"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 a.s.sure 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 gla.s.s.

"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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 gra.s.s-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 s.h.a.ggy 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 gla.s.sy 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 la.s.situde 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 p.r.o.nouncing 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, pa.s.sed 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."