THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN
By Charles James Lever.
With Illustrations By Phiz.
In Two Volumes
Vol. I.
Boston:
Little, Brown, And Company.
1906.
CONTENTS
[ PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1872. ]
[ CHAPTER I. ] CRO' MARTIN
[ CHAPTER II. ] KILKIERAN BAY
[ CHAPTER III. ] AN AUTUMN MORNING IN THE WEST
[ CHAPTER IV. ] MAURICE SCANLAN, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW
[ CHAPTER V. ] A STUDIO AND AN ARTIST
[ CHAPTER VI. ] A DASH OF POLITICS
[ CHAPTER VII. ] A COLLEGE COMPETITOR
[ CHAPTER VIII. ] SOME KNOTTY POINTS THAT PUZZLED JOE NELLIGAN
[ CHAPTER IX. ] THE MARTIN ARMS
[ CHAPTER X. ] A DINNER-PARTY
[ CHAPTER XI. ] YOUNG NELLIGAN, AS INTERPRETED IN TWO WAYS
[ CHAPTER XII. ] A VERY “CROSS EXAMINATION”
[ CHAPTER XIII. ] "A HOUSEKEEPER'S ROOM”
[ CHAPTER XIV. ] A FINE OLD IRISH BARRISTER
[ CHAPTER XV. ] "A RUINED FORTUNE”
[ CHAPTER XVI. ] "A CHALLENGE”
[ CHAPTER XVII. ] A COUNTRY-HOUSE
[ CHAPTER XVIII. ] STATECRAFT
[ CHAPTER XIX. ] A STUDIO
[ CHAPTER XX. ] AN ELECTION ADDRESS
[ CHAPTER XXI. ] AN AWKWARD VISITOR
[ CHAPTER XXII. ] A DAY “AFTER”
[ CHAPTER XXIII. ] A CHARACTERISTIC LETTER
[ CHAPTER XXIV. ] THREE COACHES AND THEIR COMPANY
[ CHAPTER XXV. ] COUNTRY AUCTION
[ CHAPTER XXVI. ] "REVERSES”
[ CHAPTER XXVII. ] DARKENING FORTUNES
[ CHAPTER XXVIII. ] HOW MR. SCANLAN GIVES SCOPE TO A GENEROUS IMPULSE
[ CHAPTER XXIX. ] A SUNDAY MORNING AT CRO' MARTIN
TO THE REVEREND MORTIMER O'SULLIVAN, D.D.
If I have not asked your permission to dedicate this volume to you, it is because I would not involve you in the responsibility of any opinions even so light a production may contain, nor seek to cover by a great name the sentiment and views of a very humble one.
I cannot, however, deny myself the pleasure of inscribing to you a book to which I have given much thought and labor,—a testimony of the deep and sincere affection of one who has no higher pride than in the honor of your friendship.
Ever sincerely yours,
CHARLES LEVER
Casa Cappoli, Florence, May, 1856
PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1872.
When I had made my arrangement with my publishers for this new story, I was not sorry for many reasons to place the scene of it in Ireland. One of my late critics, in noticing “Roland Cashel” and “The Daltons,” mildly rebuked me for having fallen into doubtful company, and half censured—in Bohemian—several of the characters in these novels. I was not then, still less am I now, disposed to argue the point with my censor, and show that there is a very wide difference between the persons who move in the polite world, with a very questionable morality, and those patented adventurers whose daily existence is the product of daily address. The more one sees of life, the more is he struck by the fact that the mass of mankind is rarely very good or very bad, that the business of life is carried on with mixed motives; the best people being those who are least selfish, and the worst being little other than those who seek their own objects with slight regard for the consequences to others, and even less scruple as to the means.
Any uniformity in good or evil would be the deathblow to that genteel comedy which goes on around us, and whose highest interest very often centres in the surprises we give ourselves by unexpected lines of action and unlooked-for impulses. As this strange drama unfolded itself before me, it had become a passion with me to watch the actors, and speculate on what they might do. For this Florence offered an admirable stage. It was eminently cosmopolitan; and, in consequence, less under the influence of any distinct code of public opinion than any section of the several nationalities I might have found at home.
There was a universal toleration abroad; and the Spaniard conceded to the German, and the Russian to the Englishman, much on the score of nationality; and did not question too closely a morality which, after all, might have been little other than a conventional habit. Exactly in the same way, however, that one hurries away from the life of a city and its dissipations, to breathe the fresh air and taste the delicious quiet of the country, did I turn from these scenes of splendor, from the crush of wealth, and the conflict of emotion, to that Green Island, where so many of my sympathies were intertwined, and where the great problem of human happiness was on its trial on issues that differed wonderfully little from those that were being tried in gilded salons, and by people whose names were blazoned in history.
Ireland, at the time I speak of, was beginning to feel that sense of distrust and jealousy between the owner and the tiller of the soil which, later on, was to develop itself into open feud. The old ties that have bound the humble to the rich man, and which were hallowed by reciprocal acts of good-will and benevolence, were being loosened. Benefits were canvassed with suspicion, ungracious or unholy acts were treasured up as cruel wrongs. The political agitator had so far gained the ear of the people, that he could persuade them that there was not a hardship or a grievance of their lot that could not be laid at the door of the landlord. He was taught to regard the old relation of love and affection to the owner of the soil, as the remnants of a barbarism that had had its day, and he was led to believe that whether the tyranny that crushed him was the Established Church or the landlord, there was a great Liberal party ready to aid him in resisting either or both, when he could summon courage for the effort. By what promptings the poor man was brought to imagine that a reign of terror would suffice to establish him in an undisputed possession of the soil, and that the best lease was a loaded musket, it is not either my wish nor my duty here to narrate; I only desire to call my reader's attention to the time itself, as a transition period when the peasant had begun to resent some of the ties that had bound him to his landlord, and had not yet conceived the idea of that formidable conspiracy which issues its death-warrants and never is at a loss for the agents to enforce them. There were at the time some who, seeing the precarious condition of the period, had their grave forebodings of what was to come, when further estrangement between the two classes was accomplished, and the poor man should come to see in the rich only an oppressor and a tyrant. There was not at that time the armed resistance to rents, nor the threatening letter system to which we were afterwards to become accustomed, still less was there the thought that the Legislature would interfere to legalize the demands by which the tenant was able to coerce his landlord; and for a brief interval there did seem a possibility of reuniting once again, by the ties of benefit and gratitude, the two classes whose real welfare depends on concord and harmony. I have not the shadow of a pretext to be thought didactic, but I did believe that if I recalled in fiction some of the traits which once had bound up the relations of rich and poor, and given to our social system many of the characteristics of the family, I should be reviving pleasant memories if not doing something more.
To this end I sketched the character of Mary Martin. By making the opening of my story date from the time of the Relief Bill, I intended to picture the state of the country at one of the most memorable eras in its history, and when an act of the Legislature assumed to redress inequalities, compose differences, and allay jealousies of centuries' growth, and make of two widely differing races one contented people.
I had not, I own, any implicit faith in Acts of Parliament, and I had a fervent belief in what kindness—when combined with knowledge of Ireland—could do with Irishmen. I have never heard of a people with whom sympathy could do so much, nor the want of it be so fatal. I have never heard of any other people to whom the actual amount of a benefit was of less moment than the mode it was bestowed. I have never read of a race who, in great poverty and many privations, attach a higher value to the consideration that is bestowed on them than to the actual material boons, and feel such a seemingly disproportioned gratitude for kind words and generous actions.
What might not be anticipated from a revulsion of sentiment in a people like this, to what violence might not this passion for vengeance be carried, if the notion possessed them that they, whom she called her betters, only traded on the weakness of their poverty and the imbecility of their good faith? It was in a fruitful soil of this kind that the agitation now sowed the seeds of distrust and disorder; and with what fatal rapidity the poison reproduced itself and spread, the history of late years is the testimony.
If such traits as I have endeavored to picture in Mary Martin were engaged in the work of benevolence tomorrow, they would be met on every side by discouragement and defeat. The priest would denounce them as a propaganda artfully intended to sap the ancient faith of the people; the agitators would denounce them as the cunning flatteries of political solicitation; the people themselves would distrust them as covering some secret object; and the National Press would be certain to utter its warnings against whatever promised to establish peace or contentment to the land.
I have said already, and I repeat it here, that this character of Mary Martin is purely fictitious; and there is the more need I should say it, since there was once a young lady of this very name,—many traits of whose affection for the people and efforts for their well being might be supposed to have been my original. To my great regret I never had the happiness to have met her; however, I have heard much of her devotion and her goodness.
I am not sure that some of my subordinate characters were not drawn from life. Mrs. Nelligan, I remember, had her type in a little Galway town I once stopped at, and Dan Nelligan had much in common with one who has since held a distinguished place on the Bench.
Of the terrible epidemic which devastated Ireland, there was much for which I drew on my own experience. Of its fearful ravages in the west, in the wilds of Clare, and that lonely promontory that stretches at the mouth of the Shannon into the Atlantic, I had been the daily witness; and even to recall some of the incidents passingly was an effort of great pain.
Of one feature of the people at this disastrous time, I could not say enough; nor could any words of mine do justice to the splendid heroism with which they bore up, and the noble generosity they showed each other in misfortune. It is but too often remarked how selfish men are made by misery, and how fatal is a common affliction to that charity that cares for others. There was none of this here; I never in any condition or class recognized more traits of thoughtful kindness and self-denial than I did amongst these poor, famished, and forgotten people. I never witnessed in the same perfection, how a widespread affliction could call up a humanity great as itself, and make very commonplace natures something actually heroic and glorious.
Nothing short of the fatal tendency I have to digression, and the watchful care I am bound to bestow against this fault, prevented me from narrating several incidents with which my own experience had made me acquainted. Foreign as these were to the burden of my tale, it was only by an effort I overcame the temptation to recall them.
If a nation is to be judged by her bearing under calamity, Ireland—and she has had some experiences—comes well through the ordeal. That we may yet see how she will sustain her part in happier circumstances is my hope and my prayer, and that the time be not too far off.
CHARLES LEVER.
Trieste, 1872.
THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN.
CHAPTER I. CRO' MARTIN
I am about to speak of Ireland as it was some four-and-twenty years ago, and feel as if I were referring to a long-past period of history, such have been the changes, political and social, effected in that interval! Tempting, as in some respects might be an investigation into the causes of these great changes, and even speculation as to how they might have been modified and whither they tend, I prefer rather to let the reader form his own unaided judgment on such matters, and will therefore, without more of preface, proceed to my story.
If the traveller leaves the old town of Oughterard, and proceeds westward, he enters a wild and dreary region, with few traces of cultivation, and with scarcely an inhabitant. Bare, bleak mountains, fissured by many a torrent, bound plains of stony surface,—here and there the miserable hut of some “cottier,” with its poor effort at tillage, in the shape of some roods of wet potato land, or the sorry picture of a stunted oat crop, green even in the late autumn. Gradually, however, the scene becomes less dreary. Little patches of grass land come into view, generally skirting some small lake; and here are to be met with droves of those wild Connemara ponies for which the district is so celebrated; a stunted hardy race, with all the endurance and courage that beseem a mountain origin. Further on, the grateful sight of young timber meets the eye, and large enclosures of larch and spruce fir are seen on every favorable spot of ground. And at length, on winding round the base of a steep mountain, the deep woods of a rich demesne appear, and soon afterwards a handsome entrance-gate of massive stone, with armorial bearings above it, announces the approach to Cro' Martin Castle, the ancient seat of the Martins.
An avenue of several miles in length, winding through scenery of the most varied character, at one time traversing rich lawns of waving meadow, at another tracking its course along some rocky glen, or skirting the bank of a clear and rapid river, at length arrives at the castle. With few pretensions to architectural correctness, Cro' Martin was, indeed, an imposing structure. Originally the stronghold of some bold Borderer, it had been added to by successive proprietors, till at last it had assumed the proportions of a vast and spacious edifice, different eras contributing the different styles of building, and presenting in the mass traces of every architecture, from the stern old watch-tower of the fourteenth century to the commodious dwelling-house of our own.
If correct taste might take exception to many of the external details of this building, the arrangements within doors, where all that elegance and comfort could combine were to be found, might safely challenge criticism. Costly furniture abounded, not for show in state apartments, shrouded in canvas, or screened from sunlight, but for daily use in rooms that showed continual habitation.
Some of the apartments displayed massive specimens of that richly carved old oak furniture for which the châteaux of the Low Countries were famed; others abounded with inlaid consoles and costly tables of “marqueterie,” and others again exhibited that chaste white and gold which characterized the splendid era of the Regency in France. Great jars of Sèvres, those splendid mockeries of high art, stood in the windows, whose curtains were of the heaviest brocade. Carpets of soft Persian wool covered the floors, and rich tapestries were thrown over sofas and chairs with a careless grace, the very triumph of picturesque effect.
In the scrupulous neatness of all these arrangements, in the orderly air, the demure and respectful bearing of the servants as they showed the castle to strangers, one might read the traces of a strict and rigid discipline,—features, it must be owned, that seemed little in accordance with the wild region that stretched on every side. The spotless windows of plate-glass, the polished floor that mirrored every chair that stood on it, the massive, and well-fitting doors, the richly gilded dogs that shone within the marble hearth, had little brotherhood with the dreary dwellings of the cottiers beyond the walls of the park; and certainly even Irish misery never was more conspicuous than in that lonely region.
It was early on a calm morning of the late autumn that the silent courtyard of the castle resounded with the sharp quick tramp of a horse, suddenly followed by a loud shrill whistle, as a young girl, mounted upon a small but highly bred horse, galloped up to one of the back entrances. Let us employ the few seconds in which she thus awaited, to introduce her to the reader. Somewhat above the middle size, and with a figure admirably proportioned, her face seemed to blend the joyous character of happy girlhood with a temperament of resolute action. The large and liquid hazel eyes, with their long dark fringes, were almost at variance with the expression of the mouth, which, though finely and beautifully fashioned, conveyed the working of a spirit that usually followed its own dictates, and as rarely brooked much interference.
Shaded by a broad-leaved black hat, and with a braid of her dark auburn hair accidentally fallen on her shoulder, Mary Martin sat patting the head of the wire-haired greyhound who had reared himself to her side,—a study for Landseer himself. Scarcely above a minute had elapsed, when several servants were seen running towards her, whose hurried air betrayed that they had only just risen from bed.
“You're all very late to-day,” cried the young lady. “You should have been in the stables an hour ago. Where 's Brand?”
“He 's gone into the fair, miss, with a lot of hoggets,” said a little old fellow with a rabbit-skin cap, and a most unmistakable groom formation about the knees and ankles.
“Look to the mare, Barny,” said she, jumping off; “and remind me, if I forget it, to fine you all, for not having fed and watered before six o'clock. Yes, I 'll do it; I said so once before, and you 'll see I 'll keep my word. Is it because my uncle goes a few weeks to the seaside, that you are to neglect your duty? Hackett, I shall want to see the colts presently; go round to the straw-yard and wait till I come; and, Graft, let us have a look at the garden, for my aunt is quite provoked at the flowers you have been sending her lately.”
All this was said rapidly, and in a tone that evidently was not meant to admit of reply; and the gardener led the way, key in hand, very much with the air of a felon going to conviction. He was a Northern Irishman, however, and possessed the Scotch-like habits of prudent reserve that never wasted a word in a bad cause. And thus he suffered himself to be soundly rated upon various short-comings in his department,—celery that wanted landing; asparagus grown to the consistence of a walking-cane; branches of fruit-trees breaking under their weight of produce; and even weed-grown walks,—all were there, and upon all was he arraigned.
“The old story, of course, Graft,” said she, slapping her foot impatiently with her riding-whip,—“you have too few people in the garden; but my remedy will be to lessen their number. Now mark me. My uncle is coming home on Wednesday next,—just so—a full month earlier than you expected,—and if the garden be not in perfect order,—if I find one of these things I have complained of to-day—”
“But, my leddy, this is the season when, what wi' sellin' the fruit, and what wi' the new shoots—”
“I 'll have it done, that 's all, Mr. Graft; and you 'll have one man less to do it with. I 'll go over the hothouse after breakfast,” said she, smiling to herself at the satisfaction with which he evidently heard this short reprieve. Nor was he himself more anxious to escape censure than was she to throw off the ungracious office of inflicting it.
“And now for old Catty Broon, and a good breakfast to put me in better temper,” said she to herself, as she entered the castle and wended her way to the housekeeper's room.
“May I never; but I thought it was a dream when I heard your voice outside,” said old Catty, as she welcomed her young mistress with heartfelt delight; “but when I saw them runnin' here and runnin' there, I said, sure enough, she's come in earnest.”
“Quite true, Catty,” said Mary, laughing. “I surprised the garrison, and found them, I must say, in most sorry discipline; but never mind, they 'll have everything to rights by Wednesday, when we are all coming back again.”
“Was the bathing any use to my Lady, miss?” asked Catty, but in a tone that combined a kind of half drollery with earnest.
“She's better and worse, Catty; better in health, and scarcely as good-humored; but, there 's a good old soul, let me have breakfast, for I have a great deal to do before I ride back.”
“But sure you are not goin' to ride back to Kilkieran to-day?”
“That am I, Catty, and up to Kyle's Wood and the new plantations before I go. Why, it's only fifteen miles, old lady!”
“Faix, you 're your father's daughter all over,” said Catty, with a look first at her, and then at a water-colored sketch which occupied a place over the chimney, and represented a fair-haired, handsome boy of about ten years of age.
“Was that ever like papa?” asked the girl.
“'Tis his born image, it is,” said Catty; and her eyes swam with tears as she turned away.
“Well, to my thinking he is far better-looking in that picture!” said Mary, pointing with her whip to a colored drawing of a showily dressed dragoon officer, reining in his charger, and seeming to eye with considerable disdain the open mouth of a cannon in front of him.
“Ah, then, the other was more himself!” sighed Catty; “and more nat'ral too, with the long hair on his neck and that roguish laugh in his eye.”
“And neither are very like that!” said Mary, pointing to a third portrait, which represented a swarthy horseman with a wide sombrero and a jacket all braided and buttoned in Mexican fashion, a rifle at his back, and a long lance in his hand, with the heavy coil of a lasso at his saddle-peak.
“Arrah, that ain't a bit like him,” said the old woman, querulously, “for all that he said that it was.”
Mary arose at the words, and perused aloud some lines which were written at the foot of the picture, and which many and many a time before she had conned over and repeated. They ran thus: “Aye, Catty, though you won't believe it, that rough-looking old rider, all bearded and sunburned, is your own wild Barry of former days; and for all that the world has done, wonderfully little altered in the core, though the crust is not very like that cherry-cheeked boy that used to, and mayhap still may, hang over your fireplace.—Guastalla, May, 1808.”
“And has he not written since that?” sighed the girl, over whom the dark shadow of orphanhood passed as she spoke.
“Twice only: the first of the two spoke of his coming home again; but somehow he seemed to be put off it, and the next letter was all about you, as if he did n't mean to come back! My Lady and Master Barry never was fond of each other,” muttered the old woman, after a pause, and as though giving an explanation to some problem that she was working within her own head.
“But my uncle loved him,” broke in Mary.
“And why wouldn't he? War n't they twins? There was only a few minutes between them,—long enough to make one a rich man, and leave the other only his own wits and the wide world for a fortune! Ayeh, ayeh!” grumbled out the old crone, “if they were both born poor, they 'd be livin' together like brothers now, under the one roof,—happy and comfortable; and you and your cousin, Master Dick, would be playfellows and companions, instead of his being away in Ingia, or America, or wherever it is!”
The young girl leaned her head on her hand, and appeared to have fallen into a deep train of thought; for she never noticed old Catty's remarks, nor, indeed, seemed conscious of her presence for some time. “Catty,” said she, at length, and in a voice of unusually calm earnestness, “never talk to me of these things; they only fret me; they set me a thinking of Heaven knows what longings,—for a home that should be more like a real home than this, though God knows my uncle is all that I could wish in kindness and affection; but—but—”
She stopped, and her lip quivered, and her eyes grew heavy-looking; and then, with a kind of struggle against her emotions, she added gayly, “Come and show me the dairy, Catty. I want to see all those fine things in Wedgewood-ware that you got while we were away, and then we 'll have a peep at the calves, and by that time it will be the hour for my levee.”
“Faix, miss,” said the old woman, “they 're all here already. The news soon spread that you came over this morning, and you 'll have a great assembly.”
“I'll not keep them waiting, then,” said Mary; and, so saying, she left the room, and proceeding by many passages and corridors, at length reached a remote part of the building which once had formed part of the ancient edifice. A suite of low-ceiled rooms here opened upon a small grassy enclosure, all of which had been appropriated by Mary to her own use. One was a little library or study, neatly but very modestly furnished; adjoining it was her office, where she transacted all business matters; and beyond that again was a large chamber, whose sole furniture consisted in a row of deal presses against the walls, and a long table or counter which occupied the middle of the room. Two large windows opening to the floor lighted the apartment; and no sooner had Mary thrown these wide, than a burst of salutations and greetings arose from a dense and motley crowd assembled on the grass outside, and who stood, sat, or lay in every possible attitude and grouping, their faces all turned towards the window where she was standing.
With true native volubility they poured out not only their welcomings, but a number of interjectional flatteries, supposed not to be audible by her on whom they commented; and thus her hair, her eyes, her teeth, her complexion, even her foot, were praised with an enthusiasm of admiration that might have shamed more polished worshippers.
These muttered eulogies continued as the young girl was occupied unlocking drawers and presses, and placing upon the table several books and papers, as well as a small scale and weights,—preparations all equally the source of fruitful observation.
The company was entirely of the softer sex,—an epithet not perhaps in the strictest accordance with an array of faces that really might have shamed witchcraft. Bronzed, blear-eyed, and weather-beaten, seamed with age and scarred with sickness, shrewd-looking, suspicious, and crafty in every lineament, there was yet one characteristic predominant over all,—an intense and abject submission, an almost slavish deference to every observation addressed to them. Their dress bespoke the very greatest poverty; not only were they clothed in rags of every hue and shape, but all were barefooted, and some of the very oldest wore no other covering to their heads than their own blanched and grizzled locks.
Nor would a follower of Lavater have argued too favorably of the prosperity of Irish regeneration, in beholding that array of faces,—low-browed, treacherous-looking, and almost savagely cruel, as many of them were in expression. There was not, indeed, as often is to be remarked amongst the peasant class of many countries, a look of stupid, stolid indifference; on the contrary, their faces were intensely, powerfully significant, and there was stamped upon them that strange mixture of malignant drollery and sycophancy that no amount of either good or adverse fortune ever entirely subdues in their complex natures.
The expediency of misery had begotten the expediency of morals, and in all the turnings and windings of their shifty natures you could see the suggestions of that abject destitution which had eaten into their very hearts. It would have puzzled a moralist to analyze these “gnarled natures,” wherein some of the best and some of the worst features of humanity warred and struggled together. Who could dare to call them kind-hearted or malevolent, grateful or ungrateful, free-giving or covetous, faithful or capricious, as a people? Why, they were all these, and fifty other things just as opposite besides, every twenty-four hours of their lives! Their moods of mind ranged from one extreme to the other; nothing had any permanency amongst them but their wretchedness. Of all their qualities, however, that which most obstructed their improvement, ate deepest into their natures, and suggested the worst fears for the future, was suspicion. They trusted nothing,—none,—so that every benefit bestowed on them came alloyed with its own share of doubt; and all the ingenuity of their crafty minds found congenial occupation in ascribing this or that motive to every attempt to better their condition.
Mary Martin knew them—understood them—as well as most people; few, indeed, out of their own actual station of life had seen so much of their domesticity. From her very childhood she had been conversant with their habits and their ways. She had seen them patient under the most trying afflictions, manfully braving every ill of life, and submitting with a noble self-devotion to inevitable calamity; and she had also beheld them, with ignorant impatience, resenting the slightest interference when they deemed it uncalled for, and rejecting kindness when it came coupled with the suggestion of a duty.
By considerable skill, and no little patience, she had insinuated a certain small amount of discipline into this disorderly mass. She could not succeed in persuading them to approach her one by one, or wait with any semblance of order while she was yet occupied; but she enforced conformity with at least one rule, which was, that none should speak save in answer to some question put by herself. This may seem a very small matter, and yet to any one who knows the Irish peasant it will appear little short of miraculous. The passion for discursiveness, the tendency to make an effective theme of their misery, whatever particular shape it may assume, is essentially national; and to curb this vent to native eloquence was to oppose at once the strongest impulse of their natures.
Nothing short of actual, tangible benefits could compensate them for what they scrupled not to think was downright cruelty; nor was it till after months of steady perseverance on her part that her system could be said to have attained any success. Many of the most wretched declined to seek relief on the conditions thus imposed. Some went as actual rebels, to show their friends and neighbors how they would resist such intolerance; others, again, professed that they only went out of curiosity. Strange and incomprehensible people, who can brave every ill of poverty, endure famine and fever and want, and yet will not bow the head to a mere matter of form, nor subject themselves to the very least restriction when a passion or a caprice stands opposed to it! After about eighteen months of hard persistence the system began at length to work; the refractory spirits had either refrained from coming or had abandoned the opposition; and now a semblance of order pervaded the motley assemblage. Whenever the slightest deviation from the ritual occurred, a smart tap of a small ivory ruler on the table imposed silence; and they who disregarded the warning were ordered to move by, unattended to. Had a stranger been permitted, therefore, to take a peep at these proceedings, he would have been astonished at the rapidity with which complaints were heard, and wants redressed; for, with an instinct thoroughly native, Mary Martin appreciated the cases which came before her, and rarely or never confounded the appeal of real suffering with the demands of fictitious sorrow. Most of those who came were desirous of tickets for Dispensary aid; for sickness has its permanent home in the Irish cabin, and fever lurks amidst the damp straw and the smoky atmosphere of the poor peasant's home. Some, however, came for articles of clothing, or for aid to make and repair them; others for some little assistance in diet, barley for a sick man's drink, a lemon or an orange to moisten the parched lips of fever; others, again, wanted leave to send a grandchild or a niece to the school; and, lastly, a few privileged individuals appeared to claim their weekly rations of snuff or tobacco,—little luxuries accorded to old age,—comforts that solaced many a dreary hour of a joyless existence. Amongst all the crowded mass there was not one whom Mary had not known and visited in their humble homes. Thoroughly conversant with their condition and their necessities, she knew well their real wants; and if one less hopeful than herself might have despaired to render any actual relief to such widespread misery, she was sanguine enough to be encouraged by the results before her, small and few as they were, to think that possibly the good time was yet to come when such efforts would be unneeded, and when Ireland's industry, employed and rewarded, would more than suffice for all the requirements of her humble poor.
“Jane Maloney,” said Mary, placing a small packet on the table, “give this to Sally Kieran as you pass her door; and here 's the order for your own cloak.”
“May the heavens be your bed. May the holy—”
“Catty Honan,” cried Mary, with a gesture to enforce silence. “Catty, your granddaughter never comes to the school now that she has got leave. What's the reason of that?”
“Faix, your reverance, miss, 'tis ashamed she is by ray-son of her clothes. She says Luke Cassidy's daughters have check aprons.”
“No more of this, Catty. Tell Eliza to come on Monday, and if I 'm satisfied with her she shall have one too.”
“Two ounces of tea for the Widow Jones.”
“Ayeh,” muttered an old hag. “But it's weak it makes it without a little green in it!”
“How are the pains, Sarah?” asked Mary, turning to a very feeble-looking old creature with crutches.
“Worse and worse, my Lady. With every change of the weather they come on afresh.”
“The doctor will attend you, Sally, and if he thinks wine good for you, you shall have it.”
“'T is that same would be the savin' of me, Miss Mary,” said a cunning-eyed little woman, with a tattered straw bonnet on her head, and a ragged shawl over her.
“I don't think so, Nancy. Come up to the house on Monday morning and help Mrs. Taafe with the bleaching.”
“So this is the duplicate, Polly?” said she, taking a scrap of paper from an old woman whose countenance indicated a blending of dissipation with actual want.
“One-and-fourpence was all I got on it, and trouble enough it gave me.” These words she uttered with a heavy sigh, and in a tone at once resentful and complaining.
“Were my uncle to know that you had pawned your cloak, Polly, he 'd never permit you to cross his threshold.”
“Ayeh, it's a great sin, to be sure,” whined out the hag, half insolently.
“A great shame and a great disgrace it certainly is; and I shall stop all relief to you till the money be paid back.”
“And why not!” “To be sure!” “Miss Mary is right!” “What else could she do?” broke in full twenty sycophant voices, who hoped to prefer their own claims by the cheap expedient of condemning another.
“The Widow Hannigan.”
“Here, miss,” simpered out a smiling little old creature, with a courtesy, as she held up a scroll of paper in her hand.
“What 's this, Widow Hannigan?”
“'T is a picture Mickey made of you, miss, when you was out riding that day with the hounds; he saw you jumping a stone wall.”
Mary smiled at the performance, which certainly did not promise future excellence, and went on,—
“Tell Mickey to mend his writing; his was the worst copy in the class; and here's a card for your daughter's admission into the Infirmary. By the way, widow, which of the boys was it I saw dragging the river on Wednesday?”
“Faix, miss, I don't know. Sure it was none of ours would dare to—”
“Yes, they would, any one of them; but I 'll not permit it; and what's more, widow, if it occur again, I 'll withdraw the leave I gave to fish with a rod.
“Teresa Johnson, your niece is a very good child, and promises to be very handy with her needle. Let her hem these handkerchiefs, and there's a frock for herself. My uncle says Tom shall have half his wages paid him till he's able to come to work again.”
But why attempt to follow out what would be but the long, unending catalogue of native misery,—that dreary series of wants and privations to which extreme destitution subjects a long-neglected and helpless people? There was nothing from the cradle to the coffin, from the first wailing wants of infancy to the last requirement of doting old age, that they did not stand in need of.
A melancholy spectacle, indeed, was it to behold an entire population so steeped in misery, so utterly inured to wretchedness, that they felt no shame at its exposure, but rather a sort of self-exultation at any opportunity of displaying a more than ordinary amount of human suffering and sorrow;—to hear them how they caressed their afflictions, how they seemed to fondle their misfortunes, vying with each other in calamity, and bidding higher and higher for a little human sympathy.
Mary Martin set herself stoutly to combat this practice, including, as it does, one of the most hopeless features of the national character. To inculcate habits of self-reliance she was often driven, in violation of her own feelings, to favor those who least needed assistance, but whose efforts to improve their condition might serve as an example. With a people who are such consummate actors she was driven into simulation herself, and paraded sentiments of displeasure and condemnation when her very heart was bursting with pity and compassion. No wonder was it, then, that she rejoiced when this painful task was completed, and she found herself in the more congenial duty of looking over the “young stock,” and listening to old Barny's predictions about yearlings and two-year-olds.
This young girl, taught to read by a lady's maid, and to sew by a housekeeper, possessed scarcely any of the resources so usual to those in her own condition, and was of sheer necessity thrown upon herself for occupation and employment. Her intense sympathy with the people, her fondness for them even in their prejudices, had suggested the whole story of her life. Her uncle took little or no interest in the details of his property. The indolence in which he first indulged from liking, became at last a part of his very nature, and he was only too well pleased to see the duty undertaken by another which had no attraction for himself.
“Miss Mary will look to it”—“Tell my niece of it”—“Miss Martin will give her orders,” were the invariable replies by which he escaped all trouble, and suffered the whole weight of labor and responsibility to devolve upon a young girl scarcely out of her teens, until gradually, from the casual care of a flower-garden, or a childish pleasure in giving directions, she had succeeded to the almost unlimited rule of her uncle's house and his great estate.
Mr. Martin was often alarmed at some of his niece's measures of reform. The large sums drawn out of bank, the great expenses incurred in weekly wages, the vast plans of building, draining, road-making, and even bridging, terrified him; while the steward, Mr. Henderson, slyly insinuated, that though Miss Mary was a wonderful manager, and the “best head he ever knew, except my Lady's,” she was dreadfully imposed on by the people—but, to be sure, “how could a young lady be up to them?” But she was up to them, aye, and more still, she was up to Mr. Henderson himself, notwithstanding his mild, douce manner, his cautious reserve, and his unbroken self-possession.
It is very far from my intention to say that Mary Martin was not over and over again the dupe of some artifice or other of the crafty and subtle natures that surrounded her. Mock misery, mock industry, mock enlightenment, mock conviction, even mock submission and resignation, had all their partial successes; and she was entrapped by many a pretence that would have had no chance of imposing on Mr. Henderson. Still there was a credit side to this account, wherein his name would not have figured. There were traits of the people, which he neither could have understood or valued. There were instincts—hard struggling efforts, fighting their way through all the adverse circumstances of their poverty—that he never could have estimated, much less could he have speculated on the future to which they might one day attain.
If Mary was heart and soul devoted to her object,—if she thought of nothing else,—if all her dreams by night and all her daily efforts were in the cause, she was by no means insensible to the flattery which constantly beset her. She accepted it readily and freely, laughing at what she persuaded herself to believe was the mere exuberance of that national taste for praise. Like most warm and impulsive natures, she was greedy of approbation; even failure itself was consoled by a word of encomium on the effort. She liked to be thought active, clever, and energetic. She loved to hear the muttered voices which at any moment of difficulty said, “Faix, Miss Mary will find the way to it;” or, “Sure it won't baffle her, anyhow.” This confidence in her powers stimulated and encouraged her, often engendering the very resources it imputed.
She might have made many a mistake in the characters of those for whom she was interested,—conceived many a false hope,—nurtured many a delusive expectation; but in the scheme of life she had planned out for herself, the exalting sense of a duty more than recompensed her for every failure: and if any existence could be called happy, it was hers,—the glorious excitement of an open-air life, with all its movements and animation. There was that amount of adventure and enterprise which gave a character of romantic interest to her undertakings, and thus elevated her to a degree of heroism to herself, and then, knowing no fatigue, she was again in the saddle, and, straight as the crow flies, over the county to Kyle's Wood.
A solitary cabin or two stood in the midst of the wild, bleak plain, and by these she paused for a few minutes. The watchful eyes that followed her as she went, and the muttered blessings that were wafted after her, proclaimed what her mission had been, and showed how she had for a brief space thrown a gleam of sunshine over the darksome gloom of some sad existence.
“God bless her! she's always cheerful and light-hearted,” said the poor peasant, as he leaned on his spade to look after her; “and one feels better the whole day after the sight of her!”
CHAPTER II. KILKIERAN BAY
In one of the many indentures of Kilkieran Bay,—favored by a southerly aspect and a fine sandy beach, sheltered by two projecting headlands,—stood a little row of cabins, originally the dwellings of poor fishermen, but now, in summer-time, the resort of the neighboring gentry, who frequented the coast for sea-bathing. There was little attempt made by the humble owners to accommodate the habits of the wealthy visitors. Some slight effort at neatness, or some modest endeavor at internal decoration, by a little window-curtain or a rickety chest of drawers, were the very extent of these pretensions. Year by year the progress of civilization went thus lazily forward; and, far from finding fault with this backwardness, it was said that the visitors were just as well satisfied. Many hoped to see the place as they remembered it in their own childhood, many were not sorry to avail themselves of its inexpensive life and simple habits, and some were more pleased that its humble attractions could draw no strangers to sojourn there to mock by their more costly requirements the quiet ways of the old residents.
Under the shelter of a massive rock, which formed the northern boundary of the little bay, stood one building of more pretension. It was a handsome bathing-lodge, with a long veranda towards the sea, and an effort, not very successful, however, at a little flower-garden in front. The spacious bay-windows, which opened in French fashion, were of plate-glass; the deep projecting eave was ornamented with a handsome cornice; and the entire front had been richly decorated by entablatures in stucco and common cement. Still, somehow, there seemed to be a spiteful resistance in the climate to such efforts at embellishment. The wild hurricanes that swept over the broad Atlantic were not to be withstood by the frail timbers of the Gothic veranda. The sweeping gusts that sent foaming spray high over the rocky cliffs shattered the costly panes, and smashed even the mullions that held them; while fragments of carving, or pieces of stuccoed tracery, together with broken vases and uprooted shrubs, littered the garden and the terrace. The house was but a few years built, and yet was already dilapidated and ruinous-looking. A stout stone wall had replaced the trellised woodwork of one side of the porch; some of the windows were firmly barricaded with boards on the outside; and iron cramps and other appliances equally unsightly on the roof, showed by what means the slates were enabled to resist the storms.
The aspect of consistent poverty never inspires ridicule. It is shabby gentility alone that provokes the smile of sarcastic meaning; and thus the simple dwellings of the fishermen, in all their humility, offered nothing to the eye of critical remark. There seemed abundant absurdity in this attempt to defy climate and aspect, place and circumstance; and every effort to repair an accident but brought out the pretension into more glaring contrast. The “Osprey's Nest,” as Lady Dorothea Martin had styled her bathing-lodge, bore, indeed, but a sorry resemblance to its water-colored emblem in the plan of the architect; for Mr. Kirk had not only improvised a beautiful villa, with fuchsias and clematis and moss-roses clustering on it, but he had invented an Italian sky, and given a Lago Maggiore tint to the very Atlantic. Your fashionable architect is indeed a finished romancer, and revels in the license of his art with a most voluptuous abandonment.
It was now, however, late in the autumn; some warnings of the approaching equinox had already been felt, and the leaden sky above, and the dark-green, sullen sea beneath, above which a cold northwester swept gustily, recalled but little of the artistic resemblance.
The short September day was drawing to a close, and it was just that dreary interval between day and dusk, so glorious in fine weather, but so terribly depressing in the cold ungenial season, as all the frequenters of the little bay were hastening homeward for the night. Already a twinkling candle or two showed that some had retired to their humble shealings to grumble over the discomforts about them, and speculate on a speedy departure. They who visited Kilkieran during the “season” were usually the gentry families of the neighborhood; but as the summer wore over, their places were occupied by a kind of “half-price company,”—shopkeepers and smart residents of Oughterard, who waited for their pleasure till it could be obtained economically. Of this class were now those on the evening I have mentioned, and to a small select party of whom I now desire to introduce my reader.
It was “Mrs. Cronan's Evening”—for the duty of host was taken in rotation—and Mrs. Cronan was one of the leaders of fashion in Oughterard, for she lived on her own private means, at the top of Carraway Street, entertained Father Maher every Sunday at dinner, and took in the “Galway Intelligence,” which, it is but fair to say, was, from inverted letters and press blunders, about as difficult reading as any elderly lady ever confronted.
Mrs. Cronan was eminently genteel,—that is to say, she spent her life in unceasing lamentations over the absence of certain comforts “she was always used to,” and passed her days in continual reference to some former state of existence, which, to hear her, seemed almost borrowed bodily out of the “Arabian Nights.” Then there was Captain Bodkin, of the Galway Fencibles,—a very fat, asthmatic old gentleman, who came down to the “salt water” every summer for thirty years, fully determined to bathe, but never able to summon courage to go in. He was a kind-hearted, jolly old fellow, who loved strong punch and long whist, and cared very little how the world went on, if these enjoyments were available.
Then there was Miss Busk, a very tall, thin, ghostly personage, with a pinkish nose and a pinched lip, but whose manners were deemed the very type of high breeding, for she courtesied or bowed at almost minute intervals during an “Evening,” and had a variety of personal reminiscences of the Peerage. She was of “an excellent family,” Mrs. Cronan always said; and though reduced by circumstances, she was the Swan and Edgar of Oughterard,—“was company for the Queen herself.”
The fourth hand in the whist-table was usually taken by Mrs. Nelligan, wife of “Pat Nelligan,” the great shopkeeper of Oughterard, and who, though by no means entitled on heraldic grounds to take her place in any such exalted company, was, by the happy accident of fortune, elevated to this proud position. Mrs. Nelligan being unwell, her place was, on the present occasion, supplied by her son; and of him I would fain say a few words, since the reader is destined to bear company with him when the other personages here referred to have been long forgotten.
Joseph Nelligan was a tall, pale young fellow who, though only just passed twenty-two, looked several years older; the serious, thoughtful expression of his face giving the semblance of age. His head was large and massively shaped, and the temples were strong and square, deeply indented at the sides, and throwing the broad, high forehead into greater prominence; dark eyes, shaded by heavy, black eyebrows, lent an almost scowling character to a face which, regular in feature, was singularly calm and impassive-looking. His voice was deep, low, and sonorous, and though strongly impressed with the intonation of his native province, was peculiarly soft, and, to Irish ears, even musical. He was, however, remarkably silent; rarely or never conversed, as his acquaintances understood conversation, and only when roused by some theme that he cared for, or stimulated by some assertion that he dissented from, was he heard to burst forth into a rapid flow of words, uttered as though under the impulse of passion, and of which, when ended, he seemed actually to feel ashamed himself.
He was no favorite with the society of Kilkieran; some thought him downright stupid; others regarded him as a kind of spy upon his neighbors,—an imputation most lavishly thrown out in every circle where there is nothing to detect, and where all the absurdity lies palpable on the surface; and many were heard to remark that he seemed to forget who he was, and that “though he was a college student, he ought to remember he was only Pat Nelligan's son.”
If he never courted their companionship, he as little resented their estrangement from him. He spent his days and no small share of his nights in study; books supplied to him the place of men, and in their converse he forgot the world. His father's vanity had entered him as a Fellow-Commoner in the University, and even this served to widen the interval between him and those of his own age; his class-fellows regarded his presence amongst them as an intolerable piece of low-bred presumption. Nor was this unkindly feeling diminished when they saw him, term after term, carry away the prizes of each examination; for equally in science as in classics was he distinguished, till at length it became a current excuse for failure when a man said, “I was in Nelligan's division.”
It is not impossible that his social isolation contributed much to his success. For him there were none of the amusements which occupy those of his own age. The very fact of his fellow-commoner's gown separated him as widely from one set of his fellow-students as from the other, and thus was he left alone with his ambition. As time wore on, and his successes obtained wider notoriety, some of those in authority in the University appeared to be disposed to make advances to him; but he retreated modestly from these marks of notice, shrouding himself in his obscurity, and pleading the necessity for study. At length came the crowning act of his college career, in the examination for the gold medal; and although no competitor was bold enough to dispute the prize with him, he was obliged to submit to the ordeal. It is rarely that the public vouchsafes any interest in the details of University honors; but this case proved an exception, and almost every journal of the capital alluded in terms of high paneygric to the splendid display he made on that occasion.
In the very midst of these triumphs, young Nelligan arrived at his father's house in Oughterard, to enjoy the gratification his success had diffused at home, and rest himself after his severe labors. Little as old Pat Nelligan of his neighbors knew of University honors, or the toil which won them, there was enough in the very publicity of his son's career to make him a proud man. He at least knew that Joe had beaten them all; that none could hold a candle to him; “that for nigh a century such answering had not been heard on the bench.” This was the expression of a Dublin journal, coupled with the partisan regret that, by the bigoted statutes of the college, genius of such order should be denied the privilege of obtaining a fellowship.
If young Nelligan retired, half in pride, half in bashful-ness, from the notice of society in Dublin, he was assuredly little disposed to enter into the gayeties and dissipations of a small country-town existence. The fulsome adulation of some, the stupid astonishment of others, but, worse than either, the vulgar assumption that his success was a kind of party triumph,—a blow dealt by the plebeian against the patrician, the Papist against the Protestant,—shocked and disgusted him, and he was glad to leave Oughterard and accompany his mother to the seaside. She was an invalid of some years' standing,—a poor, frail, simple-hearted creature, who, after a long, struggling life of hardship and toil, saw herself in affluence and comfort, and yet could not bring her mind to believe it true. As little could she comprehend the strange fact of Joe's celebrity; of his name figuring in newspapers, and his health being drunk at a public dinner in his native town. To her he was invaluable; the very tenderest of nurses, and the best of all companions. She did n't care for books, even those of the most amusing kind; but she loved to hear the little gossip of the place where the neighbors passed the evening; what topics they discussed; who had left and who had arrived, and every other little incident of their uneventful lives. Simple and easy of execution as such an office might have been to a kindred spirit, to Joseph Nelligan it proved no common labor. And certain it is that the mistakes he committed in names, and the blunders he fell into as regarded events, rather astonished his mother, and led that good lady to believe that Trinity College must not have been fertile in genius when poor Joe was regarded as one of the great luminaries of his time. “Ah,” would she say, “if he had his father's head it would be telling him! but, poor boy, he remembers nothing!”
This digression—far longer than I cared to make it, but which has grown to its present extent under my hands—will explain young Nelligan's presence at Mrs. Cronan's “Tea,” where already a number of other notables had now assembled, and were gracefully dispersed through the small rooms which formed her apartment. Play of various kinds formed the chief amusement of the company; and while the whist-table, in decorous gravity, held the chief place in the sitting-room, a laughing round game occupied the kitchen, and a hardly contested “hit” of backgammon was being fought out on the bed, where, for lack of furniture, the combatants had established themselves.
The success of an evening party is not always proportionate to the means employed to secure it. Very splendid salons, costly furniture, and what newspapers call “all the delicacies of the season,” are occasionally to be found in conjunction with very dull company; while a great deal of enjoyment and much social pleasure are often to be met with where the material resources have been of the fewest and most simple kind. On the present occasion there was a great deal of laughing, and a fair share of love-making; some scolding at whist, and an abundance of scandal, at least of that cut-and-thrust-at character which amuses the speakers themselves, and is never supposed to damage those who are the object of it. All the company who had frequented the port—as Kilkieran was called—during the season were passed in review, and a number of racy anecdotes interchanged about their rank, morals, fortune, and pretensions. A very general impression seemed to prevail that in the several points of climate, scenery, social advantages, and amusements, Kilkieran might stand a favorable comparison with the first watering-places, not alone of England, but the Continent; and after various discursive reasons why its fame had not equalled its deserts, there was an almost unanimous declaration of opinion that the whole fault lay with the Martins; not, indeed, that the speakers were very logical in their arguments, since some were heard to deplore the change from the good old times, when everybody was satisfied to live anywhere and anyhow, when there was no road to the place but a bridle-path, not a loaf of bread to be had within twelve miles, no post-office; while others eloquently expatiated on all that might have been, and yet was not done.
“We tried to get up a little news-room,” said Captain Bodkin, “and I went to Martin myself about it, but he hum'd and ha'd, and said, until people subscribed for the Dispensary he thought they needn't mind newspapers.”
“Just like him,” said Mrs. Cronan; “but, indeed, I think it's my Lady does it all.”
“I differ from you, ma'am,” said Miss Busk, with a bland smile; “I attribute the inauspicious influence to another.”
“You mean Miss Martin?” said Mrs. Cronan.
“Just so, ma'am; indeed, I have reason to know I am correct. This time two years it was I went over to Cro' Martin House to propose opening 'my Emporium' for the season at the port. I thought it was due to the owners of the estate, and due to myself also,” added Miss Busk, majestically, “to state my views about a measure so intimately associated with the—the—in fact, what I may call the interests of civilization. I had just received my plates of the last fashions from Dublin,—you may remember them, ma'am; I showed them to you at Mrs. Cullenane's—well, when I was in the very middle of my explanation, who should come into the room but Miss Martin—”
“Dressed in the old brown riding-habit?” interposed a fat old lady with one eye.
“Yes, Mrs. Few, in the old brown riding-habit. She came up to the table, with a saucy laugh in her face, and said, 'Why, uncle, are you going to give a fancy ball?'
“'It is the last arrival from Paris, miss,' said I; 'the Orleans mantle, which, though not a “costume de Chasse,” is accounted very becoming.'
“'Ah, you 're laughing at my old habit, Miss Busk,' said she, seeing how I eyed her; 'and it really is very shabby, but I intend to give Dan Leary a commission to replace it one of these days.'”
“Dan Leary, of the Cross-roads!” exclaimed Captain Bodkin, laughing.
“I pledge you my word of honor, sir, she said it. 'And as to all this finery, Miss Busk,' said she, turning over the plates with her whip, 'it would be quite unsuitable to our country, our climate, and our habits; not to say, that the Orleans mantle would be worn with an ill grace when our people are going half naked!'”
“Positively indecent! downright indelicate!” shuddered Mrs. Cronan.
“And did Martin agree with her?” asked the Captain.
“I should like to know when he dared to do otherwise. Why, between my lady and the niece he can scarcely call his life his own.”
“They say he has a cruel time of it,” sighed Mr. Clinch, the revenue-officer, who had some personal experience of domestic slavery.
“Tush,—nonsense!” broke in his wife. “I never knew one of those hen-pecked creatures that was n't a tyrant in his family. I 'll engage, if the truth were known, Lady Dorothy has the worst of it.”
“Faith, and he's much altered from what he was when a boy, if any one rules him,” said the captain. “I was at school with him and his twin-brother Barry. I remember the time when one of them had to wear a bit of red ribbon in his button-hole to distinguish him from the other. They were the born images of each other,—that is, in looks; for in real character they were n't a bit like. Godfrey was a cautious, quiet, careful chap that looked after his pocket-money, and never got into scrapes; and Barry was a wasteful devil that made the coin fly, and could be led by any one. I think he 'd have given his life for his brother any day. I remember once when Godfrey would n't fight a boy,—I forget what it was about; Barry stole the bit of ribbon out of his coat, and went up and fought in his place; and a mighty good thrashing he got, too.”
“I have heard my father speak of that,” said a thin, pale, careworn little man in green spectacles; “for the two boys were taken away at once, and it was the ruin of the school.”
“So it was, doctor; you're right there,” broke in the Captain; “and they say that Martin bears a grudge against you to this day.”
“That would be hard,” sighed the meek doctor; “for I had nothing to do with it, or my father, either. But it cost him dearly!” added he, mournfully.
“You know best, doctor, whether it is true or not; but he certainly was n't your friend when you tried for the Fever Hospital.”
“That was because Pat Nelligan was on my committee,” said the doctor.
“And was that sufficient to lose you Mr. Martin's support, sir?” asked young Nelligan, with a degree of astonishment in his face, that, joined to the innocence of the question, caused a general burst of hearty laughter.
“The young gentleman knows more about cubic sections, it appears, than of what goes on in his own town,” said the Captain. “Why, sir, your father is the most independent man in all Oughterard; and if I know Godfrey Martin, he 'd give a thousand guineas this night to have him out of it.”
A somewhat animated “rally” followed this speech, in which different speakers gave their various reasons why Martin ought or ought not to make any sacrifice to put down the spirit of which Pat Nelligan was the chief champion. These arguments were neither cogent nor lucid enough to require repeating; nor did they convey to Joseph himself, with all his anxiety for information, the slightest knowledge on the subject discussed. Attention was, however, drawn off the theme by the clattering sound of a horse passing along the shingly shore at a smart gallop; and with eager curiosity two or three rushed to the door to see what it meant. A swooping gust of wind and rain, overturning chairs and extinguishing candles, drove them suddenly back again; and, half laughing at the confusion, half cursing the weather, the party barricaded the door, and returned to their places.
“Of course it was Miss Martin; who else would be out at this time of the night?” said Mrs. Clinch.
“And without a servant!” exclaimed Miss Busk.
“Indeed, you may well make the remark, ma'am,” said Mrs. Cronan. “The young lady was brought up in a fashion that was n't practised in my time!”
“Where could she have been down that end of the port, I wonder?” said Mrs. Clinch. “She came up from Garra Cliff.”
“Maybe she came round by the strand,” said the doctor; “if she did, I don't think there 's one here would like to have followed her.”
“I would n't be her horse!” said one; “nor her groom!” muttered another; and thus, gradually lashing themselves into a wild indignation, they opened, at last, a steady fire upon the young lady,—her habits, her manners, and her appearance all coming in for a share of criticism; and although a few modest amendments were put in favor of her horsemanship and her good looks, the motion was carried that no young lady ever took such liberties before, and that the meeting desired to record their strongest censure on the example thus extended to their own young people.
If young Nelligan ventured upon a timid question of what it was she had done, he was met by an eloquent chorus of half a dozen voices, recounting mountain excursions which no young lady had ever made before; distant spots visited, dangers incurred, storms encountered, perils braved, totally unbecoming to her in her rank of life, and showing that she had no personal respect, nor—as Miss Busk styled it—“a proper sense of the dignity of woman!”
“'T was down at Mrs. Nelligan's, ma'am, Miss Mary was,” said Mrs. Cronan's maid, who had been despatched special to make inquiry on the subject.
“At my mother's!” exclaimed Joseph, reddening, without knowing in the least why. And now a new diversion occurred, while all discussed every possible and impossible reason for this singular fact, since the family at the “Nest” maintained no intercourse whatever with their neighbors, not even seeming, by any act of their lives, to acknowledge their very existence.
Young Nelligan took the opportunity to make his escape during the debate; and as the society offers nothing very attractive to detain us, it will be as well if we follow him, while he hastened homeward along the dark and storm-lashed beach. He had about a mile to go, and, short as was this distance, it enabled him to think over what he had just heard, strange and odd as it seemed to his ears. Wholly given up, as he had been for years past, to the ambition of a college life, with but one goal before his eyes, one class of topics engrossing his thoughts, he had never even passingly reflected on the condition of parties, the feuds of opposing factions, and, stronger than either, the animosities that separated social ranks in Ireland. Confounding the occasional slights he had experienced by virtue of his class, with the jealousy caused by his successes, he had totally overlooked the disparagement men exhibited towards the son of the little country shopkeeper, and never knew of his disqualification for a society whose precincts he had not tried to pass. The littleness, the unpurpose-like vacuity, the intense vulgarity of his Oughterard friends had disgusted him, it is true; but he had yet to learn that the foolish jealousy of their wealthy neighbor was a trait still less amiable, and ruminating over these problems,—knottier far to him than many a complex formula or many a disputed reading of a Greek play,—he at last reached the solitary little cabin where his mother lived.
It is astonishing how difficult men of highly cultivated and actively practised minds find it to comprehend the little turnings and windings of commonplace life, the jealousies and the rivalries of small people. They search for motives where there are merely impulses, and look for reasons when there are simple passions.
It was only as he lifted the latch that he remembered how deficient he was in all the information his mother would expect from him. Of the fortunes of the whist-table he actually knew nothing; and had he been interrogated as to the “toilette” of the party, his answers would have betrayed a lamentable degree of ignorance. Fortunately for him, his mother did not display her habitual anxiety on these interesting themes. She neither asked after the Captain's winnings,—he was the terror of the party,—nor whether Miss Busk astonished the company by another new gown. Poor Mrs. Nelligan was too brimful of another subject to admit of one particle of extraneous matter to occupy her. With a proud consciousness, however, of her own resources, she affected to have thoughts for other things, and asked Joe if he passed a pleasant day?
“Yes, very—middling—quite so—rather stupid, I thought,” replied he, in his usual half-connected manner, when unable to attach his mind to the question before him.
“Of, course, my dear, it's very unlike what you 're used to up in Dublin, though I believe that Captain Bodkin, when he goes there, always dines with the Lord-Lieutenant; and Miss Busk, I know, is second cousin to Ram of Swainestown, and there is nothing better than that in Ireland. I say this between ourselves, for your father can't bear me to talk of family or connections, though I am sure I was always brought up to think a great deal about good blood; and if my father was a Finnerty, my mother was a Moore of Crockbawn, and her family never looked at her for marrying my father.”
“Indeed!” said Joe, in a dreamy semi-consciousness.
“It's true what I 'm telling you. She often said it to me herself, and told me what a blessing it was, through all her troubles and trials in life; and she had her share of them, for my father was often in drink, and very cruel at times. 'It supports me,' she used to say, 'to remember who I am, and the stock I came from, and to know that there 's not one belonging to me would speak to me, nor look at the same side of the road with me, after what I done; and, Matty,' said she to me, 'if ever it happens to you to marry a man beneath you in life, always bear in mind that, no matter how he treats you, you 're better than him.' And, indeed, it's a great support and comfort to one's feelings, after all,” said she, with a deep sigh.
“I'm certain of it,” muttered Joe, who had not followed one word of the harangue.
“But mind that you never tell your father so. Indeed, I would n't let on to him what happened this evening.”
“What was that?” asked the young man, roused by the increased anxiety of her manner.
“It was a visit I had, my dear,” replied the old lady, with a simpering consciousness that she had something to reveal,—“it was a visit I had paid me, and by an elegant young lady, too.”
“A young lady? Not Miss Cassidy, mother. I think she left yesterday morning.”
“No, indeed, my dear. Somebody very different from Miss Cassidy; and you might guess till you were tired before you 'd think of Miss Martin.”
“Miss Martin!” echoed Joe.
“Exactly so. Miss Martin of Cro' Martin; and the way it happened was this. I was sitting here alone in the room after my tea,—for I sent Biddy out to borrow the 'Intelligence' for me; and then comes a sharp knock to the door, and I called out, 'Come in;' but instead of doing so there was another rapping, louder than before, and I said, 'Bother you, can't you lift the latch?' and then I heard something like a laugh, and so I went out; and you may guess the shame I felt as I saw a young lady fastening the bridle of her horse to the bar of the window. 'Mrs. Nelli-gan, I believe,' said she, with a smile and a look that warmed my heart to her at once; and as I courtesied very low, she went on. I forget, indeed, the words,—whether she said she was Miss Martin, or it was I that asked the question; but I know she came in with me to the room, and sat down where you are sitting now. 'Coming back from Kyle's Wood this morning,' said she, 'I overtook poor Billy with the post. He was obliged to go two miles out of his way to ford the river; and what with waiting for the mail, which was late in coming, and what with being wet through, he was completely knocked up; so I offered to take the bag for him, and send it over to-morrow by one of our people. But the poor fellow would n't consent, because he was charged with something of consequence for you,—a small bottle of medicine. Of course I was only too happy to take this also, Mrs. Nelligan, and here it is.' And with that she put it on the table, where you see it. I 'm sure I never knew how to thank her enough for her good nature, but I said all that I could think of, and told her that my son was just come back from college, after getting the gold medal.”
“You did n't speak of that, mother,” said he, blushing till his very forehead was crimson.
“Indeed, then, I did, Joe; and I 'd like to know why I would n't. Is it a shame or a disgrace to us! At any rate, she didn't think so, for she said, 'You must be very proud of him;' and I told her so I was, and that he was as good as he was clever; and, moreover, that the newspapers said the time was coming when men like young Nelligan would soar their way up to honors and distinctions in spite of the oppressive aristocracy that so long had combined to degrade them.”
“Good Heavens! mother, you could n't have made such a speech as that?” cried he, in a voice of downright misery.
“Did n't I, then? And did n't she say, if there were any such oppression as could throw obstacles in the way of deserving merit, she heartily hoped it might prove powerless; and then she got up to wish me good-evening. I thought, at first, a little stiffly,—that is, more haughty in her manner than at first; but when I arose to see her out, and she saw I was lame, she pressed me down into my chair, and said, in such a kind voice, 'You must n't stir, my dear Mrs. Nelligan. I, who can find my road over half of the county, can surely discover my way to the door.' 'Am I ever like to have the happiness of seeing you again, miss?' said I, as I held her hand in mine. 'Certainly, if it would give you the very slightest pleasure,' said she, pressing my hand most cordially; and with that we parted. Indeed, I scarce knew she was gone, when I heard the clattering of the horse over the shingle; for she was away in a gallop, dark as the night was. Maybe,” added the old lady, with a sigh,—“maybe, I 'd have thought it was all a dream if it was n't that I found that glove of hers on the floor; she dropped it, I suppose, going out.”
Young Nelligan took up the glove with a strange feeling of bashful reverence. It was as though he was touching a sacred relic; and he stood gazing on it steadfastly for some seconds.
“I 'll send it over to the house by Biddy, with my compliments, and to know how the family is, in the morning,” said Mrs. Nelligan, with the air of one who knew the value of conventional usages.
“And she 'll make some stupid blunder or other,” replied Joe, impatiently, “that will cover us all with shame. No, mother, I 'd rather go with it myself than that.”
“To be sure, and why not?” said Mrs. Nelligan. “There 's no reason why you should be taking up old quarrels against the Martins; for my part, I never knew the country so pleasant as it used to be long ago, when we used to get leave to go picnicking on the grounds of Cro' Martin, up to the Hermitage, as they called it; and now the gates are locked and barred like a jail, and nobody allowed in without a ticket.”
“Yes, I'll go myself with it,” said Joe, who heard nothing of his mother's remark, but was following out the tract of his own speculations. As little did he attend to the various suggestions she threw out for his guidance and direction, the several topics to which he might, and those to which he must not, on any account, allude.
“Not a word, for your life, Joe, about the right of pathway to Clune Abbey, and take care you say nothing about the mill-race at Glandaff, nor the shooting in Kyle's Wood. And if by any chance there should be a talk about the tolls at Oughterard, say you never heard of them before. Make out, in fact,” said she, summing up, “as if you never heard of a county where there was so much good-will and kindness between the people; and sure it is n't your fault if it's not true!” And with this philosophic reflection Mrs. Nelligan wished her son good-night, and retired.
CHAPTER III. AN AUTUMN MORNING IN THE WEST
The Osprey's Nest was, I have said, like a direct challenge hurled at the face of western gales and Atlantic storms. With what success, its aspect of dilapidation and decay but too plainly betrayed. The tangled seaweed that hung in dripping festoons over the porch, the sea-shells that rattled against the window-panes, seemed like an angry denunciation of the attempt to brave the elements by the mere appliances of ease and luxury.
It was better, however, in the inside, where, in a roomy apartment, most comfortably furnished, a lady and gentleman sat at breakfast. The table stood in a little projection of the room, admitting of a wide sea-view over the bay and the distant islands of Lettermullen, but as carefully excluded all prospect of the port,—a locality which held no high place in the esteem of the lady of the house, and which, by ignoring, she half fancied she had annihilated. Wild promontories of rocks, jutting out here and there, broke the coast line, and marked the shore with a foaming stream of white water, as the ever-restless sea dashed over them. The long booming swell of the great ocean bounded into many a rocky cavern, with a loud report like thunder, and issued forth again with a whole cataract of falling stones, that rattled like the crash of small-arms. It was unceasing, deafening clamor in the midst of death-like desolation.
Let me, however, turn once more to the scene within, and present the living elements to my reader. They were both past the prime of life. The lady might still be called handsome; her features were perfectly regular, and finely cut, bearing the impress of a proud and haughty spirit that never quailed beneath the conflict of a long life, and even yet showed a firm front to fortune. Her hair was white as snow; and as she wore it drawn back, after the fashion of a bygone time, it gave her the air of a fine lady of the old French Court, in all the pomp of powder and pomatum. Nor did her dress correct the impression, since the deep falls of lace that covered her hands, the lengthy stomacher, and trailing folds of her heavy brocade gown, all showed a lurking fondness for the distinctive toilette of that era. Lady Dorothea Martin had been a beauty and an earl's daughter; two facts that not even the seclusion of the wild west could erase from her memory.
Mr. Martin himself was no unworthy “pendant” to this portrait. He was tall and stately, with a lofty forehead, and temples finely and well fashioned; while full, deep-set blue eyes of the very sternest determination, and a mouth, every line of which betrayed firmness, gave the character to a face that also could expand into the most genial good-fellowship, and become at times the symbol of a pleasant and convivial Irish gentleman. In his youth he had been a beau of the Court of Versailles. Scandal had even coupled his name with that of Marie Antoinette; and more truthful narratives connected him with some of the most extravagant adventures of that profligate and brilliant period. After a career of the wildest dissipation and excess, he had married, late in life, the daughter of the Earl of Exmere, one of the proudest and poorest names in the British Peerage. Two or three attempts to shine in the world of London,—not as successful as they were expected to have proved,—an effort at ascendancy in Irish political life, also a failure, coupled with disappointment on the score of an only brother, who had married beneath him, and was reputed to have “lost himself,” seemed to have disgusted Godfrey Martin with the world, and he had retired to his lonely mansion in the west, which now for eighteen years he had scarcely quitted for a single day.
His only son had joined a cavalry regiment in India a few years before the period our story opens, and which, I may now state, dates for about four or five and twenty years back; but his family included a niece, the only child of his brother, and whose mother had died in giving her birth.
Between Mr. Martin and Lady Dorothea, as they sat at breakfast, little conversation passed. He occupied himself with the newly arrived newspapers, and she perused a mass of letters which had just come by that morning's post; certain scraps of the intelligence gleaned from either of these sources forming the only subjects of conversation between them.
“So they have resolved to have a new Parliament. I knew it would come to that; I always said so; and, as usual, the dissolution finds us unprepared.”
“Plantagenet's regiment is ordered to Currachee, wherever that may be,” said Lady Dorothea, languidly.
“Call him Harry, and we shall save ourselves some trouble in discussing him,” replied he, pettishly. “At all events, he cannot possibly be here in time for the contest; and we must, I suppose, give our support to Kilmorris again.”
“Do you mean, after his conduct about the harbor, and the shameful way he sneaked out of the Port Martin project?”
“Find anything better, madam; there is the difficulty. Kilmorris is a gentleman, and no Radical; and, as times go, these are rather rare qualities.”
“Lady Sarah Upton's match is off,” said Lady Dorothea, reading from a note beside her. “Sir Joseph insisted upon the uncontrolled possession of all her Staffordshire property.”
“And perfectly right.”
“Perfectly wrong to give it to him.”
“A fool if he married without it.”
“A mean creature she, to accept him on such terms.”
“The woman is eight-and-thirty,—if not more. I remember her at Tunbridge. Let me see, what year was it?”
“I detest dates, and abhor chronologies. Reach me the marmalade,” said Lady Dorothea, superciliously.
“What's this balderdash here from the 'Galway Indicator'? 'The haughty and insolent, aye, and ignorant aristocracy will have to swallow a bitter draught erelong; and such petty despots as Martin of Cro' Martin will learn that the day is gone by for their ascendancy in this county.'
“They tell me we have a law of libel in the land; and yet see how this scoundrel can dare to drag me by name before the world; and I 'll wager a thousand pounds I 'd fail to get a verdict against him if I prosecuted him to-morrow,” said Martin, as he dashed the newspaper to the ground, and stamped his foot upon it. “We are constantly reading diatribes about absentee landlords, and the evils of neglected property; but I ask, what inducements are there held out to any gentleman to reside on his estate, if every petty scribbler of the press can thus attack and assail him with impunity?”
“Is that Mary I see yonder?” asked Lady Dorothea, languidly, as she lifted her double eye-glass, and then suffered it to fall from her fingers.
“So it is, by Jove!” cried Martin, springing up, and approaching the window. “I wish she 'd not venture out in that small boat in this treacherous season. What a swell there is, too! The wind is from the sea.”
“She's coming in, I fancy,” drawled out Lady Dorothea.
“How is she to do it, though?” exclaimed he, hurriedly; “the sea is breaking clear over the piers of the harbor. I can only see one man in the boat. What rashness! what folly! There, look, they're standing out to sea again!” And now, throwing open the window, Martin stepped out on the rocks, over which the white foam flashed by like snow. “What are they at, Peter? What are they trying to do?” cried he to an old fisherman, who, with the coil of a net he was just mending on his arm, had now come down to the shore to watch the boat.
“They 're doing right, your honor,” said he, touching his cap respectfully. “'Tis Loony my Lady has in the boat, and there's no better man in trouble! He's just going to beat out a bit, and then he 'll run in under the shelter of the blue rocks. Faix, she 's a fine boat, then, for her size,—look at her now!”
But Martin had covered his eyes with his hand, while his lips murmured and moved rapidly.
“May I never, but they 're letting out the reef!” screamed the old man in terror.
“More sail, and in such a sea!” cried Martin, in a voice of horror.
“Aye, and right, too,” said the fisherman, after a pause; “she 's rising lighter over the sea, and steers better, besides. It's Miss Mary has the tiller,” added the old fellow, with a smile. “I 'll lay a shilling she 's singing this minute.”
“You think so,” said Martin, glad to catch at this gleam of confidence.
“I know it well, your honor. I remember one day, off Lettermullen, it was worse than this. Hurrah!” screamed he out suddenly; “she took in a great sea that time!”
“Get out a boat, Peter, at once; what are we standing here for?” cried Martin, angrily. “Man a boat this instant.”
“Sure no boat could get out to sea with this wind, sir,” remonstrated the old man, mildly; “she'd never leave the surf if she had forty men at her!”
“Then what's to be done?”
“Just let them alone; themselves two know as well what to do as any pair in Ireland, and are as cool besides. There, now, she 's putting her about, as I said, and she 'll run for the creek.” The frail boat, a mere speck upon the dark green ocean, seemed now to fly, as with a slackened sheet she darted over the water. Her course was bent for a little cove concealed from view by a rugged promontory of rock, up which the old fisherman now clambered with the alacrity of a younger man. Martin tried to follow; but overcome by emotion, he was unable, and sat down upon a ledge of rock, burying his face within his hands.
By this time the whole fishing population of the little village had gathered on the beach around the cove, to watch the boat as she came in; numbers had gone out to meet her, and stood up to their waists in the white and boiling surf, ready to seize upon the skiff and run her high and dry upon the sand. Even they were obliged to be lashed together by a rope, lest the receding waves should carry them out to sea, or the “under tow” suck them beneath the surface. As the boat came within speaking distance, a wild shout arose from the shore to “down sail” and suffer her to come in on her way alone; but with all the canvas spread, they came flying along, scarce seeming more than to tip the waves as they skipped over them, while a shower of spray appeared to cover them as the sea broke upon the stern. Instead of rendering aid, the utmost the fishermen could do was to clear a path amongst them for the skiff to pass, as with lightning speed she flitted by and drove her bow high up on the hard beach.
A wild, glad cheer of joy and welcome burst from the hearty fishermen as they crowded about the young girl, who stepped out of the boat with a heavy bundle in her arms. Her hair hung in great masses over her neck and shoulders, her cheeks were flushed, and her dark eyes gleamed with all the excitement of peril and triumph.
“Here, Margaret,” said she to a young woman, who, pale with terror and with face streaming in tears, rushed towards her,—“here 's your little fellow, all safe and sound; I 'd not have put back but for his sake.” And with this she placed in his mother's arms a little boy of about three years of age, sound asleep. “He must wait for better weather if he wants to see his grandmother. And,” added she, laughing, “I scarcely think you 'll catch me going to sea again with so precious a cargo. Poor little man!” and she patted his ruddy cheeks; “he behaved so well, like a stout fisherman's son as he is,—never showed fear for a moment.”
A murmur of delighted hearts ran through the crowd; some thinking of the child, but many more in warm admiration of the brave and beautiful young girl before them. “Loony,” said she to her boatman, “when you 've got the tackle to rights, come up to the house for your breakfast.” And with that, and a few words of grateful recognition as she passed, she clambered up the rock and hastened homeward.
As for her uncle, no sooner had he heard of her safe arrival on shore than he hurried back, anxious to reach the house before her. For a considerable time back Martin had schooled himself into an apparent indifference about his niece's perils. Lady Dorothea had probably given the initiative to this feeling by constantly asserting that the young lady would incur few risks when they ceased to create alarm.
It was a somewhat ungracious theory, and excited in Martin's mind, when he first heard it, a sensation the very reverse of agreeable. Without accepting its truth, however, it made a deep impression upon him, and at last, by way of policy, he resolved to feign a degree of callous indifference very foreign to his nature; and, by dint of mere habit, he at length acquired a semblance of calm under circumstances that sorely tested his powers of self-control.
“Has the heroine arrived safe on shore?” asked Lady Dorothea in her own languid drawl. And Martin almost started at the question, and seemed for a moment as if the indignation it excited could not be repressed; then smiling superciliously at the impassive air of her features, he said,—
“Yes, and by rare good luck, too! The sea is a terrific one this morning!”
“Is it ever anything else in this heavenly climate?” said she, sighing. “I have counted two fine days since the 8th of June; and, indeed, it rained a little on one of them.”
Martin winced impatiently under the remark, but never lifted his eyes from the newspaper.
“I had hoped your niece was making arrangements for our return to Cro' Martin,” said she, querulously, “instead of planning marine excursions. I told her yesterday, or the day before,—I forget which; but who could remember time in such a place?—that I was bored to death here. The observation seems to amuse you, Mr. Martin; but it is a simple fact.”
“And you are bored to death at Cro' Martin, too, if I mistake not?” said he, with a very significant dryness.
“I should think I was, sir; and nothing very astonishing in the confession, besides.”
“And Dublin, madam?”
“Don't speak of it. If one must endure prison discipline, at least let us have a cell to ourselves. Good-morning, Miss Martin. I hope you enjoyed your party on the water?”
This speech was addressed to Mary, who now entered the room dressed in a plain morning costume, and in her quiet, almost demure look resembling in nothing the dripping and dishevelled figure that sprung from the boat.
“Good-morning, aunt,” said she, gayly. “Good-morning, uncle,” kissing, as she spoke, his cheek, and patting him fondly on the shoulder. “I saw you out on the rocks as we were coming in.”
“Pooh, pooh!” said he, in affected indifference. “I knew there was no danger—”
“Yes, but there was, though,” said she, quickly. “If we had n't set all sail on her, she 'd have been pooped to a certainty; and I can tell you I was in a rare fright, too.”
“Oh, indeed; you confess to such an ignoble emotion?” said Lady Dorothea, with a sneer.
“That I do, aunt, for I had poor Madge Lennan's little boy on my lap all the time; and if it came to a swim, I don't see how he was to be saved.”
“You 'd not have left him to his fate, I suppose?” said Lady Dorothea.
“I scarcely know what I should have done. I sincerely hope it would have been my best; but in a moment like that, within sight of home, too—” Her eyes met her uncle's as she said this; he had raised them from his newspaper, and bent them fully on her. There was that in their expression which appealed so strongly to her heart that instead of finishing her speech she sprung towards him and threw her arms around his neck.
“Quite a scene; and I detest scenes,” said Lady Dorothen, as she arose and swept out of the room contemptuously; but they neither heard the remark nor noticed her departure.
CHAPTER IV. MAURICE SCANLAN, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW.
About an hour after the occurrence mentioned in our last chapter, the quiet little village of Kilkieran was startled by the sharp clattering sounds of horses' feet, as Mr. Scanlan's tandem came slinging along; and after various little dexterities amid stranded boats, disabled anchors, and broken capstans, drew up at the gate of the Osprey's Nest. When men devise their own equipage, they invariably impart to it a strong infusion of their own idiosyncrasy. The quiet souls who drag through life in chocolate-colored barouches, with horses indifferently matched, give no clew to their special characteristics; but your men of tax-carts and tandems, your Jehus of four-in-hand teams, write their own biographies in every detail of the “turn-out.”
Maurice Scanlan was a sporting attorney, and from the group of game cocks neatly painted on the hind panel, to the wiry, well-bred, and well-looking screws before him, all was indicative of the man. The conveyance was high and red-wheeled; the nags were a chestnut and a gray; he drove them without winkers or bearing-reins, wearing his white hat a very little on ope side, and gracefully tilting his elbow as he admonished the wheeler with the “crop” of his whip. He was a good-looking, showy, vulgar, self-sufficient kind of fellow, with consummate shrewdness in all business transactions, only marred by one solitary weak point,—an intense desire to be received intimately by persons of a station above his own, and to seem, at least, to be the admitted guest of very fashionable society. It was not a very easy matter to know if this Lord-worship of his was real, or merely affected, since, certainly, the profit he derived from the assumption was very considerable, and Maurice was intrusted with a variety of secret-service transactions, and private affairs for the nobility, which they would never have dreamed of committing to the hands of their more recognized advisers.
If men would have been slow to engage his services in any grave or important suit, he was invaluable in all the ordinary and constantly occurring events of this changeful world. He knew every one's difficulties and embarrassments. There was not a hitch in a settlement, nor a spavin in your stables, could escape him. He seemed to possess a kind of intuitive appreciation of a flaw; and he pounced upon a defect with a rapidity that counterfeited genius. To these gifts he added a consummate knowledge of his countrymen. He had emerged from the very humblest class of the people, and he knew them thoroughly; with all their moods of habitual distrust and momentary enthusiasm,—with all their phases of sanguine hopefulness he was familiar; and he could mould and fashion and weld them to his will, as passive subjects as the heated bar under the hammer of the smith.
As an electioneering agent he was unequalled. It was precisely the sphere in which his varied abilities were best exercised; and it was, besides, an arena in which he was proud of figuring.
For a while he seemed—at least in his own eyes—to stand on a higher eminence than the candidate he represented, and to be a more prominent and far grander personage than his principal. In fact, it was only under some tacit acknowledgment of this temporary supremacy that his services were obtainable; his invariable stipulation being that he was to have the entire and uncontrolled direction of the election.
Envious tongues and ungenerous talkers did, indeed, say that Maurice insisted upon this condition with very different objects in view, and that his unlimited powers found their pleasantest exercise in the inexplorable realms of secret bribery; however, it is but fair to say that he was eminently successful, and that one failure alone in his whole career occurred to show the proverbial capriciousness of fortune.
With the little borough of Oughterard he had become so identified that his engagement was regarded as one of the first elements of success. Hitherto, indeed, the battle had been always an easy one. The Liberal party—as they pleasantly assumed to style themselves—had gone no further in opposition than an occasional burst of intemperate language, and an effort—usually a failure—at a street row during the election. So little of either energy or organization had marked their endeavors, that the great leader of the day had stigmatized their town with terms of heavy censure, and even pronounced them unworthy of the cause. An emissary, deputed to report upon the political state of the borough, had described the voters as mere dependants on the haughty purse-proud proprietor of Cro' Martin, who seemed, even without an effort, to nominate the sitting member.
The great measure of the year '29—the Catholic Relief Bill—had now, however, suggested to even more apathetic constituencies the prospect of a successful struggle. The thought of being represented by “one of their own sort” was no mean stimulant to exertion; and the leading spirits of the place had frequently conferred together as to what steps should be taken to rescue the borough from the degrading thraldom of an aristocratic domination. Lord Kilmorris, it is true, was rather popular with them than the reverse. The eldest son of an Earl, who only cared to sit in Parliament on easy terms, till the course of time and events should call him to the Upper House, he never took any very decided political line, but sat on Tory benches and gave an occasional vote to Liberal measures, as though foreshadowing that new school who were to take the field under the middle designation of Conservatives. Some very remote relationship to Lady Dorothea's family had first introduced him to the Martins' notice; and partly from this connection, and partly because young Harry Martin was too young to sit in Parliament, they had continued to support him to the present time.
Mr. Martin himself cared very little for politics; had he even cared more, he would not have sacrificed to them one jot of that indolent, lazy, apathetic existence which alone he seemed to prize. He was rather grateful than otherwise to Lord Kilmorris for taking upon him the trouble of a contest, if there should be such a thing. His greatest excuse through life, at least to himself, had ever been that he was “unprepared.” He had been in that unhappy state about everything since he was born, and so, apparently, was he destined to continue to the very last. With large resources, he was never prepared for any sudden demand for money. When called on for any exertion of mind or body, when asked to assist a friend or rescue a relation from difficulty, he was quite unprepared; and so convinced was he that this was a fatality under which he labored, that no sooner had he uttered the expression than he totally absolved himself from every shadow of reproach that might attach to his luke-warmness.
The uncontrolled position he occupied, joined to the solitary isolation in which he lived, had doubtless engendered this cold and heartless theory. There was no one to dispute his will,—none to gainsay his opinions. There was not for him any occasion for the healthful exertion which is evoked by opposition, and he sunk gradually down into a moping, listless, well-meaning, but utterly good-for-nothing gentleman, who would have been marvellously amazed had any one arraigned him for neglect of his station and its great requirements.
That such an insolent possibility could be, was only demonstrated to him in that morning's newspaper. To be called a despot was bad enough, but a petty despot,—and to be told that such despotism was already doomed—aroused in him a degree of indignation all the more painful that the sensation was one he had not experienced for many a year back. Whose fault was it that such an impertinence had ever been uttered? Doubtless, Kilmorris's. Some stupid speech, some absurd vote, some ridiculous party move had brought down this attack upon him; or perhaps it was Mary, with her new-fangled ideas about managing the estate, her school-houses, and her model-farms. The ignorant people had possibly revolted against her interference; or it might be Lady Dorothea herself, whose haughty manner had given offence; at all events, he was blameless, and strange to say, either he was not perfectly assured of the fact, or that the assumption was not pleasant, but he seemed very far from being satisfied with the explanation. In the agitated mood these feelings produced, a servant came to inform him that Mr. Scanlan had just arrived.
“Say I 'm out—I 'm unwell—I don't feel quite myself to-day. Call Miss Mary to him.” And with an impatient gesture he motioned the servant away.
“Miss Mary will be down in a few minutes, sir,” said the man, entering the room where Mr. Scanlan stood arranging his whiskers before the chimney-glass, and contemplating with satisfaction his general appearance.
“It was Mr. Martin himself, Thomas, that I wanted to see.”
“I know that, sir, but the Master is n't well this morning; he told me to send Miss Mary to you.”
“All right,” said Scanlan, giving a finishing touch to the tie of his cravat, and then gracefully bestowing his person into an easy-chair. To common observation he looked perfectly unconcerned in every gesture, and yet no man felt less at his ease at that moment than Mr. Maurice Scanlan; and though the cause involves something like a secret, the reader shall know it. Mr. Scanlan had seen a good deal of the world—that is, of his world. He had mixed with barristers and solicitors, “Silk Gowns,” masters in Chancery, and even puisne judges had he come into contact with; he had mingled in turf experiences with certain sporting lords and baronets, swapped horses, and betted and handicapped with men of fortune; he had driven trotting-matches, and ridden hurdle-races against young heirs to good estates, and somehow always found himself not inferior in worldly craft and address to those he came in contact with,—nay, he even fancied that he was occasionally rather a little more wide awake than his opponents; and what with a little blustering here, a little blarney there, a dash of mock frankness to this man, or an air of impulsive generosity to the other,—an accommodating elasticity, in fact, that extended to morals, manners, and principles,—he found that he was, as he himself styled it, “a fair match with equal weights for anything going.” There was but one individual alone in presence of whom he in reality felt his own inferiority deeply and painfully; strange to say, that was Miss Martin! At first sight this would seem almost unintelligible. She was not either a haughty beauty, presuming on the homage bestowed upon her by high and distinguished admirers, nor was she any greatly gifted and cultivated genius dominating over lesser intelligences by the very menace of her acquirements. She was simply a high-spirited, frank, unaffected girl, whose good breeding and good sense seemed alike instinctive, and who read with almost intuition the shallow artifices by which such natures as Scanlan's impose upon the world. She had seen him easily indolent with her uncle, obsequiously deferential to my Lady, all in the same breath, while the side-look of tyranny he could throw a refractory tenant appeared just as congenial to his nature.
It was some strange consciousness which told him he could not deceive her, that made Scanlan ever abashed in her presence, and by the self-same impulse was it that she was the only one in the world for whose good esteem he would have sacrificed all he possessed.
While he waited for her coming, he took a leisurely survey of the room. The furniture, less costly and rich than at Cro' Martin, was all marked by that air of propriety and comfort so observable in rich men's houses. There were the hundred appliances of ease and luxury that show how carefully the most trifling inconveniences are warded off, and the course of daily life rendered as untroubled as mere material enjoyments can secure. Scanlan sighed deeply, for the thought crossed his mind how was a girl brought up in this way ever to stoop to ally her fortune to a man like him? Was it, then, possible that he nourished such a presumption? Even so. Maurice was of an aspiring turn; he had succeeded in twenty things that a dozen years past he had never dared to dream of. He had dined at tables and driven with men whose butlers and valets he once deemed very choice company; he had been the guest at houses where once his highest ambition had been to see the interior as a matter of curiosity. “Who could say where he might be at last?” Besides this, he knew from his own knowledge of family matters that she had no fortune, that her father was infinitely more likely to leave debts than an inheritance behind him, and that her uncle was the last man in the world ever to think of a marriage-portion for one he could not afford to part with. There was, then, no saying what turn of fortune might present him in an admissible form as a suitor. At all events, there was no rival in the field, and Maurice had seen many a prize won by a “walk over” purely for want of a competitor in the race.
Notwithstanding all these very excellent and reassuring considerations, Maurice Scanlan could not overcome a most uncomfortable sense of awkwardness as Mary Martin entered the room, and saluting him with easy familiarity, said, “I'm quite ashamed of having made you wait, Mr. Scanlan; but I was in the village when I got my uncle's message. I find that he is not well enough to receive you, and if I can—”
“I'm sure it's only too much honor you do me, Miss Mary; I never expected to have the pleasure of this interview; indeed, it will be very hard for me to think of business, at all, at all.”
“That would be most unfortunate after your coming so far on account of it,” said she, half archly, while she seated herself on a sofa at some distance from him.
“If it were a question about the estate, Miss Mary,” said he, in his most obsequious manner, “there's nobody equal to yourself; or if it were anything at all but what it is, I know well that you'd see your way out of it; but the present is a matter of politics,—it 's about the borough.”