"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 a.s.sociated 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 Cha.s.se," 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 b.u.t.ton-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. G.o.dfrey was a cautious, quiet, careful chap that looked after his pocket-money, and never got into sc.r.a.pes; 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 G.o.dfrey 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 G.o.dfrey 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 pa.s.sing along the shingly sh.o.r.e 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 cla.s.s of topics engrossing his thoughts, he had never even pa.s.singly 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 cla.s.s, 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 pa.s.s. 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 pa.s.sions.

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 pa.s.sed 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 Ca.s.sidy, mother. I think she left yesterday morning."

"No, indeed, my dear. Somebody very different from Miss Ca.s.sidy; 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.