CHAPTER XLVIII. HOW THE TASK TRIED HER
Kate dressed herself with more than usual care – simply, indeed, but with a degree of attention to becomingness that was truly remarkable. Twice did she alter the arrangement of her hair, and more than once did she try what coloured ribbon would best suit the style she had chosen. A man might have passed without notice the little details by which she heightened the charms that were nature to her, but a woman would quickly have detected small traits of coquetry in the loose falling curls that fell upon her neck, and the open sleeve that displayed her finely-turned arm; nor would the sprig of dark purple heath she wore in her bosom have escaped the critical eye, well knowing how its sombre colouring “brought out” the transparent brilliancy of the fair skin beneath it.
She had but completed her studied but simple toilet, when Molly ushered into the room “The strange man, Miss, that wants to see the master.”
“And that is only to see the mistress, I’m told,” added Mr. O’Rorke, as he seated himself, and laid his hat on the floor beside him. It was then that Kate entered, and as the fellow arose to greet her, his looks of admiring wonder sufficiently told what success had waited on her efforts.
“My uncle is not well enough to see you,” said she, as she sat down, “but he has told me everything that he would say, and I have ventured to assure him that, as you and I are somewhat old friends, we should soon come to an understanding together; the more, as we can have but the same wish in the object before us.”
“May I never! but you’re grown an elegant woman,” cried O’Rorke. “‘Tisn’t out of flattery I say it, but I don’t think there’s your equal in Dublin.”
“I’m very proud of your approval,” said she, with a faint smile, but with the most perfect composure.
“And it’s honest – all honest,” added he. “It isn’t as if you was made up with paint, and false hair, and fine lace, and stiff silk. There you are, as simple as the turnpike man’s daughter, and, by the harp of old Ireland, I’ll back you against any beauty in St. James’s this day.”
“My dear Mr. O’Rorke, it’s not quite fair to turn my head in this fashion. Don’t forget that these are the sort of things I’m not accustomed to hear in this place.”
“By my conscience, then, you’ll hear them in many another place before you die. Listen to me now, Miss Luttrell. It’s a shame and a scandal to them that could help it that you’re not at the Court of France this day. I’m talking good sense when I say you’d make a sensation there such as they never knew since that old blaguard Louis the Fourteenth gathered all the beauties in the world round him instead of pictures and statues. More by token, he wasn’t wrong; flesh and blood beats white marble and canvas easily.”
“I suspect I see what sort of a king Mr. O’Rorke would have been!” said she, archly.
“Liberty, first of all, darling,” said he, recalled by the personal appeal to the stock theme of his life; “‘tis the birthright of the man as he steps on his native earth; ‘tis the first whisper of the human heart, whether in the frozen regions of eternal snow, or the sun-scorched plains of the tropics. ‘Tis for sacred liberty our fathers fought for seven centuries, and we’ll fight seven more.
Erin go Bragh is a nation’s cry,
‘Tis millions that sing it in chorus,
And to that tone, before we die,
We’ll chase the Saxon before us.
“Oh dear! oh dear!” cried he, wiping his brow. “Why did you set me off so? I took an oath on Saturday last that I’d think of nothing but old Peter till the trial was over, and here I am talking of Erin’s woes just as if I was at Burgh Quay, and O’Connell in the chair.”
“Let us talk of Peter, then. I am longing to hear of him.”
“It’s a short story. They caught him at sea, in an open boat; he was making for a brig bound for Newfoundland. They caught him, but they had a fight for it, and they got the worst of it, too. Old Peter wasn’t a man to be taken with his arms crossed. But it was all the worse, for Tom Crowe says the last business will go harder with him than the first, and Tom says what’s true. They’d rather hang Peter Malone than any other ten men in the west of Ireland. This is the fifth time they’ve had him in the dock; but to be sure he had a fine bar the last trial. He had Daniel O’Connell and Dick Sheil.”
“And who will defend him now?” asked she, eagerly.
“That’s what your Uncle Luttrell must answer, Miss Kate; he is the only one can reply to that question.”
“Listen to me now attentively, and I will explain to you my uncle’s position; a very few words will suffice, and you are not a man to require more than are necessary. He has by great effort and at heavy sacrifice got a small sum of money – ”
“What do you call a small sum?” broke he in. “Is it a hundred?”
“No; not fifty!”
A long whistle was O’Rorke’s reply, as he arose and took up his hat.
“You had better hear me out,” said she, calmly. “This sum I have here – it is thirty-five pounds; he empowers me to place it in your hands to-day, with the promise of as much more the day before the assizes open.”
“And why not at once? Why not now?”
“You shall hear. He desires and demands, in return for this aid, that he be not summoned as a witness on the trial. To call him would be a needless exposure – a mere valueless cruelty.”
“It would not,” cried the other, fiercely. “It’s not at this time of day any one has to know the effect of putting a gentleman in the witness-box, when it is a poor labouring man is in the dock. Let John Luttrell come into court, and, after sitting beside the Chief Baron on the Bench, get up on the table and take his oath that he has known Peter Malone, the prisoner, for more than twenty years, as a hardworking, quiet, decent man, trying to bring up his family respectably, and, indeed, with such a desire to better their condition in life, that he, John Luttrell of Arran, was not ashamed to make one of that same Peter Malone’s daughters his wife, so well brought up, so well educated were they – ”
“Stop! this cannot be. I tell you it is impossible.”
“And why is it impossible? Is it true what I’m saying? Was Peter Malone’s daughter John Hamilton Luttrell’s wife or not? There’s the whole question. And what sort of a man or a gentleman is he that is ashamed to own his wife?”
“Do not speak so loud; and now listen to me. My uncle, for his own good reasons, will not face the exposure of a public trial and the insolence of the Crown lawyers, who would not hesitate to rake up long buried accusations against him, and revive sorrows which even in their decay embitter his life. He will not endure this, and he is right.”
“Right to deny a man his chance of life!”
“You know well – none better – how little my uncle’s testimony could serve this poor man. His case is too serious for that.”
“I won’t go over that again,” said he, impatiently. “I haven’t any time to throw away in arguments. If you put the whole seventy pounds down on the table it wouldn’t do! No, it would not. It will take thirty, to begin with, to get Billy Sloane out of the country, and he it is the Crown relies on for the first charge; he saw old Peter strike the bailiff first. M’Nulty is the cheapest of the ‘silk gowns,’ and he won’t come under fifty, and a retainer of ten more. The Westport Star wants ten pounds to put in the article threatening the jury, if they don’t bring in a verdict of ‘Not Guilty,’ because, as Mr. Potter says, ‘Word it as carefully as you like, it’s a contempt of Court, and may send me for a year to gaol.’ Make money of that, Miss Kitty. Thirty and fifty is eighty, and ten more, ninety, and ten to the newspaper is a hundred; and after that there’s the costs to Tom Crowe, and the expenses of the case, not to speak of the daily livin’ in the gaol, that’s something terrible. There’s not a pint of sperite doesn’t cost three shillings!”
“But if we have no more? – if we have given every farthing we can raise?”
“‘Tis a nice confession for an estated gentleman, for the man that writes himself Luttrell of Arran, that, to save his father, or father-in-law, from the death of a felon, he could only scrape together seventy pounds!”
“You have only to look around you, and see how we are living, to see that it is the truth.”
“Many a miser that won’t give himself bread passes the night counting over his guineas.”
“He is no miser, Sir,” said she, indignantly, for all her self-control failed her at this point. “If he were not a generous gentleman, he would never have made the proposal I have now told you of.”
“Tell the generous gentleman, then, to keep his money, young lady,” and he laid a sarcastic emphasis on the word. “Tell him I’ll not touch a shilling of it. And I’ll tell you more that you may tell him; say that he’ll want it all, to buy himself a new suit of clothes to make a decent appearance when he’s summoned to come forward at the trial.”
“You’d no more dare to utter this insolence to his face, than you’d brave the anger of his people here when they heard he was insulted; and take my word for it, Tim O’Rorke, I’m only hesitating this moment whether I’ll not tell them.”
As she spoke, she flung wide the window, and looked out upon the shore beneath, where some thirty wild islanders were listlessly lounging and waiting for the tide to ebb.
O’Rorke grew lividly pale at a threat so significant. If there was anything that had a greater terror for him than another, it was a popular vengeance.
“Well, Sir, do you like the prospect from this window?” asked she. “Come here, and tell me if it is not interesting.”
“It’s wild enough, if you mean that,” said he, with a forced effort to seem calm.
“Tim O’Rorke,” said she, laying her hand on his arm, and looking at him with an expression of kindly meaning, “it is not in their trouble that friends should fall out. I know what affection you have for my poor old grandfather – ”
“So, then, you own him?” cried he, scoffingly.
“When did I disown him?”
“Maybe not; but it’s the first time since I entered this room that you called him by that name.”
She flushed up; but after a moment, repressing her anger, she said:
“Let us think only of him whose life is in peril. What do you advise? – what do you wish?”
“I have no more to say, Miss Kate. I have told you what the defence will cost, I have told you that we have nobody to look to but yourselves, and you have just told me that it’s a broken reed we’re leaning on, and now I don’t think there’s much more to be said by either of us.”
She leaned her forehead against the wall, and seemed deeply lost in thought.
“I mustn’t lose the tide, any way,” said he, taking up his hat and stick, and laying them on the table. “I may as well put old Peter out of pain, for anxiety is the greatest of all pain, and tell him that John Luttrell won’t help him.”
“Not will not – say that he cannot help him!”
“‘Tis little difference it makes whether it’s the will or the way is wanting when a drowning man cries out, and nobody gives him a hand. And yet,” added he, “it will be hard to persuade old Peter that his daughter’s husband could be so cold hearted. I’m thinking you ought to write a line or two with your own hand, and say that it was no fault of mine that I didn’t bring better news back with me.”
She made him no answer, and, after a pause, he went on:
“There’s his money, Miss – give it back to him; much good may it do him. He has the comfort of thinking, that if he didn’t get a fortune with his wife, her relations never cost him much, either.” He moved away towards the door. “Good-by, Miss Kate. Tell your uncle that Peter’s case is the third on the list, and he’ll be time enough if he leaves home on the 9th – that will be Tuesday week.”
She turned hastily round, and overtook him as he laid his hand on the lock of the door:
“One word – only one word more, O’Rorke!” cried she, impassionedly.
“I have told you faithfully what my uncle charged me with. I swear to you, before Heaven, I do not know of any help he can offer except this. Now, if there is any way that you can think of to serve this poor old man, say so, and I swear to you again, if it depends on me, I’ll do it!”
“Would it be too late to write to Vyner?” asked he, half doggedly.
“Utterly. He is in Italy. Besides, my uncle tells me he is in some great trouble himself about money.”
“What of that other – I forget his name – where you were living last?”
“Sir Within Wardle. Impossible! – impossible!”
“And why?”
“I cannot tell you. But I may say this, that I’d rather beg in the street than I’d stoop to ask him.”
“Isn’t he rich?”
“Immensely rich.”
“And he is generous and free of his money, you always said?”
“I never heard of one more so.”
“There’s the two things we want – money, and the man that will give it. Sit down there, and write these lines to him: ‘My grandfather is to be tried this assizes on a charge of wilful murder. I have no money to pay for his defence. Will you help me?’”
“Oh no, no! I could not! – I could not!” cried she, covering her face with both her hands.
“Why, it’s only this minute you were ready to swear to me that you’d do anything in the world to save him, and now that I’ve hit on this, you cry out, ‘No – no!’ as if I was proposing something to shame and disgrace you.”
“Shame and disgrace, indeed!” burst she out, as a sickly colour came over her, and she looked like one recovering after a fainting-fit.
“Well, I’m no judge of these things,” muttered he, “but I’d like to know what it is that would be harder to feel than the sight of an old man of eighty-two going to the gallows!”
She gave a sharp cry, and held her head with both hands, as if some sudden sharp pang shot through her: “Do not – do not, Tim O’Rorke I I can’t bear it!” she screamed out, in a voice of wild, harsh meaning.
“I’ll never ask you again,” said he, slowly; “but maybe the day will come when you’ll be sorry that I did not! Good-by.”
She made no answer, but sat with her face hid in her hands, and turned towards the wall.
“Good-by, Miss Kate,” repeated he once more; and, opening the door slowly, he went out, and closed it after him. <
She never stirred nor raised her head, till, by a rustling sound of the branches at the window, she was startled, and looked up. It was O’Rorke, who was leaning on the sill of the window, and looking in.
“Would you give me a scrap of something you were wearing – a bit of ribbon, or the like, I know you’re not fond of cutting off your hair – to give the old man? He’d rather have it than a crown jewel – ”
“Take this!” cried she, snatching up a scissors, and cutting off the long and silky lock that fell in a curl upon her neck; and, turning to the table, she folded it neatly in a piece of paper. She took up her pen, too, but the thought that he could not read deterred her; for what she would have written she could not bear that other eyes than his own should trace, and she sat thinking for some minutes, when suddenly, through what train of thought impelled it is not easy to say, she cried out, “Yes, I will do it! Come back – wait a moment – or, better still, leave me to myself an instant, and I shall be ready.”
He left the window, and she sat down at the table. Without a moment’s hesitation or reflection she wrote thus:
“St. Finbar’s, Arran.
“Sir, – I make no attempt to deprecate your anger, or palliate the wrong I have done you. My offence is one that only a free pardon could coyer, and I do not dare to entreat for this. It is for something more, and less than forgiveness, I have now to ask you.
“My grandfather, a man of eighty, is in gaol, about to be tried on a charge of felony; he declares his innocence, but, having no means to pay counsel, despairs of establishing the fact. My uncle cannot help him; will you?
“When I think of the time that I had not to speak a wish till I saw it gratified, I sicken over the ingratitude which drives me to approach you as a suppliant, while I promise never again to address you.
“The bearer of the present note will take charge of your answer, should you deign to reply to your unhappy, because unworthy,
“Kate Luttrell.”
“Are you ready with the letter?” asked O’Rorke, as he leaned his arms on the window-sill and looked into the room.
“Yes,” said she, folding and addressing it. “You will set out immediately, and deliver this into the hands of Sir Within Wardle, at Dalradern Castle. It is about fourteen miles from Wrexham. Mind! into his own hands, for I am not sure how or by whom he may now be surrounded. As little can I guess what sort of a reply he may give; he may reject my entreaty; he may even refuse to answer it. He would have every right to do either. Let it be your care to note him closely as he reads my letter, and mark what effect it produces. I shall question you, when you come back, on the minutest details of your meeting – of all that he says, of his manner, of his looks; whether he speaks of me, and how. You know well, few better, how to acquit yourself in such a scene, and be sure that you address your sharpest wits to it. If he be ill and cannot write, tell him that he may trust you with a verbal answer. I have not said so in my note, but you may, and he will believe you; he reads men quickly, and he will see that you are in my confidence. If he asks you about me and my life here, answer freely whatever your own judgment prompts; he may question you about the place I live in, tell him what it is like.”
“Don’t give me any more directions, if you don’t want me to forget some of them; only tell me one thing. If he asks me as to what amount might be required for the defence, am I to say the highest figure or the lowest?”
“You are to adhere to the strict truth, O’Rorke, and for this reason, if for no other, that you will be in the presence of a man well accustomed to deal with craftier men than yourself, and that all your attempts at deception would go for nothing.”
“And if he says, ‘Why don’t Mr. Luttrell come forward to help one of his own near relations?’”
“He will not ask this.”
“And why wouldn’t he?”
“Because he is a gentleman, Sir.”
“Oh, that’s the reason,” said O’Rorke, sneeringly. “Well, I think by this time I know as much about him as I am likely to do till I see him, so I’ll be going.”
“Have you any money for this journey?”
“Of course I haven’t. I suppose I’ll need five pounds to come and go.”
“Take ten,” said she, pushing the notes towards him. “I will try and settle matters with my uncle later.”
“By St. Peter! you ought to have been born a lady with a fine estate,” cried he, rapturously. “You have a grand way of doing things, anyhow!”
She smiled at the flattery; it was not at all displeasing to her, and she held out her hand to him as she said “Good-by.”
“You’ll see me here by Saturday next, if I’m alive.”
“May it be with good news,” said she, waving a good-by. “My love to old grandfather.” Scarcely was the last word uttered, when Luttrell opened the door stealthily, and peeped in.
“How long this interview has lasted, Kate,” said he; “what have you done?”
“You must wait till next Saturday, uncle, for my answer, and I hope it will content you.”
“Why not tell me now?”
“Because I could not tell you enough, Sir.”
“I am not wont to be treated as a child whose fortunes are to be in the keeping of others!” said he, sternly. “When Saturday comes, it may be to hear that which I cannot approve of – which I will not accept.”
“Yes, Sir, you will,” said she, calmly. “You charged me to do my best, and when I shall have done so you will not discredit me.”
CHAPTER XLIX. MR. O’RORKE ABROAD
Albeit Mr. O’Rorke had no partiality for the Saxon, he did not dislike his English tour. It was an occasion for much enjoyment in the present, with a prospect of considerable expatiation over in the future. He travelled – and it is a mode which occasionally enhances the enjoyments of travel – at another’s expense; and he indulged in many little luxuries not known to his daily life.
It was towards the close of a glorious day, mellow in all the richness of autumn, that he first caught sight of the great massive towers and battlemented walls of Dalradern Castle. The setting sun had just fallen on the windows, and the vast frontage was illuminated with a golden glory that relieved the stern severity of the heavy masonry, and gave warmth and colour to its cold and stately feudalism.
“And she left this for that rock – that miserable rock in the ocean,” cried he. “What could possess her to do it? She was no fool, that was clear enough. It was no fool could have made herself what she was; and what else than folly could make any one exchange that princely place for the wild and dreary desolation of Arran? There’s more in this than one sees on the surface,” thought O’Rorke. “It’s not in human nature to believe that she did not enjoy the grand life such a house must supply – the very aspect of it suggested everything that wealth could compass, and it could not be that she did not attach herself to its enjoyments. No; there must have been a reason, or something that she thought was a reason, for it. Ay, and that same reason, whatever it was, must have been the source of her great unwillingness to address Sir Within. She left him in anger, that’s plain enough; and about what could it be? Had she wearied him? Had her temper, or her caprice, or her extravagance, tired out his patience? Was it that the self-indulgence of the spoiled child had at last revolted the very spirit that had spoiled her? or was it” – and, to O’Rorke’s thinking, this seemed not improbable – “Sir Within had made her some proposals, not merely offensive to her dignity, but an outrage to her ambition? If I know you, Miss Katty,” said he, aloud, “you never lived in that grand house without dreaming of the time you’d be the mistress of it. And what made you give up the game? That’s what I’d like to know, and it’s what I’ll try to find out before I leave this.”
As he drew nearer the castle, the stately grandeur of the place impressed him still more. Never had he seen such magnificent timber – never before had he witnessed that marvellous order and propriety which give even to a vast park all the elegance of a garden. The clumps of flowery shrubs, in spots that few would probably ever visit – rare trees in out-of-the-way places – seemed to show what immense resources existed where so much that was valuable could be squandered uncared for.
One of the keepers, by whom he was accompanied from the gate-lodge, discoursed to him freely as they went along, telling of the hundreds of acres enclosed within the demesne, the extensive gardens and pleasure-grounds, to keep which in order required quite a regiment of labourers, “and all,” as the man added, “for an old man that sits all day at a window, and only comes out of an evening to take the air on a terrace. Never sees any one, nor goes anywhere; and won’t even dine with his young relation, Mr. Ladarelle, who is down here for the shooting.”
O’Rorke skirmished cautiously, of course, to ascertain whether the man could tell him anything of Kate, but he found that he had only lately entered the service, and never heard of her. He had heard, however, that Sir Within was greatly changed of late; some heavy blow, of what sort he knew not, had befallen him, and he now neither rode out nor drove, did not care to enter the garden, and, in fact, seemed weary of his life, and indifferent to everything.
“There he is now, on the terrace, taking his evening walk. I mustn’t go any farther with you; but when you pass the two large oaks yonder, you’ll see the great entrance, ring the bell, and some one will come to you.”
O’Rorke went on his way, but had not gone far when he was overtaken by a servant in livery, who, bare-headed and almost breathless from running, demanded angrily “What he was doing there?”
“I have a letter for your master that I wish to deliver at once,” replied he, firmly.
“Give it here, and wait for your answer round there, by the stables.”
“No such thing, my smart fellow; I am to deliver my letter into your master’s hand, and I will give it to no other.”
“You’re more likely, then, to take it back with you,” said the other, jeeringly, and turned away.
“Tell your master that my letter comes from Ireland,” cried O’Rorke after him, “and that it is one won’t brook delay.” But whether the fellow heard him or not, he could not say.
In less time, however, than he believed it possible for the man to have given his message, came a demure-looking man in black from the castle, who beckoned him to come forward.
“Are you the bearer of a letter from Ireland?” asked he.
“Yes. It is to be given to Sir Within Wardle’s own hand.”
“Come along with me, then.”
O’Rorke was too much excited by the thought of the presence he was about to stand in, to note more than generally the spacious hall and the immense marble stairs that led from it. The lofty corridor, whose windows of stained glass threw a rose-coloured glow over walls and pavement, together with the rich perfume of flowers, made his head feel confused and addled.
As the servant ushered him on the terrace, he whispered, “Go forward,” and then retired. O’Rorke advanced to where Sir Within was now seated, one arm leaning on the table beside him.
“You said you came from Ireland,” asked he, in a weak voice; “is it from Arran?”
“It is, Sir.”
“Thank Heaven!” muttered he to himself. “Give me your letter. Go down yonder” – and he pointed to the extreme end of the terrace – “I shall call you when I want you.”
When O’Rorke reached the end of the terrace, he turned a cautious, furtive look towards the old man, who still sat with the unopened letter in his hand, and did not move. At last he broke the seal, but such seemed the agitation of his feelings that he could scarcely read it, for he twice laid it on the table and hid his face between his hands. Suddenly he looked up and beckoned O’Rorke towards him, and said:
“Tell me, my good man, do you know the contents of this letter?”
“I know what it’s about, Sir.”
“Were you with her when she wrote it?”
“I was.”
“Was it of her own will – at the suggestion of her own thoughts? I mean, did she write this willingly, and without a struggle?”
“That she didn’t! She wrote it just because that without it her old grandfather wouldn’t have even a chance for his life! She wrote it, crying bitterly all the time, and sobbing as if her heart was breaking.”
The old man turned away his head, but with his hand motioned to the other to cease speaking. Either O’Rorke, however, did not understand the gesture, or he unheeded it. He went on:
“‘I’d rather,’ says she, ‘see my right hand cut off, than see it write these lines,’ says she.”
“There! there!” burst in Sir Within, “that will do – that is enough – say no more of this!”
But O’Rorke, intent on finding out what had been the relations between them, and why they had been severed, in spite of all admonition, continued:
“‘Sure, Miss Kate,” says I, “it is not one that was once so kind and so generous to you will see you in trouble for a trifle like this, for of course it would be a trifle to your honour!’”
“And yet she felt it a humiliation to ask me,” said he, despondingly.
“She did, indeed! ‘For,’ says she, ‘he may refuse me.’”
“No, no; she never thought that; she knew me better than to believe it.”
“Well, indeed, Sir, it was what I thought myself, and I said in my own mind, ‘It’s more ashamed she is than afeard.’”
“Ashamed of what?” cried Sir Within, passionately. “What has shame to do with it?”
The subtle peasant saw through what a channel the misconception came, and, still bent on tracing out the mysterious tie between them, said:
“After all, Sir, for a young lady, and a handsome one too, to ask a great favour of a gentleman not belonging to her, kith or kin, is a thing that bad tongues would make the worst of if they got hold of it.”
Sir Within’s sallow cheek flushed up, and in a broken voice he said:
“Bad tongues are only tyrants to those who cannot brave them. Miss Kate Luttrell is not of their number. You shall soon see if these same bad tongues have any terrors for me.”
“I’m a poor man, but I wasn’t so always,” said O’Rorke, “and I know well that it was slander and lying crushed me.”
The diversion was intended to have awakened some curiosity as to his former condition, but Sir Within was perfectly indifferent on the subject. All the interest the messenger had in his eyes came from the fact that he came from her, that he had seen her, and was near her when she wrote.
“This island – I only know it by the map,” said Sir Within, trying to talk in an easy, unconcerned strain – “it is very poor, I believe?”
“You might say wretched, and be nearer the mark.” “Is it celebrated for sport? Is the shooting or the fishing the great attraction?”
“There’s no shooting, nor any fishing but the deep sea fishery; and more men are lost in that than there are fortunes made of it.”
“And what could have induced Mr. Luttrell to take up his abode in such a spot?”
“The same thing that sends men off to America, and Australia, and New Zealand; the same thing that makes a man eat black bread when he can’t get white; the same thing that – But what’s the use of telling you about the symptoms, when you never so much as heard of the disease?”
“Miss Luttrell’s life must be a very lonely one,” said Sir “Within, with every effort to talk in a tone of unconcern.
“‘Tis the wonder of wonders how she bears it. I asked the woman that lives with them how she passed her time and what she did, and she said, ‘She takes up everything for a week or ten days, and goes at it as if her life depended on it.’ One time it was gathering plants, and sprigs of heath, and moss, and the like – even seaweed she’d bring home – going after them up crags and cliffs that a goat couldn’t climb. Then she’d give up that and take to gardening, and work all day long; then it was making fishing-nets; then it was keeping a school, and teaching the fishermen’s children; she even tried to teach them to sing, till a sudden thought struck her that they ought to have a lifeboat on the island, and she sat to writing to all the people that she could think of to send a plan of one, meaning, I suppose” – here he grinned – “to make it herself afterwards.”