while. And will I go up, and be bringing Miss Anty down, ma'am?"
"Wait a while. Sit to the fire there, and warm your shins. You're a good girl. I'll go and get on my shoes and stockings, and my cloak, and bonnet. I must go up wid you myself, and ask yer misthress down, as she should be asked. They'll be telling lies on her 'av she don't lave the house dacently, as she ought."
"More power to you thin, Mrs Kelly, this blessed morning, for a kind good woman as you are, God bless you!" whimpered forth Biddy, who, now that she had obtained her request, began to cry, and to stuff the corner of her petticoat into her eyes.
"Whist, you fool—whist," said the widow. "Go and get up Sally—you know where she sleeps—and tell her to put down a fire in the little parlour upstairs, and to get a cup of tay ready, and to have Miss Meg up. Your misthress'll be the better of a quiet sleep afther the night she's had, and it'll be betther for her jist popping into Miss Meg's bed than getting between a pair of cowld sheets."
These preparations met with Biddy's entire approval, for she reiterated her blessings on the widow, as she went to announce all the news to Sally and Kate, while Mrs Kelly made such preparations as were fitting for a walk, at that early hour, up to Dunmore House.
They were not long before they were under weigh, but they did not reach the house quite so quickly as Biddy had left it. Mrs Kelly had to pick her way in the half light, and observed that "she'd never been up to the house since old Simeon Lynch built it, and when the stones were laying for it, she didn't think she ever would; but one never knowed what changes might happen in this world."
They were soon in the house, for Judy was up to let them in; and though she stared when she saw Mrs Kelly, she merely curtsied, and said nothing.
The girl went upstairs first, with the candle, and Mrs Kelly followed, very gently, on tiptoe. She need not have been so careful to avoid waking Barry, for, had a drove of oxen been driven upstairs, it would not have roused him. However, up she crept,—her thick shoes creaking on every stair,—and stood outside the door, while Biddy went in to break the news of her arrival.
Anty was still asleep, but it did not take much to rouse her; and she trembled in her bed, when, on her asking what was the matter, Mrs Kelly popped her bonnet inside the door, and said,
"It's only me, my dear. Mrs Kelly, you know, from the inn," and then she very cautiously insinuated the rest of her body into the room, as though she thought that Barry was asleep under the bed, and she was afraid of treading on one of his stray fingers. "It's only me, my dear. Biddy's been down to me, like a good girl; and I tell you what—this is no place for you, just at present, Miss Anty; not till such time as things is settled a little. So I'm thinking you'd betther be slipping down wid me to the inn there, before your brother's up. There's nobody in it, not a sowl, only Meg, and Jane, and me, and we'll make you snug enough between us, never fear."
"Do, Miss Anty, dear do, darling," added Biddy. "It'll be a dale betther for you than waiting here to be batthered and bruised, and, perhaps, murthered out and out."
"Hush, Biddy—don't be saying such things," said the widow, who had a great idea of carrying on the war on her own premises, but who felt seriously afraid of Barry now that she was in his house, "don't be saying such things, to frighthen her. But you'll be asier there than here," she continued, to Anty; "and there's nothin like having things asy. So, get up alanna [12], and we'll have you warm and snug down there in no time."
Anty did not want much persuading. She was soon induced to get up and dress herself, to put on her cloak and bonnet, and hurry off with the widow, before the people of Dunmore should be up to look at her going through the town to the inn; while Biddy was left to pack up such things as were necessary for her mistress' use, and enjoined to hurry down with them to the inn as quick as she could; for, as the widow said, "there war no use in letting every idle bosthoon [13] in the place see her crossing with a lot of baggage, and set them all asking the where and the why and the wherefore; though, for the matther of that, they'd all hear it soon enough."
To tell the truth, Mrs Kelly's courage waned from the moment of her leaving her own door, and it did not return till she felt herself within it again. Indeed, as she was leaving the gate of Dunmore House, with Anty on her arm, she was already beginning to repent what she was doing; for there were idlers about, and she felt ashamed of carrying off the young heiress. But these feelings vanished the moment she had crossed her own sill. When she had once got Anty home, it was all right. The widow Kelly seldom went out into the world; she seldom went anywhere except to mass; and, when out, she was a very modest and retiring old lady; but she could face the devil, if necessary, across her own counter.
And so Anty was rescued, for a while, from her brother's persecution. This happened on the morning on which Martin and Lord Ballindine met together at the lawyer's, when the deeds were prepared which young Kelly's genuine honesty made him think necessary before he eloped with old Sim Lynch's heiress. He would have been rather surprised to hear, at that moment, that his mother had been before him, and carried off his bride elect to the inn!
Anty was soon domesticated. The widow, very properly, wouldn't let her friends, Meg and Jane, ask her any questions at present. Sally had made, on the occasion, a pot of tea sufficient to supply the morning wants of half a regiment, and had fully determined that it should not be wasted. The Kelly girls were both up, and ready to do anything for their friend; so they got her to take a little of Sally's specific, and put her into a warm bed to sleep, quiet and secure from any interruption.
While her guest was sleeping, the widow made up her mind that her best and safest course, for the present, would be, as she expressed it to her daughter, Meg, "to keep her toe in her pump, and say nothing to nobody."
"Anty can just stay quiet and asy," she continued, "till we see what Master Barry manes to be afther; he'll find it difficult enough to move her out of this, I'm thinking, and I doubt his trying. As to money matthers, I'll neither meddle nor make, nor will you, mind; so listen to that, girls; and as to Moylan, he's a dacent quiet poor man—but it's bad thrusting any one. Av' he's her agent, however, I s'pose he'll look afther the estate; only, Barry'll be smashing the things up there at the house yonder in his anger and dhrunken fits, and it's a pity the poor girl's property should go to rack. But he's such a born divil, she's lucky to be out of his clutches alive; though, thank the Almighty, that put a good roof over the lone widow this day, he can't clutch her here. Wouldn't I like to see him come to the door and ax for her! And he can't smash the acres, nor the money they say Mulholland has, at Tuam; and faix, av' he does any harm up there at the house, shure enough Anty can make him pay for it—every pot and pan of it—out of his share, and she'll do it, too—av' she's said by me. But mind, I'll neither meddle nor make; neither do you, and then we're safe, and Anty too. And Martin'll be here soon—I wondher what good Dublin'll do him?—They might have the Repale without him, I suppose?—And when he's here, why, av' he's minded to marry her, and she's plased, why, Father Geoghegan may come down, and do it before the whole counthry, and who's ashamed? But there'll be no huggery-muggery, and schaming; that is, av' they're said by me. Faix, I'd like to know who she's to be afeared of, and she undher this roof! I s'pose Martin ain't fool enough to care for what such a fellow as Barry Lynch can do or say—and he with all the Kellys to back him; as shure they would, and why not, from the lord down? Not that I recommend the match; I think Martin a dale betther off as he is, for he's wanting nothing, and he's his own industhry—and, maybe, a handful of money besides. But, as for being afeard—I niver heard yet that a Kelly need be afeard of a Lynch in Dunmore."
In this manner did Mrs Kelly express the various thoughts that ran through her head, as she considered Anty's affairs; and if we could analyse the good lady's mind, we should probably find that the result of her reflections was a pleasing assurance that she could exercise the Christian virtues of charity and hospitality towards Anty, and, at the same time, secure her son's wishes
