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DAIREEN

Volume 1 of 2

By Frank Frankfort Moore


(Transcriber's Note: Chapters XX to XXIV were taken from a print
copy of a different edition as these chapters were missing from the 1889
print edition from which the rest of the Project Gutenberg edition was
taken. In the inserted four chapters it will be noted that the normal
double quotation marks were printed as single quote marks.)




CHAPTER I.


                        A king

               Upon whose property...

               A damn'd defeat was made.

                        A king

               Of shreds and patches.

The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must
the inheritor himself have no more? _Hamlet._


|MY son, said The Macnamara with an air of grandeur, my son, you've
forgotten what's due--he pronounced it jew--to yourself, what's
due to your father, what's due to your forefathers that bled, and
The Macnamara waved his hand gracefully; then, taking advantage of its
proximity to the edge of the table, he made a powerful but ineffectual
attempt to pull himself to his feet. Finding himself baffled by the
peculiar formation of his chair, and not having a reserve of breath to
draw upon for another exertion, he concealed his defeat under a pretence
of feeling indifferent on the matter of rising, and continued fingering
the table-edge as if endeavouring to read the initials which had been
carved pretty deeply upon the oak by a humorous guest just where his
hand rested. Yes, my son, you've forgotten the blood of your ancient
sires. You forget, my son, that you're the offspring of the Macnamaras
and the O'Dermots, kings of Munster in the days when there were kings,
and when the Geralds were walking about in blue paint in the woods
of the adjacent barbarous island of Britain--The Macnamara said
barbarious.

The Geralds have been at Suanmara for four hundred years, said
Standish quickly, and in the tone of one resenting an aspersion.

Four hundred years! cried The Macnamara scornfully. Four hundred
years! What's four hundred years in the existence of a family? He felt
that this was the exact instant for him to rise grandly to his feet,
so once more he made the essay, but without a satisfactory result. As
a matter of fact, it is almost impossible to release oneself from the
embrace of a heavy oak chair when the seat has been formed of light
cane, and this cane has become tattered.

I don't care about the kings of Munster--no, not a bit, said Standish,
taking a mean advantage of the involuntary captivity of his father to
insult him.

I'm dead sick hearing about them. They never did anything for me.

The Macnamara threw back his head, clasped his hands over his bosom,
and gazed up to the cobwebs of the oak ceiling. My sires--shades of
the Macnamaras and the O'Dermots, visit not the iniquity of the children
upon the fathers, he exclaimed. And then there came a solemn pause
which the hereditary monarch felt should impress his son deeply; but
the son was not deceived into fancying that his father was overcome with
emotion; he knew very well that his father was only thinking how with
dignity he could extricate himself from his awkward chair, and so he
was not deeply affected. My boy, my boy, the father murmured in a weak
voice, after his apostrophe to the shades of the ceiling, what do you
mean to do? Keep nothing secret from me, Standish; I'll stand by you to
the last.

I don't mean to do anything. There is nothing to be done--at
least--yet.

What's that you say? Nothing to be done? You don't mean to say you've
been thrifling with the young-woman's affection? Never shall a son of
mine, and the offspring of The Macnamaras and the----

How can you put such a question to me? said the young man indignantly.
I throw back the insinuation in your teeth, though you are my father.
I would scorn to trifle with the feelings of any lady, not to speak of
Miss Gerald, who is purer than the lily that blooms----

In the valley of Shanganagh--that's what you said in the poem, my boy;
and it's true, I'm sure.

But because you find a scrap of poetry in my writing you fancy that I
forget