Whatever difficulty Bryan M'Mahon had among his family in defending the course he had taken at the election, he found that not a soul belonging to his own party would listen to any defense from him. The indignation, obloquy, and spirit of revenge with which he was pursued and harassed, excited in his heart, as they would in that of any generous man conscious of his own integrity, a principle of contempt and defiance, which, however they required independence in him, only made matters far worse than they otherwise would have been. He expressed neither regret nor repentance for having voted as he did; but on the contrary asserted with a good deal of warmth, that if the same course lay open to him he would again pursue it.
“I will never vote for a scoundrel,” said he, “and I don't think that there is anything in my religion that makes it a duty on me to do so. If my religion is to be supported by scoundrels, the sooner it is forced to depend on itself the better. Major Vanston is a good landlord, and supports the rights of his tenantry, Catholic as well as Protestant; he saved me from ruin when my own landlord refused to interfere for me, an' Major Vanston, if he's conscientiously opposed to my religion, is an honest man at all events, and an honest man I'll ever support against a rogue, and let their politics go where they generally do, go to the devil.”
Party is a blind, selfish, infatuated monster, brutal and vehement, that knows not what is meant by reason, justice, liberty, or truth. M'Mahon, merely because he gave utterance with proper spirit to sentiments of plain common sense, was assailed by every description of abuse, until he knew not where to take refuge from that cowardly and ferocious tyranny which in a hundred shapes proceeded from the public mob. On the Sunday after the election, his parish priest, one of those political fire-brands, who whether under a mitre or a white band, are equally disgraceful and detrimental to religion and the peaceful interests of mankind—this man, we say, openly denounced him from the altar, in language which must have argued but little reverence for the sacred place from which it was uttered, and which came with a very bad grace from one who affected to be an advocate for liberty of conscience and a minister of peace.
“Ay,” he proceeded, standing on the altar, “it is well known to our disgrace and shame how the election was lost. Oh, well may I say to our disgrace and shame. Little did I think that any one, bearing the once respectable name of M'Mahon upon him, should turn from the interests of his holy church, spurn all truth, violate all principle, and enter into a league of hell with the devil and the enemies of his church. Yes, you apostate,” he proceeded, “you have entered into a league with him, and ever since there is devil within you. You sold yourself to his agent and representative, Vanston, You got him to interfere for you with the Board of Excise, and the fine that was justly imposed on you for your smugglin' and distillin' whiskey—not that I'm runin' down our whiskey, because it's the best drinkin of that kind we have, and drinks beautiful as scalhleen, wid a bit of butther and sugar in it—but it's notorious that you went to Vanston, and offered if he'd get the fine off you, that you'd give him your vote; an' if that's not sellin' yourself to the devil, I don't know what is. Judas did the same thing when he betrayed our Savior—the only difference is—that he got a thirty shilling note—an' God knows it was a beggarly bargain—when his hand was in he ought to have done the thing dacent—and you got the fine taken off you; that's the difference—that's the difference. But there's more to come—more corruption where that was. Along wid the removal of the fine you got a better note than Mr. Judas got. Do you happen to know anything about a fifty pound note cut in two halves? Eh? Am I tickling you? Do you happen to know anything about that, you traicherous apostate? If you don't, I do; and plaise God before many hours the public will know enough of it, too. How dare you, then, polute the house of God, or come in presence of His Holy altar, wid such a crust of crimes upon your soul? Can you deny that you entered into a league of hell wid the devil and Major Vanston, and that you promised him your vote if he'd get the fine removed?”
“I can,” replied Bryan; “there's not one word of truth in it.”
“Do you hear that, my friends?” exclaimed the priest; “he calls your priest a liar upon the altar of the livin' God.”
Here M'Mahon was assailed by such a storm of groans and hisses as, to say the least of it, was considerably at variance with the principles of religion and the worship of God.
“Do you deny,” the priest proceeded, “that you received a bribe of fifty pounds on the very day you voted? Answer me that.”
“I did receive a fifty-pound note in a—”
Further he could not proceed. It was in vain that he attempted to give a true account of the letter and its enclosure; the enmity was not confined to either groans or hisses. He was seized upon in the very chapel, dragged about in all directions, kicked, punched, and beaten, until the apprehension of having a murder committed in presence of God's altar caused the priest to interfere. M'Mahon, however, was ejected from the chapel; but in such a state that, for some minutes, it could scarcely be ascertained whether he was alive or dead. After he had somewhat recovered, his friends assisted him home, where he lay confined to a sick bed for better than a week.
Such is a tolerably exact description of scenes which have too frequently taken place in the country, to the disgrace of religion and the dishonor of God. We are bound to say, however, that none among the priesthood encourage or take a part in them, unless those low and bigoted firebrands who are alike remarkable for vulgarity and ignorance, and who are perpetually inflamed by that meddling spirit which tempts them from the quiet path of duty into scenes of political strife and enmity, in which they seem to be peculiarly at home. Such scenes are repulsive to the educated priest, and to all who, from superior minds and information, are perfectly aware that no earthly or other good, but, on the contrary, much bitterness, strife, and evil, ever result from them.
Gerald Cavanagh was by no means so deeply affected by M'Mahon's vote as were his two daughters. He looked upon the circumstance as one calculated to promote the views which he entertained for Kathleen's happiness. Ever since the notion of her marriage with Hycy Burke or his brother—it mattered little to him which—he felt exceedingly dissatisfied with her attachment to M'Mahon. Of this weakness, which we may say, was the only one of the family, we have already spoken. He lost little time, however, in going to communicate his daughter's determination to that young man. It so happened, however, that, notwithstanding three several journeys made for the purpose, he could not see him; the fact being that Bryan always happened to be from home when he went. Then came the denouncing scene which we have just described, when his illness put it out of his power, without danger to himself, to undergo anything calculated to discompose or disturb him. The popular feeling, however, was fearfully high and indignant against him. The report went that he had called Father M'Pepper, the senior curate, a liar upon the very altar; and the commencement of his explanation with respect to the fifty-pound note, was, not unnaturally—since they would not permit him to speak—construed into an open admission of his having been bribed.
This was severe and trying enough, but it was not all. Chevydale, whom he unseated by his vote, after having incurred several thousand pounds of expense, was resolved to make him suffer for the loss of his seat, as well as for having dared to vote against him—a purpose in which he was strongly supported, or into which, we should rather say, he was urged by Fethertonge, who, in point of fact, now that the leases had dropped, was negotiating a beneficial bargain with the gauger, apart from Chevydale's knowledge, who was a feeble, weak-minded man, without experience or a proper knowledge of his duties. In fact, he was one of,those persons who, having no fixed character of their own, are either good or evil, according to the principles of those by whom they happen for the time to be managed. If Chevydale had been under the guidance of a sensible and humane agent, he would have been a good landlord; but the fact being otherwise, he was, in Fethertonge's hands, anything but what a landlord ought to be. Be this as it may, the period of M'Mahon's illness passed away, and, on rising from his sick bed, he found the charge of bribery one of universal belief, against which scarcely any person had the courage to raise a voice. Even Hycy suffered himself, as it were, with great regret and reluctance, to become at length persuaded of its truth. Kathleen, on hearing that he himself had been forced to admit it in the chapel, felt that the gloom which had of late wrapped her in its shadow now became so black and impervious that she could see nothing distinctly. The two facts—that is to say, the vote and the bribery—seemed to her like some frightful hallucination which lay upon her spirits—some formidable illusion that haunted her night and day, and filled her whole being with desolation and sorrow.
With respect to his own feelings, there was but one thought which gave him concern, and this was an apprehension that Kathleen might be carried away by the general prejudice which existed against him.
“I know Kathleen, however,” he would say; “I know her truth, her good sense, and her affection; and, whatever the world may say, she won't follow its example and condemn me without a hearing. I will see her tomorrow and explain all to her. Father,” he added, “will you ask Dora if she will walk with me to the Long-shot Meadow? I think a stroll round it will do me good. I haven't altogether recovered my strength yet.”
“To be sure I will go with you, Bryan,” said the bright-eyed and affectionate sister; “to be sure I will; it's on my way to Gerald Cavanagh's; and I'm going down to see how they are, and to know if something I heard about them is thrue. I want to satisfy myself; but they musn't get on their high horse with me, I can tell them.”
“You never doubted me, Dora,” said Bryan, as they went along—“you never supposed for a moment that I could”—he paused. “I know,” he added, “that it doesn't look well; but you never supposed that I acted from treachery, or deceit, or want of affection or respect for my religion? You don't suppose that what all the country is ringin' with—that I took a bribe or made a bargain with Vanston—is true?”
“Why do you ask me such questions?” she replied. “You acted on the spur of the minute; and I say, afther what you heard from the landlord and agent, if you had voted for him you'd be a mane, pitiful hound, unworthy of your name and family. You did well to put him out. If I had been in your place, 'out you go,' I'd say, 'you're not the man for my money.' Don't let what the world says fret you, Bryan; sure, while you have Kathleen and me at your back, you needn't care about them. At any rate, it's well for Father M'Pepper that I'm not a man, or, priest as he is, I'd make a stout horsewhip tiche him to mind his religion, and not intermeddle in politics where he has no business.”
“Why, you're a great little soldier, Dora,” replied Bryan, smiling on her with affectionate admiration.
“I hate anything tyrannical or overbearing,” she replied, “as I do anything that's mane and ungenerous.”
“As to Father M'Pepper, we're not to take him as an example of what his brother priests in general are or ought to be. The man may think he is doing only his duty; but, at all events, Dora, he has proved to me, very much at my own cost, I grant, that he has more zeal than discretion! May God forgive him; and that's the worst I wish him. When did you see or hear from Kathleen? I long to give her an explanation of my conduct, because I know she will listen to raison.”
“That's more than I know yet, then,” replied Dora. “She has awful high notions of our religion, an' thinks we ought to go about huntin' after martyrdom. Yes, faix, she thinks we ought to lay down our lives for our religion or our counthry, if we were to be called on to do so. Isn't that nice doctrine? She's always reading books about them.”
“It is, Dora, and thrue doctrine; and so we ought—that is, if our deaths would serve either the one or the other.”
“And would you die for them, if it went to that? because if you would, I would; for then I'd know that I ought to do it.”
“I don't know, Dora, whether I'd have strength or courage to do so, but I know one who would.”
“I know too—Kathleen.”
“Kathleen? you have said it. She would, I am certain, lay down her life for either her religion or the welfare of her country, if such a sacrifice could be necessary.”
“Bryan, I have heard a thing about her, and I don't know whether I ought to tell it to you or not.”
“I lave that to your own discretion, Dora; but you haven't heard, nor can you tell me anything, but what must be to her credit.”
“I'll tell you, then; I heard it, but I won't believe it till I satisfy myself—that your family daren't name your name to her at home, and that everything is to be over between you. Now, I'm on my way there to know whether this is true or not; if it is, I'll think less of her than I ever did.”
“And I won't Dora; but will think more highly of her still. She thinks I'm as bad as I'm reported to be.”
“And that's just what she ought not to think. Why not see you and ask you the raison of it like a—ha! ha!—I was goin' to say like a man? Sure if she was as generous as she ought to be, she'd call upon you to explain yourself; or, at any rate, she'd defend you behind your back, and, when the world's against you, whether you wor right or wrong.”
“She'd do nothing at the expense of truth,” replied her brother.
“Truth!” exclaimed the lively and generous girl, now catching the warmth from her own enthusiasm, “truth! who'd regard truth—”
“Dora!” exclaimed Bryan, with a seriocomic smile.
“Ha! ha! ha!—truth! what was I sayin'? No, I didn't mean to say anything against truth; oh, no, God forgive me!” she added, immediately softening, whilst her bright and beautiful eyes filled with tears, “oh, no, nor against my darlin' Kathleen either; for, Bryan, I'm tould that she has never smiled since; and that the color that left her cheeks when she heard of your vote has never come back to it; and that, in short, her heart is broken. However, I'll soon see her, and maybe I won't plade your cause; no lawyer could match me. Whisht!” she exclaimed, “isn't that Gerald himself comin' over to us?”
“It is,” replied Bryan, “let us meet him;” and, as he spoke, they turned their steps towards him. As they met, Bryan, forgetting everything that had occurred, and influenced solely by the habit of former friendship and good feeling, extended his hand with an intention of clasping that of his old acquaintance, but the latter withdrew, and refused to meet this usual exponent of good will.
“Well, Gerald,” said M'Mahon, smiling, “I see you go with the world too; but, since you won't shake hands with me, allow me to ask your business.”
“To deliver a message to you from my daughter, and she'd not allow me to deliver it to any one but yourself. I came three times to see you before your sickness, but I didn't find jou at home.”
“What's the message, Gerald?”
“The message, Bryan, is—that you are never to spake to her, nor will she ever more name your name. She will never be your wife; for she says that the heart that forgets its duty to God, and the hand that has been soiled by a bribe, can never be anything to her but the cause of shame and sorrow; and she bids me say that her happiness is gone and her heart broken. Now, farewell, and think of the girl you have lost by disgracin' your religion and your name.”
Bryan paused for a moment, as if irresolute how to act, and exchanged glances with his high-minded little sister.
“Tell Kathleen, from me,” said the latter, “that if she had a little more feeling, and a little less pride or religion, I don't know which, she'd be more of a woman and less of a saint. My brother, tell her, has disgraced neither his religion nor his name, and that he has too much of the pride of an injured man to give back any answer to sich a message. That's my answer, and not his, and you may ask her if it's either religion or common justice that makes her condemn him she loved without a hearing? Goodbye, now, Gerald; give my love to Hanna, and tell her she's worth a ship-load of her stately sister.”
Bryan remained silent. In fact, he felt so completely overwhelmed that he was incapable of uttering a syllable. On seeing Cavanagh return, he was about to speak, when he looked upon the glowing cheeks, flashing eyes, and panting bosom of his heroic little sister.
“You are right, my darling Dora. I must be proud on receiving such a message. Kathleen has done me injustice, and I must be proud in my own defence.”
The full burthen of this day's care, however, had not been yet laid upon him. On returning home, he heard from one of his laborers that a notice to quit his farm of Ahadarra had been left at his house. This, after the heavy sums of money which he had expended in its improvement and reclamation, was a bitter addition to what he was forced to suffer. On hearing of this last circumstance, and after perusing the notice which the man, who had come on some other message, had brought with him, he looked around him on every side for a considerable time. At length he said, “Dora, is not this a fine country?”
“It is,” she replied, looking at him with surprise.
“Would you like,” he added, “to lave it?”
“To lave it, Bryan!” she replied. “Oh, no, not to lave it;” and as she spoke, a deadly paleness settled upon her face.
“Poor Dora,” he said, after surveying her for a time with an expression of love and compassion, “I know your saicret, and have done so this long time; but don't be cast down. You have been a warm and faithful little friend to me, and it will go hard or I'll befriend you yet.”
Dora looked up into his face, and as she did, her eyes filled with tears. “I won't deny what you know, Bryan,” she replied; “and unless he——”
“Well, dear, don't fret; he and I will have a talk about it; but, come what may, Dora, in this neglected and unfortunate country I will not stay. Here, now, is a notice to quit my farm, that I have improved at an expense of seven or eight hundred pounds, an' its now goin' to be taken out of my hands, and every penny I expended on it goes into the pocket of the landlord or agent, or both, and I'm to be driven out of house and home without a single farthing of compensation for the buildings and other improvements that I made on that farm.”
“It's a hard and cruel case,” said Dora; “an there can be no doubt but that the landlord and Fethertonge are both a pair of great rogues. Can't you challenge them, an' fight them?”
“Why, what a soldier you are, Dora!” replied her brother, smiling; “but you don't know that their situation in life and mine puts that entirely out o' the question. If a landlord was to be called upon to fight every tenant he neglects, or is unjust to, he would have a busy time of it. No, no, Dora dear, my mind's made up. We will lave the country. We will go to America; but, in the mean time, I'll see what I can do for you.”
“Bryan, dear,” she said in a voice of entreaty, “don't think of it. Oh, stay in your own country. Sure what other country could you like as well?”
“I grant you that, Dora; but the truth is, there seems to be a curse over it; whatever's the raison of it, nothing goes right in it. The landlords in general care little about the state and condition of their tenantry. All they trouble themselves about is their rents. Look at my own case, an' that's but one out of thousands that's happenin' every day in the country. Grantin' that he didn't sarve me with this notice to quit, an' supposin' he let me stay in the farm, he'd rise it on me in sich a way as that I could hardly live in it; an' you know, Dora, that to be merely strugglin' an' toilin' all one's life is anything but a comfortable prospect. Then, in consequence of the people depondin upon nothing but the potato for food, whenever that fails, which, in general, it does every seventh or eighth year, there's a famine, an' then the famine is followed by fever an' all kinds of contagious diseases, in sich a way that the kingdom is turned into one great hospital and grave-yard. It's these things that's sendin' so many thousands out of the country; and if we're to go at all, let us go like the rest, while we're able to go, an' not wait till we become too poor either to go or stay with comfort.”
“Well, I suppose,” replied his sister, “that what you say is true enough; but for all that I'd rather bear anything in my own dear country than go to a strange one. Do you think I'd not miss the summer sun rising behind the Althadawan hills? an' how could I live without seein' him set behind Mallybeney? An' then to live in a country where I'd not see these ould hills, the green glens, and mountain rivers about us, that have all grown into my heart. Oh, Bryan, dear, don't think of it—don't think of it.”
“Dora,” replied the other, his fine countenance overshadowed with, deep emotion as he spoke, “you cannot love these ould hills, as you cull them, nor these beautiful glens, nor the mountain rivers better than I do. It will go to my heart to leave them; but leave them I will—ay, and when I go, you know that I will leave behind me one that's dearer ten thousand times than them all. Kathleen's message has left me a heavy and sorrowful heart.”
“I pity her now,” replied the kind-hearted girl; “but, still, Bryan, she sent you a harsh message. Ay, I pity her, for did you observe how the father looked when he said that she bid him tell you her happiness was gone, and her heart broken; still, she ought to have seen yourself and heard your defence.”
“I can neither blame her, nor will; neither can I properly justify my vote, I grant; it was surely very wrong or she wouldn't feel it as she does. Indeed. I think I oughtn't to have voted at all.”
“I differ with you there, Bryan,” replied Dora, with animation, “I would rather, ten times over, vote wrongly, than not vote from cowardice. It's a mane, skulkin', shabby thing, to be afeard to vote when one has a vote—it's unmanly.”
“I know it is; and it was that very thought that made me vote. I felt that it would look both mane and cowardly not to vote, and accordingly I did vote.”
“Ay, and you did right,” replied his spirited sister, “and I don't care who opposes you, I'll support you for it, through thick and thin.”
“And I suppose you may say through right and wrong, too?”
“Ay, would I,” she replied; “eh?—what am I sayin?—throth, I'm a little madcap, I think. No, I won't support you through right and wrong—it's only when you're right you may depend on me.”
They had now been more than an hour strolling about the fields, when Bryan, who did not feel himself quite so strong as he imagined he was, proposed to return to his father's, where, by the way, he had been conveyed from the chapel on the Sunday when he had been so severely maltreated.
They accordingly did so, for he felt himself weak, and unable to prolong his walk to any greater distance.
Gerald Cavanaugh felt himself secretly relieved by the discharge of his message to M'Mahon.
“It is good,” thought he, “to have that affair settled, an' all expectation of her marriage with him knocked up. I'll be bound a little time will cool the foolish girl, and put Edward Burke in the way of succeeding. As for Hycy, I see clearly that whoever is to succeed, he's not the man—an' the more the pity, for the sorra one of them all so much the gentleman, nor will live in sich style.”
The gloom which lay upon the heart of Kathleen Cavanagh was neither moody nor captious, but on the contrary remarkable for a spirit of extreme gentleness and placidity. From the moment she had come to the resolution of discarding M'Mahon, she was observed to become more silent than she had ever been, but at the same time her deportment was characterized by a tenderness towards the other members of the family that was sorrowful and affecting to the last degree. Her sister Hanna's sympathy was deep and full of sorrow. None of them, however, knew her force of character, nor the inroads which, under guise of this placid calm, strong grief was secretly making on her health and spirits. The paleness, for instance, which settled on her cheeks, when the news of her lover's apostacy, as it was called, and as she considered it, reached her, never for one moment left it afterwards, and she resembled some exquisitely chiselled statue moving by machinery, more than anything else to which we can compare her.
She was sitting with Hanna when her father returned, after having delivered her message to M'Mahon. The old man seemed, if one could judge by his features, to feel rather satisfied, as in fact was the case, and after having put up his good hat, and laid aside his best coat, he said, “I have delivered your message, Kathleen, an' dear knows I'm glad there's an end to that business—it never had my warm heart.”
“It always had mine, then,” replied Hanna, “an' I think we ought not to judge our fellow creatures too severely, knowin' as we do that there's no such thing as perfection in this world. What the sorra could have come over him, or tempted him to vote as he did? What did he say, father, when you brought him the message?”
“Afther I declared it,” replied her father, “he was struck dumb, and never once opened his lips; but if he didn't spake, his sister Dora did.”
“An' what did she say—generous and spirited little Dora!—what did she say, father?”
He then repeated the message as accurately as he could—for the honest old man was imbued with too conscientious a love for truth to disguise or conceal a single syllable that had been intrusted to him on either side—“Throth,” said he, “the same Dora has the use of her tongue when she pleases; 'ax her,' said she, spakin' of Kathleen, here, 'if it's either religion or common justice that makes her condemn my brother without hearin' his defence. Good-bye, now,' says she; 'give my love to Hanna, and tell her 'she's worth a ship-load of her stately sister.'”
“Poor Dora!” exclaimed Hanna, whilst the tears came to her eyes, “who can blame her for defending so good and affectionate a brother? Plague on it for an election! I wish there was no sich thing in the country.”
“As for me,” said Kathleen, “I wouldn't condemn him without a hearing, if I had any doubt about his conduct, but I have not. He voted for Vanston—that can't be denied; and proved himself to have less honesty and scruple than even that profligate Hycy Burke; and if he made a bargain with Vanston, as is clear he did, an' voted for him because the other got his fine reduced, why that is worse, because then he did it knowingly an' with his eyes open, an' contrary to his conscience—ay, an' to his solemn promise to myself; for I'll tell you now what I never mentioned before, that I put him on his guard against doing so; and he knew that if he did, all would and must be over between him and me.”
“Is that true, Kathleen?” said Hanna with surprise; “but why need I ask you such a question—it's enough that you say it—in that case then I give him up at last; but who, oh, who could a' believed it?”
“But that is not all,” continued Kathleen, in the same mournful and resigned tone of voice—“there's the bribe—didn't hundreds hear him acknowledge publicly in the chapel that he got it? What more is wanting? How could I ever respect a man that has proved himself to be without either honesty or principle? and why should it happen, that the man who has so openly and so knowingly disgraced his religion and his name fall to my lot? Oh, no—it matters little how I love him, and I grant that in spite of all that has happened I have a lingering affection for him even yet; still I don't think that affection will live long—I can now neither respect or esteem him, an' when that is the case I can't surely continue long to love him. I know,” she proceeded, “that it's not possible for him ever to clear himself of this shocking and shameful conduct; but lest there might be any chance of it, I now say before you all, that if something doesn't come about within three months, that may and ought to change my feelings towards him, I'll live afterwards as if I had never known him.”
“Mightn't you see him, however, an' hear what he has to say for himself?” asked Hanna.
“No,” the other replied; “he heard my message, and was silent. You may rest assured if he had anything to say in his own defence, he would have said it, or asked to see me. Oh, no, no, because I feel that he's defenceless.”
In this peculiar state of circumstances our readers need not feel surprised that every possible agency was employed to urge her beyond the declaration she had made, and to induce her to receive the addresses of Edward Burke. Her own parents, old Jemmy Burke, the whole body of her relatives, each in turn, and sometimes several of them together, added to which we may mention the parish priest, who was called in by both families, or at least by old Jemmy Burke and the Cavanaghs—all we say perpetually assailed her on the subject of a union with Edward Burke, and assailed her so pertinaciously, that out of absolute apathy, if not despair, and sick besides of their endless importunities, she at last said—“If Edward Burke can be satisfied with a wife that has no heart to give him, or that cannot love him, I don't care much how I am disposed of; he may as well call me wife as another, and better, for if I cannot love, I can at least respect him.”
These circumstances, together with the period allowed to M'Mahon for setting himself, if possible, right with Kathleen, in due time reached his ears. It soon appeared, however, that Kathleen had not all the pride—if pride it could be called—to herself. M'Mahon, on being made acquainted with what had occurred, which he had heard from his sister Dora, simply said—“Since she has not afforded myself any opportunity of tellin' her the truth, I won't attempt to undeceive her. I will be as proud as she is. That is all I say.”
“And you are right, Tom,” replied Dora, “the name of M'Mahon mustn't be consarned with anything that's mane or discreditable. The pride of our old blood must be kept up, Tom; but still when we think of what she's sufferin' we musn't open our lips against her.”
“Oh, no,” he replied; “I know that it's neither harshness nor weakness, nor useless pride that makes her act as she's doin', but a great mind and a heart that's full of truth, high thoughts, and such a love for her religion and its prosperity as I never saw in any one. Still, Dora, I'm not the person that will ever sneak back to entreat and plead at her feet like a slave, and by that means make myself look still worse in her eyes; I know very well that if I did so she'd despise me. God bless her, at all events, and make her happy! that's the worst I wish her.”
“Amen,” replied Dora; “you have said nothing but the truth about her, and indeed. I see, Tom, that you know her well.”
Thus ended the generous dialogue of Dora and her affectionate brother, who after all might have been induced by her to remain in his native country and share whatever fate it might allot him, were it not that in a few days afterwards, his father found that the only terms on which he could obtain his farm were such as could scarcely be said to come within the meaning and spirit of the landlord's adage, “live and let live.” It is true that for the terms on which his farm was offered him he was indebted to Chevydale himself, who said that as he knew his father had entertained a high respect for old M'Mahon, he would not suffer him to be put out. The father besides voted for him, and always had voted for the family. “Do what you please with the son,” he proceeded—“get rid of him as you like, but I shan't suffer the father to be removed. Let him have the farm upon reasonable terms; and, by the way, Fethertonge, don't you think now it was rather an independent act of the young fellow to vote for Vanston, although he knew that I had it in my power to send him about his business?”
“It was about as impudent a piece of gratitude and defiance as ever I witnessed,” returned the other. “The wily rascal calculated upon your forbearance and easiness of disposition, and so imagined that he might do what he pleased with impunity. We shall undeceive him, however.”
“Well, but you forget that he, had some cause of displeasure against us, in consequence of having neglected his memorial to the Commissioners of Excise.”
“Yes; but as I said before, how could we with credit involve ourselves in the illegal villany of a smuggler? It is actually a discredit to have such a fellow upon the estate. He is, in the first place, a bad example, and calculated by his conduct and influence to spread dangerous principles among the tenantry. However, as it is, he is, fortunately for us, rather well known at present. It is now perfectly notorious—and I have it from the best authority—one of the parties who was cognizant of his conduct—that his vote against you was the result of a deliberate compact with our enemy, Vanston, and that he received a bribe of fifty pounds from him. This he has had the audacity to acknowledge himself, being the very amount of the sum to which the penalty against him was mitigated by Vanston's interference. In fact the scoundrel is already infamous in the country.”
“What, for receiving a bribe!” exclaimed Chevydale, looking at the agent with a significant smile; “and what, pray, is the distinction between him who gives and him who takes a bribe? Let us look at home a little, my good Fethertonge, and learn a little charity to those who err as we do. A man would think now to hear you attack M'Mahon for bribery, that you never had bribed a man in your life; and yet you know that it is the consciousness of bribery on our own part that prevents us from attempting to unseat Vanston.”
“That's all very true, I grant you,” replied the other; “but in the mean time we must keep up appearances. The question, so far as regards M'Mahon, is—not so much whether he is corrupt or not, as whether he has unseated you; that is the fatal fact against him; and if we allow that to pass without making him suffer for it, you will find that on the next election he may have many an imitator, and your chances will not be worth much—that's all.”
“Very well, Fethertonge,” replied the indolent and feeble-minded man, “I leave him to you; manage him or punish him as you like; but I do beg that you will let me hear no more about him. Keep his father, however, on the property; I insist on that; he is an honest man, for he voted for me; keep him on his farm at reasonable terms too, such,—of course, as he can live on.”
The reasonable terms proposed by Fethertonge were, however, such as old Tom M'Mahon could not with any prospect of independence encounter. Even this, however, was not to him the most depressing consideration. Faith had been wantonly and deliberately broken with him—the solemn words of a dying man had been disregarded—and, as Fethertonge had made him believe, by that son who had always professed to regard and honor his father's memory.
“I assure you, M'Mahon,” replied the agent, in the last interview he ever had with him, “I assure you I have done all in my power to bring matters about; but without avail. It is a painful thing to have to do with an obstinate man, M'Mahon; with a man who, although he seems quiet and easy, will and must have everything his own way.”
“Well, sir,” replied M'Mahon, “you know what his dying father's words wor to me.”
“And more than I know them, I can assure you,” he whispered, in a very significant voice, and with a nod of the head that seemed to say, “your landlord knows them as well as I do. I have done my duty, and communicated them to him, as I ought.”
M'Mahon shook his head in a melancholy manner, and said,—
“Well, sir, at any rate I know the worst. I couldn't now have any confidence or trust in such a man; I could depend upon neither his word or his promise; I couldn't look upon him as a friend, for he didn't prove himself one to my son when he stood in need of one. It's clear that he doesn't care about the welfare and prosperity of his tenantry; and for that raison—or rather for all these raisons put together—I'll join my son, and go to a country where, by all accounts, there's better prospects for them that's honest and industrious than there is in this unfortunate one of ours,—where the interest of the people is so much neglected—neglected! no, but never thought of at all! Good-bye, sir,” he added, taking up his hat, whilst the features of this sterling and honest man were overcast with a solemn and pathetic spirit, “don't consider me any longer your tenant. For many a long year has our names been—but no matther—the time is come at last, and the M'Mahon's of Carriglass and Ahadarra will be known there no more. It wasn't our fault; we wor willin' to live—oh! not merely willin' to live, but anxious to die there; but it can't be. Goodbye, sir.” And so they parted.
M'Mahon, on his return home, found Bryan, who now spent most of his time at Carriglass, before him. On entering the house his family, who were all assembled, saw by the expression of his face that his heart had been deeply moved, and was filled with sorrow.
“Bryan,” said he, “you are right—as indeed you always are. Childre',” he proceeded, “we must lave the place that we loved so much; where we have lived for hundreds of years. This counthry isn't one now to prosper in, as I said not long since—this very day. We must lave the ould places, an' as I tould Fethertonge, the M'Mahons of Ahadarra and Carriglass will be the M'Mahons of Ahadarra and Carriglass no more; but God's will be done! I must look to the intherest of you all, childre'; but, God help us, that's what I can't do here for the future. Every one of sense and substance is doin' so, an' why shouldn't we take care of ourselves as well as the rest? What we want here is encouragement and fair play; but fareer gair, it isn't to be had.”
The gloom which they read in his countenance was now explained, but this was not all; it immediately settled upon the other members of the family who were immediately moved,—all by sorrow, and some even to tears. Dora, who, notwithstanding what her brother had said with regard to his intention of emigrating, still maintained a latent hope that he might change his mind, and that a reconciliation besides might yet be brought about between him and Kathleen, now went to her father, and, with tears in her eyes, threw her arms about his neck, exclaiming: “Oh, father dear, don't think of leaving this place, for how could we leave it? What other country could we ever like as well? and my grandfather—here he's creepin' in, sure he's not the same man within the last few months,—oh, how could you think of bringin' him, now that he's partly in his grave, an' he,” she added, in a whisper full of compassion, “an' he partly dotin' with feebleness and age.”
“Hush!” said her father, “we must say nothing of it to him. That must be kept a secret from him, an' it's likely he won't notice the change.”
Kitty then went over, and laying her hand on her father's arm, said: “Father, for the love of God, don't take us from Carriglass and Ahadarra:—whatever the world has for us, whether for good or evil, let us bear it here.”
“Father, you won't bring us nor you won't go,” added Dora; “sure we never could be very miserable here, where we have all been so happy.”
“Poor Dora!” said Bryan, “what a mistake that is! I feel the contrary; for the very happiness that I and all of us enjoyed here, now only adds to what I'm sufferin'.”
“Childre',” said the father, “our landlord has broken his own father's dyin' promise—you all remember how full of delight I came home to you from Dublin, and how she that's gone”—he paused;—he covered his face with his open hands, through which the tears were seen to trickle. This allusion to their beloved mother was too much for them. Arthur and Michael sat in silence, not knowing exactly upon what grounds their father had formed a resolution, which, when proposed to him by Bryan, appeared to be one to which his heart could never lend its sanction. No sooner was their mother named, however, than they too became deeply moved, and when Kitty and Dora both rushed with an outcry of sorrow to their father, exclaiming, “Oh, father dear, think of her that's in the clay—for her sake, change your mind and don't take us to where we can never weep a tear over her blessed grave, nor ever kneel over it to offer a prayer within her hearin' for her soul!”
“Childre,” he exclaimed, wiping away his tears that had indeed flowed in all the bitterness of grief and undeserved affliction; “childre',” he replied, “you must be manly now; it's because I love you an' feels anxious to keep you from beggary and sorrow at a future time, and destitution and distress, such as we see among so many about us every day in the week, that I've made up my mind to go. Our landlord wont give us our farm barrin' at a rent that 'tid bring us down day by day, to poverty and distress like too many of our neighbors. We have yet some thrifle o' money left, as much as will, by all accounts, enable us to take—I mane to purchase a farm in America—an' isn't it betther for us to go there, and be independent, no matther what it may cost our hearts to suffer by doin' so, than to stay here until the few hundre' that I've got together is melted away out of my pocket into the picket of a landlord that never wanst throubles himself to know how we're gettin' on, or whether we're doin' well or ill. Then think of his conduct to Bryan, there; how he neglected him, and would let him go to ruin widout ever movin' a finger to save him from it. No, childre', undher sich a man I won't stay. Prepare yourselves, then, to lave this. In biddin' you to do so, I'm actin' for the best towards you all. I'm doin' my duty by you, and I expect for that raison, an' as obedient childre'—which I've ever found you—that you'll do your duty by me, an' give no further opposition to what I'm proposin' for your sakes. I know you're all loath—an' you will be loath—to lave this place; but do you think?—do you?—'that I—I—oh, my God!—do you think, I say, that I'll feel nothing when we go? Oh! little you know of me if you think so! but, as I said, we must do our duty. We see our neighbors fallin' away into poverty, and distress, and destitution day by day, and if we remain in this unfortunate country, we must only folly in their tracks, an' before long be as miserable and helpless as they are.”
His family were forced to admit the melancholy truth and strong sense of all he had uttered, and, although the resolution to which he had come was one of bitterness and sorrow to them all, yet from a principle of affection and duty towards him, they felt that any opposition on their part would have been unjustifiable and wrong.
“But, sure,” the old man proceeded, “there's more than I've mentioned yet, to send us away. Look at poor Bryan, there, how he was nearly ruined by the villany of some cowardly scoundrel, or scoundrels, who set up a still upon his farm; that's a black business, like many other black business that's a disgrace to the country—an inoffensive young man, that never made or did anything to make an enemy for himself, durin' his whole life! An' another thing, bekaise he voted for the man that saved him from destruction, as he ought to do, an' as I'm proud he did do, listen now to the blackguard outcry that's against him; ay, and by a crew of vagabonds that 'ud sell Christ himself, let alone their country, or their religion, if they were bribed by Protestant goold for it! Throth I'm sick of the counthry and the people; for instead of gettin' betther, it's worse they're gettin' every day. Make up your minds then, childre'; there's a curse on the counthry. Many o' the landlords are bad enough, too bad, and too neglectful, God knows; but sure the people themselves is as bad, an' as senseless on the other hand; aren't they blinded so much by their bad feelin's, and short-sighted passions, that it is often the best landlords they let out their revenge upon. Prepare then, childre'; for out of the counthry, or at any rate from among the people, the poverty and the misery that's in it, wid God's assistance, we'll go while we're able to do so.”