"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 cla.s.s; 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 dest.i.tution 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 a.s.sistance, 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 compa.s.sion. 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 circ.u.mstances 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 s.p.a.ce thrown a gleam of sunshine over the darksome gloom of some sad existence.

"G.o.d 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 ma.s.sive 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 s.p.a.cious bay-windows, which opened in French fashion, were of plate-gla.s.s; 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 circ.u.mstance; 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 cl.u.s.tering 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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 ent.i.tled 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 pa.s.sed twenty-two, looked several years older; the serious, thoughtful expression of his face giving the semblance of age. His head was large and ma.s.sively 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 impa.s.sive-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 a.s.sertion that he dissented from, was he heard to burst forth into a rapid flow of words, uttered as though under the impulse of pa.s.sion, 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 cla.s.s-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 cla.s.sics 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 amus.e.m.e.nts 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 compet.i.tor 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 a.s.suredly 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 a.s.sumption 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sembled, and were gracefully dispersed through the small rooms which formed her apartment. Play of various kinds formed the chief amus.e.m.e.nt 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 pa.s.sed 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 amus.e.m.e.nts, 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."