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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II), by
+Charles James Lever
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II)
+
+Author: Charles James Lever
+
+Illustrator: Phiz.
+
+Release Date: February 2, 2011 [EBook #35143]
+Last Updated: February 27, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN ***
+
+
+
+
+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!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. KILKIERAN BAY
+
+In one of the many indentures of Kilkieran Bay,--favored by a
+southerly aspect and a fine sandy beach, sheltered by two projecting
+headlands,--stood a little row of cabins, originally the dwellings of
+poor fishermen, but now, in summer-time, the resort of the neighboring
+gentry, who frequented the coast for sea-bathing. There was little
+attempt made by the humble owners to accommodate the habits of the
+wealthy visitors. Some slight effort at neatness, or some modest
+endeavor at internal decoration, by a little window-curtain or a rickety
+chest of drawers, were the very extent of these pretensions. Year by
+year the progress of civilization went thus lazily forward; and, far
+from finding fault with this backwardness, it was said that the visitors
+were just as well satisfied. Many hoped to see the place as they
+remembered it in their own childhood, many were not sorry to avail
+themselves of its inexpensive life and simple habits, and some were more
+pleased that its humble attractions could draw no strangers to sojourn
+there to mock by their more costly requirements the quiet ways of the
+old residents.
+
+Under the shelter of a massive rock, which formed the northern boundary
+of the little bay, stood one building of more pretension. It was a
+handsome bathing-lodge, with a long veranda towards the sea, and an
+effort, not very successful, however, at a little flower-garden in
+front. The spacious bay-windows, which opened in French fashion, were
+of plate-glass; the deep projecting eave was ornamented with a handsome
+cornice; and the entire front had been richly decorated by entablatures
+in stucco and common cement. Still, somehow, there seemed to be a
+spiteful resistance in the climate to such efforts at embellishment.
+The wild hurricanes that swept over the broad Atlantic were not to be
+withstood by the frail timbers of the Gothic veranda. The sweeping gusts
+that sent foaming spray high over the rocky cliffs shattered the costly
+panes, and smashed even the mullions that held them; while fragments of
+carving, or pieces of stuccoed tracery, together with broken vases and
+uprooted shrubs, littered the garden and the terrace. The house was but
+a few years built, and yet was already dilapidated and ruinous-looking.
+A stout stone wall had replaced the trellised woodwork of one side of
+the porch; some of the windows were firmly barricaded with boards on the
+outside; and iron cramps and other appliances equally unsightly on the
+roof, showed by what means the slates were enabled to resist the storms.
+
+The aspect of consistent poverty never inspires ridicule. It is shabby
+gentility alone that provokes the smile of sarcastic meaning; and thus
+the simple dwellings of the fishermen, in all their humility, offered
+nothing to the eye of critical remark. There seemed abundant absurdity
+in this attempt to defy climate and aspect, place and circumstance; and
+every effort to repair an accident but brought out the pretension into
+more glaring contrast. The “Osprey's Nest,” as Lady Dorothea Martin had
+styled her bathing-lodge, bore, indeed, but a sorry resemblance to its
+water-colored emblem in the plan of the architect; for Mr. Kirk had not
+only improvised a beautiful villa, with fuchsias and clematis and
+moss-roses clustering on it, but he had invented an Italian sky, and
+given a Lago Maggiore tint to the very Atlantic. Your fashionable
+architect is indeed a finished romancer, and revels in the license of
+his art with a most voluptuous abandonment.
+
+It was now, however, late in the autumn; some warnings of the
+approaching equinox had already been felt, and the leaden sky above, and
+the dark-green, sullen sea beneath, above which a cold northwester swept
+gustily, recalled but little of the artistic resemblance.
+
+The short September day was drawing to a close, and it was just that
+dreary interval between day and dusk, so glorious in fine weather,
+but so terribly depressing in the cold ungenial season, as all the
+frequenters of the little bay were hastening homeward for the night.
+Already a twinkling candle or two showed that some had retired to
+their humble shealings to grumble over the discomforts about them, and
+speculate on a speedy departure. They who visited Kilkieran during the
+“season” were usually the gentry families of the neighborhood; but
+as the summer wore over, their places were occupied by a kind of
+“half-price company,”--shopkeepers and smart residents of Oughterard,
+who waited for their pleasure till it could be obtained economically.
+Of this class were now those on the evening I have mentioned, and to a
+small select party of whom I now desire to introduce my reader.
+
+It was “Mrs. Cronan's Evening”--for the duty of host was taken
+in rotation--and Mrs. Cronan was one of the leaders of fashion in
+Oughterard, for she lived on her own private means, at the top of
+Carraway Street, entertained Father Maher every Sunday at dinner, and
+took in the “Galway Intelligence,” which, it is but fair to say, was,
+from inverted letters and press blunders, about as difficult reading as
+any elderly lady ever confronted.
+
+Mrs. Cronan was eminently genteel,--that is to say, she spent her life
+in unceasing lamentations over the absence of certain comforts “she
+was always used to,” and passed her days in continual reference to some
+former state of existence, which, to hear her, seemed almost borrowed
+bodily out of the “Arabian Nights.” Then there was Captain Bodkin, of
+the Galway Fencibles,--a very fat, asthmatic old gentleman, who came
+down to the “salt water” every summer for thirty years, fully
+determined to bathe, but never able to summon courage to go in. He was
+a kind-hearted, jolly old fellow, who loved strong punch and long whist,
+and cared very little how the world went on, if these enjoyments were
+available.
+
+Then there was Miss Busk, a very tall, thin, ghostly personage, with a
+pinkish nose and a pinched lip, but whose manners were deemed the very
+type of high breeding, for she courtesied or bowed at almost
+minute intervals during an “Evening,” and had a variety of personal
+reminiscences of the Peerage. She was of “an excellent family,” Mrs.
+Cronan always said; and though reduced by circumstances, she was the
+Swan and Edgar of Oughterard,--“was company for the Queen herself.”
+
+The fourth hand in the whist-table was usually taken by Mrs. Nelligan,
+wife of “Pat Nelligan,” the great shopkeeper of Oughterard, and who,
+though by no means entitled on heraldic grounds to take her place in any
+such exalted company, was, by the happy accident of fortune, elevated to
+this proud position. Mrs. Nelligan being unwell, her place was, on the
+present occasion, supplied by her son; and of him I would fain say a few
+words, since the reader is destined to bear company with him when the
+other personages here referred to have been long forgotten.
+
+Joseph Nelligan was a tall, pale young fellow who, though only just
+passed twenty-two, looked several years older; the serious, thoughtful
+expression of his face giving the semblance of age. His head was large
+and massively shaped, and the temples were strong and square, deeply
+indented at the sides, and throwing the broad, high forehead into
+greater prominence; dark eyes, shaded by heavy, black eyebrows, lent
+an almost scowling character to a face which, regular in feature, was
+singularly calm and impassive-looking. His voice was deep, low, and
+sonorous, and though strongly impressed with the intonation of his
+native province, was peculiarly soft, and, to Irish ears, even musical.
+He was, however, remarkably silent; rarely or never conversed, as his
+acquaintances understood conversation, and only when roused by some
+theme that he cared for, or stimulated by some assertion that he
+dissented from, was he heard to burst forth into a rapid flow of words,
+uttered as though under the impulse of passion, and of which, when
+ended, he seemed actually to feel ashamed himself.
+
+He was no favorite with the society of Kilkieran; some thought him
+downright stupid; others regarded him as a kind of spy upon his
+neighbors,--an imputation most lavishly thrown out in every circle where
+there is nothing to detect, and where all the absurdity lies palpable on
+the surface; and many were heard to remark that he seemed to forget who
+he was, and that “though he was a college student, he ought to remember
+he was only Pat Nelligan's son.”
+
+If he never courted their companionship, he as little resented their
+estrangement from him. He spent his days and no small share of his
+nights in study; books supplied to him the place of men, and in their
+converse he forgot the world. His father's vanity had entered him as
+a Fellow-Commoner in the University, and even this served to widen
+the interval between him and those of his own age; his class-fellows
+regarded his presence amongst them as an intolerable piece of low-bred
+presumption. Nor was this unkindly feeling diminished when they saw him,
+term after term, carry away the prizes of each examination; for equally
+in science as in classics was he distinguished, till at length it became
+a current excuse for failure when a man said, “I was in Nelligan's
+division.”
+
+It is not impossible that his social isolation contributed much to his
+success. For him there were none of the amusements which occupy those of
+his own age. The very fact of his fellow-commoner's gown separated him
+as widely from one set of his fellow-students as from the other, and
+thus was he left alone with his ambition. As time wore on, and his
+successes obtained wider notoriety, some of those in authority in the
+University appeared to be disposed to make advances to him; but he
+retreated modestly from these marks of notice, shrouding himself in
+his obscurity, and pleading the necessity for study. At length came
+the crowning act of his college career, in the examination for the gold
+medal; and although no competitor was bold enough to dispute the prize
+with him, he was obliged to submit to the ordeal. It is rarely that the
+public vouchsafes any interest in the details of University honors; but
+this case proved an exception, and almost every journal of the capital
+alluded in terms of high paneygric to the splendid display he made on
+that occasion.
+
+In the very midst of these triumphs, young Nelligan arrived at his
+father's house in Oughterard, to enjoy the gratification his success had
+diffused at home, and rest himself after his severe labors. Little as
+old Pat Nelligan of his neighbors knew of University honors, or the
+toil which won them, there was enough in the very publicity of his son's
+career to make him a proud man. He at least knew that Joe had beaten
+them all; that none could hold a candle to him; “that for nigh a century
+such answering had not been heard on the bench.” This was the expression
+of a Dublin journal, coupled with the partisan regret that, by the
+bigoted statutes of the college, genius of such order should be denied
+the privilege of obtaining a fellowship.
+
+If young Nelligan retired, half in pride, half in bashful-ness, from the
+notice of society in Dublin, he was assuredly little disposed to enter
+into the gayeties and dissipations of a small country-town existence.
+The fulsome adulation of some, the stupid astonishment of others, but,
+worse than either, the vulgar assumption that his success was a kind of
+party triumph,--a blow dealt by the plebeian against the patrician, the
+Papist against the Protestant,--shocked and disgusted him, and he was
+glad to leave Oughterard and accompany his mother to the seaside. She
+was an invalid of some years' standing,--a poor, frail, simple-hearted
+creature, who, after a long, struggling life of hardship and toil, saw
+herself in affluence and comfort, and yet could not bring her mind to
+believe it true. As little could she comprehend the strange fact of
+Joe's celebrity; of his name figuring in newspapers, and his health
+being drunk at a public dinner in his native town. To her he was
+invaluable; the very tenderest of nurses, and the best of all
+companions. She did n't care for books, even those of the most amusing
+kind; but she loved to hear the little gossip of the place where the
+neighbors passed the evening; what topics they discussed; who had left
+and who had arrived, and every other little incident of their uneventful
+lives. Simple and easy of execution as such an office might have been
+to a kindred spirit, to Joseph Nelligan it proved no common labor. And
+certain it is that the mistakes he committed in names, and the blunders
+he fell into as regarded events, rather astonished his mother, and
+led that good lady to believe that Trinity College must not have
+been fertile in genius when poor Joe was regarded as one of the great
+luminaries of his time. “Ah,” would she say, “if he had his father's
+head it would be telling him! but, poor boy, he remembers nothing!”
+
+This digression--far longer than I cared to make it, but which has grown
+to its present extent under my hands--will explain young Nelligan's
+presence at Mrs. Cronan's “Tea,” where already a number of other
+notables had now assembled, and were gracefully dispersed through the
+small rooms which formed her apartment. Play of various kinds formed the
+chief amusement of the company; and while the whist-table, in decorous
+gravity, held the chief place in the sitting-room, a laughing round game
+occupied the kitchen, and a hardly contested “hit” of backgammon
+was being fought out on the bed, where, for lack of furniture, the
+combatants had established themselves.
+
+The success of an evening party is not always proportionate to the means
+employed to secure it. Very splendid _salons_, costly furniture,
+and what newspapers call “all the delicacies of the season,” are
+occasionally to be found in conjunction with very dull company; while
+a great deal of enjoyment and much social pleasure are often to be
+met with where the material resources have been of the fewest and most
+simple kind. On the present occasion there was a great deal of laughing,
+and a fair share of love-making; some scolding at whist, and an
+abundance of scandal, at least of that cut-and-thrust-at character which
+amuses the speakers themselves, and is never supposed to damage those
+who are the object of it. All the company who had frequented the
+port--as Kilkieran was called--during the season were passed in review,
+and a number of racy anecdotes interchanged about their rank, morals,
+fortune, and pretensions. A very general impression seemed to prevail
+that in the several points of climate, scenery, social advantages, and
+amusements, Kilkieran might stand a favorable comparison with the first
+watering-places, not alone of England, but the Continent; and after
+various discursive reasons why its fame had not equalled its deserts,
+there was an almost unanimous declaration of opinion that the whole
+fault lay with the Martins; not, indeed, that the speakers were very
+logical in their arguments, since some were heard to deplore the change
+from the good old times, when everybody was satisfied to live anywhere
+and anyhow, when there was no road to the place but a bridle-path, not
+a loaf of bread to be had within twelve miles, no post-office; while
+others eloquently expatiated on all that might have been, and yet was
+not done.
+
+“We tried to get up a little news-room,” said Captain Bodkin, “and I
+went to Martin myself about it, but he hum'd and ha'd, and said, until
+people subscribed for the Dispensary he thought they needn't mind
+newspapers.”
+
+“Just like him,” said Mrs. Cronan; “but, indeed, I think it's my Lady
+does it all.”
+
+“I differ from you, ma'am,” said Miss Busk, with a bland smile; “I
+attribute the inauspicious influence to another.”
+
+“You mean Miss Martin?” said Mrs. Cronan.
+
+“Just so, ma'am; indeed, I have reason to know I am correct. This time
+two years it was I went over to Cro' Martin House to propose opening 'my
+Emporium' for the season at the port. I thought it was due to the owners
+of the estate, and due to myself also,” added Miss Busk, majestically,
+“to state my views about a measure so intimately associated with
+the--the--in fact, what I may call the interests of civilization. I
+had just received my plates of the last fashions from Dublin,--you may
+remember them, ma'am; I showed them to you at Mrs. Cullenane's--well,
+when I was in the very middle of my explanation, who should come into
+the room but Miss Martin--”
+
+“Dressed in the old brown riding-habit?” interposed a fat old lady with
+one eye.
+
+“Yes, Mrs. Few, in the old brown riding-habit. She came up to the table,
+with a saucy laugh in her face, and said, 'Why, uncle, are you going to
+give a fancy ball?'
+
+“'It is the last arrival from Paris, miss,' said I; 'the Orleans mantle,
+which, though not a “costume de Chasse,” is accounted very becoming.'
+
+“'Ah, you 're laughing at my old habit, Miss Busk,' said she, seeing
+how I eyed her; 'and it really is very shabby, but I intend to give Dan
+Leary a commission to replace it one of these days.'”
+
+“Dan Leary, of the Cross-roads!” exclaimed Captain Bodkin, laughing.
+
+“I pledge you my word of honor, sir, she said it. 'And as to all this
+finery, Miss Busk,' said she, turning over the plates with her whip, 'it
+would be quite unsuitable to our country, our climate, and our habits;
+not to say, that the Orleans mantle would be worn with an ill grace when
+our people are going half naked!'”
+
+“Positively indecent! downright indelicate!” shuddered Mrs. Cronan.
+
+“And did Martin agree with her?” asked the Captain.
+
+“I should like to know when he dared to do otherwise. Why, between my
+lady and the niece he can scarcely call his life his own.”
+
+“They say he has a cruel time of it,” sighed Mr. Clinch, the
+revenue-officer, who had some personal experience of domestic slavery.
+
+“Tush,--nonsense!” broke in his wife. “I never knew one of those
+hen-pecked creatures that was n't a tyrant in his family. I 'll engage,
+if the truth were known, Lady Dorothy has the worst of it.”
+
+“Faith, and he's much altered from what he was when a boy, if any
+one rules him,” said the captain. “I was at school with him and his
+twin-brother Barry. I remember the time when one of them had to wear a
+bit of red ribbon in his button-hole to distinguish him from the other.
+They were the born images of each other,--that is, in looks; for in
+real character they were n't a bit like. Godfrey was a cautious, quiet,
+careful chap that looked after his pocket-money, and never got into
+scrapes; and Barry was a wasteful devil that made the coin fly, and
+could be led by any one. I think he 'd have given his life for his
+brother any day. I remember once when Godfrey would n't fight a boy,--I
+forget what it was about; Barry stole the bit of ribbon out of his coat,
+and went up and fought in his place; and a mighty good thrashing he got,
+too.”
+
+“I have heard my father speak of that,” said a thin, pale, careworn
+little man in green spectacles; “for the two boys were taken away at
+once, and it was the ruin of the school.”
+
+“So it was, doctor; you're right there,” broke in the Captain; “and they
+say that Martin bears a grudge against you to this day.”
+
+“That would be hard,” sighed the meek doctor; “for I had nothing to
+do with it, or my father, either. But it cost him dearly!” added he,
+mournfully.
+
+“You know best, doctor, whether it is true or not; but he certainly was
+n't your friend when you tried for the Fever Hospital.”
+
+“That was because Pat Nelligan was on my committee,” said the doctor.
+
+“And was that sufficient to lose you Mr. Martin's support, sir?” asked
+young Nelligan, with a degree of astonishment in his face, that, joined
+to the innocence of the question, caused a general burst of hearty
+laughter.
+
+“The young gentleman knows more about _cubic_ sections, it appears,
+than of what goes on in his own town,” said the Captain. “Why, sir,
+your father is the most independent man in all Oughterard; and if I know
+Godfrey Martin, he 'd give a thousand guineas this night to have him out
+of it.”
+
+A somewhat animated “rally” followed this speech, in which different
+speakers gave their various reasons why Martin ought or ought not to
+make any sacrifice to put down the spirit of which Pat Nelligan was the
+chief champion. These arguments were neither cogent nor lucid enough to
+require repeating; nor did they convey to Joseph himself, with all
+his anxiety for information, the slightest knowledge on the subject
+discussed. Attention was, however, drawn off the theme by the clattering
+sound of a horse passing along the shingly shore at a smart gallop;
+and with eager curiosity two or three rushed to the door to see what
+it meant. A swooping gust of wind and rain, overturning chairs and
+extinguishing candles, drove them suddenly back again; and, half
+laughing at the confusion, half cursing the weather, the party
+barricaded the door, and returned to their places.
+
+“Of course it was Miss Martin; who else would be out at this time of the
+night?” said Mrs. Clinch.
+
+“And without a servant!” exclaimed Miss Busk.
+
+“Indeed, you may well make the remark, ma'am,” said Mrs. Cronan. “The
+young lady was brought up in a fashion that was n't practised in my
+time!”
+
+“Where could she have been down that end of the port, I wonder?” said
+Mrs. Clinch. “She came up from Garra Cliff.”
+
+“Maybe she came round by the strand,” said the doctor; “if she did, I
+don't think there 's one here would like to have followed her.”
+
+“I would n't be her horse!” said one; “nor her groom!” muttered another;
+and thus, gradually lashing themselves into a wild indignation, they
+opened, at last, a steady fire upon the young lady,--her habits, her
+manners, and her appearance all coming in for a share of criticism; and
+although a few modest amendments were put in favor of her horsemanship
+and her good looks, the motion was carried that no young lady ever took
+such liberties before, and that the meeting desired to record their
+strongest censure on the example thus extended to their own young
+people.
+
+If young Nelligan ventured upon a timid question of what it was she
+had done, he was met by an eloquent chorus of half a dozen voices,
+recounting mountain excursions which no young lady had ever made before;
+distant spots visited, dangers incurred, storms encountered, perils
+braved, totally unbecoming to her in her rank of life, and showing that
+she had no personal respect, nor--as Miss Busk styled it--“a
+proper sense of the dignity of woman!”
+
+“'T was down at Mrs. Nelligan's, ma'am, Miss Mary was,” said Mrs.
+Cronan's maid, who had been despatched special to make inquiry on the
+subject.
+
+“At my mother's!” exclaimed Joseph, reddening, without knowing in the
+least why. And now a new diversion occurred, while all discussed every
+possible and impossible reason for this singular fact, since the family
+at the “Nest” maintained no intercourse whatever with their neighbors,
+not even seeming, by any act of their lives, to acknowledge their very
+existence.
+
+Young Nelligan took the opportunity to make his escape during the
+debate; and as the society offers nothing very attractive to detain us,
+it will be as well if we follow him, while he hastened homeward along
+the dark and storm-lashed beach. He had about a mile to go, and, short
+as was this distance, it enabled him to think over what he had just
+heard, strange and odd as it seemed to his ears. Wholly given up, as he
+had been for years past, to the ambition of a college life, with but one
+goal before his eyes, one class of topics engrossing his thoughts, he
+had never even passingly reflected on the condition of parties, the
+feuds of opposing factions, and, stronger than either, the animosities
+that separated social ranks in Ireland. Confounding the occasional
+slights he had experienced by virtue of his class, with the jealousy
+caused by his successes, he had totally overlooked the disparagement men
+exhibited towards the son of the little country shopkeeper, and never
+knew of his disqualification for a society whose precincts he had not
+tried to pass. The littleness, the unpurpose-like vacuity, the intense
+vulgarity of his Oughterard friends had disgusted him, it is true; but
+he had yet to learn that the foolish jealousy of their wealthy
+neighbor was a trait still less amiable, and ruminating over these
+problems,--knottier far to him than many a complex formula or many a
+disputed reading of a Greek play,--he at last reached the solitary
+little cabin where his mother lived.
+
+It is astonishing how difficult men of highly cultivated and actively
+practised minds find it to comprehend the little turnings and windings
+of commonplace life, the jealousies and the rivalries of small people.
+They search for motives where there are merely impulses, and look for
+reasons when there are simple passions.
+
+It was only as he lifted the latch that he remembered how deficient
+he was in all the information his mother would expect from him. Of the
+fortunes of the whist-table he actually knew nothing; and had he been
+interrogated as to the “toilette” of the party, his answers would have
+betrayed a lamentable degree of ignorance. Fortunately for him, his
+mother did not display her habitual anxiety on these interesting themes.
+She neither asked after the Captain's winnings,--he was the terror of
+the party,--nor whether Miss Busk astonished the company by another new
+gown. Poor Mrs. Nelligan was too brimful of another subject to admit
+of one particle of extraneous matter to occupy her. With a proud
+consciousness, however, of her own resources, she affected to have
+thoughts for other things, and asked Joe if he passed a pleasant day?
+
+“Yes, very--middling--quite so--rather stupid, I thought,” replied he,
+in his usual half-connected manner, when unable to attach his mind to
+the question before him.
+
+“Of, course, my dear, it's very unlike what you 're used to up in
+Dublin, though I believe that Captain Bodkin, when he goes there, always
+dines with the Lord-Lieutenant; and Miss Busk, I know, is second cousin
+to Ram of Swainestown, and there is nothing better than that in Ireland.
+I say this between ourselves, for your father can't bear me to talk of
+family or connections, though I am sure I was always brought up to
+think a great deal about good blood; and if my father was a Finnerty, my
+mother was a Moore of Crockbawn, and her family never looked at her for
+marrying my father.”
+
+“Indeed!” said Joe, in a dreamy semi-consciousness.
+
+“It's true what I 'm telling you. She often said it to me herself, and
+told me what a blessing it was, through all her troubles and trials in
+life; and she had her share of them, for my father was often in drink,
+and very cruel at times. 'It supports me,' she used to say, 'to remember
+who I am, and the stock I came from, and to know that there 's not one
+belonging to me would speak to me, nor look at the same side of the road
+with me, after what I done; and, Matty,' said she to me, 'if ever it
+happens to you to marry a man beneath you in life, always bear in
+mind that, no matter how he treats you, you 're better than him.' And,
+indeed, it's a great support and comfort to one's feelings, after all,”
+ said she, with a deep sigh.
+
+“I'm certain of it,” muttered Joe, who had not followed one word of the
+harangue.
+
+“But mind that you never tell your father so. Indeed, I would n't let on
+to him what happened this evening.”
+
+“What was that?” asked the young man, roused by the increased anxiety of
+her manner.
+
+“It was a visit I had, my dear,” replied the old lady, with a simpering
+consciousness that she had something to reveal,--“it was a visit I had
+paid me, and by an elegant young lady, too.”
+
+“A young lady? Not Miss Cassidy, mother. I think she left yesterday
+morning.”
+
+“No, indeed, my dear. Somebody very different from Miss Cassidy; and you
+might guess till you were tired before you 'd think of Miss Martin.”
+
+“Miss Martin!” echoed Joe.
+
+“Exactly so. Miss Martin of Cro' Martin; and the way it happened was
+this. I was sitting here alone in the room after my tea,--for I sent
+Biddy out to borrow the 'Intelligence' for me; and then comes a sharp
+knock to the door, and I called out, 'Come in;' but instead of doing so
+there was another rapping, louder than before, and I said, 'Bother you,
+can't you lift the latch?' and then I heard something like a laugh, and
+so I went out; and you may guess the shame I felt as I saw a young
+lady fastening the bridle of her horse to the bar of the window. 'Mrs.
+Nelli-gan, I believe,' said she, with a smile and a look that warmed
+my heart to her at once; and as I courtesied very low, she went on. I
+forget, indeed, the words,--whether she said she was Miss Martin, or
+it was I that asked the question; but I know she came in with me to the
+room, and sat down where you are sitting now. 'Coming back from Kyle's
+Wood this morning,' said she, 'I overtook poor Billy with the post. He
+was obliged to go two miles out of his way to ford the river; and what
+with waiting for the mail, which was late in coming, and what with being
+wet through, he was completely knocked up; so I offered to take the bag
+for him, and send it over to-morrow by one of our people. But the poor
+fellow would n't consent, because he was charged with something of
+consequence for you,--a small bottle of medicine. Of course I was only
+too happy to take this also, Mrs. Nelligan, and here it is.' And with
+that she put it on the table, where you see it. I 'm sure I never knew
+how to thank her enough for her good nature, but I said all that I could
+think of, and told her that my son was just come back from college,
+after getting the gold medal.”
+
+“You did n't speak of that, mother,” said he, blushing till his very
+forehead was crimson.
+
+“Indeed, then, I did, Joe; and I 'd like to know why I would n't. Is it
+a shame or a disgrace to us! At any rate, _she_ didn't think so, for she
+said, 'You must be very proud of him;' and I told her so I was, and that
+he was as good as he was clever; and, moreover, that the newspapers said
+the time was coming when men like young Nelligan would soar their way up
+to honors and distinctions in spite of the oppressive aristocracy that
+so long had combined to degrade them.”
+
+“Good Heavens! mother, you could n't have made such a speech as that?”
+ cried he, in a voice of downright misery.
+
+“Did n't I, then? And did n't she say, if there were any such oppression
+as could throw obstacles in the way of deserving merit, she heartily
+hoped it might prove powerless; and then she got up to wish me
+good-evening. I thought, at first, a little stiffly,--that is, more
+haughty in her manner than at first; but when I arose to see her out,
+and she saw I was lame, she pressed me down into my chair, and said, in
+such a kind voice, 'You must n't stir, my dear Mrs. Nelligan. I, who can
+find my road over half of the county, can surely discover my way to the
+door.' 'Am I ever like to have the happiness of seeing you again, miss?'
+said I, as I held her hand in mine. 'Certainly, if it would give you the
+very slightest pleasure,' said she, pressing my hand most cordially; and
+with that we parted. Indeed, I scarce knew she was gone, when I heard
+the clattering of the horse over the shingle; for she was away in
+a gallop, dark as the night was. Maybe,” added the old lady, with a
+sigh,--“maybe, I 'd have thought it was all a dream if it was n't that I
+found that glove of hers on the floor; she dropped it, I suppose, going
+out.”
+
+Young Nelligan took up the glove with a strange feeling of bashful
+reverence. It was as though he was touching a sacred relic; and he stood
+gazing on it steadfastly for some seconds.
+
+“I 'll send it over to the house by Biddy, with my compliments, and to
+know how the family is, in the morning,” said Mrs. Nelligan, with the
+air of one who knew the value of conventional usages.
+
+“And she 'll make some stupid blunder or other,” replied Joe,
+impatiently, “that will cover us all with shame. No, mother, I 'd rather
+go with it myself than that.”
+
+“To be sure, and why not?” said Mrs. Nelligan. “There 's no reason why
+_you_ should be taking up old quarrels against the Martins; for _my_
+part, I never knew the country so pleasant as it used to be long ago,
+when we used to get leave to go picnicking on the grounds of Cro'
+Martin, up to the Hermitage, as they called it; and now the gates are
+locked and barred like a jail, and nobody allowed in without a ticket.”
+
+“Yes, I'll go myself with it,” said Joe, who heard nothing of
+his mother's remark, but was following out the tract of his own
+speculations. As little did he attend to the various suggestions she
+threw out for his guidance and direction, the several topics to which he
+might, and those to which he must not, on any account, allude.
+
+“Not a word, for your life, Joe, about the right of pathway to Clune
+Abbey, and take care you say nothing about the mill-race at Glandaff,
+nor the shooting in Kyle's Wood. And if by any chance there should be a
+talk about the tolls at Oughterard, say you never heard of them before.
+Make out, in fact,” said she, summing up, “as if you never heard of
+a county where there was so much good-will and kindness between the
+people; and sure it is n't your fault if it's not true!” And with this
+philosophic reflection Mrs. Nelligan wished her son good-night, and
+retired.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. AN AUTUMN MORNING IN THE WEST
+
+The Osprey's Nest was, I have said, like a direct challenge hurled at
+the face of western gales and Atlantic storms. With what success, its
+aspect of dilapidation and decay but too plainly betrayed. The tangled
+seaweed that hung in dripping festoons over the porch, the sea-shells
+that rattled against the window-panes, seemed like an angry denunciation
+of the attempt to brave the elements by the mere appliances of ease and
+luxury.
+
+It was better, however, in the inside, where, in a roomy apartment, most
+comfortably furnished, a lady and gentleman sat at breakfast. The table
+stood in a little projection of the room, admitting of a wide sea-view
+over the bay and the distant islands of Lettermullen, but as carefully
+excluded all prospect of the port,--a locality which held no high place
+in the esteem of the lady of the house, and which, by ignoring, she half
+fancied she had annihilated. Wild promontories of rocks, jutting out
+here and there, broke the coast line, and marked the shore with a
+foaming stream of white water, as the ever-restless sea dashed over
+them. The long booming swell of the great ocean bounded into many a
+rocky cavern, with a loud report like thunder, and issued forth again
+with a whole cataract of falling stones, that rattled like the crash
+of small-arms. It was unceasing, deafening clamor in the midst of
+death-like desolation.
+
+Let me, however, turn once more to the scene within, and present the
+living elements to my reader. They were both past the prime of life.
+The lady might still be called handsome; her features were perfectly
+regular, and finely cut, bearing the impress of a proud and haughty
+spirit that never quailed beneath the conflict of a long life, and even
+yet showed a firm front to fortune. Her hair was white as snow; and as
+she wore it drawn back, after the fashion of a bygone time, it gave
+her the air of a fine lady of the old French Court, in all the pomp of
+powder and pomatum. Nor did her dress correct the impression, since the
+deep falls of lace that covered her hands, the lengthy stomacher, and
+trailing folds of her heavy brocade gown, all showed a lurking fondness
+for the distinctive toilette of that era. Lady Dorothea Martin had been
+a beauty and an earl's daughter; two facts that not even the seclusion
+of the wild west could erase from her memory.
+
+Mr. Martin himself was no unworthy “pendant” to this portrait. He was
+tall and stately, with a lofty forehead, and temples finely and
+well fashioned; while full, deep-set blue eyes of the very sternest
+determination, and a mouth, every line of which betrayed firmness, gave
+the character to a face that also could expand into the most genial
+good-fellowship, and become at times the symbol of a pleasant and
+convivial Irish gentleman. In his youth he had been a beau of the Court
+of Versailles. Scandal had even coupled his name with that of Marie
+Antoinette; and more truthful narratives connected him with some of the
+most extravagant adventures of that profligate and brilliant period.
+After a career of the wildest dissipation and excess, he had married,
+late in life, the daughter of the Earl of Exmere, one of the proudest
+and poorest names in the British Peerage. Two or three attempts to shine
+in the world of London,--not as successful as they were expected to
+have proved,--an effort at ascendancy in Irish political life, also a
+failure, coupled with disappointment on the score of an only brother,
+who had married beneath him, and was reputed to have “lost himself,”
+ seemed to have disgusted Godfrey Martin with the world, and he had
+retired to his lonely mansion in the west, which now for eighteen years
+he had scarcely quitted for a single day.
+
+His only son had joined a cavalry regiment in India a few years before
+the period our story opens, and which, I may now state, dates for about
+four or five and twenty years back; but his family included a niece,
+the only child of his brother, and whose mother had died in giving her
+birth.
+
+Between Mr. Martin and Lady Dorothea, as they sat at breakfast,
+little conversation passed. He occupied himself with the newly arrived
+newspapers, and she perused a mass of letters which had just come by
+that morning's post; certain scraps of the intelligence gleaned from
+either of these sources forming the only subjects of conversation
+between them.
+
+“So they have resolved to have a new Parliament. I knew it would come
+to that; I always said so; and, as usual, the dissolution finds us
+unprepared.”
+
+“Plantagenet's regiment is ordered to Currachee, wherever that may be,”
+ said Lady Dorothea, languidly.
+
+“Call him Harry, and we shall save ourselves some trouble in discussing
+him,” replied he, pettishly. “At all events, he cannot possibly be here
+in time for the contest; and we must, I suppose, give our support to
+Kilmorris again.”
+
+“Do you mean, after his conduct about the harbor, and the shameful way
+he sneaked out of the Port Martin project?”
+
+“Find anything better, madam; there is the difficulty. Kilmorris is
+a gentleman, and no Radical; and, as times go, these are rather rare
+qualities.”
+
+“Lady Sarah Upton's match is off,” said Lady Dorothea, reading from a
+note beside her. “Sir Joseph insisted upon the uncontrolled possession
+of all her Staffordshire property.”
+
+“And perfectly right.”
+
+“Perfectly wrong to give it to him.”
+
+“A fool if he married without it.”
+
+“A mean creature she, to accept him on such terms.”
+
+“The woman is eight-and-thirty,--if not more. I remember her at
+Tunbridge. Let me see, what year was it?”
+
+“I detest dates, and abhor chronologies. Reach me the marmalade,” said
+Lady Dorothea, superciliously.
+
+“What's this balderdash here from the 'Galway Indicator'? 'The haughty
+and insolent, aye, and ignorant aristocracy will have to swallow a
+bitter draught erelong; and such petty despots as Martin of Cro' Martin
+will learn that the day is gone by for their ascendancy in this county.'
+
+“They tell me we have a law of libel in the land; and yet see how this
+scoundrel can dare to drag me by name before the world; and I 'll wager
+a thousand pounds I 'd fail to get a verdict against him if I prosecuted
+him to-morrow,” said Martin, as he dashed the newspaper to the ground,
+and stamped his foot upon it. “We are constantly reading diatribes about
+absentee landlords, and the evils of neglected property; but I ask, what
+inducements are there held out to any gentleman to reside on his estate,
+if every petty scribbler of the press can thus attack and assail him
+with impunity?”
+
+“Is that Mary I see yonder?” asked Lady Dorothea, languidly, as she
+lifted her double eye-glass, and then suffered it to fall from her
+fingers.
+
+“So it is, by Jove!” cried Martin, springing up, and approaching the
+window. “I wish she 'd not venture out in that small boat in this
+treacherous season. What a swell there is, too! The wind is from the
+sea.”
+
+“She's coming in, I fancy,” drawled out Lady Dorothea.
+
+“How is she to do it, though?” exclaimed he, hurriedly; “the sea is
+breaking clear over the piers of the harbor. I can only see one man in
+the boat. What rashness! what folly! There, look, they're standing out
+to sea again!” And now, throwing open the window, Martin stepped out
+on the rocks, over which the white foam flashed by like snow. “What
+are they at, Peter? What are they trying to do?” cried he to an old
+fisherman, who, with the coil of a net he was just mending on his arm,
+had now come down to the shore to watch the boat.
+
+“They 're doing right, your honor,” said he, touching his cap
+respectfully. “'Tis Loony my Lady has in the boat, and there's no better
+man in trouble! He's just going to beat out a bit, and then he 'll run
+in under the shelter of the blue rocks. Faix, she 's a fine boat, then,
+for her size,--look at her now!”
+
+But Martin had covered his eyes with his hand, while his lips murmured
+and moved rapidly.
+
+“May I never, but they 're letting out the reef!” screamed the old man
+in terror.
+
+“More sail, and in such a sea!” cried Martin, in a voice of horror.
+
+“Aye, and right, too,” said the fisherman, after a pause; “she 's rising
+lighter over the sea, and steers better, besides. It's Miss Mary has the
+tiller,” added the old fellow, with a smile. “I 'll lay a shilling she
+'s singing this minute.”
+
+“You think so,” said Martin, glad to catch at this gleam of confidence.
+
+“I know it well, your honor. I remember one day, off Lettermullen, it
+was worse than this. Hurrah!” screamed he out suddenly; “she took in a
+great sea that time!”
+
+“Get out a boat, Peter, at once; what are we standing here for?” cried
+Martin, angrily. “Man a boat this instant.”
+
+“Sure no boat could get out to sea with this wind, sir,” remonstrated
+the old man, mildly; “she'd never leave the surf if she had forty men at
+her!”
+
+“Then what's to be done?”
+
+“Just let them alone; themselves two know as well what to do as any
+pair in Ireland, and are as cool besides. There, now, she 's putting her
+about, as I said, and she 'll run for the creek.” The frail boat, a mere
+speck upon the dark green ocean, seemed now to fly, as with a slackened
+sheet she darted over the water. Her course was bent for a little cove
+concealed from view by a rugged promontory of rock, up which the old
+fisherman now clambered with the alacrity of a younger man. Martin tried
+to follow; but overcome by emotion, he was unable, and sat down upon a
+ledge of rock, burying his face within his hands.
+
+By this time the whole fishing population of the little village had
+gathered on the beach around the cove, to watch the boat as she came in;
+numbers had gone out to meet her, and stood up to their waists in the
+white and boiling surf, ready to seize upon the skiff and run her high
+and dry upon the sand. Even they were obliged to be lashed together by
+a rope, lest the receding waves should carry them out to sea, or the
+“under tow” suck them beneath the surface. As the boat came within
+speaking distance, a wild shout arose from the shore to “down sail” and
+suffer her to come in on her way alone; but with all the canvas spread,
+they came flying along, scarce seeming more than to tip the waves as
+they skipped over them, while a shower of spray appeared to cover them
+as the sea broke upon the stern. Instead of rendering aid, the utmost
+the fishermen could do was to clear a path amongst them for the skiff to
+pass, as with lightning speed she flitted by and drove her bow high up
+on the hard beach.
+
+A wild, glad cheer of joy and welcome burst from the hearty fishermen
+as they crowded about the young girl, who stepped out of the boat with
+a heavy bundle in her arms. Her hair hung in great masses over her neck
+and shoulders, her cheeks were flushed, and her dark eyes gleamed with
+all the excitement of peril and triumph.
+
+“Here, Margaret,” said she to a young woman, who, pale with terror and
+with face streaming in tears, rushed towards her,--“here 's your little
+fellow, all safe and sound; I 'd not have put back but for his sake.”
+ And with this she placed in his mother's arms a little boy of about
+three years of age, sound asleep. “He must wait for better weather if
+he wants to see his grandmother. And,” added she, laughing, “I scarcely
+think you 'll catch me going to sea again with so precious a cargo. Poor
+little man!” and she patted his ruddy cheeks; “he behaved so well, like
+a stout fisherman's son as he is,--never showed fear for a moment.”
+
+A murmur of delighted hearts ran through the crowd; some thinking of the
+child, but many more in warm admiration of the brave and beautiful young
+girl before them. “Loony,” said she to her boatman, “when you 've got
+the tackle to rights, come up to the house for your breakfast.” And
+with that, and a few words of grateful recognition as she passed, she
+clambered up the rock and hastened homeward.
+
+As for her uncle, no sooner had he heard of her safe arrival on shore
+than he hurried back, anxious to reach the house before her. For a
+considerable time back Martin had schooled himself into an apparent
+indifference about his niece's perils. Lady Dorothea had probably given
+the initiative to this feeling by constantly asserting that the young
+lady would incur few risks when they ceased to create alarm.
+
+It was a somewhat ungracious theory, and excited in Martin's mind, when
+he first heard it, a sensation the very reverse of agreeable. Without
+accepting its truth, however, it made a deep impression upon him, and
+at last, by way of policy, he resolved to feign a degree of callous
+indifference very foreign to his nature; and, by dint of mere habit, he
+at length acquired a semblance of calm under circumstances that sorely
+tested his powers of self-control.
+
+“Has the heroine arrived safe on shore?” asked Lady Dorothea in her own
+languid drawl. And Martin almost started at the question, and seemed for
+a moment as if the indignation it excited could not be repressed; then
+smiling superciliously at the impassive air of her features, he said,--
+
+“Yes, and by rare good luck, too! The sea is a terrific one this
+morning!”
+
+“Is it ever anything else in this heavenly climate?” said she, sighing.
+“I have counted two fine days since the 8th of June; and, indeed, it
+rained a little on one of them.”
+
+Martin winced impatiently under the remark, but never lifted his eyes
+from the newspaper.
+
+“I had hoped your niece was making arrangements for our return to Cro'
+Martin,” said she, querulously, “instead of planning marine excursions.
+I told her yesterday, or the day before,--I forget which; but who could
+remember time in such a place?--that I was bored to death here. The
+observation seems to amuse you, Mr. Martin; but it is a simple fact.”
+
+“And you are bored to death at Cro' Martin, too, if I mistake not?” said
+he, with a very significant dryness.
+
+“I should think I was, sir; and nothing very astonishing in the
+confession, besides.”
+
+“And Dublin, madam?”
+
+“Don't speak of it. If one must endure prison discipline, at least
+let us have a cell to ourselves. Good-morning, Miss Martin. I hope you
+enjoyed your party on the water?”
+
+This speech was addressed to Mary, who now entered the room dressed in
+a plain morning costume, and in her quiet, almost demure look resembling
+in nothing the dripping and dishevelled figure that sprung from the
+boat.
+
+“Good-morning, aunt,” said she, gayly. “Good-morning, uncle,” kissing,
+as she spoke, his cheek, and patting him fondly on the shoulder. “I saw
+you out on the rocks as we were coming in.”
+
+“Pooh, pooh!” said he, in affected indifference. “I knew there was no
+danger--”
+
+“Yes, but there was, though,” said she, quickly. “If we had n't set all
+sail on her, she 'd have been pooped to a certainty; and I can tell you
+I was in a rare fright, too.”
+
+“Oh, indeed; you confess to such an ignoble emotion?” said Lady
+Dorothea, with a sneer.
+
+“That I do, aunt, for I had poor Madge Lennan's little boy on my lap all
+the time; and if it came to a swim, I don't see how he was to be saved.”
+
+“You 'd not have left him to his fate, I suppose?” said Lady Dorothea.
+
+“I scarcely know what I should have done. I sincerely hope it would have
+been my best; but in a moment like that, within sight of home, too--”
+ Her eyes met her uncle's as she said this; he had raised them from
+his newspaper, and bent them fully on her. There was that in their
+expression which appealed so strongly to her heart that instead of
+finishing her speech she sprung towards him and threw her arms around
+his neck.
+
+“Quite a scene; and I detest scenes,” said Lady Dorothen, as she arose
+and swept out of the room contemptuously; but they neither heard the
+remark nor noticed her departure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. MAURICE SCANLAN, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW.
+
+About an hour after the occurrence mentioned in our last chapter, the
+quiet little village of Kilkieran was startled by the sharp clattering
+sounds of horses' feet, as Mr. Scanlan's tandem came slinging along; and
+after various little dexterities amid stranded boats, disabled anchors,
+and broken capstans, drew up at the gate of the Osprey's Nest. When men
+devise their own equipage, they invariably impart to it a strong
+infusion of their own idiosyncrasy. The quiet souls who drag through
+life in chocolate-colored barouches, with horses indifferently matched,
+give no clew to their special characteristics; but your men of tax-carts
+and tandems, your Jehus of four-in-hand teams, write their own
+biographies in every detail of the “turn-out.”
+
+[Illustration: 068]
+
+Maurice Scanlan was a sporting attorney, and from the group of game
+cocks neatly painted on the hind panel, to the wiry, well-bred, and
+well-looking screws before him, all was indicative of the man. The
+conveyance was high and red-wheeled; the nags were a chestnut and a
+gray; he drove them without winkers or bearing-reins, wearing his white
+hat a very little on ope side, and gracefully tilting his elbow as
+he admonished the wheeler with the “crop” of his whip. He was a
+good-looking, showy, vulgar, self-sufficient kind of fellow, with
+consummate shrewdness in all business transactions, only marred by one
+solitary weak point,--an intense desire to be received intimately by
+persons of a station above his own, and to seem, at least, to be the
+admitted guest of very fashionable society. It was not a very easy
+matter to know if this Lord-worship of his was real, or merely affected,
+since, certainly, the profit he derived from the assumption was very
+considerable, and Maurice was intrusted with a variety of secret-service
+transactions, and private affairs for the nobility, which they would
+never have dreamed of committing to the hands of their more recognized
+advisers.
+
+If men would have been slow to engage his services in any grave or
+important suit, he was invaluable in all the ordinary and constantly
+occurring events of this changeful world. He knew every one's
+difficulties and embarrassments. There was not a hitch in a settlement,
+nor a spavin in your stables, could escape him. He seemed to possess a
+kind of intuitive appreciation of a flaw; and he pounced upon a defect
+with a rapidity that counterfeited genius. To these gifts he added a
+consummate knowledge of his countrymen. He had emerged from the very
+humblest class of the people, and he knew them thoroughly; with all
+their moods of habitual distrust and momentary enthusiasm,--with all
+their phases of sanguine hopefulness he was familiar; and he could mould
+and fashion and weld them to his will, as passive subjects as the heated
+bar under the hammer of the smith.
+
+As an electioneering agent he was unequalled. It was precisely the
+sphere in which his varied abilities were best exercised; and it was,
+besides, an arena in which he was proud of figuring.
+
+For a while he seemed--at least in his own eyes--to stand on a higher
+eminence than the candidate he represented, and to be a more prominent
+and far grander personage than his principal. In fact, it was only under
+some tacit acknowledgment of this temporary supremacy that his services
+were obtainable; his invariable stipulation being that he was to have
+the entire and uncontrolled direction of the election.
+
+Envious tongues and ungenerous talkers did, indeed, say that Maurice
+insisted upon this condition with very different objects in view,
+and that his unlimited powers found their pleasantest exercise in the
+inexplorable realms of secret bribery; however, it is but fair to say
+that he was eminently successful, and that one failure alone in his
+whole career occurred to show the proverbial capriciousness of fortune.
+
+With the little borough of Oughterard he had become so identified that
+his engagement was regarded as one of the first elements of success.
+Hitherto, indeed, the battle had been always an easy one. The Liberal
+party--as they pleasantly assumed to style themselves--had gone no
+further in opposition than an occasional burst of intemperate language,
+and an effort--usually a failure--at a street row during the election.
+So little of either energy or organization had marked their endeavors,
+that the great leader of the day had stigmatized their town with terms
+of heavy censure, and even pronounced them unworthy of the cause. An
+emissary, deputed to report upon the political state of the borough,
+had described the voters as mere dependants on the haughty purse-proud
+proprietor of Cro' Martin, who seemed, even without an effort, to
+nominate the sitting member.
+
+The great measure of the year '29--the Catholic Relief Bill--had now,
+however, suggested to even more apathetic constituencies the prospect of
+a successful struggle. The thought of being represented by “one of their
+own sort” was no mean stimulant to exertion; and the leading spirits of
+the place had frequently conferred together as to what steps should
+be taken to rescue the borough from the degrading thraldom of an
+aristocratic domination. Lord Kilmorris, it is true, was rather popular
+with them than the reverse. The eldest son of an Earl, who only cared
+to sit in Parliament on easy terms, till the course of time and events
+should call him to the Upper House, he never took any very decided
+political line, but sat on Tory benches and gave an occasional vote to
+Liberal measures, as though foreshadowing that new school who were to
+take the field under the middle designation of Conservatives. Some very
+remote relationship to Lady Dorothea's family had first introduced him
+to the Martins' notice; and partly from this connection, and partly
+because young Harry Martin was too young to sit in Parliament, they had
+continued to support him to the present time.
+
+Mr. Martin himself cared very little for politics; had he even cared
+more, he would not have sacrificed to them one jot of that indolent,
+lazy, apathetic existence which alone he seemed to prize. He was rather
+grateful than otherwise to Lord Kilmorris for taking upon him the
+trouble of a contest, if there should be such a thing. His greatest
+excuse through life, at least to himself, had ever been that he was
+“unprepared.” He had been in that unhappy state about everything since
+he was born, and so, apparently, was he destined to continue to the very
+last. With large resources, he was never prepared for any sudden demand
+for money. When called on for any exertion of mind or body, when asked
+to assist a friend or rescue a relation from difficulty, he was quite
+unprepared; and so convinced was he that this was a fatality under which
+he labored, that no sooner had he uttered the expression than he totally
+absolved himself from every shadow of reproach that might attach to his
+luke-warmness.
+
+The uncontrolled position he occupied, joined to the solitary isolation
+in which he lived, had doubtless engendered this cold and heartless
+theory. There was no one to dispute his will,--none to gainsay his
+opinions. There was not for him any occasion for the healthful exertion
+which is evoked by opposition, and he sunk gradually down into a moping,
+listless, well-meaning, but utterly good-for-nothing gentleman, who
+would have been marvellously amazed had any one arraigned him for
+neglect of his station and its great requirements.
+
+That such an insolent possibility could be, was only demonstrated to him
+in that morning's newspaper. To be called a despot was bad enough, but
+a petty despot,--and to be told that such despotism was already
+doomed--aroused in him a degree of indignation all the more painful that
+the sensation was one he had not experienced for many a year back. Whose
+fault was it that such an impertinence had ever been uttered? Doubtless,
+Kilmorris's. Some stupid speech, some absurd vote, some ridiculous party
+move had brought down this attack upon him; or perhaps it was Mary, with
+her new-fangled ideas about managing the estate, her school-houses, and
+her model-farms. The ignorant people had possibly revolted against her
+interference; or it might be Lady Dorothea herself, whose haughty manner
+had given offence; at all events, _he_ was blameless, and strange
+to say, either he was not perfectly assured of the fact, or that the
+assumption was not pleasant, but he seemed very far from being satisfied
+with the explanation. In the agitated mood these feelings produced, a
+servant came to inform him that Mr. Scanlan had just arrived.
+
+“Say I 'm out--I 'm unwell--I don't feel quite myself to-day. Call Miss
+Mary to him.” And with an impatient gesture he motioned the servant
+away.
+
+“Miss Mary will be down in a few minutes, sir,” said the man, entering
+the room where Mr. Scanlan stood arranging his whiskers before
+the chimney-glass, and contemplating with satisfaction his general
+appearance.
+
+“It was Mr. Martin himself, Thomas, that I wanted to see.”
+
+“I know that, sir, but the Master is n't well this morning; he told me
+to send Miss Mary to you.”
+
+“All right,” said Scanlan, giving a finishing touch to the tie of his
+cravat, and then gracefully bestowing his person into an easy-chair. To
+common observation he looked perfectly unconcerned in every gesture,
+and yet no man felt less at his ease at that moment than Mr. Maurice
+Scanlan; and though the cause involves something like a secret,
+the reader shall know it. Mr. Scanlan had seen a good deal of the
+world--that is, of _his_ world. He had mixed with barristers and
+solicitors, “Silk Gowns,” masters in Chancery, and even puisne judges
+had he come into contact with; he had mingled in turf experiences with
+certain sporting lords and baronets, swapped horses, and betted and
+handicapped with men of fortune; he had driven trotting-matches, and
+ridden hurdle-races against young heirs to good estates, and somehow
+always found himself not inferior in worldly craft and address to those
+he came in contact with,--nay, he even fancied that he was occasionally
+rather a little more wide awake than his opponents; and what with a
+little blustering here, a little blarney there, a dash of mock frankness
+to this man, or an air of impulsive generosity to the other,--an
+accommodating elasticity, in fact, that extended to morals, manners,
+and principles,--he found that he was, as he himself styled it, “a
+fair match with equal weights for anything going.” There was but
+one individual alone in presence of whom he in reality felt his own
+inferiority deeply and painfully; strange to say, that was Miss Martin!
+At first sight this would seem almost unintelligible. She was not either
+a haughty beauty, presuming on the homage bestowed upon her by high and
+distinguished admirers, nor was she any greatly gifted and cultivated
+genius dominating over lesser intelligences by the very menace of her
+acquirements. She was simply a high-spirited, frank, unaffected girl,
+whose good breeding and good sense seemed alike instinctive, and who
+read with almost intuition the shallow artifices by which such natures
+as Scanlan's impose upon the world. She had seen him easily indolent
+with her uncle, obsequiously deferential to my Lady, all in the same
+breath, while the side-look of tyranny he could throw a refractory
+tenant appeared just as congenial to his nature.
+
+It was some strange consciousness which told him he could not deceive
+_her_, that made Scanlan ever abashed in her presence, and by the
+self-same impulse was it that she was the only one in the world for
+whose good esteem he would have sacrificed all he possessed.
+
+While he waited for her coming, he took a leisurely survey of the room.
+The furniture, less costly and rich than at Cro' Martin, was all marked
+by that air of propriety and comfort so observable in rich men's houses.
+There were the hundred appliances of ease and luxury that show how
+carefully the most trifling inconveniences are warded off, and the
+course of daily life rendered as untroubled as mere material enjoyments
+can secure. Scanlan sighed deeply, for the thought crossed his mind how
+was a girl brought up in this way ever to stoop to ally her fortune to
+a man like him? Was it, then, possible that he nourished such a
+presumption? Even so. Maurice was of an aspiring turn; he had succeeded
+in twenty things that a dozen years past he had never dared to dream of.
+He had dined at tables and driven with men whose butlers and valets he
+once deemed very choice company; he had been the guest at houses where
+once his highest ambition had been to see the interior as a matter of
+curiosity. “Who could say where he might be at last?” Besides this, he
+knew from his own knowledge of family matters that she had no fortune,
+that her father was infinitely more likely to leave debts than an
+inheritance behind him, and that her uncle was the last man in the world
+ever to think of a marriage-portion for one he could not afford to part
+with. There was, then, no saying what turn of fortune might present him
+in an admissible form as a suitor. At all events, there was no rival in
+the field, and Maurice had seen many a prize won by a “walk over” purely
+for want of a competitor in the race.
+
+Notwithstanding all these very excellent and reassuring considerations,
+Maurice Scanlan could not overcome a most uncomfortable sense of
+awkwardness as Mary Martin entered the room, and saluting him with
+easy familiarity, said, “I'm quite ashamed of having made you wait, Mr.
+Scanlan; but I was in the village when I got my uncle's message. I find
+that he is not well enough to receive you, and if I can--”
+
+“I'm sure it's only too much honor you do me, Miss Mary; I never
+expected to have the pleasure of this interview; indeed, it will be very
+hard for me to think of business, at all, at all.”
+
+“That would be most unfortunate after your coming so far on account of
+it,” said she, half archly, while she seated herself on a sofa at some
+distance from him.
+
+“If it were a question about the estate, Miss Mary,” said he, in his
+most obsequious manner, “there's nobody equal to yourself; or if it were
+anything at all but what it is, I know well that you'd see your way
+out of it; but the present is a matter of politics,--it 's about the
+borough.”
+
+“That weary borough,” said she, sighing; “and are we about to have
+another election?”
+
+“That 's it, Miss Mary; and Lord Kilmorris writes me to say that he 'll
+be over next week, and hopes he 'll find all his friends here as well
+disposed towards him as ever.”
+
+“Has he written to my uncle?” asked Mary, hastily.
+
+“No; and that's exactly what I came about. There was a kind of
+coldness,--more my Lady's, I think, than on Mr. Martin's part,--and Lord
+Kilmorris feels a kind of delicacy; in fact, he doesn't rightly know how
+he stands at Cro' Martin.” Here he paused, in hopes that she would help
+him by even a word; but she was perfectly silent and attentive, and he
+went on. “So that, feeling himself embarrassed, and at the same time
+knowing how much he owes to the Martin interest--”
+
+“Well, go on,” said she, calmly, as he came a second time to a dead
+stop.
+
+“It isn't so easy, then, Miss Mary,” said he, with a long sigh, “for
+there are so many things enter into it,--so much of politics and party
+and what not,--that I quite despair of making myself intelligible,
+though, perhaps, if I was to see your uncle, he 'd make out my meaning.”
+
+“Shall I try and induce him to receive you, then?” said she, quietly.
+
+“Well, then, I don't like asking it,” said he, doubtfully; “for, after
+all, there's nobody can break it to him as well as yourself.”
+
+“Break it to him, Mr. Scanlan?” said she, in astonishment.
+
+“Faith, it 's the very word, then,” said he; “for do what one will, say
+what they may, it will be sure to surprise him, if it does no worse.”
+
+“You alarm me, sir; and yet I feel that if you would speak boldly out
+your meaning, there is probably no cause for fear.”
+
+“I'll just do so, then, Miss Mary; but at the same time I 'd have you to
+understand that I 'm taking a responsibility on myself that his Lordship
+never gave me any warrant for, and that there is not another--” Mr.
+Scanlan stopped, but only in time; for, whether it was the fervor in
+which he uttered these words, or that Miss Martin anticipated what
+was about to follow, her cheek became scarlet, and a most unmistakable
+expression of her eyes recalled the worthy practitioner to all his
+wonted caution. “The matter is this, Miss Martin,” said he, with
+a degree of deference more marked than before, “Lord Kilmorris is
+dissatisfied with the way your uncle supported him at the last election.
+He complains of the hard conditions imposed upon him as to his line of
+conduct in the House; and, above all, he feels insulted by a letter
+Lady Dorothea wrote him, full of very harsh expressions and hard
+insinuations. I never saw it myself, but that's his account of it,--in
+fact, he's very angry.”
+
+“And means to throw up the borough, in short,” broke in Mary.
+
+“I'm afraid not, Miss Mary,” said the other, in a half whisper.
+
+“What then?--what can he purpose doing?”
+
+“He means to try and come in on his own interest,” said Scanlan, who
+uttered the words with an effort, and seemed to feel relief when they
+were out.
+
+“Am I to understand that he would contest the borough with us?”
+
+Scanlan nodded an affirmative.
+
+“No, no, Mr. Scanlan, this is some mistake,--some misapprehension on
+your part. His Lordship may very possibly feel aggrieved,--he may have
+some cause, for aught I know,--about something in the last election,
+but this mode of resenting it is quite out of the question,--downright
+impossible.”
+
+“The best way is to read his own words. Miss Martin. There's his
+letter,” said he, handing one towards her, which, however, she made no
+motion to take.
+
+“If you won't read it, then, perhaps you will permit me to do so.
+It's very short, too, for he says at the end he will write more fully
+to-morrow.” Mr. Scanlan here muttered over several lines of the epistle,
+until he came to the following: “I am relieved from any embarrassment
+I should have felt at breaking with the Martins by reflecting over the
+altered conditions of party, and the new aspect politics must assume by
+the operations of the Emancipation Act. The old ways and traditions of
+the Tories must be abandoned at once and forever; and though Martin in
+his life of seclusion and solitude will not perceive this necessity, we
+here all see and admit it. I could, therefore, no longer represent his
+opinions, since they would find no echo in the House. To stand for the
+borough I must stand on my own views, which, I feel bold to say, include
+justice to both of the contending factions.”
+
+“Admirably argued,” broke in Mary. “He absolves himself from all ties of
+gratitude to my uncle by adopting principles the reverse of all he ever
+professed.”
+
+“It's very like that, indeed, Miss Mary,” said Scanlan, timidly.
+
+“Very like it, sir? it is exactly so. Really the thing would be too
+gross if it were not actually laughable;” and as she spoke she arose and
+paced the room in a manner that showed how very little of the ludicrous
+side of the matter occupied her thoughts. “He will stand for the
+borough--he means to stand in opposition to us?”
+
+“That's his intention--at least, if Mr. Martin should not come to the
+conclusion that it is better to support his Lordship than risk throwing
+the seat into the hands of the Roman Catholics.”
+
+“I can't follow all these intrigues, Mr. Scanlan. I confess to you,
+frankly, that you have puzzled me enough already, and that I have found
+it no small strain on my poor faculties to conceive a gentleman being
+able to argue himself into any semblance of self-approval by such
+sentiments as those which you have just read; but I am a poor country
+girl, very ignorant of great topics and great people. The best thing I
+can do is to represent this affair to my uncle, and as early as may be.”
+
+“I hope he'll not take the thing to heart, miss; and I trust he 'll
+acquit _me_--”
+
+“Be assured he'll despise the whole business most thoroughly, sir. I
+never knew him take any deep interest in these themes; and if this be
+a fair specimen of the way they are discussed, he was all the wiser
+for his indifference. Do you make any stay in the village? Will it be
+inconvenient for you to remain an hour or so?”
+
+“I'll wait your convenience, miss, to any hour,” said Scanlan, with an
+air of gallantry which, had she been less occupied with her thoughts,
+might have pushed her hard to avoid smiling at.
+
+“I'll be down at Mrs. Cronan's till I hear from you, Miss Mary.” And
+with a look of as much deferential admiration as he dared to bestow,
+Scanlan took his leave, and mounting to his box, assumed the ribbons
+with a graceful elegance and a certain lackadaisical languor that, to
+himself at least, appeared demonstrative of an advanced stage of the
+tender passion.
+
+“Begad, she's a fine girl; devil a lie in it, but she has n't her equal!
+and as sharp as a needle, too,” muttered he, as he jogged along the
+shingly beach, probably for the first time in his whole life forgetting
+the effect he was producing on the bystanders.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. A STUDIO AND AN ARTIST
+
+“Is my uncle in the library, Terence?” asked Mary of a very corpulent
+old man, in a red-brown wig.
+
+“No, miss, he's in the--bother it, then, if I ever can think of the name
+of it.”
+
+“The studio, you mean,” said she, smiling.
+
+“Just so, Miss Mary,” replied he, with a sigh; for he remembered certain
+penitential hours passed by himself in the same locality.
+
+“Do you think you could manage to let him know I want him--that is, that
+I have something important to say to him?”
+
+“It's clean impossible, miss, to get near him when he's there. Sure, is
+n't he up on a throne, dressed out in goold and dimonds, and as cross as
+a badger besides, at the way they're tormenting him?”
+
+“Oh, that tiresome picture, is it never to be completed?” muttered she,
+half unconsciously.
+
+“The saints above know whether it is or no,” rejoined Terence, “for
+one of the servants told me yesterday that they rubbed every bit of the
+master out, and began him all again; for my Lady said he was n't half
+haggard enough, or worn-looking; but, by my conscience, if he goes on as
+he 's doing, he ought to satisfy them.”
+
+“Why, I thought it was Henderson was sitting,” said Mary, somewhat
+amused at the old man's commentaries.
+
+“So he was; but they rubbed him out, too; for it seems now he ought to
+be bald, and they 've sent him into Oughter-ard to get his head shaved.”
+
+“And what were _you_, Terry?”
+
+“Arrah, who knows?” said he, querulously. “At first I was to be
+somebody's mother that was always cryin'; but they weren't pleased with
+the way I done it; and then they made me a monk, and after that they put
+two hundredweight of armor on me, and made me lean my head on my arm as
+if I was overcome; and faith, so I was; for I dropped off asleep, and
+fell into a pot of varnish, and I 'm in disgrace now, glory be to God!
+and I only hope it may last.”
+
+“I wish I shared your fortune, Terry, with all my heart,” said Mary,
+with some difficulty preserving her gravity.
+
+“Couldn't it catch fire--by accident, I mean, miss--some evening
+after dark?” whispered Terry, confidentially. “Them 's materials that
+would burn easy! for, upon my conscience, if it goes on much longer
+there won't be a sarvant will stay in the sarvice. They had little Tom
+Regan holding a dish of charcoal so long that he tuk to his bed on
+Friday last, and was never up since; and Jinny Moore says she 'd rather
+lave the place than wear that undacent dress; and whist, there's murder
+goin' on now inside!” And with that the old fellow waddled off with a
+speed that seemed quite disproportionate to his years.
+
+While Mary was still hesitating as to what she should do, the door
+suddenly opened, and a man in a mediaeval costume rushed out, tugging
+after him a large bloodhound, whose glaring eyeballs and frothy mouth
+betokened intense passion. Passing hurriedly forward, Mary beheld Lady
+Dorothea bending over the fainting figure of a short little man, who lay
+on the floor; while her uncle, tottering under a costume he could barely
+carry, was trying to sprinkle water over him from an urn three feet in
+height.
+
+“Mr. Crow has fainted,--mere fright, nothing more!” said Lady Dorothea.
+“In stepping backward from the canvas he unluckily trod upon Fang's
+paw, and the savage creature at once sprung on him. That stupid wretch,
+Regan, one of your favorites, Miss Martin, never pulled him off till he
+had torn poor Mr. Crow's coat, clean in two.”.
+
+“Egad, if I had n't smashed my sceptre over the dog's head the mischief
+wouldn't have stopped there; but he 's coming to. Are you better, Crow?
+How do you feel, man?”
+
+“I hope you are better, sir?” said Lady Dorothea, in an admirable
+blending of grand benevolence and condescension.
+
+[Illustration: 080]
+
+“Infinitely better; supremely happy, besides, to have become the object
+of your Ladyship's kind inquiries,” said the little man, sitting up, and
+looking around with a very ghastly effort at urbanity and ease.
+
+“I never knew Fang to bite any one,” said Mary.
+
+“Does n't she, by jingo!” exclaimed the artist, who with difficulty
+caught himself in time before he placed his hand on the supposed seat of
+his injuries.
+
+“She shall be muzzled in future,” said Lady Dorothea, haughtily,
+repressing the familiar tone of the discussion.
+
+“I think--indeed, I feel sure--I could get her in from memory, my Lady;
+she 's a very remarkable creature, and makes an impression on one.” As
+he uttered these words ruefully, he lifted from the floor the fragment
+of his coat-skirt, and gazed mournfully at it.
+
+“I suppose we must suspend proceedings,” said Lady Dorothea;
+“though really it is a pity to lose the opportunity of Miss Martin's
+presence,--an honor she so very rarely accords us.”
+
+“I think after a few minutes or so, my Lady, I might feel equal,” said
+Mr. Crow, rising and retreating to a wall with a degree of caution
+that showed he entertained grave fears as to the state of his
+habiliments,--“I might feel equal, if not exactly to delineate Miss
+Martin's Classic features, at least to throw in--”
+
+“I could n't think of such a thing; I should be wretched at the idea
+of engaging your attention at such a moment,” said Mary, with a
+carelessness that contrasted strongly with her words; while she added,
+with earnestness, “Besides, I 'm not sure I could spare the time.”
+
+“You see, sir,” said her Ladyship to the artist, “you have to deal with
+a young lady whose occupations are like those of a Premier. The Duke
+of Wellington can vouchsafe a sitting for his portrait, but Miss Martin
+cannot spare the time for it.”
+
+“Nay, Aunt Dorothy, if I were the Duke of Wellington I should do as he
+does. It is being Mary Martin, whose picture can have no interest for
+any one, enables me to follow the bent of my own wishes.”
+
+“Humility is another of her perfections,” said Lady Dorothea, with a
+look that but too palpably expressed her feeling towards her niece.
+
+As Mary was assisting her uncle to get rid of some of his superfluous
+draperies, neither of them overheard this remark; while Mr. Crow was too
+deeply impressed with his own calamities to pay any attention to it.
+
+“Mr. Scanlan has been very anxious to see you, uncle,” whispered Mary
+in his ear. “He has something of importance to communicate about the
+borough.”
+
+“Can't you manage it yourself, Molly? Can't you contrive somehow to
+spare me this annoyance?”
+
+“But you really ought to hear what he has to say.”
+
+“I perceive that Miss Martin has a secret of moment to Impart to
+you; pray let me not trouble the interview by my presence,” said Lady
+Dorothea. And she swept haughtily out of the room, throwing a most
+disdainful glance at her husband as she went.
+
+“There, by George! you've secured me a pleasant afternoon, at all
+events!” said Martin, angrily, to his niece, as throwing off the
+last remnant of his regal costume, he rushed out, banging the door
+passionately behind him.
+
+Mary sat down to compose her thoughts in quiet, for Mr. Crow had
+previously made his escape unobserved; and truly there was need of some
+repose for her agitated and wearied faculties. Her uncle's dependence
+upon her for everything, and her aunt's jealousy of the influence she
+had over him, placed her in a position of no common difficulty, and one
+of which every day seemed to increase the embarrassment. For a moment
+she thought she would have preferred a life of utter insignificance and
+obscurity; but as suddenly it occurred to her, “What had I been without
+these duties and these cares? For me there are few, if any, of the ties
+that bind other girls to their homes. I have neither mother nor sister;
+I have none of the resources which education suggests to others. My
+mind cannot soar above the realities that surround me, and seek for its
+enjoyments in the realms of fancy; but, perhaps, I can do better,” said
+she, proudly, “and make of these same every-day materials the poetry
+of an actual existence.” As she spoke, she threw open the window, and
+walked out upon the terrace over the sea. The fishermen's boats were all
+standing out from shore,--a tiny fleet, whose hardy crews had done no
+discredit to the proudest three-decker. Though the heavy gale of the
+morning had gone down, it still blew fresh, and a long rolling swell
+thundered along in-shore, and sent a deep booming noise through many a
+rocky cavern. High above this deafening clamor, however, rose the hearty
+cheers of the fishermen as they detected Mary's figure where she stood;
+and many a tattered rag of showy bunting was hoisted to do her honor.
+Never insensible to such demonstrations, Mary felt at the moment almost
+overpowered with emotion. But a moment back and she bewailed her
+isolation and friendlessness; and see, here were hundreds who would have
+resigned life in her behalf. Still, as the boats receded, the wind bore
+to her ears the welcome sounds; and as she heard them, her heart seemed
+to expand and swell with generous thoughts and good wishes, while along
+her cheeks heavy tears were rolling.
+
+“What need have I of other friends than such as these?” cried she,
+passionately. “_They_ understand me, and I them; and as for the great
+world, we are not made for each other!”
+
+“My own sentiments to a 'T,' miss,” said a soft, mincing voice behind
+her; and Mary turned and beheld Mr. Crow. He had arrayed himself in a
+small velvet skull-cap and a blouse, and stood mixing the colors on his
+palette in perfect composure. “I 'm afraid, Miss Martin, there 's an end
+of the great 'Historical.' Your uncle will scarcely be persuaded to put
+on the robes again, and it's a downright pity. I was getting a look of
+weariness--imbecility I might call it--into his features that would have
+crowned the work.”
+
+“I don't think I ever knew what your subject was!” said she, half
+indolently.
+
+“The Abdication of Charles V., Miss Martin,” said he, proudly. “This is
+the fourteenth time I have depicted it; and never, I am bound to say,
+with more favorable 'studies.' Your uncle is fine; my Lady gorgeous; I
+don't say what I 'd like of another lovely and gifted individual; but
+even down to that old rogue of a butler that would insist on
+taking snuff through the bars of his helmet, they were all grand,
+miss,--positively grand!” Seeing that she appeared to bestow some
+attention to him, Mr. Crow went on: “You see, miss, in the beginning
+of a great effort of this kind there is no progress made at all. The
+sitters keep staring at one another, each amused at some apparent
+absurdity in costume or attitude; and then, if you ask them to call up a
+look of love, hate, jealousy, or the like, it's a grin you get,--a grin
+that would shame a hyena. By degrees, however, they grow used to the
+situation; they 'tone down,' as one might say, and learn to think less
+of themselves, and be more natural. It was sheer fatigue, downright
+exhaustion, and nothing else, was making your uncle so fine; and if he
+could have been kept on low diet,--I did n't like to mention it, though
+I often wished it,--I 'd have got a look of cadaverous madness into his
+face that would have astonished you.”
+
+By this time Mr. Crow had approached his canvas, and was working
+away vigorously, the action of his brush appearing to stimulate his
+loquacity. Mary drew near to observe him, and insensibly felt attracted
+by that fascination which the progress of a picture invariably
+possesses.
+
+“This is the Queen,” continued he; “she's crying,--as well she might;
+she doesn't rightly know whether the old fellow's out of his mind or
+not; she has her misgivings, and she does n't half like that old thief
+of a Jesuit that's whispering in the King's ear. This was to be you,
+Miss Martin; you were betrothed to one of the young princes; but somehow
+you weren't quite right in your head, and you are looking on rather more
+amused, you perceive, than in any way moved; you were holding up your
+beautiful petticoat, all covered with gold and precious stones, as much
+as to say, 'Ain't I fine this morning?' when you heard the herald's
+trumpet announce the Prince of Orange; and there he is,--or there he
+ought to be,--coming in at the door. There's a chap pulling the curtain
+aside; but I suppose, now,” added he, with a sigh, “we 'll never see the
+Prince there!”
+
+“But where could you have found a study for your Prince, Mr. Crow?”
+
+“I have him here, miss,” said Crow, laying down his brush to take a
+small sketch-book from the pocket of his blouse. “I have him here;
+and there wouldn't have been a finer head in the canvas,--pale,
+stern-looking, but gentle withal; a fellow that would say, 'Lead them
+to the scaffold,' as easy as winking, and that would tremble and falter
+under the eye of a woman he loved. There he is, now,--the hair, you
+know, I put in myself, and the bit of beard, just for a little Titian
+effect; but the eyes are his own, and the mouth not as good as his own.”
+
+“It's a striking head, indeed,” said Mary, still contemplating it
+attentively.
+
+“That's exactly what it is; none of your common brain-boxes, but a grand
+specimen of the classic head, civilized down to a mediaeval period;
+the forty-first descendant of an Emperor or a Proconsul, living at the
+Pincian Hall, or at his villa on the Tiber, sitting for his likeness to
+Giordano.”
+
+“There's a painful expression in the features, too,” added she, slowly.
+
+“So there is; and I believe he 's in bad health.”
+
+“Indeed!” said Mary, starting. “I quite forgot there was an original all
+this time.”
+
+“He's alive; and what's more, he's not a mile from where we 're
+standing.” Mr. Crow looked cautiously about him as he spoke, ac if
+fearful of being overheard; and then approaching close to Miss Martin,
+and dropping his voice to a whisper, said, “I can venture to tell you
+what I dare n't tell my Lady; for I know well if she suspected who it
+was would be the Prince of Orange, begad, I might abdicate too, as
+well as the King. That young man there is-the son of a grocer in
+Oughterard,--true, every word of it,--Dan Nelligan's son! and you may
+fancy now what chance he 'd have of seeing himself on that canvas if her
+Ladyship knew it.”
+
+“Is this the youth who has so distinguished himself at college?” asked
+Mary.
+
+“The very one. I made that sketch of him when he was reading for the
+medal; he did n't know it, for I was in a window opposite, where he
+couldn't see me; and when I finished he leaned his chin in his hand
+and looked up at the sky, as if thinking; and the expression of his
+up-turned face, with the lips a little apart, was so fine that I took
+it down at once, and there it is,” said he, turning over the page and
+presenting a few pencil lines lightly and spiritedly drawn.
+
+“A young gentleman left this packet, Miss Mary, and said it was for
+you,” said a servant, presenting a small sealed enclosure. Mary Martin
+blushed deeply, and she opened the parcel, out of which fell her own
+glove, with a card.
+
+“The very man we were talking of,” said Mr. Crow, lifting it up and
+handing it to her,--“Joseph Nelligan. That's like the old proverb; talk
+of the--” But she was gone ere he could finish his quotation.
+
+“There she goes,” said Crow, sorrowfully; “and if she 'd have stayed ten
+minutes more I 'd have had her all complete!” and he contemplated with
+glowing satisfaction a hasty sketch he had just made in his book. “It's
+like her,--far more than anything I have done yet; but after all--”
+ And he shook his head mournfully as he felt the poor pretension of his
+efforts. “Small blame to me to fail, anyhow,” added he, after a pause.
+“It would take Titian himself to paint her; and even he couldn't give
+all the softness and delicacy of the expression,--that would take
+Raffaelle; and Vandyke for her eyes, when they flash out at times; and
+Giordano for the hair. Oh, if he could have seen it just as I did a
+minute ago, when the wind blew it back, and the sunlight fell over it!
+“Arrah!” cried he, impatiently, as with a passionate gesture he tore the
+leaf from his book and crushed it in his hand,--“arrah! What right
+have I even to attempt it?” And he sat down, covering his face with his
+hands, to muse and mourn in silence.
+
+Simpson--or as he was more generally known, Simmy Crow--was neither
+a Michael Angelo nor a Raffaelle; but he was a simple-minded,
+honest-hearted creature, whose life had been a long hand-to-hand fight
+with fortune. Originally a drawing-master in some country academy, the
+caprice--for it was little else--of a whimsical old lady had sent him
+abroad to study; that is, sent him to contemplate the very highest
+triumphs of genius with a mind totally unprepared and uncultivated, to
+gaze on the grandest conceptions without the shadow of a clew to
+them, and to try and pick up the secrets of art when he stood in utter
+ignorance of its first principles. The consequence was, he went wild in
+the enthusiasm of his admiration; he became a passionate worshipper at
+the shrine, but never essayed to be priest at the altar. Disgusted and
+dispirited by his own miserable attempts, he scarcely ever touched
+a pencil, but roved from city to city, and from gallery to gallery,
+entranced,--enchanted by a fascination that gradually insinuated
+itself into his very being, and made up the whole aim and object of his
+thoughts. This idolatry imparted an ecstasy to his existence that lifted
+him above every accident of fortune. Poor, hungry, and ill-clad, he
+still could enter a gallery or a church, sit down before a Guido or a
+Rembrandt, and forget all, save the glorious creation before him. By the
+sudden death of his patroness, he was left, without a shilling, hundreds
+of miles from home. Humble as his requirements were, he could not supply
+them; he offered to teach, but it was in a land where all have access to
+the best models; he essayed to copy, but his efforts were unsalable.
+To return home to his country was now his great endeavor; and after
+innumerable calamities and reverses, he did arrive in England, whence he
+made his way to Ireland, poorer than he had quitted it.
+
+Had he returned in better plight, had he come back with some of the
+appearance of success, the chances are that he might have thriven on
+the accidents of fame; but he was famishing and in beggary. Some alleged
+that he was a worthless fellow who had passed a life of idleness and
+debauch; others, that he was not without ability, but that his habits of
+dissipation rendered him hopeless; and a few--a very few--pitied him as
+a weak-brained enthusiast, who had no bad about him, but was born to
+failure!
+
+In his utter destitution he obtained work as a house-painter,--an
+employment which he followed for three or four yeare, and in which
+capacity he had been sent by his master to paint some ornamental
+stucco-work at Cro' Martin. The ability he displayed attracted Lady
+Dorothea's notice, and she engaged him to decorate a small garden villa
+with copies from her own designs. He was entirely successful, and so
+much pleased was her Ladyship that she withdrew him from his ignoble
+servitude and attached him to her own household, where now he had been
+living two years, the latter half of which period had been passed in
+the great work of which we have already made some mention. It so chanced
+that poor Simmy had never sold but two copies in his life: one was The
+Abdication of Charles V., the other, The Finding of Moses; and so, out
+of gratitude to these successes, he went on multiplying new versions of
+these subjects _ad infinitum_, eternally writing fresh variations on the
+old themes, till the King and the Lawgiver filled every avenue of his
+poor brain, and he ceased to have a belief that any other story than
+these could be the subject of high art.
+
+Happy as he now was, he never ceased to feel that his position exposed
+him to many an ungenerous suspicion.
+
+“They 'll say I 'm humbugging this old lady,” was the constant
+self-reproach he kept repeating. “I know well what they 'll think of me;
+I think I hear the sneering remarks as I pass.” And so powerfully had
+this impression caught hold of him, that he vowed, come what would of
+it, he 'd set out on his travels again, and face the cold stern world,
+rather than live on what seemed to be the life of a flatterer and a
+sycophant. He could not, however, endure the thought of leaving his
+“Abdication” unfinished, and he now only remained to complete this great
+work. “Then I 'm off,” said he; “and then they 'll see if poor Simmy
+Crow was the fellow they took him for.” Better thoughts on this theme
+were now passing through his mind, from which at last he aroused himself
+to proceed with his picture. Once at work, his spirits rose; hopes
+flitted across his brain, and he was happy. His own creations seemed to
+smile benignly on him, too, and he felt towards them like a friend, and
+even talked with them, and confided his secret thoughts to them. In this
+pleasant mood we shall leave him, then; nor shall we linger to listen to
+the avowals he is making of his upright intentions, nor his willingness
+to bear the hardest rubs of fortune, so that none can reproach him for a
+mean subserviency.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. A DASH OF POLITICS
+
+“Well, what is it, Molly,--what is it all about?” said Martin, as Mary
+entered the library, where he was sitting with an unread newspaper
+stretched across his knee.
+
+“It is a piece of news Scanlan has brought, uncle, and not of the most
+agreeable kind either.”
+
+“Then I'll not hear more of it,” broke he in, pettishly.
+
+“But you must, uncle, since without your own counsel and advice nothing
+can be done.”
+
+“Do nothing, then,” added he, sulkily.
+
+“Come, come, I 'll not let you off thus easily,” said she, passing an
+arm over his shoulder. “You know well I 'd not tease you if it could be
+avoided, but here is a case where I can be no guide. It is a question of
+the borough, Lord Kilmorris thinks himself strong enough to stand on his
+own merits, and repudiates your aid and his own principles together.”
+ Martin's attention being now secured, she went on: “He says--at least as
+well as I can follow his meaning--that with this new measure must come a
+total change of policy,--abrogating all old traditions and old notions;
+that _you_, of course, are little likely to adopt this opinion, at least
+at once, and so he releases you from all obligations to support him, and
+himself from all tie to represent _you_.”
+
+“This is Lady Dorothy's doing,” broke in Martin, passionately; “her
+confounded letter-writing has brought this upon us. I told her that
+those fellows were trimming; I warned her that they were only waiting
+for this Bill to pass, to turn round upon us as a barbarous old remnant
+of feudal oppression; but he dare n't do it, Molly,--Kilmorris has n't
+a leg to stand upon in the borough. He could n't count upon twenty--no,
+not ten votes, without me. It's a scurvy trick, too, and it sha'n't
+succeed, if I stand for the borough myself.” And he blurted out the last
+words as though they were the expression of an enmity driven to its last
+resources.
+
+“No, no, uncle,” said she, caressingly; “after all you have yourself
+told me of a parliamentary life, that must never be. Its unending
+intrigues and petty plotting, its fatiguing days and harassing nights,
+its jealousies and disappointments, and defeats, all hard enough to
+be borne by those who must make a trade of their politics, but utterly
+insupportable to one who, like you, can enjoy his independence. Do not
+think of that, I beseech you.”
+
+“Then am I to see this man carry my own town in my very teeth?” cried
+he, angrily. “Is that your advice to me?”
+
+“You often spoke of Harry. Why not put him forward now he is coming
+home?”
+
+“Ay, and the very first thing he'll do will be to resign the seat
+because he had not been consulted about the matter before the election.
+You know him well, Molly; and you know that he exchanged into a regiment
+in India simply because I had obtained his appointment to the Blues.
+His amiable mother's disposition is strong in him!” muttered he, half to
+himself, but loud enough to be heard by his niece.
+
+“At all events, see Scanlan,” said she; “learn how the matter really
+stands; don't rely on my version of it, but see what Lord Kilmorris
+intends, and take your own measures calmly and dispassionately
+afterwards.”
+
+“Is Scanlan engaged for him?”
+
+“I think not. I suspect that negotiations are merely in progress.”
+
+“But if he even was,” broke in Martin, violently, “I have made the
+fellow what he is, and he should do as I ordered him. Let him come in,
+Molly.”
+
+“He is not in the house, uncle; he went down to the village.”
+
+“Not here? Why didn't he wait? What impertinence is this?”
+
+“He wished to bait his horses, and probably to get some breakfast for
+himself, which I had not the politeness to offer him here.”
+
+“His horses? His tandem, I'll be sworn,” said Martin, with a sneer.
+“I 'll ask for no better evidence of what we are coming to than that
+Maurice Scanlan drives about the county with a tandem.”
+
+“And handles them very neatly, too,” said Mary, with a malicious sparkle
+of her eye, for she could n't refrain from the spiteful pleasure of
+seeing her uncle in a regular fury for a mere nothing. All the more
+salutary, as it withdrew his thoughts from weightier themes.
+
+“I'm sure of it, Miss Martin. I'm certain that he is a most accomplished
+whip, and as such perfectly sure to find favor in _your_ eyes. Let him
+come up here at once, however. Say I want him immediately,” added he,
+sternly; and Mary despatched a servant with the message, and sat down in
+front of her uncle, neither uttering a word nor even looking towards the
+other.
+
+“After all, Molly,” said he, in the quiet, indolent tone so natural to
+him--“after all, what does it signify who's in or who's out? I don't
+care a brass farthing about party or party triumphs; and even if I did,
+I 'm not prepared--What are you laughing at,--what is it amuses you
+now?” asked he, half testily, while she laughed out in all the
+unrestrained flow of joyous mirth.
+
+“I have been waiting for that confession this half-hour, uncle, and
+really I was beginning to be afraid of a disappointment. Why, dearest
+uncle, you were within a hair's breadth of forgetting your principles,
+and being actually caught, for once in your life, prepared and ready.”
+
+“Oh, is that it? Is it my embarrassment, then, that affords you so much
+amusement?”
+
+“Far from it,” said she, affectionately. “I was only laughing at that
+quiet little nook you retire to whenever you ought to be up and doing.
+Unprepared you say. Not a bit of it. Indisposed, indolent, unwilling,
+indifferent, any of these you like; but with a mind so full of its own
+good resources, and as ready to meet every contingency as any one's,
+don't say you are unprepared. Come, now, bear with me this once, dearest
+uncle, and don't be angry if I throw myself, like a rock or sandbank,
+betwixt you and your harbor of refuge. But I hear Mr. Scanlan's
+voice, and so I shall leave you. Be resolute, uncle, determined,
+and--'prepared'!” And with a gesture half menace and half drollery, she
+left the room as the attorney entered it.
+
+Scanlan, like most of those who came but casually in contact with
+Martin, had conceived a low idea of his capacity,--lower by far than
+it deserved, since behind his indolence there lay a fund of good
+common-sense,--a mine, it must be acknowledged, that he seldom cared to
+work. The crafty man of law had, however, only seen him in his ordinary
+moods of careless ease and idleness, and believed that pride of family,
+fortune, and position were the only ideas that found access to his mind,
+and that by a dexterous allusion to these topics it would always be an
+easy task to influence and direct him.
+
+“What's this my niece has been telling me of Lord Kilmorris?” said
+Martin, abruptly, and without even replying to the salutations of the
+other, who hovered around a chair in an uncertainty as to whether
+he might dare to seat himself uninvited,--“he's going to contest the
+borough with us, is n't he?”
+
+Scanlan leaned one arm on the back of the chair, and in a half-careless
+way replied,--
+
+“He is afraid that you and he don't quite agree, sir. He leans to
+measures that he suspects you may not altogether approve of.”
+
+“Come, come, none of this balderdash with me, Master Maurice. Has he
+bought the fellows already, or, rather, have you bought them? Out with
+it, man! What will he give? Name the sum, and let us treat the matter in
+a business-like way.”
+
+Scanlan sat down and laughed heartily for some minutes.
+
+“I think you know me well enough, Mr. Martin, by this time,” said he,
+“to say whether I'ma likely man to meddle with such a transaction.”
+
+“The very likeliest in Ireland; the man I 'd select amidst ten
+thousand.”
+
+“I am sorry to hear you say so, sir, that's all,” said the other, with a
+half-offended air; “nor do I see that anything in my past life warrants
+the imputation.”
+
+Martin turned fiercely round, about to make a reply which, if once
+uttered, would have ended all colloquy between them, when suddenly
+catching himself he said, “Have you taken any engagement with his
+Lordship?”
+
+“Not as yet, sir,--not formally, at least. My Lord has written me a very
+full statement of his ideas on politics, what he means to do, and so
+forth, and he seems to think that anything short of a very liberal line
+would not give satisfaction to the electors.”
+
+“Who told him so? Who said that the borough was not perfectly content
+with the representative that--that”--he stammered and faltered--“that
+its best friends had fixed upon to defend its interests? Who said that a
+member of my own family might not desire the seat?”
+
+This announcement, uttered with a tone very much akin to menace, failed
+to produce either the astonishment or terror that Martin looked for, and
+actually supposing that the expression had not been heard, he repeated
+it. “I say, sir, has any one declared that a Martin will not stand?”
+
+“I am not aware of it,” said Scanlan, quietly.
+
+“Well, sir,” cried Martin, as if unable to delineate the consequences,
+and wished to throw the weight of the duty on his opponent.
+
+“There would be a warm contest, no doubt, sir,” said Scanlan, guardedly.
+
+“No, sir; nor the shadow of a contest,” rejoined Martin, angrily.
+“You'll not tell _me_ that my own town--the property that has been in
+my family for seven centuries and more--would presume--that is, would
+desire--to--to--break the ties that have bound us to each other?”
+
+“I wish I could tell you my mind, Mr. Martin, without offending you;
+that is, I wish you 'd let me just say what my own opinion is, and
+take it for what it is worth, and in five minutes you 'd be in a better
+position to make up your mind about this matter than if we went on
+discussing it for a week.” There was a dash of independence in his
+utterance of these words that actually startled Martin; for, somehow,
+Scanlan had himself been surprised into earnestness by meeting with an
+energy on the other's part that he had never suspected; and thus each
+appeared in a new light to the other.
+
+“May I speak out? Well, then, here is what I have to say: the Relief
+Bill is passed, the Catholics are now emancipated--”
+
+“Yes, and be--” Martin caught himself with a cough, and the other went
+on:--
+
+“Well, then, if they don't send one of their own set into Parliament at
+once, it is because they 'd like to affect, for a little while at least,
+a kind of confidence in the men who gave them their liberties. O'Connell
+himself gave a pledge, that of two candidates, equal in all other
+respects, they'd select the Protestant; and so they would for a time.
+And it lies with you, and other men of your station, to determine how
+long that interval is to last; for an interval it will only be, after
+all. If you want to pursue the old system of 'keeping down,' you 'll
+drive them at once into the hands of the extreme Papist party, who,
+thanks to yourselves, can now sit in Parliament; but if you 'll moderate
+your views, take a humbler standard of your own power,--conciliate a
+prejudice here, obliterate an old animosity there--”
+
+“In fact,” broke in Martin, “swear by this new creed that Lord Kilmorris
+has sent you a sketch of in his letter! Then I 'll tell you what, sir--I
+'d send the borough and all in it to the--”
+
+“So you might, Mr. Martin, and you 'd never mend matters in the least,”
+ broke he in, with great coolness.
+
+There was now a dead silence for several minutes; at last Martin spoke,
+and it was in a tone and with a manner that indicated deep reflection:--
+
+“I often said to those who would emancipate the Catholics, 'Are you
+prepared to change places with them? You have been in the ascendant a
+good many years, are you anxious now to try what the other side of the
+medal looks like? for, if not, leave them as they are.' Well, they did
+n't believe me; and maybe now my prophecy is nigh its accomplishment.”
+
+“It is very likely you were right, sir; but whether or not, it's the law
+now, and let us make the best of it,” said Scanlan, who had a practical
+man's aversion to all that savored of mere speculative reasoning.
+
+“As how, for instance--in what way, Mr. Scanlan?” asked Martin, curtly.
+
+“If you 'll not support Lord Kilmorris--”
+
+“That I won't, I promise you; put that clean out of your head to begin
+with.”
+
+“Well, then, there is but one other course open. Come to some compromise
+with the Romanist party; if you don't like to give them a stray
+vote--and mark me, they 'd make better terms with _you_ than with a
+stranger--but if you don't like that, why, take the representation
+alternately with them.”
+
+Martin rose from his chair and advanced close to where Scanlan was
+sitting, then, fixing his eyes steadfastly on him, said,--
+
+“Who commissioned you to make this proposition to _me?_”
+
+“No one, upon my oath. There is not a man breathing who has ever so much
+as hinted at what I have just said to you.”
+
+“I'm glad of it; I'm heartily glad of it,” said Martin, calmly reseating
+himself. “I'm glad there is not another fellow in this county your equal
+in impudence! Aye, Mr. Scanlan, you heard me quite correctly. I saw many
+a change going on amongst us, and I foresaw many more; but that a Martin
+of Cro' Martin should be taught his political duty by Maurice Scanlan,
+and that that duty consisted in a beggarly alliance with the riff-raff
+of a county town,--that was, indeed, a surprise for which I was in no
+wise prepared.”
+
+“Well, sir, I 'm sorry if I have given any offence,” said Scanlan,
+rising, and, in a voice of the most quiet intonation, making his
+excuses. “Your rejection of the counsel I was bold enough to suggest
+leaves me, at least, at liberty to offer my services where they will not
+be rejected so contumeliously.”
+
+“Is this a threat, Mr. Scanlan?” said Martin, with a supercilious smile.
+
+“No, sir, nothing of the kind. I know too well what becomes _my_
+station, and is _due to yours_, to forget myself so far; but as you
+don't set any value on the borough yourself, and as there may be others
+who do--”
+
+“Stay and eat your dinner here, Scanlan,” said Martin.
+
+“I promised Mrs. Cronan, sir--”
+
+“Send an apology to her; say it was _my_ fault,--that I detained you.”
+ And without waiting for a reply, Martin sauntered from the room, leaving
+the attorney alone with his reflections.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. A COLLEGE COMPETITOR
+
+Young Nelligan had distanced all his competitors in his college career;
+some who were his equals in ability, were inferior to him in habits of
+hard and patient labor; and others, again, were faint-hearted to oppose
+one in whose success they affected to believe luck had no small
+share. One alone had the honest candor to avow that he deserved his
+pre-eminence, on the true ground of his being their superior. This was a
+certain Jack Massingbred, a young fellow of good family and fortune,
+and who, having been rusticated at Oxford, and involved in some outrage
+against authority in Cambridge, had come over to finish his college
+career in the “Silent Sister.”
+
+Although Irish by birth, and connected with Ireland by ties of family
+and fortune, he had passed all his life in England, his father having
+repaired to that country after the Union, exchanging the barren honor of
+a seat for an Irish borough for a snug Treasury appointment. His son
+had very early given proof of superior capacity. At Rugby he was
+distinguished as a scholar; and in his opening life at Oxford his
+talents won high praise for him. Soon after his entrance, however,
+he had fallen into a fast set,--of hunting, tandem-driving, and
+occasionally hard-drinking men,--in whose society he learned to
+forget all his aim for college success, and to be far more anxious
+for distinction as a whip or a stroke-oar than for all the honors of
+scholarship. At first he experienced a sense of pride in the thought
+that he could hold his own with either set, and take the lead in the
+examination-hall as easily as he assumed the first place in the social
+meeting. A few reverses, however, taught him that his theory was
+a mistake, that no amount of ability will compensate for habits of
+idleness and dissipation, and that the discursive efforts of even high
+genius will be ever beaten by the steady results of patient industry.
+Partly indifferent to what had once been his great ambition, partly
+offended by his failures, Massingbred threw himself entirely into the
+circle of his dissipated companions, and became the very head and front
+of all their wildest excesses. An absurd exploit, far more ludicrous
+than really culpable, procured his rustication; a not less ridiculous
+adventure drove him from Cambridge; and he had at last arrived in
+Dublin, somewhat tamed down by his experiences, and half inclined to
+resume his long-abandoned desire for college distinction.
+
+The habits of the Irish College were strikingly unlike those of either
+Oxford or Cambridge. Instead of a large class consisting of men of great
+fortune and high expectations, he found a very slight sprinkling of
+such, and even they made up nothing that resembled a party. Separated
+by age, political distinctions, and county associations, all stronger in
+the poorer country than in the richer one, they held little intercourse
+together, and were scarcely acquainted.
+
+If there was less actual wealth, there was also less credit to be
+obtained by an Irish student. The Dublin shopkeeper acknowledged no
+prestige in the “gownsman;” he admitted him to no special privilege of
+book-debts; and as the great majority of the students resided with
+their families in the capital, there was no room for that reckless
+extravagance so often prosecuted by those who are temporarily removed
+from domestic supervision.
+
+Massingbred was at first grievously disappointed. There were neither
+great names nor great fortunes amongst his new associates. Their mode
+of life, too, struck him as mean and contemptible. There were clever men
+reading for honors, and stupid men steering their slow way to a degree;
+but where were the fast ones? where the fellows who could tool a team or
+steer a six-oar, who could dash up to town for a week's reckless life at
+Crocky's and Tattersall's, make their book on the Oaks, or perhaps ride
+the winner at a steeplechase?
+
+It was all grievously slow. Dublin itself was a poor affair. He had few
+acquaintances, the theatres were bad, and public amusements there were
+none. His fellow-students, too, stood aloof from him. It was not that
+he was richer, better dressed, rode blood horses, dined at Morris-son's,
+wore kid gloves, and carried scented pocket-handkerchiefs. It was not
+that he had a certain air of puppyism as he wended his way across the
+courts, or sauntered elegantly into chapel. They could have forgiven any
+or all of these better than one of his offendings, which was his accent.
+Strange as it may seem, his English voice and English pronunciation
+were the most unpopular things about him, and many a real defect in his
+character might have met a more merciful construction had he given no
+initial “H” to “humble,” and evinced a more generous confusion about his
+“wills” and “snails.”
+
+Somewhat bored by a life so unlike anything he had ever tried
+before,--partly, perhaps, stimulated to show that he could do something
+beside canter his thorough-bred along Sackville Street, or lounge in
+the stage-box in solitary splendor,--he went in for honors, and, to
+the surprise of all, succeeded. In fact, he beat two or three of the
+distinguished men of his time, till, thrown by the chance of events into
+Nelligan's division, he found at once his superior, and saw that he was
+in presence of an intelligence considerably above his own. When he had
+adventured on the struggle and found himself worsted, he acknowledged
+defeat with all the generosity of an honorable nature; and forcing his
+way through the crowd as it issued from the examination-hall, was the
+very first to grasp Nelligan's hand and congratulate him on his success.
+
+“That was all got up; he was bursting with jealousy. The fellow could
+have strangled Nelligan,” muttered one.
+
+“He certainly put a good face on the disaster,” said another, more
+mercifully given; “though I suppose he feels the thing sorely enough at
+heart!”
+
+That was exactly what he did not, however. Young Massingbred regarded a
+college distinction as no evidence whatever of a man's attainments. He
+had seen stupid fellows win the prize for which clever ones strove in
+vain; but, at all events, he regarded such successes as contributing in
+nothing to the great race of life, and had even a theory that such early
+efforts were often the very means of exhausting the energies that should
+be exerted for the high rewards of the world. Besides this, he felt a
+pleasure in manfully showing that he was above a petty jealousy, and
+fairly owning himself beaten in a fair struggle.
+
+“You are the better man, Nelligan,” said he, gayly; “I 'll not try
+another fall with you, be assured.”
+
+Strange was it that in this very avowal he had asserted what the other
+felt in his inmost heart to be an immeasurable superiority over him;
+and that in the very moment of striking his flag he had proclaimed his
+victory. To be able to run him so hard for the race and yet not feel the
+struggle, to strive for the prize and care nothing for defeat, seemed to
+Nelligan the evidence of an ambition that soared above college triumph,
+and he could not but envy that buoyant high-hearted temperament that
+seemed to make light of difficulties and not even feel depressed by a
+defeat.
+
+Up to this time these two young men had scarcely known each other, but
+now they became intimate. The very difference in character served
+to draw them more closely together; and if Nelligan felt a degree of
+admiration for qualities whose brilliant display opened a new sense of
+enjoyment to him, the other was delighted with the gentle and almost
+childlike innocence of the student whose far-soaring intellect was
+mastering the highest questions of science.
+
+Massingbred was one of those natures in whom frankness is an instinct.
+It seems to such a relief to open the secrets of the heart and avow
+their weaknesses and their shortcomings, as though--by some Moral
+Popery--they would obtain the benefit of a free confession and go forth
+the better for their candor.
+
+Not only did he tell Nelligan of his own career and its accidents, the
+causes for which he was not on good terms with his family, and so on;
+but he even ventured to discuss the public life of his father, and, in
+a spirit of banter, swore that to his political subserviency did he owe
+his whole fortune in life.
+
+“My father was one of the crew when the vessel was wrecked, Nelligan,”
+ said he; “there was plenty of talk of standing by the ship to the last,
+and perishing with her. Some did so, and they are forgotten already. My
+father, however, jumped into the long-boat with a few more, and thought
+that probably they might find another craft more seaworthy; fortunately
+he was right; at least, assuredly, I 'm not the man to say he was not.”
+
+“But was there no desertion of principle, Massingbred?” said Nelligan.
+
+“No more than there is a desertion of your old coat when you discover it
+to be too threadbare to wear any longer. Irish Politics, as the men of
+that day understood them, had become impracticable,--impossible, I
+might say; the only sensible thing to do was to acknowledge the fact. My
+father was keen-sighted enough to see it in that light, and here 's his
+health for it.”
+
+Nelligan was silent.
+
+“Come, Joe, out with it. Your family were honest Unionists. Tell me so
+frankly, man. Own to me that you and yours look upon us all as a set of
+knaves and scoundrels, that sold their country, and so forth. I want to
+see you in a mood of good passionate indignation for once. Out with it,
+boy; curse us to your heart's content, and I 'll hear it like an angel,
+for the simple reason that I know it to be just. You won't, won't you?
+Is your anger too deep for words? or are there any special and peculiar
+wrongs that make your dark consuming wrath too hot for utterance?”
+
+Nelligan was still silent; but the blush which now covered his face had
+become almost purple. The allusion to his family as persons of political
+importance struck him, and for the first time, with a sense of shame.
+What would Massingbred think of them if he knew their real station? what
+would he think of _him_ for having concealed it? Had he concealed it?
+Had he ever divulged the truth? He knew not; in the whirlwind of his
+confusion he knew nothing. He tried to say some words to break the
+oppressive silence that seemed to weigh him down like an accusation, but
+he could not.
+
+“I see it all, Nelligan. My foolish affectation of laughing at all
+principle has disgusted you; but the truth is, I don't feel it: I do
+not. I own frankly that the bought patriot is a ruined man, and there
+is a moral Nemesis over every fellow that sells himself; I don't mean to
+say but that many who did so did n't make the best bargain their
+brains were worth, and my father for one; he was a man of fair average
+abilities,--able to say his commonplaces like his neighbors,--and
+naturally felt that they would sound as well in England as in Ireland; I
+don't think he had a single conviction on any subject, so that he really
+sold a very unsalable article when he vended himself. But there were
+others,--your Governor, for instance; come, now, tell me about him; you
+are so devilish close, and I want to hear all about your family. You
+won't; well, I'll give you one chance more, and then--”
+
+“What then?” asked Nelligan, breathlessly.
+
+“I 'll just go and learn for myself.”
+
+“How? what do you mean?” “The easiest way in the world. The vacation
+begins next Tuesday, and I 'll just invite myself to spend the first
+week of it under your paternal roof. You look terribly shocked,
+absolutely horrified; well, so you ought. It is about the greatest piece
+of impertinence I 've heard of. I assure you I have a full consciousness
+of that myself; but no matter, I 'll do it.”
+
+Nelligan's shame was now an agony. It had never occurred to him in
+his life to feel ashamed of his station or that of his family, for the
+simple reason that he had never made pretension to anything higher or
+more exalted. The distinctions at which he aimed were those attainable
+by ability; social successes were triumphs he never dreamed of. But now
+came the thought of how he should stand in his friend's esteem, when the
+fact was revealed that he was the son of very humble parents, all whose
+ways, thoughts, and habits would be apt themes for ridicule and sarcasm.
+Over and over again had Massingbred annoyed him by the disparaging tone
+in which he canvassed “small people,” the sneering depreciation in
+which he held all their doings, and the wholesale injustice by which he
+classed their sentiments with their good manners. It was the one feature
+of his friend's character that gave a check to his unbounded esteem for
+him. Had he not possessed this blemish, Nelligan would have deemed him
+nearly faultless.
+
+Intensely feeling this, Nelligan would have given much for courage to
+say, “I am one of that very set you sneer at. All my associations and
+ties are with them. My home is amongst them, and every link of kindred
+binds me to them.”
+
+Yet, somehow, he could not bring himself to the effort. It was not that
+he dreaded the loss of friendship that might ensue,--indeed, he rather
+believed that such would not occur; but he thought that a time might
+come when that avowal might be made with pride, and not in humiliation,
+when he should say: “My father, the little shopkeeper of Oughterard,
+gave me the advantages by which I became what I am. The class you sneer
+at had yet ambitions high and daring as your own; and talents to attain
+them, too! The age of noble and serf has passed away, and we live in a
+freer and more generous era, when men are tested by their own worth;
+and if birth and blood would retain their respect amongst us, it is
+by contesting with us more humbly born the prizes of life.” To have
+asserted these things now, however, when he was nothing, when his name
+had no echo beyond the walls of a college, would have seemed to him an
+intolerable piece of presumption, and he was silent.
+
+Massingbred read his reserve as proceeding from displeasure, and
+jestingly said,--
+
+“You mustn't be angry with me, Joe. The boldness of men like me is less
+impudence than you take it for, since--should I fulfil my threat, and
+pay your father a visit--I 'd neither show surprise nor shame if he
+refused to receive me. I throw over all the claims of ceremony; but at
+the same time I don't want to impose the trammels on my friends. They
+are free to deal with me as frankly, ay, and as curtly as I have treated
+them; but enough of all this. Let us talk of something else.”
+
+And so they did, too,--of their college life and its changeful fortunes;
+of their companions and their several characters, and of the future
+itself, of which Massingbred pretended to read the fate, saying: “You'll
+be something wonderful one of these days, Joe. I have it as though
+revealed to me,--_you_ astonishing the world by your abilities, and
+winning your way to rank and eminence; while _I_ like a sign-post that
+points to the direction, shall stand stock-still, and never budge an
+inch, knowing the road, but not travelling it.”
+
+“And why should it be so, Mass, when you have such a perfect
+consciousness of your powers for success?”
+
+“For the simple reason, my boy, that I know and feel how the cleverness
+which imposes upon others has never imposed upon myself. The popular
+error of a man's being able to do fifty things which he has not done
+from idleness, apathy, carelessness, and so on, never yet deceived me,
+because I know well that when a fellow has great stuff in him it will
+come out, whether he likes or not. You might as well say that the grapes
+in a wine-vat could arrest their own process of fermentation, as that
+a man of real genius--and mind, I am now speaking of no other--could
+suppress the working of his intelligence, and throw his faculties into
+torpor. The men who do nothing are exactly the men who can do no better.
+Volition, energy, the strong impulse for action, are part and parcel of
+every really great intellect; and your 'mute, inglorious Milton' only
+reminds me of the artist who painted his canvas all red to represent the
+passage of the Egyptians through the Red Sea. Believe me, you must take
+all untried genius in the same scale of credit as that by which you
+have fancied the chariots and horsemen submerged in the flood. They are
+there, if you like; and if you don't--”
+
+“Your theory requires that all men's advantages should be equal, their
+station alike, and their obstacles the same. Now, they are not so.
+See, for instance, in our University here. _I_ am debarred from the
+fellowship-bench--or, at least, from attempting to reach it--because I
+am a Papist.”
+
+“Then turn Protestant; or if that doesn't suit you, address yourself
+to kick down the barrier that stands in your way. By the bye, I did n't
+know you were a Roman; how comes that? Is it a family creed, or was it a
+caprice of your own?”
+
+“It is the religion my family have always professed,” said Nelligan,
+gravely.
+
+“I have no right to speak of these subjects, because I have never felt
+strongly enough on them to establish strong convictions; but it
+appears to me that if I were you--that is, if I had _your_ head on my
+shoulders--I should think twice ere I 'd sacrifice my whole future out
+of respect for certain dogmas that no more interfere with one's daily
+life and opinions than some obsolete usage of ancient Greece has a
+bearing upon a modern suit in Chancery. There, don't look fretful and
+impatient; I don't want to provoke you, nor is it worth your while
+to bring your siege artillery against my card-house. I appreciate
+everything you could possibly adduce by anticipation, and I yield myself
+as vanquished.”
+
+Thus, half in earnest, half jestingly, Massingbred talked away, little
+thinking how deeply many a random speech entered into his friend's
+heart, taking firm root there to grow and vegetate hereafter. As for
+himself, it would have been somewhat difficult to say how far his
+convictions ever went with his words. Any attempt to guide and direct
+him was, at any time, enough to excite a wilful endeavor to oppose it,
+and whatever savored of opposition immediately evoked his resistance.
+The spirit of rebellion was the keynote of his character; he could be
+made anything, everything, or nothing, as authority--or as he would have
+styled it, tyranny--decided.
+
+It was just at this very moment that an incident occurred to display
+this habit of his mind in its full force. His father, by employing much
+private influence and the aid of powerful friends, had succeeded in
+obtaining for him the promise of a most lucrative civil appointment
+in India. It was one of those situations which in a few years of
+very moderate labor secure an ample fortune for the possessor. Mr.
+Massingbred had forgotten but one thing in all the arrangement of this
+affair, which was to apprise his son of it beforehand, and make him, as
+it were, a part of the plot. That one omission, however, was enough to
+secure its failure.
+
+Jack received the first tidings of the scheme when it was a fact, not a
+speculation. It was a thing done, not to do, and consequently a “gross
+piece of domestic cruelty to dispose of him and his future by an
+arbitrary banishment to a distant land, linking him with distasteful
+duties, uncongenial associates,” and the rest of it. In a word, it was a
+case for resistance, and he did resist, and in no very measured fashion,
+either. He wrote back a pettish and ill-tempered refusal of the place,
+sneered at the class by whom such appointments were regarded as prizes,
+and coolly said that “it was quite time enough to attach himself to the
+serious business of life when he had tasted something of the pleasures
+that suited his time of life; besides,” added he, “I must see which way
+my ambitions point; perhaps to a seat on the Treasury benches, perhaps
+to a bullock-team, a wood-axe, and a rifle in a new settlement. Of my
+resolves on either head, or on anything between them, you shall have
+the earliest possible intimation from your devoted, but perhaps not very
+obedient, to command,
+
+“J. M.”
+
+His father rejoined angrily and peremptorily. The place had cost him
+everything he could employ or enlist of friendly patronage; he made the
+request assume all the weight of a deep personal obligation, and now
+the solicitation and the success were all to go for nothing. What if he
+should leave so very gifted a young gentleman to the unfettered use of
+his great abilities? What if he abstained from any interference with
+one so competent to guide himself? He threw out these suggestions too
+palpably to occasion any misconception, and Jack read them aright. “I'm
+quite ready for sea whenever you are pleased to cut the painter,” said
+he; and the correspondence concluded with a dry intimation that two
+hundred a year, less than one half of his former allowance, should be
+paid into Coutts's for his benefit, but that no expenditure above that
+sum would be repaid by his father.
+
+“I 'll emigrate; I 'll agitate; I 'll turn author, and write for the
+reviews; I 'll correspond with the newspapers; I 'll travel in Afrifca;
+I 'll go to sea,--be a pirate;” in fact, there was nothing for which he
+thought his capacity unequal, nor anything against which his principles
+would revolt. In speculation, only, however; for in sober reality he
+settled down into a mere idler, discontented, dreamy, and unhappy.
+
+Little momentary bursts of energy would drive him now and then to his
+books, and for a week or two he would work really hard; when a change as
+sudden would come over him, and he would relapse into his former apathy.
+Thus was it that he had lived for some time after the term had come to
+an end, and scarcely a single student lingered within the silent courts.
+Perhaps the very solitude was the great charm of the place; there was
+that in his lonely, unfriended, uncompanionable existence that seemed to
+feed the brooding melancholy in which he indulged with all the ardor
+of a vice. He liked to think himself an outcast and forgotten. It was a
+species of flattery that he addressed to his own heart when he affected
+to need neither sympathy nor affection. Still his was not the stuff of
+which misanthropy is fashioned, and he felt acutely the silence of his
+friend Nelligan, who had never once written to him since they parted.
+
+“I 'd scarcely have left _him_ here,” said he to himself one day; “had
+_he_ been in my position, I 'd hardly have quitted _him_ under such
+circumstances. He knew all about my quarrel with my father. He had read
+our letters on each side. To be sure he had condemned _me_, and taken
+the side against me; still, when there was a breach, and that breach
+offered no prospect of reconciliation, it was but scant friendship to
+say good-bye, and desert me. He might, at least, have asked me down to
+his house. I 'd not have gone; that 's certain. I feel myself very
+poor company for myself, and I 'd not inflict my stupidity upon others.
+Still, _he_ might have thought it kind or generous. In fact, in such a
+case I would have taken no refusal; I'd have insisted.”
+
+What a dangerous hypothesis it is when we assume to act for another;
+how magnanimously do we rise above all meaner motives, and only think
+of what is generous and noble; how completely we discard every possible
+contingency that could sway us from the road of duty, and neither look
+right nor left on our way to some high object! Jack Massingbred, arguing
+thus, ended by thinking himself a very fine fellow and his friend a very
+shabby one,--two conclusions that, strangely enough, did not put him
+into half as much good-humor with the world as he expected. At all
+events, he felt very sore with Nelligan, and had he known where to
+address him, would have written a very angry epistle of mock gratitude
+for all his solicitude in his behalf; very unfortunately, however, he
+did not know in what part of Ireland the other resided, nor did his
+acquaintance with provincial dialect enable him to connect his friend
+with a western county. He had so confidently expected to hear from him,
+that he had never asked a question as to his whereabouts. Thus was it
+with Massingbred, as he sauntered along the silent alleys of the College
+Park, in which, at rare intervals, some solitary sizar might be met
+with,--spare, sad-looking figures,--in whose features might be read
+the painful conflict of narrow fortune and high ambition. Book in
+hand generally, they rarely exchanged a look as he passed them; and
+Massingbred scanned at his ease these wasted and careworn sons of labor,
+wondering within himself was “theirs the right road to fortune.”
+
+Partly to shake off the depression that was over him by change of place,
+and in part to see something of the country itself, Massingbred resolved
+to make a walking-tour through the south and west of Ireland, and with a
+knapsack on his back, he started one fine autumn morning for Wicklow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. SOME KNOTTY POINTS THAT PUZZLED JOE NELLIGAN
+
+This true history contains no record of the evening Mr. Scanlan passed
+at the Osprey's Nest; nor is it probable that in any diary kept by that
+intelligent individual there will yet be found materials to supply this
+historical void. Whether, therefore, high events and their consequences
+were discussed, or that the meeting was only devoted to themes of
+lighter importance, is likely to remain a secret to all time. That
+matters beneath the range of politics occupied the consideration of the
+parties was, however, evident from the following few lines of a note
+received by young Nelligan the next morning:--
+
+     “Dear Joe,--I dined yesterday at the 'Nest,' and we talked
+     much of you. What would you think of paying a visit there
+     this morning to see the picture, or anything else you can
+     think of? I 've a notion it would be well taken. At all
+     events, come over and speak to me here.
+
+     “Ever yours,
+
+     “M. SCANLAN.”
+
+
+
+“I scarcely understand your note, Maurice,” said young Nelligan, as he
+entered the little room where the other sat at breakfast.
+
+“Have you breakfasted?” said Scanlan.
+
+“Yes, an hour ago.”
+
+“Will you taste that salmon? Well, then, just try Poll Hanigan's attempt
+at a grouse-pie; let me tell you, there is genius in the very ambition;
+she got the receipt from the cook at Cro' Martin, and the imitation is
+highly creditable. You 're wrong to decline it.” And he helped himself
+amply as he spoke.
+
+“But this note?” broke in the other, half impatiently.
+
+“Oh--ay--the note; I 'm sure I forget what I wrote; what was it about?
+Yes, to be sure, I remember now. I want you to make yourself known, up
+there. It is downright folly, if not worse, to be keeping up these feuds
+and differences in Ireland any longer; such a course might suit the
+small politicians of Oughterard, but you and I know better, and Martin
+himself knows better.”
+
+“But I never took any part in the conflict you speak of; I lived out of
+it,--away from it.”
+
+“And are therefore, exactly suited to repair a breach to which you
+never contributed. I assure you, my boy, the gentry--and I know them
+well--will meet you more than half-way. There is not a prouder fellow
+living than Martin there; he has throughout his whole life held his head
+higher than any man in our county, and yet he is quite ready to
+make advances towards you. Of course, what I say is strictly between
+ourselves; but my opinion is, that, if you like it, you may be as
+intimate up there as ever you were at old Hayes's, at the Priory.”
+
+“Then, what would you have me do?” asked Nelligan.
+
+“Just pay a visit there this morning; say that you are curious to see
+that great picture,--and it is a wonderful thing, if only for the size
+of it; or that you 'd like to have a look at Arran Island out of the big
+telescope at the top of the house; anything will serve as a reason, and
+then,--why, leave the rest to chance.”
+
+“But really, Maurice, I see no sufficient cause for all this,” said the
+youth, timidly.
+
+“Look now, Joe,” said the other, drawing his chair closer to him, and
+talking in the low and measured tone of a confidence,--“look now, you're
+not going to pass your life as the successor to that excellent man, Dan
+Nelligan, of Oughterard, selling hides and ropes and ten-penny-nails,
+and making an estate the way old ladies make a patchwork quilt. You'll
+be able to start in life with plenty of tin and plenty of talent; you'll
+have every advantage that money and education can give, and only one
+drawback on your road to success,--the mere want of blood,--that dash of
+birth which forms the only real freemasonry in this world. Now mind me,
+Joe; the next best thing to having this oneself is to live and associate
+with those who have; for in time, what with catching up their prejudices
+and learning their ways, you come to feel very much as they do; and,
+what is better still, they begin to regard you as one of themselves.”
+
+“But if I do not ambition this,--if I even reject it?” said the other,
+impatiently.
+
+“Then all I say is that Trinity College may make wonderful scholars, but
+turns out mighty weak men of the world!”
+
+“Perhaps so!” said Nelligan, dryly, and with a half-nettled air.
+
+“I suppose you fancy there would be something like slavery in such a
+position?” said Scanlan, with a derisive look.
+
+“I know it!” responded the other, firmly.
+
+“Then what do you say to the alternative,--and there is but one only
+open to you,--what do you think of spending your life as a follower of
+Daniel O'Connell; of being reminded every day and every hour that you
+have not a privilege nor a place that he did n't win for you; that he
+opened Parliament to you, and made you free of every guild where men
+of ability rise to honor? Ay, Joe! and what 's a thousand times
+worse,--knowing it all to be true, my boy! Take service with him once,
+and if you leave him you 're a renegade; remember that, and bethink you
+that there's no saying what crotchet he may have in store for future
+agitation.”
+
+“But I never purposed any such part for myself,” broke in Nelligan.
+
+“Never mind, it will fall to your lot for all that, if you don't quickly
+decide against it. What's Simmy Crow staring at? Look at him down there,
+he's counting every window in the street like a tax-gatherer.” And
+he pointed to the artist, who, shading his eyes with one hand, stood
+peering at every house along the little street. “What's the matter,
+Simmy?” cried he, opening the casement.
+
+“It's a house I'm looking for, down here, and I forget which it is;
+bother them, they 're all so like at this time of the year when they 're
+empty.”
+
+“Are you in search of a lodging, Simmy?”
+
+“No, it is n't that!” said the other, curtly, and still intent on his
+pursuit. “Bad luck to the architect that would n't vary what they call
+the 'façade,' and give one some chance of finding the place again.”
+
+“Who is it you want, man?”
+
+“Faix, and I don't even know that same!” replied the artist; “but”--and
+he lowered his voice to a whisper as he spoke--“he's an elegant study,--
+as fine a head and face and as beautiful a beard as ever you saw. I met
+him at Kyle's Wood a week ago, begging; and what with his fine forehead
+and deep-set blue eyes, his long white hair, and his great shaggy
+eyebrows, I said to myself: 'Belisarius,' says I, 'by all that's
+grand,--a Moses, a Marino Faliero, or a monk in a back parlor
+discoursing to an old skull and a vellum folio,--any one of these,' says
+I, 'not to speak of misers, money-lenders, or magicians, as well;' and
+so I coaxed him down here on Saturday last, and put him somewhere to
+sleep, with a good supper and a pint of spirits, and may I never, if I
+know where I left him.”
+
+“Three days ago?”
+
+“Just so; and worse than all, I shut up the place quite dark, and only
+made a hole in the roof, just to let a fine Rembrandt light fall down on
+his head. Oh, then, it's no laughing matter, Maurice! Sure if anything
+happened to him--”
+
+“Your life wouldn't be worth sixpence before any jury in the county.”
+
+“Begad! it's what I was thinking; if they wouldn't take it as a
+practical joke.”
+
+“You're looking for ould Brennan!” cried a weather-beaten hag; “but he's
+gone to Oughterard for a summons. You'll pay dear for your tricks this
+time, anyhow.”
+
+“Come up here, Simmy, and never mind her,” said Scanlan; then, turning
+to Nelligan, he added, “There's not such a character in the county!
+
+“I want my friend, Mr. Nelligan, here--Mr. Nelligan--Mr. Crow--I want
+him, I say, to come up and have a look at the great 'Historical '--eh,
+Simmy!--would n't it astonish him?”
+
+“Are you a votary of art, sir?” asked Crow, modestly.
+
+“I 've never seen what could be called a picture, except those portraits
+in the College Examination Hall might be deemed such.”
+
+“Indeed, and they're not worthy the name, sir. Flood, mayhap, is like,
+but he's hard and stiff, and out of drawing; and Lord Clare is worse.
+It's in the Low Countries you 'd see portraits, real portraits! men that
+look down on you out of the canvas, as if _you_ were the intruder there,
+and that _they_ were waiting to know what brought you. A sturdy old
+Burgomaster, for instance, with a red-brown beard and a fierce pair
+of eyes, standing up firm as a rock on a pair of legs that made many a
+drawbridge tremble as he walked home to dinner on the Grand Canal, at
+Rotterdam, after finishing some mighty bargain for half a spice island,
+or paying a million of guilders down as a dowry for that flaxen-haired,
+buxom damsel in the next frame. Look at the dimples in her neck, and
+mark the folds in her satin. Is n't she comely, and calm, and haughty,
+and house-wifery, all together? Mind her foot, it isn't small, but see
+the shape of it, and the way it presses the ground--ay, just so--my
+service to you; but you are one there 's no joking with, even if one was
+alone with you.” And he doffed his hat, and bowed obsequiously as he
+spoke.
+
+“You're an enthusiast for your art?” said Nelligan, interested by the
+unmistakable sincerity of his zeal.
+
+“I am, sir,” was the brief reply.
+
+“And the painter's is certainly a glorious career.”
+
+“If for nothing else,” burst in Crow, eagerly, “that it can make of one
+like me--poor, ignorant, and feeble, as I am--a fellow-soldier in
+the same army with Van Dyke and Titian and Velasquez--to know that in
+something that they thought, or hoped, or dared, or tried to do, I too
+have my share! You think me presumptuous to say this; you are sneering
+at such a creature as Simmy Crow for the impudence of such a boast, but
+it's in humility I say it, ay, in downright abject humility; for I 'd
+rather have swept out Rembrandt's room, and settled his rough boards on
+Cuyp's easel, than I 'd be a--a--battle-axe guard, or a lord-in-waiting,
+or anything else you like, that's great and grand at court.”
+
+“I envy you a pursuit whose reward is in the practice rather than in the
+promise,” said Nelligan, thoughtfully. “Men like myself labor that they
+may reach some far-away land of rewards and successes, and bear the
+present that they may enjoy the future.”
+
+[Illustration: 114]
+
+“Ay, but it will repay you well, by all accounts,” said Crow. “Miss Mary
+told us last night how you had beat every one out of the field, and had
+n't left a single prize behind you.”
+
+“Who said this?” cried Joe, eagerly.
+
+“Miss Mary,--Miss Martin. She said it was a credit to us all of the
+west, here, that there was one, at least, from Galway, who could do
+something besides horse-racing and cock-fighting--”
+
+“So she did,” said Scanlan, interrupting, with some confusion. “She
+said somebody had told her of young Nelligan. She called you 'Young
+Nelligan.'”
+
+“No, no; it was to myself she said it, and the words were, 'Mr. Joseph
+Nelligan;' and then, when her uncle said, 'Why don't we know him? '--”
+
+“My dear Simmy, you make a most horrible confusion when you attempt a
+story,--out of canvas. Mind, I said out of canvas; for I confess that in
+your grand 'Historical' the whole incident is admirably detailed. I 've
+just said to my friend here, that he has a great pleasure before him in
+seeing that picture.”
+
+“If you 'll do me the honor to look at it,” said Crow, bowing
+courteously, “when you come to dinner to-day.”
+
+“Attend to _me_, Joe,” said Scanlan, passing an arm within Nelligan's,
+and leading him away to another part of the room; “that fellow is little
+better than an idiot. But I was just going to tell you what Martin said.
+'You are intimate with young Nelligan,' said he; 'you know him well, and
+you could possibly do without awkwardness what with more formality
+might be difficult. Don't you think, then, that he would possibly waive
+ceremony--'”
+
+“I must be off,” broke in Crow, hastily. “I have a sitting at twelve
+o'clock, so I hope we shall see you at seven, Mr. Nelligan; your note
+said seven, sharp.” And without waiting for more, he seized his hat and
+hurried down the stairs.
+
+“A downright fool!” said Scanlan, angrily. “Mr. Martin said he 'd write
+to you, if--if--if, in fact, you stood upon that punctilio; but that
+he'd be all the better pleased if you 'd just accept acquaintance as
+freely as he offered it, and come and dine there to-day, like a friend.”
+
+“Is n't there, or has there not been, some difference between him and my
+father?” asked Joe.
+
+“A trifle,--and a mistake; the kind of thing that two men of calm heads
+and common sense could have settled in five minutes, and which, to say
+the truth, Martin was right in throughout. It's all passed and over now,
+however, and it would be worse than foolish to revive it. There 's Miss
+Martin!” cried he, “and I have a word to say to her;” and hurried off
+without waiting for more. As he passed from the room, however, a letter
+fell from his pocket; and as Nelligan stooped to take it up, he saw that
+it was addressed to himself. He looked hesitatingly at it for a moment
+or two, scarcely knowing whether or not he ought to break the seal. “It
+was meant for me, at all events,” said he, and opened it. The contents
+were as follows;--
+
+“Mr. Martin presents his respects to Mr. Joseph Nelligan, and will feel
+happy if--excusing the want of formal introduction--Mr. Nelligan will
+admit him to the honor of acquaintance, and give him the pleasure of
+his society at dinner, to-morrow, at seven o'clock. Mr. Martin does not
+hesitate to say that to accept this unceremonious proposal will be felt
+as a very great favor indeed by him and his family.”
+
+“What does Scanlan mean by all this? Why not have handed me this note at
+once?” was Nelligan's question to himself, as he descended the stairs
+and gained the street. He was not sorry that Scanlan was not in sight,
+and hastened homeward to think over this strange communication. Joe well
+knew that his mother was not peculiarly endowed with worldly wisdom or
+acuteness; and yet such was his need of counsel at the moment, that
+he determined, at least in part, to lay the case before her. “She
+can certainly tell me,” said he, “if there be any reason why I should
+decline this proposal.” And with this resolve he entered the cottage.
+
+“Don't you remember Catty Henderson, Joe?” said his mother, as he came
+into the room, and presenting a young girl, very plainly but
+neatly dressed, who arose to receive him with an air of well-bred
+composure,--“Catty, that used to be your playfellow long ago?”
+
+“I didn't know you were in Ireland, Miss Henderson. I should never have
+recognized you,” said Nelligan, in some confusion.
+
+“Nor was I till a few days back,” said she, in an accent very slightly
+tinged with a foreign pronunciation. “I came home on Tuesday.”
+
+“Isn't she grown, joe? and such a fine girl, too. I always said she 'd
+be so; and when the others would have it that your nose was too long for
+the rest of your features, I said, 'Wait till she grows up,--wait till
+she 's a woman;' and see now if I 'm not right.”
+
+It must be owned that Joe Nelligan's confusion during the delivery of
+this prophetic criticism was far greater than Catty's own, who received
+the speech with a low, gentle laugh, while Mrs. Nelligan went on: “I
+made her stay till you came back, Joe, for I wanted her to see what
+a tall creature you are, and not more than twenty,--her own age to
+a month; and I told her what a genius you turned out, indeed, to the
+surprise of us all, and myself, especially.”
+
+“Thank you, mother,” said he, smiling.
+
+“No, indeed, my dear, 't is your father you may thank for all your
+talents and abilities; a wonderful man he is, beginning the world
+without a sixpence; and there he is now, with I 'm sure I don't know how
+many hundreds a year in land,--ay, Catty, in broad acres; just like any
+squire in the county. Well, well, there 's many a change come over the
+country since you were here,--how many years is it now?”
+
+“Upwards of twelve,” said the young girl. “Dear me, how time flies! It
+seems like yesterday that you and Joe had the measles together, in the
+yellow room up at Broom Lodge, and your poor mother was alive then, and
+would insist on giving you everything cool to drink, just because you
+liked it, though I told her that was exactly the reason it was sure to
+be bad for you; for there 's nothing so true in life,--that everything
+we wish for is wrong.”
+
+“An unpleasant theory, certainly,” said Catty, laughing; “but I hope
+not of universal application, for I have been long wishing to see you
+again.”
+
+“Well, well, who knows whether it may be good or bad,” said she,
+sighing; “not but I 'm pleased to see you growing up the image of
+your poor dear mother,--taller, maybe, but not so handsome, nor so
+genteel-looking; but when you have your trials and troubles, as she had,
+maybe that will come, too, for I often remarked, there 's nothing like
+affliction to make one genteel.”
+
+“Why, mother, you are profuse in unhappy apothegms this morning,” said
+Joe.
+
+“And you are coming to stay amongst us now, Catty; or are you going back
+to France again?” said Mrs. Nelligan, not heeding the remark.
+
+“I scarcely know, as yet,” replied the young girl. “My father's letter
+to summon me home said something about placing me as a governess, if I
+were capable of the charge.”
+
+“Of course you are, my dear, after all your advantages; not but that I
+'d rather see you anything else,--a nice light business; for instance,
+in baby-linen or stationery, or in Miss Busk's establishment, if that
+could be accomplished.”
+
+A very slight flush--so slight as to be nearly imperceptible--crossed
+the young girl's cheek, but not a syllable escaped her, as Mrs. Nelligan
+resumed,--
+
+“And there was an excellent opening the other day at the Post here, in
+the circulating-library way, and lending out a newspaper or two. I don't
+know how much you might make of it. Not but maybe you 'd rather be
+companion to a lady, or what they call a 'nervous invalid.'”
+
+“That, too, has been thought of,” said the girl, smiling; “but I have
+little choice in the matter, and, happily, as little preference for one
+as the other of these occupations. And now I must take my leave, for I
+promised to be back by two o'clock.”
+
+“Well, there's Joe will see you home with pleasure, and I 'm sure you
+have plenty to say to each other about long ago; not but I hope you 'll
+agree better than you did then. You were the torment of my life, the way
+you used to fight.”
+
+“I couldn't think of trespassing on Mr. Joseph's time; I should be
+quite ashamed of imposing such trouble on him. So good-bye, godmamma;
+good-bye, Mr. Joseph,” said she, hurriedly throwing her shawl around
+her.
+
+“If you will allow me to accompany you,” said Joseph, scarcely knowing
+whether she rejected or accepted his escort.
+
+“To be sure she will, and you have both more sense than to fall out now;
+and mind, Joseph, you 're to be here at four, for I asked Mrs. Cronan to
+dinner.”
+
+“Oh, that reminds me of something,” said Joe, hurriedly; and he leaned
+over his mother's chair, and whispered to her, “Mr. Martin has invited
+me to dine with him to-day; here is his note, which came to me in rather
+a strange fashion.”
+
+“To dine at the Nest! May I never! But I scarcely can believe my eyes,”
+ said Mrs. Nelligan, in ecstasy. “And the honor, and the pleasure, too;
+well, well, you 're the lucky boy.”
+
+“What shall I do, mother; is n't there something between my father and
+him?”
+
+“What will you do but go; what else would you do, I 'd like to know?
+What will they say at the Post when they hear it?”
+
+“But I want you to hear how this occurred.”
+
+“Well, well; I don't care,--go you must, Joe. But there 's poor Catty
+walking away all alone; just overtake her, and say that a sudden
+invitation from the Martins--mention it as if you were up there every
+day--”
+
+But young Nelligan did not wait for the conclusion of this artful
+counsel, but hurrying after Catty Henderson, overtook her as she had
+gained the beach.
+
+“I have no need of an escort, Mr. Joseph,” said she, good-humoredly. “I
+know every turn of the way here.”
+
+“But you'll not refuse my companionship?” said he. “We have scarcely
+spoken to each other yet.” And as he spoke he drew his arm within her
+own, and they walked along in silence.
+
+“My mother thinks we did nothing but quarrel long ago,” said he, after a
+pause; “but if my memory serves me truly, it was upon this very pathway
+we once swore to each other vows of a very different kind. Do you
+recollect anything of that, Miss Henderson?”
+
+“I do, Mr. Joseph,” said she, with a sly half-glance as she uttered the
+last word.
+
+“Then why 'Mr. Joseph'?” said he, half reproachfully.
+
+“Why 'Miss Henderson'?” said she, with a malicious smile at the other's
+confusion; for somehow Joseph's manner was far less easy than her own.
+
+“I scarcely know why,” replied he, after a short silence, “except that
+you seem so changed; and I myself, too, am probably in your eyes as much
+altered--from what we both were, that--that--”
+
+“That, in short, it would be impossible to link the past with the
+present,” said she, quickly; “and you were quite right. I 'm convinced
+the effort is always a failure, and prejudices in a hundred ways the
+good qualities of those who attempt it. Let us, therefore, begin our
+acquaintance here; learn to know each other as we are,--that is, if we
+are to know each other at all.”
+
+“Why do you say that?” asked he, eagerly.
+
+“For many reasons. We may not meet often; perhaps not at all; perhaps
+under circumstances where to renew intimacy might be difficult.
+Assuredly, although the path here might once have sufficed us, our roads
+in life lie widely apart now, and the less we travel together the more
+we shall each go towards his own goal, and--and the less regret we shall
+feel at parting; and so now good-bye.”
+
+“You wish it?” said he, reproachfully. “You desire this?”
+
+“What matters it whether I wish it or not? I know it must be. Good-bye.”
+
+“Good-bye, then,--good-bye,” said he, affecting as much indifference as
+he could; and then, slightly raising his hat, he turned away on the road
+homeward.
+
+Joseph Nelligan's reflections were not of the pleasantest as he
+sauntered slowly back. He was not exactly satisfied with himself; he
+felt, he could not just say how, that the young girl had had the mastery
+over him; she was more calm or self-possessed; she had more tact, or she
+knew more of life; had more of self-control, or breeding, or some other
+quality, whatever it might be, than he had. At all events, he was ill
+at ease and discontented. Then he doubted whether he ought to have taken
+her at her word when she talked of parting. It might, possibly, have
+been meant by her to evoke some show of resistance on his part; that
+same inequality of station she seemed to hint at might, perhaps, demand
+from him a greater deference. In fact, whichever way he turned the
+matter over, he saw little cause for self-gratulation; nor did he
+discover that it mended matters when he tried to accuse her of French
+frivolity, and such other traits as he fancied of foreign origin.
+
+In this not over-pleasant mood was it that he re-entered the cottage,
+where his mother was busy in preparing a very formidable cravat for the
+approaching dinner-party.
+
+“Ah, Joe!” said she, anxiously, “if you were to dress now, and then stay
+quiet, you 'd be quite fresh when the time came; for, remember, it's not
+like your father you are, that has the world about him, and can converse
+about everything that comes uppermost; but with all your learning, you
+know, you always feel somehow--”
+
+“Stupid, mother?”
+
+“Not stupid, my dear, but depressed,--out of spirits in society; so
+that my advice to you is, now, dress yourself in good time, take a small
+glass of ginger-cordial, and throw your eye over the second chapter of
+'Social Hints,' with an account of conversation before and at dinner,
+and some excellent advice about'compliments, meet for every season of
+the year.'”
+
+“Do you think such preparations quite necessary, mother?” asked Joe,
+slyly; for he rather relished the simplicity of her counsels.
+
+“To be sure, I do; for yours is no common difficulty, Joe. If you talk
+of country matters, you 'll get into Kyle's Wood and the Chancery suit;
+if you touch politics or religion, it will be worse again. The Martins,
+I hear, never play cards, so you can't allude to them; and they 'll
+be too grand to know anything about poor Miss Cuddy going off with the
+sergeant of police, or what Con Kelly did with his aunt's furniture.”
+
+“So that really the topics open to me are marvellously few.”
+
+“Well, there's shooting; but to be sure you know nothing about that, nor
+fishing, either; and I suppose farming, if you did understand it, would
+n't be genteel. Indeed, I see little that is n't dangerous, except the
+dearness of everything. I remark that's a subject nobody ever tires of,
+and all can take their share in.”
+
+“And I conclude it to be fact, mother?”
+
+“A very melancholy fact, my dear; and so I said to Betty Gargan,
+yesterday. 'It's well for _you_,' said I, 'and the likes of you, that
+use nothing but potatoes; but think of us, that have to pay sixpence a
+pound for mutton, six-and-a-half for the prime pieces, and veal not to
+be had under eightpence.' They talk of the poor, indeed! but sure they
+never suffer from a rise in butcher's meat, and care nothing at all what
+tea costs. I assure you I made the tears come into her eyes, with the
+way I described our hardships.”
+
+“So that this will be a safe subject for me, mother?”
+
+“Perfectly safe, my dear, and no ways mean, either; for I always
+remarked that the higher people are, the stingier they are, and the more
+pleasure they take in any little sharp trick that saves them sixpence.
+And when that 's exhausted, just bring in the Rams.”
+
+“The Rams?”
+
+“I mean my aunt Ram, and my relations in Wexford. I 'm sure, with a
+little address, you 'll be able to show how I came to be married beneath
+me, and all the misery it cost me.”
+
+“Well, mother, I believe I have now ample material,” said Joe, rising,
+with a lively dread of an opening which he knew well boded a lengthy
+exposition; “and to my own want of skill must it be ascribed if I do not
+employ it profitably.” And with this he hurried to his room to prepare
+for the great event.
+
+The “Gentlemen of England” do not deem it a very formidable circumstance
+to repair towards seven, or half-past, to a dinner-party, even of the
+dullest and most rigid kind. There is a sombre “routine” in these cases,
+so recognized that each goes tolerably well prepared for the species
+of entertainment before him. There is nothing very exhilarating in the
+prospect, and as little to depress. It is a leaf torn out of one of the
+tamest chapters in life's diary, where it is just as rare to record a
+new dish as a new idea, and where the company and the cookery are both
+foreknown.
+
+No one goes with any exaggerated expectations of enjoyment; but as
+little does he anticipate anything to discompose or displease him.
+The whole thing is very quiet and well-bred; rather dull, but not
+unpleasant. Now, Joseph Nelligan had not graduated as a “diner-out;” he
+was about as ignorant of these solemn festivals as any man well could
+be. He was not, therefore, without a certain sense of anxiety as to the
+conversational requisites for such occasions. Would the company rise to
+themes and places and people of which he had never as much as heard?
+or would they treat of ordinary events, and if so, on what terms? If
+politics came to be discussed, would Mr. Martin expect him to hear in
+silence opinions from which he dissented? Dare he speak his sentiments,
+at the cost of directing attention to himself?--a course he would fain
+have avoided. These, and innumerable other doubts, occupied him as he
+was dressing, and made him more than once regret that he had determined
+to accept this invitation; and when the hour at last came for him to set
+out, he felt a sense of shrinking terror of what was before him greater
+than he had ever known as he mounted the dreaded steps of the College
+Examination Hall.
+
+He might, it is true, have bethought him of the fact that where Simmy
+Crow and Maurice Scanlan were guests, he too might pass muster without
+reproach; but he did not remember this, or, at least, it failed to
+impress him sufficiently. Nor was his dread without a certain dash of
+vanity, as he thought of the contrast between the humble place he was
+perhaps about to occupy at a great man's table, and the proud one he
+had achieved in the ranks of scholarship and science. Thus musing, he
+sauntered slowly along till he found himself in front of the little
+garden of the Osprey's Nest. He looked at his watch,--it was exactly
+seven; so he pulled the bell, and entered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE MARTIN ARMS
+
+In the small and not over-neat parlor of the Martin Arms at Oughterard,
+a young man sat at his breakfast, at times casting his eyes over the
+columns of the “Vindicator,” and anon strolling to the window to watch
+the gathering of the country people at the weekly market. The scene
+was one of that mingled bustle and languor so characteristically Irish.
+Cart-loads of turf, vegetables, fruit, or turkeys blocked up the narrow
+passage between booths of fancy wares, gilt jewelry, crockery, and
+cutlery; the vendors all eagerly vociferating commendations of their
+stores, in chorus with still more clamorous beggars, or the discordant
+notes of vagrant minstrelsy. Some animal monstrosity, announced by a
+cracked-voiced herald and two clarionets, added to a din to which loud
+laughter contributed its share of uproar.
+
+The assemblage was entirely formed of the country people, many of whom
+made the pretext of having a pig or a lamb to sell the reason of
+their coming; but, in reality, led thither by the native love of a
+gathering,--that fondness to be where their neighbors were,--without
+any definite aim or object. There was, then, in strong contrast to the
+anxious solicitation of all who had aught to sell, the dreary, languid,
+almost apathetic look of the mere lounger, come to while away his weary
+hour and kill time just like any very bored fine gentleman who airs his
+listlessness along St James's Street, or lazily canters his _ennui_ down
+Rotten Row.
+
+Jack Massingbred--for he was the traveller whose straw hat and knapsack
+stood upon a table near--was amused at a scene so full of its native
+characteristics. The physiognomy, the dress, the bearing of the people,
+their greetings as they met, their conduct of a bargain, all bespoke a
+nation widely differing from the sister country, and set him a-dreaming
+as to how it was that equality of laws might very possibly establish
+anything but equality of condition amongst people so dissimilar.
+
+[Illustration: 126]
+
+While thus musing, his eye chanced to rest upon the half-effaced
+inscription over a shop door in front, and where the name of Daniel
+Nelligan figured as “licensed for all kinds of groceries and spirits.”
+ “Nelligan,” repeated he to himself, “I shall certainly quiz my friend
+Joe, when we meet, about his namesake in Oughterard. How good it would
+be to pick up some details of our friend opposite to torment him with!
+What rare fun to affect to have discovered a near relative in this man
+of hides, glue, sugar, and Jamaica rum! Eh, gad, I'll try it.” And with
+this resolve he crossed the street at once, and soon found himself in
+the compact crowd which thronged the doorway of this popular shop.
+
+It was, indeed, a busy scene, since many who were there came as much
+sellers as buyers, giving all the complexity of barter to their several
+transactions. Here was a staid country-woman exchanging her spunyarn, or
+her “cloth,” as it is called, for various commodities in tea, candles,
+and such like; here a farmer, with a sample of seed-oats in his
+pocket-handkerchief, of which he wanted the value in certain farm
+utensils; here was another, with a stout roll of home-made frieze to
+dispose of; some were even fain to offer a goose or a hen as the medium
+for a little tobacco, or some equally tempting luxury of cottier life.
+But there was another class of customers, who, brushing their way
+through the throng, made for a small, dingy-looking chamber behind
+the shop, in which Mr. Nelligan performed the functions of banker and
+money-lender, discounting small bills, advancing loans, and transacting
+all the various duties of a petty capitalist,--means by which, it was
+alleged, he had already amassed a very ample fortune.
+
+An announcement in writing on the glass door of this sanctum informed
+Massingbred that “bank-notes” were exchanged, and “small loans advanced
+on good security,” suggesting to him at once the means of opening an
+acquaintance with the interior. Without any very definite purpose,
+however, he now found himself one of a very closely packed crowd within
+the chamber. At a small desk, around which ran a railing of about a foot
+in height, serving, as it were, to “filter the stream” of solicitation
+that poured in upon him, sat a dark-eyed, bilious-looking man of about
+fifty; a black wig, cut in two deep arches over the temples, showed
+a strongly formed, massive head, very favorably in contrast to the
+features beneath it, which were only indicative of intense shrewdness
+and cunning. The eyes, in particular, were restless and furtive-looking,
+distrust and suspicion giving their entire expression,--qualities, it
+was to be owned, in very active employment in the intercourse of his
+daily life.
+
+The anxious looks around him--careworn, eager, tremulous with anxiety
+as they were--seemed the very opposite to his own, full of the security
+that a strong purse bestows, and stern in the conscious strength of his
+affluence.
+
+“It won't do, Hagan,” said he, with a half-smile, as he pushed back
+through the grating a very dirty, discolored piece of paper. “You 'll
+be off to America before it comes due. I would n't take the
+Lord-Lieutenant's note at six months, as times go.”
+
+“See, now, Mr. Nelligan,” replied the other, pressing his face close
+to the cage, and talking with intense eagerness. “May I never see
+Christmas, but I 'll pay it 'T was marryin' the daughter left me low in
+cash; but with the blessing of God and your help--”
+
+“I hope you 're more certain of the blessing than the help. What's
+this with the string round it?” continued Nelligan, addressing another
+applicant.
+
+“'T is a roll of notes I wanted to ax your honor about. Molly never 'let
+on' she had them till Friday last; and now that James is going away, and
+wants a trifle to fit him out--”
+
+“Why, they're French's Bank, man, that broke years ago,--they 're not
+worth a farthing!”
+
+“Arrah, don't say so, and God reward you,” cried the poor fellow, while
+his eyes filled up and his lip trembled convulsively; “don't take the
+hope out of my heart all at onst. Look at them again, your honor, and
+maybe you 'll think different.”
+
+“If I did, I 'd be as great a fool as yourself, Patsy. The bank is
+closed, and the banker dead this many a day; and I would n't give
+you sixpence for sixty thousand of them. Take him out in the fresh
+air,--give him a mouthful of water,” added he, hastily, as the wretched
+countryman staggered back, sick, and almost fainting with the sad
+tidings.
+
+“Mrs. Mooney,” said he, addressing a pale, mild-featured woman in a
+widow's cap and black gown, “you can't expect to hear from Dublin for a
+week or ten days to come. It takes some time to administer; but if you
+are in want of a few pounds--”
+
+“No, sir, thank you,” said she, in a low voice; “but as I can't go back
+to the place again,--as I 'll never be able to live there now--”
+
+“Don't be in a hurry, Mrs. Mooney, do nothing rash. None of us know what
+we can do till we 're tried. There's Miles Dogherty never thought he 'd
+be paying me that eight pound fifteen he owes me, and see now if he is
+n't come with it to-day.”
+
+“Faix, and I am not,” sturdily responded a very powerfully built man in
+the comfortable dress of a substantial farmer. “I don't owe it, and
+I 'll never pay it; and what's more, if you get a decree against me
+to-morrow, I'd sell every stick and stone in the place and go to 'Quay
+bec'.”
+
+“Indeed you would n't, Miles, not a bit more than I'd go and take the
+law of an old friend and neighbor.”
+
+“Faix, I never thought you would,” said the stout man, wiping his
+forehead, and appearing as if he had forgotten his wrath.
+
+“And now, Miles, what about that water-course?” said Nelligan,
+good-humoredly; “are you content to leave it to any two fair men--”
+
+As he got thus far, his eye for the first time fell upon Massingbred,
+who, with folded arms, was leaning against a wall, an attentive
+spectator of the whole scene.
+
+“That is a stranger yonder! what can he want here?” said Nelligan, who
+watched the attentive look of Massingbred's face with considerable
+distrust. He whispered a few words into the ear of a man beside him,
+who, making his way through the crowd, addressed the young man with--
+
+“It's the master, sir, wants to know if he could do anything for your
+honor?”
+
+“For _me?_ oh, you spoke to _me?_” said Massingbred, suddenly recalled
+to himself. “Yes, to be sure; I wanted to know--that is, I was
+thinking--” And he stopped to try and remember by what device he had
+purposed making Mr. Nelligan's acquaintance.
+
+While he thus stood doubting and confused, his eyes suddenly met the
+black, searching, deep-set orbs that peered at him behind the grating;
+and without knowing how or why, he slowly approached him.
+
+“In what way can I be of any use to you, sir?” said Nelligan, in a tone
+which very palpably demanded the reason of his presence there.
+
+Jack Massingbred was eminently “cool,”--that is, he was possessed of
+that peculiar assurance which rarely suffers itself to be ruffled by a
+difficulty. In the intercourse of society, and with men of the world, he
+could have submitted to any test unabashed; and yet now, in presence of
+this shrewd-looking and very commonplace personage, he, somehow, felt
+marvellously ill at ease, and from the simple reason that the man before
+whom he stood was not of his “world,” but one of a set of whose habits
+and thoughts and ways he was in utter ignorance.
+
+Nelligan's question was a second time addressed to him, and in the same
+words, before he thought of framing a reply to it. For a second or two
+it occurred to him to say that he had strolled in, half inadvertently,
+and apologizing for the intrusion, to withdraw; but his pride was
+offended at the notion of defeat this conduct implied, and with an
+assumption of that conventional impudence far more natural to him, he
+said,--
+
+“It was your name, sir, attracted me--the name 'Nelligan' which I read
+over your door--being that of a very dear and valued friend of mine,
+suggested to me to inquire whether you might not be relatives.”
+
+The cool indifference which accompanied these words, uttered as they
+were in a certain languid drawl, were very far from predisposing
+Nelligan in favor of the speaker; while the pretence of attaching
+any singularity to a name so common as his own, struck him at once as
+indicative of covert impertinence.
+
+“Nelligan is not a very remarkable name down here, sir,” dryly responded
+he.
+
+“Very possibly,” replied Jack, with all his accustomed ease. “I know
+little or nothing of Ireland. Your namesake, or your relative, perhaps,
+was a college friend of mine, but to what part of the country he
+belonged, I never knew.”
+
+The words, “a college friend,” roused the other's anxiety, and leaning
+forward eagerly, and dropping his voice to a whisper, he said,--
+
+“Where? In what college, may I ask, sir?”
+
+“In Trinity, Dublin.”
+
+“The Medallist of this year, you mean?” said the other, almost
+breathless in his anxiety.
+
+“Just so. The same fellow who has been sweeping away all the honors of
+his day. You have heard of him, it would seem?”
+
+“He is my son, sir. I 'm Joe Nelligan's father!”
+
+Massingbred's astonishment did not betray itself by any change of
+feature; not a word escaped him; but his eye ranged over the scene
+around him, and came back to rest upon old Nelligan's face with an
+expression of the calmest meaning.
+
+“What a fortunate accident--for _me_, I mean,” continued he. “Joe and
+I are very dear friends, and it is a great happiness for me to make
+his father's acquaintance. Is he with you now?” “No, sir; he's at the
+sea,--a place called Kilkieran, about twenty miles away; but we 'll have
+him back by tomorrow if you 'll stay with us, and I 'm sure you 'll not
+refuse me that pleasure. The young gentleman who is my son's friend, is
+mine also, if he 'll permit me to call him so; and now just tell me what
+name shall I say?--who is it that I 'm to tell Joe has arrived here?”
+
+“Say that Jack Massingbred is come, and I 'll lay my life on't you'll
+see him here as fast as may be.”
+
+“And now, Mr. Massingbred, just take up your quarters with us. Where are
+you stopping? I 'll send over the boy for your trunks, for I need n't
+say that this must be your home while you stay at Oughterard.” The
+genial tone of warm hospitality in which he now spoke made him seem
+a very different man from the hard-featured old money-lender he had
+appeared when Jack first beheld him, and Massingbred returned his
+cordial shake hands with a pressure equal to his own, while he said,--
+
+“Be assured that I accept your offer most heartily. My whole baggage is
+a knapsack and a fishing-rod, so that if you admit me as your guest you
+must dispense with all beyond the very humblest requirements. I have no
+coat, except this on me; and, when I brush my hair, I have dressed for
+dinner.”
+
+“You are amongst very humble people, Mr. Massingbred,--a country
+shopkeeper, and his wife, and son,--and they 'll be only too happy to
+feel that you don't despise their company. Come, and I 'll show you your
+room.” And so saying, Nelligan led him up a narrow stair, and at the
+end of a corridor opened a door into a neatly furnished chamber, which
+looked out into a spacious garden. The whole interior was scrupulously
+clean and comfortable; and as Jack surveyed his new dominions, he
+inwardly blessed his good fortune that had piloted him into such a
+haven.
+
+“I 'll just step down and write to Joe. Meanwhile you 'll have your
+things brought over to you. Make yourself at home here--at least, as
+much as you can in such a place--and when you want anything, just ask
+for it.” And with these words old Nelligan left him to his own thoughts.
+
+Whatever savored of an adventure was the delight of Jack Massingbred.
+He was one of those men whose egotism takes the shape of playing hero to
+themselves,--a tolerably large category amongst the spoiled children
+of this world. To be thrown into any strange or novel position, with
+associates he was unused to, and amidst circumstances totally unlike all
+he had ever met before, was his great happiness; and although here there
+was nothing like actual peril to heighten the zest of the enjoyment,
+there was a certain dash of embarrassment in the situation that
+increased its piquancy. This embarrassment lay in his approaching
+meeting with young Nelligan.
+
+All the reserve his young college friend had maintained with regard to
+his family was at once explained; and Jack began to think over how
+often it must have occurred to him to say the most galling and offensive
+things in his ignorance of Nelligan's real station. “If he had been
+frank and open with me,” said he to himself, “this would never have
+happened.” But therein Jack made two errors, since Nelligan was in no
+wise bound to make such revelations, nor was Massingbred the man to
+distinguish himself amongst his associates by a close friendship with
+the son of a country shopkeeper. He had been trained in a very different
+school, and taught to estimate his own station by the standard of
+his companionship. Indeed, he had witnessed the lenity which met his
+transgressions when they occurred in high company, and saw his father
+pay the debts he had contracted amongst titled associates with a far
+more generous forgiveness than had they taken their origin with
+more plebeian friends. “What could have induced the man to become a
+Fellow-Commoner,” said he, over and over; “it is such a palpable piece
+of presumption?” The truth was, Jack felt excessively irritated at never
+having even suspected his friend's pretensions, and was eager to throw
+the blame of a deception where none had ever been practised.
+
+“They told me I should find everything very different here from in
+England, but they never hinted at anything like this.” There came then
+another phase over his reflections, as he asked himself, “But what
+affair is it of mine? Nelligan never thrust himself on me, it was I that
+sought him. He never proposed introducing me to his family, it was I
+that made them out,--I, in fact, who have imposed myself upon them. If
+I deemed the old grocer _infra dig._, I need never have known him; but
+I have not felt this to be the case. He may be--indeed, Joe Nelligan's
+father ought to be--a very superior fellow, and at all events the whole
+situation is new, and must be amusing.”
+
+Such was the course of his thoughts as he arranged his clothes in the
+little chest of drawers, put out his few books and papers on the table,
+and proceeded to make himself perfectly at home and comfortable in his
+new quarters.
+
+The embarrassments of selfish men are always lighter than those of other
+people, their egotism filling, as it does, such a very large space in
+the sea of their troubles. Thus was it that Massingbred suffered little
+discomfort at the thought of his friend Nelligan's probable shame and
+awkwardness, his thoughts being occupied by how he, clever fellow that
+he was, had traced out his home and origin,--won, by a few words, the
+old father's esteem, and established himself, by his own sharp wits, a
+guest of his house.
+
+“It is a downright adventure,” said he; he even thought how the
+thing would tell afterwards at some convivial meeting, and set about
+dramatizing to himself his own part in the incident, to heighten the
+piquancy of the narrative. He resolved to conform in everything to the
+habits of the household,--to accommodate himself in all respects to
+old Nelligan's tastes, so that Joe should actually be amazed at the
+versatile resources of his nature, and struck with astonishment at this
+new evidence of his powers.
+
+Nor was Mr. Nelligan idle during all this time; the thought of a fellow
+collegian of his son Joe being a guest under his roof was a very proud
+and inspiring reflection. It was such a recognition of Joe's social
+claims,--so flat a contradiction to all the surmises of those who
+deprecated his college life, and said “that old Dan was wrong to put
+his boy into Trinity”--that he already regarded the incident as the full
+earnest of success.
+
+“What would have brought him here, if it wasn't for Joe? How would he
+ever have been under my roof, if he wasn't Joe's friend?” There was a
+palpable triumph here that nothing could gainsay, and with a proud heart
+he locked up his desk, resolving to do no more business that day, but
+make it one of enjoyment.
+
+“Who will I get to dine with us,” thought he, “since Joe can't have
+the letter before this evening, and do his best he won't be here before
+morning?” The question of those who should fill the places around his
+board was a difficulty he had never experienced before, for Mr. Nelligan
+was the first man in Oughterard, and never had any trouble about his
+dinner company. His politics--very decided as they were--drew the line
+amongst his acquaintances, and the Liberal party well knew that they
+alone were the partakers of his hospitalities. There now, however, came
+the thought that the most respectable residents of the town--Dr. Dasy,
+of the Infirmary; Mr. Scanlan, the Attorney; and Morris Croft, the
+Adjutant of the Galway------were Conservatives. These were the
+fit company to meet young Massingbred, at least for the first day;
+afterwards, he might be introduced to their own set. And yet, Father
+Neal Rafferty would be outraged at all this. Peter Hayes, of the Priory,
+would never enter his doors again; and Peter Hayes had made a will in
+favor of Joe Nelligan, and left him every sixpence he had in the world.
+“What if we mixed them all together?” said Dan, fairly puzzled by all
+the conflicting interests. “A good dinner, some excellent port wine, and
+'lashings' of whiskey-punch, might mould the ingredients together--at
+least, when under the restraint of a stranger's presence--sufficiently
+to pass muster!”
+
+From his doubts as to how the experiment would succeed, came others
+as to whether the guests would condescend to meet; and thus his
+embarrassments went on increasing around him without his finding a way
+through them.
+
+“That's an elegant salmon I saw Catty bringing home to you, Nelligan?”
+ said a red-faced man, with large white whiskers, and a most watery look
+in his eyes.
+
+“Yes, Brierley, there's a young gentleman just come down here--a friend
+of Joe's in college, to stop a day or two with us.”
+
+“A nob?” said the other, with a wink.
+
+Nelligan nodded assent and went on,--
+
+“And I 'm just bothered how to get two or three to make company for
+him.”
+
+“If it's grandeur you want, why don't you go over to the barracks there,
+and ask Captain Downie and the two others? Faix! it's a hearty welcome
+you 'd get, for they 've never seen the inside of Cro' Martin since the
+detachment came here.”
+
+“It 's my own acquaintances I 'd like to ask to my house, Mat Brierley,”
+ said Nelligan, proudly; “and the time was when they were n't shy of
+coming there.”
+
+“What do you say to Peter Hayes, then?” said the other. “If you mean to
+do the civil thing, you'll ask him before he buys that old highwayman
+of a goose he's cheapening yonder; and there's Father Rafferty in the
+snuff-shop, and Tom Magennis, and myself-, and that makes six, just the
+right number for the little round table.”
+
+Nelligan paused, and seemed to reflect over the proposition.
+
+“You 'll be quizzing the Englishman,--'taking a rise' out of the Saxon,
+Brierley?” said Nelligan, distrustfully.
+
+“Devil a bit; I know better manners than that!”
+
+“Tom Magennis would have at him about politics; I know he could n't
+refrain. And I need n't tell you that English notions are not ours upon
+these topics.”
+
+“Give Tom a hint, and he 'll never touch the subject.”
+
+“And Father Neal, will you vouch for him that he won't attack the
+Established Church, and abuse the Protestants?”
+
+“That I will, if he's not provoked to it.”
+
+“Can you answer for yourself, Mat Brierley, that you won't try to borrow
+a five-pound note of him before the evening's over?” said Nelligan,
+laughingly.
+
+“I' ve a friend here,” said Brierley, tapping the other on the breast,
+“that would never see me in want of such a trifle as that.”
+
+Nelligan made no other reply to this speech than a somewhat awkward
+grimace, and walked hurriedly on to overtake a tall and very fat man
+that was just turning the corner of the street. This was Father Neal
+Rafferty. A very flourishing wave of his reverence's hand, and an urbane
+bend of his body, betokened the gracious acceptance he gave to the
+other's invitation; and Brierley walked away, muttering to himself:
+“They may thank me for this dinner, then; for old Dan was going to feed
+the 'swells,' if I had n't stopped him.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. A DINNER-PARTY
+
+People who live much together in small and secluded districts, grow at
+length to feel a very great distrust for all strangers. Their own ways
+and their own topics have become such a perfect world to them, that to
+feel ignorant of these themes appears like affectation or contempt; and
+the luckless man who drops down into such a “coterie,” is invariably
+deemed impertinent or a fool. Jack Massing-bred fully appreciated this
+difficulty; but it imparted such a piquancy to his “adventure,” as he
+persisted in calling it to himself, that he would n't have dispensed
+with it, had he been able. It was in this temper he entered the room
+where the guests were now assembled, and, rather impatiently, awaiting
+his arrival.
+
+It is a very cold, calculating sort of interval, that ten minutes before
+dinner; and men regard the stranger presented to them with feelings far
+more critical than kindly. Massingbred did not go through the ordeal
+unscathed; and it was easy to see in the constraint and reserve of all
+present, how little his appearance contributed to the promise of future
+conviviality. He made no effort to dispel this impression, for, after
+saluting each in turn, he walked to the window, and amused himself with
+what was passing in the street.
+
+The dinner was announced at last, and passed off drearily enough; none
+liked to adventure on any topic of local interest, and they knew of
+little others. Brierley was stiffly polite; the priest blandly tranquil;
+the host himself uneasy and anxious; and poor old Peter Hayes, of the
+Priory, downright melancholy.
+
+Massingbred saw the effect he was producing, and saw it with pleasure.
+His calculation was this: “Had I started 'at speed' with these fellows,
+they would have blown me at once. All my efforts to assimilate myself
+to their tastes, to join in their habits and adopt their notions, would
+have been detected in a trice. They must be brought to believe that they
+have made a convert of me themselves; the wider the space between us
+at first, the greater will be their merit in making me forget it in the
+end.”
+
+As the whiskey-punch made its appearance, and the bottle of port was
+passed up beside the stranger, Massingbred thought the time was come
+when he might change his tactics, and open the campaign in force. “No,”
+ said he, as the host pushed the wine towards him, “I 've come over here
+to try and learn something about Ireland, and I must give myself every
+advantage of judging from a native point of view. This excellent old
+port may strengthen a man to stand by many an old prejudice, but my
+object is to lay in a new stock of ideas, and I 'd rather try a new
+regimen.”
+
+“That 's your bottle, then, sir. Try that,” said Brierley, pushing
+towards him a small square decanter of a faint greenish fluid.
+
+“That is 'poteen,' Mr. Massingbred,” said the host. “It's the small
+still that never paid the King a farthing.”
+
+“I like it all the better, for that reason,” said Jack. “There's
+something independent in the very thought of a liquor that never
+submitted to the indignity of a gauger.”
+
+“That's not a very English sentiment, sir,” said the priest, slyly.
+
+“I don't know whether it be or not,” rejoined Massingbred; “but I can
+neither perceive common-sense or justice in a law that will not allow
+a man to do what he likes with his own. Why, if Parliament declared
+to-morrow you should n't boil your potatoes in Ireland, but eat them
+fried--or that you should n't make bread of your corn, but eat it with
+milk as the Neapolitans do--”
+
+“I wish we could do the same here, with all my heart,” said the priest.
+“It's little wheat or even barley-meal one of our poor people ever
+sees.”
+
+“A wet potato and water is their diet,” said old Hayes, as he sipped his
+punch.
+
+“I can believe it well,” said Massingbred, with great semblance of
+feeling. “I witnessed dreadful poverty and destitution as I came along,
+and I couldn't help asking myself: What are the gentry about in this
+country? Do they or do they not see these things? If they do, are they
+indifferent to them?”
+
+“They are indifferent to them; or even worse, they rejoice in them,”
+ broke in a deep-voiced, energetic-looking man, who sat at the foot
+of the table, and had, although silent, taken a deep interest in the
+conversation. “They see, sir, in the destitution of Ireland another
+rivet in the chains of her bondage. As my 'august leader' remarked, it's
+the rust on the fetters, though--and if it proclaims the length of the
+captivity, it suggests the hope of freedom.”
+
+“Mr. Magennis is the dearest friend and trusty agent of Mr. O'Connell,”
+ said Nelligan, in a whisper to Massingbred.
+
+“Here's his health, whoever said that!” cried Jack, enthusiastically,
+and as if not hearing the host's observation.
+
+“That's a toast; we'll all drink--and standing, too,” exclaimed
+Magennis. “'Daniel O'Connell, gentlemen, hip, hip, hurra! '“ And the
+room rang again with the hearty acclamations of the company.
+
+“By Jove! there was something very fine--it was chivalrous--in the way
+he brought the Catholic question to issue at last. The bold expedient
+of testing the event by an individual experience was as clever as it was
+daring,” exclaimed Massingbred.
+
+“You were in favor of the measure then, sir?” said Father Neal, with a
+bland smile that might mean satisfaction or suspicion.
+
+“I was always an Emancipationist; but I am little satisfied with
+the terms on which the bill has been passed. I 'd have had no
+restrictions,--no reservations. It should, according to me, have been
+unconditional or nothing.”
+
+“You've heard the old proverb about half a loaf, sir?” said Hayes, with
+a dry laugh.
+
+“And a poor adage it is, in its ordinary acceptation,” said Jack,
+quickly. “It 's the prompting spirit to many a shabby compromise! What
+disabilities should apply to any of us here, in regard to any post
+or position in our country's service, by reason of opinions which are
+between ourselves and our own hearts--I say any of us, because some
+here--one I perceive is”--and he bowed to Father Rafferty--“a
+Catholic; and I for myself avow that, if for no other reason than this
+proscription, I'd be on this side.”
+
+“You're not in Parliament, sir, are you?” asked old Peter, with a
+seriousness that sorely tested the gravity of those at either side of
+him.
+
+“No,” said Jack, frankly. “My father and I don't agree on these
+subjects; and, consequently, though there is a seat in my family, I have
+not the honor to occupy it.”
+
+“Are you any relation to Colonel Moore Massingbred, sir?” asked
+Magennis. “His son, sir.”
+
+The questioner bowed, and a brief silence ensued; short as it was, it
+enabled Jack to decide upon his next move, and take it.
+
+“Gentlemen,” said he, “I 'm fully aware that my name is not a favorite
+in Ireland; and shall I own to you, till I came to this country myself,
+I half believed that this same humble opinion of us was to our credit!
+I used to hear such narratives of Irish barbarism, Irish brutality,
+priestcraft, superstition, and Heaven knows what besides, that I fully
+persuaded myself that our small repute was very nigh to an eulogium on
+us. Well, I came over to Trinity College strongly impressed with the
+notion that, because I had gained successes at Oxford, here I should be
+triumphant. It is in no boastfulness I say that I had acquitted myself
+well at home; I had attained to rather a reputation. Well, as I said, I
+came over to Trinity and pitted myself against the best man going, and
+a very pretty beating he gave me. Yes, gentlemen, he beat me in
+everything, even in those which we Oxford men fancy our specialties. I
+soon learned that I had not the shadow of a pretension to stand against
+him, and I learned, also, that it was no disgrace to me to be thus
+vanquished, since he was not alone the foremost man of his time, but
+the best scholar the University had seen for a full century; and shall
+I add, as unpretending and as modest in the midst of all his triumphs as
+he was unapproachable by all competitors. And now; gentlemen, I will
+ask your leave to drink his health; doubtless it has been many a time
+toasted before over the same table, but none ever more ardently followed
+the sentiment with his whole heart than do I in proposing to you, 'Three
+cheers for Joe Nelligan.'”
+
+The rambling opening of this brief speech was quite forgotten in the
+enthusiasm that greeted its close. In every respect it was a happy
+diversion. It relieved the company from a discussion that promised but
+gloomily. It brought back their minds to a pleasant theme, and enabled
+them, so to say, to pay off in grateful cheers to their host his own
+hospitable reception of them. As for Nelligan himself, he was sincerely,
+deeply affected; and though he twice essayed to speak, he could get no
+further than “My son Joe”--“my boy”--and sat down murmuring--“Thank
+you--God bless you for it”--and covered his face with his hands.
+
+Awkward as was the moment, it was relieved by the company filling their
+glasses and nodding in most friendly fashion to Massingbred as they
+drank his health; while a low murmur of approbation went round the
+table, of which he was most unmistakably the object.
+
+“Are you fond of shooting, sir?” asked Brierley. “Well, then, I hope
+you'll not leave the country without giving me a day or two up at my
+little place in the mountains: There's some snipe left; and, upon my
+conscience, I'll be proud to see you at Kilmaccud.”
+
+“And there's worse quarters, too!” broke in Magennis. “My 'august
+leader' spent a day and a half there.”
+
+“I'll drive you over there myself,” whispered Father Neal, “if you'll
+finish the week at the 'Rookery,'--that's what they call the priest's
+house.”
+
+Massingbred accepted everything, and shook hands across the table in
+ratification of half a dozen engagements.
+
+“You don't think I'll let you cheat me out of my guest so easily,” said
+Nelligan. “No, gentlemen. This must be Mr. Massingbred's head-quarters
+as long as he stays here, for, faith, I 'd not give him up to Mr. Martin
+himself.”
+
+“And who may he be?” asked Jack.
+
+“Martin of Cro' Martin.”
+
+“The owner of half the county.”
+
+“Of the town you 're in, this minute.”
+
+“The richest proprietor in the West.”
+
+Such were the pattering replies that poured in upon him, while words of
+intense astonishment at his ignorance were exchanged on all sides.
+
+“I believe I have given you a fair guarantee for my ignorance,
+gentlemen,” said Jack, “in confessing that I never so much as heard of
+Martin of Cro' Martin. Does he reside on his estate here?”
+
+“Yes, sir,” said Nelligan, “he lives at Cro' Martin Castle, about
+sixteen miles from this; and certainly, while in this part of the
+country, you ought to pay the place a visit. I have never been there
+myself, but I hear the most astonishing accounts of the splendor of the
+furniture and the magnificence of the whole establishment.”
+
+“There's pictures there,” said the priest, “that cost the grandfather of
+the present man a quarter of a million sterling.”
+
+“Why, the three statues in the hall, they say, are worth ten thousand
+pounds,” said Brierley.
+
+“Be gorra! when a man would give four hundred for a bull, there 's no
+saying what he 'd stop at,” broke in Peter Hayes. “I went up to see
+him myself, and indeed he's a beauty, there 's no denying it,--but four
+hundred pound! Think of four hundred pound!”
+
+“The stable is the best thing in the place,” said Father Neal; “they 're
+mighty nice cattle, there, for every kind of work.”
+
+“Thanks to his niece for that,” cried Magennis; “she knows a horse with
+any man in the West of Ireland.”
+
+“And can break him, too,” chimed in Brierley; “I don't care what his
+temper is. Let Miss Mary get her hand on him, and he 'll turn out well.”
+
+“I 'm driving an old chestnut mare this minute that she trained,” said
+the priest; “and though she has n't a good leg amongst the four, and is
+touched in the wind, she 's as neat a stepper, and as easy in the mouth
+as a five-year-old.”
+
+“She 's a fine young woman!” said old Hayes, drinking off his glass
+as though toasting her to himself, “and not like any Martin ever I seen
+before.”
+
+“No pride about her!” said Brierley.
+
+“I wouldn't exactly say that, Matthew,” interposed Father Neal. “But her
+pride isn't the common kind.”
+
+“She's as proud as Lucifer!” broke in Nelligan, almost angrily. “Did you
+ever see her drive up to a shop-door in this town, and make the people
+come out to serve her, pointing with her whip to this, that, and
+t'other, and maybe giving a touch of the lash to the boy if he would n't
+be lively enough?”
+
+“Well, I 'd never call her proud,” rejoined old Hayes, “after seeing her
+sitting in Catty Honan's cabin, and turning the bread on the griddle for
+her, when Catty was ill.”
+
+“Is she handsome?” asked Massingbred, who was rather interested by the
+very discrepancy in the estimate of the young lady.
+
+“We can agree upon that, I believe, sir,” said the priest; “there 's no
+disputing about her beauty.”
+
+“I never saw her in a room,” said Magennis; “but my 'august leader'
+thought her masculine.”
+
+“No, no,” said Nelligan; “she 's not. She has the Martin
+manner,--overbearing and tyrannical,--if you like; but she can be gentle
+enough with women and children.”
+
+“You have certainly given me a strong curiosity to see her,” said
+Massingbred. “Does she always live here?”
+
+“Always. I don't believe she was ever beyond the bounds of the county in
+her life!”
+
+“And how does she pass her time?” asked he, with some astonishment.
+
+“She manages the whole estate,” said Nelligan; “her uncle 's a conceited
+old fool, incapable of anything, and lets her do what she likes; and
+so she drains, and plants, and encloses; makes roads, bridges, and even
+harbors; has all the new-fangled inventions about farming, and, if
+what I hear be true, is spending more money on the property than the
+fee-simple is worth.”
+
+“Yes, sir,” chimed in Magennis; “and she 's trying hard to bring back
+the old feudal devotion to the Chief, which was the bane of Ireland.
+She wants the tenants to have no will of their own, but just to vote
+whatever the landlord tells them. She had the impudence to tell my
+'august leader' that they had no need of him down there,--that the
+county was too poor to waste its energies in factious squabbles.”
+
+“If she 'd let the people alone about their religion, I 'd think better
+of her,” said Father Neal. “What does _she_ know about controversial
+points and disputed dogmas?”
+
+“Maybe you 're wrong about that,” broke in Peter Hayes. “She came to me
+the other day for ten shillings for a school, and she said, 'Come over,
+Mr. Hayes; come and tell me if there 's anything you are dissatisfied
+with.'”
+
+“And did you go?” asked the priest.
+
+“Faix! I did not,” said Peter, with a dry look. “I thought the visit
+might cost me ten shillings, and so I stayed at home.”
+
+The manner in which he uttered these words produced a hearty laugh, in
+which he himself most good-humoredly took part.
+
+“Well, she's good to the poor, anyhow,” said Brierley; “and it's a new
+thing for one of her name to be so!”
+
+“All policy, all scheming!” said Magennis. “She sees how the family
+influence has declined, and is fast becoming obliterated in this
+country, by reason of their worthlessness, insolence, and neglect of the
+people; and she 's just shrewd enough to see how far a little cajolery
+goes with poor Paddy; but, as my 'august leader' observed, it is not a
+frieze coat, nor a pair of brogues, that can compensate for the loss of
+that freedom that is every man's birthright; and it is not by an ounce
+of tea, or a dose of physic, we 'll ever see Ireland great, glorious,
+and free.”
+
+“'First gem of the earth, and first flower of the sea!'” exclaimed
+Hayes, with enthusiasm.
+
+Nor in the moment was the blunder of his quotation noticed by any but
+Massingbred. “You are an admirer of Tommy Moore, I see, sir?” said he,
+to the old man.
+
+“I am fond of 'The Meeting of the Waters,' sir,” said Hayes, meekly, and
+like a man who was confessing to a weakness.
+
+“And here 's the man to sing it!” cried Brierley, clapping the priest
+familiarly on the shoulder; a proposal that was at once hailed with
+acclamation.
+
+“'T is many a long day I have n't sung a note,” said Father Neal,
+modestly.
+
+“Come, come, Father Neal; we'll not let you off that way. It's not under
+this roof that you can make such an excuse!”
+
+“He 'd rather give us something more to his own taste,” said Brierley.
+“'To Ladies' eyes around, boys,'--eh, Father Rafferty?”
+
+“That's my favorite of all the songs he sings,” broke in Magennis.
+
+“Let it be, 'To Ladies' eyes!'” cried Massingbred; “and we 'll drink
+'Miss Martin's.' 'I 'll warrant she 'll prove an excuse for the glass.'”
+ And he sang the line with such a mellow cadence that the whole table
+cheered him.
+
+[Illustration: 146]
+
+To the priest's song, given with considerable taste and no mean musical
+skill, there followed, in due course, others, not exactly so successful,
+by Brierley and Magennis, and, at last, by old Peter himself, who
+warbled out a wonderful ditty, in a tone so doleful that two of the
+company fell fast asleep under it, and Brierley's nerves were so
+affected that, to support himself, he got most completely drunk, and in
+a very peremptory tone told the singer to desist!
+
+“Don't you perceive,” cried he, “that there 's a stranger
+present,--a young English cub,--come down to laugh at us? Have you no
+discretion,--have you no decency, Peter Hayes, but you must go on with
+your stupid old 'croniawn' about dimples and the devil knows what?”
+
+“Another tumbler, Mr. Massingbred,--one more?” said the host, with the
+air, however, of one who did not exact compliance.
+
+“Not for the world,” said Jack, rising from table. “Have I your
+permission to light a cigar?”
+
+“To do just whatever you please,” said Nelligan, rather astonished at
+the formal preparations for smoking he now perceived brought forth, and
+which at the time we tell of were not so popular as in our own day.
+
+The priest alone accepted Massingbred's offer of a “weed;” and Nelligan,
+opening a door into an adjoining room where tea was laid, threw also
+wide a little sash-door that led into the garden, whose cool and
+fragrant air was perfectly delicious at the moment. Jack strolled down
+the steps and soon lost himself in the dark alleys, not sorry to be left
+alone with his own thoughts, after a scene in which his convivial powers
+had been taxed to no mean extent.
+
+“A clever young fellow! There's stuff in him,” said the priest, in a
+whisper to Nelligan.
+
+“And no impudence about him,” said Brierley; “he's just like one of
+ourselves.”
+
+“He has a wonderful opinion of Joe!” said Nelligan.
+
+“He's the very man for my 'august leader,'” said Magennis. “I 'd like to
+bring them together!”
+
+“His father 's a Treasury Lord,” said Nelligan, swelling at the thought
+of his being the host of such company!
+
+“And I 'll tell you what, Dan Nelligan,” said the priest,
+confidentially, “talents won't do everything, nowadays, without high
+connections; mark my words, and see if that young man does n't stand
+high yet. He has just got every requirement of success. He has good
+family, good looks, good abilities, and”--here he dropped his voice
+still lower--“plenty of brass. Ay, Dan, if Joe could borrow a little of
+his friend's impudence, it would be telling him something.”
+
+Nelligan nodded assentingly; it was about the only quality in the world
+which he could have believed Joe stood in any need of getting a loan of.
+
+“Joe beat him out of the field,” said Dan, proudly. “He told me so
+himself, this morning.”
+
+“No doubt; and he would again, where the contest was a college one; but
+'Life,' my dear friend,--life demands other gifts beside genius.”
+
+“Ganius!” broke in old Hayes, with an accent of the profoundest
+contempt,--“Ganius! I never knew a 'Ganius' yet that was n't the ruin
+of all belonging to him! And whenever I see a young fellow that knows no
+trade, nor has any livelihood, who's always borrowing here and begging
+there, a torment to his family and a burden to his friends, I set him
+down at once for a 'Ganius.'”
+
+“It's not _that_ I was alluding to, Mr. Hayes,” said the priest, in
+some irritation. “I spoke of real ability, sterling powers of mind and
+thought, and I hope that they are not to be despised.”
+
+“Like my 'august leader's'!” said Magennis, proudly.
+
+“Ay, or like that young gentleman's there,” said Father Neal, with the
+tone of a man pronouncing upon what he understood. “I watched him to-day
+at dinner, and I saw that every remark he made was shrewd and acute, and
+that whenever the subject was new to him, he fell into it as he went
+on talking, picking up his facts while he seemed to be discussing them!
+Take my word for it, gentlemen, he 'll do!”
+
+“He does n't know much about flax, anyhow,” muttered old Hayes.
+
+“He took his punch like a man,” said Brierley, bearing testimony on a
+point where his evidence was sure to have weight.
+
+“He'll do!” said Father Neal once more, and still more authoritatively
+than before.
+
+“Joe carried away every premium from him,” said old Nelligan, with a
+degree of irritation that proclaimed how little he enjoyed the priest's
+eulogy of his guest.
+
+“I know he did, sir; and no man has a higher respect for your son's
+great abilities than myself; but here 's how it is, Mr. Nelligan,”--and
+he drew himself up like a man about to deliver a profound
+opinion,--“here 's how it is. The mind that can master abstract science
+is one thing; the faculties that can deal with fellow-mortals is
+another. This world is not a University!”
+
+“The Lord be praised for that same!” cried old Hayes, “or I 'm afraid I
+'d fare badly in it.”
+
+“To unite both descriptions of talent,” resumed the priest,
+oratorically, “is the gift of but few.”
+
+“My 'august leader' has them,” broke in Magennis.
+
+“Show me the man that can deal with men!” said Father Neal,
+dictatorially.
+
+“Women is twice as hard to deal with!” cried old Hayes. “I 'll back
+Nancy Drake against any man in the barony.”
+
+“Faith, and I remember her a pretty woman,” said Brierley, who would
+gladly have enticed the conversation out of its graver character.
+“A prettier girl than Mary Martin herself!” continued the inexorable
+Brierley, for the company did not appear to approve of his diversion.
+
+“We are now discussing politics,--grave questions of state, sir,” said
+Father Neal,--“for we have come to times when even the most indifferent
+and insignificant amongst us cannot refrain feeling an interest in
+the progress of our country. And when I see a fine young man like that
+there, as one may say going a-begging for a party, I tell you that we
+are fools--worse than fools--if we don't secure him.”
+
+“Do you mean for the borough?” asked Nelligan.
+
+“I do, sir,--I mean for the borough!”
+
+“Not till we have consulted my 'august leader,' I hope,” broke in
+Magennis.
+
+“I'm for managing our own affairs ourselves,” said the priest. “What we
+want is a man of our own; and if that young gentleman there will take
+the pledges we should propose, I don't know that we'd readily get the
+like of him.”
+
+The silence that now fell upon the party was ominous; it was plain that
+either the priest's proposition was not fully acquiesced in, or that the
+mode of announcing it was too abrupt. Perhaps this latter appeared the
+case to his own eyes, for he was the first to speak.
+
+“Of course what I have said now is strictly among ourselves, and not to
+be mentioned outside of this room; for until my friend Dan Nelligan
+here consents to take the field against the Martin interest, there is
+no chance of opening the borough. Let him once agree to _that_, and the
+member for Oughterard will be his own nominee.”
+
+“Do you really think so?” asked Nelligan, eagerly.
+
+“I know it, sir; and every gentleman at this table knows it.”
+
+A strong chorus in assent murmured around the board.
+
+“It would be a great struggle,” muttered Nelligan.
+
+“And a great victory!” said the priest.
+
+“What a deal of money, too, it would cost!”
+
+“You have the money, Dan Nelligan; and let me tell you one thing,”--here
+he leaned over his chair and whispered some words in the other's ear.
+
+Old Nelligan's face flushed as he listened, and his eyes sparkled with
+intense excitement.
+
+“If I thought _that_--if I only thought that, Father Rafferty--I 'd
+spend half my fortune on it to-morrow.”
+
+“It's as true as I'm a living man,” said the priest, solemnly; and then
+with a motion of his hand gestured caution, for Massingbred was slowly
+ascending the steps, and about to enter the room.
+
+With an instinctive readiness all his own, he saw in the embarrassed
+and conscious looks around that he had himself been the object of their
+discussion, and with the same shrewdness he detected their favorable
+feeling towards him.
+
+“I have made them my own!” muttered he to himself.
+
+“He 'll do our work well!” said the priest in his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. YOUNG NELLIGAN, AS INTERPRETED IN TWO WAYS.
+
+“I rather like that young Nelligan,” said Martin, the day after Joseph
+had made his first appearance at dinner. “He talks pleasantly, and
+nothing of a pedant, as I half dreaded he might be.”
+
+“I thought his manner respectful, and very proper for his station,” said
+Lady Dorothea, with an air of dignity.
+
+“He spoke of politics, too, with less of prejudice, less of class
+bitterness, than I could have expected.”
+
+“Some policy, perhaps, in that,” remarked her Ladyship.
+
+“Possibly!” said Martin, with a careless shrug of the shoulders.
+
+“He was in a measure on his trial amongst us, and felt the importance of
+making a favorable first impression.”
+
+“It was more trouble than his father would have taken, then,” said
+Martin, smiling. “Old Dan, as they call him, is not a very conciliating
+personage.”
+
+“I cannot imagine that the disposition of such a person is a matter of
+much moment. Does n't the man deal in tea, candles, and such like?”
+
+“That he does, and in loans, and in mortgages, too; not to add that
+he exercises a very considerable share of influence in his town of
+Oughterard.”
+
+“A very shocking feature of the time we live in!” exclaimed Lady
+Dorothea.
+
+“So it may be; but there it is,--just like the wet weather, and the
+typhus, and the sheep-rot, and fifty other disagreeable things one can't
+help.”
+
+“But at least they can avoid recurring to them in conversation, sir.
+There is no necessity to open the window when the look-out is a dreary
+one.”
+
+Martin made no reply, and a pause of some moments ensued.
+
+“What arrangement did you come to with him about his party in the
+borough?” said she at last.
+
+“I didn't even allude to the topic,” replied he, half testily.
+“These things are not to be done in that hasty fashion; they require
+management, discretion, and a fitting opportunity, too.”
+
+“Why, you talk of your grocer's boy as if he were a Cabinet Minister,
+Mr. Martin; you treat him like a great diplomatist!”
+
+“It was not exactly on the first occasion of his being in my house that
+I could have broached the matter.”
+
+“Which implies that you mean to invite him again.”
+
+“Possibly!” was the abrupt rejoinder.
+
+“And must the odious attorney always be of the party?”
+
+“No, madam, the odious attorney has set out for Dublin; but I shortly
+expect here one whom your Ladyship will, doubtless, call an odious
+lawyer,--though he happens to be one of the foremost men of the Irish
+bar.”
+
+“A class I detest,” said her Ladyship.
+
+“He has one consolation, at least, madam,” said Martin; “he figures in a
+pretty long category.”
+
+“And why should he not, sir? What have I ever met in the dreary
+eighteen years and seven months I have passed here, except unmitigated
+self-conceit, vulgarity, and presumption,--the very type of all three
+being your Dublin barrister.”
+
+“Their countrymen certainly entertain another estimate of them,” said
+Martin, laughing, for he had a lazy man's enjoyment of any passionate
+excitement of another's temper.
+
+“And it was,” resumed she, “in some sort the contrast presented to such
+which pleased me in that young man's manner yesterday. Not but I feel
+assured that erelong you and Miss Martin will spoil him.”
+
+“I! aunt?” said Mary, looking up from her work; “how am I to exercise
+the evil influence you speak of?”
+
+“By the notice--the interest you vouchsafe him, Miss Martin,--the most
+flattering compliment to one in his station.”
+
+“If he bears collegiate honors so meekly, aunt,” said Mary, quietly,
+“don't you think his head might sustain itself under _my_ attentions?”
+
+“Possibly so, young lady, if not accompanied by the accessories of
+your rank in life,” said Lady Dorothea, haughtily; “and as to college
+honors,” added she, after a pause, “they are like school distinctions,
+of no earthly value out of the class-room.”
+
+“Faith, I don't know that,” said Martin. “At least, in my own
+experience, I can say, every fellow that has made a figure in life gave
+indications of high ability in his college years. I could go over the
+names of at least a dozen.”
+
+“Pray don't, sir,--spare your memory, and spare us. Miss Martin and
+I will take it for granted that this young man is destined to be Lord
+Chancellor,--Ambassador at St. Petersburg,--or anything else you please.
+I have no doubt that the time is approaching when such things are very
+possible.”
+
+“It has come already, my Lady,” said Martin; and in the manner he
+uttered the words there was no saying whether the sentiment was
+pleasurable or the reverse.
+
+“And yet I trust that there is a little interval still left to us ere
+that consummation,” said she, with pretentious dignity. “Birth and blood
+have not lost all their _prestige!_”
+
+“But they soon would,” said Mary, “if they feared to enter the lists
+against those less well-born than themselves.”
+
+“Miss Martin!” exclaimed her Ladyship, “what words are these?”
+
+“I hope they are void of offence, aunt. Assuredly I never conceived that
+I could wound any susceptibilities here by saying that the well-born are
+ready to meet the plebeian on any ground.”
+
+“There is no necessity for such trials, Miss Martin; the position of
+each has been so accurately defined by--by--by Providence,” said she, at
+last, blushing slightly as she uttered the word, “that the contest is
+almost impossible.”
+
+“The French Revolution reveals another story, aunt, and tells us,
+besides, how inferior were the nobles of that country in the day of
+struggle.”
+
+“Upon my word, these are very pretty notions, young lady. Have they been
+derived from the intelligent columns of the “Galway Monitor,” or are
+they the teachings of the gifted Mr. Scanlan? Assuredly, Mr. Martin,”
+ said she, turning to him, “papa was right, when he said that the Irish
+nature was essentially rebellious.”
+
+“Complimentary, certainly,” said Martin, laughing.
+
+“He founded the remark on history. Papa was uncommonly well read,
+and used to observe that there seemed something in the Celtic nature
+incompatible with that high-souled, chivalrous loyalty Englishmen
+exhibit.”
+
+“But how much of the Celt have Mary and myself got in us, if your
+observation is meant for us? Why, my Lady, what with intermarriage
+centuries ago, and change of blood ever since, the distinctive element
+has been utterly lost.”
+
+“And yet we are not English, uncle,” said Mary, with something that
+smacked of pride. “Confess it: we have our nationality, and that our
+people have traits of their own.”
+
+“That they have; but I never heard them made matter of boastfulness
+before,” said Lady Dorothea, sneeringly.
+
+“Well, aunt, it is not too late to hear it now; and I, for one, am proud
+of my country,--not of its political station, for it is dependent,--not
+of its wealth, for it is poor,--but of its genial courtesy, its
+free-hearted hospitality, its manly patience under many a crushing
+calamity, and not least of all, its gallantry on every field where
+England has won honor.”
+
+“I have read of all these things; but my own experiences are limited to
+the rags and restlessness of a semi-barbarous people. Nay, Miss Martin,
+I'm not going to discuss the matter. I have lived elsewhere,--you have
+not. I have acquired habits--prejudices, perhaps you 'd call them--in
+behalf of twenty things that Irish civilization sees no need of.”
+
+“Would it not be kind, aunt, were you to aid us by the light of these
+same experiences?” said Mary, with an air of well-assumed humility.
+
+“Certainly not, at the price of intercourse with the natives!” exclaimed
+her Ladyship, haughtily. “I detest, on principle, the Lady Bountiful
+character. The whole of the hymn-book, castor-oil, and patent-barley
+sympathy is shockingly vulgar. Like many things, well done at first, it
+fell into low hands, and got spoiled.”
+
+The tone of sarcasm in which this was spoken made Mary's cheeks crimson,
+and the flush spread itself over her neck. Still she made no reply, but
+bending down her head, continued to work more assiduously.
+
+“When are we to leave this place, Mr. Martin?” asked her Ladyship,
+abruptly.
+
+“I believe we are only waiting here till it be your pleasure to quit.”
+
+“And I dying to get away this fortnight past! Some one certainly told me
+that Cro' Martin was not ready for us. Was it _you_, Miss Martin?”
+
+“No, aunt.”
+
+“It ran in my head it was you, then. Well, can we go at
+once--to-day--this afternoon?”
+
+“To-morrow we might, perhaps,” said Mary.
+
+“Scarcely so,” said Martin, interposing, “seeing that I have asked
+Repton to come down here and see the place.”
+
+“But you can drive him over from Cro' Martin. It would be intolerable,
+the idea of remaining here just for him. So we shall go to-morrow, Miss
+Martin.” And with this, uttered in the tone of an order, her Ladyship
+swept proudly out of the room, from which Martin, not overanxious for a
+_tête-à-tête_ with his niece, stepped noiselessly at the same moment by
+another door.
+
+Scarcely had the door closed behind Lady Dorothea, when it was reopened
+to admit Joe Nelligan, who had met her Ladyship in the corridor and been
+received with such palpable coldness of manner that he entered the room
+bashful and awkward, and hardly knowing whether to advance or retire.
+
+“I fear I have made my visit at an untimely hour, Miss Martin,” said he,
+blushing; “but the truth is, I know next to nothing of society and its
+habits, and if you would only be kind enough to tell me when I am a
+transgressor--”
+
+“The notion of learning from _me_ is perfect,” said Mary, interrupting
+him with a pleasant laugh. “Why, Mr. Nelli-gan, I never could be taught
+anything, even of the most ordinary rules of ceremonial life! though,”
+ added she, slyly, “I have lived certainly in the midst of great
+opportunities.”
+
+“But then, I have not,” said Nelligan, gravely, and accepting the speech
+in all seriousness. “Well, it comes pretty much to the same thing,” said
+she, smiling, “since I have profited so little by them.”
+
+“I came thus early, however,” said he, earnestly, “because I was
+impatient to correct an impression which might have remained from
+something that fell from me last night. You smile, I perceive,” said he,
+“that I should attach so much importance to my own words!”
+
+“It was not at that I smiled,” said Mary, archly.
+
+“No matter,” continued he. “It is better, at the cost of a little
+wounded vanity, that I should escape a misconception. When your
+uncle spoke to me, last night, about the division of parties in the
+borough--You are smiling again, Miss Martin!”
+
+“Don't you perceive, sir, that what amuses me is the mistaken estimate
+you have formed of me, by addressing me on such topics?”
+
+“But I came here expressly to speak to you,” said he, with increased
+eagerness; “for I have always heard--always understood--that none ever
+took a deeper interest in all that regarded the country than yourself.”
+
+“If you mean, by the country, the lives and fortunes of those who live
+in it,--the people by whose toil it is fertilized, by whose traits it is
+a nation,--I tell you frankly that I yield to none for interest in all
+that touches them; but if you come to talk of privileges and legislative
+benefits, I know nothing of them: they form a land of whose very
+geography I am ignorant.”
+
+“But the subject is the same, and the mind which comprehends one could
+embrace the other.”
+
+“In the one, however, I can labor usefully and fittingly, without much
+risk of mistake,--never, indeed, of any mistake that might prove of
+serious moment. The other involves great questions, and has great
+hazards, perils, to affright stronger heads than mine!”
+
+“There is much in what you say,” said he, reflectingly.
+
+“There is far more than I am able to express,” said she, warmly. “Just
+remember, for a moment, that of all the laws you great and wise men
+are making, over which you rant and wrangle, and assail each other
+so vindictively, how few ever touch the interests or descend to the
+fortunes of those for whom you assume to make them,--that the craftiest
+devices of your legislation never uproot ah old prejudice nor disturb
+an antiquated superstition; while I, and such as I,--and there need be
+nothing more humble,--can by a little timely help in trouble--a little
+care, or even a little counsel--comfort many a failing heart, cheer up
+many a sinking spirit, and, better still, do good service by teaching
+the poor man that he is of one family with those better off than
+himself, and that he is not an outcast because he is lowly!”
+
+As Mary went on, her eyes shone more brilliantly, and her cheeks glowed,
+till Nelligan forgot even the words she spoke in admiration of the
+speaker.
+
+“But here comes my uncle,” cried she, hastily, “to rescue you from
+further amplification of the theme. Come in, uncle,”--for Martin was
+already about to retire,--“it is Mr. Nelligan, who wants to speak to
+you.”
+
+“Oh, I was in terror of a regular morning visitor!” said Martin, shaking
+the young man's hand cordially. “They didn't tell me you were here.”
+
+“I came, sir,” said Joseph, hesitatingly, “to rectify what might,
+perhaps, require correction in an observation I made last night. We were
+talking about the proper basis of a representation--”
+
+“My dear boy,” broke in Martin, laughingly, “there's nothing kills me
+like asking me to go over the past, either in reading an old letter
+or recalling an old conversation. And as to calling on me to justify
+something I once defended in argument, I 'd give up the cause at once,
+and say I was all wrong, in preference.”
+
+“Then I need not fear you will hold me responsible--”
+
+“Not for anything, except your pledge to dine here tomorrow at seven.”
+
+Notwithstanding all the ease and frankness of Martin's manner--and as
+manner it was perfect--the young man felt far from satisfied. His want
+of breeding--that cruel want strong enough to mar the promise of high
+ability, and even impair the excellence of many a noble nature--seemed
+to hold him fast bound to the object of his visit. He had come for
+an explanation, and he couldn't go away without it. Mary read his
+difficulty at once, and as she passed him to leave the room, said in a
+low voice, “To-morrow evening.”
+
+Nelligan started at the words, and his face became scarlet. What
+could she have meant? Was it that she wished him to come, and had thus
+condescended to remind him of his promise? or was it to suggest a more
+fitting moment to return to the late discussion?
+
+“Are you coming to luncheon, Nelligan?” said Martin, rising.
+
+“No, sir; not to-day. I have a call--a visit--some miles off.” And while
+he was yet stammering out his excuses, Martin waved a familiar good-bye
+with his hand, and passed into the adjoining room.
+
+“And what can this mean?” said Nelligan to himself. “Is this the cordial
+treatment of an intimate, or is it contemptuous indifference for an
+inferior?” And, far more puzzled than he should have been with the
+knottiest problem of the “Principia,” he quitted the house and strolled
+homewards.
+
+His way led along the shore, and consequently in front of that
+straggling row of cottages which formed the village. It chanced to be
+the last day of the month, and, by the decree of the almanac, the close
+of the bathing-season. The scene then going forward was one of unusual
+and not unpicturesque confusion. It was a general break-up of the
+encampment, and all were preparing to depart to their homes, inland. Had
+young Nelligan been--what he was not--anything of a humorist, he might
+have been amused at the variety of equipage and costume around him.
+Conveyances the most cumbrous and most rickety, drawn by farm horses,
+or even donkeys, stopped the way before each door, all in process of
+loading by a strangely attired assemblage, whose Welsh wigs, flannel
+dressing-gowns, and woollen nightcaps showed how, by a common consent,
+all had agreed to merge personal vanity in the emergency of the moment.
+The innumerable little concealments which had sheltered many a narrow
+household, the various little stratagems that had eked out many a scanty
+wardrobe, were now abandoned with a noble sincerity; and had there been
+a cork leg or a glass eye in the company, it would not have shrunk from
+the gaze of that open-hearted community.
+
+Such of the travellers as had taken their places were already surrounded
+with the strangest medley of household gods it is possible to conceive.
+Like trophies, bird-cages, candlesticks, spits, cullenders, fenders, and
+bread-baskets bristled around them, making one marvel how they ever got
+in, or, still more, how they were ever to get out again; the croaking of
+invalids, with crying children, barking terriers, and scolding owners,
+making a suitable chorus to the confusion.
+
+Still, amidst all the discomforts of the moment, amidst the last
+wranglings with landlords, and the last squabbles over broken furniture
+and missing movables, it must be owned that the prevailing temper of the
+scene was good-humor and jollity. The Irish temperament seems ever to
+discover something congenial in those incidents of confusion and bustle
+which to other people are seasons of unmitigated misery, and even out of
+its own sources of discomfiture can derive matter for that quaint humor
+with which it can always regard life. In this wise was it that few now
+dwelt much upon their own inconveniences, so long as they were free to
+laugh at those of their neighbors.
+
+Before he was well aware of it, young Nelligan found himself in the very
+midst of this gathering, whose mirthful accents suddenly subsided at
+his approach, and an air of constraint and reserve seemed to take their
+place. Never very quick to appreciate such indications, he drew nigh
+to a very lofty “conveniency” in which, with an air of stately
+dignity, Mrs. Cronan sat enthroned on a backgammon-table, with a
+portentous-looking cap-case in her lap.
+
+“My mother will be sorry not to have seen you before you went away, Mrs.
+Cronan,” said he to that lady, whose demure and frigid demeanor made the
+speech sound like a bold one.
+
+“I 'd have left my card and my compliments, sir, if I wasn't so pressed
+for time,” responded she, with a haughty gravity.
+
+“With P. P. C. on the corner,” said the Captain from his pony-gig
+alongside; “which means, pour prendre 'congo,' or 'congee,' I never
+knew which.”
+
+“She 'll be very lonely now, for the few days we remain,” resumed Joe,
+conscious of some awkwardness, without knowing where or how.
+
+“Not with the society of your distinguished acquaintances at 'The Nest,'
+sir!” the sarcastic import of which reply was more in the manner than
+the mere words; while the old Captain murmured,--
+
+“Begad, she gave it to him there,--a regular double-headed shot!”
+
+“We hope to follow you by the end of the week,” said Nelligan, trying to
+seem at ease.
+
+“If you can tear yourselves away, I suppose,” said Miss Busk, through
+a double veil of blue gauze; for that lady's auburn ringlets reposed at
+the moment in the small mahogany casket beside her.
+
+“There is not much attraction in the spot just now,” said Joseph,
+smiling.
+
+“Not for the like of us, perhaps, sir,” retorted Mrs. Cronan,--“not for
+persons in our station; but your fashionable people, I believe, always
+prefer a place when the vulgar company have left it.”
+
+“Good again,--grape and canister!” chuckled out the Captain, who seemed
+to derive a high enjoyment from the scene.
+
+“Would you move a little to one side, Mr. Nelligan?” said the doctor;
+“my pony won't stand.”
+
+“Oh, he's mettlesome,” said Joe, good-humoredly, as he stepped out of
+the way.
+
+“That he is, sir, though he never was leader in a four-in-hand; but, you
+see, poor creatures of quadrupeds forget themselves down here, just like
+their betters!”
+
+And the success of this sally was acknowledged by a general laugh from
+the company. The tone of the speakers, even more than their words,
+convinced Joseph that, from some cause or other, he was the object of
+their sarcasms; and although slow to take offence,--even to the verge of
+what many might have called an unfeeling indifference,--he felt their
+treatment most acutely. It was, then, in something like a haughty
+defiance that he wished them a careless good-bye, and continued his way.
+
+“The world seems bent on puzzling me this morning,” muttered he, as he
+sauntered slowly on. “People treat me as though I were playing some deep
+game to their detriment,--I, who have no game, almost no future!” added
+he, despondingly. “For what avails it to attain eminence amidst such as
+these; and, as for the others, I was not born for them.”
+
+To these moody thoughts succeeded others still gloomier. It had only
+been within a short time back that the young man had begun to appreciate
+the difficulties of a position to which his early successes imparted
+increasing embarrassment; and darkly brooding over these things, he drew
+near his mother's cottage. She was already at the door to meet him, with
+a letter in her hand.
+
+“This is from your father, Joe,” said she. “He wants you in all haste
+up at the town; and I've packed your clothes, and sent off Patsey for
+Mooney's car; so come in and eat something at once.”
+
+Joseph took the note from her hand and perused it in silence. It was
+brief, and ran thus:--
+
+     “Dear Joe,--I want you up here as soon as possible, to meet
+     a friend whom you 'll be surprised to see. I say no more,
+     but that I expect you by dinner-time.--Yours ever,
+
+     “D.N.”
+
+“What does that mean, Joe?” asked his mother.
+
+He only shrugged his shoulders in reply.
+
+“And who can it be?” said she again.
+
+“Some of the townspeople, of course,” said he, carelessly.
+
+“No, no, Joe; it must be a stranger. Maybe it's Morgan Drake; his aunt
+expected him back from Jamaica before Christmas. Or it 's Corny Dwyer 's
+come home from Africa; you know he went on the deploring expedition--”
+ “Exploring, mother,--exploring.”
+
+“Well, exploring or deploring, it's all the same. He went four years
+ago, and all the tidings they 've had of him was an elephant's tooth he
+sent home to his stepfather. I know it's Corny, for your father always
+liked him and the funny stories he told.”
+
+“Perhaps so!” replied Joe.
+
+“I wonder, is he grown any bigger? He was little better than a dwarf
+when he went away, and the same age as yourself. No, indeed, he was
+older,--fourteen months older. It was Catty Henderson was running in my
+head. Is n't she a fine young woman, Joe?”
+
+“Remarkably so,” said he, with more animation in his tone.
+
+“A little bit too haughty-looking and proud, maybe, considering her
+station in life, and that she has to go to service--”
+
+“Go to service, mother?”
+
+“To be sure she has. If they can't get her a place as a governess or a
+companion, she 'll have to take what she can get. Her father's married
+again, my dear Joe; and when men do that!” And here Mrs. Nelligan
+uplifted her hands and eyes most expressively. “Ay, indeed,” continued
+she, with a heavy sigh, “and if it was once it was fifty times, Catty's
+poor mother said to me, 'Sarah,' says she,--she never called me Sally,
+but always Sarah,--'Sarah,' says she, 'I 've but one comfort, and that
+is that Catty will never want a mother while you live. You 'll be the
+same to her as myself,--just as fond, and just as forgiving;' them was
+her very words!”
+
+“And I hope you have never forgotten them, mother?” said Joe, with
+emotion.
+
+“Don't you see I have n't; an't I repeating them to you this minute?”
+
+“Yes; but I mean the spirit and the meaning of them,” rejoined he, “and
+that you feel the obligation they 've laid upon you.”
+
+“To be sure I feel it; don't I fret over it every time I 'm alone? for I
+can't get it out of my head that maybe she 'd appear to me--”
+
+“No, but her mother. Oh, it 's nothing to laugh at, Joe. There was Eliza
+Keane came back every Easter Monday for two-and-twenty years to search
+for a gravy-spoon. Well, if it's laughing you are, I won't say any more;
+but here 's the car now, and it's late enough we 'll be on the road!”
+
+“I'm not thinking of going, mother. I never meant to go,” said Joe,
+resolutely.
+
+“Never meant to go, after your father's note to you, Joe?” cried she, in
+half horror. “Surely it's all as one as ordering you up there.”
+
+“I know all that,” said he, calmly; “but I see no reason why I should
+forego the pleasure of a party at the Martins' for the sake of meeting
+the convivial celebrities of Oughterard.”
+
+“But what will you say?”
+
+“Say I'm engaged; have accepted another invitation; or, better still,
+leave you to make my excuses, mother. Come, come, don't look so
+terribly shocked and terrified. You know well enough that my father's
+four-year-old mutton and his crusted port will compensate the company
+for heavier inflictions than my absence.”
+
+“They were always fond of you, Joe,” said Mrs. Nelligan, half
+reproachfully.
+
+“Nothing of the kind, mother; they never cared for me, nor was there any
+reason why they should. I 'm sure I never cared for them. We endured one
+another; that was all.”
+
+“Oh, dear; but I 'm glad your father is not listening to you,” said
+she, with a stealthy glance around, as though not perfectly assured
+of secrecy. “So, then, I suppose, there 's nothing for it but to go up
+myself and make the best of it; and sure it's all a lottery what temper
+he 's in, and how he 'll take it. I remember when they put the new duty
+on--what was it, Joe? I think it was hides--”
+
+“Not the least matter, mother; you 've only to say that Mr. Martin
+has been kind enough to show me some attentions, and that I am silly
+enough--if you like to say so--to prefer them to the festive pleasures
+of Oughterard. In another week or so I shall have to go back to college.
+Let me, at least, enjoy the few days of my vacation in my own fashion.”
+
+Mrs. Nelligan shook her head mournfully over these signs of rebellion,
+and muttering many a gloomy foreboding, she went off to her room to make
+her preparations for the journey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. A VERY “CROSS EXAMINATION”
+
+The morning was bright and sunny, the air sharp, crisp, and bracing,
+as the heavy travelling-carriage which conveyed Mr. Martin and Lady
+Dorothea rolled smoothly along the trimly kept approach to Cro' Martin.
+Many a beautiful glade, many a lovely vista opened on them as they
+passed along deep-bosomed woods and gently swelling slopes, dotted over
+with cattle, stretched away on either side; while far in the distance
+could be seen the battlemented towers of the princely residence.
+
+The lover of nature might have felt intense pleasure at a scene so
+abounding in objects of beauty. A painter would have lingered with
+delight over effects of light and shade, glorious displays of color, and
+graceful groupings of rocks and trees and gnarled stumps. A proud man
+might have exulted in the selfish enjoyment of feeling that these were
+all his own; while a benevolent one would have revelled in the thought
+of all the channels through which such wealth might carry the blessings
+of aid and charity.
+
+Which of these feelings predominated now in the minds of those who,
+snugly encased in furs, occupied the respective corners of the
+ample coach? Shall we own it? Not any of them. A dreamy, unremarking
+indifference was the sentiment of each; and they sat silently gazing
+on a prospect which suggested nothing, nor awoke one passing emotion in
+their hearts. Had any one been there to express his admiration of the
+landscape,--praised the trees, the cattle, or the grassy slopes,--Martin
+might have heard him with pleasure, and listened even with interest to
+his description. My Lady, too, might not unwillingly have lent an ear
+to some flattery of the splendid demesne of which she was mistress,
+and accepted as half homage the eulogy of what was hers. None such was,
+however, there; and so they journeyed along, as seemingly unconscious as
+though the scene were wrapped in midnight darkness.
+
+Martin had known the spot, and every detail of it, from his boyhood. The
+timber, indeed, had greatly grown,--graceful saplings had become stately
+trees, and feathery foliage deepened into leafy shade; but he himself
+had grown older, too, and his sense of enjoyment, dulled and deadened
+with years, saw nothing in the scene to awaken pleasure. As for Lady
+Dorothea, she had reasoned herself into the notion that the walls of her
+own grounds were the boundaries of a prison, and had long convinced
+herself that she was a suffering martyr to some mysterious sense of
+duty. From the drowsy languor in which they reclined they were both
+aroused, as the pace of the carriage gradually diminished from a smooth
+brisk trot to an uneven jolting motion, the very reverse of agreeable.
+
+“What have they done? Where are they going?” said Lady Dorothea,
+peevishly.
+
+And Martin called out from the window, in tones even less gentle. “Oh,
+it's the new approach; the road is not quite completed,” said he, half
+sulkily, as he resumed his place.
+
+“Another of Miss Martin's clever devices, which, I must say, I never
+concurred in.”
+
+“Why, you always professed to hate the old road by the stables.”
+
+“So I did; but I never agreed to passing round the back of the house,
+and thus destroying the privacy of the flower-garden,--the only spot I
+may dare to call my own. Oh, dear! I shall be shaken to death. Have
+they broken the carriage? I 'm certain they 've smashed the spring at my
+side!”
+
+Martin gave a cold, supercilious smile, the only reply to these words.
+
+“They 've only broken a trace, I perceive,” said he, casting a hurried
+glance through the window, as the carriage came to a dead stop.
+
+“You are equanimity itself, sir, this morning,” said her Ladyship, in
+a voice almost tremulous with anger. “I wonder if this admirable temper
+will befriend you when you shall see the cost of this precious piece of
+road-making?”
+
+“It employs the people,” said he, coolly.
+
+“Employs the people! How I hate that cant phrase! Can't they employ
+themselves on their own farms? Have n't they digging and draining, and
+whatever it is, to do of their own? Must they of necessity depend on
+us for support, and require that we should institute useless works to
+employ them?”
+
+As if to offer a living commentary on her speech, a number of half-fed
+and less than half-clad men now drew near, and in accents of a most
+servile entreaty begged to offer their services. Some, indeed, had
+already busied themselves to repair the broken harness, and others
+were levelling the road, carrying stones to fill up holes, and in
+every possible manner endeavoring to render assistance; but all were
+vociferous in asserting that the delay would not be above a minute or
+two; that the road was an elegant one, or would be soon, and that it was
+a “raal blessing” to see her Ladyship and the master looking so well. In
+fact, they were thankful and hopeful together; and, notwithstanding the
+evidences of the deepest destitution in their appearance, they wore an
+air of easy, jaunty politeness, such as many a professional diner-out
+might have envied. Lady Dorothea was in no mood to appreciate such
+traits; indeed, if the truth must be told, they rather ruffled than
+soothed her. Martin saw nothing in them; he was too much accustomed to
+the people to be struck with any of their peculiarities, and so he lay
+back in silent apathy, and took no notice of them.
+
+With all their alacrity and all their good-will--and there was no lack
+of either--there was yet such a total absence of all system and order,
+that their efforts were utterly useless. Some tugged away manfully
+to raise stones too heavy to lift; others came rudely in contact with
+fellows heavily laden, and upset them. The sturdy arms that spoked the
+hind wheels were resolutely antagonized by as vigorous struggles to move
+the fore ones. Every one shouted, cried, cursed, and laughed, by turns;
+and a more hopeless scene of confusion and uproar need not be conceived.
+Nor was Lady Dorothea herself an inactive spectator; for, with her head
+from the carriage-window, she directed a hundred impossible measures,
+and sat down at last, overcome with rage and mortification at their
+blunders.
+
+The tumult was now at the highest, and the horses, terrified by the
+noise around them, had commenced plunging and rearing fearfully, when
+Mary Martin came galloping up to the spot at full speed.
+
+“Let go that bridle, Hogan,” cried she, aloud; “you are driving that
+horse mad. Loose the leaders' traces; unbuckle the reins, Patsey; the
+wheelers will stand quietly. There, lead them away. Speak to that mare;
+she 's trembling with fear. I told you not to come by this road, Barney;
+and it was only by accident that I saw the wheel-tracks. A thousand
+pardons, Aunt Dora, for this mishap. Barney misunderstood my orders. It
+will be all right in a moment. Once over this bad spot, the road is hard
+and level.”
+
+“Having no taste, nor any genius for adventures, Miss Martin,” began
+her Ladyship--But Mary did not await the remainder of the speech; for,
+turning her horse sharply round, and beckoning to some of the people
+to follow her, she was away across the lawn at a smart canter. Having
+arrived at a small wooden bridge over a river, she ordered the men to
+lift some of the planking, by the aid of which they soon constructed
+a firm and safe passage for the carriage; and as her presence was the
+signal for quiet obedience and prompt action, in less than ten minutes
+the difficulty was surmounted, the horses reharnessed, and all in
+readiness to proceed on their way.
+
+Martin looked on in silent satisfaction, not offering a single
+suggestion, or even seeming to feel interested in the events, but
+enjoying, with all a lazy man's pleasure, the activity displayed around
+him. Not so Lady Dorothea. If she did not like “an adventure,” she
+loved “a grievance.” Whatever ministered to her selfishness, even in the
+remotest degree, was grateful to her. Mary's opportune arrival had now
+converted what might have passed for a calamity into a mere momentary
+inconvenience; and she could not conceal her discontent. “Your heroines
+are a perfect torment; at least, to us souls of commoner clay. They live
+only for disasters.”
+
+“I must say that Mary extricated us from what might have become one,”
+ said Martin, dryly.
+
+“We are indebted to her, however, for the possibility. This detestable
+road, which I promise you I 'll never come again, is entirely her own
+invention. I hope, Miss Martin,” added she, from the window, “that the
+other approach is to be kept in repair,--at least, for me.” But Mary
+did not hear the appeal, for she was bandaging the arm of a poor country
+fellow, who had been sorely cut.
+
+“There, drive on, Barney,” cried Lady Dorothea. “I shall be taken ill
+if I stay here. Really, Mr. Martin, your niece's accomplishments are
+the least feminine one can conceive.” And improving this theme, she
+continued the entire way till the carriage drew up at the door of the
+castle.
+
+“Yes, sir,” said she, as she descended, “that heavy sigh shows you are
+indeed greatly to be pitied. No martyrdom ever exceeded yours. I am
+quite aware of all my imperfections, and can at least fancy everything
+you could say of me and my temper. What did you say, Collins?” said she,
+addressing the obsequious-looking servant, who, with an air of gloomy
+joy, very respectful,--but meant to mean more,--had whispered something
+in her ear.
+
+“A young lady, did you say, Collins?”
+
+“Yes, my Lady.”
+
+“Then you were very wrong, Collins. You meant to say a young person.”
+
+“Yes, my Lady,--a young person, like a lady.”
+
+“Not in the least, except to such appreciation as yours. Where is she?”
+
+“In your Ladyship's library.”
+
+“Did she come alone?”
+
+“No, my Lady. Mr. Henderson drove her over in his car, and said he 'd
+pass this way again in the evening.”
+
+And now her Ladyship swept proudly by, scarcely noticing the bowing
+servants who had formed into a line along the hall, and who endeavored
+to throw into their sorrowful faces as much of joy as might consist with
+the very deepest humility. Nor was she more condescending to old Catty,
+who stood courtesying at the top of the stairs, with a basket of keys on
+her arm that might have served to lock up all Newgate.
+
+“How cold every place feels! Collins, are you sure the rooms are
+properly aired?” cried she, shuddering. “But I suppose it's the climate.
+Have another stove put there,” said she, pointing to an impossible
+locality.
+
+“Yes, my Lady,” replied Collins.
+
+“And warmer carpets on these passages.”
+
+“Yes, my Lady; it shall be done to-morrow.”
+
+“No, sir; to-day.”
+
+“Yes, my Lady; this afternoon.”
+
+“I don't remember if the windows are double along here.”
+
+“Yes, my Lady, they are all double towards the north.”
+
+“Then they fit badly, for I feel the draught acutely here. It's like the
+keen air of a mountain;” and Collins gave a slight sympathetic shudder,
+and really looked cold. A somewhat haughty glance from her Ladyship,
+however, as quickly reproved him, for Collins ought to have known
+that it was not by such as himself changes of temperature could be
+appreciable. And now she passed on and entered that part of the
+mansion peculiarly her own, and where, it must be owned, her spirit of
+fault-finding would have been at a loss what to condemn.
+
+Lady Dorothea's library occupied an angle of the building; and from this
+circumstance, included within its precincts an octagonal tower, the view
+from which comprised every varied character of landscape. This favored
+spot was fitted up in the most luxurious taste,--with rarest gems of
+art, and cabinet pictures of almost fabulous value,--to supply
+which foreign dealers and connoisseurs had been for years back in
+correspondence with her Ladyship. Now it was some rare treasure of
+carved ivory, or some sculptured cup of Benvenuto, that had been
+discovered accidentally, and which, despite the emulous zeal of princes
+and cardinals to obtain, was destined for herself. Now it was some
+choice mosaic of which but one other specimen existed, and that in the
+Pope's private collection at the Quirinal. Such was her ardor in this
+pursuit of excellence, that more than once had every object of this
+precious chamber been changed, to give place to something more costly,
+more precious, and rarer. For about two years back, however, the
+resources of the old world seemed to offer nothing worthy of attention,
+and the vases, the “statuettes,” the bronzes, the pictures, and
+medallions had held their ground undisturbed.
+
+Such was the sanctity of this spot, that in showing the house to
+strangers it was never opened, nor, without a special order from Lady
+Dorothea,--a favor somewhat more difficult to obtain than a firman from
+the Sultan,--could any one be admitted within its walls. The trusty
+servant in whose charge it was, was actually invested with a species of
+sacred character in the household, as one whose feet had passed the
+threshold of the tabernacle. Our reader may then picture to himself
+something of Lady Dorothea's varied sensations--for, indeed, they were
+most mingled--as she heard a slight cough from within the chamber, and,
+drawing nearer, perceived a female figure seated in front of one of the
+windows, calmly regarding the landscape.
+
+With a degree of noise and bustle sufficient to announce her approach,
+Lady Dorothea entered the tower; while the stranger, rising, retired one
+step, and courtesied very deeply. There was in all the humility of the
+obeisance a certain degree of graceful dignity that certainly struck
+her Ladyship; and her haughty look and haughtier tone were some little
+modified as she asked by what accident she found her there.
+
+“My intrusion was a pure accident, my Lady,” replied the other, in a
+low, soft voice; “mistaking the door by which I had entered a room, I
+wandered on through one after another until I found myself here. I beg
+your Ladyship to believe that nothing was further from my thoughts than
+to obtrude upon your privacy.”
+
+“Your name?” began her Ladyship; and then, as suddenly correcting
+herself, she said, “You are Miss Henderson, I suppose?”
+
+“Yes, my Lady,” she replied, with a slight bend of the head.
+
+“I sent for you,” said Lady Dorothea, in a half-careless tone, while she
+turned over some books on the table, as if in search of something,--“I
+sent for you, partly at the request of your mother--”
+
+“My stepmother, my Lady,” interposed the girl, calmly.
+
+Lady Dorothea stared at her for a second or two, as though to say, how
+had she dared to correct her; but either that the reproof had not met
+its full success, or that she did not care to pursue it, she added, “At
+the request of your friends, and partly out of curiosity.” And here
+Lady Dorothea raised her glass to her eye, and quietly surveyed her,--an
+examination which, it must be owned, none could have borne with more
+unshaken fortitude; not the slightest tremor of a limb, not the faintest
+change of color betokening that the ordeal was a painful one.
+
+“I do see that you have been educated in France,” said her Ladyship,
+with a smile of most supercilious import, while a courtesy from the
+young girl admitted the fact.
+
+“Were you brought up in Paris?” asked she, after a pause.
+
+“For four years, my Lady.”
+
+“And the remainder of the time, where was it passed?”
+
+“We travelled a great deal, my Lady, in Germany and Italy.”
+
+“'We,'--who were the 'we' you speak of? Please to bear in mind that I
+know nothing of your history.”
+
+“I forgot that, my Lady. I thought my stepmother had, perhaps, informed
+your Ladyship.”
+
+“Of nothing whatever, child,” said she, haughtily, “save of your having
+a foreign education, and wishing, or hoping, to find some engagement
+as a governess or a teacher;” and the last words were drawled out
+languidly, as though they were suggestive of all that was wearisome and
+a bore. “So you must be good enough to explain who 'we' were.”
+
+“The Duchesse de Luygnes and her family, my Lady.”
+
+“You travelled with them; and in what capacity, pray?”
+
+“I was called companion to the Princesse de Courcelles, the eldest
+daughter of the Duchess, my Lady.”
+
+“Companion!--why, you must have been a mere child at the time?”
+
+“A mere child, my Lady; but they took me from the Pensionnat, to speak
+English with the young Princess.”
+
+“And then they took the charge of your education, I conclude?”
+
+“Yes, my Lady.”
+
+“And to what extent--or rather, in what direction; I mean, what object
+had they in view in choosing your studies?”
+
+“They gave me the same masters as to the young Princess, my Lady; and I
+was instructed in all respects as she was.”
+
+“And treated like her also, I conclude?” said Lady Dorothea, with a
+sneering smile.
+
+“Madame la Duchesse was ever most kind to me,” said the girl, half
+proudly.
+
+“Kind--yes, of course--kind, if you conducted yourself properly and to
+her satisfaction. A person of her condition would be kind; but I trust
+this did not proceed so far as to spoil you? I hope it never made you
+forget your station?”
+
+“I trust it did not, my Lady.”
+
+“With what part of the establishment did you live? Where did you dine?”
+
+“With the Princess, my Lady; except on _fête_ days, when we were invited
+to the table of the Duchess.”
+
+“I never heard of anything more absurd,--outrageously absurd. Why, are
+you aware, young woman, that these same friends of yours have done you
+irreparable mischief? They have, so to say, ruined your entire future;
+for how can I, and others in my station, avail myself of your services,
+with such habits and expectations as these?”
+
+“Certainly not expectations, my Lady. I never did or can expect such
+condescension from another.”
+
+“No matter; your head is filled with ideas unbefitting your condition,
+usages, habits, associations, all foreign to a menial station. You
+have been admitted to privileges the want of which would be felt as
+hardships. In fact, as I said before, they have done you irreparable
+injury. You must feel it yourself.”
+
+A very faint smile, half in deprecation of the appeal, was the only
+reply of the young girl.
+
+“You are certain to feel it later on in life, if you are not sensible of
+it at present, that I can vouch for, young woman,” said Lady Dorothea,
+with all the firmness with which she could utter an unpleasant speech.
+“Nothing but unhappiness ever resulted from such ill-judged indulgence.
+Indeed, if your mother had mentioned the circumstances, I scarcely think
+I should have sent for you”--she paused to see if any strong signs of
+contrite sorrow displayed themselves in the young girl's features; none
+such were there, and Lady Dorothea more sternly added,--“I may safely
+say, I never should have asked to see you.”
+
+When a speech meant to be severe has failed to inflict the pain it was
+intended to produce, it invariably recoils with redoubled power upon him
+who uttered it; and so Lady Dorothea now felt all the pang of her
+own ungenerous sentiment. With an effort to shake off this unpleasant
+sensation, she resumed,--
+
+“I might go further, and observe that unless you yourself became
+thoroughly penetrated with the fact, you must always prove very
+unsuitable to the station you are destined to occupy in life. Do you
+understand me?”
+
+“I believe I do, my Lady,” was the calm reply.
+
+“And also,” resumed she, still more dictatorially--“and also, that
+acquiring this knowledge by yourself will be less painful to your
+feelings than if impressed upon you by others. Do you fully apprehend
+me?”
+
+“I think so, my Lady.”
+
+Now, although the tone and manner of the young girl were unexceptionable
+in all that regards deference and respect, Lady Dorothea was not a
+little provoked at her unbroken composure. There was no confusion, not
+even a semblance of constraint about her. She replied to even sarcastic
+questions without the faintest shadow of irritation, and exhibited
+throughout the most perfect quietude and good breeding. Had the “young
+person” been overwhelmed with shame, or betrayed into any access of
+temper, her Ladyship's manner would have presented a pattern of haughty
+dignity and gracefulness, and her rebukes would have been delivered in
+a tone of queen-like superiority; but Miss Henderson afforded no
+opportunity for these great qualities. She was deference itself; but
+deference so self-possessed, so assured of its own safeguard, as to be
+positively provoking.
+
+“Under all these circumstances, therefore,” resumed Lady Dorothea, as if
+having revolved mighty thoughts within her mind, “it appears to me you
+would not suit me.”
+
+But even this speech failed to call up one trait of disappointment, and
+the young girl received it with only a deep courtesy.
+
+“I'm sorry for it,” continued my Lady, “on your mother's account; your
+education has of course cost her and your father many sacrifices, which
+your duty requires you to repay.” She paused, as if asking for some
+assent to this speech.
+
+Another deep courtesy was the reply.
+
+“There, that will do,” said Lady Dorothea, angrily; for any attempt to
+provoke seemed an utter failure. “I think I have nothing more to
+say. When I shall see your mother I can explain more fully to her.
+Good-morning.”
+
+“I wish your Ladyship good-morning,” said the girl, with a deep
+obeisance, and in a voice of perfect deference, while she retired
+towards the door. Before she had reached it, however, Lady Dorothea
+again addressed her.
+
+“You forgot, I think, to tell me why you left the Duchesse de Luygnes?”
+
+“I left on the marriage of the Princess, my Lady.”
+
+“Oh, I remember; she married a Russian, I think.”
+
+“No, my Lady; she married the Duc de Mirecourt, French Ambassador at St.
+Petersburg.”
+
+“Ah, to be sure. I knew there was something Russian about it. And so
+they sent you away then?”
+
+“The Duchess most kindly invited me to accompany her, my Lady, but my
+father desired I should return to Ireland.”
+
+“And very properly,” said Lady Dorothea; “he took a most just view of
+the case; your position would only have exposed you to great perils. I'm
+sure you are not of my opinion, for distrust of yourself does not appear
+one of your failings.”--It is possible that this ungenerous remark was
+evoked by a very slight curl of the young girl's lip, and which, faint
+as it was, did not escape her Ladyship's keen glances.--“Good-morning.”
+
+Again had Miss Henderson gained the door; her hand was already on the
+lock, when her Ladyship called out: “In the event of anything occurring
+to me likely to suit you, I ought to know what you can teach; and mind,
+don't bore me with a mere catalogue of hard names, but say what you
+really know.”
+
+“Some modern languages, my Lady, with music.”
+
+“No Greek or Latin?” said Lady Dorothea, half sneer-ingly.
+
+“Latin, perhaps; but though I can read some Greek, I could not venture
+to teach it.”
+
+“Nor Hebrew?”
+
+“No, my Lady.”
+
+“And the modern tongues,--which of them do you profess to know?”
+
+“French, Italian, Spanish, and German.”
+
+“And don't you draw?--they showed me what they called yours.”
+
+“Yes, my Lady, but I cannot teach drawing.”
+
+“And of course you are thoroughly versed in history. Have you studied
+any scientific subjects?--mathematics, for instance.”
+
+“Only a few of the French initial books, my Lady.”
+
+“Why, you are quite an Admirable Crichton for acquirement. I feel really
+abashed to find myself in such company.” But even this coarse speech
+failed to irritate, and Lady Dorothea walked angrily towards the window
+and looked out.
+
+It so chanced that, through an opening of the wood, she caught sight
+of a large assemblage of workpeople, who, headed by Miss Martin on
+horseback, were on their way to the quarries; and as she looked, a
+sudden thought flashed across her: “Why not retain the 'young person' as
+a companion for her niece? How admirably would all this girl's
+knowledge contrast with Mary's ignorance! What an unceasing source of
+disparagement would their contact afford, at the very moment that
+the arrangement might seem dictated by the very best and highest of
+motives.”
+
+It may doubtless appear to many, that the individual who could reason
+thus must be animated by a most corrupt and depraved nature, but
+unhappily the spiteful element in the human heart is one which never
+measures its modes of attack, but suffers itself to be led on, from acts
+of mere petty malice to actions of downright baseness and badness. Lady
+Dorothea was not devoid of good traits, but once involved in a pursuit,
+she totally forgot the object which originally suggested it, but engaged
+all her zeal and all her ardor for success. She would have been shocked
+at the bare possibility of actually injuring her niece; she would have
+resented with indignation the mere mention of such; but yet she would
+have eagerly grasped at whatever afforded a chance of dominating over
+her. Mary's influence in the household--her rule over the peasantry of
+the estate--was a perpetual source of annoyance to her Ladyship, and yet
+she never knew how to thwart it, till now that chance seemed to offer
+this means.
+
+“You need not go back just yet: I 'll speak to Mr. Martin about you,”
+ said she, turning towards Miss Henderson; and, with a respectful
+courtesy, the girl withdrew, leaving her Ladyship to her own somewhat
+complicated reflections.
+
+In less than half an hour after Lady Dorothea proceeded to Mr. Martin's
+study, where a cabinet council was held, the substance of which our
+reader can readily conceive; nor need he have any doubts as to the
+decision, when we say that Lady Dorothea retired to her own room with a
+look of satisfaction so palpably displayed that Mademoiselle Hortense,
+her maid, remarked to herself, “Somebody or other was sure to pass a
+_mauvais quart d'heure_ when _miladi_ goes to her room with an air of
+such triumphant meaning as that.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. “A HOUSEKEEPER'S ROOM”
+
+Cro' Martin was replete with every comfort and luxury. All its
+arrangements betokened wealth; not a single appliance of ease or
+enjoyment but was to be found within its well-ordered walls; and yet
+there was one want which seemed to mar all, and infuse a sense of almost
+dreary coldness over everything, and this was--the absence of a numerous
+family, the assemblage of various ages, which gives to a home its
+peculiar interest, embodying the hopes and fears and passions and
+motives of manhood, in every stage of existence, making up that little
+world within doors which emblematizes the great one without; but, with
+this singular advantage, of its being bound up in one holy sentiment of
+mutual love and affection.
+
+This charm is it which gives the whole vitality to home,--this mingling
+of the temperaments of youth and manhood and deep age, blending hopes
+of the future with memories of the past, and making of every heart
+a portion of one human biography, in which many are sharers. To the
+stranger, who came to see the house and its gorgeous decorations,
+all seemed suggestive of habitable enjoyment. The vast drawing-rooms
+appeared as if only waiting for a splendid company; the dark wainscoted
+dining-room, with its noble fireplace of gigantic dimensions, looked the
+very scene where hospitable conviviality might be enacted; the library,
+calm, quiet, and secluded, seemed a spot wherein a student might have
+passed a life long. Even in the views that presented themselves at the
+several windows, there was a certain appropriateness to the character of
+the room, and the same importunate question still arose to one's mind:
+Who is there to enjoy all this? What words of glad welcome echo through
+this vaulted hall, what happy daughter sings through these gilded
+chambers, where is the social pleasantry that circles the blazing fire
+of the ample hearth? Alas! all was sombre, splendid, and dreary. No,
+we are wrong!--not all! There was one corner of this great house where
+cheerfulness was the very type of comfort. It was a small and not lofty
+room, whose two windows projected beyond the walls, giving a wide view
+over the swelling landscape for miles of space. Here the furniture was
+of the most ordinary kind, but scrupulously neat and well kept. The
+chairs--there were but four of them--all with arms and deep cushions;
+the walnut table a perfect mirror of polish; the cloth curtains,
+that closed the windows and concealed the door, massive and
+heavy-folded,--all breathed of snugness; while the screen that
+surrounded the fire had other perfections than those of comfortable
+seclusion, containing a most strange collection of the caricatures of
+the time, and the period before the Union. It is but necessary to add
+that this was Mrs. Broon's apartment,--the snug chamber where old Catty
+enjoyed herself, after the fatigues and duties of the day. Here now
+she sat at tea, beside a cheerful fire, the hissing kettle on the hob
+harmonizing pleasantly with the happy purring of an enormous cat, who
+sat winking at the blaze; and while evidently inconvenienced by the
+heat, lacking energy to retreat from it. Catty had just obtained the
+newspaper,--as the master had gone to dinner,--and was really about to
+enjoy a comfortable evening. Far from devoid of social qualities, or a
+liking for companionship, she still lived almost entirely to herself,
+the other servants being chiefly English, whose habits and ways were all
+strange to her, and all whose associations were widely different from
+her own. Catty Broon had thus obtained a reputation for unsociability
+which she by no means deserved, but to which, it must be owned, she
+was totally indifferent. In fact, if _they_ deemed _her_ morose and
+disagreeable, _she_, in turn, held _them_ still more cheaply, calling
+them a set of lazy devils that “were only in each other's way,” and
+“half of them not worth their salt.”
+
+Catty had also survived her generation; all her friends of former
+years had either died or emigrated, and except two or three of the
+farm-servants, none of the “ould stock,” as she called them, were in
+existence. This brief explanation will show that Catty's comparative
+isolation was not entirely a matter of choice. If a sense of loneliness
+did now and then cross her mind, she never suffered it to dwell there,
+but chased away the unpleasant thought by some active duty; or if
+the season of that were over, by the amusing columns of the
+“Intelligence,”--a journal which realized to Mrs. Broon's conceptions
+the very highest order of literary merit.
+
+Catty did not take much interest in politics; she had a vague, dreamy
+kind of notion that the game of party was a kind of disreputable
+gambling, and Parliament itself little better than a “Hell,” frequented
+by very indifferent company. Indeed, she often said it would be “well
+for us if there was no politics, and maybe then, there would be no taxes
+either.” The news she liked was the price of farming-stock at fairs and
+markets,--what Mr. Hynes got for his “top lot” of hoggets, and what Tom
+Healey paid for the “finest heifers ever seen on the fair-green.”
+ These, and the accidents--a deeply interesting column--were her peculiar
+tastes; and her memory was stored with every casualty, by sea, fire, and
+violence, that had graced the “Intelligence” for forty years back; in
+truth they formed the stations of her chronology, and she would refer
+to events as having occurred the same year that Joe Ryan was hanged, or
+“the very Christmas that Hogan fired at Captain Crossley.” An inundation
+of great extent also figured in these memorabilia, and was constantly
+referred to, by her saying, “This or that happened the year after the
+Flood,” suggesting a rather startling impression as to her longevity.
+
+On the evening we now refer to, the newspaper was more than commonly
+adorned with these incidents. Public news having failed, private
+calamities were invoked to supply the place. Catty was, therefore,
+fortunate. There was something, too, not altogether unpleasant in the
+whistling storm that raged without, and the heavy plashing of the rain
+as it beat upon the window-panes. Without imputing to her, as would be
+most unjust, the slightest touch of ill-nature, she felt a heightened
+sense of her own snugness as she drew closer to the bright hearth, while
+she read of “a dreadful gale in the Bay of Biscay.”
+
+It was just in the most exciting portion of the description that her
+door was rudely opened, and the heavy curtain dashed aside with a daring
+hand; and Catty, startled by the sudden interruption, called angrily
+out,--
+
+“Who's there?--who are ye at all?”
+
+“Can't you guess, Catty?” cried out a pleasant voice. “Don't you know
+that there's only one in this house here who 'd dare to enter in such a
+fashion?”
+
+“Oh, Miss Mary, is it you? And, blessed Virgin, what a state ye 're
+in!” cried she, as she gazed at the young girl, who, throwing away her
+riding-hat, wrung out the rain from her long and silky hair, while she
+laughed merrily at old Catty's dismayed countenance.
+
+“Why, where in the world were you--what happened you, darling?” said
+Catty, as she assisted her to remove the dripping costume.
+
+“I was at the Wood, Catty, and up to the quarries, and round by
+Cronebawn, and then, seeing a storm gathering, I thought I 'd turn
+homeward, but one of Kit Sullivan's children--my little godchild, you
+know--detained me to hear him recite some verses he had learned for my
+birthday; and, what with one thing and another, it was pitch dark when I
+reached the 'New Cut,' and then, to my annoyance, I found the bridge had
+just been carried away--there, Catty, now for a pair of your own
+comfortable slippers--and, as I was saying to you, there was no bridge!”
+
+“The bridge gone!” exclaimed Catty, in horror.
+
+“All Tom Healey's fault. I told him that the arch had not span enough,
+and that the buttresses would never stand the first heavy fall of rain
+from the mountains, and there 's not a vestige of them now!”
+
+“And what did you do?”
+
+“I rode for the Low Meadows, Catty, with all speed. I knew that the
+river, not being confined there between narrow banks, and spreading over
+a wide surface, couldn't be very deep. Nor was it. It never touched the
+girths but once, when we got into a hole. But she is such a rare good
+beast, that little Sorrel; she dashed through everything, and I don't
+think I took forty minutes from Kane's Mill to this door, though I never
+saw a spot of the road all the while, except when the lightning showed
+it. There now, like a good old dear, don't wring your hands and say,
+'Blessed hour!' but just put some more tea in the teapot, and fetch me
+your brown loaf!”
+
+“But surely you 'll die of cold!--you 'll be in a fever!”
+
+“Nonsense, Catty; I have been out in rain before this. I'm more provoked
+about that bridge than all else. My excellent aunt will have such a
+laugh at my engineering skill, when she hears of it. Can't be helped,
+however. And so there's a dinner-party upstairs, I hear. Fanny told me
+there were three strangers.”
+
+“So I hear. There's a lawyer from Dublin; and a lady from I don't know
+where; and young Nelligan, old Dan's son. I 'm sure I never thought I 'd
+see the day he 'd be eating his dinner at Cro' Martin.”
+
+“And why not, Catty? What is there in his manners and conduct that
+should not make him good company for any one here?”
+
+“Is n't he the son of a little huckster in Oughterard? Old Dan, that I
+remember without a shoe to his foot?”
+
+“And is it a reproach to him that he has made a fortune by years of
+patient industry and toil?”
+
+“In-dus-try! toil! indeed,” said Catty, sneeringly. “How much in-dus-try
+or toil there is, weighing out snuff and sugar in a snug shop. Ayeh!
+he's an old nig-gar, the same Dan. I know him well.”
+
+“But that is no reason why you should disparage his son, Catty, who is a
+young gentleman of the highest ability and great promise. I never heard
+you speak so ungenerously before.”
+
+“Well, well, darling, don't look angry with your ould Catty, anyway. It
+isn't for the like of Dan Nelligan, or his son either, you'd be cross
+with _me!_”
+
+“Never, Catty, never,--for anybody or anything,” said the young girl,
+taking her hand with both her own. “But you have n't told me who the
+lady is. How did she arrive, and when?”
+
+“I know nothing of her. Peter came to say that the blue bedroom was
+wanting to-night, and he wished to torment me into asking who for?--but
+I wouldn't, just for that same; and so I gave him the keys without a
+word.”
+
+“I wonder if this note, that I found on my dressing-table, will explain
+anything,” said Mary, as she proceeded to break the seal. “Of all the
+absurd ways of my Lady aunt, she has not a more ridiculous one than this
+trick of writing little notes, instead of speaking. She sees me every
+day, and might surely say whatever she wanted to say, without embalming
+it in a despatch. This, I perceive, is number four hundred and
+seventy-six, and I presume she 's correct in the score. Only think,
+Catty,--four hundred little epistles like this!”
+
+And with these words she carelessly unfolded the letter and began to
+read it. All her indifference of manner, however, soon gave way to an
+expression of considerable eagerness, and she had no sooner finished the
+epistle than she recommenced and reread it.
+
+“You 'd never guess what tidings this brings me, Catty,” said she,
+laying down the paper, and looking with an expression half sad, half
+comical.
+
+“Maybe I might, then,” said Catty, shaking her head knowingly.
+
+“Come, out with your guess, then, old lady, and I promise to venerate
+your wisdom ever after if you be right,--that is, if nobody has already
+given you a hint on the subject.”
+
+“Not one in the world,” said Catty, solemnly; “I pledge you my word and
+faith I never heard a syllable about it.”
+
+“About it! about what?”
+
+“About what's in the letter there,” said Catty, stoutly.
+
+“You are therefore quite certain that you know it,” said Mary, smiling,
+“so now let's have your interpretation.”
+
+“It 's a proposial,” said Catty, with a slight wink.
+
+“A what!”
+
+“A proposial--of marriage, I mean.”
+
+But before the words were out, Mary burst into a fit of laughter, so
+hearty and with such good-will that poor Catty felt perfectly ashamed of
+herself.
+
+“My dear Catty,” said she, at length, “you must have been reading fairy
+tales this morning; nothing short of such bright literature could have
+filled your mind with these imaginings. The object of the note is, I
+assure you, of a quite different kind;” and here she ran her eye once
+more over the epistle. “Yes,” continued she, “it is written in my dear
+aunt's own peculiar style, and begins with a 'declaratory clause,' as I
+think Mr. Scanlan would call it, expressive of my lamentably neglected
+education, and then proceeds to the appropriate remedy, by telling me
+that I am to have a governess!”
+
+“A what!” cried Catty, in angry amazement.
+
+“A governess, Catty,--not a governor, as you suspected.”
+
+“Ayeh, ayeh!” cried the old woman, wringing her hands; “what's this for?
+Don't you know how to govern yourself by this time? And what can they
+teach you that you don't understand already?”
+
+“Ah, my dear Catty,” said the young girl, sadly, “it is a sad subject
+you would open there,--one that I have wept over many a dreary hour!
+No one knows--no one even could guess--how deeply I have deplored my
+illiterate condition. Nor was it,” added she, ardently, “till I had
+fashioned out a kind of existence of my own--active, useful, and
+energetic--that I could bury the thought of my utter want of education.
+Not even you, Catty, could fathom all the tears this theme has cost
+me, nor with what a sinking of the heart I have thought over my actual
+unfitness for my station.”
+
+“Arrah, don't provoke me! don't drive me mad!” cried the old woman, in
+real anger. “There never was one yet as fit for the highest place as
+yourself; and it is n't me alone that says it, but hundreds of--”
+
+“Hundreds of dear, kind, loving hearts,” broke in Mary, “that would
+measure my poor capacity by my will to serve them. But no matter, Catty;
+I 'll not try to undeceive them. They shall think of me with every help
+their own affection may lend them, and I will not love them less for the
+overestimate.”
+
+As she spoke these words, she buried her face between her hands; but
+the quick heaving of her chest showed how deep was her emotion. The old
+woman respected her sorrow too deeply to interrupt her, and for several
+minutes not a word was spoken on either side. At last Mary raised her
+head, and throwing back the long, loose hair, which in heavy masses
+shaded her face, said with a firm and resolute voice,--
+
+“I 'd have courage to go to school to-morrow, Catty, and begin as a mere
+child to learn, if I knew that another was ready to take my place here.
+But who is to look after these poor people, who are accustomed now
+to see me amongst them, on the mountains, in the fields, at their
+firesides?--who gain new spirit for labor when I ride down in the midst
+of them, and look up, cheered, by seeing me, even from a sick-bed. Her
+Ladyship would say, Mr. Henderson could do all this far better than
+myself.”
+
+“Mr. Henderson, indeed!” exclaimed Catty, indignantly; “the
+smooth-tongued old rogue!”
+
+“And perhaps he might, in England,” resumed Mary; “but not here,
+Catty,--not here! We care less for benefits than the source from which
+they spring. We Irish cherish the love of motives as well as actions;
+and, above all, we cherish the links that bind the lowliest in the land
+with the highest, and make both better by the union.”
+
+She poured out these words with rapid impetuosity, rather talking to
+herself than addressing her companion; then, suddenly changing her tone,
+she added,--
+
+“Besides, Catty, _they_ are used to me, and _I_ to _them_. A new face
+and a new voice would not bring the same comfort to them.”
+
+“Never, never,” muttered the old woman to herself.
+
+“And I 'll not desert them.”
+
+“That you won't, darling,” said the old woman, kissing her hand
+passionately, while tears swam in her eyes, and trickled down her
+cheeks.
+
+“There is but one thought, Catty, that makes me at all faint-hearted
+about this, and whenever it crosses me I do feel very low and
+depressed.” She paused, and then murmured the words, “My father!”
+
+“Your father, my darling! What about _him?_”
+
+“It is thinking, Catty, of his return; an event that ought to be--and
+would be, too--the very happiest of my life; a day for whose coming I
+never sleep without a prayer; and yet, even this bright prospect has its
+dark side, when I recall all my own deficiencies, and how different he
+will find his daughter from what he had expected her.”
+
+“May the blessed saints grant me patience!” cried Catty, breaking in.
+“Isn't it too bad to hear you talking this way? Sure, don't I know
+Master Barry well? Didn't I nurse him, and wasn't I all as one as his
+own mother to him, and don't I know that you are his own born image?
+'Tis himself and no other ye are every minute of the day.”
+
+“And even that, Catty,” said Mary, smiling, “might fail to satisfy
+him. It is something very different indeed he might have imagined his
+daughter. I'm sure nobody can be more ignorant than I am, of what a
+person in my station ought to know. I cannot hide this from myself in
+my sad moments. I do not try to do so, but I have always relied upon
+the consolation that, to an existence such as mine is like to be, these
+deficiencies do not bring the same sense of shame, the same painful
+consciousness of inferiority, as if I were to mingle with the world of
+my equals. But if he were to come back,--he, who has seen society in
+every shape and fashion,--and find me the poor, unlettered, unread,
+untaught thing I am, unable to follow his very descriptions of
+far-away lands without confusion and mistake; unable to benefit by his
+reflections from very want of previous knowledge,--oh, Catty dearest,
+what a miserable thing is self-love after all, when it should thus
+thrust itself into the foreground, where very different affections alone
+should have the place.”
+
+“He 'd love you like his own heart,” said Catty. “Nobody knows him like
+me; and if there was ever one made for him to dote on, it's your own
+self.”
+
+“Do you indeed think so?” cried Mary, eagerly.
+
+“Do I know it--could I swear it?” said Catty. “He was never much given
+to study himself, except it was books of travel like 'Robinson Crusoe,'
+and the like; and then, after reading one of them books he 'd be off for
+days together, and we 'd be looking for him over the whole country, and
+maybe find him in the middle of Kyle's Wood up a tree; or once, indeed,
+it was in the island of Lettermullen we got him. He built a mud-house,
+and was living there with a goat and two rabbits that he reared himself,
+and if he was n't miserable when they brought him away home! I remember
+his words well,--'Maybe,' says he, 'the time will come that I 'll go
+where you can't come after me;' and ye see that's what he's done, for
+nobody knows where he wasn't wandering these last eight or nine years.”
+
+When Catty got upon this theme she could not be brought to quit
+it,--nor, indeed, did Mary try,--for though she had heard these stories
+of her father's boyish days over and over again, she never wearied of
+them; they had all the fascination of romance for her, with the stronger
+interest that grew out of her love for one who, she was told, had
+so loved herself. Besides this, she felt in her own heart the same
+promptings to a life of action and adventure. All the incidents and
+accidents of an eventful existence were the very things to delight her,
+and one of her happiest daydreams was to fancy herself her father's
+companion in his wanderings by flood and field.
+
+And thus they sat till a late hour of the night talking and listening,
+old Catty answering each inquiry of the young girl by some anecdote or
+trait of him she still persisted in calling “Master Barry,” till, in the
+ardor of listening, Mary herself caught up the phrase, and so designated
+her own father.
+
+“How unlike my uncle in everything!” exclaimed Mary, as she reflected
+over some traits the old woman had just recorded. “And were they not
+very fond of each other?”
+
+“That they were: at least I can answer for Master Barry's love; and to
+be sure, if having a reason was worth anything, your uncle ought to love
+him more than one man ever did another.” Old Catty uttered these
+words with a slow and almost muttering accent; they seemed as if the
+expression of a thought delivered involuntarily--almost unconsciously.
+
+Mary was attracted by the unwonted solemnity of her accent, but still
+more by an expression of intense meaning which gathered over the old
+woman's brows and forehead. “Ay, ay,” muttered she, still to herself,
+“there's few brothers would do it. Maybe there's not another living but
+himself would have done it.”
+
+“And what was it, Catty?” asked Mary, boldly.
+
+“Eh!--what was I saying, darling?” said Catty, rousing herself to full
+consciousness.
+
+“You were telling of my father, and some great proof of affection he
+gave my uncle.”
+
+“To be sure he did,” said the old woman, hastily. “They were always fond
+of each other, as brothers ought to be.”
+
+“But this one particular instance of love,--what was it, Catty?”
+
+The old woman started, and looked eagerly around the room, as though to
+assure herself that they were alone; then, drawing her chair close to
+Mary's, she said, in a low voice: “Don't ask me any more about them
+things, darling. 'T is past and gone many a year now, and I 'd rather
+never think of it more, for I 've a heavy heart after it.”
+
+“So, then, it is a secret, Catty?” said Mary, half proudly.
+
+“A secret, indeed,” said Catty, shaking her head mournfully.
+
+“Then you need only to have said so, and I'd not have importuned you to
+tell it; for, to say truth, Catty, I never knew you had any secrets from
+me.”
+
+“Nor have I another, except this, darling,” said Catty; and she
+buried her face within her hands. And now both sat in silence for some
+minutes,--a most painful silence to each. At last Mary arose, and,
+although evidently trying to overcome it, a feeling of constraint was
+marked in her features.
+
+“You'd never guess how late it is, Catty,” said she, trying to change
+the current of her thoughts. “You 'd not believe it is past three
+o'clock; how pleasantly we must have talked, to forget time in this
+way!”
+
+But the old woman made no reply, and it was clear that she had never
+heard the words, so deeply was she sunk in her own reflections.
+
+“This poor hat of mine will scarcely do another day's service,” said
+Mary, as she looked at it half laughingly. “Nor is my habit the fresher
+of its bath in the 'Red River;' and the worst of it is, Catty, I have
+overdrawn my quarter's allowance, and must live on, in rags, till
+Easter. I see, old lady, you have no sympathies to waste on me and my
+calamities this evening,” added she, gayly, “and so I'll just go to bed
+and, if I can, dream pleasantly.”
+
+“Rags, indeed,” said Catty. “It's well it becomes you to wear rags!”
+ and her eyes sparkled with indignant passion. “Faith, if it comes
+to that,”--here she suddenly paused, and a pale hue spread over her
+features like a qualm of faintish sickness,--“may the Holy Mother give
+me help and advice; for sometimes I'm nigh forgetting myself!”
+
+“My dear old Catty,” said Mary, fondly, “don't fret about me and my
+foolish speech. I only said it in jest. I have everything,--far more
+than I want; a thousand times more than I desire. And my excellent
+aunt never said a truer thing in her life than when she declared that
+'everybody spoiled me.' Now, good-night.” And kissing the old woman
+affectionately, Mary gathered up the stray fragments of her riding-gear,
+and hurried away, her merry voice heard cheerfully as she wended her way
+up many a stair and gallery to her own chamber.
+
+If Mary Martin's character had any one quality preeminently remarkable,
+it was the absence of everything like distrust and suspicion. Frankness
+and candor itself in all her dealings, she never condescended to impute
+secret motives to another; and the very thought of anything like mystery
+was absolutely repugant to her nature. For the very first time in her
+life, then, she left old Catty Broon with a kind of uneasy, dissatisfied
+impression. There was a secret, and she was somehow or other concerned
+in it; so much was clear. How could she convince the old woman that no
+revelation, however disagreeable in itself, could be as torturing as a
+doubt? “Can there be anything in my position or circumstances here that
+I am not aware of? Is there a mystery about me in any way?” The very
+imagination of such a thing was agony. In vain she tried to chase away
+the unwelcome thought by singing, as she went, by thinking over plans
+for the morrow, by noting down, as she did each night, some stray
+records of the past day; still Catty's agitated face and strange emotion
+rose before her, and would not suffer her to be at rest.
+
+To a day of great excitement and fatigue now succeeded a sleepless,
+feverish night, and morning broke on her unrefreshed, and even ill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. A FINE OLD IRISH BARRISTER
+
+Can any one tell us what has become of that high conversational power
+for which Ireland, but more especially Dublin, was once celebrated? Have
+the brilliant talkers of other days left no successors? Has that race of
+delightful con-vivialists gone and disappeared forever? Or are we only
+enduring an interregnum of dulness, the fit repose, perhaps, after a
+period of such excitement? The altered circumstances of the country will
+doubtless account for much of this change. The presence of a Parliament
+in Ireland imparted a dignity and importance to society, while it
+secured to social intercourse the men who made that Senate illustrious.
+The Bar, too, of former days, was essentially the career of the highest
+class, of those who had the ambition of political success without the
+necessity of toiling for it through the laborious paths of the law; and
+thus the wit, the brilliancy, and the readiness which gives conversation
+its charm, obtained the high culture which comes of a learned
+profession, and the social intercourse with men of refined
+understanding.
+
+With the Union this spirit died out. Some of the brightest and gayest
+retired from the world, sad, dispirited, and depressed; some felt that
+a new and very different career was to open before them, and addressed
+themselves to the task of conforming to new habits and acquiring new
+influences; and others, again, sought in the richer and greater country
+the rewards which they once were satisfied to reap in their own. With
+the Union, society in Dublin--using the word in its really comprehensive
+sense--ceased to exist. The great interests of a nation departed, men
+sank to the level of the small topics that engaged them, and gradually
+the smallest and narrowest views of mere local matters usurped the place
+of great events and liberal speculations. Towards the end of the
+first quarter of the present century, a few of those who had once made
+companionship with Curran and Grattan and Lysaght and Parsons were still
+in good health and vigor. A fine, high-hearted, manly class they were,
+full of that peculiar generosity of character which has ever marked the
+true Irish gentleman, and with a readiness in humor and a genial flow of
+pleasantry which rendered their society delightful.
+
+Of this school--and probably the last, for he was then the Father of the
+Bar--was Valentine Repton, a man whose abilities might have won for him
+the very highest distinctions, but who, partly through indolence, and
+partly through a sturdy desire to be independent of all party, had all
+his life rejected every offer of advancement, and had seen his juniors
+pass on to the highest ranks of the profession, while he still wore his
+stuff-gown, and rose to address the Court from the outer benches.
+
+He was reported in early life to have professed very democratic
+opinions, for which he more than once had incurred the _deep_
+displeasure of the authorities of the University. The principles of
+the French Revolution had, however, been gradually toned down in him
+by time, and probably by a very aristocratic contempt for the party who
+advocated them; so that soon after he entered on his career at the Bar
+he seemed to have abandoned politics; nor, except by a sly jest or an
+epigram upon a party leader, no matter of which side, did he ever advert
+to the contests of statecraft.
+
+Though closely approaching seventy, he was hale and vigorous, his gray
+eyes quick and full of fire, his voice clear, and his whole air and
+bearing that of one many years younger. He had been a “beau” in his
+youth, and there was in the accurately powdered hair, the lace ruffles
+in which he still appeared at dinner, and the well-fitting silk
+stocking, an evidence that he had not forgotten the attractions of
+dress. At the Bar he still maintained the very highest place. His
+powers of cross-examination were very great; his management of a jury
+unrivalled. A lifelong acquaintance with Dublin had familiarized him
+with the tone and temper of every class of its citizens, and had taught
+him the precise kind of argument, and the exact nature of the appeal to
+address to each. As he grew older, perhaps he did not observe all his
+wonted discretion in the use of this subtle power, and somewhat presumed
+upon his own skill. Nor was he so scrupulous in his deference to the
+Court,--a feature which had once pre-eminently distinguished him;
+but, upon the whole, he had kept wonderfully clear of the proverbial
+irritability of age, and was, without an exception, the favorite amongst
+his brethren.
+
+The only touch of years observable about his mind was a fondness for
+recurring to incidents or events in which he himself had borne a part.
+A case in which he held a brief, the dinner at which he had
+been brilliant, the epigram he had dashed off in Lady Somebody's
+drawing-room, were bright spots he could not refrain from adverting to;
+but, generally speaking, he had skill enough to introduce these without
+any seeming effort or any straining, and thus strangers, at least, were
+in wonderment at his endless stores of anecdote and illustration. No
+man better than he knew how to throw a great name into the course of a
+conversation, and make an audience for himself, by saying, “I remember
+one day at the Priory with Curran”--or, “We were dining with poor
+Grattan at Tinnehinch, when--” “As Flood once remarked to me--” and so
+on.
+
+The flattery of being addressed by one who had stood in such intimate
+relation to those illustrious men never failed of success. The most
+thoughtless and giddy hearers were at once arrested by such an opening,
+and Repton was sure of listeners in every company.
+
+The man who finds his place in every society is unquestionably a clever
+man. The aptitude to chime in with the tone of others infers a high
+order of humor,--of humor in its real sense; meaning, thereby,
+the faculty of appreciating, and even cultivating, the individual
+peculiarities of those around him, and deriving from their display a
+high order of pleasure.
+
+From these scattered traits let my reader conjure up Valentine Repton
+before him, and imagine the bustling, active, and brisk-looking old
+gentleman whose fidgetiness nearly drove Martin mad, as they held
+converse together in the library after breakfast. Now seated, now rising
+to pace the room, or drawing nigh the window to curse the pelting rain
+without, Repton seemed the incarnation of uneasiness.
+
+“Very splendid--very grand--very sumptuous--no doubt,” said he, ranging
+his eyes over the gorgeous decorations of the spacious apartment, “but
+would kill me in a month; what am I saying?--in a week!”
+
+“What would kill you, Repton?” said Martin, languidly.
+
+“This life of yours, Martin,--this sombre quiet, this unbroken
+stillness, this grave-like monotony. Why, man, where 's your
+neighborhood? where are your gentry friends?”
+
+“Cosby Blake, of Swainestown, is abroad,” said Martin, with an indolent
+drawl. “Randal Burke seldom comes down here now. Rickman, I believe, is
+in the Fleet. They were the nearest to us!”
+
+“What a country! and you are spending--What did you tell me last
+night,--was it upwards of ten thousand a year here?”
+
+“What with planting, draining, bridging, reclaiming waste lands,
+and other improvements, the wages of last year alone exceeded seven
+thousand!”
+
+“By Jove! it 's nigh incredible,” said the lawyer, energetically. “My
+dear Martin, can't you perceive that all this is sheer waste,--so much
+good money actually thrown into Lough Corrib? Tell me, frankly, how long
+have you been pursuing this system of improvement?”
+
+“About three years; under Mary's management.”
+
+“And the results,--what of them?”
+
+“It is too early to speak of that; there's Kyle's Wood, for
+instance,--we have enclosed that at considerable cost. Of course we
+can't expect that the mere thinnings can repay us, the first year or
+two.”
+
+“And your reclaimed land,--how has _it_ prospered?”
+
+“Not over well. They pushed draining so far that they 've left a large
+tract perfectly barren and unproductive.”
+
+“And the harbor,--the pier I saw yesterday?”
+
+“That 's a bad business,--it's filling up the bay with sand! but we'll
+alter it in summer.”
+
+“And now for the people themselves,--are they better off, better fed,
+clothed, housed, and looked after, than before?”
+
+“Mary says so. She tells me that there is a wonderful change for the
+better in them.”
+
+“I don't believe a word of it, Martin,--not a word of it. Ireland is not
+to be redeemed by her own gentry. The thing is sheer impossibility! They
+both know each other too well. Do you understand me? They are too ready
+to make allowances for shortcomings that have their source in some
+national prejudice; whereas your Saxon or your Scotchman would
+scout such a plea at once. Ireland wants an alternative, Martin,--an
+alternative; and, amidst our other anomalies, not the least singular is
+the fact that the Englishman, who knows nothing about us, nor ever will
+know anything, is precisely the man to better our condition.”
+
+“These are strange opinions to hear from your lips, Repton. I never
+heard any man so sarcastic as yourself on English ignorance regarding
+Ireland.”
+
+“And you may hear me again on the same theme whenever you vouchsafe me
+an audience,” said the lawyer, sharply. “It was but the other day I gave
+our newly arrived secretary, Mr. Muspratt, a gentle intimation of my
+sentiments on that score. We were dining at the Lodge. I sat next his
+Excellency, who, in the course of dinner, directed my attention to a
+very graphic picture the secretary was drawing of the misery he had
+witnessed that very day, coming up from Carlow. He did the thing well,
+I must own. He gave the famished looks, the rags, the wretchedness, all
+their due; and he mingled his pathos and indignation with all the skill
+of an artist; while he actually imparted a Raffaelle effect to his
+sketch, as he portrayed the halt, the maimed, the blind, and the palsied
+that crowded around the carriage as he changed horses, exclaiming,
+by way of peroration, 'Misery and destitution like this no man ever
+witnessed before, all real and unfeigned as it was sure to be.'
+
+“'Naas is a miserable place, indeed,' said I, for he looked directly
+towards me for a confirmation of his narrative.
+
+“'There is no denying one word the gentleman has said; I came up that way
+from circuit three weeks ago, and was beset in the same spot, and in the
+same manner as we have just heard. I can't attempt such a description as
+Mr. Muspratt has given us; but I will say that there was not a human
+deformity or defect that did n't appear to have its representative in
+that ragged gathering, all clamorous and eager for aid. I looked at them
+for a while in wonderment, and at last I threw out a “tenpenny” in the
+midst. The “blind” fellow saw it first, but the “lame cripple” had the
+foot of him, and got the money!'”
+
+Repton leaned back in his chair, and laughed heartily as he finished. “I
+only wish you saw his face, Martin; and, indeed, his Excellency's too.
+The aides-de-camp laughed; they were very young, and could n't help it.”
+
+“He 'll not make you a chief justice, Repton,” said Martin, slyly.
+
+“I 'll take care he don't,” said the other. “_Summum jus summa injuria_.
+The chief justice is a great humbug, or a great abuse, whichever way you
+like to render it.”
+
+“And yet they'd be glad to promote you,” said Martin, thoughtfully.
+
+“To be sure they would, sir; delighted to place me where they had no
+fear of my indiscretions. But your judge should be ever a grave animal.
+The temptation to a joke should never sit on the ermine. As Flood once
+remarked to me of old Romney, 'A man, sir,' said he,--and Flood had
+a semi-sarcastic solemnity always about him,--'a man, sir, who has
+reversed the law of physics; for he rose by his gravity, and only fell
+by his lightness.' Very epigrammatic and sharp, that. Ah, Martin, they
+don't say these things nowadays. By the way, who is the young fellow who
+dined with us yesterday?”
+
+“His name is Nelligan; the son of one of our Oughterard neighbors.”
+
+“Pleasing manners, gentle, too, and observant,” said Repton, with the
+tone of one delivering a judgment to be recorded.
+
+“He's more than that,” said Martin; “he is the great prize man of the
+year in Trinity. You must have surely heard of his name up in town.”
+
+“I think somebody did speak of him to me,--recommend him, in some
+shape or other,” said Repton, abstractedly; “these things are so easily
+forgotten; for, to say the truth, I hold very cheaply all intellectual
+efforts accomplished by great preparation. The cramming, the grinding,
+the plodding, the artificial memory work, and the rest of it, detract
+terribly, in my estimation, from the glory of success. Give me your
+man of impromptu readiness, never unprepared, never at a loss. The very
+consciousness of power is double power.” And as he spoke he drew himself
+up, threw his head back, and stared steadfastly at Martin, as though to
+say, “Such is he who now stands before you.”
+
+Martin was amused at the display of vanity, and had there been another
+there to have participated in the enjoyment, would have willingly
+encouraged him to continue the theme; but he was alone, and let it pass.
+
+“I 'll make a note of that young man. Mulligan, is n't it?”
+
+“Nelligan.”
+
+“To be sure. I 'll remember poor Curran's epigram:--
+
+     'Oh, pity poor Tom Nelligan!
+     Who walking down Pall Mall,
+     He slipt his foot,
+     And down he fell,
+     And fears he won't get well again.'
+
+
+Glorious fellow, sir; the greatest of all the convivialists of his
+time, was Curran. A host in himself; but, as he once said, you could n't
+always depend on the 'elevation.'”
+
+Martin smiled faintly; he relished the lawyer's talk, but he felt
+that it demanded an amount of attention on his part that wearied him.
+Anything that cost him trouble was more or less of a “bore;” and he
+already began to wish for his accustomed ease and indolence.
+
+“Well, Repton,” said he, “you wished to see the quarries, I think?”
+
+“To see everything and everybody, sir, and with my own eyes, too. As
+Lysaght said, when I read the book of nature, 'I let no man note my
+brief for me.'”
+
+“I thought of being your companion, myself; but somehow, this morning,
+my old enemy, the gout, is busy again; however, you 'll not regret the
+exchange, Repton, when I give you in charge to my niece. She 'll be but
+too happy to do the honors of our poor country to so distinguished a
+visitor.”
+
+“And a very artful plan to put me in good humor with everything,” said
+Repton, laughing. “Well, I consent. I offer myself a willing victim to
+any amount of seduction. How are we to go?--do we drive, walk, or ride?”
+
+“If Mary be consulted, she'll say ride,” said Martin; “but perhaps--”
+
+“I'm for the saddle, too,” broke in Repton. “Give me something active
+and lively, light of mouth and well up before, and I'll show you, as
+Tom Parsons said, that we can cut as good a figure at the wall as the
+'bar.'”
+
+“I 'll go and consult my niece, then,” said Martin, hastening out of the
+room, to conceal the smile which the old man's vanity had just provoked.
+
+Mary was dressed in her riding-habit, and about to leave her room as her
+uncle entered it.
+
+“I have just come in the nick of time, Molly, I see,” cried he. “I
+want you to lionize an old friend of mine, who has the ambition to 'do'
+Connemara under your guidance.”
+
+“What a provoke!” said Mary, half aloud. “Could he not wait for another
+day, uncle? I have to go over to Glencalgher and Kilduff; besides,
+there's that bridge to be looked after, and they 've just come to tell
+me that the floods have carried away the strong paling around the larch
+copse. Really, this old gentleman must wait.” It was a rare thing for
+Mary Martin to display anything either of impatience or opposition to
+her uncle. Her affection for him was so blended with respect that she
+scarcely ever transgressed in this wise; but this morning she was ill
+and irritable,--a restless, feverish night following on a day of great
+fatigue and as great excitement,--and she was still suffering, and her
+nerves jarring when he met her.
+
+“But I assure you, Molly, you 'll be pleased with the companionship,”
+ began Martin.
+
+“So I might at another time; but I 'm out of sorts to-day, uncle. I 'm
+cross and ill-tempered, and I 'll have it out on Mr. Henderson,--that
+precious specimen of his class. Let Mr. Nelligan perform cicerone, or
+persuade my Lady to drive him out; do anything you like with him, except
+give him to me.”
+
+“And yet that is exactly what I have promised him. As for Nelligan, they
+are not suited to each other; so come, be a good girl, and comply.”
+
+“If I must,” said she, pettishly. “And how are we to go?”
+
+“He proposes to ride, and bespeaks something lively for his own mount.”
+
+“Indeed! That sounds well!” cried she, with more animation. “There 's
+'Cropper' in great heart; he 'll carry him to perfection. I 'll have a
+ring-snaffle put on him, and my word for it but he 'll have a pleasant
+ride.”
+
+“Take care, Molly; take care that he's not too fresh. Remember that
+Repton is some dozen years or more my senior.”
+
+“Let him keep him off the grass and he 'll go like a lamb. I'll not
+answer for him on the sward, though; but I 'll look to him, uncle, and
+bring him back safe and sound.” And, so saying, Mary bounded away down
+the stairs, and away to the stables, forgetting everything of her late
+discontent, and only eager on the plan before her.
+
+Martin was very far from satisfied about the arrangement for his
+friend's equitation; nor did the aspect of Repton himself, as attired
+for the road, allay that sense of alarm; the old lawyer's costume being
+a correct copy of the colored prints of those worthies who figured in
+the early years of George the Third's reign,--a gray cloth spencer being
+drawn over his coat, fur-collared and cuffed, high riding-boots of black
+polished leather, reaching above the knee, and large gauntlets of bright
+yellow doeskin, completing an equipment which Martin had seen nothing
+resembling for forty years back.
+
+“A perfect cavalier, Repton!” exclaimed he, smiling.
+
+“We once could do a little that way,” said the other, with a touch
+of vanity. “In our early days, Martin, hunting was essentially a
+gentleman's pastime. The meet was not disfigured by aspiring linen
+drapers or ambitious hardwaremen, and the tone of the field was the
+tone of society; but _nous avons changé tout cela_. Sporting men, as
+they call themselves, have descended to the groom vocabulary; and the
+groom morals, and we, of the old school, should only be laughed at for
+the pedantry of good manners and good English, did we venture amongst
+them.”
+
+“My niece will put a different estimate on your companionship; and here
+she comes. Molly, my old and valued friend, Mr. Repton.”
+
+“I kiss your hand, Miss Martin,” said he, accompanying the speech by the
+act, with all the grace of a courtier. “It's worth while being an old
+fellow, to be able to claim these antiquated privileges.”
+
+There was something in the jaunty air and well-assumed gallantry of the
+old lawyer which at once pleased Mary, who accepted his courtesy with a
+gracious smile. She had been picturing to herself a very different kind
+of companion, and was well satisfied with the reality.
+
+“I proposed to young Mr. Nelligan to join us,” said Repton, as he
+conducted her to the door; “but it seems he is too deeply intent upon
+some question or point of law or history--I forget which--whereupon we
+differed last night, and has gone into the library to search for the
+solution of it. As for me, Miss Martin, I am too young for such dry
+labors; or, as the Duc de Nevers said, when somebody rebuked him
+for dancing at seventy, 'Only think what a short time is left me for
+folly.'”
+
+We do not propose to chronicle, the subjects or the sayings by which
+the old lawyer beguiled the way; enough if we say that Mary was actually
+delighted with his companionship. The racy admixture of humor and strong
+common-sense, acute views of life, flavored with, now a witty remark,
+now a pertinent anecdote, were conversational powers totally new to her.
+Nor was he less charmed with her. Independently of all the pleasure
+it gave him to find one who heard him with such true enjoyment, and
+relished all his varied powers of amusing, he was equally struck with
+the high-spirited enthusiasm and generous ardor of the young girl. She
+spoke of the people and the country with all the devotion of one who
+loved both; and if at times with more of hopefulness than he himself
+could feel, the sanguine forecast but lent another charm to her
+fascination.
+
+He listened with astonishment as she explained to him the different
+works then in progress,--the vast plans for drainage; the great
+enclosures for planting; the roads projected here, the bridges there. At
+one place were strings of carts, conveying limestone for admixture with
+the colder soil of low grounds; at another they met asses loaded with
+seaweed for the potato land. There was movement and occupation on every
+side. In the deep valleys, on the mountains, in the clefts of the rocky
+shore, in the dark marble quarries, hundreds of people were employed;
+and by these was Mary welcomed with eager enthusiasm the moment she
+appeared. One glance at their delighted features was sufficient to show
+that theirs was no counterfeit joy. Wherever she went the same reception
+awaited her; nor did she try to conceal the happiness it conferred.
+
+“This is very wonderful, very strange, and very fascinating, Miss
+Martin,” said Repton, as they moved slowly through a rocky path,
+escarped from the side of the mountain; “but pardon me if I venture to
+suggest one gloomy anticipation in the midst of such brightness. What is
+to become of all these people when _you_ leave them,--as leave them you
+will and must, one day?”
+
+“I never mean to do so,” said Mary, resolutely.
+
+“Stoutly spoken,” said he, smiling; “but, unfortunately, he who hears it
+could be your grandfather. And again I ask, how is this good despotism
+to be carried on when the despot abdicates? Nay, nay; there never was
+a very beautiful girl yet, with every charm under heaven, who did n't
+swear she 'd never marry; so let us take another alternative. Your uncle
+may go to live in London,--abroad. He may sell Cro' Martin--”
+
+“Oh, that is impossible! He loves the old home of his family and his
+name too dearly; he would be incapable of such a treason to his house!”
+
+“Now, remember, my dear young lady, you are speaking to the most
+suspectful, unimpulsive, and ungenerously disposed of all natures, an
+old lawyer, who has witnessed so many events in life he would have
+once pronounced impossible,--ay, just as roundly as you said the word
+yourself,--and seen people and things under aspects so totally the
+reverse of what he first knew them, that he has taught himself to
+believe that change is the law, and not permanence, in this life, and
+that you and I, and all of us, ought ever to look forward to anything,
+everything, but the condition in which at present we find ourselves.
+Now, I don't want to discourage you with the noble career you have
+opened for yourself here. I am far more likely to be fascinated--I was
+going to say fall in love--with you for it, than to try and turn your
+thoughts elsewhere; but as to these people themselves, the experiment
+comes too late.”
+
+“Is it ever too late to repair a wrong, to assist destitution, relieve
+misery, and console misfortune?” broke in Mary, eagerly.
+
+“It is too late to try the feudal system in the year of our Lord 1829,
+Miss Martin. We live in an age where everything is to be redressed by
+a Parliament. The old social compact between proprietor and peasant is
+repealed, and all must be done by 'the House.' Now, if your grandfather
+had pursued the path that you are doing to-day, this crisis might
+never have arrived; but he did not, young lady. He lived like a real
+gentleman; he hunted, and drank, and feasted, and rack-rented, and
+horsewhipped all around him; and what with duelling of a morning and
+drinking over-night, taught the people a code of morals that has assumed
+all the compactness of a system. Ay, I say it with grief, this is a land
+corrupted from the top, and every vice of its gentry has but filtered
+down to its populace! What was that I heard?--was it not a shot?” cried
+he, reining in his horse to listen.
+
+“I thought so, too; but it might be a blast, for we are not far from the
+quarries.”
+
+“And do you preserve the game, Miss Martin? are you sworn foe to the
+poacher?”
+
+“I do so; but in reality more for the sake of the people than the
+partridges. Your lounging country fellow, with a rusty gun and a starved
+lurcher, is but an embryo highwayman.”
+
+“So he is,” cried Repton, delighted at the energy with which she spoke;
+“and I have always thought that the worst thing about the game-laws was
+the class of fellows we educate to break them. Poor old Cranbury was n't
+of that opinion, though. You could never have seen him, Miss Martin; but
+he was a fine specimen of the Irish Bench in the old time. He was the
+readiest pistol in the Irish house; and, as they said then, he 'shot up'
+into preferment. He always deemed an infraction of the game-laws as one
+of the gravest crimes in the statute. Juries, however, did n't concur
+with him; and, knowing the severity of the penalty, they invariably
+brought in a verdict of Not Guilty, rather than subject a poor wretch
+to transportation for a jack-snipe. I remember once,--it was at
+Maryborough; the fellow in the dock was a notable poacher, and, worse
+still, the scene of his exploits was Cranbury's own estate. As usual,
+the jury listened apathetically to the evidence; they cared little
+for the case, and had predetermined the verdict. It was, however, so
+palpably proven, so self-evident that he was guilty, that they clubbed
+their heads together to concert a pretext for their decision. Cranbury
+saw the movement, and appreciated it, and, leaning his head down upon
+his hand, mumbled out, as if talking to himself, in broken sentences,
+'A poor man--with a large family--great temptation--and, after all,
+a slight offence,--a very slight offence.' The jury listened and took
+courage; they fancied some scruples were at work in the old judge's
+heart, and that they might venture on the truth, innocuously. 'Guilty,
+my Lord,' said the foreman. 'Transportation for seven years!' cried the
+judge, with a look at the jury-box that there was no mistaking. They
+were 'done,' but there never was another conviction in that town
+afterwards.”
+
+“And were such things possible on the justice-seat?” exclaimed Mary, in
+horror.
+
+“Ah, my dear young lady, I could tell you of far worse than that. There
+was a time in this country when the indictment against the prisoner
+was Secondary in importance to his general character, his party,
+his connections, and fifty other things which had no bearing upon
+criminality. There goes another shot! I 'll swear to that,” cried he,
+pulling up short, and looking in the direction from which the report
+proceeded.
+
+Mary turned at the same moment, and pointed with her whip towards a
+beech wood that skirted the foot of the mountain.
+
+“Was it from that quarter the sound came?” said she.
+
+The sharp crack of a fowling-piece, quickly followed by a second report,
+now decided the question; and, as if by mutual consent, they both
+wheeled their horses round, and set off at a brisk canter towards the
+wood.
+
+“I have taken especial pains about preserving this part of the estate,”
+ said Mary, as they rode along. “It was my cousin Harry's favorite cover
+when he was last at home, and he left I can't say how many directions
+about it when quitting us; though, to say truth, I never deemed any
+precautions necessary till he spoke of it.”
+
+“So that poaching was unknown down here?”
+
+“Almost completely so; now and then some idle fellow with a half-bred
+greyhound might run down a hare, or with a rusty firelock knock over a
+rabbit, but there it ended. And as we have no gentry neighbors to ask
+for leave, and the Oughterard folks would not venture on that liberty,
+I may safely say that the report of a gun is a rare event in these
+solitudes.”
+
+“Whoever he be, yonder, is not losing time,” said Rep-ton; “there was
+another shot.”
+
+Their pace had now become a smart half-gallop; Mary, a little in
+advance, leading the way, and pointing out the safe ground to her
+companion. As they drew nigh the wood, however, she slackened speed till
+he came up, and then said,--
+
+“As I know everybody hereabouts, it will be enough if I only see the
+offender; and how to do that is the question.”
+
+“I am at your orders,” said Repton, raising his whip to a salute.
+
+“It will be somewhat difficult,” said Mary, pondering; “the wood is so
+overgrown with low copse that one can't ride through it, except along
+certain alleys. Now we might canter there for hours and see nothing. I
+have it,” cried she, suddenly; “you shall enter the wood and ride slowly
+along the green alley, yonder, till you come to the crossroad, when you
+'ll turn off to the left; while I will remain in observation outside
+here, so that if our friend make his exit I am sure to overtake him. At
+all events, we shall meet again at the lower end of the road.”
+
+Repton made her repeat her directions, and then, touching his hat in
+respectful salutation, rode away to fulfil his mission. A low gate,
+merely fastened by a loop of iron without a padlock, admitted the lawyer
+within the precincts, in which he soon discovered that his pace must be
+a walk, so heavy was the deep clayey soil, littered with fallen leaves
+and rotting acorns. Great trees bent their massive limbs over his head,
+and, even leafless as they were, formed a darksome, gloomy aisle, the
+sides of which were closed in with the wild holly and the broom, and
+even the arbutus, all intermingled inextricably. There was something
+solemn even to sadness in the deep solitude, and so Repton seemed to
+feel as he rode slowly along, alone, tingeing his thoughts of her he had
+just quitted with melancholy.
+
+“What a girl and what a life!” said he, musingly. “I must tell
+Martin that this will never do! What can all this devotion end in but
+disappointment! With the first gleam of their newly acquired power the
+people will reject these benefits; they will despise the slow-won fruits
+of industry as the gambler rejects a life of toil. Then will come
+a reaction--a terrible reaction--with all the semblance of black
+ingratitude! She will herself be disgusted. The breach once made will
+grow wider and wider, and at last the demagogue will take the place of
+the landed proprietor. Estrangement at first, next distrust, and finally
+dislike, will separate the gentry from the peasantry, and then--I
+tremble to think of what then!”
+
+As Repton had uttered these words, the sharp bang of a gun startled him,
+and at the same instant a young fellow sprang from the copse in front
+of him into the alley. His coarse fustian shooting-jacket, low-crowned
+oil-skin hat, and leather gaiters seemed to bespeak the professional
+poacher, and Repton dashed forward with his heavy riding-whip upraised
+towards him.
+
+[Illustration: 206]
+
+“Take care, old gentleman,” said the young man, facing about; “my second
+barrel is loaded, and if you dare--”
+
+“By Heaven! I'll thrash you, you scoundrel!” said Repton, whose passion
+was now boiling over by a sudden bound of the cob, which had nearly
+thrown him from the saddle,--a mischance greeted by a hearty burst of
+laughter from the stranger.
+
+“I fancy you have quite enough to do at this moment!” cried he, still
+laughing.
+
+Half mad with anger, Repton pressed his spurs to the cob's flanks, while
+he gave him a vigorous cut of the whip on the shoulder. The animal
+was little accustomed to such usage, and reared up wildly, and would
+inevitably have fallen back with his rider, had not the stranger,
+springing forward, seized the bridle, and pulled him down by main force.
+Whether indifferent to his own safety, or so blinded by passion as not
+to recognize to what he owed it, the old man struck the other a heavy
+blow with his whip over the head, cutting through his hat, and covering
+his face with blood.
+
+The young man passing his arm through the bridle, so as to render the
+other's escape impossible, coolly removed his hat and proceeded to
+stanch the bleeding with his handkerchief,--not the slightest sign of
+excitement being displayed by him, nor any evidence of feeling that the
+event was other than a more accident.
+
+“Let loose my bridle-rein,--let it loose, sir,” said Repton,
+passionately,--more passionately, perhaps, from observing the measured
+calmness of the other.
+
+“When I know who you are, I shall,” said the young man.
+
+“My name is Valentine Repton; my address, if you want it, is Merrion
+Square North, Dublin; and can you now tell me where a magistrate's
+warrant will reach _you?_”
+
+“My present residence is a house you may have seen on the side of the
+mountain as you came along, called, I think, Barnagheela; my name is
+Massingbred.”
+
+“You presume to be a gentleman, then?” said Repton.
+
+“I have not heard the matter disputed before,” said Jack, with an easy
+smile, while he leisurely bound the handkerchief round his head.
+
+“And of course, you look for satisfaction for this?”
+
+“I trust that there can be no mistake upon that point, at least,”
+ replied he.
+
+“And you shall have it, too; though, hang me, if I well know whether you
+should not receive it at the next assizes,--but you shall have it. I
+'ll go into Oughterard this day; I 'll be there by nine o'clock, at the
+Martin Arms.”
+
+“That will do,” said Massingbred, with a coolness almost like
+indifference; while he resumed his gun, which he had thrown down, and
+proceeded to load the second barrel.
+
+“You are aware that you are poaching here?” said Repton,--“that this is
+part of the Martin estate, and strictly preserved?”
+
+“Indeed! and I thought it belonged to Magennis,” said Jack, easily; “but
+a preserve without a gamekeeper, or even a notice, is a blockade without
+a blockading squadron.” And without a word more, or any notice of the
+other, Massingbred shouldered his gun and walked away.
+
+It was some time before Repton could summon resolution to leave the
+spot, such was the conflict of thoughts that went on within him. Shame
+and sorrow were, indeed, uppermost in his mind, but still not unmingled
+with anger at the consummate ease and coolness of the other, who by this
+line of conduct seemed to assume a tone of superiority the most
+galling and insulting. In vain did he endeavor to justify his act to
+himself,--in vain seek to find a plausible pretext for his anger. He
+could not, by all his ingenuity, do so, and he only grew more passionate
+at his own failure. “Another would hand him over to the next justice of
+the peace,--would leave him to quarter sessions; but not so Val
+Repton. No, by Jove, he 'll find a man to his humor there, if he wants
+fighting,” said he, aloud, as he turned his horse about and rode slowly
+back.
+
+It was already dusk when he joined Miss Martin, who, uneasy at his
+prolonged absence, had entered the wood in search of him. It required
+all the practised dissimulation of the old lawyer to conceal the signs
+of his late adventure; nor, indeed, were his replies to her questions
+quite free from a certain amount of inconsistency. Mary, however,
+willingly changed the subject, and led him back to speak of topics more
+agreeable and congenial to him. Still he was not the same sprightly
+companion who had ridden beside her in the morning. He conversed with a
+degree of effort, and, when suffered, would relapse into long intervals
+of silence.
+
+“Who inhabits that bleak-looking house yonder?” said he, suddenly.
+
+“A certain Mr. Magennis, a neighbor, but not an acquaintance, of ours.”
+
+“And how comes it that he lives in the very middle, as it were, of the
+estate?”
+
+“An old lease, obtained I can't say how many centuries back, and which
+will expire in a year or two. He has already applied for a renewal of
+it.”
+
+“And of course, unsuccessfully?”
+
+“Up to this moment it is as you say, but I am endeavoring to persuade
+my uncle not to disturb him; nor would he, if Magennis would only be
+commonly prudent. You must know that this person is the leading Radical
+of our town of Oughterard, the man who sets himself most strenuously in
+opposition to our influence in the borough, and would uproot our power
+there, were he able.”
+
+“So far, then, he is a courageous fellow.”
+
+“Sometimes I take that view of his conduct, and at others I am disposed
+to regard him as one not unwilling to make terms with us.”
+
+“How subtle all these dealings can make a young lady!” said Repton,
+slyly.
+
+“Say, rather, what a strain upon one's acuteness it is to ride out with
+a great lawyer, one so trained to see spots in the sun that he won't
+acknowledge its brightness if there be a speck to search for.”
+
+“And yet it's a great mistake to suppose that we are always looking on
+the dark side of human nature,” said he, reflectively; “though,” added
+he, after a pause, “it's very often our business to exaggerate baseness,
+and make the worst of a bad man.”
+
+“Even that may be more pardonable than to vilify a good one,” said Mary.
+
+“So it is, young lady; you are quite right there.” He was thoughtful
+for a while, and then said: “It is very singular, but nevertheless true,
+that, in my profession, one loses sight of the individual, as such, and
+only regards him as a mere element of the case, plaintiff or defendant
+as he may be. I remember once, in a southern circuit, a hale,
+fine-looking young fellow entering my room to present me with a hare. He
+had walked twelve miles to offer it to me. 'Your honor doesn't remember
+me,' said he, sorrowfully, and evidently grieved at my forgetfulness.
+'To be sure I do,' replied I, trying to recall his features; 'you
+are--let me see--you are--I have it--you are Jemmy Ryan.'
+
+“'No, sir,' rejoined he, quickly, 'I'm the boy that murdered him.'
+
+“Ay, Miss Martin, there's a leaf out of a lawyer's notebook, and yet
+I could tell you more good traits of men and women, more of patient
+martyrdom under wrong, more courageous suffering to do right, than if I
+were--what shall I say?--a chaplain in a nobleman's family.”
+
+Repton's memory was well stored with instances in question, and he
+beguiled the way by relating several, till they reached Cro' Martin.
+
+“And there is another yet,” added he, at the close, “more strongly
+illustrating what I have said than all these, but I cannot tell it to
+_you_.”
+
+“Why so?” asked she, eagerly.
+
+“It is a family secret, Miss Martin, and one that in all likelihood you
+shall never know. Still, I cannot refrain from saying that you have in
+your own family as noble a specimen of self-sacrifice and denial as I
+ever heard of.”
+
+They were already at the door as he said this, and a troop of servants
+had assembled to receive them. Mary, therefore, had no time for further
+inquiry, had such an attempt been of any avail.
+
+“There goes the first dinner-bell, Miss Martin,” said Repton, gayly.
+“I'm resolved to be in the drawing-room before you!” And with this he
+hopped briskly upstairs, while Mary hastened to her room to dress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. “A RUINED FORTUNE”
+
+No stronger contrast could be presented than that offered by the house
+which called Mr. Magennis master, to all the splendor and elegance
+which distinguished Cro' Martin. Built on the side of a bleak, barren
+mountain, without a trace of cultivation,--not even a tree beside
+it,--the coarse stone walls, high pitched roof, and narrow windows
+seemed all devised in some spirit of derision towards its graceful
+neighbor. A low wall, coped with a formidable “frieze” of broken bottles
+and crockery, enclosed a space in front once destined for a garden, but
+left in its original state of shingle, intermixed with the remnants of
+building materials and scaffold planks. A long shed, abutting on the
+house, sheltered a cow and a horse; the latter standing with his head
+above a rickety half-door, and looking ruefully out at the dismal
+landscape beneath him.
+
+Most of the windows were broken,--and in some no attempt at repair
+had been made,--indicating that the rooms within were left unused. The
+hall-door stood ajar, but fastened by a strong iron chain; but the roof,
+more than all besides, bespoke decay and neglect, the rafters being in
+many places totally bare, while in others some rude attempts at tiling
+compensated for the want of the original slates. A strong colony of
+jackdaws had established themselves in one of the chimneys; but from
+another, in the centre of the building, a thick volume of dark-blue
+smoke rolled continually, conveying, indeed, the only sign of habitation
+about this dreary abode.
+
+The inside of the house was, if possible, more cheerless than the out.
+Most of the rooms had never been finished, and still remained in their
+coarse brown plaster, and unprovided with grates or chimney-pieces.
+The parlor, _par excellence_, was a long, low-ceilinged chamber, with
+yellow-ochre walls, dimly lighted by two narrow windows; its furniture,
+a piece of ragged carpet beneath a rickety table of black mahogany, some
+half-dozen crazy chairs, and a small sideboard, surmounted by something
+that might mean buffet or bookcase, and now served for both, being
+indifferently garnished with glasses, decanters, and thumbed volumes,
+intermingled with salt-cellars, empty sauce-bottles, and a powder-flask.
+
+An atrociously painted picture of an officer in scarlet uniform hung
+over the fireplace, surmounted by an infantry sword, suspended by a
+much-worn sash. These were the sole decorations of the room, to which
+even the great turf fire that blazed on the hearth could not impart a
+look of comfort.
+
+It was now a little after nightfall; the shutters were closed, and
+two attenuated tallow candles dimly illuminated this dreary chamber.
+A patched and much discolored tablecloth, with some coarse knives and
+forks, bespoke preparation for a meal, and some half-dozen plates stood
+warming before the fire. But the room had no occupant; and, except
+for the beating of the shutters against the sash, as the wind whistled
+through the broken window, all was silent within it. Now and then a loud
+noise would resound through the house; doors would bang, and rafters
+rattle, as the hall-door would be partially opened to permit the head of
+a woman to peer out and listen if any one were coming; but a heavy
+sigh at each attempt showed that hope was still deferred, and the weary
+footfall of her steps, as she retired, betrayed disappointment. It was
+after one of these excursions that she sat down beside the kitchen
+fire, screening her face from the blaze with her apron, and then, in the
+subdued light, it might be seen that, although bearing many traces of
+sorrow and suffering, she was still young and handsome. Large masses of
+the silkiest brown hair, escaping from her cap, fell in heavy masses
+on her neck; her eyes were large and blue, and shaded by the longest
+lashes; her mouth, a little large, perhaps, was still beautifully
+formed, and her teeth were of surpassing whiteness. The expression
+of the whole face was of gentle simplicity and love,--love in which
+timidity, however, deeply entered, and made the feeling one of acute
+suffering. In figure and dress she was exactly like any other peasant
+girl, a gaudy silk handkerchief on her neck being the only article
+of assumed luxury in her costume. She wore shoes, it is true,--not
+altogether the custom of country girls,--but they were heavy and
+coarsely made, and imparted to her walk a hobbling motion that detracted
+from her appearance.
+
+A large pot which hung suspended by a chain above the fire seemed to
+demand her especial care, and she more than once removed the wooden
+cover to inspect the contents; after which she invariably approached the
+window to listen, and then came back sorrowfully to her place, her lips
+muttering some low sounds inaudibly. Once she tried to hum a part of a
+song to try and beguile the time, but the effort was a failure, and, as
+her voice died away, two heavy tears stole slowly along her cheeks,
+and a deep sob burst from her; after which she threw her apron over her
+face, and buried her head in her lap. It was as she sat thus that a loud
+knocking shook the outer door, and the tones of a gruff voice rose even
+above the noise; but she heard neither. Again and again was the summons
+repeated, with the same result; and at last a handful of coarse gravel
+struck the kitchen window with a crash that effectually aroused her, and
+springing up in terror, she hastened to the door.
+
+In an instant she had unhooked the heavy chain, and sheltering the
+candle with her hand, admitted a large powerfully built man, who was
+scarcely within the hall when he said angrily, “Where the devil were
+you, that you could n't hear me?”
+
+“I was in the kitchen, Tom,” said she.
+
+“Don't call _me_ Tom, d----n you,” replied he, violently. “Don't keep
+dinning into me the infernal fool that I've made of myself, or it will
+be worse for you.”
+
+“Sure I never meant any harm by it; and it was your own self bid me
+do it,” said she, meekly, as she assisted him to remove his dripping
+great-coat.
+
+“And don't I rue it well?” rejoined he, through his half-closed teeth.
+“Isn't it this confounded folly that has shut me out of the best houses
+in the county? My bitter curse on the day and the hour I first saw you!”
+
+“Oh, don't say them words,--don't, or you'll break my poor heart,” cried
+she, clinging to him as he strode angrily into the parlor.
+
+“Be off with you,--be off to the kitchen, and leave me quiet,” said he,
+rudely.
+
+“There 's your slippers, sir,” said she, meekly, as, bending down, she
+untied his heavy shooting-shoes, and replaced them by a pair of list
+ones.
+
+“Is the dinner ready?” asked he, sternly.
+
+“It is, sir; but Massin'bred is n't come back.”
+
+“And who the devil is Massingbred? Don't you think he might be Mister
+Massingbred out of _your_ mouth?”
+
+“I ax your pardon, sir, and his, too; but I didn't mean--”
+
+“There, there,--away with you!” cried he, impatiently. “I 'm never in a
+bad humor that you don't make me worse.” And he leaned his face between
+his hands over the fire, while she slipped noiselessly from the room.
+
+“Maybe he thinks he's doing me honor by staying here,” burst he forth,
+suddenly, as he sprang to his legs and stared angrily around him. “Maybe
+he supposes that it's great condescension for him to put up with my
+humble house! Ay, and that it's _my_ bounden duty to wait for _him_ to
+any hour he pleases. If I thought he did,--if I was sure of it!”
+ added he, with a deep guttural tone, while he struck his clenched fist
+violently against the chimney-piece. Then, seizing the large iron poker,
+he knocked loudly with it against the back of the fireplace,--a summons
+quickly answered by the appearance of the girl at the door.
+
+“Did he come in since morning?” asked he, abruptly.
+
+“No, sir, never,” replied she, with a half courtesy.
+
+“Nor say what time he 'd be back?”
+
+“Not a word, sir.”
+
+“Then, maybe, he's not coming back,--taken French leave, as they call
+it, eh, Joan?”
+
+The sound of her name, spoken, too, in an accent of more friendly
+meaning, lighted up her face at once, and her large eyes swam in tears
+of gratitude towards him as she stood there.
+
+“But he 'd scarcely dare to do that!” said he, sternly.
+
+“No, sir,” said she, echoing half unconsciously his opinion.
+
+“And what do _you_ know about it?” said he, turning savagely on her.
+“Where were you born and bred, to say what any gentleman might do, at
+any time, or in anything? Is it Joan Landy, the herd's daughter, is
+going to play fine lady upon us! Faix, we 're come to a pretty pass now,
+in earnest! Be off with you! Away! Stop, what was that? Did n't you hear
+a shot?”
+
+“I did, sir,--quite near the house, too.”
+
+A sharp knocking now on the hall-door decided the question, and Magennis
+hastened to admit the arrival.
+
+It is a strange fact, and one of which we are satisfied merely to make
+mention, without attempting in the least to explain, but no sooner was
+Magennis in the presence of his young guest, than not only he seemed to
+forget all possible cause of irritation towards him, but to behave
+with a manner of, for him, the most courteous civility. He aided him
+to remove his shot-belt and his bag; took his hat from his hands, and
+carefully wiped it; placed a chair for him close to the fire; and
+then, as he turned to address him, remarked for the first time the
+blood-stained handkerchief which still bound his forehead.
+
+“Did you fall,--had you an accident?” asked he, eagerly.
+
+“No,” said the other, laughing; “a bit of an adventure only, which I 'll
+tell you after dinner.”
+
+“Was it any of the people? Had you a fight--”
+
+“Come, Magennis, you must exercise a little patience. Not a word, not a
+syllable, till I have eaten something, for I am actually famishing.”
+
+A stout knock of the poker on the chimney summoned the dinner, and
+almost in the same instant the woman entered with a smoking dish of
+Irish stew.
+
+“Mrs. Joan, you're an angel,” said Massingbred; “if there was a dish
+I was longing for on this cold, raw day, it was one of your glorious
+messes. They seem made for the climate, and by Jove, the climate for
+them. I say, Mac, does it always rain in this fashion here?”
+
+“No; it sleets now and then, and sometimes blows.”
+
+“I should think it does,” said Jack, seating himself at the table. “The
+pleasant little slabs of marble one sees on the cabin-roofs to keep
+down the thatch are signs of your western zephyrs. Mrs. Joan has outdone
+herself today. This is first-rate.”
+
+“There's too strong a flavor of hare in it,” said Magen-nis, critically.
+
+“That's exactly its perfection; the wild savor lifts it out of the
+vulgar category of Irish stews, and assimilates it, but not too closely,
+to the ragout. I tell you, Mac, there's genius in the composition of
+that gravy.”
+
+The partial pedantry of this speech was more than compensated for by the
+racy enjoyment of the speaker, and Magennis was really gratified at the
+zest with which his young friend relished his meal.
+
+“It has one perfection, at least,” said he, modestly,--“it 's very
+unlike what you get at home.”
+
+“We have a goodish sort of a cook,” said Jack, languidly,--“a fellow
+my father picked up after the Congress of Verona. Truffles and treaties
+seem to have some strong sympathetic attraction, and when diplomacy had
+finished its work, a _chef_ was to be had cheap! The worst of the class
+is, they 'll only functionate for your grand dinners and they leave your
+every-day meal to some inferior in the department.”
+
+It was strange that Magennis could listen with interest always whenever
+Massingbred spoke of habits, people, and places with which he had
+never been conversant. It was not so much for the topics themselves
+he cared,--they were, in reality, valueless in his eyes,--it was some
+singular pleasure he felt in thinking that the man who could so discuss
+them was his own guest, seated at his own table, thus connecting himself
+by some invisible link with the great ones of this world!
+
+Massingbred's very name--the son of the celebrated Moore Massingbred--a
+Treasury Lord--Heaven knows what else besides--certainly a Right
+Honorable--was what first fascinated him in his young acquaintance,
+and induced him to invite him to his house. Jack would probably have
+declined the invitation, but it just came at the moment when he was
+deeply mortified at Nelligan's absence,--an absence which old Dan was
+totally unable to explain or account for. Indeed, he had forgotten that,
+in his note to his son, he had not mentioned Massingbred by name, and
+thus was he left to all the embarrassment of an apology without the
+slightest clew as to the nature of the excuse.
+
+No sooner, then, was it apparent to Massingbred that young Nelligan did
+not intend to return home, than he decided on taking his own departure.
+At first he determined on going back to Dublin; but suddenly a malicious
+thought sprung up of all, the mortification it might occasion Joe
+to learn that he was still in the neighborhood; and with the amiable
+anticipation of this vengeance, he at once accepted Magennis's offer to
+“accompany him to his place in the mountains, and have some shooting.”
+
+It would not have been easy to find two men so essentially unlike in
+every respect as these two, who now sat discussing their punch after
+dinner. In birth, bringing-up, habits, instincts, they were widely
+dissimilar, and yet, somehow, they formed a sort of companionship
+palatable to each. Each had something to tell the other which he had
+either not heard before, or not heard in the same way. We have already
+adverted to the strong fascination Magen-nis experienced in dwelling on
+the rank and social position of his young guest. Massingbred experienced
+no less delight in the indulgence of his favorite pastime,--adventure
+hunting. Now, here was really something like adventure,--this wild, rude
+mountain home, this strange compound of gloom and passion, this poor
+simple country girl, more than servant, less than wife,--all separated
+from the remainder of the world by a gulf wider than mere space. These
+were all ingredients more than enough to suggest matter for imagination,
+and food for after-thought in many a day to come.
+
+They had thus passed part of a week in company, when the incident
+occurred of which our last chapter makes mention, and an account of
+which, now, Massingbred proceeded to give his host, neither exaggerating
+nor diminishing in the slightest particular any portion of the event.
+He even repressed his habitual tendency to sarcasm, and spoke of his
+antagonist seriously and respectfully. “It was quite clear,” said he,
+in conclusion, “that he did n't know I was a gentleman, and consequently
+never anticipated the consequence of a blow.”
+
+“And he struck you?” broke in Magennis, violently.
+
+“You shall see for yourself,” said Jack, smiling, as, untying the
+handkerchief, he exhibited a deep cut on his forehead, from which the
+blood still continued to ooze.
+
+“Let Joan doctor you; she's wonderful at a cut. She has something they
+call Beggarman's Balsam. I 'll fetch her.” And without waiting for a
+reply he left the room. The young woman speedily after appeared with
+some lint and a small pot of ointment, proceeding to her office with
+all the quiet assiduity of a practised hand, and a gentleness that few
+“regulars” could vie with. Her skill was more than recompensed by the
+few muttered words of praise Magennis bestowed, as he grumbled out, half
+to himself: “Old Cahill himself could n't do it better. I 'd back her
+for a bandage against the College of Surgeons. Ain't ye easier now?--to
+be sure you are. She 's good for _that_ if she is for nothing else!”
+ And even this much of eulogy made her bosom heave proudly, and brought a
+flush of joy over her cheek that was ecstasy itself.
+
+[Illustration: 218]
+
+The world is not deficient in acts of kindness, benevolence, and
+good-will. There is a large fountain of these running in ten thousand
+rills. But how many more might there not be,--how much of this wealth
+might there not be dispensed, and nobody living one jot the poorer! How
+many are there toiling away in obscurity and narrow fortune, to whom one
+single word of praise--one chance syllable of encouragement--would be
+life's blood! What sunken cheeks and lacklustre eyes would glow and
+gladden again by even a look of sympathy, withheld from no lack of
+kindliness, but mere want of thought! Oh ye who have station and fame,
+genius or greatness, bethink ye that these gifts are never higher
+than when they elevate the humble and cheer the lowly, and there is no
+physician like him who animates the drooping heart, and gives new vigor
+to wearied faculties and failing energy. Joan was made happy by the
+two or three words of grateful thanks Massingbred addressed to her, and
+stole quietly away, leaving the two companions once more alone.
+
+If there was any incident in life participation in which could convey
+intense gratification to Magennis, it was that sort of difference or
+misunderstanding that might lead to a duel. Whenever the affair offered
+no other alternative, his delight was unbounded. There were, it was
+rumored events in his own early life which would imply that the
+taste for mortal combat extended only to cases where his friends were
+concerned, and had no selfish application whatever. Of these we know
+nothing; nor, indeed, have we any information to convey regarding him,
+save by chance and stray words dropped by himself in the unguarded
+hours of after-dinner converse. There are, however, many who like the
+subordinate parts in this world's comedy,--who would rather be best man
+than bridegroom, and infinitely prefer performing second to principal.
+
+We are not, however, going into the inquiry as to the cause; enough when
+we repeat that this was Magennis's great passion, and these were the
+kind of events for whose conduct and management he believed himself to
+possess the most consummate tact and ability.
+
+“You 're in luck, Massingbred,” cried he, as the other concluded his
+recital,--“you're in luck, sir, to have for your friend one that, though
+I say it myself, has n't his equal for a case like this in the three
+kingdoms. It was I, sir, took out Cahill when he shot Major Harris, of
+the Fusiliers. I handled him that morning in a way that made the English
+officers confess there was no chance against us! A duel seems an easy
+thing to arrange. You 'd say that any fool could put up two men, twelve
+or even ten paces asunder, and tell them to blaze away; and if that
+was all there was in it, it would be simple enough. But consider for
+a minute the real case, and just remember how much the nature of the
+ground, whether level or uneven, has to do with it; what's behind,--if a
+wall, or trees, or only sky; the state of the light; how the sun stands;
+whether there 's wind, and what way it's coming. These are not all.
+There's the pistols,--how they _'throw,'_ and with what charge; and then
+there 's the size of your man. Ay, Massingbred, and let me tell you, you
+now see before you the man that invented the 'invulnerable position.'”
+
+“By Jove! that's a most valuable fact to me just now,” said Jack,
+helping himself to a fresh tumbler. “I 'm glad you have not been
+retained by the other side.”
+
+“The 'invulnerable position'!” continued Magennis, perfectly heedless
+of the other's remark; while, taking up the poker, he stalked out to
+the middle of the room, drawing himself up to his full height, and
+presenting, as though with a pistol,--“Do you see what I mean?” cried
+he.
+
+“I can't say I do,” said Jack, hesitatingly.
+
+“I thought not,” rejoined the other, proudly; “nobody ever did that was
+n't 'out' often. Pay attention now, and I 'll explain it. My head,
+you perceive, is carried far behind my right shoulder, so as to be
+completely protected by my pistol-hand and the pistol. I say the pistol,
+because it has been proved scientifically that the steadiest eye that
+ever fired never could aim at the antagonist's pistol. Morris Crofton
+practised it for eight years in his own garden; and though he did
+succeed, he told me that for practical purposes it was no use. Now we
+come to the neck, and you may observe the bend of my elbow. Ay, that
+little angle that nobody would remark masks the jugular arteries, and
+all the other vital nerves in that part. John Toler used to say that
+the head and neck was like the metropolis, and that a shot elsewhere was
+only like a 'row' in the provinces; and a very true and wise remark it
+was. Not that I neglect the trunk,” added he, proudly; “for you see
+how I stand,--three-quarters of the back towards the enemy so as not to
+expose the soft parts. As for the legs,” cried he, contemptuously, “let
+them crack at them as long as they like.”
+
+“And that 's the 'invulnerable position,'” said Massing-bred; with less
+enthusiasm, however, than the discovery might seem to warrant.
+
+“It is, sir; and if it was n't for it there 's many a strapping fellow
+walking about this day-that would be lying with a marble counterpane
+over him. Billy Welsh, that fought Brian of Deanstown, was the first man
+I ever 'put up' in it. Billy had a slight crick of the neck, and could
+n't get the head far enough round to the right, and the ball took him
+in the bridge of the nose, and carried that feature clean off, but never
+damaged him in any other respect whatever!”
+
+“I must say that the loss was quite sufficient for a man who had the
+benefit of the 'invulnerable position,'” said Massingbred, quietly.
+
+“He thinks nothing of it. A chap in the Crow Street Theatre made him a
+better nose than ever he had, out of wax, I believe; and he has a winter
+one, with a blush of red on it, to make believe it was cold; and they
+tell me you 'd never discover it was n't his own.”
+
+Magennis had now resumed his place at table, and seemed bent on making
+up for lost time by giving double measure of whiskey to his punch.
+
+“You say that he's to be in Oughterard to-night; well, with the blessing
+of the Virgin,”--an invocation he invariably applied to every act
+of dubious morality,--“we 'll be with him before he's out of bed
+to-morrow!”
+
+“I wish he had not given me a blow,” said Jack, musingly. “He seemed
+such a stout-hearted, spirited old fellow, I'm really grieved to quarrel
+with him.”
+
+“I'm glad that there's nobody to hear them words but myself, Mr.
+Massingbred,” said the other, with all the slowness and deliberation of
+incipient drunkenness; “I'm rejoiced, sir, that it's in the confidential
+intercourse of friendly--friendly--communication--that the son of my old
+and valued friend--Moore Massingbred--used expressions like that.”
+
+Jack started with amazement at this speech; he had not the slightest
+suspicion till that moment that Magennis and his father had ever known
+each other, or even met. A very little patience, however, on his part
+served to solve the difficulty; for he discovered that one of the
+peculiarities of this stage of his friend's ebriety was to fancy
+himself the intimate and associate of any one whose name he had ever
+heard mentioned.
+
+“Ay, sir, them's words your father would never have uttered. I was with
+him in his first blaze. 'Moore,' says I, 'have n't you a pair of black
+breeches?'--he wore a pair of web 'tights' of a light pattern--What are
+you laughing at, sir?” cried he, sternly, and striking the table with
+his clenched knuckles, till the glasses all rang on it.
+
+“I was laughing at my father's costume,” said Jack, who really told
+the truth; such a portrait of his parent's appearance being manifestly
+unlike anything he had ever imagined.
+
+“And the worse manners yours, sir,” rejoined Magennis, rudely. “I' ll
+not suffer any man to laugh at an old friend--and--and--schoolfellow!”
+
+It was with the very greatest difficulty that Jack could restrain
+himself at this peroration, which indignation--the same, probably, that
+creates poets--had suggested. He had, however, tact enough to preserve
+his gravity, whilst he assured his companion that no unfilial sentiment
+had any share in his thoughts.
+
+“So far, so well,” said Magennis, who now helped himself to the whiskey,
+unadulterated by any water; “otherwise, sir, it's not Lieutenant
+Magennis, of the--9th Foot, would handle you on the ground to-morrow!”
+
+“So, then, you've served, Mac? Why, you never broke that to me before!”
+
+“Broke!” cried the other, with a voice shrill from passion, while he
+made an effort to rise from his chair, and sunk back again,--“broke; who
+dares to say I was broke? I left the scoundrels myself. I shook the
+dust off my feet after them. There never was a court-martial about it.
+Never--never!” To the deep crimson that suffused his face before, there
+now succeeded an almost death-like pallor, and Massingbred really felt
+terrified at the change. Some heart-rending recollection seemed suddenly
+to have cleared his brain, routing in an instant all the effects of
+intoxication, and restoring him to sobriety and sorrow together.
+
+“Ay,” said he, in a low, broken voice, and still speaking to himself,
+“that finished me! I never held my head up again! Who could, after such
+a business? I came here, Mr. Massingbred,” continued he, but addressing
+his guest in a tone of deep respect,--“I came back here a ruined man,
+and not eight-and-twenty! You see me now, a dirty, drunken sot, not
+better dressed nor better mannered than the commonest fellow on the
+road, and yet I'm a gentleman born and bred, well nurtured, and well
+educated. I took a college degree and went into the army.” He paused, as
+if trying to gather courage to go on; the effort was more than he could
+accomplish, and, as the heavy tears stole slowly down his cheeks, the
+agony of the struggle might be detected. Half mechanically he seized
+the decanter of whiskey and poured the tumbler nearly full; but Jack
+good-humoredly stretched out his hand towards the glass, and said,
+“Don't drink, Mac; there's no head could stand it.”
+
+“You think so, boy,” cried he, with a saucy smile. “Little you know the
+way we live in the West, here;” and he tossed off the liquor before the
+other could stop him. The empty glass had scarcely been replaced on the
+table, when all the former signs of drunkenness had come back again, and
+in his bloodshot eyes and swollen veins might be seen the very type of
+passionate debauch.
+
+“Not ask me to their houses!” cried he, hoarse with passion. “Who wants
+them? Not invite me! Did I ever seek them? The dirty, mean spalpeens,
+don't I know the history of every one of them? Could n't I expose them
+from one end of the county to the other? Who 's Blake of Harris-town? He
+'s the son of Lucky Magarry, the pedler. You don't believe me. I had
+it from Father Cole himself. Lucky was hanged at Ennis. 'Ye want a
+confession!' says Lucky, when he came out on the drop; 'ye want a
+confession! Well, I suppose there's no use in keeping anything back
+now, for ye 'll hang me at any rate, and so here it's for you. It was I
+murdered Mr. Shea, and there was nobody helping me at all. I did it all
+myself with a flail; and be the same token, it 's under Mark Bindon's
+tombstone this minute. There now, the jury may be azy in their minds,
+and the judge, and the hangman, too, if he cares about it. As for his
+honor the high sheriff,' said he, raising his voice, 'he 's a fine
+man, God bless him, and the county may be proud of him; for it was he
+ferreted out all about this business! And faix, notwithstanding all, I
+'m proud of him myself, for he 's my own son!' And as he said that he
+dropped on his knees and cried out that he might never see glory if
+there was a word of lie in anything he said then! So that's what Blake
+got for his zeal for justice!”
+
+And as Magennis finished, he burst into a wild, fiendish laugh, and
+said,--
+
+“There 's the country gentry--there 's the people won't know Magennis
+and his wife!--ay, sir, his lawful, married wife! Let me see that you
+or any other man will deny it, or refuse to treat her as becomes her
+station.--Joan! Joan!” shouted he, striking the poker violently against
+the chimney; and with hot haste and intense anxiety the poor girl rushed
+into the room the moment after. “Sit down here, ma'am,” said Magennis,
+rising, and placing a chair for her beside his own, with an affectation
+of courtesy that savored of mockery,--“sit down, I say,” cried he,
+stamping his foot passionately. “That's my wife, sir! No man that sits
+at _my_ board shall behave to her as anything else.”
+
+“I have ever treated her with respect,” said Massingbred, “and shall
+always continue to do so.”
+
+“And it's better for you to do so,” said the other, fiercely, the
+bullying spirit rising on what he deemed the craven submission of his
+guest.
+
+Meanwhile the girl sat trembling with terror, not knowing what the scene
+portended, or how it was to end.
+
+“The herd's daughter, indeed! No, sir, Mrs. Magennis, of Barnagheela,
+that's her name and title!”
+
+At these words the poor girl, overcome with joy and gratitude, fell
+down upon her knees before him, and, clasping his hand, covered it with
+kisses.
+
+“Is n't that pretty breeding!” cried Magennis, violently. “Get up,
+ma'am, and sit on your chair like a lady. The devil a use in it, do what
+you will, say what you will,--the bad 'drop' is in them; and whatever
+becomes of you in life, Massingbred, let me give you this advice,--never
+marry beneath you!”
+
+Jack contrived at this juncture to signal to the girl to step away;
+and by appearing to attend with eagerness to Magennis, he prevented his
+remarking her exit.
+
+“A man 's never really ruined till then,” continued he, slowly, and
+evidently sobering again as he went on. “Friends fall away from you, and
+your companions are sure to be fellows with something against them!
+You begin by thinking you 're doing a grand and a courageous thing! You
+string up your resolution to despise the world, and, take my word for
+it, the world pays you off at last. Ay,” said he, after a long pause, in
+which his features settled down into an expression of deep sorrow, and
+his voice quivered with emotion,--“ay, and I 'll tell you something
+worse than all,--you revenge all your disappointment on the poor girl
+that trusted you! and you break _her_ heart to try and heal your own!”
+
+With these last words he buried his head between his hands and sobbed
+fearfully.
+
+“Leave me now,--leave me alone,” said he, without lifting his head.
+“Good-night--good-night to you!”
+
+Massingbred arose without a word, and, taking a candle, ascended to his
+chamber, his last thoughts about his host being very unlike those with
+which he had first regarded him. From these considerations he turned
+to others more immediately concerning himself; nor could he conquer his
+misgivings that Magennis was a most unhappy selection for a friend in
+such an emergency.
+
+“But then I really am without a choice,” said he to himself. “Joe
+Nelligan, perhaps, might--but no, he would have been infinitely more
+unfit than the other. At all events, Nelligan has himself severed the
+friendship that once existed between us.” And so he wandered on to
+thoughts of his former companionship with him. Regretful and gloomy
+enough were they, as are all memories of those in whose hearts we once
+believed we had a share, and from which we cannot reconcile ourselves to
+the exclusion.
+
+“He had not the manliness to meet me when I had become aware of his real
+station! What a poor-spirited fellow! Just as if I cared what or who his
+father was! _My_ theory is, Jack Massingbred can afford to know any man
+he pleases! Witness the roof that now shelters me, and the character of
+him who is my host!”
+
+It was a philosophy he built much upon, for it was a form of self-love
+that simulated a good quality, many of his acquaintances saying, “At all
+events, there 's no snobbery about Massingbred; he 'll know, and even
+be intimate with, anybody.” Nor did the deception only extend to others.
+Jack himself fancied he was an excellent fellow,--frank, generous, and
+open-hearted.
+
+It is a very strange fact--and fact it certainly is--that the men who
+reason most upon their own natures, look inwardly at their own minds,
+and scrutinize most their own motives, are frequently the least natural
+of all mankind! This self-inquiry is such thorough self-deception that
+he who indulges in it often becomes an actor. As for Massingbred, there
+was nothing real about him save his egotism! Gifted with very good
+abilities, aided by a strong “vitality,” he had great versatility; but
+of all powers, this same plastic habit tends most to render a man
+artificial.
+
+Now, his present difficulty was by no means to his taste. He did not
+like his “quarrel;” he liked less the age and station of his adversary;
+and least of all was he pleased with the character of his “friend.” It
+was said of Sheridan, that when consulted about the music of his operas,
+he only asked, “Will it grind?”--that is, would it be popular enough for
+a street organ, and become familiar to every ear? So Jack Massingbred
+regarded each event in life by the test of how it would “tell,” in what
+wise could a newspaper report it, and how would it read in the Clubs? He
+fancied himself discussing the adventure at “White's,” and asking, “Can
+any one say what Massingbred's row was about? Was he poaching?--or how
+came he there? Was there a woman in it? And who is his friend Magennis?”
+ In thoughts like these he passed hour after hour, walking his room from
+end to end, and waiting for morning.
+
+At length he bethought him how little likely it was that Magennis would
+remember anything whatever of the transaction, and that his late debauch
+might obliterate all memory of the affair. “What if this were to be
+the case, and that we were to arrive too late at Oughterard? A pretty
+version would the papers then publish to the world!” Of all possible
+casualties this was the very worst; and the more he reflected on it, the
+more probable did it seem. “He is the very fellow to wake up late in the
+afternoon, rub his eyes, and declare he had forgotten the whole thing.”
+
+“This will never do!” muttered he to himself; and at once determined
+that he would make an endeavor to recall his friend to consciousness,
+and come to some arrangement for the approaching meeting. Massingbred
+descended the stairs with noiseless steps, and gently approaching the
+door of the sitting-room, opened it.
+
+Magennis was asleep, his head resting upon the table, and his heavy
+breathing denoting how deeply he slumbered. On a low stool at his feet
+sat Joan, pale and weary-looking, her cheeks still marked with recent
+tears, and the dark impression of what seemed to have been a blow
+beneath her eye. Jack approached her cautiously, and asked if it were
+his custom to pass the night thus.
+
+“Sometimes, when he 's tired--when he has anything on his mind,” replied
+she, in some confusion, and averting her head so as to escape notice.
+
+“And when he awakes,” said Jack, “he will be quite refreshed, and his
+head all clear again?”
+
+“By coorse he will!” said she, proudly. “No matter what he took of a
+night, nobody ever saw the signs of it on him the next morning.”
+
+“I did not ask out of any impertinent curiosity,” continued Massingbred;
+“but we have, both of us, some rather important business to-morrow in
+Oughterard. We ought to be there at an early hour.”
+
+“I know,” said she, interrupting. “He bid me bring down these;” and
+she pointed to a case of pistols lying open beside her, and in cleaning
+which she had been at the moment engaged. “I brought the wrong ones,
+first.” Here she stammered out something, and grew crimson over her
+whole face; then suddenly recovering herself, said, “I did n't know it
+was the 'Terries' he wanted.”
+
+“The 'Terries'?” repeated Jack.
+
+“Yes, sir. It was these Terry Callaghan shot the two gentlemen with,
+the same morning, at Croghaglin,--father and son they were!” And saying
+these words in a voice of the most perfect unconcern possible, she took
+up a flannel rag and began to polish the lock of one of the weapons.
+
+“They 're handsome pistols,” said Jack, rather amused with her remark.
+
+“They 're good, and that's better!” replied she, gravely. “That one in
+your hand has seven double crosses on the stock and nine single.”
+
+“The seven were killed on the ground, I suppose?”
+
+A short nod of assent was her reply.
+
+“Such little events are not unfrequent down here, then?”
+
+“Anan!” said she, not understanding his question.
+
+Jack quickly perceived that he had not taken sufficient account of
+Joan's limited acquaintance with language, and said,--
+
+“They often fight in these parts?”
+
+“Ayeh! not now,” replied she, in a half-deploring tone. “My father
+remembers twenty duels for one that does be nowadays.”
+
+“A great change, indeed.”
+
+“Some say it's all for the better,” resumed she, doubtfully. “But
+hush,--he's stirring; leave him quiet, and I 'll call you when he's
+ready.”
+
+“And I can depend--”
+
+“To be sure you can. He forgets many a thing; but no man living can
+say that he ever misremembered a duel.” And with these words, in a low
+whisper, she motioned Massingbred to the door.
+
+Jack obeyed in silence, and, ascending to his room, lay down on the bed.
+He determined to pass the interval before morning in deep thought and
+self-examination; but, somehow, he had scarcely laid his head on the
+pillow when he fell off into a heavy sleep, sound and dreamless.
+
+The day was just breaking when he was aroused by a somewhat rude shake,
+and a voice saying,--
+
+“Come, up with you. We 've a sharp ride before us!”
+
+Jack started up, and in an instant recalled all the exigencies of the
+hour.
+
+“I have sent the 'tools' forward by a safe hand,” continued Magennis;
+“and Joan has a cup of tea ready for us below stairs. So lose no time
+now, and let us be off.”
+
+The humble meal that awaited them was soon despatched, and they were
+speedily mounted on the pair of mountain ponies Magennis had provided,
+and whose equipments, even in the half-light of the morning,
+rather shocked Mas-singbred's notions of propriety,--one of his
+stirrup-leathers being a foot shorter than the other, while an old
+worsted bell-rope formed the snaffle-rein of his bridle.
+
+The road, too, was rugged and precipitous, and many a stumble and
+scramble had they in the uncertain light; while the swooping rain
+dashed violently against them, and effectually precluded all thought of
+conversation. Two hours, that seemed like ten, brought them at length
+upon the highroad; after which, by a brisk canter of forty minutes, they
+reached Oughterard.
+
+“Let us dismount here,” said Jack, as they gained the outskirts of the
+town, not fancying to make a public appearance on his humble steed.
+
+“Why so?” answered Magennis. “It's ashamed of the pony you are! Oh, for
+the matter of that, don't distress yourself; we 're too well used to
+them in these parts to think them ridiculous.”
+
+There was a soreness and irritation in his tone which Jack quickly
+remarked, and as quickly tried to obviate, by some good-natured remark
+about the good qualities of the animals; but Magennis heard him without
+attention, and seemed entirely immersed in his own thoughts.
+
+“Turn in there, to your left,” cried he, suddenly, and they wheeled into
+an arched gateway that opened upon the stable-yard of the inn. Early
+as it was, the place was full of bustle and movement; for it was the
+market-day, and the farmers were already arriving.
+
+Carts, cars, gigs, and a dozen other nameless vehicles crowded the spot,
+with kicking ponies and mules of malicious disposition; grooming and
+shoeing and unharnessing went on, with a noise and merriment that was
+perfectly deafening; and Massingbred, as he threaded his way through the
+crowd, soon perceived how little notice he was likely to attract in such
+an assembly. Magennis soon dismounted, and having given directions about
+the beasts, led Jack into the house, and up a narrow, creaking stair
+into a small room, with a single window, and a bed in one corner. “This
+is where I always put up,” said he, laying down his hat and whip, “and
+it will do well enough for the time we 'll want it.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. “A CHALLENGE”
+
+“He 's here; he arrived last night,” said Magennis, as he entered the
+room after a short exploring tour through the stables, the kitchen, and
+every other quarter where intelligence might be come at. “He came alone;
+but the major of the detachment supped with him, and that looks like
+business!”
+
+“The earlier you see him the better, then,” said Mas-singbred.
+
+“I'll just go and get my beard off,” said he, passing his hand across a
+very grizzly stubble, “and I'll be with him in less than half an hour.
+There's only a point or two I want to be clear about. Before he struck
+you, did you gesticulate, or show any intention of using violence?”
+
+“None. I have told you that I caught his horse by the bridle, but that
+was to save him from falling back.”
+
+“Ah, that was indiscreet, at all events.”
+
+“Would n't it have been worse to suffer him to incur a severe danger
+which I might have prevented?”
+
+“I don't think so; but we'll not discuss the point now. There was a
+blow?”
+
+“That there was,” said Jack, pointing to the spot where a great strap of
+sticking-plaster extended across his forehead.
+
+“And he seemed to understand at once that reparation was to be made for
+it?”
+
+“The suggestion came from himself, frankly and speedily.”
+
+“Well, it's pretty evident we have to deal with a gentleman!” said
+Magennis, “and that same's a comfort; so I'll leave you now for a short
+time: amuse yourself as well as you can, but don't quit the room.” And
+with this caution Magennis took his departure, and set off in search of
+Mr. Repton's chamber.
+
+“Where are you bringing the mutton chops, Peter?” said he to a waiter,
+who, with a well-loaded tray of eatables, was hastening along the
+corridor.
+
+“To the ould Counsellor from Dublin, sir. He's break-fastin' with the
+Major.”
+
+“And that's his room, No. 19?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“They 're merry, at all events,” said Magennis, as a burst of hearty
+laughter was heard from within the chamber.
+
+“'T is just that they are, indeed,” replied Peter. “The Counsellor does
+be telling one story after another, till you 'd think he 'd no end
+of them. He began last night at supper, and I could scarce change the
+plates for laughin'.”
+
+Muttering some not very intelligible observation to himself, Magennis
+passed down the stairs, and issuing into the street, wended his way to
+the barber's.
+
+If the Oughterard Figaro had not as brilliant a vocation as his
+colleague of Seville, his occupations were scarcely less multifarious,
+for he kept the post-office, was clerk at petty sessions, collected
+the parish cess, presided over “the pound,” besides a vast number of
+inferior duties. Whether it was the result of a natural gift, or by the
+various information of his official life, Hosey Lynch was regarded in
+his native town as a remarkably shrewd man, and a good opinion on a
+number of subjects.
+
+He was a short, decrepit old fellow, with an enormous head of curly
+black hair, which he seemed to cultivate with all the address of his
+craft; probably intending it as a kind of advertisement of his skill,
+displaying as it did all the resources of his handiwork. But even above
+this passion was his ardor for news,--news political, social, legal, or
+literary; whatever might be the topic, it always interested him, and
+it was his especial pride to have the initiative of every event that
+stirred the hearts of the Oughterard public.
+
+The small den in which he performed his functions occupied the corner
+of the street, giving a view in two directions, so that Hosey, while
+cutting and curling, never was obliged to lose sight of that world
+without, in whose doings he felt so strong an interest. In the one
+easy-chair of this sanctum was Magennis now disposed, waiting for
+Mr. Lynch, who had just stepped down to “the pound,” to liberate
+the priest's pig. Nor had he long to wait, for Hosey soon made his
+appearance, and slipping on a very greasy-looking jean-jacket, proceeded
+to serve him.
+
+“The top of the morning to you, Captain,”--he always styled him by the
+title,--“it's a rare pleasure to see you so early in town; but it will
+be a bad market to-day--cut and curled, Captain?”
+
+[Illustration: 232]
+
+“No; shaved!” said Magennis, bluntly.
+
+“And shaved you shall be, Captain,--and beautifully shaved, too, for I
+have got an excellent case from Lamprey's; they came yesterday,--came
+with the writ against Jones Creegan.”
+
+“At whose suit?”
+
+“Mrs. Miles Creegan, the other brother's widow,” said Hosey, lathering
+away and talking with breathless rapidity. “There was a clause in old
+Sam's will, that if ever Tom, the chap that died at Demerara--you'd like
+more off the whiskers, it's more military. It was only yesterday
+Major Froode remarked to me what a soldierlike-looking man was Captain
+Magennis.”
+
+“Is he in command of the detachment?”
+
+“He is in his Majesty's--1st Foot--the 'Buccaneers,' they used to be
+called; I suppose you never heard why?”
+
+“No, nor don't want to hear. What kind of a man is the Major?”
+
+“He 's a smart, well-made man, with rather a haughty look,” said Hosey,
+drawing himself up, and seeming to imply that there was a kind of
+resemblance between them.
+
+“Is he English or Irish?”
+
+“Scotch, Captain,--Scotch; and never gives more than fivepence for a cut
+and curl, pomatum included.--No letters, Mrs. Cronin,” cried he, raising
+up the movable shutter of the little window; then bending down his ear
+he listened to some whispered communication from that lady, after
+which he shut the panel, and resumed his functions. “She 's at law with
+O'Reilly about the party wall. There's the Major now going down to the
+barracks, and I wonder who's the other along with him;” and Hosey rushed
+to the door to find some clew to the stranger. In less than a quarter
+of a minute he was back again, asking pardon for absence, and informing
+Magennis “that the man in plain clothes was a Dublin counsellor, that
+arrived the night before. I think I can guess what he's here for.”
+
+“What is it?” cried Magennis, eagerly.
+
+“There's an election coming on, and the Martins expect a
+contest.--Nothing for you, Peter,” said he, to an applicant for a letter
+outside. “He's looking to be made barony constable these four years, and
+he 's as much chance as I have of being--what shall I say?--”
+
+“Are you done?” asked Magennis, impatiently.
+
+“One minute more, sir--the least touch round the chin,--and, as I was
+saying, Captain, the Martins will lose the borough.”
+
+“Who thinks so besides you?” asked Magennis, gruffly.
+
+“It is, I may say, the general opinion; the notion current in-- There
+'s Miss Martin herself,” cried he, running to the window. “Well, really,
+she handles them ponies elegant!”
+
+“Does she come often into town?”
+
+“I don't think I saw her in Oughterard--let me see when it was--it's two
+years--no, but it's not far off--it's more than--”
+
+“Are you done?” said Magennis, impatiently. “I told you that I was
+pressed for time this morning.”
+
+“You're finished now, Captain,” said Hosey, presenting him with a small
+cracked looking-glass. “That's what I call a neat chin and a beautiful
+sweep of whisker. Thank you, Captain. It's a pleasure and an honor--not
+to say that it's--”
+
+Magennis did not wait for the peroration, but striding hastily out of
+the little shop, issued into the street that led to the inn. On arriving
+there, he heard that Mr. Rep-ton had gone out, leaving word that he
+would be found at Major Froode's quarters. Thither Magennis now repaired
+with all the solemn importance befitting his mission.
+
+As he sent in his name, he could overhear the short colloquy that passed
+within, and perceived that Repton was about to retire; and now the
+servant ushered him into the presence of a smart, light-whiskered little
+man, with a pair of shrewd gray eyes, and a high forehead.
+
+“A brother officer, I perceive, sir,” said he, looking at the card,
+whereupon the title Captain was inscribed; “pray take a chair.”
+
+“You anticipate the reason of this visit, Major Froode,” said the other,
+with some degree of constraint, as though the preliminaries were the
+reverse of pleasant to him. The Major bowed, and Magennis went on: “I
+suppose, then, I'm to treat with you as the friend of Mr. Valentine
+Repton?”
+
+“And you are Mr. Massingbred's?” said the Major, answering the question
+with another.
+
+“I have that honor, sir,” said Magennis, pompously; “and now, sir, how
+soon can it come off?”
+
+“Don't you imagine, Captain Magennis, that a little quiet discussion
+of the question at issue between two old soldiers, like you and myself,
+might possibly be advisable? Is there not a chance that our united
+experience might not suggest an amicable arrangement of this business?”
+
+“Quite out of the question,--utterly, totally impossible!” said
+Magennis, sternly.
+
+“Then perhaps I lie under some misconception,” said the Major,
+courteously.
+
+“There was a blow, sir!--a blow!” said Magennis, in the same stern tone.
+
+“I opine that everything that occurred was purely accidental,--just hear
+me out,--that a hasty word and a hurried gesture, complicated with the
+impatient movement of a horse--”
+
+A long whistle from Magennis interrupted the speech, and the Major,
+reddening to the very top of his high forehead, said,--
+
+“Sir, this is unbecoming,--are you aware of it?”
+
+“I'm quite ready for anything when this is settled,” said Magennis, but
+with less composure than he desired to assume. “What I meant was, that
+for a blow there is but one reparation.”
+
+“Doubtless, if the injury admit of no explanation,” said the Major,
+calmly; “but in that lies the whole question. Consider two things,
+Captain Magennis: first of all, the equivocal appearance of _your_
+friend, the age and standing of _mine_.”
+
+“By Jove! you'll kill me in trying to save my life,” said Repton,
+bursting into the room. “I didn't want to play eavesdropper, Froode,
+but these thin partitions are only soundboards for the voice. This
+gentleman,” added he, turning to Magennis, “is perfectly correct. There
+was a blow; and a blow has only one consequence, and that one I 'm
+ready for. There may be, for aught I know, twenty ways of settling
+these matters in London or at the clubs, but we 're old-fashioned in our
+notions in Ireland here; and I don't think that even when we pick up new
+fashions that we 're much the better for them, so that if your friend is
+here, Captain, and ready--”
+
+“Both, sir; here and ready!”
+
+“Then so am I; and now for the place. Come, Froode, you don't know
+Ireland as well as I do; just humor me this time, and whenever I get
+into a scrape in Scotland you shall have it all your own way. Eh,
+Captain, is n't that fair?”
+
+“Spoke like a trump!” muttered Magennis.
+
+“For _me_, did you say?” said Repton, taking a letter from the servant,
+who had just entered the room.
+
+“Yes, sir; and the groom says there's an answer expected.”
+
+“The devil take it, I 've forgotten my spectacles. Froode, just tell me
+what's this about, and who it comes from.”
+
+“It's Miss Martin's hand,” said Froode, breaking the seal and running
+over the contents. “Oh, I perceive,” said he; “they're afraid you have
+taken French leave of them at Cro' Martin, and she has driven into town
+to carry you back again.”
+
+“That comes of my leaving word at the little post-office to forward my
+letters to Dublin if not asked for to-morrow. Take a pen, Froode,
+and write a couple of lines for me; say that a very urgent call--a
+professional call--will detain me here to-day, but that if not back by
+dinner-time--Captain Magennis thinks it not likely,” added he, turning
+towards him as he sat, with a very equivocal expression, half grin, half
+sneer, upon his features--“that I 'll be with them at breakfast next
+morning,” resumed Repton, boldly. “Make some excuse for my not answering
+the note myself,--whatever occurs to you. And so, sir,” said he, turning
+to Magennis, “your friend's name is Massingbred. Any relation to Colonel
+Moore Massingbred?”
+
+“His son,--his only son, I believe.”
+
+“How strange! I remember the father in the 'House'--I mean the Irish
+House--five-and-thirty years ago; he was always on the Government
+benches. It was of him Parsons wrote those doggerel lines,--
+
+    'A man without a heart or head,
+     Who seldom thought, who never read,
+     A witty word who never said,
+     One at whose board none ever fed,
+     Such is the Colonel M--g--b--d.'
+
+He could n't call him a coward, though; for when they went out--which
+they did--Massingbred's manner on the ground was admirable.”
+
+“Will that do?” said Froode, showing a few lines he had hastily jotted
+down.
+
+“I can't read a word of it, but of course it will,” said he; “and then,
+sir,” added he, addressing Magennis, “the sooner we place ourselves at
+your disposal the better.”
+
+Froode whispered something in Repton' ear, and by his manner seemed as
+if remonstrating with him, when the other said aloud,--
+
+“We 're in Ireland, Major; and, what's more, we 're in Galway, as
+Macleweed said once to a prisoner, 'With a Yorkshire jury, sir, I 'd
+hang you. Your sentence now is to pay five marks to the King, and find
+bail for your good behavior.' You see what virtue there is in locality.”
+
+“There's a neat spot about two miles off, on the road to Maum,” said
+Magennis to the Major. “We could ride slowly forward, and you might keep
+us in view.”
+
+“In what direction did you say?”
+
+“Take the second turn out of the market-place till you pass the baker's
+shop, then to the left, and straight on afterwards. You can't miss it.”
+
+“Stop a moment, sir,” said Froode to Magennis, as he moved towards the
+door; “one word, if you please. It is distinctly understood that I have
+been overruled in this business,--that, in fact, I have submitted--”
+
+“Your point has been reserved,” said Repton, laughing, while he led him
+away; and Magennis at the same moment took his departure.
+
+It was, indeed, with no slight feeling of triumph that thia gentleman
+now hastened back to the Martin Arms. Never did a great diplomatist
+experience more pride in the conclusion of some crowning act of
+negotiation than did he in the accomplishment of this affair.
+
+“There 's many a man,” said he to himself, “who 'd have accepted an
+apology here. There's many a man might have let himself be embarrassed
+by the circumstances; for, certainly, the taking hold of the bridle was
+an awkward fact, and if the Major was a cute fellow he 'd have made a
+stand upon it. I must say that the Counsellor showed no backwardness; he
+comes of that fine old stock we used to have before the Union.”
+
+And with this profound reflection he entered the room where Massingbred
+sat awaiting him.
+
+“It's all settled. We're to meet at the Priest's Gap within an hour,”
+ said Magennis, with the air of a man who had acquitted himself cleverly.
+“And though I say it that should n't, if you were in other hands this
+morning you would n't have got your shot.”
+
+“I always relied implicitly upon your skill!” said Massingbred, humoring
+his vanity.
+
+“Have you anything to arrange,--a letter or so to write; for I'll step
+down to Dr. Hearkins to tell him to follow us?”
+
+Massingbred made no reply as the other left the room. Once more alone,
+he began to think gravely over his present situation. Nor could all his
+habitual levity steel him against the conviction that five minutes of
+common-sense talk might arrange a dispute which now promised a serious
+ending. “However,” thought he, “we are not in the land where such
+differences admit of amicable solution, and there's no help for it.”
+
+A sharp tap at the door startled him from these musings, and before he
+could well reply to it Daniel Nelligan entered the room, and advanced
+towards him with an air of mingled ease and constraint.
+
+“I hope you 'll forgive me, Mr. Massingbred,” he began. “I feel certain
+that you will at some future day, at least, for what I 'm going to do.”
+ Here he stopped and drew a long breath, as if not knowing in what terms
+to continue. Massingbred handed him a chair, and took one in front of
+him without speaking.
+
+“I know what brought you here to-day; I am aware of it all.”
+
+He paused, and waited for the other to speak; but Massingbred sat
+without offering a word, and evidently relying on his own social tact to
+confound and embarrass his visitor.
+
+“I know, sir, that you are likely to regard my interference as
+impertinent,” resumed Nelligan; “but I trust that the friend of my son,
+Joe--”
+
+“I must set you right upon one point, at least, Mr. Nelligan,” said
+Massingbred, with an easy smile. “If you be only as accurate in
+your knowledge of my affairs as you are with respect to my private
+friendships, this visit has certainly proceeded from some misconception.
+Your son and I were friends once upon a time. We are so no longer!”
+
+“I never heard of this. I never knew you had quarrelled!”
+
+“We have not, sir. We have not even met. The discourtesy he has shown me
+since my arrival here--his avoidance of me, too marked to be explained
+away--is an offence. The only misfortune is that it is one which can be
+practised with impunity.”
+
+“My son asks for none such,” said Dan, fiercely. “And if your
+observation is meant for an insult--” He stopped suddenly, as if checked
+by something within, and then said, but in a voice full and measured,
+“I'm magistrate of this town, sir, and I come here upon information that
+has reached me of your intentions to commit a breach of the peace.”
+
+“My dear Mr. Nelligan,” began Massingbred, in his most seductive of
+manners,--but the other had already witnessed the rupture of the
+only tie which bound them, the supposed friendship between Joe and
+Massingbred, and cared nothing for all the blandishments he could
+bestow,--“my dear Mr. Nelligan, you cannot, surely, suppose that a mere
+stranger as I am in your county--scarcely ten days here--should have
+been unfortunate enough to have incurred the animosity of any one.”
+
+“I hold here a statement, sir,” said Nelligan, sternly, “which, if you
+please to pledge your honor to be incorrect--”
+
+“And this is Galway!” exclaimed Massingbred,--“this glorious land of
+chivalrous sentiment of which we poor Englishmen have been hearing
+to satiety! The Paradise of Point of Honor, then, turns out a very
+commonplace locality, after all!”
+
+“I 'm proud to say that our county has another reputation than its old
+one; not but--” and he added the words in some temper--“there are a few
+left would like to teach you that its character was not acquired for
+nothing.”
+
+“Well, well!” sighed Jack, as he closed his eyes, and appeared as
+if indulging in a revery, “of all the mockeries I have lived to see
+unmasked, this is the worst and meanest.”
+
+“I have not come here to listen to this, sir,” said Nelli-gan,
+haughtily, as he arose. “I waited upon you, intending to accept your
+solemn pledge, by word of honor, to commit no act hostile to the public
+peace. Now, sir, I shall call upon you to give me the legal guarantee
+for this security,--good and sufficient bail, and that within an hour!”
+
+“My dear Mr. Nelligan,” replied Massingbred, with all the quiet ease of
+an unruffled temper, “I have not a single friend here, except yourself,
+upon whom I could call in such an emergency. I am utterly unknown in
+these parts; my very name unheard of before my arrival. If I _did_ by
+any unhappy circumstance find myself in such an involvement as you speak
+of, I solemnly assure you my first thought would be to address myself to
+Mr. Nelligan.”
+
+The easy impertinence of this speech would have been perfectly
+successful a short time previous, when Nelligan yet believed in the
+close friendship with his son. It came now, however, too late, and the
+old man listened to it with something bordering on anger.
+
+“Good and sufficient bail, sir,--yourself and two others,” repeated he,
+slowly, and moving towards the door.
+
+“One word, I pray,” said Jack, rising, and speaking with more
+earnestness and apparently with more sincerity. “I do not ask you any
+details as to the circumstances you impute to me, but perhaps you would,
+as a favor, tell me how this information has reached you?”
+
+“I will not, sir,” was the abrupt reply.
+
+“I am sure no friend of mine could have--”
+
+“It is no use, Mr. Massingbred; all your address will avail you nothing.
+You shall not cross-examine _me!_”
+
+“You must, however, see, sir,” said Massingbred, “that unknown and
+unfriended as I am here, bail is out of the question.”
+
+“The Bench will hear anything you desire to say on that subject,” said
+Nelligan, coldly. “Good-morning to you.”
+
+And with these words he left the room, and descended into the street.
+
+The passionate warmth which Massingbred had so successfully controlled
+in the presence of his visitor burst forth the first moment he found
+himself alone. He inveighed against the country, the people, their
+habits, and all belonging to them; cursed his own fate at being ever
+thrown into such companionship; and wound up by resolving to submit to
+any terms by which he might quit Galway forever, and forget, for the
+rest of his days, that he had ever entered it. While he was yet fuming
+in this fashion, the waiter entered and presented him with a very
+dirty-looking note, fastened by two wafers, and inscribed “Most
+private.” Massingbred opened it and read,--
+
+     “My dear Mr. M.,--We 're found out--I believe by Hosey
+     Lynch, where I dropped a bullet-mould this morning when he
+     was shaving me. At all events, we 're blown, and as I am
+     under £250 recognizances to keep the peace for three years,
+     I 'm off to the mountains till this passes over. I 'm sure,
+     from what I saw of the Counsellor, that he 'll keep himself
+     open to a proposal elsewhere. Meanwhile, there's nothing for
+     it but to give your bail and satisfy the blackguards--bad
+     luck to them--that spoiled the sport! You can go back to
+     the house when all's over, and I 'll return as soon as it is
+     safe for
+
+     “Your sincere friend,
+
+     “T. M.”
+
+Scarcely had he finished reading this epistle, when Major Froode
+presented himself in his chamber, the door of which the waiter was yet
+holding ajar. Having introduced himself, he briefly informed Massingbred
+of his position as Mr. Repton's friend, and as briefly stated that
+the Counsellor had been obliged to pledge himself against any hostile
+intentions,--a step which, he foresaw, would also be required of him.
+“For this reason I have come,” continued he, “to say that any assistance
+I can be of to you is frankly at your service. I have learned that you
+are a stranger here, and not likely to have many acquaintances.”
+
+“If they would be satisfied with my word,” began Jack.
+
+“Of course they will, and shall,” interrupted Froode; “and now, what is
+there in the way of _amende_ my friend can make, for what he is prepared
+to confess was a mere accident?”
+
+“The acknowledgment is ample. I ask for nothing beyond it,” said
+Massingbred. “I am not quite certain but that my own conduct might
+require a little explanation; but as your friend's vigor put matters
+beyond negotiation at the time, we 'll not go back upon bygones.”
+
+“And now, sir,” burst in Repton, who had waited outside the door,--“and
+now, sir, I beg you to accept the humblest apology I can tender for what
+has happened. I 'm not as safe on my saddle as I used to be forty years
+ago; and when the nag reared and threatened to fall back upon me, I am
+ashamed to own that I neither saw nor cared what I struck at. I 'd have
+said all this to you, Mr. Massingbred, after your fire, had we been
+permitted to go the ground; and although there is some additional
+humiliation in saying it here, I richly deserve all the pain it gives
+me, for my want of temper. Will you give me your hand?”
+
+“With sincere pleasure,” said Jack, shaking him warmly and cordially
+with both his own.
+
+“There 's but one thing more to be done,” said Repton. “These borough
+magistrates, vulgar dogs as they are, will want you to give a bail bond.
+Take no notice of them, but just drive out with me to Cro' Martin, and
+we 'll settle it all there.”
+
+“I am not acquainted with Mr. Martin.”
+
+“But you shall be. He 'll be charmed to know you, and the place is worth
+seeing. Come, you mustn't leave the West with only its barbarism in your
+memory. You must carry away some other recollections.”
+
+The new turn affairs had just taken was by no means distasteful to
+Massingbred. It promised another scene in that drama of life he loved
+to fashion for himself, with new scenery, new actors, and new incidents.
+“The Counsellor,” too, struck his fancy. There was a raciness in the old
+man's manner, a genial cordiality, united with such palpable acuteness,
+that he promised himself much pleasure in his society; and so he
+accepted the proposal with all willingness, and pledged to hold himself
+ready for his friend within an hour.
+
+Repton and the Major had but just left the room, when the former
+re-entered it hurriedly, and said, “By the way, I must leave you to your
+own guidance to find your road to Cro' Martin, for there's a young lady
+below stairs has a lien upon me. You shall be presented to her when you
+come out, and I promise you it will repay the journey.”
+
+“This must be the Mary Martin I 've been hearing of,” thought
+Massingbred, when again alone; “and so the morning's work will probably
+turn out better than I had anticipated.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. A COUNTRY-HOUSE
+
+When Massingbred arrived at Cro' Martin, he found Repton at the door
+awaiting him. “I find,” said he, “there is little need of introducing
+you here. Your father was an old acquaintance of Martin's; they sat
+together for years in Parliament, and Lady Dorothea was related to
+your family. But here he comes.” And Martin approached, with his hand
+extended in cordial welcome. No one ever knew better how to do the
+honors of his house, nor could throw more graceful courtesy into the
+first steps of acquaintanceship. Massingbred, too, was well calculated
+to appreciate this gift. He had a most intense esteem for “manner,”
+ and enjoyed even the necessity it imposed upon himself of exertion to
+please. With sincere satisfaction was it that he accepted an invitation
+to pass some days there, and at once despatched a servant to Magennis's
+house for his trunks.
+
+The adventure of the morning was alluded to but once, and then in a
+jocular strain, as an incident of no moment whatever; and Massingbred
+retired to his room to dress for dinner, wondering within himself if he
+should find the other members of the family as much to his liking as the
+worthy host had been.
+
+A dinner-party was a rare event at Cro' Martin. The isolation in which
+they lived was rarely broken by a visitor; and when, by rare
+accident, some solitary stranger did present himself with a letter of
+introduction, his stay was merely of a few hours. Now, however, the
+company included, in addition to the family, Repton, Massingbred, and
+Nelligan, besides Miss Henderson, who was on that day to appear at
+dinner. The quondam college friends had not met; neither had Miss
+Martin ever seen her governess; so that there was no small degree of
+anticipation as to how such elements would harmonize and agree.
+
+When Massingbred entered the drawing-room, he found Miss Henderson there
+alone; and at once believing she could be no other than Miss Martin,
+he proceeded to introduce himself in the best manner he could. Her
+reception was perfect in ease and self-possession, and they soon found
+themselves engaged in a lively discussion as to the scenery, the people
+and their habits, of which they both appeared to have a very similar
+appreciation. Lady Dorothea next made her appearance; and, advancing
+towards Massingbred, welcomed him with what, for her, was the extreme
+of cordiality. “Your mother was a Caradoc, Mr. Massingbred, and the
+Caradocs are all of our family; so let me claim relationship at once.”
+
+With all the pretensions of a very fine lady, Lady Dorothea knew how
+to unite very agreeable qualities, not the less successful in her
+captivations, that she never exercised them without a real desire
+to please; so that Massingbred soon saw how in the wilds of dreary
+Connemara there existed a little oasis of polish and civilization that
+would have done honor to the most splendid society of London or Paris.
+
+Nor was Massingbred himself less pleasing to her. It was so long, so
+many, many years since she had met with one fresh from that great world
+which alone she valued!
+
+Correspondence had kept her to a certain extent informed upon the
+changes and vicissitudes of society,--the births, deaths, marriages,
+separations, quarrels, and other disasters of those dear friends for
+whose griefs absence and time offer so many consolations! But then, the
+actual appearance, the _coup d'oil_ of that world could only be imparted
+by an observer, imbued with all the spirit that gives observation its
+peculiar piquancy. This she found in him; and so agreeably exercised was
+it, that she actually heard dinner announced without attending, and only
+as she arose from her seat was reminded to present him to Miss Martin,
+by the brief phrase, “My niece, Mr. Massingbred;” while she took his
+arm, with a glance at Mr. Repton, that plainly said, “You are deposed.”
+
+The passage to the dinner-room lay through three spacious and splendid
+rooms, which now were brilliantly lighted up, and lined with servants in
+rich liveries,--a degree of state Massingbred was not a little pleased
+at; partly suspecting that it was intended to do himself honor. As they
+moved slowly through the last of these, the door suddenly opened, and
+young Nelligan entered. He had returned late from a long ride, and
+heard nothing whatever of Massing-bred's arrival. With an exclamation
+of “Jack--Massingbred!” he bounded forward. But the other showed no
+recognition of him; and directing Lady Dorothea's attention to the
+richness of a picture-frame, passed calmly on into the dinner-room.
+
+“You must bring up the rear alone, Nelligan,” said Martin, who had given
+his arm to Miss Henderson; and Joe followed, almost overwhelmed with
+mingled shame and amazement.
+
+For an instant the possibility of mistake assuaged his sense of
+mortification; but no sooner did he find himself at table, and directly
+opposite to Massingbred, than he perceived there was no ground whatever
+for this consolation. It was, indeed, Massingbred, just as he had seen
+him the first day in the Commons Hall at dinner, and when his cold,
+supercilious manner had struck him so disagreeably.
+
+What a terrible vengeance for all the superiority Nelligan had displayed
+over him in the Examination Hall was Massingbred's present success; for
+success it was. With all that consummate readiness the habit of
+society imparts, Jack could talk well on a great variety of topics,
+and possessed, besides, that especial tact to make others so far
+participators in his observations that they felt a partnership in the
+agreeability. Lady Dorothea was perfectly charmed with him; it was the
+triumph, as it were, of one of her own set. His anecdotes--not very
+pointed or curious in themselves--had the marked characteristic of
+always referring to distinguished individuals; so that what was
+deficient in wit was more than compensated by the rank of the actors.
+Martin enjoyed his conversation with all his own complacent ease, and
+felt delighted with one who could play all the game without an
+adversary. Mary was pleased and astonished together--the pleasure being
+even less than the amazement--at all he seemed to know of life and the
+world, and how intimately one so young seemed to have mixed in society.
+As for Repton, he relished the other's powers with the true zest of a
+pleasant talker; they were of different styles, and no disagreeable
+rivalry marred the appreciation.
+
+Amidst all these silent or spoken testimonies sat poor Nelligan,
+overwhelmed with shame. Massingbred had refused to recognize him; and it
+was left to his own gloomy thoughts to search out the reason. At first
+Joe avoided meeting the other's look; he dreaded he knew not what of
+impertinence or insult, to which the time and place could offer no
+reparation; but gradually he grew to perceive that Massingbred's cold
+eye met his own without a spark of meaning; nor was there in voice,
+manner, or bearing, a single evidence of constraint or awkwardness to be
+detected.
+
+Miss Henderson alone seemed to listen to him with easy indifference; and
+more than once, when Jack put forth his most showy pretensions, he was
+secretly mortified to see how little impression he had made on the dark
+beauty with the haughty smile. This was exactly the kind of defiance
+that Massingbred never declined, and he determined within himself to
+attempt the conquest. As the party returned to the drawing-room, he
+asked Lady Dorothea to present him more formally to the young lady whose
+acquaintance he had dared to obtrude upon before dinner; but she coldly
+said,--
+
+“Oh, it's no matter; she's only the governess.” An explanation she
+deemed quite sufficient to subdue any rising feeling of interest
+regarding her.
+
+“And the gentleman who sat next her at dinner?” asked he.
+
+“A neighbor,--that is, the son of one of our borough people. I have not
+introduced him to you; for, of course, you are not likely to meet again.
+As you were remarking, awhile ago, society in England is gradually
+undergoing that change which in France was accomplished in a year or
+two.”
+
+“With the aid of the guillotine and the 'lanterne,'” said Jack, smiling.
+
+“Just so; they used sharp remedies for a quick cure. But I own to you
+that I have not yet reconciled myself, nor do I see how I shall ever
+reconcile myself, to intimacy with a class not only whose habits and
+instincts, but whose very natures are adverse to our own. That young
+man now, for instance, they speak of him as quite a college wonder. I'm
+ashamed to say I don't know wherein his great successes lie; but they
+tell me that he has distanced every competitor of his day, and stands
+alone in his preeminence, and yet we saw him to-day not venturing on a
+remark, nor even hazarding an opinion on the topics we talked of, and
+silent where he ought to have been heard with advantage.”
+
+“Is he bashful?” said Jack, with a lazy drawl.
+
+“I don't think it's that; at least, not altogether.”
+
+“Supercilious, perhaps?”
+
+“Oh! certainly not,” replied she, hastily. “The company in which he
+found himself is the best answer to that. He could not presume--”
+
+“It was, then, downright fear,” broke in Massingbred; “the terror
+that even clever men cannot even shake off when thrown amongst a class
+they're unused to.”
+
+“And very naturally so. I'm sure he must be puzzled to imagine why he is
+here. Indeed, we have only known him a few days back. It was one of Mr.
+Martin's sudden caprices to ask him to Cro' Martin. He fancied he ought
+to conciliate--I believe that's the phrase in vogue--the borough people,
+and this young man's father is the chief of them.” And now Lady Dorothea
+turned from the topic as one unworthy of further thought, and entered
+upon the more congenial theme of her own high relatives and connections
+in England. It was strange enough that Massing-bred's remote alliance
+with her family was sufficient to induce an intimacy and familiarity
+with him which years of mere acquaintanceship could not have effected.
+That his grand-aunt had been a Conway, and his great-grandfather's
+half-brother was married to a Jernyngham, were all a species of
+freemasonry by which he was admitted at once to the privilege of
+confidential discussion.
+
+It was no small mortification to Massingbred to spend his evening in
+these genealogical researches; he had seen the two young girls move off
+into an adjoining room, from which at times the sound of a piano, and
+of voices singing, issued, and was half mad with impatience to be along
+with them. However, it was a penalty must be exacted, and he thought
+that the toll once paid he had secured himself against all demands for
+the future.
+
+Not caring to participate in the many intricacies of those family
+discussions wherein the degrees of relationship of individuals seem
+to form the sole points of interest, we shall betake ourselves to the
+little blue drawing-room, where, seated at the piano together, the
+two young girls talked, while their fingers strayed along the notes as
+though affording a species of involuntary accompaniment to their words.
+Nelligan, it is true, was present; but, unnoticed by either, he sat
+apart in a distant corner, deep in his own brooding thoughts.
+
+Mary had only made Miss Henderson's acquaintance on that evening, but
+already they were intimate. It was, indeed, no common boon for her to
+obtain companionship with one of her own age, and who, with the dreaded
+characteristics of a governess, was in reality a very charming and
+attractive person. Miss Henderson sang with all the cultivated knowledge
+of a musician; and, while she spoke of foreign countries where she had
+travelled, lapsed at times into little snatches of melody, as it
+were, illustrative of what she spoke. The delight Mary experienced
+in listening was unbounded; and if at moments a sad sense of her own
+neglected education shot through her mind, it was forgotten the next
+instant in her generous admiration.
+
+“And how are _you_, who have seen this bright and brilliant world you
+speak of,” said Mary, “to sit quietly down in this unbroken solitude,
+where all the interests are of the humblest and more ordinary kind?”
+
+“You forget that I saw all these things, as it were, on sufferance,”
+ replied she. “I was not born to them, nor could ever hope for more than
+a passing glance at splendors wherein I was not to share. And as for the
+quiet monotony here, an evening such as this, companionship like yours,
+are just as much above my expectations.”
+
+“Oh, no, no!” cried Mary, eagerly. “You were as surely destined for a
+salon as I was for the rude adventures of my own wayward life. You don't
+know what a strange existence it is.”
+
+“I have heard, however!” said the other, calmly.
+
+“Tell me--do tell me--what you have been told of me, and don't be afraid
+of wounding my vanity; for, I pledge you my word, I do think of myself
+with almost all the humility that I ought.”
+
+“I have heard you spoken of in the cabins of the poor as their only
+friend, their comforter, and their hope; the laborer knows you as his
+succor,--one by whose kind intervention he earns his daily bread; their
+children love you as their own chosen protector.”
+
+“But it's not of these things I 'm speaking,” said Mary, rapidly. “Do
+they not call me self-willed, passionate, sometimes imperious?”
+
+“Yes; and capricious at times!” said the other, slowly.
+
+Mary colored, and her voice faltered as she said,--
+
+“There they were unjust. The impracticable tempers I have to deal
+with--the untutored minds and undisciplined natures--often lead me into
+seeming contradictions.”
+
+“Like the present, perhaps,” said Miss Henderson.
+
+“How! the present?” said Mary.
+
+“That, while claiming the merit of humility, you at once enter upon a
+self-defence.”
+
+“Well, perhaps I _am_ capricious!” said Mary, smiling.
+
+“And haughty?” asked the other, slowly.
+
+“I believe so!” said Mary, with a degree of dignity that seemed to
+display the sentiment while confessing to it.
+
+“I have never heard a heavier accusation against Miss Martin than
+these,” said she, “and I have lived with those who rarely scruple how to
+criticise their betters.”
+
+Mary was silent and thoughtful; she knew not how to interpret the
+mingled praise and censure she had just listened to.
+
+“But tell me rather of yourself,” said Mary, as though willing to turn
+the topic of conversation. “I should like to hear your story.”
+
+“At thirteen years of age--I believe even a year later--I was the
+playfellow of the young gentleman you see yonder,” said Kate Henderson,
+“but who, to-night, seems incapable of remembering anything or anybody.”
+
+“Of Mr. Nelligan?” repeated Mary. And Joseph started as he heard his
+name, looked up, and again relapsed into revery.
+
+“I 'm not sure that we were not in love. I almost confess that I
+was, when my father sent me away to France to be educated. I was very
+sad--very, very sad--at being taken away from home and thrown amongst
+strangers, with none of whom I could even interchange a word; and I used
+to sit and cry for hours by myself, and write sorrowful love-letters
+to 'dearest Joseph,' and then imagine the answers to them; sometimes I
+actually wrote them, and would suffer agonies of anguish before I dared
+to break the seal and learn the contents. Meanwhile I was acquiring a
+knowledge of French, and knew a little of music, and used to sing in our
+choir at chapel, and learned to believe the world was somewhat larger
+than I had hitherto thought it, and that St. Gudule was finer than
+the mean little church at Oughterard; and worse still--for it _was_
+worse--that the sous-lieutenants and cadets of the Military College had
+a much more dashing, daring look about them than 'poor Joseph;' for so I
+now called him to myself, and gave up the correspondence soon after.
+
+“Remember, Miss Martin, that I was but a child at this time--at least, I
+was little more than fourteen--but in another year I was a woman, in all
+the consciousness of certain attractions, clever enough to know that
+I could read and detect the weak points in others, and weak enough to
+fancy that I could always take advantage of them. This incessant spirit
+of casuistry, this passion for investigating the temper of those about
+you, and making a study of their natures for purposes of your own, is
+the essence of a convent life; you have really little else to do,
+and your whole bent is to ascertain why Sister Agnes blushes, or why
+Beatrice fainted twice at the Angelus. The minute anatomy of emotions
+is a very dangerous topic. At this very moment I cannot free myself from
+the old habit; and as I see young Mr. Nelligan there sitting with his
+head in his hand, so deep in thought as not to notice us, I begin to
+examine why is it he is thus, and on what is he now brooding?”
+
+“And can you guess?” asked Mary, half eagerly.
+
+“I could be certain, if I were but to ask him a question or two.”
+
+“Pray do then, if only to convince me of your skill.”
+
+“But I must be alone, and that is scarcely possible,--scarcely
+becoming.”
+
+“Let us contrive some way,--think of something.”
+
+“It is too late now; he is about to leave the room,” said Kate,
+cautiously. “How pale he looks, and how anxious his eye has become!
+I thought at first there was some constraint at meeting _me_ here; he
+feared, perhaps--but no, that would be unworthy of him.”
+
+She ceased, for Nelligan had now drawn nigh to where they sat, and stood
+as if trying to collect himself to say something.
+
+“Do you sing, Mr. Nelligan?” asked Kate.
+
+“No; I am ignorant of music,” said he, half abstractedly.
+
+“But you like it?” asked Mary.
+
+“Yes, I believe I do,--that is, it calms and quiets me. If I could
+understand it, it would do more.”
+
+“Then why not understand it, since that is the way you phrase it?” asked
+Kate. “Everybody can be a musician to a certain degree of proficiency.
+There is no more ear required than you want to learn a language.”
+
+“Then you shall teach me,” cried Mary, eagerly.
+
+Kate took up her hand and pressed it to her lips for a reply.
+
+“Foreigners--men, I mean--are all so well aware of this that they
+cultivate music as a necessary part of education; few attain high
+eminence, but all know something of it. But somehow we have got to
+believe that cultivation in England must always tend to material profit.
+We learn this, that, and t' other, to be richer or greater or higher,
+but never to be more acceptable in society, more agreeable or pleasanter
+company.”
+
+“We have n't time,” said Nelligan, gravely.
+
+“For what have we not time? Do you mean we have no time to be happy?”
+ cried Repton, suddenly stepping in amongst them. “Now, my dear young
+ladies, which of you will bid highest for the heart of an old lawyer--by
+a song?”
+
+“It must be Miss Henderson,” said Mary, smiling, “for I don't sing.”
+
+“Not a ballad?--not even one of the Melodies?”
+
+“Not even one of the Melodies,” said she, sorrowfully.
+
+“Shame upon me for that 'even,'” said Repton; “but you see what comes
+of surviving one's generation. I lived in an age when the 'Last Rose of
+Summer' and the 'Harp that Once' were classical as Homer's 'Hymns,' but
+I have now fallen upon times when English music is estimated in the
+same category with English cookery, and both deemed very little above
+barbarous. To be sure,” added he, “it does seem very like a poetical
+justice for the slavish adherence of _our_ education to Greek and Roman
+literature, that our ladies should only sing to us in the languages of
+Italy or Germany.”
+
+“I hope you would not imply that we are as little versed in these as
+great scholars are in the others?” said Kate Henderson, slyly.
+
+“Sharply said, miss, and truthfully insinuated too! Not to mention that
+there is courage in such a speech before Mr. Nelligan, here.”
+
+“Yes--very true--a just remark!” said Joseph, who only overheard a
+reference to himself without understanding to what it alluded. And now
+a very joyous burst of laughter from the others startled him, while it
+covered him with confusion.
+
+“We must make them sing, Nelligan,” said Repton, gayly. “They'll
+vanquish us in these tilting-matches of word-fence.--Now, Miss
+Henderson, something very plaintive and very sentimental, to suit the
+tenderness of a feeling heart.”
+
+“I'll sing for you with pleasure,” said Kate. “Will this suit you?” And
+with a short prelude she sang one of those brilliant little snatches
+of Venetian melody which seem like the outburst of a sudden
+inspiration,--wild, joyous, floating as they are,--wherein such is the
+expression that sounds usurp the place of language, and the mind is
+carried away by a dreamy fascination impossible to resist.
+
+“How often have I heard that on the Lido!” said Mas-singbred, entering
+the room hastily; “and what a glorious thing it is!”
+
+“Then you know this?” said Kate, running her fingers over the notes, and
+warbling out another of the popular airs of the same class.
+
+“The last time I heard that,” said Jack, musingly, “was one night when
+returning home from a late party, along the Grand Canal at Venice. There
+is a single word at the end of each verse which should be uttered by a
+second voice. Just as I passed beneath a brilliantly lighted salon, the
+sounds of this melody came floating forth, and as the stanza finished, I
+supplied the 'refrain.'”
+
+“You?” cried Kate, eagerly.
+
+“Yes; but why do you ask?”
+
+“Do you remember the exact spot?” said she, not heeding his question.
+
+“As well as though I were there only yesterday.”
+
+“Shall I tell you where it was?” He waited, and she went on: “It was
+under the balcony of the Mocenigo Palace.”
+
+“Why, this is witchcraft,” cried Jack; “you are perfectly correct.”
+
+“The bouquet that was thrown to you from the window fell into the
+water.”
+
+“But I regained it. I have it still,” cried he, more eagerly; “and yours
+was the hand that threw it?”
+
+She nodded assent.
+
+“How strange, is it not, that we should meet here?” He paused for a
+minute or two, and then said, “It was the Duchesse de Courcelles lived
+there at the time?”
+
+“Yes, we passed the winter in that palace.”
+
+“Miss Henderson was the companion of the young Princess,” said Lady
+Dorothea, who had just joined the group, and experienced no slight shock
+at observing the tone of easy familiarity in which the conversation
+was conducted. But Massingbred seemed wonderfully little moved by the
+intelligence, for, drawing his chair closer to Kate's, he led her
+to talk of Venice and its life, till, imperceptibly as it were, the
+discourse glided into Italian. What a dangerous freemasonry is the use
+of a foreign language, lifting the speakers out of the ordinary
+topics, and leading them away to distant scenes and impressions, which,
+constituting a little world apart, give a degree of confidential feeling
+to intercourse. Massingbred would willingly have lent himself to the
+full enjoyment of this illusion; but Kate, with quicker tact, saw all
+the difficulties and embarrassment it would occasion, and under pretext
+of searching for some music, escaped at once from the spot.
+
+“How I envy you, dear girl!” said Mary, following her, and passing her
+arm affectionately around her. “What a happiness must it be to possess
+such gifts as yours, which, even in their careless exercise, are so
+graceful. Tell me frankly, is it too late for me to try--”
+
+“You overrate _me_ as much as you disparage yourself,” said Kate,
+mildly; “but if you really will accept me, I will teach you the little
+that I know, but, in return, will you make _me_ your friend?”
+
+Mary pressed the other's hand warmly within her own.
+
+“Here are some vows of everlasting friendship going forward, I 'll be
+sworn,” said old Repton, stepping in between them; “and you ought to
+have a legal opinion as to the clauses,--eh, young ladies, am I not
+right?”
+
+“When was Mr. Repton wrong?” said Mary, laughing.
+
+“When he waited till his present age to fall in love!” said he, gayly.
+“But, seriously, what have you done with our young student? Of all the
+woe-begone faces I ever beheld, his was the very saddest, as he moved
+into the large drawing-room awhile ago. Which of you is to blame for
+this?”
+
+“Not guilty, upon my honor,” said Mary, with mock solemnity.
+
+“I'm half afraid that our showy friend has eclipsed him in _your_ eyes,
+as I own to you he has in _mine_, clever fellow that he is.”
+
+“Are you not charmed with yourself that you did not shoot him this
+morning?” said Mary, laughing.
+
+“I am sincerely gratified that he has not shot me, which, taking his
+pistol performance on the same level with his other acquirements, was
+not so very improbable!”
+
+“There's your uncle stealing away to bed,” said Repton, “and fancying
+that nobody remarks him. Shall I be cruel enough to mar the project?
+Martin--Martin--come here for a moment; we want your opinion on a knotty
+point.”
+
+“I know what it is,” said Martin, smiling; “the question under
+discussion is, “whether you or Mr. Massingbred were the more successful
+to-day?'”
+
+“I think Mr. Massingbred may claim the prize,” said Mary Martin, with a
+sly whisper; “he made Lady Dorothea cry.”
+
+“Ay,” said Repton, “but _I_ made young Nelligan laugh!”
+
+And now the party broke up, Massingbred lingering a little behind to say
+something to Miss Henderson, and then betaking himself to his chamber,
+well satisfied with his day, and the change it had wrought in his
+fortunes. Perhaps a few passages from a letter that he, on that same
+night, penned to one of his friends in Dublin, will not be ill-timed as
+an exponent of his sentiments. The letter was written, directing
+certain articles of dress to be forwarded to him at once, by coach, and
+contained these paragraphs:--
+
+“You now know how I came here: the next thing is to tell you of the
+place itself. The house is large and admirably _montée_--abundance of
+servants, well drilled, and orderly. The master a nonentity, apparently;
+easy-tempered and good-humored; liking the quiet monotony of his humdrum
+life, and only asking that it may not be interfered with. His wife,
+a fine lady of the school of five-and-forty years ago,--a nervous
+terrorist about mob encroachments and the democratic tendencies of the
+times,--insufferably tiresome on genealogies and 'connections,' and
+what many would call downright vulgar in the amount of her pretension.
+Gratitude--for I have the honor of being a favorite already--seals my
+lips against any further or harsher criticism. As for the niece, she is
+decidedly handsome; a great deal of style about her too; with a degree
+of--shall I call it daring? for it is more like courage than any other
+quality--that tells you she is the uncontrolled ruler over the wild
+regions and wild people around her. With more of manner, she would be
+very charming; but perhaps she is better in the unfettered freedom of
+her own capricious independence: it certainly suits her to perfection.
+And now I should have completed my catalogue, if it were not for
+the governess. Ay, Harry, the governess! And just fancy, under this
+unimposing title, a dark-eyed, haughty-looking girl--I don't think she
+can be above twenty or twenty-one--with a carriage and port that might
+suit an Archduchess of Austria. She has travelled all over Europe--been
+everywhere--seen everything, and, stranger again, everybody; for she was
+what they style a companion. By Jove! she must have been a very charming
+one; that is, if she liked it; for if she did not, Hal!--At all events,
+here she is; only having arrived the very day before myself; so that we
+are free to discuss the family, and compare notes together, in the most
+confidential fashion.
+
+“Of course I need n't tell _you_ Jack Massingbred does not fall in
+love,--the very phrase implies it must be beneath one,--but I already
+see that if such a girl were a Lady Catherine or a Lady Agnes, with a
+father in the Upper House, and two brothers in the 'Lower,' her dowry
+anything you like above thirty thousand,--that, in short, even Jack
+himself might exhibit the weakness of inferior mortals; for she is
+precisely one of those types that are ever looking upward,--a girl
+with a high ambition, I 'll be sworn, and formed to make the man, whose
+fortunes she shared, stand forward in the van and distinguish himself.
+
+“These are our whole _dramatis persono_, if I include an old barrister,
+with a racy humor and a strong stock of Bar anecdotes; and young
+Nelligan, the Medal man, whom you quizzed me so much for noticing in
+Dublin. You were right then, Harry; he _is_ a low fellow, and I was
+wrong in ever thinking him otherwise. I chanced upon his father's
+acquaintance rather oddly; and the son has not forgiven it. When we met
+here, yesterday, he fancied that we were to speak, and was actually
+rushing forward to shake hands with the most enthusiastic warmth; but
+with that manner which you have often admired, and once encouraged, when
+you called me the 'Cool of the day,' I pulled him up dead short, stared,
+and passed on. At dinner, I managed to ignore him so utterly that
+everybody else fell into the trap, and he dined as a tutor or the
+chaplain or the agent's son might,--mingling his sighs with the soup,
+and sipping his claret in all dreariness.
+
+“You will see, even from these hasty lines, that there is enough here
+to interest and amuse; food for observation, and opportunity for malice.
+What can a man want more? The 'joint and the pickles.' They have
+asked me to stay,--they have even entreated; and so I mean to pass a
+week--perhaps two--here. I conclude that will give me enough of it:
+however, you shall hear frequently of my _res gesto_, and learn all that
+befalls
+
+“Jack Massingbred.
+
+“... When you pass that way, pray see what letters there may be lying
+for me in my chambers. If any of my father's--he writes in a large
+splashy hand--and the seal, two maces, saltierwise--forward them here. I
+am, or I shall soon be, in want of money; and as I have overdrawn my
+allowance already, I shall be obliged to issue bonds, bearing a certain
+interest. Can you recommend me to a safe capitalist?--not Fordyce--nor
+Henniker--nor yet Sloan--with all of whom I have held dealings, mutually
+disagreeable. It is a sad reflection that the stamp worth five shillings
+upon a piece of unsullied paper is absolutely valueless when the words
+'Jack Massingbred' are inscribed beneath. Try, and if you can, solve
+this curious problem.
+
+“At all events, write to me here: supply me freely with news, for I
+am supposed to be acquainted with all that goes on, socially and
+politically, and I shall be driven to imagination if you do not store me
+with fact.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. STATECRAFT
+
+It was a cabinet council; they were met in Lady Dorothea's boudoir,
+Martin and Mr. Repton being summoned to her presence. A letter had that
+morning reached her Ladyship from a very high quarter; the writer was
+the Marquis of Reckington, a very distant connection, who had suddenly
+been graciously pleased, after a long interval of utter obliviousness,
+to remember that Lady Dorothea was his relative, and yet living!
+Whatever pride her Ladyship might have summoned to her aid to repel the
+slights or impertinences of the vulgar, she displayed a most Christian
+forgiveness as she broke the seal of an epistle from one who had left
+several of her own without answers, and even replied to her application
+for a staff appointment for her son, by a cold assurance that these were
+times when “nothing but fitness and superior qualifications entitled any
+man to advancement in the public service.” Oh dear, were there ever any
+other times since the world was made! Is not merit the only passport to
+place, and high desert and capacity the sole recommendation to favor? Of
+all the immense advantages of a representative government, is there any
+more conspicuous than the unerring certainty with which men of ability
+rise to eminence without other aid than their own powers; and that, in
+a system like ours, family influence, wealth, name, connections,
+and parliamentary support are just so much mere dross? If any one be
+incredulous of the virtue of public men, let him only ask for a place;
+let him entreat his great friend--everybody has at least one
+great friend--mine is a coroner--to make him a Junior Lord, or a
+Vice-Something, and see what the answer will be. Polite, certainly;
+nothing more so; but what a rebuke to self-seeking!--what a stern
+chastisement to the ignorant presumption that places are awarded by
+means of favor, or that the public service is ever filled through the
+channels of private influence! Far from it. He is told that our age is
+an incorruptible one, that ministers pass sleepless nights in balancing
+the claims of treasury clerks, and that Lord Chancellors suffer agonies
+in weighing the merits of barristers of six years' standing. “We have
+but one rule for our guidance: the best man in the best place.” A
+high-sounding maxim, which it would be excessively uncivil to disparage
+by asking what constitutes “a best man.” Is he some unscrupulous
+partisan, who first gave his fortune, and afterwards his fame, to the
+support of a party? Is he the indisputable disposer of three, or perhaps
+four votes in the House? Is he a floating buoy to be anchored in
+either roadstead of politics, and only to be secured to either, for
+a consideration? Is he the dangerous confidant of some damaging
+transaction? Or is he the deserter from a camp, where his treason may
+sow disaffection? These several qualifications have ere this served to
+make up “a best man;” and strangely enough, are gifts which fit him for
+the Army, the Navy, the Home Service, or the Colonies.
+
+Let us turn from this digression, into which we have fallen half
+inadvertently, and read over some parts of Lord Reckington's letter. It
+was somewhat difficult to decipher, as most great men's letters are, and
+displayed in more than one place the signs of correction. Although it
+had been, as we have said, a very long time since any correspondence had
+occurred between the “cousins,” his Lordship resumed the intercourse as
+though not a week had intervened. After a little playful chiding over
+the laxity of her Ladyship's writing habits,--three of hers had been
+left unreplied to,--and some of that small gossip of family changes and
+events, never interesting to any but the direct actors, his Lordship
+approached the real topic of his letter; and, as he did so, his writing
+grew firmer, and larger and bolder, like the voice of a man who spoke of
+what truly concerned him.
+
+“I thought, my dear Dora, I had done with it all. I flattered myself
+that I had served my time in public capacities, and that neither
+the Crown nor its advisers could reasonably call upon me for further
+sacrifices. _You_ know how little to my taste were either the cares or
+ambitions of office. In fact, as happens to most men who are zealous for
+the public service, my official career imposed far more of sacrifices
+than it conferred privileges. Witness the occasions in which I was
+driven to reject the claims of my nearest and dearest friends, in
+compliance with that nervous terror of imputed favoritism so fatal to
+all in power! I thought, as I have said, that they had no fair claim
+upon me any longer. I asked nothing; indeed, many thought I was wrong
+there. But so it was; I quitted office without a pension, and without
+a ribbon! It was late on a Saturday evening, however, when a Cabinet
+messenger arrived at 'Beech Woods' with an order for me to repair
+at once to Windsor. I was far from well; but there was no escape.
+Immediately on arriving I was summoned to the presence, and before I had
+paid my respects, his Majesty, who was much excited, said, 'Reckington,
+we want you. You must go to Ireland!' I believe I started, for he went
+on, 'I 'll have no refusal. There is but one settlement of this question
+that I will accept of. You shall go to Ireland!' The King then entered
+with considerable warmth, but with all his own remarkable perspicuity,
+into a detail of late changes and events in the Cabinet. He was
+excessively irritated with B------, and spoke of G------as one whom he
+never could forgive. He repeatedly said, 'I have been duped; I have been
+tricked;' and, in fact, exhibited a degree of emotion which, combined
+with the unbounded frankness of his manner towards me, affected me
+almost to tears. Of course, my dear Dora, personal considerations ceased
+at once to have any hold upon me; and I assured his Majesty that the
+remainder of my life was freely at his disposal, more than requited, as
+it already was, by the precious confidence he had that day reposed in
+me. I must not weary you with details. I accepted and kissed hands as
+Viceroy on Monday morning; since that I have been in daily communication
+with G------, who still remains in office. We have discussed Ireland
+from morning to night, and I hope and trust have at last come to a
+thorough understanding as to the principles which must guide the future
+administration. These I reserve to talk over with you when we meet; nor
+do I hesitate to say that I anticipate the very greatest benefit in the
+fruits of your long residence and great powers of observation of this
+strange people.” The letter here went off into a somewhat long-winded
+profession of the equal-handed justice which was to mark the acts of
+the administration. It was to be, in fact, a golden era of equity and
+fairness; but, somehow, as codicils are occasionally found to revoke the
+body of the testament, a very suspicious little paragraph rather damaged
+this glorious conclusion. “I don't mean to say, my dear coz., that we
+are to neglect our followers,--the Government which could do so never
+yet possessed, never deserved to possess, able support; but we must
+discriminate,--we must distinguish between the mere partisan who trades
+on his principles, and that high-minded and honorable patriot who gives
+his convictions to party. With the noisy declaimer at public meetings,
+the mob-orator or pamphleteer, we shall have no sympathy. To the worthy
+country gentleman, independent by fortune as well as by principle,
+extending the example of a blameless life to a large neighborhood,
+aiding us by his counsels as much as by the tender of his political
+support,--to him, I say, we shall show our gratitude, not grudgingly nor
+sparingly, but freely, openly, and largely. You now know in what ranks
+we wish to see our friends, in the very van of which array I reckon upon
+yourself.” We shall again skip a little, since here the writer diverged
+into a slight dissertation on the indissoluble ties of kindred, and the
+links, stronger than adamant, that bind those of one blood together.
+After a brief but rapid survey of the strong opposition which was to
+meet them, he went on: “Of course all will depend upon our parliamentary
+support; without a good working majority we cannot stand, and for this
+must we use all our exertions.” A few generalities on the comfort and
+satisfaction resulting from “safe divisions” ensued, and then came the
+apparently careless question, “What can _you_ do for us? Yes, my dear
+Dora, I repeat, what can _you_ do for us? What we need is the support of
+men who have courage enough to merge old prejudices and old convictions
+in their full trust in us; who, with the intelligence of true
+statesmanship, will comprehend the altered condition of the country, and
+not endeavor to adapt the nation to _their_ views, but rather _their_
+views to the nation. In a word, a wise and liberal policy, not based
+upon party watchwords and antiquated symbols, but on the prospect of
+seeing Ireland great and united. Now, will Martin come to our aid in
+this wise? He ought to be in Parliament for his county. But if he be too
+indolent, or too happy at home, whom can he send us? And again, what of
+the borough? They tell me that Kilcock, seeing his father's great age,
+will not stand where a contest might be expected, so that you must
+necessarily be prepared with another.”
+
+Again the writer launched out upon the happiness he felt at being able
+to appeal thus candidly and freely to his own “dearest kinswoman,”
+ inviting her to speak as frankly in return, and to believe that no
+possible difference of political opinion should ever throw a coldness
+between those whose veins were filled with the same blood, and whose
+hearts throbbed with the same affections. Her Ladyship's voice slightly
+faltered as she read out the concluding paragraph, and when she laid the
+letter down, she turned away her head and moved her handkerchief to her
+eyes.
+
+As for Martin, he sat still and motionless, his gaze firmly directed
+to Repton, as though seeking in the impassive lines of the old lawyer's
+face for some clew to guide and direct him.
+
+“You used to be a Tory, Martin?” said Repton, after a pause.
+
+“Yes, to be sure, we were always with that party.”
+
+“Well, there's an end of them now,” said the other. “What's to follow
+and fill their place, my Lord Reckington may be able to say; I cannot.
+I only know that _they_ exist no longer; and the great question for
+you--at least, one of the great questions--is, have you spirit enough to
+join a travelling party without knowing whither they 're journeying?”
+
+“And what may be the other great question, sir?” asked Lady Dorothea,
+haughtily.
+
+“The other is, what will it cost in money--ay, my Lady, in money;
+because any other outlay will not require searches nor title-deeds,
+loans, mortgages, nor bond-debts.”
+
+“To contest the county would cost ten thousand pounds; Scanlan says so,”
+ rejoined Martin.
+
+“And the borough?” asked Repton.
+
+“A few hundreds would suffice; at least, they have done so hitherto.”
+
+“Then remain content with the cheap luxury of the borough,” said Repton.
+“You don't want anything from these people, Martin. You don't covet a
+peerage; you would n't accept a baronetcy. You remember what Langton
+said when told that the King was going to give him the 'Red Hand.' 'If I
+have been unfortunate enough to incur his Majesty's displeasure, I must
+deplore it deeply; but surely my innocent son should not be included
+in the penalty of my offence. Therefore, in all humility, I beseech and
+entreat the royal favor to commute the sentence into knighthood, so that
+the disgrace may die with me.'”
+
+“There were times when such insolence would have cost him dearly,” said
+her Ladyship, sternly.
+
+“I am not sorry that we don't live in them, my Lady,” replied Repton.
+“But to return: as I was saying, you ask for no favors; why should
+you expend ten or fifteen thousand pounds to advocate views of whose
+tendencies you know nothing, and principles whose very meaning you are
+in ignorance of?”
+
+“I anticipated every word of this,” said Lady Dorothea. “I told Mr.
+Martin, this morning, almost literally, the exact advice you'd proffer.”
+
+“I am proud that your Ladyship should have read me so justly,” said
+Repton, bowing.
+
+An insolent toss of her head was the significant answer to this speech.
+
+“But were I to speak my mind more candidly, I 'd even say, let the
+borough go after the county; and for this plain reason,” said Repton,
+speaking with increased firmness and animation, “you neither seek
+for the ambition of political life, nor want to make a trade of its
+casualties.”
+
+“Is it not possible, sir, that we might desire the natural influence
+that should arise out of our station in society and our rank in this
+county?” said Lady Dorothea, proudly.
+
+“And your Ladyship has it, and can never lose it. Having a vote or
+two to throw into a Ministerial division would never repay you for the
+anxieties and cares of contested elections. Ah, my Lady, what do _you_
+care for the small flatteries of London attentions?”
+
+“We should have these, sir, as our right,” broke she in.
+
+“To be sure you would, and much happiness do I hope they would confer,”
+ added he, in a tone only overheard by Martin; then continued aloud: “As
+to the patronage at your disposal, would you take a present of it? Whom
+do you want to make tide-waiters, gaugers, barony-constables, or
+even clerks of the peace? Of all men living, who is so free of hungry
+dependants or poor relations!”
+
+“I must say, sir, that you reduce the question of political support to
+a very intelligible one of material benefit,” said her Ladyship, with a
+sneer; “but, just for argument sake, imagine that there should be such a
+thing as a little principle in the matter.”
+
+“I'm going to that part of the case, my Lady,” said Repton. “Martin is a
+Tory; now, what are the men coming into power? I wish you could tell
+me. Here, for instance, is one of their own journals,”--and he opened
+a newspaper and ran his eye over the columns,--“ay, here it is: 'With
+regard to Ireland, Lord Reckington's appointment as Viceroy is the best
+guarantee that the rights of Irishmen of every persuasion and every
+denomination will be respected.' So far so good;” and he read on in a
+low, humdrum voice for some minutes, till he came to the following: “'No
+privileged class will any longer be tolerated; no exceptional loyalty
+admitted as an excuse for insufferable oppression and tyranny; the
+wishes and benefits of the people--the real people of that country--will
+at length enter into the views of an administration; and Ireland as she
+is,--not the possible Ireland of factious enthusiasts,--be governed by
+men determined to redress her grievances and improve her capacities.'
+Now, Martin, you want no augur to interpret that oracle. They are going
+to rule you by the people; but the people must be represented.
+
+“Now, who represents them? Not the demagogue; he is merely their tool.
+The real representative is the priest; don't laugh, my dear friend, at
+such a shadowy possibility; the thing is nearer than you dream of. No
+administration ever yet tried to govern Ireland except by intimidation.
+The Beresfords were undertakers once, and they did their work very well,
+let me tell you; they advanced their friends and whipped their enemies;
+and what with peerages for one set, and pitched caps for the other, they
+ruled Ireland. Then there came the Orangemen, who rather blundered their
+work; there were too many heads amongst them, and the really clever
+fellows were overborne by brawling, talkative fools, who always had the
+masses with them because they _were_ fools. Still they ruled Ireland.
+They preserved the country to the King's crown; and I say once more,
+that was no small matter. And now we have arrived at a new era; we
+have obtained Emancipation, and must look out for another stamp of
+administrators, and I see nothing for it but the priest. Of course you,
+and every man of your station, sneer at the notion of being dictated
+to by Father Luke, in the greasy leather small-clothes and dirty black
+boots,--only, himself, a cottier once removed, a plant of the
+wild growth of the fields, cultivated, however, in the hotbeds of
+Maynooth,--a forcing-house whose fruits you are yet to taste of! Sneer
+away, Martin; but my name is not Val Repton if those men do not rule
+Ireland yet! Ay, sir, and rule it in such a fashion as your haughty
+Beresfords and Tottenhams, and Tisdalls never dreamed of! They 'll treat
+with the Government on equal terms,--so much, for so much; and, what's
+more, it won't be higgling for a place here, or a peerage there; but
+they'll have the price paid down in hard legislative coin,--Acts of
+Parliament, sir; privileges for themselves and their order, benefits to
+'the Church;' and, when nothing better or more tempting offers, insults
+and slights to their antagonists. You, and all like you, will be passed
+over as if you never existed; the minister will not need you; you'll be
+so many general officers on the retired list, and only remarked when you
+swell the crowd at a levee.”
+
+“So, sir, according to this special prediction of yours, we have nothing
+left us but to live on our estates, enjoy what we can of our fortunes,
+and leave the interests of the nation to those our inferiors in rank,
+station, and property?”
+
+“Such a period as your Ladyship has pictured forth--a little strongly,
+perhaps--is before you. Whether the interval be destined to be long or
+short, will, in great measure, depend upon yourselves.”
+
+“That agrees with what Scanlan said the other day,” said Martin.
+
+“Scanlan!” echoed her Ladyship, with most profound contempt.
+
+“Who is this Scanlan?” asked Repton.
+
+“There he comes to answer for himself,” said Martin. “The fellow drives
+neatly. See how cleverly he swept round that sharp turn! He may be 'at
+fault' about the world of politics; but, _my_ word for it! he is a rare
+judge of a hack.”
+
+“And, now that you suggest it,” said Repton, musingly, “what an
+instinctive shrewdness there is on every subject,--I don't care what it
+is,--about fellows that deal in horse flesh. The practice of buying
+and selling, searching out flaws here, detecting defects there, gives
+a degree of suspectful sharpness in all transactions; besides that,
+really none but a naturally clever fellow ever graduates in the stable.
+You smile, my Lady; but some of our very first men have achieved the
+triumphs of the turf.”
+
+“Shall we have Scanlan in and hear the news?” asked Martin.
+
+“Not here. If you please, you may receive him in the library or your own
+room.”
+
+“Then, come along, Repton. We can resume this affair in the afternoon or
+to-morrow.” And, without waiting for a reply, he passed his arm within
+the other's, and led him away. “You have been too abrupt with her,
+Repton; you have not made due allowances for her attachment to family
+influences,” said he, in a whisper, as they went along.
+
+Repton smiled half contemptuously.
+
+“Oh, it's all very easy for you to laugh, my dear fellow; but, trust me,
+there's nothing to be done with my Lady in that fashion.”
+
+“Turn the flank,--eh?” said the old lawyer, slyly. “Ah, Martin, don't
+teach _me_ how to deal with humanity. If you have not the courage to
+tell your wife that your estate cannot bear fresh encumbrances, new
+loans, and new debts--”
+
+“Hush!” said Martin, cautiously.
+
+“Then, I say, let me prevent the casualty, that's all.”
+
+“How are you, Scanlan?” said Martin, as the attorney came, bowing and
+smiling, forward to pay his respects. “My friend, Mr. Repton, wishes to
+make your acquaintance.”
+
+“I have the honor of being known to Mr. Repton, already, sir, if he has
+not forgotten me.”
+
+“Eh,--how? where?” cried the lawyer, sharply.
+
+“In Reeves _versus_ Dockery, and another, sir, in Hilary, 24. It was _I_
+supplied the instructions--”
+
+“To be sure,--perfectly right. Maurice Scanlan; isn't that the name?
+You did the thing well, sir; and if we failed, we retreated without
+dishonor.”
+
+“That was a grand shot you fired at the Bench, sir, when all was over,”
+ said Scanlan. “I don't suppose they ever got such a complete 'set down'
+before.”
+
+“I forget it,” said Repton, but with a bright twinkle of his eye, which
+more than contradicted his words.
+
+“Then, sir, it's more than their Lordships ever will,” said Scanlan.
+“The Chief Baron it was,” said he, addressing Martin, “that overruled
+every objection made by Counsellor Repton, and at last declared that
+he would n't hear any more citations whatsoever. 'But I have a stronger
+case still, my Lord,' says the Counsellor. 'I 'll not hear it, sir,'
+said the Court. 'It is in Crewe and Fust, Term Reports, page 1,438.'
+
+“'I don't care where it is, sir,' was the answer.
+
+“'In a charge delivered by Lord Eldon--'
+
+“'Oh, let us hear my Lord Eldon,' said Plumridge, the Puisne Judge, who
+was rather ashamed of the Chief Baron's severity. 'Let us hear my Lord
+Eldon.'
+
+“'Here it is, my Lords,' said the Counsellor, opening the volume, and
+laying his hand upon the page,--'Crewe and Fust's Pleas of the Crown,
+page 1,438. My Lord Eldon says, “I may here observe the Courts of Law
+in Ireland are _generally_ wrong! The Court of Exchequer is _always_
+wrong!”'”
+
+Repton tried to smother his own delighted laugh at the reminiscence,
+but all in vain; it burst from him long and joyously; and as he shook
+Scanlan's hand, he said, “The incident loses nothing by your telling,
+sir; you have done it admirable justice.”
+
+“You make me very proud, indeed, Counsellor,” said Scanlan, who really
+did look overjoyed at the speech.
+
+“Have you any news for us, Scanlan?” said Martin, as they entered the
+library.
+
+“Yes, sir; the Ministry is out.”
+
+“We know that already, man!”
+
+“And the Marquis of Reckington comes here as Lord-Lieutenant.”
+
+“That we know also.”
+
+“Colonel Massingbred to be Chief Sec--”
+
+“Moore Massingbred!” cried both, in a breath.
+
+“Yes, sir; he that was a Treasury Lord.”
+
+“Are you quite sure of this, Scanlan?” asked Martin.
+
+“I had it from Groves, sir, at the Castle, yesterday morning, who told
+me there would be an immediate dissolution, and showed me a list of
+Government candidates.”
+
+“You may talk them all over together, then,” said Martin, “for I 'm
+heartily tired of politics this morning.” And so saying, he left them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. A STUDIO
+
+It is one of the most inestimable privileges of Art, that amidst all the
+cares and contentions of the world, amidst strife and war and carnage,
+its glorious realm is undisturbed, its peace unbroken, and its followers
+free to follow their own wayward fancies, without let or hindrance.
+Your great practical intelligences, your men of committees and corn and
+railroads and ship-canals, sneer at the fictitious life--for so does
+it seem to them--of the mere painter or musician. They have a sort of
+pitying estimate for capacities only exercised upon the ideal, and look
+down with a very palpable contempt upon those whose world is a gallery
+or an orchestra. After all, this division of labor is a wise and happy
+provision, carrying with it many and varied benefits, and making of that
+strange edifice of mankind a far more pleasing and harmonious structure
+than we should otherwise have seen it. The imagination is to the actual,
+in the world of active life, what flowers are to nutritious herbs
+and roots. It is the influence that adorns, elevates, and embellishes
+existence. That such gifts have been confided to certain individuals
+is in itself a sufficient evidence, just as we see in the existence
+of flowers that pleasure has its place assigned in the grand scheme of
+creation, and that the happiness which flows from gratified sense has
+not been denied us.
+
+In that petty world which lived beneath the roof of Cro' Martin Castle,
+all the eager passions and excitements of political intrigue were now
+at work. My lady was full of plans for future greatness; Repton was
+scheming and suggesting, and thwarting everybody in turn; and even
+Martin himself, engulfed in the “Maelstrom” of the crisis, was roused
+into a state of semi-preparation that amounted to a condition of almost
+fever. As for Massingbred, whatever he really did feel, his manner
+affected a most consummate indifference to all that went forward; nor
+did the mention of his father's appointment to high office elicit from
+him anything beyond a somewhat contemptuous opinion of the new party
+in power. While, therefore, secret counsels were held, letters read
+and written, conferences conducted in every room, one little space was
+devoid of all these embarrassments and anxieties, and that was an oval
+chamber, lighted from the top, and originally destined for a summer
+ball-room, but now appropriated to Mr. Crow's use for the completion of
+the Grand Historical, which had lately been transferred from Kilkieran
+to its place there.
+
+The unlucky masterpiece was doomed to many a difficulty. The great
+events in prospect had totally banished all thought of “art” from Lady
+Dorothea's mind. The fall of a recent administration was a far more
+imminent circumstance than the abdication of a king a few centuries
+back. Martin, of course, had enough on his head, without the cares of
+mock royalty. Mary was overwhelmed with occupations. The floods and
+a threatened famine were casualties not to be overlooked; and she was
+absent every day from dawn to late night; while, to complete the list
+of defaulters, young Nelligan--the future Prince of Orange of the
+picture--was gone!
+
+Men deplore their past youth, their bygone buoyancy of heart, their old
+loves and extinct friendships; but of all departed pleasures, there is a
+peculiar poignancy about one, and that is an artist's grief over a “lost
+sitter.” You ladies and gentlemen whose thumbs have never closed on
+a palette, nor whose fingers have never felt the soft influence of
+varnish, may smile at such a sorrow, but take my word for it, it is a
+real and tangible affliction.
+
+The waving locks, the noble brow; the deep square orbits, and the finely
+cut chin are but the subtle suggestions out of which inspirations are
+begotten, and poetic visions nurtured. The graceful bearing and the
+noble port, the tender melancholy or the buoyant gladness, have each
+in turn struck some chord of secret feeling in the artist's breast,
+revealing to him new ideas of beauty, and imparting that creative power
+which displays itself in new combinations.
+
+Poor Simmy Crow was not a Titian nor a Vandyke, but unhappily the
+sorrows of genius are very often experienced by those who are not gifted
+with its greatness; and the humble aspirant of excellence can catch
+every malady to which the triumphant in all the wild enthusiasm of his
+powers is exposed. He sat down before his canvas, as some general might
+before a fortified town which had resisted all his efforts of attack. He
+was depressed and discouraged.
+
+The upper part of the young student's head was already half finished,
+and there was enough done to impart a kind of promise of success,--that
+glorious vista which opens itself so often in imagination to those whose
+world is but their own fancy. He half thought he could finish it from
+memory; but before he had proceeded many minutes, he laid down the
+brush in despair. It seemed like a fatality that something must always
+interpose to bar the road to success. One time it was sickness, then
+it was poverty; a disparaging criticism had even done it; and now, when
+none of these threatened, there arose a new impediment. “Ah! Simmy,
+Simmy,” he exclaimed aloud, “you were born under an unkindly planet.
+That's the secret of it all!”
+
+“I confess I cannot concur in that opinion,” said a low, soft voice
+behind him. He started up, and beheld Kate Henderson, who, leaning
+on the back of a chair, continued to gaze steadfastly at the canvas,
+perfectly regardless of his astonishment. “There is a great deal to
+admire in that picture!” said she, as though talking to herself.
+
+Simmy crept stealthily back, and stationed himself behind her, as if to
+hear her remarks, while viewing the picture from the same point.
+
+“You have grouped your figures admirably,” continued she, now addressing
+him, “and your management of the light shows a study of Rembrandt.”
+
+“Very true, ma'am--miss, I mean. I have copied nearly all his great
+pieces.”
+
+“And the drapery--that robe of the King's--tells me that you have
+studied another great master of color--am I right, sir, in saying Paul
+Veronese?”
+
+Simmy Crow's face glowed till it became crimson, while his eyes sparkled
+with intense delight.
+
+“Oh, dear me!” he exclaimed, “is n't it too much happiness to hear this?
+and only a minute ago I was in black despair!”
+
+“Mine is very humble criticism, sir; but as I have seen good pictures--”
+
+“Where? In the galleries abroad?” broke in Crow, hurriedly.
+
+“All over Germany and Italy. I travelled with those who really cared
+for and understood art. But to come back to yours--that head is a noble
+study.”
+
+“And that's exactly what I'm grieving over,--he's gone.”
+
+“Young Mr. Nelligan?”
+
+“Himself. He started this morning for Oughterard.”
+
+“But probably to return in a day or two.”
+
+Crow looked stealthily around to see if he were not likely to be
+overheard, and then, approaching Kate, said in a whisper,--
+
+“I don't think he 'll ever cross the doors again.”
+
+“How so? has he received any offence?”
+
+“I can't make out what it is,” said Simmy, with a puzzled look, “but he
+came to my room late last night, and sat down without saying a word; and
+at last, when I questioned him if he were ill, he said suddenly,--
+
+“'Have you found, Mr. Crow, that in your career as an artist, you have
+been able to withdraw yourself sufficiently from the ordinary events
+of life as to make up a little world of your own, wherein you lived
+indifferent to passing incidents?'
+
+“'Yes,' said I, 'I have, whenever I was doing anything really worth the
+name.'
+
+“'And at such times,' said he, again, 'you cared nothing, or next to
+nothing, for either the flatteries or the sarcasms of those around you?”
+
+“'I could n't mind them,' said I, 'for I never so much as heard them.'
+
+“'Exactly what I mean,' said he, rapidly. 'Intent upon higher ambitions,
+you were above the petty slights of malice or envy, and with your
+own goal before you, were steeled against the minor casualties of the
+journey. Then why should not I also enjoy the immunity? Can I not summon
+to my aid a pride like this, or am I to be discouraged and disgraced to
+my own heart by a mere impertinence?'
+
+“I stared at him, not guessing what he could mean.
+
+“'Rather quit the spot with which it is associated,--quit it forever,'
+muttered he to himself, as he paced the room, while his face grew
+deathly pale.
+
+“'As for me,' said I, for I wanted to say something--anything, in
+short--just to take his attention a little off of himself, 'whenever the
+world goes hard with me, I just step into my studio, lock the door, and
+sit down before a fresh canvas. I throw in a bit of brown, with a dash
+of bluish gray over it,--half sky, half atmosphere,--and I daub away
+till something like an effect--maybe a sunset, maybe a sullen-looking
+seashore, maybe a long, low prairie swell--rises before me. I don't try
+for details, I don't even trace an outline, but just throw in an effect
+here and there, and by good luck it often comes right, in some fine
+harmony of color, that's sure to warm up my heart and cheer my spirits;
+for, as there are sounds that, swelling up, fill the whole nature of man
+with ecstasy, there are combinations of color and tint that enter the
+brain by the eye, and just produce the same sense of delight.'”
+
+“And how did he accept your consolation?” asked she, smiling
+good-naturedly.
+
+“I don't well know if he listened to me,” said Simmy, sorrowfully; “for
+all he said afterwards was,--
+
+“'Well, Mr. Crow, good-bye. I hope you 'll come to see me when you visit
+Dublin. You 'll easily find out my chambers in the college.'
+
+“Of course I said, 'I'd be delighted;' and there we parted.”
+
+“Poor fellow!” said Kate, but in an accent so peculiar it would have
+been very difficult to pronounce whether the words were of kindness or
+of disparagement.
+
+“And your Prince, Mr. Crow?” said she, changing her tone to one of real
+or affected interest; “what's to be done now that Mr. Nelligan has left
+us?”
+
+“I'm thinking of making a background figure of him, miss,” said Simmy.
+“Burnt sienna reduces many an illustrious individual to an obscure
+position.”
+
+“But why not ask Mr. Massingbred to take his place--you've seen him?”
+
+“Only passing the window, miss. He is a handsome young man, but that
+same look of fashion, the dash of style about him, is exactly what
+destroys the face for _me_, I feel I could make nothing of it; I 'd
+be always thinking of him standing inside the plate-glass window of a
+London club, or cantering along the alleys of the Park, or sipping his
+iced lemonade at Tortoni's. There's no poetizing your man of gold chains
+and embroidered waistcoats!”
+
+“I half suspect you are unjust in this case,” said she, with one of her
+dubious smiles.
+
+“I'm only saying what the effect is upon myself, miss,” said Crow.
+
+“But why not make a compromise between the two?” said she. “I believe
+the great painters--Vandyke, certainly--rarely took the studies from a
+single head. They caught a brow here, and a mouth there, harmonizing the
+details by the suggestions of their own genius. Now, what if, preserving
+all this here,”--and she pointed to the head and eyes,--“you were to
+fill up the remainder, partly from imagination, partly from a study.”
+ And as she spoke she took the brush from his hand, and by a few light
+and careless touches imparted a new character to the face.
+
+“Oh, go on! that's admirable,--that's glorious!” exclaimed Crow, wild
+with delight.
+
+[Illustration: 276]
+
+“There is no necessity to lose the expression of haughty sorrow in the
+eye and brow,” continued she; “nor does it interfere with the passing
+emotion he may be supposed unable to control, of proud contempt for that
+priestly influence which has dominated over the ambition of a king.”
+ And now, as though carried away by the theme, she continued to paint as
+rapidly as she spoke, while Crow busied himself in preparing the colors
+upon the palette.
+
+“My hardihood is only intended to encourage you, Mr. Crow,” said she,
+“by showing that if one like me can point the road, the journey need not
+be deemed a difficult one.” As she retired some paces to contemplate the
+picture, she casually glanced through a low glass door which opened upon
+the lawn, and where, under the shelter of a leafy beech, a young country
+girl was standing; her blue cloth cloak, with the hood thrown over her
+head, gave a certain picturesque character to the figure, which nearer
+inspection more than confirmed, for her features were singularly fine,
+and her large, soft blue eyes beamed with a gentle earnestness that
+showed Kate she was there with a purpose.
+
+Opening the door at once, Kate Henderson approached her, and asked what
+she wanted.
+
+With an air of half pride, half shame, the country girl drew herself up,
+and stared full and steadfastly at the speaker, and so continued till
+Kate repeated her question.
+
+“Sure you're not Miss Mary?” replied she, by questioning her in turn.
+
+“No, but if I can be of any use to you--”
+
+“I don't think you can,” broke she in, with a manner almost haughty;
+“it's somebody else I 'm wanting.”
+
+“If you wish to see Miss Martin, I 'll go and fetch her,” said Kate.
+
+“I did n't say it was her I wanted to see,” replied she, with a calm and
+almost severe composure.
+
+“Maybe her Ladyship?” asked Kate, far more interested than repelled by
+the other's manner.
+
+“It's none of them at all,” rejoined she. “I came here to speak to one
+that I know myself,” added she, after a long pause; “and if he isn't
+gone, I want to see him.”
+
+“Oh, I think I can guess now,” said Kate, smiling. “It is the Counsellor
+from Dublin, Mr. Repton.”
+
+“It is no such thing,” said the girl, promptly.
+
+“Then it must be Mr. Crow, here.”
+
+An indignant toss of the head gave the negative to this surmise.
+
+“I have gone through all our names here,” said Kate; “and except Mr.
+Massingbred--”
+
+“And there's the very one I want,” said the girl, boldly.
+
+“Step in here and rest yourself, and I 'll send for him,” said Kate; and
+with such persuasive courtesy were the words uttered, that almost, as it
+seemed, against her very will the girl followed her into the studio
+and sat down. While Mr. Crow proceeded in search of Massingbred, Kate
+Henderson, resuming brush and palette, returned to her painting; not,
+however, on the grand canvas of the “Historical,” but dexterously
+interposing a piece of fresh board, she seized the opportunity to sketch
+the beautiful head then before her, while occupying the girl's attention
+with the objects around.
+
+Notwithstanding her intense astonishment at all she saw, the country
+girl never uttered a word, nor vouchsafed a single question as to the
+paintings; she even tried to moderate the eager pleasure they afforded
+by an endeavor not to admire them. Touched by the native pride of this
+struggle,--for struggle it was,--the features had assumed a look of
+haughty composure that well became the character of her beauty, and
+Kate caught up the expression so rapidly that her sketch was already
+well-nigh completed when Massing-bred entered.
+
+“My dear Mistress Joan,” cried he, shaking her cordially by both hands,
+“how glad I am to see you again! It was but this very moment I was
+inquiring how I could go over and pay you a visit.”
+
+Hurriedly as these words were uttered, and in all the apparent fervor
+of hearty sincerity, they were accompanied by a short glance at Kate
+Henderson, who was about to leave the room, that plainly said, “Remain
+where you are, there is no mystery here.”
+
+“I thank yer honer kindly,” said Joan Landy, “but it's no good coming,
+he is n't there.”
+
+“Not there!--how and why is that?”
+
+“Sure _you_ ought to know better than me,” said she, fixing her large
+eyes full upon him. “Ye left the house together, and _he_ never came
+back since.”
+
+“Oh, perhaps I can guess,” said Jack, pausing for a moment to reflect.
+“He might have deemed it safer to keep out of the way for a day or two.”
+
+“It's no good deceivin' me, sir,” said she, rising from her seat; “tell
+me the whole truth. Where is he?”
+
+“That is really more than I can say, my dear Mistress Joan. We parted in
+Oughterard.”
+
+“And you never saw him after?”
+
+“Never, I assure you.”
+
+“And you never tried to see him?--you never asked what became of him?”
+
+“I concluded, indeed I was certain, that he returned home,” said Jack,
+but not without some confusion.
+
+“Ay, that was enough for you,” said she, angrily. “If you were a poor
+labor in' man, you 'd not desert him that had you under his roof and
+gave you the best he had; but because ye 're a gentleman--”
+
+“It is precisely for that reason I can't suffer you to think so meanly
+of me,” cried Jack. “Now just hear me for one moment, and you'll see how
+unjust you've been.” And, drawing his chair closer to hers, he narrated
+in a low and whispering voice the few events of their morning at
+Oughterard, and read for her the short note Magennis had written to him.
+
+“And is that all?” exclaimed Joan, when he concluded.
+
+“All, upon my honor!” said he, solemnly.
+
+“Oh, then, wirra! wirra!” said she, wringing her hands sorrowfully, “why
+did I come here?--why did n't I bear it all patient? But sure my heart
+was bursting, and I could not rest nor sleep, thinking of what happened
+to him! Oh, yer honer knows well what he is to _me!_” And she covered
+her face with her hands.
+
+“You have done nothing wrong in coming here,” said Jack, consolingly.
+
+“Not if he never hears of it,” said she, in a voice tremulous with fear.
+
+“That he need never do,” rejoined Jack; “though I cannot see why he
+should object to it. But come, Mrs. Joan, don't let this fret you;
+here's a young lady will tell you, as I have, that nobody could possibly
+blame your natural anxiety.”
+
+“What would a young lady know about a poor creature like _me?_”
+ exclaimed Joan, dejectedly. “Sure, from the day she's born, she never
+felt what it was to be all alone and friendless!”
+
+“You little guess to whom you say that,” said Kate, turning round and
+gazing on her calmly; “but if the balance were struck this minute, take
+my word for it, you 'd have the better share of fortune.”
+
+Jack Massingbred's cheek quivered slightly as he heard these words,
+and his eyes were bent upon the speaker with an intense meaning. Kate,
+however, turned haughtily away from the gaze, and coldly reminded him
+that Mrs. Joan should have some refreshment after her long walk.
+
+“No, miss,--no, yer honer; many thanks for the same,” said Joan, drawing
+her cloak around her. “I couldn't eat a bit; my heart's heavy inside me.
+I 'll go back now.”
+
+Kate tried to persuade her to take something, or, at least, to rest a
+little longer; but she was resolute, and eager to return.
+
+“Shall we bear you company part of the way, then?” said Jack, with a
+look of half entreaty towards Kate.
+
+“I shall be but too happy,” said Kate, while she turned the nearly
+completed sketch to the wall, but not so rapidly as to prevent
+Massingbred's catching a glimpse of it.
+
+“How like!” exclaimed he, but only in a whisper audible to himself. “I
+didn't know that this also was one of your accomplishments.”
+
+A little laugh and a saucy motion of her head was all her reply, while
+she went in search of her bonnet and shawl. She was back again in a
+moment, and the three now issued forth into the wood.
+
+For all Jack Massingbred's boasted “tact,” and his assumed power of
+suiting himself to his company, he felt very ill at ease as he walked
+along that morning. “His world” was not that of the poor country girl at
+his side, and he essayed in vain to find some topic to interest her. Not
+so Kate Henderson. With all a woman's nice perception, and quite without
+effort, she talked to Joan about the country and the people, of whose
+habits she knew sufficient not to betray ignorance; and although Joan
+felt at times a half-suspicious distrust of her, she grew at length to
+be pleased with the tone of easy familiarity used towards her, and the
+absence of anything bordering on superiority.
+
+Joan, whose instincts and sympathies were all with the humble class from
+which she sprung, described in touching language the suffering condition
+of the people, the terrible struggle against destitution maintained for
+years, and daily becoming more difficult and hopeless. It was like a
+shipwrecked crew reduced to quarter-rations, and now about to relinquish
+even these!
+
+“And they are patient under all this?” asked Kate, with that peculiar
+accent so difficult to pronounce its meaning.
+
+“They are, indeed, miss,” was the answer.
+
+“Have they any hope? What do they promise themselves as the remedy for
+these calamities?”
+
+“Sorrow one of 'em knows,” said she, with a sigh. “Some goes away to
+America, some sinks slowly under it, and waits for God's time to leave
+the world; and a few--but very few--gets roused to anger, and does
+something to be transported or put in jail.”
+
+“And Miss Martin,--does she not relieve a good deal of this misery? Is
+she not of immense benefit by her exertions here?”
+
+“Arrah, what can a young lady do, after all? Sure it's always them that
+talks most and best gets over her. Some are ashamed, and some are too
+proud to tell what they 're suffering; and I believe in my heart, for
+one that 's relieved there are twenty more angry at seeing how lucky he
+was.”
+
+They walked along now for some time in silence, when Joan, stopping
+short, said, “There's the house, miss; that's the place I live in.”
+
+“That house far away on the mountain side?”
+
+“Yes, miss; it's four miles yet from this.”
+
+“But surely you haven't to walk all that way?”
+
+“What signifies it? Is n't my heart lighter than when I came along this
+morning? And now I won't let you come any farther, for I'll take a short
+cut here across the fields.”
+
+“May I go and see you one of these days?” asked Kate.
+
+Joan grew crimson to the very roots of her hair, and turned a look on
+Massingbred, as though to say, “You ought to answer this for me.” But
+Jack was too deep in his own thoughts even to notice the appeal.
+
+“I can scarcely ask _you_ to come to _me_,” said Kate, quickly
+perceiving a difficulty, “for I 'm not even a visitor at Cro' Martin.”
+
+“I 'm sure I hope it 's not the last time we 'll meet, miss; but
+maybe,”--she faltered, and a heavy tear burst forth, and rolled slowly
+along her cheek,--“maybe you oughtn't to come and see me.”
+
+Kate pressed her hand affectionately, without speaking, and they parted.
+
+“Is Joan gone?” asked Massingbred, raising his head from an attitude of
+deep revery. “When did she leave us?”
+
+“There she goes yonder,” said Kate, pointing. “I fear me her spirits are
+not as light as her footsteps. Are her people very poor?”
+
+“Her father was a herd, I believe,” said he, carelessly; “but she does
+n't live at home.”
+
+“Is she married, then?”
+
+“I 'm not sure that she is; but at least she believes that she is.”
+
+“Poor thing!” said Kate, calmly, while, folding her arms, she continued
+to gaze after the departing figure of the country girl. “Poor thing!”
+ repeated she once more, and turned to walk homewards.
+
+Massingbred fixed his eyes upon her keenly as she uttered the words; few
+and simple as they were, they seemed to reveal to him something of
+the nature of her who spoke them. A mere exclamation--a syllable--will
+sometimes convey “whole worlds of secret thought and feeling,” and it
+was evidently thus that Massingbred interpreted this brief expression.
+“There was nothing of scorn in that pity,” thought he. “I wish she had
+uttered even one word more! She is a strange creature!”
+
+And it was thus speaking to himself that he walked along at her side.
+
+“This wild and desolate scene is not very like that of which we talked
+the other night,--when first we met,--Miss Henderson.”
+
+“You forget that we never met,” said she, calmly.
+
+“True, and yet there was a link between us even in those few flowers
+thrown at random.”
+
+“Don't be romantic, Mr. Massingbred; do not, I pray you,” said she,
+smiling faintly. “You _know_ it's not your style, while it would be
+utterly thrown away upon _me_, I am aware that fine gentlemen of your
+stamp deem this the fitting tone to assume towards 'the governess;' but
+I 'm really unworthy of it.”
+
+“What a strange girl you are!” said he, half thinking aloud.
+
+“On the contrary, how very commonplace!” said she, hastily.
+
+“Do you like this country?” asked Massingbred, with an imitation of her
+own abrupt manner.
+
+“No,” said she, shortly.
+
+“Nor the people?”
+
+“Nor the people!” was the answer.
+
+“And is your life to be passed amongst them?”
+
+“Perhaps,” said she, with a slight gesture of her shoulders. “Don't you
+know, Mr. Massingbred,” added she, with more energy, “that a woman has
+no more power to shape her destiny than a leaf has to choose where it
+will fall? If I were a man,--you, for instance,--I would think and act
+differently.”
+
+“I should like to hear what you would do if in my place,” said Jack,
+with a degree of deep interest in the remark.
+
+“To begin, I'll tell you what I would not do,” said she, firmly. “I 'd
+not waste very good abilities on very small objects; I 'd neither have
+small ambitions nor small animosities. You have both.”
+
+“As how?” asked he, frankly, and with no touch of irritation.
+
+“Am I to be candid?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“Even to rudeness?”
+
+“Cut as deeply as you like,” said he, smiling.
+
+“Then here goes: For the 'small ambition' I speak of, it was displayed
+yesterday at dinner, when, in rivalry with that old lawyer, you
+condescended to play agreeable, to out-talk him, out-quote, and
+out-anecdote him. It is true you succeeded; but what a poor success it
+was! how inadequate to the forces that were mustered to effect it!”
+
+“And now for the other count of the indictment,” said he, with a half
+smile.
+
+“First, do you plead guilty to this one?” asked she.
+
+“Yes; with an 'extenuating circumstance.'”
+
+“What is that?”
+
+“Why, that _you_ were present,” said Jack, with a glance of more than
+mere passing gallantry.
+
+“Well,” said she, after a pause, “I _did_ take some of the display to
+my own share. I saw that you did n't care to captivate the young lady of
+the house, and that my Lady bored you.”
+
+“Insufferably!” exclaimed Jack, with energy.
+
+“Your manner showed it,” said she, “even more than such polish ought to
+have betrayed.”
+
+“But I 'm sure I never exhibited any signs of my martyrdom,” said he; “I
+stood my torture well.”
+
+“Not half so heroically as you fancied I noticed your weariness before
+the dinner was half over, as I detected your splenetic dislike to young
+Mr. Nelligan--”
+
+“To young Nelligan?--then he has told you--”
+
+“Stop,--be cautious,” broke she in, hurriedly; “don't turn evidence
+against yourself. _He_ has told me nothing.”
+
+“Then what do you know?”
+
+“Nothing; I only surmise.”
+
+“And what is your surmise?”
+
+“That he and you had met before,--that you had even been intimate,--and
+now, from some misunderstanding, you had ceased to be friends. Mind, I
+don't want confessions; I don't seek to learn your secrets.”
+
+“But you shall hear this from me,” said Massingbred, with earnestness;
+“and perhaps you, so ready to blame me for some things, may see reason
+to think well of me in this.” He then related, briefly, but simply,
+the history of his acquaintance with Nelligan; he dwelt, not without
+feeling, upon the passages of their student-life, and at last spoke of
+his chance visit to Oughterard, and the accident by which he became old
+Nelligan's guest. “What can you make of Joseph's conduct,” cried he;
+“or how explain his refusal to meet me at his father's table? One of two
+reasons there must be. He either discredits me in the character of his
+friend, or shrinks, with an ignoble shame, from appearing there in his
+real position,--the son of the country shopkeeper! I scarcely know if I
+'d not prefer he should have been actuated by the former motive; though
+more offensive to me, in _him_ it were more manly.”
+
+“Why not have asked him which alternative he accepted?” asked Kate.
+
+“Because the opportunity to wound him deeply--incurably--first presented
+itself. I knew well that nothing would hurt him like the cool assumption
+of not recognizing him, and I determined not to lose my vengeance.”
+
+“I'm a woman,” said Kate, “and I'd not have stooped to _that!_”
+
+It was rarely that Massingbred's emotions gave any evidence of their
+working; but now his cheek grew crimson, as he said, “A man can only
+measure a man's indignation.”
+
+“You are angry without cause,” said she, calmly; “you wish me to
+pronounce a verdict on an act, and are displeased because I think
+differently from you. How right I was in my guess that small animosities
+were amongst your failings! You seek now to quarrel with _me!_”
+
+Massingbred walked along for some moments without speaking, and then
+said, “You knew Nelligan formerly?”
+
+“Yes, we were playfellows together as children; lovers, I believe, a
+little later on--”
+
+“And now?” broke he in.
+
+“And now very good friends, as the world uses that phrase. At all
+events,” added she, after a brief pause, “enough his friend to be able
+to say that you have wronged him by your suspicions. Joe Nelligan--or
+I'm much mistaken--may feel the inequality of his position as a
+something to overcome, a barrier to be surmounted; not as a disability
+to contest the prizes of life even with such as Mr. Massingbred.”
+
+“It is _you_ now would quarrel with _me_,” said Jack, retorting her own
+words upon her. “And yet,” he added, in a lower tone, “I would wish to
+have you my friend.”
+
+“So you can, upon one condition,” replied she, promptly.
+
+“I accept, whatever it be. Name it.”
+
+“That you be your own friend; that you address yourself to the business
+of life seriously and steadily, resolving to employ your abilities as a
+means of advancement, not as a mere instrument for amusement; determine,
+in fact, to be something besides a _dilettante_ and an idler.”
+
+“Is it a bargain, then, if I do this?” asked he, eagerly.
+
+“Yes; I promise you the high and mighty boon of _my_ friendship,”
+ replied she, with mock solemnity.
+
+“And so we seal our contract,” said he, pressing her hand to his lips,
+but with an air of such respectful gallantry that the action implied
+nothing bordering on a liberty.
+
+“And now I leave you,” said she, as she opened the wicket-gate of a
+small flower-garden; “such conferences as ours must not be repeated,
+or they might be remarked upon. Good-bye.” And without waiting for his
+reply, she passed on into the garden, while Massingbred stood gazing
+after her silently and thoughtfully.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. AN ELECTION ADDRESS
+
+“Am I behind time, Mr. Massingbred?” said Kate Henderson, as she entered
+the library, about a week after the events we have last recorded,--“am
+I behind time?” said she, approaching a table where the young man sat
+surrounded with a mass of letters and papers.
+
+“Not very much,” said he, rising, and placing a chair for her; “and I
+take it for granted you came as soon as you could.”
+
+“Yes; I have finished my morning's reading for her Ladyship, noted her
+letters, answered the official portion of her correspondence, talked
+the newspaper for Mr. Martin, hummed a singing lesson for Miss Mary,
+listened to a grand jury story of Mr. Repton; and now, that they are all
+off to their several destinations, here I am, very much at the service
+of Mr. Massingbred.”
+
+“Who never needed counsel more than at this moment!” said Jack, running
+his hands distractedly through his hair. “That 's from my father!” added
+he, handing her a letter with a portentous-looking seal attached to it.
+
+“What a fine bold hand, and how easy to read!” said she, perusing it.
+Jack watched her narrowly while she read; but on her calm impassive face
+not a line nor a lineament betrayed emotion.
+
+“It is, then, an English borough he recommends,” said she, laying it
+down; “and I suppose, looking to an official career, he is quite right.
+The 'No Irish need apply' might be inscribed over Downing Street; but is
+that altogether your view?”
+
+“I scarcely know what I project as yet,” said he. “I have no career!”
+
+
+“Well, let us plan one,” replied she, crossing her arms on the table,
+and speaking with increased earnestness. “The Martins have offered you
+Oughterard--” He nodded, and she went on: “And, as I understand it, very
+much on _your_ own conditions?”
+
+“That is to say, I'm not to damage the Tories more than I can help, nor
+to help the Radicals more than I must.”
+
+“Is there any designation for the party you will thus belong to?” asked
+she.
+
+“I 'm not exactly sure that there is; perhaps they 'd call me a Moderate
+Whig.”
+
+“That sounds very nice and commonplace, but I don't like it. These are
+not times for moderation; nor would the part suit _you!_”
+
+“You think so?”
+
+“I'm certain of it. You have n't got habits of discipline to serve with
+a regular corps; to do anything, or be anything, you must command a
+partisan legion--”
+
+“You're right there; I know that,” broke he in.
+
+“I don't mean it as flattery, but rather something a little bordering on
+the reverse,” said she, fixing her eyes steadfastly on him; “for, after
+all, there is no great success--I mean, no towering success--to be
+achieved by such a line; but as I feel that you 'll not work--”
+
+“No; of that be assured!”
+
+“Then there are only secondary rewards to be won.”
+
+“You certainly do not overestimate me!” said Jack, trying to seem
+perfectly indifferent.
+
+“I have no desire to underrate your abilities,” said she, calmly; “they
+are very good ones. You have great fluency,--great 'variety,' as Grattan
+would call it,--an excellent memory, and a most amiable
+self-possession.”
+
+“By Jove!” said he, reddening slightly, “you enumerate my little gifts
+with all the accuracy of an appraiser!”
+
+“Then,” resumed she, not heeding his interruption, “you have abundance
+of what is vulgarly styled 'pluck,' and which is to courage what
+_esprit_ is to actual wit; and, lastly, you are a proficient in that
+readiness which the world always accepts for frankness.”
+
+“You were right to say that you intended no flattery!” said he, with an
+effort to laugh.
+
+“I want to be truthful,” rejoined she, calmly. “No praise
+of mine--however high it soared, or however lavishly it was
+squandered--could possibly raise you in your own esteem. The governess
+may perform the part of the slave in the triumphal chariot, but could
+not aspire to put the crown on the conqueror!”
+
+“But I have not conquered!” said Jack.
+
+“You may, whenever you enter the lists; you must, indeed, if you only
+care to do so. Go in for an Irish borough,” said she, with renewed
+animation. “Arm yourself with all the popular grievances; there is just
+faction enough left to last _your_ time. Discuss them in your own way,
+and my word for it, but you 'll succeed. It will be such a boon to the
+House to hear a gentlemanlike tone on questions which have always been
+treated in coarser guise. For a while you 'll have no imitators, and can
+sneer at the gentry and extol the 'people' without a competitor. Now
+and then, too, you can assail the Treasury benches, where your father
+is sitting; and nothing will so redound to your character for
+independence.”
+
+“Why, where, in Heaven's name,” cried Jack, “have you got up all this?
+What and how do you know anything of party and politics?”
+
+“Have I not been studying 'Hansard' and the files of the 'Times' for
+the last week by your directions? Have I not read lives of all the
+illustrious prosers you gave me to look through? And is it very
+wonderful if I have learned some of the secrets of this success, or
+that I should 'get up' my 'politics' as rapidly as you can your
+'principles'?”
+
+“I wish I was even sure that I had done so,” said Jack, laughing; “for
+this same address is puzzling me sadly! Now here, for instance,” and
+he read aloud: “'While steadfastly upholding the rights of property,
+determined to maintain in all their integrity the more sacred rights of
+conscience--'Now just tell me, what do you understand by that?”
+
+“That rents must be paid,--occasionally, at least; but that you hope to
+pull down the Established Church!”
+
+“Well, come,” said he, “the thing will perhaps do!”
+
+“I don't much like all this about 'the Palladium of the British
+Constitution, and the unbroken bulwark of our dearest liberties.' We are
+in Ireland, remember, where we care no more for your Palladium--if we
+ever knew what it meant--than we do for the 'Grand Lama.' A slight
+dash of what is called 'nationality' would be better; very vague, very
+shadowy, of course. Bear in mind what Lady Dorothea told us last night
+about the charm of the king's bow. Everybody thought it specially meant
+for himself; it strikes me that something of this sort should pervade an
+election address.”
+
+“I wish to Heaven you 'd write it, then,” said Jack, placing a pen in
+her fingers.
+
+“Something in this fashion,” said she, while her hands traced the lines
+rapidly on the paper:--
+
+“'Finding that a new era is about to dawn in the political state of
+Ireland, when the consequences of late legislation will engender new
+conditions and relations, I present myself before you to solicit
+the honor of your suffrages, a perfect stranger to your town, but no
+stranger to the wants and necessities of that nationality which now, for
+the first time for centuries, is about to receive its due development.'
+
+“Or this, if you prefer it,” said she, writing away rapidly as before:--
+
+“'The presumption of aspiring to your representation will, perhaps,
+be compensated when I come before you deeply impressed with the wrongs
+which centuries of legislation have enacted, and which, stranger as I
+am in Ireland, have arrested my attention and engaged my sympathies,
+impelling me to enter upon a public career; and, if favored by your
+approval, to devote whatever energy and capacity I may possess to your
+great and good cause.'”
+
+“I like the first best,” said Jack. “The new era and the results of
+the Relief Bill will be such appetizing suggestions. There must be an
+allusion to the Martins and their support.”
+
+“Rather, however, as though _you_ had brought over Martin to _your_
+views, than that _he_ had selected you to represent his. In this wise:”
+ and again she wrote,--
+
+“'It is with a just pride that I announce to you that in these
+professions I am strengthened by the cordial approval and support of one
+who, in his rank and station, and natural influence, is second to none
+in this great county; and who, whatever misconceptions have hitherto
+prevailed as to his views, is, heart and soul, a true patriot and an
+Irishman!'
+
+“It will puzzle him sorely to guess what line he should adopt to realize
+all this, and he'll have to come to _you_ for his politics!”
+
+“You have caught up the cant of this peculiar literature perfectly,”
+ said Massingbred, as he pored over the papers she had just penned.
+
+“Dear me!” cried she, in a weary tone, “my great difficulty will be
+to discard its evil influence, and even write a common note like a
+reasonable being again.”
+
+“But come, confess frankly: you think that a political career is the
+only one worth embracing, and that any other life offers no reward
+worthy the name?”
+
+“I think you mistake me,” said she. “It is the social position
+consequent upon success in a political life that I value,--the eminence
+it confers in the very highest and greatest circles. If I regarded the
+matter otherwise, I'd not be indifferent as to the line to follow--I 'd
+have great convictions, and hold them,--I mean, if I were _you_.”
+
+“Then of course you consider me as one who has none such?”
+
+“To be sure I do. Men of your measures of ability can no more burden
+themselves with principles than a thoroughbred hackney can carry extra
+weight,--they 've quite enough to do to make their running without.”
+
+“Well, I shall certainly not be spoiled by flattery, at least from you,”
+ said Jack, laughing.
+
+“They who know you less will make up for it all, depend upon it,” said
+she, quietly. “Don't fancy, Mr. Massingbred,” added she, with more
+earnestness of manner,--“don't fancy that I 'm insensible to the
+impertinences I have dared to address to you, or that I venture upon
+them without pain; but when I perceived that you would admit me to the
+liberty of criticising your conduct, character, and manners, I thought
+that I might render you good service by saying what better taste and
+better breeding would shrink from, and the only cost be the dislike of
+myself.”
+
+“You took a very bad way to accomplish the latter,” said Jack,
+fervently.
+
+“I did n't give it much consideration,” said she, haughtily. “It was
+very little matter what opinion you entertained of 'the governess.'”
+
+“I should like to convince you that you were wrong,” said he, looking
+fixedly at her.
+
+“You'd find your task harder than you suspect, sir,” said she, coldly.
+“There is a sense of pride about the humbleness of a station such as
+mine, as all the elevation of one in yours could never fathom. And,”
+ added she, in a still more determined tone, “there is but one condition
+on which this intercourse of ours can continue, which is, that this
+topic be never resumed between us. The gulf that separates your position
+in life from mine is the security for mutual frankness; to attempt to
+span it over by deception would be to build a bridge that must break
+down the first moment of its trial. Enough of this! I'll take these,”
+ said she, gathering up the papers, “and copy them out clearly. They
+ought to be with the printer to-morrow; and, indeed, you should not
+defer your canvass.”
+
+Massingbred made no answer, but sat with his head buried between his
+hands.
+
+“I'd have you to visit the 'dear constituency' at once, Mr.
+Massingbred,” said she, with a slight touch of scorn in her voice. “They
+are not well bred enough to bear a slight!” And with this she left the
+room.
+
+“I should like excessively to know the secret of this interest in my
+behalf,” said Jack, as he arose and slowly walked the room. “It is not,
+unquestionably, from any high estimate of my capacity; as little is it
+anything bordering on regard; and yet,” added he, after a pause, “there
+are moments when I half fancy she could care for me,--at least I know
+well that I could for _her_, Confound it!” cried he, passionately,
+“what a terrible barrier social station throws up! If she were even some
+country squire's daughter,--portionless as she is,--the notion would
+not be so absurd; but 'the governess!' and 'the steward!' what frightful
+figures to conjure up. No, no; that's impossible. One might do such a
+folly by retiring from the world forever, but that would be exactly to
+defeat the whole object of such a match. She is essentially intended for
+'the world;' every gift and grace she possesses are such as only have
+their fitting exercise where the game of life is played by the highest,
+and for the heaviest stakes! But it is not to be thought of!”
+
+“Have I found you at last?” cried Repton, entering the room. “They say
+the writ will be here on Monday, so that we 've not an hour to lose.
+Let us drive over to Oughterard at once, see the editor of the
+'Intelligence,' call on Priest Rafferty, and that other fellow--the
+father of our young friend here.”
+
+“Mr. Nelligan,” said Jack. “But I can't well visit _him_--there have
+been some rather unpleasant passages between us.”
+
+“Ah! you told me something about it. He wanted you to fill a bail-bond,
+or do something or other, rather than shoot _me_. An unreasonable old
+rascal! Never mind; we shall come before him now in another character,
+and you 'll see that he'll be more tractable.”
+
+“The matter is graver than this,” said Jack, musingly; “and our
+difference is serious enough to make intercourse impossible.”
+
+“You shall tell me all about it as we drive along,--that is, if it be
+brief and easy to follow, for my head is so full of election matters
+I don't desire a new element of complication. Step in now, and let
+us away.” And with this he hurried Massingbred to the door, where a
+pony-phaeton was in waiting for them.
+
+Once on the road, Repton changed the conversation from the domain of
+politics, and talked entirely of the host and his family. There was a
+sort of constitutional frankness and familiarity about the old lawyer
+which all the astute habits and instincts of his profession had
+never mastered. Like a great many acute men, his passion for shrewd
+observation and keen remark overbore the prudent reserve that belongs to
+less animated talkers, and so he now scrupled not to dis-cuss Martin and
+his affairs to one who but a few days back had been a complete stranger
+amongst them.
+
+At first Jack heard him without much interest, but, as he continued, the
+subject attracted all his attention, full as it was of views of life and
+the world perfectly new and strange to him.
+
+To Massingbred's great astonishment, he learned that vast as the
+estates, and large as was the fortune of the Martins, that they were
+deeply encumbered with bond-debts and mortgages. The wasteful habits of
+the gentry generally, combined with great facilities for obtaining money
+at any emergency, had led to this universal indebtedness; and, in fact,
+as the lawyer expressed it, an old estate was supposed to be the victim
+of debt, as an elderly gentleman was liable to gout; nobody presuming to
+think that the tenure, in either case, was a whit the more precarious on
+account of the casualty.
+
+“Now,” said Repton, as they reached a point of the road from which a
+view of the country could be obtained for miles on every side--“now, as
+far as you can see belongs to Martin. Beyond that mountain yonder, too,
+there is a large tract--not very productive, it is true--extending to
+the sea. The fine waving surface to your left is all tillage land; and
+the islands in the bay are his. It is really a princely estate, with
+even greater hidden resources than those palpable and open to view. But,
+were I to show it to you on a map, and point out at the same time every
+spot on which some moneylender has a claim--how much has been advanced
+upon this--what sums have been lent upon that--you 'd be more amazed at
+the careless ease of the proprietor than you now are at the extent of
+his fortune.”
+
+“But he is spending immensely in improving and developing the property,”
+ said Jack.
+
+“Of course he is, sir. That new-fangled notion of 'gentleman-farming
+'--which has come to us from countries where there are no
+gentlemen--won't suit Ireland, at least in the present generation. What
+_we_ want here is, not to make more money, but to learn how to spend
+less; and although the first very often teaches the last, it is a hard
+way for an Irishman to acquire his knowledge. There's your borough,
+sir,--that little spot in the valley yonder is Oughterard. Do you feel,
+as you behold it, as though it were to be the mainspring of a great
+career? Is there an instinctive throb within that says, 'The honorable
+member for Oughterard will be a great name in the “Collective Wisdom
+“'?”
+
+“I can scarcely say yes to that appeal,” said Jack, smiling; “though, if
+what you have just told me of the mediocrity of public men be true--”
+
+“Can you doubt it? You have them all before you,--their lives, their
+sayings, and their doings. Show me one in the whole mass who has
+originated a new idea in politics, or developed a new resource in the
+nation. Do they exhibit the common inventiveness displayed in almost
+every other walk of life, or do they even dress up their common
+platitudes in any other garb than the cast-off clothes of their
+predecessors? Mediocrity is a flattery when applied to them. But what's
+this coming along behind us, with such clattering of hoofs?”
+
+“A tandem, I think,” said Jack, looking backward, “and very well
+handled, too.”
+
+“Oh, that illustrious attorney, Mr. Scanlan, I 've no doubt. Let us draw
+up till he passes.” And so saying, Repton moved to one side of the road,
+giving a wide space for the other to proceed on his way. Mr. Scanlan,
+however, had subdued his nags, by a low, soft whistle, to a half-trot,
+when, giving the reins to his servant, he descended and advanced to the
+carriage. “I've been in pursuit of you, gentlemen,” said he, touching
+his hat courteously, “for the last four miles, and I assure you you 've
+given me a breathing heat of it. Mr. Martin requested me to hand you
+this note, sir,” added he, addressing Repton, “which demands immediate
+attention.”
+
+The note was marked “Instantaneous,” and “Strictly private,” on the
+cover, and Repton opened it at once. Its contents were as follows,--
+
+     “Dear Rep.,--The post has just arrived, with intelligence
+     that Harry is coming home,--may be here within a week or
+     so,--so that we must not go on with our present plans for
+     the borough, as H., of course, will stand. Come back,
+     therefore, at once, and let as talk over the matter
+     together.
+
+     “Yours, in haste,
+
+     “G. M.”
+
+
+“You know what this contains, perhaps?” said Repton, in a whisper to
+Scanlan. He nodded an assent, and the old lawyer re-read the note. “I
+don't see my way here quite clearly,” added he, in the same subdued
+voice, to Scanlan.
+
+“I'll stroll on and stretch my legs a bit,” said Jack, springing out of
+the pony phaeton, and seeing that the others had some private matter of
+discussion; and Scanlan now drew nigh, while Repton informed him what
+the note contained.
+
+“It's a little too late for this now,” said Scanlan, gravely.
+
+“How do you mean too late?” asked Repton.
+
+“Why, that Massingbred stands well with the people in the borough. They
+think that he 'll be more their man than Martin's, and, indeed, they 're
+so confident of it, I half suspect he has told them so.”
+
+“But there has been no canvass as yet,--his address isn't even printed.”
+
+“There has been a correspondence, however,” said Scanlan, with a knowing
+wink. “Take my word for it, Mr. Repton, he 's a deep fellow.”
+
+“Are you quite sure of this?--can you pledge yourself to its truth?”
+
+“I only know that Father Rafferty said the night before last he was
+satisfied with him, and the one difficulty was about old Nelligan, who
+somehow is greatly incensed against Massingbred.”
+
+“He 'd have no chance in the borough without us,” said Repton,
+confidently.
+
+“If old Dan would consent to spend the money, he'd be the member in
+spite of us,” rejoined Scanlan.
+
+“I'll not dispute local knowledge with you, sir,” said Repton,
+peevishly. “Let us turn back at once. Where's Mr. Massingbred? I saw him
+standing on the hill yonder a few minutes ago; maybe, he 's strolling
+along the road in front.” Repton moved forward to a rising spot of
+ground, from whence a wide view extended for a distance on every side,
+but no trace of Massingbred could be discovered. “What can have become
+of him?--has he turned towards Cro' Martin?” asked Repton.
+
+“There he is,” cried Scanlan, suddenly; “there he is, walking
+with Magennis. They're taking the short cut over the hills to
+Oughterard--that's unfortunate, too!”
+
+“How so?”
+
+“Why, before they're in the town they'll be as thick as two
+pickpockets--see how they 're talking! I think, if I was to drive on,
+I'd catch them before they entered the town.”
+
+“Do so, then, Scanlan. Say that a sudden message from Mr. Martin
+recalled me, but that you'll drive him back with you to Cro' Martin.”
+
+“Am I to allude to the contents of the note, sir?”
+
+“I think not; I opine it's best not to speak of it. Say, however, that
+something of importance has occurred at Cro' Martin, and suggest to him
+that the sooner he returns thither the better.”
+
+There was an amount of vacillation and uncertainty about Repton's
+manner as he uttered these few words that showed not only how gravely he
+regarded the crisis, but how totally unprepared he found himself for
+the emergency. Not so Scanlan, who took his seat once more on his lofty
+“buggy,” and was soon spinning along the road at a pace of full twelve
+miles the hour.
+
+As Repton drove back to Cro' Martin, he thought once, and not without
+humiliation, of his late lessons in statecraft to young Massingbred. “To
+fancy that I was instilling all these precepts at the very moment
+that he was countermining us. The young villain is a worthy son of his
+father! And how he will laugh at me, and make others laugh too! It will
+never do to drive him into opposition to us. Martin must consent to make
+the best of it, now, and accept him as his member,--for the present,
+at least. With time and good opportunity we can manage to trip up his
+heels, but, for the moment, there's no help for it.” And with these
+not very consoling reflections he entered once more the grounds of Cro'
+Martin Castle.
+
+Let us now turn to Massingbred, as, accompanied by Magennis, he walked
+at a rapid pace towards Oughterard. It needed but a glance at the
+figures, and the rate at which they moved, to see that these two men
+were bent upon an object.
+
+“Don't you see the town now before you?” said Magennis. “It's not much
+above two miles, and by the road it is every step of six, or six and a
+half; and if we walk as we're doing now, we'll be there at least twenty
+minutes before them.”
+
+“But what will Repton think of my leaving him in this fashion?”
+
+“That it was a bit of your usual eccentricity,--no more,” said the
+other, laughing.
+
+“You are quite certain of what you've just told me?” asked Jack, after a
+pause.
+
+“I tell you that you shall have it from Hosey's own lips. He showed the
+post-mark on the back of the letter to Father Rafferty, and it was 'Cape
+Town, August 24.' Now, as Hosey knows young Martin's writing as well as
+any man, what doubt can there be about it?”
+
+“By that calculation,” said Jack, thoughtfully, “he might be here within
+the present month!”
+
+“Exactly what Father Neal said.”
+
+“A shrewd fellow that same Hosey must be to put things together in this
+fashion,” said Jack. “Such a head as he has on his shoulders might n't
+be a bad counsellor at this moment.”
+
+“Just come and talk to him a bit,” rejoined Magennis; “say you want
+to be trimmed about the whiskers, and he'll be a proud man to have you
+under his hand.”
+
+“And the committee are satisfied with my letter?” asked Jack.
+
+“They are, and they are not; but, on the whole, they think it's a step
+in the right direction to get anything out of the Martins, and, as
+Father Neal remarks, 'where we can pass with our head, we can put our
+whole body through.'”
+
+“But what 's to be done about Nelligan? The breach with him is, I
+suspect, irreparable.”
+
+“Why, it was Nelligan himself moved the first resolution in the
+committee, that your address be accepted as embodying the views--he said
+the present views--of the liberal electors.”
+
+“You amaze me!” cried Massingbred; “and Joe, where was he?”
+
+“Joe is off to Dublin; there 's some examination or other he must
+attend. But old Dan is your friend, rely upon that.”
+
+“This is inexplicable,” muttered Jack to himself.
+
+“We 'll go there, straight, the moment we get into the town. He 'll take
+it as a great compliment; and you can talk to him frankly and openly,
+for old Dan is a man to be trusted.”
+
+“I wish I could guess at how this reconciliation has been effected,”
+ muttered Jack.
+
+“It was your letter did it, I think.”
+
+“But I never wrote one.”
+
+“Well, somebody else did, perhaps; at all events, Dan had an open letter
+in his hand when he addressed the committee, and said, 'After reading
+this, gentlemen,' said he, 'I can only say that I 'll not oppose Mr.
+Massingbred; and if the free and independent men of Oughterard ask
+me who is the man to represent them, I'll answer, he 's your man!
+And what's more, there 's my name down for two hundred pounds for the
+election, if it ever comes to be a contest!'”
+
+“This is all very good, but very strange news,” cried Jack.
+
+“Well, I can explain nothing of the mystery, if there be one. I only
+know what I heard and saw myself.”
+
+“Let us go to his house, at all events,” said Massingbred, who now
+suffered his companion to rattle on about the state of parties and
+politics in Oughterard, little heeding his remarks, and only bent on
+following out his own thoughts. “Give whom the slip?” asked he, suddenly
+catching at the last words of some observation of Magennis.
+
+“The Martins, of course,” resumed the other; “for, as Father Neal says,
+'if we can secure the borough for you, you can well afford to stand by
+_us_; but if you were only Martin's member, he 'd drop you whenever it
+suited him.'”
+
+“As to-morrow, for instance, if his son should make his appearance!”
+
+“Just so; and that's the very reason for not losing a minute about
+getting the Martins in for the cost. What can they say, after choosing
+you and putting you forward?”
+
+“They might make a personal appeal to me,--a distinct request to give
+place to the son.”
+
+“And would n't you pay great attention to it?” said Magennis, in
+mockery.
+
+“I 'm not so very sure I 'd refuse,” said Massingbred, slowly.
+
+“Faith, then, you 'd better be candid enough to tell the electors so 'at
+once.' Look now, Mr. Massingbred,” said he, coming to a dead halt, and
+standing directly in front of him; “we don't go the same road, not one
+step, till I hear from you, distinctly and plainly, what you mean to
+do.”
+
+“This is somewhat of a peremptory proceeding,” replied Jack. “I think it
+would not be very unreasonable to allow a man in my situation a little
+time for reflection.”
+
+“Reflect upon what?” cried Magennis. “Is it what politics you 'd be? If
+that's what you mean, I think you 'd better say nothing about it.”
+
+“Come, come, Mac, you are not quite fair in this business; there _are_
+difficulties,--there are embarrassments very often in the way of doing
+things which we have made up our minds to do. Now, if I were perfectly
+certain that the liberal interest here could succeed in spite of
+Martin--”
+
+“So it will.”
+
+“You're sure of that?”
+
+“I 'll show it to you on paper. We 'd rather have Martin with us and no
+contest, because it's cheaper; but if it must come to money, we 'll do
+it.”
+
+“Satisfy me on that point, and I'm with you; there's my hand on't!”
+
+And Magennis grasped him in his own strong fingers to ratify the
+contract.
+
+While “Mac” went on to give some insight into the views and wishes of
+his party, they reached the town and entered the main street, and held
+their way towards old Nelligan's shop.
+
+“That's Father Neal's pony at the door,” said Mac, as they approached
+the shop; “so we'll find them both together.”
+
+“I scarcely think I can enter here,” said Massingbred, “after what
+passed last between us. We surely did not part as friends.”
+
+“How little you know about us at all!” said Mac. “Old Dan bears you no
+malice, I 'd lay fifty pounds on it! But, if you like, I 'll just step
+in and take soundings.”
+
+“Do so, then,” said Massingbred, not sorry to have even a few moments to
+himself for quiet thought and consideration. He was still standing, and
+deeply engrossed by his reflections, when he was aroused by hearing his
+name called aloud, and, on looking up, perceived Magennis beckoning to
+him from a window overhead. In obedience to the signal, Jack turned and
+entered the shop, where his friend quickly joined him. “Old Dan is in
+his bed, with a heavy cold and a rheumatism, but he 'll see you; and
+Father Neal's with him, and Hayes, besides.” And with this information
+he hurried Jack up the stairs, and led him into a darkened room, where
+the figures of the priest and old Hayes were dimly discernible. Before
+Massingbred had well crossed the door-sill, Nelligan called out, “Your
+servant, Mr. Massingbred. I 'm more than pleased with your explanation.
+Let me shake your hand once more.”
+
+“I'm not quite sure that I understand you,” said Jack, in a low voice;
+but before he could continue, the priest advanced to greet him, followed
+by old Peter.
+
+“Wasn't I in luck to catch him on the road this morning?” said Magennis;
+“he was coming in with the old Counsellor, and just got out to walk up a
+hill--”
+
+“Remember,” said Jack, “that I have few minutes to spare, for I must be
+in waiting about the market-place when he drives in.”
+
+“We must have a conference, though,” said Father Neal; “there 's much to
+be settled. First of all, are we to coalesce for the representation?”
+
+“No, no, no!” cried Nelligan. “We 'll have it our own way. If Mr.
+Massingbred will be our Member, we want no help from the Martins.”
+
+“There 's five pounds, and I 'll make it guineas if you like,” said old
+Hayes, putting a note upon the table; “but the devil a Whig or Tory
+will ever get more out of Peter Hayes!”
+
+A very good-natured laugh from the others showed how little umbrage the
+frank avowal excited.
+
+“We 'll not want for money, Peter, make your mind easy about that,” said
+Dan. “When can you meet the committee, Mr. Massingbred? Could you say
+to-night?”
+
+“Better to-morrow morning. I must return to Cro' Martin this evening.”
+
+“Certainly,--of course,” said Father Neal, blandly. “You 'll have to
+come to an understanding with Mr. Martin about the borough, declare what
+your principles are, and how, upon very mature consideration, you find
+you can't agree with the opinions of himself and his party.”
+
+Magennis winked significantly at Jack, as though to say, “Listen
+to _him; he 's_ the man to instruct and direct you;” and the priest
+resumed:--
+
+“Go on to explain that your only utility in the House could arise from
+your being the exponent of what you feel to be the truth about Ireland,
+the crying evils of the Established Church, and the present tenure of
+land! When you throw these two shells in, sir, the town will be on fire.
+He 'll reply that under these circumstances there 's no more question
+about your standing for the borough; you'll say nothing,--not a word,
+not a syllable; you only smile. If Repton 's by--and he 's likely to
+be--he 'll get hot, and ask you what you mean by that--”
+
+“There 's Scanlan just driving round the corner,” said Magennis, in a
+whisper; and Massingbred arose at once and drew nigh to the bedside.
+
+“Could I say one word to you alone, Mr. Nelligan?” said he, in a low
+voice.
+
+“Of course,” said he. And whispering the priest to take the others into
+an adjoining room, old Nelligan motioned Jack to sit down beside him.
+
+“You said, as I came in,” said Jack, “that you were satisfied with my
+explanation--”
+
+“To be sure I was,” broke in Dan. “All I wanted to know was, that you
+acted under a misconception. That being once explained, there was no
+offence on either side. Now, Catty Henderson's letter to my wife put the
+thing straight at once; she showed that _your_ conduct at Cro' Martin
+arose out of a notion that Joe had slighted you.”
+
+[Illustration: 302]
+
+“Have you got this letter?” asked Jack, eagerly.
+
+“Indeed, then, I have not; his mother forwarded it to Joe by the same
+post; but, as I tell you I 'm satisfied, there 's an end of it.”
+
+“Scanlan 's asking for you below stairs,” said Magennis, putting in his
+head; “and I hear them saying that they didn't see you in town.”
+
+“All right,” said Jack; “so I'll just slip out by the garden gate and
+meet him in the market-square.” And with a hurried leave-taking Jack
+withdrew, his mind very far from that state of tranquil composure in
+which it was his pride to affect that he invariably revelled.
+
+“There they go!” cried Father Neal, shortly after, as Scanlan drove
+rapidly by, with Massingbred beside him. “Maybe Master Maurice won't
+abuse us all round before he turns in at the gate of Cro' Martin!”
+
+“Massingbred is too cute to mind him,” said Magennis.
+
+“Ah, Tom, there 's one appeal men of his stamp are never deaf to. You
+may say fifty things that won't shock them in religion or morals or good
+taste; but only utter the one word 'vulgar,' and their indignation rises
+at once. That's what Scanlan will do, take my word for it He 'll call us
+a low set of fellows, that have no position in society,--no acceptance
+anywhere.”
+
+“But Massingbred is a gentleman born, and he won't be led astray by such
+a consideration.”
+
+“It is exactly for that very reason that he will,” said the priest,
+stoutly. “It's a strange fact, but there 's no manner of man rates
+social advantages so high as he that has them by right, and without any
+struggle for them.”
+
+“Well,” said old Hayes, slowly, “if I once thought that of him, the
+devil a vote of mine he 'd get, no matter what his principles were.”
+
+“And there you 're wrong, Peter,” said Nelligan. “Matters of good
+manners and breeding need never be discussed between us. Mr. Massingbred
+will have _his_ station; we'll have _ours_. There 's a long and weary
+road before us ere we come to think of our social condition. There
+'s many a cruel statute to be abolished, many a hard grievance to be
+redressed.”
+
+“And besides that,” said Father Neal, with a shrewd twinkle in his eye,
+“while we 're doing the one we 'll be helping on the other. Political
+influence always did, and always will, include rank and station in the
+world. When English Ministers find their best ally in the Irish Priest,
+there will be no more sneers at his brogue nor his boots. Men of family
+and fortune won't shrink from their contact, and maybe you 'll see
+the day yet when coaches and chariots will drive up to the chapel, and
+ladies in satin and velvet step out to hear Mass.”
+
+A prophetic view of the Millennium itself could not have astonished
+old Peter Hayes more completely than did this marvellous suggestion of
+Father Neal; and he moved away muttering a “Heaven grant it!” between
+his teeth.
+
+“Where's the next meeting of the committee to be?” asked Nelligan.
+
+“In the Chapel House, to-morrow, at eleven. And that reminds me I 've
+not sent out the summonses.” And so saying, Father Neal hastily took
+leave of his friends and left the room.
+
+Let us take a glance at Mr. Maurice Scanlan, as, with an extra box-coat
+ingeniously wrapped around his lower man, he discoursed pleasantly to
+his companion while he “tooled” along towards Cro' Martin. Not a word
+of politics, not a syllable on the subject of party, escaped him as
+he talked. His conversation was entirely of sporting matters: the odds
+against Leander, the last bettings on “Firebrand,” whether Spicy Bill
+was really in bad training, as the knowing ones said, and if the course
+wouldn't “puzzle the young ones” if the wet weather were to continue.
+
+Massingbred was sufficiently well versed in these classic themes to be
+an amusing and even instructive companion, and communicated many a sly
+piece of intelligence that would have been deemed priceless in “Bell's
+Life;” and Scanlan quickly conceived a high estimate for one who had
+graduated at Newmarket, and taken honors at Goodwood.
+
+“After the kind of life you 've led in England, I wonder how you endure
+this country at all,” said Maurice, with real sincerity of voice and
+manner.
+
+“I like it,” said Jack; “the whole thing is new to me, and vastly
+amusing. I don't mean to say I 'd willingly pass a lifetime in this
+fashion, but for a few weeks--”
+
+“Just so; to give you a better relish for the real thing when you go
+back again,” said Maurice.
+
+“What a neat stepper that leader is!” said Jack, to change the topic
+from himself and his own affairs. “She's a well-bred one; that's clear.”
+
+“Nearly full-bred; the least bit of cocktail in the world. She's out of
+Crescent, that ran a very good third for the Oaks.”
+
+“A strong horse, and a very honest one,” said Jack.
+
+“Well, I bought that little mare from young Mr. Martin--the
+Captain--when he was ordered out to India; I put her in training, and
+ran her at the Curragh in three weeks, and won, too, the St. Lawrence
+Handicap.”
+
+“Is Captain Martin a sporting character?” asked Jack, carelessly.
+
+“He is and he is not,” said Scanlan, half querulously. “He likes a safe
+thing,--do you understand?” and he gave a most significant wink as he
+spoke.
+
+“Oh, then he's close about money matters?” said Massingbred.
+
+“Not exactly that. He 's wasteful and spendthrift, but he'd go to the
+world's end to do a knowing thing; you 've seen men of that kind?”
+
+“Scores of them,” replied Jack; “and they were always the easiest
+fellows to be duped!”
+
+“Exactly my own experience,” said Scanlan, delighted to find his
+opinions confirmed in such a quarter. “Now, young Martin would give five
+hundred pounds for a horse to win a fifty pound cup. Don't you know what
+I mean?”
+
+“Perfectly,” said Massingbred, with an approving smile.
+
+“Nobody knows the sums he has drawn since he went away,” exclaimed
+Scanlan, who was momentarily growing more and more confidential.
+
+“There 's a deal of high play in India; perhaps he gambles,” said Jack,
+carelessly.
+
+A significant wink and nod gave the answer.
+
+“Well, well,” added he, after a pause, “he 'll not mend matters by
+coming back again.”
+
+“And is he about to visit England?” asked Massingbred, in the same easy
+tone.
+
+“So they say,” replied Scanlan, with an effort at the easy indifference
+of the other.
+
+“On leave, perhaps?” said Jack, indolently.
+
+“That 's more than I know,” replied he, and relapsed into a thoughtful
+silence, during which Massingbred continued to scan his features with a
+sly, downcast glance peculiar to himself.
+
+“You've never been in Leicestershire, Mr. Scanlan?” said he, when he
+had fully satisfied himself with his examination. “Well, then, come over
+there in the spring--say about March next--and pay me a visit. I 've got
+a sort of hunting-box there, with a neat stable, and by that time I hope
+to raise funds for a couple of nags.”
+
+“Trust _me_ for the horseflesh, sir. I know where to mount you this very
+minute. You 're not much above eleven stone?”
+
+“Eleven-eight,--at least, so I used to be. Is it a bargain? Will you
+come?”
+
+“There's my hand on't,” said the attorney, overjoyed at the prospect.
+
+“Mackworth, and Lord Harry Coverdale, and Sir Went-worth Danby, and
+a few more, are all my neighbors. Capital fellows, whom you 'll be
+delighted with. Just the sort of men to suit you,--up to everything that
+means sport.”
+
+“Exactly what I like!” cried Maurice, in ecstasy.
+
+“We'll arrange it all this evening, then,” said Jack. “Just drop into my
+room after they 're all gone to bed, and we'll have a talk over it. You
+don't know my father, do you?”
+
+“I haven't that honor,” said Scanlan, with an accent of real deference
+in his voice.
+
+“Another kind of person from these I've mentioned,” said Jack, slowly.
+
+“So I should suppose, sir,” said Scanlan, a tone of respect
+involuntarily attaching itself to him as he addressed the son of a
+Secretary of State.
+
+“Not that he doesn't like field sports, and all the enjoyments of a
+country life. But, you know, he's an old official--a Downing Street
+veteran--who really relishes public business, just as you and I would a
+coursing-match, or a heavy pool at Crocky's.”
+
+Scanlan nodded as if in perfect assent.
+
+“While I say this, it's only fair to add that he has most excellent
+qualities, and is a stanch friend when he takes any one up. I suspect
+you 'd like him. I know he 'd like your--”
+
+“I 'm greatly flattered. I don't deserve--”
+
+“You see,” said Jack, not heeding the interruption, and assuming the
+low accents of a confidential communication--“You see, he and I have not
+been on the very best of terms for some time back; I 've done some silly
+things--spent a little more money than he liked--and, what was still
+worse in his eyes, refused a first-rate Government appointment--a really
+good thing, and such as one does n't meet with every day--and now, the
+only road back to his favor will be for me to come out strongly in some
+shape, either as a college prizeman or in public life. I despise the
+former. It's all very well for fellows like Nelligan--it's their natural
+'beat,'--but for a man like _me_, one who has seen the world,--the real
+world,--these are nothing more than schoolboy distinctions,--the silver
+medal he brings home of a Saturday, and makes him the wonder of his
+sisters for twenty-four hours. I'll have to strike out a line of my
+own!”
+
+“No fear of you, sir,--devil a bit!” said Maurice, with a sententious
+shake of the head. “Here we are now at Cro' Martin, and then there's the
+first dinner-bell ringing.”
+
+“We shall be late, perhaps,” said Jack.
+
+“You'll be in good time. As for me, I haven't been asked to dinner, so
+that when I drop you I 'll go down to the village.”
+
+“Well, then, I 'll walk over and see you in the evening,” said
+Massingbred. “It seems to me--I don't know whether you are of the same
+opinion, though--but it seems strongly to me that you and I ought to be
+allies.”
+
+“If I thought I was worthy--”
+
+“Come, come, Scanlan, no modesty, old boy. You know you 're a devilish
+clever fellow, and you no more intend to pass your life cruising after
+petty-session practice in Galway, than I do to settle down here as
+under-gardener.”
+
+“They 're all looking at us, sir, from the drawing-room window,” said
+Scanlan, in a cautious voice; “don't let us appear too confidential.”
+ And at the same instant he extended his whip as though to point
+attention to some distant object, and seem as if he were describing the
+scenery.
+
+“Shrewd dog it is,” muttered Massingbred in soliloquy, but taking good
+care to be overheard. “I 'll beat up your quarters, Scanlan, in a
+couple of hours or so,” said Massingbred, as he descended from the lofty
+“drag.”
+
+Somewhat, but not very much, later than the time appointed, Jack
+Massingbred appeared in the small chamber of the “Crueskeen,”--the
+humble hostel on the roadside adjoining the demesne of Cro' Martin.
+Maurice Scanlan had made every preparation which the fluid resources of
+the house admitted to receive his guest, but they were not destined to
+be put in requisition.
+
+“I have only come lest you should accuse me of forgetting you, Scanlan,”
+ said Massingbred, as he stood in the doorway without removing his hat.
+“I 'm off to Oughter-ard, having made my adieux at Cro' Martin.”
+
+“Left Cro' Martin, and for good!” exclaimed Scanlan.
+
+“If that means forever, I suspect you 're right,” replied Jack; “but
+you 'll have the whole story in the morning when you go up there, and
+doubtless more impartially than I should tell it. And now, good-bye for
+a brief space. We shall meet soon.” And, without waiting for an answer,
+he nodded familiarly, stepped briskly to the door, where a post-chaise
+awaited him, and was gone, before Scanlan had even half recovered from
+his astonishment and surprise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. AN AWKWARD VISITOR
+
+It is a singularly impressive sensation, and one, too, of which even
+frequency will scarcely diminish the effect, to pass from the busy
+streets and moving population of Dublin, and enter the quiet courts of
+the University. The suddenness of the change is most striking, and you
+pass at once from all the bustling interests of life--its cares and
+ambitions, its pursuits of wealth and pleasure--into the stillness of a
+cloister. Scarcely within the massive gates, and the noise of the great
+capital is hushed and subdued, its sounds seem to come from afar, and
+in their place is an unbroken calm, or the more solemn echoes of its
+vaulted roofs.
+
+In a corner of the Old Square, and in a building almost entirely
+occupied by the University authorities, and whose stairs had seldom
+echoed beneath less reverend footsteps than those of deans and bursars,
+were the chambers of Joe Nelligan. He had obtained them in this peculiar
+locality as a special favor from “the Board,” as eminently suited to
+his habits of study and seclusion; for his was indeed a life of
+labor,--labor, hard, unremitting, and unbroken! Dreary as was the aspect
+of the spot, it was one dear to the heart of him who occupied it. If it
+had been the cell wherein he had passed nights of severest toil and days
+of intense effort, so had it been the calm retreat into which he had
+retired as a sanctuary, and at times the scene of the hallowed joy he
+felt when success had crowned all his labors. Thither had he bent his
+steps at nightfall, as to a home; thence had he written the few lines
+which more than once announced his triumph to his father.
+
+Within those halls had he experienced all that he had ever tasted of
+successful ambition, and in the depths of that old chair had he dreamed
+away all the visions of a glorious future. The room in which he sat was
+a large and lofty one, lighted by two windows deeply set in the wall.
+Its sides were lined with book-shelves, and books littered the tables
+and even the floor,--for it was one of his caprices to read as he lay
+at full length, either on the ground or a sofa,--and the paper and pens
+were scattered about in different quarters, as accident suggested. The
+only thing like ornament to be seen was a lithographic print of Cro'
+Martin Castle over the fireplace,--a strange exception would it seem,
+but traceable, perhaps, to some remote scene of boyish admiration for
+what had first awakened in him a feeling of awe and admiration; and
+there it now remained, time-worn and discolored, perhaps unnoticed, or
+looked on with very different emotions. Ay! these pictures are terrible
+landmarks of our thoughts! I speak not of such as appeal to our hearts
+by the features we loved, the eyes into whose depths we have gazed, the
+lips on whose accents we have hung entranced, but even when they trace
+the outlines of some spot well known to us in boyhood,--some scene of
+long, long years ago. It is not alone that the “Then” and “Now” stand
+out in strongest contrast, that what we were and what we are are in
+juxtaposition, but that whole memories of what we once hoped to be come
+rushing over us, and all the spirit-stirring emotions of early ambitions
+mingle themselves with the stern realities of the present. And, after
+all, what success in life, however great and seemingly unexpected it may
+be, ever equals one of the glorious daydreams of our boyish ambition,
+in which there comes no alloy of broken health, wasted energies, and
+exhausted spirits? or, far worse again, the envious jealousy of those
+we once deemed friends, and who, had we lived obscurely, still might
+be such? Student life is essentially imaginative. The very division of
+time, the objects which have value to a student's eyes, the seclusion
+in which he lives, the tranquil frame of mind coexistent with highly
+strained faculties, all tend to make his intervals of repose periods of
+day-dream and revery. It is not improbable that these periods are the
+fitting form of relaxation for overtaxed minds, and that the Imagination
+is the soothing influence that repairs the wear and tear of Reason.
+
+The peculiar circumstances of young Nelligan's position in life had
+almost totally estranged him from others. The constraint that attaches
+to a very bashful temperament had suggested to him a certain cold and
+reserved manner, that some took for pride, and many were repelled from
+his intimacy by this seeming haughtiness. The unhappy course of what
+had been his first friendship--for such was it with Massingbred--had
+rendered him more distrustful than ever of himself, and more firmly
+convinced that to men born as he had been the world imposes a barrier
+that only is passable by the highest and greatest success. It is true,
+his father's letter of explanation assuaged the poignancy of his sorrow;
+he saw that Massingbred had proceeded under a misconception, and had
+believed himself the aggrieved individual; but all these considerations
+could not obliterate the fact that an insult to his social station was
+the vengeance adopted by him, and that Massingbred saw no more galling
+outrage in his power than to reflect upon his rank in life.
+
+There are men who have a rugged pride in contrasting what they were
+with what they are. Their self-love finds an intense pleasure in
+contemplating difficulties overcome, obstacles surmounted, and a goal
+won, all by their own unaided efforts, and to such the very obscurity of
+their origin is a source of boastful exultation. Such men are, however,
+always found in the ranks of those whose success is wealth. Wherever the
+triumphs are those rewarded by station, or the distinctions conferred
+on intellectual superiority, this vainglorious sentiment is unknown.
+An inborn refinement rejects such coarse pleasure, just as their
+very habits of life derive no enjoyment from the display and splendor
+reflected by riches.
+
+Joe Nelligan felt his lowly station most acutely, because he saw in it a
+disqualification for that assured and steady temperament which can make
+most of success. He would have given half of all he might possess in the
+world for even so much of birth as might exempt him from a sneer.
+The painful sensitiveness that never rested nor slept--that made him
+eternally on the watch lest some covert allusion might be made to
+him--was a severe suffering; and far from decreasing, it seemed to grow
+with him as he became older, and helped mainly to withdraw him further
+from the world.
+
+No error is more common than for bashful men to believe that they are
+unpopular in society, and that the world “will none of them.” They
+interpret their own sense of difficulty as a feeling of dislike in
+others, and retire to their solitudes convinced that these are their
+fitting dwelling-places. To this unpalatable conviction was Joseph
+Nelligan now come; and as he entered his chambers, and closed the heavy
+door behind him, came the thought: “Here at least no mortifications
+can reach me. These old books are my truest and best of friends, and in
+their intercourse there is neither present pain nor future humiliation!”
+
+It was on a dark and dreary day in winter, and in that cheerless hour
+before the closing in of night, that Joseph sat thus in his solitary
+home. The sound of carriage-wheels and the sharp tramp of horses'
+feet--a rare event in these silent courts--slightly aroused him from a
+revery; but too indolent to go to the window, he merely raised his head
+to listen; and now a loud knock shook the outer door of his chambers.
+With a strange sense of perturbation at this unwonted summons, he arose
+and opened it.
+
+“The Chief Secretary begs to know if Mr. Nelligan is at home?” said a
+well-powdered footman, in a plain but handsome livery.
+
+“Yes; I am the person,” said Joseph, with a diffidence strongly in
+contrast with the composure of the other; and while he yet stood,
+door in hand, the steps of the carriage were let down, and a tall
+venerable-looking man, somewhat past the prime of life, descended and
+approached him.
+
+“I must be my own introducer, Mr. Nelligan,” said he; “my name is
+Massingbred.”
+
+With considerable confusion of manner, and in all that hurry in which
+bashful men seek to hide their awkwardness, Joseph ushered his visitor
+into his dimly lighted chamber.
+
+Colonel Massingbred, with all the staid composure of a very quiet
+demeanor, had quite sufficient tact to see that he was in the company
+of one little versed in the world, and, as soon as he took his seat,
+proceeded to explain the reason of his visit.
+
+“My son has told me of the great pleasure and profit he has derived from
+knowing you, sir,” said he; “he has also informed me that a slight and
+purely casual event interrupted the friendship that existed between you;
+and although unable himself to tender personally to you at this moment
+all his regrets on the subject, he has charged me to be his interpreter,
+and express his deep sorrow for what has occurred, and his hope that,
+after this avowal, it may never be again thought of by either of you.”
+
+“There was a misunderstanding,--a fault on both sides. I was wrong in
+the first instance,” said Nelligan, faltering and stammering at every
+word.
+
+“Mr. Nelligan is in a position to be generous,” said the Colonel,
+blandly, “and he cannot better show the quality than by accepting a
+frank and full apology for a mere mistake. May I trust,” continued
+he,--but with that slight change of tone that denoted a change of
+topic,--“that you have somewhat abated those habits of severe study you
+have hitherto pursued? Jack is really uneasy on that score, and wisely
+remarks that great talents should be spared the penalty of great labor.”
+
+“I am not reading now. I have read very little of late,” said Joseph,
+diffidently.
+
+“I can imagine what that means,” said the Colonel, smiling. “Mr.
+Nelligan's relaxations would be the hard labor of less zealous students;
+but I will also say that upon other grounds this must be done with more
+consideration. The public interests, Mr. Nelligan,--the country, to
+whose service you will one day be called on to contribute those high
+abilities,--will not be satisfied to learn that their exercise should
+have been impaired by over-effort in youth.”
+
+“You overrate me much, sir. I fear that you have been misled both as to
+my capacity and my objects.”
+
+“Your capacity is matter of notoriety, Mr. Nelligan! your objects may be
+as high as any ambition can desire. But perhaps it is obtrusive in one
+so new to your acquaintance to venture on these topics; if so, pray
+forgive me, and set it down to the error I have fallen into of fancying
+that I know you as well personally as I do by reputation and character.”
+
+Before Nelligan could summon words to reply to this complimentary
+speech, the door of his room was flung suddenly open, and a short,
+thickset figure, shrouded in a coarse shawl and a greatcoat, rushed
+towards him, exclaiming in a rich brogue,--
+
+“Here I am, body and bones; just off the coach, and straight to your
+quarters.”
+
+“What! Mr. Crow; is it possible?” cried Nelligan, in some confusion.
+
+“Just himself, and no other,” replied the artist, disengaging himself
+from his extra coverings. “When you said to me, 'Come and see me when
+you visit Dublin,' I said to myself, 'There 's a trump, and I 'll do it;'
+and so here I am.”
+
+“You left the country yesterday. Did you bring me any letters?” asked
+Nelligan; but in the uncertain tone of a man who talked merely to say
+something.
+
+“Not a line,--not a word. Your father was over head and ears at work
+this week back about the election, and it was only the night before last
+it was over.”
+
+“And is it over?” asked Nelligan, eagerly.
+
+“To be sure it is. Young Massingbred is in, and a nice business it is.”
+
+“Let me inform you, Mr. Crow, before you proceed further--” broke in
+Nelligan; but as he got so far, Colonel Massingbred laid his hand on his
+arm, and said, in a bland but steady voice, “Pray allow the gentleman to
+continue; his account promises to be most interesting.”
+
+“Indeed, then, that's what it is not,” said Crow; “for I think it's
+all bad from beginning to end.” Another effort to interrupt by Nelligan
+being repressed by the Colonel, Crow resumed: “Everybody trying to cheat
+somebody else; the Martins wanting to cheat the borough, the borough
+wanting to jockey the Martins, and then young Massingbred humbugging
+them both! And there he is now, Member for Oughterard; and much he cares
+for them both.”
+
+“Was there a contest, sir?” asked the Colonel, while by a gesture he
+enforced silence on Nelligan.
+
+“As bitter a one as ever you saw in your life,” continued Simmy, quite
+flattered at the attention vouchsafed him; “for though the Martins put
+young Massingbred forward at first, they quarrelled with him before
+the day for the nomination,--something or other about the franchise, or
+Maynooth, or the Church Establishment. Sorra one o' me know much about
+these matters; but it was a serious difference, and they split about it!
+And after all their planning and conniving together, what do they do
+but propose Martin's son, the man in the dragoons, for the borough!
+Massingbred bids them do their worst, packs up, sets out for the town,
+and makes a speech exposing them all! The next morning he comes to the
+poll, with Joe's father there, and Peter Hayes, to propose and second
+him. Martin drives in with three elegant coaches and four, and tries to
+do the thing 'grand.' 'It's too late, sir; the people know their power,'
+as Father Neal told them; and, upon my conscience, I believe it's a
+most dangerous kind of knowledge. At all events, at it they go; and such
+fighting and murdering nobody ever saw before. There's not a whole
+pane of glass in the town, and many a skull cracked as well! One of the
+wickedest of the set was young Massingbred himself; he 'd assault the
+cars as they drove in, and tear out the chaps he thought were his own
+voters, in spite of themselves. He has the spirit of the devil in him!
+And then to hear how he harangued the people and abused the aristocracy.
+Maybe he did n't lay it on well! To be sure, the Martins drove him to
+it very hard. They called him a 'renegade' and a 'spy.' They ransacked
+everything they could get against his character, and at last declared
+that he had no qualification, and wasn't worth sixpence.”
+
+“And how did he answer that?” cried the Colonel, who, fixing his eyes on
+the other, entirely engaged his attention.
+
+“I 'll tell you how he did. Just producing the title-deeds of an estate
+that old Nelligan settled on him eight days before,--ay, and so well and
+securely that Counsellor Repton himself, with all his cuteness, could
+n't find a flaw in it. Repton said, in my own hearing, 'That 's the
+cleverest blackguard in Ireland!'”
+
+“Mr. Crow--Crow, I say,” broke in young Nelligan.
+
+“Pray don't interrupt him,” said the Colonel, in a tone that seemed to
+demand obedience; “I want to learn by what majority he gained the day.”
+
+“Thirty-eight or thirty-nine; and there's only two hundred and odd in
+the borough. There may be, perhaps, a dozen of these to strike off on a
+petition; but he 's all safe after that.”
+
+“And will they petition against his return?”
+
+“They say so, but nobody believes them. His father,”--and here he made a
+gesture towards Nelligan,--“his father has a strong purse, and will see
+him well through it all.”
+
+“This is very interesting news to me, sir,” said the Colonel, with
+another sign to Joseph not to betray him; “for although I could well
+imagine Jack Massingbred equal to such an occasion as you describe, I
+was scarcely prepared to hear of the generous confidence reposed in him,
+nor the prompt and able co-operation of the Liberal party.”
+
+“Ah, I perceive,” said Crow, with a significant motion of his eyebrows.
+“You thought that his name would be against him, and that people would
+say, 'Is n't he the son of old Moore Massingbred, that took his bribe
+for the Union?'”
+
+“This is intolerable,” cried Nelligan, starting up from his seat and
+speaking with all the vehemence of outraged feelings. “It is to Colonel
+Massingbred himself you have dared to address this impertinence.”
+
+“What--how--what's this!” exclaimed Crow, in a perfect horror of shame.
+
+“The fault, if there be any, is all mine, sir,” said the Colonel,
+pressing him down into his seat. “I would not have lost the animated
+description you have just given me, uttered, as it was, in such perfect
+frankness, for any consideration; least of all, at the small price
+of hearing a public expression on a public man's conduct. Pray, now,
+continue to use the same frankness, and tell me anything more that
+occurs to you about this remarkable contest.”
+
+This appeal, uttered in all the ease of a well-bred manner, was quite
+unsuccessful. Mr. Crow sat perfectly horrified with himself, endeavoring
+to remember what possible extent of offence he might have been betrayed
+into by his narrative. As for Nelligan, his shame and confusion were
+even greater still; and he sat gazing ruefully and reproachfully at the
+unlucky painter.
+
+Colonel Massingbred made one or two more efforts to relieve the
+awkwardness of the incident, but so palpably fruitless were the attempts
+that he desisted, and arose to take his leave. As Joe accompanied him
+to the door, he tried to blunder out some words of excuse. “My dear Mr.
+Nelligan,” broke in the other, with a quiet laugh, “don't imagine for
+a moment that I am offended. In the first place, your friend was the
+bearer of very pleasant tidings, for Jack has not condescended to write
+to me about his success; and secondly, public life is such a stern
+schoolmaster, that men like myself get accustomed to rather rough usage,
+particularly at the hands of those who do not know us. And now, as I am
+very unwilling to include you in this category, when will you come and
+see me? What day will you dine with me?”
+
+Nelligan blushed and faltered, just as many another awkward man has done
+in a similar circumstance; for, however an easy matter for you, my dear
+sir, with all your tact and social readiness, to fix the day it will
+suit you to accept of an almost stranger's hospitality, Joseph had no
+such self-possession, and only stammered and grew crimson.
+
+“Shall it be on Saturday? for to-morrow I am engaged to the Chancellor,
+and on Friday I dine with his Excellency. Will Saturday suit you?” asked
+the Colonel.
+
+“Yes, sir, perfectly; with much pleasure,” answered Nelligan.
+
+“Then Saturday be it, and at seven o'clock,” said Massingbred, shaking
+his hand most cordially; while Joe, with sorrowful step, returned to his
+chamber.
+
+“Well, I think I did it there, at all events!” cried Simmy, as the other
+entered. “But what, in the name of all that's barefaced, prevented your
+stopping me? Why did n't you pull me up short before I made a beast of
+myself?”
+
+“How could I? You rushed along like a swollen river. You were so full of
+your blessed subject that you would n't heed an interruption; and as to
+signs and gestures, I made twenty without being able to catch your eye.”
+
+“I believe I 'm the only man living ever does these things,” said Simmy,
+ruefully. “I lost the two or three people that used to say they were my
+friends by some such blundering folly as this. I only hope it won't do
+_you_ any mischief. I trust he 'll see that you are not responsible for
+my delinquencies!”
+
+There was a hearty sincerity in poor Simmy's sorrow that at once
+conciliated Nelligan, and he did his best to obliterate every trace of
+the unhappy incident.
+
+“I scarcely supposed my father would have forgiven Massingbred so
+easily,” said Joe, in his desire to change the topic.
+
+“Blarney,--all blarney!” muttered Crow, with an expressive movement of
+his eyebrows.
+
+“Father Neal himself is rather a difficult subject to treat with,” added
+Joe.
+
+“Blarney again!”
+
+“Nor do I think,” continued Nelligan, “that the constituency of the
+borough, as a body, are remarkable for any special liability to be
+imposed on!”
+
+“Nor would they, had it been an Irishman was trying to humbug them,”
+ said Crow, emphatically. “Take my word for it,--and I 've seen a great
+deal of the world, and perhaps not the best of it either,--but take _my_
+word for it, English blarney goes further with us here than all else.
+It 's not that it's clever or insinuating or delicate,--far from it; but
+you see that nobody suspects it. The very blunders and mistakes of it
+have an air of sincerity, and we are, besides, so accustomed always to
+be humbugged with a brogue, that we fancy ourselves safe when we hear an
+English accent.”
+
+“There's some ingenuity in your theory,” said Joe, smiling.
+
+“There's fact in it; that's what there is,” said Crow, rising from his
+seat. “I 'll be going now, for I 'm to dine with Tom Magennis at six.”
+
+“Is he here, too?”
+
+“Yes; and was n't it a piece of good luck that I did n't say anything
+about him before Colonel Massingbred?”
+
+“Why so?”
+
+“Just for this, then,--that it was young Massingbred gave him a letter
+to his father, recommending him for some place or other. Half of the
+borough expects to be in the Treasury, or the Post-Office, or the Board
+of Trade; and I was just on the tip of saying what a set of rapscallions
+they were. I 'm sure I don't know what saved me from it.”
+
+“Your natural discretion, doubtless,” said Joe, smiling.
+
+“Just so; it must have been that!” replied he, with a sigh.
+
+“You'll breakfast with me to-morrow, Crow, at eight,” said Nelligan, as
+he parted with him at the door. And Simmy, having pledged himself to be
+punctual, hurried off to keep his dinner appointment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. A DAY “AFTER”
+
+The reaction that succeeds to a period of festivity has always an air of
+peculiar sadness and gloom about it. The day after a ball, the withered
+flowers, the faded decorations, the disordered furniture,--all tell
+the tale of departed pleasure and past enjoyment. The afternoon of that
+morning which has witnessed a wedding-breakfast,--the April landscape of
+joy and grief, the bridal beauty, and the high-beating hope of the happy
+lover, have all fled; and in the still and silent chambers there seems
+to brood a sense of sorrow and mourning. Still with these thoughts
+happier memories are mingled. The bright pageant of the past rises again
+before the mind; and smiles and music and laughter and graceful forms
+come back, and people space with their images. But how different from
+all this was the day after the election at Cro' Martin!
+
+For a week had the Martins condescended to derogate from their proud
+station and “play popular” to the electors of Oughterard. They had
+opened their most sumptuous apartments to vulgar company, and made
+guests of those they deemed inferior to their own domestics. They had
+given dinners and suppers and balls and picnics. They had lavished all
+the flatteries of attentions on their rude neighbors. They had admitted
+them to all the privileges of a mock equality, “so like the real article
+as not to be detected.” They had stored their minds with all the lives
+and adventures of these ignoble intimates, so as to impart a false color
+of friendship to their conversation with them; in a word, and to use one
+by which her Ladyship summed up all the miseries of the occasion, they
+had “demoralized” more in a week than she believed it possible could
+have been effected in ten years. Let us be just, and add that my Lady
+had taken the phrase bodily out of her French vocabulary, and in her
+ardor applied it with its native signification,--that is, she alluded to
+the sad consequences of association with underbred company, and not
+by any means to any inroads made upon her sense of honor and high
+principle.
+
+Still, whatever pangs the sacrifice was costing within, it must be owned
+that no signs of them displayed themselves on the outside. Even Repton,
+stern critic as he was, said that “they did the thing well.” And now it
+was all over, the guests gone, the festivities ended, the election lost,
+and nothing in prospect save to settle the heavy outlay of the contest,
+and pay the high price for that excessively dear article which combines
+contamination with disappointment.
+
+In her capacity of head of the administration, Lady Dorothea had assumed
+the whole guidance of this contest. With Miss Henderson as her private
+secretary, she had corresponded and plotted and bribed and intrigued to
+any extent; and although Repton was frequently summoned to a council,
+his advice was very rarely, if ever, adopted. Her Ladyship's happy
+phrase--“one ought to know their own borough people better than
+a stranger”--usually decided every vexed question in favor of her
+judgment.
+
+It is a strange characteristic of human nature that at no time do people
+inveigh so loudly against bad faith, treachery, and so on, as when
+themselves deeply engaged in some very questionable enterprise. Now her
+Ladyship had so fully made up her mind to win in this contest that she
+had silenced all scruples as to the means. She had set out with some
+comfortable self-assurance that she knew what was good for those “poor
+creatures” infinitely better than they did. That it was her duty--a
+very onerous and disagreeable one, too--to rescue them from the evil
+influence of demagogues and such like; and that when represented by
+a member of _her_ family, they would be invested with a pledge that
+everything which proper legislation could do for them would be theirs.
+So far she had the approval of her own conscience; and for all that was
+to follow after, she never consulted that tribunal. It is not at all
+improbable that there was little opportunity of doing so in a week of
+such bustle and excitement. Every day brought with it fresh cares and
+troubles; and although Kate Henderson proved herself invaluable in her
+various functions, her Ladyship's fatigues and exertions were of the
+greatest.
+
+The day after the election Lady Dorothea kept her bed. The second day,
+too, she never made her appearance; and it was late in the afternoon
+of the third that she stole languidly into her library, and ordered her
+maid to send Miss Henderson to her.
+
+As Kate entered the room, she could not help feeling struck by the
+alteration that had taken place in her Ladyship's appearance, who, as
+she lay back in a deep chair, with closed eyes and folded hands, looked
+like one risen from a long sick-bed.
+
+As she started and opened her eyes, however, at Kate's approach, the
+features assumed much of their wonted expression, and their haughty
+character was only tinged, but not subdued, by the look of sorrow
+they wore. With the low and pleasant voice which Kate possessed in
+perfection, she had begun to utter some words of pleasure at seeing her
+Ladyship again, when the other interrupted her hastily, saying,--
+
+“I want you to read to me, child. There, take that volume of Madame
+de Sevigne, and begin where you see the mark. You appear weak
+to-day,--tired, perhaps?”
+
+“Oh, a mere passing sense of fatigue, my Lady,” said Kate, assuming her
+place, and preparing her book.
+
+“Chagrin, annoyance--disgust I would call it--are far more wearing than
+mere labor. For my own part, I think nothing of exertion. But let us not
+speak of it. Begin.”
+
+And Kate now commenced one of those charming letters, wherein the
+thought is so embellished by the grace of expression that there is
+a perpetual semblance of originality, without that strain upon the
+comprehension that real novelty exacts. She read, too, with consummate
+skill. To all the natural gifts of voice and utterance she added a most
+perfect taste, and that nicely subdued dramatic feeling which lends to
+reading its great fascination. Nearly an hour had thus passed, and not
+a word nor a gesture from Lady Dorothea interrupted the reader. With
+slightly drooped eyelids, she sat calm and tranquil; and as Kate, at
+moments, stole a passing glance towards her, she could not guess whether
+she was listening to her or not.
+
+“You'd have succeeded on the stage, Miss Henderson,” said she at length,
+raising her eyes slowly. “Did it never occur to you to think of that
+career?”
+
+“Once I had some notion of it, my Lady,” said Kate quietly. “I played
+in a little private theatre of the Duchess's, and they thought that I
+had some dramatic ability.”
+
+“People of condition have turned actors, latterly,--men, of course, I
+mean; for women, the ordeal is too severe,--the coarse familiarity of a
+very coarse class, the close association with most inferior natures--By
+the way, what a week of it we have had! I 'd not have believed any one
+who told me that the whole globe contained as much unredeemed vulgarity
+as this little neighborhood. What was the name of the odious little
+woman that always lifted the skirt of her dress before sitting down?”
+
+“Mrs. Creevy, my Lady.”
+
+“To be sure,--Mrs. Creevy. And her friend, who always came with her?”
+
+“Miss Busk--”
+
+“Yes, of course; Miss Busk, of the Emporium. If I don't mistake, I 've
+given her an order for something,--bonnets, or caps; what is it?”
+
+“A head-dress. Your Ladyship told her--”
+
+“You 'll make me ill, child--positively ill--if you remind me of such
+horrors. I told you to come and read for me, and you begin to inflict
+me with what--I declare solemnly--is the most humiliating incident of my
+life.”
+
+Kate resumed her book, and read on. Lady Dorothea was now, however,
+unmistakably inattentive, and the changing color of her cheek betrayed
+the various emotions which moved her.
+
+“I really fancy that Miss Martin liked the atrocious creatures we have
+received here the past week; she certainly showed them a species
+of attention quite distinct from mere acceptance; and then they all
+addressed her like old acquaintance. Did you observe that?”
+
+“I thought that they assumed a degree of familiarity with Miss Martin
+which was scarcely consistent with their station.”
+
+“Say highly ridiculous, child,--perfectly preposterous; for although she
+will persist in a style of living very opposite to the requirements of
+her position, she is Miss Martin, and _my_ niece!”
+
+There was now a dead pause of some seconds. At length her Ladyship
+spoke:--
+
+“To have been beaten in one's own town, where we own every stick and
+stone in the place, really requires some explanation; and the more I
+reflect upon it, the more mysterious does it seem. Repton, indeed, had
+much to say to it. He is so indiscreet,--eh, don't you think so?”
+
+“He is very vain of his conversational powers, my Lady, and, like all
+clever talkers, says too much.”
+
+“Just so. But I don't think him even agreeable. I deem him a bore,”
+ said my Lady, snappishly. “That taste for story-telling--that anecdotic
+habit--is quite vulgar; nobody does it now.”
+
+Kate listened, as though too eager for instruction to dare to lose a
+word, and her Ladyship went on:--
+
+“In the first place, everybody--in society, I mean--knows every story
+that can or ought to be told; and, secondly, a narrative always
+interrupts conversation, which is a game to be played by several.”
+
+Kate nodded slightly, as though to accord as much acquiescence as
+consorted with great deference.
+
+“It is possible, therefore,” resumed her Ladyship, “that he may have
+divulged many things in that careless way he talked; and my niece, too,
+may have been equally silly. In fact, one thing is clear,--the enemy
+acquired a full knowledge of our tactics, and met every move we made by
+another. I was prepared for all the violence, all the insult, all the
+licentious impertinence and ribaldry of such a contest; but certainly
+I reckoned on success.” Another long and dreary pause ensued, and Lady
+Dorothea's countenance grew sadder and more clouded as she sat in moody
+silence. At length a faint tinge of color marked her cheek; her eyes
+sparkled, and it was in a voice of more than ordinary energy she said:
+“If they fancy, however, that we shall accept defeat with submission,
+they are much mistaken. They have declared the war, and it shall not
+be for them to proclaim peace on the day they 've gained a victory. And
+Miss Martin also must learn that her Universal Benevolence scheme must
+give way to the demands of a just retribution. Have you made out the
+list I spoke of?”
+
+“Yes, my Lady, in part; some details are wanting, but there are eighteen
+cases here quite perfect.”
+
+“These are all cottiers,--pauper tenants,” said Lady Dorothea, scanning
+the paper superciliously through her eyeglass.
+
+“Not all, my Lady; here, for instance, is Dick Sheehan, the blacksmith,
+who has worked for the castle twenty-eight years, and who holds a farm
+called Mulianahogue, on a terminable lease.”
+
+“And he voted against us?” broke she in.
+
+“Yes; and made a very violent speech, too.”
+
+“Well, turn him out, then,” said Lady Dorothea, interrupting her. “Now,
+where 's your father? Send for Henderson at once; I 'll have no delay
+with this matter.”
+
+“I have sent for him, my Lady; he 'll be here within half an hour.”
+
+“And Scanlan also. We shall want him.”
+
+“Mr. Scanlan will be here at the same time.”
+
+“This case here, with two crosses before it, what does this refer to?”
+ said her Ladyship, pointing to a part of the paper.
+
+“That's Mr. Magennis, my Lady, of Barnagheela, who has been making
+incessant appeals for a renewal of his tenure--”
+
+“And how did he behave?”
+
+“He seconded Mr. Massingbred's nomination, and made a very outrageous
+speech on the occasion.”
+
+“To be sure, I remember him; and he had the insolence--the unparalleled
+insolence--afterwards to address Miss Martin, as she sat beside me in
+the carriage, and to tell her that if the rest of the family had been
+like her the scene that had been that day enacted would never have
+occurred! Who is this Hosey Lynch? His name is so familiar to me.”
+
+“He is a postmaster of Oughterard, and a kind of factotum in the town.”
+
+“Then make a note of him. He must be dismissed at once.”
+
+“He is not a freeholder, my lady, but only mentioned as an active agent
+of the Liberal party.”
+
+“Don't adopt that vulgar cant, Miss Henderson,--at least, when speaking
+to _me_, They are not--they have no pretensions to be called the Liberal
+party. It is bad taste as well as bad policy to apply a flattering
+epithet to a faction.”
+
+“What shall I call them in future, my Lady?” asked Kate, with a most
+admirably assumed air of innocence.
+
+“Call them Papists, Radicals, Insurgents,--anything, in fact, which may
+designate the vile principles they advocate. You mentioned Mr. Nelligan,
+and I own to you I felt ill--positively ill--at the sound of his name.
+Just to think of that man's ingratitude,--base ingratitude. It is but
+the other day his son was our guest here,--actually dined at the table
+with us! You were here. _You_ saw him yourself!”
+
+“Yes, my Lady,” was the quiet reply.
+
+“I 'm sure nothing could be more civil, nothing more polite, than our
+reception of him. I talked to him myself, and asked him something--I
+forget what--about his future prospects, and see if this man, or his
+father--for it matters not which--is not the ringleader of this same
+movement! I tell you, child, and I really do not say so to hurt your
+feelings, or to aggravate your natural regrets at your condition in
+life, but I say it as a great moral lesson,--that low people are
+invariably deceitful. Perhaps they do not always intend it; perhaps--and
+very probably, indeed--their standard of honorable dealing is a low one;
+but of the fact itself you may rest assured. They are treacherous, and
+they are vindictive!”
+
+“Ennis Cafferty, my Lady, who lives at Broguestown,” said Kate,
+reading from the list, “sends a petition to your Ladyship, entreating
+forgiveness if he should have done anything to cause displeasure to the
+family.”
+
+“What _did_ he do? that is the question.”
+
+“He carried a banner inscribed 'Down with Monopoly!'”
+
+“Mark him for eviction. I'll have no half measures. Miss Martin has
+brought the estate to such a pass that we may draw the rents, but never
+aspire to the influence of our property. These people shall now know
+their real masters. Who is that knocking at the door?--Come in.”
+
+And at this summons, uttered in a voice not peculiar for suavity, Mr.
+Henderson entered, bowing profoundly, and smoothing the few glossy hairs
+that streaked rather than covered his bald head. A momentary glance
+passed between the father and daughter; so fleeting, however, was it,
+that the most sharp-eyed observer could not have detected its meaning.
+Lady Dorothea was too deeply occupied with her own thoughts to waste a
+second's consideration on either of them, and promptly said,--
+
+“I want you, Henderson, to inform me who are the chief persons who
+have distinguished themselves in this outrageous insult to us in the
+borough.”
+
+Mr. Henderson moved from one foot to the other, once more stroked down
+his hair, and seemed like a man suddenly called upon to enter on a very
+unpleasant and somewhat difficult task.
+
+“Perhaps you don't like the office, sir?” said she, hastily. “Perhaps
+your own principles are opposed to it?”
+
+“Na, my Leddy,” said he, deferentially, “I ha' nae principles but such
+as the family sanctions. It's nae business o' mine to profess poleetical
+opinions.”
+
+“Very true, sir,--very just; you comprehend your station,” replied she,
+proudly. “And now to my demand. Who are the heads of this revolt?--for
+it is a revolt!”
+
+“It's nae sa much a revolt, my Leddy,” rejoined he, slowly and
+respectfully, “as the sure and certain consequence of what has been
+going on for years on the property. I did my best, by warning, and
+indeed by thwarting, so far as I could, these same changes. But I was
+not listened to. I foretold what it would all end in, this amelearating
+the condition of the small farmer--this raising the moral standard of
+the people, and a' that. I foresaw that if they grew richer they 'd grow
+sturdier; and if they learned to read, they'd begin to reflact. Ah, my
+leddy, a vara dangerous practice this same habit of reflection is, to
+folk who wear ragged clothes and dine on potatoes!”
+
+“I apprehend that the peril is not felt so acutely in your own country,
+sir!”
+
+“Vara true, my Leddy; your remark is vara just; but there's this
+difference to be remembered: the Scotch are canny folk, and we do many
+a thing that might n't be safe for others, but we take care never to do
+them ower much.”
+
+“I don't want your philosophizing, sir, about national characteristics.
+I conclude that you know--it is your duty to know--whence this spirit
+took its rise. I desire to be informed on this head, and also what
+measures you have to advise for its suppression.”
+
+Another pause, longer and more embarrassing than the first, followed on
+this speech, and Mr. Henderson really seemed balancing within himself
+whether he would or not give evidence.
+
+“Your reluctance has only to go a step further, Henderson, to impress me
+with the worst suspicions of yourself!” said Lady Dorothea, sternly.
+
+“I 'm vara sorry for it, my Leddy; I don't deserve them,” was the calm
+reply.
+
+Had Lady Dorothea been quick-sighted, she might have detected a glance
+which the daughter directed towards her father; but she had been more
+than quick-minded if she could have read its meaning, so strange was the
+expression it bore.
+
+“In plain words, sir, do you know the offenders? and if so, how can we
+punish them?”
+
+“Your Leddyship has them all there,” said he, pointing to the list on
+the table; “but there's nae sa much to be done wi' them, as the chief o'
+the lot are men o' mark and means, wi' plenty o' siller, and the sperit
+to spend it.”
+
+“I hear of nothing but defaulters till a moment like this arrives, sir,”
+ said her Ladyship, passionately. “The burden of every song is arrears
+of rent; and now I am told that the tenantry are so prosperous that they
+can afford to defy their landlord. Explain this, sir!”
+
+Before Mr. Henderson had completed that hesitating process which with
+him was the prelude to an answer, the door opened, and Mary Martin
+entered. She was in a riding-dress, and bore the traces of the road on
+her splashed costume; but her features were paler than usual, and her
+lip quivered as she spoke.
+
+“My dear aunt,” cried she, not seeming to notice that others were
+present, “I have come back at speed from Kyle's Wood to learn if it be
+true--but it cannot be true--however the poor creatures there believe
+it--that they are to be discharged from work, and no more employment
+given at the quarries. You have n't seen them, dear aunt--you haven't
+beheld them, as I did this morning--standing panic-stricken around the
+scene of their once labor, not speaking, scarcely looking at each other,
+more like a shipwrecked crew upon an unknown shore than fathers and
+mothers beside their own homesteads!”
+
+“It was I gave the order, Miss Martin,” said Lady Dorothea, proudly. “If
+these people prefer political agitation to an honest subsistence, let
+them pay the price of it.”
+
+“But who says that they have done so?” replied Mary. “These poor
+creatures have not a single privilege to exercise; they have n't a vote
+amongst them. The laws have forgotten them just as completely as human
+charity has.”
+
+“If they have no votes to record, they have voices to outrage and insult
+their natural protectors. Henderson knows that the worst mobs in the
+borough were from this very district.”
+
+“Let him give the names of those he alludes to. Let him tell me
+ten--five--ay, three, if he can, of Kyle's Wood men who took any share
+in the disturbances. I am well aware that it is a locality where he
+enjoys little popularity himself; but at least he need not calumniate
+its people. Come, sir, who are these you speak of?”
+
+Kate Henderson, who sat with bent-down head during this speech,
+contrived to steal a glance at the speaker so meaningful and so
+supplicating that Mary faltered, and as a deep blush covered her cheek,
+she hastily added: “But this is really not the question. This miserable
+contest has done us all harm; but let us not perpetuate its bitterness!
+We have been beaten in an election, but I don't think we ought to be
+worsted in a struggle of generosity and good feeling. Come over, dear
+aunt, and see these poor creatures.”
+
+“I shall certainly do no such thing, Miss Martin. In the first place,
+the fever never leaves that village.”
+
+“Very true, aunt; and it will be worse company if our kindness should
+desert them. But if you will not come, take _my_ word for the state of
+their destitution. We have nothing so poor on the whole estate.”
+
+[Illustration: 330]
+
+“It is but a moment back I was told that the spirit of resistance to our
+influence here arose from the wealthy independence of the people; now,
+I am informed it is their want and destitution suggest the opposition. I
+wish I could ascertain which of you is right.”
+
+“It's little matter if our theory does not lead us to injustice,” said
+Mary, boldly. “Let me only ride back to the quarries, aunt, and tell
+these poor people that they 've nothing to fear,--that there is no
+thought of withdrawing from them their labor nor its hire. Their lives
+are, God knows, not overlaid with worldly blessings; let us not add one
+drop that we can spare to their cup of sorrow.”
+
+“The young leddy says na mair than the fact; they're vara poor, and they
+'re vara dangerous!”
+
+“How do you mean dangerous, sir?” asked Lady Dorothea, hastily.
+
+“There's more out o' that barony at the assizes, my Leddy, than from any
+other on the property.”
+
+“Starvation and crime are near relatives all the world over,” said Mary;
+“nor do I see that the way to cure the one is to increase the other.”
+
+“Then let us get rid of both,” said Lady Dorothea. “I don't see why we
+are to nurse pauperism either into fever or rebellion. To feed people
+that they may live to infect you, or, perhaps, shoot you, is
+sorry policy. You showed me a plan for getting rid of them,
+Henderson,--something about throwing down their filthy hovels, or
+unroofing them, or something of that kind, and then they were to
+emigrate--I forget where--to America, I believe--and become excellent
+people, hard-working and quiet. I know it all sounded plausible and
+nice; tell Miss Martin your scheme, and if it does not fulfil all you
+calculated, it will at least serve for an example on the estate.”
+
+“An example!” cried Mary. “Take care, my Lady. It's a dangerous precept
+you are about to inculcate, and admits of a terrible imitation!”
+
+“Now you have decided me, Miss Martin,” said Lady Dorothea, haughtily.
+
+“And, good Heavens! is it for a rash word of mine--for a burst of temper
+that I could not control--you will turn out upon the wide world a whole
+village,--the old that have grown gray there,--the infant that clings to
+its mother in her misery, and makes a home for her by its very
+dependence--”
+
+“Every one of them, sir,” said Lady Dorothea, addressing herself to
+Henderson, who had asked some question in a low whisper. “They 're
+cottiers all; they require no delays of law, and I insist upon it
+peremptorily.”
+
+“Not till my uncle hears of it!” exclaimed Mary, passionately. “A cruel
+wrong like this shall not be done in mad haste.” And with these words,
+uttered in all the vehemence of great excitement, she rushed from the
+room in search of Martin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. A CHARACTERISTIC LETTER
+
+It may save the reader some time, and relieve him from the weary task
+of twice listening to the same story, if we steal some passages from a
+letter which, about this time, Jack Massingbred addressed to his former
+correspondent. He wrote from the inn at Oughterard, and, although still
+under the influence of the excitement of the late contest, expressed
+himself with much of his constitutional calm and frankness. We shall not
+recapitulate his narrative of the election, but proceed at once to what
+followed on that description.
+
+“I see, Harry, the dubious projection of your nether lip, I appreciate
+the slow nod of your head, and I fancy I can hear the little half-sigh
+of deprecation with which you hear all this. Worse again, I don't seek
+to defend myself. I think my case a bad one; but still I feel there is
+something to be said in mitigation. You need not trouble yourself to
+draw up an indictment: I plead guilty--entirely guilty--to all you
+can say. I _have_ broken with 'the gentlemen' to cast my lot with the
+_canaille_. Why have n't we a good wholesome word of our own for a
+home-made article? I _have_ deserted the ranks where, whatever fortune
+befell, it was honor to fight; I have given up association with
+the well-bred and the well-mannered, to rub shoulders with the
+coarse-minded, the rough-hearted, and the vulgar. There is not a
+reproach you can make me on this score that I have n't already addressed
+to myself. I feel all the indignity of my situation,--I experience
+all the insult of their companionship; but, as the lady detected in
+possession of her lover's picture pleaded in her defence that it was not
+like him, so I hope to arrest judgment against me by the honest avowal
+that I detest and despise my party. I don't talk to _you_ about their
+principles--still less do I say anything of my own--but merely advert
+here to the miserable compromise a gentleman is driven to make with
+every sentiment of his nature who once enlists under their flag. As
+Travers told us one evening--you were of the party, and must remember
+it--he was speaking of the Peninsular campaign, in which he served as
+a volunteer--'So long as you were fighting,' said he, 'it was all very
+well; the fellows were stout-hearted and full of spirit, and you felt
+that you couldn't ask for better comrades; but when the struggle was
+over--when it came to associating, living with them, hearing their
+sentiments, sharing their opinions, hopes, fears, wishes, and so
+on--then it became downright degradation!' Not, as he remarked, that
+they were one jot more vicious or more corrupt than their betters,
+but that every vice and every corruption amongst them seemed doubly
+offensive by the contact with their coarse natures. Now, my friends, the
+Liberals, are somewhat in the same category. They do their work right
+well on the field of battle; they fight, swear, slander, and perjure
+themselves just like gentlemen; or rather better of the two. They even
+come down handsomely with their cash,--the last best evidence any man
+can tender of his honesty in a cause; but then, Harry, the struggle
+over, it is sorry work to become their companion and their friend!
+Oh! if you had but seen the dinners I have eaten, and the women I have
+handed down to them!--if you could have but heard the sentiments I have
+cheered,--ay, and even uttered,--only listened to the projects we have
+discussed, and the plans matured as we sat over our whiskey-punch,--you
+'d say, 'Jack must have the ambition of the Evil One himself in his
+heart, since he pays this price for the mere glimpse of the goal before
+him!'
+
+“Throughout the whole of your last letter I can detect a sense of
+apprehension lest, 'with all my tact,' as you phrase it, these people
+are not really duping we,--using me for a present purpose, with the
+foregone resolve to get rid of me when it be accomplished. To be sure
+they are, Harry. I never doubted it for a moment. The only question is,
+which of us shall trip up the other! They desire to show the world that
+the operation of the Relief Bill will not be of that exclusive character
+its opponents proclaimed,--that a Catholic constituency would choose a
+Protestant,--even prefer one,--as Mr. O'Connell said. The opportunity
+was a good one to display this sentiment, and so they took me! Now, _my_
+notion is, that every great measure can have only one real importance,
+by throwing weight into the scale of one or other of the two great
+Parliamentary parties. Do what you will,--agitate, write, speak,
+pamphleteer, and libel,--but all resolves itself to some question of
+a harm to one side and good to the other, the country the while being
+wonderfully little the better or the worse for all the legislation.
+We used to have a Constitution in England: we have now only got a
+Parliament, and to be anything in the nation a man must make himself
+felt there! This, 'if I have the stuff in me,' as old Sherry said, I
+mean to do--_et nous verrons!_
+
+“The fatigues of this new life are very great. I 'm up before it is well
+day, writing and revising newspaper articles, answering letters, and
+replying to 'queries.' I have my whole mornings taken up in audiences of
+my constituents, swallowing pledges, and recording promises; and
+later on I go to dinner, 'with what appetite I may,' to some one of my
+faithful supporters,--some corn-chandler who spouts 'foreign politics,'
+or a grocer who ought to be Colonial Secretary! But still I 'm thankful
+for all this bustle and occupation: it averts reflection, it raises a
+barrier against thought, and muffles the clapper of that small hand-bell
+in the human heart men call their conscience! They say few men would
+have courage for either a battle or a wedding if it were not for the din
+of the trumpets and the joy-bells; and I'm convinced that noise--mere
+noise--has no small share in determining the actions of mankind!
+
+“And now, Harry, for a confession. I 'm heartily sorry for the whole of
+this business, and were it to be done again, nothing would tempt me to
+play the same part in it. I was leading the jolliest life imaginable at
+Cro' Martin. I had made the place and the people my own. It was a kind
+of existence that suited me,--sufficient of occupation, and enough of
+leisure. There were oddities to laugh at, eccentricities to quiz, an old
+lawyer to sharpen one's wits upon, and a governess--such a governess--to
+flirt with! Don't mistake me, Harry; it was not one of those
+hand-pressing, downcast-gazing, low-speaking cases in which you are such
+a proficient. It was far more like the approaches one might be supposed
+to make to a young tigress in a cage,--a creature with whom a mistake
+would be your ruin, and whom you always caressed with a sense of
+impending peril.
+
+“I told you how ably she aided me in this contest,--how she labored to
+obtain information--secret information--for me as to every voter in the
+borough. What prompted her to this course I cannot fathom. She does not
+appear to bear any grudge against the Martins,--she had been but a few
+weeks amongst them,--and is, all things considered, well treated and
+well received. As little was it any special favor towards myself.
+Indeed, on that head she will not permit me to fall into any error. I
+cannot suppose that with her foreign education and foreign habits she
+cares a jot for the small schemes and intriguings of home politics,--so
+what can it possibly mean? Help me to the solution of this riddle, and
+I 'll be more deeply your debtor than I can well say. Brought up as she
+has been,--and as I have told you in my last letter,--nothing would be
+more natural than her adoption of every prejudice of the class by whom
+she has been so singularly distinguished; and in this light I have
+always viewed her. Under the calm reserve of a most polished manner you
+can still detect a shrinking horror of all the vulgar association of
+the rank she came from. Her quiet deference, haughtier by far than the
+domination of those above her; the humility that no flatteries ever
+breached; a self-possession that never seemed so strong as when
+resisting the blandishments of praise,--these are strange gifts in a
+young girl with beauty enough to turn half the heads of half the fools
+we know of, and more than enough to make crazy that of him who writes
+this.
+
+“I tried twenty things to resist this tendency on my part. I laughed at
+myself for the absurdity it would lead to. I ridiculed to my own heart
+all the extravagance of such a project. I even wrote a paragraph for the
+'Times' announcing the marriage of Jack Massingbred with Kate Henderson,
+the only daughter of Paul Henderson, the Land Steward, and pasted it
+above my chimney to shock and outrage me. I did more. I made love to
+Miss Martin--as an alterative, as the doctors would call it--but I fell
+at a stone wall, got laughed at, and cured of my passion; and, lastly, I
+climbed that lofty tree of my family, and sat high among the branches
+of defunct barons and baronets, to get a bird's-eye view of the small
+mushrooms that grow on the earth beneath, but hang me, Harry, if the
+agarics did n't seem better company, and I was glad to get down amongst
+them again, meaning thereby to sit beside that one dear specimen of the
+class I allude to!
+
+“I see that you are curious to know how all these late events have
+modified my relations with my father, and really I cannot answer your
+inquiry. It is more than likely that my obtaining a seat in Parliament
+will embarrass rather than serve him with his party, since he will be
+expected to control a vote over which he can exert no influence.
+
+“As yet, nothing has occurred to draw us any closer, and my only
+communications to him have been certain recommendatory letters, which
+my constituents here have somewhat peremptorily demanded at my hands.
+I gave them freely, for, after all, application is an easier task than
+refusing, and besides, Harry, it is very difficult to persuade your
+election friends that you cannot be a patriot and a patron at the same
+time, and that, in the luxurious pastime of badgering a government, a
+man surrenders some of the pretensions to place. I gave them, therefore,
+all the letters they asked for; and if the Chief Secretary but answer
+one half of my appeals, Galway--or at least that small portion of it
+called Oughter-ard--will have no cause of complaint on the score of its
+claims to office.
+
+“You are, I perceive, astonished that I continue to remain here. So am
+I, Harry. The place is detestable in almost every way. I am beset with
+entreaties, persecuted with vulgar attentions, bored to death by the
+insolent familiarity of people I cannot--do all that I will--grow
+intimate with; and yet I stay on, pretexting this, that, and t' other to
+myself, and shrinking even to my own heart to avow the real reason of my
+delay!
+
+“I want once again, if only for a few moments, to see her. I want to
+try if by any ingenuity I could discover the mystery of her conduct with
+regard to myself; and I want also, if there should be the need to do
+so, to justify to her eyes many things which I have been forced by
+circumstances to do in this contest.
+
+“I have not the slightest suspicion as to how she views all that has
+occurred here. Two notes which I addressed to her, very respectful,
+businesslike epistles, have not been answered, though I entreated for a
+few words to acknowledge their receipt. The Martins, since the election,
+seem to have quarantined the whole town and neighborhood. They suffer
+none of their people to enter here. They have sent eight miles further
+off to market, and even changed the post-town for their letters. Their
+policy is, so far, shortsighted, as it has called into an exaggerated
+importance all that small fry--like the Nelligans--who have hitherto
+been crushed under the greater wealth of the rich proprietor. But I am
+again drifting into that tiresome tideway of politics which I have sworn
+to myself to avoid, if only for a few days; in pursuance of which wise
+resolve I shall betake myself to the mountains, under the pretext of
+shooting. A gun is an idler's passport, and a game-bag and a shot-pouch
+are sufficient to throw a dignity over vagabondism. You will therefore
+divine that I am not bent on snipe slaughter, but simply a good excuse
+to be alone!
+
+“I mean to go to-morrow, and shall first turn my steps towards the
+coast, which, so far as I have seen, is singularly bold and picturesque.
+If nothing occurs to alter my determination, I 'll leave this unclosed
+till I can tell you that I have come back here, which in all probability
+will be by the end of the week.
+
+“Once more here, my dear Harry, I sit down to add a few lines to this
+already over-lengthy epistle. Wishing to give you some notion of the
+scenery, I set out with all the appliances of a sketcher, and have
+really contrived to jot down some spots which, for general wildness
+and grandeur, it would be difficult to surpass within the bounds of
+our country. Nor is it alone the forms that are so striking, although
+I could show you outlines here perfectly Alpine in their fantastic
+extravagance; but the colors are finer than anything I have seen north
+of the Alps,--heaths and lichens grouped over rugged masses of rock,
+with shades of purple and gold such as no diadem ever equalled. The
+sunsets, too, were gorgeous! You remember how struck we both were at the
+moment when the dome and aisle of St. Peter's burst into light, and
+from the darkness of midnight every column and every statue became
+illuminated in a second; but a thousand times beyond this in grandeur
+of effect was the moment of the sun's decline below the horizon. The
+instant before, the great sullen sea was rolling and heaving with its
+leaden blue surface, slightly traced here and there with foam, but no
+sooner had the sun touched the horizon, than a flood of purple glory
+spread over the whole ocean, so that it became like a sea of molten gold
+and amber. The dark cliffs and rugged crags, the wave-beaten rocks, and
+the rude wild islands, darksome and dismal but a moment back, were
+now all glittering and glowing, every pinnacle and every peak in deep
+carbuncle red. How suggestive to him who would describe an
+enchanted land or region of magic splendor! and what a hint for your
+scene-painter, who, with all his devices of Bengal and blue light,
+with every trick that chemistry and optics could aid in, never fancied
+anything so splendid or so gorgeous.
+
+“I have half filled a sketch-book for you, and more than half filled my
+game-bag with mosses and ferns, and such-like gear, which, knowing your
+weakness, I have gathered, but, not understanding their virtues, may,
+for aught I know, be the commonest things in creation. I can only vouch
+for their being very beautiful, and very unlike anything else I ever
+saw before; fragments of marble, too, and specimens of Irish jasper
+and onyx, are amidst my rubbish, or my treasures, whichever you shall
+pronounce them to be.
+
+“I got through--don't fancy that the phrase denotes weariness or
+_ennui_--I got through four days in these pursuits, and then I took
+boat, and for three more I paddled about the coast, dipping in amongst
+the cliffs and creeks and caves of this wonderful coast, gathering
+shells and seaweed, and shooting curlews and eating lobsters, and, in
+fact, to all intents and purposes, suffering a 'sea change' over myself
+and my spirit as unearthlike as well may be imagined; and at last I
+bethought me of my new openiug career, and all that I ought to be doing
+in preparation of St. Stephen's, and so I turned my steps landward and
+towards 'my borough.' I like to say 'my borough;' it sounds feudal and
+insolent and old Torylike; it smacks of the day when people received
+their representative thankfully, as an alms, and your great proprietor
+created his nominee as the consul ennobled his horse!
+
+“Revolving very high thoughts, reciting Edmund Burke's grandest
+perorations, and picturing very vividly before me the stunning triumphs
+of my own eloquence in the House, I plodded along, this time at least
+wonderfully indifferent to the scenery, and totally oblivious of where
+I was, when suddenly I perceived the great trees of Cro' Martin demesne
+shadowing the road I travelled, and saw that I was actually within a
+mile or so of the Castle! You, Harry, have contrived, some way or other,
+to have had a very rose-colored existence. I never heard that you had
+been jilted by a mistress, 'cut' by a once friend, or coldly received by
+the rich relative from whom you derived all your expectations. I am not
+even aware that the horse you backed ever went wrong, or that the bill
+you endorsed for another ever came back protested. In fact, you are what
+the world loves best, cherishes most, and lavishes all its blandishments
+on,--a devilish lucky fellow! Lucky in a capital fortune, abundance of
+good gifts, good looks, and an iron constitution,--one of those natures
+that can defy duns, blue-devils, and dyspepsia! Being, therefore, all
+this, well received everywhere, good company where pheasants are to be
+shot, Burgundy to be drunk, or young ladies to be married,--for you are
+a good shot, a good wine-taster, and a good _parti_,--with such gifts, I
+say, it will be very difficult to evoke your sympathy on the score of a
+misfortune which no effort of your imagination could compass. In fact,
+to ask you to feel what I did, as I found myself walking along _outside_
+of those grounds _within_ which, but a few days back, I was the
+cherished visitor, and in sight of that smoke which denoted a hearth
+beside which I was never to sit again, and from which I was banished
+with something not very unlike disgrace! No sophistry I could summon was
+sufficient to assuage the poignancy of this sentiment. I feel certain
+that I could stand any amount of open public abuse, any known or unknown
+quantity of what is genteelly called 'slanging,' but I own to you
+that the bare thought of how my name might at that moment be mentioned
+beneath that roof, or even the very reserve that saved it from mention,
+caused me unutterable bitterness, and it was in a state of deep
+humiliation of spirit that I took the very first path that led across
+the fields and away from Cro' Martin.
+
+“They tell me that a light heart makes easy work of a day's journey.
+Take my word for it, that to get over the ground without a thought of
+the road, there's nothing like a regular knock-down affliction. I walked
+eight hours, and at a good pace, too, without so much as a few minutes'
+halt, so overwhelmed was I with sensations that would not admit of my
+remembering anything else. My first moment of consciousness--for really
+it was such--came on as I found myself breasting a steep stony ascent,
+on the brow of which stood the bleak residence of my friend Mr.
+Magennis, of Barnagheela. I have already told you of my visit to
+his house, so that I need not inflict you with any new detail of the
+locality, but I confess, little as it promised to cheer or rally the
+spirits, I was well pleased to find myself so near a roof under which I
+might take refuge. I knocked vigorously at the door, but none answered
+my summons. I repeated my demand for admittance still more loudly, and
+at last went round to the back of the house, which I found as rigidly
+barred as the front. While still hesitating what course to take, I
+spied Joan Landy--you remember the girl I spoke of in a former
+letter--ascending the hill at a brisk pace. In a moment I was beside
+her. Poor thing, she seemed overjoyed at our meeting, and warmly
+welcomed me to her house. 'Tom is away,' said she, 'in Dublin, they tell
+me, but he 'll be back in a day or two, and there 's nobody he 'd be so
+glad to see as yourself when he comes.' In the world, Harry,--that is,
+in your world and mine,--such a proposition as Joan's would have its
+share of embarrassments. Construe it how one might, there would be at
+least some awkwardness in accepting such hospitality. So I certainly
+felt it, and, as we walked along, rather turned the conversation towards
+herself, and whither she had been.
+
+“'I 'm not more than half an hour out of the house,' said she, 'for I
+only went down the boreen to show the short cut by Kell Mills to a young
+lady that was here.'
+
+“'A visitor, Mrs. Joan?'
+
+“'Yes. But to be sure you know her yourself, for you came with her the
+day she walked part of the way back with me from Cro' Martin.'
+
+“'Miss Henderson?'
+
+“'Maybe that's her name. She only told me to call her Kate.'
+
+“'Was she here alone?--did she come on foot?--which way is she gone?'
+cried I, hurrying question after question. Perhaps the tone of my last
+was most urgent, for it was to that she replied, by pointing to a
+glen between two furze-clad hills, and saying, 'That's the road she 's
+taking, till she crosses the ford at Coomavaragh.'
+
+“'And she is alone?'
+
+“'That she is; sorra a one with her, and she has five good miles before
+her.'
+
+“I never waited for more. If I did say good-bye to poor Joan, I really
+forget; but I dashed down the mountain at speed, and hurried onward in
+the direction she had pointed out. In an instant all my fatigue of the
+day was forgotten, and as I went along I remembered nothing, thought of
+nothing, but the object of my pursuit.
+
+“You who have so often bantered me on the score of my languor--that
+'elegant lassitude,' as you used to call it, which no zeal ever warmed,
+nor any ardor ever could excite--would have been somewhat astonished
+had you seen the reckless, headlong pace at which I went,--vaulting
+over gates, clearing fences, and dashing through swamps, without ever a
+moment's hesitation. Picture to yourself, then, my splashed and heated
+condition as, after a two-miles' chase in this fashion, I at length
+overtook her, just as she was in search of a safe spot to ford the
+river. Startled by the noise behind her, she turned suddenly round, and
+in an instant we stood face to face. I 'd have given much to have seen
+some show of confusion, even embarrassment in her looks, but there was
+not the slightest. No, Harry, had we met in a drawing-room, her manner
+could not have been more composed, as she said,--'Good-morning, Mr.
+Massingbred. Have you had much sport?' 'My chase was after _you_, Miss
+Henderson,' said I, hurriedly. 'I just reached Barnagheela as Mistress
+Joan returned, and having learned which road you took, followed you in
+all haste.'
+
+“'Indeed!' exclaimed she, and in a voice wherein there were blended a
+vast variety of meanings.
+
+“'Yes,' I resumed, 'for an opportunity of meeting you alone--of speaking
+with you even for a few moments--I have delayed my departure this week
+back. I wrote to you twice.'
+
+“'Yes; I got your letters.'
+
+“'But did not deign to answer them.'
+
+“' I did not write to you, because, situated as _I_ was, and regarded as
+_you_ were at Cro' Martin, there would have been a species of treason
+in maintaining anything like correspondence, just as I feel there is
+somewhat akin to it in our intercourse at this moment.'
+
+“'And have the events occurring lately changed _your_ feeling with
+regard to me?' asked I, half reproachfully.
+
+“'I don't exactly know to what former condition you refer, Mr.
+Massingbred,' said she, calmly. 'If to the counsels which you were
+gracious enough to receive at hands humble and inexperienced as
+mine, they were given, as you remember, when you were the chosen
+representative of the family at Cro' Martin, and continued only so long
+as you remained such.'
+
+“'Then I have deceived myself, Miss Henderson,' broke I in. 'I had
+fancied that there was a personal good-will in the aid you tendered me.
+I even flattered myself that I owed my success entirely and solely to
+your efforts.'
+
+“'You are jesting, Mr. Massingbred,' said she, with a saucy smile; 'no
+one better than yourself knows how to rely upon his own abilities.'
+
+“'At least, confess that it was you who first suggested to me that they
+were worth cultivating; that it was _you_ who pointed out a road to
+me in life, and even promised me your friendship as the price of my
+worthily adopting it!'
+
+“'I remember the conversation you allude to. It was on this very road it
+occurred.'
+
+“'Well, and have I done anything as yet to forfeit the reward you spoke
+of?'
+
+“'All this is beside the real question, Mr. Massingbred,' said she,
+hurriedly. 'What you are really curious to learn is, why it is that I,
+being such as I am, should have displayed so much zeal in a cause which
+could not but have been opposed to the interests of those who are my
+patrons. That you have not divined the reason is a proof to me that I
+could not make you understand it. I don't want to talk riddles,--enough
+that I say it was a caprice.'
+
+“'And yet you talked seriously, persuasively to me, of my future road
+in life; you made me think that you saw in me the qualities that win
+success.'
+
+“'You have a wonderful memory for trifles, sir, since you can recall so
+readily what I said to you.'
+
+“'But it was not a trifle to me,' said I.
+
+“'Perhaps not, Mr. Massingbred, since it referred to yourself. I don't
+mean this for impertinence!'
+
+“'I am glad that you say so!' cried I, eagerly. 'I am but too happy
+to catch at anything which may tend to convince me that you would not
+willingly hurt my feelings.'
+
+“For several minutes neither of us uttered a word; at last I said,
+'Should I be asking too much, if I begged Miss Henderson to tell me
+whether she is dissatisfied with anything I may have done in this
+contest? There may be matters in which I have been misrepresented;
+others of which I could make some explanation.'
+
+“'Are you quite satisfied with it yourself, sir?' said she, interrupting
+me.
+
+“'No,' said I; 'so little am I so, that were it all to do over again, I
+'d not embark in it. The whole affair, from beginning to end, is a false
+position.'
+
+“'Ignoble associates--low companionships--very underbred acquaintances,'
+said she, in a tone of scorn that seemed far more directed at _me_ than
+the others. I believe I showed how I felt it. I know that my cheek was
+on fire for some seconds after.
+
+“'The Martins, I take it, are outrageous with me?' said I, at last.
+
+“'They never speak of you!' was the reply.
+
+“'Not my Lady?'
+
+“'No!'
+
+“'Nor even Repton?'
+
+“'Not once.'
+
+“'That, at least, is more dignified; and if any accident should bring us
+together in county business--'
+
+“'Which is not likely.'
+
+“'How so?' asked I.
+
+“'They are going away soon.'
+
+“'Going away--to leave Cro' Martin--and for any time?'
+
+“'My Lady speaks of the Continent, and that, of course, implies a long
+absence.'
+
+“'And has this miserable election squabble led to this resolve? Is the
+neighborhood to be deprived of its chief ornament--the people of their
+best friend--just for the sake of a petty party triumph?'
+
+“'It is fortunate Mr. Massingbred's constituents cannot hear him,' said
+she, laughing.
+
+“'But be serious, and tell me how far am I the cause of all this.'
+
+“'The whole cause of it,--at least, so far as present events can
+reveal.'
+
+“'How they must abhor me!' said I, half involuntarily.
+
+“'_Avec les circonstances atténuantes_,' said she, smiling again.
+
+“'How so?--what do you mean?'
+
+“'Why, that my Lady is thankful at heart for a good excuse to get
+away,--such a pretext as Mr. Martin himself cannot oppose. Repton,
+the Grand Vizier, counsels economy, and, like all untravelled people,
+fancies France and Italy cheap to live in; and Miss Mary is, perhaps,
+not sorry with the prospect of the uncontrolled management of the whole
+estate.'
+
+“'And is she to live here alone?'
+
+“'Yes; she is to be sole mistress of Cro' Martin, and without even a
+governess, since Miss Henderson is to accompany her Ladyship as private
+secretary, minister of the household, and, in fact, any other capacity
+you may please in flattery to assign her. And now, Mr. Massingbred,
+that I have, not over-discreetly, perhaps, adventured to talk of family
+arrangements to a stranger, will you frankly ac-knowledge that your
+pride, or self-love, or any other quality of the same nature, is rather
+gratified than otherwise at all the disturbance you have caused here?
+Don't you really feel pleased to think that you have revolutionized a
+little neighborhood, broken up a society, severed the ties that bound
+proprietor and peasant, and, in fact, made a very pretty chaos, out of
+which may come anything or everything?'
+
+“'When you address such a question as this to me, you don't expect an
+answer. Indeed, the query itself is its own reply,' said I.
+
+“'Well said, sir, and with consummate temper, too. Certainly, Mr.
+Massingbred, you possess one great element of success in public life.'
+
+“'Which is--'
+
+“'To bear with equanimity and cool forbearance the impertinences of
+those you feel to be your inferiors.'
+
+“'But it is not in this light I regard Miss Henderson, be assured,' said
+I, with earnestness; 'and if I have not replied to her taunts, it is not
+because I have not felt them.'
+
+“I thought I detected a very faint flush on her cheek as I said this,
+and certainly her features assumed a more serious expression than
+before.
+
+“'Will you let me speak to you of what is far nearer my heart?' said I,
+in a low voice,--'far nearer than all this strife and war of politics?
+And will you deign to believe that what I say is prompted by whatever I
+know in myself of good or hopeful?'
+
+“'Say on,--that is, if I ought to hear it,' said she, coldly.
+
+“Deterred a second or two by her manner, I rallied quickly, and with an
+ardor of which I cannot convey an impression, much less explain,--one
+of those moments of rhapsody, _you 'd_ call it,--poured forth a warm
+declaration of love. Aye, Harry, sincere, devoted love!--a passion
+which, in mastering all the common promptings of mere worldly advantage
+and self-interest, had really inspired me with noble thoughts and high
+aspirations.
+
+“A judge never listened to a pleading with more dignified patience than
+she did to my appeal. She even waited when I had concluded, as it were
+to allow of my continuing, had I been so minded; when, seeing that I had
+closed my argument, she quietly turned about, and facing the road we
+had just been travelling, pointed to the bleak, bare mountain on which
+Barnagheela stood. 'It was yonder, then, that you caught up this lesson,
+sir. The admirable success of Mr. Magennis's experiment has seduced
+you!'
+
+“'Good heavens! Kate,' cried I--
+
+“'Sir,' said she, drawing herself proudly up, 'you are continuing the
+parallel too far.'
+
+“'But Miss Henderson cannot for a moment believe--'
+
+“'I can believe a great deal, sir, of what even Mr. Massingbred would
+class with the incredible; but, sir, there are certain situations in
+life which exact deference, from the very fact of their humility. Mine
+is one of these, and I am aware of it.'
+
+“'Will you not understand me aright?' cried I, eagerly. 'In offering to
+share my fortune in life with you--'
+
+“'Pray, sir, let this stop here. Poor Joan, I have no doubt, felt all
+the grandeur of _her_ elevation, and was grateful even in her misery.
+But _I_ should not do so. I am one of those who think that the cruellest
+share in a _mésalliance_ is that of the humbler victim. To brave such
+a fate, there should be all the hopeful, sanguine sense of strong
+affection; and, as a reserve to fall back on in reverses, there should
+be an intense conviction of the superiority over others of him from whom
+we accept our inferiority. Now, in my case, these two conditions are
+wanting. I know you like frankness, and I am frank.'
+
+“'Even to cruelty,' said I.
+
+“'We are very near Cro' Martin, sir, and I think we ought to part,' said
+she, calmly.
+
+“'And is it thus you would have us separate? Have I nothing to hope from
+time,--from the changes that may come over your opinions of me?'
+
+“'Calculate rather on the alterations in your own sentiments, Mr.
+Massingbred; and perhaps the day is not very distant when you will laugh
+heartily at yourself for the folly of this same morning,--a folly which
+might have cost you dearly, sir, for I might have said, Yes.'
+
+“'Would that you had!'
+
+“'Good-bye, sir,' said she, not noticing my interruption, 'and remember
+that, if I should ever need it, I have a strong claim on your gratitude.
+Good-bye!'
+
+“She did not give me her hand at parting, but waved it coldly towards me
+as she went. And so she passed the little wicket, and entered the
+dark woods of the demesne, leaving me in a state wherein the sense of
+bewilderment alone prevailed over all else.
+
+“I have given you this narrative, Harry, as nearly as I can remember,
+every step of it; but I do not ask you to understand it better than
+I do, which means, not at all! Nor will I worry you with the
+thousand-and-one attempts I have made to explain to myself what I still
+confess to be inexplicable. I mean to leave this at once. Would that I
+had never come here! Write to me soon; but no bantering, Harry. Not even
+my friendship for _you_--oldest and best of all my friends--could stand
+any levity on this theme. This girl knows me thoroughly, since she
+comprehends that there is no so certain way to engage my affections as
+to defy them!
+
+“Write to me, I entreat. Address me at my father's, where I shall be,
+probably, within a week. Were I to read over what I have just written,
+the chances are I should burn the letter; and so, _sans adieu_,
+
+“Yours ever,
+
+“Jack Massingbred.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. THREE COACHES AND THEIR COMPANY
+
+Three large and stately travelling-carriages, heavily laden, and
+surrounded with all the appliances for comfort possible, rolled from
+under the arched gateway of Cro' Martin. One eager and anxious face
+turned hastily to catch a last look at the place he was leaving, and
+then as hastily concealing his emotion with his handkerchief, Mr. Martin
+sat back in the carriage in silence.
+
+“Twenty minutes after eight!” exclaimed Lady Dorothea, looking at her
+watch. “It is always the case; one never can get away in time.”
+
+Rousted by the speech, Martin started, and turned again to the window.
+
+“How handsome those larches are!” cried he; “it seems but yesterday that
+I planted them, and they are magnificent trees now.”
+
+Her Ladyship made no reply, and he went on, half as though speaking to
+himself: “The place is in great beauty just now. I don't think I ever
+saw it looking so well. Shall I ever see it again?” muttered he, in a
+still lower tone.
+
+“I really cannot think it ought to break your heart, Mr. Martin, if I
+were to say 'No' to that question,” said she, testily.
+
+“No--no!” exclaimed he, repeating the word after her; “not come back
+here!”
+
+“There is nothing to prevent us if we should feel disposed to do
+so,” replied she, calmly. “I only observed that one could face the
+alternative with a good courage. The twenty years we have passed in
+this spot are represented to _your_ mind by more leafy trees and better
+timber. To _me_ they are written in the dreary memory of a joyless,
+weary existence. I detest the place,” cried she, passionately, “and
+for nothing more, that even on leaving it my spirits are too jaded and
+broken to feel the happiness that they ought.”
+
+Martin sighed heavily, but did not utter a word.
+
+“So it is,” resumed she; “one ever takes these resolutions too late.
+What we are doing now should have been done sixteen or eighteen years
+ago.”
+
+“Or not at all,” muttered Martin, but in a voice not meant to be
+overheard.
+
+“I don't think so, sir,” cried she, catching up his words; “if only
+as our protest against the insolence and ingratitude of this
+neighborhood,--of these creatures who have actually been maintained by
+us! It was high time to show them their real condition, and to what they
+will be reduced when the influence of our position is withdrawn.”
+
+“If it were only for _that_ we are going away--” And he stopped himself
+as he got thus far.
+
+“In itself a good and sufficient reason, sir; but I trust there are
+others also. I should hope that we have paid our debt to patriotism, and
+that a family who have endured twenty years of banishment may return,
+if only to take a passing glance at the world of civilization and
+refinement.”
+
+“And poor Mary!” exclaimed Martin, with deep feeling.
+
+“Your niece might have come with us if she pleased, Mr. Martin. To
+remain here was entirely her own choice; not that I am at all disposed
+to think that her resolution was not a wise one. Miss Mary Martin
+feels very naturally her utter deficiency in all the graces and
+accomplishments which should pertain to her condition. She appreciates
+her unfitness for society, and selects--as I think, with commendable
+discretion--a sphere much better adapted to her habits.”
+
+Martin again sighed heavily.
+
+“To leave any other girl under such circumstances would have been highly
+improper,” resumed her Ladyship; “but she is really suited to this kind
+of life, and perfectly unfit for any other, and I have no doubt she and
+Catty Broon will be excellent company for each other.”
+
+“Catty loves her with all her heart,” muttered Martin.
+
+And her Ladyship's lip curled in silent derision at the thought of such
+affection. “And, after all,” said he, half involuntarily, “our absence
+will be less felt so long as Molly stays behind.”
+
+“If you mean by that, Mr. Martin, that the same system of wasteful
+expenditure is still to continue,--this universal employment scheme,--I
+can only say I distinctly and flatly declare against it. Even Rep
+ton--and I 'm sure he 's no ally of mine--agrees with me in pronouncing
+it perfectly ruinous.”
+
+“There's no doubt of the cost of it,” said Martin, gravely.
+
+“Well, sir, and what other consideration should weigh with us?--I mean,”
+ added she, hastily, “what should have the same weight? The immaculate
+authority I have just quoted has limited our personal expenditure for
+next year to five thousand pounds, and threatens us with even less in
+future if the establishment at Cro' Martin cannot be reduced below its
+present standard; but I would be curious to know why there is such a
+thing as an establishment at Cro' Martin?”
+
+“Properly speaking, there is none,” said Martin. “Rep-ton alludes only
+to the workpeople,--to those employed on the grounds and the gardens. We
+cannot let the place go to ruin.”
+
+“There is certainly no necessity for pineries and forcing-houses. Your
+niece is not likely to want grapes in January, or camellias in the early
+autumn. As little does she need sixteen carriage-horses and a stable
+full of hunters.”
+
+“They are to be sold off next week. Mary herself said that she only
+wanted two saddle-horses and the pony for the phaeton.”
+
+“Quite sufficient, I should say, for a young lady.”
+
+“I 'm sure she 'd have liked to have kept the harriers--”
+
+“A pack of hounds! I really never heard the like!”
+
+“Poor Molly! It was her greatest pleasure,--I may say her only amusement
+in life. But she would n't hear of keeping them; and when Repton tried
+to persuade her--”
+
+“Repton's an old fool,--he's worse; he's downright dishonest,--for he
+actually proposed my paying my maids out of my miserable pittance
+of eight hundred a year, and at the same moment suggests your niece
+retaining a pack of foxhounds!”
+
+“Harriers, my Lady.”
+
+“I don't care what they 're called. It is too insolent.”
+
+“You may rely upon one thing,” said Martin, with more firmness than
+he had hitherto used, “there will be nothing of extravagance in Mary's
+personal expenditure. If ever there was a girl indifferent to all the
+claims of self, she is that one.”
+
+“If we continue this discussion, sir, at our present rate, I opine that
+by the time we reach Dublin your niece will have become an angel.”
+
+Martin dropped his head, and was silent; and although her Ladyship made
+two or three other efforts to revive the argument, he seemed resolved
+to decline the challenge, and so they rolled along the road sullen and
+uncommunicative.
+
+In the second carriage were Repton and Kate Henderson,--an arrangement
+which the old lawyer flatteringly believed he owed to his cunning and
+address, but which in reality was ordained by Lady Dorothea, whose
+notions of rank and precedence were rigid. Although Repton's greatest
+tact lay in his detection of character, he felt that he could not
+satisfactorily affirm he had mastered the difficulty in the present
+case. She was not exactly like anything he had met before; her mode of
+thought, and even some of her expressions were so different that the
+old lawyer owned to himself, “It was like examining a witness through an
+interpreter.”
+
+A clever talker--your man of conversational success--is rarely patient
+under the failure of his powers, and, not very unreasonably perhaps,
+very ready to ascribe the ill-success to the defects of his hearer. They
+had not proceeded more than half of the first post ere Repton began to
+feel the incipient symptoms of this discontent.
+
+She evidently had no appreciation for bar anecdote and judicial wit;
+she took little interest in political events, and knew nothing of the
+country or its people. He tried the subject of foreign travel, but his
+own solitary trip to Paris and Brussels afforded but a meagre experience
+of continental life, and he was shrewd enough not to swim a yard out of
+his depth. “She must have her weak point, if I could but discover it,”
+ said he to himself. “It is not personal vanity, that I see. She does not
+want to be thought clever, nor even eccentric, which is the governess
+failing _par excellence_. What then can it be?” With all his ingenuity
+he could not discover. She would talk, and talk well, on any theme
+he started, but always like one who maintained conversation through
+politeness and not interest; and this very feature it was which piqued
+the old man's vanity, and irritated his self-love.
+
+When he spoke, she replied, and always with a sufficient semblance of
+interest; but if he were silent, she never opened her lips.
+
+“And so,” said he, after a longer pause than usual, “you tell me that
+you really care little or nothing whither Fortune may be now conducting
+you.”
+
+“To one in my station it really matters very little,” said she, calmly.
+“I don't suppose that the post-horses there have any strong preference
+for one road above another, if they be both equally level and smooth.”
+
+“There lies the very question,” said he; “for you now admit that there
+may be a difference.”
+
+“I have never found in reality,” said she, “that these differences were
+appreciable.”
+
+“How is it that one so young should be so--so philosophic?” said he,
+after a hesitation.
+
+“Had you asked me that question in French, Mr. Repton, the language
+would have come so pleasantly to your aid, and spared you the
+awkwardness of employing a grand phrase for a small quality; but my
+'philosophy' is simply this: that, to fill a station whose casualties
+range from courtesies in the drawing-room to slights from the servants'
+hall, one must arm themselves with very defensive armor as much, nay
+more, against flattery than against sarcasm. If, in the course of time,
+this habit render one ungenial and uncompanionable, pray be lenient
+enough to ascribe the fault to the condition as much as to the
+individual.”
+
+“But, to be candid, I only recognize in you qualities the very opposite
+of all these; and if I am to confess a smart at this moment, it is in
+feeling that I am not the man to elicit them.”
+
+“There you do me wrong. I should be very proud to captivate Mr. Repton.”
+
+“Now we are on the good road at last!” said he, gayly; “for Mr. Repton
+is dying to be captivated.”
+
+“The fortress that is only anxious to surrender offers no great glory to
+the conqueror,” replied she.
+
+“By Jove! I 'm glad you 're not at the bar.”
+
+“If I had been, I could never have shown the same forbearance as Mr.
+Repton.”
+
+“How so? What do you mean?”
+
+“I never could have refused a silk gown, sir; and they tell me you have
+done so!”
+
+“Ah! they told you that,” said he, coloring with pleasurable pride.
+“Well, it's quite true. The fact is correct, but I don't know what
+explanation they have given of it!”
+
+“There was none, sir,--or, at least, none that deserved the name.”
+
+“Then what was your own reading of it?” asked he.
+
+“Simply this, sir: that a proud man may very well serve in the ranks,
+but spurn the grade of a petty officer.”
+
+“By Jove; it is strange to find that a young lady should understand
+one's motives better than an old Minister,” said he, with an evident
+satisfaction.
+
+“It would be unjust, sir, were I to arrogate any credit to my own
+perspicuity in this case,” said she, hastily; “for I was aided in my
+judgment by what, very probably, never came under the Minister's eyes.”
+
+“And what was that?”
+
+“A little volume which I discovered one day in the library, entitled
+'Days of the Historical Society of Trinity College,' wherein I found Mr.
+Repton's name not only one of the first in debate, but the very first in
+enunciating the great truths of political liberty. In fact, I might go
+further, and say, the only one who had the courage to proclaim the great
+principles of the French Revolution.”
+
+“Ah,--yes. I was a boy,--a mere boy,--very rash,--full of hope,--full of
+enthusiasm,” said Repton, with an embarrassment that increased at every
+word. “We all took fire from the great blaze beside us just then; but,
+my dear young lady, the flame has died out,--very fortunately, too; for
+if it had n't, it would have burned us up with it. We were wrong,--wrong
+with Burke, to be sure,--_Errare Platone_, as one may say,--but still
+wrong.”
+
+“You were wrong, sir, in confounding casualties with true consequences;
+wrong as a physician would be who abandoned his treatment from mistaking
+the symptoms of disease for the effects of medicine. You set out by
+declaring there was a terrible malady to be treated, and you shrink back
+affrighted at the first results of your remedies; you did worse; you
+accommodated your change of principles to party, and from the great
+champions of liberty you descended to be--modern Whigs!”
+
+“Why, what have we here? A Girondist, I verily believe!” said Repton,
+looking in her face with a smile of mingled surprise and amazement.
+
+“I don't much care for the name you may give me; but I am one who thinks
+that the work of the French Revolution is sure of its accomplishment.
+We shall very probably not do the thing in the same way, but it will be
+done, nevertheless; for an Act of Parliament, though not so speedy, will
+be as effectual as a 'Noyade,' and a Reforming Administration will work
+as cleanly as a Constituent!”
+
+“But see; look at France at this moment. Is not society reconstituted
+pretty near to the old models? What evidence is there that the prestige
+of rank has suffered from the shock of revolution?”
+
+“The best evidence. Nobody believes in it,--not one. Society is
+reconstituted just as a child constructs a card-house to see how high he
+can carry the frail edifice before it tumbles. The people--the true
+people of the Continent--look at the pageantry of a court and a nobility
+just as they do on a stage procession, and criticise it in the same
+spirit. They endure it so long as their indolence or their caprice
+permit, and then, some fine morning, they 'll dash down the whole
+edifice; and be assured that the fragments of the broken toy will never
+suggest the sentiment to repair it.”
+
+“You are a Democrat of the first water!” exclaimed Repton, in half
+amazement.
+
+“I am simply for the assertion of the truth everywhere and in
+everything,--in religion and in politics, as in art and literature. If
+the people be the source of power, don't divert the stream into another
+channel; and, above all, don't insist that it should run up-hill! Come
+abroad, Mr. Repton,--just come over with us to Paris,--and see if what
+I am telling you be so far from the fact. You 'll find, too, that it
+is not merely the low-born, the ignoble, and the poor who profess these
+opinions, but the great, the titled, and the wealthy men of fourteen
+quarterings and ancient lineage; and who, sick to death of a contest
+with a rich bourgeoisie, would rather start fair in the race again, and
+win whatever place their prowess or their capacity might giye them. You
+'ll hear very good socialism from the lips of dukes and princesses who
+swear by Fourier.”
+
+Repton stared at her in silence, not more amazed at the words he heard
+than at the manner and air of her who spoke them; for she had gradually
+assumed a degree of earnestness and energy which imparted to her
+features a character of boldness and determination such as he had not
+seen in them before..
+
+“Yes,” resumed she, as though following out her own thoughts, “it is
+your new creations, your ennobled banker, your starred and cordoned
+agitator of the Bourse, who now defends his order, and stands up for the
+divine right of misrule! The truly noble have other sentiments!”
+
+“There 's nothing surprises me so much,” said Repton, at last, “as
+to hear these sentiments from one who has lived surrounded by all the
+blandishments of a condition that owes its existence to an aristocracy,
+and never could have arisen without one,--who has lived that delightful
+life of refined leisure and elevating enjoyment, such as forms the
+atmosphere of only one class throughout the whole world. How would you
+bear to exchange this for the chaotic struggle that you point at?”
+
+“As for me, sir, I only saw the procession from the window. I may,
+perhaps, walk in it when I descend to the street; but really,” added
+she, laughing, “this is wandering very far out of the record. I had
+promised myself to captivate Mr. Repton, and here I am, striving to
+array every feeling of his heart and every prejudice of his mind against
+me.”
+
+“It is something like five-and-fifty years since I last heard such
+sentiments as you have just uttered,” said Repton, gravely. “I was young
+and ardent,--full of that hopefulness in mankind which is, after
+all, the life-blood of Republicanism; and here I am now, an old,
+time-hardened lawyer, with very little faith in any one. How do you
+suppose that such opinions can chime in with all I have witnessed in the
+interval?”
+
+“Come over to Paris, sir,” was her reply.
+
+“And I would ask nothing better,” rejoined he. “Did I ever tell you of
+what Harry Parsons said to Macnatty when he purposed visiting France,
+after the peace of '15? 'Now is the time to see the French capital,'
+said Mac. 'I 'll put a guinea in one pocket and a shirt in the other,
+and start to-morrow.' 'Ay, sir,' said Parsons, 'and never change either
+till you come back again!'”
+
+Once back in his accustomed field, the old lawyer went along recounting
+story after story, every name seeming to suggest its own anecdote. Nor
+was Kate, now, an ungenerous listener; on the contrary, she relished his
+stores of wit and repartee. Thus they, too, went on their journey!
+
+The third carriage contained Madame Hortense, Lady Dorothea's French
+maid; Mrs. Runt, an inferior dignitary of the toilet; and Mark Peddar,
+Mr. Martin's “gentleman,”--a party which, we are forced to own, seemed
+to combine more elements of sociality than were gathered together in the
+vehicles that preceded them. To _their_ share there were no regrets for
+leaving home,--no sorrow at quitting a spot endeared to them by long
+association. The sentiment was one of unalloyed satisfaction. They were
+escaping from the gloom of a long exile, and about to issue forth into
+that world which they longed for as eagerly as their betters. And why
+should they not? Are not all its pleasures, all its associations
+more essentially adapted to such natures; and has solitude one single
+compensation for all its depression to such as these?
+
+“Our noble selves,” said Mr. Peddar, filling the ladies' glasses, and
+then his own; for a very appetizing luncheon was there spread out before
+them, and four bottles of long-necked gracefulness rose from amidst the
+crystal ruins of a well-filled ice-pail. “Mam'selle, it is your favorite
+tipple, and deliciously cool.”
+
+“Perfection,” replied mademoiselle, with a foreign accent, for she had
+been long in England; “and I never enjoyed it more. _Au revoir_,”
+ added she, waving her hand towards the tall towers of Cro' Martin, just
+visible above the trees,--“_Au revoir!_”
+
+“Just so,--till I see you again,” said Mrs. Runt; “and I 'm sure I
+'ll take good care that day won't come soon. It seems like a terrible
+nightmare when I think of the eight long years I passed there.”
+
+“_Et moi_, twelve! Miladi engage me, so to say, _provisoirement_, to
+come to Ireland, but with a promise of travel abroad; that we live in
+Paris, Rome, Naples,--_que sais-je?_ I accept,--I arrive,--_et me
+voici!_” And mademoiselle threw back her veil, the better to direct
+attention to the ravages time and exile had made upon her charms.
+
+“Hard lines, ma'am,” said Peddar, whose sympathy must not be accused
+of an _equivoque_; “and here am I, that left the best single-handed
+situation in all England,--Sir Augustus Hawleigh's,--a young fellow
+just of age, and that never knew what money was, to come down here at
+a salary positively little better than a country curate's, and live the
+life of--of--what shall I say?--”
+
+“No, the leg, if you please, Mr. Peddar; no more wine. Well, just one
+glass, to drink a hearty farewell to the old house.”
+
+“I 'm sure I wish Mary joy of her residence there,” said Peddar,
+adjusting his cravat; “she is a devilish fine girl, and might do better,
+though.”
+
+“She has no ambitions,--no what you call them?--no aspirations for _le
+grand monde_; so perhaps she has reason to stay where she is.”
+
+“But with a young fellow of _ton_ and fashion, mam'selle,--a fellow
+who has seen life,--to guide and bring her out, trust me, there are
+excellent capabilities in that girl.” And as Mr. Peddar enunciated the
+sentiment, his hands ran carelessly through his hair, and performed a
+kind of impromptu toilet.
+
+“She do dress herself _bien mal_.”
+
+“Disgracefully so,” chimed in Mrs. Runt “I believe, whenever she bought
+a gown, her first thought was what it should turn into when she 'd done
+with it.”
+
+“I thought that la Henderson might have taught her something,” said
+Peddar, affectedly.
+
+“_Au contraire_,--she like to make the contrast more strong; she always
+seek to make say, '_Regardez_, mademoiselle, see what a _tournure_ is
+there!'”
+
+“Do you think her handsome, Mr. Peddar?” asked Mrs. Runt.
+
+“Handsome, yes; but not _my_ style,--not one of what _I_ call _my_
+women; too much of this kind of thing, eh?” And he drew his head back,
+and threw into his features an expression of exaggerated scorn.
+
+“Just so. Downright impudent, I'd call it.”
+
+“Not even that,” said Mr. Peddar, pondering; “haughty, rather,--a kind
+of don't-think-to-come-it-on-me style of look, eh?”
+
+“Not at all amiable,--_point de cela,_” exclaimed mam'selle; “but still,
+I will say, _très bon genre_. You see at a glance that she has seen _la
+bonne société._”
+
+“Which, after all, is the same all the world over,” said Peddar,
+dogmatically. “At Vienna we just saw the same people we used to have
+with us in London; at Rome, the same; so, too, at Naples. I assure you
+that the last time I dined at Dolgorouki's, I proposed going in the
+evening to the Haymarket. I quite forgot we were on the Neva. And when
+Prince Gladuatoffski's gentleman said, 'Where shall I set you down?'
+I answered carelessly, 'At my chambers in the Albany, or anywhere your
+Highness likes near that.' Such is life!” exclaimed he, draining the
+last of the champagne into his glass.
+
+“The place will be pretty dull without us, I fancy,” said Mrs. Runt,
+looking out at the distant landscape.
+
+“That horrid old Mother Broon won't say so,” said Peddar, laughing. “By
+Jove! if it was only to escape that detestable hag, it 's worth while
+getting away.”
+
+“I offer her my hand when I descend the steps, but she refuse
+_froidement_, and say, 'I wish you as much pleasure as you leave behind
+you.' _Pas mal_ for such a _creature_.”
+
+“I did n't even notice her,” said Mrs. Runt.
+
+“_Ma foi!_ I was good with all the world; I was in such Joy--such
+spirits--that I forgave all and everything. I felt _nous sommes en
+route_, and Paris--dear Paris--before us.”
+
+“My own sentiments to, a T,” said Mr. Peddar. “Let me live on the
+Boulevards, have my cab, my stall at the Opera, two Naps, per diem
+for my dinner, and I'd not accept Mary Martin's hand if she owned Cro'
+Martin, and obliged me to live in it.”
+
+The speech was fully and warmly acknowledged, other subjects were
+started, and so they travelled the same road as their betters, and
+perhaps with lighter hearts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV. COUNTRY AUCTION
+
+With feelings akin to those with which the populace of a revolted city
+invade the once sacred edifice of the deposed Prince, the whole town and
+neighborhood of Oughterard now poured into the demesne of Cro' Martin,
+wandered through the grounds, explored the gardens, and filled the
+house. An immense advertisement in the local papers had announced a
+general sale of horses and carriages, farming stock, and agricultural
+implements; cattle of choice breeding, sheep of fabulous facilities
+for fat, and cows of every imaginable productiveness, were there, with
+draft-horses like dwarf elephants, and bulls that would have puzzled a
+matador.
+
+The haughty state in which the Martins habitually lived, the wide
+distance by which they separated themselves from the neighborhood
+around, had imparted to Cro' Martin a kind of dreamy splendor in the
+country, exalting even its well-merited claims to admiration. Some had
+seen the grounds, a few had by rare accident visited the gardens, but
+the house and the stables were still unexplored territories, of whose
+magnificence each spoke without a fear of contradiction.
+
+Country neighborhoods are rarely rich in events, and of these, few can
+rival a great auction. It is not alone in the interests of barter and
+gain thus suggested, but in the thousand new channels for thought thus
+suddenly opened,--the altered fortunes of him whose effects have come
+to the hammer; his death, or his banishment,--both so much alike.
+The visitor wanders amidst objects which have occupied years in
+collection,--some the results of considerable research and difficulty,
+some the long-coveted acquisitions of half a lifetime, and some--we have
+known such--the fond gifts of friendship. There they are now side by
+side in the catalogue, their private histories no more suspected than
+those of them who lie grass-covered in the churchyard. You admire that
+highly bred hunter in all the beauty of his symmetry and his strength,
+but you never think of the “little Shelty” in the next stable with
+shaggy mane and flowing tail; and yet it was on _him_ the young heir
+used to ride; _he_ was the cherished animal of all the stud, led in
+beside the breakfast-table to be caressed and petted, fed with sugar
+from fair fingers, and patted by hands a Prince might have knelt to
+kiss! His rider now sleeps beneath the marble slab in the old aisle, and
+they who once brightened in smiles at the sound of his tiny trot would
+burst into tears did they behold that pony!
+
+So, amidst the triumphs of color and design that grace the walls, you
+have no eyes for a little sketch in water-color,--a mill, a shealing
+beside a glassy brook, a few trees, and a moss-clad rock; and yet that
+little drawing reveals a sad story. It is all that remains of her who
+went abroad to die. You throw yourself in listless lassitude upon a
+couch; it was the work of one who beguiled over it the last hours of a
+broken heart! You turn your steps to the conservatory, but never notice
+the little flower-garden, whose narrow walks, designed for tiny feet,
+need not the little spade to tell of the child-gardener who tilled it.
+
+Ay, this selling-off is a sad process! It bespeaks the disruption of a
+home; the scattering of those who once sat around the same hearth, with
+all the dear familiar things about them!
+
+It was a bright spring morning--one of those breezy, cloud-flitting
+days, with flashes of gay sunlight alternating with broad shadows, and
+giving in the tamest landscape every effect the painter's art could
+summon--that a long procession, consisting of all imaginable vehicles,
+with many on horseback intermixed, wound their way beneath the grand
+entrance and through the park of Cro' Martin. Such an opportunity of
+gratifying long pent-up curiosity had never before offered; since, even
+when death itself visited the mansion, the habits of exclusion were not
+relaxed, but the Martins went to their graves in the solemn state of
+their households alone, and were buried in a little chapel within the
+grounds, the faint tolling of the bell alone announcing to the world
+without that one of a proud house had departed.
+
+The pace of the carriages was slow as they moved along, their occupants
+preferring to linger in a scene from which they had been hitherto
+excluded, struck by the unexpected beauty of the spot, and wondering at
+all the devices by which it was adorned. A few--a very few--had seen the
+place in boyhood, and were puzzling themselves to recall this and that
+memory; but all agreed in pronouncing that the demesne was far finer,
+the timber better grown, and the fields more highly cultivated than
+anything they had ever before seen.
+
+“I call this the finest place in Ireland, Dan!” said Captain Bodkin, as
+he rode beside Nelligan's car, halting every now and then to look around
+him. “There's everything can make a demesne beautiful,--wood, water, and
+mountain!”
+
+“And, better than all, a fine system of farming,” broke in Nelligan.
+“That's the best field of 'swedes' I ever beheld!”
+
+“And to think that a man would leave this to go live abroad in a dirty
+town in France!” exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, from the opposite side of the
+car. “That's perverseness indeed!”
+
+“Them there is all Swiss cows!” said Mr. Clinch, in an humble tone.
+
+“Not one of them, Clinch! they're Alderneys. The Swiss farm, as they
+call it, is all on the other side, with the ornamented cottage.”
+
+“Dear! dear! there was no end to their waste and extravagance!” muttered
+Mrs. Nelligan.
+
+“Wait till you see the house, ma'am, and you 'll say so, indeed,” said
+the Captain.
+
+“I don't think we 're likely!” observed Nelligan, dryly.
+
+“Why so?”
+
+“Just that Scanlan told Father Mather the auction would be held in the
+stables; for as there was none of the furniture to be sold, the house
+would n't be opened.”
+
+“That's a great disappointment!” exclaimed Bodkin. A sentiment fully
+concurred in by the ladies, who both declared that they'd never have,
+come so far only to look at pigs and “shorthorns.”
+
+“Maybe we 'll get a peep at the gardens,” said Bodkin, endeavoring to
+console them.
+
+“And the sow!” broke in Peter Hayes, who had joined the party some time
+before. “They tell me she's a beauty. She's Lord Somebody's breed, and
+beats the world for fat!”
+
+“Here's Scanlan now, and he 'll tell us everything,” said Bodkin.
+But the sporting attorney, mounted on a splendid little horse, in top
+condition, passed them at speed, the few words he uttered being lost as
+he dashed by.
+
+“What was it he said?” cried Bodkin.
+
+“I didn't catch the words,” replied Nelligan; “and I suppose it was no
+great loss.”
+
+“He's an impudent upstart!” exclaimed Mrs. Clinch.
+
+“I think he said something about a breakfast,” meekly interposed Mr.
+Clinch.
+
+“And of course he said nothing of the kind,” retorted his spouse. “You
+never happened to be right in your life!”
+
+“Faix! I made sure of mine before I started,” said old Hayes, “I ate a
+cowld goose!”
+
+“Well, to be sure, they could n't be expected to entertain all that's
+coming!” said Mrs. Nelligan, who now began a mental calculation of the
+numbers on the road.
+
+“There will be a thousand people here to-day,” said Bodkin.
+
+“Five times that,” said Nelligan. “I know it by the number of small
+bills that I gave cash for the last week. There's not a farmer in the
+county does n't expect to bring back with him a prize beast of one kind
+or other.”
+
+“I'll buy that sow if she goes 'reasonable,'” said Peter Hayes, whose
+whole thoughts seemed centred on the animal in question.
+
+“What do they mean to do when they sell off the stock?” asked the
+Captain.
+
+“I hear that the place will be let,” said Nelligan, in a half whisper,
+“if they can find a tenant for it. Henderson told Father Mather that,
+come what might, her Ladyship would never come back here.”
+
+“Faix! the only one of them worth a groat was Miss Mary, and I suppose
+they did n't leave her the means to do much now.”
+
+“'Tis she must have the heavy heart to-day,” sighed Mrs. Nelligan.
+
+“And it is only fair and reasonable she should have her share of
+troubles, like the rest of us,” replied Mrs. Clinch. “When Clinch was
+removed from Macroon, we had to sell off every stick and stone we had;
+and as the neighbors knew we must go, we didn't get five shillings in
+the pound by the sale.”
+
+“That's mighty grand,--that is really a fine place!” exclaimed Bodkin,
+as by a sudden turn of the road they came directly in front of the
+house; and the whole party sat in silent admiration of the magnificent
+edifice before them.
+
+“It is a royal palace,--no less,” said Nelligan, at last; “and that's
+exactly what no country gentleman wants. Sure we know well there's no
+fortune equal to such a residence. To keep up that house, as it ought to
+be, a man should have thirty thousand a year.”
+
+“Give me fifteen, Dan, and you'll see if I don't make it comfortable,”,
+said Bodkin.
+
+“What's this barrier here,--can't we go any further?” exclaimed
+Nelligan, as he perceived a strong paling across the avenue.
+
+“We 're to go round by the stables, it seems,” said Bodkin; “the hall
+entrance is not to be invaded by such vulgar visitors. This is our road,
+here.”
+
+“Well, if I ever!” exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, whose feelings really
+overpowered utterance.
+
+“I don't see any great hardship in this after all, ma'am,” said
+Nelligan; “for we know if the family were at home we couldn't even be
+here. Drive on, Tim.”
+
+A short circuit through a very thickly wooded tract brought them at
+length to a large and massive gateway, over which the Martins' arms
+were sculptured in stone; passing through which they entered a great
+courtyard, three sides of which were occupied by stables, the fourth
+presenting a range of coach-houses filled with carriages of every
+description.
+
+A large tent was erected in the midst of the court for the convenience
+of the sale, in front of which were pens for the cattle, and a space
+railed off, wherein the horses were to be viewed and examined.
+
+“This is all mighty well arranged,” said Bodkin, as he gave his horse to
+a groom, who, in the undress livery of Cro' Martin, came respectfully to
+his aid as he got down.
+
+“The sale will begin in about an hour, sir,” said the man, in answer
+to a question. “Mr. Scanlan is now in the house with Mr. Gibbs, the
+auctioneer.”
+
+Vast crowds of people of every class, from the small squire to the
+Oughterard shopkeeper and country farmer, now came pouring in, all eager
+in their curiosity, but somehow all subdued into a kind of reverence for
+a spot from which they had been so rigidly excluded, and the very aspect
+of which so far transcended expectations. Everything, indeed, was an
+object of wonderment. The ornamental tanks for watering the horses,
+supplied by beautifully designed fountains; the sculptured medallions
+along the walls, emblematizing the chase or the road; the bright
+mahogany partitions of the stalls, even to the little channels lined
+with shining copper, all demanded notice and comment; and many were the
+wise reflections uttered with regard to those who thus squandered away
+their wealth. The sight of the cattle, however, which occupied this
+luxurious abode, went far to disarm this criticism, since certainly none
+ever seemed more worthy of the state and splendor that surrounded them.
+For these the admiration was hearty and sincere, and the farmers went
+along the stalls amazed and wonderstruck at the size and symmetry of the
+noble animals that filled them.
+
+“To be sold at Tattersall's, sir, on the 4th of next month,” said a
+groom, whose English accent imparted an almost sneer to the supposition
+that such a stud should meet purchasers in Ireland. “They 're all
+advertised in 'Bell's Life.'”
+
+“What becomes of the hounds?” asked Bodkin.
+
+“Lord Cromore takes them, sir; they're to hunt in Dorsetshire.”
+
+“And the sow?” asked old Hayes, with eagerness; “she isn't to go to
+England, is she?”
+
+“Can't say, sir. We don't look arter no sows here,” replied the fellow,
+as he turned away in evident disgust at his questioner.
+
+A certain stir and bustle in the court without gave token that the sale
+was about to begin; and Scanlan's voice, in its most authoritative tone,
+was heard issuing orders and directions on all sides, while servants
+went hither and thither distributing catalogues, and securing
+accommodation for the visitors with a degree of deference and attention
+most remarkable.
+
+“I suppose we're to pass the day in the stables or the cowhouses,
+ma'am?” said Mrs. Clinch, as with a look of indignation she gazed at the
+range of seats now being hastily occupied by a miscellaneous company.
+
+“If we could only get into the gardens,” said Mrs. Nelligan, timidly.
+“I'm sure if I saw Barnes he'd let us in.” And she slipped rapidly from
+her friend's arm, and hastily crossing the court, went in search of her
+only acquaintance in the household. “Did you see Barnes? Where could I
+find Barnes?” asked she of almost every one she met. And following the
+complicated directions she received, she wandered onward, through a
+kitchen-garden, and into a small nursery beyond it. Bewildered as she
+receded beyond the sounds of the multitude, she turned into a little
+path which, traversing a shrubbery, opened upon a beautifully cultivated
+“parterre,” whose close-shaven sward and flowery beds flanked a long
+range of windows opening to the ground, and which, to her no small
+horror, she perceived to form one wing of the mansion. While in her
+distraction to think what course was best to take, she saw a groom
+standing at the head of a small pony, harnessed to a diminutive
+carriage, and hastily approached him. Before, however, she had attained
+within speaking distance, the man motioned to her, by a gesture, to
+retire. Her embarrassment gave her, if not courage, something of
+resolution, and she advanced.
+
+“Go back!” cried he, in a smothered voice; “there 's no one admitted
+here.”
+
+“But I 've lost my way. I was looking for Barnes--”
+
+“He's not here. Go back, I say,” reiterated the man, in the same
+stealthy voice.
+
+But poor Mrs. Nelligan, came on, confusion rendering her indifferent
+to all reproof, and in spite of gestures and admonitions to retire,
+steadily advanced towards the door. As she passed one of the open
+windows, her glance caught something within; she stopped suddenly,
+and, in seeming shame at her intrusion, turned to go back. A muttered
+malediction from the servant increased her terror, and she uttered a
+faint cry. In an instant the object at which she had been gazing arose,
+and Mary Martin, her face traced with recent tears, started up and
+approached her. Mrs. Nelligan felt a sense of sickly faintness come over
+her, and had to grasp the window for support.
+
+“Oh, my dear young lady!” she muttered, “I did n't mean to do this--I
+strayed here by accident--I didn't know where I was going--”
+
+“My dear Mrs. Nelligan, there is no need of these excuses,” said Mary,
+taking her hand cordially, and leading her to a seat. “It is a great
+pleasure to me to see a friendly face, and I am grateful for the chance
+that sent you here.”
+
+Mrs. Nelligan, once relieved of her first embarrassment, poured forth
+with volubility the explanation of her presence; and Mary heard her to
+the end with patient politeness.
+
+“And you were going away somewhere,” resumed she, “when I stopped you.
+I see your pony-chaise there at the door waiting for you, and you're off
+to the quarries or Kilkieran, I 'll be bound; or maybe it's only going
+away you are, to be out of this for a day or two. God knows, I don't
+wonder at it! It is a trying scene for you, and a great shock to your
+feelings, to see the place dismantled, and everything sold off!”
+
+“It is sad enough,” said Mary, smiling through her tears.
+
+“Not to say that you're left here all alone, just as if you were n't one
+of the family at all; that 's what I think most of. And where were you
+going, dear?”
+
+“I was going to pass a few days at the cottage,--the Swiss cottage.
+Catty Broon, my old nurse, has gone over there to get it in readiness
+for me, and I shall probably stay there till all this confusion be
+over.”
+
+“To be sure, dear. What's more natural than that you'd like to spare
+your feelings, seeing all carried away just as if it was bankrupts you
+were. Indeed, Dan said to me the things wouldn't bring more than at a
+sheriff's sale, because of the hurry you were in to sell them off.”
+
+“My uncle's orders were positive on that subject,” said Mary, calmly.
+
+“Yes, dear, of course he knows best,” said she, with a shake of the head
+not exactly corroborating her own speech. “And how are you to live here
+by yourself, dear?” resumed she; “sure you 'll die of the loneliness!”
+
+“I don't think so: I shall have plenty to occupy me,--more, indeed, than
+I shall be equal to.”
+
+“Ay, in the daytime; but the long evenings--think of the long evenings,
+dear! God knows, I find them very often dreary enough, even though I
+have a home and Dan.”
+
+“I 'm not afraid of the long evenings, my dear Mrs. Nelligan. It is the
+only time I can spare for reading; they will be my hours of recreation
+and amusement.”
+
+“Well, well, I hope so, with all my heart,” said she, doubtingly. “You
+know yourself best, and maybe you'd be happier that way, than if you had
+somebody to talk to and keep you company.”
+
+“I didn't say that,” said Mary, smiling. “I never implied that a visit
+from some kind friend--Mrs. Nelligan, for instance--would not be a very
+pleasant event in my solitude.”
+
+“To come and see you,--to come to Cro' Martin!” exclaimed Mrs. Nelligan,
+as though trying to reconcile her mind to the bare possibility of such a
+circumstance.
+
+“If you would not think it too far, or too much trouble--”
+
+“Oh dear, oh dear, but it's too much honor it would be; and Dan--no
+matter what he 'd say to the contrary--would feel it so, in his own
+heart. Sure I know well how he felt about Joe being asked here to
+dinner; and he 'd never have taken a part against your uncle in the
+election if it was n't that he thought Joe was slighted some way--”
+
+“But nothing of the kind ever occurred. Mr..Joseph Nelligan met from us
+all the respect that his character and his talents entitled him to.”
+
+“Don't get warm about it, or I 'll forget everything that's in my head!”
+ exclaimed Mrs. Nelligan, in terror at the eagerness of Mary's manner.
+“Maybe it was Joe's fault--maybe it was young Massingbred's--maybe it
+was--”
+
+“But what was it?” cried Mary. “What was alleged? What was laid to our
+charge?”
+
+“There, now, I don't remember anything; you frightened me so that it's
+gone clean out of my mind.”
+
+“My dear friend,” said Mary, caressingly, “I never meant to alarm you;
+and let us talk of something else. You say that you 'll come to see me
+sometimes; is it a promise?”
+
+“Indeed it is, my dear, whenever Dan gives me the car and horse--”
+
+“But I 'll drive in for you, and bring you safely back again. You 've
+only to say when you 'll spend the day with me; and there's so much to
+show you here that you 'd like to see. The gardens are really handsome,
+and the hothouses. And Catty will show us her dairy, and I am very proud
+of my lambs.”
+
+“It is all like a dream to me,--just like a dream,” said Mrs. Nelligan,
+closing her eyes, and folding her arms, “to think that I 'm sitting
+here, at Cro' Martin, talking to Miss Mary just as if I were her equal.”
+
+“My dear, dear friend, it shall be a reality whenever you like to make
+it so; and you'll tell me all the news of Oughterard,--all about every
+one there; for I know them, at least by name, and will be charmed to
+hear about them.”
+
+“Mr. Scanlan wants an answer, miss, immediately,” said a servant,
+presenting Mary with a few lines written in pencil.
+
+She opened the paper and read the following: “Nelligan offers seventy
+pounds for the two black horses. Is he to have them? Sir Peter shows an
+incipient spavin on the off leg, and I think he 'd be well sold.”
+
+“Tell Mr. Scanlan I 'll send him an answer by and by,” said she,
+dismissing the servant. Then ringing the bell, she whispered a few words
+to the man who answered it. “I have just sent a message to tell Mr.
+Nelligan I wish to speak to him,” said she, resuming her place on
+the sofa. “It is a mere business matter,” added she, seeing that Mrs.
+Nelligan waited for some explanation. “And now, when have you heard
+from your son? Is he learning to spare himself anything of those great
+efforts he imposes upon his faculties?”
+
+This was to touch the most sensitive chord in all her heart; and so she
+burst forth into a description of Joseph's daily life of toil and
+study; his labors, his self-denial, his solitary, joyless existence, all
+calling up, in turn, her praises and her sympathy.
+
+“And I,” cried she, “am always saying, what is it all for?--what's the
+use of it?--who is to be the better of it? Sure there 's only himself to
+get whatever his father leaves behind him; and a pretty penny it is!
+Not that _you_ would think so; but for the like of _us_, and in _our_
+station, it's a snug fortune. He 'll have upwards of two thousand a
+year, so that there 's no need to be slaving like a Turk.”
+
+“Your son's ambitions take, very probably, a higher range than mere
+money-making,” said Mary. “He has a good right to suppose that his
+abilities may win him the highest of rewards! But here's Mr. Nelligan.”
+ And she advanced courteously to meet him at the door.
+
+Flushed and heated by the scene he had just quitted, and evidently
+embarrassed by the situation in which he stood, Nelligan bowed
+repeatedly in reply to Miss Martin's greeting, starting with amazement
+as he perceived Mrs. Nelligan, who maintained an air of unbroken dignity
+on the sofa.
+
+“Well you may stare, Dan!” said she. “I 'm sure you never expected to
+see me here!”
+
+“It was a most agreeable surprise for _me_, at least,” said Mary,
+motioning to a seat; then, turning to Nelligan, added, “This little note
+was the occasion of my asking you to step over here. Will you please to
+read it?”
+
+“How handsome, how candid, Miss Martin!” said Nelligan, as he restored
+it, after perusing it. “Ah, my dear young lady, why would n't your
+family deal always with us in this fashion and in everything? I beg
+your forgiveness, but I forgot myself. I 'll stick to my offer, miss,--I
+wouldn't take fifty pounds for my bargain!”
+
+“This, of course, is in confidence between us, sir,” said Mary, as she
+tore up the note and threw the fragments on the ground.
+
+[Illustration: 368]
+
+“I wish I knew how to acknowledge this, Miss Martin; I wish I could
+show how sensible one in _my_ station could be of generosity from one in
+_yours_.”
+
+“You remind me very opportunely that I have a favor to ask, Mr.
+Nelligan. It is this: My kind friend here, Mrs. Nelligan, has just
+promised to take pity on my solitude, and occasionally to come and see
+me. Will you kindly strengthen her in this benevolent intention, and aid
+her to turn her steps very often towards Cro' Martin?”
+
+Nelligan's face grew deeply red, and an expression of the greatest
+embarrassment settled down on his features; and it was with much
+difficulty, and in a voice laboring for utterance, that he said,--
+
+“I don't see how this can be. Your friends would not approve,--your
+family, I mean, Miss Martin,--would, very naturally, resent the thought
+of such an intimacy! They look upon _me_ as an enemy,--an open and
+declared enemy,--and so I am, where politics is concerned; but--” He
+hesitated, and after a struggle went on: “No matter, it _is_ war between
+us, and must be till one crushes the other. What I mean is this, young
+lady: that to encourage such acquaintanceship as you speak of would look
+like an undue condescension on _your_ part, or something even worse on
+_ours_.”
+
+“I 'll not listen to such subtleties!” cried Mary, hastily. “Neither you
+nor I, my dear Mrs. Nelligan, care for party triumphs or defeats. There
+are a thousand themes wherein our hearts can feel alike; and these we
+'ll discuss together. We're of the same country; have passed our lives
+amidst the same scenes, the same events, and the same people, and it
+will be hard if we cannot as easily discover topics for mutual esteem,
+as subjects of difference and disagreement.”
+
+“But will it not be hinted, Miss Martin, that we took the opportunity
+of your solitude here to impose an acquaintanceship which had been
+impossible under other circumstances?”
+
+“If you are too proud, sir, to know me,--lest an ungenerous sneer should
+damage your self-esteem--”
+
+“Indeed, indeed we're not,” broke in Mrs. Nelligan. “You don't know Dan
+at all. He would n't exchange the honor of sitting there, opposite you,
+to be High Sheriff.”
+
+A servant fortunately presented himself at this awkward moment with a
+whispered message for Miss Martin; to which she replied aloud,--
+
+“Of course. Tell Mr. Scanlan it is my wish,--_my_ orders,” added she,
+more firmly. “The house is open to any one who desires to see it. And
+now, before I go, Mr. Nelligan, tell me that I have convinced you,--tell
+me that my reasons have prevailed, and that you acknowledge we ought to
+be friends.” And as she said the last words, she held out her hand to
+him with a grace so perfect, and an air of such winning fascination,
+that old Nelligan could only stammer out,--
+
+“It shall be how you please. I never bargained to dispute against such
+odds as this. We are, indeed, your friends; dispose of us how you like.”
+ And, so saying, he conducted her to the little carriage, and, assisting
+her to her seat, took his leave with all the respect he could have shown
+a queen.
+
+“It's more than a prejudice, after all,” muttered he, as he looked after
+her as she drove away. “There's something deeper and stronger in it than
+that, or else a few words spoken by a young girl could n't so suddenly
+rout all the sentiments of a lifetime! Ay, ay,” added he, still to
+himself, “we may pull them down; we may humble them; but we 'll never
+fill their places!”
+
+“And we 're to see the house, it seems!” exclaimed Mrs. Nelligan,
+gathering her shawl around her.
+
+“I don't care to look at it till she herself is here!” said old
+Nelligan, taking his wife's arm, and leading her away across the
+lawn, and in the direction of the stables. There was that in his moody
+preoccupation which did not encourage her to venture on a word, and so
+she went along at his side in silence.
+
+“You're to have the black horses, Mr. Nelligan,” said Scanlan,
+overtaking him. Nelligan nodded. “You 've got a cheap pair of nags, and
+as good as gold,” continued he. A dry half-smile was all the reply. “Mr.
+Martin bred them himself,” Scanlan went on, “and no price would have
+bought them three weeks ago; but everything is going for a song to-day!
+I don't know how I 'll muster courage to tell them the results of the
+sale!”
+
+“You 'll have courage for more than that,” said Nelligan. And although
+only a chance shot, it fell into a magazine; for Scanlan grew crimson,
+and then pale, and seemed ready to faint.
+
+Nelligan stared with amazement at the effect his few words had produced,
+and then passed on; while the attorney muttered between his teeth, “Can
+he suspect me? Is it possible that I have betrayed myself?”
+
+No, Maurice Scanlan. Be of good cheer, your secret is safe. No one has
+as much as the very barest suspicion that the pettifogging practitioner
+aspires to the hand of Mary Martin; nor even in the darkest dreams of
+that house's downfall has such a humiliation obtruded itself anywhere!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. “REVERSES”
+
+Ours is a very practical age, and no matter how skilfully a man play the
+game of life, there is but one test of his ability,--did he win? If
+this condition attend him, his actions meet charitable construction. His
+doings are all favorably regarded; and while his capacity is extolled,
+even his shortcomings are extenuated. We dread an unlucky man! There
+is a kind of contagion in calamity, and we shun him as though he were
+plague-stricken. But with what flatteries we greet the successful one!
+That he reached the goal is the sure guarantee of his merits; and woe
+to him who would canvass the rectitude of his progress! Defeat is such
+a leveller! Genius and dulness, courage and pusillanimity, high-hearted
+hope and wasting energy, are all confounded together by failure, and
+the world would only smile at any effort to discriminate between them.
+Perhaps in the main the system works well. Perhaps mankind, incapable
+of judging motives, too impatient to investigate causes, is wise in
+adopting a short cut for its decisions. Certain it is, the rule is
+absolute that proclaims Success to be Desert!
+
+Lady Dorothea was now about to experience this severe lesson, and
+not the less heavily that she never anticipated it. After a wearisome
+journey the Martins arrived in Dublin. The apartments secured to them,
+by a previous letter, at Bilton's, were all in readiness for their
+reception. The “Saunders” of the day duly chronicled their arrival;
+but there the great event seemed to terminate. No message from
+her Ladyship's noble kinsman greeted their coming; no kind note of
+welcome,--not even a visit from Mr. Lawrence Belcour, the aide-de-camp
+in waiting. The greatest of all moralists warns us against putting
+confidence in princes; and how doubly truthful is the adage when
+extended to viceroys! Small as was the borough of Oughterard, and
+insignificant as seemed the fact who should be its representative, the
+result of the election was made a great matter at the “Castle.” His
+Excellency was told that the Martins had mismanaged everything. They
+had gone to work in the old Tory cut-and-thrust fashion of former
+days--conciliated no interest, won over no antagonism; they had acted
+“precisely as if there had been no Relief Bill,”--we steal Colonel
+Massingbred's words,--and they were beaten--beaten in their own town--in
+the person of one of their own family, and by a stranger! The Viceroy
+was vexed. They had misconstrued every word of his letter,--a letter
+that, as he said, any child might have understood,--and there was a vote
+lost to his party. It was in vain that the Chief Secretary assured his
+Excellency “Jack was a clever fellow, who 'd put all to rights;” that
+with a little time and a little dexterity he 'd be able to vote with the
+Ministry on every important division; the great fact remained unatoned
+for,--his family, his own connections, “had done nothing for him.”
+
+The first day in town dragged its length slowly over. Martin was
+fatigued, and did not go abroad, and no one came to visit him. To do him
+justice, he was patient under the neglect; to say more, he was grateful
+for it. It was so pleasant “to be let alone;” not even to be obliged
+to see Henderson, nor to be consulted about “Road Sessions” or “Police
+Reports,” but to have one's day in total unbroken listlessness; to have
+simply to say, “We 'll dine at seven,” and “I'm out for every one.” Far
+otherwise fared it in my “Lady's chamber.” All her plans had been based
+upon the attentions she was so certain of receiving, but of which now
+not a sign gave token. She passed the day in a state of almost feverish
+excitement, the more painful from her effort to conceal and control it.
+Repton dined with them. He came that day “because, of course, he
+could not expect to catch them disengaged on any future occasion.” Her
+Ladyship was furious at the speech, but smiled concurrence to it; while
+Martin carelessly remarked, “From all that I see, we may enjoy the same
+pleasure very often.” Never was the old lawyer so disagreeable when
+exerting himself to be the opposite. He had come stored with all the
+doings of the capital,--its dinners and evening parties, its _mots_ and
+its gossip. From the political rumors and the chit-chat of society, he
+went on to speak of the viceregal court and its festivities.
+
+“If there be anything I detest,” said her Ladyship, at last, “it is
+the small circle of a very small metropolis. So long as you look at it
+carelessly, it is not so offensive; but when you stoop to consider and
+examine it with attention, it reminds you of the hideous spectacle of
+a glass of water as seen through a magnifier,--you detect a miniature
+world of monsters and deformities, all warring and worrying each other.”
+ And with this flattering exposition of her opinion, she arose speedily
+after dinner, and, followed by Miss Henderson, retired.
+
+“I perceive that we had not the ear of the Court for our argument,” said
+Repton, as he resumed his place after conducting her to the door. Martin
+sipped his wine in silence. “I never expected she'd like Dublin; it only
+suits those who pass their lives in it; but I fancied that what with
+Castle civilities--”
+
+“There 's the rub,” broke in Martin, but in a voice subdued almost to a
+whisper. “They 've taken no notice of us. For my own part, I 'm heartily
+obliged to them; and if they 'd condescend to feel offended with us, I
+'d only be more grateful; but my Lady--”
+
+A long, low whistle from Repton implied that he had fully appreciated
+the “situation.”
+
+“Ah, I see it,” cried he; “and this explains the meaning of an article I
+read this morning in the 'Evening Post,'--the Government organ,--wherein
+it is suggested that country gentlemen would be more efficient
+supporters of the administration if they lent themselves heartily to
+comprehend the requirements of recent legislation, than by exacting
+heavy reprisals on their tenants in moments of defeat and
+disappointment.”
+
+“Well, it is rather hard,” said Martin, with more of energy than he
+usually spoke in,--“it _is_ hard! They first hounded us on to contest
+the borough for them, and they now abuse us that we did not make a
+compromise with the opposite party. And as to measures of severity, you
+know well I never concurred in them; I never permitted them.”
+
+“But they are mistaken, nevertheless. There are writs in preparation,
+and executions about to issue over fourteen town-lands. There will be
+a general clearance of the population at Kyle-a-Noe. You 'll not know a
+face there when you go back, Martin!”
+
+“Who can say that I 'll ever go back?” said he, mournfully.
+
+“Come, come, I trust you will. I hope to pass some pleasant days with
+you there ere I die,” said Repton, cheer-ingly. “Indeed, until you are
+there again, I 'll never go farther west than Athlone on my circuit. I
+'d not like to, look at the old place without you!”
+
+Martin nodded as he raised his glass, as if to thank him, and then
+dropped his head mournfully, and sat without speaking.
+
+“Poor dear Mary!” said he, at last, with a heavy sigh. “Our desertion of
+her is too bad. It's not keeping the pledge I made to Barry!”
+
+“Well, well, there's nothing easier than the remedy. A week or so will
+see you settled in some city abroad,--Paris, or Brussels, perhaps. Let
+her join you; I 'll be her escort. Egad! I'd like the excuse for the
+excursion,” replied Repton, gayly.
+
+“Ay, Repton,” said the other, pursuing his own thoughts and not heeding
+the interruption, “and _you_ know what a brother he was. By Jove!” cried
+he, aloud, “were Barry just to see what we 've done,--how we 've treated
+the place, the people, his daughter!--were he only to know how I 've
+kept my word with him--Look, Repton,” added he, grasping the other's arm
+as he spoke, “there's not as generous a fellow breathing as Barry; this
+world has not his equal for an act of noble self-devotion and sacrifice.
+His life!--he 'd not think twice of it if I asked him to give it for me;
+but if he felt--if he could just awaken to the conviction that he was
+unfairly dealt with, that when believing he was sacrificing to affection
+and brotherly love he was made a dupe and a fool of--”
+
+“Be cautious, Martin; speak lower--remember where you are,” said Repton,
+guardedly.
+
+“I tell you this,” resumed the other, in a tone less loud but not less
+forcible: “the very warmth of his nature--that same noble, generous
+source that feeds every impulse of his life--would supply the force of a
+torrent to his passion; he 'd be a tiger if you aroused him!”
+
+“Don't you perceive, my dear friend,” said Repton, calmly, “how you
+are exaggerating everything,--not alone _your own_ culpability, but his
+resentment! Grant that you ought not to have left Mary behind you,--I
+'m sure I said everything I could against it,--what more easy than to
+repair the wrong?”
+
+“No, no, Repton, you 're quite mistaken. Take my word for it, you don't
+know that girl. She has taught herself to believe that her place
+is there,--that it is her duty to live amongst the people. She may
+exaggerate to her own mind the good she does; she may fancy a
+thousand things as to the benefit she bestows; but she cannot, by any
+self-deception, over-estimate the results upon her own heart, which she
+has educated to feel as only they do who live amongst the poor! To take
+her away from this would be a cruel sacrifice; and for what?--a world
+she would n't care for, couldn't comprehend.”
+
+“Then what was to have been done?”
+
+“I 'll tell you, Repton; if it was _her_ duty to stay there, it was
+doubly _ours_ to have remained also. When she married,” added he, after
+a pause,--“when she had got a home of her own,--then, of course, it
+would have been quite different! Heaven knows,” said he, sighing, “we
+have little left to tie us to anything or anywhere; and as to myself, it
+is a matter of the most perfect indifference whether I drag out the
+year or two that may remain to me on the shores of Galway or beside the
+Adriatic!”
+
+“I can't bear this,” cried Repton, angrily. “If ever there was a man
+well treated by fortune, you are he.”
+
+“I 'm not complaining.”
+
+“Not complaining! but, hang it, sir, that is not enough! You should be
+overflowing with gratitude; your life ought to be active with
+benevolence; you should be up and doing, wherever ample means and
+handsome encouragement could assist merit or cheer despondency. I like
+your notion that you don't complain! Why, if you did, what should be
+done by those who really do travel the shady side of existence,--who are
+weighted with debt, bowed down with daily difficulties, crippled with
+that penury that eats into a man's nature till his very affections grow
+sordid, and his very dreams are tormented with his duns! Think of the
+poor fellows with ailing wives and sickly children, toiling daily, not
+to give them luxuries,--not to supply them with what may alleviate
+weariness or distract suffering, but bare sustenance,--coarse diet and
+coarser dress! Ah, my dear Martin, that Romanist plan of fasting one day
+in the week would n't be a bad institution were we to introduce it into
+our social code. If you and I could have, every now and then, our
+feelings of privation, just to teach us what others experience all the
+week through, we 'd have, if not more sympathy with narrow fortune, at
+least more thankfulness for its opposite.”
+
+“Her Ladyship begs you will read this note, sir,” said a servant,
+presenting an open letter to Martin. He took it, and having perused it,
+handed it to Repton, who slowly read the following lines:--
+
+     “'The Lodge, Tuesday.
+
+     “'Madam,--I have his Excellency's commands to inquire on
+     what day it will suit Mr. Martin and your Ladyship to favor
+     him with your company at dinner? His Excellency would
+     himself say Saturday, but any intermediate day more
+     convenient to yourself will be equally agreeable to him.
+
+     “'I have the honor to remain, madam,
+
+     “'With every consideration, yours,
+
+     “'Lawrence Belcour, A.D.C.'”
+
+
+“'With every consideration'!” repeated Repton. “Confound the puppy,
+and his Frenchified phraseology! Why is he not, as he ought to be, your
+obedient servant?”
+
+“It is a somewhat cold and formal invitation,” said Martin, slowly. “I
+'ll just see what she thinks of it;” and he arose and left the room. His
+absence was fully of twenty minutes' duration, and when he did return
+his face betokened agitation.
+
+“Here's more of it, Repton,” said he, filling and drinking off his
+glass. “It 's all _my_ fault, it seems. I ought to have gone out to the
+'Lodge' this morning, or called on somebody, or done something; in fact,
+I have been remiss, neglectful, deficient in proper respect--”
+
+“So that you decline the invitation?” broke in Repton.
+
+“Not a bit of it; we 're to accept it, man. That's what I cannot
+comprehend. We are offended, almost outraged, but still we're to submit.
+Ah, Repton, I'll be really rejoiced when we leave this,--get away from
+all these petty annoyances and small intriguings, and live amongst
+strangers!”
+
+“Most patriotically spoken; but I'm not surprised at what you say. Have
+you made any resolve as to whither you mean to go?”
+
+“No; we have so many plans, that the chances are we take none of them. I
+'m told--I know nothing of it myself--but I 'm told that we shall easily
+find--and in any part of the Continent--the few requirements we
+want; which are, an admirable climate, great cheapness, and excellent
+society.”
+
+There was a slight twinkle in Martin's eye as he spoke, as if he were in
+reality relishing the absurdity of these expectations.
+
+“Was it Kate Henderson who encouraged you to credit this flattering
+picture?”
+
+“No; these are my Lady's own experiences, derived from a residence there
+'when George the Third was King.' As to Kate, the girl is by no means
+deficient in common sense; she has the frivolity of a Frenchwoman, and
+that light, superficial tone foreign education imparts; but take my word
+for it, Repton, she has very fine faculties!”
+
+“I will take your word for it, Martin. I think you do her no more than
+justice,” said the old lawyer, sententiously.
+
+“And I 'll tell you another quality she possesses,” said Martin, in a
+lower and more cautious tone, as though dreading to be overheard,--“she
+understands my Lady to perfection,--when to yield and when to oppose
+her. The girl has an instinct about it, and does it admirably; and there
+was poor dear Mary, with all her abilities, and she never could succeed
+in this! How strange, for nobody would think of comparing the two
+girls!”
+
+“Nobody!” dryly re-echoed Repton.
+
+“I mean, of course, that nobody who knew the world could; for in all
+the glitter and show-off of fashionable acquirement, poor Molly is the
+inferior.”
+
+Repton looked steadfastly at him for several seconds; he seemed as if
+deliberating within himself whether or not he'd undeceive him at once,
+or suffer him to dwell on an illusion so pleasant to believe. The latter
+feeling prevailed, and he merely nodded slowly, and passed the decanter
+across the table.
+
+“Molly,” continued Martin, with all the fluency of a weak man when he
+fancies he has got the better of an argument,--“Molly is her father all
+over. The same resolution, the same warmth of heart, and that readiness
+at an expedient which never failed poor Barry! What a clever fellow he
+was! If he _had_ a fault, it was just being too clever.”
+
+“Too speculative, too sanguine,” interposed Repton.
+
+“That, if you like to call it so,--the weakness of genius.”
+
+Repton gave a long sigh, and crossing his arms, fell into a fit of
+musing, and so they both sat for a considerable time.
+
+“Harry is coming home, you said?” broke in Repton at last.
+
+“Yes; he is tired of India,--tired of soldiering, I believe. If he can't
+manage an exchange into some regiment at home, I think he 'll sell out.”
+
+“By Jove!” said the old lawyer, speaking to himself, but still aloud,
+“the world has taken a strange turn of late. The men that used to have
+dash and energy have become loungers and idlers, and the energy--the
+real energy of the nation--has centred in the women,--the women and the
+priests! If I'm not much mistaken, we shall see some rare specimens of
+enthusiasm erelong. Such elements as these will not slumber nor sleep!”
+
+While Martin was pondering over this speech, a servant entered to
+say that Mr. Crow was without, and begged to know if he might pay his
+respects. “Ay, by all means. Tell him to come in,” said Martin. And the
+words were scarcely uttered when the artist made his appearance, in
+full dinner costume, and with a certain unsteadiness in his gait, and
+a restless look in his eyes, that indicated his having indulged freely,
+without, however, having passed the barrier of sobriety.
+
+“You heard of our arrival, then?” said Martin, after the other had paid
+his respects, and assumed a seat.
+
+“Yes, sir. It was mentioned to-day at dinner, and so I resolved that,
+when I could manage to step away, I'd just drop in and ask how her
+Ladyship and yourself were.”
+
+“Where did you dine, Crow?”
+
+“At the Chief Secretary's, sir, in the Park,” replied Crow, with a
+mixture of pride and bash fulness.
+
+“Ah, indeed. Was your party a large one?”
+
+“There were fourteen of us, sir, but I only knew three or four of the
+number.”
+
+“And who were they, Crow?” said Repton, whose curiosity on all such
+topics was extreme.
+
+“Young Nelligan was one. Indeed, it was through him I was asked myself.
+Colonel Massingbred was good enough to come over and have a look at
+my Moses,--a favor I humbly hope you 'll do me, gentlemen, any spare
+morning; for it's a new conception altogether, and I make the light come
+out of the bulrushes, just as Caravaggio did with his Lazarus.”
+
+“Never mind Lazarus, Crow, but tell us of this dinner. Who were the
+others?”
+
+“Well, sir, there was Nelligan and me,--that's one; and Tom
+Magennis,--two--”
+
+“Our neighbor of Barnagheela?” exclaimed Martin, in amazement.
+
+“The same, sir. I left him there at the port wine, and my word for it,
+but they 'll not get him away easily, though Father Rafferty will do his
+best--”
+
+“And was the priest also of the party?”
+
+“He was, sir; and sat at the Colonel's left, and was treated with every
+honor and distinction.”
+
+“Eh, Martin, am I a true prophet?--answer me that. Has Val Repton
+foretold the course of events we are entering upon, or has he not?”
+
+“But this is a regular outrage,--an open insult to us!” cried Martin.
+“Here is a leading member of the Government entertaining the very men
+who opposed and defeated us,--actually caressing the very party which
+they enlisted us to crush?”
+
+“This game is within every child's comprehension!” said Repton. “If
+_you_, and men of your stamp and fortune, could have secured them a
+parliamentary majority, they 'd have preferred you. You 'd be pleasanter
+to deal with, less exacting, more gentlemanly in fact; but as you failed
+to do this,--as it was plain and clear you had not the people with
+you,--why, they 've thrown you over without a scruple, and taken into
+their favor the men who can and will serve them. I don't mean to say
+that the bargain is a good one,--nay, I believe the price of such aid
+will be very costly; but what do they care? It is one of the blessings
+of a representative government that Tories have to pay Whig debts, and
+Whigs are heirs to Tory defalcations.”
+
+“Were politics discussed at table?” asked Martin, half impatiently.
+
+“All manner of subjects. We had law, and the assizes, and the grand-jury
+lists, and who ought to be high sheriffs, and who not. And young
+Massingbred made a kind of a speech--”
+
+“Was he there also?”
+
+“That he was; and did the honors of the foot of the table, and made
+it the pleasantest place too! The way he introduced a toast to the
+independent and enlightened electors of Oughterard was as neat a thing
+as ever I heard.”
+
+“The devil take the whole batch of them!” cried Martin. “To think that
+I 've spent nearly three thousand pounds for such a set of scoundrels
+is past endurance. I 'll never set foot amongst them again; as long as I
+live I 'll never enter that town.”
+
+“Father Neal's own words,” cried Crow. “'We done with Martin forever,'
+said he. 'This election was his Waterloo. He may abdicate now!'”
+
+“And that sentiment was listened to by the Chief Secretary?” exclaimed
+Martin.
+
+“If he wasn't deaf he couldn't help hearing it, for we all did; and when
+I ventured to observe that a country was never the better for losing the
+patrons of art, and the great families that could encourage a genius,
+young Massingbred, said, 'Give up Moses, Mr. Crow,--give up Moses, and
+paint Daniel O'Connell, and you 'll never want admirers and supporters!'
+And they drowned me in a roar of laughter.”
+
+“I wish my Lady could only hear all this,” said Rep ton, in a whisper to
+Martin.
+
+“Always provided that I were somewhere else!” answered Martin. “But to
+be serious, Repton, I 'll hold no intercourse with men who treat us in
+this fashion. It is absurd to suppose that the Secretary could receive
+at his table this rabble,--this herd of low, vulgar--”
+
+“Eh--what!” broke in Crow, with an expression of such truly comic misery
+as made Repton shake with laughter.
+
+“I didn't mean _you_, Crow--I never thought of including you in such
+company,--but if these be Colonel Massingbred's guests, I 'll swear that
+Godfrey Martin shall not be my Lord Reckington's!” And with this bold
+resolve, uttered in a voice and manner of very unusual firmness, Martin
+arose and left the room.
+
+“On the whole, then, your party was a pleasant one?” said Repton,
+anxious to lead Crow into some further details of the late dinner.
+
+“Well, indeed it was, and it was not,” said the artist, hesitatingly.
+“It was like a picture with some fine bits in it,--a dash of rich color
+here and there,--but no keeping! no general effect! You understand? I
+myself took no share in the talk. I never understood it; but I could
+see that they who did were somehow at cross-purposes,--all standing
+in adverse lights,--if I may use the expression. Whenever the Colonel
+himself, or one of the 'swells' of the company, came out with a fine
+sentiment about regenerated Ireland, happy and prosperous, and so forth,
+Magennis was sure to break in with some violent denunciation of the
+infernal miscreants, as he called the landlords, or the greatest curse
+of the land,--the Law Church!”
+
+“And how did Father Neal behave?”
+
+“With great decorum,--the very greatest. He moderated all Tom's
+violence, and repeatedly said that he accepted no participation in such
+illiberal opinions. 'We have grievances, it is true,' said he, 'but we
+live under a Government able and willing to redress them. It shall never
+be said of us that we were either impatient or intolerant.' 'With such
+support, no Government was ever weak!' said the Colonel, and they took
+wine together.”
+
+“That was very pleasant to see!” said Repton.
+
+“So it was, sir,” rejoined Crow, innocently; “and I thought to myself,
+if there was only an end of all their squabbling and fighting, they 'd
+have time to cultivate the arts and cherish men of genius,--if they had
+them!” added he, after a pause.
+
+“Father Neal, then, made a favorable impression, you 'd say?” asked
+Repton, half carelessly.
+
+“I'd say, very favorable,--very favorable, indeed. I remarked that he
+always spoke so freely, so liberally. Twice or thrice, too, he said,
+'If the Papists do this, that, or t' other;' and when the Colonel asked
+whether the Catholics of Ireland submitted implicitly to Rome in all
+things, he laughed heartily, and said, 'About as much as we do to the
+Cham of Tartary!'
+
+“'I 'd like to examine our friend there before the Committee,' whispered
+an old gentleman at the Colonel's right hand.
+
+“'It was the very thing was passing through my own mind at the minute,'
+said the Colonel.
+
+“'That's exactly the kind of thing we want,' said the old gentleman
+again,--'a bold, straightforward denial; something that would tell
+admirably with the House! Present me to your friend, Massingbred!'
+And then the Chief Secretary said, 'The Member for Strudeham--Mr.
+Crutch-ley--is very desirous of being known to you, Mr. Rafferty.' And
+there was great smiling, and bowing, and drinking wine together after
+that.”
+
+Martin now re-entered the room, and taking his place at the table, sat
+for some minutes in moody silence.
+
+“Well,” said Repton, “what does my Lady think of your tidings?”
+
+“She says she does n't believe it!”
+
+“Does n't believe that these people dined with Massingbred; that Crow
+saw them, heard them, dined with them?”
+
+“No, no,--not that,” said Martin, gently, and laying his hand familiarly
+on Crow's arm. “Don't mistake me; nor don't let Repton play the lawyer
+with us, and pervert the evidence. Lady Dorothea can't believe that her
+distinguished relative, the Viceroy, would ever countenance this game;
+that--that--in fact, we're to dine there, Repton, and see for ourselves!
+Though,” added he, after a brief pause, “what we are to see, or what we
+are to do when we 've seen it, I wish anybody would tell me!”
+
+“Then I 'll be that man!” said Repton, with a mock solemnity, and
+imitating the tone and manner of a judge delivering sentence. “You 'll
+go from this place to the Lodge, where you 'll be fed 'to the neck,'
+feasted and flattered, and all your good resolves and high purposes will
+be cut down, and your noble indignation buried within the precincts of
+your own hearts!”
+
+And, so saying, he arose from the table and extended his hand to take
+leave, with all the gravity of a solemn farewell.
+
+“If you could say a word to his Excellency about Moses,” muttered Crow,
+as he was leaving the room, “it would be the making of me!” But Martin
+never heeded the appeal; perhaps he never heard it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. DARKENING FORTUNES
+
+The Martins had always lived a life of haughty estrangement from their
+neighbors; there were none of exactly their own rank and pretensions
+within miles of them, and they were too proud to acknowledge the
+acquaintance of a small squirearchy, which was all that the country
+around could boast. Notwithstanding all the isolation of their
+existence, their departure created a great void in the county, and their
+absence was sensibly felt by every class around. The very requirements
+of a large fortune suggest a species of life and vitality. The movement
+of servants, the passing and repassing of carriages, the necessary
+intercourse with market and post,--all impart a degree of bustle and
+movement, terribly contrasted by the unbroken stillness of a deserted
+mansion.
+
+Lady Dorothea had determined that there should be no ambiguity as to the
+cause of their departure; she had given the most positive orders on this
+head to every department of the household. To teach an ungrateful people
+the sore consequences of their own ingratitude, the lesson should be
+read in everything: in the little villages thrown out of work, in the
+silent quarries, the closed schoolhouses, the model farm converted into
+grass-land, even to the grand entrance, now built up by a wall of coarse
+masonry, the haughty displeasure of the proud mistress revealed itself,
+all proclaiming the sentiment of a deep, unforgiving vengeance. She had
+tortured her ingenuity for details which should indicate her anger; nor
+was she satisfied if her displeasure should not find its way into every
+cabin and at every hearth. The small hamlet of Cro' Martin had possessed
+a dispensary. A hard-working, patient, and skilful man had passed many
+years of life there as the doctor, eking out the poor subsistence of
+that unfavored lot, and supporting a family by a life of dreary toil.
+From this her Ladyship's subscription--the half of all his salary--was
+now to be withdrawn. She thought “Cloves was grown negligent; it might
+be age,--if so, a younger man would be better; besides, if he could
+afford to dress his three daughters in the manner he did, he surely
+could not require her thirty pounds per annum.” The servants, too,
+complained that he constantly mistook their complaints. In fact,
+judgment was recorded against Cloves, and there was none to recommend
+him to mercy!
+
+We have said that there was a little chapel within the bounds of the
+demesne; it occupied a corner of a ruin which once had formed Cro'
+Martin Abbey, and now served for the village church. It was very small,
+but still large enough for its little congregation. The vicar of this
+humble benefice was a very old man, a widower, and childless, though
+once the father of a numerous family. Dr. Leslie had, some eighteen
+years back, been unfortunate enough to incur her Ladyship's displeasure,
+and was consequently never invited to the castle, nor recognized in any
+way, save by the haughty salute that met him as he left the church. To
+save him, however, a long and tedious walk on Sundays, he was permitted
+to make use of a little private path to the church, which led through
+one of the shrubberies adjoining his own house,--a concession of the
+more consequence as he was too poor to keep a carriage of the humblest
+kind. This was now ordered to be closed up, the gate removed, and a wall
+to replace it. “The poor had got the habit of coming that way; it was
+never intended for their use, but they had usurped it. To-morrow or
+next day we should hear of its being claimed at law as a public right
+of passage. It was better to do the thing in time. In short, it must
+be 'closed.'” By some such reasoning as this Lady Dorothea persuaded
+herself to this course; and who should gainsay her? Oh, if men would
+employ but one tenth of all that casuistry by which they minister to
+their selfishness, in acts of benevolence and good feeling,--if they
+would only use a little sophistry, to induce them to do right,--what a
+world this might be!
+
+Mary Martin knew nothing of these decisions; overwhelmed by the vast
+changes on every side, almost crushed beneath the difficulties that
+surrounded her, her first few weeks passed over like a disturbed dream.
+Groups of idle, unemployed people saluted her in mournful silence as she
+passed the roads. Interrupted works, half-executed plans met her eye at
+every turn, and at every moment the same words rang in her ears--“Her
+Ladyship's orders”--as the explanation of all.
+
+Hitherto her life had been one of unceasing exertion and toil; from
+early dawn to late night she had been employed; her fatigues, however,
+great as they were, had been always allied with power. What she willed
+she could execute. Means never failed her, no matter how costly the
+experiment, to carry out her plans, and difficulty gave only zest to
+every undertaking. There is nothing more captivating than this sense of
+uncontrolled ability for action, especially when exercised by one of
+a warm and enthusiastic nature. To feel herself the life and spring of
+every enterprise, to know that she suggested and carried out each plan,
+that her ingenuity devised, and her energy accomplished all the changes
+around her, was in itself a great fascination; and now suddenly she
+was to awake from all this, and find herself unoccupied and powerless.
+Willingly, without a regret, could she abdicate from all the pomp
+and splendor of a great household; she saw troops of servants depart,
+equipage sold, great apartments closed up without a pang! To come down
+to the small conditions of narrow fortune in her daily life cost her
+nothing, beyond a smile. It was odd, it was strange; but it was no more!
+Far otherwise, however, did she feel the circumstances of her impaired
+power. That hundreds of workmen were no longer at her bidding, that
+whole families no longer looked up to her for aid and comfort,--these
+were astounding facts, and came upon her with an actual shock.
+
+“For what am I left here?” cried she, passionately, to Henderson, as he
+met each suggestion she made by the one cold word, “Impossible.” “Is
+it to see destitution that I cannot relieve,--witness want that I am
+powerless to alleviate? To what end or with what object do I remain?”
+
+“I canna say, miss,” was the dry response.
+
+“If it be to humiliate me by the spectacle of my own inefficiency, a day
+or a week will suffice for that; years could not teach me more.”
+
+Henderson bowed what possibly might mean an acquiescence.
+
+“I don't speak of the estate,” cried she, earnestly; “but what 's to
+become of the people?”
+
+“Many o' them will emigrate, miss, I've no doubt,” said he, “when they
+see there 's nothing to bide for.”
+
+“You take it easily, sir. You see little hardships in men having to
+leave home and country; but I tell you that home may be poor and country
+cruel, and yet both very hard to part with.”
+
+“That 's vara true, miss,” was the dry response.
+
+“For anything there is now to be done here, you, sir, are to the full as
+competent as I am. I ask again, To what end am I here?”
+
+Giving to her question a very different significance from what she
+intended, Henderson calmly said, “I thought, miss, it was just yer ain
+wish, and for no other reason.”
+
+Mary's cheek became crimson, and her eyes flashed with angry
+indignation; but repressing the passion that was bursting within her,
+she walked hastily up and down the room in silence. At length, opening
+a large colored map of the estate which lay on the table, she stood
+attentively considering it for some time. “The works at Carrigulone are
+stopped?” said she, hastily.
+
+“Yes, miss.”
+
+“And the planting at Kyle's Wood?”
+
+“Yes, miss.”
+
+“And even the thinning there,--is that stopped?”
+
+“Yes, miss; the bark is to be sold, and a' the produce of the wood for
+ten years, to a contractor, a certain Mister--”
+
+“I don't want his name, sir. What of the marble quarries?”
+
+“My Lady thinks they're nae worth a' they cost, and won't hear o' their
+being worked again.”
+
+“And is the harbor at Kilkieran to be given up?”
+
+“Yes, miss, and the Osprey's Nest will be let. I think they 'll mak' an
+inn or a public o' it.”
+
+“And if the harbor is abandoned, what is to become of the fishermen? The
+old quay is useless.”
+
+“Vara true, miss; but there's a company goin' to take the royalties o'
+the coast the whole way to Belmullet.”
+
+“A Scotch company, Mr. Henderson?” said Mary, with a sly malice in her
+look.
+
+“Yes, miss,” said he, coloring slightly. “The house of M'Grotty and Co.
+is at the head o' it.”
+
+“And are they the same enterprising people who have proposed to take the
+demesne on lease, provided the gardens be measured in as arable land?”
+
+“They are, miss; they've signed the rough draught o' the lease this
+morning.”
+
+“Indeed!” cried she, growing suddenly pale as death. “Are there any
+other changes you can mention to me, since in the few days I have been
+ill so much has occurred?”
+
+“There 's nae muckle more to speak o', miss. James M'Grotty--he's the
+younger brother--was here yesterday to try and see you about the school.
+He wants the house for his steward; but if you object, he 'll just take
+the doctor's.”
+
+“Why--where is Dr. Cloves to go?”
+
+“He does na ken exactly, miss. He thinks he 'll try Auckland, or some of
+these new places in New Zealand.”
+
+“But the dispensary must be continued; the people cannot be left without
+medical advice.”
+
+“Mr. James says he 'll think aboot it when he comes over in summer. He's
+a vara spirited young man, and when there's a meetin'-house built in the
+village--”
+
+“Enough of this, Henderson. Come over here tomorrow, for I 'm not strong
+enough to hear more to-day, and let Mr. Scanlan know that I wish to see
+him this evening.”
+
+And Mary motioned with her hand that he should withdraw. Scarcely was
+the door closed behind him than she burst into a torrent of tears; her
+long pent-up agony utterly overpowered her, and she cried with all the
+vehemence of a child's grief. Her heart once opened to sorrow, by a
+hundred channels came tributaries to her affliction. Up to that moment
+her uncle's departure had never seemed a cruelty; now it took all the
+form of desertion. The bitterness of her forlorn condition had never
+struck her till it came associated with all the sorrows of others. It is
+not impossible that wounded self-love entered into her feelings. It is
+by no means unlikely that the sense of her own impaired importance added
+poignancy to her misery. Who shall anatomize motives, or who shall be
+skilful enough to trace the springs of one human emotion? There was
+assuredly enough outside of and above all personal consideration to
+ennoble her grief and dignify her affliction.
+
+Her first impulses led her to regard herself as utterly useless; her
+occupation gone, and her whole career of duty annihilated. A second and
+a better resolve whispered to her that she was more than ever needful to
+those who without her would be left without a friend. “If I desert them,
+who is to remain?” asked she. “It is true I am no more able to set
+in motion the schemes by which their indigence was alleviated. I am
+powerless, but not all worthless. I can still be their nurse, their
+comforter, their schoolmistress. My very example may teach them how
+altered fortune can be borne with fortitude and patience. They shall see
+me reduced to a thousand privations, and perhaps even this may bear
+its lesson.” Drying her tears, she began to feel within her some of the
+courage she hoped to inspire in others; and anxious not to let old Catty
+detect the trace of sorrow in her features, issued forth into the wood
+for a walk.
+
+As the deep shadows thickened around her, she grew calmer and more
+meditative. The solemn stillness of the place, the deep, unbroken
+quietude, imparted its own soothing influence to her thoughts; and as
+she went, her heart beat freer, and her elastic temperament again arose
+to cheer and sustain her. To confront the future boldly and well, it was
+necessary that she should utterly forget the past. She could no longer
+play the great part to which wealth and high station had raised her;
+she must now descend to that humbler one,--all whose influence should
+be derived from acts of kindness and words of comfort, unaided by the
+greater benefits she had once dispensed.
+
+The means placed at her disposal for her own expenditure had been
+exceedingly limited. It was her own desire they should be so, and Lady
+Dorothea had made no opposition to her wishes. Beyond this she had
+nothing, save a sum of five thousand pounds payable at her uncle's
+death. By strictest economy--privation, indeed--she thought that she
+could save about a hundred pounds a year of this small income; but to
+do so would require the sale of both her horses, retaining only the pony
+and the little carriage, while her dress should be of the very simplest
+and plainest. In what way she should best employ this sum was to be
+for after consideration. The first thought was how to effect the saving
+without giving to the act any unnecessary notoriety. She felt that her
+greatest difficulty would be old Catty Broon. The venerable housekeeper
+had all her life regarded her with an affection that was little short of
+worship. It was not alone the winning graces of Mary's manner, nor the
+attractive charms of her appearance that had so captivated old Catty;
+but that the young girl, to her eyes, represented the great family
+whose name she bore, and represented them so worthily. The title of
+the Princess, by which the Country people knew her, seemed her just and
+rightful designation. Mary realized to her the proud scion of a proud
+stock, who had ruled over a territory rather than a mere estate; how,
+then, could she bear to behold her in all the straits and difficulties
+of a reduced condition? There seemed but one way to effect this, which
+was to give her new mode of life the character of a caprice. “I must
+make old Catty believe it is one of my wild and wilful fancies,--a
+sudden whim,--out of which a little time will doubtless rally me. She
+is the last in the world to limit me in the indulgence of a momentary
+notion; she will, therefore, concede everything to my humor, patiently
+awaiting the time when it shall assume a course the very opposite.”
+
+Some one should, however, be intrusted with her secret,--without some
+assistance it could not be carried into execution; and who should that
+be? Alas, her choice was a very narrow one. It lay between Scanlan and
+Henderson. The crafty attorney was not, indeed, much to Mary's liking.
+His flippant vulgarity and pretension were qualities she could ill
+brook; but she had known him do kind things. She had seen him on more
+than one occasion temper the sharpness of some of her Ladyship's ukases,
+little suspecting, indeed, how far the possible impression upon herself
+was the motive that so guided him; she had, therefore, no difficulty in
+preferring him to the steward, whose very accent and manner were enough
+to render him hateful to her. Scanlan, besides, would necessarily have
+a great deal in his power; he would be able to make many a concession to
+the poor people on the estate, retard the cruel progress of the law, or
+give them time to provide against its demands. Mary felt that she was in
+a position to exercise a certain influence over him; and, conscious of
+the goodness of the cause she would promote, never hesitated as to the
+means of employing it.
+
+Who shall say, too, that she had not noticed the deferential admiration
+by which he always distinguished her? for there is a species of coquetry
+that takes pleasure in a conquest where the profits of victory would be
+thoroughly despised. We are not bold enough to say that such feelings
+found their place in Mary's heart. We must leave its analysis to wiser
+and more cunning anatomists.
+
+Straying onwards ever in deep thought, and not remarking whither, she
+was suddenly struck by the noise of masonry,--strange sounds in a
+spot thus lonely and remote; and now walking quickly onward, she found
+herself on the path by which the vicar on Sundays approached the church;
+and here, at a little distance, descried workmen employed in walling up
+the little gateway of the passage.
+
+“By whose orders is this done?” cried Mary, to whose quick intelligence
+the act revealed its whole meaning and motive.
+
+“Mr. Henderson, miss,” replied one of the men. “He said we were to
+work all night at it, if we could n't be sure of getting it done before
+Sunday.”
+
+A burst of passionate indignation rose to her lips, but she turned away
+without a word, and re-entered the wood in silence.
+
+“Yes,” cried she, to herself, “it is, indeed, a new existence is opening
+before me; let me strive so to control my temper, that I may view it
+calmly and dispassionately, so that others may not suffer from the
+changes in my fortune.”
+
+She no sooner reached the house than she despatched a note to Mr.
+Scanlan, requesting to see him as early as possible on the following
+morning. This done, she set herself to devise her plans for the
+future,--speculations, it must be owned, to which her own hopeful
+temperament gave a coloring that a colder spirit and more calculating
+mind had never bestowed on them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. HOW MR. SCANLAN GIVES SCOPE TO A GENEROUS IMPULSE
+
+It is a remark of Wieland's, that although the life of man is measured
+by the term of fourscore years and ten, yet that his ideal existence
+or, as he calls it, his “unacted life,” meaning thereby his period of
+dreamy, projective, and forecasting existence, would occupy a far
+wider space. And he goes on to say that it is in this same imaginative
+longevity men differ the most from each other, the poet standing to the
+ungifted peasant in the ratio of centuries to years.
+
+Mr. Maurice Scanlan would not appear a favorable subject by which to
+test this theory. If not endowed with any of the higher and greater
+qualities of intellect, he was equally removed from any deficiency on
+that score. The world called him “a clever fellow,” and the world is
+rarely in fault in such judgments. Where there is a question of the
+creative faculties, where it is the divine essence itself is the matter
+of decision, the world will occasionally be betrayed into mistakes, as
+fashion and a passing enthusiasm may mislead it; but where it is
+the practical and the real, the exercise of gifts by which men make
+themselves rich and powerful, then the world makes no blunders. She
+knows them as a mother knows her children. They are indeed the “World's
+own.”
+
+We have come to these speculations by contemplating Mr. Scanlan as he
+sat with Mary Martin's open letter before him. The note was couched in
+polite terms, requesting Mr. Scanlan to favor the writer with a visit
+at his earliest convenience, if possible early on the following morning.
+Had it been a document of suspected authenticity, a forged acceptance,
+an interpolated article in a deed, a newly discovered codicil to a will,
+he could not have canvassed every syllable, scrutinized every letter,
+with more searching zeal. It was hurriedly written; there was,
+therefore, some emergency. It began, “Dear sir,” a style she had never
+employed before; the letter “D” was blotted, and seemed to have been
+originally destined for an “M,” as though she had commenced “Miss Martin
+requests,” etc., and then suddenly adopted the more familiar address.
+The tone of command by which he was habitually summoned to Cro' Martin
+was assuredly not there, and Maurice was not the man to undervalue the
+smallest particle of evidence.
+
+“She has need of me,” cried he to himself; “she sees everything in a
+state of subversion and chaos around her, and looks to me as the man to
+restore order. The people are entreating her to stay law proceedings, to
+give them time, to employ them; the poorest are all importuning her with
+stories of their sufferings. She is powerless, and, what's worse, she
+does not know what it is to be powerless to help them. She'll struggle
+and fret and scheme, and plan fifty things, and when she has failed in
+them all, fall back upon Maurice Scanlan for advice and counsel.”
+
+It was a grave question with Scanlan how far he would suffer her
+persecutions to proceed before he would come to her aid. “If I bring my
+succor too early, she may never believe the emergency was critical; if I
+delay it too long, she may abandon the field in despair, and set off to
+join her uncle.” These were the two propositions which he placed before
+himself for consideration. It was a case for very delicate management,
+great skill, and great patience, but it was well worth all the cost.
+“If I succeed,” said he to himself, “I'm a made man. Mary Martin Mrs.
+Scanlan, I 'm the agent for the whole estate, with Cro' Martin to live
+in, and all the property at my discretion. If I fail,--that is, if I
+fail without blundering,--I 'm just where I was. Well,” thought he, as
+he drove into the demesne, “I never thought I'd have such a chance as
+this. All gone, and she alone here by herself: none to advise, not one
+even to keep her company! I'd have given a thousand pounds down just for
+this opportunity, without counting all the advantages I have in my
+power from my present position, for I can do what I like with the
+estate,--give leases or break them. It will be four months at least
+before old Repton comes down here, and in that time I'll have finished
+whatever I want to do. And now to begin the game.” And with this he
+turned into the stable-yard, and descended from his gig. Many men
+would have been struck by the changed aspect of the place,--silence and
+desolation where before there were movement and bustle; but Scanlan
+only read in the altered appearances around the encouragement of his own
+ambitious hopes. The easy swagger in which the attorney indulged while
+moving about the stable-yard declined into a more becoming gait as he
+traversed the long corridors, and finally became actually respectful as
+he drew nigh the library, where he was informed Miss Martin awaited
+him, so powerful was the influence of old habit over the more vulgar
+instincts of his nature. He had intended to be very familiar and at his
+ease, and ere he turned the handle of the door his courage failed him.
+
+“This is very kind of you, Mr. Scanlan,” said she, advancing a few steps
+towards him as he entered. “You must have started early from home.”
+
+“At five, miss,” said he, bowing deferentially.
+
+“And of course you have not breakfasted?”
+
+“Indeed, then, I only took a cup of coffee. I was anxious to be early. I
+thought from your note that there might be something urgent.”
+
+Mary half smiled at the mingled air of bashfulness and gallantry in
+which he uttered these broken sentences; for without knowing it himself,
+while he began in some confusion, he attained a kind of confidence as he
+went on.
+
+“Nor have I breakfasted, either,” said she; “and I beg, therefore, you
+will join me.”
+
+Scanlan's face actually glowed with pleasure.
+
+“I have many things to consult you upon with regard to the estate, and I
+am fully aware that there is nobody more competent to advise me.”
+
+“Nor more ready and willing, miss,” said Maurice, bowing.
+
+“I 'm perfectly certain of that, Mr. Scanlan. The confidence my uncle
+has always reposed in you assures me on that head.”
+
+“Was n't I right about the borough, Miss Mary?” broke he in. “I told you
+how it would be, and that if you did n't make some sort of a compromise
+with the Liberal party--”
+
+“Let me interrupt you, Mr. Scanlan, and once for all assure you that
+there is not one subject of all those which pertain to this county and
+its people which has so little interest for me as the local squabbles
+of party; and I 'm sure no success on either side is worth the broken
+friendships and estranged affections it leaves behind it.”
+
+“A beautiful sentiment, to which I respond with all my heart,” rejoined
+Scanlan, with an energy that made her blush deeply.
+
+“I only meant to say, sir,” added she, hastily, “that the borough and
+its politics need never be discussed between us.”
+
+“Just so, miss. We'll call on the next case,” said Scanlan.
+
+“My uncle's sudden departure, and a slight indisposition under which I
+have labored for a week or so, have thrown me so far in arrear of all
+knowledge of what has been done here, that I must first of all ask you,
+not how the estate is to be managed in future, but does it any longer
+belong to us?”
+
+“What, miss?” cried Scanlan, in amazement.
+
+“I mean, sir, is it my uncle's determination to lease out
+everything,--even to the demesne around the Castle; to sell the timber
+and dispose of the royalties? If so, a mere residence here could have
+no object for _me_. It seems strange, Mr. Scanlan, that I should have
+to ask such a question. I own to you,--it is not without some sense of
+humiliation that I do so,--I believed, I fancied I had understood my
+uncle's intentions. Some of them he had even committed to writing, at
+my request; you shall see them yourself. The excitement and confusion of
+his departure,--the anxieties of leave-taking,--one thing or another,
+in short, gave me little time to seek his counsel as to many points I
+wished to know; and, in fact, I found myself suddenly alone before I was
+quite prepared for it, and then I fell ill,--a mere passing attack, but
+enough to unfit me for occupation.”
+
+“Breakfast is served, miss,” said a maid-servant, at this conjuncture,
+opening a door into a small room, where the table was spread.
+
+“I'm quite ready, and so I hope is Mr. Scanlan,” said Mary, leading the
+way.
+
+No sooner seated at table than she proceeded to do the honors with an
+ease that plainly told that all the subject of her late discourse was to
+be left for the present in abeyance. In fact, the very tone of her voice
+was changed, as she chatted away carelessly about the borough people and
+their doings, what strangers had lately passed through the town, and the
+prospects of the coming season at Kilkieran.
+
+No theme could more readily have put Mr. Scanlan at his ease. He felt,
+or fancied he felt, himself at that degree of social elevation above
+the Oughterard people, which enabled him to talk with a species of
+compassionate jocularity of their little dinners and evening parties.
+He criticised toilet and manners and cookery, therefore, with much
+self-complacency,--far more than had he suspected that Mary Martin's
+amusement was more derived from the pretension of the speaker than the
+matter which he discussed.
+
+“That's what I think you'll find hardest of all, Miss Martin,” said he,
+at the close of a florid description of the borough customs. “You can
+have no society here.”
+
+“And yet I mean to try,” said she, smiling; “at least, I have gone
+so far as to ask Mrs. Nelligan to come and dine with me on Monday or
+Tuesday next.”
+
+“Mrs. Nelligan dine at Cro' Martin!” exclaimed he.
+
+“If she will be good enough to come so far for so little!”
+
+“She 'd go fifty miles on the same errand; and if I know old Dan
+himself, he 'll be a prouder man that day than when his son gained the
+gold medal.”
+
+“Then I'm sure _I_, at least, am perfectly requited,” said Mary.
+
+“But are you certain, Miss, that such people will suit you?” said
+Scanlan, half timidly. “They live in a very different style, and have
+other ways than yours. I say nothing against Mrs. Nelligan; indeed, she
+comes of a very respectable family; but sure she hasn't a thought nor an
+idea in common with Miss Martin.”
+
+“I suspect you are wrong there, Mr. Scanlan. My impression is, that Mrs.
+Nelligan and I will find many topics to agree upon, and that we shall
+understand each other perfectly; and if, as you suppose, there may be
+certain things new and strange to me in _her_ modes of thinking, I 'm
+equally sure she 'll have to conquer many prejudices with regard to
+_me_.
+
+“I'm afraid you'll be disappointed, miss!” was the sententious reply of
+Scanlan.
+
+“Then there's our vicar!” broke in Mary. “Mr. Leslie will, I hope, take
+pity on my solitude.”
+
+“Indeed, I forgot him entirely. I don't think I ever saw him at Cro'
+Martin.”
+
+“Nor I, either,” said Mary; “but he may concede from a sense of kindness
+what he would decline to a mere point of etiquette. In a word, Mr.
+Scanlan,” said she, after a pause, “all the troubles and misfortunes
+which we have lately gone through--even to the destitution of the old
+house here--have in a great measure had their origin in the studious
+ignorance in which we have lived of our neighbors. I don't wish to
+enter upon political topics, but I am sure that had we known the
+borough people, and they us,--had we been in the habit of mingling and
+associating together, however little,--had we interchanged the little
+civilities that are the charities of social life,--we 'd have paused,
+either of us, ere we gave pain to the other; we'd at least have made
+concessions on each side, and so softened down the asperities of party.
+More than half the enmities of the world are mere misconceptions.”
+
+“That's true!” said Scanlan, gravely. But his thoughts had gone on
+a very different errand from the theme in question, and were busily
+inquiring what effect all these changes might have upon his own
+prospects.
+
+“And now for a matter of business,” said Mary, rising and taking her
+place at another table. “I shall want your assistance, Mr. Scanlan.
+There is a small sum settled upon me, but not payable during my uncle's
+life. I wish to raise a certain amount of this, by way of loan,--say a
+thousand pounds. Will this be easily accomplished?”
+
+“What's the amount of the settlement, miss?” said Scanlan, with more
+eagerness than was quite disinterested.
+
+“Five thousand pounds. There is the deed.” And she pushed a parchment
+towards him.
+
+Scanlan ran his practised eye rapidly over the document, and with the
+quick craft of his calling saw it was all correct. “One or even two
+thousand can be had upon this at once, miss. It 's charged upon Kelly's
+farm and the mills--”
+
+“All I want to know is, that I can have this sum at my disposal, and
+very soon; at once, indeed.”
+
+“Will next week suit you?”
+
+“Perfectly. And now to another point. These are the few memoranda my
+uncle left with me as to his wishes respecting the management of the
+estate. You will see that, although he desires a considerable diminution
+of the sum to be spent in wages, and a strict economy in all outlay,
+that he still never contemplated throwing the people out of employment.
+The quarries were to be worked as before,--the planting was to be
+continued,--the gardens and ornamental grounds, indeed, were to be
+conducted with less expense; but the harbor at Kilkieran and the new
+school-house at Ternagh were to be completed; and if money could be
+spared for it, he gave me leave to build a little hospital at the
+cross-roads, allowing forty pounds additional salary to Dr. Cloves
+for his attendance. These are the chief points; but you shall have the
+papers to read over at your leisure. We talked over many other matters;
+indeed, we chatted away till long after two o'clock the last night he
+was here, and I thought I understood perfectly all he wished. Almost his
+last words to me at parting were, 'As little change as possible, Molly.
+Let the poor people believe that I am still, where my heart is, under
+the roof of Cro' Martin!'”
+
+The recollection of the moment brought the tears to her eyes, and she
+turned her head away in silence.
+
+“Now,” said she, rallying, and speaking with renewed energy, “if what
+Henderson says be correct, something later must have been issued than
+all this; some directions which I have never seen,--not so much as heard
+of. He tells me of works to be stopped, people discharged, schoolhouses
+closed, tenants ejected; in fact, a whole catalogue of such changes as I
+never could have courage to see, much less carry through. I know my dear
+uncle well; he never would have imposed such a task upon me, nor have I
+the resources within me for such an undertaking.”
+
+“And have you received no letter from Mr. Martin, from Dublin?” asked
+Scanlan.
+
+“None,--not a line; a note from my aunt--indeed, not from my aunt, but
+by her orders, written by Kate Henderson--has reached me, in which,
+however, there is no allusion to the property or the place.”
+
+“And yet her Ladyship said that Mr. Martin would write to you himself,
+in the course of the week, fully and explicitly.”
+
+“To whom was this said, sir?”
+
+“To myself, miss; there is the letter.” And Scanlan drew from his
+pocket-book a very voluminous epistle, in Kate Henderson's hand. “This
+contains the whole of her Ladyship's instructions. How all the works are
+to be stopped,--roads, woods, and quarries; the townlands of Carrigalone
+and Killybogue to be distrained; Kyle-a-Noe the same. If a tenant can be
+got for the demesne, it is to be let, with the shooting over the seven
+mountains, and the coast-fishing too. There's to be no more charges for
+schools, hospital, or dispensary after next November; everything is to
+be on the new plan, what they call 'Self-supporting.' I 'd like to know
+what that means. In fact, miss, by the time one half the orders given
+in that same letter is carried out, there won't be such another scene of
+misery and confusion in all Ireland as the estate of Cro' Martin.”
+
+“And this is sanctioned by my uncle?”
+
+“I suppose we must conclude it is, for he says nothing to the contrary;
+and Mr. Repton writes me what he calls 'my instructions,' in a way that
+shows his own feeling of indignation about the whole business.”
+
+Mary was silent; there was not a sentiment which could give pain that
+had not then its place in her heart. Commiseration, deep pity for
+the sorrows she was to witness unavailingly, wounded pride, insulted
+self-esteem,--all were there! And she turned away to hide the emotions
+which overcame her. For a moment the sense of self had the mastery, and
+she thought but of how she was to endure all this humiliation. “Am
+I,” said she to her own heart,--“am I to be insulted by the rivalry of
+Scotch stewards and gardeners, to be thrust from my place of power by
+some low-born creature, not even of the soil, but an alien?--to live
+here bereft of influence, representing nothing save the decay of our
+fortunes?” The torrent of her passion ran full and deep, and her
+bosom heaved in the agony of the moment. And then as suddenly came the
+reaction. “How small a share is mine in all this suffering, and
+how miserably selfish are even my sorrows! It is of others I should
+think!--of those who must leave hearth and home to seek out a new
+resting-place,--of the poor, who are to be friendless,--of the
+suffering, to whom no comfort is to come,--of the old, who are to die
+in distant lands,--and the young, whose hearts are never to warm to the
+affections of a native country!”
+
+While affecting to arrange the papers in his pocket-book, Scanlan
+watched every passing shade of emotion in her face. Nor was it a study
+in which he was ignorant; the habits of his calling had made him a very
+subtle observer. Many a time had he framed his question to a witness
+by some passing expression of the features. More than once had he
+penetrated the heart through the eye! The elevation of sentiment had
+given its own character to her handsome face; and as she stood proudly
+erect, with arms folded on her breast, there was in her look and
+attitude all the calm dignity of an antique statue.
+
+Scanlan interpreted truthfully what passed within her, and rightly
+judged that no small sentiment of condolence or sympathy would be
+appropriate to the occasion. Nor was he altogether unprovided for
+the emergency. He had seen a king's counsel warm up a jury to the
+boiling-point, and heard him pour forth, with all the seeming vehemence
+of an honest conviction, the wildest rhapsodies about desecrated hearths
+and blackened roof-trees,--talk of the spoiler and the seducer,--and
+even shed a tear “over the widow and the orphan!”
+
+“What say you to all this, sir?” cried she. “Have you any counsel to
+give me,--any advice?”
+
+“It is just what I have not, miss,” said he, despondingly; “and, indeed,
+it was uppermost in my heart this morning when I was writing my letter.
+What 's all I 'm suffering compared to what Miss Martin must feel?”
+
+“What letter do you allude to?” asked she, suddenly.
+
+“A letter I wrote to Mr. Repton, miss,” said he, with a deep sigh. “I
+told him plainly my mind about everything; and I said, 'If it 's for
+exterminating you are,--if you 're going to turn out families that
+were on the land for centuries, and drive away over the seas, God knows
+where, the poor people that thought the name of Martin a shield against
+all the hardships of life, all I have to say is, you must look elsewhere
+for help, since it is not Maurice Scanlan will aid you.'”
+
+“You said all this, sir?” broke she in, eagerly.
+
+“I did, miss. I told him I 'd hold the under-agency till he named some
+one to succeed me; but that I 'd not put my hand to one act or deed to
+distress the tenants. It 's giving up,” said I, “the best part of
+my means of support; it's surrendering what I reckoned on to make me
+independent. But a good conscience is better than money, miss; and if I
+must seek out a new country, I 'll go at least without the weight of a
+cruel wrong over me; and if I see one of our poor Western people beyond
+seas, I 'll not be ashamed to meet him!”
+
+“Oh, that was noble,--that was truly noble conduct!” cried she, grasping
+his hand in both her own. “How I thank you from my very heart for this
+magnanimity!”
+
+“If I ever suspected you 'd have said the half of this, Miss Mary, the
+sacrifice would have been a cheap one, indeed. But, in truth, I never
+meant to tell it. I intended to have kept my own secret; for I knew if
+any one only imagined why it was I threw up the agency, matters would
+only be worse on the estate.”
+
+“Yes, you are right,” said she, thoughtfully. “This was most
+considerate. Such a censure would augment every difficulty.”
+
+“I felt that, miss. What I said to myself was, 'My successor will
+neither know the place nor the people; he 'll be cruel where he ought
+to have mercy, and spare those that he ought to keep to their duty.'
+It isn't in a day nor a week that a man learns the habits of a large
+tenantry, nor was it without labor and pains that I acquired my present
+influence amongst them.”
+
+“Quite true,” said she; but more as though following out her own
+reflections than hearing his.
+
+“They 'll have _you_, however,” said Scanlan,--“you, that are better to
+them than all the agents that ever breathed; and the very sight of you
+riding down amongst them will cheer their hearts in the darkest moments
+of life. I turned back the whole townland of Terry Valley. They
+were packing up to be off to America; but I told them, 'she 's not
+going,--she 'll stay here, and never desert you.'”
+
+“Nor will _you_ either, sir,” cried Mary. “You will not desert them, nor
+desert _me_. Recall your letter!”
+
+“It's not gone off to the post yet. I was waiting to see you--”
+
+“Better still. Oh, Mr. Scanlan, bethink you how much yet may be done for
+these poor people, if we will but forget ourselves and what we think we
+owe to self-esteem. If _you_ will have sacrifices to make, believe me,
+_I_ shall not escape them also. It is nobler, too, and finer to
+remain here bereft of influence, stripped of all power, to share their
+sufferings and take part in their afflictions. Neither you nor I shall
+be to them what we have been; but still, let us not abandon them. Tell
+me this,--say that you will stay to counsel and advise me, to guide me
+where I need guidance, and give me all the benefit of your experience
+and your knowledge. Let it be a compact between us then; neither shall
+go while the other remains!”
+
+It was with difficulty Scanlan could restrain his delight at these
+words. How flattering to his present vanity,--how suggestive were they
+of the future! With all the solemnity of a vow he bound himself to stay;
+and Mary thanked him with the fervor of true gratitude.
+
+If there be few emotions so pleasurable as to be the object of
+acknowledged gratitude for real services, it may well be doubted whether
+the consciousness of not having merited this reward does not seriously
+detract from this enjoyment. There are men, however, so constituted that
+a successful scheme--no matter how unscrupulously achieved--is always
+a triumph, and who cherish their self-love even in degradation! Maurice
+Scanlan is before our reader, and whether he was one of this number it
+is not for us to say; enough if we record that when he cantered homeward
+on that day he sang many a snatch of a stray ballad, and none of them
+were sad ones.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX. A SUNDAY MORNING AT CRO' MARTIN
+
+Nothing is further from our intention than to enter upon the long-vexed
+question as to the benefits of an Established Church for Ireland. Wiser
+heads than ours have discussed it polemically, politically, socially,
+and arithmetically; and there it is still, left to the judgment of each,
+as his religion, his party, or his prejudices sway him. There is one
+view of the subject, however, which no traveller in the country has
+ever failed to be struck by; which is, that these settlements of
+Protestantism, dotted through the land, are so many types of an advanced
+civilization, suggesting, even to those of a different faith, respect
+and veneration for the decorous observance of this Church, and the calm
+peace-fulness with which they keep the Sabbath.
+
+Priests may denounce and politicians declaim, but the Irish peasant,
+nurtured with all the prejudices of race and religion, never throws off
+his veneration for the little flock, who, like a brave garrison in a
+besieged land, hold manfully together round the banner of their Faith!
+How striking is this in remote parts of the country, where the reformed
+religion has made little progress, and its followers are few in number!
+
+It was Sunday; the gates of Cro' Martin Park were open to admit all who
+might repair to the church. When the Martins were at home, Lady Dorothea
+used to give to these occasions somewhat of the state of a procession.
+The servants wore their dress liveries; two carriages were in waiting.
+She herself appeared in a toilet that might have graced a court chapel;
+and a formal ceremoniousness of speech and demeanor were ordained as the
+becoming recognition of the holy day. Trained to these observances by
+many a year, Mary could scarcely comprehend the strange sensation she
+felt as she walked along to church, unattended and alone. It was a
+bright day of early summer, with a soft wind stirring the leaves above,
+and rippling pleasantly the waters of the lake. The perfume of the new
+hay floated through the thin air, with the odor of the whitethorn and
+the meadow-sweet; the birds were singing merrily; and through this gay
+carol came the mellow sound of the little bell that summoned to prayer.
+There was a delicious sense of repose in the stillness around, telling
+how, amid the cares and contentions of life, its wealth seekings, and
+its petty schemes there came moments when the better instincts were
+the victors, and men, in all the diversities of their rank and
+station, could meet together to kneel at one altar, and unite in one
+supplication. As she went, little glimpses were caught by her of the
+distant country beyond the demesne; and over all there reigned the same
+tranquillity; the sound of voices, far away, adding to the effect, and
+making the silence more palpable. “How peaceful it is,” thought she,
+“and how happy it might be! Could we but bridle our own passions,
+restrain our mean jealousies, and curb the evil promptings of our own
+hearts, what blessings might grow up amongst them! But for objects not
+worth the attaining,--ambitions of no value when won,--and my uncle
+might still be here, strolling along, perhaps, with me at this
+very moment, and with me drinking in this calm repose and soothing
+quietness.”
+
+Before her, at some little distance on the path, went the three
+daughters of the village doctor; and, though well and becomingly
+attired, there was nothing in their appearance to warrant the reproach
+Lady Dorothea had cast upon their style of dress. It was, indeed,
+scrupulously neat, but simple. The eldest was a girl of about sixteen,
+with all the gravity of manner and staid expression that belongs
+to those who stand in the light of mothers to younger sisters. The
+housekeeper of her father's little home, the manager of all within
+its humble household, his secretary, his companion, Ellen Cloves had
+acquired, while little more than a child, the patient and submissive
+temper that long worldly trial confers. They lived perfectly to
+themselves; between the society of the castle and that of the farmers
+around there was no intermediate territory, and thus they passed their
+lives in a little circle of home duties and affections, which made up
+all their world.
+
+Mary Martin had often wished it in her power to show them some
+attentions; she was attracted by their gentle faces and their calm
+and happy demeanor. Had her aunt permitted, she would have frequently
+invited them to the castle, lent them books and music, and sought
+companionship in their intercourse. But Lady Dorothea would not have
+heard of such a project; her theory was that familiarity with the
+peasant was so far safe that his station was a safeguard against any
+undue intimacy; while your half-gentry were truly perilous, for if you
+condescended to civility with them, they invariably mistook it for a
+friendship. Dr. Cloves dined every Christmas-day at the great house; but
+so did Mr. Scanlan and all the other heads of departments. It was a very
+grand and solemn festival, where neither host nor guest was happy; each
+felt that it was but the acquaintance of an hour, and that with the
+moment of leave-taking came back all the cold reserve of the day before.
+
+“Good-morning, Miss Cloves; good-day, Jane, and little Bessy,” said
+Mary, as she overtook them.
+
+“Good-morning to you, Miss Martin,” said Ellen, blushing with surprise
+at seeing her alone and on foot.
+
+“I trust the doctor is not ill? I don't see him with you,” said Mary,
+anxious to relieve her momentary embarrassment.
+
+“Papa has been sent for to Knocktiernan, Miss Martin. They 're afraid
+that a case of cholera has occurred there.”
+
+“May God forbid!” ejaculated Mary, with deep emotion; “we have great
+distress and poverty around us. I hope we may be spared this scourge.”
+
+“It is what papa feared always,” rejoined Ellen, gravely; “that want and
+destitution would bring on the malady.”
+
+“Have you heard who it is is ill?”
+
+“Simon Hanley, the carpenter, Miss Martin; he worked at the castle
+once--”
+
+“Yes, yes I remember him; he made me my first little garden-rake. Poor
+fellow! And he has a large family. Your father will, I trust, have seen
+him in time. Knocktiernan is but four miles of a good road.”
+
+“Papa went by the Mills, Miss Martin, for shortness, for he was on
+foot.”
+
+“Why did he not ride?”
+
+“He has sold Bluebell,--the pony, I mean, Miss Martin.”
+
+Mary's face became crimson with a blush that seemed to burn through the
+forehead into her very brain, and she could only mutter,--
+
+“I 'm sorry I did n't know; my carriage and pony were in the stable. If
+I had but heard of this--” and was silent.
+
+They had now reached the entrance to the little churchyard, where the
+few members of the small flock lingered, awaiting the arrival of the
+clergyman. Amidst many a respectful salutation and gaze of affectionate
+interest, Mary walked to the end of the aisle, where, shrouded in heavy
+curtains, soft-cushioned and high-panelled, stood the castle pew.
+
+It must be, indeed, hard for the rich man to enter the kingdom of
+heaven. The very appliances of his piety are the offshoots of his
+voluptuous habits; and that his heart should feel humble, his hassock
+must be of down! It was not often that the words of the pastor were
+heard within that solemn, small enclosure with the same reverent
+devotion. Mary was now alone there; her mind no longer distracted by
+the petty incidents of their coming, her proud station seemed to
+have vanished, and she felt herself but as one of an humble flock,
+supplicating and in sorrow!
+
+Dr. Leslie had heard of the terrible visitation which menaced them, and
+made it the subject of his sermon. The fact of his own great age and
+fast declining strength gave a deeper meaning to all he said, and
+imparted to the faltering words of his benediction the solemnity of a
+farewell.
+
+“You are a little fatigued to-day, doctor,” said Mary, as he came out of
+church. “Will you allow me to offer you my arm?”
+
+“Willingly, my dear Miss Mary. But this is not our road.”
+
+“Why so?--this is the path to the vicarage.”
+
+“They 've made some change, my dear; they 've altered the approach.”
+
+“And you came round by the avenue,--a distance of two miles?” cried she,
+deep crimson with shame.
+
+“And kept you all waiting; but not very long, I trust,” said he, smiling
+benevolently. “But come, talk to me of yourself, and when I am to come
+and see you.”
+
+“Oh, my dear Dr. Leslie, you must not think that I--that my uncle--” She
+stopped, and he pressed her hand gently, and said,--
+
+“Do not speak of it; do not give importance to things which are trifles,
+if we have but good temper to leave them so. Is to-morrow a free day
+with you; or when shall I hope to find you at leisure?”
+
+“My dear doctor, every day will be so in future; all my functions have
+ceased here. I am to be nothing in future.”
+
+“I had heard something of that, and I said to myself, 'Now will Mary
+Martin display her real character. No longer carried away by the mere
+enthusiasm of her great power and her high station, not exalted to
+herself by the flatteries around her, we shall see whether the sterling
+qualities of her nature will not supply higher and greater resources
+than all the credit at a banker's!' I never undervalued all you did
+here, Mary Martin; I saw your noble purpose, even in failures; but I
+always felt that to make these efforts react favorably on yourself,
+there should be something of sacrifice. To do good was a luxury to
+you; and it was a luxury very easy to purchase. You were rich, you were
+powerful; none controlled you. Your benefits were acknowledged with all
+the enthusiasm of peasant gratitude. Why should you not be beneficent?
+what other course of conduct could bring you one half the pleasure?
+For the future, it is from another source you must dispense wealth; but
+happily it is one which there is no exhausting, for the heart exercised
+to charity has boundless stores. Let these be your riches now. Go
+amongst the people; learn to know them,--rather their friend than their
+benefactor,--and believe me that all the gold you have scattered so
+generously will not have sown such seeds of goodness as the meek example
+of your own noble submission to altered fortune. There, my dear,” said
+he, smiling, “I 'll say no more, lest you should tell me that I have
+preached half an hour already. And I may come to-morrow, you say?”
+
+“What a happiness it will be for me to speak to you!” said Mary,
+ardently. “There are so many things I want to say,--so much on which I
+need advice.”
+
+“I 'm but little practised in the ways of the world,” said he, with a
+gentle sigh, “but I have ever found great wisdom in an honest purpose;
+and then,” added he, more warmly, “it is a fine philosophy that secures
+us against humiliation, even in defeat!”
+
+They now walked along for some time without speaking, when a sudden
+angle of the path brought them directly in front of the castle. They
+both halted suddenly, struck, as it were, by the aspect of the spacious
+and splendid structure, all silent and deserted. The doors were
+closed, the windows shuttered,--not a living creature moved about the
+precincts,--and the lone flagstaff on the tower unfurled no “banner to
+the breeze.” Even the trimly kept parterres were beginning to show signs
+of neglect, and tangled flowers fell across the gravel.
+
+“What a lonely home for _her!_” muttered the old doctor to himself; then
+suddenly exclaimed, “Here comes some one in search of you, Miss Martin.”
+
+And a servant approached and whispered a few words in her ear.
+
+“Yes, immediately,” said she, in reply.
+
+She entreated the old man to rest himself for a while ere he continued
+his walk homeward; but he declined, and with an affectionate farewell
+they parted,--he towards the vicarage, and she to re-enter the castle.
+
+There is no need to practise mystery with our reader; and he who
+had just arrived, and was eager to see Miss Martin, was only Maurice
+Scanlan! As little use is there also in denying the fact that Mary was
+much annoyed at his inopportune coming. She was in no mood of mind to
+meet either him or such topics as he would certainly discuss.
+
+However, she had, so to say, given him a permission to be admitted at
+all times, and there was no help for it!
+
+These same people that one “must see,” are very terrible inflictions
+sometimes. They are ever present at the wrong time and the wrong
+place. They come in moments when their presence is a discord to all our
+thoughts; and what is to the full as bad, they don't know it,--or they
+will not know it. They have an awful amount of self-esteem, and fancy
+that they never can be but welcome. A type of this class was Maurice
+Scanlan. Thrust forward by the accidents of life into situations for
+which nothing in his own humble beginnings seemed to adapt him, he had,
+like all the other Maurice Scanlans of the world, taken to suppose that
+he was really a very necessary and important ingredient in all affairs.
+He found, too, that his small cunning served to guide him, where really
+able men's wisdom failed them,--for so it is, people won't take
+soundings when they think they can see the bottom; and, finally, he
+conceived a very high opinion of his faculties, and thought them equal
+to much higher purposes than they had ever been engaged in.
+
+Since his last interview with Mary Martin, he had never ceased to
+congratulate himself on the glorious turn of his affairs. Though not
+over-sanguine about others, Maurice was always hopeful of himself. It is
+one of the characteristics of such men, and one of the greatest aids to
+their activity, this ever-present belief in themselves. To secure the
+good opinion he had already excited in his favor was now his great
+endeavor; and nothing could so effectually contribute to this, as to
+show an ardent zeal and devotion to her wishes. He had read somewhere of
+a certain envoy who had accomplished his mission ere it was believed he
+had set out; and he resolved to profit by the example. It was, then,
+in the full confidence of success, that he presented himself on this
+occasion.
+
+Mary received him calmly, almost coldly. His presence was not in harmony
+with any thought that occupied her, and she deemed the task of admitting
+him something like an infliction.
+
+“I drove over, Miss Mary,” said he, rather disconcerted by her
+reserve,--“I drove over to-day, though I know you don't like business on
+a Sunday, just to say that I had completed that little matter you spoke
+of,--the money affair. I did n't sleep on it, but went to work at once;
+and though the papers won't be ready for some days, the cash is ready
+for you whenever you like to draw it.”
+
+“You have been very kind and very prompt, sir,” said she, thankfully,
+but with a languor that showed she was not thinking of the subject.
+
+“He said five per cent,” continued Scanlan, “and I made no objection;
+for, to tell you the truth, I expected he'd have asked us six,--he's
+generally a hard hand to deal with.”
+
+It was evident that he hoped her curiosity might have inquired the name
+of him thus alluded to; but she never did so, but heard the fact with a
+calm indifference.
+
+Scanlan was uneasy; his heaviest artillery had opened no breach. What
+should be his next manouvre?
+
+“The money-market is tight just now,” said he, speaking only to gain
+time for further observation; “and there's worse times even before us.”
+
+If Mary heard, she did not notice this gloomy speculation.
+
+“I 'm sure it will be no easy job to get the last November rent paid up.
+It was a bad crop; and now there 's sickness coming amongst them,” said
+he, half as though to himself. “You'll have to excuse me to-day, Mr.
+Scanlan,” said she, at last. “I find I can think of nothing; I am in one
+of my idle moods.”
+
+“To be sure, why not, Miss Mary?” said he, evidently piqued at the
+ill-success of all his zeal. “It was _I_ made a mistake. I fancied,
+somehow, you were anxious about this little matter; but another day will
+do as well,--whenever it's your own convenience.”
+
+“You are always considerate, always good-natured, Mr. Scanlan,” said
+she, with a vagueness that showed she was scarcely conscious of what she
+uttered.
+
+“If _you_ think so, Miss Mary, I 'm well repaid,” said he, with a dash
+of gallantry in the tone; “nor is it by a trifle like this I'd like to
+show my--my--my--devotion.” And the last word came out with an effort
+that made his face crimson.
+
+“Yes,” muttered she, not hearing one word of his speech.
+
+“So that I'll come over to-morrow, Miss Mary,” broke he in.
+
+“Very well, to-morrow!” replied she, as still musing she turned to the
+window, no more thinking of the luckless attorney than if he had been
+miles away; and when at length she did look round, he was gone! It was
+some minutes ere Mary could perfectly reconcile herself to the fact that
+he had been there at all; but as to how and when and why he took his
+leave, were mysteries of which she could make nothing. And yet Mr.
+Scanlan had gone through a very ceremonious farewell. He had bowed, and
+sidled, and simpered, and smirked, and sighed; had thrown himself into
+attitudes pictorially devoted and despairing, looked unutterable things
+in various styles, and finally made an exit, covered with as much
+shame and discomfiture as so confident a spirit could well experience,
+muttering, as he paced the corridor, certain prospective reprisals for
+this haughty indifference, when a certain time should arrive, and a
+certain fair lady--But we have no right to push his speculations further
+than he himself indulged them; and on the present occasion Maurice was
+less sanguine than his wont.
+
+“I fed the mare, sir,” said Barnes, as he held the stirrup for Scanlan
+to mount.
+
+“And gave her water, too,” said the attorney, doggedly.
+
+“Devil a drop, then,” resumed the other. “I just sprinkled the oats, no
+more; that's Miss Mary's orders always.”
+
+“She understands a stable well,” said Scanlan, half questioning.
+
+“Does n't she?” said the other, with a sententious smack of the lip. “To
+bit a horse or to back him, to tache him his paces and cure him of bad
+tricks, to train him for harness, double and single, to show him the way
+over a wall or a wide ditch, to make him rise light and come down easy,
+she has n't a match on this island; and as for training,” added he, with
+fresh breath, “did you see Sir Lucius?”
+
+“No,” said Scanlan, with awakened interest.
+
+“Wait till I bring him out, then. I'll show you a picture!” And Barnes
+disappeared into the stable. In five minutes after, he returned, leading
+a dark brown horse, who, even shrouded in all the covering of hood
+and body-clothes, displayed in his long step and lounging gait the
+attributes of a racer.
+
+In a few minutes Barnes had unbuckled strap and surcingle, and sweeping
+back the blankets dexterously over the croup, so as not to ruffle a hair
+of the glossy coat, exhibited an animal of surpassing symmetry, in all
+the pride of high condition.
+
+“There's a beast,” said he, proudly, “without speck or spot, brand or
+blemish about him! You 're a good judge of a horse, Mr. Scanlan; and
+tell me when did you see his equal?”
+
+“He's a nice horse!” said Scanlan, slowly, giving to each word a slow
+and solemn significance; then, casting a keen glance all around and over
+him, added, “There 's a splint on the off leg!”
+
+“So there is, the least taste in life,” said Barnes, passing his hand
+lightly over it; “and was there ever a horse--worth the name of a
+horse--that hadn't a splint? Sure, they 're foaled with them! I wanted
+Miss Mary to let me take that off with an ointment I have, but she would
+n't. 'It's not in the way of the tendon,' says she. 'It will never spoil
+his action, and we 'll not blemish him with a mark.' Them's her very
+words.”
+
+“He's a nice horse,” said Scanlan, once more, as if the very parsimony
+of the praise was the highest testimony of the utterer; “and in rare
+condition, too,” added he.
+
+“In the very highest,” said Barnes. “He was as sure of that cup as I am
+that my name 's Tim.”
+
+“What cup?” asked Scanlan.
+
+“Kiltimmon,--the June race; he's entered and all; and now he's to
+be sold,--them 's the orders I got yesterday; he's to be auctioned at
+Dycer's on Saturday for whatever he'll bring!”
+
+“And now, what do you expect for him, Barnes?” said Maurice,
+confidentially.
+
+“Sorrow one o' me knows. He might go for fifty,--he might go for two
+hundred and fifty! and cheap he'd be of it. He has racing speed over a
+flat course, and steeplechase action for his fences. With eleven stone
+on his back--one that can ride, I mean, of course--he 'd challenge all
+Ireland.”
+
+[Illustration: 418]
+
+“I would n't mind making a bid for him myself,” said Scanlan, hesitating
+between his jockeyism and the far deeper game which he was playing.
+
+“Do then, sir, and don't draw him for the race, for he 'll win it as
+sure as I 'm here. 'T is Jemmy was to ride him; and Miss Mary would n't
+object to give you the boy, jacket and all, her own colors,--blue, with
+white sleeves.”
+
+“Do you think so, Barnes? Do you think she'd let me run him in the
+Martin colors?” cried Scanlan, to whom the project now had suddenly
+assumed a most fascinating aspect.
+
+“What would you give for him?” asked Barnes, in a business-like voice.
+
+“A hundred,--a hundred and fifty,--two hundred, if I was sure of what
+you say.”
+
+“Leave it to me, sir,--leave it all to _me_,” said Barnes, with the
+gravity of a diplomatist who understood his mission. “Where can I see
+you to-morrow?”
+
+“I 'll be here about ten o'clock!”
+
+“That will do,--enough said!” And Barnes, replacing the horse-sheet,
+slowly re-entered the stable; while Scanlan, putting spurs to his nag,
+dashed hurriedly away, his thoughts outstripping in their speed the pace
+he went, and traversing space with a rapidity that neither “blood” nor
+training ever vied with.
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of
+II), by Charles James Lever
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II), by 
+Charles James Lever
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II)
+
+Author: Charles James Lever
+
+Illustrator: Phiz.
+
+Release Date: February 2, 2011 [EBook #35143]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN ***
+
+
+
+
+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 ch�teaux 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 S�vres, 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!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. KILKIERAN BAY
+
+In one of the many indentures of Kilkieran Bay,--favored by a
+southerly aspect and a fine sandy beach, sheltered by two projecting
+headlands,--stood a little row of cabins, originally the dwellings of
+poor fishermen, but now, in summer-time, the resort of the neighboring
+gentry, who frequented the coast for sea-bathing. There was little
+attempt made by the humble owners to accommodate the habits of the
+wealthy visitors. Some slight effort at neatness, or some modest
+endeavor at internal decoration, by a little window-curtain or a rickety
+chest of drawers, were the very extent of these pretensions. Year by
+year the progress of civilization went thus lazily forward; and, far
+from finding fault with this backwardness, it was said that the visitors
+were just as well satisfied. Many hoped to see the place as they
+remembered it in their own childhood, many were not sorry to avail
+themselves of its inexpensive life and simple habits, and some were more
+pleased that its humble attractions could draw no strangers to sojourn
+there to mock by their more costly requirements the quiet ways of the
+old residents.
+
+Under the shelter of a massive rock, which formed the northern boundary
+of the little bay, stood one building of more pretension. It was a
+handsome bathing-lodge, with a long veranda towards the sea, and an
+effort, not very successful, however, at a little flower-garden in
+front. The spacious bay-windows, which opened in French fashion, were
+of plate-glass; the deep projecting eave was ornamented with a handsome
+cornice; and the entire front had been richly decorated by entablatures
+in stucco and common cement. Still, somehow, there seemed to be a
+spiteful resistance in the climate to such efforts at embellishment.
+The wild hurricanes that swept over the broad Atlantic were not to be
+withstood by the frail timbers of the Gothic veranda. The sweeping gusts
+that sent foaming spray high over the rocky cliffs shattered the costly
+panes, and smashed even the mullions that held them; while fragments of
+carving, or pieces of stuccoed tracery, together with broken vases and
+uprooted shrubs, littered the garden and the terrace. The house was but
+a few years built, and yet was already dilapidated and ruinous-looking.
+A stout stone wall had replaced the trellised woodwork of one side of
+the porch; some of the windows were firmly barricaded with boards on the
+outside; and iron cramps and other appliances equally unsightly on the
+roof, showed by what means the slates were enabled to resist the storms.
+
+The aspect of consistent poverty never inspires ridicule. It is shabby
+gentility alone that provokes the smile of sarcastic meaning; and thus
+the simple dwellings of the fishermen, in all their humility, offered
+nothing to the eye of critical remark. There seemed abundant absurdity
+in this attempt to defy climate and aspect, place and circumstance; and
+every effort to repair an accident but brought out the pretension into
+more glaring contrast. The "Osprey's Nest," as Lady Dorothea Martin had
+styled her bathing-lodge, bore, indeed, but a sorry resemblance to its
+water-colored emblem in the plan of the architect; for Mr. Kirk had not
+only improvised a beautiful villa, with fuchsias and clematis and
+moss-roses clustering on it, but he had invented an Italian sky, and
+given a Lago Maggiore tint to the very Atlantic. Your fashionable
+architect is indeed a finished romancer, and revels in the license of
+his art with a most voluptuous abandonment.
+
+It was now, however, late in the autumn; some warnings of the
+approaching equinox had already been felt, and the leaden sky above, and
+the dark-green, sullen sea beneath, above which a cold northwester swept
+gustily, recalled but little of the artistic resemblance.
+
+The short September day was drawing to a close, and it was just that
+dreary interval between day and dusk, so glorious in fine weather,
+but so terribly depressing in the cold ungenial season, as all the
+frequenters of the little bay were hastening homeward for the night.
+Already a twinkling candle or two showed that some had retired to
+their humble shealings to grumble over the discomforts about them, and
+speculate on a speedy departure. They who visited Kilkieran during the
+"season" were usually the gentry families of the neighborhood; but
+as the summer wore over, their places were occupied by a kind of
+"half-price company,"--shopkeepers and smart residents of Oughterard,
+who waited for their pleasure till it could be obtained economically.
+Of this class were now those on the evening I have mentioned, and to a
+small select party of whom I now desire to introduce my reader.
+
+It was "Mrs. Cronan's Evening"--for the duty of host was taken
+in rotation--and Mrs. Cronan was one of the leaders of fashion in
+Oughterard, for she lived on her own private means, at the top of
+Carraway Street, entertained Father Maher every Sunday at dinner, and
+took in the "Galway Intelligence," which, it is but fair to say, was,
+from inverted letters and press blunders, about as difficult reading as
+any elderly lady ever confronted.
+
+Mrs. Cronan was eminently genteel,--that is to say, she spent her life
+in unceasing lamentations over the absence of certain comforts "she
+was always used to," and passed her days in continual reference to some
+former state of existence, which, to hear her, seemed almost borrowed
+bodily out of the "Arabian Nights." Then there was Captain Bodkin, of
+the Galway Fencibles,--a very fat, asthmatic old gentleman, who came
+down to the "salt water" every summer for thirty years, fully
+determined to bathe, but never able to summon courage to go in. He was
+a kind-hearted, jolly old fellow, who loved strong punch and long whist,
+and cared very little how the world went on, if these enjoyments were
+available.
+
+Then there was Miss Busk, a very tall, thin, ghostly personage, with a
+pinkish nose and a pinched lip, but whose manners were deemed the very
+type of high breeding, for she courtesied or bowed at almost
+minute intervals during an "Evening," and had a variety of personal
+reminiscences of the Peerage. She was of "an excellent family," Mrs.
+Cronan always said; and though reduced by circumstances, she was the
+Swan and Edgar of Oughterard,--"was company for the Queen herself."
+
+The fourth hand in the whist-table was usually taken by Mrs. Nelligan,
+wife of "Pat Nelligan," the great shopkeeper of Oughterard, and who,
+though by no means entitled on heraldic grounds to take her place in any
+such exalted company, was, by the happy accident of fortune, elevated to
+this proud position. Mrs. Nelligan being unwell, her place was, on the
+present occasion, supplied by her son; and of him I would fain say a few
+words, since the reader is destined to bear company with him when the
+other personages here referred to have been long forgotten.
+
+Joseph Nelligan was a tall, pale young fellow who, though only just
+passed twenty-two, looked several years older; the serious, thoughtful
+expression of his face giving the semblance of age. His head was large
+and massively shaped, and the temples were strong and square, deeply
+indented at the sides, and throwing the broad, high forehead into
+greater prominence; dark eyes, shaded by heavy, black eyebrows, lent
+an almost scowling character to a face which, regular in feature, was
+singularly calm and impassive-looking. His voice was deep, low, and
+sonorous, and though strongly impressed with the intonation of his
+native province, was peculiarly soft, and, to Irish ears, even musical.
+He was, however, remarkably silent; rarely or never conversed, as his
+acquaintances understood conversation, and only when roused by some
+theme that he cared for, or stimulated by some assertion that he
+dissented from, was he heard to burst forth into a rapid flow of words,
+uttered as though under the impulse of passion, and of which, when
+ended, he seemed actually to feel ashamed himself.
+
+He was no favorite with the society of Kilkieran; some thought him
+downright stupid; others regarded him as a kind of spy upon his
+neighbors,--an imputation most lavishly thrown out in every circle where
+there is nothing to detect, and where all the absurdity lies palpable on
+the surface; and many were heard to remark that he seemed to forget who
+he was, and that "though he was a college student, he ought to remember
+he was only Pat Nelligan's son."
+
+If he never courted their companionship, he as little resented their
+estrangement from him. He spent his days and no small share of his
+nights in study; books supplied to him the place of men, and in their
+converse he forgot the world. His father's vanity had entered him as
+a Fellow-Commoner in the University, and even this served to widen
+the interval between him and those of his own age; his class-fellows
+regarded his presence amongst them as an intolerable piece of low-bred
+presumption. Nor was this unkindly feeling diminished when they saw him,
+term after term, carry away the prizes of each examination; for equally
+in science as in classics was he distinguished, till at length it became
+a current excuse for failure when a man said, "I was in Nelligan's
+division."
+
+It is not impossible that his social isolation contributed much to his
+success. For him there were none of the amusements which occupy those of
+his own age. The very fact of his fellow-commoner's gown separated him
+as widely from one set of his fellow-students as from the other, and
+thus was he left alone with his ambition. As time wore on, and his
+successes obtained wider notoriety, some of those in authority in the
+University appeared to be disposed to make advances to him; but he
+retreated modestly from these marks of notice, shrouding himself in
+his obscurity, and pleading the necessity for study. At length came
+the crowning act of his college career, in the examination for the gold
+medal; and although no competitor was bold enough to dispute the prize
+with him, he was obliged to submit to the ordeal. It is rarely that the
+public vouchsafes any interest in the details of University honors; but
+this case proved an exception, and almost every journal of the capital
+alluded in terms of high paneygric to the splendid display he made on
+that occasion.
+
+In the very midst of these triumphs, young Nelligan arrived at his
+father's house in Oughterard, to enjoy the gratification his success had
+diffused at home, and rest himself after his severe labors. Little as
+old Pat Nelligan of his neighbors knew of University honors, or the
+toil which won them, there was enough in the very publicity of his son's
+career to make him a proud man. He at least knew that Joe had beaten
+them all; that none could hold a candle to him; "that for nigh a century
+such answering had not been heard on the bench." This was the expression
+of a Dublin journal, coupled with the partisan regret that, by the
+bigoted statutes of the college, genius of such order should be denied
+the privilege of obtaining a fellowship.
+
+If young Nelligan retired, half in pride, half in bashful-ness, from the
+notice of society in Dublin, he was assuredly little disposed to enter
+into the gayeties and dissipations of a small country-town existence.
+The fulsome adulation of some, the stupid astonishment of others, but,
+worse than either, the vulgar assumption that his success was a kind of
+party triumph,--a blow dealt by the plebeian against the patrician, the
+Papist against the Protestant,--shocked and disgusted him, and he was
+glad to leave Oughterard and accompany his mother to the seaside. She
+was an invalid of some years' standing,--a poor, frail, simple-hearted
+creature, who, after a long, struggling life of hardship and toil, saw
+herself in affluence and comfort, and yet could not bring her mind to
+believe it true. As little could she comprehend the strange fact of
+Joe's celebrity; of his name figuring in newspapers, and his health
+being drunk at a public dinner in his native town. To her he was
+invaluable; the very tenderest of nurses, and the best of all
+companions. She did n't care for books, even those of the most amusing
+kind; but she loved to hear the little gossip of the place where the
+neighbors passed the evening; what topics they discussed; who had left
+and who had arrived, and every other little incident of their uneventful
+lives. Simple and easy of execution as such an office might have been
+to a kindred spirit, to Joseph Nelligan it proved no common labor. And
+certain it is that the mistakes he committed in names, and the blunders
+he fell into as regarded events, rather astonished his mother, and
+led that good lady to believe that Trinity College must not have
+been fertile in genius when poor Joe was regarded as one of the great
+luminaries of his time. "Ah," would she say, "if he had his father's
+head it would be telling him! but, poor boy, he remembers nothing!"
+
+This digression--far longer than I cared to make it, but which has grown
+to its present extent under my hands--will explain young Nelligan's
+presence at Mrs. Cronan's "Tea," where already a number of other
+notables had now assembled, and were gracefully dispersed through the
+small rooms which formed her apartment. Play of various kinds formed the
+chief amusement of the company; and while the whist-table, in decorous
+gravity, held the chief place in the sitting-room, a laughing round game
+occupied the kitchen, and a hardly contested "hit" of backgammon
+was being fought out on the bed, where, for lack of furniture, the
+combatants had established themselves.
+
+The success of an evening party is not always proportionate to the means
+employed to secure it. Very splendid _salons_, costly furniture,
+and what newspapers call "all the delicacies of the season," are
+occasionally to be found in conjunction with very dull company; while
+a great deal of enjoyment and much social pleasure are often to be
+met with where the material resources have been of the fewest and most
+simple kind. On the present occasion there was a great deal of laughing,
+and a fair share of love-making; some scolding at whist, and an
+abundance of scandal, at least of that cut-and-thrust-at character which
+amuses the speakers themselves, and is never supposed to damage those
+who are the object of it. All the company who had frequented the
+port--as Kilkieran was called--during the season were passed in review,
+and a number of racy anecdotes interchanged about their rank, morals,
+fortune, and pretensions. A very general impression seemed to prevail
+that in the several points of climate, scenery, social advantages, and
+amusements, Kilkieran might stand a favorable comparison with the first
+watering-places, not alone of England, but the Continent; and after
+various discursive reasons why its fame had not equalled its deserts,
+there was an almost unanimous declaration of opinion that the whole
+fault lay with the Martins; not, indeed, that the speakers were very
+logical in their arguments, since some were heard to deplore the change
+from the good old times, when everybody was satisfied to live anywhere
+and anyhow, when there was no road to the place but a bridle-path, not
+a loaf of bread to be had within twelve miles, no post-office; while
+others eloquently expatiated on all that might have been, and yet was
+not done.
+
+"We tried to get up a little news-room," said Captain Bodkin, "and I
+went to Martin myself about it, but he hum'd and ha'd, and said, until
+people subscribed for the Dispensary he thought they needn't mind
+newspapers."
+
+"Just like him," said Mrs. Cronan; "but, indeed, I think it's my Lady
+does it all."
+
+"I differ from you, ma'am," said Miss Busk, with a bland smile; "I
+attribute the inauspicious influence to another."
+
+"You mean Miss Martin?" said Mrs. Cronan.
+
+"Just so, ma'am; indeed, I have reason to know I am correct. This time
+two years it was I went over to Cro' Martin House to propose opening 'my
+Emporium' for the season at the port. I thought it was due to the owners
+of the estate, and due to myself also," added Miss Busk, majestically,
+"to state my views about a measure so intimately associated with
+the--the--in fact, what I may call the interests of civilization. I
+had just received my plates of the last fashions from Dublin,--you may
+remember them, ma'am; I showed them to you at Mrs. Cullenane's--well,
+when I was in the very middle of my explanation, who should come into
+the room but Miss Martin--"
+
+"Dressed in the old brown riding-habit?" interposed a fat old lady with
+one eye.
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Few, in the old brown riding-habit. She came up to the table,
+with a saucy laugh in her face, and said, 'Why, uncle, are you going to
+give a fancy ball?'
+
+"'It is the last arrival from Paris, miss,' said I; 'the Orleans mantle,
+which, though not a "costume de Chasse," is accounted very becoming.'
+
+"'Ah, you 're laughing at my old habit, Miss Busk,' said she, seeing
+how I eyed her; 'and it really is very shabby, but I intend to give Dan
+Leary a commission to replace it one of these days.'"
+
+"Dan Leary, of the Cross-roads!" exclaimed Captain Bodkin, laughing.
+
+"I pledge you my word of honor, sir, she said it. 'And as to all this
+finery, Miss Busk,' said she, turning over the plates with her whip, 'it
+would be quite unsuitable to our country, our climate, and our habits;
+not to say, that the Orleans mantle would be worn with an ill grace when
+our people are going half naked!'"
+
+"Positively indecent! downright indelicate!" shuddered Mrs. Cronan.
+
+"And did Martin agree with her?" asked the Captain.
+
+"I should like to know when he dared to do otherwise. Why, between my
+lady and the niece he can scarcely call his life his own."
+
+"They say he has a cruel time of it," sighed Mr. Clinch, the
+revenue-officer, who had some personal experience of domestic slavery.
+
+"Tush,--nonsense!" broke in his wife. "I never knew one of those
+hen-pecked creatures that was n't a tyrant in his family. I 'll engage,
+if the truth were known, Lady Dorothy has the worst of it."
+
+"Faith, and he's much altered from what he was when a boy, if any
+one rules him," said the captain. "I was at school with him and his
+twin-brother Barry. I remember the time when one of them had to wear a
+bit of red ribbon in his button-hole to distinguish him from the other.
+They were the born images of each other,--that is, in looks; for in
+real character they were n't a bit like. Godfrey was a cautious, quiet,
+careful chap that looked after his pocket-money, and never got into
+scrapes; and Barry was a wasteful devil that made the coin fly, and
+could be led by any one. I think he 'd have given his life for his
+brother any day. I remember once when Godfrey would n't fight a boy,--I
+forget what it was about; Barry stole the bit of ribbon out of his coat,
+and went up and fought in his place; and a mighty good thrashing he got,
+too."
+
+"I have heard my father speak of that," said a thin, pale, careworn
+little man in green spectacles; "for the two boys were taken away at
+once, and it was the ruin of the school."
+
+"So it was, doctor; you're right there," broke in the Captain; "and they
+say that Martin bears a grudge against you to this day."
+
+"That would be hard," sighed the meek doctor; "for I had nothing to
+do with it, or my father, either. But it cost him dearly!" added he,
+mournfully.
+
+"You know best, doctor, whether it is true or not; but he certainly was
+n't your friend when you tried for the Fever Hospital."
+
+"That was because Pat Nelligan was on my committee," said the doctor.
+
+"And was that sufficient to lose you Mr. Martin's support, sir?" asked
+young Nelligan, with a degree of astonishment in his face, that, joined
+to the innocence of the question, caused a general burst of hearty
+laughter.
+
+"The young gentleman knows more about _cubic_ sections, it appears,
+than of what goes on in his own town," said the Captain. "Why, sir,
+your father is the most independent man in all Oughterard; and if I know
+Godfrey Martin, he 'd give a thousand guineas this night to have him out
+of it."
+
+A somewhat animated "rally" followed this speech, in which different
+speakers gave their various reasons why Martin ought or ought not to
+make any sacrifice to put down the spirit of which Pat Nelligan was the
+chief champion. These arguments were neither cogent nor lucid enough to
+require repeating; nor did they convey to Joseph himself, with all
+his anxiety for information, the slightest knowledge on the subject
+discussed. Attention was, however, drawn off the theme by the clattering
+sound of a horse passing along the shingly shore at a smart gallop;
+and with eager curiosity two or three rushed to the door to see what
+it meant. A swooping gust of wind and rain, overturning chairs and
+extinguishing candles, drove them suddenly back again; and, half
+laughing at the confusion, half cursing the weather, the party
+barricaded the door, and returned to their places.
+
+"Of course it was Miss Martin; who else would be out at this time of the
+night?" said Mrs. Clinch.
+
+"And without a servant!" exclaimed Miss Busk.
+
+"Indeed, you may well make the remark, ma'am," said Mrs. Cronan. "The
+young lady was brought up in a fashion that was n't practised in my
+time!"
+
+"Where could she have been down that end of the port, I wonder?" said
+Mrs. Clinch. "She came up from Garra Cliff."
+
+"Maybe she came round by the strand," said the doctor; "if she did, I
+don't think there 's one here would like to have followed her."
+
+"I would n't be her horse!" said one; "nor her groom!" muttered another;
+and thus, gradually lashing themselves into a wild indignation, they
+opened, at last, a steady fire upon the young lady,--her habits, her
+manners, and her appearance all coming in for a share of criticism; and
+although a few modest amendments were put in favor of her horsemanship
+and her good looks, the motion was carried that no young lady ever took
+such liberties before, and that the meeting desired to record their
+strongest censure on the example thus extended to their own young
+people.
+
+If young Nelligan ventured upon a timid question of what it was she
+had done, he was met by an eloquent chorus of half a dozen voices,
+recounting mountain excursions which no young lady had ever made before;
+distant spots visited, dangers incurred, storms encountered, perils
+braved, totally unbecoming to her in her rank of life, and showing that
+she had no personal respect, nor--as Miss Busk styled it--"a
+proper sense of the dignity of woman!"
+
+"'T was down at Mrs. Nelligan's, ma'am, Miss Mary was," said Mrs.
+Cronan's maid, who had been despatched special to make inquiry on the
+subject.
+
+"At my mother's!" exclaimed Joseph, reddening, without knowing in the
+least why. And now a new diversion occurred, while all discussed every
+possible and impossible reason for this singular fact, since the family
+at the "Nest" maintained no intercourse whatever with their neighbors,
+not even seeming, by any act of their lives, to acknowledge their very
+existence.
+
+Young Nelligan took the opportunity to make his escape during the
+debate; and as the society offers nothing very attractive to detain us,
+it will be as well if we follow him, while he hastened homeward along
+the dark and storm-lashed beach. He had about a mile to go, and, short
+as was this distance, it enabled him to think over what he had just
+heard, strange and odd as it seemed to his ears. Wholly given up, as he
+had been for years past, to the ambition of a college life, with but one
+goal before his eyes, one class of topics engrossing his thoughts, he
+had never even passingly reflected on the condition of parties, the
+feuds of opposing factions, and, stronger than either, the animosities
+that separated social ranks in Ireland. Confounding the occasional
+slights he had experienced by virtue of his class, with the jealousy
+caused by his successes, he had totally overlooked the disparagement men
+exhibited towards the son of the little country shopkeeper, and never
+knew of his disqualification for a society whose precincts he had not
+tried to pass. The littleness, the unpurpose-like vacuity, the intense
+vulgarity of his Oughterard friends had disgusted him, it is true; but
+he had yet to learn that the foolish jealousy of their wealthy
+neighbor was a trait still less amiable, and ruminating over these
+problems,--knottier far to him than many a complex formula or many a
+disputed reading of a Greek play,--he at last reached the solitary
+little cabin where his mother lived.
+
+It is astonishing how difficult men of highly cultivated and actively
+practised minds find it to comprehend the little turnings and windings
+of commonplace life, the jealousies and the rivalries of small people.
+They search for motives where there are merely impulses, and look for
+reasons when there are simple passions.
+
+It was only as he lifted the latch that he remembered how deficient
+he was in all the information his mother would expect from him. Of the
+fortunes of the whist-table he actually knew nothing; and had he been
+interrogated as to the "toilette" of the party, his answers would have
+betrayed a lamentable degree of ignorance. Fortunately for him, his
+mother did not display her habitual anxiety on these interesting themes.
+She neither asked after the Captain's winnings,--he was the terror of
+the party,--nor whether Miss Busk astonished the company by another new
+gown. Poor Mrs. Nelligan was too brimful of another subject to admit
+of one particle of extraneous matter to occupy her. With a proud
+consciousness, however, of her own resources, she affected to have
+thoughts for other things, and asked Joe if he passed a pleasant day?
+
+"Yes, very--middling--quite so--rather stupid, I thought," replied he,
+in his usual half-connected manner, when unable to attach his mind to
+the question before him.
+
+"Of, course, my dear, it's very unlike what you 're used to up in
+Dublin, though I believe that Captain Bodkin, when he goes there, always
+dines with the Lord-Lieutenant; and Miss Busk, I know, is second cousin
+to Ram of Swainestown, and there is nothing better than that in Ireland.
+I say this between ourselves, for your father can't bear me to talk of
+family or connections, though I am sure I was always brought up to
+think a great deal about good blood; and if my father was a Finnerty, my
+mother was a Moore of Crockbawn, and her family never looked at her for
+marrying my father."
+
+"Indeed!" said Joe, in a dreamy semi-consciousness.
+
+"It's true what I 'm telling you. She often said it to me herself, and
+told me what a blessing it was, through all her troubles and trials in
+life; and she had her share of them, for my father was often in drink,
+and very cruel at times. 'It supports me,' she used to say, 'to remember
+who I am, and the stock I came from, and to know that there 's not one
+belonging to me would speak to me, nor look at the same side of the road
+with me, after what I done; and, Matty,' said she to me, 'if ever it
+happens to you to marry a man beneath you in life, always bear in
+mind that, no matter how he treats you, you 're better than him.' And,
+indeed, it's a great support and comfort to one's feelings, after all,"
+said she, with a deep sigh.
+
+"I'm certain of it," muttered Joe, who had not followed one word of the
+harangue.
+
+"But mind that you never tell your father so. Indeed, I would n't let on
+to him what happened this evening."
+
+"What was that?" asked the young man, roused by the increased anxiety of
+her manner.
+
+"It was a visit I had, my dear," replied the old lady, with a simpering
+consciousness that she had something to reveal,--"it was a visit I had
+paid me, and by an elegant young lady, too."
+
+"A young lady? Not Miss Cassidy, mother. I think she left yesterday
+morning."
+
+"No, indeed, my dear. Somebody very different from Miss Cassidy; and you
+might guess till you were tired before you 'd think of Miss Martin."
+
+"Miss Martin!" echoed Joe.
+
+"Exactly so. Miss Martin of Cro' Martin; and the way it happened was
+this. I was sitting here alone in the room after my tea,--for I sent
+Biddy out to borrow the 'Intelligence' for me; and then comes a sharp
+knock to the door, and I called out, 'Come in;' but instead of doing so
+there was another rapping, louder than before, and I said, 'Bother you,
+can't you lift the latch?' and then I heard something like a laugh, and
+so I went out; and you may guess the shame I felt as I saw a young
+lady fastening the bridle of her horse to the bar of the window. 'Mrs.
+Nelli-gan, I believe,' said she, with a smile and a look that warmed
+my heart to her at once; and as I courtesied very low, she went on. I
+forget, indeed, the words,--whether she said she was Miss Martin, or
+it was I that asked the question; but I know she came in with me to the
+room, and sat down where you are sitting now. 'Coming back from Kyle's
+Wood this morning,' said she, 'I overtook poor Billy with the post. He
+was obliged to go two miles out of his way to ford the river; and what
+with waiting for the mail, which was late in coming, and what with being
+wet through, he was completely knocked up; so I offered to take the bag
+for him, and send it over to-morrow by one of our people. But the poor
+fellow would n't consent, because he was charged with something of
+consequence for you,--a small bottle of medicine. Of course I was only
+too happy to take this also, Mrs. Nelligan, and here it is.' And with
+that she put it on the table, where you see it. I 'm sure I never knew
+how to thank her enough for her good nature, but I said all that I could
+think of, and told her that my son was just come back from college,
+after getting the gold medal."
+
+"You did n't speak of that, mother," said he, blushing till his very
+forehead was crimson.
+
+"Indeed, then, I did, Joe; and I 'd like to know why I would n't. Is it
+a shame or a disgrace to us! At any rate, _she_ didn't think so, for she
+said, 'You must be very proud of him;' and I told her so I was, and that
+he was as good as he was clever; and, moreover, that the newspapers said
+the time was coming when men like young Nelligan would soar their way up
+to honors and distinctions in spite of the oppressive aristocracy that
+so long had combined to degrade them."
+
+"Good Heavens! mother, you could n't have made such a speech as that?"
+cried he, in a voice of downright misery.
+
+"Did n't I, then? And did n't she say, if there were any such oppression
+as could throw obstacles in the way of deserving merit, she heartily
+hoped it might prove powerless; and then she got up to wish me
+good-evening. I thought, at first, a little stiffly,--that is, more
+haughty in her manner than at first; but when I arose to see her out,
+and she saw I was lame, she pressed me down into my chair, and said, in
+such a kind voice, 'You must n't stir, my dear Mrs. Nelligan. I, who can
+find my road over half of the county, can surely discover my way to the
+door.' 'Am I ever like to have the happiness of seeing you again, miss?'
+said I, as I held her hand in mine. 'Certainly, if it would give you the
+very slightest pleasure,' said she, pressing my hand most cordially; and
+with that we parted. Indeed, I scarce knew she was gone, when I heard
+the clattering of the horse over the shingle; for she was away in
+a gallop, dark as the night was. Maybe," added the old lady, with a
+sigh,--"maybe, I 'd have thought it was all a dream if it was n't that I
+found that glove of hers on the floor; she dropped it, I suppose, going
+out."
+
+Young Nelligan took up the glove with a strange feeling of bashful
+reverence. It was as though he was touching a sacred relic; and he stood
+gazing on it steadfastly for some seconds.
+
+"I 'll send it over to the house by Biddy, with my compliments, and to
+know how the family is, in the morning," said Mrs. Nelligan, with the
+air of one who knew the value of conventional usages.
+
+"And she 'll make some stupid blunder or other," replied Joe,
+impatiently, "that will cover us all with shame. No, mother, I 'd rather
+go with it myself than that."
+
+"To be sure, and why not?" said Mrs. Nelligan. "There 's no reason why
+_you_ should be taking up old quarrels against the Martins; for _my_
+part, I never knew the country so pleasant as it used to be long ago,
+when we used to get leave to go picnicking on the grounds of Cro'
+Martin, up to the Hermitage, as they called it; and now the gates are
+locked and barred like a jail, and nobody allowed in without a ticket."
+
+"Yes, I'll go myself with it," said Joe, who heard nothing of
+his mother's remark, but was following out the tract of his own
+speculations. As little did he attend to the various suggestions she
+threw out for his guidance and direction, the several topics to which he
+might, and those to which he must not, on any account, allude.
+
+"Not a word, for your life, Joe, about the right of pathway to Clune
+Abbey, and take care you say nothing about the mill-race at Glandaff,
+nor the shooting in Kyle's Wood. And if by any chance there should be a
+talk about the tolls at Oughterard, say you never heard of them before.
+Make out, in fact," said she, summing up, "as if you never heard of
+a county where there was so much good-will and kindness between the
+people; and sure it is n't your fault if it's not true!" And with this
+philosophic reflection Mrs. Nelligan wished her son good-night, and
+retired.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. AN AUTUMN MORNING IN THE WEST
+
+The Osprey's Nest was, I have said, like a direct challenge hurled at
+the face of western gales and Atlantic storms. With what success, its
+aspect of dilapidation and decay but too plainly betrayed. The tangled
+seaweed that hung in dripping festoons over the porch, the sea-shells
+that rattled against the window-panes, seemed like an angry denunciation
+of the attempt to brave the elements by the mere appliances of ease and
+luxury.
+
+It was better, however, in the inside, where, in a roomy apartment, most
+comfortably furnished, a lady and gentleman sat at breakfast. The table
+stood in a little projection of the room, admitting of a wide sea-view
+over the bay and the distant islands of Lettermullen, but as carefully
+excluded all prospect of the port,--a locality which held no high place
+in the esteem of the lady of the house, and which, by ignoring, she half
+fancied she had annihilated. Wild promontories of rocks, jutting out
+here and there, broke the coast line, and marked the shore with a
+foaming stream of white water, as the ever-restless sea dashed over
+them. The long booming swell of the great ocean bounded into many a
+rocky cavern, with a loud report like thunder, and issued forth again
+with a whole cataract of falling stones, that rattled like the crash
+of small-arms. It was unceasing, deafening clamor in the midst of
+death-like desolation.
+
+Let me, however, turn once more to the scene within, and present the
+living elements to my reader. They were both past the prime of life.
+The lady might still be called handsome; her features were perfectly
+regular, and finely cut, bearing the impress of a proud and haughty
+spirit that never quailed beneath the conflict of a long life, and even
+yet showed a firm front to fortune. Her hair was white as snow; and as
+she wore it drawn back, after the fashion of a bygone time, it gave
+her the air of a fine lady of the old French Court, in all the pomp of
+powder and pomatum. Nor did her dress correct the impression, since the
+deep falls of lace that covered her hands, the lengthy stomacher, and
+trailing folds of her heavy brocade gown, all showed a lurking fondness
+for the distinctive toilette of that era. Lady Dorothea Martin had been
+a beauty and an earl's daughter; two facts that not even the seclusion
+of the wild west could erase from her memory.
+
+Mr. Martin himself was no unworthy "pendant" to this portrait. He was
+tall and stately, with a lofty forehead, and temples finely and
+well fashioned; while full, deep-set blue eyes of the very sternest
+determination, and a mouth, every line of which betrayed firmness, gave
+the character to a face that also could expand into the most genial
+good-fellowship, and become at times the symbol of a pleasant and
+convivial Irish gentleman. In his youth he had been a beau of the Court
+of Versailles. Scandal had even coupled his name with that of Marie
+Antoinette; and more truthful narratives connected him with some of the
+most extravagant adventures of that profligate and brilliant period.
+After a career of the wildest dissipation and excess, he had married,
+late in life, the daughter of the Earl of Exmere, one of the proudest
+and poorest names in the British Peerage. Two or three attempts to shine
+in the world of London,--not as successful as they were expected to
+have proved,--an effort at ascendancy in Irish political life, also a
+failure, coupled with disappointment on the score of an only brother,
+who had married beneath him, and was reputed to have "lost himself,"
+seemed to have disgusted Godfrey Martin with the world, and he had
+retired to his lonely mansion in the west, which now for eighteen years
+he had scarcely quitted for a single day.
+
+His only son had joined a cavalry regiment in India a few years before
+the period our story opens, and which, I may now state, dates for about
+four or five and twenty years back; but his family included a niece,
+the only child of his brother, and whose mother had died in giving her
+birth.
+
+Between Mr. Martin and Lady Dorothea, as they sat at breakfast,
+little conversation passed. He occupied himself with the newly arrived
+newspapers, and she perused a mass of letters which had just come by
+that morning's post; certain scraps of the intelligence gleaned from
+either of these sources forming the only subjects of conversation
+between them.
+
+"So they have resolved to have a new Parliament. I knew it would come
+to that; I always said so; and, as usual, the dissolution finds us
+unprepared."
+
+"Plantagenet's regiment is ordered to Currachee, wherever that may be,"
+said Lady Dorothea, languidly.
+
+"Call him Harry, and we shall save ourselves some trouble in discussing
+him," replied he, pettishly. "At all events, he cannot possibly be here
+in time for the contest; and we must, I suppose, give our support to
+Kilmorris again."
+
+"Do you mean, after his conduct about the harbor, and the shameful way
+he sneaked out of the Port Martin project?"
+
+"Find anything better, madam; there is the difficulty. Kilmorris is
+a gentleman, and no Radical; and, as times go, these are rather rare
+qualities."
+
+"Lady Sarah Upton's match is off," said Lady Dorothea, reading from a
+note beside her. "Sir Joseph insisted upon the uncontrolled possession
+of all her Staffordshire property."
+
+"And perfectly right."
+
+"Perfectly wrong to give it to him."
+
+"A fool if he married without it."
+
+"A mean creature she, to accept him on such terms."
+
+"The woman is eight-and-thirty,--if not more. I remember her at
+Tunbridge. Let me see, what year was it?"
+
+"I detest dates, and abhor chronologies. Reach me the marmalade," said
+Lady Dorothea, superciliously.
+
+"What's this balderdash here from the 'Galway Indicator'? 'The haughty
+and insolent, aye, and ignorant aristocracy will have to swallow a
+bitter draught erelong; and such petty despots as Martin of Cro' Martin
+will learn that the day is gone by for their ascendancy in this county.'
+
+"They tell me we have a law of libel in the land; and yet see how this
+scoundrel can dare to drag me by name before the world; and I 'll wager
+a thousand pounds I 'd fail to get a verdict against him if I prosecuted
+him to-morrow," said Martin, as he dashed the newspaper to the ground,
+and stamped his foot upon it. "We are constantly reading diatribes about
+absentee landlords, and the evils of neglected property; but I ask, what
+inducements are there held out to any gentleman to reside on his estate,
+if every petty scribbler of the press can thus attack and assail him
+with impunity?"
+
+"Is that Mary I see yonder?" asked Lady Dorothea, languidly, as she
+lifted her double eye-glass, and then suffered it to fall from her
+fingers.
+
+"So it is, by Jove!" cried Martin, springing up, and approaching the
+window. "I wish she 'd not venture out in that small boat in this
+treacherous season. What a swell there is, too! The wind is from the
+sea."
+
+"She's coming in, I fancy," drawled out Lady Dorothea.
+
+"How is she to do it, though?" exclaimed he, hurriedly; "the sea is
+breaking clear over the piers of the harbor. I can only see one man in
+the boat. What rashness! what folly! There, look, they're standing out
+to sea again!" And now, throwing open the window, Martin stepped out
+on the rocks, over which the white foam flashed by like snow. "What
+are they at, Peter? What are they trying to do?" cried he to an old
+fisherman, who, with the coil of a net he was just mending on his arm,
+had now come down to the shore to watch the boat.
+
+"They 're doing right, your honor," said he, touching his cap
+respectfully. "'Tis Loony my Lady has in the boat, and there's no better
+man in trouble! He's just going to beat out a bit, and then he 'll run
+in under the shelter of the blue rocks. Faix, she 's a fine boat, then,
+for her size,--look at her now!"
+
+But Martin had covered his eyes with his hand, while his lips murmured
+and moved rapidly.
+
+"May I never, but they 're letting out the reef!" screamed the old man
+in terror.
+
+"More sail, and in such a sea!" cried Martin, in a voice of horror.
+
+"Aye, and right, too," said the fisherman, after a pause; "she 's rising
+lighter over the sea, and steers better, besides. It's Miss Mary has the
+tiller," added the old fellow, with a smile. "I 'll lay a shilling she
+'s singing this minute."
+
+"You think so," said Martin, glad to catch at this gleam of confidence.
+
+"I know it well, your honor. I remember one day, off Lettermullen, it
+was worse than this. Hurrah!" screamed he out suddenly; "she took in a
+great sea that time!"
+
+"Get out a boat, Peter, at once; what are we standing here for?" cried
+Martin, angrily. "Man a boat this instant."
+
+"Sure no boat could get out to sea with this wind, sir," remonstrated
+the old man, mildly; "she'd never leave the surf if she had forty men at
+her!"
+
+"Then what's to be done?"
+
+"Just let them alone; themselves two know as well what to do as any
+pair in Ireland, and are as cool besides. There, now, she 's putting her
+about, as I said, and she 'll run for the creek." The frail boat, a mere
+speck upon the dark green ocean, seemed now to fly, as with a slackened
+sheet she darted over the water. Her course was bent for a little cove
+concealed from view by a rugged promontory of rock, up which the old
+fisherman now clambered with the alacrity of a younger man. Martin tried
+to follow; but overcome by emotion, he was unable, and sat down upon a
+ledge of rock, burying his face within his hands.
+
+By this time the whole fishing population of the little village had
+gathered on the beach around the cove, to watch the boat as she came in;
+numbers had gone out to meet her, and stood up to their waists in the
+white and boiling surf, ready to seize upon the skiff and run her high
+and dry upon the sand. Even they were obliged to be lashed together by
+a rope, lest the receding waves should carry them out to sea, or the
+"under tow" suck them beneath the surface. As the boat came within
+speaking distance, a wild shout arose from the shore to "down sail" and
+suffer her to come in on her way alone; but with all the canvas spread,
+they came flying along, scarce seeming more than to tip the waves as
+they skipped over them, while a shower of spray appeared to cover them
+as the sea broke upon the stern. Instead of rendering aid, the utmost
+the fishermen could do was to clear a path amongst them for the skiff to
+pass, as with lightning speed she flitted by and drove her bow high up
+on the hard beach.
+
+A wild, glad cheer of joy and welcome burst from the hearty fishermen
+as they crowded about the young girl, who stepped out of the boat with
+a heavy bundle in her arms. Her hair hung in great masses over her neck
+and shoulders, her cheeks were flushed, and her dark eyes gleamed with
+all the excitement of peril and triumph.
+
+"Here, Margaret," said she to a young woman, who, pale with terror and
+with face streaming in tears, rushed towards her,--"here 's your little
+fellow, all safe and sound; I 'd not have put back but for his sake."
+And with this she placed in his mother's arms a little boy of about
+three years of age, sound asleep. "He must wait for better weather if
+he wants to see his grandmother. And," added she, laughing, "I scarcely
+think you 'll catch me going to sea again with so precious a cargo. Poor
+little man!" and she patted his ruddy cheeks; "he behaved so well, like
+a stout fisherman's son as he is,--never showed fear for a moment."
+
+A murmur of delighted hearts ran through the crowd; some thinking of the
+child, but many more in warm admiration of the brave and beautiful young
+girl before them. "Loony," said she to her boatman, "when you 've got
+the tackle to rights, come up to the house for your breakfast." And
+with that, and a few words of grateful recognition as she passed, she
+clambered up the rock and hastened homeward.
+
+As for her uncle, no sooner had he heard of her safe arrival on shore
+than he hurried back, anxious to reach the house before her. For a
+considerable time back Martin had schooled himself into an apparent
+indifference about his niece's perils. Lady Dorothea had probably given
+the initiative to this feeling by constantly asserting that the young
+lady would incur few risks when they ceased to create alarm.
+
+It was a somewhat ungracious theory, and excited in Martin's mind, when
+he first heard it, a sensation the very reverse of agreeable. Without
+accepting its truth, however, it made a deep impression upon him, and
+at last, by way of policy, he resolved to feign a degree of callous
+indifference very foreign to his nature; and, by dint of mere habit, he
+at length acquired a semblance of calm under circumstances that sorely
+tested his powers of self-control.
+
+"Has the heroine arrived safe on shore?" asked Lady Dorothea in her own
+languid drawl. And Martin almost started at the question, and seemed for
+a moment as if the indignation it excited could not be repressed; then
+smiling superciliously at the impassive air of her features, he said,--
+
+"Yes, and by rare good luck, too! The sea is a terrific one this
+morning!"
+
+"Is it ever anything else in this heavenly climate?" said she, sighing.
+"I have counted two fine days since the 8th of June; and, indeed, it
+rained a little on one of them."
+
+Martin winced impatiently under the remark, but never lifted his eyes
+from the newspaper.
+
+"I had hoped your niece was making arrangements for our return to Cro'
+Martin," said she, querulously, "instead of planning marine excursions.
+I told her yesterday, or the day before,--I forget which; but who could
+remember time in such a place?--that I was bored to death here. The
+observation seems to amuse you, Mr. Martin; but it is a simple fact."
+
+"And you are bored to death at Cro' Martin, too, if I mistake not?" said
+he, with a very significant dryness.
+
+"I should think I was, sir; and nothing very astonishing in the
+confession, besides."
+
+"And Dublin, madam?"
+
+"Don't speak of it. If one must endure prison discipline, at least
+let us have a cell to ourselves. Good-morning, Miss Martin. I hope you
+enjoyed your party on the water?"
+
+This speech was addressed to Mary, who now entered the room dressed in
+a plain morning costume, and in her quiet, almost demure look resembling
+in nothing the dripping and dishevelled figure that sprung from the
+boat.
+
+"Good-morning, aunt," said she, gayly. "Good-morning, uncle," kissing,
+as she spoke, his cheek, and patting him fondly on the shoulder. "I saw
+you out on the rocks as we were coming in."
+
+"Pooh, pooh!" said he, in affected indifference. "I knew there was no
+danger--"
+
+"Yes, but there was, though," said she, quickly. "If we had n't set all
+sail on her, she 'd have been pooped to a certainty; and I can tell you
+I was in a rare fright, too."
+
+"Oh, indeed; you confess to such an ignoble emotion?" said Lady
+Dorothea, with a sneer.
+
+"That I do, aunt, for I had poor Madge Lennan's little boy on my lap all
+the time; and if it came to a swim, I don't see how he was to be saved."
+
+"You 'd not have left him to his fate, I suppose?" said Lady Dorothea.
+
+"I scarcely know what I should have done. I sincerely hope it would have
+been my best; but in a moment like that, within sight of home, too--"
+Her eyes met her uncle's as she said this; he had raised them from
+his newspaper, and bent them fully on her. There was that in their
+expression which appealed so strongly to her heart that instead of
+finishing her speech she sprung towards him and threw her arms around
+his neck.
+
+"Quite a scene; and I detest scenes," said Lady Dorothen, as she arose
+and swept out of the room contemptuously; but they neither heard the
+remark nor noticed her departure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. MAURICE SCANLAN, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW.
+
+About an hour after the occurrence mentioned in our last chapter, the
+quiet little village of Kilkieran was startled by the sharp clattering
+sounds of horses' feet, as Mr. Scanlan's tandem came slinging along; and
+after various little dexterities amid stranded boats, disabled anchors,
+and broken capstans, drew up at the gate of the Osprey's Nest. When men
+devise their own equipage, they invariably impart to it a strong
+infusion of their own idiosyncrasy. The quiet souls who drag through
+life in chocolate-colored barouches, with horses indifferently matched,
+give no clew to their special characteristics; but your men of tax-carts
+and tandems, your Jehus of four-in-hand teams, write their own
+biographies in every detail of the "turn-out."
+
+[Illustration: 068]
+
+Maurice Scanlan was a sporting attorney, and from the group of game
+cocks neatly painted on the hind panel, to the wiry, well-bred, and
+well-looking screws before him, all was indicative of the man. The
+conveyance was high and red-wheeled; the nags were a chestnut and a
+gray; he drove them without winkers or bearing-reins, wearing his white
+hat a very little on ope side, and gracefully tilting his elbow as
+he admonished the wheeler with the "crop" of his whip. He was a
+good-looking, showy, vulgar, self-sufficient kind of fellow, with
+consummate shrewdness in all business transactions, only marred by one
+solitary weak point,--an intense desire to be received intimately by
+persons of a station above his own, and to seem, at least, to be the
+admitted guest of very fashionable society. It was not a very easy
+matter to know if this Lord-worship of his was real, or merely affected,
+since, certainly, the profit he derived from the assumption was very
+considerable, and Maurice was intrusted with a variety of secret-service
+transactions, and private affairs for the nobility, which they would
+never have dreamed of committing to the hands of their more recognized
+advisers.
+
+If men would have been slow to engage his services in any grave or
+important suit, he was invaluable in all the ordinary and constantly
+occurring events of this changeful world. He knew every one's
+difficulties and embarrassments. There was not a hitch in a settlement,
+nor a spavin in your stables, could escape him. He seemed to possess a
+kind of intuitive appreciation of a flaw; and he pounced upon a defect
+with a rapidity that counterfeited genius. To these gifts he added a
+consummate knowledge of his countrymen. He had emerged from the very
+humblest class of the people, and he knew them thoroughly; with all
+their moods of habitual distrust and momentary enthusiasm,--with all
+their phases of sanguine hopefulness he was familiar; and he could mould
+and fashion and weld them to his will, as passive subjects as the heated
+bar under the hammer of the smith.
+
+As an electioneering agent he was unequalled. It was precisely the
+sphere in which his varied abilities were best exercised; and it was,
+besides, an arena in which he was proud of figuring.
+
+For a while he seemed--at least in his own eyes--to stand on a higher
+eminence than the candidate he represented, and to be a more prominent
+and far grander personage than his principal. In fact, it was only under
+some tacit acknowledgment of this temporary supremacy that his services
+were obtainable; his invariable stipulation being that he was to have
+the entire and uncontrolled direction of the election.
+
+Envious tongues and ungenerous talkers did, indeed, say that Maurice
+insisted upon this condition with very different objects in view,
+and that his unlimited powers found their pleasantest exercise in the
+inexplorable realms of secret bribery; however, it is but fair to say
+that he was eminently successful, and that one failure alone in his
+whole career occurred to show the proverbial capriciousness of fortune.
+
+With the little borough of Oughterard he had become so identified that
+his engagement was regarded as one of the first elements of success.
+Hitherto, indeed, the battle had been always an easy one. The Liberal
+party--as they pleasantly assumed to style themselves--had gone no
+further in opposition than an occasional burst of intemperate language,
+and an effort--usually a failure--at a street row during the election.
+So little of either energy or organization had marked their endeavors,
+that the great leader of the day had stigmatized their town with terms
+of heavy censure, and even pronounced them unworthy of the cause. An
+emissary, deputed to report upon the political state of the borough,
+had described the voters as mere dependants on the haughty purse-proud
+proprietor of Cro' Martin, who seemed, even without an effort, to
+nominate the sitting member.
+
+The great measure of the year '29--the Catholic Relief Bill--had now,
+however, suggested to even more apathetic constituencies the prospect of
+a successful struggle. The thought of being represented by "one of their
+own sort" was no mean stimulant to exertion; and the leading spirits of
+the place had frequently conferred together as to what steps should
+be taken to rescue the borough from the degrading thraldom of an
+aristocratic domination. Lord Kilmorris, it is true, was rather popular
+with them than the reverse. The eldest son of an Earl, who only cared
+to sit in Parliament on easy terms, till the course of time and events
+should call him to the Upper House, he never took any very decided
+political line, but sat on Tory benches and gave an occasional vote to
+Liberal measures, as though foreshadowing that new school who were to
+take the field under the middle designation of Conservatives. Some very
+remote relationship to Lady Dorothea's family had first introduced him
+to the Martins' notice; and partly from this connection, and partly
+because young Harry Martin was too young to sit in Parliament, they had
+continued to support him to the present time.
+
+Mr. Martin himself cared very little for politics; had he even cared
+more, he would not have sacrificed to them one jot of that indolent,
+lazy, apathetic existence which alone he seemed to prize. He was rather
+grateful than otherwise to Lord Kilmorris for taking upon him the
+trouble of a contest, if there should be such a thing. His greatest
+excuse through life, at least to himself, had ever been that he was
+"unprepared." He had been in that unhappy state about everything since
+he was born, and so, apparently, was he destined to continue to the very
+last. With large resources, he was never prepared for any sudden demand
+for money. When called on for any exertion of mind or body, when asked
+to assist a friend or rescue a relation from difficulty, he was quite
+unprepared; and so convinced was he that this was a fatality under which
+he labored, that no sooner had he uttered the expression than he totally
+absolved himself from every shadow of reproach that might attach to his
+luke-warmness.
+
+The uncontrolled position he occupied, joined to the solitary isolation
+in which he lived, had doubtless engendered this cold and heartless
+theory. There was no one to dispute his will,--none to gainsay his
+opinions. There was not for him any occasion for the healthful exertion
+which is evoked by opposition, and he sunk gradually down into a moping,
+listless, well-meaning, but utterly good-for-nothing gentleman, who
+would have been marvellously amazed had any one arraigned him for
+neglect of his station and its great requirements.
+
+That such an insolent possibility could be, was only demonstrated to him
+in that morning's newspaper. To be called a despot was bad enough, but
+a petty despot,--and to be told that such despotism was already
+doomed--aroused in him a degree of indignation all the more painful that
+the sensation was one he had not experienced for many a year back. Whose
+fault was it that such an impertinence had ever been uttered? Doubtless,
+Kilmorris's. Some stupid speech, some absurd vote, some ridiculous party
+move had brought down this attack upon him; or perhaps it was Mary, with
+her new-fangled ideas about managing the estate, her school-houses, and
+her model-farms. The ignorant people had possibly revolted against her
+interference; or it might be Lady Dorothea herself, whose haughty manner
+had given offence; at all events, _he_ was blameless, and strange
+to say, either he was not perfectly assured of the fact, or that the
+assumption was not pleasant, but he seemed very far from being satisfied
+with the explanation. In the agitated mood these feelings produced, a
+servant came to inform him that Mr. Scanlan had just arrived.
+
+"Say I 'm out--I 'm unwell--I don't feel quite myself to-day. Call Miss
+Mary to him." And with an impatient gesture he motioned the servant
+away.
+
+"Miss Mary will be down in a few minutes, sir," said the man, entering
+the room where Mr. Scanlan stood arranging his whiskers before
+the chimney-glass, and contemplating with satisfaction his general
+appearance.
+
+"It was Mr. Martin himself, Thomas, that I wanted to see."
+
+"I know that, sir, but the Master is n't well this morning; he told me
+to send Miss Mary to you."
+
+"All right," said Scanlan, giving a finishing touch to the tie of his
+cravat, and then gracefully bestowing his person into an easy-chair. To
+common observation he looked perfectly unconcerned in every gesture,
+and yet no man felt less at his ease at that moment than Mr. Maurice
+Scanlan; and though the cause involves something like a secret,
+the reader shall know it. Mr. Scanlan had seen a good deal of the
+world--that is, of _his_ world. He had mixed with barristers and
+solicitors, "Silk Gowns," masters in Chancery, and even puisne judges
+had he come into contact with; he had mingled in turf experiences with
+certain sporting lords and baronets, swapped horses, and betted and
+handicapped with men of fortune; he had driven trotting-matches, and
+ridden hurdle-races against young heirs to good estates, and somehow
+always found himself not inferior in worldly craft and address to those
+he came in contact with,--nay, he even fancied that he was occasionally
+rather a little more wide awake than his opponents; and what with a
+little blustering here, a little blarney there, a dash of mock frankness
+to this man, or an air of impulsive generosity to the other,--an
+accommodating elasticity, in fact, that extended to morals, manners,
+and principles,--he found that he was, as he himself styled it, "a
+fair match with equal weights for anything going." There was but
+one individual alone in presence of whom he in reality felt his own
+inferiority deeply and painfully; strange to say, that was Miss Martin!
+At first sight this would seem almost unintelligible. She was not either
+a haughty beauty, presuming on the homage bestowed upon her by high and
+distinguished admirers, nor was she any greatly gifted and cultivated
+genius dominating over lesser intelligences by the very menace of her
+acquirements. She was simply a high-spirited, frank, unaffected girl,
+whose good breeding and good sense seemed alike instinctive, and who
+read with almost intuition the shallow artifices by which such natures
+as Scanlan's impose upon the world. She had seen him easily indolent
+with her uncle, obsequiously deferential to my Lady, all in the same
+breath, while the side-look of tyranny he could throw a refractory
+tenant appeared just as congenial to his nature.
+
+It was some strange consciousness which told him he could not deceive
+_her_, that made Scanlan ever abashed in her presence, and by the
+self-same impulse was it that she was the only one in the world for
+whose good esteem he would have sacrificed all he possessed.
+
+While he waited for her coming, he took a leisurely survey of the room.
+The furniture, less costly and rich than at Cro' Martin, was all marked
+by that air of propriety and comfort so observable in rich men's houses.
+There were the hundred appliances of ease and luxury that show how
+carefully the most trifling inconveniences are warded off, and the
+course of daily life rendered as untroubled as mere material enjoyments
+can secure. Scanlan sighed deeply, for the thought crossed his mind how
+was a girl brought up in this way ever to stoop to ally her fortune to
+a man like him? Was it, then, possible that he nourished such a
+presumption? Even so. Maurice was of an aspiring turn; he had succeeded
+in twenty things that a dozen years past he had never dared to dream of.
+He had dined at tables and driven with men whose butlers and valets he
+once deemed very choice company; he had been the guest at houses where
+once his highest ambition had been to see the interior as a matter of
+curiosity. "Who could say where he might be at last?" Besides this, he
+knew from his own knowledge of family matters that she had no fortune,
+that her father was infinitely more likely to leave debts than an
+inheritance behind him, and that her uncle was the last man in the world
+ever to think of a marriage-portion for one he could not afford to part
+with. There was, then, no saying what turn of fortune might present him
+in an admissible form as a suitor. At all events, there was no rival in
+the field, and Maurice had seen many a prize won by a "walk over" purely
+for want of a competitor in the race.
+
+Notwithstanding all these very excellent and reassuring considerations,
+Maurice Scanlan could not overcome a most uncomfortable sense of
+awkwardness as Mary Martin entered the room, and saluting him with
+easy familiarity, said, "I'm quite ashamed of having made you wait, Mr.
+Scanlan; but I was in the village when I got my uncle's message. I find
+that he is not well enough to receive you, and if I can--"
+
+"I'm sure it's only too much honor you do me, Miss Mary; I never
+expected to have the pleasure of this interview; indeed, it will be very
+hard for me to think of business, at all, at all."
+
+"That would be most unfortunate after your coming so far on account of
+it," said she, half archly, while she seated herself on a sofa at some
+distance from him.
+
+"If it were a question about the estate, Miss Mary," said he, in his
+most obsequious manner, "there's nobody equal to yourself; or if it were
+anything at all but what it is, I know well that you'd see your way
+out of it; but the present is a matter of politics,--it 's about the
+borough."
+
+"That weary borough," said she, sighing; "and are we about to have
+another election?"
+
+"That 's it, Miss Mary; and Lord Kilmorris writes me to say that he 'll
+be over next week, and hopes he 'll find all his friends here as well
+disposed towards him as ever."
+
+"Has he written to my uncle?" asked Mary, hastily.
+
+"No; and that's exactly what I came about. There was a kind of
+coldness,--more my Lady's, I think, than on Mr. Martin's part,--and Lord
+Kilmorris feels a kind of delicacy; in fact, he doesn't rightly know how
+he stands at Cro' Martin." Here he paused, in hopes that she would help
+him by even a word; but she was perfectly silent and attentive, and he
+went on. "So that, feeling himself embarrassed, and at the same time
+knowing how much he owes to the Martin interest--"
+
+"Well, go on," said she, calmly, as he came a second time to a dead
+stop.
+
+"It isn't so easy, then, Miss Mary," said he, with a long sigh, "for
+there are so many things enter into it,--so much of politics and party
+and what not,--that I quite despair of making myself intelligible,
+though, perhaps, if I was to see your uncle, he 'd make out my meaning."
+
+"Shall I try and induce him to receive you, then?" said she, quietly.
+
+"Well, then, I don't like asking it," said he, doubtfully; "for, after
+all, there's nobody can break it to him as well as yourself."
+
+"Break it to him, Mr. Scanlan?" said she, in astonishment.
+
+"Faith, it 's the very word, then," said he; "for do what one will, say
+what they may, it will be sure to surprise him, if it does no worse."
+
+"You alarm me, sir; and yet I feel that if you would speak boldly out
+your meaning, there is probably no cause for fear."
+
+"I'll just do so, then, Miss Mary; but at the same time I 'd have you to
+understand that I 'm taking a responsibility on myself that his Lordship
+never gave me any warrant for, and that there is not another--" Mr.
+Scanlan stopped, but only in time; for, whether it was the fervor in
+which he uttered these words, or that Miss Martin anticipated what
+was about to follow, her cheek became scarlet, and a most unmistakable
+expression of her eyes recalled the worthy practitioner to all his
+wonted caution. "The matter is this, Miss Martin," said he, with
+a degree of deference more marked than before, "Lord Kilmorris is
+dissatisfied with the way your uncle supported him at the last election.
+He complains of the hard conditions imposed upon him as to his line of
+conduct in the House; and, above all, he feels insulted by a letter
+Lady Dorothea wrote him, full of very harsh expressions and hard
+insinuations. I never saw it myself, but that's his account of it,--in
+fact, he's very angry."
+
+"And means to throw up the borough, in short," broke in Mary.
+
+"I'm afraid not, Miss Mary," said the other, in a half whisper.
+
+"What then?--what can he purpose doing?"
+
+"He means to try and come in on his own interest," said Scanlan, who
+uttered the words with an effort, and seemed to feel relief when they
+were out.
+
+"Am I to understand that he would contest the borough with us?"
+
+Scanlan nodded an affirmative.
+
+"No, no, Mr. Scanlan, this is some mistake,--some misapprehension on
+your part. His Lordship may very possibly feel aggrieved,--he may have
+some cause, for aught I know,--about something in the last election,
+but this mode of resenting it is quite out of the question,--downright
+impossible."
+
+"The best way is to read his own words. Miss Martin. There's his
+letter," said he, handing one towards her, which, however, she made no
+motion to take.
+
+"If you won't read it, then, perhaps you will permit me to do so.
+It's very short, too, for he says at the end he will write more fully
+to-morrow." Mr. Scanlan here muttered over several lines of the epistle,
+until he came to the following: "I am relieved from any embarrassment
+I should have felt at breaking with the Martins by reflecting over the
+altered conditions of party, and the new aspect politics must assume by
+the operations of the Emancipation Act. The old ways and traditions of
+the Tories must be abandoned at once and forever; and though Martin in
+his life of seclusion and solitude will not perceive this necessity, we
+here all see and admit it. I could, therefore, no longer represent his
+opinions, since they would find no echo in the House. To stand for the
+borough I must stand on my own views, which, I feel bold to say, include
+justice to both of the contending factions."
+
+"Admirably argued," broke in Mary. "He absolves himself from all ties of
+gratitude to my uncle by adopting principles the reverse of all he ever
+professed."
+
+"It's very like that, indeed, Miss Mary," said Scanlan, timidly.
+
+"Very like it, sir? it is exactly so. Really the thing would be too
+gross if it were not actually laughable;" and as she spoke she arose and
+paced the room in a manner that showed how very little of the ludicrous
+side of the matter occupied her thoughts. "He will stand for the
+borough--he means to stand in opposition to us?"
+
+"That's his intention--at least, if Mr. Martin should not come to the
+conclusion that it is better to support his Lordship than risk throwing
+the seat into the hands of the Roman Catholics."
+
+"I can't follow all these intrigues, Mr. Scanlan. I confess to you,
+frankly, that you have puzzled me enough already, and that I have found
+it no small strain on my poor faculties to conceive a gentleman being
+able to argue himself into any semblance of self-approval by such
+sentiments as those which you have just read; but I am a poor country
+girl, very ignorant of great topics and great people. The best thing I
+can do is to represent this affair to my uncle, and as early as may be."
+
+"I hope he'll not take the thing to heart, miss; and I trust he 'll
+acquit _me_--"
+
+"Be assured he'll despise the whole business most thoroughly, sir. I
+never knew him take any deep interest in these themes; and if this be
+a fair specimen of the way they are discussed, he was all the wiser
+for his indifference. Do you make any stay in the village? Will it be
+inconvenient for you to remain an hour or so?"
+
+"I'll wait your convenience, miss, to any hour," said Scanlan, with an
+air of gallantry which, had she been less occupied with her thoughts,
+might have pushed her hard to avoid smiling at.
+
+"I'll be down at Mrs. Cronan's till I hear from you, Miss Mary." And
+with a look of as much deferential admiration as he dared to bestow,
+Scanlan took his leave, and mounting to his box, assumed the ribbons
+with a graceful elegance and a certain lackadaisical languor that, to
+himself at least, appeared demonstrative of an advanced stage of the
+tender passion.
+
+"Begad, she's a fine girl; devil a lie in it, but she has n't her equal!
+and as sharp as a needle, too," muttered he, as he jogged along the
+shingly beach, probably for the first time in his whole life forgetting
+the effect he was producing on the bystanders.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. A STUDIO AND AN ARTIST
+
+"Is my uncle in the library, Terence?" asked Mary of a very corpulent
+old man, in a red-brown wig.
+
+"No, miss, he's in the--bother it, then, if I ever can think of the name
+of it."
+
+"The studio, you mean," said she, smiling.
+
+"Just so, Miss Mary," replied he, with a sigh; for he remembered certain
+penitential hours passed by himself in the same locality.
+
+"Do you think you could manage to let him know I want him--that is, that
+I have something important to say to him?"
+
+"It's clean impossible, miss, to get near him when he's there. Sure, is
+n't he up on a throne, dressed out in goold and dimonds, and as cross as
+a badger besides, at the way they're tormenting him?"
+
+"Oh, that tiresome picture, is it never to be completed?" muttered she,
+half unconsciously.
+
+"The saints above know whether it is or no," rejoined Terence, "for
+one of the servants told me yesterday that they rubbed every bit of the
+master out, and began him all again; for my Lady said he was n't half
+haggard enough, or worn-looking; but, by my conscience, if he goes on as
+he 's doing, he ought to satisfy them."
+
+"Why, I thought it was Henderson was sitting," said Mary, somewhat
+amused at the old man's commentaries.
+
+"So he was; but they rubbed him out, too; for it seems now he ought to
+be bald, and they 've sent him into Oughter-ard to get his head shaved."
+
+"And what were _you_, Terry?"
+
+"Arrah, who knows?" said he, querulously. "At first I was to be
+somebody's mother that was always cryin'; but they weren't pleased with
+the way I done it; and then they made me a monk, and after that they put
+two hundredweight of armor on me, and made me lean my head on my arm as
+if I was overcome; and faith, so I was; for I dropped off asleep, and
+fell into a pot of varnish, and I 'm in disgrace now, glory be to God!
+and I only hope it may last."
+
+"I wish I shared your fortune, Terry, with all my heart," said Mary,
+with some difficulty preserving her gravity.
+
+"Couldn't it catch fire--by accident, I mean, miss--some evening
+after dark?" whispered Terry, confidentially. "Them 's materials that
+would burn easy! for, upon my conscience, if it goes on much longer
+there won't be a sarvant will stay in the sarvice. They had little Tom
+Regan holding a dish of charcoal so long that he tuk to his bed on
+Friday last, and was never up since; and Jinny Moore says she 'd rather
+lave the place than wear that undacent dress; and whist, there's murder
+goin' on now inside!" And with that the old fellow waddled off with a
+speed that seemed quite disproportionate to his years.
+
+While Mary was still hesitating as to what she should do, the door
+suddenly opened, and a man in a mediaeval costume rushed out, tugging
+after him a large bloodhound, whose glaring eyeballs and frothy mouth
+betokened intense passion. Passing hurriedly forward, Mary beheld Lady
+Dorothea bending over the fainting figure of a short little man, who lay
+on the floor; while her uncle, tottering under a costume he could barely
+carry, was trying to sprinkle water over him from an urn three feet in
+height.
+
+"Mr. Crow has fainted,--mere fright, nothing more!" said Lady Dorothea.
+"In stepping backward from the canvas he unluckily trod upon Fang's
+paw, and the savage creature at once sprung on him. That stupid wretch,
+Regan, one of your favorites, Miss Martin, never pulled him off till he
+had torn poor Mr. Crow's coat, clean in two.".
+
+"Egad, if I had n't smashed my sceptre over the dog's head the mischief
+wouldn't have stopped there; but he 's coming to. Are you better, Crow?
+How do you feel, man?"
+
+"I hope you are better, sir?" said Lady Dorothea, in an admirable
+blending of grand benevolence and condescension.
+
+[Illustration: 080]
+
+"Infinitely better; supremely happy, besides, to have become the object
+of your Ladyship's kind inquiries," said the little man, sitting up, and
+looking around with a very ghastly effort at urbanity and ease.
+
+"I never knew Fang to bite any one," said Mary.
+
+"Does n't she, by jingo!" exclaimed the artist, who with difficulty
+caught himself in time before he placed his hand on the supposed seat of
+his injuries.
+
+"She shall be muzzled in future," said Lady Dorothea, haughtily,
+repressing the familiar tone of the discussion.
+
+"I think--indeed, I feel sure--I could get her in from memory, my Lady;
+she 's a very remarkable creature, and makes an impression on one." As
+he uttered these words ruefully, he lifted from the floor the fragment
+of his coat-skirt, and gazed mournfully at it.
+
+"I suppose we must suspend proceedings," said Lady Dorothea;
+"though really it is a pity to lose the opportunity of Miss Martin's
+presence,--an honor she so very rarely accords us."
+
+"I think after a few minutes or so, my Lady, I might feel equal," said
+Mr. Crow, rising and retreating to a wall with a degree of caution
+that showed he entertained grave fears as to the state of his
+habiliments,--"I might feel equal, if not exactly to delineate Miss
+Martin's Classic features, at least to throw in--"
+
+"I could n't think of such a thing; I should be wretched at the idea
+of engaging your attention at such a moment," said Mary, with a
+carelessness that contrasted strongly with her words; while she added,
+with earnestness, "Besides, I 'm not sure I could spare the time."
+
+"You see, sir," said her Ladyship to the artist, "you have to deal with
+a young lady whose occupations are like those of a Premier. The Duke
+of Wellington can vouchsafe a sitting for his portrait, but Miss Martin
+cannot spare the time for it."
+
+"Nay, Aunt Dorothy, if I were the Duke of Wellington I should do as he
+does. It is being Mary Martin, whose picture can have no interest for
+any one, enables me to follow the bent of my own wishes."
+
+"Humility is another of her perfections," said Lady Dorothea, with a
+look that but too palpably expressed her feeling towards her niece.
+
+As Mary was assisting her uncle to get rid of some of his superfluous
+draperies, neither of them overheard this remark; while Mr. Crow was too
+deeply impressed with his own calamities to pay any attention to it.
+
+"Mr. Scanlan has been very anxious to see you, uncle," whispered Mary
+in his ear. "He has something of importance to communicate about the
+borough."
+
+"Can't you manage it yourself, Molly? Can't you contrive somehow to
+spare me this annoyance?"
+
+"But you really ought to hear what he has to say."
+
+"I perceive that Miss Martin has a secret of moment to Impart to
+you; pray let me not trouble the interview by my presence," said Lady
+Dorothea. And she swept haughtily out of the room, throwing a most
+disdainful glance at her husband as she went.
+
+"There, by George! you've secured me a pleasant afternoon, at all
+events!" said Martin, angrily, to his niece, as throwing off the
+last remnant of his regal costume, he rushed out, banging the door
+passionately behind him.
+
+Mary sat down to compose her thoughts in quiet, for Mr. Crow had
+previously made his escape unobserved; and truly there was need of some
+repose for her agitated and wearied faculties. Her uncle's dependence
+upon her for everything, and her aunt's jealousy of the influence she
+had over him, placed her in a position of no common difficulty, and one
+of which every day seemed to increase the embarrassment. For a moment
+she thought she would have preferred a life of utter insignificance and
+obscurity; but as suddenly it occurred to her, "What had I been without
+these duties and these cares? For me there are few, if any, of the ties
+that bind other girls to their homes. I have neither mother nor sister;
+I have none of the resources which education suggests to others. My
+mind cannot soar above the realities that surround me, and seek for its
+enjoyments in the realms of fancy; but, perhaps, I can do better," said
+she, proudly, "and make of these same every-day materials the poetry
+of an actual existence." As she spoke, she threw open the window, and
+walked out upon the terrace over the sea. The fishermen's boats were all
+standing out from shore,--a tiny fleet, whose hardy crews had done no
+discredit to the proudest three-decker. Though the heavy gale of the
+morning had gone down, it still blew fresh, and a long rolling swell
+thundered along in-shore, and sent a deep booming noise through many a
+rocky cavern. High above this deafening clamor, however, rose the hearty
+cheers of the fishermen as they detected Mary's figure where she stood;
+and many a tattered rag of showy bunting was hoisted to do her honor.
+Never insensible to such demonstrations, Mary felt at the moment almost
+overpowered with emotion. But a moment back and she bewailed her
+isolation and friendlessness; and see, here were hundreds who would have
+resigned life in her behalf. Still, as the boats receded, the wind bore
+to her ears the welcome sounds; and as she heard them, her heart seemed
+to expand and swell with generous thoughts and good wishes, while along
+her cheeks heavy tears were rolling.
+
+"What need have I of other friends than such as these?" cried she,
+passionately. "_They_ understand me, and I them; and as for the great
+world, we are not made for each other!"
+
+"My own sentiments to a 'T,' miss," said a soft, mincing voice behind
+her; and Mary turned and beheld Mr. Crow. He had arrayed himself in a
+small velvet skull-cap and a blouse, and stood mixing the colors on his
+palette in perfect composure. "I 'm afraid, Miss Martin, there 's an end
+of the great 'Historical.' Your uncle will scarcely be persuaded to put
+on the robes again, and it's a downright pity. I was getting a look of
+weariness--imbecility I might call it--into his features that would have
+crowned the work."
+
+"I don't think I ever knew what your subject was!" said she, half
+indolently.
+
+"The Abdication of Charles V., Miss Martin," said he, proudly. "This is
+the fourteenth time I have depicted it; and never, I am bound to say,
+with more favorable 'studies.' Your uncle is fine; my Lady gorgeous; I
+don't say what I 'd like of another lovely and gifted individual; but
+even down to that old rogue of a butler that would insist on
+taking snuff through the bars of his helmet, they were all grand,
+miss,--positively grand!" Seeing that she appeared to bestow some
+attention to him, Mr. Crow went on: "You see, miss, in the beginning
+of a great effort of this kind there is no progress made at all. The
+sitters keep staring at one another, each amused at some apparent
+absurdity in costume or attitude; and then, if you ask them to call up a
+look of love, hate, jealousy, or the like, it's a grin you get,--a grin
+that would shame a hyena. By degrees, however, they grow used to the
+situation; they 'tone down,' as one might say, and learn to think less
+of themselves, and be more natural. It was sheer fatigue, downright
+exhaustion, and nothing else, was making your uncle so fine; and if he
+could have been kept on low diet,--I did n't like to mention it, though
+I often wished it,--I 'd have got a look of cadaverous madness into his
+face that would have astonished you."
+
+By this time Mr. Crow had approached his canvas, and was working
+away vigorously, the action of his brush appearing to stimulate his
+loquacity. Mary drew near to observe him, and insensibly felt attracted
+by that fascination which the progress of a picture invariably
+possesses.
+
+"This is the Queen," continued he; "she's crying,--as well she might;
+she doesn't rightly know whether the old fellow's out of his mind or
+not; she has her misgivings, and she does n't half like that old thief
+of a Jesuit that's whispering in the King's ear. This was to be you,
+Miss Martin; you were betrothed to one of the young princes; but somehow
+you weren't quite right in your head, and you are looking on rather more
+amused, you perceive, than in any way moved; you were holding up your
+beautiful petticoat, all covered with gold and precious stones, as much
+as to say, 'Ain't I fine this morning?' when you heard the herald's
+trumpet announce the Prince of Orange; and there he is,--or there he
+ought to be,--coming in at the door. There's a chap pulling the curtain
+aside; but I suppose, now," added he, with a sigh, "we 'll never see the
+Prince there!"
+
+"But where could you have found a study for your Prince, Mr. Crow?"
+
+"I have him here, miss," said Crow, laying down his brush to take a
+small sketch-book from the pocket of his blouse. "I have him here;
+and there wouldn't have been a finer head in the canvas,--pale,
+stern-looking, but gentle withal; a fellow that would say, 'Lead them
+to the scaffold,' as easy as winking, and that would tremble and falter
+under the eye of a woman he loved. There he is, now,--the hair, you
+know, I put in myself, and the bit of beard, just for a little Titian
+effect; but the eyes are his own, and the mouth not as good as his own."
+
+"It's a striking head, indeed," said Mary, still contemplating it
+attentively.
+
+"That's exactly what it is; none of your common brain-boxes, but a grand
+specimen of the classic head, civilized down to a mediaeval period;
+the forty-first descendant of an Emperor or a Proconsul, living at the
+Pincian Hall, or at his villa on the Tiber, sitting for his likeness to
+Giordano."
+
+"There's a painful expression in the features, too," added she, slowly.
+
+"So there is; and I believe he 's in bad health."
+
+"Indeed!" said Mary, starting. "I quite forgot there was an original all
+this time."
+
+"He's alive; and what's more, he's not a mile from where we 're
+standing." Mr. Crow looked cautiously about him as he spoke, ac if
+fearful of being overheard; and then approaching close to Miss Martin,
+and dropping his voice to a whisper, said, "I can venture to tell you
+what I dare n't tell my Lady; for I know well if she suspected who it
+was would be the Prince of Orange, begad, I might abdicate too, as
+well as the King. That young man there is-the son of a grocer in
+Oughterard,--true, every word of it,--Dan Nelligan's son! and you may
+fancy now what chance he 'd have of seeing himself on that canvas if her
+Ladyship knew it."
+
+"Is this the youth who has so distinguished himself at college?" asked
+Mary.
+
+"The very one. I made that sketch of him when he was reading for the
+medal; he did n't know it, for I was in a window opposite, where he
+couldn't see me; and when I finished he leaned his chin in his hand
+and looked up at the sky, as if thinking; and the expression of his
+up-turned face, with the lips a little apart, was so fine that I took
+it down at once, and there it is," said he, turning over the page and
+presenting a few pencil lines lightly and spiritedly drawn.
+
+"A young gentleman left this packet, Miss Mary, and said it was for
+you," said a servant, presenting a small sealed enclosure. Mary Martin
+blushed deeply, and she opened the parcel, out of which fell her own
+glove, with a card.
+
+"The very man we were talking of," said Mr. Crow, lifting it up and
+handing it to her,--"Joseph Nelligan. That's like the old proverb; talk
+of the--" But she was gone ere he could finish his quotation.
+
+"There she goes," said Crow, sorrowfully; "and if she 'd have stayed ten
+minutes more I 'd have had her all complete!" and he contemplated with
+glowing satisfaction a hasty sketch he had just made in his book. "It's
+like her,--far more than anything I have done yet; but after all--"
+And he shook his head mournfully as he felt the poor pretension of his
+efforts. "Small blame to me to fail, anyhow," added he, after a pause.
+"It would take Titian himself to paint her; and even he couldn't give
+all the softness and delicacy of the expression,--that would take
+Raffaelle; and Vandyke for her eyes, when they flash out at times; and
+Giordano for the hair. Oh, if he could have seen it just as I did a
+minute ago, when the wind blew it back, and the sunlight fell over it!
+"Arrah!" cried he, impatiently, as with a passionate gesture he tore the
+leaf from his book and crushed it in his hand,--"arrah! What right
+have I even to attempt it?" And he sat down, covering his face with his
+hands, to muse and mourn in silence.
+
+Simpson--or as he was more generally known, Simmy Crow--was neither
+a Michael Angelo nor a Raffaelle; but he was a simple-minded,
+honest-hearted creature, whose life had been a long hand-to-hand fight
+with fortune. Originally a drawing-master in some country academy, the
+caprice--for it was little else--of a whimsical old lady had sent him
+abroad to study; that is, sent him to contemplate the very highest
+triumphs of genius with a mind totally unprepared and uncultivated, to
+gaze on the grandest conceptions without the shadow of a clew to
+them, and to try and pick up the secrets of art when he stood in utter
+ignorance of its first principles. The consequence was, he went wild in
+the enthusiasm of his admiration; he became a passionate worshipper at
+the shrine, but never essayed to be priest at the altar. Disgusted and
+dispirited by his own miserable attempts, he scarcely ever touched
+a pencil, but roved from city to city, and from gallery to gallery,
+entranced,--enchanted by a fascination that gradually insinuated
+itself into his very being, and made up the whole aim and object of his
+thoughts. This idolatry imparted an ecstasy to his existence that lifted
+him above every accident of fortune. Poor, hungry, and ill-clad, he
+still could enter a gallery or a church, sit down before a Guido or a
+Rembrandt, and forget all, save the glorious creation before him. By the
+sudden death of his patroness, he was left, without a shilling, hundreds
+of miles from home. Humble as his requirements were, he could not supply
+them; he offered to teach, but it was in a land where all have access to
+the best models; he essayed to copy, but his efforts were unsalable.
+To return home to his country was now his great endeavor; and after
+innumerable calamities and reverses, he did arrive in England, whence he
+made his way to Ireland, poorer than he had quitted it.
+
+Had he returned in better plight, had he come back with some of the
+appearance of success, the chances are that he might have thriven on
+the accidents of fame; but he was famishing and in beggary. Some alleged
+that he was a worthless fellow who had passed a life of idleness and
+debauch; others, that he was not without ability, but that his habits of
+dissipation rendered him hopeless; and a few--a very few--pitied him as
+a weak-brained enthusiast, who had no bad about him, but was born to
+failure!
+
+In his utter destitution he obtained work as a house-painter,--an
+employment which he followed for three or four yeare, and in which
+capacity he had been sent by his master to paint some ornamental
+stucco-work at Cro' Martin. The ability he displayed attracted Lady
+Dorothea's notice, and she engaged him to decorate a small garden villa
+with copies from her own designs. He was entirely successful, and so
+much pleased was her Ladyship that she withdrew him from his ignoble
+servitude and attached him to her own household, where now he had been
+living two years, the latter half of which period had been passed in
+the great work of which we have already made some mention. It so chanced
+that poor Simmy had never sold but two copies in his life: one was The
+Abdication of Charles V., the other, The Finding of Moses; and so, out
+of gratitude to these successes, he went on multiplying new versions of
+these subjects _ad infinitum_, eternally writing fresh variations on the
+old themes, till the King and the Lawgiver filled every avenue of his
+poor brain, and he ceased to have a belief that any other story than
+these could be the subject of high art.
+
+Happy as he now was, he never ceased to feel that his position exposed
+him to many an ungenerous suspicion.
+
+"They 'll say I 'm humbugging this old lady," was the constant
+self-reproach he kept repeating. "I know well what they 'll think of me;
+I think I hear the sneering remarks as I pass." And so powerfully had
+this impression caught hold of him, that he vowed, come what would of
+it, he 'd set out on his travels again, and face the cold stern world,
+rather than live on what seemed to be the life of a flatterer and a
+sycophant. He could not, however, endure the thought of leaving his
+"Abdication" unfinished, and he now only remained to complete this great
+work. "Then I 'm off," said he; "and then they 'll see if poor Simmy
+Crow was the fellow they took him for." Better thoughts on this theme
+were now passing through his mind, from which at last he aroused himself
+to proceed with his picture. Once at work, his spirits rose; hopes
+flitted across his brain, and he was happy. His own creations seemed to
+smile benignly on him, too, and he felt towards them like a friend, and
+even talked with them, and confided his secret thoughts to them. In this
+pleasant mood we shall leave him, then; nor shall we linger to listen to
+the avowals he is making of his upright intentions, nor his willingness
+to bear the hardest rubs of fortune, so that none can reproach him for a
+mean subserviency.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. A DASH OF POLITICS
+
+"Well, what is it, Molly,--what is it all about?" said Martin, as Mary
+entered the library, where he was sitting with an unread newspaper
+stretched across his knee.
+
+"It is a piece of news Scanlan has brought, uncle, and not of the most
+agreeable kind either."
+
+"Then I'll not hear more of it," broke he in, pettishly.
+
+"But you must, uncle, since without your own counsel and advice nothing
+can be done."
+
+"Do nothing, then," added he, sulkily.
+
+"Come, come, I 'll not let you off thus easily," said she, passing an
+arm over his shoulder. "You know well I 'd not tease you if it could be
+avoided, but here is a case where I can be no guide. It is a question of
+the borough, Lord Kilmorris thinks himself strong enough to stand on his
+own merits, and repudiates your aid and his own principles together."
+Martin's attention being now secured, she went on: "He says--at least as
+well as I can follow his meaning--that with this new measure must come a
+total change of policy,--abrogating all old traditions and old notions;
+that _you_, of course, are little likely to adopt this opinion, at least
+at once, and so he releases you from all obligations to support him, and
+himself from all tie to represent _you_."
+
+"This is Lady Dorothy's doing," broke in Martin, passionately; "her
+confounded letter-writing has brought this upon us. I told her that
+those fellows were trimming; I warned her that they were only waiting
+for this Bill to pass, to turn round upon us as a barbarous old remnant
+of feudal oppression; but he dare n't do it, Molly,--Kilmorris has n't
+a leg to stand upon in the borough. He could n't count upon twenty--no,
+not ten votes, without me. It's a scurvy trick, too, and it sha'n't
+succeed, if I stand for the borough myself." And he blurted out the last
+words as though they were the expression of an enmity driven to its last
+resources.
+
+"No, no, uncle," said she, caressingly; "after all you have yourself
+told me of a parliamentary life, that must never be. Its unending
+intrigues and petty plotting, its fatiguing days and harassing nights,
+its jealousies and disappointments, and defeats, all hard enough to
+be borne by those who must make a trade of their politics, but utterly
+insupportable to one who, like you, can enjoy his independence. Do not
+think of that, I beseech you."
+
+"Then am I to see this man carry my own town in my very teeth?" cried
+he, angrily. "Is that your advice to me?"
+
+"You often spoke of Harry. Why not put him forward now he is coming
+home?"
+
+"Ay, and the very first thing he'll do will be to resign the seat
+because he had not been consulted about the matter before the election.
+You know him well, Molly; and you know that he exchanged into a regiment
+in India simply because I had obtained his appointment to the Blues.
+His amiable mother's disposition is strong in him!" muttered he, half to
+himself, but loud enough to be heard by his niece.
+
+"At all events, see Scanlan," said she; "learn how the matter really
+stands; don't rely on my version of it, but see what Lord Kilmorris
+intends, and take your own measures calmly and dispassionately
+afterwards."
+
+"Is Scanlan engaged for him?"
+
+"I think not. I suspect that negotiations are merely in progress."
+
+"But if he even was," broke in Martin, violently, "I have made the
+fellow what he is, and he should do as I ordered him. Let him come in,
+Molly."
+
+"He is not in the house, uncle; he went down to the village."
+
+"Not here? Why didn't he wait? What impertinence is this?"
+
+"He wished to bait his horses, and probably to get some breakfast for
+himself, which I had not the politeness to offer him here."
+
+"His horses? His tandem, I'll be sworn," said Martin, with a sneer.
+"I 'll ask for no better evidence of what we are coming to than that
+Maurice Scanlan drives about the county with a tandem."
+
+"And handles them very neatly, too," said Mary, with a malicious sparkle
+of her eye, for she could n't refrain from the spiteful pleasure of
+seeing her uncle in a regular fury for a mere nothing. All the more
+salutary, as it withdrew his thoughts from weightier themes.
+
+"I'm sure of it, Miss Martin. I'm certain that he is a most accomplished
+whip, and as such perfectly sure to find favor in _your_ eyes. Let him
+come up here at once, however. Say I want him immediately," added he,
+sternly; and Mary despatched a servant with the message, and sat down in
+front of her uncle, neither uttering a word nor even looking towards the
+other.
+
+"After all, Molly," said he, in the quiet, indolent tone so natural to
+him--"after all, what does it signify who's in or who's out? I don't
+care a brass farthing about party or party triumphs; and even if I did,
+I 'm not prepared--What are you laughing at,--what is it amuses you
+now?" asked he, half testily, while she laughed out in all the
+unrestrained flow of joyous mirth.
+
+"I have been waiting for that confession this half-hour, uncle, and
+really I was beginning to be afraid of a disappointment. Why, dearest
+uncle, you were within a hair's breadth of forgetting your principles,
+and being actually caught, for once in your life, prepared and ready."
+
+"Oh, is that it? Is it my embarrassment, then, that affords you so much
+amusement?"
+
+"Far from it," said she, affectionately. "I was only laughing at that
+quiet little nook you retire to whenever you ought to be up and doing.
+Unprepared you say. Not a bit of it. Indisposed, indolent, unwilling,
+indifferent, any of these you like; but with a mind so full of its own
+good resources, and as ready to meet every contingency as any one's,
+don't say you are unprepared. Come, now, bear with me this once, dearest
+uncle, and don't be angry if I throw myself, like a rock or sandbank,
+betwixt you and your harbor of refuge. But I hear Mr. Scanlan's
+voice, and so I shall leave you. Be resolute, uncle, determined,
+and--'prepared'!" And with a gesture half menace and half drollery, she
+left the room as the attorney entered it.
+
+Scanlan, like most of those who came but casually in contact with
+Martin, had conceived a low idea of his capacity,--lower by far than
+it deserved, since behind his indolence there lay a fund of good
+common-sense,--a mine, it must be acknowledged, that he seldom cared to
+work. The crafty man of law had, however, only seen him in his ordinary
+moods of careless ease and idleness, and believed that pride of family,
+fortune, and position were the only ideas that found access to his mind,
+and that by a dexterous allusion to these topics it would always be an
+easy task to influence and direct him.
+
+"What's this my niece has been telling me of Lord Kilmorris?" said
+Martin, abruptly, and without even replying to the salutations of the
+other, who hovered around a chair in an uncertainty as to whether
+he might dare to seat himself uninvited,--"he's going to contest the
+borough with us, is n't he?"
+
+Scanlan leaned one arm on the back of the chair, and in a half-careless
+way replied,--
+
+"He is afraid that you and he don't quite agree, sir. He leans to
+measures that he suspects you may not altogether approve of."
+
+"Come, come, none of this balderdash with me, Master Maurice. Has he
+bought the fellows already, or, rather, have you bought them? Out with
+it, man! What will he give? Name the sum, and let us treat the matter in
+a business-like way."
+
+Scanlan sat down and laughed heartily for some minutes.
+
+"I think you know me well enough, Mr. Martin, by this time," said he,
+"to say whether I'ma likely man to meddle with such a transaction."
+
+"The very likeliest in Ireland; the man I 'd select amidst ten
+thousand."
+
+"I am sorry to hear you say so, sir, that's all," said the other, with a
+half-offended air; "nor do I see that anything in my past life warrants
+the imputation."
+
+Martin turned fiercely round, about to make a reply which, if once
+uttered, would have ended all colloquy between them, when suddenly
+catching himself he said, "Have you taken any engagement with his
+Lordship?"
+
+"Not as yet, sir,--not formally, at least. My Lord has written me a very
+full statement of his ideas on politics, what he means to do, and so
+forth, and he seems to think that anything short of a very liberal line
+would not give satisfaction to the electors."
+
+"Who told him so? Who said that the borough was not perfectly content
+with the representative that--that"--he stammered and faltered--"that
+its best friends had fixed upon to defend its interests? Who said that a
+member of my own family might not desire the seat?"
+
+This announcement, uttered with a tone very much akin to menace, failed
+to produce either the astonishment or terror that Martin looked for, and
+actually supposing that the expression had not been heard, he repeated
+it. "I say, sir, has any one declared that a Martin will not stand?"
+
+"I am not aware of it," said Scanlan, quietly.
+
+"Well, sir," cried Martin, as if unable to delineate the consequences,
+and wished to throw the weight of the duty on his opponent.
+
+"There would be a warm contest, no doubt, sir," said Scanlan, guardedly.
+
+"No, sir; nor the shadow of a contest," rejoined Martin, angrily.
+"You'll not tell _me_ that my own town--the property that has been in
+my family for seven centuries and more--would presume--that is, would
+desire--to--to--break the ties that have bound us to each other?"
+
+"I wish I could tell you my mind, Mr. Martin, without offending you;
+that is, I wish you 'd let me just say what my own opinion is, and
+take it for what it is worth, and in five minutes you 'd be in a better
+position to make up your mind about this matter than if we went on
+discussing it for a week." There was a dash of independence in his
+utterance of these words that actually startled Martin; for, somehow,
+Scanlan had himself been surprised into earnestness by meeting with an
+energy on the other's part that he had never suspected; and thus each
+appeared in a new light to the other.
+
+"May I speak out? Well, then, here is what I have to say: the Relief
+Bill is passed, the Catholics are now emancipated--"
+
+"Yes, and be--" Martin caught himself with a cough, and the other went
+on:--
+
+"Well, then, if they don't send one of their own set into Parliament at
+once, it is because they 'd like to affect, for a little while at least,
+a kind of confidence in the men who gave them their liberties. O'Connell
+himself gave a pledge, that of two candidates, equal in all other
+respects, they'd select the Protestant; and so they would for a time.
+And it lies with you, and other men of your station, to determine how
+long that interval is to last; for an interval it will only be, after
+all. If you want to pursue the old system of 'keeping down,' you 'll
+drive them at once into the hands of the extreme Papist party, who,
+thanks to yourselves, can now sit in Parliament; but if you 'll moderate
+your views, take a humbler standard of your own power,--conciliate a
+prejudice here, obliterate an old animosity there--"
+
+"In fact," broke in Martin, "swear by this new creed that Lord Kilmorris
+has sent you a sketch of in his letter! Then I 'll tell you what, sir--I
+'d send the borough and all in it to the--"
+
+"So you might, Mr. Martin, and you 'd never mend matters in the least,"
+broke he in, with great coolness.
+
+There was now a dead silence for several minutes; at last Martin spoke,
+and it was in a tone and with a manner that indicated deep reflection:--
+
+"I often said to those who would emancipate the Catholics, 'Are you
+prepared to change places with them? You have been in the ascendant a
+good many years, are you anxious now to try what the other side of the
+medal looks like? for, if not, leave them as they are.' Well, they did
+n't believe me; and maybe now my prophecy is nigh its accomplishment."
+
+"It is very likely you were right, sir; but whether or not, it's the law
+now, and let us make the best of it," said Scanlan, who had a practical
+man's aversion to all that savored of mere speculative reasoning.
+
+"As how, for instance--in what way, Mr. Scanlan?" asked Martin, curtly.
+
+"If you 'll not support Lord Kilmorris--"
+
+"That I won't, I promise you; put that clean out of your head to begin
+with."
+
+"Well, then, there is but one other course open. Come to some compromise
+with the Romanist party; if you don't like to give them a stray
+vote--and mark me, they 'd make better terms with _you_ than with a
+stranger--but if you don't like that, why, take the representation
+alternately with them."
+
+Martin rose from his chair and advanced close to where Scanlan was
+sitting, then, fixing his eyes steadfastly on him, said,--
+
+"Who commissioned you to make this proposition to _me?_"
+
+"No one, upon my oath. There is not a man breathing who has ever so much
+as hinted at what I have just said to you."
+
+"I'm glad of it; I'm heartily glad of it," said Martin, calmly reseating
+himself. "I'm glad there is not another fellow in this county your equal
+in impudence! Aye, Mr. Scanlan, you heard me quite correctly. I saw many
+a change going on amongst us, and I foresaw many more; but that a Martin
+of Cro' Martin should be taught his political duty by Maurice Scanlan,
+and that that duty consisted in a beggarly alliance with the riff-raff
+of a county town,--that was, indeed, a surprise for which I was in no
+wise prepared."
+
+"Well, sir, I 'm sorry if I have given any offence," said Scanlan,
+rising, and, in a voice of the most quiet intonation, making his
+excuses. "Your rejection of the counsel I was bold enough to suggest
+leaves me, at least, at liberty to offer my services where they will not
+be rejected so contumeliously."
+
+"Is this a threat, Mr. Scanlan?" said Martin, with a supercilious smile.
+
+"No, sir, nothing of the kind. I know too well what becomes _my_
+station, and is _due to yours_, to forget myself so far; but as you
+don't set any value on the borough yourself, and as there may be others
+who do--"
+
+"Stay and eat your dinner here, Scanlan," said Martin.
+
+"I promised Mrs. Cronan, sir--"
+
+"Send an apology to her; say it was _my_ fault,--that I detained you."
+And without waiting for a reply, Martin sauntered from the room, leaving
+the attorney alone with his reflections.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. A COLLEGE COMPETITOR
+
+Young Nelligan had distanced all his competitors in his college career;
+some who were his equals in ability, were inferior to him in habits of
+hard and patient labor; and others, again, were faint-hearted to oppose
+one in whose success they affected to believe luck had no small
+share. One alone had the honest candor to avow that he deserved his
+pre-eminence, on the true ground of his being their superior. This was a
+certain Jack Massingbred, a young fellow of good family and fortune,
+and who, having been rusticated at Oxford, and involved in some outrage
+against authority in Cambridge, had come over to finish his college
+career in the "Silent Sister."
+
+Although Irish by birth, and connected with Ireland by ties of family
+and fortune, he had passed all his life in England, his father having
+repaired to that country after the Union, exchanging the barren honor of
+a seat for an Irish borough for a snug Treasury appointment. His son
+had very early given proof of superior capacity. At Rugby he was
+distinguished as a scholar; and in his opening life at Oxford his
+talents won high praise for him. Soon after his entrance, however,
+he had fallen into a fast set,--of hunting, tandem-driving, and
+occasionally hard-drinking men,--in whose society he learned to
+forget all his aim for college success, and to be far more anxious
+for distinction as a whip or a stroke-oar than for all the honors of
+scholarship. At first he experienced a sense of pride in the thought
+that he could hold his own with either set, and take the lead in the
+examination-hall as easily as he assumed the first place in the social
+meeting. A few reverses, however, taught him that his theory was
+a mistake, that no amount of ability will compensate for habits of
+idleness and dissipation, and that the discursive efforts of even high
+genius will be ever beaten by the steady results of patient industry.
+Partly indifferent to what had once been his great ambition, partly
+offended by his failures, Massingbred threw himself entirely into the
+circle of his dissipated companions, and became the very head and front
+of all their wildest excesses. An absurd exploit, far more ludicrous
+than really culpable, procured his rustication; a not less ridiculous
+adventure drove him from Cambridge; and he had at last arrived in
+Dublin, somewhat tamed down by his experiences, and half inclined to
+resume his long-abandoned desire for college distinction.
+
+The habits of the Irish College were strikingly unlike those of either
+Oxford or Cambridge. Instead of a large class consisting of men of great
+fortune and high expectations, he found a very slight sprinkling of
+such, and even they made up nothing that resembled a party. Separated
+by age, political distinctions, and county associations, all stronger in
+the poorer country than in the richer one, they held little intercourse
+together, and were scarcely acquainted.
+
+If there was less actual wealth, there was also less credit to be
+obtained by an Irish student. The Dublin shopkeeper acknowledged no
+prestige in the "gownsman;" he admitted him to no special privilege of
+book-debts; and as the great majority of the students resided with
+their families in the capital, there was no room for that reckless
+extravagance so often prosecuted by those who are temporarily removed
+from domestic supervision.
+
+Massingbred was at first grievously disappointed. There were neither
+great names nor great fortunes amongst his new associates. Their mode
+of life, too, struck him as mean and contemptible. There were clever men
+reading for honors, and stupid men steering their slow way to a degree;
+but where were the fast ones? where the fellows who could tool a team or
+steer a six-oar, who could dash up to town for a week's reckless life at
+Crocky's and Tattersall's, make their book on the Oaks, or perhaps ride
+the winner at a steeplechase?
+
+It was all grievously slow. Dublin itself was a poor affair. He had few
+acquaintances, the theatres were bad, and public amusements there were
+none. His fellow-students, too, stood aloof from him. It was not that
+he was richer, better dressed, rode blood horses, dined at Morris-son's,
+wore kid gloves, and carried scented pocket-handkerchiefs. It was not
+that he had a certain air of puppyism as he wended his way across the
+courts, or sauntered elegantly into chapel. They could have forgiven any
+or all of these better than one of his offendings, which was his accent.
+Strange as it may seem, his English voice and English pronunciation
+were the most unpopular things about him, and many a real defect in his
+character might have met a more merciful construction had he given no
+initial "H" to "humble," and evinced a more generous confusion about his
+"wills" and "snails."
+
+Somewhat bored by a life so unlike anything he had ever tried
+before,--partly, perhaps, stimulated to show that he could do something
+beside canter his thorough-bred along Sackville Street, or lounge in
+the stage-box in solitary splendor,--he went in for honors, and, to
+the surprise of all, succeeded. In fact, he beat two or three of the
+distinguished men of his time, till, thrown by the chance of events into
+Nelligan's division, he found at once his superior, and saw that he was
+in presence of an intelligence considerably above his own. When he had
+adventured on the struggle and found himself worsted, he acknowledged
+defeat with all the generosity of an honorable nature; and forcing his
+way through the crowd as it issued from the examination-hall, was the
+very first to grasp Nelligan's hand and congratulate him on his success.
+
+"That was all got up; he was bursting with jealousy. The fellow could
+have strangled Nelligan," muttered one.
+
+"He certainly put a good face on the disaster," said another, more
+mercifully given; "though I suppose he feels the thing sorely enough at
+heart!"
+
+That was exactly what he did not, however. Young Massingbred regarded a
+college distinction as no evidence whatever of a man's attainments. He
+had seen stupid fellows win the prize for which clever ones strove in
+vain; but, at all events, he regarded such successes as contributing in
+nothing to the great race of life, and had even a theory that such early
+efforts were often the very means of exhausting the energies that should
+be exerted for the high rewards of the world. Besides this, he felt a
+pleasure in manfully showing that he was above a petty jealousy, and
+fairly owning himself beaten in a fair struggle.
+
+"You are the better man, Nelligan," said he, gayly; "I 'll not try
+another fall with you, be assured."
+
+Strange was it that in this very avowal he had asserted what the other
+felt in his inmost heart to be an immeasurable superiority over him;
+and that in the very moment of striking his flag he had proclaimed his
+victory. To be able to run him so hard for the race and yet not feel the
+struggle, to strive for the prize and care nothing for defeat, seemed to
+Nelligan the evidence of an ambition that soared above college triumph,
+and he could not but envy that buoyant high-hearted temperament that
+seemed to make light of difficulties and not even feel depressed by a
+defeat.
+
+Up to this time these two young men had scarcely known each other, but
+now they became intimate. The very difference in character served
+to draw them more closely together; and if Nelligan felt a degree of
+admiration for qualities whose brilliant display opened a new sense of
+enjoyment to him, the other was delighted with the gentle and almost
+childlike innocence of the student whose far-soaring intellect was
+mastering the highest questions of science.
+
+Massingbred was one of those natures in whom frankness is an instinct.
+It seems to such a relief to open the secrets of the heart and avow
+their weaknesses and their shortcomings, as though--by some Moral
+Popery--they would obtain the benefit of a free confession and go forth
+the better for their candor.
+
+Not only did he tell Nelligan of his own career and its accidents, the
+causes for which he was not on good terms with his family, and so on;
+but he even ventured to discuss the public life of his father, and, in
+a spirit of banter, swore that to his political subserviency did he owe
+his whole fortune in life.
+
+"My father was one of the crew when the vessel was wrecked, Nelligan,"
+said he; "there was plenty of talk of standing by the ship to the last,
+and perishing with her. Some did so, and they are forgotten already. My
+father, however, jumped into the long-boat with a few more, and thought
+that probably they might find another craft more seaworthy; fortunately
+he was right; at least, assuredly, I 'm not the man to say he was not."
+
+"But was there no desertion of principle, Massingbred?" said Nelligan.
+
+"No more than there is a desertion of your old coat when you discover it
+to be too threadbare to wear any longer. Irish Politics, as the men of
+that day understood them, had become impracticable,--impossible, I
+might say; the only sensible thing to do was to acknowledge the fact. My
+father was keen-sighted enough to see it in that light, and here 's his
+health for it."
+
+Nelligan was silent.
+
+"Come, Joe, out with it. Your family were honest Unionists. Tell me so
+frankly, man. Own to me that you and yours look upon us all as a set of
+knaves and scoundrels, that sold their country, and so forth. I want to
+see you in a mood of good passionate indignation for once. Out with it,
+boy; curse us to your heart's content, and I 'll hear it like an angel,
+for the simple reason that I know it to be just. You won't, won't you?
+Is your anger too deep for words? or are there any special and peculiar
+wrongs that make your dark consuming wrath too hot for utterance?"
+
+Nelligan was still silent; but the blush which now covered his face had
+become almost purple. The allusion to his family as persons of political
+importance struck him, and for the first time, with a sense of shame.
+What would Massingbred think of them if he knew their real station? what
+would he think of _him_ for having concealed it? Had he concealed it?
+Had he ever divulged the truth? He knew not; in the whirlwind of his
+confusion he knew nothing. He tried to say some words to break the
+oppressive silence that seemed to weigh him down like an accusation, but
+he could not.
+
+"I see it all, Nelligan. My foolish affectation of laughing at all
+principle has disgusted you; but the truth is, I don't feel it: I do
+not. I own frankly that the bought patriot is a ruined man, and there
+is a moral Nemesis over every fellow that sells himself; I don't mean to
+say but that many who did so did n't make the best bargain their
+brains were worth, and my father for one; he was a man of fair average
+abilities,--able to say his commonplaces like his neighbors,--and
+naturally felt that they would sound as well in England as in Ireland; I
+don't think he had a single conviction on any subject, so that he really
+sold a very unsalable article when he vended himself. But there were
+others,--your Governor, for instance; come, now, tell me about him; you
+are so devilish close, and I want to hear all about your family. You
+won't; well, I'll give you one chance more, and then--"
+
+"What then?" asked Nelligan, breathlessly.
+
+"I 'll just go and learn for myself."
+
+"How? what do you mean?" "The easiest way in the world. The vacation
+begins next Tuesday, and I 'll just invite myself to spend the first
+week of it under your paternal roof. You look terribly shocked,
+absolutely horrified; well, so you ought. It is about the greatest piece
+of impertinence I 've heard of. I assure you I have a full consciousness
+of that myself; but no matter, I 'll do it."
+
+Nelligan's shame was now an agony. It had never occurred to him in
+his life to feel ashamed of his station or that of his family, for the
+simple reason that he had never made pretension to anything higher or
+more exalted. The distinctions at which he aimed were those attainable
+by ability; social successes were triumphs he never dreamed of. But now
+came the thought of how he should stand in his friend's esteem, when the
+fact was revealed that he was the son of very humble parents, all whose
+ways, thoughts, and habits would be apt themes for ridicule and sarcasm.
+Over and over again had Massingbred annoyed him by the disparaging tone
+in which he canvassed "small people," the sneering depreciation in
+which he held all their doings, and the wholesale injustice by which he
+classed their sentiments with their good manners. It was the one feature
+of his friend's character that gave a check to his unbounded esteem for
+him. Had he not possessed this blemish, Nelligan would have deemed him
+nearly faultless.
+
+Intensely feeling this, Nelligan would have given much for courage to
+say, "I am one of that very set you sneer at. All my associations and
+ties are with them. My home is amongst them, and every link of kindred
+binds me to them."
+
+Yet, somehow, he could not bring himself to the effort. It was not that
+he dreaded the loss of friendship that might ensue,--indeed, he rather
+believed that such would not occur; but he thought that a time might
+come when that avowal might be made with pride, and not in humiliation,
+when he should say: "My father, the little shopkeeper of Oughterard,
+gave me the advantages by which I became what I am. The class you sneer
+at had yet ambitions high and daring as your own; and talents to attain
+them, too! The age of noble and serf has passed away, and we live in a
+freer and more generous era, when men are tested by their own worth;
+and if birth and blood would retain their respect amongst us, it is
+by contesting with us more humbly born the prizes of life." To have
+asserted these things now, however, when he was nothing, when his name
+had no echo beyond the walls of a college, would have seemed to him an
+intolerable piece of presumption, and he was silent.
+
+Massingbred read his reserve as proceeding from displeasure, and
+jestingly said,--
+
+"You mustn't be angry with me, Joe. The boldness of men like me is less
+impudence than you take it for, since--should I fulfil my threat, and
+pay your father a visit--I 'd neither show surprise nor shame if he
+refused to receive me. I throw over all the claims of ceremony; but at
+the same time I don't want to impose the trammels on my friends. They
+are free to deal with me as frankly, ay, and as curtly as I have treated
+them; but enough of all this. Let us talk of something else."
+
+And so they did, too,--of their college life and its changeful fortunes;
+of their companions and their several characters, and of the future
+itself, of which Massingbred pretended to read the fate, saying: "You'll
+be something wonderful one of these days, Joe. I have it as though
+revealed to me,--_you_ astonishing the world by your abilities, and
+winning your way to rank and eminence; while _I_ like a sign-post that
+points to the direction, shall stand stock-still, and never budge an
+inch, knowing the road, but not travelling it."
+
+"And why should it be so, Mass, when you have such a perfect
+consciousness of your powers for success?"
+
+"For the simple reason, my boy, that I know and feel how the cleverness
+which imposes upon others has never imposed upon myself. The popular
+error of a man's being able to do fifty things which he has not done
+from idleness, apathy, carelessness, and so on, never yet deceived me,
+because I know well that when a fellow has great stuff in him it will
+come out, whether he likes or not. You might as well say that the grapes
+in a wine-vat could arrest their own process of fermentation, as that
+a man of real genius--and mind, I am now speaking of no other--could
+suppress the working of his intelligence, and throw his faculties into
+torpor. The men who do nothing are exactly the men who can do no better.
+Volition, energy, the strong impulse for action, are part and parcel of
+every really great intellect; and your 'mute, inglorious Milton' only
+reminds me of the artist who painted his canvas all red to represent the
+passage of the Egyptians through the Red Sea. Believe me, you must take
+all untried genius in the same scale of credit as that by which you
+have fancied the chariots and horsemen submerged in the flood. They are
+there, if you like; and if you don't--"
+
+"Your theory requires that all men's advantages should be equal, their
+station alike, and their obstacles the same. Now, they are not so.
+See, for instance, in our University here. _I_ am debarred from the
+fellowship-bench--or, at least, from attempting to reach it--because I
+am a Papist."
+
+"Then turn Protestant; or if that doesn't suit you, address yourself
+to kick down the barrier that stands in your way. By the bye, I did n't
+know you were a Roman; how comes that? Is it a family creed, or was it a
+caprice of your own?"
+
+"It is the religion my family have always professed," said Nelligan,
+gravely.
+
+"I have no right to speak of these subjects, because I have never felt
+strongly enough on them to establish strong convictions; but it
+appears to me that if I were you--that is, if I had _your_ head on my
+shoulders--I should think twice ere I 'd sacrifice my whole future out
+of respect for certain dogmas that no more interfere with one's daily
+life and opinions than some obsolete usage of ancient Greece has a
+bearing upon a modern suit in Chancery. There, don't look fretful and
+impatient; I don't want to provoke you, nor is it worth your while
+to bring your siege artillery against my card-house. I appreciate
+everything you could possibly adduce by anticipation, and I yield myself
+as vanquished."
+
+Thus, half in earnest, half jestingly, Massingbred talked away, little
+thinking how deeply many a random speech entered into his friend's
+heart, taking firm root there to grow and vegetate hereafter. As for
+himself, it would have been somewhat difficult to say how far his
+convictions ever went with his words. Any attempt to guide and direct
+him was, at any time, enough to excite a wilful endeavor to oppose it,
+and whatever savored of opposition immediately evoked his resistance.
+The spirit of rebellion was the keynote of his character; he could be
+made anything, everything, or nothing, as authority--or as he would have
+styled it, tyranny--decided.
+
+It was just at this very moment that an incident occurred to display
+this habit of his mind in its full force. His father, by employing much
+private influence and the aid of powerful friends, had succeeded in
+obtaining for him the promise of a most lucrative civil appointment
+in India. It was one of those situations which in a few years of
+very moderate labor secure an ample fortune for the possessor. Mr.
+Massingbred had forgotten but one thing in all the arrangement of this
+affair, which was to apprise his son of it beforehand, and make him, as
+it were, a part of the plot. That one omission, however, was enough to
+secure its failure.
+
+Jack received the first tidings of the scheme when it was a fact, not a
+speculation. It was a thing done, not to do, and consequently a "gross
+piece of domestic cruelty to dispose of him and his future by an
+arbitrary banishment to a distant land, linking him with distasteful
+duties, uncongenial associates," and the rest of it. In a word, it was a
+case for resistance, and he did resist, and in no very measured fashion,
+either. He wrote back a pettish and ill-tempered refusal of the place,
+sneered at the class by whom such appointments were regarded as prizes,
+and coolly said that "it was quite time enough to attach himself to the
+serious business of life when he had tasted something of the pleasures
+that suited his time of life; besides," added he, "I must see which way
+my ambitions point; perhaps to a seat on the Treasury benches, perhaps
+to a bullock-team, a wood-axe, and a rifle in a new settlement. Of my
+resolves on either head, or on anything between them, you shall have
+the earliest possible intimation from your devoted, but perhaps not very
+obedient, to command,
+
+"J. M."
+
+His father rejoined angrily and peremptorily. The place had cost him
+everything he could employ or enlist of friendly patronage; he made the
+request assume all the weight of a deep personal obligation, and now
+the solicitation and the success were all to go for nothing. What if he
+should leave so very gifted a young gentleman to the unfettered use of
+his great abilities? What if he abstained from any interference with
+one so competent to guide himself? He threw out these suggestions too
+palpably to occasion any misconception, and Jack read them aright. "I'm
+quite ready for sea whenever you are pleased to cut the painter," said
+he; and the correspondence concluded with a dry intimation that two
+hundred a year, less than one half of his former allowance, should be
+paid into Coutts's for his benefit, but that no expenditure above that
+sum would be repaid by his father.
+
+"I 'll emigrate; I 'll agitate; I 'll turn author, and write for the
+reviews; I 'll correspond with the newspapers; I 'll travel in Afrifca;
+I 'll go to sea,--be a pirate;" in fact, there was nothing for which he
+thought his capacity unequal, nor anything against which his principles
+would revolt. In speculation, only, however; for in sober reality he
+settled down into a mere idler, discontented, dreamy, and unhappy.
+
+Little momentary bursts of energy would drive him now and then to his
+books, and for a week or two he would work really hard; when a change as
+sudden would come over him, and he would relapse into his former apathy.
+Thus was it that he had lived for some time after the term had come to
+an end, and scarcely a single student lingered within the silent courts.
+Perhaps the very solitude was the great charm of the place; there was
+that in his lonely, unfriended, uncompanionable existence that seemed to
+feed the brooding melancholy in which he indulged with all the ardor
+of a vice. He liked to think himself an outcast and forgotten. It was a
+species of flattery that he addressed to his own heart when he affected
+to need neither sympathy nor affection. Still his was not the stuff of
+which misanthropy is fashioned, and he felt acutely the silence of his
+friend Nelligan, who had never once written to him since they parted.
+
+"I 'd scarcely have left _him_ here," said he to himself one day; "had
+_he_ been in my position, I 'd hardly have quitted _him_ under such
+circumstances. He knew all about my quarrel with my father. He had read
+our letters on each side. To be sure he had condemned _me_, and taken
+the side against me; still, when there was a breach, and that breach
+offered no prospect of reconciliation, it was but scant friendship to
+say good-bye, and desert me. He might, at least, have asked me down to
+his house. I 'd not have gone; that 's certain. I feel myself very
+poor company for myself, and I 'd not inflict my stupidity upon others.
+Still, _he_ might have thought it kind or generous. In fact, in such a
+case I would have taken no refusal; I'd have insisted."
+
+What a dangerous hypothesis it is when we assume to act for another;
+how magnanimously do we rise above all meaner motives, and only think
+of what is generous and noble; how completely we discard every possible
+contingency that could sway us from the road of duty, and neither look
+right nor left on our way to some high object! Jack Massingbred, arguing
+thus, ended by thinking himself a very fine fellow and his friend a very
+shabby one,--two conclusions that, strangely enough, did not put him
+into half as much good-humor with the world as he expected. At all
+events, he felt very sore with Nelligan, and had he known where to
+address him, would have written a very angry epistle of mock gratitude
+for all his solicitude in his behalf; very unfortunately, however, he
+did not know in what part of Ireland the other resided, nor did his
+acquaintance with provincial dialect enable him to connect his friend
+with a western county. He had so confidently expected to hear from him,
+that he had never asked a question as to his whereabouts. Thus was it
+with Massingbred, as he sauntered along the silent alleys of the College
+Park, in which, at rare intervals, some solitary sizar might be met
+with,--spare, sad-looking figures,--in whose features might be read
+the painful conflict of narrow fortune and high ambition. Book in
+hand generally, they rarely exchanged a look as he passed them; and
+Massingbred scanned at his ease these wasted and careworn sons of labor,
+wondering within himself was "theirs the right road to fortune."
+
+Partly to shake off the depression that was over him by change of place,
+and in part to see something of the country itself, Massingbred resolved
+to make a walking-tour through the south and west of Ireland, and with a
+knapsack on his back, he started one fine autumn morning for Wicklow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. SOME KNOTTY POINTS THAT PUZZLED JOE NELLIGAN
+
+This true history contains no record of the evening Mr. Scanlan passed
+at the Osprey's Nest; nor is it probable that in any diary kept by that
+intelligent individual there will yet be found materials to supply this
+historical void. Whether, therefore, high events and their consequences
+were discussed, or that the meeting was only devoted to themes of
+lighter importance, is likely to remain a secret to all time. That
+matters beneath the range of politics occupied the consideration of the
+parties was, however, evident from the following few lines of a note
+received by young Nelligan the next morning:--
+
+     "Dear Joe,--I dined yesterday at the 'Nest,' and we talked
+     much of you. What would you think of paying a visit there
+     this morning to see the picture, or anything else you can
+     think of? I 've a notion it would be well taken. At all
+     events, come over and speak to me here.
+
+     "Ever yours,
+
+     "M. SCANLAN."
+
+
+
+"I scarcely understand your note, Maurice," said young Nelligan, as he
+entered the little room where the other sat at breakfast.
+
+"Have you breakfasted?" said Scanlan.
+
+"Yes, an hour ago."
+
+"Will you taste that salmon? Well, then, just try Poll Hanigan's attempt
+at a grouse-pie; let me tell you, there is genius in the very ambition;
+she got the receipt from the cook at Cro' Martin, and the imitation is
+highly creditable. You 're wrong to decline it." And he helped himself
+amply as he spoke.
+
+"But this note?" broke in the other, half impatiently.
+
+"Oh--ay--the note; I 'm sure I forget what I wrote; what was it about?
+Yes, to be sure, I remember now. I want you to make yourself known, up
+there. It is downright folly, if not worse, to be keeping up these feuds
+and differences in Ireland any longer; such a course might suit the
+small politicians of Oughterard, but you and I know better, and Martin
+himself knows better."
+
+"But I never took any part in the conflict you speak of; I lived out of
+it,--away from it."
+
+"And are therefore, exactly suited to repair a breach to which you
+never contributed. I assure you, my boy, the gentry--and I know them
+well--will meet you more than half-way. There is not a prouder fellow
+living than Martin there; he has throughout his whole life held his head
+higher than any man in our county, and yet he is quite ready to
+make advances towards you. Of course, what I say is strictly between
+ourselves; but my opinion is, that, if you like it, you may be as
+intimate up there as ever you were at old Hayes's, at the Priory."
+
+"Then, what would you have me do?" asked Nelligan.
+
+"Just pay a visit there this morning; say that you are curious to see
+that great picture,--and it is a wonderful thing, if only for the size
+of it; or that you 'd like to have a look at Arran Island out of the big
+telescope at the top of the house; anything will serve as a reason, and
+then,--why, leave the rest to chance."
+
+"But really, Maurice, I see no sufficient cause for all this," said the
+youth, timidly.
+
+"Look now, Joe," said the other, drawing his chair closer to him, and
+talking in the low and measured tone of a confidence,--"look now, you're
+not going to pass your life as the successor to that excellent man, Dan
+Nelligan, of Oughterard, selling hides and ropes and ten-penny-nails,
+and making an estate the way old ladies make a patchwork quilt. You'll
+be able to start in life with plenty of tin and plenty of talent; you'll
+have every advantage that money and education can give, and only one
+drawback on your road to success,--the mere want of blood,--that dash of
+birth which forms the only real freemasonry in this world. Now mind me,
+Joe; the next best thing to having this oneself is to live and associate
+with those who have; for in time, what with catching up their prejudices
+and learning their ways, you come to feel very much as they do; and,
+what is better still, they begin to regard you as one of themselves."
+
+"But if I do not ambition this,--if I even reject it?" said the other,
+impatiently.
+
+"Then all I say is that Trinity College may make wonderful scholars, but
+turns out mighty weak men of the world!"
+
+"Perhaps so!" said Nelligan, dryly, and with a half-nettled air.
+
+"I suppose you fancy there would be something like slavery in such a
+position?" said Scanlan, with a derisive look.
+
+"I know it!" responded the other, firmly.
+
+"Then what do you say to the alternative,--and there is but one only
+open to you,--what do you think of spending your life as a follower of
+Daniel O'Connell; of being reminded every day and every hour that you
+have not a privilege nor a place that he did n't win for you; that he
+opened Parliament to you, and made you free of every guild where men
+of ability rise to honor? Ay, Joe! and what 's a thousand times
+worse,--knowing it all to be true, my boy! Take service with him once,
+and if you leave him you 're a renegade; remember that, and bethink you
+that there's no saying what crotchet he may have in store for future
+agitation."
+
+"But I never purposed any such part for myself," broke in Nelligan.
+
+"Never mind, it will fall to your lot for all that, if you don't quickly
+decide against it. What's Simmy Crow staring at? Look at him down there,
+he's counting every window in the street like a tax-gatherer." And
+he pointed to the artist, who, shading his eyes with one hand, stood
+peering at every house along the little street. "What's the matter,
+Simmy?" cried he, opening the casement.
+
+"It's a house I'm looking for, down here, and I forget which it is;
+bother them, they 're all so like at this time of the year when they 're
+empty."
+
+"Are you in search of a lodging, Simmy?"
+
+"No, it is n't that!" said the other, curtly, and still intent on his
+pursuit. "Bad luck to the architect that would n't vary what they call
+the 'fa�ade,' and give one some chance of finding the place again."
+
+"Who is it you want, man?"
+
+"Faix, and I don't even know that same!" replied the artist; "but"--and
+he lowered his voice to a whisper as he spoke--"he's an elegant study,--
+as fine a head and face and as beautiful a beard as ever you saw. I met
+him at Kyle's Wood a week ago, begging; and what with his fine forehead
+and deep-set blue eyes, his long white hair, and his great shaggy
+eyebrows, I said to myself: 'Belisarius,' says I, 'by all that's
+grand,--a Moses, a Marino Faliero, or a monk in a back parlor
+discoursing to an old skull and a vellum folio,--any one of these,' says
+I, 'not to speak of misers, money-lenders, or magicians, as well;' and
+so I coaxed him down here on Saturday last, and put him somewhere to
+sleep, with a good supper and a pint of spirits, and may I never, if I
+know where I left him."
+
+"Three days ago?"
+
+"Just so; and worse than all, I shut up the place quite dark, and only
+made a hole in the roof, just to let a fine Rembrandt light fall down on
+his head. Oh, then, it's no laughing matter, Maurice! Sure if anything
+happened to him--"
+
+"Your life wouldn't be worth sixpence before any jury in the county."
+
+"Begad! it's what I was thinking; if they wouldn't take it as a
+practical joke."
+
+"You're looking for ould Brennan!" cried a weather-beaten hag; "but he's
+gone to Oughterard for a summons. You'll pay dear for your tricks this
+time, anyhow."
+
+"Come up here, Simmy, and never mind her," said Scanlan; then, turning
+to Nelligan, he added, "There's not such a character in the county!
+
+"I want my friend, Mr. Nelligan, here--Mr. Nelligan--Mr. Crow--I want
+him, I say, to come up and have a look at the great 'Historical '--eh,
+Simmy!--would n't it astonish him?"
+
+"Are you a votary of art, sir?" asked Crow, modestly.
+
+"I 've never seen what could be called a picture, except those portraits
+in the College Examination Hall might be deemed such."
+
+"Indeed, and they're not worthy the name, sir. Flood, mayhap, is like,
+but he's hard and stiff, and out of drawing; and Lord Clare is worse.
+It's in the Low Countries you 'd see portraits, real portraits! men that
+look down on you out of the canvas, as if _you_ were the intruder there,
+and that _they_ were waiting to know what brought you. A sturdy old
+Burgomaster, for instance, with a red-brown beard and a fierce pair
+of eyes, standing up firm as a rock on a pair of legs that made many a
+drawbridge tremble as he walked home to dinner on the Grand Canal, at
+Rotterdam, after finishing some mighty bargain for half a spice island,
+or paying a million of guilders down as a dowry for that flaxen-haired,
+buxom damsel in the next frame. Look at the dimples in her neck, and
+mark the folds in her satin. Is n't she comely, and calm, and haughty,
+and house-wifery, all together? Mind her foot, it isn't small, but see
+the shape of it, and the way it presses the ground--ay, just so--my
+service to you; but you are one there 's no joking with, even if one was
+alone with you." And he doffed his hat, and bowed obsequiously as he
+spoke.
+
+"You're an enthusiast for your art?" said Nelligan, interested by the
+unmistakable sincerity of his zeal.
+
+"I am, sir," was the brief reply.
+
+"And the painter's is certainly a glorious career."
+
+"If for nothing else," burst in Crow, eagerly, "that it can make of one
+like me--poor, ignorant, and feeble, as I am--a fellow-soldier in
+the same army with Van Dyke and Titian and Velasquez--to know that in
+something that they thought, or hoped, or dared, or tried to do, I too
+have my share! You think me presumptuous to say this; you are sneering
+at such a creature as Simmy Crow for the impudence of such a boast, but
+it's in humility I say it, ay, in downright abject humility; for I 'd
+rather have swept out Rembrandt's room, and settled his rough boards on
+Cuyp's easel, than I 'd be a--a--battle-axe guard, or a lord-in-waiting,
+or anything else you like, that's great and grand at court."
+
+"I envy you a pursuit whose reward is in the practice rather than in the
+promise," said Nelligan, thoughtfully. "Men like myself labor that they
+may reach some far-away land of rewards and successes, and bear the
+present that they may enjoy the future."
+
+[Illustration: 114]
+
+"Ay, but it will repay you well, by all accounts," said Crow. "Miss Mary
+told us last night how you had beat every one out of the field, and had
+n't left a single prize behind you."
+
+"Who said this?" cried Joe, eagerly.
+
+"Miss Mary,--Miss Martin. She said it was a credit to us all of the
+west, here, that there was one, at least, from Galway, who could do
+something besides horse-racing and cock-fighting--"
+
+"So she did," said Scanlan, interrupting, with some confusion. "She
+said somebody had told her of young Nelligan. She called you 'Young
+Nelligan.'"
+
+"No, no; it was to myself she said it, and the words were, 'Mr. Joseph
+Nelligan;' and then, when her uncle said, 'Why don't we know him? '--"
+
+"My dear Simmy, you make a most horrible confusion when you attempt a
+story,--out of canvas. Mind, I said out of canvas; for I confess that in
+your grand 'Historical' the whole incident is admirably detailed. I 've
+just said to my friend here, that he has a great pleasure before him in
+seeing that picture."
+
+"If you 'll do me the honor to look at it," said Crow, bowing
+courteously, "when you come to dinner to-day."
+
+"Attend to _me_, Joe," said Scanlan, passing an arm within Nelligan's,
+and leading him away to another part of the room; "that fellow is little
+better than an idiot. But I was just going to tell you what Martin said.
+'You are intimate with young Nelligan,' said he; 'you know him well, and
+you could possibly do without awkwardness what with more formality
+might be difficult. Don't you think, then, that he would possibly waive
+ceremony--'"
+
+"I must be off," broke in Crow, hastily. "I have a sitting at twelve
+o'clock, so I hope we shall see you at seven, Mr. Nelligan; your note
+said seven, sharp." And without waiting for more, he seized his hat and
+hurried down the stairs.
+
+"A downright fool!" said Scanlan, angrily. "Mr. Martin said he 'd write
+to you, if--if--if, in fact, you stood upon that punctilio; but that
+he'd be all the better pleased if you 'd just accept acquaintance as
+freely as he offered it, and come and dine there to-day, like a friend."
+
+"Is n't there, or has there not been, some difference between him and my
+father?" asked Joe.
+
+"A trifle,--and a mistake; the kind of thing that two men of calm heads
+and common sense could have settled in five minutes, and which, to say
+the truth, Martin was right in throughout. It's all passed and over now,
+however, and it would be worse than foolish to revive it. There 's Miss
+Martin!" cried he, "and I have a word to say to her;" and hurried off
+without waiting for more. As he passed from the room, however, a letter
+fell from his pocket; and as Nelligan stooped to take it up, he saw that
+it was addressed to himself. He looked hesitatingly at it for a moment
+or two, scarcely knowing whether or not he ought to break the seal. "It
+was meant for me, at all events," said he, and opened it. The contents
+were as follows;--
+
+"Mr. Martin presents his respects to Mr. Joseph Nelligan, and will feel
+happy if--excusing the want of formal introduction--Mr. Nelligan will
+admit him to the honor of acquaintance, and give him the pleasure of
+his society at dinner, to-morrow, at seven o'clock. Mr. Martin does not
+hesitate to say that to accept this unceremonious proposal will be felt
+as a very great favor indeed by him and his family."
+
+"What does Scanlan mean by all this? Why not have handed me this note at
+once?" was Nelligan's question to himself, as he descended the stairs
+and gained the street. He was not sorry that Scanlan was not in sight,
+and hastened homeward to think over this strange communication. Joe well
+knew that his mother was not peculiarly endowed with worldly wisdom or
+acuteness; and yet such was his need of counsel at the moment, that
+he determined, at least in part, to lay the case before her. "She
+can certainly tell me," said he, "if there be any reason why I should
+decline this proposal." And with this resolve he entered the cottage.
+
+"Don't you remember Catty Henderson, Joe?" said his mother, as he came
+into the room, and presenting a young girl, very plainly but
+neatly dressed, who arose to receive him with an air of well-bred
+composure,--"Catty, that used to be your playfellow long ago?"
+
+"I didn't know you were in Ireland, Miss Henderson. I should never have
+recognized you," said Nelligan, in some confusion.
+
+"Nor was I till a few days back," said she, in an accent very slightly
+tinged with a foreign pronunciation. "I came home on Tuesday."
+
+"Isn't she grown, joe? and such a fine girl, too. I always said she 'd
+be so; and when the others would have it that your nose was too long for
+the rest of your features, I said, 'Wait till she grows up,--wait till
+she 's a woman;' and see now if I 'm not right."
+
+It must be owned that Joe Nelligan's confusion during the delivery of
+this prophetic criticism was far greater than Catty's own, who received
+the speech with a low, gentle laugh, while Mrs. Nelligan went on: "I
+made her stay till you came back, Joe, for I wanted her to see what
+a tall creature you are, and not more than twenty,--her own age to
+a month; and I told her what a genius you turned out, indeed, to the
+surprise of us all, and myself, especially."
+
+"Thank you, mother," said he, smiling.
+
+"No, indeed, my dear, 't is your father you may thank for all your
+talents and abilities; a wonderful man he is, beginning the world
+without a sixpence; and there he is now, with I 'm sure I don't know how
+many hundreds a year in land,--ay, Catty, in broad acres; just like any
+squire in the county. Well, well, there 's many a change come over the
+country since you were here,--how many years is it now?"
+
+"Upwards of twelve," said the young girl. "Dear me, how time flies! It
+seems like yesterday that you and Joe had the measles together, in the
+yellow room up at Broom Lodge, and your poor mother was alive then, and
+would insist on giving you everything cool to drink, just because you
+liked it, though I told her that was exactly the reason it was sure to
+be bad for you; for there 's nothing so true in life,--that everything
+we wish for is wrong."
+
+"An unpleasant theory, certainly," said Catty, laughing; "but I hope
+not of universal application, for I have been long wishing to see you
+again."
+
+"Well, well, who knows whether it may be good or bad," said she,
+sighing; "not but I 'm pleased to see you growing up the image of
+your poor dear mother,--taller, maybe, but not so handsome, nor so
+genteel-looking; but when you have your trials and troubles, as she had,
+maybe that will come, too, for I often remarked, there 's nothing like
+affliction to make one genteel."
+
+"Why, mother, you are profuse in unhappy apothegms this morning," said
+Joe.
+
+"And you are coming to stay amongst us now, Catty; or are you going back
+to France again?" said Mrs. Nelligan, not heeding the remark.
+
+"I scarcely know, as yet," replied the young girl. "My father's letter
+to summon me home said something about placing me as a governess, if I
+were capable of the charge."
+
+"Of course you are, my dear, after all your advantages; not but that I
+'d rather see you anything else,--a nice light business; for instance,
+in baby-linen or stationery, or in Miss Busk's establishment, if that
+could be accomplished."
+
+A very slight flush--so slight as to be nearly imperceptible--crossed
+the young girl's cheek, but not a syllable escaped her, as Mrs. Nelligan
+resumed,--
+
+"And there was an excellent opening the other day at the Post here, in
+the circulating-library way, and lending out a newspaper or two. I don't
+know how much you might make of it. Not but maybe you 'd rather be
+companion to a lady, or what they call a 'nervous invalid.'"
+
+"That, too, has been thought of," said the girl, smiling; "but I have
+little choice in the matter, and, happily, as little preference for one
+as the other of these occupations. And now I must take my leave, for I
+promised to be back by two o'clock."
+
+"Well, there's Joe will see you home with pleasure, and I 'm sure you
+have plenty to say to each other about long ago; not but I hope you 'll
+agree better than you did then. You were the torment of my life, the way
+you used to fight."
+
+"I couldn't think of trespassing on Mr. Joseph's time; I should be
+quite ashamed of imposing such trouble on him. So good-bye, godmamma;
+good-bye, Mr. Joseph," said she, hurriedly throwing her shawl around
+her.
+
+"If you will allow me to accompany you," said Joseph, scarcely knowing
+whether she rejected or accepted his escort.
+
+"To be sure she will, and you have both more sense than to fall out now;
+and mind, Joseph, you 're to be here at four, for I asked Mrs. Cronan to
+dinner."
+
+"Oh, that reminds me of something," said Joe, hurriedly; and he leaned
+over his mother's chair, and whispered to her, "Mr. Martin has invited
+me to dine with him to-day; here is his note, which came to me in rather
+a strange fashion."
+
+"To dine at the Nest! May I never! But I scarcely can believe my eyes,"
+said Mrs. Nelligan, in ecstasy. "And the honor, and the pleasure, too;
+well, well, you 're the lucky boy."
+
+"What shall I do, mother; is n't there something between my father and
+him?"
+
+"What will you do but go; what else would you do, I 'd like to know?
+What will they say at the Post when they hear it?"
+
+"But I want you to hear how this occurred."
+
+"Well, well; I don't care,--go you must, Joe. But there 's poor Catty
+walking away all alone; just overtake her, and say that a sudden
+invitation from the Martins--mention it as if you were up there every
+day--"
+
+But young Nelligan did not wait for the conclusion of this artful
+counsel, but hurrying after Catty Henderson, overtook her as she had
+gained the beach.
+
+"I have no need of an escort, Mr. Joseph," said she, good-humoredly. "I
+know every turn of the way here."
+
+"But you'll not refuse my companionship?" said he. "We have scarcely
+spoken to each other yet." And as he spoke he drew his arm within her
+own, and they walked along in silence.
+
+"My mother thinks we did nothing but quarrel long ago," said he, after a
+pause; "but if my memory serves me truly, it was upon this very pathway
+we once swore to each other vows of a very different kind. Do you
+recollect anything of that, Miss Henderson?"
+
+"I do, Mr. Joseph," said she, with a sly half-glance as she uttered the
+last word.
+
+"Then why 'Mr. Joseph'?" said he, half reproachfully.
+
+"Why 'Miss Henderson'?" said she, with a malicious smile at the other's
+confusion; for somehow Joseph's manner was far less easy than her own.
+
+"I scarcely know why," replied he, after a short silence, "except that
+you seem so changed; and I myself, too, am probably in your eyes as much
+altered--from what we both were, that--that--"
+
+"That, in short, it would be impossible to link the past with the
+present," said she, quickly; "and you were quite right. I 'm convinced
+the effort is always a failure, and prejudices in a hundred ways the
+good qualities of those who attempt it. Let us, therefore, begin our
+acquaintance here; learn to know each other as we are,--that is, if we
+are to know each other at all."
+
+"Why do you say that?" asked he, eagerly.
+
+"For many reasons. We may not meet often; perhaps not at all; perhaps
+under circumstances where to renew intimacy might be difficult.
+Assuredly, although the path here might once have sufficed us, our roads
+in life lie widely apart now, and the less we travel together the more
+we shall each go towards his own goal, and--and the less regret we shall
+feel at parting; and so now good-bye."
+
+"You wish it?" said he, reproachfully. "You desire this?"
+
+"What matters it whether I wish it or not? I know it must be. Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, then,--good-bye," said he, affecting as much indifference as
+he could; and then, slightly raising his hat, he turned away on the road
+homeward.
+
+Joseph Nelligan's reflections were not of the pleasantest as he
+sauntered slowly back. He was not exactly satisfied with himself; he
+felt, he could not just say how, that the young girl had had the mastery
+over him; she was more calm or self-possessed; she had more tact, or she
+knew more of life; had more of self-control, or breeding, or some other
+quality, whatever it might be, than he had. At all events, he was ill
+at ease and discontented. Then he doubted whether he ought to have taken
+her at her word when she talked of parting. It might, possibly, have
+been meant by her to evoke some show of resistance on his part; that
+same inequality of station she seemed to hint at might, perhaps, demand
+from him a greater deference. In fact, whichever way he turned the
+matter over, he saw little cause for self-gratulation; nor did he
+discover that it mended matters when he tried to accuse her of French
+frivolity, and such other traits as he fancied of foreign origin.
+
+In this not over-pleasant mood was it that he re-entered the cottage,
+where his mother was busy in preparing a very formidable cravat for the
+approaching dinner-party.
+
+"Ah, Joe!" said she, anxiously, "if you were to dress now, and then stay
+quiet, you 'd be quite fresh when the time came; for, remember, it's not
+like your father you are, that has the world about him, and can converse
+about everything that comes uppermost; but with all your learning, you
+know, you always feel somehow--"
+
+"Stupid, mother?"
+
+"Not stupid, my dear, but depressed,--out of spirits in society; so
+that my advice to you is, now, dress yourself in good time, take a small
+glass of ginger-cordial, and throw your eye over the second chapter of
+'Social Hints,' with an account of conversation before and at dinner,
+and some excellent advice about'compliments, meet for every season of
+the year.'"
+
+"Do you think such preparations quite necessary, mother?" asked Joe,
+slyly; for he rather relished the simplicity of her counsels.
+
+"To be sure, I do; for yours is no common difficulty, Joe. If you talk
+of country matters, you 'll get into Kyle's Wood and the Chancery suit;
+if you touch politics or religion, it will be worse again. The Martins,
+I hear, never play cards, so you can't allude to them; and they 'll
+be too grand to know anything about poor Miss Cuddy going off with the
+sergeant of police, or what Con Kelly did with his aunt's furniture."
+
+"So that really the topics open to me are marvellously few."
+
+"Well, there's shooting; but to be sure you know nothing about that, nor
+fishing, either; and I suppose farming, if you did understand it, would
+n't be genteel. Indeed, I see little that is n't dangerous, except the
+dearness of everything. I remark that's a subject nobody ever tires of,
+and all can take their share in."
+
+"And I conclude it to be fact, mother?"
+
+"A very melancholy fact, my dear; and so I said to Betty Gargan,
+yesterday. 'It's well for _you_,' said I, 'and the likes of you, that
+use nothing but potatoes; but think of us, that have to pay sixpence a
+pound for mutton, six-and-a-half for the prime pieces, and veal not to
+be had under eightpence.' They talk of the poor, indeed! but sure they
+never suffer from a rise in butcher's meat, and care nothing at all what
+tea costs. I assure you I made the tears come into her eyes, with the
+way I described our hardships."
+
+"So that this will be a safe subject for me, mother?"
+
+"Perfectly safe, my dear, and no ways mean, either; for I always
+remarked that the higher people are, the stingier they are, and the more
+pleasure they take in any little sharp trick that saves them sixpence.
+And when that 's exhausted, just bring in the Rams."
+
+"The Rams?"
+
+"I mean my aunt Ram, and my relations in Wexford. I 'm sure, with a
+little address, you 'll be able to show how I came to be married beneath
+me, and all the misery it cost me."
+
+"Well, mother, I believe I have now ample material," said Joe, rising,
+with a lively dread of an opening which he knew well boded a lengthy
+exposition; "and to my own want of skill must it be ascribed if I do not
+employ it profitably." And with this he hurried to his room to prepare
+for the great event.
+
+The "Gentlemen of England" do not deem it a very formidable circumstance
+to repair towards seven, or half-past, to a dinner-party, even of the
+dullest and most rigid kind. There is a sombre "routine" in these cases,
+so recognized that each goes tolerably well prepared for the species
+of entertainment before him. There is nothing very exhilarating in the
+prospect, and as little to depress. It is a leaf torn out of one of the
+tamest chapters in life's diary, where it is just as rare to record a
+new dish as a new idea, and where the company and the cookery are both
+foreknown.
+
+No one goes with any exaggerated expectations of enjoyment; but as
+little does he anticipate anything to discompose or displease him.
+The whole thing is very quiet and well-bred; rather dull, but not
+unpleasant. Now, Joseph Nelligan had not graduated as a "diner-out;" he
+was about as ignorant of these solemn festivals as any man well could
+be. He was not, therefore, without a certain sense of anxiety as to the
+conversational requisites for such occasions. Would the company rise to
+themes and places and people of which he had never as much as heard?
+or would they treat of ordinary events, and if so, on what terms? If
+politics came to be discussed, would Mr. Martin expect him to hear in
+silence opinions from which he dissented? Dare he speak his sentiments,
+at the cost of directing attention to himself?--a course he would fain
+have avoided. These, and innumerable other doubts, occupied him as he
+was dressing, and made him more than once regret that he had determined
+to accept this invitation; and when the hour at last came for him to set
+out, he felt a sense of shrinking terror of what was before him greater
+than he had ever known as he mounted the dreaded steps of the College
+Examination Hall.
+
+He might, it is true, have bethought him of the fact that where Simmy
+Crow and Maurice Scanlan were guests, he too might pass muster without
+reproach; but he did not remember this, or, at least, it failed to
+impress him sufficiently. Nor was his dread without a certain dash of
+vanity, as he thought of the contrast between the humble place he was
+perhaps about to occupy at a great man's table, and the proud one he
+had achieved in the ranks of scholarship and science. Thus musing, he
+sauntered slowly along till he found himself in front of the little
+garden of the Osprey's Nest. He looked at his watch,--it was exactly
+seven; so he pulled the bell, and entered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE MARTIN ARMS
+
+In the small and not over-neat parlor of the Martin Arms at Oughterard,
+a young man sat at his breakfast, at times casting his eyes over the
+columns of the "Vindicator," and anon strolling to the window to watch
+the gathering of the country people at the weekly market. The scene
+was one of that mingled bustle and languor so characteristically Irish.
+Cart-loads of turf, vegetables, fruit, or turkeys blocked up the narrow
+passage between booths of fancy wares, gilt jewelry, crockery, and
+cutlery; the vendors all eagerly vociferating commendations of their
+stores, in chorus with still more clamorous beggars, or the discordant
+notes of vagrant minstrelsy. Some animal monstrosity, announced by a
+cracked-voiced herald and two clarionets, added to a din to which loud
+laughter contributed its share of uproar.
+
+The assemblage was entirely formed of the country people, many of whom
+made the pretext of having a pig or a lamb to sell the reason of
+their coming; but, in reality, led thither by the native love of a
+gathering,--that fondness to be where their neighbors were,--without
+any definite aim or object. There was, then, in strong contrast to the
+anxious solicitation of all who had aught to sell, the dreary, languid,
+almost apathetic look of the mere lounger, come to while away his weary
+hour and kill time just like any very bored fine gentleman who airs his
+listlessness along St James's Street, or lazily canters his _ennui_ down
+Rotten Row.
+
+Jack Massingbred--for he was the traveller whose straw hat and knapsack
+stood upon a table near--was amused at a scene so full of its native
+characteristics. The physiognomy, the dress, the bearing of the people,
+their greetings as they met, their conduct of a bargain, all bespoke a
+nation widely differing from the sister country, and set him a-dreaming
+as to how it was that equality of laws might very possibly establish
+anything but equality of condition amongst people so dissimilar.
+
+[Illustration: 126]
+
+While thus musing, his eye chanced to rest upon the half-effaced
+inscription over a shop door in front, and where the name of Daniel
+Nelligan figured as "licensed for all kinds of groceries and spirits."
+"Nelligan," repeated he to himself, "I shall certainly quiz my friend
+Joe, when we meet, about his namesake in Oughterard. How good it would
+be to pick up some details of our friend opposite to torment him with!
+What rare fun to affect to have discovered a near relative in this man
+of hides, glue, sugar, and Jamaica rum! Eh, gad, I'll try it." And with
+this resolve he crossed the street at once, and soon found himself in
+the compact crowd which thronged the doorway of this popular shop.
+
+It was, indeed, a busy scene, since many who were there came as much
+sellers as buyers, giving all the complexity of barter to their several
+transactions. Here was a staid country-woman exchanging her spunyarn, or
+her "cloth," as it is called, for various commodities in tea, candles,
+and such like; here a farmer, with a sample of seed-oats in his
+pocket-handkerchief, of which he wanted the value in certain farm
+utensils; here was another, with a stout roll of home-made frieze to
+dispose of; some were even fain to offer a goose or a hen as the medium
+for a little tobacco, or some equally tempting luxury of cottier life.
+But there was another class of customers, who, brushing their way
+through the throng, made for a small, dingy-looking chamber behind
+the shop, in which Mr. Nelligan performed the functions of banker and
+money-lender, discounting small bills, advancing loans, and transacting
+all the various duties of a petty capitalist,--means by which, it was
+alleged, he had already amassed a very ample fortune.
+
+An announcement in writing on the glass door of this sanctum informed
+Massingbred that "bank-notes" were exchanged, and "small loans advanced
+on good security," suggesting to him at once the means of opening an
+acquaintance with the interior. Without any very definite purpose,
+however, he now found himself one of a very closely packed crowd within
+the chamber. At a small desk, around which ran a railing of about a foot
+in height, serving, as it were, to "filter the stream" of solicitation
+that poured in upon him, sat a dark-eyed, bilious-looking man of about
+fifty; a black wig, cut in two deep arches over the temples, showed
+a strongly formed, massive head, very favorably in contrast to the
+features beneath it, which were only indicative of intense shrewdness
+and cunning. The eyes, in particular, were restless and furtive-looking,
+distrust and suspicion giving their entire expression,--qualities, it
+was to be owned, in very active employment in the intercourse of his
+daily life.
+
+The anxious looks around him--careworn, eager, tremulous with anxiety
+as they were--seemed the very opposite to his own, full of the security
+that a strong purse bestows, and stern in the conscious strength of his
+affluence.
+
+"It won't do, Hagan," said he, with a half-smile, as he pushed back
+through the grating a very dirty, discolored piece of paper. "You 'll
+be off to America before it comes due. I would n't take the
+Lord-Lieutenant's note at six months, as times go."
+
+"See, now, Mr. Nelligan," replied the other, pressing his face close
+to the cage, and talking with intense eagerness. "May I never see
+Christmas, but I 'll pay it 'T was marryin' the daughter left me low in
+cash; but with the blessing of God and your help--"
+
+"I hope you 're more certain of the blessing than the help. What's
+this with the string round it?" continued Nelligan, addressing another
+applicant.
+
+"'T is a roll of notes I wanted to ax your honor about. Molly never 'let
+on' she had them till Friday last; and now that James is going away, and
+wants a trifle to fit him out--"
+
+"Why, they're French's Bank, man, that broke years ago,--they 're not
+worth a farthing!"
+
+"Arrah, don't say so, and God reward you," cried the poor fellow, while
+his eyes filled up and his lip trembled convulsively; "don't take the
+hope out of my heart all at onst. Look at them again, your honor, and
+maybe you 'll think different."
+
+"If I did, I 'd be as great a fool as yourself, Patsy. The bank is
+closed, and the banker dead this many a day; and I would n't give
+you sixpence for sixty thousand of them. Take him out in the fresh
+air,--give him a mouthful of water," added he, hastily, as the wretched
+countryman staggered back, sick, and almost fainting with the sad
+tidings.
+
+"Mrs. Mooney," said he, addressing a pale, mild-featured woman in a
+widow's cap and black gown, "you can't expect to hear from Dublin for a
+week or ten days to come. It takes some time to administer; but if you
+are in want of a few pounds--"
+
+"No, sir, thank you," said she, in a low voice; "but as I can't go back
+to the place again,--as I 'll never be able to live there now--"
+
+"Don't be in a hurry, Mrs. Mooney, do nothing rash. None of us know what
+we can do till we 're tried. There's Miles Dogherty never thought he 'd
+be paying me that eight pound fifteen he owes me, and see now if he is
+n't come with it to-day."
+
+"Faix, and I am not," sturdily responded a very powerfully built man in
+the comfortable dress of a substantial farmer. "I don't owe it, and
+I 'll never pay it; and what's more, if you get a decree against me
+to-morrow, I'd sell every stick and stone in the place and go to 'Quay
+bec'."
+
+"Indeed you would n't, Miles, not a bit more than I'd go and take the
+law of an old friend and neighbor."
+
+"Faix, I never thought you would," said the stout man, wiping his
+forehead, and appearing as if he had forgotten his wrath.
+
+"And now, Miles, what about that water-course?" said Nelligan,
+good-humoredly; "are you content to leave it to any two fair men--"
+
+As he got thus far, his eye for the first time fell upon Massingbred,
+who, with folded arms, was leaning against a wall, an attentive
+spectator of the whole scene.
+
+"That is a stranger yonder! what can he want here?" said Nelligan, who
+watched the attentive look of Massingbred's face with considerable
+distrust. He whispered a few words into the ear of a man beside him,
+who, making his way through the crowd, addressed the young man with--
+
+"It's the master, sir, wants to know if he could do anything for your
+honor?"
+
+"For _me?_ oh, you spoke to _me?_" said Massingbred, suddenly recalled
+to himself. "Yes, to be sure; I wanted to know--that is, I was
+thinking--" And he stopped to try and remember by what device he had
+purposed making Mr. Nelligan's acquaintance.
+
+While he thus stood doubting and confused, his eyes suddenly met the
+black, searching, deep-set orbs that peered at him behind the grating;
+and without knowing how or why, he slowly approached him.
+
+"In what way can I be of any use to you, sir?" said Nelligan, in a tone
+which very palpably demanded the reason of his presence there.
+
+Jack Massingbred was eminently "cool,"--that is, he was possessed of
+that peculiar assurance which rarely suffers itself to be ruffled by a
+difficulty. In the intercourse of society, and with men of the world, he
+could have submitted to any test unabashed; and yet now, in presence of
+this shrewd-looking and very commonplace personage, he, somehow, felt
+marvellously ill at ease, and from the simple reason that the man before
+whom he stood was not of his "world," but one of a set of whose habits
+and thoughts and ways he was in utter ignorance.
+
+Nelligan's question was a second time addressed to him, and in the same
+words, before he thought of framing a reply to it. For a second or two
+it occurred to him to say that he had strolled in, half inadvertently,
+and apologizing for the intrusion, to withdraw; but his pride was
+offended at the notion of defeat this conduct implied, and with an
+assumption of that conventional impudence far more natural to him, he
+said,--
+
+"It was your name, sir, attracted me--the name 'Nelligan' which I read
+over your door--being that of a very dear and valued friend of mine,
+suggested to me to inquire whether you might not be relatives."
+
+The cool indifference which accompanied these words, uttered as they
+were in a certain languid drawl, were very far from predisposing
+Nelligan in favor of the speaker; while the pretence of attaching
+any singularity to a name so common as his own, struck him at once as
+indicative of covert impertinence.
+
+"Nelligan is not a very remarkable name down here, sir," dryly responded
+he.
+
+"Very possibly," replied Jack, with all his accustomed ease. "I know
+little or nothing of Ireland. Your namesake, or your relative, perhaps,
+was a college friend of mine, but to what part of the country he
+belonged, I never knew."
+
+The words, "a college friend," roused the other's anxiety, and leaning
+forward eagerly, and dropping his voice to a whisper, he said,--
+
+"Where? In what college, may I ask, sir?"
+
+"In Trinity, Dublin."
+
+"The Medallist of this year, you mean?" said the other, almost
+breathless in his anxiety.
+
+"Just so. The same fellow who has been sweeping away all the honors of
+his day. You have heard of him, it would seem?"
+
+"He is my son, sir. I 'm Joe Nelligan's father!"
+
+Massingbred's astonishment did not betray itself by any change of
+feature; not a word escaped him; but his eye ranged over the scene
+around him, and came back to rest upon old Nelligan's face with an
+expression of the calmest meaning.
+
+"What a fortunate accident--for _me_, I mean," continued he. "Joe and
+I are very dear friends, and it is a great happiness for me to make
+his father's acquaintance. Is he with you now?" "No, sir; he's at the
+sea,--a place called Kilkieran, about twenty miles away; but we 'll have
+him back by tomorrow if you 'll stay with us, and I 'm sure you 'll not
+refuse me that pleasure. The young gentleman who is my son's friend, is
+mine also, if he 'll permit me to call him so; and now just tell me what
+name shall I say?--who is it that I 'm to tell Joe has arrived here?"
+
+"Say that Jack Massingbred is come, and I 'll lay my life on't you'll
+see him here as fast as may be."
+
+"And now, Mr. Massingbred, just take up your quarters with us. Where are
+you stopping? I 'll send over the boy for your trunks, for I need n't
+say that this must be your home while you stay at Oughterard." The
+genial tone of warm hospitality in which he now spoke made him seem
+a very different man from the hard-featured old money-lender he had
+appeared when Jack first beheld him, and Massingbred returned his
+cordial shake hands with a pressure equal to his own, while he said,--
+
+"Be assured that I accept your offer most heartily. My whole baggage is
+a knapsack and a fishing-rod, so that if you admit me as your guest you
+must dispense with all beyond the very humblest requirements. I have no
+coat, except this on me; and, when I brush my hair, I have dressed for
+dinner."
+
+"You are amongst very humble people, Mr. Massingbred,--a country
+shopkeeper, and his wife, and son,--and they 'll be only too happy to
+feel that you don't despise their company. Come, and I 'll show you your
+room." And so saying, Nelligan led him up a narrow stair, and at the
+end of a corridor opened a door into a neatly furnished chamber, which
+looked out into a spacious garden. The whole interior was scrupulously
+clean and comfortable; and as Jack surveyed his new dominions, he
+inwardly blessed his good fortune that had piloted him into such a
+haven.
+
+"I 'll just step down and write to Joe. Meanwhile you 'll have your
+things brought over to you. Make yourself at home here--at least, as
+much as you can in such a place--and when you want anything, just ask
+for it." And with these words old Nelligan left him to his own thoughts.
+
+Whatever savored of an adventure was the delight of Jack Massingbred.
+He was one of those men whose egotism takes the shape of playing hero to
+themselves,--a tolerably large category amongst the spoiled children
+of this world. To be thrown into any strange or novel position, with
+associates he was unused to, and amidst circumstances totally unlike all
+he had ever met before, was his great happiness; and although here there
+was nothing like actual peril to heighten the zest of the enjoyment,
+there was a certain dash of embarrassment in the situation that
+increased its piquancy. This embarrassment lay in his approaching
+meeting with young Nelligan.
+
+All the reserve his young college friend had maintained with regard to
+his family was at once explained; and Jack began to think over how
+often it must have occurred to him to say the most galling and offensive
+things in his ignorance of Nelligan's real station. "If he had been
+frank and open with me," said he to himself, "this would never have
+happened." But therein Jack made two errors, since Nelligan was in no
+wise bound to make such revelations, nor was Massingbred the man to
+distinguish himself amongst his associates by a close friendship with
+the son of a country shopkeeper. He had been trained in a very different
+school, and taught to estimate his own station by the standard of
+his companionship. Indeed, he had witnessed the lenity which met his
+transgressions when they occurred in high company, and saw his father
+pay the debts he had contracted amongst titled associates with a far
+more generous forgiveness than had they taken their origin with
+more plebeian friends. "What could have induced the man to become a
+Fellow-Commoner," said he, over and over; "it is such a palpable piece
+of presumption?" The truth was, Jack felt excessively irritated at never
+having even suspected his friend's pretensions, and was eager to throw
+the blame of a deception where none had ever been practised.
+
+"They told me I should find everything very different here from in
+England, but they never hinted at anything like this." There came then
+another phase over his reflections, as he asked himself, "But what
+affair is it of mine? Nelligan never thrust himself on me, it was I that
+sought him. He never proposed introducing me to his family, it was I
+that made them out,--I, in fact, who have imposed myself upon them. If
+I deemed the old grocer _infra dig._, I need never have known him; but
+I have not felt this to be the case. He may be--indeed, Joe Nelligan's
+father ought to be--a very superior fellow, and at all events the whole
+situation is new, and must be amusing."
+
+Such was the course of his thoughts as he arranged his clothes in the
+little chest of drawers, put out his few books and papers on the table,
+and proceeded to make himself perfectly at home and comfortable in his
+new quarters.
+
+The embarrassments of selfish men are always lighter than those of other
+people, their egotism filling, as it does, such a very large space in
+the sea of their troubles. Thus was it that Massingbred suffered little
+discomfort at the thought of his friend Nelligan's probable shame and
+awkwardness, his thoughts being occupied by how he, clever fellow that
+he was, had traced out his home and origin,--won, by a few words, the
+old father's esteem, and established himself, by his own sharp wits, a
+guest of his house.
+
+"It is a downright adventure," said he; he even thought how the
+thing would tell afterwards at some convivial meeting, and set about
+dramatizing to himself his own part in the incident, to heighten the
+piquancy of the narrative. He resolved to conform in everything to the
+habits of the household,--to accommodate himself in all respects to
+old Nelligan's tastes, so that Joe should actually be amazed at the
+versatile resources of his nature, and struck with astonishment at this
+new evidence of his powers.
+
+Nor was Mr. Nelligan idle during all this time; the thought of a fellow
+collegian of his son Joe being a guest under his roof was a very proud
+and inspiring reflection. It was such a recognition of Joe's social
+claims,--so flat a contradiction to all the surmises of those who
+deprecated his college life, and said "that old Dan was wrong to put
+his boy into Trinity"--that he already regarded the incident as the full
+earnest of success.
+
+"What would have brought him here, if it wasn't for Joe? How would he
+ever have been under my roof, if he wasn't Joe's friend?" There was a
+palpable triumph here that nothing could gainsay, and with a proud heart
+he locked up his desk, resolving to do no more business that day, but
+make it one of enjoyment.
+
+"Who will I get to dine with us," thought he, "since Joe can't have
+the letter before this evening, and do his best he won't be here before
+morning?" The question of those who should fill the places around his
+board was a difficulty he had never experienced before, for Mr. Nelligan
+was the first man in Oughterard, and never had any trouble about his
+dinner company. His politics--very decided as they were--drew the line
+amongst his acquaintances, and the Liberal party well knew that they
+alone were the partakers of his hospitalities. There now, however, came
+the thought that the most respectable residents of the town--Dr. Dasy,
+of the Infirmary; Mr. Scanlan, the Attorney; and Morris Croft, the
+Adjutant of the Galway------were Conservatives. These were the
+fit company to meet young Massingbred, at least for the first day;
+afterwards, he might be introduced to their own set. And yet, Father
+Neal Rafferty would be outraged at all this. Peter Hayes, of the Priory,
+would never enter his doors again; and Peter Hayes had made a will in
+favor of Joe Nelligan, and left him every sixpence he had in the world.
+"What if we mixed them all together?" said Dan, fairly puzzled by all
+the conflicting interests. "A good dinner, some excellent port wine, and
+'lashings' of whiskey-punch, might mould the ingredients together--at
+least, when under the restraint of a stranger's presence--sufficiently
+to pass muster!"
+
+From his doubts as to how the experiment would succeed, came others
+as to whether the guests would condescend to meet; and thus his
+embarrassments went on increasing around him without his finding a way
+through them.
+
+"That's an elegant salmon I saw Catty bringing home to you, Nelligan?"
+said a red-faced man, with large white whiskers, and a most watery look
+in his eyes.
+
+"Yes, Brierley, there's a young gentleman just come down here--a friend
+of Joe's in college, to stop a day or two with us."
+
+"A nob?" said the other, with a wink.
+
+Nelligan nodded assent and went on,--
+
+"And I 'm just bothered how to get two or three to make company for
+him."
+
+"If it's grandeur you want, why don't you go over to the barracks there,
+and ask Captain Downie and the two others? Faix! it's a hearty welcome
+you 'd get, for they 've never seen the inside of Cro' Martin since the
+detachment came here."
+
+"It 's my own acquaintances I 'd like to ask to my house, Mat Brierley,"
+said Nelligan, proudly; "and the time was when they were n't shy of
+coming there."
+
+"What do you say to Peter Hayes, then?" said the other. "If you mean to
+do the civil thing, you'll ask him before he buys that old highwayman
+of a goose he's cheapening yonder; and there's Father Rafferty in the
+snuff-shop, and Tom Magennis, and myself-, and that makes six, just the
+right number for the little round table."
+
+Nelligan paused, and seemed to reflect over the proposition.
+
+"You 'll be quizzing the Englishman,--'taking a rise' out of the Saxon,
+Brierley?" said Nelligan, distrustfully.
+
+"Devil a bit; I know better manners than that!"
+
+"Tom Magennis would have at him about politics; I know he could n't
+refrain. And I need n't tell you that English notions are not ours upon
+these topics."
+
+"Give Tom a hint, and he 'll never touch the subject."
+
+"And Father Neal, will you vouch for him that he won't attack the
+Established Church, and abuse the Protestants?"
+
+"That I will, if he's not provoked to it."
+
+"Can you answer for yourself, Mat Brierley, that you won't try to borrow
+a five-pound note of him before the evening's over?" said Nelligan,
+laughingly.
+
+"I' ve a friend here," said Brierley, tapping the other on the breast,
+"that would never see me in want of such a trifle as that."
+
+Nelligan made no other reply to this speech than a somewhat awkward
+grimace, and walked hurriedly on to overtake a tall and very fat man
+that was just turning the corner of the street. This was Father Neal
+Rafferty. A very flourishing wave of his reverence's hand, and an urbane
+bend of his body, betokened the gracious acceptance he gave to the
+other's invitation; and Brierley walked away, muttering to himself:
+"They may thank me for this dinner, then; for old Dan was going to feed
+the 'swells,' if I had n't stopped him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. A DINNER-PARTY
+
+People who live much together in small and secluded districts, grow at
+length to feel a very great distrust for all strangers. Their own ways
+and their own topics have become such a perfect world to them, that to
+feel ignorant of these themes appears like affectation or contempt; and
+the luckless man who drops down into such a "coterie," is invariably
+deemed impertinent or a fool. Jack Massing-bred fully appreciated this
+difficulty; but it imparted such a piquancy to his "adventure," as he
+persisted in calling it to himself, that he would n't have dispensed
+with it, had he been able. It was in this temper he entered the room
+where the guests were now assembled, and, rather impatiently, awaiting
+his arrival.
+
+It is a very cold, calculating sort of interval, that ten minutes before
+dinner; and men regard the stranger presented to them with feelings far
+more critical than kindly. Massingbred did not go through the ordeal
+unscathed; and it was easy to see in the constraint and reserve of all
+present, how little his appearance contributed to the promise of future
+conviviality. He made no effort to dispel this impression, for, after
+saluting each in turn, he walked to the window, and amused himself with
+what was passing in the street.
+
+The dinner was announced at last, and passed off drearily enough; none
+liked to adventure on any topic of local interest, and they knew of
+little others. Brierley was stiffly polite; the priest blandly tranquil;
+the host himself uneasy and anxious; and poor old Peter Hayes, of the
+Priory, downright melancholy.
+
+Massingbred saw the effect he was producing, and saw it with pleasure.
+His calculation was this: "Had I started 'at speed' with these fellows,
+they would have blown me at once. All my efforts to assimilate myself
+to their tastes, to join in their habits and adopt their notions, would
+have been detected in a trice. They must be brought to believe that they
+have made a convert of me themselves; the wider the space between us
+at first, the greater will be their merit in making me forget it in the
+end."
+
+As the whiskey-punch made its appearance, and the bottle of port was
+passed up beside the stranger, Massingbred thought the time was come
+when he might change his tactics, and open the campaign in force. "No,"
+said he, as the host pushed the wine towards him, "I 've come over here
+to try and learn something about Ireland, and I must give myself every
+advantage of judging from a native point of view. This excellent old
+port may strengthen a man to stand by many an old prejudice, but my
+object is to lay in a new stock of ideas, and I 'd rather try a new
+regimen."
+
+"That 's your bottle, then, sir. Try that," said Brierley, pushing
+towards him a small square decanter of a faint greenish fluid.
+
+"That is 'poteen,' Mr. Massingbred," said the host. "It's the small
+still that never paid the King a farthing."
+
+"I like it all the better, for that reason," said Jack. "There's
+something independent in the very thought of a liquor that never
+submitted to the indignity of a gauger."
+
+"That's not a very English sentiment, sir," said the priest, slyly.
+
+"I don't know whether it be or not," rejoined Massingbred; "but I can
+neither perceive common-sense or justice in a law that will not allow
+a man to do what he likes with his own. Why, if Parliament declared
+to-morrow you should n't boil your potatoes in Ireland, but eat them
+fried--or that you should n't make bread of your corn, but eat it with
+milk as the Neapolitans do--"
+
+"I wish we could do the same here, with all my heart," said the priest.
+"It's little wheat or even barley-meal one of our poor people ever
+sees."
+
+"A wet potato and water is their diet," said old Hayes, as he sipped his
+punch.
+
+"I can believe it well," said Massingbred, with great semblance of
+feeling. "I witnessed dreadful poverty and destitution as I came along,
+and I couldn't help asking myself: What are the gentry about in this
+country? Do they or do they not see these things? If they do, are they
+indifferent to them?"
+
+"They are indifferent to them; or even worse, they rejoice in them,"
+broke in a deep-voiced, energetic-looking man, who sat at the foot
+of the table, and had, although silent, taken a deep interest in the
+conversation. "They see, sir, in the destitution of Ireland another
+rivet in the chains of her bondage. As my 'august leader' remarked, it's
+the rust on the fetters, though--and if it proclaims the length of the
+captivity, it suggests the hope of freedom."
+
+"Mr. Magennis is the dearest friend and trusty agent of Mr. O'Connell,"
+said Nelligan, in a whisper to Massingbred.
+
+"Here's his health, whoever said that!" cried Jack, enthusiastically,
+and as if not hearing the host's observation.
+
+"That's a toast; we'll all drink--and standing, too," exclaimed
+Magennis. "'Daniel O'Connell, gentlemen, hip, hip, hurra! '" And the
+room rang again with the hearty acclamations of the company.
+
+"By Jove! there was something very fine--it was chivalrous--in the way
+he brought the Catholic question to issue at last. The bold expedient
+of testing the event by an individual experience was as clever as it was
+daring," exclaimed Massingbred.
+
+"You were in favor of the measure then, sir?" said Father Neal, with a
+bland smile that might mean satisfaction or suspicion.
+
+"I was always an Emancipationist; but I am little satisfied with
+the terms on which the bill has been passed. I 'd have had no
+restrictions,--no reservations. It should, according to me, have been
+unconditional or nothing."
+
+"You've heard the old proverb about half a loaf, sir?" said Hayes, with
+a dry laugh.
+
+"And a poor adage it is, in its ordinary acceptation," said Jack,
+quickly. "It 's the prompting spirit to many a shabby compromise! What
+disabilities should apply to any of us here, in regard to any post
+or position in our country's service, by reason of opinions which are
+between ourselves and our own hearts--I say any of us, because some
+here--one I perceive is"--and he bowed to Father Rafferty--"a
+Catholic; and I for myself avow that, if for no other reason than this
+proscription, I'd be on this side."
+
+"You're not in Parliament, sir, are you?" asked old Peter, with a
+seriousness that sorely tested the gravity of those at either side of
+him.
+
+"No," said Jack, frankly. "My father and I don't agree on these
+subjects; and, consequently, though there is a seat in my family, I have
+not the honor to occupy it."
+
+"Are you any relation to Colonel Moore Massingbred, sir?" asked
+Magennis. "His son, sir."
+
+The questioner bowed, and a brief silence ensued; short as it was, it
+enabled Jack to decide upon his next move, and take it.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, "I 'm fully aware that my name is not a favorite
+in Ireland; and shall I own to you, till I came to this country myself,
+I half believed that this same humble opinion of us was to our credit!
+I used to hear such narratives of Irish barbarism, Irish brutality,
+priestcraft, superstition, and Heaven knows what besides, that I fully
+persuaded myself that our small repute was very nigh to an eulogium on
+us. Well, I came over to Trinity College strongly impressed with the
+notion that, because I had gained successes at Oxford, here I should be
+triumphant. It is in no boastfulness I say that I had acquitted myself
+well at home; I had attained to rather a reputation. Well, as I said, I
+came over to Trinity and pitted myself against the best man going, and
+a very pretty beating he gave me. Yes, gentlemen, he beat me in
+everything, even in those which we Oxford men fancy our specialties. I
+soon learned that I had not the shadow of a pretension to stand against
+him, and I learned, also, that it was no disgrace to me to be thus
+vanquished, since he was not alone the foremost man of his time, but
+the best scholar the University had seen for a full century; and shall
+I add, as unpretending and as modest in the midst of all his triumphs as
+he was unapproachable by all competitors. And now; gentlemen, I will
+ask your leave to drink his health; doubtless it has been many a time
+toasted before over the same table, but none ever more ardently followed
+the sentiment with his whole heart than do I in proposing to you, 'Three
+cheers for Joe Nelligan.'"
+
+The rambling opening of this brief speech was quite forgotten in the
+enthusiasm that greeted its close. In every respect it was a happy
+diversion. It relieved the company from a discussion that promised but
+gloomily. It brought back their minds to a pleasant theme, and enabled
+them, so to say, to pay off in grateful cheers to their host his own
+hospitable reception of them. As for Nelligan himself, he was sincerely,
+deeply affected; and though he twice essayed to speak, he could get no
+further than "My son Joe"--"my boy"--and sat down murmuring--"Thank
+you--God bless you for it"--and covered his face with his hands.
+
+Awkward as was the moment, it was relieved by the company filling their
+glasses and nodding in most friendly fashion to Massingbred as they
+drank his health; while a low murmur of approbation went round the
+table, of which he was most unmistakably the object.
+
+"Are you fond of shooting, sir?" asked Brierley. "Well, then, I hope
+you'll not leave the country without giving me a day or two up at my
+little place in the mountains: There's some snipe left; and, upon my
+conscience, I'll be proud to see you at Kilmaccud."
+
+"And there's worse quarters, too!" broke in Magennis. "My 'august
+leader' spent a day and a half there."
+
+"I'll drive you over there myself," whispered Father Neal, "if you'll
+finish the week at the 'Rookery,'--that's what they call the priest's
+house."
+
+Massingbred accepted everything, and shook hands across the table in
+ratification of half a dozen engagements.
+
+"You don't think I'll let you cheat me out of my guest so easily," said
+Nelligan. "No, gentlemen. This must be Mr. Massingbred's head-quarters
+as long as he stays here, for, faith, I 'd not give him up to Mr. Martin
+himself."
+
+"And who may he be?" asked Jack.
+
+"Martin of Cro' Martin."
+
+"The owner of half the county."
+
+"Of the town you 're in, this minute."
+
+"The richest proprietor in the West."
+
+Such were the pattering replies that poured in upon him, while words of
+intense astonishment at his ignorance were exchanged on all sides.
+
+"I believe I have given you a fair guarantee for my ignorance,
+gentlemen," said Jack, "in confessing that I never so much as heard of
+Martin of Cro' Martin. Does he reside on his estate here?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Nelligan, "he lives at Cro' Martin Castle, about
+sixteen miles from this; and certainly, while in this part of the
+country, you ought to pay the place a visit. I have never been there
+myself, but I hear the most astonishing accounts of the splendor of the
+furniture and the magnificence of the whole establishment."
+
+"There's pictures there," said the priest, "that cost the grandfather of
+the present man a quarter of a million sterling."
+
+"Why, the three statues in the hall, they say, are worth ten thousand
+pounds," said Brierley.
+
+"Be gorra! when a man would give four hundred for a bull, there 's no
+saying what he 'd stop at," broke in Peter Hayes. "I went up to see
+him myself, and indeed he's a beauty, there 's no denying it,--but four
+hundred pound! Think of four hundred pound!"
+
+"The stable is the best thing in the place," said Father Neal; "they 're
+mighty nice cattle, there, for every kind of work."
+
+"Thanks to his niece for that," cried Magennis; "she knows a horse with
+any man in the West of Ireland."
+
+"And can break him, too," chimed in Brierley; "I don't care what his
+temper is. Let Miss Mary get her hand on him, and he 'll turn out well."
+
+"I 'm driving an old chestnut mare this minute that she trained," said
+the priest; "and though she has n't a good leg amongst the four, and is
+touched in the wind, she 's as neat a stepper, and as easy in the mouth
+as a five-year-old."
+
+"She 's a fine young woman!" said old Hayes, drinking off his glass
+as though toasting her to himself, "and not like any Martin ever I seen
+before."
+
+"No pride about her!" said Brierley.
+
+"I wouldn't exactly say that, Matthew," interposed Father Neal. "But her
+pride isn't the common kind."
+
+"She's as proud as Lucifer!" broke in Nelligan, almost angrily. "Did you
+ever see her drive up to a shop-door in this town, and make the people
+come out to serve her, pointing with her whip to this, that, and
+t'other, and maybe giving a touch of the lash to the boy if he would n't
+be lively enough?"
+
+"Well, I 'd never call her proud," rejoined old Hayes, "after seeing her
+sitting in Catty Honan's cabin, and turning the bread on the griddle for
+her, when Catty was ill."
+
+"Is she handsome?" asked Massingbred, who was rather interested by the
+very discrepancy in the estimate of the young lady.
+
+"We can agree upon that, I believe, sir," said the priest; "there 's no
+disputing about her beauty."
+
+"I never saw her in a room," said Magennis; "but my 'august leader'
+thought her masculine."
+
+"No, no," said Nelligan; "she 's not. She has the Martin
+manner,--overbearing and tyrannical,--if you like; but she can be gentle
+enough with women and children."
+
+"You have certainly given me a strong curiosity to see her," said
+Massingbred. "Does she always live here?"
+
+"Always. I don't believe she was ever beyond the bounds of the county in
+her life!"
+
+"And how does she pass her time?" asked he, with some astonishment.
+
+"She manages the whole estate," said Nelligan; "her uncle 's a conceited
+old fool, incapable of anything, and lets her do what she likes; and
+so she drains, and plants, and encloses; makes roads, bridges, and even
+harbors; has all the new-fangled inventions about farming, and, if
+what I hear be true, is spending more money on the property than the
+fee-simple is worth."
+
+"Yes, sir," chimed in Magennis; "and she 's trying hard to bring back
+the old feudal devotion to the Chief, which was the bane of Ireland.
+She wants the tenants to have no will of their own, but just to vote
+whatever the landlord tells them. She had the impudence to tell my
+'august leader' that they had no need of him down there,--that the
+county was too poor to waste its energies in factious squabbles."
+
+"If she 'd let the people alone about their religion, I 'd think better
+of her," said Father Neal. "What does _she_ know about controversial
+points and disputed dogmas?"
+
+"Maybe you 're wrong about that," broke in Peter Hayes. "She came to me
+the other day for ten shillings for a school, and she said, 'Come over,
+Mr. Hayes; come and tell me if there 's anything you are dissatisfied
+with.'"
+
+"And did you go?" asked the priest.
+
+"Faix! I did not," said Peter, with a dry look. "I thought the visit
+might cost me ten shillings, and so I stayed at home."
+
+The manner in which he uttered these words produced a hearty laugh, in
+which he himself most good-humoredly took part.
+
+"Well, she's good to the poor, anyhow," said Brierley; "and it's a new
+thing for one of her name to be so!"
+
+"All policy, all scheming!" said Magennis. "She sees how the family
+influence has declined, and is fast becoming obliterated in this
+country, by reason of their worthlessness, insolence, and neglect of the
+people; and she 's just shrewd enough to see how far a little cajolery
+goes with poor Paddy; but, as my 'august leader' observed, it is not a
+frieze coat, nor a pair of brogues, that can compensate for the loss of
+that freedom that is every man's birthright; and it is not by an ounce
+of tea, or a dose of physic, we 'll ever see Ireland great, glorious,
+and free."
+
+"'First gem of the earth, and first flower of the sea!'" exclaimed
+Hayes, with enthusiasm.
+
+Nor in the moment was the blunder of his quotation noticed by any but
+Massingbred. "You are an admirer of Tommy Moore, I see, sir?" said he,
+to the old man.
+
+"I am fond of 'The Meeting of the Waters,' sir," said Hayes, meekly, and
+like a man who was confessing to a weakness.
+
+"And here 's the man to sing it!" cried Brierley, clapping the priest
+familiarly on the shoulder; a proposal that was at once hailed with
+acclamation.
+
+"'T is many a long day I have n't sung a note," said Father Neal,
+modestly.
+
+"Come, come, Father Neal; we'll not let you off that way. It's not under
+this roof that you can make such an excuse!"
+
+"He 'd rather give us something more to his own taste," said Brierley.
+"'To Ladies' eyes around, boys,'--eh, Father Rafferty?"
+
+"That's my favorite of all the songs he sings," broke in Magennis.
+
+"Let it be, 'To Ladies' eyes!'" cried Massingbred; "and we 'll drink
+'Miss Martin's.' 'I 'll warrant she 'll prove an excuse for the glass.'"
+And he sang the line with such a mellow cadence that the whole table
+cheered him.
+
+[Illustration: 146]
+
+To the priest's song, given with considerable taste and no mean musical
+skill, there followed, in due course, others, not exactly so successful,
+by Brierley and Magennis, and, at last, by old Peter himself, who
+warbled out a wonderful ditty, in a tone so doleful that two of the
+company fell fast asleep under it, and Brierley's nerves were so
+affected that, to support himself, he got most completely drunk, and in
+a very peremptory tone told the singer to desist!
+
+"Don't you perceive," cried he, "that there 's a stranger
+present,--a young English cub,--come down to laugh at us? Have you no
+discretion,--have you no decency, Peter Hayes, but you must go on with
+your stupid old 'croniawn' about dimples and the devil knows what?"
+
+"Another tumbler, Mr. Massingbred,--one more?" said the host, with the
+air, however, of one who did not exact compliance.
+
+"Not for the world," said Jack, rising from table. "Have I your
+permission to light a cigar?"
+
+"To do just whatever you please," said Nelligan, rather astonished at
+the formal preparations for smoking he now perceived brought forth, and
+which at the time we tell of were not so popular as in our own day.
+
+The priest alone accepted Massingbred's offer of a "weed;" and Nelligan,
+opening a door into an adjoining room where tea was laid, threw also
+wide a little sash-door that led into the garden, whose cool and
+fragrant air was perfectly delicious at the moment. Jack strolled down
+the steps and soon lost himself in the dark alleys, not sorry to be left
+alone with his own thoughts, after a scene in which his convivial powers
+had been taxed to no mean extent.
+
+"A clever young fellow! There's stuff in him," said the priest, in a
+whisper to Nelligan.
+
+"And no impudence about him," said Brierley; "he's just like one of
+ourselves."
+
+"He has a wonderful opinion of Joe!" said Nelligan.
+
+"He's the very man for my 'august leader,'" said Magennis. "I 'd like to
+bring them together!"
+
+"His father 's a Treasury Lord," said Nelligan, swelling at the thought
+of his being the host of such company!
+
+"And I 'll tell you what, Dan Nelligan," said the priest,
+confidentially, "talents won't do everything, nowadays, without high
+connections; mark my words, and see if that young man does n't stand
+high yet. He has just got every requirement of success. He has good
+family, good looks, good abilities, and"--here he dropped his voice
+still lower--"plenty of brass. Ay, Dan, if Joe could borrow a little of
+his friend's impudence, it would be telling him something."
+
+Nelligan nodded assentingly; it was about the only quality in the world
+which he could have believed Joe stood in any need of getting a loan of.
+
+"Joe beat him out of the field," said Dan, proudly. "He told me so
+himself, this morning."
+
+"No doubt; and he would again, where the contest was a college one; but
+'Life,' my dear friend,--life demands other gifts beside genius."
+
+"Ganius!" broke in old Hayes, with an accent of the profoundest
+contempt,--"Ganius! I never knew a 'Ganius' yet that was n't the ruin
+of all belonging to him! And whenever I see a young fellow that knows no
+trade, nor has any livelihood, who's always borrowing here and begging
+there, a torment to his family and a burden to his friends, I set him
+down at once for a 'Ganius.'"
+
+"It's not _that_ I was alluding to, Mr. Hayes," said the priest, in
+some irritation. "I spoke of real ability, sterling powers of mind and
+thought, and I hope that they are not to be despised."
+
+"Like my 'august leader's'!" said Magennis, proudly.
+
+"Ay, or like that young gentleman's there," said Father Neal, with the
+tone of a man pronouncing upon what he understood. "I watched him to-day
+at dinner, and I saw that every remark he made was shrewd and acute, and
+that whenever the subject was new to him, he fell into it as he went
+on talking, picking up his facts while he seemed to be discussing them!
+Take my word for it, gentlemen, he 'll do!"
+
+"He does n't know much about flax, anyhow," muttered old Hayes.
+
+"He took his punch like a man," said Brierley, bearing testimony on a
+point where his evidence was sure to have weight.
+
+"He'll do!" said Father Neal once more, and still more authoritatively
+than before.
+
+"Joe carried away every premium from him," said old Nelligan, with a
+degree of irritation that proclaimed how little he enjoyed the priest's
+eulogy of his guest.
+
+"I know he did, sir; and no man has a higher respect for your son's
+great abilities than myself; but here 's how it is, Mr. Nelligan,"--and
+he drew himself up like a man about to deliver a profound
+opinion,--"here 's how it is. The mind that can master abstract science
+is one thing; the faculties that can deal with fellow-mortals is
+another. This world is not a University!"
+
+"The Lord be praised for that same!" cried old Hayes, "or I 'm afraid I
+'d fare badly in it."
+
+"To unite both descriptions of talent," resumed the priest,
+oratorically, "is the gift of but few."
+
+"My 'august leader' has them," broke in Magennis.
+
+"Show me the man that can deal with men!" said Father Neal,
+dictatorially.
+
+"Women is twice as hard to deal with!" cried old Hayes. "I 'll back
+Nancy Drake against any man in the barony."
+
+"Faith, and I remember her a pretty woman," said Brierley, who would
+gladly have enticed the conversation out of its graver character.
+"A prettier girl than Mary Martin herself!" continued the inexorable
+Brierley, for the company did not appear to approve of his diversion.
+
+"We are now discussing politics,--grave questions of state, sir," said
+Father Neal,--"for we have come to times when even the most indifferent
+and insignificant amongst us cannot refrain feeling an interest in
+the progress of our country. And when I see a fine young man like that
+there, as one may say going a-begging for a party, I tell you that we
+are fools--worse than fools--if we don't secure him."
+
+"Do you mean for the borough?" asked Nelligan.
+
+"I do, sir,--I mean for the borough!"
+
+"Not till we have consulted my 'august leader,' I hope," broke in
+Magennis.
+
+"I'm for managing our own affairs ourselves," said the priest. "What we
+want is a man of our own; and if that young gentleman there will take
+the pledges we should propose, I don't know that we'd readily get the
+like of him."
+
+The silence that now fell upon the party was ominous; it was plain that
+either the priest's proposition was not fully acquiesced in, or that the
+mode of announcing it was too abrupt. Perhaps this latter appeared the
+case to his own eyes, for he was the first to speak.
+
+"Of course what I have said now is strictly among ourselves, and not to
+be mentioned outside of this room; for until my friend Dan Nelligan
+here consents to take the field against the Martin interest, there is
+no chance of opening the borough. Let him once agree to _that_, and the
+member for Oughterard will be his own nominee."
+
+"Do you really think so?" asked Nelligan, eagerly.
+
+"I know it, sir; and every gentleman at this table knows it."
+
+A strong chorus in assent murmured around the board.
+
+"It would be a great struggle," muttered Nelligan.
+
+"And a great victory!" said the priest.
+
+"What a deal of money, too, it would cost!"
+
+"You have the money, Dan Nelligan; and let me tell you one thing,"--here
+he leaned over his chair and whispered some words in the other's ear.
+
+Old Nelligan's face flushed as he listened, and his eyes sparkled with
+intense excitement.
+
+"If I thought _that_--if I only thought that, Father Rafferty--I 'd
+spend half my fortune on it to-morrow."
+
+"It's as true as I'm a living man," said the priest, solemnly; and then
+with a motion of his hand gestured caution, for Massingbred was slowly
+ascending the steps, and about to enter the room.
+
+With an instinctive readiness all his own, he saw in the embarrassed
+and conscious looks around that he had himself been the object of their
+discussion, and with the same shrewdness he detected their favorable
+feeling towards him.
+
+"I have made them my own!" muttered he to himself.
+
+"He 'll do our work well!" said the priest in his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. YOUNG NELLIGAN, AS INTERPRETED IN TWO WAYS.
+
+"I rather like that young Nelligan," said Martin, the day after Joseph
+had made his first appearance at dinner. "He talks pleasantly, and
+nothing of a pedant, as I half dreaded he might be."
+
+"I thought his manner respectful, and very proper for his station," said
+Lady Dorothea, with an air of dignity.
+
+"He spoke of politics, too, with less of prejudice, less of class
+bitterness, than I could have expected."
+
+"Some policy, perhaps, in that," remarked her Ladyship.
+
+"Possibly!" said Martin, with a careless shrug of the shoulders.
+
+"He was in a measure on his trial amongst us, and felt the importance of
+making a favorable first impression."
+
+"It was more trouble than his father would have taken, then," said
+Martin, smiling. "Old Dan, as they call him, is not a very conciliating
+personage."
+
+"I cannot imagine that the disposition of such a person is a matter of
+much moment. Does n't the man deal in tea, candles, and such like?"
+
+"That he does, and in loans, and in mortgages, too; not to add that
+he exercises a very considerable share of influence in his town of
+Oughterard."
+
+"A very shocking feature of the time we live in!" exclaimed Lady
+Dorothea.
+
+"So it may be; but there it is,--just like the wet weather, and the
+typhus, and the sheep-rot, and fifty other disagreeable things one can't
+help."
+
+"But at least they can avoid recurring to them in conversation, sir.
+There is no necessity to open the window when the look-out is a dreary
+one."
+
+Martin made no reply, and a pause of some moments ensued.
+
+"What arrangement did you come to with him about his party in the
+borough?" said she at last.
+
+"I didn't even allude to the topic," replied he, half testily.
+"These things are not to be done in that hasty fashion; they require
+management, discretion, and a fitting opportunity, too."
+
+"Why, you talk of your grocer's boy as if he were a Cabinet Minister,
+Mr. Martin; you treat him like a great diplomatist!"
+
+"It was not exactly on the first occasion of his being in my house that
+I could have broached the matter."
+
+"Which implies that you mean to invite him again."
+
+"Possibly!" was the abrupt rejoinder.
+
+"And must the odious attorney always be of the party?"
+
+"No, madam, the odious attorney has set out for Dublin; but I shortly
+expect here one whom your Ladyship will, doubtless, call an odious
+lawyer,--though he happens to be one of the foremost men of the Irish
+bar."
+
+"A class I detest," said her Ladyship.
+
+"He has one consolation, at least, madam," said Martin; "he figures in a
+pretty long category."
+
+"And why should he not, sir? What have I ever met in the dreary
+eighteen years and seven months I have passed here, except unmitigated
+self-conceit, vulgarity, and presumption,--the very type of all three
+being your Dublin barrister."
+
+"Their countrymen certainly entertain another estimate of them," said
+Martin, laughing, for he had a lazy man's enjoyment of any passionate
+excitement of another's temper.
+
+"And it was," resumed she, "in some sort the contrast presented to such
+which pleased me in that young man's manner yesterday. Not but I feel
+assured that erelong you and Miss Martin will spoil him."
+
+"I! aunt?" said Mary, looking up from her work; "how am I to exercise
+the evil influence you speak of?"
+
+"By the notice--the interest you vouchsafe him, Miss Martin,--the most
+flattering compliment to one in his station."
+
+"If he bears collegiate honors so meekly, aunt," said Mary, quietly,
+"don't you think his head might sustain itself under _my_ attentions?"
+
+"Possibly so, young lady, if not accompanied by the accessories of
+your rank in life," said Lady Dorothea, haughtily; "and as to college
+honors," added she, after a pause, "they are like school distinctions,
+of no earthly value out of the class-room."
+
+"Faith, I don't know that," said Martin. "At least, in my own
+experience, I can say, every fellow that has made a figure in life gave
+indications of high ability in his college years. I could go over the
+names of at least a dozen."
+
+"Pray don't, sir,--spare your memory, and spare us. Miss Martin and
+I will take it for granted that this young man is destined to be Lord
+Chancellor,--Ambassador at St. Petersburg,--or anything else you please.
+I have no doubt that the time is approaching when such things are very
+possible."
+
+"It has come already, my Lady," said Martin; and in the manner he
+uttered the words there was no saying whether the sentiment was
+pleasurable or the reverse.
+
+"And yet I trust that there is a little interval still left to us ere
+that consummation," said she, with pretentious dignity. "Birth and blood
+have not lost all their _prestige!_"
+
+"But they soon would," said Mary, "if they feared to enter the lists
+against those less well-born than themselves."
+
+"Miss Martin!" exclaimed her Ladyship, "what words are these?"
+
+"I hope they are void of offence, aunt. Assuredly I never conceived that
+I could wound any susceptibilities here by saying that the well-born are
+ready to meet the plebeian on any ground."
+
+"There is no necessity for such trials, Miss Martin; the position of
+each has been so accurately defined by--by--by Providence," said she, at
+last, blushing slightly as she uttered the word, "that the contest is
+almost impossible."
+
+"The French Revolution reveals another story, aunt, and tells us,
+besides, how inferior were the nobles of that country in the day of
+struggle."
+
+"Upon my word, these are very pretty notions, young lady. Have they been
+derived from the intelligent columns of the "Galway Monitor," or are
+they the teachings of the gifted Mr. Scanlan? Assuredly, Mr. Martin,"
+said she, turning to him, "papa was right, when he said that the Irish
+nature was essentially rebellious."
+
+"Complimentary, certainly," said Martin, laughing.
+
+"He founded the remark on history. Papa was uncommonly well read,
+and used to observe that there seemed something in the Celtic nature
+incompatible with that high-souled, chivalrous loyalty Englishmen
+exhibit."
+
+"But how much of the Celt have Mary and myself got in us, if your
+observation is meant for us? Why, my Lady, what with intermarriage
+centuries ago, and change of blood ever since, the distinctive element
+has been utterly lost."
+
+"And yet we are not English, uncle," said Mary, with something that
+smacked of pride. "Confess it: we have our nationality, and that our
+people have traits of their own."
+
+"That they have; but I never heard them made matter of boastfulness
+before," said Lady Dorothea, sneeringly.
+
+"Well, aunt, it is not too late to hear it now; and I, for one, am proud
+of my country,--not of its political station, for it is dependent,--not
+of its wealth, for it is poor,--but of its genial courtesy, its
+free-hearted hospitality, its manly patience under many a crushing
+calamity, and not least of all, its gallantry on every field where
+England has won honor."
+
+"I have read of all these things; but my own experiences are limited to
+the rags and restlessness of a semi-barbarous people. Nay, Miss Martin,
+I'm not going to discuss the matter. I have lived elsewhere,--you have
+not. I have acquired habits--prejudices, perhaps you 'd call them--in
+behalf of twenty things that Irish civilization sees no need of."
+
+"Would it not be kind, aunt, were you to aid us by the light of these
+same experiences?" said Mary, with an air of well-assumed humility.
+
+"Certainly not, at the price of intercourse with the natives!" exclaimed
+her Ladyship, haughtily. "I detest, on principle, the Lady Bountiful
+character. The whole of the hymn-book, castor-oil, and patent-barley
+sympathy is shockingly vulgar. Like many things, well done at first, it
+fell into low hands, and got spoiled."
+
+The tone of sarcasm in which this was spoken made Mary's cheeks crimson,
+and the flush spread itself over her neck. Still she made no reply, but
+bending down her head, continued to work more assiduously.
+
+"When are we to leave this place, Mr. Martin?" asked her Ladyship,
+abruptly.
+
+"I believe we are only waiting here till it be your pleasure to quit."
+
+"And I dying to get away this fortnight past! Some one certainly told me
+that Cro' Martin was not ready for us. Was it _you_, Miss Martin?"
+
+"No, aunt."
+
+"It ran in my head it was you, then. Well, can we go at
+once--to-day--this afternoon?"
+
+"To-morrow we might, perhaps," said Mary.
+
+"Scarcely so," said Martin, interposing, "seeing that I have asked
+Repton to come down here and see the place."
+
+"But you can drive him over from Cro' Martin. It would be intolerable,
+the idea of remaining here just for him. So we shall go to-morrow, Miss
+Martin." And with this, uttered in the tone of an order, her Ladyship
+swept proudly out of the room, from which Martin, not overanxious for a
+_t�te-�-t�te_ with his niece, stepped noiselessly at the same moment by
+another door.
+
+Scarcely had the door closed behind Lady Dorothea, when it was reopened
+to admit Joe Nelligan, who had met her Ladyship in the corridor and been
+received with such palpable coldness of manner that he entered the room
+bashful and awkward, and hardly knowing whether to advance or retire.
+
+"I fear I have made my visit at an untimely hour, Miss Martin," said he,
+blushing; "but the truth is, I know next to nothing of society and its
+habits, and if you would only be kind enough to tell me when I am a
+transgressor--"
+
+"The notion of learning from _me_ is perfect," said Mary, interrupting
+him with a pleasant laugh. "Why, Mr. Nelli-gan, I never could be taught
+anything, even of the most ordinary rules of ceremonial life! though,"
+added she, slyly, "I have lived certainly in the midst of great
+opportunities."
+
+"But then, I have not," said Nelligan, gravely, and accepting the speech
+in all seriousness. "Well, it comes pretty much to the same thing," said
+she, smiling, "since I have profited so little by them."
+
+"I came thus early, however," said he, earnestly, "because I was
+impatient to correct an impression which might have remained from
+something that fell from me last night. You smile, I perceive," said he,
+"that I should attach so much importance to my own words!"
+
+"It was not at that I smiled," said Mary, archly.
+
+"No matter," continued he. "It is better, at the cost of a little
+wounded vanity, that I should escape a misconception. When your
+uncle spoke to me, last night, about the division of parties in the
+borough--You are smiling again, Miss Martin!"
+
+"Don't you perceive, sir, that what amuses me is the mistaken estimate
+you have formed of me, by addressing me on such topics?"
+
+"But I came here expressly to speak to you," said he, with increased
+eagerness; "for I have always heard--always understood--that none ever
+took a deeper interest in all that regarded the country than yourself."
+
+"If you mean, by the country, the lives and fortunes of those who live
+in it,--the people by whose toil it is fertilized, by whose traits it is
+a nation,--I tell you frankly that I yield to none for interest in all
+that touches them; but if you come to talk of privileges and legislative
+benefits, I know nothing of them: they form a land of whose very
+geography I am ignorant."
+
+"But the subject is the same, and the mind which comprehends one could
+embrace the other."
+
+"In the one, however, I can labor usefully and fittingly, without much
+risk of mistake,--never, indeed, of any mistake that might prove of
+serious moment. The other involves great questions, and has great
+hazards, perils, to affright stronger heads than mine!"
+
+"There is much in what you say," said he, reflectingly.
+
+"There is far more than I am able to express," said she, warmly. "Just
+remember, for a moment, that of all the laws you great and wise men
+are making, over which you rant and wrangle, and assail each other
+so vindictively, how few ever touch the interests or descend to the
+fortunes of those for whom you assume to make them,--that the craftiest
+devices of your legislation never uproot ah old prejudice nor disturb
+an antiquated superstition; while I, and such as I,--and there need be
+nothing more humble,--can by a little timely help in trouble--a little
+care, or even a little counsel--comfort many a failing heart, cheer up
+many a sinking spirit, and, better still, do good service by teaching
+the poor man that he is of one family with those better off than
+himself, and that he is not an outcast because he is lowly!"
+
+As Mary went on, her eyes shone more brilliantly, and her cheeks glowed,
+till Nelligan forgot even the words she spoke in admiration of the
+speaker.
+
+"But here comes my uncle," cried she, hastily, "to rescue you from
+further amplification of the theme. Come in, uncle,"--for Martin was
+already about to retire,--"it is Mr. Nelligan, who wants to speak to
+you."
+
+"Oh, I was in terror of a regular morning visitor!" said Martin, shaking
+the young man's hand cordially. "They didn't tell me you were here."
+
+"I came, sir," said Joseph, hesitatingly, "to rectify what might,
+perhaps, require correction in an observation I made last night. We were
+talking about the proper basis of a representation--"
+
+"My dear boy," broke in Martin, laughingly, "there's nothing kills me
+like asking me to go over the past, either in reading an old letter
+or recalling an old conversation. And as to calling on me to justify
+something I once defended in argument, I 'd give up the cause at once,
+and say I was all wrong, in preference."
+
+"Then I need not fear you will hold me responsible--"
+
+"Not for anything, except your pledge to dine here tomorrow at seven."
+
+Notwithstanding all the ease and frankness of Martin's manner--and as
+manner it was perfect--the young man felt far from satisfied. His want
+of breeding--that cruel want strong enough to mar the promise of high
+ability, and even impair the excellence of many a noble nature--seemed
+to hold him fast bound to the object of his visit. He had come for
+an explanation, and he couldn't go away without it. Mary read his
+difficulty at once, and as she passed him to leave the room, said in a
+low voice, "To-morrow evening."
+
+Nelligan started at the words, and his face became scarlet. What
+could she have meant? Was it that she wished him to come, and had thus
+condescended to remind him of his promise? or was it to suggest a more
+fitting moment to return to the late discussion?
+
+"Are you coming to luncheon, Nelligan?" said Martin, rising.
+
+"No, sir; not to-day. I have a call--a visit--some miles off." And while
+he was yet stammering out his excuses, Martin waved a familiar good-bye
+with his hand, and passed into the adjoining room.
+
+"And what can this mean?" said Nelligan to himself. "Is this the cordial
+treatment of an intimate, or is it contemptuous indifference for an
+inferior?" And, far more puzzled than he should have been with the
+knottiest problem of the "Principia," he quitted the house and strolled
+homewards.
+
+His way led along the shore, and consequently in front of that
+straggling row of cottages which formed the village. It chanced to be
+the last day of the month, and, by the decree of the almanac, the close
+of the bathing-season. The scene then going forward was one of unusual
+and not unpicturesque confusion. It was a general break-up of the
+encampment, and all were preparing to depart to their homes, inland. Had
+young Nelligan been--what he was not--anything of a humorist, he might
+have been amused at the variety of equipage and costume around him.
+Conveyances the most cumbrous and most rickety, drawn by farm horses,
+or even donkeys, stopped the way before each door, all in process of
+loading by a strangely attired assemblage, whose Welsh wigs, flannel
+dressing-gowns, and woollen nightcaps showed how, by a common consent,
+all had agreed to merge personal vanity in the emergency of the moment.
+The innumerable little concealments which had sheltered many a narrow
+household, the various little stratagems that had eked out many a scanty
+wardrobe, were now abandoned with a noble sincerity; and had there been
+a cork leg or a glass eye in the company, it would not have shrunk from
+the gaze of that open-hearted community.
+
+Such of the travellers as had taken their places were already surrounded
+with the strangest medley of household gods it is possible to conceive.
+Like trophies, bird-cages, candlesticks, spits, cullenders, fenders, and
+bread-baskets bristled around them, making one marvel how they ever got
+in, or, still more, how they were ever to get out again; the croaking of
+invalids, with crying children, barking terriers, and scolding owners,
+making a suitable chorus to the confusion.
+
+Still, amidst all the discomforts of the moment, amidst the last
+wranglings with landlords, and the last squabbles over broken furniture
+and missing movables, it must be owned that the prevailing temper of the
+scene was good-humor and jollity. The Irish temperament seems ever to
+discover something congenial in those incidents of confusion and bustle
+which to other people are seasons of unmitigated misery, and even out of
+its own sources of discomfiture can derive matter for that quaint humor
+with which it can always regard life. In this wise was it that few now
+dwelt much upon their own inconveniences, so long as they were free to
+laugh at those of their neighbors.
+
+Before he was well aware of it, young Nelligan found himself in the very
+midst of this gathering, whose mirthful accents suddenly subsided at
+his approach, and an air of constraint and reserve seemed to take their
+place. Never very quick to appreciate such indications, he drew nigh
+to a very lofty "conveniency" in which, with an air of stately
+dignity, Mrs. Cronan sat enthroned on a backgammon-table, with a
+portentous-looking cap-case in her lap.
+
+"My mother will be sorry not to have seen you before you went away, Mrs.
+Cronan," said he to that lady, whose demure and frigid demeanor made the
+speech sound like a bold one.
+
+"I 'd have left my card and my compliments, sir, if I wasn't so pressed
+for time," responded she, with a haughty gravity.
+
+"With P. P. C. on the corner," said the Captain from his pony-gig
+alongside; "which means, pour prendre 'congo,' or 'congee,' I never
+knew which."
+
+"She 'll be very lonely now, for the few days we remain," resumed Joe,
+conscious of some awkwardness, without knowing where or how.
+
+"Not with the society of your distinguished acquaintances at 'The Nest,'
+sir!" the sarcastic import of which reply was more in the manner than
+the mere words; while the old Captain murmured,--
+
+"Begad, she gave it to him there,--a regular double-headed shot!"
+
+"We hope to follow you by the end of the week," said Nelligan, trying to
+seem at ease.
+
+"If you can tear yourselves away, I suppose," said Miss Busk, through
+a double veil of blue gauze; for that lady's auburn ringlets reposed at
+the moment in the small mahogany casket beside her.
+
+"There is not much attraction in the spot just now," said Joseph,
+smiling.
+
+"Not for the like of us, perhaps, sir," retorted Mrs. Cronan,--"not for
+persons in our station; but your fashionable people, I believe, always
+prefer a place when the vulgar company have left it."
+
+"Good again,--grape and canister!" chuckled out the Captain, who seemed
+to derive a high enjoyment from the scene.
+
+"Would you move a little to one side, Mr. Nelligan?" said the doctor;
+"my pony won't stand."
+
+"Oh, he's mettlesome," said Joe, good-humoredly, as he stepped out of
+the way.
+
+"That he is, sir, though he never was leader in a four-in-hand; but, you
+see, poor creatures of quadrupeds forget themselves down here, just like
+their betters!"
+
+And the success of this sally was acknowledged by a general laugh from
+the company. The tone of the speakers, even more than their words,
+convinced Joseph that, from some cause or other, he was the object of
+their sarcasms; and although slow to take offence,--even to the verge of
+what many might have called an unfeeling indifference,--he felt their
+treatment most acutely. It was, then, in something like a haughty
+defiance that he wished them a careless good-bye, and continued his way.
+
+"The world seems bent on puzzling me this morning," muttered he, as he
+sauntered slowly on. "People treat me as though I were playing some deep
+game to their detriment,--I, who have no game, almost no future!" added
+he, despondingly. "For what avails it to attain eminence amidst such as
+these; and, as for the others, I was not born for them."
+
+To these moody thoughts succeeded others still gloomier. It had only
+been within a short time back that the young man had begun to appreciate
+the difficulties of a position to which his early successes imparted
+increasing embarrassment; and darkly brooding over these things, he drew
+near his mother's cottage. She was already at the door to meet him, with
+a letter in her hand.
+
+"This is from your father, Joe," said she. "He wants you in all haste
+up at the town; and I've packed your clothes, and sent off Patsey for
+Mooney's car; so come in and eat something at once."
+
+Joseph took the note from her hand and perused it in silence. It was
+brief, and ran thus:--
+
+     "Dear Joe,--I want you up here as soon as possible, to meet
+     a friend whom you 'll be surprised to see. I say no more,
+     but that I expect you by dinner-time.--Yours ever,
+
+     "D.N."
+
+"What does that mean, Joe?" asked his mother.
+
+He only shrugged his shoulders in reply.
+
+"And who can it be?" said she again.
+
+"Some of the townspeople, of course," said he, carelessly.
+
+"No, no, Joe; it must be a stranger. Maybe it's Morgan Drake; his aunt
+expected him back from Jamaica before Christmas. Or it 's Corny Dwyer 's
+come home from Africa; you know he went on the deploring expedition--"
+"Exploring, mother,--exploring."
+
+"Well, exploring or deploring, it's all the same. He went four years
+ago, and all the tidings they 've had of him was an elephant's tooth he
+sent home to his stepfather. I know it's Corny, for your father always
+liked him and the funny stories he told."
+
+"Perhaps so!" replied Joe.
+
+"I wonder, is he grown any bigger? He was little better than a dwarf
+when he went away, and the same age as yourself. No, indeed, he was
+older,--fourteen months older. It was Catty Henderson was running in my
+head. Is n't she a fine young woman, Joe?"
+
+"Remarkably so," said he, with more animation in his tone.
+
+"A little bit too haughty-looking and proud, maybe, considering her
+station in life, and that she has to go to service--"
+
+"Go to service, mother?"
+
+"To be sure she has. If they can't get her a place as a governess or a
+companion, she 'll have to take what she can get. Her father's married
+again, my dear Joe; and when men do that!" And here Mrs. Nelligan
+uplifted her hands and eyes most expressively. "Ay, indeed," continued
+she, with a heavy sigh, "and if it was once it was fifty times, Catty's
+poor mother said to me, 'Sarah,' says she,--she never called me Sally,
+but always Sarah,--'Sarah,' says she, 'I 've but one comfort, and that
+is that Catty will never want a mother while you live. You 'll be the
+same to her as myself,--just as fond, and just as forgiving;' them was
+her very words!"
+
+"And I hope you have never forgotten them, mother?" said Joe, with
+emotion.
+
+"Don't you see I have n't; an't I repeating them to you this minute?"
+
+"Yes; but I mean the spirit and the meaning of them," rejoined he, "and
+that you feel the obligation they 've laid upon you."
+
+"To be sure I feel it; don't I fret over it every time I 'm alone? for I
+can't get it out of my head that maybe she 'd appear to me--"
+
+"No, but her mother. Oh, it 's nothing to laugh at, Joe. There was Eliza
+Keane came back every Easter Monday for two-and-twenty years to search
+for a gravy-spoon. Well, if it's laughing you are, I won't say any more;
+but here 's the car now, and it's late enough we 'll be on the road!"
+
+"I'm not thinking of going, mother. I never meant to go," said Joe,
+resolutely.
+
+"Never meant to go, after your father's note to you, Joe?" cried she, in
+half horror. "Surely it's all as one as ordering you up there."
+
+"I know all that," said he, calmly; "but I see no reason why I should
+forego the pleasure of a party at the Martins' for the sake of meeting
+the convivial celebrities of Oughterard."
+
+"But what will you say?"
+
+"Say I'm engaged; have accepted another invitation; or, better still,
+leave you to make my excuses, mother. Come, come, don't look so
+terribly shocked and terrified. You know well enough that my father's
+four-year-old mutton and his crusted port will compensate the company
+for heavier inflictions than my absence."
+
+"They were always fond of you, Joe," said Mrs. Nelligan, half
+reproachfully.
+
+"Nothing of the kind, mother; they never cared for me, nor was there any
+reason why they should. I 'm sure I never cared for them. We endured one
+another; that was all."
+
+"Oh, dear; but I 'm glad your father is not listening to you," said
+she, with a stealthy glance around, as though not perfectly assured
+of secrecy. "So, then, I suppose, there 's nothing for it but to go up
+myself and make the best of it; and sure it's all a lottery what temper
+he 's in, and how he 'll take it. I remember when they put the new duty
+on--what was it, Joe? I think it was hides--"
+
+"Not the least matter, mother; you 've only to say that Mr. Martin
+has been kind enough to show me some attentions, and that I am silly
+enough--if you like to say so--to prefer them to the festive pleasures
+of Oughterard. In another week or so I shall have to go back to college.
+Let me, at least, enjoy the few days of my vacation in my own fashion."
+
+Mrs. Nelligan shook her head mournfully over these signs of rebellion,
+and muttering many a gloomy foreboding, she went off to her room to make
+her preparations for the journey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. A VERY "CROSS EXAMINATION"
+
+The morning was bright and sunny, the air sharp, crisp, and bracing,
+as the heavy travelling-carriage which conveyed Mr. Martin and Lady
+Dorothea rolled smoothly along the trimly kept approach to Cro' Martin.
+Many a beautiful glade, many a lovely vista opened on them as they
+passed along deep-bosomed woods and gently swelling slopes, dotted over
+with cattle, stretched away on either side; while far in the distance
+could be seen the battlemented towers of the princely residence.
+
+The lover of nature might have felt intense pleasure at a scene so
+abounding in objects of beauty. A painter would have lingered with
+delight over effects of light and shade, glorious displays of color, and
+graceful groupings of rocks and trees and gnarled stumps. A proud man
+might have exulted in the selfish enjoyment of feeling that these were
+all his own; while a benevolent one would have revelled in the thought
+of all the channels through which such wealth might carry the blessings
+of aid and charity.
+
+Which of these feelings predominated now in the minds of those who,
+snugly encased in furs, occupied the respective corners of the
+ample coach? Shall we own it? Not any of them. A dreamy, unremarking
+indifference was the sentiment of each; and they sat silently gazing
+on a prospect which suggested nothing, nor awoke one passing emotion in
+their hearts. Had any one been there to express his admiration of the
+landscape,--praised the trees, the cattle, or the grassy slopes,--Martin
+might have heard him with pleasure, and listened even with interest to
+his description. My Lady, too, might not unwillingly have lent an ear
+to some flattery of the splendid demesne of which she was mistress,
+and accepted as half homage the eulogy of what was hers. None such was,
+however, there; and so they journeyed along, as seemingly unconscious as
+though the scene were wrapped in midnight darkness.
+
+Martin had known the spot, and every detail of it, from his boyhood. The
+timber, indeed, had greatly grown,--graceful saplings had become stately
+trees, and feathery foliage deepened into leafy shade; but he himself
+had grown older, too, and his sense of enjoyment, dulled and deadened
+with years, saw nothing in the scene to awaken pleasure. As for Lady
+Dorothea, she had reasoned herself into the notion that the walls of her
+own grounds were the boundaries of a prison, and had long convinced
+herself that she was a suffering martyr to some mysterious sense of
+duty. From the drowsy languor in which they reclined they were both
+aroused, as the pace of the carriage gradually diminished from a smooth
+brisk trot to an uneven jolting motion, the very reverse of agreeable.
+
+"What have they done? Where are they going?" said Lady Dorothea,
+peevishly.
+
+And Martin called out from the window, in tones even less gentle. "Oh,
+it's the new approach; the road is not quite completed," said he, half
+sulkily, as he resumed his place.
+
+"Another of Miss Martin's clever devices, which, I must say, I never
+concurred in."
+
+"Why, you always professed to hate the old road by the stables."
+
+"So I did; but I never agreed to passing round the back of the house,
+and thus destroying the privacy of the flower-garden,--the only spot I
+may dare to call my own. Oh, dear! I shall be shaken to death. Have
+they broken the carriage? I 'm certain they 've smashed the spring at my
+side!"
+
+Martin gave a cold, supercilious smile, the only reply to these words.
+
+"They 've only broken a trace, I perceive," said he, casting a hurried
+glance through the window, as the carriage came to a dead stop.
+
+"You are equanimity itself, sir, this morning," said her Ladyship, in
+a voice almost tremulous with anger. "I wonder if this admirable temper
+will befriend you when you shall see the cost of this precious piece of
+road-making?"
+
+"It employs the people," said he, coolly.
+
+"Employs the people! How I hate that cant phrase! Can't they employ
+themselves on their own farms? Have n't they digging and draining, and
+whatever it is, to do of their own? Must they of necessity depend on
+us for support, and require that we should institute useless works to
+employ them?"
+
+As if to offer a living commentary on her speech, a number of half-fed
+and less than half-clad men now drew near, and in accents of a most
+servile entreaty begged to offer their services. Some, indeed, had
+already busied themselves to repair the broken harness, and others
+were levelling the road, carrying stones to fill up holes, and in
+every possible manner endeavoring to render assistance; but all were
+vociferous in asserting that the delay would not be above a minute or
+two; that the road was an elegant one, or would be soon, and that it was
+a "raal blessing" to see her Ladyship and the master looking so well. In
+fact, they were thankful and hopeful together; and, notwithstanding the
+evidences of the deepest destitution in their appearance, they wore an
+air of easy, jaunty politeness, such as many a professional diner-out
+might have envied. Lady Dorothea was in no mood to appreciate such
+traits; indeed, if the truth must be told, they rather ruffled than
+soothed her. Martin saw nothing in them; he was too much accustomed to
+the people to be struck with any of their peculiarities, and so he lay
+back in silent apathy, and took no notice of them.
+
+With all their alacrity and all their good-will--and there was no lack
+of either--there was yet such a total absence of all system and order,
+that their efforts were utterly useless. Some tugged away manfully
+to raise stones too heavy to lift; others came rudely in contact with
+fellows heavily laden, and upset them. The sturdy arms that spoked the
+hind wheels were resolutely antagonized by as vigorous struggles to move
+the fore ones. Every one shouted, cried, cursed, and laughed, by turns;
+and a more hopeless scene of confusion and uproar need not be conceived.
+Nor was Lady Dorothea herself an inactive spectator; for, with her head
+from the carriage-window, she directed a hundred impossible measures,
+and sat down at last, overcome with rage and mortification at their
+blunders.
+
+The tumult was now at the highest, and the horses, terrified by the
+noise around them, had commenced plunging and rearing fearfully, when
+Mary Martin came galloping up to the spot at full speed.
+
+"Let go that bridle, Hogan," cried she, aloud; "you are driving that
+horse mad. Loose the leaders' traces; unbuckle the reins, Patsey; the
+wheelers will stand quietly. There, lead them away. Speak to that mare;
+she 's trembling with fear. I told you not to come by this road, Barney;
+and it was only by accident that I saw the wheel-tracks. A thousand
+pardons, Aunt Dora, for this mishap. Barney misunderstood my orders. It
+will be all right in a moment. Once over this bad spot, the road is hard
+and level."
+
+"Having no taste, nor any genius for adventures, Miss Martin," began
+her Ladyship--But Mary did not await the remainder of the speech; for,
+turning her horse sharply round, and beckoning to some of the people
+to follow her, she was away across the lawn at a smart canter. Having
+arrived at a small wooden bridge over a river, she ordered the men to
+lift some of the planking, by the aid of which they soon constructed
+a firm and safe passage for the carriage; and as her presence was the
+signal for quiet obedience and prompt action, in less than ten minutes
+the difficulty was surmounted, the horses reharnessed, and all in
+readiness to proceed on their way.
+
+Martin looked on in silent satisfaction, not offering a single
+suggestion, or even seeming to feel interested in the events, but
+enjoying, with all a lazy man's pleasure, the activity displayed around
+him. Not so Lady Dorothea. If she did not like "an adventure," she
+loved "a grievance." Whatever ministered to her selfishness, even in the
+remotest degree, was grateful to her. Mary's opportune arrival had now
+converted what might have passed for a calamity into a mere momentary
+inconvenience; and she could not conceal her discontent. "Your heroines
+are a perfect torment; at least, to us souls of commoner clay. They live
+only for disasters."
+
+"I must say that Mary extricated us from what might have become one,"
+said Martin, dryly.
+
+"We are indebted to her, however, for the possibility. This detestable
+road, which I promise you I 'll never come again, is entirely her own
+invention. I hope, Miss Martin," added she, from the window, "that the
+other approach is to be kept in repair,--at least, for me." But Mary
+did not hear the appeal, for she was bandaging the arm of a poor country
+fellow, who had been sorely cut.
+
+"There, drive on, Barney," cried Lady Dorothea. "I shall be taken ill
+if I stay here. Really, Mr. Martin, your niece's accomplishments are
+the least feminine one can conceive." And improving this theme, she
+continued the entire way till the carriage drew up at the door of the
+castle.
+
+"Yes, sir," said she, as she descended, "that heavy sigh shows you are
+indeed greatly to be pitied. No martyrdom ever exceeded yours. I am
+quite aware of all my imperfections, and can at least fancy everything
+you could say of me and my temper. What did you say, Collins?" said she,
+addressing the obsequious-looking servant, who, with an air of gloomy
+joy, very respectful,--but meant to mean more,--had whispered something
+in her ear.
+
+"A young lady, did you say, Collins?"
+
+"Yes, my Lady."
+
+"Then you were very wrong, Collins. You meant to say a young person."
+
+"Yes, my Lady,--a young person, like a lady."
+
+"Not in the least, except to such appreciation as yours. Where is she?"
+
+"In your Ladyship's library."
+
+"Did she come alone?"
+
+"No, my Lady. Mr. Henderson drove her over in his car, and said he 'd
+pass this way again in the evening."
+
+And now her Ladyship swept proudly by, scarcely noticing the bowing
+servants who had formed into a line along the hall, and who endeavored
+to throw into their sorrowful faces as much of joy as might consist with
+the very deepest humility. Nor was she more condescending to old Catty,
+who stood courtesying at the top of the stairs, with a basket of keys on
+her arm that might have served to lock up all Newgate.
+
+"How cold every place feels! Collins, are you sure the rooms are
+properly aired?" cried she, shuddering. "But I suppose it's the climate.
+Have another stove put there," said she, pointing to an impossible
+locality.
+
+"Yes, my Lady," replied Collins.
+
+"And warmer carpets on these passages."
+
+"Yes, my Lady; it shall be done to-morrow."
+
+"No, sir; to-day."
+
+"Yes, my Lady; this afternoon."
+
+"I don't remember if the windows are double along here."
+
+"Yes, my Lady, they are all double towards the north."
+
+"Then they fit badly, for I feel the draught acutely here. It's like the
+keen air of a mountain;" and Collins gave a slight sympathetic shudder,
+and really looked cold. A somewhat haughty glance from her Ladyship,
+however, as quickly reproved him, for Collins ought to have known
+that it was not by such as himself changes of temperature could be
+appreciable. And now she passed on and entered that part of the
+mansion peculiarly her own, and where, it must be owned, her spirit of
+fault-finding would have been at a loss what to condemn.
+
+Lady Dorothea's library occupied an angle of the building; and from this
+circumstance, included within its precincts an octagonal tower, the view
+from which comprised every varied character of landscape. This favored
+spot was fitted up in the most luxurious taste,--with rarest gems of
+art, and cabinet pictures of almost fabulous value,--to supply
+which foreign dealers and connoisseurs had been for years back in
+correspondence with her Ladyship. Now it was some rare treasure of
+carved ivory, or some sculptured cup of Benvenuto, that had been
+discovered accidentally, and which, despite the emulous zeal of princes
+and cardinals to obtain, was destined for herself. Now it was some
+choice mosaic of which but one other specimen existed, and that in the
+Pope's private collection at the Quirinal. Such was her ardor in this
+pursuit of excellence, that more than once had every object of this
+precious chamber been changed, to give place to something more costly,
+more precious, and rarer. For about two years back, however, the
+resources of the old world seemed to offer nothing worthy of attention,
+and the vases, the "statuettes," the bronzes, the pictures, and
+medallions had held their ground undisturbed.
+
+Such was the sanctity of this spot, that in showing the house to
+strangers it was never opened, nor, without a special order from Lady
+Dorothea,--a favor somewhat more difficult to obtain than a firman from
+the Sultan,--could any one be admitted within its walls. The trusty
+servant in whose charge it was, was actually invested with a species of
+sacred character in the household, as one whose feet had passed the
+threshold of the tabernacle. Our reader may then picture to himself
+something of Lady Dorothea's varied sensations--for, indeed, they were
+most mingled--as she heard a slight cough from within the chamber, and,
+drawing nearer, perceived a female figure seated in front of one of the
+windows, calmly regarding the landscape.
+
+With a degree of noise and bustle sufficient to announce her approach,
+Lady Dorothea entered the tower; while the stranger, rising, retired one
+step, and courtesied very deeply. There was in all the humility of the
+obeisance a certain degree of graceful dignity that certainly struck
+her Ladyship; and her haughty look and haughtier tone were some little
+modified as she asked by what accident she found her there.
+
+"My intrusion was a pure accident, my Lady," replied the other, in a
+low, soft voice; "mistaking the door by which I had entered a room, I
+wandered on through one after another until I found myself here. I beg
+your Ladyship to believe that nothing was further from my thoughts than
+to obtrude upon your privacy."
+
+"Your name?" began her Ladyship; and then, as suddenly correcting
+herself, she said, "You are Miss Henderson, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, my Lady," she replied, with a slight bend of the head.
+
+"I sent for you," said Lady Dorothea, in a half-careless tone, while she
+turned over some books on the table, as if in search of something,--"I
+sent for you, partly at the request of your mother--"
+
+"My stepmother, my Lady," interposed the girl, calmly.
+
+Lady Dorothea stared at her for a second or two, as though to say, how
+had she dared to correct her; but either that the reproof had not met
+its full success, or that she did not care to pursue it, she added, "At
+the request of your friends, and partly out of curiosity." And here
+Lady Dorothea raised her glass to her eye, and quietly surveyed her,--an
+examination which, it must be owned, none could have borne with more
+unshaken fortitude; not the slightest tremor of a limb, not the faintest
+change of color betokening that the ordeal was a painful one.
+
+"I do see that you have been educated in France," said her Ladyship,
+with a smile of most supercilious import, while a courtesy from the
+young girl admitted the fact.
+
+"Were you brought up in Paris?" asked she, after a pause.
+
+"For four years, my Lady."
+
+"And the remainder of the time, where was it passed?"
+
+"We travelled a great deal, my Lady, in Germany and Italy."
+
+"'We,'--who were the 'we' you speak of? Please to bear in mind that I
+know nothing of your history."
+
+"I forgot that, my Lady. I thought my stepmother had, perhaps, informed
+your Ladyship."
+
+"Of nothing whatever, child," said she, haughtily, "save of your having
+a foreign education, and wishing, or hoping, to find some engagement
+as a governess or a teacher;" and the last words were drawled out
+languidly, as though they were suggestive of all that was wearisome and
+a bore. "So you must be good enough to explain who 'we' were."
+
+"The Duchesse de Luygnes and her family, my Lady."
+
+"You travelled with them; and in what capacity, pray?"
+
+"I was called companion to the Princesse de Courcelles, the eldest
+daughter of the Duchess, my Lady."
+
+"Companion!--why, you must have been a mere child at the time?"
+
+"A mere child, my Lady; but they took me from the Pensionnat, to speak
+English with the young Princess."
+
+"And then they took the charge of your education, I conclude?"
+
+"Yes, my Lady."
+
+"And to what extent--or rather, in what direction; I mean, what object
+had they in view in choosing your studies?"
+
+"They gave me the same masters as to the young Princess, my Lady; and I
+was instructed in all respects as she was."
+
+"And treated like her also, I conclude?" said Lady Dorothea, with a
+sneering smile.
+
+"Madame la Duchesse was ever most kind to me," said the girl, half
+proudly.
+
+"Kind--yes, of course--kind, if you conducted yourself properly and to
+her satisfaction. A person of her condition would be kind; but I trust
+this did not proceed so far as to spoil you? I hope it never made you
+forget your station?"
+
+"I trust it did not, my Lady."
+
+"With what part of the establishment did you live? Where did you dine?"
+
+"With the Princess, my Lady; except on _f�te_ days, when we were invited
+to the table of the Duchess."
+
+"I never heard of anything more absurd,--outrageously absurd. Why, are
+you aware, young woman, that these same friends of yours have done you
+irreparable mischief? They have, so to say, ruined your entire future;
+for how can I, and others in my station, avail myself of your services,
+with such habits and expectations as these?"
+
+"Certainly not expectations, my Lady. I never did or can expect such
+condescension from another."
+
+"No matter; your head is filled with ideas unbefitting your condition,
+usages, habits, associations, all foreign to a menial station. You
+have been admitted to privileges the want of which would be felt as
+hardships. In fact, as I said before, they have done you irreparable
+injury. You must feel it yourself."
+
+A very faint smile, half in deprecation of the appeal, was the only
+reply of the young girl.
+
+"You are certain to feel it later on in life, if you are not sensible of
+it at present, that I can vouch for, young woman," said Lady Dorothea,
+with all the firmness with which she could utter an unpleasant speech.
+"Nothing but unhappiness ever resulted from such ill-judged indulgence.
+Indeed, if your mother had mentioned the circumstances, I scarcely think
+I should have sent for you"--she paused to see if any strong signs of
+contrite sorrow displayed themselves in the young girl's features; none
+such were there, and Lady Dorothea more sternly added,--"I may safely
+say, I never should have asked to see you."
+
+When a speech meant to be severe has failed to inflict the pain it was
+intended to produce, it invariably recoils with redoubled power upon him
+who uttered it; and so Lady Dorothea now felt all the pang of her
+own ungenerous sentiment. With an effort to shake off this unpleasant
+sensation, she resumed,--
+
+"I might go further, and observe that unless you yourself became
+thoroughly penetrated with the fact, you must always prove very
+unsuitable to the station you are destined to occupy in life. Do you
+understand me?"
+
+"I believe I do, my Lady," was the calm reply.
+
+"And also," resumed she, still more dictatorially--"and also, that
+acquiring this knowledge by yourself will be less painful to your
+feelings than if impressed upon you by others. Do you fully apprehend
+me?"
+
+"I think so, my Lady."
+
+Now, although the tone and manner of the young girl were unexceptionable
+in all that regards deference and respect, Lady Dorothea was not a
+little provoked at her unbroken composure. There was no confusion, not
+even a semblance of constraint about her. She replied to even sarcastic
+questions without the faintest shadow of irritation, and exhibited
+throughout the most perfect quietude and good breeding. Had the "young
+person" been overwhelmed with shame, or betrayed into any access of
+temper, her Ladyship's manner would have presented a pattern of haughty
+dignity and gracefulness, and her rebukes would have been delivered in
+a tone of queen-like superiority; but Miss Henderson afforded no
+opportunity for these great qualities. She was deference itself; but
+deference so self-possessed, so assured of its own safeguard, as to be
+positively provoking.
+
+"Under all these circumstances, therefore," resumed Lady Dorothea, as if
+having revolved mighty thoughts within her mind, "it appears to me you
+would not suit me."
+
+But even this speech failed to call up one trait of disappointment, and
+the young girl received it with only a deep courtesy.
+
+"I'm sorry for it," continued my Lady, "on your mother's account; your
+education has of course cost her and your father many sacrifices, which
+your duty requires you to repay." She paused, as if asking for some
+assent to this speech.
+
+Another deep courtesy was the reply.
+
+"There, that will do," said Lady Dorothea, angrily; for any attempt to
+provoke seemed an utter failure. "I think I have nothing more to
+say. When I shall see your mother I can explain more fully to her.
+Good-morning."
+
+"I wish your Ladyship good-morning," said the girl, with a deep
+obeisance, and in a voice of perfect deference, while she retired
+towards the door. Before she had reached it, however, Lady Dorothea
+again addressed her.
+
+"You forgot, I think, to tell me why you left the Duchesse de Luygnes?"
+
+"I left on the marriage of the Princess, my Lady."
+
+"Oh, I remember; she married a Russian, I think."
+
+"No, my Lady; she married the Duc de Mirecourt, French Ambassador at St.
+Petersburg."
+
+"Ah, to be sure. I knew there was something Russian about it. And so
+they sent you away then?"
+
+"The Duchess most kindly invited me to accompany her, my Lady, but my
+father desired I should return to Ireland."
+
+"And very properly," said Lady Dorothea; "he took a most just view of
+the case; your position would only have exposed you to great perils. I'm
+sure you are not of my opinion, for distrust of yourself does not appear
+one of your failings."--It is possible that this ungenerous remark was
+evoked by a very slight curl of the young girl's lip, and which, faint
+as it was, did not escape her Ladyship's keen glances.--"Good-morning."
+
+Again had Miss Henderson gained the door; her hand was already on the
+lock, when her Ladyship called out: "In the event of anything occurring
+to me likely to suit you, I ought to know what you can teach; and mind,
+don't bore me with a mere catalogue of hard names, but say what you
+really know."
+
+"Some modern languages, my Lady, with music."
+
+"No Greek or Latin?" said Lady Dorothea, half sneer-ingly.
+
+"Latin, perhaps; but though I can read some Greek, I could not venture
+to teach it."
+
+"Nor Hebrew?"
+
+"No, my Lady."
+
+"And the modern tongues,--which of them do you profess to know?"
+
+"French, Italian, Spanish, and German."
+
+"And don't you draw?--they showed me what they called yours."
+
+"Yes, my Lady, but I cannot teach drawing."
+
+"And of course you are thoroughly versed in history. Have you studied
+any scientific subjects?--mathematics, for instance."
+
+"Only a few of the French initial books, my Lady."
+
+"Why, you are quite an Admirable Crichton for acquirement. I feel really
+abashed to find myself in such company." But even this coarse speech
+failed to irritate, and Lady Dorothea walked angrily towards the window
+and looked out.
+
+It so chanced that, through an opening of the wood, she caught sight
+of a large assemblage of workpeople, who, headed by Miss Martin on
+horseback, were on their way to the quarries; and as she looked, a
+sudden thought flashed across her: "Why not retain the 'young person' as
+a companion for her niece? How admirably would all this girl's
+knowledge contrast with Mary's ignorance! What an unceasing source of
+disparagement would their contact afford, at the very moment that
+the arrangement might seem dictated by the very best and highest of
+motives."
+
+It may doubtless appear to many, that the individual who could reason
+thus must be animated by a most corrupt and depraved nature, but
+unhappily the spiteful element in the human heart is one which never
+measures its modes of attack, but suffers itself to be led on, from acts
+of mere petty malice to actions of downright baseness and badness. Lady
+Dorothea was not devoid of good traits, but once involved in a pursuit,
+she totally forgot the object which originally suggested it, but engaged
+all her zeal and all her ardor for success. She would have been shocked
+at the bare possibility of actually injuring her niece; she would have
+resented with indignation the mere mention of such; but yet she would
+have eagerly grasped at whatever afforded a chance of dominating over
+her. Mary's influence in the household--her rule over the peasantry of
+the estate--was a perpetual source of annoyance to her Ladyship, and yet
+she never knew how to thwart it, till now that chance seemed to offer
+this means.
+
+"You need not go back just yet: I 'll speak to Mr. Martin about you,"
+said she, turning towards Miss Henderson; and, with a respectful
+courtesy, the girl withdrew, leaving her Ladyship to her own somewhat
+complicated reflections.
+
+In less than half an hour after Lady Dorothea proceeded to Mr. Martin's
+study, where a cabinet council was held, the substance of which our
+reader can readily conceive; nor need he have any doubts as to the
+decision, when we say that Lady Dorothea retired to her own room with a
+look of satisfaction so palpably displayed that Mademoiselle Hortense,
+her maid, remarked to herself, "Somebody or other was sure to pass a
+_mauvais quart d'heure_ when _miladi_ goes to her room with an air of
+such triumphant meaning as that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. "A HOUSEKEEPER'S ROOM"
+
+Cro' Martin was replete with every comfort and luxury. All its
+arrangements betokened wealth; not a single appliance of ease or
+enjoyment but was to be found within its well-ordered walls; and yet
+there was one want which seemed to mar all, and infuse a sense of almost
+dreary coldness over everything, and this was--the absence of a numerous
+family, the assemblage of various ages, which gives to a home its
+peculiar interest, embodying the hopes and fears and passions and
+motives of manhood, in every stage of existence, making up that little
+world within doors which emblematizes the great one without; but, with
+this singular advantage, of its being bound up in one holy sentiment of
+mutual love and affection.
+
+This charm is it which gives the whole vitality to home,--this mingling
+of the temperaments of youth and manhood and deep age, blending hopes
+of the future with memories of the past, and making of every heart
+a portion of one human biography, in which many are sharers. To the
+stranger, who came to see the house and its gorgeous decorations,
+all seemed suggestive of habitable enjoyment. The vast drawing-rooms
+appeared as if only waiting for a splendid company; the dark wainscoted
+dining-room, with its noble fireplace of gigantic dimensions, looked the
+very scene where hospitable conviviality might be enacted; the library,
+calm, quiet, and secluded, seemed a spot wherein a student might have
+passed a life long. Even in the views that presented themselves at the
+several windows, there was a certain appropriateness to the character of
+the room, and the same importunate question still arose to one's mind:
+Who is there to enjoy all this? What words of glad welcome echo through
+this vaulted hall, what happy daughter sings through these gilded
+chambers, where is the social pleasantry that circles the blazing fire
+of the ample hearth? Alas! all was sombre, splendid, and dreary. No,
+we are wrong!--not all! There was one corner of this great house where
+cheerfulness was the very type of comfort. It was a small and not lofty
+room, whose two windows projected beyond the walls, giving a wide view
+over the swelling landscape for miles of space. Here the furniture was
+of the most ordinary kind, but scrupulously neat and well kept. The
+chairs--there were but four of them--all with arms and deep cushions;
+the walnut table a perfect mirror of polish; the cloth curtains,
+that closed the windows and concealed the door, massive and
+heavy-folded,--all breathed of snugness; while the screen that
+surrounded the fire had other perfections than those of comfortable
+seclusion, containing a most strange collection of the caricatures of
+the time, and the period before the Union. It is but necessary to add
+that this was Mrs. Broon's apartment,--the snug chamber where old Catty
+enjoyed herself, after the fatigues and duties of the day. Here now
+she sat at tea, beside a cheerful fire, the hissing kettle on the hob
+harmonizing pleasantly with the happy purring of an enormous cat, who
+sat winking at the blaze; and while evidently inconvenienced by the
+heat, lacking energy to retreat from it. Catty had just obtained the
+newspaper,--as the master had gone to dinner,--and was really about to
+enjoy a comfortable evening. Far from devoid of social qualities, or a
+liking for companionship, she still lived almost entirely to herself,
+the other servants being chiefly English, whose habits and ways were all
+strange to her, and all whose associations were widely different from
+her own. Catty Broon had thus obtained a reputation for unsociability
+which she by no means deserved, but to which, it must be owned, she
+was totally indifferent. In fact, if _they_ deemed _her_ morose and
+disagreeable, _she_, in turn, held _them_ still more cheaply, calling
+them a set of lazy devils that "were only in each other's way," and
+"half of them not worth their salt."
+
+Catty had also survived her generation; all her friends of former
+years had either died or emigrated, and except two or three of the
+farm-servants, none of the "ould stock," as she called them, were in
+existence. This brief explanation will show that Catty's comparative
+isolation was not entirely a matter of choice. If a sense of loneliness
+did now and then cross her mind, she never suffered it to dwell there,
+but chased away the unpleasant thought by some active duty; or if
+the season of that were over, by the amusing columns of the
+"Intelligence,"--a journal which realized to Mrs. Broon's conceptions
+the very highest order of literary merit.
+
+Catty did not take much interest in politics; she had a vague, dreamy
+kind of notion that the game of party was a kind of disreputable
+gambling, and Parliament itself little better than a "Hell," frequented
+by very indifferent company. Indeed, she often said it would be "well
+for us if there was no politics, and maybe then, there would be no taxes
+either." The news she liked was the price of farming-stock at fairs and
+markets,--what Mr. Hynes got for his "top lot" of hoggets, and what Tom
+Healey paid for the "finest heifers ever seen on the fair-green."
+These, and the accidents--a deeply interesting column--were her peculiar
+tastes; and her memory was stored with every casualty, by sea, fire, and
+violence, that had graced the "Intelligence" for forty years back; in
+truth they formed the stations of her chronology, and she would refer
+to events as having occurred the same year that Joe Ryan was hanged, or
+"the very Christmas that Hogan fired at Captain Crossley." An inundation
+of great extent also figured in these memorabilia, and was constantly
+referred to, by her saying, "This or that happened the year after the
+Flood," suggesting a rather startling impression as to her longevity.
+
+On the evening we now refer to, the newspaper was more than commonly
+adorned with these incidents. Public news having failed, private
+calamities were invoked to supply the place. Catty was, therefore,
+fortunate. There was something, too, not altogether unpleasant in the
+whistling storm that raged without, and the heavy plashing of the rain
+as it beat upon the window-panes. Without imputing to her, as would be
+most unjust, the slightest touch of ill-nature, she felt a heightened
+sense of her own snugness as she drew closer to the bright hearth, while
+she read of "a dreadful gale in the Bay of Biscay."
+
+It was just in the most exciting portion of the description that her
+door was rudely opened, and the heavy curtain dashed aside with a daring
+hand; and Catty, startled by the sudden interruption, called angrily
+out,--
+
+"Who's there?--who are ye at all?"
+
+"Can't you guess, Catty?" cried out a pleasant voice. "Don't you know
+that there's only one in this house here who 'd dare to enter in such a
+fashion?"
+
+"Oh, Miss Mary, is it you? And, blessed Virgin, what a state ye 're
+in!" cried she, as she gazed at the young girl, who, throwing away her
+riding-hat, wrung out the rain from her long and silky hair, while she
+laughed merrily at old Catty's dismayed countenance.
+
+"Why, where in the world were you--what happened you, darling?" said
+Catty, as she assisted her to remove the dripping costume.
+
+"I was at the Wood, Catty, and up to the quarries, and round by
+Cronebawn, and then, seeing a storm gathering, I thought I 'd turn
+homeward, but one of Kit Sullivan's children--my little godchild, you
+know--detained me to hear him recite some verses he had learned for my
+birthday; and, what with one thing and another, it was pitch dark when I
+reached the 'New Cut,' and then, to my annoyance, I found the bridge had
+just been carried away--there, Catty, now for a pair of your own
+comfortable slippers--and, as I was saying to you, there was no bridge!"
+
+"The bridge gone!" exclaimed Catty, in horror.
+
+"All Tom Healey's fault. I told him that the arch had not span enough,
+and that the buttresses would never stand the first heavy fall of rain
+from the mountains, and there 's not a vestige of them now!"
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"I rode for the Low Meadows, Catty, with all speed. I knew that the
+river, not being confined there between narrow banks, and spreading over
+a wide surface, couldn't be very deep. Nor was it. It never touched the
+girths but once, when we got into a hole. But she is such a rare good
+beast, that little Sorrel; she dashed through everything, and I don't
+think I took forty minutes from Kane's Mill to this door, though I never
+saw a spot of the road all the while, except when the lightning showed
+it. There now, like a good old dear, don't wring your hands and say,
+'Blessed hour!' but just put some more tea in the teapot, and fetch me
+your brown loaf!"
+
+"But surely you 'll die of cold!--you 'll be in a fever!"
+
+"Nonsense, Catty; I have been out in rain before this. I'm more provoked
+about that bridge than all else. My excellent aunt will have such a
+laugh at my engineering skill, when she hears of it. Can't be helped,
+however. And so there's a dinner-party upstairs, I hear. Fanny told me
+there were three strangers."
+
+"So I hear. There's a lawyer from Dublin; and a lady from I don't know
+where; and young Nelligan, old Dan's son. I 'm sure I never thought I 'd
+see the day he 'd be eating his dinner at Cro' Martin."
+
+"And why not, Catty? What is there in his manners and conduct that
+should not make him good company for any one here?"
+
+"Is n't he the son of a little huckster in Oughterard? Old Dan, that I
+remember without a shoe to his foot?"
+
+"And is it a reproach to him that he has made a fortune by years of
+patient industry and toil?"
+
+"In-dus-try! toil! indeed," said Catty, sneeringly. "How much in-dus-try
+or toil there is, weighing out snuff and sugar in a snug shop. Ayeh!
+he's an old nig-gar, the same Dan. I know him well."
+
+"But that is no reason why you should disparage his son, Catty, who is a
+young gentleman of the highest ability and great promise. I never heard
+you speak so ungenerously before."
+
+"Well, well, darling, don't look angry with your ould Catty, anyway. It
+isn't for the like of Dan Nelligan, or his son either, you'd be cross
+with _me!_"
+
+"Never, Catty, never,--for anybody or anything," said the young girl,
+taking her hand with both her own. "But you have n't told me who the
+lady is. How did she arrive, and when?"
+
+"I know nothing of her. Peter came to say that the blue bedroom was
+wanting to-night, and he wished to torment me into asking who for?--but
+I wouldn't, just for that same; and so I gave him the keys without a
+word."
+
+"I wonder if this note, that I found on my dressing-table, will explain
+anything," said Mary, as she proceeded to break the seal. "Of all the
+absurd ways of my Lady aunt, she has not a more ridiculous one than this
+trick of writing little notes, instead of speaking. She sees me every
+day, and might surely say whatever she wanted to say, without embalming
+it in a despatch. This, I perceive, is number four hundred and
+seventy-six, and I presume she 's correct in the score. Only think,
+Catty,--four hundred little epistles like this!"
+
+And with these words she carelessly unfolded the letter and began to
+read it. All her indifference of manner, however, soon gave way to an
+expression of considerable eagerness, and she had no sooner finished the
+epistle than she recommenced and reread it.
+
+"You 'd never guess what tidings this brings me, Catty," said she,
+laying down the paper, and looking with an expression half sad, half
+comical.
+
+"Maybe I might, then," said Catty, shaking her head knowingly.
+
+"Come, out with your guess, then, old lady, and I promise to venerate
+your wisdom ever after if you be right,--that is, if nobody has already
+given you a hint on the subject."
+
+"Not one in the world," said Catty, solemnly; "I pledge you my word and
+faith I never heard a syllable about it."
+
+"About it! about what?"
+
+"About what's in the letter there," said Catty, stoutly.
+
+"You are therefore quite certain that you know it," said Mary, smiling,
+"so now let's have your interpretation."
+
+"It 's a proposial," said Catty, with a slight wink.
+
+"A what!"
+
+"A proposial--of marriage, I mean."
+
+But before the words were out, Mary burst into a fit of laughter, so
+hearty and with such good-will that poor Catty felt perfectly ashamed of
+herself.
+
+"My dear Catty," said she, at length, "you must have been reading fairy
+tales this morning; nothing short of such bright literature could have
+filled your mind with these imaginings. The object of the note is, I
+assure you, of a quite different kind;" and here she ran her eye once
+more over the epistle. "Yes," continued she, "it is written in my dear
+aunt's own peculiar style, and begins with a 'declaratory clause,' as I
+think Mr. Scanlan would call it, expressive of my lamentably neglected
+education, and then proceeds to the appropriate remedy, by telling me
+that I am to have a governess!"
+
+"A what!" cried Catty, in angry amazement.
+
+"A governess, Catty,--not a governor, as you suspected."
+
+"Ayeh, ayeh!" cried the old woman, wringing her hands; "what's this for?
+Don't you know how to govern yourself by this time? And what can they
+teach you that you don't understand already?"
+
+"Ah, my dear Catty," said the young girl, sadly, "it is a sad subject
+you would open there,--one that I have wept over many a dreary hour!
+No one knows--no one even could guess--how deeply I have deplored my
+illiterate condition. Nor was it," added she, ardently, "till I had
+fashioned out a kind of existence of my own--active, useful, and
+energetic--that I could bury the thought of my utter want of education.
+Not even you, Catty, could fathom all the tears this theme has cost
+me, nor with what a sinking of the heart I have thought over my actual
+unfitness for my station."
+
+"Arrah, don't provoke me! don't drive me mad!" cried the old woman, in
+real anger. "There never was one yet as fit for the highest place as
+yourself; and it is n't me alone that says it, but hundreds of--"
+
+"Hundreds of dear, kind, loving hearts," broke in Mary, "that would
+measure my poor capacity by my will to serve them. But no matter, Catty;
+I 'll not try to undeceive them. They shall think of me with every help
+their own affection may lend them, and I will not love them less for the
+overestimate."
+
+As she spoke these words, she buried her face between her hands; but
+the quick heaving of her chest showed how deep was her emotion. The old
+woman respected her sorrow too deeply to interrupt her, and for several
+minutes not a word was spoken on either side. At last Mary raised her
+head, and throwing back the long, loose hair, which in heavy masses
+shaded her face, said with a firm and resolute voice,--
+
+"I 'd have courage to go to school to-morrow, Catty, and begin as a mere
+child to learn, if I knew that another was ready to take my place here.
+But who is to look after these poor people, who are accustomed now
+to see me amongst them, on the mountains, in the fields, at their
+firesides?--who gain new spirit for labor when I ride down in the midst
+of them, and look up, cheered, by seeing me, even from a sick-bed. Her
+Ladyship would say, Mr. Henderson could do all this far better than
+myself."
+
+"Mr. Henderson, indeed!" exclaimed Catty, indignantly; "the
+smooth-tongued old rogue!"
+
+"And perhaps he might, in England," resumed Mary; "but not here,
+Catty,--not here! We care less for benefits than the source from which
+they spring. We Irish cherish the love of motives as well as actions;
+and, above all, we cherish the links that bind the lowliest in the land
+with the highest, and make both better by the union."
+
+She poured out these words with rapid impetuosity, rather talking to
+herself than addressing her companion; then, suddenly changing her tone,
+she added,--
+
+"Besides, Catty, _they_ are used to me, and _I_ to _them_. A new face
+and a new voice would not bring the same comfort to them."
+
+"Never, never," muttered the old woman to herself.
+
+"And I 'll not desert them."
+
+"That you won't, darling," said the old woman, kissing her hand
+passionately, while tears swam in her eyes, and trickled down her
+cheeks.
+
+"There is but one thought, Catty, that makes me at all faint-hearted
+about this, and whenever it crosses me I do feel very low and
+depressed." She paused, and then murmured the words, "My father!"
+
+"Your father, my darling! What about _him?_"
+
+"It is thinking, Catty, of his return; an event that ought to be--and
+would be, too--the very happiest of my life; a day for whose coming I
+never sleep without a prayer; and yet, even this bright prospect has its
+dark side, when I recall all my own deficiencies, and how different he
+will find his daughter from what he had expected her."
+
+"May the blessed saints grant me patience!" cried Catty, breaking in.
+"Isn't it too bad to hear you talking this way? Sure, don't I know
+Master Barry well? Didn't I nurse him, and wasn't I all as one as his
+own mother to him, and don't I know that you are his own born image?
+'Tis himself and no other ye are every minute of the day."
+
+"And even that, Catty," said Mary, smiling, "might fail to satisfy
+him. It is something very different indeed he might have imagined his
+daughter. I'm sure nobody can be more ignorant than I am, of what a
+person in my station ought to know. I cannot hide this from myself in
+my sad moments. I do not try to do so, but I have always relied upon
+the consolation that, to an existence such as mine is like to be, these
+deficiencies do not bring the same sense of shame, the same painful
+consciousness of inferiority, as if I were to mingle with the world of
+my equals. But if he were to come back,--he, who has seen society in
+every shape and fashion,--and find me the poor, unlettered, unread,
+untaught thing I am, unable to follow his very descriptions of
+far-away lands without confusion and mistake; unable to benefit by his
+reflections from very want of previous knowledge,--oh, Catty dearest,
+what a miserable thing is self-love after all, when it should thus
+thrust itself into the foreground, where very different affections alone
+should have the place."
+
+"He 'd love you like his own heart," said Catty. "Nobody knows him like
+me; and if there was ever one made for him to dote on, it's your own
+self."
+
+"Do you indeed think so?" cried Mary, eagerly.
+
+"Do I know it--could I swear it?" said Catty. "He was never much given
+to study himself, except it was books of travel like 'Robinson Crusoe,'
+and the like; and then, after reading one of them books he 'd be off for
+days together, and we 'd be looking for him over the whole country, and
+maybe find him in the middle of Kyle's Wood up a tree; or once, indeed,
+it was in the island of Lettermullen we got him. He built a mud-house,
+and was living there with a goat and two rabbits that he reared himself,
+and if he was n't miserable when they brought him away home! I remember
+his words well,--'Maybe,' says he, 'the time will come that I 'll go
+where you can't come after me;' and ye see that's what he's done, for
+nobody knows where he wasn't wandering these last eight or nine years."
+
+When Catty got upon this theme she could not be brought to quit
+it,--nor, indeed, did Mary try,--for though she had heard these stories
+of her father's boyish days over and over again, she never wearied of
+them; they had all the fascination of romance for her, with the stronger
+interest that grew out of her love for one who, she was told, had
+so loved herself. Besides this, she felt in her own heart the same
+promptings to a life of action and adventure. All the incidents and
+accidents of an eventful existence were the very things to delight her,
+and one of her happiest daydreams was to fancy herself her father's
+companion in his wanderings by flood and field.
+
+And thus they sat till a late hour of the night talking and listening,
+old Catty answering each inquiry of the young girl by some anecdote or
+trait of him she still persisted in calling "Master Barry," till, in the
+ardor of listening, Mary herself caught up the phrase, and so designated
+her own father.
+
+"How unlike my uncle in everything!" exclaimed Mary, as she reflected
+over some traits the old woman had just recorded. "And were they not
+very fond of each other?"
+
+"That they were: at least I can answer for Master Barry's love; and to
+be sure, if having a reason was worth anything, your uncle ought to love
+him more than one man ever did another." Old Catty uttered these
+words with a slow and almost muttering accent; they seemed as if the
+expression of a thought delivered involuntarily--almost unconsciously.
+
+Mary was attracted by the unwonted solemnity of her accent, but still
+more by an expression of intense meaning which gathered over the old
+woman's brows and forehead. "Ay, ay," muttered she, still to herself,
+"there's few brothers would do it. Maybe there's not another living but
+himself would have done it."
+
+"And what was it, Catty?" asked Mary, boldly.
+
+"Eh!--what was I saying, darling?" said Catty, rousing herself to full
+consciousness.
+
+"You were telling of my father, and some great proof of affection he
+gave my uncle."
+
+"To be sure he did," said the old woman, hastily. "They were always fond
+of each other, as brothers ought to be."
+
+"But this one particular instance of love,--what was it, Catty?"
+
+The old woman started, and looked eagerly around the room, as though to
+assure herself that they were alone; then, drawing her chair close to
+Mary's, she said, in a low voice: "Don't ask me any more about them
+things, darling. 'T is past and gone many a year now, and I 'd rather
+never think of it more, for I 've a heavy heart after it."
+
+"So, then, it is a secret, Catty?" said Mary, half proudly.
+
+"A secret, indeed," said Catty, shaking her head mournfully.
+
+"Then you need only to have said so, and I'd not have importuned you to
+tell it; for, to say truth, Catty, I never knew you had any secrets from
+me."
+
+"Nor have I another, except this, darling," said Catty; and she
+buried her face within her hands. And now both sat in silence for some
+minutes,--a most painful silence to each. At last Mary arose, and,
+although evidently trying to overcome it, a feeling of constraint was
+marked in her features.
+
+"You'd never guess how late it is, Catty," said she, trying to change
+the current of her thoughts. "You 'd not believe it is past three
+o'clock; how pleasantly we must have talked, to forget time in this
+way!"
+
+But the old woman made no reply, and it was clear that she had never
+heard the words, so deeply was she sunk in her own reflections.
+
+"This poor hat of mine will scarcely do another day's service," said
+Mary, as she looked at it half laughingly. "Nor is my habit the fresher
+of its bath in the 'Red River;' and the worst of it is, Catty, I have
+overdrawn my quarter's allowance, and must live on, in rags, till
+Easter. I see, old lady, you have no sympathies to waste on me and my
+calamities this evening," added she, gayly, "and so I'll just go to bed
+and, if I can, dream pleasantly."
+
+"Rags, indeed," said Catty. "It's well it becomes you to wear rags!"
+and her eyes sparkled with indignant passion. "Faith, if it comes
+to that,"--here she suddenly paused, and a pale hue spread over her
+features like a qualm of faintish sickness,--"may the Holy Mother give
+me help and advice; for sometimes I'm nigh forgetting myself!"
+
+"My dear old Catty," said Mary, fondly, "don't fret about me and my
+foolish speech. I only said it in jest. I have everything,--far more
+than I want; a thousand times more than I desire. And my excellent
+aunt never said a truer thing in her life than when she declared that
+'everybody spoiled me.' Now, good-night." And kissing the old woman
+affectionately, Mary gathered up the stray fragments of her riding-gear,
+and hurried away, her merry voice heard cheerfully as she wended her way
+up many a stair and gallery to her own chamber.
+
+If Mary Martin's character had any one quality preeminently remarkable,
+it was the absence of everything like distrust and suspicion. Frankness
+and candor itself in all her dealings, she never condescended to impute
+secret motives to another; and the very thought of anything like mystery
+was absolutely repugant to her nature. For the very first time in her
+life, then, she left old Catty Broon with a kind of uneasy, dissatisfied
+impression. There was a secret, and she was somehow or other concerned
+in it; so much was clear. How could she convince the old woman that no
+revelation, however disagreeable in itself, could be as torturing as a
+doubt? "Can there be anything in my position or circumstances here that
+I am not aware of? Is there a mystery about me in any way?" The very
+imagination of such a thing was agony. In vain she tried to chase away
+the unwelcome thought by singing, as she went, by thinking over plans
+for the morrow, by noting down, as she did each night, some stray
+records of the past day; still Catty's agitated face and strange emotion
+rose before her, and would not suffer her to be at rest.
+
+To a day of great excitement and fatigue now succeeded a sleepless,
+feverish night, and morning broke on her unrefreshed, and even ill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. A FINE OLD IRISH BARRISTER
+
+Can any one tell us what has become of that high conversational power
+for which Ireland, but more especially Dublin, was once celebrated? Have
+the brilliant talkers of other days left no successors? Has that race of
+delightful con-vivialists gone and disappeared forever? Or are we only
+enduring an interregnum of dulness, the fit repose, perhaps, after a
+period of such excitement? The altered circumstances of the country will
+doubtless account for much of this change. The presence of a Parliament
+in Ireland imparted a dignity and importance to society, while it
+secured to social intercourse the men who made that Senate illustrious.
+The Bar, too, of former days, was essentially the career of the highest
+class, of those who had the ambition of political success without the
+necessity of toiling for it through the laborious paths of the law; and
+thus the wit, the brilliancy, and the readiness which gives conversation
+its charm, obtained the high culture which comes of a learned
+profession, and the social intercourse with men of refined
+understanding.
+
+With the Union this spirit died out. Some of the brightest and gayest
+retired from the world, sad, dispirited, and depressed; some felt that
+a new and very different career was to open before them, and addressed
+themselves to the task of conforming to new habits and acquiring new
+influences; and others, again, sought in the richer and greater country
+the rewards which they once were satisfied to reap in their own. With
+the Union, society in Dublin--using the word in its really comprehensive
+sense--ceased to exist. The great interests of a nation departed, men
+sank to the level of the small topics that engaged them, and gradually
+the smallest and narrowest views of mere local matters usurped the place
+of great events and liberal speculations. Towards the end of the
+first quarter of the present century, a few of those who had once made
+companionship with Curran and Grattan and Lysaght and Parsons were still
+in good health and vigor. A fine, high-hearted, manly class they were,
+full of that peculiar generosity of character which has ever marked the
+true Irish gentleman, and with a readiness in humor and a genial flow of
+pleasantry which rendered their society delightful.
+
+Of this school--and probably the last, for he was then the Father of the
+Bar--was Valentine Repton, a man whose abilities might have won for him
+the very highest distinctions, but who, partly through indolence, and
+partly through a sturdy desire to be independent of all party, had all
+his life rejected every offer of advancement, and had seen his juniors
+pass on to the highest ranks of the profession, while he still wore his
+stuff-gown, and rose to address the Court from the outer benches.
+
+He was reported in early life to have professed very democratic
+opinions, for which he more than once had incurred the _deep_
+displeasure of the authorities of the University. The principles of
+the French Revolution had, however, been gradually toned down in him
+by time, and probably by a very aristocratic contempt for the party who
+advocated them; so that soon after he entered on his career at the Bar
+he seemed to have abandoned politics; nor, except by a sly jest or an
+epigram upon a party leader, no matter of which side, did he ever advert
+to the contests of statecraft.
+
+Though closely approaching seventy, he was hale and vigorous, his gray
+eyes quick and full of fire, his voice clear, and his whole air and
+bearing that of one many years younger. He had been a "beau" in his
+youth, and there was in the accurately powdered hair, the lace ruffles
+in which he still appeared at dinner, and the well-fitting silk
+stocking, an evidence that he had not forgotten the attractions of
+dress. At the Bar he still maintained the very highest place. His
+powers of cross-examination were very great; his management of a jury
+unrivalled. A lifelong acquaintance with Dublin had familiarized him
+with the tone and temper of every class of its citizens, and had taught
+him the precise kind of argument, and the exact nature of the appeal to
+address to each. As he grew older, perhaps he did not observe all his
+wonted discretion in the use of this subtle power, and somewhat presumed
+upon his own skill. Nor was he so scrupulous in his deference to the
+Court,--a feature which had once pre-eminently distinguished him;
+but, upon the whole, he had kept wonderfully clear of the proverbial
+irritability of age, and was, without an exception, the favorite amongst
+his brethren.
+
+The only touch of years observable about his mind was a fondness for
+recurring to incidents or events in which he himself had borne a part.
+A case in which he held a brief, the dinner at which he had
+been brilliant, the epigram he had dashed off in Lady Somebody's
+drawing-room, were bright spots he could not refrain from adverting to;
+but, generally speaking, he had skill enough to introduce these without
+any seeming effort or any straining, and thus strangers, at least, were
+in wonderment at his endless stores of anecdote and illustration. No
+man better than he knew how to throw a great name into the course of a
+conversation, and make an audience for himself, by saying, "I remember
+one day at the Priory with Curran"--or, "We were dining with poor
+Grattan at Tinnehinch, when--" "As Flood once remarked to me--" and so
+on.
+
+The flattery of being addressed by one who had stood in such intimate
+relation to those illustrious men never failed of success. The most
+thoughtless and giddy hearers were at once arrested by such an opening,
+and Repton was sure of listeners in every company.
+
+The man who finds his place in every society is unquestionably a clever
+man. The aptitude to chime in with the tone of others infers a high
+order of humor,--of humor in its real sense; meaning, thereby,
+the faculty of appreciating, and even cultivating, the individual
+peculiarities of those around him, and deriving from their display a
+high order of pleasure.
+
+From these scattered traits let my reader conjure up Valentine Repton
+before him, and imagine the bustling, active, and brisk-looking old
+gentleman whose fidgetiness nearly drove Martin mad, as they held
+converse together in the library after breakfast. Now seated, now rising
+to pace the room, or drawing nigh the window to curse the pelting rain
+without, Repton seemed the incarnation of uneasiness.
+
+"Very splendid--very grand--very sumptuous--no doubt," said he, ranging
+his eyes over the gorgeous decorations of the spacious apartment, "but
+would kill me in a month; what am I saying?--in a week!"
+
+"What would kill you, Repton?" said Martin, languidly.
+
+"This life of yours, Martin,--this sombre quiet, this unbroken
+stillness, this grave-like monotony. Why, man, where 's your
+neighborhood? where are your gentry friends?"
+
+"Cosby Blake, of Swainestown, is abroad," said Martin, with an indolent
+drawl. "Randal Burke seldom comes down here now. Rickman, I believe, is
+in the Fleet. They were the nearest to us!"
+
+"What a country! and you are spending--What did you tell me last
+night,--was it upwards of ten thousand a year here?"
+
+"What with planting, draining, bridging, reclaiming waste lands,
+and other improvements, the wages of last year alone exceeded seven
+thousand!"
+
+"By Jove! it 's nigh incredible," said the lawyer, energetically. "My
+dear Martin, can't you perceive that all this is sheer waste,--so much
+good money actually thrown into Lough Corrib? Tell me, frankly, how long
+have you been pursuing this system of improvement?"
+
+"About three years; under Mary's management."
+
+"And the results,--what of them?"
+
+"It is too early to speak of that; there's Kyle's Wood, for
+instance,--we have enclosed that at considerable cost. Of course we
+can't expect that the mere thinnings can repay us, the first year or
+two."
+
+"And your reclaimed land,--how has _it_ prospered?"
+
+"Not over well. They pushed draining so far that they 've left a large
+tract perfectly barren and unproductive."
+
+"And the harbor,--the pier I saw yesterday?"
+
+"That 's a bad business,--it's filling up the bay with sand! but we'll
+alter it in summer."
+
+"And now for the people themselves,--are they better off, better fed,
+clothed, housed, and looked after, than before?"
+
+"Mary says so. She tells me that there is a wonderful change for the
+better in them."
+
+"I don't believe a word of it, Martin,--not a word of it. Ireland is not
+to be redeemed by her own gentry. The thing is sheer impossibility! They
+both know each other too well. Do you understand me? They are too ready
+to make allowances for shortcomings that have their source in some
+national prejudice; whereas your Saxon or your Scotchman would
+scout such a plea at once. Ireland wants an alternative, Martin,--an
+alternative; and, amidst our other anomalies, not the least singular is
+the fact that the Englishman, who knows nothing about us, nor ever will
+know anything, is precisely the man to better our condition."
+
+"These are strange opinions to hear from your lips, Repton. I never
+heard any man so sarcastic as yourself on English ignorance regarding
+Ireland."
+
+"And you may hear me again on the same theme whenever you vouchsafe me
+an audience," said the lawyer, sharply. "It was but the other day I gave
+our newly arrived secretary, Mr. Muspratt, a gentle intimation of my
+sentiments on that score. We were dining at the Lodge. I sat next his
+Excellency, who, in the course of dinner, directed my attention to a
+very graphic picture the secretary was drawing of the misery he had
+witnessed that very day, coming up from Carlow. He did the thing well,
+I must own. He gave the famished looks, the rags, the wretchedness, all
+their due; and he mingled his pathos and indignation with all the skill
+of an artist; while he actually imparted a Raffaelle effect to his
+sketch, as he portrayed the halt, the maimed, the blind, and the palsied
+that crowded around the carriage as he changed horses, exclaiming,
+by way of peroration, 'Misery and destitution like this no man ever
+witnessed before, all real and unfeigned as it was sure to be.'
+
+"'Naas is a miserable place, indeed,' said I, for he looked directly
+towards me for a confirmation of his narrative.
+
+"'There is no denying one word the gentleman has said; I came up that way
+from circuit three weeks ago, and was beset in the same spot, and in the
+same manner as we have just heard. I can't attempt such a description as
+Mr. Muspratt has given us; but I will say that there was not a human
+deformity or defect that did n't appear to have its representative in
+that ragged gathering, all clamorous and eager for aid. I looked at them
+for a while in wonderment, and at last I threw out a "tenpenny" in the
+midst. The "blind" fellow saw it first, but the "lame cripple" had the
+foot of him, and got the money!'"
+
+Repton leaned back in his chair, and laughed heartily as he finished. "I
+only wish you saw his face, Martin; and, indeed, his Excellency's too.
+The aides-de-camp laughed; they were very young, and could n't help it."
+
+"He 'll not make you a chief justice, Repton," said Martin, slyly.
+
+"I 'll take care he don't," said the other. "_Summum jus summa injuria_.
+The chief justice is a great humbug, or a great abuse, whichever way you
+like to render it."
+
+"And yet they'd be glad to promote you," said Martin, thoughtfully.
+
+"To be sure they would, sir; delighted to place me where they had no
+fear of my indiscretions. But your judge should be ever a grave animal.
+The temptation to a joke should never sit on the ermine. As Flood once
+remarked to me of old Romney, 'A man, sir,' said he,--and Flood had
+a semi-sarcastic solemnity always about him,--'a man, sir, who has
+reversed the law of physics; for he rose by his gravity, and only fell
+by his lightness.' Very epigrammatic and sharp, that. Ah, Martin, they
+don't say these things nowadays. By the way, who is the young fellow who
+dined with us yesterday?"
+
+"His name is Nelligan; the son of one of our Oughterard neighbors."
+
+"Pleasing manners, gentle, too, and observant," said Repton, with the
+tone of one delivering a judgment to be recorded.
+
+"He's more than that," said Martin; "he is the great prize man of the
+year in Trinity. You must have surely heard of his name up in town."
+
+"I think somebody did speak of him to me,--recommend him, in some
+shape or other," said Repton, abstractedly; "these things are so easily
+forgotten; for, to say the truth, I hold very cheaply all intellectual
+efforts accomplished by great preparation. The cramming, the grinding,
+the plodding, the artificial memory work, and the rest of it, detract
+terribly, in my estimation, from the glory of success. Give me your
+man of impromptu readiness, never unprepared, never at a loss. The very
+consciousness of power is double power." And as he spoke he drew himself
+up, threw his head back, and stared steadfastly at Martin, as though to
+say, "Such is he who now stands before you."
+
+Martin was amused at the display of vanity, and had there been another
+there to have participated in the enjoyment, would have willingly
+encouraged him to continue the theme; but he was alone, and let it pass.
+
+"I 'll make a note of that young man. Mulligan, is n't it?"
+
+"Nelligan."
+
+"To be sure. I 'll remember poor Curran's epigram:--
+
+     'Oh, pity poor Tom Nelligan!
+     Who walking down Pall Mall,
+     He slipt his foot,
+     And down he fell,
+     And fears he won't get well again.'
+
+
+Glorious fellow, sir; the greatest of all the convivialists of his
+time, was Curran. A host in himself; but, as he once said, you could n't
+always depend on the 'elevation.'"
+
+Martin smiled faintly; he relished the lawyer's talk, but he felt
+that it demanded an amount of attention on his part that wearied him.
+Anything that cost him trouble was more or less of a "bore;" and he
+already began to wish for his accustomed ease and indolence.
+
+"Well, Repton," said he, "you wished to see the quarries, I think?"
+
+"To see everything and everybody, sir, and with my own eyes, too. As
+Lysaght said, when I read the book of nature, 'I let no man note my
+brief for me.'"
+
+"I thought of being your companion, myself; but somehow, this morning,
+my old enemy, the gout, is busy again; however, you 'll not regret the
+exchange, Repton, when I give you in charge to my niece. She 'll be but
+too happy to do the honors of our poor country to so distinguished a
+visitor."
+
+"And a very artful plan to put me in good humor with everything," said
+Repton, laughing. "Well, I consent. I offer myself a willing victim to
+any amount of seduction. How are we to go?--do we drive, walk, or ride?"
+
+"If Mary be consulted, she'll say ride," said Martin; "but perhaps--"
+
+"I'm for the saddle, too," broke in Repton. "Give me something active
+and lively, light of mouth and well up before, and I'll show you, as
+Tom Parsons said, that we can cut as good a figure at the wall as the
+'bar.'"
+
+"I 'll go and consult my niece, then," said Martin, hastening out of the
+room, to conceal the smile which the old man's vanity had just provoked.
+
+Mary was dressed in her riding-habit, and about to leave her room as her
+uncle entered it.
+
+"I have just come in the nick of time, Molly, I see," cried he. "I
+want you to lionize an old friend of mine, who has the ambition to 'do'
+Connemara under your guidance."
+
+"What a provoke!" said Mary, half aloud. "Could he not wait for another
+day, uncle? I have to go over to Glencalgher and Kilduff; besides,
+there's that bridge to be looked after, and they 've just come to tell
+me that the floods have carried away the strong paling around the larch
+copse. Really, this old gentleman must wait." It was a rare thing for
+Mary Martin to display anything either of impatience or opposition to
+her uncle. Her affection for him was so blended with respect that she
+scarcely ever transgressed in this wise; but this morning she was ill
+and irritable,--a restless, feverish night following on a day of great
+fatigue and as great excitement,--and she was still suffering, and her
+nerves jarring when he met her.
+
+"But I assure you, Molly, you 'll be pleased with the companionship,"
+began Martin.
+
+"So I might at another time; but I 'm out of sorts to-day, uncle. I 'm
+cross and ill-tempered, and I 'll have it out on Mr. Henderson,--that
+precious specimen of his class. Let Mr. Nelligan perform cicerone, or
+persuade my Lady to drive him out; do anything you like with him, except
+give him to me."
+
+"And yet that is exactly what I have promised him. As for Nelligan, they
+are not suited to each other; so come, be a good girl, and comply."
+
+"If I must," said she, pettishly. "And how are we to go?"
+
+"He proposes to ride, and bespeaks something lively for his own mount."
+
+"Indeed! That sounds well!" cried she, with more animation. "There 's
+'Cropper' in great heart; he 'll carry him to perfection. I 'll have a
+ring-snaffle put on him, and my word for it but he 'll have a pleasant
+ride."
+
+"Take care, Molly; take care that he's not too fresh. Remember that
+Repton is some dozen years or more my senior."
+
+"Let him keep him off the grass and he 'll go like a lamb. I'll not
+answer for him on the sward, though; but I 'll look to him, uncle, and
+bring him back safe and sound." And, so saying, Mary bounded away down
+the stairs, and away to the stables, forgetting everything of her late
+discontent, and only eager on the plan before her.
+
+Martin was very far from satisfied about the arrangement for his
+friend's equitation; nor did the aspect of Repton himself, as attired
+for the road, allay that sense of alarm; the old lawyer's costume being
+a correct copy of the colored prints of those worthies who figured in
+the early years of George the Third's reign,--a gray cloth spencer being
+drawn over his coat, fur-collared and cuffed, high riding-boots of black
+polished leather, reaching above the knee, and large gauntlets of bright
+yellow doeskin, completing an equipment which Martin had seen nothing
+resembling for forty years back.
+
+"A perfect cavalier, Repton!" exclaimed he, smiling.
+
+"We once could do a little that way," said the other, with a touch
+of vanity. "In our early days, Martin, hunting was essentially a
+gentleman's pastime. The meet was not disfigured by aspiring linen
+drapers or ambitious hardwaremen, and the tone of the field was the
+tone of society; but _nous avons chang� tout cela_. Sporting men, as
+they call themselves, have descended to the groom vocabulary; and the
+groom morals, and we, of the old school, should only be laughed at for
+the pedantry of good manners and good English, did we venture amongst
+them."
+
+"My niece will put a different estimate on your companionship; and here
+she comes. Molly, my old and valued friend, Mr. Repton."
+
+"I kiss your hand, Miss Martin," said he, accompanying the speech by the
+act, with all the grace of a courtier. "It's worth while being an old
+fellow, to be able to claim these antiquated privileges."
+
+There was something in the jaunty air and well-assumed gallantry of the
+old lawyer which at once pleased Mary, who accepted his courtesy with a
+gracious smile. She had been picturing to herself a very different kind
+of companion, and was well satisfied with the reality.
+
+"I proposed to young Mr. Nelligan to join us," said Repton, as he
+conducted her to the door; "but it seems he is too deeply intent upon
+some question or point of law or history--I forget which--whereupon we
+differed last night, and has gone into the library to search for the
+solution of it. As for me, Miss Martin, I am too young for such dry
+labors; or, as the Duc de Nevers said, when somebody rebuked him
+for dancing at seventy, 'Only think what a short time is left me for
+folly.'"
+
+We do not propose to chronicle, the subjects or the sayings by which
+the old lawyer beguiled the way; enough if we say that Mary was actually
+delighted with his companionship. The racy admixture of humor and strong
+common-sense, acute views of life, flavored with, now a witty remark,
+now a pertinent anecdote, were conversational powers totally new to her.
+Nor was he less charmed with her. Independently of all the pleasure
+it gave him to find one who heard him with such true enjoyment, and
+relished all his varied powers of amusing, he was equally struck with
+the high-spirited enthusiasm and generous ardor of the young girl. She
+spoke of the people and the country with all the devotion of one who
+loved both; and if at times with more of hopefulness than he himself
+could feel, the sanguine forecast but lent another charm to her
+fascination.
+
+He listened with astonishment as she explained to him the different
+works then in progress,--the vast plans for drainage; the great
+enclosures for planting; the roads projected here, the bridges there. At
+one place were strings of carts, conveying limestone for admixture with
+the colder soil of low grounds; at another they met asses loaded with
+seaweed for the potato land. There was movement and occupation on every
+side. In the deep valleys, on the mountains, in the clefts of the rocky
+shore, in the dark marble quarries, hundreds of people were employed;
+and by these was Mary welcomed with eager enthusiasm the moment she
+appeared. One glance at their delighted features was sufficient to show
+that theirs was no counterfeit joy. Wherever she went the same reception
+awaited her; nor did she try to conceal the happiness it conferred.
+
+"This is very wonderful, very strange, and very fascinating, Miss
+Martin," said Repton, as they moved slowly through a rocky path,
+escarped from the side of the mountain; "but pardon me if I venture to
+suggest one gloomy anticipation in the midst of such brightness. What is
+to become of all these people when _you_ leave them,--as leave them you
+will and must, one day?"
+
+"I never mean to do so," said Mary, resolutely.
+
+"Stoutly spoken," said he, smiling; "but, unfortunately, he who hears it
+could be your grandfather. And again I ask, how is this good despotism
+to be carried on when the despot abdicates? Nay, nay; there never was
+a very beautiful girl yet, with every charm under heaven, who did n't
+swear she 'd never marry; so let us take another alternative. Your uncle
+may go to live in London,--abroad. He may sell Cro' Martin--"
+
+"Oh, that is impossible! He loves the old home of his family and his
+name too dearly; he would be incapable of such a treason to his house!"
+
+"Now, remember, my dear young lady, you are speaking to the most
+suspectful, unimpulsive, and ungenerously disposed of all natures, an
+old lawyer, who has witnessed so many events in life he would have
+once pronounced impossible,--ay, just as roundly as you said the word
+yourself,--and seen people and things under aspects so totally the
+reverse of what he first knew them, that he has taught himself to
+believe that change is the law, and not permanence, in this life, and
+that you and I, and all of us, ought ever to look forward to anything,
+everything, but the condition in which at present we find ourselves.
+Now, I don't want to discourage you with the noble career you have
+opened for yourself here. I am far more likely to be fascinated--I was
+going to say fall in love--with you for it, than to try and turn your
+thoughts elsewhere; but as to these people themselves, the experiment
+comes too late."
+
+"Is it ever too late to repair a wrong, to assist destitution, relieve
+misery, and console misfortune?" broke in Mary, eagerly.
+
+"It is too late to try the feudal system in the year of our Lord 1829,
+Miss Martin. We live in an age where everything is to be redressed by
+a Parliament. The old social compact between proprietor and peasant is
+repealed, and all must be done by 'the House.' Now, if your grandfather
+had pursued the path that you are doing to-day, this crisis might
+never have arrived; but he did not, young lady. He lived like a real
+gentleman; he hunted, and drank, and feasted, and rack-rented, and
+horsewhipped all around him; and what with duelling of a morning and
+drinking over-night, taught the people a code of morals that has assumed
+all the compactness of a system. Ay, I say it with grief, this is a land
+corrupted from the top, and every vice of its gentry has but filtered
+down to its populace! What was that I heard?--was it not a shot?" cried
+he, reining in his horse to listen.
+
+"I thought so, too; but it might be a blast, for we are not far from the
+quarries."
+
+"And do you preserve the game, Miss Martin? are you sworn foe to the
+poacher?"
+
+"I do so; but in reality more for the sake of the people than the
+partridges. Your lounging country fellow, with a rusty gun and a starved
+lurcher, is but an embryo highwayman."
+
+"So he is," cried Repton, delighted at the energy with which she spoke;
+"and I have always thought that the worst thing about the game-laws was
+the class of fellows we educate to break them. Poor old Cranbury was n't
+of that opinion, though. You could never have seen him, Miss Martin; but
+he was a fine specimen of the Irish Bench in the old time. He was the
+readiest pistol in the Irish house; and, as they said then, he 'shot up'
+into preferment. He always deemed an infraction of the game-laws as one
+of the gravest crimes in the statute. Juries, however, did n't concur
+with him; and, knowing the severity of the penalty, they invariably
+brought in a verdict of Not Guilty, rather than subject a poor wretch
+to transportation for a jack-snipe. I remember once,--it was at
+Maryborough; the fellow in the dock was a notable poacher, and, worse
+still, the scene of his exploits was Cranbury's own estate. As usual,
+the jury listened apathetically to the evidence; they cared little
+for the case, and had predetermined the verdict. It was, however, so
+palpably proven, so self-evident that he was guilty, that they clubbed
+their heads together to concert a pretext for their decision. Cranbury
+saw the movement, and appreciated it, and, leaning his head down upon
+his hand, mumbled out, as if talking to himself, in broken sentences,
+'A poor man--with a large family--great temptation--and, after all,
+a slight offence,--a very slight offence.' The jury listened and took
+courage; they fancied some scruples were at work in the old judge's
+heart, and that they might venture on the truth, innocuously. 'Guilty,
+my Lord,' said the foreman. 'Transportation for seven years!' cried the
+judge, with a look at the jury-box that there was no mistaking. They
+were 'done,' but there never was another conviction in that town
+afterwards."
+
+"And were such things possible on the justice-seat?" exclaimed Mary, in
+horror.
+
+"Ah, my dear young lady, I could tell you of far worse than that. There
+was a time in this country when the indictment against the prisoner
+was Secondary in importance to his general character, his party,
+his connections, and fifty other things which had no bearing upon
+criminality. There goes another shot! I 'll swear to that," cried he,
+pulling up short, and looking in the direction from which the report
+proceeded.
+
+Mary turned at the same moment, and pointed with her whip towards a
+beech wood that skirted the foot of the mountain.
+
+"Was it from that quarter the sound came?" said she.
+
+The sharp crack of a fowling-piece, quickly followed by a second report,
+now decided the question; and, as if by mutual consent, they both
+wheeled their horses round, and set off at a brisk canter towards the
+wood.
+
+"I have taken especial pains about preserving this part of the estate,"
+said Mary, as they rode along. "It was my cousin Harry's favorite cover
+when he was last at home, and he left I can't say how many directions
+about it when quitting us; though, to say truth, I never deemed any
+precautions necessary till he spoke of it."
+
+"So that poaching was unknown down here?"
+
+"Almost completely so; now and then some idle fellow with a half-bred
+greyhound might run down a hare, or with a rusty firelock knock over a
+rabbit, but there it ended. And as we have no gentry neighbors to ask
+for leave, and the Oughterard folks would not venture on that liberty,
+I may safely say that the report of a gun is a rare event in these
+solitudes."
+
+"Whoever he be, yonder, is not losing time," said Rep-ton; "there was
+another shot."
+
+Their pace had now become a smart half-gallop; Mary, a little in
+advance, leading the way, and pointing out the safe ground to her
+companion. As they drew nigh the wood, however, she slackened speed till
+he came up, and then said,--
+
+"As I know everybody hereabouts, it will be enough if I only see the
+offender; and how to do that is the question."
+
+"I am at your orders," said Repton, raising his whip to a salute.
+
+"It will be somewhat difficult," said Mary, pondering; "the wood is so
+overgrown with low copse that one can't ride through it, except along
+certain alleys. Now we might canter there for hours and see nothing. I
+have it," cried she, suddenly; "you shall enter the wood and ride slowly
+along the green alley, yonder, till you come to the crossroad, when you
+'ll turn off to the left; while I will remain in observation outside
+here, so that if our friend make his exit I am sure to overtake him. At
+all events, we shall meet again at the lower end of the road."
+
+Repton made her repeat her directions, and then, touching his hat in
+respectful salutation, rode away to fulfil his mission. A low gate,
+merely fastened by a loop of iron without a padlock, admitted the lawyer
+within the precincts, in which he soon discovered that his pace must be
+a walk, so heavy was the deep clayey soil, littered with fallen leaves
+and rotting acorns. Great trees bent their massive limbs over his head,
+and, even leafless as they were, formed a darksome, gloomy aisle, the
+sides of which were closed in with the wild holly and the broom, and
+even the arbutus, all intermingled inextricably. There was something
+solemn even to sadness in the deep solitude, and so Repton seemed to
+feel as he rode slowly along, alone, tingeing his thoughts of her he had
+just quitted with melancholy.
+
+"What a girl and what a life!" said he, musingly. "I must tell
+Martin that this will never do! What can all this devotion end in but
+disappointment! With the first gleam of their newly acquired power the
+people will reject these benefits; they will despise the slow-won fruits
+of industry as the gambler rejects a life of toil. Then will come
+a reaction--a terrible reaction--with all the semblance of black
+ingratitude! She will herself be disgusted. The breach once made will
+grow wider and wider, and at last the demagogue will take the place of
+the landed proprietor. Estrangement at first, next distrust, and finally
+dislike, will separate the gentry from the peasantry, and then--I
+tremble to think of what then!"
+
+As Repton had uttered these words, the sharp bang of a gun startled him,
+and at the same instant a young fellow sprang from the copse in front
+of him into the alley. His coarse fustian shooting-jacket, low-crowned
+oil-skin hat, and leather gaiters seemed to bespeak the professional
+poacher, and Repton dashed forward with his heavy riding-whip upraised
+towards him.
+
+[Illustration: 206]
+
+"Take care, old gentleman," said the young man, facing about; "my second
+barrel is loaded, and if you dare--"
+
+"By Heaven! I'll thrash you, you scoundrel!" said Repton, whose passion
+was now boiling over by a sudden bound of the cob, which had nearly
+thrown him from the saddle,--a mischance greeted by a hearty burst of
+laughter from the stranger.
+
+"I fancy you have quite enough to do at this moment!" cried he, still
+laughing.
+
+Half mad with anger, Repton pressed his spurs to the cob's flanks, while
+he gave him a vigorous cut of the whip on the shoulder. The animal
+was little accustomed to such usage, and reared up wildly, and would
+inevitably have fallen back with his rider, had not the stranger,
+springing forward, seized the bridle, and pulled him down by main force.
+Whether indifferent to his own safety, or so blinded by passion as not
+to recognize to what he owed it, the old man struck the other a heavy
+blow with his whip over the head, cutting through his hat, and covering
+his face with blood.
+
+The young man passing his arm through the bridle, so as to render the
+other's escape impossible, coolly removed his hat and proceeded to
+stanch the bleeding with his handkerchief,--not the slightest sign of
+excitement being displayed by him, nor any evidence of feeling that the
+event was other than a more accident.
+
+"Let loose my bridle-rein,--let it loose, sir," said Repton,
+passionately,--more passionately, perhaps, from observing the measured
+calmness of the other.
+
+"When I know who you are, I shall," said the young man.
+
+"My name is Valentine Repton; my address, if you want it, is Merrion
+Square North, Dublin; and can you now tell me where a magistrate's
+warrant will reach _you?_"
+
+"My present residence is a house you may have seen on the side of the
+mountain as you came along, called, I think, Barnagheela; my name is
+Massingbred."
+
+"You presume to be a gentleman, then?" said Repton.
+
+"I have not heard the matter disputed before," said Jack, with an easy
+smile, while he leisurely bound the handkerchief round his head.
+
+"And of course, you look for satisfaction for this?"
+
+"I trust that there can be no mistake upon that point, at least,"
+replied he.
+
+"And you shall have it, too; though, hang me, if I well know whether you
+should not receive it at the next assizes,--but you shall have it. I
+'ll go into Oughterard this day; I 'll be there by nine o'clock, at the
+Martin Arms."
+
+"That will do," said Massingbred, with a coolness almost like
+indifference; while he resumed his gun, which he had thrown down, and
+proceeded to load the second barrel.
+
+"You are aware that you are poaching here?" said Repton,--"that this is
+part of the Martin estate, and strictly preserved?"
+
+"Indeed! and I thought it belonged to Magennis," said Jack, easily; "but
+a preserve without a gamekeeper, or even a notice, is a blockade without
+a blockading squadron." And without a word more, or any notice of the
+other, Massingbred shouldered his gun and walked away.
+
+It was some time before Repton could summon resolution to leave the
+spot, such was the conflict of thoughts that went on within him. Shame
+and sorrow were, indeed, uppermost in his mind, but still not unmingled
+with anger at the consummate ease and coolness of the other, who by this
+line of conduct seemed to assume a tone of superiority the most
+galling and insulting. In vain did he endeavor to justify his act to
+himself,--in vain seek to find a plausible pretext for his anger. He
+could not, by all his ingenuity, do so, and he only grew more passionate
+at his own failure. "Another would hand him over to the next justice of
+the peace,--would leave him to quarter sessions; but not so Val
+Repton. No, by Jove, he 'll find a man to his humor there, if he wants
+fighting," said he, aloud, as he turned his horse about and rode slowly
+back.
+
+It was already dusk when he joined Miss Martin, who, uneasy at his
+prolonged absence, had entered the wood in search of him. It required
+all the practised dissimulation of the old lawyer to conceal the signs
+of his late adventure; nor, indeed, were his replies to her questions
+quite free from a certain amount of inconsistency. Mary, however,
+willingly changed the subject, and led him back to speak of topics more
+agreeable and congenial to him. Still he was not the same sprightly
+companion who had ridden beside her in the morning. He conversed with a
+degree of effort, and, when suffered, would relapse into long intervals
+of silence.
+
+"Who inhabits that bleak-looking house yonder?" said he, suddenly.
+
+"A certain Mr. Magennis, a neighbor, but not an acquaintance, of ours."
+
+"And how comes it that he lives in the very middle, as it were, of the
+estate?"
+
+"An old lease, obtained I can't say how many centuries back, and which
+will expire in a year or two. He has already applied for a renewal of
+it."
+
+"And of course, unsuccessfully?"
+
+"Up to this moment it is as you say, but I am endeavoring to persuade
+my uncle not to disturb him; nor would he, if Magennis would only be
+commonly prudent. You must know that this person is the leading Radical
+of our town of Oughterard, the man who sets himself most strenuously in
+opposition to our influence in the borough, and would uproot our power
+there, were he able."
+
+"So far, then, he is a courageous fellow."
+
+"Sometimes I take that view of his conduct, and at others I am disposed
+to regard him as one not unwilling to make terms with us."
+
+"How subtle all these dealings can make a young lady!" said Repton,
+slyly.
+
+"Say, rather, what a strain upon one's acuteness it is to ride out with
+a great lawyer, one so trained to see spots in the sun that he won't
+acknowledge its brightness if there be a speck to search for."
+
+"And yet it's a great mistake to suppose that we are always looking on
+the dark side of human nature," said he, reflectively; "though," added
+he, after a pause, "it's very often our business to exaggerate baseness,
+and make the worst of a bad man."
+
+"Even that may be more pardonable than to vilify a good one," said Mary.
+
+"So it is, young lady; you are quite right there." He was thoughtful
+for a while, and then said: "It is very singular, but nevertheless true,
+that, in my profession, one loses sight of the individual, as such, and
+only regards him as a mere element of the case, plaintiff or defendant
+as he may be. I remember once, in a southern circuit, a hale,
+fine-looking young fellow entering my room to present me with a hare. He
+had walked twelve miles to offer it to me. 'Your honor doesn't remember
+me,' said he, sorrowfully, and evidently grieved at my forgetfulness.
+'To be sure I do,' replied I, trying to recall his features; 'you
+are--let me see--you are--I have it--you are Jemmy Ryan.'
+
+"'No, sir,' rejoined he, quickly, 'I'm the boy that murdered him.'
+
+"Ay, Miss Martin, there's a leaf out of a lawyer's notebook, and yet
+I could tell you more good traits of men and women, more of patient
+martyrdom under wrong, more courageous suffering to do right, than if I
+were--what shall I say?--a chaplain in a nobleman's family."
+
+Repton's memory was well stored with instances in question, and he
+beguiled the way by relating several, till they reached Cro' Martin.
+
+"And there is another yet," added he, at the close, "more strongly
+illustrating what I have said than all these, but I cannot tell it to
+_you_."
+
+"Why so?" asked she, eagerly.
+
+"It is a family secret, Miss Martin, and one that in all likelihood you
+shall never know. Still, I cannot refrain from saying that you have in
+your own family as noble a specimen of self-sacrifice and denial as I
+ever heard of."
+
+They were already at the door as he said this, and a troop of servants
+had assembled to receive them. Mary, therefore, had no time for further
+inquiry, had such an attempt been of any avail.
+
+"There goes the first dinner-bell, Miss Martin," said Repton, gayly.
+"I'm resolved to be in the drawing-room before you!" And with this he
+hopped briskly upstairs, while Mary hastened to her room to dress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. "A RUINED FORTUNE"
+
+No stronger contrast could be presented than that offered by the house
+which called Mr. Magennis master, to all the splendor and elegance
+which distinguished Cro' Martin. Built on the side of a bleak, barren
+mountain, without a trace of cultivation,--not even a tree beside
+it,--the coarse stone walls, high pitched roof, and narrow windows
+seemed all devised in some spirit of derision towards its graceful
+neighbor. A low wall, coped with a formidable "frieze" of broken bottles
+and crockery, enclosed a space in front once destined for a garden, but
+left in its original state of shingle, intermixed with the remnants of
+building materials and scaffold planks. A long shed, abutting on the
+house, sheltered a cow and a horse; the latter standing with his head
+above a rickety half-door, and looking ruefully out at the dismal
+landscape beneath him.
+
+Most of the windows were broken,--and in some no attempt at repair
+had been made,--indicating that the rooms within were left unused. The
+hall-door stood ajar, but fastened by a strong iron chain; but the roof,
+more than all besides, bespoke decay and neglect, the rafters being in
+many places totally bare, while in others some rude attempts at tiling
+compensated for the want of the original slates. A strong colony of
+jackdaws had established themselves in one of the chimneys; but from
+another, in the centre of the building, a thick volume of dark-blue
+smoke rolled continually, conveying, indeed, the only sign of habitation
+about this dreary abode.
+
+The inside of the house was, if possible, more cheerless than the out.
+Most of the rooms had never been finished, and still remained in their
+coarse brown plaster, and unprovided with grates or chimney-pieces.
+The parlor, _par excellence_, was a long, low-ceilinged chamber, with
+yellow-ochre walls, dimly lighted by two narrow windows; its furniture,
+a piece of ragged carpet beneath a rickety table of black mahogany, some
+half-dozen crazy chairs, and a small sideboard, surmounted by something
+that might mean buffet or bookcase, and now served for both, being
+indifferently garnished with glasses, decanters, and thumbed volumes,
+intermingled with salt-cellars, empty sauce-bottles, and a powder-flask.
+
+An atrociously painted picture of an officer in scarlet uniform hung
+over the fireplace, surmounted by an infantry sword, suspended by a
+much-worn sash. These were the sole decorations of the room, to which
+even the great turf fire that blazed on the hearth could not impart a
+look of comfort.
+
+It was now a little after nightfall; the shutters were closed, and
+two attenuated tallow candles dimly illuminated this dreary chamber.
+A patched and much discolored tablecloth, with some coarse knives and
+forks, bespoke preparation for a meal, and some half-dozen plates stood
+warming before the fire. But the room had no occupant; and, except
+for the beating of the shutters against the sash, as the wind whistled
+through the broken window, all was silent within it. Now and then a loud
+noise would resound through the house; doors would bang, and rafters
+rattle, as the hall-door would be partially opened to permit the head of
+a woman to peer out and listen if any one were coming; but a heavy
+sigh at each attempt showed that hope was still deferred, and the weary
+footfall of her steps, as she retired, betrayed disappointment. It was
+after one of these excursions that she sat down beside the kitchen
+fire, screening her face from the blaze with her apron, and then, in the
+subdued light, it might be seen that, although bearing many traces of
+sorrow and suffering, she was still young and handsome. Large masses of
+the silkiest brown hair, escaping from her cap, fell in heavy masses
+on her neck; her eyes were large and blue, and shaded by the longest
+lashes; her mouth, a little large, perhaps, was still beautifully
+formed, and her teeth were of surpassing whiteness. The expression
+of the whole face was of gentle simplicity and love,--love in which
+timidity, however, deeply entered, and made the feeling one of acute
+suffering. In figure and dress she was exactly like any other peasant
+girl, a gaudy silk handkerchief on her neck being the only article
+of assumed luxury in her costume. She wore shoes, it is true,--not
+altogether the custom of country girls,--but they were heavy and
+coarsely made, and imparted to her walk a hobbling motion that detracted
+from her appearance.
+
+A large pot which hung suspended by a chain above the fire seemed to
+demand her especial care, and she more than once removed the wooden
+cover to inspect the contents; after which she invariably approached the
+window to listen, and then came back sorrowfully to her place, her lips
+muttering some low sounds inaudibly. Once she tried to hum a part of a
+song to try and beguile the time, but the effort was a failure, and, as
+her voice died away, two heavy tears stole slowly along her cheeks,
+and a deep sob burst from her; after which she threw her apron over her
+face, and buried her head in her lap. It was as she sat thus that a loud
+knocking shook the outer door, and the tones of a gruff voice rose even
+above the noise; but she heard neither. Again and again was the summons
+repeated, with the same result; and at last a handful of coarse gravel
+struck the kitchen window with a crash that effectually aroused her, and
+springing up in terror, she hastened to the door.
+
+In an instant she had unhooked the heavy chain, and sheltering the
+candle with her hand, admitted a large powerfully built man, who was
+scarcely within the hall when he said angrily, "Where the devil were
+you, that you could n't hear me?"
+
+"I was in the kitchen, Tom," said she.
+
+"Don't call _me_ Tom, d----n you," replied he, violently. "Don't keep
+dinning into me the infernal fool that I've made of myself, or it will
+be worse for you."
+
+"Sure I never meant any harm by it; and it was your own self bid me
+do it," said she, meekly, as she assisted him to remove his dripping
+great-coat.
+
+"And don't I rue it well?" rejoined he, through his half-closed teeth.
+"Isn't it this confounded folly that has shut me out of the best houses
+in the county? My bitter curse on the day and the hour I first saw you!"
+
+"Oh, don't say them words,--don't, or you'll break my poor heart," cried
+she, clinging to him as he strode angrily into the parlor.
+
+"Be off with you,--be off to the kitchen, and leave me quiet," said he,
+rudely.
+
+"There 's your slippers, sir," said she, meekly, as, bending down, she
+untied his heavy shooting-shoes, and replaced them by a pair of list
+ones.
+
+"Is the dinner ready?" asked he, sternly.
+
+"It is, sir; but Massin'bred is n't come back."
+
+"And who the devil is Massingbred? Don't you think he might be Mister
+Massingbred out of _your_ mouth?"
+
+"I ax your pardon, sir, and his, too; but I didn't mean--"
+
+"There, there,--away with you!" cried he, impatiently. "I 'm never in a
+bad humor that you don't make me worse." And he leaned his face between
+his hands over the fire, while she slipped noiselessly from the room.
+
+"Maybe he thinks he's doing me honor by staying here," burst he forth,
+suddenly, as he sprang to his legs and stared angrily around him. "Maybe
+he supposes that it's great condescension for him to put up with my
+humble house! Ay, and that it's _my_ bounden duty to wait for _him_ to
+any hour he pleases. If I thought he did,--if I was sure of it!"
+added he, with a deep guttural tone, while he struck his clenched fist
+violently against the chimney-piece. Then, seizing the large iron poker,
+he knocked loudly with it against the back of the fireplace,--a summons
+quickly answered by the appearance of the girl at the door.
+
+"Did he come in since morning?" asked he, abruptly.
+
+"No, sir, never," replied she, with a half courtesy.
+
+"Nor say what time he 'd be back?"
+
+"Not a word, sir."
+
+"Then, maybe, he's not coming back,--taken French leave, as they call
+it, eh, Joan?"
+
+The sound of her name, spoken, too, in an accent of more friendly
+meaning, lighted up her face at once, and her large eyes swam in tears
+of gratitude towards him as she stood there.
+
+"But he 'd scarcely dare to do that!" said he, sternly.
+
+"No, sir," said she, echoing half unconsciously his opinion.
+
+"And what do _you_ know about it?" said he, turning savagely on her.
+"Where were you born and bred, to say what any gentleman might do, at
+any time, or in anything? Is it Joan Landy, the herd's daughter, is
+going to play fine lady upon us! Faix, we 're come to a pretty pass now,
+in earnest! Be off with you! Away! Stop, what was that? Did n't you hear
+a shot?"
+
+"I did, sir,--quite near the house, too."
+
+A sharp knocking now on the hall-door decided the question, and Magennis
+hastened to admit the arrival.
+
+It is a strange fact, and one of which we are satisfied merely to make
+mention, without attempting in the least to explain, but no sooner was
+Magennis in the presence of his young guest, than not only he seemed to
+forget all possible cause of irritation towards him, but to behave
+with a manner of, for him, the most courteous civility. He aided him
+to remove his shot-belt and his bag; took his hat from his hands, and
+carefully wiped it; placed a chair for him close to the fire; and
+then, as he turned to address him, remarked for the first time the
+blood-stained handkerchief which still bound his forehead.
+
+"Did you fall,--had you an accident?" asked he, eagerly.
+
+"No," said the other, laughing; "a bit of an adventure only, which I 'll
+tell you after dinner."
+
+"Was it any of the people? Had you a fight--"
+
+"Come, Magennis, you must exercise a little patience. Not a word, not a
+syllable, till I have eaten something, for I am actually famishing."
+
+A stout knock of the poker on the chimney summoned the dinner, and
+almost in the same instant the woman entered with a smoking dish of
+Irish stew.
+
+"Mrs. Joan, you're an angel," said Massingbred; "if there was a dish
+I was longing for on this cold, raw day, it was one of your glorious
+messes. They seem made for the climate, and by Jove, the climate for
+them. I say, Mac, does it always rain in this fashion here?"
+
+"No; it sleets now and then, and sometimes blows."
+
+"I should think it does," said Jack, seating himself at the table. "The
+pleasant little slabs of marble one sees on the cabin-roofs to keep
+down the thatch are signs of your western zephyrs. Mrs. Joan has outdone
+herself today. This is first-rate."
+
+"There's too strong a flavor of hare in it," said Magen-nis, critically.
+
+"That's exactly its perfection; the wild savor lifts it out of the
+vulgar category of Irish stews, and assimilates it, but not too closely,
+to the ragout. I tell you, Mac, there's genius in the composition of
+that gravy."
+
+The partial pedantry of this speech was more than compensated for by the
+racy enjoyment of the speaker, and Magennis was really gratified at the
+zest with which his young friend relished his meal.
+
+"It has one perfection, at least," said he, modestly,--"it 's very
+unlike what you get at home."
+
+"We have a goodish sort of a cook," said Jack, languidly,--"a fellow
+my father picked up after the Congress of Verona. Truffles and treaties
+seem to have some strong sympathetic attraction, and when diplomacy had
+finished its work, a _chef_ was to be had cheap! The worst of the class
+is, they 'll only functionate for your grand dinners and they leave your
+every-day meal to some inferior in the department."
+
+It was strange that Magennis could listen with interest always whenever
+Massingbred spoke of habits, people, and places with which he had
+never been conversant. It was not so much for the topics themselves
+he cared,--they were, in reality, valueless in his eyes,--it was some
+singular pleasure he felt in thinking that the man who could so discuss
+them was his own guest, seated at his own table, thus connecting himself
+by some invisible link with the great ones of this world!
+
+Massingbred's very name--the son of the celebrated Moore Massingbred--a
+Treasury Lord--Heaven knows what else besides--certainly a Right
+Honorable--was what first fascinated him in his young acquaintance,
+and induced him to invite him to his house. Jack would probably have
+declined the invitation, but it just came at the moment when he was
+deeply mortified at Nelligan's absence,--an absence which old Dan was
+totally unable to explain or account for. Indeed, he had forgotten that,
+in his note to his son, he had not mentioned Massingbred by name, and
+thus was he left to all the embarrassment of an apology without the
+slightest clew as to the nature of the excuse.
+
+No sooner, then, was it apparent to Massingbred that young Nelligan did
+not intend to return home, than he decided on taking his own departure.
+At first he determined on going back to Dublin; but suddenly a malicious
+thought sprung up of all, the mortification it might occasion Joe
+to learn that he was still in the neighborhood; and with the amiable
+anticipation of this vengeance, he at once accepted Magennis's offer to
+"accompany him to his place in the mountains, and have some shooting."
+
+It would not have been easy to find two men so essentially unlike in
+every respect as these two, who now sat discussing their punch after
+dinner. In birth, bringing-up, habits, instincts, they were widely
+dissimilar, and yet, somehow, they formed a sort of companionship
+palatable to each. Each had something to tell the other which he had
+either not heard before, or not heard in the same way. We have already
+adverted to the strong fascination Magen-nis experienced in dwelling on
+the rank and social position of his young guest. Massingbred experienced
+no less delight in the indulgence of his favorite pastime,--adventure
+hunting. Now, here was really something like adventure,--this wild, rude
+mountain home, this strange compound of gloom and passion, this poor
+simple country girl, more than servant, less than wife,--all separated
+from the remainder of the world by a gulf wider than mere space. These
+were all ingredients more than enough to suggest matter for imagination,
+and food for after-thought in many a day to come.
+
+They had thus passed part of a week in company, when the incident
+occurred of which our last chapter makes mention, and an account of
+which, now, Massingbred proceeded to give his host, neither exaggerating
+nor diminishing in the slightest particular any portion of the event.
+He even repressed his habitual tendency to sarcasm, and spoke of his
+antagonist seriously and respectfully. "It was quite clear," said he,
+in conclusion, "that he did n't know I was a gentleman, and consequently
+never anticipated the consequence of a blow."
+
+"And he struck you?" broke in Magennis, violently.
+
+"You shall see for yourself," said Jack, smiling, as, untying the
+handkerchief, he exhibited a deep cut on his forehead, from which the
+blood still continued to ooze.
+
+"Let Joan doctor you; she's wonderful at a cut. She has something they
+call Beggarman's Balsam. I 'll fetch her." And without waiting for a
+reply he left the room. The young woman speedily after appeared with
+some lint and a small pot of ointment, proceeding to her office with
+all the quiet assiduity of a practised hand, and a gentleness that few
+"regulars" could vie with. Her skill was more than recompensed by the
+few muttered words of praise Magennis bestowed, as he grumbled out, half
+to himself: "Old Cahill himself could n't do it better. I 'd back her
+for a bandage against the College of Surgeons. Ain't ye easier now?--to
+be sure you are. She 's good for _that_ if she is for nothing else!"
+And even this much of eulogy made her bosom heave proudly, and brought a
+flush of joy over her cheek that was ecstasy itself.
+
+[Illustration: 218]
+
+The world is not deficient in acts of kindness, benevolence, and
+good-will. There is a large fountain of these running in ten thousand
+rills. But how many more might there not be,--how much of this wealth
+might there not be dispensed, and nobody living one jot the poorer! How
+many are there toiling away in obscurity and narrow fortune, to whom one
+single word of praise--one chance syllable of encouragement--would be
+life's blood! What sunken cheeks and lacklustre eyes would glow and
+gladden again by even a look of sympathy, withheld from no lack of
+kindliness, but mere want of thought! Oh ye who have station and fame,
+genius or greatness, bethink ye that these gifts are never higher
+than when they elevate the humble and cheer the lowly, and there is no
+physician like him who animates the drooping heart, and gives new vigor
+to wearied faculties and failing energy. Joan was made happy by the
+two or three words of grateful thanks Massingbred addressed to her, and
+stole quietly away, leaving the two companions once more alone.
+
+If there was any incident in life participation in which could convey
+intense gratification to Magennis, it was that sort of difference or
+misunderstanding that might lead to a duel. Whenever the affair offered
+no other alternative, his delight was unbounded. There were, it was
+rumored events in his own early life which would imply that the
+taste for mortal combat extended only to cases where his friends were
+concerned, and had no selfish application whatever. Of these we know
+nothing; nor, indeed, have we any information to convey regarding him,
+save by chance and stray words dropped by himself in the unguarded
+hours of after-dinner converse. There are, however, many who like the
+subordinate parts in this world's comedy,--who would rather be best man
+than bridegroom, and infinitely prefer performing second to principal.
+
+We are not, however, going into the inquiry as to the cause; enough when
+we repeat that this was Magennis's great passion, and these were the
+kind of events for whose conduct and management he believed himself to
+possess the most consummate tact and ability.
+
+"You 're in luck, Massingbred," cried he, as the other concluded his
+recital,--"you're in luck, sir, to have for your friend one that, though
+I say it myself, has n't his equal for a case like this in the three
+kingdoms. It was I, sir, took out Cahill when he shot Major Harris, of
+the Fusiliers. I handled him that morning in a way that made the English
+officers confess there was no chance against us! A duel seems an easy
+thing to arrange. You 'd say that any fool could put up two men, twelve
+or even ten paces asunder, and tell them to blaze away; and if that
+was all there was in it, it would be simple enough. But consider for
+a minute the real case, and just remember how much the nature of the
+ground, whether level or uneven, has to do with it; what's behind,--if a
+wall, or trees, or only sky; the state of the light; how the sun stands;
+whether there 's wind, and what way it's coming. These are not all.
+There's the pistols,--how they _'throw,'_ and with what charge; and then
+there 's the size of your man. Ay, Massingbred, and let me tell you, you
+now see before you the man that invented the 'invulnerable position.'"
+
+"By Jove! that's a most valuable fact to me just now," said Jack,
+helping himself to a fresh tumbler. "I 'm glad you have not been
+retained by the other side."
+
+"The 'invulnerable position'!" continued Magennis, perfectly heedless
+of the other's remark; while, taking up the poker, he stalked out to
+the middle of the room, drawing himself up to his full height, and
+presenting, as though with a pistol,--"Do you see what I mean?" cried
+he.
+
+"I can't say I do," said Jack, hesitatingly.
+
+"I thought not," rejoined the other, proudly; "nobody ever did that was
+n't 'out' often. Pay attention now, and I 'll explain it. My head,
+you perceive, is carried far behind my right shoulder, so as to be
+completely protected by my pistol-hand and the pistol. I say the pistol,
+because it has been proved scientifically that the steadiest eye that
+ever fired never could aim at the antagonist's pistol. Morris Crofton
+practised it for eight years in his own garden; and though he did
+succeed, he told me that for practical purposes it was no use. Now we
+come to the neck, and you may observe the bend of my elbow. Ay, that
+little angle that nobody would remark masks the jugular arteries, and
+all the other vital nerves in that part. John Toler used to say that
+the head and neck was like the metropolis, and that a shot elsewhere was
+only like a 'row' in the provinces; and a very true and wise remark it
+was. Not that I neglect the trunk," added he, proudly; "for you see
+how I stand,--three-quarters of the back towards the enemy so as not to
+expose the soft parts. As for the legs," cried he, contemptuously, "let
+them crack at them as long as they like."
+
+"And that 's the 'invulnerable position,'" said Massing-bred; with less
+enthusiasm, however, than the discovery might seem to warrant.
+
+"It is, sir; and if it was n't for it there 's many a strapping fellow
+walking about this day-that would be lying with a marble counterpane
+over him. Billy Welsh, that fought Brian of Deanstown, was the first man
+I ever 'put up' in it. Billy had a slight crick of the neck, and could
+n't get the head far enough round to the right, and the ball took him
+in the bridge of the nose, and carried that feature clean off, but never
+damaged him in any other respect whatever!"
+
+"I must say that the loss was quite sufficient for a man who had the
+benefit of the 'invulnerable position,'" said Massingbred, quietly.
+
+"He thinks nothing of it. A chap in the Crow Street Theatre made him a
+better nose than ever he had, out of wax, I believe; and he has a winter
+one, with a blush of red on it, to make believe it was cold; and they
+tell me you 'd never discover it was n't his own."
+
+Magennis had now resumed his place at table, and seemed bent on making
+up for lost time by giving double measure of whiskey to his punch.
+
+"You say that he's to be in Oughterard to-night; well, with the blessing
+of the Virgin,"--an invocation he invariably applied to every act
+of dubious morality,--"we 'll be with him before he's out of bed
+to-morrow!"
+
+"I wish he had not given me a blow," said Jack, musingly. "He seemed
+such a stout-hearted, spirited old fellow, I'm really grieved to quarrel
+with him."
+
+"I'm glad that there's nobody to hear them words but myself, Mr.
+Massingbred," said the other, with all the slowness and deliberation of
+incipient drunkenness; "I'm rejoiced, sir, that it's in the confidential
+intercourse of friendly--friendly--communication--that the son of my old
+and valued friend--Moore Massingbred--used expressions like that."
+
+Jack started with amazement at this speech; he had not the slightest
+suspicion till that moment that Magennis and his father had ever known
+each other, or even met. A very little patience, however, on his part
+served to solve the difficulty; for he discovered that one of the
+peculiarities of this stage of his friend's ebriety was to fancy
+himself the intimate and associate of any one whose name he had ever
+heard mentioned.
+
+"Ay, sir, them's words your father would never have uttered. I was with
+him in his first blaze. 'Moore,' says I, 'have n't you a pair of black
+breeches?'--he wore a pair of web 'tights' of a light pattern--What are
+you laughing at, sir?" cried he, sternly, and striking the table with
+his clenched knuckles, till the glasses all rang on it.
+
+"I was laughing at my father's costume," said Jack, who really told
+the truth; such a portrait of his parent's appearance being manifestly
+unlike anything he had ever imagined.
+
+"And the worse manners yours, sir," rejoined Magennis, rudely. "I' ll
+not suffer any man to laugh at an old friend--and--and--schoolfellow!"
+
+It was with the very greatest difficulty that Jack could restrain
+himself at this peroration, which indignation--the same, probably, that
+creates poets--had suggested. He had, however, tact enough to preserve
+his gravity, whilst he assured his companion that no unfilial sentiment
+had any share in his thoughts.
+
+"So far, so well," said Magennis, who now helped himself to the whiskey,
+unadulterated by any water; "otherwise, sir, it's not Lieutenant
+Magennis, of the--9th Foot, would handle you on the ground to-morrow!"
+
+"So, then, you've served, Mac? Why, you never broke that to me before!"
+
+"Broke!" cried the other, with a voice shrill from passion, while he
+made an effort to rise from his chair, and sunk back again,--"broke; who
+dares to say I was broke? I left the scoundrels myself. I shook the
+dust off my feet after them. There never was a court-martial about it.
+Never--never!" To the deep crimson that suffused his face before, there
+now succeeded an almost death-like pallor, and Massingbred really felt
+terrified at the change. Some heart-rending recollection seemed suddenly
+to have cleared his brain, routing in an instant all the effects of
+intoxication, and restoring him to sobriety and sorrow together.
+
+"Ay," said he, in a low, broken voice, and still speaking to himself,
+"that finished me! I never held my head up again! Who could, after such
+a business? I came here, Mr. Massingbred," continued he, but addressing
+his guest in a tone of deep respect,--"I came back here a ruined man,
+and not eight-and-twenty! You see me now, a dirty, drunken sot, not
+better dressed nor better mannered than the commonest fellow on the
+road, and yet I'm a gentleman born and bred, well nurtured, and well
+educated. I took a college degree and went into the army." He paused, as
+if trying to gather courage to go on; the effort was more than he could
+accomplish, and, as the heavy tears stole slowly down his cheeks, the
+agony of the struggle might be detected. Half mechanically he seized
+the decanter of whiskey and poured the tumbler nearly full; but Jack
+good-humoredly stretched out his hand towards the glass, and said,
+"Don't drink, Mac; there's no head could stand it."
+
+"You think so, boy," cried he, with a saucy smile. "Little you know the
+way we live in the West, here;" and he tossed off the liquor before the
+other could stop him. The empty glass had scarcely been replaced on the
+table, when all the former signs of drunkenness had come back again, and
+in his bloodshot eyes and swollen veins might be seen the very type of
+passionate debauch.
+
+"Not ask me to their houses!" cried he, hoarse with passion. "Who wants
+them? Not invite me! Did I ever seek them? The dirty, mean spalpeens,
+don't I know the history of every one of them? Could n't I expose them
+from one end of the county to the other? Who 's Blake of Harris-town? He
+'s the son of Lucky Magarry, the pedler. You don't believe me. I had
+it from Father Cole himself. Lucky was hanged at Ennis. 'Ye want a
+confession!' says Lucky, when he came out on the drop; 'ye want a
+confession! Well, I suppose there's no use in keeping anything back
+now, for ye 'll hang me at any rate, and so here it's for you. It was I
+murdered Mr. Shea, and there was nobody helping me at all. I did it all
+myself with a flail; and be the same token, it 's under Mark Bindon's
+tombstone this minute. There now, the jury may be azy in their minds,
+and the judge, and the hangman, too, if he cares about it. As for his
+honor the high sheriff,' said he, raising his voice, 'he 's a fine
+man, God bless him, and the county may be proud of him; for it was he
+ferreted out all about this business! And faix, notwithstanding all, I
+'m proud of him myself, for he 's my own son!' And as he said that he
+dropped on his knees and cried out that he might never see glory if
+there was a word of lie in anything he said then! So that's what Blake
+got for his zeal for justice!"
+
+And as Magennis finished, he burst into a wild, fiendish laugh, and
+said,--
+
+"There 's the country gentry--there 's the people won't know Magennis
+and his wife!--ay, sir, his lawful, married wife! Let me see that you
+or any other man will deny it, or refuse to treat her as becomes her
+station.--Joan! Joan!" shouted he, striking the poker violently against
+the chimney; and with hot haste and intense anxiety the poor girl rushed
+into the room the moment after. "Sit down here, ma'am," said Magennis,
+rising, and placing a chair for her beside his own, with an affectation
+of courtesy that savored of mockery,--"sit down, I say," cried he,
+stamping his foot passionately. "That's my wife, sir! No man that sits
+at _my_ board shall behave to her as anything else."
+
+"I have ever treated her with respect," said Massingbred, "and shall
+always continue to do so."
+
+"And it's better for you to do so," said the other, fiercely, the
+bullying spirit rising on what he deemed the craven submission of his
+guest.
+
+Meanwhile the girl sat trembling with terror, not knowing what the scene
+portended, or how it was to end.
+
+"The herd's daughter, indeed! No, sir, Mrs. Magennis, of Barnagheela,
+that's her name and title!"
+
+At these words the poor girl, overcome with joy and gratitude, fell
+down upon her knees before him, and, clasping his hand, covered it with
+kisses.
+
+"Is n't that pretty breeding!" cried Magennis, violently. "Get up,
+ma'am, and sit on your chair like a lady. The devil a use in it, do what
+you will, say what you will,--the bad 'drop' is in them; and whatever
+becomes of you in life, Massingbred, let me give you this advice,--never
+marry beneath you!"
+
+Jack contrived at this juncture to signal to the girl to step away;
+and by appearing to attend with eagerness to Magennis, he prevented his
+remarking her exit.
+
+"A man 's never really ruined till then," continued he, slowly, and
+evidently sobering again as he went on. "Friends fall away from you, and
+your companions are sure to be fellows with something against them!
+You begin by thinking you 're doing a grand and a courageous thing! You
+string up your resolution to despise the world, and, take my word for
+it, the world pays you off at last. Ay," said he, after a long pause, in
+which his features settled down into an expression of deep sorrow, and
+his voice quivered with emotion,--"ay, and I 'll tell you something
+worse than all,--you revenge all your disappointment on the poor girl
+that trusted you! and you break _her_ heart to try and heal your own!"
+
+With these last words he buried his head between his hands and sobbed
+fearfully.
+
+"Leave me now,--leave me alone," said he, without lifting his head.
+"Good-night--good-night to you!"
+
+Massingbred arose without a word, and, taking a candle, ascended to his
+chamber, his last thoughts about his host being very unlike those with
+which he had first regarded him. From these considerations he turned
+to others more immediately concerning himself; nor could he conquer his
+misgivings that Magennis was a most unhappy selection for a friend in
+such an emergency.
+
+"But then I really am without a choice," said he to himself. "Joe
+Nelligan, perhaps, might--but no, he would have been infinitely more
+unfit than the other. At all events, Nelligan has himself severed the
+friendship that once existed between us." And so he wandered on to
+thoughts of his former companionship with him. Regretful and gloomy
+enough were they, as are all memories of those in whose hearts we once
+believed we had a share, and from which we cannot reconcile ourselves to
+the exclusion.
+
+"He had not the manliness to meet me when I had become aware of his real
+station! What a poor-spirited fellow! Just as if I cared what or who his
+father was! _My_ theory is, Jack Massingbred can afford to know any man
+he pleases! Witness the roof that now shelters me, and the character of
+him who is my host!"
+
+It was a philosophy he built much upon, for it was a form of self-love
+that simulated a good quality, many of his acquaintances saying, "At all
+events, there 's no snobbery about Massingbred; he 'll know, and even
+be intimate with, anybody." Nor did the deception only extend to others.
+Jack himself fancied he was an excellent fellow,--frank, generous, and
+open-hearted.
+
+It is a very strange fact--and fact it certainly is--that the men who
+reason most upon their own natures, look inwardly at their own minds,
+and scrutinize most their own motives, are frequently the least natural
+of all mankind! This self-inquiry is such thorough self-deception that
+he who indulges in it often becomes an actor. As for Massingbred, there
+was nothing real about him save his egotism! Gifted with very good
+abilities, aided by a strong "vitality," he had great versatility; but
+of all powers, this same plastic habit tends most to render a man
+artificial.
+
+Now, his present difficulty was by no means to his taste. He did not
+like his "quarrel;" he liked less the age and station of his adversary;
+and least of all was he pleased with the character of his "friend." It
+was said of Sheridan, that when consulted about the music of his operas,
+he only asked, "Will it grind?"--that is, would it be popular enough for
+a street organ, and become familiar to every ear? So Jack Massingbred
+regarded each event in life by the test of how it would "tell," in what
+wise could a newspaper report it, and how would it read in the Clubs? He
+fancied himself discussing the adventure at "White's," and asking, "Can
+any one say what Massingbred's row was about? Was he poaching?--or how
+came he there? Was there a woman in it? And who is his friend Magennis?"
+In thoughts like these he passed hour after hour, walking his room from
+end to end, and waiting for morning.
+
+At length he bethought him how little likely it was that Magennis would
+remember anything whatever of the transaction, and that his late debauch
+might obliterate all memory of the affair. "What if this were to be
+the case, and that we were to arrive too late at Oughterard? A pretty
+version would the papers then publish to the world!" Of all possible
+casualties this was the very worst; and the more he reflected on it, the
+more probable did it seem. "He is the very fellow to wake up late in the
+afternoon, rub his eyes, and declare he had forgotten the whole thing."
+
+"This will never do!" muttered he to himself; and at once determined
+that he would make an endeavor to recall his friend to consciousness,
+and come to some arrangement for the approaching meeting. Massingbred
+descended the stairs with noiseless steps, and gently approaching the
+door of the sitting-room, opened it.
+
+Magennis was asleep, his head resting upon the table, and his heavy
+breathing denoting how deeply he slumbered. On a low stool at his feet
+sat Joan, pale and weary-looking, her cheeks still marked with recent
+tears, and the dark impression of what seemed to have been a blow
+beneath her eye. Jack approached her cautiously, and asked if it were
+his custom to pass the night thus.
+
+"Sometimes, when he 's tired--when he has anything on his mind," replied
+she, in some confusion, and averting her head so as to escape notice.
+
+"And when he awakes," said Jack, "he will be quite refreshed, and his
+head all clear again?"
+
+"By coorse he will!" said she, proudly. "No matter what he took of a
+night, nobody ever saw the signs of it on him the next morning."
+
+"I did not ask out of any impertinent curiosity," continued Massingbred;
+"but we have, both of us, some rather important business to-morrow in
+Oughterard. We ought to be there at an early hour."
+
+"I know," said she, interrupting. "He bid me bring down these;" and
+she pointed to a case of pistols lying open beside her, and in cleaning
+which she had been at the moment engaged. "I brought the wrong ones,
+first." Here she stammered out something, and grew crimson over her
+whole face; then suddenly recovering herself, said, "I did n't know it
+was the 'Terries' he wanted."
+
+"The 'Terries'?" repeated Jack.
+
+"Yes, sir. It was these Terry Callaghan shot the two gentlemen with,
+the same morning, at Croghaglin,--father and son they were!" And saying
+these words in a voice of the most perfect unconcern possible, she took
+up a flannel rag and began to polish the lock of one of the weapons.
+
+"They 're handsome pistols," said Jack, rather amused with her remark.
+
+"They 're good, and that's better!" replied she, gravely. "That one in
+your hand has seven double crosses on the stock and nine single."
+
+"The seven were killed on the ground, I suppose?"
+
+A short nod of assent was her reply.
+
+"Such little events are not unfrequent down here, then?"
+
+"Anan!" said she, not understanding his question.
+
+Jack quickly perceived that he had not taken sufficient account of
+Joan's limited acquaintance with language, and said,--
+
+"They often fight in these parts?"
+
+"Ayeh! not now," replied she, in a half-deploring tone. "My father
+remembers twenty duels for one that does be nowadays."
+
+"A great change, indeed."
+
+"Some say it's all for the better," resumed she, doubtfully. "But
+hush,--he's stirring; leave him quiet, and I 'll call you when he's
+ready."
+
+"And I can depend--"
+
+"To be sure you can. He forgets many a thing; but no man living can
+say that he ever misremembered a duel." And with these words, in a low
+whisper, she motioned Massingbred to the door.
+
+Jack obeyed in silence, and, ascending to his room, lay down on the bed.
+He determined to pass the interval before morning in deep thought and
+self-examination; but, somehow, he had scarcely laid his head on the
+pillow when he fell off into a heavy sleep, sound and dreamless.
+
+The day was just breaking when he was aroused by a somewhat rude shake,
+and a voice saying,--
+
+"Come, up with you. We 've a sharp ride before us!"
+
+Jack started up, and in an instant recalled all the exigencies of the
+hour.
+
+"I have sent the 'tools' forward by a safe hand," continued Magennis;
+"and Joan has a cup of tea ready for us below stairs. So lose no time
+now, and let us be off."
+
+The humble meal that awaited them was soon despatched, and they were
+speedily mounted on the pair of mountain ponies Magennis had provided,
+and whose equipments, even in the half-light of the morning,
+rather shocked Mas-singbred's notions of propriety,--one of his
+stirrup-leathers being a foot shorter than the other, while an old
+worsted bell-rope formed the snaffle-rein of his bridle.
+
+The road, too, was rugged and precipitous, and many a stumble and
+scramble had they in the uncertain light; while the swooping rain
+dashed violently against them, and effectually precluded all thought of
+conversation. Two hours, that seemed like ten, brought them at length
+upon the highroad; after which, by a brisk canter of forty minutes, they
+reached Oughterard.
+
+"Let us dismount here," said Jack, as they gained the outskirts of the
+town, not fancying to make a public appearance on his humble steed.
+
+"Why so?" answered Magennis. "It's ashamed of the pony you are! Oh, for
+the matter of that, don't distress yourself; we 're too well used to
+them in these parts to think them ridiculous."
+
+There was a soreness and irritation in his tone which Jack quickly
+remarked, and as quickly tried to obviate, by some good-natured remark
+about the good qualities of the animals; but Magennis heard him without
+attention, and seemed entirely immersed in his own thoughts.
+
+"Turn in there, to your left," cried he, suddenly, and they wheeled into
+an arched gateway that opened upon the stable-yard of the inn. Early
+as it was, the place was full of bustle and movement; for it was the
+market-day, and the farmers were already arriving.
+
+Carts, cars, gigs, and a dozen other nameless vehicles crowded the spot,
+with kicking ponies and mules of malicious disposition; grooming and
+shoeing and unharnessing went on, with a noise and merriment that was
+perfectly deafening; and Massingbred, as he threaded his way through the
+crowd, soon perceived how little notice he was likely to attract in such
+an assembly. Magennis soon dismounted, and having given directions about
+the beasts, led Jack into the house, and up a narrow, creaking stair
+into a small room, with a single window, and a bed in one corner. "This
+is where I always put up," said he, laying down his hat and whip, "and
+it will do well enough for the time we 'll want it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. "A CHALLENGE"
+
+"He 's here; he arrived last night," said Magennis, as he entered the
+room after a short exploring tour through the stables, the kitchen, and
+every other quarter where intelligence might be come at. "He came alone;
+but the major of the detachment supped with him, and that looks like
+business!"
+
+"The earlier you see him the better, then," said Mas-singbred.
+
+"I'll just go and get my beard off," said he, passing his hand across a
+very grizzly stubble, "and I'll be with him in less than half an hour.
+There's only a point or two I want to be clear about. Before he struck
+you, did you gesticulate, or show any intention of using violence?"
+
+"None. I have told you that I caught his horse by the bridle, but that
+was to save him from falling back."
+
+"Ah, that was indiscreet, at all events."
+
+"Would n't it have been worse to suffer him to incur a severe danger
+which I might have prevented?"
+
+"I don't think so; but we'll not discuss the point now. There was a
+blow?"
+
+"That there was," said Jack, pointing to the spot where a great strap of
+sticking-plaster extended across his forehead.
+
+"And he seemed to understand at once that reparation was to be made for
+it?"
+
+"The suggestion came from himself, frankly and speedily."
+
+"Well, it's pretty evident we have to deal with a gentleman!" said
+Magennis, "and that same's a comfort; so I'll leave you now for a short
+time: amuse yourself as well as you can, but don't quit the room." And
+with this caution Magennis took his departure, and set off in search of
+Mr. Repton's chamber.
+
+"Where are you bringing the mutton chops, Peter?" said he to a waiter,
+who, with a well-loaded tray of eatables, was hastening along the
+corridor.
+
+"To the ould Counsellor from Dublin, sir. He's break-fastin' with the
+Major."
+
+"And that's his room, No. 19?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"They 're merry, at all events," said Magennis, as a burst of hearty
+laughter was heard from within the chamber.
+
+"'T is just that they are, indeed," replied Peter. "The Counsellor does
+be telling one story after another, till you 'd think he 'd no end
+of them. He began last night at supper, and I could scarce change the
+plates for laughin'."
+
+Muttering some not very intelligible observation to himself, Magennis
+passed down the stairs, and issuing into the street, wended his way to
+the barber's.
+
+If the Oughterard Figaro had not as brilliant a vocation as his
+colleague of Seville, his occupations were scarcely less multifarious,
+for he kept the post-office, was clerk at petty sessions, collected
+the parish cess, presided over "the pound," besides a vast number of
+inferior duties. Whether it was the result of a natural gift, or by the
+various information of his official life, Hosey Lynch was regarded in
+his native town as a remarkably shrewd man, and a good opinion on a
+number of subjects.
+
+He was a short, decrepit old fellow, with an enormous head of curly
+black hair, which he seemed to cultivate with all the address of his
+craft; probably intending it as a kind of advertisement of his skill,
+displaying as it did all the resources of his handiwork. But even above
+this passion was his ardor for news,--news political, social, legal, or
+literary; whatever might be the topic, it always interested him, and
+it was his especial pride to have the initiative of every event that
+stirred the hearts of the Oughterard public.
+
+The small den in which he performed his functions occupied the corner
+of the street, giving a view in two directions, so that Hosey, while
+cutting and curling, never was obliged to lose sight of that world
+without, in whose doings he felt so strong an interest. In the one
+easy-chair of this sanctum was Magennis now disposed, waiting for
+Mr. Lynch, who had just stepped down to "the pound," to liberate
+the priest's pig. Nor had he long to wait, for Hosey soon made his
+appearance, and slipping on a very greasy-looking jean-jacket, proceeded
+to serve him.
+
+"The top of the morning to you, Captain,"--he always styled him by the
+title,--"it's a rare pleasure to see you so early in town; but it will
+be a bad market to-day--cut and curled, Captain?"
+
+[Illustration: 232]
+
+"No; shaved!" said Magennis, bluntly.
+
+"And shaved you shall be, Captain,--and beautifully shaved, too, for I
+have got an excellent case from Lamprey's; they came yesterday,--came
+with the writ against Jones Creegan."
+
+"At whose suit?"
+
+"Mrs. Miles Creegan, the other brother's widow," said Hosey, lathering
+away and talking with breathless rapidity. "There was a clause in old
+Sam's will, that if ever Tom, the chap that died at Demerara--you'd like
+more off the whiskers, it's more military. It was only yesterday
+Major Froode remarked to me what a soldierlike-looking man was Captain
+Magennis."
+
+"Is he in command of the detachment?"
+
+"He is in his Majesty's--1st Foot--the 'Buccaneers,' they used to be
+called; I suppose you never heard why?"
+
+"No, nor don't want to hear. What kind of a man is the Major?"
+
+"He 's a smart, well-made man, with rather a haughty look," said Hosey,
+drawing himself up, and seeming to imply that there was a kind of
+resemblance between them.
+
+"Is he English or Irish?"
+
+"Scotch, Captain,--Scotch; and never gives more than fivepence for a cut
+and curl, pomatum included.--No letters, Mrs. Cronin," cried he, raising
+up the movable shutter of the little window; then bending down his ear
+he listened to some whispered communication from that lady, after
+which he shut the panel, and resumed his functions. "She 's at law with
+O'Reilly about the party wall. There's the Major now going down to the
+barracks, and I wonder who's the other along with him;" and Hosey rushed
+to the door to find some clew to the stranger. In less than a quarter
+of a minute he was back again, asking pardon for absence, and informing
+Magennis "that the man in plain clothes was a Dublin counsellor, that
+arrived the night before. I think I can guess what he's here for."
+
+"What is it?" cried Magennis, eagerly.
+
+"There's an election coming on, and the Martins expect a
+contest.--Nothing for you, Peter," said he, to an applicant for a letter
+outside. "He's looking to be made barony constable these four years, and
+he 's as much chance as I have of being--what shall I say?--"
+
+"Are you done?" asked Magennis, impatiently.
+
+"One minute more, sir--the least touch round the chin,--and, as I was
+saying, Captain, the Martins will lose the borough."
+
+"Who thinks so besides you?" asked Magennis, gruffly.
+
+"It is, I may say, the general opinion; the notion current in-- There
+'s Miss Martin herself," cried he, running to the window. "Well, really,
+she handles them ponies elegant!"
+
+"Does she come often into town?"
+
+"I don't think I saw her in Oughterard--let me see when it was--it's two
+years--no, but it's not far off--it's more than--"
+
+"Are you done?" said Magennis, impatiently. "I told you that I was
+pressed for time this morning."
+
+"You're finished now, Captain," said Hosey, presenting him with a small
+cracked looking-glass. "That's what I call a neat chin and a beautiful
+sweep of whisker. Thank you, Captain. It's a pleasure and an honor--not
+to say that it's--"
+
+Magennis did not wait for the peroration, but striding hastily out of
+the little shop, issued into the street that led to the inn. On arriving
+there, he heard that Mr. Rep-ton had gone out, leaving word that he
+would be found at Major Froode's quarters. Thither Magennis now repaired
+with all the solemn importance befitting his mission.
+
+As he sent in his name, he could overhear the short colloquy that passed
+within, and perceived that Repton was about to retire; and now the
+servant ushered him into the presence of a smart, light-whiskered little
+man, with a pair of shrewd gray eyes, and a high forehead.
+
+"A brother officer, I perceive, sir," said he, looking at the card,
+whereupon the title Captain was inscribed; "pray take a chair."
+
+"You anticipate the reason of this visit, Major Froode," said the other,
+with some degree of constraint, as though the preliminaries were the
+reverse of pleasant to him. The Major bowed, and Magennis went on: "I
+suppose, then, I'm to treat with you as the friend of Mr. Valentine
+Repton?"
+
+"And you are Mr. Massingbred's?" said the Major, answering the question
+with another.
+
+"I have that honor, sir," said Magennis, pompously; "and now, sir, how
+soon can it come off?"
+
+"Don't you imagine, Captain Magennis, that a little quiet discussion
+of the question at issue between two old soldiers, like you and myself,
+might possibly be advisable? Is there not a chance that our united
+experience might not suggest an amicable arrangement of this business?"
+
+"Quite out of the question,--utterly, totally impossible!" said
+Magennis, sternly.
+
+"Then perhaps I lie under some misconception," said the Major,
+courteously.
+
+"There was a blow, sir!--a blow!" said Magennis, in the same stern tone.
+
+"I opine that everything that occurred was purely accidental,--just hear
+me out,--that a hasty word and a hurried gesture, complicated with the
+impatient movement of a horse--"
+
+A long whistle from Magennis interrupted the speech, and the Major,
+reddening to the very top of his high forehead, said,--
+
+"Sir, this is unbecoming,--are you aware of it?"
+
+"I'm quite ready for anything when this is settled," said Magennis, but
+with less composure than he desired to assume. "What I meant was, that
+for a blow there is but one reparation."
+
+"Doubtless, if the injury admit of no explanation," said the Major,
+calmly; "but in that lies the whole question. Consider two things,
+Captain Magennis: first of all, the equivocal appearance of _your_
+friend, the age and standing of _mine_."
+
+"By Jove! you'll kill me in trying to save my life," said Repton,
+bursting into the room. "I didn't want to play eavesdropper, Froode,
+but these thin partitions are only soundboards for the voice. This
+gentleman," added he, turning to Magennis, "is perfectly correct. There
+was a blow; and a blow has only one consequence, and that one I 'm
+ready for. There may be, for aught I know, twenty ways of settling
+these matters in London or at the clubs, but we 're old-fashioned in our
+notions in Ireland here; and I don't think that even when we pick up new
+fashions that we 're much the better for them, so that if your friend is
+here, Captain, and ready--"
+
+"Both, sir; here and ready!"
+
+"Then so am I; and now for the place. Come, Froode, you don't know
+Ireland as well as I do; just humor me this time, and whenever I get
+into a scrape in Scotland you shall have it all your own way. Eh,
+Captain, is n't that fair?"
+
+"Spoke like a trump!" muttered Magennis.
+
+"For _me_, did you say?" said Repton, taking a letter from the servant,
+who had just entered the room.
+
+"Yes, sir; and the groom says there's an answer expected."
+
+"The devil take it, I 've forgotten my spectacles. Froode, just tell me
+what's this about, and who it comes from."
+
+"It's Miss Martin's hand," said Froode, breaking the seal and running
+over the contents. "Oh, I perceive," said he; "they're afraid you have
+taken French leave of them at Cro' Martin, and she has driven into town
+to carry you back again."
+
+"That comes of my leaving word at the little post-office to forward my
+letters to Dublin if not asked for to-morrow. Take a pen, Froode,
+and write a couple of lines for me; say that a very urgent call--a
+professional call--will detain me here to-day, but that if not back by
+dinner-time--Captain Magennis thinks it not likely," added he, turning
+towards him as he sat, with a very equivocal expression, half grin, half
+sneer, upon his features--"that I 'll be with them at breakfast next
+morning," resumed Repton, boldly. "Make some excuse for my not answering
+the note myself,--whatever occurs to you. And so, sir," said he, turning
+to Magennis, "your friend's name is Massingbred. Any relation to Colonel
+Moore Massingbred?"
+
+"His son,--his only son, I believe."
+
+"How strange! I remember the father in the 'House'--I mean the Irish
+House--five-and-thirty years ago; he was always on the Government
+benches. It was of him Parsons wrote those doggerel lines,--
+
+    'A man without a heart or head,
+     Who seldom thought, who never read,
+     A witty word who never said,
+     One at whose board none ever fed,
+     Such is the Colonel M--g--b--d.'
+
+He could n't call him a coward, though; for when they went out--which
+they did--Massingbred's manner on the ground was admirable."
+
+"Will that do?" said Froode, showing a few lines he had hastily jotted
+down.
+
+"I can't read a word of it, but of course it will," said he; "and then,
+sir," added he, addressing Magennis, "the sooner we place ourselves at
+your disposal the better."
+
+Froode whispered something in Repton' ear, and by his manner seemed as
+if remonstrating with him, when the other said aloud,--
+
+"We 're in Ireland, Major; and, what's more, we 're in Galway, as
+Macleweed said once to a prisoner, 'With a Yorkshire jury, sir, I 'd
+hang you. Your sentence now is to pay five marks to the King, and find
+bail for your good behavior.' You see what virtue there is in locality."
+
+"There's a neat spot about two miles off, on the road to Maum," said
+Magennis to the Major. "We could ride slowly forward, and you might keep
+us in view."
+
+"In what direction did you say?"
+
+"Take the second turn out of the market-place till you pass the baker's
+shop, then to the left, and straight on afterwards. You can't miss it."
+
+"Stop a moment, sir," said Froode to Magennis, as he moved towards the
+door; "one word, if you please. It is distinctly understood that I have
+been overruled in this business,--that, in fact, I have submitted--"
+
+"Your point has been reserved," said Repton, laughing, while he led him
+away; and Magennis at the same moment took his departure.
+
+It was, indeed, with no slight feeling of triumph that thia gentleman
+now hastened back to the Martin Arms. Never did a great diplomatist
+experience more pride in the conclusion of some crowning act of
+negotiation than did he in the accomplishment of this affair.
+
+"There 's many a man," said he to himself, "who 'd have accepted an
+apology here. There's many a man might have let himself be embarrassed
+by the circumstances; for, certainly, the taking hold of the bridle was
+an awkward fact, and if the Major was a cute fellow he 'd have made a
+stand upon it. I must say that the Counsellor showed no backwardness; he
+comes of that fine old stock we used to have before the Union."
+
+And with this profound reflection he entered the room where Massingbred
+sat awaiting him.
+
+"It's all settled. We're to meet at the Priest's Gap within an hour,"
+said Magennis, with the air of a man who had acquitted himself cleverly.
+"And though I say it that should n't, if you were in other hands this
+morning you would n't have got your shot."
+
+"I always relied implicitly upon your skill!" said Massingbred, humoring
+his vanity.
+
+"Have you anything to arrange,--a letter or so to write; for I'll step
+down to Dr. Hearkins to tell him to follow us?"
+
+Massingbred made no reply as the other left the room. Once more alone,
+he began to think gravely over his present situation. Nor could all his
+habitual levity steel him against the conviction that five minutes of
+common-sense talk might arrange a dispute which now promised a serious
+ending. "However," thought he, "we are not in the land where such
+differences admit of amicable solution, and there's no help for it."
+
+A sharp tap at the door startled him from these musings, and before he
+could well reply to it Daniel Nelligan entered the room, and advanced
+towards him with an air of mingled ease and constraint.
+
+"I hope you 'll forgive me, Mr. Massingbred," he began. "I feel certain
+that you will at some future day, at least, for what I 'm going to do."
+Here he stopped and drew a long breath, as if not knowing in what terms
+to continue. Massingbred handed him a chair, and took one in front of
+him without speaking.
+
+"I know what brought you here to-day; I am aware of it all."
+
+He paused, and waited for the other to speak; but Massingbred sat
+without offering a word, and evidently relying on his own social tact to
+confound and embarrass his visitor.
+
+"I know, sir, that you are likely to regard my interference as
+impertinent," resumed Nelligan; "but I trust that the friend of my son,
+Joe--"
+
+"I must set you right upon one point, at least, Mr. Nelligan," said
+Massingbred, with an easy smile. "If you be only as accurate in
+your knowledge of my affairs as you are with respect to my private
+friendships, this visit has certainly proceeded from some misconception.
+Your son and I were friends once upon a time. We are so no longer!"
+
+"I never heard of this. I never knew you had quarrelled!"
+
+"We have not, sir. We have not even met. The discourtesy he has shown me
+since my arrival here--his avoidance of me, too marked to be explained
+away--is an offence. The only misfortune is that it is one which can be
+practised with impunity."
+
+"My son asks for none such," said Dan, fiercely. "And if your
+observation is meant for an insult--" He stopped suddenly, as if checked
+by something within, and then said, but in a voice full and measured,
+"I'm magistrate of this town, sir, and I come here upon information that
+has reached me of your intentions to commit a breach of the peace."
+
+"My dear Mr. Nelligan," began Massingbred, in his most seductive of
+manners,--but the other had already witnessed the rupture of the
+only tie which bound them, the supposed friendship between Joe and
+Massingbred, and cared nothing for all the blandishments he could
+bestow,--"my dear Mr. Nelligan, you cannot, surely, suppose that a mere
+stranger as I am in your county--scarcely ten days here--should have
+been unfortunate enough to have incurred the animosity of any one."
+
+"I hold here a statement, sir," said Nelligan, sternly, "which, if you
+please to pledge your honor to be incorrect--"
+
+"And this is Galway!" exclaimed Massingbred,--"this glorious land of
+chivalrous sentiment of which we poor Englishmen have been hearing
+to satiety! The Paradise of Point of Honor, then, turns out a very
+commonplace locality, after all!"
+
+"I 'm proud to say that our county has another reputation than its old
+one; not but--" and he added the words in some temper--"there are a few
+left would like to teach you that its character was not acquired for
+nothing."
+
+"Well, well!" sighed Jack, as he closed his eyes, and appeared as
+if indulging in a revery, "of all the mockeries I have lived to see
+unmasked, this is the worst and meanest."
+
+"I have not come here to listen to this, sir," said Nelli-gan,
+haughtily, as he arose. "I waited upon you, intending to accept your
+solemn pledge, by word of honor, to commit no act hostile to the public
+peace. Now, sir, I shall call upon you to give me the legal guarantee
+for this security,--good and sufficient bail, and that within an hour!"
+
+"My dear Mr. Nelligan," replied Massingbred, with all the quiet ease of
+an unruffled temper, "I have not a single friend here, except yourself,
+upon whom I could call in such an emergency. I am utterly unknown in
+these parts; my very name unheard of before my arrival. If I _did_ by
+any unhappy circumstance find myself in such an involvement as you speak
+of, I solemnly assure you my first thought would be to address myself to
+Mr. Nelligan."
+
+The easy impertinence of this speech would have been perfectly
+successful a short time previous, when Nelligan yet believed in the
+close friendship with his son. It came now, however, too late, and the
+old man listened to it with something bordering on anger.
+
+"Good and sufficient bail, sir,--yourself and two others," repeated he,
+slowly, and moving towards the door.
+
+"One word, I pray," said Jack, rising, and speaking with more
+earnestness and apparently with more sincerity. "I do not ask you any
+details as to the circumstances you impute to me, but perhaps you would,
+as a favor, tell me how this information has reached you?"
+
+"I will not, sir," was the abrupt reply.
+
+"I am sure no friend of mine could have--"
+
+"It is no use, Mr. Massingbred; all your address will avail you nothing.
+You shall not cross-examine _me!_"
+
+"You must, however, see, sir," said Massingbred, "that unknown and
+unfriended as I am here, bail is out of the question."
+
+"The Bench will hear anything you desire to say on that subject," said
+Nelligan, coldly. "Good-morning to you."
+
+And with these words he left the room, and descended into the street.
+
+The passionate warmth which Massingbred had so successfully controlled
+in the presence of his visitor burst forth the first moment he found
+himself alone. He inveighed against the country, the people, their
+habits, and all belonging to them; cursed his own fate at being ever
+thrown into such companionship; and wound up by resolving to submit to
+any terms by which he might quit Galway forever, and forget, for the
+rest of his days, that he had ever entered it. While he was yet fuming
+in this fashion, the waiter entered and presented him with a very
+dirty-looking note, fastened by two wafers, and inscribed "Most
+private." Massingbred opened it and read,--
+
+     "My dear Mr. M.,--We 're found out--I believe by Hosey
+     Lynch, where I dropped a bullet-mould this morning when he
+     was shaving me. At all events, we 're blown, and as I am
+     under �250 recognizances to keep the peace for three years,
+     I 'm off to the mountains till this passes over. I 'm sure,
+     from what I saw of the Counsellor, that he 'll keep himself
+     open to a proposal elsewhere. Meanwhile, there's nothing for
+     it but to give your bail and satisfy the blackguards--bad
+     luck to them--that spoiled the sport! You can go back to
+     the house when all's over, and I 'll return as soon as it is
+     safe for
+
+     "Your sincere friend,
+
+     "T. M."
+
+Scarcely had he finished reading this epistle, when Major Froode
+presented himself in his chamber, the door of which the waiter was yet
+holding ajar. Having introduced himself, he briefly informed Massingbred
+of his position as Mr. Repton's friend, and as briefly stated that
+the Counsellor had been obliged to pledge himself against any hostile
+intentions,--a step which, he foresaw, would also be required of him.
+"For this reason I have come," continued he, "to say that any assistance
+I can be of to you is frankly at your service. I have learned that you
+are a stranger here, and not likely to have many acquaintances."
+
+"If they would be satisfied with my word," began Jack.
+
+"Of course they will, and shall," interrupted Froode; "and now, what is
+there in the way of _amende_ my friend can make, for what he is prepared
+to confess was a mere accident?"
+
+"The acknowledgment is ample. I ask for nothing beyond it," said
+Massingbred. "I am not quite certain but that my own conduct might
+require a little explanation; but as your friend's vigor put matters
+beyond negotiation at the time, we 'll not go back upon bygones."
+
+"And now, sir," burst in Repton, who had waited outside the door,--"and
+now, sir, I beg you to accept the humblest apology I can tender for what
+has happened. I 'm not as safe on my saddle as I used to be forty years
+ago; and when the nag reared and threatened to fall back upon me, I am
+ashamed to own that I neither saw nor cared what I struck at. I 'd have
+said all this to you, Mr. Massingbred, after your fire, had we been
+permitted to go the ground; and although there is some additional
+humiliation in saying it here, I richly deserve all the pain it gives
+me, for my want of temper. Will you give me your hand?"
+
+"With sincere pleasure," said Jack, shaking him warmly and cordially
+with both his own.
+
+"There 's but one thing more to be done," said Repton. "These borough
+magistrates, vulgar dogs as they are, will want you to give a bail bond.
+Take no notice of them, but just drive out with me to Cro' Martin, and
+we 'll settle it all there."
+
+"I am not acquainted with Mr. Martin."
+
+"But you shall be. He 'll be charmed to know you, and the place is worth
+seeing. Come, you mustn't leave the West with only its barbarism in your
+memory. You must carry away some other recollections."
+
+The new turn affairs had just taken was by no means distasteful to
+Massingbred. It promised another scene in that drama of life he loved
+to fashion for himself, with new scenery, new actors, and new incidents.
+"The Counsellor," too, struck his fancy. There was a raciness in the old
+man's manner, a genial cordiality, united with such palpable acuteness,
+that he promised himself much pleasure in his society; and so he
+accepted the proposal with all willingness, and pledged to hold himself
+ready for his friend within an hour.
+
+Repton and the Major had but just left the room, when the former
+re-entered it hurriedly, and said, "By the way, I must leave you to your
+own guidance to find your road to Cro' Martin, for there's a young lady
+below stairs has a lien upon me. You shall be presented to her when you
+come out, and I promise you it will repay the journey."
+
+"This must be the Mary Martin I 've been hearing of," thought
+Massingbred, when again alone; "and so the morning's work will probably
+turn out better than I had anticipated."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. A COUNTRY-HOUSE
+
+When Massingbred arrived at Cro' Martin, he found Repton at the door
+awaiting him. "I find," said he, "there is little need of introducing
+you here. Your father was an old acquaintance of Martin's; they sat
+together for years in Parliament, and Lady Dorothea was related to
+your family. But here he comes." And Martin approached, with his hand
+extended in cordial welcome. No one ever knew better how to do the
+honors of his house, nor could throw more graceful courtesy into the
+first steps of acquaintanceship. Massingbred, too, was well calculated
+to appreciate this gift. He had a most intense esteem for "manner,"
+and enjoyed even the necessity it imposed upon himself of exertion to
+please. With sincere satisfaction was it that he accepted an invitation
+to pass some days there, and at once despatched a servant to Magennis's
+house for his trunks.
+
+The adventure of the morning was alluded to but once, and then in a
+jocular strain, as an incident of no moment whatever; and Massingbred
+retired to his room to dress for dinner, wondering within himself if he
+should find the other members of the family as much to his liking as the
+worthy host had been.
+
+A dinner-party was a rare event at Cro' Martin. The isolation in which
+they lived was rarely broken by a visitor; and when, by rare
+accident, some solitary stranger did present himself with a letter of
+introduction, his stay was merely of a few hours. Now, however, the
+company included, in addition to the family, Repton, Massingbred, and
+Nelligan, besides Miss Henderson, who was on that day to appear at
+dinner. The quondam college friends had not met; neither had Miss
+Martin ever seen her governess; so that there was no small degree of
+anticipation as to how such elements would harmonize and agree.
+
+When Massingbred entered the drawing-room, he found Miss Henderson there
+alone; and at once believing she could be no other than Miss Martin,
+he proceeded to introduce himself in the best manner he could. Her
+reception was perfect in ease and self-possession, and they soon found
+themselves engaged in a lively discussion as to the scenery, the people
+and their habits, of which they both appeared to have a very similar
+appreciation. Lady Dorothea next made her appearance; and, advancing
+towards Massingbred, welcomed him with what, for her, was the extreme
+of cordiality. "Your mother was a Caradoc, Mr. Massingbred, and the
+Caradocs are all of our family; so let me claim relationship at once."
+
+With all the pretensions of a very fine lady, Lady Dorothea knew how
+to unite very agreeable qualities, not the less successful in her
+captivations, that she never exercised them without a real desire
+to please; so that Massingbred soon saw how in the wilds of dreary
+Connemara there existed a little oasis of polish and civilization that
+would have done honor to the most splendid society of London or Paris.
+
+Nor was Massingbred himself less pleasing to her. It was so long, so
+many, many years since she had met with one fresh from that great world
+which alone she valued!
+
+Correspondence had kept her to a certain extent informed upon the
+changes and vicissitudes of society,--the births, deaths, marriages,
+separations, quarrels, and other disasters of those dear friends for
+whose griefs absence and time offer so many consolations! But then, the
+actual appearance, the _coup d'oil_ of that world could only be imparted
+by an observer, imbued with all the spirit that gives observation its
+peculiar piquancy. This she found in him; and so agreeably exercised was
+it, that she actually heard dinner announced without attending, and only
+as she arose from her seat was reminded to present him to Miss Martin,
+by the brief phrase, "My niece, Mr. Massingbred;" while she took his
+arm, with a glance at Mr. Repton, that plainly said, "You are deposed."
+
+The passage to the dinner-room lay through three spacious and splendid
+rooms, which now were brilliantly lighted up, and lined with servants in
+rich liveries,--a degree of state Massingbred was not a little pleased
+at; partly suspecting that it was intended to do himself honor. As they
+moved slowly through the last of these, the door suddenly opened, and
+young Nelligan entered. He had returned late from a long ride, and
+heard nothing whatever of Massing-bred's arrival. With an exclamation
+of "Jack--Massingbred!" he bounded forward. But the other showed no
+recognition of him; and directing Lady Dorothea's attention to the
+richness of a picture-frame, passed calmly on into the dinner-room.
+
+"You must bring up the rear alone, Nelligan," said Martin, who had given
+his arm to Miss Henderson; and Joe followed, almost overwhelmed with
+mingled shame and amazement.
+
+For an instant the possibility of mistake assuaged his sense of
+mortification; but no sooner did he find himself at table, and directly
+opposite to Massingbred, than he perceived there was no ground whatever
+for this consolation. It was, indeed, Massingbred, just as he had seen
+him the first day in the Commons Hall at dinner, and when his cold,
+supercilious manner had struck him so disagreeably.
+
+What a terrible vengeance for all the superiority Nelligan had displayed
+over him in the Examination Hall was Massingbred's present success; for
+success it was. With all that consummate readiness the habit of
+society imparts, Jack could talk well on a great variety of topics,
+and possessed, besides, that especial tact to make others so far
+participators in his observations that they felt a partnership in the
+agreeability. Lady Dorothea was perfectly charmed with him; it was the
+triumph, as it were, of one of her own set. His anecdotes--not very
+pointed or curious in themselves--had the marked characteristic of
+always referring to distinguished individuals; so that what was
+deficient in wit was more than compensated by the rank of the actors.
+Martin enjoyed his conversation with all his own complacent ease, and
+felt delighted with one who could play all the game without an
+adversary. Mary was pleased and astonished together--the pleasure being
+even less than the amazement--at all he seemed to know of life and the
+world, and how intimately one so young seemed to have mixed in society.
+As for Repton, he relished the other's powers with the true zest of a
+pleasant talker; they were of different styles, and no disagreeable
+rivalry marred the appreciation.
+
+Amidst all these silent or spoken testimonies sat poor Nelligan,
+overwhelmed with shame. Massingbred had refused to recognize him; and it
+was left to his own gloomy thoughts to search out the reason. At first
+Joe avoided meeting the other's look; he dreaded he knew not what of
+impertinence or insult, to which the time and place could offer no
+reparation; but gradually he grew to perceive that Massingbred's cold
+eye met his own without a spark of meaning; nor was there in voice,
+manner, or bearing, a single evidence of constraint or awkwardness to be
+detected.
+
+Miss Henderson alone seemed to listen to him with easy indifference; and
+more than once, when Jack put forth his most showy pretensions, he was
+secretly mortified to see how little impression he had made on the dark
+beauty with the haughty smile. This was exactly the kind of defiance
+that Massingbred never declined, and he determined within himself to
+attempt the conquest. As the party returned to the drawing-room, he
+asked Lady Dorothea to present him more formally to the young lady whose
+acquaintance he had dared to obtrude upon before dinner; but she coldly
+said,--
+
+"Oh, it's no matter; she's only the governess." An explanation she
+deemed quite sufficient to subdue any rising feeling of interest
+regarding her.
+
+"And the gentleman who sat next her at dinner?" asked he.
+
+"A neighbor,--that is, the son of one of our borough people. I have not
+introduced him to you; for, of course, you are not likely to meet again.
+As you were remarking, awhile ago, society in England is gradually
+undergoing that change which in France was accomplished in a year or
+two."
+
+"With the aid of the guillotine and the 'lanterne,'" said Jack, smiling.
+
+"Just so; they used sharp remedies for a quick cure. But I own to you
+that I have not yet reconciled myself, nor do I see how I shall ever
+reconcile myself, to intimacy with a class not only whose habits and
+instincts, but whose very natures are adverse to our own. That young
+man now, for instance, they speak of him as quite a college wonder. I'm
+ashamed to say I don't know wherein his great successes lie; but they
+tell me that he has distanced every competitor of his day, and stands
+alone in his preeminence, and yet we saw him to-day not venturing on a
+remark, nor even hazarding an opinion on the topics we talked of, and
+silent where he ought to have been heard with advantage."
+
+"Is he bashful?" said Jack, with a lazy drawl.
+
+"I don't think it's that; at least, not altogether."
+
+"Supercilious, perhaps?"
+
+"Oh! certainly not," replied she, hastily. "The company in which he
+found himself is the best answer to that. He could not presume--"
+
+"It was, then, downright fear," broke in Massingbred; "the terror
+that even clever men cannot even shake off when thrown amongst a class
+they're unused to."
+
+"And very naturally so. I'm sure he must be puzzled to imagine why he is
+here. Indeed, we have only known him a few days back. It was one of Mr.
+Martin's sudden caprices to ask him to Cro' Martin. He fancied he ought
+to conciliate--I believe that's the phrase in vogue--the borough people,
+and this young man's father is the chief of them." And now Lady Dorothea
+turned from the topic as one unworthy of further thought, and entered
+upon the more congenial theme of her own high relatives and connections
+in England. It was strange enough that Massing-bred's remote alliance
+with her family was sufficient to induce an intimacy and familiarity
+with him which years of mere acquaintanceship could not have effected.
+That his grand-aunt had been a Conway, and his great-grandfather's
+half-brother was married to a Jernyngham, were all a species of
+freemasonry by which he was admitted at once to the privilege of
+confidential discussion.
+
+It was no small mortification to Massingbred to spend his evening in
+these genealogical researches; he had seen the two young girls move off
+into an adjoining room, from which at times the sound of a piano, and
+of voices singing, issued, and was half mad with impatience to be along
+with them. However, it was a penalty must be exacted, and he thought
+that the toll once paid he had secured himself against all demands for
+the future.
+
+Not caring to participate in the many intricacies of those family
+discussions wherein the degrees of relationship of individuals seem
+to form the sole points of interest, we shall betake ourselves to the
+little blue drawing-room, where, seated at the piano together, the
+two young girls talked, while their fingers strayed along the notes as
+though affording a species of involuntary accompaniment to their words.
+Nelligan, it is true, was present; but, unnoticed by either, he sat
+apart in a distant corner, deep in his own brooding thoughts.
+
+Mary had only made Miss Henderson's acquaintance on that evening, but
+already they were intimate. It was, indeed, no common boon for her to
+obtain companionship with one of her own age, and who, with the dreaded
+characteristics of a governess, was in reality a very charming and
+attractive person. Miss Henderson sang with all the cultivated knowledge
+of a musician; and, while she spoke of foreign countries where she had
+travelled, lapsed at times into little snatches of melody, as it
+were, illustrative of what she spoke. The delight Mary experienced
+in listening was unbounded; and if at moments a sad sense of her own
+neglected education shot through her mind, it was forgotten the next
+instant in her generous admiration.
+
+"And how are _you_, who have seen this bright and brilliant world you
+speak of," said Mary, "to sit quietly down in this unbroken solitude,
+where all the interests are of the humblest and more ordinary kind?"
+
+"You forget that I saw all these things, as it were, on sufferance,"
+replied she. "I was not born to them, nor could ever hope for more than
+a passing glance at splendors wherein I was not to share. And as for the
+quiet monotony here, an evening such as this, companionship like yours,
+are just as much above my expectations."
+
+"Oh, no, no!" cried Mary, eagerly. "You were as surely destined for a
+salon as I was for the rude adventures of my own wayward life. You don't
+know what a strange existence it is."
+
+"I have heard, however!" said the other, calmly.
+
+"Tell me--do tell me--what you have been told of me, and don't be afraid
+of wounding my vanity; for, I pledge you my word, I do think of myself
+with almost all the humility that I ought."
+
+"I have heard you spoken of in the cabins of the poor as their only
+friend, their comforter, and their hope; the laborer knows you as his
+succor,--one by whose kind intervention he earns his daily bread; their
+children love you as their own chosen protector."
+
+"But it's not of these things I 'm speaking," said Mary, rapidly. "Do
+they not call me self-willed, passionate, sometimes imperious?"
+
+"Yes; and capricious at times!" said the other, slowly.
+
+Mary colored, and her voice faltered as she said,--
+
+"There they were unjust. The impracticable tempers I have to deal
+with--the untutored minds and undisciplined natures--often lead me into
+seeming contradictions."
+
+"Like the present, perhaps," said Miss Henderson.
+
+"How! the present?" said Mary.
+
+"That, while claiming the merit of humility, you at once enter upon a
+self-defence."
+
+"Well, perhaps I _am_ capricious!" said Mary, smiling.
+
+"And haughty?" asked the other, slowly.
+
+"I believe so!" said Mary, with a degree of dignity that seemed to
+display the sentiment while confessing to it.
+
+"I have never heard a heavier accusation against Miss Martin than
+these," said she, "and I have lived with those who rarely scruple how to
+criticise their betters."
+
+Mary was silent and thoughtful; she knew not how to interpret the
+mingled praise and censure she had just listened to.
+
+"But tell me rather of yourself," said Mary, as though willing to turn
+the topic of conversation. "I should like to hear your story."
+
+"At thirteen years of age--I believe even a year later--I was the
+playfellow of the young gentleman you see yonder," said Kate Henderson,
+"but who, to-night, seems incapable of remembering anything or anybody."
+
+"Of Mr. Nelligan?" repeated Mary. And Joseph started as he heard his
+name, looked up, and again relapsed into revery.
+
+"I 'm not sure that we were not in love. I almost confess that I
+was, when my father sent me away to France to be educated. I was very
+sad--very, very sad--at being taken away from home and thrown amongst
+strangers, with none of whom I could even interchange a word; and I used
+to sit and cry for hours by myself, and write sorrowful love-letters
+to 'dearest Joseph,' and then imagine the answers to them; sometimes I
+actually wrote them, and would suffer agonies of anguish before I dared
+to break the seal and learn the contents. Meanwhile I was acquiring a
+knowledge of French, and knew a little of music, and used to sing in our
+choir at chapel, and learned to believe the world was somewhat larger
+than I had hitherto thought it, and that St. Gudule was finer than
+the mean little church at Oughterard; and worse still--for it _was_
+worse--that the sous-lieutenants and cadets of the Military College had
+a much more dashing, daring look about them than 'poor Joseph;' for so I
+now called him to myself, and gave up the correspondence soon after.
+
+"Remember, Miss Martin, that I was but a child at this time--at least, I
+was little more than fourteen--but in another year I was a woman, in all
+the consciousness of certain attractions, clever enough to know that
+I could read and detect the weak points in others, and weak enough to
+fancy that I could always take advantage of them. This incessant spirit
+of casuistry, this passion for investigating the temper of those about
+you, and making a study of their natures for purposes of your own, is
+the essence of a convent life; you have really little else to do,
+and your whole bent is to ascertain why Sister Agnes blushes, or why
+Beatrice fainted twice at the Angelus. The minute anatomy of emotions
+is a very dangerous topic. At this very moment I cannot free myself from
+the old habit; and as I see young Mr. Nelligan there sitting with his
+head in his hand, so deep in thought as not to notice us, I begin to
+examine why is it he is thus, and on what is he now brooding?"
+
+"And can you guess?" asked Mary, half eagerly.
+
+"I could be certain, if I were but to ask him a question or two."
+
+"Pray do then, if only to convince me of your skill."
+
+"But I must be alone, and that is scarcely possible,--scarcely
+becoming."
+
+"Let us contrive some way,--think of something."
+
+"It is too late now; he is about to leave the room," said Kate,
+cautiously. "How pale he looks, and how anxious his eye has become!
+I thought at first there was some constraint at meeting _me_ here; he
+feared, perhaps--but no, that would be unworthy of him."
+
+She ceased, for Nelligan had now drawn nigh to where they sat, and stood
+as if trying to collect himself to say something.
+
+"Do you sing, Mr. Nelligan?" asked Kate.
+
+"No; I am ignorant of music," said he, half abstractedly.
+
+"But you like it?" asked Mary.
+
+"Yes, I believe I do,--that is, it calms and quiets me. If I could
+understand it, it would do more."
+
+"Then why not understand it, since that is the way you phrase it?" asked
+Kate. "Everybody can be a musician to a certain degree of proficiency.
+There is no more ear required than you want to learn a language."
+
+"Then you shall teach me," cried Mary, eagerly.
+
+Kate took up her hand and pressed it to her lips for a reply.
+
+"Foreigners--men, I mean--are all so well aware of this that they
+cultivate music as a necessary part of education; few attain high
+eminence, but all know something of it. But somehow we have got to
+believe that cultivation in England must always tend to material profit.
+We learn this, that, and t' other, to be richer or greater or higher,
+but never to be more acceptable in society, more agreeable or pleasanter
+company."
+
+"We have n't time," said Nelligan, gravely.
+
+"For what have we not time? Do you mean we have no time to be happy?"
+cried Repton, suddenly stepping in amongst them. "Now, my dear young
+ladies, which of you will bid highest for the heart of an old lawyer--by
+a song?"
+
+"It must be Miss Henderson," said Mary, smiling, "for I don't sing."
+
+"Not a ballad?--not even one of the Melodies?"
+
+"Not even one of the Melodies," said she, sorrowfully.
+
+"Shame upon me for that 'even,'" said Repton; "but you see what comes
+of surviving one's generation. I lived in an age when the 'Last Rose of
+Summer' and the 'Harp that Once' were classical as Homer's 'Hymns,' but
+I have now fallen upon times when English music is estimated in the
+same category with English cookery, and both deemed very little above
+barbarous. To be sure," added he, "it does seem very like a poetical
+justice for the slavish adherence of _our_ education to Greek and Roman
+literature, that our ladies should only sing to us in the languages of
+Italy or Germany."
+
+"I hope you would not imply that we are as little versed in these as
+great scholars are in the others?" said Kate Henderson, slyly.
+
+"Sharply said, miss, and truthfully insinuated too! Not to mention that
+there is courage in such a speech before Mr. Nelligan, here."
+
+"Yes--very true--a just remark!" said Joseph, who only overheard a
+reference to himself without understanding to what it alluded. And now
+a very joyous burst of laughter from the others startled him, while it
+covered him with confusion.
+
+"We must make them sing, Nelligan," said Repton, gayly. "They'll
+vanquish us in these tilting-matches of word-fence.--Now, Miss
+Henderson, something very plaintive and very sentimental, to suit the
+tenderness of a feeling heart."
+
+"I'll sing for you with pleasure," said Kate. "Will this suit you?" And
+with a short prelude she sang one of those brilliant little snatches
+of Venetian melody which seem like the outburst of a sudden
+inspiration,--wild, joyous, floating as they are,--wherein such is the
+expression that sounds usurp the place of language, and the mind is
+carried away by a dreamy fascination impossible to resist.
+
+"How often have I heard that on the Lido!" said Mas-singbred, entering
+the room hastily; "and what a glorious thing it is!"
+
+"Then you know this?" said Kate, running her fingers over the notes, and
+warbling out another of the popular airs of the same class.
+
+"The last time I heard that," said Jack, musingly, "was one night when
+returning home from a late party, along the Grand Canal at Venice. There
+is a single word at the end of each verse which should be uttered by a
+second voice. Just as I passed beneath a brilliantly lighted salon, the
+sounds of this melody came floating forth, and as the stanza finished, I
+supplied the 'refrain.'"
+
+"You?" cried Kate, eagerly.
+
+"Yes; but why do you ask?"
+
+"Do you remember the exact spot?" said she, not heeding his question.
+
+"As well as though I were there only yesterday."
+
+"Shall I tell you where it was?" He waited, and she went on: "It was
+under the balcony of the Mocenigo Palace."
+
+"Why, this is witchcraft," cried Jack; "you are perfectly correct."
+
+"The bouquet that was thrown to you from the window fell into the
+water."
+
+"But I regained it. I have it still," cried he, more eagerly; "and yours
+was the hand that threw it?"
+
+She nodded assent.
+
+"How strange, is it not, that we should meet here?" He paused for a
+minute or two, and then said, "It was the Duchesse de Courcelles lived
+there at the time?"
+
+"Yes, we passed the winter in that palace."
+
+"Miss Henderson was the companion of the young Princess," said Lady
+Dorothea, who had just joined the group, and experienced no slight shock
+at observing the tone of easy familiarity in which the conversation
+was conducted. But Massingbred seemed wonderfully little moved by the
+intelligence, for, drawing his chair closer to Kate's, he led her
+to talk of Venice and its life, till, imperceptibly as it were, the
+discourse glided into Italian. What a dangerous freemasonry is the use
+of a foreign language, lifting the speakers out of the ordinary
+topics, and leading them away to distant scenes and impressions, which,
+constituting a little world apart, give a degree of confidential feeling
+to intercourse. Massingbred would willingly have lent himself to the
+full enjoyment of this illusion; but Kate, with quicker tact, saw all
+the difficulties and embarrassment it would occasion, and under pretext
+of searching for some music, escaped at once from the spot.
+
+"How I envy you, dear girl!" said Mary, following her, and passing her
+arm affectionately around her. "What a happiness must it be to possess
+such gifts as yours, which, even in their careless exercise, are so
+graceful. Tell me frankly, is it too late for me to try--"
+
+"You overrate _me_ as much as you disparage yourself," said Kate,
+mildly; "but if you really will accept me, I will teach you the little
+that I know, but, in return, will you make _me_ your friend?"
+
+Mary pressed the other's hand warmly within her own.
+
+"Here are some vows of everlasting friendship going forward, I 'll be
+sworn," said old Repton, stepping in between them; "and you ought to
+have a legal opinion as to the clauses,--eh, young ladies, am I not
+right?"
+
+"When was Mr. Repton wrong?" said Mary, laughing.
+
+"When he waited till his present age to fall in love!" said he, gayly.
+"But, seriously, what have you done with our young student? Of all the
+woe-begone faces I ever beheld, his was the very saddest, as he moved
+into the large drawing-room awhile ago. Which of you is to blame for
+this?"
+
+"Not guilty, upon my honor," said Mary, with mock solemnity.
+
+"I'm half afraid that our showy friend has eclipsed him in _your_ eyes,
+as I own to you he has in _mine_, clever fellow that he is."
+
+"Are you not charmed with yourself that you did not shoot him this
+morning?" said Mary, laughing.
+
+"I am sincerely gratified that he has not shot me, which, taking his
+pistol performance on the same level with his other acquirements, was
+not so very improbable!"
+
+"There's your uncle stealing away to bed," said Repton, "and fancying
+that nobody remarks him. Shall I be cruel enough to mar the project?
+Martin--Martin--come here for a moment; we want your opinion on a knotty
+point."
+
+"I know what it is," said Martin, smiling; "the question under
+discussion is,'Whether you or Mr. Massingbred were the more successful
+to-day?'"
+
+"I think Mr. Massingbred may claim the prize," said Mary Martin, with a
+sly whisper; "he made Lady Dorothea cry."
+
+"Ay," said Repton, "but _I_ made young Nelligan laugh!"
+
+And now the party broke up, Massingbred lingering a little behind to say
+something to Miss Henderson, and then betaking himself to his chamber,
+well satisfied with his day, and the change it had wrought in his
+fortunes. Perhaps a few passages from a letter that he, on that same
+night, penned to one of his friends in Dublin, will not be ill-timed as
+an exponent of his sentiments. The letter was written, directing
+certain articles of dress to be forwarded to him at once, by coach, and
+contained these paragraphs:--
+
+"You now know how I came here: the next thing is to tell you of the
+place itself. The house is large and admirably _mont�e_--abundance of
+servants, well drilled, and orderly. The master a nonentity, apparently;
+easy-tempered and good-humored; liking the quiet monotony of his humdrum
+life, and only asking that it may not be interfered with. His wife,
+a fine lady of the school of five-and-forty years ago,--a nervous
+terrorist about mob encroachments and the democratic tendencies of the
+times,--insufferably tiresome on genealogies and 'connections,' and
+what many would call downright vulgar in the amount of her pretension.
+Gratitude--for I have the honor of being a favorite already--seals my
+lips against any further or harsher criticism. As for the niece, she is
+decidedly handsome; a great deal of style about her too; with a degree
+of--shall I call it daring? for it is more like courage than any other
+quality--that tells you she is the uncontrolled ruler over the wild
+regions and wild people around her. With more of manner, she would be
+very charming; but perhaps she is better in the unfettered freedom of
+her own capricious independence: it certainly suits her to perfection.
+And now I should have completed my catalogue, if it were not for
+the governess. Ay, Harry, the governess! And just fancy, under this
+unimposing title, a dark-eyed, haughty-looking girl--I don't think she
+can be above twenty or twenty-one--with a carriage and port that might
+suit an Archduchess of Austria. She has travelled all over Europe--been
+everywhere--seen everything, and, stranger again, everybody; for she was
+what they style a companion. By Jove! she must have been a very charming
+one; that is, if she liked it; for if she did not, Hal!--At all events,
+here she is; only having arrived the very day before myself; so that we
+are free to discuss the family, and compare notes together, in the most
+confidential fashion.
+
+"Of course I need n't tell _you_ Jack Massingbred does not fall in
+love,--the very phrase implies it must be beneath one,--but I already
+see that if such a girl were a Lady Catherine or a Lady Agnes, with a
+father in the Upper House, and two brothers in the 'Lower,' her dowry
+anything you like above thirty thousand,--that, in short, even Jack
+himself might exhibit the weakness of inferior mortals; for she is
+precisely one of those types that are ever looking upward,--a girl
+with a high ambition, I 'll be sworn, and formed to make the man, whose
+fortunes she shared, stand forward in the van and distinguish himself.
+
+"These are our whole _dramatis persono_, if I include an old barrister,
+with a racy humor and a strong stock of Bar anecdotes; and young
+Nelligan, the Medal man, whom you quizzed me so much for noticing in
+Dublin. You were right then, Harry; he _is_ a low fellow, and I was
+wrong in ever thinking him otherwise. I chanced upon his father's
+acquaintance rather oddly; and the son has not forgiven it. When we met
+here, yesterday, he fancied that we were to speak, and was actually
+rushing forward to shake hands with the most enthusiastic warmth; but
+with that manner which you have often admired, and once encouraged, when
+you called me the 'Cool of the day,' I pulled him up dead short, stared,
+and passed on. At dinner, I managed to ignore him so utterly that
+everybody else fell into the trap, and he dined as a tutor or the
+chaplain or the agent's son might,--mingling his sighs with the soup,
+and sipping his claret in all dreariness.
+
+"You will see, even from these hasty lines, that there is enough here
+to interest and amuse; food for observation, and opportunity for malice.
+What can a man want more? The 'joint and the pickles.' They have
+asked me to stay,--they have even entreated; and so I mean to pass a
+week--perhaps two--here. I conclude that will give me enough of it:
+however, you shall hear frequently of my _res gesto_, and learn all that
+befalls
+
+"Jack Massingbred.
+
+"... When you pass that way, pray see what letters there may be lying
+for me in my chambers. If any of my father's--he writes in a large
+splashy hand--and the seal, two maces, saltierwise--forward them here. I
+am, or I shall soon be, in want of money; and as I have overdrawn my
+allowance already, I shall be obliged to issue bonds, bearing a certain
+interest. Can you recommend me to a safe capitalist?--not Fordyce--nor
+Henniker--nor yet Sloan--with all of whom I have held dealings, mutually
+disagreeable. It is a sad reflection that the stamp worth five shillings
+upon a piece of unsullied paper is absolutely valueless when the words
+'Jack Massingbred' are inscribed beneath. Try, and if you can, solve
+this curious problem.
+
+"At all events, write to me here: supply me freely with news, for I
+am supposed to be acquainted with all that goes on, socially and
+politically, and I shall be driven to imagination if you do not store me
+with fact."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. STATECRAFT
+
+It was a cabinet council; they were met in Lady Dorothea's boudoir,
+Martin and Mr. Repton being summoned to her presence. A letter had that
+morning reached her Ladyship from a very high quarter; the writer was
+the Marquis of Reckington, a very distant connection, who had suddenly
+been graciously pleased, after a long interval of utter obliviousness,
+to remember that Lady Dorothea was his relative, and yet living!
+Whatever pride her Ladyship might have summoned to her aid to repel the
+slights or impertinences of the vulgar, she displayed a most Christian
+forgiveness as she broke the seal of an epistle from one who had left
+several of her own without answers, and even replied to her application
+for a staff appointment for her son, by a cold assurance that these were
+times when "nothing but fitness and superior qualifications entitled any
+man to advancement in the public service." Oh dear, were there ever any
+other times since the world was made! Is not merit the only passport to
+place, and high desert and capacity the sole recommendation to favor? Of
+all the immense advantages of a representative government, is there any
+more conspicuous than the unerring certainty with which men of ability
+rise to eminence without other aid than their own powers; and that, in
+a system like ours, family influence, wealth, name, connections,
+and parliamentary support are just so much mere dross? If any one be
+incredulous of the virtue of public men, let him only ask for a place;
+let him entreat his great friend--everybody has at least one
+great friend--mine is a coroner--to make him a Junior Lord, or a
+Vice-Something, and see what the answer will be. Polite, certainly;
+nothing more so; but what a rebuke to self-seeking!--what a stern
+chastisement to the ignorant presumption that places are awarded by
+means of favor, or that the public service is ever filled through the
+channels of private influence! Far from it. He is told that our age is
+an incorruptible one, that ministers pass sleepless nights in balancing
+the claims of treasury clerks, and that Lord Chancellors suffer agonies
+in weighing the merits of barristers of six years' standing. "We have
+but one rule for our guidance: the best man in the best place." A
+high-sounding maxim, which it would be excessively uncivil to disparage
+by asking what constitutes "a best man." Is he some unscrupulous
+partisan, who first gave his fortune, and afterwards his fame, to the
+support of a party? Is he the indisputable disposer of three, or perhaps
+four votes in the House? Is he a floating buoy to be anchored in
+either roadstead of politics, and only to be secured to either, for
+a consideration? Is he the dangerous confidant of some damaging
+transaction? Or is he the deserter from a camp, where his treason may
+sow disaffection? These several qualifications have ere this served to
+make up "a best man;" and strangely enough, are gifts which fit him for
+the Army, the Navy, the Home Service, or the Colonies.
+
+Let us turn from this digression, into which we have fallen half
+inadvertently, and read over some parts of Lord Reckington's letter. It
+was somewhat difficult to decipher, as most great men's letters are, and
+displayed in more than one place the signs of correction. Although it
+had been, as we have said, a very long time since any correspondence had
+occurred between the "cousins," his Lordship resumed the intercourse as
+though not a week had intervened. After a little playful chiding over
+the laxity of her Ladyship's writing habits,--three of hers had been
+left unreplied to,--and some of that small gossip of family changes and
+events, never interesting to any but the direct actors, his Lordship
+approached the real topic of his letter; and, as he did so, his writing
+grew firmer, and larger and bolder, like the voice of a man who spoke of
+what truly concerned him.
+
+"I thought, my dear Dora, I had done with it all. I flattered myself
+that I had served my time in public capacities, and that neither
+the Crown nor its advisers could reasonably call upon me for further
+sacrifices. _You_ know how little to my taste were either the cares or
+ambitions of office. In fact, as happens to most men who are zealous for
+the public service, my official career imposed far more of sacrifices
+than it conferred privileges. Witness the occasions in which I was
+driven to reject the claims of my nearest and dearest friends, in
+compliance with that nervous terror of imputed favoritism so fatal to
+all in power! I thought, as I have said, that they had no fair claim
+upon me any longer. I asked nothing; indeed, many thought I was wrong
+there. But so it was; I quitted office without a pension, and without
+a ribbon! It was late on a Saturday evening, however, when a Cabinet
+messenger arrived at 'Beech Woods' with an order for me to repair
+at once to Windsor. I was far from well; but there was no escape.
+Immediately on arriving I was summoned to the presence, and before I had
+paid my respects, his Majesty, who was much excited, said, 'Reckington,
+we want you. You must go to Ireland!' I believe I started, for he went
+on, 'I 'll have no refusal. There is but one settlement of this question
+that I will accept of. You shall go to Ireland!' The King then entered
+with considerable warmth, but with all his own remarkable perspicuity,
+into a detail of late changes and events in the Cabinet. He was
+excessively irritated with B------, and spoke of G------as one whom he
+never could forgive. He repeatedly said, 'I have been duped; I have been
+tricked;' and, in fact, exhibited a degree of emotion which, combined
+with the unbounded frankness of his manner towards me, affected me
+almost to tears. Of course, my dear Dora, personal considerations ceased
+at once to have any hold upon me; and I assured his Majesty that the
+remainder of my life was freely at his disposal, more than requited, as
+it already was, by the precious confidence he had that day reposed in
+me. I must not weary you with details. I accepted and kissed hands as
+Viceroy on Monday morning; since that I have been in daily communication
+with G------, who still remains in office. We have discussed Ireland
+from morning to night, and I hope and trust have at last come to a
+thorough understanding as to the principles which must guide the future
+administration. These I reserve to talk over with you when we meet; nor
+do I hesitate to say that I anticipate the very greatest benefit in the
+fruits of your long residence and great powers of observation of this
+strange people." The letter here went off into a somewhat long-winded
+profession of the equal-handed justice which was to mark the acts of
+the administration. It was to be, in fact, a golden era of equity and
+fairness; but, somehow, as codicils are occasionally found to revoke the
+body of the testament, a very suspicious little paragraph rather damaged
+this glorious conclusion. "I don't mean to say, my dear coz., that we
+are to neglect our followers,--the Government which could do so never
+yet possessed, never deserved to possess, able support; but we must
+discriminate,--we must distinguish between the mere partisan who trades
+on his principles, and that high-minded and honorable patriot who gives
+his convictions to party. With the noisy declaimer at public meetings,
+the mob-orator or pamphleteer, we shall have no sympathy. To the worthy
+country gentleman, independent by fortune as well as by principle,
+extending the example of a blameless life to a large neighborhood,
+aiding us by his counsels as much as by the tender of his political
+support,--to him, I say, we shall show our gratitude, not grudgingly nor
+sparingly, but freely, openly, and largely. You now know in what ranks
+we wish to see our friends, in the very van of which array I reckon upon
+yourself." We shall again skip a little, since here the writer diverged
+into a slight dissertation on the indissoluble ties of kindred, and the
+links, stronger than adamant, that bind those of one blood together.
+After a brief but rapid survey of the strong opposition which was to
+meet them, he went on: "Of course all will depend upon our parliamentary
+support; without a good working majority we cannot stand, and for this
+must we use all our exertions." A few generalities on the comfort and
+satisfaction resulting from "safe divisions" ensued, and then came the
+apparently careless question, "What can _you_ do for us? Yes, my dear
+Dora, I repeat, what can _you_ do for us? What we need is the support of
+men who have courage enough to merge old prejudices and old convictions
+in their full trust in us; who, with the intelligence of true
+statesmanship, will comprehend the altered condition of the country, and
+not endeavor to adapt the nation to _their_ views, but rather _their_
+views to the nation. In a word, a wise and liberal policy, not based
+upon party watchwords and antiquated symbols, but on the prospect of
+seeing Ireland great and united. Now, will Martin come to our aid in
+this wise? He ought to be in Parliament for his county. But if he be too
+indolent, or too happy at home, whom can he send us? And again, what of
+the borough? They tell me that Kilcock, seeing his father's great age,
+will not stand where a contest might be expected, so that you must
+necessarily be prepared with another."
+
+Again the writer launched out upon the happiness he felt at being able
+to appeal thus candidly and freely to his own "dearest kinswoman,"
+inviting her to speak as frankly in return, and to believe that no
+possible difference of political opinion should ever throw a coldness
+between those whose veins were filled with the same blood, and whose
+hearts throbbed with the same affections. Her Ladyship's voice slightly
+faltered as she read out the concluding paragraph, and when she laid the
+letter down, she turned away her head and moved her handkerchief to her
+eyes.
+
+As for Martin, he sat still and motionless, his gaze firmly directed
+to Repton, as though seeking in the impassive lines of the old lawyer's
+face for some clew to guide and direct him.
+
+"You used to be a Tory, Martin?" said Repton, after a pause.
+
+"Yes, to be sure, we were always with that party."
+
+"Well, there's an end of them now," said the other. "What's to follow
+and fill their place, my Lord Reckington may be able to say; I cannot.
+I only know that _they_ exist no longer; and the great question for
+you--at least, one of the great questions--is, have you spirit enough to
+join a travelling party without knowing whither they 're journeying?"
+
+"And what may be the other great question, sir?" asked Lady Dorothea,
+haughtily.
+
+"The other is, what will it cost in money--ay, my Lady, in money;
+because any other outlay will not require searches nor title-deeds,
+loans, mortgages, nor bond-debts."
+
+"To contest the county would cost ten thousand pounds; Scanlan says so,"
+rejoined Martin.
+
+"And the borough?" asked Repton.
+
+"A few hundreds would suffice; at least, they have done so hitherto."
+
+"Then remain content with the cheap luxury of the borough," said Repton.
+"You don't want anything from these people, Martin. You don't covet a
+peerage; you would n't accept a baronetcy. You remember what Langton
+said when told that the King was going to give him the 'Red Hand.' 'If I
+have been unfortunate enough to incur his Majesty's displeasure, I must
+deplore it deeply; but surely my innocent son should not be included
+in the penalty of my offence. Therefore, in all humility, I beseech and
+entreat the royal favor to commute the sentence into knighthood, so that
+the disgrace may die with me.'"
+
+"There were times when such insolence would have cost him dearly," said
+her Ladyship, sternly.
+
+"I am not sorry that we don't live in them, my Lady," replied Repton.
+"But to return: as I was saying, you ask for no favors; why should
+you expend ten or fifteen thousand pounds to advocate views of whose
+tendencies you know nothing, and principles whose very meaning you are
+in ignorance of?"
+
+"I anticipated every word of this," said Lady Dorothea. "I told Mr.
+Martin, this morning, almost literally, the exact advice you'd proffer."
+
+"I am proud that your Ladyship should have read me so justly," said
+Repton, bowing.
+
+An insolent toss of her head was the significant answer to this speech.
+
+"But were I to speak my mind more candidly, I 'd even say, let the
+borough go after the county; and for this plain reason," said Repton,
+speaking with increased firmness and animation, "you neither seek
+for the ambition of political life, nor want to make a trade of its
+casualties."
+
+"Is it not possible, sir, that we might desire the natural influence
+that should arise out of our station in society and our rank in this
+county?" said Lady Dorothea, proudly.
+
+"And your Ladyship has it, and can never lose it. Having a vote or
+two to throw into a Ministerial division would never repay you for the
+anxieties and cares of contested elections. Ah, my Lady, what do _you_
+care for the small flatteries of London attentions?"
+
+"We should have these, sir, as our right," broke she in.
+
+"To be sure you would, and much happiness do I hope they would confer,"
+added he, in a tone only overheard by Martin; then continued aloud: "As
+to the patronage at your disposal, would you take a present of it? Whom
+do you want to make tide-waiters, gaugers, barony-constables, or
+even clerks of the peace? Of all men living, who is so free of hungry
+dependants or poor relations!"
+
+"I must say, sir, that you reduce the question of political support to
+a very intelligible one of material benefit," said her Ladyship, with a
+sneer; "but, just for argument sake, imagine that there should be such a
+thing as a little principle in the matter."
+
+"I'm going to that part of the case, my Lady," said Repton. "Martin is a
+Tory; now, what are the men coming into power? I wish you could tell
+me. Here, for instance, is one of their own journals,"--and he opened
+a newspaper and ran his eye over the columns,--"ay, here it is: 'With
+regard to Ireland, Lord Reckington's appointment as Viceroy is the best
+guarantee that the rights of Irishmen of every persuasion and every
+denomination will be respected.' So far so good;" and he read on in a
+low, humdrum voice for some minutes, till he came to the following: "'No
+privileged class will any longer be tolerated; no exceptional loyalty
+admitted as an excuse for insufferable oppression and tyranny; the
+wishes and benefits of the people--the real people of that country--will
+at length enter into the views of an administration; and Ireland as she
+is,--not the possible Ireland of factious enthusiasts,--be governed by
+men determined to redress her grievances and improve her capacities.'
+Now, Martin, you want no augur to interpret that oracle. They are going
+to rule you by the people; but the people must be represented.
+
+"Now, who represents them? Not the demagogue; he is merely their tool.
+The real representative is the priest; don't laugh, my dear friend, at
+such a shadowy possibility; the thing is nearer than you dream of. No
+administration ever yet tried to govern Ireland except by intimidation.
+The Beresfords were undertakers once, and they did their work very well,
+let me tell you; they advanced their friends and whipped their enemies;
+and what with peerages for one set, and pitched caps for the other, they
+ruled Ireland. Then there came the Orangemen, who rather blundered their
+work; there were too many heads amongst them, and the really clever
+fellows were overborne by brawling, talkative fools, who always had the
+masses with them because they _were_ fools. Still they ruled Ireland.
+They preserved the country to the King's crown; and I say once more,
+that was no small matter. And now we have arrived at a new era; we
+have obtained Emancipation, and must look out for another stamp of
+administrators, and I see nothing for it but the priest. Of course you,
+and every man of your station, sneer at the notion of being dictated
+to by Father Luke, in the greasy leather small-clothes and dirty black
+boots,--only, himself, a cottier once removed, a plant of the
+wild growth of the fields, cultivated, however, in the hotbeds of
+Maynooth,--a forcing-house whose fruits you are yet to taste of! Sneer
+away, Martin; but my name is not Val Repton if those men do not rule
+Ireland yet! Ay, sir, and rule it in such a fashion as your haughty
+Beresfords and Tottenhams, and Tisdalls never dreamed of! They 'll treat
+with the Government on equal terms,--so much, for so much; and, what's
+more, it won't be higgling for a place here, or a peerage there; but
+they'll have the price paid down in hard legislative coin,--Acts of
+Parliament, sir; privileges for themselves and their order, benefits to
+'the Church;' and, when nothing better or more tempting offers, insults
+and slights to their antagonists. You, and all like you, will be passed
+over as if you never existed; the minister will not need you; you'll be
+so many general officers on the retired list, and only remarked when you
+swell the crowd at a levee."
+
+"So, sir, according to this special prediction of yours, we have nothing
+left us but to live on our estates, enjoy what we can of our fortunes,
+and leave the interests of the nation to those our inferiors in rank,
+station, and property?"
+
+"Such a period as your Ladyship has pictured forth--a little strongly,
+perhaps--is before you. Whether the interval be destined to be long or
+short, will, in great measure, depend upon yourselves."
+
+"That agrees with what Scanlan said the other day," said Martin.
+
+"Scanlan!" echoed her Ladyship, with most profound contempt.
+
+"Who is this Scanlan?" asked Repton.
+
+"There he comes to answer for himself," said Martin. "The fellow drives
+neatly. See how cleverly he swept round that sharp turn! He may be 'at
+fault' about the world of politics; but, _my_ word for it! he is a rare
+judge of a hack."
+
+"And, now that you suggest it," said Repton, musingly, "what an
+instinctive shrewdness there is on every subject,--I don't care what it
+is,--about fellows that deal in horse flesh. The practice of buying
+and selling, searching out flaws here, detecting defects there, gives
+a degree of suspectful sharpness in all transactions; besides that,
+really none but a naturally clever fellow ever graduates in the stable.
+You smile, my Lady; but some of our very first men have achieved the
+triumphs of the turf."
+
+"Shall we have Scanlan in and hear the news?" asked Martin.
+
+"Not here. If you please, you may receive him in the library or your own
+room."
+
+"Then, come along, Repton. We can resume this affair in the afternoon or
+to-morrow." And, without waiting for a reply, he passed his arm within
+the other's, and led him away. "You have been too abrupt with her,
+Repton; you have not made due allowances for her attachment to family
+influences," said he, in a whisper, as they went along.
+
+Repton smiled half contemptuously.
+
+"Oh, it's all very easy for you to laugh, my dear fellow; but, trust me,
+there's nothing to be done with my Lady in that fashion."
+
+"Turn the flank,--eh?" said the old lawyer, slyly. "Ah, Martin, don't
+teach _me_ how to deal with humanity. If you have not the courage to
+tell your wife that your estate cannot bear fresh encumbrances, new
+loans, and new debts--"
+
+"Hush!" said Martin, cautiously.
+
+"Then, I say, let me prevent the casualty, that's all."
+
+"How are you, Scanlan?" said Martin, as the attorney came, bowing and
+smiling, forward to pay his respects. "My friend, Mr. Repton, wishes to
+make your acquaintance."
+
+"I have the honor of being known to Mr. Repton, already, sir, if he has
+not forgotten me."
+
+"Eh,--how? where?" cried the lawyer, sharply.
+
+"In Reeves _versus_ Dockery, and another, sir, in Hilary, 24. It was _I_
+supplied the instructions--"
+
+"To be sure,--perfectly right. Maurice Scanlan; isn't that the name?
+You did the thing well, sir; and if we failed, we retreated without
+dishonor."
+
+"That was a grand shot you fired at the Bench, sir, when all was over,"
+said Scanlan. "I don't suppose they ever got such a complete 'set down'
+before."
+
+"I forget it," said Repton, but with a bright twinkle of his eye, which
+more than contradicted his words.
+
+"Then, sir, it's more than their Lordships ever will," said Scanlan.
+"The Chief Baron it was," said he, addressing Martin, "that overruled
+every objection made by Counsellor Repton, and at last declared that
+he would n't hear any more citations whatsoever. 'But I have a stronger
+case still, my Lord,' says the Counsellor. 'I 'll not hear it, sir,'
+said the Court. 'It is in Crewe and Fust, Term Reports, page 1,438.'
+
+"'I don't care where it is, sir,' was the answer.
+
+"'In a charge delivered by Lord Eldon--'
+
+"'Oh, let us hear my Lord Eldon,' said Plumridge, the Puisne Judge, who
+was rather ashamed of the Chief Baron's severity. 'Let us hear my Lord
+Eldon.'
+
+"'Here it is, my Lords,' said the Counsellor, opening the volume, and
+laying his hand upon the page,--'Crewe and Fust's Pleas of the Crown,
+page 1,438. My Lord Eldon says, "I may here observe the Courts of Law
+in Ireland are _generally_ wrong! The Court of Exchequer is _always_
+wrong!"'"
+
+Repton tried to smother his own delighted laugh at the reminiscence,
+but all in vain; it burst from him long and joyously; and as he shook
+Scanlan's hand, he said, "The incident loses nothing by your telling,
+sir; you have done it admirable justice."
+
+"You make me very proud, indeed, Counsellor," said Scanlan, who really
+did look overjoyed at the speech.
+
+"Have you any news for us, Scanlan?" said Martin, as they entered the
+library.
+
+"Yes, sir; the Ministry is out."
+
+"We know that already, man!"
+
+"And the Marquis of Reckington comes here as Lord-Lieutenant."
+
+"That we know also."
+
+"Colonel Massingbred to be Chief Sec--"
+
+"Moore Massingbred!" cried both, in a breath.
+
+"Yes, sir; he that was a Treasury Lord."
+
+"Are you quite sure of this, Scanlan?" asked Martin.
+
+"I had it from Groves, sir, at the Castle, yesterday morning, who told
+me there would be an immediate dissolution, and showed me a list of
+Government candidates."
+
+"You may talk them all over together, then," said Martin, "for I 'm
+heartily tired of politics this morning." And so saying, he left them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. A STUDIO
+
+It is one of the most inestimable privileges of Art, that amidst all the
+cares and contentions of the world, amidst strife and war and carnage,
+its glorious realm is undisturbed, its peace unbroken, and its followers
+free to follow their own wayward fancies, without let or hindrance.
+Your great practical intelligences, your men of committees and corn and
+railroads and ship-canals, sneer at the fictitious life--for so does
+it seem to them--of the mere painter or musician. They have a sort of
+pitying estimate for capacities only exercised upon the ideal, and look
+down with a very palpable contempt upon those whose world is a gallery
+or an orchestra. After all, this division of labor is a wise and happy
+provision, carrying with it many and varied benefits, and making of that
+strange edifice of mankind a far more pleasing and harmonious structure
+than we should otherwise have seen it. The imagination is to the actual,
+in the world of active life, what flowers are to nutritious herbs
+and roots. It is the influence that adorns, elevates, and embellishes
+existence. That such gifts have been confided to certain individuals
+is in itself a sufficient evidence, just as we see in the existence
+of flowers that pleasure has its place assigned in the grand scheme of
+creation, and that the happiness which flows from gratified sense has
+not been denied us.
+
+In that petty world which lived beneath the roof of Cro' Martin Castle,
+all the eager passions and excitements of political intrigue were now
+at work. My lady was full of plans for future greatness; Repton was
+scheming and suggesting, and thwarting everybody in turn; and even
+Martin himself, engulfed in the "Maelstrom" of the crisis, was roused
+into a state of semi-preparation that amounted to a condition of almost
+fever. As for Massingbred, whatever he really did feel, his manner
+affected a most consummate indifference to all that went forward; nor
+did the mention of his father's appointment to high office elicit from
+him anything beyond a somewhat contemptuous opinion of the new party
+in power. While, therefore, secret counsels were held, letters read
+and written, conferences conducted in every room, one little space was
+devoid of all these embarrassments and anxieties, and that was an oval
+chamber, lighted from the top, and originally destined for a summer
+ball-room, but now appropriated to Mr. Crow's use for the completion of
+the Grand Historical, which had lately been transferred from Kilkieran
+to its place there.
+
+The unlucky masterpiece was doomed to many a difficulty. The great
+events in prospect had totally banished all thought of "art" from Lady
+Dorothea's mind. The fall of a recent administration was a far more
+imminent circumstance than the abdication of a king a few centuries
+back. Martin, of course, had enough on his head, without the cares of
+mock royalty. Mary was overwhelmed with occupations. The floods and
+a threatened famine were casualties not to be overlooked; and she was
+absent every day from dawn to late night; while, to complete the list
+of defaulters, young Nelligan--the future Prince of Orange of the
+picture--was gone!
+
+Men deplore their past youth, their bygone buoyancy of heart, their old
+loves and extinct friendships; but of all departed pleasures, there is a
+peculiar poignancy about one, and that is an artist's grief over a "lost
+sitter." You ladies and gentlemen whose thumbs have never closed on
+a palette, nor whose fingers have never felt the soft influence of
+varnish, may smile at such a sorrow, but take my word for it, it is a
+real and tangible affliction.
+
+The waving locks, the noble brow; the deep square orbits, and the finely
+cut chin are but the subtle suggestions out of which inspirations are
+begotten, and poetic visions nurtured. The graceful bearing and the
+noble port, the tender melancholy or the buoyant gladness, have each
+in turn struck some chord of secret feeling in the artist's breast,
+revealing to him new ideas of beauty, and imparting that creative power
+which displays itself in new combinations.
+
+Poor Simmy Crow was not a Titian nor a Vandyke, but unhappily the
+sorrows of genius are very often experienced by those who are not gifted
+with its greatness; and the humble aspirant of excellence can catch
+every malady to which the triumphant in all the wild enthusiasm of his
+powers is exposed. He sat down before his canvas, as some general might
+before a fortified town which had resisted all his efforts of attack. He
+was depressed and discouraged.
+
+The upper part of the young student's head was already half finished,
+and there was enough done to impart a kind of promise of success,--that
+glorious vista which opens itself so often in imagination to those whose
+world is but their own fancy. He half thought he could finish it from
+memory; but before he had proceeded many minutes, he laid down the
+brush in despair. It seemed like a fatality that something must always
+interpose to bar the road to success. One time it was sickness, then
+it was poverty; a disparaging criticism had even done it; and now, when
+none of these threatened, there arose a new impediment. "Ah! Simmy,
+Simmy," he exclaimed aloud, "you were born under an unkindly planet.
+That's the secret of it all!"
+
+"I confess I cannot concur in that opinion," said a low, soft voice
+behind him. He started up, and beheld Kate Henderson, who, leaning
+on the back of a chair, continued to gaze steadfastly at the canvas,
+perfectly regardless of his astonishment. "There is a great deal to
+admire in that picture!" said she, as though talking to herself.
+
+Simmy crept stealthily back, and stationed himself behind her, as if to
+hear her remarks, while viewing the picture from the same point.
+
+"You have grouped your figures admirably," continued she, now addressing
+him, "and your management of the light shows a study of Rembrandt."
+
+"Very true, ma'am--miss, I mean. I have copied nearly all his great
+pieces."
+
+"And the drapery--that robe of the King's--tells me that you have
+studied another great master of color--am I right, sir, in saying Paul
+Veronese?"
+
+Simmy Crow's face glowed till it became crimson, while his eyes sparkled
+with intense delight.
+
+"Oh, dear me!" he exclaimed, "is n't it too much happiness to hear this?
+and only a minute ago I was in black despair!"
+
+"Mine is very humble criticism, sir; but as I have seen good pictures--"
+
+"Where? In the galleries abroad?" broke in Crow, hurriedly.
+
+"All over Germany and Italy. I travelled with those who really cared
+for and understood art. But to come back to yours--that head is a noble
+study."
+
+"And that's exactly what I'm grieving over,--he's gone."
+
+"Young Mr. Nelligan?"
+
+"Himself. He started this morning for Oughterard."
+
+"But probably to return in a day or two."
+
+Crow looked stealthily around to see if he were not likely to be
+overheard, and then, approaching Kate, said in a whisper,--
+
+"I don't think he 'll ever cross the doors again."
+
+"How so? has he received any offence?"
+
+"I can't make out what it is," said Simmy, with a puzzled look, "but he
+came to my room late last night, and sat down without saying a word; and
+at last, when I questioned him if he were ill, he said suddenly,--
+
+"'Have you found, Mr. Crow, that in your career as an artist, you have
+been able to withdraw yourself sufficiently from the ordinary events
+of life as to make up a little world of your own, wherein you lived
+indifferent to passing incidents?'
+
+"'Yes,' said I, 'I have, whenever I was doing anything really worth the
+name.'
+
+"'And at such times,' said he, again, 'you cared nothing, or next to
+nothing, for either the flatteries or the sarcasms of those around you?"
+
+"'I could n't mind them,' said I, 'for I never so much as heard them.'
+
+"'Exactly what I mean,' said he, rapidly. 'Intent upon higher ambitions,
+you were above the petty slights of malice or envy, and with your
+own goal before you, were steeled against the minor casualties of the
+journey. Then why should not I also enjoy the immunity? Can I not summon
+to my aid a pride like this, or am I to be discouraged and disgraced to
+my own heart by a mere impertinence?'
+
+"I stared at him, not guessing what he could mean.
+
+"'Rather quit the spot with which it is associated,--quit it forever,'
+muttered he to himself, as he paced the room, while his face grew
+deathly pale.
+
+"'As for me,' said I, for I wanted to say something--anything, in
+short--just to take his attention a little off of himself, 'whenever the
+world goes hard with me, I just step into my studio, lock the door, and
+sit down before a fresh canvas. I throw in a bit of brown, with a dash
+of bluish gray over it,--half sky, half atmosphere,--and I daub away
+till something like an effect--maybe a sunset, maybe a sullen-looking
+seashore, maybe a long, low prairie swell--rises before me. I don't try
+for details, I don't even trace an outline, but just throw in an effect
+here and there, and by good luck it often comes right, in some fine
+harmony of color, that's sure to warm up my heart and cheer my spirits;
+for, as there are sounds that, swelling up, fill the whole nature of man
+with ecstasy, there are combinations of color and tint that enter the
+brain by the eye, and just produce the same sense of delight.'"
+
+"And how did he accept your consolation?" asked she, smiling
+good-naturedly.
+
+"I don't well know if he listened to me," said Simmy, sorrowfully; "for
+all he said afterwards was,--
+
+"'Well, Mr. Crow, good-bye. I hope you 'll come to see me when you visit
+Dublin. You 'll easily find out my chambers in the college.'
+
+"Of course I said, 'I'd be delighted;' and there we parted."
+
+"Poor fellow!" said Kate, but in an accent so peculiar it would have
+been very difficult to pronounce whether the words were of kindness or
+of disparagement.
+
+"And your Prince, Mr. Crow?" said she, changing her tone to one of real
+or affected interest; "what's to be done now that Mr. Nelligan has left
+us?"
+
+"I'm thinking of making a background figure of him, miss," said Simmy.
+"Burnt sienna reduces many an illustrious individual to an obscure
+position."
+
+"But why not ask Mr. Massingbred to take his place--you've seen him?"
+
+"Only passing the window, miss. He is a handsome young man, but that
+same look of fashion, the dash of style about him, is exactly what
+destroys the face for _me_, I feel I could make nothing of it; I 'd
+be always thinking of him standing inside the plate-glass window of a
+London club, or cantering along the alleys of the Park, or sipping his
+iced lemonade at Tortoni's. There's no poetizing your man of gold chains
+and embroidered waistcoats!"
+
+"I half suspect you are unjust in this case," said she, with one of her
+dubious smiles.
+
+"I'm only saying what the effect is upon myself, miss," said Crow.
+
+"But why not make a compromise between the two?" said she. "I believe
+the great painters--Vandyke, certainly--rarely took the studies from a
+single head. They caught a brow here, and a mouth there, harmonizing the
+details by the suggestions of their own genius. Now, what if, preserving
+all this here,"--and she pointed to the head and eyes,--"you were to
+fill up the remainder, partly from imagination, partly from a study."
+And as she spoke she took the brush from his hand, and by a few light
+and careless touches imparted a new character to the face.
+
+"Oh, go on! that's admirable,--that's glorious!" exclaimed Crow, wild
+with delight.
+
+[Illustration: 276]
+
+"There is no necessity to lose the expression of haughty sorrow in the
+eye and brow," continued she; "nor does it interfere with the passing
+emotion he may be supposed unable to control, of proud contempt for that
+priestly influence which has dominated over the ambition of a king."
+And now, as though carried away by the theme, she continued to paint as
+rapidly as she spoke, while Crow busied himself in preparing the colors
+upon the palette.
+
+"My hardihood is only intended to encourage you, Mr. Crow," said she,
+"by showing that if one like me can point the road, the journey need not
+be deemed a difficult one." As she retired some paces to contemplate the
+picture, she casually glanced through a low glass door which opened upon
+the lawn, and where, under the shelter of a leafy beech, a young country
+girl was standing; her blue cloth cloak, with the hood thrown over her
+head, gave a certain picturesque character to the figure, which nearer
+inspection more than confirmed, for her features were singularly fine,
+and her large, soft blue eyes beamed with a gentle earnestness that
+showed Kate she was there with a purpose.
+
+Opening the door at once, Kate Henderson approached her, and asked what
+she wanted.
+
+With an air of half pride, half shame, the country girl drew herself up,
+and stared full and steadfastly at the speaker, and so continued till
+Kate repeated her question.
+
+"Sure you're not Miss Mary?" replied she, by questioning her in turn.
+
+"No, but if I can be of any use to you--"
+
+"I don't think you can," broke she in, with a manner almost haughty;
+"it's somebody else I 'm wanting."
+
+"If you wish to see Miss Martin, I 'll go and fetch her," said Kate.
+
+"I did n't say it was her I wanted to see," replied she, with a calm and
+almost severe composure.
+
+"Maybe her Ladyship?" asked Kate, far more interested than repelled by
+the other's manner.
+
+"It's none of them at all," rejoined she. "I came here to speak to one
+that I know myself," added she, after a long pause; "and if he isn't
+gone, I want to see him."
+
+"Oh, I think I can guess now," said Kate, smiling. "It is the Counsellor
+from Dublin, Mr. Repton."
+
+"It is no such thing," said the girl, promptly.
+
+"Then it must be Mr. Crow, here."
+
+An indignant toss of the head gave the negative to this surmise.
+
+"I have gone through all our names here," said Kate; "and except Mr.
+Massingbred--"
+
+"And there's the very one I want," said the girl, boldly.
+
+"Step in here and rest yourself, and I 'll send for him," said Kate; and
+with such persuasive courtesy were the words uttered, that almost, as it
+seemed, against her very will the girl followed her into the studio
+and sat down. While Mr. Crow proceeded in search of Massingbred, Kate
+Henderson, resuming brush and palette, returned to her painting; not,
+however, on the grand canvas of the "Historical," but dexterously
+interposing a piece of fresh board, she seized the opportunity to sketch
+the beautiful head then before her, while occupying the girl's attention
+with the objects around.
+
+Notwithstanding her intense astonishment at all she saw, the country
+girl never uttered a word, nor vouchsafed a single question as to the
+paintings; she even tried to moderate the eager pleasure they afforded
+by an endeavor not to admire them. Touched by the native pride of this
+struggle,--for struggle it was,--the features had assumed a look of
+haughty composure that well became the character of her beauty, and
+Kate caught up the expression so rapidly that her sketch was already
+well-nigh completed when Massing-bred entered.
+
+"My dear Mistress Joan," cried he, shaking her cordially by both hands,
+"how glad I am to see you again! It was but this very moment I was
+inquiring how I could go over and pay you a visit."
+
+Hurriedly as these words were uttered, and in all the apparent fervor
+of hearty sincerity, they were accompanied by a short glance at Kate
+Henderson, who was about to leave the room, that plainly said, "Remain
+where you are, there is no mystery here."
+
+"I thank yer honer kindly," said Joan Landy, "but it's no good coming,
+he is n't there."
+
+"Not there!--how and why is that?"
+
+"Sure _you_ ought to know better than me," said she, fixing her large
+eyes full upon him. "Ye left the house together, and _he_ never came
+back since."
+
+"Oh, perhaps I can guess," said Jack, pausing for a moment to reflect.
+"He might have deemed it safer to keep out of the way for a day or two."
+
+"It's no good deceivin' me, sir," said she, rising from her seat; "tell
+me the whole truth. Where is he?"
+
+"That is really more than I can say, my dear Mistress Joan. We parted in
+Oughterard."
+
+"And you never saw him after?"
+
+"Never, I assure you."
+
+"And you never tried to see him?--you never asked what became of him?"
+
+"I concluded, indeed I was certain, that he returned home," said Jack,
+but not without some confusion.
+
+"Ay, that was enough for you," said she, angrily. "If you were a poor
+labor in' man, you 'd not desert him that had you under his roof and
+gave you the best he had; but because ye 're a gentleman--"
+
+"It is precisely for that reason I can't suffer you to think so meanly
+of me," cried Jack. "Now just hear me for one moment, and you'll see how
+unjust you've been." And, drawing his chair closer to hers, he narrated
+in a low and whispering voice the few events of their morning at
+Oughterard, and read for her the short note Magennis had written to him.
+
+"And is that all?" exclaimed Joan, when he concluded.
+
+"All, upon my honor!" said he, solemnly.
+
+"Oh, then, wirra! wirra!" said she, wringing her hands sorrowfully, "why
+did I come here?--why did n't I bear it all patient? But sure my heart
+was bursting, and I could not rest nor sleep, thinking of what happened
+to him! Oh, yer honer knows well what he is to _me!_" And she covered
+her face with her hands.
+
+"You have done nothing wrong in coming here," said Jack, consolingly.
+
+"Not if he never hears of it," said she, in a voice tremulous with fear.
+
+"That he need never do," rejoined Jack; "though I cannot see why he
+should object to it. But come, Mrs. Joan, don't let this fret you;
+here's a young lady will tell you, as I have, that nobody could possibly
+blame your natural anxiety."
+
+"What would a young lady know about a poor creature like _me?_"
+exclaimed Joan, dejectedly. "Sure, from the day she's born, she never
+felt what it was to be all alone and friendless!"
+
+"You little guess to whom you say that," said Kate, turning round and
+gazing on her calmly; "but if the balance were struck this minute, take
+my word for it, you 'd have the better share of fortune."
+
+Jack Massingbred's cheek quivered slightly as he heard these words,
+and his eyes were bent upon the speaker with an intense meaning. Kate,
+however, turned haughtily away from the gaze, and coldly reminded him
+that Mrs. Joan should have some refreshment after her long walk.
+
+"No, miss,--no, yer honer; many thanks for the same," said Joan, drawing
+her cloak around her. "I couldn't eat a bit; my heart's heavy inside me.
+I 'll go back now."
+
+Kate tried to persuade her to take something, or, at least, to rest a
+little longer; but she was resolute, and eager to return.
+
+"Shall we bear you company part of the way, then?" said Jack, with a
+look of half entreaty towards Kate.
+
+"I shall be but too happy," said Kate, while she turned the nearly
+completed sketch to the wall, but not so rapidly as to prevent
+Massingbred's catching a glimpse of it.
+
+"How like!" exclaimed he, but only in a whisper audible to himself. "I
+didn't know that this also was one of your accomplishments."
+
+A little laugh and a saucy motion of her head was all her reply, while
+she went in search of her bonnet and shawl. She was back again in a
+moment, and the three now issued forth into the wood.
+
+For all Jack Massingbred's boasted "tact," and his assumed power of
+suiting himself to his company, he felt very ill at ease as he walked
+along that morning. "His world" was not that of the poor country girl at
+his side, and he essayed in vain to find some topic to interest her. Not
+so Kate Henderson. With all a woman's nice perception, and quite without
+effort, she talked to Joan about the country and the people, of whose
+habits she knew sufficient not to betray ignorance; and although Joan
+felt at times a half-suspicious distrust of her, she grew at length to
+be pleased with the tone of easy familiarity used towards her, and the
+absence of anything bordering on superiority.
+
+Joan, whose instincts and sympathies were all with the humble class from
+which she sprung, described in touching language the suffering condition
+of the people, the terrible struggle against destitution maintained for
+years, and daily becoming more difficult and hopeless. It was like a
+shipwrecked crew reduced to quarter-rations, and now about to relinquish
+even these!
+
+"And they are patient under all this?" asked Kate, with that peculiar
+accent so difficult to pronounce its meaning.
+
+"They are, indeed, miss," was the answer.
+
+"Have they any hope? What do they promise themselves as the remedy for
+these calamities?"
+
+"Sorrow one of 'em knows," said she, with a sigh. "Some goes away to
+America, some sinks slowly under it, and waits for God's time to leave
+the world; and a few--but very few--gets roused to anger, and does
+something to be transported or put in jail."
+
+"And Miss Martin,--does she not relieve a good deal of this misery? Is
+she not of immense benefit by her exertions here?"
+
+"Arrah, what can a young lady do, after all? Sure it's always them that
+talks most and best gets over her. Some are ashamed, and some are too
+proud to tell what they 're suffering; and I believe in my heart, for
+one that 's relieved there are twenty more angry at seeing how lucky he
+was."
+
+They walked along now for some time in silence, when Joan, stopping
+short, said, "There's the house, miss; that's the place I live in."
+
+"That house far away on the mountain side?"
+
+"Yes, miss; it's four miles yet from this."
+
+"But surely you haven't to walk all that way?"
+
+"What signifies it? Is n't my heart lighter than when I came along this
+morning? And now I won't let you come any farther, for I'll take a short
+cut here across the fields."
+
+"May I go and see you one of these days?" asked Kate.
+
+Joan grew crimson to the very roots of her hair, and turned a look on
+Massingbred, as though to say, "You ought to answer this for me." But
+Jack was too deep in his own thoughts even to notice the appeal.
+
+"I can scarcely ask _you_ to come to _me_," said Kate, quickly
+perceiving a difficulty, "for I 'm not even a visitor at Cro' Martin."
+
+"I 'm sure I hope it 's not the last time we 'll meet, miss; but
+maybe,"--she faltered, and a heavy tear burst forth, and rolled slowly
+along her cheek,--"maybe you oughtn't to come and see me."
+
+Kate pressed her hand affectionately, without speaking, and they parted.
+
+"Is Joan gone?" asked Massingbred, raising his head from an attitude of
+deep revery. "When did she leave us?"
+
+"There she goes yonder," said Kate, pointing. "I fear me her spirits are
+not as light as her footsteps. Are her people very poor?"
+
+"Her father was a herd, I believe," said he, carelessly; "but she does
+n't live at home."
+
+"Is she married, then?"
+
+"I 'm not sure that she is; but at least she believes that she is."
+
+"Poor thing!" said Kate, calmly, while, folding her arms, she continued
+to gaze after the departing figure of the country girl. "Poor thing!"
+repeated she once more, and turned to walk homewards.
+
+Massingbred fixed his eyes upon her keenly as she uttered the words; few
+and simple as they were, they seemed to reveal to him something of
+the nature of her who spoke them. A mere exclamation--a syllable--will
+sometimes convey "whole worlds of secret thought and feeling," and it
+was evidently thus that Massingbred interpreted this brief expression.
+"There was nothing of scorn in that pity," thought he. "I wish she had
+uttered even one word more! She is a strange creature!"
+
+And it was thus speaking to himself that he walked along at her side.
+
+"This wild and desolate scene is not very like that of which we talked
+the other night,--when first we met,--Miss Henderson."
+
+"You forget that we never met," said she, calmly.
+
+"True, and yet there was a link between us even in those few flowers
+thrown at random."
+
+"Don't be romantic, Mr. Massingbred; do not, I pray you," said she,
+smiling faintly. "You _know_ it's not your style, while it would be
+utterly thrown away upon _me_, I am aware that fine gentlemen of your
+stamp deem this the fitting tone to assume towards 'the governess;' but
+I 'm really unworthy of it."
+
+"What a strange girl you are!" said he, half thinking aloud.
+
+"On the contrary, how very commonplace!" said she, hastily.
+
+"Do you like this country?" asked Massingbred, with an imitation of her
+own abrupt manner.
+
+"No," said she, shortly.
+
+"Nor the people?"
+
+"Nor the people!" was the answer.
+
+"And is your life to be passed amongst them?"
+
+"Perhaps," said she, with a slight gesture of her shoulders. "Don't you
+know, Mr. Massingbred," added she, with more energy, "that a woman has
+no more power to shape her destiny than a leaf has to choose where it
+will fall? If I were a man,--you, for instance,--I would think and act
+differently."
+
+"I should like to hear what you would do if in my place," said Jack,
+with a degree of deep interest in the remark.
+
+"To begin, I'll tell you what I would not do," said she, firmly. "I 'd
+not waste very good abilities on very small objects; I 'd neither have
+small ambitions nor small animosities. You have both."
+
+"As how?" asked he, frankly, and with no touch of irritation.
+
+"Am I to be candid?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Even to rudeness?"
+
+"Cut as deeply as you like," said he, smiling.
+
+"Then here goes: For the 'small ambition' I speak of, it was displayed
+yesterday at dinner, when, in rivalry with that old lawyer, you
+condescended to play agreeable, to out-talk him, out-quote, and
+out-anecdote him. It is true you succeeded; but what a poor success it
+was! how inadequate to the forces that were mustered to effect it!"
+
+"And now for the other count of the indictment," said he, with a half
+smile.
+
+"First, do you plead guilty to this one?" asked she.
+
+"Yes; with an 'extenuating circumstance.'"
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"Why, that _you_ were present," said Jack, with a glance of more than
+mere passing gallantry.
+
+"Well," said she, after a pause, "I _did_ take some of the display to
+my own share. I saw that you did n't care to captivate the young lady of
+the house, and that my Lady bored you."
+
+"Insufferably!" exclaimed Jack, with energy.
+
+"Your manner showed it," said she, "even more than such polish ought to
+have betrayed."
+
+"But I 'm sure I never exhibited any signs of my martyrdom," said he; "I
+stood my torture well."
+
+"Not half so heroically as you fancied I noticed your weariness before
+the dinner was half over, as I detected your splenetic dislike to young
+Mr. Nelligan--"
+
+"To young Nelligan?--then he has told you--"
+
+"Stop,--be cautious," broke she in, hurriedly; "don't turn evidence
+against yourself. _He_ has told me nothing."
+
+"Then what do you know?"
+
+"Nothing; I only surmise."
+
+"And what is your surmise?"
+
+"That he and you had met before,--that you had even been intimate,--and
+now, from some misunderstanding, you had ceased to be friends. Mind, I
+don't want confessions; I don't seek to learn your secrets."
+
+"But you shall hear this from me," said Massingbred, with earnestness;
+"and perhaps you, so ready to blame me for some things, may see reason
+to think well of me in this." He then related, briefly, but simply,
+the history of his acquaintance with Nelligan; he dwelt, not without
+feeling, upon the passages of their student-life, and at last spoke of
+his chance visit to Oughterard, and the accident by which he became old
+Nelligan's guest. "What can you make of Joseph's conduct," cried he;
+"or how explain his refusal to meet me at his father's table? One of two
+reasons there must be. He either discredits me in the character of his
+friend, or shrinks, with an ignoble shame, from appearing there in his
+real position,--the son of the country shopkeeper! I scarcely know if I
+'d not prefer he should have been actuated by the former motive; though
+more offensive to me, in _him_ it were more manly."
+
+"Why not have asked him which alternative he accepted?" asked Kate.
+
+"Because the opportunity to wound him deeply--incurably--first presented
+itself. I knew well that nothing would hurt him like the cool assumption
+of not recognizing him, and I determined not to lose my vengeance."
+
+"I'm a woman," said Kate, "and I'd not have stooped to _that!_"
+
+It was rarely that Massingbred's emotions gave any evidence of their
+working; but now his cheek grew crimson, as he said, "A man can only
+measure a man's indignation."
+
+"You are angry without cause," said she, calmly; "you wish me to
+pronounce a verdict on an act, and are displeased because I think
+differently from you. How right I was in my guess that small animosities
+were amongst your failings! You seek now to quarrel with _me!_"
+
+Massingbred walked along for some moments without speaking, and then
+said, "You knew Nelligan formerly?"
+
+"Yes, we were playfellows together as children; lovers, I believe, a
+little later on--"
+
+"And now?" broke he in.
+
+"And now very good friends, as the world uses that phrase. At all
+events," added she, after a brief pause, "enough his friend to be able
+to say that you have wronged him by your suspicions. Joe Nelligan--or
+I'm much mistaken--may feel the inequality of his position as a
+something to overcome, a barrier to be surmounted; not as a disability
+to contest the prizes of life even with such as Mr. Massingbred."
+
+"It is _you_ now would quarrel with _me_," said Jack, retorting her own
+words upon her. "And yet," he added, in a lower tone, "I would wish to
+have you my friend."
+
+"So you can, upon one condition," replied she, promptly.
+
+"I accept, whatever it be. Name it."
+
+"That you be your own friend; that you address yourself to the business
+of life seriously and steadily, resolving to employ your abilities as a
+means of advancement, not as a mere instrument for amusement; determine,
+in fact, to be something besides a _dilettante_ and an idler."
+
+"Is it a bargain, then, if I do this?" asked he, eagerly.
+
+"Yes; I promise you the high and mighty boon of _my_ friendship,"
+replied she, with mock solemnity.
+
+"And so we seal our contract," said he, pressing her hand to his lips,
+but with an air of such respectful gallantry that the action implied
+nothing bordering on a liberty.
+
+"And now I leave you," said she, as she opened the wicket-gate of a
+small flower-garden; "such conferences as ours must not be repeated,
+or they might be remarked upon. Good-bye." And without waiting for his
+reply, she passed on into the garden, while Massingbred stood gazing
+after her silently and thoughtfully.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. AN ELECTION ADDRESS
+
+"Am I behind time, Mr. Massingbred?" said Kate Henderson, as she entered
+the library, about a week after the events we have last recorded,--"am
+I behind time?" said she, approaching a table where the young man sat
+surrounded with a mass of letters and papers.
+
+"Not very much," said he, rising, and placing a chair for her; "and I
+take it for granted you came as soon as you could."
+
+"Yes; I have finished my morning's reading for her Ladyship, noted her
+letters, answered the official portion of her correspondence, talked
+the newspaper for Mr. Martin, hummed a singing lesson for Miss Mary,
+listened to a grand jury story of Mr. Repton; and now, that they are all
+off to their several destinations, here I am, very much at the service
+of Mr. Massingbred."
+
+"Who never needed counsel more than at this moment!" said Jack, running
+his hands distractedly through his hair. "That 's from my father!" added
+he, handing her a letter with a portentous-looking seal attached to it.
+
+"What a fine bold hand, and how easy to read!" said she, perusing it.
+Jack watched her narrowly while she read; but on her calm impassive face
+not a line nor a lineament betrayed emotion.
+
+"It is, then, an English borough he recommends," said she, laying it
+down; "and I suppose, looking to an official career, he is quite right.
+The 'No Irish need apply' might be inscribed over Downing Street; but is
+that altogether your view?"
+
+"I scarcely know what I project as yet," said he. "I have no career!"
+
+
+"Well, let us plan one," replied she, crossing her arms on the table,
+and speaking with increased earnestness. "The Martins have offered you
+Oughterard--" He nodded, and she went on: "And, as I understand it, very
+much on _your_ own conditions?"
+
+"That is to say, I'm not to damage the Tories more than I can help, nor
+to help the Radicals more than I must."
+
+"Is there any designation for the party you will thus belong to?" asked
+she.
+
+"I 'm not exactly sure that there is; perhaps they 'd call me a Moderate
+Whig."
+
+"That sounds very nice and commonplace, but I don't like it. These are
+not times for moderation; nor would the part suit _you!_"
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"I'm certain of it. You have n't got habits of discipline to serve with
+a regular corps; to do anything, or be anything, you must command a
+partisan legion--"
+
+"You're right there; I know that," broke he in.
+
+"I don't mean it as flattery, but rather something a little bordering on
+the reverse," said she, fixing her eyes steadfastly on him; "for, after
+all, there is no great success--I mean, no towering success--to be
+achieved by such a line; but as I feel that you 'll not work--"
+
+"No; of that be assured!"
+
+"Then there are only secondary rewards to be won."
+
+"You certainly do not overestimate me!" said Jack, trying to seem
+perfectly indifferent.
+
+"I have no desire to underrate your abilities," said she, calmly; "they
+are very good ones. You have great fluency,--great 'variety,' as Grattan
+would call it,--an excellent memory, and a most amiable
+self-possession."
+
+"By Jove!" said he, reddening slightly, "you enumerate my little gifts
+with all the accuracy of an appraiser!"
+
+"Then," resumed she, not heeding his interruption, "you have abundance
+of what is vulgarly styled 'pluck,' and which is to courage what
+_esprit_ is to actual wit; and, lastly, you are a proficient in that
+readiness which the world always accepts for frankness."
+
+"You were right to say that you intended no flattery!" said he, with an
+effort to laugh.
+
+"I want to be truthful," rejoined she, calmly. "No praise
+of mine--however high it soared, or however lavishly it was
+squandered--could possibly raise you in your own esteem. The governess
+may perform the part of the slave in the triumphal chariot, but could
+not aspire to put the crown on the conqueror!"
+
+"But I have not conquered!" said Jack.
+
+"You may, whenever you enter the lists; you must, indeed, if you only
+care to do so. Go in for an Irish borough," said she, with renewed
+animation. "Arm yourself with all the popular grievances; there is just
+faction enough left to last _your_ time. Discuss them in your own way,
+and my word for it, but you 'll succeed. It will be such a boon to the
+House to hear a gentlemanlike tone on questions which have always been
+treated in coarser guise. For a while you 'll have no imitators, and can
+sneer at the gentry and extol the 'people' without a competitor. Now
+and then, too, you can assail the Treasury benches, where your father
+is sitting; and nothing will so redound to your character for
+independence."
+
+"Why, where, in Heaven's name," cried Jack, "have you got up all this?
+What and how do you know anything of party and politics?"
+
+"Have I not been studying 'Hansard' and the files of the 'Times' for
+the last week by your directions? Have I not read lives of all the
+illustrious prosers you gave me to look through? And is it very
+wonderful if I have learned some of the secrets of this success, or
+that I should 'get up' my 'politics' as rapidly as you can your
+'principles'?"
+
+"I wish I was even sure that I had done so," said Jack, laughing; "for
+this same address is puzzling me sadly! Now here, for instance," and
+he read aloud: "'While steadfastly upholding the rights of property,
+determined to maintain in all their integrity the more sacred rights of
+conscience--'Now just tell me, what do you understand by that?"
+
+"That rents must be paid,--occasionally, at least; but that you hope to
+pull down the Established Church!"
+
+"Well, come," said he, "the thing will perhaps do!"
+
+"I don't much like all this about 'the Palladium of the British
+Constitution, and the unbroken bulwark of our dearest liberties.' We are
+in Ireland, remember, where we care no more for your Palladium--if we
+ever knew what it meant--than we do for the 'Grand Lama.' A slight
+dash of what is called 'nationality' would be better; very vague, very
+shadowy, of course. Bear in mind what Lady Dorothea told us last night
+about the charm of the king's bow. Everybody thought it specially meant
+for himself; it strikes me that something of this sort should pervade an
+election address."
+
+"I wish to Heaven you 'd write it, then," said Jack, placing a pen in
+her fingers.
+
+"Something in this fashion," said she, while her hands traced the lines
+rapidly on the paper:--
+
+"'Finding that a new era is about to dawn in the political state of
+Ireland, when the consequences of late legislation will engender new
+conditions and relations, I present myself before you to solicit
+the honor of your suffrages, a perfect stranger to your town, but no
+stranger to the wants and necessities of that nationality which now, for
+the first time for centuries, is about to receive its due development.'
+
+"Or this, if you prefer it," said she, writing away rapidly as before:--
+
+"'The presumption of aspiring to your representation will, perhaps,
+be compensated when I come before you deeply impressed with the wrongs
+which centuries of legislation have enacted, and which, stranger as I
+am in Ireland, have arrested my attention and engaged my sympathies,
+impelling me to enter upon a public career; and, if favored by your
+approval, to devote whatever energy and capacity I may possess to your
+great and good cause.'"
+
+"I like the first best," said Jack. "The new era and the results of
+the Relief Bill will be such appetizing suggestions. There must be an
+allusion to the Martins and their support."
+
+"Rather, however, as though _you_ had brought over Martin to _your_
+views, than that _he_ had selected you to represent his. In this wise:"
+and again she wrote,--
+
+"'It is with a just pride that I announce to you that in these
+professions I am strengthened by the cordial approval and support of one
+who, in his rank and station, and natural influence, is second to none
+in this great county; and who, whatever misconceptions have hitherto
+prevailed as to his views, is, heart and soul, a true patriot and an
+Irishman!'
+
+"It will puzzle him sorely to guess what line he should adopt to realize
+all this, and he'll have to come to _you_ for his politics!"
+
+"You have caught up the cant of this peculiar literature perfectly,"
+said Massingbred, as he pored over the papers she had just penned.
+
+"Dear me!" cried she, in a weary tone, "my great difficulty will be
+to discard its evil influence, and even write a common note like a
+reasonable being again."
+
+"But come, confess frankly: you think that a political career is the
+only one worth embracing, and that any other life offers no reward
+worthy the name?"
+
+"I think you mistake me," said she. "It is the social position
+consequent upon success in a political life that I value,--the eminence
+it confers in the very highest and greatest circles. If I regarded the
+matter otherwise, I'd not be indifferent as to the line to follow--I 'd
+have great convictions, and hold them,--I mean, if I were _you_."
+
+"Then of course you consider me as one who has none such?"
+
+"To be sure I do. Men of your measures of ability can no more burden
+themselves with principles than a thoroughbred hackney can carry extra
+weight,--they 've quite enough to do to make their running without."
+
+"Well, I shall certainly not be spoiled by flattery, at least from you,"
+said Jack, laughing.
+
+"They who know you less will make up for it all, depend upon it," said
+she, quietly. "Don't fancy, Mr. Massingbred," added she, with more
+earnestness of manner,--"don't fancy that I 'm insensible to the
+impertinences I have dared to address to you, or that I venture upon
+them without pain; but when I perceived that you would admit me to the
+liberty of criticising your conduct, character, and manners, I thought
+that I might render you good service by saying what better taste and
+better breeding would shrink from, and the only cost be the dislike of
+myself."
+
+"You took a very bad way to accomplish the latter," said Jack,
+fervently.
+
+"I did n't give it much consideration," said she, haughtily. "It was
+very little matter what opinion you entertained of 'the governess.'"
+
+"I should like to convince you that you were wrong," said he, looking
+fixedly at her.
+
+"You'd find your task harder than you suspect, sir," said she, coldly.
+"There is a sense of pride about the humbleness of a station such as
+mine, as all the elevation of one in yours could never fathom. And,"
+added she, in a still more determined tone, "there is but one condition
+on which this intercourse of ours can continue, which is, that this
+topic be never resumed between us. The gulf that separates your position
+in life from mine is the security for mutual frankness; to attempt to
+span it over by deception would be to build a bridge that must break
+down the first moment of its trial. Enough of this! I'll take these,"
+said she, gathering up the papers, "and copy them out clearly. They
+ought to be with the printer to-morrow; and, indeed, you should not
+defer your canvass."
+
+Massingbred made no answer, but sat with his head buried between his
+hands.
+
+"I'd have you to visit the 'dear constituency' at once, Mr.
+Massingbred," said she, with a slight touch of scorn in her voice. "They
+are not well bred enough to bear a slight!" And with this she left the
+room.
+
+"I should like excessively to know the secret of this interest in my
+behalf," said Jack, as he arose and slowly walked the room. "It is not,
+unquestionably, from any high estimate of my capacity; as little is it
+anything bordering on regard; and yet," added he, after a pause, "there
+are moments when I half fancy she could care for me,--at least I know
+well that I could for _her_, Confound it!" cried he, passionately,
+"what a terrible barrier social station throws up! If she were even some
+country squire's daughter,--portionless as she is,--the notion would
+not be so absurd; but 'the governess!' and 'the steward!' what frightful
+figures to conjure up. No, no; that's impossible. One might do such a
+folly by retiring from the world forever, but that would be exactly to
+defeat the whole object of such a match. She is essentially intended for
+'the world;' every gift and grace she possesses are such as only have
+their fitting exercise where the game of life is played by the highest,
+and for the heaviest stakes! But it is not to be thought of!"
+
+"Have I found you at last?" cried Repton, entering the room. "They say
+the writ will be here on Monday, so that we 've not an hour to lose.
+Let us drive over to Oughterard at once, see the editor of the
+'Intelligence,' call on Priest Rafferty, and that other fellow--the
+father of our young friend here."
+
+"Mr. Nelligan," said Jack. "But I can't well visit _him_--there have
+been some rather unpleasant passages between us."
+
+"Ah! you told me something about it. He wanted you to fill a bail-bond,
+or do something or other, rather than shoot _me_. An unreasonable old
+rascal! Never mind; we shall come before him now in another character,
+and you 'll see that he'll be more tractable."
+
+"The matter is graver than this," said Jack, musingly; "and our
+difference is serious enough to make intercourse impossible."
+
+"You shall tell me all about it as we drive along,--that is, if it be
+brief and easy to follow, for my head is so full of election matters
+I don't desire a new element of complication. Step in now, and let
+us away." And with this he hurried Massingbred to the door, where a
+pony-phaeton was in waiting for them.
+
+Once on the road, Repton changed the conversation from the domain of
+politics, and talked entirely of the host and his family. There was a
+sort of constitutional frankness and familiarity about the old lawyer
+which all the astute habits and instincts of his profession had
+never mastered. Like a great many acute men, his passion for shrewd
+observation and keen remark overbore the prudent reserve that belongs to
+less animated talkers, and so he now scrupled not to dis-cuss Martin and
+his affairs to one who but a few days back had been a complete stranger
+amongst them.
+
+At first Jack heard him without much interest, but, as he continued, the
+subject attracted all his attention, full as it was of views of life and
+the world perfectly new and strange to him.
+
+To Massingbred's great astonishment, he learned that vast as the
+estates, and large as was the fortune of the Martins, that they were
+deeply encumbered with bond-debts and mortgages. The wasteful habits of
+the gentry generally, combined with great facilities for obtaining money
+at any emergency, had led to this universal indebtedness; and, in fact,
+as the lawyer expressed it, an old estate was supposed to be the victim
+of debt, as an elderly gentleman was liable to gout; nobody presuming to
+think that the tenure, in either case, was a whit the more precarious on
+account of the casualty.
+
+"Now," said Repton, as they reached a point of the road from which a
+view of the country could be obtained for miles on every side--"now, as
+far as you can see belongs to Martin. Beyond that mountain yonder, too,
+there is a large tract--not very productive, it is true--extending to
+the sea. The fine waving surface to your left is all tillage land; and
+the islands in the bay are his. It is really a princely estate, with
+even greater hidden resources than those palpable and open to view. But,
+were I to show it to you on a map, and point out at the same time every
+spot on which some moneylender has a claim--how much has been advanced
+upon this--what sums have been lent upon that--you 'd be more amazed at
+the careless ease of the proprietor than you now are at the extent of
+his fortune."
+
+"But he is spending immensely in improving and developing the property,"
+said Jack.
+
+"Of course he is, sir. That new-fangled notion of 'gentleman-farming
+'--which has come to us from countries where there are no
+gentlemen--won't suit Ireland, at least in the present generation. What
+_we_ want here is, not to make more money, but to learn how to spend
+less; and although the first very often teaches the last, it is a hard
+way for an Irishman to acquire his knowledge. There's your borough,
+sir,--that little spot in the valley yonder is Oughterard. Do you feel,
+as you behold it, as though it were to be the mainspring of a great
+career? Is there an instinctive throb within that says, 'The honorable
+member for Oughterard will be a great name in the "Collective Wisdom
+"'?"
+
+"I can scarcely say yes to that appeal," said Jack, smiling; "though, if
+what you have just told me of the mediocrity of public men be true--"
+
+"Can you doubt it? You have them all before you,--their lives, their
+sayings, and their doings. Show me one in the whole mass who has
+originated a new idea in politics, or developed a new resource in the
+nation. Do they exhibit the common inventiveness displayed in almost
+every other walk of life, or do they even dress up their common
+platitudes in any other garb than the cast-off clothes of their
+predecessors? Mediocrity is a flattery when applied to them. But what's
+this coming along behind us, with such clattering of hoofs?"
+
+"A tandem, I think," said Jack, looking backward, "and very well
+handled, too."
+
+"Oh, that illustrious attorney, Mr. Scanlan, I 've no doubt. Let us draw
+up till he passes." And so saying, Repton moved to one side of the road,
+giving a wide space for the other to proceed on his way. Mr. Scanlan,
+however, had subdued his nags, by a low, soft whistle, to a half-trot,
+when, giving the reins to his servant, he descended and advanced to the
+carriage. "I've been in pursuit of you, gentlemen," said he, touching
+his hat courteously, "for the last four miles, and I assure you you 've
+given me a breathing heat of it. Mr. Martin requested me to hand you
+this note, sir," added he, addressing Repton, "which demands immediate
+attention."
+
+The note was marked "Instantaneous," and "Strictly private," on the
+cover, and Repton opened it at once. Its contents were as follows,--
+
+     "Dear Rep.,--The post has just arrived, with intelligence
+     that Harry is coming home,--may be here within a week or
+     so,--so that we must not go on with our present plans for
+     the borough, as H., of course, will stand. Come back,
+     therefore, at once, and let as talk over the matter
+     together.
+
+     "Yours, in haste,
+
+     "G. M."
+
+
+"You know what this contains, perhaps?" said Repton, in a whisper to
+Scanlan. He nodded an assent, and the old lawyer re-read the note. "I
+don't see my way here quite clearly," added he, in the same subdued
+voice, to Scanlan.
+
+"I'll stroll on and stretch my legs a bit," said Jack, springing out of
+the pony phaeton, and seeing that the others had some private matter of
+discussion; and Scanlan now drew nigh, while Repton informed him what
+the note contained.
+
+"It's a little too late for this now," said Scanlan, gravely.
+
+"How do you mean too late?" asked Repton.
+
+"Why, that Massingbred stands well with the people in the borough. They
+think that he 'll be more their man than Martin's, and, indeed, they 're
+so confident of it, I half suspect he has told them so."
+
+"But there has been no canvass as yet,--his address isn't even printed."
+
+"There has been a correspondence, however," said Scanlan, with a knowing
+wink. "Take my word for it, Mr. Repton, he 's a deep fellow."
+
+"Are you quite sure of this?--can you pledge yourself to its truth?"
+
+"I only know that Father Rafferty said the night before last he was
+satisfied with him, and the one difficulty was about old Nelligan, who
+somehow is greatly incensed against Massingbred."
+
+"He 'd have no chance in the borough without us," said Repton,
+confidently.
+
+"If old Dan would consent to spend the money, he'd be the member in
+spite of us," rejoined Scanlan.
+
+"I'll not dispute local knowledge with you, sir," said Repton,
+peevishly. "Let us turn back at once. Where's Mr. Massingbred? I saw him
+standing on the hill yonder a few minutes ago; maybe, he 's strolling
+along the road in front." Repton moved forward to a rising spot of
+ground, from whence a wide view extended for a distance on every side,
+but no trace of Massingbred could be discovered. "What can have become
+of him?--has he turned towards Cro' Martin?" asked Repton.
+
+"There he is," cried Scanlan, suddenly; "there he is, walking
+with Magennis. They're taking the short cut over the hills to
+Oughterard--that's unfortunate, too!"
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Why, before they're in the town they'll be as thick as two
+pickpockets--see how they 're talking! I think, if I was to drive on,
+I'd catch them before they entered the town."
+
+"Do so, then, Scanlan. Say that a sudden message from Mr. Martin
+recalled me, but that you'll drive him back with you to Cro' Martin."
+
+"Am I to allude to the contents of the note, sir?"
+
+"I think not; I opine it's best not to speak of it. Say, however, that
+something of importance has occurred at Cro' Martin, and suggest to him
+that the sooner he returns thither the better."
+
+There was an amount of vacillation and uncertainty about Repton's
+manner as he uttered these few words that showed not only how gravely he
+regarded the crisis, but how totally unprepared he found himself for
+the emergency. Not so Scanlan, who took his seat once more on his lofty
+"buggy," and was soon spinning along the road at a pace of full twelve
+miles the hour.
+
+As Repton drove back to Cro' Martin, he thought once, and not without
+humiliation, of his late lessons in statecraft to young Massingbred. "To
+fancy that I was instilling all these precepts at the very moment
+that he was countermining us. The young villain is a worthy son of his
+father! And how he will laugh at me, and make others laugh too! It will
+never do to drive him into opposition to us. Martin must consent to make
+the best of it, now, and accept him as his member,--for the present,
+at least. With time and good opportunity we can manage to trip up his
+heels, but, for the moment, there's no help for it." And with these
+not very consoling reflections he entered once more the grounds of Cro'
+Martin Castle.
+
+Let us now turn to Massingbred, as, accompanied by Magennis, he walked
+at a rapid pace towards Oughterard. It needed but a glance at the
+figures, and the rate at which they moved, to see that these two men
+were bent upon an object.
+
+"Don't you see the town now before you?" said Magennis. "It's not much
+above two miles, and by the road it is every step of six, or six and a
+half; and if we walk as we're doing now, we'll be there at least twenty
+minutes before them."
+
+"But what will Repton think of my leaving him in this fashion?"
+
+"That it was a bit of your usual eccentricity,--no more," said the
+other, laughing.
+
+"You are quite certain of what you've just told me?" asked Jack, after a
+pause.
+
+"I tell you that you shall have it from Hosey's own lips. He showed the
+post-mark on the back of the letter to Father Rafferty, and it was 'Cape
+Town, August 24.' Now, as Hosey knows young Martin's writing as well as
+any man, what doubt can there be about it?"
+
+"By that calculation," said Jack, thoughtfully, "he might be here within
+the present month!"
+
+"Exactly what Father Neal said."
+
+"A shrewd fellow that same Hosey must be to put things together in this
+fashion," said Jack. "Such a head as he has on his shoulders might n't
+be a bad counsellor at this moment."
+
+"Just come and talk to him a bit," rejoined Magennis; "say you want
+to be trimmed about the whiskers, and he'll be a proud man to have you
+under his hand."
+
+"And the committee are satisfied with my letter?" asked Jack.
+
+"They are, and they are not; but, on the whole, they think it's a step
+in the right direction to get anything out of the Martins, and, as
+Father Neal remarks, 'where we can pass with our head, we can put our
+whole body through.'"
+
+"But what 's to be done about Nelligan? The breach with him is, I
+suspect, irreparable."
+
+"Why, it was Nelligan himself moved the first resolution in the
+committee, that your address be accepted as embodying the views--he said
+the present views--of the liberal electors."
+
+"You amaze me!" cried Massingbred; "and Joe, where was he?"
+
+"Joe is off to Dublin; there 's some examination or other he must
+attend. But old Dan is your friend, rely upon that."
+
+"This is inexplicable," muttered Jack to himself.
+
+"We 'll go there, straight, the moment we get into the town. He 'll take
+it as a great compliment; and you can talk to him frankly and openly,
+for old Dan is a man to be trusted."
+
+"I wish I could guess at how this reconciliation has been effected,"
+muttered Jack.
+
+"It was your letter did it, I think."
+
+"But I never wrote one."
+
+"Well, somebody else did, perhaps; at all events, Dan had an open letter
+in his hand when he addressed the committee, and said, 'After reading
+this, gentlemen,' said he, 'I can only say that I 'll not oppose Mr.
+Massingbred; and if the free and independent men of Oughterard ask
+me who is the man to represent them, I'll answer, he 's your man!
+And what's more, there 's my name down for two hundred pounds for the
+election, if it ever comes to be a contest!'"
+
+"This is all very good, but very strange news," cried Jack.
+
+"Well, I can explain nothing of the mystery, if there be one. I only
+know what I heard and saw myself."
+
+"Let us go to his house, at all events," said Massingbred, who now
+suffered his companion to rattle on about the state of parties and
+politics in Oughterard, little heeding his remarks, and only bent on
+following out his own thoughts. "Give whom the slip?" asked he, suddenly
+catching at the last words of some observation of Magennis.
+
+"The Martins, of course," resumed the other; "for, as Father Neal says,
+'if we can secure the borough for you, you can well afford to stand by
+_us_; but if you were only Martin's member, he 'd drop you whenever it
+suited him.'"
+
+"As to-morrow, for instance, if his son should make his appearance!"
+
+"Just so; and that's the very reason for not losing a minute about
+getting the Martins in for the cost. What can they say, after choosing
+you and putting you forward?"
+
+"They might make a personal appeal to me,--a distinct request to give
+place to the son."
+
+"And would n't you pay great attention to it?" said Magennis, in
+mockery.
+
+"I 'm not so very sure I 'd refuse," said Massingbred, slowly.
+
+"Faith, then, you 'd better be candid enough to tell the electors so 'at
+once.' Look now, Mr. Massingbred," said he, coming to a dead halt, and
+standing directly in front of him; "we don't go the same road, not one
+step, till I hear from you, distinctly and plainly, what you mean to
+do."
+
+"This is somewhat of a peremptory proceeding," replied Jack. "I think it
+would not be very unreasonable to allow a man in my situation a little
+time for reflection."
+
+"Reflect upon what?" cried Magennis. "Is it what politics you 'd be? If
+that's what you mean, I think you 'd better say nothing about it."
+
+"Come, come, Mac, you are not quite fair in this business; there _are_
+difficulties,--there are embarrassments very often in the way of doing
+things which we have made up our minds to do. Now, if I were perfectly
+certain that the liberal interest here could succeed in spite of
+Martin--"
+
+"So it will."
+
+"You're sure of that?"
+
+"I 'll show it to you on paper. We 'd rather have Martin with us and no
+contest, because it's cheaper; but if it must come to money, we 'll do
+it."
+
+"Satisfy me on that point, and I'm with you; there's my hand on't!"
+
+And Magennis grasped him in his own strong fingers to ratify the
+contract.
+
+While "Mac" went on to give some insight into the views and wishes of
+his party, they reached the town and entered the main street, and held
+their way towards old Nelligan's shop.
+
+"That's Father Neal's pony at the door," said Mac, as they approached
+the shop; "so we'll find them both together."
+
+"I scarcely think I can enter here," said Massingbred, "after what
+passed last between us. We surely did not part as friends."
+
+"How little you know about us at all!" said Mac. "Old Dan bears you no
+malice, I 'd lay fifty pounds on it! But, if you like, I 'll just step
+in and take soundings."
+
+"Do so, then," said Massingbred, not sorry to have even a few moments to
+himself for quiet thought and consideration. He was still standing, and
+deeply engrossed by his reflections, when he was aroused by hearing his
+name called aloud, and, on looking up, perceived Magennis beckoning to
+him from a window overhead. In obedience to the signal, Jack turned and
+entered the shop, where his friend quickly joined him. "Old Dan is in
+his bed, with a heavy cold and a rheumatism, but he 'll see you; and
+Father Neal's with him, and Hayes, besides." And with this information
+he hurried Jack up the stairs, and led him into a darkened room, where
+the figures of the priest and old Hayes were dimly discernible. Before
+Massingbred had well crossed the door-sill, Nelligan called out, "Your
+servant, Mr. Massingbred. I 'm more than pleased with your explanation.
+Let me shake your hand once more."
+
+"I'm not quite sure that I understand you," said Jack, in a low voice;
+but before he could continue, the priest advanced to greet him, followed
+by old Peter.
+
+"Wasn't I in luck to catch him on the road this morning?" said Magennis;
+"he was coming in with the old Counsellor, and just got out to walk up a
+hill--"
+
+"Remember," said Jack, "that I have few minutes to spare, for I must be
+in waiting about the market-place when he drives in."
+
+"We must have a conference, though," said Father Neal; "there 's much to
+be settled. First of all, are we to coalesce for the representation?"
+
+"No, no, no!" cried Nelligan. "We 'll have it our own way. If Mr.
+Massingbred will be our Member, we want no help from the Martins."
+
+"There 's five pounds, and I 'll make it guineas if you like," said old
+Hayes, putting a note upon the table; "but the devil a Whig or Tory
+will ever get more out of Peter Hayes!"
+
+A very good-natured laugh from the others showed how little umbrage the
+frank avowal excited.
+
+"We 'll not want for money, Peter, make your mind easy about that," said
+Dan. "When can you meet the committee, Mr. Massingbred? Could you say
+to-night?"
+
+"Better to-morrow morning. I must return to Cro' Martin this evening."
+
+"Certainly,--of course," said Father Neal, blandly. "You 'll have to
+come to an understanding with Mr. Martin about the borough, declare what
+your principles are, and how, upon very mature consideration, you find
+you can't agree with the opinions of himself and his party."
+
+Magennis winked significantly at Jack, as though to say, "Listen
+to _him; he 's_ the man to instruct and direct you;" and the priest
+resumed:--
+
+"Go on to explain that your only utility in the House could arise from
+your being the exponent of what you feel to be the truth about Ireland,
+the crying evils of the Established Church, and the present tenure of
+land! When you throw these two shells in, sir, the town will be on fire.
+He 'll reply that under these circumstances there 's no more question
+about your standing for the borough; you'll say nothing,--not a word,
+not a syllable; you only smile. If Repton 's by--and he 's likely to
+be--he 'll get hot, and ask you what you mean by that--"
+
+"There 's Scanlan just driving round the corner," said Magennis, in a
+whisper; and Massingbred arose at once and drew nigh to the bedside.
+
+"Could I say one word to you alone, Mr. Nelligan?" said he, in a low
+voice.
+
+"Of course," said he. And whispering the priest to take the others into
+an adjoining room, old Nelligan motioned Jack to sit down beside him.
+
+"You said, as I came in," said Jack, "that you were satisfied with my
+explanation--"
+
+"To be sure I was," broke in Dan. "All I wanted to know was, that you
+acted under a misconception. That being once explained, there was no
+offence on either side. Now, Catty Henderson's letter to my wife put the
+thing straight at once; she showed that _your_ conduct at Cro' Martin
+arose out of a notion that Joe had slighted you."
+
+[Illustration: 302]
+
+"Have you got this letter?" asked Jack, eagerly.
+
+"Indeed, then, I have not; his mother forwarded it to Joe by the same
+post; but, as I tell you I 'm satisfied, there 's an end of it."
+
+"Scanlan 's asking for you below stairs," said Magennis, putting in his
+head; "and I hear them saying that they didn't see you in town."
+
+"All right," said Jack; "so I'll just slip out by the garden gate and
+meet him in the market-square." And with a hurried leave-taking Jack
+withdrew, his mind very far from that state of tranquil composure in
+which it was his pride to affect that he invariably revelled.
+
+"There they go!" cried Father Neal, shortly after, as Scanlan drove
+rapidly by, with Massingbred beside him. "Maybe Master Maurice won't
+abuse us all round before he turns in at the gate of Cro' Martin!"
+
+"Massingbred is too cute to mind him," said Magennis.
+
+"Ah, Tom, there 's one appeal men of his stamp are never deaf to. You
+may say fifty things that won't shock them in religion or morals or good
+taste; but only utter the one word 'vulgar,' and their indignation rises
+at once. That's what Scanlan will do, take my word for it He 'll call us
+a low set of fellows, that have no position in society,--no acceptance
+anywhere."
+
+"But Massingbred is a gentleman born, and he won't be led astray by such
+a consideration."
+
+"It is exactly for that very reason that he will," said the priest,
+stoutly. "It's a strange fact, but there 's no manner of man rates
+social advantages so high as he that has them by right, and without any
+struggle for them."
+
+"Well," said old Hayes, slowly, "if I once thought that of him, the
+devil a vote of mine he 'd get, no matter what his principles were."
+
+"And there you 're wrong, Peter," said Nelligan. "Matters of good
+manners and breeding need never be discussed between us. Mr. Massingbred
+will have _his_ station; we'll have _ours_. There 's a long and weary
+road before us ere we come to think of our social condition. There
+'s many a cruel statute to be abolished, many a hard grievance to be
+redressed."
+
+"And besides that," said Father Neal, with a shrewd twinkle in his eye,
+"while we 're doing the one we 'll be helping on the other. Political
+influence always did, and always will, include rank and station in the
+world. When English Ministers find their best ally in the Irish Priest,
+there will be no more sneers at his brogue nor his boots. Men of family
+and fortune won't shrink from their contact, and maybe you 'll see
+the day yet when coaches and chariots will drive up to the chapel, and
+ladies in satin and velvet step out to hear Mass."
+
+A prophetic view of the Millennium itself could not have astonished
+old Peter Hayes more completely than did this marvellous suggestion of
+Father Neal; and he moved away muttering a "Heaven grant it!" between
+his teeth.
+
+"Where's the next meeting of the committee to be?" asked Nelligan.
+
+"In the Chapel House, to-morrow, at eleven. And that reminds me I 've
+not sent out the summonses." And so saying, Father Neal hastily took
+leave of his friends and left the room.
+
+Let us take a glance at Mr. Maurice Scanlan, as, with an extra box-coat
+ingeniously wrapped around his lower man, he discoursed pleasantly to
+his companion while he "tooled" along towards Cro' Martin. Not a word
+of politics, not a syllable on the subject of party, escaped him as
+he talked. His conversation was entirely of sporting matters: the odds
+against Leander, the last bettings on "Firebrand," whether Spicy Bill
+was really in bad training, as the knowing ones said, and if the course
+wouldn't "puzzle the young ones" if the wet weather were to continue.
+
+Massingbred was sufficiently well versed in these classic themes to be
+an amusing and even instructive companion, and communicated many a sly
+piece of intelligence that would have been deemed priceless in "Bell's
+Life;" and Scanlan quickly conceived a high estimate for one who had
+graduated at Newmarket, and taken honors at Goodwood.
+
+"After the kind of life you 've led in England, I wonder how you endure
+this country at all," said Maurice, with real sincerity of voice and
+manner.
+
+"I like it," said Jack; "the whole thing is new to me, and vastly
+amusing. I don't mean to say I 'd willingly pass a lifetime in this
+fashion, but for a few weeks--"
+
+"Just so; to give you a better relish for the real thing when you go
+back again," said Maurice.
+
+"What a neat stepper that leader is!" said Jack, to change the topic
+from himself and his own affairs. "She's a well-bred one; that's clear."
+
+"Nearly full-bred; the least bit of cocktail in the world. She's out of
+Crescent, that ran a very good third for the Oaks."
+
+"A strong horse, and a very honest one," said Jack.
+
+"Well, I bought that little mare from young Mr. Martin--the
+Captain--when he was ordered out to India; I put her in training, and
+ran her at the Curragh in three weeks, and won, too, the St. Lawrence
+Handicap."
+
+"Is Captain Martin a sporting character?" asked Jack, carelessly.
+
+"He is and he is not," said Scanlan, half querulously. "He likes a safe
+thing,--do you understand?" and he gave a most significant wink as he
+spoke.
+
+"Oh, then he's close about money matters?" said Massingbred.
+
+"Not exactly that. He 's wasteful and spendthrift, but he'd go to the
+world's end to do a knowing thing; you 've seen men of that kind?"
+
+"Scores of them," replied Jack; "and they were always the easiest
+fellows to be duped!"
+
+"Exactly my own experience," said Scanlan, delighted to find his
+opinions confirmed in such a quarter. "Now, young Martin would give five
+hundred pounds for a horse to win a fifty pound cup. Don't you know what
+I mean?"
+
+"Perfectly," said Massingbred, with an approving smile.
+
+"Nobody knows the sums he has drawn since he went away," exclaimed
+Scanlan, who was momentarily growing more and more confidential.
+
+"There 's a deal of high play in India; perhaps he gambles," said Jack,
+carelessly.
+
+A significant wink and nod gave the answer.
+
+"Well, well," added he, after a pause, "he 'll not mend matters by
+coming back again."
+
+"And is he about to visit England?" asked Massingbred, in the same easy
+tone.
+
+"So they say," replied Scanlan, with an effort at the easy indifference
+of the other.
+
+"On leave, perhaps?" said Jack, indolently.
+
+"That 's more than I know," replied he, and relapsed into a thoughtful
+silence, during which Massingbred continued to scan his features with a
+sly, downcast glance peculiar to himself.
+
+"You've never been in Leicestershire, Mr. Scanlan?" said he, when he
+had fully satisfied himself with his examination. "Well, then, come over
+there in the spring--say about March next--and pay me a visit. I 've got
+a sort of hunting-box there, with a neat stable, and by that time I hope
+to raise funds for a couple of nags."
+
+"Trust _me_ for the horseflesh, sir. I know where to mount you this very
+minute. You 're not much above eleven stone?"
+
+"Eleven-eight,--at least, so I used to be. Is it a bargain? Will you
+come?"
+
+"There's my hand on't," said the attorney, overjoyed at the prospect.
+
+"Mackworth, and Lord Harry Coverdale, and Sir Went-worth Danby, and
+a few more, are all my neighbors. Capital fellows, whom you 'll be
+delighted with. Just the sort of men to suit you,--up to everything that
+means sport."
+
+"Exactly what I like!" cried Maurice, in ecstasy.
+
+"We'll arrange it all this evening, then," said Jack. "Just drop into my
+room after they 're all gone to bed, and we'll have a talk over it. You
+don't know my father, do you?"
+
+"I haven't that honor," said Scanlan, with an accent of real deference
+in his voice.
+
+"Another kind of person from these I've mentioned," said Jack, slowly.
+
+"So I should suppose, sir," said Scanlan, a tone of respect
+involuntarily attaching itself to him as he addressed the son of a
+Secretary of State.
+
+"Not that he doesn't like field sports, and all the enjoyments of a
+country life. But, you know, he's an old official--a Downing Street
+veteran--who really relishes public business, just as you and I would a
+coursing-match, or a heavy pool at Crocky's."
+
+Scanlan nodded as if in perfect assent.
+
+"While I say this, it's only fair to add that he has most excellent
+qualities, and is a stanch friend when he takes any one up. I suspect
+you 'd like him. I know he 'd like your--"
+
+"I 'm greatly flattered. I don't deserve--"
+
+"You see," said Jack, not heeding the interruption, and assuming the
+low accents of a confidential communication--"You see, he and I have not
+been on the very best of terms for some time back; I 've done some silly
+things--spent a little more money than he liked--and, what was still
+worse in his eyes, refused a first-rate Government appointment--a really
+good thing, and such as one does n't meet with every day--and now, the
+only road back to his favor will be for me to come out strongly in some
+shape, either as a college prizeman or in public life. I despise the
+former. It's all very well for fellows like Nelligan--it's their natural
+'beat,'--but for a man like _me_, one who has seen the world,--the real
+world,--these are nothing more than schoolboy distinctions,--the silver
+medal he brings home of a Saturday, and makes him the wonder of his
+sisters for twenty-four hours. I'll have to strike out a line of my
+own!"
+
+"No fear of you, sir,--devil a bit!" said Maurice, with a sententious
+shake of the head. "Here we are now at Cro' Martin, and then there's the
+first dinner-bell ringing."
+
+"We shall be late, perhaps," said Jack.
+
+"You'll be in good time. As for me, I haven't been asked to dinner, so
+that when I drop you I 'll go down to the village."
+
+"Well, then, I 'll walk over and see you in the evening," said
+Massingbred. "It seems to me--I don't know whether you are of the same
+opinion, though--but it seems strongly to me that you and I ought to be
+allies."
+
+"If I thought I was worthy--"
+
+"Come, come, Scanlan, no modesty, old boy. You know you 're a devilish
+clever fellow, and you no more intend to pass your life cruising after
+petty-session practice in Galway, than I do to settle down here as
+under-gardener."
+
+"They 're all looking at us, sir, from the drawing-room window," said
+Scanlan, in a cautious voice; "don't let us appear too confidential."
+And at the same instant he extended his whip as though to point
+attention to some distant object, and seem as if he were describing the
+scenery.
+
+"Shrewd dog it is," muttered Massingbred in soliloquy, but taking good
+care to be overheard. "I 'll beat up your quarters, Scanlan, in a
+couple of hours or so," said Massingbred, as he descended from the lofty
+"drag."
+
+Somewhat, but not very much, later than the time appointed, Jack
+Massingbred appeared in the small chamber of the "Crueskeen,"--the
+humble hostel on the roadside adjoining the demesne of Cro' Martin.
+Maurice Scanlan had made every preparation which the fluid resources of
+the house admitted to receive his guest, but they were not destined to
+be put in requisition.
+
+"I have only come lest you should accuse me of forgetting you, Scanlan,"
+said Massingbred, as he stood in the doorway without removing his hat.
+"I 'm off to Oughter-ard, having made my adieux at Cro' Martin."
+
+"Left Cro' Martin, and for good!" exclaimed Scanlan.
+
+"If that means forever, I suspect you 're right," replied Jack; "but
+you 'll have the whole story in the morning when you go up there, and
+doubtless more impartially than I should tell it. And now, good-bye for
+a brief space. We shall meet soon." And, without waiting for an answer,
+he nodded familiarly, stepped briskly to the door, where a post-chaise
+awaited him, and was gone, before Scanlan had even half recovered from
+his astonishment and surprise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. AN AWKWARD VISITOR
+
+It is a singularly impressive sensation, and one, too, of which even
+frequency will scarcely diminish the effect, to pass from the busy
+streets and moving population of Dublin, and enter the quiet courts of
+the University. The suddenness of the change is most striking, and you
+pass at once from all the bustling interests of life--its cares and
+ambitions, its pursuits of wealth and pleasure--into the stillness of a
+cloister. Scarcely within the massive gates, and the noise of the great
+capital is hushed and subdued, its sounds seem to come from afar, and
+in their place is an unbroken calm, or the more solemn echoes of its
+vaulted roofs.
+
+In a corner of the Old Square, and in a building almost entirely
+occupied by the University authorities, and whose stairs had seldom
+echoed beneath less reverend footsteps than those of deans and bursars,
+were the chambers of Joe Nelligan. He had obtained them in this peculiar
+locality as a special favor from "the Board," as eminently suited to
+his habits of study and seclusion; for his was indeed a life of
+labor,--labor, hard, unremitting, and unbroken! Dreary as was the aspect
+of the spot, it was one dear to the heart of him who occupied it. If it
+had been the cell wherein he had passed nights of severest toil and days
+of intense effort, so had it been the calm retreat into which he had
+retired as a sanctuary, and at times the scene of the hallowed joy he
+felt when success had crowned all his labors. Thither had he bent his
+steps at nightfall, as to a home; thence had he written the few lines
+which more than once announced his triumph to his father.
+
+Within those halls had he experienced all that he had ever tasted of
+successful ambition, and in the depths of that old chair had he dreamed
+away all the visions of a glorious future. The room in which he sat was
+a large and lofty one, lighted by two windows deeply set in the wall.
+Its sides were lined with book-shelves, and books littered the tables
+and even the floor,--for it was one of his caprices to read as he lay
+at full length, either on the ground or a sofa,--and the paper and pens
+were scattered about in different quarters, as accident suggested. The
+only thing like ornament to be seen was a lithographic print of Cro'
+Martin Castle over the fireplace,--a strange exception would it seem,
+but traceable, perhaps, to some remote scene of boyish admiration for
+what had first awakened in him a feeling of awe and admiration; and
+there it now remained, time-worn and discolored, perhaps unnoticed, or
+looked on with very different emotions. Ay! these pictures are terrible
+landmarks of our thoughts! I speak not of such as appeal to our hearts
+by the features we loved, the eyes into whose depths we have gazed, the
+lips on whose accents we have hung entranced, but even when they trace
+the outlines of some spot well known to us in boyhood,--some scene of
+long, long years ago. It is not alone that the "Then" and "Now" stand
+out in strongest contrast, that what we were and what we are are in
+juxtaposition, but that whole memories of what we once hoped to be come
+rushing over us, and all the spirit-stirring emotions of early ambitions
+mingle themselves with the stern realities of the present. And, after
+all, what success in life, however great and seemingly unexpected it may
+be, ever equals one of the glorious daydreams of our boyish ambition,
+in which there comes no alloy of broken health, wasted energies, and
+exhausted spirits? or, far worse again, the envious jealousy of those
+we once deemed friends, and who, had we lived obscurely, still might
+be such? Student life is essentially imaginative. The very division of
+time, the objects which have value to a student's eyes, the seclusion
+in which he lives, the tranquil frame of mind coexistent with highly
+strained faculties, all tend to make his intervals of repose periods of
+day-dream and revery. It is not improbable that these periods are the
+fitting form of relaxation for overtaxed minds, and that the Imagination
+is the soothing influence that repairs the wear and tear of Reason.
+
+The peculiar circumstances of young Nelligan's position in life had
+almost totally estranged him from others. The constraint that attaches
+to a very bashful temperament had suggested to him a certain cold and
+reserved manner, that some took for pride, and many were repelled from
+his intimacy by this seeming haughtiness. The unhappy course of what
+had been his first friendship--for such was it with Massingbred--had
+rendered him more distrustful than ever of himself, and more firmly
+convinced that to men born as he had been the world imposes a barrier
+that only is passable by the highest and greatest success. It is true,
+his father's letter of explanation assuaged the poignancy of his sorrow;
+he saw that Massingbred had proceeded under a misconception, and had
+believed himself the aggrieved individual; but all these considerations
+could not obliterate the fact that an insult to his social station was
+the vengeance adopted by him, and that Massingbred saw no more galling
+outrage in his power than to reflect upon his rank in life.
+
+There are men who have a rugged pride in contrasting what they were
+with what they are. Their self-love finds an intense pleasure in
+contemplating difficulties overcome, obstacles surmounted, and a goal
+won, all by their own unaided efforts, and to such the very obscurity of
+their origin is a source of boastful exultation. Such men are, however,
+always found in the ranks of those whose success is wealth. Wherever the
+triumphs are those rewarded by station, or the distinctions conferred
+on intellectual superiority, this vainglorious sentiment is unknown.
+An inborn refinement rejects such coarse pleasure, just as their
+very habits of life derive no enjoyment from the display and splendor
+reflected by riches.
+
+Joe Nelligan felt his lowly station most acutely, because he saw in it a
+disqualification for that assured and steady temperament which can make
+most of success. He would have given half of all he might possess in the
+world for even so much of birth as might exempt him from a sneer.
+The painful sensitiveness that never rested nor slept--that made him
+eternally on the watch lest some covert allusion might be made to
+him--was a severe suffering; and far from decreasing, it seemed to grow
+with him as he became older, and helped mainly to withdraw him further
+from the world.
+
+No error is more common than for bashful men to believe that they are
+unpopular in society, and that the world "will none of them." They
+interpret their own sense of difficulty as a feeling of dislike in
+others, and retire to their solitudes convinced that these are their
+fitting dwelling-places. To this unpalatable conviction was Joseph
+Nelligan now come; and as he entered his chambers, and closed the heavy
+door behind him, came the thought: "Here at least no mortifications
+can reach me. These old books are my truest and best of friends, and in
+their intercourse there is neither present pain nor future humiliation!"
+
+It was on a dark and dreary day in winter, and in that cheerless hour
+before the closing in of night, that Joseph sat thus in his solitary
+home. The sound of carriage-wheels and the sharp tramp of horses'
+feet--a rare event in these silent courts--slightly aroused him from a
+revery; but too indolent to go to the window, he merely raised his head
+to listen; and now a loud knock shook the outer door of his chambers.
+With a strange sense of perturbation at this unwonted summons, he arose
+and opened it.
+
+"The Chief Secretary begs to know if Mr. Nelligan is at home?" said a
+well-powdered footman, in a plain but handsome livery.
+
+"Yes; I am the person," said Joseph, with a diffidence strongly in
+contrast with the composure of the other; and while he yet stood,
+door in hand, the steps of the carriage were let down, and a tall
+venerable-looking man, somewhat past the prime of life, descended and
+approached him.
+
+"I must be my own introducer, Mr. Nelligan," said he; "my name is
+Massingbred."
+
+With considerable confusion of manner, and in all that hurry in which
+bashful men seek to hide their awkwardness, Joseph ushered his visitor
+into his dimly lighted chamber.
+
+Colonel Massingbred, with all the staid composure of a very quiet
+demeanor, had quite sufficient tact to see that he was in the company
+of one little versed in the world, and, as soon as he took his seat,
+proceeded to explain the reason of his visit.
+
+"My son has told me of the great pleasure and profit he has derived from
+knowing you, sir," said he; "he has also informed me that a slight and
+purely casual event interrupted the friendship that existed between you;
+and although unable himself to tender personally to you at this moment
+all his regrets on the subject, he has charged me to be his interpreter,
+and express his deep sorrow for what has occurred, and his hope that,
+after this avowal, it may never be again thought of by either of you."
+
+"There was a misunderstanding,--a fault on both sides. I was wrong in
+the first instance," said Nelligan, faltering and stammering at every
+word.
+
+"Mr. Nelligan is in a position to be generous," said the Colonel,
+blandly, "and he cannot better show the quality than by accepting a
+frank and full apology for a mere mistake. May I trust," continued
+he,--but with that slight change of tone that denoted a change of
+topic,--"that you have somewhat abated those habits of severe study you
+have hitherto pursued? Jack is really uneasy on that score, and wisely
+remarks that great talents should be spared the penalty of great labor."
+
+"I am not reading now. I have read very little of late," said Joseph,
+diffidently.
+
+"I can imagine what that means," said the Colonel, smiling. "Mr.
+Nelligan's relaxations would be the hard labor of less zealous students;
+but I will also say that upon other grounds this must be done with more
+consideration. The public interests, Mr. Nelligan,--the country, to
+whose service you will one day be called on to contribute those high
+abilities,--will not be satisfied to learn that their exercise should
+have been impaired by over-effort in youth."
+
+"You overrate me much, sir. I fear that you have been misled both as to
+my capacity and my objects."
+
+"Your capacity is matter of notoriety, Mr. Nelligan! your objects may be
+as high as any ambition can desire. But perhaps it is obtrusive in one
+so new to your acquaintance to venture on these topics; if so, pray
+forgive me, and set it down to the error I have fallen into of fancying
+that I know you as well personally as I do by reputation and character."
+
+Before Nelligan could summon words to reply to this complimentary
+speech, the door of his room was flung suddenly open, and a short,
+thickset figure, shrouded in a coarse shawl and a greatcoat, rushed
+towards him, exclaiming in a rich brogue,--
+
+"Here I am, body and bones; just off the coach, and straight to your
+quarters."
+
+"What! Mr. Crow; is it possible?" cried Nelligan, in some confusion.
+
+"Just himself, and no other," replied the artist, disengaging himself
+from his extra coverings. "When you said to me, 'Come and see me when
+you visit Dublin,' I said to myself, 'There 's a trump, and I 'll do it;'
+and so here I am."
+
+"You left the country yesterday. Did you bring me any letters?" asked
+Nelligan; but in the uncertain tone of a man who talked merely to say
+something.
+
+"Not a line,--not a word. Your father was over head and ears at work
+this week back about the election, and it was only the night before last
+it was over."
+
+"And is it over?" asked Nelligan, eagerly.
+
+"To be sure it is. Young Massingbred is in, and a nice business it is."
+
+"Let me inform you, Mr. Crow, before you proceed further--" broke in
+Nelligan; but as he got so far, Colonel Massingbred laid his hand on his
+arm, and said, in a bland but steady voice, "Pray allow the gentleman to
+continue; his account promises to be most interesting."
+
+"Indeed, then, that's what it is not," said Crow; "for I think it's
+all bad from beginning to end." Another effort to interrupt by Nelligan
+being repressed by the Colonel, Crow resumed: "Everybody trying to cheat
+somebody else; the Martins wanting to cheat the borough, the borough
+wanting to jockey the Martins, and then young Massingbred humbugging
+them both! And there he is now, Member for Oughterard; and much he cares
+for them both."
+
+"Was there a contest, sir?" asked the Colonel, while by a gesture he
+enforced silence on Nelligan.
+
+"As bitter a one as ever you saw in your life," continued Simmy, quite
+flattered at the attention vouchsafed him; "for though the Martins put
+young Massingbred forward at first, they quarrelled with him before
+the day for the nomination,--something or other about the franchise, or
+Maynooth, or the Church Establishment. Sorra one o' me know much about
+these matters; but it was a serious difference, and they split about it!
+And after all their planning and conniving together, what do they do
+but propose Martin's son, the man in the dragoons, for the borough!
+Massingbred bids them do their worst, packs up, sets out for the town,
+and makes a speech exposing them all! The next morning he comes to the
+poll, with Joe's father there, and Peter Hayes, to propose and second
+him. Martin drives in with three elegant coaches and four, and tries to
+do the thing 'grand.' 'It's too late, sir; the people know their power,'
+as Father Neal told them; and, upon my conscience, I believe it's a
+most dangerous kind of knowledge. At all events, at it they go; and such
+fighting and murdering nobody ever saw before. There's not a whole
+pane of glass in the town, and many a skull cracked as well! One of the
+wickedest of the set was young Massingbred himself; he 'd assault the
+cars as they drove in, and tear out the chaps he thought were his own
+voters, in spite of themselves. He has the spirit of the devil in him!
+And then to hear how he harangued the people and abused the aristocracy.
+Maybe he did n't lay it on well! To be sure, the Martins drove him to
+it very hard. They called him a 'renegade' and a 'spy.' They ransacked
+everything they could get against his character, and at last declared
+that he had no qualification, and wasn't worth sixpence."
+
+"And how did he answer that?" cried the Colonel, who, fixing his eyes on
+the other, entirely engaged his attention.
+
+"I 'll tell you how he did. Just producing the title-deeds of an estate
+that old Nelligan settled on him eight days before,--ay, and so well and
+securely that Counsellor Repton himself, with all his cuteness, could
+n't find a flaw in it. Repton said, in my own hearing, 'That 's the
+cleverest blackguard in Ireland!'"
+
+"Mr. Crow--Crow, I say," broke in young Nelligan.
+
+"Pray don't interrupt him," said the Colonel, in a tone that seemed to
+demand obedience; "I want to learn by what majority he gained the day."
+
+"Thirty-eight or thirty-nine; and there's only two hundred and odd in
+the borough. There may be, perhaps, a dozen of these to strike off on a
+petition; but he 's all safe after that."
+
+"And will they petition against his return?"
+
+"They say so, but nobody believes them. His father,"--and here he made a
+gesture towards Nelligan,--"his father has a strong purse, and will see
+him well through it all."
+
+"This is very interesting news to me, sir," said the Colonel, with
+another sign to Joseph not to betray him; "for although I could well
+imagine Jack Massingbred equal to such an occasion as you describe, I
+was scarcely prepared to hear of the generous confidence reposed in him,
+nor the prompt and able co-operation of the Liberal party."
+
+"Ah, I perceive," said Crow, with a significant motion of his eyebrows.
+"You thought that his name would be against him, and that people would
+say, 'Is n't he the son of old Moore Massingbred, that took his bribe
+for the Union?'"
+
+"This is intolerable," cried Nelligan, starting up from his seat and
+speaking with all the vehemence of outraged feelings. "It is to Colonel
+Massingbred himself you have dared to address this impertinence."
+
+"What--how--what's this!" exclaimed Crow, in a perfect horror of shame.
+
+"The fault, if there be any, is all mine, sir," said the Colonel,
+pressing him down into his seat. "I would not have lost the animated
+description you have just given me, uttered, as it was, in such perfect
+frankness, for any consideration; least of all, at the small price
+of hearing a public expression on a public man's conduct. Pray, now,
+continue to use the same frankness, and tell me anything more that
+occurs to you about this remarkable contest."
+
+This appeal, uttered in all the ease of a well-bred manner, was quite
+unsuccessful. Mr. Crow sat perfectly horrified with himself, endeavoring
+to remember what possible extent of offence he might have been betrayed
+into by his narrative. As for Nelligan, his shame and confusion were
+even greater still; and he sat gazing ruefully and reproachfully at the
+unlucky painter.
+
+Colonel Massingbred made one or two more efforts to relieve the
+awkwardness of the incident, but so palpably fruitless were the attempts
+that he desisted, and arose to take his leave. As Joe accompanied him
+to the door, he tried to blunder out some words of excuse. "My dear Mr.
+Nelligan," broke in the other, with a quiet laugh, "don't imagine for
+a moment that I am offended. In the first place, your friend was the
+bearer of very pleasant tidings, for Jack has not condescended to write
+to me about his success; and secondly, public life is such a stern
+schoolmaster, that men like myself get accustomed to rather rough usage,
+particularly at the hands of those who do not know us. And now, as I am
+very unwilling to include you in this category, when will you come and
+see me? What day will you dine with me?"
+
+Nelligan blushed and faltered, just as many another awkward man has done
+in a similar circumstance; for, however an easy matter for you, my dear
+sir, with all your tact and social readiness, to fix the day it will
+suit you to accept of an almost stranger's hospitality, Joseph had no
+such self-possession, and only stammered and grew crimson.
+
+"Shall it be on Saturday? for to-morrow I am engaged to the Chancellor,
+and on Friday I dine with his Excellency. Will Saturday suit you?" asked
+the Colonel.
+
+"Yes, sir, perfectly; with much pleasure," answered Nelligan.
+
+"Then Saturday be it, and at seven o'clock," said Massingbred, shaking
+his hand most cordially; while Joe, with sorrowful step, returned to his
+chamber.
+
+"Well, I think I did it there, at all events!" cried Simmy, as the other
+entered. "But what, in the name of all that's barefaced, prevented your
+stopping me? Why did n't you pull me up short before I made a beast of
+myself?"
+
+"How could I? You rushed along like a swollen river. You were so full of
+your blessed subject that you would n't heed an interruption; and as to
+signs and gestures, I made twenty without being able to catch your eye."
+
+"I believe I 'm the only man living ever does these things," said Simmy,
+ruefully. "I lost the two or three people that used to say they were my
+friends by some such blundering folly as this. I only hope it won't do
+_you_ any mischief. I trust he 'll see that you are not responsible for
+my delinquencies!"
+
+There was a hearty sincerity in poor Simmy's sorrow that at once
+conciliated Nelligan, and he did his best to obliterate every trace of
+the unhappy incident.
+
+"I scarcely supposed my father would have forgiven Massingbred so
+easily," said Joe, in his desire to change the topic.
+
+"Blarney,--all blarney!" muttered Crow, with an expressive movement of
+his eyebrows.
+
+"Father Neal himself is rather a difficult subject to treat with," added
+Joe.
+
+"Blarney again!"
+
+"Nor do I think," continued Nelligan, "that the constituency of the
+borough, as a body, are remarkable for any special liability to be
+imposed on!"
+
+"Nor would they, had it been an Irishman was trying to humbug them,"
+said Crow, emphatically. "Take my word for it,--and I 've seen a great
+deal of the world, and perhaps not the best of it either,--but take _my_
+word for it, English blarney goes further with us here than all else.
+It 's not that it's clever or insinuating or delicate,--far from it; but
+you see that nobody suspects it. The very blunders and mistakes of it
+have an air of sincerity, and we are, besides, so accustomed always to
+be humbugged with a brogue, that we fancy ourselves safe when we hear an
+English accent."
+
+"There's some ingenuity in your theory," said Joe, smiling.
+
+"There's fact in it; that's what there is," said Crow, rising from his
+seat. "I 'll be going now, for I 'm to dine with Tom Magennis at six."
+
+"Is he here, too?"
+
+"Yes; and was n't it a piece of good luck that I did n't say anything
+about him before Colonel Massingbred?"
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Just for this, then,--that it was young Massingbred gave him a letter
+to his father, recommending him for some place or other. Half of the
+borough expects to be in the Treasury, or the Post-Office, or the Board
+of Trade; and I was just on the tip of saying what a set of rapscallions
+they were. I 'm sure I don't know what saved me from it."
+
+"Your natural discretion, doubtless," said Joe, smiling.
+
+"Just so; it must have been that!" replied he, with a sigh.
+
+"You'll breakfast with me to-morrow, Crow, at eight," said Nelligan, as
+he parted with him at the door. And Simmy, having pledged himself to be
+punctual, hurried off to keep his dinner appointment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. A DAY "AFTER"
+
+The reaction that succeeds to a period of festivity has always an air of
+peculiar sadness and gloom about it. The day after a ball, the withered
+flowers, the faded decorations, the disordered furniture,--all tell
+the tale of departed pleasure and past enjoyment. The afternoon of that
+morning which has witnessed a wedding-breakfast,--the April landscape of
+joy and grief, the bridal beauty, and the high-beating hope of the happy
+lover, have all fled; and in the still and silent chambers there seems
+to brood a sense of sorrow and mourning. Still with these thoughts
+happier memories are mingled. The bright pageant of the past rises again
+before the mind; and smiles and music and laughter and graceful forms
+come back, and people space with their images. But how different from
+all this was the day after the election at Cro' Martin!
+
+For a week had the Martins condescended to derogate from their proud
+station and "play popular" to the electors of Oughterard. They had
+opened their most sumptuous apartments to vulgar company, and made
+guests of those they deemed inferior to their own domestics. They had
+given dinners and suppers and balls and picnics. They had lavished all
+the flatteries of attentions on their rude neighbors. They had admitted
+them to all the privileges of a mock equality, "so like the real article
+as not to be detected." They had stored their minds with all the lives
+and adventures of these ignoble intimates, so as to impart a false color
+of friendship to their conversation with them; in a word, and to use one
+by which her Ladyship summed up all the miseries of the occasion, they
+had "demoralized" more in a week than she believed it possible could
+have been effected in ten years. Let us be just, and add that my Lady
+had taken the phrase bodily out of her French vocabulary, and in her
+ardor applied it with its native signification,--that is, she alluded to
+the sad consequences of association with underbred company, and not
+by any means to any inroads made upon her sense of honor and high
+principle.
+
+Still, whatever pangs the sacrifice was costing within, it must be owned
+that no signs of them displayed themselves on the outside. Even Repton,
+stern critic as he was, said that "they did the thing well." And now it
+was all over, the guests gone, the festivities ended, the election lost,
+and nothing in prospect save to settle the heavy outlay of the contest,
+and pay the high price for that excessively dear article which combines
+contamination with disappointment.
+
+In her capacity of head of the administration, Lady Dorothea had assumed
+the whole guidance of this contest. With Miss Henderson as her private
+secretary, she had corresponded and plotted and bribed and intrigued to
+any extent; and although Repton was frequently summoned to a council,
+his advice was very rarely, if ever, adopted. Her Ladyship's happy
+phrase--"one ought to know their own borough people better than
+a stranger"--usually decided every vexed question in favor of her
+judgment.
+
+It is a strange characteristic of human nature that at no time do people
+inveigh so loudly against bad faith, treachery, and so on, as when
+themselves deeply engaged in some very questionable enterprise. Now her
+Ladyship had so fully made up her mind to win in this contest that she
+had silenced all scruples as to the means. She had set out with some
+comfortable self-assurance that she knew what was good for those "poor
+creatures" infinitely better than they did. That it was her duty--a
+very onerous and disagreeable one, too--to rescue them from the evil
+influence of demagogues and such like; and that when represented by
+a member of _her_ family, they would be invested with a pledge that
+everything which proper legislation could do for them would be theirs.
+So far she had the approval of her own conscience; and for all that was
+to follow after, she never consulted that tribunal. It is not at all
+improbable that there was little opportunity of doing so in a week of
+such bustle and excitement. Every day brought with it fresh cares and
+troubles; and although Kate Henderson proved herself invaluable in her
+various functions, her Ladyship's fatigues and exertions were of the
+greatest.
+
+The day after the election Lady Dorothea kept her bed. The second day,
+too, she never made her appearance; and it was late in the afternoon
+of the third that she stole languidly into her library, and ordered her
+maid to send Miss Henderson to her.
+
+As Kate entered the room, she could not help feeling struck by the
+alteration that had taken place in her Ladyship's appearance, who, as
+she lay back in a deep chair, with closed eyes and folded hands, looked
+like one risen from a long sick-bed.
+
+As she started and opened her eyes, however, at Kate's approach, the
+features assumed much of their wonted expression, and their haughty
+character was only tinged, but not subdued, by the look of sorrow
+they wore. With the low and pleasant voice which Kate possessed in
+perfection, she had begun to utter some words of pleasure at seeing her
+Ladyship again, when the other interrupted her hastily, saying,--
+
+"I want you to read to me, child. There, take that volume of Madame
+de Sevigne, and begin where you see the mark. You appear weak
+to-day,--tired, perhaps?"
+
+"Oh, a mere passing sense of fatigue, my Lady," said Kate, assuming her
+place, and preparing her book.
+
+"Chagrin, annoyance--disgust I would call it--are far more wearing than
+mere labor. For my own part, I think nothing of exertion. But let us not
+speak of it. Begin."
+
+And Kate now commenced one of those charming letters, wherein the
+thought is so embellished by the grace of expression that there is
+a perpetual semblance of originality, without that strain upon the
+comprehension that real novelty exacts. She read, too, with consummate
+skill. To all the natural gifts of voice and utterance she added a most
+perfect taste, and that nicely subdued dramatic feeling which lends to
+reading its great fascination. Nearly an hour had thus passed, and not
+a word nor a gesture from Lady Dorothea interrupted the reader. With
+slightly drooped eyelids, she sat calm and tranquil; and as Kate, at
+moments, stole a passing glance towards her, she could not guess whether
+she was listening to her or not.
+
+"You'd have succeeded on the stage, Miss Henderson," said she at length,
+raising her eyes slowly. "Did it never occur to you to think of that
+career?"
+
+"Once I had some notion of it, my Lady," said Kate quietly. "I played
+in a little private theatre of the Duchess's, and they thought that I
+had some dramatic ability."
+
+"People of condition have turned actors, latterly,--men, of course, I
+mean; for women, the ordeal is too severe,--the coarse familiarity of a
+very coarse class, the close association with most inferior natures--By
+the way, what a week of it we have had! I 'd not have believed any one
+who told me that the whole globe contained as much unredeemed vulgarity
+as this little neighborhood. What was the name of the odious little
+woman that always lifted the skirt of her dress before sitting down?"
+
+"Mrs. Creevy, my Lady."
+
+"To be sure,--Mrs. Creevy. And her friend, who always came with her?"
+
+"Miss Busk--"
+
+"Yes, of course; Miss Busk, of the Emporium. If I don't mistake, I 've
+given her an order for something,--bonnets, or caps; what is it?"
+
+"A head-dress. Your Ladyship told her--"
+
+"You 'll make me ill, child--positively ill--if you remind me of such
+horrors. I told you to come and read for me, and you begin to inflict
+me with what--I declare solemnly--is the most humiliating incident of my
+life."
+
+Kate resumed her book, and read on. Lady Dorothea was now, however,
+unmistakably inattentive, and the changing color of her cheek betrayed
+the various emotions which moved her.
+
+"I really fancy that Miss Martin liked the atrocious creatures we have
+received here the past week; she certainly showed them a species
+of attention quite distinct from mere acceptance; and then they all
+addressed her like old acquaintance. Did you observe that?"
+
+"I thought that they assumed a degree of familiarity with Miss Martin
+which was scarcely consistent with their station."
+
+"Say highly ridiculous, child,--perfectly preposterous; for although she
+will persist in a style of living very opposite to the requirements of
+her position, she is Miss Martin, and _my_ niece!"
+
+There was now a dead pause of some seconds. At length her Ladyship
+spoke:--
+
+"To have been beaten in one's own town, where we own every stick and
+stone in the place, really requires some explanation; and the more I
+reflect upon it, the more mysterious does it seem. Repton, indeed, had
+much to say to it. He is so indiscreet,--eh, don't you think so?"
+
+"He is very vain of his conversational powers, my Lady, and, like all
+clever talkers, says too much."
+
+"Just so. But I don't think him even agreeable. I deem him a bore,"
+said my Lady, snappishly. "That taste for story-telling--that anecdotic
+habit--is quite vulgar; nobody does it now."
+
+Kate listened, as though too eager for instruction to dare to lose a
+word, and her Ladyship went on:--
+
+"In the first place, everybody--in society, I mean--knows every story
+that can or ought to be told; and, secondly, a narrative always
+interrupts conversation, which is a game to be played by several."
+
+Kate nodded slightly, as though to accord as much acquiescence as
+consorted with great deference.
+
+"It is possible, therefore," resumed her Ladyship, "that he may have
+divulged many things in that careless way he talked; and my niece, too,
+may have been equally silly. In fact, one thing is clear,--the enemy
+acquired a full knowledge of our tactics, and met every move we made by
+another. I was prepared for all the violence, all the insult, all the
+licentious impertinence and ribaldry of such a contest; but certainly
+I reckoned on success." Another long and dreary pause ensued, and Lady
+Dorothea's countenance grew sadder and more clouded as she sat in moody
+silence. At length a faint tinge of color marked her cheek; her eyes
+sparkled, and it was in a voice of more than ordinary energy she said:
+"If they fancy, however, that we shall accept defeat with submission,
+they are much mistaken. They have declared the war, and it shall not
+be for them to proclaim peace on the day they 've gained a victory. And
+Miss Martin also must learn that her Universal Benevolence scheme must
+give way to the demands of a just retribution. Have you made out the
+list I spoke of?"
+
+"Yes, my Lady, in part; some details are wanting, but there are eighteen
+cases here quite perfect."
+
+"These are all cottiers,--pauper tenants," said Lady Dorothea, scanning
+the paper superciliously through her eyeglass.
+
+"Not all, my Lady; here, for instance, is Dick Sheehan, the blacksmith,
+who has worked for the castle twenty-eight years, and who holds a farm
+called Mulianahogue, on a terminable lease."
+
+"And he voted against us?" broke she in.
+
+"Yes; and made a very violent speech, too."
+
+"Well, turn him out, then," said Lady Dorothea, interrupting her. "Now,
+where 's your father? Send for Henderson at once; I 'll have no delay
+with this matter."
+
+"I have sent for him, my Lady; he 'll be here within half an hour."
+
+"And Scanlan also. We shall want him."
+
+"Mr. Scanlan will be here at the same time."
+
+"This case here, with two crosses before it, what does this refer to?"
+said her Ladyship, pointing to a part of the paper.
+
+"That's Mr. Magennis, my Lady, of Barnagheela, who has been making
+incessant appeals for a renewal of his tenure--"
+
+"And how did he behave?"
+
+"He seconded Mr. Massingbred's nomination, and made a very outrageous
+speech on the occasion."
+
+"To be sure, I remember him; and he had the insolence--the unparalleled
+insolence--afterwards to address Miss Martin, as she sat beside me in
+the carriage, and to tell her that if the rest of the family had been
+like her the scene that had been that day enacted would never have
+occurred! Who is this Hosey Lynch? His name is so familiar to me."
+
+"He is a postmaster of Oughterard, and a kind of factotum in the town."
+
+"Then make a note of him. He must be dismissed at once."
+
+"He is not a freeholder, my lady, but only mentioned as an active agent
+of the Liberal party."
+
+"Don't adopt that vulgar cant, Miss Henderson,--at least, when speaking
+to _me_, They are not--they have no pretensions to be called the Liberal
+party. It is bad taste as well as bad policy to apply a flattering
+epithet to a faction."
+
+"What shall I call them in future, my Lady?" asked Kate, with a most
+admirably assumed air of innocence.
+
+"Call them Papists, Radicals, Insurgents,--anything, in fact, which may
+designate the vile principles they advocate. You mentioned Mr. Nelligan,
+and I own to you I felt ill--positively ill--at the sound of his name.
+Just to think of that man's ingratitude,--base ingratitude. It is but
+the other day his son was our guest here,--actually dined at the table
+with us! You were here. _You_ saw him yourself!"
+
+"Yes, my Lady," was the quiet reply.
+
+"I 'm sure nothing could be more civil, nothing more polite, than our
+reception of him. I talked to him myself, and asked him something--I
+forget what--about his future prospects, and see if this man, or his
+father--for it matters not which--is not the ringleader of this same
+movement! I tell you, child, and I really do not say so to hurt your
+feelings, or to aggravate your natural regrets at your condition in
+life, but I say it as a great moral lesson,--that low people are
+invariably deceitful. Perhaps they do not always intend it; perhaps--and
+very probably, indeed--their standard of honorable dealing is a low one;
+but of the fact itself you may rest assured. They are treacherous, and
+they are vindictive!"
+
+"Ennis Cafferty, my Lady, who lives at Broguestown," said Kate,
+reading from the list, "sends a petition to your Ladyship, entreating
+forgiveness if he should have done anything to cause displeasure to the
+family."
+
+"What _did_ he do? that is the question."
+
+"He carried a banner inscribed 'Down with Monopoly!'"
+
+"Mark him for eviction. I'll have no half measures. Miss Martin has
+brought the estate to such a pass that we may draw the rents, but never
+aspire to the influence of our property. These people shall now know
+their real masters. Who is that knocking at the door?--Come in."
+
+And at this summons, uttered in a voice not peculiar for suavity, Mr.
+Henderson entered, bowing profoundly, and smoothing the few glossy hairs
+that streaked rather than covered his bald head. A momentary glance
+passed between the father and daughter; so fleeting, however, was it,
+that the most sharp-eyed observer could not have detected its meaning.
+Lady Dorothea was too deeply occupied with her own thoughts to waste a
+second's consideration on either of them, and promptly said,--
+
+"I want you, Henderson, to inform me who are the chief persons who
+have distinguished themselves in this outrageous insult to us in the
+borough."
+
+Mr. Henderson moved from one foot to the other, once more stroked down
+his hair, and seemed like a man suddenly called upon to enter on a very
+unpleasant and somewhat difficult task.
+
+"Perhaps you don't like the office, sir?" said she, hastily. "Perhaps
+your own principles are opposed to it?"
+
+"Na, my Leddy," said he, deferentially, "I ha' nae principles but such
+as the family sanctions. It's nae business o' mine to profess poleetical
+opinions."
+
+"Very true, sir,--very just; you comprehend your station," replied she,
+proudly. "And now to my demand. Who are the heads of this revolt?--for
+it is a revolt!"
+
+"It's nae sa much a revolt, my Leddy," rejoined he, slowly and
+respectfully, "as the sure and certain consequence of what has been
+going on for years on the property. I did my best, by warning, and
+indeed by thwarting, so far as I could, these same changes. But I was
+not listened to. I foretold what it would all end in, this amelearating
+the condition of the small farmer--this raising the moral standard of
+the people, and a' that. I foresaw that if they grew richer they 'd grow
+sturdier; and if they learned to read, they'd begin to reflact. Ah, my
+leddy, a vara dangerous practice this same habit of reflection is, to
+folk who wear ragged clothes and dine on potatoes!"
+
+"I apprehend that the peril is not felt so acutely in your own country,
+sir!"
+
+"Vara true, my Leddy; your remark is vara just; but there's this
+difference to be remembered: the Scotch are canny folk, and we do many
+a thing that might n't be safe for others, but we take care never to do
+them ower much."
+
+"I don't want your philosophizing, sir, about national characteristics.
+I conclude that you know--it is your duty to know--whence this spirit
+took its rise. I desire to be informed on this head, and also what
+measures you have to advise for its suppression."
+
+Another pause, longer and more embarrassing than the first, followed on
+this speech, and Mr. Henderson really seemed balancing within himself
+whether he would or not give evidence.
+
+"Your reluctance has only to go a step further, Henderson, to impress me
+with the worst suspicions of yourself!" said Lady Dorothea, sternly.
+
+"I 'm vara sorry for it, my Leddy; I don't deserve them," was the calm
+reply.
+
+Had Lady Dorothea been quick-sighted, she might have detected a glance
+which the daughter directed towards her father; but she had been more
+than quick-minded if she could have read its meaning, so strange was the
+expression it bore.
+
+"In plain words, sir, do you know the offenders? and if so, how can we
+punish them?"
+
+"Your Leddyship has them all there," said he, pointing to the list on
+the table; "but there's nae sa much to be done wi' them, as the chief o'
+the lot are men o' mark and means, wi' plenty o' siller, and the sperit
+to spend it."
+
+"I hear of nothing but defaulters till a moment like this arrives, sir,"
+said her Ladyship, passionately. "The burden of every song is arrears
+of rent; and now I am told that the tenantry are so prosperous that they
+can afford to defy their landlord. Explain this, sir!"
+
+Before Mr. Henderson had completed that hesitating process which with
+him was the prelude to an answer, the door opened, and Mary Martin
+entered. She was in a riding-dress, and bore the traces of the road on
+her splashed costume; but her features were paler than usual, and her
+lip quivered as she spoke.
+
+"My dear aunt," cried she, not seeming to notice that others were
+present, "I have come back at speed from Kyle's Wood to learn if it be
+true--but it cannot be true--however the poor creatures there believe
+it--that they are to be discharged from work, and no more employment
+given at the quarries. You have n't seen them, dear aunt--you haven't
+beheld them, as I did this morning--standing panic-stricken around the
+scene of their once labor, not speaking, scarcely looking at each other,
+more like a shipwrecked crew upon an unknown shore than fathers and
+mothers beside their own homesteads!"
+
+"It was I gave the order, Miss Martin," said Lady Dorothea, proudly. "If
+these people prefer political agitation to an honest subsistence, let
+them pay the price of it."
+
+"But who says that they have done so?" replied Mary. "These poor
+creatures have not a single privilege to exercise; they have n't a vote
+amongst them. The laws have forgotten them just as completely as human
+charity has."
+
+"If they have no votes to record, they have voices to outrage and insult
+their natural protectors. Henderson knows that the worst mobs in the
+borough were from this very district."
+
+"Let him give the names of those he alludes to. Let him tell me
+ten--five--ay, three, if he can, of Kyle's Wood men who took any share
+in the disturbances. I am well aware that it is a locality where he
+enjoys little popularity himself; but at least he need not calumniate
+its people. Come, sir, who are these you speak of?"
+
+Kate Henderson, who sat with bent-down head during this speech,
+contrived to steal a glance at the speaker so meaningful and so
+supplicating that Mary faltered, and as a deep blush covered her cheek,
+she hastily added: "But this is really not the question. This miserable
+contest has done us all harm; but let us not perpetuate its bitterness!
+We have been beaten in an election, but I don't think we ought to be
+worsted in a struggle of generosity and good feeling. Come over, dear
+aunt, and see these poor creatures."
+
+"I shall certainly do no such thing, Miss Martin. In the first place,
+the fever never leaves that village."
+
+"Very true, aunt; and it will be worse company if our kindness should
+desert them. But if you will not come, take _my_ word for the state of
+their destitution. We have nothing so poor on the whole estate."
+
+[Illustration: 330]
+
+"It is but a moment back I was told that the spirit of resistance to our
+influence here arose from the wealthy independence of the people; now,
+I am informed it is their want and destitution suggest the opposition. I
+wish I could ascertain which of you is right."
+
+"It's little matter if our theory does not lead us to injustice," said
+Mary, boldly. "Let me only ride back to the quarries, aunt, and tell
+these poor people that they 've nothing to fear,--that there is no
+thought of withdrawing from them their labor nor its hire. Their lives
+are, God knows, not overlaid with worldly blessings; let us not add one
+drop that we can spare to their cup of sorrow."
+
+"The young leddy says na mair than the fact; they're vara poor, and they
+'re vara dangerous!"
+
+"How do you mean dangerous, sir?" asked Lady Dorothea, hastily.
+
+"There's more out o' that barony at the assizes, my Leddy, than from any
+other on the property."
+
+"Starvation and crime are near relatives all the world over," said Mary;
+"nor do I see that the way to cure the one is to increase the other."
+
+"Then let us get rid of both," said Lady Dorothea. "I don't see why we
+are to nurse pauperism either into fever or rebellion. To feed people
+that they may live to infect you, or, perhaps, shoot you, is
+sorry policy. You showed me a plan for getting rid of them,
+Henderson,--something about throwing down their filthy hovels, or
+unroofing them, or something of that kind, and then they were to
+emigrate--I forget where--to America, I believe--and become excellent
+people, hard-working and quiet. I know it all sounded plausible and
+nice; tell Miss Martin your scheme, and if it does not fulfil all you
+calculated, it will at least serve for an example on the estate."
+
+"An example!" cried Mary. "Take care, my Lady. It's a dangerous precept
+you are about to inculcate, and admits of a terrible imitation!"
+
+"Now you have decided me, Miss Martin," said Lady Dorothea, haughtily.
+
+"And, good Heavens! is it for a rash word of mine--for a burst of temper
+that I could not control--you will turn out upon the wide world a whole
+village,--the old that have grown gray there,--the infant that clings to
+its mother in her misery, and makes a home for her by its very
+dependence--"
+
+"Every one of them, sir," said Lady Dorothea, addressing herself to
+Henderson, who had asked some question in a low whisper. "They 're
+cottiers all; they require no delays of law, and I insist upon it
+peremptorily."
+
+"Not till my uncle hears of it!" exclaimed Mary, passionately. "A cruel
+wrong like this shall not be done in mad haste." And with these words,
+uttered in all the vehemence of great excitement, she rushed from the
+room in search of Martin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. A CHARACTERISTIC LETTER
+
+It may save the reader some time, and relieve him from the weary task
+of twice listening to the same story, if we steal some passages from a
+letter which, about this time, Jack Massingbred addressed to his former
+correspondent. He wrote from the inn at Oughterard, and, although still
+under the influence of the excitement of the late contest, expressed
+himself with much of his constitutional calm and frankness. We shall not
+recapitulate his narrative of the election, but proceed at once to what
+followed on that description.
+
+"I see, Harry, the dubious projection of your nether lip, I appreciate
+the slow nod of your head, and I fancy I can hear the little half-sigh
+of deprecation with which you hear all this. Worse again, I don't seek
+to defend myself. I think my case a bad one; but still I feel there is
+something to be said in mitigation. You need not trouble yourself to
+draw up an indictment: I plead guilty--entirely guilty--to all you
+can say. I _have_ broken with 'the gentlemen' to cast my lot with the
+_canaille_. Why have n't we a good wholesome word of our own for a
+home-made article? I _have_ deserted the ranks where, whatever fortune
+befell, it was honor to fight; I have given up association with
+the well-bred and the well-mannered, to rub shoulders with the
+coarse-minded, the rough-hearted, and the vulgar. There is not a
+reproach you can make me on this score that I have n't already addressed
+to myself. I feel all the indignity of my situation,--I experience
+all the insult of their companionship; but, as the lady detected in
+possession of her lover's picture pleaded in her defence that it was not
+like him, so I hope to arrest judgment against me by the honest avowal
+that I detest and despise my party. I don't talk to _you_ about their
+principles--still less do I say anything of my own--but merely advert
+here to the miserable compromise a gentleman is driven to make with
+every sentiment of his nature who once enlists under their flag. As
+Travers told us one evening--you were of the party, and must remember
+it--he was speaking of the Peninsular campaign, in which he served as
+a volunteer--'So long as you were fighting,' said he, 'it was all very
+well; the fellows were stout-hearted and full of spirit, and you felt
+that you couldn't ask for better comrades; but when the struggle was
+over--when it came to associating, living with them, hearing their
+sentiments, sharing their opinions, hopes, fears, wishes, and so
+on--then it became downright degradation!' Not, as he remarked, that
+they were one jot more vicious or more corrupt than their betters,
+but that every vice and every corruption amongst them seemed doubly
+offensive by the contact with their coarse natures. Now, my friends, the
+Liberals, are somewhat in the same category. They do their work right
+well on the field of battle; they fight, swear, slander, and perjure
+themselves just like gentlemen; or rather better of the two. They even
+come down handsomely with their cash,--the last best evidence any man
+can tender of his honesty in a cause; but then, Harry, the struggle
+over, it is sorry work to become their companion and their friend!
+Oh! if you had but seen the dinners I have eaten, and the women I have
+handed down to them!--if you could have but heard the sentiments I have
+cheered,--ay, and even uttered,--only listened to the projects we have
+discussed, and the plans matured as we sat over our whiskey-punch,--you
+'d say, 'Jack must have the ambition of the Evil One himself in his
+heart, since he pays this price for the mere glimpse of the goal before
+him!'
+
+"Throughout the whole of your last letter I can detect a sense of
+apprehension lest, 'with all my tact,' as you phrase it, these people
+are not really duping we,--using me for a present purpose, with the
+foregone resolve to get rid of me when it be accomplished. To be sure
+they are, Harry. I never doubted it for a moment. The only question is,
+which of us shall trip up the other! They desire to show the world that
+the operation of the Relief Bill will not be of that exclusive character
+its opponents proclaimed,--that a Catholic constituency would choose a
+Protestant,--even prefer one,--as Mr. O'Connell said. The opportunity
+was a good one to display this sentiment, and so they took me! Now, _my_
+notion is, that every great measure can have only one real importance,
+by throwing weight into the scale of one or other of the two great
+Parliamentary parties. Do what you will,--agitate, write, speak,
+pamphleteer, and libel,--but all resolves itself to some question of
+a harm to one side and good to the other, the country the while being
+wonderfully little the better or the worse for all the legislation.
+We used to have a Constitution in England: we have now only got a
+Parliament, and to be anything in the nation a man must make himself
+felt there! This, 'if I have the stuff in me,' as old Sherry said, I
+mean to do--_et nous verrons!_
+
+"The fatigues of this new life are very great. I 'm up before it is well
+day, writing and revising newspaper articles, answering letters, and
+replying to 'queries.' I have my whole mornings taken up in audiences of
+my constituents, swallowing pledges, and recording promises; and
+later on I go to dinner, 'with what appetite I may,' to some one of my
+faithful supporters,--some corn-chandler who spouts 'foreign politics,'
+or a grocer who ought to be Colonial Secretary! But still I 'm thankful
+for all this bustle and occupation: it averts reflection, it raises a
+barrier against thought, and muffles the clapper of that small hand-bell
+in the human heart men call their conscience! They say few men would
+have courage for either a battle or a wedding if it were not for the din
+of the trumpets and the joy-bells; and I'm convinced that noise--mere
+noise--has no small share in determining the actions of mankind!
+
+"And now, Harry, for a confession. I 'm heartily sorry for the whole of
+this business, and were it to be done again, nothing would tempt me to
+play the same part in it. I was leading the jolliest life imaginable at
+Cro' Martin. I had made the place and the people my own. It was a kind
+of existence that suited me,--sufficient of occupation, and enough of
+leisure. There were oddities to laugh at, eccentricities to quiz, an old
+lawyer to sharpen one's wits upon, and a governess--such a governess--to
+flirt with! Don't mistake me, Harry; it was not one of those
+hand-pressing, downcast-gazing, low-speaking cases in which you are such
+a proficient. It was far more like the approaches one might be supposed
+to make to a young tigress in a cage,--a creature with whom a mistake
+would be your ruin, and whom you always caressed with a sense of
+impending peril.
+
+"I told you how ably she aided me in this contest,--how she labored to
+obtain information--secret information--for me as to every voter in the
+borough. What prompted her to this course I cannot fathom. She does not
+appear to bear any grudge against the Martins,--she had been but a few
+weeks amongst them,--and is, all things considered, well treated and
+well received. As little was it any special favor towards myself.
+Indeed, on that head she will not permit me to fall into any error. I
+cannot suppose that with her foreign education and foreign habits she
+cares a jot for the small schemes and intriguings of home politics,--so
+what can it possibly mean? Help me to the solution of this riddle, and
+I 'll be more deeply your debtor than I can well say. Brought up as she
+has been,--and as I have told you in my last letter,--nothing would be
+more natural than her adoption of every prejudice of the class by whom
+she has been so singularly distinguished; and in this light I have
+always viewed her. Under the calm reserve of a most polished manner you
+can still detect a shrinking horror of all the vulgar association of
+the rank she came from. Her quiet deference, haughtier by far than the
+domination of those above her; the humility that no flatteries ever
+breached; a self-possession that never seemed so strong as when
+resisting the blandishments of praise,--these are strange gifts in a
+young girl with beauty enough to turn half the heads of half the fools
+we know of, and more than enough to make crazy that of him who writes
+this.
+
+"I tried twenty things to resist this tendency on my part. I laughed at
+myself for the absurdity it would lead to. I ridiculed to my own heart
+all the extravagance of such a project. I even wrote a paragraph for the
+'Times' announcing the marriage of Jack Massingbred with Kate Henderson,
+the only daughter of Paul Henderson, the Land Steward, and pasted it
+above my chimney to shock and outrage me. I did more. I made love to
+Miss Martin--as an alterative, as the doctors would call it--but I fell
+at a stone wall, got laughed at, and cured of my passion; and, lastly, I
+climbed that lofty tree of my family, and sat high among the branches
+of defunct barons and baronets, to get a bird's-eye view of the small
+mushrooms that grow on the earth beneath, but hang me, Harry, if the
+agarics did n't seem better company, and I was glad to get down amongst
+them again, meaning thereby to sit beside that one dear specimen of the
+class I allude to!
+
+"I see that you are curious to know how all these late events have
+modified my relations with my father, and really I cannot answer your
+inquiry. It is more than likely that my obtaining a seat in Parliament
+will embarrass rather than serve him with his party, since he will be
+expected to control a vote over which he can exert no influence.
+
+"As yet, nothing has occurred to draw us any closer, and my only
+communications to him have been certain recommendatory letters, which
+my constituents here have somewhat peremptorily demanded at my hands.
+I gave them freely, for, after all, application is an easier task than
+refusing, and besides, Harry, it is very difficult to persuade your
+election friends that you cannot be a patriot and a patron at the same
+time, and that, in the luxurious pastime of badgering a government, a
+man surrenders some of the pretensions to place. I gave them, therefore,
+all the letters they asked for; and if the Chief Secretary but answer
+one half of my appeals, Galway--or at least that small portion of it
+called Oughter-ard--will have no cause of complaint on the score of its
+claims to office.
+
+"You are, I perceive, astonished that I continue to remain here. So am
+I, Harry. The place is detestable in almost every way. I am beset with
+entreaties, persecuted with vulgar attentions, bored to death by the
+insolent familiarity of people I cannot--do all that I will--grow
+intimate with; and yet I stay on, pretexting this, that, and t' other to
+myself, and shrinking even to my own heart to avow the real reason of my
+delay!
+
+"I want once again, if only for a few moments, to see her. I want to
+try if by any ingenuity I could discover the mystery of her conduct with
+regard to myself; and I want also, if there should be the need to do
+so, to justify to her eyes many things which I have been forced by
+circumstances to do in this contest.
+
+"I have not the slightest suspicion as to how she views all that has
+occurred here. Two notes which I addressed to her, very respectful,
+businesslike epistles, have not been answered, though I entreated for a
+few words to acknowledge their receipt. The Martins, since the election,
+seem to have quarantined the whole town and neighborhood. They suffer
+none of their people to enter here. They have sent eight miles further
+off to market, and even changed the post-town for their letters. Their
+policy is, so far, shortsighted, as it has called into an exaggerated
+importance all that small fry--like the Nelligans--who have hitherto
+been crushed under the greater wealth of the rich proprietor. But I am
+again drifting into that tiresome tideway of politics which I have sworn
+to myself to avoid, if only for a few days; in pursuance of which wise
+resolve I shall betake myself to the mountains, under the pretext of
+shooting. A gun is an idler's passport, and a game-bag and a shot-pouch
+are sufficient to throw a dignity over vagabondism. You will therefore
+divine that I am not bent on snipe slaughter, but simply a good excuse
+to be alone!
+
+"I mean to go to-morrow, and shall first turn my steps towards the
+coast, which, so far as I have seen, is singularly bold and picturesque.
+If nothing occurs to alter my determination, I 'll leave this unclosed
+till I can tell you that I have come back here, which in all probability
+will be by the end of the week.
+
+"Once more here, my dear Harry, I sit down to add a few lines to this
+already over-lengthy epistle. Wishing to give you some notion of the
+scenery, I set out with all the appliances of a sketcher, and have
+really contrived to jot down some spots which, for general wildness
+and grandeur, it would be difficult to surpass within the bounds of
+our country. Nor is it alone the forms that are so striking, although
+I could show you outlines here perfectly Alpine in their fantastic
+extravagance; but the colors are finer than anything I have seen north
+of the Alps,--heaths and lichens grouped over rugged masses of rock,
+with shades of purple and gold such as no diadem ever equalled. The
+sunsets, too, were gorgeous! You remember how struck we both were at the
+moment when the dome and aisle of St. Peter's burst into light, and
+from the darkness of midnight every column and every statue became
+illuminated in a second; but a thousand times beyond this in grandeur
+of effect was the moment of the sun's decline below the horizon. The
+instant before, the great sullen sea was rolling and heaving with its
+leaden blue surface, slightly traced here and there with foam, but no
+sooner had the sun touched the horizon, than a flood of purple glory
+spread over the whole ocean, so that it became like a sea of molten gold
+and amber. The dark cliffs and rugged crags, the wave-beaten rocks, and
+the rude wild islands, darksome and dismal but a moment back, were
+now all glittering and glowing, every pinnacle and every peak in deep
+carbuncle red. How suggestive to him who would describe an
+enchanted land or region of magic splendor! and what a hint for your
+scene-painter, who, with all his devices of Bengal and blue light,
+with every trick that chemistry and optics could aid in, never fancied
+anything so splendid or so gorgeous.
+
+"I have half filled a sketch-book for you, and more than half filled my
+game-bag with mosses and ferns, and such-like gear, which, knowing your
+weakness, I have gathered, but, not understanding their virtues, may,
+for aught I know, be the commonest things in creation. I can only vouch
+for their being very beautiful, and very unlike anything else I ever
+saw before; fragments of marble, too, and specimens of Irish jasper
+and onyx, are amidst my rubbish, or my treasures, whichever you shall
+pronounce them to be.
+
+"I got through--don't fancy that the phrase denotes weariness or
+_ennui_--I got through four days in these pursuits, and then I took
+boat, and for three more I paddled about the coast, dipping in amongst
+the cliffs and creeks and caves of this wonderful coast, gathering
+shells and seaweed, and shooting curlews and eating lobsters, and, in
+fact, to all intents and purposes, suffering a 'sea change' over myself
+and my spirit as unearthlike as well may be imagined; and at last I
+bethought me of my new openiug career, and all that I ought to be doing
+in preparation of St. Stephen's, and so I turned my steps landward and
+towards 'my borough.' I like to say 'my borough;' it sounds feudal and
+insolent and old Torylike; it smacks of the day when people received
+their representative thankfully, as an alms, and your great proprietor
+created his nominee as the consul ennobled his horse!
+
+"Revolving very high thoughts, reciting Edmund Burke's grandest
+perorations, and picturing very vividly before me the stunning triumphs
+of my own eloquence in the House, I plodded along, this time at least
+wonderfully indifferent to the scenery, and totally oblivious of where
+I was, when suddenly I perceived the great trees of Cro' Martin demesne
+shadowing the road I travelled, and saw that I was actually within a
+mile or so of the Castle! You, Harry, have contrived, some way or other,
+to have had a very rose-colored existence. I never heard that you had
+been jilted by a mistress, 'cut' by a once friend, or coldly received by
+the rich relative from whom you derived all your expectations. I am not
+even aware that the horse you backed ever went wrong, or that the bill
+you endorsed for another ever came back protested. In fact, you are what
+the world loves best, cherishes most, and lavishes all its blandishments
+on,--a devilish lucky fellow! Lucky in a capital fortune, abundance of
+good gifts, good looks, and an iron constitution,--one of those natures
+that can defy duns, blue-devils, and dyspepsia! Being, therefore, all
+this, well received everywhere, good company where pheasants are to be
+shot, Burgundy to be drunk, or young ladies to be married,--for you are
+a good shot, a good wine-taster, and a good _parti_,--with such gifts, I
+say, it will be very difficult to evoke your sympathy on the score of a
+misfortune which no effort of your imagination could compass. In fact,
+to ask you to feel what I did, as I found myself walking along _outside_
+of those grounds _within_ which, but a few days back, I was the
+cherished visitor, and in sight of that smoke which denoted a hearth
+beside which I was never to sit again, and from which I was banished
+with something not very unlike disgrace! No sophistry I could summon was
+sufficient to assuage the poignancy of this sentiment. I feel certain
+that I could stand any amount of open public abuse, any known or unknown
+quantity of what is genteelly called 'slanging,' but I own to you
+that the bare thought of how my name might at that moment be mentioned
+beneath that roof, or even the very reserve that saved it from mention,
+caused me unutterable bitterness, and it was in a state of deep
+humiliation of spirit that I took the very first path that led across
+the fields and away from Cro' Martin.
+
+"They tell me that a light heart makes easy work of a day's journey.
+Take my word for it, that to get over the ground without a thought of
+the road, there's nothing like a regular knock-down affliction. I walked
+eight hours, and at a good pace, too, without so much as a few minutes'
+halt, so overwhelmed was I with sensations that would not admit of my
+remembering anything else. My first moment of consciousness--for really
+it was such--came on as I found myself breasting a steep stony ascent,
+on the brow of which stood the bleak residence of my friend Mr.
+Magennis, of Barnagheela. I have already told you of my visit to
+his house, so that I need not inflict you with any new detail of the
+locality, but I confess, little as it promised to cheer or rally the
+spirits, I was well pleased to find myself so near a roof under which I
+might take refuge. I knocked vigorously at the door, but none answered
+my summons. I repeated my demand for admittance still more loudly, and
+at last went round to the back of the house, which I found as rigidly
+barred as the front. While still hesitating what course to take, I
+spied Joan Landy--you remember the girl I spoke of in a former
+letter--ascending the hill at a brisk pace. In a moment I was beside
+her. Poor thing, she seemed overjoyed at our meeting, and warmly
+welcomed me to her house. 'Tom is away,' said she, 'in Dublin, they tell
+me, but he 'll be back in a day or two, and there 's nobody he 'd be so
+glad to see as yourself when he comes.' In the world, Harry,--that is,
+in your world and mine,--such a proposition as Joan's would have its
+share of embarrassments. Construe it how one might, there would be at
+least some awkwardness in accepting such hospitality. So I certainly
+felt it, and, as we walked along, rather turned the conversation towards
+herself, and whither she had been.
+
+"'I 'm not more than half an hour out of the house,' said she, 'for I
+only went down the boreen to show the short cut by Kell Mills to a young
+lady that was here.'
+
+"'A visitor, Mrs. Joan?'
+
+"'Yes. But to be sure you know her yourself, for you came with her the
+day she walked part of the way back with me from Cro' Martin.'
+
+"'Miss Henderson?'
+
+"'Maybe that's her name. She only told me to call her Kate.'
+
+"'Was she here alone?--did she come on foot?--which way is she gone?'
+cried I, hurrying question after question. Perhaps the tone of my last
+was most urgent, for it was to that she replied, by pointing to a
+glen between two furze-clad hills, and saying, 'That's the road she 's
+taking, till she crosses the ford at Coomavaragh.'
+
+"'And she is alone?'
+
+"'That she is; sorra a one with her, and she has five good miles before
+her.'
+
+"I never waited for more. If I did say good-bye to poor Joan, I really
+forget; but I dashed down the mountain at speed, and hurried onward in
+the direction she had pointed out. In an instant all my fatigue of the
+day was forgotten, and as I went along I remembered nothing, thought of
+nothing, but the object of my pursuit.
+
+"You who have so often bantered me on the score of my languor--that
+'elegant lassitude,' as you used to call it, which no zeal ever warmed,
+nor any ardor ever could excite--would have been somewhat astonished
+had you seen the reckless, headlong pace at which I went,--vaulting
+over gates, clearing fences, and dashing through swamps, without ever a
+moment's hesitation. Picture to yourself, then, my splashed and heated
+condition as, after a two-miles' chase in this fashion, I at length
+overtook her, just as she was in search of a safe spot to ford the
+river. Startled by the noise behind her, she turned suddenly round, and
+in an instant we stood face to face. I 'd have given much to have seen
+some show of confusion, even embarrassment in her looks, but there was
+not the slightest. No, Harry, had we met in a drawing-room, her manner
+could not have been more composed, as she said,--'Good-morning, Mr.
+Massingbred. Have you had much sport?' 'My chase was after _you_, Miss
+Henderson,' said I, hurriedly. 'I just reached Barnagheela as Mistress
+Joan returned, and having learned which road you took, followed you in
+all haste.'
+
+"'Indeed!' exclaimed she, and in a voice wherein there were blended a
+vast variety of meanings.
+
+"'Yes,' I resumed, 'for an opportunity of meeting you alone--of speaking
+with you even for a few moments--I have delayed my departure this week
+back. I wrote to you twice.'
+
+"'Yes; I got your letters.'
+
+"'But did not deign to answer them.'
+
+"' I did not write to you, because, situated as _I_ was, and regarded as
+_you_ were at Cro' Martin, there would have been a species of treason
+in maintaining anything like correspondence, just as I feel there is
+somewhat akin to it in our intercourse at this moment.'
+
+"'And have the events occurring lately changed _your_ feeling with
+regard to me?' asked I, half reproachfully.
+
+"'I don't exactly know to what former condition you refer, Mr.
+Massingbred,' said she, calmly. 'If to the counsels which you were
+gracious enough to receive at hands humble and inexperienced as
+mine, they were given, as you remember, when you were the chosen
+representative of the family at Cro' Martin, and continued only so long
+as you remained such.'
+
+"'Then I have deceived myself, Miss Henderson,' broke I in. 'I had
+fancied that there was a personal good-will in the aid you tendered me.
+I even flattered myself that I owed my success entirely and solely to
+your efforts.'
+
+"'You are jesting, Mr. Massingbred,' said she, with a saucy smile; 'no
+one better than yourself knows how to rely upon his own abilities.'
+
+"'At least, confess that it was you who first suggested to me that they
+were worth cultivating; that it was _you_ who pointed out a road to
+me in life, and even promised me your friendship as the price of my
+worthily adopting it!'
+
+"'I remember the conversation you allude to. It was on this very road it
+occurred.'
+
+"'Well, and have I done anything as yet to forfeit the reward you spoke
+of?'
+
+"'All this is beside the real question, Mr. Massingbred,' said she,
+hurriedly. 'What you are really curious to learn is, why it is that I,
+being such as I am, should have displayed so much zeal in a cause which
+could not but have been opposed to the interests of those who are my
+patrons. That you have not divined the reason is a proof to me that I
+could not make you understand it. I don't want to talk riddles,--enough
+that I say it was a caprice.'
+
+"'And yet you talked seriously, persuasively to me, of my future road
+in life; you made me think that you saw in me the qualities that win
+success.'
+
+"'You have a wonderful memory for trifles, sir, since you can recall so
+readily what I said to you.'
+
+"'But it was not a trifle to me,' said I.
+
+"'Perhaps not, Mr. Massingbred, since it referred to yourself. I don't
+mean this for impertinence!'
+
+"'I am glad that you say so!' cried I, eagerly. 'I am but too happy
+to catch at anything which may tend to convince me that you would not
+willingly hurt my feelings.'
+
+"For several minutes neither of us uttered a word; at last I said,
+'Should I be asking too much, if I begged Miss Henderson to tell me
+whether she is dissatisfied with anything I may have done in this
+contest? There may be matters in which I have been misrepresented;
+others of which I could make some explanation.'
+
+"'Are you quite satisfied with it yourself, sir?' said she, interrupting
+me.
+
+"'No,' said I; 'so little am I so, that were it all to do over again, I
+'d not embark in it. The whole affair, from beginning to end, is a false
+position.'
+
+"'Ignoble associates--low companionships--very underbred acquaintances,'
+said she, in a tone of scorn that seemed far more directed at _me_ than
+the others. I believe I showed how I felt it. I know that my cheek was
+on fire for some seconds after.
+
+"'The Martins, I take it, are outrageous with me?' said I, at last.
+
+"'They never speak of you!' was the reply.
+
+"'Not my Lady?'
+
+"'No!'
+
+"'Nor even Repton?'
+
+"'Not once.'
+
+"'That, at least, is more dignified; and if any accident should bring us
+together in county business--'
+
+"'Which is not likely.'
+
+"'How so?' asked I.
+
+"'They are going away soon.'
+
+"'Going away--to leave Cro' Martin--and for any time?'
+
+"'My Lady speaks of the Continent, and that, of course, implies a long
+absence.'
+
+"'And has this miserable election squabble led to this resolve? Is the
+neighborhood to be deprived of its chief ornament--the people of their
+best friend--just for the sake of a petty party triumph?'
+
+"'It is fortunate Mr. Massingbred's constituents cannot hear him,' said
+she, laughing.
+
+"'But be serious, and tell me how far am I the cause of all this.'
+
+"'The whole cause of it,--at least, so far as present events can
+reveal.'
+
+"'How they must abhor me!' said I, half involuntarily.
+
+"'_Avec les circonstances att�nuantes_,' said she, smiling again.
+
+"'How so?--what do you mean?'
+
+"'Why, that my Lady is thankful at heart for a good excuse to get
+away,--such a pretext as Mr. Martin himself cannot oppose. Repton,
+the Grand Vizier, counsels economy, and, like all untravelled people,
+fancies France and Italy cheap to live in; and Miss Mary is, perhaps,
+not sorry with the prospect of the uncontrolled management of the whole
+estate.'
+
+"'And is she to live here alone?'
+
+"'Yes; she is to be sole mistress of Cro' Martin, and without even a
+governess, since Miss Henderson is to accompany her Ladyship as private
+secretary, minister of the household, and, in fact, any other capacity
+you may please in flattery to assign her. And now, Mr. Massingbred,
+that I have, not over-discreetly, perhaps, adventured to talk of family
+arrangements to a stranger, will you frankly ac-knowledge that your
+pride, or self-love, or any other quality of the same nature, is rather
+gratified than otherwise at all the disturbance you have caused here?
+Don't you really feel pleased to think that you have revolutionized a
+little neighborhood, broken up a society, severed the ties that bound
+proprietor and peasant, and, in fact, made a very pretty chaos, out of
+which may come anything or everything?'
+
+"'When you address such a question as this to me, you don't expect an
+answer. Indeed, the query itself is its own reply,' said I.
+
+"'Well said, sir, and with consummate temper, too. Certainly, Mr.
+Massingbred, you possess one great element of success in public life.'
+
+"'Which is--'
+
+"'To bear with equanimity and cool forbearance the impertinences of
+those you feel to be your inferiors.'
+
+"'But it is not in this light I regard Miss Henderson, be assured,' said
+I, with earnestness; 'and if I have not replied to her taunts, it is not
+because I have not felt them.'
+
+"I thought I detected a very faint flush on her cheek as I said this,
+and certainly her features assumed a more serious expression than
+before.
+
+"'Will you let me speak to you of what is far nearer my heart?' said I,
+in a low voice,--'far nearer than all this strife and war of politics?
+And will you deign to believe that what I say is prompted by whatever I
+know in myself of good or hopeful?'
+
+"'Say on,--that is, if I ought to hear it,' said she, coldly.
+
+"Deterred a second or two by her manner, I rallied quickly, and with an
+ardor of which I cannot convey an impression, much less explain,--one
+of those moments of rhapsody, _you 'd_ call it,--poured forth a warm
+declaration of love. Aye, Harry, sincere, devoted love!--a passion
+which, in mastering all the common promptings of mere worldly advantage
+and self-interest, had really inspired me with noble thoughts and high
+aspirations.
+
+"A judge never listened to a pleading with more dignified patience than
+she did to my appeal. She even waited when I had concluded, as it were
+to allow of my continuing, had I been so minded; when, seeing that I had
+closed my argument, she quietly turned about, and facing the road we
+had just been travelling, pointed to the bleak, bare mountain on which
+Barnagheela stood. 'It was yonder, then, that you caught up this lesson,
+sir. The admirable success of Mr. Magennis's experiment has seduced
+you!'
+
+"'Good heavens! Kate,' cried I--
+
+"'Sir,' said she, drawing herself proudly up, 'you are continuing the
+parallel too far.'
+
+"'But Miss Henderson cannot for a moment believe--'
+
+"'I can believe a great deal, sir, of what even Mr. Massingbred would
+class with the incredible; but, sir, there are certain situations in
+life which exact deference, from the very fact of their humility. Mine
+is one of these, and I am aware of it.'
+
+"'Will you not understand me aright?' cried I, eagerly. 'In offering to
+share my fortune in life with you--'
+
+"'Pray, sir, let this stop here. Poor Joan, I have no doubt, felt all
+the grandeur of _her_ elevation, and was grateful even in her misery.
+But _I_ should not do so. I am one of those who think that the cruellest
+share in a _m�salliance_ is that of the humbler victim. To brave such
+a fate, there should be all the hopeful, sanguine sense of strong
+affection; and, as a reserve to fall back on in reverses, there should
+be an intense conviction of the superiority over others of him from whom
+we accept our inferiority. Now, in my case, these two conditions are
+wanting. I know you like frankness, and I am frank.'
+
+"'Even to cruelty,' said I.
+
+"'We are very near Cro' Martin, sir, and I think we ought to part,' said
+she, calmly.
+
+"'And is it thus you would have us separate? Have I nothing to hope from
+time,--from the changes that may come over your opinions of me?'
+
+"'Calculate rather on the alterations in your own sentiments, Mr.
+Massingbred; and perhaps the day is not very distant when you will laugh
+heartily at yourself for the folly of this same morning,--a folly which
+might have cost you dearly, sir, for I might have said, Yes.'
+
+"'Would that you had!'
+
+"'Good-bye, sir,' said she, not noticing my interruption, 'and remember
+that, if I should ever need it, I have a strong claim on your gratitude.
+Good-bye!'
+
+"She did not give me her hand at parting, but waved it coldly towards me
+as she went. And so she passed the little wicket, and entered the
+dark woods of the demesne, leaving me in a state wherein the sense of
+bewilderment alone prevailed over all else.
+
+"I have given you this narrative, Harry, as nearly as I can remember,
+every step of it; but I do not ask you to understand it better than
+I do, which means, not at all! Nor will I worry you with the
+thousand-and-one attempts I have made to explain to myself what I still
+confess to be inexplicable. I mean to leave this at once. Would that I
+had never come here! Write to me soon; but no bantering, Harry. Not even
+my friendship for _you_--oldest and best of all my friends--could stand
+any levity on this theme. This girl knows me thoroughly, since she
+comprehends that there is no so certain way to engage my affections as
+to defy them!
+
+"Write to me, I entreat. Address me at my father's, where I shall be,
+probably, within a week. Were I to read over what I have just written,
+the chances are I should burn the letter; and so, _sans adieu_,
+
+"Yours ever,
+
+"Jack Massingbred."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. THREE COACHES AND THEIR COMPANY
+
+Three large and stately travelling-carriages, heavily laden, and
+surrounded with all the appliances for comfort possible, rolled from
+under the arched gateway of Cro' Martin. One eager and anxious face
+turned hastily to catch a last look at the place he was leaving, and
+then as hastily concealing his emotion with his handkerchief, Mr. Martin
+sat back in the carriage in silence.
+
+"Twenty minutes after eight!" exclaimed Lady Dorothea, looking at her
+watch. "It is always the case; one never can get away in time."
+
+Rousted by the speech, Martin started, and turned again to the window.
+
+"How handsome those larches are!" cried he; "it seems but yesterday that
+I planted them, and they are magnificent trees now."
+
+Her Ladyship made no reply, and he went on, half as though speaking to
+himself: "The place is in great beauty just now. I don't think I ever
+saw it looking so well. Shall I ever see it again?" muttered he, in a
+still lower tone.
+
+"I really cannot think it ought to break your heart, Mr. Martin, if I
+were to say 'No' to that question," said she, testily.
+
+"No--no!" exclaimed he, repeating the word after her; "not come back
+here!"
+
+"There is nothing to prevent us if we should feel disposed to do
+so," replied she, calmly. "I only observed that one could face the
+alternative with a good courage. The twenty years we have passed in
+this spot are represented to _your_ mind by more leafy trees and better
+timber. To _me_ they are written in the dreary memory of a joyless,
+weary existence. I detest the place," cried she, passionately, "and
+for nothing more, that even on leaving it my spirits are too jaded and
+broken to feel the happiness that they ought."
+
+Martin sighed heavily, but did not utter a word.
+
+"So it is," resumed she; "one ever takes these resolutions too late.
+What we are doing now should have been done sixteen or eighteen years
+ago."
+
+"Or not at all," muttered Martin, but in a voice not meant to be
+overheard.
+
+"I don't think so, sir," cried she, catching up his words; "if only
+as our protest against the insolence and ingratitude of this
+neighborhood,--of these creatures who have actually been maintained by
+us! It was high time to show them their real condition, and to what they
+will be reduced when the influence of our position is withdrawn."
+
+"If it were only for _that_ we are going away--" And he stopped himself
+as he got thus far.
+
+"In itself a good and sufficient reason, sir; but I trust there are
+others also. I should hope that we have paid our debt to patriotism, and
+that a family who have endured twenty years of banishment may return,
+if only to take a passing glance at the world of civilization and
+refinement."
+
+"And poor Mary!" exclaimed Martin, with deep feeling.
+
+"Your niece might have come with us if she pleased, Mr. Martin. To
+remain here was entirely her own choice; not that I am at all disposed
+to think that her resolution was not a wise one. Miss Mary Martin
+feels very naturally her utter deficiency in all the graces and
+accomplishments which should pertain to her condition. She appreciates
+her unfitness for society, and selects--as I think, with commendable
+discretion--a sphere much better adapted to her habits."
+
+Martin again sighed heavily.
+
+"To leave any other girl under such circumstances would have been highly
+improper," resumed her Ladyship; "but she is really suited to this kind
+of life, and perfectly unfit for any other, and I have no doubt she and
+Catty Broon will be excellent company for each other."
+
+"Catty loves her with all her heart," muttered Martin.
+
+And her Ladyship's lip curled in silent derision at the thought of such
+affection. "And, after all," said he, half involuntarily, "our absence
+will be less felt so long as Molly stays behind."
+
+"If you mean by that, Mr. Martin, that the same system of wasteful
+expenditure is still to continue,--this universal employment scheme,--I
+can only say I distinctly and flatly declare against it. Even Rep
+ton--and I 'm sure he 's no ally of mine--agrees with me in pronouncing
+it perfectly ruinous."
+
+"There's no doubt of the cost of it," said Martin, gravely.
+
+"Well, sir, and what other consideration should weigh with us?--I mean,"
+added she, hastily, "what should have the same weight? The immaculate
+authority I have just quoted has limited our personal expenditure for
+next year to five thousand pounds, and threatens us with even less in
+future if the establishment at Cro' Martin cannot be reduced below its
+present standard; but I would be curious to know why there is such a
+thing as an establishment at Cro' Martin?"
+
+"Properly speaking, there is none," said Martin. "Rep-ton alludes only
+to the workpeople,--to those employed on the grounds and the gardens. We
+cannot let the place go to ruin."
+
+"There is certainly no necessity for pineries and forcing-houses. Your
+niece is not likely to want grapes in January, or camellias in the early
+autumn. As little does she need sixteen carriage-horses and a stable
+full of hunters."
+
+"They are to be sold off next week. Mary herself said that she only
+wanted two saddle-horses and the pony for the phaeton."
+
+"Quite sufficient, I should say, for a young lady."
+
+"I 'm sure she 'd have liked to have kept the harriers--"
+
+"A pack of hounds! I really never heard the like!"
+
+"Poor Molly! It was her greatest pleasure,--I may say her only amusement
+in life. But she would n't hear of keeping them; and when Repton tried
+to persuade her--"
+
+"Repton's an old fool,--he's worse; he's downright dishonest,--for he
+actually proposed my paying my maids out of my miserable pittance
+of eight hundred a year, and at the same moment suggests your niece
+retaining a pack of foxhounds!"
+
+"Harriers, my Lady."
+
+"I don't care what they 're called. It is too insolent."
+
+"You may rely upon one thing," said Martin, with more firmness than
+he had hitherto used, "there will be nothing of extravagance in Mary's
+personal expenditure. If ever there was a girl indifferent to all the
+claims of self, she is that one."
+
+"If we continue this discussion, sir, at our present rate, I opine that
+by the time we reach Dublin your niece will have become an angel."
+
+Martin dropped his head, and was silent; and although her Ladyship made
+two or three other efforts to revive the argument, he seemed resolved
+to decline the challenge, and so they rolled along the road sullen and
+uncommunicative.
+
+In the second carriage were Repton and Kate Henderson,--an arrangement
+which the old lawyer flatteringly believed he owed to his cunning and
+address, but which in reality was ordained by Lady Dorothea, whose
+notions of rank and precedence were rigid. Although Repton's greatest
+tact lay in his detection of character, he felt that he could not
+satisfactorily affirm he had mastered the difficulty in the present
+case. She was not exactly like anything he had met before; her mode of
+thought, and even some of her expressions were so different that the
+old lawyer owned to himself, "It was like examining a witness through an
+interpreter."
+
+A clever talker--your man of conversational success--is rarely patient
+under the failure of his powers, and, not very unreasonably perhaps,
+very ready to ascribe the ill-success to the defects of his hearer. They
+had not proceeded more than half of the first post ere Repton began to
+feel the incipient symptoms of this discontent.
+
+She evidently had no appreciation for bar anecdote and judicial wit;
+she took little interest in political events, and knew nothing of the
+country or its people. He tried the subject of foreign travel, but his
+own solitary trip to Paris and Brussels afforded but a meagre experience
+of continental life, and he was shrewd enough not to swim a yard out of
+his depth. "She must have her weak point, if I could but discover it,"
+said he to himself. "It is not personal vanity, that I see. She does not
+want to be thought clever, nor even eccentric, which is the governess
+failing _par excellence_. What then can it be?" With all his ingenuity
+he could not discover. She would talk, and talk well, on any theme
+he started, but always like one who maintained conversation through
+politeness and not interest; and this very feature it was which piqued
+the old man's vanity, and irritated his self-love.
+
+When he spoke, she replied, and always with a sufficient semblance of
+interest; but if he were silent, she never opened her lips.
+
+"And so," said he, after a longer pause than usual, "you tell me that
+you really care little or nothing whither Fortune may be now conducting
+you."
+
+"To one in my station it really matters very little," said she, calmly.
+"I don't suppose that the post-horses there have any strong preference
+for one road above another, if they be both equally level and smooth."
+
+"There lies the very question," said he; "for you now admit that there
+may be a difference."
+
+"I have never found in reality," said she, "that these differences were
+appreciable."
+
+"How is it that one so young should be so--so philosophic?" said he,
+after a hesitation.
+
+"Had you asked me that question in French, Mr. Repton, the language
+would have come so pleasantly to your aid, and spared you the
+awkwardness of employing a grand phrase for a small quality; but my
+'philosophy' is simply this: that, to fill a station whose casualties
+range from courtesies in the drawing-room to slights from the servants'
+hall, one must arm themselves with very defensive armor as much, nay
+more, against flattery than against sarcasm. If, in the course of time,
+this habit render one ungenial and uncompanionable, pray be lenient
+enough to ascribe the fault to the condition as much as to the
+individual."
+
+"But, to be candid, I only recognize in you qualities the very opposite
+of all these; and if I am to confess a smart at this moment, it is in
+feeling that I am not the man to elicit them."
+
+"There you do me wrong. I should be very proud to captivate Mr. Repton."
+
+"Now we are on the good road at last!" said he, gayly; "for Mr. Repton
+is dying to be captivated."
+
+"The fortress that is only anxious to surrender offers no great glory to
+the conqueror," replied she.
+
+"By Jove! I 'm glad you 're not at the bar."
+
+"If I had been, I could never have shown the same forbearance as Mr.
+Repton."
+
+"How so? What do you mean?"
+
+"I never could have refused a silk gown, sir; and they tell me you have
+done so!"
+
+"Ah! they told you that," said he, coloring with pleasurable pride.
+"Well, it's quite true. The fact is correct, but I don't know what
+explanation they have given of it!"
+
+"There was none, sir,--or, at least, none that deserved the name."
+
+"Then what was your own reading of it?" asked he.
+
+"Simply this, sir: that a proud man may very well serve in the ranks,
+but spurn the grade of a petty officer."
+
+"By Jove; it is strange to find that a young lady should understand
+one's motives better than an old Minister," said he, with an evident
+satisfaction.
+
+"It would be unjust, sir, were I to arrogate any credit to my own
+perspicuity in this case," said she, hastily; "for I was aided in my
+judgment by what, very probably, never came under the Minister's eyes."
+
+"And what was that?"
+
+"A little volume which I discovered one day in the library, entitled
+'Days of the Historical Society of Trinity College,' wherein I found Mr.
+Repton's name not only one of the first in debate, but the very first in
+enunciating the great truths of political liberty. In fact, I might go
+further, and say, the only one who had the courage to proclaim the great
+principles of the French Revolution."
+
+"Ah,--yes. I was a boy,--a mere boy,--very rash,--full of hope,--full of
+enthusiasm," said Repton, with an embarrassment that increased at every
+word. "We all took fire from the great blaze beside us just then; but,
+my dear young lady, the flame has died out,--very fortunately, too; for
+if it had n't, it would have burned us up with it. We were wrong,--wrong
+with Burke, to be sure,--_Errare Platone_, as one may say,--but still
+wrong."
+
+"You were wrong, sir, in confounding casualties with true consequences;
+wrong as a physician would be who abandoned his treatment from mistaking
+the symptoms of disease for the effects of medicine. You set out by
+declaring there was a terrible malady to be treated, and you shrink back
+affrighted at the first results of your remedies; you did worse; you
+accommodated your change of principles to party, and from the great
+champions of liberty you descended to be--modern Whigs!"
+
+"Why, what have we here? A Girondist, I verily believe!" said Repton,
+looking in her face with a smile of mingled surprise and amazement.
+
+"I don't much care for the name you may give me; but I am one who thinks
+that the work of the French Revolution is sure of its accomplishment.
+We shall very probably not do the thing in the same way, but it will be
+done, nevertheless; for an Act of Parliament, though not so speedy, will
+be as effectual as a 'Noyade,' and a Reforming Administration will work
+as cleanly as a Constituent!"
+
+"But see; look at France at this moment. Is not society reconstituted
+pretty near to the old models? What evidence is there that the prestige
+of rank has suffered from the shock of revolution?"
+
+"The best evidence. Nobody believes in it,--not one. Society is
+reconstituted just as a child constructs a card-house to see how high he
+can carry the frail edifice before it tumbles. The people--the true
+people of the Continent--look at the pageantry of a court and a nobility
+just as they do on a stage procession, and criticise it in the same
+spirit. They endure it so long as their indolence or their caprice
+permit, and then, some fine morning, they 'll dash down the whole
+edifice; and be assured that the fragments of the broken toy will never
+suggest the sentiment to repair it."
+
+"You are a Democrat of the first water!" exclaimed Repton, in half
+amazement.
+
+"I am simply for the assertion of the truth everywhere and in
+everything,--in religion and in politics, as in art and literature. If
+the people be the source of power, don't divert the stream into another
+channel; and, above all, don't insist that it should run up-hill! Come
+abroad, Mr. Repton,--just come over with us to Paris,--and see if what
+I am telling you be so far from the fact. You 'll find, too, that it
+is not merely the low-born, the ignoble, and the poor who profess these
+opinions, but the great, the titled, and the wealthy men of fourteen
+quarterings and ancient lineage; and who, sick to death of a contest
+with a rich bourgeoisie, would rather start fair in the race again, and
+win whatever place their prowess or their capacity might giye them. You
+'ll hear very good socialism from the lips of dukes and princesses who
+swear by Fourier."
+
+Repton stared at her in silence, not more amazed at the words he heard
+than at the manner and air of her who spoke them; for she had gradually
+assumed a degree of earnestness and energy which imparted to her
+features a character of boldness and determination such as he had not
+seen in them before..
+
+"Yes," resumed she, as though following out her own thoughts, "it is
+your new creations, your ennobled banker, your starred and cordoned
+agitator of the Bourse, who now defends his order, and stands up for the
+divine right of misrule! The truly noble have other sentiments!"
+
+"There 's nothing surprises me so much," said Repton, at last, "as
+to hear these sentiments from one who has lived surrounded by all the
+blandishments of a condition that owes its existence to an aristocracy,
+and never could have arisen without one,--who has lived that delightful
+life of refined leisure and elevating enjoyment, such as forms the
+atmosphere of only one class throughout the whole world. How would you
+bear to exchange this for the chaotic struggle that you point at?"
+
+"As for me, sir, I only saw the procession from the window. I may,
+perhaps, walk in it when I descend to the street; but really," added
+she, laughing, "this is wandering very far out of the record. I had
+promised myself to captivate Mr. Repton, and here I am, striving to
+array every feeling of his heart and every prejudice of his mind against
+me."
+
+"It is something like five-and-fifty years since I last heard such
+sentiments as you have just uttered," said Repton, gravely. "I was young
+and ardent,--full of that hopefulness in mankind which is, after
+all, the life-blood of Republicanism; and here I am now, an old,
+time-hardened lawyer, with very little faith in any one. How do you
+suppose that such opinions can chime in with all I have witnessed in the
+interval?"
+
+"Come over to Paris, sir," was her reply.
+
+"And I would ask nothing better," rejoined he. "Did I ever tell you of
+what Harry Parsons said to Macnatty when he purposed visiting France,
+after the peace of '15? 'Now is the time to see the French capital,'
+said Mac. 'I 'll put a guinea in one pocket and a shirt in the other,
+and start to-morrow.' 'Ay, sir,' said Parsons, 'and never change either
+till you come back again!'"
+
+Once back in his accustomed field, the old lawyer went along recounting
+story after story, every name seeming to suggest its own anecdote. Nor
+was Kate, now, an ungenerous listener; on the contrary, she relished his
+stores of wit and repartee. Thus they, too, went on their journey!
+
+The third carriage contained Madame Hortense, Lady Dorothea's French
+maid; Mrs. Runt, an inferior dignitary of the toilet; and Mark Peddar,
+Mr. Martin's "gentleman,"--a party which, we are forced to own, seemed
+to combine more elements of sociality than were gathered together in the
+vehicles that preceded them. To _their_ share there were no regrets for
+leaving home,--no sorrow at quitting a spot endeared to them by long
+association. The sentiment was one of unalloyed satisfaction. They were
+escaping from the gloom of a long exile, and about to issue forth into
+that world which they longed for as eagerly as their betters. And why
+should they not? Are not all its pleasures, all its associations
+more essentially adapted to such natures; and has solitude one single
+compensation for all its depression to such as these?
+
+"Our noble selves," said Mr. Peddar, filling the ladies' glasses, and
+then his own; for a very appetizing luncheon was there spread out before
+them, and four bottles of long-necked gracefulness rose from amidst the
+crystal ruins of a well-filled ice-pail. "Mam'selle, it is your favorite
+tipple, and deliciously cool."
+
+"Perfection," replied mademoiselle, with a foreign accent, for she had
+been long in England; "and I never enjoyed it more. _Au revoir_,"
+added she, waving her hand towards the tall towers of Cro' Martin, just
+visible above the trees,--"_Au revoir!_"
+
+"Just so,--till I see you again," said Mrs. Runt; "and I 'm sure I
+'ll take good care that day won't come soon. It seems like a terrible
+nightmare when I think of the eight long years I passed there."
+
+"_Et moi_, twelve! Miladi engage me, so to say, _provisoirement_, to
+come to Ireland, but with a promise of travel abroad; that we live in
+Paris, Rome, Naples,--_que sais-je?_ I accept,--I arrive,--_et me
+voici!_" And mademoiselle threw back her veil, the better to direct
+attention to the ravages time and exile had made upon her charms.
+
+"Hard lines, ma'am," said Peddar, whose sympathy must not be accused
+of an _equivoque_; "and here am I, that left the best single-handed
+situation in all England,--Sir Augustus Hawleigh's,--a young fellow
+just of age, and that never knew what money was, to come down here at
+a salary positively little better than a country curate's, and live the
+life of--of--what shall I say?--"
+
+"No, the leg, if you please, Mr. Peddar; no more wine. Well, just one
+glass, to drink a hearty farewell to the old house."
+
+"I 'm sure I wish Mary joy of her residence there," said Peddar,
+adjusting his cravat; "she is a devilish fine girl, and might do better,
+though."
+
+"She has no ambitions,--no what you call them?--no aspirations for _le
+grand monde_; so perhaps she has reason to stay where she is."
+
+"But with a young fellow of _ton_ and fashion, mam'selle,--a fellow
+who has seen life,--to guide and bring her out, trust me, there are
+excellent capabilities in that girl." And as Mr. Peddar enunciated the
+sentiment, his hands ran carelessly through his hair, and performed a
+kind of impromptu toilet.
+
+"She do dress herself _bien mal_."
+
+"Disgracefully so," chimed in Mrs. Runt "I believe, whenever she bought
+a gown, her first thought was what it should turn into when she 'd done
+with it."
+
+"I thought that la Henderson might have taught her something," said
+Peddar, affectedly.
+
+"_Au contraire_,--she like to make the contrast more strong; she always
+seek to make say, '_Regardez_, mademoiselle, see what a _tournure_ is
+there!'"
+
+"Do you think her handsome, Mr. Peddar?" asked Mrs. Runt.
+
+"Handsome, yes; but not _my_ style,--not one of what _I_ call _my_
+women; too much of this kind of thing, eh?" And he drew his head back,
+and threw into his features an expression of exaggerated scorn.
+
+"Just so. Downright impudent, I'd call it."
+
+"Not even that," said Mr. Peddar, pondering; "haughty, rather,--a kind
+of don't-think-to-come-it-on-me style of look, eh?"
+
+"Not at all amiable,--_point de cela,_" exclaimed mam'selle; "but still,
+I will say, _tr�s bon genre_. You see at a glance that she has seen _la
+bonne soci�t�._"
+
+"Which, after all, is the same all the world over," said Peddar,
+dogmatically. "At Vienna we just saw the same people we used to have
+with us in London; at Rome, the same; so, too, at Naples. I assure you
+that the last time I dined at Dolgorouki's, I proposed going in the
+evening to the Haymarket. I quite forgot we were on the Neva. And when
+Prince Gladuatoffski's gentleman said, 'Where shall I set you down?'
+I answered carelessly, 'At my chambers in the Albany, or anywhere your
+Highness likes near that.' Such is life!" exclaimed he, draining the
+last of the champagne into his glass.
+
+"The place will be pretty dull without us, I fancy," said Mrs. Runt,
+looking out at the distant landscape.
+
+"That horrid old Mother Broon won't say so," said Peddar, laughing. "By
+Jove! if it was only to escape that detestable hag, it 's worth while
+getting away."
+
+"I offer her my hand when I descend the steps, but she refuse
+_froidement_, and say, 'I wish you as much pleasure as you leave behind
+you.' _Pas mal_ for such a _creature_."
+
+"I did n't even notice her," said Mrs. Runt.
+
+"_Ma foi!_ I was good with all the world; I was in such Joy--such
+spirits--that I forgave all and everything. I felt _nous sommes en
+route_, and Paris--dear Paris--before us."
+
+"My own sentiments to, a T," said Mr. Peddar. "Let me live on the
+Boulevards, have my cab, my stall at the Opera, two Naps, per diem
+for my dinner, and I'd not accept Mary Martin's hand if she owned Cro'
+Martin, and obliged me to live in it."
+
+The speech was fully and warmly acknowledged, other subjects were
+started, and so they travelled the same road as their betters, and
+perhaps with lighter hearts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV. COUNTRY AUCTION
+
+With feelings akin to those with which the populace of a revolted city
+invade the once sacred edifice of the deposed Prince, the whole town and
+neighborhood of Oughterard now poured into the demesne of Cro' Martin,
+wandered through the grounds, explored the gardens, and filled the
+house. An immense advertisement in the local papers had announced a
+general sale of horses and carriages, farming stock, and agricultural
+implements; cattle of choice breeding, sheep of fabulous facilities
+for fat, and cows of every imaginable productiveness, were there, with
+draft-horses like dwarf elephants, and bulls that would have puzzled a
+matador.
+
+The haughty state in which the Martins habitually lived, the wide
+distance by which they separated themselves from the neighborhood
+around, had imparted to Cro' Martin a kind of dreamy splendor in the
+country, exalting even its well-merited claims to admiration. Some had
+seen the grounds, a few had by rare accident visited the gardens, but
+the house and the stables were still unexplored territories, of whose
+magnificence each spoke without a fear of contradiction.
+
+Country neighborhoods are rarely rich in events, and of these, few can
+rival a great auction. It is not alone in the interests of barter and
+gain thus suggested, but in the thousand new channels for thought thus
+suddenly opened,--the altered fortunes of him whose effects have come
+to the hammer; his death, or his banishment,--both so much alike.
+The visitor wanders amidst objects which have occupied years in
+collection,--some the results of considerable research and difficulty,
+some the long-coveted acquisitions of half a lifetime, and some--we have
+known such--the fond gifts of friendship. There they are now side by
+side in the catalogue, their private histories no more suspected than
+those of them who lie grass-covered in the churchyard. You admire that
+highly bred hunter in all the beauty of his symmetry and his strength,
+but you never think of the "little Shelty" in the next stable with
+shaggy mane and flowing tail; and yet it was on _him_ the young heir
+used to ride; _he_ was the cherished animal of all the stud, led in
+beside the breakfast-table to be caressed and petted, fed with sugar
+from fair fingers, and patted by hands a Prince might have knelt to
+kiss! His rider now sleeps beneath the marble slab in the old aisle, and
+they who once brightened in smiles at the sound of his tiny trot would
+burst into tears did they behold that pony!
+
+So, amidst the triumphs of color and design that grace the walls, you
+have no eyes for a little sketch in water-color,--a mill, a shealing
+beside a glassy brook, a few trees, and a moss-clad rock; and yet that
+little drawing reveals a sad story. It is all that remains of her who
+went abroad to die. You throw yourself in listless lassitude upon a
+couch; it was the work of one who beguiled over it the last hours of a
+broken heart! You turn your steps to the conservatory, but never notice
+the little flower-garden, whose narrow walks, designed for tiny feet,
+need not the little spade to tell of the child-gardener who tilled it.
+
+Ay, this selling-off is a sad process! It bespeaks the disruption of a
+home; the scattering of those who once sat around the same hearth, with
+all the dear familiar things about them!
+
+It was a bright spring morning--one of those breezy, cloud-flitting
+days, with flashes of gay sunlight alternating with broad shadows, and
+giving in the tamest landscape every effect the painter's art could
+summon--that a long procession, consisting of all imaginable vehicles,
+with many on horseback intermixed, wound their way beneath the grand
+entrance and through the park of Cro' Martin. Such an opportunity of
+gratifying long pent-up curiosity had never before offered; since, even
+when death itself visited the mansion, the habits of exclusion were not
+relaxed, but the Martins went to their graves in the solemn state of
+their households alone, and were buried in a little chapel within the
+grounds, the faint tolling of the bell alone announcing to the world
+without that one of a proud house had departed.
+
+The pace of the carriages was slow as they moved along, their occupants
+preferring to linger in a scene from which they had been hitherto
+excluded, struck by the unexpected beauty of the spot, and wondering at
+all the devices by which it was adorned. A few--a very few--had seen the
+place in boyhood, and were puzzling themselves to recall this and that
+memory; but all agreed in pronouncing that the demesne was far finer,
+the timber better grown, and the fields more highly cultivated than
+anything they had ever before seen.
+
+"I call this the finest place in Ireland, Dan!" said Captain Bodkin, as
+he rode beside Nelligan's car, halting every now and then to look around
+him. "There's everything can make a demesne beautiful,--wood, water, and
+mountain!"
+
+"And, better than all, a fine system of farming," broke in Nelligan.
+"That's the best field of 'swedes' I ever beheld!"
+
+"And to think that a man would leave this to go live abroad in a dirty
+town in France!" exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, from the opposite side of the
+car. "That's perverseness indeed!"
+
+"Them there is all Swiss cows!" said Mr. Clinch, in an humble tone.
+
+"Not one of them, Clinch! they're Alderneys. The Swiss farm, as they
+call it, is all on the other side, with the ornamented cottage."
+
+"Dear! dear! there was no end to their waste and extravagance!" muttered
+Mrs. Nelligan.
+
+"Wait till you see the house, ma'am, and you 'll say so, indeed," said
+the Captain.
+
+"I don't think we 're likely!" observed Nelligan, dryly.
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Just that Scanlan told Father Mather the auction would be held in the
+stables; for as there was none of the furniture to be sold, the house
+would n't be opened."
+
+"That's a great disappointment!" exclaimed Bodkin. A sentiment fully
+concurred in by the ladies, who both declared that they'd never have,
+come so far only to look at pigs and "shorthorns."
+
+"Maybe we 'll get a peep at the gardens," said Bodkin, endeavoring to
+console them.
+
+"And the sow!" broke in Peter Hayes, who had joined the party some time
+before. "They tell me she's a beauty. She's Lord Somebody's breed, and
+beats the world for fat!"
+
+"Here's Scanlan now, and he 'll tell us everything," said Bodkin.
+But the sporting attorney, mounted on a splendid little horse, in top
+condition, passed them at speed, the few words he uttered being lost as
+he dashed by.
+
+"What was it he said?" cried Bodkin.
+
+"I didn't catch the words," replied Nelligan; "and I suppose it was no
+great loss."
+
+"He's an impudent upstart!" exclaimed Mrs. Clinch.
+
+"I think he said something about a breakfast," meekly interposed Mr.
+Clinch.
+
+"And of course he said nothing of the kind," retorted his spouse. "You
+never happened to be right in your life!"
+
+"Faix! I made sure of mine before I started," said old Hayes, "I ate a
+cowld goose!"
+
+"Well, to be sure, they could n't be expected to entertain all that's
+coming!" said Mrs. Nelligan, who now began a mental calculation of the
+numbers on the road.
+
+"There will be a thousand people here to-day," said Bodkin.
+
+"Five times that," said Nelligan. "I know it by the number of small
+bills that I gave cash for the last week. There's not a farmer in the
+county does n't expect to bring back with him a prize beast of one kind
+or other."
+
+"I'll buy that sow if she goes 'reasonable,'" said Peter Hayes, whose
+whole thoughts seemed centred on the animal in question.
+
+"What do they mean to do when they sell off the stock?" asked the
+Captain.
+
+"I hear that the place will be let," said Nelligan, in a half whisper,
+"if they can find a tenant for it. Henderson told Father Mather that,
+come what might, her Ladyship would never come back here."
+
+"Faix! the only one of them worth a groat was Miss Mary, and I suppose
+they did n't leave her the means to do much now."
+
+"'Tis she must have the heavy heart to-day," sighed Mrs. Nelligan.
+
+"And it is only fair and reasonable she should have her share of
+troubles, like the rest of us," replied Mrs. Clinch. "When Clinch was
+removed from Macroon, we had to sell off every stick and stone we had;
+and as the neighbors knew we must go, we didn't get five shillings in
+the pound by the sale."
+
+"That's mighty grand,--that is really a fine place!" exclaimed Bodkin,
+as by a sudden turn of the road they came directly in front of the
+house; and the whole party sat in silent admiration of the magnificent
+edifice before them.
+
+"It is a royal palace,--no less," said Nelligan, at last; "and that's
+exactly what no country gentleman wants. Sure we know well there's no
+fortune equal to such a residence. To keep up that house, as it ought to
+be, a man should have thirty thousand a year."
+
+"Give me fifteen, Dan, and you'll see if I don't make it comfortable,",
+said Bodkin.
+
+"What's this barrier here,--can't we go any further?" exclaimed
+Nelligan, as he perceived a strong paling across the avenue.
+
+"We 're to go round by the stables, it seems," said Bodkin; "the hall
+entrance is not to be invaded by such vulgar visitors. This is our road,
+here."
+
+"Well, if I ever!" exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, whose feelings really
+overpowered utterance.
+
+"I don't see any great hardship in this after all, ma'am," said
+Nelligan; "for we know if the family were at home we couldn't even be
+here. Drive on, Tim."
+
+A short circuit through a very thickly wooded tract brought them at
+length to a large and massive gateway, over which the Martins' arms
+were sculptured in stone; passing through which they entered a great
+courtyard, three sides of which were occupied by stables, the fourth
+presenting a range of coach-houses filled with carriages of every
+description.
+
+A large tent was erected in the midst of the court for the convenience
+of the sale, in front of which were pens for the cattle, and a space
+railed off, wherein the horses were to be viewed and examined.
+
+"This is all mighty well arranged," said Bodkin, as he gave his horse to
+a groom, who, in the undress livery of Cro' Martin, came respectfully to
+his aid as he got down.
+
+"The sale will begin in about an hour, sir," said the man, in answer
+to a question. "Mr. Scanlan is now in the house with Mr. Gibbs, the
+auctioneer."
+
+Vast crowds of people of every class, from the small squire to the
+Oughterard shopkeeper and country farmer, now came pouring in, all eager
+in their curiosity, but somehow all subdued into a kind of reverence for
+a spot from which they had been so rigidly excluded, and the very aspect
+of which so far transcended expectations. Everything, indeed, was an
+object of wonderment. The ornamental tanks for watering the horses,
+supplied by beautifully designed fountains; the sculptured medallions
+along the walls, emblematizing the chase or the road; the bright
+mahogany partitions of the stalls, even to the little channels lined
+with shining copper, all demanded notice and comment; and many were the
+wise reflections uttered with regard to those who thus squandered away
+their wealth. The sight of the cattle, however, which occupied this
+luxurious abode, went far to disarm this criticism, since certainly none
+ever seemed more worthy of the state and splendor that surrounded them.
+For these the admiration was hearty and sincere, and the farmers went
+along the stalls amazed and wonderstruck at the size and symmetry of the
+noble animals that filled them.
+
+"To be sold at Tattersall's, sir, on the 4th of next month," said a
+groom, whose English accent imparted an almost sneer to the supposition
+that such a stud should meet purchasers in Ireland. "They 're all
+advertised in 'Bell's Life.'"
+
+"What becomes of the hounds?" asked Bodkin.
+
+"Lord Cromore takes them, sir; they're to hunt in Dorsetshire."
+
+"And the sow?" asked old Hayes, with eagerness; "she isn't to go to
+England, is she?"
+
+"Can't say, sir. We don't look arter no sows here," replied the fellow,
+as he turned away in evident disgust at his questioner.
+
+A certain stir and bustle in the court without gave token that the sale
+was about to begin; and Scanlan's voice, in its most authoritative tone,
+was heard issuing orders and directions on all sides, while servants
+went hither and thither distributing catalogues, and securing
+accommodation for the visitors with a degree of deference and attention
+most remarkable.
+
+"I suppose we're to pass the day in the stables or the cowhouses,
+ma'am?" said Mrs. Clinch, as with a look of indignation she gazed at the
+range of seats now being hastily occupied by a miscellaneous company.
+
+"If we could only get into the gardens," said Mrs. Nelligan, timidly.
+"I'm sure if I saw Barnes he'd let us in." And she slipped rapidly from
+her friend's arm, and hastily crossing the court, went in search of her
+only acquaintance in the household. "Did you see Barnes? Where could I
+find Barnes?" asked she of almost every one she met. And following the
+complicated directions she received, she wandered onward, through a
+kitchen-garden, and into a small nursery beyond it. Bewildered as she
+receded beyond the sounds of the multitude, she turned into a little
+path which, traversing a shrubbery, opened upon a beautifully cultivated
+"parterre," whose close-shaven sward and flowery beds flanked a long
+range of windows opening to the ground, and which, to her no small
+horror, she perceived to form one wing of the mansion. While in her
+distraction to think what course was best to take, she saw a groom
+standing at the head of a small pony, harnessed to a diminutive
+carriage, and hastily approached him. Before, however, she had attained
+within speaking distance, the man motioned to her, by a gesture, to
+retire. Her embarrassment gave her, if not courage, something of
+resolution, and she advanced.
+
+"Go back!" cried he, in a smothered voice; "there 's no one admitted
+here."
+
+"But I 've lost my way. I was looking for Barnes--"
+
+"He's not here. Go back, I say," reiterated the man, in the same
+stealthy voice.
+
+But poor Mrs. Nelligan, came on, confusion rendering her indifferent
+to all reproof, and in spite of gestures and admonitions to retire,
+steadily advanced towards the door. As she passed one of the open
+windows, her glance caught something within; she stopped suddenly,
+and, in seeming shame at her intrusion, turned to go back. A muttered
+malediction from the servant increased her terror, and she uttered a
+faint cry. In an instant the object at which she had been gazing arose,
+and Mary Martin, her face traced with recent tears, started up and
+approached her. Mrs. Nelligan felt a sense of sickly faintness come over
+her, and had to grasp the window for support.
+
+"Oh, my dear young lady!" she muttered, "I did n't mean to do this--I
+strayed here by accident--I didn't know where I was going--"
+
+"My dear Mrs. Nelligan, there is no need of these excuses," said Mary,
+taking her hand cordially, and leading her to a seat. "It is a great
+pleasure to me to see a friendly face, and I am grateful for the chance
+that sent you here."
+
+Mrs. Nelligan, once relieved of her first embarrassment, poured forth
+with volubility the explanation of her presence; and Mary heard her to
+the end with patient politeness.
+
+"And you were going away somewhere," resumed she, "when I stopped you.
+I see your pony-chaise there at the door waiting for you, and you're off
+to the quarries or Kilkieran, I 'll be bound; or maybe it's only going
+away you are, to be out of this for a day or two. God knows, I don't
+wonder at it! It is a trying scene for you, and a great shock to your
+feelings, to see the place dismantled, and everything sold off!"
+
+"It is sad enough," said Mary, smiling through her tears.
+
+"Not to say that you're left here all alone, just as if you were n't one
+of the family at all; that 's what I think most of. And where were you
+going, dear?"
+
+"I was going to pass a few days at the cottage,--the Swiss cottage.
+Catty Broon, my old nurse, has gone over there to get it in readiness
+for me, and I shall probably stay there till all this confusion be
+over."
+
+"To be sure, dear. What's more natural than that you'd like to spare
+your feelings, seeing all carried away just as if it was bankrupts you
+were. Indeed, Dan said to me the things wouldn't bring more than at a
+sheriff's sale, because of the hurry you were in to sell them off."
+
+"My uncle's orders were positive on that subject," said Mary, calmly.
+
+"Yes, dear, of course he knows best," said she, with a shake of the head
+not exactly corroborating her own speech. "And how are you to live here
+by yourself, dear?" resumed she; "sure you 'll die of the loneliness!"
+
+"I don't think so: I shall have plenty to occupy me,--more, indeed, than
+I shall be equal to."
+
+"Ay, in the daytime; but the long evenings--think of the long evenings,
+dear! God knows, I find them very often dreary enough, even though I
+have a home and Dan."
+
+"I 'm not afraid of the long evenings, my dear Mrs. Nelligan. It is the
+only time I can spare for reading; they will be my hours of recreation
+and amusement."
+
+"Well, well, I hope so, with all my heart," said she, doubtingly. "You
+know yourself best, and maybe you'd be happier that way, than if you had
+somebody to talk to and keep you company."
+
+"I didn't say that," said Mary, smiling. "I never implied that a visit
+from some kind friend--Mrs. Nelligan, for instance--would not be a very
+pleasant event in my solitude."
+
+"To come and see you,--to come to Cro' Martin!" exclaimed Mrs. Nelligan,
+as though trying to reconcile her mind to the bare possibility of such a
+circumstance.
+
+"If you would not think it too far, or too much trouble--"
+
+"Oh dear, oh dear, but it's too much honor it would be; and Dan--no
+matter what he 'd say to the contrary--would feel it so, in his own
+heart. Sure I know well how he felt about Joe being asked here to
+dinner; and he 'd never have taken a part against your uncle in the
+election if it was n't that he thought Joe was slighted some way--"
+
+"But nothing of the kind ever occurred. Mr..Joseph Nelligan met from us
+all the respect that his character and his talents entitled him to."
+
+"Don't get warm about it, or I 'll forget everything that's in my head!"
+exclaimed Mrs. Nelligan, in terror at the eagerness of Mary's manner.
+"Maybe it was Joe's fault--maybe it was young Massingbred's--maybe it
+was--"
+
+"But what was it?" cried Mary. "What was alleged? What was laid to our
+charge?"
+
+"There, now, I don't remember anything; you frightened me so that it's
+gone clean out of my mind."
+
+"My dear friend," said Mary, caressingly, "I never meant to alarm you;
+and let us talk of something else. You say that you 'll come to see me
+sometimes; is it a promise?"
+
+"Indeed it is, my dear, whenever Dan gives me the car and horse--"
+
+"But I 'll drive in for you, and bring you safely back again. You 've
+only to say when you 'll spend the day with me; and there's so much to
+show you here that you 'd like to see. The gardens are really handsome,
+and the hothouses. And Catty will show us her dairy, and I am very proud
+of my lambs."
+
+"It is all like a dream to me,--just like a dream," said Mrs. Nelligan,
+closing her eyes, and folding her arms, "to think that I 'm sitting
+here, at Cro' Martin, talking to Miss Mary just as if I were her equal."
+
+"My dear, dear friend, it shall be a reality whenever you like to make
+it so; and you'll tell me all the news of Oughterard,--all about every
+one there; for I know them, at least by name, and will be charmed to
+hear about them."
+
+"Mr. Scanlan wants an answer, miss, immediately," said a servant,
+presenting Mary with a few lines written in pencil.
+
+She opened the paper and read the following: "Nelligan offers seventy
+pounds for the two black horses. Is he to have them? Sir Peter shows an
+incipient spavin on the off leg, and I think he 'd be well sold."
+
+"Tell Mr. Scanlan I 'll send him an answer by and by," said she,
+dismissing the servant. Then ringing the bell, she whispered a few words
+to the man who answered it. "I have just sent a message to tell Mr.
+Nelligan I wish to speak to him," said she, resuming her place on
+the sofa. "It is a mere business matter," added she, seeing that Mrs.
+Nelligan waited for some explanation. "And now, when have you heard
+from your son? Is he learning to spare himself anything of those great
+efforts he imposes upon his faculties?"
+
+This was to touch the most sensitive chord in all her heart; and so she
+burst forth into a description of Joseph's daily life of toil and
+study; his labors, his self-denial, his solitary, joyless existence, all
+calling up, in turn, her praises and her sympathy.
+
+"And I," cried she, "am always saying, what is it all for?--what's the
+use of it?--who is to be the better of it? Sure there 's only himself to
+get whatever his father leaves behind him; and a pretty penny it is!
+Not that _you_ would think so; but for the like of _us_, and in _our_
+station, it's a snug fortune. He 'll have upwards of two thousand a
+year, so that there 's no need to be slaving like a Turk."
+
+"Your son's ambitions take, very probably, a higher range than mere
+money-making," said Mary. "He has a good right to suppose that his
+abilities may win him the highest of rewards! But here's Mr. Nelligan."
+And she advanced courteously to meet him at the door.
+
+Flushed and heated by the scene he had just quitted, and evidently
+embarrassed by the situation in which he stood, Nelligan bowed
+repeatedly in reply to Miss Martin's greeting, starting with amazement
+as he perceived Mrs. Nelligan, who maintained an air of unbroken dignity
+on the sofa.
+
+"Well you may stare, Dan!" said she. "I 'm sure you never expected to
+see me here!"
+
+"It was a most agreeable surprise for _me_, at least," said Mary,
+motioning to a seat; then, turning to Nelligan, added, "This little note
+was the occasion of my asking you to step over here. Will you please to
+read it?"
+
+"How handsome, how candid, Miss Martin!" said Nelligan, as he restored
+it, after perusing it. "Ah, my dear young lady, why would n't your
+family deal always with us in this fashion and in everything? I beg
+your forgiveness, but I forgot myself. I 'll stick to my offer, miss,--I
+wouldn't take fifty pounds for my bargain!"
+
+"This, of course, is in confidence between us, sir," said Mary, as she
+tore up the note and threw the fragments on the ground.
+
+[Illustration: 368]
+
+"I wish I knew how to acknowledge this, Miss Martin; I wish I could
+show how sensible one in _my_ station could be of generosity from one in
+_yours_."
+
+"You remind me very opportunely that I have a favor to ask, Mr.
+Nelligan. It is this: My kind friend here, Mrs. Nelligan, has just
+promised to take pity on my solitude, and occasionally to come and see
+me. Will you kindly strengthen her in this benevolent intention, and aid
+her to turn her steps very often towards Cro' Martin?"
+
+Nelligan's face grew deeply red, and an expression of the greatest
+embarrassment settled down on his features; and it was with much
+difficulty, and in a voice laboring for utterance, that he said,--
+
+"I don't see how this can be. Your friends would not approve,--your
+family, I mean, Miss Martin,--would, very naturally, resent the thought
+of such an intimacy! They look upon _me_ as an enemy,--an open and
+declared enemy,--and so I am, where politics is concerned; but--" He
+hesitated, and after a struggle went on: "No matter, it _is_ war between
+us, and must be till one crushes the other. What I mean is this, young
+lady: that to encourage such acquaintanceship as you speak of would look
+like an undue condescension on _your_ part, or something even worse on
+_ours_."
+
+"I 'll not listen to such subtleties!" cried Mary, hastily. "Neither you
+nor I, my dear Mrs. Nelligan, care for party triumphs or defeats. There
+are a thousand themes wherein our hearts can feel alike; and these we
+'ll discuss together. We're of the same country; have passed our lives
+amidst the same scenes, the same events, and the same people, and it
+will be hard if we cannot as easily discover topics for mutual esteem,
+as subjects of difference and disagreement."
+
+"But will it not be hinted, Miss Martin, that we took the opportunity
+of your solitude here to impose an acquaintanceship which had been
+impossible under other circumstances?"
+
+"If you are too proud, sir, to know me,--lest an ungenerous sneer should
+damage your self-esteem--"
+
+"Indeed, indeed we're not," broke in Mrs. Nelligan. "You don't know Dan
+at all. He would n't exchange the honor of sitting there, opposite you,
+to be High Sheriff."
+
+A servant fortunately presented himself at this awkward moment with a
+whispered message for Miss Martin; to which she replied aloud,--
+
+"Of course. Tell Mr. Scanlan it is my wish,--_my_ orders," added she,
+more firmly. "The house is open to any one who desires to see it. And
+now, before I go, Mr. Nelligan, tell me that I have convinced you,--tell
+me that my reasons have prevailed, and that you acknowledge we ought to
+be friends." And as she said the last words, she held out her hand to
+him with a grace so perfect, and an air of such winning fascination,
+that old Nelligan could only stammer out,--
+
+"It shall be how you please. I never bargained to dispute against such
+odds as this. We are, indeed, your friends; dispose of us how you like."
+And, so saying, he conducted her to the little carriage, and, assisting
+her to her seat, took his leave with all the respect he could have shown
+a queen.
+
+"It's more than a prejudice, after all," muttered he, as he looked after
+her as she drove away. "There's something deeper and stronger in it than
+that, or else a few words spoken by a young girl could n't so suddenly
+rout all the sentiments of a lifetime! Ay, ay," added he, still to
+himself, "we may pull them down; we may humble them; but we 'll never
+fill their places!"
+
+"And we 're to see the house, it seems!" exclaimed Mrs. Nelligan,
+gathering her shawl around her.
+
+"I don't care to look at it till she herself is here!" said old
+Nelligan, taking his wife's arm, and leading her away across the
+lawn, and in the direction of the stables. There was that in his moody
+preoccupation which did not encourage her to venture on a word, and so
+she went along at his side in silence.
+
+"You're to have the black horses, Mr. Nelligan," said Scanlan,
+overtaking him. Nelligan nodded. "You 've got a cheap pair of nags, and
+as good as gold," continued he. A dry half-smile was all the reply. "Mr.
+Martin bred them himself," Scanlan went on, "and no price would have
+bought them three weeks ago; but everything is going for a song to-day!
+I don't know how I 'll muster courage to tell them the results of the
+sale!"
+
+"You 'll have courage for more than that," said Nelligan. And although
+only a chance shot, it fell into a magazine; for Scanlan grew crimson,
+and then pale, and seemed ready to faint.
+
+Nelligan stared with amazement at the effect his few words had produced,
+and then passed on; while the attorney muttered between his teeth, "Can
+he suspect me? Is it possible that I have betrayed myself?"
+
+No, Maurice Scanlan. Be of good cheer, your secret is safe. No one has
+as much as the very barest suspicion that the pettifogging practitioner
+aspires to the hand of Mary Martin; nor even in the darkest dreams of
+that house's downfall has such a humiliation obtruded itself anywhere!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. "REVERSES"
+
+Ours is a very practical age, and no matter how skilfully a man play the
+game of life, there is but one test of his ability,--did he win? If
+this condition attend him, his actions meet charitable construction. His
+doings are all favorably regarded; and while his capacity is extolled,
+even his shortcomings are extenuated. We dread an unlucky man! There
+is a kind of contagion in calamity, and we shun him as though he were
+plague-stricken. But with what flatteries we greet the successful one!
+That he reached the goal is the sure guarantee of his merits; and woe
+to him who would canvass the rectitude of his progress! Defeat is such
+a leveller! Genius and dulness, courage and pusillanimity, high-hearted
+hope and wasting energy, are all confounded together by failure, and
+the world would only smile at any effort to discriminate between them.
+Perhaps in the main the system works well. Perhaps mankind, incapable
+of judging motives, too impatient to investigate causes, is wise in
+adopting a short cut for its decisions. Certain it is, the rule is
+absolute that proclaims Success to be Desert!
+
+Lady Dorothea was now about to experience this severe lesson, and
+not the less heavily that she never anticipated it. After a wearisome
+journey the Martins arrived in Dublin. The apartments secured to them,
+by a previous letter, at Bilton's, were all in readiness for their
+reception. The "Saunders" of the day duly chronicled their arrival;
+but there the great event seemed to terminate. No message from
+her Ladyship's noble kinsman greeted their coming; no kind note of
+welcome,--not even a visit from Mr. Lawrence Belcour, the aide-de-camp
+in waiting. The greatest of all moralists warns us against putting
+confidence in princes; and how doubly truthful is the adage when
+extended to viceroys! Small as was the borough of Oughterard, and
+insignificant as seemed the fact who should be its representative, the
+result of the election was made a great matter at the "Castle." His
+Excellency was told that the Martins had mismanaged everything. They
+had gone to work in the old Tory cut-and-thrust fashion of former
+days--conciliated no interest, won over no antagonism; they had acted
+"precisely as if there had been no Relief Bill,"--we steal Colonel
+Massingbred's words,--and they were beaten--beaten in their own town--in
+the person of one of their own family, and by a stranger! The Viceroy
+was vexed. They had misconstrued every word of his letter,--a letter
+that, as he said, any child might have understood,--and there was a vote
+lost to his party. It was in vain that the Chief Secretary assured his
+Excellency "Jack was a clever fellow, who 'd put all to rights;" that
+with a little time and a little dexterity he 'd be able to vote with the
+Ministry on every important division; the great fact remained unatoned
+for,--his family, his own connections, "had done nothing for him."
+
+The first day in town dragged its length slowly over. Martin was
+fatigued, and did not go abroad, and no one came to visit him. To do him
+justice, he was patient under the neglect; to say more, he was grateful
+for it. It was so pleasant "to be let alone;" not even to be obliged
+to see Henderson, nor to be consulted about "Road Sessions" or "Police
+Reports," but to have one's day in total unbroken listlessness; to have
+simply to say, "We 'll dine at seven," and "I'm out for every one." Far
+otherwise fared it in my "Lady's chamber." All her plans had been based
+upon the attentions she was so certain of receiving, but of which now
+not a sign gave token. She passed the day in a state of almost feverish
+excitement, the more painful from her effort to conceal and control it.
+Repton dined with them. He came that day "because, of course, he
+could not expect to catch them disengaged on any future occasion." Her
+Ladyship was furious at the speech, but smiled concurrence to it; while
+Martin carelessly remarked, "From all that I see, we may enjoy the same
+pleasure very often." Never was the old lawyer so disagreeable when
+exerting himself to be the opposite. He had come stored with all the
+doings of the capital,--its dinners and evening parties, its _mots_ and
+its gossip. From the political rumors and the chit-chat of society, he
+went on to speak of the viceregal court and its festivities.
+
+"If there be anything I detest," said her Ladyship, at last, "it is
+the small circle of a very small metropolis. So long as you look at it
+carelessly, it is not so offensive; but when you stoop to consider and
+examine it with attention, it reminds you of the hideous spectacle of
+a glass of water as seen through a magnifier,--you detect a miniature
+world of monsters and deformities, all warring and worrying each other."
+And with this flattering exposition of her opinion, she arose speedily
+after dinner, and, followed by Miss Henderson, retired.
+
+"I perceive that we had not the ear of the Court for our argument," said
+Repton, as he resumed his place after conducting her to the door. Martin
+sipped his wine in silence. "I never expected she'd like Dublin; it only
+suits those who pass their lives in it; but I fancied that what with
+Castle civilities--"
+
+"There 's the rub," broke in Martin, but in a voice subdued almost to a
+whisper. "They 've taken no notice of us. For my own part, I 'm heartily
+obliged to them; and if they 'd condescend to feel offended with us, I
+'d only be more grateful; but my Lady--"
+
+A long, low whistle from Repton implied that he had fully appreciated
+the "situation."
+
+"Ah, I see it," cried he; "and this explains the meaning of an article I
+read this morning in the 'Evening Post,'--the Government organ,--wherein
+it is suggested that country gentlemen would be more efficient
+supporters of the administration if they lent themselves heartily to
+comprehend the requirements of recent legislation, than by exacting
+heavy reprisals on their tenants in moments of defeat and
+disappointment."
+
+"Well, it is rather hard," said Martin, with more of energy than he
+usually spoke in,--"it _is_ hard! They first hounded us on to contest
+the borough for them, and they now abuse us that we did not make a
+compromise with the opposite party. And as to measures of severity, you
+know well I never concurred in them; I never permitted them."
+
+"But they are mistaken, nevertheless. There are writs in preparation,
+and executions about to issue over fourteen town-lands. There will be
+a general clearance of the population at Kyle-a-Noe. You 'll not know a
+face there when you go back, Martin!"
+
+"Who can say that I 'll ever go back?" said he, mournfully.
+
+"Come, come, I trust you will. I hope to pass some pleasant days with
+you there ere I die," said Repton, cheer-ingly. "Indeed, until you are
+there again, I 'll never go farther west than Athlone on my circuit. I
+'d not like to, look at the old place without you!"
+
+Martin nodded as he raised his glass, as if to thank him, and then
+dropped his head mournfully, and sat without speaking.
+
+"Poor dear Mary!" said he, at last, with a heavy sigh. "Our desertion of
+her is too bad. It's not keeping the pledge I made to Barry!"
+
+"Well, well, there's nothing easier than the remedy. A week or so will
+see you settled in some city abroad,--Paris, or Brussels, perhaps. Let
+her join you; I 'll be her escort. Egad! I'd like the excuse for the
+excursion," replied Repton, gayly.
+
+"Ay, Repton," said the other, pursuing his own thoughts and not heeding
+the interruption, "and _you_ know what a brother he was. By Jove!" cried
+he, aloud, "were Barry just to see what we 've done,--how we 've treated
+the place, the people, his daughter!--were he only to know how I 've
+kept my word with him--Look, Repton," added he, grasping the other's arm
+as he spoke, "there's not as generous a fellow breathing as Barry; this
+world has not his equal for an act of noble self-devotion and sacrifice.
+His life!--he 'd not think twice of it if I asked him to give it for me;
+but if he felt--if he could just awaken to the conviction that he was
+unfairly dealt with, that when believing he was sacrificing to affection
+and brotherly love he was made a dupe and a fool of--"
+
+"Be cautious, Martin; speak lower--remember where you are," said Repton,
+guardedly.
+
+"I tell you this," resumed the other, in a tone less loud but not less
+forcible: "the very warmth of his nature--that same noble, generous
+source that feeds every impulse of his life--would supply the force of a
+torrent to his passion; he 'd be a tiger if you aroused him!"
+
+"Don't you perceive, my dear friend," said Repton, calmly, "how you
+are exaggerating everything,--not alone _your own_ culpability, but his
+resentment! Grant that you ought not to have left Mary behind you,--I
+'m sure I said everything I could against it,--what more easy than to
+repair the wrong?"
+
+"No, no, Repton, you 're quite mistaken. Take my word for it, you don't
+know that girl. She has taught herself to believe that her place
+is there,--that it is her duty to live amongst the people. She may
+exaggerate to her own mind the good she does; she may fancy a
+thousand things as to the benefit she bestows; but she cannot, by any
+self-deception, over-estimate the results upon her own heart, which she
+has educated to feel as only they do who live amongst the poor! To take
+her away from this would be a cruel sacrifice; and for what?--a world
+she would n't care for, couldn't comprehend."
+
+"Then what was to have been done?"
+
+"I 'll tell you, Repton; if it was _her_ duty to stay there, it was
+doubly _ours_ to have remained also. When she married," added he, after
+a pause,--"when she had got a home of her own,--then, of course, it
+would have been quite different! Heaven knows," said he, sighing, "we
+have little left to tie us to anything or anywhere; and as to myself, it
+is a matter of the most perfect indifference whether I drag out the
+year or two that may remain to me on the shores of Galway or beside the
+Adriatic!"
+
+"I can't bear this," cried Repton, angrily. "If ever there was a man
+well treated by fortune, you are he."
+
+"I 'm not complaining."
+
+"Not complaining! but, hang it, sir, that is not enough! You should be
+overflowing with gratitude; your life ought to be active with
+benevolence; you should be up and doing, wherever ample means and
+handsome encouragement could assist merit or cheer despondency. I like
+your notion that you don't complain! Why, if you did, what should be
+done by those who really do travel the shady side of existence,--who are
+weighted with debt, bowed down with daily difficulties, crippled with
+that penury that eats into a man's nature till his very affections grow
+sordid, and his very dreams are tormented with his duns! Think of the
+poor fellows with ailing wives and sickly children, toiling daily, not
+to give them luxuries,--not to supply them with what may alleviate
+weariness or distract suffering, but bare sustenance,--coarse diet and
+coarser dress! Ah, my dear Martin, that Romanist plan of fasting one day
+in the week would n't be a bad institution were we to introduce it into
+our social code. If you and I could have, every now and then, our
+feelings of privation, just to teach us what others experience all the
+week through, we 'd have, if not more sympathy with narrow fortune, at
+least more thankfulness for its opposite."
+
+"Her Ladyship begs you will read this note, sir," said a servant,
+presenting an open letter to Martin. He took it, and having perused it,
+handed it to Repton, who slowly read the following lines:--
+
+     "'The Lodge, Tuesday.
+
+     "'Madam,--I have his Excellency's commands to inquire on
+     what day it will suit Mr. Martin and your Ladyship to favor
+     him with your company at dinner? His Excellency would
+     himself say Saturday, but any intermediate day more
+     convenient to yourself will be equally agreeable to him.
+
+     "'I have the honor to remain, madam,
+
+     "'With every consideration, yours,
+
+     "'Lawrence Belcour, A.D.C.'"
+
+
+"'With every consideration'!" repeated Repton. "Confound the puppy,
+and his Frenchified phraseology! Why is he not, as he ought to be, your
+obedient servant?"
+
+"It is a somewhat cold and formal invitation," said Martin, slowly. "I
+'ll just see what she thinks of it;" and he arose and left the room. His
+absence was fully of twenty minutes' duration, and when he did return
+his face betokened agitation.
+
+"Here's more of it, Repton," said he, filling and drinking off his
+glass. "It 's all _my_ fault, it seems. I ought to have gone out to the
+'Lodge' this morning, or called on somebody, or done something; in fact,
+I have been remiss, neglectful, deficient in proper respect--"
+
+"So that you decline the invitation?" broke in Repton.
+
+"Not a bit of it; we 're to accept it, man. That's what I cannot
+comprehend. We are offended, almost outraged, but still we're to submit.
+Ah, Repton, I'll be really rejoiced when we leave this,--get away from
+all these petty annoyances and small intriguings, and live amongst
+strangers!"
+
+"Most patriotically spoken; but I'm not surprised at what you say. Have
+you made any resolve as to whither you mean to go?"
+
+"No; we have so many plans, that the chances are we take none of them. I
+'m told--I know nothing of it myself--but I 'm told that we shall easily
+find--and in any part of the Continent--the few requirements we
+want; which are, an admirable climate, great cheapness, and excellent
+society."
+
+There was a slight twinkle in Martin's eye as he spoke, as if he were in
+reality relishing the absurdity of these expectations.
+
+"Was it Kate Henderson who encouraged you to credit this flattering
+picture?"
+
+"No; these are my Lady's own experiences, derived from a residence there
+'when George the Third was King.' As to Kate, the girl is by no means
+deficient in common sense; she has the frivolity of a Frenchwoman, and
+that light, superficial tone foreign education imparts; but take my word
+for it, Repton, she has very fine faculties!"
+
+"I will take your word for it, Martin. I think you do her no more than
+justice," said the old lawyer, sententiously.
+
+"And I 'll tell you another quality she possesses," said Martin, in a
+lower and more cautious tone, as though dreading to be overheard,--"she
+understands my Lady to perfection,--when to yield and when to oppose
+her. The girl has an instinct about it, and does it admirably; and there
+was poor dear Mary, with all her abilities, and she never could succeed
+in this! How strange, for nobody would think of comparing the two
+girls!"
+
+"Nobody!" dryly re-echoed Repton.
+
+"I mean, of course, that nobody who knew the world could; for in all
+the glitter and show-off of fashionable acquirement, poor Molly is the
+inferior."
+
+Repton looked steadfastly at him for several seconds; he seemed as if
+deliberating within himself whether or not he'd undeceive him at once,
+or suffer him to dwell on an illusion so pleasant to believe. The latter
+feeling prevailed, and he merely nodded slowly, and passed the decanter
+across the table.
+
+"Molly," continued Martin, with all the fluency of a weak man when he
+fancies he has got the better of an argument,--"Molly is her father all
+over. The same resolution, the same warmth of heart, and that readiness
+at an expedient which never failed poor Barry! What a clever fellow he
+was! If he _had_ a fault, it was just being too clever."
+
+"Too speculative, too sanguine," interposed Repton.
+
+"That, if you like to call it so,--the weakness of genius."
+
+Repton gave a long sigh, and crossing his arms, fell into a fit of
+musing, and so they both sat for a considerable time.
+
+"Harry is coming home, you said?" broke in Repton at last.
+
+"Yes; he is tired of India,--tired of soldiering, I believe. If he can't
+manage an exchange into some regiment at home, I think he 'll sell out."
+
+"By Jove!" said the old lawyer, speaking to himself, but still aloud,
+"the world has taken a strange turn of late. The men that used to have
+dash and energy have become loungers and idlers, and the energy--the
+real energy of the nation--has centred in the women,--the women and the
+priests! If I'm not much mistaken, we shall see some rare specimens of
+enthusiasm erelong. Such elements as these will not slumber nor sleep!"
+
+While Martin was pondering over this speech, a servant entered to
+say that Mr. Crow was without, and begged to know if he might pay his
+respects. "Ay, by all means. Tell him to come in," said Martin. And the
+words were scarcely uttered when the artist made his appearance, in
+full dinner costume, and with a certain unsteadiness in his gait, and
+a restless look in his eyes, that indicated his having indulged freely,
+without, however, having passed the barrier of sobriety.
+
+"You heard of our arrival, then?" said Martin, after the other had paid
+his respects, and assumed a seat.
+
+"Yes, sir. It was mentioned to-day at dinner, and so I resolved that,
+when I could manage to step away, I'd just drop in and ask how her
+Ladyship and yourself were."
+
+"Where did you dine, Crow?"
+
+"At the Chief Secretary's, sir, in the Park," replied Crow, with a
+mixture of pride and bash fulness.
+
+"Ah, indeed. Was your party a large one?"
+
+"There were fourteen of us, sir, but I only knew three or four of the
+number."
+
+"And who were they, Crow?" said Repton, whose curiosity on all such
+topics was extreme.
+
+"Young Nelligan was one. Indeed, it was through him I was asked myself.
+Colonel Massingbred was good enough to come over and have a look at
+my Moses,--a favor I humbly hope you 'll do me, gentlemen, any spare
+morning; for it's a new conception altogether, and I make the light come
+out of the bulrushes, just as Caravaggio did with his Lazarus."
+
+"Never mind Lazarus, Crow, but tell us of this dinner. Who were the
+others?"
+
+"Well, sir, there was Nelligan and me,--that's one; and Tom
+Magennis,--two--"
+
+"Our neighbor of Barnagheela?" exclaimed Martin, in amazement.
+
+"The same, sir. I left him there at the port wine, and my word for it,
+but they 'll not get him away easily, though Father Rafferty will do his
+best--"
+
+"And was the priest also of the party?"
+
+"He was, sir; and sat at the Colonel's left, and was treated with every
+honor and distinction."
+
+"Eh, Martin, am I a true prophet?--answer me that. Has Val Repton
+foretold the course of events we are entering upon, or has he not?"
+
+"But this is a regular outrage,--an open insult to us!" cried Martin.
+"Here is a leading member of the Government entertaining the very men
+who opposed and defeated us,--actually caressing the very party which
+they enlisted us to crush?"
+
+"This game is within every child's comprehension!" said Repton. "If
+_you_, and men of your stamp and fortune, could have secured them a
+parliamentary majority, they 'd have preferred you. You 'd be pleasanter
+to deal with, less exacting, more gentlemanly in fact; but as you failed
+to do this,--as it was plain and clear you had not the people with
+you,--why, they 've thrown you over without a scruple, and taken into
+their favor the men who can and will serve them. I don't mean to say
+that the bargain is a good one,--nay, I believe the price of such aid
+will be very costly; but what do they care? It is one of the blessings
+of a representative government that Tories have to pay Whig debts, and
+Whigs are heirs to Tory defalcations."
+
+"Were politics discussed at table?" asked Martin, half impatiently.
+
+"All manner of subjects. We had law, and the assizes, and the grand-jury
+lists, and who ought to be high sheriffs, and who not. And young
+Massingbred made a kind of a speech--"
+
+"Was he there also?"
+
+"That he was; and did the honors of the foot of the table, and made
+it the pleasantest place too! The way he introduced a toast to the
+independent and enlightened electors of Oughterard was as neat a thing
+as ever I heard."
+
+"The devil take the whole batch of them!" cried Martin. "To think that
+I 've spent nearly three thousand pounds for such a set of scoundrels
+is past endurance. I 'll never set foot amongst them again; as long as I
+live I 'll never enter that town."
+
+"Father Neal's own words," cried Crow. "'We done with Martin forever,'
+said he. 'This election was his Waterloo. He may abdicate now!'"
+
+"And that sentiment was listened to by the Chief Secretary?" exclaimed
+Martin.
+
+"If he wasn't deaf he couldn't help hearing it, for we all did; and when
+I ventured to observe that a country was never the better for losing the
+patrons of art, and the great families that could encourage a genius,
+young Massingbred, said, 'Give up Moses, Mr. Crow,--give up Moses, and
+paint Daniel O'Connell, and you 'll never want admirers and supporters!'
+And they drowned me in a roar of laughter."
+
+"I wish my Lady could only hear all this," said Rep ton, in a whisper to
+Martin.
+
+"Always provided that I were somewhere else!" answered Martin. "But to
+be serious, Repton, I 'll hold no intercourse with men who treat us in
+this fashion. It is absurd to suppose that the Secretary could receive
+at his table this rabble,--this herd of low, vulgar--"
+
+"Eh--what!" broke in Crow, with an expression of such truly comic misery
+as made Repton shake with laughter.
+
+"I didn't mean _you_, Crow--I never thought of including you in such
+company,--but if these be Colonel Massingbred's guests, I 'll swear that
+Godfrey Martin shall not be my Lord Reckington's!" And with this bold
+resolve, uttered in a voice and manner of very unusual firmness, Martin
+arose and left the room.
+
+"On the whole, then, your party was a pleasant one?" said Repton,
+anxious to lead Crow into some further details of the late dinner.
+
+"Well, indeed it was, and it was not," said the artist, hesitatingly.
+"It was like a picture with some fine bits in it,--a dash of rich color
+here and there,--but no keeping! no general effect! You understand? I
+myself took no share in the talk. I never understood it; but I could
+see that they who did were somehow at cross-purposes,--all standing
+in adverse lights,--if I may use the expression. Whenever the Colonel
+himself, or one of the 'swells' of the company, came out with a fine
+sentiment about regenerated Ireland, happy and prosperous, and so forth,
+Magennis was sure to break in with some violent denunciation of the
+infernal miscreants, as he called the landlords, or the greatest curse
+of the land,--the Law Church!"
+
+"And how did Father Neal behave?"
+
+"With great decorum,--the very greatest. He moderated all Tom's
+violence, and repeatedly said that he accepted no participation in such
+illiberal opinions. 'We have grievances, it is true,' said he, 'but we
+live under a Government able and willing to redress them. It shall never
+be said of us that we were either impatient or intolerant.' 'With such
+support, no Government was ever weak!' said the Colonel, and they took
+wine together."
+
+"That was very pleasant to see!" said Repton.
+
+"So it was, sir," rejoined Crow, innocently; "and I thought to myself,
+if there was only an end of all their squabbling and fighting, they 'd
+have time to cultivate the arts and cherish men of genius,--if they had
+them!" added he, after a pause.
+
+"Father Neal, then, made a favorable impression, you 'd say?" asked
+Repton, half carelessly.
+
+"I'd say, very favorable,--very favorable, indeed. I remarked that he
+always spoke so freely, so liberally. Twice or thrice, too, he said,
+'If the Papists do this, that, or t' other;' and when the Colonel asked
+whether the Catholics of Ireland submitted implicitly to Rome in all
+things, he laughed heartily, and said, 'About as much as we do to the
+Cham of Tartary!'
+
+"'I 'd like to examine our friend there before the Committee,' whispered
+an old gentleman at the Colonel's right hand.
+
+"'It was the very thing was passing through my own mind at the minute,'
+said the Colonel.
+
+"'That's exactly the kind of thing we want,' said the old gentleman
+again,--'a bold, straightforward denial; something that would tell
+admirably with the House! Present me to your friend, Massingbred!'
+And then the Chief Secretary said, 'The Member for Strudeham--Mr.
+Crutch-ley--is very desirous of being known to you, Mr. Rafferty.' And
+there was great smiling, and bowing, and drinking wine together after
+that."
+
+Martin now re-entered the room, and taking his place at the table, sat
+for some minutes in moody silence.
+
+"Well," said Repton, "what does my Lady think of your tidings?"
+
+"She says she does n't believe it!"
+
+"Does n't believe that these people dined with Massingbred; that Crow
+saw them, heard them, dined with them?"
+
+"No, no,--not that," said Martin, gently, and laying his hand familiarly
+on Crow's arm. "Don't mistake me; nor don't let Repton play the lawyer
+with us, and pervert the evidence. Lady Dorothea can't believe that her
+distinguished relative, the Viceroy, would ever countenance this game;
+that--that--in fact, we're to dine there, Repton, and see for ourselves!
+Though," added he, after a brief pause, "what we are to see, or what we
+are to do when we 've seen it, I wish anybody would tell me!"
+
+"Then I 'll be that man!" said Repton, with a mock solemnity, and
+imitating the tone and manner of a judge delivering sentence. "You 'll
+go from this place to the Lodge, where you 'll be fed 'to the neck,'
+feasted and flattered, and all your good resolves and high purposes will
+be cut down, and your noble indignation buried within the precincts of
+your own hearts!"
+
+And, so saying, he arose from the table and extended his hand to take
+leave, with all the gravity of a solemn farewell.
+
+"If you could say a word to his Excellency about Moses," muttered Crow,
+as he was leaving the room, "it would be the making of me!" But Martin
+never heeded the appeal; perhaps he never heard it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. DARKENING FORTUNES
+
+The Martins had always lived a life of haughty estrangement from their
+neighbors; there were none of exactly their own rank and pretensions
+within miles of them, and they were too proud to acknowledge the
+acquaintance of a small squirearchy, which was all that the country
+around could boast. Notwithstanding all the isolation of their
+existence, their departure created a great void in the county, and their
+absence was sensibly felt by every class around. The very requirements
+of a large fortune suggest a species of life and vitality. The movement
+of servants, the passing and repassing of carriages, the necessary
+intercourse with market and post,--all impart a degree of bustle and
+movement, terribly contrasted by the unbroken stillness of a deserted
+mansion.
+
+Lady Dorothea had determined that there should be no ambiguity as to the
+cause of their departure; she had given the most positive orders on this
+head to every department of the household. To teach an ungrateful people
+the sore consequences of their own ingratitude, the lesson should be
+read in everything: in the little villages thrown out of work, in the
+silent quarries, the closed schoolhouses, the model farm converted into
+grass-land, even to the grand entrance, now built up by a wall of coarse
+masonry, the haughty displeasure of the proud mistress revealed itself,
+all proclaiming the sentiment of a deep, unforgiving vengeance. She had
+tortured her ingenuity for details which should indicate her anger; nor
+was she satisfied if her displeasure should not find its way into every
+cabin and at every hearth. The small hamlet of Cro' Martin had possessed
+a dispensary. A hard-working, patient, and skilful man had passed many
+years of life there as the doctor, eking out the poor subsistence of
+that unfavored lot, and supporting a family by a life of dreary toil.
+From this her Ladyship's subscription--the half of all his salary--was
+now to be withdrawn. She thought "Cloves was grown negligent; it might
+be age,--if so, a younger man would be better; besides, if he could
+afford to dress his three daughters in the manner he did, he surely
+could not require her thirty pounds per annum." The servants, too,
+complained that he constantly mistook their complaints. In fact,
+judgment was recorded against Cloves, and there was none to recommend
+him to mercy!
+
+We have said that there was a little chapel within the bounds of the
+demesne; it occupied a corner of a ruin which once had formed Cro'
+Martin Abbey, and now served for the village church. It was very small,
+but still large enough for its little congregation. The vicar of this
+humble benefice was a very old man, a widower, and childless, though
+once the father of a numerous family. Dr. Leslie had, some eighteen
+years back, been unfortunate enough to incur her Ladyship's displeasure,
+and was consequently never invited to the castle, nor recognized in any
+way, save by the haughty salute that met him as he left the church. To
+save him, however, a long and tedious walk on Sundays, he was permitted
+to make use of a little private path to the church, which led through
+one of the shrubberies adjoining his own house,--a concession of the
+more consequence as he was too poor to keep a carriage of the humblest
+kind. This was now ordered to be closed up, the gate removed, and a wall
+to replace it. "The poor had got the habit of coming that way; it was
+never intended for their use, but they had usurped it. To-morrow or
+next day we should hear of its being claimed at law as a public right
+of passage. It was better to do the thing in time. In short, it must
+be 'closed.'" By some such reasoning as this Lady Dorothea persuaded
+herself to this course; and who should gainsay her? Oh, if men would
+employ but one tenth of all that casuistry by which they minister to
+their selfishness, in acts of benevolence and good feeling,--if they
+would only use a little sophistry, to induce them to do right,--what a
+world this might be!
+
+Mary Martin knew nothing of these decisions; overwhelmed by the vast
+changes on every side, almost crushed beneath the difficulties that
+surrounded her, her first few weeks passed over like a disturbed dream.
+Groups of idle, unemployed people saluted her in mournful silence as she
+passed the roads. Interrupted works, half-executed plans met her eye at
+every turn, and at every moment the same words rang in her ears--"Her
+Ladyship's orders"--as the explanation of all.
+
+Hitherto her life had been one of unceasing exertion and toil; from
+early dawn to late night she had been employed; her fatigues, however,
+great as they were, had been always allied with power. What she willed
+she could execute. Means never failed her, no matter how costly the
+experiment, to carry out her plans, and difficulty gave only zest to
+every undertaking. There is nothing more captivating than this sense of
+uncontrolled ability for action, especially when exercised by one of
+a warm and enthusiastic nature. To feel herself the life and spring of
+every enterprise, to know that she suggested and carried out each plan,
+that her ingenuity devised, and her energy accomplished all the changes
+around her, was in itself a great fascination; and now suddenly she
+was to awake from all this, and find herself unoccupied and powerless.
+Willingly, without a regret, could she abdicate from all the pomp
+and splendor of a great household; she saw troops of servants depart,
+equipage sold, great apartments closed up without a pang! To come down
+to the small conditions of narrow fortune in her daily life cost her
+nothing, beyond a smile. It was odd, it was strange; but it was no more!
+Far otherwise, however, did she feel the circumstances of her impaired
+power. That hundreds of workmen were no longer at her bidding, that
+whole families no longer looked up to her for aid and comfort,--these
+were astounding facts, and came upon her with an actual shock.
+
+"For what am I left here?" cried she, passionately, to Henderson, as he
+met each suggestion she made by the one cold word, "Impossible." "Is
+it to see destitution that I cannot relieve,--witness want that I am
+powerless to alleviate? To what end or with what object do I remain?"
+
+"I canna say, miss," was the dry response.
+
+"If it be to humiliate me by the spectacle of my own inefficiency, a day
+or a week will suffice for that; years could not teach me more."
+
+Henderson bowed what possibly might mean an acquiescence.
+
+"I don't speak of the estate," cried she, earnestly; "but what 's to
+become of the people?"
+
+"Many o' them will emigrate, miss, I've no doubt," said he, "when they
+see there 's nothing to bide for."
+
+"You take it easily, sir. You see little hardships in men having to
+leave home and country; but I tell you that home may be poor and country
+cruel, and yet both very hard to part with."
+
+"That 's vara true, miss," was the dry response.
+
+"For anything there is now to be done here, you, sir, are to the full as
+competent as I am. I ask again, To what end am I here?"
+
+Giving to her question a very different significance from what she
+intended, Henderson calmly said, "I thought, miss, it was just yer ain
+wish, and for no other reason."
+
+Mary's cheek became crimson, and her eyes flashed with angry
+indignation; but repressing the passion that was bursting within her,
+she walked hastily up and down the room in silence. At length, opening
+a large colored map of the estate which lay on the table, she stood
+attentively considering it for some time. "The works at Carrigulone are
+stopped?" said she, hastily.
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+"And the planting at Kyle's Wood?"
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+"And even the thinning there,--is that stopped?"
+
+"Yes, miss; the bark is to be sold, and a' the produce of the wood for
+ten years, to a contractor, a certain Mister--"
+
+"I don't want his name, sir. What of the marble quarries?"
+
+"My Lady thinks they're nae worth a' they cost, and won't hear o' their
+being worked again."
+
+"And is the harbor at Kilkieran to be given up?"
+
+"Yes, miss, and the Osprey's Nest will be let. I think they 'll mak' an
+inn or a public o' it."
+
+"And if the harbor is abandoned, what is to become of the fishermen? The
+old quay is useless."
+
+"Vara true, miss; but there's a company goin' to take the royalties o'
+the coast the whole way to Belmullet."
+
+"A Scotch company, Mr. Henderson?" said Mary, with a sly malice in her
+look.
+
+"Yes, miss," said he, coloring slightly. "The house of M'Grotty and Co.
+is at the head o' it."
+
+"And are they the same enterprising people who have proposed to take the
+demesne on lease, provided the gardens be measured in as arable land?"
+
+"They are, miss; they've signed the rough draught o' the lease this
+morning."
+
+"Indeed!" cried she, growing suddenly pale as death. "Are there any
+other changes you can mention to me, since in the few days I have been
+ill so much has occurred?"
+
+"There 's nae muckle more to speak o', miss. James M'Grotty--he's the
+younger brother--was here yesterday to try and see you about the school.
+He wants the house for his steward; but if you object, he 'll just take
+the doctor's."
+
+"Why--where is Dr. Cloves to go?"
+
+"He does na ken exactly, miss. He thinks he 'll try Auckland, or some of
+these new places in New Zealand."
+
+"But the dispensary must be continued; the people cannot be left without
+medical advice."
+
+"Mr. James says he 'll think aboot it when he comes over in summer. He's
+a vara spirited young man, and when there's a meetin'-house built in the
+village--"
+
+"Enough of this, Henderson. Come over here tomorrow, for I 'm not strong
+enough to hear more to-day, and let Mr. Scanlan know that I wish to see
+him this evening."
+
+And Mary motioned with her hand that he should withdraw. Scarcely was
+the door closed behind him than she burst into a torrent of tears; her
+long pent-up agony utterly overpowered her, and she cried with all the
+vehemence of a child's grief. Her heart once opened to sorrow, by a
+hundred channels came tributaries to her affliction. Up to that moment
+her uncle's departure had never seemed a cruelty; now it took all the
+form of desertion. The bitterness of her forlorn condition had never
+struck her till it came associated with all the sorrows of others. It is
+not impossible that wounded self-love entered into her feelings. It is
+by no means unlikely that the sense of her own impaired importance added
+poignancy to her misery. Who shall anatomize motives, or who shall be
+skilful enough to trace the springs of one human emotion? There was
+assuredly enough outside of and above all personal consideration to
+ennoble her grief and dignify her affliction.
+
+Her first impulses led her to regard herself as utterly useless; her
+occupation gone, and her whole career of duty annihilated. A second and
+a better resolve whispered to her that she was more than ever needful to
+those who without her would be left without a friend. "If I desert them,
+who is to remain?" asked she. "It is true I am no more able to set
+in motion the schemes by which their indigence was alleviated. I am
+powerless, but not all worthless. I can still be their nurse, their
+comforter, their schoolmistress. My very example may teach them how
+altered fortune can be borne with fortitude and patience. They shall see
+me reduced to a thousand privations, and perhaps even this may bear
+its lesson." Drying her tears, she began to feel within her some of the
+courage she hoped to inspire in others; and anxious not to let old Catty
+detect the trace of sorrow in her features, issued forth into the wood
+for a walk.
+
+As the deep shadows thickened around her, she grew calmer and more
+meditative. The solemn stillness of the place, the deep, unbroken
+quietude, imparted its own soothing influence to her thoughts; and as
+she went, her heart beat freer, and her elastic temperament again arose
+to cheer and sustain her. To confront the future boldly and well, it was
+necessary that she should utterly forget the past. She could no longer
+play the great part to which wealth and high station had raised her;
+she must now descend to that humbler one,--all whose influence should
+be derived from acts of kindness and words of comfort, unaided by the
+greater benefits she had once dispensed.
+
+The means placed at her disposal for her own expenditure had been
+exceedingly limited. It was her own desire they should be so, and Lady
+Dorothea had made no opposition to her wishes. Beyond this she had
+nothing, save a sum of five thousand pounds payable at her uncle's
+death. By strictest economy--privation, indeed--she thought that she
+could save about a hundred pounds a year of this small income; but to
+do so would require the sale of both her horses, retaining only the pony
+and the little carriage, while her dress should be of the very simplest
+and plainest. In what way she should best employ this sum was to be
+for after consideration. The first thought was how to effect the saving
+without giving to the act any unnecessary notoriety. She felt that her
+greatest difficulty would be old Catty Broon. The venerable housekeeper
+had all her life regarded her with an affection that was little short of
+worship. It was not alone the winning graces of Mary's manner, nor the
+attractive charms of her appearance that had so captivated old Catty;
+but that the young girl, to her eyes, represented the great family
+whose name she bore, and represented them so worthily. The title of
+the Princess, by which the Country people knew her, seemed her just and
+rightful designation. Mary realized to her the proud scion of a proud
+stock, who had ruled over a territory rather than a mere estate; how,
+then, could she bear to behold her in all the straits and difficulties
+of a reduced condition? There seemed but one way to effect this, which
+was to give her new mode of life the character of a caprice. "I must
+make old Catty believe it is one of my wild and wilful fancies,--a
+sudden whim,--out of which a little time will doubtless rally me. She
+is the last in the world to limit me in the indulgence of a momentary
+notion; she will, therefore, concede everything to my humor, patiently
+awaiting the time when it shall assume a course the very opposite."
+
+Some one should, however, be intrusted with her secret,--without some
+assistance it could not be carried into execution; and who should that
+be? Alas, her choice was a very narrow one. It lay between Scanlan and
+Henderson. The crafty attorney was not, indeed, much to Mary's liking.
+His flippant vulgarity and pretension were qualities she could ill
+brook; but she had known him do kind things. She had seen him on more
+than one occasion temper the sharpness of some of her Ladyship's ukases,
+little suspecting, indeed, how far the possible impression upon herself
+was the motive that so guided him; she had, therefore, no difficulty in
+preferring him to the steward, whose very accent and manner were enough
+to render him hateful to her. Scanlan, besides, would necessarily have
+a great deal in his power; he would be able to make many a concession to
+the poor people on the estate, retard the cruel progress of the law, or
+give them time to provide against its demands. Mary felt that she was in
+a position to exercise a certain influence over him; and, conscious of
+the goodness of the cause she would promote, never hesitated as to the
+means of employing it.
+
+Who shall say, too, that she had not noticed the deferential admiration
+by which he always distinguished her? for there is a species of coquetry
+that takes pleasure in a conquest where the profits of victory would be
+thoroughly despised. We are not bold enough to say that such feelings
+found their place in Mary's heart. We must leave its analysis to wiser
+and more cunning anatomists.
+
+Straying onwards ever in deep thought, and not remarking whither, she
+was suddenly struck by the noise of masonry,--strange sounds in a
+spot thus lonely and remote; and now walking quickly onward, she found
+herself on the path by which the vicar on Sundays approached the church;
+and here, at a little distance, descried workmen employed in walling up
+the little gateway of the passage.
+
+"By whose orders is this done?" cried Mary, to whose quick intelligence
+the act revealed its whole meaning and motive.
+
+"Mr. Henderson, miss," replied one of the men. "He said we were to
+work all night at it, if we could n't be sure of getting it done before
+Sunday."
+
+A burst of passionate indignation rose to her lips, but she turned away
+without a word, and re-entered the wood in silence.
+
+"Yes," cried she, to herself, "it is, indeed, a new existence is opening
+before me; let me strive so to control my temper, that I may view it
+calmly and dispassionately, so that others may not suffer from the
+changes in my fortune."
+
+She no sooner reached the house than she despatched a note to Mr.
+Scanlan, requesting to see him as early as possible on the following
+morning. This done, she set herself to devise her plans for the
+future,--speculations, it must be owned, to which her own hopeful
+temperament gave a coloring that a colder spirit and more calculating
+mind had never bestowed on them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. HOW MR. SCANLAN GIVES SCOPE TO A GENEROUS IMPULSE
+
+It is a remark of Wieland's, that although the life of man is measured
+by the term of fourscore years and ten, yet that his ideal existence
+or, as he calls it, his "unacted life," meaning thereby his period of
+dreamy, projective, and forecasting existence, would occupy a far
+wider space. And he goes on to say that it is in this same imaginative
+longevity men differ the most from each other, the poet standing to the
+ungifted peasant in the ratio of centuries to years.
+
+Mr. Maurice Scanlan would not appear a favorable subject by which to
+test this theory. If not endowed with any of the higher and greater
+qualities of intellect, he was equally removed from any deficiency on
+that score. The world called him "a clever fellow," and the world is
+rarely in fault in such judgments. Where there is a question of the
+creative faculties, where it is the divine essence itself is the matter
+of decision, the world will occasionally be betrayed into mistakes, as
+fashion and a passing enthusiasm may mislead it; but where it is
+the practical and the real, the exercise of gifts by which men make
+themselves rich and powerful, then the world makes no blunders. She
+knows them as a mother knows her children. They are indeed the "World's
+own."
+
+We have come to these speculations by contemplating Mr. Scanlan as he
+sat with Mary Martin's open letter before him. The note was couched in
+polite terms, requesting Mr. Scanlan to favor the writer with a visit
+at his earliest convenience, if possible early on the following morning.
+Had it been a document of suspected authenticity, a forged acceptance,
+an interpolated article in a deed, a newly discovered codicil to a will,
+he could not have canvassed every syllable, scrutinized every letter,
+with more searching zeal. It was hurriedly written; there was,
+therefore, some emergency. It began, "Dear sir," a style she had never
+employed before; the letter "D" was blotted, and seemed to have been
+originally destined for an "M," as though she had commenced "Miss Martin
+requests," etc., and then suddenly adopted the more familiar address.
+The tone of command by which he was habitually summoned to Cro' Martin
+was assuredly not there, and Maurice was not the man to undervalue the
+smallest particle of evidence.
+
+"She has need of me," cried he to himself; "she sees everything in a
+state of subversion and chaos around her, and looks to me as the man to
+restore order. The people are entreating her to stay law proceedings, to
+give them time, to employ them; the poorest are all importuning her with
+stories of their sufferings. She is powerless, and, what's worse, she
+does not know what it is to be powerless to help them. She'll struggle
+and fret and scheme, and plan fifty things, and when she has failed in
+them all, fall back upon Maurice Scanlan for advice and counsel."
+
+It was a grave question with Scanlan how far he would suffer her
+persecutions to proceed before he would come to her aid. "If I bring my
+succor too early, she may never believe the emergency was critical; if I
+delay it too long, she may abandon the field in despair, and set off to
+join her uncle." These were the two propositions which he placed before
+himself for consideration. It was a case for very delicate management,
+great skill, and great patience, but it was well worth all the cost.
+"If I succeed," said he to himself, "I'm a made man. Mary Martin Mrs.
+Scanlan, I 'm the agent for the whole estate, with Cro' Martin to live
+in, and all the property at my discretion. If I fail,--that is, if I
+fail without blundering,--I 'm just where I was. Well," thought he, as
+he drove into the demesne, "I never thought I'd have such a chance as
+this. All gone, and she alone here by herself: none to advise, not one
+even to keep her company! I'd have given a thousand pounds down just for
+this opportunity, without counting all the advantages I have in my
+power from my present position, for I can do what I like with the
+estate,--give leases or break them. It will be four months at least
+before old Repton comes down here, and in that time I'll have finished
+whatever I want to do. And now to begin the game." And with this he
+turned into the stable-yard, and descended from his gig. Many men
+would have been struck by the changed aspect of the place,--silence and
+desolation where before there were movement and bustle; but Scanlan
+only read in the altered appearances around the encouragement of his own
+ambitious hopes. The easy swagger in which the attorney indulged while
+moving about the stable-yard declined into a more becoming gait as he
+traversed the long corridors, and finally became actually respectful as
+he drew nigh the library, where he was informed Miss Martin awaited
+him, so powerful was the influence of old habit over the more vulgar
+instincts of his nature. He had intended to be very familiar and at his
+ease, and ere he turned the handle of the door his courage failed him.
+
+"This is very kind of you, Mr. Scanlan," said she, advancing a few steps
+towards him as he entered. "You must have started early from home."
+
+"At five, miss," said he, bowing deferentially.
+
+"And of course you have not breakfasted?"
+
+"Indeed, then, I only took a cup of coffee. I was anxious to be early. I
+thought from your note that there might be something urgent."
+
+Mary half smiled at the mingled air of bashfulness and gallantry in
+which he uttered these broken sentences; for without knowing it himself,
+while he began in some confusion, he attained a kind of confidence as he
+went on.
+
+"Nor have I breakfasted, either," said she; "and I beg, therefore, you
+will join me."
+
+Scanlan's face actually glowed with pleasure.
+
+"I have many things to consult you upon with regard to the estate, and I
+am fully aware that there is nobody more competent to advise me."
+
+"Nor more ready and willing, miss," said Maurice, bowing.
+
+"I 'm perfectly certain of that, Mr. Scanlan. The confidence my uncle
+has always reposed in you assures me on that head."
+
+"Was n't I right about the borough, Miss Mary?" broke he in. "I told you
+how it would be, and that if you did n't make some sort of a compromise
+with the Liberal party--"
+
+"Let me interrupt you, Mr. Scanlan, and once for all assure you that
+there is not one subject of all those which pertain to this county and
+its people which has so little interest for me as the local squabbles
+of party; and I 'm sure no success on either side is worth the broken
+friendships and estranged affections it leaves behind it."
+
+"A beautiful sentiment, to which I respond with all my heart," rejoined
+Scanlan, with an energy that made her blush deeply.
+
+"I only meant to say, sir," added she, hastily, "that the borough and
+its politics need never be discussed between us."
+
+"Just so, miss. We'll call on the next case," said Scanlan.
+
+"My uncle's sudden departure, and a slight indisposition under which I
+have labored for a week or so, have thrown me so far in arrear of all
+knowledge of what has been done here, that I must first of all ask you,
+not how the estate is to be managed in future, but does it any longer
+belong to us?"
+
+"What, miss?" cried Scanlan, in amazement.
+
+"I mean, sir, is it my uncle's determination to lease out
+everything,--even to the demesne around the Castle; to sell the timber
+and dispose of the royalties? If so, a mere residence here could have
+no object for _me_. It seems strange, Mr. Scanlan, that I should have
+to ask such a question. I own to you,--it is not without some sense of
+humiliation that I do so,--I believed, I fancied I had understood my
+uncle's intentions. Some of them he had even committed to writing, at
+my request; you shall see them yourself. The excitement and confusion of
+his departure,--the anxieties of leave-taking,--one thing or another,
+in short, gave me little time to seek his counsel as to many points I
+wished to know; and, in fact, I found myself suddenly alone before I was
+quite prepared for it, and then I fell ill,--a mere passing attack, but
+enough to unfit me for occupation."
+
+"Breakfast is served, miss," said a maid-servant, at this conjuncture,
+opening a door into a small room, where the table was spread.
+
+"I'm quite ready, and so I hope is Mr. Scanlan," said Mary, leading the
+way.
+
+No sooner seated at table than she proceeded to do the honors with an
+ease that plainly told that all the subject of her late discourse was to
+be left for the present in abeyance. In fact, the very tone of her voice
+was changed, as she chatted away carelessly about the borough people and
+their doings, what strangers had lately passed through the town, and the
+prospects of the coming season at Kilkieran.
+
+No theme could more readily have put Mr. Scanlan at his ease. He felt,
+or fancied he felt, himself at that degree of social elevation above
+the Oughterard people, which enabled him to talk with a species of
+compassionate jocularity of their little dinners and evening parties.
+He criticised toilet and manners and cookery, therefore, with much
+self-complacency,--far more than had he suspected that Mary Martin's
+amusement was more derived from the pretension of the speaker than the
+matter which he discussed.
+
+"That's what I think you'll find hardest of all, Miss Martin," said he,
+at the close of a florid description of the borough customs. "You can
+have no society here."
+
+"And yet I mean to try," said she, smiling; "at least, I have gone
+so far as to ask Mrs. Nelligan to come and dine with me on Monday or
+Tuesday next."
+
+"Mrs. Nelligan dine at Cro' Martin!" exclaimed he.
+
+"If she will be good enough to come so far for so little!"
+
+"She 'd go fifty miles on the same errand; and if I know old Dan
+himself, he 'll be a prouder man that day than when his son gained the
+gold medal."
+
+"Then I'm sure _I_, at least, am perfectly requited," said Mary.
+
+"But are you certain, Miss, that such people will suit you?" said
+Scanlan, half timidly. "They live in a very different style, and have
+other ways than yours. I say nothing against Mrs. Nelligan; indeed, she
+comes of a very respectable family; but sure she hasn't a thought nor an
+idea in common with Miss Martin."
+
+"I suspect you are wrong there, Mr. Scanlan. My impression is, that Mrs.
+Nelligan and I will find many topics to agree upon, and that we shall
+understand each other perfectly; and if, as you suppose, there may be
+certain things new and strange to me in _her_ modes of thinking, I 'm
+equally sure she 'll have to conquer many prejudices with regard to
+_me_.
+
+"I'm afraid you'll be disappointed, miss!" was the sententious reply of
+Scanlan.
+
+"Then there's our vicar!" broke in Mary. "Mr. Leslie will, I hope, take
+pity on my solitude."
+
+"Indeed, I forgot him entirely. I don't think I ever saw him at Cro'
+Martin."
+
+"Nor I, either," said Mary; "but he may concede from a sense of kindness
+what he would decline to a mere point of etiquette. In a word, Mr.
+Scanlan," said she, after a pause, "all the troubles and misfortunes
+which we have lately gone through--even to the destitution of the old
+house here--have in a great measure had their origin in the studious
+ignorance in which we have lived of our neighbors. I don't wish to
+enter upon political topics, but I am sure that had we known the
+borough people, and they us,--had we been in the habit of mingling and
+associating together, however little,--had we interchanged the little
+civilities that are the charities of social life,--we 'd have paused,
+either of us, ere we gave pain to the other; we'd at least have made
+concessions on each side, and so softened down the asperities of party.
+More than half the enmities of the world are mere misconceptions."
+
+"That's true!" said Scanlan, gravely. But his thoughts had gone on
+a very different errand from the theme in question, and were busily
+inquiring what effect all these changes might have upon his own
+prospects.
+
+"And now for a matter of business," said Mary, rising and taking her
+place at another table. "I shall want your assistance, Mr. Scanlan.
+There is a small sum settled upon me, but not payable during my uncle's
+life. I wish to raise a certain amount of this, by way of loan,--say a
+thousand pounds. Will this be easily accomplished?"
+
+"What's the amount of the settlement, miss?" said Scanlan, with more
+eagerness than was quite disinterested.
+
+"Five thousand pounds. There is the deed." And she pushed a parchment
+towards him.
+
+Scanlan ran his practised eye rapidly over the document, and with the
+quick craft of his calling saw it was all correct. "One or even two
+thousand can be had upon this at once, miss. It 's charged upon Kelly's
+farm and the mills--"
+
+"All I want to know is, that I can have this sum at my disposal, and
+very soon; at once, indeed."
+
+"Will next week suit you?"
+
+"Perfectly. And now to another point. These are the few memoranda my
+uncle left with me as to his wishes respecting the management of the
+estate. You will see that, although he desires a considerable diminution
+of the sum to be spent in wages, and a strict economy in all outlay,
+that he still never contemplated throwing the people out of employment.
+The quarries were to be worked as before,--the planting was to be
+continued,--the gardens and ornamental grounds, indeed, were to be
+conducted with less expense; but the harbor at Kilkieran and the new
+school-house at Ternagh were to be completed; and if money could be
+spared for it, he gave me leave to build a little hospital at the
+cross-roads, allowing forty pounds additional salary to Dr. Cloves
+for his attendance. These are the chief points; but you shall have the
+papers to read over at your leisure. We talked over many other matters;
+indeed, we chatted away till long after two o'clock the last night he
+was here, and I thought I understood perfectly all he wished. Almost his
+last words to me at parting were, 'As little change as possible, Molly.
+Let the poor people believe that I am still, where my heart is, under
+the roof of Cro' Martin!'"
+
+The recollection of the moment brought the tears to her eyes, and she
+turned her head away in silence.
+
+"Now," said she, rallying, and speaking with renewed energy, "if what
+Henderson says be correct, something later must have been issued than
+all this; some directions which I have never seen,--not so much as heard
+of. He tells me of works to be stopped, people discharged, schoolhouses
+closed, tenants ejected; in fact, a whole catalogue of such changes as I
+never could have courage to see, much less carry through. I know my dear
+uncle well; he never would have imposed such a task upon me, nor have I
+the resources within me for such an undertaking."
+
+"And have you received no letter from Mr. Martin, from Dublin?" asked
+Scanlan.
+
+"None,--not a line; a note from my aunt--indeed, not from my aunt, but
+by her orders, written by Kate Henderson--has reached me, in which,
+however, there is no allusion to the property or the place."
+
+"And yet her Ladyship said that Mr. Martin would write to you himself,
+in the course of the week, fully and explicitly."
+
+"To whom was this said, sir?"
+
+"To myself, miss; there is the letter." And Scanlan drew from his
+pocket-book a very voluminous epistle, in Kate Henderson's hand. "This
+contains the whole of her Ladyship's instructions. How all the works are
+to be stopped,--roads, woods, and quarries; the townlands of Carrigalone
+and Killybogue to be distrained; Kyle-a-Noe the same. If a tenant can be
+got for the demesne, it is to be let, with the shooting over the seven
+mountains, and the coast-fishing too. There's to be no more charges for
+schools, hospital, or dispensary after next November; everything is to
+be on the new plan, what they call 'Self-supporting.' I 'd like to know
+what that means. In fact, miss, by the time one half the orders given
+in that same letter is carried out, there won't be such another scene of
+misery and confusion in all Ireland as the estate of Cro' Martin."
+
+"And this is sanctioned by my uncle?"
+
+"I suppose we must conclude it is, for he says nothing to the contrary;
+and Mr. Repton writes me what he calls 'my instructions,' in a way that
+shows his own feeling of indignation about the whole business."
+
+Mary was silent; there was not a sentiment which could give pain that
+had not then its place in her heart. Commiseration, deep pity for
+the sorrows she was to witness unavailingly, wounded pride, insulted
+self-esteem,--all were there! And she turned away to hide the emotions
+which overcame her. For a moment the sense of self had the mastery, and
+she thought but of how she was to endure all this humiliation. "Am
+I," said she to her own heart,--"am I to be insulted by the rivalry of
+Scotch stewards and gardeners, to be thrust from my place of power by
+some low-born creature, not even of the soil, but an alien?--to live
+here bereft of influence, representing nothing save the decay of our
+fortunes?" The torrent of her passion ran full and deep, and her
+bosom heaved in the agony of the moment. And then as suddenly came the
+reaction. "How small a share is mine in all this suffering, and
+how miserably selfish are even my sorrows! It is of others I should
+think!--of those who must leave hearth and home to seek out a new
+resting-place,--of the poor, who are to be friendless,--of the
+suffering, to whom no comfort is to come,--of the old, who are to die
+in distant lands,--and the young, whose hearts are never to warm to the
+affections of a native country!"
+
+While affecting to arrange the papers in his pocket-book, Scanlan
+watched every passing shade of emotion in her face. Nor was it a study
+in which he was ignorant; the habits of his calling had made him a very
+subtle observer. Many a time had he framed his question to a witness
+by some passing expression of the features. More than once had he
+penetrated the heart through the eye! The elevation of sentiment had
+given its own character to her handsome face; and as she stood proudly
+erect, with arms folded on her breast, there was in her look and
+attitude all the calm dignity of an antique statue.
+
+Scanlan interpreted truthfully what passed within her, and rightly
+judged that no small sentiment of condolence or sympathy would be
+appropriate to the occasion. Nor was he altogether unprovided for
+the emergency. He had seen a king's counsel warm up a jury to the
+boiling-point, and heard him pour forth, with all the seeming vehemence
+of an honest conviction, the wildest rhapsodies about desecrated hearths
+and blackened roof-trees,--talk of the spoiler and the seducer,--and
+even shed a tear "over the widow and the orphan!"
+
+"What say you to all this, sir?" cried she. "Have you any counsel to
+give me,--any advice?"
+
+"It is just what I have not, miss," said he, despondingly; "and, indeed,
+it was uppermost in my heart this morning when I was writing my letter.
+What 's all I 'm suffering compared to what Miss Martin must feel?"
+
+"What letter do you allude to?" asked she, suddenly.
+
+"A letter I wrote to Mr. Repton, miss," said he, with a deep sigh. "I
+told him plainly my mind about everything; and I said, 'If it 's for
+exterminating you are,--if you 're going to turn out families that
+were on the land for centuries, and drive away over the seas, God knows
+where, the poor people that thought the name of Martin a shield against
+all the hardships of life, all I have to say is, you must look elsewhere
+for help, since it is not Maurice Scanlan will aid you.'"
+
+"You said all this, sir?" broke she in, eagerly.
+
+"I did, miss. I told him I 'd hold the under-agency till he named some
+one to succeed me; but that I 'd not put my hand to one act or deed to
+distress the tenants. It 's giving up," said I, "the best part of
+my means of support; it's surrendering what I reckoned on to make me
+independent. But a good conscience is better than money, miss; and if I
+must seek out a new country, I 'll go at least without the weight of a
+cruel wrong over me; and if I see one of our poor Western people beyond
+seas, I 'll not be ashamed to meet him!"
+
+"Oh, that was noble,--that was truly noble conduct!" cried she, grasping
+his hand in both her own. "How I thank you from my very heart for this
+magnanimity!"
+
+"If I ever suspected you 'd have said the half of this, Miss Mary, the
+sacrifice would have been a cheap one, indeed. But, in truth, I never
+meant to tell it. I intended to have kept my own secret; for I knew if
+any one only imagined why it was I threw up the agency, matters would
+only be worse on the estate."
+
+"Yes, you are right," said she, thoughtfully. "This was most
+considerate. Such a censure would augment every difficulty."
+
+"I felt that, miss. What I said to myself was, 'My successor will
+neither know the place nor the people; he 'll be cruel where he ought
+to have mercy, and spare those that he ought to keep to their duty.'
+It isn't in a day nor a week that a man learns the habits of a large
+tenantry, nor was it without labor and pains that I acquired my present
+influence amongst them."
+
+"Quite true," said she; but more as though following out her own
+reflections than hearing his.
+
+"They 'll have _you_, however," said Scanlan,--"you, that are better to
+them than all the agents that ever breathed; and the very sight of you
+riding down amongst them will cheer their hearts in the darkest moments
+of life. I turned back the whole townland of Terry Valley. They
+were packing up to be off to America; but I told them, 'she 's not
+going,--she 'll stay here, and never desert you.'"
+
+"Nor will _you_ either, sir," cried Mary. "You will not desert them, nor
+desert _me_. Recall your letter!"
+
+"It's not gone off to the post yet. I was waiting to see you--"
+
+"Better still. Oh, Mr. Scanlan, bethink you how much yet may be done for
+these poor people, if we will but forget ourselves and what we think we
+owe to self-esteem. If _you_ will have sacrifices to make, believe me,
+_I_ shall not escape them also. It is nobler, too, and finer to
+remain here bereft of influence, stripped of all power, to share their
+sufferings and take part in their afflictions. Neither you nor I shall
+be to them what we have been; but still, let us not abandon them. Tell
+me this,--say that you will stay to counsel and advise me, to guide me
+where I need guidance, and give me all the benefit of your experience
+and your knowledge. Let it be a compact between us then; neither shall
+go while the other remains!"
+
+It was with difficulty Scanlan could restrain his delight at these
+words. How flattering to his present vanity,--how suggestive were they
+of the future! With all the solemnity of a vow he bound himself to stay;
+and Mary thanked him with the fervor of true gratitude.
+
+If there be few emotions so pleasurable as to be the object of
+acknowledged gratitude for real services, it may well be doubted whether
+the consciousness of not having merited this reward does not seriously
+detract from this enjoyment. There are men, however, so constituted that
+a successful scheme--no matter how unscrupulously achieved--is always
+a triumph, and who cherish their self-love even in degradation! Maurice
+Scanlan is before our reader, and whether he was one of this number it
+is not for us to say; enough if we record that when he cantered homeward
+on that day he sang many a snatch of a stray ballad, and none of them
+were sad ones.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX. A SUNDAY MORNING AT CRO' MARTIN
+
+Nothing is further from our intention than to enter upon the long-vexed
+question as to the benefits of an Established Church for Ireland. Wiser
+heads than ours have discussed it polemically, politically, socially,
+and arithmetically; and there it is still, left to the judgment of each,
+as his religion, his party, or his prejudices sway him. There is one
+view of the subject, however, which no traveller in the country has
+ever failed to be struck by; which is, that these settlements of
+Protestantism, dotted through the land, are so many types of an advanced
+civilization, suggesting, even to those of a different faith, respect
+and veneration for the decorous observance of this Church, and the calm
+peace-fulness with which they keep the Sabbath.
+
+Priests may denounce and politicians declaim, but the Irish peasant,
+nurtured with all the prejudices of race and religion, never throws off
+his veneration for the little flock, who, like a brave garrison in a
+besieged land, hold manfully together round the banner of their Faith!
+How striking is this in remote parts of the country, where the reformed
+religion has made little progress, and its followers are few in number!
+
+It was Sunday; the gates of Cro' Martin Park were open to admit all who
+might repair to the church. When the Martins were at home, Lady Dorothea
+used to give to these occasions somewhat of the state of a procession.
+The servants wore their dress liveries; two carriages were in waiting.
+She herself appeared in a toilet that might have graced a court chapel;
+and a formal ceremoniousness of speech and demeanor were ordained as the
+becoming recognition of the holy day. Trained to these observances by
+many a year, Mary could scarcely comprehend the strange sensation she
+felt as she walked along to church, unattended and alone. It was a
+bright day of early summer, with a soft wind stirring the leaves above,
+and rippling pleasantly the waters of the lake. The perfume of the new
+hay floated through the thin air, with the odor of the whitethorn and
+the meadow-sweet; the birds were singing merrily; and through this gay
+carol came the mellow sound of the little bell that summoned to prayer.
+There was a delicious sense of repose in the stillness around, telling
+how, amid the cares and contentions of life, its wealth seekings, and
+its petty schemes there came moments when the better instincts were
+the victors, and men, in all the diversities of their rank and
+station, could meet together to kneel at one altar, and unite in one
+supplication. As she went, little glimpses were caught by her of the
+distant country beyond the demesne; and over all there reigned the same
+tranquillity; the sound of voices, far away, adding to the effect, and
+making the silence more palpable. "How peaceful it is," thought she,
+"and how happy it might be! Could we but bridle our own passions,
+restrain our mean jealousies, and curb the evil promptings of our own
+hearts, what blessings might grow up amongst them! But for objects not
+worth the attaining,--ambitions of no value when won,--and my uncle
+might still be here, strolling along, perhaps, with me at this
+very moment, and with me drinking in this calm repose and soothing
+quietness."
+
+Before her, at some little distance on the path, went the three
+daughters of the village doctor; and, though well and becomingly
+attired, there was nothing in their appearance to warrant the reproach
+Lady Dorothea had cast upon their style of dress. It was, indeed,
+scrupulously neat, but simple. The eldest was a girl of about sixteen,
+with all the gravity of manner and staid expression that belongs
+to those who stand in the light of mothers to younger sisters. The
+housekeeper of her father's little home, the manager of all within
+its humble household, his secretary, his companion, Ellen Cloves had
+acquired, while little more than a child, the patient and submissive
+temper that long worldly trial confers. They lived perfectly to
+themselves; between the society of the castle and that of the farmers
+around there was no intermediate territory, and thus they passed their
+lives in a little circle of home duties and affections, which made up
+all their world.
+
+Mary Martin had often wished it in her power to show them some
+attentions; she was attracted by their gentle faces and their calm
+and happy demeanor. Had her aunt permitted, she would have frequently
+invited them to the castle, lent them books and music, and sought
+companionship in their intercourse. But Lady Dorothea would not have
+heard of such a project; her theory was that familiarity with the
+peasant was so far safe that his station was a safeguard against any
+undue intimacy; while your half-gentry were truly perilous, for if you
+condescended to civility with them, they invariably mistook it for a
+friendship. Dr. Cloves dined every Christmas-day at the great house; but
+so did Mr. Scanlan and all the other heads of departments. It was a very
+grand and solemn festival, where neither host nor guest was happy; each
+felt that it was but the acquaintance of an hour, and that with the
+moment of leave-taking came back all the cold reserve of the day before.
+
+"Good-morning, Miss Cloves; good-day, Jane, and little Bessy," said
+Mary, as she overtook them.
+
+"Good-morning to you, Miss Martin," said Ellen, blushing with surprise
+at seeing her alone and on foot.
+
+"I trust the doctor is not ill? I don't see him with you," said Mary,
+anxious to relieve her momentary embarrassment.
+
+"Papa has been sent for to Knocktiernan, Miss Martin. They 're afraid
+that a case of cholera has occurred there."
+
+"May God forbid!" ejaculated Mary, with deep emotion; "we have great
+distress and poverty around us. I hope we may be spared this scourge."
+
+"It is what papa feared always," rejoined Ellen, gravely; "that want and
+destitution would bring on the malady."
+
+"Have you heard who it is is ill?"
+
+"Simon Hanley, the carpenter, Miss Martin; he worked at the castle
+once--"
+
+"Yes, yes I remember him; he made me my first little garden-rake. Poor
+fellow! And he has a large family. Your father will, I trust, have seen
+him in time. Knocktiernan is but four miles of a good road."
+
+"Papa went by the Mills, Miss Martin, for shortness, for he was on
+foot."
+
+"Why did he not ride?"
+
+"He has sold Bluebell,--the pony, I mean, Miss Martin."
+
+Mary's face became crimson with a blush that seemed to burn through the
+forehead into her very brain, and she could only mutter,--
+
+"I 'm sorry I did n't know; my carriage and pony were in the stable. If
+I had but heard of this--" and was silent.
+
+They had now reached the entrance to the little churchyard, where the
+few members of the small flock lingered, awaiting the arrival of the
+clergyman. Amidst many a respectful salutation and gaze of affectionate
+interest, Mary walked to the end of the aisle, where, shrouded in heavy
+curtains, soft-cushioned and high-panelled, stood the castle pew.
+
+It must be, indeed, hard for the rich man to enter the kingdom of
+heaven. The very appliances of his piety are the offshoots of his
+voluptuous habits; and that his heart should feel humble, his hassock
+must be of down! It was not often that the words of the pastor were
+heard within that solemn, small enclosure with the same reverent
+devotion. Mary was now alone there; her mind no longer distracted by
+the petty incidents of their coming, her proud station seemed to
+have vanished, and she felt herself but as one of an humble flock,
+supplicating and in sorrow!
+
+Dr. Leslie had heard of the terrible visitation which menaced them, and
+made it the subject of his sermon. The fact of his own great age and
+fast declining strength gave a deeper meaning to all he said, and
+imparted to the faltering words of his benediction the solemnity of a
+farewell.
+
+"You are a little fatigued to-day, doctor," said Mary, as he came out of
+church. "Will you allow me to offer you my arm?"
+
+"Willingly, my dear Miss Mary. But this is not our road."
+
+"Why so?--this is the path to the vicarage."
+
+"They 've made some change, my dear; they 've altered the approach."
+
+"And you came round by the avenue,--a distance of two miles?" cried she,
+deep crimson with shame.
+
+"And kept you all waiting; but not very long, I trust," said he, smiling
+benevolently. "But come, talk to me of yourself, and when I am to come
+and see you."
+
+"Oh, my dear Dr. Leslie, you must not think that I--that my uncle--" She
+stopped, and he pressed her hand gently, and said,--
+
+"Do not speak of it; do not give importance to things which are trifles,
+if we have but good temper to leave them so. Is to-morrow a free day
+with you; or when shall I hope to find you at leisure?"
+
+"My dear doctor, every day will be so in future; all my functions have
+ceased here. I am to be nothing in future."
+
+"I had heard something of that, and I said to myself, 'Now will Mary
+Martin display her real character. No longer carried away by the mere
+enthusiasm of her great power and her high station, not exalted to
+herself by the flatteries around her, we shall see whether the sterling
+qualities of her nature will not supply higher and greater resources
+than all the credit at a banker's!' I never undervalued all you did
+here, Mary Martin; I saw your noble purpose, even in failures; but I
+always felt that to make these efforts react favorably on yourself,
+there should be something of sacrifice. To do good was a luxury to
+you; and it was a luxury very easy to purchase. You were rich, you were
+powerful; none controlled you. Your benefits were acknowledged with all
+the enthusiasm of peasant gratitude. Why should you not be beneficent?
+what other course of conduct could bring you one half the pleasure?
+For the future, it is from another source you must dispense wealth; but
+happily it is one which there is no exhausting, for the heart exercised
+to charity has boundless stores. Let these be your riches now. Go
+amongst the people; learn to know them,--rather their friend than their
+benefactor,--and believe me that all the gold you have scattered so
+generously will not have sown such seeds of goodness as the meek example
+of your own noble submission to altered fortune. There, my dear," said
+he, smiling, "I 'll say no more, lest you should tell me that I have
+preached half an hour already. And I may come to-morrow, you say?"
+
+"What a happiness it will be for me to speak to you!" said Mary,
+ardently. "There are so many things I want to say,--so much on which I
+need advice."
+
+"I 'm but little practised in the ways of the world," said he, with a
+gentle sigh, "but I have ever found great wisdom in an honest purpose;
+and then," added he, more warmly, "it is a fine philosophy that secures
+us against humiliation, even in defeat!"
+
+They now walked along for some time without speaking, when a sudden
+angle of the path brought them directly in front of the castle. They
+both halted suddenly, struck, as it were, by the aspect of the spacious
+and splendid structure, all silent and deserted. The doors were
+closed, the windows shuttered,--not a living creature moved about the
+precincts,--and the lone flagstaff on the tower unfurled no "banner to
+the breeze." Even the trimly kept parterres were beginning to show signs
+of neglect, and tangled flowers fell across the gravel.
+
+"What a lonely home for _her!_" muttered the old doctor to himself; then
+suddenly exclaimed, "Here comes some one in search of you, Miss Martin."
+
+And a servant approached and whispered a few words in her ear.
+
+"Yes, immediately," said she, in reply.
+
+She entreated the old man to rest himself for a while ere he continued
+his walk homeward; but he declined, and with an affectionate farewell
+they parted,--he towards the vicarage, and she to re-enter the castle.
+
+There is no need to practise mystery with our reader; and he who
+had just arrived, and was eager to see Miss Martin, was only Maurice
+Scanlan! As little use is there also in denying the fact that Mary was
+much annoyed at his inopportune coming. She was in no mood of mind to
+meet either him or such topics as he would certainly discuss.
+
+However, she had, so to say, given him a permission to be admitted at
+all times, and there was no help for it!
+
+These same people that one "must see," are very terrible inflictions
+sometimes. They are ever present at the wrong time and the wrong
+place. They come in moments when their presence is a discord to all our
+thoughts; and what is to the full as bad, they don't know it,--or they
+will not know it. They have an awful amount of self-esteem, and fancy
+that they never can be but welcome. A type of this class was Maurice
+Scanlan. Thrust forward by the accidents of life into situations for
+which nothing in his own humble beginnings seemed to adapt him, he had,
+like all the other Maurice Scanlans of the world, taken to suppose that
+he was really a very necessary and important ingredient in all affairs.
+He found, too, that his small cunning served to guide him, where really
+able men's wisdom failed them,--for so it is, people won't take
+soundings when they think they can see the bottom; and, finally, he
+conceived a very high opinion of his faculties, and thought them equal
+to much higher purposes than they had ever been engaged in.
+
+Since his last interview with Mary Martin, he had never ceased to
+congratulate himself on the glorious turn of his affairs. Though not
+over-sanguine about others, Maurice was always hopeful of himself. It is
+one of the characteristics of such men, and one of the greatest aids to
+their activity, this ever-present belief in themselves. To secure the
+good opinion he had already excited in his favor was now his great
+endeavor; and nothing could so effectually contribute to this, as to
+show an ardent zeal and devotion to her wishes. He had read somewhere of
+a certain envoy who had accomplished his mission ere it was believed he
+had set out; and he resolved to profit by the example. It was, then,
+in the full confidence of success, that he presented himself on this
+occasion.
+
+Mary received him calmly, almost coldly. His presence was not in harmony
+with any thought that occupied her, and she deemed the task of admitting
+him something like an infliction.
+
+"I drove over, Miss Mary," said he, rather disconcerted by her
+reserve,--"I drove over to-day, though I know you don't like business on
+a Sunday, just to say that I had completed that little matter you spoke
+of,--the money affair. I did n't sleep on it, but went to work at once;
+and though the papers won't be ready for some days, the cash is ready
+for you whenever you like to draw it."
+
+"You have been very kind and very prompt, sir," said she, thankfully,
+but with a languor that showed she was not thinking of the subject.
+
+"He said five per cent," continued Scanlan, "and I made no objection;
+for, to tell you the truth, I expected he'd have asked us six,--he's
+generally a hard hand to deal with."
+
+It was evident that he hoped her curiosity might have inquired the name
+of him thus alluded to; but she never did so, but heard the fact with a
+calm indifference.
+
+Scanlan was uneasy; his heaviest artillery had opened no breach. What
+should be his next manouvre?
+
+"The money-market is tight just now," said he, speaking only to gain
+time for further observation; "and there's worse times even before us."
+
+If Mary heard, she did not notice this gloomy speculation.
+
+"I 'm sure it will be no easy job to get the last November rent paid up.
+It was a bad crop; and now there 's sickness coming amongst them," said
+he, half as though to himself. "You'll have to excuse me to-day, Mr.
+Scanlan," said she, at last. "I find I can think of nothing; I am in one
+of my idle moods."
+
+"To be sure, why not, Miss Mary?" said he, evidently piqued at the
+ill-success of all his zeal. "It was _I_ made a mistake. I fancied,
+somehow, you were anxious about this little matter; but another day will
+do as well,--whenever it's your own convenience."
+
+"You are always considerate, always good-natured, Mr. Scanlan," said
+she, with a vagueness that showed she was scarcely conscious of what she
+uttered.
+
+"If _you_ think so, Miss Mary, I 'm well repaid," said he, with a dash
+of gallantry in the tone; "nor is it by a trifle like this I'd like to
+show my--my--my--devotion." And the last word came out with an effort
+that made his face crimson.
+
+"Yes," muttered she, not hearing one word of his speech.
+
+"So that I'll come over to-morrow, Miss Mary," broke he in.
+
+"Very well, to-morrow!" replied she, as still musing she turned to the
+window, no more thinking of the luckless attorney than if he had been
+miles away; and when at length she did look round, he was gone! It was
+some minutes ere Mary could perfectly reconcile herself to the fact that
+he had been there at all; but as to how and when and why he took his
+leave, were mysteries of which she could make nothing. And yet Mr.
+Scanlan had gone through a very ceremonious farewell. He had bowed, and
+sidled, and simpered, and smirked, and sighed; had thrown himself into
+attitudes pictorially devoted and despairing, looked unutterable things
+in various styles, and finally made an exit, covered with as much
+shame and discomfiture as so confident a spirit could well experience,
+muttering, as he paced the corridor, certain prospective reprisals for
+this haughty indifference, when a certain time should arrive, and a
+certain fair lady--But we have no right to push his speculations further
+than he himself indulged them; and on the present occasion Maurice was
+less sanguine than his wont.
+
+"I fed the mare, sir," said Barnes, as he held the stirrup for Scanlan
+to mount.
+
+"And gave her water, too," said the attorney, doggedly.
+
+"Devil a drop, then," resumed the other. "I just sprinkled the oats, no
+more; that's Miss Mary's orders always."
+
+"She understands a stable well," said Scanlan, half questioning.
+
+"Does n't she?" said the other, with a sententious smack of the lip. "To
+bit a horse or to back him, to tache him his paces and cure him of bad
+tricks, to train him for harness, double and single, to show him the way
+over a wall or a wide ditch, to make him rise light and come down easy,
+she has n't a match on this island; and as for training," added he, with
+fresh breath, "did you see Sir Lucius?"
+
+"No," said Scanlan, with awakened interest.
+
+"Wait till I bring him out, then. I'll show you a picture!" And Barnes
+disappeared into the stable. In five minutes after, he returned, leading
+a dark brown horse, who, even shrouded in all the covering of hood
+and body-clothes, displayed in his long step and lounging gait the
+attributes of a racer.
+
+In a few minutes Barnes had unbuckled strap and surcingle, and sweeping
+back the blankets dexterously over the croup, so as not to ruffle a hair
+of the glossy coat, exhibited an animal of surpassing symmetry, in all
+the pride of high condition.
+
+"There's a beast," said he, proudly, "without speck or spot, brand or
+blemish about him! You 're a good judge of a horse, Mr. Scanlan; and
+tell me when did you see his equal?"
+
+"He's a nice horse!" said Scanlan, slowly, giving to each word a slow
+and solemn significance; then, casting a keen glance all around and over
+him, added, "There 's a splint on the off leg!"
+
+"So there is, the least taste in life," said Barnes, passing his hand
+lightly over it; "and was there ever a horse--worth the name of a
+horse--that hadn't a splint? Sure, they 're foaled with them! I wanted
+Miss Mary to let me take that off with an ointment I have, but she would
+n't. 'It's not in the way of the tendon,' says she. 'It will never spoil
+his action, and we 'll not blemish him with a mark.' Them's her very
+words."
+
+"He's a nice horse," said Scanlan, once more, as if the very parsimony
+of the praise was the highest testimony of the utterer; "and in rare
+condition, too," added he.
+
+"In the very highest," said Barnes. "He was as sure of that cup as I am
+that my name 's Tim."
+
+"What cup?" asked Scanlan.
+
+"Kiltimmon,--the June race; he's entered and all; and now he's to
+be sold,--them 's the orders I got yesterday; he's to be auctioned at
+Dycer's on Saturday for whatever he'll bring!"
+
+"And now, what do you expect for him, Barnes?" said Maurice,
+confidentially.
+
+"Sorrow one o' me knows. He might go for fifty,--he might go for two
+hundred and fifty! and cheap he'd be of it. He has racing speed over a
+flat course, and steeplechase action for his fences. With eleven stone
+on his back--one that can ride, I mean, of course--he 'd challenge all
+Ireland."
+
+[Illustration: 418]
+
+"I would n't mind making a bid for him myself," said Scanlan, hesitating
+between his jockeyism and the far deeper game which he was playing.
+
+"Do then, sir, and don't draw him for the race, for he 'll win it as
+sure as I 'm here. 'T is Jemmy was to ride him; and Miss Mary would n't
+object to give you the boy, jacket and all, her own colors,--blue, with
+white sleeves."
+
+"Do you think so, Barnes? Do you think she'd let me run him in the
+Martin colors?" cried Scanlan, to whom the project now had suddenly
+assumed a most fascinating aspect.
+
+"What would you give for him?" asked Barnes, in a business-like voice.
+
+"A hundred,--a hundred and fifty,--two hundred, if I was sure of what
+you say."
+
+"Leave it to me, sir,--leave it all to _me_," said Barnes, with the
+gravity of a diplomatist who understood his mission. "Where can I see
+you to-morrow?"
+
+"I 'll be here about ten o'clock!"
+
+"That will do,--enough said!" And Barnes, replacing the horse-sheet,
+slowly re-entered the stable; while Scanlan, putting spurs to his nag,
+dashed hurriedly away, his thoughts outstripping in their speed the pace
+he went, and traversing space with a rapidity that neither "blood" nor
+training ever vied with.
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of
+II), by Charles James Lever
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
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+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
+    <title>
+      The Martins of Cro' Martin, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Charles James Lever.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    pre     { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II), by
+Charles James Lever
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II)
+
+Author: Charles James Lever
+
+Illustrator: Phiz.
+
+Release Date: February 2, 2011 [EBook #35143]
+Last Updated: February 27, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<p>
+<br /><br /> <br />
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img alt="frontispiece (235K)" src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="100%" />
+</div>
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+<h1>
+THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN
+</h1>
+<h2>
+By Charles James Lever.
+</h2>
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+<h3>
+With Illustrations By Phiz.
+</h3>
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+<h4>
+In Two Volumes
+</h4>
+<h4>
+Vol. I.
+</h4>
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+<h3>
+Boston: <br /> Little, Brown, And Company. <br /> 1906.
+</h3>
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img alt="frontis2 (134K)" src="images/frontis2.jpg" width="100%" />
+</div>
+<p>
+<br /> <br />
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img alt="titlepage (29K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="100%" />
+</div>
+<p>
+<br /> <br /> <br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p>
+<br /> <br />
+</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p class="toc">
+<big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+</p>
+<p>
+<br /> <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1872. </a><br /><br />
+<a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CRO' MARTIN <br /><br />
+<a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;KILKIERAN BAY <br /><br />
+<a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AN AUTUMN MORNING
+IN THE WEST <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;MAURICE
+SCANLAN, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V.
+</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A STUDIO AND AN ARTIST <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0006">
+CHAPTER VI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A DASH OF POLITICS <br /><br /> <a
+href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A COLLEGE COMPETITOR
+<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;SOME
+KNOTTY POINTS THAT PUZZLED JOE NELLIGAN <br /><br /> <a
+href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE MARTIN ARMS <br /><br />
+<a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A DINNER-PARTY <br /><br />
+<a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;YOUNG NELLIGAN, AS
+INTERPRETED IN TWO WAYS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII.
+</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A VERY &ldquo;CROSS EXAMINATION&rdquo; <br /><br /> <a
+href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;"A HOUSEKEEPER'S
+ROOM&rdquo; <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+FINE OLD IRISH BARRISTER <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV.
+</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;"A RUINED FORTUNE&rdquo; <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0016">
+CHAPTER XVI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;"A CHALLENGE&rdquo; <br /><br /> <a
+href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A COUNTRY-HOUSE
+<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;STATECRAFT
+<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+STUDIO <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AN
+ELECTION ADDRESS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AN
+AWKWARD VISITOR <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+DAY &ldquo;AFTER&rdquo; <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+CHARACTERISTIC LETTER <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV.
+</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THREE COACHES AND THEIR COMPANY <br /><br /> <a
+href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;COUNTRY AUCTION <br /><br />
+<a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;"REVERSES&rdquo; <br /><br />
+<a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;DARKENING
+FORTUNES <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII.&nbsp; </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HOW
+MR. SCANLAN GIVES SCOPE TO A GENEROUS IMPULSE <br /><br /> <a
+href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A SUNDAY MORNING AT
+CRO' MARTIN <br /><br />
+</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>
+<br /> <br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p>
+<br /> <br />
+</p>
+<h3>
+TO THE REVEREND MORTIMER O'SULLIVAN, D.D.
+</h3>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+I cannot, however, deny myself the pleasure of inscribing to you a book to
+which I have given much thought and labor,&mdash;a testimony of the deep
+and sincere affection of one who has no higher pride than in the honor of
+your friendship.
+</p>
+<p>
+Ever sincerely yours,
+</p>
+<p>
+CHARLES LEVER
+</p>
+<p>
+Casa Cappoli, Florence, May, 1856
+</p>
+<p>
+<br /> <br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p>
+<br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1872.
+</h2>
+<p>
+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 &ldquo;Roland Cashel&rdquo; and &ldquo;The Daltons,&rdquo; mildly
+rebuked me for having fallen into doubtful company, and half censured&mdash;in
+Bohemian&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+I had not, I own, any implicit faith in Acts of Parliament, and I had a
+fervent belief in what kindness&mdash;when combined with knowledge of
+Ireland&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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,&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+If a nation is to be judged by her bearing under calamity, Ireland&mdash;and
+she has had some experiences&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+CHARLES LEVER.
+</p>
+<p>
+Trieste, 1872.
+</p>
+<p>
+<br /> <br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p>
+<br /> <br />
+</p>
+<h1>
+THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN.
+</h1>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER I. CRO' MARTIN
+</h2>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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,&mdash;here and there the miserable
+hut of some &ldquo;cottier,&rdquo; 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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 &ldquo;marqueterie,&rdquo;
+ 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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,&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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,&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You're all very late to-day,&rdquo; cried the young lady. &ldquo;You should have been
+in the stables an hour ago. Where 's Brand?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He 's gone into the fair, miss, with a lot of hoggets,&rdquo; said a little old
+fellow with a rabbit-skin cap, and a most unmistakable groom formation
+about the knees and ankles.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look to the mare, Barny,&rdquo; said she, jumping off; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+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,&mdash;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,&mdash;all were there, and upon all was he arraigned.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The old story, of course, Graft,&rdquo; said she, slapping her foot impatiently
+with her riding-whip,&mdash;&ldquo;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,&mdash;just so&mdash;a full month earlier than you
+expected,&mdash;and if the garden be not in perfect order,&mdash;if I find
+one of these things I have complained of to-day&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, my leddy, this is the season when, what wi' sellin' the fruit, and
+what wi' the new shoots&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;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,&rdquo; 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now for old Catty Broon, and a good breakfast to put me in better
+temper,&rdquo; said she to herself, as she entered the castle and wended her way
+to the housekeeper's room.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;May I never; but I thought it was a dream when I heard your voice
+outside,&rdquo; said old Catty, as she welcomed her young mistress with
+heartfelt delight; &ldquo;but when I saw them runnin' here and runnin' there, I
+said, sure enough, she's come in earnest.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite true, Catty,&rdquo; said Mary, laughing. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was the bathing any use to my Lady, miss?&rdquo; asked Catty, but in a tone
+that combined a kind of half drollery with earnest.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But sure you are not goin' to ride back to Kilkieran to-day?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix, you 're your father's daughter all over,&rdquo; said Catty, with a look
+first at <i>her</i>, 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was that ever like papa?&rdquo; asked the girl.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Tis his born image, it is,&rdquo; said Catty; and her eyes swam with tears as
+she turned away.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, to <i>my</i> thinking he is far better-looking in that picture!&rdquo;
+ 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, then, the other was more himself!&rdquo; sighed Catty; &ldquo;and more nat'ral
+too, with the long hair on his neck and that roguish laugh in his eye.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And neither are very like that!&rdquo; 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Arrah, that ain't a bit like him,&rdquo; said the old woman, querulously, &ldquo;for
+all that he said that it was.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+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: &ldquo;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.&mdash;Guastalla, May, 1808.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And has he not written since that?&rdquo; sighed the girl, over whom the dark
+shadow of orphanhood passed as she spoke.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;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,&rdquo; muttered the old woman, after a pause, and as though
+giving an explanation to some problem that she was working within her own
+head.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But my uncle loved him,&rdquo; broke in Mary.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And why wouldn't he? War n't they twins? There was only a few minutes
+between them,&mdash;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!&rdquo;
+ grumbled out the old crone, &ldquo;if they were both born poor, they 'd be
+livin' together like brothers now, under the one roof,&mdash;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!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+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. &ldquo;Catty,&rdquo; said
+she, at length, and in a voice of unusually calm earnestness, &ldquo;never talk
+to me of these things; they only fret me; they set me a thinking of Heaven
+knows what longings,&mdash;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&mdash;but&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+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, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix, miss,&rdquo; said the old woman, &ldquo;they 're all here already. The news
+soon spread that you came over this morning, and you 'll have a great
+assembly.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll not keep them waiting, then,&rdquo; 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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,&mdash;preparations all equally the
+source of fruitful observation.
+</p>
+<p>
+The company was entirely of the softer sex,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nor would a follower of Lavater have argued too favorably of the
+prosperity of Irish regeneration, in beholding that array of faces,&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001">
+<!-- IMG --></a> <br />
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img alt="frontis2 (134K)" src="images/frontis2.jpg" width="100%" />
+</div>
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+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 &ldquo;gnarled
+natures,&rdquo; 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,&mdash;none,&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary Martin knew them&mdash;understood them&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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,&mdash;little luxuries accorded to old age,&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jane Maloney,&rdquo; said Mary, placing a small packet on the table, &ldquo;give this
+to Sally Kieran as you pass her door; and here 's the order for your own
+cloak.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;May the heavens be your bed. May the holy&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catty Honan,&rdquo; cried Mary, with a gesture to enforce silence. &ldquo;Catty, your
+granddaughter never comes to the school now that she has got leave. What's
+the reason of that?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix, your reverance, miss, 'tis ashamed she is by ray-son of her
+clothes. She says Luke Cassidy's daughters have check aprons.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No more of this, Catty. Tell Eliza to come on Monday, and if I 'm
+satisfied with her she shall have one too.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Two ounces of tea for the Widow Jones.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ayeh,&rdquo; muttered an old hag. &ldquo;But it's weak it makes it without a little
+green in it!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How are the pains, Sarah?&rdquo; asked Mary, turning to a very feeble-looking
+old creature with crutches.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Worse and worse, my Lady. With every change of the weather they come on
+afresh.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The doctor will attend you, Sally, and if he thinks wine good for you,
+you shall have it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'T is that same would be the savin' of me, Miss Mary,&rdquo; said a
+cunning-eyed little woman, with a tattered straw bonnet on her head, and a
+ragged shawl over her.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think so, Nancy. Come up to the house on Monday morning and help
+Mrs. Taafe with the bleaching.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So this is the duplicate, Polly?&rdquo; said she, taking a scrap of paper from
+an old woman whose countenance indicated a blending of dissipation with
+actual want.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;One-and-fourpence was all I got on it, and trouble enough it gave me.&rdquo;
+ These words she uttered with a heavy sigh, and in a tone at once resentful
+and complaining.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Were my uncle to know that you had pawned your cloak, Polly, he 'd never
+permit you to cross his threshold.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ayeh, it's a great sin, to be sure,&rdquo; whined out the hag, half insolently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A great shame and a great disgrace it certainly is; and I shall stop all
+relief to you till the money be paid back.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And why not!&rdquo; &ldquo;To be sure!&rdquo; &ldquo;Miss Mary is right!&rdquo; &ldquo;What else could she
+do?&rdquo; broke in full twenty sycophant voices, who hoped to prefer their own
+claims by the cheap expedient of condemning another.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Widow Hannigan.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here, miss,&rdquo; simpered out a smiling little old creature, with a courtesy,
+as she held up a scroll of paper in her hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What 's this, Widow Hannigan?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'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.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mary smiled at the performance, which certainly did not promise future
+excellence, and went on,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix, miss, I don't know. Sure it was none of ours would dare to&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+But why attempt to follow out what would be but the long, unending
+catalogue of native misery,&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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;&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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 &ldquo;young stock,&rdquo; and
+listening to old Barny's predictions about yearlings and two-year-olds.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Mary will look to it&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Tell my niece of it&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Miss Martin
+will give her orders,&rdquo; 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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 &ldquo;best
+head he ever knew, except my Lady's,&rdquo; she was dreadfully imposed on by the
+people&mdash;but, to be sure, &ldquo;how could a young lady be up to them?&rdquo; 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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&mdash;hard struggling efforts, fighting their
+way through all the adverse circumstances of their poverty&mdash;that he
+never could have estimated, much less could he have speculated on the
+future to which they might one day attain.
+</p>
+<p>
+If Mary was heart and soul devoted to her object,&mdash;if she thought of
+nothing else,&mdash;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, &ldquo;Faix,
+Miss Mary will find the way to it;&rdquo; or, &ldquo;Sure it won't baffle <i>her</i>,
+anyhow.&rdquo; This confidence in her powers stimulated and encouraged her,
+often engendering the very resources it imputed.
+</p>
+<p>
+She might have made many a mistake in the characters of those for whom she
+was interested,&mdash;conceived many a false hope,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;God bless her! she's always cheerful and light-hearted,&rdquo; said the poor
+peasant, as he leaned on his spade to look after her; &ldquo;and one feels
+better the whole day after the sight of her!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER II. KILKIERAN BAY
+</h2>
+<p>
+In one of the many indentures of Kilkieran Bay,&mdash;favored by a
+southerly aspect and a fine sandy beach, sheltered by two projecting
+headlands,&mdash;stood a little row of cabins, originally the dwellings of
+poor fishermen, but now, in summer-time, the resort of the neighboring
+gentry, who frequented the coast for sea-bathing. There was little attempt
+made by the humble owners to accommodate the habits of the wealthy
+visitors. Some slight effort at neatness, or some modest endeavor at
+internal decoration, by a little window-curtain or a rickety chest of
+drawers, were the very extent of these pretensions. Year by year the
+progress of civilization went thus lazily forward; and, far from finding
+fault with this backwardness, it was said that the visitors were just as
+well satisfied. Many hoped to see the place as they remembered it in their
+own childhood, many were not sorry to avail themselves of its inexpensive
+life and simple habits, and some were more pleased that its humble
+attractions could draw no strangers to sojourn there to mock by their more
+costly requirements the quiet ways of the old residents.
+</p>
+<p>
+Under the shelter of a massive rock, which formed the northern boundary of
+the little bay, stood one building of more pretension. It was a handsome
+bathing-lodge, with a long veranda towards the sea, and an effort, not
+very successful, however, at a little flower-garden in front. The spacious
+bay-windows, which opened in French fashion, were of plate-glass; the deep
+projecting eave was ornamented with a handsome cornice; and the entire
+front had been richly decorated by entablatures in stucco and common
+cement. Still, somehow, there seemed to be a spiteful resistance in the
+climate to such efforts at embellishment. The wild hurricanes that swept
+over the broad Atlantic were not to be withstood by the frail timbers of
+the Gothic veranda. The sweeping gusts that sent foaming spray high over
+the rocky cliffs shattered the costly panes, and smashed even the mullions
+that held them; while fragments of carving, or pieces of stuccoed tracery,
+together with broken vases and uprooted shrubs, littered the garden and
+the terrace. The house was but a few years built, and yet was already
+dilapidated and ruinous-looking. A stout stone wall had replaced the
+trellised woodwork of one side of the porch; some of the windows were
+firmly barricaded with boards on the outside; and iron cramps and other
+appliances equally unsightly on the roof, showed by what means the slates
+were enabled to resist the storms.
+</p>
+<p>
+The aspect of consistent poverty never inspires ridicule. It is shabby
+gentility alone that provokes the smile of sarcastic meaning; and thus the
+simple dwellings of the fishermen, in all their humility, offered nothing
+to the eye of critical remark. There seemed abundant absurdity in this
+attempt to defy climate and aspect, place and circumstance; and every
+effort to repair an accident but brought out the pretension into more
+glaring contrast. The &ldquo;Osprey's Nest,&rdquo; as Lady Dorothea Martin had styled
+her bathing-lodge, bore, indeed, but a sorry resemblance to its
+water-colored emblem in the plan of the architect; for Mr. Kirk had not
+only improvised a beautiful villa, with fuchsias and clematis and
+moss-roses clustering on it, but he had invented an Italian sky, and given
+a Lago Maggiore tint to the very Atlantic. Your fashionable architect is
+indeed a finished romancer, and revels in the license of his art with a
+most voluptuous abandonment.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was now, however, late in the autumn; some warnings of the approaching
+equinox had already been felt, and the leaden sky above, and the
+dark-green, sullen sea beneath, above which a cold northwester swept
+gustily, recalled but little of the artistic resemblance.
+</p>
+<p>
+The short September day was drawing to a close, and it was just that
+dreary interval between day and dusk, so glorious in fine weather, but so
+terribly depressing in the cold ungenial season, as all the frequenters of
+the little bay were hastening homeward for the night. Already a twinkling
+candle or two showed that some had retired to their humble shealings to
+grumble over the discomforts about them, and speculate on a speedy
+departure. They who visited Kilkieran during the &ldquo;season&rdquo; were usually the
+gentry families of the neighborhood; but as the summer wore over, their
+places were occupied by a kind of &ldquo;half-price company,&rdquo;&mdash;shopkeepers
+and smart residents of Oughterard, who waited for their pleasure till it
+could be obtained economically. Of this class were now those on the
+evening I have mentioned, and to a small select party of whom I now desire
+to introduce my reader.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was &ldquo;Mrs. Cronan's Evening&rdquo;&mdash;for the duty of host was taken in
+rotation&mdash;and Mrs. Cronan was one of the leaders of fashion in
+Oughterard, for she lived on her own private means, at the top of Carraway
+Street, entertained Father Maher every Sunday at dinner, and took in the
+&ldquo;Galway Intelligence,&rdquo; which, it is but fair to say, was, from inverted
+letters and press blunders, about as difficult reading as any elderly lady
+ever confronted.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Cronan was eminently genteel,&mdash;that is to say, she spent her
+life in unceasing lamentations over the absence of certain comforts &ldquo;she
+was always used to,&rdquo; and passed her days in continual reference to some
+former state of existence, which, to hear her, seemed almost borrowed
+bodily out of the &ldquo;Arabian Nights.&rdquo; Then there was Captain Bodkin, of the
+Galway Fencibles,&mdash;a very fat, asthmatic old gentleman, who came down
+to the &ldquo;salt water&rdquo; every summer for thirty years, fully determined to
+bathe, but never able to summon courage to go in. He was a kind-hearted,
+jolly old fellow, who loved strong punch and long whist, and cared very
+little how the world went on, if these enjoyments were available.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then there was Miss Busk, a very tall, thin, ghostly personage, with a
+pinkish nose and a pinched lip, but whose manners were deemed the very
+type of high breeding, for she courtesied or bowed at almost minute
+intervals during an &ldquo;Evening,&rdquo; and had a variety of personal reminiscences
+of the Peerage. She was of &ldquo;an excellent family,&rdquo; Mrs. Cronan always said;
+and though reduced by circumstances, she was the Swan and Edgar of
+Oughterard,&mdash;&ldquo;was company for the Queen herself.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The fourth hand in the whist-table was usually taken by Mrs. Nelligan,
+wife of &ldquo;Pat Nelligan,&rdquo; the great shopkeeper of Oughterard, and who,
+though by no means entitled on heraldic grounds to take her place in any
+such exalted company, was, by the happy accident of fortune, elevated to
+this proud position. Mrs. Nelligan being unwell, her place was, on the
+present occasion, supplied by her son; and of him I would fain say a few
+words, since the reader is destined to bear company with him when the
+other personages here referred to have been long forgotten.
+</p>
+<p>
+Joseph Nelligan was a tall, pale young fellow who, though only just passed
+twenty-two, looked several years older; the serious, thoughtful expression
+of his face giving the semblance of age. His head was large and massively
+shaped, and the temples were strong and square, deeply indented at the
+sides, and throwing the broad, high forehead into greater prominence; dark
+eyes, shaded by heavy, black eyebrows, lent an almost scowling character
+to a face which, regular in feature, was singularly calm and
+impassive-looking. His voice was deep, low, and sonorous, and though
+strongly impressed with the intonation of his native province, was
+peculiarly soft, and, to Irish ears, even musical. He was, however,
+remarkably silent; rarely or never conversed, as his acquaintances
+understood conversation, and only when roused by some theme that he cared
+for, or stimulated by some assertion that he dissented from, was he heard
+to burst forth into a rapid flow of words, uttered as though under the
+impulse of passion, and of which, when ended, he seemed actually to feel
+ashamed himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+He was no favorite with the society of Kilkieran; some thought him
+downright stupid; others regarded him as a kind of spy upon his neighbors,&mdash;an
+imputation most lavishly thrown out in every circle where there is nothing
+to detect, and where all the absurdity lies palpable on the surface; and
+many were heard to remark that he seemed to forget who he was, and that
+&ldquo;though he was a college student, he ought to remember he was only Pat
+Nelligan's son.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+If he never courted their companionship, he as little resented their
+estrangement from him. He spent his days and no small share of his nights
+in study; books supplied to him the place of men, and in their converse he
+forgot the world. His father's vanity had entered him as a Fellow-Commoner
+in the University, and even this served to widen the interval between him
+and those of his own age; his class-fellows regarded his presence amongst
+them as an intolerable piece of low-bred presumption. Nor was this
+unkindly feeling diminished when they saw him, term after term, carry away
+the prizes of each examination; for equally in science as in classics was
+he distinguished, till at length it became a current excuse for failure
+when a man said, &ldquo;I was in Nelligan's division.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It is not impossible that his social isolation contributed much to his
+success. For him there were none of the amusements which occupy those of
+his own age. The very fact of his fellow-commoner's gown separated him as
+widely from one set of his fellow-students as from the other, and thus was
+he left alone with his ambition. As time wore on, and his successes
+obtained wider notoriety, some of those in authority in the University
+appeared to be disposed to make advances to him; but he retreated modestly
+from these marks of notice, shrouding himself in his obscurity, and
+pleading the necessity for study. At length came the crowning act of his
+college career, in the examination for the gold medal; and although no
+competitor was bold enough to dispute the prize with him, he was obliged
+to submit to the ordeal. It is rarely that the public vouchsafes any
+interest in the details of University honors; but this case proved an
+exception, and almost every journal of the capital alluded in terms of
+high paneygric to the splendid display he made on that occasion.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the very midst of these triumphs, young Nelligan arrived at his
+father's house in Oughterard, to enjoy the gratification his success had
+diffused at home, and rest himself after his severe labors. Little as old
+Pat Nelligan of his neighbors knew of University honors, or the toil which
+won them, there was enough in the very publicity of his son's career to
+make him a proud man. He at least knew that Joe had beaten them all; that
+none could hold a candle to him; &ldquo;that for nigh a century such answering
+had not been heard on the bench.&rdquo; This was the expression of a Dublin
+journal, coupled with the partisan regret that, by the bigoted statutes of
+the college, genius of such order should be denied the privilege of
+obtaining a fellowship.
+</p>
+<p>
+If young Nelligan retired, half in pride, half in bashful-ness, from the
+notice of society in Dublin, he was assuredly little disposed to enter
+into the gayeties and dissipations of a small country-town existence. The
+fulsome adulation of some, the stupid astonishment of others, but, worse
+than either, the vulgar assumption that his success was a kind of party
+triumph,&mdash;a blow dealt by the plebeian against the patrician, the
+Papist against the Protestant,&mdash;shocked and disgusted him, and he was
+glad to leave Oughterard and accompany his mother to the seaside. She was
+an invalid of some years' standing,&mdash;a poor, frail, simple-hearted
+creature, who, after a long, struggling life of hardship and toil, saw
+herself in affluence and comfort, and yet could not bring her mind to
+believe it true. As little could she comprehend the strange fact of Joe's
+celebrity; of his name figuring in newspapers, and his health being drunk
+at a public dinner in his native town. To her he was invaluable; the very
+tenderest of nurses, and the best of all companions. She did n't care for
+books, even those of the most amusing kind; but she loved to hear the
+little gossip of the place where the neighbors passed the evening; what
+topics they discussed; who had left and who had arrived, and every other
+little incident of their uneventful lives. Simple and easy of execution as
+such an office might have been to a kindred spirit, to Joseph Nelligan it
+proved no common labor. And certain it is that the mistakes he committed
+in names, and the blunders he fell into as regarded events, rather
+astonished his mother, and led that good lady to believe that Trinity
+College must not have been fertile in genius when poor Joe was regarded as
+one of the great luminaries of his time. &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; would she say, &ldquo;if he had
+his father's head it would be telling him! but, poor boy, he remembers
+nothing!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+This digression&mdash;far longer than I cared to make it, but which has
+grown to its present extent under my hands&mdash;will explain young
+Nelligan's presence at Mrs. Cronan's &ldquo;Tea,&rdquo; where already a number of
+other notables had now assembled, and were gracefully dispersed through
+the small rooms which formed her apartment. Play of various kinds formed
+the chief amusement of the company; and while the whist-table, in decorous
+gravity, held the chief place in the sitting-room, a laughing round game
+occupied the kitchen, and a hardly contested &ldquo;hit&rdquo; of backgammon was being
+fought out on the bed, where, for lack of furniture, the combatants had
+established themselves.
+</p>
+<p>
+The success of an evening party is not always proportionate to the means
+employed to secure it. Very splendid <i>salons</i>, costly furniture, and
+what newspapers call &ldquo;all the delicacies of the season,&rdquo; are occasionally
+to be found in conjunction with very dull company; while a great deal of
+enjoyment and much social pleasure are often to be met with where the
+material resources have been of the fewest and most simple kind. On the
+present occasion there was a great deal of laughing, and a fair share of
+love-making; some scolding at whist, and an abundance of scandal, at least
+of that cut-and-thrust-at character which amuses the speakers themselves,
+and is never supposed to damage those who are the object of it. All the
+company who had frequented the port&mdash;as Kilkieran was called&mdash;during
+the season were passed in review, and a number of racy anecdotes
+interchanged about their rank, morals, fortune, and pretensions. A very
+general impression seemed to prevail that in the several points of
+climate, scenery, social advantages, and amusements, Kilkieran might stand
+a favorable comparison with the first watering-places, not alone of
+England, but the Continent; and after various discursive reasons why its
+fame had not equalled its deserts, there was an almost unanimous
+declaration of opinion that the whole fault lay with the Martins; not,
+indeed, that the speakers were very logical in their arguments, since some
+were heard to deplore the change from the good old times, when everybody
+was satisfied to live anywhere and anyhow, when there was no road to the
+place but a bridle-path, not a loaf of bread to be had within twelve
+miles, no post-office; while others eloquently expatiated on all that
+might have been, and yet was not done.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We tried to get up a little news-room,&rdquo; said Captain Bodkin, &ldquo;and I went
+to Martin myself about it, but he hum'd and ha'd, and said, until people
+subscribed for the Dispensary he thought they needn't mind newspapers.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just like him,&rdquo; said Mrs. Cronan; &ldquo;but, indeed, I think it's my Lady does
+it all.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I differ from you, ma'am,&rdquo; said Miss Busk, with a bland smile; &ldquo;I
+attribute the inauspicious influence to another.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You mean Miss Martin?&rdquo; said Mrs. Cronan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so, ma'am; indeed, I have reason to know I am correct. This time two
+years it was I went over to Cro' Martin House to propose opening 'my
+Emporium' for the season at the port. I thought it was due to the owners
+of the estate, and due to myself also,&rdquo; added Miss Busk, majestically, &ldquo;to
+state my views about a measure so intimately associated with the&mdash;the&mdash;in
+fact, what I may call the interests of civilization. I had just received
+my plates of the last fashions from Dublin,&mdash;you may remember them,
+ma'am; I showed them to you at Mrs. Cullenane's&mdash;well, when I was in
+the very middle of my explanation, who should come into the room but Miss
+Martin&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dressed in the old brown riding-habit?&rdquo; interposed a fat old lady with
+one eye.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Mrs. Few, in the old brown riding-habit. She came up to the table,
+with a saucy laugh in her face, and said, 'Why, uncle, are you going to
+give a fancy ball?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'It is the last arrival from Paris, miss,' said I; 'the Orleans mantle,
+which, though not a &ldquo;costume de Chasse,&rdquo; is accounted very becoming.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Ah, you 're laughing at my old habit, Miss Busk,' said she, seeing how I
+eyed her; 'and it really is very shabby, but I intend to give Dan Leary a
+commission to replace it one of these days.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dan Leary, of the Cross-roads!&rdquo; exclaimed Captain Bodkin, laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I pledge you my word of honor, sir, she said it. 'And as to all this
+finery, Miss Busk,' said she, turning over the plates with her whip, 'it
+would be quite unsuitable to our country, our climate, and our habits; not
+to say, that the Orleans mantle would be worn with an ill grace when our
+people are going half naked!'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Positively indecent! downright indelicate!&rdquo; shuddered Mrs. Cronan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And did Martin agree with her?&rdquo; asked the Captain.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should like to know when he dared to do otherwise. Why, between my lady
+and the niece he can scarcely call his life his own.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They say he has a cruel time of it,&rdquo; sighed Mr. Clinch, the
+revenue-officer, who had some personal experience of domestic slavery.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tush,&mdash;nonsense!&rdquo; broke in his wife. &ldquo;I never knew one of those
+hen-pecked creatures that was n't a tyrant in his family. I 'll engage, if
+the truth were known, Lady Dorothy has the worst of it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faith, and he's much altered from what he was when a boy, if any one
+rules him,&rdquo; said the captain. &ldquo;I was at school with him and his
+twin-brother Barry. I remember the time when one of them had to wear a bit
+of red ribbon in his button-hole to distinguish him from the other. They
+were the born images of each other,&mdash;that is, in looks; for in real
+character they were n't a bit like. Godfrey was a cautious, quiet, careful
+chap that looked after his pocket-money, and never got into scrapes; and
+Barry was a wasteful devil that made the coin fly, and could be led by any
+one. I think he 'd have given his life for his brother any day. I remember
+once when Godfrey would n't fight a boy,&mdash;I forget what it was about;
+Barry stole the bit of ribbon out of his coat, and went up and fought in
+his place; and a mighty good thrashing he got, too.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have heard my father speak of that,&rdquo; said a thin, pale, careworn little
+man in green spectacles; &ldquo;for the two boys were taken away at once, and it
+was the ruin of the school.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So it was, doctor; you're right there,&rdquo; broke in the Captain; &ldquo;and they
+say that Martin bears a grudge against you to this day.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That would be hard,&rdquo; sighed the meek doctor; &ldquo;for I had nothing to do
+with it, or my father, either. But it cost him dearly!&rdquo; added he,
+mournfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know best, doctor, whether it is true or not; but he certainly was
+n't your friend when you tried for the Fever Hospital.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was because Pat Nelligan was on my committee,&rdquo; said the doctor.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And was that sufficient to lose you Mr. Martin's support, sir?&rdquo; asked
+young Nelligan, with a degree of astonishment in his face, that, joined to
+the innocence of the question, caused a general burst of hearty laughter.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The young gentleman knows more about <i>cubic</i> sections, it appears,
+than of what goes on in his own town,&rdquo; said the Captain. &ldquo;Why, sir, your
+father is the most independent man in all Oughterard; and if I know
+Godfrey Martin, he 'd give a thousand guineas this night to have him out
+of it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A somewhat animated &ldquo;rally&rdquo; followed this speech, in which different
+speakers gave their various reasons why Martin ought or ought not to make
+any sacrifice to put down the spirit of which Pat Nelligan was the chief
+champion. These arguments were neither cogent nor lucid enough to require
+repeating; nor did they convey to Joseph himself, with all his anxiety for
+information, the slightest knowledge on the subject discussed. Attention
+was, however, drawn off the theme by the clattering sound of a horse
+passing along the shingly shore at a smart gallop; and with eager
+curiosity two or three rushed to the door to see what it meant. A swooping
+gust of wind and rain, overturning chairs and extinguishing candles, drove
+them suddenly back again; and, half laughing at the confusion, half
+cursing the weather, the party barricaded the door, and returned to their
+places.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course it was Miss Martin; who else would be out at this time of the
+night?&rdquo; said Mrs. Clinch.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And without a servant!&rdquo; exclaimed Miss Busk.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, you may well make the remark, ma'am,&rdquo; said Mrs. Cronan. &ldquo;The
+young lady was brought up in a fashion that was n't practised in my time!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where could she have been down that end of the port, I wonder?&rdquo; said Mrs.
+Clinch. &ldquo;She came up from Garra Cliff.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maybe she came round by the strand,&rdquo; said the doctor; &ldquo;if she did, I
+don't think there 's one here would like to have followed her.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would n't be her horse!&rdquo; said one; &ldquo;nor her groom!&rdquo; muttered another;
+and thus, gradually lashing themselves into a wild indignation, they
+opened, at last, a steady fire upon the young lady,&mdash;her habits, her
+manners, and her appearance all coming in for a share of criticism; and
+although a few modest amendments were put in favor of her horsemanship and
+her good looks, the motion was carried that no young lady ever took such
+liberties before, and that the meeting desired to record their strongest
+censure on the example thus extended to their own young people.
+</p>
+<p>
+If young Nelligan ventured upon a timid question of what it was she had
+done, he was met by an eloquent chorus of half a dozen voices, recounting
+mountain excursions which no young lady had ever made before; distant
+spots visited, dangers incurred, storms encountered, perils braved,
+totally unbecoming to her in her rank of life, and showing that she had no
+personal respect, nor&mdash;as Miss Busk styled it&mdash;&ldquo;a proper sense
+of the dignity of woman!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'T was down at Mrs. Nelligan's, ma'am, Miss Mary was,&rdquo; said Mrs. Cronan's
+maid, who had been despatched special to make inquiry on the subject.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;At my mother's!&rdquo; exclaimed Joseph, reddening, without knowing in the
+least why. And now a new diversion occurred, while all discussed every
+possible and impossible reason for this singular fact, since the family at
+the &ldquo;Nest&rdquo; maintained no intercourse whatever with their neighbors, not
+even seeming, by any act of their lives, to acknowledge their very
+existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+Young Nelligan took the opportunity to make his escape during the debate;
+and as the society offers nothing very attractive to detain us, it will be
+as well if we follow him, while he hastened homeward along the dark and
+storm-lashed beach. He had about a mile to go, and, short as was this
+distance, it enabled him to think over what he had just heard, strange and
+odd as it seemed to his ears. Wholly given up, as he had been for years
+past, to the ambition of a college life, with but one goal before his
+eyes, one class of topics engrossing his thoughts, he had never even
+passingly reflected on the condition of parties, the feuds of opposing
+factions, and, stronger than either, the animosities that separated social
+ranks in Ireland. Confounding the occasional slights he had experienced by
+virtue of his class, with the jealousy caused by his successes, he had
+totally overlooked the disparagement men exhibited towards the son of the
+little country shopkeeper, and never knew of his disqualification for a
+society whose precincts he had not tried to pass. The littleness, the
+unpurpose-like vacuity, the intense vulgarity of his Oughterard friends
+had disgusted him, it is true; but he had yet to learn that the foolish
+jealousy of their wealthy neighbor was a trait still less amiable, and
+ruminating over these problems,&mdash;knottier far to him than many a
+complex formula or many a disputed reading of a Greek play,&mdash;he at
+last reached the solitary little cabin where his mother lived.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is astonishing how difficult men of highly cultivated and actively
+practised minds find it to comprehend the little turnings and windings of
+commonplace life, the jealousies and the rivalries of small people. They
+search for motives where there are merely impulses, and look for reasons
+when there are simple passions.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was only as he lifted the latch that he remembered how deficient he was
+in all the information his mother would expect from him. Of the fortunes
+of the whist-table he actually knew nothing; and had he been interrogated
+as to the &ldquo;toilette&rdquo; of the party, his answers would have betrayed a
+lamentable degree of ignorance. Fortunately for him, his mother did not
+display her habitual anxiety on these interesting themes. She neither
+asked after the Captain's winnings,&mdash;he was the terror of the party,&mdash;nor
+whether Miss Busk astonished the company by another new gown. Poor Mrs.
+Nelligan was too brimful of another subject to admit of one particle of
+extraneous matter to occupy her. With a proud consciousness, however, of
+her own resources, she affected to have thoughts for other things, and
+asked Joe if he passed a pleasant day?
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, very&mdash;middling&mdash;quite so&mdash;rather stupid, I thought,&rdquo;
+ replied he, in his usual half-connected manner, when unable to attach his
+mind to the question before him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of, course, my dear, it's very unlike what you 're used to up in Dublin,
+though I believe that Captain Bodkin, when he goes there, always dines
+with the Lord-Lieutenant; and Miss Busk, I know, is second cousin to Ram
+of Swainestown, and there is nothing better than that in Ireland. I say
+this between ourselves, for your father can't bear me to talk of family or
+connections, though I am sure I was always brought up to think a great
+deal about good blood; and if my father was a Finnerty, my mother was a
+Moore of Crockbawn, and her family never looked at her for marrying my
+father.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; said Joe, in a dreamy semi-consciousness.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's true what I 'm telling you. She often said it to me herself, and
+told me what a blessing it was, through all her troubles and trials in
+life; and she had her share of them, for my father was often in drink, and
+very cruel at times. 'It supports me,' she used to say, 'to remember who I
+am, and the stock I came from, and to know that there 's not one belonging
+to me would speak to me, nor look at the same side of the road with me,
+after what I done; and, Matty,' said she to me, 'if ever it happens to you
+to marry a man beneath you in life, always bear in mind that, no matter
+how he treats you, you 're better than him.' And, indeed, it's a great
+support and comfort to one's feelings, after all,&rdquo; said she, with a deep
+sigh.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm certain of it,&rdquo; muttered Joe, who had not followed one word of the
+harangue.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But mind that you never tell your father so. Indeed, I would n't let on
+to him what happened this evening.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was that?&rdquo; asked the young man, roused by the increased anxiety of
+her manner.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was a visit I had, my dear,&rdquo; replied the old lady, with a simpering
+consciousness that she had something to reveal,&mdash;&ldquo;it was a visit I
+had paid me, and by an elegant young lady, too.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A young lady? Not Miss Cassidy, mother. I think she left yesterday
+morning.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, indeed, my dear. Somebody very different from Miss Cassidy; and you
+might guess till you were tired before you 'd think of Miss Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Martin!&rdquo; echoed Joe.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exactly so. Miss Martin of Cro' Martin; and the way it happened was this.
+I was sitting here alone in the room after my tea,&mdash;for I sent Biddy
+out to borrow the 'Intelligence' for me; and then comes a sharp knock to
+the door, and I called out, 'Come in;' but instead of doing so there was
+another rapping, louder than before, and I said, 'Bother you, can't you
+lift the latch?' and then I heard something like a laugh, and so I went
+out; and you may guess the shame I felt as I saw a young lady fastening
+the bridle of her horse to the bar of the window. 'Mrs. Nelli-gan, I
+believe,' said she, with a smile and a look that warmed my heart to her at
+once; and as I courtesied very low, she went on. I forget, indeed, the
+words,&mdash;whether she said she was Miss Martin, or it was I that asked
+the question; but I know she came in with me to the room, and sat down
+where you are sitting now. 'Coming back from Kyle's Wood this morning,'
+said she, 'I overtook poor Billy with the post. He was obliged to go two
+miles out of his way to ford the river; and what with waiting for the
+mail, which was late in coming, and what with being wet through, he was
+completely knocked up; so I offered to take the bag for him, and send it
+over to-morrow by one of our people. But the poor fellow would n't
+consent, because he was charged with something of consequence for you,&mdash;a
+small bottle of medicine. Of course I was only too happy to take this
+also, Mrs. Nelligan, and here it is.' And with that she put it on the
+table, where you see it. I 'm sure I never knew how to thank her enough
+for her good nature, but I said all that I could think of, and told her
+that my son was just come back from college, after getting the gold
+medal.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You did n't speak of that, mother,&rdquo; said he, blushing till his very
+forehead was crimson.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, then, I did, Joe; and I 'd like to know why I would n't. Is it a
+shame or a disgrace to us! At any rate, <i>she</i> didn't think so, for
+she said, 'You must be very proud of him;' and I told her so I was, and
+that he was as good as he was clever; and, moreover, that the newspapers
+said the time was coming when men like young Nelligan would soar their way
+up to honors and distinctions in spite of the oppressive aristocracy that
+so long had combined to degrade them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good Heavens! mother, you could n't have made such a speech as that?&rdquo;
+ cried he, in a voice of downright misery.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did n't I, then? And did n't she say, if there were any such oppression
+as could throw obstacles in the way of deserving merit, she heartily hoped
+it might prove powerless; and then she got up to wish me good-evening. I
+thought, at first, a little stiffly,&mdash;that is, more haughty in her
+manner than at first; but when I arose to see her out, and she saw I was
+lame, she pressed me down into my chair, and said, in such a kind voice,
+'You must n't stir, my dear Mrs. Nelligan. I, who can find my road over
+half of the county, can surely discover my way to the door.' 'Am I ever
+like to have the happiness of seeing you again, miss?' said I, as I held
+her hand in mine. 'Certainly, if it would give you the very slightest
+pleasure,' said she, pressing my hand most cordially; and with that we
+parted. Indeed, I scarce knew she was gone, when I heard the clattering of
+the horse over the shingle; for she was away in a gallop, dark as the
+night was. Maybe,&rdquo; added the old lady, with a sigh,&mdash;&ldquo;maybe, I 'd
+have thought it was all a dream if it was n't that I found that glove of
+hers on the floor; she dropped it, I suppose, going out.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Young Nelligan took up the glove with a strange feeling of bashful
+reverence. It was as though he was touching a sacred relic; and he stood
+gazing on it steadfastly for some seconds.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll send it over to the house by Biddy, with my compliments, and to
+know how the family is, in the morning,&rdquo; said Mrs. Nelligan, with the air
+of one who knew the value of conventional usages.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And she 'll make some stupid blunder or other,&rdquo; replied Joe, impatiently,
+&ldquo;that will cover us all with shame. No, mother, I 'd rather go with it
+myself than that.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure, and why not?&rdquo; said Mrs. Nelligan. &ldquo;There 's no reason why <i>you</i>
+should be taking up old quarrels against the Martins; for <i>my</i> part,
+I never knew the country so pleasant as it used to be long ago, when we
+used to get leave to go picnicking on the grounds of Cro' Martin, up to
+the Hermitage, as they called it; and now the gates are locked and barred
+like a jail, and nobody allowed in without a ticket.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I'll go myself with it,&rdquo; said Joe, who heard nothing of his mother's
+remark, but was following out the tract of his own speculations. As little
+did he attend to the various suggestions she threw out for his guidance
+and direction, the several topics to which he might, and those to which he
+must not, on any account, allude.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not a word, for your life, Joe, about the right of pathway to Clune
+Abbey, and take care you say nothing about the mill-race at Glandaff, nor
+the shooting in Kyle's Wood. And if by any chance there should be a talk
+about the tolls at Oughterard, say you never heard of them before. Make
+out, in fact,&rdquo; said she, summing up, &ldquo;as if you never heard of a county
+where there was so much good-will and kindness between the people; and
+sure it is n't your fault if it's not true!&rdquo; And with this philosophic
+reflection Mrs. Nelligan wished her son good-night, and retired.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER III. AN AUTUMN MORNING IN THE WEST
+</h2>
+<p>
+The Osprey's Nest was, I have said, like a direct challenge hurled at the
+face of western gales and Atlantic storms. With what success, its aspect
+of dilapidation and decay but too plainly betrayed. The tangled seaweed
+that hung in dripping festoons over the porch, the sea-shells that rattled
+against the window-panes, seemed like an angry denunciation of the attempt
+to brave the elements by the mere appliances of ease and luxury.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was better, however, in the inside, where, in a roomy apartment, most
+comfortably furnished, a lady and gentleman sat at breakfast. The table
+stood in a little projection of the room, admitting of a wide sea-view
+over the bay and the distant islands of Lettermullen, but as carefully
+excluded all prospect of the port,&mdash;a locality which held no high
+place in the esteem of the lady of the house, and which, by ignoring, she
+half fancied she had annihilated. Wild promontories of rocks, jutting out
+here and there, broke the coast line, and marked the shore with a foaming
+stream of white water, as the ever-restless sea dashed over them. The long
+booming swell of the great ocean bounded into many a rocky cavern, with a
+loud report like thunder, and issued forth again with a whole cataract of
+falling stones, that rattled like the crash of small-arms. It was
+unceasing, deafening clamor in the midst of death-like desolation.
+</p>
+<p>
+Let me, however, turn once more to the scene within, and present the
+living elements to my reader. They were both past the prime of life. The
+lady might still be called handsome; her features were perfectly regular,
+and finely cut, bearing the impress of a proud and haughty spirit that
+never quailed beneath the conflict of a long life, and even yet showed a
+firm front to fortune. Her hair was white as snow; and as she wore it
+drawn back, after the fashion of a bygone time, it gave her the air of a
+fine lady of the old French Court, in all the pomp of powder and pomatum.
+Nor did her dress correct the impression, since the deep falls of lace
+that covered her hands, the lengthy stomacher, and trailing folds of her
+heavy brocade gown, all showed a lurking fondness for the distinctive
+toilette of that era. Lady Dorothea Martin had been a beauty and an earl's
+daughter; two facts that not even the seclusion of the wild west could
+erase from her memory.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Martin himself was no unworthy &ldquo;pendant&rdquo; to this portrait. He was tall
+and stately, with a lofty forehead, and temples finely and well fashioned;
+while full, deep-set blue eyes of the very sternest determination, and a
+mouth, every line of which betrayed firmness, gave the character to a face
+that also could expand into the most genial good-fellowship, and become at
+times the symbol of a pleasant and convivial Irish gentleman. In his youth
+he had been a beau of the Court of Versailles. Scandal had even coupled
+his name with that of Marie Antoinette; and more truthful narratives
+connected him with some of the most extravagant adventures of that
+profligate and brilliant period. After a career of the wildest dissipation
+and excess, he had married, late in life, the daughter of the Earl of
+Exmere, one of the proudest and poorest names in the British Peerage. Two
+or three attempts to shine in the world of London,&mdash;not as successful
+as they were expected to have proved,&mdash;an effort at ascendancy in
+Irish political life, also a failure, coupled with disappointment on the
+score of an only brother, who had married beneath him, and was reputed to
+have &ldquo;lost himself,&rdquo; seemed to have disgusted Godfrey Martin with the
+world, and he had retired to his lonely mansion in the west, which now for
+eighteen years he had scarcely quitted for a single day.
+</p>
+<p>
+His only son had joined a cavalry regiment in India a few years before the
+period our story opens, and which, I may now state, dates for about four
+or five and twenty years back; but his family included a niece, the only
+child of his brother, and whose mother had died in giving her birth.
+</p>
+<p>
+Between Mr. Martin and Lady Dorothea, as they sat at breakfast, little
+conversation passed. He occupied himself with the newly arrived
+newspapers, and she perused a mass of letters which had just come by that
+morning's post; certain scraps of the intelligence gleaned from either of
+these sources forming the only subjects of conversation between them.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So they have resolved to have a new Parliament. I knew it would come to
+that; I always said so; and, as usual, the dissolution finds us
+unprepared.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Plantagenet's regiment is ordered to Currachee, wherever that may be,&rdquo;
+ said Lady Dorothea, languidly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Call him Harry, and we shall save ourselves some trouble in discussing
+him,&rdquo; replied he, pettishly. &ldquo;At all events, he cannot possibly be here in
+time for the contest; and we must, I suppose, give our support to
+Kilmorris again.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you mean, after his conduct about the harbor, and the shameful way he
+sneaked out of the Port Martin project?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Find anything better, madam; there is the difficulty. Kilmorris is a
+gentleman, and no Radical; and, as times go, these are rather rare
+qualities.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lady Sarah Upton's match is off,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, reading from a note
+beside her. &ldquo;Sir Joseph insisted upon the uncontrolled possession of all
+her Staffordshire property.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And perfectly right.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perfectly wrong to give it to him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A fool if he married without it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A mean creature she, to accept him on such terms.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The woman is eight-and-thirty,&mdash;if not more. I remember her at
+Tunbridge. Let me see, what year was it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I detest dates, and abhor chronologies. Reach me the marmalade,&rdquo; said
+Lady Dorothea, superciliously.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What's this balderdash here from the 'Galway Indicator'? 'The haughty and
+insolent, aye, and ignorant aristocracy will have to swallow a bitter
+draught erelong; and such petty despots as Martin of Cro' Martin will
+learn that the day is gone by for their ascendancy in this county.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They tell me we have a law of libel in the land; and yet see how this
+scoundrel can dare to drag me by name before the world; and I 'll wager a
+thousand pounds I 'd fail to get a verdict against him if I prosecuted him
+to-morrow,&rdquo; said Martin, as he dashed the newspaper to the ground, and
+stamped his foot upon it. &ldquo;We are constantly reading diatribes about
+absentee landlords, and the evils of neglected property; but I ask, what
+inducements are there held out to any gentleman to reside on his estate,
+if every petty scribbler of the press can thus attack and assail him with
+impunity?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that Mary I see yonder?&rdquo; asked Lady Dorothea, languidly, as she lifted
+her double eye-glass, and then suffered it to fall from her fingers.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So it is, by Jove!&rdquo; cried Martin, springing up, and approaching the
+window. &ldquo;I wish she 'd not venture out in that small boat in this
+treacherous season. What a swell there is, too! The wind is from the sea.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She's coming in, I fancy,&rdquo; drawled out Lady Dorothea.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How is she to do it, though?&rdquo; exclaimed he, hurriedly; &ldquo;the sea is
+breaking clear over the piers of the harbor. I can only see one man in the
+boat. What rashness! what folly! There, look, they're standing out to sea
+again!&rdquo; And now, throwing open the window, Martin stepped out on the
+rocks, over which the white foam flashed by like snow. &ldquo;What are they at,
+Peter? What are they trying to do?&rdquo; cried he to an old fisherman, who,
+with the coil of a net he was just mending on his arm, had now come down
+to the shore to watch the boat.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They 're doing right, your honor,&rdquo; said he, touching his cap
+respectfully. &ldquo;'Tis Loony my Lady has in the boat, and there's no better
+man in trouble! He's just going to beat out a bit, and then he 'll run in
+under the shelter of the blue rocks. Faix, she 's a fine boat, then, for
+her size,&mdash;look at her now!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+But Martin had covered his eyes with his hand, while his lips murmured and
+moved rapidly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;May I never, but they 're letting out the reef!&rdquo; screamed the old man in
+terror.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;More sail, and in such a sea!&rdquo; cried Martin, in a voice of horror.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aye, and right, too,&rdquo; said the fisherman, after a pause; &ldquo;she 's rising
+lighter over the sea, and steers better, besides. It's Miss Mary has the
+tiller,&rdquo; added the old fellow, with a smile. &ldquo;I 'll lay a shilling she 's
+singing this minute.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You think so,&rdquo; said Martin, glad to catch at this gleam of confidence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know it well, your honor. I remember one day, off Lettermullen, it was
+worse than this. Hurrah!&rdquo; screamed he out suddenly; &ldquo;she took in a great
+sea that time!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Get out a boat, Peter, at once; what are we standing here for?&rdquo; cried
+Martin, angrily. &ldquo;Man a boat this instant.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sure no boat could get out to sea with this wind, sir,&rdquo; remonstrated the
+old man, mildly; &ldquo;she'd never leave the surf if she had forty men at her!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then what's to be done?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just let them alone; themselves two know as well what to do as any pair
+in Ireland, and are as cool besides. There, now, she 's putting her about,
+as I said, and she 'll run for the creek.&rdquo; The frail boat, a mere speck
+upon the dark green ocean, seemed now to fly, as with a slackened sheet
+she darted over the water. Her course was bent for a little cove concealed
+from view by a rugged promontory of rock, up which the old fisherman now
+clambered with the alacrity of a younger man. Martin tried to follow; but
+overcome by emotion, he was unable, and sat down upon a ledge of rock,
+burying his face within his hands.
+</p>
+<p>
+By this time the whole fishing population of the little village had
+gathered on the beach around the cove, to watch the boat as she came in;
+numbers had gone out to meet her, and stood up to their waists in the
+white and boiling surf, ready to seize upon the skiff and run her high and
+dry upon the sand. Even they were obliged to be lashed together by a rope,
+lest the receding waves should carry them out to sea, or the &ldquo;under tow&rdquo;
+ suck them beneath the surface. As the boat came within speaking distance,
+a wild shout arose from the shore to &ldquo;down sail&rdquo; and suffer her to come in
+on her way alone; but with all the canvas spread, they came flying along,
+scarce seeming more than to tip the waves as they skipped over them, while
+a shower of spray appeared to cover them as the sea broke upon the stern.
+Instead of rendering aid, the utmost the fishermen could do was to clear a
+path amongst them for the skiff to pass, as with lightning speed she
+flitted by and drove her bow high up on the hard beach.
+</p>
+<p>
+A wild, glad cheer of joy and welcome burst from the hearty fishermen as
+they crowded about the young girl, who stepped out of the boat with a
+heavy bundle in her arms. Her hair hung in great masses over her neck and
+shoulders, her cheeks were flushed, and her dark eyes gleamed with all the
+excitement of peril and triumph.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here, Margaret,&rdquo; said she to a young woman, who, pale with terror and
+with face streaming in tears, rushed towards her,&mdash;&ldquo;here 's your
+little fellow, all safe and sound; I 'd not have put back but for his
+sake.&rdquo; And with this she placed in his mother's arms a little boy of about
+three years of age, sound asleep. &ldquo;He must wait for better weather if he
+wants to see his grandmother. And,&rdquo; added she, laughing, &ldquo;I scarcely think
+you 'll catch me going to sea again with so precious a cargo. Poor little
+man!&rdquo; and she patted his ruddy cheeks; &ldquo;he behaved so well, like a stout
+fisherman's son as he is,&mdash;never showed fear for a moment.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A murmur of delighted hearts ran through the crowd; some thinking of the
+child, but many more in warm admiration of the brave and beautiful young
+girl before them. &ldquo;Loony,&rdquo; said she to her boatman, &ldquo;when you 've got the
+tackle to rights, come up to the house for your breakfast.&rdquo; And with that,
+and a few words of grateful recognition as she passed, she clambered up
+the rock and hastened homeward.
+</p>
+<p>
+As for her uncle, no sooner had he heard of her safe arrival on shore than
+he hurried back, anxious to reach the house before her. For a considerable
+time back Martin had schooled himself into an apparent indifference about
+his niece's perils. Lady Dorothea had probably given the initiative to
+this feeling by constantly asserting that the young lady would incur few
+risks when they ceased to create alarm.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was a somewhat ungracious theory, and excited in Martin's mind, when he
+first heard it, a sensation the very reverse of agreeable. Without
+accepting its truth, however, it made a deep impression upon him, and at
+last, by way of policy, he resolved to feign a degree of callous
+indifference very foreign to his nature; and, by dint of mere habit, he at
+length acquired a semblance of calm under circumstances that sorely tested
+his powers of self-control.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Has the heroine arrived safe on shore?&rdquo; asked Lady Dorothea in her own
+languid drawl. And Martin almost started at the question, and seemed for a
+moment as if the indignation it excited could not be repressed; then
+smiling superciliously at the impassive air of her features, he said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, and by rare good luck, too! The sea is a terrific one this morning!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it ever anything else in this heavenly climate?&rdquo; said she, sighing. &ldquo;I
+have counted two fine days since the 8th of June; and, indeed, it rained a
+little on one of them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin winced impatiently under the remark, but never lifted his eyes from
+the newspaper.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I had hoped your niece was making arrangements for our return to Cro'
+Martin,&rdquo; said she, querulously, &ldquo;instead of planning marine excursions. I
+told her yesterday, or the day before,&mdash;I forget which; but who could
+remember time in such a place?&mdash;that I was bored to death here. The
+observation seems to amuse you, Mr. Martin; but it is a simple fact.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you are bored to death at Cro' Martin, too, if I mistake not?&rdquo; said
+he, with a very significant dryness.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should think I was, sir; and nothing very astonishing in the
+confession, besides.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And Dublin, madam?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't speak of it. If one must endure prison discipline, at least let us
+have a cell to ourselves. Good-morning, Miss Martin. I hope you enjoyed
+your party on the water?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+This speech was addressed to Mary, who now entered the room dressed in a
+plain morning costume, and in her quiet, almost demure look resembling in
+nothing the dripping and dishevelled figure that sprung from the boat.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-morning, aunt,&rdquo; said she, gayly. &ldquo;Good-morning, uncle,&rdquo; kissing, as
+she spoke, his cheek, and patting him fondly on the shoulder. &ldquo;I saw you
+out on the rocks as we were coming in.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pooh, pooh!&rdquo; said he, in affected indifference. &ldquo;I knew there was no
+danger&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, but there was, though,&rdquo; said she, quickly. &ldquo;If we had n't set all
+sail on her, she 'd have been pooped to a certainty; and I can tell you I
+was in a rare fright, too.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, indeed; you confess to such an ignoble emotion?&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea,
+with a sneer.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I do, aunt, for I had poor Madge Lennan's little boy on my lap all
+the time; and if it came to a swim, I don't see how he was to be saved.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You 'd not have left him to his fate, I suppose?&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I scarcely know what I should have done. I sincerely hope it would have
+been my best; but in a moment like that, within sight of home, too&mdash;&rdquo;
+ Her eyes met her uncle's as she said this; he had raised them from his
+newspaper, and bent them fully on her. There was that in their expression
+which appealed so strongly to her heart that instead of finishing her
+speech she sprung towards him and threw her arms around his neck.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite a scene; and I detest scenes,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothen, as she arose and
+swept out of the room contemptuously; but they neither heard the remark
+nor noticed her departure.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER IV. MAURICE SCANLAN, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW.
+</h2>
+<p>
+About an hour after the occurrence mentioned in our last chapter, the
+quiet little village of Kilkieran was startled by the sharp clattering
+sounds of horses' feet, as Mr. Scanlan's tandem came slinging along; and
+after various little dexterities amid stranded boats, disabled anchors,
+and broken capstans, drew up at the gate of the Osprey's Nest. When men
+devise their own equipage, they invariably impart to it a strong infusion
+of their own idiosyncrasy. The quiet souls who drag through life in
+chocolate-colored barouches, with horses indifferently matched, give no
+clew to their special characteristics; but your men of tax-carts and
+tandems, your Jehus of four-in-hand teams, write their own biographies in
+every detail of the &ldquo;turn-out.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/068.jpg" width="100%" alt="068 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+Maurice Scanlan was a sporting attorney, and from the group of game cocks
+neatly painted on the hind panel, to the wiry, well-bred, and well-looking
+screws before him, all was indicative of the man. The conveyance was high
+and red-wheeled; the nags were a chestnut and a gray; he drove them
+without winkers or bearing-reins, wearing his white hat a very little on
+ope side, and gracefully tilting his elbow as he admonished the wheeler
+with the &ldquo;crop&rdquo; of his whip. He was a good-looking, showy, vulgar,
+self-sufficient kind of fellow, with consummate shrewdness in all business
+transactions, only marred by one solitary weak point,&mdash;an intense
+desire to be received intimately by persons of a station above his own,
+and to seem, at least, to be the admitted guest of very fashionable
+society. It was not a very easy matter to know if this Lord-worship of his
+was real, or merely affected, since, certainly, the profit he derived from
+the assumption was very considerable, and Maurice was intrusted with a
+variety of secret-service transactions, and private affairs for the
+nobility, which they would never have dreamed of committing to the hands
+of their more recognized advisers.
+</p>
+<p>
+If men would have been slow to engage his services in any grave or
+important suit, he was invaluable in all the ordinary and constantly
+occurring events of this changeful world. He knew every one's difficulties
+and embarrassments. There was not a hitch in a settlement, nor a spavin in
+your stables, could escape him. He seemed to possess a kind of intuitive
+appreciation of a flaw; and he pounced upon a defect with a rapidity that
+counterfeited genius. To these gifts he added a consummate knowledge of
+his countrymen. He had emerged from the very humblest class of the people,
+and he knew them thoroughly; with all their moods of habitual distrust and
+momentary enthusiasm,&mdash;with all their phases of sanguine hopefulness
+he was familiar; and he could mould and fashion and weld them to his will,
+as passive subjects as the heated bar under the hammer of the smith.
+</p>
+<p>
+As an electioneering agent he was unequalled. It was precisely the sphere
+in which his varied abilities were best exercised; and it was, besides, an
+arena in which he was proud of figuring.
+</p>
+<p>
+For a while he seemed&mdash;at least in his own eyes&mdash;to stand on a
+higher eminence than the candidate he represented, and to be a more
+prominent and far grander personage than his principal. In fact, it was
+only under some tacit acknowledgment of this temporary supremacy that his
+services were obtainable; his invariable stipulation being that he was to
+have the entire and uncontrolled direction of the election.
+</p>
+<p>
+Envious tongues and ungenerous talkers did, indeed, say that Maurice
+insisted upon this condition with very different objects in view, and that
+his unlimited powers found their pleasantest exercise in the inexplorable
+realms of secret bribery; however, it is but fair to say that he was
+eminently successful, and that one failure alone in his whole career
+occurred to show the proverbial capriciousness of fortune.
+</p>
+<p>
+With the little borough of Oughterard he had become so identified that his
+engagement was regarded as one of the first elements of success. Hitherto,
+indeed, the battle had been always an easy one. The Liberal party&mdash;as
+they pleasantly assumed to style themselves&mdash;had gone no further in
+opposition than an occasional burst of intemperate language, and an effort&mdash;usually
+a failure&mdash;at a street row during the election. So little of either
+energy or organization had marked their endeavors, that the great leader
+of the day had stigmatized their town with terms of heavy censure, and
+even pronounced them unworthy of the cause. An emissary, deputed to report
+upon the political state of the borough, had described the voters as mere
+dependants on the haughty purse-proud proprietor of Cro' Martin, who
+seemed, even without an effort, to nominate the sitting member.
+</p>
+<p>
+The great measure of the year '29&mdash;the Catholic Relief Bill&mdash;had
+now, however, suggested to even more apathetic constituencies the prospect
+of a successful struggle. The thought of being represented by &ldquo;one of
+their own sort&rdquo; was no mean stimulant to exertion; and the leading spirits
+of the place had frequently conferred together as to what steps should be
+taken to rescue the borough from the degrading thraldom of an aristocratic
+domination. Lord Kilmorris, it is true, was rather popular with them than
+the reverse. The eldest son of an Earl, who only cared to sit in
+Parliament on easy terms, till the course of time and events should call
+him to the Upper House, he never took any very decided political line, but
+sat on Tory benches and gave an occasional vote to Liberal measures, as
+though foreshadowing that new school who were to take the field under the
+middle designation of Conservatives. Some very remote relationship to Lady
+Dorothea's family had first introduced him to the Martins' notice; and
+partly from this connection, and partly because young Harry Martin was too
+young to sit in Parliament, they had continued to support him to the
+present time.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Martin himself cared very little for politics; had he even cared more,
+he would not have sacrificed to them one jot of that indolent, lazy,
+apathetic existence which alone he seemed to prize. He was rather grateful
+than otherwise to Lord Kilmorris for taking upon him the trouble of a
+contest, if there should be such a thing. His greatest excuse through
+life, at least to himself, had ever been that he was &ldquo;unprepared.&rdquo; He had
+been in that unhappy state about everything since he was born, and so,
+apparently, was he destined to continue to the very last. With large
+resources, he was never prepared for any sudden demand for money. When
+called on for any exertion of mind or body, when asked to assist a friend
+or rescue a relation from difficulty, he was quite unprepared; and so
+convinced was he that this was a fatality under which he labored, that no
+sooner had he uttered the expression than he totally absolved himself from
+every shadow of reproach that might attach to his luke-warmness.
+</p>
+<p>
+The uncontrolled position he occupied, joined to the solitary isolation in
+which he lived, had doubtless engendered this cold and heartless theory.
+There was no one to dispute his will,&mdash;none to gainsay his opinions.
+There was not for him any occasion for the healthful exertion which is
+evoked by opposition, and he sunk gradually down into a moping, listless,
+well-meaning, but utterly good-for-nothing gentleman, who would have been
+marvellously amazed had any one arraigned him for neglect of his station
+and its great requirements.
+</p>
+<p>
+That such an insolent possibility could be, was only demonstrated to him
+in that morning's newspaper. To be called a despot was bad enough, but a
+petty despot,&mdash;and to be told that such despotism was already doomed&mdash;aroused
+in him a degree of indignation all the more painful that the sensation was
+one he had not experienced for many a year back. Whose fault was it that
+such an impertinence had ever been uttered? Doubtless, Kilmorris's. Some
+stupid speech, some absurd vote, some ridiculous party move had brought
+down this attack upon him; or perhaps it was Mary, with her new-fangled
+ideas about managing the estate, her school-houses, and her model-farms.
+The ignorant people had possibly revolted against her interference; or it
+might be Lady Dorothea herself, whose haughty manner had given offence; at
+all events, <i>he</i> was blameless, and strange to say, either he was not
+perfectly assured of the fact, or that the assumption was not pleasant,
+but he seemed very far from being satisfied with the explanation. In the
+agitated mood these feelings produced, a servant came to inform him that
+Mr. Scanlan had just arrived.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say I 'm out&mdash;I 'm unwell&mdash;I don't feel quite myself to-day.
+Call Miss Mary to him.&rdquo; And with an impatient gesture he motioned the
+servant away.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Mary will be down in a few minutes, sir,&rdquo; said the man, entering the
+room where Mr. Scanlan stood arranging his whiskers before the
+chimney-glass, and contemplating with satisfaction his general appearance.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was Mr. Martin himself, Thomas, that I wanted to see.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know that, sir, but the Master is n't well this morning; he told me to
+send Miss Mary to you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Scanlan, giving a finishing touch to the tie of his
+cravat, and then gracefully bestowing his person into an easy-chair. To
+common observation he looked perfectly unconcerned in every gesture, and
+yet no man felt less at his ease at that moment than Mr. Maurice Scanlan;
+and though the cause involves something like a secret, the reader shall
+know it. Mr. Scanlan had seen a good deal of the world&mdash;that is, of
+<i>his</i> world. He had mixed with barristers and solicitors, &ldquo;Silk
+Gowns,&rdquo; masters in Chancery, and even puisne judges had he come into
+contact with; he had mingled in turf experiences with certain sporting
+lords and baronets, swapped horses, and betted and handicapped with men of
+fortune; he had driven trotting-matches, and ridden hurdle-races against
+young heirs to good estates, and somehow always found himself not inferior
+in worldly craft and address to those he came in contact with,&mdash;nay,
+he even fancied that he was occasionally rather a little more wide awake
+than his opponents; and what with a little blustering here, a little
+blarney there, a dash of mock frankness to this man, or an air of
+impulsive generosity to the other,&mdash;an accommodating elasticity, in
+fact, that extended to morals, manners, and principles,&mdash;he found
+that he was, as he himself styled it, &ldquo;a fair match with equal weights for
+anything going.&rdquo; There was but one individual alone in presence of whom he
+in reality felt his own inferiority deeply and painfully; strange to say,
+that was Miss Martin! At first sight this would seem almost
+unintelligible. She was not either a haughty beauty, presuming on the
+homage bestowed upon her by high and distinguished admirers, nor was she
+any greatly gifted and cultivated genius dominating over lesser
+intelligences by the very menace of her acquirements. She was simply a
+high-spirited, frank, unaffected girl, whose good breeding and good sense
+seemed alike instinctive, and who read with almost intuition the shallow
+artifices by which such natures as Scanlan's impose upon the world. She
+had seen him easily indolent with her uncle, obsequiously deferential to
+my Lady, all in the same breath, while the side-look of tyranny he could
+throw a refractory tenant appeared just as congenial to his nature.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was some strange consciousness which told him he could not deceive <i>her</i>,
+that made Scanlan ever abashed in her presence, and by the self-same
+impulse was it that she was the only one in the world for whose good
+esteem he would have sacrificed all he possessed.
+</p>
+<p>
+While he waited for her coming, he took a leisurely survey of the room.
+The furniture, less costly and rich than at Cro' Martin, was all marked by
+that air of propriety and comfort so observable in rich men's houses.
+There were the hundred appliances of ease and luxury that show how
+carefully the most trifling inconveniences are warded off, and the course
+of daily life rendered as untroubled as mere material enjoyments can
+secure. Scanlan sighed deeply, for the thought crossed his mind how was a
+girl brought up in this way ever to stoop to ally her fortune to a man
+like him? Was it, then, possible that he nourished such a presumption?
+Even so. Maurice was of an aspiring turn; he had succeeded in twenty
+things that a dozen years past he had never dared to dream of. He had
+dined at tables and driven with men whose butlers and valets he once
+deemed very choice company; he had been the guest at houses where once his
+highest ambition had been to see the interior as a matter of curiosity.
+&ldquo;Who could say where he might be at last?&rdquo; Besides this, he knew from his
+own knowledge of family matters that she had no fortune, that her father
+was infinitely more likely to leave debts than an inheritance behind him,
+and that her uncle was the last man in the world ever to think of a
+marriage-portion for one he could not afford to part with. There was,
+then, no saying what turn of fortune might present him in an admissible
+form as a suitor. At all events, there was no rival in the field, and
+Maurice had seen many a prize won by a &ldquo;walk over&rdquo; purely for want of a
+competitor in the race.
+</p>
+<p>
+Notwithstanding all these very excellent and reassuring considerations,
+Maurice Scanlan could not overcome a most uncomfortable sense of
+awkwardness as Mary Martin entered the room, and saluting him with easy
+familiarity, said, &ldquo;I'm quite ashamed of having made you wait, Mr.
+Scanlan; but I was in the village when I got my uncle's message. I find
+that he is not well enough to receive you, and if I can&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm sure it's only too much honor you do me, Miss Mary; I never expected
+to have the pleasure of this interview; indeed, it will be very hard for
+me to think of business, at all, at all.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That would be most unfortunate after your coming so far on account of
+it,&rdquo; said she, half archly, while she seated herself on a sofa at some
+distance from him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it were a question about the estate, Miss Mary,&rdquo; said he, in his most
+obsequious manner, &ldquo;there's nobody equal to yourself; or if it were
+anything at all but what it is, I know well that you'd see your way out of
+it; but the present is a matter of politics,&mdash;it 's about the
+borough.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That weary borough,&rdquo; said she, sighing; &ldquo;and are we about to have another
+election?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That 's it, Miss Mary; and Lord Kilmorris writes me to say that he 'll be
+over next week, and hopes he 'll find all his friends here as well
+disposed towards him as ever.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Has he written to my uncle?&rdquo; asked Mary, hastily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; and that's exactly what I came about. There was a kind of coldness,&mdash;more
+my Lady's, I think, than on Mr. Martin's part,&mdash;and Lord Kilmorris
+feels a kind of delicacy; in fact, he doesn't rightly know how he stands
+at Cro' Martin.&rdquo; Here he paused, in hopes that she would help him by even
+a word; but she was perfectly silent and attentive, and he went on. &ldquo;So
+that, feeling himself embarrassed, and at the same time knowing how much
+he owes to the Martin interest&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, go on,&rdquo; said she, calmly, as he came a second time to a dead stop.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It isn't so easy, then, Miss Mary,&rdquo; said he, with a long sigh, &ldquo;for there
+are so many things enter into it,&mdash;so much of politics and party and
+what not,&mdash;that I quite despair of making myself intelligible,
+though, perhaps, if I was to see your uncle, he 'd make out my meaning.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall I try and induce him to receive you, then?&rdquo; said she, quietly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, I don't like asking it,&rdquo; said he, doubtfully; &ldquo;for, after
+all, there's nobody can break it to him as well as yourself.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Break it to him, Mr. Scanlan?&rdquo; said she, in astonishment.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faith, it 's the very word, then,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;for do what one will, say
+what they may, it will be sure to surprise him, if it does no worse.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You alarm me, sir; and yet I feel that if you would speak boldly out your
+meaning, there is probably no cause for fear.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll just do so, then, Miss Mary; but at the same time I 'd have you to
+understand that I 'm taking a responsibility on myself that his Lordship
+never gave me any warrant for, and that there is not another&mdash;&rdquo; Mr.
+Scanlan stopped, but only in time; for, whether it was the fervor in which
+he uttered these words, or that Miss Martin anticipated what was about to
+follow, her cheek became scarlet, and a most unmistakable expression of
+her eyes recalled the worthy practitioner to all his wonted caution. &ldquo;The
+matter is this, Miss Martin,&rdquo; said he, with a degree of deference more
+marked than before, &ldquo;Lord Kilmorris is dissatisfied with the way your
+uncle supported him at the last election. He complains of the hard
+conditions imposed upon him as to his line of conduct in the House; and,
+above all, he feels insulted by a letter Lady Dorothea wrote him, full of
+very harsh expressions and hard insinuations. I never saw it myself, but
+that's his account of it,&mdash;in fact, he's very angry.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And means to throw up the borough, in short,&rdquo; broke in Mary.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm afraid not, Miss Mary,&rdquo; said the other, in a half whisper.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What then?&mdash;what can he purpose doing?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He means to try and come in on his own interest,&rdquo; said Scanlan, who
+uttered the words with an effort, and seemed to feel relief when they were
+out.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Am I to understand that he would contest the borough with us?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Scanlan nodded an affirmative.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, Mr. Scanlan, this is some mistake,&mdash;some misapprehension on
+your part. His Lordship may very possibly feel aggrieved,&mdash;he may
+have some cause, for aught I know,&mdash;about something in the last
+election, but this mode of resenting it is quite out of the question,&mdash;downright
+impossible.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The best way is to read his own words. Miss Martin. There's his letter,&rdquo;
+ said he, handing one towards her, which, however, she made no motion to
+take.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you won't read it, then, perhaps you will permit me to do so. It's
+very short, too, for he says at the end he will write more fully
+to-morrow.&rdquo; Mr. Scanlan here muttered over several lines of the epistle,
+until he came to the following: &ldquo;I am relieved from any embarrassment I
+should have felt at breaking with the Martins by reflecting over the
+altered conditions of party, and the new aspect politics must assume by
+the operations of the Emancipation Act. The old ways and traditions of the
+Tories must be abandoned at once and forever; and though Martin in his
+life of seclusion and solitude will not perceive this necessity, we here
+all see and admit it. I could, therefore, no longer represent his
+opinions, since they would find no echo in the House. To stand for the
+borough I must stand on my own views, which, I feel bold to say, include
+justice to both of the contending factions.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Admirably argued,&rdquo; broke in Mary. &ldquo;He absolves himself from all ties of
+gratitude to my uncle by adopting principles the reverse of all he ever
+professed.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's very like that, indeed, Miss Mary,&rdquo; said Scanlan, timidly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very like it, sir? it is exactly so. Really the thing would be too gross
+if it were not actually laughable;&rdquo; and as she spoke she arose and paced
+the room in a manner that showed how very little of the ludicrous side of
+the matter occupied her thoughts. &ldquo;He will stand for the borough&mdash;he
+means to stand in opposition to us?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's his intention&mdash;at least, if Mr. Martin should not come to the
+conclusion that it is better to support his Lordship than risk throwing
+the seat into the hands of the Roman Catholics.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can't follow all these intrigues, Mr. Scanlan. I confess to you,
+frankly, that you have puzzled me enough already, and that I have found it
+no small strain on my poor faculties to conceive a gentleman being able to
+argue himself into any semblance of self-approval by such sentiments as
+those which you have just read; but I am a poor country girl, very
+ignorant of great topics and great people. The best thing I can do is to
+represent this affair to my uncle, and as early as may be.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope he'll not take the thing to heart, miss; and I trust he 'll acquit
+<i>me</i>&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be assured he'll despise the whole business most thoroughly, sir. I never
+knew him take any deep interest in these themes; and if this be a fair
+specimen of the way they are discussed, he was all the wiser for his
+indifference. Do you make any stay in the village? Will it be inconvenient
+for you to remain an hour or so?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll wait your convenience, miss, to any hour,&rdquo; said Scanlan, with an air
+of gallantry which, had she been less occupied with her thoughts, might
+have pushed her hard to avoid smiling at.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll be down at Mrs. Cronan's till I hear from you, Miss Mary.&rdquo; And with
+a look of as much deferential admiration as he dared to bestow, Scanlan
+took his leave, and mounting to his box, assumed the ribbons with a
+graceful elegance and a certain lackadaisical languor that, to himself at
+least, appeared demonstrative of an advanced stage of the tender passion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Begad, she's a fine girl; devil a lie in it, but she has n't her equal!
+and as sharp as a needle, too,&rdquo; muttered he, as he jogged along the
+shingly beach, probably for the first time in his whole life forgetting
+the effect he was producing on the bystanders.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER V. A STUDIO AND AN ARTIST
+</h2>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is my uncle in the library, Terence?&rdquo; asked Mary of a very corpulent old
+man, in a red-brown wig.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, miss, he's in the&mdash;bother it, then, if I ever can think of the
+name of it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The studio, you mean,&rdquo; said she, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so, Miss Mary,&rdquo; replied he, with a sigh; for he remembered certain
+penitential hours passed by himself in the same locality.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think you could manage to let him know I want him&mdash;that is,
+that I have something important to say to him?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's clean impossible, miss, to get near him when he's there. Sure, is
+n't he up on a throne, dressed out in goold and dimonds, and as cross as a
+badger besides, at the way they're tormenting him?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, that tiresome picture, is it never to be completed?&rdquo; muttered she,
+half unconsciously.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The saints above know whether it is or no,&rdquo; rejoined Terence, &ldquo;for one of
+the servants told me yesterday that they rubbed every bit of the master
+out, and began him all again; for my Lady said he was n't half haggard
+enough, or worn-looking; but, by my conscience, if he goes on as he 's
+doing, he ought to satisfy them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, I thought it was Henderson was sitting,&rdquo; said Mary, somewhat amused
+at the old man's commentaries.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So he was; but they rubbed him out, too; for it seems now he ought to be
+bald, and they 've sent him into Oughter-ard to get his head shaved.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what were <i>you</i>, Terry?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Arrah, who knows?&rdquo; said he, querulously. &ldquo;At first I was to be somebody's
+mother that was always cryin'; but they weren't pleased with the way I
+done it; and then they made me a monk, and after that they put two
+hundredweight of armor on me, and made me lean my head on my arm as if I
+was overcome; and faith, so I was; for I dropped off asleep, and fell into
+a pot of varnish, and I 'm in disgrace now, glory be to God! and I only
+hope it may last.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish I shared your fortune, Terry, with all my heart,&rdquo; said Mary, with
+some difficulty preserving her gravity.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Couldn't it catch fire&mdash;by accident, I mean, miss&mdash;some evening
+after dark?&rdquo; whispered Terry, confidentially. &ldquo;Them 's materials that
+would burn easy! for, upon my conscience, if it goes on much longer there
+won't be a sarvant will stay in the sarvice. They had little Tom Regan
+holding a dish of charcoal so long that he tuk to his bed on Friday last,
+and was never up since; and Jinny Moore says she 'd rather lave the place
+than wear that undacent dress; and whist, there's murder goin' on now
+inside!&rdquo; And with that the old fellow waddled off with a speed that seemed
+quite disproportionate to his years.
+</p>
+<p>
+While Mary was still hesitating as to what she should do, the door
+suddenly opened, and a man in a mediaeval costume rushed out, tugging
+after him a large bloodhound, whose glaring eyeballs and frothy mouth
+betokened intense passion. Passing hurriedly forward, Mary beheld Lady
+Dorothea bending over the fainting figure of a short little man, who lay
+on the floor; while her uncle, tottering under a costume he could barely
+carry, was trying to sprinkle water over him from an urn three feet in
+height.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Crow has fainted,&mdash;mere fright, nothing more!&rdquo; said Lady
+Dorothea. &ldquo;In stepping backward from the canvas he unluckily trod upon
+Fang's paw, and the savage creature at once sprung on him. That stupid
+wretch, Regan, one of your favorites, Miss Martin, never pulled him off
+till he had torn poor Mr. Crow's coat, clean in two.&rdquo;.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Egad, if I had n't smashed my sceptre over the dog's head the mischief
+wouldn't have stopped there; but he 's coming to. Are you better, Crow?
+How do you feel, man?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope you are better, sir?&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, in an admirable blending
+of grand benevolence and condescension.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0003" id="linkimage-0003">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/080.jpg" width="100%" alt="080 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Infinitely better; supremely happy, besides, to have become the object of
+your Ladyship's kind inquiries,&rdquo; said the little man, sitting up, and
+looking around with a very ghastly effort at urbanity and ease.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never knew Fang to bite any one,&rdquo; said Mary.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Does n't she, by jingo!&rdquo; exclaimed the artist, who with difficulty caught
+himself in time before he placed his hand on the supposed seat of his
+injuries.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She shall be muzzled in future,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, haughtily,
+repressing the familiar tone of the discussion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think&mdash;indeed, I feel sure&mdash;I could get her in from memory,
+my Lady; she 's a very remarkable creature, and makes an impression on
+one.&rdquo; As he uttered these words ruefully, he lifted from the floor the
+fragment of his coat-skirt, and gazed mournfully at it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose we must suspend proceedings,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea; &ldquo;though
+really it is a pity to lose the opportunity of Miss Martin's presence,&mdash;an
+honor she so very rarely accords us.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think after a few minutes or so, my Lady, I might feel equal,&rdquo; said Mr.
+Crow, rising and retreating to a wall with a degree of caution that showed
+he entertained grave fears as to the state of his habiliments,&mdash;&ldquo;I
+might feel equal, if not exactly to delineate Miss Martin's Classic
+features, at least to throw in&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I could n't think of such a thing; I should be wretched at the idea of
+engaging your attention at such a moment,&rdquo; said Mary, with a carelessness
+that contrasted strongly with her words; while she added, with
+earnestness, &ldquo;Besides, I 'm not sure I could spare the time.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see, sir,&rdquo; said her Ladyship to the artist, &ldquo;you have to deal with a
+young lady whose occupations are like those of a Premier. The Duke of
+Wellington can vouchsafe a sitting for his portrait, but Miss Martin
+cannot spare the time for it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, Aunt Dorothy, if I were the Duke of Wellington I should do as he
+does. It is being Mary Martin, whose picture can have no interest for any
+one, enables me to follow the bent of my own wishes.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Humility is another of her perfections,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, with a look
+that but too palpably expressed her feeling towards her niece.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Mary was assisting her uncle to get rid of some of his superfluous
+draperies, neither of them overheard this remark; while Mr. Crow was too
+deeply impressed with his own calamities to pay any attention to it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Scanlan has been very anxious to see you, uncle,&rdquo; whispered Mary in
+his ear. &ldquo;He has something of importance to communicate about the
+borough.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can't you manage it yourself, Molly? Can't you contrive somehow to spare
+me this annoyance?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you really ought to hear what he has to say.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I perceive that Miss Martin has a secret of moment to Impart to you; pray
+let me not trouble the interview by my presence,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea. And
+she swept haughtily out of the room, throwing a most disdainful glance at
+her husband as she went.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There, by George! you've secured me a pleasant afternoon, at all events!&rdquo;
+ said Martin, angrily, to his niece, as throwing off the last remnant of
+his regal costume, he rushed out, banging the door passionately behind
+him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary sat down to compose her thoughts in quiet, for Mr. Crow had
+previously made his escape unobserved; and truly there was need of some
+repose for her agitated and wearied faculties. Her uncle's dependence upon
+her for everything, and her aunt's jealousy of the influence she had over
+him, placed her in a position of no common difficulty, and one of which
+every day seemed to increase the embarrassment. For a moment she thought
+she would have preferred a life of utter insignificance and obscurity; but
+as suddenly it occurred to her, &ldquo;What had I been without these duties and
+these cares? For me there are few, if any, of the ties that bind other
+girls to their homes. I have neither mother nor sister; I have none of the
+resources which education suggests to others. My mind cannot soar above
+the realities that surround me, and seek for its enjoyments in the realms
+of fancy; but, perhaps, I can do better,&rdquo; said she, proudly, &ldquo;and make of
+these same every-day materials the poetry of an actual existence.&rdquo; As she
+spoke, she threw open the window, and walked out upon the terrace over the
+sea. The fishermen's boats were all standing out from shore,&mdash;a tiny
+fleet, whose hardy crews had done no discredit to the proudest
+three-decker. Though the heavy gale of the morning had gone down, it still
+blew fresh, and a long rolling swell thundered along in-shore, and sent a
+deep booming noise through many a rocky cavern. High above this deafening
+clamor, however, rose the hearty cheers of the fishermen as they detected
+Mary's figure where she stood; and many a tattered rag of showy bunting
+was hoisted to do her honor. Never insensible to such demonstrations, Mary
+felt at the moment almost overpowered with emotion. But a moment back and
+she bewailed her isolation and friendlessness; and see, here were hundreds
+who would have resigned life in her behalf. Still, as the boats receded,
+the wind bore to her ears the welcome sounds; and as she heard them, her
+heart seemed to expand and swell with generous thoughts and good wishes,
+while along her cheeks heavy tears were rolling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What need have I of other friends than such as these?&rdquo; cried she,
+passionately. &ldquo;<i>They</i> understand me, and I them; and as for the great
+world, we are not made for each other!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My own sentiments to a 'T,' miss,&rdquo; said a soft, mincing voice behind her;
+and Mary turned and beheld Mr. Crow. He had arrayed himself in a small
+velvet skull-cap and a blouse, and stood mixing the colors on his palette
+in perfect composure. &ldquo;I 'm afraid, Miss Martin, there 's an end of the
+great 'Historical.' Your uncle will scarcely be persuaded to put on the
+robes again, and it's a downright pity. I was getting a look of weariness&mdash;imbecility
+I might call it&mdash;into his features that would have crowned the work.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think I ever knew what your subject was!&rdquo; said she, half
+indolently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Abdication of Charles V., Miss Martin,&rdquo; said he, proudly. &ldquo;This is
+the fourteenth time I have depicted it; and never, I am bound to say, with
+more favorable 'studies.' Your uncle is fine; my Lady gorgeous; I don't
+say what I 'd like of another lovely and gifted individual; but even down
+to that old rogue of a butler that would insist on taking snuff through
+the bars of his helmet, they were all grand, miss,&mdash;positively
+grand!&rdquo; Seeing that she appeared to bestow some attention to him, Mr. Crow
+went on: &ldquo;You see, miss, in the beginning of a great effort of this kind
+there is no progress made at all. The sitters keep staring at one another,
+each amused at some apparent absurdity in costume or attitude; and then,
+if you ask them to call up a look of love, hate, jealousy, or the like,
+it's a grin you get,&mdash;a grin that would shame a hyena. By degrees,
+however, they grow used to the situation; they 'tone down,' as one might
+say, and learn to think less of themselves, and be more natural. It was
+sheer fatigue, downright exhaustion, and nothing else, was making your
+uncle so fine; and if he could have been kept on low diet,&mdash;I did n't
+like to mention it, though I often wished it,&mdash;I 'd have got a look
+of cadaverous madness into his face that would have astonished you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+By this time Mr. Crow had approached his canvas, and was working away
+vigorously, the action of his brush appearing to stimulate his loquacity.
+Mary drew near to observe him, and insensibly felt attracted by that
+fascination which the progress of a picture invariably possesses.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is the Queen,&rdquo; continued he; &ldquo;she's crying,&mdash;as well she might;
+she doesn't rightly know whether the old fellow's out of his mind or not;
+she has her misgivings, and she does n't half like that old thief of a
+Jesuit that's whispering in the King's ear. This was to be you, Miss
+Martin; you were betrothed to one of the young princes; but somehow you
+weren't quite right in your head, and you are looking on rather more
+amused, you perceive, than in any way moved; you were holding up your
+beautiful petticoat, all covered with gold and precious stones, as much as
+to say, 'Ain't I fine this morning?' when you heard the herald's trumpet
+announce the Prince of Orange; and there he is,&mdash;or there he ought to
+be,&mdash;coming in at the door. There's a chap pulling the curtain aside;
+but I suppose, now,&rdquo; added he, with a sigh, &ldquo;we 'll never see the Prince
+there!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But where could you have found a study for your Prince, Mr. Crow?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have him here, miss,&rdquo; said Crow, laying down his brush to take a small
+sketch-book from the pocket of his blouse. &ldquo;I have him here; and there
+wouldn't have been a finer head in the canvas,&mdash;pale, stern-looking,
+but gentle withal; a fellow that would say, 'Lead them to the scaffold,'
+as easy as winking, and that would tremble and falter under the eye of a
+woman he loved. There he is, now,&mdash;the hair, you know, I put in
+myself, and the bit of beard, just for a little Titian effect; but the
+eyes are his own, and the mouth not as good as his own.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's a striking head, indeed,&rdquo; said Mary, still contemplating it
+attentively.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's exactly what it is; none of your common brain-boxes, but a grand
+specimen of the classic head, civilized down to a mediaeval period; the
+forty-first descendant of an Emperor or a Proconsul, living at the Pincian
+Hall, or at his villa on the Tiber, sitting for his likeness to Giordano.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's a painful expression in the features, too,&rdquo; added she, slowly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So there is; and I believe he 's in bad health.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; said Mary, starting. &ldquo;I quite forgot there was an original all
+this time.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He's alive; and what's more, he's not a mile from where we 're standing.&rdquo;
+ Mr. Crow looked cautiously about him as he spoke, ac if fearful of being
+overheard; and then approaching close to Miss Martin, and dropping his
+voice to a whisper, said, &ldquo;I can venture to tell you what I dare n't tell
+my Lady; for I know well if she suspected who it was would be the Prince
+of Orange, begad, I might abdicate too, as well as the King. That young
+man there is-the son of a grocer in Oughterard,&mdash;true, every word of
+it,&mdash;Dan Nelligan's son! and you may fancy now what chance he 'd have
+of seeing himself on that canvas if her Ladyship knew it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this the youth who has so distinguished himself at college?&rdquo; asked
+Mary.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The very one. I made that sketch of him when he was reading for the
+medal; he did n't know it, for I was in a window opposite, where he
+couldn't see me; and when I finished he leaned his chin in his hand and
+looked up at the sky, as if thinking; and the expression of his up-turned
+face, with the lips a little apart, was so fine that I took it down at
+once, and there it is,&rdquo; said he, turning over the page and presenting a
+few pencil lines lightly and spiritedly drawn.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A young gentleman left this packet, Miss Mary, and said it was for you,&rdquo;
+ said a servant, presenting a small sealed enclosure. Mary Martin blushed
+deeply, and she opened the parcel, out of which fell her own glove, with a
+card.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The very man we were talking of,&rdquo; said Mr. Crow, lifting it up and
+handing it to her,&mdash;&ldquo;Joseph Nelligan. That's like the old proverb;
+talk of the&mdash;&rdquo; But she was gone ere he could finish his quotation.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There she goes,&rdquo; said Crow, sorrowfully; &ldquo;and if she 'd have stayed ten
+minutes more I 'd have had her all complete!&rdquo; and he contemplated with
+glowing satisfaction a hasty sketch he had just made in his book. &ldquo;It's
+like her,&mdash;far more than anything I have done yet; but after all&mdash;&rdquo;
+ And he shook his head mournfully as he felt the poor pretension of his
+efforts. &ldquo;Small blame to me to fail, anyhow,&rdquo; added he, after a pause. &ldquo;It
+would take Titian himself to paint her; and even he couldn't give all the
+softness and delicacy of the expression,&mdash;that would take Raffaelle;
+and Vandyke for her eyes, when they flash out at times; and Giordano for
+the hair. Oh, if he could have seen it just as I did a minute ago, when
+the wind blew it back, and the sunlight fell over it! &ldquo;Arrah!&rdquo; cried he,
+impatiently, as with a passionate gesture he tore the leaf from his book
+and crushed it in his hand,&mdash;&ldquo;arrah! What right have I even to
+attempt it?&rdquo; And he sat down, covering his face with his hands, to muse
+and mourn in silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+Simpson&mdash;or as he was more generally known, Simmy Crow&mdash;was
+neither a Michael Angelo nor a Raffaelle; but he was a simple-minded,
+honest-hearted creature, whose life had been a long hand-to-hand fight
+with fortune. Originally a drawing-master in some country academy, the
+caprice&mdash;for it was little else&mdash;of a whimsical old lady had
+sent him abroad to study; that is, sent him to contemplate the very
+highest triumphs of genius with a mind totally unprepared and
+uncultivated, to gaze on the grandest conceptions without the shadow of a
+clew to them, and to try and pick up the secrets of art when he stood in
+utter ignorance of its first principles. The consequence was, he went wild
+in the enthusiasm of his admiration; he became a passionate worshipper at
+the shrine, but never essayed to be priest at the altar. Disgusted and
+dispirited by his own miserable attempts, he scarcely ever touched a
+pencil, but roved from city to city, and from gallery to gallery,
+entranced,&mdash;enchanted by a fascination that gradually insinuated
+itself into his very being, and made up the whole aim and object of his
+thoughts. This idolatry imparted an ecstasy to his existence that lifted
+him above every accident of fortune. Poor, hungry, and ill-clad, he still
+could enter a gallery or a church, sit down before a Guido or a Rembrandt,
+and forget all, save the glorious creation before him. By the sudden death
+of his patroness, he was left, without a shilling, hundreds of miles from
+home. Humble as his requirements were, he could not supply them; he
+offered to teach, but it was in a land where all have access to the best
+models; he essayed to copy, but his efforts were unsalable. To return home
+to his country was now his great endeavor; and after innumerable
+calamities and reverses, he did arrive in England, whence he made his way
+to Ireland, poorer than he had quitted it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Had he returned in better plight, had he come back with some of the
+appearance of success, the chances are that he might have thriven on the
+accidents of fame; but he was famishing and in beggary. Some alleged that
+he was a worthless fellow who had passed a life of idleness and debauch;
+others, that he was not without ability, but that his habits of
+dissipation rendered him hopeless; and a few&mdash;a very few&mdash;pitied
+him as a weak-brained enthusiast, who had no bad about him, but was born
+to failure!
+</p>
+<p>
+In his utter destitution he obtained work as a house-painter,&mdash;an
+employment which he followed for three or four yeare, and in which
+capacity he had been sent by his master to paint some ornamental
+stucco-work at Cro' Martin. The ability he displayed attracted Lady
+Dorothea's notice, and she engaged him to decorate a small garden villa
+with copies from her own designs. He was entirely successful, and so much
+pleased was her Ladyship that she withdrew him from his ignoble servitude
+and attached him to her own household, where now he had been living two
+years, the latter half of which period had been passed in the great work
+of which we have already made some mention. It so chanced that poor Simmy
+had never sold but two copies in his life: one was The Abdication of
+Charles V., the other, The Finding of Moses; and so, out of gratitude to
+these successes, he went on multiplying new versions of these subjects <i>ad
+infinitum</i>, eternally writing fresh variations on the old themes, till
+the King and the Lawgiver filled every avenue of his poor brain, and he
+ceased to have a belief that any other story than these could be the
+subject of high art.
+</p>
+<p>
+Happy as he now was, he never ceased to feel that his position exposed him
+to many an ungenerous suspicion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They 'll say I 'm humbugging this old lady,&rdquo; was the constant
+self-reproach he kept repeating. &ldquo;I know well what they 'll think of me; I
+think I hear the sneering remarks as I pass.&rdquo; And so powerfully had this
+impression caught hold of him, that he vowed, come what would of it, he 'd
+set out on his travels again, and face the cold stern world, rather than
+live on what seemed to be the life of a flatterer and a sycophant. He
+could not, however, endure the thought of leaving his &ldquo;Abdication&rdquo;
+ unfinished, and he now only remained to complete this great work. &ldquo;Then I
+'m off,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;and then they 'll see if poor Simmy Crow was the fellow
+they took him for.&rdquo; Better thoughts on this theme were now passing through
+his mind, from which at last he aroused himself to proceed with his
+picture. Once at work, his spirits rose; hopes flitted across his brain,
+and he was happy. His own creations seemed to smile benignly on him, too,
+and he felt towards them like a friend, and even talked with them, and
+confided his secret thoughts to them. In this pleasant mood we shall leave
+him, then; nor shall we linger to listen to the avowals he is making of
+his upright intentions, nor his willingness to bear the hardest rubs of
+fortune, so that none can reproach him for a mean subserviency.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER VI. A DASH OF POLITICS
+</h2>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, what is it, Molly,&mdash;what is it all about?&rdquo; said Martin, as
+Mary entered the library, where he was sitting with an unread newspaper
+stretched across his knee.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a piece of news Scanlan has brought, uncle, and not of the most
+agreeable kind either.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I'll not hear more of it,&rdquo; broke he in, pettishly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you must, uncle, since without your own counsel and advice nothing
+can be done.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do nothing, then,&rdquo; added he, sulkily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, come, I 'll not let you off thus easily,&rdquo; said she, passing an arm
+over his shoulder. &ldquo;You know well I 'd not tease you if it could be
+avoided, but here is a case where I can be no guide. It is a question of
+the borough, Lord Kilmorris thinks himself strong enough to stand on his
+own merits, and repudiates your aid and his own principles together.&rdquo;
+ Martin's attention being now secured, she went on: &ldquo;He says&mdash;at least
+as well as I can follow his meaning&mdash;that with this new measure must
+come a total change of policy,&mdash;abrogating all old traditions and old
+notions; that <i>you</i>, of course, are little likely to adopt this
+opinion, at least at once, and so he releases you from all obligations to
+support him, and himself from all tie to represent <i>you</i>.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is Lady Dorothy's doing,&rdquo; broke in Martin, passionately; &ldquo;her
+confounded letter-writing has brought this upon us. I told her that those
+fellows were trimming; I warned her that they were only waiting for this
+Bill to pass, to turn round upon us as a barbarous old remnant of feudal
+oppression; but he dare n't do it, Molly,&mdash;Kilmorris has n't a leg to
+stand upon in the borough. He could n't count upon twenty&mdash;no, not
+ten votes, without me. It's a scurvy trick, too, and it sha'n't succeed,
+if I stand for the borough myself.&rdquo; And he blurted out the last words as
+though they were the expression of an enmity driven to its last resources.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, uncle,&rdquo; said she, caressingly; &ldquo;after all you have yourself told
+me of a parliamentary life, that must never be. Its unending intrigues and
+petty plotting, its fatiguing days and harassing nights, its jealousies
+and disappointments, and defeats, all hard enough to be borne by those who
+must make a trade of their politics, but utterly insupportable to one who,
+like you, can enjoy his independence. Do not think of that, I beseech
+you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then am I to see this man carry my own town in my very teeth?&rdquo; cried he,
+angrily. &ldquo;Is that your advice to me?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You often spoke of Harry. Why not put him forward now he is coming home?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, and the very first thing he'll do will be to resign the seat because
+he had not been consulted about the matter before the election. You know
+him well, Molly; and you know that he exchanged into a regiment in India
+simply because I had obtained his appointment to the Blues. His amiable
+mother's disposition is strong in him!&rdquo; muttered he, half to himself, but
+loud enough to be heard by his niece.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;At all events, see Scanlan,&rdquo; said she; &ldquo;learn how the matter really
+stands; don't rely on my version of it, but see what Lord Kilmorris
+intends, and take your own measures calmly and dispassionately
+afterwards.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is Scanlan engaged for him?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think not. I suspect that negotiations are merely in progress.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But if he even was,&rdquo; broke in Martin, violently, &ldquo;I have made the fellow
+what he is, and he should do as I ordered him. Let him come in, Molly.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is not in the house, uncle; he went down to the village.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not here? Why didn't he wait? What impertinence is this?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He wished to bait his horses, and probably to get some breakfast for
+himself, which I had not the politeness to offer him here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;His horses? His tandem, I'll be sworn,&rdquo; said Martin, with a sneer. &ldquo;I 'll
+ask for no better evidence of what we are coming to than that Maurice
+Scanlan drives about the county with a tandem.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And handles them very neatly, too,&rdquo; said Mary, with a malicious sparkle
+of her eye, for she could n't refrain from the spiteful pleasure of seeing
+her uncle in a regular fury for a mere nothing. All the more salutary, as
+it withdrew his thoughts from weightier themes.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm sure of it, Miss Martin. I'm certain that he is a most accomplished
+whip, and as such perfectly sure to find favor in <i>your</i> eyes. Let
+him come up here at once, however. Say I want him immediately,&rdquo; added he,
+sternly; and Mary despatched a servant with the message, and sat down in
+front of her uncle, neither uttering a word nor even looking towards the
+other.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;After all, Molly,&rdquo; said he, in the quiet, indolent tone so natural to him&mdash;&ldquo;after
+all, what does it signify who's in or who's out? I don't care a brass
+farthing about party or party triumphs; and even if I did, I 'm not
+prepared&mdash;What are you laughing at,&mdash;what is it amuses you now?&rdquo;
+ asked he, half testily, while she laughed out in all the unrestrained flow
+of joyous mirth.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have been waiting for that confession this half-hour, uncle, and really
+I was beginning to be afraid of a disappointment. Why, dearest uncle, you
+were within a hair's breadth of forgetting your principles, and being
+actually caught, for once in your life, prepared and ready.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, is that it? Is it my embarrassment, then, that affords you so much
+amusement?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Far from it,&rdquo; said she, affectionately. &ldquo;I was only laughing at that
+quiet little nook you retire to whenever you ought to be up and doing.
+Unprepared you say. Not a bit of it. Indisposed, indolent, unwilling,
+indifferent, any of these you like; but with a mind so full of its own
+good resources, and as ready to meet every contingency as any one's, don't
+say you are unprepared. Come, now, bear with me this once, dearest uncle,
+and don't be angry if I throw myself, like a rock or sandbank, betwixt you
+and your harbor of refuge. But I hear Mr. Scanlan's voice, and so I shall
+leave you. Be resolute, uncle, determined, and&mdash;'prepared'!&rdquo; And with
+a gesture half menace and half drollery, she left the room as the attorney
+entered it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Scanlan, like most of those who came but casually in contact with Martin,
+had conceived a low idea of his capacity,&mdash;lower by far than it
+deserved, since behind his indolence there lay a fund of good
+common-sense,&mdash;a mine, it must be acknowledged, that he seldom cared
+to work. The crafty man of law had, however, only seen him in his ordinary
+moods of careless ease and idleness, and believed that pride of family,
+fortune, and position were the only ideas that found access to his mind,
+and that by a dexterous allusion to these topics it would always be an
+easy task to influence and direct him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What's this my niece has been telling me of Lord Kilmorris?&rdquo; said Martin,
+abruptly, and without even replying to the salutations of the other, who
+hovered around a chair in an uncertainty as to whether he might dare to
+seat himself uninvited,&mdash;&ldquo;he's going to contest the borough with us,
+is n't he?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Scanlan leaned one arm on the back of the chair, and in a half-careless
+way replied,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is afraid that you and he don't quite agree, sir. He leans to measures
+that he suspects you may not altogether approve of.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, come, none of this balderdash with me, Master Maurice. Has he
+bought the fellows already, or, rather, have you bought them? Out with it,
+man! What will he give? Name the sum, and let us treat the matter in a
+business-like way.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Scanlan sat down and laughed heartily for some minutes.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think you know me well enough, Mr. Martin, by this time,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;to
+say whether I'ma likely man to meddle with such a transaction.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The very likeliest in Ireland; the man I 'd select amidst ten thousand.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sorry to hear you say so, sir, that's all,&rdquo; said the other, with a
+half-offended air; &ldquo;nor do I see that anything in my past life warrants
+the imputation.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin turned fiercely round, about to make a reply which, if once
+uttered, would have ended all colloquy between them, when suddenly
+catching himself he said, &ldquo;Have you taken any engagement with his
+Lordship?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not as yet, sir,&mdash;not formally, at least. My Lord has written me a
+very full statement of his ideas on politics, what he means to do, and so
+forth, and he seems to think that anything short of a very liberal line
+would not give satisfaction to the electors.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who told him so? Who said that the borough was not perfectly content with
+the representative that&mdash;that&rdquo;&mdash;he stammered and faltered&mdash;&ldquo;that
+its best friends had fixed upon to defend its interests? Who said that a
+member of my own family might not desire the seat?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+This announcement, uttered with a tone very much akin to menace, failed to
+produce either the astonishment or terror that Martin looked for, and
+actually supposing that the expression had not been heard, he repeated it.
+&ldquo;I say, sir, has any one declared that a Martin will not stand?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not aware of it,&rdquo; said Scanlan, quietly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir,&rdquo; cried Martin, as if unable to delineate the consequences, and
+wished to throw the weight of the duty on his opponent.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There would be a warm contest, no doubt, sir,&rdquo; said Scanlan, guardedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir; nor the shadow of a contest,&rdquo; rejoined Martin, angrily. &ldquo;You'll
+not tell <i>me</i> that my own town&mdash;the property that has been in my
+family for seven centuries and more&mdash;would presume&mdash;that is,
+would desire&mdash;to&mdash;to&mdash;break the ties that have bound us to
+each other?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish I could tell you my mind, Mr. Martin, without offending you; that
+is, I wish you 'd let me just say what my own opinion is, and take it for
+what it is worth, and in five minutes you 'd be in a better position to
+make up your mind about this matter than if we went on discussing it for a
+week.&rdquo; There was a dash of independence in his utterance of these words
+that actually startled Martin; for, somehow, Scanlan had himself been
+surprised into earnestness by meeting with an energy on the other's part
+that he had never suspected; and thus each appeared in a new light to the
+other.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;May I speak out? Well, then, here is what I have to say: the Relief Bill
+is passed, the Catholics are now emancipated&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, and be&mdash;&rdquo; Martin caught himself with a cough, and the other
+went on:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, if they don't send one of their own set into Parliament at
+once, it is because they 'd like to affect, for a little while at least, a
+kind of confidence in the men who gave them their liberties. O'Connell
+himself gave a pledge, that of two candidates, equal in all other
+respects, they'd select the Protestant; and so they would for a time. And
+it lies with you, and other men of your station, to determine how long
+that interval is to last; for an interval it will only be, after all. If
+you want to pursue the old system of 'keeping down,' you 'll drive them at
+once into the hands of the extreme Papist party, who, thanks to
+yourselves, can now sit in Parliament; but if you 'll moderate your views,
+take a humbler standard of your own power,&mdash;conciliate a prejudice
+here, obliterate an old animosity there&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In fact,&rdquo; broke in Martin, &ldquo;swear by this new creed that Lord Kilmorris
+has sent you a sketch of in his letter! Then I 'll tell you what, sir&mdash;I
+'d send the borough and all in it to the&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So you might, Mr. Martin, and you 'd never mend matters in the least,&rdquo;
+ broke he in, with great coolness.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was now a dead silence for several minutes; at last Martin spoke,
+and it was in a tone and with a manner that indicated deep reflection:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I often said to those who would emancipate the Catholics, 'Are you
+prepared to change places with them? You have been in the ascendant a good
+many years, are you anxious now to try what the other side of the medal
+looks like? for, if not, leave them as they are.' Well, they did n't
+believe me; and maybe now my prophecy is nigh its accomplishment.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is very likely you were right, sir; but whether or not, it's the law
+now, and let us make the best of it,&rdquo; said Scanlan, who had a practical
+man's aversion to all that savored of mere speculative reasoning.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;As how, for instance&mdash;in what way, Mr. Scanlan?&rdquo; asked Martin,
+curtly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you 'll not support Lord Kilmorris&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I won't, I promise you; put that clean out of your head to begin
+with.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, there is but one other course open. Come to some compromise
+with the Romanist party; if you don't like to give them a stray vote&mdash;and
+mark me, they 'd make better terms with <i>you</i> than with a stranger&mdash;but
+if you don't like that, why, take the representation alternately with
+them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin rose from his chair and advanced close to where Scanlan was
+sitting, then, fixing his eyes steadfastly on him, said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who commissioned you to make this proposition to <i>me?</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No one, upon my oath. There is not a man breathing who has ever so much
+as hinted at what I have just said to you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm glad of it; I'm heartily glad of it,&rdquo; said Martin, calmly reseating
+himself. &ldquo;I'm glad there is not another fellow in this county your equal
+in impudence! Aye, Mr. Scanlan, you heard me quite correctly. I saw many a
+change going on amongst us, and I foresaw many more; but that a Martin of
+Cro' Martin should be taught his political duty by Maurice Scanlan, and
+that that duty consisted in a beggarly alliance with the riff-raff of a
+county town,&mdash;that was, indeed, a surprise for which I was in no wise
+prepared.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, I 'm sorry if I have given any offence,&rdquo; said Scanlan, rising,
+and, in a voice of the most quiet intonation, making his excuses. &ldquo;Your
+rejection of the counsel I was bold enough to suggest leaves me, at least,
+at liberty to offer my services where they will not be rejected so
+contumeliously.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this a threat, Mr. Scanlan?&rdquo; said Martin, with a supercilious smile.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir, nothing of the kind. I know too well what becomes <i>my</i>
+station, and is <i>due to yours</i>, to forget myself so far; but as you
+don't set any value on the borough yourself, and as there may be others
+who do&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stay and eat your dinner here, Scanlan,&rdquo; said Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I promised Mrs. Cronan, sir&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Send an apology to her; say it was <i>my</i> fault,&mdash;that I detained
+you.&rdquo; And without waiting for a reply, Martin sauntered from the room,
+leaving the attorney alone with his reflections.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER VII. A COLLEGE COMPETITOR
+</h2>
+<p>
+Young Nelligan had distanced all his competitors in his college career;
+some who were his equals in ability, were inferior to him in habits of
+hard and patient labor; and others, again, were faint-hearted to oppose
+one in whose success they affected to believe luck had no small share. One
+alone had the honest candor to avow that he deserved his pre-eminence, on
+the true ground of his being their superior. This was a certain Jack
+Massingbred, a young fellow of good family and fortune, and who, having
+been rusticated at Oxford, and involved in some outrage against authority
+in Cambridge, had come over to finish his college career in the &ldquo;Silent
+Sister.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Although Irish by birth, and connected with Ireland by ties of family and
+fortune, he had passed all his life in England, his father having repaired
+to that country after the Union, exchanging the barren honor of a seat for
+an Irish borough for a snug Treasury appointment. His son had very early
+given proof of superior capacity. At Rugby he was distinguished as a
+scholar; and in his opening life at Oxford his talents won high praise for
+him. Soon after his entrance, however, he had fallen into a fast set,&mdash;of
+hunting, tandem-driving, and occasionally hard-drinking men,&mdash;in
+whose society he learned to forget all his aim for college success, and to
+be far more anxious for distinction as a whip or a stroke-oar than for all
+the honors of scholarship. At first he experienced a sense of pride in the
+thought that he could hold his own with either set, and take the lead in
+the examination-hall as easily as he assumed the first place in the social
+meeting. A few reverses, however, taught him that his theory was a
+mistake, that no amount of ability will compensate for habits of idleness
+and dissipation, and that the discursive efforts of even high genius will
+be ever beaten by the steady results of patient industry. Partly
+indifferent to what had once been his great ambition, partly offended by
+his failures, Massingbred threw himself entirely into the circle of his
+dissipated companions, and became the very head and front of all their
+wildest excesses. An absurd exploit, far more ludicrous than really
+culpable, procured his rustication; a not less ridiculous adventure drove
+him from Cambridge; and he had at last arrived in Dublin, somewhat tamed
+down by his experiences, and half inclined to resume his long-abandoned
+desire for college distinction.
+</p>
+<p>
+The habits of the Irish College were strikingly unlike those of either
+Oxford or Cambridge. Instead of a large class consisting of men of great
+fortune and high expectations, he found a very slight sprinkling of such,
+and even they made up nothing that resembled a party. Separated by age,
+political distinctions, and county associations, all stronger in the
+poorer country than in the richer one, they held little intercourse
+together, and were scarcely acquainted.
+</p>
+<p>
+If there was less actual wealth, there was also less credit to be obtained
+by an Irish student. The Dublin shopkeeper acknowledged no prestige in the
+&ldquo;gownsman;&rdquo; he admitted him to no special privilege of book-debts; and as
+the great majority of the students resided with their families in the
+capital, there was no room for that reckless extravagance so often
+prosecuted by those who are temporarily removed from domestic supervision.
+</p>
+<p>
+Massingbred was at first grievously disappointed. There were neither great
+names nor great fortunes amongst his new associates. Their mode of life,
+too, struck him as mean and contemptible. There were clever men reading
+for honors, and stupid men steering their slow way to a degree; but where
+were the fast ones? where the fellows who could tool a team or steer a
+six-oar, who could dash up to town for a week's reckless life at Crocky's
+and Tattersall's, make their book on the Oaks, or perhaps ride the winner
+at a steeplechase?
+</p>
+<p>
+It was all grievously slow. Dublin itself was a poor affair. He had few
+acquaintances, the theatres were bad, and public amusements there were
+none. His fellow-students, too, stood aloof from him. It was not that he
+was richer, better dressed, rode blood horses, dined at Morris-son's, wore
+kid gloves, and carried scented pocket-handkerchiefs. It was not that he
+had a certain air of puppyism as he wended his way across the courts, or
+sauntered elegantly into chapel. They could have forgiven any or all of
+these better than one of his offendings, which was his accent. Strange as
+it may seem, his English voice and English pronunciation were the most
+unpopular things about him, and many a real defect in his character might
+have met a more merciful construction had he given no initial &ldquo;H&rdquo; to
+&ldquo;humble,&rdquo; and evinced a more generous confusion about his &ldquo;wills&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;snails.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Somewhat bored by a life so unlike anything he had ever tried before,&mdash;partly,
+perhaps, stimulated to show that he could do something beside canter his
+thorough-bred along Sackville Street, or lounge in the stage-box in
+solitary splendor,&mdash;he went in for honors, and, to the surprise of
+all, succeeded. In fact, he beat two or three of the distinguished men of
+his time, till, thrown by the chance of events into Nelligan's division,
+he found at once his superior, and saw that he was in presence of an
+intelligence considerably above his own. When he had adventured on the
+struggle and found himself worsted, he acknowledged defeat with all the
+generosity of an honorable nature; and forcing his way through the crowd
+as it issued from the examination-hall, was the very first to grasp
+Nelligan's hand and congratulate him on his success.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was all got up; he was bursting with jealousy. The fellow could have
+strangled Nelligan,&rdquo; muttered one.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He certainly put a good face on the disaster,&rdquo; said another, more
+mercifully given; &ldquo;though I suppose he feels the thing sorely enough at
+heart!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+That was exactly what he did not, however. Young Massingbred regarded a
+college distinction as no evidence whatever of a man's attainments. He had
+seen stupid fellows win the prize for which clever ones strove in vain;
+but, at all events, he regarded such successes as contributing in nothing
+to the great race of life, and had even a theory that such early efforts
+were often the very means of exhausting the energies that should be
+exerted for the high rewards of the world. Besides this, he felt a
+pleasure in manfully showing that he was above a petty jealousy, and
+fairly owning himself beaten in a fair struggle.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are the better man, Nelligan,&rdquo; said he, gayly; &ldquo;I 'll not try another
+fall with you, be assured.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Strange was it that in this very avowal he had asserted what the other
+felt in his inmost heart to be an immeasurable superiority over him; and
+that in the very moment of striking his flag he had proclaimed his
+victory. To be able to run him so hard for the race and yet not feel the
+struggle, to strive for the prize and care nothing for defeat, seemed to
+Nelligan the evidence of an ambition that soared above college triumph,
+and he could not but envy that buoyant high-hearted temperament that
+seemed to make light of difficulties and not even feel depressed by a
+defeat.
+</p>
+<p>
+Up to this time these two young men had scarcely known each other, but now
+they became intimate. The very difference in character served to draw them
+more closely together; and if Nelligan felt a degree of admiration for
+qualities whose brilliant display opened a new sense of enjoyment to him,
+the other was delighted with the gentle and almost childlike innocence of
+the student whose far-soaring intellect was mastering the highest
+questions of science.
+</p>
+<p>
+Massingbred was one of those natures in whom frankness is an instinct. It
+seems to such a relief to open the secrets of the heart and avow their
+weaknesses and their shortcomings, as though&mdash;by some Moral Popery&mdash;they
+would obtain the benefit of a free confession and go forth the better for
+their candor.
+</p>
+<p>
+Not only did he tell Nelligan of his own career and its accidents, the
+causes for which he was not on good terms with his family, and so on; but
+he even ventured to discuss the public life of his father, and, in a
+spirit of banter, swore that to his political subserviency did he owe his
+whole fortune in life.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My father was one of the crew when the vessel was wrecked, Nelligan,&rdquo;
+ said he; &ldquo;there was plenty of talk of standing by the ship to the last,
+and perishing with her. Some did so, and they are forgotten already. My
+father, however, jumped into the long-boat with a few more, and thought
+that probably they might find another craft more seaworthy; fortunately he
+was right; at least, assuredly, I 'm not the man to say he was not.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But was there no desertion of principle, Massingbred?&rdquo; said Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No more than there is a desertion of your old coat when you discover it
+to be too threadbare to wear any longer. Irish Politics, as the men of
+that day understood them, had become impracticable,&mdash;impossible, I
+might say; the only sensible thing to do was to acknowledge the fact. My
+father was keen-sighted enough to see it in that light, and here 's his
+health for it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Nelligan was silent.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, Joe, out with it. Your family were honest Unionists. Tell me so
+frankly, man. Own to me that you and yours look upon us all as a set of
+knaves and scoundrels, that sold their country, and so forth. I want to
+see you in a mood of good passionate indignation for once. Out with it,
+boy; curse us to your heart's content, and I 'll hear it like an angel,
+for the simple reason that I know it to be just. You won't, won't you? Is
+your anger too deep for words? or are there any special and peculiar
+wrongs that make your dark consuming wrath too hot for utterance?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Nelligan was still silent; but the blush which now covered his face had
+become almost purple. The allusion to his family as persons of political
+importance struck him, and for the first time, with a sense of shame. What
+would Massingbred think of them if he knew their real station? what would
+he think of <i>him</i> for having concealed it? Had he concealed it? Had
+he ever divulged the truth? He knew not; in the whirlwind of his confusion
+he knew nothing. He tried to say some words to break the oppressive
+silence that seemed to weigh him down like an accusation, but he could
+not.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see it all, Nelligan. My foolish affectation of laughing at all
+principle has disgusted you; but the truth is, I don't feel it: I do not.
+I own frankly that the bought patriot is a ruined man, and there is a
+moral Nemesis over every fellow that sells himself; I don't mean to say
+but that many who did so did n't make the best bargain their brains were
+worth, and my father for one; he was a man of fair average abilities,&mdash;able
+to say his commonplaces like his neighbors,&mdash;and naturally felt that
+they would sound as well in England as in Ireland; I don't think he had a
+single conviction on any subject, so that he really sold a very unsalable
+article when he vended himself. But there were others,&mdash;your
+Governor, for instance; come, now, tell me about him; you are so devilish
+close, and I want to hear all about your family. You won't; well, I'll
+give you one chance more, and then&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What then?&rdquo; asked Nelligan, breathlessly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll just go and learn for myself.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How? what do you mean?&rdquo; &ldquo;The easiest way in the world. The vacation
+begins next Tuesday, and I 'll just invite myself to spend the first week
+of it under your paternal roof. You look terribly shocked, absolutely
+horrified; well, so you ought. It is about the greatest piece of
+impertinence I 've heard of. I assure you I have a full consciousness of
+that myself; but no matter, I 'll do it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Nelligan's shame was now an agony. It had never occurred to him in his
+life to feel ashamed of his station or that of his family, for the simple
+reason that he had never made pretension to anything higher or more
+exalted. The distinctions at which he aimed were those attainable by
+ability; social successes were triumphs he never dreamed of. But now came
+the thought of how he should stand in his friend's esteem, when the fact
+was revealed that he was the son of very humble parents, all whose ways,
+thoughts, and habits would be apt themes for ridicule and sarcasm. Over
+and over again had Massingbred annoyed him by the disparaging tone in
+which he canvassed &ldquo;small people,&rdquo; the sneering depreciation in which he
+held all their doings, and the wholesale injustice by which he classed
+their sentiments with their good manners. It was the one feature of his
+friend's character that gave a check to his unbounded esteem for him. Had
+he not possessed this blemish, Nelligan would have deemed him nearly
+faultless.
+</p>
+<p>
+Intensely feeling this, Nelligan would have given much for courage to say,
+&ldquo;I am one of that very set you sneer at. All my associations and ties are
+with them. My home is amongst them, and every link of kindred binds me to
+them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Yet, somehow, he could not bring himself to the effort. It was not that he
+dreaded the loss of friendship that might ensue,&mdash;indeed, he rather
+believed that such would not occur; but he thought that a time might come
+when that avowal might be made with pride, and not in humiliation, when he
+should say: &ldquo;My father, the little shopkeeper of Oughterard, gave me the
+advantages by which I became what I am. The class you sneer at had yet
+ambitions high and daring as your own; and talents to attain them, too!
+The age of noble and serf has passed away, and we live in a freer and more
+generous era, when men are tested by their own worth; and if birth and
+blood would retain their respect amongst us, it is by contesting with us
+more humbly born the prizes of life.&rdquo; To have asserted these things now,
+however, when he was nothing, when his name had no echo beyond the walls
+of a college, would have seemed to him an intolerable piece of
+presumption, and he was silent.
+</p>
+<p>
+Massingbred read his reserve as proceeding from displeasure, and jestingly
+said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You mustn't be angry with me, Joe. The boldness of men like me is less
+impudence than you take it for, since&mdash;should I fulfil my threat, and
+pay your father a visit&mdash;I 'd neither show surprise nor shame if he
+refused to receive me. I throw over all the claims of ceremony; but at the
+same time I don't want to impose the trammels on my friends. They are free
+to deal with me as frankly, ay, and as curtly as I have treated them; but
+enough of all this. Let us talk of something else.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And so they did, too,&mdash;of their college life and its changeful
+fortunes; of their companions and their several characters, and of the
+future itself, of which Massingbred pretended to read the fate, saying:
+&ldquo;You'll be something wonderful one of these days, Joe. I have it as though
+revealed to me,&mdash;<i>you</i> astonishing the world by your abilities,
+and winning your way to rank and eminence; while <i>I</i> like a sign-post
+that points to the direction, shall stand stock-still, and never budge an
+inch, knowing the road, but not travelling it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And why should it be so, Mass, when you have such a perfect consciousness
+of your powers for success?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;For the simple reason, my boy, that I know and feel how the cleverness
+which imposes upon others has never imposed upon myself. The popular error
+of a man's being able to do fifty things which he has not done from
+idleness, apathy, carelessness, and so on, never yet deceived me, because
+I know well that when a fellow has great stuff in him it will come out,
+whether he likes or not. You might as well say that the grapes in a
+wine-vat could arrest their own process of fermentation, as that a man of
+real genius&mdash;and mind, I am now speaking of no other&mdash;could
+suppress the working of his intelligence, and throw his faculties into
+torpor. The men who do nothing are exactly the men who can do no better.
+Volition, energy, the strong impulse for action, are part and parcel of
+every really great intellect; and your 'mute, inglorious Milton' only
+reminds me of the artist who painted his canvas all red to represent the
+passage of the Egyptians through the Red Sea. Believe me, you must take
+all untried genius in the same scale of credit as that by which you have
+fancied the chariots and horsemen submerged in the flood. They are there,
+if you like; and if you don't&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your theory requires that all men's advantages should be equal, their
+station alike, and their obstacles the same. Now, they are not so. See,
+for instance, in our University here. <i>I</i> am debarred from the
+fellowship-bench&mdash;or, at least, from attempting to reach it&mdash;because
+I am a Papist.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then turn Protestant; or if that doesn't suit you, address yourself to
+kick down the barrier that stands in your way. By the bye, I did n't know
+you were a Roman; how comes that? Is it a family creed, or was it a
+caprice of your own?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is the religion my family have always professed,&rdquo; said Nelligan,
+gravely.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have no right to speak of these subjects, because I have never felt
+strongly enough on them to establish strong convictions; but it appears to
+me that if I were you&mdash;that is, if I had <i>your</i> head on my
+shoulders&mdash;I should think twice ere I 'd sacrifice my whole future
+out of respect for certain dogmas that no more interfere with one's daily
+life and opinions than some obsolete usage of ancient Greece has a bearing
+upon a modern suit in Chancery. There, don't look fretful and impatient; I
+don't want to provoke you, nor is it worth your while to bring your siege
+artillery against my card-house. I appreciate everything you could
+possibly adduce by anticipation, and I yield myself as vanquished.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Thus, half in earnest, half jestingly, Massingbred talked away, little
+thinking how deeply many a random speech entered into his friend's heart,
+taking firm root there to grow and vegetate hereafter. As for himself, it
+would have been somewhat difficult to say how far his convictions ever
+went with his words. Any attempt to guide and direct him was, at any time,
+enough to excite a wilful endeavor to oppose it, and whatever savored of
+opposition immediately evoked his resistance. The spirit of rebellion was
+the keynote of his character; he could be made anything, everything, or
+nothing, as authority&mdash;or as he would have styled it, tyranny&mdash;decided.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was just at this very moment that an incident occurred to display this
+habit of his mind in its full force. His father, by employing much private
+influence and the aid of powerful friends, had succeeded in obtaining for
+him the promise of a most lucrative civil appointment in India. It was one
+of those situations which in a few years of very moderate labor secure an
+ample fortune for the possessor. Mr. Massingbred had forgotten but one
+thing in all the arrangement of this affair, which was to apprise his son
+of it beforehand, and make him, as it were, a part of the plot. That one
+omission, however, was enough to secure its failure.
+</p>
+<p>
+Jack received the first tidings of the scheme when it was a fact, not a
+speculation. It was a thing done, not to do, and consequently a &ldquo;gross
+piece of domestic cruelty to dispose of him and his future by an arbitrary
+banishment to a distant land, linking him with distasteful duties,
+uncongenial associates,&rdquo; and the rest of it. In a word, it was a case for
+resistance, and he did resist, and in no very measured fashion, either. He
+wrote back a pettish and ill-tempered refusal of the place, sneered at the
+class by whom such appointments were regarded as prizes, and coolly said
+that &ldquo;it was quite time enough to attach himself to the serious business
+of life when he had tasted something of the pleasures that suited his time
+of life; besides,&rdquo; added he, &ldquo;I must see which way my ambitions point;
+perhaps to a seat on the Treasury benches, perhaps to a bullock-team, a
+wood-axe, and a rifle in a new settlement. Of my resolves on either head,
+or on anything between them, you shall have the earliest possible
+intimation from your devoted, but perhaps not very obedient, to command,
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;J. M.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+His father rejoined angrily and peremptorily. The place had cost him
+everything he could employ or enlist of friendly patronage; he made the
+request assume all the weight of a deep personal obligation, and now the
+solicitation and the success were all to go for nothing. What if he should
+leave so very gifted a young gentleman to the unfettered use of his great
+abilities? What if he abstained from any interference with one so
+competent to guide himself? He threw out these suggestions too palpably to
+occasion any misconception, and Jack read them aright. &ldquo;I'm quite ready
+for sea whenever you are pleased to cut the painter,&rdquo; said he; and the
+correspondence concluded with a dry intimation that two hundred a year,
+less than one half of his former allowance, should be paid into Coutts's
+for his benefit, but that no expenditure above that sum would be repaid by
+his father.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll emigrate; I 'll agitate; I 'll turn author, and write for the
+reviews; I 'll correspond with the newspapers; I 'll travel in Afrifca; I
+'ll go to sea,&mdash;be a pirate;&rdquo; in fact, there was nothing for which he
+thought his capacity unequal, nor anything against which his principles
+would revolt. In speculation, only, however; for in sober reality he
+settled down into a mere idler, discontented, dreamy, and unhappy.
+</p>
+<p>
+Little momentary bursts of energy would drive him now and then to his
+books, and for a week or two he would work really hard; when a change as
+sudden would come over him, and he would relapse into his former apathy.
+Thus was it that he had lived for some time after the term had come to an
+end, and scarcely a single student lingered within the silent courts.
+Perhaps the very solitude was the great charm of the place; there was that
+in his lonely, unfriended, uncompanionable existence that seemed to feed
+the brooding melancholy in which he indulged with all the ardor of a vice.
+He liked to think himself an outcast and forgotten. It was a species of
+flattery that he addressed to his own heart when he affected to need
+neither sympathy nor affection. Still his was not the stuff of which
+misanthropy is fashioned, and he felt acutely the silence of his friend
+Nelligan, who had never once written to him since they parted.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'd scarcely have left <i>him</i> here,&rdquo; said he to himself one day;
+&ldquo;had <i>he</i> been in my position, I 'd hardly have quitted <i>him</i>
+under such circumstances. He knew all about my quarrel with my father. He
+had read our letters on each side. To be sure he had condemned <i>me</i>,
+and taken the side against me; still, when there was a breach, and that
+breach offered no prospect of reconciliation, it was but scant friendship
+to say good-bye, and desert me. He might, at least, have asked me down to
+his house. I 'd not have gone; that 's certain. I feel myself very poor
+company for myself, and I 'd not inflict my stupidity upon others. Still,
+<i>he</i> might have thought it kind or generous. In fact, in such a case
+I would have taken no refusal; I'd have insisted.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+What a dangerous hypothesis it is when we assume to act for another; how
+magnanimously do we rise above all meaner motives, and only think of what
+is generous and noble; how completely we discard every possible
+contingency that could sway us from the road of duty, and neither look
+right nor left on our way to some high object! Jack Massingbred, arguing
+thus, ended by thinking himself a very fine fellow and his friend a very
+shabby one,&mdash;two conclusions that, strangely enough, did not put him
+into half as much good-humor with the world as he expected. At all events,
+he felt very sore with Nelligan, and had he known where to address him,
+would have written a very angry epistle of mock gratitude for all his
+solicitude in his behalf; very unfortunately, however, he did not know in
+what part of Ireland the other resided, nor did his acquaintance with
+provincial dialect enable him to connect his friend with a western county.
+He had so confidently expected to hear from him, that he had never asked a
+question as to his whereabouts. Thus was it with Massingbred, as he
+sauntered along the silent alleys of the College Park, in which, at rare
+intervals, some solitary sizar might be met with,&mdash;spare, sad-looking
+figures,&mdash;in whose features might be read the painful conflict of
+narrow fortune and high ambition. Book in hand generally, they rarely
+exchanged a look as he passed them; and Massingbred scanned at his ease
+these wasted and careworn sons of labor, wondering within himself was
+&ldquo;theirs the right road to fortune.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Partly to shake off the depression that was over him by change of place,
+and in part to see something of the country itself, Massingbred resolved
+to make a walking-tour through the south and west of Ireland, and with a
+knapsack on his back, he started one fine autumn morning for Wicklow.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER VIII. SOME KNOTTY POINTS THAT PUZZLED JOE NELLIGAN
+</h2>
+<p>
+This true history contains no record of the evening Mr. Scanlan passed at
+the Osprey's Nest; nor is it probable that in any diary kept by that
+intelligent individual there will yet be found materials to supply this
+historical void. Whether, therefore, high events and their consequences
+were discussed, or that the meeting was only devoted to themes of lighter
+importance, is likely to remain a secret to all time. That matters beneath
+the range of politics occupied the consideration of the parties was,
+however, evident from the following few lines of a note received by young
+Nelligan the next morning:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+&ldquo;Dear Joe,&mdash;I dined yesterday at the 'Nest,' and we talked
+much of you. What would you think of paying a visit there
+this morning to see the picture, or anything else you can
+think of? I 've a notion it would be well taken. At all
+events, come over and speak to me here.
+
+&ldquo;Ever yours,
+
+&ldquo;M. SCANLAN.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I scarcely understand your note, Maurice,&rdquo; said young Nelligan, as he
+entered the little room where the other sat at breakfast.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you breakfasted?&rdquo; said Scanlan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, an hour ago.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you taste that salmon? Well, then, just try Poll Hanigan's attempt
+at a grouse-pie; let me tell you, there is genius in the very ambition;
+she got the receipt from the cook at Cro' Martin, and the imitation is
+highly creditable. You 're wrong to decline it.&rdquo; And he helped himself
+amply as he spoke.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But this note?&rdquo; broke in the other, half impatiently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh&mdash;ay&mdash;the note; I 'm sure I forget what I wrote; what was it
+about? Yes, to be sure, I remember now. I want you to make yourself known,
+up there. It is downright folly, if not worse, to be keeping up these
+feuds and differences in Ireland any longer; such a course might suit the
+small politicians of Oughterard, but you and I know better, and Martin
+himself knows better.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I never took any part in the conflict you speak of; I lived out of
+it,&mdash;away from it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And are therefore, exactly suited to repair a breach to which you never
+contributed. I assure you, my boy, the gentry&mdash;and I know them well&mdash;will
+meet you more than half-way. There is not a prouder fellow living than
+Martin there; he has throughout his whole life held his head higher than
+any man in our county, and yet he is quite ready to make advances towards
+you. Of course, what I say is strictly between ourselves; but my opinion
+is, that, if you like it, you may be as intimate up there as ever you were
+at old Hayes's, at the Priory.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, what would you have me do?&rdquo; asked Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just pay a visit there this morning; say that you are curious to see that
+great picture,&mdash;and it is a wonderful thing, if only for the size of
+it; or that you 'd like to have a look at Arran Island out of the big
+telescope at the top of the house; anything will serve as a reason, and
+then,&mdash;why, leave the rest to chance.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But really, Maurice, I see no sufficient cause for all this,&rdquo; said the
+youth, timidly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look now, Joe,&rdquo; said the other, drawing his chair closer to him, and
+talking in the low and measured tone of a confidence,&mdash;&ldquo;look now,
+you're not going to pass your life as the successor to that excellent man,
+Dan Nelligan, of Oughterard, selling hides and ropes and ten-penny-nails,
+and making an estate the way old ladies make a patchwork quilt. You'll be
+able to start in life with plenty of tin and plenty of talent; you'll have
+every advantage that money and education can give, and only one drawback
+on your road to success,&mdash;the mere want of blood,&mdash;that dash of
+birth which forms the only real freemasonry in this world. Now mind me,
+Joe; the next best thing to having this oneself is to live and associate
+with those who have; for in time, what with catching up their prejudices
+and learning their ways, you come to feel very much as they do; and, what
+is better still, they begin to regard you as one of themselves.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But if I do not ambition this,&mdash;if I even reject it?&rdquo; said the
+other, impatiently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then all I say is that Trinity College may make wonderful scholars, but
+turns out mighty weak men of the world!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps so!&rdquo; said Nelligan, dryly, and with a half-nettled air.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose you fancy there would be something like slavery in such a
+position?&rdquo; said Scanlan, with a derisive look.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know it!&rdquo; responded the other, firmly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then what do you say to the alternative,&mdash;and there is but one only
+open to you,&mdash;what do you think of spending your life as a follower
+of Daniel O'Connell; of being reminded every day and every hour that you
+have not a privilege nor a place that he did n't win for you; that he
+opened Parliament to you, and made you free of every guild where men of
+ability rise to honor? Ay, Joe! and what 's a thousand times worse,&mdash;knowing
+it all to be true, my boy! Take service with him once, and if you leave
+him you 're a renegade; remember that, and bethink you that there's no
+saying what crotchet he may have in store for future agitation.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I never purposed any such part for myself,&rdquo; broke in Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind, it will fall to your lot for all that, if you don't quickly
+decide against it. What's Simmy Crow staring at? Look at him down there,
+he's counting every window in the street like a tax-gatherer.&rdquo; And he
+pointed to the artist, who, shading his eyes with one hand, stood peering
+at every house along the little street. &ldquo;What's the matter, Simmy?&rdquo; cried
+he, opening the casement.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's a house I'm looking for, down here, and I forget which it is; bother
+them, they 're all so like at this time of the year when they 're empty.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you in search of a lodging, Simmy?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, it is n't that!&rdquo; said the other, curtly, and still intent on his
+pursuit. &ldquo;Bad luck to the architect that would n't vary what they call the
+'façade,' and give one some chance of finding the place again.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is it you want, man?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix, and I don't even know that same!&rdquo; replied the artist; &ldquo;but&rdquo;&mdash;and
+he lowered his voice to a whisper as he spoke&mdash;&ldquo;he's an elegant
+study,&mdash; as fine a head and face and as beautiful a beard as ever you
+saw. I met him at Kyle's Wood a week ago, begging; and what with his fine
+forehead and deep-set blue eyes, his long white hair, and his great shaggy
+eyebrows, I said to myself: 'Belisarius,' says I, 'by all that's grand,&mdash;a
+Moses, a Marino Faliero, or a monk in a back parlor discoursing to an old
+skull and a vellum folio,&mdash;any one of these,' says I, 'not to speak
+of misers, money-lenders, or magicians, as well;' and so I coaxed him down
+here on Saturday last, and put him somewhere to sleep, with a good supper
+and a pint of spirits, and may I never, if I know where I left him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Three days ago?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so; and worse than all, I shut up the place quite dark, and only
+made a hole in the roof, just to let a fine Rembrandt light fall down on
+his head. Oh, then, it's no laughing matter, Maurice! Sure if anything
+happened to him&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your life wouldn't be worth sixpence before any jury in the county.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Begad! it's what I was thinking; if they wouldn't take it as a practical
+joke.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You're looking for ould Brennan!&rdquo; cried a weather-beaten hag; &ldquo;but he's
+gone to Oughterard for a summons. You'll pay dear for your tricks this
+time, anyhow.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come up here, Simmy, and never mind her,&rdquo; said Scanlan; then, turning to
+Nelligan, he added, &ldquo;There's not such a character in the county!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want my friend, Mr. Nelligan, here&mdash;Mr. Nelligan&mdash;Mr. Crow&mdash;I
+want him, I say, to come up and have a look at the great 'Historical '&mdash;eh,
+Simmy!&mdash;would n't it astonish him?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you a votary of art, sir?&rdquo; asked Crow, modestly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 've never seen what could be called a picture, except those portraits
+in the College Examination Hall might be deemed such.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, and they're not worthy the name, sir. Flood, mayhap, is like, but
+he's hard and stiff, and out of drawing; and Lord Clare is worse. It's in
+the Low Countries you 'd see portraits, real portraits! men that look down
+on you out of the canvas, as if <i>you</i> were the intruder there, and
+that <i>they</i> were waiting to know what brought you. A sturdy old
+Burgomaster, for instance, with a red-brown beard and a fierce pair of
+eyes, standing up firm as a rock on a pair of legs that made many a
+drawbridge tremble as he walked home to dinner on the Grand Canal, at
+Rotterdam, after finishing some mighty bargain for half a spice island, or
+paying a million of guilders down as a dowry for that flaxen-haired, buxom
+damsel in the next frame. Look at the dimples in her neck, and mark the
+folds in her satin. Is n't she comely, and calm, and haughty, and
+house-wifery, all together? Mind her foot, it isn't small, but see the
+shape of it, and the way it presses the ground&mdash;ay, just so&mdash;my
+service to you; but you are one there 's no joking with, even if one was
+alone with you.&rdquo; And he doffed his hat, and bowed obsequiously as he
+spoke.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You're an enthusiast for your art?&rdquo; said Nelligan, interested by the
+unmistakable sincerity of his zeal.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am, sir,&rdquo; was the brief reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the painter's is certainly a glorious career.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If for nothing else,&rdquo; burst in Crow, eagerly, &ldquo;that it can make of one
+like me&mdash;poor, ignorant, and feeble, as I am&mdash;a fellow-soldier
+in the same army with Van Dyke and Titian and Velasquez&mdash;to know that
+in something that they thought, or hoped, or dared, or tried to do, I too
+have my share! You think me presumptuous to say this; you are sneering at
+such a creature as Simmy Crow for the impudence of such a boast, but it's
+in humility I say it, ay, in downright abject humility; for I 'd rather
+have swept out Rembrandt's room, and settled his rough boards on Cuyp's
+easel, than I 'd be a&mdash;a&mdash;battle-axe guard, or a
+lord-in-waiting, or anything else you like, that's great and grand at
+court.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I envy you a pursuit whose reward is in the practice rather than in the
+promise,&rdquo; said Nelligan, thoughtfully. &ldquo;Men like myself labor that they
+may reach some far-away land of rewards and successes, and bear the
+present that they may enjoy the future.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0004" id="linkimage-0004">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/114.jpg" width="100%" alt="114 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, but it will repay you well, by all accounts,&rdquo; said Crow. &ldquo;Miss Mary
+told us last night how you had beat every one out of the field, and had
+n't left a single prize behind you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who said this?&rdquo; cried Joe, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Mary,&mdash;Miss Martin. She said it was a credit to us all of the
+west, here, that there was one, at least, from Galway, who could do
+something besides horse-racing and cock-fighting&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So she did,&rdquo; said Scanlan, interrupting, with some confusion. &ldquo;She said
+somebody had told her of young Nelligan. She called you 'Young Nelligan.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no; it was to myself she said it, and the words were, 'Mr. Joseph
+Nelligan;' and then, when her uncle said, 'Why don't we know him? '&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear Simmy, you make a most horrible confusion when you attempt a
+story,&mdash;out of canvas. Mind, I said out of canvas; for I confess that
+in your grand 'Historical' the whole incident is admirably detailed. I 've
+just said to my friend here, that he has a great pleasure before him in
+seeing that picture.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you 'll do me the honor to look at it,&rdquo; said Crow, bowing courteously,
+&ldquo;when you come to dinner to-day.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Attend to <i>me</i>, Joe,&rdquo; said Scanlan, passing an arm within
+Nelligan's, and leading him away to another part of the room; &ldquo;that fellow
+is little better than an idiot. But I was just going to tell you what
+Martin said. 'You are intimate with young Nelligan,' said he; 'you know
+him well, and you could possibly do without awkwardness what with more
+formality might be difficult. Don't you think, then, that he would
+possibly waive ceremony&mdash;'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must be off,&rdquo; broke in Crow, hastily. &ldquo;I have a sitting at twelve
+o'clock, so I hope we shall see you at seven, Mr. Nelligan; your note said
+seven, sharp.&rdquo; And without waiting for more, he seized his hat and hurried
+down the stairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A downright fool!&rdquo; said Scanlan, angrily. &ldquo;Mr. Martin said he 'd write to
+you, if&mdash;if&mdash;if, in fact, you stood upon that punctilio; but
+that he'd be all the better pleased if you 'd just accept acquaintance as
+freely as he offered it, and come and dine there to-day, like a friend.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is n't there, or has there not been, some difference between him and my
+father?&rdquo; asked Joe.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A trifle,&mdash;and a mistake; the kind of thing that two men of calm
+heads and common sense could have settled in five minutes, and which, to
+say the truth, Martin was right in throughout. It's all passed and over
+now, however, and it would be worse than foolish to revive it. There 's
+Miss Martin!&rdquo; cried he, &ldquo;and I have a word to say to her;&rdquo; and hurried off
+without waiting for more. As he passed from the room, however, a letter
+fell from his pocket; and as Nelligan stooped to take it up, he saw that
+it was addressed to himself. He looked hesitatingly at it for a moment or
+two, scarcely knowing whether or not he ought to break the seal. &ldquo;It was
+meant for me, at all events,&rdquo; said he, and opened it. The contents were as
+follows;&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Martin presents his respects to Mr. Joseph Nelligan, and will feel
+happy if&mdash;excusing the want of formal introduction&mdash;Mr. Nelligan
+will admit him to the honor of acquaintance, and give him the pleasure of
+his society at dinner, to-morrow, at seven o'clock. Mr. Martin does not
+hesitate to say that to accept this unceremonious proposal will be felt as
+a very great favor indeed by him and his family.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What does Scanlan mean by all this? Why not have handed me this note at
+once?&rdquo; was Nelligan's question to himself, as he descended the stairs and
+gained the street. He was not sorry that Scanlan was not in sight, and
+hastened homeward to think over this strange communication. Joe well knew
+that his mother was not peculiarly endowed with worldly wisdom or
+acuteness; and yet such was his need of counsel at the moment, that he
+determined, at least in part, to lay the case before her. &ldquo;She can
+certainly tell me,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;if there be any reason why I should decline
+this proposal.&rdquo; And with this resolve he entered the cottage.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't you remember Catty Henderson, Joe?&rdquo; said his mother, as he came
+into the room, and presenting a young girl, very plainly but neatly
+dressed, who arose to receive him with an air of well-bred composure,&mdash;&ldquo;Catty,
+that used to be your playfellow long ago?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn't know you were in Ireland, Miss Henderson. I should never have
+recognized you,&rdquo; said Nelligan, in some confusion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor was I till a few days back,&rdquo; said she, in an accent very slightly
+tinged with a foreign pronunciation. &ldquo;I came home on Tuesday.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Isn't she grown, joe? and such a fine girl, too. I always said she 'd be
+so; and when the others would have it that your nose was too long for the
+rest of your features, I said, 'Wait till she grows up,&mdash;wait till
+she 's a woman;' and see now if I 'm not right.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It must be owned that Joe Nelligan's confusion during the delivery of this
+prophetic criticism was far greater than Catty's own, who received the
+speech with a low, gentle laugh, while Mrs. Nelligan went on: &ldquo;I made her
+stay till you came back, Joe, for I wanted her to see what a tall creature
+you are, and not more than twenty,&mdash;her own age to a month; and I
+told her what a genius you turned out, indeed, to the surprise of us all,
+and myself, especially.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you, mother,&rdquo; said he, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, indeed, my dear, 't is your father you may thank for all your talents
+and abilities; a wonderful man he is, beginning the world without a
+sixpence; and there he is now, with I 'm sure I don't know how many
+hundreds a year in land,&mdash;ay, Catty, in broad acres; just like any
+squire in the county. Well, well, there 's many a change come over the
+country since you were here,&mdash;how many years is it now?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Upwards of twelve,&rdquo; said the young girl. &ldquo;Dear me, how time flies! It
+seems like yesterday that you and Joe had the measles together, in the
+yellow room up at Broom Lodge, and your poor mother was alive then, and
+would insist on giving you everything cool to drink, just because you
+liked it, though I told her that was exactly the reason it was sure to be
+bad for you; for there 's nothing so true in life,&mdash;that everything
+we wish for is wrong.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;An unpleasant theory, certainly,&rdquo; said Catty, laughing; &ldquo;but I hope not
+of universal application, for I have been long wishing to see you again.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, who knows whether it may be good or bad,&rdquo; said she, sighing;
+&ldquo;not but I 'm pleased to see you growing up the image of your poor dear
+mother,&mdash;taller, maybe, but not so handsome, nor so genteel-looking;
+but when you have your trials and troubles, as she had, maybe that will
+come, too, for I often remarked, there 's nothing like affliction to make
+one genteel.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, mother, you are profuse in unhappy apothegms this morning,&rdquo; said
+Joe.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you are coming to stay amongst us now, Catty; or are you going back
+to France again?&rdquo; said Mrs. Nelligan, not heeding the remark.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I scarcely know, as yet,&rdquo; replied the young girl. &ldquo;My father's letter to
+summon me home said something about placing me as a governess, if I were
+capable of the charge.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course you are, my dear, after all your advantages; not but that I 'd
+rather see you anything else,&mdash;a nice light business; for instance,
+in baby-linen or stationery, or in Miss Busk's establishment, if that
+could be accomplished.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A very slight flush&mdash;so slight as to be nearly imperceptible&mdash;crossed
+the young girl's cheek, but not a syllable escaped her, as Mrs. Nelligan
+resumed,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And there was an excellent opening the other day at the Post here, in the
+circulating-library way, and lending out a newspaper or two. I don't know
+how much you might make of it. Not but maybe you 'd rather be companion to
+a lady, or what they call a 'nervous invalid.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That, too, has been thought of,&rdquo; said the girl, smiling; &ldquo;but I have
+little choice in the matter, and, happily, as little preference for one as
+the other of these occupations. And now I must take my leave, for I
+promised to be back by two o'clock.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there's Joe will see you home with pleasure, and I 'm sure you have
+plenty to say to each other about long ago; not but I hope you 'll agree
+better than you did then. You were the torment of my life, the way you
+used to fight.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I couldn't think of trespassing on Mr. Joseph's time; I should be quite
+ashamed of imposing such trouble on him. So good-bye, godmamma; good-bye,
+Mr. Joseph,&rdquo; said she, hurriedly throwing her shawl around her.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you will allow me to accompany you,&rdquo; said Joseph, scarcely knowing
+whether she rejected or accepted his escort.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure she will, and you have both more sense than to fall out now;
+and mind, Joseph, you 're to be here at four, for I asked Mrs. Cronan to
+dinner.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, that reminds me of something,&rdquo; said Joe, hurriedly; and he leaned
+over his mother's chair, and whispered to her, &ldquo;Mr. Martin has invited me
+to dine with him to-day; here is his note, which came to me in rather a
+strange fashion.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To dine at the Nest! May I never! But I scarcely can believe my eyes,&rdquo;
+ said Mrs. Nelligan, in ecstasy. &ldquo;And the honor, and the pleasure, too;
+well, well, you 're the lucky boy.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What shall I do, mother; is n't there something between my father and
+him?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What will you do but go; what else would you do, I 'd like to know? What
+will they say at the Post when they hear it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I want you to hear how this occurred.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well; I don't care,&mdash;go you must, Joe. But there 's poor Catty
+walking away all alone; just overtake her, and say that a sudden
+invitation from the Martins&mdash;mention it as if you were up there every
+day&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+But young Nelligan did not wait for the conclusion of this artful counsel,
+but hurrying after Catty Henderson, overtook her as she had gained the
+beach.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have no need of an escort, Mr. Joseph,&rdquo; said she, good-humoredly. &ldquo;I
+know every turn of the way here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you'll not refuse my companionship?&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;We have scarcely
+spoken to each other yet.&rdquo; And as he spoke he drew his arm within her own,
+and they walked along in silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My mother thinks we did nothing but quarrel long ago,&rdquo; said he, after a
+pause; &ldquo;but if my memory serves me truly, it was upon this very pathway we
+once swore to each other vows of a very different kind. Do you recollect
+anything of that, Miss Henderson?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do, Mr. Joseph,&rdquo; said she, with a sly half-glance as she uttered the
+last word.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then why 'Mr. Joseph'?&rdquo; said he, half reproachfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why 'Miss Henderson'?&rdquo; said she, with a malicious smile at the other's
+confusion; for somehow Joseph's manner was far less easy than her own.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I scarcely know why,&rdquo; replied he, after a short silence, &ldquo;except that you
+seem so changed; and I myself, too, am probably in your eyes as much
+altered&mdash;from what we both were, that&mdash;that&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That, in short, it would be impossible to link the past with the
+present,&rdquo; said she, quickly; &ldquo;and you were quite right. I 'm convinced the
+effort is always a failure, and prejudices in a hundred ways the good
+qualities of those who attempt it. Let us, therefore, begin our
+acquaintance here; learn to know each other as we are,&mdash;that is, if
+we are to know each other at all.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why do you say that?&rdquo; asked he, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;For many reasons. We may not meet often; perhaps not at all; perhaps
+under circumstances where to renew intimacy might be difficult. Assuredly,
+although the path here might once have sufficed us, our roads in life lie
+widely apart now, and the less we travel together the more we shall each
+go towards his own goal, and&mdash;and the less regret we shall feel at
+parting; and so now good-bye.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You wish it?&rdquo; said he, reproachfully. &ldquo;You desire this?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What matters it whether I wish it or not? I know it must be. Good-bye.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-bye, then,&mdash;good-bye,&rdquo; said he, affecting as much indifference
+as he could; and then, slightly raising his hat, he turned away on the
+road homeward.
+</p>
+<p>
+Joseph Nelligan's reflections were not of the pleasantest as he sauntered
+slowly back. He was not exactly satisfied with himself; he felt, he could
+not just say how, that the young girl had had the mastery over him; she
+was more calm or self-possessed; she had more tact, or she knew more of
+life; had more of self-control, or breeding, or some other quality,
+whatever it might be, than he had. At all events, he was ill at ease and
+discontented. Then he doubted whether he ought to have taken her at her
+word when she talked of parting. It might, possibly, have been meant by
+her to evoke some show of resistance on his part; that same inequality of
+station she seemed to hint at might, perhaps, demand from him a greater
+deference. In fact, whichever way he turned the matter over, he saw little
+cause for self-gratulation; nor did he discover that it mended matters
+when he tried to accuse her of French frivolity, and such other traits as
+he fancied of foreign origin.
+</p>
+<p>
+In this not over-pleasant mood was it that he re-entered the cottage,
+where his mother was busy in preparing a very formidable cravat for the
+approaching dinner-party.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, Joe!&rdquo; said she, anxiously, &ldquo;if you were to dress now, and then stay
+quiet, you 'd be quite fresh when the time came; for, remember, it's not
+like your father you are, that has the world about him, and can converse
+about everything that comes uppermost; but with all your learning, you
+know, you always feel somehow&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stupid, mother?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not stupid, my dear, but depressed,&mdash;out of spirits in society; so
+that my advice to you is, now, dress yourself in good time, take a small
+glass of ginger-cordial, and throw your eye over the second chapter of
+'Social Hints,' with an account of conversation before and at dinner, and
+some excellent advice about'compliments, meet for every season of the
+year.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think such preparations quite necessary, mother?&rdquo; asked Joe,
+slyly; for he rather relished the simplicity of her counsels.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure, I do; for yours is no common difficulty, Joe. If you talk of
+country matters, you 'll get into Kyle's Wood and the Chancery suit; if
+you touch politics or religion, it will be worse again. The Martins, I
+hear, never play cards, so you can't allude to them; and they 'll be too
+grand to know anything about poor Miss Cuddy going off with the sergeant
+of police, or what Con Kelly did with his aunt's furniture.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So that really the topics open to me are marvellously few.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there's shooting; but to be sure you know nothing about that, nor
+fishing, either; and I suppose farming, if you did understand it, would
+n't be genteel. Indeed, I see little that is n't dangerous, except the
+dearness of everything. I remark that's a subject nobody ever tires of,
+and all can take their share in.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I conclude it to be fact, mother?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A very melancholy fact, my dear; and so I said to Betty Gargan,
+yesterday. 'It's well for <i>you</i>,' said I, 'and the likes of you, that
+use nothing but potatoes; but think of us, that have to pay sixpence a
+pound for mutton, six-and-a-half for the prime pieces, and veal not to be
+had under eightpence.' They talk of the poor, indeed! but sure they never
+suffer from a rise in butcher's meat, and care nothing at all what tea
+costs. I assure you I made the tears come into her eyes, with the way I
+described our hardships.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So that this will be a safe subject for me, mother?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perfectly safe, my dear, and no ways mean, either; for I always remarked
+that the higher people are, the stingier they are, and the more pleasure
+they take in any little sharp trick that saves them sixpence. And when
+that 's exhausted, just bring in the Rams.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Rams?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean my aunt Ram, and my relations in Wexford. I 'm sure, with a little
+address, you 'll be able to show how I came to be married beneath me, and
+all the misery it cost me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, mother, I believe I have now ample material,&rdquo; said Joe, rising,
+with a lively dread of an opening which he knew well boded a lengthy
+exposition; &ldquo;and to my own want of skill must it be ascribed if I do not
+employ it profitably.&rdquo; And with this he hurried to his room to prepare for
+the great event.
+</p>
+<p>
+The &ldquo;Gentlemen of England&rdquo; do not deem it a very formidable circumstance
+to repair towards seven, or half-past, to a dinner-party, even of the
+dullest and most rigid kind. There is a sombre &ldquo;routine&rdquo; in these cases,
+so recognized that each goes tolerably well prepared for the species of
+entertainment before him. There is nothing very exhilarating in the
+prospect, and as little to depress. It is a leaf torn out of one of the
+tamest chapters in life's diary, where it is just as rare to record a new
+dish as a new idea, and where the company and the cookery are both
+foreknown.
+</p>
+<p>
+No one goes with any exaggerated expectations of enjoyment; but as little
+does he anticipate anything to discompose or displease him. The whole
+thing is very quiet and well-bred; rather dull, but not unpleasant. Now,
+Joseph Nelligan had not graduated as a &ldquo;diner-out;&rdquo; he was about as
+ignorant of these solemn festivals as any man well could be. He was not,
+therefore, without a certain sense of anxiety as to the conversational
+requisites for such occasions. Would the company rise to themes and places
+and people of which he had never as much as heard? or would they treat of
+ordinary events, and if so, on what terms? If politics came to be
+discussed, would Mr. Martin expect him to hear in silence opinions from
+which he dissented? Dare he speak his sentiments, at the cost of directing
+attention to himself?&mdash;a course he would fain have avoided. These,
+and innumerable other doubts, occupied him as he was dressing, and made
+him more than once regret that he had determined to accept this
+invitation; and when the hour at last came for him to set out, he felt a
+sense of shrinking terror of what was before him greater than he had ever
+known as he mounted the dreaded steps of the College Examination Hall.
+</p>
+<p>
+He might, it is true, have bethought him of the fact that where Simmy Crow
+and Maurice Scanlan were guests, he too might pass muster without
+reproach; but he did not remember this, or, at least, it failed to impress
+him sufficiently. Nor was his dread without a certain dash of vanity, as
+he thought of the contrast between the humble place he was perhaps about
+to occupy at a great man's table, and the proud one he had achieved in the
+ranks of scholarship and science. Thus musing, he sauntered slowly along
+till he found himself in front of the little garden of the Osprey's Nest.
+He looked at his watch,&mdash;it was exactly seven; so he pulled the bell,
+and entered.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER IX. THE MARTIN ARMS
+</h2>
+<p>
+In the small and not over-neat parlor of the Martin Arms at Oughterard, a
+young man sat at his breakfast, at times casting his eyes over the columns
+of the &ldquo;Vindicator,&rdquo; and anon strolling to the window to watch the
+gathering of the country people at the weekly market. The scene was one of
+that mingled bustle and languor so characteristically Irish. Cart-loads of
+turf, vegetables, fruit, or turkeys blocked up the narrow passage between
+booths of fancy wares, gilt jewelry, crockery, and cutlery; the vendors
+all eagerly vociferating commendations of their stores, in chorus with
+still more clamorous beggars, or the discordant notes of vagrant
+minstrelsy. Some animal monstrosity, announced by a cracked-voiced herald
+and two clarionets, added to a din to which loud laughter contributed its
+share of uproar.
+</p>
+<p>
+The assemblage was entirely formed of the country people, many of whom
+made the pretext of having a pig or a lamb to sell the reason of their
+coming; but, in reality, led thither by the native love of a gathering,&mdash;that
+fondness to be where their neighbors were,&mdash;without any definite aim
+or object. There was, then, in strong contrast to the anxious solicitation
+of all who had aught to sell, the dreary, languid, almost apathetic look
+of the mere lounger, come to while away his weary hour and kill time just
+like any very bored fine gentleman who airs his listlessness along St
+James's Street, or lazily canters his <i>ennui</i> down Rotten Row.
+</p>
+<p>
+Jack Massingbred&mdash;for he was the traveller whose straw hat and
+knapsack stood upon a table near&mdash;was amused at a scene so full of
+its native characteristics. The physiognomy, the dress, the bearing of the
+people, their greetings as they met, their conduct of a bargain, all
+bespoke a nation widely differing from the sister country, and set him
+a-dreaming as to how it was that equality of laws might very possibly
+establish anything but equality of condition amongst people so dissimilar.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0005" id="linkimage-0005">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/126.jpg" width="100%" alt="" /><br />
+</div>
+<p>
+alt="126 &ldquo;>
+</p>
+<p>
+While thus musing, his eye chanced to rest upon the half-effaced
+inscription over a shop door in front, and where the name of Daniel
+Nelligan figured as &ldquo;licensed for all kinds of groceries and spirits.&rdquo;
+ &ldquo;Nelligan,&rdquo; repeated he to himself, &ldquo;I shall certainly quiz my friend Joe,
+when we meet, about his namesake in Oughterard. How good it would be to
+pick up some details of our friend opposite to torment him with! What rare
+fun to affect to have discovered a near relative in this man of hides,
+glue, sugar, and Jamaica rum! Eh, gad, I'll try it.&rdquo; And with this resolve
+he crossed the street at once, and soon found himself in the compact crowd
+which thronged the doorway of this popular shop.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was, indeed, a busy scene, since many who were there came as much
+sellers as buyers, giving all the complexity of barter to their several
+transactions. Here was a staid country-woman exchanging her spunyarn, or
+her &ldquo;cloth,&rdquo; as it is called, for various commodities in tea, candles, and
+such like; here a farmer, with a sample of seed-oats in his
+pocket-handkerchief, of which he wanted the value in certain farm
+utensils; here was another, with a stout roll of home-made frieze to
+dispose of; some were even fain to offer a goose or a hen as the medium
+for a little tobacco, or some equally tempting luxury of cottier life. But
+there was another class of customers, who, brushing their way through the
+throng, made for a small, dingy-looking chamber behind the shop, in which
+Mr. Nelligan performed the functions of banker and money-lender,
+discounting small bills, advancing loans, and transacting all the various
+duties of a petty capitalist,&mdash;means by which, it was alleged, he had
+already amassed a very ample fortune.
+</p>
+<p>
+An announcement in writing on the glass door of this sanctum informed
+Massingbred that &ldquo;bank-notes&rdquo; were exchanged, and &ldquo;small loans advanced on
+good security,&rdquo; suggesting to him at once the means of opening an
+acquaintance with the interior. Without any very definite purpose,
+however, he now found himself one of a very closely packed crowd within
+the chamber. At a small desk, around which ran a railing of about a foot
+in height, serving, as it were, to &ldquo;filter the stream&rdquo; of solicitation
+that poured in upon him, sat a dark-eyed, bilious-looking man of about
+fifty; a black wig, cut in two deep arches over the temples, showed a
+strongly formed, massive head, very favorably in contrast to the features
+beneath it, which were only indicative of intense shrewdness and cunning.
+The eyes, in particular, were restless and furtive-looking, distrust and
+suspicion giving their entire expression,&mdash;qualities, it was to be
+owned, in very active employment in the intercourse of his daily life.
+</p>
+<p>
+The anxious looks around him&mdash;careworn, eager, tremulous with anxiety
+as they were&mdash;seemed the very opposite to his own, full of the
+security that a strong purse bestows, and stern in the conscious strength
+of his affluence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It won't do, Hagan,&rdquo; said he, with a half-smile, as he pushed back
+through the grating a very dirty, discolored piece of paper. &ldquo;You 'll be
+off to America before it comes due. I would n't take the Lord-Lieutenant's
+note at six months, as times go.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;See, now, Mr. Nelligan,&rdquo; replied the other, pressing his face close to
+the cage, and talking with intense eagerness. &ldquo;May I never see Christmas,
+but I 'll pay it 'T was marryin' the daughter left me low in cash; but
+with the blessing of God and your help&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope you 're more certain of the blessing than the help. What's this
+with the string round it?&rdquo; continued Nelligan, addressing another
+applicant.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'T is a roll of notes I wanted to ax your honor about. Molly never 'let
+on' she had them till Friday last; and now that James is going away, and
+wants a trifle to fit him out&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, they're French's Bank, man, that broke years ago,&mdash;they 're not
+worth a farthing!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Arrah, don't say so, and God reward you,&rdquo; cried the poor fellow, while
+his eyes filled up and his lip trembled convulsively; &ldquo;don't take the hope
+out of my heart all at onst. Look at them again, your honor, and maybe you
+'ll think different.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I did, I 'd be as great a fool as yourself, Patsy. The bank is closed,
+and the banker dead this many a day; and I would n't give you sixpence for
+sixty thousand of them. Take him out in the fresh air,&mdash;give him a
+mouthful of water,&rdquo; added he, hastily, as the wretched countryman
+staggered back, sick, and almost fainting with the sad tidings.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mrs. Mooney,&rdquo; said he, addressing a pale, mild-featured woman in a
+widow's cap and black gown, &ldquo;you can't expect to hear from Dublin for a
+week or ten days to come. It takes some time to administer; but if you are
+in want of a few pounds&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir, thank you,&rdquo; said she, in a low voice; &ldquo;but as I can't go back to
+the place again,&mdash;as I 'll never be able to live there now&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't be in a hurry, Mrs. Mooney, do nothing rash. None of us know what
+we can do till we 're tried. There's Miles Dogherty never thought he 'd be
+paying me that eight pound fifteen he owes me, and see now if he is n't
+come with it to-day.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix, and I am not,&rdquo; sturdily responded a very powerfully built man in
+the comfortable dress of a substantial farmer. &ldquo;I don't owe it, and I 'll
+never pay it; and what's more, if you get a decree against me to-morrow,
+I'd sell every stick and stone in the place and go to 'Quay bec'.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed you would n't, Miles, not a bit more than I'd go and take the law
+of an old friend and neighbor.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix, I never thought you would,&rdquo; said the stout man, wiping his
+forehead, and appearing as if he had forgotten his wrath.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now, Miles, what about that water-course?&rdquo; said Nelligan,
+good-humoredly; &ldquo;are you content to leave it to any two fair men&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+As he got thus far, his eye for the first time fell upon Massingbred, who,
+with folded arms, was leaning against a wall, an attentive spectator of
+the whole scene.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is a stranger yonder! what can he want here?&rdquo; said Nelligan, who
+watched the attentive look of Massingbred's face with considerable
+distrust. He whispered a few words into the ear of a man beside him, who,
+making his way through the crowd, addressed the young man with&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's the master, sir, wants to know if he could do anything for your
+honor?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;For <i>me?</i> oh, you spoke to <i>me?</i>&rdquo; said Massingbred, suddenly
+recalled to himself. &ldquo;Yes, to be sure; I wanted to know&mdash;that is, I
+was thinking&mdash;&rdquo; And he stopped to try and remember by what device he
+had purposed making Mr. Nelligan's acquaintance.
+</p>
+<p>
+While he thus stood doubting and confused, his eyes suddenly met the
+black, searching, deep-set orbs that peered at him behind the grating; and
+without knowing how or why, he slowly approached him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In what way can I be of any use to you, sir?&rdquo; said Nelligan, in a tone
+which very palpably demanded the reason of his presence there.
+</p>
+<p>
+Jack Massingbred was eminently &ldquo;cool,&rdquo;&mdash;that is, he was possessed of
+that peculiar assurance which rarely suffers itself to be ruffled by a
+difficulty. In the intercourse of society, and with men of the world, he
+could have submitted to any test unabashed; and yet now, in presence of
+this shrewd-looking and very commonplace personage, he, somehow, felt
+marvellously ill at ease, and from the simple reason that the man before
+whom he stood was not of his &ldquo;world,&rdquo; but one of a set of whose habits and
+thoughts and ways he was in utter ignorance.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nelligan's question was a second time addressed to him, and in the same
+words, before he thought of framing a reply to it. For a second or two it
+occurred to him to say that he had strolled in, half inadvertently, and
+apologizing for the intrusion, to withdraw; but his pride was offended at
+the notion of defeat this conduct implied, and with an assumption of that
+conventional impudence far more natural to him, he said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was your name, sir, attracted me&mdash;the name 'Nelligan' which I
+read over your door&mdash;being that of a very dear and valued friend of
+mine, suggested to me to inquire whether you might not be relatives.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The cool indifference which accompanied these words, uttered as they were
+in a certain languid drawl, were very far from predisposing Nelligan in
+favor of the speaker; while the pretence of attaching any singularity to a
+name so common as his own, struck him at once as indicative of covert
+impertinence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nelligan is not a very remarkable name down here, sir,&rdquo; dryly responded
+he.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very possibly,&rdquo; replied Jack, with all his accustomed ease. &ldquo;I know
+little or nothing of Ireland. Your namesake, or your relative, perhaps,
+was a college friend of mine, but to what part of the country he belonged,
+I never knew.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The words, &ldquo;a college friend,&rdquo; roused the other's anxiety, and leaning
+forward eagerly, and dropping his voice to a whisper, he said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where? In what college, may I ask, sir?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In Trinity, Dublin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Medallist of this year, you mean?&rdquo; said the other, almost breathless
+in his anxiety.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so. The same fellow who has been sweeping away all the honors of his
+day. You have heard of him, it would seem?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is my son, sir. I 'm Joe Nelligan's father!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Massingbred's astonishment did not betray itself by any change of feature;
+not a word escaped him; but his eye ranged over the scene around him, and
+came back to rest upon old Nelligan's face with an expression of the
+calmest meaning.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a fortunate accident&mdash;for <i>me</i>, I mean,&rdquo; continued he.
+&ldquo;Joe and I are very dear friends, and it is a great happiness for me to
+make his father's acquaintance. Is he with you now?&rdquo; &ldquo;No, sir; he's at the
+sea,&mdash;a place called Kilkieran, about twenty miles away; but we 'll
+have him back by tomorrow if you 'll stay with us, and I 'm sure you 'll
+not refuse me that pleasure. The young gentleman who is my son's friend,
+is mine also, if he 'll permit me to call him so; and now just tell me
+what name shall I say?&mdash;who is it that I 'm to tell Joe has arrived
+here?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say that Jack Massingbred is come, and I 'll lay my life on't you'll see
+him here as fast as may be.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now, Mr. Massingbred, just take up your quarters with us. Where are
+you stopping? I 'll send over the boy for your trunks, for I need n't say
+that this must be your home while you stay at Oughterard.&rdquo; The genial tone
+of warm hospitality in which he now spoke made him seem a very different
+man from the hard-featured old money-lender he had appeared when Jack
+first beheld him, and Massingbred returned his cordial shake hands with a
+pressure equal to his own, while he said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be assured that I accept your offer most heartily. My whole baggage is a
+knapsack and a fishing-rod, so that if you admit me as your guest you must
+dispense with all beyond the very humblest requirements. I have no coat,
+except this on me; and, when I brush my hair, I have dressed for dinner.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are amongst very humble people, Mr. Massingbred,&mdash;a country
+shopkeeper, and his wife, and son,&mdash;and they 'll be only too happy to
+feel that you don't despise their company. Come, and I 'll show you your
+room.&rdquo; And so saying, Nelligan led him up a narrow stair, and at the end
+of a corridor opened a door into a neatly furnished chamber, which looked
+out into a spacious garden. The whole interior was scrupulously clean and
+comfortable; and as Jack surveyed his new dominions, he inwardly blessed
+his good fortune that had piloted him into such a haven.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll just step down and write to Joe. Meanwhile you 'll have your things
+brought over to you. Make yourself at home here&mdash;at least, as much as
+you can in such a place&mdash;and when you want anything, just ask for
+it.&rdquo; And with these words old Nelligan left him to his own thoughts.
+</p>
+<p>
+Whatever savored of an adventure was the delight of Jack Massingbred. He
+was one of those men whose egotism takes the shape of playing hero to
+themselves,&mdash;a tolerably large category amongst the spoiled children
+of this world. To be thrown into any strange or novel position, with
+associates he was unused to, and amidst circumstances totally unlike all
+he had ever met before, was his great happiness; and although here there
+was nothing like actual peril to heighten the zest of the enjoyment, there
+was a certain dash of embarrassment in the situation that increased its
+piquancy. This embarrassment lay in his approaching meeting with young
+Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+All the reserve his young college friend had maintained with regard to his
+family was at once explained; and Jack began to think over how often it
+must have occurred to him to say the most galling and offensive things in
+his ignorance of Nelligan's real station. &ldquo;If he had been frank and open
+with me,&rdquo; said he to himself, &ldquo;this would never have happened.&rdquo; But
+therein Jack made two errors, since Nelligan was in no wise bound to make
+such revelations, nor was Massingbred the man to distinguish himself
+amongst his associates by a close friendship with the son of a country
+shopkeeper. He had been trained in a very different school, and taught to
+estimate his own station by the standard of his companionship. Indeed, he
+had witnessed the lenity which met his transgressions when they occurred
+in high company, and saw his father pay the debts he had contracted
+amongst titled associates with a far more generous forgiveness than had
+they taken their origin with more plebeian friends. &ldquo;What could have
+induced the man to become a Fellow-Commoner,&rdquo; said he, over and over; &ldquo;it
+is such a palpable piece of presumption?&rdquo; The truth was, Jack felt
+excessively irritated at never having even suspected his friend's
+pretensions, and was eager to throw the blame of a deception where none
+had ever been practised.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They told me I should find everything very different here from in
+England, but they never hinted at anything like this.&rdquo; There came then
+another phase over his reflections, as he asked himself, &ldquo;But what affair
+is it of mine? Nelligan never thrust himself on me, it was I that sought
+him. He never proposed introducing me to his family, it was I that made
+them out,&mdash;I, in fact, who have imposed myself upon them. If I deemed
+the old grocer <i>infra dig.</i>, I need never have known him; but I have
+not felt this to be the case. He may be&mdash;indeed, Joe Nelligan's
+father ought to be&mdash;a very superior fellow, and at all events the
+whole situation is new, and must be amusing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Such was the course of his thoughts as he arranged his clothes in the
+little chest of drawers, put out his few books and papers on the table,
+and proceeded to make himself perfectly at home and comfortable in his new
+quarters.
+</p>
+<p>
+The embarrassments of selfish men are always lighter than those of other
+people, their egotism filling, as it does, such a very large space in the
+sea of their troubles. Thus was it that Massingbred suffered little
+discomfort at the thought of his friend Nelligan's probable shame and
+awkwardness, his thoughts being occupied by how he, clever fellow that he
+was, had traced out his home and origin,&mdash;won, by a few words, the
+old father's esteem, and established himself, by his own sharp wits, a
+guest of his house.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a downright adventure,&rdquo; said he; he even thought how the thing
+would tell afterwards at some convivial meeting, and set about dramatizing
+to himself his own part in the incident, to heighten the piquancy of the
+narrative. He resolved to conform in everything to the habits of the
+household,&mdash;to accommodate himself in all respects to old Nelligan's
+tastes, so that Joe should actually be amazed at the versatile resources
+of his nature, and struck with astonishment at this new evidence of his
+powers.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nor was Mr. Nelligan idle during all this time; the thought of a fellow
+collegian of his son Joe being a guest under his roof was a very proud and
+inspiring reflection. It was such a recognition of Joe's social claims,&mdash;so
+flat a contradiction to all the surmises of those who deprecated his
+college life, and said &ldquo;that old Dan was wrong to put his boy into
+Trinity&rdquo;&mdash;that he already regarded the incident as the full earnest
+of success.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What would have brought him here, if it wasn't for Joe? How would he ever
+have been under my roof, if he wasn't Joe's friend?&rdquo; There was a palpable
+triumph here that nothing could gainsay, and with a proud heart he locked
+up his desk, resolving to do no more business that day, but make it one of
+enjoyment.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who will I get to dine with us,&rdquo; thought he, &ldquo;since Joe can't have the
+letter before this evening, and do his best he won't be here before
+morning?&rdquo; The question of those who should fill the places around his
+board was a difficulty he had never experienced before, for Mr. Nelligan
+was the first man in Oughterard, and never had any trouble about his
+dinner company. His politics&mdash;very decided as they were&mdash;drew
+the line amongst his acquaintances, and the Liberal party well knew that
+they alone were the partakers of his hospitalities. There now, however,
+came the thought that the most respectable residents of the town&mdash;Dr.
+Dasy, of the Infirmary; Mr. Scanlan, the Attorney; and Morris Croft, the
+Adjutant of the Galway&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;were Conservatives. These were
+the fit company to meet young Massingbred, at least for the first day;
+afterwards, he might be introduced to their own set. And yet, Father Neal
+Rafferty would be outraged at all this. Peter Hayes, of the Priory, would
+never enter his doors again; and Peter Hayes had made a will in favor of
+Joe Nelligan, and left him every sixpence he had in the world. &ldquo;What if we
+mixed them all together?&rdquo; said Dan, fairly puzzled by all the conflicting
+interests. &ldquo;A good dinner, some excellent port wine, and 'lashings' of
+whiskey-punch, might mould the ingredients together&mdash;at least, when
+under the restraint of a stranger's presence&mdash;sufficiently to pass
+muster!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+From his doubts as to how the experiment would succeed, came others as to
+whether the guests would condescend to meet; and thus his embarrassments
+went on increasing around him without his finding a way through them.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's an elegant salmon I saw Catty bringing home to you, Nelligan?&rdquo;
+ said a red-faced man, with large white whiskers, and a most watery look in
+his eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Brierley, there's a young gentleman just come down here&mdash;a
+friend of Joe's in college, to stop a day or two with us.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A nob?&rdquo; said the other, with a wink.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nelligan nodded assent and went on,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I 'm just bothered how to get two or three to make company for him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it's grandeur you want, why don't you go over to the barracks there,
+and ask Captain Downie and the two others? Faix! it's a hearty welcome you
+'d get, for they 've never seen the inside of Cro' Martin since the
+detachment came here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It 's my own acquaintances I 'd like to ask to my house, Mat Brierley,&rdquo;
+ said Nelligan, proudly; &ldquo;and the time was when they were n't shy of coming
+there.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do you say to Peter Hayes, then?&rdquo; said the other. &ldquo;If you mean to do
+the civil thing, you'll ask him before he buys that old highwayman of a
+goose he's cheapening yonder; and there's Father Rafferty in the
+snuff-shop, and Tom Magennis, and myself-, and that makes six, just the
+right number for the little round table.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Nelligan paused, and seemed to reflect over the proposition.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You 'll be quizzing the Englishman,&mdash;'taking a rise' out of the
+Saxon, Brierley?&rdquo; said Nelligan, distrustfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Devil a bit; I know better manners than that!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tom Magennis would have at him about politics; I know he could n't
+refrain. And I need n't tell you that English notions are not ours upon
+these topics.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Give Tom a hint, and he 'll never touch the subject.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And Father Neal, will you vouch for him that he won't attack the
+Established Church, and abuse the Protestants?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I will, if he's not provoked to it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you answer for yourself, Mat Brierley, that you won't try to borrow a
+five-pound note of him before the evening's over?&rdquo; said Nelligan,
+laughingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I' ve a friend here,&rdquo; said Brierley, tapping the other on the breast,
+&ldquo;that would never see me in want of such a trifle as that.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Nelligan made no other reply to this speech than a somewhat awkward
+grimace, and walked hurriedly on to overtake a tall and very fat man that
+was just turning the corner of the street. This was Father Neal Rafferty.
+A very flourishing wave of his reverence's hand, and an urbane bend of his
+body, betokened the gracious acceptance he gave to the other's invitation;
+and Brierley walked away, muttering to himself: &ldquo;They may thank me for
+this dinner, then; for old Dan was going to feed the 'swells,' if I had
+n't stopped him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER X. A DINNER-PARTY
+</h2>
+<p>
+People who live much together in small and secluded districts, grow at
+length to feel a very great distrust for all strangers. Their own ways and
+their own topics have become such a perfect world to them, that to feel
+ignorant of these themes appears like affectation or contempt; and the
+luckless man who drops down into such a &ldquo;coterie,&rdquo; is invariably deemed
+impertinent or a fool. Jack Massing-bred fully appreciated this
+difficulty; but it imparted such a piquancy to his &ldquo;adventure,&rdquo; as he
+persisted in calling it to himself, that he would n't have dispensed with
+it, had he been able. It was in this temper he entered the room where the
+guests were now assembled, and, rather impatiently, awaiting his arrival.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is a very cold, calculating sort of interval, that ten minutes before
+dinner; and men regard the stranger presented to them with feelings far
+more critical than kindly. Massingbred did not go through the ordeal
+unscathed; and it was easy to see in the constraint and reserve of all
+present, how little his appearance contributed to the promise of future
+conviviality. He made no effort to dispel this impression, for, after
+saluting each in turn, he walked to the window, and amused himself with
+what was passing in the street.
+</p>
+<p>
+The dinner was announced at last, and passed off drearily enough; none
+liked to adventure on any topic of local interest, and they knew of little
+others. Brierley was stiffly polite; the priest blandly tranquil; the host
+himself uneasy and anxious; and poor old Peter Hayes, of the Priory,
+downright melancholy.
+</p>
+<p>
+Massingbred saw the effect he was producing, and saw it with pleasure. His
+calculation was this: &ldquo;Had I started 'at speed' with these fellows, they
+would have blown me at once. All my efforts to assimilate myself to their
+tastes, to join in their habits and adopt their notions, would have been
+detected in a trice. They must be brought to believe that they have made a
+convert of me themselves; the wider the space between us at first, the
+greater will be their merit in making me forget it in the end.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+As the whiskey-punch made its appearance, and the bottle of port was
+passed up beside the stranger, Massingbred thought the time was come when
+he might change his tactics, and open the campaign in force. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said
+he, as the host pushed the wine towards him, &ldquo;I 've come over here to try
+and learn something about Ireland, and I must give myself every advantage
+of judging from a native point of view. This excellent old port may
+strengthen a man to stand by many an old prejudice, but my object is to
+lay in a new stock of ideas, and I 'd rather try a new regimen.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That 's your bottle, then, sir. Try that,&rdquo; said Brierley, pushing towards
+him a small square decanter of a faint greenish fluid.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is 'poteen,' Mr. Massingbred,&rdquo; said the host. &ldquo;It's the small still
+that never paid the King a farthing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I like it all the better, for that reason,&rdquo; said Jack. &ldquo;There's something
+independent in the very thought of a liquor that never submitted to the
+indignity of a gauger.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's not a very English sentiment, sir,&rdquo; said the priest, slyly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't know whether it be or not,&rdquo; rejoined Massingbred; &ldquo;but I can
+neither perceive common-sense or justice in a law that will not allow a
+man to do what he likes with his own. Why, if Parliament declared
+to-morrow you should n't boil your potatoes in Ireland, but eat them fried&mdash;or
+that you should n't make bread of your corn, but eat it with milk as the
+Neapolitans do&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish we could do the same here, with all my heart,&rdquo; said the priest.
+&ldquo;It's little wheat or even barley-meal one of our poor people ever sees.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A wet potato and water is their diet,&rdquo; said old Hayes, as he sipped his
+punch.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can believe it well,&rdquo; said Massingbred, with great semblance of
+feeling. &ldquo;I witnessed dreadful poverty and destitution as I came along,
+and I couldn't help asking myself: What are the gentry about in this
+country? Do they or do they not see these things? If they do, are they
+indifferent to them?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are indifferent to them; or even worse, they rejoice in them,&rdquo; broke
+in a deep-voiced, energetic-looking man, who sat at the foot of the table,
+and had, although silent, taken a deep interest in the conversation. &ldquo;They
+see, sir, in the destitution of Ireland another rivet in the chains of her
+bondage. As my 'august leader' remarked, it's the rust on the fetters,
+though&mdash;and if it proclaims the length of the captivity, it suggests
+the hope of freedom.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Magennis is the dearest friend and trusty agent of Mr. O'Connell,&rdquo;
+ said Nelligan, in a whisper to Massingbred.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here's his health, whoever said that!&rdquo; cried Jack, enthusiastically, and
+as if not hearing the host's observation.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's a toast; we'll all drink&mdash;and standing, too,&rdquo; exclaimed
+Magennis. &ldquo;'Daniel O'Connell, gentlemen, hip, hip, hurra! '&rdquo; And the room
+rang again with the hearty acclamations of the company.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove! there was something very fine&mdash;it was chivalrous&mdash;in
+the way he brought the Catholic question to issue at last. The bold
+expedient of testing the event by an individual experience was as clever
+as it was daring,&rdquo; exclaimed Massingbred.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You were in favor of the measure then, sir?&rdquo; said Father Neal, with a
+bland smile that might mean satisfaction or suspicion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was always an Emancipationist; but I am little satisfied with the terms
+on which the bill has been passed. I 'd have had no restrictions,&mdash;no
+reservations. It should, according to me, have been unconditional or
+nothing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You've heard the old proverb about half a loaf, sir?&rdquo; said Hayes, with a
+dry laugh.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And a poor adage it is, in its ordinary acceptation,&rdquo; said Jack, quickly.
+&ldquo;It 's the prompting spirit to many a shabby compromise! What disabilities
+should apply to any of us here, in regard to any post or position in our
+country's service, by reason of opinions which are between ourselves and
+our own hearts&mdash;I say any of us, because some here&mdash;one I
+perceive is&rdquo;&mdash;and he bowed to Father Rafferty&mdash;&ldquo;a Catholic; and
+I for myself avow that, if for no other reason than this proscription, I'd
+be on this side.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You're not in Parliament, sir, are you?&rdquo; asked old Peter, with a
+seriousness that sorely tested the gravity of those at either side of him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Jack, frankly. &ldquo;My father and I don't agree on these subjects;
+and, consequently, though there is a seat in my family, I have not the
+honor to occupy it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you any relation to Colonel Moore Massingbred, sir?&rdquo; asked Magennis.
+&ldquo;His son, sir.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The questioner bowed, and a brief silence ensued; short as it was, it
+enabled Jack to decide upon his next move, and take it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I 'm fully aware that my name is not a favorite in
+Ireland; and shall I own to you, till I came to this country myself, I
+half believed that this same humble opinion of us was to our credit! I
+used to hear such narratives of Irish barbarism, Irish brutality,
+priestcraft, superstition, and Heaven knows what besides, that I fully
+persuaded myself that our small repute was very nigh to an eulogium on us.
+Well, I came over to Trinity College strongly impressed with the notion
+that, because I had gained successes at Oxford, here I should be
+triumphant. It is in no boastfulness I say that I had acquitted myself
+well at home; I had attained to rather a reputation. Well, as I said, I
+came over to Trinity and pitted myself against the best man going, and a
+very pretty beating he gave me. Yes, gentlemen, he beat me in everything,
+even in those which we Oxford men fancy our specialties. I soon learned
+that I had not the shadow of a pretension to stand against him, and I
+learned, also, that it was no disgrace to me to be thus vanquished, since
+he was not alone the foremost man of his time, but the best scholar the
+University had seen for a full century; and shall I add, as unpretending
+and as modest in the midst of all his triumphs as he was unapproachable by
+all competitors. And now; gentlemen, I will ask your leave to drink his
+health; doubtless it has been many a time toasted before over the same
+table, but none ever more ardently followed the sentiment with his whole
+heart than do I in proposing to you, 'Three cheers for Joe Nelligan.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The rambling opening of this brief speech was quite forgotten in the
+enthusiasm that greeted its close. In every respect it was a happy
+diversion. It relieved the company from a discussion that promised but
+gloomily. It brought back their minds to a pleasant theme, and enabled
+them, so to say, to pay off in grateful cheers to their host his own
+hospitable reception of them. As for Nelligan himself, he was sincerely,
+deeply affected; and though he twice essayed to speak, he could get no
+further than &ldquo;My son Joe&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;my boy&rdquo;&mdash;and sat down murmuring&mdash;&ldquo;Thank
+you&mdash;God bless you for it&rdquo;&mdash;and covered his face with his hands.
+</p>
+<p>
+Awkward as was the moment, it was relieved by the company filling their
+glasses and nodding in most friendly fashion to Massingbred as they drank
+his health; while a low murmur of approbation went round the table, of
+which he was most unmistakably the object.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you fond of shooting, sir?&rdquo; asked Brierley. &ldquo;Well, then, I hope
+you'll not leave the country without giving me a day or two up at my
+little place in the mountains: There's some snipe left; and, upon my
+conscience, I'll be proud to see you at Kilmaccud.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And there's worse quarters, too!&rdquo; broke in Magennis. &ldquo;My 'august leader'
+spent a day and a half there.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll drive you over there myself,&rdquo; whispered Father Neal, &ldquo;if you'll
+finish the week at the 'Rookery,'&mdash;that's what they call the priest's
+house.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Massingbred accepted everything, and shook hands across the table in
+ratification of half a dozen engagements.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don't think I'll let you cheat me out of my guest so easily,&rdquo; said
+Nelligan. &ldquo;No, gentlemen. This must be Mr. Massingbred's head-quarters as
+long as he stays here, for, faith, I 'd not give him up to Mr. Martin
+himself.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And who may he be?&rdquo; asked Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Martin of Cro' Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The owner of half the county.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of the town you 're in, this minute.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The richest proprietor in the West.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Such were the pattering replies that poured in upon him, while words of
+intense astonishment at his ignorance were exchanged on all sides.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe I have given you a fair guarantee for my ignorance, gentlemen,&rdquo;
+ said Jack, &ldquo;in confessing that I never so much as heard of Martin of Cro'
+Martin. Does he reside on his estate here?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; said Nelligan, &ldquo;he lives at Cro' Martin Castle, about sixteen
+miles from this; and certainly, while in this part of the country, you
+ought to pay the place a visit. I have never been there myself, but I hear
+the most astonishing accounts of the splendor of the furniture and the
+magnificence of the whole establishment.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's pictures there,&rdquo; said the priest, &ldquo;that cost the grandfather of
+the present man a quarter of a million sterling.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, the three statues in the hall, they say, are worth ten thousand
+pounds,&rdquo; said Brierley.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be gorra! when a man would give four hundred for a bull, there 's no
+saying what he 'd stop at,&rdquo; broke in Peter Hayes. &ldquo;I went up to see him
+myself, and indeed he's a beauty, there 's no denying it,&mdash;but four
+hundred pound! Think of four hundred pound!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The stable is the best thing in the place,&rdquo; said Father Neal; &ldquo;they 're
+mighty nice cattle, there, for every kind of work.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thanks to his niece for that,&rdquo; cried Magennis; &ldquo;she knows a horse with
+any man in the West of Ireland.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And can break him, too,&rdquo; chimed in Brierley; &ldquo;I don't care what his
+temper is. Let Miss Mary get her hand on him, and he 'll turn out well.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm driving an old chestnut mare this minute that she trained,&rdquo; said the
+priest; &ldquo;and though she has n't a good leg amongst the four, and is
+touched in the wind, she 's as neat a stepper, and as easy in the mouth as
+a five-year-old.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She 's a fine young woman!&rdquo; said old Hayes, drinking off his glass as
+though toasting her to himself, &ldquo;and not like any Martin ever I seen
+before.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No pride about her!&rdquo; said Brierley.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wouldn't exactly say that, Matthew,&rdquo; interposed Father Neal. &ldquo;But her
+pride isn't the common kind.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She's as proud as Lucifer!&rdquo; broke in Nelligan, almost angrily. &ldquo;Did you
+ever see her drive up to a shop-door in this town, and make the people
+come out to serve her, pointing with her whip to this, that, and t'other,
+and maybe giving a touch of the lash to the boy if he would n't be lively
+enough?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I 'd never call her proud,&rdquo; rejoined old Hayes, &ldquo;after seeing her
+sitting in Catty Honan's cabin, and turning the bread on the griddle for
+her, when Catty was ill.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is she handsome?&rdquo; asked Massingbred, who was rather interested by the
+very discrepancy in the estimate of the young lady.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We can agree upon that, I believe, sir,&rdquo; said the priest; &ldquo;there 's no
+disputing about her beauty.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never saw her in a room,&rdquo; said Magennis; &ldquo;but my 'august leader'
+thought her masculine.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; said Nelligan; &ldquo;she 's not. She has the Martin manner,&mdash;overbearing
+and tyrannical,&mdash;if you like; but she can be gentle enough with women
+and children.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have certainly given me a strong curiosity to see her,&rdquo; said
+Massingbred. &ldquo;Does she always live here?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Always. I don't believe she was ever beyond the bounds of the county in
+her life!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how does she pass her time?&rdquo; asked he, with some astonishment.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She manages the whole estate,&rdquo; said Nelligan; &ldquo;her uncle 's a conceited
+old fool, incapable of anything, and lets her do what she likes; and so
+she drains, and plants, and encloses; makes roads, bridges, and even
+harbors; has all the new-fangled inventions about farming, and, if what I
+hear be true, is spending more money on the property than the fee-simple
+is worth.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; chimed in Magennis; &ldquo;and she 's trying hard to bring back the
+old feudal devotion to the Chief, which was the bane of Ireland. She wants
+the tenants to have no will of their own, but just to vote whatever the
+landlord tells them. She had the impudence to tell my 'august leader' that
+they had no need of him down there,&mdash;that the county was too poor to
+waste its energies in factious squabbles.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If she 'd let the people alone about their religion, I 'd think better of
+her,&rdquo; said Father Neal. &ldquo;What does <i>she</i> know about controversial
+points and disputed dogmas?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maybe you 're wrong about that,&rdquo; broke in Peter Hayes. &ldquo;She came to me
+the other day for ten shillings for a school, and she said, 'Come over,
+Mr. Hayes; come and tell me if there 's anything you are dissatisfied
+with.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And did you go?&rdquo; asked the priest.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix! I did not,&rdquo; said Peter, with a dry look. &ldquo;I thought the visit might
+cost me ten shillings, and so I stayed at home.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The manner in which he uttered these words produced a hearty laugh, in
+which he himself most good-humoredly took part.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, she's good to the poor, anyhow,&rdquo; said Brierley; &ldquo;and it's a new
+thing for one of her name to be so!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;All policy, all scheming!&rdquo; said Magennis. &ldquo;She sees how the family
+influence has declined, and is fast becoming obliterated in this country,
+by reason of their worthlessness, insolence, and neglect of the people;
+and she 's just shrewd enough to see how far a little cajolery goes with
+poor Paddy; but, as my 'august leader' observed, it is not a frieze coat,
+nor a pair of brogues, that can compensate for the loss of that freedom
+that is every man's birthright; and it is not by an ounce of tea, or a
+dose of physic, we 'll ever see Ireland great, glorious, and free.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'First gem of the earth, and first flower of the sea!'&rdquo; exclaimed Hayes,
+with enthusiasm.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nor in the moment was the blunder of his quotation noticed by any but
+Massingbred. &ldquo;You are an admirer of Tommy Moore, I see, sir?&rdquo; said he, to
+the old man.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am fond of 'The Meeting of the Waters,' sir,&rdquo; said Hayes, meekly, and
+like a man who was confessing to a weakness.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And here 's the man to sing it!&rdquo; cried Brierley, clapping the priest
+familiarly on the shoulder; a proposal that was at once hailed with
+acclamation.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'T is many a long day I have n't sung a note,&rdquo; said Father Neal,
+modestly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, come, Father Neal; we'll not let you off that way. It's not under
+this roof that you can make such an excuse!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He 'd rather give us something more to his own taste,&rdquo; said Brierley.
+&ldquo;'To Ladies' eyes around, boys,'&mdash;eh, Father Rafferty?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's my favorite of all the songs he sings,&rdquo; broke in Magennis.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let it be, 'To Ladies' eyes!'&rdquo; cried Massingbred; &ldquo;and we 'll drink 'Miss
+Martin's.' 'I 'll warrant she 'll prove an excuse for the glass.'&rdquo; And he
+sang the line with such a mellow cadence that the whole table cheered him.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0006" id="linkimage-0006">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/146.jpg" width="100%" alt="146 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+To the priest's song, given with considerable taste and no mean musical
+skill, there followed, in due course, others, not exactly so successful,
+by Brierley and Magennis, and, at last, by old Peter himself, who warbled
+out a wonderful ditty, in a tone so doleful that two of the company fell
+fast asleep under it, and Brierley's nerves were so affected that, to
+support himself, he got most completely drunk, and in a very peremptory
+tone told the singer to desist!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't you perceive,&rdquo; cried he, &ldquo;that there 's a stranger present,&mdash;a
+young English cub,&mdash;come down to laugh at us? Have you no discretion,&mdash;have
+you no decency, Peter Hayes, but you must go on with your stupid old
+'croniawn' about dimples and the devil knows what?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Another tumbler, Mr. Massingbred,&mdash;one more?&rdquo; said the host, with
+the air, however, of one who did not exact compliance.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not for the world,&rdquo; said Jack, rising from table. &ldquo;Have I your permission
+to light a cigar?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To do just whatever you please,&rdquo; said Nelligan, rather astonished at the
+formal preparations for smoking he now perceived brought forth, and which
+at the time we tell of were not so popular as in our own day.
+</p>
+<p>
+The priest alone accepted Massingbred's offer of a &ldquo;weed;&rdquo; and Nelligan,
+opening a door into an adjoining room where tea was laid, threw also wide
+a little sash-door that led into the garden, whose cool and fragrant air
+was perfectly delicious at the moment. Jack strolled down the steps and
+soon lost himself in the dark alleys, not sorry to be left alone with his
+own thoughts, after a scene in which his convivial powers had been taxed
+to no mean extent.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A clever young fellow! There's stuff in him,&rdquo; said the priest, in a
+whisper to Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And no impudence about him,&rdquo; said Brierley; &ldquo;he's just like one of
+ourselves.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He has a wonderful opinion of Joe!&rdquo; said Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He's the very man for my 'august leader,'&rdquo; said Magennis. &ldquo;I 'd like to
+bring them together!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;His father 's a Treasury Lord,&rdquo; said Nelligan, swelling at the thought of
+his being the host of such company!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I 'll tell you what, Dan Nelligan,&rdquo; said the priest, confidentially,
+&ldquo;talents won't do everything, nowadays, without high connections; mark my
+words, and see if that young man does n't stand high yet. He has just got
+every requirement of success. He has good family, good looks, good
+abilities, and&rdquo;&mdash;here he dropped his voice still lower&mdash;&ldquo;plenty
+of brass. Ay, Dan, if Joe could borrow a little of his friend's impudence,
+it would be telling him something.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Nelligan nodded assentingly; it was about the only quality in the world
+which he could have believed Joe stood in any need of getting a loan of.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Joe beat him out of the field,&rdquo; said Dan, proudly. &ldquo;He told me so
+himself, this morning.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No doubt; and he would again, where the contest was a college one; but
+'Life,' my dear friend,&mdash;life demands other gifts beside genius.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ganius!&rdquo; broke in old Hayes, with an accent of the profoundest contempt,&mdash;&ldquo;Ganius!
+I never knew a 'Ganius' yet that was n't the ruin of all belonging to him!
+And whenever I see a young fellow that knows no trade, nor has any
+livelihood, who's always borrowing here and begging there, a torment to
+his family and a burden to his friends, I set him down at once for a
+'Ganius.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's not <i>that</i> I was alluding to, Mr. Hayes,&rdquo; said the priest, in
+some irritation. &ldquo;I spoke of real ability, sterling powers of mind and
+thought, and I hope that they are not to be despised.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Like my 'august leader's'!&rdquo; said Magennis, proudly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, or like that young gentleman's there,&rdquo; said Father Neal, with the
+tone of a man pronouncing upon what he understood. &ldquo;I watched him to-day
+at dinner, and I saw that every remark he made was shrewd and acute, and
+that whenever the subject was new to him, he fell into it as he went on
+talking, picking up his facts while he seemed to be discussing them! Take
+my word for it, gentlemen, he 'll do!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He does n't know much about flax, anyhow,&rdquo; muttered old Hayes.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He took his punch like a man,&rdquo; said Brierley, bearing testimony on a
+point where his evidence was sure to have weight.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He'll do!&rdquo; said Father Neal once more, and still more authoritatively
+than before.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Joe carried away every premium from him,&rdquo; said old Nelligan, with a
+degree of irritation that proclaimed how little he enjoyed the priest's
+eulogy of his guest.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know he did, sir; and no man has a higher respect for your son's great
+abilities than myself; but here 's how it is, Mr. Nelligan,&rdquo;&mdash;and he
+drew himself up like a man about to deliver a profound opinion,&mdash;&ldquo;here
+'s how it is. The mind that can master abstract science is one thing; the
+faculties that can deal with fellow-mortals is another. This world is not
+a University!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Lord be praised for that same!&rdquo; cried old Hayes, &ldquo;or I 'm afraid I 'd
+fare badly in it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To unite both descriptions of talent,&rdquo; resumed the priest, oratorically,
+&ldquo;is the gift of but few.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My 'august leader' has them,&rdquo; broke in Magennis.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Show me the man that can deal with men!&rdquo; said Father Neal, dictatorially.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Women is twice as hard to deal with!&rdquo; cried old Hayes. &ldquo;I 'll back Nancy
+Drake against any man in the barony.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faith, and I remember her a pretty woman,&rdquo; said Brierley, who would
+gladly have enticed the conversation out of its graver character. &ldquo;A
+prettier girl than Mary Martin herself!&rdquo; continued the inexorable
+Brierley, for the company did not appear to approve of his diversion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are now discussing politics,&mdash;grave questions of state, sir,&rdquo;
+ said Father Neal,&mdash;&ldquo;for we have come to times when even the most
+indifferent and insignificant amongst us cannot refrain feeling an
+interest in the progress of our country. And when I see a fine young man
+like that there, as one may say going a-begging for a party, I tell you
+that we are fools&mdash;worse than fools&mdash;if we don't secure him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you mean for the borough?&rdquo; asked Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do, sir,&mdash;I mean for the borough!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not till we have consulted my 'august leader,' I hope,&rdquo; broke in
+Magennis.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm for managing our own affairs ourselves,&rdquo; said the priest. &ldquo;What we
+want is a man of our own; and if that young gentleman there will take the
+pledges we should propose, I don't know that we'd readily get the like of
+him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The silence that now fell upon the party was ominous; it was plain that
+either the priest's proposition was not fully acquiesced in, or that the
+mode of announcing it was too abrupt. Perhaps this latter appeared the
+case to his own eyes, for he was the first to speak.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course what I have said now is strictly among ourselves, and not to be
+mentioned outside of this room; for until my friend Dan Nelligan here
+consents to take the field against the Martin interest, there is no chance
+of opening the borough. Let him once agree to <i>that</i>, and the member
+for Oughterard will be his own nominee.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you really think so?&rdquo; asked Nelligan, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know it, sir; and every gentleman at this table knows it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A strong chorus in assent murmured around the board.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It would be a great struggle,&rdquo; muttered Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And a great victory!&rdquo; said the priest.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a deal of money, too, it would cost!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have the money, Dan Nelligan; and let me tell you one thing,&rdquo;&mdash;here
+he leaned over his chair and whispered some words in the other's ear.
+</p>
+<p>
+Old Nelligan's face flushed as he listened, and his eyes sparkled with
+intense excitement.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I thought <i>that</i>&mdash;if I only thought that, Father Rafferty&mdash;I
+'d spend half my fortune on it to-morrow.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's as true as I'm a living man,&rdquo; said the priest, solemnly; and then
+with a motion of his hand gestured caution, for Massingbred was slowly
+ascending the steps, and about to enter the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+With an instinctive readiness all his own, he saw in the embarrassed and
+conscious looks around that he had himself been the object of their
+discussion, and with the same shrewdness he detected their favorable
+feeling towards him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have made them my own!&rdquo; muttered he to himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He 'll do our work well!&rdquo; said the priest in his heart.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XI. YOUNG NELLIGAN, AS INTERPRETED IN TWO WAYS.
+</h2>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I rather like that young Nelligan,&rdquo; said Martin, the day after Joseph had
+made his first appearance at dinner. &ldquo;He talks pleasantly, and nothing of
+a pedant, as I half dreaded he might be.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought his manner respectful, and very proper for his station,&rdquo; said
+Lady Dorothea, with an air of dignity.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He spoke of politics, too, with less of prejudice, less of class
+bitterness, than I could have expected.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Some policy, perhaps, in that,&rdquo; remarked her Ladyship.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Possibly!&rdquo; said Martin, with a careless shrug of the shoulders.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was in a measure on his trial amongst us, and felt the importance of
+making a favorable first impression.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was more trouble than his father would have taken, then,&rdquo; said Martin,
+smiling. &ldquo;Old Dan, as they call him, is not a very conciliating
+personage.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot imagine that the disposition of such a person is a matter of
+much moment. Does n't the man deal in tea, candles, and such like?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That he does, and in loans, and in mortgages, too; not to add that he
+exercises a very considerable share of influence in his town of
+Oughterard.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A very shocking feature of the time we live in!&rdquo; exclaimed Lady Dorothea.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So it may be; but there it is,&mdash;just like the wet weather, and the
+typhus, and the sheep-rot, and fifty other disagreeable things one can't
+help.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But at least they can avoid recurring to them in conversation, sir. There
+is no necessity to open the window when the look-out is a dreary one.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin made no reply, and a pause of some moments ensued.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What arrangement did you come to with him about his party in the
+borough?&rdquo; said she at last.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn't even allude to the topic,&rdquo; replied he, half testily. &ldquo;These
+things are not to be done in that hasty fashion; they require management,
+discretion, and a fitting opportunity, too.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, you talk of your grocer's boy as if he were a Cabinet Minister, Mr.
+Martin; you treat him like a great diplomatist!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was not exactly on the first occasion of his being in my house that I
+could have broached the matter.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which implies that you mean to invite him again.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Possibly!&rdquo; was the abrupt rejoinder.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And must the odious attorney always be of the party?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, madam, the odious attorney has set out for Dublin; but I shortly
+expect here one whom your Ladyship will, doubtless, call an odious lawyer,&mdash;though
+he happens to be one of the foremost men of the Irish bar.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A class I detest,&rdquo; said her Ladyship.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He has one consolation, at least, madam,&rdquo; said Martin; &ldquo;he figures in a
+pretty long category.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And why should he not, sir? What have I ever met in the dreary eighteen
+years and seven months I have passed here, except unmitigated
+self-conceit, vulgarity, and presumption,&mdash;the very type of all three
+being your Dublin barrister.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Their countrymen certainly entertain another estimate of them,&rdquo; said
+Martin, laughing, for he had a lazy man's enjoyment of any passionate
+excitement of another's temper.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And it was,&rdquo; resumed she, &ldquo;in some sort the contrast presented to such
+which pleased me in that young man's manner yesterday. Not but I feel
+assured that erelong you and Miss Martin will spoil him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I! aunt?&rdquo; said Mary, looking up from her work; &ldquo;how am I to exercise the
+evil influence you speak of?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By the notice&mdash;the interest you vouchsafe him, Miss Martin,&mdash;the
+most flattering compliment to one in his station.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If he bears collegiate honors so meekly, aunt,&rdquo; said Mary, quietly,
+&ldquo;don't you think his head might sustain itself under <i>my</i>
+attentions?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Possibly so, young lady, if not accompanied by the accessories of your
+rank in life,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, haughtily; &ldquo;and as to college honors,&rdquo;
+ added she, after a pause, &ldquo;they are like school distinctions, of no
+earthly value out of the class-room.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faith, I don't know that,&rdquo; said Martin. &ldquo;At least, in my own experience,
+I can say, every fellow that has made a figure in life gave indications of
+high ability in his college years. I could go over the names of at least a
+dozen.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pray don't, sir,&mdash;spare your memory, and spare us. Miss Martin and I
+will take it for granted that this young man is destined to be Lord
+Chancellor,&mdash;Ambassador at St. Petersburg,&mdash;or anything else you
+please. I have no doubt that the time is approaching when such things are
+very possible.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It has come already, my Lady,&rdquo; said Martin; and in the manner he uttered
+the words there was no saying whether the sentiment was pleasurable or the
+reverse.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet I trust that there is a little interval still left to us ere that
+consummation,&rdquo; said she, with pretentious dignity. &ldquo;Birth and blood have
+not lost all their <i>prestige!</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But they soon would,&rdquo; said Mary, &ldquo;if they feared to enter the lists
+against those less well-born than themselves.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Martin!&rdquo; exclaimed her Ladyship, &ldquo;what words are these?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope they are void of offence, aunt. Assuredly I never conceived that I
+could wound any susceptibilities here by saying that the well-born are
+ready to meet the plebeian on any ground.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is no necessity for such trials, Miss Martin; the position of each
+has been so accurately defined by&mdash;by&mdash;by Providence,&rdquo; said she,
+at last, blushing slightly as she uttered the word, &ldquo;that the contest is
+almost impossible.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The French Revolution reveals another story, aunt, and tells us, besides,
+how inferior were the nobles of that country in the day of struggle.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Upon my word, these are very pretty notions, young lady. Have they been
+derived from the intelligent columns of the &ldquo;Galway Monitor,&rdquo; or are they
+the teachings of the gifted Mr. Scanlan? Assuredly, Mr. Martin,&rdquo; said she,
+turning to him, &ldquo;papa was right, when he said that the Irish nature was
+essentially rebellious.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Complimentary, certainly,&rdquo; said Martin, laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He founded the remark on history. Papa was uncommonly well read, and used
+to observe that there seemed something in the Celtic nature incompatible
+with that high-souled, chivalrous loyalty Englishmen exhibit.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But how much of the Celt have Mary and myself got in us, if your
+observation is meant for us? Why, my Lady, what with intermarriage
+centuries ago, and change of blood ever since, the distinctive element has
+been utterly lost.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet we are not English, uncle,&rdquo; said Mary, with something that
+smacked of pride. &ldquo;Confess it: we have our nationality, and that our
+people have traits of their own.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That they have; but I never heard them made matter of boastfulness
+before,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, sneeringly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, aunt, it is not too late to hear it now; and I, for one, am proud
+of my country,&mdash;not of its political station, for it is dependent,&mdash;not
+of its wealth, for it is poor,&mdash;but of its genial courtesy, its
+free-hearted hospitality, its manly patience under many a crushing
+calamity, and not least of all, its gallantry on every field where England
+has won honor.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have read of all these things; but my own experiences are limited to
+the rags and restlessness of a semi-barbarous people. Nay, Miss Martin,
+I'm not going to discuss the matter. I have lived elsewhere,&mdash;you
+have not. I have acquired habits&mdash;prejudices, perhaps you 'd call
+them&mdash;in behalf of twenty things that Irish civilization sees no need
+of.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Would it not be kind, aunt, were you to aid us by the light of these same
+experiences?&rdquo; said Mary, with an air of well-assumed humility.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly not, at the price of intercourse with the natives!&rdquo; exclaimed
+her Ladyship, haughtily. &ldquo;I detest, on principle, the Lady Bountiful
+character. The whole of the hymn-book, castor-oil, and patent-barley
+sympathy is shockingly vulgar. Like many things, well done at first, it
+fell into low hands, and got spoiled.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The tone of sarcasm in which this was spoken made Mary's cheeks crimson,
+and the flush spread itself over her neck. Still she made no reply, but
+bending down her head, continued to work more assiduously.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;When are we to leave this place, Mr. Martin?&rdquo; asked her Ladyship,
+abruptly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe we are only waiting here till it be your pleasure to quit.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I dying to get away this fortnight past! Some one certainly told me
+that Cro' Martin was not ready for us. Was it <i>you</i>, Miss Martin?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, aunt.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It ran in my head it was you, then. Well, can we go at once&mdash;to-day&mdash;this
+afternoon?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To-morrow we might, perhaps,&rdquo; said Mary.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Scarcely so,&rdquo; said Martin, interposing, &ldquo;seeing that I have asked Repton
+to come down here and see the place.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you can drive him over from Cro' Martin. It would be intolerable, the
+idea of remaining here just for him. So we shall go to-morrow, Miss
+Martin.&rdquo; And with this, uttered in the tone of an order, her Ladyship
+swept proudly out of the room, from which Martin, not overanxious for a <i>tête-à-tête</i>
+with his niece, stepped noiselessly at the same moment by another door.
+</p>
+<p>
+Scarcely had the door closed behind Lady Dorothea, when it was reopened to
+admit Joe Nelligan, who had met her Ladyship in the corridor and been
+received with such palpable coldness of manner that he entered the room
+bashful and awkward, and hardly knowing whether to advance or retire.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I fear I have made my visit at an untimely hour, Miss Martin,&rdquo; said he,
+blushing; &ldquo;but the truth is, I know next to nothing of society and its
+habits, and if you would only be kind enough to tell me when I am a
+transgressor&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The notion of learning from <i>me</i> is perfect,&rdquo; said Mary,
+interrupting him with a pleasant laugh. &ldquo;Why, Mr. Nelli-gan, I never could
+be taught anything, even of the most ordinary rules of ceremonial life!
+though,&rdquo; added she, slyly, &ldquo;I have lived certainly in the midst of great
+opportunities.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But then, I have not,&rdquo; said Nelligan, gravely, and accepting the speech
+in all seriousness. &ldquo;Well, it comes pretty much to the same thing,&rdquo; said
+she, smiling, &ldquo;since I have profited so little by them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I came thus early, however,&rdquo; said he, earnestly, &ldquo;because I was impatient
+to correct an impression which might have remained from something that
+fell from me last night. You smile, I perceive,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that I should
+attach so much importance to my own words!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was not at that I smiled,&rdquo; said Mary, archly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No matter,&rdquo; continued he. &ldquo;It is better, at the cost of a little wounded
+vanity, that I should escape a misconception. When your uncle spoke to me,
+last night, about the division of parties in the borough&mdash;You are
+smiling again, Miss Martin!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't you perceive, sir, that what amuses me is the mistaken estimate you
+have formed of me, by addressing me on such topics?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I came here expressly to speak to you,&rdquo; said he, with increased
+eagerness; &ldquo;for I have always heard&mdash;always understood&mdash;that
+none ever took a deeper interest in all that regarded the country than
+yourself.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you mean, by the country, the lives and fortunes of those who live in
+it,&mdash;the people by whose toil it is fertilized, by whose traits it is
+a nation,&mdash;I tell you frankly that I yield to none for interest in
+all that touches them; but if you come to talk of privileges and
+legislative benefits, I know nothing of them: they form a land of whose
+very geography I am ignorant.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the subject is the same, and the mind which comprehends one could
+embrace the other.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the one, however, I can labor usefully and fittingly, without much
+risk of mistake,&mdash;never, indeed, of any mistake that might prove of
+serious moment. The other involves great questions, and has great hazards,
+perils, to affright stronger heads than mine!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is much in what you say,&rdquo; said he, reflectingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is far more than I am able to express,&rdquo; said she, warmly. &ldquo;Just
+remember, for a moment, that of all the laws you great and wise men are
+making, over which you rant and wrangle, and assail each other so
+vindictively, how few ever touch the interests or descend to the fortunes
+of those for whom you assume to make them,&mdash;that the craftiest
+devices of your legislation never uproot ah old prejudice nor disturb an
+antiquated superstition; while I, and such as I,&mdash;and there need be
+nothing more humble,&mdash;can by a little timely help in trouble&mdash;a
+little care, or even a little counsel&mdash;comfort many a failing heart,
+cheer up many a sinking spirit, and, better still, do good service by
+teaching the poor man that he is of one family with those better off than
+himself, and that he is not an outcast because he is lowly!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+As Mary went on, her eyes shone more brilliantly, and her cheeks glowed,
+till Nelligan forgot even the words she spoke in admiration of the
+speaker.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But here comes my uncle,&rdquo; cried she, hastily, &ldquo;to rescue you from further
+amplification of the theme. Come in, uncle,&rdquo;&mdash;for Martin was already
+about to retire,&mdash;&ldquo;it is Mr. Nelligan, who wants to speak to you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I was in terror of a regular morning visitor!&rdquo; said Martin, shaking
+the young man's hand cordially. &ldquo;They didn't tell me you were here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I came, sir,&rdquo; said Joseph, hesitatingly, &ldquo;to rectify what might, perhaps,
+require correction in an observation I made last night. We were talking
+about the proper basis of a representation&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear boy,&rdquo; broke in Martin, laughingly, &ldquo;there's nothing kills me like
+asking me to go over the past, either in reading an old letter or
+recalling an old conversation. And as to calling on me to justify
+something I once defended in argument, I 'd give up the cause at once, and
+say I was all wrong, in preference.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I need not fear you will hold me responsible&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not for anything, except your pledge to dine here tomorrow at seven.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Notwithstanding all the ease and frankness of Martin's manner&mdash;and as
+manner it was perfect&mdash;the young man felt far from satisfied. His
+want of breeding&mdash;that cruel want strong enough to mar the promise of
+high ability, and even impair the excellence of many a noble nature&mdash;seemed
+to hold him fast bound to the object of his visit. He had come for an
+explanation, and he couldn't go away without it. Mary read his difficulty
+at once, and as she passed him to leave the room, said in a low voice,
+&ldquo;To-morrow evening.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Nelligan started at the words, and his face became scarlet. What could she
+have meant? Was it that she wished him to come, and had thus condescended
+to remind him of his promise? or was it to suggest a more fitting moment
+to return to the late discussion?
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you coming to luncheon, Nelligan?&rdquo; said Martin, rising.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir; not to-day. I have a call&mdash;a visit&mdash;some miles off.&rdquo;
+ And while he was yet stammering out his excuses, Martin waved a familiar
+good-bye with his hand, and passed into the adjoining room.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what can this mean?&rdquo; said Nelligan to himself. &ldquo;Is this the cordial
+treatment of an intimate, or is it contemptuous indifference for an
+inferior?&rdquo; And, far more puzzled than he should have been with the
+knottiest problem of the &ldquo;Principia,&rdquo; he quitted the house and strolled
+homewards.
+</p>
+<p>
+His way led along the shore, and consequently in front of that straggling
+row of cottages which formed the village. It chanced to be the last day of
+the month, and, by the decree of the almanac, the close of the
+bathing-season. The scene then going forward was one of unusual and not
+unpicturesque confusion. It was a general break-up of the encampment, and
+all were preparing to depart to their homes, inland. Had young Nelligan
+been&mdash;what he was not&mdash;anything of a humorist, he might have
+been amused at the variety of equipage and costume around him. Conveyances
+the most cumbrous and most rickety, drawn by farm horses, or even donkeys,
+stopped the way before each door, all in process of loading by a strangely
+attired assemblage, whose Welsh wigs, flannel dressing-gowns, and woollen
+nightcaps showed how, by a common consent, all had agreed to merge
+personal vanity in the emergency of the moment. The innumerable little
+concealments which had sheltered many a narrow household, the various
+little stratagems that had eked out many a scanty wardrobe, were now
+abandoned with a noble sincerity; and had there been a cork leg or a glass
+eye in the company, it would not have shrunk from the gaze of that
+open-hearted community.
+</p>
+<p>
+Such of the travellers as had taken their places were already surrounded
+with the strangest medley of household gods it is possible to conceive.
+Like trophies, bird-cages, candlesticks, spits, cullenders, fenders, and
+bread-baskets bristled around them, making one marvel how they ever got
+in, or, still more, how they were ever to get out again; the croaking of
+invalids, with crying children, barking terriers, and scolding owners,
+making a suitable chorus to the confusion.
+</p>
+<p>
+Still, amidst all the discomforts of the moment, amidst the last
+wranglings with landlords, and the last squabbles over broken furniture
+and missing movables, it must be owned that the prevailing temper of the
+scene was good-humor and jollity. The Irish temperament seems ever to
+discover something congenial in those incidents of confusion and bustle
+which to other people are seasons of unmitigated misery, and even out of
+its own sources of discomfiture can derive matter for that quaint humor
+with which it can always regard life. In this wise was it that few now
+dwelt much upon their own inconveniences, so long as they were free to
+laugh at those of their neighbors.
+</p>
+<p>
+Before he was well aware of it, young Nelligan found himself in the very
+midst of this gathering, whose mirthful accents suddenly subsided at his
+approach, and an air of constraint and reserve seemed to take their place.
+Never very quick to appreciate such indications, he drew nigh to a very
+lofty &ldquo;conveniency&rdquo; in which, with an air of stately dignity, Mrs. Cronan
+sat enthroned on a backgammon-table, with a portentous-looking cap-case in
+her lap.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My mother will be sorry not to have seen you before you went away, Mrs.
+Cronan,&rdquo; said he to that lady, whose demure and frigid demeanor made the
+speech sound like a bold one.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'd have left my card and my compliments, sir, if I wasn't so pressed
+for time,&rdquo; responded she, with a haughty gravity.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;With P. P. C. on the corner,&rdquo; said the Captain from his pony-gig
+alongside; &ldquo;which means, pour prendre 'congo,' or 'congee,' I never knew
+which.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She 'll be very lonely now, for the few days we remain,&rdquo; resumed Joe,
+conscious of some awkwardness, without knowing where or how.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not with the society of your distinguished acquaintances at 'The Nest,'
+sir!&rdquo; the sarcastic import of which reply was more in the manner than the
+mere words; while the old Captain murmured,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Begad, she gave it to him there,&mdash;a regular double-headed shot!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We hope to follow you by the end of the week,&rdquo; said Nelligan, trying to
+seem at ease.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you can tear yourselves away, I suppose,&rdquo; said Miss Busk, through a
+double veil of blue gauze; for that lady's auburn ringlets reposed at the
+moment in the small mahogany casket beside her.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is not much attraction in the spot just now,&rdquo; said Joseph, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not for the like of us, perhaps, sir,&rdquo; retorted Mrs. Cronan,&mdash;&ldquo;not
+for persons in our station; but your fashionable people, I believe, always
+prefer a place when the vulgar company have left it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good again,&mdash;grape and canister!&rdquo; chuckled out the Captain, who
+seemed to derive a high enjoyment from the scene.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Would you move a little to one side, Mr. Nelligan?&rdquo; said the doctor; &ldquo;my
+pony won't stand.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, he's mettlesome,&rdquo; said Joe, good-humoredly, as he stepped out of the
+way.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That he is, sir, though he never was leader in a four-in-hand; but, you
+see, poor creatures of quadrupeds forget themselves down here, just like
+their betters!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And the success of this sally was acknowledged by a general laugh from the
+company. The tone of the speakers, even more than their words, convinced
+Joseph that, from some cause or other, he was the object of their
+sarcasms; and although slow to take offence,&mdash;even to the verge of
+what many might have called an unfeeling indifference,&mdash;he felt their
+treatment most acutely. It was, then, in something like a haughty defiance
+that he wished them a careless good-bye, and continued his way.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The world seems bent on puzzling me this morning,&rdquo; muttered he, as he
+sauntered slowly on. &ldquo;People treat me as though I were playing some deep
+game to their detriment,&mdash;I, who have no game, almost no future!&rdquo;
+ added he, despondingly. &ldquo;For what avails it to attain eminence amidst such
+as these; and, as for the others, I was not born for them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+To these moody thoughts succeeded others still gloomier. It had only been
+within a short time back that the young man had begun to appreciate the
+difficulties of a position to which his early successes imparted
+increasing embarrassment; and darkly brooding over these things, he drew
+near his mother's cottage. She was already at the door to meet him, with a
+letter in her hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is from your father, Joe,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;He wants you in all haste up
+at the town; and I've packed your clothes, and sent off Patsey for
+Mooney's car; so come in and eat something at once.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Joseph took the note from her hand and perused it in silence. It was
+brief, and ran thus:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+&ldquo;Dear Joe,&mdash;I want you up here as soon as possible, to meet
+a friend whom you 'll be surprised to see. I say no more,
+but that I expect you by dinner-time.&mdash;Yours ever,
+
+&ldquo;D.N.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What does that mean, Joe?&rdquo; asked his mother.
+</p>
+<p>
+He only shrugged his shoulders in reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And who can it be?&rdquo; said she again.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Some of the townspeople, of course,&rdquo; said he, carelessly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, Joe; it must be a stranger. Maybe it's Morgan Drake; his aunt
+expected him back from Jamaica before Christmas. Or it 's Corny Dwyer 's
+come home from Africa; you know he went on the deploring expedition&mdash;&rdquo;
+ &ldquo;Exploring, mother,&mdash;exploring.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, exploring or deploring, it's all the same. He went four years ago,
+and all the tidings they 've had of him was an elephant's tooth he sent
+home to his stepfather. I know it's Corny, for your father always liked
+him and the funny stories he told.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps so!&rdquo; replied Joe.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wonder, is he grown any bigger? He was little better than a dwarf when
+he went away, and the same age as yourself. No, indeed, he was older,&mdash;fourteen
+months older. It was Catty Henderson was running in my head. Is n't she a
+fine young woman, Joe?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Remarkably so,&rdquo; said he, with more animation in his tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A little bit too haughty-looking and proud, maybe, considering her
+station in life, and that she has to go to service&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go to service, mother?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure she has. If they can't get her a place as a governess or a
+companion, she 'll have to take what she can get. Her father's married
+again, my dear Joe; and when men do that!&rdquo; And here Mrs. Nelligan uplifted
+her hands and eyes most expressively. &ldquo;Ay, indeed,&rdquo; continued she, with a
+heavy sigh, &ldquo;and if it was once it was fifty times, Catty's poor mother
+said to me, 'Sarah,' says she,&mdash;she never called me Sally, but always
+Sarah,&mdash;'Sarah,' says she, 'I 've but one comfort, and that is that
+Catty will never want a mother while you live. You 'll be the same to her
+as myself,&mdash;just as fond, and just as forgiving;' them was her very
+words!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I hope you have never forgotten them, mother?&rdquo; said Joe, with
+emotion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't you see I have n't; an't I repeating them to you this minute?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; but I mean the spirit and the meaning of them,&rdquo; rejoined he, &ldquo;and
+that you feel the obligation they 've laid upon you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure I feel it; don't I fret over it every time I 'm alone? for I
+can't get it out of my head that maybe she 'd appear to me&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, but her mother. Oh, it 's nothing to laugh at, Joe. There was Eliza
+Keane came back every Easter Monday for two-and-twenty years to search for
+a gravy-spoon. Well, if it's laughing you are, I won't say any more; but
+here 's the car now, and it's late enough we 'll be on the road!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm not thinking of going, mother. I never meant to go,&rdquo; said Joe,
+resolutely.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never meant to go, after your father's note to you, Joe?&rdquo; cried she, in
+half horror. &ldquo;Surely it's all as one as ordering you up there.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know all that,&rdquo; said he, calmly; &ldquo;but I see no reason why I should
+forego the pleasure of a party at the Martins' for the sake of meeting the
+convivial celebrities of Oughterard.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what will you say?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say I'm engaged; have accepted another invitation; or, better still,
+leave you to make my excuses, mother. Come, come, don't look so terribly
+shocked and terrified. You know well enough that my father's four-year-old
+mutton and his crusted port will compensate the company for heavier
+inflictions than my absence.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They were always fond of you, Joe,&rdquo; said Mrs. Nelligan, half
+reproachfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing of the kind, mother; they never cared for me, nor was there any
+reason why they should. I 'm sure I never cared for them. We endured one
+another; that was all.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, dear; but I 'm glad your father is not listening to you,&rdquo; said she,
+with a stealthy glance around, as though not perfectly assured of secrecy.
+&ldquo;So, then, I suppose, there 's nothing for it but to go up myself and make
+the best of it; and sure it's all a lottery what temper he 's in, and how
+he 'll take it. I remember when they put the new duty on&mdash;what was
+it, Joe? I think it was hides&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not the least matter, mother; you 've only to say that Mr. Martin has
+been kind enough to show me some attentions, and that I am silly enough&mdash;if
+you like to say so&mdash;to prefer them to the festive pleasures of
+Oughterard. In another week or so I shall have to go back to college. Let
+me, at least, enjoy the few days of my vacation in my own fashion.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Nelligan shook her head mournfully over these signs of rebellion, and
+muttering many a gloomy foreboding, she went off to her room to make her
+preparations for the journey.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XII. A VERY &ldquo;CROSS EXAMINATION&rdquo;
+ </h2>
+<p>
+The morning was bright and sunny, the air sharp, crisp, and bracing, as
+the heavy travelling-carriage which conveyed Mr. Martin and Lady Dorothea
+rolled smoothly along the trimly kept approach to Cro' Martin. Many a
+beautiful glade, many a lovely vista opened on them as they passed along
+deep-bosomed woods and gently swelling slopes, dotted over with cattle,
+stretched away on either side; while far in the distance could be seen the
+battlemented towers of the princely residence.
+</p>
+<p>
+The lover of nature might have felt intense pleasure at a scene so
+abounding in objects of beauty. A painter would have lingered with delight
+over effects of light and shade, glorious displays of color, and graceful
+groupings of rocks and trees and gnarled stumps. A proud man might have
+exulted in the selfish enjoyment of feeling that these were all his own;
+while a benevolent one would have revelled in the thought of all the
+channels through which such wealth might carry the blessings of aid and
+charity.
+</p>
+<p>
+Which of these feelings predominated now in the minds of those who, snugly
+encased in furs, occupied the respective corners of the ample coach? Shall
+we own it? Not any of them. A dreamy, unremarking indifference was the
+sentiment of each; and they sat silently gazing on a prospect which
+suggested nothing, nor awoke one passing emotion in their hearts. Had any
+one been there to express his admiration of the landscape,&mdash;praised
+the trees, the cattle, or the grassy slopes,&mdash;Martin might have heard
+him with pleasure, and listened even with interest to his description. My
+Lady, too, might not unwillingly have lent an ear to some flattery of the
+splendid demesne of which she was mistress, and accepted as half homage
+the eulogy of what was hers. None such was, however, there; and so they
+journeyed along, as seemingly unconscious as though the scene were wrapped
+in midnight darkness.
+</p>
+<p>
+Martin had known the spot, and every detail of it, from his boyhood. The
+timber, indeed, had greatly grown,&mdash;graceful saplings had become
+stately trees, and feathery foliage deepened into leafy shade; but he
+himself had grown older, too, and his sense of enjoyment, dulled and
+deadened with years, saw nothing in the scene to awaken pleasure. As for
+Lady Dorothea, she had reasoned herself into the notion that the walls of
+her own grounds were the boundaries of a prison, and had long convinced
+herself that she was a suffering martyr to some mysterious sense of duty.
+From the drowsy languor in which they reclined they were both aroused, as
+the pace of the carriage gradually diminished from a smooth brisk trot to
+an uneven jolting motion, the very reverse of agreeable.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What have they done? Where are they going?&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea,
+peevishly.
+</p>
+<p>
+And Martin called out from the window, in tones even less gentle. &ldquo;Oh,
+it's the new approach; the road is not quite completed,&rdquo; said he, half
+sulkily, as he resumed his place.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Another of Miss Martin's clever devices, which, I must say, I never
+concurred in.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, you always professed to hate the old road by the stables.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So I did; but I never agreed to passing round the back of the house, and
+thus destroying the privacy of the flower-garden,&mdash;the only spot I
+may dare to call my own. Oh, dear! I shall be shaken to death. Have they
+broken the carriage? I 'm certain they 've smashed the spring at my side!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin gave a cold, supercilious smile, the only reply to these words.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They 've only broken a trace, I perceive,&rdquo; said he, casting a hurried
+glance through the window, as the carriage came to a dead stop.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are equanimity itself, sir, this morning,&rdquo; said her Ladyship, in a
+voice almost tremulous with anger. &ldquo;I wonder if this admirable temper will
+befriend you when you shall see the cost of this precious piece of
+road-making?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It employs the people,&rdquo; said he, coolly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Employs the people! How I hate that cant phrase! Can't they employ
+themselves on their own farms? Have n't they digging and draining, and
+whatever it is, to do of their own? Must they of necessity depend on us
+for support, and require that we should institute useless works to employ
+them?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+As if to offer a living commentary on her speech, a number of half-fed and
+less than half-clad men now drew near, and in accents of a most servile
+entreaty begged to offer their services. Some, indeed, had already busied
+themselves to repair the broken harness, and others were levelling the
+road, carrying stones to fill up holes, and in every possible manner
+endeavoring to render assistance; but all were vociferous in asserting
+that the delay would not be above a minute or two; that the road was an
+elegant one, or would be soon, and that it was a &ldquo;raal blessing&rdquo; to see
+her Ladyship and the master looking so well. In fact, they were thankful
+and hopeful together; and, notwithstanding the evidences of the deepest
+destitution in their appearance, they wore an air of easy, jaunty
+politeness, such as many a professional diner-out might have envied. Lady
+Dorothea was in no mood to appreciate such traits; indeed, if the truth
+must be told, they rather ruffled than soothed her. Martin saw nothing in
+them; he was too much accustomed to the people to be struck with any of
+their peculiarities, and so he lay back in silent apathy, and took no
+notice of them.
+</p>
+<p>
+With all their alacrity and all their good-will&mdash;and there was no
+lack of either&mdash;there was yet such a total absence of all system and
+order, that their efforts were utterly useless. Some tugged away manfully
+to raise stones too heavy to lift; others came rudely in contact with
+fellows heavily laden, and upset them. The sturdy arms that spoked the
+hind wheels were resolutely antagonized by as vigorous struggles to move
+the fore ones. Every one shouted, cried, cursed, and laughed, by turns;
+and a more hopeless scene of confusion and uproar need not be conceived.
+Nor was Lady Dorothea herself an inactive spectator; for, with her head
+from the carriage-window, she directed a hundred impossible measures, and
+sat down at last, overcome with rage and mortification at their blunders.
+</p>
+<p>
+The tumult was now at the highest, and the horses, terrified by the noise
+around them, had commenced plunging and rearing fearfully, when Mary
+Martin came galloping up to the spot at full speed.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let go that bridle, Hogan,&rdquo; cried she, aloud; &ldquo;you are driving that horse
+mad. Loose the leaders' traces; unbuckle the reins, Patsey; the wheelers
+will stand quietly. There, lead them away. Speak to that mare; she 's
+trembling with fear. I told you not to come by this road, Barney; and it
+was only by accident that I saw the wheel-tracks. A thousand pardons, Aunt
+Dora, for this mishap. Barney misunderstood my orders. It will be all
+right in a moment. Once over this bad spot, the road is hard and level.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Having no taste, nor any genius for adventures, Miss Martin,&rdquo; began her
+Ladyship&mdash;But Mary did not await the remainder of the speech; for,
+turning her horse sharply round, and beckoning to some of the people to
+follow her, she was away across the lawn at a smart canter. Having arrived
+at a small wooden bridge over a river, she ordered the men to lift some of
+the planking, by the aid of which they soon constructed a firm and safe
+passage for the carriage; and as her presence was the signal for quiet
+obedience and prompt action, in less than ten minutes the difficulty was
+surmounted, the horses reharnessed, and all in readiness to proceed on
+their way.
+</p>
+<p>
+Martin looked on in silent satisfaction, not offering a single suggestion,
+or even seeming to feel interested in the events, but enjoying, with all a
+lazy man's pleasure, the activity displayed around him. Not so Lady
+Dorothea. If she did not like &ldquo;an adventure,&rdquo; she loved &ldquo;a grievance.&rdquo;
+ Whatever ministered to her selfishness, even in the remotest degree, was
+grateful to her. Mary's opportune arrival had now converted what might
+have passed for a calamity into a mere momentary inconvenience; and she
+could not conceal her discontent. &ldquo;Your heroines are a perfect torment; at
+least, to us souls of commoner clay. They live only for disasters.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must say that Mary extricated us from what might have become one,&rdquo; said
+Martin, dryly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are indebted to her, however, for the possibility. This detestable
+road, which I promise you I 'll never come again, is entirely her own
+invention. I hope, Miss Martin,&rdquo; added she, from the window, &ldquo;that the
+other approach is to be kept in repair,&mdash;at least, for me.&rdquo; But Mary
+did not hear the appeal, for she was bandaging the arm of a poor country
+fellow, who had been sorely cut.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There, drive on, Barney,&rdquo; cried Lady Dorothea. &ldquo;I shall be taken ill if I
+stay here. Really, Mr. Martin, your niece's accomplishments are the least
+feminine one can conceive.&rdquo; And improving this theme, she continued the
+entire way till the carriage drew up at the door of the castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; said she, as she descended, &ldquo;that heavy sigh shows you are
+indeed greatly to be pitied. No martyrdom ever exceeded yours. I am quite
+aware of all my imperfections, and can at least fancy everything you could
+say of me and my temper. What did you say, Collins?&rdquo; said she, addressing
+the obsequious-looking servant, who, with an air of gloomy joy, very
+respectful,&mdash;but meant to mean more,&mdash;had whispered something in
+her ear.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A young lady, did you say, Collins?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you were very wrong, Collins. You meant to say a young person.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady,&mdash;a young person, like a lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not in the least, except to such appreciation as yours. Where is she?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In your Ladyship's library.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did she come alone?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, my Lady. Mr. Henderson drove her over in his car, and said he 'd pass
+this way again in the evening.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And now her Ladyship swept proudly by, scarcely noticing the bowing
+servants who had formed into a line along the hall, and who endeavored to
+throw into their sorrowful faces as much of joy as might consist with the
+very deepest humility. Nor was she more condescending to old Catty, who
+stood courtesying at the top of the stairs, with a basket of keys on her
+arm that might have served to lock up all Newgate.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How cold every place feels! Collins, are you sure the rooms are properly
+aired?&rdquo; cried she, shuddering. &ldquo;But I suppose it's the climate. Have
+another stove put there,&rdquo; said she, pointing to an impossible locality.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady,&rdquo; replied Collins.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And warmer carpets on these passages.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady; it shall be done to-morrow.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir; to-day.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady; this afternoon.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't remember if the windows are double along here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady, they are all double towards the north.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then they fit badly, for I feel the draught acutely here. It's like the
+keen air of a mountain;&rdquo; and Collins gave a slight sympathetic shudder,
+and really looked cold. A somewhat haughty glance from her Ladyship,
+however, as quickly reproved him, for Collins ought to have known that it
+was not by such as himself changes of temperature could be appreciable.
+And now she passed on and entered that part of the mansion peculiarly her
+own, and where, it must be owned, her spirit of fault-finding would have
+been at a loss what to condemn.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lady Dorothea's library occupied an angle of the building; and from this
+circumstance, included within its precincts an octagonal tower, the view
+from which comprised every varied character of landscape. This favored
+spot was fitted up in the most luxurious taste,&mdash;with rarest gems of
+art, and cabinet pictures of almost fabulous value,&mdash;to supply which
+foreign dealers and connoisseurs had been for years back in correspondence
+with her Ladyship. Now it was some rare treasure of carved ivory, or some
+sculptured cup of Benvenuto, that had been discovered accidentally, and
+which, despite the emulous zeal of princes and cardinals to obtain, was
+destined for herself. Now it was some choice mosaic of which but one other
+specimen existed, and that in the Pope's private collection at the
+Quirinal. Such was her ardor in this pursuit of excellence, that more than
+once had every object of this precious chamber been changed, to give place
+to something more costly, more precious, and rarer. For about two years
+back, however, the resources of the old world seemed to offer nothing
+worthy of attention, and the vases, the &ldquo;statuettes,&rdquo; the bronzes, the
+pictures, and medallions had held their ground undisturbed.
+</p>
+<p>
+Such was the sanctity of this spot, that in showing the house to strangers
+it was never opened, nor, without a special order from Lady Dorothea,&mdash;a
+favor somewhat more difficult to obtain than a firman from the Sultan,&mdash;could
+any one be admitted within its walls. The trusty servant in whose charge
+it was, was actually invested with a species of sacred character in the
+household, as one whose feet had passed the threshold of the tabernacle.
+Our reader may then picture to himself something of Lady Dorothea's varied
+sensations&mdash;for, indeed, they were most mingled&mdash;as she heard a
+slight cough from within the chamber, and, drawing nearer, perceived a
+female figure seated in front of one of the windows, calmly regarding the
+landscape.
+</p>
+<p>
+With a degree of noise and bustle sufficient to announce her approach,
+Lady Dorothea entered the tower; while the stranger, rising, retired one
+step, and courtesied very deeply. There was in all the humility of the
+obeisance a certain degree of graceful dignity that certainly struck her
+Ladyship; and her haughty look and haughtier tone were some little
+modified as she asked by what accident she found her there.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My intrusion was a pure accident, my Lady,&rdquo; replied the other, in a low,
+soft voice; &ldquo;mistaking the door by which I had entered a room, I wandered
+on through one after another until I found myself here. I beg your
+Ladyship to believe that nothing was further from my thoughts than to
+obtrude upon your privacy.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your name?&rdquo; began her Ladyship; and then, as suddenly correcting herself,
+she said, &ldquo;You are Miss Henderson, I suppose?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady,&rdquo; she replied, with a slight bend of the head.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I sent for you,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, in a half-careless tone, while she
+turned over some books on the table, as if in search of something,&mdash;&ldquo;I
+sent for you, partly at the request of your mother&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My stepmother, my Lady,&rdquo; interposed the girl, calmly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lady Dorothea stared at her for a second or two, as though to say, how had
+she dared to correct her; but either that the reproof had not met its full
+success, or that she did not care to pursue it, she added, &ldquo;At the request
+of your friends, and partly out of curiosity.&rdquo; And here Lady Dorothea
+raised her glass to her eye, and quietly surveyed her,&mdash;an
+examination which, it must be owned, none could have borne with more
+unshaken fortitude; not the slightest tremor of a limb, not the faintest
+change of color betokening that the ordeal was a painful one.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do see that you have been educated in France,&rdquo; said her Ladyship, with
+a smile of most supercilious import, while a courtesy from the young girl
+admitted the fact.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Were you brought up in Paris?&rdquo; asked she, after a pause.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;For four years, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the remainder of the time, where was it passed?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We travelled a great deal, my Lady, in Germany and Italy.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'We,'&mdash;who were the 'we' you speak of? Please to bear in mind that I
+know nothing of your history.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I forgot that, my Lady. I thought my stepmother had, perhaps, informed
+your Ladyship.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of nothing whatever, child,&rdquo; said she, haughtily, &ldquo;save of your having a
+foreign education, and wishing, or hoping, to find some engagement as a
+governess or a teacher;&rdquo; and the last words were drawled out languidly, as
+though they were suggestive of all that was wearisome and a bore. &ldquo;So you
+must be good enough to explain who 'we' were.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Duchesse de Luygnes and her family, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You travelled with them; and in what capacity, pray?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was called companion to the Princesse de Courcelles, the eldest
+daughter of the Duchess, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Companion!&mdash;why, you must have been a mere child at the time?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A mere child, my Lady; but they took me from the Pensionnat, to speak
+English with the young Princess.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And then they took the charge of your education, I conclude?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And to what extent&mdash;or rather, in what direction; I mean, what
+object had they in view in choosing your studies?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They gave me the same masters as to the young Princess, my Lady; and I
+was instructed in all respects as she was.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And treated like her also, I conclude?&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, with a
+sneering smile.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Madame la Duchesse was ever most kind to me,&rdquo; said the girl, half
+proudly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Kind&mdash;yes, of course&mdash;kind, if you conducted yourself properly
+and to her satisfaction. A person of her condition would be kind; but I
+trust this did not proceed so far as to spoil you? I hope it never made
+you forget your station?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I trust it did not, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;With what part of the establishment did you live? Where did you dine?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;With the Princess, my Lady; except on <i>fête</i> days, when we were
+invited to the table of the Duchess.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never heard of anything more absurd,&mdash;outrageously absurd. Why,
+are you aware, young woman, that these same friends of yours have done you
+irreparable mischief? They have, so to say, ruined your entire future; for
+how can I, and others in my station, avail myself of your services, with
+such habits and expectations as these?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly not expectations, my Lady. I never did or can expect such
+condescension from another.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No matter; your head is filled with ideas unbefitting your condition,
+usages, habits, associations, all foreign to a menial station. You have
+been admitted to privileges the want of which would be felt as hardships.
+In fact, as I said before, they have done you irreparable injury. You must
+feel it yourself.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A very faint smile, half in deprecation of the appeal, was the only reply
+of the young girl.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are certain to feel it later on in life, if you are not sensible of
+it at present, that I can vouch for, young woman,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea,
+with all the firmness with which she could utter an unpleasant speech.
+&ldquo;Nothing but unhappiness ever resulted from such ill-judged indulgence.
+Indeed, if your mother had mentioned the circumstances, I scarcely think I
+should have sent for you&rdquo;&mdash;she paused to see if any strong signs of
+contrite sorrow displayed themselves in the young girl's features; none
+such were there, and Lady Dorothea more sternly added,&mdash;&ldquo;I may safely
+say, I never should have asked to see you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+When a speech meant to be severe has failed to inflict the pain it was
+intended to produce, it invariably recoils with redoubled power upon him
+who uttered it; and so Lady Dorothea now felt all the pang of her own
+ungenerous sentiment. With an effort to shake off this unpleasant
+sensation, she resumed,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I might go further, and observe that unless you yourself became
+thoroughly penetrated with the fact, you must always prove very unsuitable
+to the station you are destined to occupy in life. Do you understand me?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe I do, my Lady,&rdquo; was the calm reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And also,&rdquo; resumed she, still more dictatorially&mdash;&ldquo;and also, that
+acquiring this knowledge by yourself will be less painful to your feelings
+than if impressed upon you by others. Do you fully apprehend me?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think so, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Now, although the tone and manner of the young girl were unexceptionable
+in all that regards deference and respect, Lady Dorothea was not a little
+provoked at her unbroken composure. There was no confusion, not even a
+semblance of constraint about her. She replied to even sarcastic questions
+without the faintest shadow of irritation, and exhibited throughout the
+most perfect quietude and good breeding. Had the &ldquo;young person&rdquo; been
+overwhelmed with shame, or betrayed into any access of temper, her
+Ladyship's manner would have presented a pattern of haughty dignity and
+gracefulness, and her rebukes would have been delivered in a tone of
+queen-like superiority; but Miss Henderson afforded no opportunity for
+these great qualities. She was deference itself; but deference so
+self-possessed, so assured of its own safeguard, as to be positively
+provoking.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Under all these circumstances, therefore,&rdquo; resumed Lady Dorothea, as if
+having revolved mighty thoughts within her mind, &ldquo;it appears to me you
+would not suit me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+But even this speech failed to call up one trait of disappointment, and
+the young girl received it with only a deep courtesy.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm sorry for it,&rdquo; continued my Lady, &ldquo;on your mother's account; your
+education has of course cost her and your father many sacrifices, which
+your duty requires you to repay.&rdquo; She paused, as if asking for some assent
+to this speech.
+</p>
+<p>
+Another deep courtesy was the reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There, that will do,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, angrily; for any attempt to
+provoke seemed an utter failure. &ldquo;I think I have nothing more to say. When
+I shall see your mother I can explain more fully to her. Good-morning.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish your Ladyship good-morning,&rdquo; said the girl, with a deep obeisance,
+and in a voice of perfect deference, while she retired towards the door.
+Before she had reached it, however, Lady Dorothea again addressed her.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You forgot, I think, to tell me why you left the Duchesse de Luygnes?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I left on the marriage of the Princess, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I remember; she married a Russian, I think.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, my Lady; she married the Duc de Mirecourt, French Ambassador at St.
+Petersburg.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, to be sure. I knew there was something Russian about it. And so they
+sent you away then?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Duchess most kindly invited me to accompany her, my Lady, but my
+father desired I should return to Ireland.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And very properly,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea; &ldquo;he took a most just view of the
+case; your position would only have exposed you to great perils. I'm sure
+you are not of my opinion, for distrust of yourself does not appear one of
+your failings.&rdquo;&mdash;It is possible that this ungenerous remark was
+evoked by a very slight curl of the young girl's lip, and which, faint as
+it was, did not escape her Ladyship's keen glances.&mdash;&ldquo;Good-morning.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Again had Miss Henderson gained the door; her hand was already on the
+lock, when her Ladyship called out: &ldquo;In the event of anything occurring to
+me likely to suit you, I ought to know what you can teach; and mind, don't
+bore me with a mere catalogue of hard names, but say what you really
+know.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Some modern languages, my Lady, with music.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No Greek or Latin?&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, half sneer-ingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Latin, perhaps; but though I can read some Greek, I could not venture to
+teach it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor Hebrew?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the modern tongues,&mdash;which of them do you profess to know?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;French, Italian, Spanish, and German.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And don't you draw?&mdash;they showed me what they called yours.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady, but I cannot teach drawing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And of course you are thoroughly versed in history. Have you studied any
+scientific subjects?&mdash;mathematics, for instance.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Only a few of the French initial books, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, you are quite an Admirable Crichton for acquirement. I feel really
+abashed to find myself in such company.&rdquo; But even this coarse speech
+failed to irritate, and Lady Dorothea walked angrily towards the window
+and looked out.
+</p>
+<p>
+It so chanced that, through an opening of the wood, she caught sight of a
+large assemblage of workpeople, who, headed by Miss Martin on horseback,
+were on their way to the quarries; and as she looked, a sudden thought
+flashed across her: &ldquo;Why not retain the 'young person' as a companion for
+her niece? How admirably would all this girl's knowledge contrast with
+Mary's ignorance! What an unceasing source of disparagement would their
+contact afford, at the very moment that the arrangement might seem
+dictated by the very best and highest of motives.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It may doubtless appear to many, that the individual who could reason thus
+must be animated by a most corrupt and depraved nature, but unhappily the
+spiteful element in the human heart is one which never measures its modes
+of attack, but suffers itself to be led on, from acts of mere petty malice
+to actions of downright baseness and badness. Lady Dorothea was not devoid
+of good traits, but once involved in a pursuit, she totally forgot the
+object which originally suggested it, but engaged all her zeal and all her
+ardor for success. She would have been shocked at the bare possibility of
+actually injuring her niece; she would have resented with indignation the
+mere mention of such; but yet she would have eagerly grasped at whatever
+afforded a chance of dominating over her. Mary's influence in the
+household&mdash;her rule over the peasantry of the estate&mdash;was a
+perpetual source of annoyance to her Ladyship, and yet she never knew how
+to thwart it, till now that chance seemed to offer this means.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You need not go back just yet: I 'll speak to Mr. Martin about you,&rdquo; said
+she, turning towards Miss Henderson; and, with a respectful courtesy, the
+girl withdrew, leaving her Ladyship to her own somewhat complicated
+reflections.
+</p>
+<p>
+In less than half an hour after Lady Dorothea proceeded to Mr. Martin's
+study, where a cabinet council was held, the substance of which our reader
+can readily conceive; nor need he have any doubts as to the decision, when
+we say that Lady Dorothea retired to her own room with a look of
+satisfaction so palpably displayed that Mademoiselle Hortense, her maid,
+remarked to herself, &ldquo;Somebody or other was sure to pass a <i>mauvais
+quart d'heure</i> when <i>miladi</i> goes to her room with an air of such
+triumphant meaning as that.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XIII. &ldquo;A HOUSEKEEPER'S ROOM&rdquo;
+ </h2>
+<p>
+Cro' Martin was replete with every comfort and luxury. All its
+arrangements betokened wealth; not a single appliance of ease or enjoyment
+but was to be found within its well-ordered walls; and yet there was one
+want which seemed to mar all, and infuse a sense of almost dreary coldness
+over everything, and this was&mdash;the absence of a numerous family, the
+assemblage of various ages, which gives to a home its peculiar interest,
+embodying the hopes and fears and passions and motives of manhood, in
+every stage of existence, making up that little world within doors which
+emblematizes the great one without; but, with this singular advantage, of
+its being bound up in one holy sentiment of mutual love and affection.
+</p>
+<p>
+This charm is it which gives the whole vitality to home,&mdash;this
+mingling of the temperaments of youth and manhood and deep age, blending
+hopes of the future with memories of the past, and making of every heart a
+portion of one human biography, in which many are sharers. To the
+stranger, who came to see the house and its gorgeous decorations, all
+seemed suggestive of habitable enjoyment. The vast drawing-rooms appeared
+as if only waiting for a splendid company; the dark wainscoted
+dining-room, with its noble fireplace of gigantic dimensions, looked the
+very scene where hospitable conviviality might be enacted; the library,
+calm, quiet, and secluded, seemed a spot wherein a student might have
+passed a life long. Even in the views that presented themselves at the
+several windows, there was a certain appropriateness to the character of
+the room, and the same importunate question still arose to one's mind: Who
+is there to enjoy all this? What words of glad welcome echo through this
+vaulted hall, what happy daughter sings through these gilded chambers,
+where is the social pleasantry that circles the blazing fire of the ample
+hearth? Alas! all was sombre, splendid, and dreary. No, we are wrong!&mdash;not
+all! There was one corner of this great house where cheerfulness was the
+very type of comfort. It was a small and not lofty room, whose two windows
+projected beyond the walls, giving a wide view over the swelling landscape
+for miles of space. Here the furniture was of the most ordinary kind, but
+scrupulously neat and well kept. The chairs&mdash;there were but four of
+them&mdash;all with arms and deep cushions; the walnut table a perfect
+mirror of polish; the cloth curtains, that closed the windows and
+concealed the door, massive and heavy-folded,&mdash;all breathed of
+snugness; while the screen that surrounded the fire had other perfections
+than those of comfortable seclusion, containing a most strange collection
+of the caricatures of the time, and the period before the Union. It is but
+necessary to add that this was Mrs. Broon's apartment,&mdash;the snug
+chamber where old Catty enjoyed herself, after the fatigues and duties of
+the day. Here now she sat at tea, beside a cheerful fire, the hissing
+kettle on the hob harmonizing pleasantly with the happy purring of an
+enormous cat, who sat winking at the blaze; and while evidently
+inconvenienced by the heat, lacking energy to retreat from it. Catty had
+just obtained the newspaper,&mdash;as the master had gone to dinner,&mdash;and
+was really about to enjoy a comfortable evening. Far from devoid of social
+qualities, or a liking for companionship, she still lived almost entirely
+to herself, the other servants being chiefly English, whose habits and
+ways were all strange to her, and all whose associations were widely
+different from her own. Catty Broon had thus obtained a reputation for
+unsociability which she by no means deserved, but to which, it must be
+owned, she was totally indifferent. In fact, if <i>they</i> deemed <i>her</i>
+morose and disagreeable, <i>she</i>, in turn, held <i>them</i> still more
+cheaply, calling them a set of lazy devils that &ldquo;were only in each other's
+way,&rdquo; and &ldquo;half of them not worth their salt.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Catty had also survived her generation; all her friends of former years
+had either died or emigrated, and except two or three of the
+farm-servants, none of the &ldquo;ould stock,&rdquo; as she called them, were in
+existence. This brief explanation will show that Catty's comparative
+isolation was not entirely a matter of choice. If a sense of loneliness
+did now and then cross her mind, she never suffered it to dwell there, but
+chased away the unpleasant thought by some active duty; or if the season
+of that were over, by the amusing columns of the &ldquo;Intelligence,&rdquo;&mdash;a
+journal which realized to Mrs. Broon's conceptions the very highest order
+of literary merit.
+</p>
+<p>
+Catty did not take much interest in politics; she had a vague, dreamy kind
+of notion that the game of party was a kind of disreputable gambling, and
+Parliament itself little better than a &ldquo;Hell,&rdquo; frequented by very
+indifferent company. Indeed, she often said it would be &ldquo;well for us if
+there was no politics, and maybe then, there would be no taxes either.&rdquo;
+ The news she liked was the price of farming-stock at fairs and markets,&mdash;what
+Mr. Hynes got for his &ldquo;top lot&rdquo; of hoggets, and what Tom Healey paid for
+the &ldquo;finest heifers ever seen on the fair-green.&rdquo; These, and the accidents&mdash;a
+deeply interesting column&mdash;were her peculiar tastes; and her memory
+was stored with every casualty, by sea, fire, and violence, that had
+graced the &ldquo;Intelligence&rdquo; for forty years back; in truth they formed the
+stations of her chronology, and she would refer to events as having
+occurred the same year that Joe Ryan was hanged, or &ldquo;the very Christmas
+that Hogan fired at Captain Crossley.&rdquo; An inundation of great extent also
+figured in these memorabilia, and was constantly referred to, by her
+saying, &ldquo;This or that happened the year after the Flood,&rdquo; suggesting a
+rather startling impression as to her longevity.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the evening we now refer to, the newspaper was more than commonly
+adorned with these incidents. Public news having failed, private
+calamities were invoked to supply the place. Catty was, therefore,
+fortunate. There was something, too, not altogether unpleasant in the
+whistling storm that raged without, and the heavy plashing of the rain as
+it beat upon the window-panes. Without imputing to her, as would be most
+unjust, the slightest touch of ill-nature, she felt a heightened sense of
+her own snugness as she drew closer to the bright hearth, while she read
+of &ldquo;a dreadful gale in the Bay of Biscay.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It was just in the most exciting portion of the description that her door
+was rudely opened, and the heavy curtain dashed aside with a daring hand;
+and Catty, startled by the sudden interruption, called angrily out,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who's there?&mdash;who are ye at all?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can't you guess, Catty?&rdquo; cried out a pleasant voice. &ldquo;Don't you know that
+there's only one in this house here who 'd dare to enter in such a
+fashion?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, Miss Mary, is it you? And, blessed Virgin, what a state ye 're in!&rdquo;
+ cried she, as she gazed at the young girl, who, throwing away her
+riding-hat, wrung out the rain from her long and silky hair, while she
+laughed merrily at old Catty's dismayed countenance.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, where in the world were you&mdash;what happened you, darling?&rdquo; said
+Catty, as she assisted her to remove the dripping costume.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was at the Wood, Catty, and up to the quarries, and round by Cronebawn,
+and then, seeing a storm gathering, I thought I 'd turn homeward, but one
+of Kit Sullivan's children&mdash;my little godchild, you know&mdash;detained
+me to hear him recite some verses he had learned for my birthday; and,
+what with one thing and another, it was pitch dark when I reached the 'New
+Cut,' and then, to my annoyance, I found the bridge had just been carried
+away&mdash;there, Catty, now for a pair of your own comfortable slippers&mdash;and,
+as I was saying to you, there was no bridge!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The bridge gone!&rdquo; exclaimed Catty, in horror.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;All Tom Healey's fault. I told him that the arch had not span enough, and
+that the buttresses would never stand the first heavy fall of rain from
+the mountains, and there 's not a vestige of them now!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what did you do?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I rode for the Low Meadows, Catty, with all speed. I knew that the river,
+not being confined there between narrow banks, and spreading over a wide
+surface, couldn't be very deep. Nor was it. It never touched the girths
+but once, when we got into a hole. But she is such a rare good beast, that
+little Sorrel; she dashed through everything, and I don't think I took
+forty minutes from Kane's Mill to this door, though I never saw a spot of
+the road all the while, except when the lightning showed it. There now,
+like a good old dear, don't wring your hands and say, 'Blessed hour!' but
+just put some more tea in the teapot, and fetch me your brown loaf!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But surely you 'll die of cold!&mdash;you 'll be in a fever!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nonsense, Catty; I have been out in rain before this. I'm more provoked
+about that bridge than all else. My excellent aunt will have such a laugh
+at my engineering skill, when she hears of it. Can't be helped, however.
+And so there's a dinner-party upstairs, I hear. Fanny told me there were
+three strangers.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So I hear. There's a lawyer from Dublin; and a lady from I don't know
+where; and young Nelligan, old Dan's son. I 'm sure I never thought I 'd
+see the day he 'd be eating his dinner at Cro' Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And why not, Catty? What is there in his manners and conduct that should
+not make him good company for any one here?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is n't he the son of a little huckster in Oughterard? Old Dan, that I
+remember without a shoe to his foot?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And is it a reproach to him that he has made a fortune by years of
+patient industry and toil?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In-dus-try! toil! indeed,&rdquo; said Catty, sneeringly. &ldquo;How much in-dus-try
+or toil there is, weighing out snuff and sugar in a snug shop. Ayeh! he's
+an old nig-gar, the same Dan. I know him well.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But that is no reason why you should disparage his son, Catty, who is a
+young gentleman of the highest ability and great promise. I never heard
+you speak so ungenerously before.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, darling, don't look angry with your ould Catty, anyway. It
+isn't for the like of Dan Nelligan, or his son either, you'd be cross with
+<i>me!</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never, Catty, never,&mdash;for anybody or anything,&rdquo; said the young girl,
+taking her hand with both her own. &ldquo;But you have n't told me who the lady
+is. How did she arrive, and when?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know nothing of her. Peter came to say that the blue bedroom was
+wanting to-night, and he wished to torment me into asking who for?&mdash;but
+I wouldn't, just for that same; and so I gave him the keys without a
+word.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wonder if this note, that I found on my dressing-table, will explain
+anything,&rdquo; said Mary, as she proceeded to break the seal. &ldquo;Of all the
+absurd ways of my Lady aunt, she has not a more ridiculous one than this
+trick of writing little notes, instead of speaking. She sees me every day,
+and might surely say whatever she wanted to say, without embalming it in a
+despatch. This, I perceive, is number four hundred and seventy-six, and I
+presume she 's correct in the score. Only think, Catty,&mdash;four hundred
+little epistles like this!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And with these words she carelessly unfolded the letter and began to read
+it. All her indifference of manner, however, soon gave way to an
+expression of considerable eagerness, and she had no sooner finished the
+epistle than she recommenced and reread it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You 'd never guess what tidings this brings me, Catty,&rdquo; said she, laying
+down the paper, and looking with an expression half sad, half comical.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maybe I might, then,&rdquo; said Catty, shaking her head knowingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, out with your guess, then, old lady, and I promise to venerate your
+wisdom ever after if you be right,&mdash;that is, if nobody has already
+given you a hint on the subject.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not one in the world,&rdquo; said Catty, solemnly; &ldquo;I pledge you my word and
+faith I never heard a syllable about it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;About it! about what?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;About what's in the letter there,&rdquo; said Catty, stoutly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are therefore quite certain that you know it,&rdquo; said Mary, smiling,
+&ldquo;so now let's have your interpretation.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It 's a proposial,&rdquo; said Catty, with a slight wink.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A what!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A proposial&mdash;of marriage, I mean.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+But before the words were out, Mary burst into a fit of laughter, so
+hearty and with such good-will that poor Catty felt perfectly ashamed of
+herself.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear Catty,&rdquo; said she, at length, &ldquo;you must have been reading fairy
+tales this morning; nothing short of such bright literature could have
+filled your mind with these imaginings. The object of the note is, I
+assure you, of a quite different kind;&rdquo; and here she ran her eye once more
+over the epistle. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; continued she, &ldquo;it is written in my dear aunt's
+own peculiar style, and begins with a 'declaratory clause,' as I think Mr.
+Scanlan would call it, expressive of my lamentably neglected education,
+and then proceeds to the appropriate remedy, by telling me that I am to
+have a governess!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A what!&rdquo; cried Catty, in angry amazement.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A governess, Catty,&mdash;not a governor, as you suspected.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ayeh, ayeh!&rdquo; cried the old woman, wringing her hands; &ldquo;what's this for?
+Don't you know how to govern yourself by this time? And what can they
+teach you that you don't understand already?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, my dear Catty,&rdquo; said the young girl, sadly, &ldquo;it is a sad subject you
+would open there,&mdash;one that I have wept over many a dreary hour! No
+one knows&mdash;no one even could guess&mdash;how deeply I have deplored
+my illiterate condition. Nor was it,&rdquo; added she, ardently, &ldquo;till I had
+fashioned out a kind of existence of my own&mdash;active, useful, and
+energetic&mdash;that I could bury the thought of my utter want of
+education. Not even you, Catty, could fathom all the tears this theme has
+cost me, nor with what a sinking of the heart I have thought over my
+actual unfitness for my station.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Arrah, don't provoke me! don't drive me mad!&rdquo; cried the old woman, in
+real anger. &ldquo;There never was one yet as fit for the highest place as
+yourself; and it is n't me alone that says it, but hundreds of&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hundreds of dear, kind, loving hearts,&rdquo; broke in Mary, &ldquo;that would
+measure my poor capacity by my will to serve them. But no matter, Catty; I
+'ll not try to undeceive them. They shall think of me with every help
+their own affection may lend them, and I will not love them less for the
+overestimate.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+As she spoke these words, she buried her face between her hands; but the
+quick heaving of her chest showed how deep was her emotion. The old woman
+respected her sorrow too deeply to interrupt her, and for several minutes
+not a word was spoken on either side. At last Mary raised her head, and
+throwing back the long, loose hair, which in heavy masses shaded her face,
+said with a firm and resolute voice,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'd have courage to go to school to-morrow, Catty, and begin as a mere
+child to learn, if I knew that another was ready to take my place here.
+But who is to look after these poor people, who are accustomed now to see
+me amongst them, on the mountains, in the fields, at their firesides?&mdash;who
+gain new spirit for labor when I ride down in the midst of them, and look
+up, cheered, by seeing me, even from a sick-bed. Her Ladyship would say,
+Mr. Henderson could do all this far better than myself.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Henderson, indeed!&rdquo; exclaimed Catty, indignantly; &ldquo;the smooth-tongued
+old rogue!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And perhaps he might, in England,&rdquo; resumed Mary; &ldquo;but not here, Catty,&mdash;not
+here! We care less for benefits than the source from which they spring. We
+Irish cherish the love of motives as well as actions; and, above all, we
+cherish the links that bind the lowliest in the land with the highest, and
+make both better by the union.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+She poured out these words with rapid impetuosity, rather talking to
+herself than addressing her companion; then, suddenly changing her tone,
+she added,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Besides, Catty, <i>they</i> are used to me, and <i>I</i> to <i>them</i>.
+A new face and a new voice would not bring the same comfort to them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never, never,&rdquo; muttered the old woman to herself.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I 'll not desert them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That you won't, darling,&rdquo; said the old woman, kissing her hand
+passionately, while tears swam in her eyes, and trickled down her cheeks.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is but one thought, Catty, that makes me at all faint-hearted about
+this, and whenever it crosses me I do feel very low and depressed.&rdquo; She
+paused, and then murmured the words, &ldquo;My father!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your father, my darling! What about <i>him?</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is thinking, Catty, of his return; an event that ought to be&mdash;and
+would be, too&mdash;the very happiest of my life; a day for whose coming I
+never sleep without a prayer; and yet, even this bright prospect has its
+dark side, when I recall all my own deficiencies, and how different he
+will find his daughter from what he had expected her.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;May the blessed saints grant me patience!&rdquo; cried Catty, breaking in.
+&ldquo;Isn't it too bad to hear you talking this way? Sure, don't I know Master
+Barry well? Didn't I nurse him, and wasn't I all as one as his own mother
+to him, and don't I know that you are his own born image? 'Tis himself and
+no other ye are every minute of the day.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And even that, Catty,&rdquo; said Mary, smiling, &ldquo;might fail to satisfy him. It
+is something very different indeed he might have imagined his daughter.
+I'm sure nobody can be more ignorant than I am, of what a person in my
+station ought to know. I cannot hide this from myself in my sad moments. I
+do not try to do so, but I have always relied upon the consolation that,
+to an existence such as mine is like to be, these deficiencies do not
+bring the same sense of shame, the same painful consciousness of
+inferiority, as if I were to mingle with the world of my equals. But if he
+were to come back,&mdash;he, who has seen society in every shape and
+fashion,&mdash;and find me the poor, unlettered, unread, untaught thing I
+am, unable to follow his very descriptions of far-away lands without
+confusion and mistake; unable to benefit by his reflections from very want
+of previous knowledge,&mdash;oh, Catty dearest, what a miserable thing is
+self-love after all, when it should thus thrust itself into the
+foreground, where very different affections alone should have the place.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He 'd love you like his own heart,&rdquo; said Catty. &ldquo;Nobody knows him like
+me; and if there was ever one made for him to dote on, it's your own
+self.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you indeed think so?&rdquo; cried Mary, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do I know it&mdash;could I swear it?&rdquo; said Catty. &ldquo;He was never much
+given to study himself, except it was books of travel like 'Robinson
+Crusoe,' and the like; and then, after reading one of them books he 'd be
+off for days together, and we 'd be looking for him over the whole
+country, and maybe find him in the middle of Kyle's Wood up a tree; or
+once, indeed, it was in the island of Lettermullen we got him. He built a
+mud-house, and was living there with a goat and two rabbits that he reared
+himself, and if he was n't miserable when they brought him away home! I
+remember his words well,&mdash;'Maybe,' says he, 'the time will come that
+I 'll go where you can't come after me;' and ye see that's what he's done,
+for nobody knows where he wasn't wandering these last eight or nine
+years.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+When Catty got upon this theme she could not be brought to quit it,&mdash;nor,
+indeed, did Mary try,&mdash;for though she had heard these stories of her
+father's boyish days over and over again, she never wearied of them; they
+had all the fascination of romance for her, with the stronger interest
+that grew out of her love for one who, she was told, had so loved herself.
+Besides this, she felt in her own heart the same promptings to a life of
+action and adventure. All the incidents and accidents of an eventful
+existence were the very things to delight her, and one of her happiest
+daydreams was to fancy herself her father's companion in his wanderings by
+flood and field.
+</p>
+<p>
+And thus they sat till a late hour of the night talking and listening, old
+Catty answering each inquiry of the young girl by some anecdote or trait
+of him she still persisted in calling &ldquo;Master Barry,&rdquo; till, in the ardor
+of listening, Mary herself caught up the phrase, and so designated her own
+father.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How unlike my uncle in everything!&rdquo; exclaimed Mary, as she reflected over
+some traits the old woman had just recorded. &ldquo;And were they not very fond
+of each other?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That they were: at least I can answer for Master Barry's love; and to be
+sure, if having a reason was worth anything, your uncle ought to love him
+more than one man ever did another.&rdquo; Old Catty uttered these words with a
+slow and almost muttering accent; they seemed as if the expression of a
+thought delivered involuntarily&mdash;almost unconsciously.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary was attracted by the unwonted solemnity of her accent, but still more
+by an expression of intense meaning which gathered over the old woman's
+brows and forehead. &ldquo;Ay, ay,&rdquo; muttered she, still to herself, &ldquo;there's few
+brothers would do it. Maybe there's not another living but himself would
+have done it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what was it, Catty?&rdquo; asked Mary, boldly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh!&mdash;what was I saying, darling?&rdquo; said Catty, rousing herself to
+full consciousness.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You were telling of my father, and some great proof of affection he gave
+my uncle.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure he did,&rdquo; said the old woman, hastily. &ldquo;They were always fond
+of each other, as brothers ought to be.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But this one particular instance of love,&mdash;what was it, Catty?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The old woman started, and looked eagerly around the room, as though to
+assure herself that they were alone; then, drawing her chair close to
+Mary's, she said, in a low voice: &ldquo;Don't ask me any more about them
+things, darling. 'T is past and gone many a year now, and I 'd rather
+never think of it more, for I 've a heavy heart after it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So, then, it is a secret, Catty?&rdquo; said Mary, half proudly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A secret, indeed,&rdquo; said Catty, shaking her head mournfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you need only to have said so, and I'd not have importuned you to
+tell it; for, to say truth, Catty, I never knew you had any secrets from
+me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor have I another, except this, darling,&rdquo; said Catty; and she buried her
+face within her hands. And now both sat in silence for some minutes,&mdash;a
+most painful silence to each. At last Mary arose, and, although evidently
+trying to overcome it, a feeling of constraint was marked in her features.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You'd never guess how late it is, Catty,&rdquo; said she, trying to change the
+current of her thoughts. &ldquo;You 'd not believe it is past three o'clock; how
+pleasantly we must have talked, to forget time in this way!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+But the old woman made no reply, and it was clear that she had never heard
+the words, so deeply was she sunk in her own reflections.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This poor hat of mine will scarcely do another day's service,&rdquo; said Mary,
+as she looked at it half laughingly. &ldquo;Nor is my habit the fresher of its
+bath in the 'Red River;' and the worst of it is, Catty, I have overdrawn
+my quarter's allowance, and must live on, in rags, till Easter. I see, old
+lady, you have no sympathies to waste on me and my calamities this
+evening,&rdquo; added she, gayly, &ldquo;and so I'll just go to bed and, if I can,
+dream pleasantly.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rags, indeed,&rdquo; said Catty. &ldquo;It's well it becomes you to wear rags!&rdquo; and
+her eyes sparkled with indignant passion. &ldquo;Faith, if it comes to that,&rdquo;&mdash;here
+she suddenly paused, and a pale hue spread over her features like a qualm
+of faintish sickness,&mdash;&ldquo;may the Holy Mother give me help and advice;
+for sometimes I'm nigh forgetting myself!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear old Catty,&rdquo; said Mary, fondly, &ldquo;don't fret about me and my
+foolish speech. I only said it in jest. I have everything,&mdash;far more
+than I want; a thousand times more than I desire. And my excellent aunt
+never said a truer thing in her life than when she declared that
+'everybody spoiled me.' Now, good-night.&rdquo; And kissing the old woman
+affectionately, Mary gathered up the stray fragments of her riding-gear,
+and hurried away, her merry voice heard cheerfully as she wended her way
+up many a stair and gallery to her own chamber.
+</p>
+<p>
+If Mary Martin's character had any one quality preeminently remarkable, it
+was the absence of everything like distrust and suspicion. Frankness and
+candor itself in all her dealings, she never condescended to impute secret
+motives to another; and the very thought of anything like mystery was
+absolutely repugant to her nature. For the very first time in her life,
+then, she left old Catty Broon with a kind of uneasy, dissatisfied
+impression. There was a secret, and she was somehow or other concerned in
+it; so much was clear. How could she convince the old woman that no
+revelation, however disagreeable in itself, could be as torturing as a
+doubt? &ldquo;Can there be anything in my position or circumstances here that I
+am not aware of? Is there a mystery about me in any way?&rdquo; The very
+imagination of such a thing was agony. In vain she tried to chase away the
+unwelcome thought by singing, as she went, by thinking over plans for the
+morrow, by noting down, as she did each night, some stray records of the
+past day; still Catty's agitated face and strange emotion rose before her,
+and would not suffer her to be at rest.
+</p>
+<p>
+To a day of great excitement and fatigue now succeeded a sleepless,
+feverish night, and morning broke on her unrefreshed, and even ill.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XIV. A FINE OLD IRISH BARRISTER
+</h2>
+<p>
+Can any one tell us what has become of that high conversational power for
+which Ireland, but more especially Dublin, was once celebrated? Have the
+brilliant talkers of other days left no successors? Has that race of
+delightful con-vivialists gone and disappeared forever? Or are we only
+enduring an interregnum of dulness, the fit repose, perhaps, after a
+period of such excitement? The altered circumstances of the country will
+doubtless account for much of this change. The presence of a Parliament in
+Ireland imparted a dignity and importance to society, while it secured to
+social intercourse the men who made that Senate illustrious. The Bar, too,
+of former days, was essentially the career of the highest class, of those
+who had the ambition of political success without the necessity of toiling
+for it through the laborious paths of the law; and thus the wit, the
+brilliancy, and the readiness which gives conversation its charm, obtained
+the high culture which comes of a learned profession, and the social
+intercourse with men of refined understanding.
+</p>
+<p>
+With the Union this spirit died out. Some of the brightest and gayest
+retired from the world, sad, dispirited, and depressed; some felt that a
+new and very different career was to open before them, and addressed
+themselves to the task of conforming to new habits and acquiring new
+influences; and others, again, sought in the richer and greater country
+the rewards which they once were satisfied to reap in their own. With the
+Union, society in Dublin&mdash;using the word in its really comprehensive
+sense&mdash;ceased to exist. The great interests of a nation departed, men
+sank to the level of the small topics that engaged them, and gradually the
+smallest and narrowest views of mere local matters usurped the place of
+great events and liberal speculations. Towards the end of the first
+quarter of the present century, a few of those who had once made
+companionship with Curran and Grattan and Lysaght and Parsons were still
+in good health and vigor. A fine, high-hearted, manly class they were,
+full of that peculiar generosity of character which has ever marked the
+true Irish gentleman, and with a readiness in humor and a genial flow of
+pleasantry which rendered their society delightful.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of this school&mdash;and probably the last, for he was then the Father of
+the Bar&mdash;was Valentine Repton, a man whose abilities might have won
+for him the very highest distinctions, but who, partly through indolence,
+and partly through a sturdy desire to be independent of all party, had all
+his life rejected every offer of advancement, and had seen his juniors
+pass on to the highest ranks of the profession, while he still wore his
+stuff-gown, and rose to address the Court from the outer benches.
+</p>
+<p>
+He was reported in early life to have professed very democratic opinions,
+for which he more than once had incurred the <i>deep</i> displeasure of
+the authorities of the University. The principles of the French Revolution
+had, however, been gradually toned down in him by time, and probably by a
+very aristocratic contempt for the party who advocated them; so that soon
+after he entered on his career at the Bar he seemed to have abandoned
+politics; nor, except by a sly jest or an epigram upon a party leader, no
+matter of which side, did he ever advert to the contests of statecraft.
+</p>
+<p>
+Though closely approaching seventy, he was hale and vigorous, his gray
+eyes quick and full of fire, his voice clear, and his whole air and
+bearing that of one many years younger. He had been a &ldquo;beau&rdquo; in his youth,
+and there was in the accurately powdered hair, the lace ruffles in which
+he still appeared at dinner, and the well-fitting silk stocking, an
+evidence that he had not forgotten the attractions of dress. At the Bar he
+still maintained the very highest place. His powers of cross-examination
+were very great; his management of a jury unrivalled. A lifelong
+acquaintance with Dublin had familiarized him with the tone and temper of
+every class of its citizens, and had taught him the precise kind of
+argument, and the exact nature of the appeal to address to each. As he
+grew older, perhaps he did not observe all his wonted discretion in the
+use of this subtle power, and somewhat presumed upon his own skill. Nor
+was he so scrupulous in his deference to the Court,&mdash;a feature which
+had once pre-eminently distinguished him; but, upon the whole, he had kept
+wonderfully clear of the proverbial irritability of age, and was, without
+an exception, the favorite amongst his brethren.
+</p>
+<p>
+The only touch of years observable about his mind was a fondness for
+recurring to incidents or events in which he himself had borne a part. A
+case in which he held a brief, the dinner at which he had been brilliant,
+the epigram he had dashed off in Lady Somebody's drawing-room, were bright
+spots he could not refrain from adverting to; but, generally speaking, he
+had skill enough to introduce these without any seeming effort or any
+straining, and thus strangers, at least, were in wonderment at his endless
+stores of anecdote and illustration. No man better than he knew how to
+throw a great name into the course of a conversation, and make an audience
+for himself, by saying, &ldquo;I remember one day at the Priory with Curran&rdquo;&mdash;or,
+&ldquo;We were dining with poor Grattan at Tinnehinch, when&mdash;&rdquo; &ldquo;As Flood
+once remarked to me&mdash;&rdquo; and so on.
+</p>
+<p>
+The flattery of being addressed by one who had stood in such intimate
+relation to those illustrious men never failed of success. The most
+thoughtless and giddy hearers were at once arrested by such an opening,
+and Repton was sure of listeners in every company.
+</p>
+<p>
+The man who finds his place in every society is unquestionably a clever
+man. The aptitude to chime in with the tone of others infers a high order
+of humor,&mdash;of humor in its real sense; meaning, thereby, the faculty
+of appreciating, and even cultivating, the individual peculiarities of
+those around him, and deriving from their display a high order of
+pleasure.
+</p>
+<p>
+From these scattered traits let my reader conjure up Valentine Repton
+before him, and imagine the bustling, active, and brisk-looking old
+gentleman whose fidgetiness nearly drove Martin mad, as they held converse
+together in the library after breakfast. Now seated, now rising to pace
+the room, or drawing nigh the window to curse the pelting rain without,
+Repton seemed the incarnation of uneasiness.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very splendid&mdash;very grand&mdash;very sumptuous&mdash;no doubt,&rdquo; said
+he, ranging his eyes over the gorgeous decorations of the spacious
+apartment, &ldquo;but would kill me in a month; what am I saying?&mdash;in a
+week!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What would kill you, Repton?&rdquo; said Martin, languidly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This life of yours, Martin,&mdash;this sombre quiet, this unbroken
+stillness, this grave-like monotony. Why, man, where 's your neighborhood?
+where are your gentry friends?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cosby Blake, of Swainestown, is abroad,&rdquo; said Martin, with an indolent
+drawl. &ldquo;Randal Burke seldom comes down here now. Rickman, I believe, is in
+the Fleet. They were the nearest to us!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a country! and you are spending&mdash;What did you tell me last
+night,&mdash;was it upwards of ten thousand a year here?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What with planting, draining, bridging, reclaiming waste lands, and other
+improvements, the wages of last year alone exceeded seven thousand!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove! it 's nigh incredible,&rdquo; said the lawyer, energetically. &ldquo;My dear
+Martin, can't you perceive that all this is sheer waste,&mdash;so much
+good money actually thrown into Lough Corrib? Tell me, frankly, how long
+have you been pursuing this system of improvement?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;About three years; under Mary's management.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the results,&mdash;what of them?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is too early to speak of that; there's Kyle's Wood, for instance,&mdash;we
+have enclosed that at considerable cost. Of course we can't expect that
+the mere thinnings can repay us, the first year or two.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And your reclaimed land,&mdash;how has <i>it</i> prospered?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not over well. They pushed draining so far that they 've left a large
+tract perfectly barren and unproductive.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the harbor,&mdash;the pier I saw yesterday?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That 's a bad business,&mdash;it's filling up the bay with sand! but
+we'll alter it in summer.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now for the people themselves,&mdash;are they better off, better fed,
+clothed, housed, and looked after, than before?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mary says so. She tells me that there is a wonderful change for the
+better in them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't believe a word of it, Martin,&mdash;not a word of it. Ireland is
+not to be redeemed by her own gentry. The thing is sheer impossibility!
+They both know each other too well. Do you understand me? They are too
+ready to make allowances for shortcomings that have their source in some
+national prejudice; whereas your Saxon or your Scotchman would scout such
+a plea at once. Ireland wants an alternative, Martin,&mdash;an
+alternative; and, amidst our other anomalies, not the least singular is
+the fact that the Englishman, who knows nothing about us, nor ever will
+know anything, is precisely the man to better our condition.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;These are strange opinions to hear from your lips, Repton. I never heard
+any man so sarcastic as yourself on English ignorance regarding Ireland.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you may hear me again on the same theme whenever you vouchsafe me an
+audience,&rdquo; said the lawyer, sharply. &ldquo;It was but the other day I gave our
+newly arrived secretary, Mr. Muspratt, a gentle intimation of my
+sentiments on that score. We were dining at the Lodge. I sat next his
+Excellency, who, in the course of dinner, directed my attention to a very
+graphic picture the secretary was drawing of the misery he had witnessed
+that very day, coming up from Carlow. He did the thing well, I must own.
+He gave the famished looks, the rags, the wretchedness, all their due; and
+he mingled his pathos and indignation with all the skill of an artist;
+while he actually imparted a Raffaelle effect to his sketch, as he
+portrayed the halt, the maimed, the blind, and the palsied that crowded
+around the carriage as he changed horses, exclaiming, by way of
+peroration, 'Misery and destitution like this no man ever witnessed
+before, all real and unfeigned as it was sure to be.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Naas is a miserable place, indeed,' said I, for he looked directly
+towards me for a confirmation of his narrative.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'There is no denying one word the gentleman has said; I came up that way
+from circuit three weeks ago, and was beset in the same spot, and in the
+same manner as we have just heard. I can't attempt such a description as
+Mr. Muspratt has given us; but I will say that there was not a human
+deformity or defect that did n't appear to have its representative in that
+ragged gathering, all clamorous and eager for aid. I looked at them for a
+while in wonderment, and at last I threw out a &ldquo;tenpenny&rdquo; in the midst.
+The &ldquo;blind&rdquo; fellow saw it first, but the &ldquo;lame cripple&rdquo; had the foot of
+him, and got the money!'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Repton leaned back in his chair, and laughed heartily as he finished. &ldquo;I
+only wish you saw his face, Martin; and, indeed, his Excellency's too. The
+aides-de-camp laughed; they were very young, and could n't help it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He 'll not make you a chief justice, Repton,&rdquo; said Martin, slyly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll take care he don't,&rdquo; said the other. &ldquo;<i>Summum jus summa injuria</i>.
+The chief justice is a great humbug, or a great abuse, whichever way you
+like to render it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet they'd be glad to promote you,&rdquo; said Martin, thoughtfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure they would, sir; delighted to place me where they had no fear
+of my indiscretions. But your judge should be ever a grave animal. The
+temptation to a joke should never sit on the ermine. As Flood once
+remarked to me of old Romney, 'A man, sir,' said he,&mdash;and Flood had a
+semi-sarcastic solemnity always about him,&mdash;'a man, sir, who has
+reversed the law of physics; for he rose by his gravity, and only fell by
+his lightness.' Very epigrammatic and sharp, that. Ah, Martin, they don't
+say these things nowadays. By the way, who is the young fellow who dined
+with us yesterday?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;His name is Nelligan; the son of one of our Oughterard neighbors.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pleasing manners, gentle, too, and observant,&rdquo; said Repton, with the tone
+of one delivering a judgment to be recorded.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He's more than that,&rdquo; said Martin; &ldquo;he is the great prize man of the year
+in Trinity. You must have surely heard of his name up in town.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think somebody did speak of him to me,&mdash;recommend him, in some
+shape or other,&rdquo; said Repton, abstractedly; &ldquo;these things are so easily
+forgotten; for, to say the truth, I hold very cheaply all intellectual
+efforts accomplished by great preparation. The cramming, the grinding, the
+plodding, the artificial memory work, and the rest of it, detract
+terribly, in my estimation, from the glory of success. Give me your man of
+impromptu readiness, never unprepared, never at a loss. The very
+consciousness of power is double power.&rdquo; And as he spoke he drew himself
+up, threw his head back, and stared steadfastly at Martin, as though to
+say, &ldquo;Such is he who now stands before you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin was amused at the display of vanity, and had there been another
+there to have participated in the enjoyment, would have willingly
+encouraged him to continue the theme; but he was alone, and let it pass.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll make a note of that young man. Mulligan, is n't it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nelligan.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure. I 'll remember poor Curran's epigram:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+'Oh, pity poor Tom Nelligan!
+Who walking down Pall Mall,
+He slipt his foot,
+And down he fell,
+And fears he won't get well again.'
+</pre>
+<p>
+Glorious fellow, sir; the greatest of all the convivialists of his time,
+was Curran. A host in himself; but, as he once said, you could n't always
+depend on the 'elevation.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin smiled faintly; he relished the lawyer's talk, but he felt that it
+demanded an amount of attention on his part that wearied him. Anything
+that cost him trouble was more or less of a &ldquo;bore;&rdquo; and he already began
+to wish for his accustomed ease and indolence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Repton,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you wished to see the quarries, I think?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To see everything and everybody, sir, and with my own eyes, too. As
+Lysaght said, when I read the book of nature, 'I let no man note my brief
+for me.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought of being your companion, myself; but somehow, this morning, my
+old enemy, the gout, is busy again; however, you 'll not regret the
+exchange, Repton, when I give you in charge to my niece. She 'll be but
+too happy to do the honors of our poor country to so distinguished a
+visitor.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And a very artful plan to put me in good humor with everything,&rdquo; said
+Repton, laughing. &ldquo;Well, I consent. I offer myself a willing victim to any
+amount of seduction. How are we to go?&mdash;do we drive, walk, or ride?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If Mary be consulted, she'll say ride,&rdquo; said Martin; &ldquo;but perhaps&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm for the saddle, too,&rdquo; broke in Repton. &ldquo;Give me something active and
+lively, light of mouth and well up before, and I'll show you, as Tom
+Parsons said, that we can cut as good a figure at the wall as the 'bar.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll go and consult my niece, then,&rdquo; said Martin, hastening out of the
+room, to conceal the smile which the old man's vanity had just provoked.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary was dressed in her riding-habit, and about to leave her room as her
+uncle entered it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have just come in the nick of time, Molly, I see,&rdquo; cried he. &ldquo;I want
+you to lionize an old friend of mine, who has the ambition to 'do'
+Connemara under your guidance.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a provoke!&rdquo; said Mary, half aloud. &ldquo;Could he not wait for another
+day, uncle? I have to go over to Glencalgher and Kilduff; besides, there's
+that bridge to be looked after, and they 've just come to tell me that the
+floods have carried away the strong paling around the larch copse. Really,
+this old gentleman must wait.&rdquo; It was a rare thing for Mary Martin to
+display anything either of impatience or opposition to her uncle. Her
+affection for him was so blended with respect that she scarcely ever
+transgressed in this wise; but this morning she was ill and irritable,&mdash;a
+restless, feverish night following on a day of great fatigue and as great
+excitement,&mdash;and she was still suffering, and her nerves jarring when
+he met her.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I assure you, Molly, you 'll be pleased with the companionship,&rdquo;
+ began Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So I might at another time; but I 'm out of sorts to-day, uncle. I 'm
+cross and ill-tempered, and I 'll have it out on Mr. Henderson,&mdash;that
+precious specimen of his class. Let Mr. Nelligan perform cicerone, or
+persuade my Lady to drive him out; do anything you like with him, except
+give him to me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet that is exactly what I have promised him. As for Nelligan, they
+are not suited to each other; so come, be a good girl, and comply.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I must,&rdquo; said she, pettishly. &ldquo;And how are we to go?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He proposes to ride, and bespeaks something lively for his own mount.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed! That sounds well!&rdquo; cried she, with more animation. &ldquo;There 's
+'Cropper' in great heart; he 'll carry him to perfection. I 'll have a
+ring-snaffle put on him, and my word for it but he 'll have a pleasant
+ride.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take care, Molly; take care that he's not too fresh. Remember that Repton
+is some dozen years or more my senior.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let him keep him off the grass and he 'll go like a lamb. I'll not answer
+for him on the sward, though; but I 'll look to him, uncle, and bring him
+back safe and sound.&rdquo; And, so saying, Mary bounded away down the stairs,
+and away to the stables, forgetting everything of her late discontent, and
+only eager on the plan before her.
+</p>
+<p>
+Martin was very far from satisfied about the arrangement for his friend's
+equitation; nor did the aspect of Repton himself, as attired for the road,
+allay that sense of alarm; the old lawyer's costume being a correct copy
+of the colored prints of those worthies who figured in the early years of
+George the Third's reign,&mdash;a gray cloth spencer being drawn over his
+coat, fur-collared and cuffed, high riding-boots of black polished
+leather, reaching above the knee, and large gauntlets of bright yellow
+doeskin, completing an equipment which Martin had seen nothing resembling
+for forty years back.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A perfect cavalier, Repton!&rdquo; exclaimed he, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We once could do a little that way,&rdquo; said the other, with a touch of
+vanity. &ldquo;In our early days, Martin, hunting was essentially a gentleman's
+pastime. The meet was not disfigured by aspiring linen drapers or
+ambitious hardwaremen, and the tone of the field was the tone of society;
+but <i>nous avons changé tout cela</i>. Sporting men, as they call
+themselves, have descended to the groom vocabulary; and the groom morals,
+and we, of the old school, should only be laughed at for the pedantry of
+good manners and good English, did we venture amongst them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My niece will put a different estimate on your companionship; and here
+she comes. Molly, my old and valued friend, Mr. Repton.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I kiss your hand, Miss Martin,&rdquo; said he, accompanying the speech by the
+act, with all the grace of a courtier. &ldquo;It's worth while being an old
+fellow, to be able to claim these antiquated privileges.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+There was something in the jaunty air and well-assumed gallantry of the
+old lawyer which at once pleased Mary, who accepted his courtesy with a
+gracious smile. She had been picturing to herself a very different kind of
+companion, and was well satisfied with the reality.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I proposed to young Mr. Nelligan to join us,&rdquo; said Repton, as he
+conducted her to the door; &ldquo;but it seems he is too deeply intent upon some
+question or point of law or history&mdash;I forget which&mdash;whereupon
+we differed last night, and has gone into the library to search for the
+solution of it. As for me, Miss Martin, I am too young for such dry
+labors; or, as the Duc de Nevers said, when somebody rebuked him for
+dancing at seventy, 'Only think what a short time is left me for folly.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+We do not propose to chronicle, the subjects or the sayings by which the
+old lawyer beguiled the way; enough if we say that Mary was actually
+delighted with his companionship. The racy admixture of humor and strong
+common-sense, acute views of life, flavored with, now a witty remark, now
+a pertinent anecdote, were conversational powers totally new to her. Nor
+was he less charmed with her. Independently of all the pleasure it gave
+him to find one who heard him with such true enjoyment, and relished all
+his varied powers of amusing, he was equally struck with the high-spirited
+enthusiasm and generous ardor of the young girl. She spoke of the people
+and the country with all the devotion of one who loved both; and if at
+times with more of hopefulness than he himself could feel, the sanguine
+forecast but lent another charm to her fascination.
+</p>
+<p>
+He listened with astonishment as she explained to him the different works
+then in progress,&mdash;the vast plans for drainage; the great enclosures
+for planting; the roads projected here, the bridges there. At one place
+were strings of carts, conveying limestone for admixture with the colder
+soil of low grounds; at another they met asses loaded with seaweed for the
+potato land. There was movement and occupation on every side. In the deep
+valleys, on the mountains, in the clefts of the rocky shore, in the dark
+marble quarries, hundreds of people were employed; and by these was Mary
+welcomed with eager enthusiasm the moment she appeared. One glance at
+their delighted features was sufficient to show that theirs was no
+counterfeit joy. Wherever she went the same reception awaited her; nor did
+she try to conceal the happiness it conferred.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is very wonderful, very strange, and very fascinating, Miss Martin,&rdquo;
+ said Repton, as they moved slowly through a rocky path, escarped from the
+side of the mountain; &ldquo;but pardon me if I venture to suggest one gloomy
+anticipation in the midst of such brightness. What is to become of all
+these people when <i>you</i> leave them,&mdash;as leave them you will and
+must, one day?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never mean to do so,&rdquo; said Mary, resolutely.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stoutly spoken,&rdquo; said he, smiling; &ldquo;but, unfortunately, he who hears it
+could be your grandfather. And again I ask, how is this good despotism to
+be carried on when the despot abdicates? Nay, nay; there never was a very
+beautiful girl yet, with every charm under heaven, who did n't swear she
+'d never marry; so let us take another alternative. Your uncle may go to
+live in London,&mdash;abroad. He may sell Cro' Martin&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, that is impossible! He loves the old home of his family and his name
+too dearly; he would be incapable of such a treason to his house!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, remember, my dear young lady, you are speaking to the most
+suspectful, unimpulsive, and ungenerously disposed of all natures, an old
+lawyer, who has witnessed so many events in life he would have once
+pronounced impossible,&mdash;ay, just as roundly as you said the word
+yourself,&mdash;and seen people and things under aspects so totally the
+reverse of what he first knew them, that he has taught himself to believe
+that change is the law, and not permanence, in this life, and that you and
+I, and all of us, ought ever to look forward to anything, everything, but
+the condition in which at present we find ourselves. Now, I don't want to
+discourage you with the noble career you have opened for yourself here. I
+am far more likely to be fascinated&mdash;I was going to say fall in love&mdash;with
+you for it, than to try and turn your thoughts elsewhere; but as to these
+people themselves, the experiment comes too late.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it ever too late to repair a wrong, to assist destitution, relieve
+misery, and console misfortune?&rdquo; broke in Mary, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is too late to try the feudal system in the year of our Lord 1829,
+Miss Martin. We live in an age where everything is to be redressed by a
+Parliament. The old social compact between proprietor and peasant is
+repealed, and all must be done by 'the House.' Now, if your grandfather
+had pursued the path that you are doing to-day, this crisis might never
+have arrived; but he did not, young lady. He lived like a real gentleman;
+he hunted, and drank, and feasted, and rack-rented, and horsewhipped all
+around him; and what with duelling of a morning and drinking over-night,
+taught the people a code of morals that has assumed all the compactness of
+a system. Ay, I say it with grief, this is a land corrupted from the top,
+and every vice of its gentry has but filtered down to its populace! What
+was that I heard?&mdash;was it not a shot?&rdquo; cried he, reining in his horse
+to listen.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought so, too; but it might be a blast, for we are not far from the
+quarries.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And do you preserve the game, Miss Martin? are you sworn foe to the
+poacher?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do so; but in reality more for the sake of the people than the
+partridges. Your lounging country fellow, with a rusty gun and a starved
+lurcher, is but an embryo highwayman.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So he is,&rdquo; cried Repton, delighted at the energy with which she spoke;
+&ldquo;and I have always thought that the worst thing about the game-laws was
+the class of fellows we educate to break them. Poor old Cranbury was n't
+of that opinion, though. You could never have seen him, Miss Martin; but
+he was a fine specimen of the Irish Bench in the old time. He was the
+readiest pistol in the Irish house; and, as they said then, he 'shot up'
+into preferment. He always deemed an infraction of the game-laws as one of
+the gravest crimes in the statute. Juries, however, did n't concur with
+him; and, knowing the severity of the penalty, they invariably brought in
+a verdict of Not Guilty, rather than subject a poor wretch to
+transportation for a jack-snipe. I remember once,&mdash;it was at
+Maryborough; the fellow in the dock was a notable poacher, and, worse
+still, the scene of his exploits was Cranbury's own estate. As usual, the
+jury listened apathetically to the evidence; they cared little for the
+case, and had predetermined the verdict. It was, however, so palpably
+proven, so self-evident that he was guilty, that they clubbed their heads
+together to concert a pretext for their decision. Cranbury saw the
+movement, and appreciated it, and, leaning his head down upon his hand,
+mumbled out, as if talking to himself, in broken sentences, 'A poor man&mdash;with
+a large family&mdash;great temptation&mdash;and, after all, a slight
+offence,&mdash;a very slight offence.' The jury listened and took courage;
+they fancied some scruples were at work in the old judge's heart, and that
+they might venture on the truth, innocuously. 'Guilty, my Lord,' said the
+foreman. 'Transportation for seven years!' cried the judge, with a look at
+the jury-box that there was no mistaking. They were 'done,' but there
+never was another conviction in that town afterwards.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And were such things possible on the justice-seat?&rdquo; exclaimed Mary, in
+horror.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, my dear young lady, I could tell you of far worse than that. There
+was a time in this country when the indictment against the prisoner was
+Secondary in importance to his general character, his party, his
+connections, and fifty other things which had no bearing upon criminality.
+There goes another shot! I 'll swear to that,&rdquo; cried he, pulling up short,
+and looking in the direction from which the report proceeded.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary turned at the same moment, and pointed with her whip towards a beech
+wood that skirted the foot of the mountain.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was it from that quarter the sound came?&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+<p>
+The sharp crack of a fowling-piece, quickly followed by a second report,
+now decided the question; and, as if by mutual consent, they both wheeled
+their horses round, and set off at a brisk canter towards the wood.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have taken especial pains about preserving this part of the estate,&rdquo;
+ said Mary, as they rode along. &ldquo;It was my cousin Harry's favorite cover
+when he was last at home, and he left I can't say how many directions
+about it when quitting us; though, to say truth, I never deemed any
+precautions necessary till he spoke of it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So that poaching was unknown down here?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Almost completely so; now and then some idle fellow with a half-bred
+greyhound might run down a hare, or with a rusty firelock knock over a
+rabbit, but there it ended. And as we have no gentry neighbors to ask for
+leave, and the Oughterard folks would not venture on that liberty, I may
+safely say that the report of a gun is a rare event in these solitudes.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whoever he be, yonder, is not losing time,&rdquo; said Rep-ton; &ldquo;there was
+another shot.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Their pace had now become a smart half-gallop; Mary, a little in advance,
+leading the way, and pointing out the safe ground to her companion. As
+they drew nigh the wood, however, she slackened speed till he came up, and
+then said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;As I know everybody hereabouts, it will be enough if I only see the
+offender; and how to do that is the question.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am at your orders,&rdquo; said Repton, raising his whip to a salute.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It will be somewhat difficult,&rdquo; said Mary, pondering; &ldquo;the wood is so
+overgrown with low copse that one can't ride through it, except along
+certain alleys. Now we might canter there for hours and see nothing. I
+have it,&rdquo; cried she, suddenly; &ldquo;you shall enter the wood and ride slowly
+along the green alley, yonder, till you come to the crossroad, when you
+'ll turn off to the left; while I will remain in observation outside here,
+so that if our friend make his exit I am sure to overtake him. At all
+events, we shall meet again at the lower end of the road.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Repton made her repeat her directions, and then, touching his hat in
+respectful salutation, rode away to fulfil his mission. A low gate, merely
+fastened by a loop of iron without a padlock, admitted the lawyer within
+the precincts, in which he soon discovered that his pace must be a walk,
+so heavy was the deep clayey soil, littered with fallen leaves and rotting
+acorns. Great trees bent their massive limbs over his head, and, even
+leafless as they were, formed a darksome, gloomy aisle, the sides of which
+were closed in with the wild holly and the broom, and even the arbutus,
+all intermingled inextricably. There was something solemn even to sadness
+in the deep solitude, and so Repton seemed to feel as he rode slowly
+along, alone, tingeing his thoughts of her he had just quitted with
+melancholy.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a girl and what a life!&rdquo; said he, musingly. &ldquo;I must tell Martin that
+this will never do! What can all this devotion end in but disappointment!
+With the first gleam of their newly acquired power the people will reject
+these benefits; they will despise the slow-won fruits of industry as the
+gambler rejects a life of toil. Then will come a reaction&mdash;a terrible
+reaction&mdash;with all the semblance of black ingratitude! She will
+herself be disgusted. The breach once made will grow wider and wider, and
+at last the demagogue will take the place of the landed proprietor.
+Estrangement at first, next distrust, and finally dislike, will separate
+the gentry from the peasantry, and then&mdash;I tremble to think of what
+then!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+As Repton had uttered these words, the sharp bang of a gun startled him,
+and at the same instant a young fellow sprang from the copse in front of
+him into the alley. His coarse fustian shooting-jacket, low-crowned
+oil-skin hat, and leather gaiters seemed to bespeak the professional
+poacher, and Repton dashed forward with his heavy riding-whip upraised
+towards him.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0007" id="linkimage-0007">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/206.jpg" width="100%" alt="206 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take care, old gentleman,&rdquo; said the young man, facing about; &ldquo;my second
+barrel is loaded, and if you dare&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Heaven! I'll thrash you, you scoundrel!&rdquo; said Repton, whose passion
+was now boiling over by a sudden bound of the cob, which had nearly thrown
+him from the saddle,&mdash;a mischance greeted by a hearty burst of
+laughter from the stranger.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I fancy you have quite enough to do at this moment!&rdquo; cried he, still
+laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+Half mad with anger, Repton pressed his spurs to the cob's flanks, while
+he gave him a vigorous cut of the whip on the shoulder. The animal was
+little accustomed to such usage, and reared up wildly, and would
+inevitably have fallen back with his rider, had not the stranger,
+springing forward, seized the bridle, and pulled him down by main force.
+Whether indifferent to his own safety, or so blinded by passion as not to
+recognize to what he owed it, the old man struck the other a heavy blow
+with his whip over the head, cutting through his hat, and covering his
+face with blood.
+</p>
+<p>
+The young man passing his arm through the bridle, so as to render the
+other's escape impossible, coolly removed his hat and proceeded to stanch
+the bleeding with his handkerchief,&mdash;not the slightest sign of
+excitement being displayed by him, nor any evidence of feeling that the
+event was other than a more accident.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let loose my bridle-rein,&mdash;let it loose, sir,&rdquo; said Repton,
+passionately,&mdash;more passionately, perhaps, from observing the
+measured calmness of the other.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;When I know who you are, I shall,&rdquo; said the young man.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My name is Valentine Repton; my address, if you want it, is Merrion
+Square North, Dublin; and can you now tell me where a magistrate's warrant
+will reach <i>you?</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My present residence is a house you may have seen on the side of the
+mountain as you came along, called, I think, Barnagheela; my name is
+Massingbred.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You presume to be a gentleman, then?&rdquo; said Repton.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have not heard the matter disputed before,&rdquo; said Jack, with an easy
+smile, while he leisurely bound the handkerchief round his head.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And of course, you look for satisfaction for this?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I trust that there can be no mistake upon that point, at least,&rdquo; replied
+he.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you shall have it, too; though, hang me, if I well know whether you
+should not receive it at the next assizes,&mdash;but you shall have it. I
+'ll go into Oughterard this day; I 'll be there by nine o'clock, at the
+Martin Arms.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That will do,&rdquo; said Massingbred, with a coolness almost like
+indifference; while he resumed his gun, which he had thrown down, and
+proceeded to load the second barrel.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are aware that you are poaching here?&rdquo; said Repton,&mdash;&ldquo;that this
+is part of the Martin estate, and strictly preserved?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed! and I thought it belonged to Magennis,&rdquo; said Jack, easily; &ldquo;but a
+preserve without a gamekeeper, or even a notice, is a blockade without a
+blockading squadron.&rdquo; And without a word more, or any notice of the other,
+Massingbred shouldered his gun and walked away.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was some time before Repton could summon resolution to leave the spot,
+such was the conflict of thoughts that went on within him. Shame and
+sorrow were, indeed, uppermost in his mind, but still not unmingled with
+anger at the consummate ease and coolness of the other, who by this line
+of conduct seemed to assume a tone of superiority the most galling and
+insulting. In vain did he endeavor to justify his act to himself,&mdash;in
+vain seek to find a plausible pretext for his anger. He could not, by all
+his ingenuity, do so, and he only grew more passionate at his own failure.
+&ldquo;Another would hand him over to the next justice of the peace,&mdash;would
+leave him to quarter sessions; but not so Val Repton. No, by Jove, he 'll
+find a man to his humor there, if he wants fighting,&rdquo; said he, aloud, as
+he turned his horse about and rode slowly back.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was already dusk when he joined Miss Martin, who, uneasy at his
+prolonged absence, had entered the wood in search of him. It required all
+the practised dissimulation of the old lawyer to conceal the signs of his
+late adventure; nor, indeed, were his replies to her questions quite free
+from a certain amount of inconsistency. Mary, however, willingly changed
+the subject, and led him back to speak of topics more agreeable and
+congenial to him. Still he was not the same sprightly companion who had
+ridden beside her in the morning. He conversed with a degree of effort,
+and, when suffered, would relapse into long intervals of silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who inhabits that bleak-looking house yonder?&rdquo; said he, suddenly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A certain Mr. Magennis, a neighbor, but not an acquaintance, of ours.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how comes it that he lives in the very middle, as it were, of the
+estate?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;An old lease, obtained I can't say how many centuries back, and which
+will expire in a year or two. He has already applied for a renewal of it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And of course, unsuccessfully?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Up to this moment it is as you say, but I am endeavoring to persuade my
+uncle not to disturb him; nor would he, if Magennis would only be commonly
+prudent. You must know that this person is the leading Radical of our town
+of Oughterard, the man who sets himself most strenuously in opposition to
+our influence in the borough, and would uproot our power there, were he
+able.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So far, then, he is a courageous fellow.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sometimes I take that view of his conduct, and at others I am disposed to
+regard him as one not unwilling to make terms with us.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How subtle all these dealings can make a young lady!&rdquo; said Repton, slyly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say, rather, what a strain upon one's acuteness it is to ride out with a
+great lawyer, one so trained to see spots in the sun that he won't
+acknowledge its brightness if there be a speck to search for.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet it's a great mistake to suppose that we are always looking on the
+dark side of human nature,&rdquo; said he, reflectively; &ldquo;though,&rdquo; added he,
+after a pause, &ldquo;it's very often our business to exaggerate baseness, and
+make the worst of a bad man.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Even that may be more pardonable than to vilify a good one,&rdquo; said Mary.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So it is, young lady; you are quite right there.&rdquo; He was thoughtful for a
+while, and then said: &ldquo;It is very singular, but nevertheless true, that,
+in my profession, one loses sight of the individual, as such, and only
+regards him as a mere element of the case, plaintiff or defendant as he
+may be. I remember once, in a southern circuit, a hale, fine-looking young
+fellow entering my room to present me with a hare. He had walked twelve
+miles to offer it to me. 'Your honor doesn't remember me,' said he,
+sorrowfully, and evidently grieved at my forgetfulness. 'To be sure I do,'
+replied I, trying to recall his features; 'you are&mdash;let me see&mdash;you
+are&mdash;I have it&mdash;you are Jemmy Ryan.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'No, sir,' rejoined he, quickly, 'I'm the boy that murdered him.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, Miss Martin, there's a leaf out of a lawyer's notebook, and yet I
+could tell you more good traits of men and women, more of patient
+martyrdom under wrong, more courageous suffering to do right, than if I
+were&mdash;what shall I say?&mdash;a chaplain in a nobleman's family.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Repton's memory was well stored with instances in question, and he
+beguiled the way by relating several, till they reached Cro' Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And there is another yet,&rdquo; added he, at the close, &ldquo;more strongly
+illustrating what I have said than all these, but I cannot tell it to <i>you</i>.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why so?&rdquo; asked she, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a family secret, Miss Martin, and one that in all likelihood you
+shall never know. Still, I cannot refrain from saying that you have in
+your own family as noble a specimen of self-sacrifice and denial as I ever
+heard of.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+They were already at the door as he said this, and a troop of servants had
+assembled to receive them. Mary, therefore, had no time for further
+inquiry, had such an attempt been of any avail.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There goes the first dinner-bell, Miss Martin,&rdquo; said Repton, gayly. &ldquo;I'm
+resolved to be in the drawing-room before you!&rdquo; And with this he hopped
+briskly upstairs, while Mary hastened to her room to dress.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XV. &ldquo;A RUINED FORTUNE&rdquo;
+ </h2>
+<p>
+No stronger contrast could be presented than that offered by the house
+which called Mr. Magennis master, to all the splendor and elegance which
+distinguished Cro' Martin. Built on the side of a bleak, barren mountain,
+without a trace of cultivation,&mdash;not even a tree beside it,&mdash;the
+coarse stone walls, high pitched roof, and narrow windows seemed all
+devised in some spirit of derision towards its graceful neighbor. A low
+wall, coped with a formidable &ldquo;frieze&rdquo; of broken bottles and crockery,
+enclosed a space in front once destined for a garden, but left in its
+original state of shingle, intermixed with the remnants of building
+materials and scaffold planks. A long shed, abutting on the house,
+sheltered a cow and a horse; the latter standing with his head above a
+rickety half-door, and looking ruefully out at the dismal landscape
+beneath him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Most of the windows were broken,&mdash;and in some no attempt at repair
+had been made,&mdash;indicating that the rooms within were left unused.
+The hall-door stood ajar, but fastened by a strong iron chain; but the
+roof, more than all besides, bespoke decay and neglect, the rafters being
+in many places totally bare, while in others some rude attempts at tiling
+compensated for the want of the original slates. A strong colony of
+jackdaws had established themselves in one of the chimneys; but from
+another, in the centre of the building, a thick volume of dark-blue smoke
+rolled continually, conveying, indeed, the only sign of habitation about
+this dreary abode.
+</p>
+<p>
+The inside of the house was, if possible, more cheerless than the out.
+Most of the rooms had never been finished, and still remained in their
+coarse brown plaster, and unprovided with grates or chimney-pieces. The
+parlor, <i>par excellence</i>, was a long, low-ceilinged chamber, with
+yellow-ochre walls, dimly lighted by two narrow windows; its furniture, a
+piece of ragged carpet beneath a rickety table of black mahogany, some
+half-dozen crazy chairs, and a small sideboard, surmounted by something
+that might mean buffet or bookcase, and now served for both, being
+indifferently garnished with glasses, decanters, and thumbed volumes,
+intermingled with salt-cellars, empty sauce-bottles, and a powder-flask.
+</p>
+<p>
+An atrociously painted picture of an officer in scarlet uniform hung over
+the fireplace, surmounted by an infantry sword, suspended by a much-worn
+sash. These were the sole decorations of the room, to which even the great
+turf fire that blazed on the hearth could not impart a look of comfort.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was now a little after nightfall; the shutters were closed, and two
+attenuated tallow candles dimly illuminated this dreary chamber. A patched
+and much discolored tablecloth, with some coarse knives and forks, bespoke
+preparation for a meal, and some half-dozen plates stood warming before
+the fire. But the room had no occupant; and, except for the beating of the
+shutters against the sash, as the wind whistled through the broken window,
+all was silent within it. Now and then a loud noise would resound through
+the house; doors would bang, and rafters rattle, as the hall-door would be
+partially opened to permit the head of a woman to peer out and listen if
+any one were coming; but a heavy sigh at each attempt showed that hope was
+still deferred, and the weary footfall of her steps, as she retired,
+betrayed disappointment. It was after one of these excursions that she sat
+down beside the kitchen fire, screening her face from the blaze with her
+apron, and then, in the subdued light, it might be seen that, although
+bearing many traces of sorrow and suffering, she was still young and
+handsome. Large masses of the silkiest brown hair, escaping from her cap,
+fell in heavy masses on her neck; her eyes were large and blue, and shaded
+by the longest lashes; her mouth, a little large, perhaps, was still
+beautifully formed, and her teeth were of surpassing whiteness. The
+expression of the whole face was of gentle simplicity and love,&mdash;love
+in which timidity, however, deeply entered, and made the feeling one of
+acute suffering. In figure and dress she was exactly like any other
+peasant girl, a gaudy silk handkerchief on her neck being the only article
+of assumed luxury in her costume. She wore shoes, it is true,&mdash;not
+altogether the custom of country girls,&mdash;but they were heavy and
+coarsely made, and imparted to her walk a hobbling motion that detracted
+from her appearance.
+</p>
+<p>
+A large pot which hung suspended by a chain above the fire seemed to
+demand her especial care, and she more than once removed the wooden cover
+to inspect the contents; after which she invariably approached the window
+to listen, and then came back sorrowfully to her place, her lips muttering
+some low sounds inaudibly. Once she tried to hum a part of a song to try
+and beguile the time, but the effort was a failure, and, as her voice died
+away, two heavy tears stole slowly along her cheeks, and a deep sob burst
+from her; after which she threw her apron over her face, and buried her
+head in her lap. It was as she sat thus that a loud knocking shook the
+outer door, and the tones of a gruff voice rose even above the noise; but
+she heard neither. Again and again was the summons repeated, with the same
+result; and at last a handful of coarse gravel struck the kitchen window
+with a crash that effectually aroused her, and springing up in terror, she
+hastened to the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+In an instant she had unhooked the heavy chain, and sheltering the candle
+with her hand, admitted a large powerfully built man, who was scarcely
+within the hall when he said angrily, &ldquo;Where the devil were you, that you
+could n't hear me?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was in the kitchen, Tom,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't call <i>me</i> Tom, d&mdash;&mdash;n you,&rdquo; replied he, violently.
+&ldquo;Don't keep dinning into me the infernal fool that I've made of myself, or
+it will be worse for you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sure I never meant any harm by it; and it was your own self bid me do
+it,&rdquo; said she, meekly, as she assisted him to remove his dripping
+great-coat.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And don't I rue it well?&rdquo; rejoined he, through his half-closed teeth.
+&ldquo;Isn't it this confounded folly that has shut me out of the best houses in
+the county? My bitter curse on the day and the hour I first saw you!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, don't say them words,&mdash;don't, or you'll break my poor heart,&rdquo;
+ cried she, clinging to him as he strode angrily into the parlor.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be off with you,&mdash;be off to the kitchen, and leave me quiet,&rdquo; said
+he, rudely.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's your slippers, sir,&rdquo; said she, meekly, as, bending down, she
+untied his heavy shooting-shoes, and replaced them by a pair of list ones.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is the dinner ready?&rdquo; asked he, sternly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is, sir; but Massin'bred is n't come back.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And who the devil is Massingbred? Don't you think he might be Mister
+Massingbred out of <i>your</i> mouth?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I ax your pardon, sir, and his, too; but I didn't mean&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There, there,&mdash;away with you!&rdquo; cried he, impatiently. &ldquo;I 'm never in
+a bad humor that you don't make me worse.&rdquo; And he leaned his face between
+his hands over the fire, while she slipped noiselessly from the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maybe he thinks he's doing me honor by staying here,&rdquo; burst he forth,
+suddenly, as he sprang to his legs and stared angrily around him. &ldquo;Maybe
+he supposes that it's great condescension for him to put up with my humble
+house! Ay, and that it's <i>my</i> bounden duty to wait for <i>him</i> to
+any hour he pleases. If I thought he did,&mdash;if I was sure of it!&rdquo;
+ added he, with a deep guttural tone, while he struck his clenched fist
+violently against the chimney-piece. Then, seizing the large iron poker,
+he knocked loudly with it against the back of the fireplace,&mdash;a
+summons quickly answered by the appearance of the girl at the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did he come in since morning?&rdquo; asked he, abruptly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir, never,&rdquo; replied she, with a half courtesy.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor say what time he 'd be back?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not a word, sir.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, maybe, he's not coming back,&mdash;taken French leave, as they call
+it, eh, Joan?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The sound of her name, spoken, too, in an accent of more friendly meaning,
+lighted up her face at once, and her large eyes swam in tears of gratitude
+towards him as she stood there.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But he 'd scarcely dare to do that!&rdquo; said he, sternly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir,&rdquo; said she, echoing half unconsciously his opinion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what do <i>you</i> know about it?&rdquo; said he, turning savagely on her.
+&ldquo;Where were you born and bred, to say what any gentleman might do, at any
+time, or in anything? Is it Joan Landy, the herd's daughter, is going to
+play fine lady upon us! Faix, we 're come to a pretty pass now, in
+earnest! Be off with you! Away! Stop, what was that? Did n't you hear a
+shot?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did, sir,&mdash;quite near the house, too.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A sharp knocking now on the hall-door decided the question, and Magennis
+hastened to admit the arrival.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is a strange fact, and one of which we are satisfied merely to make
+mention, without attempting in the least to explain, but no sooner was
+Magennis in the presence of his young guest, than not only he seemed to
+forget all possible cause of irritation towards him, but to behave with a
+manner of, for him, the most courteous civility. He aided him to remove
+his shot-belt and his bag; took his hat from his hands, and carefully
+wiped it; placed a chair for him close to the fire; and then, as he turned
+to address him, remarked for the first time the blood-stained handkerchief
+which still bound his forehead.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you fall,&mdash;had you an accident?&rdquo; asked he, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said the other, laughing; &ldquo;a bit of an adventure only, which I 'll
+tell you after dinner.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was it any of the people? Had you a fight&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, Magennis, you must exercise a little patience. Not a word, not a
+syllable, till I have eaten something, for I am actually famishing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A stout knock of the poker on the chimney summoned the dinner, and almost
+in the same instant the woman entered with a smoking dish of Irish stew.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mrs. Joan, you're an angel,&rdquo; said Massingbred; &ldquo;if there was a dish I was
+longing for on this cold, raw day, it was one of your glorious messes.
+They seem made for the climate, and by Jove, the climate for them. I say,
+Mac, does it always rain in this fashion here?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; it sleets now and then, and sometimes blows.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should think it does,&rdquo; said Jack, seating himself at the table. &ldquo;The
+pleasant little slabs of marble one sees on the cabin-roofs to keep down
+the thatch are signs of your western zephyrs. Mrs. Joan has outdone
+herself today. This is first-rate.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's too strong a flavor of hare in it,&rdquo; said Magen-nis, critically.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's exactly its perfection; the wild savor lifts it out of the vulgar
+category of Irish stews, and assimilates it, but not too closely, to the
+ragout. I tell you, Mac, there's genius in the composition of that gravy.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The partial pedantry of this speech was more than compensated for by the
+racy enjoyment of the speaker, and Magennis was really gratified at the
+zest with which his young friend relished his meal.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It has one perfection, at least,&rdquo; said he, modestly,&mdash;&ldquo;it 's very
+unlike what you get at home.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We have a goodish sort of a cook,&rdquo; said Jack, languidly,&mdash;&ldquo;a fellow
+my father picked up after the Congress of Verona. Truffles and treaties
+seem to have some strong sympathetic attraction, and when diplomacy had
+finished its work, a <i>chef</i> was to be had cheap! The worst of the
+class is, they 'll only functionate for your grand dinners and they leave
+your every-day meal to some inferior in the department.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It was strange that Magennis could listen with interest always whenever
+Massingbred spoke of habits, people, and places with which he had never
+been conversant. It was not so much for the topics themselves he cared,&mdash;they
+were, in reality, valueless in his eyes,&mdash;it was some singular
+pleasure he felt in thinking that the man who could so discuss them was
+his own guest, seated at his own table, thus connecting himself by some
+invisible link with the great ones of this world!
+</p>
+<p>
+Massingbred's very name&mdash;the son of the celebrated Moore Massingbred&mdash;a
+Treasury Lord&mdash;Heaven knows what else besides&mdash;certainly a Right
+Honorable&mdash;was what first fascinated him in his young acquaintance,
+and induced him to invite him to his house. Jack would probably have
+declined the invitation, but it just came at the moment when he was deeply
+mortified at Nelligan's absence,&mdash;an absence which old Dan was
+totally unable to explain or account for. Indeed, he had forgotten that,
+in his note to his son, he had not mentioned Massingbred by name, and thus
+was he left to all the embarrassment of an apology without the slightest
+clew as to the nature of the excuse.
+</p>
+<p>
+No sooner, then, was it apparent to Massingbred that young Nelligan did
+not intend to return home, than he decided on taking his own departure. At
+first he determined on going back to Dublin; but suddenly a malicious
+thought sprung up of all, the mortification it might occasion Joe to learn
+that he was still in the neighborhood; and with the amiable anticipation
+of this vengeance, he at once accepted Magennis's offer to &ldquo;accompany him
+to his place in the mountains, and have some shooting.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It would not have been easy to find two men so essentially unlike in every
+respect as these two, who now sat discussing their punch after dinner. In
+birth, bringing-up, habits, instincts, they were widely dissimilar, and
+yet, somehow, they formed a sort of companionship palatable to each. Each
+had something to tell the other which he had either not heard before, or
+not heard in the same way. We have already adverted to the strong
+fascination Magen-nis experienced in dwelling on the rank and social
+position of his young guest. Massingbred experienced no less delight in
+the indulgence of his favorite pastime,&mdash;adventure hunting. Now, here
+was really something like adventure,&mdash;this wild, rude mountain home,
+this strange compound of gloom and passion, this poor simple country girl,
+more than servant, less than wife,&mdash;all separated from the remainder
+of the world by a gulf wider than mere space. These were all ingredients
+more than enough to suggest matter for imagination, and food for
+after-thought in many a day to come.
+</p>
+<p>
+They had thus passed part of a week in company, when the incident occurred
+of which our last chapter makes mention, and an account of which, now,
+Massingbred proceeded to give his host, neither exaggerating nor
+diminishing in the slightest particular any portion of the event. He even
+repressed his habitual tendency to sarcasm, and spoke of his antagonist
+seriously and respectfully. &ldquo;It was quite clear,&rdquo; said he, in conclusion,
+&ldquo;that he did n't know I was a gentleman, and consequently never
+anticipated the consequence of a blow.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And he struck you?&rdquo; broke in Magennis, violently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You shall see for yourself,&rdquo; said Jack, smiling, as, untying the
+handkerchief, he exhibited a deep cut on his forehead, from which the
+blood still continued to ooze.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let Joan doctor you; she's wonderful at a cut. She has something they
+call Beggarman's Balsam. I 'll fetch her.&rdquo; And without waiting for a reply
+he left the room. The young woman speedily after appeared with some lint
+and a small pot of ointment, proceeding to her office with all the quiet
+assiduity of a practised hand, and a gentleness that few &ldquo;regulars&rdquo; could
+vie with. Her skill was more than recompensed by the few muttered words of
+praise Magennis bestowed, as he grumbled out, half to himself: &ldquo;Old Cahill
+himself could n't do it better. I 'd back her for a bandage against the
+College of Surgeons. Ain't ye easier now?&mdash;to be sure you are. She 's
+good for <i>that</i> if she is for nothing else!&rdquo; And even this much of
+eulogy made her bosom heave proudly, and brought a flush of joy over her
+cheek that was ecstasy itself.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0008" id="linkimage-0008">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/218.jpg" width="100%" alt="218 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+The world is not deficient in acts of kindness, benevolence, and
+good-will. There is a large fountain of these running in ten thousand
+rills. But how many more might there not be,&mdash;how much of this wealth
+might there not be dispensed, and nobody living one jot the poorer! How
+many are there toiling away in obscurity and narrow fortune, to whom one
+single word of praise&mdash;one chance syllable of encouragement&mdash;would
+be life's blood! What sunken cheeks and lacklustre eyes would glow and
+gladden again by even a look of sympathy, withheld from no lack of
+kindliness, but mere want of thought! Oh ye who have station and fame,
+genius or greatness, bethink ye that these gifts are never higher than
+when they elevate the humble and cheer the lowly, and there is no
+physician like him who animates the drooping heart, and gives new vigor to
+wearied faculties and failing energy. Joan was made happy by the two or
+three words of grateful thanks Massingbred addressed to her, and stole
+quietly away, leaving the two companions once more alone.
+</p>
+<p>
+If there was any incident in life participation in which could convey
+intense gratification to Magennis, it was that sort of difference or
+misunderstanding that might lead to a duel. Whenever the affair offered no
+other alternative, his delight was unbounded. There were, it was rumored
+events in his own early life which would imply that the taste for mortal
+combat extended only to cases where his friends were concerned, and had no
+selfish application whatever. Of these we know nothing; nor, indeed, have
+we any information to convey regarding him, save by chance and stray words
+dropped by himself in the unguarded hours of after-dinner converse. There
+are, however, many who like the subordinate parts in this world's comedy,&mdash;who
+would rather be best man than bridegroom, and infinitely prefer performing
+second to principal.
+</p>
+<p>
+We are not, however, going into the inquiry as to the cause; enough when
+we repeat that this was Magennis's great passion, and these were the kind
+of events for whose conduct and management he believed himself to possess
+the most consummate tact and ability.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You 're in luck, Massingbred,&rdquo; cried he, as the other concluded his
+recital,&mdash;&ldquo;you're in luck, sir, to have for your friend one that,
+though I say it myself, has n't his equal for a case like this in the
+three kingdoms. It was I, sir, took out Cahill when he shot Major Harris,
+of the Fusiliers. I handled him that morning in a way that made the
+English officers confess there was no chance against us! A duel seems an
+easy thing to arrange. You 'd say that any fool could put up two men,
+twelve or even ten paces asunder, and tell them to blaze away; and if that
+was all there was in it, it would be simple enough. But consider for a
+minute the real case, and just remember how much the nature of the ground,
+whether level or uneven, has to do with it; what's behind,&mdash;if a
+wall, or trees, or only sky; the state of the light; how the sun stands;
+whether there 's wind, and what way it's coming. These are not all.
+There's the pistols,&mdash;how they <i>'throw,'</i> and with what charge;
+and then there 's the size of your man. Ay, Massingbred, and let me tell
+you, you now see before you the man that invented the 'invulnerable
+position.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove! that's a most valuable fact to me just now,&rdquo; said Jack, helping
+himself to a fresh tumbler. &ldquo;I 'm glad you have not been retained by the
+other side.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The 'invulnerable position'!&rdquo; continued Magennis, perfectly heedless of
+the other's remark; while, taking up the poker, he stalked out to the
+middle of the room, drawing himself up to his full height, and presenting,
+as though with a pistol,&mdash;&ldquo;Do you see what I mean?&rdquo; cried he.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can't say I do,&rdquo; said Jack, hesitatingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought not,&rdquo; rejoined the other, proudly; &ldquo;nobody ever did that was
+n't 'out' often. Pay attention now, and I 'll explain it. My head, you
+perceive, is carried far behind my right shoulder, so as to be completely
+protected by my pistol-hand and the pistol. I say the pistol, because it
+has been proved scientifically that the steadiest eye that ever fired
+never could aim at the antagonist's pistol. Morris Crofton practised it
+for eight years in his own garden; and though he did succeed, he told me
+that for practical purposes it was no use. Now we come to the neck, and
+you may observe the bend of my elbow. Ay, that little angle that nobody
+would remark masks the jugular arteries, and all the other vital nerves in
+that part. John Toler used to say that the head and neck was like the
+metropolis, and that a shot elsewhere was only like a 'row' in the
+provinces; and a very true and wise remark it was. Not that I neglect the
+trunk,&rdquo; added he, proudly; &ldquo;for you see how I stand,&mdash;three-quarters
+of the back towards the enemy so as not to expose the soft parts. As for
+the legs,&rdquo; cried he, contemptuously, &ldquo;let them crack at them as long as
+they like.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And that 's the 'invulnerable position,'&rdquo; said Massing-bred; with less
+enthusiasm, however, than the discovery might seem to warrant.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is, sir; and if it was n't for it there 's many a strapping fellow
+walking about this day-that would be lying with a marble counterpane over
+him. Billy Welsh, that fought Brian of Deanstown, was the first man I ever
+'put up' in it. Billy had a slight crick of the neck, and could n't get
+the head far enough round to the right, and the ball took him in the
+bridge of the nose, and carried that feature clean off, but never damaged
+him in any other respect whatever!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must say that the loss was quite sufficient for a man who had the
+benefit of the 'invulnerable position,'&rdquo; said Massingbred, quietly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He thinks nothing of it. A chap in the Crow Street Theatre made him a
+better nose than ever he had, out of wax, I believe; and he has a winter
+one, with a blush of red on it, to make believe it was cold; and they tell
+me you 'd never discover it was n't his own.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Magennis had now resumed his place at table, and seemed bent on making up
+for lost time by giving double measure of whiskey to his punch.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You say that he's to be in Oughterard to-night; well, with the blessing
+of the Virgin,&rdquo;&mdash;an invocation he invariably applied to every act of
+dubious morality,&mdash;&ldquo;we 'll be with him before he's out of bed
+to-morrow!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish he had not given me a blow,&rdquo; said Jack, musingly. &ldquo;He seemed such
+a stout-hearted, spirited old fellow, I'm really grieved to quarrel with
+him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm glad that there's nobody to hear them words but myself, Mr.
+Massingbred,&rdquo; said the other, with all the slowness and deliberation of
+incipient drunkenness; &ldquo;I'm rejoiced, sir, that it's in the confidential
+intercourse of friendly&mdash;friendly&mdash;communication&mdash;that the
+son of my old and valued friend&mdash;Moore Massingbred&mdash;used
+expressions like that.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Jack started with amazement at this speech; he had not the slightest
+suspicion till that moment that Magennis and his father had ever known
+each other, or even met. A very little patience, however, on his part
+served to solve the difficulty; for he discovered that one of the
+peculiarities of this stage of his friend's ebriety was to fancy himself
+the intimate and associate of any one whose name he had ever heard
+mentioned.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, sir, them's words your father would never have uttered. I was with
+him in his first blaze. 'Moore,' says I, 'have n't you a pair of black
+breeches?'&mdash;he wore a pair of web 'tights' of a light pattern&mdash;What
+are you laughing at, sir?&rdquo; cried he, sternly, and striking the table with
+his clenched knuckles, till the glasses all rang on it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was laughing at my father's costume,&rdquo; said Jack, who really told the
+truth; such a portrait of his parent's appearance being manifestly unlike
+anything he had ever imagined.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the worse manners yours, sir,&rdquo; rejoined Magennis, rudely. &ldquo;I' ll not
+suffer any man to laugh at an old friend&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;schoolfellow!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It was with the very greatest difficulty that Jack could restrain himself
+at this peroration, which indignation&mdash;the same, probably, that
+creates poets&mdash;had suggested. He had, however, tact enough to
+preserve his gravity, whilst he assured his companion that no unfilial
+sentiment had any share in his thoughts.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So far, so well,&rdquo; said Magennis, who now helped himself to the whiskey,
+unadulterated by any water; &ldquo;otherwise, sir, it's not Lieutenant Magennis,
+of the&mdash;9th Foot, would handle you on the ground to-morrow!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So, then, you've served, Mac? Why, you never broke that to me before!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Broke!&rdquo; cried the other, with a voice shrill from passion, while he made
+an effort to rise from his chair, and sunk back again,&mdash;&ldquo;broke; who
+dares to say I was broke? I left the scoundrels myself. I shook the dust
+off my feet after them. There never was a court-martial about it. Never&mdash;never!&rdquo;
+ To the deep crimson that suffused his face before, there now succeeded an
+almost death-like pallor, and Massingbred really felt terrified at the
+change. Some heart-rending recollection seemed suddenly to have cleared
+his brain, routing in an instant all the effects of intoxication, and
+restoring him to sobriety and sorrow together.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said he, in a low, broken voice, and still speaking to himself,
+&ldquo;that finished me! I never held my head up again! Who could, after such a
+business? I came here, Mr. Massingbred,&rdquo; continued he, but addressing his
+guest in a tone of deep respect,&mdash;&ldquo;I came back here a ruined man, and
+not eight-and-twenty! You see me now, a dirty, drunken sot, not better
+dressed nor better mannered than the commonest fellow on the road, and yet
+I'm a gentleman born and bred, well nurtured, and well educated. I took a
+college degree and went into the army.&rdquo; He paused, as if trying to gather
+courage to go on; the effort was more than he could accomplish, and, as
+the heavy tears stole slowly down his cheeks, the agony of the struggle
+might be detected. Half mechanically he seized the decanter of whiskey and
+poured the tumbler nearly full; but Jack good-humoredly stretched out his
+hand towards the glass, and said, &ldquo;Don't drink, Mac; there's no head could
+stand it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You think so, boy,&rdquo; cried he, with a saucy smile. &ldquo;Little you know the
+way we live in the West, here;&rdquo; and he tossed off the liquor before the
+other could stop him. The empty glass had scarcely been replaced on the
+table, when all the former signs of drunkenness had come back again, and
+in his bloodshot eyes and swollen veins might be seen the very type of
+passionate debauch.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not ask me to their houses!&rdquo; cried he, hoarse with passion. &ldquo;Who wants
+them? Not invite me! Did I ever seek them? The dirty, mean spalpeens,
+don't I know the history of every one of them? Could n't I expose them
+from one end of the county to the other? Who 's Blake of Harris-town? He
+'s the son of Lucky Magarry, the pedler. You don't believe me. I had it
+from Father Cole himself. Lucky was hanged at Ennis. 'Ye want a
+confession!' says Lucky, when he came out on the drop; 'ye want a
+confession! Well, I suppose there's no use in keeping anything back now,
+for ye 'll hang me at any rate, and so here it's for you. It was I
+murdered Mr. Shea, and there was nobody helping me at all. I did it all
+myself with a flail; and be the same token, it 's under Mark Bindon's
+tombstone this minute. There now, the jury may be azy in their minds, and
+the judge, and the hangman, too, if he cares about it. As for his honor
+the high sheriff,' said he, raising his voice, 'he 's a fine man, God
+bless him, and the county may be proud of him; for it was he ferreted out
+all about this business! And faix, notwithstanding all, I 'm proud of him
+myself, for he 's my own son!' And as he said that he dropped on his knees
+and cried out that he might never see glory if there was a word of lie in
+anything he said then! So that's what Blake got for his zeal for justice!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And as Magennis finished, he burst into a wild, fiendish laugh, and said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's the country gentry&mdash;there 's the people won't know Magennis
+and his wife!&mdash;ay, sir, his lawful, married wife! Let me see that you
+or any other man will deny it, or refuse to treat her as becomes her
+station.&mdash;Joan! Joan!&rdquo; shouted he, striking the poker violently
+against the chimney; and with hot haste and intense anxiety the poor girl
+rushed into the room the moment after. &ldquo;Sit down here, ma'am,&rdquo; said
+Magennis, rising, and placing a chair for her beside his own, with an
+affectation of courtesy that savored of mockery,&mdash;&ldquo;sit down, I say,&rdquo;
+ cried he, stamping his foot passionately. &ldquo;That's my wife, sir! No man
+that sits at <i>my</i> board shall behave to her as anything else.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have ever treated her with respect,&rdquo; said Massingbred, &ldquo;and shall
+always continue to do so.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And it's better for you to do so,&rdquo; said the other, fiercely, the bullying
+spirit rising on what he deemed the craven submission of his guest.
+</p>
+<p>
+Meanwhile the girl sat trembling with terror, not knowing what the scene
+portended, or how it was to end.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The herd's daughter, indeed! No, sir, Mrs. Magennis, of Barnagheela,
+that's her name and title!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+At these words the poor girl, overcome with joy and gratitude, fell down
+upon her knees before him, and, clasping his hand, covered it with kisses.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is n't that pretty breeding!&rdquo; cried Magennis, violently. &ldquo;Get up, ma'am,
+and sit on your chair like a lady. The devil a use in it, do what you
+will, say what you will,&mdash;the bad 'drop' is in them; and whatever
+becomes of you in life, Massingbred, let me give you this advice,&mdash;never
+marry beneath you!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Jack contrived at this juncture to signal to the girl to step away; and by
+appearing to attend with eagerness to Magennis, he prevented his remarking
+her exit.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A man 's never really ruined till then,&rdquo; continued he, slowly, and
+evidently sobering again as he went on. &ldquo;Friends fall away from you, and
+your companions are sure to be fellows with something against them! You
+begin by thinking you 're doing a grand and a courageous thing! You string
+up your resolution to despise the world, and, take my word for it, the
+world pays you off at last. Ay,&rdquo; said he, after a long pause, in which his
+features settled down into an expression of deep sorrow, and his voice
+quivered with emotion,&mdash;&ldquo;ay, and I 'll tell you something worse than
+all,&mdash;you revenge all your disappointment on the poor girl that
+trusted you! and you break <i>her</i> heart to try and heal your own!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+With these last words he buried his head between his hands and sobbed
+fearfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Leave me now,&mdash;leave me alone,&rdquo; said he, without lifting his head.
+&ldquo;Good-night&mdash;good-night to you!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Massingbred arose without a word, and, taking a candle, ascended to his
+chamber, his last thoughts about his host being very unlike those with
+which he had first regarded him. From these considerations he turned to
+others more immediately concerning himself; nor could he conquer his
+misgivings that Magennis was a most unhappy selection for a friend in such
+an emergency.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But then I really am without a choice,&rdquo; said he to himself. &ldquo;Joe
+Nelligan, perhaps, might&mdash;but no, he would have been infinitely more
+unfit than the other. At all events, Nelligan has himself severed the
+friendship that once existed between us.&rdquo; And so he wandered on to
+thoughts of his former companionship with him. Regretful and gloomy enough
+were they, as are all memories of those in whose hearts we once believed
+we had a share, and from which we cannot reconcile ourselves to the
+exclusion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He had not the manliness to meet me when I had become aware of his real
+station! What a poor-spirited fellow! Just as if I cared what or who his
+father was! <i>My</i> theory is, Jack Massingbred can afford to know any
+man he pleases! Witness the roof that now shelters me, and the character
+of him who is my host!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It was a philosophy he built much upon, for it was a form of self-love
+that simulated a good quality, many of his acquaintances saying, &ldquo;At all
+events, there 's no snobbery about Massingbred; he 'll know, and even be
+intimate with, anybody.&rdquo; Nor did the deception only extend to others. Jack
+himself fancied he was an excellent fellow,&mdash;frank, generous, and
+open-hearted.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is a very strange fact&mdash;and fact it certainly is&mdash;that the
+men who reason most upon their own natures, look inwardly at their own
+minds, and scrutinize most their own motives, are frequently the least
+natural of all mankind! This self-inquiry is such thorough self-deception
+that he who indulges in it often becomes an actor. As for Massingbred,
+there was nothing real about him save his egotism! Gifted with very good
+abilities, aided by a strong &ldquo;vitality,&rdquo; he had great versatility; but of
+all powers, this same plastic habit tends most to render a man artificial.
+</p>
+<p>
+Now, his present difficulty was by no means to his taste. He did not like
+his &ldquo;quarrel;&rdquo; he liked less the age and station of his adversary; and
+least of all was he pleased with the character of his &ldquo;friend.&rdquo; It was
+said of Sheridan, that when consulted about the music of his operas, he
+only asked, &ldquo;Will it grind?&rdquo;&mdash;that is, would it be popular enough for
+a street organ, and become familiar to every ear? So Jack Massingbred
+regarded each event in life by the test of how it would &ldquo;tell,&rdquo; in what
+wise could a newspaper report it, and how would it read in the Clubs? He
+fancied himself discussing the adventure at &ldquo;White's,&rdquo; and asking, &ldquo;Can
+any one say what Massingbred's row was about? Was he poaching?&mdash;or
+how came he there? Was there a woman in it? And who is his friend
+Magennis?&rdquo; In thoughts like these he passed hour after hour, walking his
+room from end to end, and waiting for morning.
+</p>
+<p>
+At length he bethought him how little likely it was that Magennis would
+remember anything whatever of the transaction, and that his late debauch
+might obliterate all memory of the affair. &ldquo;What if this were to be the
+case, and that we were to arrive too late at Oughterard? A pretty version
+would the papers then publish to the world!&rdquo; Of all possible casualties
+this was the very worst; and the more he reflected on it, the more
+probable did it seem. &ldquo;He is the very fellow to wake up late in the
+afternoon, rub his eyes, and declare he had forgotten the whole thing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This will never do!&rdquo; muttered he to himself; and at once determined that
+he would make an endeavor to recall his friend to consciousness, and come
+to some arrangement for the approaching meeting. Massingbred descended the
+stairs with noiseless steps, and gently approaching the door of the
+sitting-room, opened it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Magennis was asleep, his head resting upon the table, and his heavy
+breathing denoting how deeply he slumbered. On a low stool at his feet sat
+Joan, pale and weary-looking, her cheeks still marked with recent tears,
+and the dark impression of what seemed to have been a blow beneath her
+eye. Jack approached her cautiously, and asked if it were his custom to
+pass the night thus.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sometimes, when he 's tired&mdash;when he has anything on his mind,&rdquo;
+ replied she, in some confusion, and averting her head so as to escape
+notice.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And when he awakes,&rdquo; said Jack, &ldquo;he will be quite refreshed, and his head
+all clear again?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By coorse he will!&rdquo; said she, proudly. &ldquo;No matter what he took of a
+night, nobody ever saw the signs of it on him the next morning.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did not ask out of any impertinent curiosity,&rdquo; continued Massingbred;
+&ldquo;but we have, both of us, some rather important business to-morrow in
+Oughterard. We ought to be there at an early hour.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know,&rdquo; said she, interrupting. &ldquo;He bid me bring down these;&rdquo; and she
+pointed to a case of pistols lying open beside her, and in cleaning which
+she had been at the moment engaged. &ldquo;I brought the wrong ones, first.&rdquo;
+ Here she stammered out something, and grew crimson over her whole face;
+then suddenly recovering herself, said, &ldquo;I did n't know it was the
+'Terries' he wanted.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The 'Terries'?&rdquo; repeated Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir. It was these Terry Callaghan shot the two gentlemen with, the
+same morning, at Croghaglin,&mdash;father and son they were!&rdquo; And saying
+these words in a voice of the most perfect unconcern possible, she took up
+a flannel rag and began to polish the lock of one of the weapons.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They 're handsome pistols,&rdquo; said Jack, rather amused with her remark.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They 're good, and that's better!&rdquo; replied she, gravely. &ldquo;That one in
+your hand has seven double crosses on the stock and nine single.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The seven were killed on the ground, I suppose?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A short nod of assent was her reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Such little events are not unfrequent down here, then?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Anan!&rdquo; said she, not understanding his question.
+</p>
+<p>
+Jack quickly perceived that he had not taken sufficient account of Joan's
+limited acquaintance with language, and said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They often fight in these parts?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ayeh! not now,&rdquo; replied she, in a half-deploring tone. &ldquo;My father
+remembers twenty duels for one that does be nowadays.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A great change, indeed.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Some say it's all for the better,&rdquo; resumed she, doubtfully. &ldquo;But hush,&mdash;he's
+stirring; leave him quiet, and I 'll call you when he's ready.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I can depend&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure you can. He forgets many a thing; but no man living can say
+that he ever misremembered a duel.&rdquo; And with these words, in a low
+whisper, she motioned Massingbred to the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+Jack obeyed in silence, and, ascending to his room, lay down on the bed.
+He determined to pass the interval before morning in deep thought and
+self-examination; but, somehow, he had scarcely laid his head on the
+pillow when he fell off into a heavy sleep, sound and dreamless.
+</p>
+<p>
+The day was just breaking when he was aroused by a somewhat rude shake,
+and a voice saying,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, up with you. We 've a sharp ride before us!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Jack started up, and in an instant recalled all the exigencies of the
+hour.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have sent the 'tools' forward by a safe hand,&rdquo; continued Magennis; &ldquo;and
+Joan has a cup of tea ready for us below stairs. So lose no time now, and
+let us be off.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The humble meal that awaited them was soon despatched, and they were
+speedily mounted on the pair of mountain ponies Magennis had provided, and
+whose equipments, even in the half-light of the morning, rather shocked
+Mas-singbred's notions of propriety,&mdash;one of his stirrup-leathers
+being a foot shorter than the other, while an old worsted bell-rope formed
+the snaffle-rein of his bridle.
+</p>
+<p>
+The road, too, was rugged and precipitous, and many a stumble and scramble
+had they in the uncertain light; while the swooping rain dashed violently
+against them, and effectually precluded all thought of conversation. Two
+hours, that seemed like ten, brought them at length upon the highroad;
+after which, by a brisk canter of forty minutes, they reached Oughterard.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us dismount here,&rdquo; said Jack, as they gained the outskirts of the
+town, not fancying to make a public appearance on his humble steed.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why so?&rdquo; answered Magennis. &ldquo;It's ashamed of the pony you are! Oh, for
+the matter of that, don't distress yourself; we 're too well used to them
+in these parts to think them ridiculous.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+There was a soreness and irritation in his tone which Jack quickly
+remarked, and as quickly tried to obviate, by some good-natured remark
+about the good qualities of the animals; but Magennis heard him without
+attention, and seemed entirely immersed in his own thoughts.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Turn in there, to your left,&rdquo; cried he, suddenly, and they wheeled into
+an arched gateway that opened upon the stable-yard of the inn. Early as it
+was, the place was full of bustle and movement; for it was the market-day,
+and the farmers were already arriving.
+</p>
+<p>
+Carts, cars, gigs, and a dozen other nameless vehicles crowded the spot,
+with kicking ponies and mules of malicious disposition; grooming and
+shoeing and unharnessing went on, with a noise and merriment that was
+perfectly deafening; and Massingbred, as he threaded his way through the
+crowd, soon perceived how little notice he was likely to attract in such
+an assembly. Magennis soon dismounted, and having given directions about
+the beasts, led Jack into the house, and up a narrow, creaking stair into
+a small room, with a single window, and a bed in one corner. &ldquo;This is
+where I always put up,&rdquo; said he, laying down his hat and whip, &ldquo;and it
+will do well enough for the time we 'll want it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XVI. &ldquo;A CHALLENGE&rdquo;
+ </h2>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He 's here; he arrived last night,&rdquo; said Magennis, as he entered the room
+after a short exploring tour through the stables, the kitchen, and every
+other quarter where intelligence might be come at. &ldquo;He came alone; but the
+major of the detachment supped with him, and that looks like business!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The earlier you see him the better, then,&rdquo; said Mas-singbred.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll just go and get my beard off,&rdquo; said he, passing his hand across a
+very grizzly stubble, &ldquo;and I'll be with him in less than half an hour.
+There's only a point or two I want to be clear about. Before he struck
+you, did you gesticulate, or show any intention of using violence?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;None. I have told you that I caught his horse by the bridle, but that was
+to save him from falling back.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, that was indiscreet, at all events.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Would n't it have been worse to suffer him to incur a severe danger which
+I might have prevented?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think so; but we'll not discuss the point now. There was a blow?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That there was,&rdquo; said Jack, pointing to the spot where a great strap of
+sticking-plaster extended across his forehead.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And he seemed to understand at once that reparation was to be made for
+it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The suggestion came from himself, frankly and speedily.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it's pretty evident we have to deal with a gentleman!&rdquo; said
+Magennis, &ldquo;and that same's a comfort; so I'll leave you now for a short
+time: amuse yourself as well as you can, but don't quit the room.&rdquo; And
+with this caution Magennis took his departure, and set off in search of
+Mr. Repton's chamber.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where are you bringing the mutton chops, Peter?&rdquo; said he to a waiter,
+who, with a well-loaded tray of eatables, was hastening along the
+corridor.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To the ould Counsellor from Dublin, sir. He's break-fastin' with the
+Major.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And that's his room, No. 19?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They 're merry, at all events,&rdquo; said Magennis, as a burst of hearty
+laughter was heard from within the chamber.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'T is just that they are, indeed,&rdquo; replied Peter. &ldquo;The Counsellor does be
+telling one story after another, till you 'd think he 'd no end of them.
+He began last night at supper, and I could scarce change the plates for
+laughin'.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Muttering some not very intelligible observation to himself, Magennis
+passed down the stairs, and issuing into the street, wended his way to the
+barber's.
+</p>
+<p>
+If the Oughterard Figaro had not as brilliant a vocation as his colleague
+of Seville, his occupations were scarcely less multifarious, for he kept
+the post-office, was clerk at petty sessions, collected the parish cess,
+presided over &ldquo;the pound,&rdquo; besides a vast number of inferior duties.
+Whether it was the result of a natural gift, or by the various information
+of his official life, Hosey Lynch was regarded in his native town as a
+remarkably shrewd man, and a good opinion on a number of subjects.
+</p>
+<p>
+He was a short, decrepit old fellow, with an enormous head of curly black
+hair, which he seemed to cultivate with all the address of his craft;
+probably intending it as a kind of advertisement of his skill, displaying
+as it did all the resources of his handiwork. But even above this passion
+was his ardor for news,&mdash;news political, social, legal, or literary;
+whatever might be the topic, it always interested him, and it was his
+especial pride to have the initiative of every event that stirred the
+hearts of the Oughterard public.
+</p>
+<p>
+The small den in which he performed his functions occupied the corner of
+the street, giving a view in two directions, so that Hosey, while cutting
+and curling, never was obliged to lose sight of that world without, in
+whose doings he felt so strong an interest. In the one easy-chair of this
+sanctum was Magennis now disposed, waiting for Mr. Lynch, who had just
+stepped down to &ldquo;the pound,&rdquo; to liberate the priest's pig. Nor had he long
+to wait, for Hosey soon made his appearance, and slipping on a very
+greasy-looking jean-jacket, proceeded to serve him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The top of the morning to you, Captain,&rdquo;&mdash;he always styled him by
+the title,&mdash;&ldquo;it's a rare pleasure to see you so early in town; but it
+will be a bad market to-day&mdash;cut and curled, Captain?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0009" id="linkimage-0009">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/232.jpg" width="100%" alt="232 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; shaved!&rdquo; said Magennis, bluntly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And shaved you shall be, Captain,&mdash;and beautifully shaved, too, for
+I have got an excellent case from Lamprey's; they came yesterday,&mdash;came
+with the writ against Jones Creegan.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;At whose suit?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mrs. Miles Creegan, the other brother's widow,&rdquo; said Hosey, lathering
+away and talking with breathless rapidity. &ldquo;There was a clause in old
+Sam's will, that if ever Tom, the chap that died at Demerara&mdash;you'd
+like more off the whiskers, it's more military. It was only yesterday
+Major Froode remarked to me what a soldierlike-looking man was Captain
+Magennis.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is he in command of the detachment?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is in his Majesty's&mdash;1st Foot&mdash;the 'Buccaneers,' they used
+to be called; I suppose you never heard why?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, nor don't want to hear. What kind of a man is the Major?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He 's a smart, well-made man, with rather a haughty look,&rdquo; said Hosey,
+drawing himself up, and seeming to imply that there was a kind of
+resemblance between them.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is he English or Irish?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Scotch, Captain,&mdash;Scotch; and never gives more than fivepence for a
+cut and curl, pomatum included.&mdash;No letters, Mrs. Cronin,&rdquo; cried he,
+raising up the movable shutter of the little window; then bending down his
+ear he listened to some whispered communication from that lady, after
+which he shut the panel, and resumed his functions. &ldquo;She 's at law with
+O'Reilly about the party wall. There's the Major now going down to the
+barracks, and I wonder who's the other along with him;&rdquo; and Hosey rushed
+to the door to find some clew to the stranger. In less than a quarter of a
+minute he was back again, asking pardon for absence, and informing
+Magennis &ldquo;that the man in plain clothes was a Dublin counsellor, that
+arrived the night before. I think I can guess what he's here for.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; cried Magennis, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's an election coming on, and the Martins expect a contest.&mdash;Nothing
+for you, Peter,&rdquo; said he, to an applicant for a letter outside. &ldquo;He's
+looking to be made barony constable these four years, and he 's as much
+chance as I have of being&mdash;what shall I say?&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you done?&rdquo; asked Magennis, impatiently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;One minute more, sir&mdash;the least touch round the chin,&mdash;and, as
+I was saying, Captain, the Martins will lose the borough.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who thinks so besides you?&rdquo; asked Magennis, gruffly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is, I may say, the general opinion; the notion current in&mdash; There
+'s Miss Martin herself,&rdquo; cried he, running to the window. &ldquo;Well, really,
+she handles them ponies elegant!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Does she come often into town?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think I saw her in Oughterard&mdash;let me see when it was&mdash;it's
+two years&mdash;no, but it's not far off&mdash;it's more than&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you done?&rdquo; said Magennis, impatiently. &ldquo;I told you that I was pressed
+for time this morning.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You're finished now, Captain,&rdquo; said Hosey, presenting him with a small
+cracked looking-glass. &ldquo;That's what I call a neat chin and a beautiful
+sweep of whisker. Thank you, Captain. It's a pleasure and an honor&mdash;not
+to say that it's&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Magennis did not wait for the peroration, but striding hastily out of the
+little shop, issued into the street that led to the inn. On arriving
+there, he heard that Mr. Rep-ton had gone out, leaving word that he would
+be found at Major Froode's quarters. Thither Magennis now repaired with
+all the solemn importance befitting his mission.
+</p>
+<p>
+As he sent in his name, he could overhear the short colloquy that passed
+within, and perceived that Repton was about to retire; and now the servant
+ushered him into the presence of a smart, light-whiskered little man, with
+a pair of shrewd gray eyes, and a high forehead.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A brother officer, I perceive, sir,&rdquo; said he, looking at the card,
+whereupon the title Captain was inscribed; &ldquo;pray take a chair.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You anticipate the reason of this visit, Major Froode,&rdquo; said the other,
+with some degree of constraint, as though the preliminaries were the
+reverse of pleasant to him. The Major bowed, and Magennis went on: &ldquo;I
+suppose, then, I'm to treat with you as the friend of Mr. Valentine
+Repton?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you are Mr. Massingbred's?&rdquo; said the Major, answering the question
+with another.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have that honor, sir,&rdquo; said Magennis, pompously; &ldquo;and now, sir, how
+soon can it come off?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't you imagine, Captain Magennis, that a little quiet discussion of
+the question at issue between two old soldiers, like you and myself, might
+possibly be advisable? Is there not a chance that our united experience
+might not suggest an amicable arrangement of this business?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite out of the question,&mdash;utterly, totally impossible!&rdquo; said
+Magennis, sternly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then perhaps I lie under some misconception,&rdquo; said the Major,
+courteously.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There was a blow, sir!&mdash;a blow!&rdquo; said Magennis, in the same stern
+tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I opine that everything that occurred was purely accidental,&mdash;just
+hear me out,&mdash;that a hasty word and a hurried gesture, complicated
+with the impatient movement of a horse&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A long whistle from Magennis interrupted the speech, and the Major,
+reddening to the very top of his high forehead, said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sir, this is unbecoming,&mdash;are you aware of it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm quite ready for anything when this is settled,&rdquo; said Magennis, but
+with less composure than he desired to assume. &ldquo;What I meant was, that for
+a blow there is but one reparation.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Doubtless, if the injury admit of no explanation,&rdquo; said the Major,
+calmly; &ldquo;but in that lies the whole question. Consider two things, Captain
+Magennis: first of all, the equivocal appearance of <i>your</i> friend,
+the age and standing of <i>mine</i>.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove! you'll kill me in trying to save my life,&rdquo; said Repton, bursting
+into the room. &ldquo;I didn't want to play eavesdropper, Froode, but these thin
+partitions are only soundboards for the voice. This gentleman,&rdquo; added he,
+turning to Magennis, &ldquo;is perfectly correct. There was a blow; and a blow
+has only one consequence, and that one I 'm ready for. There may be, for
+aught I know, twenty ways of settling these matters in London or at the
+clubs, but we 're old-fashioned in our notions in Ireland here; and I
+don't think that even when we pick up new fashions that we 're much the
+better for them, so that if your friend is here, Captain, and ready&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Both, sir; here and ready!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then so am I; and now for the place. Come, Froode, you don't know Ireland
+as well as I do; just humor me this time, and whenever I get into a scrape
+in Scotland you shall have it all your own way. Eh, Captain, is n't that
+fair?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spoke like a trump!&rdquo; muttered Magennis.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;For <i>me</i>, did you say?&rdquo; said Repton, taking a letter from the
+servant, who had just entered the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir; and the groom says there's an answer expected.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The devil take it, I 've forgotten my spectacles. Froode, just tell me
+what's this about, and who it comes from.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's Miss Martin's hand,&rdquo; said Froode, breaking the seal and running over
+the contents. &ldquo;Oh, I perceive,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;they're afraid you have taken
+French leave of them at Cro' Martin, and she has driven into town to carry
+you back again.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That comes of my leaving word at the little post-office to forward my
+letters to Dublin if not asked for to-morrow. Take a pen, Froode, and
+write a couple of lines for me; say that a very urgent call&mdash;a
+professional call&mdash;will detain me here to-day, but that if not back
+by dinner-time&mdash;Captain Magennis thinks it not likely,&rdquo; added he,
+turning towards him as he sat, with a very equivocal expression, half
+grin, half sneer, upon his features&mdash;&ldquo;that I 'll be with them at
+breakfast next morning,&rdquo; resumed Repton, boldly. &ldquo;Make some excuse for my
+not answering the note myself,&mdash;whatever occurs to you. And so, sir,&rdquo;
+ said he, turning to Magennis, &ldquo;your friend's name is Massingbred. Any
+relation to Colonel Moore Massingbred?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;His son,&mdash;his only son, I believe.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How strange! I remember the father in the 'House'&mdash;I mean the Irish
+House&mdash;five-and-thirty years ago; he was always on the Government
+benches. It was of him Parsons wrote those doggerel lines,&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+'A man without a heart or head,
+Who seldom thought, who never read,
+A witty word who never said,
+One at whose board none ever fed,
+Such is the Colonel M&mdash;g&mdash;b&mdash;d.'
+</pre>
+<p>
+He could n't call him a coward, though; for when they went out&mdash;which
+they did&mdash;Massingbred's manner on the ground was admirable.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will that do?&rdquo; said Froode, showing a few lines he had hastily jotted
+down.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can't read a word of it, but of course it will,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;and then,
+sir,&rdquo; added he, addressing Magennis, &ldquo;the sooner we place ourselves at
+your disposal the better.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Froode whispered something in Repton' ear, and by his manner seemed as if
+remonstrating with him, when the other said aloud,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We 're in Ireland, Major; and, what's more, we 're in Galway, as
+Macleweed said once to a prisoner, 'With a Yorkshire jury, sir, I 'd hang
+you. Your sentence now is to pay five marks to the King, and find bail for
+your good behavior.' You see what virtue there is in locality.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's a neat spot about two miles off, on the road to Maum,&rdquo; said
+Magennis to the Major. &ldquo;We could ride slowly forward, and you might keep
+us in view.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In what direction did you say?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take the second turn out of the market-place till you pass the baker's
+shop, then to the left, and straight on afterwards. You can't miss it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stop a moment, sir,&rdquo; said Froode to Magennis, as he moved towards the
+door; &ldquo;one word, if you please. It is distinctly understood that I have
+been overruled in this business,&mdash;that, in fact, I have submitted&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your point has been reserved,&rdquo; said Repton, laughing, while he led him
+away; and Magennis at the same moment took his departure.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was, indeed, with no slight feeling of triumph that thia gentleman now
+hastened back to the Martin Arms. Never did a great diplomatist experience
+more pride in the conclusion of some crowning act of negotiation than did
+he in the accomplishment of this affair.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's many a man,&rdquo; said he to himself, &ldquo;who 'd have accepted an
+apology here. There's many a man might have let himself be embarrassed by
+the circumstances; for, certainly, the taking hold of the bridle was an
+awkward fact, and if the Major was a cute fellow he 'd have made a stand
+upon it. I must say that the Counsellor showed no backwardness; he comes
+of that fine old stock we used to have before the Union.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And with this profound reflection he entered the room where Massingbred
+sat awaiting him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's all settled. We're to meet at the Priest's Gap within an hour,&rdquo; said
+Magennis, with the air of a man who had acquitted himself cleverly. &ldquo;And
+though I say it that should n't, if you were in other hands this morning
+you would n't have got your shot.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I always relied implicitly upon your skill!&rdquo; said Massingbred, humoring
+his vanity.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you anything to arrange,&mdash;a letter or so to write; for I'll
+step down to Dr. Hearkins to tell him to follow us?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Massingbred made no reply as the other left the room. Once more alone, he
+began to think gravely over his present situation. Nor could all his
+habitual levity steel him against the conviction that five minutes of
+common-sense talk might arrange a dispute which now promised a serious
+ending. &ldquo;However,&rdquo; thought he, &ldquo;we are not in the land where such
+differences admit of amicable solution, and there's no help for it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A sharp tap at the door startled him from these musings, and before he
+could well reply to it Daniel Nelligan entered the room, and advanced
+towards him with an air of mingled ease and constraint.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope you 'll forgive me, Mr. Massingbred,&rdquo; he began. &ldquo;I feel certain
+that you will at some future day, at least, for what I 'm going to do.&rdquo;
+ Here he stopped and drew a long breath, as if not knowing in what terms to
+continue. Massingbred handed him a chair, and took one in front of him
+without speaking.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know what brought you here to-day; I am aware of it all.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+He paused, and waited for the other to speak; but Massingbred sat without
+offering a word, and evidently relying on his own social tact to confound
+and embarrass his visitor.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know, sir, that you are likely to regard my interference as
+impertinent,&rdquo; resumed Nelligan; &ldquo;but I trust that the friend of my son,
+Joe&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must set you right upon one point, at least, Mr. Nelligan,&rdquo; said
+Massingbred, with an easy smile. &ldquo;If you be only as accurate in your
+knowledge of my affairs as you are with respect to my private friendships,
+this visit has certainly proceeded from some misconception. Your son and I
+were friends once upon a time. We are so no longer!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never heard of this. I never knew you had quarrelled!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We have not, sir. We have not even met. The discourtesy he has shown me
+since my arrival here&mdash;his avoidance of me, too marked to be
+explained away&mdash;is an offence. The only misfortune is that it is one
+which can be practised with impunity.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My son asks for none such,&rdquo; said Dan, fiercely. &ldquo;And if your observation
+is meant for an insult&mdash;&rdquo; He stopped suddenly, as if checked by
+something within, and then said, but in a voice full and measured, &ldquo;I'm
+magistrate of this town, sir, and I come here upon information that has
+reached me of your intentions to commit a breach of the peace.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear Mr. Nelligan,&rdquo; began Massingbred, in his most seductive of
+manners,&mdash;but the other had already witnessed the rupture of the only
+tie which bound them, the supposed friendship between Joe and Massingbred,
+and cared nothing for all the blandishments he could bestow,&mdash;&ldquo;my
+dear Mr. Nelligan, you cannot, surely, suppose that a mere stranger as I
+am in your county&mdash;scarcely ten days here&mdash;should have been
+unfortunate enough to have incurred the animosity of any one.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hold here a statement, sir,&rdquo; said Nelligan, sternly, &ldquo;which, if you
+please to pledge your honor to be incorrect&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And this is Galway!&rdquo; exclaimed Massingbred,&mdash;&ldquo;this glorious land of
+chivalrous sentiment of which we poor Englishmen have been hearing to
+satiety! The Paradise of Point of Honor, then, turns out a very
+commonplace locality, after all!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm proud to say that our county has another reputation than its old
+one; not but&mdash;&rdquo; and he added the words in some temper&mdash;&ldquo;there
+are a few left would like to teach you that its character was not acquired
+for nothing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well!&rdquo; sighed Jack, as he closed his eyes, and appeared as if
+indulging in a revery, &ldquo;of all the mockeries I have lived to see unmasked,
+this is the worst and meanest.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have not come here to listen to this, sir,&rdquo; said Nelli-gan, haughtily,
+as he arose. &ldquo;I waited upon you, intending to accept your solemn pledge,
+by word of honor, to commit no act hostile to the public peace. Now, sir,
+I shall call upon you to give me the legal guarantee for this security,&mdash;good
+and sufficient bail, and that within an hour!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear Mr. Nelligan,&rdquo; replied Massingbred, with all the quiet ease of an
+unruffled temper, &ldquo;I have not a single friend here, except yourself, upon
+whom I could call in such an emergency. I am utterly unknown in these
+parts; my very name unheard of before my arrival. If I <i>did</i> by any
+unhappy circumstance find myself in such an involvement as you speak of, I
+solemnly assure you my first thought would be to address myself to Mr.
+Nelligan.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The easy impertinence of this speech would have been perfectly successful
+a short time previous, when Nelligan yet believed in the close friendship
+with his son. It came now, however, too late, and the old man listened to
+it with something bordering on anger.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good and sufficient bail, sir,&mdash;yourself and two others,&rdquo; repeated
+he, slowly, and moving towards the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;One word, I pray,&rdquo; said Jack, rising, and speaking with more earnestness
+and apparently with more sincerity. &ldquo;I do not ask you any details as to
+the circumstances you impute to me, but perhaps you would, as a favor,
+tell me how this information has reached you?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will not, sir,&rdquo; was the abrupt reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sure no friend of mine could have&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is no use, Mr. Massingbred; all your address will avail you nothing.
+You shall not cross-examine <i>me!</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You must, however, see, sir,&rdquo; said Massingbred, &ldquo;that unknown and
+unfriended as I am here, bail is out of the question.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Bench will hear anything you desire to say on that subject,&rdquo; said
+Nelligan, coldly. &ldquo;Good-morning to you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And with these words he left the room, and descended into the street.
+</p>
+<p>
+The passionate warmth which Massingbred had so successfully controlled in
+the presence of his visitor burst forth the first moment he found himself
+alone. He inveighed against the country, the people, their habits, and all
+belonging to them; cursed his own fate at being ever thrown into such
+companionship; and wound up by resolving to submit to any terms by which
+he might quit Galway forever, and forget, for the rest of his days, that
+he had ever entered it. While he was yet fuming in this fashion, the
+waiter entered and presented him with a very dirty-looking note, fastened
+by two wafers, and inscribed &ldquo;Most private.&rdquo; Massingbred opened it and
+read,&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+&ldquo;My dear Mr. M.,&mdash;We 're found out&mdash;I believe by Hosey
+Lynch, where I dropped a bullet-mould this morning when he
+was shaving me. At all events, we 're blown, and as I am
+under £250 recognizances to keep the peace for three years,
+I 'm off to the mountains till this passes over. I 'm sure,
+from what I saw of the Counsellor, that he 'll keep himself
+open to a proposal elsewhere. Meanwhile, there's nothing for
+it but to give your bail and satisfy the blackguards&mdash;bad
+luck to them&mdash;that spoiled the sport! You can go back to
+the house when all's over, and I 'll return as soon as it is
+safe for
+
+&ldquo;Your sincere friend,
+
+&ldquo;T. M.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+<p>
+Scarcely had he finished reading this epistle, when Major Froode presented
+himself in his chamber, the door of which the waiter was yet holding ajar.
+Having introduced himself, he briefly informed Massingbred of his position
+as Mr. Repton's friend, and as briefly stated that the Counsellor had been
+obliged to pledge himself against any hostile intentions,&mdash;a step
+which, he foresaw, would also be required of him. &ldquo;For this reason I have
+come,&rdquo; continued he, &ldquo;to say that any assistance I can be of to you is
+frankly at your service. I have learned that you are a stranger here, and
+not likely to have many acquaintances.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If they would be satisfied with my word,&rdquo; began Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course they will, and shall,&rdquo; interrupted Froode; &ldquo;and now, what is
+there in the way of <i>amende</i> my friend can make, for what he is
+prepared to confess was a mere accident?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The acknowledgment is ample. I ask for nothing beyond it,&rdquo; said
+Massingbred. &ldquo;I am not quite certain but that my own conduct might require
+a little explanation; but as your friend's vigor put matters beyond
+negotiation at the time, we 'll not go back upon bygones.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now, sir,&rdquo; burst in Repton, who had waited outside the door,&mdash;&ldquo;and
+now, sir, I beg you to accept the humblest apology I can tender for what
+has happened. I 'm not as safe on my saddle as I used to be forty years
+ago; and when the nag reared and threatened to fall back upon me, I am
+ashamed to own that I neither saw nor cared what I struck at. I 'd have
+said all this to you, Mr. Massingbred, after your fire, had we been
+permitted to go the ground; and although there is some additional
+humiliation in saying it here, I richly deserve all the pain it gives me,
+for my want of temper. Will you give me your hand?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;With sincere pleasure,&rdquo; said Jack, shaking him warmly and cordially with
+both his own.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's but one thing more to be done,&rdquo; said Repton. &ldquo;These borough
+magistrates, vulgar dogs as they are, will want you to give a bail bond.
+Take no notice of them, but just drive out with me to Cro' Martin, and we
+'ll settle it all there.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not acquainted with Mr. Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you shall be. He 'll be charmed to know you, and the place is worth
+seeing. Come, you mustn't leave the West with only its barbarism in your
+memory. You must carry away some other recollections.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The new turn affairs had just taken was by no means distasteful to
+Massingbred. It promised another scene in that drama of life he loved to
+fashion for himself, with new scenery, new actors, and new incidents. &ldquo;The
+Counsellor,&rdquo; too, struck his fancy. There was a raciness in the old man's
+manner, a genial cordiality, united with such palpable acuteness, that he
+promised himself much pleasure in his society; and so he accepted the
+proposal with all willingness, and pledged to hold himself ready for his
+friend within an hour.
+</p>
+<p>
+Repton and the Major had but just left the room, when the former
+re-entered it hurriedly, and said, &ldquo;By the way, I must leave you to your
+own guidance to find your road to Cro' Martin, for there's a young lady
+below stairs has a lien upon me. You shall be presented to her when you
+come out, and I promise you it will repay the journey.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This must be the Mary Martin I 've been hearing of,&rdquo; thought Massingbred,
+when again alone; &ldquo;and so the morning's work will probably turn out better
+than I had anticipated.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XVII. A COUNTRY-HOUSE
+</h2>
+<p>
+When Massingbred arrived at Cro' Martin, he found Repton at the door
+awaiting him. &ldquo;I find,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;there is little need of introducing you
+here. Your father was an old acquaintance of Martin's; they sat together
+for years in Parliament, and Lady Dorothea was related to your family. But
+here he comes.&rdquo; And Martin approached, with his hand extended in cordial
+welcome. No one ever knew better how to do the honors of his house, nor
+could throw more graceful courtesy into the first steps of
+acquaintanceship. Massingbred, too, was well calculated to appreciate this
+gift. He had a most intense esteem for &ldquo;manner,&rdquo; and enjoyed even the
+necessity it imposed upon himself of exertion to please. With sincere
+satisfaction was it that he accepted an invitation to pass some days
+there, and at once despatched a servant to Magennis's house for his
+trunks.
+</p>
+<p>
+The adventure of the morning was alluded to but once, and then in a
+jocular strain, as an incident of no moment whatever; and Massingbred
+retired to his room to dress for dinner, wondering within himself if he
+should find the other members of the family as much to his liking as the
+worthy host had been.
+</p>
+<p>
+A dinner-party was a rare event at Cro' Martin. The isolation in which
+they lived was rarely broken by a visitor; and when, by rare accident,
+some solitary stranger did present himself with a letter of introduction,
+his stay was merely of a few hours. Now, however, the company included, in
+addition to the family, Repton, Massingbred, and Nelligan, besides Miss
+Henderson, who was on that day to appear at dinner. The quondam college
+friends had not met; neither had Miss Martin ever seen her governess; so
+that there was no small degree of anticipation as to how such elements
+would harmonize and agree.
+</p>
+<p>
+When Massingbred entered the drawing-room, he found Miss Henderson there
+alone; and at once believing she could be no other than Miss Martin, he
+proceeded to introduce himself in the best manner he could. Her reception
+was perfect in ease and self-possession, and they soon found themselves
+engaged in a lively discussion as to the scenery, the people and their
+habits, of which they both appeared to have a very similar appreciation.
+Lady Dorothea next made her appearance; and, advancing towards
+Massingbred, welcomed him with what, for her, was the extreme of
+cordiality. &ldquo;Your mother was a Caradoc, Mr. Massingbred, and the Caradocs
+are all of our family; so let me claim relationship at once.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+With all the pretensions of a very fine lady, Lady Dorothea knew how to
+unite very agreeable qualities, not the less successful in her
+captivations, that she never exercised them without a real desire to
+please; so that Massingbred soon saw how in the wilds of dreary Connemara
+there existed a little oasis of polish and civilization that would have
+done honor to the most splendid society of London or Paris.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nor was Massingbred himself less pleasing to her. It was so long, so many,
+many years since she had met with one fresh from that great world which
+alone she valued!
+</p>
+<p>
+Correspondence had kept her to a certain extent informed upon the changes
+and vicissitudes of society,&mdash;the births, deaths, marriages,
+separations, quarrels, and other disasters of those dear friends for whose
+griefs absence and time offer so many consolations! But then, the actual
+appearance, the <i>coup d'oil</i> of that world could only be imparted by
+an observer, imbued with all the spirit that gives observation its
+peculiar piquancy. This she found in him; and so agreeably exercised was
+it, that she actually heard dinner announced without attending, and only
+as she arose from her seat was reminded to present him to Miss Martin, by
+the brief phrase, &ldquo;My niece, Mr. Massingbred;&rdquo; while she took his arm,
+with a glance at Mr. Repton, that plainly said, &ldquo;You are deposed.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The passage to the dinner-room lay through three spacious and splendid
+rooms, which now were brilliantly lighted up, and lined with servants in
+rich liveries,&mdash;a degree of state Massingbred was not a little
+pleased at; partly suspecting that it was intended to do himself honor. As
+they moved slowly through the last of these, the door suddenly opened, and
+young Nelligan entered. He had returned late from a long ride, and heard
+nothing whatever of Massing-bred's arrival. With an exclamation of &ldquo;Jack&mdash;Massingbred!&rdquo;
+ he bounded forward. But the other showed no recognition of him; and
+directing Lady Dorothea's attention to the richness of a picture-frame,
+passed calmly on into the dinner-room.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You must bring up the rear alone, Nelligan,&rdquo; said Martin, who had given
+his arm to Miss Henderson; and Joe followed, almost overwhelmed with
+mingled shame and amazement.
+</p>
+<p>
+For an instant the possibility of mistake assuaged his sense of
+mortification; but no sooner did he find himself at table, and directly
+opposite to Massingbred, than he perceived there was no ground whatever
+for this consolation. It was, indeed, Massingbred, just as he had seen him
+the first day in the Commons Hall at dinner, and when his cold,
+supercilious manner had struck him so disagreeably.
+</p>
+<p>
+What a terrible vengeance for all the superiority Nelligan had displayed
+over him in the Examination Hall was Massingbred's present success; for
+success it was. With all that consummate readiness the habit of society
+imparts, Jack could talk well on a great variety of topics, and possessed,
+besides, that especial tact to make others so far participators in his
+observations that they felt a partnership in the agreeability. Lady
+Dorothea was perfectly charmed with him; it was the triumph, as it were,
+of one of her own set. His anecdotes&mdash;not very pointed or curious in
+themselves&mdash;had the marked characteristic of always referring to
+distinguished individuals; so that what was deficient in wit was more than
+compensated by the rank of the actors. Martin enjoyed his conversation
+with all his own complacent ease, and felt delighted with one who could
+play all the game without an adversary. Mary was pleased and astonished
+together&mdash;the pleasure being even less than the amazement&mdash;at
+all he seemed to know of life and the world, and how intimately one so
+young seemed to have mixed in society. As for Repton, he relished the
+other's powers with the true zest of a pleasant talker; they were of
+different styles, and no disagreeable rivalry marred the appreciation.
+</p>
+<p>
+Amidst all these silent or spoken testimonies sat poor Nelligan,
+overwhelmed with shame. Massingbred had refused to recognize him; and it
+was left to his own gloomy thoughts to search out the reason. At first Joe
+avoided meeting the other's look; he dreaded he knew not what of
+impertinence or insult, to which the time and place could offer no
+reparation; but gradually he grew to perceive that Massingbred's cold eye
+met his own without a spark of meaning; nor was there in voice, manner, or
+bearing, a single evidence of constraint or awkwardness to be detected.
+</p>
+<p>
+Miss Henderson alone seemed to listen to him with easy indifference; and
+more than once, when Jack put forth his most showy pretensions, he was
+secretly mortified to see how little impression he had made on the dark
+beauty with the haughty smile. This was exactly the kind of defiance that
+Massingbred never declined, and he determined within himself to attempt
+the conquest. As the party returned to the drawing-room, he asked Lady
+Dorothea to present him more formally to the young lady whose acquaintance
+he had dared to obtrude upon before dinner; but she coldly said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, it's no matter; she's only the governess.&rdquo; An explanation she deemed
+quite sufficient to subdue any rising feeling of interest regarding her.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the gentleman who sat next her at dinner?&rdquo; asked he.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A neighbor,&mdash;that is, the son of one of our borough people. I have
+not introduced him to you; for, of course, you are not likely to meet
+again. As you were remarking, awhile ago, society in England is gradually
+undergoing that change which in France was accomplished in a year or two.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;With the aid of the guillotine and the 'lanterne,'&rdquo; said Jack, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so; they used sharp remedies for a quick cure. But I own to you that
+I have not yet reconciled myself, nor do I see how I shall ever reconcile
+myself, to intimacy with a class not only whose habits and instincts, but
+whose very natures are adverse to our own. That young man now, for
+instance, they speak of him as quite a college wonder. I'm ashamed to say
+I don't know wherein his great successes lie; but they tell me that he has
+distanced every competitor of his day, and stands alone in his
+preeminence, and yet we saw him to-day not venturing on a remark, nor even
+hazarding an opinion on the topics we talked of, and silent where he ought
+to have been heard with advantage.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is he bashful?&rdquo; said Jack, with a lazy drawl.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think it's that; at least, not altogether.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Supercilious, perhaps?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! certainly not,&rdquo; replied she, hastily. &ldquo;The company in which he found
+himself is the best answer to that. He could not presume&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was, then, downright fear,&rdquo; broke in Massingbred; &ldquo;the terror that
+even clever men cannot even shake off when thrown amongst a class they're
+unused to.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And very naturally so. I'm sure he must be puzzled to imagine why he is
+here. Indeed, we have only known him a few days back. It was one of Mr.
+Martin's sudden caprices to ask him to Cro' Martin. He fancied he ought to
+conciliate&mdash;I believe that's the phrase in vogue&mdash;the borough
+people, and this young man's father is the chief of them.&rdquo; And now Lady
+Dorothea turned from the topic as one unworthy of further thought, and
+entered upon the more congenial theme of her own high relatives and
+connections in England. It was strange enough that Massing-bred's remote
+alliance with her family was sufficient to induce an intimacy and
+familiarity with him which years of mere acquaintanceship could not have
+effected. That his grand-aunt had been a Conway, and his
+great-grandfather's half-brother was married to a Jernyngham, were all a
+species of freemasonry by which he was admitted at once to the privilege
+of confidential discussion.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was no small mortification to Massingbred to spend his evening in these
+genealogical researches; he had seen the two young girls move off into an
+adjoining room, from which at times the sound of a piano, and of voices
+singing, issued, and was half mad with impatience to be along with them.
+However, it was a penalty must be exacted, and he thought that the toll
+once paid he had secured himself against all demands for the future.
+</p>
+<p>
+Not caring to participate in the many intricacies of those family
+discussions wherein the degrees of relationship of individuals seem to
+form the sole points of interest, we shall betake ourselves to the little
+blue drawing-room, where, seated at the piano together, the two young
+girls talked, while their fingers strayed along the notes as though
+affording a species of involuntary accompaniment to their words. Nelligan,
+it is true, was present; but, unnoticed by either, he sat apart in a
+distant corner, deep in his own brooding thoughts.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary had only made Miss Henderson's acquaintance on that evening, but
+already they were intimate. It was, indeed, no common boon for her to
+obtain companionship with one of her own age, and who, with the dreaded
+characteristics of a governess, was in reality a very charming and
+attractive person. Miss Henderson sang with all the cultivated knowledge
+of a musician; and, while she spoke of foreign countries where she had
+travelled, lapsed at times into little snatches of melody, as it were,
+illustrative of what she spoke. The delight Mary experienced in listening
+was unbounded; and if at moments a sad sense of her own neglected
+education shot through her mind, it was forgotten the next instant in her
+generous admiration.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how are <i>you</i>, who have seen this bright and brilliant world you
+speak of,&rdquo; said Mary, &ldquo;to sit quietly down in this unbroken solitude,
+where all the interests are of the humblest and more ordinary kind?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You forget that I saw all these things, as it were, on sufferance,&rdquo;
+ replied she. &ldquo;I was not born to them, nor could ever hope for more than a
+passing glance at splendors wherein I was not to share. And as for the
+quiet monotony here, an evening such as this, companionship like yours,
+are just as much above my expectations.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, no, no!&rdquo; cried Mary, eagerly. &ldquo;You were as surely destined for a
+salon as I was for the rude adventures of my own wayward life. You don't
+know what a strange existence it is.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have heard, however!&rdquo; said the other, calmly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell me&mdash;do tell me&mdash;what you have been told of me, and don't
+be afraid of wounding my vanity; for, I pledge you my word, I do think of
+myself with almost all the humility that I ought.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have heard you spoken of in the cabins of the poor as their only
+friend, their comforter, and their hope; the laborer knows you as his
+succor,&mdash;one by whose kind intervention he earns his daily bread;
+their children love you as their own chosen protector.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But it's not of these things I 'm speaking,&rdquo; said Mary, rapidly. &ldquo;Do they
+not call me self-willed, passionate, sometimes imperious?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; and capricious at times!&rdquo; said the other, slowly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary colored, and her voice faltered as she said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There they were unjust. The impracticable tempers I have to deal with&mdash;the
+untutored minds and undisciplined natures&mdash;often lead me into seeming
+contradictions.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Like the present, perhaps,&rdquo; said Miss Henderson.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How! the present?&rdquo; said Mary.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That, while claiming the merit of humility, you at once enter upon a
+self-defence.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, perhaps I <i>am</i> capricious!&rdquo; said Mary, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And haughty?&rdquo; asked the other, slowly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe so!&rdquo; said Mary, with a degree of dignity that seemed to display
+the sentiment while confessing to it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have never heard a heavier accusation against Miss Martin than these,&rdquo;
+ said she, &ldquo;and I have lived with those who rarely scruple how to criticise
+their betters.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mary was silent and thoughtful; she knew not how to interpret the mingled
+praise and censure she had just listened to.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But tell me rather of yourself,&rdquo; said Mary, as though willing to turn the
+topic of conversation. &ldquo;I should like to hear your story.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;At thirteen years of age&mdash;I believe even a year later&mdash;I was
+the playfellow of the young gentleman you see yonder,&rdquo; said Kate
+Henderson, &ldquo;but who, to-night, seems incapable of remembering anything or
+anybody.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of Mr. Nelligan?&rdquo; repeated Mary. And Joseph started as he heard his name,
+looked up, and again relapsed into revery.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm not sure that we were not in love. I almost confess that I was, when
+my father sent me away to France to be educated. I was very sad&mdash;very,
+very sad&mdash;at being taken away from home and thrown amongst strangers,
+with none of whom I could even interchange a word; and I used to sit and
+cry for hours by myself, and write sorrowful love-letters to 'dearest
+Joseph,' and then imagine the answers to them; sometimes I actually wrote
+them, and would suffer agonies of anguish before I dared to break the seal
+and learn the contents. Meanwhile I was acquiring a knowledge of French,
+and knew a little of music, and used to sing in our choir at chapel, and
+learned to believe the world was somewhat larger than I had hitherto
+thought it, and that St. Gudule was finer than the mean little church at
+Oughterard; and worse still&mdash;for it <i>was</i> worse&mdash;that the
+sous-lieutenants and cadets of the Military College had a much more
+dashing, daring look about them than 'poor Joseph;' for so I now called
+him to myself, and gave up the correspondence soon after.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Remember, Miss Martin, that I was but a child at this time&mdash;at
+least, I was little more than fourteen&mdash;but in another year I was a
+woman, in all the consciousness of certain attractions, clever enough to
+know that I could read and detect the weak points in others, and weak
+enough to fancy that I could always take advantage of them. This incessant
+spirit of casuistry, this passion for investigating the temper of those
+about you, and making a study of their natures for purposes of your own,
+is the essence of a convent life; you have really little else to do, and
+your whole bent is to ascertain why Sister Agnes blushes, or why Beatrice
+fainted twice at the Angelus. The minute anatomy of emotions is a very
+dangerous topic. At this very moment I cannot free myself from the old
+habit; and as I see young Mr. Nelligan there sitting with his head in his
+hand, so deep in thought as not to notice us, I begin to examine why is it
+he is thus, and on what is he now brooding?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And can you guess?&rdquo; asked Mary, half eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I could be certain, if I were but to ask him a question or two.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pray do then, if only to convince me of your skill.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I must be alone, and that is scarcely possible,&mdash;scarcely
+becoming.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us contrive some way,&mdash;think of something.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is too late now; he is about to leave the room,&rdquo; said Kate,
+cautiously. &ldquo;How pale he looks, and how anxious his eye has become! I
+thought at first there was some constraint at meeting <i>me</i> here; he
+feared, perhaps&mdash;but no, that would be unworthy of him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+She ceased, for Nelligan had now drawn nigh to where they sat, and stood
+as if trying to collect himself to say something.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you sing, Mr. Nelligan?&rdquo; asked Kate.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; I am ignorant of music,&rdquo; said he, half abstractedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you like it?&rdquo; asked Mary.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I believe I do,&mdash;that is, it calms and quiets me. If I could
+understand it, it would do more.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then why not understand it, since that is the way you phrase it?&rdquo; asked
+Kate. &ldquo;Everybody can be a musician to a certain degree of proficiency.
+There is no more ear required than you want to learn a language.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you shall teach me,&rdquo; cried Mary, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Kate took up her hand and pressed it to her lips for a reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Foreigners&mdash;men, I mean&mdash;are all so well aware of this that
+they cultivate music as a necessary part of education; few attain high
+eminence, but all know something of it. But somehow we have got to believe
+that cultivation in England must always tend to material profit. We learn
+this, that, and t' other, to be richer or greater or higher, but never to
+be more acceptable in society, more agreeable or pleasanter company.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We have n't time,&rdquo; said Nelligan, gravely.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;For what have we not time? Do you mean we have no time to be happy?&rdquo;
+ cried Repton, suddenly stepping in amongst them. &ldquo;Now, my dear young
+ladies, which of you will bid highest for the heart of an old lawyer&mdash;by
+a song?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It must be Miss Henderson,&rdquo; said Mary, smiling, &ldquo;for I don't sing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not a ballad?&mdash;not even one of the Melodies?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not even one of the Melodies,&rdquo; said she, sorrowfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shame upon me for that 'even,'&rdquo; said Repton; &ldquo;but you see what comes of
+surviving one's generation. I lived in an age when the 'Last Rose of
+Summer' and the 'Harp that Once' were classical as Homer's 'Hymns,' but I
+have now fallen upon times when English music is estimated in the same
+category with English cookery, and both deemed very little above
+barbarous. To be sure,&rdquo; added he, &ldquo;it does seem very like a poetical
+justice for the slavish adherence of <i>our</i> education to Greek and
+Roman literature, that our ladies should only sing to us in the languages
+of Italy or Germany.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope you would not imply that we are as little versed in these as great
+scholars are in the others?&rdquo; said Kate Henderson, slyly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sharply said, miss, and truthfully insinuated too! Not to mention that
+there is courage in such a speech before Mr. Nelligan, here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;very true&mdash;a just remark!&rdquo; said Joseph, who only overheard
+a reference to himself without understanding to what it alluded. And now a
+very joyous burst of laughter from the others startled him, while it
+covered him with confusion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We must make them sing, Nelligan,&rdquo; said Repton, gayly. &ldquo;They'll vanquish
+us in these tilting-matches of word-fence.&mdash;Now, Miss Henderson,
+something very plaintive and very sentimental, to suit the tenderness of a
+feeling heart.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll sing for you with pleasure,&rdquo; said Kate. &ldquo;Will this suit you?&rdquo; And
+with a short prelude she sang one of those brilliant little snatches of
+Venetian melody which seem like the outburst of a sudden inspiration,&mdash;wild,
+joyous, floating as they are,&mdash;wherein such is the expression that
+sounds usurp the place of language, and the mind is carried away by a
+dreamy fascination impossible to resist.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How often have I heard that on the Lido!&rdquo; said Mas-singbred, entering the
+room hastily; &ldquo;and what a glorious thing it is!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you know this?&rdquo; said Kate, running her fingers over the notes, and
+warbling out another of the popular airs of the same class.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The last time I heard that,&rdquo; said Jack, musingly, &ldquo;was one night when
+returning home from a late party, along the Grand Canal at Venice. There
+is a single word at the end of each verse which should be uttered by a
+second voice. Just as I passed beneath a brilliantly lighted salon, the
+sounds of this melody came floating forth, and as the stanza finished, I
+supplied the 'refrain.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You?&rdquo; cried Kate, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; but why do you ask?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you remember the exact spot?&rdquo; said she, not heeding his question.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;As well as though I were there only yesterday.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall I tell you where it was?&rdquo; He waited, and she went on: &ldquo;It was under
+the balcony of the Mocenigo Palace.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, this is witchcraft,&rdquo; cried Jack; &ldquo;you are perfectly correct.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The bouquet that was thrown to you from the window fell into the water.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I regained it. I have it still,&rdquo; cried he, more eagerly; &ldquo;and yours
+was the hand that threw it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+She nodded assent.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How strange, is it not, that we should meet here?&rdquo; He paused for a minute
+or two, and then said, &ldquo;It was the Duchesse de Courcelles lived there at
+the time?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, we passed the winter in that palace.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Henderson was the companion of the young Princess,&rdquo; said Lady
+Dorothea, who had just joined the group, and experienced no slight shock
+at observing the tone of easy familiarity in which the conversation was
+conducted. But Massingbred seemed wonderfully little moved by the
+intelligence, for, drawing his chair closer to Kate's, he led her to talk
+of Venice and its life, till, imperceptibly as it were, the discourse
+glided into Italian. What a dangerous freemasonry is the use of a foreign
+language, lifting the speakers out of the ordinary topics, and leading
+them away to distant scenes and impressions, which, constituting a little
+world apart, give a degree of confidential feeling to intercourse.
+Massingbred would willingly have lent himself to the full enjoyment of
+this illusion; but Kate, with quicker tact, saw all the difficulties and
+embarrassment it would occasion, and under pretext of searching for some
+music, escaped at once from the spot.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How I envy you, dear girl!&rdquo; said Mary, following her, and passing her arm
+affectionately around her. &ldquo;What a happiness must it be to possess such
+gifts as yours, which, even in their careless exercise, are so graceful.
+Tell me frankly, is it too late for me to try&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You overrate <i>me</i> as much as you disparage yourself,&rdquo; said Kate,
+mildly; &ldquo;but if you really will accept me, I will teach you the little
+that I know, but, in return, will you make <i>me</i> your friend?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mary pressed the other's hand warmly within her own.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here are some vows of everlasting friendship going forward, I 'll be
+sworn,&rdquo; said old Repton, stepping in between them; &ldquo;and you ought to have
+a legal opinion as to the clauses,&mdash;eh, young ladies, am I not
+right?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;When was Mr. Repton wrong?&rdquo; said Mary, laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;When he waited till his present age to fall in love!&rdquo; said he, gayly.
+&ldquo;But, seriously, what have you done with our young student? Of all the
+woe-begone faces I ever beheld, his was the very saddest, as he moved into
+the large drawing-room awhile ago. Which of you is to blame for this?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not guilty, upon my honor,&rdquo; said Mary, with mock solemnity.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm half afraid that our showy friend has eclipsed him in <i>your</i>
+eyes, as I own to you he has in <i>mine</i>, clever fellow that he is.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you not charmed with yourself that you did not shoot him this
+morning?&rdquo; said Mary, laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sincerely gratified that he has not shot me, which, taking his
+pistol performance on the same level with his other acquirements, was not
+so very improbable!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's your uncle stealing away to bed,&rdquo; said Repton, &ldquo;and fancying that
+nobody remarks him. Shall I be cruel enough to mar the project? Martin&mdash;Martin&mdash;come
+here for a moment; we want your opinion on a knotty point.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know what it is,&rdquo; said Martin, smiling; &ldquo;the question under discussion
+is, &ldquo;whether you or Mr. Massingbred were the more successful to-day? &rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think Mr. Massingbred may claim the prize,&rdquo; said Mary Martin, with a
+sly whisper; &ldquo;he made Lady Dorothea cry.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said Repton, &ldquo;but <i>I</i> made young Nelligan laugh!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And now the party broke up, Massingbred lingering a little behind to say
+something to Miss Henderson, and then betaking himself to his chamber,
+well satisfied with his day, and the change it had wrought in his
+fortunes. Perhaps a few passages from a letter that he, on that same
+night, penned to one of his friends in Dublin, will not be ill-timed as an
+exponent of his sentiments. The letter was written, directing certain
+articles of dress to be forwarded to him at once, by coach, and contained
+these paragraphs:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You now know how I came here: the next thing is to tell you of the place
+itself. The house is large and admirably <i>montée</i>&mdash;abundance of
+servants, well drilled, and orderly. The master a nonentity, apparently;
+easy-tempered and good-humored; liking the quiet monotony of his humdrum
+life, and only asking that it may not be interfered with. His wife, a fine
+lady of the school of five-and-forty years ago,&mdash;a nervous terrorist
+about mob encroachments and the democratic tendencies of the times,&mdash;insufferably
+tiresome on genealogies and 'connections,' and what many would call
+downright vulgar in the amount of her pretension. Gratitude&mdash;for I
+have the honor of being a favorite already&mdash;seals my lips against any
+further or harsher criticism. As for the niece, she is decidedly handsome;
+a great deal of style about her too; with a degree of&mdash;shall I call
+it daring? for it is more like courage than any other quality&mdash;that
+tells you she is the uncontrolled ruler over the wild regions and wild
+people around her. With more of manner, she would be very charming; but
+perhaps she is better in the unfettered freedom of her own capricious
+independence: it certainly suits her to perfection. And now I should have
+completed my catalogue, if it were not for the governess. Ay, Harry, the
+governess! And just fancy, under this unimposing title, a dark-eyed,
+haughty-looking girl&mdash;I don't think she can be above twenty or
+twenty-one&mdash;with a carriage and port that might suit an Archduchess
+of Austria. She has travelled all over Europe&mdash;been everywhere&mdash;seen
+everything, and, stranger again, everybody; for she was what they style a
+companion. By Jove! she must have been a very charming one; that is, if
+she liked it; for if she did not, Hal!&mdash;At all events, here she is;
+only having arrived the very day before myself; so that we are free to
+discuss the family, and compare notes together, in the most confidential
+fashion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course I need n't tell <i>you</i> Jack Massingbred does not fall in
+love,&mdash;the very phrase implies it must be beneath one,&mdash;but I
+already see that if such a girl were a Lady Catherine or a Lady Agnes,
+with a father in the Upper House, and two brothers in the 'Lower,' her
+dowry anything you like above thirty thousand,&mdash;that, in short, even
+Jack himself might exhibit the weakness of inferior mortals; for she is
+precisely one of those types that are ever looking upward,&mdash;a girl
+with a high ambition, I 'll be sworn, and formed to make the man, whose
+fortunes she shared, stand forward in the van and distinguish himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;These are our whole <i>dramatis persono</i>, if I include an old
+barrister, with a racy humor and a strong stock of Bar anecdotes; and
+young Nelligan, the Medal man, whom you quizzed me so much for noticing in
+Dublin. You were right then, Harry; he <i>is</i> a low fellow, and I was
+wrong in ever thinking him otherwise. I chanced upon his father's
+acquaintance rather oddly; and the son has not forgiven it. When we met
+here, yesterday, he fancied that we were to speak, and was actually
+rushing forward to shake hands with the most enthusiastic warmth; but with
+that manner which you have often admired, and once encouraged, when you
+called me the 'Cool of the day,' I pulled him up dead short, stared, and
+passed on. At dinner, I managed to ignore him so utterly that everybody
+else fell into the trap, and he dined as a tutor or the chaplain or the
+agent's son might,&mdash;mingling his sighs with the soup, and sipping his
+claret in all dreariness.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will see, even from these hasty lines, that there is enough here to
+interest and amuse; food for observation, and opportunity for malice. What
+can a man want more? The 'joint and the pickles.' They have asked me to
+stay,&mdash;they have even entreated; and so I mean to pass a week&mdash;perhaps
+two&mdash;here. I conclude that will give me enough of it: however, you
+shall hear frequently of my <i>res gesto</i>, and learn all that befalls
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jack Massingbred.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;... When you pass that way, pray see what letters there may be lying for
+me in my chambers. If any of my father's&mdash;he writes in a large
+splashy hand&mdash;and the seal, two maces, saltierwise&mdash;forward them
+here. I am, or I shall soon be, in want of money; and as I have overdrawn
+my allowance already, I shall be obliged to issue bonds, bearing a certain
+interest. Can you recommend me to a safe capitalist?&mdash;not Fordyce&mdash;nor
+Henniker&mdash;nor yet Sloan&mdash;with all of whom I have held dealings,
+mutually disagreeable. It is a sad reflection that the stamp worth five
+shillings upon a piece of unsullied paper is absolutely valueless when the
+words 'Jack Massingbred' are inscribed beneath. Try, and if you can, solve
+this curious problem.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;At all events, write to me here: supply me freely with news, for I am
+supposed to be acquainted with all that goes on, socially and politically,
+and I shall be driven to imagination if you do not store me with fact.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XVIII. STATECRAFT
+</h2>
+<p>
+It was a cabinet council; they were met in Lady Dorothea's boudoir, Martin
+and Mr. Repton being summoned to her presence. A letter had that morning
+reached her Ladyship from a very high quarter; the writer was the Marquis
+of Reckington, a very distant connection, who had suddenly been graciously
+pleased, after a long interval of utter obliviousness, to remember that
+Lady Dorothea was his relative, and yet living! Whatever pride her
+Ladyship might have summoned to her aid to repel the slights or
+impertinences of the vulgar, she displayed a most Christian forgiveness as
+she broke the seal of an epistle from one who had left several of her own
+without answers, and even replied to her application for a staff
+appointment for her son, by a cold assurance that these were times when
+&ldquo;nothing but fitness and superior qualifications entitled any man to
+advancement in the public service.&rdquo; Oh dear, were there ever any other
+times since the world was made! Is not merit the only passport to place,
+and high desert and capacity the sole recommendation to favor? Of all the
+immense advantages of a representative government, is there any more
+conspicuous than the unerring certainty with which men of ability rise to
+eminence without other aid than their own powers; and that, in a system
+like ours, family influence, wealth, name, connections, and parliamentary
+support are just so much mere dross? If any one be incredulous of the
+virtue of public men, let him only ask for a place; let him entreat his
+great friend&mdash;everybody has at least one great friend&mdash;mine is a
+coroner&mdash;to make him a Junior Lord, or a Vice-Something, and see what
+the answer will be. Polite, certainly; nothing more so; but what a rebuke
+to self-seeking!&mdash;what a stern chastisement to the ignorant
+presumption that places are awarded by means of favor, or that the public
+service is ever filled through the channels of private influence! Far from
+it. He is told that our age is an incorruptible one, that ministers pass
+sleepless nights in balancing the claims of treasury clerks, and that Lord
+Chancellors suffer agonies in weighing the merits of barristers of six
+years' standing. &ldquo;We have but one rule for our guidance: the best man in
+the best place.&rdquo; A high-sounding maxim, which it would be excessively
+uncivil to disparage by asking what constitutes &ldquo;a best man.&rdquo; Is he some
+unscrupulous partisan, who first gave his fortune, and afterwards his
+fame, to the support of a party? Is he the indisputable disposer of three,
+or perhaps four votes in the House? Is he a floating buoy to be anchored
+in either roadstead of politics, and only to be secured to either, for a
+consideration? Is he the dangerous confidant of some damaging transaction?
+Or is he the deserter from a camp, where his treason may sow disaffection?
+These several qualifications have ere this served to make up &ldquo;a best man;&rdquo;
+ and strangely enough, are gifts which fit him for the Army, the Navy, the
+Home Service, or the Colonies.
+</p>
+<p>
+Let us turn from this digression, into which we have fallen half
+inadvertently, and read over some parts of Lord Reckington's letter. It
+was somewhat difficult to decipher, as most great men's letters are, and
+displayed in more than one place the signs of correction. Although it had
+been, as we have said, a very long time since any correspondence had
+occurred between the &ldquo;cousins,&rdquo; his Lordship resumed the intercourse as
+though not a week had intervened. After a little playful chiding over the
+laxity of her Ladyship's writing habits,&mdash;three of hers had been left
+unreplied to,&mdash;and some of that small gossip of family changes and
+events, never interesting to any but the direct actors, his Lordship
+approached the real topic of his letter; and, as he did so, his writing
+grew firmer, and larger and bolder, like the voice of a man who spoke of
+what truly concerned him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought, my dear Dora, I had done with it all. I flattered myself that
+I had served my time in public capacities, and that neither the Crown nor
+its advisers could reasonably call upon me for further sacrifices. <i>You</i>
+know how little to my taste were either the cares or ambitions of office.
+In fact, as happens to most men who are zealous for the public service, my
+official career imposed far more of sacrifices than it conferred
+privileges. Witness the occasions in which I was driven to reject the
+claims of my nearest and dearest friends, in compliance with that nervous
+terror of imputed favoritism so fatal to all in power! I thought, as I
+have said, that they had no fair claim upon me any longer. I asked
+nothing; indeed, many thought I was wrong there. But so it was; I quitted
+office without a pension, and without a ribbon! It was late on a Saturday
+evening, however, when a Cabinet messenger arrived at 'Beech Woods' with
+an order for me to repair at once to Windsor. I was far from well; but
+there was no escape. Immediately on arriving I was summoned to the
+presence, and before I had paid my respects, his Majesty, who was much
+excited, said, 'Reckington, we want you. You must go to Ireland!' I
+believe I started, for he went on, 'I 'll have no refusal. There is but
+one settlement of this question that I will accept of. You shall go to
+Ireland!' The King then entered with considerable warmth, but with all his
+own remarkable perspicuity, into a detail of late changes and events in
+the Cabinet. He was excessively irritated with B&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, and
+spoke of G&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;as one whom he never could forgive. He
+repeatedly said, 'I have been duped; I have been tricked;' and, in fact,
+exhibited a degree of emotion which, combined with the unbounded frankness
+of his manner towards me, affected me almost to tears. Of course, my dear
+Dora, personal considerations ceased at once to have any hold upon me; and
+I assured his Majesty that the remainder of my life was freely at his
+disposal, more than requited, as it already was, by the precious
+confidence he had that day reposed in me. I must not weary you with
+details. I accepted and kissed hands as Viceroy on Monday morning; since
+that I have been in daily communication with G&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, who
+still remains in office. We have discussed Ireland from morning to night,
+and I hope and trust have at last come to a thorough understanding as to
+the principles which must guide the future administration. These I reserve
+to talk over with you when we meet; nor do I hesitate to say that I
+anticipate the very greatest benefit in the fruits of your long residence
+and great powers of observation of this strange people.&rdquo; The letter here
+went off into a somewhat long-winded profession of the equal-handed
+justice which was to mark the acts of the administration. It was to be, in
+fact, a golden era of equity and fairness; but, somehow, as codicils are
+occasionally found to revoke the body of the testament, a very suspicious
+little paragraph rather damaged this glorious conclusion. &ldquo;I don't mean to
+say, my dear coz., that we are to neglect our followers,&mdash;the
+Government which could do so never yet possessed, never deserved to
+possess, able support; but we must discriminate,&mdash;we must distinguish
+between the mere partisan who trades on his principles, and that
+high-minded and honorable patriot who gives his convictions to party. With
+the noisy declaimer at public meetings, the mob-orator or pamphleteer, we
+shall have no sympathy. To the worthy country gentleman, independent by
+fortune as well as by principle, extending the example of a blameless life
+to a large neighborhood, aiding us by his counsels as much as by the
+tender of his political support,&mdash;to him, I say, we shall show our
+gratitude, not grudgingly nor sparingly, but freely, openly, and largely.
+You now know in what ranks we wish to see our friends, in the very van of
+which array I reckon upon yourself.&rdquo; We shall again skip a little, since
+here the writer diverged into a slight dissertation on the indissoluble
+ties of kindred, and the links, stronger than adamant, that bind those of
+one blood together. After a brief but rapid survey of the strong
+opposition which was to meet them, he went on: &ldquo;Of course all will depend
+upon our parliamentary support; without a good working majority we cannot
+stand, and for this must we use all our exertions.&rdquo; A few generalities on
+the comfort and satisfaction resulting from &ldquo;safe divisions&rdquo; ensued, and
+then came the apparently careless question, &ldquo;What can <i>you</i> do for
+us? Yes, my dear Dora, I repeat, what can <i>you</i> do for us? What we
+need is the support of men who have courage enough to merge old prejudices
+and old convictions in their full trust in us; who, with the intelligence
+of true statesmanship, will comprehend the altered condition of the
+country, and not endeavor to adapt the nation to <i>their</i> views, but
+rather <i>their</i> views to the nation. In a word, a wise and liberal
+policy, not based upon party watchwords and antiquated symbols, but on the
+prospect of seeing Ireland great and united. Now, will Martin come to our
+aid in this wise? He ought to be in Parliament for his county. But if he
+be too indolent, or too happy at home, whom can he send us? And again,
+what of the borough? They tell me that Kilcock, seeing his father's great
+age, will not stand where a contest might be expected, so that you must
+necessarily be prepared with another.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Again the writer launched out upon the happiness he felt at being able to
+appeal thus candidly and freely to his own &ldquo;dearest kinswoman,&rdquo; inviting
+her to speak as frankly in return, and to believe that no possible
+difference of political opinion should ever throw a coldness between those
+whose veins were filled with the same blood, and whose hearts throbbed
+with the same affections. Her Ladyship's voice slightly faltered as she
+read out the concluding paragraph, and when she laid the letter down, she
+turned away her head and moved her handkerchief to her eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+As for Martin, he sat still and motionless, his gaze firmly directed to
+Repton, as though seeking in the impassive lines of the old lawyer's face
+for some clew to guide and direct him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You used to be a Tory, Martin?&rdquo; said Repton, after a pause.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, to be sure, we were always with that party.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there's an end of them now,&rdquo; said the other. &ldquo;What's to follow and
+fill their place, my Lord Reckington may be able to say; I cannot. I only
+know that <i>they</i> exist no longer; and the great question for you&mdash;at
+least, one of the great questions&mdash;is, have you spirit enough to join
+a travelling party without knowing whither they 're journeying?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what may be the other great question, sir?&rdquo; asked Lady Dorothea,
+haughtily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The other is, what will it cost in money&mdash;ay, my Lady, in money;
+because any other outlay will not require searches nor title-deeds, loans,
+mortgages, nor bond-debts.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To contest the county would cost ten thousand pounds; Scanlan says so,&rdquo;
+ rejoined Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the borough?&rdquo; asked Repton.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A few hundreds would suffice; at least, they have done so hitherto.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then remain content with the cheap luxury of the borough,&rdquo; said Repton.
+&ldquo;You don't want anything from these people, Martin. You don't covet a
+peerage; you would n't accept a baronetcy. You remember what Langton said
+when told that the King was going to give him the 'Red Hand.' 'If I have
+been unfortunate enough to incur his Majesty's displeasure, I must deplore
+it deeply; but surely my innocent son should not be included in the
+penalty of my offence. Therefore, in all humility, I beseech and entreat
+the royal favor to commute the sentence into knighthood, so that the
+disgrace may die with me.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There were times when such insolence would have cost him dearly,&rdquo; said
+her Ladyship, sternly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not sorry that we don't live in them, my Lady,&rdquo; replied Repton. &ldquo;But
+to return: as I was saying, you ask for no favors; why should you expend
+ten or fifteen thousand pounds to advocate views of whose tendencies you
+know nothing, and principles whose very meaning you are in ignorance of?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I anticipated every word of this,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea. &ldquo;I told Mr.
+Martin, this morning, almost literally, the exact advice you'd proffer.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am proud that your Ladyship should have read me so justly,&rdquo; said
+Repton, bowing.
+</p>
+<p>
+An insolent toss of her head was the significant answer to this speech.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But were I to speak my mind more candidly, I 'd even say, let the borough
+go after the county; and for this plain reason,&rdquo; said Repton, speaking
+with increased firmness and animation, &ldquo;you neither seek for the ambition
+of political life, nor want to make a trade of its casualties.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it not possible, sir, that we might desire the natural influence that
+should arise out of our station in society and our rank in this county?&rdquo;
+ said Lady Dorothea, proudly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And your Ladyship has it, and can never lose it. Having a vote or two to
+throw into a Ministerial division would never repay you for the anxieties
+and cares of contested elections. Ah, my Lady, what do <i>you</i> care for
+the small flatteries of London attentions?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We should have these, sir, as our right,&rdquo; broke she in.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure you would, and much happiness do I hope they would confer,&rdquo;
+ added he, in a tone only overheard by Martin; then continued aloud: &ldquo;As to
+the patronage at your disposal, would you take a present of it? Whom do
+you want to make tide-waiters, gaugers, barony-constables, or even clerks
+of the peace? Of all men living, who is so free of hungry dependants or
+poor relations!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must say, sir, that you reduce the question of political support to a
+very intelligible one of material benefit,&rdquo; said her Ladyship, with a
+sneer; &ldquo;but, just for argument sake, imagine that there should be such a
+thing as a little principle in the matter.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm going to that part of the case, my Lady,&rdquo; said Repton. &ldquo;Martin is a
+Tory; now, what are the men coming into power? I wish you could tell me.
+Here, for instance, is one of their own journals,&rdquo;&mdash;and he opened a
+newspaper and ran his eye over the columns,&mdash;&ldquo;ay, here it is: 'With
+regard to Ireland, Lord Reckington's appointment as Viceroy is the best
+guarantee that the rights of Irishmen of every persuasion and every
+denomination will be respected.' So far so good;&rdquo; and he read on in a low,
+humdrum voice for some minutes, till he came to the following: &ldquo;'No
+privileged class will any longer be tolerated; no exceptional loyalty
+admitted as an excuse for insufferable oppression and tyranny; the wishes
+and benefits of the people&mdash;the real people of that country&mdash;will
+at length enter into the views of an administration; and Ireland as she
+is,&mdash;not the possible Ireland of factious enthusiasts,&mdash;be
+governed by men determined to redress her grievances and improve her
+capacities.' Now, Martin, you want no augur to interpret that oracle. They
+are going to rule you by the people; but the people must be represented.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, who represents them? Not the demagogue; he is merely their tool. The
+real representative is the priest; don't laugh, my dear friend, at such a
+shadowy possibility; the thing is nearer than you dream of. No
+administration ever yet tried to govern Ireland except by intimidation.
+The Beresfords were undertakers once, and they did their work very well,
+let me tell you; they advanced their friends and whipped their enemies;
+and what with peerages for one set, and pitched caps for the other, they
+ruled Ireland. Then there came the Orangemen, who rather blundered their
+work; there were too many heads amongst them, and the really clever
+fellows were overborne by brawling, talkative fools, who always had the
+masses with them because they <i>were</i> fools. Still they ruled Ireland.
+They preserved the country to the King's crown; and I say once more, that
+was no small matter. And now we have arrived at a new era; we have
+obtained Emancipation, and must look out for another stamp of
+administrators, and I see nothing for it but the priest. Of course you,
+and every man of your station, sneer at the notion of being dictated to by
+Father Luke, in the greasy leather small-clothes and dirty black boots,&mdash;only,
+himself, a cottier once removed, a plant of the wild growth of the fields,
+cultivated, however, in the hotbeds of Maynooth,&mdash;a forcing-house
+whose fruits you are yet to taste of! Sneer away, Martin; but my name is
+not Val Repton if those men do not rule Ireland yet! Ay, sir, and rule it
+in such a fashion as your haughty Beresfords and Tottenhams, and Tisdalls
+never dreamed of! They 'll treat with the Government on equal terms,&mdash;so
+much, for so much; and, what's more, it won't be higgling for a place
+here, or a peerage there; but they'll have the price paid down in hard
+legislative coin,&mdash;Acts of Parliament, sir; privileges for themselves
+and their order, benefits to 'the Church;' and, when nothing better or
+more tempting offers, insults and slights to their antagonists. You, and
+all like you, will be passed over as if you never existed; the minister
+will not need you; you'll be so many general officers on the retired list,
+and only remarked when you swell the crowd at a levee.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So, sir, according to this special prediction of yours, we have nothing
+left us but to live on our estates, enjoy what we can of our fortunes, and
+leave the interests of the nation to those our inferiors in rank, station,
+and property?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Such a period as your Ladyship has pictured forth&mdash;a little
+strongly, perhaps&mdash;is before you. Whether the interval be destined to
+be long or short, will, in great measure, depend upon yourselves.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That agrees with what Scanlan said the other day,&rdquo; said Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Scanlan!&rdquo; echoed her Ladyship, with most profound contempt.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is this Scanlan?&rdquo; asked Repton.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There he comes to answer for himself,&rdquo; said Martin. &ldquo;The fellow drives
+neatly. See how cleverly he swept round that sharp turn! He may be 'at
+fault' about the world of politics; but, <i>my</i> word for it! he is a
+rare judge of a hack.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And, now that you suggest it,&rdquo; said Repton, musingly, &ldquo;what an
+instinctive shrewdness there is on every subject,&mdash;I don't care what
+it is,&mdash;about fellows that deal in horse flesh. The practice of
+buying and selling, searching out flaws here, detecting defects there,
+gives a degree of suspectful sharpness in all transactions; besides that,
+really none but a naturally clever fellow ever graduates in the stable.
+You smile, my Lady; but some of our very first men have achieved the
+triumphs of the turf.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall we have Scanlan in and hear the news?&rdquo; asked Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not here. If you please, you may receive him in the library or your own
+room.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, come along, Repton. We can resume this affair in the afternoon or
+to-morrow.&rdquo; And, without waiting for a reply, he passed his arm within the
+other's, and led him away. &ldquo;You have been too abrupt with her, Repton; you
+have not made due allowances for her attachment to family influences,&rdquo;
+ said he, in a whisper, as they went along.
+</p>
+<p>
+Repton smiled half contemptuously.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, it's all very easy for you to laugh, my dear fellow; but, trust me,
+there's nothing to be done with my Lady in that fashion.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Turn the flank,&mdash;eh?&rdquo; said the old lawyer, slyly. &ldquo;Ah, Martin, don't
+teach <i>me</i> how to deal with humanity. If you have not the courage to
+tell your wife that your estate cannot bear fresh encumbrances, new loans,
+and new debts&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; said Martin, cautiously.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, I say, let me prevent the casualty, that's all.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How are you, Scanlan?&rdquo; said Martin, as the attorney came, bowing and
+smiling, forward to pay his respects. &ldquo;My friend, Mr. Repton, wishes to
+make your acquaintance.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have the honor of being known to Mr. Repton, already, sir, if he has
+not forgotten me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh,&mdash;how? where?&rdquo; cried the lawyer, sharply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In Reeves <i>versus</i> Dockery, and another, sir, in Hilary, 24. It was
+<i>I</i> supplied the instructions&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure,&mdash;perfectly right. Maurice Scanlan; isn't that the name?
+You did the thing well, sir; and if we failed, we retreated without
+dishonor.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was a grand shot you fired at the Bench, sir, when all was over,&rdquo;
+ said Scanlan. &ldquo;I don't suppose they ever got such a complete 'set down'
+before.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I forget it,&rdquo; said Repton, but with a bright twinkle of his eye, which
+more than contradicted his words.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, sir, it's more than their Lordships ever will,&rdquo; said Scanlan. &ldquo;The
+Chief Baron it was,&rdquo; said he, addressing Martin, &ldquo;that overruled every
+objection made by Counsellor Repton, and at last declared that he would
+n't hear any more citations whatsoever. 'But I have a stronger case still,
+my Lord,' says the Counsellor. 'I 'll not hear it, sir,' said the Court.
+'It is in Crewe and Fust, Term Reports, page 1,438.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'I don't care where it is, sir,' was the answer.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'In a charge delivered by Lord Eldon&mdash;'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Oh, let us hear my Lord Eldon,' said Plumridge, the Puisne Judge, who
+was rather ashamed of the Chief Baron's severity. 'Let us hear my Lord
+Eldon.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Here it is, my Lords,' said the Counsellor, opening the volume, and
+laying his hand upon the page,&mdash;'Crewe and Fust's Pleas of the Crown,
+page 1,438. My Lord Eldon says, &ldquo;I may here observe the Courts of Law in
+Ireland are <i>generally</i> wrong! The Court of Exchequer is <i>always</i>
+wrong!&rdquo;'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Repton tried to smother his own delighted laugh at the reminiscence, but
+all in vain; it burst from him long and joyously; and as he shook
+Scanlan's hand, he said, &ldquo;The incident loses nothing by your telling, sir;
+you have done it admirable justice.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You make me very proud, indeed, Counsellor,&rdquo; said Scanlan, who really did
+look overjoyed at the speech.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you any news for us, Scanlan?&rdquo; said Martin, as they entered the
+library.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir; the Ministry is out.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We know that already, man!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the Marquis of Reckington comes here as Lord-Lieutenant.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That we know also.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Colonel Massingbred to be Chief Sec&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Moore Massingbred!&rdquo; cried both, in a breath.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir; he that was a Treasury Lord.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you quite sure of this, Scanlan?&rdquo; asked Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I had it from Groves, sir, at the Castle, yesterday morning, who told me
+there would be an immediate dissolution, and showed me a list of
+Government candidates.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may talk them all over together, then,&rdquo; said Martin, &ldquo;for I 'm
+heartily tired of politics this morning.&rdquo; And so saying, he left them.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XIX. A STUDIO
+</h2>
+<p>
+It is one of the most inestimable privileges of Art, that amidst all the
+cares and contentions of the world, amidst strife and war and carnage, its
+glorious realm is undisturbed, its peace unbroken, and its followers free
+to follow their own wayward fancies, without let or hindrance. Your great
+practical intelligences, your men of committees and corn and railroads and
+ship-canals, sneer at the fictitious life&mdash;for so does it seem to
+them&mdash;of the mere painter or musician. They have a sort of pitying
+estimate for capacities only exercised upon the ideal, and look down with
+a very palpable contempt upon those whose world is a gallery or an
+orchestra. After all, this division of labor is a wise and happy
+provision, carrying with it many and varied benefits, and making of that
+strange edifice of mankind a far more pleasing and harmonious structure
+than we should otherwise have seen it. The imagination is to the actual,
+in the world of active life, what flowers are to nutritious herbs and
+roots. It is the influence that adorns, elevates, and embellishes
+existence. That such gifts have been confided to certain individuals is in
+itself a sufficient evidence, just as we see in the existence of flowers
+that pleasure has its place assigned in the grand scheme of creation, and
+that the happiness which flows from gratified sense has not been denied
+us.
+</p>
+<p>
+In that petty world which lived beneath the roof of Cro' Martin Castle,
+all the eager passions and excitements of political intrigue were now at
+work. My lady was full of plans for future greatness; Repton was scheming
+and suggesting, and thwarting everybody in turn; and even Martin himself,
+engulfed in the &ldquo;Maelstrom&rdquo; of the crisis, was roused into a state of
+semi-preparation that amounted to a condition of almost fever. As for
+Massingbred, whatever he really did feel, his manner affected a most
+consummate indifference to all that went forward; nor did the mention of
+his father's appointment to high office elicit from him anything beyond a
+somewhat contemptuous opinion of the new party in power. While, therefore,
+secret counsels were held, letters read and written, conferences conducted
+in every room, one little space was devoid of all these embarrassments and
+anxieties, and that was an oval chamber, lighted from the top, and
+originally destined for a summer ball-room, but now appropriated to Mr.
+Crow's use for the completion of the Grand Historical, which had lately
+been transferred from Kilkieran to its place there.
+</p>
+<p>
+The unlucky masterpiece was doomed to many a difficulty. The great events
+in prospect had totally banished all thought of &ldquo;art&rdquo; from Lady Dorothea's
+mind. The fall of a recent administration was a far more imminent
+circumstance than the abdication of a king a few centuries back. Martin,
+of course, had enough on his head, without the cares of mock royalty. Mary
+was overwhelmed with occupations. The floods and a threatened famine were
+casualties not to be overlooked; and she was absent every day from dawn to
+late night; while, to complete the list of defaulters, young Nelligan&mdash;the
+future Prince of Orange of the picture&mdash;was gone!
+</p>
+<p>
+Men deplore their past youth, their bygone buoyancy of heart, their old
+loves and extinct friendships; but of all departed pleasures, there is a
+peculiar poignancy about one, and that is an artist's grief over a &ldquo;lost
+sitter.&rdquo; You ladies and gentlemen whose thumbs have never closed on a
+palette, nor whose fingers have never felt the soft influence of varnish,
+may smile at such a sorrow, but take my word for it, it is a real and
+tangible affliction.
+</p>
+<p>
+The waving locks, the noble brow; the deep square orbits, and the finely
+cut chin are but the subtle suggestions out of which inspirations are
+begotten, and poetic visions nurtured. The graceful bearing and the noble
+port, the tender melancholy or the buoyant gladness, have each in turn
+struck some chord of secret feeling in the artist's breast, revealing to
+him new ideas of beauty, and imparting that creative power which displays
+itself in new combinations.
+</p>
+<p>
+Poor Simmy Crow was not a Titian nor a Vandyke, but unhappily the sorrows
+of genius are very often experienced by those who are not gifted with its
+greatness; and the humble aspirant of excellence can catch every malady to
+which the triumphant in all the wild enthusiasm of his powers is exposed.
+He sat down before his canvas, as some general might before a fortified
+town which had resisted all his efforts of attack. He was depressed and
+discouraged.
+</p>
+<p>
+The upper part of the young student's head was already half finished, and
+there was enough done to impart a kind of promise of success,&mdash;that
+glorious vista which opens itself so often in imagination to those whose
+world is but their own fancy. He half thought he could finish it from
+memory; but before he had proceeded many minutes, he laid down the brush
+in despair. It seemed like a fatality that something must always interpose
+to bar the road to success. One time it was sickness, then it was poverty;
+a disparaging criticism had even done it; and now, when none of these
+threatened, there arose a new impediment. &ldquo;Ah! Simmy, Simmy,&rdquo; he exclaimed
+aloud, &ldquo;you were born under an unkindly planet. That's the secret of it
+all!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I confess I cannot concur in that opinion,&rdquo; said a low, soft voice behind
+him. He started up, and beheld Kate Henderson, who, leaning on the back of
+a chair, continued to gaze steadfastly at the canvas, perfectly regardless
+of his astonishment. &ldquo;There is a great deal to admire in that picture!&rdquo;
+ said she, as though talking to herself.
+</p>
+<p>
+Simmy crept stealthily back, and stationed himself behind her, as if to
+hear her remarks, while viewing the picture from the same point.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have grouped your figures admirably,&rdquo; continued she, now addressing
+him, &ldquo;and your management of the light shows a study of Rembrandt.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very true, ma'am&mdash;miss, I mean. I have copied nearly all his great
+pieces.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the drapery&mdash;that robe of the King's&mdash;tells me that you
+have studied another great master of color&mdash;am I right, sir, in
+saying Paul Veronese?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Simmy Crow's face glowed till it became crimson, while his eyes sparkled
+with intense delight.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, dear me!&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;is n't it too much happiness to hear this?
+and only a minute ago I was in black despair!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mine is very humble criticism, sir; but as I have seen good pictures&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where? In the galleries abroad?&rdquo; broke in Crow, hurriedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;All over Germany and Italy. I travelled with those who really cared for
+and understood art. But to come back to yours&mdash;that head is a noble
+study.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And that's exactly what I'm grieving over,&mdash;he's gone.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Young Mr. Nelligan?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Himself. He started this morning for Oughterard.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But probably to return in a day or two.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Crow looked stealthily around to see if he were not likely to be
+overheard, and then, approaching Kate, said in a whisper,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think he 'll ever cross the doors again.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How so? has he received any offence?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can't make out what it is,&rdquo; said Simmy, with a puzzled look, &ldquo;but he
+came to my room late last night, and sat down without saying a word; and
+at last, when I questioned him if he were ill, he said suddenly,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Have you found, Mr. Crow, that in your career as an artist, you have
+been able to withdraw yourself sufficiently from the ordinary events of
+life as to make up a little world of your own, wherein you lived
+indifferent to passing incidents?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Yes,' said I, 'I have, whenever I was doing anything really worth the
+name.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'And at such times,' said he, again, 'you cared nothing, or next to
+nothing, for either the flatteries or the sarcasms of those around you?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'I could n't mind them,' said I, 'for I never so much as heard them.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Exactly what I mean,' said he, rapidly. 'Intent upon higher ambitions,
+you were above the petty slights of malice or envy, and with your own goal
+before you, were steeled against the minor casualties of the journey. Then
+why should not I also enjoy the immunity? Can I not summon to my aid a
+pride like this, or am I to be discouraged and disgraced to my own heart
+by a mere impertinence?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I stared at him, not guessing what he could mean.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Rather quit the spot with which it is associated,&mdash;quit it
+forever,' muttered he to himself, as he paced the room, while his face
+grew deathly pale.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'As for me,' said I, for I wanted to say something&mdash;anything, in
+short&mdash;just to take his attention a little off of himself, 'whenever
+the world goes hard with me, I just step into my studio, lock the door,
+and sit down before a fresh canvas. I throw in a bit of brown, with a dash
+of bluish gray over it,&mdash;half sky, half atmosphere,&mdash;and I daub
+away till something like an effect&mdash;maybe a sunset, maybe a
+sullen-looking seashore, maybe a long, low prairie swell&mdash;rises
+before me. I don't try for details, I don't even trace an outline, but
+just throw in an effect here and there, and by good luck it often comes
+right, in some fine harmony of color, that's sure to warm up my heart and
+cheer my spirits; for, as there are sounds that, swelling up, fill the
+whole nature of man with ecstasy, there are combinations of color and tint
+that enter the brain by the eye, and just produce the same sense of
+delight.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how did he accept your consolation?&rdquo; asked she, smiling
+good-naturedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't well know if he listened to me,&rdquo; said Simmy, sorrowfully; &ldquo;for
+all he said afterwards was,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Well, Mr. Crow, good-bye. I hope you 'll come to see me when you visit
+Dublin. You 'll easily find out my chambers in the college.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course I said, 'I'd be delighted;' and there we parted.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor fellow!&rdquo; said Kate, but in an accent so peculiar it would have been
+very difficult to pronounce whether the words were of kindness or of
+disparagement.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And your Prince, Mr. Crow?&rdquo; said she, changing her tone to one of real or
+affected interest; &ldquo;what's to be done now that Mr. Nelligan has left us?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm thinking of making a background figure of him, miss,&rdquo; said Simmy.
+&ldquo;Burnt sienna reduces many an illustrious individual to an obscure
+position.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But why not ask Mr. Massingbred to take his place&mdash;you've seen him?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Only passing the window, miss. He is a handsome young man, but that same
+look of fashion, the dash of style about him, is exactly what destroys the
+face for <i>me</i>, I feel I could make nothing of it; I 'd be always
+thinking of him standing inside the plate-glass window of a London club,
+or cantering along the alleys of the Park, or sipping his iced lemonade at
+Tortoni's. There's no poetizing your man of gold chains and embroidered
+waistcoats!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I half suspect you are unjust in this case,&rdquo; said she, with one of her
+dubious smiles.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm only saying what the effect is upon myself, miss,&rdquo; said Crow.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But why not make a compromise between the two?&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;I believe the
+great painters&mdash;Vandyke, certainly&mdash;rarely took the studies from
+a single head. They caught a brow here, and a mouth there, harmonizing the
+details by the suggestions of their own genius. Now, what if, preserving
+all this here,&rdquo;&mdash;and she pointed to the head and eyes,&mdash;&ldquo;you
+were to fill up the remainder, partly from imagination, partly from a
+study.&rdquo; And as she spoke she took the brush from his hand, and by a few
+light and careless touches imparted a new character to the face.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, go on! that's admirable,&mdash;that's glorious!&rdquo; exclaimed Crow, wild
+with delight.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0010" id="linkimage-0010">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/276.jpg" width="100%" alt="276 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is no necessity to lose the expression of haughty sorrow in the eye
+and brow,&rdquo; continued she; &ldquo;nor does it interfere with the passing emotion
+he may be supposed unable to control, of proud contempt for that priestly
+influence which has dominated over the ambition of a king.&rdquo; And now, as
+though carried away by the theme, she continued to paint as rapidly as she
+spoke, while Crow busied himself in preparing the colors upon the palette.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My hardihood is only intended to encourage you, Mr. Crow,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;by
+showing that if one like me can point the road, the journey need not be
+deemed a difficult one.&rdquo; As she retired some paces to contemplate the
+picture, she casually glanced through a low glass door which opened upon
+the lawn, and where, under the shelter of a leafy beech, a young country
+girl was standing; her blue cloth cloak, with the hood thrown over her
+head, gave a certain picturesque character to the figure, which nearer
+inspection more than confirmed, for her features were singularly fine, and
+her large, soft blue eyes beamed with a gentle earnestness that showed
+Kate she was there with a purpose.
+</p>
+<p>
+Opening the door at once, Kate Henderson approached her, and asked what
+she wanted.
+</p>
+<p>
+With an air of half pride, half shame, the country girl drew herself up,
+and stared full and steadfastly at the speaker, and so continued till Kate
+repeated her question.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sure you're not Miss Mary?&rdquo; replied she, by questioning her in turn.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, but if I can be of any use to you&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think you can,&rdquo; broke she in, with a manner almost haughty; &ldquo;it's
+somebody else I 'm wanting.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you wish to see Miss Martin, I 'll go and fetch her,&rdquo; said Kate.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did n't say it was her I wanted to see,&rdquo; replied she, with a calm and
+almost severe composure.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maybe her Ladyship?&rdquo; asked Kate, far more interested than repelled by the
+other's manner.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's none of them at all,&rdquo; rejoined she. &ldquo;I came here to speak to one
+that I know myself,&rdquo; added she, after a long pause; &ldquo;and if he isn't gone,
+I want to see him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I think I can guess now,&rdquo; said Kate, smiling. &ldquo;It is the Counsellor
+from Dublin, Mr. Repton.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is no such thing,&rdquo; said the girl, promptly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then it must be Mr. Crow, here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+An indignant toss of the head gave the negative to this surmise.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have gone through all our names here,&rdquo; said Kate; &ldquo;and except Mr.
+Massingbred&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And there's the very one I want,&rdquo; said the girl, boldly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Step in here and rest yourself, and I 'll send for him,&rdquo; said Kate; and
+with such persuasive courtesy were the words uttered, that almost, as it
+seemed, against her very will the girl followed her into the studio and
+sat down. While Mr. Crow proceeded in search of Massingbred, Kate
+Henderson, resuming brush and palette, returned to her painting; not,
+however, on the grand canvas of the &ldquo;Historical,&rdquo; but dexterously
+interposing a piece of fresh board, she seized the opportunity to sketch
+the beautiful head then before her, while occupying the girl's attention
+with the objects around.
+</p>
+<p>
+Notwithstanding her intense astonishment at all she saw, the country girl
+never uttered a word, nor vouchsafed a single question as to the
+paintings; she even tried to moderate the eager pleasure they afforded by
+an endeavor not to admire them. Touched by the native pride of this
+struggle,&mdash;for struggle it was,&mdash;the features had assumed a look
+of haughty composure that well became the character of her beauty, and
+Kate caught up the expression so rapidly that her sketch was already
+well-nigh completed when Massing-bred entered.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear Mistress Joan,&rdquo; cried he, shaking her cordially by both hands,
+&ldquo;how glad I am to see you again! It was but this very moment I was
+inquiring how I could go over and pay you a visit.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Hurriedly as these words were uttered, and in all the apparent fervor of
+hearty sincerity, they were accompanied by a short glance at Kate
+Henderson, who was about to leave the room, that plainly said, &ldquo;Remain
+where you are, there is no mystery here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thank yer honer kindly,&rdquo; said Joan Landy, &ldquo;but it's no good coming, he
+is n't there.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not there!&mdash;how and why is that?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sure <i>you</i> ought to know better than me,&rdquo; said she, fixing her large
+eyes full upon him. &ldquo;Ye left the house together, and <i>he</i> never came
+back since.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, perhaps I can guess,&rdquo; said Jack, pausing for a moment to reflect. &ldquo;He
+might have deemed it safer to keep out of the way for a day or two.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's no good deceivin' me, sir,&rdquo; said she, rising from her seat; &ldquo;tell me
+the whole truth. Where is he?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is really more than I can say, my dear Mistress Joan. We parted in
+Oughterard.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you never saw him after?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never, I assure you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you never tried to see him?&mdash;you never asked what became of
+him?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I concluded, indeed I was certain, that he returned home,&rdquo; said Jack, but
+not without some confusion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, that was enough for you,&rdquo; said she, angrily. &ldquo;If you were a poor
+labor in' man, you 'd not desert him that had you under his roof and gave
+you the best he had; but because ye 're a gentleman&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is precisely for that reason I can't suffer you to think so meanly of
+me,&rdquo; cried Jack. &ldquo;Now just hear me for one moment, and you'll see how
+unjust you've been.&rdquo; And, drawing his chair closer to hers, he narrated in
+a low and whispering voice the few events of their morning at Oughterard,
+and read for her the short note Magennis had written to him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And is that all?&rdquo; exclaimed Joan, when he concluded.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;All, upon my honor!&rdquo; said he, solemnly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, then, wirra! wirra!&rdquo; said she, wringing her hands sorrowfully, &ldquo;why
+did I come here?&mdash;why did n't I bear it all patient? But sure my
+heart was bursting, and I could not rest nor sleep, thinking of what
+happened to him! Oh, yer honer knows well what he is to <i>me!</i>&rdquo; And
+she covered her face with her hands.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have done nothing wrong in coming here,&rdquo; said Jack, consolingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not if he never hears of it,&rdquo; said she, in a voice tremulous with fear.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That he need never do,&rdquo; rejoined Jack; &ldquo;though I cannot see why he should
+object to it. But come, Mrs. Joan, don't let this fret you; here's a young
+lady will tell you, as I have, that nobody could possibly blame your
+natural anxiety.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What would a young lady know about a poor creature like <i>me?</i>&rdquo;
+ exclaimed Joan, dejectedly. &ldquo;Sure, from the day she's born, she never felt
+what it was to be all alone and friendless!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You little guess to whom you say that,&rdquo; said Kate, turning round and
+gazing on her calmly; &ldquo;but if the balance were struck this minute, take my
+word for it, you 'd have the better share of fortune.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Jack Massingbred's cheek quivered slightly as he heard these words, and
+his eyes were bent upon the speaker with an intense meaning. Kate,
+however, turned haughtily away from the gaze, and coldly reminded him that
+Mrs. Joan should have some refreshment after her long walk.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, miss,&mdash;no, yer honer; many thanks for the same,&rdquo; said Joan,
+drawing her cloak around her. &ldquo;I couldn't eat a bit; my heart's heavy
+inside me. I 'll go back now.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Kate tried to persuade her to take something, or, at least, to rest a
+little longer; but she was resolute, and eager to return.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall we bear you company part of the way, then?&rdquo; said Jack, with a look
+of half entreaty towards Kate.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall be but too happy,&rdquo; said Kate, while she turned the nearly
+completed sketch to the wall, but not so rapidly as to prevent
+Massingbred's catching a glimpse of it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How like!&rdquo; exclaimed he, but only in a whisper audible to himself. &ldquo;I
+didn't know that this also was one of your accomplishments.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A little laugh and a saucy motion of her head was all her reply, while she
+went in search of her bonnet and shawl. She was back again in a moment,
+and the three now issued forth into the wood.
+</p>
+<p>
+For all Jack Massingbred's boasted &ldquo;tact,&rdquo; and his assumed power of
+suiting himself to his company, he felt very ill at ease as he walked
+along that morning. &ldquo;His world&rdquo; was not that of the poor country girl at
+his side, and he essayed in vain to find some topic to interest her. Not
+so Kate Henderson. With all a woman's nice perception, and quite without
+effort, she talked to Joan about the country and the people, of whose
+habits she knew sufficient not to betray ignorance; and although Joan felt
+at times a half-suspicious distrust of her, she grew at length to be
+pleased with the tone of easy familiarity used towards her, and the
+absence of anything bordering on superiority.
+</p>
+<p>
+Joan, whose instincts and sympathies were all with the humble class from
+which she sprung, described in touching language the suffering condition
+of the people, the terrible struggle against destitution maintained for
+years, and daily becoming more difficult and hopeless. It was like a
+shipwrecked crew reduced to quarter-rations, and now about to relinquish
+even these!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And they are patient under all this?&rdquo; asked Kate, with that peculiar
+accent so difficult to pronounce its meaning.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are, indeed, miss,&rdquo; was the answer.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have they any hope? What do they promise themselves as the remedy for
+these calamities?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sorrow one of 'em knows,&rdquo; said she, with a sigh. &ldquo;Some goes away to
+America, some sinks slowly under it, and waits for God's time to leave the
+world; and a few&mdash;but very few&mdash;gets roused to anger, and does
+something to be transported or put in jail.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And Miss Martin,&mdash;does she not relieve a good deal of this misery?
+Is she not of immense benefit by her exertions here?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Arrah, what can a young lady do, after all? Sure it's always them that
+talks most and best gets over her. Some are ashamed, and some are too
+proud to tell what they 're suffering; and I believe in my heart, for one
+that 's relieved there are twenty more angry at seeing how lucky he was.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+They walked along now for some time in silence, when Joan, stopping short,
+said, &ldquo;There's the house, miss; that's the place I live in.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That house far away on the mountain side?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, miss; it's four miles yet from this.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But surely you haven't to walk all that way?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What signifies it? Is n't my heart lighter than when I came along this
+morning? And now I won't let you come any farther, for I'll take a short
+cut here across the fields.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;May I go and see you one of these days?&rdquo; asked Kate.
+</p>
+<p>
+Joan grew crimson to the very roots of her hair, and turned a look on
+Massingbred, as though to say, &ldquo;You ought to answer this for me.&rdquo; But Jack
+was too deep in his own thoughts even to notice the appeal.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can scarcely ask <i>you</i> to come to <i>me</i>,&rdquo; said Kate, quickly
+perceiving a difficulty, &ldquo;for I 'm not even a visitor at Cro' Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm sure I hope it 's not the last time we 'll meet, miss; but maybe,&rdquo;&mdash;she
+faltered, and a heavy tear burst forth, and rolled slowly along her cheek,&mdash;&ldquo;maybe
+you oughtn't to come and see me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Kate pressed her hand affectionately, without speaking, and they parted.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is Joan gone?&rdquo; asked Massingbred, raising his head from an attitude of
+deep revery. &ldquo;When did she leave us?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There she goes yonder,&rdquo; said Kate, pointing. &ldquo;I fear me her spirits are
+not as light as her footsteps. Are her people very poor?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Her father was a herd, I believe,&rdquo; said he, carelessly; &ldquo;but she does n't
+live at home.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is she married, then?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm not sure that she is; but at least she believes that she is.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor thing!&rdquo; said Kate, calmly, while, folding her arms, she continued to
+gaze after the departing figure of the country girl. &ldquo;Poor thing!&rdquo;
+ repeated she once more, and turned to walk homewards.
+</p>
+<p>
+Massingbred fixed his eyes upon her keenly as she uttered the words; few
+and simple as they were, they seemed to reveal to him something of the
+nature of her who spoke them. A mere exclamation&mdash;a syllable&mdash;will
+sometimes convey &ldquo;whole worlds of secret thought and feeling,&rdquo; and it was
+evidently thus that Massingbred interpreted this brief expression. &ldquo;There
+was nothing of scorn in that pity,&rdquo; thought he. &ldquo;I wish she had uttered
+even one word more! She is a strange creature!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And it was thus speaking to himself that he walked along at her side.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This wild and desolate scene is not very like that of which we talked the
+other night,&mdash;when first we met,&mdash;Miss Henderson.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You forget that we never met,&rdquo; said she, calmly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;True, and yet there was a link between us even in those few flowers
+thrown at random.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't be romantic, Mr. Massingbred; do not, I pray you,&rdquo; said she,
+smiling faintly. &ldquo;You <i>know</i> it's not your style, while it would be
+utterly thrown away upon <i>me</i>, I am aware that fine gentlemen of your
+stamp deem this the fitting tone to assume towards 'the governess;' but I
+'m really unworthy of it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a strange girl you are!&rdquo; said he, half thinking aloud.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;On the contrary, how very commonplace!&rdquo; said she, hastily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you like this country?&rdquo; asked Massingbred, with an imitation of her
+own abrupt manner.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said she, shortly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor the people?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor the people!&rdquo; was the answer.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And is your life to be passed amongst them?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; said she, with a slight gesture of her shoulders. &ldquo;Don't you
+know, Mr. Massingbred,&rdquo; added she, with more energy, &ldquo;that a woman has no
+more power to shape her destiny than a leaf has to choose where it will
+fall? If I were a man,&mdash;you, for instance,&mdash;I would think and
+act differently.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should like to hear what you would do if in my place,&rdquo; said Jack, with
+a degree of deep interest in the remark.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To begin, I'll tell you what I would not do,&rdquo; said she, firmly. &ldquo;I 'd not
+waste very good abilities on very small objects; I 'd neither have small
+ambitions nor small animosities. You have both.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;As how?&rdquo; asked he, frankly, and with no touch of irritation.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Am I to be candid?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Even to rudeness?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cut as deeply as you like,&rdquo; said he, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then here goes: For the 'small ambition' I speak of, it was displayed
+yesterday at dinner, when, in rivalry with that old lawyer, you
+condescended to play agreeable, to out-talk him, out-quote, and
+out-anecdote him. It is true you succeeded; but what a poor success it
+was! how inadequate to the forces that were mustered to effect it!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now for the other count of the indictment,&rdquo; said he, with a half
+smile.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;First, do you plead guilty to this one?&rdquo; asked she.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; with an 'extenuating circumstance.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is that?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, that <i>you</i> were present,&rdquo; said Jack, with a glance of more than
+mere passing gallantry.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said she, after a pause, &ldquo;I <i>did</i> take some of the display to
+my own share. I saw that you did n't care to captivate the young lady of
+the house, and that my Lady bored you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Insufferably!&rdquo; exclaimed Jack, with energy.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your manner showed it,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;even more than such polish ought to
+have betrayed.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I 'm sure I never exhibited any signs of my martyrdom,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;I
+stood my torture well.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not half so heroically as you fancied I noticed your weariness before the
+dinner was half over, as I detected your splenetic dislike to young Mr.
+Nelligan&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To young Nelligan?&mdash;then he has told you&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stop,&mdash;be cautious,&rdquo; broke she in, hurriedly; &ldquo;don't turn evidence
+against yourself. <i>He</i> has told me nothing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then what do you know?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing; I only surmise.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what is your surmise?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That he and you had met before,&mdash;that you had even been intimate,&mdash;and
+now, from some misunderstanding, you had ceased to be friends. Mind, I
+don't want confessions; I don't seek to learn your secrets.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you shall hear this from me,&rdquo; said Massingbred, with earnestness;
+&ldquo;and perhaps you, so ready to blame me for some things, may see reason to
+think well of me in this.&rdquo; He then related, briefly, but simply, the
+history of his acquaintance with Nelligan; he dwelt, not without feeling,
+upon the passages of their student-life, and at last spoke of his chance
+visit to Oughterard, and the accident by which he became old Nelligan's
+guest. &ldquo;What can you make of Joseph's conduct,&rdquo; cried he; &ldquo;or how explain
+his refusal to meet me at his father's table? One of two reasons there
+must be. He either discredits me in the character of his friend, or
+shrinks, with an ignoble shame, from appearing there in his real position,&mdash;the
+son of the country shopkeeper! I scarcely know if I 'd not prefer he
+should have been actuated by the former motive; though more offensive to
+me, in <i>him</i> it were more manly.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why not have asked him which alternative he accepted?&rdquo; asked Kate.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because the opportunity to wound him deeply&mdash;incurably&mdash;first
+presented itself. I knew well that nothing would hurt him like the cool
+assumption of not recognizing him, and I determined not to lose my
+vengeance.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm a woman,&rdquo; said Kate, &ldquo;and I'd not have stooped to <i>that!</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It was rarely that Massingbred's emotions gave any evidence of their
+working; but now his cheek grew crimson, as he said, &ldquo;A man can only
+measure a man's indignation.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are angry without cause,&rdquo; said she, calmly; &ldquo;you wish me to pronounce
+a verdict on an act, and are displeased because I think differently from
+you. How right I was in my guess that small animosities were amongst your
+failings! You seek now to quarrel with <i>me!</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Massingbred walked along for some moments without speaking, and then said,
+&ldquo;You knew Nelligan formerly?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, we were playfellows together as children; lovers, I believe, a
+little later on&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now?&rdquo; broke he in.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now very good friends, as the world uses that phrase. At all events,&rdquo;
+ added she, after a brief pause, &ldquo;enough his friend to be able to say that
+you have wronged him by your suspicions. Joe Nelligan&mdash;or I'm much
+mistaken&mdash;may feel the inequality of his position as a something to
+overcome, a barrier to be surmounted; not as a disability to contest the
+prizes of life even with such as Mr. Massingbred.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is <i>you</i> now would quarrel with <i>me</i>,&rdquo; said Jack, retorting
+her own words upon her. &ldquo;And yet,&rdquo; he added, in a lower tone, &ldquo;I would
+wish to have you my friend.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So you can, upon one condition,&rdquo; replied she, promptly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I accept, whatever it be. Name it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That you be your own friend; that you address yourself to the business of
+life seriously and steadily, resolving to employ your abilities as a means
+of advancement, not as a mere instrument for amusement; determine, in
+fact, to be something besides a <i>dilettante</i> and an idler.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it a bargain, then, if I do this?&rdquo; asked he, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; I promise you the high and mighty boon of <i>my</i> friendship,&rdquo;
+ replied she, with mock solemnity.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And so we seal our contract,&rdquo; said he, pressing her hand to his lips, but
+with an air of such respectful gallantry that the action implied nothing
+bordering on a liberty.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now I leave you,&rdquo; said she, as she opened the wicket-gate of a small
+flower-garden; &ldquo;such conferences as ours must not be repeated, or they
+might be remarked upon. Good-bye.&rdquo; And without waiting for his reply, she
+passed on into the garden, while Massingbred stood gazing after her
+silently and thoughtfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XX. AN ELECTION ADDRESS
+</h2>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Am I behind time, Mr. Massingbred?&rdquo; said Kate Henderson, as she entered
+the library, about a week after the events we have last recorded,&mdash;&ldquo;am
+I behind time?&rdquo; said she, approaching a table where the young man sat
+surrounded with a mass of letters and papers.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not very much,&rdquo; said he, rising, and placing a chair for her; &ldquo;and I take
+it for granted you came as soon as you could.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; I have finished my morning's reading for her Ladyship, noted her
+letters, answered the official portion of her correspondence, talked the
+newspaper for Mr. Martin, hummed a singing lesson for Miss Mary, listened
+to a grand jury story of Mr. Repton; and now, that they are all off to
+their several destinations, here I am, very much at the service of Mr.
+Massingbred.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who never needed counsel more than at this moment!&rdquo; said Jack, running
+his hands distractedly through his hair. &ldquo;That 's from my father!&rdquo; added
+he, handing her a letter with a portentous-looking seal attached to it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a fine bold hand, and how easy to read!&rdquo; said she, perusing it. Jack
+watched her narrowly while she read; but on her calm impassive face not a
+line nor a lineament betrayed emotion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is, then, an English borough he recommends,&rdquo; said she, laying it down;
+&ldquo;and I suppose, looking to an official career, he is quite right. The 'No
+Irish need apply' might be inscribed over Downing Street; but is that
+altogether your view?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I scarcely know what I project as yet,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I have no career!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, let us plan one,&rdquo; replied she, crossing her arms on the table, and
+speaking with increased earnestness. &ldquo;The Martins have offered you
+Oughterard&mdash;&rdquo; He nodded, and she went on: &ldquo;And, as I understand it,
+very much on <i>your</i> own conditions?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is to say, I'm not to damage the Tories more than I can help, nor to
+help the Radicals more than I must.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is there any designation for the party you will thus belong to?&rdquo; asked
+she.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm not exactly sure that there is; perhaps they 'd call me a Moderate
+Whig.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That sounds very nice and commonplace, but I don't like it. These are not
+times for moderation; nor would the part suit <i>you!</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You think so?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm certain of it. You have n't got habits of discipline to serve with a
+regular corps; to do anything, or be anything, you must command a partisan
+legion&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You're right there; I know that,&rdquo; broke he in.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't mean it as flattery, but rather something a little bordering on
+the reverse,&rdquo; said she, fixing her eyes steadfastly on him; &ldquo;for, after
+all, there is no great success&mdash;I mean, no towering success&mdash;to
+be achieved by such a line; but as I feel that you 'll not work&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; of that be assured!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then there are only secondary rewards to be won.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You certainly do not overestimate me!&rdquo; said Jack, trying to seem
+perfectly indifferent.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have no desire to underrate your abilities,&rdquo; said she, calmly; &ldquo;they
+are very good ones. You have great fluency,&mdash;great 'variety,' as
+Grattan would call it,&mdash;an excellent memory, and a most amiable
+self-possession.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove!&rdquo; said he, reddening slightly, &ldquo;you enumerate my little gifts
+with all the accuracy of an appraiser!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then,&rdquo; resumed she, not heeding his interruption, &ldquo;you have abundance of
+what is vulgarly styled 'pluck,' and which is to courage what <i>esprit</i>
+is to actual wit; and, lastly, you are a proficient in that readiness
+which the world always accepts for frankness.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You were right to say that you intended no flattery!&rdquo; said he, with an
+effort to laugh.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want to be truthful,&rdquo; rejoined she, calmly. &ldquo;No praise of mine&mdash;however
+high it soared, or however lavishly it was squandered&mdash;could possibly
+raise you in your own esteem. The governess may perform the part of the
+slave in the triumphal chariot, but could not aspire to put the crown on
+the conqueror!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I have not conquered!&rdquo; said Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may, whenever you enter the lists; you must, indeed, if you only care
+to do so. Go in for an Irish borough,&rdquo; said she, with renewed animation.
+&ldquo;Arm yourself with all the popular grievances; there is just faction
+enough left to last <i>your</i> time. Discuss them in your own way, and my
+word for it, but you 'll succeed. It will be such a boon to the House to
+hear a gentlemanlike tone on questions which have always been treated in
+coarser guise. For a while you 'll have no imitators, and can sneer at the
+gentry and extol the 'people' without a competitor. Now and then, too, you
+can assail the Treasury benches, where your father is sitting; and nothing
+will so redound to your character for independence.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, where, in Heaven's name,&rdquo; cried Jack, &ldquo;have you got up all this?
+What and how do you know anything of party and politics?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have I not been studying 'Hansard' and the files of the 'Times' for the
+last week by your directions? Have I not read lives of all the illustrious
+prosers you gave me to look through? And is it very wonderful if I have
+learned some of the secrets of this success, or that I should 'get up' my
+'politics' as rapidly as you can your 'principles'?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish I was even sure that I had done so,&rdquo; said Jack, laughing; &ldquo;for
+this same address is puzzling me sadly! Now here, for instance,&rdquo; and he
+read aloud: &ldquo;'While steadfastly upholding the rights of property,
+determined to maintain in all their integrity the more sacred rights of
+conscience&mdash;'Now just tell me, what do you understand by that?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That rents must be paid,&mdash;occasionally, at least; but that you hope
+to pull down the Established Church!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, come,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;the thing will perhaps do!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't much like all this about 'the Palladium of the British
+Constitution, and the unbroken bulwark of our dearest liberties.' We are
+in Ireland, remember, where we care no more for your Palladium&mdash;if we
+ever knew what it meant&mdash;than we do for the 'Grand Lama.' A slight
+dash of what is called 'nationality' would be better; very vague, very
+shadowy, of course. Bear in mind what Lady Dorothea told us last night
+about the charm of the king's bow. Everybody thought it specially meant
+for himself; it strikes me that something of this sort should pervade an
+election address.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish to Heaven you 'd write it, then,&rdquo; said Jack, placing a pen in her
+fingers.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Something in this fashion,&rdquo; said she, while her hands traced the lines
+rapidly on the paper:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Finding that a new era is about to dawn in the political state of
+Ireland, when the consequences of late legislation will engender new
+conditions and relations, I present myself before you to solicit the honor
+of your suffrages, a perfect stranger to your town, but no stranger to the
+wants and necessities of that nationality which now, for the first time
+for centuries, is about to receive its due development.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Or this, if you prefer it,&rdquo; said she, writing away rapidly as before:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'The presumption of aspiring to your representation will, perhaps, be
+compensated when I come before you deeply impressed with the wrongs which
+centuries of legislation have enacted, and which, stranger as I am in
+Ireland, have arrested my attention and engaged my sympathies, impelling
+me to enter upon a public career; and, if favored by your approval, to
+devote whatever energy and capacity I may possess to your great and good
+cause.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I like the first best,&rdquo; said Jack. &ldquo;The new era and the results of the
+Relief Bill will be such appetizing suggestions. There must be an allusion
+to the Martins and their support.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rather, however, as though <i>you</i> had brought over Martin to <i>your</i>
+views, than that <i>he</i> had selected you to represent his. In this
+wise:&rdquo; and again she wrote,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'It is with a just pride that I announce to you that in these professions
+I am strengthened by the cordial approval and support of one who, in his
+rank and station, and natural influence, is second to none in this great
+county; and who, whatever misconceptions have hitherto prevailed as to his
+views, is, heart and soul, a true patriot and an Irishman!'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It will puzzle him sorely to guess what line he should adopt to realize
+all this, and he'll have to come to <i>you</i> for his politics!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have caught up the cant of this peculiar literature perfectly,&rdquo; said
+Massingbred, as he pored over the papers she had just penned.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dear me!&rdquo; cried she, in a weary tone, &ldquo;my great difficulty will be to
+discard its evil influence, and even write a common note like a reasonable
+being again.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But come, confess frankly: you think that a political career is the only
+one worth embracing, and that any other life offers no reward worthy the
+name?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think you mistake me,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;It is the social position consequent
+upon success in a political life that I value,&mdash;the eminence it
+confers in the very highest and greatest circles. If I regarded the matter
+otherwise, I'd not be indifferent as to the line to follow&mdash;I 'd have
+great convictions, and hold them,&mdash;I mean, if I were <i>you</i>.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then of course you consider me as one who has none such?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure I do. Men of your measures of ability can no more burden
+themselves with principles than a thoroughbred hackney can carry extra
+weight,&mdash;they 've quite enough to do to make their running without.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I shall certainly not be spoiled by flattery, at least from you,&rdquo;
+ said Jack, laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They who know you less will make up for it all, depend upon it,&rdquo; said
+she, quietly. &ldquo;Don't fancy, Mr. Massingbred,&rdquo; added she, with more
+earnestness of manner,&mdash;&ldquo;don't fancy that I 'm insensible to the
+impertinences I have dared to address to you, or that I venture upon them
+without pain; but when I perceived that you would admit me to the liberty
+of criticising your conduct, character, and manners, I thought that I
+might render you good service by saying what better taste and better
+breeding would shrink from, and the only cost be the dislike of myself.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You took a very bad way to accomplish the latter,&rdquo; said Jack, fervently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did n't give it much consideration,&rdquo; said she, haughtily. &ldquo;It was very
+little matter what opinion you entertained of 'the governess.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should like to convince you that you were wrong,&rdquo; said he, looking
+fixedly at her.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You'd find your task harder than you suspect, sir,&rdquo; said she, coldly.
+&ldquo;There is a sense of pride about the humbleness of a station such as mine,
+as all the elevation of one in yours could never fathom. And,&rdquo; added she,
+in a still more determined tone, &ldquo;there is but one condition on which this
+intercourse of ours can continue, which is, that this topic be never
+resumed between us. The gulf that separates your position in life from
+mine is the security for mutual frankness; to attempt to span it over by
+deception would be to build a bridge that must break down the first moment
+of its trial. Enough of this! I'll take these,&rdquo; said she, gathering up the
+papers, &ldquo;and copy them out clearly. They ought to be with the printer
+to-morrow; and, indeed, you should not defer your canvass.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Massingbred made no answer, but sat with his head buried between his
+hands.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'd have you to visit the 'dear constituency' at once, Mr. Massingbred,&rdquo;
+ said she, with a slight touch of scorn in her voice. &ldquo;They are not well
+bred enough to bear a slight!&rdquo; And with this she left the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should like excessively to know the secret of this interest in my
+behalf,&rdquo; said Jack, as he arose and slowly walked the room. &ldquo;It is not,
+unquestionably, from any high estimate of my capacity; as little is it
+anything bordering on regard; and yet,&rdquo; added he, after a pause, &ldquo;there
+are moments when I half fancy she could care for me,&mdash;at least I know
+well that I could for <i>her</i>, Confound it!&rdquo; cried he, passionately,
+&ldquo;what a terrible barrier social station throws up! If she were even some
+country squire's daughter,&mdash;portionless as she is,&mdash;the notion
+would not be so absurd; but 'the governess!' and 'the steward!' what
+frightful figures to conjure up. No, no; that's impossible. One might do
+such a folly by retiring from the world forever, but that would be exactly
+to defeat the whole object of such a match. She is essentially intended
+for 'the world;' every gift and grace she possesses are such as only have
+their fitting exercise where the game of life is played by the highest,
+and for the heaviest stakes! But it is not to be thought of!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have I found you at last?&rdquo; cried Repton, entering the room. &ldquo;They say the
+writ will be here on Monday, so that we 've not an hour to lose. Let us
+drive over to Oughterard at once, see the editor of the 'Intelligence,'
+call on Priest Rafferty, and that other fellow&mdash;the father of our
+young friend here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Nelligan,&rdquo; said Jack. &ldquo;But I can't well visit <i>him</i>&mdash;there
+have been some rather unpleasant passages between us.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! you told me something about it. He wanted you to fill a bail-bond, or
+do something or other, rather than shoot <i>me</i>. An unreasonable old
+rascal! Never mind; we shall come before him now in another character, and
+you 'll see that he'll be more tractable.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The matter is graver than this,&rdquo; said Jack, musingly; &ldquo;and our difference
+is serious enough to make intercourse impossible.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You shall tell me all about it as we drive along,&mdash;that is, if it be
+brief and easy to follow, for my head is so full of election matters I
+don't desire a new element of complication. Step in now, and let us away.&rdquo;
+ And with this he hurried Massingbred to the door, where a pony-phaeton was
+in waiting for them.
+</p>
+<p>
+Once on the road, Repton changed the conversation from the domain of
+politics, and talked entirely of the host and his family. There was a sort
+of constitutional frankness and familiarity about the old lawyer which all
+the astute habits and instincts of his profession had never mastered. Like
+a great many acute men, his passion for shrewd observation and keen remark
+overbore the prudent reserve that belongs to less animated talkers, and so
+he now scrupled not to dis-cuss Martin and his affairs to one who but a
+few days back had been a complete stranger amongst them.
+</p>
+<p>
+At first Jack heard him without much interest, but, as he continued, the
+subject attracted all his attention, full as it was of views of life and
+the world perfectly new and strange to him.
+</p>
+<p>
+To Massingbred's great astonishment, he learned that vast as the estates,
+and large as was the fortune of the Martins, that they were deeply
+encumbered with bond-debts and mortgages. The wasteful habits of the
+gentry generally, combined with great facilities for obtaining money at
+any emergency, had led to this universal indebtedness; and, in fact, as
+the lawyer expressed it, an old estate was supposed to be the victim of
+debt, as an elderly gentleman was liable to gout; nobody presuming to
+think that the tenure, in either case, was a whit the more precarious on
+account of the casualty.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said Repton, as they reached a point of the road from which a view
+of the country could be obtained for miles on every side&mdash;&ldquo;now, as
+far as you can see belongs to Martin. Beyond that mountain yonder, too,
+there is a large tract&mdash;not very productive, it is true&mdash;extending
+to the sea. The fine waving surface to your left is all tillage land; and
+the islands in the bay are his. It is really a princely estate, with even
+greater hidden resources than those palpable and open to view. But, were I
+to show it to you on a map, and point out at the same time every spot on
+which some moneylender has a claim&mdash;how much has been advanced upon
+this&mdash;what sums have been lent upon that&mdash;you 'd be more amazed
+at the careless ease of the proprietor than you now are at the extent of
+his fortune.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But he is spending immensely in improving and developing the property,&rdquo;
+ said Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course he is, sir. That new-fangled notion of 'gentleman-farming '&mdash;which
+has come to us from countries where there are no gentlemen&mdash;won't
+suit Ireland, at least in the present generation. What <i>we</i> want here
+is, not to make more money, but to learn how to spend less; and although
+the first very often teaches the last, it is a hard way for an Irishman to
+acquire his knowledge. There's your borough, sir,&mdash;that little spot
+in the valley yonder is Oughterard. Do you feel, as you behold it, as
+though it were to be the mainspring of a great career? Is there an
+instinctive throb within that says, 'The honorable member for Oughterard
+will be a great name in the &ldquo;Collective Wisdom &ldquo;'?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can scarcely say yes to that appeal,&rdquo; said Jack, smiling; &ldquo;though, if
+what you have just told me of the mediocrity of public men be true&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you doubt it? You have them all before you,&mdash;their lives, their
+sayings, and their doings. Show me one in the whole mass who has
+originated a new idea in politics, or developed a new resource in the
+nation. Do they exhibit the common inventiveness displayed in almost every
+other walk of life, or do they even dress up their common platitudes in
+any other garb than the cast-off clothes of their predecessors? Mediocrity
+is a flattery when applied to them. But what's this coming along behind
+us, with such clattering of hoofs?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A tandem, I think,&rdquo; said Jack, looking backward, &ldquo;and very well handled,
+too.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, that illustrious attorney, Mr. Scanlan, I 've no doubt. Let us draw
+up till he passes.&rdquo; And so saying, Repton moved to one side of the road,
+giving a wide space for the other to proceed on his way. Mr. Scanlan,
+however, had subdued his nags, by a low, soft whistle, to a half-trot,
+when, giving the reins to his servant, he descended and advanced to the
+carriage. &ldquo;I've been in pursuit of you, gentlemen,&rdquo; said he, touching his
+hat courteously, &ldquo;for the last four miles, and I assure you you 've given
+me a breathing heat of it. Mr. Martin requested me to hand you this note,
+sir,&rdquo; added he, addressing Repton, &ldquo;which demands immediate attention.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The note was marked &ldquo;Instantaneous,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Strictly private,&rdquo; on the cover,
+and Repton opened it at once. Its contents were as follows,&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+&ldquo;Dear Rep.,&mdash;The post has just arrived, with intelligence
+that Harry is coming home,&mdash;may be here within a week or
+so,&mdash;so that we must not go on with our present plans for
+the borough, as H., of course, will stand. Come back,
+therefore, at once, and let as talk over the matter
+together.
+
+&ldquo;Yours, in haste,
+
+&ldquo;G. M.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know what this contains, perhaps?&rdquo; said Repton, in a whisper to
+Scanlan. He nodded an assent, and the old lawyer re-read the note. &ldquo;I
+don't see my way here quite clearly,&rdquo; added he, in the same subdued voice,
+to Scanlan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll stroll on and stretch my legs a bit,&rdquo; said Jack, springing out of
+the pony phaeton, and seeing that the others had some private matter of
+discussion; and Scanlan now drew nigh, while Repton informed him what the
+note contained.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's a little too late for this now,&rdquo; said Scanlan, gravely.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you mean too late?&rdquo; asked Repton.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, that Massingbred stands well with the people in the borough. They
+think that he 'll be more their man than Martin's, and, indeed, they 're
+so confident of it, I half suspect he has told them so.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But there has been no canvass as yet,&mdash;his address isn't even
+printed.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There has been a correspondence, however,&rdquo; said Scanlan, with a knowing
+wink. &ldquo;Take my word for it, Mr. Repton, he 's a deep fellow.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you quite sure of this?&mdash;can you pledge yourself to its truth?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I only know that Father Rafferty said the night before last he was
+satisfied with him, and the one difficulty was about old Nelligan, who
+somehow is greatly incensed against Massingbred.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He 'd have no chance in the borough without us,&rdquo; said Repton,
+confidently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If old Dan would consent to spend the money, he'd be the member in spite
+of us,&rdquo; rejoined Scanlan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll not dispute local knowledge with you, sir,&rdquo; said Repton, peevishly.
+&ldquo;Let us turn back at once. Where's Mr. Massingbred? I saw him standing on
+the hill yonder a few minutes ago; maybe, he 's strolling along the road
+in front.&rdquo; Repton moved forward to a rising spot of ground, from whence a
+wide view extended for a distance on every side, but no trace of
+Massingbred could be discovered. &ldquo;What can have become of him?&mdash;has
+he turned towards Cro' Martin?&rdquo; asked Repton.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There he is,&rdquo; cried Scanlan, suddenly; &ldquo;there he is, walking with
+Magennis. They're taking the short cut over the hills to Oughterard&mdash;that's
+unfortunate, too!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How so?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, before they're in the town they'll be as thick as two pickpockets&mdash;see
+how they 're talking! I think, if I was to drive on, I'd catch them before
+they entered the town.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do so, then, Scanlan. Say that a sudden message from Mr. Martin recalled
+me, but that you'll drive him back with you to Cro' Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Am I to allude to the contents of the note, sir?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think not; I opine it's best not to speak of it. Say, however, that
+something of importance has occurred at Cro' Martin, and suggest to him
+that the sooner he returns thither the better.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+There was an amount of vacillation and uncertainty about Repton's manner
+as he uttered these few words that showed not only how gravely he regarded
+the crisis, but how totally unprepared he found himself for the emergency.
+Not so Scanlan, who took his seat once more on his lofty &ldquo;buggy,&rdquo; and was
+soon spinning along the road at a pace of full twelve miles the hour.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Repton drove back to Cro' Martin, he thought once, and not without
+humiliation, of his late lessons in statecraft to young Massingbred. &ldquo;To
+fancy that I was instilling all these precepts at the very moment that he
+was countermining us. The young villain is a worthy son of his father! And
+how he will laugh at me, and make others laugh too! It will never do to
+drive him into opposition to us. Martin must consent to make the best of
+it, now, and accept him as his member,&mdash;for the present, at least.
+With time and good opportunity we can manage to trip up his heels, but,
+for the moment, there's no help for it.&rdquo; And with these not very consoling
+reflections he entered once more the grounds of Cro' Martin Castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+Let us now turn to Massingbred, as, accompanied by Magennis, he walked at
+a rapid pace towards Oughterard. It needed but a glance at the figures,
+and the rate at which they moved, to see that these two men were bent upon
+an object.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't you see the town now before you?&rdquo; said Magennis. &ldquo;It's not much
+above two miles, and by the road it is every step of six, or six and a
+half; and if we walk as we're doing now, we'll be there at least twenty
+minutes before them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what will Repton think of my leaving him in this fashion?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That it was a bit of your usual eccentricity,&mdash;no more,&rdquo; said the
+other, laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are quite certain of what you've just told me?&rdquo; asked Jack, after a
+pause.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I tell you that you shall have it from Hosey's own lips. He showed the
+post-mark on the back of the letter to Father Rafferty, and it was 'Cape
+Town, August 24.' Now, as Hosey knows young Martin's writing as well as
+any man, what doubt can there be about it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By that calculation,&rdquo; said Jack, thoughtfully, &ldquo;he might be here within
+the present month!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exactly what Father Neal said.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A shrewd fellow that same Hosey must be to put things together in this
+fashion,&rdquo; said Jack. &ldquo;Such a head as he has on his shoulders might n't be
+a bad counsellor at this moment.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just come and talk to him a bit,&rdquo; rejoined Magennis; &ldquo;say you want to be
+trimmed about the whiskers, and he'll be a proud man to have you under his
+hand.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the committee are satisfied with my letter?&rdquo; asked Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are, and they are not; but, on the whole, they think it's a step in
+the right direction to get anything out of the Martins, and, as Father
+Neal remarks, 'where we can pass with our head, we can put our whole body
+through.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what 's to be done about Nelligan? The breach with him is, I suspect,
+irreparable.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, it was Nelligan himself moved the first resolution in the committee,
+that your address be accepted as embodying the views&mdash;he said the
+present views&mdash;of the liberal electors.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You amaze me!&rdquo; cried Massingbred; &ldquo;and Joe, where was he?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Joe is off to Dublin; there 's some examination or other he must attend.
+But old Dan is your friend, rely upon that.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is inexplicable,&rdquo; muttered Jack to himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We 'll go there, straight, the moment we get into the town. He 'll take
+it as a great compliment; and you can talk to him frankly and openly, for
+old Dan is a man to be trusted.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish I could guess at how this reconciliation has been effected,&rdquo;
+ muttered Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was your letter did it, I think.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I never wrote one.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, somebody else did, perhaps; at all events, Dan had an open letter
+in his hand when he addressed the committee, and said, 'After reading
+this, gentlemen,' said he, 'I can only say that I 'll not oppose Mr.
+Massingbred; and if the free and independent men of Oughterard ask me who
+is the man to represent them, I'll answer, he 's your man! And what's
+more, there 's my name down for two hundred pounds for the election, if it
+ever comes to be a contest!'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is all very good, but very strange news,&rdquo; cried Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I can explain nothing of the mystery, if there be one. I only know
+what I heard and saw myself.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us go to his house, at all events,&rdquo; said Massingbred, who now
+suffered his companion to rattle on about the state of parties and
+politics in Oughterard, little heeding his remarks, and only bent on
+following out his own thoughts. &ldquo;Give whom the slip?&rdquo; asked he, suddenly
+catching at the last words of some observation of Magennis.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Martins, of course,&rdquo; resumed the other; &ldquo;for, as Father Neal says,
+'if we can secure the borough for you, you can well afford to stand by <i>us</i>;
+but if you were only Martin's member, he 'd drop you whenever it suited
+him.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;As to-morrow, for instance, if his son should make his appearance!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so; and that's the very reason for not losing a minute about getting
+the Martins in for the cost. What can they say, after choosing you and
+putting you forward?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They might make a personal appeal to me,&mdash;a distinct request to give
+place to the son.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And would n't you pay great attention to it?&rdquo; said Magennis, in mockery.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm not so very sure I 'd refuse,&rdquo; said Massingbred, slowly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faith, then, you 'd better be candid enough to tell the electors so 'at
+once.' Look now, Mr. Massingbred,&rdquo; said he, coming to a dead halt, and
+standing directly in front of him; &ldquo;we don't go the same road, not one
+step, till I hear from you, distinctly and plainly, what you mean to do.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is somewhat of a peremptory proceeding,&rdquo; replied Jack. &ldquo;I think it
+would not be very unreasonable to allow a man in my situation a little
+time for reflection.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Reflect upon what?&rdquo; cried Magennis. &ldquo;Is it what politics you 'd be? If
+that's what you mean, I think you 'd better say nothing about it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, come, Mac, you are not quite fair in this business; there <i>are</i>
+difficulties,&mdash;there are embarrassments very often in the way of
+doing things which we have made up our minds to do. Now, if I were
+perfectly certain that the liberal interest here could succeed in spite of
+Martin&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So it will.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You're sure of that?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll show it to you on paper. We 'd rather have Martin with us and no
+contest, because it's cheaper; but if it must come to money, we 'll do
+it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Satisfy me on that point, and I'm with you; there's my hand on't!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And Magennis grasped him in his own strong fingers to ratify the contract.
+</p>
+<p>
+While &ldquo;Mac&rdquo; went on to give some insight into the views and wishes of his
+party, they reached the town and entered the main street, and held their
+way towards old Nelligan's shop.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's Father Neal's pony at the door,&rdquo; said Mac, as they approached the
+shop; &ldquo;so we'll find them both together.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I scarcely think I can enter here,&rdquo; said Massingbred, &ldquo;after what passed
+last between us. We surely did not part as friends.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How little you know about us at all!&rdquo; said Mac. &ldquo;Old Dan bears you no
+malice, I 'd lay fifty pounds on it! But, if you like, I 'll just step in
+and take soundings.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do so, then,&rdquo; said Massingbred, not sorry to have even a few moments to
+himself for quiet thought and consideration. He was still standing, and
+deeply engrossed by his reflections, when he was aroused by hearing his
+name called aloud, and, on looking up, perceived Magennis beckoning to him
+from a window overhead. In obedience to the signal, Jack turned and
+entered the shop, where his friend quickly joined him. &ldquo;Old Dan is in his
+bed, with a heavy cold and a rheumatism, but he 'll see you; and Father
+Neal's with him, and Hayes, besides.&rdquo; And with this information he hurried
+Jack up the stairs, and led him into a darkened room, where the figures of
+the priest and old Hayes were dimly discernible. Before Massingbred had
+well crossed the door-sill, Nelligan called out, &ldquo;Your servant, Mr.
+Massingbred. I 'm more than pleased with your explanation. Let me shake
+your hand once more.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm not quite sure that I understand you,&rdquo; said Jack, in a low voice; but
+before he could continue, the priest advanced to greet him, followed by
+old Peter.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wasn't I in luck to catch him on the road this morning?&rdquo; said Magennis;
+&ldquo;he was coming in with the old Counsellor, and just got out to walk up a
+hill&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Remember,&rdquo; said Jack, &ldquo;that I have few minutes to spare, for I must be in
+waiting about the market-place when he drives in.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We must have a conference, though,&rdquo; said Father Neal; &ldquo;there 's much to
+be settled. First of all, are we to coalesce for the representation?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, no!&rdquo; cried Nelligan. &ldquo;We 'll have it our own way. If Mr.
+Massingbred will be our Member, we want no help from the Martins.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's five pounds, and I 'll make it guineas if you like,&rdquo; said old
+Hayes, putting a note upon the table; &ldquo;but the devil a Whig or Tory will
+ever get more out of Peter Hayes!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A very good-natured laugh from the others showed how little umbrage the
+frank avowal excited.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We 'll not want for money, Peter, make your mind easy about that,&rdquo; said
+Dan. &ldquo;When can you meet the committee, Mr. Massingbred? Could you say
+to-night?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Better to-morrow morning. I must return to Cro' Martin this evening.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly,&mdash;of course,&rdquo; said Father Neal, blandly. &ldquo;You 'll have to
+come to an understanding with Mr. Martin about the borough, declare what
+your principles are, and how, upon very mature consideration, you find you
+can't agree with the opinions of himself and his party.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Magennis winked significantly at Jack, as though to say, &ldquo;Listen to <i>him;
+he 's</i> the man to instruct and direct you;&rdquo; and the priest resumed:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go on to explain that your only utility in the House could arise from
+your being the exponent of what you feel to be the truth about Ireland,
+the crying evils of the Established Church, and the present tenure of
+land! When you throw these two shells in, sir, the town will be on fire.
+He 'll reply that under these circumstances there 's no more question
+about your standing for the borough; you'll say nothing,&mdash;not a word,
+not a syllable; you only smile. If Repton 's by&mdash;and he 's likely to
+be&mdash;he 'll get hot, and ask you what you mean by that&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's Scanlan just driving round the corner,&rdquo; said Magennis, in a
+whisper; and Massingbred arose at once and drew nigh to the bedside.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Could I say one word to you alone, Mr. Nelligan?&rdquo; said he, in a low
+voice.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; said he. And whispering the priest to take the others into an
+adjoining room, old Nelligan motioned Jack to sit down beside him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You said, as I came in,&rdquo; said Jack, &ldquo;that you were satisfied with my
+explanation&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure I was,&rdquo; broke in Dan. &ldquo;All I wanted to know was, that you
+acted under a misconception. That being once explained, there was no
+offence on either side. Now, Catty Henderson's letter to my wife put the
+thing straight at once; she showed that <i>your</i> conduct at Cro' Martin
+arose out of a notion that Joe had slighted you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0011" id="linkimage-0011">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/302.jpg" width="100%" alt="302 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you got this letter?&rdquo; asked Jack, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, then, I have not; his mother forwarded it to Joe by the same
+post; but, as I tell you I 'm satisfied, there 's an end of it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Scanlan 's asking for you below stairs,&rdquo; said Magennis, putting in his
+head; &ldquo;and I hear them saying that they didn't see you in town.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Jack; &ldquo;so I'll just slip out by the garden gate and meet
+him in the market-square.&rdquo; And with a hurried leave-taking Jack withdrew,
+his mind very far from that state of tranquil composure in which it was
+his pride to affect that he invariably revelled.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There they go!&rdquo; cried Father Neal, shortly after, as Scanlan drove
+rapidly by, with Massingbred beside him. &ldquo;Maybe Master Maurice won't abuse
+us all round before he turns in at the gate of Cro' Martin!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Massingbred is too cute to mind him,&rdquo; said Magennis.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, Tom, there 's one appeal men of his stamp are never deaf to. You may
+say fifty things that won't shock them in religion or morals or good
+taste; but only utter the one word 'vulgar,' and their indignation rises
+at once. That's what Scanlan will do, take my word for it He 'll call us a
+low set of fellows, that have no position in society,&mdash;no acceptance
+anywhere.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But Massingbred is a gentleman born, and he won't be led astray by such a
+consideration.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is exactly for that very reason that he will,&rdquo; said the priest,
+stoutly. &ldquo;It's a strange fact, but there 's no manner of man rates social
+advantages so high as he that has them by right, and without any struggle
+for them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said old Hayes, slowly, &ldquo;if I once thought that of him, the devil
+a vote of mine he 'd get, no matter what his principles were.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And there you 're wrong, Peter,&rdquo; said Nelligan. &ldquo;Matters of good manners
+and breeding need never be discussed between us. Mr. Massingbred will have
+<i>his</i> station; we'll have <i>ours</i>. There 's a long and weary road
+before us ere we come to think of our social condition. There 's many a
+cruel statute to be abolished, many a hard grievance to be redressed.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And besides that,&rdquo; said Father Neal, with a shrewd twinkle in his eye,
+&ldquo;while we 're doing the one we 'll be helping on the other. Political
+influence always did, and always will, include rank and station in the
+world. When English Ministers find their best ally in the Irish Priest,
+there will be no more sneers at his brogue nor his boots. Men of family
+and fortune won't shrink from their contact, and maybe you 'll see the day
+yet when coaches and chariots will drive up to the chapel, and ladies in
+satin and velvet step out to hear Mass.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A prophetic view of the Millennium itself could not have astonished old
+Peter Hayes more completely than did this marvellous suggestion of Father
+Neal; and he moved away muttering a &ldquo;Heaven grant it!&rdquo; between his teeth.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where's the next meeting of the committee to be?&rdquo; asked Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the Chapel House, to-morrow, at eleven. And that reminds me I 've not
+sent out the summonses.&rdquo; And so saying, Father Neal hastily took leave of
+his friends and left the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+Let us take a glance at Mr. Maurice Scanlan, as, with an extra box-coat
+ingeniously wrapped around his lower man, he discoursed pleasantly to his
+companion while he &ldquo;tooled&rdquo; along towards Cro' Martin. Not a word of
+politics, not a syllable on the subject of party, escaped him as he
+talked. His conversation was entirely of sporting matters: the odds
+against Leander, the last bettings on &ldquo;Firebrand,&rdquo; whether Spicy Bill was
+really in bad training, as the knowing ones said, and if the course
+wouldn't &ldquo;puzzle the young ones&rdquo; if the wet weather were to continue.
+</p>
+<p>
+Massingbred was sufficiently well versed in these classic themes to be an
+amusing and even instructive companion, and communicated many a sly piece
+of intelligence that would have been deemed priceless in &ldquo;Bell's Life;&rdquo;
+ and Scanlan quickly conceived a high estimate for one who had graduated at
+Newmarket, and taken honors at Goodwood.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;After the kind of life you 've led in England, I wonder how you endure
+this country at all,&rdquo; said Maurice, with real sincerity of voice and
+manner.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I like it,&rdquo; said Jack; &ldquo;the whole thing is new to me, and vastly amusing.
+I don't mean to say I 'd willingly pass a lifetime in this fashion, but
+for a few weeks&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so; to give you a better relish for the real thing when you go back
+again,&rdquo; said Maurice.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a neat stepper that leader is!&rdquo; said Jack, to change the topic from
+himself and his own affairs. &ldquo;She's a well-bred one; that's clear.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nearly full-bred; the least bit of cocktail in the world. She's out of
+Crescent, that ran a very good third for the Oaks.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A strong horse, and a very honest one,&rdquo; said Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I bought that little mare from young Mr. Martin&mdash;the Captain&mdash;when
+he was ordered out to India; I put her in training, and ran her at the
+Curragh in three weeks, and won, too, the St. Lawrence Handicap.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is Captain Martin a sporting character?&rdquo; asked Jack, carelessly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is and he is not,&rdquo; said Scanlan, half querulously. &ldquo;He likes a safe
+thing,&mdash;do you understand?&rdquo; and he gave a most significant wink as he
+spoke.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, then he's close about money matters?&rdquo; said Massingbred.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not exactly that. He 's wasteful and spendthrift, but he'd go to the
+world's end to do a knowing thing; you 've seen men of that kind?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Scores of them,&rdquo; replied Jack; &ldquo;and they were always the easiest fellows
+to be duped!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exactly my own experience,&rdquo; said Scanlan, delighted to find his opinions
+confirmed in such a quarter. &ldquo;Now, young Martin would give five hundred
+pounds for a horse to win a fifty pound cup. Don't you know what I mean?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perfectly,&rdquo; said Massingbred, with an approving smile.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nobody knows the sums he has drawn since he went away,&rdquo; exclaimed
+Scanlan, who was momentarily growing more and more confidential.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's a deal of high play in India; perhaps he gambles,&rdquo; said Jack,
+carelessly.
+</p>
+<p>
+A significant wink and nod gave the answer.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; added he, after a pause, &ldquo;he 'll not mend matters by coming
+back again.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And is he about to visit England?&rdquo; asked Massingbred, in the same easy
+tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So they say,&rdquo; replied Scanlan, with an effort at the easy indifference of
+the other.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;On leave, perhaps?&rdquo; said Jack, indolently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That 's more than I know,&rdquo; replied he, and relapsed into a thoughtful
+silence, during which Massingbred continued to scan his features with a
+sly, downcast glance peculiar to himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You've never been in Leicestershire, Mr. Scanlan?&rdquo; said he, when he had
+fully satisfied himself with his examination. &ldquo;Well, then, come over there
+in the spring&mdash;say about March next&mdash;and pay me a visit. I 've
+got a sort of hunting-box there, with a neat stable, and by that time I
+hope to raise funds for a couple of nags.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Trust <i>me</i> for the horseflesh, sir. I know where to mount you this
+very minute. You 're not much above eleven stone?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eleven-eight,&mdash;at least, so I used to be. Is it a bargain? Will you
+come?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's my hand on't,&rdquo; said the attorney, overjoyed at the prospect.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mackworth, and Lord Harry Coverdale, and Sir Went-worth Danby, and a few
+more, are all my neighbors. Capital fellows, whom you 'll be delighted
+with. Just the sort of men to suit you,&mdash;up to everything that means
+sport.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exactly what I like!&rdquo; cried Maurice, in ecstasy.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We'll arrange it all this evening, then,&rdquo; said Jack. &ldquo;Just drop into my
+room after they 're all gone to bed, and we'll have a talk over it. You
+don't know my father, do you?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I haven't that honor,&rdquo; said Scanlan, with an accent of real deference in
+his voice.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Another kind of person from these I've mentioned,&rdquo; said Jack, slowly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So I should suppose, sir,&rdquo; said Scanlan, a tone of respect involuntarily
+attaching itself to him as he addressed the son of a Secretary of State.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not that he doesn't like field sports, and all the enjoyments of a
+country life. But, you know, he's an old official&mdash;a Downing Street
+veteran&mdash;who really relishes public business, just as you and I would
+a coursing-match, or a heavy pool at Crocky's.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Scanlan nodded as if in perfect assent.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;While I say this, it's only fair to add that he has most excellent
+qualities, and is a stanch friend when he takes any one up. I suspect you
+'d like him. I know he 'd like your&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm greatly flattered. I don't deserve&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see,&rdquo; said Jack, not heeding the interruption, and assuming the low
+accents of a confidential communication&mdash;&ldquo;You see, he and I have not
+been on the very best of terms for some time back; I 've done some silly
+things&mdash;spent a little more money than he liked&mdash;and, what was
+still worse in his eyes, refused a first-rate Government appointment&mdash;a
+really good thing, and such as one does n't meet with every day&mdash;and
+now, the only road back to his favor will be for me to come out strongly
+in some shape, either as a college prizeman or in public life. I despise
+the former. It's all very well for fellows like Nelligan&mdash;it's their
+natural 'beat,'&mdash;but for a man like <i>me</i>, one who has seen the
+world,&mdash;the real world,&mdash;these are nothing more than schoolboy
+distinctions,&mdash;the silver medal he brings home of a Saturday, and
+makes him the wonder of his sisters for twenty-four hours. I'll have to
+strike out a line of my own!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No fear of you, sir,&mdash;devil a bit!&rdquo; said Maurice, with a sententious
+shake of the head. &ldquo;Here we are now at Cro' Martin, and then there's the
+first dinner-bell ringing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We shall be late, perhaps,&rdquo; said Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You'll be in good time. As for me, I haven't been asked to dinner, so
+that when I drop you I 'll go down to the village.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, I 'll walk over and see you in the evening,&rdquo; said
+Massingbred. &ldquo;It seems to me&mdash;I don't know whether you are of the
+same opinion, though&mdash;but it seems strongly to me that you and I
+ought to be allies.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I thought I was worthy&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, come, Scanlan, no modesty, old boy. You know you 're a devilish
+clever fellow, and you no more intend to pass your life cruising after
+petty-session practice in Galway, than I do to settle down here as
+under-gardener.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They 're all looking at us, sir, from the drawing-room window,&rdquo; said
+Scanlan, in a cautious voice; &ldquo;don't let us appear too confidential.&rdquo; And
+at the same instant he extended his whip as though to point attention to
+some distant object, and seem as if he were describing the scenery.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shrewd dog it is,&rdquo; muttered Massingbred in soliloquy, but taking good
+care to be overheard. &ldquo;I 'll beat up your quarters, Scanlan, in a couple
+of hours or so,&rdquo; said Massingbred, as he descended from the lofty &ldquo;drag.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Somewhat, but not very much, later than the time appointed, Jack
+Massingbred appeared in the small chamber of the &ldquo;Crueskeen,&rdquo;&mdash;the
+humble hostel on the roadside adjoining the demesne of Cro' Martin.
+Maurice Scanlan had made every preparation which the fluid resources of
+the house admitted to receive his guest, but they were not destined to be
+put in requisition.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have only come lest you should accuse me of forgetting you, Scanlan,&rdquo;
+ said Massingbred, as he stood in the doorway without removing his hat. &ldquo;I
+'m off to Oughter-ard, having made my adieux at Cro' Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Left Cro' Martin, and for good!&rdquo; exclaimed Scanlan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If that means forever, I suspect you 're right,&rdquo; replied Jack; &ldquo;but you
+'ll have the whole story in the morning when you go up there, and
+doubtless more impartially than I should tell it. And now, good-bye for a
+brief space. We shall meet soon.&rdquo; And, without waiting for an answer, he
+nodded familiarly, stepped briskly to the door, where a post-chaise
+awaited him, and was gone, before Scanlan had even half recovered from his
+astonishment and surprise.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XXI. AN AWKWARD VISITOR
+</h2>
+<p>
+It is a singularly impressive sensation, and one, too, of which even
+frequency will scarcely diminish the effect, to pass from the busy streets
+and moving population of Dublin, and enter the quiet courts of the
+University. The suddenness of the change is most striking, and you pass at
+once from all the bustling interests of life&mdash;its cares and
+ambitions, its pursuits of wealth and pleasure&mdash;into the stillness of
+a cloister. Scarcely within the massive gates, and the noise of the great
+capital is hushed and subdued, its sounds seem to come from afar, and in
+their place is an unbroken calm, or the more solemn echoes of its vaulted
+roofs.
+</p>
+<p>
+In a corner of the Old Square, and in a building almost entirely occupied
+by the University authorities, and whose stairs had seldom echoed beneath
+less reverend footsteps than those of deans and bursars, were the chambers
+of Joe Nelligan. He had obtained them in this peculiar locality as a
+special favor from &ldquo;the Board,&rdquo; as eminently suited to his habits of study
+and seclusion; for his was indeed a life of labor,&mdash;labor, hard,
+unremitting, and unbroken! Dreary as was the aspect of the spot, it was
+one dear to the heart of him who occupied it. If it had been the cell
+wherein he had passed nights of severest toil and days of intense effort,
+so had it been the calm retreat into which he had retired as a sanctuary,
+and at times the scene of the hallowed joy he felt when success had
+crowned all his labors. Thither had he bent his steps at nightfall, as to
+a home; thence had he written the few lines which more than once announced
+his triumph to his father.
+</p>
+<p>
+Within those halls had he experienced all that he had ever tasted of
+successful ambition, and in the depths of that old chair had he dreamed
+away all the visions of a glorious future. The room in which he sat was a
+large and lofty one, lighted by two windows deeply set in the wall. Its
+sides were lined with book-shelves, and books littered the tables and even
+the floor,&mdash;for it was one of his caprices to read as he lay at full
+length, either on the ground or a sofa,&mdash;and the paper and pens were
+scattered about in different quarters, as accident suggested. The only
+thing like ornament to be seen was a lithographic print of Cro' Martin
+Castle over the fireplace,&mdash;a strange exception would it seem, but
+traceable, perhaps, to some remote scene of boyish admiration for what had
+first awakened in him a feeling of awe and admiration; and there it now
+remained, time-worn and discolored, perhaps unnoticed, or looked on with
+very different emotions. Ay! these pictures are terrible landmarks of our
+thoughts! I speak not of such as appeal to our hearts by the features we
+loved, the eyes into whose depths we have gazed, the lips on whose accents
+we have hung entranced, but even when they trace the outlines of some spot
+well known to us in boyhood,&mdash;some scene of long, long years ago. It
+is not alone that the &ldquo;Then&rdquo; and &ldquo;Now&rdquo; stand out in strongest contrast,
+that what we were and what we are are in juxtaposition, but that whole
+memories of what we once hoped to be come rushing over us, and all the
+spirit-stirring emotions of early ambitions mingle themselves with the
+stern realities of the present. And, after all, what success in life,
+however great and seemingly unexpected it may be, ever equals one of the
+glorious daydreams of our boyish ambition, in which there comes no alloy
+of broken health, wasted energies, and exhausted spirits? or, far worse
+again, the envious jealousy of those we once deemed friends, and who, had
+we lived obscurely, still might be such? Student life is essentially
+imaginative. The very division of time, the objects which have value to a
+student's eyes, the seclusion in which he lives, the tranquil frame of
+mind coexistent with highly strained faculties, all tend to make his
+intervals of repose periods of day-dream and revery. It is not improbable
+that these periods are the fitting form of relaxation for overtaxed minds,
+and that the Imagination is the soothing influence that repairs the wear
+and tear of Reason.
+</p>
+<p>
+The peculiar circumstances of young Nelligan's position in life had almost
+totally estranged him from others. The constraint that attaches to a very
+bashful temperament had suggested to him a certain cold and reserved
+manner, that some took for pride, and many were repelled from his intimacy
+by this seeming haughtiness. The unhappy course of what had been his first
+friendship&mdash;for such was it with Massingbred&mdash;had rendered him
+more distrustful than ever of himself, and more firmly convinced that to
+men born as he had been the world imposes a barrier that only is passable
+by the highest and greatest success. It is true, his father's letter of
+explanation assuaged the poignancy of his sorrow; he saw that Massingbred
+had proceeded under a misconception, and had believed himself the
+aggrieved individual; but all these considerations could not obliterate
+the fact that an insult to his social station was the vengeance adopted by
+him, and that Massingbred saw no more galling outrage in his power than to
+reflect upon his rank in life.
+</p>
+<p>
+There are men who have a rugged pride in contrasting what they were with
+what they are. Their self-love finds an intense pleasure in contemplating
+difficulties overcome, obstacles surmounted, and a goal won, all by their
+own unaided efforts, and to such the very obscurity of their origin is a
+source of boastful exultation. Such men are, however, always found in the
+ranks of those whose success is wealth. Wherever the triumphs are those
+rewarded by station, or the distinctions conferred on intellectual
+superiority, this vainglorious sentiment is unknown. An inborn refinement
+rejects such coarse pleasure, just as their very habits of life derive no
+enjoyment from the display and splendor reflected by riches.
+</p>
+<p>
+Joe Nelligan felt his lowly station most acutely, because he saw in it a
+disqualification for that assured and steady temperament which can make
+most of success. He would have given half of all he might possess in the
+world for even so much of birth as might exempt him from a sneer. The
+painful sensitiveness that never rested nor slept&mdash;that made him
+eternally on the watch lest some covert allusion might be made to him&mdash;was
+a severe suffering; and far from decreasing, it seemed to grow with him as
+he became older, and helped mainly to withdraw him further from the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+No error is more common than for bashful men to believe that they are
+unpopular in society, and that the world &ldquo;will none of them.&rdquo; They
+interpret their own sense of difficulty as a feeling of dislike in others,
+and retire to their solitudes convinced that these are their fitting
+dwelling-places. To this unpalatable conviction was Joseph Nelligan now
+come; and as he entered his chambers, and closed the heavy door behind
+him, came the thought: &ldquo;Here at least no mortifications can reach me.
+These old books are my truest and best of friends, and in their
+intercourse there is neither present pain nor future humiliation!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It was on a dark and dreary day in winter, and in that cheerless hour
+before the closing in of night, that Joseph sat thus in his solitary home.
+The sound of carriage-wheels and the sharp tramp of horses' feet&mdash;a
+rare event in these silent courts&mdash;slightly aroused him from a
+revery; but too indolent to go to the window, he merely raised his head to
+listen; and now a loud knock shook the outer door of his chambers. With a
+strange sense of perturbation at this unwonted summons, he arose and
+opened it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Chief Secretary begs to know if Mr. Nelligan is at home?&rdquo; said a
+well-powdered footman, in a plain but handsome livery.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; I am the person,&rdquo; said Joseph, with a diffidence strongly in
+contrast with the composure of the other; and while he yet stood, door in
+hand, the steps of the carriage were let down, and a tall
+venerable-looking man, somewhat past the prime of life, descended and
+approached him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must be my own introducer, Mr. Nelligan,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;my name is
+Massingbred.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+With considerable confusion of manner, and in all that hurry in which
+bashful men seek to hide their awkwardness, Joseph ushered his visitor
+into his dimly lighted chamber.
+</p>
+<p>
+Colonel Massingbred, with all the staid composure of a very quiet
+demeanor, had quite sufficient tact to see that he was in the company of
+one little versed in the world, and, as soon as he took his seat,
+proceeded to explain the reason of his visit.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My son has told me of the great pleasure and profit he has derived from
+knowing you, sir,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;he has also informed me that a slight and
+purely casual event interrupted the friendship that existed between you;
+and although unable himself to tender personally to you at this moment all
+his regrets on the subject, he has charged me to be his interpreter, and
+express his deep sorrow for what has occurred, and his hope that, after
+this avowal, it may never be again thought of by either of you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There was a misunderstanding,&mdash;a fault on both sides. I was wrong in
+the first instance,&rdquo; said Nelligan, faltering and stammering at every
+word.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Nelligan is in a position to be generous,&rdquo; said the Colonel, blandly,
+&ldquo;and he cannot better show the quality than by accepting a frank and full
+apology for a mere mistake. May I trust,&rdquo; continued he,&mdash;but with
+that slight change of tone that denoted a change of topic,&mdash;&ldquo;that you
+have somewhat abated those habits of severe study you have hitherto
+pursued? Jack is really uneasy on that score, and wisely remarks that
+great talents should be spared the penalty of great labor.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not reading now. I have read very little of late,&rdquo; said Joseph,
+diffidently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can imagine what that means,&rdquo; said the Colonel, smiling. &ldquo;Mr.
+Nelligan's relaxations would be the hard labor of less zealous students;
+but I will also say that upon other grounds this must be done with more
+consideration. The public interests, Mr. Nelligan,&mdash;the country, to
+whose service you will one day be called on to contribute those high
+abilities,&mdash;will not be satisfied to learn that their exercise should
+have been impaired by over-effort in youth.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You overrate me much, sir. I fear that you have been misled both as to my
+capacity and my objects.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your capacity is matter of notoriety, Mr. Nelligan! your objects may be
+as high as any ambition can desire. But perhaps it is obtrusive in one so
+new to your acquaintance to venture on these topics; if so, pray forgive
+me, and set it down to the error I have fallen into of fancying that I
+know you as well personally as I do by reputation and character.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Before Nelligan could summon words to reply to this complimentary speech,
+the door of his room was flung suddenly open, and a short, thickset
+figure, shrouded in a coarse shawl and a greatcoat, rushed towards him,
+exclaiming in a rich brogue,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here I am, body and bones; just off the coach, and straight to your
+quarters.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What! Mr. Crow; is it possible?&rdquo; cried Nelligan, in some confusion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just himself, and no other,&rdquo; replied the artist, disengaging himself from
+his extra coverings. &ldquo;When you said to me, 'Come and see me when you visit
+Dublin,' I said to myself, 'There 's a trump, and I 'll do it;' and so
+here I am.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You left the country yesterday. Did you bring me any letters?&rdquo; asked
+Nelligan; but in the uncertain tone of a man who talked merely to say
+something.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not a line,&mdash;not a word. Your father was over head and ears at work
+this week back about the election, and it was only the night before last
+it was over.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And is it over?&rdquo; asked Nelligan, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure it is. Young Massingbred is in, and a nice business it is.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let me inform you, Mr. Crow, before you proceed further&mdash;&rdquo; broke in
+Nelligan; but as he got so far, Colonel Massingbred laid his hand on his
+arm, and said, in a bland but steady voice, &ldquo;Pray allow the gentleman to
+continue; his account promises to be most interesting.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, then, that's what it is not,&rdquo; said Crow; &ldquo;for I think it's all
+bad from beginning to end.&rdquo; Another effort to interrupt by Nelligan being
+repressed by the Colonel, Crow resumed: &ldquo;Everybody trying to cheat
+somebody else; the Martins wanting to cheat the borough, the borough
+wanting to jockey the Martins, and then young Massingbred humbugging them
+both! And there he is now, Member for Oughterard; and much he cares for
+them both.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was there a contest, sir?&rdquo; asked the Colonel, while by a gesture he
+enforced silence on Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;As bitter a one as ever you saw in your life,&rdquo; continued Simmy, quite
+flattered at the attention vouchsafed him; &ldquo;for though the Martins put
+young Massingbred forward at first, they quarrelled with him before the
+day for the nomination,&mdash;something or other about the franchise, or
+Maynooth, or the Church Establishment. Sorra one o' me know much about
+these matters; but it was a serious difference, and they split about it!
+And after all their planning and conniving together, what do they do but
+propose Martin's son, the man in the dragoons, for the borough!
+Massingbred bids them do their worst, packs up, sets out for the town, and
+makes a speech exposing them all! The next morning he comes to the poll,
+with Joe's father there, and Peter Hayes, to propose and second him.
+Martin drives in with three elegant coaches and four, and tries to do the
+thing 'grand.' 'It's too late, sir; the people know their power,' as
+Father Neal told them; and, upon my conscience, I believe it's a most
+dangerous kind of knowledge. At all events, at it they go; and such
+fighting and murdering nobody ever saw before. There's not a whole pane of
+glass in the town, and many a skull cracked as well! One of the wickedest
+of the set was young Massingbred himself; he 'd assault the cars as they
+drove in, and tear out the chaps he thought were his own voters, in spite
+of themselves. He has the spirit of the devil in him! And then to hear how
+he harangued the people and abused the aristocracy. Maybe he did n't lay
+it on well! To be sure, the Martins drove him to it very hard. They called
+him a 'renegade' and a 'spy.' They ransacked everything they could get
+against his character, and at last declared that he had no qualification,
+and wasn't worth sixpence.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how did he answer that?&rdquo; cried the Colonel, who, fixing his eyes on
+the other, entirely engaged his attention.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll tell you how he did. Just producing the title-deeds of an estate
+that old Nelligan settled on him eight days before,&mdash;ay, and so well
+and securely that Counsellor Repton himself, with all his cuteness, could
+n't find a flaw in it. Repton said, in my own hearing, 'That 's the
+cleverest blackguard in Ireland!'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Crow&mdash;Crow, I say,&rdquo; broke in young Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pray don't interrupt him,&rdquo; said the Colonel, in a tone that seemed to
+demand obedience; &ldquo;I want to learn by what majority he gained the day.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thirty-eight or thirty-nine; and there's only two hundred and odd in the
+borough. There may be, perhaps, a dozen of these to strike off on a
+petition; but he 's all safe after that.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And will they petition against his return?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They say so, but nobody believes them. His father,&rdquo;&mdash;and here he
+made a gesture towards Nelligan,&mdash;&ldquo;his father has a strong purse, and
+will see him well through it all.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is very interesting news to me, sir,&rdquo; said the Colonel, with another
+sign to Joseph not to betray him; &ldquo;for although I could well imagine Jack
+Massingbred equal to such an occasion as you describe, I was scarcely
+prepared to hear of the generous confidence reposed in him, nor the prompt
+and able co-operation of the Liberal party.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, I perceive,&rdquo; said Crow, with a significant motion of his eyebrows.
+&ldquo;You thought that his name would be against him, and that people would
+say, 'Is n't he the son of old Moore Massingbred, that took his bribe for
+the Union?'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is intolerable,&rdquo; cried Nelligan, starting up from his seat and
+speaking with all the vehemence of outraged feelings. &ldquo;It is to Colonel
+Massingbred himself you have dared to address this impertinence.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&mdash;how&mdash;what's this!&rdquo; exclaimed Crow, in a perfect horror of
+shame.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The fault, if there be any, is all mine, sir,&rdquo; said the Colonel, pressing
+him down into his seat. &ldquo;I would not have lost the animated description
+you have just given me, uttered, as it was, in such perfect frankness, for
+any consideration; least of all, at the small price of hearing a public
+expression on a public man's conduct. Pray, now, continue to use the same
+frankness, and tell me anything more that occurs to you about this
+remarkable contest.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+This appeal, uttered in all the ease of a well-bred manner, was quite
+unsuccessful. Mr. Crow sat perfectly horrified with himself, endeavoring
+to remember what possible extent of offence he might have been betrayed
+into by his narrative. As for Nelligan, his shame and confusion were even
+greater still; and he sat gazing ruefully and reproachfully at the unlucky
+painter.
+</p>
+<p>
+Colonel Massingbred made one or two more efforts to relieve the
+awkwardness of the incident, but so palpably fruitless were the attempts
+that he desisted, and arose to take his leave. As Joe accompanied him to
+the door, he tried to blunder out some words of excuse. &ldquo;My dear Mr.
+Nelligan,&rdquo; broke in the other, with a quiet laugh, &ldquo;don't imagine for a
+moment that I am offended. In the first place, your friend was the bearer
+of very pleasant tidings, for Jack has not condescended to write to me
+about his success; and secondly, public life is such a stern schoolmaster,
+that men like myself get accustomed to rather rough usage, particularly at
+the hands of those who do not know us. And now, as I am very unwilling to
+include you in this category, when will you come and see me? What day will
+you dine with me?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Nelligan blushed and faltered, just as many another awkward man has done
+in a similar circumstance; for, however an easy matter for you, my dear
+sir, with all your tact and social readiness, to fix the day it will suit
+you to accept of an almost stranger's hospitality, Joseph had no such
+self-possession, and only stammered and grew crimson.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall it be on Saturday? for to-morrow I am engaged to the Chancellor,
+and on Friday I dine with his Excellency. Will Saturday suit you?&rdquo; asked
+the Colonel.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir, perfectly; with much pleasure,&rdquo; answered Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then Saturday be it, and at seven o'clock,&rdquo; said Massingbred, shaking his
+hand most cordially; while Joe, with sorrowful step, returned to his
+chamber.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I think I did it there, at all events!&rdquo; cried Simmy, as the other
+entered. &ldquo;But what, in the name of all that's barefaced, prevented your
+stopping me? Why did n't you pull me up short before I made a beast of
+myself?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How could I? You rushed along like a swollen river. You were so full of
+your blessed subject that you would n't heed an interruption; and as to
+signs and gestures, I made twenty without being able to catch your eye.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe I 'm the only man living ever does these things,&rdquo; said Simmy,
+ruefully. &ldquo;I lost the two or three people that used to say they were my
+friends by some such blundering folly as this. I only hope it won't do <i>you</i>
+any mischief. I trust he 'll see that you are not responsible for my
+delinquencies!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+There was a hearty sincerity in poor Simmy's sorrow that at once
+conciliated Nelligan, and he did his best to obliterate every trace of the
+unhappy incident.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I scarcely supposed my father would have forgiven Massingbred so easily,&rdquo;
+ said Joe, in his desire to change the topic.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Blarney,&mdash;all blarney!&rdquo; muttered Crow, with an expressive movement
+of his eyebrows.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Father Neal himself is rather a difficult subject to treat with,&rdquo; added
+Joe.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Blarney again!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor do I think,&rdquo; continued Nelligan, &ldquo;that the constituency of the
+borough, as a body, are remarkable for any special liability to be imposed
+on!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor would they, had it been an Irishman was trying to humbug them,&rdquo; said
+Crow, emphatically. &ldquo;Take my word for it,&mdash;and I 've seen a great
+deal of the world, and perhaps not the best of it either,&mdash;but take
+<i>my</i> word for it, English blarney goes further with us here than all
+else. It 's not that it's clever or insinuating or delicate,&mdash;far
+from it; but you see that nobody suspects it. The very blunders and
+mistakes of it have an air of sincerity, and we are, besides, so
+accustomed always to be humbugged with a brogue, that we fancy ourselves
+safe when we hear an English accent.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's some ingenuity in your theory,&rdquo; said Joe, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's fact in it; that's what there is,&rdquo; said Crow, rising from his
+seat. &ldquo;I 'll be going now, for I 'm to dine with Tom Magennis at six.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is he here, too?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; and was n't it a piece of good luck that I did n't say anything
+about him before Colonel Massingbred?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why so?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just for this, then,&mdash;that it was young Massingbred gave him a
+letter to his father, recommending him for some place or other. Half of
+the borough expects to be in the Treasury, or the Post-Office, or the
+Board of Trade; and I was just on the tip of saying what a set of
+rapscallions they were. I 'm sure I don't know what saved me from it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your natural discretion, doubtless,&rdquo; said Joe, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so; it must have been that!&rdquo; replied he, with a sigh.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You'll breakfast with me to-morrow, Crow, at eight,&rdquo; said Nelligan, as he
+parted with him at the door. And Simmy, having pledged himself to be
+punctual, hurried off to keep his dinner appointment.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XXII. A DAY &ldquo;AFTER&rdquo;
+ </h2>
+<p>
+The reaction that succeeds to a period of festivity has always an air of
+peculiar sadness and gloom about it. The day after a ball, the withered
+flowers, the faded decorations, the disordered furniture,&mdash;all tell
+the tale of departed pleasure and past enjoyment. The afternoon of that
+morning which has witnessed a wedding-breakfast,&mdash;the April landscape
+of joy and grief, the bridal beauty, and the high-beating hope of the
+happy lover, have all fled; and in the still and silent chambers there
+seems to brood a sense of sorrow and mourning. Still with these thoughts
+happier memories are mingled. The bright pageant of the past rises again
+before the mind; and smiles and music and laughter and graceful forms come
+back, and people space with their images. But how different from all this
+was the day after the election at Cro' Martin!
+</p>
+<p>
+For a week had the Martins condescended to derogate from their proud
+station and &ldquo;play popular&rdquo; to the electors of Oughterard. They had opened
+their most sumptuous apartments to vulgar company, and made guests of
+those they deemed inferior to their own domestics. They had given dinners
+and suppers and balls and picnics. They had lavished all the flatteries of
+attentions on their rude neighbors. They had admitted them to all the
+privileges of a mock equality, &ldquo;so like the real article as not to be
+detected.&rdquo; They had stored their minds with all the lives and adventures
+of these ignoble intimates, so as to impart a false color of friendship to
+their conversation with them; in a word, and to use one by which her
+Ladyship summed up all the miseries of the occasion, they had
+&ldquo;demoralized&rdquo; more in a week than she believed it possible could have been
+effected in ten years. Let us be just, and add that my Lady had taken the
+phrase bodily out of her French vocabulary, and in her ardor applied it
+with its native signification,&mdash;that is, she alluded to the sad
+consequences of association with underbred company, and not by any means
+to any inroads made upon her sense of honor and high principle.
+</p>
+<p>
+Still, whatever pangs the sacrifice was costing within, it must be owned
+that no signs of them displayed themselves on the outside. Even Repton,
+stern critic as he was, said that &ldquo;they did the thing well.&rdquo; And now it
+was all over, the guests gone, the festivities ended, the election lost,
+and nothing in prospect save to settle the heavy outlay of the contest,
+and pay the high price for that excessively dear article which combines
+contamination with disappointment.
+</p>
+<p>
+In her capacity of head of the administration, Lady Dorothea had assumed
+the whole guidance of this contest. With Miss Henderson as her private
+secretary, she had corresponded and plotted and bribed and intrigued to
+any extent; and although Repton was frequently summoned to a council, his
+advice was very rarely, if ever, adopted. Her Ladyship's happy phrase&mdash;&ldquo;one
+ought to know their own borough people better than a stranger&rdquo;&mdash;usually
+decided every vexed question in favor of her judgment.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is a strange characteristic of human nature that at no time do people
+inveigh so loudly against bad faith, treachery, and so on, as when
+themselves deeply engaged in some very questionable enterprise. Now her
+Ladyship had so fully made up her mind to win in this contest that she had
+silenced all scruples as to the means. She had set out with some
+comfortable self-assurance that she knew what was good for those &ldquo;poor
+creatures&rdquo; infinitely better than they did. That it was her duty&mdash;a
+very onerous and disagreeable one, too&mdash;to rescue them from the evil
+influence of demagogues and such like; and that when represented by a
+member of <i>her</i> family, they would be invested with a pledge that
+everything which proper legislation could do for them would be theirs. So
+far she had the approval of her own conscience; and for all that was to
+follow after, she never consulted that tribunal. It is not at all
+improbable that there was little opportunity of doing so in a week of such
+bustle and excitement. Every day brought with it fresh cares and troubles;
+and although Kate Henderson proved herself invaluable in her various
+functions, her Ladyship's fatigues and exertions were of the greatest.
+</p>
+<p>
+The day after the election Lady Dorothea kept her bed. The second day,
+too, she never made her appearance; and it was late in the afternoon of
+the third that she stole languidly into her library, and ordered her maid
+to send Miss Henderson to her.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Kate entered the room, she could not help feeling struck by the
+alteration that had taken place in her Ladyship's appearance, who, as she
+lay back in a deep chair, with closed eyes and folded hands, looked like
+one risen from a long sick-bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+As she started and opened her eyes, however, at Kate's approach, the
+features assumed much of their wonted expression, and their haughty
+character was only tinged, but not subdued, by the look of sorrow they
+wore. With the low and pleasant voice which Kate possessed in perfection,
+she had begun to utter some words of pleasure at seeing her Ladyship
+again, when the other interrupted her hastily, saying,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want you to read to me, child. There, take that volume of Madame de
+Sevigne, and begin where you see the mark. You appear weak to-day,&mdash;tired,
+perhaps?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, a mere passing sense of fatigue, my Lady,&rdquo; said Kate, assuming her
+place, and preparing her book.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Chagrin, annoyance&mdash;disgust I would call it&mdash;are far more
+wearing than mere labor. For my own part, I think nothing of exertion. But
+let us not speak of it. Begin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And Kate now commenced one of those charming letters, wherein the thought
+is so embellished by the grace of expression that there is a perpetual
+semblance of originality, without that strain upon the comprehension that
+real novelty exacts. She read, too, with consummate skill. To all the
+natural gifts of voice and utterance she added a most perfect taste, and
+that nicely subdued dramatic feeling which lends to reading its great
+fascination. Nearly an hour had thus passed, and not a word nor a gesture
+from Lady Dorothea interrupted the reader. With slightly drooped eyelids,
+she sat calm and tranquil; and as Kate, at moments, stole a passing glance
+towards her, she could not guess whether she was listening to her or not.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You'd have succeeded on the stage, Miss Henderson,&rdquo; said she at length,
+raising her eyes slowly. &ldquo;Did it never occur to you to think of that
+career?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Once I had some notion of it, my Lady,&rdquo; said Kate quietly. &ldquo;I played in a
+little private theatre of the Duchess's, and they thought that I had some
+dramatic ability.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;People of condition have turned actors, latterly,&mdash;men, of course, I
+mean; for women, the ordeal is too severe,&mdash;the coarse familiarity of
+a very coarse class, the close association with most inferior natures&mdash;By
+the way, what a week of it we have had! I 'd not have believed any one who
+told me that the whole globe contained as much unredeemed vulgarity as
+this little neighborhood. What was the name of the odious little woman
+that always lifted the skirt of her dress before sitting down?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mrs. Creevy, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure,&mdash;Mrs. Creevy. And her friend, who always came with her?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Busk&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, of course; Miss Busk, of the Emporium. If I don't mistake, I 've
+given her an order for something,&mdash;bonnets, or caps; what is it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A head-dress. Your Ladyship told her&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You 'll make me ill, child&mdash;positively ill&mdash;if you remind me of
+such horrors. I told you to come and read for me, and you begin to inflict
+me with what&mdash;I declare solemnly&mdash;is the most humiliating
+incident of my life.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Kate resumed her book, and read on. Lady Dorothea was now, however,
+unmistakably inattentive, and the changing color of her cheek betrayed the
+various emotions which moved her.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I really fancy that Miss Martin liked the atrocious creatures we have
+received here the past week; she certainly showed them a species of
+attention quite distinct from mere acceptance; and then they all addressed
+her like old acquaintance. Did you observe that?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought that they assumed a degree of familiarity with Miss Martin
+which was scarcely consistent with their station.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say highly ridiculous, child,&mdash;perfectly preposterous; for although
+she will persist in a style of living very opposite to the requirements of
+her position, she is Miss Martin, and <i>my</i> niece!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+There was now a dead pause of some seconds. At length her Ladyship spoke:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To have been beaten in one's own town, where we own every stick and stone
+in the place, really requires some explanation; and the more I reflect
+upon it, the more mysterious does it seem. Repton, indeed, had much to say
+to it. He is so indiscreet,&mdash;eh, don't you think so?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is very vain of his conversational powers, my Lady, and, like all
+clever talkers, says too much.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so. But I don't think him even agreeable. I deem him a bore,&rdquo; said
+my Lady, snappishly. &ldquo;That taste for story-telling&mdash;that anecdotic
+habit&mdash;is quite vulgar; nobody does it now.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Kate listened, as though too eager for instruction to dare to lose a word,
+and her Ladyship went on:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the first place, everybody&mdash;in society, I mean&mdash;knows every
+story that can or ought to be told; and, secondly, a narrative always
+interrupts conversation, which is a game to be played by several.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Kate nodded slightly, as though to accord as much acquiescence as
+consorted with great deference.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is possible, therefore,&rdquo; resumed her Ladyship, &ldquo;that he may have
+divulged many things in that careless way he talked; and my niece, too,
+may have been equally silly. In fact, one thing is clear,&mdash;the enemy
+acquired a full knowledge of our tactics, and met every move we made by
+another. I was prepared for all the violence, all the insult, all the
+licentious impertinence and ribaldry of such a contest; but certainly I
+reckoned on success.&rdquo; Another long and dreary pause ensued, and Lady
+Dorothea's countenance grew sadder and more clouded as she sat in moody
+silence. At length a faint tinge of color marked her cheek; her eyes
+sparkled, and it was in a voice of more than ordinary energy she said: &ldquo;If
+they fancy, however, that we shall accept defeat with submission, they are
+much mistaken. They have declared the war, and it shall not be for them to
+proclaim peace on the day they 've gained a victory. And Miss Martin also
+must learn that her Universal Benevolence scheme must give way to the
+demands of a just retribution. Have you made out the list I spoke of?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady, in part; some details are wanting, but there are eighteen
+cases here quite perfect.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;These are all cottiers,&mdash;pauper tenants,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea,
+scanning the paper superciliously through her eyeglass.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not all, my Lady; here, for instance, is Dick Sheehan, the blacksmith,
+who has worked for the castle twenty-eight years, and who holds a farm
+called Mulianahogue, on a terminable lease.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And he voted against us?&rdquo; broke she in.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; and made a very violent speech, too.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, turn him out, then,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, interrupting her. &ldquo;Now,
+where 's your father? Send for Henderson at once; I 'll have no delay with
+this matter.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have sent for him, my Lady; he 'll be here within half an hour.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And Scanlan also. We shall want him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Scanlan will be here at the same time.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This case here, with two crosses before it, what does this refer to?&rdquo;
+ said her Ladyship, pointing to a part of the paper.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's Mr. Magennis, my Lady, of Barnagheela, who has been making
+incessant appeals for a renewal of his tenure&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how did he behave?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He seconded Mr. Massingbred's nomination, and made a very outrageous
+speech on the occasion.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure, I remember him; and he had the insolence&mdash;the
+unparalleled insolence&mdash;afterwards to address Miss Martin, as she sat
+beside me in the carriage, and to tell her that if the rest of the family
+had been like her the scene that had been that day enacted would never
+have occurred! Who is this Hosey Lynch? His name is so familiar to me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is a postmaster of Oughterard, and a kind of factotum in the town.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then make a note of him. He must be dismissed at once.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is not a freeholder, my lady, but only mentioned as an active agent of
+the Liberal party.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't adopt that vulgar cant, Miss Henderson,&mdash;at least, when
+speaking to <i>me</i>, They are not&mdash;they have no pretensions to be
+called the Liberal party. It is bad taste as well as bad policy to apply a
+flattering epithet to a faction.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What shall I call them in future, my Lady?&rdquo; asked Kate, with a most
+admirably assumed air of innocence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Call them Papists, Radicals, Insurgents,&mdash;anything, in fact, which
+may designate the vile principles they advocate. You mentioned Mr.
+Nelligan, and I own to you I felt ill&mdash;positively ill&mdash;at the
+sound of his name. Just to think of that man's ingratitude,&mdash;base
+ingratitude. It is but the other day his son was our guest here,&mdash;actually
+dined at the table with us! You were here. <i>You</i> saw him yourself!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady,&rdquo; was the quiet reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm sure nothing could be more civil, nothing more polite, than our
+reception of him. I talked to him myself, and asked him something&mdash;I
+forget what&mdash;about his future prospects, and see if this man, or his
+father&mdash;for it matters not which&mdash;is not the ringleader of this
+same movement! I tell you, child, and I really do not say so to hurt your
+feelings, or to aggravate your natural regrets at your condition in life,
+but I say it as a great moral lesson,&mdash;that low people are invariably
+deceitful. Perhaps they do not always intend it; perhaps&mdash;and very
+probably, indeed&mdash;their standard of honorable dealing is a low one;
+but of the fact itself you may rest assured. They are treacherous, and
+they are vindictive!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ennis Cafferty, my Lady, who lives at Broguestown,&rdquo; said Kate, reading
+from the list, &ldquo;sends a petition to your Ladyship, entreating forgiveness
+if he should have done anything to cause displeasure to the family.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What <i>did</i> he do? that is the question.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He carried a banner inscribed 'Down with Monopoly!'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mark him for eviction. I'll have no half measures. Miss Martin has
+brought the estate to such a pass that we may draw the rents, but never
+aspire to the influence of our property. These people shall now know their
+real masters. Who is that knocking at the door?&mdash;Come in.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And at this summons, uttered in a voice not peculiar for suavity, Mr.
+Henderson entered, bowing profoundly, and smoothing the few glossy hairs
+that streaked rather than covered his bald head. A momentary glance passed
+between the father and daughter; so fleeting, however, was it, that the
+most sharp-eyed observer could not have detected its meaning. Lady
+Dorothea was too deeply occupied with her own thoughts to waste a second's
+consideration on either of them, and promptly said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want you, Henderson, to inform me who are the chief persons who have
+distinguished themselves in this outrageous insult to us in the borough.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mr. Henderson moved from one foot to the other, once more stroked down his
+hair, and seemed like a man suddenly called upon to enter on a very
+unpleasant and somewhat difficult task.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps you don't like the office, sir?&rdquo; said she, hastily. &ldquo;Perhaps your
+own principles are opposed to it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Na, my Leddy,&rdquo; said he, deferentially, &ldquo;I ha' nae principles but such as
+the family sanctions. It's nae business o' mine to profess poleetical
+opinions.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very true, sir,&mdash;very just; you comprehend your station,&rdquo; replied
+she, proudly. &ldquo;And now to my demand. Who are the heads of this revolt?&mdash;for
+it is a revolt!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's nae sa much a revolt, my Leddy,&rdquo; rejoined he, slowly and
+respectfully, &ldquo;as the sure and certain consequence of what has been going
+on for years on the property. I did my best, by warning, and indeed by
+thwarting, so far as I could, these same changes. But I was not listened
+to. I foretold what it would all end in, this amelearating the condition
+of the small farmer&mdash;this raising the moral standard of the people,
+and a' that. I foresaw that if they grew richer they 'd grow sturdier; and
+if they learned to read, they'd begin to reflact. Ah, my leddy, a vara
+dangerous practice this same habit of reflection is, to folk who wear
+ragged clothes and dine on potatoes!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I apprehend that the peril is not felt so acutely in your own country,
+sir!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Vara true, my Leddy; your remark is vara just; but there's this
+difference to be remembered: the Scotch are canny folk, and we do many a
+thing that might n't be safe for others, but we take care never to do them
+ower much.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't want your philosophizing, sir, about national characteristics. I
+conclude that you know&mdash;it is your duty to know&mdash;whence this
+spirit took its rise. I desire to be informed on this head, and also what
+measures you have to advise for its suppression.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Another pause, longer and more embarrassing than the first, followed on
+this speech, and Mr. Henderson really seemed balancing within himself
+whether he would or not give evidence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your reluctance has only to go a step further, Henderson, to impress me
+with the worst suspicions of yourself!&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, sternly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm vara sorry for it, my Leddy; I don't deserve them,&rdquo; was the calm
+reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+Had Lady Dorothea been quick-sighted, she might have detected a glance
+which the daughter directed towards her father; but she had been more than
+quick-minded if she could have read its meaning, so strange was the
+expression it bore.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In plain words, sir, do you know the offenders? and if so, how can we
+punish them?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your Leddyship has them all there,&rdquo; said he, pointing to the list on the
+table; &ldquo;but there's nae sa much to be done wi' them, as the chief o' the
+lot are men o' mark and means, wi' plenty o' siller, and the sperit to
+spend it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hear of nothing but defaulters till a moment like this arrives, sir,&rdquo;
+ said her Ladyship, passionately. &ldquo;The burden of every song is arrears of
+rent; and now I am told that the tenantry are so prosperous that they can
+afford to defy their landlord. Explain this, sir!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Before Mr. Henderson had completed that hesitating process which with him
+was the prelude to an answer, the door opened, and Mary Martin entered.
+She was in a riding-dress, and bore the traces of the road on her splashed
+costume; but her features were paler than usual, and her lip quivered as
+she spoke.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear aunt,&rdquo; cried she, not seeming to notice that others were present,
+&ldquo;I have come back at speed from Kyle's Wood to learn if it be true&mdash;but
+it cannot be true&mdash;however the poor creatures there believe it&mdash;that
+they are to be discharged from work, and no more employment given at the
+quarries. You have n't seen them, dear aunt&mdash;you haven't beheld them,
+as I did this morning&mdash;standing panic-stricken around the scene of
+their once labor, not speaking, scarcely looking at each other, more like
+a shipwrecked crew upon an unknown shore than fathers and mothers beside
+their own homesteads!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was I gave the order, Miss Martin,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, proudly. &ldquo;If
+these people prefer political agitation to an honest subsistence, let them
+pay the price of it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But who says that they have done so?&rdquo; replied Mary. &ldquo;These poor creatures
+have not a single privilege to exercise; they have n't a vote amongst
+them. The laws have forgotten them just as completely as human charity
+has.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If they have no votes to record, they have voices to outrage and insult
+their natural protectors. Henderson knows that the worst mobs in the
+borough were from this very district.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let him give the names of those he alludes to. Let him tell me ten&mdash;five&mdash;ay,
+three, if he can, of Kyle's Wood men who took any share in the
+disturbances. I am well aware that it is a locality where he enjoys little
+popularity himself; but at least he need not calumniate its people. Come,
+sir, who are these you speak of?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Kate Henderson, who sat with bent-down head during this speech, contrived
+to steal a glance at the speaker so meaningful and so supplicating that
+Mary faltered, and as a deep blush covered her cheek, she hastily added:
+&ldquo;But this is really not the question. This miserable contest has done us
+all harm; but let us not perpetuate its bitterness! We have been beaten in
+an election, but I don't think we ought to be worsted in a struggle of
+generosity and good feeling. Come over, dear aunt, and see these poor
+creatures.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall certainly do no such thing, Miss Martin. In the first place, the
+fever never leaves that village.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very true, aunt; and it will be worse company if our kindness should
+desert them. But if you will not come, take <i>my</i> word for the state
+of their destitution. We have nothing so poor on the whole estate.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0012" id="linkimage-0012">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/330.jpg" width="100%" alt="330 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is but a moment back I was told that the spirit of resistance to our
+influence here arose from the wealthy independence of the people; now, I
+am informed it is their want and destitution suggest the opposition. I
+wish I could ascertain which of you is right.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's little matter if our theory does not lead us to injustice,&rdquo; said
+Mary, boldly. &ldquo;Let me only ride back to the quarries, aunt, and tell these
+poor people that they 've nothing to fear,&mdash;that there is no thought
+of withdrawing from them their labor nor its hire. Their lives are, God
+knows, not overlaid with worldly blessings; let us not add one drop that
+we can spare to their cup of sorrow.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The young leddy says na mair than the fact; they're vara poor, and they
+'re vara dangerous!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you mean dangerous, sir?&rdquo; asked Lady Dorothea, hastily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's more out o' that barony at the assizes, my Leddy, than from any
+other on the property.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Starvation and crime are near relatives all the world over,&rdquo; said Mary;
+&ldquo;nor do I see that the way to cure the one is to increase the other.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then let us get rid of both,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea. &ldquo;I don't see why we are
+to nurse pauperism either into fever or rebellion. To feed people that
+they may live to infect you, or, perhaps, shoot you, is sorry policy. You
+showed me a plan for getting rid of them, Henderson,&mdash;something about
+throwing down their filthy hovels, or unroofing them, or something of that
+kind, and then they were to emigrate&mdash;I forget where&mdash;to
+America, I believe&mdash;and become excellent people, hard-working and
+quiet. I know it all sounded plausible and nice; tell Miss Martin your
+scheme, and if it does not fulfil all you calculated, it will at least
+serve for an example on the estate.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;An example!&rdquo; cried Mary. &ldquo;Take care, my Lady. It's a dangerous precept
+you are about to inculcate, and admits of a terrible imitation!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now you have decided me, Miss Martin,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, haughtily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And, good Heavens! is it for a rash word of mine&mdash;for a burst of
+temper that I could not control&mdash;you will turn out upon the wide
+world a whole village,&mdash;the old that have grown gray there,&mdash;the
+infant that clings to its mother in her misery, and makes a home for her
+by its very dependence&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Every one of them, sir,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, addressing herself to
+Henderson, who had asked some question in a low whisper. &ldquo;They 're
+cottiers all; they require no delays of law, and I insist upon it
+peremptorily.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not till my uncle hears of it!&rdquo; exclaimed Mary, passionately. &ldquo;A cruel
+wrong like this shall not be done in mad haste.&rdquo; And with these words,
+uttered in all the vehemence of great excitement, she rushed from the room
+in search of Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XXIII. A CHARACTERISTIC LETTER
+</h2>
+<p>
+It may save the reader some time, and relieve him from the weary task of
+twice listening to the same story, if we steal some passages from a letter
+which, about this time, Jack Massingbred addressed to his former
+correspondent. He wrote from the inn at Oughterard, and, although still
+under the influence of the excitement of the late contest, expressed
+himself with much of his constitutional calm and frankness. We shall not
+recapitulate his narrative of the election, but proceed at once to what
+followed on that description.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see, Harry, the dubious projection of your nether lip, I appreciate the
+slow nod of your head, and I fancy I can hear the little half-sigh of
+deprecation with which you hear all this. Worse again, I don't seek to
+defend myself. I think my case a bad one; but still I feel there is
+something to be said in mitigation. You need not trouble yourself to draw
+up an indictment: I plead guilty&mdash;entirely guilty&mdash;to all you
+can say. I <i>have</i> broken with 'the gentlemen' to cast my lot with the
+<i>canaille</i>. Why have n't we a good wholesome word of our own for a
+home-made article? I <i>have</i> deserted the ranks where, whatever
+fortune befell, it was honor to fight; I have given up association with
+the well-bred and the well-mannered, to rub shoulders with the
+coarse-minded, the rough-hearted, and the vulgar. There is not a reproach
+you can make me on this score that I have n't already addressed to myself.
+I feel all the indignity of my situation,&mdash;I experience all the
+insult of their companionship; but, as the lady detected in possession of
+her lover's picture pleaded in her defence that it was not like him, so I
+hope to arrest judgment against me by the honest avowal that I detest and
+despise my party. I don't talk to <i>you</i> about their principles&mdash;still
+less do I say anything of my own&mdash;but merely advert here to the
+miserable compromise a gentleman is driven to make with every sentiment of
+his nature who once enlists under their flag. As Travers told us one
+evening&mdash;you were of the party, and must remember it&mdash;he was
+speaking of the Peninsular campaign, in which he served as a volunteer&mdash;'So
+long as you were fighting,' said he, 'it was all very well; the fellows
+were stout-hearted and full of spirit, and you felt that you couldn't ask
+for better comrades; but when the struggle was over&mdash;when it came to
+associating, living with them, hearing their sentiments, sharing their
+opinions, hopes, fears, wishes, and so on&mdash;then it became downright
+degradation!' Not, as he remarked, that they were one jot more vicious or
+more corrupt than their betters, but that every vice and every corruption
+amongst them seemed doubly offensive by the contact with their coarse
+natures. Now, my friends, the Liberals, are somewhat in the same category.
+They do their work right well on the field of battle; they fight, swear,
+slander, and perjure themselves just like gentlemen; or rather better of
+the two. They even come down handsomely with their cash,&mdash;the last
+best evidence any man can tender of his honesty in a cause; but then,
+Harry, the struggle over, it is sorry work to become their companion and
+their friend! Oh! if you had but seen the dinners I have eaten, and the
+women I have handed down to them!&mdash;if you could have but heard the
+sentiments I have cheered,&mdash;ay, and even uttered,&mdash;only listened
+to the projects we have discussed, and the plans matured as we sat over
+our whiskey-punch,&mdash;you 'd say, 'Jack must have the ambition of the
+Evil One himself in his heart, since he pays this price for the mere
+glimpse of the goal before him!'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Throughout the whole of your last letter I can detect a sense of
+apprehension lest, 'with all my tact,' as you phrase it, these people are
+not really duping we,&mdash;using me for a present purpose, with the
+foregone resolve to get rid of me when it be accomplished. To be sure they
+are, Harry. I never doubted it for a moment. The only question is, which
+of us shall trip up the other! They desire to show the world that the
+operation of the Relief Bill will not be of that exclusive character its
+opponents proclaimed,&mdash;that a Catholic constituency would choose a
+Protestant,&mdash;even prefer one,&mdash;as Mr. O'Connell said. The
+opportunity was a good one to display this sentiment, and so they took me!
+Now, <i>my</i> notion is, that every great measure can have only one real
+importance, by throwing weight into the scale of one or other of the two
+great Parliamentary parties. Do what you will,&mdash;agitate, write,
+speak, pamphleteer, and libel,&mdash;but all resolves itself to some
+question of a harm to one side and good to the other, the country the
+while being wonderfully little the better or the worse for all the
+legislation. We used to have a Constitution in England: we have now only
+got a Parliament, and to be anything in the nation a man must make himself
+felt there! This, 'if I have the stuff in me,' as old Sherry said, I mean
+to do&mdash;<i>et nous verrons!</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The fatigues of this new life are very great. I 'm up before it is well
+day, writing and revising newspaper articles, answering letters, and
+replying to 'queries.' I have my whole mornings taken up in audiences of
+my constituents, swallowing pledges, and recording promises; and later on
+I go to dinner, 'with what appetite I may,' to some one of my faithful
+supporters,&mdash;some corn-chandler who spouts 'foreign politics,' or a
+grocer who ought to be Colonial Secretary! But still I 'm thankful for all
+this bustle and occupation: it averts reflection, it raises a barrier
+against thought, and muffles the clapper of that small hand-bell in the
+human heart men call their conscience! They say few men would have courage
+for either a battle or a wedding if it were not for the din of the
+trumpets and the joy-bells; and I'm convinced that noise&mdash;mere noise&mdash;has
+no small share in determining the actions of mankind!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now, Harry, for a confession. I 'm heartily sorry for the whole of
+this business, and were it to be done again, nothing would tempt me to
+play the same part in it. I was leading the jolliest life imaginable at
+Cro' Martin. I had made the place and the people my own. It was a kind of
+existence that suited me,&mdash;sufficient of occupation, and enough of
+leisure. There were oddities to laugh at, eccentricities to quiz, an old
+lawyer to sharpen one's wits upon, and a governess&mdash;such a governess&mdash;to
+flirt with! Don't mistake me, Harry; it was not one of those
+hand-pressing, downcast-gazing, low-speaking cases in which you are such a
+proficient. It was far more like the approaches one might be supposed to
+make to a young tigress in a cage,&mdash;a creature with whom a mistake
+would be your ruin, and whom you always caressed with a sense of impending
+peril.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I told you how ably she aided me in this contest,&mdash;how she labored
+to obtain information&mdash;secret information&mdash;for me as to every
+voter in the borough. What prompted her to this course I cannot fathom.
+She does not appear to bear any grudge against the Martins,&mdash;she had
+been but a few weeks amongst them,&mdash;and is, all things considered,
+well treated and well received. As little was it any special favor towards
+myself. Indeed, on that head she will not permit me to fall into any
+error. I cannot suppose that with her foreign education and foreign habits
+she cares a jot for the small schemes and intriguings of home politics,&mdash;so
+what can it possibly mean? Help me to the solution of this riddle, and I
+'ll be more deeply your debtor than I can well say. Brought up as she has
+been,&mdash;and as I have told you in my last letter,&mdash;nothing would
+be more natural than her adoption of every prejudice of the class by whom
+she has been so singularly distinguished; and in this light I have always
+viewed her. Under the calm reserve of a most polished manner you can still
+detect a shrinking horror of all the vulgar association of the rank she
+came from. Her quiet deference, haughtier by far than the domination of
+those above her; the humility that no flatteries ever breached; a
+self-possession that never seemed so strong as when resisting the
+blandishments of praise,&mdash;these are strange gifts in a young girl
+with beauty enough to turn half the heads of half the fools we know of,
+and more than enough to make crazy that of him who writes this.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I tried twenty things to resist this tendency on my part. I laughed at
+myself for the absurdity it would lead to. I ridiculed to my own heart all
+the extravagance of such a project. I even wrote a paragraph for the
+'Times' announcing the marriage of Jack Massingbred with Kate Henderson,
+the only daughter of Paul Henderson, the Land Steward, and pasted it above
+my chimney to shock and outrage me. I did more. I made love to Miss Martin&mdash;as
+an alterative, as the doctors would call it&mdash;but I fell at a stone
+wall, got laughed at, and cured of my passion; and, lastly, I climbed that
+lofty tree of my family, and sat high among the branches of defunct barons
+and baronets, to get a bird's-eye view of the small mushrooms that grow on
+the earth beneath, but hang me, Harry, if the agarics did n't seem better
+company, and I was glad to get down amongst them again, meaning thereby to
+sit beside that one dear specimen of the class I allude to!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see that you are curious to know how all these late events have
+modified my relations with my father, and really I cannot answer your
+inquiry. It is more than likely that my obtaining a seat in Parliament
+will embarrass rather than serve him with his party, since he will be
+expected to control a vote over which he can exert no influence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;As yet, nothing has occurred to draw us any closer, and my only
+communications to him have been certain recommendatory letters, which my
+constituents here have somewhat peremptorily demanded at my hands. I gave
+them freely, for, after all, application is an easier task than refusing,
+and besides, Harry, it is very difficult to persuade your election friends
+that you cannot be a patriot and a patron at the same time, and that, in
+the luxurious pastime of badgering a government, a man surrenders some of
+the pretensions to place. I gave them, therefore, all the letters they
+asked for; and if the Chief Secretary but answer one half of my appeals,
+Galway&mdash;or at least that small portion of it called Oughter-ard&mdash;will
+have no cause of complaint on the score of its claims to office.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are, I perceive, astonished that I continue to remain here. So am I,
+Harry. The place is detestable in almost every way. I am beset with
+entreaties, persecuted with vulgar attentions, bored to death by the
+insolent familiarity of people I cannot&mdash;do all that I will&mdash;grow
+intimate with; and yet I stay on, pretexting this, that, and t' other to
+myself, and shrinking even to my own heart to avow the real reason of my
+delay!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want once again, if only for a few moments, to see her. I want to try
+if by any ingenuity I could discover the mystery of her conduct with
+regard to myself; and I want also, if there should be the need to do so,
+to justify to her eyes many things which I have been forced by
+circumstances to do in this contest.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have not the slightest suspicion as to how she views all that has
+occurred here. Two notes which I addressed to her, very respectful,
+businesslike epistles, have not been answered, though I entreated for a
+few words to acknowledge their receipt. The Martins, since the election,
+seem to have quarantined the whole town and neighborhood. They suffer none
+of their people to enter here. They have sent eight miles further off to
+market, and even changed the post-town for their letters. Their policy is,
+so far, shortsighted, as it has called into an exaggerated importance all
+that small fry&mdash;like the Nelligans&mdash;who have hitherto been
+crushed under the greater wealth of the rich proprietor. But I am again
+drifting into that tiresome tideway of politics which I have sworn to
+myself to avoid, if only for a few days; in pursuance of which wise
+resolve I shall betake myself to the mountains, under the pretext of
+shooting. A gun is an idler's passport, and a game-bag and a shot-pouch
+are sufficient to throw a dignity over vagabondism. You will therefore
+divine that I am not bent on snipe slaughter, but simply a good excuse to
+be alone!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean to go to-morrow, and shall first turn my steps towards the coast,
+which, so far as I have seen, is singularly bold and picturesque. If
+nothing occurs to alter my determination, I 'll leave this unclosed till I
+can tell you that I have come back here, which in all probability will be
+by the end of the week.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Once more here, my dear Harry, I sit down to add a few lines to this
+already over-lengthy epistle. Wishing to give you some notion of the
+scenery, I set out with all the appliances of a sketcher, and have really
+contrived to jot down some spots which, for general wildness and grandeur,
+it would be difficult to surpass within the bounds of our country. Nor is
+it alone the forms that are so striking, although I could show you
+outlines here perfectly Alpine in their fantastic extravagance; but the
+colors are finer than anything I have seen north of the Alps,&mdash;heaths
+and lichens grouped over rugged masses of rock, with shades of purple and
+gold such as no diadem ever equalled. The sunsets, too, were gorgeous! You
+remember how struck we both were at the moment when the dome and aisle of
+St. Peter's burst into light, and from the darkness of midnight every
+column and every statue became illuminated in a second; but a thousand
+times beyond this in grandeur of effect was the moment of the sun's
+decline below the horizon. The instant before, the great sullen sea was
+rolling and heaving with its leaden blue surface, slightly traced here and
+there with foam, but no sooner had the sun touched the horizon, than a
+flood of purple glory spread over the whole ocean, so that it became like
+a sea of molten gold and amber. The dark cliffs and rugged crags, the
+wave-beaten rocks, and the rude wild islands, darksome and dismal but a
+moment back, were now all glittering and glowing, every pinnacle and every
+peak in deep carbuncle red. How suggestive to him who would describe an
+enchanted land or region of magic splendor! and what a hint for your
+scene-painter, who, with all his devices of Bengal and blue light, with
+every trick that chemistry and optics could aid in, never fancied anything
+so splendid or so gorgeous.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have half filled a sketch-book for you, and more than half filled my
+game-bag with mosses and ferns, and such-like gear, which, knowing your
+weakness, I have gathered, but, not understanding their virtues, may, for
+aught I know, be the commonest things in creation. I can only vouch for
+their being very beautiful, and very unlike anything else I ever saw
+before; fragments of marble, too, and specimens of Irish jasper and onyx,
+are amidst my rubbish, or my treasures, whichever you shall pronounce them
+to be.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I got through&mdash;don't fancy that the phrase denotes weariness or <i>ennui</i>&mdash;I
+got through four days in these pursuits, and then I took boat, and for
+three more I paddled about the coast, dipping in amongst the cliffs and
+creeks and caves of this wonderful coast, gathering shells and seaweed,
+and shooting curlews and eating lobsters, and, in fact, to all intents and
+purposes, suffering a 'sea change' over myself and my spirit as
+unearthlike as well may be imagined; and at last I bethought me of my new
+openiug career, and all that I ought to be doing in preparation of St.
+Stephen's, and so I turned my steps landward and towards 'my borough.' I
+like to say 'my borough;' it sounds feudal and insolent and old Torylike;
+it smacks of the day when people received their representative thankfully,
+as an alms, and your great proprietor created his nominee as the consul
+ennobled his horse!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Revolving very high thoughts, reciting Edmund Burke's grandest
+perorations, and picturing very vividly before me the stunning triumphs of
+my own eloquence in the House, I plodded along, this time at least
+wonderfully indifferent to the scenery, and totally oblivious of where I
+was, when suddenly I perceived the great trees of Cro' Martin demesne
+shadowing the road I travelled, and saw that I was actually within a mile
+or so of the Castle! You, Harry, have contrived, some way or other, to
+have had a very rose-colored existence. I never heard that you had been
+jilted by a mistress, 'cut' by a once friend, or coldly received by the
+rich relative from whom you derived all your expectations. I am not even
+aware that the horse you backed ever went wrong, or that the bill you
+endorsed for another ever came back protested. In fact, you are what the
+world loves best, cherishes most, and lavishes all its blandishments on,&mdash;a
+devilish lucky fellow! Lucky in a capital fortune, abundance of good
+gifts, good looks, and an iron constitution,&mdash;one of those natures
+that can defy duns, blue-devils, and dyspepsia! Being, therefore, all
+this, well received everywhere, good company where pheasants are to be
+shot, Burgundy to be drunk, or young ladies to be married,&mdash;for you
+are a good shot, a good wine-taster, and a good <i>parti</i>,&mdash;with
+such gifts, I say, it will be very difficult to evoke your sympathy on the
+score of a misfortune which no effort of your imagination could compass.
+In fact, to ask you to feel what I did, as I found myself walking along <i>outside</i>
+of those grounds <i>within</i> which, but a few days back, I was the
+cherished visitor, and in sight of that smoke which denoted a hearth
+beside which I was never to sit again, and from which I was banished with
+something not very unlike disgrace! No sophistry I could summon was
+sufficient to assuage the poignancy of this sentiment. I feel certain that
+I could stand any amount of open public abuse, any known or unknown
+quantity of what is genteelly called 'slanging,' but I own to you that the
+bare thought of how my name might at that moment be mentioned beneath that
+roof, or even the very reserve that saved it from mention, caused me
+unutterable bitterness, and it was in a state of deep humiliation of
+spirit that I took the very first path that led across the fields and away
+from Cro' Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They tell me that a light heart makes easy work of a day's journey. Take
+my word for it, that to get over the ground without a thought of the road,
+there's nothing like a regular knock-down affliction. I walked eight
+hours, and at a good pace, too, without so much as a few minutes' halt, so
+overwhelmed was I with sensations that would not admit of my remembering
+anything else. My first moment of consciousness&mdash;for really it was
+such&mdash;came on as I found myself breasting a steep stony ascent, on
+the brow of which stood the bleak residence of my friend Mr. Magennis, of
+Barnagheela. I have already told you of my visit to his house, so that I
+need not inflict you with any new detail of the locality, but I confess,
+little as it promised to cheer or rally the spirits, I was well pleased to
+find myself so near a roof under which I might take refuge. I knocked
+vigorously at the door, but none answered my summons. I repeated my demand
+for admittance still more loudly, and at last went round to the back of
+the house, which I found as rigidly barred as the front. While still
+hesitating what course to take, I spied Joan Landy&mdash;you remember the
+girl I spoke of in a former letter&mdash;ascending the hill at a brisk
+pace. In a moment I was beside her. Poor thing, she seemed overjoyed at
+our meeting, and warmly welcomed me to her house. 'Tom is away,' said she,
+'in Dublin, they tell me, but he 'll be back in a day or two, and there 's
+nobody he 'd be so glad to see as yourself when he comes.' In the world,
+Harry,&mdash;that is, in your world and mine,&mdash;such a proposition as
+Joan's would have its share of embarrassments. Construe it how one might,
+there would be at least some awkwardness in accepting such hospitality. So
+I certainly felt it, and, as we walked along, rather turned the
+conversation towards herself, and whither she had been.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'I 'm not more than half an hour out of the house,' said she, 'for I only
+went down the boreen to show the short cut by Kell Mills to a young lady
+that was here.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'A visitor, Mrs. Joan?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Yes. But to be sure you know her yourself, for you came with her the day
+she walked part of the way back with me from Cro' Martin.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Miss Henderson?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Maybe that's her name. She only told me to call her Kate.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Was she here alone?&mdash;did she come on foot?&mdash;which way is she
+gone?' cried I, hurrying question after question. Perhaps the tone of my
+last was most urgent, for it was to that she replied, by pointing to a
+glen between two furze-clad hills, and saying, 'That's the road she 's
+taking, till she crosses the ford at Coomavaragh.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'And she is alone?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'That she is; sorra a one with her, and she has five good miles before
+her.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never waited for more. If I did say good-bye to poor Joan, I really
+forget; but I dashed down the mountain at speed, and hurried onward in the
+direction she had pointed out. In an instant all my fatigue of the day was
+forgotten, and as I went along I remembered nothing, thought of nothing,
+but the object of my pursuit.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You who have so often bantered me on the score of my languor&mdash;that
+'elegant lassitude,' as you used to call it, which no zeal ever warmed,
+nor any ardor ever could excite&mdash;would have been somewhat astonished
+had you seen the reckless, headlong pace at which I went,&mdash;vaulting
+over gates, clearing fences, and dashing through swamps, without ever a
+moment's hesitation. Picture to yourself, then, my splashed and heated
+condition as, after a two-miles' chase in this fashion, I at length
+overtook her, just as she was in search of a safe spot to ford the river.
+Startled by the noise behind her, she turned suddenly round, and in an
+instant we stood face to face. I 'd have given much to have seen some show
+of confusion, even embarrassment in her looks, but there was not the
+slightest. No, Harry, had we met in a drawing-room, her manner could not
+have been more composed, as she said,&mdash;'Good-morning, Mr.
+Massingbred. Have you had much sport?' 'My chase was after <i>you</i>,
+Miss Henderson,' said I, hurriedly. 'I just reached Barnagheela as
+Mistress Joan returned, and having learned which road you took, followed
+you in all haste.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Indeed!' exclaimed she, and in a voice wherein there were blended a vast
+variety of meanings.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Yes,' I resumed, 'for an opportunity of meeting you alone&mdash;of
+speaking with you even for a few moments&mdash;I have delayed my departure
+this week back. I wrote to you twice.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Yes; I got your letters.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'But did not deign to answer them.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;' I did not write to you, because, situated as <i>I</i> was, and regarded
+as <i>you</i> were at Cro' Martin, there would have been a species of
+treason in maintaining anything like correspondence, just as I feel there
+is somewhat akin to it in our intercourse at this moment.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'And have the events occurring lately changed <i>your</i> feeling with
+regard to me?' asked I, half reproachfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'I don't exactly know to what former condition you refer, Mr.
+Massingbred,' said she, calmly. 'If to the counsels which you were
+gracious enough to receive at hands humble and inexperienced as mine, they
+were given, as you remember, when you were the chosen representative of
+the family at Cro' Martin, and continued only so long as you remained
+such.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Then I have deceived myself, Miss Henderson,' broke I in. 'I had fancied
+that there was a personal good-will in the aid you tendered me. I even
+flattered myself that I owed my success entirely and solely to your
+efforts.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'You are jesting, Mr. Massingbred,' said she, with a saucy smile; 'no one
+better than yourself knows how to rely upon his own abilities.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'At least, confess that it was you who first suggested to me that they
+were worth cultivating; that it was <i>you</i> who pointed out a road to
+me in life, and even promised me your friendship as the price of my
+worthily adopting it!'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'I remember the conversation you allude to. It was on this very road it
+occurred.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Well, and have I done anything as yet to forfeit the reward you spoke
+of?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'All this is beside the real question, Mr. Massingbred,' said she,
+hurriedly. 'What you are really curious to learn is, why it is that I,
+being such as I am, should have displayed so much zeal in a cause which
+could not but have been opposed to the interests of those who are my
+patrons. That you have not divined the reason is a proof to me that I
+could not make you understand it. I don't want to talk riddles,&mdash;enough
+that I say it was a caprice.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'And yet you talked seriously, persuasively to me, of my future road in
+life; you made me think that you saw in me the qualities that win
+success.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'You have a wonderful memory for trifles, sir, since you can recall so
+readily what I said to you.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'But it was not a trifle to me,' said I.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Perhaps not, Mr. Massingbred, since it referred to yourself. I don't
+mean this for impertinence!'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'I am glad that you say so!' cried I, eagerly. 'I am but too happy to
+catch at anything which may tend to convince me that you would not
+willingly hurt my feelings.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;For several minutes neither of us uttered a word; at last I said, 'Should
+I be asking too much, if I begged Miss Henderson to tell me whether she is
+dissatisfied with anything I may have done in this contest? There may be
+matters in which I have been misrepresented; others of which I could make
+some explanation.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Are you quite satisfied with it yourself, sir?' said she, interrupting
+me.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'No,' said I; 'so little am I so, that were it all to do over again, I 'd
+not embark in it. The whole affair, from beginning to end, is a false
+position.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Ignoble associates&mdash;low companionships&mdash;very underbred
+acquaintances,' said she, in a tone of scorn that seemed far more directed
+at <i>me</i> than the others. I believe I showed how I felt it. I know
+that my cheek was on fire for some seconds after.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'The Martins, I take it, are outrageous with me?' said I, at last.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'They never speak of you!' was the reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Not my Lady?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'No!'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Nor even Repton?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Not once.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'That, at least, is more dignified; and if any accident should bring us
+together in county business&mdash;'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Which is not likely.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'How so?' asked I.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'They are going away soon.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Going away&mdash;to leave Cro' Martin&mdash;and for any time?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'My Lady speaks of the Continent, and that, of course, implies a long
+absence.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'And has this miserable election squabble led to this resolve? Is the
+neighborhood to be deprived of its chief ornament&mdash;the people of
+their best friend&mdash;just for the sake of a petty party triumph?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'It is fortunate Mr. Massingbred's constituents cannot hear him,' said
+she, laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'But be serious, and tell me how far am I the cause of all this.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'The whole cause of it,&mdash;at least, so far as present events can
+reveal.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'How they must abhor me!' said I, half involuntarily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'<i>Avec les circonstances atténuantes</i>,' said she, smiling again.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'How so?&mdash;what do you mean?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Why, that my Lady is thankful at heart for a good excuse to get away,&mdash;such
+a pretext as Mr. Martin himself cannot oppose. Repton, the Grand Vizier,
+counsels economy, and, like all untravelled people, fancies France and
+Italy cheap to live in; and Miss Mary is, perhaps, not sorry with the
+prospect of the uncontrolled management of the whole estate.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'And is she to live here alone?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Yes; she is to be sole mistress of Cro' Martin, and without even a
+governess, since Miss Henderson is to accompany her Ladyship as private
+secretary, minister of the household, and, in fact, any other capacity you
+may please in flattery to assign her. And now, Mr. Massingbred, that I
+have, not over-discreetly, perhaps, adventured to talk of family
+arrangements to a stranger, will you frankly ac-knowledge that your pride,
+or self-love, or any other quality of the same nature, is rather gratified
+than otherwise at all the disturbance you have caused here? Don't you
+really feel pleased to think that you have revolutionized a little
+neighborhood, broken up a society, severed the ties that bound proprietor
+and peasant, and, in fact, made a very pretty chaos, out of which may come
+anything or everything?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'When you address such a question as this to me, you don't expect an
+answer. Indeed, the query itself is its own reply,' said I.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Well said, sir, and with consummate temper, too. Certainly, Mr.
+Massingbred, you possess one great element of success in public life.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Which is&mdash;'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'To bear with equanimity and cool forbearance the impertinences of those
+you feel to be your inferiors.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'But it is not in this light I regard Miss Henderson, be assured,' said
+I, with earnestness; 'and if I have not replied to her taunts, it is not
+because I have not felt them.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought I detected a very faint flush on her cheek as I said this, and
+certainly her features assumed a more serious expression than before.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Will you let me speak to you of what is far nearer my heart?' said I, in
+a low voice,&mdash;'far nearer than all this strife and war of politics?
+And will you deign to believe that what I say is prompted by whatever I
+know in myself of good or hopeful?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Say on,&mdash;that is, if I ought to hear it,' said she, coldly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Deterred a second or two by her manner, I rallied quickly, and with an
+ardor of which I cannot convey an impression, much less explain,&mdash;one
+of those moments of rhapsody, <i>you 'd</i> call it,&mdash;poured forth a
+warm declaration of love. Aye, Harry, sincere, devoted love!&mdash;a
+passion which, in mastering all the common promptings of mere worldly
+advantage and self-interest, had really inspired me with noble thoughts
+and high aspirations.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A judge never listened to a pleading with more dignified patience than
+she did to my appeal. She even waited when I had concluded, as it were to
+allow of my continuing, had I been so minded; when, seeing that I had
+closed my argument, she quietly turned about, and facing the road we had
+just been travelling, pointed to the bleak, bare mountain on which
+Barnagheela stood. 'It was yonder, then, that you caught up this lesson,
+sir. The admirable success of Mr. Magennis's experiment has seduced you!'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Good heavens! Kate,' cried I&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Sir,' said she, drawing herself proudly up, 'you are continuing the
+parallel too far.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'But Miss Henderson cannot for a moment believe&mdash;'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'I can believe a great deal, sir, of what even Mr. Massingbred would
+class with the incredible; but, sir, there are certain situations in life
+which exact deference, from the very fact of their humility. Mine is one
+of these, and I am aware of it.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Will you not understand me aright?' cried I, eagerly. 'In offering to
+share my fortune in life with you&mdash;'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Pray, sir, let this stop here. Poor Joan, I have no doubt, felt all the
+grandeur of <i>her</i> elevation, and was grateful even in her misery. But
+<i>I</i> should not do so. I am one of those who think that the cruellest
+share in a <i>mésalliance</i> is that of the humbler victim. To brave such
+a fate, there should be all the hopeful, sanguine sense of strong
+affection; and, as a reserve to fall back on in reverses, there should be
+an intense conviction of the superiority over others of him from whom we
+accept our inferiority. Now, in my case, these two conditions are wanting.
+I know you like frankness, and I am frank.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Even to cruelty,' said I.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'We are very near Cro' Martin, sir, and I think we ought to part,' said
+she, calmly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'And is it thus you would have us separate? Have I nothing to hope from
+time,&mdash;from the changes that may come over your opinions of me?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Calculate rather on the alterations in your own sentiments, Mr.
+Massingbred; and perhaps the day is not very distant when you will laugh
+heartily at yourself for the folly of this same morning,&mdash;a folly
+which might have cost you dearly, sir, for I might have said, Yes.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Would that you had!'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Good-bye, sir,' said she, not noticing my interruption, 'and remember
+that, if I should ever need it, I have a strong claim on your gratitude.
+Good-bye!'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She did not give me her hand at parting, but waved it coldly towards me
+as she went. And so she passed the little wicket, and entered the dark
+woods of the demesne, leaving me in a state wherein the sense of
+bewilderment alone prevailed over all else.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have given you this narrative, Harry, as nearly as I can remember,
+every step of it; but I do not ask you to understand it better than I do,
+which means, not at all! Nor will I worry you with the thousand-and-one
+attempts I have made to explain to myself what I still confess to be
+inexplicable. I mean to leave this at once. Would that I had never come
+here! Write to me soon; but no bantering, Harry. Not even my friendship
+for <i>you</i>&mdash;oldest and best of all my friends&mdash;could stand
+any levity on this theme. This girl knows me thoroughly, since she
+comprehends that there is no so certain way to engage my affections as to
+defy them!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Write to me, I entreat. Address me at my father's, where I shall be,
+probably, within a week. Were I to read over what I have just written, the
+chances are I should burn the letter; and so, <i>sans adieu</i>,
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yours ever,
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jack Massingbred.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XXIV. THREE COACHES AND THEIR COMPANY
+</h2>
+<p>
+Three large and stately travelling-carriages, heavily laden, and
+surrounded with all the appliances for comfort possible, rolled from under
+the arched gateway of Cro' Martin. One eager and anxious face turned
+hastily to catch a last look at the place he was leaving, and then as
+hastily concealing his emotion with his handkerchief, Mr. Martin sat back
+in the carriage in silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Twenty minutes after eight!&rdquo; exclaimed Lady Dorothea, looking at her
+watch. &ldquo;It is always the case; one never can get away in time.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Rousted by the speech, Martin started, and turned again to the window.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How handsome those larches are!&rdquo; cried he; &ldquo;it seems but yesterday that I
+planted them, and they are magnificent trees now.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Her Ladyship made no reply, and he went on, half as though speaking to
+himself: &ldquo;The place is in great beauty just now. I don't think I ever saw
+it looking so well. Shall I ever see it again?&rdquo; muttered he, in a still
+lower tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I really cannot think it ought to break your heart, Mr. Martin, if I were
+to say 'No' to that question,&rdquo; said she, testily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;no!&rdquo; exclaimed he, repeating the word after her; &ldquo;not come back
+here!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is nothing to prevent us if we should feel disposed to do so,&rdquo;
+ replied she, calmly. &ldquo;I only observed that one could face the alternative
+with a good courage. The twenty years we have passed in this spot are
+represented to <i>your</i> mind by more leafy trees and better timber. To
+<i>me</i> they are written in the dreary memory of a joyless, weary
+existence. I detest the place,&rdquo; cried she, passionately, &ldquo;and for nothing
+more, that even on leaving it my spirits are too jaded and broken to feel
+the happiness that they ought.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin sighed heavily, but did not utter a word.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So it is,&rdquo; resumed she; &ldquo;one ever takes these resolutions too late. What
+we are doing now should have been done sixteen or eighteen years ago.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Or not at all,&rdquo; muttered Martin, but in a voice not meant to be
+overheard.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think so, sir,&rdquo; cried she, catching up his words; &ldquo;if only as our
+protest against the insolence and ingratitude of this neighborhood,&mdash;of
+these creatures who have actually been maintained by us! It was high time
+to show them their real condition, and to what they will be reduced when
+the influence of our position is withdrawn.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it were only for <i>that</i> we are going away&mdash;&rdquo; And he stopped
+himself as he got thus far.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In itself a good and sufficient reason, sir; but I trust there are others
+also. I should hope that we have paid our debt to patriotism, and that a
+family who have endured twenty years of banishment may return, if only to
+take a passing glance at the world of civilization and refinement.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And poor Mary!&rdquo; exclaimed Martin, with deep feeling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your niece might have come with us if she pleased, Mr. Martin. To remain
+here was entirely her own choice; not that I am at all disposed to think
+that her resolution was not a wise one. Miss Mary Martin feels very
+naturally her utter deficiency in all the graces and accomplishments which
+should pertain to her condition. She appreciates her unfitness for
+society, and selects&mdash;as I think, with commendable discretion&mdash;a
+sphere much better adapted to her habits.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin again sighed heavily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To leave any other girl under such circumstances would have been highly
+improper,&rdquo; resumed her Ladyship; &ldquo;but she is really suited to this kind of
+life, and perfectly unfit for any other, and I have no doubt she and Catty
+Broon will be excellent company for each other.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catty loves her with all her heart,&rdquo; muttered Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+And her Ladyship's lip curled in silent derision at the thought of such
+affection. &ldquo;And, after all,&rdquo; said he, half involuntarily, &ldquo;our absence
+will be less felt so long as Molly stays behind.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you mean by that, Mr. Martin, that the same system of wasteful
+expenditure is still to continue,&mdash;this universal employment scheme,&mdash;I
+can only say I distinctly and flatly declare against it. Even Rep ton&mdash;and
+I 'm sure he 's no ally of mine&mdash;agrees with me in pronouncing it
+perfectly ruinous.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's no doubt of the cost of it,&rdquo; said Martin, gravely.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, and what other consideration should weigh with us?&mdash;I
+mean,&rdquo; added she, hastily, &ldquo;what should have the same weight? The
+immaculate authority I have just quoted has limited our personal
+expenditure for next year to five thousand pounds, and threatens us with
+even less in future if the establishment at Cro' Martin cannot be reduced
+below its present standard; but I would be curious to know why there is
+such a thing as an establishment at Cro' Martin?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Properly speaking, there is none,&rdquo; said Martin. &ldquo;Rep-ton alludes only to
+the workpeople,&mdash;to those employed on the grounds and the gardens. We
+cannot let the place go to ruin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is certainly no necessity for pineries and forcing-houses. Your
+niece is not likely to want grapes in January, or camellias in the early
+autumn. As little does she need sixteen carriage-horses and a stable full
+of hunters.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are to be sold off next week. Mary herself said that she only wanted
+two saddle-horses and the pony for the phaeton.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite sufficient, I should say, for a young lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm sure she 'd have liked to have kept the harriers&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A pack of hounds! I really never heard the like!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor Molly! It was her greatest pleasure,&mdash;I may say her only
+amusement in life. But she would n't hear of keeping them; and when Repton
+tried to persuade her&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Repton's an old fool,&mdash;he's worse; he's downright dishonest,&mdash;for
+he actually proposed my paying my maids out of my miserable pittance of
+eight hundred a year, and at the same moment suggests your niece retaining
+a pack of foxhounds!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Harriers, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't care what they 're called. It is too insolent.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may rely upon one thing,&rdquo; said Martin, with more firmness than he had
+hitherto used, &ldquo;there will be nothing of extravagance in Mary's personal
+expenditure. If ever there was a girl indifferent to all the claims of
+self, she is that one.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If we continue this discussion, sir, at our present rate, I opine that by
+the time we reach Dublin your niece will have become an angel.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin dropped his head, and was silent; and although her Ladyship made
+two or three other efforts to revive the argument, he seemed resolved to
+decline the challenge, and so they rolled along the road sullen and
+uncommunicative.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the second carriage were Repton and Kate Henderson,&mdash;an
+arrangement which the old lawyer flatteringly believed he owed to his
+cunning and address, but which in reality was ordained by Lady Dorothea,
+whose notions of rank and precedence were rigid. Although Repton's
+greatest tact lay in his detection of character, he felt that he could not
+satisfactorily affirm he had mastered the difficulty in the present case.
+She was not exactly like anything he had met before; her mode of thought,
+and even some of her expressions were so different that the old lawyer
+owned to himself, &ldquo;It was like examining a witness through an
+interpreter.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A clever talker&mdash;your man of conversational success&mdash;is rarely
+patient under the failure of his powers, and, not very unreasonably
+perhaps, very ready to ascribe the ill-success to the defects of his
+hearer. They had not proceeded more than half of the first post ere Repton
+began to feel the incipient symptoms of this discontent.
+</p>
+<p>
+She evidently had no appreciation for bar anecdote and judicial wit; she
+took little interest in political events, and knew nothing of the country
+or its people. He tried the subject of foreign travel, but his own
+solitary trip to Paris and Brussels afforded but a meagre experience of
+continental life, and he was shrewd enough not to swim a yard out of his
+depth. &ldquo;She must have her weak point, if I could but discover it,&rdquo; said he
+to himself. &ldquo;It is not personal vanity, that I see. She does not want to
+be thought clever, nor even eccentric, which is the governess failing <i>par
+excellence</i>. What then can it be?&rdquo; With all his ingenuity he could not
+discover. She would talk, and talk well, on any theme he started, but
+always like one who maintained conversation through politeness and not
+interest; and this very feature it was which piqued the old man's vanity,
+and irritated his self-love.
+</p>
+<p>
+When he spoke, she replied, and always with a sufficient semblance of
+interest; but if he were silent, she never opened her lips.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And so,&rdquo; said he, after a longer pause than usual, &ldquo;you tell me that you
+really care little or nothing whither Fortune may be now conducting you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To one in my station it really matters very little,&rdquo; said she, calmly. &ldquo;I
+don't suppose that the post-horses there have any strong preference for
+one road above another, if they be both equally level and smooth.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There lies the very question,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;for you now admit that there may
+be a difference.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have never found in reality,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;that these differences were
+appreciable.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How is it that one so young should be so&mdash;so philosophic?&rdquo; said he,
+after a hesitation.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Had you asked me that question in French, Mr. Repton, the language would
+have come so pleasantly to your aid, and spared you the awkwardness of
+employing a grand phrase for a small quality; but my 'philosophy' is
+simply this: that, to fill a station whose casualties range from
+courtesies in the drawing-room to slights from the servants' hall, one
+must arm themselves with very defensive armor as much, nay more, against
+flattery than against sarcasm. If, in the course of time, this habit
+render one ungenial and uncompanionable, pray be lenient enough to ascribe
+the fault to the condition as much as to the individual.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, to be candid, I only recognize in you qualities the very opposite of
+all these; and if I am to confess a smart at this moment, it is in feeling
+that I am not the man to elicit them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There you do me wrong. I should be very proud to captivate Mr. Repton.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now we are on the good road at last!&rdquo; said he, gayly; &ldquo;for Mr. Repton is
+dying to be captivated.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The fortress that is only anxious to surrender offers no great glory to
+the conqueror,&rdquo; replied she.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove! I 'm glad you 're not at the bar.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I had been, I could never have shown the same forbearance as Mr.
+Repton.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How so? What do you mean?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never could have refused a silk gown, sir; and they tell me you have
+done so!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! they told you that,&rdquo; said he, coloring with pleasurable pride. &ldquo;Well,
+it's quite true. The fact is correct, but I don't know what explanation
+they have given of it!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There was none, sir,&mdash;or, at least, none that deserved the name.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then what was your own reading of it?&rdquo; asked he.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Simply this, sir: that a proud man may very well serve in the ranks, but
+spurn the grade of a petty officer.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove; it is strange to find that a young lady should understand one's
+motives better than an old Minister,&rdquo; said he, with an evident
+satisfaction.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It would be unjust, sir, were I to arrogate any credit to my own
+perspicuity in this case,&rdquo; said she, hastily; &ldquo;for I was aided in my
+judgment by what, very probably, never came under the Minister's eyes.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what was that?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A little volume which I discovered one day in the library, entitled 'Days
+of the Historical Society of Trinity College,' wherein I found Mr.
+Repton's name not only one of the first in debate, but the very first in
+enunciating the great truths of political liberty. In fact, I might go
+further, and say, the only one who had the courage to proclaim the great
+principles of the French Revolution.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah,&mdash;yes. I was a boy,&mdash;a mere boy,&mdash;very rash,&mdash;full
+of hope,&mdash;full of enthusiasm,&rdquo; said Repton, with an embarrassment
+that increased at every word. &ldquo;We all took fire from the great blaze
+beside us just then; but, my dear young lady, the flame has died out,&mdash;very
+fortunately, too; for if it had n't, it would have burned us up with it.
+We were wrong,&mdash;wrong with Burke, to be sure,&mdash;<i>Errare Platone</i>,
+as one may say,&mdash;but still wrong.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You were wrong, sir, in confounding casualties with true consequences;
+wrong as a physician would be who abandoned his treatment from mistaking
+the symptoms of disease for the effects of medicine. You set out by
+declaring there was a terrible malady to be treated, and you shrink back
+affrighted at the first results of your remedies; you did worse; you
+accommodated your change of principles to party, and from the great
+champions of liberty you descended to be&mdash;modern Whigs!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, what have we here? A Girondist, I verily believe!&rdquo; said Repton,
+looking in her face with a smile of mingled surprise and amazement.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't much care for the name you may give me; but I am one who thinks
+that the work of the French Revolution is sure of its accomplishment. We
+shall very probably not do the thing in the same way, but it will be done,
+nevertheless; for an Act of Parliament, though not so speedy, will be as
+effectual as a 'Noyade,' and a Reforming Administration will work as
+cleanly as a Constituent!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But see; look at France at this moment. Is not society reconstituted
+pretty near to the old models? What evidence is there that the prestige of
+rank has suffered from the shock of revolution?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The best evidence. Nobody believes in it,&mdash;not one. Society is
+reconstituted just as a child constructs a card-house to see how high he
+can carry the frail edifice before it tumbles. The people&mdash;the true
+people of the Continent&mdash;look at the pageantry of a court and a
+nobility just as they do on a stage procession, and criticise it in the
+same spirit. They endure it so long as their indolence or their caprice
+permit, and then, some fine morning, they 'll dash down the whole edifice;
+and be assured that the fragments of the broken toy will never suggest the
+sentiment to repair it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are a Democrat of the first water!&rdquo; exclaimed Repton, in half
+amazement.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am simply for the assertion of the truth everywhere and in everything,&mdash;in
+religion and in politics, as in art and literature. If the people be the
+source of power, don't divert the stream into another channel; and, above
+all, don't insist that it should run up-hill! Come abroad, Mr. Repton,&mdash;just
+come over with us to Paris,&mdash;and see if what I am telling you be so
+far from the fact. You 'll find, too, that it is not merely the low-born,
+the ignoble, and the poor who profess these opinions, but the great, the
+titled, and the wealthy men of fourteen quarterings and ancient lineage;
+and who, sick to death of a contest with a rich bourgeoisie, would rather
+start fair in the race again, and win whatever place their prowess or
+their capacity might giye them. You 'll hear very good socialism from the
+lips of dukes and princesses who swear by Fourier.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Repton stared at her in silence, not more amazed at the words he heard
+than at the manner and air of her who spoke them; for she had gradually
+assumed a degree of earnestness and energy which imparted to her features
+a character of boldness and determination such as he had not seen in them
+before..
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; resumed she, as though following out her own thoughts, &ldquo;it is your
+new creations, your ennobled banker, your starred and cordoned agitator of
+the Bourse, who now defends his order, and stands up for the divine right
+of misrule! The truly noble have other sentiments!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's nothing surprises me so much,&rdquo; said Repton, at last, &ldquo;as to hear
+these sentiments from one who has lived surrounded by all the
+blandishments of a condition that owes its existence to an aristocracy,
+and never could have arisen without one,&mdash;who has lived that
+delightful life of refined leisure and elevating enjoyment, such as forms
+the atmosphere of only one class throughout the whole world. How would you
+bear to exchange this for the chaotic struggle that you point at?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;As for me, sir, I only saw the procession from the window. I may,
+perhaps, walk in it when I descend to the street; but really,&rdquo; added she,
+laughing, &ldquo;this is wandering very far out of the record. I had promised
+myself to captivate Mr. Repton, and here I am, striving to array every
+feeling of his heart and every prejudice of his mind against me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is something like five-and-fifty years since I last heard such
+sentiments as you have just uttered,&rdquo; said Repton, gravely. &ldquo;I was young
+and ardent,&mdash;full of that hopefulness in mankind which is, after all,
+the life-blood of Republicanism; and here I am now, an old, time-hardened
+lawyer, with very little faith in any one. How do you suppose that such
+opinions can chime in with all I have witnessed in the interval?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come over to Paris, sir,&rdquo; was her reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I would ask nothing better,&rdquo; rejoined he. &ldquo;Did I ever tell you of
+what Harry Parsons said to Macnatty when he purposed visiting France,
+after the peace of '15? 'Now is the time to see the French capital,' said
+Mac. 'I 'll put a guinea in one pocket and a shirt in the other, and start
+to-morrow.' 'Ay, sir,' said Parsons, 'and never change either till you
+come back again!'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Once back in his accustomed field, the old lawyer went along recounting
+story after story, every name seeming to suggest its own anecdote. Nor was
+Kate, now, an ungenerous listener; on the contrary, she relished his
+stores of wit and repartee. Thus they, too, went on their journey!
+</p>
+<p>
+The third carriage contained Madame Hortense, Lady Dorothea's French maid;
+Mrs. Runt, an inferior dignitary of the toilet; and Mark Peddar, Mr.
+Martin's &ldquo;gentleman,&rdquo;&mdash;a party which, we are forced to own, seemed to
+combine more elements of sociality than were gathered together in the
+vehicles that preceded them. To <i>their</i> share there were no regrets
+for leaving home,&mdash;no sorrow at quitting a spot endeared to them by
+long association. The sentiment was one of unalloyed satisfaction. They
+were escaping from the gloom of a long exile, and about to issue forth
+into that world which they longed for as eagerly as their betters. And why
+should they not? Are not all its pleasures, all its associations more
+essentially adapted to such natures; and has solitude one single
+compensation for all its depression to such as these?
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Our noble selves,&rdquo; said Mr. Peddar, filling the ladies' glasses, and then
+his own; for a very appetizing luncheon was there spread out before them,
+and four bottles of long-necked gracefulness rose from amidst the crystal
+ruins of a well-filled ice-pail. &ldquo;Mam'selle, it is your favorite tipple,
+and deliciously cool.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perfection,&rdquo; replied mademoiselle, with a foreign accent, for she had
+been long in England; &ldquo;and I never enjoyed it more. <i>Au revoir</i>,&rdquo;
+ added she, waving her hand towards the tall towers of Cro' Martin, just
+visible above the trees,&mdash;&ldquo;<i>Au revoir!</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so,&mdash;till I see you again,&rdquo; said Mrs. Runt; &ldquo;and I 'm sure I
+'ll take good care that day won't come soon. It seems like a terrible
+nightmare when I think of the eight long years I passed there.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Et moi</i>, twelve! Miladi engage me, so to say, <i>provisoirement</i>,
+to come to Ireland, but with a promise of travel abroad; that we live in
+Paris, Rome, Naples,&mdash;<i>que sais-je?</i> I accept,&mdash;I arrive,&mdash;<i>et
+me voici!</i>&rdquo; And mademoiselle threw back her veil, the better to direct
+attention to the ravages time and exile had made upon her charms.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hard lines, ma'am,&rdquo; said Peddar, whose sympathy must not be accused of an
+<i>equivoque</i>; &ldquo;and here am I, that left the best single-handed
+situation in all England,&mdash;Sir Augustus Hawleigh's,&mdash;a young
+fellow just of age, and that never knew what money was, to come down here
+at a salary positively little better than a country curate's, and live the
+life of&mdash;of&mdash;what shall I say?&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, the leg, if you please, Mr. Peddar; no more wine. Well, just one
+glass, to drink a hearty farewell to the old house.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm sure I wish Mary joy of her residence there,&rdquo; said Peddar, adjusting
+his cravat; &ldquo;she is a devilish fine girl, and might do better, though.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She has no ambitions,&mdash;no what you call them?&mdash;no aspirations
+for <i>le grand monde</i>; so perhaps she has reason to stay where she
+is.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But with a young fellow of <i>ton</i> and fashion, mam'selle,&mdash;a
+fellow who has seen life,&mdash;to guide and bring her out, trust me,
+there are excellent capabilities in that girl.&rdquo; And as Mr. Peddar
+enunciated the sentiment, his hands ran carelessly through his hair, and
+performed a kind of impromptu toilet.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She do dress herself <i>bien mal</i>.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Disgracefully so,&rdquo; chimed in Mrs. Runt &ldquo;I believe, whenever she bought a
+gown, her first thought was what it should turn into when she 'd done with
+it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought that la Henderson might have taught her something,&rdquo; said
+Peddar, affectedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Au contraire</i>,&mdash;she like to make the contrast more strong; she
+always seek to make say, '<i>Regardez</i>, mademoiselle, see what a <i>tournure</i>
+is there!'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think her handsome, Mr. Peddar?&rdquo; asked Mrs. Runt.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Handsome, yes; but not <i>my</i> style,&mdash;not one of what <i>I</i>
+call <i>my</i> women; too much of this kind of thing, eh?&rdquo; And he drew his
+head back, and threw into his features an expression of exaggerated scorn.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so. Downright impudent, I'd call it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not even that,&rdquo; said Mr. Peddar, pondering; &ldquo;haughty, rather,&mdash;a
+kind of don't-think-to-come-it-on-me style of look, eh?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not at all amiable,&mdash;<i>point de cela,</i>&rdquo; exclaimed mam'selle;
+&ldquo;but still, I will say, <i>très bon genre</i>. You see at a glance that
+she has seen <i>la bonne société.</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which, after all, is the same all the world over,&rdquo; said Peddar,
+dogmatically. &ldquo;At Vienna we just saw the same people we used to have with
+us in London; at Rome, the same; so, too, at Naples. I assure you that the
+last time I dined at Dolgorouki's, I proposed going in the evening to the
+Haymarket. I quite forgot we were on the Neva. And when Prince
+Gladuatoffski's gentleman said, 'Where shall I set you down?' I answered
+carelessly, 'At my chambers in the Albany, or anywhere your Highness likes
+near that.' Such is life!&rdquo; exclaimed he, draining the last of the
+champagne into his glass.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The place will be pretty dull without us, I fancy,&rdquo; said Mrs. Runt,
+looking out at the distant landscape.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That horrid old Mother Broon won't say so,&rdquo; said Peddar, laughing. &ldquo;By
+Jove! if it was only to escape that detestable hag, it 's worth while
+getting away.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I offer her my hand when I descend the steps, but she refuse <i>froidement</i>,
+and say, 'I wish you as much pleasure as you leave behind you.' <i>Pas mal</i>
+for such a <i>creature</i>.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did n't even notice her,&rdquo; said Mrs. Runt.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Ma foi!</i> I was good with all the world; I was in such Joy&mdash;such
+spirits&mdash;that I forgave all and everything. I felt <i>nous sommes en
+route</i>, and Paris&mdash;dear Paris&mdash;before us.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My own sentiments to, a T,&rdquo; said Mr. Peddar. &ldquo;Let me live on the
+Boulevards, have my cab, my stall at the Opera, two Naps, per diem for my
+dinner, and I'd not accept Mary Martin's hand if she owned Cro' Martin,
+and obliged me to live in it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The speech was fully and warmly acknowledged, other subjects were started,
+and so they travelled the same road as their betters, and perhaps with
+lighter hearts.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XXV. COUNTRY AUCTION
+</h2>
+<p>
+With feelings akin to those with which the populace of a revolted city
+invade the once sacred edifice of the deposed Prince, the whole town and
+neighborhood of Oughterard now poured into the demesne of Cro' Martin,
+wandered through the grounds, explored the gardens, and filled the house.
+An immense advertisement in the local papers had announced a general sale
+of horses and carriages, farming stock, and agricultural implements;
+cattle of choice breeding, sheep of fabulous facilities for fat, and cows
+of every imaginable productiveness, were there, with draft-horses like
+dwarf elephants, and bulls that would have puzzled a matador.
+</p>
+<p>
+The haughty state in which the Martins habitually lived, the wide distance
+by which they separated themselves from the neighborhood around, had
+imparted to Cro' Martin a kind of dreamy splendor in the country, exalting
+even its well-merited claims to admiration. Some had seen the grounds, a
+few had by rare accident visited the gardens, but the house and the
+stables were still unexplored territories, of whose magnificence each
+spoke without a fear of contradiction.
+</p>
+<p>
+Country neighborhoods are rarely rich in events, and of these, few can
+rival a great auction. It is not alone in the interests of barter and gain
+thus suggested, but in the thousand new channels for thought thus suddenly
+opened,&mdash;the altered fortunes of him whose effects have come to the
+hammer; his death, or his banishment,&mdash;both so much alike. The
+visitor wanders amidst objects which have occupied years in collection,&mdash;some
+the results of considerable research and difficulty, some the long-coveted
+acquisitions of half a lifetime, and some&mdash;we have known such&mdash;the
+fond gifts of friendship. There they are now side by side in the
+catalogue, their private histories no more suspected than those of them
+who lie grass-covered in the churchyard. You admire that highly bred
+hunter in all the beauty of his symmetry and his strength, but you never
+think of the &ldquo;little Shelty&rdquo; in the next stable with shaggy mane and
+flowing tail; and yet it was on <i>him</i> the young heir used to ride; <i>he</i>
+was the cherished animal of all the stud, led in beside the
+breakfast-table to be caressed and petted, fed with sugar from fair
+fingers, and patted by hands a Prince might have knelt to kiss! His rider
+now sleeps beneath the marble slab in the old aisle, and they who once
+brightened in smiles at the sound of his tiny trot would burst into tears
+did they behold that pony!
+</p>
+<p>
+So, amidst the triumphs of color and design that grace the walls, you have
+no eyes for a little sketch in water-color,&mdash;a mill, a shealing
+beside a glassy brook, a few trees, and a moss-clad rock; and yet that
+little drawing reveals a sad story. It is all that remains of her who went
+abroad to die. You throw yourself in listless lassitude upon a couch; it
+was the work of one who beguiled over it the last hours of a broken heart!
+You turn your steps to the conservatory, but never notice the little
+flower-garden, whose narrow walks, designed for tiny feet, need not the
+little spade to tell of the child-gardener who tilled it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Ay, this selling-off is a sad process! It bespeaks the disruption of a
+home; the scattering of those who once sat around the same hearth, with
+all the dear familiar things about them!
+</p>
+<p>
+It was a bright spring morning&mdash;one of those breezy, cloud-flitting
+days, with flashes of gay sunlight alternating with broad shadows, and
+giving in the tamest landscape every effect the painter's art could summon&mdash;that
+a long procession, consisting of all imaginable vehicles, with many on
+horseback intermixed, wound their way beneath the grand entrance and
+through the park of Cro' Martin. Such an opportunity of gratifying long
+pent-up curiosity had never before offered; since, even when death itself
+visited the mansion, the habits of exclusion were not relaxed, but the
+Martins went to their graves in the solemn state of their households
+alone, and were buried in a little chapel within the grounds, the faint
+tolling of the bell alone announcing to the world without that one of a
+proud house had departed.
+</p>
+<p>
+The pace of the carriages was slow as they moved along, their occupants
+preferring to linger in a scene from which they had been hitherto
+excluded, struck by the unexpected beauty of the spot, and wondering at
+all the devices by which it was adorned. A few&mdash;a very few&mdash;had
+seen the place in boyhood, and were puzzling themselves to recall this and
+that memory; but all agreed in pronouncing that the demesne was far finer,
+the timber better grown, and the fields more highly cultivated than
+anything they had ever before seen.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I call this the finest place in Ireland, Dan!&rdquo; said Captain Bodkin, as he
+rode beside Nelligan's car, halting every now and then to look around him.
+&ldquo;There's everything can make a demesne beautiful,&mdash;wood, water, and
+mountain!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And, better than all, a fine system of farming,&rdquo; broke in Nelligan.
+&ldquo;That's the best field of 'swedes' I ever beheld!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And to think that a man would leave this to go live abroad in a dirty
+town in France!&rdquo; exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, from the opposite side of the car.
+&ldquo;That's perverseness indeed!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Them there is all Swiss cows!&rdquo; said Mr. Clinch, in an humble tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not one of them, Clinch! they're Alderneys. The Swiss farm, as they call
+it, is all on the other side, with the ornamented cottage.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dear! dear! there was no end to their waste and extravagance!&rdquo; muttered
+Mrs. Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait till you see the house, ma'am, and you 'll say so, indeed,&rdquo; said the
+Captain.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think we 're likely!&rdquo; observed Nelligan, dryly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why so?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just that Scanlan told Father Mather the auction would be held in the
+stables; for as there was none of the furniture to be sold, the house
+would n't be opened.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's a great disappointment!&rdquo; exclaimed Bodkin. A sentiment fully
+concurred in by the ladies, who both declared that they'd never have, come
+so far only to look at pigs and &ldquo;shorthorns.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maybe we 'll get a peep at the gardens,&rdquo; said Bodkin, endeavoring to
+console them.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the sow!&rdquo; broke in Peter Hayes, who had joined the party some time
+before. &ldquo;They tell me she's a beauty. She's Lord Somebody's breed, and
+beats the world for fat!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here's Scanlan now, and he 'll tell us everything,&rdquo; said Bodkin. But the
+sporting attorney, mounted on a splendid little horse, in top condition,
+passed them at speed, the few words he uttered being lost as he dashed by.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was it he said?&rdquo; cried Bodkin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn't catch the words,&rdquo; replied Nelligan; &ldquo;and I suppose it was no
+great loss.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He's an impudent upstart!&rdquo; exclaimed Mrs. Clinch.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think he said something about a breakfast,&rdquo; meekly interposed Mr.
+Clinch.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And of course he said nothing of the kind,&rdquo; retorted his spouse. &ldquo;You
+never happened to be right in your life!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix! I made sure of mine before I started,&rdquo; said old Hayes, &ldquo;I ate a
+cowld goose!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, to be sure, they could n't be expected to entertain all that's
+coming!&rdquo; said Mrs. Nelligan, who now began a mental calculation of the
+numbers on the road.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There will be a thousand people here to-day,&rdquo; said Bodkin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Five times that,&rdquo; said Nelligan. &ldquo;I know it by the number of small bills
+that I gave cash for the last week. There's not a farmer in the county
+does n't expect to bring back with him a prize beast of one kind or
+other.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll buy that sow if she goes 'reasonable,'&rdquo; said Peter Hayes, whose
+whole thoughts seemed centred on the animal in question.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do they mean to do when they sell off the stock?&rdquo; asked the Captain.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hear that the place will be let,&rdquo; said Nelligan, in a half whisper, &ldquo;if
+they can find a tenant for it. Henderson told Father Mather that, come
+what might, her Ladyship would never come back here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix! the only one of them worth a groat was Miss Mary, and I suppose
+they did n't leave her the means to do much now.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Tis she must have the heavy heart to-day,&rdquo; sighed Mrs. Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And it is only fair and reasonable she should have her share of troubles,
+like the rest of us,&rdquo; replied Mrs. Clinch. &ldquo;When Clinch was removed from
+Macroon, we had to sell off every stick and stone we had; and as the
+neighbors knew we must go, we didn't get five shillings in the pound by
+the sale.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's mighty grand,&mdash;that is really a fine place!&rdquo; exclaimed
+Bodkin, as by a sudden turn of the road they came directly in front of the
+house; and the whole party sat in silent admiration of the magnificent
+edifice before them.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a royal palace,&mdash;no less,&rdquo; said Nelligan, at last; &ldquo;and that's
+exactly what no country gentleman wants. Sure we know well there's no
+fortune equal to such a residence. To keep up that house, as it ought to
+be, a man should have thirty thousand a year.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Give me fifteen, Dan, and you'll see if I don't make it comfortable,&rdquo;,
+said Bodkin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What's this barrier here,&mdash;can't we go any further?&rdquo; exclaimed
+Nelligan, as he perceived a strong paling across the avenue.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We 're to go round by the stables, it seems,&rdquo; said Bodkin; &ldquo;the hall
+entrance is not to be invaded by such vulgar visitors. This is our road,
+here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, if I ever!&rdquo; exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, whose feelings really
+overpowered utterance.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't see any great hardship in this after all, ma'am,&rdquo; said Nelligan;
+&ldquo;for we know if the family were at home we couldn't even be here. Drive
+on, Tim.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A short circuit through a very thickly wooded tract brought them at length
+to a large and massive gateway, over which the Martins' arms were
+sculptured in stone; passing through which they entered a great courtyard,
+three sides of which were occupied by stables, the fourth presenting a
+range of coach-houses filled with carriages of every description.
+</p>
+<p>
+A large tent was erected in the midst of the court for the convenience of
+the sale, in front of which were pens for the cattle, and a space railed
+off, wherein the horses were to be viewed and examined.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is all mighty well arranged,&rdquo; said Bodkin, as he gave his horse to a
+groom, who, in the undress livery of Cro' Martin, came respectfully to his
+aid as he got down.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The sale will begin in about an hour, sir,&rdquo; said the man, in answer to a
+question. &ldquo;Mr. Scanlan is now in the house with Mr. Gibbs, the
+auctioneer.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Vast crowds of people of every class, from the small squire to the
+Oughterard shopkeeper and country farmer, now came pouring in, all eager
+in their curiosity, but somehow all subdued into a kind of reverence for a
+spot from which they had been so rigidly excluded, and the very aspect of
+which so far transcended expectations. Everything, indeed, was an object
+of wonderment. The ornamental tanks for watering the horses, supplied by
+beautifully designed fountains; the sculptured medallions along the walls,
+emblematizing the chase or the road; the bright mahogany partitions of the
+stalls, even to the little channels lined with shining copper, all
+demanded notice and comment; and many were the wise reflections uttered
+with regard to those who thus squandered away their wealth. The sight of
+the cattle, however, which occupied this luxurious abode, went far to
+disarm this criticism, since certainly none ever seemed more worthy of the
+state and splendor that surrounded them. For these the admiration was
+hearty and sincere, and the farmers went along the stalls amazed and
+wonderstruck at the size and symmetry of the noble animals that filled
+them.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sold at Tattersall's, sir, on the 4th of next month,&rdquo; said a groom,
+whose English accent imparted an almost sneer to the supposition that such
+a stud should meet purchasers in Ireland. &ldquo;They 're all advertised in
+'Bell's Life.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What becomes of the hounds?&rdquo; asked Bodkin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lord Cromore takes them, sir; they're to hunt in Dorsetshire.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the sow?&rdquo; asked old Hayes, with eagerness; &ldquo;she isn't to go to
+England, is she?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can't say, sir. We don't look arter no sows here,&rdquo; replied the fellow, as
+he turned away in evident disgust at his questioner.
+</p>
+<p>
+A certain stir and bustle in the court without gave token that the sale
+was about to begin; and Scanlan's voice, in its most authoritative tone,
+was heard issuing orders and directions on all sides, while servants went
+hither and thither distributing catalogues, and securing accommodation for
+the visitors with a degree of deference and attention most remarkable.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose we're to pass the day in the stables or the cowhouses, ma'am?&rdquo;
+ said Mrs. Clinch, as with a look of indignation she gazed at the range of
+seats now being hastily occupied by a miscellaneous company.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If we could only get into the gardens,&rdquo; said Mrs. Nelligan, timidly. &ldquo;I'm
+sure if I saw Barnes he'd let us in.&rdquo; And she slipped rapidly from her
+friend's arm, and hastily crossing the court, went in search of her only
+acquaintance in the household. &ldquo;Did you see Barnes? Where could I find
+Barnes?&rdquo; asked she of almost every one she met. And following the
+complicated directions she received, she wandered onward, through a
+kitchen-garden, and into a small nursery beyond it. Bewildered as she
+receded beyond the sounds of the multitude, she turned into a little path
+which, traversing a shrubbery, opened upon a beautifully cultivated
+&ldquo;parterre,&rdquo; whose close-shaven sward and flowery beds flanked a long range
+of windows opening to the ground, and which, to her no small horror, she
+perceived to form one wing of the mansion. While in her distraction to
+think what course was best to take, she saw a groom standing at the head
+of a small pony, harnessed to a diminutive carriage, and hastily
+approached him. Before, however, she had attained within speaking
+distance, the man motioned to her, by a gesture, to retire. Her
+embarrassment gave her, if not courage, something of resolution, and she
+advanced.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go back!&rdquo; cried he, in a smothered voice; &ldquo;there 's no one admitted
+here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I 've lost my way. I was looking for Barnes&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He's not here. Go back, I say,&rdquo; reiterated the man, in the same stealthy
+voice.
+</p>
+<p>
+But poor Mrs. Nelligan, came on, confusion rendering her indifferent to
+all reproof, and in spite of gestures and admonitions to retire, steadily
+advanced towards the door. As she passed one of the open windows, her
+glance caught something within; she stopped suddenly, and, in seeming
+shame at her intrusion, turned to go back. A muttered malediction from the
+servant increased her terror, and she uttered a faint cry. In an instant
+the object at which she had been gazing arose, and Mary Martin, her face
+traced with recent tears, started up and approached her. Mrs. Nelligan
+felt a sense of sickly faintness come over her, and had to grasp the
+window for support.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, my dear young lady!&rdquo; she muttered, &ldquo;I did n't mean to do this&mdash;I
+strayed here by accident&mdash;I didn't know where I was going&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear Mrs. Nelligan, there is no need of these excuses,&rdquo; said Mary,
+taking her hand cordially, and leading her to a seat. &ldquo;It is a great
+pleasure to me to see a friendly face, and I am grateful for the chance
+that sent you here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Nelligan, once relieved of her first embarrassment, poured forth with
+volubility the explanation of her presence; and Mary heard her to the end
+with patient politeness.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you were going away somewhere,&rdquo; resumed she, &ldquo;when I stopped you. I
+see your pony-chaise there at the door waiting for you, and you're off to
+the quarries or Kilkieran, I 'll be bound; or maybe it's only going away
+you are, to be out of this for a day or two. God knows, I don't wonder at
+it! It is a trying scene for you, and a great shock to your feelings, to
+see the place dismantled, and everything sold off!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is sad enough,&rdquo; said Mary, smiling through her tears.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not to say that you're left here all alone, just as if you were n't one
+of the family at all; that 's what I think most of. And where were you
+going, dear?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was going to pass a few days at the cottage,&mdash;the Swiss cottage.
+Catty Broon, my old nurse, has gone over there to get it in readiness for
+me, and I shall probably stay there till all this confusion be over.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure, dear. What's more natural than that you'd like to spare your
+feelings, seeing all carried away just as if it was bankrupts you were.
+Indeed, Dan said to me the things wouldn't bring more than at a sheriff's
+sale, because of the hurry you were in to sell them off.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My uncle's orders were positive on that subject,&rdquo; said Mary, calmly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, dear, of course he knows best,&rdquo; said she, with a shake of the head
+not exactly corroborating her own speech. &ldquo;And how are you to live here by
+yourself, dear?&rdquo; resumed she; &ldquo;sure you 'll die of the loneliness!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think so: I shall have plenty to occupy me,&mdash;more, indeed,
+than I shall be equal to.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, in the daytime; but the long evenings&mdash;think of the long
+evenings, dear! God knows, I find them very often dreary enough, even
+though I have a home and Dan.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm not afraid of the long evenings, my dear Mrs. Nelligan. It is the
+only time I can spare for reading; they will be my hours of recreation and
+amusement.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, I hope so, with all my heart,&rdquo; said she, doubtingly. &ldquo;You
+know yourself best, and maybe you'd be happier that way, than if you had
+somebody to talk to and keep you company.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn't say that,&rdquo; said Mary, smiling. &ldquo;I never implied that a visit
+from some kind friend&mdash;Mrs. Nelligan, for instance&mdash;would not be
+a very pleasant event in my solitude.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To come and see you,&mdash;to come to Cro' Martin!&rdquo; exclaimed Mrs.
+Nelligan, as though trying to reconcile her mind to the bare possibility
+of such a circumstance.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you would not think it too far, or too much trouble&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh dear, oh dear, but it's too much honor it would be; and Dan&mdash;no
+matter what he 'd say to the contrary&mdash;would feel it so, in his own
+heart. Sure I know well how he felt about Joe being asked here to dinner;
+and he 'd never have taken a part against your uncle in the election if it
+was n't that he thought Joe was slighted some way&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But nothing of the kind ever occurred. Mr..Joseph Nelligan met from us
+all the respect that his character and his talents entitled him to.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't get warm about it, or I 'll forget everything that's in my head!&rdquo;
+ exclaimed Mrs. Nelligan, in terror at the eagerness of Mary's manner.
+&ldquo;Maybe it was Joe's fault&mdash;maybe it was young Massingbred's&mdash;maybe
+it was&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what was it?&rdquo; cried Mary. &ldquo;What was alleged? What was laid to our
+charge?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There, now, I don't remember anything; you frightened me so that it's
+gone clean out of my mind.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear friend,&rdquo; said Mary, caressingly, &ldquo;I never meant to alarm you; and
+let us talk of something else. You say that you 'll come to see me
+sometimes; is it a promise?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed it is, my dear, whenever Dan gives me the car and horse&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I 'll drive in for you, and bring you safely back again. You 've only
+to say when you 'll spend the day with me; and there's so much to show you
+here that you 'd like to see. The gardens are really handsome, and the
+hothouses. And Catty will show us her dairy, and I am very proud of my
+lambs.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is all like a dream to me,&mdash;just like a dream,&rdquo; said Mrs.
+Nelligan, closing her eyes, and folding her arms, &ldquo;to think that I 'm
+sitting here, at Cro' Martin, talking to Miss Mary just as if I were her
+equal.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear, dear friend, it shall be a reality whenever you like to make it
+so; and you'll tell me all the news of Oughterard,&mdash;all about every
+one there; for I know them, at least by name, and will be charmed to hear
+about them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Scanlan wants an answer, miss, immediately,&rdquo; said a servant,
+presenting Mary with a few lines written in pencil.
+</p>
+<p>
+She opened the paper and read the following: &ldquo;Nelligan offers seventy
+pounds for the two black horses. Is he to have them? Sir Peter shows an
+incipient spavin on the off leg, and I think he 'd be well sold.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell Mr. Scanlan I 'll send him an answer by and by,&rdquo; said she,
+dismissing the servant. Then ringing the bell, she whispered a few words
+to the man who answered it. &ldquo;I have just sent a message to tell Mr.
+Nelligan I wish to speak to him,&rdquo; said she, resuming her place on the
+sofa. &ldquo;It is a mere business matter,&rdquo; added she, seeing that Mrs. Nelligan
+waited for some explanation. &ldquo;And now, when have you heard from your son?
+Is he learning to spare himself anything of those great efforts he imposes
+upon his faculties?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+This was to touch the most sensitive chord in all her heart; and so she
+burst forth into a description of Joseph's daily life of toil and study;
+his labors, his self-denial, his solitary, joyless existence, all calling
+up, in turn, her praises and her sympathy.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I,&rdquo; cried she, &ldquo;am always saying, what is it all for?&mdash;what's
+the use of it?&mdash;who is to be the better of it? Sure there 's only
+himself to get whatever his father leaves behind him; and a pretty penny
+it is! Not that <i>you</i> would think so; but for the like of <i>us</i>,
+and in <i>our</i> station, it's a snug fortune. He 'll have upwards of two
+thousand a year, so that there 's no need to be slaving like a Turk.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your son's ambitions take, very probably, a higher range than mere
+money-making,&rdquo; said Mary. &ldquo;He has a good right to suppose that his
+abilities may win him the highest of rewards! But here's Mr. Nelligan.&rdquo;
+ And she advanced courteously to meet him at the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+Flushed and heated by the scene he had just quitted, and evidently
+embarrassed by the situation in which he stood, Nelligan bowed repeatedly
+in reply to Miss Martin's greeting, starting with amazement as he
+perceived Mrs. Nelligan, who maintained an air of unbroken dignity on the
+sofa.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well you may stare, Dan!&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;I 'm sure you never expected to see
+me here!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was a most agreeable surprise for <i>me</i>, at least,&rdquo; said Mary,
+motioning to a seat; then, turning to Nelligan, added, &ldquo;This little note
+was the occasion of my asking you to step over here. Will you please to
+read it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How handsome, how candid, Miss Martin!&rdquo; said Nelligan, as he restored it,
+after perusing it. &ldquo;Ah, my dear young lady, why would n't your family deal
+always with us in this fashion and in everything? I beg your forgiveness,
+but I forgot myself. I 'll stick to my offer, miss,&mdash;I wouldn't take
+fifty pounds for my bargain!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This, of course, is in confidence between us, sir,&rdquo; said Mary, as she
+tore up the note and threw the fragments on the ground.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0013" id="linkimage-0013">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/368.jpg" width="100%" alt="368 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish I knew how to acknowledge this, Miss Martin; I wish I could show
+how sensible one in <i>my</i> station could be of generosity from one in
+<i>yours</i>.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You remind me very opportunely that I have a favor to ask, Mr. Nelligan.
+It is this: My kind friend here, Mrs. Nelligan, has just promised to take
+pity on my solitude, and occasionally to come and see me. Will you kindly
+strengthen her in this benevolent intention, and aid her to turn her steps
+very often towards Cro' Martin?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Nelligan's face grew deeply red, and an expression of the greatest
+embarrassment settled down on his features; and it was with much
+difficulty, and in a voice laboring for utterance, that he said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't see how this can be. Your friends would not approve,&mdash;your
+family, I mean, Miss Martin,&mdash;would, very naturally, resent the
+thought of such an intimacy! They look upon <i>me</i> as an enemy,&mdash;an
+open and declared enemy,&mdash;and so I am, where politics is concerned;
+but&mdash;&rdquo; He hesitated, and after a struggle went on: &ldquo;No matter, it <i>is</i>
+war between us, and must be till one crushes the other. What I mean is
+this, young lady: that to encourage such acquaintanceship as you speak of
+would look like an undue condescension on <i>your</i> part, or something
+even worse on <i>ours</i>.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll not listen to such subtleties!&rdquo; cried Mary, hastily. &ldquo;Neither you
+nor I, my dear Mrs. Nelligan, care for party triumphs or defeats. There
+are a thousand themes wherein our hearts can feel alike; and these we 'll
+discuss together. We're of the same country; have passed our lives amidst
+the same scenes, the same events, and the same people, and it will be hard
+if we cannot as easily discover topics for mutual esteem, as subjects of
+difference and disagreement.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But will it not be hinted, Miss Martin, that we took the opportunity of
+your solitude here to impose an acquaintanceship which had been impossible
+under other circumstances?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you are too proud, sir, to know me,&mdash;lest an ungenerous sneer
+should damage your self-esteem&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, indeed we're not,&rdquo; broke in Mrs. Nelligan. &ldquo;You don't know Dan at
+all. He would n't exchange the honor of sitting there, opposite you, to be
+High Sheriff.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A servant fortunately presented himself at this awkward moment with a
+whispered message for Miss Martin; to which she replied aloud,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course. Tell Mr. Scanlan it is my wish,&mdash;<i>my</i> orders,&rdquo; added
+she, more firmly. &ldquo;The house is open to any one who desires to see it. And
+now, before I go, Mr. Nelligan, tell me that I have convinced you,&mdash;tell
+me that my reasons have prevailed, and that you acknowledge we ought to be
+friends.&rdquo; And as she said the last words, she held out her hand to him
+with a grace so perfect, and an air of such winning fascination, that old
+Nelligan could only stammer out,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It shall be how you please. I never bargained to dispute against such
+odds as this. We are, indeed, your friends; dispose of us how you like.&rdquo;
+ And, so saying, he conducted her to the little carriage, and, assisting
+her to her seat, took his leave with all the respect he could have shown a
+queen.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's more than a prejudice, after all,&rdquo; muttered he, as he looked after
+her as she drove away. &ldquo;There's something deeper and stronger in it than
+that, or else a few words spoken by a young girl could n't so suddenly
+rout all the sentiments of a lifetime! Ay, ay,&rdquo; added he, still to
+himself, &ldquo;we may pull them down; we may humble them; but we 'll never fill
+their places!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And we 're to see the house, it seems!&rdquo; exclaimed Mrs. Nelligan,
+gathering her shawl around her.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't care to look at it till she herself is here!&rdquo; said old Nelligan,
+taking his wife's arm, and leading her away across the lawn, and in the
+direction of the stables. There was that in his moody preoccupation which
+did not encourage her to venture on a word, and so she went along at his
+side in silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You're to have the black horses, Mr. Nelligan,&rdquo; said Scanlan, overtaking
+him. Nelligan nodded. &ldquo;You 've got a cheap pair of nags, and as good as
+gold,&rdquo; continued he. A dry half-smile was all the reply. &ldquo;Mr. Martin bred
+them himself,&rdquo; Scanlan went on, &ldquo;and no price would have bought them three
+weeks ago; but everything is going for a song to-day! I don't know how I
+'ll muster courage to tell them the results of the sale!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You 'll have courage for more than that,&rdquo; said Nelligan. And although
+only a chance shot, it fell into a magazine; for Scanlan grew crimson, and
+then pale, and seemed ready to faint.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nelligan stared with amazement at the effect his few words had produced,
+and then passed on; while the attorney muttered between his teeth, &ldquo;Can he
+suspect me? Is it possible that I have betrayed myself?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+No, Maurice Scanlan. Be of good cheer, your secret is safe. No one has as
+much as the very barest suspicion that the pettifogging practitioner
+aspires to the hand of Mary Martin; nor even in the darkest dreams of that
+house's downfall has such a humiliation obtruded itself anywhere!
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XXVI. &ldquo;REVERSES&rdquo;
+ </h2>
+<p>
+Ours is a very practical age, and no matter how skilfully a man play the
+game of life, there is but one test of his ability,&mdash;did he win? If
+this condition attend him, his actions meet charitable construction. His
+doings are all favorably regarded; and while his capacity is extolled,
+even his shortcomings are extenuated. We dread an unlucky man! There is a
+kind of contagion in calamity, and we shun him as though he were
+plague-stricken. But with what flatteries we greet the successful one!
+That he reached the goal is the sure guarantee of his merits; and woe to
+him who would canvass the rectitude of his progress! Defeat is such a
+leveller! Genius and dulness, courage and pusillanimity, high-hearted hope
+and wasting energy, are all confounded together by failure, and the world
+would only smile at any effort to discriminate between them. Perhaps in
+the main the system works well. Perhaps mankind, incapable of judging
+motives, too impatient to investigate causes, is wise in adopting a short
+cut for its decisions. Certain it is, the rule is absolute that proclaims
+Success to be Desert!
+</p>
+<p>
+Lady Dorothea was now about to experience this severe lesson, and not the
+less heavily that she never anticipated it. After a wearisome journey the
+Martins arrived in Dublin. The apartments secured to them, by a previous
+letter, at Bilton's, were all in readiness for their reception. The
+&ldquo;Saunders&rdquo; of the day duly chronicled their arrival; but there the great
+event seemed to terminate. No message from her Ladyship's noble kinsman
+greeted their coming; no kind note of welcome,&mdash;not even a visit from
+Mr. Lawrence Belcour, the aide-de-camp in waiting. The greatest of all
+moralists warns us against putting confidence in princes; and how doubly
+truthful is the adage when extended to viceroys! Small as was the borough
+of Oughterard, and insignificant as seemed the fact who should be its
+representative, the result of the election was made a great matter at the
+&ldquo;Castle.&rdquo; His Excellency was told that the Martins had mismanaged
+everything. They had gone to work in the old Tory cut-and-thrust fashion
+of former days&mdash;conciliated no interest, won over no antagonism; they
+had acted &ldquo;precisely as if there had been no Relief Bill,&rdquo;&mdash;we steal
+Colonel Massingbred's words,&mdash;and they were beaten&mdash;beaten in
+their own town&mdash;in the person of one of their own family, and by a
+stranger! The Viceroy was vexed. They had misconstrued every word of his
+letter,&mdash;a letter that, as he said, any child might have understood,&mdash;and
+there was a vote lost to his party. It was in vain that the Chief
+Secretary assured his Excellency &ldquo;Jack was a clever fellow, who 'd put all
+to rights;&rdquo; that with a little time and a little dexterity he 'd be able
+to vote with the Ministry on every important division; the great fact
+remained unatoned for,&mdash;his family, his own connections, &ldquo;had done
+nothing for him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The first day in town dragged its length slowly over. Martin was fatigued,
+and did not go abroad, and no one came to visit him. To do him justice, he
+was patient under the neglect; to say more, he was grateful for it. It was
+so pleasant &ldquo;to be let alone;&rdquo; not even to be obliged to see Henderson,
+nor to be consulted about &ldquo;Road Sessions&rdquo; or &ldquo;Police Reports,&rdquo; but to have
+one's day in total unbroken listlessness; to have simply to say, &ldquo;We 'll
+dine at seven,&rdquo; and &ldquo;I'm out for every one.&rdquo; Far otherwise fared it in my
+&ldquo;Lady's chamber.&rdquo; All her plans had been based upon the attentions she was
+so certain of receiving, but of which now not a sign gave token. She
+passed the day in a state of almost feverish excitement, the more painful
+from her effort to conceal and control it. Repton dined with them. He came
+that day &ldquo;because, of course, he could not expect to catch them disengaged
+on any future occasion.&rdquo; Her Ladyship was furious at the speech, but
+smiled concurrence to it; while Martin carelessly remarked, &ldquo;From all that
+I see, we may enjoy the same pleasure very often.&rdquo; Never was the old
+lawyer so disagreeable when exerting himself to be the opposite. He had
+come stored with all the doings of the capital,&mdash;its dinners and
+evening parties, its <i>mots</i> and its gossip. From the political rumors
+and the chit-chat of society, he went on to speak of the viceregal court
+and its festivities.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If there be anything I detest,&rdquo; said her Ladyship, at last, &ldquo;it is the
+small circle of a very small metropolis. So long as you look at it
+carelessly, it is not so offensive; but when you stoop to consider and
+examine it with attention, it reminds you of the hideous spectacle of a
+glass of water as seen through a magnifier,&mdash;you detect a miniature
+world of monsters and deformities, all warring and worrying each other.&rdquo;
+ And with this flattering exposition of her opinion, she arose speedily
+after dinner, and, followed by Miss Henderson, retired.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I perceive that we had not the ear of the Court for our argument,&rdquo; said
+Repton, as he resumed his place after conducting her to the door. Martin
+sipped his wine in silence. &ldquo;I never expected she'd like Dublin; it only
+suits those who pass their lives in it; but I fancied that what with
+Castle civilities&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's the rub,&rdquo; broke in Martin, but in a voice subdued almost to a
+whisper. &ldquo;They 've taken no notice of us. For my own part, I 'm heartily
+obliged to them; and if they 'd condescend to feel offended with us, I 'd
+only be more grateful; but my Lady&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A long, low whistle from Repton implied that he had fully appreciated the
+&ldquo;situation.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, I see it,&rdquo; cried he; &ldquo;and this explains the meaning of an article I
+read this morning in the 'Evening Post,'&mdash;the Government organ,&mdash;wherein
+it is suggested that country gentlemen would be more efficient supporters
+of the administration if they lent themselves heartily to comprehend the
+requirements of recent legislation, than by exacting heavy reprisals on
+their tenants in moments of defeat and disappointment.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it is rather hard,&rdquo; said Martin, with more of energy than he
+usually spoke in,&mdash;&ldquo;it <i>is</i> hard! They first hounded us on to
+contest the borough for them, and they now abuse us that we did not make a
+compromise with the opposite party. And as to measures of severity, you
+know well I never concurred in them; I never permitted them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But they are mistaken, nevertheless. There are writs in preparation, and
+executions about to issue over fourteen town-lands. There will be a
+general clearance of the population at Kyle-a-Noe. You 'll not know a face
+there when you go back, Martin!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who can say that I 'll ever go back?&rdquo; said he, mournfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, come, I trust you will. I hope to pass some pleasant days with you
+there ere I die,&rdquo; said Repton, cheer-ingly. &ldquo;Indeed, until you are there
+again, I 'll never go farther west than Athlone on my circuit. I 'd not
+like to, look at the old place without you!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin nodded as he raised his glass, as if to thank him, and then dropped
+his head mournfully, and sat without speaking.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor dear Mary!&rdquo; said he, at last, with a heavy sigh. &ldquo;Our desertion of
+her is too bad. It's not keeping the pledge I made to Barry!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, there's nothing easier than the remedy. A week or so will see
+you settled in some city abroad,&mdash;Paris, or Brussels, perhaps. Let
+her join you; I 'll be her escort. Egad! I'd like the excuse for the
+excursion,&rdquo; replied Repton, gayly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, Repton,&rdquo; said the other, pursuing his own thoughts and not heeding
+the interruption, &ldquo;and <i>you</i> know what a brother he was. By Jove!&rdquo;
+ cried he, aloud, &ldquo;were Barry just to see what we 've done,&mdash;how we
+'ve treated the place, the people, his daughter!&mdash;were he only to
+know how I 've kept my word with him&mdash;Look, Repton,&rdquo; added he,
+grasping the other's arm as he spoke, &ldquo;there's not as generous a fellow
+breathing as Barry; this world has not his equal for an act of noble
+self-devotion and sacrifice. His life!&mdash;he 'd not think twice of it
+if I asked him to give it for me; but if he felt&mdash;if he could just
+awaken to the conviction that he was unfairly dealt with, that when
+believing he was sacrificing to affection and brotherly love he was made a
+dupe and a fool of&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be cautious, Martin; speak lower&mdash;remember where you are,&rdquo; said
+Repton, guardedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I tell you this,&rdquo; resumed the other, in a tone less loud but not less
+forcible: &ldquo;the very warmth of his nature&mdash;that same noble, generous
+source that feeds every impulse of his life&mdash;would supply the force
+of a torrent to his passion; he 'd be a tiger if you aroused him!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't you perceive, my dear friend,&rdquo; said Repton, calmly, &ldquo;how you are
+exaggerating everything,&mdash;not alone <i>your own</i> culpability, but
+his resentment! Grant that you ought not to have left Mary behind you,&mdash;I
+'m sure I said everything I could against it,&mdash;what more easy than to
+repair the wrong?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, Repton, you 're quite mistaken. Take my word for it, you don't
+know that girl. She has taught herself to believe that her place is there,&mdash;that
+it is her duty to live amongst the people. She may exaggerate to her own
+mind the good she does; she may fancy a thousand things as to the benefit
+she bestows; but she cannot, by any self-deception, over-estimate the
+results upon her own heart, which she has educated to feel as only they do
+who live amongst the poor! To take her away from this would be a cruel
+sacrifice; and for what?&mdash;a world she would n't care for, couldn't
+comprehend.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then what was to have been done?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll tell you, Repton; if it was <i>her</i> duty to stay there, it was
+doubly <i>ours</i> to have remained also. When she married,&rdquo; added he,
+after a pause,&mdash;&ldquo;when she had got a home of her own,&mdash;then, of
+course, it would have been quite different! Heaven knows,&rdquo; said he,
+sighing, &ldquo;we have little left to tie us to anything or anywhere; and as to
+myself, it is a matter of the most perfect indifference whether I drag out
+the year or two that may remain to me on the shores of Galway or beside
+the Adriatic!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can't bear this,&rdquo; cried Repton, angrily. &ldquo;If ever there was a man well
+treated by fortune, you are he.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm not complaining.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not complaining! but, hang it, sir, that is not enough! You should be
+overflowing with gratitude; your life ought to be active with benevolence;
+you should be up and doing, wherever ample means and handsome
+encouragement could assist merit or cheer despondency. I like your notion
+that you don't complain! Why, if you did, what should be done by those who
+really do travel the shady side of existence,&mdash;who are weighted with
+debt, bowed down with daily difficulties, crippled with that penury that
+eats into a man's nature till his very affections grow sordid, and his
+very dreams are tormented with his duns! Think of the poor fellows with
+ailing wives and sickly children, toiling daily, not to give them
+luxuries,&mdash;not to supply them with what may alleviate weariness or
+distract suffering, but bare sustenance,&mdash;coarse diet and coarser
+dress! Ah, my dear Martin, that Romanist plan of fasting one day in the
+week would n't be a bad institution were we to introduce it into our
+social code. If you and I could have, every now and then, our feelings of
+privation, just to teach us what others experience all the week through,
+we 'd have, if not more sympathy with narrow fortune, at least more
+thankfulness for its opposite.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Her Ladyship begs you will read this note, sir,&rdquo; said a servant,
+presenting an open letter to Martin. He took it, and having perused it,
+handed it to Repton, who slowly read the following lines:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+&ldquo;'The Lodge, Tuesday.
+
+&ldquo;'Madam,&mdash;I have his Excellency's commands to inquire on
+what day it will suit Mr. Martin and your Ladyship to favor
+him with your company at dinner? His Excellency would
+himself say Saturday, but any intermediate day more
+convenient to yourself will be equally agreeable to him.
+
+&ldquo;'I have the honor to remain, madam,
+
+&ldquo;'With every consideration, yours,
+
+&ldquo;'Lawrence Belcour, A.D.C.'&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'With every consideration'!&rdquo; repeated Repton. &ldquo;Confound the puppy, and
+his Frenchified phraseology! Why is he not, as he ought to be, your
+obedient servant?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a somewhat cold and formal invitation,&rdquo; said Martin, slowly. &ldquo;I 'll
+just see what she thinks of it;&rdquo; and he arose and left the room. His
+absence was fully of twenty minutes' duration, and when he did return his
+face betokened agitation.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here's more of it, Repton,&rdquo; said he, filling and drinking off his glass.
+&ldquo;It 's all <i>my</i> fault, it seems. I ought to have gone out to the
+'Lodge' this morning, or called on somebody, or done something; in fact, I
+have been remiss, neglectful, deficient in proper respect&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So that you decline the invitation?&rdquo; broke in Repton.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not a bit of it; we 're to accept it, man. That's what I cannot
+comprehend. We are offended, almost outraged, but still we're to submit.
+Ah, Repton, I'll be really rejoiced when we leave this,&mdash;get away
+from all these petty annoyances and small intriguings, and live amongst
+strangers!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Most patriotically spoken; but I'm not surprised at what you say. Have
+you made any resolve as to whither you mean to go?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; we have so many plans, that the chances are we take none of them. I
+'m told&mdash;I know nothing of it myself&mdash;but I 'm told that we
+shall easily find&mdash;and in any part of the Continent&mdash;the few
+requirements we want; which are, an admirable climate, great cheapness,
+and excellent society.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+There was a slight twinkle in Martin's eye as he spoke, as if he were in
+reality relishing the absurdity of these expectations.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was it Kate Henderson who encouraged you to credit this flattering
+picture?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; these are my Lady's own experiences, derived from a residence there
+'when George the Third was King.' As to Kate, the girl is by no means
+deficient in common sense; she has the frivolity of a Frenchwoman, and
+that light, superficial tone foreign education imparts; but take my word
+for it, Repton, she has very fine faculties!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will take your word for it, Martin. I think you do her no more than
+justice,&rdquo; said the old lawyer, sententiously.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I 'll tell you another quality she possesses,&rdquo; said Martin, in a
+lower and more cautious tone, as though dreading to be overheard,&mdash;&ldquo;she
+understands my Lady to perfection,&mdash;when to yield and when to oppose
+her. The girl has an instinct about it, and does it admirably; and there
+was poor dear Mary, with all her abilities, and she never could succeed in
+this! How strange, for nobody would think of comparing the two girls!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nobody!&rdquo; dryly re-echoed Repton.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean, of course, that nobody who knew the world could; for in all the
+glitter and show-off of fashionable acquirement, poor Molly is the
+inferior.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Repton looked steadfastly at him for several seconds; he seemed as if
+deliberating within himself whether or not he'd undeceive him at once, or
+suffer him to dwell on an illusion so pleasant to believe. The latter
+feeling prevailed, and he merely nodded slowly, and passed the decanter
+across the table.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Molly,&rdquo; continued Martin, with all the fluency of a weak man when he
+fancies he has got the better of an argument,&mdash;&ldquo;Molly is her father
+all over. The same resolution, the same warmth of heart, and that
+readiness at an expedient which never failed poor Barry! What a clever
+fellow he was! If he <i>had</i> a fault, it was just being too clever.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Too speculative, too sanguine,&rdquo; interposed Repton.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That, if you like to call it so,&mdash;the weakness of genius.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Repton gave a long sigh, and crossing his arms, fell into a fit of musing,
+and so they both sat for a considerable time.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Harry is coming home, you said?&rdquo; broke in Repton at last.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; he is tired of India,&mdash;tired of soldiering, I believe. If he
+can't manage an exchange into some regiment at home, I think he 'll sell
+out.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove!&rdquo; said the old lawyer, speaking to himself, but still aloud, &ldquo;the
+world has taken a strange turn of late. The men that used to have dash and
+energy have become loungers and idlers, and the energy&mdash;the real
+energy of the nation&mdash;has centred in the women,&mdash;the women and
+the priests! If I'm not much mistaken, we shall see some rare specimens of
+enthusiasm erelong. Such elements as these will not slumber nor sleep!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+While Martin was pondering over this speech, a servant entered to say that
+Mr. Crow was without, and begged to know if he might pay his respects.
+&ldquo;Ay, by all means. Tell him to come in,&rdquo; said Martin. And the words were
+scarcely uttered when the artist made his appearance, in full dinner
+costume, and with a certain unsteadiness in his gait, and a restless look
+in his eyes, that indicated his having indulged freely, without, however,
+having passed the barrier of sobriety.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You heard of our arrival, then?&rdquo; said Martin, after the other had paid
+his respects, and assumed a seat.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir. It was mentioned to-day at dinner, and so I resolved that, when
+I could manage to step away, I'd just drop in and ask how her Ladyship and
+yourself were.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where did you dine, Crow?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;At the Chief Secretary's, sir, in the Park,&rdquo; replied Crow, with a mixture
+of pride and bash fulness.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, indeed. Was your party a large one?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There were fourteen of us, sir, but I only knew three or four of the
+number.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And who were they, Crow?&rdquo; said Repton, whose curiosity on all such topics
+was extreme.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Young Nelligan was one. Indeed, it was through him I was asked myself.
+Colonel Massingbred was good enough to come over and have a look at my
+Moses,&mdash;a favor I humbly hope you 'll do me, gentlemen, any spare
+morning; for it's a new conception altogether, and I make the light come
+out of the bulrushes, just as Caravaggio did with his Lazarus.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind Lazarus, Crow, but tell us of this dinner. Who were the
+others?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, there was Nelligan and me,&mdash;that's one; and Tom Magennis,&mdash;two&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Our neighbor of Barnagheela?&rdquo; exclaimed Martin, in amazement.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The same, sir. I left him there at the port wine, and my word for it, but
+they 'll not get him away easily, though Father Rafferty will do his best&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And was the priest also of the party?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was, sir; and sat at the Colonel's left, and was treated with every
+honor and distinction.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh, Martin, am I a true prophet?&mdash;answer me that. Has Val Repton
+foretold the course of events we are entering upon, or has he not?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But this is a regular outrage,&mdash;an open insult to us!&rdquo; cried Martin.
+&ldquo;Here is a leading member of the Government entertaining the very men who
+opposed and defeated us,&mdash;actually caressing the very party which
+they enlisted us to crush?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This game is within every child's comprehension!&rdquo; said Repton. &ldquo;If <i>you</i>,
+and men of your stamp and fortune, could have secured them a parliamentary
+majority, they 'd have preferred you. You 'd be pleasanter to deal with,
+less exacting, more gentlemanly in fact; but as you failed to do this,&mdash;as
+it was plain and clear you had not the people with you,&mdash;why, they
+'ve thrown you over without a scruple, and taken into their favor the men
+who can and will serve them. I don't mean to say that the bargain is a
+good one,&mdash;nay, I believe the price of such aid will be very costly;
+but what do they care? It is one of the blessings of a representative
+government that Tories have to pay Whig debts, and Whigs are heirs to Tory
+defalcations.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Were politics discussed at table?&rdquo; asked Martin, half impatiently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;All manner of subjects. We had law, and the assizes, and the grand-jury
+lists, and who ought to be high sheriffs, and who not. And young
+Massingbred made a kind of a speech&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was he there also?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That he was; and did the honors of the foot of the table, and made it the
+pleasantest place too! The way he introduced a toast to the independent
+and enlightened electors of Oughterard was as neat a thing as ever I
+heard.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The devil take the whole batch of them!&rdquo; cried Martin. &ldquo;To think that I
+'ve spent nearly three thousand pounds for such a set of scoundrels is
+past endurance. I 'll never set foot amongst them again; as long as I live
+I 'll never enter that town.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Father Neal's own words,&rdquo; cried Crow. &ldquo;'We done with Martin forever,'
+said he. 'This election was his Waterloo. He may abdicate now!'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And that sentiment was listened to by the Chief Secretary?&rdquo; exclaimed
+Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If he wasn't deaf he couldn't help hearing it, for we all did; and when I
+ventured to observe that a country was never the better for losing the
+patrons of art, and the great families that could encourage a genius,
+young Massingbred, said, 'Give up Moses, Mr. Crow,&mdash;give up Moses,
+and paint Daniel O'Connell, and you 'll never want admirers and
+supporters!' And they drowned me in a roar of laughter.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish my Lady could only hear all this,&rdquo; said Rep ton, in a whisper to
+Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Always provided that I were somewhere else!&rdquo; answered Martin. &ldquo;But to be
+serious, Repton, I 'll hold no intercourse with men who treat us in this
+fashion. It is absurd to suppose that the Secretary could receive at his
+table this rabble,&mdash;this herd of low, vulgar&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh&mdash;what!&rdquo; broke in Crow, with an expression of such truly comic
+misery as made Repton shake with laughter.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn't mean <i>you</i>, Crow&mdash;I never thought of including you in
+such company,&mdash;but if these be Colonel Massingbred's guests, I 'll
+swear that Godfrey Martin shall not be my Lord Reckington's!&rdquo; And with
+this bold resolve, uttered in a voice and manner of very unusual firmness,
+Martin arose and left the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;On the whole, then, your party was a pleasant one?&rdquo; said Repton, anxious
+to lead Crow into some further details of the late dinner.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, indeed it was, and it was not,&rdquo; said the artist, hesitatingly. &ldquo;It
+was like a picture with some fine bits in it,&mdash;a dash of rich color
+here and there,&mdash;but no keeping! no general effect! You understand? I
+myself took no share in the talk. I never understood it; but I could see
+that they who did were somehow at cross-purposes,&mdash;all standing in
+adverse lights,&mdash;if I may use the expression. Whenever the Colonel
+himself, or one of the 'swells' of the company, came out with a fine
+sentiment about regenerated Ireland, happy and prosperous, and so forth,
+Magennis was sure to break in with some violent denunciation of the
+infernal miscreants, as he called the landlords, or the greatest curse of
+the land,&mdash;the Law Church!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how did Father Neal behave?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;With great decorum,&mdash;the very greatest. He moderated all Tom's
+violence, and repeatedly said that he accepted no participation in such
+illiberal opinions. 'We have grievances, it is true,' said he, 'but we
+live under a Government able and willing to redress them. It shall never
+be said of us that we were either impatient or intolerant.' 'With such
+support, no Government was ever weak!' said the Colonel, and they took
+wine together.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was very pleasant to see!&rdquo; said Repton.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So it was, sir,&rdquo; rejoined Crow, innocently; &ldquo;and I thought to myself, if
+there was only an end of all their squabbling and fighting, they 'd have
+time to cultivate the arts and cherish men of genius,&mdash;if they had
+them!&rdquo; added he, after a pause.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Father Neal, then, made a favorable impression, you 'd say?&rdquo; asked
+Repton, half carelessly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'd say, very favorable,&mdash;very favorable, indeed. I remarked that he
+always spoke so freely, so liberally. Twice or thrice, too, he said, 'If
+the Papists do this, that, or t' other;' and when the Colonel asked
+whether the Catholics of Ireland submitted implicitly to Rome in all
+things, he laughed heartily, and said, 'About as much as we do to the Cham
+of Tartary!'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'I 'd like to examine our friend there before the Committee,' whispered
+an old gentleman at the Colonel's right hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'It was the very thing was passing through my own mind at the minute,'
+said the Colonel.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'That's exactly the kind of thing we want,' said the old gentleman again,&mdash;'a
+bold, straightforward denial; something that would tell admirably with the
+House! Present me to your friend, Massingbred!' And then the Chief
+Secretary said, 'The Member for Strudeham&mdash;Mr. Crutch-ley&mdash;is
+very desirous of being known to you, Mr. Rafferty.' And there was great
+smiling, and bowing, and drinking wine together after that.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin now re-entered the room, and taking his place at the table, sat for
+some minutes in moody silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Repton, &ldquo;what does my Lady think of your tidings?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She says she does n't believe it!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Does n't believe that these people dined with Massingbred; that Crow saw
+them, heard them, dined with them?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no,&mdash;not that,&rdquo; said Martin, gently, and laying his hand
+familiarly on Crow's arm. &ldquo;Don't mistake me; nor don't let Repton play the
+lawyer with us, and pervert the evidence. Lady Dorothea can't believe that
+her distinguished relative, the Viceroy, would ever countenance this game;
+that&mdash;that&mdash;in fact, we're to dine there, Repton, and see for
+ourselves! Though,&rdquo; added he, after a brief pause, &ldquo;what we are to see, or
+what we are to do when we 've seen it, I wish anybody would tell me!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I 'll be that man!&rdquo; said Repton, with a mock solemnity, and
+imitating the tone and manner of a judge delivering sentence. &ldquo;You 'll go
+from this place to the Lodge, where you 'll be fed 'to the neck,' feasted
+and flattered, and all your good resolves and high purposes will be cut
+down, and your noble indignation buried within the precincts of your own
+hearts!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And, so saying, he arose from the table and extended his hand to take
+leave, with all the gravity of a solemn farewell.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you could say a word to his Excellency about Moses,&rdquo; muttered Crow, as
+he was leaving the room, &ldquo;it would be the making of me!&rdquo; But Martin never
+heeded the appeal; perhaps he never heard it.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XXVII. DARKENING FORTUNES
+</h2>
+<p>
+The Martins had always lived a life of haughty estrangement from their
+neighbors; there were none of exactly their own rank and pretensions
+within miles of them, and they were too proud to acknowledge the
+acquaintance of a small squirearchy, which was all that the country around
+could boast. Notwithstanding all the isolation of their existence, their
+departure created a great void in the county, and their absence was
+sensibly felt by every class around. The very requirements of a large
+fortune suggest a species of life and vitality. The movement of servants,
+the passing and repassing of carriages, the necessary intercourse with
+market and post,&mdash;all impart a degree of bustle and movement,
+terribly contrasted by the unbroken stillness of a deserted mansion.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lady Dorothea had determined that there should be no ambiguity as to the
+cause of their departure; she had given the most positive orders on this
+head to every department of the household. To teach an ungrateful people
+the sore consequences of their own ingratitude, the lesson should be read
+in everything: in the little villages thrown out of work, in the silent
+quarries, the closed schoolhouses, the model farm converted into
+grass-land, even to the grand entrance, now built up by a wall of coarse
+masonry, the haughty displeasure of the proud mistress revealed itself,
+all proclaiming the sentiment of a deep, unforgiving vengeance. She had
+tortured her ingenuity for details which should indicate her anger; nor
+was she satisfied if her displeasure should not find its way into every
+cabin and at every hearth. The small hamlet of Cro' Martin had possessed a
+dispensary. A hard-working, patient, and skilful man had passed many years
+of life there as the doctor, eking out the poor subsistence of that
+unfavored lot, and supporting a family by a life of dreary toil. From this
+her Ladyship's subscription&mdash;the half of all his salary&mdash;was now
+to be withdrawn. She thought &ldquo;Cloves was grown negligent; it might be age,&mdash;if
+so, a younger man would be better; besides, if he could afford to dress
+his three daughters in the manner he did, he surely could not require her
+thirty pounds per annum.&rdquo; The servants, too, complained that he constantly
+mistook their complaints. In fact, judgment was recorded against Cloves,
+and there was none to recommend him to mercy!
+</p>
+<p>
+We have said that there was a little chapel within the bounds of the
+demesne; it occupied a corner of a ruin which once had formed Cro' Martin
+Abbey, and now served for the village church. It was very small, but still
+large enough for its little congregation. The vicar of this humble
+benefice was a very old man, a widower, and childless, though once the
+father of a numerous family. Dr. Leslie had, some eighteen years back,
+been unfortunate enough to incur her Ladyship's displeasure, and was
+consequently never invited to the castle, nor recognized in any way, save
+by the haughty salute that met him as he left the church. To save him,
+however, a long and tedious walk on Sundays, he was permitted to make use
+of a little private path to the church, which led through one of the
+shrubberies adjoining his own house,&mdash;a concession of the more
+consequence as he was too poor to keep a carriage of the humblest kind.
+This was now ordered to be closed up, the gate removed, and a wall to
+replace it. &ldquo;The poor had got the habit of coming that way; it was never
+intended for their use, but they had usurped it. To-morrow or next day we
+should hear of its being claimed at law as a public right of passage. It
+was better to do the thing in time. In short, it must be 'closed.'&rdquo; By
+some such reasoning as this Lady Dorothea persuaded herself to this
+course; and who should gainsay her? Oh, if men would employ but one tenth
+of all that casuistry by which they minister to their selfishness, in acts
+of benevolence and good feeling,&mdash;if they would only use a little
+sophistry, to induce them to do right,&mdash;what a world this might be!
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary Martin knew nothing of these decisions; overwhelmed by the vast
+changes on every side, almost crushed beneath the difficulties that
+surrounded her, her first few weeks passed over like a disturbed dream.
+Groups of idle, unemployed people saluted her in mournful silence as she
+passed the roads. Interrupted works, half-executed plans met her eye at
+every turn, and at every moment the same words rang in her ears&mdash;&ldquo;Her
+Ladyship's orders&rdquo;&mdash;as the explanation of all.
+</p>
+<p>
+Hitherto her life had been one of unceasing exertion and toil; from early
+dawn to late night she had been employed; her fatigues, however, great as
+they were, had been always allied with power. What she willed she could
+execute. Means never failed her, no matter how costly the experiment, to
+carry out her plans, and difficulty gave only zest to every undertaking.
+There is nothing more captivating than this sense of uncontrolled ability
+for action, especially when exercised by one of a warm and enthusiastic
+nature. To feel herself the life and spring of every enterprise, to know
+that she suggested and carried out each plan, that her ingenuity devised,
+and her energy accomplished all the changes around her, was in itself a
+great fascination; and now suddenly she was to awake from all this, and
+find herself unoccupied and powerless. Willingly, without a regret, could
+she abdicate from all the pomp and splendor of a great household; she saw
+troops of servants depart, equipage sold, great apartments closed up
+without a pang! To come down to the small conditions of narrow fortune in
+her daily life cost her nothing, beyond a smile. It was odd, it was
+strange; but it was no more! Far otherwise, however, did she feel the
+circumstances of her impaired power. That hundreds of workmen were no
+longer at her bidding, that whole families no longer looked up to her for
+aid and comfort,&mdash;these were astounding facts, and came upon her with
+an actual shock.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;For what am I left here?&rdquo; cried she, passionately, to Henderson, as he
+met each suggestion she made by the one cold word, &ldquo;Impossible.&rdquo; &ldquo;Is it to
+see destitution that I cannot relieve,&mdash;witness want that I am
+powerless to alleviate? To what end or with what object do I remain?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I canna say, miss,&rdquo; was the dry response.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it be to humiliate me by the spectacle of my own inefficiency, a day
+or a week will suffice for that; years could not teach me more.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Henderson bowed what possibly might mean an acquiescence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't speak of the estate,&rdquo; cried she, earnestly; &ldquo;but what 's to
+become of the people?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Many o' them will emigrate, miss, I've no doubt,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;when they see
+there 's nothing to bide for.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You take it easily, sir. You see little hardships in men having to leave
+home and country; but I tell you that home may be poor and country cruel,
+and yet both very hard to part with.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That 's vara true, miss,&rdquo; was the dry response.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;For anything there is now to be done here, you, sir, are to the full as
+competent as I am. I ask again, To what end am I here?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Giving to her question a very different significance from what she
+intended, Henderson calmly said, &ldquo;I thought, miss, it was just yer ain
+wish, and for no other reason.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mary's cheek became crimson, and her eyes flashed with angry indignation;
+but repressing the passion that was bursting within her, she walked
+hastily up and down the room in silence. At length, opening a large
+colored map of the estate which lay on the table, she stood attentively
+considering it for some time. &ldquo;The works at Carrigulone are stopped?&rdquo; said
+she, hastily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, miss.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the planting at Kyle's Wood?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, miss.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And even the thinning there,&mdash;is that stopped?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, miss; the bark is to be sold, and a' the produce of the wood for ten
+years, to a contractor, a certain Mister&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't want his name, sir. What of the marble quarries?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My Lady thinks they're nae worth a' they cost, and won't hear o' their
+being worked again.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And is the harbor at Kilkieran to be given up?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, miss, and the Osprey's Nest will be let. I think they 'll mak' an
+inn or a public o' it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And if the harbor is abandoned, what is to become of the fishermen? The
+old quay is useless.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Vara true, miss; but there's a company goin' to take the royalties o' the
+coast the whole way to Belmullet.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A Scotch company, Mr. Henderson?&rdquo; said Mary, with a sly malice in her
+look.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, miss,&rdquo; said he, coloring slightly. &ldquo;The house of M'Grotty and Co. is
+at the head o' it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And are they the same enterprising people who have proposed to take the
+demesne on lease, provided the gardens be measured in as arable land?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are, miss; they've signed the rough draught o' the lease this
+morning.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; cried she, growing suddenly pale as death. &ldquo;Are there any other
+changes you can mention to me, since in the few days I have been ill so
+much has occurred?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's nae muckle more to speak o', miss. James M'Grotty&mdash;he's the
+younger brother&mdash;was here yesterday to try and see you about the
+school. He wants the house for his steward; but if you object, he 'll just
+take the doctor's.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why&mdash;where is Dr. Cloves to go?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He does na ken exactly, miss. He thinks he 'll try Auckland, or some of
+these new places in New Zealand.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the dispensary must be continued; the people cannot be left without
+medical advice.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. James says he 'll think aboot it when he comes over in summer. He's a
+vara spirited young man, and when there's a meetin'-house built in the
+village&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Enough of this, Henderson. Come over here tomorrow, for I 'm not strong
+enough to hear more to-day, and let Mr. Scanlan know that I wish to see
+him this evening.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And Mary motioned with her hand that he should withdraw. Scarcely was the
+door closed behind him than she burst into a torrent of tears; her long
+pent-up agony utterly overpowered her, and she cried with all the
+vehemence of a child's grief. Her heart once opened to sorrow, by a
+hundred channels came tributaries to her affliction. Up to that moment her
+uncle's departure had never seemed a cruelty; now it took all the form of
+desertion. The bitterness of her forlorn condition had never struck her
+till it came associated with all the sorrows of others. It is not
+impossible that wounded self-love entered into her feelings. It is by no
+means unlikely that the sense of her own impaired importance added
+poignancy to her misery. Who shall anatomize motives, or who shall be
+skilful enough to trace the springs of one human emotion? There was
+assuredly enough outside of and above all personal consideration to
+ennoble her grief and dignify her affliction.
+</p>
+<p>
+Her first impulses led her to regard herself as utterly useless; her
+occupation gone, and her whole career of duty annihilated. A second and a
+better resolve whispered to her that she was more than ever needful to
+those who without her would be left without a friend. &ldquo;If I desert them,
+who is to remain?&rdquo; asked she. &ldquo;It is true I am no more able to set in
+motion the schemes by which their indigence was alleviated. I am
+powerless, but not all worthless. I can still be their nurse, their
+comforter, their schoolmistress. My very example may teach them how
+altered fortune can be borne with fortitude and patience. They shall see
+me reduced to a thousand privations, and perhaps even this may bear its
+lesson.&rdquo; Drying her tears, she began to feel within her some of the
+courage she hoped to inspire in others; and anxious not to let old Catty
+detect the trace of sorrow in her features, issued forth into the wood for
+a walk.
+</p>
+<p>
+As the deep shadows thickened around her, she grew calmer and more
+meditative. The solemn stillness of the place, the deep, unbroken
+quietude, imparted its own soothing influence to her thoughts; and as she
+went, her heart beat freer, and her elastic temperament again arose to
+cheer and sustain her. To confront the future boldly and well, it was
+necessary that she should utterly forget the past. She could no longer
+play the great part to which wealth and high station had raised her; she
+must now descend to that humbler one,&mdash;all whose influence should be
+derived from acts of kindness and words of comfort, unaided by the greater
+benefits she had once dispensed.
+</p>
+<p>
+The means placed at her disposal for her own expenditure had been
+exceedingly limited. It was her own desire they should be so, and Lady
+Dorothea had made no opposition to her wishes. Beyond this she had
+nothing, save a sum of five thousand pounds payable at her uncle's death.
+By strictest economy&mdash;privation, indeed&mdash;she thought that she
+could save about a hundred pounds a year of this small income; but to do
+so would require the sale of both her horses, retaining only the pony and
+the little carriage, while her dress should be of the very simplest and
+plainest. In what way she should best employ this sum was to be for after
+consideration. The first thought was how to effect the saving without
+giving to the act any unnecessary notoriety. She felt that her greatest
+difficulty would be old Catty Broon. The venerable housekeeper had all her
+life regarded her with an affection that was little short of worship. It
+was not alone the winning graces of Mary's manner, nor the attractive
+charms of her appearance that had so captivated old Catty; but that the
+young girl, to her eyes, represented the great family whose name she bore,
+and represented them so worthily. The title of the Princess, by which the
+Country people knew her, seemed her just and rightful designation. Mary
+realized to her the proud scion of a proud stock, who had ruled over a
+territory rather than a mere estate; how, then, could she bear to behold
+her in all the straits and difficulties of a reduced condition? There
+seemed but one way to effect this, which was to give her new mode of life
+the character of a caprice. &ldquo;I must make old Catty believe it is one of my
+wild and wilful fancies,&mdash;a sudden whim,&mdash;out of which a little
+time will doubtless rally me. She is the last in the world to limit me in
+the indulgence of a momentary notion; she will, therefore, concede
+everything to my humor, patiently awaiting the time when it shall assume a
+course the very opposite.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Some one should, however, be intrusted with her secret,&mdash;without some
+assistance it could not be carried into execution; and who should that be?
+Alas, her choice was a very narrow one. It lay between Scanlan and
+Henderson. The crafty attorney was not, indeed, much to Mary's liking. His
+flippant vulgarity and pretension were qualities she could ill brook; but
+she had known him do kind things. She had seen him on more than one
+occasion temper the sharpness of some of her Ladyship's ukases, little
+suspecting, indeed, how far the possible impression upon herself was the
+motive that so guided him; she had, therefore, no difficulty in preferring
+him to the steward, whose very accent and manner were enough to render him
+hateful to her. Scanlan, besides, would necessarily have a great deal in
+his power; he would be able to make many a concession to the poor people
+on the estate, retard the cruel progress of the law, or give them time to
+provide against its demands. Mary felt that she was in a position to
+exercise a certain influence over him; and, conscious of the goodness of
+the cause she would promote, never hesitated as to the means of employing
+it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Who shall say, too, that she had not noticed the deferential admiration by
+which he always distinguished her? for there is a species of coquetry that
+takes pleasure in a conquest where the profits of victory would be
+thoroughly despised. We are not bold enough to say that such feelings
+found their place in Mary's heart. We must leave its analysis to wiser and
+more cunning anatomists.
+</p>
+<p>
+Straying onwards ever in deep thought, and not remarking whither, she was
+suddenly struck by the noise of masonry,&mdash;strange sounds in a spot
+thus lonely and remote; and now walking quickly onward, she found herself
+on the path by which the vicar on Sundays approached the church; and here,
+at a little distance, descried workmen employed in walling up the little
+gateway of the passage.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By whose orders is this done?&rdquo; cried Mary, to whose quick intelligence
+the act revealed its whole meaning and motive.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Henderson, miss,&rdquo; replied one of the men. &ldquo;He said we were to work
+all night at it, if we could n't be sure of getting it done before
+Sunday.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A burst of passionate indignation rose to her lips, but she turned away
+without a word, and re-entered the wood in silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; cried she, to herself, &ldquo;it is, indeed, a new existence is opening
+before me; let me strive so to control my temper, that I may view it
+calmly and dispassionately, so that others may not suffer from the changes
+in my fortune.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+She no sooner reached the house than she despatched a note to Mr. Scanlan,
+requesting to see him as early as possible on the following morning. This
+done, she set herself to devise her plans for the future,&mdash;speculations,
+it must be owned, to which her own hopeful temperament gave a coloring
+that a colder spirit and more calculating mind had never bestowed on them.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XXVIII. HOW MR. SCANLAN GIVES SCOPE TO A GENEROUS IMPULSE
+</h2>
+<p>
+It is a remark of Wieland's, that although the life of man is measured by
+the term of fourscore years and ten, yet that his ideal existence or, as
+he calls it, his &ldquo;unacted life,&rdquo; meaning thereby his period of dreamy,
+projective, and forecasting existence, would occupy a far wider space. And
+he goes on to say that it is in this same imaginative longevity men differ
+the most from each other, the poet standing to the ungifted peasant in the
+ratio of centuries to years.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Maurice Scanlan would not appear a favorable subject by which to test
+this theory. If not endowed with any of the higher and greater qualities
+of intellect, he was equally removed from any deficiency on that score.
+The world called him &ldquo;a clever fellow,&rdquo; and the world is rarely in fault
+in such judgments. Where there is a question of the creative faculties,
+where it is the divine essence itself is the matter of decision, the world
+will occasionally be betrayed into mistakes, as fashion and a passing
+enthusiasm may mislead it; but where it is the practical and the real, the
+exercise of gifts by which men make themselves rich and powerful, then the
+world makes no blunders. She knows them as a mother knows her children.
+They are indeed the &ldquo;World's own.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+We have come to these speculations by contemplating Mr. Scanlan as he sat
+with Mary Martin's open letter before him. The note was couched in polite
+terms, requesting Mr. Scanlan to favor the writer with a visit at his
+earliest convenience, if possible early on the following morning. Had it
+been a document of suspected authenticity, a forged acceptance, an
+interpolated article in a deed, a newly discovered codicil to a will, he
+could not have canvassed every syllable, scrutinized every letter, with
+more searching zeal. It was hurriedly written; there was, therefore, some
+emergency. It began, &ldquo;Dear sir,&rdquo; a style she had never employed before;
+the letter &ldquo;D&rdquo; was blotted, and seemed to have been originally destined
+for an &ldquo;M,&rdquo; as though she had commenced &ldquo;Miss Martin requests,&rdquo; etc., and
+then suddenly adopted the more familiar address. The tone of command by
+which he was habitually summoned to Cro' Martin was assuredly not there,
+and Maurice was not the man to undervalue the smallest particle of
+evidence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She has need of me,&rdquo; cried he to himself; &ldquo;she sees everything in a state
+of subversion and chaos around her, and looks to me as the man to restore
+order. The people are entreating her to stay law proceedings, to give them
+time, to employ them; the poorest are all importuning her with stories of
+their sufferings. She is powerless, and, what's worse, she does not know
+what it is to be powerless to help them. She'll struggle and fret and
+scheme, and plan fifty things, and when she has failed in them all, fall
+back upon Maurice Scanlan for advice and counsel.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It was a grave question with Scanlan how far he would suffer her
+persecutions to proceed before he would come to her aid. &ldquo;If I bring my
+succor too early, she may never believe the emergency was critical; if I
+delay it too long, she may abandon the field in despair, and set off to
+join her uncle.&rdquo; These were the two propositions which he placed before
+himself for consideration. It was a case for very delicate management,
+great skill, and great patience, but it was well worth all the cost. &ldquo;If I
+succeed,&rdquo; said he to himself, &ldquo;I'm a made man. Mary Martin Mrs. Scanlan, I
+'m the agent for the whole estate, with Cro' Martin to live in, and all
+the property at my discretion. If I fail,&mdash;that is, if I fail without
+blundering,&mdash;I 'm just where I was. Well,&rdquo; thought he, as he drove
+into the demesne, &ldquo;I never thought I'd have such a chance as this. All
+gone, and she alone here by herself: none to advise, not one even to keep
+her company! I'd have given a thousand pounds down just for this
+opportunity, without counting all the advantages I have in my power from
+my present position, for I can do what I like with the estate,&mdash;give
+leases or break them. It will be four months at least before old Repton
+comes down here, and in that time I'll have finished whatever I want to
+do. And now to begin the game.&rdquo; And with this he turned into the
+stable-yard, and descended from his gig. Many men would have been struck
+by the changed aspect of the place,&mdash;silence and desolation where
+before there were movement and bustle; but Scanlan only read in the
+altered appearances around the encouragement of his own ambitious hopes.
+The easy swagger in which the attorney indulged while moving about the
+stable-yard declined into a more becoming gait as he traversed the long
+corridors, and finally became actually respectful as he drew nigh the
+library, where he was informed Miss Martin awaited him, so powerful was
+the influence of old habit over the more vulgar instincts of his nature.
+He had intended to be very familiar and at his ease, and ere he turned the
+handle of the door his courage failed him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is very kind of you, Mr. Scanlan,&rdquo; said she, advancing a few steps
+towards him as he entered. &ldquo;You must have started early from home.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;At five, miss,&rdquo; said he, bowing deferentially.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And of course you have not breakfasted?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, then, I only took a cup of coffee. I was anxious to be early. I
+thought from your note that there might be something urgent.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mary half smiled at the mingled air of bashfulness and gallantry in which
+he uttered these broken sentences; for without knowing it himself, while
+he began in some confusion, he attained a kind of confidence as he went
+on.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor have I breakfasted, either,&rdquo; said she; &ldquo;and I beg, therefore, you
+will join me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Scanlan's face actually glowed with pleasure.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have many things to consult you upon with regard to the estate, and I
+am fully aware that there is nobody more competent to advise me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor more ready and willing, miss,&rdquo; said Maurice, bowing.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm perfectly certain of that, Mr. Scanlan. The confidence my uncle has
+always reposed in you assures me on that head.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was n't I right about the borough, Miss Mary?&rdquo; broke he in. &ldquo;I told you
+how it would be, and that if you did n't make some sort of a compromise
+with the Liberal party&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let me interrupt you, Mr. Scanlan, and once for all assure you that there
+is not one subject of all those which pertain to this county and its
+people which has so little interest for me as the local squabbles of
+party; and I 'm sure no success on either side is worth the broken
+friendships and estranged affections it leaves behind it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A beautiful sentiment, to which I respond with all my heart,&rdquo; rejoined
+Scanlan, with an energy that made her blush deeply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I only meant to say, sir,&rdquo; added she, hastily, &ldquo;that the borough and its
+politics need never be discussed between us.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so, miss. We'll call on the next case,&rdquo; said Scanlan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My uncle's sudden departure, and a slight indisposition under which I
+have labored for a week or so, have thrown me so far in arrear of all
+knowledge of what has been done here, that I must first of all ask you,
+not how the estate is to be managed in future, but does it any longer
+belong to us?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What, miss?&rdquo; cried Scanlan, in amazement.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean, sir, is it my uncle's determination to lease out everything,&mdash;even
+to the demesne around the Castle; to sell the timber and dispose of the
+royalties? If so, a mere residence here could have no object for <i>me</i>.
+It seems strange, Mr. Scanlan, that I should have to ask such a question.
+I own to you,&mdash;it is not without some sense of humiliation that I do
+so,&mdash;I believed, I fancied I had understood my uncle's intentions.
+Some of them he had even committed to writing, at my request; you shall
+see them yourself. The excitement and confusion of his departure,&mdash;the
+anxieties of leave-taking,&mdash;one thing or another, in short, gave me
+little time to seek his counsel as to many points I wished to know; and,
+in fact, I found myself suddenly alone before I was quite prepared for it,
+and then I fell ill,&mdash;a mere passing attack, but enough to unfit me
+for occupation.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Breakfast is served, miss,&rdquo; said a maid-servant, at this conjuncture,
+opening a door into a small room, where the table was spread.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm quite ready, and so I hope is Mr. Scanlan,&rdquo; said Mary, leading the
+way.
+</p>
+<p>
+No sooner seated at table than she proceeded to do the honors with an ease
+that plainly told that all the subject of her late discourse was to be
+left for the present in abeyance. In fact, the very tone of her voice was
+changed, as she chatted away carelessly about the borough people and their
+doings, what strangers had lately passed through the town, and the
+prospects of the coming season at Kilkieran.
+</p>
+<p>
+No theme could more readily have put Mr. Scanlan at his ease. He felt, or
+fancied he felt, himself at that degree of social elevation above the
+Oughterard people, which enabled him to talk with a species of
+compassionate jocularity of their little dinners and evening parties. He
+criticised toilet and manners and cookery, therefore, with much
+self-complacency,&mdash;far more than had he suspected that Mary Martin's
+amusement was more derived from the pretension of the speaker than the
+matter which he discussed.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's what I think you'll find hardest of all, Miss Martin,&rdquo; said he, at
+the close of a florid description of the borough customs. &ldquo;You can have no
+society here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet I mean to try,&rdquo; said she, smiling; &ldquo;at least, I have gone so far
+as to ask Mrs. Nelligan to come and dine with me on Monday or Tuesday
+next.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mrs. Nelligan dine at Cro' Martin!&rdquo; exclaimed he.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If she will be good enough to come so far for so little!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She 'd go fifty miles on the same errand; and if I know old Dan himself,
+he 'll be a prouder man that day than when his son gained the gold medal.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I'm sure <i>I</i>, at least, am perfectly requited,&rdquo; said Mary.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But are you certain, Miss, that such people will suit you?&rdquo; said Scanlan,
+half timidly. &ldquo;They live in a very different style, and have other ways
+than yours. I say nothing against Mrs. Nelligan; indeed, she comes of a
+very respectable family; but sure she hasn't a thought nor an idea in
+common with Miss Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suspect you are wrong there, Mr. Scanlan. My impression is, that Mrs.
+Nelligan and I will find many topics to agree upon, and that we shall
+understand each other perfectly; and if, as you suppose, there may be
+certain things new and strange to me in <i>her</i> modes of thinking, I 'm
+equally sure she 'll have to conquer many prejudices with regard to <i>me</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm afraid you'll be disappointed, miss!&rdquo; was the sententious reply of
+Scanlan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then there's our vicar!&rdquo; broke in Mary. &ldquo;Mr. Leslie will, I hope, take
+pity on my solitude.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, I forgot him entirely. I don't think I ever saw him at Cro'
+Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor I, either,&rdquo; said Mary; &ldquo;but he may concede from a sense of kindness
+what he would decline to a mere point of etiquette. In a word, Mr.
+Scanlan,&rdquo; said she, after a pause, &ldquo;all the troubles and misfortunes which
+we have lately gone through&mdash;even to the destitution of the old house
+here&mdash;have in a great measure had their origin in the studious
+ignorance in which we have lived of our neighbors. I don't wish to enter
+upon political topics, but I am sure that had we known the borough people,
+and they us,&mdash;had we been in the habit of mingling and associating
+together, however little,&mdash;had we interchanged the little civilities
+that are the charities of social life,&mdash;we 'd have paused, either of
+us, ere we gave pain to the other; we'd at least have made concessions on
+each side, and so softened down the asperities of party. More than half
+the enmities of the world are mere misconceptions.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's true!&rdquo; said Scanlan, gravely. But his thoughts had gone on a very
+different errand from the theme in question, and were busily inquiring
+what effect all these changes might have upon his own prospects.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now for a matter of business,&rdquo; said Mary, rising and taking her place
+at another table. &ldquo;I shall want your assistance, Mr. Scanlan. There is a
+small sum settled upon me, but not payable during my uncle's life. I wish
+to raise a certain amount of this, by way of loan,&mdash;say a thousand
+pounds. Will this be easily accomplished?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What's the amount of the settlement, miss?&rdquo; said Scanlan, with more
+eagerness than was quite disinterested.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Five thousand pounds. There is the deed.&rdquo; And she pushed a parchment
+towards him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Scanlan ran his practised eye rapidly over the document, and with the
+quick craft of his calling saw it was all correct. &ldquo;One or even two
+thousand can be had upon this at once, miss. It 's charged upon Kelly's
+farm and the mills&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;All I want to know is, that I can have this sum at my disposal, and very
+soon; at once, indeed.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will next week suit you?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perfectly. And now to another point. These are the few memoranda my uncle
+left with me as to his wishes respecting the management of the estate. You
+will see that, although he desires a considerable diminution of the sum to
+be spent in wages, and a strict economy in all outlay, that he still never
+contemplated throwing the people out of employment. The quarries were to
+be worked as before,&mdash;the planting was to be continued,&mdash;the
+gardens and ornamental grounds, indeed, were to be conducted with less
+expense; but the harbor at Kilkieran and the new school-house at Ternagh
+were to be completed; and if money could be spared for it, he gave me
+leave to build a little hospital at the cross-roads, allowing forty pounds
+additional salary to Dr. Cloves for his attendance. These are the chief
+points; but you shall have the papers to read over at your leisure. We
+talked over many other matters; indeed, we chatted away till long after
+two o'clock the last night he was here, and I thought I understood
+perfectly all he wished. Almost his last words to me at parting were, 'As
+little change as possible, Molly. Let the poor people believe that I am
+still, where my heart is, under the roof of Cro' Martin!'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The recollection of the moment brought the tears to her eyes, and she
+turned her head away in silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said she, rallying, and speaking with renewed energy, &ldquo;if what
+Henderson says be correct, something later must have been issued than all
+this; some directions which I have never seen,&mdash;not so much as heard
+of. He tells me of works to be stopped, people discharged, schoolhouses
+closed, tenants ejected; in fact, a whole catalogue of such changes as I
+never could have courage to see, much less carry through. I know my dear
+uncle well; he never would have imposed such a task upon me, nor have I
+the resources within me for such an undertaking.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And have you received no letter from Mr. Martin, from Dublin?&rdquo; asked
+Scanlan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;None,&mdash;not a line; a note from my aunt&mdash;indeed, not from my
+aunt, but by her orders, written by Kate Henderson&mdash;has reached me,
+in which, however, there is no allusion to the property or the place.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet her Ladyship said that Mr. Martin would write to you himself, in
+the course of the week, fully and explicitly.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To whom was this said, sir?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To myself, miss; there is the letter.&rdquo; And Scanlan drew from his
+pocket-book a very voluminous epistle, in Kate Henderson's hand. &ldquo;This
+contains the whole of her Ladyship's instructions. How all the works are
+to be stopped,&mdash;roads, woods, and quarries; the townlands of
+Carrigalone and Killybogue to be distrained; Kyle-a-Noe the same. If a
+tenant can be got for the demesne, it is to be let, with the shooting over
+the seven mountains, and the coast-fishing too. There's to be no more
+charges for schools, hospital, or dispensary after next November;
+everything is to be on the new plan, what they call 'Self-supporting.' I
+'d like to know what that means. In fact, miss, by the time one half the
+orders given in that same letter is carried out, there won't be such
+another scene of misery and confusion in all Ireland as the estate of Cro'
+Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And this is sanctioned by my uncle?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose we must conclude it is, for he says nothing to the contrary;
+and Mr. Repton writes me what he calls 'my instructions,' in a way that
+shows his own feeling of indignation about the whole business.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mary was silent; there was not a sentiment which could give pain that had
+not then its place in her heart. Commiseration, deep pity for the sorrows
+she was to witness unavailingly, wounded pride, insulted self-esteem,&mdash;all
+were there! And she turned away to hide the emotions which overcame her.
+For a moment the sense of self had the mastery, and she thought but of how
+she was to endure all this humiliation. &ldquo;Am I,&rdquo; said she to her own heart,&mdash;&ldquo;am
+I to be insulted by the rivalry of Scotch stewards and gardeners, to be
+thrust from my place of power by some low-born creature, not even of the
+soil, but an alien?&mdash;to live here bereft of influence, representing
+nothing save the decay of our fortunes?&rdquo; The torrent of her passion ran
+full and deep, and her bosom heaved in the agony of the moment. And then
+as suddenly came the reaction. &ldquo;How small a share is mine in all this
+suffering, and how miserably selfish are even my sorrows! It is of others
+I should think!&mdash;of those who must leave hearth and home to seek out
+a new resting-place,&mdash;of the poor, who are to be friendless,&mdash;of
+the suffering, to whom no comfort is to come,&mdash;of the old, who are to
+die in distant lands,&mdash;and the young, whose hearts are never to warm
+to the affections of a native country!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+While affecting to arrange the papers in his pocket-book, Scanlan watched
+every passing shade of emotion in her face. Nor was it a study in which he
+was ignorant; the habits of his calling had made him a very subtle
+observer. Many a time had he framed his question to a witness by some
+passing expression of the features. More than once had he penetrated the
+heart through the eye! The elevation of sentiment had given its own
+character to her handsome face; and as she stood proudly erect, with arms
+folded on her breast, there was in her look and attitude all the calm
+dignity of an antique statue.
+</p>
+<p>
+Scanlan interpreted truthfully what passed within her, and rightly judged
+that no small sentiment of condolence or sympathy would be appropriate to
+the occasion. Nor was he altogether unprovided for the emergency. He had
+seen a king's counsel warm up a jury to the boiling-point, and heard him
+pour forth, with all the seeming vehemence of an honest conviction, the
+wildest rhapsodies about desecrated hearths and blackened roof-trees,&mdash;talk
+of the spoiler and the seducer,&mdash;and even shed a tear &ldquo;over the widow
+and the orphan!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What say you to all this, sir?&rdquo; cried she. &ldquo;Have you any counsel to give
+me,&mdash;any advice?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is just what I have not, miss,&rdquo; said he, despondingly; &ldquo;and, indeed,
+it was uppermost in my heart this morning when I was writing my letter.
+What 's all I 'm suffering compared to what Miss Martin must feel?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What letter do you allude to?&rdquo; asked she, suddenly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A letter I wrote to Mr. Repton, miss,&rdquo; said he, with a deep sigh. &ldquo;I told
+him plainly my mind about everything; and I said, 'If it 's for
+exterminating you are,&mdash;if you 're going to turn out families that
+were on the land for centuries, and drive away over the seas, God knows
+where, the poor people that thought the name of Martin a shield against
+all the hardships of life, all I have to say is, you must look elsewhere
+for help, since it is not Maurice Scanlan will aid you.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You said all this, sir?&rdquo; broke she in, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did, miss. I told him I 'd hold the under-agency till he named some one
+to succeed me; but that I 'd not put my hand to one act or deed to
+distress the tenants. It 's giving up,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;the best part of my means
+of support; it's surrendering what I reckoned on to make me independent.
+But a good conscience is better than money, miss; and if I must seek out a
+new country, I 'll go at least without the weight of a cruel wrong over
+me; and if I see one of our poor Western people beyond seas, I 'll not be
+ashamed to meet him!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, that was noble,&mdash;that was truly noble conduct!&rdquo; cried she,
+grasping his hand in both her own. &ldquo;How I thank you from my very heart for
+this magnanimity!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I ever suspected you 'd have said the half of this, Miss Mary, the
+sacrifice would have been a cheap one, indeed. But, in truth, I never
+meant to tell it. I intended to have kept my own secret; for I knew if any
+one only imagined why it was I threw up the agency, matters would only be
+worse on the estate.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, you are right,&rdquo; said she, thoughtfully. &ldquo;This was most considerate.
+Such a censure would augment every difficulty.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I felt that, miss. What I said to myself was, 'My successor will neither
+know the place nor the people; he 'll be cruel where he ought to have
+mercy, and spare those that he ought to keep to their duty.' It isn't in a
+day nor a week that a man learns the habits of a large tenantry, nor was
+it without labor and pains that I acquired my present influence amongst
+them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite true,&rdquo; said she; but more as though following out her own
+reflections than hearing his.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They 'll have <i>you</i>, however,&rdquo; said Scanlan,&mdash;&ldquo;you, that are
+better to them than all the agents that ever breathed; and the very sight
+of you riding down amongst them will cheer their hearts in the darkest
+moments of life. I turned back the whole townland of Terry Valley. They
+were packing up to be off to America; but I told them, 'she 's not going,&mdash;she
+'ll stay here, and never desert you.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor will <i>you</i> either, sir,&rdquo; cried Mary. &ldquo;You will not desert them,
+nor desert <i>me</i>. Recall your letter!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's not gone off to the post yet. I was waiting to see you&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Better still. Oh, Mr. Scanlan, bethink you how much yet may be done for
+these poor people, if we will but forget ourselves and what we think we
+owe to self-esteem. If <i>you</i> will have sacrifices to make, believe
+me, <i>I</i> shall not escape them also. It is nobler, too, and finer to
+remain here bereft of influence, stripped of all power, to share their
+sufferings and take part in their afflictions. Neither you nor I shall be
+to them what we have been; but still, let us not abandon them. Tell me
+this,&mdash;say that you will stay to counsel and advise me, to guide me
+where I need guidance, and give me all the benefit of your experience and
+your knowledge. Let it be a compact between us then; neither shall go
+while the other remains!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It was with difficulty Scanlan could restrain his delight at these words.
+How flattering to his present vanity,&mdash;how suggestive were they of
+the future! With all the solemnity of a vow he bound himself to stay; and
+Mary thanked him with the fervor of true gratitude.
+</p>
+<p>
+If there be few emotions so pleasurable as to be the object of
+acknowledged gratitude for real services, it may well be doubted whether
+the consciousness of not having merited this reward does not seriously
+detract from this enjoyment. There are men, however, so constituted that a
+successful scheme&mdash;no matter how unscrupulously achieved&mdash;is
+always a triumph, and who cherish their self-love even in degradation!
+Maurice Scanlan is before our reader, and whether he was one of this
+number it is not for us to say; enough if we record that when he cantered
+homeward on that day he sang many a snatch of a stray ballad, and none of
+them were sad ones.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XXIX. A SUNDAY MORNING AT CRO' MARTIN
+</h2>
+<p>
+Nothing is further from our intention than to enter upon the long-vexed
+question as to the benefits of an Established Church for Ireland. Wiser
+heads than ours have discussed it polemically, politically, socially, and
+arithmetically; and there it is still, left to the judgment of each, as
+his religion, his party, or his prejudices sway him. There is one view of
+the subject, however, which no traveller in the country has ever failed to
+be struck by; which is, that these settlements of Protestantism, dotted
+through the land, are so many types of an advanced civilization,
+suggesting, even to those of a different faith, respect and veneration for
+the decorous observance of this Church, and the calm peace-fulness with
+which they keep the Sabbath.
+</p>
+<p>
+Priests may denounce and politicians declaim, but the Irish peasant,
+nurtured with all the prejudices of race and religion, never throws off
+his veneration for the little flock, who, like a brave garrison in a
+besieged land, hold manfully together round the banner of their Faith! How
+striking is this in remote parts of the country, where the reformed
+religion has made little progress, and its followers are few in number!
+</p>
+<p>
+It was Sunday; the gates of Cro' Martin Park were open to admit all who
+might repair to the church. When the Martins were at home, Lady Dorothea
+used to give to these occasions somewhat of the state of a procession. The
+servants wore their dress liveries; two carriages were in waiting. She
+herself appeared in a toilet that might have graced a court chapel; and a
+formal ceremoniousness of speech and demeanor were ordained as the
+becoming recognition of the holy day. Trained to these observances by many
+a year, Mary could scarcely comprehend the strange sensation she felt as
+she walked along to church, unattended and alone. It was a bright day of
+early summer, with a soft wind stirring the leaves above, and rippling
+pleasantly the waters of the lake. The perfume of the new hay floated
+through the thin air, with the odor of the whitethorn and the
+meadow-sweet; the birds were singing merrily; and through this gay carol
+came the mellow sound of the little bell that summoned to prayer. There
+was a delicious sense of repose in the stillness around, telling how, amid
+the cares and contentions of life, its wealth seekings, and its petty
+schemes there came moments when the better instincts were the victors, and
+men, in all the diversities of their rank and station, could meet together
+to kneel at one altar, and unite in one supplication. As she went, little
+glimpses were caught by her of the distant country beyond the demesne; and
+over all there reigned the same tranquillity; the sound of voices, far
+away, adding to the effect, and making the silence more palpable. &ldquo;How
+peaceful it is,&rdquo; thought she, &ldquo;and how happy it might be! Could we but
+bridle our own passions, restrain our mean jealousies, and curb the evil
+promptings of our own hearts, what blessings might grow up amongst them!
+But for objects not worth the attaining,&mdash;ambitions of no value when
+won,&mdash;and my uncle might still be here, strolling along, perhaps,
+with me at this very moment, and with me drinking in this calm repose and
+soothing quietness.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Before her, at some little distance on the path, went the three daughters
+of the village doctor; and, though well and becomingly attired, there was
+nothing in their appearance to warrant the reproach Lady Dorothea had cast
+upon their style of dress. It was, indeed, scrupulously neat, but simple.
+The eldest was a girl of about sixteen, with all the gravity of manner and
+staid expression that belongs to those who stand in the light of mothers
+to younger sisters. The housekeeper of her father's little home, the
+manager of all within its humble household, his secretary, his companion,
+Ellen Cloves had acquired, while little more than a child, the patient and
+submissive temper that long worldly trial confers. They lived perfectly to
+themselves; between the society of the castle and that of the farmers
+around there was no intermediate territory, and thus they passed their
+lives in a little circle of home duties and affections, which made up all
+their world.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary Martin had often wished it in her power to show them some attentions;
+she was attracted by their gentle faces and their calm and happy demeanor.
+Had her aunt permitted, she would have frequently invited them to the
+castle, lent them books and music, and sought companionship in their
+intercourse. But Lady Dorothea would not have heard of such a project; her
+theory was that familiarity with the peasant was so far safe that his
+station was a safeguard against any undue intimacy; while your half-gentry
+were truly perilous, for if you condescended to civility with them, they
+invariably mistook it for a friendship. Dr. Cloves dined every
+Christmas-day at the great house; but so did Mr. Scanlan and all the other
+heads of departments. It was a very grand and solemn festival, where
+neither host nor guest was happy; each felt that it was but the
+acquaintance of an hour, and that with the moment of leave-taking came
+back all the cold reserve of the day before.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-morning, Miss Cloves; good-day, Jane, and little Bessy,&rdquo; said Mary,
+as she overtook them.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-morning to you, Miss Martin,&rdquo; said Ellen, blushing with surprise at
+seeing her alone and on foot.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I trust the doctor is not ill? I don't see him with you,&rdquo; said Mary,
+anxious to relieve her momentary embarrassment.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Papa has been sent for to Knocktiernan, Miss Martin. They 're afraid that
+a case of cholera has occurred there.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;May God forbid!&rdquo; ejaculated Mary, with deep emotion; &ldquo;we have great
+distress and poverty around us. I hope we may be spared this scourge.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is what papa feared always,&rdquo; rejoined Ellen, gravely; &ldquo;that want and
+destitution would bring on the malady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you heard who it is is ill?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Simon Hanley, the carpenter, Miss Martin; he worked at the castle once&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes I remember him; he made me my first little garden-rake. Poor
+fellow! And he has a large family. Your father will, I trust, have seen
+him in time. Knocktiernan is but four miles of a good road.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Papa went by the Mills, Miss Martin, for shortness, for he was on foot.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why did he not ride?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He has sold Bluebell,&mdash;the pony, I mean, Miss Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mary's face became crimson with a blush that seemed to burn through the
+forehead into her very brain, and she could only mutter,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm sorry I did n't know; my carriage and pony were in the stable. If I
+had but heard of this&mdash;&rdquo; and was silent.
+</p>
+<p>
+They had now reached the entrance to the little churchyard, where the few
+members of the small flock lingered, awaiting the arrival of the
+clergyman. Amidst many a respectful salutation and gaze of affectionate
+interest, Mary walked to the end of the aisle, where, shrouded in heavy
+curtains, soft-cushioned and high-panelled, stood the castle pew.
+</p>
+<p>
+It must be, indeed, hard for the rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
+The very appliances of his piety are the offshoots of his voluptuous
+habits; and that his heart should feel humble, his hassock must be of
+down! It was not often that the words of the pastor were heard within that
+solemn, small enclosure with the same reverent devotion. Mary was now
+alone there; her mind no longer distracted by the petty incidents of their
+coming, her proud station seemed to have vanished, and she felt herself
+but as one of an humble flock, supplicating and in sorrow!
+</p>
+<p>
+Dr. Leslie had heard of the terrible visitation which menaced them, and
+made it the subject of his sermon. The fact of his own great age and fast
+declining strength gave a deeper meaning to all he said, and imparted to
+the faltering words of his benediction the solemnity of a farewell.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are a little fatigued to-day, doctor,&rdquo; said Mary, as he came out of
+church. &ldquo;Will you allow me to offer you my arm?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Willingly, my dear Miss Mary. But this is not our road.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why so?&mdash;this is the path to the vicarage.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They 've made some change, my dear; they 've altered the approach.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you came round by the avenue,&mdash;a distance of two miles?&rdquo; cried
+she, deep crimson with shame.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And kept you all waiting; but not very long, I trust,&rdquo; said he, smiling
+benevolently. &ldquo;But come, talk to me of yourself, and when I am to come and
+see you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, my dear Dr. Leslie, you must not think that I&mdash;that my uncle&mdash;&rdquo;
+ She stopped, and he pressed her hand gently, and said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do not speak of it; do not give importance to things which are trifles,
+if we have but good temper to leave them so. Is to-morrow a free day with
+you; or when shall I hope to find you at leisure?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear doctor, every day will be so in future; all my functions have
+ceased here. I am to be nothing in future.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I had heard something of that, and I said to myself, 'Now will Mary
+Martin display her real character. No longer carried away by the mere
+enthusiasm of her great power and her high station, not exalted to herself
+by the flatteries around her, we shall see whether the sterling qualities
+of her nature will not supply higher and greater resources than all the
+credit at a banker's!' I never undervalued all you did here, Mary Martin;
+I saw your noble purpose, even in failures; but I always felt that to make
+these efforts react favorably on yourself, there should be something of
+sacrifice. To do good was a luxury to you; and it was a luxury very easy
+to purchase. You were rich, you were powerful; none controlled you. Your
+benefits were acknowledged with all the enthusiasm of peasant gratitude.
+Why should you not be beneficent? what other course of conduct could bring
+you one half the pleasure? For the future, it is from another source you
+must dispense wealth; but happily it is one which there is no exhausting,
+for the heart exercised to charity has boundless stores. Let these be your
+riches now. Go amongst the people; learn to know them,&mdash;rather their
+friend than their benefactor,&mdash;and believe me that all the gold you
+have scattered so generously will not have sown such seeds of goodness as
+the meek example of your own noble submission to altered fortune. There,
+my dear,&rdquo; said he, smiling, &ldquo;I 'll say no more, lest you should tell me
+that I have preached half an hour already. And I may come to-morrow, you
+say?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a happiness it will be for me to speak to you!&rdquo; said Mary, ardently.
+&ldquo;There are so many things I want to say,&mdash;so much on which I need
+advice.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm but little practised in the ways of the world,&rdquo; said he, with a
+gentle sigh, &ldquo;but I have ever found great wisdom in an honest purpose; and
+then,&rdquo; added he, more warmly, &ldquo;it is a fine philosophy that secures us
+against humiliation, even in defeat!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+They now walked along for some time without speaking, when a sudden angle
+of the path brought them directly in front of the castle. They both halted
+suddenly, struck, as it were, by the aspect of the spacious and splendid
+structure, all silent and deserted. The doors were closed, the windows
+shuttered,&mdash;not a living creature moved about the precincts,&mdash;and
+the lone flagstaff on the tower unfurled no &ldquo;banner to the breeze.&rdquo; Even
+the trimly kept parterres were beginning to show signs of neglect, and
+tangled flowers fell across the gravel.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a lonely home for <i>her!</i>&rdquo; muttered the old doctor to himself;
+then suddenly exclaimed, &ldquo;Here comes some one in search of you, Miss
+Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And a servant approached and whispered a few words in her ear.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, immediately,&rdquo; said she, in reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+She entreated the old man to rest himself for a while ere he continued his
+walk homeward; but he declined, and with an affectionate farewell they
+parted,&mdash;he towards the vicarage, and she to re-enter the castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+There is no need to practise mystery with our reader; and he who had just
+arrived, and was eager to see Miss Martin, was only Maurice Scanlan! As
+little use is there also in denying the fact that Mary was much annoyed at
+his inopportune coming. She was in no mood of mind to meet either him or
+such topics as he would certainly discuss.
+</p>
+<p>
+However, she had, so to say, given him a permission to be admitted at all
+times, and there was no help for it!
+</p>
+<p>
+These same people that one &ldquo;must see,&rdquo; are very terrible inflictions
+sometimes. They are ever present at the wrong time and the wrong place.
+They come in moments when their presence is a discord to all our thoughts;
+and what is to the full as bad, they don't know it,&mdash;or they will not
+know it. They have an awful amount of self-esteem, and fancy that they
+never can be but welcome. A type of this class was Maurice Scanlan. Thrust
+forward by the accidents of life into situations for which nothing in his
+own humble beginnings seemed to adapt him, he had, like all the other
+Maurice Scanlans of the world, taken to suppose that he was really a very
+necessary and important ingredient in all affairs. He found, too, that his
+small cunning served to guide him, where really able men's wisdom failed
+them,&mdash;for so it is, people won't take soundings when they think they
+can see the bottom; and, finally, he conceived a very high opinion of his
+faculties, and thought them equal to much higher purposes than they had
+ever been engaged in.
+</p>
+<p>
+Since his last interview with Mary Martin, he had never ceased to
+congratulate himself on the glorious turn of his affairs. Though not
+over-sanguine about others, Maurice was always hopeful of himself. It is
+one of the characteristics of such men, and one of the greatest aids to
+their activity, this ever-present belief in themselves. To secure the good
+opinion he had already excited in his favor was now his great endeavor;
+and nothing could so effectually contribute to this, as to show an ardent
+zeal and devotion to her wishes. He had read somewhere of a certain envoy
+who had accomplished his mission ere it was believed he had set out; and
+he resolved to profit by the example. It was, then, in the full confidence
+of success, that he presented himself on this occasion.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary received him calmly, almost coldly. His presence was not in harmony
+with any thought that occupied her, and she deemed the task of admitting
+him something like an infliction.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I drove over, Miss Mary,&rdquo; said he, rather disconcerted by her reserve,&mdash;&ldquo;I
+drove over to-day, though I know you don't like business on a Sunday, just
+to say that I had completed that little matter you spoke of,&mdash;the
+money affair. I did n't sleep on it, but went to work at once; and though
+the papers won't be ready for some days, the cash is ready for you
+whenever you like to draw it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have been very kind and very prompt, sir,&rdquo; said she, thankfully, but
+with a languor that showed she was not thinking of the subject.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He said five per cent,&rdquo; continued Scanlan, &ldquo;and I made no objection; for,
+to tell you the truth, I expected he'd have asked us six,&mdash;he's
+generally a hard hand to deal with.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It was evident that he hoped her curiosity might have inquired the name of
+him thus alluded to; but she never did so, but heard the fact with a calm
+indifference.
+</p>
+<p>
+Scanlan was uneasy; his heaviest artillery had opened no breach. What
+should be his next manouvre?
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The money-market is tight just now,&rdquo; said he, speaking only to gain time
+for further observation; &ldquo;and there's worse times even before us.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+If Mary heard, she did not notice this gloomy speculation.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm sure it will be no easy job to get the last November rent paid up.
+It was a bad crop; and now there 's sickness coming amongst them,&rdquo; said
+he, half as though to himself. &ldquo;You'll have to excuse me to-day, Mr.
+Scanlan,&rdquo; said she, at last. &ldquo;I find I can think of nothing; I am in one
+of my idle moods.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure, why not, Miss Mary?&rdquo; said he, evidently piqued at the
+ill-success of all his zeal. &ldquo;It was <i>I</i> made a mistake. I fancied,
+somehow, you were anxious about this little matter; but another day will
+do as well,&mdash;whenever it's your own convenience.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are always considerate, always good-natured, Mr. Scanlan,&rdquo; said she,
+with a vagueness that showed she was scarcely conscious of what she
+uttered.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If <i>you</i> think so, Miss Mary, I 'm well repaid,&rdquo; said he, with a
+dash of gallantry in the tone; &ldquo;nor is it by a trifle like this I'd like
+to show my&mdash;my&mdash;my&mdash;devotion.&rdquo; And the last word came out
+with an effort that made his face crimson.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; muttered she, not hearing one word of his speech.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So that I'll come over to-morrow, Miss Mary,&rdquo; broke he in.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well, to-morrow!&rdquo; replied she, as still musing she turned to the
+window, no more thinking of the luckless attorney than if he had been
+miles away; and when at length she did look round, he was gone! It was
+some minutes ere Mary could perfectly reconcile herself to the fact that
+he had been there at all; but as to how and when and why he took his
+leave, were mysteries of which she could make nothing. And yet Mr. Scanlan
+had gone through a very ceremonious farewell. He had bowed, and sidled,
+and simpered, and smirked, and sighed; had thrown himself into attitudes
+pictorially devoted and despairing, looked unutterable things in various
+styles, and finally made an exit, covered with as much shame and
+discomfiture as so confident a spirit could well experience, muttering, as
+he paced the corridor, certain prospective reprisals for this haughty
+indifference, when a certain time should arrive, and a certain fair lady&mdash;But
+we have no right to push his speculations further than he himself indulged
+them; and on the present occasion Maurice was less sanguine than his wont.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I fed the mare, sir,&rdquo; said Barnes, as he held the stirrup for Scanlan to
+mount.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And gave her water, too,&rdquo; said the attorney, doggedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Devil a drop, then,&rdquo; resumed the other. &ldquo;I just sprinkled the oats, no
+more; that's Miss Mary's orders always.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She understands a stable well,&rdquo; said Scanlan, half questioning.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Does n't she?&rdquo; said the other, with a sententious smack of the lip. &ldquo;To
+bit a horse or to back him, to tache him his paces and cure him of bad
+tricks, to train him for harness, double and single, to show him the way
+over a wall or a wide ditch, to make him rise light and come down easy,
+she has n't a match on this island; and as for training,&rdquo; added he, with
+fresh breath, &ldquo;did you see Sir Lucius?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Scanlan, with awakened interest.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait till I bring him out, then. I'll show you a picture!&rdquo; And Barnes
+disappeared into the stable. In five minutes after, he returned, leading a
+dark brown horse, who, even shrouded in all the covering of hood and
+body-clothes, displayed in his long step and lounging gait the attributes
+of a racer.
+</p>
+<p>
+In a few minutes Barnes had unbuckled strap and surcingle, and sweeping
+back the blankets dexterously over the croup, so as not to ruffle a hair
+of the glossy coat, exhibited an animal of surpassing symmetry, in all the
+pride of high condition.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's a beast,&rdquo; said he, proudly, &ldquo;without speck or spot, brand or
+blemish about him! You 're a good judge of a horse, Mr. Scanlan; and tell
+me when did you see his equal?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He's a nice horse!&rdquo; said Scanlan, slowly, giving to each word a slow and
+solemn significance; then, casting a keen glance all around and over him,
+added, &ldquo;There 's a splint on the off leg!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So there is, the least taste in life,&rdquo; said Barnes, passing his hand
+lightly over it; &ldquo;and was there ever a horse&mdash;worth the name of a
+horse&mdash;that hadn't a splint? Sure, they 're foaled with them! I
+wanted Miss Mary to let me take that off with an ointment I have, but she
+would n't. 'It's not in the way of the tendon,' says she. 'It will never
+spoil his action, and we 'll not blemish him with a mark.' Them's her very
+words.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He's a nice horse,&rdquo; said Scanlan, once more, as if the very parsimony of
+the praise was the highest testimony of the utterer; &ldquo;and in rare
+condition, too,&rdquo; added he.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the very highest,&rdquo; said Barnes. &ldquo;He was as sure of that cup as I am
+that my name 's Tim.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What cup?&rdquo; asked Scanlan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Kiltimmon,&mdash;the June race; he's entered and all; and now he's to be
+sold,&mdash;them 's the orders I got yesterday; he's to be auctioned at
+Dycer's on Saturday for whatever he'll bring!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now, what do you expect for him, Barnes?&rdquo; said Maurice,
+confidentially.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sorrow one o' me knows. He might go for fifty,&mdash;he might go for two
+hundred and fifty! and cheap he'd be of it. He has racing speed over a
+flat course, and steeplechase action for his fences. With eleven stone on
+his back&mdash;one that can ride, I mean, of course&mdash;he 'd challenge
+all Ireland.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0014" id="linkimage-0014">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/418.jpg" width="100%" alt="418 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would n't mind making a bid for him myself,&rdquo; said Scanlan, hesitating
+between his jockeyism and the far deeper game which he was playing.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do then, sir, and don't draw him for the race, for he 'll win it as sure
+as I 'm here. 'T is Jemmy was to ride him; and Miss Mary would n't object
+to give you the boy, jacket and all, her own colors,&mdash;blue, with
+white sleeves.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think so, Barnes? Do you think she'd let me run him in the Martin
+colors?&rdquo; cried Scanlan, to whom the project now had suddenly assumed a
+most fascinating aspect.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What would you give for him?&rdquo; asked Barnes, in a business-like voice.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A hundred,&mdash;a hundred and fifty,&mdash;two hundred, if I was sure of
+what you say.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Leave it to me, sir,&mdash;leave it all to <i>me</i>,&rdquo; said Barnes, with
+the gravity of a diplomatist who understood his mission. &ldquo;Where can I see
+you to-morrow?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll be here about ten o'clock!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That will do,&mdash;enough said!&rdquo; And Barnes, replacing the horse-sheet,
+slowly re-entered the stable; while Scanlan, putting spurs to his nag,
+dashed hurriedly away, his thoughts outstripping in their speed the pace
+he went, and traversing space with a rapidity that neither &ldquo;blood&rdquo; nor
+training ever vied with.
+</p>
+<h4>
+END OF VOL. I.
+</h4>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of
+II), by Charles James Lever
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN ***
+
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+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,15762 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II), by
+Charles James Lever
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II)
+
+Author: Charles James Lever
+
+Illustrator: Phiz.
+
+Release Date: February 2, 2011 [EBook #35143]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN ***
+
+
+
+
+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 chateaux 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 Sevres, 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!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. KILKIERAN BAY
+
+In one of the many indentures of Kilkieran Bay,--favored by a
+southerly aspect and a fine sandy beach, sheltered by two projecting
+headlands,--stood a little row of cabins, originally the dwellings of
+poor fishermen, but now, in summer-time, the resort of the neighboring
+gentry, who frequented the coast for sea-bathing. There was little
+attempt made by the humble owners to accommodate the habits of the
+wealthy visitors. Some slight effort at neatness, or some modest
+endeavor at internal decoration, by a little window-curtain or a rickety
+chest of drawers, were the very extent of these pretensions. Year by
+year the progress of civilization went thus lazily forward; and, far
+from finding fault with this backwardness, it was said that the visitors
+were just as well satisfied. Many hoped to see the place as they
+remembered it in their own childhood, many were not sorry to avail
+themselves of its inexpensive life and simple habits, and some were more
+pleased that its humble attractions could draw no strangers to sojourn
+there to mock by their more costly requirements the quiet ways of the
+old residents.
+
+Under the shelter of a massive rock, which formed the northern boundary
+of the little bay, stood one building of more pretension. It was a
+handsome bathing-lodge, with a long veranda towards the sea, and an
+effort, not very successful, however, at a little flower-garden in
+front. The spacious bay-windows, which opened in French fashion, were
+of plate-glass; the deep projecting eave was ornamented with a handsome
+cornice; and the entire front had been richly decorated by entablatures
+in stucco and common cement. Still, somehow, there seemed to be a
+spiteful resistance in the climate to such efforts at embellishment.
+The wild hurricanes that swept over the broad Atlantic were not to be
+withstood by the frail timbers of the Gothic veranda. The sweeping gusts
+that sent foaming spray high over the rocky cliffs shattered the costly
+panes, and smashed even the mullions that held them; while fragments of
+carving, or pieces of stuccoed tracery, together with broken vases and
+uprooted shrubs, littered the garden and the terrace. The house was but
+a few years built, and yet was already dilapidated and ruinous-looking.
+A stout stone wall had replaced the trellised woodwork of one side of
+the porch; some of the windows were firmly barricaded with boards on the
+outside; and iron cramps and other appliances equally unsightly on the
+roof, showed by what means the slates were enabled to resist the storms.
+
+The aspect of consistent poverty never inspires ridicule. It is shabby
+gentility alone that provokes the smile of sarcastic meaning; and thus
+the simple dwellings of the fishermen, in all their humility, offered
+nothing to the eye of critical remark. There seemed abundant absurdity
+in this attempt to defy climate and aspect, place and circumstance; and
+every effort to repair an accident but brought out the pretension into
+more glaring contrast. The "Osprey's Nest," as Lady Dorothea Martin had
+styled her bathing-lodge, bore, indeed, but a sorry resemblance to its
+water-colored emblem in the plan of the architect; for Mr. Kirk had not
+only improvised a beautiful villa, with fuchsias and clematis and
+moss-roses clustering on it, but he had invented an Italian sky, and
+given a Lago Maggiore tint to the very Atlantic. Your fashionable
+architect is indeed a finished romancer, and revels in the license of
+his art with a most voluptuous abandonment.
+
+It was now, however, late in the autumn; some warnings of the
+approaching equinox had already been felt, and the leaden sky above, and
+the dark-green, sullen sea beneath, above which a cold northwester swept
+gustily, recalled but little of the artistic resemblance.
+
+The short September day was drawing to a close, and it was just that
+dreary interval between day and dusk, so glorious in fine weather,
+but so terribly depressing in the cold ungenial season, as all the
+frequenters of the little bay were hastening homeward for the night.
+Already a twinkling candle or two showed that some had retired to
+their humble shealings to grumble over the discomforts about them, and
+speculate on a speedy departure. They who visited Kilkieran during the
+"season" were usually the gentry families of the neighborhood; but
+as the summer wore over, their places were occupied by a kind of
+"half-price company,"--shopkeepers and smart residents of Oughterard,
+who waited for their pleasure till it could be obtained economically.
+Of this class were now those on the evening I have mentioned, and to a
+small select party of whom I now desire to introduce my reader.
+
+It was "Mrs. Cronan's Evening"--for the duty of host was taken
+in rotation--and Mrs. Cronan was one of the leaders of fashion in
+Oughterard, for she lived on her own private means, at the top of
+Carraway Street, entertained Father Maher every Sunday at dinner, and
+took in the "Galway Intelligence," which, it is but fair to say, was,
+from inverted letters and press blunders, about as difficult reading as
+any elderly lady ever confronted.
+
+Mrs. Cronan was eminently genteel,--that is to say, she spent her life
+in unceasing lamentations over the absence of certain comforts "she
+was always used to," and passed her days in continual reference to some
+former state of existence, which, to hear her, seemed almost borrowed
+bodily out of the "Arabian Nights." Then there was Captain Bodkin, of
+the Galway Fencibles,--a very fat, asthmatic old gentleman, who came
+down to the "salt water" every summer for thirty years, fully
+determined to bathe, but never able to summon courage to go in. He was
+a kind-hearted, jolly old fellow, who loved strong punch and long whist,
+and cared very little how the world went on, if these enjoyments were
+available.
+
+Then there was Miss Busk, a very tall, thin, ghostly personage, with a
+pinkish nose and a pinched lip, but whose manners were deemed the very
+type of high breeding, for she courtesied or bowed at almost
+minute intervals during an "Evening," and had a variety of personal
+reminiscences of the Peerage. She was of "an excellent family," Mrs.
+Cronan always said; and though reduced by circumstances, she was the
+Swan and Edgar of Oughterard,--"was company for the Queen herself."
+
+The fourth hand in the whist-table was usually taken by Mrs. Nelligan,
+wife of "Pat Nelligan," the great shopkeeper of Oughterard, and who,
+though by no means entitled on heraldic grounds to take her place in any
+such exalted company, was, by the happy accident of fortune, elevated to
+this proud position. Mrs. Nelligan being unwell, her place was, on the
+present occasion, supplied by her son; and of him I would fain say a few
+words, since the reader is destined to bear company with him when the
+other personages here referred to have been long forgotten.
+
+Joseph Nelligan was a tall, pale young fellow who, though only just
+passed twenty-two, looked several years older; the serious, thoughtful
+expression of his face giving the semblance of age. His head was large
+and massively shaped, and the temples were strong and square, deeply
+indented at the sides, and throwing the broad, high forehead into
+greater prominence; dark eyes, shaded by heavy, black eyebrows, lent
+an almost scowling character to a face which, regular in feature, was
+singularly calm and impassive-looking. His voice was deep, low, and
+sonorous, and though strongly impressed with the intonation of his
+native province, was peculiarly soft, and, to Irish ears, even musical.
+He was, however, remarkably silent; rarely or never conversed, as his
+acquaintances understood conversation, and only when roused by some
+theme that he cared for, or stimulated by some assertion that he
+dissented from, was he heard to burst forth into a rapid flow of words,
+uttered as though under the impulse of passion, and of which, when
+ended, he seemed actually to feel ashamed himself.
+
+He was no favorite with the society of Kilkieran; some thought him
+downright stupid; others regarded him as a kind of spy upon his
+neighbors,--an imputation most lavishly thrown out in every circle where
+there is nothing to detect, and where all the absurdity lies palpable on
+the surface; and many were heard to remark that he seemed to forget who
+he was, and that "though he was a college student, he ought to remember
+he was only Pat Nelligan's son."
+
+If he never courted their companionship, he as little resented their
+estrangement from him. He spent his days and no small share of his
+nights in study; books supplied to him the place of men, and in their
+converse he forgot the world. His father's vanity had entered him as
+a Fellow-Commoner in the University, and even this served to widen
+the interval between him and those of his own age; his class-fellows
+regarded his presence amongst them as an intolerable piece of low-bred
+presumption. Nor was this unkindly feeling diminished when they saw him,
+term after term, carry away the prizes of each examination; for equally
+in science as in classics was he distinguished, till at length it became
+a current excuse for failure when a man said, "I was in Nelligan's
+division."
+
+It is not impossible that his social isolation contributed much to his
+success. For him there were none of the amusements which occupy those of
+his own age. The very fact of his fellow-commoner's gown separated him
+as widely from one set of his fellow-students as from the other, and
+thus was he left alone with his ambition. As time wore on, and his
+successes obtained wider notoriety, some of those in authority in the
+University appeared to be disposed to make advances to him; but he
+retreated modestly from these marks of notice, shrouding himself in
+his obscurity, and pleading the necessity for study. At length came
+the crowning act of his college career, in the examination for the gold
+medal; and although no competitor was bold enough to dispute the prize
+with him, he was obliged to submit to the ordeal. It is rarely that the
+public vouchsafes any interest in the details of University honors; but
+this case proved an exception, and almost every journal of the capital
+alluded in terms of high paneygric to the splendid display he made on
+that occasion.
+
+In the very midst of these triumphs, young Nelligan arrived at his
+father's house in Oughterard, to enjoy the gratification his success had
+diffused at home, and rest himself after his severe labors. Little as
+old Pat Nelligan of his neighbors knew of University honors, or the
+toil which won them, there was enough in the very publicity of his son's
+career to make him a proud man. He at least knew that Joe had beaten
+them all; that none could hold a candle to him; "that for nigh a century
+such answering had not been heard on the bench." This was the expression
+of a Dublin journal, coupled with the partisan regret that, by the
+bigoted statutes of the college, genius of such order should be denied
+the privilege of obtaining a fellowship.
+
+If young Nelligan retired, half in pride, half in bashful-ness, from the
+notice of society in Dublin, he was assuredly little disposed to enter
+into the gayeties and dissipations of a small country-town existence.
+The fulsome adulation of some, the stupid astonishment of others, but,
+worse than either, the vulgar assumption that his success was a kind of
+party triumph,--a blow dealt by the plebeian against the patrician, the
+Papist against the Protestant,--shocked and disgusted him, and he was
+glad to leave Oughterard and accompany his mother to the seaside. She
+was an invalid of some years' standing,--a poor, frail, simple-hearted
+creature, who, after a long, struggling life of hardship and toil, saw
+herself in affluence and comfort, and yet could not bring her mind to
+believe it true. As little could she comprehend the strange fact of
+Joe's celebrity; of his name figuring in newspapers, and his health
+being drunk at a public dinner in his native town. To her he was
+invaluable; the very tenderest of nurses, and the best of all
+companions. She did n't care for books, even those of the most amusing
+kind; but she loved to hear the little gossip of the place where the
+neighbors passed the evening; what topics they discussed; who had left
+and who had arrived, and every other little incident of their uneventful
+lives. Simple and easy of execution as such an office might have been
+to a kindred spirit, to Joseph Nelligan it proved no common labor. And
+certain it is that the mistakes he committed in names, and the blunders
+he fell into as regarded events, rather astonished his mother, and
+led that good lady to believe that Trinity College must not have
+been fertile in genius when poor Joe was regarded as one of the great
+luminaries of his time. "Ah," would she say, "if he had his father's
+head it would be telling him! but, poor boy, he remembers nothing!"
+
+This digression--far longer than I cared to make it, but which has grown
+to its present extent under my hands--will explain young Nelligan's
+presence at Mrs. Cronan's "Tea," where already a number of other
+notables had now assembled, and were gracefully dispersed through the
+small rooms which formed her apartment. Play of various kinds formed the
+chief amusement of the company; and while the whist-table, in decorous
+gravity, held the chief place in the sitting-room, a laughing round game
+occupied the kitchen, and a hardly contested "hit" of backgammon
+was being fought out on the bed, where, for lack of furniture, the
+combatants had established themselves.
+
+The success of an evening party is not always proportionate to the means
+employed to secure it. Very splendid _salons_, costly furniture,
+and what newspapers call "all the delicacies of the season," are
+occasionally to be found in conjunction with very dull company; while
+a great deal of enjoyment and much social pleasure are often to be
+met with where the material resources have been of the fewest and most
+simple kind. On the present occasion there was a great deal of laughing,
+and a fair share of love-making; some scolding at whist, and an
+abundance of scandal, at least of that cut-and-thrust-at character which
+amuses the speakers themselves, and is never supposed to damage those
+who are the object of it. All the company who had frequented the
+port--as Kilkieran was called--during the season were passed in review,
+and a number of racy anecdotes interchanged about their rank, morals,
+fortune, and pretensions. A very general impression seemed to prevail
+that in the several points of climate, scenery, social advantages, and
+amusements, Kilkieran might stand a favorable comparison with the first
+watering-places, not alone of England, but the Continent; and after
+various discursive reasons why its fame had not equalled its deserts,
+there was an almost unanimous declaration of opinion that the whole
+fault lay with the Martins; not, indeed, that the speakers were very
+logical in their arguments, since some were heard to deplore the change
+from the good old times, when everybody was satisfied to live anywhere
+and anyhow, when there was no road to the place but a bridle-path, not
+a loaf of bread to be had within twelve miles, no post-office; while
+others eloquently expatiated on all that might have been, and yet was
+not done.
+
+"We tried to get up a little news-room," said Captain Bodkin, "and I
+went to Martin myself about it, but he hum'd and ha'd, and said, until
+people subscribed for the Dispensary he thought they needn't mind
+newspapers."
+
+"Just like him," said Mrs. Cronan; "but, indeed, I think it's my Lady
+does it all."
+
+"I differ from you, ma'am," said Miss Busk, with a bland smile; "I
+attribute the inauspicious influence to another."
+
+"You mean Miss Martin?" said Mrs. Cronan.
+
+"Just so, ma'am; indeed, I have reason to know I am correct. This time
+two years it was I went over to Cro' Martin House to propose opening 'my
+Emporium' for the season at the port. I thought it was due to the owners
+of the estate, and due to myself also," added Miss Busk, majestically,
+"to state my views about a measure so intimately associated with
+the--the--in fact, what I may call the interests of civilization. I
+had just received my plates of the last fashions from Dublin,--you may
+remember them, ma'am; I showed them to you at Mrs. Cullenane's--well,
+when I was in the very middle of my explanation, who should come into
+the room but Miss Martin--"
+
+"Dressed in the old brown riding-habit?" interposed a fat old lady with
+one eye.
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Few, in the old brown riding-habit. She came up to the table,
+with a saucy laugh in her face, and said, 'Why, uncle, are you going to
+give a fancy ball?'
+
+"'It is the last arrival from Paris, miss,' said I; 'the Orleans mantle,
+which, though not a "costume de Chasse," is accounted very becoming.'
+
+"'Ah, you 're laughing at my old habit, Miss Busk,' said she, seeing
+how I eyed her; 'and it really is very shabby, but I intend to give Dan
+Leary a commission to replace it one of these days.'"
+
+"Dan Leary, of the Cross-roads!" exclaimed Captain Bodkin, laughing.
+
+"I pledge you my word of honor, sir, she said it. 'And as to all this
+finery, Miss Busk,' said she, turning over the plates with her whip, 'it
+would be quite unsuitable to our country, our climate, and our habits;
+not to say, that the Orleans mantle would be worn with an ill grace when
+our people are going half naked!'"
+
+"Positively indecent! downright indelicate!" shuddered Mrs. Cronan.
+
+"And did Martin agree with her?" asked the Captain.
+
+"I should like to know when he dared to do otherwise. Why, between my
+lady and the niece he can scarcely call his life his own."
+
+"They say he has a cruel time of it," sighed Mr. Clinch, the
+revenue-officer, who had some personal experience of domestic slavery.
+
+"Tush,--nonsense!" broke in his wife. "I never knew one of those
+hen-pecked creatures that was n't a tyrant in his family. I 'll engage,
+if the truth were known, Lady Dorothy has the worst of it."
+
+"Faith, and he's much altered from what he was when a boy, if any
+one rules him," said the captain. "I was at school with him and his
+twin-brother Barry. I remember the time when one of them had to wear a
+bit of red ribbon in his button-hole to distinguish him from the other.
+They were the born images of each other,--that is, in looks; for in
+real character they were n't a bit like. Godfrey was a cautious, quiet,
+careful chap that looked after his pocket-money, and never got into
+scrapes; and Barry was a wasteful devil that made the coin fly, and
+could be led by any one. I think he 'd have given his life for his
+brother any day. I remember once when Godfrey would n't fight a boy,--I
+forget what it was about; Barry stole the bit of ribbon out of his coat,
+and went up and fought in his place; and a mighty good thrashing he got,
+too."
+
+"I have heard my father speak of that," said a thin, pale, careworn
+little man in green spectacles; "for the two boys were taken away at
+once, and it was the ruin of the school."
+
+"So it was, doctor; you're right there," broke in the Captain; "and they
+say that Martin bears a grudge against you to this day."
+
+"That would be hard," sighed the meek doctor; "for I had nothing to
+do with it, or my father, either. But it cost him dearly!" added he,
+mournfully.
+
+"You know best, doctor, whether it is true or not; but he certainly was
+n't your friend when you tried for the Fever Hospital."
+
+"That was because Pat Nelligan was on my committee," said the doctor.
+
+"And was that sufficient to lose you Mr. Martin's support, sir?" asked
+young Nelligan, with a degree of astonishment in his face, that, joined
+to the innocence of the question, caused a general burst of hearty
+laughter.
+
+"The young gentleman knows more about _cubic_ sections, it appears,
+than of what goes on in his own town," said the Captain. "Why, sir,
+your father is the most independent man in all Oughterard; and if I know
+Godfrey Martin, he 'd give a thousand guineas this night to have him out
+of it."
+
+A somewhat animated "rally" followed this speech, in which different
+speakers gave their various reasons why Martin ought or ought not to
+make any sacrifice to put down the spirit of which Pat Nelligan was the
+chief champion. These arguments were neither cogent nor lucid enough to
+require repeating; nor did they convey to Joseph himself, with all
+his anxiety for information, the slightest knowledge on the subject
+discussed. Attention was, however, drawn off the theme by the clattering
+sound of a horse passing along the shingly shore at a smart gallop;
+and with eager curiosity two or three rushed to the door to see what
+it meant. A swooping gust of wind and rain, overturning chairs and
+extinguishing candles, drove them suddenly back again; and, half
+laughing at the confusion, half cursing the weather, the party
+barricaded the door, and returned to their places.
+
+"Of course it was Miss Martin; who else would be out at this time of the
+night?" said Mrs. Clinch.
+
+"And without a servant!" exclaimed Miss Busk.
+
+"Indeed, you may well make the remark, ma'am," said Mrs. Cronan. "The
+young lady was brought up in a fashion that was n't practised in my
+time!"
+
+"Where could she have been down that end of the port, I wonder?" said
+Mrs. Clinch. "She came up from Garra Cliff."
+
+"Maybe she came round by the strand," said the doctor; "if she did, I
+don't think there 's one here would like to have followed her."
+
+"I would n't be her horse!" said one; "nor her groom!" muttered another;
+and thus, gradually lashing themselves into a wild indignation, they
+opened, at last, a steady fire upon the young lady,--her habits, her
+manners, and her appearance all coming in for a share of criticism; and
+although a few modest amendments were put in favor of her horsemanship
+and her good looks, the motion was carried that no young lady ever took
+such liberties before, and that the meeting desired to record their
+strongest censure on the example thus extended to their own young
+people.
+
+If young Nelligan ventured upon a timid question of what it was she
+had done, he was met by an eloquent chorus of half a dozen voices,
+recounting mountain excursions which no young lady had ever made before;
+distant spots visited, dangers incurred, storms encountered, perils
+braved, totally unbecoming to her in her rank of life, and showing that
+she had no personal respect, nor--as Miss Busk styled it--"a
+proper sense of the dignity of woman!"
+
+"'T was down at Mrs. Nelligan's, ma'am, Miss Mary was," said Mrs.
+Cronan's maid, who had been despatched special to make inquiry on the
+subject.
+
+"At my mother's!" exclaimed Joseph, reddening, without knowing in the
+least why. And now a new diversion occurred, while all discussed every
+possible and impossible reason for this singular fact, since the family
+at the "Nest" maintained no intercourse whatever with their neighbors,
+not even seeming, by any act of their lives, to acknowledge their very
+existence.
+
+Young Nelligan took the opportunity to make his escape during the
+debate; and as the society offers nothing very attractive to detain us,
+it will be as well if we follow him, while he hastened homeward along
+the dark and storm-lashed beach. He had about a mile to go, and, short
+as was this distance, it enabled him to think over what he had just
+heard, strange and odd as it seemed to his ears. Wholly given up, as he
+had been for years past, to the ambition of a college life, with but one
+goal before his eyes, one class of topics engrossing his thoughts, he
+had never even passingly reflected on the condition of parties, the
+feuds of opposing factions, and, stronger than either, the animosities
+that separated social ranks in Ireland. Confounding the occasional
+slights he had experienced by virtue of his class, with the jealousy
+caused by his successes, he had totally overlooked the disparagement men
+exhibited towards the son of the little country shopkeeper, and never
+knew of his disqualification for a society whose precincts he had not
+tried to pass. The littleness, the unpurpose-like vacuity, the intense
+vulgarity of his Oughterard friends had disgusted him, it is true; but
+he had yet to learn that the foolish jealousy of their wealthy
+neighbor was a trait still less amiable, and ruminating over these
+problems,--knottier far to him than many a complex formula or many a
+disputed reading of a Greek play,--he at last reached the solitary
+little cabin where his mother lived.
+
+It is astonishing how difficult men of highly cultivated and actively
+practised minds find it to comprehend the little turnings and windings
+of commonplace life, the jealousies and the rivalries of small people.
+They search for motives where there are merely impulses, and look for
+reasons when there are simple passions.
+
+It was only as he lifted the latch that he remembered how deficient
+he was in all the information his mother would expect from him. Of the
+fortunes of the whist-table he actually knew nothing; and had he been
+interrogated as to the "toilette" of the party, his answers would have
+betrayed a lamentable degree of ignorance. Fortunately for him, his
+mother did not display her habitual anxiety on these interesting themes.
+She neither asked after the Captain's winnings,--he was the terror of
+the party,--nor whether Miss Busk astonished the company by another new
+gown. Poor Mrs. Nelligan was too brimful of another subject to admit
+of one particle of extraneous matter to occupy her. With a proud
+consciousness, however, of her own resources, she affected to have
+thoughts for other things, and asked Joe if he passed a pleasant day?
+
+"Yes, very--middling--quite so--rather stupid, I thought," replied he,
+in his usual half-connected manner, when unable to attach his mind to
+the question before him.
+
+"Of, course, my dear, it's very unlike what you 're used to up in
+Dublin, though I believe that Captain Bodkin, when he goes there, always
+dines with the Lord-Lieutenant; and Miss Busk, I know, is second cousin
+to Ram of Swainestown, and there is nothing better than that in Ireland.
+I say this between ourselves, for your father can't bear me to talk of
+family or connections, though I am sure I was always brought up to
+think a great deal about good blood; and if my father was a Finnerty, my
+mother was a Moore of Crockbawn, and her family never looked at her for
+marrying my father."
+
+"Indeed!" said Joe, in a dreamy semi-consciousness.
+
+"It's true what I 'm telling you. She often said it to me herself, and
+told me what a blessing it was, through all her troubles and trials in
+life; and she had her share of them, for my father was often in drink,
+and very cruel at times. 'It supports me,' she used to say, 'to remember
+who I am, and the stock I came from, and to know that there 's not one
+belonging to me would speak to me, nor look at the same side of the road
+with me, after what I done; and, Matty,' said she to me, 'if ever it
+happens to you to marry a man beneath you in life, always bear in
+mind that, no matter how he treats you, you 're better than him.' And,
+indeed, it's a great support and comfort to one's feelings, after all,"
+said she, with a deep sigh.
+
+"I'm certain of it," muttered Joe, who had not followed one word of the
+harangue.
+
+"But mind that you never tell your father so. Indeed, I would n't let on
+to him what happened this evening."
+
+"What was that?" asked the young man, roused by the increased anxiety of
+her manner.
+
+"It was a visit I had, my dear," replied the old lady, with a simpering
+consciousness that she had something to reveal,--"it was a visit I had
+paid me, and by an elegant young lady, too."
+
+"A young lady? Not Miss Cassidy, mother. I think she left yesterday
+morning."
+
+"No, indeed, my dear. Somebody very different from Miss Cassidy; and you
+might guess till you were tired before you 'd think of Miss Martin."
+
+"Miss Martin!" echoed Joe.
+
+"Exactly so. Miss Martin of Cro' Martin; and the way it happened was
+this. I was sitting here alone in the room after my tea,--for I sent
+Biddy out to borrow the 'Intelligence' for me; and then comes a sharp
+knock to the door, and I called out, 'Come in;' but instead of doing so
+there was another rapping, louder than before, and I said, 'Bother you,
+can't you lift the latch?' and then I heard something like a laugh, and
+so I went out; and you may guess the shame I felt as I saw a young
+lady fastening the bridle of her horse to the bar of the window. 'Mrs.
+Nelli-gan, I believe,' said she, with a smile and a look that warmed
+my heart to her at once; and as I courtesied very low, she went on. I
+forget, indeed, the words,--whether she said she was Miss Martin, or
+it was I that asked the question; but I know she came in with me to the
+room, and sat down where you are sitting now. 'Coming back from Kyle's
+Wood this morning,' said she, 'I overtook poor Billy with the post. He
+was obliged to go two miles out of his way to ford the river; and what
+with waiting for the mail, which was late in coming, and what with being
+wet through, he was completely knocked up; so I offered to take the bag
+for him, and send it over to-morrow by one of our people. But the poor
+fellow would n't consent, because he was charged with something of
+consequence for you,--a small bottle of medicine. Of course I was only
+too happy to take this also, Mrs. Nelligan, and here it is.' And with
+that she put it on the table, where you see it. I 'm sure I never knew
+how to thank her enough for her good nature, but I said all that I could
+think of, and told her that my son was just come back from college,
+after getting the gold medal."
+
+"You did n't speak of that, mother," said he, blushing till his very
+forehead was crimson.
+
+"Indeed, then, I did, Joe; and I 'd like to know why I would n't. Is it
+a shame or a disgrace to us! At any rate, _she_ didn't think so, for she
+said, 'You must be very proud of him;' and I told her so I was, and that
+he was as good as he was clever; and, moreover, that the newspapers said
+the time was coming when men like young Nelligan would soar their way up
+to honors and distinctions in spite of the oppressive aristocracy that
+so long had combined to degrade them."
+
+"Good Heavens! mother, you could n't have made such a speech as that?"
+cried he, in a voice of downright misery.
+
+"Did n't I, then? And did n't she say, if there were any such oppression
+as could throw obstacles in the way of deserving merit, she heartily
+hoped it might prove powerless; and then she got up to wish me
+good-evening. I thought, at first, a little stiffly,--that is, more
+haughty in her manner than at first; but when I arose to see her out,
+and she saw I was lame, she pressed me down into my chair, and said, in
+such a kind voice, 'You must n't stir, my dear Mrs. Nelligan. I, who can
+find my road over half of the county, can surely discover my way to the
+door.' 'Am I ever like to have the happiness of seeing you again, miss?'
+said I, as I held her hand in mine. 'Certainly, if it would give you the
+very slightest pleasure,' said she, pressing my hand most cordially; and
+with that we parted. Indeed, I scarce knew she was gone, when I heard
+the clattering of the horse over the shingle; for she was away in
+a gallop, dark as the night was. Maybe," added the old lady, with a
+sigh,--"maybe, I 'd have thought it was all a dream if it was n't that I
+found that glove of hers on the floor; she dropped it, I suppose, going
+out."
+
+Young Nelligan took up the glove with a strange feeling of bashful
+reverence. It was as though he was touching a sacred relic; and he stood
+gazing on it steadfastly for some seconds.
+
+"I 'll send it over to the house by Biddy, with my compliments, and to
+know how the family is, in the morning," said Mrs. Nelligan, with the
+air of one who knew the value of conventional usages.
+
+"And she 'll make some stupid blunder or other," replied Joe,
+impatiently, "that will cover us all with shame. No, mother, I 'd rather
+go with it myself than that."
+
+"To be sure, and why not?" said Mrs. Nelligan. "There 's no reason why
+_you_ should be taking up old quarrels against the Martins; for _my_
+part, I never knew the country so pleasant as it used to be long ago,
+when we used to get leave to go picnicking on the grounds of Cro'
+Martin, up to the Hermitage, as they called it; and now the gates are
+locked and barred like a jail, and nobody allowed in without a ticket."
+
+"Yes, I'll go myself with it," said Joe, who heard nothing of
+his mother's remark, but was following out the tract of his own
+speculations. As little did he attend to the various suggestions she
+threw out for his guidance and direction, the several topics to which he
+might, and those to which he must not, on any account, allude.
+
+"Not a word, for your life, Joe, about the right of pathway to Clune
+Abbey, and take care you say nothing about the mill-race at Glandaff,
+nor the shooting in Kyle's Wood. And if by any chance there should be a
+talk about the tolls at Oughterard, say you never heard of them before.
+Make out, in fact," said she, summing up, "as if you never heard of
+a county where there was so much good-will and kindness between the
+people; and sure it is n't your fault if it's not true!" And with this
+philosophic reflection Mrs. Nelligan wished her son good-night, and
+retired.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. AN AUTUMN MORNING IN THE WEST
+
+The Osprey's Nest was, I have said, like a direct challenge hurled at
+the face of western gales and Atlantic storms. With what success, its
+aspect of dilapidation and decay but too plainly betrayed. The tangled
+seaweed that hung in dripping festoons over the porch, the sea-shells
+that rattled against the window-panes, seemed like an angry denunciation
+of the attempt to brave the elements by the mere appliances of ease and
+luxury.
+
+It was better, however, in the inside, where, in a roomy apartment, most
+comfortably furnished, a lady and gentleman sat at breakfast. The table
+stood in a little projection of the room, admitting of a wide sea-view
+over the bay and the distant islands of Lettermullen, but as carefully
+excluded all prospect of the port,--a locality which held no high place
+in the esteem of the lady of the house, and which, by ignoring, she half
+fancied she had annihilated. Wild promontories of rocks, jutting out
+here and there, broke the coast line, and marked the shore with a
+foaming stream of white water, as the ever-restless sea dashed over
+them. The long booming swell of the great ocean bounded into many a
+rocky cavern, with a loud report like thunder, and issued forth again
+with a whole cataract of falling stones, that rattled like the crash
+of small-arms. It was unceasing, deafening clamor in the midst of
+death-like desolation.
+
+Let me, however, turn once more to the scene within, and present the
+living elements to my reader. They were both past the prime of life.
+The lady might still be called handsome; her features were perfectly
+regular, and finely cut, bearing the impress of a proud and haughty
+spirit that never quailed beneath the conflict of a long life, and even
+yet showed a firm front to fortune. Her hair was white as snow; and as
+she wore it drawn back, after the fashion of a bygone time, it gave
+her the air of a fine lady of the old French Court, in all the pomp of
+powder and pomatum. Nor did her dress correct the impression, since the
+deep falls of lace that covered her hands, the lengthy stomacher, and
+trailing folds of her heavy brocade gown, all showed a lurking fondness
+for the distinctive toilette of that era. Lady Dorothea Martin had been
+a beauty and an earl's daughter; two facts that not even the seclusion
+of the wild west could erase from her memory.
+
+Mr. Martin himself was no unworthy "pendant" to this portrait. He was
+tall and stately, with a lofty forehead, and temples finely and
+well fashioned; while full, deep-set blue eyes of the very sternest
+determination, and a mouth, every line of which betrayed firmness, gave
+the character to a face that also could expand into the most genial
+good-fellowship, and become at times the symbol of a pleasant and
+convivial Irish gentleman. In his youth he had been a beau of the Court
+of Versailles. Scandal had even coupled his name with that of Marie
+Antoinette; and more truthful narratives connected him with some of the
+most extravagant adventures of that profligate and brilliant period.
+After a career of the wildest dissipation and excess, he had married,
+late in life, the daughter of the Earl of Exmere, one of the proudest
+and poorest names in the British Peerage. Two or three attempts to shine
+in the world of London,--not as successful as they were expected to
+have proved,--an effort at ascendancy in Irish political life, also a
+failure, coupled with disappointment on the score of an only brother,
+who had married beneath him, and was reputed to have "lost himself,"
+seemed to have disgusted Godfrey Martin with the world, and he had
+retired to his lonely mansion in the west, which now for eighteen years
+he had scarcely quitted for a single day.
+
+His only son had joined a cavalry regiment in India a few years before
+the period our story opens, and which, I may now state, dates for about
+four or five and twenty years back; but his family included a niece,
+the only child of his brother, and whose mother had died in giving her
+birth.
+
+Between Mr. Martin and Lady Dorothea, as they sat at breakfast,
+little conversation passed. He occupied himself with the newly arrived
+newspapers, and she perused a mass of letters which had just come by
+that morning's post; certain scraps of the intelligence gleaned from
+either of these sources forming the only subjects of conversation
+between them.
+
+"So they have resolved to have a new Parliament. I knew it would come
+to that; I always said so; and, as usual, the dissolution finds us
+unprepared."
+
+"Plantagenet's regiment is ordered to Currachee, wherever that may be,"
+said Lady Dorothea, languidly.
+
+"Call him Harry, and we shall save ourselves some trouble in discussing
+him," replied he, pettishly. "At all events, he cannot possibly be here
+in time for the contest; and we must, I suppose, give our support to
+Kilmorris again."
+
+"Do you mean, after his conduct about the harbor, and the shameful way
+he sneaked out of the Port Martin project?"
+
+"Find anything better, madam; there is the difficulty. Kilmorris is
+a gentleman, and no Radical; and, as times go, these are rather rare
+qualities."
+
+"Lady Sarah Upton's match is off," said Lady Dorothea, reading from a
+note beside her. "Sir Joseph insisted upon the uncontrolled possession
+of all her Staffordshire property."
+
+"And perfectly right."
+
+"Perfectly wrong to give it to him."
+
+"A fool if he married without it."
+
+"A mean creature she, to accept him on such terms."
+
+"The woman is eight-and-thirty,--if not more. I remember her at
+Tunbridge. Let me see, what year was it?"
+
+"I detest dates, and abhor chronologies. Reach me the marmalade," said
+Lady Dorothea, superciliously.
+
+"What's this balderdash here from the 'Galway Indicator'? 'The haughty
+and insolent, aye, and ignorant aristocracy will have to swallow a
+bitter draught erelong; and such petty despots as Martin of Cro' Martin
+will learn that the day is gone by for their ascendancy in this county.'
+
+"They tell me we have a law of libel in the land; and yet see how this
+scoundrel can dare to drag me by name before the world; and I 'll wager
+a thousand pounds I 'd fail to get a verdict against him if I prosecuted
+him to-morrow," said Martin, as he dashed the newspaper to the ground,
+and stamped his foot upon it. "We are constantly reading diatribes about
+absentee landlords, and the evils of neglected property; but I ask, what
+inducements are there held out to any gentleman to reside on his estate,
+if every petty scribbler of the press can thus attack and assail him
+with impunity?"
+
+"Is that Mary I see yonder?" asked Lady Dorothea, languidly, as she
+lifted her double eye-glass, and then suffered it to fall from her
+fingers.
+
+"So it is, by Jove!" cried Martin, springing up, and approaching the
+window. "I wish she 'd not venture out in that small boat in this
+treacherous season. What a swell there is, too! The wind is from the
+sea."
+
+"She's coming in, I fancy," drawled out Lady Dorothea.
+
+"How is she to do it, though?" exclaimed he, hurriedly; "the sea is
+breaking clear over the piers of the harbor. I can only see one man in
+the boat. What rashness! what folly! There, look, they're standing out
+to sea again!" And now, throwing open the window, Martin stepped out
+on the rocks, over which the white foam flashed by like snow. "What
+are they at, Peter? What are they trying to do?" cried he to an old
+fisherman, who, with the coil of a net he was just mending on his arm,
+had now come down to the shore to watch the boat.
+
+"They 're doing right, your honor," said he, touching his cap
+respectfully. "'Tis Loony my Lady has in the boat, and there's no better
+man in trouble! He's just going to beat out a bit, and then he 'll run
+in under the shelter of the blue rocks. Faix, she 's a fine boat, then,
+for her size,--look at her now!"
+
+But Martin had covered his eyes with his hand, while his lips murmured
+and moved rapidly.
+
+"May I never, but they 're letting out the reef!" screamed the old man
+in terror.
+
+"More sail, and in such a sea!" cried Martin, in a voice of horror.
+
+"Aye, and right, too," said the fisherman, after a pause; "she 's rising
+lighter over the sea, and steers better, besides. It's Miss Mary has the
+tiller," added the old fellow, with a smile. "I 'll lay a shilling she
+'s singing this minute."
+
+"You think so," said Martin, glad to catch at this gleam of confidence.
+
+"I know it well, your honor. I remember one day, off Lettermullen, it
+was worse than this. Hurrah!" screamed he out suddenly; "she took in a
+great sea that time!"
+
+"Get out a boat, Peter, at once; what are we standing here for?" cried
+Martin, angrily. "Man a boat this instant."
+
+"Sure no boat could get out to sea with this wind, sir," remonstrated
+the old man, mildly; "she'd never leave the surf if she had forty men at
+her!"
+
+"Then what's to be done?"
+
+"Just let them alone; themselves two know as well what to do as any
+pair in Ireland, and are as cool besides. There, now, she 's putting her
+about, as I said, and she 'll run for the creek." The frail boat, a mere
+speck upon the dark green ocean, seemed now to fly, as with a slackened
+sheet she darted over the water. Her course was bent for a little cove
+concealed from view by a rugged promontory of rock, up which the old
+fisherman now clambered with the alacrity of a younger man. Martin tried
+to follow; but overcome by emotion, he was unable, and sat down upon a
+ledge of rock, burying his face within his hands.
+
+By this time the whole fishing population of the little village had
+gathered on the beach around the cove, to watch the boat as she came in;
+numbers had gone out to meet her, and stood up to their waists in the
+white and boiling surf, ready to seize upon the skiff and run her high
+and dry upon the sand. Even they were obliged to be lashed together by
+a rope, lest the receding waves should carry them out to sea, or the
+"under tow" suck them beneath the surface. As the boat came within
+speaking distance, a wild shout arose from the shore to "down sail" and
+suffer her to come in on her way alone; but with all the canvas spread,
+they came flying along, scarce seeming more than to tip the waves as
+they skipped over them, while a shower of spray appeared to cover them
+as the sea broke upon the stern. Instead of rendering aid, the utmost
+the fishermen could do was to clear a path amongst them for the skiff to
+pass, as with lightning speed she flitted by and drove her bow high up
+on the hard beach.
+
+A wild, glad cheer of joy and welcome burst from the hearty fishermen
+as they crowded about the young girl, who stepped out of the boat with
+a heavy bundle in her arms. Her hair hung in great masses over her neck
+and shoulders, her cheeks were flushed, and her dark eyes gleamed with
+all the excitement of peril and triumph.
+
+"Here, Margaret," said she to a young woman, who, pale with terror and
+with face streaming in tears, rushed towards her,--"here 's your little
+fellow, all safe and sound; I 'd not have put back but for his sake."
+And with this she placed in his mother's arms a little boy of about
+three years of age, sound asleep. "He must wait for better weather if
+he wants to see his grandmother. And," added she, laughing, "I scarcely
+think you 'll catch me going to sea again with so precious a cargo. Poor
+little man!" and she patted his ruddy cheeks; "he behaved so well, like
+a stout fisherman's son as he is,--never showed fear for a moment."
+
+A murmur of delighted hearts ran through the crowd; some thinking of the
+child, but many more in warm admiration of the brave and beautiful young
+girl before them. "Loony," said she to her boatman, "when you 've got
+the tackle to rights, come up to the house for your breakfast." And
+with that, and a few words of grateful recognition as she passed, she
+clambered up the rock and hastened homeward.
+
+As for her uncle, no sooner had he heard of her safe arrival on shore
+than he hurried back, anxious to reach the house before her. For a
+considerable time back Martin had schooled himself into an apparent
+indifference about his niece's perils. Lady Dorothea had probably given
+the initiative to this feeling by constantly asserting that the young
+lady would incur few risks when they ceased to create alarm.
+
+It was a somewhat ungracious theory, and excited in Martin's mind, when
+he first heard it, a sensation the very reverse of agreeable. Without
+accepting its truth, however, it made a deep impression upon him, and
+at last, by way of policy, he resolved to feign a degree of callous
+indifference very foreign to his nature; and, by dint of mere habit, he
+at length acquired a semblance of calm under circumstances that sorely
+tested his powers of self-control.
+
+"Has the heroine arrived safe on shore?" asked Lady Dorothea in her own
+languid drawl. And Martin almost started at the question, and seemed for
+a moment as if the indignation it excited could not be repressed; then
+smiling superciliously at the impassive air of her features, he said,--
+
+"Yes, and by rare good luck, too! The sea is a terrific one this
+morning!"
+
+"Is it ever anything else in this heavenly climate?" said she, sighing.
+"I have counted two fine days since the 8th of June; and, indeed, it
+rained a little on one of them."
+
+Martin winced impatiently under the remark, but never lifted his eyes
+from the newspaper.
+
+"I had hoped your niece was making arrangements for our return to Cro'
+Martin," said she, querulously, "instead of planning marine excursions.
+I told her yesterday, or the day before,--I forget which; but who could
+remember time in such a place?--that I was bored to death here. The
+observation seems to amuse you, Mr. Martin; but it is a simple fact."
+
+"And you are bored to death at Cro' Martin, too, if I mistake not?" said
+he, with a very significant dryness.
+
+"I should think I was, sir; and nothing very astonishing in the
+confession, besides."
+
+"And Dublin, madam?"
+
+"Don't speak of it. If one must endure prison discipline, at least
+let us have a cell to ourselves. Good-morning, Miss Martin. I hope you
+enjoyed your party on the water?"
+
+This speech was addressed to Mary, who now entered the room dressed in
+a plain morning costume, and in her quiet, almost demure look resembling
+in nothing the dripping and dishevelled figure that sprung from the
+boat.
+
+"Good-morning, aunt," said she, gayly. "Good-morning, uncle," kissing,
+as she spoke, his cheek, and patting him fondly on the shoulder. "I saw
+you out on the rocks as we were coming in."
+
+"Pooh, pooh!" said he, in affected indifference. "I knew there was no
+danger--"
+
+"Yes, but there was, though," said she, quickly. "If we had n't set all
+sail on her, she 'd have been pooped to a certainty; and I can tell you
+I was in a rare fright, too."
+
+"Oh, indeed; you confess to such an ignoble emotion?" said Lady
+Dorothea, with a sneer.
+
+"That I do, aunt, for I had poor Madge Lennan's little boy on my lap all
+the time; and if it came to a swim, I don't see how he was to be saved."
+
+"You 'd not have left him to his fate, I suppose?" said Lady Dorothea.
+
+"I scarcely know what I should have done. I sincerely hope it would have
+been my best; but in a moment like that, within sight of home, too--"
+Her eyes met her uncle's as she said this; he had raised them from
+his newspaper, and bent them fully on her. There was that in their
+expression which appealed so strongly to her heart that instead of
+finishing her speech she sprung towards him and threw her arms around
+his neck.
+
+"Quite a scene; and I detest scenes," said Lady Dorothen, as she arose
+and swept out of the room contemptuously; but they neither heard the
+remark nor noticed her departure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. MAURICE SCANLAN, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW.
+
+About an hour after the occurrence mentioned in our last chapter, the
+quiet little village of Kilkieran was startled by the sharp clattering
+sounds of horses' feet, as Mr. Scanlan's tandem came slinging along; and
+after various little dexterities amid stranded boats, disabled anchors,
+and broken capstans, drew up at the gate of the Osprey's Nest. When men
+devise their own equipage, they invariably impart to it a strong
+infusion of their own idiosyncrasy. The quiet souls who drag through
+life in chocolate-colored barouches, with horses indifferently matched,
+give no clew to their special characteristics; but your men of tax-carts
+and tandems, your Jehus of four-in-hand teams, write their own
+biographies in every detail of the "turn-out."
+
+[Illustration: 068]
+
+Maurice Scanlan was a sporting attorney, and from the group of game
+cocks neatly painted on the hind panel, to the wiry, well-bred, and
+well-looking screws before him, all was indicative of the man. The
+conveyance was high and red-wheeled; the nags were a chestnut and a
+gray; he drove them without winkers or bearing-reins, wearing his white
+hat a very little on ope side, and gracefully tilting his elbow as
+he admonished the wheeler with the "crop" of his whip. He was a
+good-looking, showy, vulgar, self-sufficient kind of fellow, with
+consummate shrewdness in all business transactions, only marred by one
+solitary weak point,--an intense desire to be received intimately by
+persons of a station above his own, and to seem, at least, to be the
+admitted guest of very fashionable society. It was not a very easy
+matter to know if this Lord-worship of his was real, or merely affected,
+since, certainly, the profit he derived from the assumption was very
+considerable, and Maurice was intrusted with a variety of secret-service
+transactions, and private affairs for the nobility, which they would
+never have dreamed of committing to the hands of their more recognized
+advisers.
+
+If men would have been slow to engage his services in any grave or
+important suit, he was invaluable in all the ordinary and constantly
+occurring events of this changeful world. He knew every one's
+difficulties and embarrassments. There was not a hitch in a settlement,
+nor a spavin in your stables, could escape him. He seemed to possess a
+kind of intuitive appreciation of a flaw; and he pounced upon a defect
+with a rapidity that counterfeited genius. To these gifts he added a
+consummate knowledge of his countrymen. He had emerged from the very
+humblest class of the people, and he knew them thoroughly; with all
+their moods of habitual distrust and momentary enthusiasm,--with all
+their phases of sanguine hopefulness he was familiar; and he could mould
+and fashion and weld them to his will, as passive subjects as the heated
+bar under the hammer of the smith.
+
+As an electioneering agent he was unequalled. It was precisely the
+sphere in which his varied abilities were best exercised; and it was,
+besides, an arena in which he was proud of figuring.
+
+For a while he seemed--at least in his own eyes--to stand on a higher
+eminence than the candidate he represented, and to be a more prominent
+and far grander personage than his principal. In fact, it was only under
+some tacit acknowledgment of this temporary supremacy that his services
+were obtainable; his invariable stipulation being that he was to have
+the entire and uncontrolled direction of the election.
+
+Envious tongues and ungenerous talkers did, indeed, say that Maurice
+insisted upon this condition with very different objects in view,
+and that his unlimited powers found their pleasantest exercise in the
+inexplorable realms of secret bribery; however, it is but fair to say
+that he was eminently successful, and that one failure alone in his
+whole career occurred to show the proverbial capriciousness of fortune.
+
+With the little borough of Oughterard he had become so identified that
+his engagement was regarded as one of the first elements of success.
+Hitherto, indeed, the battle had been always an easy one. The Liberal
+party--as they pleasantly assumed to style themselves--had gone no
+further in opposition than an occasional burst of intemperate language,
+and an effort--usually a failure--at a street row during the election.
+So little of either energy or organization had marked their endeavors,
+that the great leader of the day had stigmatized their town with terms
+of heavy censure, and even pronounced them unworthy of the cause. An
+emissary, deputed to report upon the political state of the borough,
+had described the voters as mere dependants on the haughty purse-proud
+proprietor of Cro' Martin, who seemed, even without an effort, to
+nominate the sitting member.
+
+The great measure of the year '29--the Catholic Relief Bill--had now,
+however, suggested to even more apathetic constituencies the prospect of
+a successful struggle. The thought of being represented by "one of their
+own sort" was no mean stimulant to exertion; and the leading spirits of
+the place had frequently conferred together as to what steps should
+be taken to rescue the borough from the degrading thraldom of an
+aristocratic domination. Lord Kilmorris, it is true, was rather popular
+with them than the reverse. The eldest son of an Earl, who only cared
+to sit in Parliament on easy terms, till the course of time and events
+should call him to the Upper House, he never took any very decided
+political line, but sat on Tory benches and gave an occasional vote to
+Liberal measures, as though foreshadowing that new school who were to
+take the field under the middle designation of Conservatives. Some very
+remote relationship to Lady Dorothea's family had first introduced him
+to the Martins' notice; and partly from this connection, and partly
+because young Harry Martin was too young to sit in Parliament, they had
+continued to support him to the present time.
+
+Mr. Martin himself cared very little for politics; had he even cared
+more, he would not have sacrificed to them one jot of that indolent,
+lazy, apathetic existence which alone he seemed to prize. He was rather
+grateful than otherwise to Lord Kilmorris for taking upon him the
+trouble of a contest, if there should be such a thing. His greatest
+excuse through life, at least to himself, had ever been that he was
+"unprepared." He had been in that unhappy state about everything since
+he was born, and so, apparently, was he destined to continue to the very
+last. With large resources, he was never prepared for any sudden demand
+for money. When called on for any exertion of mind or body, when asked
+to assist a friend or rescue a relation from difficulty, he was quite
+unprepared; and so convinced was he that this was a fatality under which
+he labored, that no sooner had he uttered the expression than he totally
+absolved himself from every shadow of reproach that might attach to his
+luke-warmness.
+
+The uncontrolled position he occupied, joined to the solitary isolation
+in which he lived, had doubtless engendered this cold and heartless
+theory. There was no one to dispute his will,--none to gainsay his
+opinions. There was not for him any occasion for the healthful exertion
+which is evoked by opposition, and he sunk gradually down into a moping,
+listless, well-meaning, but utterly good-for-nothing gentleman, who
+would have been marvellously amazed had any one arraigned him for
+neglect of his station and its great requirements.
+
+That such an insolent possibility could be, was only demonstrated to him
+in that morning's newspaper. To be called a despot was bad enough, but
+a petty despot,--and to be told that such despotism was already
+doomed--aroused in him a degree of indignation all the more painful that
+the sensation was one he had not experienced for many a year back. Whose
+fault was it that such an impertinence had ever been uttered? Doubtless,
+Kilmorris's. Some stupid speech, some absurd vote, some ridiculous party
+move had brought down this attack upon him; or perhaps it was Mary, with
+her new-fangled ideas about managing the estate, her school-houses, and
+her model-farms. The ignorant people had possibly revolted against her
+interference; or it might be Lady Dorothea herself, whose haughty manner
+had given offence; at all events, _he_ was blameless, and strange
+to say, either he was not perfectly assured of the fact, or that the
+assumption was not pleasant, but he seemed very far from being satisfied
+with the explanation. In the agitated mood these feelings produced, a
+servant came to inform him that Mr. Scanlan had just arrived.
+
+"Say I 'm out--I 'm unwell--I don't feel quite myself to-day. Call Miss
+Mary to him." And with an impatient gesture he motioned the servant
+away.
+
+"Miss Mary will be down in a few minutes, sir," said the man, entering
+the room where Mr. Scanlan stood arranging his whiskers before
+the chimney-glass, and contemplating with satisfaction his general
+appearance.
+
+"It was Mr. Martin himself, Thomas, that I wanted to see."
+
+"I know that, sir, but the Master is n't well this morning; he told me
+to send Miss Mary to you."
+
+"All right," said Scanlan, giving a finishing touch to the tie of his
+cravat, and then gracefully bestowing his person into an easy-chair. To
+common observation he looked perfectly unconcerned in every gesture,
+and yet no man felt less at his ease at that moment than Mr. Maurice
+Scanlan; and though the cause involves something like a secret,
+the reader shall know it. Mr. Scanlan had seen a good deal of the
+world--that is, of _his_ world. He had mixed with barristers and
+solicitors, "Silk Gowns," masters in Chancery, and even puisne judges
+had he come into contact with; he had mingled in turf experiences with
+certain sporting lords and baronets, swapped horses, and betted and
+handicapped with men of fortune; he had driven trotting-matches, and
+ridden hurdle-races against young heirs to good estates, and somehow
+always found himself not inferior in worldly craft and address to those
+he came in contact with,--nay, he even fancied that he was occasionally
+rather a little more wide awake than his opponents; and what with a
+little blustering here, a little blarney there, a dash of mock frankness
+to this man, or an air of impulsive generosity to the other,--an
+accommodating elasticity, in fact, that extended to morals, manners,
+and principles,--he found that he was, as he himself styled it, "a
+fair match with equal weights for anything going." There was but
+one individual alone in presence of whom he in reality felt his own
+inferiority deeply and painfully; strange to say, that was Miss Martin!
+At first sight this would seem almost unintelligible. She was not either
+a haughty beauty, presuming on the homage bestowed upon her by high and
+distinguished admirers, nor was she any greatly gifted and cultivated
+genius dominating over lesser intelligences by the very menace of her
+acquirements. She was simply a high-spirited, frank, unaffected girl,
+whose good breeding and good sense seemed alike instinctive, and who
+read with almost intuition the shallow artifices by which such natures
+as Scanlan's impose upon the world. She had seen him easily indolent
+with her uncle, obsequiously deferential to my Lady, all in the same
+breath, while the side-look of tyranny he could throw a refractory
+tenant appeared just as congenial to his nature.
+
+It was some strange consciousness which told him he could not deceive
+_her_, that made Scanlan ever abashed in her presence, and by the
+self-same impulse was it that she was the only one in the world for
+whose good esteem he would have sacrificed all he possessed.
+
+While he waited for her coming, he took a leisurely survey of the room.
+The furniture, less costly and rich than at Cro' Martin, was all marked
+by that air of propriety and comfort so observable in rich men's houses.
+There were the hundred appliances of ease and luxury that show how
+carefully the most trifling inconveniences are warded off, and the
+course of daily life rendered as untroubled as mere material enjoyments
+can secure. Scanlan sighed deeply, for the thought crossed his mind how
+was a girl brought up in this way ever to stoop to ally her fortune to
+a man like him? Was it, then, possible that he nourished such a
+presumption? Even so. Maurice was of an aspiring turn; he had succeeded
+in twenty things that a dozen years past he had never dared to dream of.
+He had dined at tables and driven with men whose butlers and valets he
+once deemed very choice company; he had been the guest at houses where
+once his highest ambition had been to see the interior as a matter of
+curiosity. "Who could say where he might be at last?" Besides this, he
+knew from his own knowledge of family matters that she had no fortune,
+that her father was infinitely more likely to leave debts than an
+inheritance behind him, and that her uncle was the last man in the world
+ever to think of a marriage-portion for one he could not afford to part
+with. There was, then, no saying what turn of fortune might present him
+in an admissible form as a suitor. At all events, there was no rival in
+the field, and Maurice had seen many a prize won by a "walk over" purely
+for want of a competitor in the race.
+
+Notwithstanding all these very excellent and reassuring considerations,
+Maurice Scanlan could not overcome a most uncomfortable sense of
+awkwardness as Mary Martin entered the room, and saluting him with
+easy familiarity, said, "I'm quite ashamed of having made you wait, Mr.
+Scanlan; but I was in the village when I got my uncle's message. I find
+that he is not well enough to receive you, and if I can--"
+
+"I'm sure it's only too much honor you do me, Miss Mary; I never
+expected to have the pleasure of this interview; indeed, it will be very
+hard for me to think of business, at all, at all."
+
+"That would be most unfortunate after your coming so far on account of
+it," said she, half archly, while she seated herself on a sofa at some
+distance from him.
+
+"If it were a question about the estate, Miss Mary," said he, in his
+most obsequious manner, "there's nobody equal to yourself; or if it were
+anything at all but what it is, I know well that you'd see your way
+out of it; but the present is a matter of politics,--it 's about the
+borough."
+
+"That weary borough," said she, sighing; "and are we about to have
+another election?"
+
+"That 's it, Miss Mary; and Lord Kilmorris writes me to say that he 'll
+be over next week, and hopes he 'll find all his friends here as well
+disposed towards him as ever."
+
+"Has he written to my uncle?" asked Mary, hastily.
+
+"No; and that's exactly what I came about. There was a kind of
+coldness,--more my Lady's, I think, than on Mr. Martin's part,--and Lord
+Kilmorris feels a kind of delicacy; in fact, he doesn't rightly know how
+he stands at Cro' Martin." Here he paused, in hopes that she would help
+him by even a word; but she was perfectly silent and attentive, and he
+went on. "So that, feeling himself embarrassed, and at the same time
+knowing how much he owes to the Martin interest--"
+
+"Well, go on," said she, calmly, as he came a second time to a dead
+stop.
+
+"It isn't so easy, then, Miss Mary," said he, with a long sigh, "for
+there are so many things enter into it,--so much of politics and party
+and what not,--that I quite despair of making myself intelligible,
+though, perhaps, if I was to see your uncle, he 'd make out my meaning."
+
+"Shall I try and induce him to receive you, then?" said she, quietly.
+
+"Well, then, I don't like asking it," said he, doubtfully; "for, after
+all, there's nobody can break it to him as well as yourself."
+
+"Break it to him, Mr. Scanlan?" said she, in astonishment.
+
+"Faith, it 's the very word, then," said he; "for do what one will, say
+what they may, it will be sure to surprise him, if it does no worse."
+
+"You alarm me, sir; and yet I feel that if you would speak boldly out
+your meaning, there is probably no cause for fear."
+
+"I'll just do so, then, Miss Mary; but at the same time I 'd have you to
+understand that I 'm taking a responsibility on myself that his Lordship
+never gave me any warrant for, and that there is not another--" Mr.
+Scanlan stopped, but only in time; for, whether it was the fervor in
+which he uttered these words, or that Miss Martin anticipated what
+was about to follow, her cheek became scarlet, and a most unmistakable
+expression of her eyes recalled the worthy practitioner to all his
+wonted caution. "The matter is this, Miss Martin," said he, with
+a degree of deference more marked than before, "Lord Kilmorris is
+dissatisfied with the way your uncle supported him at the last election.
+He complains of the hard conditions imposed upon him as to his line of
+conduct in the House; and, above all, he feels insulted by a letter
+Lady Dorothea wrote him, full of very harsh expressions and hard
+insinuations. I never saw it myself, but that's his account of it,--in
+fact, he's very angry."
+
+"And means to throw up the borough, in short," broke in Mary.
+
+"I'm afraid not, Miss Mary," said the other, in a half whisper.
+
+"What then?--what can he purpose doing?"
+
+"He means to try and come in on his own interest," said Scanlan, who
+uttered the words with an effort, and seemed to feel relief when they
+were out.
+
+"Am I to understand that he would contest the borough with us?"
+
+Scanlan nodded an affirmative.
+
+"No, no, Mr. Scanlan, this is some mistake,--some misapprehension on
+your part. His Lordship may very possibly feel aggrieved,--he may have
+some cause, for aught I know,--about something in the last election,
+but this mode of resenting it is quite out of the question,--downright
+impossible."
+
+"The best way is to read his own words. Miss Martin. There's his
+letter," said he, handing one towards her, which, however, she made no
+motion to take.
+
+"If you won't read it, then, perhaps you will permit me to do so.
+It's very short, too, for he says at the end he will write more fully
+to-morrow." Mr. Scanlan here muttered over several lines of the epistle,
+until he came to the following: "I am relieved from any embarrassment
+I should have felt at breaking with the Martins by reflecting over the
+altered conditions of party, and the new aspect politics must assume by
+the operations of the Emancipation Act. The old ways and traditions of
+the Tories must be abandoned at once and forever; and though Martin in
+his life of seclusion and solitude will not perceive this necessity, we
+here all see and admit it. I could, therefore, no longer represent his
+opinions, since they would find no echo in the House. To stand for the
+borough I must stand on my own views, which, I feel bold to say, include
+justice to both of the contending factions."
+
+"Admirably argued," broke in Mary. "He absolves himself from all ties of
+gratitude to my uncle by adopting principles the reverse of all he ever
+professed."
+
+"It's very like that, indeed, Miss Mary," said Scanlan, timidly.
+
+"Very like it, sir? it is exactly so. Really the thing would be too
+gross if it were not actually laughable;" and as she spoke she arose and
+paced the room in a manner that showed how very little of the ludicrous
+side of the matter occupied her thoughts. "He will stand for the
+borough--he means to stand in opposition to us?"
+
+"That's his intention--at least, if Mr. Martin should not come to the
+conclusion that it is better to support his Lordship than risk throwing
+the seat into the hands of the Roman Catholics."
+
+"I can't follow all these intrigues, Mr. Scanlan. I confess to you,
+frankly, that you have puzzled me enough already, and that I have found
+it no small strain on my poor faculties to conceive a gentleman being
+able to argue himself into any semblance of self-approval by such
+sentiments as those which you have just read; but I am a poor country
+girl, very ignorant of great topics and great people. The best thing I
+can do is to represent this affair to my uncle, and as early as may be."
+
+"I hope he'll not take the thing to heart, miss; and I trust he 'll
+acquit _me_--"
+
+"Be assured he'll despise the whole business most thoroughly, sir. I
+never knew him take any deep interest in these themes; and if this be
+a fair specimen of the way they are discussed, he was all the wiser
+for his indifference. Do you make any stay in the village? Will it be
+inconvenient for you to remain an hour or so?"
+
+"I'll wait your convenience, miss, to any hour," said Scanlan, with an
+air of gallantry which, had she been less occupied with her thoughts,
+might have pushed her hard to avoid smiling at.
+
+"I'll be down at Mrs. Cronan's till I hear from you, Miss Mary." And
+with a look of as much deferential admiration as he dared to bestow,
+Scanlan took his leave, and mounting to his box, assumed the ribbons
+with a graceful elegance and a certain lackadaisical languor that, to
+himself at least, appeared demonstrative of an advanced stage of the
+tender passion.
+
+"Begad, she's a fine girl; devil a lie in it, but she has n't her equal!
+and as sharp as a needle, too," muttered he, as he jogged along the
+shingly beach, probably for the first time in his whole life forgetting
+the effect he was producing on the bystanders.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. A STUDIO AND AN ARTIST
+
+"Is my uncle in the library, Terence?" asked Mary of a very corpulent
+old man, in a red-brown wig.
+
+"No, miss, he's in the--bother it, then, if I ever can think of the name
+of it."
+
+"The studio, you mean," said she, smiling.
+
+"Just so, Miss Mary," replied he, with a sigh; for he remembered certain
+penitential hours passed by himself in the same locality.
+
+"Do you think you could manage to let him know I want him--that is, that
+I have something important to say to him?"
+
+"It's clean impossible, miss, to get near him when he's there. Sure, is
+n't he up on a throne, dressed out in goold and dimonds, and as cross as
+a badger besides, at the way they're tormenting him?"
+
+"Oh, that tiresome picture, is it never to be completed?" muttered she,
+half unconsciously.
+
+"The saints above know whether it is or no," rejoined Terence, "for
+one of the servants told me yesterday that they rubbed every bit of the
+master out, and began him all again; for my Lady said he was n't half
+haggard enough, or worn-looking; but, by my conscience, if he goes on as
+he 's doing, he ought to satisfy them."
+
+"Why, I thought it was Henderson was sitting," said Mary, somewhat
+amused at the old man's commentaries.
+
+"So he was; but they rubbed him out, too; for it seems now he ought to
+be bald, and they 've sent him into Oughter-ard to get his head shaved."
+
+"And what were _you_, Terry?"
+
+"Arrah, who knows?" said he, querulously. "At first I was to be
+somebody's mother that was always cryin'; but they weren't pleased with
+the way I done it; and then they made me a monk, and after that they put
+two hundredweight of armor on me, and made me lean my head on my arm as
+if I was overcome; and faith, so I was; for I dropped off asleep, and
+fell into a pot of varnish, and I 'm in disgrace now, glory be to God!
+and I only hope it may last."
+
+"I wish I shared your fortune, Terry, with all my heart," said Mary,
+with some difficulty preserving her gravity.
+
+"Couldn't it catch fire--by accident, I mean, miss--some evening
+after dark?" whispered Terry, confidentially. "Them 's materials that
+would burn easy! for, upon my conscience, if it goes on much longer
+there won't be a sarvant will stay in the sarvice. They had little Tom
+Regan holding a dish of charcoal so long that he tuk to his bed on
+Friday last, and was never up since; and Jinny Moore says she 'd rather
+lave the place than wear that undacent dress; and whist, there's murder
+goin' on now inside!" And with that the old fellow waddled off with a
+speed that seemed quite disproportionate to his years.
+
+While Mary was still hesitating as to what she should do, the door
+suddenly opened, and a man in a mediaeval costume rushed out, tugging
+after him a large bloodhound, whose glaring eyeballs and frothy mouth
+betokened intense passion. Passing hurriedly forward, Mary beheld Lady
+Dorothea bending over the fainting figure of a short little man, who lay
+on the floor; while her uncle, tottering under a costume he could barely
+carry, was trying to sprinkle water over him from an urn three feet in
+height.
+
+"Mr. Crow has fainted,--mere fright, nothing more!" said Lady Dorothea.
+"In stepping backward from the canvas he unluckily trod upon Fang's
+paw, and the savage creature at once sprung on him. That stupid wretch,
+Regan, one of your favorites, Miss Martin, never pulled him off till he
+had torn poor Mr. Crow's coat, clean in two.".
+
+"Egad, if I had n't smashed my sceptre over the dog's head the mischief
+wouldn't have stopped there; but he 's coming to. Are you better, Crow?
+How do you feel, man?"
+
+"I hope you are better, sir?" said Lady Dorothea, in an admirable
+blending of grand benevolence and condescension.
+
+[Illustration: 080]
+
+"Infinitely better; supremely happy, besides, to have become the object
+of your Ladyship's kind inquiries," said the little man, sitting up, and
+looking around with a very ghastly effort at urbanity and ease.
+
+"I never knew Fang to bite any one," said Mary.
+
+"Does n't she, by jingo!" exclaimed the artist, who with difficulty
+caught himself in time before he placed his hand on the supposed seat of
+his injuries.
+
+"She shall be muzzled in future," said Lady Dorothea, haughtily,
+repressing the familiar tone of the discussion.
+
+"I think--indeed, I feel sure--I could get her in from memory, my Lady;
+she 's a very remarkable creature, and makes an impression on one." As
+he uttered these words ruefully, he lifted from the floor the fragment
+of his coat-skirt, and gazed mournfully at it.
+
+"I suppose we must suspend proceedings," said Lady Dorothea;
+"though really it is a pity to lose the opportunity of Miss Martin's
+presence,--an honor she so very rarely accords us."
+
+"I think after a few minutes or so, my Lady, I might feel equal," said
+Mr. Crow, rising and retreating to a wall with a degree of caution
+that showed he entertained grave fears as to the state of his
+habiliments,--"I might feel equal, if not exactly to delineate Miss
+Martin's Classic features, at least to throw in--"
+
+"I could n't think of such a thing; I should be wretched at the idea
+of engaging your attention at such a moment," said Mary, with a
+carelessness that contrasted strongly with her words; while she added,
+with earnestness, "Besides, I 'm not sure I could spare the time."
+
+"You see, sir," said her Ladyship to the artist, "you have to deal with
+a young lady whose occupations are like those of a Premier. The Duke
+of Wellington can vouchsafe a sitting for his portrait, but Miss Martin
+cannot spare the time for it."
+
+"Nay, Aunt Dorothy, if I were the Duke of Wellington I should do as he
+does. It is being Mary Martin, whose picture can have no interest for
+any one, enables me to follow the bent of my own wishes."
+
+"Humility is another of her perfections," said Lady Dorothea, with a
+look that but too palpably expressed her feeling towards her niece.
+
+As Mary was assisting her uncle to get rid of some of his superfluous
+draperies, neither of them overheard this remark; while Mr. Crow was too
+deeply impressed with his own calamities to pay any attention to it.
+
+"Mr. Scanlan has been very anxious to see you, uncle," whispered Mary
+in his ear. "He has something of importance to communicate about the
+borough."
+
+"Can't you manage it yourself, Molly? Can't you contrive somehow to
+spare me this annoyance?"
+
+"But you really ought to hear what he has to say."
+
+"I perceive that Miss Martin has a secret of moment to Impart to
+you; pray let me not trouble the interview by my presence," said Lady
+Dorothea. And she swept haughtily out of the room, throwing a most
+disdainful glance at her husband as she went.
+
+"There, by George! you've secured me a pleasant afternoon, at all
+events!" said Martin, angrily, to his niece, as throwing off the
+last remnant of his regal costume, he rushed out, banging the door
+passionately behind him.
+
+Mary sat down to compose her thoughts in quiet, for Mr. Crow had
+previously made his escape unobserved; and truly there was need of some
+repose for her agitated and wearied faculties. Her uncle's dependence
+upon her for everything, and her aunt's jealousy of the influence she
+had over him, placed her in a position of no common difficulty, and one
+of which every day seemed to increase the embarrassment. For a moment
+she thought she would have preferred a life of utter insignificance and
+obscurity; but as suddenly it occurred to her, "What had I been without
+these duties and these cares? For me there are few, if any, of the ties
+that bind other girls to their homes. I have neither mother nor sister;
+I have none of the resources which education suggests to others. My
+mind cannot soar above the realities that surround me, and seek for its
+enjoyments in the realms of fancy; but, perhaps, I can do better," said
+she, proudly, "and make of these same every-day materials the poetry
+of an actual existence." As she spoke, she threw open the window, and
+walked out upon the terrace over the sea. The fishermen's boats were all
+standing out from shore,--a tiny fleet, whose hardy crews had done no
+discredit to the proudest three-decker. Though the heavy gale of the
+morning had gone down, it still blew fresh, and a long rolling swell
+thundered along in-shore, and sent a deep booming noise through many a
+rocky cavern. High above this deafening clamor, however, rose the hearty
+cheers of the fishermen as they detected Mary's figure where she stood;
+and many a tattered rag of showy bunting was hoisted to do her honor.
+Never insensible to such demonstrations, Mary felt at the moment almost
+overpowered with emotion. But a moment back and she bewailed her
+isolation and friendlessness; and see, here were hundreds who would have
+resigned life in her behalf. Still, as the boats receded, the wind bore
+to her ears the welcome sounds; and as she heard them, her heart seemed
+to expand and swell with generous thoughts and good wishes, while along
+her cheeks heavy tears were rolling.
+
+"What need have I of other friends than such as these?" cried she,
+passionately. "_They_ understand me, and I them; and as for the great
+world, we are not made for each other!"
+
+"My own sentiments to a 'T,' miss," said a soft, mincing voice behind
+her; and Mary turned and beheld Mr. Crow. He had arrayed himself in a
+small velvet skull-cap and a blouse, and stood mixing the colors on his
+palette in perfect composure. "I 'm afraid, Miss Martin, there 's an end
+of the great 'Historical.' Your uncle will scarcely be persuaded to put
+on the robes again, and it's a downright pity. I was getting a look of
+weariness--imbecility I might call it--into his features that would have
+crowned the work."
+
+"I don't think I ever knew what your subject was!" said she, half
+indolently.
+
+"The Abdication of Charles V., Miss Martin," said he, proudly. "This is
+the fourteenth time I have depicted it; and never, I am bound to say,
+with more favorable 'studies.' Your uncle is fine; my Lady gorgeous; I
+don't say what I 'd like of another lovely and gifted individual; but
+even down to that old rogue of a butler that would insist on
+taking snuff through the bars of his helmet, they were all grand,
+miss,--positively grand!" Seeing that she appeared to bestow some
+attention to him, Mr. Crow went on: "You see, miss, in the beginning
+of a great effort of this kind there is no progress made at all. The
+sitters keep staring at one another, each amused at some apparent
+absurdity in costume or attitude; and then, if you ask them to call up a
+look of love, hate, jealousy, or the like, it's a grin you get,--a grin
+that would shame a hyena. By degrees, however, they grow used to the
+situation; they 'tone down,' as one might say, and learn to think less
+of themselves, and be more natural. It was sheer fatigue, downright
+exhaustion, and nothing else, was making your uncle so fine; and if he
+could have been kept on low diet,--I did n't like to mention it, though
+I often wished it,--I 'd have got a look of cadaverous madness into his
+face that would have astonished you."
+
+By this time Mr. Crow had approached his canvas, and was working
+away vigorously, the action of his brush appearing to stimulate his
+loquacity. Mary drew near to observe him, and insensibly felt attracted
+by that fascination which the progress of a picture invariably
+possesses.
+
+"This is the Queen," continued he; "she's crying,--as well she might;
+she doesn't rightly know whether the old fellow's out of his mind or
+not; she has her misgivings, and she does n't half like that old thief
+of a Jesuit that's whispering in the King's ear. This was to be you,
+Miss Martin; you were betrothed to one of the young princes; but somehow
+you weren't quite right in your head, and you are looking on rather more
+amused, you perceive, than in any way moved; you were holding up your
+beautiful petticoat, all covered with gold and precious stones, as much
+as to say, 'Ain't I fine this morning?' when you heard the herald's
+trumpet announce the Prince of Orange; and there he is,--or there he
+ought to be,--coming in at the door. There's a chap pulling the curtain
+aside; but I suppose, now," added he, with a sigh, "we 'll never see the
+Prince there!"
+
+"But where could you have found a study for your Prince, Mr. Crow?"
+
+"I have him here, miss," said Crow, laying down his brush to take a
+small sketch-book from the pocket of his blouse. "I have him here;
+and there wouldn't have been a finer head in the canvas,--pale,
+stern-looking, but gentle withal; a fellow that would say, 'Lead them
+to the scaffold,' as easy as winking, and that would tremble and falter
+under the eye of a woman he loved. There he is, now,--the hair, you
+know, I put in myself, and the bit of beard, just for a little Titian
+effect; but the eyes are his own, and the mouth not as good as his own."
+
+"It's a striking head, indeed," said Mary, still contemplating it
+attentively.
+
+"That's exactly what it is; none of your common brain-boxes, but a grand
+specimen of the classic head, civilized down to a mediaeval period;
+the forty-first descendant of an Emperor or a Proconsul, living at the
+Pincian Hall, or at his villa on the Tiber, sitting for his likeness to
+Giordano."
+
+"There's a painful expression in the features, too," added she, slowly.
+
+"So there is; and I believe he 's in bad health."
+
+"Indeed!" said Mary, starting. "I quite forgot there was an original all
+this time."
+
+"He's alive; and what's more, he's not a mile from where we 're
+standing." Mr. Crow looked cautiously about him as he spoke, ac if
+fearful of being overheard; and then approaching close to Miss Martin,
+and dropping his voice to a whisper, said, "I can venture to tell you
+what I dare n't tell my Lady; for I know well if she suspected who it
+was would be the Prince of Orange, begad, I might abdicate too, as
+well as the King. That young man there is-the son of a grocer in
+Oughterard,--true, every word of it,--Dan Nelligan's son! and you may
+fancy now what chance he 'd have of seeing himself on that canvas if her
+Ladyship knew it."
+
+"Is this the youth who has so distinguished himself at college?" asked
+Mary.
+
+"The very one. I made that sketch of him when he was reading for the
+medal; he did n't know it, for I was in a window opposite, where he
+couldn't see me; and when I finished he leaned his chin in his hand
+and looked up at the sky, as if thinking; and the expression of his
+up-turned face, with the lips a little apart, was so fine that I took
+it down at once, and there it is," said he, turning over the page and
+presenting a few pencil lines lightly and spiritedly drawn.
+
+"A young gentleman left this packet, Miss Mary, and said it was for
+you," said a servant, presenting a small sealed enclosure. Mary Martin
+blushed deeply, and she opened the parcel, out of which fell her own
+glove, with a card.
+
+"The very man we were talking of," said Mr. Crow, lifting it up and
+handing it to her,--"Joseph Nelligan. That's like the old proverb; talk
+of the--" But she was gone ere he could finish his quotation.
+
+"There she goes," said Crow, sorrowfully; "and if she 'd have stayed ten
+minutes more I 'd have had her all complete!" and he contemplated with
+glowing satisfaction a hasty sketch he had just made in his book. "It's
+like her,--far more than anything I have done yet; but after all--"
+And he shook his head mournfully as he felt the poor pretension of his
+efforts. "Small blame to me to fail, anyhow," added he, after a pause.
+"It would take Titian himself to paint her; and even he couldn't give
+all the softness and delicacy of the expression,--that would take
+Raffaelle; and Vandyke for her eyes, when they flash out at times; and
+Giordano for the hair. Oh, if he could have seen it just as I did a
+minute ago, when the wind blew it back, and the sunlight fell over it!
+"Arrah!" cried he, impatiently, as with a passionate gesture he tore the
+leaf from his book and crushed it in his hand,--"arrah! What right
+have I even to attempt it?" And he sat down, covering his face with his
+hands, to muse and mourn in silence.
+
+Simpson--or as he was more generally known, Simmy Crow--was neither
+a Michael Angelo nor a Raffaelle; but he was a simple-minded,
+honest-hearted creature, whose life had been a long hand-to-hand fight
+with fortune. Originally a drawing-master in some country academy, the
+caprice--for it was little else--of a whimsical old lady had sent him
+abroad to study; that is, sent him to contemplate the very highest
+triumphs of genius with a mind totally unprepared and uncultivated, to
+gaze on the grandest conceptions without the shadow of a clew to
+them, and to try and pick up the secrets of art when he stood in utter
+ignorance of its first principles. The consequence was, he went wild in
+the enthusiasm of his admiration; he became a passionate worshipper at
+the shrine, but never essayed to be priest at the altar. Disgusted and
+dispirited by his own miserable attempts, he scarcely ever touched
+a pencil, but roved from city to city, and from gallery to gallery,
+entranced,--enchanted by a fascination that gradually insinuated
+itself into his very being, and made up the whole aim and object of his
+thoughts. This idolatry imparted an ecstasy to his existence that lifted
+him above every accident of fortune. Poor, hungry, and ill-clad, he
+still could enter a gallery or a church, sit down before a Guido or a
+Rembrandt, and forget all, save the glorious creation before him. By the
+sudden death of his patroness, he was left, without a shilling, hundreds
+of miles from home. Humble as his requirements were, he could not supply
+them; he offered to teach, but it was in a land where all have access to
+the best models; he essayed to copy, but his efforts were unsalable.
+To return home to his country was now his great endeavor; and after
+innumerable calamities and reverses, he did arrive in England, whence he
+made his way to Ireland, poorer than he had quitted it.
+
+Had he returned in better plight, had he come back with some of the
+appearance of success, the chances are that he might have thriven on
+the accidents of fame; but he was famishing and in beggary. Some alleged
+that he was a worthless fellow who had passed a life of idleness and
+debauch; others, that he was not without ability, but that his habits of
+dissipation rendered him hopeless; and a few--a very few--pitied him as
+a weak-brained enthusiast, who had no bad about him, but was born to
+failure!
+
+In his utter destitution he obtained work as a house-painter,--an
+employment which he followed for three or four yeare, and in which
+capacity he had been sent by his master to paint some ornamental
+stucco-work at Cro' Martin. The ability he displayed attracted Lady
+Dorothea's notice, and she engaged him to decorate a small garden villa
+with copies from her own designs. He was entirely successful, and so
+much pleased was her Ladyship that she withdrew him from his ignoble
+servitude and attached him to her own household, where now he had been
+living two years, the latter half of which period had been passed in
+the great work of which we have already made some mention. It so chanced
+that poor Simmy had never sold but two copies in his life: one was The
+Abdication of Charles V., the other, The Finding of Moses; and so, out
+of gratitude to these successes, he went on multiplying new versions of
+these subjects _ad infinitum_, eternally writing fresh variations on the
+old themes, till the King and the Lawgiver filled every avenue of his
+poor brain, and he ceased to have a belief that any other story than
+these could be the subject of high art.
+
+Happy as he now was, he never ceased to feel that his position exposed
+him to many an ungenerous suspicion.
+
+"They 'll say I 'm humbugging this old lady," was the constant
+self-reproach he kept repeating. "I know well what they 'll think of me;
+I think I hear the sneering remarks as I pass." And so powerfully had
+this impression caught hold of him, that he vowed, come what would of
+it, he 'd set out on his travels again, and face the cold stern world,
+rather than live on what seemed to be the life of a flatterer and a
+sycophant. He could not, however, endure the thought of leaving his
+"Abdication" unfinished, and he now only remained to complete this great
+work. "Then I 'm off," said he; "and then they 'll see if poor Simmy
+Crow was the fellow they took him for." Better thoughts on this theme
+were now passing through his mind, from which at last he aroused himself
+to proceed with his picture. Once at work, his spirits rose; hopes
+flitted across his brain, and he was happy. His own creations seemed to
+smile benignly on him, too, and he felt towards them like a friend, and
+even talked with them, and confided his secret thoughts to them. In this
+pleasant mood we shall leave him, then; nor shall we linger to listen to
+the avowals he is making of his upright intentions, nor his willingness
+to bear the hardest rubs of fortune, so that none can reproach him for a
+mean subserviency.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. A DASH OF POLITICS
+
+"Well, what is it, Molly,--what is it all about?" said Martin, as Mary
+entered the library, where he was sitting with an unread newspaper
+stretched across his knee.
+
+"It is a piece of news Scanlan has brought, uncle, and not of the most
+agreeable kind either."
+
+"Then I'll not hear more of it," broke he in, pettishly.
+
+"But you must, uncle, since without your own counsel and advice nothing
+can be done."
+
+"Do nothing, then," added he, sulkily.
+
+"Come, come, I 'll not let you off thus easily," said she, passing an
+arm over his shoulder. "You know well I 'd not tease you if it could be
+avoided, but here is a case where I can be no guide. It is a question of
+the borough, Lord Kilmorris thinks himself strong enough to stand on his
+own merits, and repudiates your aid and his own principles together."
+Martin's attention being now secured, she went on: "He says--at least as
+well as I can follow his meaning--that with this new measure must come a
+total change of policy,--abrogating all old traditions and old notions;
+that _you_, of course, are little likely to adopt this opinion, at least
+at once, and so he releases you from all obligations to support him, and
+himself from all tie to represent _you_."
+
+"This is Lady Dorothy's doing," broke in Martin, passionately; "her
+confounded letter-writing has brought this upon us. I told her that
+those fellows were trimming; I warned her that they were only waiting
+for this Bill to pass, to turn round upon us as a barbarous old remnant
+of feudal oppression; but he dare n't do it, Molly,--Kilmorris has n't
+a leg to stand upon in the borough. He could n't count upon twenty--no,
+not ten votes, without me. It's a scurvy trick, too, and it sha'n't
+succeed, if I stand for the borough myself." And he blurted out the last
+words as though they were the expression of an enmity driven to its last
+resources.
+
+"No, no, uncle," said she, caressingly; "after all you have yourself
+told me of a parliamentary life, that must never be. Its unending
+intrigues and petty plotting, its fatiguing days and harassing nights,
+its jealousies and disappointments, and defeats, all hard enough to
+be borne by those who must make a trade of their politics, but utterly
+insupportable to one who, like you, can enjoy his independence. Do not
+think of that, I beseech you."
+
+"Then am I to see this man carry my own town in my very teeth?" cried
+he, angrily. "Is that your advice to me?"
+
+"You often spoke of Harry. Why not put him forward now he is coming
+home?"
+
+"Ay, and the very first thing he'll do will be to resign the seat
+because he had not been consulted about the matter before the election.
+You know him well, Molly; and you know that he exchanged into a regiment
+in India simply because I had obtained his appointment to the Blues.
+His amiable mother's disposition is strong in him!" muttered he, half to
+himself, but loud enough to be heard by his niece.
+
+"At all events, see Scanlan," said she; "learn how the matter really
+stands; don't rely on my version of it, but see what Lord Kilmorris
+intends, and take your own measures calmly and dispassionately
+afterwards."
+
+"Is Scanlan engaged for him?"
+
+"I think not. I suspect that negotiations are merely in progress."
+
+"But if he even was," broke in Martin, violently, "I have made the
+fellow what he is, and he should do as I ordered him. Let him come in,
+Molly."
+
+"He is not in the house, uncle; he went down to the village."
+
+"Not here? Why didn't he wait? What impertinence is this?"
+
+"He wished to bait his horses, and probably to get some breakfast for
+himself, which I had not the politeness to offer him here."
+
+"His horses? His tandem, I'll be sworn," said Martin, with a sneer.
+"I 'll ask for no better evidence of what we are coming to than that
+Maurice Scanlan drives about the county with a tandem."
+
+"And handles them very neatly, too," said Mary, with a malicious sparkle
+of her eye, for she could n't refrain from the spiteful pleasure of
+seeing her uncle in a regular fury for a mere nothing. All the more
+salutary, as it withdrew his thoughts from weightier themes.
+
+"I'm sure of it, Miss Martin. I'm certain that he is a most accomplished
+whip, and as such perfectly sure to find favor in _your_ eyes. Let him
+come up here at once, however. Say I want him immediately," added he,
+sternly; and Mary despatched a servant with the message, and sat down in
+front of her uncle, neither uttering a word nor even looking towards the
+other.
+
+"After all, Molly," said he, in the quiet, indolent tone so natural to
+him--"after all, what does it signify who's in or who's out? I don't
+care a brass farthing about party or party triumphs; and even if I did,
+I 'm not prepared--What are you laughing at,--what is it amuses you
+now?" asked he, half testily, while she laughed out in all the
+unrestrained flow of joyous mirth.
+
+"I have been waiting for that confession this half-hour, uncle, and
+really I was beginning to be afraid of a disappointment. Why, dearest
+uncle, you were within a hair's breadth of forgetting your principles,
+and being actually caught, for once in your life, prepared and ready."
+
+"Oh, is that it? Is it my embarrassment, then, that affords you so much
+amusement?"
+
+"Far from it," said she, affectionately. "I was only laughing at that
+quiet little nook you retire to whenever you ought to be up and doing.
+Unprepared you say. Not a bit of it. Indisposed, indolent, unwilling,
+indifferent, any of these you like; but with a mind so full of its own
+good resources, and as ready to meet every contingency as any one's,
+don't say you are unprepared. Come, now, bear with me this once, dearest
+uncle, and don't be angry if I throw myself, like a rock or sandbank,
+betwixt you and your harbor of refuge. But I hear Mr. Scanlan's
+voice, and so I shall leave you. Be resolute, uncle, determined,
+and--'prepared'!" And with a gesture half menace and half drollery, she
+left the room as the attorney entered it.
+
+Scanlan, like most of those who came but casually in contact with
+Martin, had conceived a low idea of his capacity,--lower by far than
+it deserved, since behind his indolence there lay a fund of good
+common-sense,--a mine, it must be acknowledged, that he seldom cared to
+work. The crafty man of law had, however, only seen him in his ordinary
+moods of careless ease and idleness, and believed that pride of family,
+fortune, and position were the only ideas that found access to his mind,
+and that by a dexterous allusion to these topics it would always be an
+easy task to influence and direct him.
+
+"What's this my niece has been telling me of Lord Kilmorris?" said
+Martin, abruptly, and without even replying to the salutations of the
+other, who hovered around a chair in an uncertainty as to whether
+he might dare to seat himself uninvited,--"he's going to contest the
+borough with us, is n't he?"
+
+Scanlan leaned one arm on the back of the chair, and in a half-careless
+way replied,--
+
+"He is afraid that you and he don't quite agree, sir. He leans to
+measures that he suspects you may not altogether approve of."
+
+"Come, come, none of this balderdash with me, Master Maurice. Has he
+bought the fellows already, or, rather, have you bought them? Out with
+it, man! What will he give? Name the sum, and let us treat the matter in
+a business-like way."
+
+Scanlan sat down and laughed heartily for some minutes.
+
+"I think you know me well enough, Mr. Martin, by this time," said he,
+"to say whether I'ma likely man to meddle with such a transaction."
+
+"The very likeliest in Ireland; the man I 'd select amidst ten
+thousand."
+
+"I am sorry to hear you say so, sir, that's all," said the other, with a
+half-offended air; "nor do I see that anything in my past life warrants
+the imputation."
+
+Martin turned fiercely round, about to make a reply which, if once
+uttered, would have ended all colloquy between them, when suddenly
+catching himself he said, "Have you taken any engagement with his
+Lordship?"
+
+"Not as yet, sir,--not formally, at least. My Lord has written me a very
+full statement of his ideas on politics, what he means to do, and so
+forth, and he seems to think that anything short of a very liberal line
+would not give satisfaction to the electors."
+
+"Who told him so? Who said that the borough was not perfectly content
+with the representative that--that"--he stammered and faltered--"that
+its best friends had fixed upon to defend its interests? Who said that a
+member of my own family might not desire the seat?"
+
+This announcement, uttered with a tone very much akin to menace, failed
+to produce either the astonishment or terror that Martin looked for, and
+actually supposing that the expression had not been heard, he repeated
+it. "I say, sir, has any one declared that a Martin will not stand?"
+
+"I am not aware of it," said Scanlan, quietly.
+
+"Well, sir," cried Martin, as if unable to delineate the consequences,
+and wished to throw the weight of the duty on his opponent.
+
+"There would be a warm contest, no doubt, sir," said Scanlan, guardedly.
+
+"No, sir; nor the shadow of a contest," rejoined Martin, angrily.
+"You'll not tell _me_ that my own town--the property that has been in
+my family for seven centuries and more--would presume--that is, would
+desire--to--to--break the ties that have bound us to each other?"
+
+"I wish I could tell you my mind, Mr. Martin, without offending you;
+that is, I wish you 'd let me just say what my own opinion is, and
+take it for what it is worth, and in five minutes you 'd be in a better
+position to make up your mind about this matter than if we went on
+discussing it for a week." There was a dash of independence in his
+utterance of these words that actually startled Martin; for, somehow,
+Scanlan had himself been surprised into earnestness by meeting with an
+energy on the other's part that he had never suspected; and thus each
+appeared in a new light to the other.
+
+"May I speak out? Well, then, here is what I have to say: the Relief
+Bill is passed, the Catholics are now emancipated--"
+
+"Yes, and be--" Martin caught himself with a cough, and the other went
+on:--
+
+"Well, then, if they don't send one of their own set into Parliament at
+once, it is because they 'd like to affect, for a little while at least,
+a kind of confidence in the men who gave them their liberties. O'Connell
+himself gave a pledge, that of two candidates, equal in all other
+respects, they'd select the Protestant; and so they would for a time.
+And it lies with you, and other men of your station, to determine how
+long that interval is to last; for an interval it will only be, after
+all. If you want to pursue the old system of 'keeping down,' you 'll
+drive them at once into the hands of the extreme Papist party, who,
+thanks to yourselves, can now sit in Parliament; but if you 'll moderate
+your views, take a humbler standard of your own power,--conciliate a
+prejudice here, obliterate an old animosity there--"
+
+"In fact," broke in Martin, "swear by this new creed that Lord Kilmorris
+has sent you a sketch of in his letter! Then I 'll tell you what, sir--I
+'d send the borough and all in it to the--"
+
+"So you might, Mr. Martin, and you 'd never mend matters in the least,"
+broke he in, with great coolness.
+
+There was now a dead silence for several minutes; at last Martin spoke,
+and it was in a tone and with a manner that indicated deep reflection:--
+
+"I often said to those who would emancipate the Catholics, 'Are you
+prepared to change places with them? You have been in the ascendant a
+good many years, are you anxious now to try what the other side of the
+medal looks like? for, if not, leave them as they are.' Well, they did
+n't believe me; and maybe now my prophecy is nigh its accomplishment."
+
+"It is very likely you were right, sir; but whether or not, it's the law
+now, and let us make the best of it," said Scanlan, who had a practical
+man's aversion to all that savored of mere speculative reasoning.
+
+"As how, for instance--in what way, Mr. Scanlan?" asked Martin, curtly.
+
+"If you 'll not support Lord Kilmorris--"
+
+"That I won't, I promise you; put that clean out of your head to begin
+with."
+
+"Well, then, there is but one other course open. Come to some compromise
+with the Romanist party; if you don't like to give them a stray
+vote--and mark me, they 'd make better terms with _you_ than with a
+stranger--but if you don't like that, why, take the representation
+alternately with them."
+
+Martin rose from his chair and advanced close to where Scanlan was
+sitting, then, fixing his eyes steadfastly on him, said,--
+
+"Who commissioned you to make this proposition to _me?_"
+
+"No one, upon my oath. There is not a man breathing who has ever so much
+as hinted at what I have just said to you."
+
+"I'm glad of it; I'm heartily glad of it," said Martin, calmly reseating
+himself. "I'm glad there is not another fellow in this county your equal
+in impudence! Aye, Mr. Scanlan, you heard me quite correctly. I saw many
+a change going on amongst us, and I foresaw many more; but that a Martin
+of Cro' Martin should be taught his political duty by Maurice Scanlan,
+and that that duty consisted in a beggarly alliance with the riff-raff
+of a county town,--that was, indeed, a surprise for which I was in no
+wise prepared."
+
+"Well, sir, I 'm sorry if I have given any offence," said Scanlan,
+rising, and, in a voice of the most quiet intonation, making his
+excuses. "Your rejection of the counsel I was bold enough to suggest
+leaves me, at least, at liberty to offer my services where they will not
+be rejected so contumeliously."
+
+"Is this a threat, Mr. Scanlan?" said Martin, with a supercilious smile.
+
+"No, sir, nothing of the kind. I know too well what becomes _my_
+station, and is _due to yours_, to forget myself so far; but as you
+don't set any value on the borough yourself, and as there may be others
+who do--"
+
+"Stay and eat your dinner here, Scanlan," said Martin.
+
+"I promised Mrs. Cronan, sir--"
+
+"Send an apology to her; say it was _my_ fault,--that I detained you."
+And without waiting for a reply, Martin sauntered from the room, leaving
+the attorney alone with his reflections.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. A COLLEGE COMPETITOR
+
+Young Nelligan had distanced all his competitors in his college career;
+some who were his equals in ability, were inferior to him in habits of
+hard and patient labor; and others, again, were faint-hearted to oppose
+one in whose success they affected to believe luck had no small
+share. One alone had the honest candor to avow that he deserved his
+pre-eminence, on the true ground of his being their superior. This was a
+certain Jack Massingbred, a young fellow of good family and fortune,
+and who, having been rusticated at Oxford, and involved in some outrage
+against authority in Cambridge, had come over to finish his college
+career in the "Silent Sister."
+
+Although Irish by birth, and connected with Ireland by ties of family
+and fortune, he had passed all his life in England, his father having
+repaired to that country after the Union, exchanging the barren honor of
+a seat for an Irish borough for a snug Treasury appointment. His son
+had very early given proof of superior capacity. At Rugby he was
+distinguished as a scholar; and in his opening life at Oxford his
+talents won high praise for him. Soon after his entrance, however,
+he had fallen into a fast set,--of hunting, tandem-driving, and
+occasionally hard-drinking men,--in whose society he learned to
+forget all his aim for college success, and to be far more anxious
+for distinction as a whip or a stroke-oar than for all the honors of
+scholarship. At first he experienced a sense of pride in the thought
+that he could hold his own with either set, and take the lead in the
+examination-hall as easily as he assumed the first place in the social
+meeting. A few reverses, however, taught him that his theory was
+a mistake, that no amount of ability will compensate for habits of
+idleness and dissipation, and that the discursive efforts of even high
+genius will be ever beaten by the steady results of patient industry.
+Partly indifferent to what had once been his great ambition, partly
+offended by his failures, Massingbred threw himself entirely into the
+circle of his dissipated companions, and became the very head and front
+of all their wildest excesses. An absurd exploit, far more ludicrous
+than really culpable, procured his rustication; a not less ridiculous
+adventure drove him from Cambridge; and he had at last arrived in
+Dublin, somewhat tamed down by his experiences, and half inclined to
+resume his long-abandoned desire for college distinction.
+
+The habits of the Irish College were strikingly unlike those of either
+Oxford or Cambridge. Instead of a large class consisting of men of great
+fortune and high expectations, he found a very slight sprinkling of
+such, and even they made up nothing that resembled a party. Separated
+by age, political distinctions, and county associations, all stronger in
+the poorer country than in the richer one, they held little intercourse
+together, and were scarcely acquainted.
+
+If there was less actual wealth, there was also less credit to be
+obtained by an Irish student. The Dublin shopkeeper acknowledged no
+prestige in the "gownsman;" he admitted him to no special privilege of
+book-debts; and as the great majority of the students resided with
+their families in the capital, there was no room for that reckless
+extravagance so often prosecuted by those who are temporarily removed
+from domestic supervision.
+
+Massingbred was at first grievously disappointed. There were neither
+great names nor great fortunes amongst his new associates. Their mode
+of life, too, struck him as mean and contemptible. There were clever men
+reading for honors, and stupid men steering their slow way to a degree;
+but where were the fast ones? where the fellows who could tool a team or
+steer a six-oar, who could dash up to town for a week's reckless life at
+Crocky's and Tattersall's, make their book on the Oaks, or perhaps ride
+the winner at a steeplechase?
+
+It was all grievously slow. Dublin itself was a poor affair. He had few
+acquaintances, the theatres were bad, and public amusements there were
+none. His fellow-students, too, stood aloof from him. It was not that
+he was richer, better dressed, rode blood horses, dined at Morris-son's,
+wore kid gloves, and carried scented pocket-handkerchiefs. It was not
+that he had a certain air of puppyism as he wended his way across the
+courts, or sauntered elegantly into chapel. They could have forgiven any
+or all of these better than one of his offendings, which was his accent.
+Strange as it may seem, his English voice and English pronunciation
+were the most unpopular things about him, and many a real defect in his
+character might have met a more merciful construction had he given no
+initial "H" to "humble," and evinced a more generous confusion about his
+"wills" and "snails."
+
+Somewhat bored by a life so unlike anything he had ever tried
+before,--partly, perhaps, stimulated to show that he could do something
+beside canter his thorough-bred along Sackville Street, or lounge in
+the stage-box in solitary splendor,--he went in for honors, and, to
+the surprise of all, succeeded. In fact, he beat two or three of the
+distinguished men of his time, till, thrown by the chance of events into
+Nelligan's division, he found at once his superior, and saw that he was
+in presence of an intelligence considerably above his own. When he had
+adventured on the struggle and found himself worsted, he acknowledged
+defeat with all the generosity of an honorable nature; and forcing his
+way through the crowd as it issued from the examination-hall, was the
+very first to grasp Nelligan's hand and congratulate him on his success.
+
+"That was all got up; he was bursting with jealousy. The fellow could
+have strangled Nelligan," muttered one.
+
+"He certainly put a good face on the disaster," said another, more
+mercifully given; "though I suppose he feels the thing sorely enough at
+heart!"
+
+That was exactly what he did not, however. Young Massingbred regarded a
+college distinction as no evidence whatever of a man's attainments. He
+had seen stupid fellows win the prize for which clever ones strove in
+vain; but, at all events, he regarded such successes as contributing in
+nothing to the great race of life, and had even a theory that such early
+efforts were often the very means of exhausting the energies that should
+be exerted for the high rewards of the world. Besides this, he felt a
+pleasure in manfully showing that he was above a petty jealousy, and
+fairly owning himself beaten in a fair struggle.
+
+"You are the better man, Nelligan," said he, gayly; "I 'll not try
+another fall with you, be assured."
+
+Strange was it that in this very avowal he had asserted what the other
+felt in his inmost heart to be an immeasurable superiority over him;
+and that in the very moment of striking his flag he had proclaimed his
+victory. To be able to run him so hard for the race and yet not feel the
+struggle, to strive for the prize and care nothing for defeat, seemed to
+Nelligan the evidence of an ambition that soared above college triumph,
+and he could not but envy that buoyant high-hearted temperament that
+seemed to make light of difficulties and not even feel depressed by a
+defeat.
+
+Up to this time these two young men had scarcely known each other, but
+now they became intimate. The very difference in character served
+to draw them more closely together; and if Nelligan felt a degree of
+admiration for qualities whose brilliant display opened a new sense of
+enjoyment to him, the other was delighted with the gentle and almost
+childlike innocence of the student whose far-soaring intellect was
+mastering the highest questions of science.
+
+Massingbred was one of those natures in whom frankness is an instinct.
+It seems to such a relief to open the secrets of the heart and avow
+their weaknesses and their shortcomings, as though--by some Moral
+Popery--they would obtain the benefit of a free confession and go forth
+the better for their candor.
+
+Not only did he tell Nelligan of his own career and its accidents, the
+causes for which he was not on good terms with his family, and so on;
+but he even ventured to discuss the public life of his father, and, in
+a spirit of banter, swore that to his political subserviency did he owe
+his whole fortune in life.
+
+"My father was one of the crew when the vessel was wrecked, Nelligan,"
+said he; "there was plenty of talk of standing by the ship to the last,
+and perishing with her. Some did so, and they are forgotten already. My
+father, however, jumped into the long-boat with a few more, and thought
+that probably they might find another craft more seaworthy; fortunately
+he was right; at least, assuredly, I 'm not the man to say he was not."
+
+"But was there no desertion of principle, Massingbred?" said Nelligan.
+
+"No more than there is a desertion of your old coat when you discover it
+to be too threadbare to wear any longer. Irish Politics, as the men of
+that day understood them, had become impracticable,--impossible, I
+might say; the only sensible thing to do was to acknowledge the fact. My
+father was keen-sighted enough to see it in that light, and here 's his
+health for it."
+
+Nelligan was silent.
+
+"Come, Joe, out with it. Your family were honest Unionists. Tell me so
+frankly, man. Own to me that you and yours look upon us all as a set of
+knaves and scoundrels, that sold their country, and so forth. I want to
+see you in a mood of good passionate indignation for once. Out with it,
+boy; curse us to your heart's content, and I 'll hear it like an angel,
+for the simple reason that I know it to be just. You won't, won't you?
+Is your anger too deep for words? or are there any special and peculiar
+wrongs that make your dark consuming wrath too hot for utterance?"
+
+Nelligan was still silent; but the blush which now covered his face had
+become almost purple. The allusion to his family as persons of political
+importance struck him, and for the first time, with a sense of shame.
+What would Massingbred think of them if he knew their real station? what
+would he think of _him_ for having concealed it? Had he concealed it?
+Had he ever divulged the truth? He knew not; in the whirlwind of his
+confusion he knew nothing. He tried to say some words to break the
+oppressive silence that seemed to weigh him down like an accusation, but
+he could not.
+
+"I see it all, Nelligan. My foolish affectation of laughing at all
+principle has disgusted you; but the truth is, I don't feel it: I do
+not. I own frankly that the bought patriot is a ruined man, and there
+is a moral Nemesis over every fellow that sells himself; I don't mean to
+say but that many who did so did n't make the best bargain their
+brains were worth, and my father for one; he was a man of fair average
+abilities,--able to say his commonplaces like his neighbors,--and
+naturally felt that they would sound as well in England as in Ireland; I
+don't think he had a single conviction on any subject, so that he really
+sold a very unsalable article when he vended himself. But there were
+others,--your Governor, for instance; come, now, tell me about him; you
+are so devilish close, and I want to hear all about your family. You
+won't; well, I'll give you one chance more, and then--"
+
+"What then?" asked Nelligan, breathlessly.
+
+"I 'll just go and learn for myself."
+
+"How? what do you mean?" "The easiest way in the world. The vacation
+begins next Tuesday, and I 'll just invite myself to spend the first
+week of it under your paternal roof. You look terribly shocked,
+absolutely horrified; well, so you ought. It is about the greatest piece
+of impertinence I 've heard of. I assure you I have a full consciousness
+of that myself; but no matter, I 'll do it."
+
+Nelligan's shame was now an agony. It had never occurred to him in
+his life to feel ashamed of his station or that of his family, for the
+simple reason that he had never made pretension to anything higher or
+more exalted. The distinctions at which he aimed were those attainable
+by ability; social successes were triumphs he never dreamed of. But now
+came the thought of how he should stand in his friend's esteem, when the
+fact was revealed that he was the son of very humble parents, all whose
+ways, thoughts, and habits would be apt themes for ridicule and sarcasm.
+Over and over again had Massingbred annoyed him by the disparaging tone
+in which he canvassed "small people," the sneering depreciation in
+which he held all their doings, and the wholesale injustice by which he
+classed their sentiments with their good manners. It was the one feature
+of his friend's character that gave a check to his unbounded esteem for
+him. Had he not possessed this blemish, Nelligan would have deemed him
+nearly faultless.
+
+Intensely feeling this, Nelligan would have given much for courage to
+say, "I am one of that very set you sneer at. All my associations and
+ties are with them. My home is amongst them, and every link of kindred
+binds me to them."
+
+Yet, somehow, he could not bring himself to the effort. It was not that
+he dreaded the loss of friendship that might ensue,--indeed, he rather
+believed that such would not occur; but he thought that a time might
+come when that avowal might be made with pride, and not in humiliation,
+when he should say: "My father, the little shopkeeper of Oughterard,
+gave me the advantages by which I became what I am. The class you sneer
+at had yet ambitions high and daring as your own; and talents to attain
+them, too! The age of noble and serf has passed away, and we live in a
+freer and more generous era, when men are tested by their own worth;
+and if birth and blood would retain their respect amongst us, it is
+by contesting with us more humbly born the prizes of life." To have
+asserted these things now, however, when he was nothing, when his name
+had no echo beyond the walls of a college, would have seemed to him an
+intolerable piece of presumption, and he was silent.
+
+Massingbred read his reserve as proceeding from displeasure, and
+jestingly said,--
+
+"You mustn't be angry with me, Joe. The boldness of men like me is less
+impudence than you take it for, since--should I fulfil my threat, and
+pay your father a visit--I 'd neither show surprise nor shame if he
+refused to receive me. I throw over all the claims of ceremony; but at
+the same time I don't want to impose the trammels on my friends. They
+are free to deal with me as frankly, ay, and as curtly as I have treated
+them; but enough of all this. Let us talk of something else."
+
+And so they did, too,--of their college life and its changeful fortunes;
+of their companions and their several characters, and of the future
+itself, of which Massingbred pretended to read the fate, saying: "You'll
+be something wonderful one of these days, Joe. I have it as though
+revealed to me,--_you_ astonishing the world by your abilities, and
+winning your way to rank and eminence; while _I_ like a sign-post that
+points to the direction, shall stand stock-still, and never budge an
+inch, knowing the road, but not travelling it."
+
+"And why should it be so, Mass, when you have such a perfect
+consciousness of your powers for success?"
+
+"For the simple reason, my boy, that I know and feel how the cleverness
+which imposes upon others has never imposed upon myself. The popular
+error of a man's being able to do fifty things which he has not done
+from idleness, apathy, carelessness, and so on, never yet deceived me,
+because I know well that when a fellow has great stuff in him it will
+come out, whether he likes or not. You might as well say that the grapes
+in a wine-vat could arrest their own process of fermentation, as that
+a man of real genius--and mind, I am now speaking of no other--could
+suppress the working of his intelligence, and throw his faculties into
+torpor. The men who do nothing are exactly the men who can do no better.
+Volition, energy, the strong impulse for action, are part and parcel of
+every really great intellect; and your 'mute, inglorious Milton' only
+reminds me of the artist who painted his canvas all red to represent the
+passage of the Egyptians through the Red Sea. Believe me, you must take
+all untried genius in the same scale of credit as that by which you
+have fancied the chariots and horsemen submerged in the flood. They are
+there, if you like; and if you don't--"
+
+"Your theory requires that all men's advantages should be equal, their
+station alike, and their obstacles the same. Now, they are not so.
+See, for instance, in our University here. _I_ am debarred from the
+fellowship-bench--or, at least, from attempting to reach it--because I
+am a Papist."
+
+"Then turn Protestant; or if that doesn't suit you, address yourself
+to kick down the barrier that stands in your way. By the bye, I did n't
+know you were a Roman; how comes that? Is it a family creed, or was it a
+caprice of your own?"
+
+"It is the religion my family have always professed," said Nelligan,
+gravely.
+
+"I have no right to speak of these subjects, because I have never felt
+strongly enough on them to establish strong convictions; but it
+appears to me that if I were you--that is, if I had _your_ head on my
+shoulders--I should think twice ere I 'd sacrifice my whole future out
+of respect for certain dogmas that no more interfere with one's daily
+life and opinions than some obsolete usage of ancient Greece has a
+bearing upon a modern suit in Chancery. There, don't look fretful and
+impatient; I don't want to provoke you, nor is it worth your while
+to bring your siege artillery against my card-house. I appreciate
+everything you could possibly adduce by anticipation, and I yield myself
+as vanquished."
+
+Thus, half in earnest, half jestingly, Massingbred talked away, little
+thinking how deeply many a random speech entered into his friend's
+heart, taking firm root there to grow and vegetate hereafter. As for
+himself, it would have been somewhat difficult to say how far his
+convictions ever went with his words. Any attempt to guide and direct
+him was, at any time, enough to excite a wilful endeavor to oppose it,
+and whatever savored of opposition immediately evoked his resistance.
+The spirit of rebellion was the keynote of his character; he could be
+made anything, everything, or nothing, as authority--or as he would have
+styled it, tyranny--decided.
+
+It was just at this very moment that an incident occurred to display
+this habit of his mind in its full force. His father, by employing much
+private influence and the aid of powerful friends, had succeeded in
+obtaining for him the promise of a most lucrative civil appointment
+in India. It was one of those situations which in a few years of
+very moderate labor secure an ample fortune for the possessor. Mr.
+Massingbred had forgotten but one thing in all the arrangement of this
+affair, which was to apprise his son of it beforehand, and make him, as
+it were, a part of the plot. That one omission, however, was enough to
+secure its failure.
+
+Jack received the first tidings of the scheme when it was a fact, not a
+speculation. It was a thing done, not to do, and consequently a "gross
+piece of domestic cruelty to dispose of him and his future by an
+arbitrary banishment to a distant land, linking him with distasteful
+duties, uncongenial associates," and the rest of it. In a word, it was a
+case for resistance, and he did resist, and in no very measured fashion,
+either. He wrote back a pettish and ill-tempered refusal of the place,
+sneered at the class by whom such appointments were regarded as prizes,
+and coolly said that "it was quite time enough to attach himself to the
+serious business of life when he had tasted something of the pleasures
+that suited his time of life; besides," added he, "I must see which way
+my ambitions point; perhaps to a seat on the Treasury benches, perhaps
+to a bullock-team, a wood-axe, and a rifle in a new settlement. Of my
+resolves on either head, or on anything between them, you shall have
+the earliest possible intimation from your devoted, but perhaps not very
+obedient, to command,
+
+"J. M."
+
+His father rejoined angrily and peremptorily. The place had cost him
+everything he could employ or enlist of friendly patronage; he made the
+request assume all the weight of a deep personal obligation, and now
+the solicitation and the success were all to go for nothing. What if he
+should leave so very gifted a young gentleman to the unfettered use of
+his great abilities? What if he abstained from any interference with
+one so competent to guide himself? He threw out these suggestions too
+palpably to occasion any misconception, and Jack read them aright. "I'm
+quite ready for sea whenever you are pleased to cut the painter," said
+he; and the correspondence concluded with a dry intimation that two
+hundred a year, less than one half of his former allowance, should be
+paid into Coutts's for his benefit, but that no expenditure above that
+sum would be repaid by his father.
+
+"I 'll emigrate; I 'll agitate; I 'll turn author, and write for the
+reviews; I 'll correspond with the newspapers; I 'll travel in Afrifca;
+I 'll go to sea,--be a pirate;" in fact, there was nothing for which he
+thought his capacity unequal, nor anything against which his principles
+would revolt. In speculation, only, however; for in sober reality he
+settled down into a mere idler, discontented, dreamy, and unhappy.
+
+Little momentary bursts of energy would drive him now and then to his
+books, and for a week or two he would work really hard; when a change as
+sudden would come over him, and he would relapse into his former apathy.
+Thus was it that he had lived for some time after the term had come to
+an end, and scarcely a single student lingered within the silent courts.
+Perhaps the very solitude was the great charm of the place; there was
+that in his lonely, unfriended, uncompanionable existence that seemed to
+feed the brooding melancholy in which he indulged with all the ardor
+of a vice. He liked to think himself an outcast and forgotten. It was a
+species of flattery that he addressed to his own heart when he affected
+to need neither sympathy nor affection. Still his was not the stuff of
+which misanthropy is fashioned, and he felt acutely the silence of his
+friend Nelligan, who had never once written to him since they parted.
+
+"I 'd scarcely have left _him_ here," said he to himself one day; "had
+_he_ been in my position, I 'd hardly have quitted _him_ under such
+circumstances. He knew all about my quarrel with my father. He had read
+our letters on each side. To be sure he had condemned _me_, and taken
+the side against me; still, when there was a breach, and that breach
+offered no prospect of reconciliation, it was but scant friendship to
+say good-bye, and desert me. He might, at least, have asked me down to
+his house. I 'd not have gone; that 's certain. I feel myself very
+poor company for myself, and I 'd not inflict my stupidity upon others.
+Still, _he_ might have thought it kind or generous. In fact, in such a
+case I would have taken no refusal; I'd have insisted."
+
+What a dangerous hypothesis it is when we assume to act for another;
+how magnanimously do we rise above all meaner motives, and only think
+of what is generous and noble; how completely we discard every possible
+contingency that could sway us from the road of duty, and neither look
+right nor left on our way to some high object! Jack Massingbred, arguing
+thus, ended by thinking himself a very fine fellow and his friend a very
+shabby one,--two conclusions that, strangely enough, did not put him
+into half as much good-humor with the world as he expected. At all
+events, he felt very sore with Nelligan, and had he known where to
+address him, would have written a very angry epistle of mock gratitude
+for all his solicitude in his behalf; very unfortunately, however, he
+did not know in what part of Ireland the other resided, nor did his
+acquaintance with provincial dialect enable him to connect his friend
+with a western county. He had so confidently expected to hear from him,
+that he had never asked a question as to his whereabouts. Thus was it
+with Massingbred, as he sauntered along the silent alleys of the College
+Park, in which, at rare intervals, some solitary sizar might be met
+with,--spare, sad-looking figures,--in whose features might be read
+the painful conflict of narrow fortune and high ambition. Book in
+hand generally, they rarely exchanged a look as he passed them; and
+Massingbred scanned at his ease these wasted and careworn sons of labor,
+wondering within himself was "theirs the right road to fortune."
+
+Partly to shake off the depression that was over him by change of place,
+and in part to see something of the country itself, Massingbred resolved
+to make a walking-tour through the south and west of Ireland, and with a
+knapsack on his back, he started one fine autumn morning for Wicklow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. SOME KNOTTY POINTS THAT PUZZLED JOE NELLIGAN
+
+This true history contains no record of the evening Mr. Scanlan passed
+at the Osprey's Nest; nor is it probable that in any diary kept by that
+intelligent individual there will yet be found materials to supply this
+historical void. Whether, therefore, high events and their consequences
+were discussed, or that the meeting was only devoted to themes of
+lighter importance, is likely to remain a secret to all time. That
+matters beneath the range of politics occupied the consideration of the
+parties was, however, evident from the following few lines of a note
+received by young Nelligan the next morning:--
+
+     "Dear Joe,--I dined yesterday at the 'Nest,' and we talked
+     much of you. What would you think of paying a visit there
+     this morning to see the picture, or anything else you can
+     think of? I 've a notion it would be well taken. At all
+     events, come over and speak to me here.
+
+     "Ever yours,
+
+     "M. SCANLAN."
+
+
+
+"I scarcely understand your note, Maurice," said young Nelligan, as he
+entered the little room where the other sat at breakfast.
+
+"Have you breakfasted?" said Scanlan.
+
+"Yes, an hour ago."
+
+"Will you taste that salmon? Well, then, just try Poll Hanigan's attempt
+at a grouse-pie; let me tell you, there is genius in the very ambition;
+she got the receipt from the cook at Cro' Martin, and the imitation is
+highly creditable. You 're wrong to decline it." And he helped himself
+amply as he spoke.
+
+"But this note?" broke in the other, half impatiently.
+
+"Oh--ay--the note; I 'm sure I forget what I wrote; what was it about?
+Yes, to be sure, I remember now. I want you to make yourself known, up
+there. It is downright folly, if not worse, to be keeping up these feuds
+and differences in Ireland any longer; such a course might suit the
+small politicians of Oughterard, but you and I know better, and Martin
+himself knows better."
+
+"But I never took any part in the conflict you speak of; I lived out of
+it,--away from it."
+
+"And are therefore, exactly suited to repair a breach to which you
+never contributed. I assure you, my boy, the gentry--and I know them
+well--will meet you more than half-way. There is not a prouder fellow
+living than Martin there; he has throughout his whole life held his head
+higher than any man in our county, and yet he is quite ready to
+make advances towards you. Of course, what I say is strictly between
+ourselves; but my opinion is, that, if you like it, you may be as
+intimate up there as ever you were at old Hayes's, at the Priory."
+
+"Then, what would you have me do?" asked Nelligan.
+
+"Just pay a visit there this morning; say that you are curious to see
+that great picture,--and it is a wonderful thing, if only for the size
+of it; or that you 'd like to have a look at Arran Island out of the big
+telescope at the top of the house; anything will serve as a reason, and
+then,--why, leave the rest to chance."
+
+"But really, Maurice, I see no sufficient cause for all this," said the
+youth, timidly.
+
+"Look now, Joe," said the other, drawing his chair closer to him, and
+talking in the low and measured tone of a confidence,--"look now, you're
+not going to pass your life as the successor to that excellent man, Dan
+Nelligan, of Oughterard, selling hides and ropes and ten-penny-nails,
+and making an estate the way old ladies make a patchwork quilt. You'll
+be able to start in life with plenty of tin and plenty of talent; you'll
+have every advantage that money and education can give, and only one
+drawback on your road to success,--the mere want of blood,--that dash of
+birth which forms the only real freemasonry in this world. Now mind me,
+Joe; the next best thing to having this oneself is to live and associate
+with those who have; for in time, what with catching up their prejudices
+and learning their ways, you come to feel very much as they do; and,
+what is better still, they begin to regard you as one of themselves."
+
+"But if I do not ambition this,--if I even reject it?" said the other,
+impatiently.
+
+"Then all I say is that Trinity College may make wonderful scholars, but
+turns out mighty weak men of the world!"
+
+"Perhaps so!" said Nelligan, dryly, and with a half-nettled air.
+
+"I suppose you fancy there would be something like slavery in such a
+position?" said Scanlan, with a derisive look.
+
+"I know it!" responded the other, firmly.
+
+"Then what do you say to the alternative,--and there is but one only
+open to you,--what do you think of spending your life as a follower of
+Daniel O'Connell; of being reminded every day and every hour that you
+have not a privilege nor a place that he did n't win for you; that he
+opened Parliament to you, and made you free of every guild where men
+of ability rise to honor? Ay, Joe! and what 's a thousand times
+worse,--knowing it all to be true, my boy! Take service with him once,
+and if you leave him you 're a renegade; remember that, and bethink you
+that there's no saying what crotchet he may have in store for future
+agitation."
+
+"But I never purposed any such part for myself," broke in Nelligan.
+
+"Never mind, it will fall to your lot for all that, if you don't quickly
+decide against it. What's Simmy Crow staring at? Look at him down there,
+he's counting every window in the street like a tax-gatherer." And
+he pointed to the artist, who, shading his eyes with one hand, stood
+peering at every house along the little street. "What's the matter,
+Simmy?" cried he, opening the casement.
+
+"It's a house I'm looking for, down here, and I forget which it is;
+bother them, they 're all so like at this time of the year when they 're
+empty."
+
+"Are you in search of a lodging, Simmy?"
+
+"No, it is n't that!" said the other, curtly, and still intent on his
+pursuit. "Bad luck to the architect that would n't vary what they call
+the 'facade,' and give one some chance of finding the place again."
+
+"Who is it you want, man?"
+
+"Faix, and I don't even know that same!" replied the artist; "but"--and
+he lowered his voice to a whisper as he spoke--"he's an elegant study,--
+as fine a head and face and as beautiful a beard as ever you saw. I met
+him at Kyle's Wood a week ago, begging; and what with his fine forehead
+and deep-set blue eyes, his long white hair, and his great shaggy
+eyebrows, I said to myself: 'Belisarius,' says I, 'by all that's
+grand,--a Moses, a Marino Faliero, or a monk in a back parlor
+discoursing to an old skull and a vellum folio,--any one of these,' says
+I, 'not to speak of misers, money-lenders, or magicians, as well;' and
+so I coaxed him down here on Saturday last, and put him somewhere to
+sleep, with a good supper and a pint of spirits, and may I never, if I
+know where I left him."
+
+"Three days ago?"
+
+"Just so; and worse than all, I shut up the place quite dark, and only
+made a hole in the roof, just to let a fine Rembrandt light fall down on
+his head. Oh, then, it's no laughing matter, Maurice! Sure if anything
+happened to him--"
+
+"Your life wouldn't be worth sixpence before any jury in the county."
+
+"Begad! it's what I was thinking; if they wouldn't take it as a
+practical joke."
+
+"You're looking for ould Brennan!" cried a weather-beaten hag; "but he's
+gone to Oughterard for a summons. You'll pay dear for your tricks this
+time, anyhow."
+
+"Come up here, Simmy, and never mind her," said Scanlan; then, turning
+to Nelligan, he added, "There's not such a character in the county!
+
+"I want my friend, Mr. Nelligan, here--Mr. Nelligan--Mr. Crow--I want
+him, I say, to come up and have a look at the great 'Historical '--eh,
+Simmy!--would n't it astonish him?"
+
+"Are you a votary of art, sir?" asked Crow, modestly.
+
+"I 've never seen what could be called a picture, except those portraits
+in the College Examination Hall might be deemed such."
+
+"Indeed, and they're not worthy the name, sir. Flood, mayhap, is like,
+but he's hard and stiff, and out of drawing; and Lord Clare is worse.
+It's in the Low Countries you 'd see portraits, real portraits! men that
+look down on you out of the canvas, as if _you_ were the intruder there,
+and that _they_ were waiting to know what brought you. A sturdy old
+Burgomaster, for instance, with a red-brown beard and a fierce pair
+of eyes, standing up firm as a rock on a pair of legs that made many a
+drawbridge tremble as he walked home to dinner on the Grand Canal, at
+Rotterdam, after finishing some mighty bargain for half a spice island,
+or paying a million of guilders down as a dowry for that flaxen-haired,
+buxom damsel in the next frame. Look at the dimples in her neck, and
+mark the folds in her satin. Is n't she comely, and calm, and haughty,
+and house-wifery, all together? Mind her foot, it isn't small, but see
+the shape of it, and the way it presses the ground--ay, just so--my
+service to you; but you are one there 's no joking with, even if one was
+alone with you." And he doffed his hat, and bowed obsequiously as he
+spoke.
+
+"You're an enthusiast for your art?" said Nelligan, interested by the
+unmistakable sincerity of his zeal.
+
+"I am, sir," was the brief reply.
+
+"And the painter's is certainly a glorious career."
+
+"If for nothing else," burst in Crow, eagerly, "that it can make of one
+like me--poor, ignorant, and feeble, as I am--a fellow-soldier in
+the same army with Van Dyke and Titian and Velasquez--to know that in
+something that they thought, or hoped, or dared, or tried to do, I too
+have my share! You think me presumptuous to say this; you are sneering
+at such a creature as Simmy Crow for the impudence of such a boast, but
+it's in humility I say it, ay, in downright abject humility; for I 'd
+rather have swept out Rembrandt's room, and settled his rough boards on
+Cuyp's easel, than I 'd be a--a--battle-axe guard, or a lord-in-waiting,
+or anything else you like, that's great and grand at court."
+
+"I envy you a pursuit whose reward is in the practice rather than in the
+promise," said Nelligan, thoughtfully. "Men like myself labor that they
+may reach some far-away land of rewards and successes, and bear the
+present that they may enjoy the future."
+
+[Illustration: 114]
+
+"Ay, but it will repay you well, by all accounts," said Crow. "Miss Mary
+told us last night how you had beat every one out of the field, and had
+n't left a single prize behind you."
+
+"Who said this?" cried Joe, eagerly.
+
+"Miss Mary,--Miss Martin. She said it was a credit to us all of the
+west, here, that there was one, at least, from Galway, who could do
+something besides horse-racing and cock-fighting--"
+
+"So she did," said Scanlan, interrupting, with some confusion. "She
+said somebody had told her of young Nelligan. She called you 'Young
+Nelligan.'"
+
+"No, no; it was to myself she said it, and the words were, 'Mr. Joseph
+Nelligan;' and then, when her uncle said, 'Why don't we know him? '--"
+
+"My dear Simmy, you make a most horrible confusion when you attempt a
+story,--out of canvas. Mind, I said out of canvas; for I confess that in
+your grand 'Historical' the whole incident is admirably detailed. I 've
+just said to my friend here, that he has a great pleasure before him in
+seeing that picture."
+
+"If you 'll do me the honor to look at it," said Crow, bowing
+courteously, "when you come to dinner to-day."
+
+"Attend to _me_, Joe," said Scanlan, passing an arm within Nelligan's,
+and leading him away to another part of the room; "that fellow is little
+better than an idiot. But I was just going to tell you what Martin said.
+'You are intimate with young Nelligan,' said he; 'you know him well, and
+you could possibly do without awkwardness what with more formality
+might be difficult. Don't you think, then, that he would possibly waive
+ceremony--'"
+
+"I must be off," broke in Crow, hastily. "I have a sitting at twelve
+o'clock, so I hope we shall see you at seven, Mr. Nelligan; your note
+said seven, sharp." And without waiting for more, he seized his hat and
+hurried down the stairs.
+
+"A downright fool!" said Scanlan, angrily. "Mr. Martin said he 'd write
+to you, if--if--if, in fact, you stood upon that punctilio; but that
+he'd be all the better pleased if you 'd just accept acquaintance as
+freely as he offered it, and come and dine there to-day, like a friend."
+
+"Is n't there, or has there not been, some difference between him and my
+father?" asked Joe.
+
+"A trifle,--and a mistake; the kind of thing that two men of calm heads
+and common sense could have settled in five minutes, and which, to say
+the truth, Martin was right in throughout. It's all passed and over now,
+however, and it would be worse than foolish to revive it. There 's Miss
+Martin!" cried he, "and I have a word to say to her;" and hurried off
+without waiting for more. As he passed from the room, however, a letter
+fell from his pocket; and as Nelligan stooped to take it up, he saw that
+it was addressed to himself. He looked hesitatingly at it for a moment
+or two, scarcely knowing whether or not he ought to break the seal. "It
+was meant for me, at all events," said he, and opened it. The contents
+were as follows;--
+
+"Mr. Martin presents his respects to Mr. Joseph Nelligan, and will feel
+happy if--excusing the want of formal introduction--Mr. Nelligan will
+admit him to the honor of acquaintance, and give him the pleasure of
+his society at dinner, to-morrow, at seven o'clock. Mr. Martin does not
+hesitate to say that to accept this unceremonious proposal will be felt
+as a very great favor indeed by him and his family."
+
+"What does Scanlan mean by all this? Why not have handed me this note at
+once?" was Nelligan's question to himself, as he descended the stairs
+and gained the street. He was not sorry that Scanlan was not in sight,
+and hastened homeward to think over this strange communication. Joe well
+knew that his mother was not peculiarly endowed with worldly wisdom or
+acuteness; and yet such was his need of counsel at the moment, that
+he determined, at least in part, to lay the case before her. "She
+can certainly tell me," said he, "if there be any reason why I should
+decline this proposal." And with this resolve he entered the cottage.
+
+"Don't you remember Catty Henderson, Joe?" said his mother, as he came
+into the room, and presenting a young girl, very plainly but
+neatly dressed, who arose to receive him with an air of well-bred
+composure,--"Catty, that used to be your playfellow long ago?"
+
+"I didn't know you were in Ireland, Miss Henderson. I should never have
+recognized you," said Nelligan, in some confusion.
+
+"Nor was I till a few days back," said she, in an accent very slightly
+tinged with a foreign pronunciation. "I came home on Tuesday."
+
+"Isn't she grown, joe? and such a fine girl, too. I always said she 'd
+be so; and when the others would have it that your nose was too long for
+the rest of your features, I said, 'Wait till she grows up,--wait till
+she 's a woman;' and see now if I 'm not right."
+
+It must be owned that Joe Nelligan's confusion during the delivery of
+this prophetic criticism was far greater than Catty's own, who received
+the speech with a low, gentle laugh, while Mrs. Nelligan went on: "I
+made her stay till you came back, Joe, for I wanted her to see what
+a tall creature you are, and not more than twenty,--her own age to
+a month; and I told her what a genius you turned out, indeed, to the
+surprise of us all, and myself, especially."
+
+"Thank you, mother," said he, smiling.
+
+"No, indeed, my dear, 't is your father you may thank for all your
+talents and abilities; a wonderful man he is, beginning the world
+without a sixpence; and there he is now, with I 'm sure I don't know how
+many hundreds a year in land,--ay, Catty, in broad acres; just like any
+squire in the county. Well, well, there 's many a change come over the
+country since you were here,--how many years is it now?"
+
+"Upwards of twelve," said the young girl. "Dear me, how time flies! It
+seems like yesterday that you and Joe had the measles together, in the
+yellow room up at Broom Lodge, and your poor mother was alive then, and
+would insist on giving you everything cool to drink, just because you
+liked it, though I told her that was exactly the reason it was sure to
+be bad for you; for there 's nothing so true in life,--that everything
+we wish for is wrong."
+
+"An unpleasant theory, certainly," said Catty, laughing; "but I hope
+not of universal application, for I have been long wishing to see you
+again."
+
+"Well, well, who knows whether it may be good or bad," said she,
+sighing; "not but I 'm pleased to see you growing up the image of
+your poor dear mother,--taller, maybe, but not so handsome, nor so
+genteel-looking; but when you have your trials and troubles, as she had,
+maybe that will come, too, for I often remarked, there 's nothing like
+affliction to make one genteel."
+
+"Why, mother, you are profuse in unhappy apothegms this morning," said
+Joe.
+
+"And you are coming to stay amongst us now, Catty; or are you going back
+to France again?" said Mrs. Nelligan, not heeding the remark.
+
+"I scarcely know, as yet," replied the young girl. "My father's letter
+to summon me home said something about placing me as a governess, if I
+were capable of the charge."
+
+"Of course you are, my dear, after all your advantages; not but that I
+'d rather see you anything else,--a nice light business; for instance,
+in baby-linen or stationery, or in Miss Busk's establishment, if that
+could be accomplished."
+
+A very slight flush--so slight as to be nearly imperceptible--crossed
+the young girl's cheek, but not a syllable escaped her, as Mrs. Nelligan
+resumed,--
+
+"And there was an excellent opening the other day at the Post here, in
+the circulating-library way, and lending out a newspaper or two. I don't
+know how much you might make of it. Not but maybe you 'd rather be
+companion to a lady, or what they call a 'nervous invalid.'"
+
+"That, too, has been thought of," said the girl, smiling; "but I have
+little choice in the matter, and, happily, as little preference for one
+as the other of these occupations. And now I must take my leave, for I
+promised to be back by two o'clock."
+
+"Well, there's Joe will see you home with pleasure, and I 'm sure you
+have plenty to say to each other about long ago; not but I hope you 'll
+agree better than you did then. You were the torment of my life, the way
+you used to fight."
+
+"I couldn't think of trespassing on Mr. Joseph's time; I should be
+quite ashamed of imposing such trouble on him. So good-bye, godmamma;
+good-bye, Mr. Joseph," said she, hurriedly throwing her shawl around
+her.
+
+"If you will allow me to accompany you," said Joseph, scarcely knowing
+whether she rejected or accepted his escort.
+
+"To be sure she will, and you have both more sense than to fall out now;
+and mind, Joseph, you 're to be here at four, for I asked Mrs. Cronan to
+dinner."
+
+"Oh, that reminds me of something," said Joe, hurriedly; and he leaned
+over his mother's chair, and whispered to her, "Mr. Martin has invited
+me to dine with him to-day; here is his note, which came to me in rather
+a strange fashion."
+
+"To dine at the Nest! May I never! But I scarcely can believe my eyes,"
+said Mrs. Nelligan, in ecstasy. "And the honor, and the pleasure, too;
+well, well, you 're the lucky boy."
+
+"What shall I do, mother; is n't there something between my father and
+him?"
+
+"What will you do but go; what else would you do, I 'd like to know?
+What will they say at the Post when they hear it?"
+
+"But I want you to hear how this occurred."
+
+"Well, well; I don't care,--go you must, Joe. But there 's poor Catty
+walking away all alone; just overtake her, and say that a sudden
+invitation from the Martins--mention it as if you were up there every
+day--"
+
+But young Nelligan did not wait for the conclusion of this artful
+counsel, but hurrying after Catty Henderson, overtook her as she had
+gained the beach.
+
+"I have no need of an escort, Mr. Joseph," said she, good-humoredly. "I
+know every turn of the way here."
+
+"But you'll not refuse my companionship?" said he. "We have scarcely
+spoken to each other yet." And as he spoke he drew his arm within her
+own, and they walked along in silence.
+
+"My mother thinks we did nothing but quarrel long ago," said he, after a
+pause; "but if my memory serves me truly, it was upon this very pathway
+we once swore to each other vows of a very different kind. Do you
+recollect anything of that, Miss Henderson?"
+
+"I do, Mr. Joseph," said she, with a sly half-glance as she uttered the
+last word.
+
+"Then why 'Mr. Joseph'?" said he, half reproachfully.
+
+"Why 'Miss Henderson'?" said she, with a malicious smile at the other's
+confusion; for somehow Joseph's manner was far less easy than her own.
+
+"I scarcely know why," replied he, after a short silence, "except that
+you seem so changed; and I myself, too, am probably in your eyes as much
+altered--from what we both were, that--that--"
+
+"That, in short, it would be impossible to link the past with the
+present," said she, quickly; "and you were quite right. I 'm convinced
+the effort is always a failure, and prejudices in a hundred ways the
+good qualities of those who attempt it. Let us, therefore, begin our
+acquaintance here; learn to know each other as we are,--that is, if we
+are to know each other at all."
+
+"Why do you say that?" asked he, eagerly.
+
+"For many reasons. We may not meet often; perhaps not at all; perhaps
+under circumstances where to renew intimacy might be difficult.
+Assuredly, although the path here might once have sufficed us, our roads
+in life lie widely apart now, and the less we travel together the more
+we shall each go towards his own goal, and--and the less regret we shall
+feel at parting; and so now good-bye."
+
+"You wish it?" said he, reproachfully. "You desire this?"
+
+"What matters it whether I wish it or not? I know it must be. Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, then,--good-bye," said he, affecting as much indifference as
+he could; and then, slightly raising his hat, he turned away on the road
+homeward.
+
+Joseph Nelligan's reflections were not of the pleasantest as he
+sauntered slowly back. He was not exactly satisfied with himself; he
+felt, he could not just say how, that the young girl had had the mastery
+over him; she was more calm or self-possessed; she had more tact, or she
+knew more of life; had more of self-control, or breeding, or some other
+quality, whatever it might be, than he had. At all events, he was ill
+at ease and discontented. Then he doubted whether he ought to have taken
+her at her word when she talked of parting. It might, possibly, have
+been meant by her to evoke some show of resistance on his part; that
+same inequality of station she seemed to hint at might, perhaps, demand
+from him a greater deference. In fact, whichever way he turned the
+matter over, he saw little cause for self-gratulation; nor did he
+discover that it mended matters when he tried to accuse her of French
+frivolity, and such other traits as he fancied of foreign origin.
+
+In this not over-pleasant mood was it that he re-entered the cottage,
+where his mother was busy in preparing a very formidable cravat for the
+approaching dinner-party.
+
+"Ah, Joe!" said she, anxiously, "if you were to dress now, and then stay
+quiet, you 'd be quite fresh when the time came; for, remember, it's not
+like your father you are, that has the world about him, and can converse
+about everything that comes uppermost; but with all your learning, you
+know, you always feel somehow--"
+
+"Stupid, mother?"
+
+"Not stupid, my dear, but depressed,--out of spirits in society; so
+that my advice to you is, now, dress yourself in good time, take a small
+glass of ginger-cordial, and throw your eye over the second chapter of
+'Social Hints,' with an account of conversation before and at dinner,
+and some excellent advice about'compliments, meet for every season of
+the year.'"
+
+"Do you think such preparations quite necessary, mother?" asked Joe,
+slyly; for he rather relished the simplicity of her counsels.
+
+"To be sure, I do; for yours is no common difficulty, Joe. If you talk
+of country matters, you 'll get into Kyle's Wood and the Chancery suit;
+if you touch politics or religion, it will be worse again. The Martins,
+I hear, never play cards, so you can't allude to them; and they 'll
+be too grand to know anything about poor Miss Cuddy going off with the
+sergeant of police, or what Con Kelly did with his aunt's furniture."
+
+"So that really the topics open to me are marvellously few."
+
+"Well, there's shooting; but to be sure you know nothing about that, nor
+fishing, either; and I suppose farming, if you did understand it, would
+n't be genteel. Indeed, I see little that is n't dangerous, except the
+dearness of everything. I remark that's a subject nobody ever tires of,
+and all can take their share in."
+
+"And I conclude it to be fact, mother?"
+
+"A very melancholy fact, my dear; and so I said to Betty Gargan,
+yesterday. 'It's well for _you_,' said I, 'and the likes of you, that
+use nothing but potatoes; but think of us, that have to pay sixpence a
+pound for mutton, six-and-a-half for the prime pieces, and veal not to
+be had under eightpence.' They talk of the poor, indeed! but sure they
+never suffer from a rise in butcher's meat, and care nothing at all what
+tea costs. I assure you I made the tears come into her eyes, with the
+way I described our hardships."
+
+"So that this will be a safe subject for me, mother?"
+
+"Perfectly safe, my dear, and no ways mean, either; for I always
+remarked that the higher people are, the stingier they are, and the more
+pleasure they take in any little sharp trick that saves them sixpence.
+And when that 's exhausted, just bring in the Rams."
+
+"The Rams?"
+
+"I mean my aunt Ram, and my relations in Wexford. I 'm sure, with a
+little address, you 'll be able to show how I came to be married beneath
+me, and all the misery it cost me."
+
+"Well, mother, I believe I have now ample material," said Joe, rising,
+with a lively dread of an opening which he knew well boded a lengthy
+exposition; "and to my own want of skill must it be ascribed if I do not
+employ it profitably." And with this he hurried to his room to prepare
+for the great event.
+
+The "Gentlemen of England" do not deem it a very formidable circumstance
+to repair towards seven, or half-past, to a dinner-party, even of the
+dullest and most rigid kind. There is a sombre "routine" in these cases,
+so recognized that each goes tolerably well prepared for the species
+of entertainment before him. There is nothing very exhilarating in the
+prospect, and as little to depress. It is a leaf torn out of one of the
+tamest chapters in life's diary, where it is just as rare to record a
+new dish as a new idea, and where the company and the cookery are both
+foreknown.
+
+No one goes with any exaggerated expectations of enjoyment; but as
+little does he anticipate anything to discompose or displease him.
+The whole thing is very quiet and well-bred; rather dull, but not
+unpleasant. Now, Joseph Nelligan had not graduated as a "diner-out;" he
+was about as ignorant of these solemn festivals as any man well could
+be. He was not, therefore, without a certain sense of anxiety as to the
+conversational requisites for such occasions. Would the company rise to
+themes and places and people of which he had never as much as heard?
+or would they treat of ordinary events, and if so, on what terms? If
+politics came to be discussed, would Mr. Martin expect him to hear in
+silence opinions from which he dissented? Dare he speak his sentiments,
+at the cost of directing attention to himself?--a course he would fain
+have avoided. These, and innumerable other doubts, occupied him as he
+was dressing, and made him more than once regret that he had determined
+to accept this invitation; and when the hour at last came for him to set
+out, he felt a sense of shrinking terror of what was before him greater
+than he had ever known as he mounted the dreaded steps of the College
+Examination Hall.
+
+He might, it is true, have bethought him of the fact that where Simmy
+Crow and Maurice Scanlan were guests, he too might pass muster without
+reproach; but he did not remember this, or, at least, it failed to
+impress him sufficiently. Nor was his dread without a certain dash of
+vanity, as he thought of the contrast between the humble place he was
+perhaps about to occupy at a great man's table, and the proud one he
+had achieved in the ranks of scholarship and science. Thus musing, he
+sauntered slowly along till he found himself in front of the little
+garden of the Osprey's Nest. He looked at his watch,--it was exactly
+seven; so he pulled the bell, and entered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE MARTIN ARMS
+
+In the small and not over-neat parlor of the Martin Arms at Oughterard,
+a young man sat at his breakfast, at times casting his eyes over the
+columns of the "Vindicator," and anon strolling to the window to watch
+the gathering of the country people at the weekly market. The scene
+was one of that mingled bustle and languor so characteristically Irish.
+Cart-loads of turf, vegetables, fruit, or turkeys blocked up the narrow
+passage between booths of fancy wares, gilt jewelry, crockery, and
+cutlery; the vendors all eagerly vociferating commendations of their
+stores, in chorus with still more clamorous beggars, or the discordant
+notes of vagrant minstrelsy. Some animal monstrosity, announced by a
+cracked-voiced herald and two clarionets, added to a din to which loud
+laughter contributed its share of uproar.
+
+The assemblage was entirely formed of the country people, many of whom
+made the pretext of having a pig or a lamb to sell the reason of
+their coming; but, in reality, led thither by the native love of a
+gathering,--that fondness to be where their neighbors were,--without
+any definite aim or object. There was, then, in strong contrast to the
+anxious solicitation of all who had aught to sell, the dreary, languid,
+almost apathetic look of the mere lounger, come to while away his weary
+hour and kill time just like any very bored fine gentleman who airs his
+listlessness along St James's Street, or lazily canters his _ennui_ down
+Rotten Row.
+
+Jack Massingbred--for he was the traveller whose straw hat and knapsack
+stood upon a table near--was amused at a scene so full of its native
+characteristics. The physiognomy, the dress, the bearing of the people,
+their greetings as they met, their conduct of a bargain, all bespoke a
+nation widely differing from the sister country, and set him a-dreaming
+as to how it was that equality of laws might very possibly establish
+anything but equality of condition amongst people so dissimilar.
+
+[Illustration: 126]
+
+While thus musing, his eye chanced to rest upon the half-effaced
+inscription over a shop door in front, and where the name of Daniel
+Nelligan figured as "licensed for all kinds of groceries and spirits."
+"Nelligan," repeated he to himself, "I shall certainly quiz my friend
+Joe, when we meet, about his namesake in Oughterard. How good it would
+be to pick up some details of our friend opposite to torment him with!
+What rare fun to affect to have discovered a near relative in this man
+of hides, glue, sugar, and Jamaica rum! Eh, gad, I'll try it." And with
+this resolve he crossed the street at once, and soon found himself in
+the compact crowd which thronged the doorway of this popular shop.
+
+It was, indeed, a busy scene, since many who were there came as much
+sellers as buyers, giving all the complexity of barter to their several
+transactions. Here was a staid country-woman exchanging her spunyarn, or
+her "cloth," as it is called, for various commodities in tea, candles,
+and such like; here a farmer, with a sample of seed-oats in his
+pocket-handkerchief, of which he wanted the value in certain farm
+utensils; here was another, with a stout roll of home-made frieze to
+dispose of; some were even fain to offer a goose or a hen as the medium
+for a little tobacco, or some equally tempting luxury of cottier life.
+But there was another class of customers, who, brushing their way
+through the throng, made for a small, dingy-looking chamber behind
+the shop, in which Mr. Nelligan performed the functions of banker and
+money-lender, discounting small bills, advancing loans, and transacting
+all the various duties of a petty capitalist,--means by which, it was
+alleged, he had already amassed a very ample fortune.
+
+An announcement in writing on the glass door of this sanctum informed
+Massingbred that "bank-notes" were exchanged, and "small loans advanced
+on good security," suggesting to him at once the means of opening an
+acquaintance with the interior. Without any very definite purpose,
+however, he now found himself one of a very closely packed crowd within
+the chamber. At a small desk, around which ran a railing of about a foot
+in height, serving, as it were, to "filter the stream" of solicitation
+that poured in upon him, sat a dark-eyed, bilious-looking man of about
+fifty; a black wig, cut in two deep arches over the temples, showed
+a strongly formed, massive head, very favorably in contrast to the
+features beneath it, which were only indicative of intense shrewdness
+and cunning. The eyes, in particular, were restless and furtive-looking,
+distrust and suspicion giving their entire expression,--qualities, it
+was to be owned, in very active employment in the intercourse of his
+daily life.
+
+The anxious looks around him--careworn, eager, tremulous with anxiety
+as they were--seemed the very opposite to his own, full of the security
+that a strong purse bestows, and stern in the conscious strength of his
+affluence.
+
+"It won't do, Hagan," said he, with a half-smile, as he pushed back
+through the grating a very dirty, discolored piece of paper. "You 'll
+be off to America before it comes due. I would n't take the
+Lord-Lieutenant's note at six months, as times go."
+
+"See, now, Mr. Nelligan," replied the other, pressing his face close
+to the cage, and talking with intense eagerness. "May I never see
+Christmas, but I 'll pay it 'T was marryin' the daughter left me low in
+cash; but with the blessing of God and your help--"
+
+"I hope you 're more certain of the blessing than the help. What's
+this with the string round it?" continued Nelligan, addressing another
+applicant.
+
+"'T is a roll of notes I wanted to ax your honor about. Molly never 'let
+on' she had them till Friday last; and now that James is going away, and
+wants a trifle to fit him out--"
+
+"Why, they're French's Bank, man, that broke years ago,--they 're not
+worth a farthing!"
+
+"Arrah, don't say so, and God reward you," cried the poor fellow, while
+his eyes filled up and his lip trembled convulsively; "don't take the
+hope out of my heart all at onst. Look at them again, your honor, and
+maybe you 'll think different."
+
+"If I did, I 'd be as great a fool as yourself, Patsy. The bank is
+closed, and the banker dead this many a day; and I would n't give
+you sixpence for sixty thousand of them. Take him out in the fresh
+air,--give him a mouthful of water," added he, hastily, as the wretched
+countryman staggered back, sick, and almost fainting with the sad
+tidings.
+
+"Mrs. Mooney," said he, addressing a pale, mild-featured woman in a
+widow's cap and black gown, "you can't expect to hear from Dublin for a
+week or ten days to come. It takes some time to administer; but if you
+are in want of a few pounds--"
+
+"No, sir, thank you," said she, in a low voice; "but as I can't go back
+to the place again,--as I 'll never be able to live there now--"
+
+"Don't be in a hurry, Mrs. Mooney, do nothing rash. None of us know what
+we can do till we 're tried. There's Miles Dogherty never thought he 'd
+be paying me that eight pound fifteen he owes me, and see now if he is
+n't come with it to-day."
+
+"Faix, and I am not," sturdily responded a very powerfully built man in
+the comfortable dress of a substantial farmer. "I don't owe it, and
+I 'll never pay it; and what's more, if you get a decree against me
+to-morrow, I'd sell every stick and stone in the place and go to 'Quay
+bec'."
+
+"Indeed you would n't, Miles, not a bit more than I'd go and take the
+law of an old friend and neighbor."
+
+"Faix, I never thought you would," said the stout man, wiping his
+forehead, and appearing as if he had forgotten his wrath.
+
+"And now, Miles, what about that water-course?" said Nelligan,
+good-humoredly; "are you content to leave it to any two fair men--"
+
+As he got thus far, his eye for the first time fell upon Massingbred,
+who, with folded arms, was leaning against a wall, an attentive
+spectator of the whole scene.
+
+"That is a stranger yonder! what can he want here?" said Nelligan, who
+watched the attentive look of Massingbred's face with considerable
+distrust. He whispered a few words into the ear of a man beside him,
+who, making his way through the crowd, addressed the young man with--
+
+"It's the master, sir, wants to know if he could do anything for your
+honor?"
+
+"For _me?_ oh, you spoke to _me?_" said Massingbred, suddenly recalled
+to himself. "Yes, to be sure; I wanted to know--that is, I was
+thinking--" And he stopped to try and remember by what device he had
+purposed making Mr. Nelligan's acquaintance.
+
+While he thus stood doubting and confused, his eyes suddenly met the
+black, searching, deep-set orbs that peered at him behind the grating;
+and without knowing how or why, he slowly approached him.
+
+"In what way can I be of any use to you, sir?" said Nelligan, in a tone
+which very palpably demanded the reason of his presence there.
+
+Jack Massingbred was eminently "cool,"--that is, he was possessed of
+that peculiar assurance which rarely suffers itself to be ruffled by a
+difficulty. In the intercourse of society, and with men of the world, he
+could have submitted to any test unabashed; and yet now, in presence of
+this shrewd-looking and very commonplace personage, he, somehow, felt
+marvellously ill at ease, and from the simple reason that the man before
+whom he stood was not of his "world," but one of a set of whose habits
+and thoughts and ways he was in utter ignorance.
+
+Nelligan's question was a second time addressed to him, and in the same
+words, before he thought of framing a reply to it. For a second or two
+it occurred to him to say that he had strolled in, half inadvertently,
+and apologizing for the intrusion, to withdraw; but his pride was
+offended at the notion of defeat this conduct implied, and with an
+assumption of that conventional impudence far more natural to him, he
+said,--
+
+"It was your name, sir, attracted me--the name 'Nelligan' which I read
+over your door--being that of a very dear and valued friend of mine,
+suggested to me to inquire whether you might not be relatives."
+
+The cool indifference which accompanied these words, uttered as they
+were in a certain languid drawl, were very far from predisposing
+Nelligan in favor of the speaker; while the pretence of attaching
+any singularity to a name so common as his own, struck him at once as
+indicative of covert impertinence.
+
+"Nelligan is not a very remarkable name down here, sir," dryly responded
+he.
+
+"Very possibly," replied Jack, with all his accustomed ease. "I know
+little or nothing of Ireland. Your namesake, or your relative, perhaps,
+was a college friend of mine, but to what part of the country he
+belonged, I never knew."
+
+The words, "a college friend," roused the other's anxiety, and leaning
+forward eagerly, and dropping his voice to a whisper, he said,--
+
+"Where? In what college, may I ask, sir?"
+
+"In Trinity, Dublin."
+
+"The Medallist of this year, you mean?" said the other, almost
+breathless in his anxiety.
+
+"Just so. The same fellow who has been sweeping away all the honors of
+his day. You have heard of him, it would seem?"
+
+"He is my son, sir. I 'm Joe Nelligan's father!"
+
+Massingbred's astonishment did not betray itself by any change of
+feature; not a word escaped him; but his eye ranged over the scene
+around him, and came back to rest upon old Nelligan's face with an
+expression of the calmest meaning.
+
+"What a fortunate accident--for _me_, I mean," continued he. "Joe and
+I are very dear friends, and it is a great happiness for me to make
+his father's acquaintance. Is he with you now?" "No, sir; he's at the
+sea,--a place called Kilkieran, about twenty miles away; but we 'll have
+him back by tomorrow if you 'll stay with us, and I 'm sure you 'll not
+refuse me that pleasure. The young gentleman who is my son's friend, is
+mine also, if he 'll permit me to call him so; and now just tell me what
+name shall I say?--who is it that I 'm to tell Joe has arrived here?"
+
+"Say that Jack Massingbred is come, and I 'll lay my life on't you'll
+see him here as fast as may be."
+
+"And now, Mr. Massingbred, just take up your quarters with us. Where are
+you stopping? I 'll send over the boy for your trunks, for I need n't
+say that this must be your home while you stay at Oughterard." The
+genial tone of warm hospitality in which he now spoke made him seem
+a very different man from the hard-featured old money-lender he had
+appeared when Jack first beheld him, and Massingbred returned his
+cordial shake hands with a pressure equal to his own, while he said,--
+
+"Be assured that I accept your offer most heartily. My whole baggage is
+a knapsack and a fishing-rod, so that if you admit me as your guest you
+must dispense with all beyond the very humblest requirements. I have no
+coat, except this on me; and, when I brush my hair, I have dressed for
+dinner."
+
+"You are amongst very humble people, Mr. Massingbred,--a country
+shopkeeper, and his wife, and son,--and they 'll be only too happy to
+feel that you don't despise their company. Come, and I 'll show you your
+room." And so saying, Nelligan led him up a narrow stair, and at the
+end of a corridor opened a door into a neatly furnished chamber, which
+looked out into a spacious garden. The whole interior was scrupulously
+clean and comfortable; and as Jack surveyed his new dominions, he
+inwardly blessed his good fortune that had piloted him into such a
+haven.
+
+"I 'll just step down and write to Joe. Meanwhile you 'll have your
+things brought over to you. Make yourself at home here--at least, as
+much as you can in such a place--and when you want anything, just ask
+for it." And with these words old Nelligan left him to his own thoughts.
+
+Whatever savored of an adventure was the delight of Jack Massingbred.
+He was one of those men whose egotism takes the shape of playing hero to
+themselves,--a tolerably large category amongst the spoiled children
+of this world. To be thrown into any strange or novel position, with
+associates he was unused to, and amidst circumstances totally unlike all
+he had ever met before, was his great happiness; and although here there
+was nothing like actual peril to heighten the zest of the enjoyment,
+there was a certain dash of embarrassment in the situation that
+increased its piquancy. This embarrassment lay in his approaching
+meeting with young Nelligan.
+
+All the reserve his young college friend had maintained with regard to
+his family was at once explained; and Jack began to think over how
+often it must have occurred to him to say the most galling and offensive
+things in his ignorance of Nelligan's real station. "If he had been
+frank and open with me," said he to himself, "this would never have
+happened." But therein Jack made two errors, since Nelligan was in no
+wise bound to make such revelations, nor was Massingbred the man to
+distinguish himself amongst his associates by a close friendship with
+the son of a country shopkeeper. He had been trained in a very different
+school, and taught to estimate his own station by the standard of
+his companionship. Indeed, he had witnessed the lenity which met his
+transgressions when they occurred in high company, and saw his father
+pay the debts he had contracted amongst titled associates with a far
+more generous forgiveness than had they taken their origin with
+more plebeian friends. "What could have induced the man to become a
+Fellow-Commoner," said he, over and over; "it is such a palpable piece
+of presumption?" The truth was, Jack felt excessively irritated at never
+having even suspected his friend's pretensions, and was eager to throw
+the blame of a deception where none had ever been practised.
+
+"They told me I should find everything very different here from in
+England, but they never hinted at anything like this." There came then
+another phase over his reflections, as he asked himself, "But what
+affair is it of mine? Nelligan never thrust himself on me, it was I that
+sought him. He never proposed introducing me to his family, it was I
+that made them out,--I, in fact, who have imposed myself upon them. If
+I deemed the old grocer _infra dig._, I need never have known him; but
+I have not felt this to be the case. He may be--indeed, Joe Nelligan's
+father ought to be--a very superior fellow, and at all events the whole
+situation is new, and must be amusing."
+
+Such was the course of his thoughts as he arranged his clothes in the
+little chest of drawers, put out his few books and papers on the table,
+and proceeded to make himself perfectly at home and comfortable in his
+new quarters.
+
+The embarrassments of selfish men are always lighter than those of other
+people, their egotism filling, as it does, such a very large space in
+the sea of their troubles. Thus was it that Massingbred suffered little
+discomfort at the thought of his friend Nelligan's probable shame and
+awkwardness, his thoughts being occupied by how he, clever fellow that
+he was, had traced out his home and origin,--won, by a few words, the
+old father's esteem, and established himself, by his own sharp wits, a
+guest of his house.
+
+"It is a downright adventure," said he; he even thought how the
+thing would tell afterwards at some convivial meeting, and set about
+dramatizing to himself his own part in the incident, to heighten the
+piquancy of the narrative. He resolved to conform in everything to the
+habits of the household,--to accommodate himself in all respects to
+old Nelligan's tastes, so that Joe should actually be amazed at the
+versatile resources of his nature, and struck with astonishment at this
+new evidence of his powers.
+
+Nor was Mr. Nelligan idle during all this time; the thought of a fellow
+collegian of his son Joe being a guest under his roof was a very proud
+and inspiring reflection. It was such a recognition of Joe's social
+claims,--so flat a contradiction to all the surmises of those who
+deprecated his college life, and said "that old Dan was wrong to put
+his boy into Trinity"--that he already regarded the incident as the full
+earnest of success.
+
+"What would have brought him here, if it wasn't for Joe? How would he
+ever have been under my roof, if he wasn't Joe's friend?" There was a
+palpable triumph here that nothing could gainsay, and with a proud heart
+he locked up his desk, resolving to do no more business that day, but
+make it one of enjoyment.
+
+"Who will I get to dine with us," thought he, "since Joe can't have
+the letter before this evening, and do his best he won't be here before
+morning?" The question of those who should fill the places around his
+board was a difficulty he had never experienced before, for Mr. Nelligan
+was the first man in Oughterard, and never had any trouble about his
+dinner company. His politics--very decided as they were--drew the line
+amongst his acquaintances, and the Liberal party well knew that they
+alone were the partakers of his hospitalities. There now, however, came
+the thought that the most respectable residents of the town--Dr. Dasy,
+of the Infirmary; Mr. Scanlan, the Attorney; and Morris Croft, the
+Adjutant of the Galway------were Conservatives. These were the
+fit company to meet young Massingbred, at least for the first day;
+afterwards, he might be introduced to their own set. And yet, Father
+Neal Rafferty would be outraged at all this. Peter Hayes, of the Priory,
+would never enter his doors again; and Peter Hayes had made a will in
+favor of Joe Nelligan, and left him every sixpence he had in the world.
+"What if we mixed them all together?" said Dan, fairly puzzled by all
+the conflicting interests. "A good dinner, some excellent port wine, and
+'lashings' of whiskey-punch, might mould the ingredients together--at
+least, when under the restraint of a stranger's presence--sufficiently
+to pass muster!"
+
+From his doubts as to how the experiment would succeed, came others
+as to whether the guests would condescend to meet; and thus his
+embarrassments went on increasing around him without his finding a way
+through them.
+
+"That's an elegant salmon I saw Catty bringing home to you, Nelligan?"
+said a red-faced man, with large white whiskers, and a most watery look
+in his eyes.
+
+"Yes, Brierley, there's a young gentleman just come down here--a friend
+of Joe's in college, to stop a day or two with us."
+
+"A nob?" said the other, with a wink.
+
+Nelligan nodded assent and went on,--
+
+"And I 'm just bothered how to get two or three to make company for
+him."
+
+"If it's grandeur you want, why don't you go over to the barracks there,
+and ask Captain Downie and the two others? Faix! it's a hearty welcome
+you 'd get, for they 've never seen the inside of Cro' Martin since the
+detachment came here."
+
+"It 's my own acquaintances I 'd like to ask to my house, Mat Brierley,"
+said Nelligan, proudly; "and the time was when they were n't shy of
+coming there."
+
+"What do you say to Peter Hayes, then?" said the other. "If you mean to
+do the civil thing, you'll ask him before he buys that old highwayman
+of a goose he's cheapening yonder; and there's Father Rafferty in the
+snuff-shop, and Tom Magennis, and myself-, and that makes six, just the
+right number for the little round table."
+
+Nelligan paused, and seemed to reflect over the proposition.
+
+"You 'll be quizzing the Englishman,--'taking a rise' out of the Saxon,
+Brierley?" said Nelligan, distrustfully.
+
+"Devil a bit; I know better manners than that!"
+
+"Tom Magennis would have at him about politics; I know he could n't
+refrain. And I need n't tell you that English notions are not ours upon
+these topics."
+
+"Give Tom a hint, and he 'll never touch the subject."
+
+"And Father Neal, will you vouch for him that he won't attack the
+Established Church, and abuse the Protestants?"
+
+"That I will, if he's not provoked to it."
+
+"Can you answer for yourself, Mat Brierley, that you won't try to borrow
+a five-pound note of him before the evening's over?" said Nelligan,
+laughingly.
+
+"I' ve a friend here," said Brierley, tapping the other on the breast,
+"that would never see me in want of such a trifle as that."
+
+Nelligan made no other reply to this speech than a somewhat awkward
+grimace, and walked hurriedly on to overtake a tall and very fat man
+that was just turning the corner of the street. This was Father Neal
+Rafferty. A very flourishing wave of his reverence's hand, and an urbane
+bend of his body, betokened the gracious acceptance he gave to the
+other's invitation; and Brierley walked away, muttering to himself:
+"They may thank me for this dinner, then; for old Dan was going to feed
+the 'swells,' if I had n't stopped him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. A DINNER-PARTY
+
+People who live much together in small and secluded districts, grow at
+length to feel a very great distrust for all strangers. Their own ways
+and their own topics have become such a perfect world to them, that to
+feel ignorant of these themes appears like affectation or contempt; and
+the luckless man who drops down into such a "coterie," is invariably
+deemed impertinent or a fool. Jack Massing-bred fully appreciated this
+difficulty; but it imparted such a piquancy to his "adventure," as he
+persisted in calling it to himself, that he would n't have dispensed
+with it, had he been able. It was in this temper he entered the room
+where the guests were now assembled, and, rather impatiently, awaiting
+his arrival.
+
+It is a very cold, calculating sort of interval, that ten minutes before
+dinner; and men regard the stranger presented to them with feelings far
+more critical than kindly. Massingbred did not go through the ordeal
+unscathed; and it was easy to see in the constraint and reserve of all
+present, how little his appearance contributed to the promise of future
+conviviality. He made no effort to dispel this impression, for, after
+saluting each in turn, he walked to the window, and amused himself with
+what was passing in the street.
+
+The dinner was announced at last, and passed off drearily enough; none
+liked to adventure on any topic of local interest, and they knew of
+little others. Brierley was stiffly polite; the priest blandly tranquil;
+the host himself uneasy and anxious; and poor old Peter Hayes, of the
+Priory, downright melancholy.
+
+Massingbred saw the effect he was producing, and saw it with pleasure.
+His calculation was this: "Had I started 'at speed' with these fellows,
+they would have blown me at once. All my efforts to assimilate myself
+to their tastes, to join in their habits and adopt their notions, would
+have been detected in a trice. They must be brought to believe that they
+have made a convert of me themselves; the wider the space between us
+at first, the greater will be their merit in making me forget it in the
+end."
+
+As the whiskey-punch made its appearance, and the bottle of port was
+passed up beside the stranger, Massingbred thought the time was come
+when he might change his tactics, and open the campaign in force. "No,"
+said he, as the host pushed the wine towards him, "I 've come over here
+to try and learn something about Ireland, and I must give myself every
+advantage of judging from a native point of view. This excellent old
+port may strengthen a man to stand by many an old prejudice, but my
+object is to lay in a new stock of ideas, and I 'd rather try a new
+regimen."
+
+"That 's your bottle, then, sir. Try that," said Brierley, pushing
+towards him a small square decanter of a faint greenish fluid.
+
+"That is 'poteen,' Mr. Massingbred," said the host. "It's the small
+still that never paid the King a farthing."
+
+"I like it all the better, for that reason," said Jack. "There's
+something independent in the very thought of a liquor that never
+submitted to the indignity of a gauger."
+
+"That's not a very English sentiment, sir," said the priest, slyly.
+
+"I don't know whether it be or not," rejoined Massingbred; "but I can
+neither perceive common-sense or justice in a law that will not allow
+a man to do what he likes with his own. Why, if Parliament declared
+to-morrow you should n't boil your potatoes in Ireland, but eat them
+fried--or that you should n't make bread of your corn, but eat it with
+milk as the Neapolitans do--"
+
+"I wish we could do the same here, with all my heart," said the priest.
+"It's little wheat or even barley-meal one of our poor people ever
+sees."
+
+"A wet potato and water is their diet," said old Hayes, as he sipped his
+punch.
+
+"I can believe it well," said Massingbred, with great semblance of
+feeling. "I witnessed dreadful poverty and destitution as I came along,
+and I couldn't help asking myself: What are the gentry about in this
+country? Do they or do they not see these things? If they do, are they
+indifferent to them?"
+
+"They are indifferent to them; or even worse, they rejoice in them,"
+broke in a deep-voiced, energetic-looking man, who sat at the foot
+of the table, and had, although silent, taken a deep interest in the
+conversation. "They see, sir, in the destitution of Ireland another
+rivet in the chains of her bondage. As my 'august leader' remarked, it's
+the rust on the fetters, though--and if it proclaims the length of the
+captivity, it suggests the hope of freedom."
+
+"Mr. Magennis is the dearest friend and trusty agent of Mr. O'Connell,"
+said Nelligan, in a whisper to Massingbred.
+
+"Here's his health, whoever said that!" cried Jack, enthusiastically,
+and as if not hearing the host's observation.
+
+"That's a toast; we'll all drink--and standing, too," exclaimed
+Magennis. "'Daniel O'Connell, gentlemen, hip, hip, hurra! '" And the
+room rang again with the hearty acclamations of the company.
+
+"By Jove! there was something very fine--it was chivalrous--in the way
+he brought the Catholic question to issue at last. The bold expedient
+of testing the event by an individual experience was as clever as it was
+daring," exclaimed Massingbred.
+
+"You were in favor of the measure then, sir?" said Father Neal, with a
+bland smile that might mean satisfaction or suspicion.
+
+"I was always an Emancipationist; but I am little satisfied with
+the terms on which the bill has been passed. I 'd have had no
+restrictions,--no reservations. It should, according to me, have been
+unconditional or nothing."
+
+"You've heard the old proverb about half a loaf, sir?" said Hayes, with
+a dry laugh.
+
+"And a poor adage it is, in its ordinary acceptation," said Jack,
+quickly. "It 's the prompting spirit to many a shabby compromise! What
+disabilities should apply to any of us here, in regard to any post
+or position in our country's service, by reason of opinions which are
+between ourselves and our own hearts--I say any of us, because some
+here--one I perceive is"--and he bowed to Father Rafferty--"a
+Catholic; and I for myself avow that, if for no other reason than this
+proscription, I'd be on this side."
+
+"You're not in Parliament, sir, are you?" asked old Peter, with a
+seriousness that sorely tested the gravity of those at either side of
+him.
+
+"No," said Jack, frankly. "My father and I don't agree on these
+subjects; and, consequently, though there is a seat in my family, I have
+not the honor to occupy it."
+
+"Are you any relation to Colonel Moore Massingbred, sir?" asked
+Magennis. "His son, sir."
+
+The questioner bowed, and a brief silence ensued; short as it was, it
+enabled Jack to decide upon his next move, and take it.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, "I 'm fully aware that my name is not a favorite
+in Ireland; and shall I own to you, till I came to this country myself,
+I half believed that this same humble opinion of us was to our credit!
+I used to hear such narratives of Irish barbarism, Irish brutality,
+priestcraft, superstition, and Heaven knows what besides, that I fully
+persuaded myself that our small repute was very nigh to an eulogium on
+us. Well, I came over to Trinity College strongly impressed with the
+notion that, because I had gained successes at Oxford, here I should be
+triumphant. It is in no boastfulness I say that I had acquitted myself
+well at home; I had attained to rather a reputation. Well, as I said, I
+came over to Trinity and pitted myself against the best man going, and
+a very pretty beating he gave me. Yes, gentlemen, he beat me in
+everything, even in those which we Oxford men fancy our specialties. I
+soon learned that I had not the shadow of a pretension to stand against
+him, and I learned, also, that it was no disgrace to me to be thus
+vanquished, since he was not alone the foremost man of his time, but
+the best scholar the University had seen for a full century; and shall
+I add, as unpretending and as modest in the midst of all his triumphs as
+he was unapproachable by all competitors. And now; gentlemen, I will
+ask your leave to drink his health; doubtless it has been many a time
+toasted before over the same table, but none ever more ardently followed
+the sentiment with his whole heart than do I in proposing to you, 'Three
+cheers for Joe Nelligan.'"
+
+The rambling opening of this brief speech was quite forgotten in the
+enthusiasm that greeted its close. In every respect it was a happy
+diversion. It relieved the company from a discussion that promised but
+gloomily. It brought back their minds to a pleasant theme, and enabled
+them, so to say, to pay off in grateful cheers to their host his own
+hospitable reception of them. As for Nelligan himself, he was sincerely,
+deeply affected; and though he twice essayed to speak, he could get no
+further than "My son Joe"--"my boy"--and sat down murmuring--"Thank
+you--God bless you for it"--and covered his face with his hands.
+
+Awkward as was the moment, it was relieved by the company filling their
+glasses and nodding in most friendly fashion to Massingbred as they
+drank his health; while a low murmur of approbation went round the
+table, of which he was most unmistakably the object.
+
+"Are you fond of shooting, sir?" asked Brierley. "Well, then, I hope
+you'll not leave the country without giving me a day or two up at my
+little place in the mountains: There's some snipe left; and, upon my
+conscience, I'll be proud to see you at Kilmaccud."
+
+"And there's worse quarters, too!" broke in Magennis. "My 'august
+leader' spent a day and a half there."
+
+"I'll drive you over there myself," whispered Father Neal, "if you'll
+finish the week at the 'Rookery,'--that's what they call the priest's
+house."
+
+Massingbred accepted everything, and shook hands across the table in
+ratification of half a dozen engagements.
+
+"You don't think I'll let you cheat me out of my guest so easily," said
+Nelligan. "No, gentlemen. This must be Mr. Massingbred's head-quarters
+as long as he stays here, for, faith, I 'd not give him up to Mr. Martin
+himself."
+
+"And who may he be?" asked Jack.
+
+"Martin of Cro' Martin."
+
+"The owner of half the county."
+
+"Of the town you 're in, this minute."
+
+"The richest proprietor in the West."
+
+Such were the pattering replies that poured in upon him, while words of
+intense astonishment at his ignorance were exchanged on all sides.
+
+"I believe I have given you a fair guarantee for my ignorance,
+gentlemen," said Jack, "in confessing that I never so much as heard of
+Martin of Cro' Martin. Does he reside on his estate here?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Nelligan, "he lives at Cro' Martin Castle, about
+sixteen miles from this; and certainly, while in this part of the
+country, you ought to pay the place a visit. I have never been there
+myself, but I hear the most astonishing accounts of the splendor of the
+furniture and the magnificence of the whole establishment."
+
+"There's pictures there," said the priest, "that cost the grandfather of
+the present man a quarter of a million sterling."
+
+"Why, the three statues in the hall, they say, are worth ten thousand
+pounds," said Brierley.
+
+"Be gorra! when a man would give four hundred for a bull, there 's no
+saying what he 'd stop at," broke in Peter Hayes. "I went up to see
+him myself, and indeed he's a beauty, there 's no denying it,--but four
+hundred pound! Think of four hundred pound!"
+
+"The stable is the best thing in the place," said Father Neal; "they 're
+mighty nice cattle, there, for every kind of work."
+
+"Thanks to his niece for that," cried Magennis; "she knows a horse with
+any man in the West of Ireland."
+
+"And can break him, too," chimed in Brierley; "I don't care what his
+temper is. Let Miss Mary get her hand on him, and he 'll turn out well."
+
+"I 'm driving an old chestnut mare this minute that she trained," said
+the priest; "and though she has n't a good leg amongst the four, and is
+touched in the wind, she 's as neat a stepper, and as easy in the mouth
+as a five-year-old."
+
+"She 's a fine young woman!" said old Hayes, drinking off his glass
+as though toasting her to himself, "and not like any Martin ever I seen
+before."
+
+"No pride about her!" said Brierley.
+
+"I wouldn't exactly say that, Matthew," interposed Father Neal. "But her
+pride isn't the common kind."
+
+"She's as proud as Lucifer!" broke in Nelligan, almost angrily. "Did you
+ever see her drive up to a shop-door in this town, and make the people
+come out to serve her, pointing with her whip to this, that, and
+t'other, and maybe giving a touch of the lash to the boy if he would n't
+be lively enough?"
+
+"Well, I 'd never call her proud," rejoined old Hayes, "after seeing her
+sitting in Catty Honan's cabin, and turning the bread on the griddle for
+her, when Catty was ill."
+
+"Is she handsome?" asked Massingbred, who was rather interested by the
+very discrepancy in the estimate of the young lady.
+
+"We can agree upon that, I believe, sir," said the priest; "there 's no
+disputing about her beauty."
+
+"I never saw her in a room," said Magennis; "but my 'august leader'
+thought her masculine."
+
+"No, no," said Nelligan; "she 's not. She has the Martin
+manner,--overbearing and tyrannical,--if you like; but she can be gentle
+enough with women and children."
+
+"You have certainly given me a strong curiosity to see her," said
+Massingbred. "Does she always live here?"
+
+"Always. I don't believe she was ever beyond the bounds of the county in
+her life!"
+
+"And how does she pass her time?" asked he, with some astonishment.
+
+"She manages the whole estate," said Nelligan; "her uncle 's a conceited
+old fool, incapable of anything, and lets her do what she likes; and
+so she drains, and plants, and encloses; makes roads, bridges, and even
+harbors; has all the new-fangled inventions about farming, and, if
+what I hear be true, is spending more money on the property than the
+fee-simple is worth."
+
+"Yes, sir," chimed in Magennis; "and she 's trying hard to bring back
+the old feudal devotion to the Chief, which was the bane of Ireland.
+She wants the tenants to have no will of their own, but just to vote
+whatever the landlord tells them. She had the impudence to tell my
+'august leader' that they had no need of him down there,--that the
+county was too poor to waste its energies in factious squabbles."
+
+"If she 'd let the people alone about their religion, I 'd think better
+of her," said Father Neal. "What does _she_ know about controversial
+points and disputed dogmas?"
+
+"Maybe you 're wrong about that," broke in Peter Hayes. "She came to me
+the other day for ten shillings for a school, and she said, 'Come over,
+Mr. Hayes; come and tell me if there 's anything you are dissatisfied
+with.'"
+
+"And did you go?" asked the priest.
+
+"Faix! I did not," said Peter, with a dry look. "I thought the visit
+might cost me ten shillings, and so I stayed at home."
+
+The manner in which he uttered these words produced a hearty laugh, in
+which he himself most good-humoredly took part.
+
+"Well, she's good to the poor, anyhow," said Brierley; "and it's a new
+thing for one of her name to be so!"
+
+"All policy, all scheming!" said Magennis. "She sees how the family
+influence has declined, and is fast becoming obliterated in this
+country, by reason of their worthlessness, insolence, and neglect of the
+people; and she 's just shrewd enough to see how far a little cajolery
+goes with poor Paddy; but, as my 'august leader' observed, it is not a
+frieze coat, nor a pair of brogues, that can compensate for the loss of
+that freedom that is every man's birthright; and it is not by an ounce
+of tea, or a dose of physic, we 'll ever see Ireland great, glorious,
+and free."
+
+"'First gem of the earth, and first flower of the sea!'" exclaimed
+Hayes, with enthusiasm.
+
+Nor in the moment was the blunder of his quotation noticed by any but
+Massingbred. "You are an admirer of Tommy Moore, I see, sir?" said he,
+to the old man.
+
+"I am fond of 'The Meeting of the Waters,' sir," said Hayes, meekly, and
+like a man who was confessing to a weakness.
+
+"And here 's the man to sing it!" cried Brierley, clapping the priest
+familiarly on the shoulder; a proposal that was at once hailed with
+acclamation.
+
+"'T is many a long day I have n't sung a note," said Father Neal,
+modestly.
+
+"Come, come, Father Neal; we'll not let you off that way. It's not under
+this roof that you can make such an excuse!"
+
+"He 'd rather give us something more to his own taste," said Brierley.
+"'To Ladies' eyes around, boys,'--eh, Father Rafferty?"
+
+"That's my favorite of all the songs he sings," broke in Magennis.
+
+"Let it be, 'To Ladies' eyes!'" cried Massingbred; "and we 'll drink
+'Miss Martin's.' 'I 'll warrant she 'll prove an excuse for the glass.'"
+And he sang the line with such a mellow cadence that the whole table
+cheered him.
+
+[Illustration: 146]
+
+To the priest's song, given with considerable taste and no mean musical
+skill, there followed, in due course, others, not exactly so successful,
+by Brierley and Magennis, and, at last, by old Peter himself, who
+warbled out a wonderful ditty, in a tone so doleful that two of the
+company fell fast asleep under it, and Brierley's nerves were so
+affected that, to support himself, he got most completely drunk, and in
+a very peremptory tone told the singer to desist!
+
+"Don't you perceive," cried he, "that there 's a stranger
+present,--a young English cub,--come down to laugh at us? Have you no
+discretion,--have you no decency, Peter Hayes, but you must go on with
+your stupid old 'croniawn' about dimples and the devil knows what?"
+
+"Another tumbler, Mr. Massingbred,--one more?" said the host, with the
+air, however, of one who did not exact compliance.
+
+"Not for the world," said Jack, rising from table. "Have I your
+permission to light a cigar?"
+
+"To do just whatever you please," said Nelligan, rather astonished at
+the formal preparations for smoking he now perceived brought forth, and
+which at the time we tell of were not so popular as in our own day.
+
+The priest alone accepted Massingbred's offer of a "weed;" and Nelligan,
+opening a door into an adjoining room where tea was laid, threw also
+wide a little sash-door that led into the garden, whose cool and
+fragrant air was perfectly delicious at the moment. Jack strolled down
+the steps and soon lost himself in the dark alleys, not sorry to be left
+alone with his own thoughts, after a scene in which his convivial powers
+had been taxed to no mean extent.
+
+"A clever young fellow! There's stuff in him," said the priest, in a
+whisper to Nelligan.
+
+"And no impudence about him," said Brierley; "he's just like one of
+ourselves."
+
+"He has a wonderful opinion of Joe!" said Nelligan.
+
+"He's the very man for my 'august leader,'" said Magennis. "I 'd like to
+bring them together!"
+
+"His father 's a Treasury Lord," said Nelligan, swelling at the thought
+of his being the host of such company!
+
+"And I 'll tell you what, Dan Nelligan," said the priest,
+confidentially, "talents won't do everything, nowadays, without high
+connections; mark my words, and see if that young man does n't stand
+high yet. He has just got every requirement of success. He has good
+family, good looks, good abilities, and"--here he dropped his voice
+still lower--"plenty of brass. Ay, Dan, if Joe could borrow a little of
+his friend's impudence, it would be telling him something."
+
+Nelligan nodded assentingly; it was about the only quality in the world
+which he could have believed Joe stood in any need of getting a loan of.
+
+"Joe beat him out of the field," said Dan, proudly. "He told me so
+himself, this morning."
+
+"No doubt; and he would again, where the contest was a college one; but
+'Life,' my dear friend,--life demands other gifts beside genius."
+
+"Ganius!" broke in old Hayes, with an accent of the profoundest
+contempt,--"Ganius! I never knew a 'Ganius' yet that was n't the ruin
+of all belonging to him! And whenever I see a young fellow that knows no
+trade, nor has any livelihood, who's always borrowing here and begging
+there, a torment to his family and a burden to his friends, I set him
+down at once for a 'Ganius.'"
+
+"It's not _that_ I was alluding to, Mr. Hayes," said the priest, in
+some irritation. "I spoke of real ability, sterling powers of mind and
+thought, and I hope that they are not to be despised."
+
+"Like my 'august leader's'!" said Magennis, proudly.
+
+"Ay, or like that young gentleman's there," said Father Neal, with the
+tone of a man pronouncing upon what he understood. "I watched him to-day
+at dinner, and I saw that every remark he made was shrewd and acute, and
+that whenever the subject was new to him, he fell into it as he went
+on talking, picking up his facts while he seemed to be discussing them!
+Take my word for it, gentlemen, he 'll do!"
+
+"He does n't know much about flax, anyhow," muttered old Hayes.
+
+"He took his punch like a man," said Brierley, bearing testimony on a
+point where his evidence was sure to have weight.
+
+"He'll do!" said Father Neal once more, and still more authoritatively
+than before.
+
+"Joe carried away every premium from him," said old Nelligan, with a
+degree of irritation that proclaimed how little he enjoyed the priest's
+eulogy of his guest.
+
+"I know he did, sir; and no man has a higher respect for your son's
+great abilities than myself; but here 's how it is, Mr. Nelligan,"--and
+he drew himself up like a man about to deliver a profound
+opinion,--"here 's how it is. The mind that can master abstract science
+is one thing; the faculties that can deal with fellow-mortals is
+another. This world is not a University!"
+
+"The Lord be praised for that same!" cried old Hayes, "or I 'm afraid I
+'d fare badly in it."
+
+"To unite both descriptions of talent," resumed the priest,
+oratorically, "is the gift of but few."
+
+"My 'august leader' has them," broke in Magennis.
+
+"Show me the man that can deal with men!" said Father Neal,
+dictatorially.
+
+"Women is twice as hard to deal with!" cried old Hayes. "I 'll back
+Nancy Drake against any man in the barony."
+
+"Faith, and I remember her a pretty woman," said Brierley, who would
+gladly have enticed the conversation out of its graver character.
+"A prettier girl than Mary Martin herself!" continued the inexorable
+Brierley, for the company did not appear to approve of his diversion.
+
+"We are now discussing politics,--grave questions of state, sir," said
+Father Neal,--"for we have come to times when even the most indifferent
+and insignificant amongst us cannot refrain feeling an interest in
+the progress of our country. And when I see a fine young man like that
+there, as one may say going a-begging for a party, I tell you that we
+are fools--worse than fools--if we don't secure him."
+
+"Do you mean for the borough?" asked Nelligan.
+
+"I do, sir,--I mean for the borough!"
+
+"Not till we have consulted my 'august leader,' I hope," broke in
+Magennis.
+
+"I'm for managing our own affairs ourselves," said the priest. "What we
+want is a man of our own; and if that young gentleman there will take
+the pledges we should propose, I don't know that we'd readily get the
+like of him."
+
+The silence that now fell upon the party was ominous; it was plain that
+either the priest's proposition was not fully acquiesced in, or that the
+mode of announcing it was too abrupt. Perhaps this latter appeared the
+case to his own eyes, for he was the first to speak.
+
+"Of course what I have said now is strictly among ourselves, and not to
+be mentioned outside of this room; for until my friend Dan Nelligan
+here consents to take the field against the Martin interest, there is
+no chance of opening the borough. Let him once agree to _that_, and the
+member for Oughterard will be his own nominee."
+
+"Do you really think so?" asked Nelligan, eagerly.
+
+"I know it, sir; and every gentleman at this table knows it."
+
+A strong chorus in assent murmured around the board.
+
+"It would be a great struggle," muttered Nelligan.
+
+"And a great victory!" said the priest.
+
+"What a deal of money, too, it would cost!"
+
+"You have the money, Dan Nelligan; and let me tell you one thing,"--here
+he leaned over his chair and whispered some words in the other's ear.
+
+Old Nelligan's face flushed as he listened, and his eyes sparkled with
+intense excitement.
+
+"If I thought _that_--if I only thought that, Father Rafferty--I 'd
+spend half my fortune on it to-morrow."
+
+"It's as true as I'm a living man," said the priest, solemnly; and then
+with a motion of his hand gestured caution, for Massingbred was slowly
+ascending the steps, and about to enter the room.
+
+With an instinctive readiness all his own, he saw in the embarrassed
+and conscious looks around that he had himself been the object of their
+discussion, and with the same shrewdness he detected their favorable
+feeling towards him.
+
+"I have made them my own!" muttered he to himself.
+
+"He 'll do our work well!" said the priest in his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. YOUNG NELLIGAN, AS INTERPRETED IN TWO WAYS.
+
+"I rather like that young Nelligan," said Martin, the day after Joseph
+had made his first appearance at dinner. "He talks pleasantly, and
+nothing of a pedant, as I half dreaded he might be."
+
+"I thought his manner respectful, and very proper for his station," said
+Lady Dorothea, with an air of dignity.
+
+"He spoke of politics, too, with less of prejudice, less of class
+bitterness, than I could have expected."
+
+"Some policy, perhaps, in that," remarked her Ladyship.
+
+"Possibly!" said Martin, with a careless shrug of the shoulders.
+
+"He was in a measure on his trial amongst us, and felt the importance of
+making a favorable first impression."
+
+"It was more trouble than his father would have taken, then," said
+Martin, smiling. "Old Dan, as they call him, is not a very conciliating
+personage."
+
+"I cannot imagine that the disposition of such a person is a matter of
+much moment. Does n't the man deal in tea, candles, and such like?"
+
+"That he does, and in loans, and in mortgages, too; not to add that
+he exercises a very considerable share of influence in his town of
+Oughterard."
+
+"A very shocking feature of the time we live in!" exclaimed Lady
+Dorothea.
+
+"So it may be; but there it is,--just like the wet weather, and the
+typhus, and the sheep-rot, and fifty other disagreeable things one can't
+help."
+
+"But at least they can avoid recurring to them in conversation, sir.
+There is no necessity to open the window when the look-out is a dreary
+one."
+
+Martin made no reply, and a pause of some moments ensued.
+
+"What arrangement did you come to with him about his party in the
+borough?" said she at last.
+
+"I didn't even allude to the topic," replied he, half testily.
+"These things are not to be done in that hasty fashion; they require
+management, discretion, and a fitting opportunity, too."
+
+"Why, you talk of your grocer's boy as if he were a Cabinet Minister,
+Mr. Martin; you treat him like a great diplomatist!"
+
+"It was not exactly on the first occasion of his being in my house that
+I could have broached the matter."
+
+"Which implies that you mean to invite him again."
+
+"Possibly!" was the abrupt rejoinder.
+
+"And must the odious attorney always be of the party?"
+
+"No, madam, the odious attorney has set out for Dublin; but I shortly
+expect here one whom your Ladyship will, doubtless, call an odious
+lawyer,--though he happens to be one of the foremost men of the Irish
+bar."
+
+"A class I detest," said her Ladyship.
+
+"He has one consolation, at least, madam," said Martin; "he figures in a
+pretty long category."
+
+"And why should he not, sir? What have I ever met in the dreary
+eighteen years and seven months I have passed here, except unmitigated
+self-conceit, vulgarity, and presumption,--the very type of all three
+being your Dublin barrister."
+
+"Their countrymen certainly entertain another estimate of them," said
+Martin, laughing, for he had a lazy man's enjoyment of any passionate
+excitement of another's temper.
+
+"And it was," resumed she, "in some sort the contrast presented to such
+which pleased me in that young man's manner yesterday. Not but I feel
+assured that erelong you and Miss Martin will spoil him."
+
+"I! aunt?" said Mary, looking up from her work; "how am I to exercise
+the evil influence you speak of?"
+
+"By the notice--the interest you vouchsafe him, Miss Martin,--the most
+flattering compliment to one in his station."
+
+"If he bears collegiate honors so meekly, aunt," said Mary, quietly,
+"don't you think his head might sustain itself under _my_ attentions?"
+
+"Possibly so, young lady, if not accompanied by the accessories of
+your rank in life," said Lady Dorothea, haughtily; "and as to college
+honors," added she, after a pause, "they are like school distinctions,
+of no earthly value out of the class-room."
+
+"Faith, I don't know that," said Martin. "At least, in my own
+experience, I can say, every fellow that has made a figure in life gave
+indications of high ability in his college years. I could go over the
+names of at least a dozen."
+
+"Pray don't, sir,--spare your memory, and spare us. Miss Martin and
+I will take it for granted that this young man is destined to be Lord
+Chancellor,--Ambassador at St. Petersburg,--or anything else you please.
+I have no doubt that the time is approaching when such things are very
+possible."
+
+"It has come already, my Lady," said Martin; and in the manner he
+uttered the words there was no saying whether the sentiment was
+pleasurable or the reverse.
+
+"And yet I trust that there is a little interval still left to us ere
+that consummation," said she, with pretentious dignity. "Birth and blood
+have not lost all their _prestige!_"
+
+"But they soon would," said Mary, "if they feared to enter the lists
+against those less well-born than themselves."
+
+"Miss Martin!" exclaimed her Ladyship, "what words are these?"
+
+"I hope they are void of offence, aunt. Assuredly I never conceived that
+I could wound any susceptibilities here by saying that the well-born are
+ready to meet the plebeian on any ground."
+
+"There is no necessity for such trials, Miss Martin; the position of
+each has been so accurately defined by--by--by Providence," said she, at
+last, blushing slightly as she uttered the word, "that the contest is
+almost impossible."
+
+"The French Revolution reveals another story, aunt, and tells us,
+besides, how inferior were the nobles of that country in the day of
+struggle."
+
+"Upon my word, these are very pretty notions, young lady. Have they been
+derived from the intelligent columns of the "Galway Monitor," or are
+they the teachings of the gifted Mr. Scanlan? Assuredly, Mr. Martin,"
+said she, turning to him, "papa was right, when he said that the Irish
+nature was essentially rebellious."
+
+"Complimentary, certainly," said Martin, laughing.
+
+"He founded the remark on history. Papa was uncommonly well read,
+and used to observe that there seemed something in the Celtic nature
+incompatible with that high-souled, chivalrous loyalty Englishmen
+exhibit."
+
+"But how much of the Celt have Mary and myself got in us, if your
+observation is meant for us? Why, my Lady, what with intermarriage
+centuries ago, and change of blood ever since, the distinctive element
+has been utterly lost."
+
+"And yet we are not English, uncle," said Mary, with something that
+smacked of pride. "Confess it: we have our nationality, and that our
+people have traits of their own."
+
+"That they have; but I never heard them made matter of boastfulness
+before," said Lady Dorothea, sneeringly.
+
+"Well, aunt, it is not too late to hear it now; and I, for one, am proud
+of my country,--not of its political station, for it is dependent,--not
+of its wealth, for it is poor,--but of its genial courtesy, its
+free-hearted hospitality, its manly patience under many a crushing
+calamity, and not least of all, its gallantry on every field where
+England has won honor."
+
+"I have read of all these things; but my own experiences are limited to
+the rags and restlessness of a semi-barbarous people. Nay, Miss Martin,
+I'm not going to discuss the matter. I have lived elsewhere,--you have
+not. I have acquired habits--prejudices, perhaps you 'd call them--in
+behalf of twenty things that Irish civilization sees no need of."
+
+"Would it not be kind, aunt, were you to aid us by the light of these
+same experiences?" said Mary, with an air of well-assumed humility.
+
+"Certainly not, at the price of intercourse with the natives!" exclaimed
+her Ladyship, haughtily. "I detest, on principle, the Lady Bountiful
+character. The whole of the hymn-book, castor-oil, and patent-barley
+sympathy is shockingly vulgar. Like many things, well done at first, it
+fell into low hands, and got spoiled."
+
+The tone of sarcasm in which this was spoken made Mary's cheeks crimson,
+and the flush spread itself over her neck. Still she made no reply, but
+bending down her head, continued to work more assiduously.
+
+"When are we to leave this place, Mr. Martin?" asked her Ladyship,
+abruptly.
+
+"I believe we are only waiting here till it be your pleasure to quit."
+
+"And I dying to get away this fortnight past! Some one certainly told me
+that Cro' Martin was not ready for us. Was it _you_, Miss Martin?"
+
+"No, aunt."
+
+"It ran in my head it was you, then. Well, can we go at
+once--to-day--this afternoon?"
+
+"To-morrow we might, perhaps," said Mary.
+
+"Scarcely so," said Martin, interposing, "seeing that I have asked
+Repton to come down here and see the place."
+
+"But you can drive him over from Cro' Martin. It would be intolerable,
+the idea of remaining here just for him. So we shall go to-morrow, Miss
+Martin." And with this, uttered in the tone of an order, her Ladyship
+swept proudly out of the room, from which Martin, not overanxious for a
+_tete-a-tete_ with his niece, stepped noiselessly at the same moment by
+another door.
+
+Scarcely had the door closed behind Lady Dorothea, when it was reopened
+to admit Joe Nelligan, who had met her Ladyship in the corridor and been
+received with such palpable coldness of manner that he entered the room
+bashful and awkward, and hardly knowing whether to advance or retire.
+
+"I fear I have made my visit at an untimely hour, Miss Martin," said he,
+blushing; "but the truth is, I know next to nothing of society and its
+habits, and if you would only be kind enough to tell me when I am a
+transgressor--"
+
+"The notion of learning from _me_ is perfect," said Mary, interrupting
+him with a pleasant laugh. "Why, Mr. Nelli-gan, I never could be taught
+anything, even of the most ordinary rules of ceremonial life! though,"
+added she, slyly, "I have lived certainly in the midst of great
+opportunities."
+
+"But then, I have not," said Nelligan, gravely, and accepting the speech
+in all seriousness. "Well, it comes pretty much to the same thing," said
+she, smiling, "since I have profited so little by them."
+
+"I came thus early, however," said he, earnestly, "because I was
+impatient to correct an impression which might have remained from
+something that fell from me last night. You smile, I perceive," said he,
+"that I should attach so much importance to my own words!"
+
+"It was not at that I smiled," said Mary, archly.
+
+"No matter," continued he. "It is better, at the cost of a little
+wounded vanity, that I should escape a misconception. When your
+uncle spoke to me, last night, about the division of parties in the
+borough--You are smiling again, Miss Martin!"
+
+"Don't you perceive, sir, that what amuses me is the mistaken estimate
+you have formed of me, by addressing me on such topics?"
+
+"But I came here expressly to speak to you," said he, with increased
+eagerness; "for I have always heard--always understood--that none ever
+took a deeper interest in all that regarded the country than yourself."
+
+"If you mean, by the country, the lives and fortunes of those who live
+in it,--the people by whose toil it is fertilized, by whose traits it is
+a nation,--I tell you frankly that I yield to none for interest in all
+that touches them; but if you come to talk of privileges and legislative
+benefits, I know nothing of them: they form a land of whose very
+geography I am ignorant."
+
+"But the subject is the same, and the mind which comprehends one could
+embrace the other."
+
+"In the one, however, I can labor usefully and fittingly, without much
+risk of mistake,--never, indeed, of any mistake that might prove of
+serious moment. The other involves great questions, and has great
+hazards, perils, to affright stronger heads than mine!"
+
+"There is much in what you say," said he, reflectingly.
+
+"There is far more than I am able to express," said she, warmly. "Just
+remember, for a moment, that of all the laws you great and wise men
+are making, over which you rant and wrangle, and assail each other
+so vindictively, how few ever touch the interests or descend to the
+fortunes of those for whom you assume to make them,--that the craftiest
+devices of your legislation never uproot ah old prejudice nor disturb
+an antiquated superstition; while I, and such as I,--and there need be
+nothing more humble,--can by a little timely help in trouble--a little
+care, or even a little counsel--comfort many a failing heart, cheer up
+many a sinking spirit, and, better still, do good service by teaching
+the poor man that he is of one family with those better off than
+himself, and that he is not an outcast because he is lowly!"
+
+As Mary went on, her eyes shone more brilliantly, and her cheeks glowed,
+till Nelligan forgot even the words she spoke in admiration of the
+speaker.
+
+"But here comes my uncle," cried she, hastily, "to rescue you from
+further amplification of the theme. Come in, uncle,"--for Martin was
+already about to retire,--"it is Mr. Nelligan, who wants to speak to
+you."
+
+"Oh, I was in terror of a regular morning visitor!" said Martin, shaking
+the young man's hand cordially. "They didn't tell me you were here."
+
+"I came, sir," said Joseph, hesitatingly, "to rectify what might,
+perhaps, require correction in an observation I made last night. We were
+talking about the proper basis of a representation--"
+
+"My dear boy," broke in Martin, laughingly, "there's nothing kills me
+like asking me to go over the past, either in reading an old letter
+or recalling an old conversation. And as to calling on me to justify
+something I once defended in argument, I 'd give up the cause at once,
+and say I was all wrong, in preference."
+
+"Then I need not fear you will hold me responsible--"
+
+"Not for anything, except your pledge to dine here tomorrow at seven."
+
+Notwithstanding all the ease and frankness of Martin's manner--and as
+manner it was perfect--the young man felt far from satisfied. His want
+of breeding--that cruel want strong enough to mar the promise of high
+ability, and even impair the excellence of many a noble nature--seemed
+to hold him fast bound to the object of his visit. He had come for
+an explanation, and he couldn't go away without it. Mary read his
+difficulty at once, and as she passed him to leave the room, said in a
+low voice, "To-morrow evening."
+
+Nelligan started at the words, and his face became scarlet. What
+could she have meant? Was it that she wished him to come, and had thus
+condescended to remind him of his promise? or was it to suggest a more
+fitting moment to return to the late discussion?
+
+"Are you coming to luncheon, Nelligan?" said Martin, rising.
+
+"No, sir; not to-day. I have a call--a visit--some miles off." And while
+he was yet stammering out his excuses, Martin waved a familiar good-bye
+with his hand, and passed into the adjoining room.
+
+"And what can this mean?" said Nelligan to himself. "Is this the cordial
+treatment of an intimate, or is it contemptuous indifference for an
+inferior?" And, far more puzzled than he should have been with the
+knottiest problem of the "Principia," he quitted the house and strolled
+homewards.
+
+His way led along the shore, and consequently in front of that
+straggling row of cottages which formed the village. It chanced to be
+the last day of the month, and, by the decree of the almanac, the close
+of the bathing-season. The scene then going forward was one of unusual
+and not unpicturesque confusion. It was a general break-up of the
+encampment, and all were preparing to depart to their homes, inland. Had
+young Nelligan been--what he was not--anything of a humorist, he might
+have been amused at the variety of equipage and costume around him.
+Conveyances the most cumbrous and most rickety, drawn by farm horses,
+or even donkeys, stopped the way before each door, all in process of
+loading by a strangely attired assemblage, whose Welsh wigs, flannel
+dressing-gowns, and woollen nightcaps showed how, by a common consent,
+all had agreed to merge personal vanity in the emergency of the moment.
+The innumerable little concealments which had sheltered many a narrow
+household, the various little stratagems that had eked out many a scanty
+wardrobe, were now abandoned with a noble sincerity; and had there been
+a cork leg or a glass eye in the company, it would not have shrunk from
+the gaze of that open-hearted community.
+
+Such of the travellers as had taken their places were already surrounded
+with the strangest medley of household gods it is possible to conceive.
+Like trophies, bird-cages, candlesticks, spits, cullenders, fenders, and
+bread-baskets bristled around them, making one marvel how they ever got
+in, or, still more, how they were ever to get out again; the croaking of
+invalids, with crying children, barking terriers, and scolding owners,
+making a suitable chorus to the confusion.
+
+Still, amidst all the discomforts of the moment, amidst the last
+wranglings with landlords, and the last squabbles over broken furniture
+and missing movables, it must be owned that the prevailing temper of the
+scene was good-humor and jollity. The Irish temperament seems ever to
+discover something congenial in those incidents of confusion and bustle
+which to other people are seasons of unmitigated misery, and even out of
+its own sources of discomfiture can derive matter for that quaint humor
+with which it can always regard life. In this wise was it that few now
+dwelt much upon their own inconveniences, so long as they were free to
+laugh at those of their neighbors.
+
+Before he was well aware of it, young Nelligan found himself in the very
+midst of this gathering, whose mirthful accents suddenly subsided at
+his approach, and an air of constraint and reserve seemed to take their
+place. Never very quick to appreciate such indications, he drew nigh
+to a very lofty "conveniency" in which, with an air of stately
+dignity, Mrs. Cronan sat enthroned on a backgammon-table, with a
+portentous-looking cap-case in her lap.
+
+"My mother will be sorry not to have seen you before you went away, Mrs.
+Cronan," said he to that lady, whose demure and frigid demeanor made the
+speech sound like a bold one.
+
+"I 'd have left my card and my compliments, sir, if I wasn't so pressed
+for time," responded she, with a haughty gravity.
+
+"With P. P. C. on the corner," said the Captain from his pony-gig
+alongside; "which means, pour prendre 'congo,' or 'congee,' I never
+knew which."
+
+"She 'll be very lonely now, for the few days we remain," resumed Joe,
+conscious of some awkwardness, without knowing where or how.
+
+"Not with the society of your distinguished acquaintances at 'The Nest,'
+sir!" the sarcastic import of which reply was more in the manner than
+the mere words; while the old Captain murmured,--
+
+"Begad, she gave it to him there,--a regular double-headed shot!"
+
+"We hope to follow you by the end of the week," said Nelligan, trying to
+seem at ease.
+
+"If you can tear yourselves away, I suppose," said Miss Busk, through
+a double veil of blue gauze; for that lady's auburn ringlets reposed at
+the moment in the small mahogany casket beside her.
+
+"There is not much attraction in the spot just now," said Joseph,
+smiling.
+
+"Not for the like of us, perhaps, sir," retorted Mrs. Cronan,--"not for
+persons in our station; but your fashionable people, I believe, always
+prefer a place when the vulgar company have left it."
+
+"Good again,--grape and canister!" chuckled out the Captain, who seemed
+to derive a high enjoyment from the scene.
+
+"Would you move a little to one side, Mr. Nelligan?" said the doctor;
+"my pony won't stand."
+
+"Oh, he's mettlesome," said Joe, good-humoredly, as he stepped out of
+the way.
+
+"That he is, sir, though he never was leader in a four-in-hand; but, you
+see, poor creatures of quadrupeds forget themselves down here, just like
+their betters!"
+
+And the success of this sally was acknowledged by a general laugh from
+the company. The tone of the speakers, even more than their words,
+convinced Joseph that, from some cause or other, he was the object of
+their sarcasms; and although slow to take offence,--even to the verge of
+what many might have called an unfeeling indifference,--he felt their
+treatment most acutely. It was, then, in something like a haughty
+defiance that he wished them a careless good-bye, and continued his way.
+
+"The world seems bent on puzzling me this morning," muttered he, as he
+sauntered slowly on. "People treat me as though I were playing some deep
+game to their detriment,--I, who have no game, almost no future!" added
+he, despondingly. "For what avails it to attain eminence amidst such as
+these; and, as for the others, I was not born for them."
+
+To these moody thoughts succeeded others still gloomier. It had only
+been within a short time back that the young man had begun to appreciate
+the difficulties of a position to which his early successes imparted
+increasing embarrassment; and darkly brooding over these things, he drew
+near his mother's cottage. She was already at the door to meet him, with
+a letter in her hand.
+
+"This is from your father, Joe," said she. "He wants you in all haste
+up at the town; and I've packed your clothes, and sent off Patsey for
+Mooney's car; so come in and eat something at once."
+
+Joseph took the note from her hand and perused it in silence. It was
+brief, and ran thus:--
+
+     "Dear Joe,--I want you up here as soon as possible, to meet
+     a friend whom you 'll be surprised to see. I say no more,
+     but that I expect you by dinner-time.--Yours ever,
+
+     "D.N."
+
+"What does that mean, Joe?" asked his mother.
+
+He only shrugged his shoulders in reply.
+
+"And who can it be?" said she again.
+
+"Some of the townspeople, of course," said he, carelessly.
+
+"No, no, Joe; it must be a stranger. Maybe it's Morgan Drake; his aunt
+expected him back from Jamaica before Christmas. Or it 's Corny Dwyer 's
+come home from Africa; you know he went on the deploring expedition--"
+"Exploring, mother,--exploring."
+
+"Well, exploring or deploring, it's all the same. He went four years
+ago, and all the tidings they 've had of him was an elephant's tooth he
+sent home to his stepfather. I know it's Corny, for your father always
+liked him and the funny stories he told."
+
+"Perhaps so!" replied Joe.
+
+"I wonder, is he grown any bigger? He was little better than a dwarf
+when he went away, and the same age as yourself. No, indeed, he was
+older,--fourteen months older. It was Catty Henderson was running in my
+head. Is n't she a fine young woman, Joe?"
+
+"Remarkably so," said he, with more animation in his tone.
+
+"A little bit too haughty-looking and proud, maybe, considering her
+station in life, and that she has to go to service--"
+
+"Go to service, mother?"
+
+"To be sure she has. If they can't get her a place as a governess or a
+companion, she 'll have to take what she can get. Her father's married
+again, my dear Joe; and when men do that!" And here Mrs. Nelligan
+uplifted her hands and eyes most expressively. "Ay, indeed," continued
+she, with a heavy sigh, "and if it was once it was fifty times, Catty's
+poor mother said to me, 'Sarah,' says she,--she never called me Sally,
+but always Sarah,--'Sarah,' says she, 'I 've but one comfort, and that
+is that Catty will never want a mother while you live. You 'll be the
+same to her as myself,--just as fond, and just as forgiving;' them was
+her very words!"
+
+"And I hope you have never forgotten them, mother?" said Joe, with
+emotion.
+
+"Don't you see I have n't; an't I repeating them to you this minute?"
+
+"Yes; but I mean the spirit and the meaning of them," rejoined he, "and
+that you feel the obligation they 've laid upon you."
+
+"To be sure I feel it; don't I fret over it every time I 'm alone? for I
+can't get it out of my head that maybe she 'd appear to me--"
+
+"No, but her mother. Oh, it 's nothing to laugh at, Joe. There was Eliza
+Keane came back every Easter Monday for two-and-twenty years to search
+for a gravy-spoon. Well, if it's laughing you are, I won't say any more;
+but here 's the car now, and it's late enough we 'll be on the road!"
+
+"I'm not thinking of going, mother. I never meant to go," said Joe,
+resolutely.
+
+"Never meant to go, after your father's note to you, Joe?" cried she, in
+half horror. "Surely it's all as one as ordering you up there."
+
+"I know all that," said he, calmly; "but I see no reason why I should
+forego the pleasure of a party at the Martins' for the sake of meeting
+the convivial celebrities of Oughterard."
+
+"But what will you say?"
+
+"Say I'm engaged; have accepted another invitation; or, better still,
+leave you to make my excuses, mother. Come, come, don't look so
+terribly shocked and terrified. You know well enough that my father's
+four-year-old mutton and his crusted port will compensate the company
+for heavier inflictions than my absence."
+
+"They were always fond of you, Joe," said Mrs. Nelligan, half
+reproachfully.
+
+"Nothing of the kind, mother; they never cared for me, nor was there any
+reason why they should. I 'm sure I never cared for them. We endured one
+another; that was all."
+
+"Oh, dear; but I 'm glad your father is not listening to you," said
+she, with a stealthy glance around, as though not perfectly assured
+of secrecy. "So, then, I suppose, there 's nothing for it but to go up
+myself and make the best of it; and sure it's all a lottery what temper
+he 's in, and how he 'll take it. I remember when they put the new duty
+on--what was it, Joe? I think it was hides--"
+
+"Not the least matter, mother; you 've only to say that Mr. Martin
+has been kind enough to show me some attentions, and that I am silly
+enough--if you like to say so--to prefer them to the festive pleasures
+of Oughterard. In another week or so I shall have to go back to college.
+Let me, at least, enjoy the few days of my vacation in my own fashion."
+
+Mrs. Nelligan shook her head mournfully over these signs of rebellion,
+and muttering many a gloomy foreboding, she went off to her room to make
+her preparations for the journey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. A VERY "CROSS EXAMINATION"
+
+The morning was bright and sunny, the air sharp, crisp, and bracing,
+as the heavy travelling-carriage which conveyed Mr. Martin and Lady
+Dorothea rolled smoothly along the trimly kept approach to Cro' Martin.
+Many a beautiful glade, many a lovely vista opened on them as they
+passed along deep-bosomed woods and gently swelling slopes, dotted over
+with cattle, stretched away on either side; while far in the distance
+could be seen the battlemented towers of the princely residence.
+
+The lover of nature might have felt intense pleasure at a scene so
+abounding in objects of beauty. A painter would have lingered with
+delight over effects of light and shade, glorious displays of color, and
+graceful groupings of rocks and trees and gnarled stumps. A proud man
+might have exulted in the selfish enjoyment of feeling that these were
+all his own; while a benevolent one would have revelled in the thought
+of all the channels through which such wealth might carry the blessings
+of aid and charity.
+
+Which of these feelings predominated now in the minds of those who,
+snugly encased in furs, occupied the respective corners of the
+ample coach? Shall we own it? Not any of them. A dreamy, unremarking
+indifference was the sentiment of each; and they sat silently gazing
+on a prospect which suggested nothing, nor awoke one passing emotion in
+their hearts. Had any one been there to express his admiration of the
+landscape,--praised the trees, the cattle, or the grassy slopes,--Martin
+might have heard him with pleasure, and listened even with interest to
+his description. My Lady, too, might not unwillingly have lent an ear
+to some flattery of the splendid demesne of which she was mistress,
+and accepted as half homage the eulogy of what was hers. None such was,
+however, there; and so they journeyed along, as seemingly unconscious as
+though the scene were wrapped in midnight darkness.
+
+Martin had known the spot, and every detail of it, from his boyhood. The
+timber, indeed, had greatly grown,--graceful saplings had become stately
+trees, and feathery foliage deepened into leafy shade; but he himself
+had grown older, too, and his sense of enjoyment, dulled and deadened
+with years, saw nothing in the scene to awaken pleasure. As for Lady
+Dorothea, she had reasoned herself into the notion that the walls of her
+own grounds were the boundaries of a prison, and had long convinced
+herself that she was a suffering martyr to some mysterious sense of
+duty. From the drowsy languor in which they reclined they were both
+aroused, as the pace of the carriage gradually diminished from a smooth
+brisk trot to an uneven jolting motion, the very reverse of agreeable.
+
+"What have they done? Where are they going?" said Lady Dorothea,
+peevishly.
+
+And Martin called out from the window, in tones even less gentle. "Oh,
+it's the new approach; the road is not quite completed," said he, half
+sulkily, as he resumed his place.
+
+"Another of Miss Martin's clever devices, which, I must say, I never
+concurred in."
+
+"Why, you always professed to hate the old road by the stables."
+
+"So I did; but I never agreed to passing round the back of the house,
+and thus destroying the privacy of the flower-garden,--the only spot I
+may dare to call my own. Oh, dear! I shall be shaken to death. Have
+they broken the carriage? I 'm certain they 've smashed the spring at my
+side!"
+
+Martin gave a cold, supercilious smile, the only reply to these words.
+
+"They 've only broken a trace, I perceive," said he, casting a hurried
+glance through the window, as the carriage came to a dead stop.
+
+"You are equanimity itself, sir, this morning," said her Ladyship, in
+a voice almost tremulous with anger. "I wonder if this admirable temper
+will befriend you when you shall see the cost of this precious piece of
+road-making?"
+
+"It employs the people," said he, coolly.
+
+"Employs the people! How I hate that cant phrase! Can't they employ
+themselves on their own farms? Have n't they digging and draining, and
+whatever it is, to do of their own? Must they of necessity depend on
+us for support, and require that we should institute useless works to
+employ them?"
+
+As if to offer a living commentary on her speech, a number of half-fed
+and less than half-clad men now drew near, and in accents of a most
+servile entreaty begged to offer their services. Some, indeed, had
+already busied themselves to repair the broken harness, and others
+were levelling the road, carrying stones to fill up holes, and in
+every possible manner endeavoring to render assistance; but all were
+vociferous in asserting that the delay would not be above a minute or
+two; that the road was an elegant one, or would be soon, and that it was
+a "raal blessing" to see her Ladyship and the master looking so well. In
+fact, they were thankful and hopeful together; and, notwithstanding the
+evidences of the deepest destitution in their appearance, they wore an
+air of easy, jaunty politeness, such as many a professional diner-out
+might have envied. Lady Dorothea was in no mood to appreciate such
+traits; indeed, if the truth must be told, they rather ruffled than
+soothed her. Martin saw nothing in them; he was too much accustomed to
+the people to be struck with any of their peculiarities, and so he lay
+back in silent apathy, and took no notice of them.
+
+With all their alacrity and all their good-will--and there was no lack
+of either--there was yet such a total absence of all system and order,
+that their efforts were utterly useless. Some tugged away manfully
+to raise stones too heavy to lift; others came rudely in contact with
+fellows heavily laden, and upset them. The sturdy arms that spoked the
+hind wheels were resolutely antagonized by as vigorous struggles to move
+the fore ones. Every one shouted, cried, cursed, and laughed, by turns;
+and a more hopeless scene of confusion and uproar need not be conceived.
+Nor was Lady Dorothea herself an inactive spectator; for, with her head
+from the carriage-window, she directed a hundred impossible measures,
+and sat down at last, overcome with rage and mortification at their
+blunders.
+
+The tumult was now at the highest, and the horses, terrified by the
+noise around them, had commenced plunging and rearing fearfully, when
+Mary Martin came galloping up to the spot at full speed.
+
+"Let go that bridle, Hogan," cried she, aloud; "you are driving that
+horse mad. Loose the leaders' traces; unbuckle the reins, Patsey; the
+wheelers will stand quietly. There, lead them away. Speak to that mare;
+she 's trembling with fear. I told you not to come by this road, Barney;
+and it was only by accident that I saw the wheel-tracks. A thousand
+pardons, Aunt Dora, for this mishap. Barney misunderstood my orders. It
+will be all right in a moment. Once over this bad spot, the road is hard
+and level."
+
+"Having no taste, nor any genius for adventures, Miss Martin," began
+her Ladyship--But Mary did not await the remainder of the speech; for,
+turning her horse sharply round, and beckoning to some of the people
+to follow her, she was away across the lawn at a smart canter. Having
+arrived at a small wooden bridge over a river, she ordered the men to
+lift some of the planking, by the aid of which they soon constructed
+a firm and safe passage for the carriage; and as her presence was the
+signal for quiet obedience and prompt action, in less than ten minutes
+the difficulty was surmounted, the horses reharnessed, and all in
+readiness to proceed on their way.
+
+Martin looked on in silent satisfaction, not offering a single
+suggestion, or even seeming to feel interested in the events, but
+enjoying, with all a lazy man's pleasure, the activity displayed around
+him. Not so Lady Dorothea. If she did not like "an adventure," she
+loved "a grievance." Whatever ministered to her selfishness, even in the
+remotest degree, was grateful to her. Mary's opportune arrival had now
+converted what might have passed for a calamity into a mere momentary
+inconvenience; and she could not conceal her discontent. "Your heroines
+are a perfect torment; at least, to us souls of commoner clay. They live
+only for disasters."
+
+"I must say that Mary extricated us from what might have become one,"
+said Martin, dryly.
+
+"We are indebted to her, however, for the possibility. This detestable
+road, which I promise you I 'll never come again, is entirely her own
+invention. I hope, Miss Martin," added she, from the window, "that the
+other approach is to be kept in repair,--at least, for me." But Mary
+did not hear the appeal, for she was bandaging the arm of a poor country
+fellow, who had been sorely cut.
+
+"There, drive on, Barney," cried Lady Dorothea. "I shall be taken ill
+if I stay here. Really, Mr. Martin, your niece's accomplishments are
+the least feminine one can conceive." And improving this theme, she
+continued the entire way till the carriage drew up at the door of the
+castle.
+
+"Yes, sir," said she, as she descended, "that heavy sigh shows you are
+indeed greatly to be pitied. No martyrdom ever exceeded yours. I am
+quite aware of all my imperfections, and can at least fancy everything
+you could say of me and my temper. What did you say, Collins?" said she,
+addressing the obsequious-looking servant, who, with an air of gloomy
+joy, very respectful,--but meant to mean more,--had whispered something
+in her ear.
+
+"A young lady, did you say, Collins?"
+
+"Yes, my Lady."
+
+"Then you were very wrong, Collins. You meant to say a young person."
+
+"Yes, my Lady,--a young person, like a lady."
+
+"Not in the least, except to such appreciation as yours. Where is she?"
+
+"In your Ladyship's library."
+
+"Did she come alone?"
+
+"No, my Lady. Mr. Henderson drove her over in his car, and said he 'd
+pass this way again in the evening."
+
+And now her Ladyship swept proudly by, scarcely noticing the bowing
+servants who had formed into a line along the hall, and who endeavored
+to throw into their sorrowful faces as much of joy as might consist with
+the very deepest humility. Nor was she more condescending to old Catty,
+who stood courtesying at the top of the stairs, with a basket of keys on
+her arm that might have served to lock up all Newgate.
+
+"How cold every place feels! Collins, are you sure the rooms are
+properly aired?" cried she, shuddering. "But I suppose it's the climate.
+Have another stove put there," said she, pointing to an impossible
+locality.
+
+"Yes, my Lady," replied Collins.
+
+"And warmer carpets on these passages."
+
+"Yes, my Lady; it shall be done to-morrow."
+
+"No, sir; to-day."
+
+"Yes, my Lady; this afternoon."
+
+"I don't remember if the windows are double along here."
+
+"Yes, my Lady, they are all double towards the north."
+
+"Then they fit badly, for I feel the draught acutely here. It's like the
+keen air of a mountain;" and Collins gave a slight sympathetic shudder,
+and really looked cold. A somewhat haughty glance from her Ladyship,
+however, as quickly reproved him, for Collins ought to have known
+that it was not by such as himself changes of temperature could be
+appreciable. And now she passed on and entered that part of the
+mansion peculiarly her own, and where, it must be owned, her spirit of
+fault-finding would have been at a loss what to condemn.
+
+Lady Dorothea's library occupied an angle of the building; and from this
+circumstance, included within its precincts an octagonal tower, the view
+from which comprised every varied character of landscape. This favored
+spot was fitted up in the most luxurious taste,--with rarest gems of
+art, and cabinet pictures of almost fabulous value,--to supply
+which foreign dealers and connoisseurs had been for years back in
+correspondence with her Ladyship. Now it was some rare treasure of
+carved ivory, or some sculptured cup of Benvenuto, that had been
+discovered accidentally, and which, despite the emulous zeal of princes
+and cardinals to obtain, was destined for herself. Now it was some
+choice mosaic of which but one other specimen existed, and that in the
+Pope's private collection at the Quirinal. Such was her ardor in this
+pursuit of excellence, that more than once had every object of this
+precious chamber been changed, to give place to something more costly,
+more precious, and rarer. For about two years back, however, the
+resources of the old world seemed to offer nothing worthy of attention,
+and the vases, the "statuettes," the bronzes, the pictures, and
+medallions had held their ground undisturbed.
+
+Such was the sanctity of this spot, that in showing the house to
+strangers it was never opened, nor, without a special order from Lady
+Dorothea,--a favor somewhat more difficult to obtain than a firman from
+the Sultan,--could any one be admitted within its walls. The trusty
+servant in whose charge it was, was actually invested with a species of
+sacred character in the household, as one whose feet had passed the
+threshold of the tabernacle. Our reader may then picture to himself
+something of Lady Dorothea's varied sensations--for, indeed, they were
+most mingled--as she heard a slight cough from within the chamber, and,
+drawing nearer, perceived a female figure seated in front of one of the
+windows, calmly regarding the landscape.
+
+With a degree of noise and bustle sufficient to announce her approach,
+Lady Dorothea entered the tower; while the stranger, rising, retired one
+step, and courtesied very deeply. There was in all the humility of the
+obeisance a certain degree of graceful dignity that certainly struck
+her Ladyship; and her haughty look and haughtier tone were some little
+modified as she asked by what accident she found her there.
+
+"My intrusion was a pure accident, my Lady," replied the other, in a
+low, soft voice; "mistaking the door by which I had entered a room, I
+wandered on through one after another until I found myself here. I beg
+your Ladyship to believe that nothing was further from my thoughts than
+to obtrude upon your privacy."
+
+"Your name?" began her Ladyship; and then, as suddenly correcting
+herself, she said, "You are Miss Henderson, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, my Lady," she replied, with a slight bend of the head.
+
+"I sent for you," said Lady Dorothea, in a half-careless tone, while she
+turned over some books on the table, as if in search of something,--"I
+sent for you, partly at the request of your mother--"
+
+"My stepmother, my Lady," interposed the girl, calmly.
+
+Lady Dorothea stared at her for a second or two, as though to say, how
+had she dared to correct her; but either that the reproof had not met
+its full success, or that she did not care to pursue it, she added, "At
+the request of your friends, and partly out of curiosity." And here
+Lady Dorothea raised her glass to her eye, and quietly surveyed her,--an
+examination which, it must be owned, none could have borne with more
+unshaken fortitude; not the slightest tremor of a limb, not the faintest
+change of color betokening that the ordeal was a painful one.
+
+"I do see that you have been educated in France," said her Ladyship,
+with a smile of most supercilious import, while a courtesy from the
+young girl admitted the fact.
+
+"Were you brought up in Paris?" asked she, after a pause.
+
+"For four years, my Lady."
+
+"And the remainder of the time, where was it passed?"
+
+"We travelled a great deal, my Lady, in Germany and Italy."
+
+"'We,'--who were the 'we' you speak of? Please to bear in mind that I
+know nothing of your history."
+
+"I forgot that, my Lady. I thought my stepmother had, perhaps, informed
+your Ladyship."
+
+"Of nothing whatever, child," said she, haughtily, "save of your having
+a foreign education, and wishing, or hoping, to find some engagement
+as a governess or a teacher;" and the last words were drawled out
+languidly, as though they were suggestive of all that was wearisome and
+a bore. "So you must be good enough to explain who 'we' were."
+
+"The Duchesse de Luygnes and her family, my Lady."
+
+"You travelled with them; and in what capacity, pray?"
+
+"I was called companion to the Princesse de Courcelles, the eldest
+daughter of the Duchess, my Lady."
+
+"Companion!--why, you must have been a mere child at the time?"
+
+"A mere child, my Lady; but they took me from the Pensionnat, to speak
+English with the young Princess."
+
+"And then they took the charge of your education, I conclude?"
+
+"Yes, my Lady."
+
+"And to what extent--or rather, in what direction; I mean, what object
+had they in view in choosing your studies?"
+
+"They gave me the same masters as to the young Princess, my Lady; and I
+was instructed in all respects as she was."
+
+"And treated like her also, I conclude?" said Lady Dorothea, with a
+sneering smile.
+
+"Madame la Duchesse was ever most kind to me," said the girl, half
+proudly.
+
+"Kind--yes, of course--kind, if you conducted yourself properly and to
+her satisfaction. A person of her condition would be kind; but I trust
+this did not proceed so far as to spoil you? I hope it never made you
+forget your station?"
+
+"I trust it did not, my Lady."
+
+"With what part of the establishment did you live? Where did you dine?"
+
+"With the Princess, my Lady; except on _fete_ days, when we were invited
+to the table of the Duchess."
+
+"I never heard of anything more absurd,--outrageously absurd. Why, are
+you aware, young woman, that these same friends of yours have done you
+irreparable mischief? They have, so to say, ruined your entire future;
+for how can I, and others in my station, avail myself of your services,
+with such habits and expectations as these?"
+
+"Certainly not expectations, my Lady. I never did or can expect such
+condescension from another."
+
+"No matter; your head is filled with ideas unbefitting your condition,
+usages, habits, associations, all foreign to a menial station. You
+have been admitted to privileges the want of which would be felt as
+hardships. In fact, as I said before, they have done you irreparable
+injury. You must feel it yourself."
+
+A very faint smile, half in deprecation of the appeal, was the only
+reply of the young girl.
+
+"You are certain to feel it later on in life, if you are not sensible of
+it at present, that I can vouch for, young woman," said Lady Dorothea,
+with all the firmness with which she could utter an unpleasant speech.
+"Nothing but unhappiness ever resulted from such ill-judged indulgence.
+Indeed, if your mother had mentioned the circumstances, I scarcely think
+I should have sent for you"--she paused to see if any strong signs of
+contrite sorrow displayed themselves in the young girl's features; none
+such were there, and Lady Dorothea more sternly added,--"I may safely
+say, I never should have asked to see you."
+
+When a speech meant to be severe has failed to inflict the pain it was
+intended to produce, it invariably recoils with redoubled power upon him
+who uttered it; and so Lady Dorothea now felt all the pang of her
+own ungenerous sentiment. With an effort to shake off this unpleasant
+sensation, she resumed,--
+
+"I might go further, and observe that unless you yourself became
+thoroughly penetrated with the fact, you must always prove very
+unsuitable to the station you are destined to occupy in life. Do you
+understand me?"
+
+"I believe I do, my Lady," was the calm reply.
+
+"And also," resumed she, still more dictatorially--"and also, that
+acquiring this knowledge by yourself will be less painful to your
+feelings than if impressed upon you by others. Do you fully apprehend
+me?"
+
+"I think so, my Lady."
+
+Now, although the tone and manner of the young girl were unexceptionable
+in all that regards deference and respect, Lady Dorothea was not a
+little provoked at her unbroken composure. There was no confusion, not
+even a semblance of constraint about her. She replied to even sarcastic
+questions without the faintest shadow of irritation, and exhibited
+throughout the most perfect quietude and good breeding. Had the "young
+person" been overwhelmed with shame, or betrayed into any access of
+temper, her Ladyship's manner would have presented a pattern of haughty
+dignity and gracefulness, and her rebukes would have been delivered in
+a tone of queen-like superiority; but Miss Henderson afforded no
+opportunity for these great qualities. She was deference itself; but
+deference so self-possessed, so assured of its own safeguard, as to be
+positively provoking.
+
+"Under all these circumstances, therefore," resumed Lady Dorothea, as if
+having revolved mighty thoughts within her mind, "it appears to me you
+would not suit me."
+
+But even this speech failed to call up one trait of disappointment, and
+the young girl received it with only a deep courtesy.
+
+"I'm sorry for it," continued my Lady, "on your mother's account; your
+education has of course cost her and your father many sacrifices, which
+your duty requires you to repay." She paused, as if asking for some
+assent to this speech.
+
+Another deep courtesy was the reply.
+
+"There, that will do," said Lady Dorothea, angrily; for any attempt to
+provoke seemed an utter failure. "I think I have nothing more to
+say. When I shall see your mother I can explain more fully to her.
+Good-morning."
+
+"I wish your Ladyship good-morning," said the girl, with a deep
+obeisance, and in a voice of perfect deference, while she retired
+towards the door. Before she had reached it, however, Lady Dorothea
+again addressed her.
+
+"You forgot, I think, to tell me why you left the Duchesse de Luygnes?"
+
+"I left on the marriage of the Princess, my Lady."
+
+"Oh, I remember; she married a Russian, I think."
+
+"No, my Lady; she married the Duc de Mirecourt, French Ambassador at St.
+Petersburg."
+
+"Ah, to be sure. I knew there was something Russian about it. And so
+they sent you away then?"
+
+"The Duchess most kindly invited me to accompany her, my Lady, but my
+father desired I should return to Ireland."
+
+"And very properly," said Lady Dorothea; "he took a most just view of
+the case; your position would only have exposed you to great perils. I'm
+sure you are not of my opinion, for distrust of yourself does not appear
+one of your failings."--It is possible that this ungenerous remark was
+evoked by a very slight curl of the young girl's lip, and which, faint
+as it was, did not escape her Ladyship's keen glances.--"Good-morning."
+
+Again had Miss Henderson gained the door; her hand was already on the
+lock, when her Ladyship called out: "In the event of anything occurring
+to me likely to suit you, I ought to know what you can teach; and mind,
+don't bore me with a mere catalogue of hard names, but say what you
+really know."
+
+"Some modern languages, my Lady, with music."
+
+"No Greek or Latin?" said Lady Dorothea, half sneer-ingly.
+
+"Latin, perhaps; but though I can read some Greek, I could not venture
+to teach it."
+
+"Nor Hebrew?"
+
+"No, my Lady."
+
+"And the modern tongues,--which of them do you profess to know?"
+
+"French, Italian, Spanish, and German."
+
+"And don't you draw?--they showed me what they called yours."
+
+"Yes, my Lady, but I cannot teach drawing."
+
+"And of course you are thoroughly versed in history. Have you studied
+any scientific subjects?--mathematics, for instance."
+
+"Only a few of the French initial books, my Lady."
+
+"Why, you are quite an Admirable Crichton for acquirement. I feel really
+abashed to find myself in such company." But even this coarse speech
+failed to irritate, and Lady Dorothea walked angrily towards the window
+and looked out.
+
+It so chanced that, through an opening of the wood, she caught sight
+of a large assemblage of workpeople, who, headed by Miss Martin on
+horseback, were on their way to the quarries; and as she looked, a
+sudden thought flashed across her: "Why not retain the 'young person' as
+a companion for her niece? How admirably would all this girl's
+knowledge contrast with Mary's ignorance! What an unceasing source of
+disparagement would their contact afford, at the very moment that
+the arrangement might seem dictated by the very best and highest of
+motives."
+
+It may doubtless appear to many, that the individual who could reason
+thus must be animated by a most corrupt and depraved nature, but
+unhappily the spiteful element in the human heart is one which never
+measures its modes of attack, but suffers itself to be led on, from acts
+of mere petty malice to actions of downright baseness and badness. Lady
+Dorothea was not devoid of good traits, but once involved in a pursuit,
+she totally forgot the object which originally suggested it, but engaged
+all her zeal and all her ardor for success. She would have been shocked
+at the bare possibility of actually injuring her niece; she would have
+resented with indignation the mere mention of such; but yet she would
+have eagerly grasped at whatever afforded a chance of dominating over
+her. Mary's influence in the household--her rule over the peasantry of
+the estate--was a perpetual source of annoyance to her Ladyship, and yet
+she never knew how to thwart it, till now that chance seemed to offer
+this means.
+
+"You need not go back just yet: I 'll speak to Mr. Martin about you,"
+said she, turning towards Miss Henderson; and, with a respectful
+courtesy, the girl withdrew, leaving her Ladyship to her own somewhat
+complicated reflections.
+
+In less than half an hour after Lady Dorothea proceeded to Mr. Martin's
+study, where a cabinet council was held, the substance of which our
+reader can readily conceive; nor need he have any doubts as to the
+decision, when we say that Lady Dorothea retired to her own room with a
+look of satisfaction so palpably displayed that Mademoiselle Hortense,
+her maid, remarked to herself, "Somebody or other was sure to pass a
+_mauvais quart d'heure_ when _miladi_ goes to her room with an air of
+such triumphant meaning as that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. "A HOUSEKEEPER'S ROOM"
+
+Cro' Martin was replete with every comfort and luxury. All its
+arrangements betokened wealth; not a single appliance of ease or
+enjoyment but was to be found within its well-ordered walls; and yet
+there was one want which seemed to mar all, and infuse a sense of almost
+dreary coldness over everything, and this was--the absence of a numerous
+family, the assemblage of various ages, which gives to a home its
+peculiar interest, embodying the hopes and fears and passions and
+motives of manhood, in every stage of existence, making up that little
+world within doors which emblematizes the great one without; but, with
+this singular advantage, of its being bound up in one holy sentiment of
+mutual love and affection.
+
+This charm is it which gives the whole vitality to home,--this mingling
+of the temperaments of youth and manhood and deep age, blending hopes
+of the future with memories of the past, and making of every heart
+a portion of one human biography, in which many are sharers. To the
+stranger, who came to see the house and its gorgeous decorations,
+all seemed suggestive of habitable enjoyment. The vast drawing-rooms
+appeared as if only waiting for a splendid company; the dark wainscoted
+dining-room, with its noble fireplace of gigantic dimensions, looked the
+very scene where hospitable conviviality might be enacted; the library,
+calm, quiet, and secluded, seemed a spot wherein a student might have
+passed a life long. Even in the views that presented themselves at the
+several windows, there was a certain appropriateness to the character of
+the room, and the same importunate question still arose to one's mind:
+Who is there to enjoy all this? What words of glad welcome echo through
+this vaulted hall, what happy daughter sings through these gilded
+chambers, where is the social pleasantry that circles the blazing fire
+of the ample hearth? Alas! all was sombre, splendid, and dreary. No,
+we are wrong!--not all! There was one corner of this great house where
+cheerfulness was the very type of comfort. It was a small and not lofty
+room, whose two windows projected beyond the walls, giving a wide view
+over the swelling landscape for miles of space. Here the furniture was
+of the most ordinary kind, but scrupulously neat and well kept. The
+chairs--there were but four of them--all with arms and deep cushions;
+the walnut table a perfect mirror of polish; the cloth curtains,
+that closed the windows and concealed the door, massive and
+heavy-folded,--all breathed of snugness; while the screen that
+surrounded the fire had other perfections than those of comfortable
+seclusion, containing a most strange collection of the caricatures of
+the time, and the period before the Union. It is but necessary to add
+that this was Mrs. Broon's apartment,--the snug chamber where old Catty
+enjoyed herself, after the fatigues and duties of the day. Here now
+she sat at tea, beside a cheerful fire, the hissing kettle on the hob
+harmonizing pleasantly with the happy purring of an enormous cat, who
+sat winking at the blaze; and while evidently inconvenienced by the
+heat, lacking energy to retreat from it. Catty had just obtained the
+newspaper,--as the master had gone to dinner,--and was really about to
+enjoy a comfortable evening. Far from devoid of social qualities, or a
+liking for companionship, she still lived almost entirely to herself,
+the other servants being chiefly English, whose habits and ways were all
+strange to her, and all whose associations were widely different from
+her own. Catty Broon had thus obtained a reputation for unsociability
+which she by no means deserved, but to which, it must be owned, she
+was totally indifferent. In fact, if _they_ deemed _her_ morose and
+disagreeable, _she_, in turn, held _them_ still more cheaply, calling
+them a set of lazy devils that "were only in each other's way," and
+"half of them not worth their salt."
+
+Catty had also survived her generation; all her friends of former
+years had either died or emigrated, and except two or three of the
+farm-servants, none of the "ould stock," as she called them, were in
+existence. This brief explanation will show that Catty's comparative
+isolation was not entirely a matter of choice. If a sense of loneliness
+did now and then cross her mind, she never suffered it to dwell there,
+but chased away the unpleasant thought by some active duty; or if
+the season of that were over, by the amusing columns of the
+"Intelligence,"--a journal which realized to Mrs. Broon's conceptions
+the very highest order of literary merit.
+
+Catty did not take much interest in politics; she had a vague, dreamy
+kind of notion that the game of party was a kind of disreputable
+gambling, and Parliament itself little better than a "Hell," frequented
+by very indifferent company. Indeed, she often said it would be "well
+for us if there was no politics, and maybe then, there would be no taxes
+either." The news she liked was the price of farming-stock at fairs and
+markets,--what Mr. Hynes got for his "top lot" of hoggets, and what Tom
+Healey paid for the "finest heifers ever seen on the fair-green."
+These, and the accidents--a deeply interesting column--were her peculiar
+tastes; and her memory was stored with every casualty, by sea, fire, and
+violence, that had graced the "Intelligence" for forty years back; in
+truth they formed the stations of her chronology, and she would refer
+to events as having occurred the same year that Joe Ryan was hanged, or
+"the very Christmas that Hogan fired at Captain Crossley." An inundation
+of great extent also figured in these memorabilia, and was constantly
+referred to, by her saying, "This or that happened the year after the
+Flood," suggesting a rather startling impression as to her longevity.
+
+On the evening we now refer to, the newspaper was more than commonly
+adorned with these incidents. Public news having failed, private
+calamities were invoked to supply the place. Catty was, therefore,
+fortunate. There was something, too, not altogether unpleasant in the
+whistling storm that raged without, and the heavy plashing of the rain
+as it beat upon the window-panes. Without imputing to her, as would be
+most unjust, the slightest touch of ill-nature, she felt a heightened
+sense of her own snugness as she drew closer to the bright hearth, while
+she read of "a dreadful gale in the Bay of Biscay."
+
+It was just in the most exciting portion of the description that her
+door was rudely opened, and the heavy curtain dashed aside with a daring
+hand; and Catty, startled by the sudden interruption, called angrily
+out,--
+
+"Who's there?--who are ye at all?"
+
+"Can't you guess, Catty?" cried out a pleasant voice. "Don't you know
+that there's only one in this house here who 'd dare to enter in such a
+fashion?"
+
+"Oh, Miss Mary, is it you? And, blessed Virgin, what a state ye 're
+in!" cried she, as she gazed at the young girl, who, throwing away her
+riding-hat, wrung out the rain from her long and silky hair, while she
+laughed merrily at old Catty's dismayed countenance.
+
+"Why, where in the world were you--what happened you, darling?" said
+Catty, as she assisted her to remove the dripping costume.
+
+"I was at the Wood, Catty, and up to the quarries, and round by
+Cronebawn, and then, seeing a storm gathering, I thought I 'd turn
+homeward, but one of Kit Sullivan's children--my little godchild, you
+know--detained me to hear him recite some verses he had learned for my
+birthday; and, what with one thing and another, it was pitch dark when I
+reached the 'New Cut,' and then, to my annoyance, I found the bridge had
+just been carried away--there, Catty, now for a pair of your own
+comfortable slippers--and, as I was saying to you, there was no bridge!"
+
+"The bridge gone!" exclaimed Catty, in horror.
+
+"All Tom Healey's fault. I told him that the arch had not span enough,
+and that the buttresses would never stand the first heavy fall of rain
+from the mountains, and there 's not a vestige of them now!"
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"I rode for the Low Meadows, Catty, with all speed. I knew that the
+river, not being confined there between narrow banks, and spreading over
+a wide surface, couldn't be very deep. Nor was it. It never touched the
+girths but once, when we got into a hole. But she is such a rare good
+beast, that little Sorrel; she dashed through everything, and I don't
+think I took forty minutes from Kane's Mill to this door, though I never
+saw a spot of the road all the while, except when the lightning showed
+it. There now, like a good old dear, don't wring your hands and say,
+'Blessed hour!' but just put some more tea in the teapot, and fetch me
+your brown loaf!"
+
+"But surely you 'll die of cold!--you 'll be in a fever!"
+
+"Nonsense, Catty; I have been out in rain before this. I'm more provoked
+about that bridge than all else. My excellent aunt will have such a
+laugh at my engineering skill, when she hears of it. Can't be helped,
+however. And so there's a dinner-party upstairs, I hear. Fanny told me
+there were three strangers."
+
+"So I hear. There's a lawyer from Dublin; and a lady from I don't know
+where; and young Nelligan, old Dan's son. I 'm sure I never thought I 'd
+see the day he 'd be eating his dinner at Cro' Martin."
+
+"And why not, Catty? What is there in his manners and conduct that
+should not make him good company for any one here?"
+
+"Is n't he the son of a little huckster in Oughterard? Old Dan, that I
+remember without a shoe to his foot?"
+
+"And is it a reproach to him that he has made a fortune by years of
+patient industry and toil?"
+
+"In-dus-try! toil! indeed," said Catty, sneeringly. "How much in-dus-try
+or toil there is, weighing out snuff and sugar in a snug shop. Ayeh!
+he's an old nig-gar, the same Dan. I know him well."
+
+"But that is no reason why you should disparage his son, Catty, who is a
+young gentleman of the highest ability and great promise. I never heard
+you speak so ungenerously before."
+
+"Well, well, darling, don't look angry with your ould Catty, anyway. It
+isn't for the like of Dan Nelligan, or his son either, you'd be cross
+with _me!_"
+
+"Never, Catty, never,--for anybody or anything," said the young girl,
+taking her hand with both her own. "But you have n't told me who the
+lady is. How did she arrive, and when?"
+
+"I know nothing of her. Peter came to say that the blue bedroom was
+wanting to-night, and he wished to torment me into asking who for?--but
+I wouldn't, just for that same; and so I gave him the keys without a
+word."
+
+"I wonder if this note, that I found on my dressing-table, will explain
+anything," said Mary, as she proceeded to break the seal. "Of all the
+absurd ways of my Lady aunt, she has not a more ridiculous one than this
+trick of writing little notes, instead of speaking. She sees me every
+day, and might surely say whatever she wanted to say, without embalming
+it in a despatch. This, I perceive, is number four hundred and
+seventy-six, and I presume she 's correct in the score. Only think,
+Catty,--four hundred little epistles like this!"
+
+And with these words she carelessly unfolded the letter and began to
+read it. All her indifference of manner, however, soon gave way to an
+expression of considerable eagerness, and she had no sooner finished the
+epistle than she recommenced and reread it.
+
+"You 'd never guess what tidings this brings me, Catty," said she,
+laying down the paper, and looking with an expression half sad, half
+comical.
+
+"Maybe I might, then," said Catty, shaking her head knowingly.
+
+"Come, out with your guess, then, old lady, and I promise to venerate
+your wisdom ever after if you be right,--that is, if nobody has already
+given you a hint on the subject."
+
+"Not one in the world," said Catty, solemnly; "I pledge you my word and
+faith I never heard a syllable about it."
+
+"About it! about what?"
+
+"About what's in the letter there," said Catty, stoutly.
+
+"You are therefore quite certain that you know it," said Mary, smiling,
+"so now let's have your interpretation."
+
+"It 's a proposial," said Catty, with a slight wink.
+
+"A what!"
+
+"A proposial--of marriage, I mean."
+
+But before the words were out, Mary burst into a fit of laughter, so
+hearty and with such good-will that poor Catty felt perfectly ashamed of
+herself.
+
+"My dear Catty," said she, at length, "you must have been reading fairy
+tales this morning; nothing short of such bright literature could have
+filled your mind with these imaginings. The object of the note is, I
+assure you, of a quite different kind;" and here she ran her eye once
+more over the epistle. "Yes," continued she, "it is written in my dear
+aunt's own peculiar style, and begins with a 'declaratory clause,' as I
+think Mr. Scanlan would call it, expressive of my lamentably neglected
+education, and then proceeds to the appropriate remedy, by telling me
+that I am to have a governess!"
+
+"A what!" cried Catty, in angry amazement.
+
+"A governess, Catty,--not a governor, as you suspected."
+
+"Ayeh, ayeh!" cried the old woman, wringing her hands; "what's this for?
+Don't you know how to govern yourself by this time? And what can they
+teach you that you don't understand already?"
+
+"Ah, my dear Catty," said the young girl, sadly, "it is a sad subject
+you would open there,--one that I have wept over many a dreary hour!
+No one knows--no one even could guess--how deeply I have deplored my
+illiterate condition. Nor was it," added she, ardently, "till I had
+fashioned out a kind of existence of my own--active, useful, and
+energetic--that I could bury the thought of my utter want of education.
+Not even you, Catty, could fathom all the tears this theme has cost
+me, nor with what a sinking of the heart I have thought over my actual
+unfitness for my station."
+
+"Arrah, don't provoke me! don't drive me mad!" cried the old woman, in
+real anger. "There never was one yet as fit for the highest place as
+yourself; and it is n't me alone that says it, but hundreds of--"
+
+"Hundreds of dear, kind, loving hearts," broke in Mary, "that would
+measure my poor capacity by my will to serve them. But no matter, Catty;
+I 'll not try to undeceive them. They shall think of me with every help
+their own affection may lend them, and I will not love them less for the
+overestimate."
+
+As she spoke these words, she buried her face between her hands; but
+the quick heaving of her chest showed how deep was her emotion. The old
+woman respected her sorrow too deeply to interrupt her, and for several
+minutes not a word was spoken on either side. At last Mary raised her
+head, and throwing back the long, loose hair, which in heavy masses
+shaded her face, said with a firm and resolute voice,--
+
+"I 'd have courage to go to school to-morrow, Catty, and begin as a mere
+child to learn, if I knew that another was ready to take my place here.
+But who is to look after these poor people, who are accustomed now
+to see me amongst them, on the mountains, in the fields, at their
+firesides?--who gain new spirit for labor when I ride down in the midst
+of them, and look up, cheered, by seeing me, even from a sick-bed. Her
+Ladyship would say, Mr. Henderson could do all this far better than
+myself."
+
+"Mr. Henderson, indeed!" exclaimed Catty, indignantly; "the
+smooth-tongued old rogue!"
+
+"And perhaps he might, in England," resumed Mary; "but not here,
+Catty,--not here! We care less for benefits than the source from which
+they spring. We Irish cherish the love of motives as well as actions;
+and, above all, we cherish the links that bind the lowliest in the land
+with the highest, and make both better by the union."
+
+She poured out these words with rapid impetuosity, rather talking to
+herself than addressing her companion; then, suddenly changing her tone,
+she added,--
+
+"Besides, Catty, _they_ are used to me, and _I_ to _them_. A new face
+and a new voice would not bring the same comfort to them."
+
+"Never, never," muttered the old woman to herself.
+
+"And I 'll not desert them."
+
+"That you won't, darling," said the old woman, kissing her hand
+passionately, while tears swam in her eyes, and trickled down her
+cheeks.
+
+"There is but one thought, Catty, that makes me at all faint-hearted
+about this, and whenever it crosses me I do feel very low and
+depressed." She paused, and then murmured the words, "My father!"
+
+"Your father, my darling! What about _him?_"
+
+"It is thinking, Catty, of his return; an event that ought to be--and
+would be, too--the very happiest of my life; a day for whose coming I
+never sleep without a prayer; and yet, even this bright prospect has its
+dark side, when I recall all my own deficiencies, and how different he
+will find his daughter from what he had expected her."
+
+"May the blessed saints grant me patience!" cried Catty, breaking in.
+"Isn't it too bad to hear you talking this way? Sure, don't I know
+Master Barry well? Didn't I nurse him, and wasn't I all as one as his
+own mother to him, and don't I know that you are his own born image?
+'Tis himself and no other ye are every minute of the day."
+
+"And even that, Catty," said Mary, smiling, "might fail to satisfy
+him. It is something very different indeed he might have imagined his
+daughter. I'm sure nobody can be more ignorant than I am, of what a
+person in my station ought to know. I cannot hide this from myself in
+my sad moments. I do not try to do so, but I have always relied upon
+the consolation that, to an existence such as mine is like to be, these
+deficiencies do not bring the same sense of shame, the same painful
+consciousness of inferiority, as if I were to mingle with the world of
+my equals. But if he were to come back,--he, who has seen society in
+every shape and fashion,--and find me the poor, unlettered, unread,
+untaught thing I am, unable to follow his very descriptions of
+far-away lands without confusion and mistake; unable to benefit by his
+reflections from very want of previous knowledge,--oh, Catty dearest,
+what a miserable thing is self-love after all, when it should thus
+thrust itself into the foreground, where very different affections alone
+should have the place."
+
+"He 'd love you like his own heart," said Catty. "Nobody knows him like
+me; and if there was ever one made for him to dote on, it's your own
+self."
+
+"Do you indeed think so?" cried Mary, eagerly.
+
+"Do I know it--could I swear it?" said Catty. "He was never much given
+to study himself, except it was books of travel like 'Robinson Crusoe,'
+and the like; and then, after reading one of them books he 'd be off for
+days together, and we 'd be looking for him over the whole country, and
+maybe find him in the middle of Kyle's Wood up a tree; or once, indeed,
+it was in the island of Lettermullen we got him. He built a mud-house,
+and was living there with a goat and two rabbits that he reared himself,
+and if he was n't miserable when they brought him away home! I remember
+his words well,--'Maybe,' says he, 'the time will come that I 'll go
+where you can't come after me;' and ye see that's what he's done, for
+nobody knows where he wasn't wandering these last eight or nine years."
+
+When Catty got upon this theme she could not be brought to quit
+it,--nor, indeed, did Mary try,--for though she had heard these stories
+of her father's boyish days over and over again, she never wearied of
+them; they had all the fascination of romance for her, with the stronger
+interest that grew out of her love for one who, she was told, had
+so loved herself. Besides this, she felt in her own heart the same
+promptings to a life of action and adventure. All the incidents and
+accidents of an eventful existence were the very things to delight her,
+and one of her happiest daydreams was to fancy herself her father's
+companion in his wanderings by flood and field.
+
+And thus they sat till a late hour of the night talking and listening,
+old Catty answering each inquiry of the young girl by some anecdote or
+trait of him she still persisted in calling "Master Barry," till, in the
+ardor of listening, Mary herself caught up the phrase, and so designated
+her own father.
+
+"How unlike my uncle in everything!" exclaimed Mary, as she reflected
+over some traits the old woman had just recorded. "And were they not
+very fond of each other?"
+
+"That they were: at least I can answer for Master Barry's love; and to
+be sure, if having a reason was worth anything, your uncle ought to love
+him more than one man ever did another." Old Catty uttered these
+words with a slow and almost muttering accent; they seemed as if the
+expression of a thought delivered involuntarily--almost unconsciously.
+
+Mary was attracted by the unwonted solemnity of her accent, but still
+more by an expression of intense meaning which gathered over the old
+woman's brows and forehead. "Ay, ay," muttered she, still to herself,
+"there's few brothers would do it. Maybe there's not another living but
+himself would have done it."
+
+"And what was it, Catty?" asked Mary, boldly.
+
+"Eh!--what was I saying, darling?" said Catty, rousing herself to full
+consciousness.
+
+"You were telling of my father, and some great proof of affection he
+gave my uncle."
+
+"To be sure he did," said the old woman, hastily. "They were always fond
+of each other, as brothers ought to be."
+
+"But this one particular instance of love,--what was it, Catty?"
+
+The old woman started, and looked eagerly around the room, as though to
+assure herself that they were alone; then, drawing her chair close to
+Mary's, she said, in a low voice: "Don't ask me any more about them
+things, darling. 'T is past and gone many a year now, and I 'd rather
+never think of it more, for I 've a heavy heart after it."
+
+"So, then, it is a secret, Catty?" said Mary, half proudly.
+
+"A secret, indeed," said Catty, shaking her head mournfully.
+
+"Then you need only to have said so, and I'd not have importuned you to
+tell it; for, to say truth, Catty, I never knew you had any secrets from
+me."
+
+"Nor have I another, except this, darling," said Catty; and she
+buried her face within her hands. And now both sat in silence for some
+minutes,--a most painful silence to each. At last Mary arose, and,
+although evidently trying to overcome it, a feeling of constraint was
+marked in her features.
+
+"You'd never guess how late it is, Catty," said she, trying to change
+the current of her thoughts. "You 'd not believe it is past three
+o'clock; how pleasantly we must have talked, to forget time in this
+way!"
+
+But the old woman made no reply, and it was clear that she had never
+heard the words, so deeply was she sunk in her own reflections.
+
+"This poor hat of mine will scarcely do another day's service," said
+Mary, as she looked at it half laughingly. "Nor is my habit the fresher
+of its bath in the 'Red River;' and the worst of it is, Catty, I have
+overdrawn my quarter's allowance, and must live on, in rags, till
+Easter. I see, old lady, you have no sympathies to waste on me and my
+calamities this evening," added she, gayly, "and so I'll just go to bed
+and, if I can, dream pleasantly."
+
+"Rags, indeed," said Catty. "It's well it becomes you to wear rags!"
+and her eyes sparkled with indignant passion. "Faith, if it comes
+to that,"--here she suddenly paused, and a pale hue spread over her
+features like a qualm of faintish sickness,--"may the Holy Mother give
+me help and advice; for sometimes I'm nigh forgetting myself!"
+
+"My dear old Catty," said Mary, fondly, "don't fret about me and my
+foolish speech. I only said it in jest. I have everything,--far more
+than I want; a thousand times more than I desire. And my excellent
+aunt never said a truer thing in her life than when she declared that
+'everybody spoiled me.' Now, good-night." And kissing the old woman
+affectionately, Mary gathered up the stray fragments of her riding-gear,
+and hurried away, her merry voice heard cheerfully as she wended her way
+up many a stair and gallery to her own chamber.
+
+If Mary Martin's character had any one quality preeminently remarkable,
+it was the absence of everything like distrust and suspicion. Frankness
+and candor itself in all her dealings, she never condescended to impute
+secret motives to another; and the very thought of anything like mystery
+was absolutely repugant to her nature. For the very first time in her
+life, then, she left old Catty Broon with a kind of uneasy, dissatisfied
+impression. There was a secret, and she was somehow or other concerned
+in it; so much was clear. How could she convince the old woman that no
+revelation, however disagreeable in itself, could be as torturing as a
+doubt? "Can there be anything in my position or circumstances here that
+I am not aware of? Is there a mystery about me in any way?" The very
+imagination of such a thing was agony. In vain she tried to chase away
+the unwelcome thought by singing, as she went, by thinking over plans
+for the morrow, by noting down, as she did each night, some stray
+records of the past day; still Catty's agitated face and strange emotion
+rose before her, and would not suffer her to be at rest.
+
+To a day of great excitement and fatigue now succeeded a sleepless,
+feverish night, and morning broke on her unrefreshed, and even ill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. A FINE OLD IRISH BARRISTER
+
+Can any one tell us what has become of that high conversational power
+for which Ireland, but more especially Dublin, was once celebrated? Have
+the brilliant talkers of other days left no successors? Has that race of
+delightful con-vivialists gone and disappeared forever? Or are we only
+enduring an interregnum of dulness, the fit repose, perhaps, after a
+period of such excitement? The altered circumstances of the country will
+doubtless account for much of this change. The presence of a Parliament
+in Ireland imparted a dignity and importance to society, while it
+secured to social intercourse the men who made that Senate illustrious.
+The Bar, too, of former days, was essentially the career of the highest
+class, of those who had the ambition of political success without the
+necessity of toiling for it through the laborious paths of the law; and
+thus the wit, the brilliancy, and the readiness which gives conversation
+its charm, obtained the high culture which comes of a learned
+profession, and the social intercourse with men of refined
+understanding.
+
+With the Union this spirit died out. Some of the brightest and gayest
+retired from the world, sad, dispirited, and depressed; some felt that
+a new and very different career was to open before them, and addressed
+themselves to the task of conforming to new habits and acquiring new
+influences; and others, again, sought in the richer and greater country
+the rewards which they once were satisfied to reap in their own. With
+the Union, society in Dublin--using the word in its really comprehensive
+sense--ceased to exist. The great interests of a nation departed, men
+sank to the level of the small topics that engaged them, and gradually
+the smallest and narrowest views of mere local matters usurped the place
+of great events and liberal speculations. Towards the end of the
+first quarter of the present century, a few of those who had once made
+companionship with Curran and Grattan and Lysaght and Parsons were still
+in good health and vigor. A fine, high-hearted, manly class they were,
+full of that peculiar generosity of character which has ever marked the
+true Irish gentleman, and with a readiness in humor and a genial flow of
+pleasantry which rendered their society delightful.
+
+Of this school--and probably the last, for he was then the Father of the
+Bar--was Valentine Repton, a man whose abilities might have won for him
+the very highest distinctions, but who, partly through indolence, and
+partly through a sturdy desire to be independent of all party, had all
+his life rejected every offer of advancement, and had seen his juniors
+pass on to the highest ranks of the profession, while he still wore his
+stuff-gown, and rose to address the Court from the outer benches.
+
+He was reported in early life to have professed very democratic
+opinions, for which he more than once had incurred the _deep_
+displeasure of the authorities of the University. The principles of
+the French Revolution had, however, been gradually toned down in him
+by time, and probably by a very aristocratic contempt for the party who
+advocated them; so that soon after he entered on his career at the Bar
+he seemed to have abandoned politics; nor, except by a sly jest or an
+epigram upon a party leader, no matter of which side, did he ever advert
+to the contests of statecraft.
+
+Though closely approaching seventy, he was hale and vigorous, his gray
+eyes quick and full of fire, his voice clear, and his whole air and
+bearing that of one many years younger. He had been a "beau" in his
+youth, and there was in the accurately powdered hair, the lace ruffles
+in which he still appeared at dinner, and the well-fitting silk
+stocking, an evidence that he had not forgotten the attractions of
+dress. At the Bar he still maintained the very highest place. His
+powers of cross-examination were very great; his management of a jury
+unrivalled. A lifelong acquaintance with Dublin had familiarized him
+with the tone and temper of every class of its citizens, and had taught
+him the precise kind of argument, and the exact nature of the appeal to
+address to each. As he grew older, perhaps he did not observe all his
+wonted discretion in the use of this subtle power, and somewhat presumed
+upon his own skill. Nor was he so scrupulous in his deference to the
+Court,--a feature which had once pre-eminently distinguished him;
+but, upon the whole, he had kept wonderfully clear of the proverbial
+irritability of age, and was, without an exception, the favorite amongst
+his brethren.
+
+The only touch of years observable about his mind was a fondness for
+recurring to incidents or events in which he himself had borne a part.
+A case in which he held a brief, the dinner at which he had
+been brilliant, the epigram he had dashed off in Lady Somebody's
+drawing-room, were bright spots he could not refrain from adverting to;
+but, generally speaking, he had skill enough to introduce these without
+any seeming effort or any straining, and thus strangers, at least, were
+in wonderment at his endless stores of anecdote and illustration. No
+man better than he knew how to throw a great name into the course of a
+conversation, and make an audience for himself, by saying, "I remember
+one day at the Priory with Curran"--or, "We were dining with poor
+Grattan at Tinnehinch, when--" "As Flood once remarked to me--" and so
+on.
+
+The flattery of being addressed by one who had stood in such intimate
+relation to those illustrious men never failed of success. The most
+thoughtless and giddy hearers were at once arrested by such an opening,
+and Repton was sure of listeners in every company.
+
+The man who finds his place in every society is unquestionably a clever
+man. The aptitude to chime in with the tone of others infers a high
+order of humor,--of humor in its real sense; meaning, thereby,
+the faculty of appreciating, and even cultivating, the individual
+peculiarities of those around him, and deriving from their display a
+high order of pleasure.
+
+From these scattered traits let my reader conjure up Valentine Repton
+before him, and imagine the bustling, active, and brisk-looking old
+gentleman whose fidgetiness nearly drove Martin mad, as they held
+converse together in the library after breakfast. Now seated, now rising
+to pace the room, or drawing nigh the window to curse the pelting rain
+without, Repton seemed the incarnation of uneasiness.
+
+"Very splendid--very grand--very sumptuous--no doubt," said he, ranging
+his eyes over the gorgeous decorations of the spacious apartment, "but
+would kill me in a month; what am I saying?--in a week!"
+
+"What would kill you, Repton?" said Martin, languidly.
+
+"This life of yours, Martin,--this sombre quiet, this unbroken
+stillness, this grave-like monotony. Why, man, where 's your
+neighborhood? where are your gentry friends?"
+
+"Cosby Blake, of Swainestown, is abroad," said Martin, with an indolent
+drawl. "Randal Burke seldom comes down here now. Rickman, I believe, is
+in the Fleet. They were the nearest to us!"
+
+"What a country! and you are spending--What did you tell me last
+night,--was it upwards of ten thousand a year here?"
+
+"What with planting, draining, bridging, reclaiming waste lands,
+and other improvements, the wages of last year alone exceeded seven
+thousand!"
+
+"By Jove! it 's nigh incredible," said the lawyer, energetically. "My
+dear Martin, can't you perceive that all this is sheer waste,--so much
+good money actually thrown into Lough Corrib? Tell me, frankly, how long
+have you been pursuing this system of improvement?"
+
+"About three years; under Mary's management."
+
+"And the results,--what of them?"
+
+"It is too early to speak of that; there's Kyle's Wood, for
+instance,--we have enclosed that at considerable cost. Of course we
+can't expect that the mere thinnings can repay us, the first year or
+two."
+
+"And your reclaimed land,--how has _it_ prospered?"
+
+"Not over well. They pushed draining so far that they 've left a large
+tract perfectly barren and unproductive."
+
+"And the harbor,--the pier I saw yesterday?"
+
+"That 's a bad business,--it's filling up the bay with sand! but we'll
+alter it in summer."
+
+"And now for the people themselves,--are they better off, better fed,
+clothed, housed, and looked after, than before?"
+
+"Mary says so. She tells me that there is a wonderful change for the
+better in them."
+
+"I don't believe a word of it, Martin,--not a word of it. Ireland is not
+to be redeemed by her own gentry. The thing is sheer impossibility! They
+both know each other too well. Do you understand me? They are too ready
+to make allowances for shortcomings that have their source in some
+national prejudice; whereas your Saxon or your Scotchman would
+scout such a plea at once. Ireland wants an alternative, Martin,--an
+alternative; and, amidst our other anomalies, not the least singular is
+the fact that the Englishman, who knows nothing about us, nor ever will
+know anything, is precisely the man to better our condition."
+
+"These are strange opinions to hear from your lips, Repton. I never
+heard any man so sarcastic as yourself on English ignorance regarding
+Ireland."
+
+"And you may hear me again on the same theme whenever you vouchsafe me
+an audience," said the lawyer, sharply. "It was but the other day I gave
+our newly arrived secretary, Mr. Muspratt, a gentle intimation of my
+sentiments on that score. We were dining at the Lodge. I sat next his
+Excellency, who, in the course of dinner, directed my attention to a
+very graphic picture the secretary was drawing of the misery he had
+witnessed that very day, coming up from Carlow. He did the thing well,
+I must own. He gave the famished looks, the rags, the wretchedness, all
+their due; and he mingled his pathos and indignation with all the skill
+of an artist; while he actually imparted a Raffaelle effect to his
+sketch, as he portrayed the halt, the maimed, the blind, and the palsied
+that crowded around the carriage as he changed horses, exclaiming,
+by way of peroration, 'Misery and destitution like this no man ever
+witnessed before, all real and unfeigned as it was sure to be.'
+
+"'Naas is a miserable place, indeed,' said I, for he looked directly
+towards me for a confirmation of his narrative.
+
+"'There is no denying one word the gentleman has said; I came up that way
+from circuit three weeks ago, and was beset in the same spot, and in the
+same manner as we have just heard. I can't attempt such a description as
+Mr. Muspratt has given us; but I will say that there was not a human
+deformity or defect that did n't appear to have its representative in
+that ragged gathering, all clamorous and eager for aid. I looked at them
+for a while in wonderment, and at last I threw out a "tenpenny" in the
+midst. The "blind" fellow saw it first, but the "lame cripple" had the
+foot of him, and got the money!'"
+
+Repton leaned back in his chair, and laughed heartily as he finished. "I
+only wish you saw his face, Martin; and, indeed, his Excellency's too.
+The aides-de-camp laughed; they were very young, and could n't help it."
+
+"He 'll not make you a chief justice, Repton," said Martin, slyly.
+
+"I 'll take care he don't," said the other. "_Summum jus summa injuria_.
+The chief justice is a great humbug, or a great abuse, whichever way you
+like to render it."
+
+"And yet they'd be glad to promote you," said Martin, thoughtfully.
+
+"To be sure they would, sir; delighted to place me where they had no
+fear of my indiscretions. But your judge should be ever a grave animal.
+The temptation to a joke should never sit on the ermine. As Flood once
+remarked to me of old Romney, 'A man, sir,' said he,--and Flood had
+a semi-sarcastic solemnity always about him,--'a man, sir, who has
+reversed the law of physics; for he rose by his gravity, and only fell
+by his lightness.' Very epigrammatic and sharp, that. Ah, Martin, they
+don't say these things nowadays. By the way, who is the young fellow who
+dined with us yesterday?"
+
+"His name is Nelligan; the son of one of our Oughterard neighbors."
+
+"Pleasing manners, gentle, too, and observant," said Repton, with the
+tone of one delivering a judgment to be recorded.
+
+"He's more than that," said Martin; "he is the great prize man of the
+year in Trinity. You must have surely heard of his name up in town."
+
+"I think somebody did speak of him to me,--recommend him, in some
+shape or other," said Repton, abstractedly; "these things are so easily
+forgotten; for, to say the truth, I hold very cheaply all intellectual
+efforts accomplished by great preparation. The cramming, the grinding,
+the plodding, the artificial memory work, and the rest of it, detract
+terribly, in my estimation, from the glory of success. Give me your
+man of impromptu readiness, never unprepared, never at a loss. The very
+consciousness of power is double power." And as he spoke he drew himself
+up, threw his head back, and stared steadfastly at Martin, as though to
+say, "Such is he who now stands before you."
+
+Martin was amused at the display of vanity, and had there been another
+there to have participated in the enjoyment, would have willingly
+encouraged him to continue the theme; but he was alone, and let it pass.
+
+"I 'll make a note of that young man. Mulligan, is n't it?"
+
+"Nelligan."
+
+"To be sure. I 'll remember poor Curran's epigram:--
+
+     'Oh, pity poor Tom Nelligan!
+     Who walking down Pall Mall,
+     He slipt his foot,
+     And down he fell,
+     And fears he won't get well again.'
+
+
+Glorious fellow, sir; the greatest of all the convivialists of his
+time, was Curran. A host in himself; but, as he once said, you could n't
+always depend on the 'elevation.'"
+
+Martin smiled faintly; he relished the lawyer's talk, but he felt
+that it demanded an amount of attention on his part that wearied him.
+Anything that cost him trouble was more or less of a "bore;" and he
+already began to wish for his accustomed ease and indolence.
+
+"Well, Repton," said he, "you wished to see the quarries, I think?"
+
+"To see everything and everybody, sir, and with my own eyes, too. As
+Lysaght said, when I read the book of nature, 'I let no man note my
+brief for me.'"
+
+"I thought of being your companion, myself; but somehow, this morning,
+my old enemy, the gout, is busy again; however, you 'll not regret the
+exchange, Repton, when I give you in charge to my niece. She 'll be but
+too happy to do the honors of our poor country to so distinguished a
+visitor."
+
+"And a very artful plan to put me in good humor with everything," said
+Repton, laughing. "Well, I consent. I offer myself a willing victim to
+any amount of seduction. How are we to go?--do we drive, walk, or ride?"
+
+"If Mary be consulted, she'll say ride," said Martin; "but perhaps--"
+
+"I'm for the saddle, too," broke in Repton. "Give me something active
+and lively, light of mouth and well up before, and I'll show you, as
+Tom Parsons said, that we can cut as good a figure at the wall as the
+'bar.'"
+
+"I 'll go and consult my niece, then," said Martin, hastening out of the
+room, to conceal the smile which the old man's vanity had just provoked.
+
+Mary was dressed in her riding-habit, and about to leave her room as her
+uncle entered it.
+
+"I have just come in the nick of time, Molly, I see," cried he. "I
+want you to lionize an old friend of mine, who has the ambition to 'do'
+Connemara under your guidance."
+
+"What a provoke!" said Mary, half aloud. "Could he not wait for another
+day, uncle? I have to go over to Glencalgher and Kilduff; besides,
+there's that bridge to be looked after, and they 've just come to tell
+me that the floods have carried away the strong paling around the larch
+copse. Really, this old gentleman must wait." It was a rare thing for
+Mary Martin to display anything either of impatience or opposition to
+her uncle. Her affection for him was so blended with respect that she
+scarcely ever transgressed in this wise; but this morning she was ill
+and irritable,--a restless, feverish night following on a day of great
+fatigue and as great excitement,--and she was still suffering, and her
+nerves jarring when he met her.
+
+"But I assure you, Molly, you 'll be pleased with the companionship,"
+began Martin.
+
+"So I might at another time; but I 'm out of sorts to-day, uncle. I 'm
+cross and ill-tempered, and I 'll have it out on Mr. Henderson,--that
+precious specimen of his class. Let Mr. Nelligan perform cicerone, or
+persuade my Lady to drive him out; do anything you like with him, except
+give him to me."
+
+"And yet that is exactly what I have promised him. As for Nelligan, they
+are not suited to each other; so come, be a good girl, and comply."
+
+"If I must," said she, pettishly. "And how are we to go?"
+
+"He proposes to ride, and bespeaks something lively for his own mount."
+
+"Indeed! That sounds well!" cried she, with more animation. "There 's
+'Cropper' in great heart; he 'll carry him to perfection. I 'll have a
+ring-snaffle put on him, and my word for it but he 'll have a pleasant
+ride."
+
+"Take care, Molly; take care that he's not too fresh. Remember that
+Repton is some dozen years or more my senior."
+
+"Let him keep him off the grass and he 'll go like a lamb. I'll not
+answer for him on the sward, though; but I 'll look to him, uncle, and
+bring him back safe and sound." And, so saying, Mary bounded away down
+the stairs, and away to the stables, forgetting everything of her late
+discontent, and only eager on the plan before her.
+
+Martin was very far from satisfied about the arrangement for his
+friend's equitation; nor did the aspect of Repton himself, as attired
+for the road, allay that sense of alarm; the old lawyer's costume being
+a correct copy of the colored prints of those worthies who figured in
+the early years of George the Third's reign,--a gray cloth spencer being
+drawn over his coat, fur-collared and cuffed, high riding-boots of black
+polished leather, reaching above the knee, and large gauntlets of bright
+yellow doeskin, completing an equipment which Martin had seen nothing
+resembling for forty years back.
+
+"A perfect cavalier, Repton!" exclaimed he, smiling.
+
+"We once could do a little that way," said the other, with a touch
+of vanity. "In our early days, Martin, hunting was essentially a
+gentleman's pastime. The meet was not disfigured by aspiring linen
+drapers or ambitious hardwaremen, and the tone of the field was the
+tone of society; but _nous avons change tout cela_. Sporting men, as
+they call themselves, have descended to the groom vocabulary; and the
+groom morals, and we, of the old school, should only be laughed at for
+the pedantry of good manners and good English, did we venture amongst
+them."
+
+"My niece will put a different estimate on your companionship; and here
+she comes. Molly, my old and valued friend, Mr. Repton."
+
+"I kiss your hand, Miss Martin," said he, accompanying the speech by the
+act, with all the grace of a courtier. "It's worth while being an old
+fellow, to be able to claim these antiquated privileges."
+
+There was something in the jaunty air and well-assumed gallantry of the
+old lawyer which at once pleased Mary, who accepted his courtesy with a
+gracious smile. She had been picturing to herself a very different kind
+of companion, and was well satisfied with the reality.
+
+"I proposed to young Mr. Nelligan to join us," said Repton, as he
+conducted her to the door; "but it seems he is too deeply intent upon
+some question or point of law or history--I forget which--whereupon we
+differed last night, and has gone into the library to search for the
+solution of it. As for me, Miss Martin, I am too young for such dry
+labors; or, as the Duc de Nevers said, when somebody rebuked him
+for dancing at seventy, 'Only think what a short time is left me for
+folly.'"
+
+We do not propose to chronicle, the subjects or the sayings by which
+the old lawyer beguiled the way; enough if we say that Mary was actually
+delighted with his companionship. The racy admixture of humor and strong
+common-sense, acute views of life, flavored with, now a witty remark,
+now a pertinent anecdote, were conversational powers totally new to her.
+Nor was he less charmed with her. Independently of all the pleasure
+it gave him to find one who heard him with such true enjoyment, and
+relished all his varied powers of amusing, he was equally struck with
+the high-spirited enthusiasm and generous ardor of the young girl. She
+spoke of the people and the country with all the devotion of one who
+loved both; and if at times with more of hopefulness than he himself
+could feel, the sanguine forecast but lent another charm to her
+fascination.
+
+He listened with astonishment as she explained to him the different
+works then in progress,--the vast plans for drainage; the great
+enclosures for planting; the roads projected here, the bridges there. At
+one place were strings of carts, conveying limestone for admixture with
+the colder soil of low grounds; at another they met asses loaded with
+seaweed for the potato land. There was movement and occupation on every
+side. In the deep valleys, on the mountains, in the clefts of the rocky
+shore, in the dark marble quarries, hundreds of people were employed;
+and by these was Mary welcomed with eager enthusiasm the moment she
+appeared. One glance at their delighted features was sufficient to show
+that theirs was no counterfeit joy. Wherever she went the same reception
+awaited her; nor did she try to conceal the happiness it conferred.
+
+"This is very wonderful, very strange, and very fascinating, Miss
+Martin," said Repton, as they moved slowly through a rocky path,
+escarped from the side of the mountain; "but pardon me if I venture to
+suggest one gloomy anticipation in the midst of such brightness. What is
+to become of all these people when _you_ leave them,--as leave them you
+will and must, one day?"
+
+"I never mean to do so," said Mary, resolutely.
+
+"Stoutly spoken," said he, smiling; "but, unfortunately, he who hears it
+could be your grandfather. And again I ask, how is this good despotism
+to be carried on when the despot abdicates? Nay, nay; there never was
+a very beautiful girl yet, with every charm under heaven, who did n't
+swear she 'd never marry; so let us take another alternative. Your uncle
+may go to live in London,--abroad. He may sell Cro' Martin--"
+
+"Oh, that is impossible! He loves the old home of his family and his
+name too dearly; he would be incapable of such a treason to his house!"
+
+"Now, remember, my dear young lady, you are speaking to the most
+suspectful, unimpulsive, and ungenerously disposed of all natures, an
+old lawyer, who has witnessed so many events in life he would have
+once pronounced impossible,--ay, just as roundly as you said the word
+yourself,--and seen people and things under aspects so totally the
+reverse of what he first knew them, that he has taught himself to
+believe that change is the law, and not permanence, in this life, and
+that you and I, and all of us, ought ever to look forward to anything,
+everything, but the condition in which at present we find ourselves.
+Now, I don't want to discourage you with the noble career you have
+opened for yourself here. I am far more likely to be fascinated--I was
+going to say fall in love--with you for it, than to try and turn your
+thoughts elsewhere; but as to these people themselves, the experiment
+comes too late."
+
+"Is it ever too late to repair a wrong, to assist destitution, relieve
+misery, and console misfortune?" broke in Mary, eagerly.
+
+"It is too late to try the feudal system in the year of our Lord 1829,
+Miss Martin. We live in an age where everything is to be redressed by
+a Parliament. The old social compact between proprietor and peasant is
+repealed, and all must be done by 'the House.' Now, if your grandfather
+had pursued the path that you are doing to-day, this crisis might
+never have arrived; but he did not, young lady. He lived like a real
+gentleman; he hunted, and drank, and feasted, and rack-rented, and
+horsewhipped all around him; and what with duelling of a morning and
+drinking over-night, taught the people a code of morals that has assumed
+all the compactness of a system. Ay, I say it with grief, this is a land
+corrupted from the top, and every vice of its gentry has but filtered
+down to its populace! What was that I heard?--was it not a shot?" cried
+he, reining in his horse to listen.
+
+"I thought so, too; but it might be a blast, for we are not far from the
+quarries."
+
+"And do you preserve the game, Miss Martin? are you sworn foe to the
+poacher?"
+
+"I do so; but in reality more for the sake of the people than the
+partridges. Your lounging country fellow, with a rusty gun and a starved
+lurcher, is but an embryo highwayman."
+
+"So he is," cried Repton, delighted at the energy with which she spoke;
+"and I have always thought that the worst thing about the game-laws was
+the class of fellows we educate to break them. Poor old Cranbury was n't
+of that opinion, though. You could never have seen him, Miss Martin; but
+he was a fine specimen of the Irish Bench in the old time. He was the
+readiest pistol in the Irish house; and, as they said then, he 'shot up'
+into preferment. He always deemed an infraction of the game-laws as one
+of the gravest crimes in the statute. Juries, however, did n't concur
+with him; and, knowing the severity of the penalty, they invariably
+brought in a verdict of Not Guilty, rather than subject a poor wretch
+to transportation for a jack-snipe. I remember once,--it was at
+Maryborough; the fellow in the dock was a notable poacher, and, worse
+still, the scene of his exploits was Cranbury's own estate. As usual,
+the jury listened apathetically to the evidence; they cared little
+for the case, and had predetermined the verdict. It was, however, so
+palpably proven, so self-evident that he was guilty, that they clubbed
+their heads together to concert a pretext for their decision. Cranbury
+saw the movement, and appreciated it, and, leaning his head down upon
+his hand, mumbled out, as if talking to himself, in broken sentences,
+'A poor man--with a large family--great temptation--and, after all,
+a slight offence,--a very slight offence.' The jury listened and took
+courage; they fancied some scruples were at work in the old judge's
+heart, and that they might venture on the truth, innocuously. 'Guilty,
+my Lord,' said the foreman. 'Transportation for seven years!' cried the
+judge, with a look at the jury-box that there was no mistaking. They
+were 'done,' but there never was another conviction in that town
+afterwards."
+
+"And were such things possible on the justice-seat?" exclaimed Mary, in
+horror.
+
+"Ah, my dear young lady, I could tell you of far worse than that. There
+was a time in this country when the indictment against the prisoner
+was Secondary in importance to his general character, his party,
+his connections, and fifty other things which had no bearing upon
+criminality. There goes another shot! I 'll swear to that," cried he,
+pulling up short, and looking in the direction from which the report
+proceeded.
+
+Mary turned at the same moment, and pointed with her whip towards a
+beech wood that skirted the foot of the mountain.
+
+"Was it from that quarter the sound came?" said she.
+
+The sharp crack of a fowling-piece, quickly followed by a second report,
+now decided the question; and, as if by mutual consent, they both
+wheeled their horses round, and set off at a brisk canter towards the
+wood.
+
+"I have taken especial pains about preserving this part of the estate,"
+said Mary, as they rode along. "It was my cousin Harry's favorite cover
+when he was last at home, and he left I can't say how many directions
+about it when quitting us; though, to say truth, I never deemed any
+precautions necessary till he spoke of it."
+
+"So that poaching was unknown down here?"
+
+"Almost completely so; now and then some idle fellow with a half-bred
+greyhound might run down a hare, or with a rusty firelock knock over a
+rabbit, but there it ended. And as we have no gentry neighbors to ask
+for leave, and the Oughterard folks would not venture on that liberty,
+I may safely say that the report of a gun is a rare event in these
+solitudes."
+
+"Whoever he be, yonder, is not losing time," said Rep-ton; "there was
+another shot."
+
+Their pace had now become a smart half-gallop; Mary, a little in
+advance, leading the way, and pointing out the safe ground to her
+companion. As they drew nigh the wood, however, she slackened speed till
+he came up, and then said,--
+
+"As I know everybody hereabouts, it will be enough if I only see the
+offender; and how to do that is the question."
+
+"I am at your orders," said Repton, raising his whip to a salute.
+
+"It will be somewhat difficult," said Mary, pondering; "the wood is so
+overgrown with low copse that one can't ride through it, except along
+certain alleys. Now we might canter there for hours and see nothing. I
+have it," cried she, suddenly; "you shall enter the wood and ride slowly
+along the green alley, yonder, till you come to the crossroad, when you
+'ll turn off to the left; while I will remain in observation outside
+here, so that if our friend make his exit I am sure to overtake him. At
+all events, we shall meet again at the lower end of the road."
+
+Repton made her repeat her directions, and then, touching his hat in
+respectful salutation, rode away to fulfil his mission. A low gate,
+merely fastened by a loop of iron without a padlock, admitted the lawyer
+within the precincts, in which he soon discovered that his pace must be
+a walk, so heavy was the deep clayey soil, littered with fallen leaves
+and rotting acorns. Great trees bent their massive limbs over his head,
+and, even leafless as they were, formed a darksome, gloomy aisle, the
+sides of which were closed in with the wild holly and the broom, and
+even the arbutus, all intermingled inextricably. There was something
+solemn even to sadness in the deep solitude, and so Repton seemed to
+feel as he rode slowly along, alone, tingeing his thoughts of her he had
+just quitted with melancholy.
+
+"What a girl and what a life!" said he, musingly. "I must tell
+Martin that this will never do! What can all this devotion end in but
+disappointment! With the first gleam of their newly acquired power the
+people will reject these benefits; they will despise the slow-won fruits
+of industry as the gambler rejects a life of toil. Then will come
+a reaction--a terrible reaction--with all the semblance of black
+ingratitude! She will herself be disgusted. The breach once made will
+grow wider and wider, and at last the demagogue will take the place of
+the landed proprietor. Estrangement at first, next distrust, and finally
+dislike, will separate the gentry from the peasantry, and then--I
+tremble to think of what then!"
+
+As Repton had uttered these words, the sharp bang of a gun startled him,
+and at the same instant a young fellow sprang from the copse in front
+of him into the alley. His coarse fustian shooting-jacket, low-crowned
+oil-skin hat, and leather gaiters seemed to bespeak the professional
+poacher, and Repton dashed forward with his heavy riding-whip upraised
+towards him.
+
+[Illustration: 206]
+
+"Take care, old gentleman," said the young man, facing about; "my second
+barrel is loaded, and if you dare--"
+
+"By Heaven! I'll thrash you, you scoundrel!" said Repton, whose passion
+was now boiling over by a sudden bound of the cob, which had nearly
+thrown him from the saddle,--a mischance greeted by a hearty burst of
+laughter from the stranger.
+
+"I fancy you have quite enough to do at this moment!" cried he, still
+laughing.
+
+Half mad with anger, Repton pressed his spurs to the cob's flanks, while
+he gave him a vigorous cut of the whip on the shoulder. The animal
+was little accustomed to such usage, and reared up wildly, and would
+inevitably have fallen back with his rider, had not the stranger,
+springing forward, seized the bridle, and pulled him down by main force.
+Whether indifferent to his own safety, or so blinded by passion as not
+to recognize to what he owed it, the old man struck the other a heavy
+blow with his whip over the head, cutting through his hat, and covering
+his face with blood.
+
+The young man passing his arm through the bridle, so as to render the
+other's escape impossible, coolly removed his hat and proceeded to
+stanch the bleeding with his handkerchief,--not the slightest sign of
+excitement being displayed by him, nor any evidence of feeling that the
+event was other than a more accident.
+
+"Let loose my bridle-rein,--let it loose, sir," said Repton,
+passionately,--more passionately, perhaps, from observing the measured
+calmness of the other.
+
+"When I know who you are, I shall," said the young man.
+
+"My name is Valentine Repton; my address, if you want it, is Merrion
+Square North, Dublin; and can you now tell me where a magistrate's
+warrant will reach _you?_"
+
+"My present residence is a house you may have seen on the side of the
+mountain as you came along, called, I think, Barnagheela; my name is
+Massingbred."
+
+"You presume to be a gentleman, then?" said Repton.
+
+"I have not heard the matter disputed before," said Jack, with an easy
+smile, while he leisurely bound the handkerchief round his head.
+
+"And of course, you look for satisfaction for this?"
+
+"I trust that there can be no mistake upon that point, at least,"
+replied he.
+
+"And you shall have it, too; though, hang me, if I well know whether you
+should not receive it at the next assizes,--but you shall have it. I
+'ll go into Oughterard this day; I 'll be there by nine o'clock, at the
+Martin Arms."
+
+"That will do," said Massingbred, with a coolness almost like
+indifference; while he resumed his gun, which he had thrown down, and
+proceeded to load the second barrel.
+
+"You are aware that you are poaching here?" said Repton,--"that this is
+part of the Martin estate, and strictly preserved?"
+
+"Indeed! and I thought it belonged to Magennis," said Jack, easily; "but
+a preserve without a gamekeeper, or even a notice, is a blockade without
+a blockading squadron." And without a word more, or any notice of the
+other, Massingbred shouldered his gun and walked away.
+
+It was some time before Repton could summon resolution to leave the
+spot, such was the conflict of thoughts that went on within him. Shame
+and sorrow were, indeed, uppermost in his mind, but still not unmingled
+with anger at the consummate ease and coolness of the other, who by this
+line of conduct seemed to assume a tone of superiority the most
+galling and insulting. In vain did he endeavor to justify his act to
+himself,--in vain seek to find a plausible pretext for his anger. He
+could not, by all his ingenuity, do so, and he only grew more passionate
+at his own failure. "Another would hand him over to the next justice of
+the peace,--would leave him to quarter sessions; but not so Val
+Repton. No, by Jove, he 'll find a man to his humor there, if he wants
+fighting," said he, aloud, as he turned his horse about and rode slowly
+back.
+
+It was already dusk when he joined Miss Martin, who, uneasy at his
+prolonged absence, had entered the wood in search of him. It required
+all the practised dissimulation of the old lawyer to conceal the signs
+of his late adventure; nor, indeed, were his replies to her questions
+quite free from a certain amount of inconsistency. Mary, however,
+willingly changed the subject, and led him back to speak of topics more
+agreeable and congenial to him. Still he was not the same sprightly
+companion who had ridden beside her in the morning. He conversed with a
+degree of effort, and, when suffered, would relapse into long intervals
+of silence.
+
+"Who inhabits that bleak-looking house yonder?" said he, suddenly.
+
+"A certain Mr. Magennis, a neighbor, but not an acquaintance, of ours."
+
+"And how comes it that he lives in the very middle, as it were, of the
+estate?"
+
+"An old lease, obtained I can't say how many centuries back, and which
+will expire in a year or two. He has already applied for a renewal of
+it."
+
+"And of course, unsuccessfully?"
+
+"Up to this moment it is as you say, but I am endeavoring to persuade
+my uncle not to disturb him; nor would he, if Magennis would only be
+commonly prudent. You must know that this person is the leading Radical
+of our town of Oughterard, the man who sets himself most strenuously in
+opposition to our influence in the borough, and would uproot our power
+there, were he able."
+
+"So far, then, he is a courageous fellow."
+
+"Sometimes I take that view of his conduct, and at others I am disposed
+to regard him as one not unwilling to make terms with us."
+
+"How subtle all these dealings can make a young lady!" said Repton,
+slyly.
+
+"Say, rather, what a strain upon one's acuteness it is to ride out with
+a great lawyer, one so trained to see spots in the sun that he won't
+acknowledge its brightness if there be a speck to search for."
+
+"And yet it's a great mistake to suppose that we are always looking on
+the dark side of human nature," said he, reflectively; "though," added
+he, after a pause, "it's very often our business to exaggerate baseness,
+and make the worst of a bad man."
+
+"Even that may be more pardonable than to vilify a good one," said Mary.
+
+"So it is, young lady; you are quite right there." He was thoughtful
+for a while, and then said: "It is very singular, but nevertheless true,
+that, in my profession, one loses sight of the individual, as such, and
+only regards him as a mere element of the case, plaintiff or defendant
+as he may be. I remember once, in a southern circuit, a hale,
+fine-looking young fellow entering my room to present me with a hare. He
+had walked twelve miles to offer it to me. 'Your honor doesn't remember
+me,' said he, sorrowfully, and evidently grieved at my forgetfulness.
+'To be sure I do,' replied I, trying to recall his features; 'you
+are--let me see--you are--I have it--you are Jemmy Ryan.'
+
+"'No, sir,' rejoined he, quickly, 'I'm the boy that murdered him.'
+
+"Ay, Miss Martin, there's a leaf out of a lawyer's notebook, and yet
+I could tell you more good traits of men and women, more of patient
+martyrdom under wrong, more courageous suffering to do right, than if I
+were--what shall I say?--a chaplain in a nobleman's family."
+
+Repton's memory was well stored with instances in question, and he
+beguiled the way by relating several, till they reached Cro' Martin.
+
+"And there is another yet," added he, at the close, "more strongly
+illustrating what I have said than all these, but I cannot tell it to
+_you_."
+
+"Why so?" asked she, eagerly.
+
+"It is a family secret, Miss Martin, and one that in all likelihood you
+shall never know. Still, I cannot refrain from saying that you have in
+your own family as noble a specimen of self-sacrifice and denial as I
+ever heard of."
+
+They were already at the door as he said this, and a troop of servants
+had assembled to receive them. Mary, therefore, had no time for further
+inquiry, had such an attempt been of any avail.
+
+"There goes the first dinner-bell, Miss Martin," said Repton, gayly.
+"I'm resolved to be in the drawing-room before you!" And with this he
+hopped briskly upstairs, while Mary hastened to her room to dress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. "A RUINED FORTUNE"
+
+No stronger contrast could be presented than that offered by the house
+which called Mr. Magennis master, to all the splendor and elegance
+which distinguished Cro' Martin. Built on the side of a bleak, barren
+mountain, without a trace of cultivation,--not even a tree beside
+it,--the coarse stone walls, high pitched roof, and narrow windows
+seemed all devised in some spirit of derision towards its graceful
+neighbor. A low wall, coped with a formidable "frieze" of broken bottles
+and crockery, enclosed a space in front once destined for a garden, but
+left in its original state of shingle, intermixed with the remnants of
+building materials and scaffold planks. A long shed, abutting on the
+house, sheltered a cow and a horse; the latter standing with his head
+above a rickety half-door, and looking ruefully out at the dismal
+landscape beneath him.
+
+Most of the windows were broken,--and in some no attempt at repair
+had been made,--indicating that the rooms within were left unused. The
+hall-door stood ajar, but fastened by a strong iron chain; but the roof,
+more than all besides, bespoke decay and neglect, the rafters being in
+many places totally bare, while in others some rude attempts at tiling
+compensated for the want of the original slates. A strong colony of
+jackdaws had established themselves in one of the chimneys; but from
+another, in the centre of the building, a thick volume of dark-blue
+smoke rolled continually, conveying, indeed, the only sign of habitation
+about this dreary abode.
+
+The inside of the house was, if possible, more cheerless than the out.
+Most of the rooms had never been finished, and still remained in their
+coarse brown plaster, and unprovided with grates or chimney-pieces.
+The parlor, _par excellence_, was a long, low-ceilinged chamber, with
+yellow-ochre walls, dimly lighted by two narrow windows; its furniture,
+a piece of ragged carpet beneath a rickety table of black mahogany, some
+half-dozen crazy chairs, and a small sideboard, surmounted by something
+that might mean buffet or bookcase, and now served for both, being
+indifferently garnished with glasses, decanters, and thumbed volumes,
+intermingled with salt-cellars, empty sauce-bottles, and a powder-flask.
+
+An atrociously painted picture of an officer in scarlet uniform hung
+over the fireplace, surmounted by an infantry sword, suspended by a
+much-worn sash. These were the sole decorations of the room, to which
+even the great turf fire that blazed on the hearth could not impart a
+look of comfort.
+
+It was now a little after nightfall; the shutters were closed, and
+two attenuated tallow candles dimly illuminated this dreary chamber.
+A patched and much discolored tablecloth, with some coarse knives and
+forks, bespoke preparation for a meal, and some half-dozen plates stood
+warming before the fire. But the room had no occupant; and, except
+for the beating of the shutters against the sash, as the wind whistled
+through the broken window, all was silent within it. Now and then a loud
+noise would resound through the house; doors would bang, and rafters
+rattle, as the hall-door would be partially opened to permit the head of
+a woman to peer out and listen if any one were coming; but a heavy
+sigh at each attempt showed that hope was still deferred, and the weary
+footfall of her steps, as she retired, betrayed disappointment. It was
+after one of these excursions that she sat down beside the kitchen
+fire, screening her face from the blaze with her apron, and then, in the
+subdued light, it might be seen that, although bearing many traces of
+sorrow and suffering, she was still young and handsome. Large masses of
+the silkiest brown hair, escaping from her cap, fell in heavy masses
+on her neck; her eyes were large and blue, and shaded by the longest
+lashes; her mouth, a little large, perhaps, was still beautifully
+formed, and her teeth were of surpassing whiteness. The expression
+of the whole face was of gentle simplicity and love,--love in which
+timidity, however, deeply entered, and made the feeling one of acute
+suffering. In figure and dress she was exactly like any other peasant
+girl, a gaudy silk handkerchief on her neck being the only article
+of assumed luxury in her costume. She wore shoes, it is true,--not
+altogether the custom of country girls,--but they were heavy and
+coarsely made, and imparted to her walk a hobbling motion that detracted
+from her appearance.
+
+A large pot which hung suspended by a chain above the fire seemed to
+demand her especial care, and she more than once removed the wooden
+cover to inspect the contents; after which she invariably approached the
+window to listen, and then came back sorrowfully to her place, her lips
+muttering some low sounds inaudibly. Once she tried to hum a part of a
+song to try and beguile the time, but the effort was a failure, and, as
+her voice died away, two heavy tears stole slowly along her cheeks,
+and a deep sob burst from her; after which she threw her apron over her
+face, and buried her head in her lap. It was as she sat thus that a loud
+knocking shook the outer door, and the tones of a gruff voice rose even
+above the noise; but she heard neither. Again and again was the summons
+repeated, with the same result; and at last a handful of coarse gravel
+struck the kitchen window with a crash that effectually aroused her, and
+springing up in terror, she hastened to the door.
+
+In an instant she had unhooked the heavy chain, and sheltering the
+candle with her hand, admitted a large powerfully built man, who was
+scarcely within the hall when he said angrily, "Where the devil were
+you, that you could n't hear me?"
+
+"I was in the kitchen, Tom," said she.
+
+"Don't call _me_ Tom, d----n you," replied he, violently. "Don't keep
+dinning into me the infernal fool that I've made of myself, or it will
+be worse for you."
+
+"Sure I never meant any harm by it; and it was your own self bid me
+do it," said she, meekly, as she assisted him to remove his dripping
+great-coat.
+
+"And don't I rue it well?" rejoined he, through his half-closed teeth.
+"Isn't it this confounded folly that has shut me out of the best houses
+in the county? My bitter curse on the day and the hour I first saw you!"
+
+"Oh, don't say them words,--don't, or you'll break my poor heart," cried
+she, clinging to him as he strode angrily into the parlor.
+
+"Be off with you,--be off to the kitchen, and leave me quiet," said he,
+rudely.
+
+"There 's your slippers, sir," said she, meekly, as, bending down, she
+untied his heavy shooting-shoes, and replaced them by a pair of list
+ones.
+
+"Is the dinner ready?" asked he, sternly.
+
+"It is, sir; but Massin'bred is n't come back."
+
+"And who the devil is Massingbred? Don't you think he might be Mister
+Massingbred out of _your_ mouth?"
+
+"I ax your pardon, sir, and his, too; but I didn't mean--"
+
+"There, there,--away with you!" cried he, impatiently. "I 'm never in a
+bad humor that you don't make me worse." And he leaned his face between
+his hands over the fire, while she slipped noiselessly from the room.
+
+"Maybe he thinks he's doing me honor by staying here," burst he forth,
+suddenly, as he sprang to his legs and stared angrily around him. "Maybe
+he supposes that it's great condescension for him to put up with my
+humble house! Ay, and that it's _my_ bounden duty to wait for _him_ to
+any hour he pleases. If I thought he did,--if I was sure of it!"
+added he, with a deep guttural tone, while he struck his clenched fist
+violently against the chimney-piece. Then, seizing the large iron poker,
+he knocked loudly with it against the back of the fireplace,--a summons
+quickly answered by the appearance of the girl at the door.
+
+"Did he come in since morning?" asked he, abruptly.
+
+"No, sir, never," replied she, with a half courtesy.
+
+"Nor say what time he 'd be back?"
+
+"Not a word, sir."
+
+"Then, maybe, he's not coming back,--taken French leave, as they call
+it, eh, Joan?"
+
+The sound of her name, spoken, too, in an accent of more friendly
+meaning, lighted up her face at once, and her large eyes swam in tears
+of gratitude towards him as she stood there.
+
+"But he 'd scarcely dare to do that!" said he, sternly.
+
+"No, sir," said she, echoing half unconsciously his opinion.
+
+"And what do _you_ know about it?" said he, turning savagely on her.
+"Where were you born and bred, to say what any gentleman might do, at
+any time, or in anything? Is it Joan Landy, the herd's daughter, is
+going to play fine lady upon us! Faix, we 're come to a pretty pass now,
+in earnest! Be off with you! Away! Stop, what was that? Did n't you hear
+a shot?"
+
+"I did, sir,--quite near the house, too."
+
+A sharp knocking now on the hall-door decided the question, and Magennis
+hastened to admit the arrival.
+
+It is a strange fact, and one of which we are satisfied merely to make
+mention, without attempting in the least to explain, but no sooner was
+Magennis in the presence of his young guest, than not only he seemed to
+forget all possible cause of irritation towards him, but to behave
+with a manner of, for him, the most courteous civility. He aided him
+to remove his shot-belt and his bag; took his hat from his hands, and
+carefully wiped it; placed a chair for him close to the fire; and
+then, as he turned to address him, remarked for the first time the
+blood-stained handkerchief which still bound his forehead.
+
+"Did you fall,--had you an accident?" asked he, eagerly.
+
+"No," said the other, laughing; "a bit of an adventure only, which I 'll
+tell you after dinner."
+
+"Was it any of the people? Had you a fight--"
+
+"Come, Magennis, you must exercise a little patience. Not a word, not a
+syllable, till I have eaten something, for I am actually famishing."
+
+A stout knock of the poker on the chimney summoned the dinner, and
+almost in the same instant the woman entered with a smoking dish of
+Irish stew.
+
+"Mrs. Joan, you're an angel," said Massingbred; "if there was a dish
+I was longing for on this cold, raw day, it was one of your glorious
+messes. They seem made for the climate, and by Jove, the climate for
+them. I say, Mac, does it always rain in this fashion here?"
+
+"No; it sleets now and then, and sometimes blows."
+
+"I should think it does," said Jack, seating himself at the table. "The
+pleasant little slabs of marble one sees on the cabin-roofs to keep
+down the thatch are signs of your western zephyrs. Mrs. Joan has outdone
+herself today. This is first-rate."
+
+"There's too strong a flavor of hare in it," said Magen-nis, critically.
+
+"That's exactly its perfection; the wild savor lifts it out of the
+vulgar category of Irish stews, and assimilates it, but not too closely,
+to the ragout. I tell you, Mac, there's genius in the composition of
+that gravy."
+
+The partial pedantry of this speech was more than compensated for by the
+racy enjoyment of the speaker, and Magennis was really gratified at the
+zest with which his young friend relished his meal.
+
+"It has one perfection, at least," said he, modestly,--"it 's very
+unlike what you get at home."
+
+"We have a goodish sort of a cook," said Jack, languidly,--"a fellow
+my father picked up after the Congress of Verona. Truffles and treaties
+seem to have some strong sympathetic attraction, and when diplomacy had
+finished its work, a _chef_ was to be had cheap! The worst of the class
+is, they 'll only functionate for your grand dinners and they leave your
+every-day meal to some inferior in the department."
+
+It was strange that Magennis could listen with interest always whenever
+Massingbred spoke of habits, people, and places with which he had
+never been conversant. It was not so much for the topics themselves
+he cared,--they were, in reality, valueless in his eyes,--it was some
+singular pleasure he felt in thinking that the man who could so discuss
+them was his own guest, seated at his own table, thus connecting himself
+by some invisible link with the great ones of this world!
+
+Massingbred's very name--the son of the celebrated Moore Massingbred--a
+Treasury Lord--Heaven knows what else besides--certainly a Right
+Honorable--was what first fascinated him in his young acquaintance,
+and induced him to invite him to his house. Jack would probably have
+declined the invitation, but it just came at the moment when he was
+deeply mortified at Nelligan's absence,--an absence which old Dan was
+totally unable to explain or account for. Indeed, he had forgotten that,
+in his note to his son, he had not mentioned Massingbred by name, and
+thus was he left to all the embarrassment of an apology without the
+slightest clew as to the nature of the excuse.
+
+No sooner, then, was it apparent to Massingbred that young Nelligan did
+not intend to return home, than he decided on taking his own departure.
+At first he determined on going back to Dublin; but suddenly a malicious
+thought sprung up of all, the mortification it might occasion Joe
+to learn that he was still in the neighborhood; and with the amiable
+anticipation of this vengeance, he at once accepted Magennis's offer to
+"accompany him to his place in the mountains, and have some shooting."
+
+It would not have been easy to find two men so essentially unlike in
+every respect as these two, who now sat discussing their punch after
+dinner. In birth, bringing-up, habits, instincts, they were widely
+dissimilar, and yet, somehow, they formed a sort of companionship
+palatable to each. Each had something to tell the other which he had
+either not heard before, or not heard in the same way. We have already
+adverted to the strong fascination Magen-nis experienced in dwelling on
+the rank and social position of his young guest. Massingbred experienced
+no less delight in the indulgence of his favorite pastime,--adventure
+hunting. Now, here was really something like adventure,--this wild, rude
+mountain home, this strange compound of gloom and passion, this poor
+simple country girl, more than servant, less than wife,--all separated
+from the remainder of the world by a gulf wider than mere space. These
+were all ingredients more than enough to suggest matter for imagination,
+and food for after-thought in many a day to come.
+
+They had thus passed part of a week in company, when the incident
+occurred of which our last chapter makes mention, and an account of
+which, now, Massingbred proceeded to give his host, neither exaggerating
+nor diminishing in the slightest particular any portion of the event.
+He even repressed his habitual tendency to sarcasm, and spoke of his
+antagonist seriously and respectfully. "It was quite clear," said he,
+in conclusion, "that he did n't know I was a gentleman, and consequently
+never anticipated the consequence of a blow."
+
+"And he struck you?" broke in Magennis, violently.
+
+"You shall see for yourself," said Jack, smiling, as, untying the
+handkerchief, he exhibited a deep cut on his forehead, from which the
+blood still continued to ooze.
+
+"Let Joan doctor you; she's wonderful at a cut. She has something they
+call Beggarman's Balsam. I 'll fetch her." And without waiting for a
+reply he left the room. The young woman speedily after appeared with
+some lint and a small pot of ointment, proceeding to her office with
+all the quiet assiduity of a practised hand, and a gentleness that few
+"regulars" could vie with. Her skill was more than recompensed by the
+few muttered words of praise Magennis bestowed, as he grumbled out, half
+to himself: "Old Cahill himself could n't do it better. I 'd back her
+for a bandage against the College of Surgeons. Ain't ye easier now?--to
+be sure you are. She 's good for _that_ if she is for nothing else!"
+And even this much of eulogy made her bosom heave proudly, and brought a
+flush of joy over her cheek that was ecstasy itself.
+
+[Illustration: 218]
+
+The world is not deficient in acts of kindness, benevolence, and
+good-will. There is a large fountain of these running in ten thousand
+rills. But how many more might there not be,--how much of this wealth
+might there not be dispensed, and nobody living one jot the poorer! How
+many are there toiling away in obscurity and narrow fortune, to whom one
+single word of praise--one chance syllable of encouragement--would be
+life's blood! What sunken cheeks and lacklustre eyes would glow and
+gladden again by even a look of sympathy, withheld from no lack of
+kindliness, but mere want of thought! Oh ye who have station and fame,
+genius or greatness, bethink ye that these gifts are never higher
+than when they elevate the humble and cheer the lowly, and there is no
+physician like him who animates the drooping heart, and gives new vigor
+to wearied faculties and failing energy. Joan was made happy by the
+two or three words of grateful thanks Massingbred addressed to her, and
+stole quietly away, leaving the two companions once more alone.
+
+If there was any incident in life participation in which could convey
+intense gratification to Magennis, it was that sort of difference or
+misunderstanding that might lead to a duel. Whenever the affair offered
+no other alternative, his delight was unbounded. There were, it was
+rumored events in his own early life which would imply that the
+taste for mortal combat extended only to cases where his friends were
+concerned, and had no selfish application whatever. Of these we know
+nothing; nor, indeed, have we any information to convey regarding him,
+save by chance and stray words dropped by himself in the unguarded
+hours of after-dinner converse. There are, however, many who like the
+subordinate parts in this world's comedy,--who would rather be best man
+than bridegroom, and infinitely prefer performing second to principal.
+
+We are not, however, going into the inquiry as to the cause; enough when
+we repeat that this was Magennis's great passion, and these were the
+kind of events for whose conduct and management he believed himself to
+possess the most consummate tact and ability.
+
+"You 're in luck, Massingbred," cried he, as the other concluded his
+recital,--"you're in luck, sir, to have for your friend one that, though
+I say it myself, has n't his equal for a case like this in the three
+kingdoms. It was I, sir, took out Cahill when he shot Major Harris, of
+the Fusiliers. I handled him that morning in a way that made the English
+officers confess there was no chance against us! A duel seems an easy
+thing to arrange. You 'd say that any fool could put up two men, twelve
+or even ten paces asunder, and tell them to blaze away; and if that
+was all there was in it, it would be simple enough. But consider for
+a minute the real case, and just remember how much the nature of the
+ground, whether level or uneven, has to do with it; what's behind,--if a
+wall, or trees, or only sky; the state of the light; how the sun stands;
+whether there 's wind, and what way it's coming. These are not all.
+There's the pistols,--how they _'throw,'_ and with what charge; and then
+there 's the size of your man. Ay, Massingbred, and let me tell you, you
+now see before you the man that invented the 'invulnerable position.'"
+
+"By Jove! that's a most valuable fact to me just now," said Jack,
+helping himself to a fresh tumbler. "I 'm glad you have not been
+retained by the other side."
+
+"The 'invulnerable position'!" continued Magennis, perfectly heedless
+of the other's remark; while, taking up the poker, he stalked out to
+the middle of the room, drawing himself up to his full height, and
+presenting, as though with a pistol,--"Do you see what I mean?" cried
+he.
+
+"I can't say I do," said Jack, hesitatingly.
+
+"I thought not," rejoined the other, proudly; "nobody ever did that was
+n't 'out' often. Pay attention now, and I 'll explain it. My head,
+you perceive, is carried far behind my right shoulder, so as to be
+completely protected by my pistol-hand and the pistol. I say the pistol,
+because it has been proved scientifically that the steadiest eye that
+ever fired never could aim at the antagonist's pistol. Morris Crofton
+practised it for eight years in his own garden; and though he did
+succeed, he told me that for practical purposes it was no use. Now we
+come to the neck, and you may observe the bend of my elbow. Ay, that
+little angle that nobody would remark masks the jugular arteries, and
+all the other vital nerves in that part. John Toler used to say that
+the head and neck was like the metropolis, and that a shot elsewhere was
+only like a 'row' in the provinces; and a very true and wise remark it
+was. Not that I neglect the trunk," added he, proudly; "for you see
+how I stand,--three-quarters of the back towards the enemy so as not to
+expose the soft parts. As for the legs," cried he, contemptuously, "let
+them crack at them as long as they like."
+
+"And that 's the 'invulnerable position,'" said Massing-bred; with less
+enthusiasm, however, than the discovery might seem to warrant.
+
+"It is, sir; and if it was n't for it there 's many a strapping fellow
+walking about this day-that would be lying with a marble counterpane
+over him. Billy Welsh, that fought Brian of Deanstown, was the first man
+I ever 'put up' in it. Billy had a slight crick of the neck, and could
+n't get the head far enough round to the right, and the ball took him
+in the bridge of the nose, and carried that feature clean off, but never
+damaged him in any other respect whatever!"
+
+"I must say that the loss was quite sufficient for a man who had the
+benefit of the 'invulnerable position,'" said Massingbred, quietly.
+
+"He thinks nothing of it. A chap in the Crow Street Theatre made him a
+better nose than ever he had, out of wax, I believe; and he has a winter
+one, with a blush of red on it, to make believe it was cold; and they
+tell me you 'd never discover it was n't his own."
+
+Magennis had now resumed his place at table, and seemed bent on making
+up for lost time by giving double measure of whiskey to his punch.
+
+"You say that he's to be in Oughterard to-night; well, with the blessing
+of the Virgin,"--an invocation he invariably applied to every act
+of dubious morality,--"we 'll be with him before he's out of bed
+to-morrow!"
+
+"I wish he had not given me a blow," said Jack, musingly. "He seemed
+such a stout-hearted, spirited old fellow, I'm really grieved to quarrel
+with him."
+
+"I'm glad that there's nobody to hear them words but myself, Mr.
+Massingbred," said the other, with all the slowness and deliberation of
+incipient drunkenness; "I'm rejoiced, sir, that it's in the confidential
+intercourse of friendly--friendly--communication--that the son of my old
+and valued friend--Moore Massingbred--used expressions like that."
+
+Jack started with amazement at this speech; he had not the slightest
+suspicion till that moment that Magennis and his father had ever known
+each other, or even met. A very little patience, however, on his part
+served to solve the difficulty; for he discovered that one of the
+peculiarities of this stage of his friend's ebriety was to fancy
+himself the intimate and associate of any one whose name he had ever
+heard mentioned.
+
+"Ay, sir, them's words your father would never have uttered. I was with
+him in his first blaze. 'Moore,' says I, 'have n't you a pair of black
+breeches?'--he wore a pair of web 'tights' of a light pattern--What are
+you laughing at, sir?" cried he, sternly, and striking the table with
+his clenched knuckles, till the glasses all rang on it.
+
+"I was laughing at my father's costume," said Jack, who really told
+the truth; such a portrait of his parent's appearance being manifestly
+unlike anything he had ever imagined.
+
+"And the worse manners yours, sir," rejoined Magennis, rudely. "I' ll
+not suffer any man to laugh at an old friend--and--and--schoolfellow!"
+
+It was with the very greatest difficulty that Jack could restrain
+himself at this peroration, which indignation--the same, probably, that
+creates poets--had suggested. He had, however, tact enough to preserve
+his gravity, whilst he assured his companion that no unfilial sentiment
+had any share in his thoughts.
+
+"So far, so well," said Magennis, who now helped himself to the whiskey,
+unadulterated by any water; "otherwise, sir, it's not Lieutenant
+Magennis, of the--9th Foot, would handle you on the ground to-morrow!"
+
+"So, then, you've served, Mac? Why, you never broke that to me before!"
+
+"Broke!" cried the other, with a voice shrill from passion, while he
+made an effort to rise from his chair, and sunk back again,--"broke; who
+dares to say I was broke? I left the scoundrels myself. I shook the
+dust off my feet after them. There never was a court-martial about it.
+Never--never!" To the deep crimson that suffused his face before, there
+now succeeded an almost death-like pallor, and Massingbred really felt
+terrified at the change. Some heart-rending recollection seemed suddenly
+to have cleared his brain, routing in an instant all the effects of
+intoxication, and restoring him to sobriety and sorrow together.
+
+"Ay," said he, in a low, broken voice, and still speaking to himself,
+"that finished me! I never held my head up again! Who could, after such
+a business? I came here, Mr. Massingbred," continued he, but addressing
+his guest in a tone of deep respect,--"I came back here a ruined man,
+and not eight-and-twenty! You see me now, a dirty, drunken sot, not
+better dressed nor better mannered than the commonest fellow on the
+road, and yet I'm a gentleman born and bred, well nurtured, and well
+educated. I took a college degree and went into the army." He paused, as
+if trying to gather courage to go on; the effort was more than he could
+accomplish, and, as the heavy tears stole slowly down his cheeks, the
+agony of the struggle might be detected. Half mechanically he seized
+the decanter of whiskey and poured the tumbler nearly full; but Jack
+good-humoredly stretched out his hand towards the glass, and said,
+"Don't drink, Mac; there's no head could stand it."
+
+"You think so, boy," cried he, with a saucy smile. "Little you know the
+way we live in the West, here;" and he tossed off the liquor before the
+other could stop him. The empty glass had scarcely been replaced on the
+table, when all the former signs of drunkenness had come back again, and
+in his bloodshot eyes and swollen veins might be seen the very type of
+passionate debauch.
+
+"Not ask me to their houses!" cried he, hoarse with passion. "Who wants
+them? Not invite me! Did I ever seek them? The dirty, mean spalpeens,
+don't I know the history of every one of them? Could n't I expose them
+from one end of the county to the other? Who 's Blake of Harris-town? He
+'s the son of Lucky Magarry, the pedler. You don't believe me. I had
+it from Father Cole himself. Lucky was hanged at Ennis. 'Ye want a
+confession!' says Lucky, when he came out on the drop; 'ye want a
+confession! Well, I suppose there's no use in keeping anything back
+now, for ye 'll hang me at any rate, and so here it's for you. It was I
+murdered Mr. Shea, and there was nobody helping me at all. I did it all
+myself with a flail; and be the same token, it 's under Mark Bindon's
+tombstone this minute. There now, the jury may be azy in their minds,
+and the judge, and the hangman, too, if he cares about it. As for his
+honor the high sheriff,' said he, raising his voice, 'he 's a fine
+man, God bless him, and the county may be proud of him; for it was he
+ferreted out all about this business! And faix, notwithstanding all, I
+'m proud of him myself, for he 's my own son!' And as he said that he
+dropped on his knees and cried out that he might never see glory if
+there was a word of lie in anything he said then! So that's what Blake
+got for his zeal for justice!"
+
+And as Magennis finished, he burst into a wild, fiendish laugh, and
+said,--
+
+"There 's the country gentry--there 's the people won't know Magennis
+and his wife!--ay, sir, his lawful, married wife! Let me see that you
+or any other man will deny it, or refuse to treat her as becomes her
+station.--Joan! Joan!" shouted he, striking the poker violently against
+the chimney; and with hot haste and intense anxiety the poor girl rushed
+into the room the moment after. "Sit down here, ma'am," said Magennis,
+rising, and placing a chair for her beside his own, with an affectation
+of courtesy that savored of mockery,--"sit down, I say," cried he,
+stamping his foot passionately. "That's my wife, sir! No man that sits
+at _my_ board shall behave to her as anything else."
+
+"I have ever treated her with respect," said Massingbred, "and shall
+always continue to do so."
+
+"And it's better for you to do so," said the other, fiercely, the
+bullying spirit rising on what he deemed the craven submission of his
+guest.
+
+Meanwhile the girl sat trembling with terror, not knowing what the scene
+portended, or how it was to end.
+
+"The herd's daughter, indeed! No, sir, Mrs. Magennis, of Barnagheela,
+that's her name and title!"
+
+At these words the poor girl, overcome with joy and gratitude, fell
+down upon her knees before him, and, clasping his hand, covered it with
+kisses.
+
+"Is n't that pretty breeding!" cried Magennis, violently. "Get up,
+ma'am, and sit on your chair like a lady. The devil a use in it, do what
+you will, say what you will,--the bad 'drop' is in them; and whatever
+becomes of you in life, Massingbred, let me give you this advice,--never
+marry beneath you!"
+
+Jack contrived at this juncture to signal to the girl to step away;
+and by appearing to attend with eagerness to Magennis, he prevented his
+remarking her exit.
+
+"A man 's never really ruined till then," continued he, slowly, and
+evidently sobering again as he went on. "Friends fall away from you, and
+your companions are sure to be fellows with something against them!
+You begin by thinking you 're doing a grand and a courageous thing! You
+string up your resolution to despise the world, and, take my word for
+it, the world pays you off at last. Ay," said he, after a long pause, in
+which his features settled down into an expression of deep sorrow, and
+his voice quivered with emotion,--"ay, and I 'll tell you something
+worse than all,--you revenge all your disappointment on the poor girl
+that trusted you! and you break _her_ heart to try and heal your own!"
+
+With these last words he buried his head between his hands and sobbed
+fearfully.
+
+"Leave me now,--leave me alone," said he, without lifting his head.
+"Good-night--good-night to you!"
+
+Massingbred arose without a word, and, taking a candle, ascended to his
+chamber, his last thoughts about his host being very unlike those with
+which he had first regarded him. From these considerations he turned
+to others more immediately concerning himself; nor could he conquer his
+misgivings that Magennis was a most unhappy selection for a friend in
+such an emergency.
+
+"But then I really am without a choice," said he to himself. "Joe
+Nelligan, perhaps, might--but no, he would have been infinitely more
+unfit than the other. At all events, Nelligan has himself severed the
+friendship that once existed between us." And so he wandered on to
+thoughts of his former companionship with him. Regretful and gloomy
+enough were they, as are all memories of those in whose hearts we once
+believed we had a share, and from which we cannot reconcile ourselves to
+the exclusion.
+
+"He had not the manliness to meet me when I had become aware of his real
+station! What a poor-spirited fellow! Just as if I cared what or who his
+father was! _My_ theory is, Jack Massingbred can afford to know any man
+he pleases! Witness the roof that now shelters me, and the character of
+him who is my host!"
+
+It was a philosophy he built much upon, for it was a form of self-love
+that simulated a good quality, many of his acquaintances saying, "At all
+events, there 's no snobbery about Massingbred; he 'll know, and even
+be intimate with, anybody." Nor did the deception only extend to others.
+Jack himself fancied he was an excellent fellow,--frank, generous, and
+open-hearted.
+
+It is a very strange fact--and fact it certainly is--that the men who
+reason most upon their own natures, look inwardly at their own minds,
+and scrutinize most their own motives, are frequently the least natural
+of all mankind! This self-inquiry is such thorough self-deception that
+he who indulges in it often becomes an actor. As for Massingbred, there
+was nothing real about him save his egotism! Gifted with very good
+abilities, aided by a strong "vitality," he had great versatility; but
+of all powers, this same plastic habit tends most to render a man
+artificial.
+
+Now, his present difficulty was by no means to his taste. He did not
+like his "quarrel;" he liked less the age and station of his adversary;
+and least of all was he pleased with the character of his "friend." It
+was said of Sheridan, that when consulted about the music of his operas,
+he only asked, "Will it grind?"--that is, would it be popular enough for
+a street organ, and become familiar to every ear? So Jack Massingbred
+regarded each event in life by the test of how it would "tell," in what
+wise could a newspaper report it, and how would it read in the Clubs? He
+fancied himself discussing the adventure at "White's," and asking, "Can
+any one say what Massingbred's row was about? Was he poaching?--or how
+came he there? Was there a woman in it? And who is his friend Magennis?"
+In thoughts like these he passed hour after hour, walking his room from
+end to end, and waiting for morning.
+
+At length he bethought him how little likely it was that Magennis would
+remember anything whatever of the transaction, and that his late debauch
+might obliterate all memory of the affair. "What if this were to be
+the case, and that we were to arrive too late at Oughterard? A pretty
+version would the papers then publish to the world!" Of all possible
+casualties this was the very worst; and the more he reflected on it, the
+more probable did it seem. "He is the very fellow to wake up late in the
+afternoon, rub his eyes, and declare he had forgotten the whole thing."
+
+"This will never do!" muttered he to himself; and at once determined
+that he would make an endeavor to recall his friend to consciousness,
+and come to some arrangement for the approaching meeting. Massingbred
+descended the stairs with noiseless steps, and gently approaching the
+door of the sitting-room, opened it.
+
+Magennis was asleep, his head resting upon the table, and his heavy
+breathing denoting how deeply he slumbered. On a low stool at his feet
+sat Joan, pale and weary-looking, her cheeks still marked with recent
+tears, and the dark impression of what seemed to have been a blow
+beneath her eye. Jack approached her cautiously, and asked if it were
+his custom to pass the night thus.
+
+"Sometimes, when he 's tired--when he has anything on his mind," replied
+she, in some confusion, and averting her head so as to escape notice.
+
+"And when he awakes," said Jack, "he will be quite refreshed, and his
+head all clear again?"
+
+"By coorse he will!" said she, proudly. "No matter what he took of a
+night, nobody ever saw the signs of it on him the next morning."
+
+"I did not ask out of any impertinent curiosity," continued Massingbred;
+"but we have, both of us, some rather important business to-morrow in
+Oughterard. We ought to be there at an early hour."
+
+"I know," said she, interrupting. "He bid me bring down these;" and
+she pointed to a case of pistols lying open beside her, and in cleaning
+which she had been at the moment engaged. "I brought the wrong ones,
+first." Here she stammered out something, and grew crimson over her
+whole face; then suddenly recovering herself, said, "I did n't know it
+was the 'Terries' he wanted."
+
+"The 'Terries'?" repeated Jack.
+
+"Yes, sir. It was these Terry Callaghan shot the two gentlemen with,
+the same morning, at Croghaglin,--father and son they were!" And saying
+these words in a voice of the most perfect unconcern possible, she took
+up a flannel rag and began to polish the lock of one of the weapons.
+
+"They 're handsome pistols," said Jack, rather amused with her remark.
+
+"They 're good, and that's better!" replied she, gravely. "That one in
+your hand has seven double crosses on the stock and nine single."
+
+"The seven were killed on the ground, I suppose?"
+
+A short nod of assent was her reply.
+
+"Such little events are not unfrequent down here, then?"
+
+"Anan!" said she, not understanding his question.
+
+Jack quickly perceived that he had not taken sufficient account of
+Joan's limited acquaintance with language, and said,--
+
+"They often fight in these parts?"
+
+"Ayeh! not now," replied she, in a half-deploring tone. "My father
+remembers twenty duels for one that does be nowadays."
+
+"A great change, indeed."
+
+"Some say it's all for the better," resumed she, doubtfully. "But
+hush,--he's stirring; leave him quiet, and I 'll call you when he's
+ready."
+
+"And I can depend--"
+
+"To be sure you can. He forgets many a thing; but no man living can
+say that he ever misremembered a duel." And with these words, in a low
+whisper, she motioned Massingbred to the door.
+
+Jack obeyed in silence, and, ascending to his room, lay down on the bed.
+He determined to pass the interval before morning in deep thought and
+self-examination; but, somehow, he had scarcely laid his head on the
+pillow when he fell off into a heavy sleep, sound and dreamless.
+
+The day was just breaking when he was aroused by a somewhat rude shake,
+and a voice saying,--
+
+"Come, up with you. We 've a sharp ride before us!"
+
+Jack started up, and in an instant recalled all the exigencies of the
+hour.
+
+"I have sent the 'tools' forward by a safe hand," continued Magennis;
+"and Joan has a cup of tea ready for us below stairs. So lose no time
+now, and let us be off."
+
+The humble meal that awaited them was soon despatched, and they were
+speedily mounted on the pair of mountain ponies Magennis had provided,
+and whose equipments, even in the half-light of the morning,
+rather shocked Mas-singbred's notions of propriety,--one of his
+stirrup-leathers being a foot shorter than the other, while an old
+worsted bell-rope formed the snaffle-rein of his bridle.
+
+The road, too, was rugged and precipitous, and many a stumble and
+scramble had they in the uncertain light; while the swooping rain
+dashed violently against them, and effectually precluded all thought of
+conversation. Two hours, that seemed like ten, brought them at length
+upon the highroad; after which, by a brisk canter of forty minutes, they
+reached Oughterard.
+
+"Let us dismount here," said Jack, as they gained the outskirts of the
+town, not fancying to make a public appearance on his humble steed.
+
+"Why so?" answered Magennis. "It's ashamed of the pony you are! Oh, for
+the matter of that, don't distress yourself; we 're too well used to
+them in these parts to think them ridiculous."
+
+There was a soreness and irritation in his tone which Jack quickly
+remarked, and as quickly tried to obviate, by some good-natured remark
+about the good qualities of the animals; but Magennis heard him without
+attention, and seemed entirely immersed in his own thoughts.
+
+"Turn in there, to your left," cried he, suddenly, and they wheeled into
+an arched gateway that opened upon the stable-yard of the inn. Early
+as it was, the place was full of bustle and movement; for it was the
+market-day, and the farmers were already arriving.
+
+Carts, cars, gigs, and a dozen other nameless vehicles crowded the spot,
+with kicking ponies and mules of malicious disposition; grooming and
+shoeing and unharnessing went on, with a noise and merriment that was
+perfectly deafening; and Massingbred, as he threaded his way through the
+crowd, soon perceived how little notice he was likely to attract in such
+an assembly. Magennis soon dismounted, and having given directions about
+the beasts, led Jack into the house, and up a narrow, creaking stair
+into a small room, with a single window, and a bed in one corner. "This
+is where I always put up," said he, laying down his hat and whip, "and
+it will do well enough for the time we 'll want it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. "A CHALLENGE"
+
+"He 's here; he arrived last night," said Magennis, as he entered the
+room after a short exploring tour through the stables, the kitchen, and
+every other quarter where intelligence might be come at. "He came alone;
+but the major of the detachment supped with him, and that looks like
+business!"
+
+"The earlier you see him the better, then," said Mas-singbred.
+
+"I'll just go and get my beard off," said he, passing his hand across a
+very grizzly stubble, "and I'll be with him in less than half an hour.
+There's only a point or two I want to be clear about. Before he struck
+you, did you gesticulate, or show any intention of using violence?"
+
+"None. I have told you that I caught his horse by the bridle, but that
+was to save him from falling back."
+
+"Ah, that was indiscreet, at all events."
+
+"Would n't it have been worse to suffer him to incur a severe danger
+which I might have prevented?"
+
+"I don't think so; but we'll not discuss the point now. There was a
+blow?"
+
+"That there was," said Jack, pointing to the spot where a great strap of
+sticking-plaster extended across his forehead.
+
+"And he seemed to understand at once that reparation was to be made for
+it?"
+
+"The suggestion came from himself, frankly and speedily."
+
+"Well, it's pretty evident we have to deal with a gentleman!" said
+Magennis, "and that same's a comfort; so I'll leave you now for a short
+time: amuse yourself as well as you can, but don't quit the room." And
+with this caution Magennis took his departure, and set off in search of
+Mr. Repton's chamber.
+
+"Where are you bringing the mutton chops, Peter?" said he to a waiter,
+who, with a well-loaded tray of eatables, was hastening along the
+corridor.
+
+"To the ould Counsellor from Dublin, sir. He's break-fastin' with the
+Major."
+
+"And that's his room, No. 19?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"They 're merry, at all events," said Magennis, as a burst of hearty
+laughter was heard from within the chamber.
+
+"'T is just that they are, indeed," replied Peter. "The Counsellor does
+be telling one story after another, till you 'd think he 'd no end
+of them. He began last night at supper, and I could scarce change the
+plates for laughin'."
+
+Muttering some not very intelligible observation to himself, Magennis
+passed down the stairs, and issuing into the street, wended his way to
+the barber's.
+
+If the Oughterard Figaro had not as brilliant a vocation as his
+colleague of Seville, his occupations were scarcely less multifarious,
+for he kept the post-office, was clerk at petty sessions, collected
+the parish cess, presided over "the pound," besides a vast number of
+inferior duties. Whether it was the result of a natural gift, or by the
+various information of his official life, Hosey Lynch was regarded in
+his native town as a remarkably shrewd man, and a good opinion on a
+number of subjects.
+
+He was a short, decrepit old fellow, with an enormous head of curly
+black hair, which he seemed to cultivate with all the address of his
+craft; probably intending it as a kind of advertisement of his skill,
+displaying as it did all the resources of his handiwork. But even above
+this passion was his ardor for news,--news political, social, legal, or
+literary; whatever might be the topic, it always interested him, and
+it was his especial pride to have the initiative of every event that
+stirred the hearts of the Oughterard public.
+
+The small den in which he performed his functions occupied the corner
+of the street, giving a view in two directions, so that Hosey, while
+cutting and curling, never was obliged to lose sight of that world
+without, in whose doings he felt so strong an interest. In the one
+easy-chair of this sanctum was Magennis now disposed, waiting for
+Mr. Lynch, who had just stepped down to "the pound," to liberate
+the priest's pig. Nor had he long to wait, for Hosey soon made his
+appearance, and slipping on a very greasy-looking jean-jacket, proceeded
+to serve him.
+
+"The top of the morning to you, Captain,"--he always styled him by the
+title,--"it's a rare pleasure to see you so early in town; but it will
+be a bad market to-day--cut and curled, Captain?"
+
+[Illustration: 232]
+
+"No; shaved!" said Magennis, bluntly.
+
+"And shaved you shall be, Captain,--and beautifully shaved, too, for I
+have got an excellent case from Lamprey's; they came yesterday,--came
+with the writ against Jones Creegan."
+
+"At whose suit?"
+
+"Mrs. Miles Creegan, the other brother's widow," said Hosey, lathering
+away and talking with breathless rapidity. "There was a clause in old
+Sam's will, that if ever Tom, the chap that died at Demerara--you'd like
+more off the whiskers, it's more military. It was only yesterday
+Major Froode remarked to me what a soldierlike-looking man was Captain
+Magennis."
+
+"Is he in command of the detachment?"
+
+"He is in his Majesty's--1st Foot--the 'Buccaneers,' they used to be
+called; I suppose you never heard why?"
+
+"No, nor don't want to hear. What kind of a man is the Major?"
+
+"He 's a smart, well-made man, with rather a haughty look," said Hosey,
+drawing himself up, and seeming to imply that there was a kind of
+resemblance between them.
+
+"Is he English or Irish?"
+
+"Scotch, Captain,--Scotch; and never gives more than fivepence for a cut
+and curl, pomatum included.--No letters, Mrs. Cronin," cried he, raising
+up the movable shutter of the little window; then bending down his ear
+he listened to some whispered communication from that lady, after
+which he shut the panel, and resumed his functions. "She 's at law with
+O'Reilly about the party wall. There's the Major now going down to the
+barracks, and I wonder who's the other along with him;" and Hosey rushed
+to the door to find some clew to the stranger. In less than a quarter
+of a minute he was back again, asking pardon for absence, and informing
+Magennis "that the man in plain clothes was a Dublin counsellor, that
+arrived the night before. I think I can guess what he's here for."
+
+"What is it?" cried Magennis, eagerly.
+
+"There's an election coming on, and the Martins expect a
+contest.--Nothing for you, Peter," said he, to an applicant for a letter
+outside. "He's looking to be made barony constable these four years, and
+he 's as much chance as I have of being--what shall I say?--"
+
+"Are you done?" asked Magennis, impatiently.
+
+"One minute more, sir--the least touch round the chin,--and, as I was
+saying, Captain, the Martins will lose the borough."
+
+"Who thinks so besides you?" asked Magennis, gruffly.
+
+"It is, I may say, the general opinion; the notion current in-- There
+'s Miss Martin herself," cried he, running to the window. "Well, really,
+she handles them ponies elegant!"
+
+"Does she come often into town?"
+
+"I don't think I saw her in Oughterard--let me see when it was--it's two
+years--no, but it's not far off--it's more than--"
+
+"Are you done?" said Magennis, impatiently. "I told you that I was
+pressed for time this morning."
+
+"You're finished now, Captain," said Hosey, presenting him with a small
+cracked looking-glass. "That's what I call a neat chin and a beautiful
+sweep of whisker. Thank you, Captain. It's a pleasure and an honor--not
+to say that it's--"
+
+Magennis did not wait for the peroration, but striding hastily out of
+the little shop, issued into the street that led to the inn. On arriving
+there, he heard that Mr. Rep-ton had gone out, leaving word that he
+would be found at Major Froode's quarters. Thither Magennis now repaired
+with all the solemn importance befitting his mission.
+
+As he sent in his name, he could overhear the short colloquy that passed
+within, and perceived that Repton was about to retire; and now the
+servant ushered him into the presence of a smart, light-whiskered little
+man, with a pair of shrewd gray eyes, and a high forehead.
+
+"A brother officer, I perceive, sir," said he, looking at the card,
+whereupon the title Captain was inscribed; "pray take a chair."
+
+"You anticipate the reason of this visit, Major Froode," said the other,
+with some degree of constraint, as though the preliminaries were the
+reverse of pleasant to him. The Major bowed, and Magennis went on: "I
+suppose, then, I'm to treat with you as the friend of Mr. Valentine
+Repton?"
+
+"And you are Mr. Massingbred's?" said the Major, answering the question
+with another.
+
+"I have that honor, sir," said Magennis, pompously; "and now, sir, how
+soon can it come off?"
+
+"Don't you imagine, Captain Magennis, that a little quiet discussion
+of the question at issue between two old soldiers, like you and myself,
+might possibly be advisable? Is there not a chance that our united
+experience might not suggest an amicable arrangement of this business?"
+
+"Quite out of the question,--utterly, totally impossible!" said
+Magennis, sternly.
+
+"Then perhaps I lie under some misconception," said the Major,
+courteously.
+
+"There was a blow, sir!--a blow!" said Magennis, in the same stern tone.
+
+"I opine that everything that occurred was purely accidental,--just hear
+me out,--that a hasty word and a hurried gesture, complicated with the
+impatient movement of a horse--"
+
+A long whistle from Magennis interrupted the speech, and the Major,
+reddening to the very top of his high forehead, said,--
+
+"Sir, this is unbecoming,--are you aware of it?"
+
+"I'm quite ready for anything when this is settled," said Magennis, but
+with less composure than he desired to assume. "What I meant was, that
+for a blow there is but one reparation."
+
+"Doubtless, if the injury admit of no explanation," said the Major,
+calmly; "but in that lies the whole question. Consider two things,
+Captain Magennis: first of all, the equivocal appearance of _your_
+friend, the age and standing of _mine_."
+
+"By Jove! you'll kill me in trying to save my life," said Repton,
+bursting into the room. "I didn't want to play eavesdropper, Froode,
+but these thin partitions are only soundboards for the voice. This
+gentleman," added he, turning to Magennis, "is perfectly correct. There
+was a blow; and a blow has only one consequence, and that one I 'm
+ready for. There may be, for aught I know, twenty ways of settling
+these matters in London or at the clubs, but we 're old-fashioned in our
+notions in Ireland here; and I don't think that even when we pick up new
+fashions that we 're much the better for them, so that if your friend is
+here, Captain, and ready--"
+
+"Both, sir; here and ready!"
+
+"Then so am I; and now for the place. Come, Froode, you don't know
+Ireland as well as I do; just humor me this time, and whenever I get
+into a scrape in Scotland you shall have it all your own way. Eh,
+Captain, is n't that fair?"
+
+"Spoke like a trump!" muttered Magennis.
+
+"For _me_, did you say?" said Repton, taking a letter from the servant,
+who had just entered the room.
+
+"Yes, sir; and the groom says there's an answer expected."
+
+"The devil take it, I 've forgotten my spectacles. Froode, just tell me
+what's this about, and who it comes from."
+
+"It's Miss Martin's hand," said Froode, breaking the seal and running
+over the contents. "Oh, I perceive," said he; "they're afraid you have
+taken French leave of them at Cro' Martin, and she has driven into town
+to carry you back again."
+
+"That comes of my leaving word at the little post-office to forward my
+letters to Dublin if not asked for to-morrow. Take a pen, Froode,
+and write a couple of lines for me; say that a very urgent call--a
+professional call--will detain me here to-day, but that if not back by
+dinner-time--Captain Magennis thinks it not likely," added he, turning
+towards him as he sat, with a very equivocal expression, half grin, half
+sneer, upon his features--"that I 'll be with them at breakfast next
+morning," resumed Repton, boldly. "Make some excuse for my not answering
+the note myself,--whatever occurs to you. And so, sir," said he, turning
+to Magennis, "your friend's name is Massingbred. Any relation to Colonel
+Moore Massingbred?"
+
+"His son,--his only son, I believe."
+
+"How strange! I remember the father in the 'House'--I mean the Irish
+House--five-and-thirty years ago; he was always on the Government
+benches. It was of him Parsons wrote those doggerel lines,--
+
+    'A man without a heart or head,
+     Who seldom thought, who never read,
+     A witty word who never said,
+     One at whose board none ever fed,
+     Such is the Colonel M--g--b--d.'
+
+He could n't call him a coward, though; for when they went out--which
+they did--Massingbred's manner on the ground was admirable."
+
+"Will that do?" said Froode, showing a few lines he had hastily jotted
+down.
+
+"I can't read a word of it, but of course it will," said he; "and then,
+sir," added he, addressing Magennis, "the sooner we place ourselves at
+your disposal the better."
+
+Froode whispered something in Repton' ear, and by his manner seemed as
+if remonstrating with him, when the other said aloud,--
+
+"We 're in Ireland, Major; and, what's more, we 're in Galway, as
+Macleweed said once to a prisoner, 'With a Yorkshire jury, sir, I 'd
+hang you. Your sentence now is to pay five marks to the King, and find
+bail for your good behavior.' You see what virtue there is in locality."
+
+"There's a neat spot about two miles off, on the road to Maum," said
+Magennis to the Major. "We could ride slowly forward, and you might keep
+us in view."
+
+"In what direction did you say?"
+
+"Take the second turn out of the market-place till you pass the baker's
+shop, then to the left, and straight on afterwards. You can't miss it."
+
+"Stop a moment, sir," said Froode to Magennis, as he moved towards the
+door; "one word, if you please. It is distinctly understood that I have
+been overruled in this business,--that, in fact, I have submitted--"
+
+"Your point has been reserved," said Repton, laughing, while he led him
+away; and Magennis at the same moment took his departure.
+
+It was, indeed, with no slight feeling of triumph that thia gentleman
+now hastened back to the Martin Arms. Never did a great diplomatist
+experience more pride in the conclusion of some crowning act of
+negotiation than did he in the accomplishment of this affair.
+
+"There 's many a man," said he to himself, "who 'd have accepted an
+apology here. There's many a man might have let himself be embarrassed
+by the circumstances; for, certainly, the taking hold of the bridle was
+an awkward fact, and if the Major was a cute fellow he 'd have made a
+stand upon it. I must say that the Counsellor showed no backwardness; he
+comes of that fine old stock we used to have before the Union."
+
+And with this profound reflection he entered the room where Massingbred
+sat awaiting him.
+
+"It's all settled. We're to meet at the Priest's Gap within an hour,"
+said Magennis, with the air of a man who had acquitted himself cleverly.
+"And though I say it that should n't, if you were in other hands this
+morning you would n't have got your shot."
+
+"I always relied implicitly upon your skill!" said Massingbred, humoring
+his vanity.
+
+"Have you anything to arrange,--a letter or so to write; for I'll step
+down to Dr. Hearkins to tell him to follow us?"
+
+Massingbred made no reply as the other left the room. Once more alone,
+he began to think gravely over his present situation. Nor could all his
+habitual levity steel him against the conviction that five minutes of
+common-sense talk might arrange a dispute which now promised a serious
+ending. "However," thought he, "we are not in the land where such
+differences admit of amicable solution, and there's no help for it."
+
+A sharp tap at the door startled him from these musings, and before he
+could well reply to it Daniel Nelligan entered the room, and advanced
+towards him with an air of mingled ease and constraint.
+
+"I hope you 'll forgive me, Mr. Massingbred," he began. "I feel certain
+that you will at some future day, at least, for what I 'm going to do."
+Here he stopped and drew a long breath, as if not knowing in what terms
+to continue. Massingbred handed him a chair, and took one in front of
+him without speaking.
+
+"I know what brought you here to-day; I am aware of it all."
+
+He paused, and waited for the other to speak; but Massingbred sat
+without offering a word, and evidently relying on his own social tact to
+confound and embarrass his visitor.
+
+"I know, sir, that you are likely to regard my interference as
+impertinent," resumed Nelligan; "but I trust that the friend of my son,
+Joe--"
+
+"I must set you right upon one point, at least, Mr. Nelligan," said
+Massingbred, with an easy smile. "If you be only as accurate in
+your knowledge of my affairs as you are with respect to my private
+friendships, this visit has certainly proceeded from some misconception.
+Your son and I were friends once upon a time. We are so no longer!"
+
+"I never heard of this. I never knew you had quarrelled!"
+
+"We have not, sir. We have not even met. The discourtesy he has shown me
+since my arrival here--his avoidance of me, too marked to be explained
+away--is an offence. The only misfortune is that it is one which can be
+practised with impunity."
+
+"My son asks for none such," said Dan, fiercely. "And if your
+observation is meant for an insult--" He stopped suddenly, as if checked
+by something within, and then said, but in a voice full and measured,
+"I'm magistrate of this town, sir, and I come here upon information that
+has reached me of your intentions to commit a breach of the peace."
+
+"My dear Mr. Nelligan," began Massingbred, in his most seductive of
+manners,--but the other had already witnessed the rupture of the
+only tie which bound them, the supposed friendship between Joe and
+Massingbred, and cared nothing for all the blandishments he could
+bestow,--"my dear Mr. Nelligan, you cannot, surely, suppose that a mere
+stranger as I am in your county--scarcely ten days here--should have
+been unfortunate enough to have incurred the animosity of any one."
+
+"I hold here a statement, sir," said Nelligan, sternly, "which, if you
+please to pledge your honor to be incorrect--"
+
+"And this is Galway!" exclaimed Massingbred,--"this glorious land of
+chivalrous sentiment of which we poor Englishmen have been hearing
+to satiety! The Paradise of Point of Honor, then, turns out a very
+commonplace locality, after all!"
+
+"I 'm proud to say that our county has another reputation than its old
+one; not but--" and he added the words in some temper--"there are a few
+left would like to teach you that its character was not acquired for
+nothing."
+
+"Well, well!" sighed Jack, as he closed his eyes, and appeared as
+if indulging in a revery, "of all the mockeries I have lived to see
+unmasked, this is the worst and meanest."
+
+"I have not come here to listen to this, sir," said Nelli-gan,
+haughtily, as he arose. "I waited upon you, intending to accept your
+solemn pledge, by word of honor, to commit no act hostile to the public
+peace. Now, sir, I shall call upon you to give me the legal guarantee
+for this security,--good and sufficient bail, and that within an hour!"
+
+"My dear Mr. Nelligan," replied Massingbred, with all the quiet ease of
+an unruffled temper, "I have not a single friend here, except yourself,
+upon whom I could call in such an emergency. I am utterly unknown in
+these parts; my very name unheard of before my arrival. If I _did_ by
+any unhappy circumstance find myself in such an involvement as you speak
+of, I solemnly assure you my first thought would be to address myself to
+Mr. Nelligan."
+
+The easy impertinence of this speech would have been perfectly
+successful a short time previous, when Nelligan yet believed in the
+close friendship with his son. It came now, however, too late, and the
+old man listened to it with something bordering on anger.
+
+"Good and sufficient bail, sir,--yourself and two others," repeated he,
+slowly, and moving towards the door.
+
+"One word, I pray," said Jack, rising, and speaking with more
+earnestness and apparently with more sincerity. "I do not ask you any
+details as to the circumstances you impute to me, but perhaps you would,
+as a favor, tell me how this information has reached you?"
+
+"I will not, sir," was the abrupt reply.
+
+"I am sure no friend of mine could have--"
+
+"It is no use, Mr. Massingbred; all your address will avail you nothing.
+You shall not cross-examine _me!_"
+
+"You must, however, see, sir," said Massingbred, "that unknown and
+unfriended as I am here, bail is out of the question."
+
+"The Bench will hear anything you desire to say on that subject," said
+Nelligan, coldly. "Good-morning to you."
+
+And with these words he left the room, and descended into the street.
+
+The passionate warmth which Massingbred had so successfully controlled
+in the presence of his visitor burst forth the first moment he found
+himself alone. He inveighed against the country, the people, their
+habits, and all belonging to them; cursed his own fate at being ever
+thrown into such companionship; and wound up by resolving to submit to
+any terms by which he might quit Galway forever, and forget, for the
+rest of his days, that he had ever entered it. While he was yet fuming
+in this fashion, the waiter entered and presented him with a very
+dirty-looking note, fastened by two wafers, and inscribed "Most
+private." Massingbred opened it and read,--
+
+     "My dear Mr. M.,--We 're found out--I believe by Hosey
+     Lynch, where I dropped a bullet-mould this morning when he
+     was shaving me. At all events, we 're blown, and as I am
+     under L250 recognizances to keep the peace for three years,
+     I 'm off to the mountains till this passes over. I 'm sure,
+     from what I saw of the Counsellor, that he 'll keep himself
+     open to a proposal elsewhere. Meanwhile, there's nothing for
+     it but to give your bail and satisfy the blackguards--bad
+     luck to them--that spoiled the sport! You can go back to
+     the house when all's over, and I 'll return as soon as it is
+     safe for
+
+     "Your sincere friend,
+
+     "T. M."
+
+Scarcely had he finished reading this epistle, when Major Froode
+presented himself in his chamber, the door of which the waiter was yet
+holding ajar. Having introduced himself, he briefly informed Massingbred
+of his position as Mr. Repton's friend, and as briefly stated that
+the Counsellor had been obliged to pledge himself against any hostile
+intentions,--a step which, he foresaw, would also be required of him.
+"For this reason I have come," continued he, "to say that any assistance
+I can be of to you is frankly at your service. I have learned that you
+are a stranger here, and not likely to have many acquaintances."
+
+"If they would be satisfied with my word," began Jack.
+
+"Of course they will, and shall," interrupted Froode; "and now, what is
+there in the way of _amende_ my friend can make, for what he is prepared
+to confess was a mere accident?"
+
+"The acknowledgment is ample. I ask for nothing beyond it," said
+Massingbred. "I am not quite certain but that my own conduct might
+require a little explanation; but as your friend's vigor put matters
+beyond negotiation at the time, we 'll not go back upon bygones."
+
+"And now, sir," burst in Repton, who had waited outside the door,--"and
+now, sir, I beg you to accept the humblest apology I can tender for what
+has happened. I 'm not as safe on my saddle as I used to be forty years
+ago; and when the nag reared and threatened to fall back upon me, I am
+ashamed to own that I neither saw nor cared what I struck at. I 'd have
+said all this to you, Mr. Massingbred, after your fire, had we been
+permitted to go the ground; and although there is some additional
+humiliation in saying it here, I richly deserve all the pain it gives
+me, for my want of temper. Will you give me your hand?"
+
+"With sincere pleasure," said Jack, shaking him warmly and cordially
+with both his own.
+
+"There 's but one thing more to be done," said Repton. "These borough
+magistrates, vulgar dogs as they are, will want you to give a bail bond.
+Take no notice of them, but just drive out with me to Cro' Martin, and
+we 'll settle it all there."
+
+"I am not acquainted with Mr. Martin."
+
+"But you shall be. He 'll be charmed to know you, and the place is worth
+seeing. Come, you mustn't leave the West with only its barbarism in your
+memory. You must carry away some other recollections."
+
+The new turn affairs had just taken was by no means distasteful to
+Massingbred. It promised another scene in that drama of life he loved
+to fashion for himself, with new scenery, new actors, and new incidents.
+"The Counsellor," too, struck his fancy. There was a raciness in the old
+man's manner, a genial cordiality, united with such palpable acuteness,
+that he promised himself much pleasure in his society; and so he
+accepted the proposal with all willingness, and pledged to hold himself
+ready for his friend within an hour.
+
+Repton and the Major had but just left the room, when the former
+re-entered it hurriedly, and said, "By the way, I must leave you to your
+own guidance to find your road to Cro' Martin, for there's a young lady
+below stairs has a lien upon me. You shall be presented to her when you
+come out, and I promise you it will repay the journey."
+
+"This must be the Mary Martin I 've been hearing of," thought
+Massingbred, when again alone; "and so the morning's work will probably
+turn out better than I had anticipated."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. A COUNTRY-HOUSE
+
+When Massingbred arrived at Cro' Martin, he found Repton at the door
+awaiting him. "I find," said he, "there is little need of introducing
+you here. Your father was an old acquaintance of Martin's; they sat
+together for years in Parliament, and Lady Dorothea was related to
+your family. But here he comes." And Martin approached, with his hand
+extended in cordial welcome. No one ever knew better how to do the
+honors of his house, nor could throw more graceful courtesy into the
+first steps of acquaintanceship. Massingbred, too, was well calculated
+to appreciate this gift. He had a most intense esteem for "manner,"
+and enjoyed even the necessity it imposed upon himself of exertion to
+please. With sincere satisfaction was it that he accepted an invitation
+to pass some days there, and at once despatched a servant to Magennis's
+house for his trunks.
+
+The adventure of the morning was alluded to but once, and then in a
+jocular strain, as an incident of no moment whatever; and Massingbred
+retired to his room to dress for dinner, wondering within himself if he
+should find the other members of the family as much to his liking as the
+worthy host had been.
+
+A dinner-party was a rare event at Cro' Martin. The isolation in which
+they lived was rarely broken by a visitor; and when, by rare
+accident, some solitary stranger did present himself with a letter of
+introduction, his stay was merely of a few hours. Now, however, the
+company included, in addition to the family, Repton, Massingbred, and
+Nelligan, besides Miss Henderson, who was on that day to appear at
+dinner. The quondam college friends had not met; neither had Miss
+Martin ever seen her governess; so that there was no small degree of
+anticipation as to how such elements would harmonize and agree.
+
+When Massingbred entered the drawing-room, he found Miss Henderson there
+alone; and at once believing she could be no other than Miss Martin,
+he proceeded to introduce himself in the best manner he could. Her
+reception was perfect in ease and self-possession, and they soon found
+themselves engaged in a lively discussion as to the scenery, the people
+and their habits, of which they both appeared to have a very similar
+appreciation. Lady Dorothea next made her appearance; and, advancing
+towards Massingbred, welcomed him with what, for her, was the extreme
+of cordiality. "Your mother was a Caradoc, Mr. Massingbred, and the
+Caradocs are all of our family; so let me claim relationship at once."
+
+With all the pretensions of a very fine lady, Lady Dorothea knew how
+to unite very agreeable qualities, not the less successful in her
+captivations, that she never exercised them without a real desire
+to please; so that Massingbred soon saw how in the wilds of dreary
+Connemara there existed a little oasis of polish and civilization that
+would have done honor to the most splendid society of London or Paris.
+
+Nor was Massingbred himself less pleasing to her. It was so long, so
+many, many years since she had met with one fresh from that great world
+which alone she valued!
+
+Correspondence had kept her to a certain extent informed upon the
+changes and vicissitudes of society,--the births, deaths, marriages,
+separations, quarrels, and other disasters of those dear friends for
+whose griefs absence and time offer so many consolations! But then, the
+actual appearance, the _coup d'oil_ of that world could only be imparted
+by an observer, imbued with all the spirit that gives observation its
+peculiar piquancy. This she found in him; and so agreeably exercised was
+it, that she actually heard dinner announced without attending, and only
+as she arose from her seat was reminded to present him to Miss Martin,
+by the brief phrase, "My niece, Mr. Massingbred;" while she took his
+arm, with a glance at Mr. Repton, that plainly said, "You are deposed."
+
+The passage to the dinner-room lay through three spacious and splendid
+rooms, which now were brilliantly lighted up, and lined with servants in
+rich liveries,--a degree of state Massingbred was not a little pleased
+at; partly suspecting that it was intended to do himself honor. As they
+moved slowly through the last of these, the door suddenly opened, and
+young Nelligan entered. He had returned late from a long ride, and
+heard nothing whatever of Massing-bred's arrival. With an exclamation
+of "Jack--Massingbred!" he bounded forward. But the other showed no
+recognition of him; and directing Lady Dorothea's attention to the
+richness of a picture-frame, passed calmly on into the dinner-room.
+
+"You must bring up the rear alone, Nelligan," said Martin, who had given
+his arm to Miss Henderson; and Joe followed, almost overwhelmed with
+mingled shame and amazement.
+
+For an instant the possibility of mistake assuaged his sense of
+mortification; but no sooner did he find himself at table, and directly
+opposite to Massingbred, than he perceived there was no ground whatever
+for this consolation. It was, indeed, Massingbred, just as he had seen
+him the first day in the Commons Hall at dinner, and when his cold,
+supercilious manner had struck him so disagreeably.
+
+What a terrible vengeance for all the superiority Nelligan had displayed
+over him in the Examination Hall was Massingbred's present success; for
+success it was. With all that consummate readiness the habit of
+society imparts, Jack could talk well on a great variety of topics,
+and possessed, besides, that especial tact to make others so far
+participators in his observations that they felt a partnership in the
+agreeability. Lady Dorothea was perfectly charmed with him; it was the
+triumph, as it were, of one of her own set. His anecdotes--not very
+pointed or curious in themselves--had the marked characteristic of
+always referring to distinguished individuals; so that what was
+deficient in wit was more than compensated by the rank of the actors.
+Martin enjoyed his conversation with all his own complacent ease, and
+felt delighted with one who could play all the game without an
+adversary. Mary was pleased and astonished together--the pleasure being
+even less than the amazement--at all he seemed to know of life and the
+world, and how intimately one so young seemed to have mixed in society.
+As for Repton, he relished the other's powers with the true zest of a
+pleasant talker; they were of different styles, and no disagreeable
+rivalry marred the appreciation.
+
+Amidst all these silent or spoken testimonies sat poor Nelligan,
+overwhelmed with shame. Massingbred had refused to recognize him; and it
+was left to his own gloomy thoughts to search out the reason. At first
+Joe avoided meeting the other's look; he dreaded he knew not what of
+impertinence or insult, to which the time and place could offer no
+reparation; but gradually he grew to perceive that Massingbred's cold
+eye met his own without a spark of meaning; nor was there in voice,
+manner, or bearing, a single evidence of constraint or awkwardness to be
+detected.
+
+Miss Henderson alone seemed to listen to him with easy indifference; and
+more than once, when Jack put forth his most showy pretensions, he was
+secretly mortified to see how little impression he had made on the dark
+beauty with the haughty smile. This was exactly the kind of defiance
+that Massingbred never declined, and he determined within himself to
+attempt the conquest. As the party returned to the drawing-room, he
+asked Lady Dorothea to present him more formally to the young lady whose
+acquaintance he had dared to obtrude upon before dinner; but she coldly
+said,--
+
+"Oh, it's no matter; she's only the governess." An explanation she
+deemed quite sufficient to subdue any rising feeling of interest
+regarding her.
+
+"And the gentleman who sat next her at dinner?" asked he.
+
+"A neighbor,--that is, the son of one of our borough people. I have not
+introduced him to you; for, of course, you are not likely to meet again.
+As you were remarking, awhile ago, society in England is gradually
+undergoing that change which in France was accomplished in a year or
+two."
+
+"With the aid of the guillotine and the 'lanterne,'" said Jack, smiling.
+
+"Just so; they used sharp remedies for a quick cure. But I own to you
+that I have not yet reconciled myself, nor do I see how I shall ever
+reconcile myself, to intimacy with a class not only whose habits and
+instincts, but whose very natures are adverse to our own. That young
+man now, for instance, they speak of him as quite a college wonder. I'm
+ashamed to say I don't know wherein his great successes lie; but they
+tell me that he has distanced every competitor of his day, and stands
+alone in his preeminence, and yet we saw him to-day not venturing on a
+remark, nor even hazarding an opinion on the topics we talked of, and
+silent where he ought to have been heard with advantage."
+
+"Is he bashful?" said Jack, with a lazy drawl.
+
+"I don't think it's that; at least, not altogether."
+
+"Supercilious, perhaps?"
+
+"Oh! certainly not," replied she, hastily. "The company in which he
+found himself is the best answer to that. He could not presume--"
+
+"It was, then, downright fear," broke in Massingbred; "the terror
+that even clever men cannot even shake off when thrown amongst a class
+they're unused to."
+
+"And very naturally so. I'm sure he must be puzzled to imagine why he is
+here. Indeed, we have only known him a few days back. It was one of Mr.
+Martin's sudden caprices to ask him to Cro' Martin. He fancied he ought
+to conciliate--I believe that's the phrase in vogue--the borough people,
+and this young man's father is the chief of them." And now Lady Dorothea
+turned from the topic as one unworthy of further thought, and entered
+upon the more congenial theme of her own high relatives and connections
+in England. It was strange enough that Massing-bred's remote alliance
+with her family was sufficient to induce an intimacy and familiarity
+with him which years of mere acquaintanceship could not have effected.
+That his grand-aunt had been a Conway, and his great-grandfather's
+half-brother was married to a Jernyngham, were all a species of
+freemasonry by which he was admitted at once to the privilege of
+confidential discussion.
+
+It was no small mortification to Massingbred to spend his evening in
+these genealogical researches; he had seen the two young girls move off
+into an adjoining room, from which at times the sound of a piano, and
+of voices singing, issued, and was half mad with impatience to be along
+with them. However, it was a penalty must be exacted, and he thought
+that the toll once paid he had secured himself against all demands for
+the future.
+
+Not caring to participate in the many intricacies of those family
+discussions wherein the degrees of relationship of individuals seem
+to form the sole points of interest, we shall betake ourselves to the
+little blue drawing-room, where, seated at the piano together, the
+two young girls talked, while their fingers strayed along the notes as
+though affording a species of involuntary accompaniment to their words.
+Nelligan, it is true, was present; but, unnoticed by either, he sat
+apart in a distant corner, deep in his own brooding thoughts.
+
+Mary had only made Miss Henderson's acquaintance on that evening, but
+already they were intimate. It was, indeed, no common boon for her to
+obtain companionship with one of her own age, and who, with the dreaded
+characteristics of a governess, was in reality a very charming and
+attractive person. Miss Henderson sang with all the cultivated knowledge
+of a musician; and, while she spoke of foreign countries where she had
+travelled, lapsed at times into little snatches of melody, as it
+were, illustrative of what she spoke. The delight Mary experienced
+in listening was unbounded; and if at moments a sad sense of her own
+neglected education shot through her mind, it was forgotten the next
+instant in her generous admiration.
+
+"And how are _you_, who have seen this bright and brilliant world you
+speak of," said Mary, "to sit quietly down in this unbroken solitude,
+where all the interests are of the humblest and more ordinary kind?"
+
+"You forget that I saw all these things, as it were, on sufferance,"
+replied she. "I was not born to them, nor could ever hope for more than
+a passing glance at splendors wherein I was not to share. And as for the
+quiet monotony here, an evening such as this, companionship like yours,
+are just as much above my expectations."
+
+"Oh, no, no!" cried Mary, eagerly. "You were as surely destined for a
+salon as I was for the rude adventures of my own wayward life. You don't
+know what a strange existence it is."
+
+"I have heard, however!" said the other, calmly.
+
+"Tell me--do tell me--what you have been told of me, and don't be afraid
+of wounding my vanity; for, I pledge you my word, I do think of myself
+with almost all the humility that I ought."
+
+"I have heard you spoken of in the cabins of the poor as their only
+friend, their comforter, and their hope; the laborer knows you as his
+succor,--one by whose kind intervention he earns his daily bread; their
+children love you as their own chosen protector."
+
+"But it's not of these things I 'm speaking," said Mary, rapidly. "Do
+they not call me self-willed, passionate, sometimes imperious?"
+
+"Yes; and capricious at times!" said the other, slowly.
+
+Mary colored, and her voice faltered as she said,--
+
+"There they were unjust. The impracticable tempers I have to deal
+with--the untutored minds and undisciplined natures--often lead me into
+seeming contradictions."
+
+"Like the present, perhaps," said Miss Henderson.
+
+"How! the present?" said Mary.
+
+"That, while claiming the merit of humility, you at once enter upon a
+self-defence."
+
+"Well, perhaps I _am_ capricious!" said Mary, smiling.
+
+"And haughty?" asked the other, slowly.
+
+"I believe so!" said Mary, with a degree of dignity that seemed to
+display the sentiment while confessing to it.
+
+"I have never heard a heavier accusation against Miss Martin than
+these," said she, "and I have lived with those who rarely scruple how to
+criticise their betters."
+
+Mary was silent and thoughtful; she knew not how to interpret the
+mingled praise and censure she had just listened to.
+
+"But tell me rather of yourself," said Mary, as though willing to turn
+the topic of conversation. "I should like to hear your story."
+
+"At thirteen years of age--I believe even a year later--I was the
+playfellow of the young gentleman you see yonder," said Kate Henderson,
+"but who, to-night, seems incapable of remembering anything or anybody."
+
+"Of Mr. Nelligan?" repeated Mary. And Joseph started as he heard his
+name, looked up, and again relapsed into revery.
+
+"I 'm not sure that we were not in love. I almost confess that I
+was, when my father sent me away to France to be educated. I was very
+sad--very, very sad--at being taken away from home and thrown amongst
+strangers, with none of whom I could even interchange a word; and I used
+to sit and cry for hours by myself, and write sorrowful love-letters
+to 'dearest Joseph,' and then imagine the answers to them; sometimes I
+actually wrote them, and would suffer agonies of anguish before I dared
+to break the seal and learn the contents. Meanwhile I was acquiring a
+knowledge of French, and knew a little of music, and used to sing in our
+choir at chapel, and learned to believe the world was somewhat larger
+than I had hitherto thought it, and that St. Gudule was finer than
+the mean little church at Oughterard; and worse still--for it _was_
+worse--that the sous-lieutenants and cadets of the Military College had
+a much more dashing, daring look about them than 'poor Joseph;' for so I
+now called him to myself, and gave up the correspondence soon after.
+
+"Remember, Miss Martin, that I was but a child at this time--at least, I
+was little more than fourteen--but in another year I was a woman, in all
+the consciousness of certain attractions, clever enough to know that
+I could read and detect the weak points in others, and weak enough to
+fancy that I could always take advantage of them. This incessant spirit
+of casuistry, this passion for investigating the temper of those about
+you, and making a study of their natures for purposes of your own, is
+the essence of a convent life; you have really little else to do,
+and your whole bent is to ascertain why Sister Agnes blushes, or why
+Beatrice fainted twice at the Angelus. The minute anatomy of emotions
+is a very dangerous topic. At this very moment I cannot free myself from
+the old habit; and as I see young Mr. Nelligan there sitting with his
+head in his hand, so deep in thought as not to notice us, I begin to
+examine why is it he is thus, and on what is he now brooding?"
+
+"And can you guess?" asked Mary, half eagerly.
+
+"I could be certain, if I were but to ask him a question or two."
+
+"Pray do then, if only to convince me of your skill."
+
+"But I must be alone, and that is scarcely possible,--scarcely
+becoming."
+
+"Let us contrive some way,--think of something."
+
+"It is too late now; he is about to leave the room," said Kate,
+cautiously. "How pale he looks, and how anxious his eye has become!
+I thought at first there was some constraint at meeting _me_ here; he
+feared, perhaps--but no, that would be unworthy of him."
+
+She ceased, for Nelligan had now drawn nigh to where they sat, and stood
+as if trying to collect himself to say something.
+
+"Do you sing, Mr. Nelligan?" asked Kate.
+
+"No; I am ignorant of music," said he, half abstractedly.
+
+"But you like it?" asked Mary.
+
+"Yes, I believe I do,--that is, it calms and quiets me. If I could
+understand it, it would do more."
+
+"Then why not understand it, since that is the way you phrase it?" asked
+Kate. "Everybody can be a musician to a certain degree of proficiency.
+There is no more ear required than you want to learn a language."
+
+"Then you shall teach me," cried Mary, eagerly.
+
+Kate took up her hand and pressed it to her lips for a reply.
+
+"Foreigners--men, I mean--are all so well aware of this that they
+cultivate music as a necessary part of education; few attain high
+eminence, but all know something of it. But somehow we have got to
+believe that cultivation in England must always tend to material profit.
+We learn this, that, and t' other, to be richer or greater or higher,
+but never to be more acceptable in society, more agreeable or pleasanter
+company."
+
+"We have n't time," said Nelligan, gravely.
+
+"For what have we not time? Do you mean we have no time to be happy?"
+cried Repton, suddenly stepping in amongst them. "Now, my dear young
+ladies, which of you will bid highest for the heart of an old lawyer--by
+a song?"
+
+"It must be Miss Henderson," said Mary, smiling, "for I don't sing."
+
+"Not a ballad?--not even one of the Melodies?"
+
+"Not even one of the Melodies," said she, sorrowfully.
+
+"Shame upon me for that 'even,'" said Repton; "but you see what comes
+of surviving one's generation. I lived in an age when the 'Last Rose of
+Summer' and the 'Harp that Once' were classical as Homer's 'Hymns,' but
+I have now fallen upon times when English music is estimated in the
+same category with English cookery, and both deemed very little above
+barbarous. To be sure," added he, "it does seem very like a poetical
+justice for the slavish adherence of _our_ education to Greek and Roman
+literature, that our ladies should only sing to us in the languages of
+Italy or Germany."
+
+"I hope you would not imply that we are as little versed in these as
+great scholars are in the others?" said Kate Henderson, slyly.
+
+"Sharply said, miss, and truthfully insinuated too! Not to mention that
+there is courage in such a speech before Mr. Nelligan, here."
+
+"Yes--very true--a just remark!" said Joseph, who only overheard a
+reference to himself without understanding to what it alluded. And now
+a very joyous burst of laughter from the others startled him, while it
+covered him with confusion.
+
+"We must make them sing, Nelligan," said Repton, gayly. "They'll
+vanquish us in these tilting-matches of word-fence.--Now, Miss
+Henderson, something very plaintive and very sentimental, to suit the
+tenderness of a feeling heart."
+
+"I'll sing for you with pleasure," said Kate. "Will this suit you?" And
+with a short prelude she sang one of those brilliant little snatches
+of Venetian melody which seem like the outburst of a sudden
+inspiration,--wild, joyous, floating as they are,--wherein such is the
+expression that sounds usurp the place of language, and the mind is
+carried away by a dreamy fascination impossible to resist.
+
+"How often have I heard that on the Lido!" said Mas-singbred, entering
+the room hastily; "and what a glorious thing it is!"
+
+"Then you know this?" said Kate, running her fingers over the notes, and
+warbling out another of the popular airs of the same class.
+
+"The last time I heard that," said Jack, musingly, "was one night when
+returning home from a late party, along the Grand Canal at Venice. There
+is a single word at the end of each verse which should be uttered by a
+second voice. Just as I passed beneath a brilliantly lighted salon, the
+sounds of this melody came floating forth, and as the stanza finished, I
+supplied the 'refrain.'"
+
+"You?" cried Kate, eagerly.
+
+"Yes; but why do you ask?"
+
+"Do you remember the exact spot?" said she, not heeding his question.
+
+"As well as though I were there only yesterday."
+
+"Shall I tell you where it was?" He waited, and she went on: "It was
+under the balcony of the Mocenigo Palace."
+
+"Why, this is witchcraft," cried Jack; "you are perfectly correct."
+
+"The bouquet that was thrown to you from the window fell into the
+water."
+
+"But I regained it. I have it still," cried he, more eagerly; "and yours
+was the hand that threw it?"
+
+She nodded assent.
+
+"How strange, is it not, that we should meet here?" He paused for a
+minute or two, and then said, "It was the Duchesse de Courcelles lived
+there at the time?"
+
+"Yes, we passed the winter in that palace."
+
+"Miss Henderson was the companion of the young Princess," said Lady
+Dorothea, who had just joined the group, and experienced no slight shock
+at observing the tone of easy familiarity in which the conversation
+was conducted. But Massingbred seemed wonderfully little moved by the
+intelligence, for, drawing his chair closer to Kate's, he led her
+to talk of Venice and its life, till, imperceptibly as it were, the
+discourse glided into Italian. What a dangerous freemasonry is the use
+of a foreign language, lifting the speakers out of the ordinary
+topics, and leading them away to distant scenes and impressions, which,
+constituting a little world apart, give a degree of confidential feeling
+to intercourse. Massingbred would willingly have lent himself to the
+full enjoyment of this illusion; but Kate, with quicker tact, saw all
+the difficulties and embarrassment it would occasion, and under pretext
+of searching for some music, escaped at once from the spot.
+
+"How I envy you, dear girl!" said Mary, following her, and passing her
+arm affectionately around her. "What a happiness must it be to possess
+such gifts as yours, which, even in their careless exercise, are so
+graceful. Tell me frankly, is it too late for me to try--"
+
+"You overrate _me_ as much as you disparage yourself," said Kate,
+mildly; "but if you really will accept me, I will teach you the little
+that I know, but, in return, will you make _me_ your friend?"
+
+Mary pressed the other's hand warmly within her own.
+
+"Here are some vows of everlasting friendship going forward, I 'll be
+sworn," said old Repton, stepping in between them; "and you ought to
+have a legal opinion as to the clauses,--eh, young ladies, am I not
+right?"
+
+"When was Mr. Repton wrong?" said Mary, laughing.
+
+"When he waited till his present age to fall in love!" said he, gayly.
+"But, seriously, what have you done with our young student? Of all the
+woe-begone faces I ever beheld, his was the very saddest, as he moved
+into the large drawing-room awhile ago. Which of you is to blame for
+this?"
+
+"Not guilty, upon my honor," said Mary, with mock solemnity.
+
+"I'm half afraid that our showy friend has eclipsed him in _your_ eyes,
+as I own to you he has in _mine_, clever fellow that he is."
+
+"Are you not charmed with yourself that you did not shoot him this
+morning?" said Mary, laughing.
+
+"I am sincerely gratified that he has not shot me, which, taking his
+pistol performance on the same level with his other acquirements, was
+not so very improbable!"
+
+"There's your uncle stealing away to bed," said Repton, "and fancying
+that nobody remarks him. Shall I be cruel enough to mar the project?
+Martin--Martin--come here for a moment; we want your opinion on a knotty
+point."
+
+"I know what it is," said Martin, smiling; "the question under
+discussion is,'Whether you or Mr. Massingbred were the more successful
+to-day?'"
+
+"I think Mr. Massingbred may claim the prize," said Mary Martin, with a
+sly whisper; "he made Lady Dorothea cry."
+
+"Ay," said Repton, "but _I_ made young Nelligan laugh!"
+
+And now the party broke up, Massingbred lingering a little behind to say
+something to Miss Henderson, and then betaking himself to his chamber,
+well satisfied with his day, and the change it had wrought in his
+fortunes. Perhaps a few passages from a letter that he, on that same
+night, penned to one of his friends in Dublin, will not be ill-timed as
+an exponent of his sentiments. The letter was written, directing
+certain articles of dress to be forwarded to him at once, by coach, and
+contained these paragraphs:--
+
+"You now know how I came here: the next thing is to tell you of the
+place itself. The house is large and admirably _montee_--abundance of
+servants, well drilled, and orderly. The master a nonentity, apparently;
+easy-tempered and good-humored; liking the quiet monotony of his humdrum
+life, and only asking that it may not be interfered with. His wife,
+a fine lady of the school of five-and-forty years ago,--a nervous
+terrorist about mob encroachments and the democratic tendencies of the
+times,--insufferably tiresome on genealogies and 'connections,' and
+what many would call downright vulgar in the amount of her pretension.
+Gratitude--for I have the honor of being a favorite already--seals my
+lips against any further or harsher criticism. As for the niece, she is
+decidedly handsome; a great deal of style about her too; with a degree
+of--shall I call it daring? for it is more like courage than any other
+quality--that tells you she is the uncontrolled ruler over the wild
+regions and wild people around her. With more of manner, she would be
+very charming; but perhaps she is better in the unfettered freedom of
+her own capricious independence: it certainly suits her to perfection.
+And now I should have completed my catalogue, if it were not for
+the governess. Ay, Harry, the governess! And just fancy, under this
+unimposing title, a dark-eyed, haughty-looking girl--I don't think she
+can be above twenty or twenty-one--with a carriage and port that might
+suit an Archduchess of Austria. She has travelled all over Europe--been
+everywhere--seen everything, and, stranger again, everybody; for she was
+what they style a companion. By Jove! she must have been a very charming
+one; that is, if she liked it; for if she did not, Hal!--At all events,
+here she is; only having arrived the very day before myself; so that we
+are free to discuss the family, and compare notes together, in the most
+confidential fashion.
+
+"Of course I need n't tell _you_ Jack Massingbred does not fall in
+love,--the very phrase implies it must be beneath one,--but I already
+see that if such a girl were a Lady Catherine or a Lady Agnes, with a
+father in the Upper House, and two brothers in the 'Lower,' her dowry
+anything you like above thirty thousand,--that, in short, even Jack
+himself might exhibit the weakness of inferior mortals; for she is
+precisely one of those types that are ever looking upward,--a girl
+with a high ambition, I 'll be sworn, and formed to make the man, whose
+fortunes she shared, stand forward in the van and distinguish himself.
+
+"These are our whole _dramatis persono_, if I include an old barrister,
+with a racy humor and a strong stock of Bar anecdotes; and young
+Nelligan, the Medal man, whom you quizzed me so much for noticing in
+Dublin. You were right then, Harry; he _is_ a low fellow, and I was
+wrong in ever thinking him otherwise. I chanced upon his father's
+acquaintance rather oddly; and the son has not forgiven it. When we met
+here, yesterday, he fancied that we were to speak, and was actually
+rushing forward to shake hands with the most enthusiastic warmth; but
+with that manner which you have often admired, and once encouraged, when
+you called me the 'Cool of the day,' I pulled him up dead short, stared,
+and passed on. At dinner, I managed to ignore him so utterly that
+everybody else fell into the trap, and he dined as a tutor or the
+chaplain or the agent's son might,--mingling his sighs with the soup,
+and sipping his claret in all dreariness.
+
+"You will see, even from these hasty lines, that there is enough here
+to interest and amuse; food for observation, and opportunity for malice.
+What can a man want more? The 'joint and the pickles.' They have
+asked me to stay,--they have even entreated; and so I mean to pass a
+week--perhaps two--here. I conclude that will give me enough of it:
+however, you shall hear frequently of my _res gesto_, and learn all that
+befalls
+
+"Jack Massingbred.
+
+"... When you pass that way, pray see what letters there may be lying
+for me in my chambers. If any of my father's--he writes in a large
+splashy hand--and the seal, two maces, saltierwise--forward them here. I
+am, or I shall soon be, in want of money; and as I have overdrawn my
+allowance already, I shall be obliged to issue bonds, bearing a certain
+interest. Can you recommend me to a safe capitalist?--not Fordyce--nor
+Henniker--nor yet Sloan--with all of whom I have held dealings, mutually
+disagreeable. It is a sad reflection that the stamp worth five shillings
+upon a piece of unsullied paper is absolutely valueless when the words
+'Jack Massingbred' are inscribed beneath. Try, and if you can, solve
+this curious problem.
+
+"At all events, write to me here: supply me freely with news, for I
+am supposed to be acquainted with all that goes on, socially and
+politically, and I shall be driven to imagination if you do not store me
+with fact."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. STATECRAFT
+
+It was a cabinet council; they were met in Lady Dorothea's boudoir,
+Martin and Mr. Repton being summoned to her presence. A letter had that
+morning reached her Ladyship from a very high quarter; the writer was
+the Marquis of Reckington, a very distant connection, who had suddenly
+been graciously pleased, after a long interval of utter obliviousness,
+to remember that Lady Dorothea was his relative, and yet living!
+Whatever pride her Ladyship might have summoned to her aid to repel the
+slights or impertinences of the vulgar, she displayed a most Christian
+forgiveness as she broke the seal of an epistle from one who had left
+several of her own without answers, and even replied to her application
+for a staff appointment for her son, by a cold assurance that these were
+times when "nothing but fitness and superior qualifications entitled any
+man to advancement in the public service." Oh dear, were there ever any
+other times since the world was made! Is not merit the only passport to
+place, and high desert and capacity the sole recommendation to favor? Of
+all the immense advantages of a representative government, is there any
+more conspicuous than the unerring certainty with which men of ability
+rise to eminence without other aid than their own powers; and that, in
+a system like ours, family influence, wealth, name, connections,
+and parliamentary support are just so much mere dross? If any one be
+incredulous of the virtue of public men, let him only ask for a place;
+let him entreat his great friend--everybody has at least one
+great friend--mine is a coroner--to make him a Junior Lord, or a
+Vice-Something, and see what the answer will be. Polite, certainly;
+nothing more so; but what a rebuke to self-seeking!--what a stern
+chastisement to the ignorant presumption that places are awarded by
+means of favor, or that the public service is ever filled through the
+channels of private influence! Far from it. He is told that our age is
+an incorruptible one, that ministers pass sleepless nights in balancing
+the claims of treasury clerks, and that Lord Chancellors suffer agonies
+in weighing the merits of barristers of six years' standing. "We have
+but one rule for our guidance: the best man in the best place." A
+high-sounding maxim, which it would be excessively uncivil to disparage
+by asking what constitutes "a best man." Is he some unscrupulous
+partisan, who first gave his fortune, and afterwards his fame, to the
+support of a party? Is he the indisputable disposer of three, or perhaps
+four votes in the House? Is he a floating buoy to be anchored in
+either roadstead of politics, and only to be secured to either, for
+a consideration? Is he the dangerous confidant of some damaging
+transaction? Or is he the deserter from a camp, where his treason may
+sow disaffection? These several qualifications have ere this served to
+make up "a best man;" and strangely enough, are gifts which fit him for
+the Army, the Navy, the Home Service, or the Colonies.
+
+Let us turn from this digression, into which we have fallen half
+inadvertently, and read over some parts of Lord Reckington's letter. It
+was somewhat difficult to decipher, as most great men's letters are, and
+displayed in more than one place the signs of correction. Although it
+had been, as we have said, a very long time since any correspondence had
+occurred between the "cousins," his Lordship resumed the intercourse as
+though not a week had intervened. After a little playful chiding over
+the laxity of her Ladyship's writing habits,--three of hers had been
+left unreplied to,--and some of that small gossip of family changes and
+events, never interesting to any but the direct actors, his Lordship
+approached the real topic of his letter; and, as he did so, his writing
+grew firmer, and larger and bolder, like the voice of a man who spoke of
+what truly concerned him.
+
+"I thought, my dear Dora, I had done with it all. I flattered myself
+that I had served my time in public capacities, and that neither
+the Crown nor its advisers could reasonably call upon me for further
+sacrifices. _You_ know how little to my taste were either the cares or
+ambitions of office. In fact, as happens to most men who are zealous for
+the public service, my official career imposed far more of sacrifices
+than it conferred privileges. Witness the occasions in which I was
+driven to reject the claims of my nearest and dearest friends, in
+compliance with that nervous terror of imputed favoritism so fatal to
+all in power! I thought, as I have said, that they had no fair claim
+upon me any longer. I asked nothing; indeed, many thought I was wrong
+there. But so it was; I quitted office without a pension, and without
+a ribbon! It was late on a Saturday evening, however, when a Cabinet
+messenger arrived at 'Beech Woods' with an order for me to repair
+at once to Windsor. I was far from well; but there was no escape.
+Immediately on arriving I was summoned to the presence, and before I had
+paid my respects, his Majesty, who was much excited, said, 'Reckington,
+we want you. You must go to Ireland!' I believe I started, for he went
+on, 'I 'll have no refusal. There is but one settlement of this question
+that I will accept of. You shall go to Ireland!' The King then entered
+with considerable warmth, but with all his own remarkable perspicuity,
+into a detail of late changes and events in the Cabinet. He was
+excessively irritated with B------, and spoke of G------as one whom he
+never could forgive. He repeatedly said, 'I have been duped; I have been
+tricked;' and, in fact, exhibited a degree of emotion which, combined
+with the unbounded frankness of his manner towards me, affected me
+almost to tears. Of course, my dear Dora, personal considerations ceased
+at once to have any hold upon me; and I assured his Majesty that the
+remainder of my life was freely at his disposal, more than requited, as
+it already was, by the precious confidence he had that day reposed in
+me. I must not weary you with details. I accepted and kissed hands as
+Viceroy on Monday morning; since that I have been in daily communication
+with G------, who still remains in office. We have discussed Ireland
+from morning to night, and I hope and trust have at last come to a
+thorough understanding as to the principles which must guide the future
+administration. These I reserve to talk over with you when we meet; nor
+do I hesitate to say that I anticipate the very greatest benefit in the
+fruits of your long residence and great powers of observation of this
+strange people." The letter here went off into a somewhat long-winded
+profession of the equal-handed justice which was to mark the acts of
+the administration. It was to be, in fact, a golden era of equity and
+fairness; but, somehow, as codicils are occasionally found to revoke the
+body of the testament, a very suspicious little paragraph rather damaged
+this glorious conclusion. "I don't mean to say, my dear coz., that we
+are to neglect our followers,--the Government which could do so never
+yet possessed, never deserved to possess, able support; but we must
+discriminate,--we must distinguish between the mere partisan who trades
+on his principles, and that high-minded and honorable patriot who gives
+his convictions to party. With the noisy declaimer at public meetings,
+the mob-orator or pamphleteer, we shall have no sympathy. To the worthy
+country gentleman, independent by fortune as well as by principle,
+extending the example of a blameless life to a large neighborhood,
+aiding us by his counsels as much as by the tender of his political
+support,--to him, I say, we shall show our gratitude, not grudgingly nor
+sparingly, but freely, openly, and largely. You now know in what ranks
+we wish to see our friends, in the very van of which array I reckon upon
+yourself." We shall again skip a little, since here the writer diverged
+into a slight dissertation on the indissoluble ties of kindred, and the
+links, stronger than adamant, that bind those of one blood together.
+After a brief but rapid survey of the strong opposition which was to
+meet them, he went on: "Of course all will depend upon our parliamentary
+support; without a good working majority we cannot stand, and for this
+must we use all our exertions." A few generalities on the comfort and
+satisfaction resulting from "safe divisions" ensued, and then came the
+apparently careless question, "What can _you_ do for us? Yes, my dear
+Dora, I repeat, what can _you_ do for us? What we need is the support of
+men who have courage enough to merge old prejudices and old convictions
+in their full trust in us; who, with the intelligence of true
+statesmanship, will comprehend the altered condition of the country, and
+not endeavor to adapt the nation to _their_ views, but rather _their_
+views to the nation. In a word, a wise and liberal policy, not based
+upon party watchwords and antiquated symbols, but on the prospect of
+seeing Ireland great and united. Now, will Martin come to our aid in
+this wise? He ought to be in Parliament for his county. But if he be too
+indolent, or too happy at home, whom can he send us? And again, what of
+the borough? They tell me that Kilcock, seeing his father's great age,
+will not stand where a contest might be expected, so that you must
+necessarily be prepared with another."
+
+Again the writer launched out upon the happiness he felt at being able
+to appeal thus candidly and freely to his own "dearest kinswoman,"
+inviting her to speak as frankly in return, and to believe that no
+possible difference of political opinion should ever throw a coldness
+between those whose veins were filled with the same blood, and whose
+hearts throbbed with the same affections. Her Ladyship's voice slightly
+faltered as she read out the concluding paragraph, and when she laid the
+letter down, she turned away her head and moved her handkerchief to her
+eyes.
+
+As for Martin, he sat still and motionless, his gaze firmly directed
+to Repton, as though seeking in the impassive lines of the old lawyer's
+face for some clew to guide and direct him.
+
+"You used to be a Tory, Martin?" said Repton, after a pause.
+
+"Yes, to be sure, we were always with that party."
+
+"Well, there's an end of them now," said the other. "What's to follow
+and fill their place, my Lord Reckington may be able to say; I cannot.
+I only know that _they_ exist no longer; and the great question for
+you--at least, one of the great questions--is, have you spirit enough to
+join a travelling party without knowing whither they 're journeying?"
+
+"And what may be the other great question, sir?" asked Lady Dorothea,
+haughtily.
+
+"The other is, what will it cost in money--ay, my Lady, in money;
+because any other outlay will not require searches nor title-deeds,
+loans, mortgages, nor bond-debts."
+
+"To contest the county would cost ten thousand pounds; Scanlan says so,"
+rejoined Martin.
+
+"And the borough?" asked Repton.
+
+"A few hundreds would suffice; at least, they have done so hitherto."
+
+"Then remain content with the cheap luxury of the borough," said Repton.
+"You don't want anything from these people, Martin. You don't covet a
+peerage; you would n't accept a baronetcy. You remember what Langton
+said when told that the King was going to give him the 'Red Hand.' 'If I
+have been unfortunate enough to incur his Majesty's displeasure, I must
+deplore it deeply; but surely my innocent son should not be included
+in the penalty of my offence. Therefore, in all humility, I beseech and
+entreat the royal favor to commute the sentence into knighthood, so that
+the disgrace may die with me.'"
+
+"There were times when such insolence would have cost him dearly," said
+her Ladyship, sternly.
+
+"I am not sorry that we don't live in them, my Lady," replied Repton.
+"But to return: as I was saying, you ask for no favors; why should
+you expend ten or fifteen thousand pounds to advocate views of whose
+tendencies you know nothing, and principles whose very meaning you are
+in ignorance of?"
+
+"I anticipated every word of this," said Lady Dorothea. "I told Mr.
+Martin, this morning, almost literally, the exact advice you'd proffer."
+
+"I am proud that your Ladyship should have read me so justly," said
+Repton, bowing.
+
+An insolent toss of her head was the significant answer to this speech.
+
+"But were I to speak my mind more candidly, I 'd even say, let the
+borough go after the county; and for this plain reason," said Repton,
+speaking with increased firmness and animation, "you neither seek
+for the ambition of political life, nor want to make a trade of its
+casualties."
+
+"Is it not possible, sir, that we might desire the natural influence
+that should arise out of our station in society and our rank in this
+county?" said Lady Dorothea, proudly.
+
+"And your Ladyship has it, and can never lose it. Having a vote or
+two to throw into a Ministerial division would never repay you for the
+anxieties and cares of contested elections. Ah, my Lady, what do _you_
+care for the small flatteries of London attentions?"
+
+"We should have these, sir, as our right," broke she in.
+
+"To be sure you would, and much happiness do I hope they would confer,"
+added he, in a tone only overheard by Martin; then continued aloud: "As
+to the patronage at your disposal, would you take a present of it? Whom
+do you want to make tide-waiters, gaugers, barony-constables, or
+even clerks of the peace? Of all men living, who is so free of hungry
+dependants or poor relations!"
+
+"I must say, sir, that you reduce the question of political support to
+a very intelligible one of material benefit," said her Ladyship, with a
+sneer; "but, just for argument sake, imagine that there should be such a
+thing as a little principle in the matter."
+
+"I'm going to that part of the case, my Lady," said Repton. "Martin is a
+Tory; now, what are the men coming into power? I wish you could tell
+me. Here, for instance, is one of their own journals,"--and he opened
+a newspaper and ran his eye over the columns,--"ay, here it is: 'With
+regard to Ireland, Lord Reckington's appointment as Viceroy is the best
+guarantee that the rights of Irishmen of every persuasion and every
+denomination will be respected.' So far so good;" and he read on in a
+low, humdrum voice for some minutes, till he came to the following: "'No
+privileged class will any longer be tolerated; no exceptional loyalty
+admitted as an excuse for insufferable oppression and tyranny; the
+wishes and benefits of the people--the real people of that country--will
+at length enter into the views of an administration; and Ireland as she
+is,--not the possible Ireland of factious enthusiasts,--be governed by
+men determined to redress her grievances and improve her capacities.'
+Now, Martin, you want no augur to interpret that oracle. They are going
+to rule you by the people; but the people must be represented.
+
+"Now, who represents them? Not the demagogue; he is merely their tool.
+The real representative is the priest; don't laugh, my dear friend, at
+such a shadowy possibility; the thing is nearer than you dream of. No
+administration ever yet tried to govern Ireland except by intimidation.
+The Beresfords were undertakers once, and they did their work very well,
+let me tell you; they advanced their friends and whipped their enemies;
+and what with peerages for one set, and pitched caps for the other, they
+ruled Ireland. Then there came the Orangemen, who rather blundered their
+work; there were too many heads amongst them, and the really clever
+fellows were overborne by brawling, talkative fools, who always had the
+masses with them because they _were_ fools. Still they ruled Ireland.
+They preserved the country to the King's crown; and I say once more,
+that was no small matter. And now we have arrived at a new era; we
+have obtained Emancipation, and must look out for another stamp of
+administrators, and I see nothing for it but the priest. Of course you,
+and every man of your station, sneer at the notion of being dictated
+to by Father Luke, in the greasy leather small-clothes and dirty black
+boots,--only, himself, a cottier once removed, a plant of the
+wild growth of the fields, cultivated, however, in the hotbeds of
+Maynooth,--a forcing-house whose fruits you are yet to taste of! Sneer
+away, Martin; but my name is not Val Repton if those men do not rule
+Ireland yet! Ay, sir, and rule it in such a fashion as your haughty
+Beresfords and Tottenhams, and Tisdalls never dreamed of! They 'll treat
+with the Government on equal terms,--so much, for so much; and, what's
+more, it won't be higgling for a place here, or a peerage there; but
+they'll have the price paid down in hard legislative coin,--Acts of
+Parliament, sir; privileges for themselves and their order, benefits to
+'the Church;' and, when nothing better or more tempting offers, insults
+and slights to their antagonists. You, and all like you, will be passed
+over as if you never existed; the minister will not need you; you'll be
+so many general officers on the retired list, and only remarked when you
+swell the crowd at a levee."
+
+"So, sir, according to this special prediction of yours, we have nothing
+left us but to live on our estates, enjoy what we can of our fortunes,
+and leave the interests of the nation to those our inferiors in rank,
+station, and property?"
+
+"Such a period as your Ladyship has pictured forth--a little strongly,
+perhaps--is before you. Whether the interval be destined to be long or
+short, will, in great measure, depend upon yourselves."
+
+"That agrees with what Scanlan said the other day," said Martin.
+
+"Scanlan!" echoed her Ladyship, with most profound contempt.
+
+"Who is this Scanlan?" asked Repton.
+
+"There he comes to answer for himself," said Martin. "The fellow drives
+neatly. See how cleverly he swept round that sharp turn! He may be 'at
+fault' about the world of politics; but, _my_ word for it! he is a rare
+judge of a hack."
+
+"And, now that you suggest it," said Repton, musingly, "what an
+instinctive shrewdness there is on every subject,--I don't care what it
+is,--about fellows that deal in horse flesh. The practice of buying
+and selling, searching out flaws here, detecting defects there, gives
+a degree of suspectful sharpness in all transactions; besides that,
+really none but a naturally clever fellow ever graduates in the stable.
+You smile, my Lady; but some of our very first men have achieved the
+triumphs of the turf."
+
+"Shall we have Scanlan in and hear the news?" asked Martin.
+
+"Not here. If you please, you may receive him in the library or your own
+room."
+
+"Then, come along, Repton. We can resume this affair in the afternoon or
+to-morrow." And, without waiting for a reply, he passed his arm within
+the other's, and led him away. "You have been too abrupt with her,
+Repton; you have not made due allowances for her attachment to family
+influences," said he, in a whisper, as they went along.
+
+Repton smiled half contemptuously.
+
+"Oh, it's all very easy for you to laugh, my dear fellow; but, trust me,
+there's nothing to be done with my Lady in that fashion."
+
+"Turn the flank,--eh?" said the old lawyer, slyly. "Ah, Martin, don't
+teach _me_ how to deal with humanity. If you have not the courage to
+tell your wife that your estate cannot bear fresh encumbrances, new
+loans, and new debts--"
+
+"Hush!" said Martin, cautiously.
+
+"Then, I say, let me prevent the casualty, that's all."
+
+"How are you, Scanlan?" said Martin, as the attorney came, bowing and
+smiling, forward to pay his respects. "My friend, Mr. Repton, wishes to
+make your acquaintance."
+
+"I have the honor of being known to Mr. Repton, already, sir, if he has
+not forgotten me."
+
+"Eh,--how? where?" cried the lawyer, sharply.
+
+"In Reeves _versus_ Dockery, and another, sir, in Hilary, 24. It was _I_
+supplied the instructions--"
+
+"To be sure,--perfectly right. Maurice Scanlan; isn't that the name?
+You did the thing well, sir; and if we failed, we retreated without
+dishonor."
+
+"That was a grand shot you fired at the Bench, sir, when all was over,"
+said Scanlan. "I don't suppose they ever got such a complete 'set down'
+before."
+
+"I forget it," said Repton, but with a bright twinkle of his eye, which
+more than contradicted his words.
+
+"Then, sir, it's more than their Lordships ever will," said Scanlan.
+"The Chief Baron it was," said he, addressing Martin, "that overruled
+every objection made by Counsellor Repton, and at last declared that
+he would n't hear any more citations whatsoever. 'But I have a stronger
+case still, my Lord,' says the Counsellor. 'I 'll not hear it, sir,'
+said the Court. 'It is in Crewe and Fust, Term Reports, page 1,438.'
+
+"'I don't care where it is, sir,' was the answer.
+
+"'In a charge delivered by Lord Eldon--'
+
+"'Oh, let us hear my Lord Eldon,' said Plumridge, the Puisne Judge, who
+was rather ashamed of the Chief Baron's severity. 'Let us hear my Lord
+Eldon.'
+
+"'Here it is, my Lords,' said the Counsellor, opening the volume, and
+laying his hand upon the page,--'Crewe and Fust's Pleas of the Crown,
+page 1,438. My Lord Eldon says, "I may here observe the Courts of Law
+in Ireland are _generally_ wrong! The Court of Exchequer is _always_
+wrong!"'"
+
+Repton tried to smother his own delighted laugh at the reminiscence,
+but all in vain; it burst from him long and joyously; and as he shook
+Scanlan's hand, he said, "The incident loses nothing by your telling,
+sir; you have done it admirable justice."
+
+"You make me very proud, indeed, Counsellor," said Scanlan, who really
+did look overjoyed at the speech.
+
+"Have you any news for us, Scanlan?" said Martin, as they entered the
+library.
+
+"Yes, sir; the Ministry is out."
+
+"We know that already, man!"
+
+"And the Marquis of Reckington comes here as Lord-Lieutenant."
+
+"That we know also."
+
+"Colonel Massingbred to be Chief Sec--"
+
+"Moore Massingbred!" cried both, in a breath.
+
+"Yes, sir; he that was a Treasury Lord."
+
+"Are you quite sure of this, Scanlan?" asked Martin.
+
+"I had it from Groves, sir, at the Castle, yesterday morning, who told
+me there would be an immediate dissolution, and showed me a list of
+Government candidates."
+
+"You may talk them all over together, then," said Martin, "for I 'm
+heartily tired of politics this morning." And so saying, he left them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. A STUDIO
+
+It is one of the most inestimable privileges of Art, that amidst all the
+cares and contentions of the world, amidst strife and war and carnage,
+its glorious realm is undisturbed, its peace unbroken, and its followers
+free to follow their own wayward fancies, without let or hindrance.
+Your great practical intelligences, your men of committees and corn and
+railroads and ship-canals, sneer at the fictitious life--for so does
+it seem to them--of the mere painter or musician. They have a sort of
+pitying estimate for capacities only exercised upon the ideal, and look
+down with a very palpable contempt upon those whose world is a gallery
+or an orchestra. After all, this division of labor is a wise and happy
+provision, carrying with it many and varied benefits, and making of that
+strange edifice of mankind a far more pleasing and harmonious structure
+than we should otherwise have seen it. The imagination is to the actual,
+in the world of active life, what flowers are to nutritious herbs
+and roots. It is the influence that adorns, elevates, and embellishes
+existence. That such gifts have been confided to certain individuals
+is in itself a sufficient evidence, just as we see in the existence
+of flowers that pleasure has its place assigned in the grand scheme of
+creation, and that the happiness which flows from gratified sense has
+not been denied us.
+
+In that petty world which lived beneath the roof of Cro' Martin Castle,
+all the eager passions and excitements of political intrigue were now
+at work. My lady was full of plans for future greatness; Repton was
+scheming and suggesting, and thwarting everybody in turn; and even
+Martin himself, engulfed in the "Maelstrom" of the crisis, was roused
+into a state of semi-preparation that amounted to a condition of almost
+fever. As for Massingbred, whatever he really did feel, his manner
+affected a most consummate indifference to all that went forward; nor
+did the mention of his father's appointment to high office elicit from
+him anything beyond a somewhat contemptuous opinion of the new party
+in power. While, therefore, secret counsels were held, letters read
+and written, conferences conducted in every room, one little space was
+devoid of all these embarrassments and anxieties, and that was an oval
+chamber, lighted from the top, and originally destined for a summer
+ball-room, but now appropriated to Mr. Crow's use for the completion of
+the Grand Historical, which had lately been transferred from Kilkieran
+to its place there.
+
+The unlucky masterpiece was doomed to many a difficulty. The great
+events in prospect had totally banished all thought of "art" from Lady
+Dorothea's mind. The fall of a recent administration was a far more
+imminent circumstance than the abdication of a king a few centuries
+back. Martin, of course, had enough on his head, without the cares of
+mock royalty. Mary was overwhelmed with occupations. The floods and
+a threatened famine were casualties not to be overlooked; and she was
+absent every day from dawn to late night; while, to complete the list
+of defaulters, young Nelligan--the future Prince of Orange of the
+picture--was gone!
+
+Men deplore their past youth, their bygone buoyancy of heart, their old
+loves and extinct friendships; but of all departed pleasures, there is a
+peculiar poignancy about one, and that is an artist's grief over a "lost
+sitter." You ladies and gentlemen whose thumbs have never closed on
+a palette, nor whose fingers have never felt the soft influence of
+varnish, may smile at such a sorrow, but take my word for it, it is a
+real and tangible affliction.
+
+The waving locks, the noble brow; the deep square orbits, and the finely
+cut chin are but the subtle suggestions out of which inspirations are
+begotten, and poetic visions nurtured. The graceful bearing and the
+noble port, the tender melancholy or the buoyant gladness, have each
+in turn struck some chord of secret feeling in the artist's breast,
+revealing to him new ideas of beauty, and imparting that creative power
+which displays itself in new combinations.
+
+Poor Simmy Crow was not a Titian nor a Vandyke, but unhappily the
+sorrows of genius are very often experienced by those who are not gifted
+with its greatness; and the humble aspirant of excellence can catch
+every malady to which the triumphant in all the wild enthusiasm of his
+powers is exposed. He sat down before his canvas, as some general might
+before a fortified town which had resisted all his efforts of attack. He
+was depressed and discouraged.
+
+The upper part of the young student's head was already half finished,
+and there was enough done to impart a kind of promise of success,--that
+glorious vista which opens itself so often in imagination to those whose
+world is but their own fancy. He half thought he could finish it from
+memory; but before he had proceeded many minutes, he laid down the
+brush in despair. It seemed like a fatality that something must always
+interpose to bar the road to success. One time it was sickness, then
+it was poverty; a disparaging criticism had even done it; and now, when
+none of these threatened, there arose a new impediment. "Ah! Simmy,
+Simmy," he exclaimed aloud, "you were born under an unkindly planet.
+That's the secret of it all!"
+
+"I confess I cannot concur in that opinion," said a low, soft voice
+behind him. He started up, and beheld Kate Henderson, who, leaning
+on the back of a chair, continued to gaze steadfastly at the canvas,
+perfectly regardless of his astonishment. "There is a great deal to
+admire in that picture!" said she, as though talking to herself.
+
+Simmy crept stealthily back, and stationed himself behind her, as if to
+hear her remarks, while viewing the picture from the same point.
+
+"You have grouped your figures admirably," continued she, now addressing
+him, "and your management of the light shows a study of Rembrandt."
+
+"Very true, ma'am--miss, I mean. I have copied nearly all his great
+pieces."
+
+"And the drapery--that robe of the King's--tells me that you have
+studied another great master of color--am I right, sir, in saying Paul
+Veronese?"
+
+Simmy Crow's face glowed till it became crimson, while his eyes sparkled
+with intense delight.
+
+"Oh, dear me!" he exclaimed, "is n't it too much happiness to hear this?
+and only a minute ago I was in black despair!"
+
+"Mine is very humble criticism, sir; but as I have seen good pictures--"
+
+"Where? In the galleries abroad?" broke in Crow, hurriedly.
+
+"All over Germany and Italy. I travelled with those who really cared
+for and understood art. But to come back to yours--that head is a noble
+study."
+
+"And that's exactly what I'm grieving over,--he's gone."
+
+"Young Mr. Nelligan?"
+
+"Himself. He started this morning for Oughterard."
+
+"But probably to return in a day or two."
+
+Crow looked stealthily around to see if he were not likely to be
+overheard, and then, approaching Kate, said in a whisper,--
+
+"I don't think he 'll ever cross the doors again."
+
+"How so? has he received any offence?"
+
+"I can't make out what it is," said Simmy, with a puzzled look, "but he
+came to my room late last night, and sat down without saying a word; and
+at last, when I questioned him if he were ill, he said suddenly,--
+
+"'Have you found, Mr. Crow, that in your career as an artist, you have
+been able to withdraw yourself sufficiently from the ordinary events
+of life as to make up a little world of your own, wherein you lived
+indifferent to passing incidents?'
+
+"'Yes,' said I, 'I have, whenever I was doing anything really worth the
+name.'
+
+"'And at such times,' said he, again, 'you cared nothing, or next to
+nothing, for either the flatteries or the sarcasms of those around you?"
+
+"'I could n't mind them,' said I, 'for I never so much as heard them.'
+
+"'Exactly what I mean,' said he, rapidly. 'Intent upon higher ambitions,
+you were above the petty slights of malice or envy, and with your
+own goal before you, were steeled against the minor casualties of the
+journey. Then why should not I also enjoy the immunity? Can I not summon
+to my aid a pride like this, or am I to be discouraged and disgraced to
+my own heart by a mere impertinence?'
+
+"I stared at him, not guessing what he could mean.
+
+"'Rather quit the spot with which it is associated,--quit it forever,'
+muttered he to himself, as he paced the room, while his face grew
+deathly pale.
+
+"'As for me,' said I, for I wanted to say something--anything, in
+short--just to take his attention a little off of himself, 'whenever the
+world goes hard with me, I just step into my studio, lock the door, and
+sit down before a fresh canvas. I throw in a bit of brown, with a dash
+of bluish gray over it,--half sky, half atmosphere,--and I daub away
+till something like an effect--maybe a sunset, maybe a sullen-looking
+seashore, maybe a long, low prairie swell--rises before me. I don't try
+for details, I don't even trace an outline, but just throw in an effect
+here and there, and by good luck it often comes right, in some fine
+harmony of color, that's sure to warm up my heart and cheer my spirits;
+for, as there are sounds that, swelling up, fill the whole nature of man
+with ecstasy, there are combinations of color and tint that enter the
+brain by the eye, and just produce the same sense of delight.'"
+
+"And how did he accept your consolation?" asked she, smiling
+good-naturedly.
+
+"I don't well know if he listened to me," said Simmy, sorrowfully; "for
+all he said afterwards was,--
+
+"'Well, Mr. Crow, good-bye. I hope you 'll come to see me when you visit
+Dublin. You 'll easily find out my chambers in the college.'
+
+"Of course I said, 'I'd be delighted;' and there we parted."
+
+"Poor fellow!" said Kate, but in an accent so peculiar it would have
+been very difficult to pronounce whether the words were of kindness or
+of disparagement.
+
+"And your Prince, Mr. Crow?" said she, changing her tone to one of real
+or affected interest; "what's to be done now that Mr. Nelligan has left
+us?"
+
+"I'm thinking of making a background figure of him, miss," said Simmy.
+"Burnt sienna reduces many an illustrious individual to an obscure
+position."
+
+"But why not ask Mr. Massingbred to take his place--you've seen him?"
+
+"Only passing the window, miss. He is a handsome young man, but that
+same look of fashion, the dash of style about him, is exactly what
+destroys the face for _me_, I feel I could make nothing of it; I 'd
+be always thinking of him standing inside the plate-glass window of a
+London club, or cantering along the alleys of the Park, or sipping his
+iced lemonade at Tortoni's. There's no poetizing your man of gold chains
+and embroidered waistcoats!"
+
+"I half suspect you are unjust in this case," said she, with one of her
+dubious smiles.
+
+"I'm only saying what the effect is upon myself, miss," said Crow.
+
+"But why not make a compromise between the two?" said she. "I believe
+the great painters--Vandyke, certainly--rarely took the studies from a
+single head. They caught a brow here, and a mouth there, harmonizing the
+details by the suggestions of their own genius. Now, what if, preserving
+all this here,"--and she pointed to the head and eyes,--"you were to
+fill up the remainder, partly from imagination, partly from a study."
+And as she spoke she took the brush from his hand, and by a few light
+and careless touches imparted a new character to the face.
+
+"Oh, go on! that's admirable,--that's glorious!" exclaimed Crow, wild
+with delight.
+
+[Illustration: 276]
+
+"There is no necessity to lose the expression of haughty sorrow in the
+eye and brow," continued she; "nor does it interfere with the passing
+emotion he may be supposed unable to control, of proud contempt for that
+priestly influence which has dominated over the ambition of a king."
+And now, as though carried away by the theme, she continued to paint as
+rapidly as she spoke, while Crow busied himself in preparing the colors
+upon the palette.
+
+"My hardihood is only intended to encourage you, Mr. Crow," said she,
+"by showing that if one like me can point the road, the journey need not
+be deemed a difficult one." As she retired some paces to contemplate the
+picture, she casually glanced through a low glass door which opened upon
+the lawn, and where, under the shelter of a leafy beech, a young country
+girl was standing; her blue cloth cloak, with the hood thrown over her
+head, gave a certain picturesque character to the figure, which nearer
+inspection more than confirmed, for her features were singularly fine,
+and her large, soft blue eyes beamed with a gentle earnestness that
+showed Kate she was there with a purpose.
+
+Opening the door at once, Kate Henderson approached her, and asked what
+she wanted.
+
+With an air of half pride, half shame, the country girl drew herself up,
+and stared full and steadfastly at the speaker, and so continued till
+Kate repeated her question.
+
+"Sure you're not Miss Mary?" replied she, by questioning her in turn.
+
+"No, but if I can be of any use to you--"
+
+"I don't think you can," broke she in, with a manner almost haughty;
+"it's somebody else I 'm wanting."
+
+"If you wish to see Miss Martin, I 'll go and fetch her," said Kate.
+
+"I did n't say it was her I wanted to see," replied she, with a calm and
+almost severe composure.
+
+"Maybe her Ladyship?" asked Kate, far more interested than repelled by
+the other's manner.
+
+"It's none of them at all," rejoined she. "I came here to speak to one
+that I know myself," added she, after a long pause; "and if he isn't
+gone, I want to see him."
+
+"Oh, I think I can guess now," said Kate, smiling. "It is the Counsellor
+from Dublin, Mr. Repton."
+
+"It is no such thing," said the girl, promptly.
+
+"Then it must be Mr. Crow, here."
+
+An indignant toss of the head gave the negative to this surmise.
+
+"I have gone through all our names here," said Kate; "and except Mr.
+Massingbred--"
+
+"And there's the very one I want," said the girl, boldly.
+
+"Step in here and rest yourself, and I 'll send for him," said Kate; and
+with such persuasive courtesy were the words uttered, that almost, as it
+seemed, against her very will the girl followed her into the studio
+and sat down. While Mr. Crow proceeded in search of Massingbred, Kate
+Henderson, resuming brush and palette, returned to her painting; not,
+however, on the grand canvas of the "Historical," but dexterously
+interposing a piece of fresh board, she seized the opportunity to sketch
+the beautiful head then before her, while occupying the girl's attention
+with the objects around.
+
+Notwithstanding her intense astonishment at all she saw, the country
+girl never uttered a word, nor vouchsafed a single question as to the
+paintings; she even tried to moderate the eager pleasure they afforded
+by an endeavor not to admire them. Touched by the native pride of this
+struggle,--for struggle it was,--the features had assumed a look of
+haughty composure that well became the character of her beauty, and
+Kate caught up the expression so rapidly that her sketch was already
+well-nigh completed when Massing-bred entered.
+
+"My dear Mistress Joan," cried he, shaking her cordially by both hands,
+"how glad I am to see you again! It was but this very moment I was
+inquiring how I could go over and pay you a visit."
+
+Hurriedly as these words were uttered, and in all the apparent fervor
+of hearty sincerity, they were accompanied by a short glance at Kate
+Henderson, who was about to leave the room, that plainly said, "Remain
+where you are, there is no mystery here."
+
+"I thank yer honer kindly," said Joan Landy, "but it's no good coming,
+he is n't there."
+
+"Not there!--how and why is that?"
+
+"Sure _you_ ought to know better than me," said she, fixing her large
+eyes full upon him. "Ye left the house together, and _he_ never came
+back since."
+
+"Oh, perhaps I can guess," said Jack, pausing for a moment to reflect.
+"He might have deemed it safer to keep out of the way for a day or two."
+
+"It's no good deceivin' me, sir," said she, rising from her seat; "tell
+me the whole truth. Where is he?"
+
+"That is really more than I can say, my dear Mistress Joan. We parted in
+Oughterard."
+
+"And you never saw him after?"
+
+"Never, I assure you."
+
+"And you never tried to see him?--you never asked what became of him?"
+
+"I concluded, indeed I was certain, that he returned home," said Jack,
+but not without some confusion.
+
+"Ay, that was enough for you," said she, angrily. "If you were a poor
+labor in' man, you 'd not desert him that had you under his roof and
+gave you the best he had; but because ye 're a gentleman--"
+
+"It is precisely for that reason I can't suffer you to think so meanly
+of me," cried Jack. "Now just hear me for one moment, and you'll see how
+unjust you've been." And, drawing his chair closer to hers, he narrated
+in a low and whispering voice the few events of their morning at
+Oughterard, and read for her the short note Magennis had written to him.
+
+"And is that all?" exclaimed Joan, when he concluded.
+
+"All, upon my honor!" said he, solemnly.
+
+"Oh, then, wirra! wirra!" said she, wringing her hands sorrowfully, "why
+did I come here?--why did n't I bear it all patient? But sure my heart
+was bursting, and I could not rest nor sleep, thinking of what happened
+to him! Oh, yer honer knows well what he is to _me!_" And she covered
+her face with her hands.
+
+"You have done nothing wrong in coming here," said Jack, consolingly.
+
+"Not if he never hears of it," said she, in a voice tremulous with fear.
+
+"That he need never do," rejoined Jack; "though I cannot see why he
+should object to it. But come, Mrs. Joan, don't let this fret you;
+here's a young lady will tell you, as I have, that nobody could possibly
+blame your natural anxiety."
+
+"What would a young lady know about a poor creature like _me?_"
+exclaimed Joan, dejectedly. "Sure, from the day she's born, she never
+felt what it was to be all alone and friendless!"
+
+"You little guess to whom you say that," said Kate, turning round and
+gazing on her calmly; "but if the balance were struck this minute, take
+my word for it, you 'd have the better share of fortune."
+
+Jack Massingbred's cheek quivered slightly as he heard these words,
+and his eyes were bent upon the speaker with an intense meaning. Kate,
+however, turned haughtily away from the gaze, and coldly reminded him
+that Mrs. Joan should have some refreshment after her long walk.
+
+"No, miss,--no, yer honer; many thanks for the same," said Joan, drawing
+her cloak around her. "I couldn't eat a bit; my heart's heavy inside me.
+I 'll go back now."
+
+Kate tried to persuade her to take something, or, at least, to rest a
+little longer; but she was resolute, and eager to return.
+
+"Shall we bear you company part of the way, then?" said Jack, with a
+look of half entreaty towards Kate.
+
+"I shall be but too happy," said Kate, while she turned the nearly
+completed sketch to the wall, but not so rapidly as to prevent
+Massingbred's catching a glimpse of it.
+
+"How like!" exclaimed he, but only in a whisper audible to himself. "I
+didn't know that this also was one of your accomplishments."
+
+A little laugh and a saucy motion of her head was all her reply, while
+she went in search of her bonnet and shawl. She was back again in a
+moment, and the three now issued forth into the wood.
+
+For all Jack Massingbred's boasted "tact," and his assumed power of
+suiting himself to his company, he felt very ill at ease as he walked
+along that morning. "His world" was not that of the poor country girl at
+his side, and he essayed in vain to find some topic to interest her. Not
+so Kate Henderson. With all a woman's nice perception, and quite without
+effort, she talked to Joan about the country and the people, of whose
+habits she knew sufficient not to betray ignorance; and although Joan
+felt at times a half-suspicious distrust of her, she grew at length to
+be pleased with the tone of easy familiarity used towards her, and the
+absence of anything bordering on superiority.
+
+Joan, whose instincts and sympathies were all with the humble class from
+which she sprung, described in touching language the suffering condition
+of the people, the terrible struggle against destitution maintained for
+years, and daily becoming more difficult and hopeless. It was like a
+shipwrecked crew reduced to quarter-rations, and now about to relinquish
+even these!
+
+"And they are patient under all this?" asked Kate, with that peculiar
+accent so difficult to pronounce its meaning.
+
+"They are, indeed, miss," was the answer.
+
+"Have they any hope? What do they promise themselves as the remedy for
+these calamities?"
+
+"Sorrow one of 'em knows," said she, with a sigh. "Some goes away to
+America, some sinks slowly under it, and waits for God's time to leave
+the world; and a few--but very few--gets roused to anger, and does
+something to be transported or put in jail."
+
+"And Miss Martin,--does she not relieve a good deal of this misery? Is
+she not of immense benefit by her exertions here?"
+
+"Arrah, what can a young lady do, after all? Sure it's always them that
+talks most and best gets over her. Some are ashamed, and some are too
+proud to tell what they 're suffering; and I believe in my heart, for
+one that 's relieved there are twenty more angry at seeing how lucky he
+was."
+
+They walked along now for some time in silence, when Joan, stopping
+short, said, "There's the house, miss; that's the place I live in."
+
+"That house far away on the mountain side?"
+
+"Yes, miss; it's four miles yet from this."
+
+"But surely you haven't to walk all that way?"
+
+"What signifies it? Is n't my heart lighter than when I came along this
+morning? And now I won't let you come any farther, for I'll take a short
+cut here across the fields."
+
+"May I go and see you one of these days?" asked Kate.
+
+Joan grew crimson to the very roots of her hair, and turned a look on
+Massingbred, as though to say, "You ought to answer this for me." But
+Jack was too deep in his own thoughts even to notice the appeal.
+
+"I can scarcely ask _you_ to come to _me_," said Kate, quickly
+perceiving a difficulty, "for I 'm not even a visitor at Cro' Martin."
+
+"I 'm sure I hope it 's not the last time we 'll meet, miss; but
+maybe,"--she faltered, and a heavy tear burst forth, and rolled slowly
+along her cheek,--"maybe you oughtn't to come and see me."
+
+Kate pressed her hand affectionately, without speaking, and they parted.
+
+"Is Joan gone?" asked Massingbred, raising his head from an attitude of
+deep revery. "When did she leave us?"
+
+"There she goes yonder," said Kate, pointing. "I fear me her spirits are
+not as light as her footsteps. Are her people very poor?"
+
+"Her father was a herd, I believe," said he, carelessly; "but she does
+n't live at home."
+
+"Is she married, then?"
+
+"I 'm not sure that she is; but at least she believes that she is."
+
+"Poor thing!" said Kate, calmly, while, folding her arms, she continued
+to gaze after the departing figure of the country girl. "Poor thing!"
+repeated she once more, and turned to walk homewards.
+
+Massingbred fixed his eyes upon her keenly as she uttered the words; few
+and simple as they were, they seemed to reveal to him something of
+the nature of her who spoke them. A mere exclamation--a syllable--will
+sometimes convey "whole worlds of secret thought and feeling," and it
+was evidently thus that Massingbred interpreted this brief expression.
+"There was nothing of scorn in that pity," thought he. "I wish she had
+uttered even one word more! She is a strange creature!"
+
+And it was thus speaking to himself that he walked along at her side.
+
+"This wild and desolate scene is not very like that of which we talked
+the other night,--when first we met,--Miss Henderson."
+
+"You forget that we never met," said she, calmly.
+
+"True, and yet there was a link between us even in those few flowers
+thrown at random."
+
+"Don't be romantic, Mr. Massingbred; do not, I pray you," said she,
+smiling faintly. "You _know_ it's not your style, while it would be
+utterly thrown away upon _me_, I am aware that fine gentlemen of your
+stamp deem this the fitting tone to assume towards 'the governess;' but
+I 'm really unworthy of it."
+
+"What a strange girl you are!" said he, half thinking aloud.
+
+"On the contrary, how very commonplace!" said she, hastily.
+
+"Do you like this country?" asked Massingbred, with an imitation of her
+own abrupt manner.
+
+"No," said she, shortly.
+
+"Nor the people?"
+
+"Nor the people!" was the answer.
+
+"And is your life to be passed amongst them?"
+
+"Perhaps," said she, with a slight gesture of her shoulders. "Don't you
+know, Mr. Massingbred," added she, with more energy, "that a woman has
+no more power to shape her destiny than a leaf has to choose where it
+will fall? If I were a man,--you, for instance,--I would think and act
+differently."
+
+"I should like to hear what you would do if in my place," said Jack,
+with a degree of deep interest in the remark.
+
+"To begin, I'll tell you what I would not do," said she, firmly. "I 'd
+not waste very good abilities on very small objects; I 'd neither have
+small ambitions nor small animosities. You have both."
+
+"As how?" asked he, frankly, and with no touch of irritation.
+
+"Am I to be candid?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Even to rudeness?"
+
+"Cut as deeply as you like," said he, smiling.
+
+"Then here goes: For the 'small ambition' I speak of, it was displayed
+yesterday at dinner, when, in rivalry with that old lawyer, you
+condescended to play agreeable, to out-talk him, out-quote, and
+out-anecdote him. It is true you succeeded; but what a poor success it
+was! how inadequate to the forces that were mustered to effect it!"
+
+"And now for the other count of the indictment," said he, with a half
+smile.
+
+"First, do you plead guilty to this one?" asked she.
+
+"Yes; with an 'extenuating circumstance.'"
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"Why, that _you_ were present," said Jack, with a glance of more than
+mere passing gallantry.
+
+"Well," said she, after a pause, "I _did_ take some of the display to
+my own share. I saw that you did n't care to captivate the young lady of
+the house, and that my Lady bored you."
+
+"Insufferably!" exclaimed Jack, with energy.
+
+"Your manner showed it," said she, "even more than such polish ought to
+have betrayed."
+
+"But I 'm sure I never exhibited any signs of my martyrdom," said he; "I
+stood my torture well."
+
+"Not half so heroically as you fancied I noticed your weariness before
+the dinner was half over, as I detected your splenetic dislike to young
+Mr. Nelligan--"
+
+"To young Nelligan?--then he has told you--"
+
+"Stop,--be cautious," broke she in, hurriedly; "don't turn evidence
+against yourself. _He_ has told me nothing."
+
+"Then what do you know?"
+
+"Nothing; I only surmise."
+
+"And what is your surmise?"
+
+"That he and you had met before,--that you had even been intimate,--and
+now, from some misunderstanding, you had ceased to be friends. Mind, I
+don't want confessions; I don't seek to learn your secrets."
+
+"But you shall hear this from me," said Massingbred, with earnestness;
+"and perhaps you, so ready to blame me for some things, may see reason
+to think well of me in this." He then related, briefly, but simply,
+the history of his acquaintance with Nelligan; he dwelt, not without
+feeling, upon the passages of their student-life, and at last spoke of
+his chance visit to Oughterard, and the accident by which he became old
+Nelligan's guest. "What can you make of Joseph's conduct," cried he;
+"or how explain his refusal to meet me at his father's table? One of two
+reasons there must be. He either discredits me in the character of his
+friend, or shrinks, with an ignoble shame, from appearing there in his
+real position,--the son of the country shopkeeper! I scarcely know if I
+'d not prefer he should have been actuated by the former motive; though
+more offensive to me, in _him_ it were more manly."
+
+"Why not have asked him which alternative he accepted?" asked Kate.
+
+"Because the opportunity to wound him deeply--incurably--first presented
+itself. I knew well that nothing would hurt him like the cool assumption
+of not recognizing him, and I determined not to lose my vengeance."
+
+"I'm a woman," said Kate, "and I'd not have stooped to _that!_"
+
+It was rarely that Massingbred's emotions gave any evidence of their
+working; but now his cheek grew crimson, as he said, "A man can only
+measure a man's indignation."
+
+"You are angry without cause," said she, calmly; "you wish me to
+pronounce a verdict on an act, and are displeased because I think
+differently from you. How right I was in my guess that small animosities
+were amongst your failings! You seek now to quarrel with _me!_"
+
+Massingbred walked along for some moments without speaking, and then
+said, "You knew Nelligan formerly?"
+
+"Yes, we were playfellows together as children; lovers, I believe, a
+little later on--"
+
+"And now?" broke he in.
+
+"And now very good friends, as the world uses that phrase. At all
+events," added she, after a brief pause, "enough his friend to be able
+to say that you have wronged him by your suspicions. Joe Nelligan--or
+I'm much mistaken--may feel the inequality of his position as a
+something to overcome, a barrier to be surmounted; not as a disability
+to contest the prizes of life even with such as Mr. Massingbred."
+
+"It is _you_ now would quarrel with _me_," said Jack, retorting her own
+words upon her. "And yet," he added, in a lower tone, "I would wish to
+have you my friend."
+
+"So you can, upon one condition," replied she, promptly.
+
+"I accept, whatever it be. Name it."
+
+"That you be your own friend; that you address yourself to the business
+of life seriously and steadily, resolving to employ your abilities as a
+means of advancement, not as a mere instrument for amusement; determine,
+in fact, to be something besides a _dilettante_ and an idler."
+
+"Is it a bargain, then, if I do this?" asked he, eagerly.
+
+"Yes; I promise you the high and mighty boon of _my_ friendship,"
+replied she, with mock solemnity.
+
+"And so we seal our contract," said he, pressing her hand to his lips,
+but with an air of such respectful gallantry that the action implied
+nothing bordering on a liberty.
+
+"And now I leave you," said she, as she opened the wicket-gate of a
+small flower-garden; "such conferences as ours must not be repeated,
+or they might be remarked upon. Good-bye." And without waiting for his
+reply, she passed on into the garden, while Massingbred stood gazing
+after her silently and thoughtfully.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. AN ELECTION ADDRESS
+
+"Am I behind time, Mr. Massingbred?" said Kate Henderson, as she entered
+the library, about a week after the events we have last recorded,--"am
+I behind time?" said she, approaching a table where the young man sat
+surrounded with a mass of letters and papers.
+
+"Not very much," said he, rising, and placing a chair for her; "and I
+take it for granted you came as soon as you could."
+
+"Yes; I have finished my morning's reading for her Ladyship, noted her
+letters, answered the official portion of her correspondence, talked
+the newspaper for Mr. Martin, hummed a singing lesson for Miss Mary,
+listened to a grand jury story of Mr. Repton; and now, that they are all
+off to their several destinations, here I am, very much at the service
+of Mr. Massingbred."
+
+"Who never needed counsel more than at this moment!" said Jack, running
+his hands distractedly through his hair. "That 's from my father!" added
+he, handing her a letter with a portentous-looking seal attached to it.
+
+"What a fine bold hand, and how easy to read!" said she, perusing it.
+Jack watched her narrowly while she read; but on her calm impassive face
+not a line nor a lineament betrayed emotion.
+
+"It is, then, an English borough he recommends," said she, laying it
+down; "and I suppose, looking to an official career, he is quite right.
+The 'No Irish need apply' might be inscribed over Downing Street; but is
+that altogether your view?"
+
+"I scarcely know what I project as yet," said he. "I have no career!"
+
+
+"Well, let us plan one," replied she, crossing her arms on the table,
+and speaking with increased earnestness. "The Martins have offered you
+Oughterard--" He nodded, and she went on: "And, as I understand it, very
+much on _your_ own conditions?"
+
+"That is to say, I'm not to damage the Tories more than I can help, nor
+to help the Radicals more than I must."
+
+"Is there any designation for the party you will thus belong to?" asked
+she.
+
+"I 'm not exactly sure that there is; perhaps they 'd call me a Moderate
+Whig."
+
+"That sounds very nice and commonplace, but I don't like it. These are
+not times for moderation; nor would the part suit _you!_"
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"I'm certain of it. You have n't got habits of discipline to serve with
+a regular corps; to do anything, or be anything, you must command a
+partisan legion--"
+
+"You're right there; I know that," broke he in.
+
+"I don't mean it as flattery, but rather something a little bordering on
+the reverse," said she, fixing her eyes steadfastly on him; "for, after
+all, there is no great success--I mean, no towering success--to be
+achieved by such a line; but as I feel that you 'll not work--"
+
+"No; of that be assured!"
+
+"Then there are only secondary rewards to be won."
+
+"You certainly do not overestimate me!" said Jack, trying to seem
+perfectly indifferent.
+
+"I have no desire to underrate your abilities," said she, calmly; "they
+are very good ones. You have great fluency,--great 'variety,' as Grattan
+would call it,--an excellent memory, and a most amiable
+self-possession."
+
+"By Jove!" said he, reddening slightly, "you enumerate my little gifts
+with all the accuracy of an appraiser!"
+
+"Then," resumed she, not heeding his interruption, "you have abundance
+of what is vulgarly styled 'pluck,' and which is to courage what
+_esprit_ is to actual wit; and, lastly, you are a proficient in that
+readiness which the world always accepts for frankness."
+
+"You were right to say that you intended no flattery!" said he, with an
+effort to laugh.
+
+"I want to be truthful," rejoined she, calmly. "No praise
+of mine--however high it soared, or however lavishly it was
+squandered--could possibly raise you in your own esteem. The governess
+may perform the part of the slave in the triumphal chariot, but could
+not aspire to put the crown on the conqueror!"
+
+"But I have not conquered!" said Jack.
+
+"You may, whenever you enter the lists; you must, indeed, if you only
+care to do so. Go in for an Irish borough," said she, with renewed
+animation. "Arm yourself with all the popular grievances; there is just
+faction enough left to last _your_ time. Discuss them in your own way,
+and my word for it, but you 'll succeed. It will be such a boon to the
+House to hear a gentlemanlike tone on questions which have always been
+treated in coarser guise. For a while you 'll have no imitators, and can
+sneer at the gentry and extol the 'people' without a competitor. Now
+and then, too, you can assail the Treasury benches, where your father
+is sitting; and nothing will so redound to your character for
+independence."
+
+"Why, where, in Heaven's name," cried Jack, "have you got up all this?
+What and how do you know anything of party and politics?"
+
+"Have I not been studying 'Hansard' and the files of the 'Times' for
+the last week by your directions? Have I not read lives of all the
+illustrious prosers you gave me to look through? And is it very
+wonderful if I have learned some of the secrets of this success, or
+that I should 'get up' my 'politics' as rapidly as you can your
+'principles'?"
+
+"I wish I was even sure that I had done so," said Jack, laughing; "for
+this same address is puzzling me sadly! Now here, for instance," and
+he read aloud: "'While steadfastly upholding the rights of property,
+determined to maintain in all their integrity the more sacred rights of
+conscience--'Now just tell me, what do you understand by that?"
+
+"That rents must be paid,--occasionally, at least; but that you hope to
+pull down the Established Church!"
+
+"Well, come," said he, "the thing will perhaps do!"
+
+"I don't much like all this about 'the Palladium of the British
+Constitution, and the unbroken bulwark of our dearest liberties.' We are
+in Ireland, remember, where we care no more for your Palladium--if we
+ever knew what it meant--than we do for the 'Grand Lama.' A slight
+dash of what is called 'nationality' would be better; very vague, very
+shadowy, of course. Bear in mind what Lady Dorothea told us last night
+about the charm of the king's bow. Everybody thought it specially meant
+for himself; it strikes me that something of this sort should pervade an
+election address."
+
+"I wish to Heaven you 'd write it, then," said Jack, placing a pen in
+her fingers.
+
+"Something in this fashion," said she, while her hands traced the lines
+rapidly on the paper:--
+
+"'Finding that a new era is about to dawn in the political state of
+Ireland, when the consequences of late legislation will engender new
+conditions and relations, I present myself before you to solicit
+the honor of your suffrages, a perfect stranger to your town, but no
+stranger to the wants and necessities of that nationality which now, for
+the first time for centuries, is about to receive its due development.'
+
+"Or this, if you prefer it," said she, writing away rapidly as before:--
+
+"'The presumption of aspiring to your representation will, perhaps,
+be compensated when I come before you deeply impressed with the wrongs
+which centuries of legislation have enacted, and which, stranger as I
+am in Ireland, have arrested my attention and engaged my sympathies,
+impelling me to enter upon a public career; and, if favored by your
+approval, to devote whatever energy and capacity I may possess to your
+great and good cause.'"
+
+"I like the first best," said Jack. "The new era and the results of
+the Relief Bill will be such appetizing suggestions. There must be an
+allusion to the Martins and their support."
+
+"Rather, however, as though _you_ had brought over Martin to _your_
+views, than that _he_ had selected you to represent his. In this wise:"
+and again she wrote,--
+
+"'It is with a just pride that I announce to you that in these
+professions I am strengthened by the cordial approval and support of one
+who, in his rank and station, and natural influence, is second to none
+in this great county; and who, whatever misconceptions have hitherto
+prevailed as to his views, is, heart and soul, a true patriot and an
+Irishman!'
+
+"It will puzzle him sorely to guess what line he should adopt to realize
+all this, and he'll have to come to _you_ for his politics!"
+
+"You have caught up the cant of this peculiar literature perfectly,"
+said Massingbred, as he pored over the papers she had just penned.
+
+"Dear me!" cried she, in a weary tone, "my great difficulty will be
+to discard its evil influence, and even write a common note like a
+reasonable being again."
+
+"But come, confess frankly: you think that a political career is the
+only one worth embracing, and that any other life offers no reward
+worthy the name?"
+
+"I think you mistake me," said she. "It is the social position
+consequent upon success in a political life that I value,--the eminence
+it confers in the very highest and greatest circles. If I regarded the
+matter otherwise, I'd not be indifferent as to the line to follow--I 'd
+have great convictions, and hold them,--I mean, if I were _you_."
+
+"Then of course you consider me as one who has none such?"
+
+"To be sure I do. Men of your measures of ability can no more burden
+themselves with principles than a thoroughbred hackney can carry extra
+weight,--they 've quite enough to do to make their running without."
+
+"Well, I shall certainly not be spoiled by flattery, at least from you,"
+said Jack, laughing.
+
+"They who know you less will make up for it all, depend upon it," said
+she, quietly. "Don't fancy, Mr. Massingbred," added she, with more
+earnestness of manner,--"don't fancy that I 'm insensible to the
+impertinences I have dared to address to you, or that I venture upon
+them without pain; but when I perceived that you would admit me to the
+liberty of criticising your conduct, character, and manners, I thought
+that I might render you good service by saying what better taste and
+better breeding would shrink from, and the only cost be the dislike of
+myself."
+
+"You took a very bad way to accomplish the latter," said Jack,
+fervently.
+
+"I did n't give it much consideration," said she, haughtily. "It was
+very little matter what opinion you entertained of 'the governess.'"
+
+"I should like to convince you that you were wrong," said he, looking
+fixedly at her.
+
+"You'd find your task harder than you suspect, sir," said she, coldly.
+"There is a sense of pride about the humbleness of a station such as
+mine, as all the elevation of one in yours could never fathom. And,"
+added she, in a still more determined tone, "there is but one condition
+on which this intercourse of ours can continue, which is, that this
+topic be never resumed between us. The gulf that separates your position
+in life from mine is the security for mutual frankness; to attempt to
+span it over by deception would be to build a bridge that must break
+down the first moment of its trial. Enough of this! I'll take these,"
+said she, gathering up the papers, "and copy them out clearly. They
+ought to be with the printer to-morrow; and, indeed, you should not
+defer your canvass."
+
+Massingbred made no answer, but sat with his head buried between his
+hands.
+
+"I'd have you to visit the 'dear constituency' at once, Mr.
+Massingbred," said she, with a slight touch of scorn in her voice. "They
+are not well bred enough to bear a slight!" And with this she left the
+room.
+
+"I should like excessively to know the secret of this interest in my
+behalf," said Jack, as he arose and slowly walked the room. "It is not,
+unquestionably, from any high estimate of my capacity; as little is it
+anything bordering on regard; and yet," added he, after a pause, "there
+are moments when I half fancy she could care for me,--at least I know
+well that I could for _her_, Confound it!" cried he, passionately,
+"what a terrible barrier social station throws up! If she were even some
+country squire's daughter,--portionless as she is,--the notion would
+not be so absurd; but 'the governess!' and 'the steward!' what frightful
+figures to conjure up. No, no; that's impossible. One might do such a
+folly by retiring from the world forever, but that would be exactly to
+defeat the whole object of such a match. She is essentially intended for
+'the world;' every gift and grace she possesses are such as only have
+their fitting exercise where the game of life is played by the highest,
+and for the heaviest stakes! But it is not to be thought of!"
+
+"Have I found you at last?" cried Repton, entering the room. "They say
+the writ will be here on Monday, so that we 've not an hour to lose.
+Let us drive over to Oughterard at once, see the editor of the
+'Intelligence,' call on Priest Rafferty, and that other fellow--the
+father of our young friend here."
+
+"Mr. Nelligan," said Jack. "But I can't well visit _him_--there have
+been some rather unpleasant passages between us."
+
+"Ah! you told me something about it. He wanted you to fill a bail-bond,
+or do something or other, rather than shoot _me_. An unreasonable old
+rascal! Never mind; we shall come before him now in another character,
+and you 'll see that he'll be more tractable."
+
+"The matter is graver than this," said Jack, musingly; "and our
+difference is serious enough to make intercourse impossible."
+
+"You shall tell me all about it as we drive along,--that is, if it be
+brief and easy to follow, for my head is so full of election matters
+I don't desire a new element of complication. Step in now, and let
+us away." And with this he hurried Massingbred to the door, where a
+pony-phaeton was in waiting for them.
+
+Once on the road, Repton changed the conversation from the domain of
+politics, and talked entirely of the host and his family. There was a
+sort of constitutional frankness and familiarity about the old lawyer
+which all the astute habits and instincts of his profession had
+never mastered. Like a great many acute men, his passion for shrewd
+observation and keen remark overbore the prudent reserve that belongs to
+less animated talkers, and so he now scrupled not to dis-cuss Martin and
+his affairs to one who but a few days back had been a complete stranger
+amongst them.
+
+At first Jack heard him without much interest, but, as he continued, the
+subject attracted all his attention, full as it was of views of life and
+the world perfectly new and strange to him.
+
+To Massingbred's great astonishment, he learned that vast as the
+estates, and large as was the fortune of the Martins, that they were
+deeply encumbered with bond-debts and mortgages. The wasteful habits of
+the gentry generally, combined with great facilities for obtaining money
+at any emergency, had led to this universal indebtedness; and, in fact,
+as the lawyer expressed it, an old estate was supposed to be the victim
+of debt, as an elderly gentleman was liable to gout; nobody presuming to
+think that the tenure, in either case, was a whit the more precarious on
+account of the casualty.
+
+"Now," said Repton, as they reached a point of the road from which a
+view of the country could be obtained for miles on every side--"now, as
+far as you can see belongs to Martin. Beyond that mountain yonder, too,
+there is a large tract--not very productive, it is true--extending to
+the sea. The fine waving surface to your left is all tillage land; and
+the islands in the bay are his. It is really a princely estate, with
+even greater hidden resources than those palpable and open to view. But,
+were I to show it to you on a map, and point out at the same time every
+spot on which some moneylender has a claim--how much has been advanced
+upon this--what sums have been lent upon that--you 'd be more amazed at
+the careless ease of the proprietor than you now are at the extent of
+his fortune."
+
+"But he is spending immensely in improving and developing the property,"
+said Jack.
+
+"Of course he is, sir. That new-fangled notion of 'gentleman-farming
+'--which has come to us from countries where there are no
+gentlemen--won't suit Ireland, at least in the present generation. What
+_we_ want here is, not to make more money, but to learn how to spend
+less; and although the first very often teaches the last, it is a hard
+way for an Irishman to acquire his knowledge. There's your borough,
+sir,--that little spot in the valley yonder is Oughterard. Do you feel,
+as you behold it, as though it were to be the mainspring of a great
+career? Is there an instinctive throb within that says, 'The honorable
+member for Oughterard will be a great name in the "Collective Wisdom
+"'?"
+
+"I can scarcely say yes to that appeal," said Jack, smiling; "though, if
+what you have just told me of the mediocrity of public men be true--"
+
+"Can you doubt it? You have them all before you,--their lives, their
+sayings, and their doings. Show me one in the whole mass who has
+originated a new idea in politics, or developed a new resource in the
+nation. Do they exhibit the common inventiveness displayed in almost
+every other walk of life, or do they even dress up their common
+platitudes in any other garb than the cast-off clothes of their
+predecessors? Mediocrity is a flattery when applied to them. But what's
+this coming along behind us, with such clattering of hoofs?"
+
+"A tandem, I think," said Jack, looking backward, "and very well
+handled, too."
+
+"Oh, that illustrious attorney, Mr. Scanlan, I 've no doubt. Let us draw
+up till he passes." And so saying, Repton moved to one side of the road,
+giving a wide space for the other to proceed on his way. Mr. Scanlan,
+however, had subdued his nags, by a low, soft whistle, to a half-trot,
+when, giving the reins to his servant, he descended and advanced to the
+carriage. "I've been in pursuit of you, gentlemen," said he, touching
+his hat courteously, "for the last four miles, and I assure you you 've
+given me a breathing heat of it. Mr. Martin requested me to hand you
+this note, sir," added he, addressing Repton, "which demands immediate
+attention."
+
+The note was marked "Instantaneous," and "Strictly private," on the
+cover, and Repton opened it at once. Its contents were as follows,--
+
+     "Dear Rep.,--The post has just arrived, with intelligence
+     that Harry is coming home,--may be here within a week or
+     so,--so that we must not go on with our present plans for
+     the borough, as H., of course, will stand. Come back,
+     therefore, at once, and let as talk over the matter
+     together.
+
+     "Yours, in haste,
+
+     "G. M."
+
+
+"You know what this contains, perhaps?" said Repton, in a whisper to
+Scanlan. He nodded an assent, and the old lawyer re-read the note. "I
+don't see my way here quite clearly," added he, in the same subdued
+voice, to Scanlan.
+
+"I'll stroll on and stretch my legs a bit," said Jack, springing out of
+the pony phaeton, and seeing that the others had some private matter of
+discussion; and Scanlan now drew nigh, while Repton informed him what
+the note contained.
+
+"It's a little too late for this now," said Scanlan, gravely.
+
+"How do you mean too late?" asked Repton.
+
+"Why, that Massingbred stands well with the people in the borough. They
+think that he 'll be more their man than Martin's, and, indeed, they 're
+so confident of it, I half suspect he has told them so."
+
+"But there has been no canvass as yet,--his address isn't even printed."
+
+"There has been a correspondence, however," said Scanlan, with a knowing
+wink. "Take my word for it, Mr. Repton, he 's a deep fellow."
+
+"Are you quite sure of this?--can you pledge yourself to its truth?"
+
+"I only know that Father Rafferty said the night before last he was
+satisfied with him, and the one difficulty was about old Nelligan, who
+somehow is greatly incensed against Massingbred."
+
+"He 'd have no chance in the borough without us," said Repton,
+confidently.
+
+"If old Dan would consent to spend the money, he'd be the member in
+spite of us," rejoined Scanlan.
+
+"I'll not dispute local knowledge with you, sir," said Repton,
+peevishly. "Let us turn back at once. Where's Mr. Massingbred? I saw him
+standing on the hill yonder a few minutes ago; maybe, he 's strolling
+along the road in front." Repton moved forward to a rising spot of
+ground, from whence a wide view extended for a distance on every side,
+but no trace of Massingbred could be discovered. "What can have become
+of him?--has he turned towards Cro' Martin?" asked Repton.
+
+"There he is," cried Scanlan, suddenly; "there he is, walking
+with Magennis. They're taking the short cut over the hills to
+Oughterard--that's unfortunate, too!"
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Why, before they're in the town they'll be as thick as two
+pickpockets--see how they 're talking! I think, if I was to drive on,
+I'd catch them before they entered the town."
+
+"Do so, then, Scanlan. Say that a sudden message from Mr. Martin
+recalled me, but that you'll drive him back with you to Cro' Martin."
+
+"Am I to allude to the contents of the note, sir?"
+
+"I think not; I opine it's best not to speak of it. Say, however, that
+something of importance has occurred at Cro' Martin, and suggest to him
+that the sooner he returns thither the better."
+
+There was an amount of vacillation and uncertainty about Repton's
+manner as he uttered these few words that showed not only how gravely he
+regarded the crisis, but how totally unprepared he found himself for
+the emergency. Not so Scanlan, who took his seat once more on his lofty
+"buggy," and was soon spinning along the road at a pace of full twelve
+miles the hour.
+
+As Repton drove back to Cro' Martin, he thought once, and not without
+humiliation, of his late lessons in statecraft to young Massingbred. "To
+fancy that I was instilling all these precepts at the very moment
+that he was countermining us. The young villain is a worthy son of his
+father! And how he will laugh at me, and make others laugh too! It will
+never do to drive him into opposition to us. Martin must consent to make
+the best of it, now, and accept him as his member,--for the present,
+at least. With time and good opportunity we can manage to trip up his
+heels, but, for the moment, there's no help for it." And with these
+not very consoling reflections he entered once more the grounds of Cro'
+Martin Castle.
+
+Let us now turn to Massingbred, as, accompanied by Magennis, he walked
+at a rapid pace towards Oughterard. It needed but a glance at the
+figures, and the rate at which they moved, to see that these two men
+were bent upon an object.
+
+"Don't you see the town now before you?" said Magennis. "It's not much
+above two miles, and by the road it is every step of six, or six and a
+half; and if we walk as we're doing now, we'll be there at least twenty
+minutes before them."
+
+"But what will Repton think of my leaving him in this fashion?"
+
+"That it was a bit of your usual eccentricity,--no more," said the
+other, laughing.
+
+"You are quite certain of what you've just told me?" asked Jack, after a
+pause.
+
+"I tell you that you shall have it from Hosey's own lips. He showed the
+post-mark on the back of the letter to Father Rafferty, and it was 'Cape
+Town, August 24.' Now, as Hosey knows young Martin's writing as well as
+any man, what doubt can there be about it?"
+
+"By that calculation," said Jack, thoughtfully, "he might be here within
+the present month!"
+
+"Exactly what Father Neal said."
+
+"A shrewd fellow that same Hosey must be to put things together in this
+fashion," said Jack. "Such a head as he has on his shoulders might n't
+be a bad counsellor at this moment."
+
+"Just come and talk to him a bit," rejoined Magennis; "say you want
+to be trimmed about the whiskers, and he'll be a proud man to have you
+under his hand."
+
+"And the committee are satisfied with my letter?" asked Jack.
+
+"They are, and they are not; but, on the whole, they think it's a step
+in the right direction to get anything out of the Martins, and, as
+Father Neal remarks, 'where we can pass with our head, we can put our
+whole body through.'"
+
+"But what 's to be done about Nelligan? The breach with him is, I
+suspect, irreparable."
+
+"Why, it was Nelligan himself moved the first resolution in the
+committee, that your address be accepted as embodying the views--he said
+the present views--of the liberal electors."
+
+"You amaze me!" cried Massingbred; "and Joe, where was he?"
+
+"Joe is off to Dublin; there 's some examination or other he must
+attend. But old Dan is your friend, rely upon that."
+
+"This is inexplicable," muttered Jack to himself.
+
+"We 'll go there, straight, the moment we get into the town. He 'll take
+it as a great compliment; and you can talk to him frankly and openly,
+for old Dan is a man to be trusted."
+
+"I wish I could guess at how this reconciliation has been effected,"
+muttered Jack.
+
+"It was your letter did it, I think."
+
+"But I never wrote one."
+
+"Well, somebody else did, perhaps; at all events, Dan had an open letter
+in his hand when he addressed the committee, and said, 'After reading
+this, gentlemen,' said he, 'I can only say that I 'll not oppose Mr.
+Massingbred; and if the free and independent men of Oughterard ask
+me who is the man to represent them, I'll answer, he 's your man!
+And what's more, there 's my name down for two hundred pounds for the
+election, if it ever comes to be a contest!'"
+
+"This is all very good, but very strange news," cried Jack.
+
+"Well, I can explain nothing of the mystery, if there be one. I only
+know what I heard and saw myself."
+
+"Let us go to his house, at all events," said Massingbred, who now
+suffered his companion to rattle on about the state of parties and
+politics in Oughterard, little heeding his remarks, and only bent on
+following out his own thoughts. "Give whom the slip?" asked he, suddenly
+catching at the last words of some observation of Magennis.
+
+"The Martins, of course," resumed the other; "for, as Father Neal says,
+'if we can secure the borough for you, you can well afford to stand by
+_us_; but if you were only Martin's member, he 'd drop you whenever it
+suited him.'"
+
+"As to-morrow, for instance, if his son should make his appearance!"
+
+"Just so; and that's the very reason for not losing a minute about
+getting the Martins in for the cost. What can they say, after choosing
+you and putting you forward?"
+
+"They might make a personal appeal to me,--a distinct request to give
+place to the son."
+
+"And would n't you pay great attention to it?" said Magennis, in
+mockery.
+
+"I 'm not so very sure I 'd refuse," said Massingbred, slowly.
+
+"Faith, then, you 'd better be candid enough to tell the electors so 'at
+once.' Look now, Mr. Massingbred," said he, coming to a dead halt, and
+standing directly in front of him; "we don't go the same road, not one
+step, till I hear from you, distinctly and plainly, what you mean to
+do."
+
+"This is somewhat of a peremptory proceeding," replied Jack. "I think it
+would not be very unreasonable to allow a man in my situation a little
+time for reflection."
+
+"Reflect upon what?" cried Magennis. "Is it what politics you 'd be? If
+that's what you mean, I think you 'd better say nothing about it."
+
+"Come, come, Mac, you are not quite fair in this business; there _are_
+difficulties,--there are embarrassments very often in the way of doing
+things which we have made up our minds to do. Now, if I were perfectly
+certain that the liberal interest here could succeed in spite of
+Martin--"
+
+"So it will."
+
+"You're sure of that?"
+
+"I 'll show it to you on paper. We 'd rather have Martin with us and no
+contest, because it's cheaper; but if it must come to money, we 'll do
+it."
+
+"Satisfy me on that point, and I'm with you; there's my hand on't!"
+
+And Magennis grasped him in his own strong fingers to ratify the
+contract.
+
+While "Mac" went on to give some insight into the views and wishes of
+his party, they reached the town and entered the main street, and held
+their way towards old Nelligan's shop.
+
+"That's Father Neal's pony at the door," said Mac, as they approached
+the shop; "so we'll find them both together."
+
+"I scarcely think I can enter here," said Massingbred, "after what
+passed last between us. We surely did not part as friends."
+
+"How little you know about us at all!" said Mac. "Old Dan bears you no
+malice, I 'd lay fifty pounds on it! But, if you like, I 'll just step
+in and take soundings."
+
+"Do so, then," said Massingbred, not sorry to have even a few moments to
+himself for quiet thought and consideration. He was still standing, and
+deeply engrossed by his reflections, when he was aroused by hearing his
+name called aloud, and, on looking up, perceived Magennis beckoning to
+him from a window overhead. In obedience to the signal, Jack turned and
+entered the shop, where his friend quickly joined him. "Old Dan is in
+his bed, with a heavy cold and a rheumatism, but he 'll see you; and
+Father Neal's with him, and Hayes, besides." And with this information
+he hurried Jack up the stairs, and led him into a darkened room, where
+the figures of the priest and old Hayes were dimly discernible. Before
+Massingbred had well crossed the door-sill, Nelligan called out, "Your
+servant, Mr. Massingbred. I 'm more than pleased with your explanation.
+Let me shake your hand once more."
+
+"I'm not quite sure that I understand you," said Jack, in a low voice;
+but before he could continue, the priest advanced to greet him, followed
+by old Peter.
+
+"Wasn't I in luck to catch him on the road this morning?" said Magennis;
+"he was coming in with the old Counsellor, and just got out to walk up a
+hill--"
+
+"Remember," said Jack, "that I have few minutes to spare, for I must be
+in waiting about the market-place when he drives in."
+
+"We must have a conference, though," said Father Neal; "there 's much to
+be settled. First of all, are we to coalesce for the representation?"
+
+"No, no, no!" cried Nelligan. "We 'll have it our own way. If Mr.
+Massingbred will be our Member, we want no help from the Martins."
+
+"There 's five pounds, and I 'll make it guineas if you like," said old
+Hayes, putting a note upon the table; "but the devil a Whig or Tory
+will ever get more out of Peter Hayes!"
+
+A very good-natured laugh from the others showed how little umbrage the
+frank avowal excited.
+
+"We 'll not want for money, Peter, make your mind easy about that," said
+Dan. "When can you meet the committee, Mr. Massingbred? Could you say
+to-night?"
+
+"Better to-morrow morning. I must return to Cro' Martin this evening."
+
+"Certainly,--of course," said Father Neal, blandly. "You 'll have to
+come to an understanding with Mr. Martin about the borough, declare what
+your principles are, and how, upon very mature consideration, you find
+you can't agree with the opinions of himself and his party."
+
+Magennis winked significantly at Jack, as though to say, "Listen
+to _him; he 's_ the man to instruct and direct you;" and the priest
+resumed:--
+
+"Go on to explain that your only utility in the House could arise from
+your being the exponent of what you feel to be the truth about Ireland,
+the crying evils of the Established Church, and the present tenure of
+land! When you throw these two shells in, sir, the town will be on fire.
+He 'll reply that under these circumstances there 's no more question
+about your standing for the borough; you'll say nothing,--not a word,
+not a syllable; you only smile. If Repton 's by--and he 's likely to
+be--he 'll get hot, and ask you what you mean by that--"
+
+"There 's Scanlan just driving round the corner," said Magennis, in a
+whisper; and Massingbred arose at once and drew nigh to the bedside.
+
+"Could I say one word to you alone, Mr. Nelligan?" said he, in a low
+voice.
+
+"Of course," said he. And whispering the priest to take the others into
+an adjoining room, old Nelligan motioned Jack to sit down beside him.
+
+"You said, as I came in," said Jack, "that you were satisfied with my
+explanation--"
+
+"To be sure I was," broke in Dan. "All I wanted to know was, that you
+acted under a misconception. That being once explained, there was no
+offence on either side. Now, Catty Henderson's letter to my wife put the
+thing straight at once; she showed that _your_ conduct at Cro' Martin
+arose out of a notion that Joe had slighted you."
+
+[Illustration: 302]
+
+"Have you got this letter?" asked Jack, eagerly.
+
+"Indeed, then, I have not; his mother forwarded it to Joe by the same
+post; but, as I tell you I 'm satisfied, there 's an end of it."
+
+"Scanlan 's asking for you below stairs," said Magennis, putting in his
+head; "and I hear them saying that they didn't see you in town."
+
+"All right," said Jack; "so I'll just slip out by the garden gate and
+meet him in the market-square." And with a hurried leave-taking Jack
+withdrew, his mind very far from that state of tranquil composure in
+which it was his pride to affect that he invariably revelled.
+
+"There they go!" cried Father Neal, shortly after, as Scanlan drove
+rapidly by, with Massingbred beside him. "Maybe Master Maurice won't
+abuse us all round before he turns in at the gate of Cro' Martin!"
+
+"Massingbred is too cute to mind him," said Magennis.
+
+"Ah, Tom, there 's one appeal men of his stamp are never deaf to. You
+may say fifty things that won't shock them in religion or morals or good
+taste; but only utter the one word 'vulgar,' and their indignation rises
+at once. That's what Scanlan will do, take my word for it He 'll call us
+a low set of fellows, that have no position in society,--no acceptance
+anywhere."
+
+"But Massingbred is a gentleman born, and he won't be led astray by such
+a consideration."
+
+"It is exactly for that very reason that he will," said the priest,
+stoutly. "It's a strange fact, but there 's no manner of man rates
+social advantages so high as he that has them by right, and without any
+struggle for them."
+
+"Well," said old Hayes, slowly, "if I once thought that of him, the
+devil a vote of mine he 'd get, no matter what his principles were."
+
+"And there you 're wrong, Peter," said Nelligan. "Matters of good
+manners and breeding need never be discussed between us. Mr. Massingbred
+will have _his_ station; we'll have _ours_. There 's a long and weary
+road before us ere we come to think of our social condition. There
+'s many a cruel statute to be abolished, many a hard grievance to be
+redressed."
+
+"And besides that," said Father Neal, with a shrewd twinkle in his eye,
+"while we 're doing the one we 'll be helping on the other. Political
+influence always did, and always will, include rank and station in the
+world. When English Ministers find their best ally in the Irish Priest,
+there will be no more sneers at his brogue nor his boots. Men of family
+and fortune won't shrink from their contact, and maybe you 'll see
+the day yet when coaches and chariots will drive up to the chapel, and
+ladies in satin and velvet step out to hear Mass."
+
+A prophetic view of the Millennium itself could not have astonished
+old Peter Hayes more completely than did this marvellous suggestion of
+Father Neal; and he moved away muttering a "Heaven grant it!" between
+his teeth.
+
+"Where's the next meeting of the committee to be?" asked Nelligan.
+
+"In the Chapel House, to-morrow, at eleven. And that reminds me I 've
+not sent out the summonses." And so saying, Father Neal hastily took
+leave of his friends and left the room.
+
+Let us take a glance at Mr. Maurice Scanlan, as, with an extra box-coat
+ingeniously wrapped around his lower man, he discoursed pleasantly to
+his companion while he "tooled" along towards Cro' Martin. Not a word
+of politics, not a syllable on the subject of party, escaped him as
+he talked. His conversation was entirely of sporting matters: the odds
+against Leander, the last bettings on "Firebrand," whether Spicy Bill
+was really in bad training, as the knowing ones said, and if the course
+wouldn't "puzzle the young ones" if the wet weather were to continue.
+
+Massingbred was sufficiently well versed in these classic themes to be
+an amusing and even instructive companion, and communicated many a sly
+piece of intelligence that would have been deemed priceless in "Bell's
+Life;" and Scanlan quickly conceived a high estimate for one who had
+graduated at Newmarket, and taken honors at Goodwood.
+
+"After the kind of life you 've led in England, I wonder how you endure
+this country at all," said Maurice, with real sincerity of voice and
+manner.
+
+"I like it," said Jack; "the whole thing is new to me, and vastly
+amusing. I don't mean to say I 'd willingly pass a lifetime in this
+fashion, but for a few weeks--"
+
+"Just so; to give you a better relish for the real thing when you go
+back again," said Maurice.
+
+"What a neat stepper that leader is!" said Jack, to change the topic
+from himself and his own affairs. "She's a well-bred one; that's clear."
+
+"Nearly full-bred; the least bit of cocktail in the world. She's out of
+Crescent, that ran a very good third for the Oaks."
+
+"A strong horse, and a very honest one," said Jack.
+
+"Well, I bought that little mare from young Mr. Martin--the
+Captain--when he was ordered out to India; I put her in training, and
+ran her at the Curragh in three weeks, and won, too, the St. Lawrence
+Handicap."
+
+"Is Captain Martin a sporting character?" asked Jack, carelessly.
+
+"He is and he is not," said Scanlan, half querulously. "He likes a safe
+thing,--do you understand?" and he gave a most significant wink as he
+spoke.
+
+"Oh, then he's close about money matters?" said Massingbred.
+
+"Not exactly that. He 's wasteful and spendthrift, but he'd go to the
+world's end to do a knowing thing; you 've seen men of that kind?"
+
+"Scores of them," replied Jack; "and they were always the easiest
+fellows to be duped!"
+
+"Exactly my own experience," said Scanlan, delighted to find his
+opinions confirmed in such a quarter. "Now, young Martin would give five
+hundred pounds for a horse to win a fifty pound cup. Don't you know what
+I mean?"
+
+"Perfectly," said Massingbred, with an approving smile.
+
+"Nobody knows the sums he has drawn since he went away," exclaimed
+Scanlan, who was momentarily growing more and more confidential.
+
+"There 's a deal of high play in India; perhaps he gambles," said Jack,
+carelessly.
+
+A significant wink and nod gave the answer.
+
+"Well, well," added he, after a pause, "he 'll not mend matters by
+coming back again."
+
+"And is he about to visit England?" asked Massingbred, in the same easy
+tone.
+
+"So they say," replied Scanlan, with an effort at the easy indifference
+of the other.
+
+"On leave, perhaps?" said Jack, indolently.
+
+"That 's more than I know," replied he, and relapsed into a thoughtful
+silence, during which Massingbred continued to scan his features with a
+sly, downcast glance peculiar to himself.
+
+"You've never been in Leicestershire, Mr. Scanlan?" said he, when he
+had fully satisfied himself with his examination. "Well, then, come over
+there in the spring--say about March next--and pay me a visit. I 've got
+a sort of hunting-box there, with a neat stable, and by that time I hope
+to raise funds for a couple of nags."
+
+"Trust _me_ for the horseflesh, sir. I know where to mount you this very
+minute. You 're not much above eleven stone?"
+
+"Eleven-eight,--at least, so I used to be. Is it a bargain? Will you
+come?"
+
+"There's my hand on't," said the attorney, overjoyed at the prospect.
+
+"Mackworth, and Lord Harry Coverdale, and Sir Went-worth Danby, and
+a few more, are all my neighbors. Capital fellows, whom you 'll be
+delighted with. Just the sort of men to suit you,--up to everything that
+means sport."
+
+"Exactly what I like!" cried Maurice, in ecstasy.
+
+"We'll arrange it all this evening, then," said Jack. "Just drop into my
+room after they 're all gone to bed, and we'll have a talk over it. You
+don't know my father, do you?"
+
+"I haven't that honor," said Scanlan, with an accent of real deference
+in his voice.
+
+"Another kind of person from these I've mentioned," said Jack, slowly.
+
+"So I should suppose, sir," said Scanlan, a tone of respect
+involuntarily attaching itself to him as he addressed the son of a
+Secretary of State.
+
+"Not that he doesn't like field sports, and all the enjoyments of a
+country life. But, you know, he's an old official--a Downing Street
+veteran--who really relishes public business, just as you and I would a
+coursing-match, or a heavy pool at Crocky's."
+
+Scanlan nodded as if in perfect assent.
+
+"While I say this, it's only fair to add that he has most excellent
+qualities, and is a stanch friend when he takes any one up. I suspect
+you 'd like him. I know he 'd like your--"
+
+"I 'm greatly flattered. I don't deserve--"
+
+"You see," said Jack, not heeding the interruption, and assuming the
+low accents of a confidential communication--"You see, he and I have not
+been on the very best of terms for some time back; I 've done some silly
+things--spent a little more money than he liked--and, what was still
+worse in his eyes, refused a first-rate Government appointment--a really
+good thing, and such as one does n't meet with every day--and now, the
+only road back to his favor will be for me to come out strongly in some
+shape, either as a college prizeman or in public life. I despise the
+former. It's all very well for fellows like Nelligan--it's their natural
+'beat,'--but for a man like _me_, one who has seen the world,--the real
+world,--these are nothing more than schoolboy distinctions,--the silver
+medal he brings home of a Saturday, and makes him the wonder of his
+sisters for twenty-four hours. I'll have to strike out a line of my
+own!"
+
+"No fear of you, sir,--devil a bit!" said Maurice, with a sententious
+shake of the head. "Here we are now at Cro' Martin, and then there's the
+first dinner-bell ringing."
+
+"We shall be late, perhaps," said Jack.
+
+"You'll be in good time. As for me, I haven't been asked to dinner, so
+that when I drop you I 'll go down to the village."
+
+"Well, then, I 'll walk over and see you in the evening," said
+Massingbred. "It seems to me--I don't know whether you are of the same
+opinion, though--but it seems strongly to me that you and I ought to be
+allies."
+
+"If I thought I was worthy--"
+
+"Come, come, Scanlan, no modesty, old boy. You know you 're a devilish
+clever fellow, and you no more intend to pass your life cruising after
+petty-session practice in Galway, than I do to settle down here as
+under-gardener."
+
+"They 're all looking at us, sir, from the drawing-room window," said
+Scanlan, in a cautious voice; "don't let us appear too confidential."
+And at the same instant he extended his whip as though to point
+attention to some distant object, and seem as if he were describing the
+scenery.
+
+"Shrewd dog it is," muttered Massingbred in soliloquy, but taking good
+care to be overheard. "I 'll beat up your quarters, Scanlan, in a
+couple of hours or so," said Massingbred, as he descended from the lofty
+"drag."
+
+Somewhat, but not very much, later than the time appointed, Jack
+Massingbred appeared in the small chamber of the "Crueskeen,"--the
+humble hostel on the roadside adjoining the demesne of Cro' Martin.
+Maurice Scanlan had made every preparation which the fluid resources of
+the house admitted to receive his guest, but they were not destined to
+be put in requisition.
+
+"I have only come lest you should accuse me of forgetting you, Scanlan,"
+said Massingbred, as he stood in the doorway without removing his hat.
+"I 'm off to Oughter-ard, having made my adieux at Cro' Martin."
+
+"Left Cro' Martin, and for good!" exclaimed Scanlan.
+
+"If that means forever, I suspect you 're right," replied Jack; "but
+you 'll have the whole story in the morning when you go up there, and
+doubtless more impartially than I should tell it. And now, good-bye for
+a brief space. We shall meet soon." And, without waiting for an answer,
+he nodded familiarly, stepped briskly to the door, where a post-chaise
+awaited him, and was gone, before Scanlan had even half recovered from
+his astonishment and surprise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. AN AWKWARD VISITOR
+
+It is a singularly impressive sensation, and one, too, of which even
+frequency will scarcely diminish the effect, to pass from the busy
+streets and moving population of Dublin, and enter the quiet courts of
+the University. The suddenness of the change is most striking, and you
+pass at once from all the bustling interests of life--its cares and
+ambitions, its pursuits of wealth and pleasure--into the stillness of a
+cloister. Scarcely within the massive gates, and the noise of the great
+capital is hushed and subdued, its sounds seem to come from afar, and
+in their place is an unbroken calm, or the more solemn echoes of its
+vaulted roofs.
+
+In a corner of the Old Square, and in a building almost entirely
+occupied by the University authorities, and whose stairs had seldom
+echoed beneath less reverend footsteps than those of deans and bursars,
+were the chambers of Joe Nelligan. He had obtained them in this peculiar
+locality as a special favor from "the Board," as eminently suited to
+his habits of study and seclusion; for his was indeed a life of
+labor,--labor, hard, unremitting, and unbroken! Dreary as was the aspect
+of the spot, it was one dear to the heart of him who occupied it. If it
+had been the cell wherein he had passed nights of severest toil and days
+of intense effort, so had it been the calm retreat into which he had
+retired as a sanctuary, and at times the scene of the hallowed joy he
+felt when success had crowned all his labors. Thither had he bent his
+steps at nightfall, as to a home; thence had he written the few lines
+which more than once announced his triumph to his father.
+
+Within those halls had he experienced all that he had ever tasted of
+successful ambition, and in the depths of that old chair had he dreamed
+away all the visions of a glorious future. The room in which he sat was
+a large and lofty one, lighted by two windows deeply set in the wall.
+Its sides were lined with book-shelves, and books littered the tables
+and even the floor,--for it was one of his caprices to read as he lay
+at full length, either on the ground or a sofa,--and the paper and pens
+were scattered about in different quarters, as accident suggested. The
+only thing like ornament to be seen was a lithographic print of Cro'
+Martin Castle over the fireplace,--a strange exception would it seem,
+but traceable, perhaps, to some remote scene of boyish admiration for
+what had first awakened in him a feeling of awe and admiration; and
+there it now remained, time-worn and discolored, perhaps unnoticed, or
+looked on with very different emotions. Ay! these pictures are terrible
+landmarks of our thoughts! I speak not of such as appeal to our hearts
+by the features we loved, the eyes into whose depths we have gazed, the
+lips on whose accents we have hung entranced, but even when they trace
+the outlines of some spot well known to us in boyhood,--some scene of
+long, long years ago. It is not alone that the "Then" and "Now" stand
+out in strongest contrast, that what we were and what we are are in
+juxtaposition, but that whole memories of what we once hoped to be come
+rushing over us, and all the spirit-stirring emotions of early ambitions
+mingle themselves with the stern realities of the present. And, after
+all, what success in life, however great and seemingly unexpected it may
+be, ever equals one of the glorious daydreams of our boyish ambition,
+in which there comes no alloy of broken health, wasted energies, and
+exhausted spirits? or, far worse again, the envious jealousy of those
+we once deemed friends, and who, had we lived obscurely, still might
+be such? Student life is essentially imaginative. The very division of
+time, the objects which have value to a student's eyes, the seclusion
+in which he lives, the tranquil frame of mind coexistent with highly
+strained faculties, all tend to make his intervals of repose periods of
+day-dream and revery. It is not improbable that these periods are the
+fitting form of relaxation for overtaxed minds, and that the Imagination
+is the soothing influence that repairs the wear and tear of Reason.
+
+The peculiar circumstances of young Nelligan's position in life had
+almost totally estranged him from others. The constraint that attaches
+to a very bashful temperament had suggested to him a certain cold and
+reserved manner, that some took for pride, and many were repelled from
+his intimacy by this seeming haughtiness. The unhappy course of what
+had been his first friendship--for such was it with Massingbred--had
+rendered him more distrustful than ever of himself, and more firmly
+convinced that to men born as he had been the world imposes a barrier
+that only is passable by the highest and greatest success. It is true,
+his father's letter of explanation assuaged the poignancy of his sorrow;
+he saw that Massingbred had proceeded under a misconception, and had
+believed himself the aggrieved individual; but all these considerations
+could not obliterate the fact that an insult to his social station was
+the vengeance adopted by him, and that Massingbred saw no more galling
+outrage in his power than to reflect upon his rank in life.
+
+There are men who have a rugged pride in contrasting what they were
+with what they are. Their self-love finds an intense pleasure in
+contemplating difficulties overcome, obstacles surmounted, and a goal
+won, all by their own unaided efforts, and to such the very obscurity of
+their origin is a source of boastful exultation. Such men are, however,
+always found in the ranks of those whose success is wealth. Wherever the
+triumphs are those rewarded by station, or the distinctions conferred
+on intellectual superiority, this vainglorious sentiment is unknown.
+An inborn refinement rejects such coarse pleasure, just as their
+very habits of life derive no enjoyment from the display and splendor
+reflected by riches.
+
+Joe Nelligan felt his lowly station most acutely, because he saw in it a
+disqualification for that assured and steady temperament which can make
+most of success. He would have given half of all he might possess in the
+world for even so much of birth as might exempt him from a sneer.
+The painful sensitiveness that never rested nor slept--that made him
+eternally on the watch lest some covert allusion might be made to
+him--was a severe suffering; and far from decreasing, it seemed to grow
+with him as he became older, and helped mainly to withdraw him further
+from the world.
+
+No error is more common than for bashful men to believe that they are
+unpopular in society, and that the world "will none of them." They
+interpret their own sense of difficulty as a feeling of dislike in
+others, and retire to their solitudes convinced that these are their
+fitting dwelling-places. To this unpalatable conviction was Joseph
+Nelligan now come; and as he entered his chambers, and closed the heavy
+door behind him, came the thought: "Here at least no mortifications
+can reach me. These old books are my truest and best of friends, and in
+their intercourse there is neither present pain nor future humiliation!"
+
+It was on a dark and dreary day in winter, and in that cheerless hour
+before the closing in of night, that Joseph sat thus in his solitary
+home. The sound of carriage-wheels and the sharp tramp of horses'
+feet--a rare event in these silent courts--slightly aroused him from a
+revery; but too indolent to go to the window, he merely raised his head
+to listen; and now a loud knock shook the outer door of his chambers.
+With a strange sense of perturbation at this unwonted summons, he arose
+and opened it.
+
+"The Chief Secretary begs to know if Mr. Nelligan is at home?" said a
+well-powdered footman, in a plain but handsome livery.
+
+"Yes; I am the person," said Joseph, with a diffidence strongly in
+contrast with the composure of the other; and while he yet stood,
+door in hand, the steps of the carriage were let down, and a tall
+venerable-looking man, somewhat past the prime of life, descended and
+approached him.
+
+"I must be my own introducer, Mr. Nelligan," said he; "my name is
+Massingbred."
+
+With considerable confusion of manner, and in all that hurry in which
+bashful men seek to hide their awkwardness, Joseph ushered his visitor
+into his dimly lighted chamber.
+
+Colonel Massingbred, with all the staid composure of a very quiet
+demeanor, had quite sufficient tact to see that he was in the company
+of one little versed in the world, and, as soon as he took his seat,
+proceeded to explain the reason of his visit.
+
+"My son has told me of the great pleasure and profit he has derived from
+knowing you, sir," said he; "he has also informed me that a slight and
+purely casual event interrupted the friendship that existed between you;
+and although unable himself to tender personally to you at this moment
+all his regrets on the subject, he has charged me to be his interpreter,
+and express his deep sorrow for what has occurred, and his hope that,
+after this avowal, it may never be again thought of by either of you."
+
+"There was a misunderstanding,--a fault on both sides. I was wrong in
+the first instance," said Nelligan, faltering and stammering at every
+word.
+
+"Mr. Nelligan is in a position to be generous," said the Colonel,
+blandly, "and he cannot better show the quality than by accepting a
+frank and full apology for a mere mistake. May I trust," continued
+he,--but with that slight change of tone that denoted a change of
+topic,--"that you have somewhat abated those habits of severe study you
+have hitherto pursued? Jack is really uneasy on that score, and wisely
+remarks that great talents should be spared the penalty of great labor."
+
+"I am not reading now. I have read very little of late," said Joseph,
+diffidently.
+
+"I can imagine what that means," said the Colonel, smiling. "Mr.
+Nelligan's relaxations would be the hard labor of less zealous students;
+but I will also say that upon other grounds this must be done with more
+consideration. The public interests, Mr. Nelligan,--the country, to
+whose service you will one day be called on to contribute those high
+abilities,--will not be satisfied to learn that their exercise should
+have been impaired by over-effort in youth."
+
+"You overrate me much, sir. I fear that you have been misled both as to
+my capacity and my objects."
+
+"Your capacity is matter of notoriety, Mr. Nelligan! your objects may be
+as high as any ambition can desire. But perhaps it is obtrusive in one
+so new to your acquaintance to venture on these topics; if so, pray
+forgive me, and set it down to the error I have fallen into of fancying
+that I know you as well personally as I do by reputation and character."
+
+Before Nelligan could summon words to reply to this complimentary
+speech, the door of his room was flung suddenly open, and a short,
+thickset figure, shrouded in a coarse shawl and a greatcoat, rushed
+towards him, exclaiming in a rich brogue,--
+
+"Here I am, body and bones; just off the coach, and straight to your
+quarters."
+
+"What! Mr. Crow; is it possible?" cried Nelligan, in some confusion.
+
+"Just himself, and no other," replied the artist, disengaging himself
+from his extra coverings. "When you said to me, 'Come and see me when
+you visit Dublin,' I said to myself, 'There 's a trump, and I 'll do it;'
+and so here I am."
+
+"You left the country yesterday. Did you bring me any letters?" asked
+Nelligan; but in the uncertain tone of a man who talked merely to say
+something.
+
+"Not a line,--not a word. Your father was over head and ears at work
+this week back about the election, and it was only the night before last
+it was over."
+
+"And is it over?" asked Nelligan, eagerly.
+
+"To be sure it is. Young Massingbred is in, and a nice business it is."
+
+"Let me inform you, Mr. Crow, before you proceed further--" broke in
+Nelligan; but as he got so far, Colonel Massingbred laid his hand on his
+arm, and said, in a bland but steady voice, "Pray allow the gentleman to
+continue; his account promises to be most interesting."
+
+"Indeed, then, that's what it is not," said Crow; "for I think it's
+all bad from beginning to end." Another effort to interrupt by Nelligan
+being repressed by the Colonel, Crow resumed: "Everybody trying to cheat
+somebody else; the Martins wanting to cheat the borough, the borough
+wanting to jockey the Martins, and then young Massingbred humbugging
+them both! And there he is now, Member for Oughterard; and much he cares
+for them both."
+
+"Was there a contest, sir?" asked the Colonel, while by a gesture he
+enforced silence on Nelligan.
+
+"As bitter a one as ever you saw in your life," continued Simmy, quite
+flattered at the attention vouchsafed him; "for though the Martins put
+young Massingbred forward at first, they quarrelled with him before
+the day for the nomination,--something or other about the franchise, or
+Maynooth, or the Church Establishment. Sorra one o' me know much about
+these matters; but it was a serious difference, and they split about it!
+And after all their planning and conniving together, what do they do
+but propose Martin's son, the man in the dragoons, for the borough!
+Massingbred bids them do their worst, packs up, sets out for the town,
+and makes a speech exposing them all! The next morning he comes to the
+poll, with Joe's father there, and Peter Hayes, to propose and second
+him. Martin drives in with three elegant coaches and four, and tries to
+do the thing 'grand.' 'It's too late, sir; the people know their power,'
+as Father Neal told them; and, upon my conscience, I believe it's a
+most dangerous kind of knowledge. At all events, at it they go; and such
+fighting and murdering nobody ever saw before. There's not a whole
+pane of glass in the town, and many a skull cracked as well! One of the
+wickedest of the set was young Massingbred himself; he 'd assault the
+cars as they drove in, and tear out the chaps he thought were his own
+voters, in spite of themselves. He has the spirit of the devil in him!
+And then to hear how he harangued the people and abused the aristocracy.
+Maybe he did n't lay it on well! To be sure, the Martins drove him to
+it very hard. They called him a 'renegade' and a 'spy.' They ransacked
+everything they could get against his character, and at last declared
+that he had no qualification, and wasn't worth sixpence."
+
+"And how did he answer that?" cried the Colonel, who, fixing his eyes on
+the other, entirely engaged his attention.
+
+"I 'll tell you how he did. Just producing the title-deeds of an estate
+that old Nelligan settled on him eight days before,--ay, and so well and
+securely that Counsellor Repton himself, with all his cuteness, could
+n't find a flaw in it. Repton said, in my own hearing, 'That 's the
+cleverest blackguard in Ireland!'"
+
+"Mr. Crow--Crow, I say," broke in young Nelligan.
+
+"Pray don't interrupt him," said the Colonel, in a tone that seemed to
+demand obedience; "I want to learn by what majority he gained the day."
+
+"Thirty-eight or thirty-nine; and there's only two hundred and odd in
+the borough. There may be, perhaps, a dozen of these to strike off on a
+petition; but he 's all safe after that."
+
+"And will they petition against his return?"
+
+"They say so, but nobody believes them. His father,"--and here he made a
+gesture towards Nelligan,--"his father has a strong purse, and will see
+him well through it all."
+
+"This is very interesting news to me, sir," said the Colonel, with
+another sign to Joseph not to betray him; "for although I could well
+imagine Jack Massingbred equal to such an occasion as you describe, I
+was scarcely prepared to hear of the generous confidence reposed in him,
+nor the prompt and able co-operation of the Liberal party."
+
+"Ah, I perceive," said Crow, with a significant motion of his eyebrows.
+"You thought that his name would be against him, and that people would
+say, 'Is n't he the son of old Moore Massingbred, that took his bribe
+for the Union?'"
+
+"This is intolerable," cried Nelligan, starting up from his seat and
+speaking with all the vehemence of outraged feelings. "It is to Colonel
+Massingbred himself you have dared to address this impertinence."
+
+"What--how--what's this!" exclaimed Crow, in a perfect horror of shame.
+
+"The fault, if there be any, is all mine, sir," said the Colonel,
+pressing him down into his seat. "I would not have lost the animated
+description you have just given me, uttered, as it was, in such perfect
+frankness, for any consideration; least of all, at the small price
+of hearing a public expression on a public man's conduct. Pray, now,
+continue to use the same frankness, and tell me anything more that
+occurs to you about this remarkable contest."
+
+This appeal, uttered in all the ease of a well-bred manner, was quite
+unsuccessful. Mr. Crow sat perfectly horrified with himself, endeavoring
+to remember what possible extent of offence he might have been betrayed
+into by his narrative. As for Nelligan, his shame and confusion were
+even greater still; and he sat gazing ruefully and reproachfully at the
+unlucky painter.
+
+Colonel Massingbred made one or two more efforts to relieve the
+awkwardness of the incident, but so palpably fruitless were the attempts
+that he desisted, and arose to take his leave. As Joe accompanied him
+to the door, he tried to blunder out some words of excuse. "My dear Mr.
+Nelligan," broke in the other, with a quiet laugh, "don't imagine for
+a moment that I am offended. In the first place, your friend was the
+bearer of very pleasant tidings, for Jack has not condescended to write
+to me about his success; and secondly, public life is such a stern
+schoolmaster, that men like myself get accustomed to rather rough usage,
+particularly at the hands of those who do not know us. And now, as I am
+very unwilling to include you in this category, when will you come and
+see me? What day will you dine with me?"
+
+Nelligan blushed and faltered, just as many another awkward man has done
+in a similar circumstance; for, however an easy matter for you, my dear
+sir, with all your tact and social readiness, to fix the day it will
+suit you to accept of an almost stranger's hospitality, Joseph had no
+such self-possession, and only stammered and grew crimson.
+
+"Shall it be on Saturday? for to-morrow I am engaged to the Chancellor,
+and on Friday I dine with his Excellency. Will Saturday suit you?" asked
+the Colonel.
+
+"Yes, sir, perfectly; with much pleasure," answered Nelligan.
+
+"Then Saturday be it, and at seven o'clock," said Massingbred, shaking
+his hand most cordially; while Joe, with sorrowful step, returned to his
+chamber.
+
+"Well, I think I did it there, at all events!" cried Simmy, as the other
+entered. "But what, in the name of all that's barefaced, prevented your
+stopping me? Why did n't you pull me up short before I made a beast of
+myself?"
+
+"How could I? You rushed along like a swollen river. You were so full of
+your blessed subject that you would n't heed an interruption; and as to
+signs and gestures, I made twenty without being able to catch your eye."
+
+"I believe I 'm the only man living ever does these things," said Simmy,
+ruefully. "I lost the two or three people that used to say they were my
+friends by some such blundering folly as this. I only hope it won't do
+_you_ any mischief. I trust he 'll see that you are not responsible for
+my delinquencies!"
+
+There was a hearty sincerity in poor Simmy's sorrow that at once
+conciliated Nelligan, and he did his best to obliterate every trace of
+the unhappy incident.
+
+"I scarcely supposed my father would have forgiven Massingbred so
+easily," said Joe, in his desire to change the topic.
+
+"Blarney,--all blarney!" muttered Crow, with an expressive movement of
+his eyebrows.
+
+"Father Neal himself is rather a difficult subject to treat with," added
+Joe.
+
+"Blarney again!"
+
+"Nor do I think," continued Nelligan, "that the constituency of the
+borough, as a body, are remarkable for any special liability to be
+imposed on!"
+
+"Nor would they, had it been an Irishman was trying to humbug them,"
+said Crow, emphatically. "Take my word for it,--and I 've seen a great
+deal of the world, and perhaps not the best of it either,--but take _my_
+word for it, English blarney goes further with us here than all else.
+It 's not that it's clever or insinuating or delicate,--far from it; but
+you see that nobody suspects it. The very blunders and mistakes of it
+have an air of sincerity, and we are, besides, so accustomed always to
+be humbugged with a brogue, that we fancy ourselves safe when we hear an
+English accent."
+
+"There's some ingenuity in your theory," said Joe, smiling.
+
+"There's fact in it; that's what there is," said Crow, rising from his
+seat. "I 'll be going now, for I 'm to dine with Tom Magennis at six."
+
+"Is he here, too?"
+
+"Yes; and was n't it a piece of good luck that I did n't say anything
+about him before Colonel Massingbred?"
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Just for this, then,--that it was young Massingbred gave him a letter
+to his father, recommending him for some place or other. Half of the
+borough expects to be in the Treasury, or the Post-Office, or the Board
+of Trade; and I was just on the tip of saying what a set of rapscallions
+they were. I 'm sure I don't know what saved me from it."
+
+"Your natural discretion, doubtless," said Joe, smiling.
+
+"Just so; it must have been that!" replied he, with a sigh.
+
+"You'll breakfast with me to-morrow, Crow, at eight," said Nelligan, as
+he parted with him at the door. And Simmy, having pledged himself to be
+punctual, hurried off to keep his dinner appointment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. A DAY "AFTER"
+
+The reaction that succeeds to a period of festivity has always an air of
+peculiar sadness and gloom about it. The day after a ball, the withered
+flowers, the faded decorations, the disordered furniture,--all tell
+the tale of departed pleasure and past enjoyment. The afternoon of that
+morning which has witnessed a wedding-breakfast,--the April landscape of
+joy and grief, the bridal beauty, and the high-beating hope of the happy
+lover, have all fled; and in the still and silent chambers there seems
+to brood a sense of sorrow and mourning. Still with these thoughts
+happier memories are mingled. The bright pageant of the past rises again
+before the mind; and smiles and music and laughter and graceful forms
+come back, and people space with their images. But how different from
+all this was the day after the election at Cro' Martin!
+
+For a week had the Martins condescended to derogate from their proud
+station and "play popular" to the electors of Oughterard. They had
+opened their most sumptuous apartments to vulgar company, and made
+guests of those they deemed inferior to their own domestics. They had
+given dinners and suppers and balls and picnics. They had lavished all
+the flatteries of attentions on their rude neighbors. They had admitted
+them to all the privileges of a mock equality, "so like the real article
+as not to be detected." They had stored their minds with all the lives
+and adventures of these ignoble intimates, so as to impart a false color
+of friendship to their conversation with them; in a word, and to use one
+by which her Ladyship summed up all the miseries of the occasion, they
+had "demoralized" more in a week than she believed it possible could
+have been effected in ten years. Let us be just, and add that my Lady
+had taken the phrase bodily out of her French vocabulary, and in her
+ardor applied it with its native signification,--that is, she alluded to
+the sad consequences of association with underbred company, and not
+by any means to any inroads made upon her sense of honor and high
+principle.
+
+Still, whatever pangs the sacrifice was costing within, it must be owned
+that no signs of them displayed themselves on the outside. Even Repton,
+stern critic as he was, said that "they did the thing well." And now it
+was all over, the guests gone, the festivities ended, the election lost,
+and nothing in prospect save to settle the heavy outlay of the contest,
+and pay the high price for that excessively dear article which combines
+contamination with disappointment.
+
+In her capacity of head of the administration, Lady Dorothea had assumed
+the whole guidance of this contest. With Miss Henderson as her private
+secretary, she had corresponded and plotted and bribed and intrigued to
+any extent; and although Repton was frequently summoned to a council,
+his advice was very rarely, if ever, adopted. Her Ladyship's happy
+phrase--"one ought to know their own borough people better than
+a stranger"--usually decided every vexed question in favor of her
+judgment.
+
+It is a strange characteristic of human nature that at no time do people
+inveigh so loudly against bad faith, treachery, and so on, as when
+themselves deeply engaged in some very questionable enterprise. Now her
+Ladyship had so fully made up her mind to win in this contest that she
+had silenced all scruples as to the means. She had set out with some
+comfortable self-assurance that she knew what was good for those "poor
+creatures" infinitely better than they did. That it was her duty--a
+very onerous and disagreeable one, too--to rescue them from the evil
+influence of demagogues and such like; and that when represented by
+a member of _her_ family, they would be invested with a pledge that
+everything which proper legislation could do for them would be theirs.
+So far she had the approval of her own conscience; and for all that was
+to follow after, she never consulted that tribunal. It is not at all
+improbable that there was little opportunity of doing so in a week of
+such bustle and excitement. Every day brought with it fresh cares and
+troubles; and although Kate Henderson proved herself invaluable in her
+various functions, her Ladyship's fatigues and exertions were of the
+greatest.
+
+The day after the election Lady Dorothea kept her bed. The second day,
+too, she never made her appearance; and it was late in the afternoon
+of the third that she stole languidly into her library, and ordered her
+maid to send Miss Henderson to her.
+
+As Kate entered the room, she could not help feeling struck by the
+alteration that had taken place in her Ladyship's appearance, who, as
+she lay back in a deep chair, with closed eyes and folded hands, looked
+like one risen from a long sick-bed.
+
+As she started and opened her eyes, however, at Kate's approach, the
+features assumed much of their wonted expression, and their haughty
+character was only tinged, but not subdued, by the look of sorrow
+they wore. With the low and pleasant voice which Kate possessed in
+perfection, she had begun to utter some words of pleasure at seeing her
+Ladyship again, when the other interrupted her hastily, saying,--
+
+"I want you to read to me, child. There, take that volume of Madame
+de Sevigne, and begin where you see the mark. You appear weak
+to-day,--tired, perhaps?"
+
+"Oh, a mere passing sense of fatigue, my Lady," said Kate, assuming her
+place, and preparing her book.
+
+"Chagrin, annoyance--disgust I would call it--are far more wearing than
+mere labor. For my own part, I think nothing of exertion. But let us not
+speak of it. Begin."
+
+And Kate now commenced one of those charming letters, wherein the
+thought is so embellished by the grace of expression that there is
+a perpetual semblance of originality, without that strain upon the
+comprehension that real novelty exacts. She read, too, with consummate
+skill. To all the natural gifts of voice and utterance she added a most
+perfect taste, and that nicely subdued dramatic feeling which lends to
+reading its great fascination. Nearly an hour had thus passed, and not
+a word nor a gesture from Lady Dorothea interrupted the reader. With
+slightly drooped eyelids, she sat calm and tranquil; and as Kate, at
+moments, stole a passing glance towards her, she could not guess whether
+she was listening to her or not.
+
+"You'd have succeeded on the stage, Miss Henderson," said she at length,
+raising her eyes slowly. "Did it never occur to you to think of that
+career?"
+
+"Once I had some notion of it, my Lady," said Kate quietly. "I played
+in a little private theatre of the Duchess's, and they thought that I
+had some dramatic ability."
+
+"People of condition have turned actors, latterly,--men, of course, I
+mean; for women, the ordeal is too severe,--the coarse familiarity of a
+very coarse class, the close association with most inferior natures--By
+the way, what a week of it we have had! I 'd not have believed any one
+who told me that the whole globe contained as much unredeemed vulgarity
+as this little neighborhood. What was the name of the odious little
+woman that always lifted the skirt of her dress before sitting down?"
+
+"Mrs. Creevy, my Lady."
+
+"To be sure,--Mrs. Creevy. And her friend, who always came with her?"
+
+"Miss Busk--"
+
+"Yes, of course; Miss Busk, of the Emporium. If I don't mistake, I 've
+given her an order for something,--bonnets, or caps; what is it?"
+
+"A head-dress. Your Ladyship told her--"
+
+"You 'll make me ill, child--positively ill--if you remind me of such
+horrors. I told you to come and read for me, and you begin to inflict
+me with what--I declare solemnly--is the most humiliating incident of my
+life."
+
+Kate resumed her book, and read on. Lady Dorothea was now, however,
+unmistakably inattentive, and the changing color of her cheek betrayed
+the various emotions which moved her.
+
+"I really fancy that Miss Martin liked the atrocious creatures we have
+received here the past week; she certainly showed them a species
+of attention quite distinct from mere acceptance; and then they all
+addressed her like old acquaintance. Did you observe that?"
+
+"I thought that they assumed a degree of familiarity with Miss Martin
+which was scarcely consistent with their station."
+
+"Say highly ridiculous, child,--perfectly preposterous; for although she
+will persist in a style of living very opposite to the requirements of
+her position, she is Miss Martin, and _my_ niece!"
+
+There was now a dead pause of some seconds. At length her Ladyship
+spoke:--
+
+"To have been beaten in one's own town, where we own every stick and
+stone in the place, really requires some explanation; and the more I
+reflect upon it, the more mysterious does it seem. Repton, indeed, had
+much to say to it. He is so indiscreet,--eh, don't you think so?"
+
+"He is very vain of his conversational powers, my Lady, and, like all
+clever talkers, says too much."
+
+"Just so. But I don't think him even agreeable. I deem him a bore,"
+said my Lady, snappishly. "That taste for story-telling--that anecdotic
+habit--is quite vulgar; nobody does it now."
+
+Kate listened, as though too eager for instruction to dare to lose a
+word, and her Ladyship went on:--
+
+"In the first place, everybody--in society, I mean--knows every story
+that can or ought to be told; and, secondly, a narrative always
+interrupts conversation, which is a game to be played by several."
+
+Kate nodded slightly, as though to accord as much acquiescence as
+consorted with great deference.
+
+"It is possible, therefore," resumed her Ladyship, "that he may have
+divulged many things in that careless way he talked; and my niece, too,
+may have been equally silly. In fact, one thing is clear,--the enemy
+acquired a full knowledge of our tactics, and met every move we made by
+another. I was prepared for all the violence, all the insult, all the
+licentious impertinence and ribaldry of such a contest; but certainly
+I reckoned on success." Another long and dreary pause ensued, and Lady
+Dorothea's countenance grew sadder and more clouded as she sat in moody
+silence. At length a faint tinge of color marked her cheek; her eyes
+sparkled, and it was in a voice of more than ordinary energy she said:
+"If they fancy, however, that we shall accept defeat with submission,
+they are much mistaken. They have declared the war, and it shall not
+be for them to proclaim peace on the day they 've gained a victory. And
+Miss Martin also must learn that her Universal Benevolence scheme must
+give way to the demands of a just retribution. Have you made out the
+list I spoke of?"
+
+"Yes, my Lady, in part; some details are wanting, but there are eighteen
+cases here quite perfect."
+
+"These are all cottiers,--pauper tenants," said Lady Dorothea, scanning
+the paper superciliously through her eyeglass.
+
+"Not all, my Lady; here, for instance, is Dick Sheehan, the blacksmith,
+who has worked for the castle twenty-eight years, and who holds a farm
+called Mulianahogue, on a terminable lease."
+
+"And he voted against us?" broke she in.
+
+"Yes; and made a very violent speech, too."
+
+"Well, turn him out, then," said Lady Dorothea, interrupting her. "Now,
+where 's your father? Send for Henderson at once; I 'll have no delay
+with this matter."
+
+"I have sent for him, my Lady; he 'll be here within half an hour."
+
+"And Scanlan also. We shall want him."
+
+"Mr. Scanlan will be here at the same time."
+
+"This case here, with two crosses before it, what does this refer to?"
+said her Ladyship, pointing to a part of the paper.
+
+"That's Mr. Magennis, my Lady, of Barnagheela, who has been making
+incessant appeals for a renewal of his tenure--"
+
+"And how did he behave?"
+
+"He seconded Mr. Massingbred's nomination, and made a very outrageous
+speech on the occasion."
+
+"To be sure, I remember him; and he had the insolence--the unparalleled
+insolence--afterwards to address Miss Martin, as she sat beside me in
+the carriage, and to tell her that if the rest of the family had been
+like her the scene that had been that day enacted would never have
+occurred! Who is this Hosey Lynch? His name is so familiar to me."
+
+"He is a postmaster of Oughterard, and a kind of factotum in the town."
+
+"Then make a note of him. He must be dismissed at once."
+
+"He is not a freeholder, my lady, but only mentioned as an active agent
+of the Liberal party."
+
+"Don't adopt that vulgar cant, Miss Henderson,--at least, when speaking
+to _me_, They are not--they have no pretensions to be called the Liberal
+party. It is bad taste as well as bad policy to apply a flattering
+epithet to a faction."
+
+"What shall I call them in future, my Lady?" asked Kate, with a most
+admirably assumed air of innocence.
+
+"Call them Papists, Radicals, Insurgents,--anything, in fact, which may
+designate the vile principles they advocate. You mentioned Mr. Nelligan,
+and I own to you I felt ill--positively ill--at the sound of his name.
+Just to think of that man's ingratitude,--base ingratitude. It is but
+the other day his son was our guest here,--actually dined at the table
+with us! You were here. _You_ saw him yourself!"
+
+"Yes, my Lady," was the quiet reply.
+
+"I 'm sure nothing could be more civil, nothing more polite, than our
+reception of him. I talked to him myself, and asked him something--I
+forget what--about his future prospects, and see if this man, or his
+father--for it matters not which--is not the ringleader of this same
+movement! I tell you, child, and I really do not say so to hurt your
+feelings, or to aggravate your natural regrets at your condition in
+life, but I say it as a great moral lesson,--that low people are
+invariably deceitful. Perhaps they do not always intend it; perhaps--and
+very probably, indeed--their standard of honorable dealing is a low one;
+but of the fact itself you may rest assured. They are treacherous, and
+they are vindictive!"
+
+"Ennis Cafferty, my Lady, who lives at Broguestown," said Kate,
+reading from the list, "sends a petition to your Ladyship, entreating
+forgiveness if he should have done anything to cause displeasure to the
+family."
+
+"What _did_ he do? that is the question."
+
+"He carried a banner inscribed 'Down with Monopoly!'"
+
+"Mark him for eviction. I'll have no half measures. Miss Martin has
+brought the estate to such a pass that we may draw the rents, but never
+aspire to the influence of our property. These people shall now know
+their real masters. Who is that knocking at the door?--Come in."
+
+And at this summons, uttered in a voice not peculiar for suavity, Mr.
+Henderson entered, bowing profoundly, and smoothing the few glossy hairs
+that streaked rather than covered his bald head. A momentary glance
+passed between the father and daughter; so fleeting, however, was it,
+that the most sharp-eyed observer could not have detected its meaning.
+Lady Dorothea was too deeply occupied with her own thoughts to waste a
+second's consideration on either of them, and promptly said,--
+
+"I want you, Henderson, to inform me who are the chief persons who
+have distinguished themselves in this outrageous insult to us in the
+borough."
+
+Mr. Henderson moved from one foot to the other, once more stroked down
+his hair, and seemed like a man suddenly called upon to enter on a very
+unpleasant and somewhat difficult task.
+
+"Perhaps you don't like the office, sir?" said she, hastily. "Perhaps
+your own principles are opposed to it?"
+
+"Na, my Leddy," said he, deferentially, "I ha' nae principles but such
+as the family sanctions. It's nae business o' mine to profess poleetical
+opinions."
+
+"Very true, sir,--very just; you comprehend your station," replied she,
+proudly. "And now to my demand. Who are the heads of this revolt?--for
+it is a revolt!"
+
+"It's nae sa much a revolt, my Leddy," rejoined he, slowly and
+respectfully, "as the sure and certain consequence of what has been
+going on for years on the property. I did my best, by warning, and
+indeed by thwarting, so far as I could, these same changes. But I was
+not listened to. I foretold what it would all end in, this amelearating
+the condition of the small farmer--this raising the moral standard of
+the people, and a' that. I foresaw that if they grew richer they 'd grow
+sturdier; and if they learned to read, they'd begin to reflact. Ah, my
+leddy, a vara dangerous practice this same habit of reflection is, to
+folk who wear ragged clothes and dine on potatoes!"
+
+"I apprehend that the peril is not felt so acutely in your own country,
+sir!"
+
+"Vara true, my Leddy; your remark is vara just; but there's this
+difference to be remembered: the Scotch are canny folk, and we do many
+a thing that might n't be safe for others, but we take care never to do
+them ower much."
+
+"I don't want your philosophizing, sir, about national characteristics.
+I conclude that you know--it is your duty to know--whence this spirit
+took its rise. I desire to be informed on this head, and also what
+measures you have to advise for its suppression."
+
+Another pause, longer and more embarrassing than the first, followed on
+this speech, and Mr. Henderson really seemed balancing within himself
+whether he would or not give evidence.
+
+"Your reluctance has only to go a step further, Henderson, to impress me
+with the worst suspicions of yourself!" said Lady Dorothea, sternly.
+
+"I 'm vara sorry for it, my Leddy; I don't deserve them," was the calm
+reply.
+
+Had Lady Dorothea been quick-sighted, she might have detected a glance
+which the daughter directed towards her father; but she had been more
+than quick-minded if she could have read its meaning, so strange was the
+expression it bore.
+
+"In plain words, sir, do you know the offenders? and if so, how can we
+punish them?"
+
+"Your Leddyship has them all there," said he, pointing to the list on
+the table; "but there's nae sa much to be done wi' them, as the chief o'
+the lot are men o' mark and means, wi' plenty o' siller, and the sperit
+to spend it."
+
+"I hear of nothing but defaulters till a moment like this arrives, sir,"
+said her Ladyship, passionately. "The burden of every song is arrears
+of rent; and now I am told that the tenantry are so prosperous that they
+can afford to defy their landlord. Explain this, sir!"
+
+Before Mr. Henderson had completed that hesitating process which with
+him was the prelude to an answer, the door opened, and Mary Martin
+entered. She was in a riding-dress, and bore the traces of the road on
+her splashed costume; but her features were paler than usual, and her
+lip quivered as she spoke.
+
+"My dear aunt," cried she, not seeming to notice that others were
+present, "I have come back at speed from Kyle's Wood to learn if it be
+true--but it cannot be true--however the poor creatures there believe
+it--that they are to be discharged from work, and no more employment
+given at the quarries. You have n't seen them, dear aunt--you haven't
+beheld them, as I did this morning--standing panic-stricken around the
+scene of their once labor, not speaking, scarcely looking at each other,
+more like a shipwrecked crew upon an unknown shore than fathers and
+mothers beside their own homesteads!"
+
+"It was I gave the order, Miss Martin," said Lady Dorothea, proudly. "If
+these people prefer political agitation to an honest subsistence, let
+them pay the price of it."
+
+"But who says that they have done so?" replied Mary. "These poor
+creatures have not a single privilege to exercise; they have n't a vote
+amongst them. The laws have forgotten them just as completely as human
+charity has."
+
+"If they have no votes to record, they have voices to outrage and insult
+their natural protectors. Henderson knows that the worst mobs in the
+borough were from this very district."
+
+"Let him give the names of those he alludes to. Let him tell me
+ten--five--ay, three, if he can, of Kyle's Wood men who took any share
+in the disturbances. I am well aware that it is a locality where he
+enjoys little popularity himself; but at least he need not calumniate
+its people. Come, sir, who are these you speak of?"
+
+Kate Henderson, who sat with bent-down head during this speech,
+contrived to steal a glance at the speaker so meaningful and so
+supplicating that Mary faltered, and as a deep blush covered her cheek,
+she hastily added: "But this is really not the question. This miserable
+contest has done us all harm; but let us not perpetuate its bitterness!
+We have been beaten in an election, but I don't think we ought to be
+worsted in a struggle of generosity and good feeling. Come over, dear
+aunt, and see these poor creatures."
+
+"I shall certainly do no such thing, Miss Martin. In the first place,
+the fever never leaves that village."
+
+"Very true, aunt; and it will be worse company if our kindness should
+desert them. But if you will not come, take _my_ word for the state of
+their destitution. We have nothing so poor on the whole estate."
+
+[Illustration: 330]
+
+"It is but a moment back I was told that the spirit of resistance to our
+influence here arose from the wealthy independence of the people; now,
+I am informed it is their want and destitution suggest the opposition. I
+wish I could ascertain which of you is right."
+
+"It's little matter if our theory does not lead us to injustice," said
+Mary, boldly. "Let me only ride back to the quarries, aunt, and tell
+these poor people that they 've nothing to fear,--that there is no
+thought of withdrawing from them their labor nor its hire. Their lives
+are, God knows, not overlaid with worldly blessings; let us not add one
+drop that we can spare to their cup of sorrow."
+
+"The young leddy says na mair than the fact; they're vara poor, and they
+'re vara dangerous!"
+
+"How do you mean dangerous, sir?" asked Lady Dorothea, hastily.
+
+"There's more out o' that barony at the assizes, my Leddy, than from any
+other on the property."
+
+"Starvation and crime are near relatives all the world over," said Mary;
+"nor do I see that the way to cure the one is to increase the other."
+
+"Then let us get rid of both," said Lady Dorothea. "I don't see why we
+are to nurse pauperism either into fever or rebellion. To feed people
+that they may live to infect you, or, perhaps, shoot you, is
+sorry policy. You showed me a plan for getting rid of them,
+Henderson,--something about throwing down their filthy hovels, or
+unroofing them, or something of that kind, and then they were to
+emigrate--I forget where--to America, I believe--and become excellent
+people, hard-working and quiet. I know it all sounded plausible and
+nice; tell Miss Martin your scheme, and if it does not fulfil all you
+calculated, it will at least serve for an example on the estate."
+
+"An example!" cried Mary. "Take care, my Lady. It's a dangerous precept
+you are about to inculcate, and admits of a terrible imitation!"
+
+"Now you have decided me, Miss Martin," said Lady Dorothea, haughtily.
+
+"And, good Heavens! is it for a rash word of mine--for a burst of temper
+that I could not control--you will turn out upon the wide world a whole
+village,--the old that have grown gray there,--the infant that clings to
+its mother in her misery, and makes a home for her by its very
+dependence--"
+
+"Every one of them, sir," said Lady Dorothea, addressing herself to
+Henderson, who had asked some question in a low whisper. "They 're
+cottiers all; they require no delays of law, and I insist upon it
+peremptorily."
+
+"Not till my uncle hears of it!" exclaimed Mary, passionately. "A cruel
+wrong like this shall not be done in mad haste." And with these words,
+uttered in all the vehemence of great excitement, she rushed from the
+room in search of Martin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. A CHARACTERISTIC LETTER
+
+It may save the reader some time, and relieve him from the weary task
+of twice listening to the same story, if we steal some passages from a
+letter which, about this time, Jack Massingbred addressed to his former
+correspondent. He wrote from the inn at Oughterard, and, although still
+under the influence of the excitement of the late contest, expressed
+himself with much of his constitutional calm and frankness. We shall not
+recapitulate his narrative of the election, but proceed at once to what
+followed on that description.
+
+"I see, Harry, the dubious projection of your nether lip, I appreciate
+the slow nod of your head, and I fancy I can hear the little half-sigh
+of deprecation with which you hear all this. Worse again, I don't seek
+to defend myself. I think my case a bad one; but still I feel there is
+something to be said in mitigation. You need not trouble yourself to
+draw up an indictment: I plead guilty--entirely guilty--to all you
+can say. I _have_ broken with 'the gentlemen' to cast my lot with the
+_canaille_. Why have n't we a good wholesome word of our own for a
+home-made article? I _have_ deserted the ranks where, whatever fortune
+befell, it was honor to fight; I have given up association with
+the well-bred and the well-mannered, to rub shoulders with the
+coarse-minded, the rough-hearted, and the vulgar. There is not a
+reproach you can make me on this score that I have n't already addressed
+to myself. I feel all the indignity of my situation,--I experience
+all the insult of their companionship; but, as the lady detected in
+possession of her lover's picture pleaded in her defence that it was not
+like him, so I hope to arrest judgment against me by the honest avowal
+that I detest and despise my party. I don't talk to _you_ about their
+principles--still less do I say anything of my own--but merely advert
+here to the miserable compromise a gentleman is driven to make with
+every sentiment of his nature who once enlists under their flag. As
+Travers told us one evening--you were of the party, and must remember
+it--he was speaking of the Peninsular campaign, in which he served as
+a volunteer--'So long as you were fighting,' said he, 'it was all very
+well; the fellows were stout-hearted and full of spirit, and you felt
+that you couldn't ask for better comrades; but when the struggle was
+over--when it came to associating, living with them, hearing their
+sentiments, sharing their opinions, hopes, fears, wishes, and so
+on--then it became downright degradation!' Not, as he remarked, that
+they were one jot more vicious or more corrupt than their betters,
+but that every vice and every corruption amongst them seemed doubly
+offensive by the contact with their coarse natures. Now, my friends, the
+Liberals, are somewhat in the same category. They do their work right
+well on the field of battle; they fight, swear, slander, and perjure
+themselves just like gentlemen; or rather better of the two. They even
+come down handsomely with their cash,--the last best evidence any man
+can tender of his honesty in a cause; but then, Harry, the struggle
+over, it is sorry work to become their companion and their friend!
+Oh! if you had but seen the dinners I have eaten, and the women I have
+handed down to them!--if you could have but heard the sentiments I have
+cheered,--ay, and even uttered,--only listened to the projects we have
+discussed, and the plans matured as we sat over our whiskey-punch,--you
+'d say, 'Jack must have the ambition of the Evil One himself in his
+heart, since he pays this price for the mere glimpse of the goal before
+him!'
+
+"Throughout the whole of your last letter I can detect a sense of
+apprehension lest, 'with all my tact,' as you phrase it, these people
+are not really duping we,--using me for a present purpose, with the
+foregone resolve to get rid of me when it be accomplished. To be sure
+they are, Harry. I never doubted it for a moment. The only question is,
+which of us shall trip up the other! They desire to show the world that
+the operation of the Relief Bill will not be of that exclusive character
+its opponents proclaimed,--that a Catholic constituency would choose a
+Protestant,--even prefer one,--as Mr. O'Connell said. The opportunity
+was a good one to display this sentiment, and so they took me! Now, _my_
+notion is, that every great measure can have only one real importance,
+by throwing weight into the scale of one or other of the two great
+Parliamentary parties. Do what you will,--agitate, write, speak,
+pamphleteer, and libel,--but all resolves itself to some question of
+a harm to one side and good to the other, the country the while being
+wonderfully little the better or the worse for all the legislation.
+We used to have a Constitution in England: we have now only got a
+Parliament, and to be anything in the nation a man must make himself
+felt there! This, 'if I have the stuff in me,' as old Sherry said, I
+mean to do--_et nous verrons!_
+
+"The fatigues of this new life are very great. I 'm up before it is well
+day, writing and revising newspaper articles, answering letters, and
+replying to 'queries.' I have my whole mornings taken up in audiences of
+my constituents, swallowing pledges, and recording promises; and
+later on I go to dinner, 'with what appetite I may,' to some one of my
+faithful supporters,--some corn-chandler who spouts 'foreign politics,'
+or a grocer who ought to be Colonial Secretary! But still I 'm thankful
+for all this bustle and occupation: it averts reflection, it raises a
+barrier against thought, and muffles the clapper of that small hand-bell
+in the human heart men call their conscience! They say few men would
+have courage for either a battle or a wedding if it were not for the din
+of the trumpets and the joy-bells; and I'm convinced that noise--mere
+noise--has no small share in determining the actions of mankind!
+
+"And now, Harry, for a confession. I 'm heartily sorry for the whole of
+this business, and were it to be done again, nothing would tempt me to
+play the same part in it. I was leading the jolliest life imaginable at
+Cro' Martin. I had made the place and the people my own. It was a kind
+of existence that suited me,--sufficient of occupation, and enough of
+leisure. There were oddities to laugh at, eccentricities to quiz, an old
+lawyer to sharpen one's wits upon, and a governess--such a governess--to
+flirt with! Don't mistake me, Harry; it was not one of those
+hand-pressing, downcast-gazing, low-speaking cases in which you are such
+a proficient. It was far more like the approaches one might be supposed
+to make to a young tigress in a cage,--a creature with whom a mistake
+would be your ruin, and whom you always caressed with a sense of
+impending peril.
+
+"I told you how ably she aided me in this contest,--how she labored to
+obtain information--secret information--for me as to every voter in the
+borough. What prompted her to this course I cannot fathom. She does not
+appear to bear any grudge against the Martins,--she had been but a few
+weeks amongst them,--and is, all things considered, well treated and
+well received. As little was it any special favor towards myself.
+Indeed, on that head she will not permit me to fall into any error. I
+cannot suppose that with her foreign education and foreign habits she
+cares a jot for the small schemes and intriguings of home politics,--so
+what can it possibly mean? Help me to the solution of this riddle, and
+I 'll be more deeply your debtor than I can well say. Brought up as she
+has been,--and as I have told you in my last letter,--nothing would be
+more natural than her adoption of every prejudice of the class by whom
+she has been so singularly distinguished; and in this light I have
+always viewed her. Under the calm reserve of a most polished manner you
+can still detect a shrinking horror of all the vulgar association of
+the rank she came from. Her quiet deference, haughtier by far than the
+domination of those above her; the humility that no flatteries ever
+breached; a self-possession that never seemed so strong as when
+resisting the blandishments of praise,--these are strange gifts in a
+young girl with beauty enough to turn half the heads of half the fools
+we know of, and more than enough to make crazy that of him who writes
+this.
+
+"I tried twenty things to resist this tendency on my part. I laughed at
+myself for the absurdity it would lead to. I ridiculed to my own heart
+all the extravagance of such a project. I even wrote a paragraph for the
+'Times' announcing the marriage of Jack Massingbred with Kate Henderson,
+the only daughter of Paul Henderson, the Land Steward, and pasted it
+above my chimney to shock and outrage me. I did more. I made love to
+Miss Martin--as an alterative, as the doctors would call it--but I fell
+at a stone wall, got laughed at, and cured of my passion; and, lastly, I
+climbed that lofty tree of my family, and sat high among the branches
+of defunct barons and baronets, to get a bird's-eye view of the small
+mushrooms that grow on the earth beneath, but hang me, Harry, if the
+agarics did n't seem better company, and I was glad to get down amongst
+them again, meaning thereby to sit beside that one dear specimen of the
+class I allude to!
+
+"I see that you are curious to know how all these late events have
+modified my relations with my father, and really I cannot answer your
+inquiry. It is more than likely that my obtaining a seat in Parliament
+will embarrass rather than serve him with his party, since he will be
+expected to control a vote over which he can exert no influence.
+
+"As yet, nothing has occurred to draw us any closer, and my only
+communications to him have been certain recommendatory letters, which
+my constituents here have somewhat peremptorily demanded at my hands.
+I gave them freely, for, after all, application is an easier task than
+refusing, and besides, Harry, it is very difficult to persuade your
+election friends that you cannot be a patriot and a patron at the same
+time, and that, in the luxurious pastime of badgering a government, a
+man surrenders some of the pretensions to place. I gave them, therefore,
+all the letters they asked for; and if the Chief Secretary but answer
+one half of my appeals, Galway--or at least that small portion of it
+called Oughter-ard--will have no cause of complaint on the score of its
+claims to office.
+
+"You are, I perceive, astonished that I continue to remain here. So am
+I, Harry. The place is detestable in almost every way. I am beset with
+entreaties, persecuted with vulgar attentions, bored to death by the
+insolent familiarity of people I cannot--do all that I will--grow
+intimate with; and yet I stay on, pretexting this, that, and t' other to
+myself, and shrinking even to my own heart to avow the real reason of my
+delay!
+
+"I want once again, if only for a few moments, to see her. I want to
+try if by any ingenuity I could discover the mystery of her conduct with
+regard to myself; and I want also, if there should be the need to do
+so, to justify to her eyes many things which I have been forced by
+circumstances to do in this contest.
+
+"I have not the slightest suspicion as to how she views all that has
+occurred here. Two notes which I addressed to her, very respectful,
+businesslike epistles, have not been answered, though I entreated for a
+few words to acknowledge their receipt. The Martins, since the election,
+seem to have quarantined the whole town and neighborhood. They suffer
+none of their people to enter here. They have sent eight miles further
+off to market, and even changed the post-town for their letters. Their
+policy is, so far, shortsighted, as it has called into an exaggerated
+importance all that small fry--like the Nelligans--who have hitherto
+been crushed under the greater wealth of the rich proprietor. But I am
+again drifting into that tiresome tideway of politics which I have sworn
+to myself to avoid, if only for a few days; in pursuance of which wise
+resolve I shall betake myself to the mountains, under the pretext of
+shooting. A gun is an idler's passport, and a game-bag and a shot-pouch
+are sufficient to throw a dignity over vagabondism. You will therefore
+divine that I am not bent on snipe slaughter, but simply a good excuse
+to be alone!
+
+"I mean to go to-morrow, and shall first turn my steps towards the
+coast, which, so far as I have seen, is singularly bold and picturesque.
+If nothing occurs to alter my determination, I 'll leave this unclosed
+till I can tell you that I have come back here, which in all probability
+will be by the end of the week.
+
+"Once more here, my dear Harry, I sit down to add a few lines to this
+already over-lengthy epistle. Wishing to give you some notion of the
+scenery, I set out with all the appliances of a sketcher, and have
+really contrived to jot down some spots which, for general wildness
+and grandeur, it would be difficult to surpass within the bounds of
+our country. Nor is it alone the forms that are so striking, although
+I could show you outlines here perfectly Alpine in their fantastic
+extravagance; but the colors are finer than anything I have seen north
+of the Alps,--heaths and lichens grouped over rugged masses of rock,
+with shades of purple and gold such as no diadem ever equalled. The
+sunsets, too, were gorgeous! You remember how struck we both were at the
+moment when the dome and aisle of St. Peter's burst into light, and
+from the darkness of midnight every column and every statue became
+illuminated in a second; but a thousand times beyond this in grandeur
+of effect was the moment of the sun's decline below the horizon. The
+instant before, the great sullen sea was rolling and heaving with its
+leaden blue surface, slightly traced here and there with foam, but no
+sooner had the sun touched the horizon, than a flood of purple glory
+spread over the whole ocean, so that it became like a sea of molten gold
+and amber. The dark cliffs and rugged crags, the wave-beaten rocks, and
+the rude wild islands, darksome and dismal but a moment back, were
+now all glittering and glowing, every pinnacle and every peak in deep
+carbuncle red. How suggestive to him who would describe an
+enchanted land or region of magic splendor! and what a hint for your
+scene-painter, who, with all his devices of Bengal and blue light,
+with every trick that chemistry and optics could aid in, never fancied
+anything so splendid or so gorgeous.
+
+"I have half filled a sketch-book for you, and more than half filled my
+game-bag with mosses and ferns, and such-like gear, which, knowing your
+weakness, I have gathered, but, not understanding their virtues, may,
+for aught I know, be the commonest things in creation. I can only vouch
+for their being very beautiful, and very unlike anything else I ever
+saw before; fragments of marble, too, and specimens of Irish jasper
+and onyx, are amidst my rubbish, or my treasures, whichever you shall
+pronounce them to be.
+
+"I got through--don't fancy that the phrase denotes weariness or
+_ennui_--I got through four days in these pursuits, and then I took
+boat, and for three more I paddled about the coast, dipping in amongst
+the cliffs and creeks and caves of this wonderful coast, gathering
+shells and seaweed, and shooting curlews and eating lobsters, and, in
+fact, to all intents and purposes, suffering a 'sea change' over myself
+and my spirit as unearthlike as well may be imagined; and at last I
+bethought me of my new openiug career, and all that I ought to be doing
+in preparation of St. Stephen's, and so I turned my steps landward and
+towards 'my borough.' I like to say 'my borough;' it sounds feudal and
+insolent and old Torylike; it smacks of the day when people received
+their representative thankfully, as an alms, and your great proprietor
+created his nominee as the consul ennobled his horse!
+
+"Revolving very high thoughts, reciting Edmund Burke's grandest
+perorations, and picturing very vividly before me the stunning triumphs
+of my own eloquence in the House, I plodded along, this time at least
+wonderfully indifferent to the scenery, and totally oblivious of where
+I was, when suddenly I perceived the great trees of Cro' Martin demesne
+shadowing the road I travelled, and saw that I was actually within a
+mile or so of the Castle! You, Harry, have contrived, some way or other,
+to have had a very rose-colored existence. I never heard that you had
+been jilted by a mistress, 'cut' by a once friend, or coldly received by
+the rich relative from whom you derived all your expectations. I am not
+even aware that the horse you backed ever went wrong, or that the bill
+you endorsed for another ever came back protested. In fact, you are what
+the world loves best, cherishes most, and lavishes all its blandishments
+on,--a devilish lucky fellow! Lucky in a capital fortune, abundance of
+good gifts, good looks, and an iron constitution,--one of those natures
+that can defy duns, blue-devils, and dyspepsia! Being, therefore, all
+this, well received everywhere, good company where pheasants are to be
+shot, Burgundy to be drunk, or young ladies to be married,--for you are
+a good shot, a good wine-taster, and a good _parti_,--with such gifts, I
+say, it will be very difficult to evoke your sympathy on the score of a
+misfortune which no effort of your imagination could compass. In fact,
+to ask you to feel what I did, as I found myself walking along _outside_
+of those grounds _within_ which, but a few days back, I was the
+cherished visitor, and in sight of that smoke which denoted a hearth
+beside which I was never to sit again, and from which I was banished
+with something not very unlike disgrace! No sophistry I could summon was
+sufficient to assuage the poignancy of this sentiment. I feel certain
+that I could stand any amount of open public abuse, any known or unknown
+quantity of what is genteelly called 'slanging,' but I own to you
+that the bare thought of how my name might at that moment be mentioned
+beneath that roof, or even the very reserve that saved it from mention,
+caused me unutterable bitterness, and it was in a state of deep
+humiliation of spirit that I took the very first path that led across
+the fields and away from Cro' Martin.
+
+"They tell me that a light heart makes easy work of a day's journey.
+Take my word for it, that to get over the ground without a thought of
+the road, there's nothing like a regular knock-down affliction. I walked
+eight hours, and at a good pace, too, without so much as a few minutes'
+halt, so overwhelmed was I with sensations that would not admit of my
+remembering anything else. My first moment of consciousness--for really
+it was such--came on as I found myself breasting a steep stony ascent,
+on the brow of which stood the bleak residence of my friend Mr.
+Magennis, of Barnagheela. I have already told you of my visit to
+his house, so that I need not inflict you with any new detail of the
+locality, but I confess, little as it promised to cheer or rally the
+spirits, I was well pleased to find myself so near a roof under which I
+might take refuge. I knocked vigorously at the door, but none answered
+my summons. I repeated my demand for admittance still more loudly, and
+at last went round to the back of the house, which I found as rigidly
+barred as the front. While still hesitating what course to take, I
+spied Joan Landy--you remember the girl I spoke of in a former
+letter--ascending the hill at a brisk pace. In a moment I was beside
+her. Poor thing, she seemed overjoyed at our meeting, and warmly
+welcomed me to her house. 'Tom is away,' said she, 'in Dublin, they tell
+me, but he 'll be back in a day or two, and there 's nobody he 'd be so
+glad to see as yourself when he comes.' In the world, Harry,--that is,
+in your world and mine,--such a proposition as Joan's would have its
+share of embarrassments. Construe it how one might, there would be at
+least some awkwardness in accepting such hospitality. So I certainly
+felt it, and, as we walked along, rather turned the conversation towards
+herself, and whither she had been.
+
+"'I 'm not more than half an hour out of the house,' said she, 'for I
+only went down the boreen to show the short cut by Kell Mills to a young
+lady that was here.'
+
+"'A visitor, Mrs. Joan?'
+
+"'Yes. But to be sure you know her yourself, for you came with her the
+day she walked part of the way back with me from Cro' Martin.'
+
+"'Miss Henderson?'
+
+"'Maybe that's her name. She only told me to call her Kate.'
+
+"'Was she here alone?--did she come on foot?--which way is she gone?'
+cried I, hurrying question after question. Perhaps the tone of my last
+was most urgent, for it was to that she replied, by pointing to a
+glen between two furze-clad hills, and saying, 'That's the road she 's
+taking, till she crosses the ford at Coomavaragh.'
+
+"'And she is alone?'
+
+"'That she is; sorra a one with her, and she has five good miles before
+her.'
+
+"I never waited for more. If I did say good-bye to poor Joan, I really
+forget; but I dashed down the mountain at speed, and hurried onward in
+the direction she had pointed out. In an instant all my fatigue of the
+day was forgotten, and as I went along I remembered nothing, thought of
+nothing, but the object of my pursuit.
+
+"You who have so often bantered me on the score of my languor--that
+'elegant lassitude,' as you used to call it, which no zeal ever warmed,
+nor any ardor ever could excite--would have been somewhat astonished
+had you seen the reckless, headlong pace at which I went,--vaulting
+over gates, clearing fences, and dashing through swamps, without ever a
+moment's hesitation. Picture to yourself, then, my splashed and heated
+condition as, after a two-miles' chase in this fashion, I at length
+overtook her, just as she was in search of a safe spot to ford the
+river. Startled by the noise behind her, she turned suddenly round, and
+in an instant we stood face to face. I 'd have given much to have seen
+some show of confusion, even embarrassment in her looks, but there was
+not the slightest. No, Harry, had we met in a drawing-room, her manner
+could not have been more composed, as she said,--'Good-morning, Mr.
+Massingbred. Have you had much sport?' 'My chase was after _you_, Miss
+Henderson,' said I, hurriedly. 'I just reached Barnagheela as Mistress
+Joan returned, and having learned which road you took, followed you in
+all haste.'
+
+"'Indeed!' exclaimed she, and in a voice wherein there were blended a
+vast variety of meanings.
+
+"'Yes,' I resumed, 'for an opportunity of meeting you alone--of speaking
+with you even for a few moments--I have delayed my departure this week
+back. I wrote to you twice.'
+
+"'Yes; I got your letters.'
+
+"'But did not deign to answer them.'
+
+"' I did not write to you, because, situated as _I_ was, and regarded as
+_you_ were at Cro' Martin, there would have been a species of treason
+in maintaining anything like correspondence, just as I feel there is
+somewhat akin to it in our intercourse at this moment.'
+
+"'And have the events occurring lately changed _your_ feeling with
+regard to me?' asked I, half reproachfully.
+
+"'I don't exactly know to what former condition you refer, Mr.
+Massingbred,' said she, calmly. 'If to the counsels which you were
+gracious enough to receive at hands humble and inexperienced as
+mine, they were given, as you remember, when you were the chosen
+representative of the family at Cro' Martin, and continued only so long
+as you remained such.'
+
+"'Then I have deceived myself, Miss Henderson,' broke I in. 'I had
+fancied that there was a personal good-will in the aid you tendered me.
+I even flattered myself that I owed my success entirely and solely to
+your efforts.'
+
+"'You are jesting, Mr. Massingbred,' said she, with a saucy smile; 'no
+one better than yourself knows how to rely upon his own abilities.'
+
+"'At least, confess that it was you who first suggested to me that they
+were worth cultivating; that it was _you_ who pointed out a road to
+me in life, and even promised me your friendship as the price of my
+worthily adopting it!'
+
+"'I remember the conversation you allude to. It was on this very road it
+occurred.'
+
+"'Well, and have I done anything as yet to forfeit the reward you spoke
+of?'
+
+"'All this is beside the real question, Mr. Massingbred,' said she,
+hurriedly. 'What you are really curious to learn is, why it is that I,
+being such as I am, should have displayed so much zeal in a cause which
+could not but have been opposed to the interests of those who are my
+patrons. That you have not divined the reason is a proof to me that I
+could not make you understand it. I don't want to talk riddles,--enough
+that I say it was a caprice.'
+
+"'And yet you talked seriously, persuasively to me, of my future road
+in life; you made me think that you saw in me the qualities that win
+success.'
+
+"'You have a wonderful memory for trifles, sir, since you can recall so
+readily what I said to you.'
+
+"'But it was not a trifle to me,' said I.
+
+"'Perhaps not, Mr. Massingbred, since it referred to yourself. I don't
+mean this for impertinence!'
+
+"'I am glad that you say so!' cried I, eagerly. 'I am but too happy
+to catch at anything which may tend to convince me that you would not
+willingly hurt my feelings.'
+
+"For several minutes neither of us uttered a word; at last I said,
+'Should I be asking too much, if I begged Miss Henderson to tell me
+whether she is dissatisfied with anything I may have done in this
+contest? There may be matters in which I have been misrepresented;
+others of which I could make some explanation.'
+
+"'Are you quite satisfied with it yourself, sir?' said she, interrupting
+me.
+
+"'No,' said I; 'so little am I so, that were it all to do over again, I
+'d not embark in it. The whole affair, from beginning to end, is a false
+position.'
+
+"'Ignoble associates--low companionships--very underbred acquaintances,'
+said she, in a tone of scorn that seemed far more directed at _me_ than
+the others. I believe I showed how I felt it. I know that my cheek was
+on fire for some seconds after.
+
+"'The Martins, I take it, are outrageous with me?' said I, at last.
+
+"'They never speak of you!' was the reply.
+
+"'Not my Lady?'
+
+"'No!'
+
+"'Nor even Repton?'
+
+"'Not once.'
+
+"'That, at least, is more dignified; and if any accident should bring us
+together in county business--'
+
+"'Which is not likely.'
+
+"'How so?' asked I.
+
+"'They are going away soon.'
+
+"'Going away--to leave Cro' Martin--and for any time?'
+
+"'My Lady speaks of the Continent, and that, of course, implies a long
+absence.'
+
+"'And has this miserable election squabble led to this resolve? Is the
+neighborhood to be deprived of its chief ornament--the people of their
+best friend--just for the sake of a petty party triumph?'
+
+"'It is fortunate Mr. Massingbred's constituents cannot hear him,' said
+she, laughing.
+
+"'But be serious, and tell me how far am I the cause of all this.'
+
+"'The whole cause of it,--at least, so far as present events can
+reveal.'
+
+"'How they must abhor me!' said I, half involuntarily.
+
+"'_Avec les circonstances attenuantes_,' said she, smiling again.
+
+"'How so?--what do you mean?'
+
+"'Why, that my Lady is thankful at heart for a good excuse to get
+away,--such a pretext as Mr. Martin himself cannot oppose. Repton,
+the Grand Vizier, counsels economy, and, like all untravelled people,
+fancies France and Italy cheap to live in; and Miss Mary is, perhaps,
+not sorry with the prospect of the uncontrolled management of the whole
+estate.'
+
+"'And is she to live here alone?'
+
+"'Yes; she is to be sole mistress of Cro' Martin, and without even a
+governess, since Miss Henderson is to accompany her Ladyship as private
+secretary, minister of the household, and, in fact, any other capacity
+you may please in flattery to assign her. And now, Mr. Massingbred,
+that I have, not over-discreetly, perhaps, adventured to talk of family
+arrangements to a stranger, will you frankly ac-knowledge that your
+pride, or self-love, or any other quality of the same nature, is rather
+gratified than otherwise at all the disturbance you have caused here?
+Don't you really feel pleased to think that you have revolutionized a
+little neighborhood, broken up a society, severed the ties that bound
+proprietor and peasant, and, in fact, made a very pretty chaos, out of
+which may come anything or everything?'
+
+"'When you address such a question as this to me, you don't expect an
+answer. Indeed, the query itself is its own reply,' said I.
+
+"'Well said, sir, and with consummate temper, too. Certainly, Mr.
+Massingbred, you possess one great element of success in public life.'
+
+"'Which is--'
+
+"'To bear with equanimity and cool forbearance the impertinences of
+those you feel to be your inferiors.'
+
+"'But it is not in this light I regard Miss Henderson, be assured,' said
+I, with earnestness; 'and if I have not replied to her taunts, it is not
+because I have not felt them.'
+
+"I thought I detected a very faint flush on her cheek as I said this,
+and certainly her features assumed a more serious expression than
+before.
+
+"'Will you let me speak to you of what is far nearer my heart?' said I,
+in a low voice,--'far nearer than all this strife and war of politics?
+And will you deign to believe that what I say is prompted by whatever I
+know in myself of good or hopeful?'
+
+"'Say on,--that is, if I ought to hear it,' said she, coldly.
+
+"Deterred a second or two by her manner, I rallied quickly, and with an
+ardor of which I cannot convey an impression, much less explain,--one
+of those moments of rhapsody, _you 'd_ call it,--poured forth a warm
+declaration of love. Aye, Harry, sincere, devoted love!--a passion
+which, in mastering all the common promptings of mere worldly advantage
+and self-interest, had really inspired me with noble thoughts and high
+aspirations.
+
+"A judge never listened to a pleading with more dignified patience than
+she did to my appeal. She even waited when I had concluded, as it were
+to allow of my continuing, had I been so minded; when, seeing that I had
+closed my argument, she quietly turned about, and facing the road we
+had just been travelling, pointed to the bleak, bare mountain on which
+Barnagheela stood. 'It was yonder, then, that you caught up this lesson,
+sir. The admirable success of Mr. Magennis's experiment has seduced
+you!'
+
+"'Good heavens! Kate,' cried I--
+
+"'Sir,' said she, drawing herself proudly up, 'you are continuing the
+parallel too far.'
+
+"'But Miss Henderson cannot for a moment believe--'
+
+"'I can believe a great deal, sir, of what even Mr. Massingbred would
+class with the incredible; but, sir, there are certain situations in
+life which exact deference, from the very fact of their humility. Mine
+is one of these, and I am aware of it.'
+
+"'Will you not understand me aright?' cried I, eagerly. 'In offering to
+share my fortune in life with you--'
+
+"'Pray, sir, let this stop here. Poor Joan, I have no doubt, felt all
+the grandeur of _her_ elevation, and was grateful even in her misery.
+But _I_ should not do so. I am one of those who think that the cruellest
+share in a _mesalliance_ is that of the humbler victim. To brave such
+a fate, there should be all the hopeful, sanguine sense of strong
+affection; and, as a reserve to fall back on in reverses, there should
+be an intense conviction of the superiority over others of him from whom
+we accept our inferiority. Now, in my case, these two conditions are
+wanting. I know you like frankness, and I am frank.'
+
+"'Even to cruelty,' said I.
+
+"'We are very near Cro' Martin, sir, and I think we ought to part,' said
+she, calmly.
+
+"'And is it thus you would have us separate? Have I nothing to hope from
+time,--from the changes that may come over your opinions of me?'
+
+"'Calculate rather on the alterations in your own sentiments, Mr.
+Massingbred; and perhaps the day is not very distant when you will laugh
+heartily at yourself for the folly of this same morning,--a folly which
+might have cost you dearly, sir, for I might have said, Yes.'
+
+"'Would that you had!'
+
+"'Good-bye, sir,' said she, not noticing my interruption, 'and remember
+that, if I should ever need it, I have a strong claim on your gratitude.
+Good-bye!'
+
+"She did not give me her hand at parting, but waved it coldly towards me
+as she went. And so she passed the little wicket, and entered the
+dark woods of the demesne, leaving me in a state wherein the sense of
+bewilderment alone prevailed over all else.
+
+"I have given you this narrative, Harry, as nearly as I can remember,
+every step of it; but I do not ask you to understand it better than
+I do, which means, not at all! Nor will I worry you with the
+thousand-and-one attempts I have made to explain to myself what I still
+confess to be inexplicable. I mean to leave this at once. Would that I
+had never come here! Write to me soon; but no bantering, Harry. Not even
+my friendship for _you_--oldest and best of all my friends--could stand
+any levity on this theme. This girl knows me thoroughly, since she
+comprehends that there is no so certain way to engage my affections as
+to defy them!
+
+"Write to me, I entreat. Address me at my father's, where I shall be,
+probably, within a week. Were I to read over what I have just written,
+the chances are I should burn the letter; and so, _sans adieu_,
+
+"Yours ever,
+
+"Jack Massingbred."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. THREE COACHES AND THEIR COMPANY
+
+Three large and stately travelling-carriages, heavily laden, and
+surrounded with all the appliances for comfort possible, rolled from
+under the arched gateway of Cro' Martin. One eager and anxious face
+turned hastily to catch a last look at the place he was leaving, and
+then as hastily concealing his emotion with his handkerchief, Mr. Martin
+sat back in the carriage in silence.
+
+"Twenty minutes after eight!" exclaimed Lady Dorothea, looking at her
+watch. "It is always the case; one never can get away in time."
+
+Rousted by the speech, Martin started, and turned again to the window.
+
+"How handsome those larches are!" cried he; "it seems but yesterday that
+I planted them, and they are magnificent trees now."
+
+Her Ladyship made no reply, and he went on, half as though speaking to
+himself: "The place is in great beauty just now. I don't think I ever
+saw it looking so well. Shall I ever see it again?" muttered he, in a
+still lower tone.
+
+"I really cannot think it ought to break your heart, Mr. Martin, if I
+were to say 'No' to that question," said she, testily.
+
+"No--no!" exclaimed he, repeating the word after her; "not come back
+here!"
+
+"There is nothing to prevent us if we should feel disposed to do
+so," replied she, calmly. "I only observed that one could face the
+alternative with a good courage. The twenty years we have passed in
+this spot are represented to _your_ mind by more leafy trees and better
+timber. To _me_ they are written in the dreary memory of a joyless,
+weary existence. I detest the place," cried she, passionately, "and
+for nothing more, that even on leaving it my spirits are too jaded and
+broken to feel the happiness that they ought."
+
+Martin sighed heavily, but did not utter a word.
+
+"So it is," resumed she; "one ever takes these resolutions too late.
+What we are doing now should have been done sixteen or eighteen years
+ago."
+
+"Or not at all," muttered Martin, but in a voice not meant to be
+overheard.
+
+"I don't think so, sir," cried she, catching up his words; "if only
+as our protest against the insolence and ingratitude of this
+neighborhood,--of these creatures who have actually been maintained by
+us! It was high time to show them their real condition, and to what they
+will be reduced when the influence of our position is withdrawn."
+
+"If it were only for _that_ we are going away--" And he stopped himself
+as he got thus far.
+
+"In itself a good and sufficient reason, sir; but I trust there are
+others also. I should hope that we have paid our debt to patriotism, and
+that a family who have endured twenty years of banishment may return,
+if only to take a passing glance at the world of civilization and
+refinement."
+
+"And poor Mary!" exclaimed Martin, with deep feeling.
+
+"Your niece might have come with us if she pleased, Mr. Martin. To
+remain here was entirely her own choice; not that I am at all disposed
+to think that her resolution was not a wise one. Miss Mary Martin
+feels very naturally her utter deficiency in all the graces and
+accomplishments which should pertain to her condition. She appreciates
+her unfitness for society, and selects--as I think, with commendable
+discretion--a sphere much better adapted to her habits."
+
+Martin again sighed heavily.
+
+"To leave any other girl under such circumstances would have been highly
+improper," resumed her Ladyship; "but she is really suited to this kind
+of life, and perfectly unfit for any other, and I have no doubt she and
+Catty Broon will be excellent company for each other."
+
+"Catty loves her with all her heart," muttered Martin.
+
+And her Ladyship's lip curled in silent derision at the thought of such
+affection. "And, after all," said he, half involuntarily, "our absence
+will be less felt so long as Molly stays behind."
+
+"If you mean by that, Mr. Martin, that the same system of wasteful
+expenditure is still to continue,--this universal employment scheme,--I
+can only say I distinctly and flatly declare against it. Even Rep
+ton--and I 'm sure he 's no ally of mine--agrees with me in pronouncing
+it perfectly ruinous."
+
+"There's no doubt of the cost of it," said Martin, gravely.
+
+"Well, sir, and what other consideration should weigh with us?--I mean,"
+added she, hastily, "what should have the same weight? The immaculate
+authority I have just quoted has limited our personal expenditure for
+next year to five thousand pounds, and threatens us with even less in
+future if the establishment at Cro' Martin cannot be reduced below its
+present standard; but I would be curious to know why there is such a
+thing as an establishment at Cro' Martin?"
+
+"Properly speaking, there is none," said Martin. "Rep-ton alludes only
+to the workpeople,--to those employed on the grounds and the gardens. We
+cannot let the place go to ruin."
+
+"There is certainly no necessity for pineries and forcing-houses. Your
+niece is not likely to want grapes in January, or camellias in the early
+autumn. As little does she need sixteen carriage-horses and a stable
+full of hunters."
+
+"They are to be sold off next week. Mary herself said that she only
+wanted two saddle-horses and the pony for the phaeton."
+
+"Quite sufficient, I should say, for a young lady."
+
+"I 'm sure she 'd have liked to have kept the harriers--"
+
+"A pack of hounds! I really never heard the like!"
+
+"Poor Molly! It was her greatest pleasure,--I may say her only amusement
+in life. But she would n't hear of keeping them; and when Repton tried
+to persuade her--"
+
+"Repton's an old fool,--he's worse; he's downright dishonest,--for he
+actually proposed my paying my maids out of my miserable pittance
+of eight hundred a year, and at the same moment suggests your niece
+retaining a pack of foxhounds!"
+
+"Harriers, my Lady."
+
+"I don't care what they 're called. It is too insolent."
+
+"You may rely upon one thing," said Martin, with more firmness than
+he had hitherto used, "there will be nothing of extravagance in Mary's
+personal expenditure. If ever there was a girl indifferent to all the
+claims of self, she is that one."
+
+"If we continue this discussion, sir, at our present rate, I opine that
+by the time we reach Dublin your niece will have become an angel."
+
+Martin dropped his head, and was silent; and although her Ladyship made
+two or three other efforts to revive the argument, he seemed resolved
+to decline the challenge, and so they rolled along the road sullen and
+uncommunicative.
+
+In the second carriage were Repton and Kate Henderson,--an arrangement
+which the old lawyer flatteringly believed he owed to his cunning and
+address, but which in reality was ordained by Lady Dorothea, whose
+notions of rank and precedence were rigid. Although Repton's greatest
+tact lay in his detection of character, he felt that he could not
+satisfactorily affirm he had mastered the difficulty in the present
+case. She was not exactly like anything he had met before; her mode of
+thought, and even some of her expressions were so different that the
+old lawyer owned to himself, "It was like examining a witness through an
+interpreter."
+
+A clever talker--your man of conversational success--is rarely patient
+under the failure of his powers, and, not very unreasonably perhaps,
+very ready to ascribe the ill-success to the defects of his hearer. They
+had not proceeded more than half of the first post ere Repton began to
+feel the incipient symptoms of this discontent.
+
+She evidently had no appreciation for bar anecdote and judicial wit;
+she took little interest in political events, and knew nothing of the
+country or its people. He tried the subject of foreign travel, but his
+own solitary trip to Paris and Brussels afforded but a meagre experience
+of continental life, and he was shrewd enough not to swim a yard out of
+his depth. "She must have her weak point, if I could but discover it,"
+said he to himself. "It is not personal vanity, that I see. She does not
+want to be thought clever, nor even eccentric, which is the governess
+failing _par excellence_. What then can it be?" With all his ingenuity
+he could not discover. She would talk, and talk well, on any theme
+he started, but always like one who maintained conversation through
+politeness and not interest; and this very feature it was which piqued
+the old man's vanity, and irritated his self-love.
+
+When he spoke, she replied, and always with a sufficient semblance of
+interest; but if he were silent, she never opened her lips.
+
+"And so," said he, after a longer pause than usual, "you tell me that
+you really care little or nothing whither Fortune may be now conducting
+you."
+
+"To one in my station it really matters very little," said she, calmly.
+"I don't suppose that the post-horses there have any strong preference
+for one road above another, if they be both equally level and smooth."
+
+"There lies the very question," said he; "for you now admit that there
+may be a difference."
+
+"I have never found in reality," said she, "that these differences were
+appreciable."
+
+"How is it that one so young should be so--so philosophic?" said he,
+after a hesitation.
+
+"Had you asked me that question in French, Mr. Repton, the language
+would have come so pleasantly to your aid, and spared you the
+awkwardness of employing a grand phrase for a small quality; but my
+'philosophy' is simply this: that, to fill a station whose casualties
+range from courtesies in the drawing-room to slights from the servants'
+hall, one must arm themselves with very defensive armor as much, nay
+more, against flattery than against sarcasm. If, in the course of time,
+this habit render one ungenial and uncompanionable, pray be lenient
+enough to ascribe the fault to the condition as much as to the
+individual."
+
+"But, to be candid, I only recognize in you qualities the very opposite
+of all these; and if I am to confess a smart at this moment, it is in
+feeling that I am not the man to elicit them."
+
+"There you do me wrong. I should be very proud to captivate Mr. Repton."
+
+"Now we are on the good road at last!" said he, gayly; "for Mr. Repton
+is dying to be captivated."
+
+"The fortress that is only anxious to surrender offers no great glory to
+the conqueror," replied she.
+
+"By Jove! I 'm glad you 're not at the bar."
+
+"If I had been, I could never have shown the same forbearance as Mr.
+Repton."
+
+"How so? What do you mean?"
+
+"I never could have refused a silk gown, sir; and they tell me you have
+done so!"
+
+"Ah! they told you that," said he, coloring with pleasurable pride.
+"Well, it's quite true. The fact is correct, but I don't know what
+explanation they have given of it!"
+
+"There was none, sir,--or, at least, none that deserved the name."
+
+"Then what was your own reading of it?" asked he.
+
+"Simply this, sir: that a proud man may very well serve in the ranks,
+but spurn the grade of a petty officer."
+
+"By Jove; it is strange to find that a young lady should understand
+one's motives better than an old Minister," said he, with an evident
+satisfaction.
+
+"It would be unjust, sir, were I to arrogate any credit to my own
+perspicuity in this case," said she, hastily; "for I was aided in my
+judgment by what, very probably, never came under the Minister's eyes."
+
+"And what was that?"
+
+"A little volume which I discovered one day in the library, entitled
+'Days of the Historical Society of Trinity College,' wherein I found Mr.
+Repton's name not only one of the first in debate, but the very first in
+enunciating the great truths of political liberty. In fact, I might go
+further, and say, the only one who had the courage to proclaim the great
+principles of the French Revolution."
+
+"Ah,--yes. I was a boy,--a mere boy,--very rash,--full of hope,--full of
+enthusiasm," said Repton, with an embarrassment that increased at every
+word. "We all took fire from the great blaze beside us just then; but,
+my dear young lady, the flame has died out,--very fortunately, too; for
+if it had n't, it would have burned us up with it. We were wrong,--wrong
+with Burke, to be sure,--_Errare Platone_, as one may say,--but still
+wrong."
+
+"You were wrong, sir, in confounding casualties with true consequences;
+wrong as a physician would be who abandoned his treatment from mistaking
+the symptoms of disease for the effects of medicine. You set out by
+declaring there was a terrible malady to be treated, and you shrink back
+affrighted at the first results of your remedies; you did worse; you
+accommodated your change of principles to party, and from the great
+champions of liberty you descended to be--modern Whigs!"
+
+"Why, what have we here? A Girondist, I verily believe!" said Repton,
+looking in her face with a smile of mingled surprise and amazement.
+
+"I don't much care for the name you may give me; but I am one who thinks
+that the work of the French Revolution is sure of its accomplishment.
+We shall very probably not do the thing in the same way, but it will be
+done, nevertheless; for an Act of Parliament, though not so speedy, will
+be as effectual as a 'Noyade,' and a Reforming Administration will work
+as cleanly as a Constituent!"
+
+"But see; look at France at this moment. Is not society reconstituted
+pretty near to the old models? What evidence is there that the prestige
+of rank has suffered from the shock of revolution?"
+
+"The best evidence. Nobody believes in it,--not one. Society is
+reconstituted just as a child constructs a card-house to see how high he
+can carry the frail edifice before it tumbles. The people--the true
+people of the Continent--look at the pageantry of a court and a nobility
+just as they do on a stage procession, and criticise it in the same
+spirit. They endure it so long as their indolence or their caprice
+permit, and then, some fine morning, they 'll dash down the whole
+edifice; and be assured that the fragments of the broken toy will never
+suggest the sentiment to repair it."
+
+"You are a Democrat of the first water!" exclaimed Repton, in half
+amazement.
+
+"I am simply for the assertion of the truth everywhere and in
+everything,--in religion and in politics, as in art and literature. If
+the people be the source of power, don't divert the stream into another
+channel; and, above all, don't insist that it should run up-hill! Come
+abroad, Mr. Repton,--just come over with us to Paris,--and see if what
+I am telling you be so far from the fact. You 'll find, too, that it
+is not merely the low-born, the ignoble, and the poor who profess these
+opinions, but the great, the titled, and the wealthy men of fourteen
+quarterings and ancient lineage; and who, sick to death of a contest
+with a rich bourgeoisie, would rather start fair in the race again, and
+win whatever place their prowess or their capacity might giye them. You
+'ll hear very good socialism from the lips of dukes and princesses who
+swear by Fourier."
+
+Repton stared at her in silence, not more amazed at the words he heard
+than at the manner and air of her who spoke them; for she had gradually
+assumed a degree of earnestness and energy which imparted to her
+features a character of boldness and determination such as he had not
+seen in them before..
+
+"Yes," resumed she, as though following out her own thoughts, "it is
+your new creations, your ennobled banker, your starred and cordoned
+agitator of the Bourse, who now defends his order, and stands up for the
+divine right of misrule! The truly noble have other sentiments!"
+
+"There 's nothing surprises me so much," said Repton, at last, "as
+to hear these sentiments from one who has lived surrounded by all the
+blandishments of a condition that owes its existence to an aristocracy,
+and never could have arisen without one,--who has lived that delightful
+life of refined leisure and elevating enjoyment, such as forms the
+atmosphere of only one class throughout the whole world. How would you
+bear to exchange this for the chaotic struggle that you point at?"
+
+"As for me, sir, I only saw the procession from the window. I may,
+perhaps, walk in it when I descend to the street; but really," added
+she, laughing, "this is wandering very far out of the record. I had
+promised myself to captivate Mr. Repton, and here I am, striving to
+array every feeling of his heart and every prejudice of his mind against
+me."
+
+"It is something like five-and-fifty years since I last heard such
+sentiments as you have just uttered," said Repton, gravely. "I was young
+and ardent,--full of that hopefulness in mankind which is, after
+all, the life-blood of Republicanism; and here I am now, an old,
+time-hardened lawyer, with very little faith in any one. How do you
+suppose that such opinions can chime in with all I have witnessed in the
+interval?"
+
+"Come over to Paris, sir," was her reply.
+
+"And I would ask nothing better," rejoined he. "Did I ever tell you of
+what Harry Parsons said to Macnatty when he purposed visiting France,
+after the peace of '15? 'Now is the time to see the French capital,'
+said Mac. 'I 'll put a guinea in one pocket and a shirt in the other,
+and start to-morrow.' 'Ay, sir,' said Parsons, 'and never change either
+till you come back again!'"
+
+Once back in his accustomed field, the old lawyer went along recounting
+story after story, every name seeming to suggest its own anecdote. Nor
+was Kate, now, an ungenerous listener; on the contrary, she relished his
+stores of wit and repartee. Thus they, too, went on their journey!
+
+The third carriage contained Madame Hortense, Lady Dorothea's French
+maid; Mrs. Runt, an inferior dignitary of the toilet; and Mark Peddar,
+Mr. Martin's "gentleman,"--a party which, we are forced to own, seemed
+to combine more elements of sociality than were gathered together in the
+vehicles that preceded them. To _their_ share there were no regrets for
+leaving home,--no sorrow at quitting a spot endeared to them by long
+association. The sentiment was one of unalloyed satisfaction. They were
+escaping from the gloom of a long exile, and about to issue forth into
+that world which they longed for as eagerly as their betters. And why
+should they not? Are not all its pleasures, all its associations
+more essentially adapted to such natures; and has solitude one single
+compensation for all its depression to such as these?
+
+"Our noble selves," said Mr. Peddar, filling the ladies' glasses, and
+then his own; for a very appetizing luncheon was there spread out before
+them, and four bottles of long-necked gracefulness rose from amidst the
+crystal ruins of a well-filled ice-pail. "Mam'selle, it is your favorite
+tipple, and deliciously cool."
+
+"Perfection," replied mademoiselle, with a foreign accent, for she had
+been long in England; "and I never enjoyed it more. _Au revoir_,"
+added she, waving her hand towards the tall towers of Cro' Martin, just
+visible above the trees,--"_Au revoir!_"
+
+"Just so,--till I see you again," said Mrs. Runt; "and I 'm sure I
+'ll take good care that day won't come soon. It seems like a terrible
+nightmare when I think of the eight long years I passed there."
+
+"_Et moi_, twelve! Miladi engage me, so to say, _provisoirement_, to
+come to Ireland, but with a promise of travel abroad; that we live in
+Paris, Rome, Naples,--_que sais-je?_ I accept,--I arrive,--_et me
+voici!_" And mademoiselle threw back her veil, the better to direct
+attention to the ravages time and exile had made upon her charms.
+
+"Hard lines, ma'am," said Peddar, whose sympathy must not be accused
+of an _equivoque_; "and here am I, that left the best single-handed
+situation in all England,--Sir Augustus Hawleigh's,--a young fellow
+just of age, and that never knew what money was, to come down here at
+a salary positively little better than a country curate's, and live the
+life of--of--what shall I say?--"
+
+"No, the leg, if you please, Mr. Peddar; no more wine. Well, just one
+glass, to drink a hearty farewell to the old house."
+
+"I 'm sure I wish Mary joy of her residence there," said Peddar,
+adjusting his cravat; "she is a devilish fine girl, and might do better,
+though."
+
+"She has no ambitions,--no what you call them?--no aspirations for _le
+grand monde_; so perhaps she has reason to stay where she is."
+
+"But with a young fellow of _ton_ and fashion, mam'selle,--a fellow
+who has seen life,--to guide and bring her out, trust me, there are
+excellent capabilities in that girl." And as Mr. Peddar enunciated the
+sentiment, his hands ran carelessly through his hair, and performed a
+kind of impromptu toilet.
+
+"She do dress herself _bien mal_."
+
+"Disgracefully so," chimed in Mrs. Runt "I believe, whenever she bought
+a gown, her first thought was what it should turn into when she 'd done
+with it."
+
+"I thought that la Henderson might have taught her something," said
+Peddar, affectedly.
+
+"_Au contraire_,--she like to make the contrast more strong; she always
+seek to make say, '_Regardez_, mademoiselle, see what a _tournure_ is
+there!'"
+
+"Do you think her handsome, Mr. Peddar?" asked Mrs. Runt.
+
+"Handsome, yes; but not _my_ style,--not one of what _I_ call _my_
+women; too much of this kind of thing, eh?" And he drew his head back,
+and threw into his features an expression of exaggerated scorn.
+
+"Just so. Downright impudent, I'd call it."
+
+"Not even that," said Mr. Peddar, pondering; "haughty, rather,--a kind
+of don't-think-to-come-it-on-me style of look, eh?"
+
+"Not at all amiable,--_point de cela,_" exclaimed mam'selle; "but still,
+I will say, _tres bon genre_. You see at a glance that she has seen _la
+bonne societe._"
+
+"Which, after all, is the same all the world over," said Peddar,
+dogmatically. "At Vienna we just saw the same people we used to have
+with us in London; at Rome, the same; so, too, at Naples. I assure you
+that the last time I dined at Dolgorouki's, I proposed going in the
+evening to the Haymarket. I quite forgot we were on the Neva. And when
+Prince Gladuatoffski's gentleman said, 'Where shall I set you down?'
+I answered carelessly, 'At my chambers in the Albany, or anywhere your
+Highness likes near that.' Such is life!" exclaimed he, draining the
+last of the champagne into his glass.
+
+"The place will be pretty dull without us, I fancy," said Mrs. Runt,
+looking out at the distant landscape.
+
+"That horrid old Mother Broon won't say so," said Peddar, laughing. "By
+Jove! if it was only to escape that detestable hag, it 's worth while
+getting away."
+
+"I offer her my hand when I descend the steps, but she refuse
+_froidement_, and say, 'I wish you as much pleasure as you leave behind
+you.' _Pas mal_ for such a _creature_."
+
+"I did n't even notice her," said Mrs. Runt.
+
+"_Ma foi!_ I was good with all the world; I was in such Joy--such
+spirits--that I forgave all and everything. I felt _nous sommes en
+route_, and Paris--dear Paris--before us."
+
+"My own sentiments to, a T," said Mr. Peddar. "Let me live on the
+Boulevards, have my cab, my stall at the Opera, two Naps, per diem
+for my dinner, and I'd not accept Mary Martin's hand if she owned Cro'
+Martin, and obliged me to live in it."
+
+The speech was fully and warmly acknowledged, other subjects were
+started, and so they travelled the same road as their betters, and
+perhaps with lighter hearts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV. COUNTRY AUCTION
+
+With feelings akin to those with which the populace of a revolted city
+invade the once sacred edifice of the deposed Prince, the whole town and
+neighborhood of Oughterard now poured into the demesne of Cro' Martin,
+wandered through the grounds, explored the gardens, and filled the
+house. An immense advertisement in the local papers had announced a
+general sale of horses and carriages, farming stock, and agricultural
+implements; cattle of choice breeding, sheep of fabulous facilities
+for fat, and cows of every imaginable productiveness, were there, with
+draft-horses like dwarf elephants, and bulls that would have puzzled a
+matador.
+
+The haughty state in which the Martins habitually lived, the wide
+distance by which they separated themselves from the neighborhood
+around, had imparted to Cro' Martin a kind of dreamy splendor in the
+country, exalting even its well-merited claims to admiration. Some had
+seen the grounds, a few had by rare accident visited the gardens, but
+the house and the stables were still unexplored territories, of whose
+magnificence each spoke without a fear of contradiction.
+
+Country neighborhoods are rarely rich in events, and of these, few can
+rival a great auction. It is not alone in the interests of barter and
+gain thus suggested, but in the thousand new channels for thought thus
+suddenly opened,--the altered fortunes of him whose effects have come
+to the hammer; his death, or his banishment,--both so much alike.
+The visitor wanders amidst objects which have occupied years in
+collection,--some the results of considerable research and difficulty,
+some the long-coveted acquisitions of half a lifetime, and some--we have
+known such--the fond gifts of friendship. There they are now side by
+side in the catalogue, their private histories no more suspected than
+those of them who lie grass-covered in the churchyard. You admire that
+highly bred hunter in all the beauty of his symmetry and his strength,
+but you never think of the "little Shelty" in the next stable with
+shaggy mane and flowing tail; and yet it was on _him_ the young heir
+used to ride; _he_ was the cherished animal of all the stud, led in
+beside the breakfast-table to be caressed and petted, fed with sugar
+from fair fingers, and patted by hands a Prince might have knelt to
+kiss! His rider now sleeps beneath the marble slab in the old aisle, and
+they who once brightened in smiles at the sound of his tiny trot would
+burst into tears did they behold that pony!
+
+So, amidst the triumphs of color and design that grace the walls, you
+have no eyes for a little sketch in water-color,--a mill, a shealing
+beside a glassy brook, a few trees, and a moss-clad rock; and yet that
+little drawing reveals a sad story. It is all that remains of her who
+went abroad to die. You throw yourself in listless lassitude upon a
+couch; it was the work of one who beguiled over it the last hours of a
+broken heart! You turn your steps to the conservatory, but never notice
+the little flower-garden, whose narrow walks, designed for tiny feet,
+need not the little spade to tell of the child-gardener who tilled it.
+
+Ay, this selling-off is a sad process! It bespeaks the disruption of a
+home; the scattering of those who once sat around the same hearth, with
+all the dear familiar things about them!
+
+It was a bright spring morning--one of those breezy, cloud-flitting
+days, with flashes of gay sunlight alternating with broad shadows, and
+giving in the tamest landscape every effect the painter's art could
+summon--that a long procession, consisting of all imaginable vehicles,
+with many on horseback intermixed, wound their way beneath the grand
+entrance and through the park of Cro' Martin. Such an opportunity of
+gratifying long pent-up curiosity had never before offered; since, even
+when death itself visited the mansion, the habits of exclusion were not
+relaxed, but the Martins went to their graves in the solemn state of
+their households alone, and were buried in a little chapel within the
+grounds, the faint tolling of the bell alone announcing to the world
+without that one of a proud house had departed.
+
+The pace of the carriages was slow as they moved along, their occupants
+preferring to linger in a scene from which they had been hitherto
+excluded, struck by the unexpected beauty of the spot, and wondering at
+all the devices by which it was adorned. A few--a very few--had seen the
+place in boyhood, and were puzzling themselves to recall this and that
+memory; but all agreed in pronouncing that the demesne was far finer,
+the timber better grown, and the fields more highly cultivated than
+anything they had ever before seen.
+
+"I call this the finest place in Ireland, Dan!" said Captain Bodkin, as
+he rode beside Nelligan's car, halting every now and then to look around
+him. "There's everything can make a demesne beautiful,--wood, water, and
+mountain!"
+
+"And, better than all, a fine system of farming," broke in Nelligan.
+"That's the best field of 'swedes' I ever beheld!"
+
+"And to think that a man would leave this to go live abroad in a dirty
+town in France!" exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, from the opposite side of the
+car. "That's perverseness indeed!"
+
+"Them there is all Swiss cows!" said Mr. Clinch, in an humble tone.
+
+"Not one of them, Clinch! they're Alderneys. The Swiss farm, as they
+call it, is all on the other side, with the ornamented cottage."
+
+"Dear! dear! there was no end to their waste and extravagance!" muttered
+Mrs. Nelligan.
+
+"Wait till you see the house, ma'am, and you 'll say so, indeed," said
+the Captain.
+
+"I don't think we 're likely!" observed Nelligan, dryly.
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Just that Scanlan told Father Mather the auction would be held in the
+stables; for as there was none of the furniture to be sold, the house
+would n't be opened."
+
+"That's a great disappointment!" exclaimed Bodkin. A sentiment fully
+concurred in by the ladies, who both declared that they'd never have,
+come so far only to look at pigs and "shorthorns."
+
+"Maybe we 'll get a peep at the gardens," said Bodkin, endeavoring to
+console them.
+
+"And the sow!" broke in Peter Hayes, who had joined the party some time
+before. "They tell me she's a beauty. She's Lord Somebody's breed, and
+beats the world for fat!"
+
+"Here's Scanlan now, and he 'll tell us everything," said Bodkin.
+But the sporting attorney, mounted on a splendid little horse, in top
+condition, passed them at speed, the few words he uttered being lost as
+he dashed by.
+
+"What was it he said?" cried Bodkin.
+
+"I didn't catch the words," replied Nelligan; "and I suppose it was no
+great loss."
+
+"He's an impudent upstart!" exclaimed Mrs. Clinch.
+
+"I think he said something about a breakfast," meekly interposed Mr.
+Clinch.
+
+"And of course he said nothing of the kind," retorted his spouse. "You
+never happened to be right in your life!"
+
+"Faix! I made sure of mine before I started," said old Hayes, "I ate a
+cowld goose!"
+
+"Well, to be sure, they could n't be expected to entertain all that's
+coming!" said Mrs. Nelligan, who now began a mental calculation of the
+numbers on the road.
+
+"There will be a thousand people here to-day," said Bodkin.
+
+"Five times that," said Nelligan. "I know it by the number of small
+bills that I gave cash for the last week. There's not a farmer in the
+county does n't expect to bring back with him a prize beast of one kind
+or other."
+
+"I'll buy that sow if she goes 'reasonable,'" said Peter Hayes, whose
+whole thoughts seemed centred on the animal in question.
+
+"What do they mean to do when they sell off the stock?" asked the
+Captain.
+
+"I hear that the place will be let," said Nelligan, in a half whisper,
+"if they can find a tenant for it. Henderson told Father Mather that,
+come what might, her Ladyship would never come back here."
+
+"Faix! the only one of them worth a groat was Miss Mary, and I suppose
+they did n't leave her the means to do much now."
+
+"'Tis she must have the heavy heart to-day," sighed Mrs. Nelligan.
+
+"And it is only fair and reasonable she should have her share of
+troubles, like the rest of us," replied Mrs. Clinch. "When Clinch was
+removed from Macroon, we had to sell off every stick and stone we had;
+and as the neighbors knew we must go, we didn't get five shillings in
+the pound by the sale."
+
+"That's mighty grand,--that is really a fine place!" exclaimed Bodkin,
+as by a sudden turn of the road they came directly in front of the
+house; and the whole party sat in silent admiration of the magnificent
+edifice before them.
+
+"It is a royal palace,--no less," said Nelligan, at last; "and that's
+exactly what no country gentleman wants. Sure we know well there's no
+fortune equal to such a residence. To keep up that house, as it ought to
+be, a man should have thirty thousand a year."
+
+"Give me fifteen, Dan, and you'll see if I don't make it comfortable,",
+said Bodkin.
+
+"What's this barrier here,--can't we go any further?" exclaimed
+Nelligan, as he perceived a strong paling across the avenue.
+
+"We 're to go round by the stables, it seems," said Bodkin; "the hall
+entrance is not to be invaded by such vulgar visitors. This is our road,
+here."
+
+"Well, if I ever!" exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, whose feelings really
+overpowered utterance.
+
+"I don't see any great hardship in this after all, ma'am," said
+Nelligan; "for we know if the family were at home we couldn't even be
+here. Drive on, Tim."
+
+A short circuit through a very thickly wooded tract brought them at
+length to a large and massive gateway, over which the Martins' arms
+were sculptured in stone; passing through which they entered a great
+courtyard, three sides of which were occupied by stables, the fourth
+presenting a range of coach-houses filled with carriages of every
+description.
+
+A large tent was erected in the midst of the court for the convenience
+of the sale, in front of which were pens for the cattle, and a space
+railed off, wherein the horses were to be viewed and examined.
+
+"This is all mighty well arranged," said Bodkin, as he gave his horse to
+a groom, who, in the undress livery of Cro' Martin, came respectfully to
+his aid as he got down.
+
+"The sale will begin in about an hour, sir," said the man, in answer
+to a question. "Mr. Scanlan is now in the house with Mr. Gibbs, the
+auctioneer."
+
+Vast crowds of people of every class, from the small squire to the
+Oughterard shopkeeper and country farmer, now came pouring in, all eager
+in their curiosity, but somehow all subdued into a kind of reverence for
+a spot from which they had been so rigidly excluded, and the very aspect
+of which so far transcended expectations. Everything, indeed, was an
+object of wonderment. The ornamental tanks for watering the horses,
+supplied by beautifully designed fountains; the sculptured medallions
+along the walls, emblematizing the chase or the road; the bright
+mahogany partitions of the stalls, even to the little channels lined
+with shining copper, all demanded notice and comment; and many were the
+wise reflections uttered with regard to those who thus squandered away
+their wealth. The sight of the cattle, however, which occupied this
+luxurious abode, went far to disarm this criticism, since certainly none
+ever seemed more worthy of the state and splendor that surrounded them.
+For these the admiration was hearty and sincere, and the farmers went
+along the stalls amazed and wonderstruck at the size and symmetry of the
+noble animals that filled them.
+
+"To be sold at Tattersall's, sir, on the 4th of next month," said a
+groom, whose English accent imparted an almost sneer to the supposition
+that such a stud should meet purchasers in Ireland. "They 're all
+advertised in 'Bell's Life.'"
+
+"What becomes of the hounds?" asked Bodkin.
+
+"Lord Cromore takes them, sir; they're to hunt in Dorsetshire."
+
+"And the sow?" asked old Hayes, with eagerness; "she isn't to go to
+England, is she?"
+
+"Can't say, sir. We don't look arter no sows here," replied the fellow,
+as he turned away in evident disgust at his questioner.
+
+A certain stir and bustle in the court without gave token that the sale
+was about to begin; and Scanlan's voice, in its most authoritative tone,
+was heard issuing orders and directions on all sides, while servants
+went hither and thither distributing catalogues, and securing
+accommodation for the visitors with a degree of deference and attention
+most remarkable.
+
+"I suppose we're to pass the day in the stables or the cowhouses,
+ma'am?" said Mrs. Clinch, as with a look of indignation she gazed at the
+range of seats now being hastily occupied by a miscellaneous company.
+
+"If we could only get into the gardens," said Mrs. Nelligan, timidly.
+"I'm sure if I saw Barnes he'd let us in." And she slipped rapidly from
+her friend's arm, and hastily crossing the court, went in search of her
+only acquaintance in the household. "Did you see Barnes? Where could I
+find Barnes?" asked she of almost every one she met. And following the
+complicated directions she received, she wandered onward, through a
+kitchen-garden, and into a small nursery beyond it. Bewildered as she
+receded beyond the sounds of the multitude, she turned into a little
+path which, traversing a shrubbery, opened upon a beautifully cultivated
+"parterre," whose close-shaven sward and flowery beds flanked a long
+range of windows opening to the ground, and which, to her no small
+horror, she perceived to form one wing of the mansion. While in her
+distraction to think what course was best to take, she saw a groom
+standing at the head of a small pony, harnessed to a diminutive
+carriage, and hastily approached him. Before, however, she had attained
+within speaking distance, the man motioned to her, by a gesture, to
+retire. Her embarrassment gave her, if not courage, something of
+resolution, and she advanced.
+
+"Go back!" cried he, in a smothered voice; "there 's no one admitted
+here."
+
+"But I 've lost my way. I was looking for Barnes--"
+
+"He's not here. Go back, I say," reiterated the man, in the same
+stealthy voice.
+
+But poor Mrs. Nelligan, came on, confusion rendering her indifferent
+to all reproof, and in spite of gestures and admonitions to retire,
+steadily advanced towards the door. As she passed one of the open
+windows, her glance caught something within; she stopped suddenly,
+and, in seeming shame at her intrusion, turned to go back. A muttered
+malediction from the servant increased her terror, and she uttered a
+faint cry. In an instant the object at which she had been gazing arose,
+and Mary Martin, her face traced with recent tears, started up and
+approached her. Mrs. Nelligan felt a sense of sickly faintness come over
+her, and had to grasp the window for support.
+
+"Oh, my dear young lady!" she muttered, "I did n't mean to do this--I
+strayed here by accident--I didn't know where I was going--"
+
+"My dear Mrs. Nelligan, there is no need of these excuses," said Mary,
+taking her hand cordially, and leading her to a seat. "It is a great
+pleasure to me to see a friendly face, and I am grateful for the chance
+that sent you here."
+
+Mrs. Nelligan, once relieved of her first embarrassment, poured forth
+with volubility the explanation of her presence; and Mary heard her to
+the end with patient politeness.
+
+"And you were going away somewhere," resumed she, "when I stopped you.
+I see your pony-chaise there at the door waiting for you, and you're off
+to the quarries or Kilkieran, I 'll be bound; or maybe it's only going
+away you are, to be out of this for a day or two. God knows, I don't
+wonder at it! It is a trying scene for you, and a great shock to your
+feelings, to see the place dismantled, and everything sold off!"
+
+"It is sad enough," said Mary, smiling through her tears.
+
+"Not to say that you're left here all alone, just as if you were n't one
+of the family at all; that 's what I think most of. And where were you
+going, dear?"
+
+"I was going to pass a few days at the cottage,--the Swiss cottage.
+Catty Broon, my old nurse, has gone over there to get it in readiness
+for me, and I shall probably stay there till all this confusion be
+over."
+
+"To be sure, dear. What's more natural than that you'd like to spare
+your feelings, seeing all carried away just as if it was bankrupts you
+were. Indeed, Dan said to me the things wouldn't bring more than at a
+sheriff's sale, because of the hurry you were in to sell them off."
+
+"My uncle's orders were positive on that subject," said Mary, calmly.
+
+"Yes, dear, of course he knows best," said she, with a shake of the head
+not exactly corroborating her own speech. "And how are you to live here
+by yourself, dear?" resumed she; "sure you 'll die of the loneliness!"
+
+"I don't think so: I shall have plenty to occupy me,--more, indeed, than
+I shall be equal to."
+
+"Ay, in the daytime; but the long evenings--think of the long evenings,
+dear! God knows, I find them very often dreary enough, even though I
+have a home and Dan."
+
+"I 'm not afraid of the long evenings, my dear Mrs. Nelligan. It is the
+only time I can spare for reading; they will be my hours of recreation
+and amusement."
+
+"Well, well, I hope so, with all my heart," said she, doubtingly. "You
+know yourself best, and maybe you'd be happier that way, than if you had
+somebody to talk to and keep you company."
+
+"I didn't say that," said Mary, smiling. "I never implied that a visit
+from some kind friend--Mrs. Nelligan, for instance--would not be a very
+pleasant event in my solitude."
+
+"To come and see you,--to come to Cro' Martin!" exclaimed Mrs. Nelligan,
+as though trying to reconcile her mind to the bare possibility of such a
+circumstance.
+
+"If you would not think it too far, or too much trouble--"
+
+"Oh dear, oh dear, but it's too much honor it would be; and Dan--no
+matter what he 'd say to the contrary--would feel it so, in his own
+heart. Sure I know well how he felt about Joe being asked here to
+dinner; and he 'd never have taken a part against your uncle in the
+election if it was n't that he thought Joe was slighted some way--"
+
+"But nothing of the kind ever occurred. Mr..Joseph Nelligan met from us
+all the respect that his character and his talents entitled him to."
+
+"Don't get warm about it, or I 'll forget everything that's in my head!"
+exclaimed Mrs. Nelligan, in terror at the eagerness of Mary's manner.
+"Maybe it was Joe's fault--maybe it was young Massingbred's--maybe it
+was--"
+
+"But what was it?" cried Mary. "What was alleged? What was laid to our
+charge?"
+
+"There, now, I don't remember anything; you frightened me so that it's
+gone clean out of my mind."
+
+"My dear friend," said Mary, caressingly, "I never meant to alarm you;
+and let us talk of something else. You say that you 'll come to see me
+sometimes; is it a promise?"
+
+"Indeed it is, my dear, whenever Dan gives me the car and horse--"
+
+"But I 'll drive in for you, and bring you safely back again. You 've
+only to say when you 'll spend the day with me; and there's so much to
+show you here that you 'd like to see. The gardens are really handsome,
+and the hothouses. And Catty will show us her dairy, and I am very proud
+of my lambs."
+
+"It is all like a dream to me,--just like a dream," said Mrs. Nelligan,
+closing her eyes, and folding her arms, "to think that I 'm sitting
+here, at Cro' Martin, talking to Miss Mary just as if I were her equal."
+
+"My dear, dear friend, it shall be a reality whenever you like to make
+it so; and you'll tell me all the news of Oughterard,--all about every
+one there; for I know them, at least by name, and will be charmed to
+hear about them."
+
+"Mr. Scanlan wants an answer, miss, immediately," said a servant,
+presenting Mary with a few lines written in pencil.
+
+She opened the paper and read the following: "Nelligan offers seventy
+pounds for the two black horses. Is he to have them? Sir Peter shows an
+incipient spavin on the off leg, and I think he 'd be well sold."
+
+"Tell Mr. Scanlan I 'll send him an answer by and by," said she,
+dismissing the servant. Then ringing the bell, she whispered a few words
+to the man who answered it. "I have just sent a message to tell Mr.
+Nelligan I wish to speak to him," said she, resuming her place on
+the sofa. "It is a mere business matter," added she, seeing that Mrs.
+Nelligan waited for some explanation. "And now, when have you heard
+from your son? Is he learning to spare himself anything of those great
+efforts he imposes upon his faculties?"
+
+This was to touch the most sensitive chord in all her heart; and so she
+burst forth into a description of Joseph's daily life of toil and
+study; his labors, his self-denial, his solitary, joyless existence, all
+calling up, in turn, her praises and her sympathy.
+
+"And I," cried she, "am always saying, what is it all for?--what's the
+use of it?--who is to be the better of it? Sure there 's only himself to
+get whatever his father leaves behind him; and a pretty penny it is!
+Not that _you_ would think so; but for the like of _us_, and in _our_
+station, it's a snug fortune. He 'll have upwards of two thousand a
+year, so that there 's no need to be slaving like a Turk."
+
+"Your son's ambitions take, very probably, a higher range than mere
+money-making," said Mary. "He has a good right to suppose that his
+abilities may win him the highest of rewards! But here's Mr. Nelligan."
+And she advanced courteously to meet him at the door.
+
+Flushed and heated by the scene he had just quitted, and evidently
+embarrassed by the situation in which he stood, Nelligan bowed
+repeatedly in reply to Miss Martin's greeting, starting with amazement
+as he perceived Mrs. Nelligan, who maintained an air of unbroken dignity
+on the sofa.
+
+"Well you may stare, Dan!" said she. "I 'm sure you never expected to
+see me here!"
+
+"It was a most agreeable surprise for _me_, at least," said Mary,
+motioning to a seat; then, turning to Nelligan, added, "This little note
+was the occasion of my asking you to step over here. Will you please to
+read it?"
+
+"How handsome, how candid, Miss Martin!" said Nelligan, as he restored
+it, after perusing it. "Ah, my dear young lady, why would n't your
+family deal always with us in this fashion and in everything? I beg
+your forgiveness, but I forgot myself. I 'll stick to my offer, miss,--I
+wouldn't take fifty pounds for my bargain!"
+
+"This, of course, is in confidence between us, sir," said Mary, as she
+tore up the note and threw the fragments on the ground.
+
+[Illustration: 368]
+
+"I wish I knew how to acknowledge this, Miss Martin; I wish I could
+show how sensible one in _my_ station could be of generosity from one in
+_yours_."
+
+"You remind me very opportunely that I have a favor to ask, Mr.
+Nelligan. It is this: My kind friend here, Mrs. Nelligan, has just
+promised to take pity on my solitude, and occasionally to come and see
+me. Will you kindly strengthen her in this benevolent intention, and aid
+her to turn her steps very often towards Cro' Martin?"
+
+Nelligan's face grew deeply red, and an expression of the greatest
+embarrassment settled down on his features; and it was with much
+difficulty, and in a voice laboring for utterance, that he said,--
+
+"I don't see how this can be. Your friends would not approve,--your
+family, I mean, Miss Martin,--would, very naturally, resent the thought
+of such an intimacy! They look upon _me_ as an enemy,--an open and
+declared enemy,--and so I am, where politics is concerned; but--" He
+hesitated, and after a struggle went on: "No matter, it _is_ war between
+us, and must be till one crushes the other. What I mean is this, young
+lady: that to encourage such acquaintanceship as you speak of would look
+like an undue condescension on _your_ part, or something even worse on
+_ours_."
+
+"I 'll not listen to such subtleties!" cried Mary, hastily. "Neither you
+nor I, my dear Mrs. Nelligan, care for party triumphs or defeats. There
+are a thousand themes wherein our hearts can feel alike; and these we
+'ll discuss together. We're of the same country; have passed our lives
+amidst the same scenes, the same events, and the same people, and it
+will be hard if we cannot as easily discover topics for mutual esteem,
+as subjects of difference and disagreement."
+
+"But will it not be hinted, Miss Martin, that we took the opportunity
+of your solitude here to impose an acquaintanceship which had been
+impossible under other circumstances?"
+
+"If you are too proud, sir, to know me,--lest an ungenerous sneer should
+damage your self-esteem--"
+
+"Indeed, indeed we're not," broke in Mrs. Nelligan. "You don't know Dan
+at all. He would n't exchange the honor of sitting there, opposite you,
+to be High Sheriff."
+
+A servant fortunately presented himself at this awkward moment with a
+whispered message for Miss Martin; to which she replied aloud,--
+
+"Of course. Tell Mr. Scanlan it is my wish,--_my_ orders," added she,
+more firmly. "The house is open to any one who desires to see it. And
+now, before I go, Mr. Nelligan, tell me that I have convinced you,--tell
+me that my reasons have prevailed, and that you acknowledge we ought to
+be friends." And as she said the last words, she held out her hand to
+him with a grace so perfect, and an air of such winning fascination,
+that old Nelligan could only stammer out,--
+
+"It shall be how you please. I never bargained to dispute against such
+odds as this. We are, indeed, your friends; dispose of us how you like."
+And, so saying, he conducted her to the little carriage, and, assisting
+her to her seat, took his leave with all the respect he could have shown
+a queen.
+
+"It's more than a prejudice, after all," muttered he, as he looked after
+her as she drove away. "There's something deeper and stronger in it than
+that, or else a few words spoken by a young girl could n't so suddenly
+rout all the sentiments of a lifetime! Ay, ay," added he, still to
+himself, "we may pull them down; we may humble them; but we 'll never
+fill their places!"
+
+"And we 're to see the house, it seems!" exclaimed Mrs. Nelligan,
+gathering her shawl around her.
+
+"I don't care to look at it till she herself is here!" said old
+Nelligan, taking his wife's arm, and leading her away across the
+lawn, and in the direction of the stables. There was that in his moody
+preoccupation which did not encourage her to venture on a word, and so
+she went along at his side in silence.
+
+"You're to have the black horses, Mr. Nelligan," said Scanlan,
+overtaking him. Nelligan nodded. "You 've got a cheap pair of nags, and
+as good as gold," continued he. A dry half-smile was all the reply. "Mr.
+Martin bred them himself," Scanlan went on, "and no price would have
+bought them three weeks ago; but everything is going for a song to-day!
+I don't know how I 'll muster courage to tell them the results of the
+sale!"
+
+"You 'll have courage for more than that," said Nelligan. And although
+only a chance shot, it fell into a magazine; for Scanlan grew crimson,
+and then pale, and seemed ready to faint.
+
+Nelligan stared with amazement at the effect his few words had produced,
+and then passed on; while the attorney muttered between his teeth, "Can
+he suspect me? Is it possible that I have betrayed myself?"
+
+No, Maurice Scanlan. Be of good cheer, your secret is safe. No one has
+as much as the very barest suspicion that the pettifogging practitioner
+aspires to the hand of Mary Martin; nor even in the darkest dreams of
+that house's downfall has such a humiliation obtruded itself anywhere!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. "REVERSES"
+
+Ours is a very practical age, and no matter how skilfully a man play the
+game of life, there is but one test of his ability,--did he win? If
+this condition attend him, his actions meet charitable construction. His
+doings are all favorably regarded; and while his capacity is extolled,
+even his shortcomings are extenuated. We dread an unlucky man! There
+is a kind of contagion in calamity, and we shun him as though he were
+plague-stricken. But with what flatteries we greet the successful one!
+That he reached the goal is the sure guarantee of his merits; and woe
+to him who would canvass the rectitude of his progress! Defeat is such
+a leveller! Genius and dulness, courage and pusillanimity, high-hearted
+hope and wasting energy, are all confounded together by failure, and
+the world would only smile at any effort to discriminate between them.
+Perhaps in the main the system works well. Perhaps mankind, incapable
+of judging motives, too impatient to investigate causes, is wise in
+adopting a short cut for its decisions. Certain it is, the rule is
+absolute that proclaims Success to be Desert!
+
+Lady Dorothea was now about to experience this severe lesson, and
+not the less heavily that she never anticipated it. After a wearisome
+journey the Martins arrived in Dublin. The apartments secured to them,
+by a previous letter, at Bilton's, were all in readiness for their
+reception. The "Saunders" of the day duly chronicled their arrival;
+but there the great event seemed to terminate. No message from
+her Ladyship's noble kinsman greeted their coming; no kind note of
+welcome,--not even a visit from Mr. Lawrence Belcour, the aide-de-camp
+in waiting. The greatest of all moralists warns us against putting
+confidence in princes; and how doubly truthful is the adage when
+extended to viceroys! Small as was the borough of Oughterard, and
+insignificant as seemed the fact who should be its representative, the
+result of the election was made a great matter at the "Castle." His
+Excellency was told that the Martins had mismanaged everything. They
+had gone to work in the old Tory cut-and-thrust fashion of former
+days--conciliated no interest, won over no antagonism; they had acted
+"precisely as if there had been no Relief Bill,"--we steal Colonel
+Massingbred's words,--and they were beaten--beaten in their own town--in
+the person of one of their own family, and by a stranger! The Viceroy
+was vexed. They had misconstrued every word of his letter,--a letter
+that, as he said, any child might have understood,--and there was a vote
+lost to his party. It was in vain that the Chief Secretary assured his
+Excellency "Jack was a clever fellow, who 'd put all to rights;" that
+with a little time and a little dexterity he 'd be able to vote with the
+Ministry on every important division; the great fact remained unatoned
+for,--his family, his own connections, "had done nothing for him."
+
+The first day in town dragged its length slowly over. Martin was
+fatigued, and did not go abroad, and no one came to visit him. To do him
+justice, he was patient under the neglect; to say more, he was grateful
+for it. It was so pleasant "to be let alone;" not even to be obliged
+to see Henderson, nor to be consulted about "Road Sessions" or "Police
+Reports," but to have one's day in total unbroken listlessness; to have
+simply to say, "We 'll dine at seven," and "I'm out for every one." Far
+otherwise fared it in my "Lady's chamber." All her plans had been based
+upon the attentions she was so certain of receiving, but of which now
+not a sign gave token. She passed the day in a state of almost feverish
+excitement, the more painful from her effort to conceal and control it.
+Repton dined with them. He came that day "because, of course, he
+could not expect to catch them disengaged on any future occasion." Her
+Ladyship was furious at the speech, but smiled concurrence to it; while
+Martin carelessly remarked, "From all that I see, we may enjoy the same
+pleasure very often." Never was the old lawyer so disagreeable when
+exerting himself to be the opposite. He had come stored with all the
+doings of the capital,--its dinners and evening parties, its _mots_ and
+its gossip. From the political rumors and the chit-chat of society, he
+went on to speak of the viceregal court and its festivities.
+
+"If there be anything I detest," said her Ladyship, at last, "it is
+the small circle of a very small metropolis. So long as you look at it
+carelessly, it is not so offensive; but when you stoop to consider and
+examine it with attention, it reminds you of the hideous spectacle of
+a glass of water as seen through a magnifier,--you detect a miniature
+world of monsters and deformities, all warring and worrying each other."
+And with this flattering exposition of her opinion, she arose speedily
+after dinner, and, followed by Miss Henderson, retired.
+
+"I perceive that we had not the ear of the Court for our argument," said
+Repton, as he resumed his place after conducting her to the door. Martin
+sipped his wine in silence. "I never expected she'd like Dublin; it only
+suits those who pass their lives in it; but I fancied that what with
+Castle civilities--"
+
+"There 's the rub," broke in Martin, but in a voice subdued almost to a
+whisper. "They 've taken no notice of us. For my own part, I 'm heartily
+obliged to them; and if they 'd condescend to feel offended with us, I
+'d only be more grateful; but my Lady--"
+
+A long, low whistle from Repton implied that he had fully appreciated
+the "situation."
+
+"Ah, I see it," cried he; "and this explains the meaning of an article I
+read this morning in the 'Evening Post,'--the Government organ,--wherein
+it is suggested that country gentlemen would be more efficient
+supporters of the administration if they lent themselves heartily to
+comprehend the requirements of recent legislation, than by exacting
+heavy reprisals on their tenants in moments of defeat and
+disappointment."
+
+"Well, it is rather hard," said Martin, with more of energy than he
+usually spoke in,--"it _is_ hard! They first hounded us on to contest
+the borough for them, and they now abuse us that we did not make a
+compromise with the opposite party. And as to measures of severity, you
+know well I never concurred in them; I never permitted them."
+
+"But they are mistaken, nevertheless. There are writs in preparation,
+and executions about to issue over fourteen town-lands. There will be
+a general clearance of the population at Kyle-a-Noe. You 'll not know a
+face there when you go back, Martin!"
+
+"Who can say that I 'll ever go back?" said he, mournfully.
+
+"Come, come, I trust you will. I hope to pass some pleasant days with
+you there ere I die," said Repton, cheer-ingly. "Indeed, until you are
+there again, I 'll never go farther west than Athlone on my circuit. I
+'d not like to, look at the old place without you!"
+
+Martin nodded as he raised his glass, as if to thank him, and then
+dropped his head mournfully, and sat without speaking.
+
+"Poor dear Mary!" said he, at last, with a heavy sigh. "Our desertion of
+her is too bad. It's not keeping the pledge I made to Barry!"
+
+"Well, well, there's nothing easier than the remedy. A week or so will
+see you settled in some city abroad,--Paris, or Brussels, perhaps. Let
+her join you; I 'll be her escort. Egad! I'd like the excuse for the
+excursion," replied Repton, gayly.
+
+"Ay, Repton," said the other, pursuing his own thoughts and not heeding
+the interruption, "and _you_ know what a brother he was. By Jove!" cried
+he, aloud, "were Barry just to see what we 've done,--how we 've treated
+the place, the people, his daughter!--were he only to know how I 've
+kept my word with him--Look, Repton," added he, grasping the other's arm
+as he spoke, "there's not as generous a fellow breathing as Barry; this
+world has not his equal for an act of noble self-devotion and sacrifice.
+His life!--he 'd not think twice of it if I asked him to give it for me;
+but if he felt--if he could just awaken to the conviction that he was
+unfairly dealt with, that when believing he was sacrificing to affection
+and brotherly love he was made a dupe and a fool of--"
+
+"Be cautious, Martin; speak lower--remember where you are," said Repton,
+guardedly.
+
+"I tell you this," resumed the other, in a tone less loud but not less
+forcible: "the very warmth of his nature--that same noble, generous
+source that feeds every impulse of his life--would supply the force of a
+torrent to his passion; he 'd be a tiger if you aroused him!"
+
+"Don't you perceive, my dear friend," said Repton, calmly, "how you
+are exaggerating everything,--not alone _your own_ culpability, but his
+resentment! Grant that you ought not to have left Mary behind you,--I
+'m sure I said everything I could against it,--what more easy than to
+repair the wrong?"
+
+"No, no, Repton, you 're quite mistaken. Take my word for it, you don't
+know that girl. She has taught herself to believe that her place
+is there,--that it is her duty to live amongst the people. She may
+exaggerate to her own mind the good she does; she may fancy a
+thousand things as to the benefit she bestows; but she cannot, by any
+self-deception, over-estimate the results upon her own heart, which she
+has educated to feel as only they do who live amongst the poor! To take
+her away from this would be a cruel sacrifice; and for what?--a world
+she would n't care for, couldn't comprehend."
+
+"Then what was to have been done?"
+
+"I 'll tell you, Repton; if it was _her_ duty to stay there, it was
+doubly _ours_ to have remained also. When she married," added he, after
+a pause,--"when she had got a home of her own,--then, of course, it
+would have been quite different! Heaven knows," said he, sighing, "we
+have little left to tie us to anything or anywhere; and as to myself, it
+is a matter of the most perfect indifference whether I drag out the
+year or two that may remain to me on the shores of Galway or beside the
+Adriatic!"
+
+"I can't bear this," cried Repton, angrily. "If ever there was a man
+well treated by fortune, you are he."
+
+"I 'm not complaining."
+
+"Not complaining! but, hang it, sir, that is not enough! You should be
+overflowing with gratitude; your life ought to be active with
+benevolence; you should be up and doing, wherever ample means and
+handsome encouragement could assist merit or cheer despondency. I like
+your notion that you don't complain! Why, if you did, what should be
+done by those who really do travel the shady side of existence,--who are
+weighted with debt, bowed down with daily difficulties, crippled with
+that penury that eats into a man's nature till his very affections grow
+sordid, and his very dreams are tormented with his duns! Think of the
+poor fellows with ailing wives and sickly children, toiling daily, not
+to give them luxuries,--not to supply them with what may alleviate
+weariness or distract suffering, but bare sustenance,--coarse diet and
+coarser dress! Ah, my dear Martin, that Romanist plan of fasting one day
+in the week would n't be a bad institution were we to introduce it into
+our social code. If you and I could have, every now and then, our
+feelings of privation, just to teach us what others experience all the
+week through, we 'd have, if not more sympathy with narrow fortune, at
+least more thankfulness for its opposite."
+
+"Her Ladyship begs you will read this note, sir," said a servant,
+presenting an open letter to Martin. He took it, and having perused it,
+handed it to Repton, who slowly read the following lines:--
+
+     "'The Lodge, Tuesday.
+
+     "'Madam,--I have his Excellency's commands to inquire on
+     what day it will suit Mr. Martin and your Ladyship to favor
+     him with your company at dinner? His Excellency would
+     himself say Saturday, but any intermediate day more
+     convenient to yourself will be equally agreeable to him.
+
+     "'I have the honor to remain, madam,
+
+     "'With every consideration, yours,
+
+     "'Lawrence Belcour, A.D.C.'"
+
+
+"'With every consideration'!" repeated Repton. "Confound the puppy,
+and his Frenchified phraseology! Why is he not, as he ought to be, your
+obedient servant?"
+
+"It is a somewhat cold and formal invitation," said Martin, slowly. "I
+'ll just see what she thinks of it;" and he arose and left the room. His
+absence was fully of twenty minutes' duration, and when he did return
+his face betokened agitation.
+
+"Here's more of it, Repton," said he, filling and drinking off his
+glass. "It 's all _my_ fault, it seems. I ought to have gone out to the
+'Lodge' this morning, or called on somebody, or done something; in fact,
+I have been remiss, neglectful, deficient in proper respect--"
+
+"So that you decline the invitation?" broke in Repton.
+
+"Not a bit of it; we 're to accept it, man. That's what I cannot
+comprehend. We are offended, almost outraged, but still we're to submit.
+Ah, Repton, I'll be really rejoiced when we leave this,--get away from
+all these petty annoyances and small intriguings, and live amongst
+strangers!"
+
+"Most patriotically spoken; but I'm not surprised at what you say. Have
+you made any resolve as to whither you mean to go?"
+
+"No; we have so many plans, that the chances are we take none of them. I
+'m told--I know nothing of it myself--but I 'm told that we shall easily
+find--and in any part of the Continent--the few requirements we
+want; which are, an admirable climate, great cheapness, and excellent
+society."
+
+There was a slight twinkle in Martin's eye as he spoke, as if he were in
+reality relishing the absurdity of these expectations.
+
+"Was it Kate Henderson who encouraged you to credit this flattering
+picture?"
+
+"No; these are my Lady's own experiences, derived from a residence there
+'when George the Third was King.' As to Kate, the girl is by no means
+deficient in common sense; she has the frivolity of a Frenchwoman, and
+that light, superficial tone foreign education imparts; but take my word
+for it, Repton, she has very fine faculties!"
+
+"I will take your word for it, Martin. I think you do her no more than
+justice," said the old lawyer, sententiously.
+
+"And I 'll tell you another quality she possesses," said Martin, in a
+lower and more cautious tone, as though dreading to be overheard,--"she
+understands my Lady to perfection,--when to yield and when to oppose
+her. The girl has an instinct about it, and does it admirably; and there
+was poor dear Mary, with all her abilities, and she never could succeed
+in this! How strange, for nobody would think of comparing the two
+girls!"
+
+"Nobody!" dryly re-echoed Repton.
+
+"I mean, of course, that nobody who knew the world could; for in all
+the glitter and show-off of fashionable acquirement, poor Molly is the
+inferior."
+
+Repton looked steadfastly at him for several seconds; he seemed as if
+deliberating within himself whether or not he'd undeceive him at once,
+or suffer him to dwell on an illusion so pleasant to believe. The latter
+feeling prevailed, and he merely nodded slowly, and passed the decanter
+across the table.
+
+"Molly," continued Martin, with all the fluency of a weak man when he
+fancies he has got the better of an argument,--"Molly is her father all
+over. The same resolution, the same warmth of heart, and that readiness
+at an expedient which never failed poor Barry! What a clever fellow he
+was! If he _had_ a fault, it was just being too clever."
+
+"Too speculative, too sanguine," interposed Repton.
+
+"That, if you like to call it so,--the weakness of genius."
+
+Repton gave a long sigh, and crossing his arms, fell into a fit of
+musing, and so they both sat for a considerable time.
+
+"Harry is coming home, you said?" broke in Repton at last.
+
+"Yes; he is tired of India,--tired of soldiering, I believe. If he can't
+manage an exchange into some regiment at home, I think he 'll sell out."
+
+"By Jove!" said the old lawyer, speaking to himself, but still aloud,
+"the world has taken a strange turn of late. The men that used to have
+dash and energy have become loungers and idlers, and the energy--the
+real energy of the nation--has centred in the women,--the women and the
+priests! If I'm not much mistaken, we shall see some rare specimens of
+enthusiasm erelong. Such elements as these will not slumber nor sleep!"
+
+While Martin was pondering over this speech, a servant entered to
+say that Mr. Crow was without, and begged to know if he might pay his
+respects. "Ay, by all means. Tell him to come in," said Martin. And the
+words were scarcely uttered when the artist made his appearance, in
+full dinner costume, and with a certain unsteadiness in his gait, and
+a restless look in his eyes, that indicated his having indulged freely,
+without, however, having passed the barrier of sobriety.
+
+"You heard of our arrival, then?" said Martin, after the other had paid
+his respects, and assumed a seat.
+
+"Yes, sir. It was mentioned to-day at dinner, and so I resolved that,
+when I could manage to step away, I'd just drop in and ask how her
+Ladyship and yourself were."
+
+"Where did you dine, Crow?"
+
+"At the Chief Secretary's, sir, in the Park," replied Crow, with a
+mixture of pride and bash fulness.
+
+"Ah, indeed. Was your party a large one?"
+
+"There were fourteen of us, sir, but I only knew three or four of the
+number."
+
+"And who were they, Crow?" said Repton, whose curiosity on all such
+topics was extreme.
+
+"Young Nelligan was one. Indeed, it was through him I was asked myself.
+Colonel Massingbred was good enough to come over and have a look at
+my Moses,--a favor I humbly hope you 'll do me, gentlemen, any spare
+morning; for it's a new conception altogether, and I make the light come
+out of the bulrushes, just as Caravaggio did with his Lazarus."
+
+"Never mind Lazarus, Crow, but tell us of this dinner. Who were the
+others?"
+
+"Well, sir, there was Nelligan and me,--that's one; and Tom
+Magennis,--two--"
+
+"Our neighbor of Barnagheela?" exclaimed Martin, in amazement.
+
+"The same, sir. I left him there at the port wine, and my word for it,
+but they 'll not get him away easily, though Father Rafferty will do his
+best--"
+
+"And was the priest also of the party?"
+
+"He was, sir; and sat at the Colonel's left, and was treated with every
+honor and distinction."
+
+"Eh, Martin, am I a true prophet?--answer me that. Has Val Repton
+foretold the course of events we are entering upon, or has he not?"
+
+"But this is a regular outrage,--an open insult to us!" cried Martin.
+"Here is a leading member of the Government entertaining the very men
+who opposed and defeated us,--actually caressing the very party which
+they enlisted us to crush?"
+
+"This game is within every child's comprehension!" said Repton. "If
+_you_, and men of your stamp and fortune, could have secured them a
+parliamentary majority, they 'd have preferred you. You 'd be pleasanter
+to deal with, less exacting, more gentlemanly in fact; but as you failed
+to do this,--as it was plain and clear you had not the people with
+you,--why, they 've thrown you over without a scruple, and taken into
+their favor the men who can and will serve them. I don't mean to say
+that the bargain is a good one,--nay, I believe the price of such aid
+will be very costly; but what do they care? It is one of the blessings
+of a representative government that Tories have to pay Whig debts, and
+Whigs are heirs to Tory defalcations."
+
+"Were politics discussed at table?" asked Martin, half impatiently.
+
+"All manner of subjects. We had law, and the assizes, and the grand-jury
+lists, and who ought to be high sheriffs, and who not. And young
+Massingbred made a kind of a speech--"
+
+"Was he there also?"
+
+"That he was; and did the honors of the foot of the table, and made
+it the pleasantest place too! The way he introduced a toast to the
+independent and enlightened electors of Oughterard was as neat a thing
+as ever I heard."
+
+"The devil take the whole batch of them!" cried Martin. "To think that
+I 've spent nearly three thousand pounds for such a set of scoundrels
+is past endurance. I 'll never set foot amongst them again; as long as I
+live I 'll never enter that town."
+
+"Father Neal's own words," cried Crow. "'We done with Martin forever,'
+said he. 'This election was his Waterloo. He may abdicate now!'"
+
+"And that sentiment was listened to by the Chief Secretary?" exclaimed
+Martin.
+
+"If he wasn't deaf he couldn't help hearing it, for we all did; and when
+I ventured to observe that a country was never the better for losing the
+patrons of art, and the great families that could encourage a genius,
+young Massingbred, said, 'Give up Moses, Mr. Crow,--give up Moses, and
+paint Daniel O'Connell, and you 'll never want admirers and supporters!'
+And they drowned me in a roar of laughter."
+
+"I wish my Lady could only hear all this," said Rep ton, in a whisper to
+Martin.
+
+"Always provided that I were somewhere else!" answered Martin. "But to
+be serious, Repton, I 'll hold no intercourse with men who treat us in
+this fashion. It is absurd to suppose that the Secretary could receive
+at his table this rabble,--this herd of low, vulgar--"
+
+"Eh--what!" broke in Crow, with an expression of such truly comic misery
+as made Repton shake with laughter.
+
+"I didn't mean _you_, Crow--I never thought of including you in such
+company,--but if these be Colonel Massingbred's guests, I 'll swear that
+Godfrey Martin shall not be my Lord Reckington's!" And with this bold
+resolve, uttered in a voice and manner of very unusual firmness, Martin
+arose and left the room.
+
+"On the whole, then, your party was a pleasant one?" said Repton,
+anxious to lead Crow into some further details of the late dinner.
+
+"Well, indeed it was, and it was not," said the artist, hesitatingly.
+"It was like a picture with some fine bits in it,--a dash of rich color
+here and there,--but no keeping! no general effect! You understand? I
+myself took no share in the talk. I never understood it; but I could
+see that they who did were somehow at cross-purposes,--all standing
+in adverse lights,--if I may use the expression. Whenever the Colonel
+himself, or one of the 'swells' of the company, came out with a fine
+sentiment about regenerated Ireland, happy and prosperous, and so forth,
+Magennis was sure to break in with some violent denunciation of the
+infernal miscreants, as he called the landlords, or the greatest curse
+of the land,--the Law Church!"
+
+"And how did Father Neal behave?"
+
+"With great decorum,--the very greatest. He moderated all Tom's
+violence, and repeatedly said that he accepted no participation in such
+illiberal opinions. 'We have grievances, it is true,' said he, 'but we
+live under a Government able and willing to redress them. It shall never
+be said of us that we were either impatient or intolerant.' 'With such
+support, no Government was ever weak!' said the Colonel, and they took
+wine together."
+
+"That was very pleasant to see!" said Repton.
+
+"So it was, sir," rejoined Crow, innocently; "and I thought to myself,
+if there was only an end of all their squabbling and fighting, they 'd
+have time to cultivate the arts and cherish men of genius,--if they had
+them!" added he, after a pause.
+
+"Father Neal, then, made a favorable impression, you 'd say?" asked
+Repton, half carelessly.
+
+"I'd say, very favorable,--very favorable, indeed. I remarked that he
+always spoke so freely, so liberally. Twice or thrice, too, he said,
+'If the Papists do this, that, or t' other;' and when the Colonel asked
+whether the Catholics of Ireland submitted implicitly to Rome in all
+things, he laughed heartily, and said, 'About as much as we do to the
+Cham of Tartary!'
+
+"'I 'd like to examine our friend there before the Committee,' whispered
+an old gentleman at the Colonel's right hand.
+
+"'It was the very thing was passing through my own mind at the minute,'
+said the Colonel.
+
+"'That's exactly the kind of thing we want,' said the old gentleman
+again,--'a bold, straightforward denial; something that would tell
+admirably with the House! Present me to your friend, Massingbred!'
+And then the Chief Secretary said, 'The Member for Strudeham--Mr.
+Crutch-ley--is very desirous of being known to you, Mr. Rafferty.' And
+there was great smiling, and bowing, and drinking wine together after
+that."
+
+Martin now re-entered the room, and taking his place at the table, sat
+for some minutes in moody silence.
+
+"Well," said Repton, "what does my Lady think of your tidings?"
+
+"She says she does n't believe it!"
+
+"Does n't believe that these people dined with Massingbred; that Crow
+saw them, heard them, dined with them?"
+
+"No, no,--not that," said Martin, gently, and laying his hand familiarly
+on Crow's arm. "Don't mistake me; nor don't let Repton play the lawyer
+with us, and pervert the evidence. Lady Dorothea can't believe that her
+distinguished relative, the Viceroy, would ever countenance this game;
+that--that--in fact, we're to dine there, Repton, and see for ourselves!
+Though," added he, after a brief pause, "what we are to see, or what we
+are to do when we 've seen it, I wish anybody would tell me!"
+
+"Then I 'll be that man!" said Repton, with a mock solemnity, and
+imitating the tone and manner of a judge delivering sentence. "You 'll
+go from this place to the Lodge, where you 'll be fed 'to the neck,'
+feasted and flattered, and all your good resolves and high purposes will
+be cut down, and your noble indignation buried within the precincts of
+your own hearts!"
+
+And, so saying, he arose from the table and extended his hand to take
+leave, with all the gravity of a solemn farewell.
+
+"If you could say a word to his Excellency about Moses," muttered Crow,
+as he was leaving the room, "it would be the making of me!" But Martin
+never heeded the appeal; perhaps he never heard it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. DARKENING FORTUNES
+
+The Martins had always lived a life of haughty estrangement from their
+neighbors; there were none of exactly their own rank and pretensions
+within miles of them, and they were too proud to acknowledge the
+acquaintance of a small squirearchy, which was all that the country
+around could boast. Notwithstanding all the isolation of their
+existence, their departure created a great void in the county, and their
+absence was sensibly felt by every class around. The very requirements
+of a large fortune suggest a species of life and vitality. The movement
+of servants, the passing and repassing of carriages, the necessary
+intercourse with market and post,--all impart a degree of bustle and
+movement, terribly contrasted by the unbroken stillness of a deserted
+mansion.
+
+Lady Dorothea had determined that there should be no ambiguity as to the
+cause of their departure; she had given the most positive orders on this
+head to every department of the household. To teach an ungrateful people
+the sore consequences of their own ingratitude, the lesson should be
+read in everything: in the little villages thrown out of work, in the
+silent quarries, the closed schoolhouses, the model farm converted into
+grass-land, even to the grand entrance, now built up by a wall of coarse
+masonry, the haughty displeasure of the proud mistress revealed itself,
+all proclaiming the sentiment of a deep, unforgiving vengeance. She had
+tortured her ingenuity for details which should indicate her anger; nor
+was she satisfied if her displeasure should not find its way into every
+cabin and at every hearth. The small hamlet of Cro' Martin had possessed
+a dispensary. A hard-working, patient, and skilful man had passed many
+years of life there as the doctor, eking out the poor subsistence of
+that unfavored lot, and supporting a family by a life of dreary toil.
+From this her Ladyship's subscription--the half of all his salary--was
+now to be withdrawn. She thought "Cloves was grown negligent; it might
+be age,--if so, a younger man would be better; besides, if he could
+afford to dress his three daughters in the manner he did, he surely
+could not require her thirty pounds per annum." The servants, too,
+complained that he constantly mistook their complaints. In fact,
+judgment was recorded against Cloves, and there was none to recommend
+him to mercy!
+
+We have said that there was a little chapel within the bounds of the
+demesne; it occupied a corner of a ruin which once had formed Cro'
+Martin Abbey, and now served for the village church. It was very small,
+but still large enough for its little congregation. The vicar of this
+humble benefice was a very old man, a widower, and childless, though
+once the father of a numerous family. Dr. Leslie had, some eighteen
+years back, been unfortunate enough to incur her Ladyship's displeasure,
+and was consequently never invited to the castle, nor recognized in any
+way, save by the haughty salute that met him as he left the church. To
+save him, however, a long and tedious walk on Sundays, he was permitted
+to make use of a little private path to the church, which led through
+one of the shrubberies adjoining his own house,--a concession of the
+more consequence as he was too poor to keep a carriage of the humblest
+kind. This was now ordered to be closed up, the gate removed, and a wall
+to replace it. "The poor had got the habit of coming that way; it was
+never intended for their use, but they had usurped it. To-morrow or
+next day we should hear of its being claimed at law as a public right
+of passage. It was better to do the thing in time. In short, it must
+be 'closed.'" By some such reasoning as this Lady Dorothea persuaded
+herself to this course; and who should gainsay her? Oh, if men would
+employ but one tenth of all that casuistry by which they minister to
+their selfishness, in acts of benevolence and good feeling,--if they
+would only use a little sophistry, to induce them to do right,--what a
+world this might be!
+
+Mary Martin knew nothing of these decisions; overwhelmed by the vast
+changes on every side, almost crushed beneath the difficulties that
+surrounded her, her first few weeks passed over like a disturbed dream.
+Groups of idle, unemployed people saluted her in mournful silence as she
+passed the roads. Interrupted works, half-executed plans met her eye at
+every turn, and at every moment the same words rang in her ears--"Her
+Ladyship's orders"--as the explanation of all.
+
+Hitherto her life had been one of unceasing exertion and toil; from
+early dawn to late night she had been employed; her fatigues, however,
+great as they were, had been always allied with power. What she willed
+she could execute. Means never failed her, no matter how costly the
+experiment, to carry out her plans, and difficulty gave only zest to
+every undertaking. There is nothing more captivating than this sense of
+uncontrolled ability for action, especially when exercised by one of
+a warm and enthusiastic nature. To feel herself the life and spring of
+every enterprise, to know that she suggested and carried out each plan,
+that her ingenuity devised, and her energy accomplished all the changes
+around her, was in itself a great fascination; and now suddenly she
+was to awake from all this, and find herself unoccupied and powerless.
+Willingly, without a regret, could she abdicate from all the pomp
+and splendor of a great household; she saw troops of servants depart,
+equipage sold, great apartments closed up without a pang! To come down
+to the small conditions of narrow fortune in her daily life cost her
+nothing, beyond a smile. It was odd, it was strange; but it was no more!
+Far otherwise, however, did she feel the circumstances of her impaired
+power. That hundreds of workmen were no longer at her bidding, that
+whole families no longer looked up to her for aid and comfort,--these
+were astounding facts, and came upon her with an actual shock.
+
+"For what am I left here?" cried she, passionately, to Henderson, as he
+met each suggestion she made by the one cold word, "Impossible." "Is
+it to see destitution that I cannot relieve,--witness want that I am
+powerless to alleviate? To what end or with what object do I remain?"
+
+"I canna say, miss," was the dry response.
+
+"If it be to humiliate me by the spectacle of my own inefficiency, a day
+or a week will suffice for that; years could not teach me more."
+
+Henderson bowed what possibly might mean an acquiescence.
+
+"I don't speak of the estate," cried she, earnestly; "but what 's to
+become of the people?"
+
+"Many o' them will emigrate, miss, I've no doubt," said he, "when they
+see there 's nothing to bide for."
+
+"You take it easily, sir. You see little hardships in men having to
+leave home and country; but I tell you that home may be poor and country
+cruel, and yet both very hard to part with."
+
+"That 's vara true, miss," was the dry response.
+
+"For anything there is now to be done here, you, sir, are to the full as
+competent as I am. I ask again, To what end am I here?"
+
+Giving to her question a very different significance from what she
+intended, Henderson calmly said, "I thought, miss, it was just yer ain
+wish, and for no other reason."
+
+Mary's cheek became crimson, and her eyes flashed with angry
+indignation; but repressing the passion that was bursting within her,
+she walked hastily up and down the room in silence. At length, opening
+a large colored map of the estate which lay on the table, she stood
+attentively considering it for some time. "The works at Carrigulone are
+stopped?" said she, hastily.
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+"And the planting at Kyle's Wood?"
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+"And even the thinning there,--is that stopped?"
+
+"Yes, miss; the bark is to be sold, and a' the produce of the wood for
+ten years, to a contractor, a certain Mister--"
+
+"I don't want his name, sir. What of the marble quarries?"
+
+"My Lady thinks they're nae worth a' they cost, and won't hear o' their
+being worked again."
+
+"And is the harbor at Kilkieran to be given up?"
+
+"Yes, miss, and the Osprey's Nest will be let. I think they 'll mak' an
+inn or a public o' it."
+
+"And if the harbor is abandoned, what is to become of the fishermen? The
+old quay is useless."
+
+"Vara true, miss; but there's a company goin' to take the royalties o'
+the coast the whole way to Belmullet."
+
+"A Scotch company, Mr. Henderson?" said Mary, with a sly malice in her
+look.
+
+"Yes, miss," said he, coloring slightly. "The house of M'Grotty and Co.
+is at the head o' it."
+
+"And are they the same enterprising people who have proposed to take the
+demesne on lease, provided the gardens be measured in as arable land?"
+
+"They are, miss; they've signed the rough draught o' the lease this
+morning."
+
+"Indeed!" cried she, growing suddenly pale as death. "Are there any
+other changes you can mention to me, since in the few days I have been
+ill so much has occurred?"
+
+"There 's nae muckle more to speak o', miss. James M'Grotty--he's the
+younger brother--was here yesterday to try and see you about the school.
+He wants the house for his steward; but if you object, he 'll just take
+the doctor's."
+
+"Why--where is Dr. Cloves to go?"
+
+"He does na ken exactly, miss. He thinks he 'll try Auckland, or some of
+these new places in New Zealand."
+
+"But the dispensary must be continued; the people cannot be left without
+medical advice."
+
+"Mr. James says he 'll think aboot it when he comes over in summer. He's
+a vara spirited young man, and when there's a meetin'-house built in the
+village--"
+
+"Enough of this, Henderson. Come over here tomorrow, for I 'm not strong
+enough to hear more to-day, and let Mr. Scanlan know that I wish to see
+him this evening."
+
+And Mary motioned with her hand that he should withdraw. Scarcely was
+the door closed behind him than she burst into a torrent of tears; her
+long pent-up agony utterly overpowered her, and she cried with all the
+vehemence of a child's grief. Her heart once opened to sorrow, by a
+hundred channels came tributaries to her affliction. Up to that moment
+her uncle's departure had never seemed a cruelty; now it took all the
+form of desertion. The bitterness of her forlorn condition had never
+struck her till it came associated with all the sorrows of others. It is
+not impossible that wounded self-love entered into her feelings. It is
+by no means unlikely that the sense of her own impaired importance added
+poignancy to her misery. Who shall anatomize motives, or who shall be
+skilful enough to trace the springs of one human emotion? There was
+assuredly enough outside of and above all personal consideration to
+ennoble her grief and dignify her affliction.
+
+Her first impulses led her to regard herself as utterly useless; her
+occupation gone, and her whole career of duty annihilated. A second and
+a better resolve whispered to her that she was more than ever needful to
+those who without her would be left without a friend. "If I desert them,
+who is to remain?" asked she. "It is true I am no more able to set
+in motion the schemes by which their indigence was alleviated. I am
+powerless, but not all worthless. I can still be their nurse, their
+comforter, their schoolmistress. My very example may teach them how
+altered fortune can be borne with fortitude and patience. They shall see
+me reduced to a thousand privations, and perhaps even this may bear
+its lesson." Drying her tears, she began to feel within her some of the
+courage she hoped to inspire in others; and anxious not to let old Catty
+detect the trace of sorrow in her features, issued forth into the wood
+for a walk.
+
+As the deep shadows thickened around her, she grew calmer and more
+meditative. The solemn stillness of the place, the deep, unbroken
+quietude, imparted its own soothing influence to her thoughts; and as
+she went, her heart beat freer, and her elastic temperament again arose
+to cheer and sustain her. To confront the future boldly and well, it was
+necessary that she should utterly forget the past. She could no longer
+play the great part to which wealth and high station had raised her;
+she must now descend to that humbler one,--all whose influence should
+be derived from acts of kindness and words of comfort, unaided by the
+greater benefits she had once dispensed.
+
+The means placed at her disposal for her own expenditure had been
+exceedingly limited. It was her own desire they should be so, and Lady
+Dorothea had made no opposition to her wishes. Beyond this she had
+nothing, save a sum of five thousand pounds payable at her uncle's
+death. By strictest economy--privation, indeed--she thought that she
+could save about a hundred pounds a year of this small income; but to
+do so would require the sale of both her horses, retaining only the pony
+and the little carriage, while her dress should be of the very simplest
+and plainest. In what way she should best employ this sum was to be
+for after consideration. The first thought was how to effect the saving
+without giving to the act any unnecessary notoriety. She felt that her
+greatest difficulty would be old Catty Broon. The venerable housekeeper
+had all her life regarded her with an affection that was little short of
+worship. It was not alone the winning graces of Mary's manner, nor the
+attractive charms of her appearance that had so captivated old Catty;
+but that the young girl, to her eyes, represented the great family
+whose name she bore, and represented them so worthily. The title of
+the Princess, by which the Country people knew her, seemed her just and
+rightful designation. Mary realized to her the proud scion of a proud
+stock, who had ruled over a territory rather than a mere estate; how,
+then, could she bear to behold her in all the straits and difficulties
+of a reduced condition? There seemed but one way to effect this, which
+was to give her new mode of life the character of a caprice. "I must
+make old Catty believe it is one of my wild and wilful fancies,--a
+sudden whim,--out of which a little time will doubtless rally me. She
+is the last in the world to limit me in the indulgence of a momentary
+notion; she will, therefore, concede everything to my humor, patiently
+awaiting the time when it shall assume a course the very opposite."
+
+Some one should, however, be intrusted with her secret,--without some
+assistance it could not be carried into execution; and who should that
+be? Alas, her choice was a very narrow one. It lay between Scanlan and
+Henderson. The crafty attorney was not, indeed, much to Mary's liking.
+His flippant vulgarity and pretension were qualities she could ill
+brook; but she had known him do kind things. She had seen him on more
+than one occasion temper the sharpness of some of her Ladyship's ukases,
+little suspecting, indeed, how far the possible impression upon herself
+was the motive that so guided him; she had, therefore, no difficulty in
+preferring him to the steward, whose very accent and manner were enough
+to render him hateful to her. Scanlan, besides, would necessarily have
+a great deal in his power; he would be able to make many a concession to
+the poor people on the estate, retard the cruel progress of the law, or
+give them time to provide against its demands. Mary felt that she was in
+a position to exercise a certain influence over him; and, conscious of
+the goodness of the cause she would promote, never hesitated as to the
+means of employing it.
+
+Who shall say, too, that she had not noticed the deferential admiration
+by which he always distinguished her? for there is a species of coquetry
+that takes pleasure in a conquest where the profits of victory would be
+thoroughly despised. We are not bold enough to say that such feelings
+found their place in Mary's heart. We must leave its analysis to wiser
+and more cunning anatomists.
+
+Straying onwards ever in deep thought, and not remarking whither, she
+was suddenly struck by the noise of masonry,--strange sounds in a
+spot thus lonely and remote; and now walking quickly onward, she found
+herself on the path by which the vicar on Sundays approached the church;
+and here, at a little distance, descried workmen employed in walling up
+the little gateway of the passage.
+
+"By whose orders is this done?" cried Mary, to whose quick intelligence
+the act revealed its whole meaning and motive.
+
+"Mr. Henderson, miss," replied one of the men. "He said we were to
+work all night at it, if we could n't be sure of getting it done before
+Sunday."
+
+A burst of passionate indignation rose to her lips, but she turned away
+without a word, and re-entered the wood in silence.
+
+"Yes," cried she, to herself, "it is, indeed, a new existence is opening
+before me; let me strive so to control my temper, that I may view it
+calmly and dispassionately, so that others may not suffer from the
+changes in my fortune."
+
+She no sooner reached the house than she despatched a note to Mr.
+Scanlan, requesting to see him as early as possible on the following
+morning. This done, she set herself to devise her plans for the
+future,--speculations, it must be owned, to which her own hopeful
+temperament gave a coloring that a colder spirit and more calculating
+mind had never bestowed on them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. HOW MR. SCANLAN GIVES SCOPE TO A GENEROUS IMPULSE
+
+It is a remark of Wieland's, that although the life of man is measured
+by the term of fourscore years and ten, yet that his ideal existence
+or, as he calls it, his "unacted life," meaning thereby his period of
+dreamy, projective, and forecasting existence, would occupy a far
+wider space. And he goes on to say that it is in this same imaginative
+longevity men differ the most from each other, the poet standing to the
+ungifted peasant in the ratio of centuries to years.
+
+Mr. Maurice Scanlan would not appear a favorable subject by which to
+test this theory. If not endowed with any of the higher and greater
+qualities of intellect, he was equally removed from any deficiency on
+that score. The world called him "a clever fellow," and the world is
+rarely in fault in such judgments. Where there is a question of the
+creative faculties, where it is the divine essence itself is the matter
+of decision, the world will occasionally be betrayed into mistakes, as
+fashion and a passing enthusiasm may mislead it; but where it is
+the practical and the real, the exercise of gifts by which men make
+themselves rich and powerful, then the world makes no blunders. She
+knows them as a mother knows her children. They are indeed the "World's
+own."
+
+We have come to these speculations by contemplating Mr. Scanlan as he
+sat with Mary Martin's open letter before him. The note was couched in
+polite terms, requesting Mr. Scanlan to favor the writer with a visit
+at his earliest convenience, if possible early on the following morning.
+Had it been a document of suspected authenticity, a forged acceptance,
+an interpolated article in a deed, a newly discovered codicil to a will,
+he could not have canvassed every syllable, scrutinized every letter,
+with more searching zeal. It was hurriedly written; there was,
+therefore, some emergency. It began, "Dear sir," a style she had never
+employed before; the letter "D" was blotted, and seemed to have been
+originally destined for an "M," as though she had commenced "Miss Martin
+requests," etc., and then suddenly adopted the more familiar address.
+The tone of command by which he was habitually summoned to Cro' Martin
+was assuredly not there, and Maurice was not the man to undervalue the
+smallest particle of evidence.
+
+"She has need of me," cried he to himself; "she sees everything in a
+state of subversion and chaos around her, and looks to me as the man to
+restore order. The people are entreating her to stay law proceedings, to
+give them time, to employ them; the poorest are all importuning her with
+stories of their sufferings. She is powerless, and, what's worse, she
+does not know what it is to be powerless to help them. She'll struggle
+and fret and scheme, and plan fifty things, and when she has failed in
+them all, fall back upon Maurice Scanlan for advice and counsel."
+
+It was a grave question with Scanlan how far he would suffer her
+persecutions to proceed before he would come to her aid. "If I bring my
+succor too early, she may never believe the emergency was critical; if I
+delay it too long, she may abandon the field in despair, and set off to
+join her uncle." These were the two propositions which he placed before
+himself for consideration. It was a case for very delicate management,
+great skill, and great patience, but it was well worth all the cost.
+"If I succeed," said he to himself, "I'm a made man. Mary Martin Mrs.
+Scanlan, I 'm the agent for the whole estate, with Cro' Martin to live
+in, and all the property at my discretion. If I fail,--that is, if I
+fail without blundering,--I 'm just where I was. Well," thought he, as
+he drove into the demesne, "I never thought I'd have such a chance as
+this. All gone, and she alone here by herself: none to advise, not one
+even to keep her company! I'd have given a thousand pounds down just for
+this opportunity, without counting all the advantages I have in my
+power from my present position, for I can do what I like with the
+estate,--give leases or break them. It will be four months at least
+before old Repton comes down here, and in that time I'll have finished
+whatever I want to do. And now to begin the game." And with this he
+turned into the stable-yard, and descended from his gig. Many men
+would have been struck by the changed aspect of the place,--silence and
+desolation where before there were movement and bustle; but Scanlan
+only read in the altered appearances around the encouragement of his own
+ambitious hopes. The easy swagger in which the attorney indulged while
+moving about the stable-yard declined into a more becoming gait as he
+traversed the long corridors, and finally became actually respectful as
+he drew nigh the library, where he was informed Miss Martin awaited
+him, so powerful was the influence of old habit over the more vulgar
+instincts of his nature. He had intended to be very familiar and at his
+ease, and ere he turned the handle of the door his courage failed him.
+
+"This is very kind of you, Mr. Scanlan," said she, advancing a few steps
+towards him as he entered. "You must have started early from home."
+
+"At five, miss," said he, bowing deferentially.
+
+"And of course you have not breakfasted?"
+
+"Indeed, then, I only took a cup of coffee. I was anxious to be early. I
+thought from your note that there might be something urgent."
+
+Mary half smiled at the mingled air of bashfulness and gallantry in
+which he uttered these broken sentences; for without knowing it himself,
+while he began in some confusion, he attained a kind of confidence as he
+went on.
+
+"Nor have I breakfasted, either," said she; "and I beg, therefore, you
+will join me."
+
+Scanlan's face actually glowed with pleasure.
+
+"I have many things to consult you upon with regard to the estate, and I
+am fully aware that there is nobody more competent to advise me."
+
+"Nor more ready and willing, miss," said Maurice, bowing.
+
+"I 'm perfectly certain of that, Mr. Scanlan. The confidence my uncle
+has always reposed in you assures me on that head."
+
+"Was n't I right about the borough, Miss Mary?" broke he in. "I told you
+how it would be, and that if you did n't make some sort of a compromise
+with the Liberal party--"
+
+"Let me interrupt you, Mr. Scanlan, and once for all assure you that
+there is not one subject of all those which pertain to this county and
+its people which has so little interest for me as the local squabbles
+of party; and I 'm sure no success on either side is worth the broken
+friendships and estranged affections it leaves behind it."
+
+"A beautiful sentiment, to which I respond with all my heart," rejoined
+Scanlan, with an energy that made her blush deeply.
+
+"I only meant to say, sir," added she, hastily, "that the borough and
+its politics need never be discussed between us."
+
+"Just so, miss. We'll call on the next case," said Scanlan.
+
+"My uncle's sudden departure, and a slight indisposition under which I
+have labored for a week or so, have thrown me so far in arrear of all
+knowledge of what has been done here, that I must first of all ask you,
+not how the estate is to be managed in future, but does it any longer
+belong to us?"
+
+"What, miss?" cried Scanlan, in amazement.
+
+"I mean, sir, is it my uncle's determination to lease out
+everything,--even to the demesne around the Castle; to sell the timber
+and dispose of the royalties? If so, a mere residence here could have
+no object for _me_. It seems strange, Mr. Scanlan, that I should have
+to ask such a question. I own to you,--it is not without some sense of
+humiliation that I do so,--I believed, I fancied I had understood my
+uncle's intentions. Some of them he had even committed to writing, at
+my request; you shall see them yourself. The excitement and confusion of
+his departure,--the anxieties of leave-taking,--one thing or another,
+in short, gave me little time to seek his counsel as to many points I
+wished to know; and, in fact, I found myself suddenly alone before I was
+quite prepared for it, and then I fell ill,--a mere passing attack, but
+enough to unfit me for occupation."
+
+"Breakfast is served, miss," said a maid-servant, at this conjuncture,
+opening a door into a small room, where the table was spread.
+
+"I'm quite ready, and so I hope is Mr. Scanlan," said Mary, leading the
+way.
+
+No sooner seated at table than she proceeded to do the honors with an
+ease that plainly told that all the subject of her late discourse was to
+be left for the present in abeyance. In fact, the very tone of her voice
+was changed, as she chatted away carelessly about the borough people and
+their doings, what strangers had lately passed through the town, and the
+prospects of the coming season at Kilkieran.
+
+No theme could more readily have put Mr. Scanlan at his ease. He felt,
+or fancied he felt, himself at that degree of social elevation above
+the Oughterard people, which enabled him to talk with a species of
+compassionate jocularity of their little dinners and evening parties.
+He criticised toilet and manners and cookery, therefore, with much
+self-complacency,--far more than had he suspected that Mary Martin's
+amusement was more derived from the pretension of the speaker than the
+matter which he discussed.
+
+"That's what I think you'll find hardest of all, Miss Martin," said he,
+at the close of a florid description of the borough customs. "You can
+have no society here."
+
+"And yet I mean to try," said she, smiling; "at least, I have gone
+so far as to ask Mrs. Nelligan to come and dine with me on Monday or
+Tuesday next."
+
+"Mrs. Nelligan dine at Cro' Martin!" exclaimed he.
+
+"If she will be good enough to come so far for so little!"
+
+"She 'd go fifty miles on the same errand; and if I know old Dan
+himself, he 'll be a prouder man that day than when his son gained the
+gold medal."
+
+"Then I'm sure _I_, at least, am perfectly requited," said Mary.
+
+"But are you certain, Miss, that such people will suit you?" said
+Scanlan, half timidly. "They live in a very different style, and have
+other ways than yours. I say nothing against Mrs. Nelligan; indeed, she
+comes of a very respectable family; but sure she hasn't a thought nor an
+idea in common with Miss Martin."
+
+"I suspect you are wrong there, Mr. Scanlan. My impression is, that Mrs.
+Nelligan and I will find many topics to agree upon, and that we shall
+understand each other perfectly; and if, as you suppose, there may be
+certain things new and strange to me in _her_ modes of thinking, I 'm
+equally sure she 'll have to conquer many prejudices with regard to
+_me_.
+
+"I'm afraid you'll be disappointed, miss!" was the sententious reply of
+Scanlan.
+
+"Then there's our vicar!" broke in Mary. "Mr. Leslie will, I hope, take
+pity on my solitude."
+
+"Indeed, I forgot him entirely. I don't think I ever saw him at Cro'
+Martin."
+
+"Nor I, either," said Mary; "but he may concede from a sense of kindness
+what he would decline to a mere point of etiquette. In a word, Mr.
+Scanlan," said she, after a pause, "all the troubles and misfortunes
+which we have lately gone through--even to the destitution of the old
+house here--have in a great measure had their origin in the studious
+ignorance in which we have lived of our neighbors. I don't wish to
+enter upon political topics, but I am sure that had we known the
+borough people, and they us,--had we been in the habit of mingling and
+associating together, however little,--had we interchanged the little
+civilities that are the charities of social life,--we 'd have paused,
+either of us, ere we gave pain to the other; we'd at least have made
+concessions on each side, and so softened down the asperities of party.
+More than half the enmities of the world are mere misconceptions."
+
+"That's true!" said Scanlan, gravely. But his thoughts had gone on
+a very different errand from the theme in question, and were busily
+inquiring what effect all these changes might have upon his own
+prospects.
+
+"And now for a matter of business," said Mary, rising and taking her
+place at another table. "I shall want your assistance, Mr. Scanlan.
+There is a small sum settled upon me, but not payable during my uncle's
+life. I wish to raise a certain amount of this, by way of loan,--say a
+thousand pounds. Will this be easily accomplished?"
+
+"What's the amount of the settlement, miss?" said Scanlan, with more
+eagerness than was quite disinterested.
+
+"Five thousand pounds. There is the deed." And she pushed a parchment
+towards him.
+
+Scanlan ran his practised eye rapidly over the document, and with the
+quick craft of his calling saw it was all correct. "One or even two
+thousand can be had upon this at once, miss. It 's charged upon Kelly's
+farm and the mills--"
+
+"All I want to know is, that I can have this sum at my disposal, and
+very soon; at once, indeed."
+
+"Will next week suit you?"
+
+"Perfectly. And now to another point. These are the few memoranda my
+uncle left with me as to his wishes respecting the management of the
+estate. You will see that, although he desires a considerable diminution
+of the sum to be spent in wages, and a strict economy in all outlay,
+that he still never contemplated throwing the people out of employment.
+The quarries were to be worked as before,--the planting was to be
+continued,--the gardens and ornamental grounds, indeed, were to be
+conducted with less expense; but the harbor at Kilkieran and the new
+school-house at Ternagh were to be completed; and if money could be
+spared for it, he gave me leave to build a little hospital at the
+cross-roads, allowing forty pounds additional salary to Dr. Cloves
+for his attendance. These are the chief points; but you shall have the
+papers to read over at your leisure. We talked over many other matters;
+indeed, we chatted away till long after two o'clock the last night he
+was here, and I thought I understood perfectly all he wished. Almost his
+last words to me at parting were, 'As little change as possible, Molly.
+Let the poor people believe that I am still, where my heart is, under
+the roof of Cro' Martin!'"
+
+The recollection of the moment brought the tears to her eyes, and she
+turned her head away in silence.
+
+"Now," said she, rallying, and speaking with renewed energy, "if what
+Henderson says be correct, something later must have been issued than
+all this; some directions which I have never seen,--not so much as heard
+of. He tells me of works to be stopped, people discharged, schoolhouses
+closed, tenants ejected; in fact, a whole catalogue of such changes as I
+never could have courage to see, much less carry through. I know my dear
+uncle well; he never would have imposed such a task upon me, nor have I
+the resources within me for such an undertaking."
+
+"And have you received no letter from Mr. Martin, from Dublin?" asked
+Scanlan.
+
+"None,--not a line; a note from my aunt--indeed, not from my aunt, but
+by her orders, written by Kate Henderson--has reached me, in which,
+however, there is no allusion to the property or the place."
+
+"And yet her Ladyship said that Mr. Martin would write to you himself,
+in the course of the week, fully and explicitly."
+
+"To whom was this said, sir?"
+
+"To myself, miss; there is the letter." And Scanlan drew from his
+pocket-book a very voluminous epistle, in Kate Henderson's hand. "This
+contains the whole of her Ladyship's instructions. How all the works are
+to be stopped,--roads, woods, and quarries; the townlands of Carrigalone
+and Killybogue to be distrained; Kyle-a-Noe the same. If a tenant can be
+got for the demesne, it is to be let, with the shooting over the seven
+mountains, and the coast-fishing too. There's to be no more charges for
+schools, hospital, or dispensary after next November; everything is to
+be on the new plan, what they call 'Self-supporting.' I 'd like to know
+what that means. In fact, miss, by the time one half the orders given
+in that same letter is carried out, there won't be such another scene of
+misery and confusion in all Ireland as the estate of Cro' Martin."
+
+"And this is sanctioned by my uncle?"
+
+"I suppose we must conclude it is, for he says nothing to the contrary;
+and Mr. Repton writes me what he calls 'my instructions,' in a way that
+shows his own feeling of indignation about the whole business."
+
+Mary was silent; there was not a sentiment which could give pain that
+had not then its place in her heart. Commiseration, deep pity for
+the sorrows she was to witness unavailingly, wounded pride, insulted
+self-esteem,--all were there! And she turned away to hide the emotions
+which overcame her. For a moment the sense of self had the mastery, and
+she thought but of how she was to endure all this humiliation. "Am
+I," said she to her own heart,--"am I to be insulted by the rivalry of
+Scotch stewards and gardeners, to be thrust from my place of power by
+some low-born creature, not even of the soil, but an alien?--to live
+here bereft of influence, representing nothing save the decay of our
+fortunes?" The torrent of her passion ran full and deep, and her
+bosom heaved in the agony of the moment. And then as suddenly came the
+reaction. "How small a share is mine in all this suffering, and
+how miserably selfish are even my sorrows! It is of others I should
+think!--of those who must leave hearth and home to seek out a new
+resting-place,--of the poor, who are to be friendless,--of the
+suffering, to whom no comfort is to come,--of the old, who are to die
+in distant lands,--and the young, whose hearts are never to warm to the
+affections of a native country!"
+
+While affecting to arrange the papers in his pocket-book, Scanlan
+watched every passing shade of emotion in her face. Nor was it a study
+in which he was ignorant; the habits of his calling had made him a very
+subtle observer. Many a time had he framed his question to a witness
+by some passing expression of the features. More than once had he
+penetrated the heart through the eye! The elevation of sentiment had
+given its own character to her handsome face; and as she stood proudly
+erect, with arms folded on her breast, there was in her look and
+attitude all the calm dignity of an antique statue.
+
+Scanlan interpreted truthfully what passed within her, and rightly
+judged that no small sentiment of condolence or sympathy would be
+appropriate to the occasion. Nor was he altogether unprovided for
+the emergency. He had seen a king's counsel warm up a jury to the
+boiling-point, and heard him pour forth, with all the seeming vehemence
+of an honest conviction, the wildest rhapsodies about desecrated hearths
+and blackened roof-trees,--talk of the spoiler and the seducer,--and
+even shed a tear "over the widow and the orphan!"
+
+"What say you to all this, sir?" cried she. "Have you any counsel to
+give me,--any advice?"
+
+"It is just what I have not, miss," said he, despondingly; "and, indeed,
+it was uppermost in my heart this morning when I was writing my letter.
+What 's all I 'm suffering compared to what Miss Martin must feel?"
+
+"What letter do you allude to?" asked she, suddenly.
+
+"A letter I wrote to Mr. Repton, miss," said he, with a deep sigh. "I
+told him plainly my mind about everything; and I said, 'If it 's for
+exterminating you are,--if you 're going to turn out families that
+were on the land for centuries, and drive away over the seas, God knows
+where, the poor people that thought the name of Martin a shield against
+all the hardships of life, all I have to say is, you must look elsewhere
+for help, since it is not Maurice Scanlan will aid you.'"
+
+"You said all this, sir?" broke she in, eagerly.
+
+"I did, miss. I told him I 'd hold the under-agency till he named some
+one to succeed me; but that I 'd not put my hand to one act or deed to
+distress the tenants. It 's giving up," said I, "the best part of
+my means of support; it's surrendering what I reckoned on to make me
+independent. But a good conscience is better than money, miss; and if I
+must seek out a new country, I 'll go at least without the weight of a
+cruel wrong over me; and if I see one of our poor Western people beyond
+seas, I 'll not be ashamed to meet him!"
+
+"Oh, that was noble,--that was truly noble conduct!" cried she, grasping
+his hand in both her own. "How I thank you from my very heart for this
+magnanimity!"
+
+"If I ever suspected you 'd have said the half of this, Miss Mary, the
+sacrifice would have been a cheap one, indeed. But, in truth, I never
+meant to tell it. I intended to have kept my own secret; for I knew if
+any one only imagined why it was I threw up the agency, matters would
+only be worse on the estate."
+
+"Yes, you are right," said she, thoughtfully. "This was most
+considerate. Such a censure would augment every difficulty."
+
+"I felt that, miss. What I said to myself was, 'My successor will
+neither know the place nor the people; he 'll be cruel where he ought
+to have mercy, and spare those that he ought to keep to their duty.'
+It isn't in a day nor a week that a man learns the habits of a large
+tenantry, nor was it without labor and pains that I acquired my present
+influence amongst them."
+
+"Quite true," said she; but more as though following out her own
+reflections than hearing his.
+
+"They 'll have _you_, however," said Scanlan,--"you, that are better to
+them than all the agents that ever breathed; and the very sight of you
+riding down amongst them will cheer their hearts in the darkest moments
+of life. I turned back the whole townland of Terry Valley. They
+were packing up to be off to America; but I told them, 'she 's not
+going,--she 'll stay here, and never desert you.'"
+
+"Nor will _you_ either, sir," cried Mary. "You will not desert them, nor
+desert _me_. Recall your letter!"
+
+"It's not gone off to the post yet. I was waiting to see you--"
+
+"Better still. Oh, Mr. Scanlan, bethink you how much yet may be done for
+these poor people, if we will but forget ourselves and what we think we
+owe to self-esteem. If _you_ will have sacrifices to make, believe me,
+_I_ shall not escape them also. It is nobler, too, and finer to
+remain here bereft of influence, stripped of all power, to share their
+sufferings and take part in their afflictions. Neither you nor I shall
+be to them what we have been; but still, let us not abandon them. Tell
+me this,--say that you will stay to counsel and advise me, to guide me
+where I need guidance, and give me all the benefit of your experience
+and your knowledge. Let it be a compact between us then; neither shall
+go while the other remains!"
+
+It was with difficulty Scanlan could restrain his delight at these
+words. How flattering to his present vanity,--how suggestive were they
+of the future! With all the solemnity of a vow he bound himself to stay;
+and Mary thanked him with the fervor of true gratitude.
+
+If there be few emotions so pleasurable as to be the object of
+acknowledged gratitude for real services, it may well be doubted whether
+the consciousness of not having merited this reward does not seriously
+detract from this enjoyment. There are men, however, so constituted that
+a successful scheme--no matter how unscrupulously achieved--is always
+a triumph, and who cherish their self-love even in degradation! Maurice
+Scanlan is before our reader, and whether he was one of this number it
+is not for us to say; enough if we record that when he cantered homeward
+on that day he sang many a snatch of a stray ballad, and none of them
+were sad ones.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX. A SUNDAY MORNING AT CRO' MARTIN
+
+Nothing is further from our intention than to enter upon the long-vexed
+question as to the benefits of an Established Church for Ireland. Wiser
+heads than ours have discussed it polemically, politically, socially,
+and arithmetically; and there it is still, left to the judgment of each,
+as his religion, his party, or his prejudices sway him. There is one
+view of the subject, however, which no traveller in the country has
+ever failed to be struck by; which is, that these settlements of
+Protestantism, dotted through the land, are so many types of an advanced
+civilization, suggesting, even to those of a different faith, respect
+and veneration for the decorous observance of this Church, and the calm
+peace-fulness with which they keep the Sabbath.
+
+Priests may denounce and politicians declaim, but the Irish peasant,
+nurtured with all the prejudices of race and religion, never throws off
+his veneration for the little flock, who, like a brave garrison in a
+besieged land, hold manfully together round the banner of their Faith!
+How striking is this in remote parts of the country, where the reformed
+religion has made little progress, and its followers are few in number!
+
+It was Sunday; the gates of Cro' Martin Park were open to admit all who
+might repair to the church. When the Martins were at home, Lady Dorothea
+used to give to these occasions somewhat of the state of a procession.
+The servants wore their dress liveries; two carriages were in waiting.
+She herself appeared in a toilet that might have graced a court chapel;
+and a formal ceremoniousness of speech and demeanor were ordained as the
+becoming recognition of the holy day. Trained to these observances by
+many a year, Mary could scarcely comprehend the strange sensation she
+felt as she walked along to church, unattended and alone. It was a
+bright day of early summer, with a soft wind stirring the leaves above,
+and rippling pleasantly the waters of the lake. The perfume of the new
+hay floated through the thin air, with the odor of the whitethorn and
+the meadow-sweet; the birds were singing merrily; and through this gay
+carol came the mellow sound of the little bell that summoned to prayer.
+There was a delicious sense of repose in the stillness around, telling
+how, amid the cares and contentions of life, its wealth seekings, and
+its petty schemes there came moments when the better instincts were
+the victors, and men, in all the diversities of their rank and
+station, could meet together to kneel at one altar, and unite in one
+supplication. As she went, little glimpses were caught by her of the
+distant country beyond the demesne; and over all there reigned the same
+tranquillity; the sound of voices, far away, adding to the effect, and
+making the silence more palpable. "How peaceful it is," thought she,
+"and how happy it might be! Could we but bridle our own passions,
+restrain our mean jealousies, and curb the evil promptings of our own
+hearts, what blessings might grow up amongst them! But for objects not
+worth the attaining,--ambitions of no value when won,--and my uncle
+might still be here, strolling along, perhaps, with me at this
+very moment, and with me drinking in this calm repose and soothing
+quietness."
+
+Before her, at some little distance on the path, went the three
+daughters of the village doctor; and, though well and becomingly
+attired, there was nothing in their appearance to warrant the reproach
+Lady Dorothea had cast upon their style of dress. It was, indeed,
+scrupulously neat, but simple. The eldest was a girl of about sixteen,
+with all the gravity of manner and staid expression that belongs
+to those who stand in the light of mothers to younger sisters. The
+housekeeper of her father's little home, the manager of all within
+its humble household, his secretary, his companion, Ellen Cloves had
+acquired, while little more than a child, the patient and submissive
+temper that long worldly trial confers. They lived perfectly to
+themselves; between the society of the castle and that of the farmers
+around there was no intermediate territory, and thus they passed their
+lives in a little circle of home duties and affections, which made up
+all their world.
+
+Mary Martin had often wished it in her power to show them some
+attentions; she was attracted by their gentle faces and their calm
+and happy demeanor. Had her aunt permitted, she would have frequently
+invited them to the castle, lent them books and music, and sought
+companionship in their intercourse. But Lady Dorothea would not have
+heard of such a project; her theory was that familiarity with the
+peasant was so far safe that his station was a safeguard against any
+undue intimacy; while your half-gentry were truly perilous, for if you
+condescended to civility with them, they invariably mistook it for a
+friendship. Dr. Cloves dined every Christmas-day at the great house; but
+so did Mr. Scanlan and all the other heads of departments. It was a very
+grand and solemn festival, where neither host nor guest was happy; each
+felt that it was but the acquaintance of an hour, and that with the
+moment of leave-taking came back all the cold reserve of the day before.
+
+"Good-morning, Miss Cloves; good-day, Jane, and little Bessy," said
+Mary, as she overtook them.
+
+"Good-morning to you, Miss Martin," said Ellen, blushing with surprise
+at seeing her alone and on foot.
+
+"I trust the doctor is not ill? I don't see him with you," said Mary,
+anxious to relieve her momentary embarrassment.
+
+"Papa has been sent for to Knocktiernan, Miss Martin. They 're afraid
+that a case of cholera has occurred there."
+
+"May God forbid!" ejaculated Mary, with deep emotion; "we have great
+distress and poverty around us. I hope we may be spared this scourge."
+
+"It is what papa feared always," rejoined Ellen, gravely; "that want and
+destitution would bring on the malady."
+
+"Have you heard who it is is ill?"
+
+"Simon Hanley, the carpenter, Miss Martin; he worked at the castle
+once--"
+
+"Yes, yes I remember him; he made me my first little garden-rake. Poor
+fellow! And he has a large family. Your father will, I trust, have seen
+him in time. Knocktiernan is but four miles of a good road."
+
+"Papa went by the Mills, Miss Martin, for shortness, for he was on
+foot."
+
+"Why did he not ride?"
+
+"He has sold Bluebell,--the pony, I mean, Miss Martin."
+
+Mary's face became crimson with a blush that seemed to burn through the
+forehead into her very brain, and she could only mutter,--
+
+"I 'm sorry I did n't know; my carriage and pony were in the stable. If
+I had but heard of this--" and was silent.
+
+They had now reached the entrance to the little churchyard, where the
+few members of the small flock lingered, awaiting the arrival of the
+clergyman. Amidst many a respectful salutation and gaze of affectionate
+interest, Mary walked to the end of the aisle, where, shrouded in heavy
+curtains, soft-cushioned and high-panelled, stood the castle pew.
+
+It must be, indeed, hard for the rich man to enter the kingdom of
+heaven. The very appliances of his piety are the offshoots of his
+voluptuous habits; and that his heart should feel humble, his hassock
+must be of down! It was not often that the words of the pastor were
+heard within that solemn, small enclosure with the same reverent
+devotion. Mary was now alone there; her mind no longer distracted by
+the petty incidents of their coming, her proud station seemed to
+have vanished, and she felt herself but as one of an humble flock,
+supplicating and in sorrow!
+
+Dr. Leslie had heard of the terrible visitation which menaced them, and
+made it the subject of his sermon. The fact of his own great age and
+fast declining strength gave a deeper meaning to all he said, and
+imparted to the faltering words of his benediction the solemnity of a
+farewell.
+
+"You are a little fatigued to-day, doctor," said Mary, as he came out of
+church. "Will you allow me to offer you my arm?"
+
+"Willingly, my dear Miss Mary. But this is not our road."
+
+"Why so?--this is the path to the vicarage."
+
+"They 've made some change, my dear; they 've altered the approach."
+
+"And you came round by the avenue,--a distance of two miles?" cried she,
+deep crimson with shame.
+
+"And kept you all waiting; but not very long, I trust," said he, smiling
+benevolently. "But come, talk to me of yourself, and when I am to come
+and see you."
+
+"Oh, my dear Dr. Leslie, you must not think that I--that my uncle--" She
+stopped, and he pressed her hand gently, and said,--
+
+"Do not speak of it; do not give importance to things which are trifles,
+if we have but good temper to leave them so. Is to-morrow a free day
+with you; or when shall I hope to find you at leisure?"
+
+"My dear doctor, every day will be so in future; all my functions have
+ceased here. I am to be nothing in future."
+
+"I had heard something of that, and I said to myself, 'Now will Mary
+Martin display her real character. No longer carried away by the mere
+enthusiasm of her great power and her high station, not exalted to
+herself by the flatteries around her, we shall see whether the sterling
+qualities of her nature will not supply higher and greater resources
+than all the credit at a banker's!' I never undervalued all you did
+here, Mary Martin; I saw your noble purpose, even in failures; but I
+always felt that to make these efforts react favorably on yourself,
+there should be something of sacrifice. To do good was a luxury to
+you; and it was a luxury very easy to purchase. You were rich, you were
+powerful; none controlled you. Your benefits were acknowledged with all
+the enthusiasm of peasant gratitude. Why should you not be beneficent?
+what other course of conduct could bring you one half the pleasure?
+For the future, it is from another source you must dispense wealth; but
+happily it is one which there is no exhausting, for the heart exercised
+to charity has boundless stores. Let these be your riches now. Go
+amongst the people; learn to know them,--rather their friend than their
+benefactor,--and believe me that all the gold you have scattered so
+generously will not have sown such seeds of goodness as the meek example
+of your own noble submission to altered fortune. There, my dear," said
+he, smiling, "I 'll say no more, lest you should tell me that I have
+preached half an hour already. And I may come to-morrow, you say?"
+
+"What a happiness it will be for me to speak to you!" said Mary,
+ardently. "There are so many things I want to say,--so much on which I
+need advice."
+
+"I 'm but little practised in the ways of the world," said he, with a
+gentle sigh, "but I have ever found great wisdom in an honest purpose;
+and then," added he, more warmly, "it is a fine philosophy that secures
+us against humiliation, even in defeat!"
+
+They now walked along for some time without speaking, when a sudden
+angle of the path brought them directly in front of the castle. They
+both halted suddenly, struck, as it were, by the aspect of the spacious
+and splendid structure, all silent and deserted. The doors were
+closed, the windows shuttered,--not a living creature moved about the
+precincts,--and the lone flagstaff on the tower unfurled no "banner to
+the breeze." Even the trimly kept parterres were beginning to show signs
+of neglect, and tangled flowers fell across the gravel.
+
+"What a lonely home for _her!_" muttered the old doctor to himself; then
+suddenly exclaimed, "Here comes some one in search of you, Miss Martin."
+
+And a servant approached and whispered a few words in her ear.
+
+"Yes, immediately," said she, in reply.
+
+She entreated the old man to rest himself for a while ere he continued
+his walk homeward; but he declined, and with an affectionate farewell
+they parted,--he towards the vicarage, and she to re-enter the castle.
+
+There is no need to practise mystery with our reader; and he who
+had just arrived, and was eager to see Miss Martin, was only Maurice
+Scanlan! As little use is there also in denying the fact that Mary was
+much annoyed at his inopportune coming. She was in no mood of mind to
+meet either him or such topics as he would certainly discuss.
+
+However, she had, so to say, given him a permission to be admitted at
+all times, and there was no help for it!
+
+These same people that one "must see," are very terrible inflictions
+sometimes. They are ever present at the wrong time and the wrong
+place. They come in moments when their presence is a discord to all our
+thoughts; and what is to the full as bad, they don't know it,--or they
+will not know it. They have an awful amount of self-esteem, and fancy
+that they never can be but welcome. A type of this class was Maurice
+Scanlan. Thrust forward by the accidents of life into situations for
+which nothing in his own humble beginnings seemed to adapt him, he had,
+like all the other Maurice Scanlans of the world, taken to suppose that
+he was really a very necessary and important ingredient in all affairs.
+He found, too, that his small cunning served to guide him, where really
+able men's wisdom failed them,--for so it is, people won't take
+soundings when they think they can see the bottom; and, finally, he
+conceived a very high opinion of his faculties, and thought them equal
+to much higher purposes than they had ever been engaged in.
+
+Since his last interview with Mary Martin, he had never ceased to
+congratulate himself on the glorious turn of his affairs. Though not
+over-sanguine about others, Maurice was always hopeful of himself. It is
+one of the characteristics of such men, and one of the greatest aids to
+their activity, this ever-present belief in themselves. To secure the
+good opinion he had already excited in his favor was now his great
+endeavor; and nothing could so effectually contribute to this, as to
+show an ardent zeal and devotion to her wishes. He had read somewhere of
+a certain envoy who had accomplished his mission ere it was believed he
+had set out; and he resolved to profit by the example. It was, then,
+in the full confidence of success, that he presented himself on this
+occasion.
+
+Mary received him calmly, almost coldly. His presence was not in harmony
+with any thought that occupied her, and she deemed the task of admitting
+him something like an infliction.
+
+"I drove over, Miss Mary," said he, rather disconcerted by her
+reserve,--"I drove over to-day, though I know you don't like business on
+a Sunday, just to say that I had completed that little matter you spoke
+of,--the money affair. I did n't sleep on it, but went to work at once;
+and though the papers won't be ready for some days, the cash is ready
+for you whenever you like to draw it."
+
+"You have been very kind and very prompt, sir," said she, thankfully,
+but with a languor that showed she was not thinking of the subject.
+
+"He said five per cent," continued Scanlan, "and I made no objection;
+for, to tell you the truth, I expected he'd have asked us six,--he's
+generally a hard hand to deal with."
+
+It was evident that he hoped her curiosity might have inquired the name
+of him thus alluded to; but she never did so, but heard the fact with a
+calm indifference.
+
+Scanlan was uneasy; his heaviest artillery had opened no breach. What
+should be his next manouvre?
+
+"The money-market is tight just now," said he, speaking only to gain
+time for further observation; "and there's worse times even before us."
+
+If Mary heard, she did not notice this gloomy speculation.
+
+"I 'm sure it will be no easy job to get the last November rent paid up.
+It was a bad crop; and now there 's sickness coming amongst them," said
+he, half as though to himself. "You'll have to excuse me to-day, Mr.
+Scanlan," said she, at last. "I find I can think of nothing; I am in one
+of my idle moods."
+
+"To be sure, why not, Miss Mary?" said he, evidently piqued at the
+ill-success of all his zeal. "It was _I_ made a mistake. I fancied,
+somehow, you were anxious about this little matter; but another day will
+do as well,--whenever it's your own convenience."
+
+"You are always considerate, always good-natured, Mr. Scanlan," said
+she, with a vagueness that showed she was scarcely conscious of what she
+uttered.
+
+"If _you_ think so, Miss Mary, I 'm well repaid," said he, with a dash
+of gallantry in the tone; "nor is it by a trifle like this I'd like to
+show my--my--my--devotion." And the last word came out with an effort
+that made his face crimson.
+
+"Yes," muttered she, not hearing one word of his speech.
+
+"So that I'll come over to-morrow, Miss Mary," broke he in.
+
+"Very well, to-morrow!" replied she, as still musing she turned to the
+window, no more thinking of the luckless attorney than if he had been
+miles away; and when at length she did look round, he was gone! It was
+some minutes ere Mary could perfectly reconcile herself to the fact that
+he had been there at all; but as to how and when and why he took his
+leave, were mysteries of which she could make nothing. And yet Mr.
+Scanlan had gone through a very ceremonious farewell. He had bowed, and
+sidled, and simpered, and smirked, and sighed; had thrown himself into
+attitudes pictorially devoted and despairing, looked unutterable things
+in various styles, and finally made an exit, covered with as much
+shame and discomfiture as so confident a spirit could well experience,
+muttering, as he paced the corridor, certain prospective reprisals for
+this haughty indifference, when a certain time should arrive, and a
+certain fair lady--But we have no right to push his speculations further
+than he himself indulged them; and on the present occasion Maurice was
+less sanguine than his wont.
+
+"I fed the mare, sir," said Barnes, as he held the stirrup for Scanlan
+to mount.
+
+"And gave her water, too," said the attorney, doggedly.
+
+"Devil a drop, then," resumed the other. "I just sprinkled the oats, no
+more; that's Miss Mary's orders always."
+
+"She understands a stable well," said Scanlan, half questioning.
+
+"Does n't she?" said the other, with a sententious smack of the lip. "To
+bit a horse or to back him, to tache him his paces and cure him of bad
+tricks, to train him for harness, double and single, to show him the way
+over a wall or a wide ditch, to make him rise light and come down easy,
+she has n't a match on this island; and as for training," added he, with
+fresh breath, "did you see Sir Lucius?"
+
+"No," said Scanlan, with awakened interest.
+
+"Wait till I bring him out, then. I'll show you a picture!" And Barnes
+disappeared into the stable. In five minutes after, he returned, leading
+a dark brown horse, who, even shrouded in all the covering of hood
+and body-clothes, displayed in his long step and lounging gait the
+attributes of a racer.
+
+In a few minutes Barnes had unbuckled strap and surcingle, and sweeping
+back the blankets dexterously over the croup, so as not to ruffle a hair
+of the glossy coat, exhibited an animal of surpassing symmetry, in all
+the pride of high condition.
+
+"There's a beast," said he, proudly, "without speck or spot, brand or
+blemish about him! You 're a good judge of a horse, Mr. Scanlan; and
+tell me when did you see his equal?"
+
+"He's a nice horse!" said Scanlan, slowly, giving to each word a slow
+and solemn significance; then, casting a keen glance all around and over
+him, added, "There 's a splint on the off leg!"
+
+"So there is, the least taste in life," said Barnes, passing his hand
+lightly over it; "and was there ever a horse--worth the name of a
+horse--that hadn't a splint? Sure, they 're foaled with them! I wanted
+Miss Mary to let me take that off with an ointment I have, but she would
+n't. 'It's not in the way of the tendon,' says she. 'It will never spoil
+his action, and we 'll not blemish him with a mark.' Them's her very
+words."
+
+"He's a nice horse," said Scanlan, once more, as if the very parsimony
+of the praise was the highest testimony of the utterer; "and in rare
+condition, too," added he.
+
+"In the very highest," said Barnes. "He was as sure of that cup as I am
+that my name 's Tim."
+
+"What cup?" asked Scanlan.
+
+"Kiltimmon,--the June race; he's entered and all; and now he's to
+be sold,--them 's the orders I got yesterday; he's to be auctioned at
+Dycer's on Saturday for whatever he'll bring!"
+
+"And now, what do you expect for him, Barnes?" said Maurice,
+confidentially.
+
+"Sorrow one o' me knows. He might go for fifty,--he might go for two
+hundred and fifty! and cheap he'd be of it. He has racing speed over a
+flat course, and steeplechase action for his fences. With eleven stone
+on his back--one that can ride, I mean, of course--he 'd challenge all
+Ireland."
+
+[Illustration: 418]
+
+"I would n't mind making a bid for him myself," said Scanlan, hesitating
+between his jockeyism and the far deeper game which he was playing.
+
+"Do then, sir, and don't draw him for the race, for he 'll win it as
+sure as I 'm here. 'T is Jemmy was to ride him; and Miss Mary would n't
+object to give you the boy, jacket and all, her own colors,--blue, with
+white sleeves."
+
+"Do you think so, Barnes? Do you think she'd let me run him in the
+Martin colors?" cried Scanlan, to whom the project now had suddenly
+assumed a most fascinating aspect.
+
+"What would you give for him?" asked Barnes, in a business-like voice.
+
+"A hundred,--a hundred and fifty,--two hundred, if I was sure of what
+you say."
+
+"Leave it to me, sir,--leave it all to _me_," said Barnes, with the
+gravity of a diplomatist who understood his mission. "Where can I see
+you to-morrow?"
+
+"I 'll be here about ten o'clock!"
+
+"That will do,--enough said!" And Barnes, replacing the horse-sheet,
+slowly re-entered the stable; while Scanlan, putting spurs to his nag,
+dashed hurriedly away, his thoughts outstripping in their speed the pace
+he went, and traversing space with a rapidity that neither "blood" nor
+training ever vied with.
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of
+II), by Charles James Lever
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diff --git a/35143.zip b/35143.zip
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #35143 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35143)
diff --git a/old/35143-h.htm.2021-01-25 b/old/35143-h.htm.2021-01-25
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
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+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The Martins of Cro' Martin, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Charles James Lever.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    pre     { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II), by
+Charles James Lever
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II)
+
+Author: Charles James Lever
+
+Illustrator: Phiz.
+
+Release Date: February 2, 2011 [EBook #35143]
+Last Updated: February 27, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<p>
+<br /><br /> <br />
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img alt="frontispiece (235K)" src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="100%" />
+</div>
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+<h1>
+THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN
+</h1>
+<h2>
+By Charles James Lever.
+</h2>
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+<h3>
+With Illustrations By Phiz.
+</h3>
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+<h4>
+In Two Volumes
+</h4>
+<h4>
+Vol. I.
+</h4>
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+<h3>
+Boston: <br /> Little, Brown, And Company. <br /> 1906.
+</h3>
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img alt="frontis2 (134K)" src="images/frontis2.jpg" width="100%" />
+</div>
+<p>
+<br /> <br />
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img alt="titlepage (29K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="100%" />
+</div>
+<p>
+<br /> <br /> <br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p>
+<br /> <br />
+</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p class="toc">
+<big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+</p>
+<p>
+<br /> <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1872. </a><br /><br />
+<a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CRO' MARTIN <br /><br />
+<a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;KILKIERAN BAY <br /><br />
+<a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AN AUTUMN MORNING
+IN THE WEST <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;MAURICE
+SCANLAN, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V.
+</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A STUDIO AND AN ARTIST <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0006">
+CHAPTER VI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A DASH OF POLITICS <br /><br /> <a
+href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A COLLEGE COMPETITOR
+<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;SOME
+KNOTTY POINTS THAT PUZZLED JOE NELLIGAN <br /><br /> <a
+href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE MARTIN ARMS <br /><br />
+<a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A DINNER-PARTY <br /><br />
+<a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;YOUNG NELLIGAN, AS
+INTERPRETED IN TWO WAYS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII.
+</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A VERY &ldquo;CROSS EXAMINATION&rdquo; <br /><br /> <a
+href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;"A HOUSEKEEPER'S
+ROOM&rdquo; <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+FINE OLD IRISH BARRISTER <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV.
+</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;"A RUINED FORTUNE&rdquo; <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0016">
+CHAPTER XVI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;"A CHALLENGE&rdquo; <br /><br /> <a
+href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A COUNTRY-HOUSE
+<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;STATECRAFT
+<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+STUDIO <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AN
+ELECTION ADDRESS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AN
+AWKWARD VISITOR <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+DAY &ldquo;AFTER&rdquo; <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+CHARACTERISTIC LETTER <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV.
+</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THREE COACHES AND THEIR COMPANY <br /><br /> <a
+href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;COUNTRY AUCTION <br /><br />
+<a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;"REVERSES&rdquo; <br /><br />
+<a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;DARKENING
+FORTUNES <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII.&nbsp; </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HOW
+MR. SCANLAN GIVES SCOPE TO A GENEROUS IMPULSE <br /><br /> <a
+href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A SUNDAY MORNING AT
+CRO' MARTIN <br /><br />
+</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>
+<br /> <br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p>
+<br /> <br />
+</p>
+<h3>
+TO THE REVEREND MORTIMER O'SULLIVAN, D.D.
+</h3>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+I cannot, however, deny myself the pleasure of inscribing to you a book to
+which I have given much thought and labor,&mdash;a testimony of the deep
+and sincere affection of one who has no higher pride than in the honor of
+your friendship.
+</p>
+<p>
+Ever sincerely yours,
+</p>
+<p>
+CHARLES LEVER
+</p>
+<p>
+Casa Cappoli, Florence, May, 1856
+</p>
+<p>
+<br /> <br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p>
+<br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1872.
+</h2>
+<p>
+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 &ldquo;Roland Cashel&rdquo; and &ldquo;The Daltons,&rdquo; mildly
+rebuked me for having fallen into doubtful company, and half censured&mdash;in
+Bohemian&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+I had not, I own, any implicit faith in Acts of Parliament, and I had a
+fervent belief in what kindness&mdash;when combined with knowledge of
+Ireland&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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,&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+If a nation is to be judged by her bearing under calamity, Ireland&mdash;and
+she has had some experiences&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+CHARLES LEVER.
+</p>
+<p>
+Trieste, 1872.
+</p>
+<p>
+<br /> <br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p>
+<br /> <br />
+</p>
+<h1>
+THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN.
+</h1>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER I. CRO' MARTIN
+</h2>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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,&mdash;here and there the miserable
+hut of some &ldquo;cottier,&rdquo; 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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 &ldquo;marqueterie,&rdquo;
+ 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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,&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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,&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You're all very late to-day,&rdquo; cried the young lady. &ldquo;You should have been
+in the stables an hour ago. Where 's Brand?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He 's gone into the fair, miss, with a lot of hoggets,&rdquo; said a little old
+fellow with a rabbit-skin cap, and a most unmistakable groom formation
+about the knees and ankles.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look to the mare, Barny,&rdquo; said she, jumping off; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+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,&mdash;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,&mdash;all were there, and upon all was he arraigned.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The old story, of course, Graft,&rdquo; said she, slapping her foot impatiently
+with her riding-whip,&mdash;&ldquo;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,&mdash;just so&mdash;a full month earlier than you
+expected,&mdash;and if the garden be not in perfect order,&mdash;if I find
+one of these things I have complained of to-day&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, my leddy, this is the season when, what wi' sellin' the fruit, and
+what wi' the new shoots&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;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,&rdquo; 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now for old Catty Broon, and a good breakfast to put me in better
+temper,&rdquo; said she to herself, as she entered the castle and wended her way
+to the housekeeper's room.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;May I never; but I thought it was a dream when I heard your voice
+outside,&rdquo; said old Catty, as she welcomed her young mistress with
+heartfelt delight; &ldquo;but when I saw them runnin' here and runnin' there, I
+said, sure enough, she's come in earnest.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite true, Catty,&rdquo; said Mary, laughing. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was the bathing any use to my Lady, miss?&rdquo; asked Catty, but in a tone
+that combined a kind of half drollery with earnest.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But sure you are not goin' to ride back to Kilkieran to-day?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix, you 're your father's daughter all over,&rdquo; said Catty, with a look
+first at <i>her</i>, 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was that ever like papa?&rdquo; asked the girl.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Tis his born image, it is,&rdquo; said Catty; and her eyes swam with tears as
+she turned away.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, to <i>my</i> thinking he is far better-looking in that picture!&rdquo;
+ 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, then, the other was more himself!&rdquo; sighed Catty; &ldquo;and more nat'ral
+too, with the long hair on his neck and that roguish laugh in his eye.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And neither are very like that!&rdquo; 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Arrah, that ain't a bit like him,&rdquo; said the old woman, querulously, &ldquo;for
+all that he said that it was.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+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: &ldquo;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.&mdash;Guastalla, May, 1808.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And has he not written since that?&rdquo; sighed the girl, over whom the dark
+shadow of orphanhood passed as she spoke.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;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,&rdquo; muttered the old woman, after a pause, and as though
+giving an explanation to some problem that she was working within her own
+head.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But my uncle loved him,&rdquo; broke in Mary.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And why wouldn't he? War n't they twins? There was only a few minutes
+between them,&mdash;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!&rdquo;
+ grumbled out the old crone, &ldquo;if they were both born poor, they 'd be
+livin' together like brothers now, under the one roof,&mdash;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!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+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. &ldquo;Catty,&rdquo; said
+she, at length, and in a voice of unusually calm earnestness, &ldquo;never talk
+to me of these things; they only fret me; they set me a thinking of Heaven
+knows what longings,&mdash;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&mdash;but&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+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, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix, miss,&rdquo; said the old woman, &ldquo;they 're all here already. The news
+soon spread that you came over this morning, and you 'll have a great
+assembly.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll not keep them waiting, then,&rdquo; 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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,&mdash;preparations all equally the
+source of fruitful observation.
+</p>
+<p>
+The company was entirely of the softer sex,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nor would a follower of Lavater have argued too favorably of the
+prosperity of Irish regeneration, in beholding that array of faces,&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001">
+<!-- IMG --></a> <br />
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img alt="frontis2 (134K)" src="images/frontis2.jpg" width="100%" />
+</div>
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+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 &ldquo;gnarled
+natures,&rdquo; 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,&mdash;none,&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary Martin knew them&mdash;understood them&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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,&mdash;little luxuries accorded to old age,&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jane Maloney,&rdquo; said Mary, placing a small packet on the table, &ldquo;give this
+to Sally Kieran as you pass her door; and here 's the order for your own
+cloak.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;May the heavens be your bed. May the holy&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catty Honan,&rdquo; cried Mary, with a gesture to enforce silence. &ldquo;Catty, your
+granddaughter never comes to the school now that she has got leave. What's
+the reason of that?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix, your reverance, miss, 'tis ashamed she is by ray-son of her
+clothes. She says Luke Cassidy's daughters have check aprons.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No more of this, Catty. Tell Eliza to come on Monday, and if I 'm
+satisfied with her she shall have one too.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Two ounces of tea for the Widow Jones.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ayeh,&rdquo; muttered an old hag. &ldquo;But it's weak it makes it without a little
+green in it!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How are the pains, Sarah?&rdquo; asked Mary, turning to a very feeble-looking
+old creature with crutches.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Worse and worse, my Lady. With every change of the weather they come on
+afresh.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The doctor will attend you, Sally, and if he thinks wine good for you,
+you shall have it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'T is that same would be the savin' of me, Miss Mary,&rdquo; said a
+cunning-eyed little woman, with a tattered straw bonnet on her head, and a
+ragged shawl over her.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think so, Nancy. Come up to the house on Monday morning and help
+Mrs. Taafe with the bleaching.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So this is the duplicate, Polly?&rdquo; said she, taking a scrap of paper from
+an old woman whose countenance indicated a blending of dissipation with
+actual want.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;One-and-fourpence was all I got on it, and trouble enough it gave me.&rdquo;
+ These words she uttered with a heavy sigh, and in a tone at once resentful
+and complaining.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Were my uncle to know that you had pawned your cloak, Polly, he 'd never
+permit you to cross his threshold.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ayeh, it's a great sin, to be sure,&rdquo; whined out the hag, half insolently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A great shame and a great disgrace it certainly is; and I shall stop all
+relief to you till the money be paid back.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And why not!&rdquo; &ldquo;To be sure!&rdquo; &ldquo;Miss Mary is right!&rdquo; &ldquo;What else could she
+do?&rdquo; broke in full twenty sycophant voices, who hoped to prefer their own
+claims by the cheap expedient of condemning another.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Widow Hannigan.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here, miss,&rdquo; simpered out a smiling little old creature, with a courtesy,
+as she held up a scroll of paper in her hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What 's this, Widow Hannigan?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'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.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mary smiled at the performance, which certainly did not promise future
+excellence, and went on,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix, miss, I don't know. Sure it was none of ours would dare to&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+But why attempt to follow out what would be but the long, unending
+catalogue of native misery,&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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;&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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 &ldquo;young stock,&rdquo; and
+listening to old Barny's predictions about yearlings and two-year-olds.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Mary will look to it&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Tell my niece of it&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Miss Martin
+will give her orders,&rdquo; 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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 &ldquo;best
+head he ever knew, except my Lady's,&rdquo; she was dreadfully imposed on by the
+people&mdash;but, to be sure, &ldquo;how could a young lady be up to them?&rdquo; 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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&mdash;hard struggling efforts, fighting their
+way through all the adverse circumstances of their poverty&mdash;that he
+never could have estimated, much less could he have speculated on the
+future to which they might one day attain.
+</p>
+<p>
+If Mary was heart and soul devoted to her object,&mdash;if she thought of
+nothing else,&mdash;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, &ldquo;Faix,
+Miss Mary will find the way to it;&rdquo; or, &ldquo;Sure it won't baffle <i>her</i>,
+anyhow.&rdquo; This confidence in her powers stimulated and encouraged her,
+often engendering the very resources it imputed.
+</p>
+<p>
+She might have made many a mistake in the characters of those for whom she
+was interested,&mdash;conceived many a false hope,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.
+</p>
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;God bless her! she's always cheerful and light-hearted,&rdquo; said the poor
+peasant, as he leaned on his spade to look after her; &ldquo;and one feels
+better the whole day after the sight of her!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER II. KILKIERAN BAY
+</h2>
+<p>
+In one of the many indentures of Kilkieran Bay,&mdash;favored by a
+southerly aspect and a fine sandy beach, sheltered by two projecting
+headlands,&mdash;stood a little row of cabins, originally the dwellings of
+poor fishermen, but now, in summer-time, the resort of the neighboring
+gentry, who frequented the coast for sea-bathing. There was little attempt
+made by the humble owners to accommodate the habits of the wealthy
+visitors. Some slight effort at neatness, or some modest endeavor at
+internal decoration, by a little window-curtain or a rickety chest of
+drawers, were the very extent of these pretensions. Year by year the
+progress of civilization went thus lazily forward; and, far from finding
+fault with this backwardness, it was said that the visitors were just as
+well satisfied. Many hoped to see the place as they remembered it in their
+own childhood, many were not sorry to avail themselves of its inexpensive
+life and simple habits, and some were more pleased that its humble
+attractions could draw no strangers to sojourn there to mock by their more
+costly requirements the quiet ways of the old residents.
+</p>
+<p>
+Under the shelter of a massive rock, which formed the northern boundary of
+the little bay, stood one building of more pretension. It was a handsome
+bathing-lodge, with a long veranda towards the sea, and an effort, not
+very successful, however, at a little flower-garden in front. The spacious
+bay-windows, which opened in French fashion, were of plate-glass; the deep
+projecting eave was ornamented with a handsome cornice; and the entire
+front had been richly decorated by entablatures in stucco and common
+cement. Still, somehow, there seemed to be a spiteful resistance in the
+climate to such efforts at embellishment. The wild hurricanes that swept
+over the broad Atlantic were not to be withstood by the frail timbers of
+the Gothic veranda. The sweeping gusts that sent foaming spray high over
+the rocky cliffs shattered the costly panes, and smashed even the mullions
+that held them; while fragments of carving, or pieces of stuccoed tracery,
+together with broken vases and uprooted shrubs, littered the garden and
+the terrace. The house was but a few years built, and yet was already
+dilapidated and ruinous-looking. A stout stone wall had replaced the
+trellised woodwork of one side of the porch; some of the windows were
+firmly barricaded with boards on the outside; and iron cramps and other
+appliances equally unsightly on the roof, showed by what means the slates
+were enabled to resist the storms.
+</p>
+<p>
+The aspect of consistent poverty never inspires ridicule. It is shabby
+gentility alone that provokes the smile of sarcastic meaning; and thus the
+simple dwellings of the fishermen, in all their humility, offered nothing
+to the eye of critical remark. There seemed abundant absurdity in this
+attempt to defy climate and aspect, place and circumstance; and every
+effort to repair an accident but brought out the pretension into more
+glaring contrast. The &ldquo;Osprey's Nest,&rdquo; as Lady Dorothea Martin had styled
+her bathing-lodge, bore, indeed, but a sorry resemblance to its
+water-colored emblem in the plan of the architect; for Mr. Kirk had not
+only improvised a beautiful villa, with fuchsias and clematis and
+moss-roses clustering on it, but he had invented an Italian sky, and given
+a Lago Maggiore tint to the very Atlantic. Your fashionable architect is
+indeed a finished romancer, and revels in the license of his art with a
+most voluptuous abandonment.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was now, however, late in the autumn; some warnings of the approaching
+equinox had already been felt, and the leaden sky above, and the
+dark-green, sullen sea beneath, above which a cold northwester swept
+gustily, recalled but little of the artistic resemblance.
+</p>
+<p>
+The short September day was drawing to a close, and it was just that
+dreary interval between day and dusk, so glorious in fine weather, but so
+terribly depressing in the cold ungenial season, as all the frequenters of
+the little bay were hastening homeward for the night. Already a twinkling
+candle or two showed that some had retired to their humble shealings to
+grumble over the discomforts about them, and speculate on a speedy
+departure. They who visited Kilkieran during the &ldquo;season&rdquo; were usually the
+gentry families of the neighborhood; but as the summer wore over, their
+places were occupied by a kind of &ldquo;half-price company,&rdquo;&mdash;shopkeepers
+and smart residents of Oughterard, who waited for their pleasure till it
+could be obtained economically. Of this class were now those on the
+evening I have mentioned, and to a small select party of whom I now desire
+to introduce my reader.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was &ldquo;Mrs. Cronan's Evening&rdquo;&mdash;for the duty of host was taken in
+rotation&mdash;and Mrs. Cronan was one of the leaders of fashion in
+Oughterard, for she lived on her own private means, at the top of Carraway
+Street, entertained Father Maher every Sunday at dinner, and took in the
+&ldquo;Galway Intelligence,&rdquo; which, it is but fair to say, was, from inverted
+letters and press blunders, about as difficult reading as any elderly lady
+ever confronted.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Cronan was eminently genteel,&mdash;that is to say, she spent her
+life in unceasing lamentations over the absence of certain comforts &ldquo;she
+was always used to,&rdquo; and passed her days in continual reference to some
+former state of existence, which, to hear her, seemed almost borrowed
+bodily out of the &ldquo;Arabian Nights.&rdquo; Then there was Captain Bodkin, of the
+Galway Fencibles,&mdash;a very fat, asthmatic old gentleman, who came down
+to the &ldquo;salt water&rdquo; every summer for thirty years, fully determined to
+bathe, but never able to summon courage to go in. He was a kind-hearted,
+jolly old fellow, who loved strong punch and long whist, and cared very
+little how the world went on, if these enjoyments were available.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then there was Miss Busk, a very tall, thin, ghostly personage, with a
+pinkish nose and a pinched lip, but whose manners were deemed the very
+type of high breeding, for she courtesied or bowed at almost minute
+intervals during an &ldquo;Evening,&rdquo; and had a variety of personal reminiscences
+of the Peerage. She was of &ldquo;an excellent family,&rdquo; Mrs. Cronan always said;
+and though reduced by circumstances, she was the Swan and Edgar of
+Oughterard,&mdash;&ldquo;was company for the Queen herself.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The fourth hand in the whist-table was usually taken by Mrs. Nelligan,
+wife of &ldquo;Pat Nelligan,&rdquo; the great shopkeeper of Oughterard, and who,
+though by no means entitled on heraldic grounds to take her place in any
+such exalted company, was, by the happy accident of fortune, elevated to
+this proud position. Mrs. Nelligan being unwell, her place was, on the
+present occasion, supplied by her son; and of him I would fain say a few
+words, since the reader is destined to bear company with him when the
+other personages here referred to have been long forgotten.
+</p>
+<p>
+Joseph Nelligan was a tall, pale young fellow who, though only just passed
+twenty-two, looked several years older; the serious, thoughtful expression
+of his face giving the semblance of age. His head was large and massively
+shaped, and the temples were strong and square, deeply indented at the
+sides, and throwing the broad, high forehead into greater prominence; dark
+eyes, shaded by heavy, black eyebrows, lent an almost scowling character
+to a face which, regular in feature, was singularly calm and
+impassive-looking. His voice was deep, low, and sonorous, and though
+strongly impressed with the intonation of his native province, was
+peculiarly soft, and, to Irish ears, even musical. He was, however,
+remarkably silent; rarely or never conversed, as his acquaintances
+understood conversation, and only when roused by some theme that he cared
+for, or stimulated by some assertion that he dissented from, was he heard
+to burst forth into a rapid flow of words, uttered as though under the
+impulse of passion, and of which, when ended, he seemed actually to feel
+ashamed himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+He was no favorite with the society of Kilkieran; some thought him
+downright stupid; others regarded him as a kind of spy upon his neighbors,&mdash;an
+imputation most lavishly thrown out in every circle where there is nothing
+to detect, and where all the absurdity lies palpable on the surface; and
+many were heard to remark that he seemed to forget who he was, and that
+&ldquo;though he was a college student, he ought to remember he was only Pat
+Nelligan's son.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+If he never courted their companionship, he as little resented their
+estrangement from him. He spent his days and no small share of his nights
+in study; books supplied to him the place of men, and in their converse he
+forgot the world. His father's vanity had entered him as a Fellow-Commoner
+in the University, and even this served to widen the interval between him
+and those of his own age; his class-fellows regarded his presence amongst
+them as an intolerable piece of low-bred presumption. Nor was this
+unkindly feeling diminished when they saw him, term after term, carry away
+the prizes of each examination; for equally in science as in classics was
+he distinguished, till at length it became a current excuse for failure
+when a man said, &ldquo;I was in Nelligan's division.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It is not impossible that his social isolation contributed much to his
+success. For him there were none of the amusements which occupy those of
+his own age. The very fact of his fellow-commoner's gown separated him as
+widely from one set of his fellow-students as from the other, and thus was
+he left alone with his ambition. As time wore on, and his successes
+obtained wider notoriety, some of those in authority in the University
+appeared to be disposed to make advances to him; but he retreated modestly
+from these marks of notice, shrouding himself in his obscurity, and
+pleading the necessity for study. At length came the crowning act of his
+college career, in the examination for the gold medal; and although no
+competitor was bold enough to dispute the prize with him, he was obliged
+to submit to the ordeal. It is rarely that the public vouchsafes any
+interest in the details of University honors; but this case proved an
+exception, and almost every journal of the capital alluded in terms of
+high paneygric to the splendid display he made on that occasion.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the very midst of these triumphs, young Nelligan arrived at his
+father's house in Oughterard, to enjoy the gratification his success had
+diffused at home, and rest himself after his severe labors. Little as old
+Pat Nelligan of his neighbors knew of University honors, or the toil which
+won them, there was enough in the very publicity of his son's career to
+make him a proud man. He at least knew that Joe had beaten them all; that
+none could hold a candle to him; &ldquo;that for nigh a century such answering
+had not been heard on the bench.&rdquo; This was the expression of a Dublin
+journal, coupled with the partisan regret that, by the bigoted statutes of
+the college, genius of such order should be denied the privilege of
+obtaining a fellowship.
+</p>
+<p>
+If young Nelligan retired, half in pride, half in bashful-ness, from the
+notice of society in Dublin, he was assuredly little disposed to enter
+into the gayeties and dissipations of a small country-town existence. The
+fulsome adulation of some, the stupid astonishment of others, but, worse
+than either, the vulgar assumption that his success was a kind of party
+triumph,&mdash;a blow dealt by the plebeian against the patrician, the
+Papist against the Protestant,&mdash;shocked and disgusted him, and he was
+glad to leave Oughterard and accompany his mother to the seaside. She was
+an invalid of some years' standing,&mdash;a poor, frail, simple-hearted
+creature, who, after a long, struggling life of hardship and toil, saw
+herself in affluence and comfort, and yet could not bring her mind to
+believe it true. As little could she comprehend the strange fact of Joe's
+celebrity; of his name figuring in newspapers, and his health being drunk
+at a public dinner in his native town. To her he was invaluable; the very
+tenderest of nurses, and the best of all companions. She did n't care for
+books, even those of the most amusing kind; but she loved to hear the
+little gossip of the place where the neighbors passed the evening; what
+topics they discussed; who had left and who had arrived, and every other
+little incident of their uneventful lives. Simple and easy of execution as
+such an office might have been to a kindred spirit, to Joseph Nelligan it
+proved no common labor. And certain it is that the mistakes he committed
+in names, and the blunders he fell into as regarded events, rather
+astonished his mother, and led that good lady to believe that Trinity
+College must not have been fertile in genius when poor Joe was regarded as
+one of the great luminaries of his time. &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; would she say, &ldquo;if he had
+his father's head it would be telling him! but, poor boy, he remembers
+nothing!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+This digression&mdash;far longer than I cared to make it, but which has
+grown to its present extent under my hands&mdash;will explain young
+Nelligan's presence at Mrs. Cronan's &ldquo;Tea,&rdquo; where already a number of
+other notables had now assembled, and were gracefully dispersed through
+the small rooms which formed her apartment. Play of various kinds formed
+the chief amusement of the company; and while the whist-table, in decorous
+gravity, held the chief place in the sitting-room, a laughing round game
+occupied the kitchen, and a hardly contested &ldquo;hit&rdquo; of backgammon was being
+fought out on the bed, where, for lack of furniture, the combatants had
+established themselves.
+</p>
+<p>
+The success of an evening party is not always proportionate to the means
+employed to secure it. Very splendid <i>salons</i>, costly furniture, and
+what newspapers call &ldquo;all the delicacies of the season,&rdquo; are occasionally
+to be found in conjunction with very dull company; while a great deal of
+enjoyment and much social pleasure are often to be met with where the
+material resources have been of the fewest and most simple kind. On the
+present occasion there was a great deal of laughing, and a fair share of
+love-making; some scolding at whist, and an abundance of scandal, at least
+of that cut-and-thrust-at character which amuses the speakers themselves,
+and is never supposed to damage those who are the object of it. All the
+company who had frequented the port&mdash;as Kilkieran was called&mdash;during
+the season were passed in review, and a number of racy anecdotes
+interchanged about their rank, morals, fortune, and pretensions. A very
+general impression seemed to prevail that in the several points of
+climate, scenery, social advantages, and amusements, Kilkieran might stand
+a favorable comparison with the first watering-places, not alone of
+England, but the Continent; and after various discursive reasons why its
+fame had not equalled its deserts, there was an almost unanimous
+declaration of opinion that the whole fault lay with the Martins; not,
+indeed, that the speakers were very logical in their arguments, since some
+were heard to deplore the change from the good old times, when everybody
+was satisfied to live anywhere and anyhow, when there was no road to the
+place but a bridle-path, not a loaf of bread to be had within twelve
+miles, no post-office; while others eloquently expatiated on all that
+might have been, and yet was not done.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We tried to get up a little news-room,&rdquo; said Captain Bodkin, &ldquo;and I went
+to Martin myself about it, but he hum'd and ha'd, and said, until people
+subscribed for the Dispensary he thought they needn't mind newspapers.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just like him,&rdquo; said Mrs. Cronan; &ldquo;but, indeed, I think it's my Lady does
+it all.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I differ from you, ma'am,&rdquo; said Miss Busk, with a bland smile; &ldquo;I
+attribute the inauspicious influence to another.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You mean Miss Martin?&rdquo; said Mrs. Cronan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so, ma'am; indeed, I have reason to know I am correct. This time two
+years it was I went over to Cro' Martin House to propose opening 'my
+Emporium' for the season at the port. I thought it was due to the owners
+of the estate, and due to myself also,&rdquo; added Miss Busk, majestically, &ldquo;to
+state my views about a measure so intimately associated with the&mdash;the&mdash;in
+fact, what I may call the interests of civilization. I had just received
+my plates of the last fashions from Dublin,&mdash;you may remember them,
+ma'am; I showed them to you at Mrs. Cullenane's&mdash;well, when I was in
+the very middle of my explanation, who should come into the room but Miss
+Martin&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dressed in the old brown riding-habit?&rdquo; interposed a fat old lady with
+one eye.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Mrs. Few, in the old brown riding-habit. She came up to the table,
+with a saucy laugh in her face, and said, 'Why, uncle, are you going to
+give a fancy ball?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'It is the last arrival from Paris, miss,' said I; 'the Orleans mantle,
+which, though not a &ldquo;costume de Chasse,&rdquo; is accounted very becoming.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Ah, you 're laughing at my old habit, Miss Busk,' said she, seeing how I
+eyed her; 'and it really is very shabby, but I intend to give Dan Leary a
+commission to replace it one of these days.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dan Leary, of the Cross-roads!&rdquo; exclaimed Captain Bodkin, laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I pledge you my word of honor, sir, she said it. 'And as to all this
+finery, Miss Busk,' said she, turning over the plates with her whip, 'it
+would be quite unsuitable to our country, our climate, and our habits; not
+to say, that the Orleans mantle would be worn with an ill grace when our
+people are going half naked!'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Positively indecent! downright indelicate!&rdquo; shuddered Mrs. Cronan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And did Martin agree with her?&rdquo; asked the Captain.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should like to know when he dared to do otherwise. Why, between my lady
+and the niece he can scarcely call his life his own.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They say he has a cruel time of it,&rdquo; sighed Mr. Clinch, the
+revenue-officer, who had some personal experience of domestic slavery.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tush,&mdash;nonsense!&rdquo; broke in his wife. &ldquo;I never knew one of those
+hen-pecked creatures that was n't a tyrant in his family. I 'll engage, if
+the truth were known, Lady Dorothy has the worst of it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faith, and he's much altered from what he was when a boy, if any one
+rules him,&rdquo; said the captain. &ldquo;I was at school with him and his
+twin-brother Barry. I remember the time when one of them had to wear a bit
+of red ribbon in his button-hole to distinguish him from the other. They
+were the born images of each other,&mdash;that is, in looks; for in real
+character they were n't a bit like. Godfrey was a cautious, quiet, careful
+chap that looked after his pocket-money, and never got into scrapes; and
+Barry was a wasteful devil that made the coin fly, and could be led by any
+one. I think he 'd have given his life for his brother any day. I remember
+once when Godfrey would n't fight a boy,&mdash;I forget what it was about;
+Barry stole the bit of ribbon out of his coat, and went up and fought in
+his place; and a mighty good thrashing he got, too.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have heard my father speak of that,&rdquo; said a thin, pale, careworn little
+man in green spectacles; &ldquo;for the two boys were taken away at once, and it
+was the ruin of the school.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So it was, doctor; you're right there,&rdquo; broke in the Captain; &ldquo;and they
+say that Martin bears a grudge against you to this day.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That would be hard,&rdquo; sighed the meek doctor; &ldquo;for I had nothing to do
+with it, or my father, either. But it cost him dearly!&rdquo; added he,
+mournfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know best, doctor, whether it is true or not; but he certainly was
+n't your friend when you tried for the Fever Hospital.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was because Pat Nelligan was on my committee,&rdquo; said the doctor.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And was that sufficient to lose you Mr. Martin's support, sir?&rdquo; asked
+young Nelligan, with a degree of astonishment in his face, that, joined to
+the innocence of the question, caused a general burst of hearty laughter.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The young gentleman knows more about <i>cubic</i> sections, it appears,
+than of what goes on in his own town,&rdquo; said the Captain. &ldquo;Why, sir, your
+father is the most independent man in all Oughterard; and if I know
+Godfrey Martin, he 'd give a thousand guineas this night to have him out
+of it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A somewhat animated &ldquo;rally&rdquo; followed this speech, in which different
+speakers gave their various reasons why Martin ought or ought not to make
+any sacrifice to put down the spirit of which Pat Nelligan was the chief
+champion. These arguments were neither cogent nor lucid enough to require
+repeating; nor did they convey to Joseph himself, with all his anxiety for
+information, the slightest knowledge on the subject discussed. Attention
+was, however, drawn off the theme by the clattering sound of a horse
+passing along the shingly shore at a smart gallop; and with eager
+curiosity two or three rushed to the door to see what it meant. A swooping
+gust of wind and rain, overturning chairs and extinguishing candles, drove
+them suddenly back again; and, half laughing at the confusion, half
+cursing the weather, the party barricaded the door, and returned to their
+places.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course it was Miss Martin; who else would be out at this time of the
+night?&rdquo; said Mrs. Clinch.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And without a servant!&rdquo; exclaimed Miss Busk.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, you may well make the remark, ma'am,&rdquo; said Mrs. Cronan. &ldquo;The
+young lady was brought up in a fashion that was n't practised in my time!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where could she have been down that end of the port, I wonder?&rdquo; said Mrs.
+Clinch. &ldquo;She came up from Garra Cliff.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maybe she came round by the strand,&rdquo; said the doctor; &ldquo;if she did, I
+don't think there 's one here would like to have followed her.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would n't be her horse!&rdquo; said one; &ldquo;nor her groom!&rdquo; muttered another;
+and thus, gradually lashing themselves into a wild indignation, they
+opened, at last, a steady fire upon the young lady,&mdash;her habits, her
+manners, and her appearance all coming in for a share of criticism; and
+although a few modest amendments were put in favor of her horsemanship and
+her good looks, the motion was carried that no young lady ever took such
+liberties before, and that the meeting desired to record their strongest
+censure on the example thus extended to their own young people.
+</p>
+<p>
+If young Nelligan ventured upon a timid question of what it was she had
+done, he was met by an eloquent chorus of half a dozen voices, recounting
+mountain excursions which no young lady had ever made before; distant
+spots visited, dangers incurred, storms encountered, perils braved,
+totally unbecoming to her in her rank of life, and showing that she had no
+personal respect, nor&mdash;as Miss Busk styled it&mdash;&ldquo;a proper sense
+of the dignity of woman!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'T was down at Mrs. Nelligan's, ma'am, Miss Mary was,&rdquo; said Mrs. Cronan's
+maid, who had been despatched special to make inquiry on the subject.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;At my mother's!&rdquo; exclaimed Joseph, reddening, without knowing in the
+least why. And now a new diversion occurred, while all discussed every
+possible and impossible reason for this singular fact, since the family at
+the &ldquo;Nest&rdquo; maintained no intercourse whatever with their neighbors, not
+even seeming, by any act of their lives, to acknowledge their very
+existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+Young Nelligan took the opportunity to make his escape during the debate;
+and as the society offers nothing very attractive to detain us, it will be
+as well if we follow him, while he hastened homeward along the dark and
+storm-lashed beach. He had about a mile to go, and, short as was this
+distance, it enabled him to think over what he had just heard, strange and
+odd as it seemed to his ears. Wholly given up, as he had been for years
+past, to the ambition of a college life, with but one goal before his
+eyes, one class of topics engrossing his thoughts, he had never even
+passingly reflected on the condition of parties, the feuds of opposing
+factions, and, stronger than either, the animosities that separated social
+ranks in Ireland. Confounding the occasional slights he had experienced by
+virtue of his class, with the jealousy caused by his successes, he had
+totally overlooked the disparagement men exhibited towards the son of the
+little country shopkeeper, and never knew of his disqualification for a
+society whose precincts he had not tried to pass. The littleness, the
+unpurpose-like vacuity, the intense vulgarity of his Oughterard friends
+had disgusted him, it is true; but he had yet to learn that the foolish
+jealousy of their wealthy neighbor was a trait still less amiable, and
+ruminating over these problems,&mdash;knottier far to him than many a
+complex formula or many a disputed reading of a Greek play,&mdash;he at
+last reached the solitary little cabin where his mother lived.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is astonishing how difficult men of highly cultivated and actively
+practised minds find it to comprehend the little turnings and windings of
+commonplace life, the jealousies and the rivalries of small people. They
+search for motives where there are merely impulses, and look for reasons
+when there are simple passions.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was only as he lifted the latch that he remembered how deficient he was
+in all the information his mother would expect from him. Of the fortunes
+of the whist-table he actually knew nothing; and had he been interrogated
+as to the &ldquo;toilette&rdquo; of the party, his answers would have betrayed a
+lamentable degree of ignorance. Fortunately for him, his mother did not
+display her habitual anxiety on these interesting themes. She neither
+asked after the Captain's winnings,&mdash;he was the terror of the party,&mdash;nor
+whether Miss Busk astonished the company by another new gown. Poor Mrs.
+Nelligan was too brimful of another subject to admit of one particle of
+extraneous matter to occupy her. With a proud consciousness, however, of
+her own resources, she affected to have thoughts for other things, and
+asked Joe if he passed a pleasant day?
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, very&mdash;middling&mdash;quite so&mdash;rather stupid, I thought,&rdquo;
+ replied he, in his usual half-connected manner, when unable to attach his
+mind to the question before him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of, course, my dear, it's very unlike what you 're used to up in Dublin,
+though I believe that Captain Bodkin, when he goes there, always dines
+with the Lord-Lieutenant; and Miss Busk, I know, is second cousin to Ram
+of Swainestown, and there is nothing better than that in Ireland. I say
+this between ourselves, for your father can't bear me to talk of family or
+connections, though I am sure I was always brought up to think a great
+deal about good blood; and if my father was a Finnerty, my mother was a
+Moore of Crockbawn, and her family never looked at her for marrying my
+father.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; said Joe, in a dreamy semi-consciousness.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's true what I 'm telling you. She often said it to me herself, and
+told me what a blessing it was, through all her troubles and trials in
+life; and she had her share of them, for my father was often in drink, and
+very cruel at times. 'It supports me,' she used to say, 'to remember who I
+am, and the stock I came from, and to know that there 's not one belonging
+to me would speak to me, nor look at the same side of the road with me,
+after what I done; and, Matty,' said she to me, 'if ever it happens to you
+to marry a man beneath you in life, always bear in mind that, no matter
+how he treats you, you 're better than him.' And, indeed, it's a great
+support and comfort to one's feelings, after all,&rdquo; said she, with a deep
+sigh.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm certain of it,&rdquo; muttered Joe, who had not followed one word of the
+harangue.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But mind that you never tell your father so. Indeed, I would n't let on
+to him what happened this evening.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was that?&rdquo; asked the young man, roused by the increased anxiety of
+her manner.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was a visit I had, my dear,&rdquo; replied the old lady, with a simpering
+consciousness that she had something to reveal,&mdash;&ldquo;it was a visit I
+had paid me, and by an elegant young lady, too.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A young lady? Not Miss Cassidy, mother. I think she left yesterday
+morning.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, indeed, my dear. Somebody very different from Miss Cassidy; and you
+might guess till you were tired before you 'd think of Miss Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Martin!&rdquo; echoed Joe.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exactly so. Miss Martin of Cro' Martin; and the way it happened was this.
+I was sitting here alone in the room after my tea,&mdash;for I sent Biddy
+out to borrow the 'Intelligence' for me; and then comes a sharp knock to
+the door, and I called out, 'Come in;' but instead of doing so there was
+another rapping, louder than before, and I said, 'Bother you, can't you
+lift the latch?' and then I heard something like a laugh, and so I went
+out; and you may guess the shame I felt as I saw a young lady fastening
+the bridle of her horse to the bar of the window. 'Mrs. Nelli-gan, I
+believe,' said she, with a smile and a look that warmed my heart to her at
+once; and as I courtesied very low, she went on. I forget, indeed, the
+words,&mdash;whether she said she was Miss Martin, or it was I that asked
+the question; but I know she came in with me to the room, and sat down
+where you are sitting now. 'Coming back from Kyle's Wood this morning,'
+said she, 'I overtook poor Billy with the post. He was obliged to go two
+miles out of his way to ford the river; and what with waiting for the
+mail, which was late in coming, and what with being wet through, he was
+completely knocked up; so I offered to take the bag for him, and send it
+over to-morrow by one of our people. But the poor fellow would n't
+consent, because he was charged with something of consequence for you,&mdash;a
+small bottle of medicine. Of course I was only too happy to take this
+also, Mrs. Nelligan, and here it is.' And with that she put it on the
+table, where you see it. I 'm sure I never knew how to thank her enough
+for her good nature, but I said all that I could think of, and told her
+that my son was just come back from college, after getting the gold
+medal.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You did n't speak of that, mother,&rdquo; said he, blushing till his very
+forehead was crimson.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, then, I did, Joe; and I 'd like to know why I would n't. Is it a
+shame or a disgrace to us! At any rate, <i>she</i> didn't think so, for
+she said, 'You must be very proud of him;' and I told her so I was, and
+that he was as good as he was clever; and, moreover, that the newspapers
+said the time was coming when men like young Nelligan would soar their way
+up to honors and distinctions in spite of the oppressive aristocracy that
+so long had combined to degrade them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good Heavens! mother, you could n't have made such a speech as that?&rdquo;
+ cried he, in a voice of downright misery.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did n't I, then? And did n't she say, if there were any such oppression
+as could throw obstacles in the way of deserving merit, she heartily hoped
+it might prove powerless; and then she got up to wish me good-evening. I
+thought, at first, a little stiffly,&mdash;that is, more haughty in her
+manner than at first; but when I arose to see her out, and she saw I was
+lame, she pressed me down into my chair, and said, in such a kind voice,
+'You must n't stir, my dear Mrs. Nelligan. I, who can find my road over
+half of the county, can surely discover my way to the door.' 'Am I ever
+like to have the happiness of seeing you again, miss?' said I, as I held
+her hand in mine. 'Certainly, if it would give you the very slightest
+pleasure,' said she, pressing my hand most cordially; and with that we
+parted. Indeed, I scarce knew she was gone, when I heard the clattering of
+the horse over the shingle; for she was away in a gallop, dark as the
+night was. Maybe,&rdquo; added the old lady, with a sigh,&mdash;&ldquo;maybe, I 'd
+have thought it was all a dream if it was n't that I found that glove of
+hers on the floor; she dropped it, I suppose, going out.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Young Nelligan took up the glove with a strange feeling of bashful
+reverence. It was as though he was touching a sacred relic; and he stood
+gazing on it steadfastly for some seconds.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll send it over to the house by Biddy, with my compliments, and to
+know how the family is, in the morning,&rdquo; said Mrs. Nelligan, with the air
+of one who knew the value of conventional usages.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And she 'll make some stupid blunder or other,&rdquo; replied Joe, impatiently,
+&ldquo;that will cover us all with shame. No, mother, I 'd rather go with it
+myself than that.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure, and why not?&rdquo; said Mrs. Nelligan. &ldquo;There 's no reason why <i>you</i>
+should be taking up old quarrels against the Martins; for <i>my</i> part,
+I never knew the country so pleasant as it used to be long ago, when we
+used to get leave to go picnicking on the grounds of Cro' Martin, up to
+the Hermitage, as they called it; and now the gates are locked and barred
+like a jail, and nobody allowed in without a ticket.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I'll go myself with it,&rdquo; said Joe, who heard nothing of his mother's
+remark, but was following out the tract of his own speculations. As little
+did he attend to the various suggestions she threw out for his guidance
+and direction, the several topics to which he might, and those to which he
+must not, on any account, allude.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not a word, for your life, Joe, about the right of pathway to Clune
+Abbey, and take care you say nothing about the mill-race at Glandaff, nor
+the shooting in Kyle's Wood. And if by any chance there should be a talk
+about the tolls at Oughterard, say you never heard of them before. Make
+out, in fact,&rdquo; said she, summing up, &ldquo;as if you never heard of a county
+where there was so much good-will and kindness between the people; and
+sure it is n't your fault if it's not true!&rdquo; And with this philosophic
+reflection Mrs. Nelligan wished her son good-night, and retired.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER III. AN AUTUMN MORNING IN THE WEST
+</h2>
+<p>
+The Osprey's Nest was, I have said, like a direct challenge hurled at the
+face of western gales and Atlantic storms. With what success, its aspect
+of dilapidation and decay but too plainly betrayed. The tangled seaweed
+that hung in dripping festoons over the porch, the sea-shells that rattled
+against the window-panes, seemed like an angry denunciation of the attempt
+to brave the elements by the mere appliances of ease and luxury.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was better, however, in the inside, where, in a roomy apartment, most
+comfortably furnished, a lady and gentleman sat at breakfast. The table
+stood in a little projection of the room, admitting of a wide sea-view
+over the bay and the distant islands of Lettermullen, but as carefully
+excluded all prospect of the port,&mdash;a locality which held no high
+place in the esteem of the lady of the house, and which, by ignoring, she
+half fancied she had annihilated. Wild promontories of rocks, jutting out
+here and there, broke the coast line, and marked the shore with a foaming
+stream of white water, as the ever-restless sea dashed over them. The long
+booming swell of the great ocean bounded into many a rocky cavern, with a
+loud report like thunder, and issued forth again with a whole cataract of
+falling stones, that rattled like the crash of small-arms. It was
+unceasing, deafening clamor in the midst of death-like desolation.
+</p>
+<p>
+Let me, however, turn once more to the scene within, and present the
+living elements to my reader. They were both past the prime of life. The
+lady might still be called handsome; her features were perfectly regular,
+and finely cut, bearing the impress of a proud and haughty spirit that
+never quailed beneath the conflict of a long life, and even yet showed a
+firm front to fortune. Her hair was white as snow; and as she wore it
+drawn back, after the fashion of a bygone time, it gave her the air of a
+fine lady of the old French Court, in all the pomp of powder and pomatum.
+Nor did her dress correct the impression, since the deep falls of lace
+that covered her hands, the lengthy stomacher, and trailing folds of her
+heavy brocade gown, all showed a lurking fondness for the distinctive
+toilette of that era. Lady Dorothea Martin had been a beauty and an earl's
+daughter; two facts that not even the seclusion of the wild west could
+erase from her memory.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Martin himself was no unworthy &ldquo;pendant&rdquo; to this portrait. He was tall
+and stately, with a lofty forehead, and temples finely and well fashioned;
+while full, deep-set blue eyes of the very sternest determination, and a
+mouth, every line of which betrayed firmness, gave the character to a face
+that also could expand into the most genial good-fellowship, and become at
+times the symbol of a pleasant and convivial Irish gentleman. In his youth
+he had been a beau of the Court of Versailles. Scandal had even coupled
+his name with that of Marie Antoinette; and more truthful narratives
+connected him with some of the most extravagant adventures of that
+profligate and brilliant period. After a career of the wildest dissipation
+and excess, he had married, late in life, the daughter of the Earl of
+Exmere, one of the proudest and poorest names in the British Peerage. Two
+or three attempts to shine in the world of London,&mdash;not as successful
+as they were expected to have proved,&mdash;an effort at ascendancy in
+Irish political life, also a failure, coupled with disappointment on the
+score of an only brother, who had married beneath him, and was reputed to
+have &ldquo;lost himself,&rdquo; seemed to have disgusted Godfrey Martin with the
+world, and he had retired to his lonely mansion in the west, which now for
+eighteen years he had scarcely quitted for a single day.
+</p>
+<p>
+His only son had joined a cavalry regiment in India a few years before the
+period our story opens, and which, I may now state, dates for about four
+or five and twenty years back; but his family included a niece, the only
+child of his brother, and whose mother had died in giving her birth.
+</p>
+<p>
+Between Mr. Martin and Lady Dorothea, as they sat at breakfast, little
+conversation passed. He occupied himself with the newly arrived
+newspapers, and she perused a mass of letters which had just come by that
+morning's post; certain scraps of the intelligence gleaned from either of
+these sources forming the only subjects of conversation between them.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So they have resolved to have a new Parliament. I knew it would come to
+that; I always said so; and, as usual, the dissolution finds us
+unprepared.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Plantagenet's regiment is ordered to Currachee, wherever that may be,&rdquo;
+ said Lady Dorothea, languidly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Call him Harry, and we shall save ourselves some trouble in discussing
+him,&rdquo; replied he, pettishly. &ldquo;At all events, he cannot possibly be here in
+time for the contest; and we must, I suppose, give our support to
+Kilmorris again.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you mean, after his conduct about the harbor, and the shameful way he
+sneaked out of the Port Martin project?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Find anything better, madam; there is the difficulty. Kilmorris is a
+gentleman, and no Radical; and, as times go, these are rather rare
+qualities.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lady Sarah Upton's match is off,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, reading from a note
+beside her. &ldquo;Sir Joseph insisted upon the uncontrolled possession of all
+her Staffordshire property.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And perfectly right.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perfectly wrong to give it to him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A fool if he married without it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A mean creature she, to accept him on such terms.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The woman is eight-and-thirty,&mdash;if not more. I remember her at
+Tunbridge. Let me see, what year was it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I detest dates, and abhor chronologies. Reach me the marmalade,&rdquo; said
+Lady Dorothea, superciliously.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What's this balderdash here from the 'Galway Indicator'? 'The haughty and
+insolent, aye, and ignorant aristocracy will have to swallow a bitter
+draught erelong; and such petty despots as Martin of Cro' Martin will
+learn that the day is gone by for their ascendancy in this county.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They tell me we have a law of libel in the land; and yet see how this
+scoundrel can dare to drag me by name before the world; and I 'll wager a
+thousand pounds I 'd fail to get a verdict against him if I prosecuted him
+to-morrow,&rdquo; said Martin, as he dashed the newspaper to the ground, and
+stamped his foot upon it. &ldquo;We are constantly reading diatribes about
+absentee landlords, and the evils of neglected property; but I ask, what
+inducements are there held out to any gentleman to reside on his estate,
+if every petty scribbler of the press can thus attack and assail him with
+impunity?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that Mary I see yonder?&rdquo; asked Lady Dorothea, languidly, as she lifted
+her double eye-glass, and then suffered it to fall from her fingers.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So it is, by Jove!&rdquo; cried Martin, springing up, and approaching the
+window. &ldquo;I wish she 'd not venture out in that small boat in this
+treacherous season. What a swell there is, too! The wind is from the sea.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She's coming in, I fancy,&rdquo; drawled out Lady Dorothea.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How is she to do it, though?&rdquo; exclaimed he, hurriedly; &ldquo;the sea is
+breaking clear over the piers of the harbor. I can only see one man in the
+boat. What rashness! what folly! There, look, they're standing out to sea
+again!&rdquo; And now, throwing open the window, Martin stepped out on the
+rocks, over which the white foam flashed by like snow. &ldquo;What are they at,
+Peter? What are they trying to do?&rdquo; cried he to an old fisherman, who,
+with the coil of a net he was just mending on his arm, had now come down
+to the shore to watch the boat.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They 're doing right, your honor,&rdquo; said he, touching his cap
+respectfully. &ldquo;'Tis Loony my Lady has in the boat, and there's no better
+man in trouble! He's just going to beat out a bit, and then he 'll run in
+under the shelter of the blue rocks. Faix, she 's a fine boat, then, for
+her size,&mdash;look at her now!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+But Martin had covered his eyes with his hand, while his lips murmured and
+moved rapidly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;May I never, but they 're letting out the reef!&rdquo; screamed the old man in
+terror.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;More sail, and in such a sea!&rdquo; cried Martin, in a voice of horror.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aye, and right, too,&rdquo; said the fisherman, after a pause; &ldquo;she 's rising
+lighter over the sea, and steers better, besides. It's Miss Mary has the
+tiller,&rdquo; added the old fellow, with a smile. &ldquo;I 'll lay a shilling she 's
+singing this minute.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You think so,&rdquo; said Martin, glad to catch at this gleam of confidence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know it well, your honor. I remember one day, off Lettermullen, it was
+worse than this. Hurrah!&rdquo; screamed he out suddenly; &ldquo;she took in a great
+sea that time!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Get out a boat, Peter, at once; what are we standing here for?&rdquo; cried
+Martin, angrily. &ldquo;Man a boat this instant.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sure no boat could get out to sea with this wind, sir,&rdquo; remonstrated the
+old man, mildly; &ldquo;she'd never leave the surf if she had forty men at her!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then what's to be done?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just let them alone; themselves two know as well what to do as any pair
+in Ireland, and are as cool besides. There, now, she 's putting her about,
+as I said, and she 'll run for the creek.&rdquo; The frail boat, a mere speck
+upon the dark green ocean, seemed now to fly, as with a slackened sheet
+she darted over the water. Her course was bent for a little cove concealed
+from view by a rugged promontory of rock, up which the old fisherman now
+clambered with the alacrity of a younger man. Martin tried to follow; but
+overcome by emotion, he was unable, and sat down upon a ledge of rock,
+burying his face within his hands.
+</p>
+<p>
+By this time the whole fishing population of the little village had
+gathered on the beach around the cove, to watch the boat as she came in;
+numbers had gone out to meet her, and stood up to their waists in the
+white and boiling surf, ready to seize upon the skiff and run her high and
+dry upon the sand. Even they were obliged to be lashed together by a rope,
+lest the receding waves should carry them out to sea, or the &ldquo;under tow&rdquo;
+ suck them beneath the surface. As the boat came within speaking distance,
+a wild shout arose from the shore to &ldquo;down sail&rdquo; and suffer her to come in
+on her way alone; but with all the canvas spread, they came flying along,
+scarce seeming more than to tip the waves as they skipped over them, while
+a shower of spray appeared to cover them as the sea broke upon the stern.
+Instead of rendering aid, the utmost the fishermen could do was to clear a
+path amongst them for the skiff to pass, as with lightning speed she
+flitted by and drove her bow high up on the hard beach.
+</p>
+<p>
+A wild, glad cheer of joy and welcome burst from the hearty fishermen as
+they crowded about the young girl, who stepped out of the boat with a
+heavy bundle in her arms. Her hair hung in great masses over her neck and
+shoulders, her cheeks were flushed, and her dark eyes gleamed with all the
+excitement of peril and triumph.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here, Margaret,&rdquo; said she to a young woman, who, pale with terror and
+with face streaming in tears, rushed towards her,&mdash;&ldquo;here 's your
+little fellow, all safe and sound; I 'd not have put back but for his
+sake.&rdquo; And with this she placed in his mother's arms a little boy of about
+three years of age, sound asleep. &ldquo;He must wait for better weather if he
+wants to see his grandmother. And,&rdquo; added she, laughing, &ldquo;I scarcely think
+you 'll catch me going to sea again with so precious a cargo. Poor little
+man!&rdquo; and she patted his ruddy cheeks; &ldquo;he behaved so well, like a stout
+fisherman's son as he is,&mdash;never showed fear for a moment.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A murmur of delighted hearts ran through the crowd; some thinking of the
+child, but many more in warm admiration of the brave and beautiful young
+girl before them. &ldquo;Loony,&rdquo; said she to her boatman, &ldquo;when you 've got the
+tackle to rights, come up to the house for your breakfast.&rdquo; And with that,
+and a few words of grateful recognition as she passed, she clambered up
+the rock and hastened homeward.
+</p>
+<p>
+As for her uncle, no sooner had he heard of her safe arrival on shore than
+he hurried back, anxious to reach the house before her. For a considerable
+time back Martin had schooled himself into an apparent indifference about
+his niece's perils. Lady Dorothea had probably given the initiative to
+this feeling by constantly asserting that the young lady would incur few
+risks when they ceased to create alarm.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was a somewhat ungracious theory, and excited in Martin's mind, when he
+first heard it, a sensation the very reverse of agreeable. Without
+accepting its truth, however, it made a deep impression upon him, and at
+last, by way of policy, he resolved to feign a degree of callous
+indifference very foreign to his nature; and, by dint of mere habit, he at
+length acquired a semblance of calm under circumstances that sorely tested
+his powers of self-control.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Has the heroine arrived safe on shore?&rdquo; asked Lady Dorothea in her own
+languid drawl. And Martin almost started at the question, and seemed for a
+moment as if the indignation it excited could not be repressed; then
+smiling superciliously at the impassive air of her features, he said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, and by rare good luck, too! The sea is a terrific one this morning!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it ever anything else in this heavenly climate?&rdquo; said she, sighing. &ldquo;I
+have counted two fine days since the 8th of June; and, indeed, it rained a
+little on one of them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin winced impatiently under the remark, but never lifted his eyes from
+the newspaper.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I had hoped your niece was making arrangements for our return to Cro'
+Martin,&rdquo; said she, querulously, &ldquo;instead of planning marine excursions. I
+told her yesterday, or the day before,&mdash;I forget which; but who could
+remember time in such a place?&mdash;that I was bored to death here. The
+observation seems to amuse you, Mr. Martin; but it is a simple fact.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you are bored to death at Cro' Martin, too, if I mistake not?&rdquo; said
+he, with a very significant dryness.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should think I was, sir; and nothing very astonishing in the
+confession, besides.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And Dublin, madam?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't speak of it. If one must endure prison discipline, at least let us
+have a cell to ourselves. Good-morning, Miss Martin. I hope you enjoyed
+your party on the water?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+This speech was addressed to Mary, who now entered the room dressed in a
+plain morning costume, and in her quiet, almost demure look resembling in
+nothing the dripping and dishevelled figure that sprung from the boat.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-morning, aunt,&rdquo; said she, gayly. &ldquo;Good-morning, uncle,&rdquo; kissing, as
+she spoke, his cheek, and patting him fondly on the shoulder. &ldquo;I saw you
+out on the rocks as we were coming in.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pooh, pooh!&rdquo; said he, in affected indifference. &ldquo;I knew there was no
+danger&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, but there was, though,&rdquo; said she, quickly. &ldquo;If we had n't set all
+sail on her, she 'd have been pooped to a certainty; and I can tell you I
+was in a rare fright, too.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, indeed; you confess to such an ignoble emotion?&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea,
+with a sneer.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I do, aunt, for I had poor Madge Lennan's little boy on my lap all
+the time; and if it came to a swim, I don't see how he was to be saved.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You 'd not have left him to his fate, I suppose?&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I scarcely know what I should have done. I sincerely hope it would have
+been my best; but in a moment like that, within sight of home, too&mdash;&rdquo;
+ Her eyes met her uncle's as she said this; he had raised them from his
+newspaper, and bent them fully on her. There was that in their expression
+which appealed so strongly to her heart that instead of finishing her
+speech she sprung towards him and threw her arms around his neck.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite a scene; and I detest scenes,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothen, as she arose and
+swept out of the room contemptuously; but they neither heard the remark
+nor noticed her departure.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER IV. MAURICE SCANLAN, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW.
+</h2>
+<p>
+About an hour after the occurrence mentioned in our last chapter, the
+quiet little village of Kilkieran was startled by the sharp clattering
+sounds of horses' feet, as Mr. Scanlan's tandem came slinging along; and
+after various little dexterities amid stranded boats, disabled anchors,
+and broken capstans, drew up at the gate of the Osprey's Nest. When men
+devise their own equipage, they invariably impart to it a strong infusion
+of their own idiosyncrasy. The quiet souls who drag through life in
+chocolate-colored barouches, with horses indifferently matched, give no
+clew to their special characteristics; but your men of tax-carts and
+tandems, your Jehus of four-in-hand teams, write their own biographies in
+every detail of the &ldquo;turn-out.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/068.jpg" width="100%" alt="068 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+Maurice Scanlan was a sporting attorney, and from the group of game cocks
+neatly painted on the hind panel, to the wiry, well-bred, and well-looking
+screws before him, all was indicative of the man. The conveyance was high
+and red-wheeled; the nags were a chestnut and a gray; he drove them
+without winkers or bearing-reins, wearing his white hat a very little on
+ope side, and gracefully tilting his elbow as he admonished the wheeler
+with the &ldquo;crop&rdquo; of his whip. He was a good-looking, showy, vulgar,
+self-sufficient kind of fellow, with consummate shrewdness in all business
+transactions, only marred by one solitary weak point,&mdash;an intense
+desire to be received intimately by persons of a station above his own,
+and to seem, at least, to be the admitted guest of very fashionable
+society. It was not a very easy matter to know if this Lord-worship of his
+was real, or merely affected, since, certainly, the profit he derived from
+the assumption was very considerable, and Maurice was intrusted with a
+variety of secret-service transactions, and private affairs for the
+nobility, which they would never have dreamed of committing to the hands
+of their more recognized advisers.
+</p>
+<p>
+If men would have been slow to engage his services in any grave or
+important suit, he was invaluable in all the ordinary and constantly
+occurring events of this changeful world. He knew every one's difficulties
+and embarrassments. There was not a hitch in a settlement, nor a spavin in
+your stables, could escape him. He seemed to possess a kind of intuitive
+appreciation of a flaw; and he pounced upon a defect with a rapidity that
+counterfeited genius. To these gifts he added a consummate knowledge of
+his countrymen. He had emerged from the very humblest class of the people,
+and he knew them thoroughly; with all their moods of habitual distrust and
+momentary enthusiasm,&mdash;with all their phases of sanguine hopefulness
+he was familiar; and he could mould and fashion and weld them to his will,
+as passive subjects as the heated bar under the hammer of the smith.
+</p>
+<p>
+As an electioneering agent he was unequalled. It was precisely the sphere
+in which his varied abilities were best exercised; and it was, besides, an
+arena in which he was proud of figuring.
+</p>
+<p>
+For a while he seemed&mdash;at least in his own eyes&mdash;to stand on a
+higher eminence than the candidate he represented, and to be a more
+prominent and far grander personage than his principal. In fact, it was
+only under some tacit acknowledgment of this temporary supremacy that his
+services were obtainable; his invariable stipulation being that he was to
+have the entire and uncontrolled direction of the election.
+</p>
+<p>
+Envious tongues and ungenerous talkers did, indeed, say that Maurice
+insisted upon this condition with very different objects in view, and that
+his unlimited powers found their pleasantest exercise in the inexplorable
+realms of secret bribery; however, it is but fair to say that he was
+eminently successful, and that one failure alone in his whole career
+occurred to show the proverbial capriciousness of fortune.
+</p>
+<p>
+With the little borough of Oughterard he had become so identified that his
+engagement was regarded as one of the first elements of success. Hitherto,
+indeed, the battle had been always an easy one. The Liberal party&mdash;as
+they pleasantly assumed to style themselves&mdash;had gone no further in
+opposition than an occasional burst of intemperate language, and an effort&mdash;usually
+a failure&mdash;at a street row during the election. So little of either
+energy or organization had marked their endeavors, that the great leader
+of the day had stigmatized their town with terms of heavy censure, and
+even pronounced them unworthy of the cause. An emissary, deputed to report
+upon the political state of the borough, had described the voters as mere
+dependants on the haughty purse-proud proprietor of Cro' Martin, who
+seemed, even without an effort, to nominate the sitting member.
+</p>
+<p>
+The great measure of the year '29&mdash;the Catholic Relief Bill&mdash;had
+now, however, suggested to even more apathetic constituencies the prospect
+of a successful struggle. The thought of being represented by &ldquo;one of
+their own sort&rdquo; was no mean stimulant to exertion; and the leading spirits
+of the place had frequently conferred together as to what steps should be
+taken to rescue the borough from the degrading thraldom of an aristocratic
+domination. Lord Kilmorris, it is true, was rather popular with them than
+the reverse. The eldest son of an Earl, who only cared to sit in
+Parliament on easy terms, till the course of time and events should call
+him to the Upper House, he never took any very decided political line, but
+sat on Tory benches and gave an occasional vote to Liberal measures, as
+though foreshadowing that new school who were to take the field under the
+middle designation of Conservatives. Some very remote relationship to Lady
+Dorothea's family had first introduced him to the Martins' notice; and
+partly from this connection, and partly because young Harry Martin was too
+young to sit in Parliament, they had continued to support him to the
+present time.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Martin himself cared very little for politics; had he even cared more,
+he would not have sacrificed to them one jot of that indolent, lazy,
+apathetic existence which alone he seemed to prize. He was rather grateful
+than otherwise to Lord Kilmorris for taking upon him the trouble of a
+contest, if there should be such a thing. His greatest excuse through
+life, at least to himself, had ever been that he was &ldquo;unprepared.&rdquo; He had
+been in that unhappy state about everything since he was born, and so,
+apparently, was he destined to continue to the very last. With large
+resources, he was never prepared for any sudden demand for money. When
+called on for any exertion of mind or body, when asked to assist a friend
+or rescue a relation from difficulty, he was quite unprepared; and so
+convinced was he that this was a fatality under which he labored, that no
+sooner had he uttered the expression than he totally absolved himself from
+every shadow of reproach that might attach to his luke-warmness.
+</p>
+<p>
+The uncontrolled position he occupied, joined to the solitary isolation in
+which he lived, had doubtless engendered this cold and heartless theory.
+There was no one to dispute his will,&mdash;none to gainsay his opinions.
+There was not for him any occasion for the healthful exertion which is
+evoked by opposition, and he sunk gradually down into a moping, listless,
+well-meaning, but utterly good-for-nothing gentleman, who would have been
+marvellously amazed had any one arraigned him for neglect of his station
+and its great requirements.
+</p>
+<p>
+That such an insolent possibility could be, was only demonstrated to him
+in that morning's newspaper. To be called a despot was bad enough, but a
+petty despot,&mdash;and to be told that such despotism was already doomed&mdash;aroused
+in him a degree of indignation all the more painful that the sensation was
+one he had not experienced for many a year back. Whose fault was it that
+such an impertinence had ever been uttered? Doubtless, Kilmorris's. Some
+stupid speech, some absurd vote, some ridiculous party move had brought
+down this attack upon him; or perhaps it was Mary, with her new-fangled
+ideas about managing the estate, her school-houses, and her model-farms.
+The ignorant people had possibly revolted against her interference; or it
+might be Lady Dorothea herself, whose haughty manner had given offence; at
+all events, <i>he</i> was blameless, and strange to say, either he was not
+perfectly assured of the fact, or that the assumption was not pleasant,
+but he seemed very far from being satisfied with the explanation. In the
+agitated mood these feelings produced, a servant came to inform him that
+Mr. Scanlan had just arrived.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say I 'm out&mdash;I 'm unwell&mdash;I don't feel quite myself to-day.
+Call Miss Mary to him.&rdquo; And with an impatient gesture he motioned the
+servant away.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Mary will be down in a few minutes, sir,&rdquo; said the man, entering the
+room where Mr. Scanlan stood arranging his whiskers before the
+chimney-glass, and contemplating with satisfaction his general appearance.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was Mr. Martin himself, Thomas, that I wanted to see.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know that, sir, but the Master is n't well this morning; he told me to
+send Miss Mary to you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Scanlan, giving a finishing touch to the tie of his
+cravat, and then gracefully bestowing his person into an easy-chair. To
+common observation he looked perfectly unconcerned in every gesture, and
+yet no man felt less at his ease at that moment than Mr. Maurice Scanlan;
+and though the cause involves something like a secret, the reader shall
+know it. Mr. Scanlan had seen a good deal of the world&mdash;that is, of
+<i>his</i> world. He had mixed with barristers and solicitors, &ldquo;Silk
+Gowns,&rdquo; masters in Chancery, and even puisne judges had he come into
+contact with; he had mingled in turf experiences with certain sporting
+lords and baronets, swapped horses, and betted and handicapped with men of
+fortune; he had driven trotting-matches, and ridden hurdle-races against
+young heirs to good estates, and somehow always found himself not inferior
+in worldly craft and address to those he came in contact with,&mdash;nay,
+he even fancied that he was occasionally rather a little more wide awake
+than his opponents; and what with a little blustering here, a little
+blarney there, a dash of mock frankness to this man, or an air of
+impulsive generosity to the other,&mdash;an accommodating elasticity, in
+fact, that extended to morals, manners, and principles,&mdash;he found
+that he was, as he himself styled it, &ldquo;a fair match with equal weights for
+anything going.&rdquo; There was but one individual alone in presence of whom he
+in reality felt his own inferiority deeply and painfully; strange to say,
+that was Miss Martin! At first sight this would seem almost
+unintelligible. She was not either a haughty beauty, presuming on the
+homage bestowed upon her by high and distinguished admirers, nor was she
+any greatly gifted and cultivated genius dominating over lesser
+intelligences by the very menace of her acquirements. She was simply a
+high-spirited, frank, unaffected girl, whose good breeding and good sense
+seemed alike instinctive, and who read with almost intuition the shallow
+artifices by which such natures as Scanlan's impose upon the world. She
+had seen him easily indolent with her uncle, obsequiously deferential to
+my Lady, all in the same breath, while the side-look of tyranny he could
+throw a refractory tenant appeared just as congenial to his nature.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was some strange consciousness which told him he could not deceive <i>her</i>,
+that made Scanlan ever abashed in her presence, and by the self-same
+impulse was it that she was the only one in the world for whose good
+esteem he would have sacrificed all he possessed.
+</p>
+<p>
+While he waited for her coming, he took a leisurely survey of the room.
+The furniture, less costly and rich than at Cro' Martin, was all marked by
+that air of propriety and comfort so observable in rich men's houses.
+There were the hundred appliances of ease and luxury that show how
+carefully the most trifling inconveniences are warded off, and the course
+of daily life rendered as untroubled as mere material enjoyments can
+secure. Scanlan sighed deeply, for the thought crossed his mind how was a
+girl brought up in this way ever to stoop to ally her fortune to a man
+like him? Was it, then, possible that he nourished such a presumption?
+Even so. Maurice was of an aspiring turn; he had succeeded in twenty
+things that a dozen years past he had never dared to dream of. He had
+dined at tables and driven with men whose butlers and valets he once
+deemed very choice company; he had been the guest at houses where once his
+highest ambition had been to see the interior as a matter of curiosity.
+&ldquo;Who could say where he might be at last?&rdquo; Besides this, he knew from his
+own knowledge of family matters that she had no fortune, that her father
+was infinitely more likely to leave debts than an inheritance behind him,
+and that her uncle was the last man in the world ever to think of a
+marriage-portion for one he could not afford to part with. There was,
+then, no saying what turn of fortune might present him in an admissible
+form as a suitor. At all events, there was no rival in the field, and
+Maurice had seen many a prize won by a &ldquo;walk over&rdquo; purely for want of a
+competitor in the race.
+</p>
+<p>
+Notwithstanding all these very excellent and reassuring considerations,
+Maurice Scanlan could not overcome a most uncomfortable sense of
+awkwardness as Mary Martin entered the room, and saluting him with easy
+familiarity, said, &ldquo;I'm quite ashamed of having made you wait, Mr.
+Scanlan; but I was in the village when I got my uncle's message. I find
+that he is not well enough to receive you, and if I can&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm sure it's only too much honor you do me, Miss Mary; I never expected
+to have the pleasure of this interview; indeed, it will be very hard for
+me to think of business, at all, at all.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That would be most unfortunate after your coming so far on account of
+it,&rdquo; said she, half archly, while she seated herself on a sofa at some
+distance from him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it were a question about the estate, Miss Mary,&rdquo; said he, in his most
+obsequious manner, &ldquo;there's nobody equal to yourself; or if it were
+anything at all but what it is, I know well that you'd see your way out of
+it; but the present is a matter of politics,&mdash;it 's about the
+borough.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That weary borough,&rdquo; said she, sighing; &ldquo;and are we about to have another
+election?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That 's it, Miss Mary; and Lord Kilmorris writes me to say that he 'll be
+over next week, and hopes he 'll find all his friends here as well
+disposed towards him as ever.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Has he written to my uncle?&rdquo; asked Mary, hastily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; and that's exactly what I came about. There was a kind of coldness,&mdash;more
+my Lady's, I think, than on Mr. Martin's part,&mdash;and Lord Kilmorris
+feels a kind of delicacy; in fact, he doesn't rightly know how he stands
+at Cro' Martin.&rdquo; Here he paused, in hopes that she would help him by even
+a word; but she was perfectly silent and attentive, and he went on. &ldquo;So
+that, feeling himself embarrassed, and at the same time knowing how much
+he owes to the Martin interest&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, go on,&rdquo; said she, calmly, as he came a second time to a dead stop.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It isn't so easy, then, Miss Mary,&rdquo; said he, with a long sigh, &ldquo;for there
+are so many things enter into it,&mdash;so much of politics and party and
+what not,&mdash;that I quite despair of making myself intelligible,
+though, perhaps, if I was to see your uncle, he 'd make out my meaning.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall I try and induce him to receive you, then?&rdquo; said she, quietly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, I don't like asking it,&rdquo; said he, doubtfully; &ldquo;for, after
+all, there's nobody can break it to him as well as yourself.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Break it to him, Mr. Scanlan?&rdquo; said she, in astonishment.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faith, it 's the very word, then,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;for do what one will, say
+what they may, it will be sure to surprise him, if it does no worse.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You alarm me, sir; and yet I feel that if you would speak boldly out your
+meaning, there is probably no cause for fear.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll just do so, then, Miss Mary; but at the same time I 'd have you to
+understand that I 'm taking a responsibility on myself that his Lordship
+never gave me any warrant for, and that there is not another&mdash;&rdquo; Mr.
+Scanlan stopped, but only in time; for, whether it was the fervor in which
+he uttered these words, or that Miss Martin anticipated what was about to
+follow, her cheek became scarlet, and a most unmistakable expression of
+her eyes recalled the worthy practitioner to all his wonted caution. &ldquo;The
+matter is this, Miss Martin,&rdquo; said he, with a degree of deference more
+marked than before, &ldquo;Lord Kilmorris is dissatisfied with the way your
+uncle supported him at the last election. He complains of the hard
+conditions imposed upon him as to his line of conduct in the House; and,
+above all, he feels insulted by a letter Lady Dorothea wrote him, full of
+very harsh expressions and hard insinuations. I never saw it myself, but
+that's his account of it,&mdash;in fact, he's very angry.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And means to throw up the borough, in short,&rdquo; broke in Mary.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm afraid not, Miss Mary,&rdquo; said the other, in a half whisper.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What then?&mdash;what can he purpose doing?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He means to try and come in on his own interest,&rdquo; said Scanlan, who
+uttered the words with an effort, and seemed to feel relief when they were
+out.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Am I to understand that he would contest the borough with us?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Scanlan nodded an affirmative.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, Mr. Scanlan, this is some mistake,&mdash;some misapprehension on
+your part. His Lordship may very possibly feel aggrieved,&mdash;he may
+have some cause, for aught I know,&mdash;about something in the last
+election, but this mode of resenting it is quite out of the question,&mdash;downright
+impossible.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The best way is to read his own words. Miss Martin. There's his letter,&rdquo;
+ said he, handing one towards her, which, however, she made no motion to
+take.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you won't read it, then, perhaps you will permit me to do so. It's
+very short, too, for he says at the end he will write more fully
+to-morrow.&rdquo; Mr. Scanlan here muttered over several lines of the epistle,
+until he came to the following: &ldquo;I am relieved from any embarrassment I
+should have felt at breaking with the Martins by reflecting over the
+altered conditions of party, and the new aspect politics must assume by
+the operations of the Emancipation Act. The old ways and traditions of the
+Tories must be abandoned at once and forever; and though Martin in his
+life of seclusion and solitude will not perceive this necessity, we here
+all see and admit it. I could, therefore, no longer represent his
+opinions, since they would find no echo in the House. To stand for the
+borough I must stand on my own views, which, I feel bold to say, include
+justice to both of the contending factions.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Admirably argued,&rdquo; broke in Mary. &ldquo;He absolves himself from all ties of
+gratitude to my uncle by adopting principles the reverse of all he ever
+professed.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's very like that, indeed, Miss Mary,&rdquo; said Scanlan, timidly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very like it, sir? it is exactly so. Really the thing would be too gross
+if it were not actually laughable;&rdquo; and as she spoke she arose and paced
+the room in a manner that showed how very little of the ludicrous side of
+the matter occupied her thoughts. &ldquo;He will stand for the borough&mdash;he
+means to stand in opposition to us?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's his intention&mdash;at least, if Mr. Martin should not come to the
+conclusion that it is better to support his Lordship than risk throwing
+the seat into the hands of the Roman Catholics.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can't follow all these intrigues, Mr. Scanlan. I confess to you,
+frankly, that you have puzzled me enough already, and that I have found it
+no small strain on my poor faculties to conceive a gentleman being able to
+argue himself into any semblance of self-approval by such sentiments as
+those which you have just read; but I am a poor country girl, very
+ignorant of great topics and great people. The best thing I can do is to
+represent this affair to my uncle, and as early as may be.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope he'll not take the thing to heart, miss; and I trust he 'll acquit
+<i>me</i>&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be assured he'll despise the whole business most thoroughly, sir. I never
+knew him take any deep interest in these themes; and if this be a fair
+specimen of the way they are discussed, he was all the wiser for his
+indifference. Do you make any stay in the village? Will it be inconvenient
+for you to remain an hour or so?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll wait your convenience, miss, to any hour,&rdquo; said Scanlan, with an air
+of gallantry which, had she been less occupied with her thoughts, might
+have pushed her hard to avoid smiling at.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll be down at Mrs. Cronan's till I hear from you, Miss Mary.&rdquo; And with
+a look of as much deferential admiration as he dared to bestow, Scanlan
+took his leave, and mounting to his box, assumed the ribbons with a
+graceful elegance and a certain lackadaisical languor that, to himself at
+least, appeared demonstrative of an advanced stage of the tender passion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Begad, she's a fine girl; devil a lie in it, but she has n't her equal!
+and as sharp as a needle, too,&rdquo; muttered he, as he jogged along the
+shingly beach, probably for the first time in his whole life forgetting
+the effect he was producing on the bystanders.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER V. A STUDIO AND AN ARTIST
+</h2>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is my uncle in the library, Terence?&rdquo; asked Mary of a very corpulent old
+man, in a red-brown wig.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, miss, he's in the&mdash;bother it, then, if I ever can think of the
+name of it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The studio, you mean,&rdquo; said she, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so, Miss Mary,&rdquo; replied he, with a sigh; for he remembered certain
+penitential hours passed by himself in the same locality.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think you could manage to let him know I want him&mdash;that is,
+that I have something important to say to him?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's clean impossible, miss, to get near him when he's there. Sure, is
+n't he up on a throne, dressed out in goold and dimonds, and as cross as a
+badger besides, at the way they're tormenting him?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, that tiresome picture, is it never to be completed?&rdquo; muttered she,
+half unconsciously.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The saints above know whether it is or no,&rdquo; rejoined Terence, &ldquo;for one of
+the servants told me yesterday that they rubbed every bit of the master
+out, and began him all again; for my Lady said he was n't half haggard
+enough, or worn-looking; but, by my conscience, if he goes on as he 's
+doing, he ought to satisfy them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, I thought it was Henderson was sitting,&rdquo; said Mary, somewhat amused
+at the old man's commentaries.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So he was; but they rubbed him out, too; for it seems now he ought to be
+bald, and they 've sent him into Oughter-ard to get his head shaved.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what were <i>you</i>, Terry?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Arrah, who knows?&rdquo; said he, querulously. &ldquo;At first I was to be somebody's
+mother that was always cryin'; but they weren't pleased with the way I
+done it; and then they made me a monk, and after that they put two
+hundredweight of armor on me, and made me lean my head on my arm as if I
+was overcome; and faith, so I was; for I dropped off asleep, and fell into
+a pot of varnish, and I 'm in disgrace now, glory be to God! and I only
+hope it may last.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish I shared your fortune, Terry, with all my heart,&rdquo; said Mary, with
+some difficulty preserving her gravity.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Couldn't it catch fire&mdash;by accident, I mean, miss&mdash;some evening
+after dark?&rdquo; whispered Terry, confidentially. &ldquo;Them 's materials that
+would burn easy! for, upon my conscience, if it goes on much longer there
+won't be a sarvant will stay in the sarvice. They had little Tom Regan
+holding a dish of charcoal so long that he tuk to his bed on Friday last,
+and was never up since; and Jinny Moore says she 'd rather lave the place
+than wear that undacent dress; and whist, there's murder goin' on now
+inside!&rdquo; And with that the old fellow waddled off with a speed that seemed
+quite disproportionate to his years.
+</p>
+<p>
+While Mary was still hesitating as to what she should do, the door
+suddenly opened, and a man in a mediaeval costume rushed out, tugging
+after him a large bloodhound, whose glaring eyeballs and frothy mouth
+betokened intense passion. Passing hurriedly forward, Mary beheld Lady
+Dorothea bending over the fainting figure of a short little man, who lay
+on the floor; while her uncle, tottering under a costume he could barely
+carry, was trying to sprinkle water over him from an urn three feet in
+height.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Crow has fainted,&mdash;mere fright, nothing more!&rdquo; said Lady
+Dorothea. &ldquo;In stepping backward from the canvas he unluckily trod upon
+Fang's paw, and the savage creature at once sprung on him. That stupid
+wretch, Regan, one of your favorites, Miss Martin, never pulled him off
+till he had torn poor Mr. Crow's coat, clean in two.&rdquo;.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Egad, if I had n't smashed my sceptre over the dog's head the mischief
+wouldn't have stopped there; but he 's coming to. Are you better, Crow?
+How do you feel, man?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope you are better, sir?&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, in an admirable blending
+of grand benevolence and condescension.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0003" id="linkimage-0003">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/080.jpg" width="100%" alt="080 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Infinitely better; supremely happy, besides, to have become the object of
+your Ladyship's kind inquiries,&rdquo; said the little man, sitting up, and
+looking around with a very ghastly effort at urbanity and ease.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never knew Fang to bite any one,&rdquo; said Mary.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Does n't she, by jingo!&rdquo; exclaimed the artist, who with difficulty caught
+himself in time before he placed his hand on the supposed seat of his
+injuries.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She shall be muzzled in future,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, haughtily,
+repressing the familiar tone of the discussion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think&mdash;indeed, I feel sure&mdash;I could get her in from memory,
+my Lady; she 's a very remarkable creature, and makes an impression on
+one.&rdquo; As he uttered these words ruefully, he lifted from the floor the
+fragment of his coat-skirt, and gazed mournfully at it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose we must suspend proceedings,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea; &ldquo;though
+really it is a pity to lose the opportunity of Miss Martin's presence,&mdash;an
+honor she so very rarely accords us.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think after a few minutes or so, my Lady, I might feel equal,&rdquo; said Mr.
+Crow, rising and retreating to a wall with a degree of caution that showed
+he entertained grave fears as to the state of his habiliments,&mdash;&ldquo;I
+might feel equal, if not exactly to delineate Miss Martin's Classic
+features, at least to throw in&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I could n't think of such a thing; I should be wretched at the idea of
+engaging your attention at such a moment,&rdquo; said Mary, with a carelessness
+that contrasted strongly with her words; while she added, with
+earnestness, &ldquo;Besides, I 'm not sure I could spare the time.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see, sir,&rdquo; said her Ladyship to the artist, &ldquo;you have to deal with a
+young lady whose occupations are like those of a Premier. The Duke of
+Wellington can vouchsafe a sitting for his portrait, but Miss Martin
+cannot spare the time for it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, Aunt Dorothy, if I were the Duke of Wellington I should do as he
+does. It is being Mary Martin, whose picture can have no interest for any
+one, enables me to follow the bent of my own wishes.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Humility is another of her perfections,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, with a look
+that but too palpably expressed her feeling towards her niece.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Mary was assisting her uncle to get rid of some of his superfluous
+draperies, neither of them overheard this remark; while Mr. Crow was too
+deeply impressed with his own calamities to pay any attention to it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Scanlan has been very anxious to see you, uncle,&rdquo; whispered Mary in
+his ear. &ldquo;He has something of importance to communicate about the
+borough.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can't you manage it yourself, Molly? Can't you contrive somehow to spare
+me this annoyance?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you really ought to hear what he has to say.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I perceive that Miss Martin has a secret of moment to Impart to you; pray
+let me not trouble the interview by my presence,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea. And
+she swept haughtily out of the room, throwing a most disdainful glance at
+her husband as she went.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There, by George! you've secured me a pleasant afternoon, at all events!&rdquo;
+ said Martin, angrily, to his niece, as throwing off the last remnant of
+his regal costume, he rushed out, banging the door passionately behind
+him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary sat down to compose her thoughts in quiet, for Mr. Crow had
+previously made his escape unobserved; and truly there was need of some
+repose for her agitated and wearied faculties. Her uncle's dependence upon
+her for everything, and her aunt's jealousy of the influence she had over
+him, placed her in a position of no common difficulty, and one of which
+every day seemed to increase the embarrassment. For a moment she thought
+she would have preferred a life of utter insignificance and obscurity; but
+as suddenly it occurred to her, &ldquo;What had I been without these duties and
+these cares? For me there are few, if any, of the ties that bind other
+girls to their homes. I have neither mother nor sister; I have none of the
+resources which education suggests to others. My mind cannot soar above
+the realities that surround me, and seek for its enjoyments in the realms
+of fancy; but, perhaps, I can do better,&rdquo; said she, proudly, &ldquo;and make of
+these same every-day materials the poetry of an actual existence.&rdquo; As she
+spoke, she threw open the window, and walked out upon the terrace over the
+sea. The fishermen's boats were all standing out from shore,&mdash;a tiny
+fleet, whose hardy crews had done no discredit to the proudest
+three-decker. Though the heavy gale of the morning had gone down, it still
+blew fresh, and a long rolling swell thundered along in-shore, and sent a
+deep booming noise through many a rocky cavern. High above this deafening
+clamor, however, rose the hearty cheers of the fishermen as they detected
+Mary's figure where she stood; and many a tattered rag of showy bunting
+was hoisted to do her honor. Never insensible to such demonstrations, Mary
+felt at the moment almost overpowered with emotion. But a moment back and
+she bewailed her isolation and friendlessness; and see, here were hundreds
+who would have resigned life in her behalf. Still, as the boats receded,
+the wind bore to her ears the welcome sounds; and as she heard them, her
+heart seemed to expand and swell with generous thoughts and good wishes,
+while along her cheeks heavy tears were rolling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What need have I of other friends than such as these?&rdquo; cried she,
+passionately. &ldquo;<i>They</i> understand me, and I them; and as for the great
+world, we are not made for each other!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My own sentiments to a 'T,' miss,&rdquo; said a soft, mincing voice behind her;
+and Mary turned and beheld Mr. Crow. He had arrayed himself in a small
+velvet skull-cap and a blouse, and stood mixing the colors on his palette
+in perfect composure. &ldquo;I 'm afraid, Miss Martin, there 's an end of the
+great 'Historical.' Your uncle will scarcely be persuaded to put on the
+robes again, and it's a downright pity. I was getting a look of weariness&mdash;imbecility
+I might call it&mdash;into his features that would have crowned the work.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think I ever knew what your subject was!&rdquo; said she, half
+indolently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Abdication of Charles V., Miss Martin,&rdquo; said he, proudly. &ldquo;This is
+the fourteenth time I have depicted it; and never, I am bound to say, with
+more favorable 'studies.' Your uncle is fine; my Lady gorgeous; I don't
+say what I 'd like of another lovely and gifted individual; but even down
+to that old rogue of a butler that would insist on taking snuff through
+the bars of his helmet, they were all grand, miss,&mdash;positively
+grand!&rdquo; Seeing that she appeared to bestow some attention to him, Mr. Crow
+went on: &ldquo;You see, miss, in the beginning of a great effort of this kind
+there is no progress made at all. The sitters keep staring at one another,
+each amused at some apparent absurdity in costume or attitude; and then,
+if you ask them to call up a look of love, hate, jealousy, or the like,
+it's a grin you get,&mdash;a grin that would shame a hyena. By degrees,
+however, they grow used to the situation; they 'tone down,' as one might
+say, and learn to think less of themselves, and be more natural. It was
+sheer fatigue, downright exhaustion, and nothing else, was making your
+uncle so fine; and if he could have been kept on low diet,&mdash;I did n't
+like to mention it, though I often wished it,&mdash;I 'd have got a look
+of cadaverous madness into his face that would have astonished you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+By this time Mr. Crow had approached his canvas, and was working away
+vigorously, the action of his brush appearing to stimulate his loquacity.
+Mary drew near to observe him, and insensibly felt attracted by that
+fascination which the progress of a picture invariably possesses.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is the Queen,&rdquo; continued he; &ldquo;she's crying,&mdash;as well she might;
+she doesn't rightly know whether the old fellow's out of his mind or not;
+she has her misgivings, and she does n't half like that old thief of a
+Jesuit that's whispering in the King's ear. This was to be you, Miss
+Martin; you were betrothed to one of the young princes; but somehow you
+weren't quite right in your head, and you are looking on rather more
+amused, you perceive, than in any way moved; you were holding up your
+beautiful petticoat, all covered with gold and precious stones, as much as
+to say, 'Ain't I fine this morning?' when you heard the herald's trumpet
+announce the Prince of Orange; and there he is,&mdash;or there he ought to
+be,&mdash;coming in at the door. There's a chap pulling the curtain aside;
+but I suppose, now,&rdquo; added he, with a sigh, &ldquo;we 'll never see the Prince
+there!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But where could you have found a study for your Prince, Mr. Crow?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have him here, miss,&rdquo; said Crow, laying down his brush to take a small
+sketch-book from the pocket of his blouse. &ldquo;I have him here; and there
+wouldn't have been a finer head in the canvas,&mdash;pale, stern-looking,
+but gentle withal; a fellow that would say, 'Lead them to the scaffold,'
+as easy as winking, and that would tremble and falter under the eye of a
+woman he loved. There he is, now,&mdash;the hair, you know, I put in
+myself, and the bit of beard, just for a little Titian effect; but the
+eyes are his own, and the mouth not as good as his own.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's a striking head, indeed,&rdquo; said Mary, still contemplating it
+attentively.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's exactly what it is; none of your common brain-boxes, but a grand
+specimen of the classic head, civilized down to a mediaeval period; the
+forty-first descendant of an Emperor or a Proconsul, living at the Pincian
+Hall, or at his villa on the Tiber, sitting for his likeness to Giordano.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's a painful expression in the features, too,&rdquo; added she, slowly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So there is; and I believe he 's in bad health.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; said Mary, starting. &ldquo;I quite forgot there was an original all
+this time.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He's alive; and what's more, he's not a mile from where we 're standing.&rdquo;
+ Mr. Crow looked cautiously about him as he spoke, ac if fearful of being
+overheard; and then approaching close to Miss Martin, and dropping his
+voice to a whisper, said, &ldquo;I can venture to tell you what I dare n't tell
+my Lady; for I know well if she suspected who it was would be the Prince
+of Orange, begad, I might abdicate too, as well as the King. That young
+man there is-the son of a grocer in Oughterard,&mdash;true, every word of
+it,&mdash;Dan Nelligan's son! and you may fancy now what chance he 'd have
+of seeing himself on that canvas if her Ladyship knew it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this the youth who has so distinguished himself at college?&rdquo; asked
+Mary.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The very one. I made that sketch of him when he was reading for the
+medal; he did n't know it, for I was in a window opposite, where he
+couldn't see me; and when I finished he leaned his chin in his hand and
+looked up at the sky, as if thinking; and the expression of his up-turned
+face, with the lips a little apart, was so fine that I took it down at
+once, and there it is,&rdquo; said he, turning over the page and presenting a
+few pencil lines lightly and spiritedly drawn.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A young gentleman left this packet, Miss Mary, and said it was for you,&rdquo;
+ said a servant, presenting a small sealed enclosure. Mary Martin blushed
+deeply, and she opened the parcel, out of which fell her own glove, with a
+card.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The very man we were talking of,&rdquo; said Mr. Crow, lifting it up and
+handing it to her,&mdash;&ldquo;Joseph Nelligan. That's like the old proverb;
+talk of the&mdash;&rdquo; But she was gone ere he could finish his quotation.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There she goes,&rdquo; said Crow, sorrowfully; &ldquo;and if she 'd have stayed ten
+minutes more I 'd have had her all complete!&rdquo; and he contemplated with
+glowing satisfaction a hasty sketch he had just made in his book. &ldquo;It's
+like her,&mdash;far more than anything I have done yet; but after all&mdash;&rdquo;
+ And he shook his head mournfully as he felt the poor pretension of his
+efforts. &ldquo;Small blame to me to fail, anyhow,&rdquo; added he, after a pause. &ldquo;It
+would take Titian himself to paint her; and even he couldn't give all the
+softness and delicacy of the expression,&mdash;that would take Raffaelle;
+and Vandyke for her eyes, when they flash out at times; and Giordano for
+the hair. Oh, if he could have seen it just as I did a minute ago, when
+the wind blew it back, and the sunlight fell over it! &ldquo;Arrah!&rdquo; cried he,
+impatiently, as with a passionate gesture he tore the leaf from his book
+and crushed it in his hand,&mdash;&ldquo;arrah! What right have I even to
+attempt it?&rdquo; And he sat down, covering his face with his hands, to muse
+and mourn in silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+Simpson&mdash;or as he was more generally known, Simmy Crow&mdash;was
+neither a Michael Angelo nor a Raffaelle; but he was a simple-minded,
+honest-hearted creature, whose life had been a long hand-to-hand fight
+with fortune. Originally a drawing-master in some country academy, the
+caprice&mdash;for it was little else&mdash;of a whimsical old lady had
+sent him abroad to study; that is, sent him to contemplate the very
+highest triumphs of genius with a mind totally unprepared and
+uncultivated, to gaze on the grandest conceptions without the shadow of a
+clew to them, and to try and pick up the secrets of art when he stood in
+utter ignorance of its first principles. The consequence was, he went wild
+in the enthusiasm of his admiration; he became a passionate worshipper at
+the shrine, but never essayed to be priest at the altar. Disgusted and
+dispirited by his own miserable attempts, he scarcely ever touched a
+pencil, but roved from city to city, and from gallery to gallery,
+entranced,&mdash;enchanted by a fascination that gradually insinuated
+itself into his very being, and made up the whole aim and object of his
+thoughts. This idolatry imparted an ecstasy to his existence that lifted
+him above every accident of fortune. Poor, hungry, and ill-clad, he still
+could enter a gallery or a church, sit down before a Guido or a Rembrandt,
+and forget all, save the glorious creation before him. By the sudden death
+of his patroness, he was left, without a shilling, hundreds of miles from
+home. Humble as his requirements were, he could not supply them; he
+offered to teach, but it was in a land where all have access to the best
+models; he essayed to copy, but his efforts were unsalable. To return home
+to his country was now his great endeavor; and after innumerable
+calamities and reverses, he did arrive in England, whence he made his way
+to Ireland, poorer than he had quitted it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Had he returned in better plight, had he come back with some of the
+appearance of success, the chances are that he might have thriven on the
+accidents of fame; but he was famishing and in beggary. Some alleged that
+he was a worthless fellow who had passed a life of idleness and debauch;
+others, that he was not without ability, but that his habits of
+dissipation rendered him hopeless; and a few&mdash;a very few&mdash;pitied
+him as a weak-brained enthusiast, who had no bad about him, but was born
+to failure!
+</p>
+<p>
+In his utter destitution he obtained work as a house-painter,&mdash;an
+employment which he followed for three or four yeare, and in which
+capacity he had been sent by his master to paint some ornamental
+stucco-work at Cro' Martin. The ability he displayed attracted Lady
+Dorothea's notice, and she engaged him to decorate a small garden villa
+with copies from her own designs. He was entirely successful, and so much
+pleased was her Ladyship that she withdrew him from his ignoble servitude
+and attached him to her own household, where now he had been living two
+years, the latter half of which period had been passed in the great work
+of which we have already made some mention. It so chanced that poor Simmy
+had never sold but two copies in his life: one was The Abdication of
+Charles V., the other, The Finding of Moses; and so, out of gratitude to
+these successes, he went on multiplying new versions of these subjects <i>ad
+infinitum</i>, eternally writing fresh variations on the old themes, till
+the King and the Lawgiver filled every avenue of his poor brain, and he
+ceased to have a belief that any other story than these could be the
+subject of high art.
+</p>
+<p>
+Happy as he now was, he never ceased to feel that his position exposed him
+to many an ungenerous suspicion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They 'll say I 'm humbugging this old lady,&rdquo; was the constant
+self-reproach he kept repeating. &ldquo;I know well what they 'll think of me; I
+think I hear the sneering remarks as I pass.&rdquo; And so powerfully had this
+impression caught hold of him, that he vowed, come what would of it, he 'd
+set out on his travels again, and face the cold stern world, rather than
+live on what seemed to be the life of a flatterer and a sycophant. He
+could not, however, endure the thought of leaving his &ldquo;Abdication&rdquo;
+ unfinished, and he now only remained to complete this great work. &ldquo;Then I
+'m off,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;and then they 'll see if poor Simmy Crow was the fellow
+they took him for.&rdquo; Better thoughts on this theme were now passing through
+his mind, from which at last he aroused himself to proceed with his
+picture. Once at work, his spirits rose; hopes flitted across his brain,
+and he was happy. His own creations seemed to smile benignly on him, too,
+and he felt towards them like a friend, and even talked with them, and
+confided his secret thoughts to them. In this pleasant mood we shall leave
+him, then; nor shall we linger to listen to the avowals he is making of
+his upright intentions, nor his willingness to bear the hardest rubs of
+fortune, so that none can reproach him for a mean subserviency.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER VI. A DASH OF POLITICS
+</h2>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, what is it, Molly,&mdash;what is it all about?&rdquo; said Martin, as
+Mary entered the library, where he was sitting with an unread newspaper
+stretched across his knee.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a piece of news Scanlan has brought, uncle, and not of the most
+agreeable kind either.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I'll not hear more of it,&rdquo; broke he in, pettishly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you must, uncle, since without your own counsel and advice nothing
+can be done.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do nothing, then,&rdquo; added he, sulkily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, come, I 'll not let you off thus easily,&rdquo; said she, passing an arm
+over his shoulder. &ldquo;You know well I 'd not tease you if it could be
+avoided, but here is a case where I can be no guide. It is a question of
+the borough, Lord Kilmorris thinks himself strong enough to stand on his
+own merits, and repudiates your aid and his own principles together.&rdquo;
+ Martin's attention being now secured, she went on: &ldquo;He says&mdash;at least
+as well as I can follow his meaning&mdash;that with this new measure must
+come a total change of policy,&mdash;abrogating all old traditions and old
+notions; that <i>you</i>, of course, are little likely to adopt this
+opinion, at least at once, and so he releases you from all obligations to
+support him, and himself from all tie to represent <i>you</i>.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is Lady Dorothy's doing,&rdquo; broke in Martin, passionately; &ldquo;her
+confounded letter-writing has brought this upon us. I told her that those
+fellows were trimming; I warned her that they were only waiting for this
+Bill to pass, to turn round upon us as a barbarous old remnant of feudal
+oppression; but he dare n't do it, Molly,&mdash;Kilmorris has n't a leg to
+stand upon in the borough. He could n't count upon twenty&mdash;no, not
+ten votes, without me. It's a scurvy trick, too, and it sha'n't succeed,
+if I stand for the borough myself.&rdquo; And he blurted out the last words as
+though they were the expression of an enmity driven to its last resources.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, uncle,&rdquo; said she, caressingly; &ldquo;after all you have yourself told
+me of a parliamentary life, that must never be. Its unending intrigues and
+petty plotting, its fatiguing days and harassing nights, its jealousies
+and disappointments, and defeats, all hard enough to be borne by those who
+must make a trade of their politics, but utterly insupportable to one who,
+like you, can enjoy his independence. Do not think of that, I beseech
+you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then am I to see this man carry my own town in my very teeth?&rdquo; cried he,
+angrily. &ldquo;Is that your advice to me?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You often spoke of Harry. Why not put him forward now he is coming home?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, and the very first thing he'll do will be to resign the seat because
+he had not been consulted about the matter before the election. You know
+him well, Molly; and you know that he exchanged into a regiment in India
+simply because I had obtained his appointment to the Blues. His amiable
+mother's disposition is strong in him!&rdquo; muttered he, half to himself, but
+loud enough to be heard by his niece.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;At all events, see Scanlan,&rdquo; said she; &ldquo;learn how the matter really
+stands; don't rely on my version of it, but see what Lord Kilmorris
+intends, and take your own measures calmly and dispassionately
+afterwards.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is Scanlan engaged for him?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think not. I suspect that negotiations are merely in progress.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But if he even was,&rdquo; broke in Martin, violently, &ldquo;I have made the fellow
+what he is, and he should do as I ordered him. Let him come in, Molly.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is not in the house, uncle; he went down to the village.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not here? Why didn't he wait? What impertinence is this?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He wished to bait his horses, and probably to get some breakfast for
+himself, which I had not the politeness to offer him here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;His horses? His tandem, I'll be sworn,&rdquo; said Martin, with a sneer. &ldquo;I 'll
+ask for no better evidence of what we are coming to than that Maurice
+Scanlan drives about the county with a tandem.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And handles them very neatly, too,&rdquo; said Mary, with a malicious sparkle
+of her eye, for she could n't refrain from the spiteful pleasure of seeing
+her uncle in a regular fury for a mere nothing. All the more salutary, as
+it withdrew his thoughts from weightier themes.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm sure of it, Miss Martin. I'm certain that he is a most accomplished
+whip, and as such perfectly sure to find favor in <i>your</i> eyes. Let
+him come up here at once, however. Say I want him immediately,&rdquo; added he,
+sternly; and Mary despatched a servant with the message, and sat down in
+front of her uncle, neither uttering a word nor even looking towards the
+other.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;After all, Molly,&rdquo; said he, in the quiet, indolent tone so natural to him&mdash;&ldquo;after
+all, what does it signify who's in or who's out? I don't care a brass
+farthing about party or party triumphs; and even if I did, I 'm not
+prepared&mdash;What are you laughing at,&mdash;what is it amuses you now?&rdquo;
+ asked he, half testily, while she laughed out in all the unrestrained flow
+of joyous mirth.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have been waiting for that confession this half-hour, uncle, and really
+I was beginning to be afraid of a disappointment. Why, dearest uncle, you
+were within a hair's breadth of forgetting your principles, and being
+actually caught, for once in your life, prepared and ready.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, is that it? Is it my embarrassment, then, that affords you so much
+amusement?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Far from it,&rdquo; said she, affectionately. &ldquo;I was only laughing at that
+quiet little nook you retire to whenever you ought to be up and doing.
+Unprepared you say. Not a bit of it. Indisposed, indolent, unwilling,
+indifferent, any of these you like; but with a mind so full of its own
+good resources, and as ready to meet every contingency as any one's, don't
+say you are unprepared. Come, now, bear with me this once, dearest uncle,
+and don't be angry if I throw myself, like a rock or sandbank, betwixt you
+and your harbor of refuge. But I hear Mr. Scanlan's voice, and so I shall
+leave you. Be resolute, uncle, determined, and&mdash;'prepared'!&rdquo; And with
+a gesture half menace and half drollery, she left the room as the attorney
+entered it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Scanlan, like most of those who came but casually in contact with Martin,
+had conceived a low idea of his capacity,&mdash;lower by far than it
+deserved, since behind his indolence there lay a fund of good
+common-sense,&mdash;a mine, it must be acknowledged, that he seldom cared
+to work. The crafty man of law had, however, only seen him in his ordinary
+moods of careless ease and idleness, and believed that pride of family,
+fortune, and position were the only ideas that found access to his mind,
+and that by a dexterous allusion to these topics it would always be an
+easy task to influence and direct him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What's this my niece has been telling me of Lord Kilmorris?&rdquo; said Martin,
+abruptly, and without even replying to the salutations of the other, who
+hovered around a chair in an uncertainty as to whether he might dare to
+seat himself uninvited,&mdash;&ldquo;he's going to contest the borough with us,
+is n't he?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Scanlan leaned one arm on the back of the chair, and in a half-careless
+way replied,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is afraid that you and he don't quite agree, sir. He leans to measures
+that he suspects you may not altogether approve of.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, come, none of this balderdash with me, Master Maurice. Has he
+bought the fellows already, or, rather, have you bought them? Out with it,
+man! What will he give? Name the sum, and let us treat the matter in a
+business-like way.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Scanlan sat down and laughed heartily for some minutes.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think you know me well enough, Mr. Martin, by this time,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;to
+say whether I'ma likely man to meddle with such a transaction.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The very likeliest in Ireland; the man I 'd select amidst ten thousand.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sorry to hear you say so, sir, that's all,&rdquo; said the other, with a
+half-offended air; &ldquo;nor do I see that anything in my past life warrants
+the imputation.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin turned fiercely round, about to make a reply which, if once
+uttered, would have ended all colloquy between them, when suddenly
+catching himself he said, &ldquo;Have you taken any engagement with his
+Lordship?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not as yet, sir,&mdash;not formally, at least. My Lord has written me a
+very full statement of his ideas on politics, what he means to do, and so
+forth, and he seems to think that anything short of a very liberal line
+would not give satisfaction to the electors.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who told him so? Who said that the borough was not perfectly content with
+the representative that&mdash;that&rdquo;&mdash;he stammered and faltered&mdash;&ldquo;that
+its best friends had fixed upon to defend its interests? Who said that a
+member of my own family might not desire the seat?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+This announcement, uttered with a tone very much akin to menace, failed to
+produce either the astonishment or terror that Martin looked for, and
+actually supposing that the expression had not been heard, he repeated it.
+&ldquo;I say, sir, has any one declared that a Martin will not stand?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not aware of it,&rdquo; said Scanlan, quietly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir,&rdquo; cried Martin, as if unable to delineate the consequences, and
+wished to throw the weight of the duty on his opponent.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There would be a warm contest, no doubt, sir,&rdquo; said Scanlan, guardedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir; nor the shadow of a contest,&rdquo; rejoined Martin, angrily. &ldquo;You'll
+not tell <i>me</i> that my own town&mdash;the property that has been in my
+family for seven centuries and more&mdash;would presume&mdash;that is,
+would desire&mdash;to&mdash;to&mdash;break the ties that have bound us to
+each other?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish I could tell you my mind, Mr. Martin, without offending you; that
+is, I wish you 'd let me just say what my own opinion is, and take it for
+what it is worth, and in five minutes you 'd be in a better position to
+make up your mind about this matter than if we went on discussing it for a
+week.&rdquo; There was a dash of independence in his utterance of these words
+that actually startled Martin; for, somehow, Scanlan had himself been
+surprised into earnestness by meeting with an energy on the other's part
+that he had never suspected; and thus each appeared in a new light to the
+other.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;May I speak out? Well, then, here is what I have to say: the Relief Bill
+is passed, the Catholics are now emancipated&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, and be&mdash;&rdquo; Martin caught himself with a cough, and the other
+went on:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, if they don't send one of their own set into Parliament at
+once, it is because they 'd like to affect, for a little while at least, a
+kind of confidence in the men who gave them their liberties. O'Connell
+himself gave a pledge, that of two candidates, equal in all other
+respects, they'd select the Protestant; and so they would for a time. And
+it lies with you, and other men of your station, to determine how long
+that interval is to last; for an interval it will only be, after all. If
+you want to pursue the old system of 'keeping down,' you 'll drive them at
+once into the hands of the extreme Papist party, who, thanks to
+yourselves, can now sit in Parliament; but if you 'll moderate your views,
+take a humbler standard of your own power,&mdash;conciliate a prejudice
+here, obliterate an old animosity there&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In fact,&rdquo; broke in Martin, &ldquo;swear by this new creed that Lord Kilmorris
+has sent you a sketch of in his letter! Then I 'll tell you what, sir&mdash;I
+'d send the borough and all in it to the&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So you might, Mr. Martin, and you 'd never mend matters in the least,&rdquo;
+ broke he in, with great coolness.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was now a dead silence for several minutes; at last Martin spoke,
+and it was in a tone and with a manner that indicated deep reflection:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I often said to those who would emancipate the Catholics, 'Are you
+prepared to change places with them? You have been in the ascendant a good
+many years, are you anxious now to try what the other side of the medal
+looks like? for, if not, leave them as they are.' Well, they did n't
+believe me; and maybe now my prophecy is nigh its accomplishment.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is very likely you were right, sir; but whether or not, it's the law
+now, and let us make the best of it,&rdquo; said Scanlan, who had a practical
+man's aversion to all that savored of mere speculative reasoning.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;As how, for instance&mdash;in what way, Mr. Scanlan?&rdquo; asked Martin,
+curtly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you 'll not support Lord Kilmorris&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I won't, I promise you; put that clean out of your head to begin
+with.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, there is but one other course open. Come to some compromise
+with the Romanist party; if you don't like to give them a stray vote&mdash;and
+mark me, they 'd make better terms with <i>you</i> than with a stranger&mdash;but
+if you don't like that, why, take the representation alternately with
+them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin rose from his chair and advanced close to where Scanlan was
+sitting, then, fixing his eyes steadfastly on him, said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who commissioned you to make this proposition to <i>me?</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No one, upon my oath. There is not a man breathing who has ever so much
+as hinted at what I have just said to you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm glad of it; I'm heartily glad of it,&rdquo; said Martin, calmly reseating
+himself. &ldquo;I'm glad there is not another fellow in this county your equal
+in impudence! Aye, Mr. Scanlan, you heard me quite correctly. I saw many a
+change going on amongst us, and I foresaw many more; but that a Martin of
+Cro' Martin should be taught his political duty by Maurice Scanlan, and
+that that duty consisted in a beggarly alliance with the riff-raff of a
+county town,&mdash;that was, indeed, a surprise for which I was in no wise
+prepared.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, I 'm sorry if I have given any offence,&rdquo; said Scanlan, rising,
+and, in a voice of the most quiet intonation, making his excuses. &ldquo;Your
+rejection of the counsel I was bold enough to suggest leaves me, at least,
+at liberty to offer my services where they will not be rejected so
+contumeliously.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this a threat, Mr. Scanlan?&rdquo; said Martin, with a supercilious smile.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir, nothing of the kind. I know too well what becomes <i>my</i>
+station, and is <i>due to yours</i>, to forget myself so far; but as you
+don't set any value on the borough yourself, and as there may be others
+who do&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stay and eat your dinner here, Scanlan,&rdquo; said Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I promised Mrs. Cronan, sir&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Send an apology to her; say it was <i>my</i> fault,&mdash;that I detained
+you.&rdquo; And without waiting for a reply, Martin sauntered from the room,
+leaving the attorney alone with his reflections.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER VII. A COLLEGE COMPETITOR
+</h2>
+<p>
+Young Nelligan had distanced all his competitors in his college career;
+some who were his equals in ability, were inferior to him in habits of
+hard and patient labor; and others, again, were faint-hearted to oppose
+one in whose success they affected to believe luck had no small share. One
+alone had the honest candor to avow that he deserved his pre-eminence, on
+the true ground of his being their superior. This was a certain Jack
+Massingbred, a young fellow of good family and fortune, and who, having
+been rusticated at Oxford, and involved in some outrage against authority
+in Cambridge, had come over to finish his college career in the &ldquo;Silent
+Sister.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Although Irish by birth, and connected with Ireland by ties of family and
+fortune, he had passed all his life in England, his father having repaired
+to that country after the Union, exchanging the barren honor of a seat for
+an Irish borough for a snug Treasury appointment. His son had very early
+given proof of superior capacity. At Rugby he was distinguished as a
+scholar; and in his opening life at Oxford his talents won high praise for
+him. Soon after his entrance, however, he had fallen into a fast set,&mdash;of
+hunting, tandem-driving, and occasionally hard-drinking men,&mdash;in
+whose society he learned to forget all his aim for college success, and to
+be far more anxious for distinction as a whip or a stroke-oar than for all
+the honors of scholarship. At first he experienced a sense of pride in the
+thought that he could hold his own with either set, and take the lead in
+the examination-hall as easily as he assumed the first place in the social
+meeting. A few reverses, however, taught him that his theory was a
+mistake, that no amount of ability will compensate for habits of idleness
+and dissipation, and that the discursive efforts of even high genius will
+be ever beaten by the steady results of patient industry. Partly
+indifferent to what had once been his great ambition, partly offended by
+his failures, Massingbred threw himself entirely into the circle of his
+dissipated companions, and became the very head and front of all their
+wildest excesses. An absurd exploit, far more ludicrous than really
+culpable, procured his rustication; a not less ridiculous adventure drove
+him from Cambridge; and he had at last arrived in Dublin, somewhat tamed
+down by his experiences, and half inclined to resume his long-abandoned
+desire for college distinction.
+</p>
+<p>
+The habits of the Irish College were strikingly unlike those of either
+Oxford or Cambridge. Instead of a large class consisting of men of great
+fortune and high expectations, he found a very slight sprinkling of such,
+and even they made up nothing that resembled a party. Separated by age,
+political distinctions, and county associations, all stronger in the
+poorer country than in the richer one, they held little intercourse
+together, and were scarcely acquainted.
+</p>
+<p>
+If there was less actual wealth, there was also less credit to be obtained
+by an Irish student. The Dublin shopkeeper acknowledged no prestige in the
+&ldquo;gownsman;&rdquo; he admitted him to no special privilege of book-debts; and as
+the great majority of the students resided with their families in the
+capital, there was no room for that reckless extravagance so often
+prosecuted by those who are temporarily removed from domestic supervision.
+</p>
+<p>
+Massingbred was at first grievously disappointed. There were neither great
+names nor great fortunes amongst his new associates. Their mode of life,
+too, struck him as mean and contemptible. There were clever men reading
+for honors, and stupid men steering their slow way to a degree; but where
+were the fast ones? where the fellows who could tool a team or steer a
+six-oar, who could dash up to town for a week's reckless life at Crocky's
+and Tattersall's, make their book on the Oaks, or perhaps ride the winner
+at a steeplechase?
+</p>
+<p>
+It was all grievously slow. Dublin itself was a poor affair. He had few
+acquaintances, the theatres were bad, and public amusements there were
+none. His fellow-students, too, stood aloof from him. It was not that he
+was richer, better dressed, rode blood horses, dined at Morris-son's, wore
+kid gloves, and carried scented pocket-handkerchiefs. It was not that he
+had a certain air of puppyism as he wended his way across the courts, or
+sauntered elegantly into chapel. They could have forgiven any or all of
+these better than one of his offendings, which was his accent. Strange as
+it may seem, his English voice and English pronunciation were the most
+unpopular things about him, and many a real defect in his character might
+have met a more merciful construction had he given no initial &ldquo;H&rdquo; to
+&ldquo;humble,&rdquo; and evinced a more generous confusion about his &ldquo;wills&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;snails.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Somewhat bored by a life so unlike anything he had ever tried before,&mdash;partly,
+perhaps, stimulated to show that he could do something beside canter his
+thorough-bred along Sackville Street, or lounge in the stage-box in
+solitary splendor,&mdash;he went in for honors, and, to the surprise of
+all, succeeded. In fact, he beat two or three of the distinguished men of
+his time, till, thrown by the chance of events into Nelligan's division,
+he found at once his superior, and saw that he was in presence of an
+intelligence considerably above his own. When he had adventured on the
+struggle and found himself worsted, he acknowledged defeat with all the
+generosity of an honorable nature; and forcing his way through the crowd
+as it issued from the examination-hall, was the very first to grasp
+Nelligan's hand and congratulate him on his success.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was all got up; he was bursting with jealousy. The fellow could have
+strangled Nelligan,&rdquo; muttered one.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He certainly put a good face on the disaster,&rdquo; said another, more
+mercifully given; &ldquo;though I suppose he feels the thing sorely enough at
+heart!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+That was exactly what he did not, however. Young Massingbred regarded a
+college distinction as no evidence whatever of a man's attainments. He had
+seen stupid fellows win the prize for which clever ones strove in vain;
+but, at all events, he regarded such successes as contributing in nothing
+to the great race of life, and had even a theory that such early efforts
+were often the very means of exhausting the energies that should be
+exerted for the high rewards of the world. Besides this, he felt a
+pleasure in manfully showing that he was above a petty jealousy, and
+fairly owning himself beaten in a fair struggle.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are the better man, Nelligan,&rdquo; said he, gayly; &ldquo;I 'll not try another
+fall with you, be assured.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Strange was it that in this very avowal he had asserted what the other
+felt in his inmost heart to be an immeasurable superiority over him; and
+that in the very moment of striking his flag he had proclaimed his
+victory. To be able to run him so hard for the race and yet not feel the
+struggle, to strive for the prize and care nothing for defeat, seemed to
+Nelligan the evidence of an ambition that soared above college triumph,
+and he could not but envy that buoyant high-hearted temperament that
+seemed to make light of difficulties and not even feel depressed by a
+defeat.
+</p>
+<p>
+Up to this time these two young men had scarcely known each other, but now
+they became intimate. The very difference in character served to draw them
+more closely together; and if Nelligan felt a degree of admiration for
+qualities whose brilliant display opened a new sense of enjoyment to him,
+the other was delighted with the gentle and almost childlike innocence of
+the student whose far-soaring intellect was mastering the highest
+questions of science.
+</p>
+<p>
+Massingbred was one of those natures in whom frankness is an instinct. It
+seems to such a relief to open the secrets of the heart and avow their
+weaknesses and their shortcomings, as though&mdash;by some Moral Popery&mdash;they
+would obtain the benefit of a free confession and go forth the better for
+their candor.
+</p>
+<p>
+Not only did he tell Nelligan of his own career and its accidents, the
+causes for which he was not on good terms with his family, and so on; but
+he even ventured to discuss the public life of his father, and, in a
+spirit of banter, swore that to his political subserviency did he owe his
+whole fortune in life.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My father was one of the crew when the vessel was wrecked, Nelligan,&rdquo;
+ said he; &ldquo;there was plenty of talk of standing by the ship to the last,
+and perishing with her. Some did so, and they are forgotten already. My
+father, however, jumped into the long-boat with a few more, and thought
+that probably they might find another craft more seaworthy; fortunately he
+was right; at least, assuredly, I 'm not the man to say he was not.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But was there no desertion of principle, Massingbred?&rdquo; said Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No more than there is a desertion of your old coat when you discover it
+to be too threadbare to wear any longer. Irish Politics, as the men of
+that day understood them, had become impracticable,&mdash;impossible, I
+might say; the only sensible thing to do was to acknowledge the fact. My
+father was keen-sighted enough to see it in that light, and here 's his
+health for it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Nelligan was silent.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, Joe, out with it. Your family were honest Unionists. Tell me so
+frankly, man. Own to me that you and yours look upon us all as a set of
+knaves and scoundrels, that sold their country, and so forth. I want to
+see you in a mood of good passionate indignation for once. Out with it,
+boy; curse us to your heart's content, and I 'll hear it like an angel,
+for the simple reason that I know it to be just. You won't, won't you? Is
+your anger too deep for words? or are there any special and peculiar
+wrongs that make your dark consuming wrath too hot for utterance?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Nelligan was still silent; but the blush which now covered his face had
+become almost purple. The allusion to his family as persons of political
+importance struck him, and for the first time, with a sense of shame. What
+would Massingbred think of them if he knew their real station? what would
+he think of <i>him</i> for having concealed it? Had he concealed it? Had
+he ever divulged the truth? He knew not; in the whirlwind of his confusion
+he knew nothing. He tried to say some words to break the oppressive
+silence that seemed to weigh him down like an accusation, but he could
+not.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see it all, Nelligan. My foolish affectation of laughing at all
+principle has disgusted you; but the truth is, I don't feel it: I do not.
+I own frankly that the bought patriot is a ruined man, and there is a
+moral Nemesis over every fellow that sells himself; I don't mean to say
+but that many who did so did n't make the best bargain their brains were
+worth, and my father for one; he was a man of fair average abilities,&mdash;able
+to say his commonplaces like his neighbors,&mdash;and naturally felt that
+they would sound as well in England as in Ireland; I don't think he had a
+single conviction on any subject, so that he really sold a very unsalable
+article when he vended himself. But there were others,&mdash;your
+Governor, for instance; come, now, tell me about him; you are so devilish
+close, and I want to hear all about your family. You won't; well, I'll
+give you one chance more, and then&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What then?&rdquo; asked Nelligan, breathlessly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll just go and learn for myself.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How? what do you mean?&rdquo; &ldquo;The easiest way in the world. The vacation
+begins next Tuesday, and I 'll just invite myself to spend the first week
+of it under your paternal roof. You look terribly shocked, absolutely
+horrified; well, so you ought. It is about the greatest piece of
+impertinence I 've heard of. I assure you I have a full consciousness of
+that myself; but no matter, I 'll do it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Nelligan's shame was now an agony. It had never occurred to him in his
+life to feel ashamed of his station or that of his family, for the simple
+reason that he had never made pretension to anything higher or more
+exalted. The distinctions at which he aimed were those attainable by
+ability; social successes were triumphs he never dreamed of. But now came
+the thought of how he should stand in his friend's esteem, when the fact
+was revealed that he was the son of very humble parents, all whose ways,
+thoughts, and habits would be apt themes for ridicule and sarcasm. Over
+and over again had Massingbred annoyed him by the disparaging tone in
+which he canvassed &ldquo;small people,&rdquo; the sneering depreciation in which he
+held all their doings, and the wholesale injustice by which he classed
+their sentiments with their good manners. It was the one feature of his
+friend's character that gave a check to his unbounded esteem for him. Had
+he not possessed this blemish, Nelligan would have deemed him nearly
+faultless.
+</p>
+<p>
+Intensely feeling this, Nelligan would have given much for courage to say,
+&ldquo;I am one of that very set you sneer at. All my associations and ties are
+with them. My home is amongst them, and every link of kindred binds me to
+them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Yet, somehow, he could not bring himself to the effort. It was not that he
+dreaded the loss of friendship that might ensue,&mdash;indeed, he rather
+believed that such would not occur; but he thought that a time might come
+when that avowal might be made with pride, and not in humiliation, when he
+should say: &ldquo;My father, the little shopkeeper of Oughterard, gave me the
+advantages by which I became what I am. The class you sneer at had yet
+ambitions high and daring as your own; and talents to attain them, too!
+The age of noble and serf has passed away, and we live in a freer and more
+generous era, when men are tested by their own worth; and if birth and
+blood would retain their respect amongst us, it is by contesting with us
+more humbly born the prizes of life.&rdquo; To have asserted these things now,
+however, when he was nothing, when his name had no echo beyond the walls
+of a college, would have seemed to him an intolerable piece of
+presumption, and he was silent.
+</p>
+<p>
+Massingbred read his reserve as proceeding from displeasure, and jestingly
+said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You mustn't be angry with me, Joe. The boldness of men like me is less
+impudence than you take it for, since&mdash;should I fulfil my threat, and
+pay your father a visit&mdash;I 'd neither show surprise nor shame if he
+refused to receive me. I throw over all the claims of ceremony; but at the
+same time I don't want to impose the trammels on my friends. They are free
+to deal with me as frankly, ay, and as curtly as I have treated them; but
+enough of all this. Let us talk of something else.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And so they did, too,&mdash;of their college life and its changeful
+fortunes; of their companions and their several characters, and of the
+future itself, of which Massingbred pretended to read the fate, saying:
+&ldquo;You'll be something wonderful one of these days, Joe. I have it as though
+revealed to me,&mdash;<i>you</i> astonishing the world by your abilities,
+and winning your way to rank and eminence; while <i>I</i> like a sign-post
+that points to the direction, shall stand stock-still, and never budge an
+inch, knowing the road, but not travelling it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And why should it be so, Mass, when you have such a perfect consciousness
+of your powers for success?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;For the simple reason, my boy, that I know and feel how the cleverness
+which imposes upon others has never imposed upon myself. The popular error
+of a man's being able to do fifty things which he has not done from
+idleness, apathy, carelessness, and so on, never yet deceived me, because
+I know well that when a fellow has great stuff in him it will come out,
+whether he likes or not. You might as well say that the grapes in a
+wine-vat could arrest their own process of fermentation, as that a man of
+real genius&mdash;and mind, I am now speaking of no other&mdash;could
+suppress the working of his intelligence, and throw his faculties into
+torpor. The men who do nothing are exactly the men who can do no better.
+Volition, energy, the strong impulse for action, are part and parcel of
+every really great intellect; and your 'mute, inglorious Milton' only
+reminds me of the artist who painted his canvas all red to represent the
+passage of the Egyptians through the Red Sea. Believe me, you must take
+all untried genius in the same scale of credit as that by which you have
+fancied the chariots and horsemen submerged in the flood. They are there,
+if you like; and if you don't&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your theory requires that all men's advantages should be equal, their
+station alike, and their obstacles the same. Now, they are not so. See,
+for instance, in our University here. <i>I</i> am debarred from the
+fellowship-bench&mdash;or, at least, from attempting to reach it&mdash;because
+I am a Papist.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then turn Protestant; or if that doesn't suit you, address yourself to
+kick down the barrier that stands in your way. By the bye, I did n't know
+you were a Roman; how comes that? Is it a family creed, or was it a
+caprice of your own?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is the religion my family have always professed,&rdquo; said Nelligan,
+gravely.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have no right to speak of these subjects, because I have never felt
+strongly enough on them to establish strong convictions; but it appears to
+me that if I were you&mdash;that is, if I had <i>your</i> head on my
+shoulders&mdash;I should think twice ere I 'd sacrifice my whole future
+out of respect for certain dogmas that no more interfere with one's daily
+life and opinions than some obsolete usage of ancient Greece has a bearing
+upon a modern suit in Chancery. There, don't look fretful and impatient; I
+don't want to provoke you, nor is it worth your while to bring your siege
+artillery against my card-house. I appreciate everything you could
+possibly adduce by anticipation, and I yield myself as vanquished.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Thus, half in earnest, half jestingly, Massingbred talked away, little
+thinking how deeply many a random speech entered into his friend's heart,
+taking firm root there to grow and vegetate hereafter. As for himself, it
+would have been somewhat difficult to say how far his convictions ever
+went with his words. Any attempt to guide and direct him was, at any time,
+enough to excite a wilful endeavor to oppose it, and whatever savored of
+opposition immediately evoked his resistance. The spirit of rebellion was
+the keynote of his character; he could be made anything, everything, or
+nothing, as authority&mdash;or as he would have styled it, tyranny&mdash;decided.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was just at this very moment that an incident occurred to display this
+habit of his mind in its full force. His father, by employing much private
+influence and the aid of powerful friends, had succeeded in obtaining for
+him the promise of a most lucrative civil appointment in India. It was one
+of those situations which in a few years of very moderate labor secure an
+ample fortune for the possessor. Mr. Massingbred had forgotten but one
+thing in all the arrangement of this affair, which was to apprise his son
+of it beforehand, and make him, as it were, a part of the plot. That one
+omission, however, was enough to secure its failure.
+</p>
+<p>
+Jack received the first tidings of the scheme when it was a fact, not a
+speculation. It was a thing done, not to do, and consequently a &ldquo;gross
+piece of domestic cruelty to dispose of him and his future by an arbitrary
+banishment to a distant land, linking him with distasteful duties,
+uncongenial associates,&rdquo; and the rest of it. In a word, it was a case for
+resistance, and he did resist, and in no very measured fashion, either. He
+wrote back a pettish and ill-tempered refusal of the place, sneered at the
+class by whom such appointments were regarded as prizes, and coolly said
+that &ldquo;it was quite time enough to attach himself to the serious business
+of life when he had tasted something of the pleasures that suited his time
+of life; besides,&rdquo; added he, &ldquo;I must see which way my ambitions point;
+perhaps to a seat on the Treasury benches, perhaps to a bullock-team, a
+wood-axe, and a rifle in a new settlement. Of my resolves on either head,
+or on anything between them, you shall have the earliest possible
+intimation from your devoted, but perhaps not very obedient, to command,
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;J. M.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+His father rejoined angrily and peremptorily. The place had cost him
+everything he could employ or enlist of friendly patronage; he made the
+request assume all the weight of a deep personal obligation, and now the
+solicitation and the success were all to go for nothing. What if he should
+leave so very gifted a young gentleman to the unfettered use of his great
+abilities? What if he abstained from any interference with one so
+competent to guide himself? He threw out these suggestions too palpably to
+occasion any misconception, and Jack read them aright. &ldquo;I'm quite ready
+for sea whenever you are pleased to cut the painter,&rdquo; said he; and the
+correspondence concluded with a dry intimation that two hundred a year,
+less than one half of his former allowance, should be paid into Coutts's
+for his benefit, but that no expenditure above that sum would be repaid by
+his father.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll emigrate; I 'll agitate; I 'll turn author, and write for the
+reviews; I 'll correspond with the newspapers; I 'll travel in Afrifca; I
+'ll go to sea,&mdash;be a pirate;&rdquo; in fact, there was nothing for which he
+thought his capacity unequal, nor anything against which his principles
+would revolt. In speculation, only, however; for in sober reality he
+settled down into a mere idler, discontented, dreamy, and unhappy.
+</p>
+<p>
+Little momentary bursts of energy would drive him now and then to his
+books, and for a week or two he would work really hard; when a change as
+sudden would come over him, and he would relapse into his former apathy.
+Thus was it that he had lived for some time after the term had come to an
+end, and scarcely a single student lingered within the silent courts.
+Perhaps the very solitude was the great charm of the place; there was that
+in his lonely, unfriended, uncompanionable existence that seemed to feed
+the brooding melancholy in which he indulged with all the ardor of a vice.
+He liked to think himself an outcast and forgotten. It was a species of
+flattery that he addressed to his own heart when he affected to need
+neither sympathy nor affection. Still his was not the stuff of which
+misanthropy is fashioned, and he felt acutely the silence of his friend
+Nelligan, who had never once written to him since they parted.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'd scarcely have left <i>him</i> here,&rdquo; said he to himself one day;
+&ldquo;had <i>he</i> been in my position, I 'd hardly have quitted <i>him</i>
+under such circumstances. He knew all about my quarrel with my father. He
+had read our letters on each side. To be sure he had condemned <i>me</i>,
+and taken the side against me; still, when there was a breach, and that
+breach offered no prospect of reconciliation, it was but scant friendship
+to say good-bye, and desert me. He might, at least, have asked me down to
+his house. I 'd not have gone; that 's certain. I feel myself very poor
+company for myself, and I 'd not inflict my stupidity upon others. Still,
+<i>he</i> might have thought it kind or generous. In fact, in such a case
+I would have taken no refusal; I'd have insisted.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+What a dangerous hypothesis it is when we assume to act for another; how
+magnanimously do we rise above all meaner motives, and only think of what
+is generous and noble; how completely we discard every possible
+contingency that could sway us from the road of duty, and neither look
+right nor left on our way to some high object! Jack Massingbred, arguing
+thus, ended by thinking himself a very fine fellow and his friend a very
+shabby one,&mdash;two conclusions that, strangely enough, did not put him
+into half as much good-humor with the world as he expected. At all events,
+he felt very sore with Nelligan, and had he known where to address him,
+would have written a very angry epistle of mock gratitude for all his
+solicitude in his behalf; very unfortunately, however, he did not know in
+what part of Ireland the other resided, nor did his acquaintance with
+provincial dialect enable him to connect his friend with a western county.
+He had so confidently expected to hear from him, that he had never asked a
+question as to his whereabouts. Thus was it with Massingbred, as he
+sauntered along the silent alleys of the College Park, in which, at rare
+intervals, some solitary sizar might be met with,&mdash;spare, sad-looking
+figures,&mdash;in whose features might be read the painful conflict of
+narrow fortune and high ambition. Book in hand generally, they rarely
+exchanged a look as he passed them; and Massingbred scanned at his ease
+these wasted and careworn sons of labor, wondering within himself was
+&ldquo;theirs the right road to fortune.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Partly to shake off the depression that was over him by change of place,
+and in part to see something of the country itself, Massingbred resolved
+to make a walking-tour through the south and west of Ireland, and with a
+knapsack on his back, he started one fine autumn morning for Wicklow.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER VIII. SOME KNOTTY POINTS THAT PUZZLED JOE NELLIGAN
+</h2>
+<p>
+This true history contains no record of the evening Mr. Scanlan passed at
+the Osprey's Nest; nor is it probable that in any diary kept by that
+intelligent individual there will yet be found materials to supply this
+historical void. Whether, therefore, high events and their consequences
+were discussed, or that the meeting was only devoted to themes of lighter
+importance, is likely to remain a secret to all time. That matters beneath
+the range of politics occupied the consideration of the parties was,
+however, evident from the following few lines of a note received by young
+Nelligan the next morning:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+&ldquo;Dear Joe,&mdash;I dined yesterday at the 'Nest,' and we talked
+much of you. What would you think of paying a visit there
+this morning to see the picture, or anything else you can
+think of? I 've a notion it would be well taken. At all
+events, come over and speak to me here.
+
+&ldquo;Ever yours,
+
+&ldquo;M. SCANLAN.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I scarcely understand your note, Maurice,&rdquo; said young Nelligan, as he
+entered the little room where the other sat at breakfast.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you breakfasted?&rdquo; said Scanlan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, an hour ago.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you taste that salmon? Well, then, just try Poll Hanigan's attempt
+at a grouse-pie; let me tell you, there is genius in the very ambition;
+she got the receipt from the cook at Cro' Martin, and the imitation is
+highly creditable. You 're wrong to decline it.&rdquo; And he helped himself
+amply as he spoke.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But this note?&rdquo; broke in the other, half impatiently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh&mdash;ay&mdash;the note; I 'm sure I forget what I wrote; what was it
+about? Yes, to be sure, I remember now. I want you to make yourself known,
+up there. It is downright folly, if not worse, to be keeping up these
+feuds and differences in Ireland any longer; such a course might suit the
+small politicians of Oughterard, but you and I know better, and Martin
+himself knows better.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I never took any part in the conflict you speak of; I lived out of
+it,&mdash;away from it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And are therefore, exactly suited to repair a breach to which you never
+contributed. I assure you, my boy, the gentry&mdash;and I know them well&mdash;will
+meet you more than half-way. There is not a prouder fellow living than
+Martin there; he has throughout his whole life held his head higher than
+any man in our county, and yet he is quite ready to make advances towards
+you. Of course, what I say is strictly between ourselves; but my opinion
+is, that, if you like it, you may be as intimate up there as ever you were
+at old Hayes's, at the Priory.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, what would you have me do?&rdquo; asked Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just pay a visit there this morning; say that you are curious to see that
+great picture,&mdash;and it is a wonderful thing, if only for the size of
+it; or that you 'd like to have a look at Arran Island out of the big
+telescope at the top of the house; anything will serve as a reason, and
+then,&mdash;why, leave the rest to chance.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But really, Maurice, I see no sufficient cause for all this,&rdquo; said the
+youth, timidly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look now, Joe,&rdquo; said the other, drawing his chair closer to him, and
+talking in the low and measured tone of a confidence,&mdash;&ldquo;look now,
+you're not going to pass your life as the successor to that excellent man,
+Dan Nelligan, of Oughterard, selling hides and ropes and ten-penny-nails,
+and making an estate the way old ladies make a patchwork quilt. You'll be
+able to start in life with plenty of tin and plenty of talent; you'll have
+every advantage that money and education can give, and only one drawback
+on your road to success,&mdash;the mere want of blood,&mdash;that dash of
+birth which forms the only real freemasonry in this world. Now mind me,
+Joe; the next best thing to having this oneself is to live and associate
+with those who have; for in time, what with catching up their prejudices
+and learning their ways, you come to feel very much as they do; and, what
+is better still, they begin to regard you as one of themselves.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But if I do not ambition this,&mdash;if I even reject it?&rdquo; said the
+other, impatiently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then all I say is that Trinity College may make wonderful scholars, but
+turns out mighty weak men of the world!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps so!&rdquo; said Nelligan, dryly, and with a half-nettled air.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose you fancy there would be something like slavery in such a
+position?&rdquo; said Scanlan, with a derisive look.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know it!&rdquo; responded the other, firmly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then what do you say to the alternative,&mdash;and there is but one only
+open to you,&mdash;what do you think of spending your life as a follower
+of Daniel O'Connell; of being reminded every day and every hour that you
+have not a privilege nor a place that he did n't win for you; that he
+opened Parliament to you, and made you free of every guild where men of
+ability rise to honor? Ay, Joe! and what 's a thousand times worse,&mdash;knowing
+it all to be true, my boy! Take service with him once, and if you leave
+him you 're a renegade; remember that, and bethink you that there's no
+saying what crotchet he may have in store for future agitation.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I never purposed any such part for myself,&rdquo; broke in Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind, it will fall to your lot for all that, if you don't quickly
+decide against it. What's Simmy Crow staring at? Look at him down there,
+he's counting every window in the street like a tax-gatherer.&rdquo; And he
+pointed to the artist, who, shading his eyes with one hand, stood peering
+at every house along the little street. &ldquo;What's the matter, Simmy?&rdquo; cried
+he, opening the casement.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's a house I'm looking for, down here, and I forget which it is; bother
+them, they 're all so like at this time of the year when they 're empty.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you in search of a lodging, Simmy?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, it is n't that!&rdquo; said the other, curtly, and still intent on his
+pursuit. &ldquo;Bad luck to the architect that would n't vary what they call the
+'façade,' and give one some chance of finding the place again.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is it you want, man?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix, and I don't even know that same!&rdquo; replied the artist; &ldquo;but&rdquo;&mdash;and
+he lowered his voice to a whisper as he spoke&mdash;&ldquo;he's an elegant
+study,&mdash; as fine a head and face and as beautiful a beard as ever you
+saw. I met him at Kyle's Wood a week ago, begging; and what with his fine
+forehead and deep-set blue eyes, his long white hair, and his great shaggy
+eyebrows, I said to myself: 'Belisarius,' says I, 'by all that's grand,&mdash;a
+Moses, a Marino Faliero, or a monk in a back parlor discoursing to an old
+skull and a vellum folio,&mdash;any one of these,' says I, 'not to speak
+of misers, money-lenders, or magicians, as well;' and so I coaxed him down
+here on Saturday last, and put him somewhere to sleep, with a good supper
+and a pint of spirits, and may I never, if I know where I left him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Three days ago?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so; and worse than all, I shut up the place quite dark, and only
+made a hole in the roof, just to let a fine Rembrandt light fall down on
+his head. Oh, then, it's no laughing matter, Maurice! Sure if anything
+happened to him&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your life wouldn't be worth sixpence before any jury in the county.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Begad! it's what I was thinking; if they wouldn't take it as a practical
+joke.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You're looking for ould Brennan!&rdquo; cried a weather-beaten hag; &ldquo;but he's
+gone to Oughterard for a summons. You'll pay dear for your tricks this
+time, anyhow.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come up here, Simmy, and never mind her,&rdquo; said Scanlan; then, turning to
+Nelligan, he added, &ldquo;There's not such a character in the county!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want my friend, Mr. Nelligan, here&mdash;Mr. Nelligan&mdash;Mr. Crow&mdash;I
+want him, I say, to come up and have a look at the great 'Historical '&mdash;eh,
+Simmy!&mdash;would n't it astonish him?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you a votary of art, sir?&rdquo; asked Crow, modestly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 've never seen what could be called a picture, except those portraits
+in the College Examination Hall might be deemed such.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, and they're not worthy the name, sir. Flood, mayhap, is like, but
+he's hard and stiff, and out of drawing; and Lord Clare is worse. It's in
+the Low Countries you 'd see portraits, real portraits! men that look down
+on you out of the canvas, as if <i>you</i> were the intruder there, and
+that <i>they</i> were waiting to know what brought you. A sturdy old
+Burgomaster, for instance, with a red-brown beard and a fierce pair of
+eyes, standing up firm as a rock on a pair of legs that made many a
+drawbridge tremble as he walked home to dinner on the Grand Canal, at
+Rotterdam, after finishing some mighty bargain for half a spice island, or
+paying a million of guilders down as a dowry for that flaxen-haired, buxom
+damsel in the next frame. Look at the dimples in her neck, and mark the
+folds in her satin. Is n't she comely, and calm, and haughty, and
+house-wifery, all together? Mind her foot, it isn't small, but see the
+shape of it, and the way it presses the ground&mdash;ay, just so&mdash;my
+service to you; but you are one there 's no joking with, even if one was
+alone with you.&rdquo; And he doffed his hat, and bowed obsequiously as he
+spoke.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You're an enthusiast for your art?&rdquo; said Nelligan, interested by the
+unmistakable sincerity of his zeal.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am, sir,&rdquo; was the brief reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the painter's is certainly a glorious career.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If for nothing else,&rdquo; burst in Crow, eagerly, &ldquo;that it can make of one
+like me&mdash;poor, ignorant, and feeble, as I am&mdash;a fellow-soldier
+in the same army with Van Dyke and Titian and Velasquez&mdash;to know that
+in something that they thought, or hoped, or dared, or tried to do, I too
+have my share! You think me presumptuous to say this; you are sneering at
+such a creature as Simmy Crow for the impudence of such a boast, but it's
+in humility I say it, ay, in downright abject humility; for I 'd rather
+have swept out Rembrandt's room, and settled his rough boards on Cuyp's
+easel, than I 'd be a&mdash;a&mdash;battle-axe guard, or a
+lord-in-waiting, or anything else you like, that's great and grand at
+court.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I envy you a pursuit whose reward is in the practice rather than in the
+promise,&rdquo; said Nelligan, thoughtfully. &ldquo;Men like myself labor that they
+may reach some far-away land of rewards and successes, and bear the
+present that they may enjoy the future.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0004" id="linkimage-0004">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/114.jpg" width="100%" alt="114 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, but it will repay you well, by all accounts,&rdquo; said Crow. &ldquo;Miss Mary
+told us last night how you had beat every one out of the field, and had
+n't left a single prize behind you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who said this?&rdquo; cried Joe, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Mary,&mdash;Miss Martin. She said it was a credit to us all of the
+west, here, that there was one, at least, from Galway, who could do
+something besides horse-racing and cock-fighting&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So she did,&rdquo; said Scanlan, interrupting, with some confusion. &ldquo;She said
+somebody had told her of young Nelligan. She called you 'Young Nelligan.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no; it was to myself she said it, and the words were, 'Mr. Joseph
+Nelligan;' and then, when her uncle said, 'Why don't we know him? '&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear Simmy, you make a most horrible confusion when you attempt a
+story,&mdash;out of canvas. Mind, I said out of canvas; for I confess that
+in your grand 'Historical' the whole incident is admirably detailed. I 've
+just said to my friend here, that he has a great pleasure before him in
+seeing that picture.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you 'll do me the honor to look at it,&rdquo; said Crow, bowing courteously,
+&ldquo;when you come to dinner to-day.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Attend to <i>me</i>, Joe,&rdquo; said Scanlan, passing an arm within
+Nelligan's, and leading him away to another part of the room; &ldquo;that fellow
+is little better than an idiot. But I was just going to tell you what
+Martin said. 'You are intimate with young Nelligan,' said he; 'you know
+him well, and you could possibly do without awkwardness what with more
+formality might be difficult. Don't you think, then, that he would
+possibly waive ceremony&mdash;'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must be off,&rdquo; broke in Crow, hastily. &ldquo;I have a sitting at twelve
+o'clock, so I hope we shall see you at seven, Mr. Nelligan; your note said
+seven, sharp.&rdquo; And without waiting for more, he seized his hat and hurried
+down the stairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A downright fool!&rdquo; said Scanlan, angrily. &ldquo;Mr. Martin said he 'd write to
+you, if&mdash;if&mdash;if, in fact, you stood upon that punctilio; but
+that he'd be all the better pleased if you 'd just accept acquaintance as
+freely as he offered it, and come and dine there to-day, like a friend.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is n't there, or has there not been, some difference between him and my
+father?&rdquo; asked Joe.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A trifle,&mdash;and a mistake; the kind of thing that two men of calm
+heads and common sense could have settled in five minutes, and which, to
+say the truth, Martin was right in throughout. It's all passed and over
+now, however, and it would be worse than foolish to revive it. There 's
+Miss Martin!&rdquo; cried he, &ldquo;and I have a word to say to her;&rdquo; and hurried off
+without waiting for more. As he passed from the room, however, a letter
+fell from his pocket; and as Nelligan stooped to take it up, he saw that
+it was addressed to himself. He looked hesitatingly at it for a moment or
+two, scarcely knowing whether or not he ought to break the seal. &ldquo;It was
+meant for me, at all events,&rdquo; said he, and opened it. The contents were as
+follows;&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Martin presents his respects to Mr. Joseph Nelligan, and will feel
+happy if&mdash;excusing the want of formal introduction&mdash;Mr. Nelligan
+will admit him to the honor of acquaintance, and give him the pleasure of
+his society at dinner, to-morrow, at seven o'clock. Mr. Martin does not
+hesitate to say that to accept this unceremonious proposal will be felt as
+a very great favor indeed by him and his family.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What does Scanlan mean by all this? Why not have handed me this note at
+once?&rdquo; was Nelligan's question to himself, as he descended the stairs and
+gained the street. He was not sorry that Scanlan was not in sight, and
+hastened homeward to think over this strange communication. Joe well knew
+that his mother was not peculiarly endowed with worldly wisdom or
+acuteness; and yet such was his need of counsel at the moment, that he
+determined, at least in part, to lay the case before her. &ldquo;She can
+certainly tell me,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;if there be any reason why I should decline
+this proposal.&rdquo; And with this resolve he entered the cottage.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't you remember Catty Henderson, Joe?&rdquo; said his mother, as he came
+into the room, and presenting a young girl, very plainly but neatly
+dressed, who arose to receive him with an air of well-bred composure,&mdash;&ldquo;Catty,
+that used to be your playfellow long ago?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn't know you were in Ireland, Miss Henderson. I should never have
+recognized you,&rdquo; said Nelligan, in some confusion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor was I till a few days back,&rdquo; said she, in an accent very slightly
+tinged with a foreign pronunciation. &ldquo;I came home on Tuesday.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Isn't she grown, joe? and such a fine girl, too. I always said she 'd be
+so; and when the others would have it that your nose was too long for the
+rest of your features, I said, 'Wait till she grows up,&mdash;wait till
+she 's a woman;' and see now if I 'm not right.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It must be owned that Joe Nelligan's confusion during the delivery of this
+prophetic criticism was far greater than Catty's own, who received the
+speech with a low, gentle laugh, while Mrs. Nelligan went on: &ldquo;I made her
+stay till you came back, Joe, for I wanted her to see what a tall creature
+you are, and not more than twenty,&mdash;her own age to a month; and I
+told her what a genius you turned out, indeed, to the surprise of us all,
+and myself, especially.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you, mother,&rdquo; said he, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, indeed, my dear, 't is your father you may thank for all your talents
+and abilities; a wonderful man he is, beginning the world without a
+sixpence; and there he is now, with I 'm sure I don't know how many
+hundreds a year in land,&mdash;ay, Catty, in broad acres; just like any
+squire in the county. Well, well, there 's many a change come over the
+country since you were here,&mdash;how many years is it now?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Upwards of twelve,&rdquo; said the young girl. &ldquo;Dear me, how time flies! It
+seems like yesterday that you and Joe had the measles together, in the
+yellow room up at Broom Lodge, and your poor mother was alive then, and
+would insist on giving you everything cool to drink, just because you
+liked it, though I told her that was exactly the reason it was sure to be
+bad for you; for there 's nothing so true in life,&mdash;that everything
+we wish for is wrong.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;An unpleasant theory, certainly,&rdquo; said Catty, laughing; &ldquo;but I hope not
+of universal application, for I have been long wishing to see you again.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, who knows whether it may be good or bad,&rdquo; said she, sighing;
+&ldquo;not but I 'm pleased to see you growing up the image of your poor dear
+mother,&mdash;taller, maybe, but not so handsome, nor so genteel-looking;
+but when you have your trials and troubles, as she had, maybe that will
+come, too, for I often remarked, there 's nothing like affliction to make
+one genteel.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, mother, you are profuse in unhappy apothegms this morning,&rdquo; said
+Joe.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you are coming to stay amongst us now, Catty; or are you going back
+to France again?&rdquo; said Mrs. Nelligan, not heeding the remark.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I scarcely know, as yet,&rdquo; replied the young girl. &ldquo;My father's letter to
+summon me home said something about placing me as a governess, if I were
+capable of the charge.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course you are, my dear, after all your advantages; not but that I 'd
+rather see you anything else,&mdash;a nice light business; for instance,
+in baby-linen or stationery, or in Miss Busk's establishment, if that
+could be accomplished.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A very slight flush&mdash;so slight as to be nearly imperceptible&mdash;crossed
+the young girl's cheek, but not a syllable escaped her, as Mrs. Nelligan
+resumed,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And there was an excellent opening the other day at the Post here, in the
+circulating-library way, and lending out a newspaper or two. I don't know
+how much you might make of it. Not but maybe you 'd rather be companion to
+a lady, or what they call a 'nervous invalid.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That, too, has been thought of,&rdquo; said the girl, smiling; &ldquo;but I have
+little choice in the matter, and, happily, as little preference for one as
+the other of these occupations. And now I must take my leave, for I
+promised to be back by two o'clock.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there's Joe will see you home with pleasure, and I 'm sure you have
+plenty to say to each other about long ago; not but I hope you 'll agree
+better than you did then. You were the torment of my life, the way you
+used to fight.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I couldn't think of trespassing on Mr. Joseph's time; I should be quite
+ashamed of imposing such trouble on him. So good-bye, godmamma; good-bye,
+Mr. Joseph,&rdquo; said she, hurriedly throwing her shawl around her.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you will allow me to accompany you,&rdquo; said Joseph, scarcely knowing
+whether she rejected or accepted his escort.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure she will, and you have both more sense than to fall out now;
+and mind, Joseph, you 're to be here at four, for I asked Mrs. Cronan to
+dinner.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, that reminds me of something,&rdquo; said Joe, hurriedly; and he leaned
+over his mother's chair, and whispered to her, &ldquo;Mr. Martin has invited me
+to dine with him to-day; here is his note, which came to me in rather a
+strange fashion.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To dine at the Nest! May I never! But I scarcely can believe my eyes,&rdquo;
+ said Mrs. Nelligan, in ecstasy. &ldquo;And the honor, and the pleasure, too;
+well, well, you 're the lucky boy.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What shall I do, mother; is n't there something between my father and
+him?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What will you do but go; what else would you do, I 'd like to know? What
+will they say at the Post when they hear it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I want you to hear how this occurred.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well; I don't care,&mdash;go you must, Joe. But there 's poor Catty
+walking away all alone; just overtake her, and say that a sudden
+invitation from the Martins&mdash;mention it as if you were up there every
+day&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+But young Nelligan did not wait for the conclusion of this artful counsel,
+but hurrying after Catty Henderson, overtook her as she had gained the
+beach.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have no need of an escort, Mr. Joseph,&rdquo; said she, good-humoredly. &ldquo;I
+know every turn of the way here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you'll not refuse my companionship?&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;We have scarcely
+spoken to each other yet.&rdquo; And as he spoke he drew his arm within her own,
+and they walked along in silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My mother thinks we did nothing but quarrel long ago,&rdquo; said he, after a
+pause; &ldquo;but if my memory serves me truly, it was upon this very pathway we
+once swore to each other vows of a very different kind. Do you recollect
+anything of that, Miss Henderson?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do, Mr. Joseph,&rdquo; said she, with a sly half-glance as she uttered the
+last word.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then why 'Mr. Joseph'?&rdquo; said he, half reproachfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why 'Miss Henderson'?&rdquo; said she, with a malicious smile at the other's
+confusion; for somehow Joseph's manner was far less easy than her own.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I scarcely know why,&rdquo; replied he, after a short silence, &ldquo;except that you
+seem so changed; and I myself, too, am probably in your eyes as much
+altered&mdash;from what we both were, that&mdash;that&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That, in short, it would be impossible to link the past with the
+present,&rdquo; said she, quickly; &ldquo;and you were quite right. I 'm convinced the
+effort is always a failure, and prejudices in a hundred ways the good
+qualities of those who attempt it. Let us, therefore, begin our
+acquaintance here; learn to know each other as we are,&mdash;that is, if
+we are to know each other at all.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why do you say that?&rdquo; asked he, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;For many reasons. We may not meet often; perhaps not at all; perhaps
+under circumstances where to renew intimacy might be difficult. Assuredly,
+although the path here might once have sufficed us, our roads in life lie
+widely apart now, and the less we travel together the more we shall each
+go towards his own goal, and&mdash;and the less regret we shall feel at
+parting; and so now good-bye.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You wish it?&rdquo; said he, reproachfully. &ldquo;You desire this?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What matters it whether I wish it or not? I know it must be. Good-bye.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-bye, then,&mdash;good-bye,&rdquo; said he, affecting as much indifference
+as he could; and then, slightly raising his hat, he turned away on the
+road homeward.
+</p>
+<p>
+Joseph Nelligan's reflections were not of the pleasantest as he sauntered
+slowly back. He was not exactly satisfied with himself; he felt, he could
+not just say how, that the young girl had had the mastery over him; she
+was more calm or self-possessed; she had more tact, or she knew more of
+life; had more of self-control, or breeding, or some other quality,
+whatever it might be, than he had. At all events, he was ill at ease and
+discontented. Then he doubted whether he ought to have taken her at her
+word when she talked of parting. It might, possibly, have been meant by
+her to evoke some show of resistance on his part; that same inequality of
+station she seemed to hint at might, perhaps, demand from him a greater
+deference. In fact, whichever way he turned the matter over, he saw little
+cause for self-gratulation; nor did he discover that it mended matters
+when he tried to accuse her of French frivolity, and such other traits as
+he fancied of foreign origin.
+</p>
+<p>
+In this not over-pleasant mood was it that he re-entered the cottage,
+where his mother was busy in preparing a very formidable cravat for the
+approaching dinner-party.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, Joe!&rdquo; said she, anxiously, &ldquo;if you were to dress now, and then stay
+quiet, you 'd be quite fresh when the time came; for, remember, it's not
+like your father you are, that has the world about him, and can converse
+about everything that comes uppermost; but with all your learning, you
+know, you always feel somehow&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stupid, mother?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not stupid, my dear, but depressed,&mdash;out of spirits in society; so
+that my advice to you is, now, dress yourself in good time, take a small
+glass of ginger-cordial, and throw your eye over the second chapter of
+'Social Hints,' with an account of conversation before and at dinner, and
+some excellent advice about'compliments, meet for every season of the
+year.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think such preparations quite necessary, mother?&rdquo; asked Joe,
+slyly; for he rather relished the simplicity of her counsels.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure, I do; for yours is no common difficulty, Joe. If you talk of
+country matters, you 'll get into Kyle's Wood and the Chancery suit; if
+you touch politics or religion, it will be worse again. The Martins, I
+hear, never play cards, so you can't allude to them; and they 'll be too
+grand to know anything about poor Miss Cuddy going off with the sergeant
+of police, or what Con Kelly did with his aunt's furniture.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So that really the topics open to me are marvellously few.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there's shooting; but to be sure you know nothing about that, nor
+fishing, either; and I suppose farming, if you did understand it, would
+n't be genteel. Indeed, I see little that is n't dangerous, except the
+dearness of everything. I remark that's a subject nobody ever tires of,
+and all can take their share in.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I conclude it to be fact, mother?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A very melancholy fact, my dear; and so I said to Betty Gargan,
+yesterday. 'It's well for <i>you</i>,' said I, 'and the likes of you, that
+use nothing but potatoes; but think of us, that have to pay sixpence a
+pound for mutton, six-and-a-half for the prime pieces, and veal not to be
+had under eightpence.' They talk of the poor, indeed! but sure they never
+suffer from a rise in butcher's meat, and care nothing at all what tea
+costs. I assure you I made the tears come into her eyes, with the way I
+described our hardships.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So that this will be a safe subject for me, mother?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perfectly safe, my dear, and no ways mean, either; for I always remarked
+that the higher people are, the stingier they are, and the more pleasure
+they take in any little sharp trick that saves them sixpence. And when
+that 's exhausted, just bring in the Rams.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Rams?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean my aunt Ram, and my relations in Wexford. I 'm sure, with a little
+address, you 'll be able to show how I came to be married beneath me, and
+all the misery it cost me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, mother, I believe I have now ample material,&rdquo; said Joe, rising,
+with a lively dread of an opening which he knew well boded a lengthy
+exposition; &ldquo;and to my own want of skill must it be ascribed if I do not
+employ it profitably.&rdquo; And with this he hurried to his room to prepare for
+the great event.
+</p>
+<p>
+The &ldquo;Gentlemen of England&rdquo; do not deem it a very formidable circumstance
+to repair towards seven, or half-past, to a dinner-party, even of the
+dullest and most rigid kind. There is a sombre &ldquo;routine&rdquo; in these cases,
+so recognized that each goes tolerably well prepared for the species of
+entertainment before him. There is nothing very exhilarating in the
+prospect, and as little to depress. It is a leaf torn out of one of the
+tamest chapters in life's diary, where it is just as rare to record a new
+dish as a new idea, and where the company and the cookery are both
+foreknown.
+</p>
+<p>
+No one goes with any exaggerated expectations of enjoyment; but as little
+does he anticipate anything to discompose or displease him. The whole
+thing is very quiet and well-bred; rather dull, but not unpleasant. Now,
+Joseph Nelligan had not graduated as a &ldquo;diner-out;&rdquo; he was about as
+ignorant of these solemn festivals as any man well could be. He was not,
+therefore, without a certain sense of anxiety as to the conversational
+requisites for such occasions. Would the company rise to themes and places
+and people of which he had never as much as heard? or would they treat of
+ordinary events, and if so, on what terms? If politics came to be
+discussed, would Mr. Martin expect him to hear in silence opinions from
+which he dissented? Dare he speak his sentiments, at the cost of directing
+attention to himself?&mdash;a course he would fain have avoided. These,
+and innumerable other doubts, occupied him as he was dressing, and made
+him more than once regret that he had determined to accept this
+invitation; and when the hour at last came for him to set out, he felt a
+sense of shrinking terror of what was before him greater than he had ever
+known as he mounted the dreaded steps of the College Examination Hall.
+</p>
+<p>
+He might, it is true, have bethought him of the fact that where Simmy Crow
+and Maurice Scanlan were guests, he too might pass muster without
+reproach; but he did not remember this, or, at least, it failed to impress
+him sufficiently. Nor was his dread without a certain dash of vanity, as
+he thought of the contrast between the humble place he was perhaps about
+to occupy at a great man's table, and the proud one he had achieved in the
+ranks of scholarship and science. Thus musing, he sauntered slowly along
+till he found himself in front of the little garden of the Osprey's Nest.
+He looked at his watch,&mdash;it was exactly seven; so he pulled the bell,
+and entered.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER IX. THE MARTIN ARMS
+</h2>
+<p>
+In the small and not over-neat parlor of the Martin Arms at Oughterard, a
+young man sat at his breakfast, at times casting his eyes over the columns
+of the &ldquo;Vindicator,&rdquo; and anon strolling to the window to watch the
+gathering of the country people at the weekly market. The scene was one of
+that mingled bustle and languor so characteristically Irish. Cart-loads of
+turf, vegetables, fruit, or turkeys blocked up the narrow passage between
+booths of fancy wares, gilt jewelry, crockery, and cutlery; the vendors
+all eagerly vociferating commendations of their stores, in chorus with
+still more clamorous beggars, or the discordant notes of vagrant
+minstrelsy. Some animal monstrosity, announced by a cracked-voiced herald
+and two clarionets, added to a din to which loud laughter contributed its
+share of uproar.
+</p>
+<p>
+The assemblage was entirely formed of the country people, many of whom
+made the pretext of having a pig or a lamb to sell the reason of their
+coming; but, in reality, led thither by the native love of a gathering,&mdash;that
+fondness to be where their neighbors were,&mdash;without any definite aim
+or object. There was, then, in strong contrast to the anxious solicitation
+of all who had aught to sell, the dreary, languid, almost apathetic look
+of the mere lounger, come to while away his weary hour and kill time just
+like any very bored fine gentleman who airs his listlessness along St
+James's Street, or lazily canters his <i>ennui</i> down Rotten Row.
+</p>
+<p>
+Jack Massingbred&mdash;for he was the traveller whose straw hat and
+knapsack stood upon a table near&mdash;was amused at a scene so full of
+its native characteristics. The physiognomy, the dress, the bearing of the
+people, their greetings as they met, their conduct of a bargain, all
+bespoke a nation widely differing from the sister country, and set him
+a-dreaming as to how it was that equality of laws might very possibly
+establish anything but equality of condition amongst people so dissimilar.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0005" id="linkimage-0005">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/126.jpg" width="100%" alt="" /><br />
+</div>
+<p>
+alt="126 &ldquo;>
+</p>
+<p>
+While thus musing, his eye chanced to rest upon the half-effaced
+inscription over a shop door in front, and where the name of Daniel
+Nelligan figured as &ldquo;licensed for all kinds of groceries and spirits.&rdquo;
+ &ldquo;Nelligan,&rdquo; repeated he to himself, &ldquo;I shall certainly quiz my friend Joe,
+when we meet, about his namesake in Oughterard. How good it would be to
+pick up some details of our friend opposite to torment him with! What rare
+fun to affect to have discovered a near relative in this man of hides,
+glue, sugar, and Jamaica rum! Eh, gad, I'll try it.&rdquo; And with this resolve
+he crossed the street at once, and soon found himself in the compact crowd
+which thronged the doorway of this popular shop.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was, indeed, a busy scene, since many who were there came as much
+sellers as buyers, giving all the complexity of barter to their several
+transactions. Here was a staid country-woman exchanging her spunyarn, or
+her &ldquo;cloth,&rdquo; as it is called, for various commodities in tea, candles, and
+such like; here a farmer, with a sample of seed-oats in his
+pocket-handkerchief, of which he wanted the value in certain farm
+utensils; here was another, with a stout roll of home-made frieze to
+dispose of; some were even fain to offer a goose or a hen as the medium
+for a little tobacco, or some equally tempting luxury of cottier life. But
+there was another class of customers, who, brushing their way through the
+throng, made for a small, dingy-looking chamber behind the shop, in which
+Mr. Nelligan performed the functions of banker and money-lender,
+discounting small bills, advancing loans, and transacting all the various
+duties of a petty capitalist,&mdash;means by which, it was alleged, he had
+already amassed a very ample fortune.
+</p>
+<p>
+An announcement in writing on the glass door of this sanctum informed
+Massingbred that &ldquo;bank-notes&rdquo; were exchanged, and &ldquo;small loans advanced on
+good security,&rdquo; suggesting to him at once the means of opening an
+acquaintance with the interior. Without any very definite purpose,
+however, he now found himself one of a very closely packed crowd within
+the chamber. At a small desk, around which ran a railing of about a foot
+in height, serving, as it were, to &ldquo;filter the stream&rdquo; of solicitation
+that poured in upon him, sat a dark-eyed, bilious-looking man of about
+fifty; a black wig, cut in two deep arches over the temples, showed a
+strongly formed, massive head, very favorably in contrast to the features
+beneath it, which were only indicative of intense shrewdness and cunning.
+The eyes, in particular, were restless and furtive-looking, distrust and
+suspicion giving their entire expression,&mdash;qualities, it was to be
+owned, in very active employment in the intercourse of his daily life.
+</p>
+<p>
+The anxious looks around him&mdash;careworn, eager, tremulous with anxiety
+as they were&mdash;seemed the very opposite to his own, full of the
+security that a strong purse bestows, and stern in the conscious strength
+of his affluence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It won't do, Hagan,&rdquo; said he, with a half-smile, as he pushed back
+through the grating a very dirty, discolored piece of paper. &ldquo;You 'll be
+off to America before it comes due. I would n't take the Lord-Lieutenant's
+note at six months, as times go.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;See, now, Mr. Nelligan,&rdquo; replied the other, pressing his face close to
+the cage, and talking with intense eagerness. &ldquo;May I never see Christmas,
+but I 'll pay it 'T was marryin' the daughter left me low in cash; but
+with the blessing of God and your help&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope you 're more certain of the blessing than the help. What's this
+with the string round it?&rdquo; continued Nelligan, addressing another
+applicant.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'T is a roll of notes I wanted to ax your honor about. Molly never 'let
+on' she had them till Friday last; and now that James is going away, and
+wants a trifle to fit him out&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, they're French's Bank, man, that broke years ago,&mdash;they 're not
+worth a farthing!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Arrah, don't say so, and God reward you,&rdquo; cried the poor fellow, while
+his eyes filled up and his lip trembled convulsively; &ldquo;don't take the hope
+out of my heart all at onst. Look at them again, your honor, and maybe you
+'ll think different.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I did, I 'd be as great a fool as yourself, Patsy. The bank is closed,
+and the banker dead this many a day; and I would n't give you sixpence for
+sixty thousand of them. Take him out in the fresh air,&mdash;give him a
+mouthful of water,&rdquo; added he, hastily, as the wretched countryman
+staggered back, sick, and almost fainting with the sad tidings.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mrs. Mooney,&rdquo; said he, addressing a pale, mild-featured woman in a
+widow's cap and black gown, &ldquo;you can't expect to hear from Dublin for a
+week or ten days to come. It takes some time to administer; but if you are
+in want of a few pounds&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir, thank you,&rdquo; said she, in a low voice; &ldquo;but as I can't go back to
+the place again,&mdash;as I 'll never be able to live there now&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't be in a hurry, Mrs. Mooney, do nothing rash. None of us know what
+we can do till we 're tried. There's Miles Dogherty never thought he 'd be
+paying me that eight pound fifteen he owes me, and see now if he is n't
+come with it to-day.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix, and I am not,&rdquo; sturdily responded a very powerfully built man in
+the comfortable dress of a substantial farmer. &ldquo;I don't owe it, and I 'll
+never pay it; and what's more, if you get a decree against me to-morrow,
+I'd sell every stick and stone in the place and go to 'Quay bec'.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed you would n't, Miles, not a bit more than I'd go and take the law
+of an old friend and neighbor.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix, I never thought you would,&rdquo; said the stout man, wiping his
+forehead, and appearing as if he had forgotten his wrath.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now, Miles, what about that water-course?&rdquo; said Nelligan,
+good-humoredly; &ldquo;are you content to leave it to any two fair men&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+As he got thus far, his eye for the first time fell upon Massingbred, who,
+with folded arms, was leaning against a wall, an attentive spectator of
+the whole scene.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is a stranger yonder! what can he want here?&rdquo; said Nelligan, who
+watched the attentive look of Massingbred's face with considerable
+distrust. He whispered a few words into the ear of a man beside him, who,
+making his way through the crowd, addressed the young man with&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's the master, sir, wants to know if he could do anything for your
+honor?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;For <i>me?</i> oh, you spoke to <i>me?</i>&rdquo; said Massingbred, suddenly
+recalled to himself. &ldquo;Yes, to be sure; I wanted to know&mdash;that is, I
+was thinking&mdash;&rdquo; And he stopped to try and remember by what device he
+had purposed making Mr. Nelligan's acquaintance.
+</p>
+<p>
+While he thus stood doubting and confused, his eyes suddenly met the
+black, searching, deep-set orbs that peered at him behind the grating; and
+without knowing how or why, he slowly approached him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In what way can I be of any use to you, sir?&rdquo; said Nelligan, in a tone
+which very palpably demanded the reason of his presence there.
+</p>
+<p>
+Jack Massingbred was eminently &ldquo;cool,&rdquo;&mdash;that is, he was possessed of
+that peculiar assurance which rarely suffers itself to be ruffled by a
+difficulty. In the intercourse of society, and with men of the world, he
+could have submitted to any test unabashed; and yet now, in presence of
+this shrewd-looking and very commonplace personage, he, somehow, felt
+marvellously ill at ease, and from the simple reason that the man before
+whom he stood was not of his &ldquo;world,&rdquo; but one of a set of whose habits and
+thoughts and ways he was in utter ignorance.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nelligan's question was a second time addressed to him, and in the same
+words, before he thought of framing a reply to it. For a second or two it
+occurred to him to say that he had strolled in, half inadvertently, and
+apologizing for the intrusion, to withdraw; but his pride was offended at
+the notion of defeat this conduct implied, and with an assumption of that
+conventional impudence far more natural to him, he said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was your name, sir, attracted me&mdash;the name 'Nelligan' which I
+read over your door&mdash;being that of a very dear and valued friend of
+mine, suggested to me to inquire whether you might not be relatives.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The cool indifference which accompanied these words, uttered as they were
+in a certain languid drawl, were very far from predisposing Nelligan in
+favor of the speaker; while the pretence of attaching any singularity to a
+name so common as his own, struck him at once as indicative of covert
+impertinence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nelligan is not a very remarkable name down here, sir,&rdquo; dryly responded
+he.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very possibly,&rdquo; replied Jack, with all his accustomed ease. &ldquo;I know
+little or nothing of Ireland. Your namesake, or your relative, perhaps,
+was a college friend of mine, but to what part of the country he belonged,
+I never knew.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The words, &ldquo;a college friend,&rdquo; roused the other's anxiety, and leaning
+forward eagerly, and dropping his voice to a whisper, he said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where? In what college, may I ask, sir?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In Trinity, Dublin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Medallist of this year, you mean?&rdquo; said the other, almost breathless
+in his anxiety.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so. The same fellow who has been sweeping away all the honors of his
+day. You have heard of him, it would seem?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is my son, sir. I 'm Joe Nelligan's father!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Massingbred's astonishment did not betray itself by any change of feature;
+not a word escaped him; but his eye ranged over the scene around him, and
+came back to rest upon old Nelligan's face with an expression of the
+calmest meaning.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a fortunate accident&mdash;for <i>me</i>, I mean,&rdquo; continued he.
+&ldquo;Joe and I are very dear friends, and it is a great happiness for me to
+make his father's acquaintance. Is he with you now?&rdquo; &ldquo;No, sir; he's at the
+sea,&mdash;a place called Kilkieran, about twenty miles away; but we 'll
+have him back by tomorrow if you 'll stay with us, and I 'm sure you 'll
+not refuse me that pleasure. The young gentleman who is my son's friend,
+is mine also, if he 'll permit me to call him so; and now just tell me
+what name shall I say?&mdash;who is it that I 'm to tell Joe has arrived
+here?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say that Jack Massingbred is come, and I 'll lay my life on't you'll see
+him here as fast as may be.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now, Mr. Massingbred, just take up your quarters with us. Where are
+you stopping? I 'll send over the boy for your trunks, for I need n't say
+that this must be your home while you stay at Oughterard.&rdquo; The genial tone
+of warm hospitality in which he now spoke made him seem a very different
+man from the hard-featured old money-lender he had appeared when Jack
+first beheld him, and Massingbred returned his cordial shake hands with a
+pressure equal to his own, while he said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be assured that I accept your offer most heartily. My whole baggage is a
+knapsack and a fishing-rod, so that if you admit me as your guest you must
+dispense with all beyond the very humblest requirements. I have no coat,
+except this on me; and, when I brush my hair, I have dressed for dinner.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are amongst very humble people, Mr. Massingbred,&mdash;a country
+shopkeeper, and his wife, and son,&mdash;and they 'll be only too happy to
+feel that you don't despise their company. Come, and I 'll show you your
+room.&rdquo; And so saying, Nelligan led him up a narrow stair, and at the end
+of a corridor opened a door into a neatly furnished chamber, which looked
+out into a spacious garden. The whole interior was scrupulously clean and
+comfortable; and as Jack surveyed his new dominions, he inwardly blessed
+his good fortune that had piloted him into such a haven.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll just step down and write to Joe. Meanwhile you 'll have your things
+brought over to you. Make yourself at home here&mdash;at least, as much as
+you can in such a place&mdash;and when you want anything, just ask for
+it.&rdquo; And with these words old Nelligan left him to his own thoughts.
+</p>
+<p>
+Whatever savored of an adventure was the delight of Jack Massingbred. He
+was one of those men whose egotism takes the shape of playing hero to
+themselves,&mdash;a tolerably large category amongst the spoiled children
+of this world. To be thrown into any strange or novel position, with
+associates he was unused to, and amidst circumstances totally unlike all
+he had ever met before, was his great happiness; and although here there
+was nothing like actual peril to heighten the zest of the enjoyment, there
+was a certain dash of embarrassment in the situation that increased its
+piquancy. This embarrassment lay in his approaching meeting with young
+Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+All the reserve his young college friend had maintained with regard to his
+family was at once explained; and Jack began to think over how often it
+must have occurred to him to say the most galling and offensive things in
+his ignorance of Nelligan's real station. &ldquo;If he had been frank and open
+with me,&rdquo; said he to himself, &ldquo;this would never have happened.&rdquo; But
+therein Jack made two errors, since Nelligan was in no wise bound to make
+such revelations, nor was Massingbred the man to distinguish himself
+amongst his associates by a close friendship with the son of a country
+shopkeeper. He had been trained in a very different school, and taught to
+estimate his own station by the standard of his companionship. Indeed, he
+had witnessed the lenity which met his transgressions when they occurred
+in high company, and saw his father pay the debts he had contracted
+amongst titled associates with a far more generous forgiveness than had
+they taken their origin with more plebeian friends. &ldquo;What could have
+induced the man to become a Fellow-Commoner,&rdquo; said he, over and over; &ldquo;it
+is such a palpable piece of presumption?&rdquo; The truth was, Jack felt
+excessively irritated at never having even suspected his friend's
+pretensions, and was eager to throw the blame of a deception where none
+had ever been practised.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They told me I should find everything very different here from in
+England, but they never hinted at anything like this.&rdquo; There came then
+another phase over his reflections, as he asked himself, &ldquo;But what affair
+is it of mine? Nelligan never thrust himself on me, it was I that sought
+him. He never proposed introducing me to his family, it was I that made
+them out,&mdash;I, in fact, who have imposed myself upon them. If I deemed
+the old grocer <i>infra dig.</i>, I need never have known him; but I have
+not felt this to be the case. He may be&mdash;indeed, Joe Nelligan's
+father ought to be&mdash;a very superior fellow, and at all events the
+whole situation is new, and must be amusing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Such was the course of his thoughts as he arranged his clothes in the
+little chest of drawers, put out his few books and papers on the table,
+and proceeded to make himself perfectly at home and comfortable in his new
+quarters.
+</p>
+<p>
+The embarrassments of selfish men are always lighter than those of other
+people, their egotism filling, as it does, such a very large space in the
+sea of their troubles. Thus was it that Massingbred suffered little
+discomfort at the thought of his friend Nelligan's probable shame and
+awkwardness, his thoughts being occupied by how he, clever fellow that he
+was, had traced out his home and origin,&mdash;won, by a few words, the
+old father's esteem, and established himself, by his own sharp wits, a
+guest of his house.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a downright adventure,&rdquo; said he; he even thought how the thing
+would tell afterwards at some convivial meeting, and set about dramatizing
+to himself his own part in the incident, to heighten the piquancy of the
+narrative. He resolved to conform in everything to the habits of the
+household,&mdash;to accommodate himself in all respects to old Nelligan's
+tastes, so that Joe should actually be amazed at the versatile resources
+of his nature, and struck with astonishment at this new evidence of his
+powers.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nor was Mr. Nelligan idle during all this time; the thought of a fellow
+collegian of his son Joe being a guest under his roof was a very proud and
+inspiring reflection. It was such a recognition of Joe's social claims,&mdash;so
+flat a contradiction to all the surmises of those who deprecated his
+college life, and said &ldquo;that old Dan was wrong to put his boy into
+Trinity&rdquo;&mdash;that he already regarded the incident as the full earnest
+of success.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What would have brought him here, if it wasn't for Joe? How would he ever
+have been under my roof, if he wasn't Joe's friend?&rdquo; There was a palpable
+triumph here that nothing could gainsay, and with a proud heart he locked
+up his desk, resolving to do no more business that day, but make it one of
+enjoyment.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who will I get to dine with us,&rdquo; thought he, &ldquo;since Joe can't have the
+letter before this evening, and do his best he won't be here before
+morning?&rdquo; The question of those who should fill the places around his
+board was a difficulty he had never experienced before, for Mr. Nelligan
+was the first man in Oughterard, and never had any trouble about his
+dinner company. His politics&mdash;very decided as they were&mdash;drew
+the line amongst his acquaintances, and the Liberal party well knew that
+they alone were the partakers of his hospitalities. There now, however,
+came the thought that the most respectable residents of the town&mdash;Dr.
+Dasy, of the Infirmary; Mr. Scanlan, the Attorney; and Morris Croft, the
+Adjutant of the Galway&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;were Conservatives. These were
+the fit company to meet young Massingbred, at least for the first day;
+afterwards, he might be introduced to their own set. And yet, Father Neal
+Rafferty would be outraged at all this. Peter Hayes, of the Priory, would
+never enter his doors again; and Peter Hayes had made a will in favor of
+Joe Nelligan, and left him every sixpence he had in the world. &ldquo;What if we
+mixed them all together?&rdquo; said Dan, fairly puzzled by all the conflicting
+interests. &ldquo;A good dinner, some excellent port wine, and 'lashings' of
+whiskey-punch, might mould the ingredients together&mdash;at least, when
+under the restraint of a stranger's presence&mdash;sufficiently to pass
+muster!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+From his doubts as to how the experiment would succeed, came others as to
+whether the guests would condescend to meet; and thus his embarrassments
+went on increasing around him without his finding a way through them.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's an elegant salmon I saw Catty bringing home to you, Nelligan?&rdquo;
+ said a red-faced man, with large white whiskers, and a most watery look in
+his eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Brierley, there's a young gentleman just come down here&mdash;a
+friend of Joe's in college, to stop a day or two with us.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A nob?&rdquo; said the other, with a wink.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nelligan nodded assent and went on,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I 'm just bothered how to get two or three to make company for him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it's grandeur you want, why don't you go over to the barracks there,
+and ask Captain Downie and the two others? Faix! it's a hearty welcome you
+'d get, for they 've never seen the inside of Cro' Martin since the
+detachment came here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It 's my own acquaintances I 'd like to ask to my house, Mat Brierley,&rdquo;
+ said Nelligan, proudly; &ldquo;and the time was when they were n't shy of coming
+there.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do you say to Peter Hayes, then?&rdquo; said the other. &ldquo;If you mean to do
+the civil thing, you'll ask him before he buys that old highwayman of a
+goose he's cheapening yonder; and there's Father Rafferty in the
+snuff-shop, and Tom Magennis, and myself-, and that makes six, just the
+right number for the little round table.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Nelligan paused, and seemed to reflect over the proposition.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You 'll be quizzing the Englishman,&mdash;'taking a rise' out of the
+Saxon, Brierley?&rdquo; said Nelligan, distrustfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Devil a bit; I know better manners than that!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tom Magennis would have at him about politics; I know he could n't
+refrain. And I need n't tell you that English notions are not ours upon
+these topics.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Give Tom a hint, and he 'll never touch the subject.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And Father Neal, will you vouch for him that he won't attack the
+Established Church, and abuse the Protestants?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I will, if he's not provoked to it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you answer for yourself, Mat Brierley, that you won't try to borrow a
+five-pound note of him before the evening's over?&rdquo; said Nelligan,
+laughingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I' ve a friend here,&rdquo; said Brierley, tapping the other on the breast,
+&ldquo;that would never see me in want of such a trifle as that.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Nelligan made no other reply to this speech than a somewhat awkward
+grimace, and walked hurriedly on to overtake a tall and very fat man that
+was just turning the corner of the street. This was Father Neal Rafferty.
+A very flourishing wave of his reverence's hand, and an urbane bend of his
+body, betokened the gracious acceptance he gave to the other's invitation;
+and Brierley walked away, muttering to himself: &ldquo;They may thank me for
+this dinner, then; for old Dan was going to feed the 'swells,' if I had
+n't stopped him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER X. A DINNER-PARTY
+</h2>
+<p>
+People who live much together in small and secluded districts, grow at
+length to feel a very great distrust for all strangers. Their own ways and
+their own topics have become such a perfect world to them, that to feel
+ignorant of these themes appears like affectation or contempt; and the
+luckless man who drops down into such a &ldquo;coterie,&rdquo; is invariably deemed
+impertinent or a fool. Jack Massing-bred fully appreciated this
+difficulty; but it imparted such a piquancy to his &ldquo;adventure,&rdquo; as he
+persisted in calling it to himself, that he would n't have dispensed with
+it, had he been able. It was in this temper he entered the room where the
+guests were now assembled, and, rather impatiently, awaiting his arrival.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is a very cold, calculating sort of interval, that ten minutes before
+dinner; and men regard the stranger presented to them with feelings far
+more critical than kindly. Massingbred did not go through the ordeal
+unscathed; and it was easy to see in the constraint and reserve of all
+present, how little his appearance contributed to the promise of future
+conviviality. He made no effort to dispel this impression, for, after
+saluting each in turn, he walked to the window, and amused himself with
+what was passing in the street.
+</p>
+<p>
+The dinner was announced at last, and passed off drearily enough; none
+liked to adventure on any topic of local interest, and they knew of little
+others. Brierley was stiffly polite; the priest blandly tranquil; the host
+himself uneasy and anxious; and poor old Peter Hayes, of the Priory,
+downright melancholy.
+</p>
+<p>
+Massingbred saw the effect he was producing, and saw it with pleasure. His
+calculation was this: &ldquo;Had I started 'at speed' with these fellows, they
+would have blown me at once. All my efforts to assimilate myself to their
+tastes, to join in their habits and adopt their notions, would have been
+detected in a trice. They must be brought to believe that they have made a
+convert of me themselves; the wider the space between us at first, the
+greater will be their merit in making me forget it in the end.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+As the whiskey-punch made its appearance, and the bottle of port was
+passed up beside the stranger, Massingbred thought the time was come when
+he might change his tactics, and open the campaign in force. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said
+he, as the host pushed the wine towards him, &ldquo;I 've come over here to try
+and learn something about Ireland, and I must give myself every advantage
+of judging from a native point of view. This excellent old port may
+strengthen a man to stand by many an old prejudice, but my object is to
+lay in a new stock of ideas, and I 'd rather try a new regimen.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That 's your bottle, then, sir. Try that,&rdquo; said Brierley, pushing towards
+him a small square decanter of a faint greenish fluid.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is 'poteen,' Mr. Massingbred,&rdquo; said the host. &ldquo;It's the small still
+that never paid the King a farthing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I like it all the better, for that reason,&rdquo; said Jack. &ldquo;There's something
+independent in the very thought of a liquor that never submitted to the
+indignity of a gauger.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's not a very English sentiment, sir,&rdquo; said the priest, slyly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't know whether it be or not,&rdquo; rejoined Massingbred; &ldquo;but I can
+neither perceive common-sense or justice in a law that will not allow a
+man to do what he likes with his own. Why, if Parliament declared
+to-morrow you should n't boil your potatoes in Ireland, but eat them fried&mdash;or
+that you should n't make bread of your corn, but eat it with milk as the
+Neapolitans do&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish we could do the same here, with all my heart,&rdquo; said the priest.
+&ldquo;It's little wheat or even barley-meal one of our poor people ever sees.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A wet potato and water is their diet,&rdquo; said old Hayes, as he sipped his
+punch.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can believe it well,&rdquo; said Massingbred, with great semblance of
+feeling. &ldquo;I witnessed dreadful poverty and destitution as I came along,
+and I couldn't help asking myself: What are the gentry about in this
+country? Do they or do they not see these things? If they do, are they
+indifferent to them?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are indifferent to them; or even worse, they rejoice in them,&rdquo; broke
+in a deep-voiced, energetic-looking man, who sat at the foot of the table,
+and had, although silent, taken a deep interest in the conversation. &ldquo;They
+see, sir, in the destitution of Ireland another rivet in the chains of her
+bondage. As my 'august leader' remarked, it's the rust on the fetters,
+though&mdash;and if it proclaims the length of the captivity, it suggests
+the hope of freedom.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Magennis is the dearest friend and trusty agent of Mr. O'Connell,&rdquo;
+ said Nelligan, in a whisper to Massingbred.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here's his health, whoever said that!&rdquo; cried Jack, enthusiastically, and
+as if not hearing the host's observation.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's a toast; we'll all drink&mdash;and standing, too,&rdquo; exclaimed
+Magennis. &ldquo;'Daniel O'Connell, gentlemen, hip, hip, hurra! '&rdquo; And the room
+rang again with the hearty acclamations of the company.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove! there was something very fine&mdash;it was chivalrous&mdash;in
+the way he brought the Catholic question to issue at last. The bold
+expedient of testing the event by an individual experience was as clever
+as it was daring,&rdquo; exclaimed Massingbred.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You were in favor of the measure then, sir?&rdquo; said Father Neal, with a
+bland smile that might mean satisfaction or suspicion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was always an Emancipationist; but I am little satisfied with the terms
+on which the bill has been passed. I 'd have had no restrictions,&mdash;no
+reservations. It should, according to me, have been unconditional or
+nothing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You've heard the old proverb about half a loaf, sir?&rdquo; said Hayes, with a
+dry laugh.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And a poor adage it is, in its ordinary acceptation,&rdquo; said Jack, quickly.
+&ldquo;It 's the prompting spirit to many a shabby compromise! What disabilities
+should apply to any of us here, in regard to any post or position in our
+country's service, by reason of opinions which are between ourselves and
+our own hearts&mdash;I say any of us, because some here&mdash;one I
+perceive is&rdquo;&mdash;and he bowed to Father Rafferty&mdash;&ldquo;a Catholic; and
+I for myself avow that, if for no other reason than this proscription, I'd
+be on this side.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You're not in Parliament, sir, are you?&rdquo; asked old Peter, with a
+seriousness that sorely tested the gravity of those at either side of him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Jack, frankly. &ldquo;My father and I don't agree on these subjects;
+and, consequently, though there is a seat in my family, I have not the
+honor to occupy it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you any relation to Colonel Moore Massingbred, sir?&rdquo; asked Magennis.
+&ldquo;His son, sir.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The questioner bowed, and a brief silence ensued; short as it was, it
+enabled Jack to decide upon his next move, and take it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I 'm fully aware that my name is not a favorite in
+Ireland; and shall I own to you, till I came to this country myself, I
+half believed that this same humble opinion of us was to our credit! I
+used to hear such narratives of Irish barbarism, Irish brutality,
+priestcraft, superstition, and Heaven knows what besides, that I fully
+persuaded myself that our small repute was very nigh to an eulogium on us.
+Well, I came over to Trinity College strongly impressed with the notion
+that, because I had gained successes at Oxford, here I should be
+triumphant. It is in no boastfulness I say that I had acquitted myself
+well at home; I had attained to rather a reputation. Well, as I said, I
+came over to Trinity and pitted myself against the best man going, and a
+very pretty beating he gave me. Yes, gentlemen, he beat me in everything,
+even in those which we Oxford men fancy our specialties. I soon learned
+that I had not the shadow of a pretension to stand against him, and I
+learned, also, that it was no disgrace to me to be thus vanquished, since
+he was not alone the foremost man of his time, but the best scholar the
+University had seen for a full century; and shall I add, as unpretending
+and as modest in the midst of all his triumphs as he was unapproachable by
+all competitors. And now; gentlemen, I will ask your leave to drink his
+health; doubtless it has been many a time toasted before over the same
+table, but none ever more ardently followed the sentiment with his whole
+heart than do I in proposing to you, 'Three cheers for Joe Nelligan.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The rambling opening of this brief speech was quite forgotten in the
+enthusiasm that greeted its close. In every respect it was a happy
+diversion. It relieved the company from a discussion that promised but
+gloomily. It brought back their minds to a pleasant theme, and enabled
+them, so to say, to pay off in grateful cheers to their host his own
+hospitable reception of them. As for Nelligan himself, he was sincerely,
+deeply affected; and though he twice essayed to speak, he could get no
+further than &ldquo;My son Joe&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;my boy&rdquo;&mdash;and sat down murmuring&mdash;&ldquo;Thank
+you&mdash;God bless you for it&rdquo;&mdash;and covered his face with his hands.
+</p>
+<p>
+Awkward as was the moment, it was relieved by the company filling their
+glasses and nodding in most friendly fashion to Massingbred as they drank
+his health; while a low murmur of approbation went round the table, of
+which he was most unmistakably the object.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you fond of shooting, sir?&rdquo; asked Brierley. &ldquo;Well, then, I hope
+you'll not leave the country without giving me a day or two up at my
+little place in the mountains: There's some snipe left; and, upon my
+conscience, I'll be proud to see you at Kilmaccud.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And there's worse quarters, too!&rdquo; broke in Magennis. &ldquo;My 'august leader'
+spent a day and a half there.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll drive you over there myself,&rdquo; whispered Father Neal, &ldquo;if you'll
+finish the week at the 'Rookery,'&mdash;that's what they call the priest's
+house.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Massingbred accepted everything, and shook hands across the table in
+ratification of half a dozen engagements.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don't think I'll let you cheat me out of my guest so easily,&rdquo; said
+Nelligan. &ldquo;No, gentlemen. This must be Mr. Massingbred's head-quarters as
+long as he stays here, for, faith, I 'd not give him up to Mr. Martin
+himself.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And who may he be?&rdquo; asked Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Martin of Cro' Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The owner of half the county.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of the town you 're in, this minute.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The richest proprietor in the West.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Such were the pattering replies that poured in upon him, while words of
+intense astonishment at his ignorance were exchanged on all sides.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe I have given you a fair guarantee for my ignorance, gentlemen,&rdquo;
+ said Jack, &ldquo;in confessing that I never so much as heard of Martin of Cro'
+Martin. Does he reside on his estate here?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; said Nelligan, &ldquo;he lives at Cro' Martin Castle, about sixteen
+miles from this; and certainly, while in this part of the country, you
+ought to pay the place a visit. I have never been there myself, but I hear
+the most astonishing accounts of the splendor of the furniture and the
+magnificence of the whole establishment.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's pictures there,&rdquo; said the priest, &ldquo;that cost the grandfather of
+the present man a quarter of a million sterling.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, the three statues in the hall, they say, are worth ten thousand
+pounds,&rdquo; said Brierley.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be gorra! when a man would give four hundred for a bull, there 's no
+saying what he 'd stop at,&rdquo; broke in Peter Hayes. &ldquo;I went up to see him
+myself, and indeed he's a beauty, there 's no denying it,&mdash;but four
+hundred pound! Think of four hundred pound!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The stable is the best thing in the place,&rdquo; said Father Neal; &ldquo;they 're
+mighty nice cattle, there, for every kind of work.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thanks to his niece for that,&rdquo; cried Magennis; &ldquo;she knows a horse with
+any man in the West of Ireland.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And can break him, too,&rdquo; chimed in Brierley; &ldquo;I don't care what his
+temper is. Let Miss Mary get her hand on him, and he 'll turn out well.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm driving an old chestnut mare this minute that she trained,&rdquo; said the
+priest; &ldquo;and though she has n't a good leg amongst the four, and is
+touched in the wind, she 's as neat a stepper, and as easy in the mouth as
+a five-year-old.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She 's a fine young woman!&rdquo; said old Hayes, drinking off his glass as
+though toasting her to himself, &ldquo;and not like any Martin ever I seen
+before.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No pride about her!&rdquo; said Brierley.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wouldn't exactly say that, Matthew,&rdquo; interposed Father Neal. &ldquo;But her
+pride isn't the common kind.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She's as proud as Lucifer!&rdquo; broke in Nelligan, almost angrily. &ldquo;Did you
+ever see her drive up to a shop-door in this town, and make the people
+come out to serve her, pointing with her whip to this, that, and t'other,
+and maybe giving a touch of the lash to the boy if he would n't be lively
+enough?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I 'd never call her proud,&rdquo; rejoined old Hayes, &ldquo;after seeing her
+sitting in Catty Honan's cabin, and turning the bread on the griddle for
+her, when Catty was ill.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is she handsome?&rdquo; asked Massingbred, who was rather interested by the
+very discrepancy in the estimate of the young lady.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We can agree upon that, I believe, sir,&rdquo; said the priest; &ldquo;there 's no
+disputing about her beauty.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never saw her in a room,&rdquo; said Magennis; &ldquo;but my 'august leader'
+thought her masculine.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; said Nelligan; &ldquo;she 's not. She has the Martin manner,&mdash;overbearing
+and tyrannical,&mdash;if you like; but she can be gentle enough with women
+and children.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have certainly given me a strong curiosity to see her,&rdquo; said
+Massingbred. &ldquo;Does she always live here?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Always. I don't believe she was ever beyond the bounds of the county in
+her life!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how does she pass her time?&rdquo; asked he, with some astonishment.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She manages the whole estate,&rdquo; said Nelligan; &ldquo;her uncle 's a conceited
+old fool, incapable of anything, and lets her do what she likes; and so
+she drains, and plants, and encloses; makes roads, bridges, and even
+harbors; has all the new-fangled inventions about farming, and, if what I
+hear be true, is spending more money on the property than the fee-simple
+is worth.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; chimed in Magennis; &ldquo;and she 's trying hard to bring back the
+old feudal devotion to the Chief, which was the bane of Ireland. She wants
+the tenants to have no will of their own, but just to vote whatever the
+landlord tells them. She had the impudence to tell my 'august leader' that
+they had no need of him down there,&mdash;that the county was too poor to
+waste its energies in factious squabbles.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If she 'd let the people alone about their religion, I 'd think better of
+her,&rdquo; said Father Neal. &ldquo;What does <i>she</i> know about controversial
+points and disputed dogmas?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maybe you 're wrong about that,&rdquo; broke in Peter Hayes. &ldquo;She came to me
+the other day for ten shillings for a school, and she said, 'Come over,
+Mr. Hayes; come and tell me if there 's anything you are dissatisfied
+with.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And did you go?&rdquo; asked the priest.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix! I did not,&rdquo; said Peter, with a dry look. &ldquo;I thought the visit might
+cost me ten shillings, and so I stayed at home.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The manner in which he uttered these words produced a hearty laugh, in
+which he himself most good-humoredly took part.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, she's good to the poor, anyhow,&rdquo; said Brierley; &ldquo;and it's a new
+thing for one of her name to be so!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;All policy, all scheming!&rdquo; said Magennis. &ldquo;She sees how the family
+influence has declined, and is fast becoming obliterated in this country,
+by reason of their worthlessness, insolence, and neglect of the people;
+and she 's just shrewd enough to see how far a little cajolery goes with
+poor Paddy; but, as my 'august leader' observed, it is not a frieze coat,
+nor a pair of brogues, that can compensate for the loss of that freedom
+that is every man's birthright; and it is not by an ounce of tea, or a
+dose of physic, we 'll ever see Ireland great, glorious, and free.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'First gem of the earth, and first flower of the sea!'&rdquo; exclaimed Hayes,
+with enthusiasm.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nor in the moment was the blunder of his quotation noticed by any but
+Massingbred. &ldquo;You are an admirer of Tommy Moore, I see, sir?&rdquo; said he, to
+the old man.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am fond of 'The Meeting of the Waters,' sir,&rdquo; said Hayes, meekly, and
+like a man who was confessing to a weakness.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And here 's the man to sing it!&rdquo; cried Brierley, clapping the priest
+familiarly on the shoulder; a proposal that was at once hailed with
+acclamation.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'T is many a long day I have n't sung a note,&rdquo; said Father Neal,
+modestly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, come, Father Neal; we'll not let you off that way. It's not under
+this roof that you can make such an excuse!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He 'd rather give us something more to his own taste,&rdquo; said Brierley.
+&ldquo;'To Ladies' eyes around, boys,'&mdash;eh, Father Rafferty?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's my favorite of all the songs he sings,&rdquo; broke in Magennis.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let it be, 'To Ladies' eyes!'&rdquo; cried Massingbred; &ldquo;and we 'll drink 'Miss
+Martin's.' 'I 'll warrant she 'll prove an excuse for the glass.'&rdquo; And he
+sang the line with such a mellow cadence that the whole table cheered him.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0006" id="linkimage-0006">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/146.jpg" width="100%" alt="146 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+To the priest's song, given with considerable taste and no mean musical
+skill, there followed, in due course, others, not exactly so successful,
+by Brierley and Magennis, and, at last, by old Peter himself, who warbled
+out a wonderful ditty, in a tone so doleful that two of the company fell
+fast asleep under it, and Brierley's nerves were so affected that, to
+support himself, he got most completely drunk, and in a very peremptory
+tone told the singer to desist!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't you perceive,&rdquo; cried he, &ldquo;that there 's a stranger present,&mdash;a
+young English cub,&mdash;come down to laugh at us? Have you no discretion,&mdash;have
+you no decency, Peter Hayes, but you must go on with your stupid old
+'croniawn' about dimples and the devil knows what?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Another tumbler, Mr. Massingbred,&mdash;one more?&rdquo; said the host, with
+the air, however, of one who did not exact compliance.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not for the world,&rdquo; said Jack, rising from table. &ldquo;Have I your permission
+to light a cigar?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To do just whatever you please,&rdquo; said Nelligan, rather astonished at the
+formal preparations for smoking he now perceived brought forth, and which
+at the time we tell of were not so popular as in our own day.
+</p>
+<p>
+The priest alone accepted Massingbred's offer of a &ldquo;weed;&rdquo; and Nelligan,
+opening a door into an adjoining room where tea was laid, threw also wide
+a little sash-door that led into the garden, whose cool and fragrant air
+was perfectly delicious at the moment. Jack strolled down the steps and
+soon lost himself in the dark alleys, not sorry to be left alone with his
+own thoughts, after a scene in which his convivial powers had been taxed
+to no mean extent.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A clever young fellow! There's stuff in him,&rdquo; said the priest, in a
+whisper to Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And no impudence about him,&rdquo; said Brierley; &ldquo;he's just like one of
+ourselves.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He has a wonderful opinion of Joe!&rdquo; said Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He's the very man for my 'august leader,'&rdquo; said Magennis. &ldquo;I 'd like to
+bring them together!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;His father 's a Treasury Lord,&rdquo; said Nelligan, swelling at the thought of
+his being the host of such company!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I 'll tell you what, Dan Nelligan,&rdquo; said the priest, confidentially,
+&ldquo;talents won't do everything, nowadays, without high connections; mark my
+words, and see if that young man does n't stand high yet. He has just got
+every requirement of success. He has good family, good looks, good
+abilities, and&rdquo;&mdash;here he dropped his voice still lower&mdash;&ldquo;plenty
+of brass. Ay, Dan, if Joe could borrow a little of his friend's impudence,
+it would be telling him something.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Nelligan nodded assentingly; it was about the only quality in the world
+which he could have believed Joe stood in any need of getting a loan of.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Joe beat him out of the field,&rdquo; said Dan, proudly. &ldquo;He told me so
+himself, this morning.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No doubt; and he would again, where the contest was a college one; but
+'Life,' my dear friend,&mdash;life demands other gifts beside genius.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ganius!&rdquo; broke in old Hayes, with an accent of the profoundest contempt,&mdash;&ldquo;Ganius!
+I never knew a 'Ganius' yet that was n't the ruin of all belonging to him!
+And whenever I see a young fellow that knows no trade, nor has any
+livelihood, who's always borrowing here and begging there, a torment to
+his family and a burden to his friends, I set him down at once for a
+'Ganius.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's not <i>that</i> I was alluding to, Mr. Hayes,&rdquo; said the priest, in
+some irritation. &ldquo;I spoke of real ability, sterling powers of mind and
+thought, and I hope that they are not to be despised.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Like my 'august leader's'!&rdquo; said Magennis, proudly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, or like that young gentleman's there,&rdquo; said Father Neal, with the
+tone of a man pronouncing upon what he understood. &ldquo;I watched him to-day
+at dinner, and I saw that every remark he made was shrewd and acute, and
+that whenever the subject was new to him, he fell into it as he went on
+talking, picking up his facts while he seemed to be discussing them! Take
+my word for it, gentlemen, he 'll do!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He does n't know much about flax, anyhow,&rdquo; muttered old Hayes.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He took his punch like a man,&rdquo; said Brierley, bearing testimony on a
+point where his evidence was sure to have weight.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He'll do!&rdquo; said Father Neal once more, and still more authoritatively
+than before.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Joe carried away every premium from him,&rdquo; said old Nelligan, with a
+degree of irritation that proclaimed how little he enjoyed the priest's
+eulogy of his guest.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know he did, sir; and no man has a higher respect for your son's great
+abilities than myself; but here 's how it is, Mr. Nelligan,&rdquo;&mdash;and he
+drew himself up like a man about to deliver a profound opinion,&mdash;&ldquo;here
+'s how it is. The mind that can master abstract science is one thing; the
+faculties that can deal with fellow-mortals is another. This world is not
+a University!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Lord be praised for that same!&rdquo; cried old Hayes, &ldquo;or I 'm afraid I 'd
+fare badly in it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To unite both descriptions of talent,&rdquo; resumed the priest, oratorically,
+&ldquo;is the gift of but few.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My 'august leader' has them,&rdquo; broke in Magennis.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Show me the man that can deal with men!&rdquo; said Father Neal, dictatorially.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Women is twice as hard to deal with!&rdquo; cried old Hayes. &ldquo;I 'll back Nancy
+Drake against any man in the barony.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faith, and I remember her a pretty woman,&rdquo; said Brierley, who would
+gladly have enticed the conversation out of its graver character. &ldquo;A
+prettier girl than Mary Martin herself!&rdquo; continued the inexorable
+Brierley, for the company did not appear to approve of his diversion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are now discussing politics,&mdash;grave questions of state, sir,&rdquo;
+ said Father Neal,&mdash;&ldquo;for we have come to times when even the most
+indifferent and insignificant amongst us cannot refrain feeling an
+interest in the progress of our country. And when I see a fine young man
+like that there, as one may say going a-begging for a party, I tell you
+that we are fools&mdash;worse than fools&mdash;if we don't secure him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you mean for the borough?&rdquo; asked Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do, sir,&mdash;I mean for the borough!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not till we have consulted my 'august leader,' I hope,&rdquo; broke in
+Magennis.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm for managing our own affairs ourselves,&rdquo; said the priest. &ldquo;What we
+want is a man of our own; and if that young gentleman there will take the
+pledges we should propose, I don't know that we'd readily get the like of
+him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The silence that now fell upon the party was ominous; it was plain that
+either the priest's proposition was not fully acquiesced in, or that the
+mode of announcing it was too abrupt. Perhaps this latter appeared the
+case to his own eyes, for he was the first to speak.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course what I have said now is strictly among ourselves, and not to be
+mentioned outside of this room; for until my friend Dan Nelligan here
+consents to take the field against the Martin interest, there is no chance
+of opening the borough. Let him once agree to <i>that</i>, and the member
+for Oughterard will be his own nominee.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you really think so?&rdquo; asked Nelligan, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know it, sir; and every gentleman at this table knows it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A strong chorus in assent murmured around the board.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It would be a great struggle,&rdquo; muttered Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And a great victory!&rdquo; said the priest.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a deal of money, too, it would cost!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have the money, Dan Nelligan; and let me tell you one thing,&rdquo;&mdash;here
+he leaned over his chair and whispered some words in the other's ear.
+</p>
+<p>
+Old Nelligan's face flushed as he listened, and his eyes sparkled with
+intense excitement.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I thought <i>that</i>&mdash;if I only thought that, Father Rafferty&mdash;I
+'d spend half my fortune on it to-morrow.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's as true as I'm a living man,&rdquo; said the priest, solemnly; and then
+with a motion of his hand gestured caution, for Massingbred was slowly
+ascending the steps, and about to enter the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+With an instinctive readiness all his own, he saw in the embarrassed and
+conscious looks around that he had himself been the object of their
+discussion, and with the same shrewdness he detected their favorable
+feeling towards him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have made them my own!&rdquo; muttered he to himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He 'll do our work well!&rdquo; said the priest in his heart.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XI. YOUNG NELLIGAN, AS INTERPRETED IN TWO WAYS.
+</h2>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I rather like that young Nelligan,&rdquo; said Martin, the day after Joseph had
+made his first appearance at dinner. &ldquo;He talks pleasantly, and nothing of
+a pedant, as I half dreaded he might be.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought his manner respectful, and very proper for his station,&rdquo; said
+Lady Dorothea, with an air of dignity.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He spoke of politics, too, with less of prejudice, less of class
+bitterness, than I could have expected.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Some policy, perhaps, in that,&rdquo; remarked her Ladyship.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Possibly!&rdquo; said Martin, with a careless shrug of the shoulders.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was in a measure on his trial amongst us, and felt the importance of
+making a favorable first impression.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was more trouble than his father would have taken, then,&rdquo; said Martin,
+smiling. &ldquo;Old Dan, as they call him, is not a very conciliating
+personage.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot imagine that the disposition of such a person is a matter of
+much moment. Does n't the man deal in tea, candles, and such like?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That he does, and in loans, and in mortgages, too; not to add that he
+exercises a very considerable share of influence in his town of
+Oughterard.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A very shocking feature of the time we live in!&rdquo; exclaimed Lady Dorothea.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So it may be; but there it is,&mdash;just like the wet weather, and the
+typhus, and the sheep-rot, and fifty other disagreeable things one can't
+help.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But at least they can avoid recurring to them in conversation, sir. There
+is no necessity to open the window when the look-out is a dreary one.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin made no reply, and a pause of some moments ensued.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What arrangement did you come to with him about his party in the
+borough?&rdquo; said she at last.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn't even allude to the topic,&rdquo; replied he, half testily. &ldquo;These
+things are not to be done in that hasty fashion; they require management,
+discretion, and a fitting opportunity, too.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, you talk of your grocer's boy as if he were a Cabinet Minister, Mr.
+Martin; you treat him like a great diplomatist!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was not exactly on the first occasion of his being in my house that I
+could have broached the matter.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which implies that you mean to invite him again.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Possibly!&rdquo; was the abrupt rejoinder.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And must the odious attorney always be of the party?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, madam, the odious attorney has set out for Dublin; but I shortly
+expect here one whom your Ladyship will, doubtless, call an odious lawyer,&mdash;though
+he happens to be one of the foremost men of the Irish bar.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A class I detest,&rdquo; said her Ladyship.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He has one consolation, at least, madam,&rdquo; said Martin; &ldquo;he figures in a
+pretty long category.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And why should he not, sir? What have I ever met in the dreary eighteen
+years and seven months I have passed here, except unmitigated
+self-conceit, vulgarity, and presumption,&mdash;the very type of all three
+being your Dublin barrister.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Their countrymen certainly entertain another estimate of them,&rdquo; said
+Martin, laughing, for he had a lazy man's enjoyment of any passionate
+excitement of another's temper.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And it was,&rdquo; resumed she, &ldquo;in some sort the contrast presented to such
+which pleased me in that young man's manner yesterday. Not but I feel
+assured that erelong you and Miss Martin will spoil him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I! aunt?&rdquo; said Mary, looking up from her work; &ldquo;how am I to exercise the
+evil influence you speak of?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By the notice&mdash;the interest you vouchsafe him, Miss Martin,&mdash;the
+most flattering compliment to one in his station.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If he bears collegiate honors so meekly, aunt,&rdquo; said Mary, quietly,
+&ldquo;don't you think his head might sustain itself under <i>my</i>
+attentions?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Possibly so, young lady, if not accompanied by the accessories of your
+rank in life,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, haughtily; &ldquo;and as to college honors,&rdquo;
+ added she, after a pause, &ldquo;they are like school distinctions, of no
+earthly value out of the class-room.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faith, I don't know that,&rdquo; said Martin. &ldquo;At least, in my own experience,
+I can say, every fellow that has made a figure in life gave indications of
+high ability in his college years. I could go over the names of at least a
+dozen.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pray don't, sir,&mdash;spare your memory, and spare us. Miss Martin and I
+will take it for granted that this young man is destined to be Lord
+Chancellor,&mdash;Ambassador at St. Petersburg,&mdash;or anything else you
+please. I have no doubt that the time is approaching when such things are
+very possible.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It has come already, my Lady,&rdquo; said Martin; and in the manner he uttered
+the words there was no saying whether the sentiment was pleasurable or the
+reverse.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet I trust that there is a little interval still left to us ere that
+consummation,&rdquo; said she, with pretentious dignity. &ldquo;Birth and blood have
+not lost all their <i>prestige!</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But they soon would,&rdquo; said Mary, &ldquo;if they feared to enter the lists
+against those less well-born than themselves.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Martin!&rdquo; exclaimed her Ladyship, &ldquo;what words are these?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope they are void of offence, aunt. Assuredly I never conceived that I
+could wound any susceptibilities here by saying that the well-born are
+ready to meet the plebeian on any ground.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is no necessity for such trials, Miss Martin; the position of each
+has been so accurately defined by&mdash;by&mdash;by Providence,&rdquo; said she,
+at last, blushing slightly as she uttered the word, &ldquo;that the contest is
+almost impossible.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The French Revolution reveals another story, aunt, and tells us, besides,
+how inferior were the nobles of that country in the day of struggle.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Upon my word, these are very pretty notions, young lady. Have they been
+derived from the intelligent columns of the &ldquo;Galway Monitor,&rdquo; or are they
+the teachings of the gifted Mr. Scanlan? Assuredly, Mr. Martin,&rdquo; said she,
+turning to him, &ldquo;papa was right, when he said that the Irish nature was
+essentially rebellious.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Complimentary, certainly,&rdquo; said Martin, laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He founded the remark on history. Papa was uncommonly well read, and used
+to observe that there seemed something in the Celtic nature incompatible
+with that high-souled, chivalrous loyalty Englishmen exhibit.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But how much of the Celt have Mary and myself got in us, if your
+observation is meant for us? Why, my Lady, what with intermarriage
+centuries ago, and change of blood ever since, the distinctive element has
+been utterly lost.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet we are not English, uncle,&rdquo; said Mary, with something that
+smacked of pride. &ldquo;Confess it: we have our nationality, and that our
+people have traits of their own.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That they have; but I never heard them made matter of boastfulness
+before,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, sneeringly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, aunt, it is not too late to hear it now; and I, for one, am proud
+of my country,&mdash;not of its political station, for it is dependent,&mdash;not
+of its wealth, for it is poor,&mdash;but of its genial courtesy, its
+free-hearted hospitality, its manly patience under many a crushing
+calamity, and not least of all, its gallantry on every field where England
+has won honor.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have read of all these things; but my own experiences are limited to
+the rags and restlessness of a semi-barbarous people. Nay, Miss Martin,
+I'm not going to discuss the matter. I have lived elsewhere,&mdash;you
+have not. I have acquired habits&mdash;prejudices, perhaps you 'd call
+them&mdash;in behalf of twenty things that Irish civilization sees no need
+of.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Would it not be kind, aunt, were you to aid us by the light of these same
+experiences?&rdquo; said Mary, with an air of well-assumed humility.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly not, at the price of intercourse with the natives!&rdquo; exclaimed
+her Ladyship, haughtily. &ldquo;I detest, on principle, the Lady Bountiful
+character. The whole of the hymn-book, castor-oil, and patent-barley
+sympathy is shockingly vulgar. Like many things, well done at first, it
+fell into low hands, and got spoiled.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The tone of sarcasm in which this was spoken made Mary's cheeks crimson,
+and the flush spread itself over her neck. Still she made no reply, but
+bending down her head, continued to work more assiduously.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;When are we to leave this place, Mr. Martin?&rdquo; asked her Ladyship,
+abruptly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe we are only waiting here till it be your pleasure to quit.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I dying to get away this fortnight past! Some one certainly told me
+that Cro' Martin was not ready for us. Was it <i>you</i>, Miss Martin?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, aunt.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It ran in my head it was you, then. Well, can we go at once&mdash;to-day&mdash;this
+afternoon?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To-morrow we might, perhaps,&rdquo; said Mary.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Scarcely so,&rdquo; said Martin, interposing, &ldquo;seeing that I have asked Repton
+to come down here and see the place.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you can drive him over from Cro' Martin. It would be intolerable, the
+idea of remaining here just for him. So we shall go to-morrow, Miss
+Martin.&rdquo; And with this, uttered in the tone of an order, her Ladyship
+swept proudly out of the room, from which Martin, not overanxious for a <i>tête-à-tête</i>
+with his niece, stepped noiselessly at the same moment by another door.
+</p>
+<p>
+Scarcely had the door closed behind Lady Dorothea, when it was reopened to
+admit Joe Nelligan, who had met her Ladyship in the corridor and been
+received with such palpable coldness of manner that he entered the room
+bashful and awkward, and hardly knowing whether to advance or retire.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I fear I have made my visit at an untimely hour, Miss Martin,&rdquo; said he,
+blushing; &ldquo;but the truth is, I know next to nothing of society and its
+habits, and if you would only be kind enough to tell me when I am a
+transgressor&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The notion of learning from <i>me</i> is perfect,&rdquo; said Mary,
+interrupting him with a pleasant laugh. &ldquo;Why, Mr. Nelli-gan, I never could
+be taught anything, even of the most ordinary rules of ceremonial life!
+though,&rdquo; added she, slyly, &ldquo;I have lived certainly in the midst of great
+opportunities.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But then, I have not,&rdquo; said Nelligan, gravely, and accepting the speech
+in all seriousness. &ldquo;Well, it comes pretty much to the same thing,&rdquo; said
+she, smiling, &ldquo;since I have profited so little by them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I came thus early, however,&rdquo; said he, earnestly, &ldquo;because I was impatient
+to correct an impression which might have remained from something that
+fell from me last night. You smile, I perceive,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that I should
+attach so much importance to my own words!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was not at that I smiled,&rdquo; said Mary, archly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No matter,&rdquo; continued he. &ldquo;It is better, at the cost of a little wounded
+vanity, that I should escape a misconception. When your uncle spoke to me,
+last night, about the division of parties in the borough&mdash;You are
+smiling again, Miss Martin!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't you perceive, sir, that what amuses me is the mistaken estimate you
+have formed of me, by addressing me on such topics?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I came here expressly to speak to you,&rdquo; said he, with increased
+eagerness; &ldquo;for I have always heard&mdash;always understood&mdash;that
+none ever took a deeper interest in all that regarded the country than
+yourself.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you mean, by the country, the lives and fortunes of those who live in
+it,&mdash;the people by whose toil it is fertilized, by whose traits it is
+a nation,&mdash;I tell you frankly that I yield to none for interest in
+all that touches them; but if you come to talk of privileges and
+legislative benefits, I know nothing of them: they form a land of whose
+very geography I am ignorant.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the subject is the same, and the mind which comprehends one could
+embrace the other.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the one, however, I can labor usefully and fittingly, without much
+risk of mistake,&mdash;never, indeed, of any mistake that might prove of
+serious moment. The other involves great questions, and has great hazards,
+perils, to affright stronger heads than mine!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is much in what you say,&rdquo; said he, reflectingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is far more than I am able to express,&rdquo; said she, warmly. &ldquo;Just
+remember, for a moment, that of all the laws you great and wise men are
+making, over which you rant and wrangle, and assail each other so
+vindictively, how few ever touch the interests or descend to the fortunes
+of those for whom you assume to make them,&mdash;that the craftiest
+devices of your legislation never uproot ah old prejudice nor disturb an
+antiquated superstition; while I, and such as I,&mdash;and there need be
+nothing more humble,&mdash;can by a little timely help in trouble&mdash;a
+little care, or even a little counsel&mdash;comfort many a failing heart,
+cheer up many a sinking spirit, and, better still, do good service by
+teaching the poor man that he is of one family with those better off than
+himself, and that he is not an outcast because he is lowly!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+As Mary went on, her eyes shone more brilliantly, and her cheeks glowed,
+till Nelligan forgot even the words she spoke in admiration of the
+speaker.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But here comes my uncle,&rdquo; cried she, hastily, &ldquo;to rescue you from further
+amplification of the theme. Come in, uncle,&rdquo;&mdash;for Martin was already
+about to retire,&mdash;&ldquo;it is Mr. Nelligan, who wants to speak to you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I was in terror of a regular morning visitor!&rdquo; said Martin, shaking
+the young man's hand cordially. &ldquo;They didn't tell me you were here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I came, sir,&rdquo; said Joseph, hesitatingly, &ldquo;to rectify what might, perhaps,
+require correction in an observation I made last night. We were talking
+about the proper basis of a representation&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear boy,&rdquo; broke in Martin, laughingly, &ldquo;there's nothing kills me like
+asking me to go over the past, either in reading an old letter or
+recalling an old conversation. And as to calling on me to justify
+something I once defended in argument, I 'd give up the cause at once, and
+say I was all wrong, in preference.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I need not fear you will hold me responsible&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not for anything, except your pledge to dine here tomorrow at seven.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Notwithstanding all the ease and frankness of Martin's manner&mdash;and as
+manner it was perfect&mdash;the young man felt far from satisfied. His
+want of breeding&mdash;that cruel want strong enough to mar the promise of
+high ability, and even impair the excellence of many a noble nature&mdash;seemed
+to hold him fast bound to the object of his visit. He had come for an
+explanation, and he couldn't go away without it. Mary read his difficulty
+at once, and as she passed him to leave the room, said in a low voice,
+&ldquo;To-morrow evening.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Nelligan started at the words, and his face became scarlet. What could she
+have meant? Was it that she wished him to come, and had thus condescended
+to remind him of his promise? or was it to suggest a more fitting moment
+to return to the late discussion?
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you coming to luncheon, Nelligan?&rdquo; said Martin, rising.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir; not to-day. I have a call&mdash;a visit&mdash;some miles off.&rdquo;
+ And while he was yet stammering out his excuses, Martin waved a familiar
+good-bye with his hand, and passed into the adjoining room.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what can this mean?&rdquo; said Nelligan to himself. &ldquo;Is this the cordial
+treatment of an intimate, or is it contemptuous indifference for an
+inferior?&rdquo; And, far more puzzled than he should have been with the
+knottiest problem of the &ldquo;Principia,&rdquo; he quitted the house and strolled
+homewards.
+</p>
+<p>
+His way led along the shore, and consequently in front of that straggling
+row of cottages which formed the village. It chanced to be the last day of
+the month, and, by the decree of the almanac, the close of the
+bathing-season. The scene then going forward was one of unusual and not
+unpicturesque confusion. It was a general break-up of the encampment, and
+all were preparing to depart to their homes, inland. Had young Nelligan
+been&mdash;what he was not&mdash;anything of a humorist, he might have
+been amused at the variety of equipage and costume around him. Conveyances
+the most cumbrous and most rickety, drawn by farm horses, or even donkeys,
+stopped the way before each door, all in process of loading by a strangely
+attired assemblage, whose Welsh wigs, flannel dressing-gowns, and woollen
+nightcaps showed how, by a common consent, all had agreed to merge
+personal vanity in the emergency of the moment. The innumerable little
+concealments which had sheltered many a narrow household, the various
+little stratagems that had eked out many a scanty wardrobe, were now
+abandoned with a noble sincerity; and had there been a cork leg or a glass
+eye in the company, it would not have shrunk from the gaze of that
+open-hearted community.
+</p>
+<p>
+Such of the travellers as had taken their places were already surrounded
+with the strangest medley of household gods it is possible to conceive.
+Like trophies, bird-cages, candlesticks, spits, cullenders, fenders, and
+bread-baskets bristled around them, making one marvel how they ever got
+in, or, still more, how they were ever to get out again; the croaking of
+invalids, with crying children, barking terriers, and scolding owners,
+making a suitable chorus to the confusion.
+</p>
+<p>
+Still, amidst all the discomforts of the moment, amidst the last
+wranglings with landlords, and the last squabbles over broken furniture
+and missing movables, it must be owned that the prevailing temper of the
+scene was good-humor and jollity. The Irish temperament seems ever to
+discover something congenial in those incidents of confusion and bustle
+which to other people are seasons of unmitigated misery, and even out of
+its own sources of discomfiture can derive matter for that quaint humor
+with which it can always regard life. In this wise was it that few now
+dwelt much upon their own inconveniences, so long as they were free to
+laugh at those of their neighbors.
+</p>
+<p>
+Before he was well aware of it, young Nelligan found himself in the very
+midst of this gathering, whose mirthful accents suddenly subsided at his
+approach, and an air of constraint and reserve seemed to take their place.
+Never very quick to appreciate such indications, he drew nigh to a very
+lofty &ldquo;conveniency&rdquo; in which, with an air of stately dignity, Mrs. Cronan
+sat enthroned on a backgammon-table, with a portentous-looking cap-case in
+her lap.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My mother will be sorry not to have seen you before you went away, Mrs.
+Cronan,&rdquo; said he to that lady, whose demure and frigid demeanor made the
+speech sound like a bold one.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'd have left my card and my compliments, sir, if I wasn't so pressed
+for time,&rdquo; responded she, with a haughty gravity.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;With P. P. C. on the corner,&rdquo; said the Captain from his pony-gig
+alongside; &ldquo;which means, pour prendre 'congo,' or 'congee,' I never knew
+which.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She 'll be very lonely now, for the few days we remain,&rdquo; resumed Joe,
+conscious of some awkwardness, without knowing where or how.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not with the society of your distinguished acquaintances at 'The Nest,'
+sir!&rdquo; the sarcastic import of which reply was more in the manner than the
+mere words; while the old Captain murmured,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Begad, she gave it to him there,&mdash;a regular double-headed shot!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We hope to follow you by the end of the week,&rdquo; said Nelligan, trying to
+seem at ease.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you can tear yourselves away, I suppose,&rdquo; said Miss Busk, through a
+double veil of blue gauze; for that lady's auburn ringlets reposed at the
+moment in the small mahogany casket beside her.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is not much attraction in the spot just now,&rdquo; said Joseph, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not for the like of us, perhaps, sir,&rdquo; retorted Mrs. Cronan,&mdash;&ldquo;not
+for persons in our station; but your fashionable people, I believe, always
+prefer a place when the vulgar company have left it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good again,&mdash;grape and canister!&rdquo; chuckled out the Captain, who
+seemed to derive a high enjoyment from the scene.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Would you move a little to one side, Mr. Nelligan?&rdquo; said the doctor; &ldquo;my
+pony won't stand.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, he's mettlesome,&rdquo; said Joe, good-humoredly, as he stepped out of the
+way.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That he is, sir, though he never was leader in a four-in-hand; but, you
+see, poor creatures of quadrupeds forget themselves down here, just like
+their betters!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And the success of this sally was acknowledged by a general laugh from the
+company. The tone of the speakers, even more than their words, convinced
+Joseph that, from some cause or other, he was the object of their
+sarcasms; and although slow to take offence,&mdash;even to the verge of
+what many might have called an unfeeling indifference,&mdash;he felt their
+treatment most acutely. It was, then, in something like a haughty defiance
+that he wished them a careless good-bye, and continued his way.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The world seems bent on puzzling me this morning,&rdquo; muttered he, as he
+sauntered slowly on. &ldquo;People treat me as though I were playing some deep
+game to their detriment,&mdash;I, who have no game, almost no future!&rdquo;
+ added he, despondingly. &ldquo;For what avails it to attain eminence amidst such
+as these; and, as for the others, I was not born for them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+To these moody thoughts succeeded others still gloomier. It had only been
+within a short time back that the young man had begun to appreciate the
+difficulties of a position to which his early successes imparted
+increasing embarrassment; and darkly brooding over these things, he drew
+near his mother's cottage. She was already at the door to meet him, with a
+letter in her hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is from your father, Joe,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;He wants you in all haste up
+at the town; and I've packed your clothes, and sent off Patsey for
+Mooney's car; so come in and eat something at once.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Joseph took the note from her hand and perused it in silence. It was
+brief, and ran thus:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+&ldquo;Dear Joe,&mdash;I want you up here as soon as possible, to meet
+a friend whom you 'll be surprised to see. I say no more,
+but that I expect you by dinner-time.&mdash;Yours ever,
+
+&ldquo;D.N.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What does that mean, Joe?&rdquo; asked his mother.
+</p>
+<p>
+He only shrugged his shoulders in reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And who can it be?&rdquo; said she again.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Some of the townspeople, of course,&rdquo; said he, carelessly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, Joe; it must be a stranger. Maybe it's Morgan Drake; his aunt
+expected him back from Jamaica before Christmas. Or it 's Corny Dwyer 's
+come home from Africa; you know he went on the deploring expedition&mdash;&rdquo;
+ &ldquo;Exploring, mother,&mdash;exploring.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, exploring or deploring, it's all the same. He went four years ago,
+and all the tidings they 've had of him was an elephant's tooth he sent
+home to his stepfather. I know it's Corny, for your father always liked
+him and the funny stories he told.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps so!&rdquo; replied Joe.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wonder, is he grown any bigger? He was little better than a dwarf when
+he went away, and the same age as yourself. No, indeed, he was older,&mdash;fourteen
+months older. It was Catty Henderson was running in my head. Is n't she a
+fine young woman, Joe?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Remarkably so,&rdquo; said he, with more animation in his tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A little bit too haughty-looking and proud, maybe, considering her
+station in life, and that she has to go to service&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go to service, mother?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure she has. If they can't get her a place as a governess or a
+companion, she 'll have to take what she can get. Her father's married
+again, my dear Joe; and when men do that!&rdquo; And here Mrs. Nelligan uplifted
+her hands and eyes most expressively. &ldquo;Ay, indeed,&rdquo; continued she, with a
+heavy sigh, &ldquo;and if it was once it was fifty times, Catty's poor mother
+said to me, 'Sarah,' says she,&mdash;she never called me Sally, but always
+Sarah,&mdash;'Sarah,' says she, 'I 've but one comfort, and that is that
+Catty will never want a mother while you live. You 'll be the same to her
+as myself,&mdash;just as fond, and just as forgiving;' them was her very
+words!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I hope you have never forgotten them, mother?&rdquo; said Joe, with
+emotion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't you see I have n't; an't I repeating them to you this minute?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; but I mean the spirit and the meaning of them,&rdquo; rejoined he, &ldquo;and
+that you feel the obligation they 've laid upon you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure I feel it; don't I fret over it every time I 'm alone? for I
+can't get it out of my head that maybe she 'd appear to me&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, but her mother. Oh, it 's nothing to laugh at, Joe. There was Eliza
+Keane came back every Easter Monday for two-and-twenty years to search for
+a gravy-spoon. Well, if it's laughing you are, I won't say any more; but
+here 's the car now, and it's late enough we 'll be on the road!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm not thinking of going, mother. I never meant to go,&rdquo; said Joe,
+resolutely.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never meant to go, after your father's note to you, Joe?&rdquo; cried she, in
+half horror. &ldquo;Surely it's all as one as ordering you up there.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know all that,&rdquo; said he, calmly; &ldquo;but I see no reason why I should
+forego the pleasure of a party at the Martins' for the sake of meeting the
+convivial celebrities of Oughterard.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what will you say?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say I'm engaged; have accepted another invitation; or, better still,
+leave you to make my excuses, mother. Come, come, don't look so terribly
+shocked and terrified. You know well enough that my father's four-year-old
+mutton and his crusted port will compensate the company for heavier
+inflictions than my absence.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They were always fond of you, Joe,&rdquo; said Mrs. Nelligan, half
+reproachfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing of the kind, mother; they never cared for me, nor was there any
+reason why they should. I 'm sure I never cared for them. We endured one
+another; that was all.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, dear; but I 'm glad your father is not listening to you,&rdquo; said she,
+with a stealthy glance around, as though not perfectly assured of secrecy.
+&ldquo;So, then, I suppose, there 's nothing for it but to go up myself and make
+the best of it; and sure it's all a lottery what temper he 's in, and how
+he 'll take it. I remember when they put the new duty on&mdash;what was
+it, Joe? I think it was hides&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not the least matter, mother; you 've only to say that Mr. Martin has
+been kind enough to show me some attentions, and that I am silly enough&mdash;if
+you like to say so&mdash;to prefer them to the festive pleasures of
+Oughterard. In another week or so I shall have to go back to college. Let
+me, at least, enjoy the few days of my vacation in my own fashion.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Nelligan shook her head mournfully over these signs of rebellion, and
+muttering many a gloomy foreboding, she went off to her room to make her
+preparations for the journey.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XII. A VERY &ldquo;CROSS EXAMINATION&rdquo;
+ </h2>
+<p>
+The morning was bright and sunny, the air sharp, crisp, and bracing, as
+the heavy travelling-carriage which conveyed Mr. Martin and Lady Dorothea
+rolled smoothly along the trimly kept approach to Cro' Martin. Many a
+beautiful glade, many a lovely vista opened on them as they passed along
+deep-bosomed woods and gently swelling slopes, dotted over with cattle,
+stretched away on either side; while far in the distance could be seen the
+battlemented towers of the princely residence.
+</p>
+<p>
+The lover of nature might have felt intense pleasure at a scene so
+abounding in objects of beauty. A painter would have lingered with delight
+over effects of light and shade, glorious displays of color, and graceful
+groupings of rocks and trees and gnarled stumps. A proud man might have
+exulted in the selfish enjoyment of feeling that these were all his own;
+while a benevolent one would have revelled in the thought of all the
+channels through which such wealth might carry the blessings of aid and
+charity.
+</p>
+<p>
+Which of these feelings predominated now in the minds of those who, snugly
+encased in furs, occupied the respective corners of the ample coach? Shall
+we own it? Not any of them. A dreamy, unremarking indifference was the
+sentiment of each; and they sat silently gazing on a prospect which
+suggested nothing, nor awoke one passing emotion in their hearts. Had any
+one been there to express his admiration of the landscape,&mdash;praised
+the trees, the cattle, or the grassy slopes,&mdash;Martin might have heard
+him with pleasure, and listened even with interest to his description. My
+Lady, too, might not unwillingly have lent an ear to some flattery of the
+splendid demesne of which she was mistress, and accepted as half homage
+the eulogy of what was hers. None such was, however, there; and so they
+journeyed along, as seemingly unconscious as though the scene were wrapped
+in midnight darkness.
+</p>
+<p>
+Martin had known the spot, and every detail of it, from his boyhood. The
+timber, indeed, had greatly grown,&mdash;graceful saplings had become
+stately trees, and feathery foliage deepened into leafy shade; but he
+himself had grown older, too, and his sense of enjoyment, dulled and
+deadened with years, saw nothing in the scene to awaken pleasure. As for
+Lady Dorothea, she had reasoned herself into the notion that the walls of
+her own grounds were the boundaries of a prison, and had long convinced
+herself that she was a suffering martyr to some mysterious sense of duty.
+From the drowsy languor in which they reclined they were both aroused, as
+the pace of the carriage gradually diminished from a smooth brisk trot to
+an uneven jolting motion, the very reverse of agreeable.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What have they done? Where are they going?&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea,
+peevishly.
+</p>
+<p>
+And Martin called out from the window, in tones even less gentle. &ldquo;Oh,
+it's the new approach; the road is not quite completed,&rdquo; said he, half
+sulkily, as he resumed his place.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Another of Miss Martin's clever devices, which, I must say, I never
+concurred in.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, you always professed to hate the old road by the stables.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So I did; but I never agreed to passing round the back of the house, and
+thus destroying the privacy of the flower-garden,&mdash;the only spot I
+may dare to call my own. Oh, dear! I shall be shaken to death. Have they
+broken the carriage? I 'm certain they 've smashed the spring at my side!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin gave a cold, supercilious smile, the only reply to these words.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They 've only broken a trace, I perceive,&rdquo; said he, casting a hurried
+glance through the window, as the carriage came to a dead stop.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are equanimity itself, sir, this morning,&rdquo; said her Ladyship, in a
+voice almost tremulous with anger. &ldquo;I wonder if this admirable temper will
+befriend you when you shall see the cost of this precious piece of
+road-making?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It employs the people,&rdquo; said he, coolly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Employs the people! How I hate that cant phrase! Can't they employ
+themselves on their own farms? Have n't they digging and draining, and
+whatever it is, to do of their own? Must they of necessity depend on us
+for support, and require that we should institute useless works to employ
+them?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+As if to offer a living commentary on her speech, a number of half-fed and
+less than half-clad men now drew near, and in accents of a most servile
+entreaty begged to offer their services. Some, indeed, had already busied
+themselves to repair the broken harness, and others were levelling the
+road, carrying stones to fill up holes, and in every possible manner
+endeavoring to render assistance; but all were vociferous in asserting
+that the delay would not be above a minute or two; that the road was an
+elegant one, or would be soon, and that it was a &ldquo;raal blessing&rdquo; to see
+her Ladyship and the master looking so well. In fact, they were thankful
+and hopeful together; and, notwithstanding the evidences of the deepest
+destitution in their appearance, they wore an air of easy, jaunty
+politeness, such as many a professional diner-out might have envied. Lady
+Dorothea was in no mood to appreciate such traits; indeed, if the truth
+must be told, they rather ruffled than soothed her. Martin saw nothing in
+them; he was too much accustomed to the people to be struck with any of
+their peculiarities, and so he lay back in silent apathy, and took no
+notice of them.
+</p>
+<p>
+With all their alacrity and all their good-will&mdash;and there was no
+lack of either&mdash;there was yet such a total absence of all system and
+order, that their efforts were utterly useless. Some tugged away manfully
+to raise stones too heavy to lift; others came rudely in contact with
+fellows heavily laden, and upset them. The sturdy arms that spoked the
+hind wheels were resolutely antagonized by as vigorous struggles to move
+the fore ones. Every one shouted, cried, cursed, and laughed, by turns;
+and a more hopeless scene of confusion and uproar need not be conceived.
+Nor was Lady Dorothea herself an inactive spectator; for, with her head
+from the carriage-window, she directed a hundred impossible measures, and
+sat down at last, overcome with rage and mortification at their blunders.
+</p>
+<p>
+The tumult was now at the highest, and the horses, terrified by the noise
+around them, had commenced plunging and rearing fearfully, when Mary
+Martin came galloping up to the spot at full speed.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let go that bridle, Hogan,&rdquo; cried she, aloud; &ldquo;you are driving that horse
+mad. Loose the leaders' traces; unbuckle the reins, Patsey; the wheelers
+will stand quietly. There, lead them away. Speak to that mare; she 's
+trembling with fear. I told you not to come by this road, Barney; and it
+was only by accident that I saw the wheel-tracks. A thousand pardons, Aunt
+Dora, for this mishap. Barney misunderstood my orders. It will be all
+right in a moment. Once over this bad spot, the road is hard and level.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Having no taste, nor any genius for adventures, Miss Martin,&rdquo; began her
+Ladyship&mdash;But Mary did not await the remainder of the speech; for,
+turning her horse sharply round, and beckoning to some of the people to
+follow her, she was away across the lawn at a smart canter. Having arrived
+at a small wooden bridge over a river, she ordered the men to lift some of
+the planking, by the aid of which they soon constructed a firm and safe
+passage for the carriage; and as her presence was the signal for quiet
+obedience and prompt action, in less than ten minutes the difficulty was
+surmounted, the horses reharnessed, and all in readiness to proceed on
+their way.
+</p>
+<p>
+Martin looked on in silent satisfaction, not offering a single suggestion,
+or even seeming to feel interested in the events, but enjoying, with all a
+lazy man's pleasure, the activity displayed around him. Not so Lady
+Dorothea. If she did not like &ldquo;an adventure,&rdquo; she loved &ldquo;a grievance.&rdquo;
+ Whatever ministered to her selfishness, even in the remotest degree, was
+grateful to her. Mary's opportune arrival had now converted what might
+have passed for a calamity into a mere momentary inconvenience; and she
+could not conceal her discontent. &ldquo;Your heroines are a perfect torment; at
+least, to us souls of commoner clay. They live only for disasters.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must say that Mary extricated us from what might have become one,&rdquo; said
+Martin, dryly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are indebted to her, however, for the possibility. This detestable
+road, which I promise you I 'll never come again, is entirely her own
+invention. I hope, Miss Martin,&rdquo; added she, from the window, &ldquo;that the
+other approach is to be kept in repair,&mdash;at least, for me.&rdquo; But Mary
+did not hear the appeal, for she was bandaging the arm of a poor country
+fellow, who had been sorely cut.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There, drive on, Barney,&rdquo; cried Lady Dorothea. &ldquo;I shall be taken ill if I
+stay here. Really, Mr. Martin, your niece's accomplishments are the least
+feminine one can conceive.&rdquo; And improving this theme, she continued the
+entire way till the carriage drew up at the door of the castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; said she, as she descended, &ldquo;that heavy sigh shows you are
+indeed greatly to be pitied. No martyrdom ever exceeded yours. I am quite
+aware of all my imperfections, and can at least fancy everything you could
+say of me and my temper. What did you say, Collins?&rdquo; said she, addressing
+the obsequious-looking servant, who, with an air of gloomy joy, very
+respectful,&mdash;but meant to mean more,&mdash;had whispered something in
+her ear.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A young lady, did you say, Collins?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you were very wrong, Collins. You meant to say a young person.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady,&mdash;a young person, like a lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not in the least, except to such appreciation as yours. Where is she?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In your Ladyship's library.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did she come alone?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, my Lady. Mr. Henderson drove her over in his car, and said he 'd pass
+this way again in the evening.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And now her Ladyship swept proudly by, scarcely noticing the bowing
+servants who had formed into a line along the hall, and who endeavored to
+throw into their sorrowful faces as much of joy as might consist with the
+very deepest humility. Nor was she more condescending to old Catty, who
+stood courtesying at the top of the stairs, with a basket of keys on her
+arm that might have served to lock up all Newgate.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How cold every place feels! Collins, are you sure the rooms are properly
+aired?&rdquo; cried she, shuddering. &ldquo;But I suppose it's the climate. Have
+another stove put there,&rdquo; said she, pointing to an impossible locality.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady,&rdquo; replied Collins.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And warmer carpets on these passages.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady; it shall be done to-morrow.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir; to-day.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady; this afternoon.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't remember if the windows are double along here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady, they are all double towards the north.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then they fit badly, for I feel the draught acutely here. It's like the
+keen air of a mountain;&rdquo; and Collins gave a slight sympathetic shudder,
+and really looked cold. A somewhat haughty glance from her Ladyship,
+however, as quickly reproved him, for Collins ought to have known that it
+was not by such as himself changes of temperature could be appreciable.
+And now she passed on and entered that part of the mansion peculiarly her
+own, and where, it must be owned, her spirit of fault-finding would have
+been at a loss what to condemn.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lady Dorothea's library occupied an angle of the building; and from this
+circumstance, included within its precincts an octagonal tower, the view
+from which comprised every varied character of landscape. This favored
+spot was fitted up in the most luxurious taste,&mdash;with rarest gems of
+art, and cabinet pictures of almost fabulous value,&mdash;to supply which
+foreign dealers and connoisseurs had been for years back in correspondence
+with her Ladyship. Now it was some rare treasure of carved ivory, or some
+sculptured cup of Benvenuto, that had been discovered accidentally, and
+which, despite the emulous zeal of princes and cardinals to obtain, was
+destined for herself. Now it was some choice mosaic of which but one other
+specimen existed, and that in the Pope's private collection at the
+Quirinal. Such was her ardor in this pursuit of excellence, that more than
+once had every object of this precious chamber been changed, to give place
+to something more costly, more precious, and rarer. For about two years
+back, however, the resources of the old world seemed to offer nothing
+worthy of attention, and the vases, the &ldquo;statuettes,&rdquo; the bronzes, the
+pictures, and medallions had held their ground undisturbed.
+</p>
+<p>
+Such was the sanctity of this spot, that in showing the house to strangers
+it was never opened, nor, without a special order from Lady Dorothea,&mdash;a
+favor somewhat more difficult to obtain than a firman from the Sultan,&mdash;could
+any one be admitted within its walls. The trusty servant in whose charge
+it was, was actually invested with a species of sacred character in the
+household, as one whose feet had passed the threshold of the tabernacle.
+Our reader may then picture to himself something of Lady Dorothea's varied
+sensations&mdash;for, indeed, they were most mingled&mdash;as she heard a
+slight cough from within the chamber, and, drawing nearer, perceived a
+female figure seated in front of one of the windows, calmly regarding the
+landscape.
+</p>
+<p>
+With a degree of noise and bustle sufficient to announce her approach,
+Lady Dorothea entered the tower; while the stranger, rising, retired one
+step, and courtesied very deeply. There was in all the humility of the
+obeisance a certain degree of graceful dignity that certainly struck her
+Ladyship; and her haughty look and haughtier tone were some little
+modified as she asked by what accident she found her there.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My intrusion was a pure accident, my Lady,&rdquo; replied the other, in a low,
+soft voice; &ldquo;mistaking the door by which I had entered a room, I wandered
+on through one after another until I found myself here. I beg your
+Ladyship to believe that nothing was further from my thoughts than to
+obtrude upon your privacy.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your name?&rdquo; began her Ladyship; and then, as suddenly correcting herself,
+she said, &ldquo;You are Miss Henderson, I suppose?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady,&rdquo; she replied, with a slight bend of the head.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I sent for you,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, in a half-careless tone, while she
+turned over some books on the table, as if in search of something,&mdash;&ldquo;I
+sent for you, partly at the request of your mother&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My stepmother, my Lady,&rdquo; interposed the girl, calmly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lady Dorothea stared at her for a second or two, as though to say, how had
+she dared to correct her; but either that the reproof had not met its full
+success, or that she did not care to pursue it, she added, &ldquo;At the request
+of your friends, and partly out of curiosity.&rdquo; And here Lady Dorothea
+raised her glass to her eye, and quietly surveyed her,&mdash;an
+examination which, it must be owned, none could have borne with more
+unshaken fortitude; not the slightest tremor of a limb, not the faintest
+change of color betokening that the ordeal was a painful one.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do see that you have been educated in France,&rdquo; said her Ladyship, with
+a smile of most supercilious import, while a courtesy from the young girl
+admitted the fact.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Were you brought up in Paris?&rdquo; asked she, after a pause.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;For four years, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the remainder of the time, where was it passed?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We travelled a great deal, my Lady, in Germany and Italy.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'We,'&mdash;who were the 'we' you speak of? Please to bear in mind that I
+know nothing of your history.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I forgot that, my Lady. I thought my stepmother had, perhaps, informed
+your Ladyship.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of nothing whatever, child,&rdquo; said she, haughtily, &ldquo;save of your having a
+foreign education, and wishing, or hoping, to find some engagement as a
+governess or a teacher;&rdquo; and the last words were drawled out languidly, as
+though they were suggestive of all that was wearisome and a bore. &ldquo;So you
+must be good enough to explain who 'we' were.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Duchesse de Luygnes and her family, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You travelled with them; and in what capacity, pray?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was called companion to the Princesse de Courcelles, the eldest
+daughter of the Duchess, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Companion!&mdash;why, you must have been a mere child at the time?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A mere child, my Lady; but they took me from the Pensionnat, to speak
+English with the young Princess.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And then they took the charge of your education, I conclude?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And to what extent&mdash;or rather, in what direction; I mean, what
+object had they in view in choosing your studies?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They gave me the same masters as to the young Princess, my Lady; and I
+was instructed in all respects as she was.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And treated like her also, I conclude?&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, with a
+sneering smile.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Madame la Duchesse was ever most kind to me,&rdquo; said the girl, half
+proudly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Kind&mdash;yes, of course&mdash;kind, if you conducted yourself properly
+and to her satisfaction. A person of her condition would be kind; but I
+trust this did not proceed so far as to spoil you? I hope it never made
+you forget your station?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I trust it did not, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;With what part of the establishment did you live? Where did you dine?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;With the Princess, my Lady; except on <i>fête</i> days, when we were
+invited to the table of the Duchess.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never heard of anything more absurd,&mdash;outrageously absurd. Why,
+are you aware, young woman, that these same friends of yours have done you
+irreparable mischief? They have, so to say, ruined your entire future; for
+how can I, and others in my station, avail myself of your services, with
+such habits and expectations as these?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly not expectations, my Lady. I never did or can expect such
+condescension from another.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No matter; your head is filled with ideas unbefitting your condition,
+usages, habits, associations, all foreign to a menial station. You have
+been admitted to privileges the want of which would be felt as hardships.
+In fact, as I said before, they have done you irreparable injury. You must
+feel it yourself.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A very faint smile, half in deprecation of the appeal, was the only reply
+of the young girl.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are certain to feel it later on in life, if you are not sensible of
+it at present, that I can vouch for, young woman,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea,
+with all the firmness with which she could utter an unpleasant speech.
+&ldquo;Nothing but unhappiness ever resulted from such ill-judged indulgence.
+Indeed, if your mother had mentioned the circumstances, I scarcely think I
+should have sent for you&rdquo;&mdash;she paused to see if any strong signs of
+contrite sorrow displayed themselves in the young girl's features; none
+such were there, and Lady Dorothea more sternly added,&mdash;&ldquo;I may safely
+say, I never should have asked to see you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+When a speech meant to be severe has failed to inflict the pain it was
+intended to produce, it invariably recoils with redoubled power upon him
+who uttered it; and so Lady Dorothea now felt all the pang of her own
+ungenerous sentiment. With an effort to shake off this unpleasant
+sensation, she resumed,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I might go further, and observe that unless you yourself became
+thoroughly penetrated with the fact, you must always prove very unsuitable
+to the station you are destined to occupy in life. Do you understand me?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe I do, my Lady,&rdquo; was the calm reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And also,&rdquo; resumed she, still more dictatorially&mdash;&ldquo;and also, that
+acquiring this knowledge by yourself will be less painful to your feelings
+than if impressed upon you by others. Do you fully apprehend me?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think so, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Now, although the tone and manner of the young girl were unexceptionable
+in all that regards deference and respect, Lady Dorothea was not a little
+provoked at her unbroken composure. There was no confusion, not even a
+semblance of constraint about her. She replied to even sarcastic questions
+without the faintest shadow of irritation, and exhibited throughout the
+most perfect quietude and good breeding. Had the &ldquo;young person&rdquo; been
+overwhelmed with shame, or betrayed into any access of temper, her
+Ladyship's manner would have presented a pattern of haughty dignity and
+gracefulness, and her rebukes would have been delivered in a tone of
+queen-like superiority; but Miss Henderson afforded no opportunity for
+these great qualities. She was deference itself; but deference so
+self-possessed, so assured of its own safeguard, as to be positively
+provoking.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Under all these circumstances, therefore,&rdquo; resumed Lady Dorothea, as if
+having revolved mighty thoughts within her mind, &ldquo;it appears to me you
+would not suit me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+But even this speech failed to call up one trait of disappointment, and
+the young girl received it with only a deep courtesy.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm sorry for it,&rdquo; continued my Lady, &ldquo;on your mother's account; your
+education has of course cost her and your father many sacrifices, which
+your duty requires you to repay.&rdquo; She paused, as if asking for some assent
+to this speech.
+</p>
+<p>
+Another deep courtesy was the reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There, that will do,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, angrily; for any attempt to
+provoke seemed an utter failure. &ldquo;I think I have nothing more to say. When
+I shall see your mother I can explain more fully to her. Good-morning.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish your Ladyship good-morning,&rdquo; said the girl, with a deep obeisance,
+and in a voice of perfect deference, while she retired towards the door.
+Before she had reached it, however, Lady Dorothea again addressed her.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You forgot, I think, to tell me why you left the Duchesse de Luygnes?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I left on the marriage of the Princess, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I remember; she married a Russian, I think.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, my Lady; she married the Duc de Mirecourt, French Ambassador at St.
+Petersburg.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, to be sure. I knew there was something Russian about it. And so they
+sent you away then?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Duchess most kindly invited me to accompany her, my Lady, but my
+father desired I should return to Ireland.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And very properly,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea; &ldquo;he took a most just view of the
+case; your position would only have exposed you to great perils. I'm sure
+you are not of my opinion, for distrust of yourself does not appear one of
+your failings.&rdquo;&mdash;It is possible that this ungenerous remark was
+evoked by a very slight curl of the young girl's lip, and which, faint as
+it was, did not escape her Ladyship's keen glances.&mdash;&ldquo;Good-morning.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Again had Miss Henderson gained the door; her hand was already on the
+lock, when her Ladyship called out: &ldquo;In the event of anything occurring to
+me likely to suit you, I ought to know what you can teach; and mind, don't
+bore me with a mere catalogue of hard names, but say what you really
+know.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Some modern languages, my Lady, with music.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No Greek or Latin?&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, half sneer-ingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Latin, perhaps; but though I can read some Greek, I could not venture to
+teach it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor Hebrew?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the modern tongues,&mdash;which of them do you profess to know?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;French, Italian, Spanish, and German.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And don't you draw?&mdash;they showed me what they called yours.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady, but I cannot teach drawing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And of course you are thoroughly versed in history. Have you studied any
+scientific subjects?&mdash;mathematics, for instance.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Only a few of the French initial books, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, you are quite an Admirable Crichton for acquirement. I feel really
+abashed to find myself in such company.&rdquo; But even this coarse speech
+failed to irritate, and Lady Dorothea walked angrily towards the window
+and looked out.
+</p>
+<p>
+It so chanced that, through an opening of the wood, she caught sight of a
+large assemblage of workpeople, who, headed by Miss Martin on horseback,
+were on their way to the quarries; and as she looked, a sudden thought
+flashed across her: &ldquo;Why not retain the 'young person' as a companion for
+her niece? How admirably would all this girl's knowledge contrast with
+Mary's ignorance! What an unceasing source of disparagement would their
+contact afford, at the very moment that the arrangement might seem
+dictated by the very best and highest of motives.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It may doubtless appear to many, that the individual who could reason thus
+must be animated by a most corrupt and depraved nature, but unhappily the
+spiteful element in the human heart is one which never measures its modes
+of attack, but suffers itself to be led on, from acts of mere petty malice
+to actions of downright baseness and badness. Lady Dorothea was not devoid
+of good traits, but once involved in a pursuit, she totally forgot the
+object which originally suggested it, but engaged all her zeal and all her
+ardor for success. She would have been shocked at the bare possibility of
+actually injuring her niece; she would have resented with indignation the
+mere mention of such; but yet she would have eagerly grasped at whatever
+afforded a chance of dominating over her. Mary's influence in the
+household&mdash;her rule over the peasantry of the estate&mdash;was a
+perpetual source of annoyance to her Ladyship, and yet she never knew how
+to thwart it, till now that chance seemed to offer this means.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You need not go back just yet: I 'll speak to Mr. Martin about you,&rdquo; said
+she, turning towards Miss Henderson; and, with a respectful courtesy, the
+girl withdrew, leaving her Ladyship to her own somewhat complicated
+reflections.
+</p>
+<p>
+In less than half an hour after Lady Dorothea proceeded to Mr. Martin's
+study, where a cabinet council was held, the substance of which our reader
+can readily conceive; nor need he have any doubts as to the decision, when
+we say that Lady Dorothea retired to her own room with a look of
+satisfaction so palpably displayed that Mademoiselle Hortense, her maid,
+remarked to herself, &ldquo;Somebody or other was sure to pass a <i>mauvais
+quart d'heure</i> when <i>miladi</i> goes to her room with an air of such
+triumphant meaning as that.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XIII. &ldquo;A HOUSEKEEPER'S ROOM&rdquo;
+ </h2>
+<p>
+Cro' Martin was replete with every comfort and luxury. All its
+arrangements betokened wealth; not a single appliance of ease or enjoyment
+but was to be found within its well-ordered walls; and yet there was one
+want which seemed to mar all, and infuse a sense of almost dreary coldness
+over everything, and this was&mdash;the absence of a numerous family, the
+assemblage of various ages, which gives to a home its peculiar interest,
+embodying the hopes and fears and passions and motives of manhood, in
+every stage of existence, making up that little world within doors which
+emblematizes the great one without; but, with this singular advantage, of
+its being bound up in one holy sentiment of mutual love and affection.
+</p>
+<p>
+This charm is it which gives the whole vitality to home,&mdash;this
+mingling of the temperaments of youth and manhood and deep age, blending
+hopes of the future with memories of the past, and making of every heart a
+portion of one human biography, in which many are sharers. To the
+stranger, who came to see the house and its gorgeous decorations, all
+seemed suggestive of habitable enjoyment. The vast drawing-rooms appeared
+as if only waiting for a splendid company; the dark wainscoted
+dining-room, with its noble fireplace of gigantic dimensions, looked the
+very scene where hospitable conviviality might be enacted; the library,
+calm, quiet, and secluded, seemed a spot wherein a student might have
+passed a life long. Even in the views that presented themselves at the
+several windows, there was a certain appropriateness to the character of
+the room, and the same importunate question still arose to one's mind: Who
+is there to enjoy all this? What words of glad welcome echo through this
+vaulted hall, what happy daughter sings through these gilded chambers,
+where is the social pleasantry that circles the blazing fire of the ample
+hearth? Alas! all was sombre, splendid, and dreary. No, we are wrong!&mdash;not
+all! There was one corner of this great house where cheerfulness was the
+very type of comfort. It was a small and not lofty room, whose two windows
+projected beyond the walls, giving a wide view over the swelling landscape
+for miles of space. Here the furniture was of the most ordinary kind, but
+scrupulously neat and well kept. The chairs&mdash;there were but four of
+them&mdash;all with arms and deep cushions; the walnut table a perfect
+mirror of polish; the cloth curtains, that closed the windows and
+concealed the door, massive and heavy-folded,&mdash;all breathed of
+snugness; while the screen that surrounded the fire had other perfections
+than those of comfortable seclusion, containing a most strange collection
+of the caricatures of the time, and the period before the Union. It is but
+necessary to add that this was Mrs. Broon's apartment,&mdash;the snug
+chamber where old Catty enjoyed herself, after the fatigues and duties of
+the day. Here now she sat at tea, beside a cheerful fire, the hissing
+kettle on the hob harmonizing pleasantly with the happy purring of an
+enormous cat, who sat winking at the blaze; and while evidently
+inconvenienced by the heat, lacking energy to retreat from it. Catty had
+just obtained the newspaper,&mdash;as the master had gone to dinner,&mdash;and
+was really about to enjoy a comfortable evening. Far from devoid of social
+qualities, or a liking for companionship, she still lived almost entirely
+to herself, the other servants being chiefly English, whose habits and
+ways were all strange to her, and all whose associations were widely
+different from her own. Catty Broon had thus obtained a reputation for
+unsociability which she by no means deserved, but to which, it must be
+owned, she was totally indifferent. In fact, if <i>they</i> deemed <i>her</i>
+morose and disagreeable, <i>she</i>, in turn, held <i>them</i> still more
+cheaply, calling them a set of lazy devils that &ldquo;were only in each other's
+way,&rdquo; and &ldquo;half of them not worth their salt.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Catty had also survived her generation; all her friends of former years
+had either died or emigrated, and except two or three of the
+farm-servants, none of the &ldquo;ould stock,&rdquo; as she called them, were in
+existence. This brief explanation will show that Catty's comparative
+isolation was not entirely a matter of choice. If a sense of loneliness
+did now and then cross her mind, she never suffered it to dwell there, but
+chased away the unpleasant thought by some active duty; or if the season
+of that were over, by the amusing columns of the &ldquo;Intelligence,&rdquo;&mdash;a
+journal which realized to Mrs. Broon's conceptions the very highest order
+of literary merit.
+</p>
+<p>
+Catty did not take much interest in politics; she had a vague, dreamy kind
+of notion that the game of party was a kind of disreputable gambling, and
+Parliament itself little better than a &ldquo;Hell,&rdquo; frequented by very
+indifferent company. Indeed, she often said it would be &ldquo;well for us if
+there was no politics, and maybe then, there would be no taxes either.&rdquo;
+ The news she liked was the price of farming-stock at fairs and markets,&mdash;what
+Mr. Hynes got for his &ldquo;top lot&rdquo; of hoggets, and what Tom Healey paid for
+the &ldquo;finest heifers ever seen on the fair-green.&rdquo; These, and the accidents&mdash;a
+deeply interesting column&mdash;were her peculiar tastes; and her memory
+was stored with every casualty, by sea, fire, and violence, that had
+graced the &ldquo;Intelligence&rdquo; for forty years back; in truth they formed the
+stations of her chronology, and she would refer to events as having
+occurred the same year that Joe Ryan was hanged, or &ldquo;the very Christmas
+that Hogan fired at Captain Crossley.&rdquo; An inundation of great extent also
+figured in these memorabilia, and was constantly referred to, by her
+saying, &ldquo;This or that happened the year after the Flood,&rdquo; suggesting a
+rather startling impression as to her longevity.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the evening we now refer to, the newspaper was more than commonly
+adorned with these incidents. Public news having failed, private
+calamities were invoked to supply the place. Catty was, therefore,
+fortunate. There was something, too, not altogether unpleasant in the
+whistling storm that raged without, and the heavy plashing of the rain as
+it beat upon the window-panes. Without imputing to her, as would be most
+unjust, the slightest touch of ill-nature, she felt a heightened sense of
+her own snugness as she drew closer to the bright hearth, while she read
+of &ldquo;a dreadful gale in the Bay of Biscay.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It was just in the most exciting portion of the description that her door
+was rudely opened, and the heavy curtain dashed aside with a daring hand;
+and Catty, startled by the sudden interruption, called angrily out,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who's there?&mdash;who are ye at all?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can't you guess, Catty?&rdquo; cried out a pleasant voice. &ldquo;Don't you know that
+there's only one in this house here who 'd dare to enter in such a
+fashion?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, Miss Mary, is it you? And, blessed Virgin, what a state ye 're in!&rdquo;
+ cried she, as she gazed at the young girl, who, throwing away her
+riding-hat, wrung out the rain from her long and silky hair, while she
+laughed merrily at old Catty's dismayed countenance.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, where in the world were you&mdash;what happened you, darling?&rdquo; said
+Catty, as she assisted her to remove the dripping costume.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was at the Wood, Catty, and up to the quarries, and round by Cronebawn,
+and then, seeing a storm gathering, I thought I 'd turn homeward, but one
+of Kit Sullivan's children&mdash;my little godchild, you know&mdash;detained
+me to hear him recite some verses he had learned for my birthday; and,
+what with one thing and another, it was pitch dark when I reached the 'New
+Cut,' and then, to my annoyance, I found the bridge had just been carried
+away&mdash;there, Catty, now for a pair of your own comfortable slippers&mdash;and,
+as I was saying to you, there was no bridge!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The bridge gone!&rdquo; exclaimed Catty, in horror.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;All Tom Healey's fault. I told him that the arch had not span enough, and
+that the buttresses would never stand the first heavy fall of rain from
+the mountains, and there 's not a vestige of them now!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what did you do?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I rode for the Low Meadows, Catty, with all speed. I knew that the river,
+not being confined there between narrow banks, and spreading over a wide
+surface, couldn't be very deep. Nor was it. It never touched the girths
+but once, when we got into a hole. But she is such a rare good beast, that
+little Sorrel; she dashed through everything, and I don't think I took
+forty minutes from Kane's Mill to this door, though I never saw a spot of
+the road all the while, except when the lightning showed it. There now,
+like a good old dear, don't wring your hands and say, 'Blessed hour!' but
+just put some more tea in the teapot, and fetch me your brown loaf!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But surely you 'll die of cold!&mdash;you 'll be in a fever!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nonsense, Catty; I have been out in rain before this. I'm more provoked
+about that bridge than all else. My excellent aunt will have such a laugh
+at my engineering skill, when she hears of it. Can't be helped, however.
+And so there's a dinner-party upstairs, I hear. Fanny told me there were
+three strangers.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So I hear. There's a lawyer from Dublin; and a lady from I don't know
+where; and young Nelligan, old Dan's son. I 'm sure I never thought I 'd
+see the day he 'd be eating his dinner at Cro' Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And why not, Catty? What is there in his manners and conduct that should
+not make him good company for any one here?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is n't he the son of a little huckster in Oughterard? Old Dan, that I
+remember without a shoe to his foot?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And is it a reproach to him that he has made a fortune by years of
+patient industry and toil?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In-dus-try! toil! indeed,&rdquo; said Catty, sneeringly. &ldquo;How much in-dus-try
+or toil there is, weighing out snuff and sugar in a snug shop. Ayeh! he's
+an old nig-gar, the same Dan. I know him well.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But that is no reason why you should disparage his son, Catty, who is a
+young gentleman of the highest ability and great promise. I never heard
+you speak so ungenerously before.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, darling, don't look angry with your ould Catty, anyway. It
+isn't for the like of Dan Nelligan, or his son either, you'd be cross with
+<i>me!</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never, Catty, never,&mdash;for anybody or anything,&rdquo; said the young girl,
+taking her hand with both her own. &ldquo;But you have n't told me who the lady
+is. How did she arrive, and when?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know nothing of her. Peter came to say that the blue bedroom was
+wanting to-night, and he wished to torment me into asking who for?&mdash;but
+I wouldn't, just for that same; and so I gave him the keys without a
+word.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wonder if this note, that I found on my dressing-table, will explain
+anything,&rdquo; said Mary, as she proceeded to break the seal. &ldquo;Of all the
+absurd ways of my Lady aunt, she has not a more ridiculous one than this
+trick of writing little notes, instead of speaking. She sees me every day,
+and might surely say whatever she wanted to say, without embalming it in a
+despatch. This, I perceive, is number four hundred and seventy-six, and I
+presume she 's correct in the score. Only think, Catty,&mdash;four hundred
+little epistles like this!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And with these words she carelessly unfolded the letter and began to read
+it. All her indifference of manner, however, soon gave way to an
+expression of considerable eagerness, and she had no sooner finished the
+epistle than she recommenced and reread it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You 'd never guess what tidings this brings me, Catty,&rdquo; said she, laying
+down the paper, and looking with an expression half sad, half comical.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maybe I might, then,&rdquo; said Catty, shaking her head knowingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, out with your guess, then, old lady, and I promise to venerate your
+wisdom ever after if you be right,&mdash;that is, if nobody has already
+given you a hint on the subject.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not one in the world,&rdquo; said Catty, solemnly; &ldquo;I pledge you my word and
+faith I never heard a syllable about it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;About it! about what?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;About what's in the letter there,&rdquo; said Catty, stoutly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are therefore quite certain that you know it,&rdquo; said Mary, smiling,
+&ldquo;so now let's have your interpretation.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It 's a proposial,&rdquo; said Catty, with a slight wink.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A what!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A proposial&mdash;of marriage, I mean.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+But before the words were out, Mary burst into a fit of laughter, so
+hearty and with such good-will that poor Catty felt perfectly ashamed of
+herself.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear Catty,&rdquo; said she, at length, &ldquo;you must have been reading fairy
+tales this morning; nothing short of such bright literature could have
+filled your mind with these imaginings. The object of the note is, I
+assure you, of a quite different kind;&rdquo; and here she ran her eye once more
+over the epistle. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; continued she, &ldquo;it is written in my dear aunt's
+own peculiar style, and begins with a 'declaratory clause,' as I think Mr.
+Scanlan would call it, expressive of my lamentably neglected education,
+and then proceeds to the appropriate remedy, by telling me that I am to
+have a governess!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A what!&rdquo; cried Catty, in angry amazement.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A governess, Catty,&mdash;not a governor, as you suspected.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ayeh, ayeh!&rdquo; cried the old woman, wringing her hands; &ldquo;what's this for?
+Don't you know how to govern yourself by this time? And what can they
+teach you that you don't understand already?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, my dear Catty,&rdquo; said the young girl, sadly, &ldquo;it is a sad subject you
+would open there,&mdash;one that I have wept over many a dreary hour! No
+one knows&mdash;no one even could guess&mdash;how deeply I have deplored
+my illiterate condition. Nor was it,&rdquo; added she, ardently, &ldquo;till I had
+fashioned out a kind of existence of my own&mdash;active, useful, and
+energetic&mdash;that I could bury the thought of my utter want of
+education. Not even you, Catty, could fathom all the tears this theme has
+cost me, nor with what a sinking of the heart I have thought over my
+actual unfitness for my station.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Arrah, don't provoke me! don't drive me mad!&rdquo; cried the old woman, in
+real anger. &ldquo;There never was one yet as fit for the highest place as
+yourself; and it is n't me alone that says it, but hundreds of&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hundreds of dear, kind, loving hearts,&rdquo; broke in Mary, &ldquo;that would
+measure my poor capacity by my will to serve them. But no matter, Catty; I
+'ll not try to undeceive them. They shall think of me with every help
+their own affection may lend them, and I will not love them less for the
+overestimate.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+As she spoke these words, she buried her face between her hands; but the
+quick heaving of her chest showed how deep was her emotion. The old woman
+respected her sorrow too deeply to interrupt her, and for several minutes
+not a word was spoken on either side. At last Mary raised her head, and
+throwing back the long, loose hair, which in heavy masses shaded her face,
+said with a firm and resolute voice,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'd have courage to go to school to-morrow, Catty, and begin as a mere
+child to learn, if I knew that another was ready to take my place here.
+But who is to look after these poor people, who are accustomed now to see
+me amongst them, on the mountains, in the fields, at their firesides?&mdash;who
+gain new spirit for labor when I ride down in the midst of them, and look
+up, cheered, by seeing me, even from a sick-bed. Her Ladyship would say,
+Mr. Henderson could do all this far better than myself.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Henderson, indeed!&rdquo; exclaimed Catty, indignantly; &ldquo;the smooth-tongued
+old rogue!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And perhaps he might, in England,&rdquo; resumed Mary; &ldquo;but not here, Catty,&mdash;not
+here! We care less for benefits than the source from which they spring. We
+Irish cherish the love of motives as well as actions; and, above all, we
+cherish the links that bind the lowliest in the land with the highest, and
+make both better by the union.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+She poured out these words with rapid impetuosity, rather talking to
+herself than addressing her companion; then, suddenly changing her tone,
+she added,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Besides, Catty, <i>they</i> are used to me, and <i>I</i> to <i>them</i>.
+A new face and a new voice would not bring the same comfort to them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never, never,&rdquo; muttered the old woman to herself.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I 'll not desert them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That you won't, darling,&rdquo; said the old woman, kissing her hand
+passionately, while tears swam in her eyes, and trickled down her cheeks.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is but one thought, Catty, that makes me at all faint-hearted about
+this, and whenever it crosses me I do feel very low and depressed.&rdquo; She
+paused, and then murmured the words, &ldquo;My father!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your father, my darling! What about <i>him?</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is thinking, Catty, of his return; an event that ought to be&mdash;and
+would be, too&mdash;the very happiest of my life; a day for whose coming I
+never sleep without a prayer; and yet, even this bright prospect has its
+dark side, when I recall all my own deficiencies, and how different he
+will find his daughter from what he had expected her.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;May the blessed saints grant me patience!&rdquo; cried Catty, breaking in.
+&ldquo;Isn't it too bad to hear you talking this way? Sure, don't I know Master
+Barry well? Didn't I nurse him, and wasn't I all as one as his own mother
+to him, and don't I know that you are his own born image? 'Tis himself and
+no other ye are every minute of the day.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And even that, Catty,&rdquo; said Mary, smiling, &ldquo;might fail to satisfy him. It
+is something very different indeed he might have imagined his daughter.
+I'm sure nobody can be more ignorant than I am, of what a person in my
+station ought to know. I cannot hide this from myself in my sad moments. I
+do not try to do so, but I have always relied upon the consolation that,
+to an existence such as mine is like to be, these deficiencies do not
+bring the same sense of shame, the same painful consciousness of
+inferiority, as if I were to mingle with the world of my equals. But if he
+were to come back,&mdash;he, who has seen society in every shape and
+fashion,&mdash;and find me the poor, unlettered, unread, untaught thing I
+am, unable to follow his very descriptions of far-away lands without
+confusion and mistake; unable to benefit by his reflections from very want
+of previous knowledge,&mdash;oh, Catty dearest, what a miserable thing is
+self-love after all, when it should thus thrust itself into the
+foreground, where very different affections alone should have the place.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He 'd love you like his own heart,&rdquo; said Catty. &ldquo;Nobody knows him like
+me; and if there was ever one made for him to dote on, it's your own
+self.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you indeed think so?&rdquo; cried Mary, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do I know it&mdash;could I swear it?&rdquo; said Catty. &ldquo;He was never much
+given to study himself, except it was books of travel like 'Robinson
+Crusoe,' and the like; and then, after reading one of them books he 'd be
+off for days together, and we 'd be looking for him over the whole
+country, and maybe find him in the middle of Kyle's Wood up a tree; or
+once, indeed, it was in the island of Lettermullen we got him. He built a
+mud-house, and was living there with a goat and two rabbits that he reared
+himself, and if he was n't miserable when they brought him away home! I
+remember his words well,&mdash;'Maybe,' says he, 'the time will come that
+I 'll go where you can't come after me;' and ye see that's what he's done,
+for nobody knows where he wasn't wandering these last eight or nine
+years.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+When Catty got upon this theme she could not be brought to quit it,&mdash;nor,
+indeed, did Mary try,&mdash;for though she had heard these stories of her
+father's boyish days over and over again, she never wearied of them; they
+had all the fascination of romance for her, with the stronger interest
+that grew out of her love for one who, she was told, had so loved herself.
+Besides this, she felt in her own heart the same promptings to a life of
+action and adventure. All the incidents and accidents of an eventful
+existence were the very things to delight her, and one of her happiest
+daydreams was to fancy herself her father's companion in his wanderings by
+flood and field.
+</p>
+<p>
+And thus they sat till a late hour of the night talking and listening, old
+Catty answering each inquiry of the young girl by some anecdote or trait
+of him she still persisted in calling &ldquo;Master Barry,&rdquo; till, in the ardor
+of listening, Mary herself caught up the phrase, and so designated her own
+father.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How unlike my uncle in everything!&rdquo; exclaimed Mary, as she reflected over
+some traits the old woman had just recorded. &ldquo;And were they not very fond
+of each other?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That they were: at least I can answer for Master Barry's love; and to be
+sure, if having a reason was worth anything, your uncle ought to love him
+more than one man ever did another.&rdquo; Old Catty uttered these words with a
+slow and almost muttering accent; they seemed as if the expression of a
+thought delivered involuntarily&mdash;almost unconsciously.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary was attracted by the unwonted solemnity of her accent, but still more
+by an expression of intense meaning which gathered over the old woman's
+brows and forehead. &ldquo;Ay, ay,&rdquo; muttered she, still to herself, &ldquo;there's few
+brothers would do it. Maybe there's not another living but himself would
+have done it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what was it, Catty?&rdquo; asked Mary, boldly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh!&mdash;what was I saying, darling?&rdquo; said Catty, rousing herself to
+full consciousness.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You were telling of my father, and some great proof of affection he gave
+my uncle.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure he did,&rdquo; said the old woman, hastily. &ldquo;They were always fond
+of each other, as brothers ought to be.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But this one particular instance of love,&mdash;what was it, Catty?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The old woman started, and looked eagerly around the room, as though to
+assure herself that they were alone; then, drawing her chair close to
+Mary's, she said, in a low voice: &ldquo;Don't ask me any more about them
+things, darling. 'T is past and gone many a year now, and I 'd rather
+never think of it more, for I 've a heavy heart after it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So, then, it is a secret, Catty?&rdquo; said Mary, half proudly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A secret, indeed,&rdquo; said Catty, shaking her head mournfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you need only to have said so, and I'd not have importuned you to
+tell it; for, to say truth, Catty, I never knew you had any secrets from
+me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor have I another, except this, darling,&rdquo; said Catty; and she buried her
+face within her hands. And now both sat in silence for some minutes,&mdash;a
+most painful silence to each. At last Mary arose, and, although evidently
+trying to overcome it, a feeling of constraint was marked in her features.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You'd never guess how late it is, Catty,&rdquo; said she, trying to change the
+current of her thoughts. &ldquo;You 'd not believe it is past three o'clock; how
+pleasantly we must have talked, to forget time in this way!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+But the old woman made no reply, and it was clear that she had never heard
+the words, so deeply was she sunk in her own reflections.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This poor hat of mine will scarcely do another day's service,&rdquo; said Mary,
+as she looked at it half laughingly. &ldquo;Nor is my habit the fresher of its
+bath in the 'Red River;' and the worst of it is, Catty, I have overdrawn
+my quarter's allowance, and must live on, in rags, till Easter. I see, old
+lady, you have no sympathies to waste on me and my calamities this
+evening,&rdquo; added she, gayly, &ldquo;and so I'll just go to bed and, if I can,
+dream pleasantly.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rags, indeed,&rdquo; said Catty. &ldquo;It's well it becomes you to wear rags!&rdquo; and
+her eyes sparkled with indignant passion. &ldquo;Faith, if it comes to that,&rdquo;&mdash;here
+she suddenly paused, and a pale hue spread over her features like a qualm
+of faintish sickness,&mdash;&ldquo;may the Holy Mother give me help and advice;
+for sometimes I'm nigh forgetting myself!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear old Catty,&rdquo; said Mary, fondly, &ldquo;don't fret about me and my
+foolish speech. I only said it in jest. I have everything,&mdash;far more
+than I want; a thousand times more than I desire. And my excellent aunt
+never said a truer thing in her life than when she declared that
+'everybody spoiled me.' Now, good-night.&rdquo; And kissing the old woman
+affectionately, Mary gathered up the stray fragments of her riding-gear,
+and hurried away, her merry voice heard cheerfully as she wended her way
+up many a stair and gallery to her own chamber.
+</p>
+<p>
+If Mary Martin's character had any one quality preeminently remarkable, it
+was the absence of everything like distrust and suspicion. Frankness and
+candor itself in all her dealings, she never condescended to impute secret
+motives to another; and the very thought of anything like mystery was
+absolutely repugant to her nature. For the very first time in her life,
+then, she left old Catty Broon with a kind of uneasy, dissatisfied
+impression. There was a secret, and she was somehow or other concerned in
+it; so much was clear. How could she convince the old woman that no
+revelation, however disagreeable in itself, could be as torturing as a
+doubt? &ldquo;Can there be anything in my position or circumstances here that I
+am not aware of? Is there a mystery about me in any way?&rdquo; The very
+imagination of such a thing was agony. In vain she tried to chase away the
+unwelcome thought by singing, as she went, by thinking over plans for the
+morrow, by noting down, as she did each night, some stray records of the
+past day; still Catty's agitated face and strange emotion rose before her,
+and would not suffer her to be at rest.
+</p>
+<p>
+To a day of great excitement and fatigue now succeeded a sleepless,
+feverish night, and morning broke on her unrefreshed, and even ill.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XIV. A FINE OLD IRISH BARRISTER
+</h2>
+<p>
+Can any one tell us what has become of that high conversational power for
+which Ireland, but more especially Dublin, was once celebrated? Have the
+brilliant talkers of other days left no successors? Has that race of
+delightful con-vivialists gone and disappeared forever? Or are we only
+enduring an interregnum of dulness, the fit repose, perhaps, after a
+period of such excitement? The altered circumstances of the country will
+doubtless account for much of this change. The presence of a Parliament in
+Ireland imparted a dignity and importance to society, while it secured to
+social intercourse the men who made that Senate illustrious. The Bar, too,
+of former days, was essentially the career of the highest class, of those
+who had the ambition of political success without the necessity of toiling
+for it through the laborious paths of the law; and thus the wit, the
+brilliancy, and the readiness which gives conversation its charm, obtained
+the high culture which comes of a learned profession, and the social
+intercourse with men of refined understanding.
+</p>
+<p>
+With the Union this spirit died out. Some of the brightest and gayest
+retired from the world, sad, dispirited, and depressed; some felt that a
+new and very different career was to open before them, and addressed
+themselves to the task of conforming to new habits and acquiring new
+influences; and others, again, sought in the richer and greater country
+the rewards which they once were satisfied to reap in their own. With the
+Union, society in Dublin&mdash;using the word in its really comprehensive
+sense&mdash;ceased to exist. The great interests of a nation departed, men
+sank to the level of the small topics that engaged them, and gradually the
+smallest and narrowest views of mere local matters usurped the place of
+great events and liberal speculations. Towards the end of the first
+quarter of the present century, a few of those who had once made
+companionship with Curran and Grattan and Lysaght and Parsons were still
+in good health and vigor. A fine, high-hearted, manly class they were,
+full of that peculiar generosity of character which has ever marked the
+true Irish gentleman, and with a readiness in humor and a genial flow of
+pleasantry which rendered their society delightful.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of this school&mdash;and probably the last, for he was then the Father of
+the Bar&mdash;was Valentine Repton, a man whose abilities might have won
+for him the very highest distinctions, but who, partly through indolence,
+and partly through a sturdy desire to be independent of all party, had all
+his life rejected every offer of advancement, and had seen his juniors
+pass on to the highest ranks of the profession, while he still wore his
+stuff-gown, and rose to address the Court from the outer benches.
+</p>
+<p>
+He was reported in early life to have professed very democratic opinions,
+for which he more than once had incurred the <i>deep</i> displeasure of
+the authorities of the University. The principles of the French Revolution
+had, however, been gradually toned down in him by time, and probably by a
+very aristocratic contempt for the party who advocated them; so that soon
+after he entered on his career at the Bar he seemed to have abandoned
+politics; nor, except by a sly jest or an epigram upon a party leader, no
+matter of which side, did he ever advert to the contests of statecraft.
+</p>
+<p>
+Though closely approaching seventy, he was hale and vigorous, his gray
+eyes quick and full of fire, his voice clear, and his whole air and
+bearing that of one many years younger. He had been a &ldquo;beau&rdquo; in his youth,
+and there was in the accurately powdered hair, the lace ruffles in which
+he still appeared at dinner, and the well-fitting silk stocking, an
+evidence that he had not forgotten the attractions of dress. At the Bar he
+still maintained the very highest place. His powers of cross-examination
+were very great; his management of a jury unrivalled. A lifelong
+acquaintance with Dublin had familiarized him with the tone and temper of
+every class of its citizens, and had taught him the precise kind of
+argument, and the exact nature of the appeal to address to each. As he
+grew older, perhaps he did not observe all his wonted discretion in the
+use of this subtle power, and somewhat presumed upon his own skill. Nor
+was he so scrupulous in his deference to the Court,&mdash;a feature which
+had once pre-eminently distinguished him; but, upon the whole, he had kept
+wonderfully clear of the proverbial irritability of age, and was, without
+an exception, the favorite amongst his brethren.
+</p>
+<p>
+The only touch of years observable about his mind was a fondness for
+recurring to incidents or events in which he himself had borne a part. A
+case in which he held a brief, the dinner at which he had been brilliant,
+the epigram he had dashed off in Lady Somebody's drawing-room, were bright
+spots he could not refrain from adverting to; but, generally speaking, he
+had skill enough to introduce these without any seeming effort or any
+straining, and thus strangers, at least, were in wonderment at his endless
+stores of anecdote and illustration. No man better than he knew how to
+throw a great name into the course of a conversation, and make an audience
+for himself, by saying, &ldquo;I remember one day at the Priory with Curran&rdquo;&mdash;or,
+&ldquo;We were dining with poor Grattan at Tinnehinch, when&mdash;&rdquo; &ldquo;As Flood
+once remarked to me&mdash;&rdquo; and so on.
+</p>
+<p>
+The flattery of being addressed by one who had stood in such intimate
+relation to those illustrious men never failed of success. The most
+thoughtless and giddy hearers were at once arrested by such an opening,
+and Repton was sure of listeners in every company.
+</p>
+<p>
+The man who finds his place in every society is unquestionably a clever
+man. The aptitude to chime in with the tone of others infers a high order
+of humor,&mdash;of humor in its real sense; meaning, thereby, the faculty
+of appreciating, and even cultivating, the individual peculiarities of
+those around him, and deriving from their display a high order of
+pleasure.
+</p>
+<p>
+From these scattered traits let my reader conjure up Valentine Repton
+before him, and imagine the bustling, active, and brisk-looking old
+gentleman whose fidgetiness nearly drove Martin mad, as they held converse
+together in the library after breakfast. Now seated, now rising to pace
+the room, or drawing nigh the window to curse the pelting rain without,
+Repton seemed the incarnation of uneasiness.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very splendid&mdash;very grand&mdash;very sumptuous&mdash;no doubt,&rdquo; said
+he, ranging his eyes over the gorgeous decorations of the spacious
+apartment, &ldquo;but would kill me in a month; what am I saying?&mdash;in a
+week!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What would kill you, Repton?&rdquo; said Martin, languidly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This life of yours, Martin,&mdash;this sombre quiet, this unbroken
+stillness, this grave-like monotony. Why, man, where 's your neighborhood?
+where are your gentry friends?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cosby Blake, of Swainestown, is abroad,&rdquo; said Martin, with an indolent
+drawl. &ldquo;Randal Burke seldom comes down here now. Rickman, I believe, is in
+the Fleet. They were the nearest to us!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a country! and you are spending&mdash;What did you tell me last
+night,&mdash;was it upwards of ten thousand a year here?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What with planting, draining, bridging, reclaiming waste lands, and other
+improvements, the wages of last year alone exceeded seven thousand!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove! it 's nigh incredible,&rdquo; said the lawyer, energetically. &ldquo;My dear
+Martin, can't you perceive that all this is sheer waste,&mdash;so much
+good money actually thrown into Lough Corrib? Tell me, frankly, how long
+have you been pursuing this system of improvement?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;About three years; under Mary's management.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the results,&mdash;what of them?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is too early to speak of that; there's Kyle's Wood, for instance,&mdash;we
+have enclosed that at considerable cost. Of course we can't expect that
+the mere thinnings can repay us, the first year or two.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And your reclaimed land,&mdash;how has <i>it</i> prospered?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not over well. They pushed draining so far that they 've left a large
+tract perfectly barren and unproductive.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the harbor,&mdash;the pier I saw yesterday?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That 's a bad business,&mdash;it's filling up the bay with sand! but
+we'll alter it in summer.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now for the people themselves,&mdash;are they better off, better fed,
+clothed, housed, and looked after, than before?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mary says so. She tells me that there is a wonderful change for the
+better in them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't believe a word of it, Martin,&mdash;not a word of it. Ireland is
+not to be redeemed by her own gentry. The thing is sheer impossibility!
+They both know each other too well. Do you understand me? They are too
+ready to make allowances for shortcomings that have their source in some
+national prejudice; whereas your Saxon or your Scotchman would scout such
+a plea at once. Ireland wants an alternative, Martin,&mdash;an
+alternative; and, amidst our other anomalies, not the least singular is
+the fact that the Englishman, who knows nothing about us, nor ever will
+know anything, is precisely the man to better our condition.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;These are strange opinions to hear from your lips, Repton. I never heard
+any man so sarcastic as yourself on English ignorance regarding Ireland.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you may hear me again on the same theme whenever you vouchsafe me an
+audience,&rdquo; said the lawyer, sharply. &ldquo;It was but the other day I gave our
+newly arrived secretary, Mr. Muspratt, a gentle intimation of my
+sentiments on that score. We were dining at the Lodge. I sat next his
+Excellency, who, in the course of dinner, directed my attention to a very
+graphic picture the secretary was drawing of the misery he had witnessed
+that very day, coming up from Carlow. He did the thing well, I must own.
+He gave the famished looks, the rags, the wretchedness, all their due; and
+he mingled his pathos and indignation with all the skill of an artist;
+while he actually imparted a Raffaelle effect to his sketch, as he
+portrayed the halt, the maimed, the blind, and the palsied that crowded
+around the carriage as he changed horses, exclaiming, by way of
+peroration, 'Misery and destitution like this no man ever witnessed
+before, all real and unfeigned as it was sure to be.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Naas is a miserable place, indeed,' said I, for he looked directly
+towards me for a confirmation of his narrative.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'There is no denying one word the gentleman has said; I came up that way
+from circuit three weeks ago, and was beset in the same spot, and in the
+same manner as we have just heard. I can't attempt such a description as
+Mr. Muspratt has given us; but I will say that there was not a human
+deformity or defect that did n't appear to have its representative in that
+ragged gathering, all clamorous and eager for aid. I looked at them for a
+while in wonderment, and at last I threw out a &ldquo;tenpenny&rdquo; in the midst.
+The &ldquo;blind&rdquo; fellow saw it first, but the &ldquo;lame cripple&rdquo; had the foot of
+him, and got the money!'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Repton leaned back in his chair, and laughed heartily as he finished. &ldquo;I
+only wish you saw his face, Martin; and, indeed, his Excellency's too. The
+aides-de-camp laughed; they were very young, and could n't help it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He 'll not make you a chief justice, Repton,&rdquo; said Martin, slyly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll take care he don't,&rdquo; said the other. &ldquo;<i>Summum jus summa injuria</i>.
+The chief justice is a great humbug, or a great abuse, whichever way you
+like to render it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet they'd be glad to promote you,&rdquo; said Martin, thoughtfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure they would, sir; delighted to place me where they had no fear
+of my indiscretions. But your judge should be ever a grave animal. The
+temptation to a joke should never sit on the ermine. As Flood once
+remarked to me of old Romney, 'A man, sir,' said he,&mdash;and Flood had a
+semi-sarcastic solemnity always about him,&mdash;'a man, sir, who has
+reversed the law of physics; for he rose by his gravity, and only fell by
+his lightness.' Very epigrammatic and sharp, that. Ah, Martin, they don't
+say these things nowadays. By the way, who is the young fellow who dined
+with us yesterday?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;His name is Nelligan; the son of one of our Oughterard neighbors.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pleasing manners, gentle, too, and observant,&rdquo; said Repton, with the tone
+of one delivering a judgment to be recorded.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He's more than that,&rdquo; said Martin; &ldquo;he is the great prize man of the year
+in Trinity. You must have surely heard of his name up in town.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think somebody did speak of him to me,&mdash;recommend him, in some
+shape or other,&rdquo; said Repton, abstractedly; &ldquo;these things are so easily
+forgotten; for, to say the truth, I hold very cheaply all intellectual
+efforts accomplished by great preparation. The cramming, the grinding, the
+plodding, the artificial memory work, and the rest of it, detract
+terribly, in my estimation, from the glory of success. Give me your man of
+impromptu readiness, never unprepared, never at a loss. The very
+consciousness of power is double power.&rdquo; And as he spoke he drew himself
+up, threw his head back, and stared steadfastly at Martin, as though to
+say, &ldquo;Such is he who now stands before you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin was amused at the display of vanity, and had there been another
+there to have participated in the enjoyment, would have willingly
+encouraged him to continue the theme; but he was alone, and let it pass.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll make a note of that young man. Mulligan, is n't it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nelligan.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure. I 'll remember poor Curran's epigram:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+'Oh, pity poor Tom Nelligan!
+Who walking down Pall Mall,
+He slipt his foot,
+And down he fell,
+And fears he won't get well again.'
+</pre>
+<p>
+Glorious fellow, sir; the greatest of all the convivialists of his time,
+was Curran. A host in himself; but, as he once said, you could n't always
+depend on the 'elevation.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin smiled faintly; he relished the lawyer's talk, but he felt that it
+demanded an amount of attention on his part that wearied him. Anything
+that cost him trouble was more or less of a &ldquo;bore;&rdquo; and he already began
+to wish for his accustomed ease and indolence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Repton,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you wished to see the quarries, I think?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To see everything and everybody, sir, and with my own eyes, too. As
+Lysaght said, when I read the book of nature, 'I let no man note my brief
+for me.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought of being your companion, myself; but somehow, this morning, my
+old enemy, the gout, is busy again; however, you 'll not regret the
+exchange, Repton, when I give you in charge to my niece. She 'll be but
+too happy to do the honors of our poor country to so distinguished a
+visitor.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And a very artful plan to put me in good humor with everything,&rdquo; said
+Repton, laughing. &ldquo;Well, I consent. I offer myself a willing victim to any
+amount of seduction. How are we to go?&mdash;do we drive, walk, or ride?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If Mary be consulted, she'll say ride,&rdquo; said Martin; &ldquo;but perhaps&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm for the saddle, too,&rdquo; broke in Repton. &ldquo;Give me something active and
+lively, light of mouth and well up before, and I'll show you, as Tom
+Parsons said, that we can cut as good a figure at the wall as the 'bar.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll go and consult my niece, then,&rdquo; said Martin, hastening out of the
+room, to conceal the smile which the old man's vanity had just provoked.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary was dressed in her riding-habit, and about to leave her room as her
+uncle entered it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have just come in the nick of time, Molly, I see,&rdquo; cried he. &ldquo;I want
+you to lionize an old friend of mine, who has the ambition to 'do'
+Connemara under your guidance.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a provoke!&rdquo; said Mary, half aloud. &ldquo;Could he not wait for another
+day, uncle? I have to go over to Glencalgher and Kilduff; besides, there's
+that bridge to be looked after, and they 've just come to tell me that the
+floods have carried away the strong paling around the larch copse. Really,
+this old gentleman must wait.&rdquo; It was a rare thing for Mary Martin to
+display anything either of impatience or opposition to her uncle. Her
+affection for him was so blended with respect that she scarcely ever
+transgressed in this wise; but this morning she was ill and irritable,&mdash;a
+restless, feverish night following on a day of great fatigue and as great
+excitement,&mdash;and she was still suffering, and her nerves jarring when
+he met her.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I assure you, Molly, you 'll be pleased with the companionship,&rdquo;
+ began Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So I might at another time; but I 'm out of sorts to-day, uncle. I 'm
+cross and ill-tempered, and I 'll have it out on Mr. Henderson,&mdash;that
+precious specimen of his class. Let Mr. Nelligan perform cicerone, or
+persuade my Lady to drive him out; do anything you like with him, except
+give him to me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet that is exactly what I have promised him. As for Nelligan, they
+are not suited to each other; so come, be a good girl, and comply.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I must,&rdquo; said she, pettishly. &ldquo;And how are we to go?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He proposes to ride, and bespeaks something lively for his own mount.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed! That sounds well!&rdquo; cried she, with more animation. &ldquo;There 's
+'Cropper' in great heart; he 'll carry him to perfection. I 'll have a
+ring-snaffle put on him, and my word for it but he 'll have a pleasant
+ride.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take care, Molly; take care that he's not too fresh. Remember that Repton
+is some dozen years or more my senior.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let him keep him off the grass and he 'll go like a lamb. I'll not answer
+for him on the sward, though; but I 'll look to him, uncle, and bring him
+back safe and sound.&rdquo; And, so saying, Mary bounded away down the stairs,
+and away to the stables, forgetting everything of her late discontent, and
+only eager on the plan before her.
+</p>
+<p>
+Martin was very far from satisfied about the arrangement for his friend's
+equitation; nor did the aspect of Repton himself, as attired for the road,
+allay that sense of alarm; the old lawyer's costume being a correct copy
+of the colored prints of those worthies who figured in the early years of
+George the Third's reign,&mdash;a gray cloth spencer being drawn over his
+coat, fur-collared and cuffed, high riding-boots of black polished
+leather, reaching above the knee, and large gauntlets of bright yellow
+doeskin, completing an equipment which Martin had seen nothing resembling
+for forty years back.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A perfect cavalier, Repton!&rdquo; exclaimed he, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We once could do a little that way,&rdquo; said the other, with a touch of
+vanity. &ldquo;In our early days, Martin, hunting was essentially a gentleman's
+pastime. The meet was not disfigured by aspiring linen drapers or
+ambitious hardwaremen, and the tone of the field was the tone of society;
+but <i>nous avons changé tout cela</i>. Sporting men, as they call
+themselves, have descended to the groom vocabulary; and the groom morals,
+and we, of the old school, should only be laughed at for the pedantry of
+good manners and good English, did we venture amongst them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My niece will put a different estimate on your companionship; and here
+she comes. Molly, my old and valued friend, Mr. Repton.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I kiss your hand, Miss Martin,&rdquo; said he, accompanying the speech by the
+act, with all the grace of a courtier. &ldquo;It's worth while being an old
+fellow, to be able to claim these antiquated privileges.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+There was something in the jaunty air and well-assumed gallantry of the
+old lawyer which at once pleased Mary, who accepted his courtesy with a
+gracious smile. She had been picturing to herself a very different kind of
+companion, and was well satisfied with the reality.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I proposed to young Mr. Nelligan to join us,&rdquo; said Repton, as he
+conducted her to the door; &ldquo;but it seems he is too deeply intent upon some
+question or point of law or history&mdash;I forget which&mdash;whereupon
+we differed last night, and has gone into the library to search for the
+solution of it. As for me, Miss Martin, I am too young for such dry
+labors; or, as the Duc de Nevers said, when somebody rebuked him for
+dancing at seventy, 'Only think what a short time is left me for folly.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+We do not propose to chronicle, the subjects or the sayings by which the
+old lawyer beguiled the way; enough if we say that Mary was actually
+delighted with his companionship. The racy admixture of humor and strong
+common-sense, acute views of life, flavored with, now a witty remark, now
+a pertinent anecdote, were conversational powers totally new to her. Nor
+was he less charmed with her. Independently of all the pleasure it gave
+him to find one who heard him with such true enjoyment, and relished all
+his varied powers of amusing, he was equally struck with the high-spirited
+enthusiasm and generous ardor of the young girl. She spoke of the people
+and the country with all the devotion of one who loved both; and if at
+times with more of hopefulness than he himself could feel, the sanguine
+forecast but lent another charm to her fascination.
+</p>
+<p>
+He listened with astonishment as she explained to him the different works
+then in progress,&mdash;the vast plans for drainage; the great enclosures
+for planting; the roads projected here, the bridges there. At one place
+were strings of carts, conveying limestone for admixture with the colder
+soil of low grounds; at another they met asses loaded with seaweed for the
+potato land. There was movement and occupation on every side. In the deep
+valleys, on the mountains, in the clefts of the rocky shore, in the dark
+marble quarries, hundreds of people were employed; and by these was Mary
+welcomed with eager enthusiasm the moment she appeared. One glance at
+their delighted features was sufficient to show that theirs was no
+counterfeit joy. Wherever she went the same reception awaited her; nor did
+she try to conceal the happiness it conferred.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is very wonderful, very strange, and very fascinating, Miss Martin,&rdquo;
+ said Repton, as they moved slowly through a rocky path, escarped from the
+side of the mountain; &ldquo;but pardon me if I venture to suggest one gloomy
+anticipation in the midst of such brightness. What is to become of all
+these people when <i>you</i> leave them,&mdash;as leave them you will and
+must, one day?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never mean to do so,&rdquo; said Mary, resolutely.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stoutly spoken,&rdquo; said he, smiling; &ldquo;but, unfortunately, he who hears it
+could be your grandfather. And again I ask, how is this good despotism to
+be carried on when the despot abdicates? Nay, nay; there never was a very
+beautiful girl yet, with every charm under heaven, who did n't swear she
+'d never marry; so let us take another alternative. Your uncle may go to
+live in London,&mdash;abroad. He may sell Cro' Martin&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, that is impossible! He loves the old home of his family and his name
+too dearly; he would be incapable of such a treason to his house!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, remember, my dear young lady, you are speaking to the most
+suspectful, unimpulsive, and ungenerously disposed of all natures, an old
+lawyer, who has witnessed so many events in life he would have once
+pronounced impossible,&mdash;ay, just as roundly as you said the word
+yourself,&mdash;and seen people and things under aspects so totally the
+reverse of what he first knew them, that he has taught himself to believe
+that change is the law, and not permanence, in this life, and that you and
+I, and all of us, ought ever to look forward to anything, everything, but
+the condition in which at present we find ourselves. Now, I don't want to
+discourage you with the noble career you have opened for yourself here. I
+am far more likely to be fascinated&mdash;I was going to say fall in love&mdash;with
+you for it, than to try and turn your thoughts elsewhere; but as to these
+people themselves, the experiment comes too late.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it ever too late to repair a wrong, to assist destitution, relieve
+misery, and console misfortune?&rdquo; broke in Mary, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is too late to try the feudal system in the year of our Lord 1829,
+Miss Martin. We live in an age where everything is to be redressed by a
+Parliament. The old social compact between proprietor and peasant is
+repealed, and all must be done by 'the House.' Now, if your grandfather
+had pursued the path that you are doing to-day, this crisis might never
+have arrived; but he did not, young lady. He lived like a real gentleman;
+he hunted, and drank, and feasted, and rack-rented, and horsewhipped all
+around him; and what with duelling of a morning and drinking over-night,
+taught the people a code of morals that has assumed all the compactness of
+a system. Ay, I say it with grief, this is a land corrupted from the top,
+and every vice of its gentry has but filtered down to its populace! What
+was that I heard?&mdash;was it not a shot?&rdquo; cried he, reining in his horse
+to listen.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought so, too; but it might be a blast, for we are not far from the
+quarries.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And do you preserve the game, Miss Martin? are you sworn foe to the
+poacher?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do so; but in reality more for the sake of the people than the
+partridges. Your lounging country fellow, with a rusty gun and a starved
+lurcher, is but an embryo highwayman.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So he is,&rdquo; cried Repton, delighted at the energy with which she spoke;
+&ldquo;and I have always thought that the worst thing about the game-laws was
+the class of fellows we educate to break them. Poor old Cranbury was n't
+of that opinion, though. You could never have seen him, Miss Martin; but
+he was a fine specimen of the Irish Bench in the old time. He was the
+readiest pistol in the Irish house; and, as they said then, he 'shot up'
+into preferment. He always deemed an infraction of the game-laws as one of
+the gravest crimes in the statute. Juries, however, did n't concur with
+him; and, knowing the severity of the penalty, they invariably brought in
+a verdict of Not Guilty, rather than subject a poor wretch to
+transportation for a jack-snipe. I remember once,&mdash;it was at
+Maryborough; the fellow in the dock was a notable poacher, and, worse
+still, the scene of his exploits was Cranbury's own estate. As usual, the
+jury listened apathetically to the evidence; they cared little for the
+case, and had predetermined the verdict. It was, however, so palpably
+proven, so self-evident that he was guilty, that they clubbed their heads
+together to concert a pretext for their decision. Cranbury saw the
+movement, and appreciated it, and, leaning his head down upon his hand,
+mumbled out, as if talking to himself, in broken sentences, 'A poor man&mdash;with
+a large family&mdash;great temptation&mdash;and, after all, a slight
+offence,&mdash;a very slight offence.' The jury listened and took courage;
+they fancied some scruples were at work in the old judge's heart, and that
+they might venture on the truth, innocuously. 'Guilty, my Lord,' said the
+foreman. 'Transportation for seven years!' cried the judge, with a look at
+the jury-box that there was no mistaking. They were 'done,' but there
+never was another conviction in that town afterwards.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And were such things possible on the justice-seat?&rdquo; exclaimed Mary, in
+horror.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, my dear young lady, I could tell you of far worse than that. There
+was a time in this country when the indictment against the prisoner was
+Secondary in importance to his general character, his party, his
+connections, and fifty other things which had no bearing upon criminality.
+There goes another shot! I 'll swear to that,&rdquo; cried he, pulling up short,
+and looking in the direction from which the report proceeded.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary turned at the same moment, and pointed with her whip towards a beech
+wood that skirted the foot of the mountain.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was it from that quarter the sound came?&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+<p>
+The sharp crack of a fowling-piece, quickly followed by a second report,
+now decided the question; and, as if by mutual consent, they both wheeled
+their horses round, and set off at a brisk canter towards the wood.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have taken especial pains about preserving this part of the estate,&rdquo;
+ said Mary, as they rode along. &ldquo;It was my cousin Harry's favorite cover
+when he was last at home, and he left I can't say how many directions
+about it when quitting us; though, to say truth, I never deemed any
+precautions necessary till he spoke of it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So that poaching was unknown down here?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Almost completely so; now and then some idle fellow with a half-bred
+greyhound might run down a hare, or with a rusty firelock knock over a
+rabbit, but there it ended. And as we have no gentry neighbors to ask for
+leave, and the Oughterard folks would not venture on that liberty, I may
+safely say that the report of a gun is a rare event in these solitudes.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whoever he be, yonder, is not losing time,&rdquo; said Rep-ton; &ldquo;there was
+another shot.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Their pace had now become a smart half-gallop; Mary, a little in advance,
+leading the way, and pointing out the safe ground to her companion. As
+they drew nigh the wood, however, she slackened speed till he came up, and
+then said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;As I know everybody hereabouts, it will be enough if I only see the
+offender; and how to do that is the question.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am at your orders,&rdquo; said Repton, raising his whip to a salute.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It will be somewhat difficult,&rdquo; said Mary, pondering; &ldquo;the wood is so
+overgrown with low copse that one can't ride through it, except along
+certain alleys. Now we might canter there for hours and see nothing. I
+have it,&rdquo; cried she, suddenly; &ldquo;you shall enter the wood and ride slowly
+along the green alley, yonder, till you come to the crossroad, when you
+'ll turn off to the left; while I will remain in observation outside here,
+so that if our friend make his exit I am sure to overtake him. At all
+events, we shall meet again at the lower end of the road.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Repton made her repeat her directions, and then, touching his hat in
+respectful salutation, rode away to fulfil his mission. A low gate, merely
+fastened by a loop of iron without a padlock, admitted the lawyer within
+the precincts, in which he soon discovered that his pace must be a walk,
+so heavy was the deep clayey soil, littered with fallen leaves and rotting
+acorns. Great trees bent their massive limbs over his head, and, even
+leafless as they were, formed a darksome, gloomy aisle, the sides of which
+were closed in with the wild holly and the broom, and even the arbutus,
+all intermingled inextricably. There was something solemn even to sadness
+in the deep solitude, and so Repton seemed to feel as he rode slowly
+along, alone, tingeing his thoughts of her he had just quitted with
+melancholy.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a girl and what a life!&rdquo; said he, musingly. &ldquo;I must tell Martin that
+this will never do! What can all this devotion end in but disappointment!
+With the first gleam of their newly acquired power the people will reject
+these benefits; they will despise the slow-won fruits of industry as the
+gambler rejects a life of toil. Then will come a reaction&mdash;a terrible
+reaction&mdash;with all the semblance of black ingratitude! She will
+herself be disgusted. The breach once made will grow wider and wider, and
+at last the demagogue will take the place of the landed proprietor.
+Estrangement at first, next distrust, and finally dislike, will separate
+the gentry from the peasantry, and then&mdash;I tremble to think of what
+then!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+As Repton had uttered these words, the sharp bang of a gun startled him,
+and at the same instant a young fellow sprang from the copse in front of
+him into the alley. His coarse fustian shooting-jacket, low-crowned
+oil-skin hat, and leather gaiters seemed to bespeak the professional
+poacher, and Repton dashed forward with his heavy riding-whip upraised
+towards him.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0007" id="linkimage-0007">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/206.jpg" width="100%" alt="206 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take care, old gentleman,&rdquo; said the young man, facing about; &ldquo;my second
+barrel is loaded, and if you dare&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Heaven! I'll thrash you, you scoundrel!&rdquo; said Repton, whose passion
+was now boiling over by a sudden bound of the cob, which had nearly thrown
+him from the saddle,&mdash;a mischance greeted by a hearty burst of
+laughter from the stranger.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I fancy you have quite enough to do at this moment!&rdquo; cried he, still
+laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+Half mad with anger, Repton pressed his spurs to the cob's flanks, while
+he gave him a vigorous cut of the whip on the shoulder. The animal was
+little accustomed to such usage, and reared up wildly, and would
+inevitably have fallen back with his rider, had not the stranger,
+springing forward, seized the bridle, and pulled him down by main force.
+Whether indifferent to his own safety, or so blinded by passion as not to
+recognize to what he owed it, the old man struck the other a heavy blow
+with his whip over the head, cutting through his hat, and covering his
+face with blood.
+</p>
+<p>
+The young man passing his arm through the bridle, so as to render the
+other's escape impossible, coolly removed his hat and proceeded to stanch
+the bleeding with his handkerchief,&mdash;not the slightest sign of
+excitement being displayed by him, nor any evidence of feeling that the
+event was other than a more accident.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let loose my bridle-rein,&mdash;let it loose, sir,&rdquo; said Repton,
+passionately,&mdash;more passionately, perhaps, from observing the
+measured calmness of the other.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;When I know who you are, I shall,&rdquo; said the young man.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My name is Valentine Repton; my address, if you want it, is Merrion
+Square North, Dublin; and can you now tell me where a magistrate's warrant
+will reach <i>you?</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My present residence is a house you may have seen on the side of the
+mountain as you came along, called, I think, Barnagheela; my name is
+Massingbred.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You presume to be a gentleman, then?&rdquo; said Repton.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have not heard the matter disputed before,&rdquo; said Jack, with an easy
+smile, while he leisurely bound the handkerchief round his head.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And of course, you look for satisfaction for this?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I trust that there can be no mistake upon that point, at least,&rdquo; replied
+he.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you shall have it, too; though, hang me, if I well know whether you
+should not receive it at the next assizes,&mdash;but you shall have it. I
+'ll go into Oughterard this day; I 'll be there by nine o'clock, at the
+Martin Arms.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That will do,&rdquo; said Massingbred, with a coolness almost like
+indifference; while he resumed his gun, which he had thrown down, and
+proceeded to load the second barrel.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are aware that you are poaching here?&rdquo; said Repton,&mdash;&ldquo;that this
+is part of the Martin estate, and strictly preserved?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed! and I thought it belonged to Magennis,&rdquo; said Jack, easily; &ldquo;but a
+preserve without a gamekeeper, or even a notice, is a blockade without a
+blockading squadron.&rdquo; And without a word more, or any notice of the other,
+Massingbred shouldered his gun and walked away.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was some time before Repton could summon resolution to leave the spot,
+such was the conflict of thoughts that went on within him. Shame and
+sorrow were, indeed, uppermost in his mind, but still not unmingled with
+anger at the consummate ease and coolness of the other, who by this line
+of conduct seemed to assume a tone of superiority the most galling and
+insulting. In vain did he endeavor to justify his act to himself,&mdash;in
+vain seek to find a plausible pretext for his anger. He could not, by all
+his ingenuity, do so, and he only grew more passionate at his own failure.
+&ldquo;Another would hand him over to the next justice of the peace,&mdash;would
+leave him to quarter sessions; but not so Val Repton. No, by Jove, he 'll
+find a man to his humor there, if he wants fighting,&rdquo; said he, aloud, as
+he turned his horse about and rode slowly back.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was already dusk when he joined Miss Martin, who, uneasy at his
+prolonged absence, had entered the wood in search of him. It required all
+the practised dissimulation of the old lawyer to conceal the signs of his
+late adventure; nor, indeed, were his replies to her questions quite free
+from a certain amount of inconsistency. Mary, however, willingly changed
+the subject, and led him back to speak of topics more agreeable and
+congenial to him. Still he was not the same sprightly companion who had
+ridden beside her in the morning. He conversed with a degree of effort,
+and, when suffered, would relapse into long intervals of silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who inhabits that bleak-looking house yonder?&rdquo; said he, suddenly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A certain Mr. Magennis, a neighbor, but not an acquaintance, of ours.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how comes it that he lives in the very middle, as it were, of the
+estate?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;An old lease, obtained I can't say how many centuries back, and which
+will expire in a year or two. He has already applied for a renewal of it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And of course, unsuccessfully?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Up to this moment it is as you say, but I am endeavoring to persuade my
+uncle not to disturb him; nor would he, if Magennis would only be commonly
+prudent. You must know that this person is the leading Radical of our town
+of Oughterard, the man who sets himself most strenuously in opposition to
+our influence in the borough, and would uproot our power there, were he
+able.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So far, then, he is a courageous fellow.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sometimes I take that view of his conduct, and at others I am disposed to
+regard him as one not unwilling to make terms with us.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How subtle all these dealings can make a young lady!&rdquo; said Repton, slyly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say, rather, what a strain upon one's acuteness it is to ride out with a
+great lawyer, one so trained to see spots in the sun that he won't
+acknowledge its brightness if there be a speck to search for.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet it's a great mistake to suppose that we are always looking on the
+dark side of human nature,&rdquo; said he, reflectively; &ldquo;though,&rdquo; added he,
+after a pause, &ldquo;it's very often our business to exaggerate baseness, and
+make the worst of a bad man.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Even that may be more pardonable than to vilify a good one,&rdquo; said Mary.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So it is, young lady; you are quite right there.&rdquo; He was thoughtful for a
+while, and then said: &ldquo;It is very singular, but nevertheless true, that,
+in my profession, one loses sight of the individual, as such, and only
+regards him as a mere element of the case, plaintiff or defendant as he
+may be. I remember once, in a southern circuit, a hale, fine-looking young
+fellow entering my room to present me with a hare. He had walked twelve
+miles to offer it to me. 'Your honor doesn't remember me,' said he,
+sorrowfully, and evidently grieved at my forgetfulness. 'To be sure I do,'
+replied I, trying to recall his features; 'you are&mdash;let me see&mdash;you
+are&mdash;I have it&mdash;you are Jemmy Ryan.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'No, sir,' rejoined he, quickly, 'I'm the boy that murdered him.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, Miss Martin, there's a leaf out of a lawyer's notebook, and yet I
+could tell you more good traits of men and women, more of patient
+martyrdom under wrong, more courageous suffering to do right, than if I
+were&mdash;what shall I say?&mdash;a chaplain in a nobleman's family.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Repton's memory was well stored with instances in question, and he
+beguiled the way by relating several, till they reached Cro' Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And there is another yet,&rdquo; added he, at the close, &ldquo;more strongly
+illustrating what I have said than all these, but I cannot tell it to <i>you</i>.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why so?&rdquo; asked she, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a family secret, Miss Martin, and one that in all likelihood you
+shall never know. Still, I cannot refrain from saying that you have in
+your own family as noble a specimen of self-sacrifice and denial as I ever
+heard of.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+They were already at the door as he said this, and a troop of servants had
+assembled to receive them. Mary, therefore, had no time for further
+inquiry, had such an attempt been of any avail.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There goes the first dinner-bell, Miss Martin,&rdquo; said Repton, gayly. &ldquo;I'm
+resolved to be in the drawing-room before you!&rdquo; And with this he hopped
+briskly upstairs, while Mary hastened to her room to dress.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XV. &ldquo;A RUINED FORTUNE&rdquo;
+ </h2>
+<p>
+No stronger contrast could be presented than that offered by the house
+which called Mr. Magennis master, to all the splendor and elegance which
+distinguished Cro' Martin. Built on the side of a bleak, barren mountain,
+without a trace of cultivation,&mdash;not even a tree beside it,&mdash;the
+coarse stone walls, high pitched roof, and narrow windows seemed all
+devised in some spirit of derision towards its graceful neighbor. A low
+wall, coped with a formidable &ldquo;frieze&rdquo; of broken bottles and crockery,
+enclosed a space in front once destined for a garden, but left in its
+original state of shingle, intermixed with the remnants of building
+materials and scaffold planks. A long shed, abutting on the house,
+sheltered a cow and a horse; the latter standing with his head above a
+rickety half-door, and looking ruefully out at the dismal landscape
+beneath him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Most of the windows were broken,&mdash;and in some no attempt at repair
+had been made,&mdash;indicating that the rooms within were left unused.
+The hall-door stood ajar, but fastened by a strong iron chain; but the
+roof, more than all besides, bespoke decay and neglect, the rafters being
+in many places totally bare, while in others some rude attempts at tiling
+compensated for the want of the original slates. A strong colony of
+jackdaws had established themselves in one of the chimneys; but from
+another, in the centre of the building, a thick volume of dark-blue smoke
+rolled continually, conveying, indeed, the only sign of habitation about
+this dreary abode.
+</p>
+<p>
+The inside of the house was, if possible, more cheerless than the out.
+Most of the rooms had never been finished, and still remained in their
+coarse brown plaster, and unprovided with grates or chimney-pieces. The
+parlor, <i>par excellence</i>, was a long, low-ceilinged chamber, with
+yellow-ochre walls, dimly lighted by two narrow windows; its furniture, a
+piece of ragged carpet beneath a rickety table of black mahogany, some
+half-dozen crazy chairs, and a small sideboard, surmounted by something
+that might mean buffet or bookcase, and now served for both, being
+indifferently garnished with glasses, decanters, and thumbed volumes,
+intermingled with salt-cellars, empty sauce-bottles, and a powder-flask.
+</p>
+<p>
+An atrociously painted picture of an officer in scarlet uniform hung over
+the fireplace, surmounted by an infantry sword, suspended by a much-worn
+sash. These were the sole decorations of the room, to which even the great
+turf fire that blazed on the hearth could not impart a look of comfort.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was now a little after nightfall; the shutters were closed, and two
+attenuated tallow candles dimly illuminated this dreary chamber. A patched
+and much discolored tablecloth, with some coarse knives and forks, bespoke
+preparation for a meal, and some half-dozen plates stood warming before
+the fire. But the room had no occupant; and, except for the beating of the
+shutters against the sash, as the wind whistled through the broken window,
+all was silent within it. Now and then a loud noise would resound through
+the house; doors would bang, and rafters rattle, as the hall-door would be
+partially opened to permit the head of a woman to peer out and listen if
+any one were coming; but a heavy sigh at each attempt showed that hope was
+still deferred, and the weary footfall of her steps, as she retired,
+betrayed disappointment. It was after one of these excursions that she sat
+down beside the kitchen fire, screening her face from the blaze with her
+apron, and then, in the subdued light, it might be seen that, although
+bearing many traces of sorrow and suffering, she was still young and
+handsome. Large masses of the silkiest brown hair, escaping from her cap,
+fell in heavy masses on her neck; her eyes were large and blue, and shaded
+by the longest lashes; her mouth, a little large, perhaps, was still
+beautifully formed, and her teeth were of surpassing whiteness. The
+expression of the whole face was of gentle simplicity and love,&mdash;love
+in which timidity, however, deeply entered, and made the feeling one of
+acute suffering. In figure and dress she was exactly like any other
+peasant girl, a gaudy silk handkerchief on her neck being the only article
+of assumed luxury in her costume. She wore shoes, it is true,&mdash;not
+altogether the custom of country girls,&mdash;but they were heavy and
+coarsely made, and imparted to her walk a hobbling motion that detracted
+from her appearance.
+</p>
+<p>
+A large pot which hung suspended by a chain above the fire seemed to
+demand her especial care, and she more than once removed the wooden cover
+to inspect the contents; after which she invariably approached the window
+to listen, and then came back sorrowfully to her place, her lips muttering
+some low sounds inaudibly. Once she tried to hum a part of a song to try
+and beguile the time, but the effort was a failure, and, as her voice died
+away, two heavy tears stole slowly along her cheeks, and a deep sob burst
+from her; after which she threw her apron over her face, and buried her
+head in her lap. It was as she sat thus that a loud knocking shook the
+outer door, and the tones of a gruff voice rose even above the noise; but
+she heard neither. Again and again was the summons repeated, with the same
+result; and at last a handful of coarse gravel struck the kitchen window
+with a crash that effectually aroused her, and springing up in terror, she
+hastened to the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+In an instant she had unhooked the heavy chain, and sheltering the candle
+with her hand, admitted a large powerfully built man, who was scarcely
+within the hall when he said angrily, &ldquo;Where the devil were you, that you
+could n't hear me?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was in the kitchen, Tom,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't call <i>me</i> Tom, d&mdash;&mdash;n you,&rdquo; replied he, violently.
+&ldquo;Don't keep dinning into me the infernal fool that I've made of myself, or
+it will be worse for you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sure I never meant any harm by it; and it was your own self bid me do
+it,&rdquo; said she, meekly, as she assisted him to remove his dripping
+great-coat.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And don't I rue it well?&rdquo; rejoined he, through his half-closed teeth.
+&ldquo;Isn't it this confounded folly that has shut me out of the best houses in
+the county? My bitter curse on the day and the hour I first saw you!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, don't say them words,&mdash;don't, or you'll break my poor heart,&rdquo;
+ cried she, clinging to him as he strode angrily into the parlor.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be off with you,&mdash;be off to the kitchen, and leave me quiet,&rdquo; said
+he, rudely.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's your slippers, sir,&rdquo; said she, meekly, as, bending down, she
+untied his heavy shooting-shoes, and replaced them by a pair of list ones.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is the dinner ready?&rdquo; asked he, sternly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is, sir; but Massin'bred is n't come back.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And who the devil is Massingbred? Don't you think he might be Mister
+Massingbred out of <i>your</i> mouth?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I ax your pardon, sir, and his, too; but I didn't mean&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There, there,&mdash;away with you!&rdquo; cried he, impatiently. &ldquo;I 'm never in
+a bad humor that you don't make me worse.&rdquo; And he leaned his face between
+his hands over the fire, while she slipped noiselessly from the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maybe he thinks he's doing me honor by staying here,&rdquo; burst he forth,
+suddenly, as he sprang to his legs and stared angrily around him. &ldquo;Maybe
+he supposes that it's great condescension for him to put up with my humble
+house! Ay, and that it's <i>my</i> bounden duty to wait for <i>him</i> to
+any hour he pleases. If I thought he did,&mdash;if I was sure of it!&rdquo;
+ added he, with a deep guttural tone, while he struck his clenched fist
+violently against the chimney-piece. Then, seizing the large iron poker,
+he knocked loudly with it against the back of the fireplace,&mdash;a
+summons quickly answered by the appearance of the girl at the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did he come in since morning?&rdquo; asked he, abruptly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir, never,&rdquo; replied she, with a half courtesy.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor say what time he 'd be back?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not a word, sir.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, maybe, he's not coming back,&mdash;taken French leave, as they call
+it, eh, Joan?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The sound of her name, spoken, too, in an accent of more friendly meaning,
+lighted up her face at once, and her large eyes swam in tears of gratitude
+towards him as she stood there.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But he 'd scarcely dare to do that!&rdquo; said he, sternly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir,&rdquo; said she, echoing half unconsciously his opinion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what do <i>you</i> know about it?&rdquo; said he, turning savagely on her.
+&ldquo;Where were you born and bred, to say what any gentleman might do, at any
+time, or in anything? Is it Joan Landy, the herd's daughter, is going to
+play fine lady upon us! Faix, we 're come to a pretty pass now, in
+earnest! Be off with you! Away! Stop, what was that? Did n't you hear a
+shot?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did, sir,&mdash;quite near the house, too.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A sharp knocking now on the hall-door decided the question, and Magennis
+hastened to admit the arrival.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is a strange fact, and one of which we are satisfied merely to make
+mention, without attempting in the least to explain, but no sooner was
+Magennis in the presence of his young guest, than not only he seemed to
+forget all possible cause of irritation towards him, but to behave with a
+manner of, for him, the most courteous civility. He aided him to remove
+his shot-belt and his bag; took his hat from his hands, and carefully
+wiped it; placed a chair for him close to the fire; and then, as he turned
+to address him, remarked for the first time the blood-stained handkerchief
+which still bound his forehead.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you fall,&mdash;had you an accident?&rdquo; asked he, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said the other, laughing; &ldquo;a bit of an adventure only, which I 'll
+tell you after dinner.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was it any of the people? Had you a fight&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, Magennis, you must exercise a little patience. Not a word, not a
+syllable, till I have eaten something, for I am actually famishing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A stout knock of the poker on the chimney summoned the dinner, and almost
+in the same instant the woman entered with a smoking dish of Irish stew.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mrs. Joan, you're an angel,&rdquo; said Massingbred; &ldquo;if there was a dish I was
+longing for on this cold, raw day, it was one of your glorious messes.
+They seem made for the climate, and by Jove, the climate for them. I say,
+Mac, does it always rain in this fashion here?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; it sleets now and then, and sometimes blows.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should think it does,&rdquo; said Jack, seating himself at the table. &ldquo;The
+pleasant little slabs of marble one sees on the cabin-roofs to keep down
+the thatch are signs of your western zephyrs. Mrs. Joan has outdone
+herself today. This is first-rate.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's too strong a flavor of hare in it,&rdquo; said Magen-nis, critically.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's exactly its perfection; the wild savor lifts it out of the vulgar
+category of Irish stews, and assimilates it, but not too closely, to the
+ragout. I tell you, Mac, there's genius in the composition of that gravy.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The partial pedantry of this speech was more than compensated for by the
+racy enjoyment of the speaker, and Magennis was really gratified at the
+zest with which his young friend relished his meal.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It has one perfection, at least,&rdquo; said he, modestly,&mdash;&ldquo;it 's very
+unlike what you get at home.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We have a goodish sort of a cook,&rdquo; said Jack, languidly,&mdash;&ldquo;a fellow
+my father picked up after the Congress of Verona. Truffles and treaties
+seem to have some strong sympathetic attraction, and when diplomacy had
+finished its work, a <i>chef</i> was to be had cheap! The worst of the
+class is, they 'll only functionate for your grand dinners and they leave
+your every-day meal to some inferior in the department.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It was strange that Magennis could listen with interest always whenever
+Massingbred spoke of habits, people, and places with which he had never
+been conversant. It was not so much for the topics themselves he cared,&mdash;they
+were, in reality, valueless in his eyes,&mdash;it was some singular
+pleasure he felt in thinking that the man who could so discuss them was
+his own guest, seated at his own table, thus connecting himself by some
+invisible link with the great ones of this world!
+</p>
+<p>
+Massingbred's very name&mdash;the son of the celebrated Moore Massingbred&mdash;a
+Treasury Lord&mdash;Heaven knows what else besides&mdash;certainly a Right
+Honorable&mdash;was what first fascinated him in his young acquaintance,
+and induced him to invite him to his house. Jack would probably have
+declined the invitation, but it just came at the moment when he was deeply
+mortified at Nelligan's absence,&mdash;an absence which old Dan was
+totally unable to explain or account for. Indeed, he had forgotten that,
+in his note to his son, he had not mentioned Massingbred by name, and thus
+was he left to all the embarrassment of an apology without the slightest
+clew as to the nature of the excuse.
+</p>
+<p>
+No sooner, then, was it apparent to Massingbred that young Nelligan did
+not intend to return home, than he decided on taking his own departure. At
+first he determined on going back to Dublin; but suddenly a malicious
+thought sprung up of all, the mortification it might occasion Joe to learn
+that he was still in the neighborhood; and with the amiable anticipation
+of this vengeance, he at once accepted Magennis's offer to &ldquo;accompany him
+to his place in the mountains, and have some shooting.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It would not have been easy to find two men so essentially unlike in every
+respect as these two, who now sat discussing their punch after dinner. In
+birth, bringing-up, habits, instincts, they were widely dissimilar, and
+yet, somehow, they formed a sort of companionship palatable to each. Each
+had something to tell the other which he had either not heard before, or
+not heard in the same way. We have already adverted to the strong
+fascination Magen-nis experienced in dwelling on the rank and social
+position of his young guest. Massingbred experienced no less delight in
+the indulgence of his favorite pastime,&mdash;adventure hunting. Now, here
+was really something like adventure,&mdash;this wild, rude mountain home,
+this strange compound of gloom and passion, this poor simple country girl,
+more than servant, less than wife,&mdash;all separated from the remainder
+of the world by a gulf wider than mere space. These were all ingredients
+more than enough to suggest matter for imagination, and food for
+after-thought in many a day to come.
+</p>
+<p>
+They had thus passed part of a week in company, when the incident occurred
+of which our last chapter makes mention, and an account of which, now,
+Massingbred proceeded to give his host, neither exaggerating nor
+diminishing in the slightest particular any portion of the event. He even
+repressed his habitual tendency to sarcasm, and spoke of his antagonist
+seriously and respectfully. &ldquo;It was quite clear,&rdquo; said he, in conclusion,
+&ldquo;that he did n't know I was a gentleman, and consequently never
+anticipated the consequence of a blow.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And he struck you?&rdquo; broke in Magennis, violently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You shall see for yourself,&rdquo; said Jack, smiling, as, untying the
+handkerchief, he exhibited a deep cut on his forehead, from which the
+blood still continued to ooze.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let Joan doctor you; she's wonderful at a cut. She has something they
+call Beggarman's Balsam. I 'll fetch her.&rdquo; And without waiting for a reply
+he left the room. The young woman speedily after appeared with some lint
+and a small pot of ointment, proceeding to her office with all the quiet
+assiduity of a practised hand, and a gentleness that few &ldquo;regulars&rdquo; could
+vie with. Her skill was more than recompensed by the few muttered words of
+praise Magennis bestowed, as he grumbled out, half to himself: &ldquo;Old Cahill
+himself could n't do it better. I 'd back her for a bandage against the
+College of Surgeons. Ain't ye easier now?&mdash;to be sure you are. She 's
+good for <i>that</i> if she is for nothing else!&rdquo; And even this much of
+eulogy made her bosom heave proudly, and brought a flush of joy over her
+cheek that was ecstasy itself.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0008" id="linkimage-0008">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/218.jpg" width="100%" alt="218 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+The world is not deficient in acts of kindness, benevolence, and
+good-will. There is a large fountain of these running in ten thousand
+rills. But how many more might there not be,&mdash;how much of this wealth
+might there not be dispensed, and nobody living one jot the poorer! How
+many are there toiling away in obscurity and narrow fortune, to whom one
+single word of praise&mdash;one chance syllable of encouragement&mdash;would
+be life's blood! What sunken cheeks and lacklustre eyes would glow and
+gladden again by even a look of sympathy, withheld from no lack of
+kindliness, but mere want of thought! Oh ye who have station and fame,
+genius or greatness, bethink ye that these gifts are never higher than
+when they elevate the humble and cheer the lowly, and there is no
+physician like him who animates the drooping heart, and gives new vigor to
+wearied faculties and failing energy. Joan was made happy by the two or
+three words of grateful thanks Massingbred addressed to her, and stole
+quietly away, leaving the two companions once more alone.
+</p>
+<p>
+If there was any incident in life participation in which could convey
+intense gratification to Magennis, it was that sort of difference or
+misunderstanding that might lead to a duel. Whenever the affair offered no
+other alternative, his delight was unbounded. There were, it was rumored
+events in his own early life which would imply that the taste for mortal
+combat extended only to cases where his friends were concerned, and had no
+selfish application whatever. Of these we know nothing; nor, indeed, have
+we any information to convey regarding him, save by chance and stray words
+dropped by himself in the unguarded hours of after-dinner converse. There
+are, however, many who like the subordinate parts in this world's comedy,&mdash;who
+would rather be best man than bridegroom, and infinitely prefer performing
+second to principal.
+</p>
+<p>
+We are not, however, going into the inquiry as to the cause; enough when
+we repeat that this was Magennis's great passion, and these were the kind
+of events for whose conduct and management he believed himself to possess
+the most consummate tact and ability.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You 're in luck, Massingbred,&rdquo; cried he, as the other concluded his
+recital,&mdash;&ldquo;you're in luck, sir, to have for your friend one that,
+though I say it myself, has n't his equal for a case like this in the
+three kingdoms. It was I, sir, took out Cahill when he shot Major Harris,
+of the Fusiliers. I handled him that morning in a way that made the
+English officers confess there was no chance against us! A duel seems an
+easy thing to arrange. You 'd say that any fool could put up two men,
+twelve or even ten paces asunder, and tell them to blaze away; and if that
+was all there was in it, it would be simple enough. But consider for a
+minute the real case, and just remember how much the nature of the ground,
+whether level or uneven, has to do with it; what's behind,&mdash;if a
+wall, or trees, or only sky; the state of the light; how the sun stands;
+whether there 's wind, and what way it's coming. These are not all.
+There's the pistols,&mdash;how they <i>'throw,'</i> and with what charge;
+and then there 's the size of your man. Ay, Massingbred, and let me tell
+you, you now see before you the man that invented the 'invulnerable
+position.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove! that's a most valuable fact to me just now,&rdquo; said Jack, helping
+himself to a fresh tumbler. &ldquo;I 'm glad you have not been retained by the
+other side.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The 'invulnerable position'!&rdquo; continued Magennis, perfectly heedless of
+the other's remark; while, taking up the poker, he stalked out to the
+middle of the room, drawing himself up to his full height, and presenting,
+as though with a pistol,&mdash;&ldquo;Do you see what I mean?&rdquo; cried he.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can't say I do,&rdquo; said Jack, hesitatingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought not,&rdquo; rejoined the other, proudly; &ldquo;nobody ever did that was
+n't 'out' often. Pay attention now, and I 'll explain it. My head, you
+perceive, is carried far behind my right shoulder, so as to be completely
+protected by my pistol-hand and the pistol. I say the pistol, because it
+has been proved scientifically that the steadiest eye that ever fired
+never could aim at the antagonist's pistol. Morris Crofton practised it
+for eight years in his own garden; and though he did succeed, he told me
+that for practical purposes it was no use. Now we come to the neck, and
+you may observe the bend of my elbow. Ay, that little angle that nobody
+would remark masks the jugular arteries, and all the other vital nerves in
+that part. John Toler used to say that the head and neck was like the
+metropolis, and that a shot elsewhere was only like a 'row' in the
+provinces; and a very true and wise remark it was. Not that I neglect the
+trunk,&rdquo; added he, proudly; &ldquo;for you see how I stand,&mdash;three-quarters
+of the back towards the enemy so as not to expose the soft parts. As for
+the legs,&rdquo; cried he, contemptuously, &ldquo;let them crack at them as long as
+they like.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And that 's the 'invulnerable position,'&rdquo; said Massing-bred; with less
+enthusiasm, however, than the discovery might seem to warrant.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is, sir; and if it was n't for it there 's many a strapping fellow
+walking about this day-that would be lying with a marble counterpane over
+him. Billy Welsh, that fought Brian of Deanstown, was the first man I ever
+'put up' in it. Billy had a slight crick of the neck, and could n't get
+the head far enough round to the right, and the ball took him in the
+bridge of the nose, and carried that feature clean off, but never damaged
+him in any other respect whatever!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must say that the loss was quite sufficient for a man who had the
+benefit of the 'invulnerable position,'&rdquo; said Massingbred, quietly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He thinks nothing of it. A chap in the Crow Street Theatre made him a
+better nose than ever he had, out of wax, I believe; and he has a winter
+one, with a blush of red on it, to make believe it was cold; and they tell
+me you 'd never discover it was n't his own.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Magennis had now resumed his place at table, and seemed bent on making up
+for lost time by giving double measure of whiskey to his punch.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You say that he's to be in Oughterard to-night; well, with the blessing
+of the Virgin,&rdquo;&mdash;an invocation he invariably applied to every act of
+dubious morality,&mdash;&ldquo;we 'll be with him before he's out of bed
+to-morrow!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish he had not given me a blow,&rdquo; said Jack, musingly. &ldquo;He seemed such
+a stout-hearted, spirited old fellow, I'm really grieved to quarrel with
+him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm glad that there's nobody to hear them words but myself, Mr.
+Massingbred,&rdquo; said the other, with all the slowness and deliberation of
+incipient drunkenness; &ldquo;I'm rejoiced, sir, that it's in the confidential
+intercourse of friendly&mdash;friendly&mdash;communication&mdash;that the
+son of my old and valued friend&mdash;Moore Massingbred&mdash;used
+expressions like that.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Jack started with amazement at this speech; he had not the slightest
+suspicion till that moment that Magennis and his father had ever known
+each other, or even met. A very little patience, however, on his part
+served to solve the difficulty; for he discovered that one of the
+peculiarities of this stage of his friend's ebriety was to fancy himself
+the intimate and associate of any one whose name he had ever heard
+mentioned.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, sir, them's words your father would never have uttered. I was with
+him in his first blaze. 'Moore,' says I, 'have n't you a pair of black
+breeches?'&mdash;he wore a pair of web 'tights' of a light pattern&mdash;What
+are you laughing at, sir?&rdquo; cried he, sternly, and striking the table with
+his clenched knuckles, till the glasses all rang on it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was laughing at my father's costume,&rdquo; said Jack, who really told the
+truth; such a portrait of his parent's appearance being manifestly unlike
+anything he had ever imagined.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the worse manners yours, sir,&rdquo; rejoined Magennis, rudely. &ldquo;I' ll not
+suffer any man to laugh at an old friend&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;schoolfellow!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It was with the very greatest difficulty that Jack could restrain himself
+at this peroration, which indignation&mdash;the same, probably, that
+creates poets&mdash;had suggested. He had, however, tact enough to
+preserve his gravity, whilst he assured his companion that no unfilial
+sentiment had any share in his thoughts.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So far, so well,&rdquo; said Magennis, who now helped himself to the whiskey,
+unadulterated by any water; &ldquo;otherwise, sir, it's not Lieutenant Magennis,
+of the&mdash;9th Foot, would handle you on the ground to-morrow!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So, then, you've served, Mac? Why, you never broke that to me before!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Broke!&rdquo; cried the other, with a voice shrill from passion, while he made
+an effort to rise from his chair, and sunk back again,&mdash;&ldquo;broke; who
+dares to say I was broke? I left the scoundrels myself. I shook the dust
+off my feet after them. There never was a court-martial about it. Never&mdash;never!&rdquo;
+ To the deep crimson that suffused his face before, there now succeeded an
+almost death-like pallor, and Massingbred really felt terrified at the
+change. Some heart-rending recollection seemed suddenly to have cleared
+his brain, routing in an instant all the effects of intoxication, and
+restoring him to sobriety and sorrow together.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said he, in a low, broken voice, and still speaking to himself,
+&ldquo;that finished me! I never held my head up again! Who could, after such a
+business? I came here, Mr. Massingbred,&rdquo; continued he, but addressing his
+guest in a tone of deep respect,&mdash;&ldquo;I came back here a ruined man, and
+not eight-and-twenty! You see me now, a dirty, drunken sot, not better
+dressed nor better mannered than the commonest fellow on the road, and yet
+I'm a gentleman born and bred, well nurtured, and well educated. I took a
+college degree and went into the army.&rdquo; He paused, as if trying to gather
+courage to go on; the effort was more than he could accomplish, and, as
+the heavy tears stole slowly down his cheeks, the agony of the struggle
+might be detected. Half mechanically he seized the decanter of whiskey and
+poured the tumbler nearly full; but Jack good-humoredly stretched out his
+hand towards the glass, and said, &ldquo;Don't drink, Mac; there's no head could
+stand it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You think so, boy,&rdquo; cried he, with a saucy smile. &ldquo;Little you know the
+way we live in the West, here;&rdquo; and he tossed off the liquor before the
+other could stop him. The empty glass had scarcely been replaced on the
+table, when all the former signs of drunkenness had come back again, and
+in his bloodshot eyes and swollen veins might be seen the very type of
+passionate debauch.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not ask me to their houses!&rdquo; cried he, hoarse with passion. &ldquo;Who wants
+them? Not invite me! Did I ever seek them? The dirty, mean spalpeens,
+don't I know the history of every one of them? Could n't I expose them
+from one end of the county to the other? Who 's Blake of Harris-town? He
+'s the son of Lucky Magarry, the pedler. You don't believe me. I had it
+from Father Cole himself. Lucky was hanged at Ennis. 'Ye want a
+confession!' says Lucky, when he came out on the drop; 'ye want a
+confession! Well, I suppose there's no use in keeping anything back now,
+for ye 'll hang me at any rate, and so here it's for you. It was I
+murdered Mr. Shea, and there was nobody helping me at all. I did it all
+myself with a flail; and be the same token, it 's under Mark Bindon's
+tombstone this minute. There now, the jury may be azy in their minds, and
+the judge, and the hangman, too, if he cares about it. As for his honor
+the high sheriff,' said he, raising his voice, 'he 's a fine man, God
+bless him, and the county may be proud of him; for it was he ferreted out
+all about this business! And faix, notwithstanding all, I 'm proud of him
+myself, for he 's my own son!' And as he said that he dropped on his knees
+and cried out that he might never see glory if there was a word of lie in
+anything he said then! So that's what Blake got for his zeal for justice!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And as Magennis finished, he burst into a wild, fiendish laugh, and said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's the country gentry&mdash;there 's the people won't know Magennis
+and his wife!&mdash;ay, sir, his lawful, married wife! Let me see that you
+or any other man will deny it, or refuse to treat her as becomes her
+station.&mdash;Joan! Joan!&rdquo; shouted he, striking the poker violently
+against the chimney; and with hot haste and intense anxiety the poor girl
+rushed into the room the moment after. &ldquo;Sit down here, ma'am,&rdquo; said
+Magennis, rising, and placing a chair for her beside his own, with an
+affectation of courtesy that savored of mockery,&mdash;&ldquo;sit down, I say,&rdquo;
+ cried he, stamping his foot passionately. &ldquo;That's my wife, sir! No man
+that sits at <i>my</i> board shall behave to her as anything else.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have ever treated her with respect,&rdquo; said Massingbred, &ldquo;and shall
+always continue to do so.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And it's better for you to do so,&rdquo; said the other, fiercely, the bullying
+spirit rising on what he deemed the craven submission of his guest.
+</p>
+<p>
+Meanwhile the girl sat trembling with terror, not knowing what the scene
+portended, or how it was to end.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The herd's daughter, indeed! No, sir, Mrs. Magennis, of Barnagheela,
+that's her name and title!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+At these words the poor girl, overcome with joy and gratitude, fell down
+upon her knees before him, and, clasping his hand, covered it with kisses.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is n't that pretty breeding!&rdquo; cried Magennis, violently. &ldquo;Get up, ma'am,
+and sit on your chair like a lady. The devil a use in it, do what you
+will, say what you will,&mdash;the bad 'drop' is in them; and whatever
+becomes of you in life, Massingbred, let me give you this advice,&mdash;never
+marry beneath you!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Jack contrived at this juncture to signal to the girl to step away; and by
+appearing to attend with eagerness to Magennis, he prevented his remarking
+her exit.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A man 's never really ruined till then,&rdquo; continued he, slowly, and
+evidently sobering again as he went on. &ldquo;Friends fall away from you, and
+your companions are sure to be fellows with something against them! You
+begin by thinking you 're doing a grand and a courageous thing! You string
+up your resolution to despise the world, and, take my word for it, the
+world pays you off at last. Ay,&rdquo; said he, after a long pause, in which his
+features settled down into an expression of deep sorrow, and his voice
+quivered with emotion,&mdash;&ldquo;ay, and I 'll tell you something worse than
+all,&mdash;you revenge all your disappointment on the poor girl that
+trusted you! and you break <i>her</i> heart to try and heal your own!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+With these last words he buried his head between his hands and sobbed
+fearfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Leave me now,&mdash;leave me alone,&rdquo; said he, without lifting his head.
+&ldquo;Good-night&mdash;good-night to you!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Massingbred arose without a word, and, taking a candle, ascended to his
+chamber, his last thoughts about his host being very unlike those with
+which he had first regarded him. From these considerations he turned to
+others more immediately concerning himself; nor could he conquer his
+misgivings that Magennis was a most unhappy selection for a friend in such
+an emergency.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But then I really am without a choice,&rdquo; said he to himself. &ldquo;Joe
+Nelligan, perhaps, might&mdash;but no, he would have been infinitely more
+unfit than the other. At all events, Nelligan has himself severed the
+friendship that once existed between us.&rdquo; And so he wandered on to
+thoughts of his former companionship with him. Regretful and gloomy enough
+were they, as are all memories of those in whose hearts we once believed
+we had a share, and from which we cannot reconcile ourselves to the
+exclusion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He had not the manliness to meet me when I had become aware of his real
+station! What a poor-spirited fellow! Just as if I cared what or who his
+father was! <i>My</i> theory is, Jack Massingbred can afford to know any
+man he pleases! Witness the roof that now shelters me, and the character
+of him who is my host!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It was a philosophy he built much upon, for it was a form of self-love
+that simulated a good quality, many of his acquaintances saying, &ldquo;At all
+events, there 's no snobbery about Massingbred; he 'll know, and even be
+intimate with, anybody.&rdquo; Nor did the deception only extend to others. Jack
+himself fancied he was an excellent fellow,&mdash;frank, generous, and
+open-hearted.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is a very strange fact&mdash;and fact it certainly is&mdash;that the
+men who reason most upon their own natures, look inwardly at their own
+minds, and scrutinize most their own motives, are frequently the least
+natural of all mankind! This self-inquiry is such thorough self-deception
+that he who indulges in it often becomes an actor. As for Massingbred,
+there was nothing real about him save his egotism! Gifted with very good
+abilities, aided by a strong &ldquo;vitality,&rdquo; he had great versatility; but of
+all powers, this same plastic habit tends most to render a man artificial.
+</p>
+<p>
+Now, his present difficulty was by no means to his taste. He did not like
+his &ldquo;quarrel;&rdquo; he liked less the age and station of his adversary; and
+least of all was he pleased with the character of his &ldquo;friend.&rdquo; It was
+said of Sheridan, that when consulted about the music of his operas, he
+only asked, &ldquo;Will it grind?&rdquo;&mdash;that is, would it be popular enough for
+a street organ, and become familiar to every ear? So Jack Massingbred
+regarded each event in life by the test of how it would &ldquo;tell,&rdquo; in what
+wise could a newspaper report it, and how would it read in the Clubs? He
+fancied himself discussing the adventure at &ldquo;White's,&rdquo; and asking, &ldquo;Can
+any one say what Massingbred's row was about? Was he poaching?&mdash;or
+how came he there? Was there a woman in it? And who is his friend
+Magennis?&rdquo; In thoughts like these he passed hour after hour, walking his
+room from end to end, and waiting for morning.
+</p>
+<p>
+At length he bethought him how little likely it was that Magennis would
+remember anything whatever of the transaction, and that his late debauch
+might obliterate all memory of the affair. &ldquo;What if this were to be the
+case, and that we were to arrive too late at Oughterard? A pretty version
+would the papers then publish to the world!&rdquo; Of all possible casualties
+this was the very worst; and the more he reflected on it, the more
+probable did it seem. &ldquo;He is the very fellow to wake up late in the
+afternoon, rub his eyes, and declare he had forgotten the whole thing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This will never do!&rdquo; muttered he to himself; and at once determined that
+he would make an endeavor to recall his friend to consciousness, and come
+to some arrangement for the approaching meeting. Massingbred descended the
+stairs with noiseless steps, and gently approaching the door of the
+sitting-room, opened it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Magennis was asleep, his head resting upon the table, and his heavy
+breathing denoting how deeply he slumbered. On a low stool at his feet sat
+Joan, pale and weary-looking, her cheeks still marked with recent tears,
+and the dark impression of what seemed to have been a blow beneath her
+eye. Jack approached her cautiously, and asked if it were his custom to
+pass the night thus.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sometimes, when he 's tired&mdash;when he has anything on his mind,&rdquo;
+ replied she, in some confusion, and averting her head so as to escape
+notice.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And when he awakes,&rdquo; said Jack, &ldquo;he will be quite refreshed, and his head
+all clear again?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By coorse he will!&rdquo; said she, proudly. &ldquo;No matter what he took of a
+night, nobody ever saw the signs of it on him the next morning.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did not ask out of any impertinent curiosity,&rdquo; continued Massingbred;
+&ldquo;but we have, both of us, some rather important business to-morrow in
+Oughterard. We ought to be there at an early hour.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know,&rdquo; said she, interrupting. &ldquo;He bid me bring down these;&rdquo; and she
+pointed to a case of pistols lying open beside her, and in cleaning which
+she had been at the moment engaged. &ldquo;I brought the wrong ones, first.&rdquo;
+ Here she stammered out something, and grew crimson over her whole face;
+then suddenly recovering herself, said, &ldquo;I did n't know it was the
+'Terries' he wanted.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The 'Terries'?&rdquo; repeated Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir. It was these Terry Callaghan shot the two gentlemen with, the
+same morning, at Croghaglin,&mdash;father and son they were!&rdquo; And saying
+these words in a voice of the most perfect unconcern possible, she took up
+a flannel rag and began to polish the lock of one of the weapons.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They 're handsome pistols,&rdquo; said Jack, rather amused with her remark.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They 're good, and that's better!&rdquo; replied she, gravely. &ldquo;That one in
+your hand has seven double crosses on the stock and nine single.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The seven were killed on the ground, I suppose?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A short nod of assent was her reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Such little events are not unfrequent down here, then?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Anan!&rdquo; said she, not understanding his question.
+</p>
+<p>
+Jack quickly perceived that he had not taken sufficient account of Joan's
+limited acquaintance with language, and said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They often fight in these parts?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ayeh! not now,&rdquo; replied she, in a half-deploring tone. &ldquo;My father
+remembers twenty duels for one that does be nowadays.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A great change, indeed.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Some say it's all for the better,&rdquo; resumed she, doubtfully. &ldquo;But hush,&mdash;he's
+stirring; leave him quiet, and I 'll call you when he's ready.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I can depend&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure you can. He forgets many a thing; but no man living can say
+that he ever misremembered a duel.&rdquo; And with these words, in a low
+whisper, she motioned Massingbred to the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+Jack obeyed in silence, and, ascending to his room, lay down on the bed.
+He determined to pass the interval before morning in deep thought and
+self-examination; but, somehow, he had scarcely laid his head on the
+pillow when he fell off into a heavy sleep, sound and dreamless.
+</p>
+<p>
+The day was just breaking when he was aroused by a somewhat rude shake,
+and a voice saying,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, up with you. We 've a sharp ride before us!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Jack started up, and in an instant recalled all the exigencies of the
+hour.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have sent the 'tools' forward by a safe hand,&rdquo; continued Magennis; &ldquo;and
+Joan has a cup of tea ready for us below stairs. So lose no time now, and
+let us be off.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The humble meal that awaited them was soon despatched, and they were
+speedily mounted on the pair of mountain ponies Magennis had provided, and
+whose equipments, even in the half-light of the morning, rather shocked
+Mas-singbred's notions of propriety,&mdash;one of his stirrup-leathers
+being a foot shorter than the other, while an old worsted bell-rope formed
+the snaffle-rein of his bridle.
+</p>
+<p>
+The road, too, was rugged and precipitous, and many a stumble and scramble
+had they in the uncertain light; while the swooping rain dashed violently
+against them, and effectually precluded all thought of conversation. Two
+hours, that seemed like ten, brought them at length upon the highroad;
+after which, by a brisk canter of forty minutes, they reached Oughterard.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us dismount here,&rdquo; said Jack, as they gained the outskirts of the
+town, not fancying to make a public appearance on his humble steed.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why so?&rdquo; answered Magennis. &ldquo;It's ashamed of the pony you are! Oh, for
+the matter of that, don't distress yourself; we 're too well used to them
+in these parts to think them ridiculous.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+There was a soreness and irritation in his tone which Jack quickly
+remarked, and as quickly tried to obviate, by some good-natured remark
+about the good qualities of the animals; but Magennis heard him without
+attention, and seemed entirely immersed in his own thoughts.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Turn in there, to your left,&rdquo; cried he, suddenly, and they wheeled into
+an arched gateway that opened upon the stable-yard of the inn. Early as it
+was, the place was full of bustle and movement; for it was the market-day,
+and the farmers were already arriving.
+</p>
+<p>
+Carts, cars, gigs, and a dozen other nameless vehicles crowded the spot,
+with kicking ponies and mules of malicious disposition; grooming and
+shoeing and unharnessing went on, with a noise and merriment that was
+perfectly deafening; and Massingbred, as he threaded his way through the
+crowd, soon perceived how little notice he was likely to attract in such
+an assembly. Magennis soon dismounted, and having given directions about
+the beasts, led Jack into the house, and up a narrow, creaking stair into
+a small room, with a single window, and a bed in one corner. &ldquo;This is
+where I always put up,&rdquo; said he, laying down his hat and whip, &ldquo;and it
+will do well enough for the time we 'll want it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XVI. &ldquo;A CHALLENGE&rdquo;
+ </h2>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He 's here; he arrived last night,&rdquo; said Magennis, as he entered the room
+after a short exploring tour through the stables, the kitchen, and every
+other quarter where intelligence might be come at. &ldquo;He came alone; but the
+major of the detachment supped with him, and that looks like business!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The earlier you see him the better, then,&rdquo; said Mas-singbred.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll just go and get my beard off,&rdquo; said he, passing his hand across a
+very grizzly stubble, &ldquo;and I'll be with him in less than half an hour.
+There's only a point or two I want to be clear about. Before he struck
+you, did you gesticulate, or show any intention of using violence?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;None. I have told you that I caught his horse by the bridle, but that was
+to save him from falling back.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, that was indiscreet, at all events.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Would n't it have been worse to suffer him to incur a severe danger which
+I might have prevented?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think so; but we'll not discuss the point now. There was a blow?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That there was,&rdquo; said Jack, pointing to the spot where a great strap of
+sticking-plaster extended across his forehead.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And he seemed to understand at once that reparation was to be made for
+it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The suggestion came from himself, frankly and speedily.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it's pretty evident we have to deal with a gentleman!&rdquo; said
+Magennis, &ldquo;and that same's a comfort; so I'll leave you now for a short
+time: amuse yourself as well as you can, but don't quit the room.&rdquo; And
+with this caution Magennis took his departure, and set off in search of
+Mr. Repton's chamber.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where are you bringing the mutton chops, Peter?&rdquo; said he to a waiter,
+who, with a well-loaded tray of eatables, was hastening along the
+corridor.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To the ould Counsellor from Dublin, sir. He's break-fastin' with the
+Major.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And that's his room, No. 19?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They 're merry, at all events,&rdquo; said Magennis, as a burst of hearty
+laughter was heard from within the chamber.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'T is just that they are, indeed,&rdquo; replied Peter. &ldquo;The Counsellor does be
+telling one story after another, till you 'd think he 'd no end of them.
+He began last night at supper, and I could scarce change the plates for
+laughin'.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Muttering some not very intelligible observation to himself, Magennis
+passed down the stairs, and issuing into the street, wended his way to the
+barber's.
+</p>
+<p>
+If the Oughterard Figaro had not as brilliant a vocation as his colleague
+of Seville, his occupations were scarcely less multifarious, for he kept
+the post-office, was clerk at petty sessions, collected the parish cess,
+presided over &ldquo;the pound,&rdquo; besides a vast number of inferior duties.
+Whether it was the result of a natural gift, or by the various information
+of his official life, Hosey Lynch was regarded in his native town as a
+remarkably shrewd man, and a good opinion on a number of subjects.
+</p>
+<p>
+He was a short, decrepit old fellow, with an enormous head of curly black
+hair, which he seemed to cultivate with all the address of his craft;
+probably intending it as a kind of advertisement of his skill, displaying
+as it did all the resources of his handiwork. But even above this passion
+was his ardor for news,&mdash;news political, social, legal, or literary;
+whatever might be the topic, it always interested him, and it was his
+especial pride to have the initiative of every event that stirred the
+hearts of the Oughterard public.
+</p>
+<p>
+The small den in which he performed his functions occupied the corner of
+the street, giving a view in two directions, so that Hosey, while cutting
+and curling, never was obliged to lose sight of that world without, in
+whose doings he felt so strong an interest. In the one easy-chair of this
+sanctum was Magennis now disposed, waiting for Mr. Lynch, who had just
+stepped down to &ldquo;the pound,&rdquo; to liberate the priest's pig. Nor had he long
+to wait, for Hosey soon made his appearance, and slipping on a very
+greasy-looking jean-jacket, proceeded to serve him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The top of the morning to you, Captain,&rdquo;&mdash;he always styled him by
+the title,&mdash;&ldquo;it's a rare pleasure to see you so early in town; but it
+will be a bad market to-day&mdash;cut and curled, Captain?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0009" id="linkimage-0009">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/232.jpg" width="100%" alt="232 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; shaved!&rdquo; said Magennis, bluntly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And shaved you shall be, Captain,&mdash;and beautifully shaved, too, for
+I have got an excellent case from Lamprey's; they came yesterday,&mdash;came
+with the writ against Jones Creegan.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;At whose suit?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mrs. Miles Creegan, the other brother's widow,&rdquo; said Hosey, lathering
+away and talking with breathless rapidity. &ldquo;There was a clause in old
+Sam's will, that if ever Tom, the chap that died at Demerara&mdash;you'd
+like more off the whiskers, it's more military. It was only yesterday
+Major Froode remarked to me what a soldierlike-looking man was Captain
+Magennis.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is he in command of the detachment?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is in his Majesty's&mdash;1st Foot&mdash;the 'Buccaneers,' they used
+to be called; I suppose you never heard why?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, nor don't want to hear. What kind of a man is the Major?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He 's a smart, well-made man, with rather a haughty look,&rdquo; said Hosey,
+drawing himself up, and seeming to imply that there was a kind of
+resemblance between them.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is he English or Irish?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Scotch, Captain,&mdash;Scotch; and never gives more than fivepence for a
+cut and curl, pomatum included.&mdash;No letters, Mrs. Cronin,&rdquo; cried he,
+raising up the movable shutter of the little window; then bending down his
+ear he listened to some whispered communication from that lady, after
+which he shut the panel, and resumed his functions. &ldquo;She 's at law with
+O'Reilly about the party wall. There's the Major now going down to the
+barracks, and I wonder who's the other along with him;&rdquo; and Hosey rushed
+to the door to find some clew to the stranger. In less than a quarter of a
+minute he was back again, asking pardon for absence, and informing
+Magennis &ldquo;that the man in plain clothes was a Dublin counsellor, that
+arrived the night before. I think I can guess what he's here for.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; cried Magennis, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's an election coming on, and the Martins expect a contest.&mdash;Nothing
+for you, Peter,&rdquo; said he, to an applicant for a letter outside. &ldquo;He's
+looking to be made barony constable these four years, and he 's as much
+chance as I have of being&mdash;what shall I say?&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you done?&rdquo; asked Magennis, impatiently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;One minute more, sir&mdash;the least touch round the chin,&mdash;and, as
+I was saying, Captain, the Martins will lose the borough.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who thinks so besides you?&rdquo; asked Magennis, gruffly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is, I may say, the general opinion; the notion current in&mdash; There
+'s Miss Martin herself,&rdquo; cried he, running to the window. &ldquo;Well, really,
+she handles them ponies elegant!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Does she come often into town?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think I saw her in Oughterard&mdash;let me see when it was&mdash;it's
+two years&mdash;no, but it's not far off&mdash;it's more than&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you done?&rdquo; said Magennis, impatiently. &ldquo;I told you that I was pressed
+for time this morning.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You're finished now, Captain,&rdquo; said Hosey, presenting him with a small
+cracked looking-glass. &ldquo;That's what I call a neat chin and a beautiful
+sweep of whisker. Thank you, Captain. It's a pleasure and an honor&mdash;not
+to say that it's&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Magennis did not wait for the peroration, but striding hastily out of the
+little shop, issued into the street that led to the inn. On arriving
+there, he heard that Mr. Rep-ton had gone out, leaving word that he would
+be found at Major Froode's quarters. Thither Magennis now repaired with
+all the solemn importance befitting his mission.
+</p>
+<p>
+As he sent in his name, he could overhear the short colloquy that passed
+within, and perceived that Repton was about to retire; and now the servant
+ushered him into the presence of a smart, light-whiskered little man, with
+a pair of shrewd gray eyes, and a high forehead.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A brother officer, I perceive, sir,&rdquo; said he, looking at the card,
+whereupon the title Captain was inscribed; &ldquo;pray take a chair.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You anticipate the reason of this visit, Major Froode,&rdquo; said the other,
+with some degree of constraint, as though the preliminaries were the
+reverse of pleasant to him. The Major bowed, and Magennis went on: &ldquo;I
+suppose, then, I'm to treat with you as the friend of Mr. Valentine
+Repton?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you are Mr. Massingbred's?&rdquo; said the Major, answering the question
+with another.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have that honor, sir,&rdquo; said Magennis, pompously; &ldquo;and now, sir, how
+soon can it come off?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't you imagine, Captain Magennis, that a little quiet discussion of
+the question at issue between two old soldiers, like you and myself, might
+possibly be advisable? Is there not a chance that our united experience
+might not suggest an amicable arrangement of this business?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite out of the question,&mdash;utterly, totally impossible!&rdquo; said
+Magennis, sternly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then perhaps I lie under some misconception,&rdquo; said the Major,
+courteously.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There was a blow, sir!&mdash;a blow!&rdquo; said Magennis, in the same stern
+tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I opine that everything that occurred was purely accidental,&mdash;just
+hear me out,&mdash;that a hasty word and a hurried gesture, complicated
+with the impatient movement of a horse&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A long whistle from Magennis interrupted the speech, and the Major,
+reddening to the very top of his high forehead, said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sir, this is unbecoming,&mdash;are you aware of it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm quite ready for anything when this is settled,&rdquo; said Magennis, but
+with less composure than he desired to assume. &ldquo;What I meant was, that for
+a blow there is but one reparation.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Doubtless, if the injury admit of no explanation,&rdquo; said the Major,
+calmly; &ldquo;but in that lies the whole question. Consider two things, Captain
+Magennis: first of all, the equivocal appearance of <i>your</i> friend,
+the age and standing of <i>mine</i>.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove! you'll kill me in trying to save my life,&rdquo; said Repton, bursting
+into the room. &ldquo;I didn't want to play eavesdropper, Froode, but these thin
+partitions are only soundboards for the voice. This gentleman,&rdquo; added he,
+turning to Magennis, &ldquo;is perfectly correct. There was a blow; and a blow
+has only one consequence, and that one I 'm ready for. There may be, for
+aught I know, twenty ways of settling these matters in London or at the
+clubs, but we 're old-fashioned in our notions in Ireland here; and I
+don't think that even when we pick up new fashions that we 're much the
+better for them, so that if your friend is here, Captain, and ready&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Both, sir; here and ready!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then so am I; and now for the place. Come, Froode, you don't know Ireland
+as well as I do; just humor me this time, and whenever I get into a scrape
+in Scotland you shall have it all your own way. Eh, Captain, is n't that
+fair?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spoke like a trump!&rdquo; muttered Magennis.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;For <i>me</i>, did you say?&rdquo; said Repton, taking a letter from the
+servant, who had just entered the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir; and the groom says there's an answer expected.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The devil take it, I 've forgotten my spectacles. Froode, just tell me
+what's this about, and who it comes from.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's Miss Martin's hand,&rdquo; said Froode, breaking the seal and running over
+the contents. &ldquo;Oh, I perceive,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;they're afraid you have taken
+French leave of them at Cro' Martin, and she has driven into town to carry
+you back again.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That comes of my leaving word at the little post-office to forward my
+letters to Dublin if not asked for to-morrow. Take a pen, Froode, and
+write a couple of lines for me; say that a very urgent call&mdash;a
+professional call&mdash;will detain me here to-day, but that if not back
+by dinner-time&mdash;Captain Magennis thinks it not likely,&rdquo; added he,
+turning towards him as he sat, with a very equivocal expression, half
+grin, half sneer, upon his features&mdash;&ldquo;that I 'll be with them at
+breakfast next morning,&rdquo; resumed Repton, boldly. &ldquo;Make some excuse for my
+not answering the note myself,&mdash;whatever occurs to you. And so, sir,&rdquo;
+ said he, turning to Magennis, &ldquo;your friend's name is Massingbred. Any
+relation to Colonel Moore Massingbred?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;His son,&mdash;his only son, I believe.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How strange! I remember the father in the 'House'&mdash;I mean the Irish
+House&mdash;five-and-thirty years ago; he was always on the Government
+benches. It was of him Parsons wrote those doggerel lines,&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+'A man without a heart or head,
+Who seldom thought, who never read,
+A witty word who never said,
+One at whose board none ever fed,
+Such is the Colonel M&mdash;g&mdash;b&mdash;d.'
+</pre>
+<p>
+He could n't call him a coward, though; for when they went out&mdash;which
+they did&mdash;Massingbred's manner on the ground was admirable.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will that do?&rdquo; said Froode, showing a few lines he had hastily jotted
+down.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can't read a word of it, but of course it will,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;and then,
+sir,&rdquo; added he, addressing Magennis, &ldquo;the sooner we place ourselves at
+your disposal the better.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Froode whispered something in Repton' ear, and by his manner seemed as if
+remonstrating with him, when the other said aloud,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We 're in Ireland, Major; and, what's more, we 're in Galway, as
+Macleweed said once to a prisoner, 'With a Yorkshire jury, sir, I 'd hang
+you. Your sentence now is to pay five marks to the King, and find bail for
+your good behavior.' You see what virtue there is in locality.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's a neat spot about two miles off, on the road to Maum,&rdquo; said
+Magennis to the Major. &ldquo;We could ride slowly forward, and you might keep
+us in view.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In what direction did you say?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take the second turn out of the market-place till you pass the baker's
+shop, then to the left, and straight on afterwards. You can't miss it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stop a moment, sir,&rdquo; said Froode to Magennis, as he moved towards the
+door; &ldquo;one word, if you please. It is distinctly understood that I have
+been overruled in this business,&mdash;that, in fact, I have submitted&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your point has been reserved,&rdquo; said Repton, laughing, while he led him
+away; and Magennis at the same moment took his departure.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was, indeed, with no slight feeling of triumph that thia gentleman now
+hastened back to the Martin Arms. Never did a great diplomatist experience
+more pride in the conclusion of some crowning act of negotiation than did
+he in the accomplishment of this affair.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's many a man,&rdquo; said he to himself, &ldquo;who 'd have accepted an
+apology here. There's many a man might have let himself be embarrassed by
+the circumstances; for, certainly, the taking hold of the bridle was an
+awkward fact, and if the Major was a cute fellow he 'd have made a stand
+upon it. I must say that the Counsellor showed no backwardness; he comes
+of that fine old stock we used to have before the Union.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And with this profound reflection he entered the room where Massingbred
+sat awaiting him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's all settled. We're to meet at the Priest's Gap within an hour,&rdquo; said
+Magennis, with the air of a man who had acquitted himself cleverly. &ldquo;And
+though I say it that should n't, if you were in other hands this morning
+you would n't have got your shot.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I always relied implicitly upon your skill!&rdquo; said Massingbred, humoring
+his vanity.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you anything to arrange,&mdash;a letter or so to write; for I'll
+step down to Dr. Hearkins to tell him to follow us?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Massingbred made no reply as the other left the room. Once more alone, he
+began to think gravely over his present situation. Nor could all his
+habitual levity steel him against the conviction that five minutes of
+common-sense talk might arrange a dispute which now promised a serious
+ending. &ldquo;However,&rdquo; thought he, &ldquo;we are not in the land where such
+differences admit of amicable solution, and there's no help for it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A sharp tap at the door startled him from these musings, and before he
+could well reply to it Daniel Nelligan entered the room, and advanced
+towards him with an air of mingled ease and constraint.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope you 'll forgive me, Mr. Massingbred,&rdquo; he began. &ldquo;I feel certain
+that you will at some future day, at least, for what I 'm going to do.&rdquo;
+ Here he stopped and drew a long breath, as if not knowing in what terms to
+continue. Massingbred handed him a chair, and took one in front of him
+without speaking.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know what brought you here to-day; I am aware of it all.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+He paused, and waited for the other to speak; but Massingbred sat without
+offering a word, and evidently relying on his own social tact to confound
+and embarrass his visitor.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know, sir, that you are likely to regard my interference as
+impertinent,&rdquo; resumed Nelligan; &ldquo;but I trust that the friend of my son,
+Joe&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must set you right upon one point, at least, Mr. Nelligan,&rdquo; said
+Massingbred, with an easy smile. &ldquo;If you be only as accurate in your
+knowledge of my affairs as you are with respect to my private friendships,
+this visit has certainly proceeded from some misconception. Your son and I
+were friends once upon a time. We are so no longer!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never heard of this. I never knew you had quarrelled!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We have not, sir. We have not even met. The discourtesy he has shown me
+since my arrival here&mdash;his avoidance of me, too marked to be
+explained away&mdash;is an offence. The only misfortune is that it is one
+which can be practised with impunity.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My son asks for none such,&rdquo; said Dan, fiercely. &ldquo;And if your observation
+is meant for an insult&mdash;&rdquo; He stopped suddenly, as if checked by
+something within, and then said, but in a voice full and measured, &ldquo;I'm
+magistrate of this town, sir, and I come here upon information that has
+reached me of your intentions to commit a breach of the peace.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear Mr. Nelligan,&rdquo; began Massingbred, in his most seductive of
+manners,&mdash;but the other had already witnessed the rupture of the only
+tie which bound them, the supposed friendship between Joe and Massingbred,
+and cared nothing for all the blandishments he could bestow,&mdash;&ldquo;my
+dear Mr. Nelligan, you cannot, surely, suppose that a mere stranger as I
+am in your county&mdash;scarcely ten days here&mdash;should have been
+unfortunate enough to have incurred the animosity of any one.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hold here a statement, sir,&rdquo; said Nelligan, sternly, &ldquo;which, if you
+please to pledge your honor to be incorrect&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And this is Galway!&rdquo; exclaimed Massingbred,&mdash;&ldquo;this glorious land of
+chivalrous sentiment of which we poor Englishmen have been hearing to
+satiety! The Paradise of Point of Honor, then, turns out a very
+commonplace locality, after all!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm proud to say that our county has another reputation than its old
+one; not but&mdash;&rdquo; and he added the words in some temper&mdash;&ldquo;there
+are a few left would like to teach you that its character was not acquired
+for nothing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well!&rdquo; sighed Jack, as he closed his eyes, and appeared as if
+indulging in a revery, &ldquo;of all the mockeries I have lived to see unmasked,
+this is the worst and meanest.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have not come here to listen to this, sir,&rdquo; said Nelli-gan, haughtily,
+as he arose. &ldquo;I waited upon you, intending to accept your solemn pledge,
+by word of honor, to commit no act hostile to the public peace. Now, sir,
+I shall call upon you to give me the legal guarantee for this security,&mdash;good
+and sufficient bail, and that within an hour!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear Mr. Nelligan,&rdquo; replied Massingbred, with all the quiet ease of an
+unruffled temper, &ldquo;I have not a single friend here, except yourself, upon
+whom I could call in such an emergency. I am utterly unknown in these
+parts; my very name unheard of before my arrival. If I <i>did</i> by any
+unhappy circumstance find myself in such an involvement as you speak of, I
+solemnly assure you my first thought would be to address myself to Mr.
+Nelligan.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The easy impertinence of this speech would have been perfectly successful
+a short time previous, when Nelligan yet believed in the close friendship
+with his son. It came now, however, too late, and the old man listened to
+it with something bordering on anger.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good and sufficient bail, sir,&mdash;yourself and two others,&rdquo; repeated
+he, slowly, and moving towards the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;One word, I pray,&rdquo; said Jack, rising, and speaking with more earnestness
+and apparently with more sincerity. &ldquo;I do not ask you any details as to
+the circumstances you impute to me, but perhaps you would, as a favor,
+tell me how this information has reached you?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will not, sir,&rdquo; was the abrupt reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sure no friend of mine could have&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is no use, Mr. Massingbred; all your address will avail you nothing.
+You shall not cross-examine <i>me!</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You must, however, see, sir,&rdquo; said Massingbred, &ldquo;that unknown and
+unfriended as I am here, bail is out of the question.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Bench will hear anything you desire to say on that subject,&rdquo; said
+Nelligan, coldly. &ldquo;Good-morning to you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And with these words he left the room, and descended into the street.
+</p>
+<p>
+The passionate warmth which Massingbred had so successfully controlled in
+the presence of his visitor burst forth the first moment he found himself
+alone. He inveighed against the country, the people, their habits, and all
+belonging to them; cursed his own fate at being ever thrown into such
+companionship; and wound up by resolving to submit to any terms by which
+he might quit Galway forever, and forget, for the rest of his days, that
+he had ever entered it. While he was yet fuming in this fashion, the
+waiter entered and presented him with a very dirty-looking note, fastened
+by two wafers, and inscribed &ldquo;Most private.&rdquo; Massingbred opened it and
+read,&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+&ldquo;My dear Mr. M.,&mdash;We 're found out&mdash;I believe by Hosey
+Lynch, where I dropped a bullet-mould this morning when he
+was shaving me. At all events, we 're blown, and as I am
+under £250 recognizances to keep the peace for three years,
+I 'm off to the mountains till this passes over. I 'm sure,
+from what I saw of the Counsellor, that he 'll keep himself
+open to a proposal elsewhere. Meanwhile, there's nothing for
+it but to give your bail and satisfy the blackguards&mdash;bad
+luck to them&mdash;that spoiled the sport! You can go back to
+the house when all's over, and I 'll return as soon as it is
+safe for
+
+&ldquo;Your sincere friend,
+
+&ldquo;T. M.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+<p>
+Scarcely had he finished reading this epistle, when Major Froode presented
+himself in his chamber, the door of which the waiter was yet holding ajar.
+Having introduced himself, he briefly informed Massingbred of his position
+as Mr. Repton's friend, and as briefly stated that the Counsellor had been
+obliged to pledge himself against any hostile intentions,&mdash;a step
+which, he foresaw, would also be required of him. &ldquo;For this reason I have
+come,&rdquo; continued he, &ldquo;to say that any assistance I can be of to you is
+frankly at your service. I have learned that you are a stranger here, and
+not likely to have many acquaintances.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If they would be satisfied with my word,&rdquo; began Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course they will, and shall,&rdquo; interrupted Froode; &ldquo;and now, what is
+there in the way of <i>amende</i> my friend can make, for what he is
+prepared to confess was a mere accident?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The acknowledgment is ample. I ask for nothing beyond it,&rdquo; said
+Massingbred. &ldquo;I am not quite certain but that my own conduct might require
+a little explanation; but as your friend's vigor put matters beyond
+negotiation at the time, we 'll not go back upon bygones.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now, sir,&rdquo; burst in Repton, who had waited outside the door,&mdash;&ldquo;and
+now, sir, I beg you to accept the humblest apology I can tender for what
+has happened. I 'm not as safe on my saddle as I used to be forty years
+ago; and when the nag reared and threatened to fall back upon me, I am
+ashamed to own that I neither saw nor cared what I struck at. I 'd have
+said all this to you, Mr. Massingbred, after your fire, had we been
+permitted to go the ground; and although there is some additional
+humiliation in saying it here, I richly deserve all the pain it gives me,
+for my want of temper. Will you give me your hand?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;With sincere pleasure,&rdquo; said Jack, shaking him warmly and cordially with
+both his own.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's but one thing more to be done,&rdquo; said Repton. &ldquo;These borough
+magistrates, vulgar dogs as they are, will want you to give a bail bond.
+Take no notice of them, but just drive out with me to Cro' Martin, and we
+'ll settle it all there.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not acquainted with Mr. Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you shall be. He 'll be charmed to know you, and the place is worth
+seeing. Come, you mustn't leave the West with only its barbarism in your
+memory. You must carry away some other recollections.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The new turn affairs had just taken was by no means distasteful to
+Massingbred. It promised another scene in that drama of life he loved to
+fashion for himself, with new scenery, new actors, and new incidents. &ldquo;The
+Counsellor,&rdquo; too, struck his fancy. There was a raciness in the old man's
+manner, a genial cordiality, united with such palpable acuteness, that he
+promised himself much pleasure in his society; and so he accepted the
+proposal with all willingness, and pledged to hold himself ready for his
+friend within an hour.
+</p>
+<p>
+Repton and the Major had but just left the room, when the former
+re-entered it hurriedly, and said, &ldquo;By the way, I must leave you to your
+own guidance to find your road to Cro' Martin, for there's a young lady
+below stairs has a lien upon me. You shall be presented to her when you
+come out, and I promise you it will repay the journey.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This must be the Mary Martin I 've been hearing of,&rdquo; thought Massingbred,
+when again alone; &ldquo;and so the morning's work will probably turn out better
+than I had anticipated.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XVII. A COUNTRY-HOUSE
+</h2>
+<p>
+When Massingbred arrived at Cro' Martin, he found Repton at the door
+awaiting him. &ldquo;I find,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;there is little need of introducing you
+here. Your father was an old acquaintance of Martin's; they sat together
+for years in Parliament, and Lady Dorothea was related to your family. But
+here he comes.&rdquo; And Martin approached, with his hand extended in cordial
+welcome. No one ever knew better how to do the honors of his house, nor
+could throw more graceful courtesy into the first steps of
+acquaintanceship. Massingbred, too, was well calculated to appreciate this
+gift. He had a most intense esteem for &ldquo;manner,&rdquo; and enjoyed even the
+necessity it imposed upon himself of exertion to please. With sincere
+satisfaction was it that he accepted an invitation to pass some days
+there, and at once despatched a servant to Magennis's house for his
+trunks.
+</p>
+<p>
+The adventure of the morning was alluded to but once, and then in a
+jocular strain, as an incident of no moment whatever; and Massingbred
+retired to his room to dress for dinner, wondering within himself if he
+should find the other members of the family as much to his liking as the
+worthy host had been.
+</p>
+<p>
+A dinner-party was a rare event at Cro' Martin. The isolation in which
+they lived was rarely broken by a visitor; and when, by rare accident,
+some solitary stranger did present himself with a letter of introduction,
+his stay was merely of a few hours. Now, however, the company included, in
+addition to the family, Repton, Massingbred, and Nelligan, besides Miss
+Henderson, who was on that day to appear at dinner. The quondam college
+friends had not met; neither had Miss Martin ever seen her governess; so
+that there was no small degree of anticipation as to how such elements
+would harmonize and agree.
+</p>
+<p>
+When Massingbred entered the drawing-room, he found Miss Henderson there
+alone; and at once believing she could be no other than Miss Martin, he
+proceeded to introduce himself in the best manner he could. Her reception
+was perfect in ease and self-possession, and they soon found themselves
+engaged in a lively discussion as to the scenery, the people and their
+habits, of which they both appeared to have a very similar appreciation.
+Lady Dorothea next made her appearance; and, advancing towards
+Massingbred, welcomed him with what, for her, was the extreme of
+cordiality. &ldquo;Your mother was a Caradoc, Mr. Massingbred, and the Caradocs
+are all of our family; so let me claim relationship at once.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+With all the pretensions of a very fine lady, Lady Dorothea knew how to
+unite very agreeable qualities, not the less successful in her
+captivations, that she never exercised them without a real desire to
+please; so that Massingbred soon saw how in the wilds of dreary Connemara
+there existed a little oasis of polish and civilization that would have
+done honor to the most splendid society of London or Paris.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nor was Massingbred himself less pleasing to her. It was so long, so many,
+many years since she had met with one fresh from that great world which
+alone she valued!
+</p>
+<p>
+Correspondence had kept her to a certain extent informed upon the changes
+and vicissitudes of society,&mdash;the births, deaths, marriages,
+separations, quarrels, and other disasters of those dear friends for whose
+griefs absence and time offer so many consolations! But then, the actual
+appearance, the <i>coup d'oil</i> of that world could only be imparted by
+an observer, imbued with all the spirit that gives observation its
+peculiar piquancy. This she found in him; and so agreeably exercised was
+it, that she actually heard dinner announced without attending, and only
+as she arose from her seat was reminded to present him to Miss Martin, by
+the brief phrase, &ldquo;My niece, Mr. Massingbred;&rdquo; while she took his arm,
+with a glance at Mr. Repton, that plainly said, &ldquo;You are deposed.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The passage to the dinner-room lay through three spacious and splendid
+rooms, which now were brilliantly lighted up, and lined with servants in
+rich liveries,&mdash;a degree of state Massingbred was not a little
+pleased at; partly suspecting that it was intended to do himself honor. As
+they moved slowly through the last of these, the door suddenly opened, and
+young Nelligan entered. He had returned late from a long ride, and heard
+nothing whatever of Massing-bred's arrival. With an exclamation of &ldquo;Jack&mdash;Massingbred!&rdquo;
+ he bounded forward. But the other showed no recognition of him; and
+directing Lady Dorothea's attention to the richness of a picture-frame,
+passed calmly on into the dinner-room.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You must bring up the rear alone, Nelligan,&rdquo; said Martin, who had given
+his arm to Miss Henderson; and Joe followed, almost overwhelmed with
+mingled shame and amazement.
+</p>
+<p>
+For an instant the possibility of mistake assuaged his sense of
+mortification; but no sooner did he find himself at table, and directly
+opposite to Massingbred, than he perceived there was no ground whatever
+for this consolation. It was, indeed, Massingbred, just as he had seen him
+the first day in the Commons Hall at dinner, and when his cold,
+supercilious manner had struck him so disagreeably.
+</p>
+<p>
+What a terrible vengeance for all the superiority Nelligan had displayed
+over him in the Examination Hall was Massingbred's present success; for
+success it was. With all that consummate readiness the habit of society
+imparts, Jack could talk well on a great variety of topics, and possessed,
+besides, that especial tact to make others so far participators in his
+observations that they felt a partnership in the agreeability. Lady
+Dorothea was perfectly charmed with him; it was the triumph, as it were,
+of one of her own set. His anecdotes&mdash;not very pointed or curious in
+themselves&mdash;had the marked characteristic of always referring to
+distinguished individuals; so that what was deficient in wit was more than
+compensated by the rank of the actors. Martin enjoyed his conversation
+with all his own complacent ease, and felt delighted with one who could
+play all the game without an adversary. Mary was pleased and astonished
+together&mdash;the pleasure being even less than the amazement&mdash;at
+all he seemed to know of life and the world, and how intimately one so
+young seemed to have mixed in society. As for Repton, he relished the
+other's powers with the true zest of a pleasant talker; they were of
+different styles, and no disagreeable rivalry marred the appreciation.
+</p>
+<p>
+Amidst all these silent or spoken testimonies sat poor Nelligan,
+overwhelmed with shame. Massingbred had refused to recognize him; and it
+was left to his own gloomy thoughts to search out the reason. At first Joe
+avoided meeting the other's look; he dreaded he knew not what of
+impertinence or insult, to which the time and place could offer no
+reparation; but gradually he grew to perceive that Massingbred's cold eye
+met his own without a spark of meaning; nor was there in voice, manner, or
+bearing, a single evidence of constraint or awkwardness to be detected.
+</p>
+<p>
+Miss Henderson alone seemed to listen to him with easy indifference; and
+more than once, when Jack put forth his most showy pretensions, he was
+secretly mortified to see how little impression he had made on the dark
+beauty with the haughty smile. This was exactly the kind of defiance that
+Massingbred never declined, and he determined within himself to attempt
+the conquest. As the party returned to the drawing-room, he asked Lady
+Dorothea to present him more formally to the young lady whose acquaintance
+he had dared to obtrude upon before dinner; but she coldly said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, it's no matter; she's only the governess.&rdquo; An explanation she deemed
+quite sufficient to subdue any rising feeling of interest regarding her.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the gentleman who sat next her at dinner?&rdquo; asked he.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A neighbor,&mdash;that is, the son of one of our borough people. I have
+not introduced him to you; for, of course, you are not likely to meet
+again. As you were remarking, awhile ago, society in England is gradually
+undergoing that change which in France was accomplished in a year or two.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;With the aid of the guillotine and the 'lanterne,'&rdquo; said Jack, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so; they used sharp remedies for a quick cure. But I own to you that
+I have not yet reconciled myself, nor do I see how I shall ever reconcile
+myself, to intimacy with a class not only whose habits and instincts, but
+whose very natures are adverse to our own. That young man now, for
+instance, they speak of him as quite a college wonder. I'm ashamed to say
+I don't know wherein his great successes lie; but they tell me that he has
+distanced every competitor of his day, and stands alone in his
+preeminence, and yet we saw him to-day not venturing on a remark, nor even
+hazarding an opinion on the topics we talked of, and silent where he ought
+to have been heard with advantage.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is he bashful?&rdquo; said Jack, with a lazy drawl.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think it's that; at least, not altogether.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Supercilious, perhaps?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! certainly not,&rdquo; replied she, hastily. &ldquo;The company in which he found
+himself is the best answer to that. He could not presume&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was, then, downright fear,&rdquo; broke in Massingbred; &ldquo;the terror that
+even clever men cannot even shake off when thrown amongst a class they're
+unused to.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And very naturally so. I'm sure he must be puzzled to imagine why he is
+here. Indeed, we have only known him a few days back. It was one of Mr.
+Martin's sudden caprices to ask him to Cro' Martin. He fancied he ought to
+conciliate&mdash;I believe that's the phrase in vogue&mdash;the borough
+people, and this young man's father is the chief of them.&rdquo; And now Lady
+Dorothea turned from the topic as one unworthy of further thought, and
+entered upon the more congenial theme of her own high relatives and
+connections in England. It was strange enough that Massing-bred's remote
+alliance with her family was sufficient to induce an intimacy and
+familiarity with him which years of mere acquaintanceship could not have
+effected. That his grand-aunt had been a Conway, and his
+great-grandfather's half-brother was married to a Jernyngham, were all a
+species of freemasonry by which he was admitted at once to the privilege
+of confidential discussion.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was no small mortification to Massingbred to spend his evening in these
+genealogical researches; he had seen the two young girls move off into an
+adjoining room, from which at times the sound of a piano, and of voices
+singing, issued, and was half mad with impatience to be along with them.
+However, it was a penalty must be exacted, and he thought that the toll
+once paid he had secured himself against all demands for the future.
+</p>
+<p>
+Not caring to participate in the many intricacies of those family
+discussions wherein the degrees of relationship of individuals seem to
+form the sole points of interest, we shall betake ourselves to the little
+blue drawing-room, where, seated at the piano together, the two young
+girls talked, while their fingers strayed along the notes as though
+affording a species of involuntary accompaniment to their words. Nelligan,
+it is true, was present; but, unnoticed by either, he sat apart in a
+distant corner, deep in his own brooding thoughts.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary had only made Miss Henderson's acquaintance on that evening, but
+already they were intimate. It was, indeed, no common boon for her to
+obtain companionship with one of her own age, and who, with the dreaded
+characteristics of a governess, was in reality a very charming and
+attractive person. Miss Henderson sang with all the cultivated knowledge
+of a musician; and, while she spoke of foreign countries where she had
+travelled, lapsed at times into little snatches of melody, as it were,
+illustrative of what she spoke. The delight Mary experienced in listening
+was unbounded; and if at moments a sad sense of her own neglected
+education shot through her mind, it was forgotten the next instant in her
+generous admiration.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how are <i>you</i>, who have seen this bright and brilliant world you
+speak of,&rdquo; said Mary, &ldquo;to sit quietly down in this unbroken solitude,
+where all the interests are of the humblest and more ordinary kind?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You forget that I saw all these things, as it were, on sufferance,&rdquo;
+ replied she. &ldquo;I was not born to them, nor could ever hope for more than a
+passing glance at splendors wherein I was not to share. And as for the
+quiet monotony here, an evening such as this, companionship like yours,
+are just as much above my expectations.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, no, no!&rdquo; cried Mary, eagerly. &ldquo;You were as surely destined for a
+salon as I was for the rude adventures of my own wayward life. You don't
+know what a strange existence it is.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have heard, however!&rdquo; said the other, calmly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell me&mdash;do tell me&mdash;what you have been told of me, and don't
+be afraid of wounding my vanity; for, I pledge you my word, I do think of
+myself with almost all the humility that I ought.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have heard you spoken of in the cabins of the poor as their only
+friend, their comforter, and their hope; the laborer knows you as his
+succor,&mdash;one by whose kind intervention he earns his daily bread;
+their children love you as their own chosen protector.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But it's not of these things I 'm speaking,&rdquo; said Mary, rapidly. &ldquo;Do they
+not call me self-willed, passionate, sometimes imperious?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; and capricious at times!&rdquo; said the other, slowly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary colored, and her voice faltered as she said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There they were unjust. The impracticable tempers I have to deal with&mdash;the
+untutored minds and undisciplined natures&mdash;often lead me into seeming
+contradictions.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Like the present, perhaps,&rdquo; said Miss Henderson.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How! the present?&rdquo; said Mary.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That, while claiming the merit of humility, you at once enter upon a
+self-defence.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, perhaps I <i>am</i> capricious!&rdquo; said Mary, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And haughty?&rdquo; asked the other, slowly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe so!&rdquo; said Mary, with a degree of dignity that seemed to display
+the sentiment while confessing to it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have never heard a heavier accusation against Miss Martin than these,&rdquo;
+ said she, &ldquo;and I have lived with those who rarely scruple how to criticise
+their betters.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mary was silent and thoughtful; she knew not how to interpret the mingled
+praise and censure she had just listened to.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But tell me rather of yourself,&rdquo; said Mary, as though willing to turn the
+topic of conversation. &ldquo;I should like to hear your story.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;At thirteen years of age&mdash;I believe even a year later&mdash;I was
+the playfellow of the young gentleman you see yonder,&rdquo; said Kate
+Henderson, &ldquo;but who, to-night, seems incapable of remembering anything or
+anybody.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of Mr. Nelligan?&rdquo; repeated Mary. And Joseph started as he heard his name,
+looked up, and again relapsed into revery.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm not sure that we were not in love. I almost confess that I was, when
+my father sent me away to France to be educated. I was very sad&mdash;very,
+very sad&mdash;at being taken away from home and thrown amongst strangers,
+with none of whom I could even interchange a word; and I used to sit and
+cry for hours by myself, and write sorrowful love-letters to 'dearest
+Joseph,' and then imagine the answers to them; sometimes I actually wrote
+them, and would suffer agonies of anguish before I dared to break the seal
+and learn the contents. Meanwhile I was acquiring a knowledge of French,
+and knew a little of music, and used to sing in our choir at chapel, and
+learned to believe the world was somewhat larger than I had hitherto
+thought it, and that St. Gudule was finer than the mean little church at
+Oughterard; and worse still&mdash;for it <i>was</i> worse&mdash;that the
+sous-lieutenants and cadets of the Military College had a much more
+dashing, daring look about them than 'poor Joseph;' for so I now called
+him to myself, and gave up the correspondence soon after.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Remember, Miss Martin, that I was but a child at this time&mdash;at
+least, I was little more than fourteen&mdash;but in another year I was a
+woman, in all the consciousness of certain attractions, clever enough to
+know that I could read and detect the weak points in others, and weak
+enough to fancy that I could always take advantage of them. This incessant
+spirit of casuistry, this passion for investigating the temper of those
+about you, and making a study of their natures for purposes of your own,
+is the essence of a convent life; you have really little else to do, and
+your whole bent is to ascertain why Sister Agnes blushes, or why Beatrice
+fainted twice at the Angelus. The minute anatomy of emotions is a very
+dangerous topic. At this very moment I cannot free myself from the old
+habit; and as I see young Mr. Nelligan there sitting with his head in his
+hand, so deep in thought as not to notice us, I begin to examine why is it
+he is thus, and on what is he now brooding?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And can you guess?&rdquo; asked Mary, half eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I could be certain, if I were but to ask him a question or two.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pray do then, if only to convince me of your skill.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I must be alone, and that is scarcely possible,&mdash;scarcely
+becoming.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us contrive some way,&mdash;think of something.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is too late now; he is about to leave the room,&rdquo; said Kate,
+cautiously. &ldquo;How pale he looks, and how anxious his eye has become! I
+thought at first there was some constraint at meeting <i>me</i> here; he
+feared, perhaps&mdash;but no, that would be unworthy of him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+She ceased, for Nelligan had now drawn nigh to where they sat, and stood
+as if trying to collect himself to say something.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you sing, Mr. Nelligan?&rdquo; asked Kate.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; I am ignorant of music,&rdquo; said he, half abstractedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you like it?&rdquo; asked Mary.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I believe I do,&mdash;that is, it calms and quiets me. If I could
+understand it, it would do more.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then why not understand it, since that is the way you phrase it?&rdquo; asked
+Kate. &ldquo;Everybody can be a musician to a certain degree of proficiency.
+There is no more ear required than you want to learn a language.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you shall teach me,&rdquo; cried Mary, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Kate took up her hand and pressed it to her lips for a reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Foreigners&mdash;men, I mean&mdash;are all so well aware of this that
+they cultivate music as a necessary part of education; few attain high
+eminence, but all know something of it. But somehow we have got to believe
+that cultivation in England must always tend to material profit. We learn
+this, that, and t' other, to be richer or greater or higher, but never to
+be more acceptable in society, more agreeable or pleasanter company.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We have n't time,&rdquo; said Nelligan, gravely.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;For what have we not time? Do you mean we have no time to be happy?&rdquo;
+ cried Repton, suddenly stepping in amongst them. &ldquo;Now, my dear young
+ladies, which of you will bid highest for the heart of an old lawyer&mdash;by
+a song?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It must be Miss Henderson,&rdquo; said Mary, smiling, &ldquo;for I don't sing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not a ballad?&mdash;not even one of the Melodies?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not even one of the Melodies,&rdquo; said she, sorrowfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shame upon me for that 'even,'&rdquo; said Repton; &ldquo;but you see what comes of
+surviving one's generation. I lived in an age when the 'Last Rose of
+Summer' and the 'Harp that Once' were classical as Homer's 'Hymns,' but I
+have now fallen upon times when English music is estimated in the same
+category with English cookery, and both deemed very little above
+barbarous. To be sure,&rdquo; added he, &ldquo;it does seem very like a poetical
+justice for the slavish adherence of <i>our</i> education to Greek and
+Roman literature, that our ladies should only sing to us in the languages
+of Italy or Germany.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope you would not imply that we are as little versed in these as great
+scholars are in the others?&rdquo; said Kate Henderson, slyly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sharply said, miss, and truthfully insinuated too! Not to mention that
+there is courage in such a speech before Mr. Nelligan, here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;very true&mdash;a just remark!&rdquo; said Joseph, who only overheard
+a reference to himself without understanding to what it alluded. And now a
+very joyous burst of laughter from the others startled him, while it
+covered him with confusion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We must make them sing, Nelligan,&rdquo; said Repton, gayly. &ldquo;They'll vanquish
+us in these tilting-matches of word-fence.&mdash;Now, Miss Henderson,
+something very plaintive and very sentimental, to suit the tenderness of a
+feeling heart.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll sing for you with pleasure,&rdquo; said Kate. &ldquo;Will this suit you?&rdquo; And
+with a short prelude she sang one of those brilliant little snatches of
+Venetian melody which seem like the outburst of a sudden inspiration,&mdash;wild,
+joyous, floating as they are,&mdash;wherein such is the expression that
+sounds usurp the place of language, and the mind is carried away by a
+dreamy fascination impossible to resist.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How often have I heard that on the Lido!&rdquo; said Mas-singbred, entering the
+room hastily; &ldquo;and what a glorious thing it is!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you know this?&rdquo; said Kate, running her fingers over the notes, and
+warbling out another of the popular airs of the same class.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The last time I heard that,&rdquo; said Jack, musingly, &ldquo;was one night when
+returning home from a late party, along the Grand Canal at Venice. There
+is a single word at the end of each verse which should be uttered by a
+second voice. Just as I passed beneath a brilliantly lighted salon, the
+sounds of this melody came floating forth, and as the stanza finished, I
+supplied the 'refrain.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You?&rdquo; cried Kate, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; but why do you ask?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you remember the exact spot?&rdquo; said she, not heeding his question.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;As well as though I were there only yesterday.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall I tell you where it was?&rdquo; He waited, and she went on: &ldquo;It was under
+the balcony of the Mocenigo Palace.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, this is witchcraft,&rdquo; cried Jack; &ldquo;you are perfectly correct.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The bouquet that was thrown to you from the window fell into the water.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I regained it. I have it still,&rdquo; cried he, more eagerly; &ldquo;and yours
+was the hand that threw it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+She nodded assent.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How strange, is it not, that we should meet here?&rdquo; He paused for a minute
+or two, and then said, &ldquo;It was the Duchesse de Courcelles lived there at
+the time?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, we passed the winter in that palace.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Henderson was the companion of the young Princess,&rdquo; said Lady
+Dorothea, who had just joined the group, and experienced no slight shock
+at observing the tone of easy familiarity in which the conversation was
+conducted. But Massingbred seemed wonderfully little moved by the
+intelligence, for, drawing his chair closer to Kate's, he led her to talk
+of Venice and its life, till, imperceptibly as it were, the discourse
+glided into Italian. What a dangerous freemasonry is the use of a foreign
+language, lifting the speakers out of the ordinary topics, and leading
+them away to distant scenes and impressions, which, constituting a little
+world apart, give a degree of confidential feeling to intercourse.
+Massingbred would willingly have lent himself to the full enjoyment of
+this illusion; but Kate, with quicker tact, saw all the difficulties and
+embarrassment it would occasion, and under pretext of searching for some
+music, escaped at once from the spot.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How I envy you, dear girl!&rdquo; said Mary, following her, and passing her arm
+affectionately around her. &ldquo;What a happiness must it be to possess such
+gifts as yours, which, even in their careless exercise, are so graceful.
+Tell me frankly, is it too late for me to try&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You overrate <i>me</i> as much as you disparage yourself,&rdquo; said Kate,
+mildly; &ldquo;but if you really will accept me, I will teach you the little
+that I know, but, in return, will you make <i>me</i> your friend?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mary pressed the other's hand warmly within her own.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here are some vows of everlasting friendship going forward, I 'll be
+sworn,&rdquo; said old Repton, stepping in between them; &ldquo;and you ought to have
+a legal opinion as to the clauses,&mdash;eh, young ladies, am I not
+right?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;When was Mr. Repton wrong?&rdquo; said Mary, laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;When he waited till his present age to fall in love!&rdquo; said he, gayly.
+&ldquo;But, seriously, what have you done with our young student? Of all the
+woe-begone faces I ever beheld, his was the very saddest, as he moved into
+the large drawing-room awhile ago. Which of you is to blame for this?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not guilty, upon my honor,&rdquo; said Mary, with mock solemnity.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm half afraid that our showy friend has eclipsed him in <i>your</i>
+eyes, as I own to you he has in <i>mine</i>, clever fellow that he is.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you not charmed with yourself that you did not shoot him this
+morning?&rdquo; said Mary, laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sincerely gratified that he has not shot me, which, taking his
+pistol performance on the same level with his other acquirements, was not
+so very improbable!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's your uncle stealing away to bed,&rdquo; said Repton, &ldquo;and fancying that
+nobody remarks him. Shall I be cruel enough to mar the project? Martin&mdash;Martin&mdash;come
+here for a moment; we want your opinion on a knotty point.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know what it is,&rdquo; said Martin, smiling; &ldquo;the question under discussion
+is, &ldquo;whether you or Mr. Massingbred were the more successful to-day? &rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think Mr. Massingbred may claim the prize,&rdquo; said Mary Martin, with a
+sly whisper; &ldquo;he made Lady Dorothea cry.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said Repton, &ldquo;but <i>I</i> made young Nelligan laugh!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And now the party broke up, Massingbred lingering a little behind to say
+something to Miss Henderson, and then betaking himself to his chamber,
+well satisfied with his day, and the change it had wrought in his
+fortunes. Perhaps a few passages from a letter that he, on that same
+night, penned to one of his friends in Dublin, will not be ill-timed as an
+exponent of his sentiments. The letter was written, directing certain
+articles of dress to be forwarded to him at once, by coach, and contained
+these paragraphs:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You now know how I came here: the next thing is to tell you of the place
+itself. The house is large and admirably <i>montée</i>&mdash;abundance of
+servants, well drilled, and orderly. The master a nonentity, apparently;
+easy-tempered and good-humored; liking the quiet monotony of his humdrum
+life, and only asking that it may not be interfered with. His wife, a fine
+lady of the school of five-and-forty years ago,&mdash;a nervous terrorist
+about mob encroachments and the democratic tendencies of the times,&mdash;insufferably
+tiresome on genealogies and 'connections,' and what many would call
+downright vulgar in the amount of her pretension. Gratitude&mdash;for I
+have the honor of being a favorite already&mdash;seals my lips against any
+further or harsher criticism. As for the niece, she is decidedly handsome;
+a great deal of style about her too; with a degree of&mdash;shall I call
+it daring? for it is more like courage than any other quality&mdash;that
+tells you she is the uncontrolled ruler over the wild regions and wild
+people around her. With more of manner, she would be very charming; but
+perhaps she is better in the unfettered freedom of her own capricious
+independence: it certainly suits her to perfection. And now I should have
+completed my catalogue, if it were not for the governess. Ay, Harry, the
+governess! And just fancy, under this unimposing title, a dark-eyed,
+haughty-looking girl&mdash;I don't think she can be above twenty or
+twenty-one&mdash;with a carriage and port that might suit an Archduchess
+of Austria. She has travelled all over Europe&mdash;been everywhere&mdash;seen
+everything, and, stranger again, everybody; for she was what they style a
+companion. By Jove! she must have been a very charming one; that is, if
+she liked it; for if she did not, Hal!&mdash;At all events, here she is;
+only having arrived the very day before myself; so that we are free to
+discuss the family, and compare notes together, in the most confidential
+fashion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course I need n't tell <i>you</i> Jack Massingbred does not fall in
+love,&mdash;the very phrase implies it must be beneath one,&mdash;but I
+already see that if such a girl were a Lady Catherine or a Lady Agnes,
+with a father in the Upper House, and two brothers in the 'Lower,' her
+dowry anything you like above thirty thousand,&mdash;that, in short, even
+Jack himself might exhibit the weakness of inferior mortals; for she is
+precisely one of those types that are ever looking upward,&mdash;a girl
+with a high ambition, I 'll be sworn, and formed to make the man, whose
+fortunes she shared, stand forward in the van and distinguish himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;These are our whole <i>dramatis persono</i>, if I include an old
+barrister, with a racy humor and a strong stock of Bar anecdotes; and
+young Nelligan, the Medal man, whom you quizzed me so much for noticing in
+Dublin. You were right then, Harry; he <i>is</i> a low fellow, and I was
+wrong in ever thinking him otherwise. I chanced upon his father's
+acquaintance rather oddly; and the son has not forgiven it. When we met
+here, yesterday, he fancied that we were to speak, and was actually
+rushing forward to shake hands with the most enthusiastic warmth; but with
+that manner which you have often admired, and once encouraged, when you
+called me the 'Cool of the day,' I pulled him up dead short, stared, and
+passed on. At dinner, I managed to ignore him so utterly that everybody
+else fell into the trap, and he dined as a tutor or the chaplain or the
+agent's son might,&mdash;mingling his sighs with the soup, and sipping his
+claret in all dreariness.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will see, even from these hasty lines, that there is enough here to
+interest and amuse; food for observation, and opportunity for malice. What
+can a man want more? The 'joint and the pickles.' They have asked me to
+stay,&mdash;they have even entreated; and so I mean to pass a week&mdash;perhaps
+two&mdash;here. I conclude that will give me enough of it: however, you
+shall hear frequently of my <i>res gesto</i>, and learn all that befalls
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jack Massingbred.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;... When you pass that way, pray see what letters there may be lying for
+me in my chambers. If any of my father's&mdash;he writes in a large
+splashy hand&mdash;and the seal, two maces, saltierwise&mdash;forward them
+here. I am, or I shall soon be, in want of money; and as I have overdrawn
+my allowance already, I shall be obliged to issue bonds, bearing a certain
+interest. Can you recommend me to a safe capitalist?&mdash;not Fordyce&mdash;nor
+Henniker&mdash;nor yet Sloan&mdash;with all of whom I have held dealings,
+mutually disagreeable. It is a sad reflection that the stamp worth five
+shillings upon a piece of unsullied paper is absolutely valueless when the
+words 'Jack Massingbred' are inscribed beneath. Try, and if you can, solve
+this curious problem.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;At all events, write to me here: supply me freely with news, for I am
+supposed to be acquainted with all that goes on, socially and politically,
+and I shall be driven to imagination if you do not store me with fact.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XVIII. STATECRAFT
+</h2>
+<p>
+It was a cabinet council; they were met in Lady Dorothea's boudoir, Martin
+and Mr. Repton being summoned to her presence. A letter had that morning
+reached her Ladyship from a very high quarter; the writer was the Marquis
+of Reckington, a very distant connection, who had suddenly been graciously
+pleased, after a long interval of utter obliviousness, to remember that
+Lady Dorothea was his relative, and yet living! Whatever pride her
+Ladyship might have summoned to her aid to repel the slights or
+impertinences of the vulgar, she displayed a most Christian forgiveness as
+she broke the seal of an epistle from one who had left several of her own
+without answers, and even replied to her application for a staff
+appointment for her son, by a cold assurance that these were times when
+&ldquo;nothing but fitness and superior qualifications entitled any man to
+advancement in the public service.&rdquo; Oh dear, were there ever any other
+times since the world was made! Is not merit the only passport to place,
+and high desert and capacity the sole recommendation to favor? Of all the
+immense advantages of a representative government, is there any more
+conspicuous than the unerring certainty with which men of ability rise to
+eminence without other aid than their own powers; and that, in a system
+like ours, family influence, wealth, name, connections, and parliamentary
+support are just so much mere dross? If any one be incredulous of the
+virtue of public men, let him only ask for a place; let him entreat his
+great friend&mdash;everybody has at least one great friend&mdash;mine is a
+coroner&mdash;to make him a Junior Lord, or a Vice-Something, and see what
+the answer will be. Polite, certainly; nothing more so; but what a rebuke
+to self-seeking!&mdash;what a stern chastisement to the ignorant
+presumption that places are awarded by means of favor, or that the public
+service is ever filled through the channels of private influence! Far from
+it. He is told that our age is an incorruptible one, that ministers pass
+sleepless nights in balancing the claims of treasury clerks, and that Lord
+Chancellors suffer agonies in weighing the merits of barristers of six
+years' standing. &ldquo;We have but one rule for our guidance: the best man in
+the best place.&rdquo; A high-sounding maxim, which it would be excessively
+uncivil to disparage by asking what constitutes &ldquo;a best man.&rdquo; Is he some
+unscrupulous partisan, who first gave his fortune, and afterwards his
+fame, to the support of a party? Is he the indisputable disposer of three,
+or perhaps four votes in the House? Is he a floating buoy to be anchored
+in either roadstead of politics, and only to be secured to either, for a
+consideration? Is he the dangerous confidant of some damaging transaction?
+Or is he the deserter from a camp, where his treason may sow disaffection?
+These several qualifications have ere this served to make up &ldquo;a best man;&rdquo;
+ and strangely enough, are gifts which fit him for the Army, the Navy, the
+Home Service, or the Colonies.
+</p>
+<p>
+Let us turn from this digression, into which we have fallen half
+inadvertently, and read over some parts of Lord Reckington's letter. It
+was somewhat difficult to decipher, as most great men's letters are, and
+displayed in more than one place the signs of correction. Although it had
+been, as we have said, a very long time since any correspondence had
+occurred between the &ldquo;cousins,&rdquo; his Lordship resumed the intercourse as
+though not a week had intervened. After a little playful chiding over the
+laxity of her Ladyship's writing habits,&mdash;three of hers had been left
+unreplied to,&mdash;and some of that small gossip of family changes and
+events, never interesting to any but the direct actors, his Lordship
+approached the real topic of his letter; and, as he did so, his writing
+grew firmer, and larger and bolder, like the voice of a man who spoke of
+what truly concerned him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought, my dear Dora, I had done with it all. I flattered myself that
+I had served my time in public capacities, and that neither the Crown nor
+its advisers could reasonably call upon me for further sacrifices. <i>You</i>
+know how little to my taste were either the cares or ambitions of office.
+In fact, as happens to most men who are zealous for the public service, my
+official career imposed far more of sacrifices than it conferred
+privileges. Witness the occasions in which I was driven to reject the
+claims of my nearest and dearest friends, in compliance with that nervous
+terror of imputed favoritism so fatal to all in power! I thought, as I
+have said, that they had no fair claim upon me any longer. I asked
+nothing; indeed, many thought I was wrong there. But so it was; I quitted
+office without a pension, and without a ribbon! It was late on a Saturday
+evening, however, when a Cabinet messenger arrived at 'Beech Woods' with
+an order for me to repair at once to Windsor. I was far from well; but
+there was no escape. Immediately on arriving I was summoned to the
+presence, and before I had paid my respects, his Majesty, who was much
+excited, said, 'Reckington, we want you. You must go to Ireland!' I
+believe I started, for he went on, 'I 'll have no refusal. There is but
+one settlement of this question that I will accept of. You shall go to
+Ireland!' The King then entered with considerable warmth, but with all his
+own remarkable perspicuity, into a detail of late changes and events in
+the Cabinet. He was excessively irritated with B&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, and
+spoke of G&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;as one whom he never could forgive. He
+repeatedly said, 'I have been duped; I have been tricked;' and, in fact,
+exhibited a degree of emotion which, combined with the unbounded frankness
+of his manner towards me, affected me almost to tears. Of course, my dear
+Dora, personal considerations ceased at once to have any hold upon me; and
+I assured his Majesty that the remainder of my life was freely at his
+disposal, more than requited, as it already was, by the precious
+confidence he had that day reposed in me. I must not weary you with
+details. I accepted and kissed hands as Viceroy on Monday morning; since
+that I have been in daily communication with G&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, who
+still remains in office. We have discussed Ireland from morning to night,
+and I hope and trust have at last come to a thorough understanding as to
+the principles which must guide the future administration. These I reserve
+to talk over with you when we meet; nor do I hesitate to say that I
+anticipate the very greatest benefit in the fruits of your long residence
+and great powers of observation of this strange people.&rdquo; The letter here
+went off into a somewhat long-winded profession of the equal-handed
+justice which was to mark the acts of the administration. It was to be, in
+fact, a golden era of equity and fairness; but, somehow, as codicils are
+occasionally found to revoke the body of the testament, a very suspicious
+little paragraph rather damaged this glorious conclusion. &ldquo;I don't mean to
+say, my dear coz., that we are to neglect our followers,&mdash;the
+Government which could do so never yet possessed, never deserved to
+possess, able support; but we must discriminate,&mdash;we must distinguish
+between the mere partisan who trades on his principles, and that
+high-minded and honorable patriot who gives his convictions to party. With
+the noisy declaimer at public meetings, the mob-orator or pamphleteer, we
+shall have no sympathy. To the worthy country gentleman, independent by
+fortune as well as by principle, extending the example of a blameless life
+to a large neighborhood, aiding us by his counsels as much as by the
+tender of his political support,&mdash;to him, I say, we shall show our
+gratitude, not grudgingly nor sparingly, but freely, openly, and largely.
+You now know in what ranks we wish to see our friends, in the very van of
+which array I reckon upon yourself.&rdquo; We shall again skip a little, since
+here the writer diverged into a slight dissertation on the indissoluble
+ties of kindred, and the links, stronger than adamant, that bind those of
+one blood together. After a brief but rapid survey of the strong
+opposition which was to meet them, he went on: &ldquo;Of course all will depend
+upon our parliamentary support; without a good working majority we cannot
+stand, and for this must we use all our exertions.&rdquo; A few generalities on
+the comfort and satisfaction resulting from &ldquo;safe divisions&rdquo; ensued, and
+then came the apparently careless question, &ldquo;What can <i>you</i> do for
+us? Yes, my dear Dora, I repeat, what can <i>you</i> do for us? What we
+need is the support of men who have courage enough to merge old prejudices
+and old convictions in their full trust in us; who, with the intelligence
+of true statesmanship, will comprehend the altered condition of the
+country, and not endeavor to adapt the nation to <i>their</i> views, but
+rather <i>their</i> views to the nation. In a word, a wise and liberal
+policy, not based upon party watchwords and antiquated symbols, but on the
+prospect of seeing Ireland great and united. Now, will Martin come to our
+aid in this wise? He ought to be in Parliament for his county. But if he
+be too indolent, or too happy at home, whom can he send us? And again,
+what of the borough? They tell me that Kilcock, seeing his father's great
+age, will not stand where a contest might be expected, so that you must
+necessarily be prepared with another.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Again the writer launched out upon the happiness he felt at being able to
+appeal thus candidly and freely to his own &ldquo;dearest kinswoman,&rdquo; inviting
+her to speak as frankly in return, and to believe that no possible
+difference of political opinion should ever throw a coldness between those
+whose veins were filled with the same blood, and whose hearts throbbed
+with the same affections. Her Ladyship's voice slightly faltered as she
+read out the concluding paragraph, and when she laid the letter down, she
+turned away her head and moved her handkerchief to her eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+As for Martin, he sat still and motionless, his gaze firmly directed to
+Repton, as though seeking in the impassive lines of the old lawyer's face
+for some clew to guide and direct him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You used to be a Tory, Martin?&rdquo; said Repton, after a pause.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, to be sure, we were always with that party.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there's an end of them now,&rdquo; said the other. &ldquo;What's to follow and
+fill their place, my Lord Reckington may be able to say; I cannot. I only
+know that <i>they</i> exist no longer; and the great question for you&mdash;at
+least, one of the great questions&mdash;is, have you spirit enough to join
+a travelling party without knowing whither they 're journeying?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what may be the other great question, sir?&rdquo; asked Lady Dorothea,
+haughtily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The other is, what will it cost in money&mdash;ay, my Lady, in money;
+because any other outlay will not require searches nor title-deeds, loans,
+mortgages, nor bond-debts.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To contest the county would cost ten thousand pounds; Scanlan says so,&rdquo;
+ rejoined Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the borough?&rdquo; asked Repton.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A few hundreds would suffice; at least, they have done so hitherto.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then remain content with the cheap luxury of the borough,&rdquo; said Repton.
+&ldquo;You don't want anything from these people, Martin. You don't covet a
+peerage; you would n't accept a baronetcy. You remember what Langton said
+when told that the King was going to give him the 'Red Hand.' 'If I have
+been unfortunate enough to incur his Majesty's displeasure, I must deplore
+it deeply; but surely my innocent son should not be included in the
+penalty of my offence. Therefore, in all humility, I beseech and entreat
+the royal favor to commute the sentence into knighthood, so that the
+disgrace may die with me.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There were times when such insolence would have cost him dearly,&rdquo; said
+her Ladyship, sternly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not sorry that we don't live in them, my Lady,&rdquo; replied Repton. &ldquo;But
+to return: as I was saying, you ask for no favors; why should you expend
+ten or fifteen thousand pounds to advocate views of whose tendencies you
+know nothing, and principles whose very meaning you are in ignorance of?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I anticipated every word of this,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea. &ldquo;I told Mr.
+Martin, this morning, almost literally, the exact advice you'd proffer.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am proud that your Ladyship should have read me so justly,&rdquo; said
+Repton, bowing.
+</p>
+<p>
+An insolent toss of her head was the significant answer to this speech.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But were I to speak my mind more candidly, I 'd even say, let the borough
+go after the county; and for this plain reason,&rdquo; said Repton, speaking
+with increased firmness and animation, &ldquo;you neither seek for the ambition
+of political life, nor want to make a trade of its casualties.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it not possible, sir, that we might desire the natural influence that
+should arise out of our station in society and our rank in this county?&rdquo;
+ said Lady Dorothea, proudly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And your Ladyship has it, and can never lose it. Having a vote or two to
+throw into a Ministerial division would never repay you for the anxieties
+and cares of contested elections. Ah, my Lady, what do <i>you</i> care for
+the small flatteries of London attentions?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We should have these, sir, as our right,&rdquo; broke she in.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure you would, and much happiness do I hope they would confer,&rdquo;
+ added he, in a tone only overheard by Martin; then continued aloud: &ldquo;As to
+the patronage at your disposal, would you take a present of it? Whom do
+you want to make tide-waiters, gaugers, barony-constables, or even clerks
+of the peace? Of all men living, who is so free of hungry dependants or
+poor relations!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must say, sir, that you reduce the question of political support to a
+very intelligible one of material benefit,&rdquo; said her Ladyship, with a
+sneer; &ldquo;but, just for argument sake, imagine that there should be such a
+thing as a little principle in the matter.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm going to that part of the case, my Lady,&rdquo; said Repton. &ldquo;Martin is a
+Tory; now, what are the men coming into power? I wish you could tell me.
+Here, for instance, is one of their own journals,&rdquo;&mdash;and he opened a
+newspaper and ran his eye over the columns,&mdash;&ldquo;ay, here it is: 'With
+regard to Ireland, Lord Reckington's appointment as Viceroy is the best
+guarantee that the rights of Irishmen of every persuasion and every
+denomination will be respected.' So far so good;&rdquo; and he read on in a low,
+humdrum voice for some minutes, till he came to the following: &ldquo;'No
+privileged class will any longer be tolerated; no exceptional loyalty
+admitted as an excuse for insufferable oppression and tyranny; the wishes
+and benefits of the people&mdash;the real people of that country&mdash;will
+at length enter into the views of an administration; and Ireland as she
+is,&mdash;not the possible Ireland of factious enthusiasts,&mdash;be
+governed by men determined to redress her grievances and improve her
+capacities.' Now, Martin, you want no augur to interpret that oracle. They
+are going to rule you by the people; but the people must be represented.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, who represents them? Not the demagogue; he is merely their tool. The
+real representative is the priest; don't laugh, my dear friend, at such a
+shadowy possibility; the thing is nearer than you dream of. No
+administration ever yet tried to govern Ireland except by intimidation.
+The Beresfords were undertakers once, and they did their work very well,
+let me tell you; they advanced their friends and whipped their enemies;
+and what with peerages for one set, and pitched caps for the other, they
+ruled Ireland. Then there came the Orangemen, who rather blundered their
+work; there were too many heads amongst them, and the really clever
+fellows were overborne by brawling, talkative fools, who always had the
+masses with them because they <i>were</i> fools. Still they ruled Ireland.
+They preserved the country to the King's crown; and I say once more, that
+was no small matter. And now we have arrived at a new era; we have
+obtained Emancipation, and must look out for another stamp of
+administrators, and I see nothing for it but the priest. Of course you,
+and every man of your station, sneer at the notion of being dictated to by
+Father Luke, in the greasy leather small-clothes and dirty black boots,&mdash;only,
+himself, a cottier once removed, a plant of the wild growth of the fields,
+cultivated, however, in the hotbeds of Maynooth,&mdash;a forcing-house
+whose fruits you are yet to taste of! Sneer away, Martin; but my name is
+not Val Repton if those men do not rule Ireland yet! Ay, sir, and rule it
+in such a fashion as your haughty Beresfords and Tottenhams, and Tisdalls
+never dreamed of! They 'll treat with the Government on equal terms,&mdash;so
+much, for so much; and, what's more, it won't be higgling for a place
+here, or a peerage there; but they'll have the price paid down in hard
+legislative coin,&mdash;Acts of Parliament, sir; privileges for themselves
+and their order, benefits to 'the Church;' and, when nothing better or
+more tempting offers, insults and slights to their antagonists. You, and
+all like you, will be passed over as if you never existed; the minister
+will not need you; you'll be so many general officers on the retired list,
+and only remarked when you swell the crowd at a levee.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So, sir, according to this special prediction of yours, we have nothing
+left us but to live on our estates, enjoy what we can of our fortunes, and
+leave the interests of the nation to those our inferiors in rank, station,
+and property?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Such a period as your Ladyship has pictured forth&mdash;a little
+strongly, perhaps&mdash;is before you. Whether the interval be destined to
+be long or short, will, in great measure, depend upon yourselves.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That agrees with what Scanlan said the other day,&rdquo; said Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Scanlan!&rdquo; echoed her Ladyship, with most profound contempt.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is this Scanlan?&rdquo; asked Repton.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There he comes to answer for himself,&rdquo; said Martin. &ldquo;The fellow drives
+neatly. See how cleverly he swept round that sharp turn! He may be 'at
+fault' about the world of politics; but, <i>my</i> word for it! he is a
+rare judge of a hack.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And, now that you suggest it,&rdquo; said Repton, musingly, &ldquo;what an
+instinctive shrewdness there is on every subject,&mdash;I don't care what
+it is,&mdash;about fellows that deal in horse flesh. The practice of
+buying and selling, searching out flaws here, detecting defects there,
+gives a degree of suspectful sharpness in all transactions; besides that,
+really none but a naturally clever fellow ever graduates in the stable.
+You smile, my Lady; but some of our very first men have achieved the
+triumphs of the turf.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall we have Scanlan in and hear the news?&rdquo; asked Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not here. If you please, you may receive him in the library or your own
+room.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, come along, Repton. We can resume this affair in the afternoon or
+to-morrow.&rdquo; And, without waiting for a reply, he passed his arm within the
+other's, and led him away. &ldquo;You have been too abrupt with her, Repton; you
+have not made due allowances for her attachment to family influences,&rdquo;
+ said he, in a whisper, as they went along.
+</p>
+<p>
+Repton smiled half contemptuously.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, it's all very easy for you to laugh, my dear fellow; but, trust me,
+there's nothing to be done with my Lady in that fashion.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Turn the flank,&mdash;eh?&rdquo; said the old lawyer, slyly. &ldquo;Ah, Martin, don't
+teach <i>me</i> how to deal with humanity. If you have not the courage to
+tell your wife that your estate cannot bear fresh encumbrances, new loans,
+and new debts&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; said Martin, cautiously.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, I say, let me prevent the casualty, that's all.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How are you, Scanlan?&rdquo; said Martin, as the attorney came, bowing and
+smiling, forward to pay his respects. &ldquo;My friend, Mr. Repton, wishes to
+make your acquaintance.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have the honor of being known to Mr. Repton, already, sir, if he has
+not forgotten me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh,&mdash;how? where?&rdquo; cried the lawyer, sharply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In Reeves <i>versus</i> Dockery, and another, sir, in Hilary, 24. It was
+<i>I</i> supplied the instructions&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure,&mdash;perfectly right. Maurice Scanlan; isn't that the name?
+You did the thing well, sir; and if we failed, we retreated without
+dishonor.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was a grand shot you fired at the Bench, sir, when all was over,&rdquo;
+ said Scanlan. &ldquo;I don't suppose they ever got such a complete 'set down'
+before.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I forget it,&rdquo; said Repton, but with a bright twinkle of his eye, which
+more than contradicted his words.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, sir, it's more than their Lordships ever will,&rdquo; said Scanlan. &ldquo;The
+Chief Baron it was,&rdquo; said he, addressing Martin, &ldquo;that overruled every
+objection made by Counsellor Repton, and at last declared that he would
+n't hear any more citations whatsoever. 'But I have a stronger case still,
+my Lord,' says the Counsellor. 'I 'll not hear it, sir,' said the Court.
+'It is in Crewe and Fust, Term Reports, page 1,438.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'I don't care where it is, sir,' was the answer.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'In a charge delivered by Lord Eldon&mdash;'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Oh, let us hear my Lord Eldon,' said Plumridge, the Puisne Judge, who
+was rather ashamed of the Chief Baron's severity. 'Let us hear my Lord
+Eldon.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Here it is, my Lords,' said the Counsellor, opening the volume, and
+laying his hand upon the page,&mdash;'Crewe and Fust's Pleas of the Crown,
+page 1,438. My Lord Eldon says, &ldquo;I may here observe the Courts of Law in
+Ireland are <i>generally</i> wrong! The Court of Exchequer is <i>always</i>
+wrong!&rdquo;'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Repton tried to smother his own delighted laugh at the reminiscence, but
+all in vain; it burst from him long and joyously; and as he shook
+Scanlan's hand, he said, &ldquo;The incident loses nothing by your telling, sir;
+you have done it admirable justice.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You make me very proud, indeed, Counsellor,&rdquo; said Scanlan, who really did
+look overjoyed at the speech.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you any news for us, Scanlan?&rdquo; said Martin, as they entered the
+library.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir; the Ministry is out.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We know that already, man!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the Marquis of Reckington comes here as Lord-Lieutenant.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That we know also.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Colonel Massingbred to be Chief Sec&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Moore Massingbred!&rdquo; cried both, in a breath.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir; he that was a Treasury Lord.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you quite sure of this, Scanlan?&rdquo; asked Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I had it from Groves, sir, at the Castle, yesterday morning, who told me
+there would be an immediate dissolution, and showed me a list of
+Government candidates.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may talk them all over together, then,&rdquo; said Martin, &ldquo;for I 'm
+heartily tired of politics this morning.&rdquo; And so saying, he left them.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XIX. A STUDIO
+</h2>
+<p>
+It is one of the most inestimable privileges of Art, that amidst all the
+cares and contentions of the world, amidst strife and war and carnage, its
+glorious realm is undisturbed, its peace unbroken, and its followers free
+to follow their own wayward fancies, without let or hindrance. Your great
+practical intelligences, your men of committees and corn and railroads and
+ship-canals, sneer at the fictitious life&mdash;for so does it seem to
+them&mdash;of the mere painter or musician. They have a sort of pitying
+estimate for capacities only exercised upon the ideal, and look down with
+a very palpable contempt upon those whose world is a gallery or an
+orchestra. After all, this division of labor is a wise and happy
+provision, carrying with it many and varied benefits, and making of that
+strange edifice of mankind a far more pleasing and harmonious structure
+than we should otherwise have seen it. The imagination is to the actual,
+in the world of active life, what flowers are to nutritious herbs and
+roots. It is the influence that adorns, elevates, and embellishes
+existence. That such gifts have been confided to certain individuals is in
+itself a sufficient evidence, just as we see in the existence of flowers
+that pleasure has its place assigned in the grand scheme of creation, and
+that the happiness which flows from gratified sense has not been denied
+us.
+</p>
+<p>
+In that petty world which lived beneath the roof of Cro' Martin Castle,
+all the eager passions and excitements of political intrigue were now at
+work. My lady was full of plans for future greatness; Repton was scheming
+and suggesting, and thwarting everybody in turn; and even Martin himself,
+engulfed in the &ldquo;Maelstrom&rdquo; of the crisis, was roused into a state of
+semi-preparation that amounted to a condition of almost fever. As for
+Massingbred, whatever he really did feel, his manner affected a most
+consummate indifference to all that went forward; nor did the mention of
+his father's appointment to high office elicit from him anything beyond a
+somewhat contemptuous opinion of the new party in power. While, therefore,
+secret counsels were held, letters read and written, conferences conducted
+in every room, one little space was devoid of all these embarrassments and
+anxieties, and that was an oval chamber, lighted from the top, and
+originally destined for a summer ball-room, but now appropriated to Mr.
+Crow's use for the completion of the Grand Historical, which had lately
+been transferred from Kilkieran to its place there.
+</p>
+<p>
+The unlucky masterpiece was doomed to many a difficulty. The great events
+in prospect had totally banished all thought of &ldquo;art&rdquo; from Lady Dorothea's
+mind. The fall of a recent administration was a far more imminent
+circumstance than the abdication of a king a few centuries back. Martin,
+of course, had enough on his head, without the cares of mock royalty. Mary
+was overwhelmed with occupations. The floods and a threatened famine were
+casualties not to be overlooked; and she was absent every day from dawn to
+late night; while, to complete the list of defaulters, young Nelligan&mdash;the
+future Prince of Orange of the picture&mdash;was gone!
+</p>
+<p>
+Men deplore their past youth, their bygone buoyancy of heart, their old
+loves and extinct friendships; but of all departed pleasures, there is a
+peculiar poignancy about one, and that is an artist's grief over a &ldquo;lost
+sitter.&rdquo; You ladies and gentlemen whose thumbs have never closed on a
+palette, nor whose fingers have never felt the soft influence of varnish,
+may smile at such a sorrow, but take my word for it, it is a real and
+tangible affliction.
+</p>
+<p>
+The waving locks, the noble brow; the deep square orbits, and the finely
+cut chin are but the subtle suggestions out of which inspirations are
+begotten, and poetic visions nurtured. The graceful bearing and the noble
+port, the tender melancholy or the buoyant gladness, have each in turn
+struck some chord of secret feeling in the artist's breast, revealing to
+him new ideas of beauty, and imparting that creative power which displays
+itself in new combinations.
+</p>
+<p>
+Poor Simmy Crow was not a Titian nor a Vandyke, but unhappily the sorrows
+of genius are very often experienced by those who are not gifted with its
+greatness; and the humble aspirant of excellence can catch every malady to
+which the triumphant in all the wild enthusiasm of his powers is exposed.
+He sat down before his canvas, as some general might before a fortified
+town which had resisted all his efforts of attack. He was depressed and
+discouraged.
+</p>
+<p>
+The upper part of the young student's head was already half finished, and
+there was enough done to impart a kind of promise of success,&mdash;that
+glorious vista which opens itself so often in imagination to those whose
+world is but their own fancy. He half thought he could finish it from
+memory; but before he had proceeded many minutes, he laid down the brush
+in despair. It seemed like a fatality that something must always interpose
+to bar the road to success. One time it was sickness, then it was poverty;
+a disparaging criticism had even done it; and now, when none of these
+threatened, there arose a new impediment. &ldquo;Ah! Simmy, Simmy,&rdquo; he exclaimed
+aloud, &ldquo;you were born under an unkindly planet. That's the secret of it
+all!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I confess I cannot concur in that opinion,&rdquo; said a low, soft voice behind
+him. He started up, and beheld Kate Henderson, who, leaning on the back of
+a chair, continued to gaze steadfastly at the canvas, perfectly regardless
+of his astonishment. &ldquo;There is a great deal to admire in that picture!&rdquo;
+ said she, as though talking to herself.
+</p>
+<p>
+Simmy crept stealthily back, and stationed himself behind her, as if to
+hear her remarks, while viewing the picture from the same point.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have grouped your figures admirably,&rdquo; continued she, now addressing
+him, &ldquo;and your management of the light shows a study of Rembrandt.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very true, ma'am&mdash;miss, I mean. I have copied nearly all his great
+pieces.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the drapery&mdash;that robe of the King's&mdash;tells me that you
+have studied another great master of color&mdash;am I right, sir, in
+saying Paul Veronese?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Simmy Crow's face glowed till it became crimson, while his eyes sparkled
+with intense delight.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, dear me!&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;is n't it too much happiness to hear this?
+and only a minute ago I was in black despair!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mine is very humble criticism, sir; but as I have seen good pictures&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where? In the galleries abroad?&rdquo; broke in Crow, hurriedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;All over Germany and Italy. I travelled with those who really cared for
+and understood art. But to come back to yours&mdash;that head is a noble
+study.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And that's exactly what I'm grieving over,&mdash;he's gone.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Young Mr. Nelligan?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Himself. He started this morning for Oughterard.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But probably to return in a day or two.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Crow looked stealthily around to see if he were not likely to be
+overheard, and then, approaching Kate, said in a whisper,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think he 'll ever cross the doors again.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How so? has he received any offence?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can't make out what it is,&rdquo; said Simmy, with a puzzled look, &ldquo;but he
+came to my room late last night, and sat down without saying a word; and
+at last, when I questioned him if he were ill, he said suddenly,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Have you found, Mr. Crow, that in your career as an artist, you have
+been able to withdraw yourself sufficiently from the ordinary events of
+life as to make up a little world of your own, wherein you lived
+indifferent to passing incidents?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Yes,' said I, 'I have, whenever I was doing anything really worth the
+name.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'And at such times,' said he, again, 'you cared nothing, or next to
+nothing, for either the flatteries or the sarcasms of those around you?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'I could n't mind them,' said I, 'for I never so much as heard them.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Exactly what I mean,' said he, rapidly. 'Intent upon higher ambitions,
+you were above the petty slights of malice or envy, and with your own goal
+before you, were steeled against the minor casualties of the journey. Then
+why should not I also enjoy the immunity? Can I not summon to my aid a
+pride like this, or am I to be discouraged and disgraced to my own heart
+by a mere impertinence?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I stared at him, not guessing what he could mean.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Rather quit the spot with which it is associated,&mdash;quit it
+forever,' muttered he to himself, as he paced the room, while his face
+grew deathly pale.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'As for me,' said I, for I wanted to say something&mdash;anything, in
+short&mdash;just to take his attention a little off of himself, 'whenever
+the world goes hard with me, I just step into my studio, lock the door,
+and sit down before a fresh canvas. I throw in a bit of brown, with a dash
+of bluish gray over it,&mdash;half sky, half atmosphere,&mdash;and I daub
+away till something like an effect&mdash;maybe a sunset, maybe a
+sullen-looking seashore, maybe a long, low prairie swell&mdash;rises
+before me. I don't try for details, I don't even trace an outline, but
+just throw in an effect here and there, and by good luck it often comes
+right, in some fine harmony of color, that's sure to warm up my heart and
+cheer my spirits; for, as there are sounds that, swelling up, fill the
+whole nature of man with ecstasy, there are combinations of color and tint
+that enter the brain by the eye, and just produce the same sense of
+delight.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how did he accept your consolation?&rdquo; asked she, smiling
+good-naturedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't well know if he listened to me,&rdquo; said Simmy, sorrowfully; &ldquo;for
+all he said afterwards was,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Well, Mr. Crow, good-bye. I hope you 'll come to see me when you visit
+Dublin. You 'll easily find out my chambers in the college.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course I said, 'I'd be delighted;' and there we parted.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor fellow!&rdquo; said Kate, but in an accent so peculiar it would have been
+very difficult to pronounce whether the words were of kindness or of
+disparagement.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And your Prince, Mr. Crow?&rdquo; said she, changing her tone to one of real or
+affected interest; &ldquo;what's to be done now that Mr. Nelligan has left us?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm thinking of making a background figure of him, miss,&rdquo; said Simmy.
+&ldquo;Burnt sienna reduces many an illustrious individual to an obscure
+position.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But why not ask Mr. Massingbred to take his place&mdash;you've seen him?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Only passing the window, miss. He is a handsome young man, but that same
+look of fashion, the dash of style about him, is exactly what destroys the
+face for <i>me</i>, I feel I could make nothing of it; I 'd be always
+thinking of him standing inside the plate-glass window of a London club,
+or cantering along the alleys of the Park, or sipping his iced lemonade at
+Tortoni's. There's no poetizing your man of gold chains and embroidered
+waistcoats!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I half suspect you are unjust in this case,&rdquo; said she, with one of her
+dubious smiles.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm only saying what the effect is upon myself, miss,&rdquo; said Crow.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But why not make a compromise between the two?&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;I believe the
+great painters&mdash;Vandyke, certainly&mdash;rarely took the studies from
+a single head. They caught a brow here, and a mouth there, harmonizing the
+details by the suggestions of their own genius. Now, what if, preserving
+all this here,&rdquo;&mdash;and she pointed to the head and eyes,&mdash;&ldquo;you
+were to fill up the remainder, partly from imagination, partly from a
+study.&rdquo; And as she spoke she took the brush from his hand, and by a few
+light and careless touches imparted a new character to the face.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, go on! that's admirable,&mdash;that's glorious!&rdquo; exclaimed Crow, wild
+with delight.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0010" id="linkimage-0010">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/276.jpg" width="100%" alt="276 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is no necessity to lose the expression of haughty sorrow in the eye
+and brow,&rdquo; continued she; &ldquo;nor does it interfere with the passing emotion
+he may be supposed unable to control, of proud contempt for that priestly
+influence which has dominated over the ambition of a king.&rdquo; And now, as
+though carried away by the theme, she continued to paint as rapidly as she
+spoke, while Crow busied himself in preparing the colors upon the palette.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My hardihood is only intended to encourage you, Mr. Crow,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;by
+showing that if one like me can point the road, the journey need not be
+deemed a difficult one.&rdquo; As she retired some paces to contemplate the
+picture, she casually glanced through a low glass door which opened upon
+the lawn, and where, under the shelter of a leafy beech, a young country
+girl was standing; her blue cloth cloak, with the hood thrown over her
+head, gave a certain picturesque character to the figure, which nearer
+inspection more than confirmed, for her features were singularly fine, and
+her large, soft blue eyes beamed with a gentle earnestness that showed
+Kate she was there with a purpose.
+</p>
+<p>
+Opening the door at once, Kate Henderson approached her, and asked what
+she wanted.
+</p>
+<p>
+With an air of half pride, half shame, the country girl drew herself up,
+and stared full and steadfastly at the speaker, and so continued till Kate
+repeated her question.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sure you're not Miss Mary?&rdquo; replied she, by questioning her in turn.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, but if I can be of any use to you&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think you can,&rdquo; broke she in, with a manner almost haughty; &ldquo;it's
+somebody else I 'm wanting.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you wish to see Miss Martin, I 'll go and fetch her,&rdquo; said Kate.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did n't say it was her I wanted to see,&rdquo; replied she, with a calm and
+almost severe composure.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maybe her Ladyship?&rdquo; asked Kate, far more interested than repelled by the
+other's manner.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's none of them at all,&rdquo; rejoined she. &ldquo;I came here to speak to one
+that I know myself,&rdquo; added she, after a long pause; &ldquo;and if he isn't gone,
+I want to see him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I think I can guess now,&rdquo; said Kate, smiling. &ldquo;It is the Counsellor
+from Dublin, Mr. Repton.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is no such thing,&rdquo; said the girl, promptly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then it must be Mr. Crow, here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+An indignant toss of the head gave the negative to this surmise.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have gone through all our names here,&rdquo; said Kate; &ldquo;and except Mr.
+Massingbred&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And there's the very one I want,&rdquo; said the girl, boldly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Step in here and rest yourself, and I 'll send for him,&rdquo; said Kate; and
+with such persuasive courtesy were the words uttered, that almost, as it
+seemed, against her very will the girl followed her into the studio and
+sat down. While Mr. Crow proceeded in search of Massingbred, Kate
+Henderson, resuming brush and palette, returned to her painting; not,
+however, on the grand canvas of the &ldquo;Historical,&rdquo; but dexterously
+interposing a piece of fresh board, she seized the opportunity to sketch
+the beautiful head then before her, while occupying the girl's attention
+with the objects around.
+</p>
+<p>
+Notwithstanding her intense astonishment at all she saw, the country girl
+never uttered a word, nor vouchsafed a single question as to the
+paintings; she even tried to moderate the eager pleasure they afforded by
+an endeavor not to admire them. Touched by the native pride of this
+struggle,&mdash;for struggle it was,&mdash;the features had assumed a look
+of haughty composure that well became the character of her beauty, and
+Kate caught up the expression so rapidly that her sketch was already
+well-nigh completed when Massing-bred entered.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear Mistress Joan,&rdquo; cried he, shaking her cordially by both hands,
+&ldquo;how glad I am to see you again! It was but this very moment I was
+inquiring how I could go over and pay you a visit.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Hurriedly as these words were uttered, and in all the apparent fervor of
+hearty sincerity, they were accompanied by a short glance at Kate
+Henderson, who was about to leave the room, that plainly said, &ldquo;Remain
+where you are, there is no mystery here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thank yer honer kindly,&rdquo; said Joan Landy, &ldquo;but it's no good coming, he
+is n't there.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not there!&mdash;how and why is that?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sure <i>you</i> ought to know better than me,&rdquo; said she, fixing her large
+eyes full upon him. &ldquo;Ye left the house together, and <i>he</i> never came
+back since.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, perhaps I can guess,&rdquo; said Jack, pausing for a moment to reflect. &ldquo;He
+might have deemed it safer to keep out of the way for a day or two.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's no good deceivin' me, sir,&rdquo; said she, rising from her seat; &ldquo;tell me
+the whole truth. Where is he?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is really more than I can say, my dear Mistress Joan. We parted in
+Oughterard.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you never saw him after?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never, I assure you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you never tried to see him?&mdash;you never asked what became of
+him?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I concluded, indeed I was certain, that he returned home,&rdquo; said Jack, but
+not without some confusion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, that was enough for you,&rdquo; said she, angrily. &ldquo;If you were a poor
+labor in' man, you 'd not desert him that had you under his roof and gave
+you the best he had; but because ye 're a gentleman&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is precisely for that reason I can't suffer you to think so meanly of
+me,&rdquo; cried Jack. &ldquo;Now just hear me for one moment, and you'll see how
+unjust you've been.&rdquo; And, drawing his chair closer to hers, he narrated in
+a low and whispering voice the few events of their morning at Oughterard,
+and read for her the short note Magennis had written to him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And is that all?&rdquo; exclaimed Joan, when he concluded.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;All, upon my honor!&rdquo; said he, solemnly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, then, wirra! wirra!&rdquo; said she, wringing her hands sorrowfully, &ldquo;why
+did I come here?&mdash;why did n't I bear it all patient? But sure my
+heart was bursting, and I could not rest nor sleep, thinking of what
+happened to him! Oh, yer honer knows well what he is to <i>me!</i>&rdquo; And
+she covered her face with her hands.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have done nothing wrong in coming here,&rdquo; said Jack, consolingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not if he never hears of it,&rdquo; said she, in a voice tremulous with fear.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That he need never do,&rdquo; rejoined Jack; &ldquo;though I cannot see why he should
+object to it. But come, Mrs. Joan, don't let this fret you; here's a young
+lady will tell you, as I have, that nobody could possibly blame your
+natural anxiety.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What would a young lady know about a poor creature like <i>me?</i>&rdquo;
+ exclaimed Joan, dejectedly. &ldquo;Sure, from the day she's born, she never felt
+what it was to be all alone and friendless!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You little guess to whom you say that,&rdquo; said Kate, turning round and
+gazing on her calmly; &ldquo;but if the balance were struck this minute, take my
+word for it, you 'd have the better share of fortune.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Jack Massingbred's cheek quivered slightly as he heard these words, and
+his eyes were bent upon the speaker with an intense meaning. Kate,
+however, turned haughtily away from the gaze, and coldly reminded him that
+Mrs. Joan should have some refreshment after her long walk.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, miss,&mdash;no, yer honer; many thanks for the same,&rdquo; said Joan,
+drawing her cloak around her. &ldquo;I couldn't eat a bit; my heart's heavy
+inside me. I 'll go back now.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Kate tried to persuade her to take something, or, at least, to rest a
+little longer; but she was resolute, and eager to return.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall we bear you company part of the way, then?&rdquo; said Jack, with a look
+of half entreaty towards Kate.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall be but too happy,&rdquo; said Kate, while she turned the nearly
+completed sketch to the wall, but not so rapidly as to prevent
+Massingbred's catching a glimpse of it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How like!&rdquo; exclaimed he, but only in a whisper audible to himself. &ldquo;I
+didn't know that this also was one of your accomplishments.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A little laugh and a saucy motion of her head was all her reply, while she
+went in search of her bonnet and shawl. She was back again in a moment,
+and the three now issued forth into the wood.
+</p>
+<p>
+For all Jack Massingbred's boasted &ldquo;tact,&rdquo; and his assumed power of
+suiting himself to his company, he felt very ill at ease as he walked
+along that morning. &ldquo;His world&rdquo; was not that of the poor country girl at
+his side, and he essayed in vain to find some topic to interest her. Not
+so Kate Henderson. With all a woman's nice perception, and quite without
+effort, she talked to Joan about the country and the people, of whose
+habits she knew sufficient not to betray ignorance; and although Joan felt
+at times a half-suspicious distrust of her, she grew at length to be
+pleased with the tone of easy familiarity used towards her, and the
+absence of anything bordering on superiority.
+</p>
+<p>
+Joan, whose instincts and sympathies were all with the humble class from
+which she sprung, described in touching language the suffering condition
+of the people, the terrible struggle against destitution maintained for
+years, and daily becoming more difficult and hopeless. It was like a
+shipwrecked crew reduced to quarter-rations, and now about to relinquish
+even these!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And they are patient under all this?&rdquo; asked Kate, with that peculiar
+accent so difficult to pronounce its meaning.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are, indeed, miss,&rdquo; was the answer.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have they any hope? What do they promise themselves as the remedy for
+these calamities?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sorrow one of 'em knows,&rdquo; said she, with a sigh. &ldquo;Some goes away to
+America, some sinks slowly under it, and waits for God's time to leave the
+world; and a few&mdash;but very few&mdash;gets roused to anger, and does
+something to be transported or put in jail.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And Miss Martin,&mdash;does she not relieve a good deal of this misery?
+Is she not of immense benefit by her exertions here?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Arrah, what can a young lady do, after all? Sure it's always them that
+talks most and best gets over her. Some are ashamed, and some are too
+proud to tell what they 're suffering; and I believe in my heart, for one
+that 's relieved there are twenty more angry at seeing how lucky he was.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+They walked along now for some time in silence, when Joan, stopping short,
+said, &ldquo;There's the house, miss; that's the place I live in.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That house far away on the mountain side?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, miss; it's four miles yet from this.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But surely you haven't to walk all that way?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What signifies it? Is n't my heart lighter than when I came along this
+morning? And now I won't let you come any farther, for I'll take a short
+cut here across the fields.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;May I go and see you one of these days?&rdquo; asked Kate.
+</p>
+<p>
+Joan grew crimson to the very roots of her hair, and turned a look on
+Massingbred, as though to say, &ldquo;You ought to answer this for me.&rdquo; But Jack
+was too deep in his own thoughts even to notice the appeal.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can scarcely ask <i>you</i> to come to <i>me</i>,&rdquo; said Kate, quickly
+perceiving a difficulty, &ldquo;for I 'm not even a visitor at Cro' Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm sure I hope it 's not the last time we 'll meet, miss; but maybe,&rdquo;&mdash;she
+faltered, and a heavy tear burst forth, and rolled slowly along her cheek,&mdash;&ldquo;maybe
+you oughtn't to come and see me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Kate pressed her hand affectionately, without speaking, and they parted.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is Joan gone?&rdquo; asked Massingbred, raising his head from an attitude of
+deep revery. &ldquo;When did she leave us?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There she goes yonder,&rdquo; said Kate, pointing. &ldquo;I fear me her spirits are
+not as light as her footsteps. Are her people very poor?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Her father was a herd, I believe,&rdquo; said he, carelessly; &ldquo;but she does n't
+live at home.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is she married, then?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm not sure that she is; but at least she believes that she is.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor thing!&rdquo; said Kate, calmly, while, folding her arms, she continued to
+gaze after the departing figure of the country girl. &ldquo;Poor thing!&rdquo;
+ repeated she once more, and turned to walk homewards.
+</p>
+<p>
+Massingbred fixed his eyes upon her keenly as she uttered the words; few
+and simple as they were, they seemed to reveal to him something of the
+nature of her who spoke them. A mere exclamation&mdash;a syllable&mdash;will
+sometimes convey &ldquo;whole worlds of secret thought and feeling,&rdquo; and it was
+evidently thus that Massingbred interpreted this brief expression. &ldquo;There
+was nothing of scorn in that pity,&rdquo; thought he. &ldquo;I wish she had uttered
+even one word more! She is a strange creature!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And it was thus speaking to himself that he walked along at her side.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This wild and desolate scene is not very like that of which we talked the
+other night,&mdash;when first we met,&mdash;Miss Henderson.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You forget that we never met,&rdquo; said she, calmly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;True, and yet there was a link between us even in those few flowers
+thrown at random.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't be romantic, Mr. Massingbred; do not, I pray you,&rdquo; said she,
+smiling faintly. &ldquo;You <i>know</i> it's not your style, while it would be
+utterly thrown away upon <i>me</i>, I am aware that fine gentlemen of your
+stamp deem this the fitting tone to assume towards 'the governess;' but I
+'m really unworthy of it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a strange girl you are!&rdquo; said he, half thinking aloud.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;On the contrary, how very commonplace!&rdquo; said she, hastily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you like this country?&rdquo; asked Massingbred, with an imitation of her
+own abrupt manner.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said she, shortly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor the people?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor the people!&rdquo; was the answer.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And is your life to be passed amongst them?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; said she, with a slight gesture of her shoulders. &ldquo;Don't you
+know, Mr. Massingbred,&rdquo; added she, with more energy, &ldquo;that a woman has no
+more power to shape her destiny than a leaf has to choose where it will
+fall? If I were a man,&mdash;you, for instance,&mdash;I would think and
+act differently.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should like to hear what you would do if in my place,&rdquo; said Jack, with
+a degree of deep interest in the remark.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To begin, I'll tell you what I would not do,&rdquo; said she, firmly. &ldquo;I 'd not
+waste very good abilities on very small objects; I 'd neither have small
+ambitions nor small animosities. You have both.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;As how?&rdquo; asked he, frankly, and with no touch of irritation.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Am I to be candid?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Even to rudeness?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cut as deeply as you like,&rdquo; said he, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then here goes: For the 'small ambition' I speak of, it was displayed
+yesterday at dinner, when, in rivalry with that old lawyer, you
+condescended to play agreeable, to out-talk him, out-quote, and
+out-anecdote him. It is true you succeeded; but what a poor success it
+was! how inadequate to the forces that were mustered to effect it!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now for the other count of the indictment,&rdquo; said he, with a half
+smile.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;First, do you plead guilty to this one?&rdquo; asked she.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; with an 'extenuating circumstance.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is that?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, that <i>you</i> were present,&rdquo; said Jack, with a glance of more than
+mere passing gallantry.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said she, after a pause, &ldquo;I <i>did</i> take some of the display to
+my own share. I saw that you did n't care to captivate the young lady of
+the house, and that my Lady bored you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Insufferably!&rdquo; exclaimed Jack, with energy.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your manner showed it,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;even more than such polish ought to
+have betrayed.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I 'm sure I never exhibited any signs of my martyrdom,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;I
+stood my torture well.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not half so heroically as you fancied I noticed your weariness before the
+dinner was half over, as I detected your splenetic dislike to young Mr.
+Nelligan&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To young Nelligan?&mdash;then he has told you&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stop,&mdash;be cautious,&rdquo; broke she in, hurriedly; &ldquo;don't turn evidence
+against yourself. <i>He</i> has told me nothing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then what do you know?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing; I only surmise.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what is your surmise?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That he and you had met before,&mdash;that you had even been intimate,&mdash;and
+now, from some misunderstanding, you had ceased to be friends. Mind, I
+don't want confessions; I don't seek to learn your secrets.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you shall hear this from me,&rdquo; said Massingbred, with earnestness;
+&ldquo;and perhaps you, so ready to blame me for some things, may see reason to
+think well of me in this.&rdquo; He then related, briefly, but simply, the
+history of his acquaintance with Nelligan; he dwelt, not without feeling,
+upon the passages of their student-life, and at last spoke of his chance
+visit to Oughterard, and the accident by which he became old Nelligan's
+guest. &ldquo;What can you make of Joseph's conduct,&rdquo; cried he; &ldquo;or how explain
+his refusal to meet me at his father's table? One of two reasons there
+must be. He either discredits me in the character of his friend, or
+shrinks, with an ignoble shame, from appearing there in his real position,&mdash;the
+son of the country shopkeeper! I scarcely know if I 'd not prefer he
+should have been actuated by the former motive; though more offensive to
+me, in <i>him</i> it were more manly.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why not have asked him which alternative he accepted?&rdquo; asked Kate.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because the opportunity to wound him deeply&mdash;incurably&mdash;first
+presented itself. I knew well that nothing would hurt him like the cool
+assumption of not recognizing him, and I determined not to lose my
+vengeance.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm a woman,&rdquo; said Kate, &ldquo;and I'd not have stooped to <i>that!</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It was rarely that Massingbred's emotions gave any evidence of their
+working; but now his cheek grew crimson, as he said, &ldquo;A man can only
+measure a man's indignation.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are angry without cause,&rdquo; said she, calmly; &ldquo;you wish me to pronounce
+a verdict on an act, and are displeased because I think differently from
+you. How right I was in my guess that small animosities were amongst your
+failings! You seek now to quarrel with <i>me!</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Massingbred walked along for some moments without speaking, and then said,
+&ldquo;You knew Nelligan formerly?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, we were playfellows together as children; lovers, I believe, a
+little later on&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now?&rdquo; broke he in.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now very good friends, as the world uses that phrase. At all events,&rdquo;
+ added she, after a brief pause, &ldquo;enough his friend to be able to say that
+you have wronged him by your suspicions. Joe Nelligan&mdash;or I'm much
+mistaken&mdash;may feel the inequality of his position as a something to
+overcome, a barrier to be surmounted; not as a disability to contest the
+prizes of life even with such as Mr. Massingbred.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is <i>you</i> now would quarrel with <i>me</i>,&rdquo; said Jack, retorting
+her own words upon her. &ldquo;And yet,&rdquo; he added, in a lower tone, &ldquo;I would
+wish to have you my friend.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So you can, upon one condition,&rdquo; replied she, promptly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I accept, whatever it be. Name it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That you be your own friend; that you address yourself to the business of
+life seriously and steadily, resolving to employ your abilities as a means
+of advancement, not as a mere instrument for amusement; determine, in
+fact, to be something besides a <i>dilettante</i> and an idler.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it a bargain, then, if I do this?&rdquo; asked he, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; I promise you the high and mighty boon of <i>my</i> friendship,&rdquo;
+ replied she, with mock solemnity.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And so we seal our contract,&rdquo; said he, pressing her hand to his lips, but
+with an air of such respectful gallantry that the action implied nothing
+bordering on a liberty.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now I leave you,&rdquo; said she, as she opened the wicket-gate of a small
+flower-garden; &ldquo;such conferences as ours must not be repeated, or they
+might be remarked upon. Good-bye.&rdquo; And without waiting for his reply, she
+passed on into the garden, while Massingbred stood gazing after her
+silently and thoughtfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XX. AN ELECTION ADDRESS
+</h2>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Am I behind time, Mr. Massingbred?&rdquo; said Kate Henderson, as she entered
+the library, about a week after the events we have last recorded,&mdash;&ldquo;am
+I behind time?&rdquo; said she, approaching a table where the young man sat
+surrounded with a mass of letters and papers.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not very much,&rdquo; said he, rising, and placing a chair for her; &ldquo;and I take
+it for granted you came as soon as you could.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; I have finished my morning's reading for her Ladyship, noted her
+letters, answered the official portion of her correspondence, talked the
+newspaper for Mr. Martin, hummed a singing lesson for Miss Mary, listened
+to a grand jury story of Mr. Repton; and now, that they are all off to
+their several destinations, here I am, very much at the service of Mr.
+Massingbred.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who never needed counsel more than at this moment!&rdquo; said Jack, running
+his hands distractedly through his hair. &ldquo;That 's from my father!&rdquo; added
+he, handing her a letter with a portentous-looking seal attached to it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a fine bold hand, and how easy to read!&rdquo; said she, perusing it. Jack
+watched her narrowly while she read; but on her calm impassive face not a
+line nor a lineament betrayed emotion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is, then, an English borough he recommends,&rdquo; said she, laying it down;
+&ldquo;and I suppose, looking to an official career, he is quite right. The 'No
+Irish need apply' might be inscribed over Downing Street; but is that
+altogether your view?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I scarcely know what I project as yet,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I have no career!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, let us plan one,&rdquo; replied she, crossing her arms on the table, and
+speaking with increased earnestness. &ldquo;The Martins have offered you
+Oughterard&mdash;&rdquo; He nodded, and she went on: &ldquo;And, as I understand it,
+very much on <i>your</i> own conditions?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is to say, I'm not to damage the Tories more than I can help, nor to
+help the Radicals more than I must.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is there any designation for the party you will thus belong to?&rdquo; asked
+she.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm not exactly sure that there is; perhaps they 'd call me a Moderate
+Whig.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That sounds very nice and commonplace, but I don't like it. These are not
+times for moderation; nor would the part suit <i>you!</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You think so?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm certain of it. You have n't got habits of discipline to serve with a
+regular corps; to do anything, or be anything, you must command a partisan
+legion&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You're right there; I know that,&rdquo; broke he in.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't mean it as flattery, but rather something a little bordering on
+the reverse,&rdquo; said she, fixing her eyes steadfastly on him; &ldquo;for, after
+all, there is no great success&mdash;I mean, no towering success&mdash;to
+be achieved by such a line; but as I feel that you 'll not work&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; of that be assured!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then there are only secondary rewards to be won.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You certainly do not overestimate me!&rdquo; said Jack, trying to seem
+perfectly indifferent.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have no desire to underrate your abilities,&rdquo; said she, calmly; &ldquo;they
+are very good ones. You have great fluency,&mdash;great 'variety,' as
+Grattan would call it,&mdash;an excellent memory, and a most amiable
+self-possession.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove!&rdquo; said he, reddening slightly, &ldquo;you enumerate my little gifts
+with all the accuracy of an appraiser!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then,&rdquo; resumed she, not heeding his interruption, &ldquo;you have abundance of
+what is vulgarly styled 'pluck,' and which is to courage what <i>esprit</i>
+is to actual wit; and, lastly, you are a proficient in that readiness
+which the world always accepts for frankness.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You were right to say that you intended no flattery!&rdquo; said he, with an
+effort to laugh.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want to be truthful,&rdquo; rejoined she, calmly. &ldquo;No praise of mine&mdash;however
+high it soared, or however lavishly it was squandered&mdash;could possibly
+raise you in your own esteem. The governess may perform the part of the
+slave in the triumphal chariot, but could not aspire to put the crown on
+the conqueror!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I have not conquered!&rdquo; said Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may, whenever you enter the lists; you must, indeed, if you only care
+to do so. Go in for an Irish borough,&rdquo; said she, with renewed animation.
+&ldquo;Arm yourself with all the popular grievances; there is just faction
+enough left to last <i>your</i> time. Discuss them in your own way, and my
+word for it, but you 'll succeed. It will be such a boon to the House to
+hear a gentlemanlike tone on questions which have always been treated in
+coarser guise. For a while you 'll have no imitators, and can sneer at the
+gentry and extol the 'people' without a competitor. Now and then, too, you
+can assail the Treasury benches, where your father is sitting; and nothing
+will so redound to your character for independence.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, where, in Heaven's name,&rdquo; cried Jack, &ldquo;have you got up all this?
+What and how do you know anything of party and politics?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have I not been studying 'Hansard' and the files of the 'Times' for the
+last week by your directions? Have I not read lives of all the illustrious
+prosers you gave me to look through? And is it very wonderful if I have
+learned some of the secrets of this success, or that I should 'get up' my
+'politics' as rapidly as you can your 'principles'?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish I was even sure that I had done so,&rdquo; said Jack, laughing; &ldquo;for
+this same address is puzzling me sadly! Now here, for instance,&rdquo; and he
+read aloud: &ldquo;'While steadfastly upholding the rights of property,
+determined to maintain in all their integrity the more sacred rights of
+conscience&mdash;'Now just tell me, what do you understand by that?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That rents must be paid,&mdash;occasionally, at least; but that you hope
+to pull down the Established Church!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, come,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;the thing will perhaps do!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't much like all this about 'the Palladium of the British
+Constitution, and the unbroken bulwark of our dearest liberties.' We are
+in Ireland, remember, where we care no more for your Palladium&mdash;if we
+ever knew what it meant&mdash;than we do for the 'Grand Lama.' A slight
+dash of what is called 'nationality' would be better; very vague, very
+shadowy, of course. Bear in mind what Lady Dorothea told us last night
+about the charm of the king's bow. Everybody thought it specially meant
+for himself; it strikes me that something of this sort should pervade an
+election address.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish to Heaven you 'd write it, then,&rdquo; said Jack, placing a pen in her
+fingers.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Something in this fashion,&rdquo; said she, while her hands traced the lines
+rapidly on the paper:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Finding that a new era is about to dawn in the political state of
+Ireland, when the consequences of late legislation will engender new
+conditions and relations, I present myself before you to solicit the honor
+of your suffrages, a perfect stranger to your town, but no stranger to the
+wants and necessities of that nationality which now, for the first time
+for centuries, is about to receive its due development.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Or this, if you prefer it,&rdquo; said she, writing away rapidly as before:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'The presumption of aspiring to your representation will, perhaps, be
+compensated when I come before you deeply impressed with the wrongs which
+centuries of legislation have enacted, and which, stranger as I am in
+Ireland, have arrested my attention and engaged my sympathies, impelling
+me to enter upon a public career; and, if favored by your approval, to
+devote whatever energy and capacity I may possess to your great and good
+cause.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I like the first best,&rdquo; said Jack. &ldquo;The new era and the results of the
+Relief Bill will be such appetizing suggestions. There must be an allusion
+to the Martins and their support.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rather, however, as though <i>you</i> had brought over Martin to <i>your</i>
+views, than that <i>he</i> had selected you to represent his. In this
+wise:&rdquo; and again she wrote,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'It is with a just pride that I announce to you that in these professions
+I am strengthened by the cordial approval and support of one who, in his
+rank and station, and natural influence, is second to none in this great
+county; and who, whatever misconceptions have hitherto prevailed as to his
+views, is, heart and soul, a true patriot and an Irishman!'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It will puzzle him sorely to guess what line he should adopt to realize
+all this, and he'll have to come to <i>you</i> for his politics!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have caught up the cant of this peculiar literature perfectly,&rdquo; said
+Massingbred, as he pored over the papers she had just penned.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dear me!&rdquo; cried she, in a weary tone, &ldquo;my great difficulty will be to
+discard its evil influence, and even write a common note like a reasonable
+being again.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But come, confess frankly: you think that a political career is the only
+one worth embracing, and that any other life offers no reward worthy the
+name?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think you mistake me,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;It is the social position consequent
+upon success in a political life that I value,&mdash;the eminence it
+confers in the very highest and greatest circles. If I regarded the matter
+otherwise, I'd not be indifferent as to the line to follow&mdash;I 'd have
+great convictions, and hold them,&mdash;I mean, if I were <i>you</i>.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then of course you consider me as one who has none such?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure I do. Men of your measures of ability can no more burden
+themselves with principles than a thoroughbred hackney can carry extra
+weight,&mdash;they 've quite enough to do to make their running without.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I shall certainly not be spoiled by flattery, at least from you,&rdquo;
+ said Jack, laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They who know you less will make up for it all, depend upon it,&rdquo; said
+she, quietly. &ldquo;Don't fancy, Mr. Massingbred,&rdquo; added she, with more
+earnestness of manner,&mdash;&ldquo;don't fancy that I 'm insensible to the
+impertinences I have dared to address to you, or that I venture upon them
+without pain; but when I perceived that you would admit me to the liberty
+of criticising your conduct, character, and manners, I thought that I
+might render you good service by saying what better taste and better
+breeding would shrink from, and the only cost be the dislike of myself.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You took a very bad way to accomplish the latter,&rdquo; said Jack, fervently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did n't give it much consideration,&rdquo; said she, haughtily. &ldquo;It was very
+little matter what opinion you entertained of 'the governess.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should like to convince you that you were wrong,&rdquo; said he, looking
+fixedly at her.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You'd find your task harder than you suspect, sir,&rdquo; said she, coldly.
+&ldquo;There is a sense of pride about the humbleness of a station such as mine,
+as all the elevation of one in yours could never fathom. And,&rdquo; added she,
+in a still more determined tone, &ldquo;there is but one condition on which this
+intercourse of ours can continue, which is, that this topic be never
+resumed between us. The gulf that separates your position in life from
+mine is the security for mutual frankness; to attempt to span it over by
+deception would be to build a bridge that must break down the first moment
+of its trial. Enough of this! I'll take these,&rdquo; said she, gathering up the
+papers, &ldquo;and copy them out clearly. They ought to be with the printer
+to-morrow; and, indeed, you should not defer your canvass.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Massingbred made no answer, but sat with his head buried between his
+hands.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'd have you to visit the 'dear constituency' at once, Mr. Massingbred,&rdquo;
+ said she, with a slight touch of scorn in her voice. &ldquo;They are not well
+bred enough to bear a slight!&rdquo; And with this she left the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should like excessively to know the secret of this interest in my
+behalf,&rdquo; said Jack, as he arose and slowly walked the room. &ldquo;It is not,
+unquestionably, from any high estimate of my capacity; as little is it
+anything bordering on regard; and yet,&rdquo; added he, after a pause, &ldquo;there
+are moments when I half fancy she could care for me,&mdash;at least I know
+well that I could for <i>her</i>, Confound it!&rdquo; cried he, passionately,
+&ldquo;what a terrible barrier social station throws up! If she were even some
+country squire's daughter,&mdash;portionless as she is,&mdash;the notion
+would not be so absurd; but 'the governess!' and 'the steward!' what
+frightful figures to conjure up. No, no; that's impossible. One might do
+such a folly by retiring from the world forever, but that would be exactly
+to defeat the whole object of such a match. She is essentially intended
+for 'the world;' every gift and grace she possesses are such as only have
+their fitting exercise where the game of life is played by the highest,
+and for the heaviest stakes! But it is not to be thought of!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have I found you at last?&rdquo; cried Repton, entering the room. &ldquo;They say the
+writ will be here on Monday, so that we 've not an hour to lose. Let us
+drive over to Oughterard at once, see the editor of the 'Intelligence,'
+call on Priest Rafferty, and that other fellow&mdash;the father of our
+young friend here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Nelligan,&rdquo; said Jack. &ldquo;But I can't well visit <i>him</i>&mdash;there
+have been some rather unpleasant passages between us.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! you told me something about it. He wanted you to fill a bail-bond, or
+do something or other, rather than shoot <i>me</i>. An unreasonable old
+rascal! Never mind; we shall come before him now in another character, and
+you 'll see that he'll be more tractable.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The matter is graver than this,&rdquo; said Jack, musingly; &ldquo;and our difference
+is serious enough to make intercourse impossible.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You shall tell me all about it as we drive along,&mdash;that is, if it be
+brief and easy to follow, for my head is so full of election matters I
+don't desire a new element of complication. Step in now, and let us away.&rdquo;
+ And with this he hurried Massingbred to the door, where a pony-phaeton was
+in waiting for them.
+</p>
+<p>
+Once on the road, Repton changed the conversation from the domain of
+politics, and talked entirely of the host and his family. There was a sort
+of constitutional frankness and familiarity about the old lawyer which all
+the astute habits and instincts of his profession had never mastered. Like
+a great many acute men, his passion for shrewd observation and keen remark
+overbore the prudent reserve that belongs to less animated talkers, and so
+he now scrupled not to dis-cuss Martin and his affairs to one who but a
+few days back had been a complete stranger amongst them.
+</p>
+<p>
+At first Jack heard him without much interest, but, as he continued, the
+subject attracted all his attention, full as it was of views of life and
+the world perfectly new and strange to him.
+</p>
+<p>
+To Massingbred's great astonishment, he learned that vast as the estates,
+and large as was the fortune of the Martins, that they were deeply
+encumbered with bond-debts and mortgages. The wasteful habits of the
+gentry generally, combined with great facilities for obtaining money at
+any emergency, had led to this universal indebtedness; and, in fact, as
+the lawyer expressed it, an old estate was supposed to be the victim of
+debt, as an elderly gentleman was liable to gout; nobody presuming to
+think that the tenure, in either case, was a whit the more precarious on
+account of the casualty.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said Repton, as they reached a point of the road from which a view
+of the country could be obtained for miles on every side&mdash;&ldquo;now, as
+far as you can see belongs to Martin. Beyond that mountain yonder, too,
+there is a large tract&mdash;not very productive, it is true&mdash;extending
+to the sea. The fine waving surface to your left is all tillage land; and
+the islands in the bay are his. It is really a princely estate, with even
+greater hidden resources than those palpable and open to view. But, were I
+to show it to you on a map, and point out at the same time every spot on
+which some moneylender has a claim&mdash;how much has been advanced upon
+this&mdash;what sums have been lent upon that&mdash;you 'd be more amazed
+at the careless ease of the proprietor than you now are at the extent of
+his fortune.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But he is spending immensely in improving and developing the property,&rdquo;
+ said Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course he is, sir. That new-fangled notion of 'gentleman-farming '&mdash;which
+has come to us from countries where there are no gentlemen&mdash;won't
+suit Ireland, at least in the present generation. What <i>we</i> want here
+is, not to make more money, but to learn how to spend less; and although
+the first very often teaches the last, it is a hard way for an Irishman to
+acquire his knowledge. There's your borough, sir,&mdash;that little spot
+in the valley yonder is Oughterard. Do you feel, as you behold it, as
+though it were to be the mainspring of a great career? Is there an
+instinctive throb within that says, 'The honorable member for Oughterard
+will be a great name in the &ldquo;Collective Wisdom &ldquo;'?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can scarcely say yes to that appeal,&rdquo; said Jack, smiling; &ldquo;though, if
+what you have just told me of the mediocrity of public men be true&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you doubt it? You have them all before you,&mdash;their lives, their
+sayings, and their doings. Show me one in the whole mass who has
+originated a new idea in politics, or developed a new resource in the
+nation. Do they exhibit the common inventiveness displayed in almost every
+other walk of life, or do they even dress up their common platitudes in
+any other garb than the cast-off clothes of their predecessors? Mediocrity
+is a flattery when applied to them. But what's this coming along behind
+us, with such clattering of hoofs?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A tandem, I think,&rdquo; said Jack, looking backward, &ldquo;and very well handled,
+too.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, that illustrious attorney, Mr. Scanlan, I 've no doubt. Let us draw
+up till he passes.&rdquo; And so saying, Repton moved to one side of the road,
+giving a wide space for the other to proceed on his way. Mr. Scanlan,
+however, had subdued his nags, by a low, soft whistle, to a half-trot,
+when, giving the reins to his servant, he descended and advanced to the
+carriage. &ldquo;I've been in pursuit of you, gentlemen,&rdquo; said he, touching his
+hat courteously, &ldquo;for the last four miles, and I assure you you 've given
+me a breathing heat of it. Mr. Martin requested me to hand you this note,
+sir,&rdquo; added he, addressing Repton, &ldquo;which demands immediate attention.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The note was marked &ldquo;Instantaneous,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Strictly private,&rdquo; on the cover,
+and Repton opened it at once. Its contents were as follows,&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+&ldquo;Dear Rep.,&mdash;The post has just arrived, with intelligence
+that Harry is coming home,&mdash;may be here within a week or
+so,&mdash;so that we must not go on with our present plans for
+the borough, as H., of course, will stand. Come back,
+therefore, at once, and let as talk over the matter
+together.
+
+&ldquo;Yours, in haste,
+
+&ldquo;G. M.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know what this contains, perhaps?&rdquo; said Repton, in a whisper to
+Scanlan. He nodded an assent, and the old lawyer re-read the note. &ldquo;I
+don't see my way here quite clearly,&rdquo; added he, in the same subdued voice,
+to Scanlan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll stroll on and stretch my legs a bit,&rdquo; said Jack, springing out of
+the pony phaeton, and seeing that the others had some private matter of
+discussion; and Scanlan now drew nigh, while Repton informed him what the
+note contained.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's a little too late for this now,&rdquo; said Scanlan, gravely.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you mean too late?&rdquo; asked Repton.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, that Massingbred stands well with the people in the borough. They
+think that he 'll be more their man than Martin's, and, indeed, they 're
+so confident of it, I half suspect he has told them so.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But there has been no canvass as yet,&mdash;his address isn't even
+printed.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There has been a correspondence, however,&rdquo; said Scanlan, with a knowing
+wink. &ldquo;Take my word for it, Mr. Repton, he 's a deep fellow.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you quite sure of this?&mdash;can you pledge yourself to its truth?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I only know that Father Rafferty said the night before last he was
+satisfied with him, and the one difficulty was about old Nelligan, who
+somehow is greatly incensed against Massingbred.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He 'd have no chance in the borough without us,&rdquo; said Repton,
+confidently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If old Dan would consent to spend the money, he'd be the member in spite
+of us,&rdquo; rejoined Scanlan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll not dispute local knowledge with you, sir,&rdquo; said Repton, peevishly.
+&ldquo;Let us turn back at once. Where's Mr. Massingbred? I saw him standing on
+the hill yonder a few minutes ago; maybe, he 's strolling along the road
+in front.&rdquo; Repton moved forward to a rising spot of ground, from whence a
+wide view extended for a distance on every side, but no trace of
+Massingbred could be discovered. &ldquo;What can have become of him?&mdash;has
+he turned towards Cro' Martin?&rdquo; asked Repton.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There he is,&rdquo; cried Scanlan, suddenly; &ldquo;there he is, walking with
+Magennis. They're taking the short cut over the hills to Oughterard&mdash;that's
+unfortunate, too!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How so?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, before they're in the town they'll be as thick as two pickpockets&mdash;see
+how they 're talking! I think, if I was to drive on, I'd catch them before
+they entered the town.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do so, then, Scanlan. Say that a sudden message from Mr. Martin recalled
+me, but that you'll drive him back with you to Cro' Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Am I to allude to the contents of the note, sir?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think not; I opine it's best not to speak of it. Say, however, that
+something of importance has occurred at Cro' Martin, and suggest to him
+that the sooner he returns thither the better.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+There was an amount of vacillation and uncertainty about Repton's manner
+as he uttered these few words that showed not only how gravely he regarded
+the crisis, but how totally unprepared he found himself for the emergency.
+Not so Scanlan, who took his seat once more on his lofty &ldquo;buggy,&rdquo; and was
+soon spinning along the road at a pace of full twelve miles the hour.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Repton drove back to Cro' Martin, he thought once, and not without
+humiliation, of his late lessons in statecraft to young Massingbred. &ldquo;To
+fancy that I was instilling all these precepts at the very moment that he
+was countermining us. The young villain is a worthy son of his father! And
+how he will laugh at me, and make others laugh too! It will never do to
+drive him into opposition to us. Martin must consent to make the best of
+it, now, and accept him as his member,&mdash;for the present, at least.
+With time and good opportunity we can manage to trip up his heels, but,
+for the moment, there's no help for it.&rdquo; And with these not very consoling
+reflections he entered once more the grounds of Cro' Martin Castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+Let us now turn to Massingbred, as, accompanied by Magennis, he walked at
+a rapid pace towards Oughterard. It needed but a glance at the figures,
+and the rate at which they moved, to see that these two men were bent upon
+an object.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't you see the town now before you?&rdquo; said Magennis. &ldquo;It's not much
+above two miles, and by the road it is every step of six, or six and a
+half; and if we walk as we're doing now, we'll be there at least twenty
+minutes before them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what will Repton think of my leaving him in this fashion?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That it was a bit of your usual eccentricity,&mdash;no more,&rdquo; said the
+other, laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are quite certain of what you've just told me?&rdquo; asked Jack, after a
+pause.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I tell you that you shall have it from Hosey's own lips. He showed the
+post-mark on the back of the letter to Father Rafferty, and it was 'Cape
+Town, August 24.' Now, as Hosey knows young Martin's writing as well as
+any man, what doubt can there be about it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By that calculation,&rdquo; said Jack, thoughtfully, &ldquo;he might be here within
+the present month!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exactly what Father Neal said.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A shrewd fellow that same Hosey must be to put things together in this
+fashion,&rdquo; said Jack. &ldquo;Such a head as he has on his shoulders might n't be
+a bad counsellor at this moment.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just come and talk to him a bit,&rdquo; rejoined Magennis; &ldquo;say you want to be
+trimmed about the whiskers, and he'll be a proud man to have you under his
+hand.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the committee are satisfied with my letter?&rdquo; asked Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are, and they are not; but, on the whole, they think it's a step in
+the right direction to get anything out of the Martins, and, as Father
+Neal remarks, 'where we can pass with our head, we can put our whole body
+through.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what 's to be done about Nelligan? The breach with him is, I suspect,
+irreparable.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, it was Nelligan himself moved the first resolution in the committee,
+that your address be accepted as embodying the views&mdash;he said the
+present views&mdash;of the liberal electors.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You amaze me!&rdquo; cried Massingbred; &ldquo;and Joe, where was he?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Joe is off to Dublin; there 's some examination or other he must attend.
+But old Dan is your friend, rely upon that.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is inexplicable,&rdquo; muttered Jack to himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We 'll go there, straight, the moment we get into the town. He 'll take
+it as a great compliment; and you can talk to him frankly and openly, for
+old Dan is a man to be trusted.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish I could guess at how this reconciliation has been effected,&rdquo;
+ muttered Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was your letter did it, I think.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I never wrote one.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, somebody else did, perhaps; at all events, Dan had an open letter
+in his hand when he addressed the committee, and said, 'After reading
+this, gentlemen,' said he, 'I can only say that I 'll not oppose Mr.
+Massingbred; and if the free and independent men of Oughterard ask me who
+is the man to represent them, I'll answer, he 's your man! And what's
+more, there 's my name down for two hundred pounds for the election, if it
+ever comes to be a contest!'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is all very good, but very strange news,&rdquo; cried Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I can explain nothing of the mystery, if there be one. I only know
+what I heard and saw myself.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us go to his house, at all events,&rdquo; said Massingbred, who now
+suffered his companion to rattle on about the state of parties and
+politics in Oughterard, little heeding his remarks, and only bent on
+following out his own thoughts. &ldquo;Give whom the slip?&rdquo; asked he, suddenly
+catching at the last words of some observation of Magennis.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Martins, of course,&rdquo; resumed the other; &ldquo;for, as Father Neal says,
+'if we can secure the borough for you, you can well afford to stand by <i>us</i>;
+but if you were only Martin's member, he 'd drop you whenever it suited
+him.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;As to-morrow, for instance, if his son should make his appearance!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so; and that's the very reason for not losing a minute about getting
+the Martins in for the cost. What can they say, after choosing you and
+putting you forward?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They might make a personal appeal to me,&mdash;a distinct request to give
+place to the son.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And would n't you pay great attention to it?&rdquo; said Magennis, in mockery.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm not so very sure I 'd refuse,&rdquo; said Massingbred, slowly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faith, then, you 'd better be candid enough to tell the electors so 'at
+once.' Look now, Mr. Massingbred,&rdquo; said he, coming to a dead halt, and
+standing directly in front of him; &ldquo;we don't go the same road, not one
+step, till I hear from you, distinctly and plainly, what you mean to do.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is somewhat of a peremptory proceeding,&rdquo; replied Jack. &ldquo;I think it
+would not be very unreasonable to allow a man in my situation a little
+time for reflection.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Reflect upon what?&rdquo; cried Magennis. &ldquo;Is it what politics you 'd be? If
+that's what you mean, I think you 'd better say nothing about it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, come, Mac, you are not quite fair in this business; there <i>are</i>
+difficulties,&mdash;there are embarrassments very often in the way of
+doing things which we have made up our minds to do. Now, if I were
+perfectly certain that the liberal interest here could succeed in spite of
+Martin&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So it will.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You're sure of that?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll show it to you on paper. We 'd rather have Martin with us and no
+contest, because it's cheaper; but if it must come to money, we 'll do
+it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Satisfy me on that point, and I'm with you; there's my hand on't!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And Magennis grasped him in his own strong fingers to ratify the contract.
+</p>
+<p>
+While &ldquo;Mac&rdquo; went on to give some insight into the views and wishes of his
+party, they reached the town and entered the main street, and held their
+way towards old Nelligan's shop.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's Father Neal's pony at the door,&rdquo; said Mac, as they approached the
+shop; &ldquo;so we'll find them both together.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I scarcely think I can enter here,&rdquo; said Massingbred, &ldquo;after what passed
+last between us. We surely did not part as friends.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How little you know about us at all!&rdquo; said Mac. &ldquo;Old Dan bears you no
+malice, I 'd lay fifty pounds on it! But, if you like, I 'll just step in
+and take soundings.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do so, then,&rdquo; said Massingbred, not sorry to have even a few moments to
+himself for quiet thought and consideration. He was still standing, and
+deeply engrossed by his reflections, when he was aroused by hearing his
+name called aloud, and, on looking up, perceived Magennis beckoning to him
+from a window overhead. In obedience to the signal, Jack turned and
+entered the shop, where his friend quickly joined him. &ldquo;Old Dan is in his
+bed, with a heavy cold and a rheumatism, but he 'll see you; and Father
+Neal's with him, and Hayes, besides.&rdquo; And with this information he hurried
+Jack up the stairs, and led him into a darkened room, where the figures of
+the priest and old Hayes were dimly discernible. Before Massingbred had
+well crossed the door-sill, Nelligan called out, &ldquo;Your servant, Mr.
+Massingbred. I 'm more than pleased with your explanation. Let me shake
+your hand once more.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm not quite sure that I understand you,&rdquo; said Jack, in a low voice; but
+before he could continue, the priest advanced to greet him, followed by
+old Peter.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wasn't I in luck to catch him on the road this morning?&rdquo; said Magennis;
+&ldquo;he was coming in with the old Counsellor, and just got out to walk up a
+hill&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Remember,&rdquo; said Jack, &ldquo;that I have few minutes to spare, for I must be in
+waiting about the market-place when he drives in.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We must have a conference, though,&rdquo; said Father Neal; &ldquo;there 's much to
+be settled. First of all, are we to coalesce for the representation?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, no!&rdquo; cried Nelligan. &ldquo;We 'll have it our own way. If Mr.
+Massingbred will be our Member, we want no help from the Martins.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's five pounds, and I 'll make it guineas if you like,&rdquo; said old
+Hayes, putting a note upon the table; &ldquo;but the devil a Whig or Tory will
+ever get more out of Peter Hayes!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A very good-natured laugh from the others showed how little umbrage the
+frank avowal excited.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We 'll not want for money, Peter, make your mind easy about that,&rdquo; said
+Dan. &ldquo;When can you meet the committee, Mr. Massingbred? Could you say
+to-night?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Better to-morrow morning. I must return to Cro' Martin this evening.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly,&mdash;of course,&rdquo; said Father Neal, blandly. &ldquo;You 'll have to
+come to an understanding with Mr. Martin about the borough, declare what
+your principles are, and how, upon very mature consideration, you find you
+can't agree with the opinions of himself and his party.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Magennis winked significantly at Jack, as though to say, &ldquo;Listen to <i>him;
+he 's</i> the man to instruct and direct you;&rdquo; and the priest resumed:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go on to explain that your only utility in the House could arise from
+your being the exponent of what you feel to be the truth about Ireland,
+the crying evils of the Established Church, and the present tenure of
+land! When you throw these two shells in, sir, the town will be on fire.
+He 'll reply that under these circumstances there 's no more question
+about your standing for the borough; you'll say nothing,&mdash;not a word,
+not a syllable; you only smile. If Repton 's by&mdash;and he 's likely to
+be&mdash;he 'll get hot, and ask you what you mean by that&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's Scanlan just driving round the corner,&rdquo; said Magennis, in a
+whisper; and Massingbred arose at once and drew nigh to the bedside.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Could I say one word to you alone, Mr. Nelligan?&rdquo; said he, in a low
+voice.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; said he. And whispering the priest to take the others into an
+adjoining room, old Nelligan motioned Jack to sit down beside him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You said, as I came in,&rdquo; said Jack, &ldquo;that you were satisfied with my
+explanation&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure I was,&rdquo; broke in Dan. &ldquo;All I wanted to know was, that you
+acted under a misconception. That being once explained, there was no
+offence on either side. Now, Catty Henderson's letter to my wife put the
+thing straight at once; she showed that <i>your</i> conduct at Cro' Martin
+arose out of a notion that Joe had slighted you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0011" id="linkimage-0011">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/302.jpg" width="100%" alt="302 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you got this letter?&rdquo; asked Jack, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, then, I have not; his mother forwarded it to Joe by the same
+post; but, as I tell you I 'm satisfied, there 's an end of it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Scanlan 's asking for you below stairs,&rdquo; said Magennis, putting in his
+head; &ldquo;and I hear them saying that they didn't see you in town.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Jack; &ldquo;so I'll just slip out by the garden gate and meet
+him in the market-square.&rdquo; And with a hurried leave-taking Jack withdrew,
+his mind very far from that state of tranquil composure in which it was
+his pride to affect that he invariably revelled.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There they go!&rdquo; cried Father Neal, shortly after, as Scanlan drove
+rapidly by, with Massingbred beside him. &ldquo;Maybe Master Maurice won't abuse
+us all round before he turns in at the gate of Cro' Martin!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Massingbred is too cute to mind him,&rdquo; said Magennis.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, Tom, there 's one appeal men of his stamp are never deaf to. You may
+say fifty things that won't shock them in religion or morals or good
+taste; but only utter the one word 'vulgar,' and their indignation rises
+at once. That's what Scanlan will do, take my word for it He 'll call us a
+low set of fellows, that have no position in society,&mdash;no acceptance
+anywhere.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But Massingbred is a gentleman born, and he won't be led astray by such a
+consideration.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is exactly for that very reason that he will,&rdquo; said the priest,
+stoutly. &ldquo;It's a strange fact, but there 's no manner of man rates social
+advantages so high as he that has them by right, and without any struggle
+for them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said old Hayes, slowly, &ldquo;if I once thought that of him, the devil
+a vote of mine he 'd get, no matter what his principles were.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And there you 're wrong, Peter,&rdquo; said Nelligan. &ldquo;Matters of good manners
+and breeding need never be discussed between us. Mr. Massingbred will have
+<i>his</i> station; we'll have <i>ours</i>. There 's a long and weary road
+before us ere we come to think of our social condition. There 's many a
+cruel statute to be abolished, many a hard grievance to be redressed.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And besides that,&rdquo; said Father Neal, with a shrewd twinkle in his eye,
+&ldquo;while we 're doing the one we 'll be helping on the other. Political
+influence always did, and always will, include rank and station in the
+world. When English Ministers find their best ally in the Irish Priest,
+there will be no more sneers at his brogue nor his boots. Men of family
+and fortune won't shrink from their contact, and maybe you 'll see the day
+yet when coaches and chariots will drive up to the chapel, and ladies in
+satin and velvet step out to hear Mass.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A prophetic view of the Millennium itself could not have astonished old
+Peter Hayes more completely than did this marvellous suggestion of Father
+Neal; and he moved away muttering a &ldquo;Heaven grant it!&rdquo; between his teeth.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where's the next meeting of the committee to be?&rdquo; asked Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the Chapel House, to-morrow, at eleven. And that reminds me I 've not
+sent out the summonses.&rdquo; And so saying, Father Neal hastily took leave of
+his friends and left the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+Let us take a glance at Mr. Maurice Scanlan, as, with an extra box-coat
+ingeniously wrapped around his lower man, he discoursed pleasantly to his
+companion while he &ldquo;tooled&rdquo; along towards Cro' Martin. Not a word of
+politics, not a syllable on the subject of party, escaped him as he
+talked. His conversation was entirely of sporting matters: the odds
+against Leander, the last bettings on &ldquo;Firebrand,&rdquo; whether Spicy Bill was
+really in bad training, as the knowing ones said, and if the course
+wouldn't &ldquo;puzzle the young ones&rdquo; if the wet weather were to continue.
+</p>
+<p>
+Massingbred was sufficiently well versed in these classic themes to be an
+amusing and even instructive companion, and communicated many a sly piece
+of intelligence that would have been deemed priceless in &ldquo;Bell's Life;&rdquo;
+ and Scanlan quickly conceived a high estimate for one who had graduated at
+Newmarket, and taken honors at Goodwood.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;After the kind of life you 've led in England, I wonder how you endure
+this country at all,&rdquo; said Maurice, with real sincerity of voice and
+manner.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I like it,&rdquo; said Jack; &ldquo;the whole thing is new to me, and vastly amusing.
+I don't mean to say I 'd willingly pass a lifetime in this fashion, but
+for a few weeks&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so; to give you a better relish for the real thing when you go back
+again,&rdquo; said Maurice.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a neat stepper that leader is!&rdquo; said Jack, to change the topic from
+himself and his own affairs. &ldquo;She's a well-bred one; that's clear.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nearly full-bred; the least bit of cocktail in the world. She's out of
+Crescent, that ran a very good third for the Oaks.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A strong horse, and a very honest one,&rdquo; said Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I bought that little mare from young Mr. Martin&mdash;the Captain&mdash;when
+he was ordered out to India; I put her in training, and ran her at the
+Curragh in three weeks, and won, too, the St. Lawrence Handicap.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is Captain Martin a sporting character?&rdquo; asked Jack, carelessly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is and he is not,&rdquo; said Scanlan, half querulously. &ldquo;He likes a safe
+thing,&mdash;do you understand?&rdquo; and he gave a most significant wink as he
+spoke.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, then he's close about money matters?&rdquo; said Massingbred.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not exactly that. He 's wasteful and spendthrift, but he'd go to the
+world's end to do a knowing thing; you 've seen men of that kind?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Scores of them,&rdquo; replied Jack; &ldquo;and they were always the easiest fellows
+to be duped!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exactly my own experience,&rdquo; said Scanlan, delighted to find his opinions
+confirmed in such a quarter. &ldquo;Now, young Martin would give five hundred
+pounds for a horse to win a fifty pound cup. Don't you know what I mean?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perfectly,&rdquo; said Massingbred, with an approving smile.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nobody knows the sums he has drawn since he went away,&rdquo; exclaimed
+Scanlan, who was momentarily growing more and more confidential.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's a deal of high play in India; perhaps he gambles,&rdquo; said Jack,
+carelessly.
+</p>
+<p>
+A significant wink and nod gave the answer.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; added he, after a pause, &ldquo;he 'll not mend matters by coming
+back again.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And is he about to visit England?&rdquo; asked Massingbred, in the same easy
+tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So they say,&rdquo; replied Scanlan, with an effort at the easy indifference of
+the other.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;On leave, perhaps?&rdquo; said Jack, indolently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That 's more than I know,&rdquo; replied he, and relapsed into a thoughtful
+silence, during which Massingbred continued to scan his features with a
+sly, downcast glance peculiar to himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You've never been in Leicestershire, Mr. Scanlan?&rdquo; said he, when he had
+fully satisfied himself with his examination. &ldquo;Well, then, come over there
+in the spring&mdash;say about March next&mdash;and pay me a visit. I 've
+got a sort of hunting-box there, with a neat stable, and by that time I
+hope to raise funds for a couple of nags.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Trust <i>me</i> for the horseflesh, sir. I know where to mount you this
+very minute. You 're not much above eleven stone?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eleven-eight,&mdash;at least, so I used to be. Is it a bargain? Will you
+come?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's my hand on't,&rdquo; said the attorney, overjoyed at the prospect.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mackworth, and Lord Harry Coverdale, and Sir Went-worth Danby, and a few
+more, are all my neighbors. Capital fellows, whom you 'll be delighted
+with. Just the sort of men to suit you,&mdash;up to everything that means
+sport.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exactly what I like!&rdquo; cried Maurice, in ecstasy.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We'll arrange it all this evening, then,&rdquo; said Jack. &ldquo;Just drop into my
+room after they 're all gone to bed, and we'll have a talk over it. You
+don't know my father, do you?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I haven't that honor,&rdquo; said Scanlan, with an accent of real deference in
+his voice.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Another kind of person from these I've mentioned,&rdquo; said Jack, slowly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So I should suppose, sir,&rdquo; said Scanlan, a tone of respect involuntarily
+attaching itself to him as he addressed the son of a Secretary of State.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not that he doesn't like field sports, and all the enjoyments of a
+country life. But, you know, he's an old official&mdash;a Downing Street
+veteran&mdash;who really relishes public business, just as you and I would
+a coursing-match, or a heavy pool at Crocky's.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Scanlan nodded as if in perfect assent.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;While I say this, it's only fair to add that he has most excellent
+qualities, and is a stanch friend when he takes any one up. I suspect you
+'d like him. I know he 'd like your&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm greatly flattered. I don't deserve&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see,&rdquo; said Jack, not heeding the interruption, and assuming the low
+accents of a confidential communication&mdash;&ldquo;You see, he and I have not
+been on the very best of terms for some time back; I 've done some silly
+things&mdash;spent a little more money than he liked&mdash;and, what was
+still worse in his eyes, refused a first-rate Government appointment&mdash;a
+really good thing, and such as one does n't meet with every day&mdash;and
+now, the only road back to his favor will be for me to come out strongly
+in some shape, either as a college prizeman or in public life. I despise
+the former. It's all very well for fellows like Nelligan&mdash;it's their
+natural 'beat,'&mdash;but for a man like <i>me</i>, one who has seen the
+world,&mdash;the real world,&mdash;these are nothing more than schoolboy
+distinctions,&mdash;the silver medal he brings home of a Saturday, and
+makes him the wonder of his sisters for twenty-four hours. I'll have to
+strike out a line of my own!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No fear of you, sir,&mdash;devil a bit!&rdquo; said Maurice, with a sententious
+shake of the head. &ldquo;Here we are now at Cro' Martin, and then there's the
+first dinner-bell ringing.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We shall be late, perhaps,&rdquo; said Jack.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You'll be in good time. As for me, I haven't been asked to dinner, so
+that when I drop you I 'll go down to the village.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, I 'll walk over and see you in the evening,&rdquo; said
+Massingbred. &ldquo;It seems to me&mdash;I don't know whether you are of the
+same opinion, though&mdash;but it seems strongly to me that you and I
+ought to be allies.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I thought I was worthy&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, come, Scanlan, no modesty, old boy. You know you 're a devilish
+clever fellow, and you no more intend to pass your life cruising after
+petty-session practice in Galway, than I do to settle down here as
+under-gardener.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They 're all looking at us, sir, from the drawing-room window,&rdquo; said
+Scanlan, in a cautious voice; &ldquo;don't let us appear too confidential.&rdquo; And
+at the same instant he extended his whip as though to point attention to
+some distant object, and seem as if he were describing the scenery.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shrewd dog it is,&rdquo; muttered Massingbred in soliloquy, but taking good
+care to be overheard. &ldquo;I 'll beat up your quarters, Scanlan, in a couple
+of hours or so,&rdquo; said Massingbred, as he descended from the lofty &ldquo;drag.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Somewhat, but not very much, later than the time appointed, Jack
+Massingbred appeared in the small chamber of the &ldquo;Crueskeen,&rdquo;&mdash;the
+humble hostel on the roadside adjoining the demesne of Cro' Martin.
+Maurice Scanlan had made every preparation which the fluid resources of
+the house admitted to receive his guest, but they were not destined to be
+put in requisition.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have only come lest you should accuse me of forgetting you, Scanlan,&rdquo;
+ said Massingbred, as he stood in the doorway without removing his hat. &ldquo;I
+'m off to Oughter-ard, having made my adieux at Cro' Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Left Cro' Martin, and for good!&rdquo; exclaimed Scanlan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If that means forever, I suspect you 're right,&rdquo; replied Jack; &ldquo;but you
+'ll have the whole story in the morning when you go up there, and
+doubtless more impartially than I should tell it. And now, good-bye for a
+brief space. We shall meet soon.&rdquo; And, without waiting for an answer, he
+nodded familiarly, stepped briskly to the door, where a post-chaise
+awaited him, and was gone, before Scanlan had even half recovered from his
+astonishment and surprise.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XXI. AN AWKWARD VISITOR
+</h2>
+<p>
+It is a singularly impressive sensation, and one, too, of which even
+frequency will scarcely diminish the effect, to pass from the busy streets
+and moving population of Dublin, and enter the quiet courts of the
+University. The suddenness of the change is most striking, and you pass at
+once from all the bustling interests of life&mdash;its cares and
+ambitions, its pursuits of wealth and pleasure&mdash;into the stillness of
+a cloister. Scarcely within the massive gates, and the noise of the great
+capital is hushed and subdued, its sounds seem to come from afar, and in
+their place is an unbroken calm, or the more solemn echoes of its vaulted
+roofs.
+</p>
+<p>
+In a corner of the Old Square, and in a building almost entirely occupied
+by the University authorities, and whose stairs had seldom echoed beneath
+less reverend footsteps than those of deans and bursars, were the chambers
+of Joe Nelligan. He had obtained them in this peculiar locality as a
+special favor from &ldquo;the Board,&rdquo; as eminently suited to his habits of study
+and seclusion; for his was indeed a life of labor,&mdash;labor, hard,
+unremitting, and unbroken! Dreary as was the aspect of the spot, it was
+one dear to the heart of him who occupied it. If it had been the cell
+wherein he had passed nights of severest toil and days of intense effort,
+so had it been the calm retreat into which he had retired as a sanctuary,
+and at times the scene of the hallowed joy he felt when success had
+crowned all his labors. Thither had he bent his steps at nightfall, as to
+a home; thence had he written the few lines which more than once announced
+his triumph to his father.
+</p>
+<p>
+Within those halls had he experienced all that he had ever tasted of
+successful ambition, and in the depths of that old chair had he dreamed
+away all the visions of a glorious future. The room in which he sat was a
+large and lofty one, lighted by two windows deeply set in the wall. Its
+sides were lined with book-shelves, and books littered the tables and even
+the floor,&mdash;for it was one of his caprices to read as he lay at full
+length, either on the ground or a sofa,&mdash;and the paper and pens were
+scattered about in different quarters, as accident suggested. The only
+thing like ornament to be seen was a lithographic print of Cro' Martin
+Castle over the fireplace,&mdash;a strange exception would it seem, but
+traceable, perhaps, to some remote scene of boyish admiration for what had
+first awakened in him a feeling of awe and admiration; and there it now
+remained, time-worn and discolored, perhaps unnoticed, or looked on with
+very different emotions. Ay! these pictures are terrible landmarks of our
+thoughts! I speak not of such as appeal to our hearts by the features we
+loved, the eyes into whose depths we have gazed, the lips on whose accents
+we have hung entranced, but even when they trace the outlines of some spot
+well known to us in boyhood,&mdash;some scene of long, long years ago. It
+is not alone that the &ldquo;Then&rdquo; and &ldquo;Now&rdquo; stand out in strongest contrast,
+that what we were and what we are are in juxtaposition, but that whole
+memories of what we once hoped to be come rushing over us, and all the
+spirit-stirring emotions of early ambitions mingle themselves with the
+stern realities of the present. And, after all, what success in life,
+however great and seemingly unexpected it may be, ever equals one of the
+glorious daydreams of our boyish ambition, in which there comes no alloy
+of broken health, wasted energies, and exhausted spirits? or, far worse
+again, the envious jealousy of those we once deemed friends, and who, had
+we lived obscurely, still might be such? Student life is essentially
+imaginative. The very division of time, the objects which have value to a
+student's eyes, the seclusion in which he lives, the tranquil frame of
+mind coexistent with highly strained faculties, all tend to make his
+intervals of repose periods of day-dream and revery. It is not improbable
+that these periods are the fitting form of relaxation for overtaxed minds,
+and that the Imagination is the soothing influence that repairs the wear
+and tear of Reason.
+</p>
+<p>
+The peculiar circumstances of young Nelligan's position in life had almost
+totally estranged him from others. The constraint that attaches to a very
+bashful temperament had suggested to him a certain cold and reserved
+manner, that some took for pride, and many were repelled from his intimacy
+by this seeming haughtiness. The unhappy course of what had been his first
+friendship&mdash;for such was it with Massingbred&mdash;had rendered him
+more distrustful than ever of himself, and more firmly convinced that to
+men born as he had been the world imposes a barrier that only is passable
+by the highest and greatest success. It is true, his father's letter of
+explanation assuaged the poignancy of his sorrow; he saw that Massingbred
+had proceeded under a misconception, and had believed himself the
+aggrieved individual; but all these considerations could not obliterate
+the fact that an insult to his social station was the vengeance adopted by
+him, and that Massingbred saw no more galling outrage in his power than to
+reflect upon his rank in life.
+</p>
+<p>
+There are men who have a rugged pride in contrasting what they were with
+what they are. Their self-love finds an intense pleasure in contemplating
+difficulties overcome, obstacles surmounted, and a goal won, all by their
+own unaided efforts, and to such the very obscurity of their origin is a
+source of boastful exultation. Such men are, however, always found in the
+ranks of those whose success is wealth. Wherever the triumphs are those
+rewarded by station, or the distinctions conferred on intellectual
+superiority, this vainglorious sentiment is unknown. An inborn refinement
+rejects such coarse pleasure, just as their very habits of life derive no
+enjoyment from the display and splendor reflected by riches.
+</p>
+<p>
+Joe Nelligan felt his lowly station most acutely, because he saw in it a
+disqualification for that assured and steady temperament which can make
+most of success. He would have given half of all he might possess in the
+world for even so much of birth as might exempt him from a sneer. The
+painful sensitiveness that never rested nor slept&mdash;that made him
+eternally on the watch lest some covert allusion might be made to him&mdash;was
+a severe suffering; and far from decreasing, it seemed to grow with him as
+he became older, and helped mainly to withdraw him further from the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+No error is more common than for bashful men to believe that they are
+unpopular in society, and that the world &ldquo;will none of them.&rdquo; They
+interpret their own sense of difficulty as a feeling of dislike in others,
+and retire to their solitudes convinced that these are their fitting
+dwelling-places. To this unpalatable conviction was Joseph Nelligan now
+come; and as he entered his chambers, and closed the heavy door behind
+him, came the thought: &ldquo;Here at least no mortifications can reach me.
+These old books are my truest and best of friends, and in their
+intercourse there is neither present pain nor future humiliation!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It was on a dark and dreary day in winter, and in that cheerless hour
+before the closing in of night, that Joseph sat thus in his solitary home.
+The sound of carriage-wheels and the sharp tramp of horses' feet&mdash;a
+rare event in these silent courts&mdash;slightly aroused him from a
+revery; but too indolent to go to the window, he merely raised his head to
+listen; and now a loud knock shook the outer door of his chambers. With a
+strange sense of perturbation at this unwonted summons, he arose and
+opened it.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Chief Secretary begs to know if Mr. Nelligan is at home?&rdquo; said a
+well-powdered footman, in a plain but handsome livery.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; I am the person,&rdquo; said Joseph, with a diffidence strongly in
+contrast with the composure of the other; and while he yet stood, door in
+hand, the steps of the carriage were let down, and a tall
+venerable-looking man, somewhat past the prime of life, descended and
+approached him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must be my own introducer, Mr. Nelligan,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;my name is
+Massingbred.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+With considerable confusion of manner, and in all that hurry in which
+bashful men seek to hide their awkwardness, Joseph ushered his visitor
+into his dimly lighted chamber.
+</p>
+<p>
+Colonel Massingbred, with all the staid composure of a very quiet
+demeanor, had quite sufficient tact to see that he was in the company of
+one little versed in the world, and, as soon as he took his seat,
+proceeded to explain the reason of his visit.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My son has told me of the great pleasure and profit he has derived from
+knowing you, sir,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;he has also informed me that a slight and
+purely casual event interrupted the friendship that existed between you;
+and although unable himself to tender personally to you at this moment all
+his regrets on the subject, he has charged me to be his interpreter, and
+express his deep sorrow for what has occurred, and his hope that, after
+this avowal, it may never be again thought of by either of you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There was a misunderstanding,&mdash;a fault on both sides. I was wrong in
+the first instance,&rdquo; said Nelligan, faltering and stammering at every
+word.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Nelligan is in a position to be generous,&rdquo; said the Colonel, blandly,
+&ldquo;and he cannot better show the quality than by accepting a frank and full
+apology for a mere mistake. May I trust,&rdquo; continued he,&mdash;but with
+that slight change of tone that denoted a change of topic,&mdash;&ldquo;that you
+have somewhat abated those habits of severe study you have hitherto
+pursued? Jack is really uneasy on that score, and wisely remarks that
+great talents should be spared the penalty of great labor.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not reading now. I have read very little of late,&rdquo; said Joseph,
+diffidently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can imagine what that means,&rdquo; said the Colonel, smiling. &ldquo;Mr.
+Nelligan's relaxations would be the hard labor of less zealous students;
+but I will also say that upon other grounds this must be done with more
+consideration. The public interests, Mr. Nelligan,&mdash;the country, to
+whose service you will one day be called on to contribute those high
+abilities,&mdash;will not be satisfied to learn that their exercise should
+have been impaired by over-effort in youth.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You overrate me much, sir. I fear that you have been misled both as to my
+capacity and my objects.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your capacity is matter of notoriety, Mr. Nelligan! your objects may be
+as high as any ambition can desire. But perhaps it is obtrusive in one so
+new to your acquaintance to venture on these topics; if so, pray forgive
+me, and set it down to the error I have fallen into of fancying that I
+know you as well personally as I do by reputation and character.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Before Nelligan could summon words to reply to this complimentary speech,
+the door of his room was flung suddenly open, and a short, thickset
+figure, shrouded in a coarse shawl and a greatcoat, rushed towards him,
+exclaiming in a rich brogue,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here I am, body and bones; just off the coach, and straight to your
+quarters.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What! Mr. Crow; is it possible?&rdquo; cried Nelligan, in some confusion.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just himself, and no other,&rdquo; replied the artist, disengaging himself from
+his extra coverings. &ldquo;When you said to me, 'Come and see me when you visit
+Dublin,' I said to myself, 'There 's a trump, and I 'll do it;' and so
+here I am.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You left the country yesterday. Did you bring me any letters?&rdquo; asked
+Nelligan; but in the uncertain tone of a man who talked merely to say
+something.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not a line,&mdash;not a word. Your father was over head and ears at work
+this week back about the election, and it was only the night before last
+it was over.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And is it over?&rdquo; asked Nelligan, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure it is. Young Massingbred is in, and a nice business it is.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let me inform you, Mr. Crow, before you proceed further&mdash;&rdquo; broke in
+Nelligan; but as he got so far, Colonel Massingbred laid his hand on his
+arm, and said, in a bland but steady voice, &ldquo;Pray allow the gentleman to
+continue; his account promises to be most interesting.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, then, that's what it is not,&rdquo; said Crow; &ldquo;for I think it's all
+bad from beginning to end.&rdquo; Another effort to interrupt by Nelligan being
+repressed by the Colonel, Crow resumed: &ldquo;Everybody trying to cheat
+somebody else; the Martins wanting to cheat the borough, the borough
+wanting to jockey the Martins, and then young Massingbred humbugging them
+both! And there he is now, Member for Oughterard; and much he cares for
+them both.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was there a contest, sir?&rdquo; asked the Colonel, while by a gesture he
+enforced silence on Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;As bitter a one as ever you saw in your life,&rdquo; continued Simmy, quite
+flattered at the attention vouchsafed him; &ldquo;for though the Martins put
+young Massingbred forward at first, they quarrelled with him before the
+day for the nomination,&mdash;something or other about the franchise, or
+Maynooth, or the Church Establishment. Sorra one o' me know much about
+these matters; but it was a serious difference, and they split about it!
+And after all their planning and conniving together, what do they do but
+propose Martin's son, the man in the dragoons, for the borough!
+Massingbred bids them do their worst, packs up, sets out for the town, and
+makes a speech exposing them all! The next morning he comes to the poll,
+with Joe's father there, and Peter Hayes, to propose and second him.
+Martin drives in with three elegant coaches and four, and tries to do the
+thing 'grand.' 'It's too late, sir; the people know their power,' as
+Father Neal told them; and, upon my conscience, I believe it's a most
+dangerous kind of knowledge. At all events, at it they go; and such
+fighting and murdering nobody ever saw before. There's not a whole pane of
+glass in the town, and many a skull cracked as well! One of the wickedest
+of the set was young Massingbred himself; he 'd assault the cars as they
+drove in, and tear out the chaps he thought were his own voters, in spite
+of themselves. He has the spirit of the devil in him! And then to hear how
+he harangued the people and abused the aristocracy. Maybe he did n't lay
+it on well! To be sure, the Martins drove him to it very hard. They called
+him a 'renegade' and a 'spy.' They ransacked everything they could get
+against his character, and at last declared that he had no qualification,
+and wasn't worth sixpence.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how did he answer that?&rdquo; cried the Colonel, who, fixing his eyes on
+the other, entirely engaged his attention.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll tell you how he did. Just producing the title-deeds of an estate
+that old Nelligan settled on him eight days before,&mdash;ay, and so well
+and securely that Counsellor Repton himself, with all his cuteness, could
+n't find a flaw in it. Repton said, in my own hearing, 'That 's the
+cleverest blackguard in Ireland!'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Crow&mdash;Crow, I say,&rdquo; broke in young Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pray don't interrupt him,&rdquo; said the Colonel, in a tone that seemed to
+demand obedience; &ldquo;I want to learn by what majority he gained the day.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thirty-eight or thirty-nine; and there's only two hundred and odd in the
+borough. There may be, perhaps, a dozen of these to strike off on a
+petition; but he 's all safe after that.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And will they petition against his return?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They say so, but nobody believes them. His father,&rdquo;&mdash;and here he
+made a gesture towards Nelligan,&mdash;&ldquo;his father has a strong purse, and
+will see him well through it all.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is very interesting news to me, sir,&rdquo; said the Colonel, with another
+sign to Joseph not to betray him; &ldquo;for although I could well imagine Jack
+Massingbred equal to such an occasion as you describe, I was scarcely
+prepared to hear of the generous confidence reposed in him, nor the prompt
+and able co-operation of the Liberal party.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, I perceive,&rdquo; said Crow, with a significant motion of his eyebrows.
+&ldquo;You thought that his name would be against him, and that people would
+say, 'Is n't he the son of old Moore Massingbred, that took his bribe for
+the Union?'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is intolerable,&rdquo; cried Nelligan, starting up from his seat and
+speaking with all the vehemence of outraged feelings. &ldquo;It is to Colonel
+Massingbred himself you have dared to address this impertinence.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&mdash;how&mdash;what's this!&rdquo; exclaimed Crow, in a perfect horror of
+shame.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The fault, if there be any, is all mine, sir,&rdquo; said the Colonel, pressing
+him down into his seat. &ldquo;I would not have lost the animated description
+you have just given me, uttered, as it was, in such perfect frankness, for
+any consideration; least of all, at the small price of hearing a public
+expression on a public man's conduct. Pray, now, continue to use the same
+frankness, and tell me anything more that occurs to you about this
+remarkable contest.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+This appeal, uttered in all the ease of a well-bred manner, was quite
+unsuccessful. Mr. Crow sat perfectly horrified with himself, endeavoring
+to remember what possible extent of offence he might have been betrayed
+into by his narrative. As for Nelligan, his shame and confusion were even
+greater still; and he sat gazing ruefully and reproachfully at the unlucky
+painter.
+</p>
+<p>
+Colonel Massingbred made one or two more efforts to relieve the
+awkwardness of the incident, but so palpably fruitless were the attempts
+that he desisted, and arose to take his leave. As Joe accompanied him to
+the door, he tried to blunder out some words of excuse. &ldquo;My dear Mr.
+Nelligan,&rdquo; broke in the other, with a quiet laugh, &ldquo;don't imagine for a
+moment that I am offended. In the first place, your friend was the bearer
+of very pleasant tidings, for Jack has not condescended to write to me
+about his success; and secondly, public life is such a stern schoolmaster,
+that men like myself get accustomed to rather rough usage, particularly at
+the hands of those who do not know us. And now, as I am very unwilling to
+include you in this category, when will you come and see me? What day will
+you dine with me?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Nelligan blushed and faltered, just as many another awkward man has done
+in a similar circumstance; for, however an easy matter for you, my dear
+sir, with all your tact and social readiness, to fix the day it will suit
+you to accept of an almost stranger's hospitality, Joseph had no such
+self-possession, and only stammered and grew crimson.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall it be on Saturday? for to-morrow I am engaged to the Chancellor,
+and on Friday I dine with his Excellency. Will Saturday suit you?&rdquo; asked
+the Colonel.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir, perfectly; with much pleasure,&rdquo; answered Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then Saturday be it, and at seven o'clock,&rdquo; said Massingbred, shaking his
+hand most cordially; while Joe, with sorrowful step, returned to his
+chamber.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I think I did it there, at all events!&rdquo; cried Simmy, as the other
+entered. &ldquo;But what, in the name of all that's barefaced, prevented your
+stopping me? Why did n't you pull me up short before I made a beast of
+myself?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How could I? You rushed along like a swollen river. You were so full of
+your blessed subject that you would n't heed an interruption; and as to
+signs and gestures, I made twenty without being able to catch your eye.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe I 'm the only man living ever does these things,&rdquo; said Simmy,
+ruefully. &ldquo;I lost the two or three people that used to say they were my
+friends by some such blundering folly as this. I only hope it won't do <i>you</i>
+any mischief. I trust he 'll see that you are not responsible for my
+delinquencies!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+There was a hearty sincerity in poor Simmy's sorrow that at once
+conciliated Nelligan, and he did his best to obliterate every trace of the
+unhappy incident.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I scarcely supposed my father would have forgiven Massingbred so easily,&rdquo;
+ said Joe, in his desire to change the topic.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Blarney,&mdash;all blarney!&rdquo; muttered Crow, with an expressive movement
+of his eyebrows.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Father Neal himself is rather a difficult subject to treat with,&rdquo; added
+Joe.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Blarney again!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor do I think,&rdquo; continued Nelligan, &ldquo;that the constituency of the
+borough, as a body, are remarkable for any special liability to be imposed
+on!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor would they, had it been an Irishman was trying to humbug them,&rdquo; said
+Crow, emphatically. &ldquo;Take my word for it,&mdash;and I 've seen a great
+deal of the world, and perhaps not the best of it either,&mdash;but take
+<i>my</i> word for it, English blarney goes further with us here than all
+else. It 's not that it's clever or insinuating or delicate,&mdash;far
+from it; but you see that nobody suspects it. The very blunders and
+mistakes of it have an air of sincerity, and we are, besides, so
+accustomed always to be humbugged with a brogue, that we fancy ourselves
+safe when we hear an English accent.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's some ingenuity in your theory,&rdquo; said Joe, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's fact in it; that's what there is,&rdquo; said Crow, rising from his
+seat. &ldquo;I 'll be going now, for I 'm to dine with Tom Magennis at six.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is he here, too?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; and was n't it a piece of good luck that I did n't say anything
+about him before Colonel Massingbred?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why so?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just for this, then,&mdash;that it was young Massingbred gave him a
+letter to his father, recommending him for some place or other. Half of
+the borough expects to be in the Treasury, or the Post-Office, or the
+Board of Trade; and I was just on the tip of saying what a set of
+rapscallions they were. I 'm sure I don't know what saved me from it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your natural discretion, doubtless,&rdquo; said Joe, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so; it must have been that!&rdquo; replied he, with a sigh.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You'll breakfast with me to-morrow, Crow, at eight,&rdquo; said Nelligan, as he
+parted with him at the door. And Simmy, having pledged himself to be
+punctual, hurried off to keep his dinner appointment.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XXII. A DAY &ldquo;AFTER&rdquo;
+ </h2>
+<p>
+The reaction that succeeds to a period of festivity has always an air of
+peculiar sadness and gloom about it. The day after a ball, the withered
+flowers, the faded decorations, the disordered furniture,&mdash;all tell
+the tale of departed pleasure and past enjoyment. The afternoon of that
+morning which has witnessed a wedding-breakfast,&mdash;the April landscape
+of joy and grief, the bridal beauty, and the high-beating hope of the
+happy lover, have all fled; and in the still and silent chambers there
+seems to brood a sense of sorrow and mourning. Still with these thoughts
+happier memories are mingled. The bright pageant of the past rises again
+before the mind; and smiles and music and laughter and graceful forms come
+back, and people space with their images. But how different from all this
+was the day after the election at Cro' Martin!
+</p>
+<p>
+For a week had the Martins condescended to derogate from their proud
+station and &ldquo;play popular&rdquo; to the electors of Oughterard. They had opened
+their most sumptuous apartments to vulgar company, and made guests of
+those they deemed inferior to their own domestics. They had given dinners
+and suppers and balls and picnics. They had lavished all the flatteries of
+attentions on their rude neighbors. They had admitted them to all the
+privileges of a mock equality, &ldquo;so like the real article as not to be
+detected.&rdquo; They had stored their minds with all the lives and adventures
+of these ignoble intimates, so as to impart a false color of friendship to
+their conversation with them; in a word, and to use one by which her
+Ladyship summed up all the miseries of the occasion, they had
+&ldquo;demoralized&rdquo; more in a week than she believed it possible could have been
+effected in ten years. Let us be just, and add that my Lady had taken the
+phrase bodily out of her French vocabulary, and in her ardor applied it
+with its native signification,&mdash;that is, she alluded to the sad
+consequences of association with underbred company, and not by any means
+to any inroads made upon her sense of honor and high principle.
+</p>
+<p>
+Still, whatever pangs the sacrifice was costing within, it must be owned
+that no signs of them displayed themselves on the outside. Even Repton,
+stern critic as he was, said that &ldquo;they did the thing well.&rdquo; And now it
+was all over, the guests gone, the festivities ended, the election lost,
+and nothing in prospect save to settle the heavy outlay of the contest,
+and pay the high price for that excessively dear article which combines
+contamination with disappointment.
+</p>
+<p>
+In her capacity of head of the administration, Lady Dorothea had assumed
+the whole guidance of this contest. With Miss Henderson as her private
+secretary, she had corresponded and plotted and bribed and intrigued to
+any extent; and although Repton was frequently summoned to a council, his
+advice was very rarely, if ever, adopted. Her Ladyship's happy phrase&mdash;&ldquo;one
+ought to know their own borough people better than a stranger&rdquo;&mdash;usually
+decided every vexed question in favor of her judgment.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is a strange characteristic of human nature that at no time do people
+inveigh so loudly against bad faith, treachery, and so on, as when
+themselves deeply engaged in some very questionable enterprise. Now her
+Ladyship had so fully made up her mind to win in this contest that she had
+silenced all scruples as to the means. She had set out with some
+comfortable self-assurance that she knew what was good for those &ldquo;poor
+creatures&rdquo; infinitely better than they did. That it was her duty&mdash;a
+very onerous and disagreeable one, too&mdash;to rescue them from the evil
+influence of demagogues and such like; and that when represented by a
+member of <i>her</i> family, they would be invested with a pledge that
+everything which proper legislation could do for them would be theirs. So
+far she had the approval of her own conscience; and for all that was to
+follow after, she never consulted that tribunal. It is not at all
+improbable that there was little opportunity of doing so in a week of such
+bustle and excitement. Every day brought with it fresh cares and troubles;
+and although Kate Henderson proved herself invaluable in her various
+functions, her Ladyship's fatigues and exertions were of the greatest.
+</p>
+<p>
+The day after the election Lady Dorothea kept her bed. The second day,
+too, she never made her appearance; and it was late in the afternoon of
+the third that she stole languidly into her library, and ordered her maid
+to send Miss Henderson to her.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Kate entered the room, she could not help feeling struck by the
+alteration that had taken place in her Ladyship's appearance, who, as she
+lay back in a deep chair, with closed eyes and folded hands, looked like
+one risen from a long sick-bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+As she started and opened her eyes, however, at Kate's approach, the
+features assumed much of their wonted expression, and their haughty
+character was only tinged, but not subdued, by the look of sorrow they
+wore. With the low and pleasant voice which Kate possessed in perfection,
+she had begun to utter some words of pleasure at seeing her Ladyship
+again, when the other interrupted her hastily, saying,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want you to read to me, child. There, take that volume of Madame de
+Sevigne, and begin where you see the mark. You appear weak to-day,&mdash;tired,
+perhaps?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, a mere passing sense of fatigue, my Lady,&rdquo; said Kate, assuming her
+place, and preparing her book.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Chagrin, annoyance&mdash;disgust I would call it&mdash;are far more
+wearing than mere labor. For my own part, I think nothing of exertion. But
+let us not speak of it. Begin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And Kate now commenced one of those charming letters, wherein the thought
+is so embellished by the grace of expression that there is a perpetual
+semblance of originality, without that strain upon the comprehension that
+real novelty exacts. She read, too, with consummate skill. To all the
+natural gifts of voice and utterance she added a most perfect taste, and
+that nicely subdued dramatic feeling which lends to reading its great
+fascination. Nearly an hour had thus passed, and not a word nor a gesture
+from Lady Dorothea interrupted the reader. With slightly drooped eyelids,
+she sat calm and tranquil; and as Kate, at moments, stole a passing glance
+towards her, she could not guess whether she was listening to her or not.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You'd have succeeded on the stage, Miss Henderson,&rdquo; said she at length,
+raising her eyes slowly. &ldquo;Did it never occur to you to think of that
+career?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Once I had some notion of it, my Lady,&rdquo; said Kate quietly. &ldquo;I played in a
+little private theatre of the Duchess's, and they thought that I had some
+dramatic ability.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;People of condition have turned actors, latterly,&mdash;men, of course, I
+mean; for women, the ordeal is too severe,&mdash;the coarse familiarity of
+a very coarse class, the close association with most inferior natures&mdash;By
+the way, what a week of it we have had! I 'd not have believed any one who
+told me that the whole globe contained as much unredeemed vulgarity as
+this little neighborhood. What was the name of the odious little woman
+that always lifted the skirt of her dress before sitting down?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mrs. Creevy, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure,&mdash;Mrs. Creevy. And her friend, who always came with her?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Busk&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, of course; Miss Busk, of the Emporium. If I don't mistake, I 've
+given her an order for something,&mdash;bonnets, or caps; what is it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A head-dress. Your Ladyship told her&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You 'll make me ill, child&mdash;positively ill&mdash;if you remind me of
+such horrors. I told you to come and read for me, and you begin to inflict
+me with what&mdash;I declare solemnly&mdash;is the most humiliating
+incident of my life.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Kate resumed her book, and read on. Lady Dorothea was now, however,
+unmistakably inattentive, and the changing color of her cheek betrayed the
+various emotions which moved her.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I really fancy that Miss Martin liked the atrocious creatures we have
+received here the past week; she certainly showed them a species of
+attention quite distinct from mere acceptance; and then they all addressed
+her like old acquaintance. Did you observe that?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought that they assumed a degree of familiarity with Miss Martin
+which was scarcely consistent with their station.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say highly ridiculous, child,&mdash;perfectly preposterous; for although
+she will persist in a style of living very opposite to the requirements of
+her position, she is Miss Martin, and <i>my</i> niece!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+There was now a dead pause of some seconds. At length her Ladyship spoke:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To have been beaten in one's own town, where we own every stick and stone
+in the place, really requires some explanation; and the more I reflect
+upon it, the more mysterious does it seem. Repton, indeed, had much to say
+to it. He is so indiscreet,&mdash;eh, don't you think so?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is very vain of his conversational powers, my Lady, and, like all
+clever talkers, says too much.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so. But I don't think him even agreeable. I deem him a bore,&rdquo; said
+my Lady, snappishly. &ldquo;That taste for story-telling&mdash;that anecdotic
+habit&mdash;is quite vulgar; nobody does it now.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Kate listened, as though too eager for instruction to dare to lose a word,
+and her Ladyship went on:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the first place, everybody&mdash;in society, I mean&mdash;knows every
+story that can or ought to be told; and, secondly, a narrative always
+interrupts conversation, which is a game to be played by several.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Kate nodded slightly, as though to accord as much acquiescence as
+consorted with great deference.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is possible, therefore,&rdquo; resumed her Ladyship, &ldquo;that he may have
+divulged many things in that careless way he talked; and my niece, too,
+may have been equally silly. In fact, one thing is clear,&mdash;the enemy
+acquired a full knowledge of our tactics, and met every move we made by
+another. I was prepared for all the violence, all the insult, all the
+licentious impertinence and ribaldry of such a contest; but certainly I
+reckoned on success.&rdquo; Another long and dreary pause ensued, and Lady
+Dorothea's countenance grew sadder and more clouded as she sat in moody
+silence. At length a faint tinge of color marked her cheek; her eyes
+sparkled, and it was in a voice of more than ordinary energy she said: &ldquo;If
+they fancy, however, that we shall accept defeat with submission, they are
+much mistaken. They have declared the war, and it shall not be for them to
+proclaim peace on the day they 've gained a victory. And Miss Martin also
+must learn that her Universal Benevolence scheme must give way to the
+demands of a just retribution. Have you made out the list I spoke of?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady, in part; some details are wanting, but there are eighteen
+cases here quite perfect.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;These are all cottiers,&mdash;pauper tenants,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea,
+scanning the paper superciliously through her eyeglass.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not all, my Lady; here, for instance, is Dick Sheehan, the blacksmith,
+who has worked for the castle twenty-eight years, and who holds a farm
+called Mulianahogue, on a terminable lease.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And he voted against us?&rdquo; broke she in.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; and made a very violent speech, too.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, turn him out, then,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, interrupting her. &ldquo;Now,
+where 's your father? Send for Henderson at once; I 'll have no delay with
+this matter.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have sent for him, my Lady; he 'll be here within half an hour.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And Scanlan also. We shall want him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Scanlan will be here at the same time.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This case here, with two crosses before it, what does this refer to?&rdquo;
+ said her Ladyship, pointing to a part of the paper.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's Mr. Magennis, my Lady, of Barnagheela, who has been making
+incessant appeals for a renewal of his tenure&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how did he behave?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He seconded Mr. Massingbred's nomination, and made a very outrageous
+speech on the occasion.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure, I remember him; and he had the insolence&mdash;the
+unparalleled insolence&mdash;afterwards to address Miss Martin, as she sat
+beside me in the carriage, and to tell her that if the rest of the family
+had been like her the scene that had been that day enacted would never
+have occurred! Who is this Hosey Lynch? His name is so familiar to me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is a postmaster of Oughterard, and a kind of factotum in the town.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then make a note of him. He must be dismissed at once.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is not a freeholder, my lady, but only mentioned as an active agent of
+the Liberal party.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't adopt that vulgar cant, Miss Henderson,&mdash;at least, when
+speaking to <i>me</i>, They are not&mdash;they have no pretensions to be
+called the Liberal party. It is bad taste as well as bad policy to apply a
+flattering epithet to a faction.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What shall I call them in future, my Lady?&rdquo; asked Kate, with a most
+admirably assumed air of innocence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Call them Papists, Radicals, Insurgents,&mdash;anything, in fact, which
+may designate the vile principles they advocate. You mentioned Mr.
+Nelligan, and I own to you I felt ill&mdash;positively ill&mdash;at the
+sound of his name. Just to think of that man's ingratitude,&mdash;base
+ingratitude. It is but the other day his son was our guest here,&mdash;actually
+dined at the table with us! You were here. <i>You</i> saw him yourself!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my Lady,&rdquo; was the quiet reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm sure nothing could be more civil, nothing more polite, than our
+reception of him. I talked to him myself, and asked him something&mdash;I
+forget what&mdash;about his future prospects, and see if this man, or his
+father&mdash;for it matters not which&mdash;is not the ringleader of this
+same movement! I tell you, child, and I really do not say so to hurt your
+feelings, or to aggravate your natural regrets at your condition in life,
+but I say it as a great moral lesson,&mdash;that low people are invariably
+deceitful. Perhaps they do not always intend it; perhaps&mdash;and very
+probably, indeed&mdash;their standard of honorable dealing is a low one;
+but of the fact itself you may rest assured. They are treacherous, and
+they are vindictive!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ennis Cafferty, my Lady, who lives at Broguestown,&rdquo; said Kate, reading
+from the list, &ldquo;sends a petition to your Ladyship, entreating forgiveness
+if he should have done anything to cause displeasure to the family.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What <i>did</i> he do? that is the question.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He carried a banner inscribed 'Down with Monopoly!'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mark him for eviction. I'll have no half measures. Miss Martin has
+brought the estate to such a pass that we may draw the rents, but never
+aspire to the influence of our property. These people shall now know their
+real masters. Who is that knocking at the door?&mdash;Come in.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And at this summons, uttered in a voice not peculiar for suavity, Mr.
+Henderson entered, bowing profoundly, and smoothing the few glossy hairs
+that streaked rather than covered his bald head. A momentary glance passed
+between the father and daughter; so fleeting, however, was it, that the
+most sharp-eyed observer could not have detected its meaning. Lady
+Dorothea was too deeply occupied with her own thoughts to waste a second's
+consideration on either of them, and promptly said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want you, Henderson, to inform me who are the chief persons who have
+distinguished themselves in this outrageous insult to us in the borough.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mr. Henderson moved from one foot to the other, once more stroked down his
+hair, and seemed like a man suddenly called upon to enter on a very
+unpleasant and somewhat difficult task.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps you don't like the office, sir?&rdquo; said she, hastily. &ldquo;Perhaps your
+own principles are opposed to it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Na, my Leddy,&rdquo; said he, deferentially, &ldquo;I ha' nae principles but such as
+the family sanctions. It's nae business o' mine to profess poleetical
+opinions.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very true, sir,&mdash;very just; you comprehend your station,&rdquo; replied
+she, proudly. &ldquo;And now to my demand. Who are the heads of this revolt?&mdash;for
+it is a revolt!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's nae sa much a revolt, my Leddy,&rdquo; rejoined he, slowly and
+respectfully, &ldquo;as the sure and certain consequence of what has been going
+on for years on the property. I did my best, by warning, and indeed by
+thwarting, so far as I could, these same changes. But I was not listened
+to. I foretold what it would all end in, this amelearating the condition
+of the small farmer&mdash;this raising the moral standard of the people,
+and a' that. I foresaw that if they grew richer they 'd grow sturdier; and
+if they learned to read, they'd begin to reflact. Ah, my leddy, a vara
+dangerous practice this same habit of reflection is, to folk who wear
+ragged clothes and dine on potatoes!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I apprehend that the peril is not felt so acutely in your own country,
+sir!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Vara true, my Leddy; your remark is vara just; but there's this
+difference to be remembered: the Scotch are canny folk, and we do many a
+thing that might n't be safe for others, but we take care never to do them
+ower much.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't want your philosophizing, sir, about national characteristics. I
+conclude that you know&mdash;it is your duty to know&mdash;whence this
+spirit took its rise. I desire to be informed on this head, and also what
+measures you have to advise for its suppression.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Another pause, longer and more embarrassing than the first, followed on
+this speech, and Mr. Henderson really seemed balancing within himself
+whether he would or not give evidence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your reluctance has only to go a step further, Henderson, to impress me
+with the worst suspicions of yourself!&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, sternly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm vara sorry for it, my Leddy; I don't deserve them,&rdquo; was the calm
+reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+Had Lady Dorothea been quick-sighted, she might have detected a glance
+which the daughter directed towards her father; but she had been more than
+quick-minded if she could have read its meaning, so strange was the
+expression it bore.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In plain words, sir, do you know the offenders? and if so, how can we
+punish them?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your Leddyship has them all there,&rdquo; said he, pointing to the list on the
+table; &ldquo;but there's nae sa much to be done wi' them, as the chief o' the
+lot are men o' mark and means, wi' plenty o' siller, and the sperit to
+spend it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hear of nothing but defaulters till a moment like this arrives, sir,&rdquo;
+ said her Ladyship, passionately. &ldquo;The burden of every song is arrears of
+rent; and now I am told that the tenantry are so prosperous that they can
+afford to defy their landlord. Explain this, sir!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Before Mr. Henderson had completed that hesitating process which with him
+was the prelude to an answer, the door opened, and Mary Martin entered.
+She was in a riding-dress, and bore the traces of the road on her splashed
+costume; but her features were paler than usual, and her lip quivered as
+she spoke.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear aunt,&rdquo; cried she, not seeming to notice that others were present,
+&ldquo;I have come back at speed from Kyle's Wood to learn if it be true&mdash;but
+it cannot be true&mdash;however the poor creatures there believe it&mdash;that
+they are to be discharged from work, and no more employment given at the
+quarries. You have n't seen them, dear aunt&mdash;you haven't beheld them,
+as I did this morning&mdash;standing panic-stricken around the scene of
+their once labor, not speaking, scarcely looking at each other, more like
+a shipwrecked crew upon an unknown shore than fathers and mothers beside
+their own homesteads!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was I gave the order, Miss Martin,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, proudly. &ldquo;If
+these people prefer political agitation to an honest subsistence, let them
+pay the price of it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But who says that they have done so?&rdquo; replied Mary. &ldquo;These poor creatures
+have not a single privilege to exercise; they have n't a vote amongst
+them. The laws have forgotten them just as completely as human charity
+has.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If they have no votes to record, they have voices to outrage and insult
+their natural protectors. Henderson knows that the worst mobs in the
+borough were from this very district.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let him give the names of those he alludes to. Let him tell me ten&mdash;five&mdash;ay,
+three, if he can, of Kyle's Wood men who took any share in the
+disturbances. I am well aware that it is a locality where he enjoys little
+popularity himself; but at least he need not calumniate its people. Come,
+sir, who are these you speak of?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Kate Henderson, who sat with bent-down head during this speech, contrived
+to steal a glance at the speaker so meaningful and so supplicating that
+Mary faltered, and as a deep blush covered her cheek, she hastily added:
+&ldquo;But this is really not the question. This miserable contest has done us
+all harm; but let us not perpetuate its bitterness! We have been beaten in
+an election, but I don't think we ought to be worsted in a struggle of
+generosity and good feeling. Come over, dear aunt, and see these poor
+creatures.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall certainly do no such thing, Miss Martin. In the first place, the
+fever never leaves that village.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very true, aunt; and it will be worse company if our kindness should
+desert them. But if you will not come, take <i>my</i> word for the state
+of their destitution. We have nothing so poor on the whole estate.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0012" id="linkimage-0012">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/330.jpg" width="100%" alt="330 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is but a moment back I was told that the spirit of resistance to our
+influence here arose from the wealthy independence of the people; now, I
+am informed it is their want and destitution suggest the opposition. I
+wish I could ascertain which of you is right.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's little matter if our theory does not lead us to injustice,&rdquo; said
+Mary, boldly. &ldquo;Let me only ride back to the quarries, aunt, and tell these
+poor people that they 've nothing to fear,&mdash;that there is no thought
+of withdrawing from them their labor nor its hire. Their lives are, God
+knows, not overlaid with worldly blessings; let us not add one drop that
+we can spare to their cup of sorrow.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The young leddy says na mair than the fact; they're vara poor, and they
+'re vara dangerous!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you mean dangerous, sir?&rdquo; asked Lady Dorothea, hastily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's more out o' that barony at the assizes, my Leddy, than from any
+other on the property.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Starvation and crime are near relatives all the world over,&rdquo; said Mary;
+&ldquo;nor do I see that the way to cure the one is to increase the other.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then let us get rid of both,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea. &ldquo;I don't see why we are
+to nurse pauperism either into fever or rebellion. To feed people that
+they may live to infect you, or, perhaps, shoot you, is sorry policy. You
+showed me a plan for getting rid of them, Henderson,&mdash;something about
+throwing down their filthy hovels, or unroofing them, or something of that
+kind, and then they were to emigrate&mdash;I forget where&mdash;to
+America, I believe&mdash;and become excellent people, hard-working and
+quiet. I know it all sounded plausible and nice; tell Miss Martin your
+scheme, and if it does not fulfil all you calculated, it will at least
+serve for an example on the estate.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;An example!&rdquo; cried Mary. &ldquo;Take care, my Lady. It's a dangerous precept
+you are about to inculcate, and admits of a terrible imitation!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now you have decided me, Miss Martin,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, haughtily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And, good Heavens! is it for a rash word of mine&mdash;for a burst of
+temper that I could not control&mdash;you will turn out upon the wide
+world a whole village,&mdash;the old that have grown gray there,&mdash;the
+infant that clings to its mother in her misery, and makes a home for her
+by its very dependence&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Every one of them, sir,&rdquo; said Lady Dorothea, addressing herself to
+Henderson, who had asked some question in a low whisper. &ldquo;They 're
+cottiers all; they require no delays of law, and I insist upon it
+peremptorily.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not till my uncle hears of it!&rdquo; exclaimed Mary, passionately. &ldquo;A cruel
+wrong like this shall not be done in mad haste.&rdquo; And with these words,
+uttered in all the vehemence of great excitement, she rushed from the room
+in search of Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XXIII. A CHARACTERISTIC LETTER
+</h2>
+<p>
+It may save the reader some time, and relieve him from the weary task of
+twice listening to the same story, if we steal some passages from a letter
+which, about this time, Jack Massingbred addressed to his former
+correspondent. He wrote from the inn at Oughterard, and, although still
+under the influence of the excitement of the late contest, expressed
+himself with much of his constitutional calm and frankness. We shall not
+recapitulate his narrative of the election, but proceed at once to what
+followed on that description.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see, Harry, the dubious projection of your nether lip, I appreciate the
+slow nod of your head, and I fancy I can hear the little half-sigh of
+deprecation with which you hear all this. Worse again, I don't seek to
+defend myself. I think my case a bad one; but still I feel there is
+something to be said in mitigation. You need not trouble yourself to draw
+up an indictment: I plead guilty&mdash;entirely guilty&mdash;to all you
+can say. I <i>have</i> broken with 'the gentlemen' to cast my lot with the
+<i>canaille</i>. Why have n't we a good wholesome word of our own for a
+home-made article? I <i>have</i> deserted the ranks where, whatever
+fortune befell, it was honor to fight; I have given up association with
+the well-bred and the well-mannered, to rub shoulders with the
+coarse-minded, the rough-hearted, and the vulgar. There is not a reproach
+you can make me on this score that I have n't already addressed to myself.
+I feel all the indignity of my situation,&mdash;I experience all the
+insult of their companionship; but, as the lady detected in possession of
+her lover's picture pleaded in her defence that it was not like him, so I
+hope to arrest judgment against me by the honest avowal that I detest and
+despise my party. I don't talk to <i>you</i> about their principles&mdash;still
+less do I say anything of my own&mdash;but merely advert here to the
+miserable compromise a gentleman is driven to make with every sentiment of
+his nature who once enlists under their flag. As Travers told us one
+evening&mdash;you were of the party, and must remember it&mdash;he was
+speaking of the Peninsular campaign, in which he served as a volunteer&mdash;'So
+long as you were fighting,' said he, 'it was all very well; the fellows
+were stout-hearted and full of spirit, and you felt that you couldn't ask
+for better comrades; but when the struggle was over&mdash;when it came to
+associating, living with them, hearing their sentiments, sharing their
+opinions, hopes, fears, wishes, and so on&mdash;then it became downright
+degradation!' Not, as he remarked, that they were one jot more vicious or
+more corrupt than their betters, but that every vice and every corruption
+amongst them seemed doubly offensive by the contact with their coarse
+natures. Now, my friends, the Liberals, are somewhat in the same category.
+They do their work right well on the field of battle; they fight, swear,
+slander, and perjure themselves just like gentlemen; or rather better of
+the two. They even come down handsomely with their cash,&mdash;the last
+best evidence any man can tender of his honesty in a cause; but then,
+Harry, the struggle over, it is sorry work to become their companion and
+their friend! Oh! if you had but seen the dinners I have eaten, and the
+women I have handed down to them!&mdash;if you could have but heard the
+sentiments I have cheered,&mdash;ay, and even uttered,&mdash;only listened
+to the projects we have discussed, and the plans matured as we sat over
+our whiskey-punch,&mdash;you 'd say, 'Jack must have the ambition of the
+Evil One himself in his heart, since he pays this price for the mere
+glimpse of the goal before him!'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Throughout the whole of your last letter I can detect a sense of
+apprehension lest, 'with all my tact,' as you phrase it, these people are
+not really duping we,&mdash;using me for a present purpose, with the
+foregone resolve to get rid of me when it be accomplished. To be sure they
+are, Harry. I never doubted it for a moment. The only question is, which
+of us shall trip up the other! They desire to show the world that the
+operation of the Relief Bill will not be of that exclusive character its
+opponents proclaimed,&mdash;that a Catholic constituency would choose a
+Protestant,&mdash;even prefer one,&mdash;as Mr. O'Connell said. The
+opportunity was a good one to display this sentiment, and so they took me!
+Now, <i>my</i> notion is, that every great measure can have only one real
+importance, by throwing weight into the scale of one or other of the two
+great Parliamentary parties. Do what you will,&mdash;agitate, write,
+speak, pamphleteer, and libel,&mdash;but all resolves itself to some
+question of a harm to one side and good to the other, the country the
+while being wonderfully little the better or the worse for all the
+legislation. We used to have a Constitution in England: we have now only
+got a Parliament, and to be anything in the nation a man must make himself
+felt there! This, 'if I have the stuff in me,' as old Sherry said, I mean
+to do&mdash;<i>et nous verrons!</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The fatigues of this new life are very great. I 'm up before it is well
+day, writing and revising newspaper articles, answering letters, and
+replying to 'queries.' I have my whole mornings taken up in audiences of
+my constituents, swallowing pledges, and recording promises; and later on
+I go to dinner, 'with what appetite I may,' to some one of my faithful
+supporters,&mdash;some corn-chandler who spouts 'foreign politics,' or a
+grocer who ought to be Colonial Secretary! But still I 'm thankful for all
+this bustle and occupation: it averts reflection, it raises a barrier
+against thought, and muffles the clapper of that small hand-bell in the
+human heart men call their conscience! They say few men would have courage
+for either a battle or a wedding if it were not for the din of the
+trumpets and the joy-bells; and I'm convinced that noise&mdash;mere noise&mdash;has
+no small share in determining the actions of mankind!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now, Harry, for a confession. I 'm heartily sorry for the whole of
+this business, and were it to be done again, nothing would tempt me to
+play the same part in it. I was leading the jolliest life imaginable at
+Cro' Martin. I had made the place and the people my own. It was a kind of
+existence that suited me,&mdash;sufficient of occupation, and enough of
+leisure. There were oddities to laugh at, eccentricities to quiz, an old
+lawyer to sharpen one's wits upon, and a governess&mdash;such a governess&mdash;to
+flirt with! Don't mistake me, Harry; it was not one of those
+hand-pressing, downcast-gazing, low-speaking cases in which you are such a
+proficient. It was far more like the approaches one might be supposed to
+make to a young tigress in a cage,&mdash;a creature with whom a mistake
+would be your ruin, and whom you always caressed with a sense of impending
+peril.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I told you how ably she aided me in this contest,&mdash;how she labored
+to obtain information&mdash;secret information&mdash;for me as to every
+voter in the borough. What prompted her to this course I cannot fathom.
+She does not appear to bear any grudge against the Martins,&mdash;she had
+been but a few weeks amongst them,&mdash;and is, all things considered,
+well treated and well received. As little was it any special favor towards
+myself. Indeed, on that head she will not permit me to fall into any
+error. I cannot suppose that with her foreign education and foreign habits
+she cares a jot for the small schemes and intriguings of home politics,&mdash;so
+what can it possibly mean? Help me to the solution of this riddle, and I
+'ll be more deeply your debtor than I can well say. Brought up as she has
+been,&mdash;and as I have told you in my last letter,&mdash;nothing would
+be more natural than her adoption of every prejudice of the class by whom
+she has been so singularly distinguished; and in this light I have always
+viewed her. Under the calm reserve of a most polished manner you can still
+detect a shrinking horror of all the vulgar association of the rank she
+came from. Her quiet deference, haughtier by far than the domination of
+those above her; the humility that no flatteries ever breached; a
+self-possession that never seemed so strong as when resisting the
+blandishments of praise,&mdash;these are strange gifts in a young girl
+with beauty enough to turn half the heads of half the fools we know of,
+and more than enough to make crazy that of him who writes this.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I tried twenty things to resist this tendency on my part. I laughed at
+myself for the absurdity it would lead to. I ridiculed to my own heart all
+the extravagance of such a project. I even wrote a paragraph for the
+'Times' announcing the marriage of Jack Massingbred with Kate Henderson,
+the only daughter of Paul Henderson, the Land Steward, and pasted it above
+my chimney to shock and outrage me. I did more. I made love to Miss Martin&mdash;as
+an alterative, as the doctors would call it&mdash;but I fell at a stone
+wall, got laughed at, and cured of my passion; and, lastly, I climbed that
+lofty tree of my family, and sat high among the branches of defunct barons
+and baronets, to get a bird's-eye view of the small mushrooms that grow on
+the earth beneath, but hang me, Harry, if the agarics did n't seem better
+company, and I was glad to get down amongst them again, meaning thereby to
+sit beside that one dear specimen of the class I allude to!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see that you are curious to know how all these late events have
+modified my relations with my father, and really I cannot answer your
+inquiry. It is more than likely that my obtaining a seat in Parliament
+will embarrass rather than serve him with his party, since he will be
+expected to control a vote over which he can exert no influence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;As yet, nothing has occurred to draw us any closer, and my only
+communications to him have been certain recommendatory letters, which my
+constituents here have somewhat peremptorily demanded at my hands. I gave
+them freely, for, after all, application is an easier task than refusing,
+and besides, Harry, it is very difficult to persuade your election friends
+that you cannot be a patriot and a patron at the same time, and that, in
+the luxurious pastime of badgering a government, a man surrenders some of
+the pretensions to place. I gave them, therefore, all the letters they
+asked for; and if the Chief Secretary but answer one half of my appeals,
+Galway&mdash;or at least that small portion of it called Oughter-ard&mdash;will
+have no cause of complaint on the score of its claims to office.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are, I perceive, astonished that I continue to remain here. So am I,
+Harry. The place is detestable in almost every way. I am beset with
+entreaties, persecuted with vulgar attentions, bored to death by the
+insolent familiarity of people I cannot&mdash;do all that I will&mdash;grow
+intimate with; and yet I stay on, pretexting this, that, and t' other to
+myself, and shrinking even to my own heart to avow the real reason of my
+delay!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want once again, if only for a few moments, to see her. I want to try
+if by any ingenuity I could discover the mystery of her conduct with
+regard to myself; and I want also, if there should be the need to do so,
+to justify to her eyes many things which I have been forced by
+circumstances to do in this contest.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have not the slightest suspicion as to how she views all that has
+occurred here. Two notes which I addressed to her, very respectful,
+businesslike epistles, have not been answered, though I entreated for a
+few words to acknowledge their receipt. The Martins, since the election,
+seem to have quarantined the whole town and neighborhood. They suffer none
+of their people to enter here. They have sent eight miles further off to
+market, and even changed the post-town for their letters. Their policy is,
+so far, shortsighted, as it has called into an exaggerated importance all
+that small fry&mdash;like the Nelligans&mdash;who have hitherto been
+crushed under the greater wealth of the rich proprietor. But I am again
+drifting into that tiresome tideway of politics which I have sworn to
+myself to avoid, if only for a few days; in pursuance of which wise
+resolve I shall betake myself to the mountains, under the pretext of
+shooting. A gun is an idler's passport, and a game-bag and a shot-pouch
+are sufficient to throw a dignity over vagabondism. You will therefore
+divine that I am not bent on snipe slaughter, but simply a good excuse to
+be alone!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean to go to-morrow, and shall first turn my steps towards the coast,
+which, so far as I have seen, is singularly bold and picturesque. If
+nothing occurs to alter my determination, I 'll leave this unclosed till I
+can tell you that I have come back here, which in all probability will be
+by the end of the week.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Once more here, my dear Harry, I sit down to add a few lines to this
+already over-lengthy epistle. Wishing to give you some notion of the
+scenery, I set out with all the appliances of a sketcher, and have really
+contrived to jot down some spots which, for general wildness and grandeur,
+it would be difficult to surpass within the bounds of our country. Nor is
+it alone the forms that are so striking, although I could show you
+outlines here perfectly Alpine in their fantastic extravagance; but the
+colors are finer than anything I have seen north of the Alps,&mdash;heaths
+and lichens grouped over rugged masses of rock, with shades of purple and
+gold such as no diadem ever equalled. The sunsets, too, were gorgeous! You
+remember how struck we both were at the moment when the dome and aisle of
+St. Peter's burst into light, and from the darkness of midnight every
+column and every statue became illuminated in a second; but a thousand
+times beyond this in grandeur of effect was the moment of the sun's
+decline below the horizon. The instant before, the great sullen sea was
+rolling and heaving with its leaden blue surface, slightly traced here and
+there with foam, but no sooner had the sun touched the horizon, than a
+flood of purple glory spread over the whole ocean, so that it became like
+a sea of molten gold and amber. The dark cliffs and rugged crags, the
+wave-beaten rocks, and the rude wild islands, darksome and dismal but a
+moment back, were now all glittering and glowing, every pinnacle and every
+peak in deep carbuncle red. How suggestive to him who would describe an
+enchanted land or region of magic splendor! and what a hint for your
+scene-painter, who, with all his devices of Bengal and blue light, with
+every trick that chemistry and optics could aid in, never fancied anything
+so splendid or so gorgeous.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have half filled a sketch-book for you, and more than half filled my
+game-bag with mosses and ferns, and such-like gear, which, knowing your
+weakness, I have gathered, but, not understanding their virtues, may, for
+aught I know, be the commonest things in creation. I can only vouch for
+their being very beautiful, and very unlike anything else I ever saw
+before; fragments of marble, too, and specimens of Irish jasper and onyx,
+are amidst my rubbish, or my treasures, whichever you shall pronounce them
+to be.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I got through&mdash;don't fancy that the phrase denotes weariness or <i>ennui</i>&mdash;I
+got through four days in these pursuits, and then I took boat, and for
+three more I paddled about the coast, dipping in amongst the cliffs and
+creeks and caves of this wonderful coast, gathering shells and seaweed,
+and shooting curlews and eating lobsters, and, in fact, to all intents and
+purposes, suffering a 'sea change' over myself and my spirit as
+unearthlike as well may be imagined; and at last I bethought me of my new
+openiug career, and all that I ought to be doing in preparation of St.
+Stephen's, and so I turned my steps landward and towards 'my borough.' I
+like to say 'my borough;' it sounds feudal and insolent and old Torylike;
+it smacks of the day when people received their representative thankfully,
+as an alms, and your great proprietor created his nominee as the consul
+ennobled his horse!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Revolving very high thoughts, reciting Edmund Burke's grandest
+perorations, and picturing very vividly before me the stunning triumphs of
+my own eloquence in the House, I plodded along, this time at least
+wonderfully indifferent to the scenery, and totally oblivious of where I
+was, when suddenly I perceived the great trees of Cro' Martin demesne
+shadowing the road I travelled, and saw that I was actually within a mile
+or so of the Castle! You, Harry, have contrived, some way or other, to
+have had a very rose-colored existence. I never heard that you had been
+jilted by a mistress, 'cut' by a once friend, or coldly received by the
+rich relative from whom you derived all your expectations. I am not even
+aware that the horse you backed ever went wrong, or that the bill you
+endorsed for another ever came back protested. In fact, you are what the
+world loves best, cherishes most, and lavishes all its blandishments on,&mdash;a
+devilish lucky fellow! Lucky in a capital fortune, abundance of good
+gifts, good looks, and an iron constitution,&mdash;one of those natures
+that can defy duns, blue-devils, and dyspepsia! Being, therefore, all
+this, well received everywhere, good company where pheasants are to be
+shot, Burgundy to be drunk, or young ladies to be married,&mdash;for you
+are a good shot, a good wine-taster, and a good <i>parti</i>,&mdash;with
+such gifts, I say, it will be very difficult to evoke your sympathy on the
+score of a misfortune which no effort of your imagination could compass.
+In fact, to ask you to feel what I did, as I found myself walking along <i>outside</i>
+of those grounds <i>within</i> which, but a few days back, I was the
+cherished visitor, and in sight of that smoke which denoted a hearth
+beside which I was never to sit again, and from which I was banished with
+something not very unlike disgrace! No sophistry I could summon was
+sufficient to assuage the poignancy of this sentiment. I feel certain that
+I could stand any amount of open public abuse, any known or unknown
+quantity of what is genteelly called 'slanging,' but I own to you that the
+bare thought of how my name might at that moment be mentioned beneath that
+roof, or even the very reserve that saved it from mention, caused me
+unutterable bitterness, and it was in a state of deep humiliation of
+spirit that I took the very first path that led across the fields and away
+from Cro' Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They tell me that a light heart makes easy work of a day's journey. Take
+my word for it, that to get over the ground without a thought of the road,
+there's nothing like a regular knock-down affliction. I walked eight
+hours, and at a good pace, too, without so much as a few minutes' halt, so
+overwhelmed was I with sensations that would not admit of my remembering
+anything else. My first moment of consciousness&mdash;for really it was
+such&mdash;came on as I found myself breasting a steep stony ascent, on
+the brow of which stood the bleak residence of my friend Mr. Magennis, of
+Barnagheela. I have already told you of my visit to his house, so that I
+need not inflict you with any new detail of the locality, but I confess,
+little as it promised to cheer or rally the spirits, I was well pleased to
+find myself so near a roof under which I might take refuge. I knocked
+vigorously at the door, but none answered my summons. I repeated my demand
+for admittance still more loudly, and at last went round to the back of
+the house, which I found as rigidly barred as the front. While still
+hesitating what course to take, I spied Joan Landy&mdash;you remember the
+girl I spoke of in a former letter&mdash;ascending the hill at a brisk
+pace. In a moment I was beside her. Poor thing, she seemed overjoyed at
+our meeting, and warmly welcomed me to her house. 'Tom is away,' said she,
+'in Dublin, they tell me, but he 'll be back in a day or two, and there 's
+nobody he 'd be so glad to see as yourself when he comes.' In the world,
+Harry,&mdash;that is, in your world and mine,&mdash;such a proposition as
+Joan's would have its share of embarrassments. Construe it how one might,
+there would be at least some awkwardness in accepting such hospitality. So
+I certainly felt it, and, as we walked along, rather turned the
+conversation towards herself, and whither she had been.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'I 'm not more than half an hour out of the house,' said she, 'for I only
+went down the boreen to show the short cut by Kell Mills to a young lady
+that was here.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'A visitor, Mrs. Joan?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Yes. But to be sure you know her yourself, for you came with her the day
+she walked part of the way back with me from Cro' Martin.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Miss Henderson?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Maybe that's her name. She only told me to call her Kate.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Was she here alone?&mdash;did she come on foot?&mdash;which way is she
+gone?' cried I, hurrying question after question. Perhaps the tone of my
+last was most urgent, for it was to that she replied, by pointing to a
+glen between two furze-clad hills, and saying, 'That's the road she 's
+taking, till she crosses the ford at Coomavaragh.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'And she is alone?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'That she is; sorra a one with her, and she has five good miles before
+her.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never waited for more. If I did say good-bye to poor Joan, I really
+forget; but I dashed down the mountain at speed, and hurried onward in the
+direction she had pointed out. In an instant all my fatigue of the day was
+forgotten, and as I went along I remembered nothing, thought of nothing,
+but the object of my pursuit.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You who have so often bantered me on the score of my languor&mdash;that
+'elegant lassitude,' as you used to call it, which no zeal ever warmed,
+nor any ardor ever could excite&mdash;would have been somewhat astonished
+had you seen the reckless, headlong pace at which I went,&mdash;vaulting
+over gates, clearing fences, and dashing through swamps, without ever a
+moment's hesitation. Picture to yourself, then, my splashed and heated
+condition as, after a two-miles' chase in this fashion, I at length
+overtook her, just as she was in search of a safe spot to ford the river.
+Startled by the noise behind her, she turned suddenly round, and in an
+instant we stood face to face. I 'd have given much to have seen some show
+of confusion, even embarrassment in her looks, but there was not the
+slightest. No, Harry, had we met in a drawing-room, her manner could not
+have been more composed, as she said,&mdash;'Good-morning, Mr.
+Massingbred. Have you had much sport?' 'My chase was after <i>you</i>,
+Miss Henderson,' said I, hurriedly. 'I just reached Barnagheela as
+Mistress Joan returned, and having learned which road you took, followed
+you in all haste.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Indeed!' exclaimed she, and in a voice wherein there were blended a vast
+variety of meanings.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Yes,' I resumed, 'for an opportunity of meeting you alone&mdash;of
+speaking with you even for a few moments&mdash;I have delayed my departure
+this week back. I wrote to you twice.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Yes; I got your letters.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'But did not deign to answer them.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;' I did not write to you, because, situated as <i>I</i> was, and regarded
+as <i>you</i> were at Cro' Martin, there would have been a species of
+treason in maintaining anything like correspondence, just as I feel there
+is somewhat akin to it in our intercourse at this moment.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'And have the events occurring lately changed <i>your</i> feeling with
+regard to me?' asked I, half reproachfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'I don't exactly know to what former condition you refer, Mr.
+Massingbred,' said she, calmly. 'If to the counsels which you were
+gracious enough to receive at hands humble and inexperienced as mine, they
+were given, as you remember, when you were the chosen representative of
+the family at Cro' Martin, and continued only so long as you remained
+such.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Then I have deceived myself, Miss Henderson,' broke I in. 'I had fancied
+that there was a personal good-will in the aid you tendered me. I even
+flattered myself that I owed my success entirely and solely to your
+efforts.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'You are jesting, Mr. Massingbred,' said she, with a saucy smile; 'no one
+better than yourself knows how to rely upon his own abilities.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'At least, confess that it was you who first suggested to me that they
+were worth cultivating; that it was <i>you</i> who pointed out a road to
+me in life, and even promised me your friendship as the price of my
+worthily adopting it!'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'I remember the conversation you allude to. It was on this very road it
+occurred.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Well, and have I done anything as yet to forfeit the reward you spoke
+of?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'All this is beside the real question, Mr. Massingbred,' said she,
+hurriedly. 'What you are really curious to learn is, why it is that I,
+being such as I am, should have displayed so much zeal in a cause which
+could not but have been opposed to the interests of those who are my
+patrons. That you have not divined the reason is a proof to me that I
+could not make you understand it. I don't want to talk riddles,&mdash;enough
+that I say it was a caprice.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'And yet you talked seriously, persuasively to me, of my future road in
+life; you made me think that you saw in me the qualities that win
+success.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'You have a wonderful memory for trifles, sir, since you can recall so
+readily what I said to you.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'But it was not a trifle to me,' said I.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Perhaps not, Mr. Massingbred, since it referred to yourself. I don't
+mean this for impertinence!'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'I am glad that you say so!' cried I, eagerly. 'I am but too happy to
+catch at anything which may tend to convince me that you would not
+willingly hurt my feelings.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;For several minutes neither of us uttered a word; at last I said, 'Should
+I be asking too much, if I begged Miss Henderson to tell me whether she is
+dissatisfied with anything I may have done in this contest? There may be
+matters in which I have been misrepresented; others of which I could make
+some explanation.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Are you quite satisfied with it yourself, sir?' said she, interrupting
+me.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'No,' said I; 'so little am I so, that were it all to do over again, I 'd
+not embark in it. The whole affair, from beginning to end, is a false
+position.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Ignoble associates&mdash;low companionships&mdash;very underbred
+acquaintances,' said she, in a tone of scorn that seemed far more directed
+at <i>me</i> than the others. I believe I showed how I felt it. I know
+that my cheek was on fire for some seconds after.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'The Martins, I take it, are outrageous with me?' said I, at last.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'They never speak of you!' was the reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Not my Lady?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'No!'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Nor even Repton?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Not once.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'That, at least, is more dignified; and if any accident should bring us
+together in county business&mdash;'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Which is not likely.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'How so?' asked I.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'They are going away soon.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Going away&mdash;to leave Cro' Martin&mdash;and for any time?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'My Lady speaks of the Continent, and that, of course, implies a long
+absence.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'And has this miserable election squabble led to this resolve? Is the
+neighborhood to be deprived of its chief ornament&mdash;the people of
+their best friend&mdash;just for the sake of a petty party triumph?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'It is fortunate Mr. Massingbred's constituents cannot hear him,' said
+she, laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'But be serious, and tell me how far am I the cause of all this.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'The whole cause of it,&mdash;at least, so far as present events can
+reveal.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'How they must abhor me!' said I, half involuntarily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'<i>Avec les circonstances atténuantes</i>,' said she, smiling again.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'How so?&mdash;what do you mean?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Why, that my Lady is thankful at heart for a good excuse to get away,&mdash;such
+a pretext as Mr. Martin himself cannot oppose. Repton, the Grand Vizier,
+counsels economy, and, like all untravelled people, fancies France and
+Italy cheap to live in; and Miss Mary is, perhaps, not sorry with the
+prospect of the uncontrolled management of the whole estate.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'And is she to live here alone?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Yes; she is to be sole mistress of Cro' Martin, and without even a
+governess, since Miss Henderson is to accompany her Ladyship as private
+secretary, minister of the household, and, in fact, any other capacity you
+may please in flattery to assign her. And now, Mr. Massingbred, that I
+have, not over-discreetly, perhaps, adventured to talk of family
+arrangements to a stranger, will you frankly ac-knowledge that your pride,
+or self-love, or any other quality of the same nature, is rather gratified
+than otherwise at all the disturbance you have caused here? Don't you
+really feel pleased to think that you have revolutionized a little
+neighborhood, broken up a society, severed the ties that bound proprietor
+and peasant, and, in fact, made a very pretty chaos, out of which may come
+anything or everything?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'When you address such a question as this to me, you don't expect an
+answer. Indeed, the query itself is its own reply,' said I.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Well said, sir, and with consummate temper, too. Certainly, Mr.
+Massingbred, you possess one great element of success in public life.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Which is&mdash;'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'To bear with equanimity and cool forbearance the impertinences of those
+you feel to be your inferiors.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'But it is not in this light I regard Miss Henderson, be assured,' said
+I, with earnestness; 'and if I have not replied to her taunts, it is not
+because I have not felt them.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought I detected a very faint flush on her cheek as I said this, and
+certainly her features assumed a more serious expression than before.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Will you let me speak to you of what is far nearer my heart?' said I, in
+a low voice,&mdash;'far nearer than all this strife and war of politics?
+And will you deign to believe that what I say is prompted by whatever I
+know in myself of good or hopeful?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Say on,&mdash;that is, if I ought to hear it,' said she, coldly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Deterred a second or two by her manner, I rallied quickly, and with an
+ardor of which I cannot convey an impression, much less explain,&mdash;one
+of those moments of rhapsody, <i>you 'd</i> call it,&mdash;poured forth a
+warm declaration of love. Aye, Harry, sincere, devoted love!&mdash;a
+passion which, in mastering all the common promptings of mere worldly
+advantage and self-interest, had really inspired me with noble thoughts
+and high aspirations.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A judge never listened to a pleading with more dignified patience than
+she did to my appeal. She even waited when I had concluded, as it were to
+allow of my continuing, had I been so minded; when, seeing that I had
+closed my argument, she quietly turned about, and facing the road we had
+just been travelling, pointed to the bleak, bare mountain on which
+Barnagheela stood. 'It was yonder, then, that you caught up this lesson,
+sir. The admirable success of Mr. Magennis's experiment has seduced you!'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Good heavens! Kate,' cried I&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Sir,' said she, drawing herself proudly up, 'you are continuing the
+parallel too far.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'But Miss Henderson cannot for a moment believe&mdash;'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'I can believe a great deal, sir, of what even Mr. Massingbred would
+class with the incredible; but, sir, there are certain situations in life
+which exact deference, from the very fact of their humility. Mine is one
+of these, and I am aware of it.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Will you not understand me aright?' cried I, eagerly. 'In offering to
+share my fortune in life with you&mdash;'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Pray, sir, let this stop here. Poor Joan, I have no doubt, felt all the
+grandeur of <i>her</i> elevation, and was grateful even in her misery. But
+<i>I</i> should not do so. I am one of those who think that the cruellest
+share in a <i>mésalliance</i> is that of the humbler victim. To brave such
+a fate, there should be all the hopeful, sanguine sense of strong
+affection; and, as a reserve to fall back on in reverses, there should be
+an intense conviction of the superiority over others of him from whom we
+accept our inferiority. Now, in my case, these two conditions are wanting.
+I know you like frankness, and I am frank.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Even to cruelty,' said I.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'We are very near Cro' Martin, sir, and I think we ought to part,' said
+she, calmly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'And is it thus you would have us separate? Have I nothing to hope from
+time,&mdash;from the changes that may come over your opinions of me?'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Calculate rather on the alterations in your own sentiments, Mr.
+Massingbred; and perhaps the day is not very distant when you will laugh
+heartily at yourself for the folly of this same morning,&mdash;a folly
+which might have cost you dearly, sir, for I might have said, Yes.'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Would that you had!'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Good-bye, sir,' said she, not noticing my interruption, 'and remember
+that, if I should ever need it, I have a strong claim on your gratitude.
+Good-bye!'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She did not give me her hand at parting, but waved it coldly towards me
+as she went. And so she passed the little wicket, and entered the dark
+woods of the demesne, leaving me in a state wherein the sense of
+bewilderment alone prevailed over all else.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have given you this narrative, Harry, as nearly as I can remember,
+every step of it; but I do not ask you to understand it better than I do,
+which means, not at all! Nor will I worry you with the thousand-and-one
+attempts I have made to explain to myself what I still confess to be
+inexplicable. I mean to leave this at once. Would that I had never come
+here! Write to me soon; but no bantering, Harry. Not even my friendship
+for <i>you</i>&mdash;oldest and best of all my friends&mdash;could stand
+any levity on this theme. This girl knows me thoroughly, since she
+comprehends that there is no so certain way to engage my affections as to
+defy them!
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Write to me, I entreat. Address me at my father's, where I shall be,
+probably, within a week. Were I to read over what I have just written, the
+chances are I should burn the letter; and so, <i>sans adieu</i>,
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yours ever,
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jack Massingbred.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XXIV. THREE COACHES AND THEIR COMPANY
+</h2>
+<p>
+Three large and stately travelling-carriages, heavily laden, and
+surrounded with all the appliances for comfort possible, rolled from under
+the arched gateway of Cro' Martin. One eager and anxious face turned
+hastily to catch a last look at the place he was leaving, and then as
+hastily concealing his emotion with his handkerchief, Mr. Martin sat back
+in the carriage in silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Twenty minutes after eight!&rdquo; exclaimed Lady Dorothea, looking at her
+watch. &ldquo;It is always the case; one never can get away in time.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Rousted by the speech, Martin started, and turned again to the window.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How handsome those larches are!&rdquo; cried he; &ldquo;it seems but yesterday that I
+planted them, and they are magnificent trees now.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Her Ladyship made no reply, and he went on, half as though speaking to
+himself: &ldquo;The place is in great beauty just now. I don't think I ever saw
+it looking so well. Shall I ever see it again?&rdquo; muttered he, in a still
+lower tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I really cannot think it ought to break your heart, Mr. Martin, if I were
+to say 'No' to that question,&rdquo; said she, testily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;no!&rdquo; exclaimed he, repeating the word after her; &ldquo;not come back
+here!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is nothing to prevent us if we should feel disposed to do so,&rdquo;
+ replied she, calmly. &ldquo;I only observed that one could face the alternative
+with a good courage. The twenty years we have passed in this spot are
+represented to <i>your</i> mind by more leafy trees and better timber. To
+<i>me</i> they are written in the dreary memory of a joyless, weary
+existence. I detest the place,&rdquo; cried she, passionately, &ldquo;and for nothing
+more, that even on leaving it my spirits are too jaded and broken to feel
+the happiness that they ought.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin sighed heavily, but did not utter a word.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So it is,&rdquo; resumed she; &ldquo;one ever takes these resolutions too late. What
+we are doing now should have been done sixteen or eighteen years ago.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Or not at all,&rdquo; muttered Martin, but in a voice not meant to be
+overheard.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think so, sir,&rdquo; cried she, catching up his words; &ldquo;if only as our
+protest against the insolence and ingratitude of this neighborhood,&mdash;of
+these creatures who have actually been maintained by us! It was high time
+to show them their real condition, and to what they will be reduced when
+the influence of our position is withdrawn.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it were only for <i>that</i> we are going away&mdash;&rdquo; And he stopped
+himself as he got thus far.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In itself a good and sufficient reason, sir; but I trust there are others
+also. I should hope that we have paid our debt to patriotism, and that a
+family who have endured twenty years of banishment may return, if only to
+take a passing glance at the world of civilization and refinement.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And poor Mary!&rdquo; exclaimed Martin, with deep feeling.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your niece might have come with us if she pleased, Mr. Martin. To remain
+here was entirely her own choice; not that I am at all disposed to think
+that her resolution was not a wise one. Miss Mary Martin feels very
+naturally her utter deficiency in all the graces and accomplishments which
+should pertain to her condition. She appreciates her unfitness for
+society, and selects&mdash;as I think, with commendable discretion&mdash;a
+sphere much better adapted to her habits.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin again sighed heavily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To leave any other girl under such circumstances would have been highly
+improper,&rdquo; resumed her Ladyship; &ldquo;but she is really suited to this kind of
+life, and perfectly unfit for any other, and I have no doubt she and Catty
+Broon will be excellent company for each other.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catty loves her with all her heart,&rdquo; muttered Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+And her Ladyship's lip curled in silent derision at the thought of such
+affection. &ldquo;And, after all,&rdquo; said he, half involuntarily, &ldquo;our absence
+will be less felt so long as Molly stays behind.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you mean by that, Mr. Martin, that the same system of wasteful
+expenditure is still to continue,&mdash;this universal employment scheme,&mdash;I
+can only say I distinctly and flatly declare against it. Even Rep ton&mdash;and
+I 'm sure he 's no ally of mine&mdash;agrees with me in pronouncing it
+perfectly ruinous.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's no doubt of the cost of it,&rdquo; said Martin, gravely.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, and what other consideration should weigh with us?&mdash;I
+mean,&rdquo; added she, hastily, &ldquo;what should have the same weight? The
+immaculate authority I have just quoted has limited our personal
+expenditure for next year to five thousand pounds, and threatens us with
+even less in future if the establishment at Cro' Martin cannot be reduced
+below its present standard; but I would be curious to know why there is
+such a thing as an establishment at Cro' Martin?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Properly speaking, there is none,&rdquo; said Martin. &ldquo;Rep-ton alludes only to
+the workpeople,&mdash;to those employed on the grounds and the gardens. We
+cannot let the place go to ruin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is certainly no necessity for pineries and forcing-houses. Your
+niece is not likely to want grapes in January, or camellias in the early
+autumn. As little does she need sixteen carriage-horses and a stable full
+of hunters.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are to be sold off next week. Mary herself said that she only wanted
+two saddle-horses and the pony for the phaeton.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite sufficient, I should say, for a young lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm sure she 'd have liked to have kept the harriers&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A pack of hounds! I really never heard the like!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor Molly! It was her greatest pleasure,&mdash;I may say her only
+amusement in life. But she would n't hear of keeping them; and when Repton
+tried to persuade her&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Repton's an old fool,&mdash;he's worse; he's downright dishonest,&mdash;for
+he actually proposed my paying my maids out of my miserable pittance of
+eight hundred a year, and at the same moment suggests your niece retaining
+a pack of foxhounds!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Harriers, my Lady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't care what they 're called. It is too insolent.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may rely upon one thing,&rdquo; said Martin, with more firmness than he had
+hitherto used, &ldquo;there will be nothing of extravagance in Mary's personal
+expenditure. If ever there was a girl indifferent to all the claims of
+self, she is that one.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If we continue this discussion, sir, at our present rate, I opine that by
+the time we reach Dublin your niece will have become an angel.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin dropped his head, and was silent; and although her Ladyship made
+two or three other efforts to revive the argument, he seemed resolved to
+decline the challenge, and so they rolled along the road sullen and
+uncommunicative.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the second carriage were Repton and Kate Henderson,&mdash;an
+arrangement which the old lawyer flatteringly believed he owed to his
+cunning and address, but which in reality was ordained by Lady Dorothea,
+whose notions of rank and precedence were rigid. Although Repton's
+greatest tact lay in his detection of character, he felt that he could not
+satisfactorily affirm he had mastered the difficulty in the present case.
+She was not exactly like anything he had met before; her mode of thought,
+and even some of her expressions were so different that the old lawyer
+owned to himself, &ldquo;It was like examining a witness through an
+interpreter.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A clever talker&mdash;your man of conversational success&mdash;is rarely
+patient under the failure of his powers, and, not very unreasonably
+perhaps, very ready to ascribe the ill-success to the defects of his
+hearer. They had not proceeded more than half of the first post ere Repton
+began to feel the incipient symptoms of this discontent.
+</p>
+<p>
+She evidently had no appreciation for bar anecdote and judicial wit; she
+took little interest in political events, and knew nothing of the country
+or its people. He tried the subject of foreign travel, but his own
+solitary trip to Paris and Brussels afforded but a meagre experience of
+continental life, and he was shrewd enough not to swim a yard out of his
+depth. &ldquo;She must have her weak point, if I could but discover it,&rdquo; said he
+to himself. &ldquo;It is not personal vanity, that I see. She does not want to
+be thought clever, nor even eccentric, which is the governess failing <i>par
+excellence</i>. What then can it be?&rdquo; With all his ingenuity he could not
+discover. She would talk, and talk well, on any theme he started, but
+always like one who maintained conversation through politeness and not
+interest; and this very feature it was which piqued the old man's vanity,
+and irritated his self-love.
+</p>
+<p>
+When he spoke, she replied, and always with a sufficient semblance of
+interest; but if he were silent, she never opened her lips.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And so,&rdquo; said he, after a longer pause than usual, &ldquo;you tell me that you
+really care little or nothing whither Fortune may be now conducting you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To one in my station it really matters very little,&rdquo; said she, calmly. &ldquo;I
+don't suppose that the post-horses there have any strong preference for
+one road above another, if they be both equally level and smooth.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There lies the very question,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;for you now admit that there may
+be a difference.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have never found in reality,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;that these differences were
+appreciable.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How is it that one so young should be so&mdash;so philosophic?&rdquo; said he,
+after a hesitation.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Had you asked me that question in French, Mr. Repton, the language would
+have come so pleasantly to your aid, and spared you the awkwardness of
+employing a grand phrase for a small quality; but my 'philosophy' is
+simply this: that, to fill a station whose casualties range from
+courtesies in the drawing-room to slights from the servants' hall, one
+must arm themselves with very defensive armor as much, nay more, against
+flattery than against sarcasm. If, in the course of time, this habit
+render one ungenial and uncompanionable, pray be lenient enough to ascribe
+the fault to the condition as much as to the individual.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, to be candid, I only recognize in you qualities the very opposite of
+all these; and if I am to confess a smart at this moment, it is in feeling
+that I am not the man to elicit them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There you do me wrong. I should be very proud to captivate Mr. Repton.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now we are on the good road at last!&rdquo; said he, gayly; &ldquo;for Mr. Repton is
+dying to be captivated.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The fortress that is only anxious to surrender offers no great glory to
+the conqueror,&rdquo; replied she.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove! I 'm glad you 're not at the bar.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I had been, I could never have shown the same forbearance as Mr.
+Repton.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How so? What do you mean?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never could have refused a silk gown, sir; and they tell me you have
+done so!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! they told you that,&rdquo; said he, coloring with pleasurable pride. &ldquo;Well,
+it's quite true. The fact is correct, but I don't know what explanation
+they have given of it!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There was none, sir,&mdash;or, at least, none that deserved the name.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then what was your own reading of it?&rdquo; asked he.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Simply this, sir: that a proud man may very well serve in the ranks, but
+spurn the grade of a petty officer.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove; it is strange to find that a young lady should understand one's
+motives better than an old Minister,&rdquo; said he, with an evident
+satisfaction.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It would be unjust, sir, were I to arrogate any credit to my own
+perspicuity in this case,&rdquo; said she, hastily; &ldquo;for I was aided in my
+judgment by what, very probably, never came under the Minister's eyes.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what was that?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A little volume which I discovered one day in the library, entitled 'Days
+of the Historical Society of Trinity College,' wherein I found Mr.
+Repton's name not only one of the first in debate, but the very first in
+enunciating the great truths of political liberty. In fact, I might go
+further, and say, the only one who had the courage to proclaim the great
+principles of the French Revolution.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah,&mdash;yes. I was a boy,&mdash;a mere boy,&mdash;very rash,&mdash;full
+of hope,&mdash;full of enthusiasm,&rdquo; said Repton, with an embarrassment
+that increased at every word. &ldquo;We all took fire from the great blaze
+beside us just then; but, my dear young lady, the flame has died out,&mdash;very
+fortunately, too; for if it had n't, it would have burned us up with it.
+We were wrong,&mdash;wrong with Burke, to be sure,&mdash;<i>Errare Platone</i>,
+as one may say,&mdash;but still wrong.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You were wrong, sir, in confounding casualties with true consequences;
+wrong as a physician would be who abandoned his treatment from mistaking
+the symptoms of disease for the effects of medicine. You set out by
+declaring there was a terrible malady to be treated, and you shrink back
+affrighted at the first results of your remedies; you did worse; you
+accommodated your change of principles to party, and from the great
+champions of liberty you descended to be&mdash;modern Whigs!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, what have we here? A Girondist, I verily believe!&rdquo; said Repton,
+looking in her face with a smile of mingled surprise and amazement.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't much care for the name you may give me; but I am one who thinks
+that the work of the French Revolution is sure of its accomplishment. We
+shall very probably not do the thing in the same way, but it will be done,
+nevertheless; for an Act of Parliament, though not so speedy, will be as
+effectual as a 'Noyade,' and a Reforming Administration will work as
+cleanly as a Constituent!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But see; look at France at this moment. Is not society reconstituted
+pretty near to the old models? What evidence is there that the prestige of
+rank has suffered from the shock of revolution?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The best evidence. Nobody believes in it,&mdash;not one. Society is
+reconstituted just as a child constructs a card-house to see how high he
+can carry the frail edifice before it tumbles. The people&mdash;the true
+people of the Continent&mdash;look at the pageantry of a court and a
+nobility just as they do on a stage procession, and criticise it in the
+same spirit. They endure it so long as their indolence or their caprice
+permit, and then, some fine morning, they 'll dash down the whole edifice;
+and be assured that the fragments of the broken toy will never suggest the
+sentiment to repair it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are a Democrat of the first water!&rdquo; exclaimed Repton, in half
+amazement.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am simply for the assertion of the truth everywhere and in everything,&mdash;in
+religion and in politics, as in art and literature. If the people be the
+source of power, don't divert the stream into another channel; and, above
+all, don't insist that it should run up-hill! Come abroad, Mr. Repton,&mdash;just
+come over with us to Paris,&mdash;and see if what I am telling you be so
+far from the fact. You 'll find, too, that it is not merely the low-born,
+the ignoble, and the poor who profess these opinions, but the great, the
+titled, and the wealthy men of fourteen quarterings and ancient lineage;
+and who, sick to death of a contest with a rich bourgeoisie, would rather
+start fair in the race again, and win whatever place their prowess or
+their capacity might giye them. You 'll hear very good socialism from the
+lips of dukes and princesses who swear by Fourier.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Repton stared at her in silence, not more amazed at the words he heard
+than at the manner and air of her who spoke them; for she had gradually
+assumed a degree of earnestness and energy which imparted to her features
+a character of boldness and determination such as he had not seen in them
+before..
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; resumed she, as though following out her own thoughts, &ldquo;it is your
+new creations, your ennobled banker, your starred and cordoned agitator of
+the Bourse, who now defends his order, and stands up for the divine right
+of misrule! The truly noble have other sentiments!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's nothing surprises me so much,&rdquo; said Repton, at last, &ldquo;as to hear
+these sentiments from one who has lived surrounded by all the
+blandishments of a condition that owes its existence to an aristocracy,
+and never could have arisen without one,&mdash;who has lived that
+delightful life of refined leisure and elevating enjoyment, such as forms
+the atmosphere of only one class throughout the whole world. How would you
+bear to exchange this for the chaotic struggle that you point at?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;As for me, sir, I only saw the procession from the window. I may,
+perhaps, walk in it when I descend to the street; but really,&rdquo; added she,
+laughing, &ldquo;this is wandering very far out of the record. I had promised
+myself to captivate Mr. Repton, and here I am, striving to array every
+feeling of his heart and every prejudice of his mind against me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is something like five-and-fifty years since I last heard such
+sentiments as you have just uttered,&rdquo; said Repton, gravely. &ldquo;I was young
+and ardent,&mdash;full of that hopefulness in mankind which is, after all,
+the life-blood of Republicanism; and here I am now, an old, time-hardened
+lawyer, with very little faith in any one. How do you suppose that such
+opinions can chime in with all I have witnessed in the interval?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come over to Paris, sir,&rdquo; was her reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I would ask nothing better,&rdquo; rejoined he. &ldquo;Did I ever tell you of
+what Harry Parsons said to Macnatty when he purposed visiting France,
+after the peace of '15? 'Now is the time to see the French capital,' said
+Mac. 'I 'll put a guinea in one pocket and a shirt in the other, and start
+to-morrow.' 'Ay, sir,' said Parsons, 'and never change either till you
+come back again!'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Once back in his accustomed field, the old lawyer went along recounting
+story after story, every name seeming to suggest its own anecdote. Nor was
+Kate, now, an ungenerous listener; on the contrary, she relished his
+stores of wit and repartee. Thus they, too, went on their journey!
+</p>
+<p>
+The third carriage contained Madame Hortense, Lady Dorothea's French maid;
+Mrs. Runt, an inferior dignitary of the toilet; and Mark Peddar, Mr.
+Martin's &ldquo;gentleman,&rdquo;&mdash;a party which, we are forced to own, seemed to
+combine more elements of sociality than were gathered together in the
+vehicles that preceded them. To <i>their</i> share there were no regrets
+for leaving home,&mdash;no sorrow at quitting a spot endeared to them by
+long association. The sentiment was one of unalloyed satisfaction. They
+were escaping from the gloom of a long exile, and about to issue forth
+into that world which they longed for as eagerly as their betters. And why
+should they not? Are not all its pleasures, all its associations more
+essentially adapted to such natures; and has solitude one single
+compensation for all its depression to such as these?
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Our noble selves,&rdquo; said Mr. Peddar, filling the ladies' glasses, and then
+his own; for a very appetizing luncheon was there spread out before them,
+and four bottles of long-necked gracefulness rose from amidst the crystal
+ruins of a well-filled ice-pail. &ldquo;Mam'selle, it is your favorite tipple,
+and deliciously cool.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perfection,&rdquo; replied mademoiselle, with a foreign accent, for she had
+been long in England; &ldquo;and I never enjoyed it more. <i>Au revoir</i>,&rdquo;
+ added she, waving her hand towards the tall towers of Cro' Martin, just
+visible above the trees,&mdash;&ldquo;<i>Au revoir!</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so,&mdash;till I see you again,&rdquo; said Mrs. Runt; &ldquo;and I 'm sure I
+'ll take good care that day won't come soon. It seems like a terrible
+nightmare when I think of the eight long years I passed there.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Et moi</i>, twelve! Miladi engage me, so to say, <i>provisoirement</i>,
+to come to Ireland, but with a promise of travel abroad; that we live in
+Paris, Rome, Naples,&mdash;<i>que sais-je?</i> I accept,&mdash;I arrive,&mdash;<i>et
+me voici!</i>&rdquo; And mademoiselle threw back her veil, the better to direct
+attention to the ravages time and exile had made upon her charms.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hard lines, ma'am,&rdquo; said Peddar, whose sympathy must not be accused of an
+<i>equivoque</i>; &ldquo;and here am I, that left the best single-handed
+situation in all England,&mdash;Sir Augustus Hawleigh's,&mdash;a young
+fellow just of age, and that never knew what money was, to come down here
+at a salary positively little better than a country curate's, and live the
+life of&mdash;of&mdash;what shall I say?&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, the leg, if you please, Mr. Peddar; no more wine. Well, just one
+glass, to drink a hearty farewell to the old house.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm sure I wish Mary joy of her residence there,&rdquo; said Peddar, adjusting
+his cravat; &ldquo;she is a devilish fine girl, and might do better, though.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She has no ambitions,&mdash;no what you call them?&mdash;no aspirations
+for <i>le grand monde</i>; so perhaps she has reason to stay where she
+is.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But with a young fellow of <i>ton</i> and fashion, mam'selle,&mdash;a
+fellow who has seen life,&mdash;to guide and bring her out, trust me,
+there are excellent capabilities in that girl.&rdquo; And as Mr. Peddar
+enunciated the sentiment, his hands ran carelessly through his hair, and
+performed a kind of impromptu toilet.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She do dress herself <i>bien mal</i>.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Disgracefully so,&rdquo; chimed in Mrs. Runt &ldquo;I believe, whenever she bought a
+gown, her first thought was what it should turn into when she 'd done with
+it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought that la Henderson might have taught her something,&rdquo; said
+Peddar, affectedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Au contraire</i>,&mdash;she like to make the contrast more strong; she
+always seek to make say, '<i>Regardez</i>, mademoiselle, see what a <i>tournure</i>
+is there!'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think her handsome, Mr. Peddar?&rdquo; asked Mrs. Runt.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Handsome, yes; but not <i>my</i> style,&mdash;not one of what <i>I</i>
+call <i>my</i> women; too much of this kind of thing, eh?&rdquo; And he drew his
+head back, and threw into his features an expression of exaggerated scorn.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so. Downright impudent, I'd call it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not even that,&rdquo; said Mr. Peddar, pondering; &ldquo;haughty, rather,&mdash;a
+kind of don't-think-to-come-it-on-me style of look, eh?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not at all amiable,&mdash;<i>point de cela,</i>&rdquo; exclaimed mam'selle;
+&ldquo;but still, I will say, <i>très bon genre</i>. You see at a glance that
+she has seen <i>la bonne société.</i>&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which, after all, is the same all the world over,&rdquo; said Peddar,
+dogmatically. &ldquo;At Vienna we just saw the same people we used to have with
+us in London; at Rome, the same; so, too, at Naples. I assure you that the
+last time I dined at Dolgorouki's, I proposed going in the evening to the
+Haymarket. I quite forgot we were on the Neva. And when Prince
+Gladuatoffski's gentleman said, 'Where shall I set you down?' I answered
+carelessly, 'At my chambers in the Albany, or anywhere your Highness likes
+near that.' Such is life!&rdquo; exclaimed he, draining the last of the
+champagne into his glass.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The place will be pretty dull without us, I fancy,&rdquo; said Mrs. Runt,
+looking out at the distant landscape.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That horrid old Mother Broon won't say so,&rdquo; said Peddar, laughing. &ldquo;By
+Jove! if it was only to escape that detestable hag, it 's worth while
+getting away.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I offer her my hand when I descend the steps, but she refuse <i>froidement</i>,
+and say, 'I wish you as much pleasure as you leave behind you.' <i>Pas mal</i>
+for such a <i>creature</i>.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did n't even notice her,&rdquo; said Mrs. Runt.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Ma foi!</i> I was good with all the world; I was in such Joy&mdash;such
+spirits&mdash;that I forgave all and everything. I felt <i>nous sommes en
+route</i>, and Paris&mdash;dear Paris&mdash;before us.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My own sentiments to, a T,&rdquo; said Mr. Peddar. &ldquo;Let me live on the
+Boulevards, have my cab, my stall at the Opera, two Naps, per diem for my
+dinner, and I'd not accept Mary Martin's hand if she owned Cro' Martin,
+and obliged me to live in it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The speech was fully and warmly acknowledged, other subjects were started,
+and so they travelled the same road as their betters, and perhaps with
+lighter hearts.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XXV. COUNTRY AUCTION
+</h2>
+<p>
+With feelings akin to those with which the populace of a revolted city
+invade the once sacred edifice of the deposed Prince, the whole town and
+neighborhood of Oughterard now poured into the demesne of Cro' Martin,
+wandered through the grounds, explored the gardens, and filled the house.
+An immense advertisement in the local papers had announced a general sale
+of horses and carriages, farming stock, and agricultural implements;
+cattle of choice breeding, sheep of fabulous facilities for fat, and cows
+of every imaginable productiveness, were there, with draft-horses like
+dwarf elephants, and bulls that would have puzzled a matador.
+</p>
+<p>
+The haughty state in which the Martins habitually lived, the wide distance
+by which they separated themselves from the neighborhood around, had
+imparted to Cro' Martin a kind of dreamy splendor in the country, exalting
+even its well-merited claims to admiration. Some had seen the grounds, a
+few had by rare accident visited the gardens, but the house and the
+stables were still unexplored territories, of whose magnificence each
+spoke without a fear of contradiction.
+</p>
+<p>
+Country neighborhoods are rarely rich in events, and of these, few can
+rival a great auction. It is not alone in the interests of barter and gain
+thus suggested, but in the thousand new channels for thought thus suddenly
+opened,&mdash;the altered fortunes of him whose effects have come to the
+hammer; his death, or his banishment,&mdash;both so much alike. The
+visitor wanders amidst objects which have occupied years in collection,&mdash;some
+the results of considerable research and difficulty, some the long-coveted
+acquisitions of half a lifetime, and some&mdash;we have known such&mdash;the
+fond gifts of friendship. There they are now side by side in the
+catalogue, their private histories no more suspected than those of them
+who lie grass-covered in the churchyard. You admire that highly bred
+hunter in all the beauty of his symmetry and his strength, but you never
+think of the &ldquo;little Shelty&rdquo; in the next stable with shaggy mane and
+flowing tail; and yet it was on <i>him</i> the young heir used to ride; <i>he</i>
+was the cherished animal of all the stud, led in beside the
+breakfast-table to be caressed and petted, fed with sugar from fair
+fingers, and patted by hands a Prince might have knelt to kiss! His rider
+now sleeps beneath the marble slab in the old aisle, and they who once
+brightened in smiles at the sound of his tiny trot would burst into tears
+did they behold that pony!
+</p>
+<p>
+So, amidst the triumphs of color and design that grace the walls, you have
+no eyes for a little sketch in water-color,&mdash;a mill, a shealing
+beside a glassy brook, a few trees, and a moss-clad rock; and yet that
+little drawing reveals a sad story. It is all that remains of her who went
+abroad to die. You throw yourself in listless lassitude upon a couch; it
+was the work of one who beguiled over it the last hours of a broken heart!
+You turn your steps to the conservatory, but never notice the little
+flower-garden, whose narrow walks, designed for tiny feet, need not the
+little spade to tell of the child-gardener who tilled it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Ay, this selling-off is a sad process! It bespeaks the disruption of a
+home; the scattering of those who once sat around the same hearth, with
+all the dear familiar things about them!
+</p>
+<p>
+It was a bright spring morning&mdash;one of those breezy, cloud-flitting
+days, with flashes of gay sunlight alternating with broad shadows, and
+giving in the tamest landscape every effect the painter's art could summon&mdash;that
+a long procession, consisting of all imaginable vehicles, with many on
+horseback intermixed, wound their way beneath the grand entrance and
+through the park of Cro' Martin. Such an opportunity of gratifying long
+pent-up curiosity had never before offered; since, even when death itself
+visited the mansion, the habits of exclusion were not relaxed, but the
+Martins went to their graves in the solemn state of their households
+alone, and were buried in a little chapel within the grounds, the faint
+tolling of the bell alone announcing to the world without that one of a
+proud house had departed.
+</p>
+<p>
+The pace of the carriages was slow as they moved along, their occupants
+preferring to linger in a scene from which they had been hitherto
+excluded, struck by the unexpected beauty of the spot, and wondering at
+all the devices by which it was adorned. A few&mdash;a very few&mdash;had
+seen the place in boyhood, and were puzzling themselves to recall this and
+that memory; but all agreed in pronouncing that the demesne was far finer,
+the timber better grown, and the fields more highly cultivated than
+anything they had ever before seen.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I call this the finest place in Ireland, Dan!&rdquo; said Captain Bodkin, as he
+rode beside Nelligan's car, halting every now and then to look around him.
+&ldquo;There's everything can make a demesne beautiful,&mdash;wood, water, and
+mountain!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And, better than all, a fine system of farming,&rdquo; broke in Nelligan.
+&ldquo;That's the best field of 'swedes' I ever beheld!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And to think that a man would leave this to go live abroad in a dirty
+town in France!&rdquo; exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, from the opposite side of the car.
+&ldquo;That's perverseness indeed!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Them there is all Swiss cows!&rdquo; said Mr. Clinch, in an humble tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not one of them, Clinch! they're Alderneys. The Swiss farm, as they call
+it, is all on the other side, with the ornamented cottage.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dear! dear! there was no end to their waste and extravagance!&rdquo; muttered
+Mrs. Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait till you see the house, ma'am, and you 'll say so, indeed,&rdquo; said the
+Captain.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think we 're likely!&rdquo; observed Nelligan, dryly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why so?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just that Scanlan told Father Mather the auction would be held in the
+stables; for as there was none of the furniture to be sold, the house
+would n't be opened.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's a great disappointment!&rdquo; exclaimed Bodkin. A sentiment fully
+concurred in by the ladies, who both declared that they'd never have, come
+so far only to look at pigs and &ldquo;shorthorns.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maybe we 'll get a peep at the gardens,&rdquo; said Bodkin, endeavoring to
+console them.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the sow!&rdquo; broke in Peter Hayes, who had joined the party some time
+before. &ldquo;They tell me she's a beauty. She's Lord Somebody's breed, and
+beats the world for fat!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here's Scanlan now, and he 'll tell us everything,&rdquo; said Bodkin. But the
+sporting attorney, mounted on a splendid little horse, in top condition,
+passed them at speed, the few words he uttered being lost as he dashed by.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was it he said?&rdquo; cried Bodkin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn't catch the words,&rdquo; replied Nelligan; &ldquo;and I suppose it was no
+great loss.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He's an impudent upstart!&rdquo; exclaimed Mrs. Clinch.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think he said something about a breakfast,&rdquo; meekly interposed Mr.
+Clinch.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And of course he said nothing of the kind,&rdquo; retorted his spouse. &ldquo;You
+never happened to be right in your life!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix! I made sure of mine before I started,&rdquo; said old Hayes, &ldquo;I ate a
+cowld goose!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, to be sure, they could n't be expected to entertain all that's
+coming!&rdquo; said Mrs. Nelligan, who now began a mental calculation of the
+numbers on the road.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There will be a thousand people here to-day,&rdquo; said Bodkin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Five times that,&rdquo; said Nelligan. &ldquo;I know it by the number of small bills
+that I gave cash for the last week. There's not a farmer in the county
+does n't expect to bring back with him a prize beast of one kind or
+other.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'll buy that sow if she goes 'reasonable,'&rdquo; said Peter Hayes, whose
+whole thoughts seemed centred on the animal in question.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do they mean to do when they sell off the stock?&rdquo; asked the Captain.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hear that the place will be let,&rdquo; said Nelligan, in a half whisper, &ldquo;if
+they can find a tenant for it. Henderson told Father Mather that, come
+what might, her Ladyship would never come back here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faix! the only one of them worth a groat was Miss Mary, and I suppose
+they did n't leave her the means to do much now.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'Tis she must have the heavy heart to-day,&rdquo; sighed Mrs. Nelligan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And it is only fair and reasonable she should have her share of troubles,
+like the rest of us,&rdquo; replied Mrs. Clinch. &ldquo;When Clinch was removed from
+Macroon, we had to sell off every stick and stone we had; and as the
+neighbors knew we must go, we didn't get five shillings in the pound by
+the sale.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's mighty grand,&mdash;that is really a fine place!&rdquo; exclaimed
+Bodkin, as by a sudden turn of the road they came directly in front of the
+house; and the whole party sat in silent admiration of the magnificent
+edifice before them.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a royal palace,&mdash;no less,&rdquo; said Nelligan, at last; &ldquo;and that's
+exactly what no country gentleman wants. Sure we know well there's no
+fortune equal to such a residence. To keep up that house, as it ought to
+be, a man should have thirty thousand a year.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Give me fifteen, Dan, and you'll see if I don't make it comfortable,&rdquo;,
+said Bodkin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What's this barrier here,&mdash;can't we go any further?&rdquo; exclaimed
+Nelligan, as he perceived a strong paling across the avenue.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;We 're to go round by the stables, it seems,&rdquo; said Bodkin; &ldquo;the hall
+entrance is not to be invaded by such vulgar visitors. This is our road,
+here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, if I ever!&rdquo; exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, whose feelings really
+overpowered utterance.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't see any great hardship in this after all, ma'am,&rdquo; said Nelligan;
+&ldquo;for we know if the family were at home we couldn't even be here. Drive
+on, Tim.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A short circuit through a very thickly wooded tract brought them at length
+to a large and massive gateway, over which the Martins' arms were
+sculptured in stone; passing through which they entered a great courtyard,
+three sides of which were occupied by stables, the fourth presenting a
+range of coach-houses filled with carriages of every description.
+</p>
+<p>
+A large tent was erected in the midst of the court for the convenience of
+the sale, in front of which were pens for the cattle, and a space railed
+off, wherein the horses were to be viewed and examined.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is all mighty well arranged,&rdquo; said Bodkin, as he gave his horse to a
+groom, who, in the undress livery of Cro' Martin, came respectfully to his
+aid as he got down.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The sale will begin in about an hour, sir,&rdquo; said the man, in answer to a
+question. &ldquo;Mr. Scanlan is now in the house with Mr. Gibbs, the
+auctioneer.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Vast crowds of people of every class, from the small squire to the
+Oughterard shopkeeper and country farmer, now came pouring in, all eager
+in their curiosity, but somehow all subdued into a kind of reverence for a
+spot from which they had been so rigidly excluded, and the very aspect of
+which so far transcended expectations. Everything, indeed, was an object
+of wonderment. The ornamental tanks for watering the horses, supplied by
+beautifully designed fountains; the sculptured medallions along the walls,
+emblematizing the chase or the road; the bright mahogany partitions of the
+stalls, even to the little channels lined with shining copper, all
+demanded notice and comment; and many were the wise reflections uttered
+with regard to those who thus squandered away their wealth. The sight of
+the cattle, however, which occupied this luxurious abode, went far to
+disarm this criticism, since certainly none ever seemed more worthy of the
+state and splendor that surrounded them. For these the admiration was
+hearty and sincere, and the farmers went along the stalls amazed and
+wonderstruck at the size and symmetry of the noble animals that filled
+them.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sold at Tattersall's, sir, on the 4th of next month,&rdquo; said a groom,
+whose English accent imparted an almost sneer to the supposition that such
+a stud should meet purchasers in Ireland. &ldquo;They 're all advertised in
+'Bell's Life.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What becomes of the hounds?&rdquo; asked Bodkin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lord Cromore takes them, sir; they're to hunt in Dorsetshire.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the sow?&rdquo; asked old Hayes, with eagerness; &ldquo;she isn't to go to
+England, is she?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can't say, sir. We don't look arter no sows here,&rdquo; replied the fellow, as
+he turned away in evident disgust at his questioner.
+</p>
+<p>
+A certain stir and bustle in the court without gave token that the sale
+was about to begin; and Scanlan's voice, in its most authoritative tone,
+was heard issuing orders and directions on all sides, while servants went
+hither and thither distributing catalogues, and securing accommodation for
+the visitors with a degree of deference and attention most remarkable.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose we're to pass the day in the stables or the cowhouses, ma'am?&rdquo;
+ said Mrs. Clinch, as with a look of indignation she gazed at the range of
+seats now being hastily occupied by a miscellaneous company.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If we could only get into the gardens,&rdquo; said Mrs. Nelligan, timidly. &ldquo;I'm
+sure if I saw Barnes he'd let us in.&rdquo; And she slipped rapidly from her
+friend's arm, and hastily crossing the court, went in search of her only
+acquaintance in the household. &ldquo;Did you see Barnes? Where could I find
+Barnes?&rdquo; asked she of almost every one she met. And following the
+complicated directions she received, she wandered onward, through a
+kitchen-garden, and into a small nursery beyond it. Bewildered as she
+receded beyond the sounds of the multitude, she turned into a little path
+which, traversing a shrubbery, opened upon a beautifully cultivated
+&ldquo;parterre,&rdquo; whose close-shaven sward and flowery beds flanked a long range
+of windows opening to the ground, and which, to her no small horror, she
+perceived to form one wing of the mansion. While in her distraction to
+think what course was best to take, she saw a groom standing at the head
+of a small pony, harnessed to a diminutive carriage, and hastily
+approached him. Before, however, she had attained within speaking
+distance, the man motioned to her, by a gesture, to retire. Her
+embarrassment gave her, if not courage, something of resolution, and she
+advanced.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go back!&rdquo; cried he, in a smothered voice; &ldquo;there 's no one admitted
+here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I 've lost my way. I was looking for Barnes&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He's not here. Go back, I say,&rdquo; reiterated the man, in the same stealthy
+voice.
+</p>
+<p>
+But poor Mrs. Nelligan, came on, confusion rendering her indifferent to
+all reproof, and in spite of gestures and admonitions to retire, steadily
+advanced towards the door. As she passed one of the open windows, her
+glance caught something within; she stopped suddenly, and, in seeming
+shame at her intrusion, turned to go back. A muttered malediction from the
+servant increased her terror, and she uttered a faint cry. In an instant
+the object at which she had been gazing arose, and Mary Martin, her face
+traced with recent tears, started up and approached her. Mrs. Nelligan
+felt a sense of sickly faintness come over her, and had to grasp the
+window for support.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, my dear young lady!&rdquo; she muttered, &ldquo;I did n't mean to do this&mdash;I
+strayed here by accident&mdash;I didn't know where I was going&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear Mrs. Nelligan, there is no need of these excuses,&rdquo; said Mary,
+taking her hand cordially, and leading her to a seat. &ldquo;It is a great
+pleasure to me to see a friendly face, and I am grateful for the chance
+that sent you here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Nelligan, once relieved of her first embarrassment, poured forth with
+volubility the explanation of her presence; and Mary heard her to the end
+with patient politeness.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you were going away somewhere,&rdquo; resumed she, &ldquo;when I stopped you. I
+see your pony-chaise there at the door waiting for you, and you're off to
+the quarries or Kilkieran, I 'll be bound; or maybe it's only going away
+you are, to be out of this for a day or two. God knows, I don't wonder at
+it! It is a trying scene for you, and a great shock to your feelings, to
+see the place dismantled, and everything sold off!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is sad enough,&rdquo; said Mary, smiling through her tears.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not to say that you're left here all alone, just as if you were n't one
+of the family at all; that 's what I think most of. And where were you
+going, dear?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was going to pass a few days at the cottage,&mdash;the Swiss cottage.
+Catty Broon, my old nurse, has gone over there to get it in readiness for
+me, and I shall probably stay there till all this confusion be over.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure, dear. What's more natural than that you'd like to spare your
+feelings, seeing all carried away just as if it was bankrupts you were.
+Indeed, Dan said to me the things wouldn't bring more than at a sheriff's
+sale, because of the hurry you were in to sell them off.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My uncle's orders were positive on that subject,&rdquo; said Mary, calmly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, dear, of course he knows best,&rdquo; said she, with a shake of the head
+not exactly corroborating her own speech. &ldquo;And how are you to live here by
+yourself, dear?&rdquo; resumed she; &ldquo;sure you 'll die of the loneliness!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't think so: I shall have plenty to occupy me,&mdash;more, indeed,
+than I shall be equal to.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, in the daytime; but the long evenings&mdash;think of the long
+evenings, dear! God knows, I find them very often dreary enough, even
+though I have a home and Dan.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm not afraid of the long evenings, my dear Mrs. Nelligan. It is the
+only time I can spare for reading; they will be my hours of recreation and
+amusement.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, I hope so, with all my heart,&rdquo; said she, doubtingly. &ldquo;You
+know yourself best, and maybe you'd be happier that way, than if you had
+somebody to talk to and keep you company.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn't say that,&rdquo; said Mary, smiling. &ldquo;I never implied that a visit
+from some kind friend&mdash;Mrs. Nelligan, for instance&mdash;would not be
+a very pleasant event in my solitude.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To come and see you,&mdash;to come to Cro' Martin!&rdquo; exclaimed Mrs.
+Nelligan, as though trying to reconcile her mind to the bare possibility
+of such a circumstance.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you would not think it too far, or too much trouble&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh dear, oh dear, but it's too much honor it would be; and Dan&mdash;no
+matter what he 'd say to the contrary&mdash;would feel it so, in his own
+heart. Sure I know well how he felt about Joe being asked here to dinner;
+and he 'd never have taken a part against your uncle in the election if it
+was n't that he thought Joe was slighted some way&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But nothing of the kind ever occurred. Mr..Joseph Nelligan met from us
+all the respect that his character and his talents entitled him to.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't get warm about it, or I 'll forget everything that's in my head!&rdquo;
+ exclaimed Mrs. Nelligan, in terror at the eagerness of Mary's manner.
+&ldquo;Maybe it was Joe's fault&mdash;maybe it was young Massingbred's&mdash;maybe
+it was&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what was it?&rdquo; cried Mary. &ldquo;What was alleged? What was laid to our
+charge?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There, now, I don't remember anything; you frightened me so that it's
+gone clean out of my mind.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear friend,&rdquo; said Mary, caressingly, &ldquo;I never meant to alarm you; and
+let us talk of something else. You say that you 'll come to see me
+sometimes; is it a promise?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed it is, my dear, whenever Dan gives me the car and horse&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I 'll drive in for you, and bring you safely back again. You 've only
+to say when you 'll spend the day with me; and there's so much to show you
+here that you 'd like to see. The gardens are really handsome, and the
+hothouses. And Catty will show us her dairy, and I am very proud of my
+lambs.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is all like a dream to me,&mdash;just like a dream,&rdquo; said Mrs.
+Nelligan, closing her eyes, and folding her arms, &ldquo;to think that I 'm
+sitting here, at Cro' Martin, talking to Miss Mary just as if I were her
+equal.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear, dear friend, it shall be a reality whenever you like to make it
+so; and you'll tell me all the news of Oughterard,&mdash;all about every
+one there; for I know them, at least by name, and will be charmed to hear
+about them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Scanlan wants an answer, miss, immediately,&rdquo; said a servant,
+presenting Mary with a few lines written in pencil.
+</p>
+<p>
+She opened the paper and read the following: &ldquo;Nelligan offers seventy
+pounds for the two black horses. Is he to have them? Sir Peter shows an
+incipient spavin on the off leg, and I think he 'd be well sold.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell Mr. Scanlan I 'll send him an answer by and by,&rdquo; said she,
+dismissing the servant. Then ringing the bell, she whispered a few words
+to the man who answered it. &ldquo;I have just sent a message to tell Mr.
+Nelligan I wish to speak to him,&rdquo; said she, resuming her place on the
+sofa. &ldquo;It is a mere business matter,&rdquo; added she, seeing that Mrs. Nelligan
+waited for some explanation. &ldquo;And now, when have you heard from your son?
+Is he learning to spare himself anything of those great efforts he imposes
+upon his faculties?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+This was to touch the most sensitive chord in all her heart; and so she
+burst forth into a description of Joseph's daily life of toil and study;
+his labors, his self-denial, his solitary, joyless existence, all calling
+up, in turn, her praises and her sympathy.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I,&rdquo; cried she, &ldquo;am always saying, what is it all for?&mdash;what's
+the use of it?&mdash;who is to be the better of it? Sure there 's only
+himself to get whatever his father leaves behind him; and a pretty penny
+it is! Not that <i>you</i> would think so; but for the like of <i>us</i>,
+and in <i>our</i> station, it's a snug fortune. He 'll have upwards of two
+thousand a year, so that there 's no need to be slaving like a Turk.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your son's ambitions take, very probably, a higher range than mere
+money-making,&rdquo; said Mary. &ldquo;He has a good right to suppose that his
+abilities may win him the highest of rewards! But here's Mr. Nelligan.&rdquo;
+ And she advanced courteously to meet him at the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+Flushed and heated by the scene he had just quitted, and evidently
+embarrassed by the situation in which he stood, Nelligan bowed repeatedly
+in reply to Miss Martin's greeting, starting with amazement as he
+perceived Mrs. Nelligan, who maintained an air of unbroken dignity on the
+sofa.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well you may stare, Dan!&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;I 'm sure you never expected to see
+me here!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was a most agreeable surprise for <i>me</i>, at least,&rdquo; said Mary,
+motioning to a seat; then, turning to Nelligan, added, &ldquo;This little note
+was the occasion of my asking you to step over here. Will you please to
+read it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;How handsome, how candid, Miss Martin!&rdquo; said Nelligan, as he restored it,
+after perusing it. &ldquo;Ah, my dear young lady, why would n't your family deal
+always with us in this fashion and in everything? I beg your forgiveness,
+but I forgot myself. I 'll stick to my offer, miss,&mdash;I wouldn't take
+fifty pounds for my bargain!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This, of course, is in confidence between us, sir,&rdquo; said Mary, as she
+tore up the note and threw the fragments on the ground.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0013" id="linkimage-0013">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/368.jpg" width="100%" alt="368 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish I knew how to acknowledge this, Miss Martin; I wish I could show
+how sensible one in <i>my</i> station could be of generosity from one in
+<i>yours</i>.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You remind me very opportunely that I have a favor to ask, Mr. Nelligan.
+It is this: My kind friend here, Mrs. Nelligan, has just promised to take
+pity on my solitude, and occasionally to come and see me. Will you kindly
+strengthen her in this benevolent intention, and aid her to turn her steps
+very often towards Cro' Martin?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Nelligan's face grew deeply red, and an expression of the greatest
+embarrassment settled down on his features; and it was with much
+difficulty, and in a voice laboring for utterance, that he said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't see how this can be. Your friends would not approve,&mdash;your
+family, I mean, Miss Martin,&mdash;would, very naturally, resent the
+thought of such an intimacy! They look upon <i>me</i> as an enemy,&mdash;an
+open and declared enemy,&mdash;and so I am, where politics is concerned;
+but&mdash;&rdquo; He hesitated, and after a struggle went on: &ldquo;No matter, it <i>is</i>
+war between us, and must be till one crushes the other. What I mean is
+this, young lady: that to encourage such acquaintanceship as you speak of
+would look like an undue condescension on <i>your</i> part, or something
+even worse on <i>ours</i>.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll not listen to such subtleties!&rdquo; cried Mary, hastily. &ldquo;Neither you
+nor I, my dear Mrs. Nelligan, care for party triumphs or defeats. There
+are a thousand themes wherein our hearts can feel alike; and these we 'll
+discuss together. We're of the same country; have passed our lives amidst
+the same scenes, the same events, and the same people, and it will be hard
+if we cannot as easily discover topics for mutual esteem, as subjects of
+difference and disagreement.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But will it not be hinted, Miss Martin, that we took the opportunity of
+your solitude here to impose an acquaintanceship which had been impossible
+under other circumstances?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you are too proud, sir, to know me,&mdash;lest an ungenerous sneer
+should damage your self-esteem&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, indeed we're not,&rdquo; broke in Mrs. Nelligan. &ldquo;You don't know Dan at
+all. He would n't exchange the honor of sitting there, opposite you, to be
+High Sheriff.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A servant fortunately presented himself at this awkward moment with a
+whispered message for Miss Martin; to which she replied aloud,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course. Tell Mr. Scanlan it is my wish,&mdash;<i>my</i> orders,&rdquo; added
+she, more firmly. &ldquo;The house is open to any one who desires to see it. And
+now, before I go, Mr. Nelligan, tell me that I have convinced you,&mdash;tell
+me that my reasons have prevailed, and that you acknowledge we ought to be
+friends.&rdquo; And as she said the last words, she held out her hand to him
+with a grace so perfect, and an air of such winning fascination, that old
+Nelligan could only stammer out,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It shall be how you please. I never bargained to dispute against such
+odds as this. We are, indeed, your friends; dispose of us how you like.&rdquo;
+ And, so saying, he conducted her to the little carriage, and, assisting
+her to her seat, took his leave with all the respect he could have shown a
+queen.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's more than a prejudice, after all,&rdquo; muttered he, as he looked after
+her as she drove away. &ldquo;There's something deeper and stronger in it than
+that, or else a few words spoken by a young girl could n't so suddenly
+rout all the sentiments of a lifetime! Ay, ay,&rdquo; added he, still to
+himself, &ldquo;we may pull them down; we may humble them; but we 'll never fill
+their places!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And we 're to see the house, it seems!&rdquo; exclaimed Mrs. Nelligan,
+gathering her shawl around her.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't care to look at it till she herself is here!&rdquo; said old Nelligan,
+taking his wife's arm, and leading her away across the lawn, and in the
+direction of the stables. There was that in his moody preoccupation which
+did not encourage her to venture on a word, and so she went along at his
+side in silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You're to have the black horses, Mr. Nelligan,&rdquo; said Scanlan, overtaking
+him. Nelligan nodded. &ldquo;You 've got a cheap pair of nags, and as good as
+gold,&rdquo; continued he. A dry half-smile was all the reply. &ldquo;Mr. Martin bred
+them himself,&rdquo; Scanlan went on, &ldquo;and no price would have bought them three
+weeks ago; but everything is going for a song to-day! I don't know how I
+'ll muster courage to tell them the results of the sale!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You 'll have courage for more than that,&rdquo; said Nelligan. And although
+only a chance shot, it fell into a magazine; for Scanlan grew crimson, and
+then pale, and seemed ready to faint.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nelligan stared with amazement at the effect his few words had produced,
+and then passed on; while the attorney muttered between his teeth, &ldquo;Can he
+suspect me? Is it possible that I have betrayed myself?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+No, Maurice Scanlan. Be of good cheer, your secret is safe. No one has as
+much as the very barest suspicion that the pettifogging practitioner
+aspires to the hand of Mary Martin; nor even in the darkest dreams of that
+house's downfall has such a humiliation obtruded itself anywhere!
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XXVI. &ldquo;REVERSES&rdquo;
+ </h2>
+<p>
+Ours is a very practical age, and no matter how skilfully a man play the
+game of life, there is but one test of his ability,&mdash;did he win? If
+this condition attend him, his actions meet charitable construction. His
+doings are all favorably regarded; and while his capacity is extolled,
+even his shortcomings are extenuated. We dread an unlucky man! There is a
+kind of contagion in calamity, and we shun him as though he were
+plague-stricken. But with what flatteries we greet the successful one!
+That he reached the goal is the sure guarantee of his merits; and woe to
+him who would canvass the rectitude of his progress! Defeat is such a
+leveller! Genius and dulness, courage and pusillanimity, high-hearted hope
+and wasting energy, are all confounded together by failure, and the world
+would only smile at any effort to discriminate between them. Perhaps in
+the main the system works well. Perhaps mankind, incapable of judging
+motives, too impatient to investigate causes, is wise in adopting a short
+cut for its decisions. Certain it is, the rule is absolute that proclaims
+Success to be Desert!
+</p>
+<p>
+Lady Dorothea was now about to experience this severe lesson, and not the
+less heavily that she never anticipated it. After a wearisome journey the
+Martins arrived in Dublin. The apartments secured to them, by a previous
+letter, at Bilton's, were all in readiness for their reception. The
+&ldquo;Saunders&rdquo; of the day duly chronicled their arrival; but there the great
+event seemed to terminate. No message from her Ladyship's noble kinsman
+greeted their coming; no kind note of welcome,&mdash;not even a visit from
+Mr. Lawrence Belcour, the aide-de-camp in waiting. The greatest of all
+moralists warns us against putting confidence in princes; and how doubly
+truthful is the adage when extended to viceroys! Small as was the borough
+of Oughterard, and insignificant as seemed the fact who should be its
+representative, the result of the election was made a great matter at the
+&ldquo;Castle.&rdquo; His Excellency was told that the Martins had mismanaged
+everything. They had gone to work in the old Tory cut-and-thrust fashion
+of former days&mdash;conciliated no interest, won over no antagonism; they
+had acted &ldquo;precisely as if there had been no Relief Bill,&rdquo;&mdash;we steal
+Colonel Massingbred's words,&mdash;and they were beaten&mdash;beaten in
+their own town&mdash;in the person of one of their own family, and by a
+stranger! The Viceroy was vexed. They had misconstrued every word of his
+letter,&mdash;a letter that, as he said, any child might have understood,&mdash;and
+there was a vote lost to his party. It was in vain that the Chief
+Secretary assured his Excellency &ldquo;Jack was a clever fellow, who 'd put all
+to rights;&rdquo; that with a little time and a little dexterity he 'd be able
+to vote with the Ministry on every important division; the great fact
+remained unatoned for,&mdash;his family, his own connections, &ldquo;had done
+nothing for him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The first day in town dragged its length slowly over. Martin was fatigued,
+and did not go abroad, and no one came to visit him. To do him justice, he
+was patient under the neglect; to say more, he was grateful for it. It was
+so pleasant &ldquo;to be let alone;&rdquo; not even to be obliged to see Henderson,
+nor to be consulted about &ldquo;Road Sessions&rdquo; or &ldquo;Police Reports,&rdquo; but to have
+one's day in total unbroken listlessness; to have simply to say, &ldquo;We 'll
+dine at seven,&rdquo; and &ldquo;I'm out for every one.&rdquo; Far otherwise fared it in my
+&ldquo;Lady's chamber.&rdquo; All her plans had been based upon the attentions she was
+so certain of receiving, but of which now not a sign gave token. She
+passed the day in a state of almost feverish excitement, the more painful
+from her effort to conceal and control it. Repton dined with them. He came
+that day &ldquo;because, of course, he could not expect to catch them disengaged
+on any future occasion.&rdquo; Her Ladyship was furious at the speech, but
+smiled concurrence to it; while Martin carelessly remarked, &ldquo;From all that
+I see, we may enjoy the same pleasure very often.&rdquo; Never was the old
+lawyer so disagreeable when exerting himself to be the opposite. He had
+come stored with all the doings of the capital,&mdash;its dinners and
+evening parties, its <i>mots</i> and its gossip. From the political rumors
+and the chit-chat of society, he went on to speak of the viceregal court
+and its festivities.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If there be anything I detest,&rdquo; said her Ladyship, at last, &ldquo;it is the
+small circle of a very small metropolis. So long as you look at it
+carelessly, it is not so offensive; but when you stoop to consider and
+examine it with attention, it reminds you of the hideous spectacle of a
+glass of water as seen through a magnifier,&mdash;you detect a miniature
+world of monsters and deformities, all warring and worrying each other.&rdquo;
+ And with this flattering exposition of her opinion, she arose speedily
+after dinner, and, followed by Miss Henderson, retired.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I perceive that we had not the ear of the Court for our argument,&rdquo; said
+Repton, as he resumed his place after conducting her to the door. Martin
+sipped his wine in silence. &ldquo;I never expected she'd like Dublin; it only
+suits those who pass their lives in it; but I fancied that what with
+Castle civilities&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's the rub,&rdquo; broke in Martin, but in a voice subdued almost to a
+whisper. &ldquo;They 've taken no notice of us. For my own part, I 'm heartily
+obliged to them; and if they 'd condescend to feel offended with us, I 'd
+only be more grateful; but my Lady&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A long, low whistle from Repton implied that he had fully appreciated the
+&ldquo;situation.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, I see it,&rdquo; cried he; &ldquo;and this explains the meaning of an article I
+read this morning in the 'Evening Post,'&mdash;the Government organ,&mdash;wherein
+it is suggested that country gentlemen would be more efficient supporters
+of the administration if they lent themselves heartily to comprehend the
+requirements of recent legislation, than by exacting heavy reprisals on
+their tenants in moments of defeat and disappointment.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it is rather hard,&rdquo; said Martin, with more of energy than he
+usually spoke in,&mdash;&ldquo;it <i>is</i> hard! They first hounded us on to
+contest the borough for them, and they now abuse us that we did not make a
+compromise with the opposite party. And as to measures of severity, you
+know well I never concurred in them; I never permitted them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But they are mistaken, nevertheless. There are writs in preparation, and
+executions about to issue over fourteen town-lands. There will be a
+general clearance of the population at Kyle-a-Noe. You 'll not know a face
+there when you go back, Martin!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who can say that I 'll ever go back?&rdquo; said he, mournfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, come, I trust you will. I hope to pass some pleasant days with you
+there ere I die,&rdquo; said Repton, cheer-ingly. &ldquo;Indeed, until you are there
+again, I 'll never go farther west than Athlone on my circuit. I 'd not
+like to, look at the old place without you!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin nodded as he raised his glass, as if to thank him, and then dropped
+his head mournfully, and sat without speaking.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor dear Mary!&rdquo; said he, at last, with a heavy sigh. &ldquo;Our desertion of
+her is too bad. It's not keeping the pledge I made to Barry!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, there's nothing easier than the remedy. A week or so will see
+you settled in some city abroad,&mdash;Paris, or Brussels, perhaps. Let
+her join you; I 'll be her escort. Egad! I'd like the excuse for the
+excursion,&rdquo; replied Repton, gayly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, Repton,&rdquo; said the other, pursuing his own thoughts and not heeding
+the interruption, &ldquo;and <i>you</i> know what a brother he was. By Jove!&rdquo;
+ cried he, aloud, &ldquo;were Barry just to see what we 've done,&mdash;how we
+'ve treated the place, the people, his daughter!&mdash;were he only to
+know how I 've kept my word with him&mdash;Look, Repton,&rdquo; added he,
+grasping the other's arm as he spoke, &ldquo;there's not as generous a fellow
+breathing as Barry; this world has not his equal for an act of noble
+self-devotion and sacrifice. His life!&mdash;he 'd not think twice of it
+if I asked him to give it for me; but if he felt&mdash;if he could just
+awaken to the conviction that he was unfairly dealt with, that when
+believing he was sacrificing to affection and brotherly love he was made a
+dupe and a fool of&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be cautious, Martin; speak lower&mdash;remember where you are,&rdquo; said
+Repton, guardedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I tell you this,&rdquo; resumed the other, in a tone less loud but not less
+forcible: &ldquo;the very warmth of his nature&mdash;that same noble, generous
+source that feeds every impulse of his life&mdash;would supply the force
+of a torrent to his passion; he 'd be a tiger if you aroused him!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don't you perceive, my dear friend,&rdquo; said Repton, calmly, &ldquo;how you are
+exaggerating everything,&mdash;not alone <i>your own</i> culpability, but
+his resentment! Grant that you ought not to have left Mary behind you,&mdash;I
+'m sure I said everything I could against it,&mdash;what more easy than to
+repair the wrong?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, Repton, you 're quite mistaken. Take my word for it, you don't
+know that girl. She has taught herself to believe that her place is there,&mdash;that
+it is her duty to live amongst the people. She may exaggerate to her own
+mind the good she does; she may fancy a thousand things as to the benefit
+she bestows; but she cannot, by any self-deception, over-estimate the
+results upon her own heart, which she has educated to feel as only they do
+who live amongst the poor! To take her away from this would be a cruel
+sacrifice; and for what?&mdash;a world she would n't care for, couldn't
+comprehend.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then what was to have been done?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll tell you, Repton; if it was <i>her</i> duty to stay there, it was
+doubly <i>ours</i> to have remained also. When she married,&rdquo; added he,
+after a pause,&mdash;&ldquo;when she had got a home of her own,&mdash;then, of
+course, it would have been quite different! Heaven knows,&rdquo; said he,
+sighing, &ldquo;we have little left to tie us to anything or anywhere; and as to
+myself, it is a matter of the most perfect indifference whether I drag out
+the year or two that may remain to me on the shores of Galway or beside
+the Adriatic!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can't bear this,&rdquo; cried Repton, angrily. &ldquo;If ever there was a man well
+treated by fortune, you are he.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm not complaining.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not complaining! but, hang it, sir, that is not enough! You should be
+overflowing with gratitude; your life ought to be active with benevolence;
+you should be up and doing, wherever ample means and handsome
+encouragement could assist merit or cheer despondency. I like your notion
+that you don't complain! Why, if you did, what should be done by those who
+really do travel the shady side of existence,&mdash;who are weighted with
+debt, bowed down with daily difficulties, crippled with that penury that
+eats into a man's nature till his very affections grow sordid, and his
+very dreams are tormented with his duns! Think of the poor fellows with
+ailing wives and sickly children, toiling daily, not to give them
+luxuries,&mdash;not to supply them with what may alleviate weariness or
+distract suffering, but bare sustenance,&mdash;coarse diet and coarser
+dress! Ah, my dear Martin, that Romanist plan of fasting one day in the
+week would n't be a bad institution were we to introduce it into our
+social code. If you and I could have, every now and then, our feelings of
+privation, just to teach us what others experience all the week through,
+we 'd have, if not more sympathy with narrow fortune, at least more
+thankfulness for its opposite.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Her Ladyship begs you will read this note, sir,&rdquo; said a servant,
+presenting an open letter to Martin. He took it, and having perused it,
+handed it to Repton, who slowly read the following lines:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+&ldquo;'The Lodge, Tuesday.
+
+&ldquo;'Madam,&mdash;I have his Excellency's commands to inquire on
+what day it will suit Mr. Martin and your Ladyship to favor
+him with your company at dinner? His Excellency would
+himself say Saturday, but any intermediate day more
+convenient to yourself will be equally agreeable to him.
+
+&ldquo;'I have the honor to remain, madam,
+
+&ldquo;'With every consideration, yours,
+
+&ldquo;'Lawrence Belcour, A.D.C.'&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'With every consideration'!&rdquo; repeated Repton. &ldquo;Confound the puppy, and
+his Frenchified phraseology! Why is he not, as he ought to be, your
+obedient servant?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a somewhat cold and formal invitation,&rdquo; said Martin, slowly. &ldquo;I 'll
+just see what she thinks of it;&rdquo; and he arose and left the room. His
+absence was fully of twenty minutes' duration, and when he did return his
+face betokened agitation.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here's more of it, Repton,&rdquo; said he, filling and drinking off his glass.
+&ldquo;It 's all <i>my</i> fault, it seems. I ought to have gone out to the
+'Lodge' this morning, or called on somebody, or done something; in fact, I
+have been remiss, neglectful, deficient in proper respect&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So that you decline the invitation?&rdquo; broke in Repton.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not a bit of it; we 're to accept it, man. That's what I cannot
+comprehend. We are offended, almost outraged, but still we're to submit.
+Ah, Repton, I'll be really rejoiced when we leave this,&mdash;get away
+from all these petty annoyances and small intriguings, and live amongst
+strangers!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Most patriotically spoken; but I'm not surprised at what you say. Have
+you made any resolve as to whither you mean to go?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; we have so many plans, that the chances are we take none of them. I
+'m told&mdash;I know nothing of it myself&mdash;but I 'm told that we
+shall easily find&mdash;and in any part of the Continent&mdash;the few
+requirements we want; which are, an admirable climate, great cheapness,
+and excellent society.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+There was a slight twinkle in Martin's eye as he spoke, as if he were in
+reality relishing the absurdity of these expectations.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was it Kate Henderson who encouraged you to credit this flattering
+picture?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; these are my Lady's own experiences, derived from a residence there
+'when George the Third was King.' As to Kate, the girl is by no means
+deficient in common sense; she has the frivolity of a Frenchwoman, and
+that light, superficial tone foreign education imparts; but take my word
+for it, Repton, she has very fine faculties!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will take your word for it, Martin. I think you do her no more than
+justice,&rdquo; said the old lawyer, sententiously.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I 'll tell you another quality she possesses,&rdquo; said Martin, in a
+lower and more cautious tone, as though dreading to be overheard,&mdash;&ldquo;she
+understands my Lady to perfection,&mdash;when to yield and when to oppose
+her. The girl has an instinct about it, and does it admirably; and there
+was poor dear Mary, with all her abilities, and she never could succeed in
+this! How strange, for nobody would think of comparing the two girls!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nobody!&rdquo; dryly re-echoed Repton.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean, of course, that nobody who knew the world could; for in all the
+glitter and show-off of fashionable acquirement, poor Molly is the
+inferior.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Repton looked steadfastly at him for several seconds; he seemed as if
+deliberating within himself whether or not he'd undeceive him at once, or
+suffer him to dwell on an illusion so pleasant to believe. The latter
+feeling prevailed, and he merely nodded slowly, and passed the decanter
+across the table.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Molly,&rdquo; continued Martin, with all the fluency of a weak man when he
+fancies he has got the better of an argument,&mdash;&ldquo;Molly is her father
+all over. The same resolution, the same warmth of heart, and that
+readiness at an expedient which never failed poor Barry! What a clever
+fellow he was! If he <i>had</i> a fault, it was just being too clever.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Too speculative, too sanguine,&rdquo; interposed Repton.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That, if you like to call it so,&mdash;the weakness of genius.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Repton gave a long sigh, and crossing his arms, fell into a fit of musing,
+and so they both sat for a considerable time.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Harry is coming home, you said?&rdquo; broke in Repton at last.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; he is tired of India,&mdash;tired of soldiering, I believe. If he
+can't manage an exchange into some regiment at home, I think he 'll sell
+out.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove!&rdquo; said the old lawyer, speaking to himself, but still aloud, &ldquo;the
+world has taken a strange turn of late. The men that used to have dash and
+energy have become loungers and idlers, and the energy&mdash;the real
+energy of the nation&mdash;has centred in the women,&mdash;the women and
+the priests! If I'm not much mistaken, we shall see some rare specimens of
+enthusiasm erelong. Such elements as these will not slumber nor sleep!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+While Martin was pondering over this speech, a servant entered to say that
+Mr. Crow was without, and begged to know if he might pay his respects.
+&ldquo;Ay, by all means. Tell him to come in,&rdquo; said Martin. And the words were
+scarcely uttered when the artist made his appearance, in full dinner
+costume, and with a certain unsteadiness in his gait, and a restless look
+in his eyes, that indicated his having indulged freely, without, however,
+having passed the barrier of sobriety.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You heard of our arrival, then?&rdquo; said Martin, after the other had paid
+his respects, and assumed a seat.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir. It was mentioned to-day at dinner, and so I resolved that, when
+I could manage to step away, I'd just drop in and ask how her Ladyship and
+yourself were.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where did you dine, Crow?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;At the Chief Secretary's, sir, in the Park,&rdquo; replied Crow, with a mixture
+of pride and bash fulness.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, indeed. Was your party a large one?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There were fourteen of us, sir, but I only knew three or four of the
+number.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And who were they, Crow?&rdquo; said Repton, whose curiosity on all such topics
+was extreme.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Young Nelligan was one. Indeed, it was through him I was asked myself.
+Colonel Massingbred was good enough to come over and have a look at my
+Moses,&mdash;a favor I humbly hope you 'll do me, gentlemen, any spare
+morning; for it's a new conception altogether, and I make the light come
+out of the bulrushes, just as Caravaggio did with his Lazarus.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind Lazarus, Crow, but tell us of this dinner. Who were the
+others?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, there was Nelligan and me,&mdash;that's one; and Tom Magennis,&mdash;two&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Our neighbor of Barnagheela?&rdquo; exclaimed Martin, in amazement.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The same, sir. I left him there at the port wine, and my word for it, but
+they 'll not get him away easily, though Father Rafferty will do his best&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And was the priest also of the party?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was, sir; and sat at the Colonel's left, and was treated with every
+honor and distinction.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh, Martin, am I a true prophet?&mdash;answer me that. Has Val Repton
+foretold the course of events we are entering upon, or has he not?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But this is a regular outrage,&mdash;an open insult to us!&rdquo; cried Martin.
+&ldquo;Here is a leading member of the Government entertaining the very men who
+opposed and defeated us,&mdash;actually caressing the very party which
+they enlisted us to crush?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This game is within every child's comprehension!&rdquo; said Repton. &ldquo;If <i>you</i>,
+and men of your stamp and fortune, could have secured them a parliamentary
+majority, they 'd have preferred you. You 'd be pleasanter to deal with,
+less exacting, more gentlemanly in fact; but as you failed to do this,&mdash;as
+it was plain and clear you had not the people with you,&mdash;why, they
+'ve thrown you over without a scruple, and taken into their favor the men
+who can and will serve them. I don't mean to say that the bargain is a
+good one,&mdash;nay, I believe the price of such aid will be very costly;
+but what do they care? It is one of the blessings of a representative
+government that Tories have to pay Whig debts, and Whigs are heirs to Tory
+defalcations.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Were politics discussed at table?&rdquo; asked Martin, half impatiently.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;All manner of subjects. We had law, and the assizes, and the grand-jury
+lists, and who ought to be high sheriffs, and who not. And young
+Massingbred made a kind of a speech&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was he there also?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That he was; and did the honors of the foot of the table, and made it the
+pleasantest place too! The way he introduced a toast to the independent
+and enlightened electors of Oughterard was as neat a thing as ever I
+heard.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The devil take the whole batch of them!&rdquo; cried Martin. &ldquo;To think that I
+'ve spent nearly three thousand pounds for such a set of scoundrels is
+past endurance. I 'll never set foot amongst them again; as long as I live
+I 'll never enter that town.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Father Neal's own words,&rdquo; cried Crow. &ldquo;'We done with Martin forever,'
+said he. 'This election was his Waterloo. He may abdicate now!'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And that sentiment was listened to by the Chief Secretary?&rdquo; exclaimed
+Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If he wasn't deaf he couldn't help hearing it, for we all did; and when I
+ventured to observe that a country was never the better for losing the
+patrons of art, and the great families that could encourage a genius,
+young Massingbred, said, 'Give up Moses, Mr. Crow,&mdash;give up Moses,
+and paint Daniel O'Connell, and you 'll never want admirers and
+supporters!' And they drowned me in a roar of laughter.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish my Lady could only hear all this,&rdquo; said Rep ton, in a whisper to
+Martin.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Always provided that I were somewhere else!&rdquo; answered Martin. &ldquo;But to be
+serious, Repton, I 'll hold no intercourse with men who treat us in this
+fashion. It is absurd to suppose that the Secretary could receive at his
+table this rabble,&mdash;this herd of low, vulgar&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh&mdash;what!&rdquo; broke in Crow, with an expression of such truly comic
+misery as made Repton shake with laughter.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn't mean <i>you</i>, Crow&mdash;I never thought of including you in
+such company,&mdash;but if these be Colonel Massingbred's guests, I 'll
+swear that Godfrey Martin shall not be my Lord Reckington's!&rdquo; And with
+this bold resolve, uttered in a voice and manner of very unusual firmness,
+Martin arose and left the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;On the whole, then, your party was a pleasant one?&rdquo; said Repton, anxious
+to lead Crow into some further details of the late dinner.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, indeed it was, and it was not,&rdquo; said the artist, hesitatingly. &ldquo;It
+was like a picture with some fine bits in it,&mdash;a dash of rich color
+here and there,&mdash;but no keeping! no general effect! You understand? I
+myself took no share in the talk. I never understood it; but I could see
+that they who did were somehow at cross-purposes,&mdash;all standing in
+adverse lights,&mdash;if I may use the expression. Whenever the Colonel
+himself, or one of the 'swells' of the company, came out with a fine
+sentiment about regenerated Ireland, happy and prosperous, and so forth,
+Magennis was sure to break in with some violent denunciation of the
+infernal miscreants, as he called the landlords, or the greatest curse of
+the land,&mdash;the Law Church!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how did Father Neal behave?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;With great decorum,&mdash;the very greatest. He moderated all Tom's
+violence, and repeatedly said that he accepted no participation in such
+illiberal opinions. 'We have grievances, it is true,' said he, 'but we
+live under a Government able and willing to redress them. It shall never
+be said of us that we were either impatient or intolerant.' 'With such
+support, no Government was ever weak!' said the Colonel, and they took
+wine together.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was very pleasant to see!&rdquo; said Repton.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So it was, sir,&rdquo; rejoined Crow, innocently; &ldquo;and I thought to myself, if
+there was only an end of all their squabbling and fighting, they 'd have
+time to cultivate the arts and cherish men of genius,&mdash;if they had
+them!&rdquo; added he, after a pause.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Father Neal, then, made a favorable impression, you 'd say?&rdquo; asked
+Repton, half carelessly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'd say, very favorable,&mdash;very favorable, indeed. I remarked that he
+always spoke so freely, so liberally. Twice or thrice, too, he said, 'If
+the Papists do this, that, or t' other;' and when the Colonel asked
+whether the Catholics of Ireland submitted implicitly to Rome in all
+things, he laughed heartily, and said, 'About as much as we do to the Cham
+of Tartary!'
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'I 'd like to examine our friend there before the Committee,' whispered
+an old gentleman at the Colonel's right hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'It was the very thing was passing through my own mind at the minute,'
+said the Colonel.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;'That's exactly the kind of thing we want,' said the old gentleman again,&mdash;'a
+bold, straightforward denial; something that would tell admirably with the
+House! Present me to your friend, Massingbred!' And then the Chief
+Secretary said, 'The Member for Strudeham&mdash;Mr. Crutch-ley&mdash;is
+very desirous of being known to you, Mr. Rafferty.' And there was great
+smiling, and bowing, and drinking wine together after that.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Martin now re-entered the room, and taking his place at the table, sat for
+some minutes in moody silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Repton, &ldquo;what does my Lady think of your tidings?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She says she does n't believe it!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Does n't believe that these people dined with Massingbred; that Crow saw
+them, heard them, dined with them?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no,&mdash;not that,&rdquo; said Martin, gently, and laying his hand
+familiarly on Crow's arm. &ldquo;Don't mistake me; nor don't let Repton play the
+lawyer with us, and pervert the evidence. Lady Dorothea can't believe that
+her distinguished relative, the Viceroy, would ever countenance this game;
+that&mdash;that&mdash;in fact, we're to dine there, Repton, and see for
+ourselves! Though,&rdquo; added he, after a brief pause, &ldquo;what we are to see, or
+what we are to do when we 've seen it, I wish anybody would tell me!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I 'll be that man!&rdquo; said Repton, with a mock solemnity, and
+imitating the tone and manner of a judge delivering sentence. &ldquo;You 'll go
+from this place to the Lodge, where you 'll be fed 'to the neck,' feasted
+and flattered, and all your good resolves and high purposes will be cut
+down, and your noble indignation buried within the precincts of your own
+hearts!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And, so saying, he arose from the table and extended his hand to take
+leave, with all the gravity of a solemn farewell.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you could say a word to his Excellency about Moses,&rdquo; muttered Crow, as
+he was leaving the room, &ldquo;it would be the making of me!&rdquo; But Martin never
+heeded the appeal; perhaps he never heard it.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XXVII. DARKENING FORTUNES
+</h2>
+<p>
+The Martins had always lived a life of haughty estrangement from their
+neighbors; there were none of exactly their own rank and pretensions
+within miles of them, and they were too proud to acknowledge the
+acquaintance of a small squirearchy, which was all that the country around
+could boast. Notwithstanding all the isolation of their existence, their
+departure created a great void in the county, and their absence was
+sensibly felt by every class around. The very requirements of a large
+fortune suggest a species of life and vitality. The movement of servants,
+the passing and repassing of carriages, the necessary intercourse with
+market and post,&mdash;all impart a degree of bustle and movement,
+terribly contrasted by the unbroken stillness of a deserted mansion.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lady Dorothea had determined that there should be no ambiguity as to the
+cause of their departure; she had given the most positive orders on this
+head to every department of the household. To teach an ungrateful people
+the sore consequences of their own ingratitude, the lesson should be read
+in everything: in the little villages thrown out of work, in the silent
+quarries, the closed schoolhouses, the model farm converted into
+grass-land, even to the grand entrance, now built up by a wall of coarse
+masonry, the haughty displeasure of the proud mistress revealed itself,
+all proclaiming the sentiment of a deep, unforgiving vengeance. She had
+tortured her ingenuity for details which should indicate her anger; nor
+was she satisfied if her displeasure should not find its way into every
+cabin and at every hearth. The small hamlet of Cro' Martin had possessed a
+dispensary. A hard-working, patient, and skilful man had passed many years
+of life there as the doctor, eking out the poor subsistence of that
+unfavored lot, and supporting a family by a life of dreary toil. From this
+her Ladyship's subscription&mdash;the half of all his salary&mdash;was now
+to be withdrawn. She thought &ldquo;Cloves was grown negligent; it might be age,&mdash;if
+so, a younger man would be better; besides, if he could afford to dress
+his three daughters in the manner he did, he surely could not require her
+thirty pounds per annum.&rdquo; The servants, too, complained that he constantly
+mistook their complaints. In fact, judgment was recorded against Cloves,
+and there was none to recommend him to mercy!
+</p>
+<p>
+We have said that there was a little chapel within the bounds of the
+demesne; it occupied a corner of a ruin which once had formed Cro' Martin
+Abbey, and now served for the village church. It was very small, but still
+large enough for its little congregation. The vicar of this humble
+benefice was a very old man, a widower, and childless, though once the
+father of a numerous family. Dr. Leslie had, some eighteen years back,
+been unfortunate enough to incur her Ladyship's displeasure, and was
+consequently never invited to the castle, nor recognized in any way, save
+by the haughty salute that met him as he left the church. To save him,
+however, a long and tedious walk on Sundays, he was permitted to make use
+of a little private path to the church, which led through one of the
+shrubberies adjoining his own house,&mdash;a concession of the more
+consequence as he was too poor to keep a carriage of the humblest kind.
+This was now ordered to be closed up, the gate removed, and a wall to
+replace it. &ldquo;The poor had got the habit of coming that way; it was never
+intended for their use, but they had usurped it. To-morrow or next day we
+should hear of its being claimed at law as a public right of passage. It
+was better to do the thing in time. In short, it must be 'closed.'&rdquo; By
+some such reasoning as this Lady Dorothea persuaded herself to this
+course; and who should gainsay her? Oh, if men would employ but one tenth
+of all that casuistry by which they minister to their selfishness, in acts
+of benevolence and good feeling,&mdash;if they would only use a little
+sophistry, to induce them to do right,&mdash;what a world this might be!
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary Martin knew nothing of these decisions; overwhelmed by the vast
+changes on every side, almost crushed beneath the difficulties that
+surrounded her, her first few weeks passed over like a disturbed dream.
+Groups of idle, unemployed people saluted her in mournful silence as she
+passed the roads. Interrupted works, half-executed plans met her eye at
+every turn, and at every moment the same words rang in her ears&mdash;&ldquo;Her
+Ladyship's orders&rdquo;&mdash;as the explanation of all.
+</p>
+<p>
+Hitherto her life had been one of unceasing exertion and toil; from early
+dawn to late night she had been employed; her fatigues, however, great as
+they were, had been always allied with power. What she willed she could
+execute. Means never failed her, no matter how costly the experiment, to
+carry out her plans, and difficulty gave only zest to every undertaking.
+There is nothing more captivating than this sense of uncontrolled ability
+for action, especially when exercised by one of a warm and enthusiastic
+nature. To feel herself the life and spring of every enterprise, to know
+that she suggested and carried out each plan, that her ingenuity devised,
+and her energy accomplished all the changes around her, was in itself a
+great fascination; and now suddenly she was to awake from all this, and
+find herself unoccupied and powerless. Willingly, without a regret, could
+she abdicate from all the pomp and splendor of a great household; she saw
+troops of servants depart, equipage sold, great apartments closed up
+without a pang! To come down to the small conditions of narrow fortune in
+her daily life cost her nothing, beyond a smile. It was odd, it was
+strange; but it was no more! Far otherwise, however, did she feel the
+circumstances of her impaired power. That hundreds of workmen were no
+longer at her bidding, that whole families no longer looked up to her for
+aid and comfort,&mdash;these were astounding facts, and came upon her with
+an actual shock.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;For what am I left here?&rdquo; cried she, passionately, to Henderson, as he
+met each suggestion she made by the one cold word, &ldquo;Impossible.&rdquo; &ldquo;Is it to
+see destitution that I cannot relieve,&mdash;witness want that I am
+powerless to alleviate? To what end or with what object do I remain?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I canna say, miss,&rdquo; was the dry response.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it be to humiliate me by the spectacle of my own inefficiency, a day
+or a week will suffice for that; years could not teach me more.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Henderson bowed what possibly might mean an acquiescence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't speak of the estate,&rdquo; cried she, earnestly; &ldquo;but what 's to
+become of the people?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Many o' them will emigrate, miss, I've no doubt,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;when they see
+there 's nothing to bide for.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You take it easily, sir. You see little hardships in men having to leave
+home and country; but I tell you that home may be poor and country cruel,
+and yet both very hard to part with.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That 's vara true, miss,&rdquo; was the dry response.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;For anything there is now to be done here, you, sir, are to the full as
+competent as I am. I ask again, To what end am I here?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Giving to her question a very different significance from what she
+intended, Henderson calmly said, &ldquo;I thought, miss, it was just yer ain
+wish, and for no other reason.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mary's cheek became crimson, and her eyes flashed with angry indignation;
+but repressing the passion that was bursting within her, she walked
+hastily up and down the room in silence. At length, opening a large
+colored map of the estate which lay on the table, she stood attentively
+considering it for some time. &ldquo;The works at Carrigulone are stopped?&rdquo; said
+she, hastily.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, miss.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the planting at Kyle's Wood?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, miss.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And even the thinning there,&mdash;is that stopped?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, miss; the bark is to be sold, and a' the produce of the wood for ten
+years, to a contractor, a certain Mister&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don't want his name, sir. What of the marble quarries?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My Lady thinks they're nae worth a' they cost, and won't hear o' their
+being worked again.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And is the harbor at Kilkieran to be given up?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, miss, and the Osprey's Nest will be let. I think they 'll mak' an
+inn or a public o' it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And if the harbor is abandoned, what is to become of the fishermen? The
+old quay is useless.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Vara true, miss; but there's a company goin' to take the royalties o' the
+coast the whole way to Belmullet.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A Scotch company, Mr. Henderson?&rdquo; said Mary, with a sly malice in her
+look.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, miss,&rdquo; said he, coloring slightly. &ldquo;The house of M'Grotty and Co. is
+at the head o' it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And are they the same enterprising people who have proposed to take the
+demesne on lease, provided the gardens be measured in as arable land?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are, miss; they've signed the rough draught o' the lease this
+morning.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; cried she, growing suddenly pale as death. &ldquo;Are there any other
+changes you can mention to me, since in the few days I have been ill so
+much has occurred?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There 's nae muckle more to speak o', miss. James M'Grotty&mdash;he's the
+younger brother&mdash;was here yesterday to try and see you about the
+school. He wants the house for his steward; but if you object, he 'll just
+take the doctor's.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why&mdash;where is Dr. Cloves to go?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He does na ken exactly, miss. He thinks he 'll try Auckland, or some of
+these new places in New Zealand.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the dispensary must be continued; the people cannot be left without
+medical advice.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. James says he 'll think aboot it when he comes over in summer. He's a
+vara spirited young man, and when there's a meetin'-house built in the
+village&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Enough of this, Henderson. Come over here tomorrow, for I 'm not strong
+enough to hear more to-day, and let Mr. Scanlan know that I wish to see
+him this evening.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And Mary motioned with her hand that he should withdraw. Scarcely was the
+door closed behind him than she burst into a torrent of tears; her long
+pent-up agony utterly overpowered her, and she cried with all the
+vehemence of a child's grief. Her heart once opened to sorrow, by a
+hundred channels came tributaries to her affliction. Up to that moment her
+uncle's departure had never seemed a cruelty; now it took all the form of
+desertion. The bitterness of her forlorn condition had never struck her
+till it came associated with all the sorrows of others. It is not
+impossible that wounded self-love entered into her feelings. It is by no
+means unlikely that the sense of her own impaired importance added
+poignancy to her misery. Who shall anatomize motives, or who shall be
+skilful enough to trace the springs of one human emotion? There was
+assuredly enough outside of and above all personal consideration to
+ennoble her grief and dignify her affliction.
+</p>
+<p>
+Her first impulses led her to regard herself as utterly useless; her
+occupation gone, and her whole career of duty annihilated. A second and a
+better resolve whispered to her that she was more than ever needful to
+those who without her would be left without a friend. &ldquo;If I desert them,
+who is to remain?&rdquo; asked she. &ldquo;It is true I am no more able to set in
+motion the schemes by which their indigence was alleviated. I am
+powerless, but not all worthless. I can still be their nurse, their
+comforter, their schoolmistress. My very example may teach them how
+altered fortune can be borne with fortitude and patience. They shall see
+me reduced to a thousand privations, and perhaps even this may bear its
+lesson.&rdquo; Drying her tears, she began to feel within her some of the
+courage she hoped to inspire in others; and anxious not to let old Catty
+detect the trace of sorrow in her features, issued forth into the wood for
+a walk.
+</p>
+<p>
+As the deep shadows thickened around her, she grew calmer and more
+meditative. The solemn stillness of the place, the deep, unbroken
+quietude, imparted its own soothing influence to her thoughts; and as she
+went, her heart beat freer, and her elastic temperament again arose to
+cheer and sustain her. To confront the future boldly and well, it was
+necessary that she should utterly forget the past. She could no longer
+play the great part to which wealth and high station had raised her; she
+must now descend to that humbler one,&mdash;all whose influence should be
+derived from acts of kindness and words of comfort, unaided by the greater
+benefits she had once dispensed.
+</p>
+<p>
+The means placed at her disposal for her own expenditure had been
+exceedingly limited. It was her own desire they should be so, and Lady
+Dorothea had made no opposition to her wishes. Beyond this she had
+nothing, save a sum of five thousand pounds payable at her uncle's death.
+By strictest economy&mdash;privation, indeed&mdash;she thought that she
+could save about a hundred pounds a year of this small income; but to do
+so would require the sale of both her horses, retaining only the pony and
+the little carriage, while her dress should be of the very simplest and
+plainest. In what way she should best employ this sum was to be for after
+consideration. The first thought was how to effect the saving without
+giving to the act any unnecessary notoriety. She felt that her greatest
+difficulty would be old Catty Broon. The venerable housekeeper had all her
+life regarded her with an affection that was little short of worship. It
+was not alone the winning graces of Mary's manner, nor the attractive
+charms of her appearance that had so captivated old Catty; but that the
+young girl, to her eyes, represented the great family whose name she bore,
+and represented them so worthily. The title of the Princess, by which the
+Country people knew her, seemed her just and rightful designation. Mary
+realized to her the proud scion of a proud stock, who had ruled over a
+territory rather than a mere estate; how, then, could she bear to behold
+her in all the straits and difficulties of a reduced condition? There
+seemed but one way to effect this, which was to give her new mode of life
+the character of a caprice. &ldquo;I must make old Catty believe it is one of my
+wild and wilful fancies,&mdash;a sudden whim,&mdash;out of which a little
+time will doubtless rally me. She is the last in the world to limit me in
+the indulgence of a momentary notion; she will, therefore, concede
+everything to my humor, patiently awaiting the time when it shall assume a
+course the very opposite.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Some one should, however, be intrusted with her secret,&mdash;without some
+assistance it could not be carried into execution; and who should that be?
+Alas, her choice was a very narrow one. It lay between Scanlan and
+Henderson. The crafty attorney was not, indeed, much to Mary's liking. His
+flippant vulgarity and pretension were qualities she could ill brook; but
+she had known him do kind things. She had seen him on more than one
+occasion temper the sharpness of some of her Ladyship's ukases, little
+suspecting, indeed, how far the possible impression upon herself was the
+motive that so guided him; she had, therefore, no difficulty in preferring
+him to the steward, whose very accent and manner were enough to render him
+hateful to her. Scanlan, besides, would necessarily have a great deal in
+his power; he would be able to make many a concession to the poor people
+on the estate, retard the cruel progress of the law, or give them time to
+provide against its demands. Mary felt that she was in a position to
+exercise a certain influence over him; and, conscious of the goodness of
+the cause she would promote, never hesitated as to the means of employing
+it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Who shall say, too, that she had not noticed the deferential admiration by
+which he always distinguished her? for there is a species of coquetry that
+takes pleasure in a conquest where the profits of victory would be
+thoroughly despised. We are not bold enough to say that such feelings
+found their place in Mary's heart. We must leave its analysis to wiser and
+more cunning anatomists.
+</p>
+<p>
+Straying onwards ever in deep thought, and not remarking whither, she was
+suddenly struck by the noise of masonry,&mdash;strange sounds in a spot
+thus lonely and remote; and now walking quickly onward, she found herself
+on the path by which the vicar on Sundays approached the church; and here,
+at a little distance, descried workmen employed in walling up the little
+gateway of the passage.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By whose orders is this done?&rdquo; cried Mary, to whose quick intelligence
+the act revealed its whole meaning and motive.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Henderson, miss,&rdquo; replied one of the men. &ldquo;He said we were to work
+all night at it, if we could n't be sure of getting it done before
+Sunday.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+A burst of passionate indignation rose to her lips, but she turned away
+without a word, and re-entered the wood in silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; cried she, to herself, &ldquo;it is, indeed, a new existence is opening
+before me; let me strive so to control my temper, that I may view it
+calmly and dispassionately, so that others may not suffer from the changes
+in my fortune.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+She no sooner reached the house than she despatched a note to Mr. Scanlan,
+requesting to see him as early as possible on the following morning. This
+done, she set herself to devise her plans for the future,&mdash;speculations,
+it must be owned, to which her own hopeful temperament gave a coloring
+that a colder spirit and more calculating mind had never bestowed on them.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XXVIII. HOW MR. SCANLAN GIVES SCOPE TO A GENEROUS IMPULSE
+</h2>
+<p>
+It is a remark of Wieland's, that although the life of man is measured by
+the term of fourscore years and ten, yet that his ideal existence or, as
+he calls it, his &ldquo;unacted life,&rdquo; meaning thereby his period of dreamy,
+projective, and forecasting existence, would occupy a far wider space. And
+he goes on to say that it is in this same imaginative longevity men differ
+the most from each other, the poet standing to the ungifted peasant in the
+ratio of centuries to years.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Maurice Scanlan would not appear a favorable subject by which to test
+this theory. If not endowed with any of the higher and greater qualities
+of intellect, he was equally removed from any deficiency on that score.
+The world called him &ldquo;a clever fellow,&rdquo; and the world is rarely in fault
+in such judgments. Where there is a question of the creative faculties,
+where it is the divine essence itself is the matter of decision, the world
+will occasionally be betrayed into mistakes, as fashion and a passing
+enthusiasm may mislead it; but where it is the practical and the real, the
+exercise of gifts by which men make themselves rich and powerful, then the
+world makes no blunders. She knows them as a mother knows her children.
+They are indeed the &ldquo;World's own.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+We have come to these speculations by contemplating Mr. Scanlan as he sat
+with Mary Martin's open letter before him. The note was couched in polite
+terms, requesting Mr. Scanlan to favor the writer with a visit at his
+earliest convenience, if possible early on the following morning. Had it
+been a document of suspected authenticity, a forged acceptance, an
+interpolated article in a deed, a newly discovered codicil to a will, he
+could not have canvassed every syllable, scrutinized every letter, with
+more searching zeal. It was hurriedly written; there was, therefore, some
+emergency. It began, &ldquo;Dear sir,&rdquo; a style she had never employed before;
+the letter &ldquo;D&rdquo; was blotted, and seemed to have been originally destined
+for an &ldquo;M,&rdquo; as though she had commenced &ldquo;Miss Martin requests,&rdquo; etc., and
+then suddenly adopted the more familiar address. The tone of command by
+which he was habitually summoned to Cro' Martin was assuredly not there,
+and Maurice was not the man to undervalue the smallest particle of
+evidence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She has need of me,&rdquo; cried he to himself; &ldquo;she sees everything in a state
+of subversion and chaos around her, and looks to me as the man to restore
+order. The people are entreating her to stay law proceedings, to give them
+time, to employ them; the poorest are all importuning her with stories of
+their sufferings. She is powerless, and, what's worse, she does not know
+what it is to be powerless to help them. She'll struggle and fret and
+scheme, and plan fifty things, and when she has failed in them all, fall
+back upon Maurice Scanlan for advice and counsel.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It was a grave question with Scanlan how far he would suffer her
+persecutions to proceed before he would come to her aid. &ldquo;If I bring my
+succor too early, she may never believe the emergency was critical; if I
+delay it too long, she may abandon the field in despair, and set off to
+join her uncle.&rdquo; These were the two propositions which he placed before
+himself for consideration. It was a case for very delicate management,
+great skill, and great patience, but it was well worth all the cost. &ldquo;If I
+succeed,&rdquo; said he to himself, &ldquo;I'm a made man. Mary Martin Mrs. Scanlan, I
+'m the agent for the whole estate, with Cro' Martin to live in, and all
+the property at my discretion. If I fail,&mdash;that is, if I fail without
+blundering,&mdash;I 'm just where I was. Well,&rdquo; thought he, as he drove
+into the demesne, &ldquo;I never thought I'd have such a chance as this. All
+gone, and she alone here by herself: none to advise, not one even to keep
+her company! I'd have given a thousand pounds down just for this
+opportunity, without counting all the advantages I have in my power from
+my present position, for I can do what I like with the estate,&mdash;give
+leases or break them. It will be four months at least before old Repton
+comes down here, and in that time I'll have finished whatever I want to
+do. And now to begin the game.&rdquo; And with this he turned into the
+stable-yard, and descended from his gig. Many men would have been struck
+by the changed aspect of the place,&mdash;silence and desolation where
+before there were movement and bustle; but Scanlan only read in the
+altered appearances around the encouragement of his own ambitious hopes.
+The easy swagger in which the attorney indulged while moving about the
+stable-yard declined into a more becoming gait as he traversed the long
+corridors, and finally became actually respectful as he drew nigh the
+library, where he was informed Miss Martin awaited him, so powerful was
+the influence of old habit over the more vulgar instincts of his nature.
+He had intended to be very familiar and at his ease, and ere he turned the
+handle of the door his courage failed him.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is very kind of you, Mr. Scanlan,&rdquo; said she, advancing a few steps
+towards him as he entered. &ldquo;You must have started early from home.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;At five, miss,&rdquo; said he, bowing deferentially.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And of course you have not breakfasted?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, then, I only took a cup of coffee. I was anxious to be early. I
+thought from your note that there might be something urgent.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mary half smiled at the mingled air of bashfulness and gallantry in which
+he uttered these broken sentences; for without knowing it himself, while
+he began in some confusion, he attained a kind of confidence as he went
+on.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor have I breakfasted, either,&rdquo; said she; &ldquo;and I beg, therefore, you
+will join me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Scanlan's face actually glowed with pleasure.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have many things to consult you upon with regard to the estate, and I
+am fully aware that there is nobody more competent to advise me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor more ready and willing, miss,&rdquo; said Maurice, bowing.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm perfectly certain of that, Mr. Scanlan. The confidence my uncle has
+always reposed in you assures me on that head.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was n't I right about the borough, Miss Mary?&rdquo; broke he in. &ldquo;I told you
+how it would be, and that if you did n't make some sort of a compromise
+with the Liberal party&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let me interrupt you, Mr. Scanlan, and once for all assure you that there
+is not one subject of all those which pertain to this county and its
+people which has so little interest for me as the local squabbles of
+party; and I 'm sure no success on either side is worth the broken
+friendships and estranged affections it leaves behind it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A beautiful sentiment, to which I respond with all my heart,&rdquo; rejoined
+Scanlan, with an energy that made her blush deeply.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I only meant to say, sir,&rdquo; added she, hastily, &ldquo;that the borough and its
+politics need never be discussed between us.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so, miss. We'll call on the next case,&rdquo; said Scanlan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My uncle's sudden departure, and a slight indisposition under which I
+have labored for a week or so, have thrown me so far in arrear of all
+knowledge of what has been done here, that I must first of all ask you,
+not how the estate is to be managed in future, but does it any longer
+belong to us?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What, miss?&rdquo; cried Scanlan, in amazement.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean, sir, is it my uncle's determination to lease out everything,&mdash;even
+to the demesne around the Castle; to sell the timber and dispose of the
+royalties? If so, a mere residence here could have no object for <i>me</i>.
+It seems strange, Mr. Scanlan, that I should have to ask such a question.
+I own to you,&mdash;it is not without some sense of humiliation that I do
+so,&mdash;I believed, I fancied I had understood my uncle's intentions.
+Some of them he had even committed to writing, at my request; you shall
+see them yourself. The excitement and confusion of his departure,&mdash;the
+anxieties of leave-taking,&mdash;one thing or another, in short, gave me
+little time to seek his counsel as to many points I wished to know; and,
+in fact, I found myself suddenly alone before I was quite prepared for it,
+and then I fell ill,&mdash;a mere passing attack, but enough to unfit me
+for occupation.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Breakfast is served, miss,&rdquo; said a maid-servant, at this conjuncture,
+opening a door into a small room, where the table was spread.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm quite ready, and so I hope is Mr. Scanlan,&rdquo; said Mary, leading the
+way.
+</p>
+<p>
+No sooner seated at table than she proceeded to do the honors with an ease
+that plainly told that all the subject of her late discourse was to be
+left for the present in abeyance. In fact, the very tone of her voice was
+changed, as she chatted away carelessly about the borough people and their
+doings, what strangers had lately passed through the town, and the
+prospects of the coming season at Kilkieran.
+</p>
+<p>
+No theme could more readily have put Mr. Scanlan at his ease. He felt, or
+fancied he felt, himself at that degree of social elevation above the
+Oughterard people, which enabled him to talk with a species of
+compassionate jocularity of their little dinners and evening parties. He
+criticised toilet and manners and cookery, therefore, with much
+self-complacency,&mdash;far more than had he suspected that Mary Martin's
+amusement was more derived from the pretension of the speaker than the
+matter which he discussed.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's what I think you'll find hardest of all, Miss Martin,&rdquo; said he, at
+the close of a florid description of the borough customs. &ldquo;You can have no
+society here.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet I mean to try,&rdquo; said she, smiling; &ldquo;at least, I have gone so far
+as to ask Mrs. Nelligan to come and dine with me on Monday or Tuesday
+next.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mrs. Nelligan dine at Cro' Martin!&rdquo; exclaimed he.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If she will be good enough to come so far for so little!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She 'd go fifty miles on the same errand; and if I know old Dan himself,
+he 'll be a prouder man that day than when his son gained the gold medal.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I'm sure <i>I</i>, at least, am perfectly requited,&rdquo; said Mary.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;But are you certain, Miss, that such people will suit you?&rdquo; said Scanlan,
+half timidly. &ldquo;They live in a very different style, and have other ways
+than yours. I say nothing against Mrs. Nelligan; indeed, she comes of a
+very respectable family; but sure she hasn't a thought nor an idea in
+common with Miss Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suspect you are wrong there, Mr. Scanlan. My impression is, that Mrs.
+Nelligan and I will find many topics to agree upon, and that we shall
+understand each other perfectly; and if, as you suppose, there may be
+certain things new and strange to me in <i>her</i> modes of thinking, I 'm
+equally sure she 'll have to conquer many prejudices with regard to <i>me</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I'm afraid you'll be disappointed, miss!&rdquo; was the sententious reply of
+Scanlan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then there's our vicar!&rdquo; broke in Mary. &ldquo;Mr. Leslie will, I hope, take
+pity on my solitude.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, I forgot him entirely. I don't think I ever saw him at Cro'
+Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor I, either,&rdquo; said Mary; &ldquo;but he may concede from a sense of kindness
+what he would decline to a mere point of etiquette. In a word, Mr.
+Scanlan,&rdquo; said she, after a pause, &ldquo;all the troubles and misfortunes which
+we have lately gone through&mdash;even to the destitution of the old house
+here&mdash;have in a great measure had their origin in the studious
+ignorance in which we have lived of our neighbors. I don't wish to enter
+upon political topics, but I am sure that had we known the borough people,
+and they us,&mdash;had we been in the habit of mingling and associating
+together, however little,&mdash;had we interchanged the little civilities
+that are the charities of social life,&mdash;we 'd have paused, either of
+us, ere we gave pain to the other; we'd at least have made concessions on
+each side, and so softened down the asperities of party. More than half
+the enmities of the world are mere misconceptions.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That's true!&rdquo; said Scanlan, gravely. But his thoughts had gone on a very
+different errand from the theme in question, and were busily inquiring
+what effect all these changes might have upon his own prospects.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now for a matter of business,&rdquo; said Mary, rising and taking her place
+at another table. &ldquo;I shall want your assistance, Mr. Scanlan. There is a
+small sum settled upon me, but not payable during my uncle's life. I wish
+to raise a certain amount of this, by way of loan,&mdash;say a thousand
+pounds. Will this be easily accomplished?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What's the amount of the settlement, miss?&rdquo; said Scanlan, with more
+eagerness than was quite disinterested.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Five thousand pounds. There is the deed.&rdquo; And she pushed a parchment
+towards him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Scanlan ran his practised eye rapidly over the document, and with the
+quick craft of his calling saw it was all correct. &ldquo;One or even two
+thousand can be had upon this at once, miss. It 's charged upon Kelly's
+farm and the mills&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;All I want to know is, that I can have this sum at my disposal, and very
+soon; at once, indeed.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will next week suit you?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perfectly. And now to another point. These are the few memoranda my uncle
+left with me as to his wishes respecting the management of the estate. You
+will see that, although he desires a considerable diminution of the sum to
+be spent in wages, and a strict economy in all outlay, that he still never
+contemplated throwing the people out of employment. The quarries were to
+be worked as before,&mdash;the planting was to be continued,&mdash;the
+gardens and ornamental grounds, indeed, were to be conducted with less
+expense; but the harbor at Kilkieran and the new school-house at Ternagh
+were to be completed; and if money could be spared for it, he gave me
+leave to build a little hospital at the cross-roads, allowing forty pounds
+additional salary to Dr. Cloves for his attendance. These are the chief
+points; but you shall have the papers to read over at your leisure. We
+talked over many other matters; indeed, we chatted away till long after
+two o'clock the last night he was here, and I thought I understood
+perfectly all he wished. Almost his last words to me at parting were, 'As
+little change as possible, Molly. Let the poor people believe that I am
+still, where my heart is, under the roof of Cro' Martin!'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+The recollection of the moment brought the tears to her eyes, and she
+turned her head away in silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said she, rallying, and speaking with renewed energy, &ldquo;if what
+Henderson says be correct, something later must have been issued than all
+this; some directions which I have never seen,&mdash;not so much as heard
+of. He tells me of works to be stopped, people discharged, schoolhouses
+closed, tenants ejected; in fact, a whole catalogue of such changes as I
+never could have courage to see, much less carry through. I know my dear
+uncle well; he never would have imposed such a task upon me, nor have I
+the resources within me for such an undertaking.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And have you received no letter from Mr. Martin, from Dublin?&rdquo; asked
+Scanlan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;None,&mdash;not a line; a note from my aunt&mdash;indeed, not from my
+aunt, but by her orders, written by Kate Henderson&mdash;has reached me,
+in which, however, there is no allusion to the property or the place.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet her Ladyship said that Mr. Martin would write to you himself, in
+the course of the week, fully and explicitly.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To whom was this said, sir?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To myself, miss; there is the letter.&rdquo; And Scanlan drew from his
+pocket-book a very voluminous epistle, in Kate Henderson's hand. &ldquo;This
+contains the whole of her Ladyship's instructions. How all the works are
+to be stopped,&mdash;roads, woods, and quarries; the townlands of
+Carrigalone and Killybogue to be distrained; Kyle-a-Noe the same. If a
+tenant can be got for the demesne, it is to be let, with the shooting over
+the seven mountains, and the coast-fishing too. There's to be no more
+charges for schools, hospital, or dispensary after next November;
+everything is to be on the new plan, what they call 'Self-supporting.' I
+'d like to know what that means. In fact, miss, by the time one half the
+orders given in that same letter is carried out, there won't be such
+another scene of misery and confusion in all Ireland as the estate of Cro'
+Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And this is sanctioned by my uncle?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose we must conclude it is, for he says nothing to the contrary;
+and Mr. Repton writes me what he calls 'my instructions,' in a way that
+shows his own feeling of indignation about the whole business.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mary was silent; there was not a sentiment which could give pain that had
+not then its place in her heart. Commiseration, deep pity for the sorrows
+she was to witness unavailingly, wounded pride, insulted self-esteem,&mdash;all
+were there! And she turned away to hide the emotions which overcame her.
+For a moment the sense of self had the mastery, and she thought but of how
+she was to endure all this humiliation. &ldquo;Am I,&rdquo; said she to her own heart,&mdash;&ldquo;am
+I to be insulted by the rivalry of Scotch stewards and gardeners, to be
+thrust from my place of power by some low-born creature, not even of the
+soil, but an alien?&mdash;to live here bereft of influence, representing
+nothing save the decay of our fortunes?&rdquo; The torrent of her passion ran
+full and deep, and her bosom heaved in the agony of the moment. And then
+as suddenly came the reaction. &ldquo;How small a share is mine in all this
+suffering, and how miserably selfish are even my sorrows! It is of others
+I should think!&mdash;of those who must leave hearth and home to seek out
+a new resting-place,&mdash;of the poor, who are to be friendless,&mdash;of
+the suffering, to whom no comfort is to come,&mdash;of the old, who are to
+die in distant lands,&mdash;and the young, whose hearts are never to warm
+to the affections of a native country!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+While affecting to arrange the papers in his pocket-book, Scanlan watched
+every passing shade of emotion in her face. Nor was it a study in which he
+was ignorant; the habits of his calling had made him a very subtle
+observer. Many a time had he framed his question to a witness by some
+passing expression of the features. More than once had he penetrated the
+heart through the eye! The elevation of sentiment had given its own
+character to her handsome face; and as she stood proudly erect, with arms
+folded on her breast, there was in her look and attitude all the calm
+dignity of an antique statue.
+</p>
+<p>
+Scanlan interpreted truthfully what passed within her, and rightly judged
+that no small sentiment of condolence or sympathy would be appropriate to
+the occasion. Nor was he altogether unprovided for the emergency. He had
+seen a king's counsel warm up a jury to the boiling-point, and heard him
+pour forth, with all the seeming vehemence of an honest conviction, the
+wildest rhapsodies about desecrated hearths and blackened roof-trees,&mdash;talk
+of the spoiler and the seducer,&mdash;and even shed a tear &ldquo;over the widow
+and the orphan!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What say you to all this, sir?&rdquo; cried she. &ldquo;Have you any counsel to give
+me,&mdash;any advice?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is just what I have not, miss,&rdquo; said he, despondingly; &ldquo;and, indeed,
+it was uppermost in my heart this morning when I was writing my letter.
+What 's all I 'm suffering compared to what Miss Martin must feel?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What letter do you allude to?&rdquo; asked she, suddenly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A letter I wrote to Mr. Repton, miss,&rdquo; said he, with a deep sigh. &ldquo;I told
+him plainly my mind about everything; and I said, 'If it 's for
+exterminating you are,&mdash;if you 're going to turn out families that
+were on the land for centuries, and drive away over the seas, God knows
+where, the poor people that thought the name of Martin a shield against
+all the hardships of life, all I have to say is, you must look elsewhere
+for help, since it is not Maurice Scanlan will aid you.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You said all this, sir?&rdquo; broke she in, eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did, miss. I told him I 'd hold the under-agency till he named some one
+to succeed me; but that I 'd not put my hand to one act or deed to
+distress the tenants. It 's giving up,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;the best part of my means
+of support; it's surrendering what I reckoned on to make me independent.
+But a good conscience is better than money, miss; and if I must seek out a
+new country, I 'll go at least without the weight of a cruel wrong over
+me; and if I see one of our poor Western people beyond seas, I 'll not be
+ashamed to meet him!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, that was noble,&mdash;that was truly noble conduct!&rdquo; cried she,
+grasping his hand in both her own. &ldquo;How I thank you from my very heart for
+this magnanimity!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I ever suspected you 'd have said the half of this, Miss Mary, the
+sacrifice would have been a cheap one, indeed. But, in truth, I never
+meant to tell it. I intended to have kept my own secret; for I knew if any
+one only imagined why it was I threw up the agency, matters would only be
+worse on the estate.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, you are right,&rdquo; said she, thoughtfully. &ldquo;This was most considerate.
+Such a censure would augment every difficulty.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I felt that, miss. What I said to myself was, 'My successor will neither
+know the place nor the people; he 'll be cruel where he ought to have
+mercy, and spare those that he ought to keep to their duty.' It isn't in a
+day nor a week that a man learns the habits of a large tenantry, nor was
+it without labor and pains that I acquired my present influence amongst
+them.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite true,&rdquo; said she; but more as though following out her own
+reflections than hearing his.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They 'll have <i>you</i>, however,&rdquo; said Scanlan,&mdash;&ldquo;you, that are
+better to them than all the agents that ever breathed; and the very sight
+of you riding down amongst them will cheer their hearts in the darkest
+moments of life. I turned back the whole townland of Terry Valley. They
+were packing up to be off to America; but I told them, 'she 's not going,&mdash;she
+'ll stay here, and never desert you.'&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor will <i>you</i> either, sir,&rdquo; cried Mary. &ldquo;You will not desert them,
+nor desert <i>me</i>. Recall your letter!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It's not gone off to the post yet. I was waiting to see you&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Better still. Oh, Mr. Scanlan, bethink you how much yet may be done for
+these poor people, if we will but forget ourselves and what we think we
+owe to self-esteem. If <i>you</i> will have sacrifices to make, believe
+me, <i>I</i> shall not escape them also. It is nobler, too, and finer to
+remain here bereft of influence, stripped of all power, to share their
+sufferings and take part in their afflictions. Neither you nor I shall be
+to them what we have been; but still, let us not abandon them. Tell me
+this,&mdash;say that you will stay to counsel and advise me, to guide me
+where I need guidance, and give me all the benefit of your experience and
+your knowledge. Let it be a compact between us then; neither shall go
+while the other remains!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It was with difficulty Scanlan could restrain his delight at these words.
+How flattering to his present vanity,&mdash;how suggestive were they of
+the future! With all the solemnity of a vow he bound himself to stay; and
+Mary thanked him with the fervor of true gratitude.
+</p>
+<p>
+If there be few emotions so pleasurable as to be the object of
+acknowledged gratitude for real services, it may well be doubted whether
+the consciousness of not having merited this reward does not seriously
+detract from this enjoyment. There are men, however, so constituted that a
+successful scheme&mdash;no matter how unscrupulously achieved&mdash;is
+always a triumph, and who cherish their self-love even in degradation!
+Maurice Scanlan is before our reader, and whether he was one of this
+number it is not for us to say; enough if we record that when he cantered
+homeward on that day he sang many a snatch of a stray ballad, and none of
+them were sad ones.
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029">
+<!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER XXIX. A SUNDAY MORNING AT CRO' MARTIN
+</h2>
+<p>
+Nothing is further from our intention than to enter upon the long-vexed
+question as to the benefits of an Established Church for Ireland. Wiser
+heads than ours have discussed it polemically, politically, socially, and
+arithmetically; and there it is still, left to the judgment of each, as
+his religion, his party, or his prejudices sway him. There is one view of
+the subject, however, which no traveller in the country has ever failed to
+be struck by; which is, that these settlements of Protestantism, dotted
+through the land, are so many types of an advanced civilization,
+suggesting, even to those of a different faith, respect and veneration for
+the decorous observance of this Church, and the calm peace-fulness with
+which they keep the Sabbath.
+</p>
+<p>
+Priests may denounce and politicians declaim, but the Irish peasant,
+nurtured with all the prejudices of race and religion, never throws off
+his veneration for the little flock, who, like a brave garrison in a
+besieged land, hold manfully together round the banner of their Faith! How
+striking is this in remote parts of the country, where the reformed
+religion has made little progress, and its followers are few in number!
+</p>
+<p>
+It was Sunday; the gates of Cro' Martin Park were open to admit all who
+might repair to the church. When the Martins were at home, Lady Dorothea
+used to give to these occasions somewhat of the state of a procession. The
+servants wore their dress liveries; two carriages were in waiting. She
+herself appeared in a toilet that might have graced a court chapel; and a
+formal ceremoniousness of speech and demeanor were ordained as the
+becoming recognition of the holy day. Trained to these observances by many
+a year, Mary could scarcely comprehend the strange sensation she felt as
+she walked along to church, unattended and alone. It was a bright day of
+early summer, with a soft wind stirring the leaves above, and rippling
+pleasantly the waters of the lake. The perfume of the new hay floated
+through the thin air, with the odor of the whitethorn and the
+meadow-sweet; the birds were singing merrily; and through this gay carol
+came the mellow sound of the little bell that summoned to prayer. There
+was a delicious sense of repose in the stillness around, telling how, amid
+the cares and contentions of life, its wealth seekings, and its petty
+schemes there came moments when the better instincts were the victors, and
+men, in all the diversities of their rank and station, could meet together
+to kneel at one altar, and unite in one supplication. As she went, little
+glimpses were caught by her of the distant country beyond the demesne; and
+over all there reigned the same tranquillity; the sound of voices, far
+away, adding to the effect, and making the silence more palpable. &ldquo;How
+peaceful it is,&rdquo; thought she, &ldquo;and how happy it might be! Could we but
+bridle our own passions, restrain our mean jealousies, and curb the evil
+promptings of our own hearts, what blessings might grow up amongst them!
+But for objects not worth the attaining,&mdash;ambitions of no value when
+won,&mdash;and my uncle might still be here, strolling along, perhaps,
+with me at this very moment, and with me drinking in this calm repose and
+soothing quietness.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Before her, at some little distance on the path, went the three daughters
+of the village doctor; and, though well and becomingly attired, there was
+nothing in their appearance to warrant the reproach Lady Dorothea had cast
+upon their style of dress. It was, indeed, scrupulously neat, but simple.
+The eldest was a girl of about sixteen, with all the gravity of manner and
+staid expression that belongs to those who stand in the light of mothers
+to younger sisters. The housekeeper of her father's little home, the
+manager of all within its humble household, his secretary, his companion,
+Ellen Cloves had acquired, while little more than a child, the patient and
+submissive temper that long worldly trial confers. They lived perfectly to
+themselves; between the society of the castle and that of the farmers
+around there was no intermediate territory, and thus they passed their
+lives in a little circle of home duties and affections, which made up all
+their world.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary Martin had often wished it in her power to show them some attentions;
+she was attracted by their gentle faces and their calm and happy demeanor.
+Had her aunt permitted, she would have frequently invited them to the
+castle, lent them books and music, and sought companionship in their
+intercourse. But Lady Dorothea would not have heard of such a project; her
+theory was that familiarity with the peasant was so far safe that his
+station was a safeguard against any undue intimacy; while your half-gentry
+were truly perilous, for if you condescended to civility with them, they
+invariably mistook it for a friendship. Dr. Cloves dined every
+Christmas-day at the great house; but so did Mr. Scanlan and all the other
+heads of departments. It was a very grand and solemn festival, where
+neither host nor guest was happy; each felt that it was but the
+acquaintance of an hour, and that with the moment of leave-taking came
+back all the cold reserve of the day before.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-morning, Miss Cloves; good-day, Jane, and little Bessy,&rdquo; said Mary,
+as she overtook them.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-morning to you, Miss Martin,&rdquo; said Ellen, blushing with surprise at
+seeing her alone and on foot.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I trust the doctor is not ill? I don't see him with you,&rdquo; said Mary,
+anxious to relieve her momentary embarrassment.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Papa has been sent for to Knocktiernan, Miss Martin. They 're afraid that
+a case of cholera has occurred there.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;May God forbid!&rdquo; ejaculated Mary, with deep emotion; &ldquo;we have great
+distress and poverty around us. I hope we may be spared this scourge.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is what papa feared always,&rdquo; rejoined Ellen, gravely; &ldquo;that want and
+destitution would bring on the malady.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you heard who it is is ill?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Simon Hanley, the carpenter, Miss Martin; he worked at the castle once&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes I remember him; he made me my first little garden-rake. Poor
+fellow! And he has a large family. Your father will, I trust, have seen
+him in time. Knocktiernan is but four miles of a good road.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Papa went by the Mills, Miss Martin, for shortness, for he was on foot.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why did he not ride?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He has sold Bluebell,&mdash;the pony, I mean, Miss Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+Mary's face became crimson with a blush that seemed to burn through the
+forehead into her very brain, and she could only mutter,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm sorry I did n't know; my carriage and pony were in the stable. If I
+had but heard of this&mdash;&rdquo; and was silent.
+</p>
+<p>
+They had now reached the entrance to the little churchyard, where the few
+members of the small flock lingered, awaiting the arrival of the
+clergyman. Amidst many a respectful salutation and gaze of affectionate
+interest, Mary walked to the end of the aisle, where, shrouded in heavy
+curtains, soft-cushioned and high-panelled, stood the castle pew.
+</p>
+<p>
+It must be, indeed, hard for the rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
+The very appliances of his piety are the offshoots of his voluptuous
+habits; and that his heart should feel humble, his hassock must be of
+down! It was not often that the words of the pastor were heard within that
+solemn, small enclosure with the same reverent devotion. Mary was now
+alone there; her mind no longer distracted by the petty incidents of their
+coming, her proud station seemed to have vanished, and she felt herself
+but as one of an humble flock, supplicating and in sorrow!
+</p>
+<p>
+Dr. Leslie had heard of the terrible visitation which menaced them, and
+made it the subject of his sermon. The fact of his own great age and fast
+declining strength gave a deeper meaning to all he said, and imparted to
+the faltering words of his benediction the solemnity of a farewell.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are a little fatigued to-day, doctor,&rdquo; said Mary, as he came out of
+church. &ldquo;Will you allow me to offer you my arm?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Willingly, my dear Miss Mary. But this is not our road.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why so?&mdash;this is the path to the vicarage.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;They 've made some change, my dear; they 've altered the approach.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you came round by the avenue,&mdash;a distance of two miles?&rdquo; cried
+she, deep crimson with shame.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And kept you all waiting; but not very long, I trust,&rdquo; said he, smiling
+benevolently. &ldquo;But come, talk to me of yourself, and when I am to come and
+see you.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, my dear Dr. Leslie, you must not think that I&mdash;that my uncle&mdash;&rdquo;
+ She stopped, and he pressed her hand gently, and said,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do not speak of it; do not give importance to things which are trifles,
+if we have but good temper to leave them so. Is to-morrow a free day with
+you; or when shall I hope to find you at leisure?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear doctor, every day will be so in future; all my functions have
+ceased here. I am to be nothing in future.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I had heard something of that, and I said to myself, 'Now will Mary
+Martin display her real character. No longer carried away by the mere
+enthusiasm of her great power and her high station, not exalted to herself
+by the flatteries around her, we shall see whether the sterling qualities
+of her nature will not supply higher and greater resources than all the
+credit at a banker's!' I never undervalued all you did here, Mary Martin;
+I saw your noble purpose, even in failures; but I always felt that to make
+these efforts react favorably on yourself, there should be something of
+sacrifice. To do good was a luxury to you; and it was a luxury very easy
+to purchase. You were rich, you were powerful; none controlled you. Your
+benefits were acknowledged with all the enthusiasm of peasant gratitude.
+Why should you not be beneficent? what other course of conduct could bring
+you one half the pleasure? For the future, it is from another source you
+must dispense wealth; but happily it is one which there is no exhausting,
+for the heart exercised to charity has boundless stores. Let these be your
+riches now. Go amongst the people; learn to know them,&mdash;rather their
+friend than their benefactor,&mdash;and believe me that all the gold you
+have scattered so generously will not have sown such seeds of goodness as
+the meek example of your own noble submission to altered fortune. There,
+my dear,&rdquo; said he, smiling, &ldquo;I 'll say no more, lest you should tell me
+that I have preached half an hour already. And I may come to-morrow, you
+say?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a happiness it will be for me to speak to you!&rdquo; said Mary, ardently.
+&ldquo;There are so many things I want to say,&mdash;so much on which I need
+advice.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm but little practised in the ways of the world,&rdquo; said he, with a
+gentle sigh, &ldquo;but I have ever found great wisdom in an honest purpose; and
+then,&rdquo; added he, more warmly, &ldquo;it is a fine philosophy that secures us
+against humiliation, even in defeat!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+They now walked along for some time without speaking, when a sudden angle
+of the path brought them directly in front of the castle. They both halted
+suddenly, struck, as it were, by the aspect of the spacious and splendid
+structure, all silent and deserted. The doors were closed, the windows
+shuttered,&mdash;not a living creature moved about the precincts,&mdash;and
+the lone flagstaff on the tower unfurled no &ldquo;banner to the breeze.&rdquo; Even
+the trimly kept parterres were beginning to show signs of neglect, and
+tangled flowers fell across the gravel.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a lonely home for <i>her!</i>&rdquo; muttered the old doctor to himself;
+then suddenly exclaimed, &ldquo;Here comes some one in search of you, Miss
+Martin.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+And a servant approached and whispered a few words in her ear.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, immediately,&rdquo; said she, in reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+She entreated the old man to rest himself for a while ere he continued his
+walk homeward; but he declined, and with an affectionate farewell they
+parted,&mdash;he towards the vicarage, and she to re-enter the castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+There is no need to practise mystery with our reader; and he who had just
+arrived, and was eager to see Miss Martin, was only Maurice Scanlan! As
+little use is there also in denying the fact that Mary was much annoyed at
+his inopportune coming. She was in no mood of mind to meet either him or
+such topics as he would certainly discuss.
+</p>
+<p>
+However, she had, so to say, given him a permission to be admitted at all
+times, and there was no help for it!
+</p>
+<p>
+These same people that one &ldquo;must see,&rdquo; are very terrible inflictions
+sometimes. They are ever present at the wrong time and the wrong place.
+They come in moments when their presence is a discord to all our thoughts;
+and what is to the full as bad, they don't know it,&mdash;or they will not
+know it. They have an awful amount of self-esteem, and fancy that they
+never can be but welcome. A type of this class was Maurice Scanlan. Thrust
+forward by the accidents of life into situations for which nothing in his
+own humble beginnings seemed to adapt him, he had, like all the other
+Maurice Scanlans of the world, taken to suppose that he was really a very
+necessary and important ingredient in all affairs. He found, too, that his
+small cunning served to guide him, where really able men's wisdom failed
+them,&mdash;for so it is, people won't take soundings when they think they
+can see the bottom; and, finally, he conceived a very high opinion of his
+faculties, and thought them equal to much higher purposes than they had
+ever been engaged in.
+</p>
+<p>
+Since his last interview with Mary Martin, he had never ceased to
+congratulate himself on the glorious turn of his affairs. Though not
+over-sanguine about others, Maurice was always hopeful of himself. It is
+one of the characteristics of such men, and one of the greatest aids to
+their activity, this ever-present belief in themselves. To secure the good
+opinion he had already excited in his favor was now his great endeavor;
+and nothing could so effectually contribute to this, as to show an ardent
+zeal and devotion to her wishes. He had read somewhere of a certain envoy
+who had accomplished his mission ere it was believed he had set out; and
+he resolved to profit by the example. It was, then, in the full confidence
+of success, that he presented himself on this occasion.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mary received him calmly, almost coldly. His presence was not in harmony
+with any thought that occupied her, and she deemed the task of admitting
+him something like an infliction.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I drove over, Miss Mary,&rdquo; said he, rather disconcerted by her reserve,&mdash;&ldquo;I
+drove over to-day, though I know you don't like business on a Sunday, just
+to say that I had completed that little matter you spoke of,&mdash;the
+money affair. I did n't sleep on it, but went to work at once; and though
+the papers won't be ready for some days, the cash is ready for you
+whenever you like to draw it.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have been very kind and very prompt, sir,&rdquo; said she, thankfully, but
+with a languor that showed she was not thinking of the subject.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He said five per cent,&rdquo; continued Scanlan, &ldquo;and I made no objection; for,
+to tell you the truth, I expected he'd have asked us six,&mdash;he's
+generally a hard hand to deal with.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+It was evident that he hoped her curiosity might have inquired the name of
+him thus alluded to; but she never did so, but heard the fact with a calm
+indifference.
+</p>
+<p>
+Scanlan was uneasy; his heaviest artillery had opened no breach. What
+should be his next manouvre?
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;The money-market is tight just now,&rdquo; said he, speaking only to gain time
+for further observation; &ldquo;and there's worse times even before us.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+If Mary heard, she did not notice this gloomy speculation.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'm sure it will be no easy job to get the last November rent paid up.
+It was a bad crop; and now there 's sickness coming amongst them,&rdquo; said
+he, half as though to himself. &ldquo;You'll have to excuse me to-day, Mr.
+Scanlan,&rdquo; said she, at last. &ldquo;I find I can think of nothing; I am in one
+of my idle moods.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure, why not, Miss Mary?&rdquo; said he, evidently piqued at the
+ill-success of all his zeal. &ldquo;It was <i>I</i> made a mistake. I fancied,
+somehow, you were anxious about this little matter; but another day will
+do as well,&mdash;whenever it's your own convenience.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are always considerate, always good-natured, Mr. Scanlan,&rdquo; said she,
+with a vagueness that showed she was scarcely conscious of what she
+uttered.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;If <i>you</i> think so, Miss Mary, I 'm well repaid,&rdquo; said he, with a
+dash of gallantry in the tone; &ldquo;nor is it by a trifle like this I'd like
+to show my&mdash;my&mdash;my&mdash;devotion.&rdquo; And the last word came out
+with an effort that made his face crimson.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; muttered she, not hearing one word of his speech.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So that I'll come over to-morrow, Miss Mary,&rdquo; broke he in.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well, to-morrow!&rdquo; replied she, as still musing she turned to the
+window, no more thinking of the luckless attorney than if he had been
+miles away; and when at length she did look round, he was gone! It was
+some minutes ere Mary could perfectly reconcile herself to the fact that
+he had been there at all; but as to how and when and why he took his
+leave, were mysteries of which she could make nothing. And yet Mr. Scanlan
+had gone through a very ceremonious farewell. He had bowed, and sidled,
+and simpered, and smirked, and sighed; had thrown himself into attitudes
+pictorially devoted and despairing, looked unutterable things in various
+styles, and finally made an exit, covered with as much shame and
+discomfiture as so confident a spirit could well experience, muttering, as
+he paced the corridor, certain prospective reprisals for this haughty
+indifference, when a certain time should arrive, and a certain fair lady&mdash;But
+we have no right to push his speculations further than he himself indulged
+them; and on the present occasion Maurice was less sanguine than his wont.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I fed the mare, sir,&rdquo; said Barnes, as he held the stirrup for Scanlan to
+mount.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And gave her water, too,&rdquo; said the attorney, doggedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Devil a drop, then,&rdquo; resumed the other. &ldquo;I just sprinkled the oats, no
+more; that's Miss Mary's orders always.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;She understands a stable well,&rdquo; said Scanlan, half questioning.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Does n't she?&rdquo; said the other, with a sententious smack of the lip. &ldquo;To
+bit a horse or to back him, to tache him his paces and cure him of bad
+tricks, to train him for harness, double and single, to show him the way
+over a wall or a wide ditch, to make him rise light and come down easy,
+she has n't a match on this island; and as for training,&rdquo; added he, with
+fresh breath, &ldquo;did you see Sir Lucius?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Scanlan, with awakened interest.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait till I bring him out, then. I'll show you a picture!&rdquo; And Barnes
+disappeared into the stable. In five minutes after, he returned, leading a
+dark brown horse, who, even shrouded in all the covering of hood and
+body-clothes, displayed in his long step and lounging gait the attributes
+of a racer.
+</p>
+<p>
+In a few minutes Barnes had unbuckled strap and surcingle, and sweeping
+back the blankets dexterously over the croup, so as not to ruffle a hair
+of the glossy coat, exhibited an animal of surpassing symmetry, in all the
+pride of high condition.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;There's a beast,&rdquo; said he, proudly, &ldquo;without speck or spot, brand or
+blemish about him! You 're a good judge of a horse, Mr. Scanlan; and tell
+me when did you see his equal?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He's a nice horse!&rdquo; said Scanlan, slowly, giving to each word a slow and
+solemn significance; then, casting a keen glance all around and over him,
+added, &ldquo;There 's a splint on the off leg!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;So there is, the least taste in life,&rdquo; said Barnes, passing his hand
+lightly over it; &ldquo;and was there ever a horse&mdash;worth the name of a
+horse&mdash;that hadn't a splint? Sure, they 're foaled with them! I
+wanted Miss Mary to let me take that off with an ointment I have, but she
+would n't. 'It's not in the way of the tendon,' says she. 'It will never
+spoil his action, and we 'll not blemish him with a mark.' Them's her very
+words.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;He's a nice horse,&rdquo; said Scanlan, once more, as if the very parsimony of
+the praise was the highest testimony of the utterer; &ldquo;and in rare
+condition, too,&rdquo; added he.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the very highest,&rdquo; said Barnes. &ldquo;He was as sure of that cup as I am
+that my name 's Tim.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What cup?&rdquo; asked Scanlan.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Kiltimmon,&mdash;the June race; he's entered and all; and now he's to be
+sold,&mdash;them 's the orders I got yesterday; he's to be auctioned at
+Dycer's on Saturday for whatever he'll bring!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now, what do you expect for him, Barnes?&rdquo; said Maurice,
+confidentially.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sorrow one o' me knows. He might go for fifty,&mdash;he might go for two
+hundred and fifty! and cheap he'd be of it. He has racing speed over a
+flat course, and steeplechase action for his fences. With eleven stone on
+his back&mdash;one that can ride, I mean, of course&mdash;he 'd challenge
+all Ireland.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+<a name="linkimage-0014" id="linkimage-0014">
+<!-- IMG --></a>
+</p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+<img src="images/418.jpg" width="100%" alt="418 " />
+</div>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would n't mind making a bid for him myself,&rdquo; said Scanlan, hesitating
+between his jockeyism and the far deeper game which he was playing.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do then, sir, and don't draw him for the race, for he 'll win it as sure
+as I 'm here. 'T is Jemmy was to ride him; and Miss Mary would n't object
+to give you the boy, jacket and all, her own colors,&mdash;blue, with
+white sleeves.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think so, Barnes? Do you think she'd let me run him in the Martin
+colors?&rdquo; cried Scanlan, to whom the project now had suddenly assumed a
+most fascinating aspect.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;What would you give for him?&rdquo; asked Barnes, in a business-like voice.
+</p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;A hundred,&mdash;a hundred and fifty,&mdash;two hundred, if I was sure of
+what you say.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Leave it to me, sir,&mdash;leave it all to <i>me</i>,&rdquo; said Barnes, with
+the gravity of a diplomatist who understood his mission. &ldquo;Where can I see
+you to-morrow?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;I 'll be here about ten o'clock!&rdquo;
+ </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;That will do,&mdash;enough said!&rdquo; And Barnes, replacing the horse-sheet,
+slowly re-entered the stable; while Scanlan, putting spurs to his nag,
+dashed hurriedly away, his thoughts outstripping in their speed the pace
+he went, and traversing space with a rapidity that neither &ldquo;blood&rdquo; nor
+training ever vied with.
+</p>
+<h4>
+END OF VOL. I.
+</h4>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of
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+</pre>
+</body>
+</html>