Produced by David Widger
THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN
By Charles James Lever.
With Illustrations By Phiz.
In Two Volumes
Vol. I.
Boston:
Little, Brown, And Company.
1906.
TO THE
REVEREND MORTIMER O'SULLIVAN, D.D.
If I have not asked your permission to dedicate this volume to you, it
is because I would not involve you in the responsibility of any opinions
even so light a production may contain, nor seek to cover by a great
name the sentiment and views of a very humble one.
I cannot, however, deny myself the pleasure of inscribing to you a book
to which I have given much thought and labor,--a testimony of the deep
and sincere affection of one who has no higher pride than in the honor
of your friendship.
Ever sincerely yours,
CHARLES LEVER
Casa Cappoli, Florence, May, 1856
PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1872.
When I had made my arrangement with my publishers for this new story, I
was not sorry for many reasons to place the scene of it in Ireland.
One of my late critics, in noticing “Roland Cashel” and “The Daltons,”
mildly rebuked me for having fallen into doubtful company, and half
censured--in Bohemian--several of the characters in these novels. I
was not then, still less am I now, disposed to argue the point with
my censor, and show that there is a very wide difference between the
persons who move in the polite world, with a very questionable morality,
and those patented adventurers whose daily existence is the product of
daily address. The more one sees of life, the more is he struck by the
fact that the mass of mankind is rarely very good or very bad, that the
business of life is carried on with mixed motives; the best people being
those who are least selfish, and the worst being little other than those
who seek their own objects with slight regard for the consequences to
others, and even less scruple as to the means.
Any uniformity in good or evil would be the deathblow to that genteel
comedy which goes on around us, and whose highest interest very often
centres in the surprises we give ourselves by unexpected lines of action
and unlooked-for impulses. As this strange drama unfolded itself before
me, it had become a passion with me to watch the actors, and speculate
on what they might do. For this Florence offered an admirable stage.
It was eminently cosmopolitan; and, in consequence, less under the
influence of any distinct code of public opinion than any section of the
several nationalities I might have found at home.
There was a universal toleration abroad; and the Spaniard conceded to
the German, and the Russian to the Englishman, much on the score of
nationality; and did not question too closely a morality which, after
all, might have been little other than a conventional habit. Exactly in
the same way, however, that one hurries away from the life of a city and
its dissipations, to breathe the fresh air and taste the delicious quiet
of the country, did I turn from these scenes of splendor, from the crush
of wealth, and the conflict of emotion, to that Green Island, where so
many of my sympathies were intertwined, and where the great problem of
human happiness was on its trial on issues that differed wonderfully
little from those that were being tried in gilded salons, and by people
whose names were blazoned in history.
Ireland, at the time I speak of, was beginning to feel that sense of
distrust and jealousy between the owner and the tiller of the soil
which, later on, was to develop itself into open feud. The old ties
that have bound the humble to the rich man, and which were hallowed
by reciprocal acts of good-will and benevolence, were being loosened.
Benefits were canvassed with suspicion, ungracious or unholy acts were
treasured up as cruel wrongs. The political agitator had so far gained
the ear of the people, that he could persuade them that there was not a
hardship or a grievance of their lot that could not be laid at the door
of the landlord. He was taught to regard the old relation of love and
affection to the owner of the soil, as the remnants of a barbarism that
had had its day, and he was led to believe that whether the tyranny
that crushed him was the Established Church or the landlord, there was
a great Liberal party ready to aid him in resisting either or both, when
he could summon courage for the effort. By what promptings the poor man
was brought to imagine that a reign of terror would suffice to establish
him in an undisputed possession of the soil, and that the best lease was
a loaded musket, it is not either my wish nor my duty here to narrate;
I only desire to call my reader's attention to the time itself, as a
transition period when the peasant had begun to resent some of the ties
that had bound him to his landlord, and had not yet conceived the idea
of that formidable conspiracy which issues its death-warrants and never
is at a loss for the agents to enforce them. There were at the time
some who, seeing the precarious condition of the period, had their grave
forebodings of what was to come, when further estrangement between the
two classes was accomplished, and the poor man should come to see in
the rich only an oppressor and a tyrant. There was not at that time the
armed resistance to rents, nor the threatening letter system to which we
were afterwards to become accustomed, still less was there the thought
that the Legislature would interfere to legalize the demands by which
the tenant was able to coerce his landlord; and for a brief interval
there did seem a possibility of reuniting once again, by the ties of
benefit and gratitude, the two classes whose real welfare depends on
concord and harmony. I have not the shadow of a pretext to be thought
didactic, but I did believe that if I recalled in fiction some of the
traits which once had bound up the relations of rich and poor, and given
to our social system many of the characteristics of the family, I should
be reviving pleasant memories if not doing something more.
To this end I sketched the character of Mary Martin. By making the
opening of my story date from the time of the Relief Bill, I intended
to picture the state of the country at one of the most memorable eras
in its history, and when an act of the Legislature assumed to redress
inequalities, compose differences, and allay jealousies of centuries'
growth, and make of two widely differing races one contented people.
I had not, I own, any implicit faith in Acts of Parliament, and I had
a fervent belief in what kindness--when combined with knowledge of
Ireland--could do with Irishmen. I have never heard of a people with
whom sympathy could do so much, nor the want of it be so fatal. I have
never heard of any other people to whom the actual amount of a benefit
was of less moment than the mode it was bestowed. I have never read of a
race who, in great poverty and many privations, attach a higher value to
the consideration that is bestowed on them than to the actual material
boons, and feel such a seemingly disproportioned gratitude for kind
words and generous actions.
What might not be anticipated from a revulsion of sentiment in a people
like this, to what violence might not this passion for vengeance be
carried, if the notion possessed them that they, whom she called her
betters, only traded on the weakness of their poverty and the imbecility
of their good faith? It was in a fruitful soil of this kind that the
agitation now sowed the seeds of distrust and disorder; and with what
fatal rapidity the poison reproduced itself and spread, the history of
late years is the testimony.
If such traits as I have endeavored to picture in Mary Martin were
engaged in the work of benevolence tomorrow, they would be met on every
side by discouragement and defeat. The priest would denounce them as a
propaganda artfully intended to sap the ancient faith of the people;
the agitators would denounce them as the cunning flatteries of political
solicitation; the people themselves would distrust them as covering
some secret object; and the National Press would be certain to utter its
warnings against whatever promised to establish peace or contentment to
the land.
I have said already, and I repeat it here, that this character of Mary
Martin is purely fictitious; and there is the more need I should say
it, since there was once a young lady of this very name,--many traits of
whose affection for the people and efforts for their well being might
be supposed to have been my original. To my great regret I never had the
happiness to have met her; however, I have heard much of her devotion
and her goodness.
I am not sure that some of my subordinate characters were not drawn from
life. Mrs. Nelligan, I remember, had her type in a little Galway town
I once stopped at, and Dan Nelligan had much in common with one who has
since held a distinguished place on the Bench.
Of the terrible epidemic which devastated Ireland, there was much for
which I drew on my own experience. Of its fearful ravages in the west,
in the wilds of Clare, and that lonely promontory that stretches at the
mouth of the Shannon into the Atlantic, I had been the daily witness;
and even to recall some of the incidents passingly was an effort of
great pain.
Of one feature of the people at this disastrous time, I could not say
enough; nor could any words of mine do justice to the splendid heroism
with which they bore up, and the noble generosity they showed each other
in misfortune. It is but too often remarked how selfish men are made by
misery, and how fatal is a common affliction to that charity that cares
for others. There was none of this here; I never in any condition or
class recognized more traits of thoughtful kindness and self-denial
than I did amongst these poor, famished, and forgotten people. I never
witnessed in the same perfection, how a widespread affliction could
call up a humanity great as itself, and make very commonplace natures
something actually heroic and glorious.
Nothing short of the fatal tendency I have to digression, and the
watchful care I am bound to bestow against this fault, prevented me from
narrating several incidents with which my own experience had made me
acquainted. Foreign as these were to the burden of my tale, it was only
by an effort I overcame the temptation to recall them.
If a nation is to be judged by her bearing under calamity, Ireland--and
she has had some experiences--comes well through the ordeal. That we
may yet see how she will sustain her part in happier circumstances is my
hope and my prayer, and that the time be not too far off.
CHARLES LEVER.
Trieste, 1872.
THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN.
CHAPTER I. CRO' MARTIN
I am about to speak of Ireland as it was some four-and-twenty years ago,
and feel as if I were referring to a long-past period of history, such
have been the changes, political and social, effected in that interval!
Tempting, as in some respects might be an investigation into the causes
of these great changes, and even speculation as to how they might have
been modified and whither they tend, I prefer rather to let the reader
form his own unaided judgment on such matters, and will therefore,
without more of preface, proceed to my story.
If the traveller leaves the old town of Oughterard, and proceeds
westward, he enters a wild and dreary region, with few traces of
cultivation, and with scarcely an inhabitant. Bare, bleak mountains,
fissured by many a torrent, bound plains of stony surface,--here and
there the miserable hut of some “cottier,” with its poor effort at
tillage, in the shape of some roods of wet potato land, or the sorry
picture of a stunted oat crop, green even in the late autumn. Gradually,
however, the scene becomes less dreary. Little patches of grass land
come into view, generally skirting some small lake; and here are to be
met with droves of those wild Connemara ponies for which the district is
so celebrated; a stunted hardy race, with all the endurance and courage
that beseem a mountain origin. Further on, the grateful sight of young
timber meets the eye, and large enclosures of larch and spruce fir are
seen on every favorable spot of ground. And at length, on winding round
the base of a steep mountain, the deep woods of a rich demesne appear,
and soon afterwards a handsome entrance-gate of massive stone, with
armorial bearings above it, announces the approach to Cro' Martin
Castle, the ancient seat of the Martins.
An avenue of several miles in length, winding through scenery of the
most varied character, at one time traversing rich lawns of waving
meadow, at another tracking its course along some rocky glen, or
skirting the bank of a clear and rapid river, at length arrives at the
castle. With few pretensions to architectural correctness, Cro' Martin
was, indeed, an imposing structure. Originally the stronghold of some
bold Borderer, it had been added to by successive proprietors, till
at last it had assumed the proportions of a vast and spacious edifice,
different eras contributing the different styles of building, and
presenting in the mass traces of every architecture, from the stern old
watch-tower of the fourteenth century to the commodious dwelling-house
of our own.
If correct taste might take exception to many of the external details
of this building, the arrangements within doors, where all that elegance
and comfort could combine were to be found, might safely challenge
criticism. Costly furniture abounded, not for show in state apartments,
shrouded in canvas, or screened from sunlight, but for daily use in
rooms that showed continual habitation.
Some of the apartments displayed massive specimens of that richly carved
old oak furniture for which the châteaux of the Low Countries were
famed; others abounded with inlaid consoles and costly tables of
“marqueterie,” and others again exhibited that chaste white and gold
which characterized the splendid era of the Regency in France. Great
jars of Sèvres, those splendid mockeries of high art, stood in the
windows, whose curtains were of the heaviest brocade. Carpets of soft
Persian wool covered the floors, and rich tapestries were thrown over
sofas and chairs with a careless grace, the very triumph of picturesque
effect.
In the scrupulous neatness of all these arrangements, in the orderly
air, the demure and respectful bearing of the servants as they showed
the castle to strangers, one might read the traces of a strict and
rigid discipline,--features, it must be owned, that seemed little
in accordance with the wild region that stretched on every side. The
spotless windows of plate-glass, the polished floor that mirrored every
chair that stood on it, the massive, and well-fitting doors, the richly
gilded dogs that shone within the marble hearth, had little brotherhood
with the dreary dwellings of the cottiers beyond the walls of the park;
and certainly even Irish misery never was more conspicuous than in that
lonely region.
It was early on a calm morning of the late autumn that the silent
courtyard of the castle resounded with the sharp quick tramp of a horse,
suddenly followed by a loud shrill whistle, as a young girl, mounted
upon a small but highly bred horse, galloped up to one of the back
entrances. Let us employ the few seconds in which she thus awaited, to
introduce her to the reader. Somewhat above the middle size, and with
a figure admirably proportioned, her face seemed to blend the joyous
character of happy girlhood with a temperament of resolute action. The
large and liquid hazel eyes, with their long dark fringes, were almost
at variance with the expression of the mouth, which, though finely and
beautifully fashioned, conveyed the working of a spirit that usually
followed its own dictates, and as rarely brooked much interference.
Shaded by a broad-leaved black hat, and with a braid of her dark auburn
hair accidentally fallen on her shoulder, Mary Martin sat patting the
head of the wire-haired greyhound who had reared himself to her side,--a
study for Landseer himself. Scarcely above a minute had elapsed, when
several servants were seen running towards her, whose hurried air
betrayed that they had only just risen from bed.
“You're all very late to-day,” cried the young lady. “You should have
been in the stables an hour ago. Where 's Brand?”
“He 's gone into the fair, miss, with a lot of hoggets,” said a little
old fellow with a rabbit-skin cap, and a most unmistakable groom
formation about the knees and ankles.
“Look to the mare, Barny,” said she, jumping off; “and remind me, if I
forget it, to fine you all, for not having fed and watered before six
o'clock. Yes, I 'll do it; I said so once before, and you 'll see I 'll
keep my word. Is it because my uncle goes a few weeks to the seaside,
that you are to neglect your duty? Hackett, I shall want to see the
colts presently; go round to the straw-yard and wait till I come; and,
Graft, let us have a look at the garden, for my aunt is quite provoked
at the flowers you have been sending her lately.”
All this was said rapidly, and in a tone that evidently was not meant
to admit of reply; and the gardener led the way, key in hand, very much
with the air of a felon going to conviction. He was a Northern Irishman,
however, and possessed the Scotch-like habits of prudent reserve that
never wasted a word in a bad cause. And thus he suffered himself to be
soundly rated upon various short-comings in his department,--celery that
wanted landing; asparagus grown to the consistence of a walking-cane;
branches of fruit-trees breaking under their weight of produce; and even
weed-grown walks,--all were there, and upon all was he arraigned.
“The old story, of course, Graft,” said she, slapping her foot
impatiently with her riding-whip,--“you have too few people in the
garden; but my remedy will be to lessen their number. Now mark me. My
uncle is coming home on Wednesday next,--just so--a full month earlier
than you expected,--and if the garden be not in perfect order,--if I
find one of these things I have complained of to-day--”
“But, my leddy, this is the season when, what wi' sellin' the fruit, and
what wi' the new shoots--”
“I 'll have it done, that 's all, Mr. Graft; and you 'll have one man
less to do it with. I 'll go over the hothouse after breakfast,” said
she, smiling to herself at the satisfaction with which he evidently
heard this short reprieve. Nor was he himself more anxious to escape
censure than was she to throw off the ungracious office of inflicting
it.
“And now for old Catty Broon, and a good breakfast to put me in better
temper,” said she to herself, as she entered the castle and wended her
way to the housekeeper's room.
“May I never; but I thought it was a dream when I heard your voice
outside,” said old Catty, as she welcomed her young mistress with
heartfelt delight; “but when I saw them runnin' here and runnin' there,
I said, sure enough, she's come in earnest.”
“Quite true, Catty,” said Mary, laughing. “I surprised the garrison, and
found them, I must say, in most sorry discipline; but never mind, they
'll have everything to rights by Wednesday, when we are all coming back
again.”
“Was the bathing any use to my Lady, miss?” asked Catty, but in a tone
that combined a kind of half drollery with earnest.
“She's better and worse, Catty; better in health, and scarcely as
good-humored; but, there 's a good old soul, let me have breakfast, for
I have a great deal to do before I ride back.”
“But sure you are not goin' to ride back to Kilkieran to-day?”
“That am I, Catty, and up to Kyle's Wood and the new plantations before
I go. Why, it's only fifteen miles, old lady!”
“Faix, you 're your father's daughter all over,” said Catty, with a
look first at _her_, and then at a water-colored sketch which occupied
a place over the chimney, and represented a fair-haired, handsome boy of
about ten years of age.
“Was that ever like papa?” asked the girl.
“'Tis his born image, it is,” said Catty; and her eyes swam with tears
as she turned away.
“Well, to _my_ thinking he is far better-looking in that picture!” said
Mary, pointing with her whip to a colored drawing of a showily dressed
dragoon officer, reining in his charger, and seeming to eye with
considerable disdain the open mouth of a cannon in front of him.
“Ah, then, the other was more himself!” sighed Catty; “and more nat'ral
too, with the long hair on his neck and that roguish laugh in his eye.”
“And neither are very like that!” said Mary, pointing to a third
portrait, which represented a swarthy horseman with a wide sombrero and
a jacket all braided and buttoned in Mexican fashion, a rifle at his
back, and a long lance in his hand, with the heavy coil of a lasso at
his saddle-peak.
“Arrah, that ain't a bit like him,” said the old woman, querulously,
“for all that he said that it was.”
Mary arose at the words, and perused aloud some lines which were written
at the foot of the picture, and which many and many a time before she
had conned over and repeated. They ran thus: “Aye, Catty, though
you won't believe it, that rough-looking old rider, all bearded and
sunburned, is your own wild Barry of former days; and for all that the
world has done, wonderfully little altered in the core, though the crust
is not very like that cherry-cheeked boy that used to, and mayhap still
may, hang over your fireplace.--Guastalla, May, 1808.”
“And has he not written since that?” sighed the girl, over whom the dark
shadow of orphanhood passed as she spoke.
“Twice only: the first of the two spoke of his coming home again; but
somehow he seemed to be put off it, and the next letter was all about
you, as if he did n't mean to come back! My Lady and Master Barry never
was fond of each other,” muttered the old woman, after a pause, and as
though giving an explanation to some problem that she was working within
her own head.
“But my uncle loved him,” broke in Mary.
“And why wouldn't he? War n't they twins? There was only a few minutes
between them,--long enough to make one a rich man, and leave the
other only his own wits and the wide world for a fortune! Ayeh, ayeh!”
grumbled out the old crone, “if they were both born poor, they 'd be
livin' together like brothers now, under the one roof,--happy
and comfortable; and you and your cousin, Master Dick, would be
playfellows and companions, instead of his being away in Ingia, or
America, or wherever it is!”
The young girl leaned her head on her hand, and appeared to have fallen
into a deep train of thought; for she never noticed old Catty's remarks,
nor, indeed, seemed conscious of her presence for some time. “Catty,”
said she, at length, and in a voice of unusually calm earnestness,
“never talk to me of these things; they only fret me; they set me a
thinking of Heaven knows what longings,--for a home that should be more
like a real home than this, though God knows my uncle is all that I
could wish in kindness and affection; but--but--”
She stopped, and her lip quivered, and her eyes grew heavy-looking; and
then, with a kind of struggle against her emotions, she added gayly,
“Come and show me the dairy, Catty. I want to see all those fine things
in Wedgewood-ware that you got while we were away, and then we 'll
have a peep at the calves, and by that time it will be the hour for my
levee.”
“Faix, miss,” said the old woman, “they 're all here already. The news
soon spread that you came over this morning, and you 'll have a great
assembly.”
“I'll not keep them waiting, then,” said Mary; and, so saying, she
left the room, and proceeding by many passages and corridors, at length
reached a remote part of the building which once had formed part of the
ancient edifice. A suite of low-ceiled rooms here opened upon a small
grassy enclosure, all of which had been appropriated by Mary to her
own use. One was a little library or study, neatly but very modestly
furnished; adjoining it was her office, where she transacted all
business matters; and beyond that again was a large chamber, whose sole
furniture consisted in a row of deal presses against the walls, and a
long table or counter which occupied the middle of the room. Two large
windows opening to the floor lighted the apartment; and no sooner had
Mary thrown these wide, than a burst of salutations and greetings arose
from a dense and motley crowd assembled on the grass outside, and who
stood, sat, or lay in every possible attitude and grouping, their faces
all turned towards the window where she was standing.
With true native volubility they poured out not only their welcomings,
but a number of interjectional flatteries, supposed not to be audible by
her on whom they commented; and thus her hair, her eyes, her teeth, her
complexion, even her foot, were praised with an enthusiasm of admiration
that might have shamed more polished worshippers.
These muttered eulogies continued as the young girl was occupied
unlocking drawers and presses, and placing upon the table several books
and papers, as well as a small scale and weights,--preparations all
equally the source of fruitful observation.
The company was entirely of the softer sex,--an epithet not perhaps in
the strictest accordance with an array of faces that really might have
shamed witchcraft. Bronzed, blear-eyed, and weather-beaten, seamed with
age and scarred with sickness, shrewd-looking, suspicious, and crafty
in every lineament, there was yet one characteristic predominant over
all,--an intense and abject submission, an almost slavish deference
to every observation addressed to them. Their dress bespoke the very
greatest poverty; not only were they clothed in rags of every hue and
shape, but all were barefooted, and some of the very oldest wore no
other covering to their heads than their own blanched and grizzled
locks.
Nor would a follower of Lavater have argued too favorably of
the prosperity of Irish regeneration, in beholding that array of
faces,--low-browed, treacherous-looking, and almost savagely cruel, as
many of them were in expression. There was not, indeed, as often is
to be remarked amongst the peasant class of many countries, a look
of stupid, stolid indifference; on the contrary, their faces were
intensely, powerfully significant, and there was stamped upon them that
strange mixture of malignant drollery and sycophancy that no amount of
either good or adverse fortune ever entirely subdues in their complex
natures.
[Illustration: 034]
The expediency of misery had begotten the expediency of morals, and in
all the turnings and windings of their shifty natures you could see the
suggestions of that abject destitution which had eaten into their very
hearts. It would have puzzled a moralist to analyze these “gnarled
natures,” wherein some of the best and some of the worst features of
humanity warred and struggled together. Who could dare to call them
kind-hearted or malevolent, grateful or ungrateful, free-giving or
covetous, faithful or capricious, as a people? Why, they were all these,
and fifty other things just as opposite besides, every twenty-four
hours of their lives! Their moods of mind ranged from one extreme to the
other; nothing had any permanency amongst them but their wretchedness.
Of all their qualities, however, that which most obstructed their
improvement, ate deepest into their natures, and suggested the worst
fears for the future, was suspicion. They trusted nothing,--none,--so
that every benefit bestowed on them came alloyed with its own share of
doubt; and all the ingenuity of their crafty minds found congenial
occupation in ascribing this or that motive to every attempt to better
their condition.
Mary Martin knew them--understood them--as well as most people; few,
indeed, out of their own actual station of life had seen so much of
their domesticity. From her very childhood she had been conversant with
their habits and their ways. She had seen them patient under the most
trying afflictions, manfully braving every ill of life, and submitting
with a noble self-devotion to inevitable calamity; and she had
also beheld them, with ignorant impatience, resenting the slightest
interference when they deemed it uncalled for, and rejecting kindness
when it came coupled with the suggestion of a duty.
By considerable skill, and no little patience, she had insinuated a
certain small amount of discipline into this disorderly mass. She could
not succeed in persuading them to approach her one by one, or wait with
any semblance of order while she was yet occupied; but she enforced
conformity with at least one rule, which was, that none should speak
save in answer to some question put by herself. This may seem a very
small matter, and yet to any one who knows the Irish peasant it will
appear little short of miraculous. The passion for discursiveness, the
tendency to make an effective theme of their misery, whatever particular
shape it may assume, is essentially national; and to curb this vent to
native eloquence was to oppose at once the strongest impulse of their
natures.
Nothing short of actual, tangible benefits could compensate them for
what they scrupled not to think was downright cruelty; nor was it till
after months of steady perseverance on her part that her system could be
said to have attained any success. Many of the most wretched declined to
seek relief on the conditions thus imposed. Some went as actual
rebels, to show their friends and neighbors how they would resist
such intolerance; others, again, professed that they only went out of
curiosity. Strange and incomprehensible people, who can brave every ill
of poverty, endure famine and fever and want, and yet will not bow the
head to a mere matter of form, nor subject themselves to the very least
restriction when a passion or a caprice stands opposed to it! After
about eighteen months of hard persistence the system began at length
to work; the refractory spirits had either refrained from coming or
had abandoned the opposition; and now a semblance of order pervaded
the motley assemblage. Whenever the slightest deviation from the ritual
occurred, a smart tap of a small ivory ruler on the table imposed
silence; and they who disregarded the warning were ordered to move by,
unattended to. Had a stranger been permitted, therefore, to take a peep
at these proceedings, he would have been astonished at the rapidity with
which complaints were heard, and wants redressed; for, with an instinct
thoroughly native, Mary Martin appreciated the cases which came before
her, and rarely or never confounded the appeal of real suffering with
the demands of fictitious sorrow. Most of those who came were desirous
of tickets for Dispensary aid; for sickness has its permanent home in
the Irish cabin, and fever lurks amidst the damp straw and the smoky
atmosphere of the poor peasant's home. Some, however, came for articles
of clothing, or for aid to make and repair them; others for some little
assistance in diet, barley for a sick man's drink, a lemon or an orange
to moisten the parched lips of fever; others, again, wanted leave
to send a grandchild or a niece to the school; and, lastly, a few
privileged individuals appeared to claim their weekly rations of snuff
or tobacco,--little luxuries accorded to old age,--comforts that solaced
many a dreary hour of a joyless existence. Amongst all the crowded mass
there was not one whom Mary had not known and visited in their humble
homes. Thoroughly conversant with their condition and their necessities,
she knew well their real wants; and if one less hopeful than herself
might have despaired to render any actual relief to such widespread
misery, she was sanguine enough to be encouraged by the results before
her, small and few as they were, to think that possibly the good time
was yet to come when such efforts would be unneeded, and when Ireland's
industry, employed and rewarded, would more than suffice for all the
requirements of her humble poor.
“Jane Maloney,” said Mary, placing a small packet on the table, “give
this to Sally Kieran as you pass her door; and here 's the order for
your own cloak.”
“May the heavens be your bed. May the holy--”
“Catty Honan,” cried Mary, with a gesture to enforce silence. “Catty,
your granddaughter never comes to the school now that she has got leave.
What's the reason of that?”
“Faix, your reverance, miss, 'tis ashamed she is by ray-son of her
clothes. She says Luke Cassidy's daughters have check aprons.”
“No more of this, Catty. Tell Eliza to come on Monday, and if I 'm
satisfied with her she shall have one too.”
“Two ounces of tea for the Widow Jones.”
“Ayeh,” muttered an old hag. “But it's weak it makes it without a little
green in it!”
“How are the pains, Sarah?” asked Mary, turning to a very feeble-looking
old creature with crutches.
“Worse and worse, my Lady. With every change of the weather they come on
afresh.”
“The doctor will attend you, Sally, and if he thinks wine good for you,
you shall have it.”
“'T is that same would be the savin' of me, Miss Mary,” said a
cunning-eyed little woman, with a tattered straw bonnet on her head, and
a ragged shawl over her.
“I don't think so, Nancy. Come up to the house on Monday morning and
help Mrs. Taafe with the bleaching.”
“So this is the duplicate, Polly?” said she, taking a scrap of paper
from an old woman whose countenance indicated a blending of dissipation
with actual want.
“One-and-fourpence was all I got on it, and trouble enough it gave
me.” These words she uttered with a heavy sigh, and in a tone at once
resentful and complaining.
“Were my uncle to know that you had pawned your cloak, Polly, he 'd
never permit you to cross his threshold.”
“Ayeh, it's a great sin, to be sure,” whined out the hag, half
insolently.
“A great shame and a great disgrace it certainly is; and I shall stop
all relief to you till the money be paid back.”
“And why not!” “To be sure!” “Miss Mary is right!” “What else could she
do?” broke in full twenty sycophant voices, who hoped to prefer their
own claims by the cheap expedient of condemning another.
“The Widow Hannigan.”
“Here, miss,” simpered out a smiling little old creature, with a
courtesy, as she held up a scroll of paper in her hand.
“What 's this, Widow Hannigan?”
“'T is a picture Mickey made of you, miss, when you was out riding that
day with the hounds; he saw you jumping a stone wall.”
Mary smiled at the performance, which certainly did not promise future
excellence, and went on,--
“Tell Mickey to mend his writing; his was the worst copy in the class;
and here's a card for your daughter's admission into the Infirmary. By
the way, widow, which of the boys was it I saw dragging the river on
Wednesday?”
“Faix, miss, I don't know. Sure it was none of ours would dare to--”
“Yes, they would, any one of them; but I 'll not permit it; and what's
more, widow, if it occur again, I 'll withdraw the leave I gave to fish
with a rod.
“Teresa Johnson, your niece is a very good child, and promises to be
very handy with her needle. Let her hem these handkerchiefs, and there's
a frock for herself. My uncle says Tom shall have half his wages paid
him till he's able to come to work again.”
But why attempt to follow out what would be but the long, unending
catalogue of native misery,--that dreary series of wants and privations
to which extreme destitution subjects a long-neglected and helpless
people? There was nothing from the cradle to the coffin, from the first
wailing wants of infancy to the last requirement of doting old age, that
they did not stand in need of.
A melancholy spectacle, indeed, was it to behold an entire population so
steeped in misery, so utterly inured to wretchedness, that they felt
no shame at its exposure, but rather a sort of self-exultation at any
opportunity of displaying a more than ordinary amount of human suffering
and sorrow;--to hear them how they caressed their afflictions, how they
seemed to fondle their misfortunes, vying with each other in calamity,
and bidding higher and higher for a little human sympathy.
Mary Martin set herself stoutly to combat this practice, including, as
it does, one of the most hopeless features of the national character. To
inculcate habits of self-reliance she was often driven, in violation of
her own feelings, to favor those who least needed assistance, but whose
efforts to improve their condition might serve as an example. With a
people who are such consummate actors she was driven into simulation
herself, and paraded sentiments of displeasure and condemnation when
her very heart was bursting with pity and compassion. No wonder was it,
then, that she rejoiced when this painful task was completed, and she
found herself in the more congenial duty of looking over the “young
stock,” and listening to old Barny's predictions about yearlings and
two-year-olds.
This young girl, taught to read by a lady's maid, and to sew by a
housekeeper, possessed scarcely any of the resources so usual to those
in her own condition, and was of sheer necessity thrown upon herself
for occupation and employment. Her intense sympathy with the people,
her fondness for them even in their prejudices, had suggested the whole
story of her life. Her uncle took little or no interest in the details
of his property. The indolence in which he first indulged from liking,
became at last a part of his very nature, and he was only too well
pleased to see the duty undertaken by another which had no attraction
for himself.
“Miss Mary will look to it”--“Tell my niece of it”--“Miss Martin will
give her orders,” were the invariable replies by which he escaped all
trouble, and suffered the whole weight of labor and responsibility to
devolve upon a young girl scarcely out of her teens, until gradually,
from the casual care of a flower-garden, or a childish pleasure in
giving directions, she had succeeded to the almost unlimited rule of
her uncle's house and his great estate.
Mr. Martin was often alarmed at some of his niece's measures of reform.
The large sums drawn out of bank, the great expenses incurred in weekly
wages, the vast plans of building, draining, road-making, and even
bridging, terrified him; while the steward, Mr. Henderson, slyly
insinuated, that though Miss Mary was a wonderful manager, and the “best
head he ever knew, except my Lady's,” she was dreadfully imposed on by
the people--but, to be sure, “how could a young lady be up to them?”
But she was up to them, aye, and more still, she was up to Mr. Henderson
himself, notwithstanding his mild, douce manner, his cautious reserve,
and his unbroken self-possession.
It is very far from my intention to say that Mary Martin was not over
and over again the dupe of some artifice or other of the crafty and
subtle natures that surrounded her. Mock misery, mock industry, mock
enlightenment, mock conviction, even mock submission and resignation,
had all their partial successes; and she was entrapped by many a
pretence that would have had no chance of imposing on Mr. Henderson.
Still there was a credit side to this account, wherein his name would
not have figured. There were traits of the people, which he neither
could have understood or valued. There were instincts--hard struggling
efforts, fighting their way through all the adverse circumstances of
their poverty--that he never could have estimated, much less could he
have speculated on the future to which they might one day attain.
If Mary was heart and soul devoted to her object,--if she thought of
nothing else,--if all her dreams by night and all her daily efforts
were in the cause, she was by no means insensible to the flattery which
constantly beset her. She accepted it readily and freely, laughing at
what she persuaded herself to believe was the mere exuberance of that
national taste for praise. Like most warm and impulsive natures, she
was greedy of approbation; even failure itself was consoled by a word
of encomium on the effort. She liked to be thought active, clever, and
energetic. She loved to hear the muttered voices which at any moment of
difficulty said, “Faix, Miss Mary will find the way to it;” or, “Sure
it won't baffle _her_, anyhow.” This confidence in her powers stimulated
and encouraged her, often engendering the very resources it imputed.
She might have made many a mistake in the characters of those for whom
she was interested,--conceived many a false hope,--nurtured many a
delusive expectation; but in the scheme of life she had planned out
for herself, the exalting sense of a duty more than recompensed her
for every failure: and if any existence could be called happy, it
was hers,--the glorious excitement of an open-air life, with all
its movements and animation. There was that amount of adventure
and enterprise which gave a character of romantic interest to her
undertakings, and thus elevated her to a degree of heroism to herself,
and then, knowing no fatigue, she was again in the saddle, and, straight
as the crow flies, over the county to Kyle's Wood.
A solitary cabin or two stood in the midst of the wild, bleak plain, and
by these she paused for a few minutes. The watchful eyes that followed
her as she went, and the muttered blessings that were wafted after her,
proclaimed what her mission had been, and showed how she had for a brief
space thrown a gleam of sunshine over the darksome gloom of some sad
existence.
“God bless her! she's always cheerful and light-hearted,” said the poor
peasant, as he leaned on his spade to look after her; “and one feels
better the whole day after the sight of her!”