Peg O' My Heart Part 21

"Then I'll never be one again, father! Never again," and her eyes filled up.

He suddenly took her in his arms and pressed her to him and rocked her as though she were still a baby, and his voice trembled and was full of pity as he said:

"Ye can't help it, acushla. Ye can't help it. Ye're NOT a coward, my own brave little Peg. It's yer mother in ye. She could never bear a thunder-storm without fear, and she was the bravest woman that ever lived Bad luck to me for sayin' a cross word to ye."

Suddenly poor little Peg burst out crying and buried her face on her father's breast and sobbed and sobbed as though her heart would break.

"Ss.h.!.+ Ss.h.!.+ There--there, me darlin'," cried O'Connell, now thoroughly alarmed at the depth of feeling the child had loosened from her pent-up emotion, "ye mustn't cry--ye mustn't. See it's laughin' I am! Laughin', that's what I'm doin'."

And he laughed loudly while his heart ached, and he told her stories until she forgot her tears and laughed too. And that night as he watched her fall off to sleep he knelt down in the straw and prayed:

"Oh, kape her always like she is now--always just a sweet, innocent, pure little creature. Kape the mother in her always, dear Lord, so that she may grow in Your likeness and join my poor, dear Angela in the end.

Amen."

Those were indeed glorious days for Peg. She never forgot them in after life.

Waking in the freshness of the early morning, making their frugal breakfast, feeding the faithful old horse and then starting off through the emerald green for another new and wonderful day, to spread the light of the "Cause."

O'Connell had changed very much since the days of St. Kernan's Hill. As was foreshadowed earlier, he no longer urged violence. He had come under the influence of the more temperate men of the party, and was content to win by legislative means, what Ireland had failed to accomplish wholly by conflict. Although no one recognised more thoroughly than O'Connell what a large part the determined att.i.tude of the Irish party, in resisting the English laws, depriving them of the right of free speech, and of meeting to spread light amongst the ignorant, had played in wringing some measure of recognition and of tolerance from the bitter narrowness of the English ministers.

What changed O'Connell more particularly was the action of a band of so-called "Patriots" who operated in many parts of Ireland--maiming cattle, ruining crops, injuring peaceable farmers, who did not do their bidding and shooting at landlords and prominent people connected with the government.

Crime is not a means to honourable victory and O'Connell was ashamed of the miscreants who blackened the fair name of his country by their ruthless and despicable methods.

He avoided the possibility of imprisonment again for the sake of Peg.

What would befall her if he were taken from her?

The continual thought that preyed upon him was that he would have nothing to leave her when his call came. Do what he would he could make but little money--and when he had a small surplus he would spend it on Peg--a shawl to keep her warm, or a ribbon to give a gleam of colour to the drab little clothes.

On great occasions he would buy her a new dress, and then Peg was the proudest little child in the whole of Ireland.

Every year, on the anniversary of her mother's death, O'Connell had a Ma.s.s said for the repose of Angela's soul, and he would kneel beside Peg through the service, and be silent for the rest of the day. One year he had candles, blessed by the Archbishop, lit on our Lady's altar and he stayed long after the service was over. He sent Peg home. But, although Peg obeyed him, partially, by leaving the church, she kept watch outside until her father came out. He was wiping his eyes as he saw her. He pretended to be very angry.

"Didn't I tell ye to go home?"

"Ye did, father."

"Then why didn't ye obey me?"

"Sure an' what would I be doin' at home, all alone, without you? Don't be cross with me, father."

He took her hand and they walked home in silence. He had been crying and Peg could not understand it. She had never seen him do such a thing before and it worried her. It did not seem right that a MAN should cry.

It seemed a weakness--and that her father, of all men, should do it--he who was not afraid of anything nor anyone--it was wholly unaccountable to her.

When they reached home Peg busied herself about her father, trying to make him comfortable, furtively watching him all the while. When she had put him in an easy chair, and brought him his slippers, and built up the fire, she sat down on a little stool by his side. After a long silence she stroked the back of his hand and then gave him a little tug. He looked down at her.

"What is it, Peg?"

"Was my mother very beautiful, father?"

"The most beautiful woman that ever lived in all the wurrld, Peg."

"She looks beautiful in the picture ye have of her."

From the inside pocket of his coat he drew out a little beautifully-painted miniature. The frame had long since been worn and frayed. O'Connell looked at the face and his eyes shone:

"The man that painted it couldn't put the soul of her into it. That he couldn't. Not the soul of her."

"Am I like her, at all, father?" asked Peg wistfully.

"Sometimes ye are, dear: very like."

After a little pause Peg said:

"Ye loved her very much, father, didn't ye?"

He nodded. "I loved her with all the heart of me and all the strength of me."

Peg sat quiet for some minutes: then she asked him a question very quietly and hung in suspense on his answer:

"Do ye love me as much as ye loved her, father?"

"It's different, Peg--quite, quite different."

"Why is it?" She waited He did not answer.

"Sure, love is love whether ye feel it for a woman or a child," she persisted.

O'Connell remained silent.

"Did ye love her betther than ye love me, father?"

Her soul was in her great blue eyes as she waited excitedly for the answer to that, to her, momentous question.

"Why do ye ask me that?" said O'Connell.

"Because I always feel a little sharp pain right through my heart whenever ye talk about me mother. Ye see, father, I've thought all these years that I was the one ye really loved--"

"Ye're the only one I have in the wurrld, Peg."

"And ye don't love her memory betther than ye do me?"

O'Connell put both of his arms around her.

"Yer mother is with the Saints, Peg, and here are you by me side. Sure there's room in me heart for the memory of her and the love of you."

She breathed a little sigh of satisfaction and nestled onto her father's shoulder. The little fit of childish jealousy of her dead mother's place in her father's heart pa.s.sed.

She wanted no one to share her father's affection with her. She gave him all of hers. She needed all of his.