Light O The Morning | Page 8

asked you."
"But mother does not much like my sleeping out."
"You mean that she does not like you to sleep at the house of the wild

Murphys--that's what you mean, Nora. Then, get away; I don't want to
force my company on you. I am as good as any other girl in Ireland; I
have the blood of the old Irish kings in my veins; but if you are too
proud to come, why----"
"I am not, and you know it," said Nora; "but mother is an
Englishwoman, and she thinks we are all a little rough, you and I into
the bargain. All the same, I'll come to-morrow. I do want to explore
that cave. Yes, I'll come if you give me a proper invitation before
mother."
"Oh, mercy me!" said the girl, "must I go back to the house? I am so
precious shabby, and your lady-mother has got such piercing eyes. But
there, we can smuggle in the back way. I'll go up to my room and put
on my bits of finery. Bedad! but I look as handsome as the best when I
am dressed up. Come along, Nora; we'll get in the back way, and I'll
give the invitation in proper style."

CHAPTER IV
.
THE INVITATION.
Bridget and Nora began to climb up a very steep and narrow winding
path. It was nothing more than a grass path in the midst of a lot of rock
and underwood, but the girls were like young chamois, and leaped over
such obstacles with the lightness of fawns. Presently they arrived at the
back entrance of Cronane, the Murphys' decidedly dilapidated
residence. They had to cross a courtyard covered with rough cobbles
and in a sad state of neglect and mess. Some pigs were wallowing in
the mire in one corner, and a rough pony was tethered to a post not far
off; he was endeavoring, with painful insistence, to reach a clump of
hay which was sticking out of a hayrick a foot or two away. Nora,
seeing his wistful eyes, sprang forward, pulled a great handful of the
hay, and held it to his mouth. The little creature almost whinnied with
delight.
"There you are," said Bridget. "What right have you to give our hay to
that pony?"
"Oh, nonsense," said Nora; "the heart in him was starving." She flung
her arms round the pony's neck, pressed a kiss on his forehead, and

continued to cross the yard with Biddy. Two or three ragged urchins
soon impeded their path; one of them was the redoubtable Neil, the
other Mike.
"Is it to-morrow night you want the boat, Miss Biddy?" said Neil.
Bridget dropped her voice to a whisper.
"Look here, Neil," she said, "mum's the word; you are not to let it out to
a soul. You and Mike shall come with us, and Miss Nora is coming
too."
Neil cast a bashful and admiring glance at handsome Nora, as she stood
very erect by Biddy's side.
"All right, miss," he said.
"At ten o'clock," said Bridget; "have the boat in the cove then, and we'll
be down there and ready."
"But they say, miss, that the Banshee is out on the nights when the
moon is at the full."
"The O'Shanaghgans' Banshee," said Biddy, glancing at Nora, whose
face did not change a muscle, although the brightness and wistfulness
in her eyes were abundantly visible. She was saying to herself:
"I would give all the world to speak to the Banshee alone--to ask her to
get father out of his difficulty."
She was half-ashamed of these thoughts, although she knew and almost
gloried in the fact that she was superstitious to her heart's core.
She and Biddy soon entered the house by the back entrance, and ran up
some carpetless stairs to Biddy's own room. This was a huge bedroom,
carpetless and nearly bare. A little camp-bed stood in one corner,
covered by a colored counterpane; there was a strip of carpet beside the
bed, and another tiny strip by a wooden washhand-stand. The two great
parliament windows were destitute of any curtain or even blind; they
stared blankly out across the lovely summer landscape as hideous as
windows could be.
It was a perfect summer's evening; but even now the old frames rattled
and shook, and gave some idea of how they would behave were a storm
abroad.
Biddy, who was quite accustomed to her room and never dreamed that
any maiden could sleep in a more luxurious chamber, crossed it to
where a huge wooden wardrobe stood. She unlocked the door, and took
from its depths a pale-blue skirt trimmed with quantities of dirty pink

flounces.
"Oh, you are not going to put that on," said Nora, whose own training
had made her