The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. II (of II)

“I have only just remembered that I have a long way to walk, and it is already growing late.”

“Ay, and ye ‘re impatient to be back again, at home, beside your own fire, with your own people. But she has no home, and her own has deserted her!”

“Mine has not many charms for me!” muttered Kate to herself.

“It’s happy for you that has father and mother,” went on the old woman. “Them ‘s the only ones, after all! – the only ones that never loves the less, the less we desarve it! I don’t wonder ye came back again!” And in a sort of envious bitterness Catty wished her a good-night.

If the distance she had to walk was not shortened by the tenor of her thoughts, as little did she feel impatient to press onward. Dreary and sad enough were her reveries. Of the wild visionary ambitions which once had stirred her heart, there remained nothing but disappointments. She had but passed the threshold of life to find all dreary and desolate; but perhaps the most painful feeling of the moment was the fact that now pressed conviction on her, and told that in the humble career of such a one as Mary Martin there lay a nobler heroism and a higher devotion than in the most soaring path of political ambition, and that all the theorizing as to popular rights made but a sorry figure beside the actual benefits conferred by one true-hearted lover of her kind. “She is right, and I am wrong!” muttered she to herself. “In declining to entertain questions of statecraft she showed herself above, and not beneath, the proud position she had taken. The very lowliness of this task is its glory. Oh, if I could but win her confidence and be associated in such a labor! and yet my very birth denies me the prestige that hers confers.” And then she thought of home, and all the coldness of that cheerless greeting smote upon her heart.

The moon was up ere Kate arrived at her father’s door. She tapped at it gently, almost timidly. Her stepmother, as if expecting her, came quickly, and in a low, cautious whisper told her that she would find her supper ready in her bedroom.

“To-morrow, perhaps, he may be in better humor or better spirits. Good-night.” And so Kate silently stole along to her room, her proud heart swelling painfully, and her tearless eye burning with all the heat of a burning brain.

CHAPTER XXX. “A TEA-PARTY” AT MRS. CRONAN’S

Once more, but for the last time, we are at Kilkieran. To a dreary day of incessant rain succeeded an evening still drearier. Wild gusts swept along the little shore, and shook the frail windows and ill-fitting doors of the cottages, while foam and sea-drift were wafted over the roofs, settling like snow-flakes on the tall cliffs above them. And yet it was midsummer! By the almanac the time was vouched to be the opening of the season; a fact amply corroborated by the fashionable assemblage then enjoying the hospitalities of Mrs. Cronan’s tea-table. There they were, with a single exception, the same goodly company already presented to the reader in an early chapter of our story. We have already mentioned the great changes which time had worked in the appearance of the little watering-place. The fostering care of proprietorship withdrawn, the ornamental villa of the Martins converted into a miserable village inn, the works of the pier and harbor suspended, and presenting in their unfinished aspect the dreary semblance of ruin and decay, – all conspired with the falling fortunes of the people to make the scene a sad one. Little evidence of this decline, however, could be traced in the aspect of that pleasant gathering, animated with all its ancient taste for whist, scandal, and shrimps; their appetite for such luxuries seeming rather to have increased than diminished by years. Not that we presume to say they could claim any immunity against the irrevocable decrees of age. Unhappily, the confession may be deemed not exactly in accordance with gallantry; but it is strictly true, time had no more forgotten the living than the inanimate accessories of the picture. Miss Busk, of the Emporium, had grown more sour and more stately. The vinegar of her temperament was verging upon verjuice, and the ill opinion of mankind experience enforced had written itself very legibly on her features. The world had not improved upon her by acquaintance. Not so Captain Bodkin; fatter and more wheezy than ever, he seemed to relish life rather more than when younger. He had given up, too, that long struggle with himself about bathing, and making up his mind to suffer no “sea-change;” he was, therefore, more cheerful than before.

As for Mrs. Cronan, “the little comforts she was used to” had sorely diminished by the pressure of the times, and, in consequence, she drew unlimited drafts upon the past to fill up the deficiencies of the present. Strange enough is it, that the faults and follies of society are just as adhesive ingredients as its higher qualities! These people had grown so used to each other in all their eccentric ways and oddities, that they had become fond of them; like a pilot long accustomed to rocks and sandbanks, they could only steer their course where there was something to avoid!

The remainder of the goodly company had grown stouter or thinner, jollier or more peevish, as temperament inclined; for it is with human nature as with wine: if the liquor does not get racier with years, it degenerates sadly.

The first act of the whist and backgammon playing was over, and the party now sat, stood, crouched, lounged, or lay, as chance and the state of the furniture permitted, at supper. At the grand table, of course, were the higher dignitaries, such as Father Maher, the Captain, Miss Busk, and Mrs. Clinch; but cockles were eaten, and punch discussed in various very odd quarters; bursts of joyous laughter, too, came from dark pantries, and sounds of merriment mingled with the jangling crash of kitchen utensils. Reputations were roasted and pancakes fried, characters and chickens alike mangled, and all the hubbub of a festival prevailed in a scene where the efforts of the fair hostess were directed to produce an air of unblemished elegance and gentility.

Poor Clinch, the revenue officer, who invariably eat what he called “his bit” in some obscure quarter, alone and companionless, was twice “had up” before the authorities for the row and uproar that prevailed, and underwent a severe cross-examination, “as to where he was when Miss Cullenane was making the salad,” and, indeed, cut a very sorry figure at the conclusion of the inquiry. All the gayeties and gravities of the scene, however, gradually toned down as the serious debate of the evening came on; which was no other than the lamentable condition of the prospects of Kilkieran, and the unanimous opinion of the ruinous consequences that must ensue from the absence of the proprietor.

“We ‘ve little chance of getting up the news-room now,” said the Captain. “The Martins won’t give a sixpence for anything.”

“It is something to give trade an impulse we want, sir,” broke in Miss Busk, – “balls and assemblies; evening reunions of the élite of society, where the elegance of the toilet should rival the distingué air of the company.”

“That’s word for word out of the ‘Intelligence,’” cried the Captain. “It’s unparliamentary to quote the newspapers.”

“I detest the newspapers,” broke in Miss Busk, angrily; “after advertising the Emporium for two seasons in the ‘Galway Celt,’ they gave me a leading article beginning, ‘As the hot weather is now commencing, and the season for fashion approaches, we cannot better serve the interests of our readers than by directing attention to the elegant “Symposium!”’ ‘Symposium!’ – I give you my word of honor that’s what they put it.”

“On my conscience! it might have been worse,” chuckled out the Captain.

“It was young Nelligan explained to me what it was,” resumed Miss Busk; “and Scanlan said, ‘I’d have an action against them for damages.’”

“Keep out of law, my dear! – keep out of law!” sighed Mrs. Cronan. “See to what it has reduced me! I, that used to go out in my own coach, with two men in green and gold; that had my house in town, and my house in the country; that had gems and ornaments such as a queen might wear! And there’s all that’s left me now!” And she pointed to a brooch about the size of a cheese-plate, where a melancholy gentleman in uniform was represented, with a border of mock pearls around him. “The last pledge of affection!” sobbed she.

“Of course you wouldn’t pledge it, my dear,” muttered the deaf old Mrs. Few; “and they’d give you next to nothing on it, besides.”

“We ‘ll have law enough here soon, it seems,” said Mrs. Cronan, angrily; for the laugh this blunder excited was by no means flattering and pleasant. “There ‘s Magennis’s action first for trial at the Assizes.”

“That will be worth hearing,” said Mrs. Clinch. “They ‘ll have the first lawyers from Dublin on each side.”

“Did you hear the trick they played off on Joe Nelligan about it?” asked the Captain. “It was cleverly done. Magennis found out, some way or other, that Joe wanted to be engaged against him; and so what does he do but gets a servant dressed up in the Martin livery, and sends him to Joe’s house on the box of a coach, inside of which was a gentleman that begged a word with the Counsellor. ‘You ‘re not engaged, I hope, Counsellor Nelligan,’ says he, ‘in Magennis against Martin?’ ‘No,’ says Joe, for he caught a glimpse of the livery. ‘You’re quite free?’ says the other. ‘Quite free,’ says he. ‘That’s all I want, then,’ says he; ‘here’s your brief, and here’s your retainer;’ and he put both down on the table, and when Joe looked down he saw he was booked for Magennis. You may imagine how he felt; but he never uttered a word, for there was no help for it.”

“And do you mean to tell me,” cried Mrs. Clinch, “that the lawyers can’t help themselves, but must just talk and rant and swear for any one that asks them first?”

“It’s exactly what I mean, ma’am,” responded the Captain. “They ‘ve no more choice in the matter than the hangman has as to who be ‘ll hang.”

“Then I’d as soon be a gauger!” exclaimed the lady, with a contemptuous glance at poor Clinch, who winced under the observation.

“But I don’t see what they wanted young Nelligan for,” said Miss Busk; “what experience or knowledge has he?”

“He’s just the first man of the day,” said Bodkin. “They tell me that whether it be to crook out a flaw in the enemy’s case, to pick a hole in a statement, to crush a witness, or cajole the jury, old Repton himself is n’t his equal.”

“I suppose, from the airs he gives himself, he must be something wonderful,” said Mrs. Cronan.

“Well, now, I differ from you there, ma’am,” replied Bodkin. “I think Joe is just what he always was. He was cold, silent, and distant as a boy, and he ‘s the same as a man. Look at him when he comes down here at the Assizes, down to the town where his father is selling glue and hides and tenpenny-nails, and he ‘s just as easy and unconstrained as if the old man was Lord of Cro’ Martin Castle.”

“That’s the height of impertinence,” broke in Miss Busk; “it’s only real blood has any right to rise above the depreciating accidents of condition. I know it by myself.”

“Well, I wonder what he ‘ll make of this case, anyhow,” said feodkin, to escape a controversy he had no fancy for. “They tell me that no action can lie on it. It’s not abduction – ”

“For shame, Captain; you forget there are ladies here,” said Mrs. Clinch.

“Indeed I don’t,” sighed he, with a half-comic melancholy in his look.

“I’ll tell you how they do it, sir,” chimed in Father Maher. “Whenever there ‘s anything in law that never was foreseen or provided for, against which there is neither act nor statute, they ‘ve one grand and unfailing resource, – they charge it as a conspiracy. I ‘ve a brother an attorney, and he tells me that there is n’t a man, woman, or child in the kingdom but could be indicted for doing something by a conspiracy.”

“It’s a great comfort to know that,” said Bodkin, gravely.

“And what can they do to her if she’s found guilty?” asked Mrs. Cronan.

“Make her smart for the damages, ma’am; leave her something less to expend on perversion and interference with the people,” said the priest. “The parish isn’t the same since she began visiting this one and reading to that. Instead of respect and confidence in their spiritual guides, the people are running after a young girl with a head full of wild schemes and contrivances. We all know by this time how these things end, and the best receipt to make a Protestant begins, ‘First starve your Papist.’”

“I rise to order,” called out Bodkin. “We agreed we’d have no polemics nor party discussions.”

“Why am I appealed to, then, for explanations that involve them?” cried the priest, angrily. “I’m supported, too, in my observations by a witness none will dispute, – that Scotchman, Henderson – ”

“By the way, isn’t his daughter come home to him?” asked Bodkin, eager for a diversion.

“Indeed she is, sir; and a pretty story there is about it, too. Miss Busk knows it all,” said Mrs. Cronan.

“I have it in confidence, ma’am, from Jemima Davis, – Lady Dorothea’s second maid; but I don’t think it a fit subject for public conversation.”

“And ain’t we in committee here?” chimed in Bodkin; “have we any secrets from each other?” The racy laugh of the old fellow, as he threw a knowing glance around the table, rather disconcerted the company. “Let’s hear about Henderson’s daughter.”

“The story is soon told, sir. Lady Dorothea detected her endeavoring to draw young Martin into a private marriage. The artful creature, by some means or other, had obtained such an insight into the young man’s difficulties that she actually terrorized over his weak mind. She discovered, too, it is suspected, something rather more than indiscretions on his part.”

A long low whistle from the priest seemed to impart a kind of gratified surprise at this announcement.

“He had got into a habit of signing his name, they say; and whether he signed it to something he had no right to, or signed another name by mistake – ”

“Oh, for shame,” broke in Bodkin; “that wouldn’t be one bit like a Martin.”

“Perhaps you are acquainted with all the circumstances better than myself, sir?” said Miss Busk, bristling up with anger. “Maybe you ‘ve heard how the Henderson girl was turned away out of the French duke’s family, – how she was found in correspondence with the leaders of the mob in Paris? Maybe, sir, you are aware that she has some mysterious hold over her father, and he dares not gainsay one word she says?”

“I don’t know one word of it; and if it wasn’t thought rude, I’d say I don’t believe it, either,” said Bodkin, stoutly.

“I believe the worst that could be said of her,” said Mrs. Clinch.

“Well, well, make her as bad as you like; but how does that prove anything against young Martin? and if you can find nothing heavier to say of him than that he wanted to marry a very handsome girl – ”

“A low creature!” broke in Miss Busk.

“The lowest of the low!” chimed in Mrs. Cronan.

“An impudent, upsetting minx!” added Mrs. Clinch. “Nothing would serve her but a post-chaise the morning she arrived by the mail for Dublin; and, signs on it, when she got home she had n’t money to pay for it.”

“It was n’t that she left her place empty-handed, then,” said Miss Busk. “Jemima tells me that she managed the whole house, – paid for everything; and we all know what comes of that.”

Miss Busk, in delivering this sentiment, was seated with her back to the door, towards which suddenly every eye was now turned in mingled astonishment and confusion; she moved round to see the cause, and there beheld the very object of her commentary standing close behind her chair. Closely wrapped in a large cloak, the hood of which she wore over her head, her tall figure looked taller and more imposing in its motionless attitude.

“I have to ask pardon for this intrusion, ladies,” said she, calmly; “but you will forgive me when I tell the reason of it. I have just received very sad tidings, which ought to be conveyed to Miss Martin; she is at the islands, and I have no means of following her, unless Mr. Clinch will kindly lend me the revenue boat – ”

“And accompany you, I hope,” broke in Mrs. Clinch, with a sneer.

Kate did not notice the taunting remark, but went on, “You will be grieved to hear that Mr. Martin is no more.”

“Martin dead!” muttered the Captain.

“Dead! When did he die?” “Where did it happen?” “How?” “Of what malady?” “Are his remains coming home?” were asked in quick succession by several voices.

“This letter will tell you all that I know myself,” said she, laying it on the table. “May I venture to hope Mr. Clinch will so far oblige me? The fishermen say the sea is too rough for their craft.”

“It’s not exactly on the King’s service, I opine, ma’am,” broke in Mrs. Clinch; “but of course he is too gallant to oppose your wishes.”

“Faith! if you wanted any one with you, and would accept of myself,” broke in Bodkin, “I’m ready this minute; not that exactly salt water is my element.”

“The young lady is accustomed to travel alone, or she is much belied,” said Miss Busk, with a sneer.

“I suppose you’d better let her have the boat, Clinch,” said his wife, in a whisper. “There’s no knowing what might come of it if you refused.”

“I ‘ll go down and muster the crew for you, Miss Henderson,” said Clinch, not sorry to escape, although the exchange was from a warm cabin to the beating rain without.

“Poor Martin!” sighed Bodkin; “he was the first of the family for many a long year that did n’t breathe his last under his own roof. I ‘m sure it weighed heavily on him.”

“I trust his son will follow his example, nevertheless,” said the priest. “I don’t want to see one of the name amongst us.”

“You might have worse, Father Maher,” said Bodkin, angrily.

And now a lively discussion ensued as to the merits of him they had lost, for the most part with more of charity than many of their dissertations; from this they branched off into speculations about the future. Would the “present man” reside at home? would her Ladyship come back? what would be Mary’s position? how would Scanlan fare? what of Henderson, too? In fact, casualties of every kind were debated, and difficulties started, that they might be as readily reconciled. Meanwhile Kate was hastening down to the shore, followed, rather than escorted, by little Clinch, who even in the darkness felt that the conjugal eye was upon him.

CHAPTER XXXI. THE BRANNOCK ISLANDS

A little to the northwest of the island of Innishmore are scattered a number of small islets, some scarcely more than barren rocks, called the Brannocks. One of these alone was inhabited, and that by a single family. No isolation could be more complete than that of these poor people, who thus dwelt amid the wide waste of waters, never seeing the face of a stranger, and only at long intervals visiting the mainland. Indeed the only intercourse they could be said to maintain with their fellow-men was when by chance they fell in with some homeward-bound ship at sea, and sold the little produce of their nets; for they lived by fishing, and had no other subsistence.

The largest of these islands was called “Brannock-buoy,” or the Yellow Brannock, from the flower of a kind of crocus which grew profusely over it. It was a wild, desolate spot, scarcely rising above the waves around it, save in one quarter, where a massive column of rock rose to the height of several hundred feet, and formed the only shelter against the swooping wind, which came without break or hindrance from the far-away shores of Labrador. At the foot of this strong barrier – so small and insignificant as to escape notice from the sea – stood the little cabin of Owen Joyce. Built in a circular form, the chimney in the middle, the rude structure resembled some wigwam of the prairies rather than the home of civilized beings.

Certain low partitions within subdivided the space into different chambers, making the centre the common apartment of the family, where they cooked and ate and chatted; for, with all their poverty and privation, theirs was a life not devoid of its own happiness, nor did they believe that their lot was one to repine at.

Seasons of unprofitable labor, years of more or less pressure, they had indeed experienced, but actual want had never visited them; sickness, too, was almost as rare. Owen Joyce was, at the time we speak of, upwards of eighty; and although his hair was white as snow, his cheek was ruddy, his white teeth were perfect, and his eye – like that of Moses – “was not dim.” Surrounded by his children and grandchildren, the old man lived happy and contented, his daily teaching being to impress upon them the blessings they derived from a life so sheltered from all the accidents of fortune; to have, as he called the island, “the little craft all their own.”

The traits of race and family, the limited range of their intercourse with the world, served to make them all wonderfully alike, not only in feature but expression; so that even the youngest child had something of the calm, steadfast look which characterized the old man. The jet-black hair and eyes and the swarthy skin seemed to indicate a Spanish origin, and gave them a type perfectly distinctive and peculiar.

In the midst of them moved one who, though dressed in the light-blue woollen kirtle, the favorite costume of the islands, bore in her fresh bright features the traces of a different blood; her deep blue eye, soft and almost sleepy, her full, well-curved lips, were strong contrasts to the traits around her. The most passing glance would have detected that she was not “one of them,” nor had she been long an inmate of this dwelling.

It chanced that some short time before, one of Joyce’s sons, in boarding an outward-bound American ship, had heard of a young countrywoman who, having taken her passage for New York, no sooner found herself at sea – parted, as she deemed it, forever from home and country – than she gave way to the most violent grief; so poignant, indeed, was her sorrow that the captain compassionately offered to relinquish her passage-money if Joyce would take charge of her, and re-land her on the shores of Ireland. The offer was accepted, and the same evening saw her safely deposited on the rocky island of Brannock. Partly in gratitude to her deliverer, partly in the indulgence of a secret wish, she asked leave to remain with them and be their servant; the compact was agreed to, and thus was she there.

Theirs was not a life to engender the suspicions and distrusts which are current in the busier walks of men. None asked her a reason for her self-banishment, none inquired whether the cause of her exile was crime or misfortune. They had grown to feel attachment to her for the qualities of her gentle, quiet nature, a mild submissive temper, and a disposition to oblige, that forgot nothing save herself. Her habits had taught her resources and ways which their isolated existence had denied them, and she made herself useful by various arts, which, simple as they were, seemed marvellous to the apprehension of her hosts; and thus, day by day, gaining on their love and esteem, they came at length to regard her with an affection mingled with a sort of homage.

Poor Joan Landy – for we have not to explain that it was she – was happy, – happier than ever she had been before. The one great sorrow of her life was, it is true, treasured in her heart; her lost home, her blighted hope, her severed affection – for she actually loved Magennis – were griefs over which she wept many an hour in secret; but there was a sense of duty, a conscious feeling of rectitude, that supported her in her sacrifice, and as she thought of her old grandfather’s death-bed, she could say to her heart, “I have been true to my word with him.”

The unbroken quiet, the unchanging character of the life she led, – its very duties following a routine that nothing ever disturbed, – gave her ample time for thought; and thought, though tinged with melancholy, has its own store of consolation; and if poor Joan sorrowed, she sorrowed like one who rather deplored the past than desired to re-live it! As time wore on, a dreamy indistinctness seemed to spread itself over the memory of her former life: it appeared little other than a mind-drawn picture. Nothing actual or tangible remained to convince her of its reality. It was only at rare intervals, and in the very clearest weather, the outline of the mountains of the mainland could be seen; and when she did behold them, they brought only some vague recollection to her; and so, too, the memories of her once home came through the haze of distance, dim and indistinct.