Winifred

“ Winifred walked down with me a piece of the way, after I had said farewell to Granny Meehan, who had heard my glowing praises of the castle with flushed cheeks, down which stole a tear or two of pride. When we were parting, Winifred remarked wistfully:
"I think, perhaps, Niall and I are different from any other people. But it's no use trying to change us: we shall always be the same." ”

“ Niall answered with a smile; "but there are some who might take you away against your will and with none to say them nay."
"I wish you would not talk so!" Winifred said petulantly, tearing to pieces with her slender, delicate fingers a daisy which she had picked up from the grass. She threw the stalk away impatiently. "There!" she cried. "By your foolish talk you have made me destroy one of my own little daisies; and I always think of them as little children playing in the long grass, hiding from one another, letting the wind blow them about, and loving the sun, as all children do." ”

“ I have seen her grow up like the flowers on yonder rocks. But she is not a flower: she has a human soul, and she has a destiny to fulfil here in this world. Therefore, when an offer is made to her which will give her every advantage that she now lacks, what are my feelings or Niall's or Granny's or hers?"
Winifred's eyes sought the floor in some confusion, and with a hint of new tears darkening them; for her old friend's words had touched her.
"She thinks, I suppose," he went on, "that because I am a priest I have no heart like the robin out yonder. ”

“ These sensations are common enough to all who go into new scenes for the first time; but for some weeks after Winifred's arrival at the convent she reminded me of nothing so much as a bird in a cage. I am sure the ordinary little restraints of school-life must have been intolerable to one brought up, as she had been, unrestrained upon the hills. In the austere convent parlor, with her black dress, and her curls fastened back from her face with a ribbon, she was like a spirit of her former self. ”

“ Winifred flew to the Breviary and with a joyful cry brought out a lovely picture of the Sacred Heart. The sugar-plums, however, seemed to choke her, and she put them in her pocket silently.
"When will you start for America?" asked the priest.
"The first week of August, perhaps," I answered; "so that Winifred may be in time for the opening of school."
"Well, then," said Father Owen, "it will be time enough to begin to cry on the 31st of July, Winifred my child; and you have a whole month before then."
Winifred brightened visibly at this; for a month is very long to a child. ”

“ At the inn we found Father Owen in conversation with the landlord. He came forward at once to greet us, crying out cheerfully to the child:
"So there you are, my pet, setting out upon your travels to seek your fortune, like the people in the fairy books!"
Winifred's grief, which had been of a gentle and restrained character throughout, and unlike what might have been expected from her impetuous disposition, broke out again at sight of her beloved friend.
"Tut, tut, my child!" cried the priest. "This isn't April. Nature is smiling, and you must smile too. ”

“ 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 former [Pg 211] wildness 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." ”

“ 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.
Printed by Benziger Brothers, New York. ”

“ I stood still to listen to a wild thrush above me as I neared the castle, and the thrilling sweetness of its notes filled me with something of its own glee. Winifred was in the old courtyard feeding some chickens, gray and speckled and white, with crumbs of oaten bread and a bowlful of grain. She was laughing gaily at their antics and talking to the fowls by name:
"No, Aileen Mor! You're too greedy: you're swallowing everything. Gray Mary, you haven't got anything. Here's a bit for you. No, no, bantam Mike, you can't have any more; let the hens eat something!" ”

“ There were cool flashing lights, and tender depths of colour, and a sweet content over everything, and poor Winifred growing sadder and sadder with the sense of contrast, yet walking more slowly and looking wistfully at the long grass, with a vague longing to lie down in it, and let everything go by and away forever. It might have been this which, as she went towards a little wooden bridge crossing the stream into the wood, deafened her ears to a step until Anthony Miles himself was close to her. ”

“ Suddenly she changed her tone, running over and laying her soft young cheek against the wrinkled one of her nurse. "Think, Granny," she said, "what the bog will be like with the moon shining down upon it, making all sorts of ghostly shadows; so that after a while we shall just run for our lives; and Barney will whip up his roan horse and bring us home, shivering for fear of ghosts and fairies."
"Winifred," I observed, "you are far too fanciful for this nineteenth century. You will have to come away to America and get rid of all these unreal ideas." ”

“ How dare you leave undone anything, howsoever wild, which might seem to any one—even to an illiterate Gypsy, even to a crazy mystic—a means of finding Winifred? What is the meaning of the great instinct which has always conquered the soul in its direst need—which has always driven man when in the grip of unbearable calamity to believe in powers that are unseen? What though that scientific reason of yours tells you that Winifred's misfortunes have nothing to do with any curse? ”

“ Winifred, who saw the weakness, was not merciful: she was a woman, with, perhaps, a grain of jealousy sharpening her perceptions, and rendering them sufficiently keen to probe the feminine flatteries which fell so sweetly upon him, and it is probable that, although a woman who loves—even unconsciously—sets herself, often unconsciously too, to study the character of the man she loves with a closeness of purpose, and an almost unerring instinct, swift to unravel its inmost workings, Winifred did not at this time rightly understand him. ”

“ When I thought of Niall, of the old castle with its romance and mystery, it was hardly credible that this tall and slender gentleman in the well-fitting evening clothes should be the central figure in such a drama. And all the time I was withholding from him such a secret as the presence in America of his only child.
While Roderick stood exchanging a few words with his hostess, I thought all at once of that little scene which Winifred had recalled—when he parted in anger from the lady in the yellow dress, who must have been, of course, his wife. ”

“ Father Owen said quickly. "Why, even that little bird yonder has to give up his songs in the sunshine sometimes and go to work. He has to build his nest as a shelter for his family, and he has to find them food."
He paused, looking out of the window at the little workman gaily hopping about as if making repairs in his dwelling, and thus pointing the moral and adorning the tale. When the priest turned round again to look at Winifred, her face was pale but composed, and her tears were dried on the delicate kerchief she drew from the folds of her cloak. ”

“ Winifred loved him, loved him, this southerner, as a higher being. A higher being, mind you. Not a deeper. And as for him, he loved her in passion with every fibre of him. She was the very warm stuff of life to him.
Wonderful then, those days at Crockham Cottage, the first days, all alone save for the woman who came to work in the mornings. Marvellous days, when she had all his tall, supple, fine-fleshed youth to herself, for herself, and he had her like a ruddy fire into which he could cast himself for rejuvenation. Ah, that it might never end, this passion, this marriage! ”

“ It was certainly true that Winifred was at this moment holding her head with a little touch of stateliness. She had heard a good many of the flattering words which had been poured upon Anthony, and perhaps valued them at even less than they were worth, and it vexed her to see their effect upon him. Something in his nature courted the pleasant popularity and the spoiling. Is it women only who care for such pretty things? He might have told you that he despised them, but the truth was that they made a sunshine in which he liked to bask, a delight which was not without its influence. ”

“ I went and sat down on the chair, fastened securely to the floor, which looked out upon the wintry landscape. At that moment a bird came chirping and twittering about the window-sill, and cocking his bright little eye as he looked in at us through the pane.
"He comes very often," said Winifred, regarding the little brown object with a kindly glance. "Sometimes I feed him with crumbs. He always reminds me of Father Owen's robin far away over the sea, and I wonder if he will ever fly so far." ”

“ I only wish I could give to poor Winifred some of the quite indescribable charm it has for me. I suppose it is just that she has grown up in it; but yet Celia, and even Louise, feel it almost as I do. Well, Winifred may awake in many ways yet. She will probably love her home better when there is no stifled consciousness of self-reproach mixed up with it. How glad I am she gave in before she—or I—knew the contents of Mr Montague’s letter. ”

“ Oh, what a desolate spot this will be when Miss Winifred's gone out of it!"
"Only for a time; and then, if all goes as we hope, think what happiness is in store for every one!"
"I'll try to think of it, ma'am,—indeed and I will," said Granny. "And, sittin' here in the dark alone, I'll be prayin', mornin', noon and night, that all may turn for the best."
"Your prayers will help more than anything else can," I declared; "be sure of that, and keep up your heart. But now I think I'll call upon the priest—Father Owen, I believe?"
"Yes: Father Owen Farley." ”

“ Power kept poor Kenrick’s hat, for no relation of his was there to claim it.
Another day dawned, and settled grief and gloom fell on all alike at Saint Winifred’s—the boys, the masters, the inhabitants. The sight of Mr and Mrs Evson’s speechless anguish impressed all hearts, and by this time hope seemed quenched for ever. For now one boy only,—though young hearts are slow to give up hope—had refused to believe the worst. It was Eden. ”

“ 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." ”

“ My next duty was to obtain Granny Meehan's consent to Winifred's departure for America. I found her sitting beside the hearth in her accustomed place, with the cat at her feet. Winifred was absent, and in the outer court was the pleasant sunshine falling over solitude. Only the fowls, so variously named by Winifred, disported themselves before the window. ”

“ And to any one knowing Winifred, there would have been something almost amusing in the half-protecting tone with which Miss Norreys at once addressed her. But if love is blind, so is youthful enthusiasm, and Winifred was truly enthusiastic about the young singer. More than this, that any one could by any possibility look upon her as an object of protection or pity had never dawned upon the girl, whose self-confidence and matter-of-fact preoccupation with her own ideas often dulled her perceptions. ”

“ I used to be so when I knelt, a gossoon, at my mother's knee; and when, a stripling, I led the village choir. But so I am not now. I have only one god, and that is gold."
He brought out the words with a fearful power, as though he hurled them against something. His voice actually rose above the storm, and he threw back his head as though in defiance of the very heavens.
I shuddered, but I spoke with more courage than I had hitherto done.
"If all that is true," I said, "surely you will see yourself that you are no companion for Winifred." ”

“ It was a lovely night when I set out with the merrymakers to the bog in search of peat. Barney was full of drollery, a typical Irish lad such as I had not seen in Wicklow before; and Moira, though at first fulfilling Winifred's predictions by sitting silently with her heels kicking together where they hung out of the cart, and her head hanging down, after a while awoke to the spirit of fun and frolic that was abroad.
"Ah, then, Danny avick, will you move on!" cried Barney to the horse. "Is it standin' still you'd be, you Tory, and Miss Winifred in the cart and the strange lady from America?" ”