CHAPTER III.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1964, 7 February 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

CHAPTER 111.

LuiviNa hto companions auddenly, Tady Connor started baok toward thegnllj th»y had just left, but long before he reaohed it he saw the tall, blaok figure of the prieat standnear the soattered spot whioh had been the grate of Colonel St. Herrick, and it aeemed to the Irishman that in spite of the presence of that old man, the gloom of the spot was deeper, and tba gaunt branches of the dead trees even more threatening of aspeot than they had been a short hour previous ; but he oast the fancy from him with an execration on his own folly. " I was ever an' always a fool with the superstition, an' I must have sucked it wid me mother's milk, for she was just as bad I What'ad make the place blaoker because the father is there ? " and he trod toward him with a step that made the dry sticks oraok, and the dead grass rustle. The clergyman heard the sounds and turned slowly to meet, as he doubtless expected, the gentleman he had so lately parted from, but a quiok frown shaded the whita fa c as he drew the broad hat lower over it at sight of Tady Connor. " Mr. Pollard tould me that ye wor goin' to take up one of the old claims, your reverence, and I came baok to tell ye that No. 2ia mine. You see I worked it long ago, and it belongs of right to me, plaze your reverence. " I am not in orders," was the reply, in a deep, hollow voice as if the words were spoken through clenched teeth, " and claim |no right aa a clergyman. What is that you are saying about these claims? " " Mr. Polliird sea you're goin 1 to work 'em, air, an' I am makin' it known to you that No. '2 was my uluim long ago." " When ? " asked the man we know aa Fathfr Jumes. " Nearly twelve years ago, your revtienoe, before, that murtherin' villain Dan Lyons killed the Colonel in this claim — may the

curse of God rest on him now and for cv -, amen 1" Father James started back almost as if the irapulaivo Irishman had struok or threatened him, and Tady's rcpentanoe was quiokiy evinced. " I beg your reverence's pardon, humblj," he said ; "but when I think of the scoundiel I forgets myself. You have heard about Colonel St. Herriok's beiu' dug out dead heie, ■ir?" " Yea, I have heard the Btory. And you worked here ?" " Yes, sir, in No. 2— that shaft there ; and I'll work in it again, please God, now thit your reverence is going to have a hand in it." " I tell you, man, I am not in orders, and I don't want any of your revflrenoes," Father James repeated angrily, as he turned his thin white face away from Tady. " Sorra one o' me cares whether you are in orders or not, your reverence," reiterated Tady. "At all events, you wor once, an' I knows my duty iv respect to the clergy. Besides" — and the speaker dropped his voice and looked around him timorously — " it gives me oourage to stand here anear a man that has stood before the altar." " What do you mean ? What are you afraid of, you fool? Do you think that a dead man has power to harm you ?" " No, your reverence ; but you know well I that the place where a soul has been parted from the body by foul murder is accursed. Look round you, sir ; the trees have withered here, and the grass won't grow. There isn't a bird ever sings in them dead branohes, or a drop of rain ever falls to wet that hard clay ; but I b'licve in my heart that if the murderer was to come and put his foot on that ground it would open and swallow him up." Involuntarily Father James drew his foot baok from the spot where it had rested on the sunken level, and an angry red burned in his hollow cheeks. "You are a fool, I, told you that before," he said, " as if Nature's laws would permit of miracles ; but I wish it was true. I with that the ground would open at the touch of Dan Lyons' foot, for 'twould save me a good deal of labor digging out all this soil." " Does your reverenoe know where he is?' 1 added Tady, in open-mouthed wonder. " Know I not I, of course not ; but one fool makes many, and we are told to answer a fool acoording to hit folly." " Yes sir," Tady replied humbly, though he didn't at all understand what Father James meant. "But will you please to tell me sir if it's true that your going to open up No. I 'again?" "I am," was the short reply; "I have machinery coming up in a day or two, and a man that knows the ground to work it. Which shaft do you claim ? " " That one sir," and Tady pointed to the shaft down which the long sprays of a creeping plan*; w«"re lovehly swaying, " and I'll peg it out now for Bafety sake." " Have you a miners' right ? " Father James asked with a scowl. " Yes, sir, and so has Mr. Leonard ; we came a purpose to dig at Marranga." " Who is Mr. Leonard?" "My master, your reverence ; you saw him with Mr. Pollard a bit ago," and honest Tadj launched into a volley of praises all devoted to Mr. Leonard. Very few were the words that the priest said, but before ho parted from the voluble Irishman he knew all about his long ago ex perienoes at Marranga, and his festerbrother'i wealth and Dotation, while of him ■elf or family Tady could not carry to the townshi ) one iota of intelligence. " A holy man," was Tady's opinion, selfexpressed, as ha walked to rejoin bis joutig muster, " and I think he has some vow on him, he in so quiet and still." Aye I Father James had a vow on him, but it was one that Tady Connor would no more have dreamed of than he would of robbing n sacristy 1 Let us follow the clergyman and Res whp.t was his opinion of the garrulous Irishman At the weather-stained gate that opened to the overgrown gardens of St. H«rriok'n, he paused for a little to look down upon the township that was plainly viHnle from where he stood, but had any one been there to watch that pallid countenance they must have recognised the fact ttmt hit* thoughts were not on the white house* by the roadside, or the painted bridge over tti« creek, near which the VR, on the binr.l *t tne white police station was plainly vimbe. In the deep set eyes a lurid tirr hum^d The long fim/ers with which he flinched me lop bar of the gate seemed to hold it with n, grip of iron, rigid as the set teeth arid compressed lips of the man. A sttp came down the walk, but he did not hear it, for he started when a hand was laid on his arm. " Has anything gone wrong, brother ? " was the question that he heard, and saw repeated in the dark face and the keen eyes bent so near his own. " No— yes," wai the contradictory reply. I have been down at the old place." "Attheolaims?" " Yes." " And it has up et you. I thought you were of different stuff, brother." "It was not altogether that, but I met a man there whose preseDoe may be of evil influenoo for us. Do you remember a little Irishman named Tady Connor working in the Gully twelve years ago ? " "Aye, do I ; he was in No 2." 14 Well, he has come baok all the way from Ireland to try that olajm again, and I am afraid of him." "Why ? Do you remember him ? Does he know you ? " "Brother, you have forgotten that Dan Lyons is dead ; how should I, who have never ■een Marranga before, know this man, or he me?" " I stand corrected," th« man who called Father James " brother " said ; " yet there are sometimes fanoied resemblances." "Yes," interrupted the priest, "and I think this Connor saw something in my faoe that reminded him of the past. I hope it is not so, but the idea troubled me." The brother looked long and steadily into Father James' faoe, and then he said with decision — " There is not the most distant family resemblanoe; there is not a line, or a feature, or an exprenion like Dan Lyons." "That is well. Cornelius, what sort of man was this Connor in those dayi ? Dan Lyons, I think, knew very little about him." " Connor was a fool ; an ignorant, prejudiced, conceited fool, who would believe anyj thing you told him, but was very religious in his way. Curse these religious people — they do more mischief than a hoit of devils 1 How did he treat you?" " With the greatest respect — with exaggerated reverence, in faot." " As a clergyman, of course " " Ye§." " Oh, then it is all right ; in that oharacter you oan twist Tady Connor round your finger." " I saw another old acquaintance of Dan's." " Who ?" " John Pollard." " Ah ! did he see any family likeness?" " No, lam sure he did not. I told him of our intention to re-open the claim." " That's right ; and you told him alno that you had one of the old men who understood the ground ?" «' I did " " Tnen everything is going on right; and now I thiuk you had better go in to the

inolinr; she's been aivfully^restl^ss sinej you went out." Father! James looked toward the we-4, where in a gorgeous robe of red and purple and gold the aun was saying farewell to Marrangn, and a etrong shudderjshook him from head to foot. " Will you never get over it, brother ?" Cornelius asked, -with an almost womanly tenderness ; " and you so strong-minded in every other way. You are ready to face the retribution we are working for at any day and any hour, yet you shudder at a phantom of your own fancy." "Itis no fancy, Cornelius ; lam ready for the living, but not for the dead. Fancy 1 Is that fancy? Are these fancy?" and he held out his emaciated, trembling wrists. " No, but you are killing your?elf by trying to fortify yourself for the imaginary horrors of the night; the spirits you drink would kill the strongest man alive." 11 It does not kill me, I should die without it." He turned toward the house, half hidden by the trees, as he waa speaking, and walked toward it, a tall unbending form that seemed shadowy enough to belong to some other world, yet had hidden beneath the black robe all the horrors that the crimes of earth could ooncentrate into one deed. The house known as St. Herricks was a low-roofed building of small accommodation, and its dark stone walls were so covered with ivy, that only here and there where the gleam of small windows mada themselves known, could the material of which it was built be identified. It had more than the gloomy look, too, of a house untenanted for long years, especially at sunset, when the tail oy press -like trees cast their long shadows across the threshold. Standing on the threshold ai the brother-, approached it, was an indolent-looking young girl of low statute and a heavy build. Every feature in her face was heavy, from the snub noee and the slow, dark eyes, to the thick fringe of black hair cut straight across her low flat forehead. She had a sulky look, too, as she stood there watching her brothers' approach listlessly, and her ungainly figure was so bedizened with soiled finery, in the shape of lace and ribboni that the befringed and beflounced blaok dress looked shabbier than even it waa under the contrast. " It isn't bad enough to to bo in a gaol like this, but we must be starved waiting for our supper," she said, sullenly, as Father James passed her, and went inside but Cornelias only laughed in her face as he chucked her fat, heavily moulded chin. "A pretty girl like you, Nora, wont be in gaol, as you call it, long. You'll be having no end of sweethearts about you when the Marranga boys begin to find you out." " I don't think there's any boys about," she •aid, with a pout of her thick lips. " That's where you're wron^, Nora ; there was one asking about you to day." " Now you're up to rfome of your larks, Corney," she said, dou v >tWKly ; but her eyes sparkled, and her brother saw it. " Faith I'm not. Oh, honor bright, Nora, he saw you through the trees, and he's bound to make your acquaintance." " Who is ho ? ' the girl asked eagerly. " Hh nanw is Tadj Connor." ' Ttidy Connor," she repeated thoughtfully ; and little Kue-wed Cornelius Brady, as he called himnelf, what a bomb of destruction he had thrown un'ler his own roof when he mentioned the uame of Tady Connor to hid sister Nora. In the kitchen of St. Herrioks, which, it would pefm, was Uded as a common room by the B'afiy family, a smoking supper waa 1-prend upon the table, at which a woman oi some sixty years was standing when Father James entered. She was a tall, thin woman, with strong hands and wiry arms — the hands and arms of a woman who had worked hard all hei life, and was dressed in the homely lashion of an Irish farmer's wife. Her grey hair was drawn up from her low forehead under a white muslin c*p, her dreds wa-i pinned up over a blue woollen petticoat, and a ohecked apron was spread over all the front of her skirts. A small shawl covered her shoulders, and waa crossed on her breast, and if a person had cursorily glanced at Mm. Brady they must have set her down as au active, bustling woman, and a notable housewife. (jT(» be continued.')