A dreary day of December it was, and the rain was pouring heavily, pitilessly down in the dark gorge of Derryvaragh. The roar of mountain rivulets, swollen to torrents, filled the air, and the crashing sounds of falling timber blended with the noise of troubled waters. Beautiful as that landscape would be on a day of bright sunshine, it seemed now the dreariest scene the eye could rest on. The clouds lay low on the mountain-sides, thickening the gloom that spread around, while yellow currents of water crossed and re-crossed on every side, rending the earth, and laying bare the roots of tall trees.

From a window in O’Rorke’s inn, O’Rorke himself and old Malone watched the devastation and ruin of the flood; for even there, in that wild region forgotten of men, there were little patches of cultivation—potato-gardens and small fields of oats or rye—but through which now the turbid water tore madly, not leaving a trace of vegetation as it went.

“And so you saw the last of it?” said O’Rorke, as he lit his pipe and sat down at the window.

“I did; there wasn’t one stone on another as I came by. The walls were shaky enough before, and all the mortar washed out of them, so that when the stream came down in force, all fell down with a crash like thunder; and when I turned round, there was nothing standing as high as your knee, and in five minutes even that was swept away, and now it’s as bare as this floore.”

“Now, mind my words, Peter Malone; as sure as you stand there, all the newspapers will be full of ‘Another Outrage—More Irish Barbarism and Stupidity.’ That will be the heading in big letters; and then underneath it will go on: ‘The beautiful Lodge that Sir Gervais Vyner had recently built in the Gap of Derryvaragh was last night razed to the ground by a party of people who seem determined that Ireland should never rise out of the misery into which the ignorance of her natives have placed her.’ That’s what they’ll say, and then the Times will take it up, and we’ll have the old story about benefactor on one side, and brutality on the other; and how, for five hundred years’ and more, England was trying to civilise us, and that we’re as great savages now—ay, or worse—than at first.”

Malone clasped his worn hands together, and muttered a deep curse in Irish below his breath.

“And all our own fault,” continued O’Rorke, oratorically. “‘Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.’ I said that on Essex Bridge to the Lord-Lieutenant himself; and look at me now—is it here, or is it this way, a patriot ought to be?”

“Isn’t it the same with us all?” said Malone, sternly. “Didn’t they take my grandchild away from me—the light of my eyes—and then desart her?”

“No such thing—she’s better off than ever she was. She’s living with a man that never was in Ireland, and, mind what I say, Peter Malone, them’s the only kind of English you ever get any good out of.”

“What do you mane?”

“I mane that when one or two of us go over there, we’re sure to be thought cute and intelligint; and the Saxon says, ‘Isn’t it wonderful what a clever people they are?’ But if he comes here himself, and sees nothing but misery and starvation, he cries ont, ‘They’re hopeless craytures—they live with the pig.’”

“And why wouldn’t we, if we had one?”

“Well, well, well,” muttered the other, who never minded nor heeded the interruption, “maybe the time is coming, maybe the great day is near. Don’t you know the song of the ‘Shamroge in my Hat?’”

“I ne’er heerd it.”

“I wonder will the letter come to-day,” said the old man, with a weary sigh; “my heart is heavy waiting for it.”

“If she sent you a ten-pound note, Peter Malone, whenever she wrote, there would be some sense and reason in your wishing for a letter; but, so well as I remember the one scrap of a letter she sent you, there was neither money nor money’s worth in it.”

“It was betther than goold to my heart,” said Malone, with a deep feeling in his voice and look.

“Well, there, it’s coming now; there’s Patsey holding up a letter in his hand. Do you see him at the ford, there?”

“I don’t see him, my eyes are so weak; but are ye sure of it, Tim O’Rorke? Don’t decave me, for the love of the blessed Virgin.”

“I’m not deceiving you; there’s the boy coming along as fast as he can.”

“Ay, but the letter?”

“He flourished it a minute ago, this way, for he saw me at the window.”

“Open the window and maybe, he’d show it again,” said the old man, trembling with eagerness.

“Faix! I’ll not let the rain in! It’s a nice day to have the windows open. You’re eaten up with your selfishness, Peter Malone!”

“Maybe I am, maybe I am,” muttered the old peasant, as he sat down, and hid his face between his hands.

“And who knows where the letter will be from? Maybe its Vyner is going to turn you out of your holding.”

“So he may,” sighed the other, meekly.

“Maybe it’s the agents callin’ on you to pay up for the time you were in it. Do you think that would be convanient, eh?”

“I don’t care, if they did.”

“I wouldn’t wonder if it was trouble you were getting in about throwing down the walls of the Lodge. The police, they say, made a report about it.”

“So they may; let them do their worst.”

“Go round to the back. Do you think I’ll open the front doore of a day like this?” screamed out O’Rorke to the messenger, who now stood without.

While he went to unbar the door, Old Malone dropped on his knees, and with clasped hands and uplifted eyes muttered a few words of prayer; they were in Irish, but their intense passion and fervour were but increased by the strong-sounding syllables of that strange tongue.

“There it is—from herself,” said O’Rorke, throwing down the letter on the table. “Her own handwriting; ‘Mr. Peter Malone, to the care of Mr. O’Rorke, Vinegar Hill, Cush-ma-greena, Ireland.’”

“The heavens be your bed, for the good news, Tim O’Rorke! May the Virgin watch over you for the glad heart you’ve given me this day.”

“Wait till we see the inside of it, first. Give it to me till I open it.” But the old man could not part with it so easily, but held it pressed hard to his lips.

“Give it here,” said the other, snatching it rudely; “maybe you’ll not be so fond of it, when you know the contents.”

The old man rocked to and fro in his agitation as O’Rorke broke the seal; the very sound of the wax, as it smashed, seemed to send a pang through him, as he saw the rough, unfeeling way the other handled that precious thing.

“It’s long enough, anyhow, Peter—one, two, three pages,” said he, turning them leisurely over. “Am I to read it all?”

“Every word of it, Tim O’Rorke.”

“Here goes, then:

“‘March 27,18—.

Dalradem Castle, N. Wales.

“‘My dear old Grandfather,—I sit down to write you a very long letter—-’”

“God bless her! God bless the darlin’!” said the old man, interrupting; “show me the words, Tim—show them to me.”

“Indeed I will not do any such thing. It’s just as much as I’ll do is to read it out—‘a very long letter, and I hope and trust it will serve for a very long time, and save me, besides, from the annoyance of your friend and secretary, Mr. O’Rorke.’ Listen to this, Peter Malone,—‘from your secretary, Mr. O’Rorke, who, I suppose, having no treason to occupy him, is good enough to bestow his leisure upon me.’ Did you ever hear more impudence than that in all your born days? Did you believe she’d be bowld enough to insult the man that condescended to serve her?”

“She’s young, she’s young, Tim! Would you have her as wise as you and me? The crayture!”

“I’d have her with a civil tongue in her head. I’d have her respect and regard and rev’rahce her superiors—and I’m one of them!”

“Go on; read more,” muttered the old man.

“It’s not so easy, with a throat on fire, and a tongue swelled with passion. I tell you, Peter Malone, I know that girl well, and what’s more, she never deceived me! It’s like yesterday to me, the day she stood up here to my own face and said, ‘I wish I never set foot in your house, Tim O’Rorke.’ Yes, there’s the very words she used.”

“Wasn’t she a child, a poor little child?” said Malone, in a humble, almost supplicating voice.

“She was a child in years, but she had the daring of a woman, that no man would ever frighten.”

“Read on, avick, read on, and God bless you,” said the other, wiping away the big drops that stood on his brow.

O’Rorke read on: “‘I know, grandfather, it is very natural you should like to hear of me——‘”

A deep sigh and low muttered prayer broke here from the old man.

“‘—to hear of me: but when once assured that I was well and happy, I hoped and believed you would cease to make such inquiries as fill O’R.‘s letters——‘”

“What does she mean?” broke in Malone.

“Listen, and maybe you’ll hear;” and he read:

“‘—for it cannot possibly be a matter of interest to you to hear that I read books you never saw, speak with people you never met, and talk of things, places, and persons that are all just as strange to you as if you were walking on a different earth from this.’”

“Read that again.”

“I will not. ‘Tis as much as I can to say it once. Listen:

“‘You ask, Am I happy? and I answer, If I am not, is it in your power to make me so? You want to know, Do I like the life I lead? and I ask you, If it should be that I did not like it, do you think I’d like to go back to rags, misery, and starvation? Do you believe that I can forget the cold, cutting wind, and the rain, and the snow-drift of Strathmore, or that I don’t remember the long days I shivered on the cliffs of Kilmacreenon? They all come back to me, grandfather, in my dreams, and many a morning I awake, sobbing over miseries, that, no matter what may be my fortune, have left a dark spot on my heart for life!’”

“The darlin’ jewel! I hope not,” muttered Malone, as his lips trembled with emotion. “Read on, O’Rorke.”

“‘Take it for granted, that you need never fret about me.’ That’s true, anyhow, Peter; and she means it to say, ‘Don’t bother yourself about one that will never trouble her head about you!’”

“Go on with the readin’,” grumbled out Malone.

“‘Though I cannot answer one-fourth of your questions, I will tell you so much: I am better off here than at Sir Q. V.‘s. I am my own mistress; and, better still, the mistress of all here. Sir Within leaves everything at my orders. I drive out, and dress, and ride, and walk, just as I please. We see no company whatever, but there is so much to do, I am never lonely. I have masters if I wish for them—sometimes I do—and I learn many things, such as riding, driving, &c, which people never do well if they only have picked up by chance opportunity. You ask, What is to be the end of all this? or, as Mr. O’Rorke says, What will ye make of it? I reply, I don’t know, and I don’t much trouble my head about it; because I do know, Peter Malone, that if I am not interrupted and interfered with, all will go well with me, though certainly I can neither tell how, or where, or why. Another thing is equally clear: neither of us, dear grandfather, can be of much use to the other.’”

“What’s that?” cried the old man; “read it again.”

“‘Neither of us can be of much use to the other.’ That’s plain talking, anyhow, Peter. She’s a young lady that makes herself understood, I must say that!”

“I never ‘dragged’ on her for a farthin’,” said Malone, with a mournful sigh.

“Lucky for you, Peter; lucky for you!”

“Nor I wouldn’t, if I was starvin’!” said he, with a fierce energy.

“Lucky for you, I say again!”

“You mane, that she wouldn’t help me, Tim O’Rorke. You mane, that she’d turn her back on her ould grandfather. That’s as it may be. God knows best what’s in people’s hearts! I can’t tell, nor you either; but this I can tell, and I can swear to it: That for all the good she could do me—ten, ay, fifty times told—I’d not disgrace her, nor bring her to the shame of saying, ‘That ould man there in the ragged frieze coat and the patched shoes, that’s my mother’s father!’”

“If it’s to your humility you’re trusting, Peter, my man,” said the other, scoffingly, “you’ve made a great mistake in your granddaughter; but let us finish the reading. Where was it I left off? Yes, here, ‘Neither of us of much use to the other. You want to know what intercourse exists between the Vyners and myself——’ The Vyners! Ain’t we grand!” cried O’Rorke. “The Vyners! I wonder she don’t say, ‘between the Vyners and the O’Haras!’”

“Go on, will you?” said Malone, impatiently.

“‘—It is soon told—there is none; and what’s more, Sir Within no longer hears from or writes to them. Although, therefore, my own connexion with this family has ceased, there is no reason why this should influence yours; and I would, above all things, avoid, if I were you, letting my fortunes interfere with your own. You can, and with truth, declare that you had nothing whatever to do with any step I have taken; that I went my own way, and never asked you for the road. My guardian, Sir Within, wrote, it is true, to Mr. Luttrell of Arran, but received no answer. It will be my duty to write to him in a few days, and not improbably with the same result.

“‘You seem anxious to know if I have grown tall, and whether I am still like what I was as a child. I believe I may say, Yes, to both questions; but I shall send you, one of these days, a sketch from a picture of me, which the painter will this year exhibit at the Academy. It is called a great likeness. And last of all, you ask after my soul. I am sorry, dear grandfather, that I cannot be as certain of giving you as precise intelligence on this point as I have done on some others. It may satisfy you, however, perhaps, if I say I have not become a Protestant——‘”

“God bless her for that!” said Malone, fervently.

“‘—although our excellent housekeeper here, Mrs. Simcox, assures me that such a change would be greatly to my advantage, in this world and in that to come; but if her knowledge of the former is the measure of what she knows of the latter, I shall require other counsel before I read my recantation.’”

“What does she mean by that?” asked Malone.

“‘‘Tis another way of saying, ‘I won’t play a card till I see the money down on the table.’”

“How can that be? Which of us knows what’s going to happen here or in the next world?”

“Maybe the Protestants does! Perhaps that’s the reason they’re always so dark and downcast now.”

Malone shook his head in despair; the problem was too much for him, and he said, “Read on.”

“‘That I am not without the consolations of the Church you will be glad to hear, as I tell you that a French priest, the AbbÉ Gerard, dines here every Sunday, and sings with me in the evening.’”

“Sings with her. What makes them sing?”

“Religion, of coorse,” said O’Rorke, with a grin of derision. “Listen to me, Peter Malone,” cried he, in a stern voice; “when people is well off in the world, they no more think of going to heaven the way you and I do, than they’d think of travellin’ a journey on a low-backed car.”

“Go on with the reading,” muttered Malone.

“I have read enough of it, Peter Malone. You are cute enough to see by this time what a fine-hearted, generous, loving creature you have for a granddaughter. At all events, the dose you’ve taken now, ought to be enough for a day. So put up the physic”—here he handed him the letter—“and whenever you feel in want of a little more, come back, and I’ll measure it out for you!”

“You’re a hard man, you’re a hard man, Mr. O’Rorke,” said the old fellow, as he kissed the letter twice fervently, and then placed it in his bosom.

“I’m a hard man because I read you out her own words, just as she wrote them.”

“You’re a hard man, or you’d not want to crush one as old and feeble as me!” And so saying, he went his way.