Gerald Griffin, born at Limerick on December 12, 1803, was one
of the group of clever Irishmen who, in imitation of Tom
Moore, sought literary fame in London in the first quarter of
the nineteenth century. At the age of twenty he was writing
tales of Munster life. In 1829 he became popular through the
tale of "The Collegians," here epitomised--a tale that has
held the stage to the present day under the title of "The
Colleen Bawn." Nine years later, Griffin renounced literature,
returned to Ireland, and entered the Church, and on June 12,
1840, died in a monastery at Cork. A tragedy written in his
early days was produced successfully by Macready after
Griffin's death. His fame, however, depends on his pictures of
Irish life, and they are concentrated best in the literary
accessories of the present melodrama.
_I.--A Secret Wife_
At a pleasure garden on a hill near Limerick, Eily O'Connor, the
beautiful daughter of Mihil O'Connor, the rope-maker, first met Hardress
Cregan, a young gentleman fresh from college; and on the same night, as
she and her father were returning homeward, they were attacked by a
rabble of men and boys, and rescued by the stranger and his hunchbacked
companion, Danny Mann. A few days afterwards Danny Mann visited the
rope-walk, and had a long conversation with Eily, and from that time the
girl's character seemed to have undergone a change. Her recreations and
her attire became gayer; but her cheerfulness of mind was gone. Her
lover, Myles Murphy, a good-natured farmer from Killarney, gained over
her father to his interests, and the old man pressed her either to give
consent to the match or a good reason for her refusal. After a
distressing altercation, Eily left the house without a word of farewell.
She had married Hardress Cregan secretly, and the priest had died
immediately after the ceremony. The first time she was seen, but not
recognised, in her boyish husband's company was by the Dalys, to which
family his fellow-collegian and intimate friend, Kyrle Daly, belonged. A
boat passed along the river before their house containing a hooded girl,
the hunchback, and Hardress Cregan himself. After they had disappeared,
Kyrle Daly rode to pay court to Anne Chute, Hardress's cousin, and, to
his great distress, learned that she could never be his wife although
she had no other engagement. From her manner he realised that he had a
rival, and the knowledge plunged him into the deepest despair. After her
refusal he went to spend the night at one of his father's dairy farms, a
few miles down the river. Whilst supper was being prepared, word came
that Hardress's boat was being swamped, with every soul aboard.
The collegian, however, brought the boat safely to the shore, and
procured a room for his wife in the dairy-woman's cottage, passing her
off as a relative of Danny Mann's. She retired at once and Hardress and
Kyrle sat talking together of Anne Chute. The sight of his friend's
sufferings won Hardress's sympathies. He protested his disbelief in the
idea of another attachment, and recommended perseverance.
"Trust everything to me," he said. "For your sake I will take some pains
to become better known to this extraordinary girl, and you may depend on
it you shall not suffer in my good report."
When the household was asleep, Hardress went to his wife's room, and
found her troubled because of the strangeness of their circumstances.
"I was thinking," she said, "what a heart-break it would be to my father
if anyone put it into his head that the case was worse than it is. No
more would be wanting, but just a little word on a scrap of paper, to
let him know that he needn't be uneasy, and he'd know all in time."
The suggestion appeared to jar against the young husband's inclinations.
He replied that if she wished he would return with her to her home, and
declare the marriage.
"If you are determined on certainly destroying our happiness," he
continued, "your will shall be dearer to me than fortune or friends. If
you have a father to feel for you, you will not forget, my love, that I
have a mother whom I love as tenderly, and whose feelings deserve some
consideration."
He took her hand and pressed it in a soothing manner.
"Come, dry those sweet eyes, while I tell you shortly what my plans
shall be," he said.
"You have heard me speak of Danny Mann's sister, who lives on the side
of the Purple Mountain, in the Gap of Dunlough? I have had two neat
rooms fitted up for you in her cottage, and you can have books to read,
and a little garden to amuse you, and a Kerry pony to ride over the
mountains. In the meantimes I will steal a visit now and then to my
mother, who spends the autumn in the neighbourhood. I will gradually let
her into my secret, and obtain her forgiveness. I am certain she will
not withhold it. I shall then present you to her. She will commend your
modesty and gentleness; we will send for your father, and then where is
the tongue that shall venture to wag against the fame of Eily Cregan!"
The young man left her, a little chagrined at her apparent slowness in
appreciating his noble condescension. In his boyhood he had entertained
a passion for his cousin, Anne Chute; but after the long separation of
school and college, he had imagined that his early love was completely
forgotten. The feeling with which he regarded her now was rather of
resentment than indifference, and it had been with a secret creeping of
the heart that he had witnessed what he thought was the successful
progress of Kyrle Daly's attachment. It was under those circumstances
that he formed his present hasty union with Eily. His love for her was
deep, sincere, and tender. Her entire and unbounded confidence, her
extreme beauty, her simplicity and timid deference made a soothing
compensation to his heart for the coldness of the haughty, though
superior beauty, whose inconstancy had raised his indignation.
In the morning, accompanied by Eily and Danny Mann, he sailed for
Ballybunion, where they rested in a cavern while the hunchback sought an
eligible lodging for the night. During his absence Hardress told Eily
that Danny Mann was his foster-brother, and that he himself had been the
cause of the poor fellow's deformity.
"When we were children he was my constant companion," he said.
"Familiarity produced a feeling of equality, on which he presumed so far
as to offer rudeness to a little relative of mine, a Miss Chute, who was
on a visit to my mother. She complained to me, and my vengeance was
summary. I seized him by the collar, and hurled him with desperate force
to the bottom of a flight of stairs. An injury was done to his spine."
But Danny Mann had shown naught but good nature and kindly feeling ever
since. His attachment had become the attachment of a zealot. Hardress
was sometimes alarmed at the profane importance he attached to his
master's wishes; he seemed to care but little what laws he might
transgress when the gratification of Hardress's inclination was in
question.
_II.--Tempted_
A week afterwards Hardress visited his parents at their Killarney
residence, to find that his mother, with her niece, Anne Chute, had gone
to a grand ball in the neighbourhood. His father was spending the night
with his boon fellows, and a favourite old huntsman lay dying in a room
near by. This retainer told his young master that Anne Chute loved him
well, and that she deserved a better fortune than to love without
return. Hardress went to bed, and was awakened by his mother upon her
return. She reproved him for his long absence, and told him of the
sensation his beautiful cousin was making in society. In the morning he
met Anne with some consciousness and distress. A womanly reserve and
delicacy made the girl unwilling to affect an intimacy that might not be
graciously acknowledged. She treated him coldly, and began to read some
silly novel of the day.
"Ah, Eily, my own, own Eily!" he murmured to himself. "You are worth
this fine lady a hundred times over!"
His mother appeared; her raillery entrapped both him and Anne in a scene
of coquetry. No longer embarrassed by the feeling of strangeness and
apprehension which had depressed her spirits on their first meeting
after his return from college, Anne now assumed ease and liveliness of
manner. Every hour he spent in her society removed from his mind the
prejudice he had conceived against her, and supplied its place with a
feeling of strong kindness. When he left the merry circle to return to
Eily, blank regret fell suddenly upon his heart. But the sorrow which
Anne manifested at his departure, and the cordial pleasure with which
she heard of his intention to return soon, inspired him with the
strangest happiness. The next time he thought of Eily and his cousin,
the conjunction was less favourable to the former.
"My poor little love!" he thought. "How much she has to learn before she
can assume, with comfort to herself, the place for which I have designed
her!"
At the cottage Eily received him with rapture and affection, and every
other feeling was banished from his mind. But in the course of the
evening she remarked that he was more silent and abstracted than she had
ever seen him, and that he more frequently spoke in connection of some
little breach of etiquette, or inelegance of manner, than in those terms
of eloquent praise and fondness which he was accustomed to lavish upon
her. The next day he returned to his mother's house leaving her in
tears.
That night Mrs. Cregan gave a ball, at which he was one of the gayest
revellers. Soon afterwards his mother also told him that Anne was in
love, and with none other than himself. In great agitation he replied
that he had already pledged himself to another. She insisted that any
other engagement must be broken, since if there was to be a victim it
should not be Anne. The lady's violent maternal affection overruled him,
and in spite of the call of honour he dared not tell her that he was
already married.
During the ensuing weeks Eily perceived a rapid and fearful change in
his temper and appearance. His visits were fewer and shorter, and his
manner became extraordinarily restrained and conscious.
But when she told him that the loneliness was troubling her, he accused
her of jealousy.
"If I was jealous, and with reason," said Eily. smiling seriously,
"nobody would ever know it; for I wouldn't say a word, only stretch upon
my bed and die. I wouldn't be long in his way, I'll engage."
Hardress warned her never to inquire into his secrets, nor to effect an
influence which he would not admit. He bade her avoid suffering the
slightest suspicion to appear, since when suspicions are afloat men find
the temptation to furnish them with a cause almost irresistible. Eily
protested that she was joking, and his uneasy conscience threw him into
a paroxysm of fury.
"Curse on you!" he cried. "Curse on your beauty, curse on my own folly,
for I have been undone by both! I hate you! Take the truth; I'll not be
poisoned with it! I am sick of you; you have disgusted me! I will ease
my heart by telling you the whole. If I seek the society of other women,
it is because I find not among them your meanness and vulgarity!"
"Oh, Hardress," shrieked the affrighted girl, "you are not in earnest
now?"
"I do _not_ joke!" he exclaimed, with a hoarse vehemence.
"Oh, my dear Hardress, listen to me! Hear your poor Eily for one moment!
Oh, my poor father! Forgive me, Hardress. I left my home and all for
you. Oh, do not cast me off! I will do anything to please you. I will
never open my lips again. Only say you do not mean all that."
He tore himself away, leaving Eily unconscious on the ground. On the
summit of the Purple Mountain, which was all surrounded by mist, he met
Danny Mann, and confided to him that his love of Eily had turned to
hatred, asking his advice concerning what must be done.
"Sorrow trouble would I even give myself about her," said Danny, "only
send her home packin' to her father!"
"Should I send Eily home to earn for myself the reputation of a
faithless villain!" said Hardress.
"Why, then I'll tell you what I'd do," said Danny, nodding his head.
"Pay her passage out to Quaybec, an' put her aboard of a three-master.
Do by her as you'd do to dat glove you have on your hand. Make it come
off as well as it comes on, an' if it fits too tight, take the knife to
it. Only give me the word, an' I'll engage Eily O'Connor will never
trouble you any more. Don't ax me any questions; only, if you are
agreeable, take off that glove an' give it to me for a token. Lave the
rest to Danny."
Hardress gazed upon the face of the hunchback with an expression of
gaping terror, as if he stood in the presence of the Arch Tempter
himself. Then he caught him by the throat, and shook him with appalling
violence.
"If you ever dare again to utter a word or meditate a thought of evil
against that unhappy creature," he cried, "I will tear you limb from
limb between my hands!"
_III.--"Found Drowned"_
Hardress had left Eily almost unprovided with funds. After a few weeks
she was obliged to write for pecuniary assistance. The letter was
unheeded. She borrowed a pony, and went to ask advice from her father's
brother, Father O'Connor, of Castle Island. The priest received her very
coldly, but became deeply moved upon hearing that she was legally
married. She begged him to inform her father that she hoped soon to ask
his pardon for all the sorrow she had caused. He gave her all the money
he had, and she returned to the cottage.
Danny Mann delivered Eily's letter, and sat drinking with his master in
Mrs. Cregan's drawing-room. Anne Chute entered, and finding the man she
loved in an intoxicated condition she withdrew in sorrow and disgust.
He asked the girl's forgiveness when soberness returned, and she told
him that she was greatly distressed because of his changed manner. For a
long time past there had been a distressing series of misconceptions on
her part, and of inconsistencies on his. She could not explain how
deeply troubled she felt.
The intoxication of passion overcame Hardress, and he told her that the
key to everything was that he loved her. She forgave him, and he was
about to send a reassuring line to his mother, when he found in his
hands a portion of Eily's letter, in which she begged him to let her go
back to her father. He turned white with fear, but Mrs. Cregan entered,
and her strong will overbore his scruples. He declared himself ready to
marry his beautiful cousin. Then he sought Danny Mann, and reminded him
of his suggestion about hiring a passage for Eily in a North American
vessel.
"You bade me draw my glove from off my hand, and give it for a warrant,"
he said, plucking off the glove slowly finger by finger. "My mind is
altered. I married too young; I didn't know my own mind. I am burning
with this thralldom. Here is my glove."
Danny took it, whilst they exchanged a look of cold and fatal
intelligence. Hardress gave him a purse, and repeated that Eily must not
stay in Ireland, that three thousand miles of roaring ocean were a
security for silence. Not a hair of her head must be hurt, but he would
never see her more. Then he wrote on the back of Eily's letter
instructions for her to put herself under the bearer's care, and he
would restore her to her father. She determined to obey at once, and
without a murmur, and at nightfall left the cottage in Danny's company.
Two hours afterwards Hardress himself arrived in a fit of compunction.
On learning that they had departed, he swore to himself that if this his
servant exceeded his views, he would tear his flesh from his bones, and
gibbet him as a miscreant and a ruffian.
The night grew wild and stormy; a thunderstorm broke over the hill.
Hardress slumbered in his chair, crying out, "My glove, my glove! You
used it against my meaning! I meant but banishment. We shall be hanged
for this!"
He awoke from a fearsome nightmare, and, unable to remain longer in the
cottage, ran home with the speed of one distracted. There he rebuked his
mother wildly, telling her that she had forced him into madness, and
that he was free to execute her will--to marry or hang, whichever she
pleased. His love of Anne now became entirely dormant, and he was able
to estimate the greatness of his guilt without even the suggestion of a
palliative. Anne returned to Castle Chute, and preparations were soon
being made for the wedding. Hardress and his mother went to stay there,
and Kyrle Daly heard for the first time that he had won the girl's love,
instead of pleading his fellow-collegian's cause as he had promised. The
anger he felt was diverted by a family tragedy--the death of his mother.
At her wake Hardress appeared, and found himself face to face with old
Mihil O'Connor, his father-in-law. The ropemaker, who had only a faint
recollection of having met him before, told him of his heart-break
because of Eily's disappearance, and misread his agitation for sympathy.
Some while afterwards the gentry of the neighbourhood hunted the fox,
and the dogs found on the bank of the Shannon a body covered with a
large blue mantle that was drenched with wet and mire. A pair of small
feet in Spanish leather shoes appearing from below the end of the
garment showed that the body was that of a female, whilst a mass of
long, fair hair which escaped from the hood proved that death had found
the victim untimely in her youth.
_IV.--Exiled for Life_
Hardress confided the mournful story to his mother, assuring her that he
was Eily's murderer. After the first extreme agitation, the lady
declared that he overrated the measure of his guilt. She reproached him
for his lack of confidence, after all the love she had showered upon
him. He clenched his hand, and she affected to fear that he intended to
strike her. At her outcry of fear he sank to her feet, lowering his
forehead to the very dust.
"There is one way left for reparation," he said. "I will give myself up.
There is peace and comfort in the thought."
He was interrupted by the entrance of Anne. Mrs. Cregan accounted for
her son's excitement by saying that he was ill. Later in the evening
they heard that the coroner had not even found anyone to identify the
body, and that the jury had returned a verdict of "Found Drowned." Some
days afterwards Hardress went shooting to the creek, and, believing that
he had killed a serving-man, fled panic-stricken back to the house. The
fellow, however, was unhurt, but his cries attracted the attention of a
stranger who had lain concealed under a bank. A party of soldiers
appeared now and fired at this unknown man, and soon he staggered and
was taken prisoner.
Mrs. Cregan came to Hardress's room with fearful tidings. Eily's dress
had been recognised, and suspicion had fallen upon Danny Mann. Hardress
told her that his former servant had left the country, but soon the
soldiers arrived at the house with the hunchback in charge. Late that
night Hardress left his bed, and entered the stable where Danny was
confined. The hunchback advanced towards him slowly, his hands wreathed
together, his jaw dropped, and his eyes filled with tears. He offered
Hardress the glove.
"I had my token surely for what I done," he said. "'Here is your
warrant,' you says. Worn't them your words?"
"But not for death," replied Hardress. "I did not say for death."
"I own you didn't," said Danny Mann. "I felt for you, an' I wouldn't
wait for you to say it. Your eye looked murder; as sure as that moon is
shinin', so sure the sign of death was on your face that time, whatever
way your words went."
Hardress gave him money, and helped him to escape, bidding him leave the
country. "If ever we should meet again on Irish soil," he said, "it must
be the death of either."
The exertions for Danny Mann's recapture proved unavailing, and in a few
weeks the affair had begun to grow unfamiliar to the tongues and
recollections of the people. Hardress's depression reached an unbearable
degree, and Anne at last grew seriously uneasy. He assured her that if
she knew all she would pity and not blame. Then, one day when they were
walking together they came upon some countryfolk dancing in the road,
and amongst them Hardress recognised the hunchback. He caught him by the
throat and flung him violently against the wall.
Danny Mann was taken into custody again, and, before the magistrate,
told of Hardress's complicity in the crime. He declared that he had
always loved his master, but that from the moment of the assault a
change had come over his love.
"He had his revenge, an' I'll have mine," he said. "He doesn't feel for
me, an' I won't feel for him. Write down Danny Mann for the murderer of
Eily, an' write down Hardress Cregan for his adviser." He produced the
certificate of Eily's marriage. "I took it out of her bosom after--" He
shuddered with such violence that the door trembled. "She kep' her hand
in her bosom upon that paper to the last gasp, as if she thought it was
to rob her of that I wanted."
The magistrate, accompanied by a guard, rode to Castle Chute. It was the
wedding evening, and the house was filled with gay company. As all sat
at table together, Hardress heard a low voice whisper in his ear,
"Arise, and fly for your life!" The wineglass fell from his hand, and he
became filled with terror. Once again he heard the voice, "Arise, I tell
you! The army is abroad, and your life is in danger!"
As he was preparing to escape, his mother entered his presence.
"The doors are all defended!" she cried. "There is a soldier set on
every entrance! You are trapped and caught! The window--come this way,
quick--quick!"
She drew him passively into her own bed-chamber; some minutes later the
soldiers forced their way forward, and found him concealed in an inner
place. His mother sank at his feet, and cried out that the crime was
hers, since she had been the author of his first temptation, the
stumbling-block between him and repentance.
"I have tied the cord upon your throat!" she shrieked. "I have been your
fellest foe! You drank in pride with my milk, and passion under my
indulgence!"
Hardress took the wretched woman in his arms and kissed her forehead.
"I will pray for you at the moment of my death, as you will pray for
me," he said. Then he surrendered himself to the soldiers, and was taken
away. At the trial the mercy of the executive power was extended to his
life, and he was sentenced to perpetual exile. As the convict ship which
was to bear him from home waited in the river, he was brought from his
gaol and left for a short time on the quay, where he heard that Eily's
father had died, after praying for and forgiving his enemies. The boat
arrived to convey him to the ship, and whilst descending the steps he
was overcome by a seizure, and would have fallen but for the aid of his
escort. The dawn of the following morning beheld him tossed upon the
waves of the Atlantic, and looking back to the clifted heads of the
Shannon, that stood like a gigantic portal opening far behind. The land
of his nativity faded rapidly on his sight, but before the vessel came
in sight of that of his exile, he had rendered up the life which the law
forbore to take.
Danny Mann died amid all the agonies of a remorse which made even those
whose eyes had looked upon such cases shrink back with fear and wonder.
Mrs. Cregan lived many years after Hardress's departure, practising the
austere and humiliating works of piety which her Church prescribes for
the penitent.
Anne Chute, in the course of time, became Kyrle Daly's wife, and they
were as happy as earth could render hearts that looked to higher
destinies and a more lasting rest.
* * * * *