"Ye overdid it, ye poor man," the Queen replied, with mock commiseration in her voice and face. "Or was it all the fault of the minstrels? However that might be, every man claiming royal descent—an' that means every bog-trotting spalpeen in Ireland—an' with a beast of any description to carry him this far, came to take a look at, an' maybe make a play for, one of the seven wonders of the world."
"Never mind that trash!" Malachi fumed. "I soon gave them to understand they could pay their own way or go home. But the big shots—the genuine widower kings an' certified bachelor princes—wot of them? They filled this castle and me three best mansions in the town without so much as by-yer-leave; an' emptied the cellars an' larders without so much as a thanky; an' destroyed the sod of me best meadows with their infernal joustings an' tournaments—an' all for nothing! Did any one of them take so much as a second look at Little Brigie? Divil a fear!"
"The poor child didn't encourage them," said the Queen. "She didn't try to look her best for any of them. In fact, she pulled faces at them."
Malachi sat up and gave his beautiful consort a searching, suspicious glimmer from his round eyes, which were as opaque as polished pebbles. (You could still call her beautiful, for all she was the mother of a fifteen-year-old daughter.)
"But they stayed on!" he cried. "Some of them till the first snow. And I wouldn't wonder but some of 'em—that old cheat King Farrell, an' young Flaherty, an' I could name more—would be here yet if the victuals an' drink hadn't given out!"
She gave him an amused and faintly contemptuous glance and asked gently: "Would ye have had me pull faces at them too?"
"Tell me wot's bringing 'em back!" he squealed.
"If it's to see if the future Queen of Cavan Land is improving in appearance, they're not hoping to find a growing resemblance to her father, that's a sure thing," she answered lightly; and her voice was as thin as her smile.
The King flung his fists in the air, emitted an inarticulate, gasping curse, and fell back on his pillow; at that moment a gentleman of the household coughed outside the curtained doorway and then intruded his head.
"Visitors," he said.
"Name them," snapped Malachi, without changing his position.
"There's King Farrell of Armath again." "Not at home! I be a sick man, tell him!" "And Prince Flaherty an' the O'Connor an'—" "Give 'em the gate!"
"The gate, d'ye say? Man, they be all this side the inner door itself already!"
Malachi came up again like a released jack-in-the-box, and with his mouth open for a blast; but no blast came forth.
"Where's herself?" he whispered, sliding his pebbly eyes.
"She went out," the gentleman of the household replied in an indifferent voice, but with a faint leer.
"Fetch her back, then! Tell her me poor heart's give out ag'in. Tell her I be on the stroke of death."
The other withdrew instantly; and though he spoke no word of comment, the leer widened on his face. He was some sort of cousin to the King, and even older, and had served him a long time and with constantly decreasing respect and no affection whatever.
Malachi swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat hunched up there with his bowed head gripped desperately in both hands, twitching and muttering in an ague of jealousy. It was a two-fold fit of the distressful passion: jealousy of his queen combined with fear and concern for the contents of his recently replenished cellars and storerooms. That is the kind of man he was, God help him! When he heard sounds of slippered feet and trailing skirts, he fetched up a groan from the very depths of his vital organs, but did not look. He strained his ears for a response, but in vain. He groaned again, and even more terribly. Still no response. So he raised his head and looked to see who was there. It was his daughter, Little Brigie.
She stood just within the chamber, regarding him with enigmatic eyes. More than that might be said about those eyes by someone with the requisite vocabulary and a poetic license; but to say they were indescribable is the easiest way to describe them. The expression of her mouth was enigmatic too. She was tall for her fifteen winters and thin for any age. Thin like a birch sapling. Slim, that is the word; for her face was still childishly rounded.
"So it's yerself," said the King, blinking at her.
She said nothing to that, and looked nothing.
"Me poor heart's leppin' like a horse—an' maybe the nex'jump will be the end of me!" he gasped.
Having heard that before, and more times than she had fingers and toes to keep count on, she let it pass without comment. He sighed profoundly and changed his tune.
"Harky to me now, me own darling little daughter," he whispered. "Ye wouldn't want to be the death of yer poor loving old dad now, would ye? I've always been a kind, doting, protecting father to ye, an' whoever says different is a liar, an' now all I'm asking of ye in return is practically nothing at all. Can't ye be polite to me royal friends now an' give some of them a pretty smile now an' then, instead of sneering an' sulking an' pulling ugly faces at them the way ye did last summer? I bain't asking any favors for that old baboon King Farrell; but take young Flaherty, now. Prince Flaherty! Handsome, and his father's heir. An' here at Castle Cavanaugh again, at the first blooming of the pretty flowers, asking for a kind look from ye. Can't ye do that little thing now to oblige yer poor old dad?"
Then the Princess smiled, though very faintly.
"Why?" she asked.
"Why not?" he yelped back at her.
After a brief struggle to get another strangle-hold on his temper, he found his wheedling voice and manner again.
"All for yer own happiness an' glory, me own darling child," he continued. "And I´ll tell ye the truth, now, even if it chokes me. A year back, me grand idee for your happiness was to find ye the mightiest man in Ireland for a husband, an' never mind his looks an' wotnot. But I see now it wasn't the right idee. It was all wrong. Riches an' power bain't everything, I can see that now. Love's the great thing—dances an' merry-go-rounds an' all—just like the poets tell it.
"So now ye can take yer pick of all the world for a husband, an' me blessing along with him—within reason. He's got to be a prince. And yell admit that be only reasonable, all things considered. An' a prince with a good chance at his father's crown an' all. Take young Flaherty, now. Or the O'Connor's eldest son. Or Sir Cassidy of Dublin; for even if two or three do stand closer than him to the crown of his Uncle Anguish right now, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the only one left to put it on by the time King Anguish has to take it off."
"I don't want a husband," she said quietly. "Not now, and maybe never. I be in no hurry, anyhow."
"Have a heart, me own precious child!" Malachi wailed. "Haste be the principal thing in this case, can't ye see that! Pick one anyhow, even if ye don't marry him right off—or well be suffering all the diviltries an' monkeyshines an' wicked, useless expenditures of last summer all over again!"
"Whatever happens, yell have only yerself to blame for it," she said; and she turned and went out.
* * *
For a while after that rebuff from his only child, King Malachi Cavanaugh was a crushed man there on the edge of his grand bed with his face in his hands. He was crushed too flat even for groans and moans; and the only sound he made was a weak, piteous, whimpering sort of whisper, thin and wordless. Feeling sorry for himself was an old story; but now he plumbed the uttermost depths of self-pity. And shame—an emotion quite foreign to his nature—was mixed up in it; and as if that was not enough, remorse thrust its freezing, twisting fingers into the very valves and sinews of his being. He saw all the crimes and cruelties, great and small, of which he had been guilty since childhood; and all his treacheries and knaveries and meannesses of act and thought. They glowed red on the black of his shut eyes like figures on a tapestry woven and embroidered in hell. And they moved, wavering like flames, and passed and vanished and were replaced. And all the sobs, and cries for mercy, and curses on his soul that he had ever heard or imagined sounded a thin and damning ac
companiment in his ears.
But not for long. Malachi rose to his feet and cursed his weakness. He snarled and sneered at it. He laughed at it; and the look of fear and horror went out of his eyes, and the glimmer of sly cunning and greed came into them again. He went to the door and thrust out his head and listened. Twangs of a harp and lilts of song and laughter came up the curved stone tunnel of the stairs to him. He changed his dressing gown for a grand robe of velvet and fur, and his slippers for boots of red Spanish leather, and combed his
beard and went down to the great hall, fixing his face into a false, smiling mask on the way. He wasn't beaten yet, by Judas!
Chapter Nine
Mid-June in Cavantown
By midday, Castle Cavanaugh was full again of visitors too important to be refused hospitality with impunity; and by the middle of the month, additional dozens of equally puissant personages had arrived and spilled over into the best houses in the town. With these and scores of lesser nobility and gentry and their entourages of attendants and vagabond hangers-on, castle and town and the adjacent countryside buzzed and rang and shook and clanged day and night. The congestion and hubbub of the same date in the previous year had been child's play in comparison. The fame of Cavantown as a pleasure resort had grown and spread during the winter, evidently, for scores of new cavaliers were added to the returned participants in last summer's junketings. There were even a few additional royalties.
King Malachi's cellars and larders were escaping lightly this year, however, thanks to the fact that King Farrell, and others who had shared in the exhaustion of Malachi's stores and hospitality a year before, had come this time well provided with victuals and drink, and some of them even with gifts. All this put a better complexion on the whole business, in King Malachi's opinion, though he would have been yet more pleased if the gifts to himself had been of greater value, or those to his consort of less, in certain particular cases. Even so, he would have resigned himself to enjoy the general excitement, to scheme for further possible profits and to try to forget the wear and tear on property, but for the behavior of his daughter. Of the Queen's behavior, his grounds or excuses for complaint were neither more nor less than they had been last summer; but of Little Brigie's the same could not be said. He cornered his daughter and expostulated with her.
"All I asked of ye was a mite of ladylike civility toward a few of them and special smiles for whichever of the handsome young princes ye might fancy the most, so's to narrow things down an' ease the situation generally. An' wot happened? In the place of pulling ugly faces at the richest an' highest, an' ignoring the rest, like last summer, now ye give the glad eye to one an' all! There bein't any sense in it— nor kindness to great or small—but only ruination for yer poor parents an' yerself too, the way I see it. D'ye want to have every knave an' loon an' swashbuckler in all Ireland, an' maybe in Christendom, brawling an' bashing here? It'll get worse an' worse, if ye don't put a stop to it! It'll get to be more than flesh an' blood can stand, or even stone an' timber. A few more years like this, only worse, an' the very walls an' roofs of me town, an' this castle itself, will be sprung an' cracked an' burst all abroad with the conflicts an' confusion of it. An' all I ask of ye now is the lift an' crook of a finger: an' then well have a grand wedding instead of ruination for one an' all!"
"Last summer I made liars of yerself and yer wandering minstrels, and ye didn't like that," the Princess replied, in a reasonable low voice and with a demure smile. "Not that it made any difference; for they stopped all the same, even if not a single one of them did give me a second look. And now that I'm trying to look the part the mistrels gave me, still ye're not satisfied. Ye be a difficult man to please, Malachi Cavanaugh!"
"Not so!" cried the King. "There bain't a more reasonable an' soft father in all Ireland than meself. Any other father would pick a suitable husband for ye, an' that would be the end of it. Take yer own granddaddy the O'Kelly, now, an' the way he married off his prettiest daughter without so much as—ah, well, never mind that now! But it was a grand, suitable match for the girl, anyhow. An' all I ask for my daughter is the beckon of a finger to her own free choice of any one of these squawling, bashing springals— so long's he be royal—an' leave the rest of them go home."
"Maybe they wouldn't go home," she countered.
"They wouldn't come back nex' year anyhow, an' you a married woman an' all."
"Maybe they would, just for the fun of it."
"But not here! You could go live with yer husband; an' that could be in Dublin Castle itself, for no more trouble than a nod of yer head at Prince Cassidy."
She seemed to study on that. She stood silent for a full minute anyway, with downcast eyes.
"To tell ye the truth, five or six of them are so wonderful that I can't make a choice among them," she murmured. "There's Cassidy and Red Flaherty and Gerry O'Connor and maybe two or three more. Five or six, maybe. And more arriving every day. It's hard choosing, especially for a young girl."
"Well, I´ll not deny that," said Malachi, with a sigh of relief, for her attitude was more cooperative than he had expected. "I'm giving ye the flower of all Ireland to pick from, an' that's a fact. Take yer own time, me dear—but make it as short as possible, or yell have nought only cripples or worse to bestow yer pretty hand on, the rate they're bashing an' slashing every day in me best meadow."
That was that; and Malachi hoped for the best, and kept on hoping, though he looked in vain, day after day, for signs of improvement in the behavior of Little Brigie's suitors particularly, and of the visitors generally. By the end of May the place was like two or three armed camps with two or three country fairs stirred into them. As for the Princess's own behavior, he could not see any change for the better: but every time he questioned her, she replied in a dutiful voice that she was doing her best to find herself the ideal husband.
"I bain't asking for a miracle!" he grumbled.
To Queen Brigid he said over and over, with a queer mixture of distress and brag in his voice, he would wager five crowns that Dublin itself had never seen a match for Cavantown right now.
There was a tournament—a grand free-for-all—every fine morning, and more personal affairs, or sports for the commonalty, every afternoon, if it did not rain; and there was dancing and such every night at the castle, never mind the weather.
On the morning of the middle day of June, two strangers appeared on the scene while Prince Cassidy and young O'Connor were choosing sides for the main event. Cassidy had a full side of twenty, and O'Connor had only eighteen, when the newcomers appeared at the edge of the field. A herald came running, and asked them their names and styles.
"Never mind that now, but tell us wot's the argument all about," said one of them.
"Only Cassidy an' O'Connor at it ag'in," said the herald. "Just now it's O'Connor wanting to take a man from the other side, so's to make it nineteen each, an' Prince Cassidy refusing to agree."
The newcomers exchanged glances through the bars of their vizors, and the one with two walking wolves on his shield nodded his head. At that, they both got into motion and advanced slowly but purposefully upon the point of dispute, and when within a horse's length of it they came to a standstill simultaneously, stirrup to stirrup. The disputing princes looked at them, and the old chief herald himself came hobbling from the sideline. And the stranger who had spoken once before, spoke again.
"At yer service, O'Connor. An' that goes for me friend here too."
"Gramercy!" cried young O'Connor. "Follow me, an' we be all ready to go!"
"Not so fast!" exclaimed Cassidy: and then he went on, in a superior drawl: "There be rules to observe in such matters, me dear Gerry, even if no Connor has ever heard of them in his remote ancestral bog. And one of them says ye can't fill up yer side for a passage of arms with just any two rogues in knights' harness who happen along."
The talkative of the two strangers leaned forward in his saddle and snarled: "Go take a sniff at yer smelling salts!"
"Easy now, for the love of God!" protested the old chief herald, panting and shaking. "Leave this to me now, me lord princes an' gentlemen all! There bes nothing to it. 'Tis a mere formality. I've only to put a few questions to this cavalier. Honorable sir, wot's the name of yer honorable companion behind the shield that reads—leave me to take a closer look now—ah, argent, two wolves passant, proper? Just answer me that now, like between friends, an' no bones broke."
"Sir High Herald Connell, yer question discloses ignorance unpardonable in a gentleman of yer position an' repute," was the answer.
"Never mind it, then. Two walking wolves, hey? But let it pass. Only tell me now wot device ye've got under the cover on yer own shield."
"I could whisper it in yer ear, but I´ll not risk it. If it was overheard, some of these carpet-knights would flee the field, an' as for this elegant Dubliner, it would take more than a sniff at his smelling bottle to keep him on his horse."
At that, Prince Cassidy urged his charger forward till it stood head to tail with the talkative stranger's charger, and the right kneecaps of the riders struck and ground together.
"Liar!" he rasped. "Buffoon! Insolent varlet! Yell die for that!"
"Back up an' pull over," said the other, sneering in a soft voice. "Me horse don't like to be crowded."
Speechless with rage—and vastly to the high herald's surprise and relief—Cassidy complied, and wheeled and rode back furiously to his waiting twenty. Then young O'Connor returned to his party at a reflective walk, with a stranger at either stirrup. He glanced to his right at the stranger who had not yet uttered a word.
"Wot ails yer tongue, noble sir?" he asked.
He was answered by the other stranger.
"There's nothing ails it, only it bain't Irish."
The Merriest Knight Page 47