However, though her nerves might be disturbed, her spirit was
not to be daunted; and, fairies or no fairies, she held her ground at
Castle Lissard, and there showed what manner of woman she was in a
veritable and most fearful peril.
On some alarm which caused the gentlemen of the family to take down
their guns, she went to a dark loft at the top of the house to fetch
some powder from a barrel that was there kept in store, taking a young
maid-servant to carry the candle; which, as might be expected in an
Irish household of the seventeenth century, was devoid of any
candlestick. After taking the needful amount of gunpowder, Lady
Edgeworth locked the door, and was halfway downstairs when she missed
the candle, and asking the girl what she had done with it, received the
cool answer that 'she had left it sticking in the barrel of black salt'.
Lady Edgeworth bade her stand still, turned round, went back alone to
the loft where the tallow candle stood guttering and flaring planted in
the middle of the gunpowder, resolutely put an untrembling hand beneath
it, took it out so steadily that no spark fell, carried it down, and
when she came to the bottom of the stairs dropped on her knees, and
broke forth in a thanksgiving aloud for the safety of the household in
this frightful peril.
Pages:
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440