THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

IT was a small and desolate room, with bare rafters overhead, and the wind rattling fiercely at the old casements, while Denis was trying to keep a sickly fire of green wood alive upon the hearth. The floor was of stone, cold and bare, save for a few rushes strewn beside the truckle bed, and there was no light but that from the sputtering logs and one poor taper; there were only two chairs and one small table in the room beside the bed, but all was scrupulously clean, though barren and chilly beyond description.

And on the bed lay Lord Clancarty, his cheeks flushed with fever, his hair dishevelled, his eyes shining, and his hands ever and anon clutching at the coverlet fiercely whenever any chance movement gave him pain.

If the aspect of the place was poor, it was also desolately lonely; no sound reached their ears but the rustling of the wind in the tree tops without and the creaking of the old building itself. It was an old farmhouse, the dwelling of the widow of a Jacobite—for England was honey-combed with conspiracies and counter-conspiracies—and this woman, a rigid believer in the old order of things, had the courage to take the wounded nobleman under her roof; she could give him shelter, but as for comforts she had none to give. Here, too, with her connivance, Denis smuggled a young surgeon, one of the faithful, to tend the wound that the famous Radcliffe had dressed with his own hands on the field. The young practitioner shared the doubts of his senior, and shook his head gravely; the wounded man might live, but he was quite as likely to die. So, with these gloomy predictions, and the still more gloomy aid of the solemn visaged widow, Denis was left with almost an empty purse to guard and nurse the feverish patient.

Stricken with profound anxieties, the faithful Irishman fed the fire, kneeling before it, his back toward his master, to hide a face that betrayed his feelings too plainly. On the table lay Lord Clancarty’s cloak and plumed hat and the hilt of the sword that had served him so ill and there, too, was his pistol primed and ready for use. He lay watching Denis, fever flushed but in his senses, though more than once that night his mind had wandered.

The stillness of the place was broken by the stamping of a horse’s feet at no great distance.

“What is that?” the wounded man asked sharply.

“Our horses, sir,” replied Denis, still kneeling at the hearth; “they’re in the shed outside, me lord, an’ indade ’tis fitter fer thim than fer yer lordship here.”

Clancarty smiled sadly. “It matters little, Denis, and is like to matter less. How far are we from Newmarket?”

“Not far, sir, this house stands off th’ road ter Bishop-Stortford, a half mile loike from the road, in a patch of timber; a very pretty hiding-place—I’ve hed me eye on it fer a couple of wakes.”

“You thought I would come to this, then? Ah, Denis, I fear you know me too well, old rogue!”

“Indade, sir, I’ve known ye from a boy in Munster, an’ I nivir knew ye to take care of yerself. Faix, it’s a broken head ye’ll be afther havin’ more often thin a whole wan.”Clancarty laughed softly, his feverish eyes on the fire.

“Denis,” he said dreamily, “do you remember the wild rides over the green fields of Ireland?”

Denis bent low over the hearth fanning the blaze, fighting the damp and the green wood.

“I’m afther remimbering, yer lordship,” he replied hoarsely.

“It’s a long way back, to those days,” said Lord Clancarty; “the skies were blue then. I’m a poor devil now, Denis, and like to die—” his voice died away, more from faintness than emotion, and after awhile he asked for water.

Denis rose and gave it to him, lifting his head as gently as a woman, and as he took the glass from the wounded man’s lips he turned his own head away—but not soon enough, a hot tear fell on the earl’s forehead.

“Saint Patrick, Denis, I must be far gone when you weep!” Clancarty said, touched in spite of himself, “I did not know you could, you old heart of oak!”

Denis brushed the moisture from his eyes.

“I remimber an ould man in County Kerry, me lord, who nivir shid a tear until his wife was coming out of a fit, and thin he took on loike anny wild gossoon. He’d bin gitting ready fer a wake an’ hed ter give it all up, and whin his neighbors accused him of it, he said he nivir wept unless a person was gitting well, an’ thin he wept fer joy—’tis so with me, me lord.”

Lord Clancarty smiled, turning his face to the wall. He was deeply touched at the simple fellow’s devotion. There was silence for awhile; the fire crackled and leaped up the chimney, lighting up the room just in time, for the single taper sputtered and went out.

It was at this time that Lady Clancarty and Sir Edward were searching the streets of Newmarket.

Lord Clancarty turned his head wearily and looking down at his own hand remembered.

“Denis,” he said in a low tone, “did you give the ring and the message to my lady?”

Denis had his back to him again, his square sturdy outline between him and the blaze.

“Yes, me lord,” he answered stolidly.

“And she?” the fever burned on Clancarty’s cheeks, his eyes shone; “how did she take it?”

“Very quiet loike, me lord,” replied Denis bluntly, “she wanted to know what hed happened, but I dared not tell her ladyship.”“She inquired, though? she was anxious?” asked the earl eagerly.

Denis was stubborn. “Me lord, she asked what hed happened—nothing more. She’s a great lady, sir, and as proud as anny quane.”

The wounded lover sighed and turned again to the wall: here was no consolation, and in his bitterness he called her heartless. The desolate place, his almost exhausted resources, his painful wound, all combined to shake even his proud resolution; he was lonely and he was desperate. In his fevered brain rose many visions of Betty, the beautiful, the careless, charming Betty that he had known. What heart there was beneath that beautiful exterior he did not know; but this he knew—he was an outcast from home and friends, a desperate and forsaken man and dangerously wounded. He was no novice in affairs of this kind and knew well the nature of his hurt and what lack of care would do for it. His life passed in quick review before him; its ambitions, its wild adventures, its dark spots of reckless dissipations, and now this end—this wretched, thwarted, forsaken end—creeping away like a wounded beast to die alone. It might well bring bitterness to so proud and daring a spirit as his. He cursed his fate, but it is to be feared that he did not pray. His religion had been a matter of convenience, like the religion of many gay young soldiers of his time. It failed him now and she failed him too,—the woman who had taken such possession of his heart and swept him out of the common way into a higher passion. He loved her—and she despised him. He groaned sharply as if in bodily pain; the faithful Irishman was at his side in a moment, but he waved him away. His soul was wrestling with despair and with hunger for the sight of her. He, a strong man and a proud one, in that hour of physical agony and loneliness, longed to see her, to hear her voice before he died—if die he must, yet he would have died rather than send for her—such was his pride.

The night wore on; the horses stamping restlessly in the shed, the wind increasing in violence until the old house creaked, quivering like a broken reed. Denis sat staring at the fire, his honest face distorted with grief and now and then a slow tear creeping down his furrowed cheek. The wound was a desperate one, and counting all the things against the patient,—exposure, lack of nursing and food and comforts, the man did not believe he would live, and he loved him like a son; he had carried him on his shoulder as a baby; he had taught the little lad to sit his horse and use his sword, and he had followed him in Ireland, in France, in Flanders, through weal and woe—to this! Poor Denis, he too had his night of tears and lamentations.

Toward midnight Clancarty’s mind wandered a little and he babbled like a child of the green turf of Ireland and the streams where he had paddled barefoot, and of the wild birds overhead. He talked of battles and sieges and at last of her, of Betty, and Denis cursed her in his heart as their evil angel, the lodestar that had drawn the young earl to his fate. Now and then through the night the wounded man called for water, but toward morning he fell asleep, and Denis dropped on his knees, praying to all the saints to send healing on the wings of that fitful slumber.

But with the night the delirium and the weakness of spirit passed together. At daybreak the earl opened his eyes and looked quietly into Denis’s worn face. He smiled, the old reckless smile, if somewhat weaker and paler than usual. He groped feebly under his pillow and handed the man his purse.

“A small store, Denis,” he said, “but ’tis yours now, to do with as you can. If I die—ah, you must even bury me here, I suppose, though I long for Irish soil to cover me! For the rest—go home, Denis, take no risks for my sake. Faith, a dead man will not need you.”

Denis said nothing, he could not; he stood staring at the floor.

Lord Clancarty laughed a little bitterly.

“Go tend the horses, man,” he said; “you saw Neerwinden—why do you stand there like a woman? Death comes but once.”

“Ah, my lord,” said Denis, and the tears ran down his cheeks, “ye shall not die.”

Clancarty turned his face to the wall lest he, too, should show weakness.

he murmured faintly,

“My own Rosaleen!”

So Denis went to tend the horses, drawing his sleeve across his eyes and hating Lady Clancarty from the bottom of his simple devoted heart.“The foine lady,” he muttered; “faix—I’d loike ter make her shid a tear or two—fer all her bright eyes an’ her red cheeks—th’ heartless colleen!”