LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 308, 8 June 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

KATHLEEN'S EEVENGE.

By E. J. Curtis

{Continued.)

' I want papa,' sobbed little Norah, looking from one to the other of thestrange faces about her.

'An' ye'll have him afore no time, me jewel,'answered Molly, soothingly. 'Don't cry, avic, shore no one 'ud hurt ye at all, at all;'and then with a kindly '(!od save ye all,' Molly went out, but, secretly, she much regretted her inability to carry the child all the way to Inane herself. ' Hould yer whist, will ye, cried Phelim, with an angry stamp of his foot, as Norah set up a still louder cry when she saw the woman who had been kind to her disappear; 1 nobody's goin' to ate ye, although we're hungry enough for that same. Ye see we have her idout any throuble,' he added, in Irish, to his brother and sister, 'an' we must hould her fast.'

Kathleen made no reply, but drawing the little girl gently to her side, she took off the pretty hat, with its long feather, and smoothed back the tangled hair from the sweet little face. Calmed for the moment, Norah looked at the girl's face with the lovely blue eyes, so like her father's, and, as she did so, a mighty rush of recollections, sweet and bitter, rushed back upon Kathleen; she remembered how she had sworn to be revenged upon the man whom she had loved, and who had, as she believed, loved her; and here now, close to her hand, she had found the means to make him feel pain more keen than she had herself endured; and yet, in spite of herself, as she looked again and again at the lovely, innocent little face, with the full red lips quivering, and the tear-strains upon the soft cheeks, a more womanly feeling stole into the hard, resolute heart. Could she bring herself to harm, or could she let another harm, that helpless little creature ? Could she bear to see the father's grief when the wrong was done past recall ? The plan of her revenge had never taken a very definite form in her mind, but always, in fancy, she had seen herself gloating over O'Brian's despair as he looked ..upon his little daughter lying dead before him. Kathleen's expression, at first both hard and cruel, gradually relaxed into softness; with the quick instinct of childhood, Norah perceived the change in the dark, handsome face, and nestling close to the girl's side, she whispered, ' You take me home.' Her fear of Phelim was shown by her emphasis upon 'you.' ' You won't see home this night, avic' Phelim was beginning, when Kathleen interrupted him in Irish, and then ensued a long and angry discussion between the brother and sister in that tongue, during which Norah stood frightened, and looking from one to the other, wondering what the, to her, uncouth sounds could mean. But she was, by nature, a brave little thing, and she made up her small mind that crying would only ' vex the big man,' and that it would be better to keep silent if she could. Old Donovan and his son Ross had long before gone to their beds. Apparently Kathleen had the best of the argument, for when it was over, she put on the child's hat again, and Phelim, taking his hat and coat from a peg, prepared to go out. 'Me brother will take ye home to yer dada, darlin',' Kathleen said, as she put a shawl of her own over the child's shoulders. ' Don't be afraid, he'll carry ye every foot, an' ye'll be asleep in yer own little bed in no time.'

' It's a fine warm night, but as dark as a bag,' said Phelim, as he looked out. 'lf we don't break both our necks down the road through the glen, the divil's in the dice. Come along, missy.' Kathleen lifted up the child; and put her into the young man's arms. ' Begorra, you don't live on stirabout and sour milk, anyhow,' he said, as he felt her weight. ' You may bar the doure, Kitty,' he added, ' I'll sleep in the sheeling to night, as I want to be at work early in the

mornin'."

The ' sheeling' was a half cave, half hut, about a quarter of a mile higher up the glen, in which the Donovans had their 'still,' and in which the young men not unfrequently passed the night. It would not be easy to describe the consternation which pervaded Inane when it was ascertained that little Norah had not been seen by any member of the household for several hours; not since she had dined with her mother at luncheon time. Mrs O'Brian was under the impression that the child was in the nursery with her little brother, the nurse thought she was with her mamma, but the little thing had contrived to slip away unnoticed by every one, and had set out boldly to follow her father, whom she had seen on horseback taking the winding road which led to a shooting lodge he had built upon the mountain, the fact being that he was on his way to join the revenue police in the search for illicit whiskey. The child had been several times at Curlew Lodge with her father, and she fancied that she knew the way and could walk the distance; but she wandered on and on, getting more bewildered at every step, and I have already told how she was found by old Molly Murphy, thoroughly tired out, and taken to the cottage of the Donovans. O'Brian found a wild search going on for her in all directions when he came back to Inane after his fruitless search for the illicit ' still' of the very people into whose hands she had fallen, and it may easily be imagined with what vigour he joined in this, to him, far more exciting quest. But all was in vain, the child could not be found, and no one could make even a probable suggestion to the distracted father as to her whereabouts; he did not allow himself to think of the lake which was within the grounds, about half a mile from the house, and which had always a strong attraction for the children. Poor O'Brian! he had a vision of his sweet little daughter lying dead amongst the weeds and water-flowers she was always longing to be allowed to gather, and he at length nerved himself to start, with men carrying ropes and lanterns, to see if the horrible reality were awaiting him. But there was no trace of Norah at the lake, no mai'k of her little feet upon the soft sand at the edge of the water. Evening passed and night came on, the warm dark night of early summer, but still Nbrah was missing; Phelim Donovan had played his sister false, he had not taken the little wanderer to her home.

She was hidden in the mountain ' sheeling,' and out of the sovereign which he found in her little toy purse—bothpurseand money had been a birthday present from her doting father a few days before—the "young ruffian bought food for her and for himself, and he could but trust to the chapter of accidents

for a fresh supply if she were not ' ransomed," when his present store was exhausted.

Three days passed, and then O'Brian gave up his darling as lost; no one who did not know what the child had been to him could have believed how bitterly he grieved for her, or how fervently he longed even to find her dead, that he might know what her fate had been; his wife tried to comfort him, but she was herself too broken-hearted to do anything but echo his grief. Four days Norah had been missing when old Molly Murphy exerted herself to hobble as far as Inane to tell ' his honour' how she had found the child, and to claim some reward from ' himself an the misthress.'

The message that a woman had come ' about Miss Norah' gained old Molly speedy admittance to the sorrowing father and mother, and it would be difficult to describe their astonishment when they heard that the old woman had actually found the child and had given her up to the Donovans, not being herself able to carry the little thing past their cottage, nor the indignation of Molly when she heard—for the first time, of course —that Norah had never reached Inane. ' Och, the villains ! the thieves iv the world !' she cried. ' What come over me at all, to trust the darlin' in their hands ? Oh, Mrs O'Brian, ma'am jewel, shure I wouldn't wish it had happened for a mine iv gould! Oh, the darlin' little creature, how could they have the heart ? iv it was only the boys that was in it I mighn't wonder so much, but shure Kathleen might have stood betune the crature an' harm, an' she a woman.' ' Kathleen?' repeated O'Brian, half mechanically, as the remembrance of the beautiful country girl from whose too seductive charms he had fled some years ago came back to him; if it were the same Kathleen of whom old Molly spoke, would she not be capable of revenging herself upon him for the past, by the murder, it might be, of his child?

' Tell me exactly of whom you are speaking,' he said to Molly. ' Who is Kathleen?' 'Kathleen Donovan; shure yer honour knows her well, be sight iv not be name; she's the danghter of ould Black Donovan, the giant, they call him. Don't they live up there in the mountain beyant, how is best known to thimselves, but I'll go bail iv the gaugers could only come across them it's not long they'd be in the country, bad luck to them, axin' yer ladyship's pardon for cursin'.'

' Donovan ?' cried Edward, ' why those are the very fellows the revenue men have been hunting for for days. Come, my good woman, direct me where to find them, and if they have " but the thought that his little Norah had fallen into such lawless hands was too much for him, and he got up hastily and walked about the room to hide his agitation. * Old Molly was too indignant to be stayed by the thought that she was actually turning informer, as she gave O'Brian the directions necessary to enable him to find out the lair of the Donovans, but when she left Inane she determined to go at once and pour out all her wrath upon Kathleen for having deceived her. With much difficulty she dragged her rheumatic old limbs up the glen, and was lucky enough to find Kathleen alone; her father and Ross were in Sligo, and Phelim never now spent an hour away from the 'sheeling.' Kathleen's astonishment and indignation were so genuine when she heard the angry old woman's story, that Molly felt convinced she knew nothing of the child. * Thin it's that limb iv the divil, Phelim, has med away wid her; but never mind, his honour's on the right scint now, an' iv yer not put out nick and crop, it won't be his fault. Where is it yer goin' ?' she added, as Kathleen flung her cloak about her, and almost pushing old Molly out of the cottage, she locked the door.

'Go home, an' never heed me,' she answered, for Molly did not know of the existence of the 'sheeling' higher up the glen. ' The child is not here, you may take my word for that.' And, as she spoke, she started at a quick pace up the mountain path. Phelim was standing in front of the hut, smoking; when he saw his sister coming towards him, he went forward a step or two to meet her, saying gruffly, ' Well, what "brings you here? Yer not wanted.' ' 1 want Norah O'Brian, dead or alive,' she answered. ' It's only a while ago I found out the trick ye played me about her; give her up, I say, or it will be worse for ye if her father comes here to look for her.'

' An' for you iv ye bring him,' Phelim returned. 'IJ have her now, an' idout an oath from O'Brian that me an' mine getsoff fair an' aisy to America, or is never looked after by the revenue men, he may whistle for her, for a finger he'll never lay on her—living. It's transportation for the whisky, and I'd sooner twenty times be hanged any day. There, now, I've said me say, an' be offwidye.' Kathleen looked at the door of the hut, as if she were meditating a bold stroke for the rescue of the child.

' Try it, agra!' said Phelim, derisively, as he made a step or two backward. ' I know every turn iv ye, an' why ye've turned soft all at onest about the child; don't I mind the time when ye were a slip iv a girl ye used to meet O'Brian every blessed day, an' I had me eye out in case he done ye a bad turn; maybe he did, an' may be he didn't, but I put a tilly in this just to sarve him out,' and he drew a heavy pistol from his pocket as he spoke. Kathleen turned without a word and went away, but she was determined, even at the risk of her own life, to save O'Brian's child.

As she expected, lie came the next day, accompanied by a body of the revenue police, to search Donovan's house, ostensibly for illicit whiskey, bnt to rescue his child was O'Brian's real object ; Kathleen was still alone; she met him at the door, and there was not a trace on her handsome face of the feelings which made her tremble from head to foot as she once more stood before him face to face: as for O'Brian, the folly of seven years ago had altogether faded from his mind, and he was hardly conscious that the girl who now stood aside to let him enter her father's house was the same beautiful creature who had fascinated him then.

'Tell yer men to stan' back,' she said. ' There is not one drop of whisky here, inside or out, but I want to spake to yerself.' {Tobe continued.)