THE RESTORATION
It was in June, 1888, that Mrs. Martin became the tenant of Ross House
and that she and her daughters returned to Galway, sixteen years, to the
very month, since they had left it.
It would demand one more skilled than I in the unfathomable depths of
Irish Land Legislation to attempt to set forth the precise status of
Ross, its house, demesne, and estate, at this time. It is not, after
all, a matter of any moment, save to those concerned. Mrs. Martin had
been staying in Galway, and had paid a visit to Ross, with the result
that she decided to rent the house and gardens from the authorities in
whose jurisdiction they then were, and set herself to “build the walls
of Jerusalem.” The point which may be dwelt on is the courage that was
required to return to a place so fraught with memories of a happiness
never to be recaptured, and to take up life again among people in whom,
as was only too probable, the ancient friendship was undermined by years
of absence, misrepresentation, and misunderstanding. The handling of the
estate had been unfortunate; the house and demesne had been either
empty, or in the hands of strangers, careless and neglectful of all
things, save only of the woodcock shooting, and the rabbit-trapping.
When Mrs. Martin proposed to become a tenant in her old home, it had
been empty for some time, and had suffered the usual indignities at the
hands of what are erroneously known as caretakers. It is possible that
caretakers exist who take care, and take nothing else, but the converse
is more usual, and I do not imagine that Ross was any exception to the
average of such cases.
The motives that impelled my cousin Nannie to face the enormous
difficulties involved can, however, be understood, and that Martin
should have sacrificed herself to the Lares and Penates of Ross--Ross,
the love of which was rooted in her from her cradle--was no more, I
suppose, than was to be expected from her.
From her mother had come the initiative, but it was Martin who saved
Ross. She hurled herself into the work of restoration with her own
peculiar blend of enthusiasm and industry, qualities that, in my
experience, are rarely united. Her letters became instantly full of
house-paintings, house-cleanings, mendings, repairs of every kind; what
was in any degree possible she did with her own hands, what was not, she
supervised, inventing, instructing, insisting on the work being done
right, in the teeth of the invincible determination of the workmen to
adhere to the tradition of the elders, and do it wrong.
Looking back on it, it seems something of a waste to have set a razor to
cut down trees, and the work that was accomplished by “Martin Ross” that
year was small indeed as compared with the manifold activities of “Miss
Wilet.”
There was everything to be done, inside and outside that old house, and
no one to do it but one fragile, indomitable girl. Ireland, now, is full
of such places as Ross was then. “Gentry-houses,” places that were once
disseminators of light, of the humanities; centres of civilisation;
places to which the poor people rushed, in any trouble, as to Cities of
Refuge. They are now destroyed, become desolate, derelict. To-day
“The Lion and the Lizard keep
The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep;
And Bahram, that great Hunter--the Wild Ass
Stamps o’er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.”
But even more than the laying waste of Ross House and gardens I believe
it was the torture of the thought that the Ross people might feel that
the Martins had failed them, and that the “Big House” was no longer the
City of Refuge for its dependants in the day of trouble, that chiefly
spurred Martin on, in her long and gallant fight with every sort of
difficulty, that summer, when she and her mother began to face the music
again at Ross.
In that music, however, there was an undertone of discord that
threatened for a while to wreck all the harmony. There are a few words
that Martin had written, in continuation of the account of her brother
Robert, that explain the matter a little, and I will quote them here.
“The white chapel that overlooked the lake and the woods of Ross, heard
much, at about this time (_i.e._ the later years of the ’eighties), that
was not of a spiritual tendency. The Land League had been established in
the parish; the branch had for its head, in the then Parish Priest, an
Apostle of land agitation, a man whose power of bitter animosity, legal
insight, and fighting quality, would have made his name in another
profession. He made his mark in his own, a grievous one for himself. He
rose up against his Bishop, supported by the great majority of his
parish, and received the reprimand of his Church. He went with his case
to Rome, and after long intrigue there, came home, a beaten man,
dispossessed of his parish, and was received in Galway with a brass band
and a procession, the latter of which accompanied him, brokenly, but
with persistence, to his home, a distance of about fifteen miles. For
many months afterwards the strange and not unimpressive spectacle
presented itself, of a Roman Catholic Priest defying his Church, and
holding, by some potent spell, the support of the majority of his
parish. Sunday after Sunday two currents of parishioners set in
different directions, the one heading to the lawful Chapel on the hill
and the accredited priest, the other to the green and white ‘Land League
Hut,’ that had been built with money that Father Z. had himself
collected.”
Martin’s MS. ceases here. I may add to it a little.
I went to Ross not long after Father Z.’s return from Rome. I chanced
but once to see him, but the remembrance of that fierce and pallid face,
and of the hatred in it, is with me still. He is dead, and I believe
that his teaching died with him. The evil that men do does not always
live after them. The choice of his successor was a fortunate one for the
parish of Rosscahill. Few people out of Ireland realise how much depends
on the personality of the parish priest. Father Z. had had it in his
power to shake a friendship of centuries, but it was deeply rooted, he
could do no more than shake it. His successor had other views of his
duty; in him the people of Rosscahill and the House of Ross, alike,
found a friend, unfailing in kindness and sympathy, a priest who made it
his mission to bring peace to his parish, and not a sword.
No one was more sensible of this friendship, or more grateful for it
than Martin. What sustained her and made the sacrifice of time,
strength, and money in some degree worth while, during that hard,
pioneer year at Ross, was the renewal of the old goodfellowship and
intimacy with the tenants. Sixteen years is a big gap, but not so big
that it cannot be bridged. Even had the gap been wider, I believe
Martin’s slender hand would have reached across it. As she has said of
the relation between the Martins and their tenants--“The personal
element was always warm in it ... the hand of affection held it
together....”[7]
And so she and her mother proved it. It was the intense interest and
affection which Martin had in and for the “Ross people” that made
enjoyment march with what she believed to be her duty. She had a gift
for doing, happily and beautifully, always the right thing, at no matter
what cost to herself. A very unusual gift, and one of more value to
others than to its possessor. One remembers the Arab steed, who dies at
a gallop. It was not only that she was faithful and unselfish, but she
so applied her intellect to obliterating all traces of her fidelity and
her unselfishness, that their object strode, unconscious, into the soft
place that she had prepared, and realised nothing of the self-sacrifice
that had gone to its making. With her, it was impossible to say which
was the more beautiful, the gentleness of heart, or the brilliance of
intellect. I have heard that among the poor people they called her The
Gentle Lady; in such a matter, poor people are the best judges.
In her first letters to me from Ross, the place it held in her heart is
shown, and there is shown also some of the difficulties, the
heartrendings, the inconveniences, the absurdities, of those first
months of reclamation. No one but Martin herself will ever know what
courage and capacity were required to cope with them. She overcame them
all. Many times have I been a guest at Ross, and more wholly enjoyable
visits seldom fall to anyone’s lot. But the comfort and restored
civilisation of the old house had cost a high price.
V. F. M. to E. Œ. S. (Ross, July, 1888.)
“It is a curious thing to be at Ross. But it does not seem as if we
were--not yet. It takes a long time to patch the present Ross, and
the one I remember, on to each other. It is, of course, smaller,
and was, I think, disappointing, but it is _deeply_ interesting, as
you can imagine. It is also heartrending.... Everything looks
ragged and unkempt, but it is a fine free feeling to sit up in this
window and look abroad. There are plenty of trees left, and there
is a wonderful Sleeping-Beauty-Palace air about everything,
wildness, and luxuriance, and solitude. As to being lonely, or
anything like it, it does not enter my mind. The amount of work to
be done would put an end to that pretty fast.... The garden is, as
the people told me, ‘the height o’ yerself in weeds,’ not a walk
visible. The hot-house, a sloping jungle of vines run wild; the
melon pit rears with great care a grove of nettles, the stable-yard
is a meadow. We inhabit five rooms in the house, the drawing-room
having been made (by the caretakers) a kitchen. I could laugh and I
could cry when I think of it. There is a small elderly mare here
[Illustration: MARTIN ROSS.
H. A. C.
]
[Illustration: ROSS LAKE.]
(belonging to the estate) whom we shall use. A charming creature,
with a high character and a hollow back. I spent this morning in
having her heels and mane and ears clipped, and it took two men,
and myself, to hold her while her ears were being done. Car or
conveyance we have none, at present, but we have many offers of
cars. I drive Mama on these extraordinary farmers’ cars, and oh!
could you but see the harness! Mouldy leather, interludes of twine
in the reins--terrific!”
There follow particulars of the innumerable repairs required in the
house.
“My hand is shaking from working on the avenue, I mean cutting the
edges of it, which will be my daily occupation for ever, as by the
time I get to the end, I shall have to begin again, and both sides
mean a mile and a quarter to keep right.... The tenants have been
very good about coming and working here for nothing, except their
dinners, and a great deal has been done by them. It is, of course,
gratifying, but, in a way, very painful. The son of the old
carpenter has been making a cupboard for me, also all for love. He
is a very smart person and has been to America, but he is still the
same ‘Patcheen Lee’--(I have altered most of the names
throughout--E.Œ.S.)--“whom Charlie and I used to beat with sticks
till he was ‘near dead,’ as he himself says proudly.
“We have many visits from the poor people about, and the same
compliments, and lamentations, and finding of likenesses goes on.
This takes up a lot of time, and exhausts one’s powers of
rejoinder. Added to this, I don’t know yet what to make of the
people.... Of course some are really devoted, but there is a
change, and I can feel it. I wish you had seen Paddy Griffy, a very
active little old man, and a beloved of mine, when he came down on
Sunday night to welcome me. After the usual hand-kissings on the
steps, he put his hands over his head and stood in the doorway, I
suppose invoking his saint. He then rushed into the hall.
“‘Dance Paddy!’ screamed Nurse Barrett (my foster-mother, now our
maid-of-all-work).
“And he did dance, and awfully well too, to his own singing. Mama,
who was attired in a flowing pink dressing-gown, and a black hat
trimmed with lilac, became suddenly emulous, and, with her spade
under her arm, joined in the jig. This lasted for about a minute,
and was a never-to-be-forgotten sight. They skipped round the hall,
they changed sides, they swept up to each other and back again, and
finished with the deepest curtseys.... I went down to the
Gate-house after dinner, and there discoursed Nurse Griffy for a
long time.” (At Ross, and probably elsewhere in the County Galway,
the foster-mothers of “the Family” received the courtesy-title of
“Nurse,” and retained it for the rest of their lives. I have been
at Ross when the three principal domestics were all ceremoniously
addressed as “Nurse,” and were alluded to, collectively, as “the
Nursies.” After all, at one time or another, there were probably
twelve or fourteen ladies who had earned the title.) “I was amused
by a little discourse about the badness of the shooting of the
tenants here last winter” (_i.e._ the Englishmen who took the
shooting). “Birds were fairly plenty, but the men couldn’t hit
them.
“‘’Tis no more than one in the score they got!’ says Paddy Griffy,
who was one of the beaters, with full-toned contempt.
“‘Well, maybe they done their besht,’ says Kitty Hynes, the
Gate-house woman, who is always apologetic.
“‘You spoke a thrue word,’ says Paddy Griffy, ‘Faith, they done
their besht, Mrs. Hynes! I seen a great wisp o’ shnipes going up
before them, and the divil a one in it that didn’t go from them!
But you may believe they done their besht!’
“This wants the indescribable satisfaction of the speaker, and the
ecstasy of Kitty Hynes at finding that she had said something
wonderful.”
This is a part of her first letter. To those unversed in Ireland and her
ways, the latter may appear incredible, “nay, sometimes even terrible,”
as Ruskin says of the pine-trees; but as I think that enlightenment is
good for the soul, I shall continue to give the history of the renewal
of Ross, as set forth in Martin’s letters, and these may present to the
English reader (to whom I would specially commend the incident of the
children’s tea-party, in all its bearings) a new and not uninteresting
facet in the social life of the most paradoxical country in the world.
V. F. M. to E. Œ. S. (July ’88. Ross.)
“I had not heard of F.’s death. It was a shock. He seemed a
thoroughly alive and practical person. I don’t know why it should
be touching that he should rave of his hounds to the end, but it
is. I suppose any shred of the ordinary interests is precious in a
strange unnatural thing, like dying. I think often of a thing that
a countrywoman here said to me the other day, apropos of her sons
going away from her to America.
“‘But what use is it to cry, even if ye dhragged the hair out o’
yer head! Ye might as well be singin’ an’ dancin’.’
“She was crying when she said it, and was a wild-looking creature
whom you would like to paint, and the thing altogether stays in my
mind. (And now abides in the mouth of Norry the Boat, in “The Real
Charlotte.”)
“Your letter spent 2 hours after its arrival in Nurse Barrett’s
pocket, while I entertained some thirty of the children about here.
Tea, and bread and jam, and barm bracks”--(a sort of sweet loaf,
made with barm, and “_brack_” _i.e._ “spotted,” with currants)--“in
the lawn, and races afterwards. I had a very wearying day. Cutting
up food in the morning, and then at luncheon I received a great
shock. I had asked a girl who teaches a National School to bring 12
of her best scholars, and besides these, we had only invited about
half a dozen. At luncheon in comes the teacher’s sister to say that
the teacher had gone to Galway ‘on business,’ and that no children
were coming. Boycotted, I thought at once. However I thought I
would make an effort, even though I was told that the priest must
have vetoed the whole thing, and I sent a whip round to the near
villages, which are loyal, and away I went myself to two more. I
never had such a facer as thinking the children were to be kept
away, and with that I nearly cried while I was pelting over the
fields. I could only find six children, of whom three were too
young to come, and one was a Land Leaguer’s. However two were to be
had, and I pelted home again, very anxious. There I found the half
dozen I knew would come, and divil another. I waited, and after I
had begun to feel very low, I saw a little throng on the back
avenue, poor little things, with their best frocks, such as they
were. I could have kissed them, but gave them tea instead, and
before it was over another bunch of children, including babies in
arms, arrived, and there was great hilarity. I never shall
understand what was the matter about the teacher. She is a nice
girl, but they are all cowards, and she may have thought she was
running a risk. She was here to-day, with a present of eggs and
white cabbage, which was a peace offering, of course.”
In those bad times this form of stabbing friendship in the back was
very popular. I remember how, a few years earlier, a Christmas
feast to over a hundred National School children was effectively
boycotted, the sole reason being a resolve on the part of the
ruling powers to discourage anything so unseasonable as Peace on
Earth and good will towards ladies. These dark ages are now, for
the most part, past. Possibly, some day, a people naturally
friendly and kind-hearted will be permitted to realise that
patriotism means loving their country, instead of hating their
neighbours.
At Ross, happily, the hostile influence had but small strength for
evil. Had it been even stronger, I think it would not long have
withstood the appeal that was made to the chivalry of the people by
the gallant fight to restore the old ways, the old friendship.
Martin’s letter continues:
“The presents are very touching, but rather embarrassing, and last
week there was a great flow of them; they included butter, eggs, a
chicken, and a bottle of port; all from different tenants, some
very poor. An experience of last week was going to see a party of
sisters who are tenants, and work their farm themselves. In the
twinkling of an eye I was sitting ‘back in the room,’ with the
sisterhood exhausting themselves in praise of my unparalleled
beauty, and with a large glass of potheen before me, which I knew
had got to be taken somehow. It was much better than I expected,
and I got through a respectable amount of it before handing it on
with a flourish to one of my hostesses, which was looked on as the
height of politeness. I wish I could remember some of the
criticisms that went on all the time.
“‘I _assure_ you, Miss Wilet, you are very handsome, I may say
beautiful. ‘I often read of beauty in books, but indeed we never
seen it till to-day. Indeed you are a perfect creature.’ ‘All the
young ladies in Connemara may go to bed now. Sure they’re nothing
but upstarts.’ ‘And it’s not only that you’re lovely, but so
commanding. Indeed you have an imprettive look!’ This, I believe,
means imperative. Then another sister took up the wondrous tale.
‘Sure we’re all enamoured by you!’
“This and much more, and I just sat and laughed weakly and
drunkenly. Many other precious things I lost, as all the sisters
talked together, yea, they answered one to another. Custom has
taken the edge off the admiration now, I am grieved to say, but it
still exists, and the friend of my youth, Patcheen Lee, is
especially dogmatic in pronouncing upon my loveliness. I am afraid
all these flowers of speech will have faded before you get here;
they will then begin upon you.”
Another extract from the letters of these early days I will give. The
sister whose return to Ross is told of was Geraldine, wife of Canon
Edward Hewson;[8] it is her account of Martin, as a little child, that
is given in Chapter VIII.
“Geraldine felt this place more of a nightmare than I did. The old
days were more present with her, naturally, than with me. I pitied
her when she came up the steps. She couldn’t say a word for a long
time. There was a bonfire at the gate in her honour in the evening,
built just as we described it in the Shocker, a heap of turf,
glowing all through, and sticks at the top. Poor Geraldine was so
tired I had to drive her down to it, but she went very gallant and
remembered the people very well. There was little cheering or
demonstrativeness, but there was a great deal of conversation and
some slight and inevitable subsequent refreshment in the form of
porter.
“I can hardly tell you what it felt like to see the bonfire blazing
there, just as it used to in my father’s time, when he and the boys
and all of us used to come down when someone was being welcomed
home, and it was all the most natural thing in the world. It was
very different to see Geraldine walk in front of us through the
wide open gates, between the tall pillars, with her white face and
her black clothes. Thady Connor, the old steward, met her at the
gate, and not in any ‘Royal enclosure’ could be surpassed the way
he took off his hat, and came silently forward to her, while
everyone else kept back, in dead silence too. Of course they had
all known her well. What with that glare of the bonfire, and the
lit circle of faces, and the welcome killed with memories for her,
I wonder how she stood it. It was the attempt at the old times that
was painful and wretched, at least I thought it so. Edward was
wonderful, in a trying position. In about two minutes he was
holding a group of men in deep converse without any apparent
effort, and he was much approved of.
“‘A fine respectable gentleman’--‘The tallest man on the
property’--such were the comments.”
There are two poems that were written many years ago, by one of the
tenants, one Jimmy X., a noted poet, in praise of the Martins and of
Ross, and mysteriously blended with these themes is a eulogy of a
certain musician, who was also a tenant. The first few verses were
dictated to Martin, I know not by whom; the last three were written for
her by the poet himself; his spelling lends a subtle charm. To read it,
giving the lines their due poise and balance, demands skill, the poem
being of the modern mode, metrical, but rhymeless. There is a tune
appertaining to it which offers some assistance in the matter of stress,
but it must here be divorced from its words; since, however, it is a
tune of maddening and haunting incompleteness, a tune that has “no
earthly close,” one of those tunes, in fact, that are of the nature of a
possession (in an evil and spiritual sense), this need not be regretted.
ROSS.
It is well known through Ireland
That Ross it is a fine place
The healthiest in climate
That ever yet was known.
When you get up in the morning
Ye’ll hear the thrishes warbling
The cuckoo playing most charming
Which echoes the place.
The birds they join in chorus
To hum their notes melodious
The bees are humming music
All over the demesne.
The place it being so holy
It is there they live in glory,
Honey is flowing
And rolling there in sthrames.
There follows a panegyric of “Robert Martin Esqur,” the Bard lamenting
his inability to “tell the lovely fatures of the noble gentleman.”
“Indeed,” he continues, “it sprung through nature
For this gentleman being famous,
The Martins were the bravest
That ever were before.
“With Colonels and good Majors
Who fought with many nations,
I’m sure twas them that gained it
On the plains of Waterloo.”
Thus far the dictation; the following four verses are as they came from
the hand of their maker.
A song composed for Robirt Martin Esqur and one of his tinants
1st varce
Its now we have a tradesman
The best in any nation,
He never met his eaquils, he went to tullamore.
He played in Munstereven
The tune of Nora Chrena
But Garryown delighted the natives of the town.
2nd
He can write music
Play it and peruse it
A man in deep concumption from death he revive
But from the first creation
There was never yet his eaquels
So clever and ingenious with honour and renown.
3rd virce
Patrick he resayved them
So deacent and so plesant
He is as nice a man in features as I ever saw before
When they sat to his table with turkeys and bacon
With Brandy and good ale he would suplie as many more.
He got aninvetation to Dublin with they ladies
They brought him in their pheatons he was playing as they were going
He is the best fluit player from Cliften to Glasnevan
They thought he was inchanted his music was so neat.
4th virce
His fluit is above mention
It is the best youtencal (_utensil_)
That ever yet was mentioned sunce the race of Man
He got it by great intrest as a presant from the gentry
It was sent to him by finvarra the rular of Nockma.
There are many more varces (or virces) in which the glories of Ross, of
“Robirt” Martin, and of his “tinant,” are hymned with equal ardour, but
I think these samples suffice.