The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II), by Charles James Lever This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II) Author: Charles James Lever Illustrator: Phiz. Release Date: February 2, 2011 [EBook #35143] Last Updated: September 3, 2016 Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN *** Produced by David Widger frontispiece (235K) THE MARTINS OF CRO’ MARTIN By Charles James Lever. With Illustrations By Phiz. In Two Volumes Vol. I. Boston: Little, Brown, And Company. 1906. frontis2 (134K) titlepage (29K) 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. frontis2 (134K) 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 exalt...