CHAPTER IV.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1967, 14 February 1885, Page 5 (Supplement)

CHAPTER IV.

THE I'OnTtNE-TELLER OP MOONT KOBAJf. Tbk hut is high up on a spur of Great Mount Bobnn in a sheltered spot nearly hidden by trees and big brown rocks, half covered with green moss and fjrey lichen ; it was built of heavy timber slabs, and covered by sheets of box bark, both of which showed the weathervrorn hue of many years. From the front of this hut on the side of the mount one of the grandest views around ftfarranga was discernible, and if it had been built for the purpose ol espionage, no situation could bare been better chosen, Tiw

township lay under tho eye like a green map, I dotted with little white cubes that represented { dwellings, and right across the long line of the gleaming creek, past St. Jlcrricks, and up the elope where tho lone cemetery lay, not a human being could move without being traced from Nan Giiffith's hut. The very gully where lay the long-desorted claims was open to the view from that hill home ; and a8 far as the eye could reachfar across the plains bounded by the low, purple blue hill?, one could follow the trnek along which the coach passed once a day ; in short, the eyrie of an eagle wns never built in a more commanding and yet retired spot. Two or three days after that on which my story opens, Nan Griffiths was sitting on a block of wood outside the door of the hut, and under the heavy shadow of a spreading tree that bent its crooked branohes over her un-canny-looking figure. She was a very old woman, with white hair hanging loosely over her shoulders, and a long cloak that covered her even down to her feet ; to this cloak there was a hood that could be drawn at will over her head, and holes, through one of which a skinny hand was passed to grasp a crutched stick. The old creature was toothless, and her skin was shrivelled up on her face like sun-tanned leather ; but the keen dark eyes that sparkled under the long white hairs of her eyebrows were apparently as serviceable a3 when she was 20 years younger. She was muttering and mumbling to herself in a dissatisfied way that made her sharp nose and chin meet in a manner that gave her some resemblance to a bird of prey, when she saw a woman climbing up the track among the trees leading toward tho hut. It was a tall, pale-faced woman of about thirtyfive, with dark hair and eyee, and a weary, helpless look in her face that would have won the sympathy of a stranger, but did not seem to be noticed by Nan, who was her mother. " What a time you've been ! Faugh, the woman there is in these days 1" "I was as quick as I could be," Ellen Griffiths returned, as she eeated herself wearily near the hag, " and I'm as tired as death." " Death is never tired, you fool, and you always are," Nan growled ; " and now you sit there staring before you without telling me a word ; did you see tho child." " Yea, but I had a rare hunt for him." "Where was ho?" "Up in the ocmetory at the Colonel's grave." 11 By himself?" " No, he was with Resignation St. Herrick." The reply seemed to stun the old hag with surprise. With Kesignation St. Herrick I With her of all the children in tho world I" and then a harsh, cackling laugh burst from Nan's lips, as she clapped her hands joyfully. "It would be grand," she Bcreeched ; " I wish I'd thought of it aforo ; but there's time enough. I'll make a policeman— a trap of him." ' ' A policeman 1 of who ? " "Of Dan I would it not be grand if he were to trap Colonel St. Ilerrick's murderer ! " Ellen looked at her mother with a stony horror, but she said nothing, though the hag went on as though she had. " Oh it's awful isn't it I your mother is a hard-hearted, cruel old woman, that would hunt to death the man you loved. Faugh ! you wbita-livercd worm, that would turn and lick the hand that struck you ; are you a child of mine at all ? " Ellen was used to such talk, and she said nothing save what was expressed in the worn to death, weary look in her poor white face. " Tell me what you heard, curse you, and don't sit there like a senseless image driving me mad," shouted Nan, as Bhe seized her daughter's arm and shook her violently ; 11 open your mouth and speak, fool that you are." "What am I to toll about first ? " " The new people at St. Herricks, who are they?— quick." 11 Their name is Brady, an old mother, two sons, and a daughter. They've taken St. Herrioks — rented it of Mr. Pollard." " And is it true that they're going into the old ground again? " "Yes." The hag gave her daughter another vicious Bhake, and her aharp, prominent chin worked like the half of a pair of nut-crackors as she shrieked — " I'll throttle you if you don't speak out ! what has come over you at all fool ? Have you seen a ghost— tho ghost of Colonel Herrick, eh ? " " No, but I have seen a lace like Dan Lyons." At tho reply the old woman's hand fell from her daughter's arm as she questioned anxiously. "You don't mean that he haa come back Ellen?" " No, it was in a woman's face I saw the likeness, and then it was in the eyes only. When I was looking for little Dan I went round by the fence at St. Harrick's, and found a young girl looking over it as if watching for some one ; it was the daughter of the Brady'a that have taken tho place." " Well 1 you spoke to her of course ? " " Yes, and got a good deal of news out of her, Jbut before I left her mother came out and called her angrily away. It was in Mrs. Brady's eyes I saw Dan Lyons." " It was in your own eyes you saw a fool," said the hag scornfully. " You think of nothing morning, noon, and night, but that double dyed murderer that left a curse on you and yours. Go on with what you were saying." " She's a young girl, and a silly one, the Brady girl ; but you'll soon sec her for yourself, for I told her about you, and she's sure to pay you a visit. She thinks of nothing but sweetheart?, and her brother has told her that a man is in love with her." "Whatman?" "Do you remember Tady Connor, mother ?" " That Connor that worked in tho Gully when the Colonel was killed?" " The same." " Something is going to happen I" exclaimed Nan, wildly. "No wonder I dreamed of alrange th'wga and flaw strange signs 1 Go on !" " When Mrs. Brady called tho girl inaide I went on toward the cemetery, and I met Connor himself on his way from the Gully." " Did he know yon, Ellen ?" " Yea, at onco, and asked me if you wero alive yet. He ia coming to sec you about Borne dream." " Aye ? he waa always a soft fool, but an open-handed one, too, so he's welcome." " If I don't mistake, that's he coming up the hill now, mother," said the woman, as she pointed down toward a man who was steadily climbing up the steep path, Yei, it was Tady, in truth, going, after many misgivings, to see once again the fortune-teller of Mount lloban, whom ho had more than once consulted in tho years gone by ; for Tady wan one of those not unusual characters in whom are combined deep religious convictions and an ignorant belief in supernatural powers and beings, and his ignorant mind was sorely exercised on account of a strange dream he had had a few nights previous. " How Mr. Leonard would laugh at me," he wan muttering to himself in gasps, as tho steepneas of the hill tried his lungs severely ; " he don't believe in fortune-tellers or witches, or anything, but seein'a believin', an' well I know Nan is a, witch if there was ever one in tbifl world.."

When he reached the hut there was no oue in front of it, and the door wag shut. He knooked a low, respectful knock, and nearly jumped out of his akin as be was bidden by name to enter. " Corao in, Tady Connor." " What am I frightened of?" he reasoned with himself as he lifted the latch and pushed open the door, "Of course Ellon has corao back and tould her she seen me." When ho entered the low, dim room, with the clay floor and the smoke-blackened rafters, he aaw that there waa a small fire on the hearth, but no one bo3ide it, and then he turned at a sound that made him shiver to see Nan Griffiths standing on the threshold of an inner door with a huge black cat at her feet. It waa the cat's unearthly " me-a-w I" that bad made Tady shudder from head to foot. " Welcome, Tady Connor," said the hag, as she advanced and stood before him, her skinny hand grasping the stick, her low bent form atill coveiedwith the long cloak. " The Eeaa have rolled between us for long years, and now they have brought you back again." " They have, ma'am," said Tudy, as he made a respectful scrapo with his right foot ; and I'm glad to see they have left you looking so hearty." " Timo makes no odds to me,' she said, as she drew a seat to the table and sat down, while she pointed to another for her visitor. " I'll live until a man dies, and then my work is done. Sit down." Tady would have liked to ask her whose death was to preocd" her own, but he dare'nt, and waited humbly for the hag to epeak again. "You wanfto consult me ?" she asked, as she put her shrivelled face so near to him that the fiery little eye 3 so far back in nor head seemed to burn him. " Speak out what it is while the humor's on mo." " It's a dvame I had, Mrs. Griffiths — a drame that'a troublm' me intirely ; an' knowin' well how knowledgeable you always wor, I kera to ax you about it." " All right," she replied, as she drew toward her with a Bkinny paw the coin Tady had laid near her on the table. " Skull, fetch the master's books." " The latter command was addressed to the black cat, who instantly entered the inside chamber and almost instantly returned with a little bag in his mouth, which he deposited on his mistress's lap, taking the opportunity of hi=) vicinity to the terrified Irishman to spit and " wa-ow " viciously in his face. '■ Down, Skull," cried Nan to the cat as she opened the bag and drew a pack of dirty cards from it. " Now, Connor, tell me your dream." " It's twice now I've dramed it," he Eaid, turning his face away from the cat, who still glared at him. " I thought, do you see, that I was down in the old shaft at work, and that with every spade I dug I turned up the head of a man. I thought that I always expected a lump of gold, and saw it shinin' as I turned the shovel, but whin it come up it was always the Bame man's face wid blood on it." " Did you know the faco 7 "' asked the hag solemnly. " Yes, I did." " Whqpe was it ? " " It waa Dan Lyon, the murderer's, face." " Something is going to happen Tady Connor I " she said, almost reprating the words phc had used to her daughter. " The dream was always the same ? " "Always, ma'am." With her jaws munohing and mumbling horribly tho fortune-teller Bpread the cards before her, and with such a keen anxiety in her own repellant and withered face, that it was evident she possessed some belief in the art she practised. Unconsciously to himself, the little Irishman had uttered the one name in the whole world that had power to excite her worst passions, for there are far worse passions than the reigning one of Nan Griffith's, which wag cupidity. "What man ia plotting against you?" she asked him suddenly, as he anxiously watched her face while she scanned the cards. "You have been speaking to him lately, though you have not touched his hand — who is it ? " and she turned her eyes keenly upon Tady's face. "I don't know, Mrs. Griffiths. I haven't spoko to a soul to-day but my young master, Mr. Leonard Protser, and I'm sure he'd plot nothing agin his fosterer." " You spoke to no one else ? — mind what you cay, Tady Connor." "Be this an' be that 1 " asseverated Tady, and then he all at once Btopped, and with & gasp ejaculated almost in a whisper, " Sure it wouldn't be Father James I " " Who is Father James ? " Nan asked buspiciously, " and what right have you to bo talking of clergymen here ? Why, the very cat knows you have named one— look at him 1 " In fact the black cat had turned toward the terrified Tady, and with every hair on end was me a-wing and spitting at him. " Spake to him 1 quiten him for my sake, Mrs. Griffith's 1 sure I meant no harm, and at any rate Father James isn't a priest at all sein' he isn't in orthers now ; he's the gentleman that has rented St. Herrick'a an' is livin' thero wid his family." A sudden remembrance of what her daughter had said about Nora Brady made the old hag grin to ber&elf as she ordered her familiar to retire, and she resumed the reading of the cards she had laid down. " I can tell you nothing about your dream until you dream it once more," sho said, "but beware of a dork man that ifl plotting against your very life." " Uow will I find out who, he is?" asked Tady, anxiously. " Through a girl," replied Nan ; " a young girl with daik hair that's in love with you." " With mo ? It's jokin' you are, mam." Don't I look like a woman to joke?" was the angry retort. " There's a gill in love with you, and you'll see her this very day, for she's waiting and watching for you at this moment ; and now go, for I cau tell you no more at present. When you dream the third time come to me again." Tady got up, and having uttered his thanks, gladly hastened out of the hut. His superstitious terrors of old Nan and her cat, although partly overcome by the wonderfully good news Bhe had told him, were yet quite sufficient to render his escape into the pure air of the mountain a pleasant one, and he hastened down ita side to bo at leisure to think over his unexpected good fortune. Good fortune, indeed, and at last 1 I think I have told you that Tady Connor had numbered Home thirty-five years, and during many lustres of those years it had been his hard fate to have been hopelessly over head and cars in love very many times. Tady's heart was soft, but thoso of the maidens who scorned his turned-up nose, his crooked fingers, and his red hair, were as hard as tho nether millstone. In vain had he year after year pictured to himself some lovely inamorato transformed into a loving wife, and called Mrs. Connor. One by one his hopes had beon blighted, and "his person mocked or laughed at, yet here was a young girl with dark hair in love with him— actually in love with his very self, without being asked or even known at all 1 Delightful thought 1 but there waa one drawback— he had a rival, for that was tho decision Tady came to regarding the dark man old Nan had declared to be plotting against him, and warned him against. " Of cooiao it's Home chap that she won't look at on account of her love for me, tho darlin' 1" ho soliloquised. "I wonther who she is at all, at all? but, sure, I'll know soon, for I'm to see her thia very day," ana poor

Tady, believing in Nan Griffiths with all bin little heart, went down the hill rejoicing and looking all around him for a sight of tho girl who at last had been the one to appreciate the hitherto despised little man. " Maybe she's behind eomo of the bushes or rocks watchin' me the crathur," he murmured with a fond smile, as he took off his hat and arranged his red, stiff locka. " It'a well I put on me new coat, though 'twas for old Nun I did it. She was ever an always very particular," and he squared round hn funny little person to look at his heels, as he gave the admired blue coat with the brass buttons a vigorous tug behind to make it hang more gracefully. He had to pass St. Herriek's on his way to the township— doubtless the ounning hag he had just left had calculated on that fact, and also another fact, the latter being that Nora Brady was again standing at the fence under tho trees watching and waiting for tho sweetheart her brother had promised her, little thinking what events would follow from the effects of his silly fun at the expense of Nora's well-known vanity and weakne&s for tho opposite sex. She had seen Tady climbing up the hill path, and now watohed hi* return with a beating heart and a conscious smile on her coarse, rosy face. St. Herricks had, as we know, an interest for Connor that Nora did not gues<? at, and for a moment, as he passed it, he forgot the fortune teller's prediction and thought of the murdered man whom everyone had loved. In (he very middle of these sad thoughts, however, he heard a slight cough, and with a sudden return of his warm admiration of hiq unknown inamorato's taste, ho stopped and turned in the direction of the "ahem." Had there been an observer of the meeting between Nora and Tady he must certainly have been an amused one. The girl was craning her neck over the fence in trying to follow with her eyei Tady's passing form, when at her cough he turned suddenly and stopped, then she drew her big head back and giggled. Tady struck an attitude, an attitude so ludicrous and comical that nothing but the girl's exaggerated self-conceit prevented her from observing its true nature, but as it was she saw nothing save unbounded admiration of her over decorated self, and was immensely delighted, so with the envious fence only between them Tady grinned from ear to ear, and fell awkwardly upon his knees on the damp grass, under tho thick trees that protruded their great branches over the dilapidated fence. •'Are you Tady Connor ?" simpered silly Nora, aa she scanned her lover's rather singular proportions lavishly displayed by his sprawl upon the graes. " I am, mavourneen, I am that happyman," oried Tady. " What rnakeg you so happy ?" " Because at last I see the beauty &n' the darlin' of the wide world here forenint me this blepsed day." 11 He-he-he 1" He-ho-he wasn't much, but, with tho accompanying leer from Nora's small, heavy eyes, it expressed great encouragoment to poor Tady. " Arrah, don't be laughin' at me asthore ; sure, you'll brak my heart if you do I" And with a good deal of grunting, Tady struggled to his knees, and ventured nearer to tho fence. " I'm not laughing at you. How did you know I was here? 1 ' Nora asked, as she arranged her ribbons and cheap ornaments pretty much as Tady had arranged the tail of his coat a little previously. •' Nan tould me agra, an' sure it was mesolf that a'most flew down tho hill to come to ye," replied Tady, but he was wondering all the time who told the girl his name, and then deciding it was that dangerous dark man who was plotting against him, he determined to ask her at once. " I say, agra, who was it tould you me name?" " Conn did," and as Nora went on, he was muttering, almost audibly, " D Conn, who ever he is." " But who is this Nan you are talking about ? Is ehe you're sister ?" 11 God forbid 1" and Tady crossed himself devoutly, " arrah no, aathore, she's an ould woman that has lived up on Mount Roban these twenty years, an' she'i a fortune teller." The latter words were uttered in a whisper, that necessitated Tady's monkoy-like face being protruded over the fenco in dangerous proximity to that of the delighted Nora, who was, however, woman enough to affect a prudery sho was far from experiencing. "Go away with you — it's a shame for you, and if mother or Conn was to «co you, both of us would be killed." " Divila care I care ! Who's Conn ?" aßked Connor, with a scornful twist of his ugly nose at the mentioj of a name he had identiiied as a fancied rival. "I'd be sorry to vex the mother ov me darlin' girl, but as for Conn— to the divil wid him, I say I Who is he, at all, at all ?" "Conn is my brother, didn't you know that? I've two brothers, you know, Conn and James, Father James, they oall him now." " Oh, Lord I is Father Jamea a brother of yours? But afther all, why should wo be afraid of him or any one ? I'll keep company wid no daeent girl except for dacency, and sure he could marry us if he was agreeable" " Marry us," repeated Nora, with a giggle again, at the idea of this ardent wooing. " 'Tis early in the day to be talking of marrying when I've only seen you a minute or two ago ; and besides, James couldn't many us, for he's not in orders." •'Oh, I forgot, he tould me so himself agra; but nevor mind, when we makes up our minds we can aisy find a priest to tie us together for a happy life. Who's that '" That was someone ahouting shrilly " Nora 1 Nora !" in the direction of the house. " 'Tis me mother ! I must go or she'll kill me." " Stop one minnit aahtoro. Whin'll I see you agin? Tell mo quick now before you go. Sure I'll bo thinkin' it months till I sco your beweheful eyc3 an' your darlin' face again." " I don't know, I'm ofton'hero at the fence, and if you'll whi3tle I can come mostly any time in the evenin'." " Oh, the lovely crathur I" murmured Tady, as he gripped tho top rail of the fence and stared after the quickly retreating figure of his fat inamorata. " Isn't she tho darlin' of tho world to take a fancy to me in this way, an' not a sowl to care for mef in this wide world but Mr. Leonaid ?" and tho name reminded him that ho had bettor not keep hia young master ignorant of his whereabouts much longer, so ho tore himself away and made for the township.