Cro' Martin was replete with every comfort and luxury. All its arrangements betokened wealth; not a single appliance of ease or enjoyment but was to be found within its well-ordered walls; and yet there was one want which seemed to mar all, and infuse a sense of almost dreary coldness over everything, and this was—the absence of a numerous family, the assemblage of various ages, which gives to a home its peculiar interest, embodying the hopes and fears and passions and motives of manhood, in every stage of existence, making up that little world within doors which emblematizes the great one without; but, with this singular advantage, of its being bound up in one holy sentiment of mutual love and affection.
This charm is it which gives the whole vitality to home,—this mingling of the temperaments of youth and manhood and deep age, blending hopes of the future with memories of the past, and making of every heart a portion of one human biography, in which many are sharers. To the stranger, who came to see the house and its gorgeous decorations, all seemed suggestive of habitable enjoyment. The vast drawing-rooms appeared as if only waiting for a splendid company; the dark wainscoted dining-room, with its noble fireplace of gigantic dimensions, looked the very scene where hospitable conviviality might be enacted; the library, calm, quiet, and secluded, seemed a spot wherein a student might have passed a life long. Even in the views that presented themselves at the several windows, there was a certain appropriateness to the character of the room, and the same importunate question still arose to one's mind: Who is there to enjoy all this? What words of glad welcome echo through this vaulted hall, what happy daughter sings through these gilded chambers, where is the social pleasantry that circles the blazing fire of the ample hearth? Alas! all was sombre, splendid, and dreary. No, we are wrong!—not all! There was one corner of this great house where cheerfulness was the very type of comfort. It was a small and not lofty room, whose two windows projected beyond the walls, giving a wide view over the swelling landscape for miles of space. Here the furniture was of the most ordinary kind, but scrupulously neat and well kept. The chairs—there were but four of them—all with arms and deep cushions; the walnut table a perfect mirror of polish; the cloth curtains, that closed the windows and concealed the door, massive and heavy-folded,—all breathed of snugness; while the screen that surrounded the fire had other perfections than those of comfortable seclusion, containing a most strange collection of the caricatures of the time, and the period before the Union. It is but necessary to add that this was Mrs. Broon's apartment,—the snug chamber where old Catty enjoyed herself, after the fatigues and duties of the day. Here now she sat at tea, beside a cheerful fire, the hissing kettle on the hob harmonizing pleasantly with the happy purring of an enormous cat, who sat winking at the blaze; and while evidently inconvenienced by the heat, lacking energy to retreat from it. Catty had just obtained the newspaper,—as the master had gone to dinner,—and was really about to enjoy a comfortable evening. Far from devoid of social qualities, or a liking for companionship, she still lived almost entirely to herself, the other servants being chiefly English, whose habits and ways were all strange to her, and all whose associations were widely different from her own. Catty Broon had thus obtained a reputation for unsociability which she by no means deserved, but to which, it must be owned, she was totally indifferent. In fact, if they deemed her morose and disagreeable, she, in turn, held them still more cheaply, calling them a set of lazy devils that “were only in each other's way,” and “half of them not worth their salt.”
Catty had also survived her generation; all her friends of former years had either died or emigrated, and except two or three of the farm-servants, none of the “ould stock,” as she called them, were in existence. This brief explanation will show that Catty's comparative isolation was not entirely a matter of choice. If a sense of loneliness did now and then cross her mind, she never suffered it to dwell there, but chased away the unpleasant thought by some active duty; or if the season of that were over, by the amusing columns of the “Intelligence,”—a journal which realized to Mrs. Broon's conceptions the very highest order of literary merit.
Catty did not take much interest in politics; she had a vague, dreamy kind of notion that the game of party was a kind of disreputable gambling, and Parliament itself little better than a “Hell,” frequented by very indifferent company. Indeed, she often said it would be “well for us if there was no politics, and maybe then, there would be no taxes either.” The news she liked was the price of farming-stock at fairs and markets,—what Mr. Hynes got for his “top lot” of hoggets, and what Tom Healey paid for the “finest heifers ever seen on the fair-green.” These, and the accidents—a deeply interesting column—were her peculiar tastes; and her memory was stored with every casualty, by sea, fire, and violence, that had graced the “Intelligence” for forty years back; in truth they formed the stations of her chronology, and she would refer to events as having occurred the same year that Joe Ryan was hanged, or “the very Christmas that Hogan fired at Captain Crossley.” An inundation of great extent also figured in these memorabilia, and was constantly referred to, by her saying, “This or that happened the year after the Flood,” suggesting a rather startling impression as to her longevity.
On the evening we now refer to, the newspaper was more than commonly adorned with these incidents. Public news having failed, private calamities were invoked to supply the place. Catty was, therefore, fortunate. There was something, too, not altogether unpleasant in the whistling storm that raged without, and the heavy plashing of the rain as it beat upon the window-panes. Without imputing to her, as would be most unjust, the slightest touch of ill-nature, she felt a heightened sense of her own snugness as she drew closer to the bright hearth, while she read of “a dreadful gale in the Bay of Biscay.”
It was just in the most exciting portion of the description that her door was rudely opened, and the heavy curtain dashed aside with a daring hand; and Catty, startled by the sudden interruption, called angrily out,—
“Who's there?—who are ye at all?”
“Can't you guess, Catty?” cried out a pleasant voice. “Don't you know that there's only one in this house here who 'd dare to enter in such a fashion?”
“Oh, Miss Mary, is it you? And, blessed Virgin, what a state ye 're in!” cried she, as she gazed at the young girl, who, throwing away her riding-hat, wrung out the rain from her long and silky hair, while she laughed merrily at old Catty's dismayed countenance.
“Why, where in the world were you—what happened you, darling?” said Catty, as she assisted her to remove the dripping costume.
“I was at the Wood, Catty, and up to the quarries, and round by Cronebawn, and then, seeing a storm gathering, I thought I 'd turn homeward, but one of Kit Sullivan's children—my little godchild, you know—detained me to hear him recite some verses he had learned for my birthday; and, what with one thing and another, it was pitch dark when I reached the 'New Cut,' and then, to my annoyance, I found the bridge had just been carried away—there, Catty, now for a pair of your own comfortable slippers—and, as I was saying to you, there was no bridge!”
“The bridge gone!” exclaimed Catty, in horror.
“All Tom Healey's fault. I told him that the arch had not span enough, and that the buttresses would never stand the first heavy fall of rain from the mountains, and there 's not a vestige of them now!”
“And what did you do?”
“I rode for the Low Meadows, Catty, with all speed. I knew that the river, not being confined there between narrow banks, and spreading over a wide surface, couldn't be very deep. Nor was it. It never touched the girths but once, when we got into a hole. But she is such a rare good beast, that little Sorrel; she dashed through everything, and I don't think I took forty minutes from Kane's Mill to this door, though I never saw a spot of the road all the while, except when the lightning showed it. There now, like a good old dear, don't wring your hands and say, 'Blessed hour!' but just put some more tea in the teapot, and fetch me your brown loaf!”
“But surely you 'll die of cold!—you 'll be in a fever!”
“Nonsense, Catty; I have been out in rain before this. I'm more provoked about that bridge than all else. My excellent aunt will have such a laugh at my engineering skill, when she hears of it. Can't be helped, however. And so there's a dinner-party upstairs, I hear. Fanny told me there were three strangers.”
“So I hear. There's a lawyer from Dublin; and a lady from I don't know where; and young Nelligan, old Dan's son. I 'm sure I never thought I 'd see the day he 'd be eating his dinner at Cro' Martin.”
“And why not, Catty? What is there in his manners and conduct that should not make him good company for any one here?”
“Is n't he the son of a little huckster in Oughterard? Old Dan, that I remember without a shoe to his foot?”
“And is it a reproach to him that he has made a fortune by years of patient industry and toil?”
“In-dus-try! toil! indeed,” said Catty, sneeringly. “How much in-dus-try or toil there is, weighing out snuff and sugar in a snug shop. Ayeh! he's an old nig-gar, the same Dan. I know him well.”
“But that is no reason why you should disparage his son, Catty, who is a young gentleman of the highest ability and great promise. I never heard you speak so ungenerously before.”
“Well, well, darling, don't look angry with your ould Catty, anyway. It isn't for the like of Dan Nelligan, or his son either, you'd be cross with me!”
“Never, Catty, never,—for anybody or anything,” said the young girl, taking her hand with both her own. “But you have n't told me who the lady is. How did she arrive, and when?”
“I know nothing of her. Peter came to say that the blue bedroom was wanting to-night, and he wished to torment me into asking who for?—but I wouldn't, just for that same; and so I gave him the keys without a word.”
“I wonder if this note, that I found on my dressing-table, will explain anything,” said Mary, as she proceeded to break the seal. “Of all the absurd ways of my Lady aunt, she has not a more ridiculous one than this trick of writing little notes, instead of speaking. She sees me every day, and might surely say whatever she wanted to say, without embalming it in a despatch. This, I perceive, is number four hundred and seventy-six, and I presume she 's correct in the score. Only think, Catty,—four hundred little epistles like this!”
And with these words she carelessly unfolded the letter and began to read it. All her indifference of manner, however, soon gave way to an expression of considerable eagerness, and she had no sooner finished the epistle than she recommenced and reread it.
“You 'd never guess what tidings this brings me, Catty,” said she, laying down the paper, and looking with an expression half sad, half comical.
“Maybe I might, then,” said Catty, shaking her head knowingly.
“Come, out with your guess, then, old lady, and I promise to venerate your wisdom ever after if you be right,—that is, if nobody has already given you a hint on the subject.”
“Not one in the world,” said Catty, solemnly; “I pledge you my word and faith I never heard a syllable about it.”
“About it! about what?”
“About what's in the letter there,” said Catty, stoutly.
“You are therefore quite certain that you know it,” said Mary, smiling, “so now let's have your interpretation.”
“It 's a proposial,” said Catty, with a slight wink.
“A what!”
“A proposial—of marriage, I mean.”
But before the words were out, Mary burst into a fit of laughter, so hearty and with such good-will that poor Catty felt perfectly ashamed of herself.
“My dear Catty,” said she, at length, “you must have been reading fairy tales this morning; nothing short of such bright literature could have filled your mind with these imaginings. The object of the note is, I assure you, of a quite different kind;” and here she ran her eye once more over the epistle. “Yes,” continued she, “it is written in my dear aunt's own peculiar style, and begins with a 'declaratory clause,' as I think Mr. Scanlan would call it, expressive of my lamentably neglected education, and then proceeds to the appropriate remedy, by telling me that I am to have a governess!”
“A what!” cried Catty, in angry amazement.
“A governess, Catty,—not a governor, as you suspected.”
“Ayeh, ayeh!” cried the old woman, wringing her hands; “what's this for? Don't you know how to govern yourself by this time? And what can they teach you that you don't understand already?”
“Ah, my dear Catty,” said the young girl, sadly, “it is a sad subject you would open there,—one that I have wept over many a dreary hour! No one knows—no one even could guess—how deeply I have deplored my illiterate condition. Nor was it,” added she, ardently, “till I had fashioned out a kind of existence of my own—active, useful, and energetic—that I could bury the thought of my utter want of education. Not even you, Catty, could fathom all the tears this theme has cost me, nor with what a sinking of the heart I have thought over my actual unfitness for my station.”
“Arrah, don't provoke me! don't drive me mad!” cried the old woman, in real anger. “There never was one yet as fit for the highest place as yourself; and it is n't me alone that says it, but hundreds of—”
“Hundreds of dear, kind, loving hearts,” broke in Mary, “that would measure my poor capacity by my will to serve them. But no matter, Catty; I 'll not try to undeceive them. They shall think of me with every help their own affection may lend them, and I will not love them less for the overestimate.”
As she spoke these words, she buried her face between her hands; but the quick heaving of her chest showed how deep was her emotion. The old woman respected her sorrow too deeply to interrupt her, and for several minutes not a word was spoken on either side. At last Mary raised her head, and throwing back the long, loose hair, which in heavy masses shaded her face, said with a firm and resolute voice,—
“I 'd have courage to go to school to-morrow, Catty, and begin as a mere child to learn, if I knew that another was ready to take my place here. But who is to look after these poor people, who are accustomed now to see me amongst them, on the mountains, in the fields, at their firesides?—who gain new spirit for labor when I ride down in the midst of them, and look up, cheered, by seeing me, even from a sick-bed. Her Ladyship would say, Mr. Henderson could do all this far better than myself.”
“Mr. Henderson, indeed!” exclaimed Catty, indignantly; “the smooth-tongued old rogue!”
“And perhaps he might, in England,” resumed Mary; “but not here, Catty,—not here! We care less for benefits than the source from which they spring. We Irish cherish the love of motives as well as actions; and, above all, we cherish the links that bind the lowliest in the land with the highest, and make both better by the union.”
She poured out these words with rapid impetuosity, rather talking to herself than addressing her companion; then, suddenly changing her tone, she added,—
“Besides, Catty, they are used to me, and I to them. A new face and a new voice would not bring the same comfort to them.”
“Never, never,” muttered the old woman to herself.
“And I 'll not desert them.”
“That you won't, darling,” said the old woman, kissing her hand passionately, while tears swam in her eyes, and trickled down her cheeks.
“There is but one thought, Catty, that makes me at all faint-hearted about this, and whenever it crosses me I do feel very low and depressed.” She paused, and then murmured the words, “My father!”
“Your father, my darling! What about him?”
“It is thinking, Catty, of his return; an event that ought to be—and would be, too—the very happiest of my life; a day for whose coming I never sleep without a prayer; and yet, even this bright prospect has its dark side, when I recall all my own deficiencies, and how different he will find his daughter from what he had expected her.”
“May the blessed saints grant me patience!” cried Catty, breaking in. “Isn't it too bad to hear you talking this way? Sure, don't I know Master Barry well? Didn't I nurse him, and wasn't I all as one as his own mother to him, and don't I know that you are his own born image? 'Tis himself and no other ye are every minute of the day.”
“And even that, Catty,” said Mary, smiling, “might fail to satisfy him. It is something very different indeed he might have imagined his daughter. I'm sure nobody can be more ignorant than I am, of what a person in my station ought to know. I cannot hide this from myself in my sad moments. I do not try to do so, but I have always relied upon the consolation that, to an existence such as mine is like to be, these deficiencies do not bring the same sense of shame, the same painful consciousness of inferiority, as if I were to mingle with the world of my equals. But if he were to come back,—he, who has seen society in every shape and fashion,—and find me the poor, unlettered, unread, untaught thing I am, unable to follow his very descriptions of far-away lands without confusion and mistake; unable to benefit by his reflections from very want of previous knowledge,—oh, Catty dearest, what a miserable thing is self-love after all, when it should thus thrust itself into the foreground, where very different affections alone should have the place.”
“He 'd love you like his own heart,” said Catty. “Nobody knows him like me; and if there was ever one made for him to dote on, it's your own self.”
“Do you indeed think so?” cried Mary, eagerly.
“Do I know it—could I swear it?” said Catty. “He was never much given to study himself, except it was books of travel like 'Robinson Crusoe,' and the like; and then, after reading one of them books he 'd be off for days together, and we 'd be looking for him over the whole country, and maybe find him in the middle of Kyle's Wood up a tree; or once, indeed, it was in the island of Lettermullen we got him. He built a mud-house, and was living there with a goat and two rabbits that he reared himself, and if he was n't miserable when they brought him away home! I remember his words well,—'Maybe,' says he, 'the time will come that I 'll go where you can't come after me;' and ye see that's what he's done, for nobody knows where he wasn't wandering these last eight or nine years.”
When Catty got upon this theme she could not be brought to quit it,—nor, indeed, did Mary try,—for though she had heard these stories of her father's boyish days over and over again, she never wearied of them; they had all the fascination of romance for her, with the stronger interest that grew out of her love for one who, she was told, had so loved herself. Besides this, she felt in her own heart the same promptings to a life of action and adventure. All the incidents and accidents of an eventful existence were the very things to delight her, and one of her happiest daydreams was to fancy herself her father's companion in his wanderings by flood and field.
And thus they sat till a late hour of the night talking and listening, old Catty answering each inquiry of the young girl by some anecdote or trait of him she still persisted in calling “Master Barry,” till, in the ardor of listening, Mary herself caught up the phrase, and so designated her own father.
“How unlike my uncle in everything!” exclaimed Mary, as she reflected over some traits the old woman had just recorded. “And were they not very fond of each other?”
“That they were: at least I can answer for Master Barry's love; and to be sure, if having a reason was worth anything, your uncle ought to love him more than one man ever did another.” Old Catty uttered these words with a slow and almost muttering accent; they seemed as if the expression of a thought delivered involuntarily—almost unconsciously.
Mary was attracted by the unwonted solemnity of her accent, but still more by an expression of intense meaning which gathered over the old woman's brows and forehead. “Ay, ay,” muttered she, still to herself, “there's few brothers would do it. Maybe there's not another living but himself would have done it.”
“And what was it, Catty?” asked Mary, boldly.
“Eh!—what was I saying, darling?” said Catty, rousing herself to full consciousness.
“You were telling of my father, and some great proof of affection he gave my uncle.”
“To be sure he did,” said the old woman, hastily. “They were always fond of each other, as brothers ought to be.”
“But this one particular instance of love,—what was it, Catty?”
The old woman started, and looked eagerly around the room, as though to assure herself that they were alone; then, drawing her chair close to Mary's, she said, in a low voice: “Don't ask me any more about them things, darling. 'T is past and gone many a year now, and I 'd rather never think of it more, for I 've a heavy heart after it.”
“So, then, it is a secret, Catty?” said Mary, half proudly.
“A secret, indeed,” said Catty, shaking her head mournfully.
“Then you need only to have said so, and I'd not have importuned you to tell it; for, to say truth, Catty, I never knew you had any secrets from me.”
“Nor have I another, except this, darling,” said Catty; and she buried her face within her hands. And now both sat in silence for some minutes,—a most painful silence to each. At last Mary arose, and, although evidently trying to overcome it, a feeling of constraint was marked in her features.
“You'd never guess how late it is, Catty,” said she, trying to change the current of her thoughts. “You 'd not believe it is past three o'clock; how pleasantly we must have talked, to forget time in this way!”
But the old woman made no reply, and it was clear that she had never heard the words, so deeply was she sunk in her own reflections.
“This poor hat of mine will scarcely do another day's service,” said Mary, as she looked at it half laughingly. “Nor is my habit the fresher of its bath in the 'Red River;' and the worst of it is, Catty, I have overdrawn my quarter's allowance, and must live on, in rags, till Easter. I see, old lady, you have no sympathies to waste on me and my calamities this evening,” added she, gayly, “and so I'll just go to bed and, if I can, dream pleasantly.”
“Rags, indeed,” said Catty. “It's well it becomes you to wear rags!” and her eyes sparkled with indignant passion. “Faith, if it comes to that,”—here she suddenly paused, and a pale hue spread over her features like a qualm of faintish sickness,—“may the Holy Mother give me help and advice; for sometimes I'm nigh forgetting myself!”
“My dear old Catty,” said Mary, fondly, “don't fret about me and my foolish speech. I only said it in jest. I have everything,—far more than I want; a thousand times more than I desire. And my excellent aunt never said a truer thing in her life than when she declared that 'everybody spoiled me.' Now, good-night.” And kissing the old woman affectionately, Mary gathered up the stray fragments of her riding-gear, and hurried away, her merry voice heard cheerfully as she wended her way up many a stair and gallery to her own chamber.
If Mary Martin's character had any one quality preeminently remarkable, it was the absence of everything like distrust and suspicion. Frankness and candor itself in all her dealings, she never condescended to impute secret motives to another; and the very thought of anything like mystery was absolutely repugant to her nature. For the very first time in her life, then, she left old Catty Broon with a kind of uneasy, dissatisfied impression. There was a secret, and she was somehow or other concerned in it; so much was clear. How could she convince the old woman that no revelation, however disagreeable in itself, could be as torturing as a doubt? “Can there be anything in my position or circumstances here that I am not aware of? Is there a mystery about me in any way?” The very imagination of such a thing was agony. In vain she tried to chase away the unwelcome thought by singing, as she went, by thinking over plans for the morrow, by noting down, as she did each night, some stray records of the past day; still Catty's agitated face and strange emotion rose before her, and would not suffer her to be at rest.
To a day of great excitement and fatigue now succeeded a sleepless, feverish night, and morning broke on her unrefreshed, and even ill.
Can any one tell us what has become of that high conversational power for which Ireland, but more especially Dublin, was once celebrated? Have the brilliant talkers of other days left no successors? Has that race of delightful con-vivialists gone and disappeared forever? Or are we only enduring an interregnum of dulness, the fit repose, perhaps, after a period of such excitement? The altered circumstances of the country will doubtless account for much of this change. The presence of a Parliament in Ireland imparted a dignity and importance to society, while it secured to social intercourse the men who made that Senate illustrious. The Bar, too, of former days, was essentially the career of the highest class, of those who had the ambition of political success without the necessity of toiling for it through the laborious paths of the law; and thus the wit, the brilliancy, and the readiness which gives conversation its charm, obtained the high culture which comes of a learned profession, and the social intercourse with men of refined understanding.
With the Union this spirit died out. Some of the brightest and gayest retired from the world, sad, dispirited, and depressed; some felt that a new and very different career was to open before them, and addressed themselves to the task of conforming to new habits and acquiring new influences; and others, again, sought in the richer and greater country the rewards which they once were satisfied to reap in their own. With the Union, society in Dublin—using the word in its really comprehensive sense—ceased to exist. The great interests of a nation departed, men sank to the level of the small topics that engaged them, and gradually the smallest and narrowest views of mere local matters usurped the place of great events and liberal speculations. Towards the end of the first quarter of the present century, a few of those who had once made companionship with Curran and Grattan and Lysaght and Parsons were still in good health and vigor. A fine, high-hearted, manly class they were, full of that peculiar generosity of character which has ever marked the true Irish gentleman, and with a readiness in humor and a genial flow of pleasantry which rendered their society delightful.
Of this school—and probably the last, for he was then the Father of the Bar—was Valentine Repton, a man whose abilities might have won for him the very highest distinctions, but who, partly through indolence, and partly through a sturdy desire to be independent of all party, had all his life rejected every offer of advancement, and had seen his juniors pass on to the highest ranks of the profession, while he still wore his stuff-gown, and rose to address the Court from the outer benches.
He was reported in early life to have professed very democratic opinions, for which he more than once had incurred the deep displeasure of the authorities of the University. The principles of the French Revolution had, however, been gradually toned down in him by time, and probably by a very aristocratic contempt for the party who advocated them; so that soon after he entered on his career at the Bar he seemed to have abandoned politics; nor, except by a sly jest or an epigram upon a party leader, no matter of which side, did he ever advert to the contests of statecraft.
Though closely approaching seventy, he was hale and vigorous, his gray eyes quick and full of fire, his voice clear, and his whole air and bearing that of one many years younger. He had been a “beau” in his youth, and there was in the accurately powdered hair, the lace ruffles in which he still appeared at dinner, and the well-fitting silk stocking, an evidence that he had not forgotten the attractions of dress. At the Bar he still maintained the very highest place. His powers of cross-examination were very great; his management of a jury unrivalled. A lifelong acquaintance with Dublin had familiarized him with the tone and temper of every class of its citizens, and had taught him the precise kind of argument, and the exact nature of the appeal to address to each. As he grew older, perhaps he did not observe all his wonted discretion in the use of this subtle power, and somewhat presumed upon his own skill. Nor was he so scrupulous in his deference to the Court,—a feature which had once pre-eminently distinguished him; but, upon the whole, he had kept wonderfully clear of the proverbial irritability of age, and was, without an exception, the favorite amongst his brethren.
The only touch of years observable about his mind was a fondness for recurring to incidents or events in which he himself had borne a part. A case in which he held a brief, the dinner at which he had been brilliant, the epigram he had dashed off in Lady Somebody's drawing-room, were bright spots he could not refrain from adverting to; but, generally speaking, he had skill enough to introduce these without any seeming effort or any straining, and thus strangers, at least, were in wonderment at his endless stores of anecdote and illustration. No man better than he knew how to throw a great name into the course of a conversation, and make an audience for himself, by saying, “I remember one day at the Priory with Curran”—or, “We were dining with poor Grattan at Tinnehinch, when—” “As Flood once remarked to me—” and so on.
The flattery of being addressed by one who had stood in such intimate relation to those illustrious men never failed of success. The most thoughtless and giddy hearers were at once arrested by such an opening, and Repton was sure of listeners in every company.
The man who finds his place in every society is unquestionably a clever man. The aptitude to chime in with the tone of others infers a high order of humor,—of humor in its real sense; meaning, thereby, the faculty of appreciating, and even cultivating, the individual peculiarities of those around him, and deriving from their display a high order of pleasure.
From these scattered traits let my reader conjure up Valentine Repton before him, and imagine the bustling, active, and brisk-looking old gentleman whose fidgetiness nearly drove Martin mad, as they held converse together in the library after breakfast. Now seated, now rising to pace the room, or drawing nigh the window to curse the pelting rain without, Repton seemed the incarnation of uneasiness.
“Very splendid—very grand—very sumptuous—no doubt,” said he, ranging his eyes over the gorgeous decorations of the spacious apartment, “but would kill me in a month; what am I saying?—in a week!”
“What would kill you, Repton?” said Martin, languidly.
“This life of yours, Martin,—this sombre quiet, this unbroken stillness, this grave-like monotony. Why, man, where 's your neighborhood? where are your gentry friends?”
“Cosby Blake, of Swainestown, is abroad,” said Martin, with an indolent drawl. “Randal Burke seldom comes down here now. Rickman, I believe, is in the Fleet. They were the nearest to us!”
“What a country! and you are spending—What did you tell me last night,—was it upwards of ten thousand a year here?”
“What with planting, draining, bridging, reclaiming waste lands, and other improvements, the wages of last year alone exceeded seven thousand!”
“By Jove! it 's nigh incredible,” said the lawyer, energetically. “My dear Martin, can't you perceive that all this is sheer waste,—so much good money actually thrown into Lough Corrib? Tell me, frankly, how long have you been pursuing this system of improvement?”
“About three years; under Mary's management.”
“And the results,—what of them?”
“It is too early to speak of that; there's Kyle's Wood, for instance,—we have enclosed that at considerable cost. Of course we can't expect that the mere thinnings can repay us, the first year or two.”
“And your reclaimed land,—how has it prospered?”
“Not over well. They pushed draining so far that they 've left a large tract perfectly barren and unproductive.”
“And the harbor,—the pier I saw yesterday?”
“That 's a bad business,—it's filling up the bay with sand! but we'll alter it in summer.”
“And now for the people themselves,—are they better off, better fed, clothed, housed, and looked after, than before?”
“Mary says so. She tells me that there is a wonderful change for the better in them.”
“I don't believe a word of it, Martin,—not a word of it. Ireland is not to be redeemed by her own gentry. The thing is sheer impossibility! They both know each other too well. Do you understand me? They are too ready to make allowances for shortcomings that have their source in some national prejudice; whereas your Saxon or your Scotchman would scout such a plea at once. Ireland wants an alternative, Martin,—an alternative; and, amidst our other anomalies, not the least singular is the fact that the Englishman, who knows nothing about us, nor ever will know anything, is precisely the man to better our condition.”
“These are strange opinions to hear from your lips, Repton. I never heard any man so sarcastic as yourself on English ignorance regarding Ireland.”
“And you may hear me again on the same theme whenever you vouchsafe me an audience,” said the lawyer, sharply. “It was but the other day I gave our newly arrived secretary, Mr. Muspratt, a gentle intimation of my sentiments on that score. We were dining at the Lodge. I sat next his Excellency, who, in the course of dinner, directed my attention to a very graphic picture the secretary was drawing of the misery he had witnessed that very day, coming up from Carlow. He did the thing well, I must own. He gave the famished looks, the rags, the wretchedness, all their due; and he mingled his pathos and indignation with all the skill of an artist; while he actually imparted a Raffaelle effect to his sketch, as he portrayed the halt, the maimed, the blind, and the palsied that crowded around the carriage as he changed horses, exclaiming, by way of peroration, 'Misery and destitution like this no man ever witnessed before, all real and unfeigned as it was sure to be.'
“'Naas is a miserable place, indeed,' said I, for he looked directly towards me for a confirmation of his narrative.
“'There is no denying one word the gentleman has said; I came up that way from circuit three weeks ago, and was beset in the same spot, and in the same manner as we have just heard. I can't attempt such a description as Mr. Muspratt has given us; but I will say that there was not a human deformity or defect that did n't appear to have its representative in that ragged gathering, all clamorous and eager for aid. I looked at them for a while in wonderment, and at last I threw out a “tenpenny” in the midst. The “blind” fellow saw it first, but the “lame cripple” had the foot of him, and got the money!'”
Repton leaned back in his chair, and laughed heartily as he finished. “I only wish you saw his face, Martin; and, indeed, his Excellency's too. The aides-de-camp laughed; they were very young, and could n't help it.”
“He 'll not make you a chief justice, Repton,” said Martin, slyly.
“I 'll take care he don't,” said the other. “Summum jus summa injuria. The chief justice is a great humbug, or a great abuse, whichever way you like to render it.”
“And yet they'd be glad to promote you,” said Martin, thoughtfully.
“To be sure they would, sir; delighted to place me where they had no fear of my indiscretions. But your judge should be ever a grave animal. The temptation to a joke should never sit on the ermine. As Flood once remarked to me of old Romney, 'A man, sir,' said he,—and Flood had a semi-sarcastic solemnity always about him,—'a man, sir, who has reversed the law of physics; for he rose by his gravity, and only fell by his lightness.' Very epigrammatic and sharp, that. Ah, Martin, they don't say these things nowadays. By the way, who is the young fellow who dined with us yesterday?”
“His name is Nelligan; the son of one of our Oughterard neighbors.”
“Pleasing manners, gentle, too, and observant,” said Repton, with the tone of one delivering a judgment to be recorded.
“He's more than that,” said Martin; “he is the great prize man of the year in Trinity. You must have surely heard of his name up in town.”
“I think somebody did speak of him to me,—recommend him, in some shape or other,” said Repton, abstractedly; “these things are so easily forgotten; for, to say the truth, I hold very cheaply all intellectual efforts accomplished by great preparation. The cramming, the grinding, the plodding, the artificial memory work, and the rest of it, detract terribly, in my estimation, from the glory of success. Give me your man of impromptu readiness, never unprepared, never at a loss. The very consciousness of power is double power.” And as he spoke he drew himself up, threw his head back, and stared steadfastly at Martin, as though to say, “Such is he who now stands before you.”
Martin was amused at the display of vanity, and had there been another there to have participated in the enjoyment, would have willingly encouraged him to continue the theme; but he was alone, and let it pass.
“I 'll make a note of that young man. Mulligan, is n't it?”
“Nelligan.”
“To be sure. I 'll remember poor Curran's epigram:—
Glorious fellow, sir; the greatest of all the convivialists of his time, was Curran. A host in himself; but, as he once said, you could n't always depend on the 'elevation.'”
Martin smiled faintly; he relished the lawyer's talk, but he felt that it demanded an amount of attention on his part that wearied him. Anything that cost him trouble was more or less of a “bore;” and he already began to wish for his accustomed ease and indolence.
“Well, Repton,” said he, “you wished to see the quarries, I think?”
“To see everything and everybody, sir, and with my own eyes, too. As Lysaght said, when I read the book of nature, 'I let no man note my brief for me.'”
“I thought of being your companion, myself; but somehow, this morning, my old enemy, the gout, is busy again; however, you 'll not regret the exchange, Repton, when I give you in charge to my niece. She 'll be but too happy to do the honors of our poor country to so distinguished a visitor.”
“And a very artful plan to put me in good humor with everything,” said Repton, laughing. “Well, I consent. I offer myself a willing victim to any amount of seduction. How are we to go?—do we drive, walk, or ride?”
“If Mary be consulted, she'll say ride,” said Martin; “but perhaps—”
“I'm for the saddle, too,” broke in Repton. “Give me something active and lively, light of mouth and well up before, and I'll show you, as Tom Parsons said, that we can cut as good a figure at the wall as the 'bar.'”
“I 'll go and consult my niece, then,” said Martin, hastening out of the room, to conceal the smile which the old man's vanity had just provoked.
Mary was dressed in her riding-habit, and about to leave her room as her uncle entered it.
“I have just come in the nick of time, Molly, I see,” cried he. “I want you to lionize an old friend of mine, who has the ambition to 'do' Connemara under your guidance.”
“What a provoke!” said Mary, half aloud. “Could he not wait for another day, uncle? I have to go over to Glencalgher and Kilduff; besides, there's that bridge to be looked after, and they 've just come to tell me that the floods have carried away the strong paling around the larch copse. Really, this old gentleman must wait.” It was a rare thing for Mary Martin to display anything either of impatience or opposition to her uncle. Her affection for him was so blended with respect that she scarcely ever transgressed in this wise; but this morning she was ill and irritable,—a restless, feverish night following on a day of great fatigue and as great excitement,—and she was still suffering, and her nerves jarring when he met her.
“But I assure you, Molly, you 'll be pleased with the companionship,” began Martin.
“So I might at another time; but I 'm out of sorts to-day, uncle. I 'm cross and ill-tempered, and I 'll have it out on Mr. Henderson,—that precious specimen of his class. Let Mr. Nelligan perform cicerone, or persuade my Lady to drive him out; do anything you like with him, except give him to me.”
“And yet that is exactly what I have promised him. As for Nelligan, they are not suited to each other; so come, be a good girl, and comply.”
“If I must,” said she, pettishly. “And how are we to go?”
“He proposes to ride, and bespeaks something lively for his own mount.”
“Indeed! That sounds well!” cried she, with more animation. “There 's 'Cropper' in great heart; he 'll carry him to perfection. I 'll have a ring-snaffle put on him, and my word for it but he 'll have a pleasant ride.”
“Take care, Molly; take care that he's not too fresh. Remember that Repton is some dozen years or more my senior.”
“Let him keep him off the grass and he 'll go like a lamb. I'll not answer for him on the sward, though; but I 'll look to him, uncle, and bring him back safe and sound.” And, so saying, Mary bounded away down the stairs, and away to the stables, forgetting everything of her late discontent, and only eager on the plan before her.
Martin was very far from satisfied about the arrangement for his friend's equitation; nor did the aspect of Repton himself, as attired for the road, allay that sense of alarm; the old lawyer's costume being a correct copy of the colored prints of those worthies who figured in the early years of George the Third's reign,—a gray cloth spencer being drawn over his coat, fur-collared and cuffed, high riding-boots of black polished leather, reaching above the knee, and large gauntlets of bright yellow doeskin, completing an equipment which Martin had seen nothing resembling for forty years back.
“A perfect cavalier, Repton!” exclaimed he, smiling.
“We once could do a little that way,” said the other, with a touch of vanity. “In our early days, Martin, hunting was essentially a gentleman's pastime. The meet was not disfigured by aspiring linen drapers or ambitious hardwaremen, and the tone of the field was the tone of society; but nous avons changé tout cela. Sporting men, as they call themselves, have descended to the groom vocabulary; and the groom morals, and we, of the old school, should only be laughed at for the pedantry of good manners and good English, did we venture amongst them.”
“My niece will put a different estimate on your companionship; and here she comes. Molly, my old and valued friend, Mr. Repton.”
“I kiss your hand, Miss Martin,” said he, accompanying the speech by the act, with all the grace of a courtier. “It's worth while being an old fellow, to be able to claim these antiquated privileges.”
There was something in the jaunty air and well-assumed gallantry of the old lawyer which at once pleased Mary, who accepted his courtesy with a gracious smile. She had been picturing to herself a very different kind of companion, and was well satisfied with the reality.
“I proposed to young Mr. Nelligan to join us,” said Repton, as he conducted her to the door; “but it seems he is too deeply intent upon some question or point of law or history—I forget which—whereupon we differed last night, and has gone into the library to search for the solution of it. As for me, Miss Martin, I am too young for such dry labors; or, as the Duc de Nevers said, when somebody rebuked him for dancing at seventy, 'Only think what a short time is left me for folly.'”
We do not propose to chronicle, the subjects or the sayings by which the old lawyer beguiled the way; enough if we say that Mary was actually delighted with his companionship. The racy admixture of humor and strong common-sense, acute views of life, flavored with, now a witty remark, now a pertinent anecdote, were conversational powers totally new to her. Nor was he less charmed with her. Independently of all the pleasure it gave him to find one who heard him with such true enjoyment, and relished all his varied powers of amusing, he was equally struck with the high-spirited enthusiasm and generous ardor of the young girl. She spoke of the people and the country with all the devotion of one who loved both; and if at times with more of hopefulness than he himself could feel, the sanguine forecast but lent another charm to her fascination.
He listened with astonishment as she explained to him the different works then in progress,—the vast plans for drainage; the great enclosures for planting; the roads projected here, the bridges there. At one place were strings of carts, conveying limestone for admixture with the colder soil of low grounds; at another they met asses loaded with seaweed for the potato land. There was movement and occupation on every side. In the deep valleys, on the mountains, in the clefts of the rocky shore, in the dark marble quarries, hundreds of people were employed; and by these was Mary welcomed with eager enthusiasm the moment she appeared. One glance at their delighted features was sufficient to show that theirs was no counterfeit joy. Wherever she went the same reception awaited her; nor did she try to conceal the happiness it conferred.
“This is very wonderful, very strange, and very fascinating, Miss Martin,” said Repton, as they moved slowly through a rocky path, escarped from the side of the mountain; “but pardon me if I venture to suggest one gloomy anticipation in the midst of such brightness. What is to become of all these people when you leave them,—as leave them you will and must, one day?”
“I never mean to do so,” said Mary, resolutely.
“Stoutly spoken,” said he, smiling; “but, unfortunately, he who hears it could be your grandfather. And again I ask, how is this good despotism to be carried on when the despot abdicates? Nay, nay; there never was a very beautiful girl yet, with every charm under heaven, who did n't swear she 'd never marry; so let us take another alternative. Your uncle may go to live in London,—abroad. He may sell Cro' Martin—”
“Oh, that is impossible! He loves the old home of his family and his name too dearly; he would be incapable of such a treason to his house!”
“Now, remember, my dear young lady, you are speaking to the most suspectful, unimpulsive, and ungenerously disposed of all natures, an old lawyer, who has witnessed so many events in life he would have once pronounced impossible,—ay, just as roundly as you said the word yourself,—and seen people and things under aspects so totally the reverse of what he first knew them, that he has taught himself to believe that change is the law, and not permanence, in this life, and that you and I, and all of us, ought ever to look forward to anything, everything, but the condition in which at present we find ourselves. Now, I don't want to discourage you with the noble career you have opened for yourself here. I am far more likely to be fascinated—I was going to say fall in love—with you for it, than to try and turn your thoughts elsewhere; but as to these people themselves, the experiment comes too late.”
“Is it ever too late to repair a wrong, to assist destitution, relieve misery, and console misfortune?” broke in Mary, eagerly.
“It is too late to try the feudal system in the year of our Lord 1829, Miss Martin. We live in an age where everything is to be redressed by a Parliament. The old social compact between proprietor and peasant is repealed, and all must be done by 'the House.' Now, if your grandfather had pursued the path that you are doing to-day, this crisis might never have arrived; but he did not, young lady. He lived like a real gentleman; he hunted, and drank, and feasted, and rack-rented, and horsewhipped all around him; and what with duelling of a morning and drinking over-night, taught the people a code of morals that has assumed all the compactness of a system. Ay, I say it with grief, this is a land corrupted from the top, and every vice of its gentry has but filtered down to its populace! What was that I heard?—was it not a shot?” cried he, reining in his horse to listen.
“I thought so, too; but it might be a blast, for we are not far from the quarries.”
“And do you preserve the game, Miss Martin? are you sworn foe to the poacher?”
“I do so; but in reality more for the sake of the people than the partridges. Your lounging country fellow, with a rusty gun and a starved lurcher, is but an embryo highwayman.”
“So he is,” cried Repton, delighted at the energy with which she spoke; “and I have always thought that the worst thing about the game-laws was the class of fellows we educate to break them. Poor old Cranbury was n't of that opinion, though. You could never have seen him, Miss Martin; but he was a fine specimen of the Irish Bench in the old time. He was the readiest pistol in the Irish house; and, as they said then, he 'shot up' into preferment. He always deemed an infraction of the game-laws as one of the gravest crimes in the statute. Juries, however, did n't concur with him; and, knowing the severity of the penalty, they invariably brought in a verdict of Not Guilty, rather than subject a poor wretch to transportation for a jack-snipe. I remember once,—it was at Maryborough; the fellow in the dock was a notable poacher, and, worse still, the scene of his exploits was Cranbury's own estate. As usual, the jury listened apathetically to the evidence; they cared little for the case, and had predetermined the verdict. It was, however, so palpably proven, so self-evident that he was guilty, that they clubbed their heads together to concert a pretext for their decision. Cranbury saw the movement, and appreciated it, and, leaning his head down upon his hand, mumbled out, as if talking to himself, in broken sentences, 'A poor man—with a large family—great temptation—and, after all, a slight offence,—a very slight offence.' The jury listened and took courage; they fancied some scruples were at work in the old judge's heart, and that they might venture on the truth, innocuously. 'Guilty, my Lord,' said the foreman. 'Transportation for seven years!' cried the judge, with a look at the jury-box that there was no mistaking. They were 'done,' but there never was another conviction in that town afterwards.”
“And were such things possible on the justice-seat?” exclaimed Mary, in horror.
“Ah, my dear young lady, I could tell you of far worse than that. There was a time in this country when the indictment against the prisoner was Secondary in importance to his general character, his party, his connections, and fifty other things which had no bearing upon criminality. There goes another shot! I 'll swear to that,” cried he, pulling up short, and looking in the direction from which the report proceeded.
Mary turned at the same moment, and pointed with her whip towards a beech wood that skirted the foot of the mountain.
“Was it from that quarter the sound came?” said she.
The sharp crack of a fowling-piece, quickly followed by a second report, now decided the question; and, as if by mutual consent, they both wheeled their horses round, and set off at a brisk canter towards the wood.
“I have taken especial pains about preserving this part of the estate,” said Mary, as they rode along. “It was my cousin Harry's favorite cover when he was last at home, and he left I can't say how many directions about it when quitting us; though, to say truth, I never deemed any precautions necessary till he spoke of it.”
“So that poaching was unknown down here?”
“Almost completely so; now and then some idle fellow with a half-bred greyhound might run down a hare, or with a rusty firelock knock over a rabbit, but there it ended. And as we have no gentry neighbors to ask for leave, and the Oughterard folks would not venture on that liberty, I may safely say that the report of a gun is a rare event in these solitudes.”
“Whoever he be, yonder, is not losing time,” said Rep-ton; “there was another shot.”
Their pace had now become a smart half-gallop; Mary, a little in advance, leading the way, and pointing out the safe ground to her companion. As they drew nigh the wood, however, she slackened speed till he came up, and then said,—
“As I know everybody hereabouts, it will be enough if I only see the offender; and how to do that is the question.”
“I am at your orders,” said Repton, raising his whip to a salute.
“It will be somewhat difficult,” said Mary, pondering; “the wood is so overgrown with low copse that one can't ride through it, except along certain alleys. Now we might canter there for hours and see nothing. I have it,” cried she, suddenly; “you shall enter the wood and ride slowly along the green alley, yonder, till you come to the crossroad, when you 'll turn off to the left; while I will remain in observation outside here, so that if our friend make his exit I am sure to overtake him. At all events, we shall meet again at the lower end of the road.”
Repton made her repeat her directions, and then, touching his hat in respectful salutation, rode away to fulfil his mission. A low gate, merely fastened by a loop of iron without a padlock, admitted the lawyer within the precincts, in which he soon discovered that his pace must be a walk, so heavy was the deep clayey soil, littered with fallen leaves and rotting acorns. Great trees bent their massive limbs over his head, and, even leafless as they were, formed a darksome, gloomy aisle, the sides of which were closed in with the wild holly and the broom, and even the arbutus, all intermingled inextricably. There was something solemn even to sadness in the deep solitude, and so Repton seemed to feel as he rode slowly along, alone, tingeing his thoughts of her he had just quitted with melancholy.
“What a girl and what a life!” said he, musingly. “I must tell Martin that this will never do! What can all this devotion end in but disappointment! With the first gleam of their newly acquired power the people will reject these benefits; they will despise the slow-won fruits of industry as the gambler rejects a life of toil. Then will come a reaction—a terrible reaction—with all the semblance of black ingratitude! She will herself be disgusted. The breach once made will grow wider and wider, and at last the demagogue will take the place of the landed proprietor. Estrangement at first, next distrust, and finally dislike, will separate the gentry from the peasantry, and then—I tremble to think of what then!”
As Repton had uttered these words, the sharp bang of a gun startled him, and at the same instant a young fellow sprang from the copse in front of him into the alley. His coarse fustian shooting-jacket, low-crowned oil-skin hat, and leather gaiters seemed to bespeak the professional poacher, and Repton dashed forward with his heavy riding-whip upraised towards him.