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Updated: June 2, 2025
Eily, won by her gentleness, told her the pitiful story of her love; told her of her simple mountain home, of the handsome stranger who had promised to return and carry her to a land where she would be fairest of the fair; told it with dry eyes and white set lips, while her heart was breaking and her temples beat, beat, beat, like sledge-hammers beneath the weight of the fringe with which she had thought to please him.
"Eily, come upstairs, child; I have something to show you." Mrs. Grey was in the room, looking flushed and excited; she was flourishing a book in her hand. Eily's heart beat rapidly as she ascended the steep staircase in the wake of her friend. Was it possible she could have news of him? Then she shook her head, for Mrs. Grey was not in her secret.
The handsome face of the artist, his languid manner, his admiration of her beauty, his talk about the great world that lay beyond those mountains, fascinated and bewildered poor simple Eily, who told him in her trusting innocence all the thoughts of her young heart.
Eily O'Connor, the victim, is a pretty and pathetic figure; the hero-villain Hardress Cregan, and the mother who indirectly causes the crime, are effective though melodramatic; but the actual murderer, Danny the Lord, Hardress Cregan's familiar, is worthy of Scott or Hugo.
The beautiful, dashing girl he had wooed so long ago; had married, and had loved more deeply than she ever knew, was Eily McKim, descendant of the long line of Fighting McKims, whose men-children for five hundred years had loomed large in the world-wars of nations.
"And you thought you thought," he cried, trying to get his breath, "you thought you were Eily, and I was Hardress Cregan! Oh, I see, I see!" He went on making a mock and a burlesque of her tragical hallucination till she laughed with him at last. When he put his hand up to turn out the gas, he began his joking afresh.
Then one of the artists sought to paint her; he was a young fellow, rising in his profession, and in quest of a subject for his next Academy picture. In Eily he found what he sought, and there, among her own wild mountains, he painted her. Day after day, week after week, Eily stole from her father's little cabin to meet the stranger, a downward glance in her dark eyes, a blush on her cheek.
On the summit of the Purple Mountain, which was all surrounded by mist, he met Danny Mann, and confided to him that his love of Eily had turned to hatred, asking his advice concerning what must be done. "Sorrow trouble would I even give myself about her," said Danny, "only send her home packin' to her father!"
He declared himself ready to marry his beautiful cousin. Then he sought Danny Mann, and reminded him of his suggestion about hiring a passage for Eily in a North American vessel. "You bade me draw my glove from off my hand, and give it for a warrant," he said, plucking off the glove slowly finger by finger. "My mind is altered. I married too young; I didn't know my own mind.
"Oi shtayed till th' Lady Constance died an' little Eily married a rich man from Noo Yor-rk Car-rson, or meby Carmen, his name was; an' he carried her off to Amur-rica. 'Twas not th' same in Kerry afther that, an' Oi shtrayed from th' gold camps av Australia to th' woods av Canada." The far-away look that had crept into the old man's eyes vanished, and his voice became gruff and hard.
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