A CASTLE IN THE AIR.

Otago Witness, Issue 3467, 24 August 1920, Page 58

A CASTLE IN THE AIR.

By Katharine Roche.

[Copyright.]

"Good-bye, father, I must be going." "Going? Sure I thought 'twas stopping for the night you'd be, my girl." "I meant to &top, father; the mistress would let hie, but she," with a gesture towards the cabin, "seems put out like about it. It's easier to go than have her talking all the evening." "Won't you stop an' have your tay even?"

"I can't, father ; I must catch, the car to Ballinferris. Good-bye. an' don't be fretting. I'll come soon again." Martin Deasy watched her as 'she disappeared by the steep path down the cliff, a. look of patient sadness on his simple, honest face. Then he fixed his pale, blue eyes on the broad sea lying before him, and gazed at it until roused by a shrill cry from within tho cabin, "Martin! Martin! Are you never going to come in to your tay?" when he rose slowly and went into the thatched cabin nestled into a hollow on the cliff side.

His wife, sharp-featured and red-haired, was setting the tea things with a good deal of clatter.

"Is Katie gone?" she asked. "Yes," said Martin, sharply. "Isn't it a wonder you couldn't let the little girl alone, instead of driving her away with your tongue!" "It's aisy talking," retorted his wife. "I'd like to know where she'd ha' slept; an' you after giving away the spare blanket."

"•dure I'd ha' slept on the floor, an' welcome."

"An' catch your death of cold, an' be laving me the second time a widow. Not that you'd be the loss that John O'Hanlon was. 'Tis he that'd never have allowed me to be put upon the way you do. I wisht I had him back this blessed day, I do." "I wisht you had, I'm, siire. It's glad I am to be able to agree with you for wanst. By all accounts, he wasn't the man to put up with all that I do." It had been chiefly for Katie's sake that he had married the widow O'Hanlon five years before. He thought she was a smart, tidy woman, who would be good to the little girl. Smart and tidy she certainly was; rather too much so for her easy-going husband, and she had done her best, as far as scolding went, to impart her own virtues to Katie. But Martin hardly thought neatness and order worth the price he had to pay for them, and his thoughts oftentimes went back with regard to Katie's mother.

Poor Ellen! How Hannah would have scorned her and her untidy ways. But she had been loving and kind, and Martin had never felt the same man since her death. He and Katie had lived on together, each trying to make up to the other for the mother's loss, till the day when the kind-hearted busybody who kept the village shop told Martin that the little girl wanted someone to look after her, and made up a match between him and the Widow O'Hanlon, almost without his consent.

A Sad day it was for poor Katie; and she felt glad when two years later her stepmoter, saying that it was a shame to have a big girl like that idling about doing nothing, found her a situation seven or eight miles off. Martin supposed that it was best for Katie to be earning her own living, but he missed his little girl terribly.

The sun was going down behind the headland, arid Martin watched it with dreamy wonder. When at length he turned his eyes from the crimson and gold they rested on a figure climbing the zigzag path up the cliff. It was that of a short, thick-set man, wearing a blue jersey and sou-'wester hat. He jerked his hand upwards in salutation as he gained the little "platform. "A fine evening, sir," he said. ''Mavbe you can tell me if Mrs O'Hanlon lives anywhere near here." "Mrs O'Hanlon!" It was fine years since Martin had heard that name, and a puzzled look came over his face.

"Her that was Mrs O'Hanlon, you mean. She's living in the cabin, there over-right you. What might you be wanting with her, might one ash?"

"Her that was Mrs O'Hanlon!" repeated the man. "You don't mean to say she's married again?"

"She's married to me," answered Martin. ''You've nothing to say again' that, have you ?"

"Only that I'll have to be troubling you to give her back again. It's my wile she is, an' not yours."

"Are you John O'Hanlon?" "I'm John O'Hanlon. Me an' another man was picked up by an American vessel after the wreck of the 'Banshee.' I settled in America, an' was doing well at first, but I lost my money after a bit, an' then I thought I would come home an' see the old place. They told me at Dunmore that Hannah was living here, but they never said a word of her being married". Faith, I never thought there was another man that would take her, with the tongue she have." ''Maybe you'll come in an' see her," said

Martin, feeling that some civility was due to Hannah's first husband.

"Thank you, six, I will; an' if it'll be no inconvenience to you, I'll take her away with mo at wanst. I've got a situation as gatekeeper down at Kilmore, an' I want her to mind the lodge. I can't get anyone else, you see, in her lifetime." When they entered the dark cabin Hannah rose and stood peering at the stranger, trying to find out who Martin had brought in. "Good evening to you, Hannah," said O'H anion, holding out his hand. "I'm glad to find you well. You see I'm not dead after all." At the sound of his voico the woman started violently; then, as the truth forced itself u|3on her, she dropped suddenly to the ground, and flinging her apron over her head, began to rock herself to and fro, moaning piteously. "I expected a better welcome, Hannah, coming back, as one may say, from the dead," said O'Hanlon. "But I'll overlook that, an' whatever else I may have again' you, an' take you home to the new house I have for you. It's a lodge at Mr O'Brien's."

But Hannah only sobbed the louder, while Martin looked on, hardly as yet realising what had happened. "Hadn't you better get him a bit to ate?" ho said at length. "No, sir; many thanks to you all the same. I had my supper while ago. But if you had a drop of sperrits now; I'd take it."

Martin went to the cupboard, and brought out a bottle with a remnant of whisky in it. "Will I give you a sup of water with it?" he asked.

"No, sir, thank you. I'll take it plain. 'Twould be a pity to spoil it." He poured the contents of the bottle into the cracked tumbler, and drank it off.

"Come, Hannah," he said, "get on your cloak, an' come along. I've a car waiting down below there."

But the bewildered woman did not stir, and the - man, excited with the strong whisky, swore loudly. "I) you," he said, "do you want to keep me here all night? Go an' get your cloak, I tell you." But as he spoke, his face grew purple; he reeled and would have fallen had not Martin caught him. "He seems to be in a fit of some sort," he said, laying the unconscious man on the floor. "Here, loosen his collar while I go for the doctor." The doctor said that O'Hanlon had an apolectic fit, hastened probably by the raw whisky. He did not consider the attack serious.

The sick man was put into the only bed in the house, and Hannah settled herself to watch him, while Martin, wrapped in a big coat and having his pipe for company, sat on, the bench outside.

Hannah would go with her first husband, the man whose perfections had been so often cast at him as a reproach—her manner of receiving this much-lamented husband he attributed to surprise-—and he and Katie would be happy together. He would go and tell Katie the good news the first thing in the morning, and make her give notice to her mistress. And when Katie married, she and her man could live with him. They might even take a house down in the village. And it was not as if poor Hannah were going away She and John O'Hanlon would be living in the lodge at Kilmore, and he could go and see them sometimes. Hannah was a pleasant woman when she wasn't out of temper, and they would all be the best of friends. Everything was going to come right at last. But the unexpected death of John O'Hanlon the next morning gave a check to his castle-building, and for the next couple of days Martin was even quieter and more silent than usual. It seemed as though he were trying to make up his mind on some knotty question, and did not find the process an easy one. John O'Hanlon's silver watch had haved him from the disgrace of a pauper's funeral, and on their return from the little churchyard where he was laid to rest Martin, giving no reason for so doing, remained in the village, while Hannah mounted the cliff to the cabin. When Martin came back he found the potatoes boiling for dinner, while Hannah, wearing her hooded cleak and holding a bundle on her knees, was sitting by the fire.

"What's the matter, Hannah?" he a asked. "Where are you going?" *

"I'm going away, Martin," she answered with a sob. "Sure I couldn't stay here anv longer, an you an* me not married at all." "True for you," said Martin, "but if you go away how are you to live?" "I'm going to my sister's in Rathduff. She'll let me stay till I get a situation."

"It'll be hard for you to go to a situation after always being used to a house of vour own."

"I'd rather have gone to a situation any day than have gone back to John O'Hanlon. God foi'give mo for saying so, now that he's gone. 'Twill be hard, of course; but it can't be helped." "Wouldn't you rather stop here?" he said slowlv.

"How can I stop here, an' you an' me not married?"

'SWe can aisy be married, if that's all."

Hannah began to cry. "I thought 'twas glad vou'd be to be rid of me!"

"Glad to be rid of you?" said Martin with a guilty recollection of his castle m the air. "How can you think," he said, after a moment's pause, "that I'd be comfortable living here at home, an' you in service ? No, no, Hannah ; that wouldn' t do at all. I was spaking about it to the priest a while ago, an' he says to come to the chapel this evening, an' he'll marry us over again." "Oh, Martin," she sobbed, "it's you that's real good to me that doesn't deserve it."

"Whist, whist, wornanl 'Twas you

that was always a good stirring wife to me, an' maybe'''—he hesitated—"maybe you an' the little girl'll take to one 'another better in the time to come."

That evening, when the little church was dark, save for the two candles on tho altar, Martin Deasy and Hannah O'Hanlon were married afresh by the old parish priest, the clerk and the priest's housekeeper acting as witnesses. And then they went back to the cabin on the cliff to take up again the life of the last seven years; a life made happier perhaps than it had hitherto been by the sense of duty and gratitude on which it was based.