Leaving the Martins in their quiet retreat at Spa, nor dwelling any
longer on a life whose daily monotony was unbroken by an incident,
we once more turn our glance westward. Were we assured that our kind
readers' sympathies were with us, the change would be a pleasure to us,
since it is there, in that wild mountain tract, that pathless region of
fern and wild furze, that we love to linger, rambling half listlessly
through silent glens and shady gorges, or sitting pensively on the
storm-lashed shore, till sea and sky melt into one, and naught lowers
through the gloom save the tall crags above us.
We are once more back again at the little watering-place of Kilkieran,
to which we introduced our readers in an early chapter of this
narrative; but another change has come over that humble locality.
The Osprey's Nest, the ornamented villa, on which her Ladyship had
squandered so lavishly good money and bad taste, was now an inn! A
vulgar sign-board, representing a small boat in a heavy sea, hung over
the door, with the words “The Corragh” written underneath. The spacious
saloon, whose bay-windows opened on the Atlantic, was now a coffee-room,
and the small boudoir that adjoined it--desecration of desecrations--the
bar!
It needs not to have been the friend or favored guest beneath a roof
where elegance and refinement have prevailed to feel the shock at
seeing them replaced by all that ministers to coarse pleasure and
vulgar association. The merest stranger cannot but experience a sense of
disgust at the contrast. Whichever way you turned, some object met the
eye recalling past splendor and present degradation; indeed, Toby Shea,
the landlord, seemed to feel as one of his brightest prerogatives the
right of insulting the memory of his predecessors, and throwing into
stronger antithesis the “former” and the “now.”
“Here ye are now, sir, in my Lady's own parlor; and that's her bedroom,
where I left your trunk,” said he, as he ushered in a newly arrived
traveller, whose wet and road-stained drapery bore traces of an Irish
winter's day. “Mr. Scanlan told me that your honor would be here at four
o'clock, and he ordered dinner for two, at five, and a good dinner you
'll have.”
“There; let them open my traps, and fetch me a pair of slippers and a
dressing-gown,” broke in the traveller; “and be sure to have a good fire
in my bedroom. What an infernal climate! It has rained since the day
I landed at Dublin; and now that I have come down here, it has blown a
hurricane besides. And how cold this room is!” added he, shuddering.
“That's all by reason of them windows,” said Toby,--“French windows they
call them; but I'll get real Irish sashes put up next season, if I live.
It was a fancy of that ould woman that built the place to have nothing
that was n't foreign.”
“They are not popular, then,--the Martins?” asked the stranger.
“Popular!” echoed Toby. “Begorra, they are not. Why would they be? Is it
rack-renting, process sarving, extirminating, would make them popular?
Sure we're all ruined on the estate. There isn't a mother's son of
us might n't be in jail; and it's not Maurice's fault, either,--Mr.
Scanlan's, I mean. Your honor's a friend of his, I believe,” added he,
stealthily. The stranger gave a short nod. “Sure he only does what he's
ordered; and it's breaking his heart it is to do them cruel things they
force him to.”
“Was the management of the estate better when they lived at home?” asked
the stranger.
“Some say yes, more says no. I never was their tenant myself, for I
lived in Oughterard, and kept the 'Goose and Griddle' in John Street;
but I believe, if the truth was told, it was always pretty much the
same. They were azy and moderate when they did n't want money, but ready
to take your skin off your back when they were hard up.”
“And is that their present condition?”
“I think it is,” said he, with a confident grin. “They 're spending
thousands for hundreds since they went abroad; and that chap in the
dragoons--the Captain they call him--sells a farm, or a plot of ground,
just the way ye 'd tear a leaf out of a book. There 's Mr. Maurice
now,--and I 'll go and hurry the dinner, for he 'll give us no peace if
we 're a minute late.”
The stranger--or, to give him his proper name, Mr. Merl--now approached
the window, and watched, not without admiration, the skilful management
by which Scanlan skimmed along the strand, zigzagging his smart nag
through all the awkward impediments of the way, and wending his tandem
through what appeared a labyrinth of confusion.
Men bred and born in great cities are somewhat prone to fancy that
certain accomplishments, such as tandem-driving, steeple-chasing, and
such like, are the exclusive acquirements of rank and station. They have
only witnessed them as the gifts of guardsmen and “young squires of high
degree,” never suspecting that in the country a very inferior class
is often endowed with these skilful arts. Mr. Merl felt, therefore, no
ordinary reverence for Maurice Scanlan, a sentiment fully reciprocated
by the attorney, as he beheld the gorgeous dressing-gown, rich tasselled
cap, and Turkish trousers of the other.
“I thought I'd arrive before you, sir,” said Scanlan, with a profound
bow, as he entered the room; “but I'm glad you got in first. What a
shower that was!”
“Shower!” said Merl; “a West India hurricane is a zephyr to it. I 'd not
live in this climate if you 'd give me the whole Martin estate!”
“I 'm sure of it, sir; one must be bred in the place, and know no
better, to stand it.” And although the speech was uttered in all
humility, Merl gave the speaker a searching glance, as though to say,
“Don't lose your time trying to humbug me; I'm 'York,' too.” Indeed,
there was species of freemasonry in the looks that now passed between
the two; each seemed instinctively to feel that he was in the presence
of an equal, and that artifice and deceit might be laid aside for the
nonce.
“I hope you agree with me,” said Scanlan, in a lower and more
confidential voice, “that this was the best place to come to. Here you
can stay as long as you like, and nobody the wiser; but in the town
of Oughterard they'd be at you morning, noon, and night, tracking your
steps, questioning the waiter, ay, and maybe taking a peep at your
letters. I 've known that same before now.”
“Well, I suppose you 're right; only this place does look a little dull,
I confess.”
“It's not the season, to be sure,” said Scanlan, apologetically.
“Oh! and there is a season here?”
“Isn't there, by George!” said Maurice, smacking his lips. “I 've seen
two heifers killed here of a morning, and not so much as a beefsteak
to be got before twelve o'clock. 'T is the height of fashion comes down
here in July,--the Rams of Kiltimmon, and the Bodkins of Crossmaglin;
and there was talk last year of a lord,--I forget his name; but he ran
away from Newmarket, and the story went that he was making for this.”
“Any play?” asked Merl.
“Play is it? That there is; whist every night, and backgammon.”
Merl threw up his eyebrows with pretty much the same feeling with which
the Great Napoleon repeated the words “Bows and Arrows!” as the weapons
of a force that offered him alliance.
“If you'd allow me to dine in this trim, Mr. Scanlan,” said he, “I'd ask
you to order dinner.”
“I was only waiting for you to give the word, sir,” said Maurice,
reverting to the habit of respect at any fresh display of the other's
pretensions; and opening the door, he gave a shrill whistle.
The landlord himself answered the summons, and whispered a few words in
Scanlan's ear.
“That's it, always,” cried Maurice, angrily. “I never came into the
house for the last ten days without hearing the same story. I 'd like to
know who and what he is, that must always have the best that 's going?”
Then turning to Merl, he added: “It's a lodger he has upstairs; an old
fellow that came about a fortnight back; and if there's a fine fish or a
fat turkey or a good saddle of mutton to be got, he 'll have it.”
“Faix, he pays well,” said Toby, “whoever he is.”
“And he has secured our salmon, I find, and left us to dine on whiting,”
said Maurice.
“An eighteen-pound fish!” echoed Toby; “and it would be as much as my
life is worth to cut it in two.”
“And he's alone, too?”
“No, sir. Mr. Crow, the painter, is to dine with him. He's making
drawings for him of all the wonderful places down the coast.”
“Well, give us what we 're to have at once,” said Maurice, angrily. “The
basket of wine was taken out of the gig?”
“Yes, sir; all right and ready for you; and barrin' the fish you 'll
have an elegant dinner.”
This little annoyance over, the guests relished their fare like hungry
men; nor, time and place considered, was it to be despised.
“Digestion is a great leveller.” Mr. Merl and Mr. Scan-Ian felt far more
on an equality when, the dinner over and the door closed, they drew
the table close to the fire, and drank to each other in a glass of racy
port.
“Well, I believe a man might live here, after all,” said Merl, as he
gazed admiringly on the bright hues of his variegated lower garments.
“I 'm proud to hear you say so,” said Scanlan; “for, of course, you've
seen a deal of life; and when I say life, I mean fashion and high
style,--nobs and swells.”
“Yes; I believe I have,” said Merl, lighting his cigar; “that was always
my 'line.' I fancy there's few fellows going have more experience of the
really great world than Herman Merl.”
“And you like it?” asked Maurice, confidentially.
“I do, and I do not,” said the Jew, hesitatingly. “To one like myself,
who knows them all, always on terms of close intimacy,--friendship, I
may say,--it 's all very well; but take a new hand just launched into
life, a fellow not of their own set,--why, sir, there 's no name for the
insults and outrage he'll meet with.”
“But what could they do?” asked Scanlan, inquiringly.
“What?--anything, everything; laugh at him, live on him, win his last
guinea,--and then, blackball him!”
“And could n't he get a crack at them?”
“A what?”
“Couldn't he have a shot at some of them, at least?” asked Maurice.
“No, no,” said Mr. Merl, half contemptuously; “they don't do _that_.”
“Faix! and we 'd do it down here,” said Scanlan, “devil may care who or
what he was that tried the game.”
“But I 'm speaking of London and Paris; I 'm not alluding to the
Sandwich Islands,” said Merl, on whose brain the port and the strong
fire were already producing their effects.
Scanlan's face flushed angrily; but a glance at the other checked the
reply he was about to make, and he merely pushed the decanter across the
table.
“You see, sir,” said Merl, in the tone of a man laying down a great
dictum, “there 's worlds and worlds. There's Claude Willoughby's world,
which is young Martin's and Stanhope's and mine. There, we are all young
fellows of fortune, good family, good prospects, you understand,--no,
thank you, no more wine;--I feel that what I 've taken has got into my
head; and this cigar, too, is none of the best. Would it be taking too
great a liberty with you if I were to snatch a ten minutes' doze,--just
ten minutes?”
“Treat me like an old friend; make yourself quite at home,” said
Maurice. “There 's enough here”--and he pointed to the bottles on the
table--“to keep me company; and I 'll wake you up when I 've finished
them.”
Mr. Merl made no reply; but drawing a chair for his legs, and disposing
his drapery gracefully around him, he closed his eyes, and before
Maurice had replenished his glass, gave audible evidence of a sound
sleep.
Now, worthy reader, we practise no deceptions with you; nor so far as
we are able, do we allow others to do so. It is but fair, therefore, to
tell you that Mr. Merl was not asleep, nor had he any tendency whatever
to slumber about him. That astute gentleman, however, had detected that
the port was, with the addition of a great fire, too much for him; he
recognized in himself certain indications of confusion that implied
wandering and uncertain faculties, and he resolved to arrest the
progress of such symptoms by a little repose. He felt, in short, that if
he had been engaged in play, that he should have at once “cut out,” and
so he resolved to give himself the advantage of the prerogative
which attaches to a tired traveller. There he lay, then, with closed
eyes,--breathing heavily,--to all appearance sound asleep.
Maurice Scanlan, meanwhile, scanned the recumbent figure before him with
the eye of a connoisseur. We have once before said that Mr. Scanlan's
jockey experiences had marvellously aided his worldly craft, and that
he scrutinized those with whom he came in contact through life, with all
the shrewd acumen he would have bestowed upon a horse whose purchase he
meditated. It was easy to see that the investigation puzzled him. Mr.
Merl did not belong to any one category he had ever seen before. Maurice
was acquainted with various ranks and conditions of men; but here was a
new order, not referable to any known class. He opened Captain Martin's
letter, which he carried in his pocket-book, and re-read it; but it
was vague and uninstructive. He merely requested that “every attention
might be paid to his friend Mr. Merl, who wanted to see something of
the West, and know all about the condition of the people, and such like.
He's up to everything, Master Maurice,” continued the writer, “and
so just the man for _you_.” There was little to be gleaned from this
source, and so he felt, as he folded and replaced the epistle in his
pocket.
“What can he be,” thought Scanlan, “and what brings him down here? Is he
a member of Parliament, that wants to make himself up about Ireland and
Irish grievances? Is he a money-lender, that wants to see the security
before he makes a loan? Are they thinking of him for the agency?”--and
Maurice flushed as the suspicion crossed him,--“or is it after Miss Mary
he is?” And a sudden paleness covered his face at the thought. “I 'd
give a cool hundred, this minute, if I could read you,” said he to
himself, “Ay, and I'd not ask any one's help how to deal with us
afterwards,” added he, as he drained off his glass. While he was thus
ruminating, a gentle tap was heard at the door, and, anxious not to
disturb the sleeper, Scanlan crossed the room with noiseless steps, and
opened it.
[Illustration: 124]
“Oh, it's you, Simmy,” said he, in a low voice. “Come in, and make no
noise; he's asleep.”
“And that's him!” said Crow, standing still to gaze on the recumbent
figure before him, which he scrutinized with all an artist's
appreciation.
“Ay, and what do you think of him?” whispered Scanlan.
“That chap is a Jew,” said Sim, in the same cautious tone. “I know
the features well; you see the very image of him in the old Venetian
pictures. Whenever they wanted cunning and cruelty--but more cunning
than cruelty--they always took that type.”
“I would n't wonder if you were right, Simmy,” said Scanlan, on whom a
new light was breaking.
“I know I am; look at the spread of the nostrils, and the thick, full
lips, and the coarse, projecting under-jaw. Faix!” said he to himself,
“I 've seen the day I 'd like to have had a study of your face.”
“Indeed!” said Scanlan.
“Just so; he'd make a great Judas!” said Crow, enthusiastically. “It
is the miser all over. You know,” added he, “if one took him in the
historical way, you 'd get rid of the vulgarity, and make him grander
and finer; for, looking at him now, he might be a dog-stealer.”
Scanlan gave a low, cautious laugh as he placed a chair beside his own
for the artist, and filled out for him a bumper of port.
“I was just dying for a glass of this,” said Crow. “I dined with Mr.
Barry upstairs; and though he's a fine-hearted old fellow in many
respects, he's too abstemious; a pint of sherry for two at dinner, and a
pint of port after, that's the allowance. Throw out as many hints as you
like, suggest how and what you will, but devil a drop more you'll get.”
“And who is he?” asked Scanlan.
“I wish you could tell me,” said Crow.
“You haven't a notion; nor what he is?”
“Not the slightest. I think, indeed, he said he was in the army; but
I'm not clear it wasn't a commissary or a surgeon; maybe he was, but
he knows a little about everything. Take him on naval matters, and he
understands them well; ask him about foreign countries,--egad, he was
everywhere. Ireland seems the only place new to him, and it won't be
so long; for he goes among the people, and talks to them, and hears
all they have to say, with a patience that breaks my heart. Like all
strangers, he's astonished with the acuteness he meets with, and never
ceases saying, 'Ain't they a wonderful people? Who ever saw their equal
for intelligence?'”
“Bother!” said Scanlan, contemptuously.
“But it is not bother! Maurice; he's right. They are just what he says.”
“Arrah! don't be humbugging _me_, Mr. Crow,” said the other. “They 're
a set of scheming, plotting vagabonds, that are unmanageable by any one,
except a fellow that has the key to them as I have.”
“_You_ know them, that's true,” said Crow, half apologetically, for he
liked the port, and did not feel he ought to push contradiction too far.
“And that's more than your friend Barry does, or ever will,” said
Scanlan. “I defy an Englishman--I don't care how shrewd he is--to
understand Paddy.”
A slight movement on Mr. Merl's part here admonished the speaker to
speak lower.
“Ay,” continued Maurice, “that fellow there--whoever he is or whatever
he is--is no fool! he 's deep enough; and yet there 's not a bare-legged
gossoon on the estate I won't back to take him in.”
“But Barry's another kind of man entirely. You wouldn't call him cute or
cunning; but he's a sensible, well-judging man, that has seen a deal of
life.”
“And what is it, he says, brings him here?” asked Scanlan.
“He never said a word about that yet,” replied Crow, “further than his
desire to visit a country he had heard much of, and, if I understand him
aright, where some of his ancestors came from; for, you see, at times
he's not so easy for one to follow, for he has a kind of a foreign twang
in his tongue, and often mumbles to himself in a strange language.”
“I mistrust all these fellows that go about the world, pretending they
want to see this and observe that,” said Scanlan, sententiously.
“It's mighty hard to mistrust a man that gives you the likes of that,”
said Crow, as he drew a neatly folded banknote from his pocket, and
handed it to Scanlan. “Twenty pounds! And he gave you that?” “This very
evening. 'It is a little more than our bargain, Mr. Crow,' said he, 'but
not more than I can afford to give; and so I hope you 'll not refuse
it.' These were his words, as he took my lot of drawings--poor daubs
they were--and placed them in his portfolio.”
“So that he is rich?” said Maurice, pensively, “There seems no end of
his money; there's not a day goes over he does n't spend fifteen or
sixteen pounds in meat, potatoes, barley, and the like. Sure, you may
say he 's been feeding the two islands himself for the last fortnight;
and what's more, one must n't as much as allude to it. He gets angry at
the slightest word that can bring the subject forward. It was the other
day he said to myself, 'If you can relieve destitution without too much
parade of its sufferings, you are not only obviating the vulgar display
of rich benevolence, but you are inculcating high sentiments and
delicacy of feeling in those that are relieved. Take care how you
pauperize the heart of a people, for you 'll have to make a workhouse of
the nation.'”
“Sure, they're paupers already!” exclaimed Scanlan, contemptuously.
“When I hear all these elegant sentiments uttered about Ireland, I know
a man is an ass! This is a poor country,--the people is poor, the gentry
is poor, the climate is n't the best, and bad as it is, you 're never
sure of it. All that anybody can hope to do is to make his living out
of it; but as to improving it,--raising the intellectual standard of the
people, and all that balderdash we hear of,--you might just as well tell
me that there was an Act of Parliament to make everybody in Connaught
six feet high. Nature says one thing, and it signifies mighty little if
the House of Commons says the other.”
“And you 're telling me this in the very spot that contradicts every
word you say!” cried Crow, half angrily; for the port had given him
courage, and the decanter waxed low.
“How so?” exclaimed Scanlan.
“Here, where we sit--on this very estate of Cro' Martin--where a young
girl--a child the other day--has done more to raise the condition of
the people, to educate and civilize, than the last six generations
together.”
A long wailing whistle from Scanlan was the insulting reply to the
assertion.
“What do you mean by that?” cried Crow, passionately.
“I mean that she has done more mischief to the property than
five-and-forty years' good management will ever repair, Now don't be
angry, Simmy; keep your temper, and draw your chair back again to the
table. I 'm not going to say one word against her intentions; but when
I see the waste of thousands of pounds on useless improvements, elegant
roads that lead nowhere, bridges that nobody will ever pass, and harbors
without boats, not to say the habits of dependence the people have got
by finding everything done for them. I tell you again, ten years more of
Miss Mary's rule will finish the estate.”
[Illustration: 130]
“I don't believe a word of it!” blurted out Simmy, boldly. “I saw her
yesterday coming out of a cabin, where she passed above an hour, nursing
typhus fever and cholera. The cloak she took off the door--for she left
it there to dry--was still soaked with rain; her wet hair hung down her
shoulders, and as she stood bridling her own pony,--for there was not a
living soul to help her--”
“She 'd have made an elegant picture,” broke in Scanlan, with a laugh.
“But that's exactly the fault of us in Ireland,--we are all picturesque;
I wish we were prosperous! But come, Simmy, finish your wine; it's not
worth disputing about. If all I hear about matters be true, there will
be very little left of Cro' Martin when the debts are paid.”
“What! do you mean to say that they 're in difficulty?”
“Far worse; the stories that reach me call it--ruin!”
Simmy drew his chair closer to the table, and in a whisper scarcely
breathed, said, “That chap's not asleep, Maurice.”
“I know it,” whispered the other; and added, aloud, “Many a fellow that
thinks he has the first charge on the property will soon discover his
mistake; there are mortgages of more than eighty years' standing on the
estate. You've had a great sleep, sir,” said he, addressing Merl, who
now yawned and opened his eyes; “I hope our talking did n't disturb
you?”
“Not in the least,” said Merl, rising and stretching his legs. “I'm all
right now, and quite fresh for anything.”
“Let me introduce Mr. Crow to you, sir,--a native artist that we 're all
proud of.”
“That's exactly what you are not then,” said Crow; “nor would you be if
I deserved it. You 'd rather gain a cause at the Quarter Sessions, or
take in a friend about a horse, than be the man that painted the Madonna
at Florence.”
“He's cross this evening,--cross and ill-humored,” said Scanlan,
laughing. “Maybe he 'll be better tempered when we have tea.”
“I was just going to ask for it,” said Merl, as he arranged his
whiskers, and performed a small impromptu toilet before the glass, while
Simmy issued forth to give the necessary orders.
“We 'll have tea, and a rubber of dummy afterwards,” said Scanlan, “if
you've no objection.”
“Whatever you like,--I 'm quite at your disposal,” replied Merl, who now
seated himself with an air of bland amiability, ready, according to the
amount of the stake, to win pounds or lose sixpences.