Rossmoyne Part 25

"I am afraid your nature is not wholly free from deceit, Terence," says Miss Priscilla, sadly. "This hesitation on your part speaks volumes; and such unnecessary deceit, too. Neither your aunt Penelope nor I have any objection to your borrowing a gun if you find such a dangerous weapon needful to your happiness. But why not confide in us?"

"Is it possible she would not be really angry if she knew?" thinks Monica, breathlessly. I regret to say that both Kit and Terence take another view of Miss Blake's speech, and believe it an artful dodge to extract confession.

"I--" says Terence, to gain time, and because speech of some kind at this moment is absolutely necessary--"I didn't think----"

"Of _course_ you didn't think, Terence, or you would not have recorded your poor aunts, in your secret thoughts, as hard-hearted and ungenerous. If you had told us openly that Mitson, the coast-guard, had lent you a gun (as I strongly suspect, and indeed felt sure from the first moment was the case), we should not have been at all angry, only naturally anxious that you should use an instrument of death with caution. But you have no confidence in us, Terence."

Intense relief fills the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the three Beresfords. Remorse that the trusting nature of the old ladies should be so abused touches Monica keenly, but of the other two I must again declare with grief that they feel nothing but a sense of delivery from peril, and no contrition at all for their past suspicions.

"I thought you might be angry, aunt," says Terence. He is looking very dirty indeed, and his hands are grimy, and altogether even Monica cannot bring herself to feel proud of him. There is, too, a covert desire for laughter about him that exasperates her terribly.

"Not angry, my dear; only nervous. I hope you know how to load, and that. I remember a cousin of ours blowing off his first finger and thumb with a powder-horn."

"This is a breech-loader, auntie," says Monica, softly.

"Eh? One of those new-fangled things I have read of. Oh, well, my dear boy, I daresay there is more need for circ.u.mspection. Let me look at it.

Ah! very handsome, indeed! I had no idea coast-guards were so well supplied; and yet I cling to the old guns that your grandfather used to use."

"Did you shoot anything?" asks Miss Penelope, who has grown quite interested, and regards Terence with a glance of pride.

"Only one thrush," says Terence, drawing the dilapidated corpse from his pocket, "and a sparrow, and one rabbit I fired at and wounded mortally, I know, but it got away into its hole and I lost it."

"Rabbits!" says Miss Priscilla. "Am I to understand--nay, I hope I am _not_ to understand--that you crossed the stile into Coole?"

"There are plenty of rabbits in our own wood," says Terence; "more than I could shoot. I am glad you don't object to my having the gun, auntie."

"I don't, my dear; but I wish you had been more ingenuous with us. Why now, Terence, _why_ do you steal along a field with your back bent as though desirous of avoiding our observation, and with your gun _under_ your coat, as if there was a policeman or a bailiff after you?"

"I was only trying to steal upon a crow, aunt."

"Well, that _may be_, my dear, but there are ways of doing things. And why put your gun _under_ your coat? I can't think such a fraudulent proceeding necessary even with a crow. Now look here, Terence,"

ill.u.s.trating his walk and surrept.i.tious manner of concealing his gun beneath his coat, "_does_ this look nice?"

"If I do it like _you_, auntie, it looks _very_ nice," says Terence, innocently, but with a malevolent intention.

"What a pity you missed the rabbit, Terry!" says Monica, hurriedly.

"Oh, he is dead _now_, I'm certain; but I should have liked to bring him home. His leg was broken, and I chased him right through the rushes down below in the furze brake at Coole."

Sensation!

It is too late to redeem his error. "Murder wol out, that see we day by day," says Chaucer, and now, indeed, all the fat is in the fire. The two old ladies draw back from him and turn mute eyes of grief upon each other, while Kit and Monica stare with heavy reproach upon their guilty brother.

The guilty brother returns their glance with interest, and then Miss Priscilla speaks.

"So you went into Coole, after all," she says. "Oh, Terence!"

"I couldn't help it," says Terence, wrathfully. "I wasn't going to let the rabbit go for the sake of a mere whim."

"_A mere whim!_" Words fail me to convey Miss Priscilla's indignation.

"Are you dest.i.tute of heart, boy, that you talk thus lightly of a family insult? Oh! shame, shame!"

"I'm very sorry if I have made you unhappy," says Terence, who is really a very good boy and fond. "I didn't mean it, _indeed_."

But Miss Priscilla appears quite broken-hearted.

"To dream of bringing a rabbit of Coole into this house!" she says, with quite a catch in her voice that brings Miss Penelope into prominent play.

"If, when you came to the stile that leads into Moyne," she says, "you had said to yourself, 'My good aunt, who loves me so dearly, would not wish me to enter this forbidden land,' you would, I _hope_, have paused, and come back here. But you did not. You went recklessly on, and trod upon ground where your foot is _unwelcome_."

"Dear Aunt Penelope, do not talk like that," says Monica, entreatingly, slipping her arm around her.

"And this to his poor old aunts who love him so fondly!" says Miss Penelope, in so dismal a voice that the two Misses Blake break into sobs.

"It wouldn't seem so bad if he hadn't equivocated about it," says Miss Priscilla, presently. "But he purposely led us to believe that he had not set his foot on that detested land."

"He has indeed been much to blame," says Miss Penelope. "Terence, what was it it said about _lying_ in the Bible this morning? I am afraid your chapter to-day--that awful chapter about Ananias and Sapphira--did you little good."

A growl from Terence.

"He will be more careful for the future, auntie," says Monica, interpreting the growl after her own gentle fas.h.i.+on. "And now you will forgive him, won't you? After all, any one, even _you_, might forget about forbidden lands, if you were racing after a rabbit."

The idea of the Misses Blake racing through rushes and gorse after a rabbit strikes Kit as so comical that she forgets everything, and laughs aloud. And then the Misses Blake, who are not altogether without a sense of fun, catching "the humor of it," laugh too, and, drying their eyes, give Terence to understand that he is forgiven.

Just at this moment the door is opened, and Timothy enters, bearing not only an air of mystery with him, but a large envelope.

"Why, what is this at this time of night?" says Miss Priscilla, who is plainly under the impression that, once the lamps are lighted, it is verging on midnight. She takes the envelope from Timothy, and gazes at the huge regimental crest upon it with a judicial expression.

"A sojer brought it, miss. Yes, indeed, ma'am. A-hossback he come, all the way from the Barracks at Clonbree."

Redcoats at Rossmoyne are a novelty, and are regarded by the peasantry with mixed feelings of admiration and contempt. I think the contempt is stronger with Timothy than the admiration.

"From the Barracks?" says Miss Priscilla, slowly, turning and twisting the letter between her fingers, while Monica's heart beats rapidly. It is, it _must_ be the invitation; and what will be the result of it?

"Yes, indeed, miss. I asked him what brought him at this hour, ma'am; but he took me mighty short wid his answer, so I give up me questions."

Never having been able during fifty years to make up his mind whether his mistresses should be addressed as maidens or matrons, Timothy has compromised matters by putting a "miss" and a "ma'am" into every sentence he dedicates to them.

"Ah, an invitation from Captain Cobbett for Friday next--um--um--four to seven--um--um. All of us invited, even Kit," says Miss Priscilla, in a decidedly lively tone.

"Me! am I asked?" cries Kit, excitedly.

"Yes, indeed, you are specially mentioned. Very nice and attentive, I must say, of those young men, particularly when we have not shown them any kindness _as yet_. I thought that Mr. Ryde a very superior young fellow, with none of the discourteous antipathy to _age_ that disfigures the manners of the youth of the present day. Penelope, my dear, perhaps you had better indite the answer to this. Yours is the pen of a ready writer."

"Very well," says Miss Penelope, rising slowly--Oh! _so_ slowly! thinks Monica--and going towards the davenport.

"Is the soldier outside, Timothy?" asks Miss Priscilla.