"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 a.s.sure 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 cla.s.s. 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 gra.s.s 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-a.s.sumed 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 a.s.ses 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 n.o.ble 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 a.s.sist dest.i.tution, 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 a.s.sumed 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 cla.s.s 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 ma.s.sive 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 ingrat.i.tude! 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!"