IX
I returned to the stone hall. The princess and Nancy were sitting at a tea table in a great window place that overlooked the park and the river. Both were in high spirits.
The princess was eager to go through the castle, and when we had finished tea we started on a tour of inspection. She wanted to see everything, and insisted that I should get the keys and conduct Nancy and herself all over the place. I had to ask the assistance of Deasy as a guide. He produced a large bunch of keys and returned with me to the princess.
“It may give a better idea of the castle, sir,” said Deasy, “if we first go out into the courtyard. You will see that it is built in a square around an inner court, with a tower at each angle, and a gateway on the east side. In old times it was one of the strongest fortresses in the country.”
“So I could imagine,” I replied. “By the way, is there any entrance to the castle except the gateway there?”
“None whatever. To get into Annalleen Castle you must cross the moat and pass the gateway. Every entrance is from the courtyard.”
“So that we might easily withstand a siege here,” remarked the princess.
“If you will follow me to the top of the south tower,” said Deasy, “you will be able to get a view of the ground plan of the castle.”
We followed him to the top of the tower. Princess Amirel, Nancy, and myself looked on the scene at our feet and around us with quite different feelings. The princess sat down on the ledge that ran around the tower beneath the battlements, and appeared lost in thought. Nancy studied the landscape from every standpoint. I leaned over the battlements and examined the ground plan of the building.
There was no questioning its natural advantages of situation. In olden days it must have been impregnable. Almost hidden by trees was a wide moat, which was crossed by a drawbridge leading to an ancient stone gateway. The moat was twenty feet in width, and it was impossible for any one to reach the castle if the drawbridge happened to be up.
“It is indeed a place of great natural strength,” I remarked to Deasy.
“Yes, sir,” he replied. “You now understand the plan of the castle. On the south are the family apartments and the new great hall, on the east the kitchen and offices. The stables and coach houses are on the north, and the oldest part of the castle, the old great hall and gallery, is on the west. That part of the building contains a great deal of old furniture and many curiosities, but it has not been open, except to visitors, for many years. The great hall and the gallery are said to be haunted.”
“Please tell me about that,” said Nancy. “Is it a real ghost?”
“I can't say, ma'am,” replied the butler. “I have never heard or seen anything, although I often walk through the old hall very late at night.”
“And what is the legend?” asked the princess.
“In olden days a king lived in this castle. When he died, he left it to the elder of his twin sons, and bade the younger child build a castle for himself on the other side of the Fergus. The sons quarreled as to where the new castle should be built. The younger finally built it on that mound you see across the river—there are ruins still on the top—so that he could overlook Annalleen. The elder brother was angry, but concealed his wrath until the new castle was finished. Then he sent messengers to his brother, asking peace between them, and bidding him to a great feast in the hall below us. When the feast was over, the younger brother's attendants were treacherously slain, and he himself had his eyes put out. He was turned out of the castle with the remark that he had looked his last on Annalleen, and he wandered in the woods until he fell dead from exhaustion. They say his ghost is sometimes seen in the old hall and gallery, looking for the lost eyes. There is a saying that it appears only when one of the Adares is about to meet a violent death; but there have been no such deaths in the family for three hundred years.”
His story told, Deasy took us to the foot of the tower again and conducted us through the south and west wings of the castle. Then he led us into the courtyard again, and crossed over to a dog kennel near the north tower.
“This is the bulldog of which I told you,” he said. “He is asleep at present, but he will awake and come out. Keep out of range of his chain. He is fierce, and always more or less uncertain.”
We kept a respectful distance from the kennel, but we saw a brindled mass lying curled up in the straw. Deasy gave a shrill whistle. The bulldog put his head out of the door and looked at us. He was certainly the ugliest dog I ever saw. When he saw Deasy, a gleam of recognition came into his eyes, and he came out slowly.
“What is his name?” inquired Nancy.
“Peter, ma'am,” answered Deasy. “He is pure bred and very valuable. Sir Desmond gave a lot of money for him when he was little.”
“And he will make friends with no one but Sir Desmond and yourself?” asked the princess.
“It is the way he has been trained, ma'am,” said Deasy. “Lie down again, Peter!” he ordered, as we turned away.
The dog went back into his kennel.
After dinner that evening I left the princess and Nancy and went for a long walk in the park. After half an hour's walking I came to the point of the junction of the moat with the river. It was a little after sunset, and the afterglow was flooding everything with a purple radiance. As I stood wondering at the impressive beauty of the scene, a familiar voice broke in on my reverie.
“Ah, now, if only one could paint that! But it never lasts long, and it's changing with every second.”
I turned to find Mr. Paul Carburton standing close by. He had an artist's satchel and easel and a camp stool slung over his shoulder. He carried a canvas in one hand and his huge umbrella in the other. He still wore the white sombrero and the white shoes, but he had discarded his velveteen coat for a species of holland blouse which was plentifully adorned with dabs of paint. His spectacled eyes fixed themselves upon me with innocent interest.
“Staying near here?” he asked.
“I am staying at the castle,” I answered.
“Oh, at Annalleen! That's the haunted place, isn't it? I've often thought of looking over it. I believe they admit visitors now and then.”
“It is visitors' day to-morrow,” I remarked.
“Is it? Well, perhaps I shall look in. I'm sketching a scene about a mile down the river. I've been at it all this afternoon. I'm on my way to Ennis now.”
“Rather a long walk, isn't it? Carrying all those things, too!”
“Oh, it does one good after sitting on a camp stool all day,” he replied. “I say, the castle looks very fine from here—superb, in fact!”
Then, with the same abruptness with which he had left me in Sackville Street the previous morning, the little man walked away.
I strolled back to the castle. As I entered the courtyard, lights gleamed in the windows of the great drawing-room, and a piano suddenly broke the silence of the evening. A moment later I was listening spellbound to the lovely voice of Nancy Flynn.