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THROUGH THE DARK NIGHT:

or,

THIRTY YEARS AGO.

CHAPTER I.

IN

MONA AND ITS INHABITANTS.

western Clare, on the sunny slope of a hill, beyond which heather-covered mountains rose gradually to a fine elevation, stood Mona, the residence of Mrs. Moore, who was better known to the country people around her, as The Madam. It was a long low dwelling-house, old-fashioned, but very comfortable. There were cushioned seats in the deep windows, capacious fire-places where whole baskets of turf and bogwood roared and flamed up the echoing chimneys, while heavy crimson curtains hung about the doors and windows to protect the inmates from the keen winter blast.

The mountain air made melancholy music through the keyholes, whistling with sudden impatience at the casements, entering an open door with a triumphant rush, and uttering plaintive protests when shut out again to wander aimlessly under the lonely stars.

The grounds surrounding the house seemed like an oasis in a barren land. They comprised something less than three hundred acres, whose cultivation, after a systematic fashion, had been begun by a Moore, who long ago had returned to the dust from which he sprung.

The Moores were an ancient Irish race who for years had been in possession of these everlasting hills that looked down with unchanging front upon the distant ocean, where, blue and beautiful, it rolled in upon the yellow sands. The heads of the house came at intervals to hunt, shoot, fish, and breathe the invigorating mountain air. At some distance from Mona, at the other side of the hill, there was a fine shooting lodge, always kept in order to accommodate any vagrant member of the family who, wearied of the languid civilisation of lowland ways, longed for the wind of mountains and wild free days. But the land about the Lodge bore

no evidence of the care and cultivation that made Mona a Tadmor in the wilderness.

Less than a century back this latter part of the property had been assigned to a younger son of the house, who was deformed, sensitive, and singular. He had a taste for farming, and as he was unfitted for the world, and shrank from its rough ways, his father fostered his inclination; he settled the farm of Mona on him ; gave him money to work it and rejoiced at the instinct which led the young man to seek solitude,

Herbert Moore built a front to the herdsman's house, and erected a high wall to protect it from the ocean breezes; in the wall was a door that opened on to the avenue. He was indefatigable in carrying out his his desires for improvement; reclaiming and manuring field after field, until gradually a softer glow came in the land; acres of yellow corn bent to the autumn breeze in pleasant contrast to the purple heather; the meadows were fuller, the pasture lands richer; and it was evident to an observer that the master of Mona had done a work that had become reproductive. He had the tastes of a gentleman, and gave thought to beauty as well as to utility; he made plantations, and grew hardy shrubs beneath the shelter of the western wall, whose unpicturesque proportions disappeared under its green garment of ivy leaves.

The eldest brother, a hard selfish man, when he came at intervals to the Lodge, looked with covetous eyes on this improved portion of the property; passing over, as was the wont of landowners, the certain fact that it was the occupier's outlay and exertion which made it what it was; but he reconciled himself by calculating that it would eventually return into his children's possession when the younger brother was laid in the ancestral vault.

There is a disposition in people to arrange the future of others according to their own peculiar ideas of the fitness of things; and as they usually place those who are physically defective outside the pale of domestic affections, no one supposed the deformed man would take a wife to his bosom. However, homeliness, "the strong necessity for loving," and a pretty schoolmistress woke tender and irrepressible thoughts in the master of Mona. He wooed and won her; whether like the "faithful Oweena" she "saw his naked heart and loved him" or married him for material advantages, was best known to herself,

At all events, according to tradition, he led a contented life on the hill-side, and was a devoted father to his only child, a son, whom he educated, and was anxious to fit for that position out of which, more or less, he had fallen. His marriage had given great offence to his family, they took but slight notice of him, none of his wife, and beyond the three hundred acres settled upon him at first, his father left him nothing.

When his son's education was completed, he urged him to seek a place in the world and run the race with others for wealth and rank; but the parental tastes were transmitted, and the boy lived, loved, and died at Mona. He had married the daughter of a neighbouring doctor and had died rather young, leaving his wife to look after the interests of their children-a task which the Madam was well qualified to perform.

Beneath the directing influence of father and son, Mona had been perfected as much as was possible, and in the year of our Lord, 1864, was a bright and pretty home. All the country lay at its feet; a small lake glittered beneath, on whose surface dippers appeared and disappeared, and trout sprang at the passing flies, while in the distance, the restless ocean tumbled and rolled its its blue waters. There was a sunk fence in front of the house, which kept the tiny pleasure-ground safe from the destructive feet of the calm-eyed cows that grazed beneath it. A porch had been built which served as a small conservatory, while, outside, all manner of sweet-smelling, hardy flowers perfumed the air and showed in bright patches of colour against the dark green ivy.

There were comfortable offices at the back of the house; in the haggard stood great stacks of hay and corn; long reeks of turf lined the yards; turkeys uttered their plaintive cries; ducks quacked; geese gabbled; and in the sunny evenings were heard the sweet monotonous song of the milkmaid and the sharp beat of the milk-pail, gradually becoming softer as the vessel filled and foamed.

The mistress of this prosperous domain was a living instance of those who, seeking first the kingdom of God and his justice, find all other things added thereunto. The Madam was a gentle largehearted woman, sincerely religious and charitable in thought, word, and deed. She had no ethical tendencies impelling her to study human nature; so the wickedness of the world was to her a vague abstraction, and in no wise diminished her predilection for her

fellow-creatures. She had not the remotest perception of character, but rather an incapacity for going beneath the surface of anything. She was the adviser of all the women around, giving them simple medicine, food, and clothing when they required them, new breeds of fowl, and counsel as to their behaviour to their families. She was an excellent housewife; everything she did, she did well, from the making of butter for the market, to the mending of a stocking. She knew the value of each beast she had and how to keep it in condition; and she knew how to cultivate her flowers. No one had finer fowls or sent them to table better cooked; her sausages and collared heads were celebrated; and the whole domestic machinery in whose centre she moved, performed its complex evolutions with perfect regularity.

Though her external relations with the world went thus harmoniously, the Madam had her share of suffering. She lost her husband to whom she was devotedly attached, when she was little more than thirty years old, and saw child after child close its laughing eyes and change in her clasping arms from the soft warmth of life to the cold rigidity of death. Only her youngest remained to her, Ethna, now a girl of twenty years.

Ethna was like and unlike her mother; she had her generous nature, her warm-heartedness, but she was self-centered, passionate, and at the mercy of her impulses, The mother never aspired to higher levels than the one on which she wended the quiet tenor of her way; the daughter was often filled with that 'vague unrest' and aspirations for something, if not better, at least that she had not known. The mother would make a hundred unnoticed sacrifices and give no thought to them; the daughter was capable of a heroic effort, half vanity, half enthusiasm, for what was noble and elevated; but her self-abnegation was momentary, and again her own emotional life, feelings, and future were the things that had the greatest interest for her. Like the generality of those who have an exuberant vitality, she had a cheerful disposition. Her ready laughter was infectious, and people looked a second time at her long-lashed hazel eyes and crimson lips. She was tall and finely formed, with golden-brown hair, and neck and cheek as white and red as a York and Lancaster rose. Ethna was proud and sensitive, and one of the things she specially resented was the manner in which they had been ignored by the other members of the Moore family. They had come to the Lodge at intervals,

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