Winifred Cavana was an only daughter, indeed an only child. Her
father, old Ned Cavana of Rathcash, had been always a thrifty and
industrious man. During the many years he had been able to attend to
business--and he was an experienced farmer--he had realized a sum of
money, which, in his rank of life and by his less prosperous
neighbors, would be called "unbounded wealth," but which, divested of
that envious exaggeration, was really a comfortable independence for
his declining years, and would one of those days be a handsome
inheritance for his handsome daughter. Not that Ned Cavana intended to
huxter the whole of it up, so that she should not enjoy any of it
until its possession might serve to lighten her grief for his
death--no; should Winny marry some "likely boy," of whom her father
could in every respect approve, she should have six hundred pounds,
R.M.D.; and at his death by which time Ned hoped some of his
grandchildren would make the residue more necessary--she should have
all that he was able to demise, which was no paltry matter. In the
meantime they would live happily and comfortable, not niggardly.
With this view--a distant one, he still hoped--before him, and knowing
that he had already sown a good crop, and reaped a sufficient harvest
to live liberally, die peacefully, and be _berrid dacently_, he had
set a great portion of his land upon a lease during his own life, at
the termination of which it was to revert to his son-in-law, of whose
existence, long before that time, he could have no doubt, and for
whose name a blank had been left in his will, to be filled up in due
time before he died, or, failing that event--not his death, but a
son-in-law--it was left solely to his daughter Winifred.
Winny Cavana was, beyond doubt or question, a very handsome girl--and
she knew it. She knew, too, that she was "a catch;" the only one
in that side of the country; and no person wondered at the many
admirers she could boast of, though it was a thing she was never known
to do; nor did she wonder at it herself. Without her six hundred
pounds, Winny could have had scores of "bachelors;" and it was not
very surprising if she was hard to be pleased. Indeed, had Winny
Cavana been penniless, it is possible she would have had a greater
number of open admirers, for her reputed wealth kept many a faint
heart at a distance. It was not to be wondered at either, if a wealthy
country beauty had the name of a coquette, whether she deserved it or
not; nor was it to be expected that she could give unmixed
satisfaction to each of her admirers; and we all know what
censoriousness unsuccessful admiration is likely to cause in a
disappointed heart.
Amongst all those who were said to have entered for the prize of
Winny's heart, Thomas Murdock was the favorite--not with herself, but
the neighbors. At all events he was the "likely boy" whom Winny's
father had in his eye as a husband for his daughter; and in writing
his will, he had lifted his pen from the paper at the blank already
mentioned, and written the name Thomas Murdock in the air, so that, in
case matters turned out as he wished and anticipated, it would fit in
to a nicety.
The townlands of Rathcash and Rathcashmore, upon which the Cavanas and
Murdocks lived, was rather a thickly populated district, and they had
some well-to-do neighbors, beside many who were not quite so
well-to-do, but were yet decent and respectable. There were the Boyds,
the Beattys, and the Brennans, with the Cahils, the Cartys, and the
Clearys beyond them; the Doyles, the Dempseys, and the Dolans not far
off; with the Mulveys, the Mooneys, and the Morans quite close. The
people seemed to live in alphabetical batches in that district, as if
for the convenience of the county cess-collector and his book. Many
others lived still further off, but not so far (in Ireland) as not to
be called neighbors.
Kate Mulvey, one of the nearest neighbors, was a great friend and
companion of Winny's. If Kate had six hundred pounds she could easily
have rivalled Winny's good looks, but she had not six hundred pence;
and notwithstanding her magnificent eyes, her white teeth, and her
glossy brown hair, she could not look within miles as high into the
clouds as Winny could. Still Kate had her admirers, some of whom even
Winny's fondest glance, with all her money, could not betray into
treachery. But it so happened that the person at whom she had thrown
her cap had not (as yet, at least) picked it up.