"You will give that to Winifred from her unknown friend," Roderick said.
"She will be delighted—though, you know, of course, she will not be allowed to wear it in the convent."
"Ah, she is in a convent!" he exclaimed. "But in any case, let her keep it as a reminder of me."
I thought as I watched him that if Winifred so closely resembled her dead mother, she was also like her father. His face was as mobile and expressive as hers, allowing always for the mask which the years are sure to put over every human countenance.
"You fancy there is a resemblance in this girl to your dead wife?"
"I know there is a resemblance to Winifred's dead mother," he answered.
I was silent though I had little reason for concealment henceforth.
"How cruel you have been all this time," he exclaimed, as he watched me; "I think it comes natural to your sex."
"Don't revile our sex for the faults of your own," I answered. "But tell me more about your dead wife."
His face changed and softened. Then a look came over it—a look of tender remembrance, which did him credit.
"She was very beautiful," he began, "at least I thought so. I met her when she was only fifteen. She was the image of what Winifred is now, only her beauty was more pronounced, and she had a haughtier air. I never forgot her from that moment. When she was eighteen, we were married. She was only twenty-four when she died, but I remember her still as vividly—"
He stopped, as though the subject were too painful, and then resumed, half dreamily:
"I am going to tell you now what will lend an added value to that little trinket I have given you for Winifred." He paused again, and drew a deep breath, looking at me hard. "It belonged to—to my wife, when she was a child of Winifred's age. Winifred will prize it, because it was—her mother's."
I stood up, and Roderick, rising also, confronted me.
"Can you deny it?" he asked defiantly.
I was silent.
"Pray what is the object of further secrecy?" he pleaded. "Tell me, is not Winifred my child, the child of my dead wife?"
I bowed my head in assent. Concealment was neither useful nor desirable any longer.
The look of triumph, of exaltation, of joy, which swept over his face was good to see.
"But you will wait?" I pleaded, in my return. "You will go to Ireland, as agreed, and your child shall be all your own entirely and forever?"
"I will wait," he answered quietly, "though it is hard."
And then we shook hands and parted. I felt that I must hurry away: for I could not go on talking of commonplace subjects, either to Roderick or to any of the others. As I took leave of our hostess she said, laughingly:
"You and Mr. O'Byrne were quite melodramatic, standing over there a few moments ago."
I laughed, but I did not give her any information. When I got home I wrote to Niall, telling him that in a month or two at furthest I would bring Winifred back, but that I wanted to show her a little of the American continent before taking her home. On my next visit to the convent, I did not say a word to the child—I was afraid it would unsettle herfor her school-work, but I informed her teachers that it would be necessary to withdraw her before the expiration of the term. After the trip which I intended to take with her to Niagara and a few other points of interest, I determined to cross the ocean once more and bring Winifred safely back to Niall. I should let Roderick sail by the Cunard line, while we would take passage by the White Star line, so that our arrival would be almost simultaneous.
I presented Winifred with her ring, though at the time I did not tell her it had been her mother's. She was more than delighted, as I had foreseen, and put it at once upon her finger. She was vexed, and indulged in one of her childish outbursts of petulance, when I explained to her that wearing it was against the rules. She had to be content with keeping it where she could look at it, very often. She sent a very pretty message to Roderick.
"Tell him," she said, "I remember him when the birds sing, when the organ plays, when the sun shines—whenever there is happiness in my heart."
The next few weeks were full of the bustle of preparation. When I told Winifred she was to leave the convent before the end of the term, and, after a few weeks of travel, to return to Ireland, she seemed fairly dazed at the unexpected news.
"Her education, of course, will have to be continued," I thought; "but hardly in an American convent."
One May morning Winifred took leave of her teachers and school friends, and we set out direct for Niagara. When we reached the Falls, she was for a time wholly lost in wonder. The stupendous mass of falling water seemed to produce upon the little girl a curious impression of bewilderment.
"Oh, it is grand, grand!" she said. "This America is a wonderful place."
Winifred and I had, as it were, a surfeit of beauty; and so by the afternoon our exclamations of wonder and delight became exhausted, and we could only look out upon the lovely and varied panorama in silence. But we were roused to excitement as the afternoon sun began to take a downward slope and we neared the far-famed Rapids. The passengers braced themselves as if for certain danger (though in reality there is comparatively little) as the steamer rushed into the greatmasses of foaming water with a lurch and a bound that sent a tingle to every nerve. Onward she dashed, the speed seeming to become more terrific as we descended the river in the direction of Montreal. It is a thrilling, though delightful, experience. As for Winifred, she seemed to enjoy the situation thoroughly. Not a shade of alarm crossed her face, while many of the older passengers were visibly agitated. From the steamer's deck we took a last glimpse of the city, lying golden in the sunset, with the figure of Our Lady of Good Help on the tower of Bonsecours church, stretching wide its arms in benediction over the great river which Cartier discovered.
At dawn we were nearing Quebec, and rushed out of our cabins for a first sight of the Gibraltar of America. We flew past Levis, Sillery, and, rounding Cape Diamond, suddenly beheld the ancient walls, the colossal rock crowned by the citadel, with Lower Town, squalid if picturesque, at its feet. Landing, Winifred and I took acalècheto the Chateau Frontenac, where we breakfasted.
Recrossing the American borders, we made a short trip through the White Mountain region, exulting in those glorious scenes. At New York we rested a day or two in our old quarters, and did a good deal of shopping; for had we not Granny and Niall and Father Owen to think of, not to speak of Barney and Moira, the landlord of the inn, and other Wicklow notables? No one was to be forgotten.
After this we went into Pennsylvania, one of the most wonderful of all the States, and crossed the far-famed Horseshoe bend in the Alleghanies. Winifred looked fearlessly down into the vast chasm and saw with composure the end of our train on the other side of the ravine. It was a sight upon which few could look unmoved. We saw something of thewonders of the mining and coal districts, and the beauty of the Delaware and Lehigh.
We continued our breathless journey to Washington, where we remained a few days to rest. It is a beautiful city, refreshing to mind and body, though somewhat warm at that season of the year; but its noble dwellings, its public monuments, surpassed and overtopped by the Capitol, have a wonderful charm.
One evening we were strolling along in the very shadow of that classic pile when Winifred said:
"Barney and Moira will think I've been in fairyland if I tell them half of all I have seen; but I love dear Ireland best, after all."
"We shall sail from New York by the next White Star liner," I observed presently; and I thought within myself: "Roderick will be sailing by the Cunarder. It will be a race which shall reach Liverpool first."
By an odd coincidence, as I thought thus, Winifred was turning round upon her finger the ring which Roderick had sent her.
"I should like to have seen him," she said, pointing to the ring, "and thanked him for this. I suppose I shall never see him again. I have a strange fancy that I saw him long ago, and that he is—" she hesitated—"that he is the dark gentleman who was angry with the lady in yellow," she concluded, slowly.
"Dreaming again, Winifred!" I said.
"This is not dreaming," she corrected; "for sometimes I am almost sure it is true, and that he is the same one—only I have never seen him angry."
"Perhaps the dark gentleman was not so very angry even then," I suggested, to divert her thoughts from Roderick.
"Perhaps not," she said reflectively; "but I think he was."
"Your father—for the gentleman you speak of was, I suppose, your father—was devotedly attached to your mother."
"Was he?" inquired Winifred, simply.
"Yes, indeed: he thought her the most beautiful creature in the world."
"I'm glad of that," Winifred said; and, in that fashion of hers which so constantly reminded me of her father, she turned away from the subject.
On Saturday morning early we were on board the great steamer, in all the bustle of departure; and after a pleasant voyage we arrived at Liverpool on schedule time, as the guidebooks say, and installed ourselves for the night at a comfortable hotel. Next day we set forth to see whatever this smoky city of industry has to show. We were passing along one of the smokiest and narrowest of streets when Winifred suddenly pulled my arm.
"Did you see him?" she cried excitedly.
"Who?" I inquired, though I partly guessed—being fully prepared to see Roderick O'Byrne in Liverpool.
Winifred touched the ring on her finger to show whom she meant.
"It may have been only a chance resemblance," I observed evasively.
"It washe," she declared decisively, and her eyes sparkled with excitement. "Oh, I am so glad!" she went on. "We must find him. I want to thank him for the ring."
"It will be impossible to find him in this crowd," I answered.
She pointed to a shop.
"He is in there," she cried, "and I must see him! If you do not come with me, I will go myself."
She was full of her old impetuosity, urging on my reluctant steps.
"One thing that I want to ask him," she went on, "is whether he knew the beautiful lady in yellow."
When we reached the shop door, Roderick stood just inside; and I almost fancied he had stepped in there to avoid us, knowing that I did not wish for a prematuredénouementof the little plot. However, his face also wore an eager expression, and it lighted as Winifred confronted him. He opened the door and came out onto the pavement, looking at me for directions. I put my finger to my lips, signifying that he must not as yet disclose himself.
"I want to thank you for this ring, with its lovely green stone," she said.
"It's only a trifle, little one," Roderick replied lightly.
"I was so sorry when I thought I should never see you again," Winifred cried, impetuously.
"Were you?" asked Roderick, with an unsteadiness in his voice which caused me to give him a warning look.
"Yes, because I was leaving America forever. And one thing I wanted to ask you so much was, if you remembered the beautiful lady in yellow. I have been so anxious to know."
She looked up into his face with her great, starlike eyes; and he gazed at her in return.
"Do I remember the beautiful lady in yellow?" he repeated. "As I hope for heaven, yes, and never shall I forget her while I live!"
The answer, however, was given in an undertone, which she did not catch.
"Because if you knew her," went on Winifred, "I was going to ask if you were the dark gentleman who slammed the door?"
"I'm afraid I was," he whispered in my ear. "How our misdeeds do follow us, and what a memory the little one has! I had had a dispute with some one very dear to me about going to the old place in Wicklow. She, poor girl, had no wish to see the 'ruin,' as she called it. I lost my temper, and so came about the little scene Winifred remembers and describes."
Turning to Winifred, he asked:
"Now, why do you think I could do such a naughty thing as slam a door?"
Winifred was confused. Her natural politeness prevented her from replying.
"Am I so very fierce-looking or so violent?" Roderick resumed; for he was in high spirits and ready to carry the mystery further.
"It isn't that," answered Winifred; "only you look like him."
"Look like a gentleman that got angry and slammed a door?" he said in the same jesting tone. "Now, that is too bad of you altogether."
His bright, laughing face and sunny manner mystified the child even more than his words.
"Never mind," he went on; "I forgive you this time, but you must really try to get up a better opinion of me. I must go now, but we shall meet again, and it won't be over the seas either. I am going to hear more about that uncivil dark gentleman who frightened a dear little girl."
"He was cross, too, to the lady," said Winifred, rather defiantly; for she was vexed somewhat by his jesting.
"Well, I am sure he was sorry enough for that afterward," said Roderick, with a sudden clouding of his face—"as we are always sorry for our fits of ill-temper. Remember that, my child."
He waved his hand in farewell, and Winifred stood looking after him.
"I am glad we are going to see him again," she observed; though, with the implicit faith of childhood, she did not ask when or where.
When we had got back to the hotel she talked chiefly of Granny and Niall, of Father Owen, and of her humble friends Barney and Moira; and could scarcely wait for the night to be over and morning to come that we might set out for the scenes of her childhood.
The most impatiently longed-for morrow comes at last. It was a gray, lowering day when we left Liverpool. Before quitting the hotel, a box of candy was handed to Winifred. When she opened it there was a card upon which was written:
"From the man that looks like the naughty dark gentleman who slammed the door."
It seemed as if it must be a dream when we drove in a hired car from Dublin once more to the Glen of the Dargle. I had written to the landlord of the neighboring inn to have our rooms in readiness. And there he was at his door, stony-visaged and reticent; but the stone was furrowed by a broad smile as he helped us from the car.
"Welcome back, ma'am! And welcome to you too, Miss Winifred alanna!"
Winifred shook him cordially by the hand; and turned with a cry of joy to where Moira stood, red in the redness of the dying sun which shone out through a mist—for the weather had been uncertain all that day; and red, too, with a new shyness, which caused her to stand plucking at her apron. Barney kept urging her forward, but was not much more confident himself.
Winifred's greeting to them was good to hear. And she wound up by the flattering assurance:
"You'll think I'm a real fairy this time when you see my trunks open to-morrow."
It was some time, however, before that pair of rustic tongues were unloosed and they began to chatter away like magpies. After a little while Winifred proposed a run; and off they all flew, the young traveler, in spite of the fatigue of her journey, leading in the race. Her curls, which had grown longer in her absence, formed a cloud about her head.
"Father Owen bid me tell you he was off for a sick-call, down to Enniskerry below there; but he'd be back in an hour's time, and you'll see him as quick as he comes," said the landlord.
"It's good to get back again," I said, seating myself on the familiar bench at the door, and letting my eyes wander over the lovely scenes—the blossoming trees, the gold of the laburnum, and the whole sweetened by the pervading fragrance of the hawthorn.
"We're proud to have you with us, ma'am," the landlord declared. "We thought the time long since you left."
The "we" referred to his better half, who, however, rarely left the kitchen, and with whom I had not exchanged half a dozen words.
"I don't think I'll ever go away, again," I said; "so you may just as well arrange my rooms accordingly. And now what of the schoolmaster?"
"They tell me," he said, speaking in a confidential undertone, "that Father Owen exorcised him—took off of him some spell that the 'good people' had laid upon him, forcing him to wander night and day—and scatterin' his wits."
"At any rate, Niall of the hills has changed his ways, I hear," said I.
"Well, so they tell me; though there are them that met him wanderin' still on the hills. But sure mebbe the poor daft crathure was only takin' the air by moonlight."
"And Granny Meehan?" I inquired.
"Oh, she's to the fore! And it's her ould heart that'll be rejoiced entirely by your return, not to speak of her colleen."
At that moment Winifred entered, with Barney and Moira thrown into the background by Father Owen himself, who held his little favorite by the hand.
"A hundred thousand welcomes!" cried the priest, extending his unoccupied hand to me. "So you have brought us back the old Winifred, with a new varnish upon her that shines from afar. God be praised that we're all here to greet you!"
The landlord, with an exclamation at their dilatoriness in serving supper, entered the inn, while Father Owen and I moved apart for a few moments. I wanted to tell him that Roderick would arrive in a day or two.
"Thanks be to God!" he ejaculated. "Oh, what joy you have brought upon the old house—you, under God! It is a privilege thus to make others happy—the sweetest left us since the fall of Adam. But now I mustn't keep you from your supper. We'll have many a long chat in the days to come, and I just wanted to welcome you. I suppose you'll go up this evening to Granny and Niall?"
"Indeed I will. But is Niall at the castle?" I asked.
"He is. Granny will tell you all," he answered.
And what a supper that was in the pleasant inn parlor, with the blossoming trees peeping in at the windows and the Irish robins singing our welcome! How savory tasted the trout from the stream, fresh-caught; and the rasher of bacon, with snow-white oaten cake, the freshest of freshbutter, and thick cream for our tea! What a walk we had up through the hills that lovely evening! Winifred's eyes were full of tears as I recalled to her memory the first time she had brought me to the castle.
"Isn't it strange to think of all that has passed since then!" she whispered, in a voice full of emotion.
But though changes there had been, there were none in the hills. They preserved their immortal beauty, and the Glen of the Dargle was as fairy-like as ever in its loveliness. At the castle, too, all was the same. Granny sat calm and motionless by the great hearth, as though she were under a spell; and Brown Peter mewed and purred about her as of old. When we entered the room she rose uncertainly from her chair. Her voice was plaintive and tremulous with the depth of emotion as she cried out:
"Winifred alanna, is it yourself that's in it?"
Presently the child was clasped in her arms; and I stood by, content to be forgotten. At last I asked:
"Where is Niall?"
"Barney will bring you to him," said the blind woman.
After a moment he led us to that very hall where the game of chess had been played on the silver chessboard for the hand of a fair lady. Here Niall had established himself, and I caught a glimpse of his tall figure walking up and down. I remained without, and sent Winifred in alone. I heard one inarticulate cry of joy, and then I walked away to a distant end of the corridor, leaving the two together for a while. When I returned and entered the hall, I found Niall seated in a high-backed armchair, like some king of olden days. Winifred was upon her knees beside him, leaning her head on his arm. He held out his hand to me, and I was struck by his altered expression. Scarce a trace of its formerwildness remained; and his face shone with a deep content, a radiating joy.
"Daughter of the stranger," he said, "you are one of us forever! Whether your home be here amongst our hills or the stormy sea divides us, it matters nothing."
"It is my intention to stay here," I announced, "amongst your lovely scenes, and with you all, who have come so intimately into my lonely life."
The great day of Roderick's home-coming dawned; and a glorious one it was, as if Nature were in harmony with our joy. The birds sang a perfect chorus in the early morning; the blossoming trees never smelled so sweet, the hills never blended light and shade more exquisitely, nor the streams reflected a bluer sky, than when the car containing Roderick O'Byrne drove up to the inn. He sprang out with a boyish lightness.
"Mr. Roderick O'Byrne," I exclaimed, "Nature is singing a perfect hymn for your home-coming!"
"My heart is singing too," he replied. "All I love are here before me."
When we had cordially shaken hands, I said to him:
"Now be very practical and prosaic. Come in and have something to eat."
"Oh, I couldn't!" he cried. "Let us go at once to them."
I saw his eyes wandering round in search of Winifred.
"Control your impatience just a little while longer," I observed, "and take a sensible meal."
"More mystifications, more delays, O woman of many mysteries!"
"Only one," I explained. "I want you and Winifred to meet in the Dargle; though she will probably think you have been evolved from the ground by one of her favorite fairies."
He laughed.
"If it is your whim, I must submit; for you have beenthe goddess behind the machine from the first. Continue to manage us puppets as you will."
"Only for to-day," I replied merrily; "after that I shall disclaim all power over you."
He followed me into the inn parlor, where the table was laid out; and, having taken a slight repast, was eager to be up and away once more. I had not told the landlord who my guest was, lest any hint of his advent should prematurely get abroad; but I saw the worthy man shading his eyes with his hand and peering at him, now coming to the door and now retreating. At last, as we rose from table, he burst in upon us.
"Ah, then, Master Roderick, is it yourself that's in it!" And he fell to laughing almost hysterically as he seized and wrung the outstretched hand, which Roderick, quick to respond to any touch of genuine feeling, extended. He called the man by name, and began to recall many a pleasant incident of boyhood's days. The delight of mine host of the stony visage all but drew tears from my eyes. We enjoined secrecy upon him; and then Roderick and I set off for the Dargle, where I had bidden Winifred to wait for me.
"It is a lovely spot for such a meeting," I observed to Roderick as we went.
"Lovely indeed," he answered. "My eyes have hungered for a sight of it these ten years."
We walked on in silence toward it; Roderick taking off his hat that the breeze might blow through his hair, and drinking in the beauty around us with visible gratification.
"An exile's heart never warms in the land of the stranger," Roderick declared presently. "There's something in the native air that gladdens the soul."
"Now," I said, as we entered the beautiful glen, withits atmosphere of poetry, its softened, delicate loveliness, "here it was I first met Winifred, and here she shall meet you, and you can tell your tale your own way."
I had arranged matters a little melodramatically; Winifred unconsciously added to the effect by taking her seat upon her favorite tree, and, out of the pure gladness of her heart, singing a wild song full of trills and quavers like the notes of a bird. I slipped away among the trees, and presently Roderick spoke. His voice was soft and tender:
"Winifred asthore machree!"
Winifred looked at him long and strangely for a few seconds, then she abandoned her perilous perch and came running down to him swift as a bird upon the wing. Nature was speaking very loud in her heart. Roderick stood waiting for her, holding out both his hands. He took her slender ones and held them, looking at her with a long, long look of tender affection; then, releasing his right hand, he took from his watch chain a locket and opened it. Within, I learned later, was a beautiful miniature on ivory. Winifred gave a swift, startled cry of joy:
"The lady in yellow—oh, it is the beautiful lady!"
"And I am the dark gentleman, my little one," Roderick whispered. "Do you know who he was?"
"Yes," said Winifred, looking up into his face: "he was my father."
"Have you forgiven him for being cross and slamming the door?"
She nodded gravely.
"And are you going to love him—to love me very much?"
For answer, Winifred threw her arms round his neck, weeping for very joy.
At that moment I left them, and they followed slowlyup to the castle, Winifred clinging to her father's arm and telling him how she had loved him almost from the first. And now a happy and complete confidence was already established between them.
As they entered the kitchen, I was there with Granny, having prepared her somewhat for what was to come. She arose, tottering upon her feet and trembling.
"Son of my heart, Roderick avick!" she cried; and Roderick took the old woman in his strong arms and clasped her close, whilst the tears fell unheeded down his cheeks. Even the old woman's love for Winifred had not been so great as this other love which she had so long cherished in her heart of hearts.
"I can not see you, my boy," she whispered; "but beautiful as the Mayflowers in the sun of morning is your coming, and gladdening to my old heart as the first air of spring. Glory be to God and praise and thanksgiving that I have been spared to see this day!"
Whilst she still spoke we heard a step coming along the stone passage, and the tall figure of Niall entered the room. He advanced straight to Roderick, and, to our amazement, he bent the knee.
"The O'Byrne has come home again!" he announced solemnly. "The scion of the younger branch does him homage."
"What's that you're sayin' about the younger branch?" exclaimed Granny, beginning to tremble again. "And who are you that talks so?"
"I am Niall O'Byrne, the uncle of Roderick and of Winifred."
Winifred gave a cry of surprise, but poor Granny went on with the same trembling uncertainty:
"And you've been alive all this time?"
"Certainly."
"You didn't take any shape?"
"Only that of the mad schoolmaster," Niall explained, with a grim smile.
"So that's who he was, praise and glory to God!" cried the simple old woman. "And I to be afeard of him when he'd come hauntin' the house at all hours and goin' on with his quare ways! But sure I might have known—indeed I might!"
Granny had known Niall in his younger days, before his departure for the East; but after his mysterious return she, being blind, had never been able to recognize him, and he had purposely kept her in ignorance. She had therefore shared all the misgivings of the countryside in regard to the treasure-seeker, who from the nature of his pursuits had sought to conceal his identity.
The tears rolled down the old man's cheeks and he made more than one vain attempt to speak; while Winifred patted his arm, saying:
"Don't cry, dear Niall—don't cry! We have my father back again."
At last, mastering his emotion by an effort, and looking into the handsome, kindly face before him, Niall spoke:
"I knelt to you just now as to the head of our house, the representative of the elder branch; but I should have knelt as a penitent."
"A penitent!" repeated Roderick, in surprise.
"I deceived you, I caused you years of suffering!" cried Niall, in a voice of overmastering agony. "But, oh, it was my love for you, for her, for the old place, that urged me to it!"
"Such faults are easily pardoned," said Roderick, believing that the old man was laboring under some delusion.
"Wait till you hear!" said Niall, almost sternly. "A judge must hear the offence before he can pardon. 'Twas I who wrote to you that Winifred was dead."
"You?" exclaimed Roderick, the most unbounded amazement depicted on his face, and for a moment something of Niall's own sternness clouding its good-humor. "Why should you have done that to me?"
"Listen!" said Niall, extending one hand as if in supplication. "I heard you had remarried in America, and that was a sad blow to my hopes and dreams. You would never come back. Even if my plans succeeded, you would never dwell in the old place. And then came the agonizing thought that you would take Winifred away, and that with me our very name would pass from Wicklow. I deliberately deceived you. I withheld from Granny Meehan the letter you had written her."
Granny made an exclamation of "God forgive you!" For she, too, had suffered from that wrong.
"I caused your letters to the priest to miscarry; I did everything, in short, to cut you off from communication with this place. And by hints which I threw out, and vague messages which I sent through Winifred to Mrs. Meehan, I filled her mind with a fear and distrust of America and people coming from there. Oh, I remember what anguish I endured when this lady first came into this region! I could have killed her where she stood. I believed her to be the second wife herself or some emissary from you come to spy upon us and discover our secret."
Roderick stood all this time, his arms crossed upon his breast, a proud look upon his face.
"And did you think all this of me?" he asked at last—"that I would forget home and kindred, forget the wife who lies sleeping in Irish soil, and, taking away my child, abandon you all forever? Ah, Niall, you little knew me, after all!"
"But I had suffered, Roderick; sometimes my mind wandered, perhaps, a little," pleaded the old man, pathetically. "There was a confusion there; and I only knew that if Winifred went away, you were both lost to me forever."
Roderick's face softened. His great generous heart touched by that appeal, he cried out:
"Uncle, dear uncle, let us not talk of forgiveness, but only of your long years of devotion to us all! We will speak no more of what is painful. Now all is peace and joy."
Father Owen entered just at that moment, full of genial sympathy and heartfelt, simple delight; and with his coming the reconciliation was perfect. It took Winifred some time indeed to understand her new relation to Niall; but she said that in any case she could not love him any better, though she was glad he belonged to the old castle and the old race.
The ornaments from Niall's cavern were disposed of to advantage, and it was a great day when we all went with Roderick to the cavern of the Phoul-a-Phooka to examine them. The gold was removed to a bank; and, as Roderick had brought some considerable savings from America, the work of restoration on the castle was begun. It was not, of course, necessary or desirable that the whole edifice should be restored to its pristine splendor; and some of the ruin remained in all its picturesqueness as a show place for travelers. But the main building was made both habitable and imposing. By some strange convulsion of nature, the cavern in which Niall had concealed his treasures, and where he hadspent many a lonely night, was destroyed. The rocks fell in, and then the mountain stream gushed through it, sweeping away all trace of that singular abode.
Roderick's return, Winifred's identity as heiress of the O'Byrnes, and Niall's kinship with the family, were publicly announced to the village, all mysteries being at last cleared up. But the landlord voiced public sentiment in confiding to me that the "good people" were surely mixed up in the affair, and that it was the removal of the fairy spell bewitching Niall, and perhaps Winifred, which had made all come right.
Roderick was from the first the idol of the peasantry, to whom he endeared himself in every possible manner. His warm Irish nature had never grown cold by change or vicissitude, and he labored in a hundred ways to improve the position of his people. He was still in their eyes the handsome and high-spirited lad who had galloped over the country on his white horse.
I became a fixture at the inn; though most of my time was spent at the castle, where our little circle was often cheered by the presence of Father Owen. Niall at times unbent into positive geniality; and as we sat occasionally in homely fashion around the kitchen hearth, that Granny might not be excluded from our conferences, and that Barney and Moira might draw near unchecked, he told us many a strange tale of his adventures as a gold-seeker. Sometimes he brought us to the Far East, relating his inquiries into the occult arts or the researches of alchemists; and again he led us, by many a devious path, through the hills of his native Wicklow and along the banks of its streams. Many of his accounts sounded like some fabulous tale, a page from an old enchanter's book. Roderick, who knew that gold, even to theamount of ten thousand pounds, had been in former years found in Wicklow, and that mines under government control had been established there, was far less surprised than the rest of us had been that Niall had succeeded in wresting a certain amount of treasure from the earth.
And Winifred was never again sent away to school. She had a governess, and she had Niall to direct her studies, Roderick himself taking an interest in them. Her pranks are still told as of yore; for—pious, good, exemplary as she is in the main, and ruled absolutely by her father, whose will to her is law—she has her outbursts of petulance, and her old delight in playing a trick now and again on the unwary; or she will mystify her nearest and dearest by indulging in the unexpected; so that many there are who still know and love her as Wayward Winifred.
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