The Macdermots of Ballycloran

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Trollope Anthony. The Macdermots of Ballycloran

CHAPTER I. BALLYCLORAN HOUSE AS FIRST SEEN BY THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER II. THE MACDERMOT FAMILY

CHAPTER III. THE TENANTRY OF BALLYCLORAN

CHAPTER IV. MYLES USSHER

CHAPTER V. FATHER JOHN

CHAPTER VI. THE BROTHER AND SISTER

CHAPTER VII. THE PRIEST'S DINNER PARTY

CHAPTER VIII. MISS MACDERMOT AT HOME

CHAPTER IX. MOHILL

CHAPTER X. MR. KEEGAN

CHAPTER XI. PAT BRADY

CHAPTER XII. THE WEDDING

CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WEDDING PARTY WAS CONCLUDED

CHAPTER XIV. DENIS M'GOVERY'S TIDINGS

CHAPTER XV. THE M'KEONS

CHAPTER XVI. PROMOTION

CHAPTER XVII. SPORT IN THE WEST

CHAPTER XVIII. HOW PAT BRADY AND JOE REYNOLDS WERE ELOQUENT IN VAIN

CHAPTER XIX. THE RACES

CHAPTER XX. HOW CAPTAIN USSHER SUCCEEDED

CHAPTER XXI. THE CORONER'S INQUEST

CHAPTER XXII. THE ESCAPE

CHAPTER XXIII. AUGHACASHEL

CHAPTER XXIV. THE SECOND ESCAPE

CHAPTER XXV. RETROSPECTIVE

CHAPTER XXVI. THE DUEL

CHAPTER XXVII. FEEMY RETURNS TO BALLYCLORAN

CHAPTER XXVIII. ASSIZES AT CARRICK-ON-SHANNON

CHAPTER XXIX. THADY'S TRIAL IS COMMENCED

CHAPTER XXX. THE PRISONER'S DEFENCE

CHAPTER XXXI. THE LAST WITNESS

CHAPTER XXXII. THE VERDICT

CHAPTER XXXIII. THE END

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McC – 's story runs thus. About sixty years ago, a something Macdermot, true Milesian, pious Catholic, and descendant of king somebody, died somewhere, having managed to keep a comfortable little portion of his ancestors' royalties to console him for the loss of their sceptre. He having two sons, and disdaining to make anything but estated gentlemen of them, made over in some fictitious manner (for in those righteous days a Roman Catholic could make no legal will) to his eldest, the estate on which he lived, and to the youngest, that of Ballycloran – about six hundred as bad acres as a gentleman might wish to call his own. But Thaddeus, otherwise Thady Macdermot, being an estated gentleman, must have a gentleman's residence on his estate, and the house of Ballycloran was accordingly built. Had Thady Macdermot had ready money, it might have been well built; but though an estated gentleman, he had none. He had debts even when his father died; and though he planned, ordered, and agreed for a house, such as he thought the descendant of a Connaught Prince might inhabit without disgrace, it was ill built, half finished, and paid for by long bills. This, however, is so customary in poor Ireland that it but little harassed Thady. He had a fine, showy house, with stables, &c., gardens, an avenue, and a walk round his demesne; and his neighbours had no more. It was little he cared for comfort, but he would not be the first of the Macdermots that would not be respectable. When his house was finished, Thady went into County Galway, and got himself a wife with two thousand pounds fortune, for which he had to go to law with his brother-in-law. The lawsuit, the continual necessity of renewing the bills with which the builder in Carrick on Shannon every quarter attacked him, the fruitless endeavour to make his tenants pay thirty shillings an acre for half-reclaimed bog, and a somewhat strongly developed aptitude for potheen, sent poor Thady to another world rather prematurely, and his son and heir, Lawrence, came to the throne at the tender age of twelve. The Galway brother-in-law compromised the lawsuit; the builder took a mortgage on the property from the boy's guardian; the mother gave new leases to the tenants; Larry went to school at Longford; and Mrs. Mac kept up the glory of Ballycloran.

At the age of twenty, Lawrence, or Larry, married a Milesian damsel, portionless, but of true descent. The builder from Carrick had made overtures about a daughter he had at home, and offered poor Larry his own house, as her fortune. But the blood of the Macdermots could not mix with the lime and water that flowed in a builder's veins; he therefore made an enemy where he most wanted a friend, and brought his wife home to live with his mother. In order that we may quickly rid ourselves of encumbrances, it may be as well to say that during the next twenty-five years his mother and wife died; he had christened his only son Thaddeus, after his grandfather, and his only daughter had been christened Euphemia, after her grandmother. He had never got over that deadly builder, with his horrid percentage coming out of the precarious rents; twice, indeed, had writs been out against him for his arrears, and once he had received notice from Mr. Hyacinth Keegan, the oily attorney of Carrick, that Mr. Flannelly meant to foreclose. Rents were greatly in arrear, his credit was very bad among the dealers in Mohill, with Carrick he had no other dealings than those to which necessity compelled him with Mr. Flannelly the builder, and Larry Macdermot was anything but an easy man.

.....

"No; for not being a calf, Denis."

"Well then, yer honer, I'll jist go and spake to Father Cullen. Though he is not so good-humoured like, – at least, he don't be always laughing at a boy."

.....