E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.
THE MACDERMOTS OF BALLYCLORAN.
by
ANTHONY TROLLOPE,
Author of "Dr. Thorne," "Orley Farm," "Miss Mackenzie,"
"Can You Forgive Her?" Etc.
Fourth Edition.
London:
Chapman & Hall, 193, Piccadilly.
1866.
CONTENTS
I. BALLYCLORAN HOUSE AS FIRST SEEN BY THE AUTHOR
II. THE MACDERMOT FAMILY
III. THE TENANTRY OF BALLYCLORAN
IV. MYLES USSHER
V. FATHER JOHN
VI. THE BROTHER AND SISTER
VII. THE PRIEST'S DINNER PARTY
VIII. MISS MACDERMOT AT HOME
IX. MOHILL
X. MR. KEEGAN
XI. PAT BRADY
XII. THE WEDDING
XIII. HOW THE WEDDING PARTY WAS CONCLUDED
XIV. DENIS McGOVERY'S TIDINGS
XV. THE McKEONS
XVI. PROMOTION
XVII. SPORT IN THE WEST
XVIII. HOW PAT BRADY AND JOE REYNOLDS WERE ELOQUENT IN VAIN
XIX. THE RACES
XX. HOW CAPTAIN USSHER SUCCEEDED
XXI. THE CORONER'S INQUEST
XXII. THE ESCAPE
XXIII. AUGHACASHEL
XXIV. THE SECOND ESCAPE
XXV. RETROSPECTIVE
XXVI. THE DUEL
XXVII. FEEMY RETURNS TO BALLYCLORAN
XXVIII. ASSIZES AT CARRICK-ON-SHANNON
XXIX. THADY'S TRIAL IS COMMENCED
XXX. THE PRISONER'S DEFENCE
XXXI. THE LAST WITNESS
XXXII. THE VERDICT
XXXIII. THE END
THE MACDERMOTS OF BALLYCLORAN.
CHAPTER I.
BALLYCLORAN HOUSE AS FIRST SEEN BY THE AUTHOR.
In the autumn, 184--, business took me into the West of Ireland,
and, amongst other places, to the quiet little village of Drumsna,
which is in the province of Connaught, County Leitrim, about 72 miles
W.N.W. of Dublin, on the mail-coach road to Sligo. I reached the
little inn there in the morning by the said mail, my purpose being to
leave it late in the evening by the day coach; and as my business was
but of short duration, I was left, after an early dinner, to amuse
myself. Now, in such a situation, to take a walk is all the brightest
man can do, and the dullest always does the same. There is a kind of
gratification in seeing what one has never seen before, be it ever
so little worth seeing; and the gratification is the greater if the
chances be that one will never see it again. Now Drumsna stands on a
bend in the Shannon; the street leads down to a bridge, passing over
which one finds oneself in the County Roscommon; and the road runs
by the well-wooded demesne of Sir G---- K----; moreover there is a
beautiful little hill, from which the demesne, river, bridge, and
village can all be seen; and what farther _agremens_ than these could
be wanted to make a pretty walk? But, alas! I knew not of their
existence then. One cannot ask the maid at an inn to show one where
to find the beauties of nature. So, trusting to myself, I went
directly away from river, woods, and all,--along as dusty, ugly, and
disagreeable a road as is to be found in any county in Ireland.
After proceeding a mile or so, taking two or three turns to look for
improvement, I began to perceive evident signs on the part of the
road of retrograding into lane-ism; the county had evidently deserted
it, and though made for cars and coaches, its traffic appeared to be
now confined to donkeys carrying turf home from the bog, in double
kishes on their back. Presently the fragments of a bridge presented
themselves, but they too were utterly fallen away from their
palmy days, and in their present state afforded but indifferent
stepping-stones over a bog stream which ran, or rather crept, across
the road. These, however, I luckily traversed, and was rewarded
by finding a broken down entrance to a kind of wood on the right
hand. In Ireland, particularly in the poorer parts--to rank among
which, County Leitrim has a right which will not be disputed--a
few trees together are always the recognised sign of a demesne,
of a gentleman's seat, or the place where a gentleman's seat has
been; and I directly knew that this must be a demesne. But ah! how
impoverished, if one might judge from outward appearances. Two brick
pillars, from which the outside plaster had peeled off and the coping
fallen, gave evidence of former gates; the space was closed up with
a loose built wall, but on the outer side of each post was a little
well worn footpath, made of soft bog mould. I of course could not
resist such temptation, and entered the demesne. The road was nearly
covered with that short dry grass which stones seem to throw up, when
no longer polished by the wealthier portion of man or brute kind.
About thirty feet from the gap a tall fir had half fallen, and lay
across the road, so that a man should stoop to walk under it; it was
a perfect barrier to any equipage, however humble, and the roots had
nearly refixed themselves in their reversed position, showing that
the tree had evidently been in that fallen state for years.
The usual story, thought I, of Connaught gentlemen; an extravagant
landlord, reckless tenants, debt, embarrassment, despair, and ruin.
Well, I walked up the deserted avenue, and very shortly found myself
in front of the house. Oh, what a picture of misery, of useless
expenditure, unfinished pretence, and premature decay!
The house was two stories high, with large stone steps up to the
front door, with four windows in the lower, and six in the upper
story, and an area with kitchens, &c., below. The entire roof was
off; one could see the rotting joists and beams, some fallen, some
falling, the rest ready to fall, like the skeleton of a felon left
to rot on an open gibbet. The stone steps had nearly dropped through
into the area, the rails of which had been wrenched up. The knocker
was still on the door,--a large modern lion-headed knocker; but half
the door was gone; on creeping to the door-sill, I found about six
feet of the floor of the hall gone also--stolen for fire wood. But
the joists of the flooring were there, and the whitewash of the walls
showed that but a few, a very few years back, the house had been
inhabited. I leaped across the gulf, at great risk of falling into
the cellar, and reached the bottom of the stairs; here my courage
failed me; all that was left was so damp and so rotten, so much had
been gradually taken away, that I did not dare to go up: the doors on
the ground floor would not open; the ceiling above me was all gone,
and I could see the threatening timbers of the roof, which seemed
only hanging till they had an opportunity of injuring some one by
their fall. I crept out of the demi-door again, and down the ruined
steps, and walked round the mansion; not only was there not a pane of
glass in the whole, but the window frames were all gone; everything
that wanted keeping was gone; everything that required care to
preserve it had perished. Time had not touched it. Time had evidently
not yet had leisure to do his work. He is sure, but slow. Ruin works
fast enough unaided, where once he puts his foot. Time would have
pulled down the chimneys--Ruin had taken off the slates; Time would
have bulged the walls--Ruin brought in the rain, rotted the timbers,
and assisted the thieves. Poor old Time will have but little left him
at Ballycloran! The gardens had been large; half were now covered by
rubbish heaps, and the other half consisted of potato patches; and
round the out-houses I saw clustering a lot of those wretched cabins
which the poor Irish build against a deserted wall, when they can
find one, as jackdaws do their nests in a superannuated chimney.
In the front there had been, I presume, a tolerably spacious lawn,
with a drive through it, surrounded on all sides, except towards the
house, by thick trees. The trees remained, but the lawn, the drive,
and the flower patches, which of course once existed there, were now
all alike, equally prolific in large brown dock weeds and sorrels.
There were two or three narrow footpaths through and across the
space, up to the cabins behind the house, but other marks of humanity
were there none.
A large ash, apparently cut down years ago, with the branches still
on it, was stretched somewhat out of the wood: on this I sat, lighted
a cigar, and meditated on this characteristic specimen of Irish life.
The sun was setting beautifully behind the trees, and its imperfect
light through the foliage gave the unnatural ruin a still stronger
appearance of death and decay, and brought into my mind thoughts of
the wrong, oppression, misery, and despair, to which some one had
been subjected by what I saw before me.
I had not been long seated, when four or five ragged boys and girls
came through the wood, driving a lot of geese along one of the
paths. When they saw me, they all came up and stood round me, as if
wondering what I could be. I could learn nothing from them--the very
poor Irish children will never speak to you; but a middle aged man
soon followed them. He told me the place was called Ballycloran: "he
did not know who it belonged to; a gintleman in Dublin recaved the
rints, and a very stiff gintleman he was too; and hard it was upon
them to pay two pound tin an acre for the garden there, and that
half covered with the ould house and the bricks and rubbish, only
on behalf of the bog that was convaynient, and plinty of the timber,
tho' that was rotten, and illigant outhouses for the pigs and the
geese, and the ould bricks of the wall wor good manure for the
praties" (this, in all my farming, I had never dreamt of); "but
times was very hard on the poor, the praties being ninepence a stone
in Carrick all last summer; God help the poor, the crayturs! for
the gintlemin, their raal frinds, that should be, couldn't help
thimselves now, let alone others"--and so on, now speaking of his
sorrow and poverty, and again descanting on the "illigance" of
his abode. I could only learn that a family called the Macdermots
had lived there some six or seven years back, that they were an
unfortunate people, he had heard tell, but he had not been in the
country then, and it was a bloody story, &c. &c. &c. The evening was
drawing on, and the time for my coach to come was fast approaching;
so I was obliged to leave Ballycloran, unsatisfied as to its history,
and to return to Drumsna.
Here I had no time to make further inquiries, as Mr. Hartley's
servants always keep their time; and very shortly the four horses
clattered down the hill into the village. I got up behind, for
McC----, the guard, was an old friend of mine; and after the usual
salutations and strapping of portmanteaus, and shifting down into
places, as McC---- knows everything, I began to ask him if he knew
anything of a place called Ballycloran.
"'Deed then, Sir, and I do," said he, "and good reason have I to
know; and well I knew those that lived in it, ruined, and black, and
desolate, as Ballycloran is now:" and between Drumsna and Boyle, he
gave me the heads of the following story. And, reader, if I thought
it would ever be your good fortune to hear the history of Ballycloran
from the guard of the Boyle coach, I would recommend you to get it
from him, and shut my book forthwith.