hung their hats into the air and hurraed, the women courtesyed, the children shouted shrilly, and all pressed about the carriage. ‘ Whethin good luck to yer honor, but ye brought us home a rale beauty anyhow—the heavens be her bed ! ’

‘ Shure isn’t it himself ’ud have his pick an’ choice iv the best ? ’

{To be continued,)