Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/417

 410 see a young man half as fine-looking as Phelim. He had the dark, bronzed skin, jet black hair, and large black eyes of a genuine Milesian—he had the face of a patriarch—it was so noble, so grand, and dignified, and with that he was mighty cleverly made, and in height about six feet two inches. He wore a yellow velvet hat, with a ruby in front, which fastened together two heavy hanging black plumes, a chain of triple gold was around his neck, and his body, arms, and legs, were covered with a tight-fitting, yellow-coloured dress. There was a jewelled dagger in the red silk scarf at his waist. A short sword hung to his side, and in his right hand he bore a hunting-spear.

‘If I could fancy my old grandmother to have ever spoken a word of truth,’ said Aileen to herself, as she looked across the narrow stream at Phelim, ‘I should suppose this handsome stranger to be the valiant Woden, who had come down from his Walhalla to pay me a visit.’

‘If I was to believe,’ said Phelim, at the same time, to himself, ‘what the pagan poets prate about the goddesses of former times, I would suppose that beautiful creature yonder to be the celestial charmer, Venus, who was amusing herself this fine morning with one of the occupations of the chaste Diana.’

“To make a long story short, they were over head and ears in love with one another in less than no time, and as they were both young, and innocent, and never supposed there was the slightest harm in letting the truth be known, they very soon came to a right understanding with each other upon a point so material to their mutual happiness. “Phelim O’Neal O’Donnell asked Aileen Olliffe if she would marry him; and she replied at once, ‘With the greatest pleasure in life;’ but at the same time she gave him to understand that there were some difficulties in the way.

‘Difficulties, indeed!’ said Phelim O’Neal O’Donnell. ‘I laugh at difficulties! A young Irishman with a sword in his hand, and the girl that he loves by his side, derides difficulties, and will jump over, if he cannot cut through, impossibilities. Phew! show me the difficulty that dares to terrify you, and in half a minute I will wring its head off.’

‘It is not so easy as you think, my beautiful hero,’ observed Aileen, ‘to wring the head off an old woman.’

‘An old woman!’ replied Phelim, astonished.

‘Yes,’ continued Aileen, ‘and an old woman that is a witch.’

‘As an Irishman,’ replied Phelim, ‘I should be ashamed of myself, if I were to lay an unkind hand on a female; but if she is a witch, then all I can say is—show her to me—I will not strike her with my fist, because she is a woman; but I give you my word of honour, I will never stop walking on her until she is as flat as a pancake.’

‘But this old woman, who is also a witch, is my grandmother,’ answered Aileen.

‘Your grandmother!’ replied Phelim. ‘Then all I can say, my charming angel, is, I wish, for your own sake, as well as mine, your family was a little more respectable.’

‘Respectable! enagh!’ answered Aileen, a little nettled. ‘A good deal more respectable than yours, I am inclined to think. Why, my grandfather was a king, and my grand-uncle was the celebrated Olaf-ironfist, who used to pound Irish spalpeens into sparables.’

‘Not a doubt of it!’ replied Phelim. ‘There never was a more celebrated ruffian that Olaf-ironfist. But your grandfather, my beautiful maiden, you say, was a king, and your grandmother is no better than she ought to be. Oh! faix! that is a common case enough. There is no family that I ever yet knew of, no matter how high, exalted, or respectable it might be, but had some relation attached to it, that all the rest had right good reason to be ashamed of. Well, now, how is your grandmother, that is a witch, a difficulty in the way of yourself and myself being married, when we have both determined to become husband and wife?”

‘Because she has all my fortune in her keeping, and I know well she will never let me handle it, if she knows I wish to give it and myself to a Christian husband,’ answered Aileen.

‘A fortune!”fortune!’ [sic] said the astonished and delighted Phelim. ‘Why this is good luck and more of it! Ah! then, is it possible, such an enchanting beauty as you are can have a fortune? But, you are so handsome, it must be something very trifling; not worth troubling one’s head about.’

‘All I will say about it is this,’ replied Aileen. ‘Since the O’Donnells were a sept, they never had, individually and collectively, half the fortune that I am entitled to; and that is now hidden in the caves of Rahar.’

‘What! what is that you say, my beautiful enchantress?’ answered Phelim, becoming still more enamoured of Aileen when he heard her boasting of her wealth. ‘You don’t mean to say now, you have a fortune of ten thousand pounds—in ready money?’

‘Ten thousand pounds!’ replied Aileen; ‘who ever heard of the grand-daughter of a Danish king having such a paltry fortune as ten thousand pounds?’

‘Well, my celestial beauty! say twenty thousand pounds—in ready money.’

‘Pho! mean! beneath mentioning!’ answered Aileen.

‘Well, my adorable and transcendantly divine beauty! say forty thousand pounds—in ready money.’

‘Contemptible!—not worth speaking about!’

‘Well, my intensely divine, most beautiful, and ecstatically attractive charmer! say eighty thousand pounds—in ready money.’

‘Bah!’ said Aileen, ‘your imagination cannot soar to the height or fly to the extent of my riches. There are four large iron hat-boxes crammed with nothing but diamonds and precious stones; there are six big iron trunks stuffed with nothing but gold; and there are twenty-four huge iron chests filled with nothing but bars of silver. That is my fortune. Are you still willing to marry me?’

‘I am willing to die for you, seraphic and supremely lovely Aileen!’ answered Phelim.

‘Better to live and marry me,’ responded