Читать книгу The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II) - Lever Charles James - Страница 3

I am about to speak of Ireland as it was some four-and-twenty years ago, and feel as if I were referring to a long-past period of history, such have been the changes, political and social, effected in that interval! Tempting, as in some respects might be an investigation into the causes of these great changes, and even speculation as to how they might have been modified and whither they tend, I prefer rather to let the reader form his own unaided judgment on such matters, and will therefore, without more of preface, proceed to my story.

If the traveller leaves the old town of Oughterard, and proceeds westward, he enters a wild and dreary region, with few traces of cultivation, and with scarcely an inhabitant. Bare, bleak mountains, fissured by many a torrent, bound plains of stony surface, – here and there the miserable hut of some “cottier,” with its poor effort at tillage, in the shape of some roods of wet potato land, or the sorry picture of a stunted oat crop, green even in the late autumn. Gradually, however, the scene becomes less dreary. Little patches of grass land come into view, generally skirting some small lake; and here are to be met with droves of those wild Connemara ponies for which the district is so celebrated; a stunted hardy race, with all the endurance and courage that beseem a mountain origin. Further on, the grateful sight of young timber meets the eye, and large enclosures of larch and spruce fir are seen on every favorable spot of ground. And at length, on winding round the base of a steep mountain, the deep woods of a rich demesne appear, and soon afterwards a handsome entrance-gate of massive stone, with armorial bearings above it, announces the approach to Cro’ Martin Castle, the ancient seat of the Martins.

An avenue of several miles in length, winding through scenery of the most varied character, at one time traversing rich lawns of waving meadow, at another tracking its course along some rocky glen, or skirting the bank of a clear and rapid river, at length arrives at the castle. With few pretensions to architectural correctness, Cro’ Martin was, indeed, an imposing structure. Originally the stronghold of some bold Borderer, it had been added to by successive proprietors, till at last it had assumed the proportions of a vast and spacious edifice, different eras contributing the different styles of building, and presenting in the mass traces of every architecture, from the stern old watch-tower of the fourteenth century to the commodious dwelling-house of our own.

If correct taste might take exception to many of the external details of this building, the arrangements within doors, where all that elegance and comfort could combine were to be found, might safely challenge criticism. Costly furniture abounded, not for show in state apartments, shrouded in canvas, or screened from sunlight, but for daily use in rooms that showed continual habitation.

Some of the apartments displayed massive specimens of that richly carved old oak furniture for which the châteaux of the Low Countries were famed; others abounded with inlaid consoles and costly tables of “marqueterie,” and others again exhibited that chaste white and gold which characterized the splendid era of the Regency in France. Great jars of Sèvres, those splendid mockeries of high art, stood in the windows, whose curtains were of the heaviest brocade. Carpets of soft Persian wool covered the floors, and rich tapestries were thrown over sofas and chairs with a careless grace, the very triumph of picturesque effect.

In the scrupulous neatness of all these arrangements, in the orderly air, the demure and respectful bearing of the servants as they showed the castle to strangers, one might read the traces of a strict and rigid discipline, – features, it must be owned, that seemed little in accordance with the wild region that stretched on every side. The spotless windows of plate-glass, the polished floor that mirrored every chair that stood on it, the massive, and well-fitting doors, the richly gilded dogs that shone within the marble hearth, had little brotherhood with the dreary dwellings of the cottiers beyond the walls of the park; and certainly even Irish misery never was more conspicuous than in that lonely region.

It was early on a calm morning of the late autumn that the silent courtyard of the castle resounded with the sharp quick tramp of a horse, suddenly followed by a loud shrill whistle, as a young girl, mounted upon a small but highly bred horse, galloped up to one of the back entrances. Let us employ the few seconds in which she thus awaited, to introduce her to the reader. Somewhat above the middle size, and with a figure admirably proportioned, her face seemed to blend the joyous character of happy girlhood with a temperament of resolute action. The large and liquid hazel eyes, with their long dark fringes, were almost at variance with the expression of the mouth, which, though finely and beautifully fashioned, conveyed the working of a spirit that usually followed its own dictates, and as rarely brooked much interference.

Shaded by a broad-leaved black hat, and with a braid of her dark auburn hair accidentally fallen on her shoulder, Mary Martin sat patting the head of the wire-haired greyhound who had reared himself to her side, – a study for Landseer himself. Scarcely above a minute had elapsed, when several servants were seen running towards her, whose hurried air betrayed that they had only just risen from bed.

“You’re all very late to-day,” cried the young lady. “You should have been in the stables an hour ago. Where ‘s Brand?”

“He ‘s gone into the fair, miss, with a lot of hoggets,” said a little old fellow with a rabbit-skin cap, and a most unmistakable groom formation about the knees and ankles.

“Look to the mare, Barny,” said she, jumping off; “and remind me, if I forget it, to fine you all, for not having fed and watered before six o’clock. Yes, I ‘ll do it; I said so once before, and you ‘ll see I ‘ll keep my word. Is it because my uncle goes a few weeks to the seaside, that you are to neglect your duty? Hackett, I shall want to see the colts presently; go round to the straw-yard and wait till I come; and, Graft, let us have a look at the garden, for my aunt is quite provoked at the flowers you have been sending her lately.”

All this was said rapidly, and in a tone that evidently was not meant to admit of reply; and the gardener led the way, key in hand, very much with the air of a felon going to conviction. He was a Northern Irishman, however, and possessed the Scotch-like habits of prudent reserve that never wasted a word in a bad cause. And thus he suffered himself to be soundly rated upon various short-comings in his department, – celery that wanted landing; asparagus grown to the consistence of a walking-cane; branches of fruit-trees breaking under their weight of produce; and even weed-grown walks, – all were there, and upon all was he arraigned.

“The old story, of course, Graft,” said she, slapping her foot impatiently with her riding-whip, – “you have too few people in the garden; but my remedy will be to lessen their number. Now mark me. My uncle is coming home on Wednesday next, – just so – a full month earlier than you expected, – and if the garden be not in perfect order, – if I find one of these things I have complained of to-day – ”

“But, my leddy, this is the season when, what wi’ sellin’ the fruit, and what wi’ the new shoots – ”

“I ‘ll have it done, that ‘s all, Mr. Graft; and you ‘ll have one man less to do it with. I ‘ll go over the hothouse after breakfast,” said she, smiling to herself at the satisfaction with which he evidently heard this short reprieve. Nor was he himself more anxious to escape censure than was she to throw off the ungracious office of inflicting it.

“And now for old Catty Broon, and a good breakfast to put me in better temper,” said she to herself, as she entered the castle and wended her way to the housekeeper’s room.

“May I never; but I thought it was a dream when I heard your voice outside,” said old Catty, as she welcomed her young mistress with heartfelt delight; “but when I saw them runnin’ here and runnin’ there, I said, sure enough, she’s come in earnest.”

“Quite true, Catty,” said Mary, laughing. “I surprised the garrison, and found them, I must say, in most sorry discipline; but never mind, they ‘ll have everything to rights by Wednesday, when we are all coming back again.”

“Was the bathing any use to my Lady, miss?” asked Catty, but in a tone that combined a kind of half drollery with earnest.

“She’s better and worse, Catty; better in health, and scarcely as good-humored; but, there ‘s a good old soul, let me have breakfast, for I have a great deal to do before I ride back.”

“But sure you are not goin’ to ride back to Kilkieran to-day?”

“That am I, Catty, and up to Kyle’s Wood and the new plantations before I go. Why, it’s only fifteen miles, old lady!”

“Faix, you ‘re your father’s daughter all over,” said Catty, with a look first at her, and then at a water-colored sketch which occupied a place over the chimney, and represented a fair-haired, handsome boy of about ten years of age.

“Was that ever like papa?” asked the girl.

“‘Tis his born image, it is,” said Catty; and her eyes swam with tears as she turned away.

“Well, to my thinking he is far better-looking in that picture!” said Mary, pointing with her whip to a colored drawing of a showily dressed dragoon officer, reining in his charger, and seeming to eye with considerable disdain the open mouth of a cannon in front of him.

“Ah, then, the other was more himself!” sighed Catty; “and more nat’ral too, with the long hair on his neck and that roguish laugh in his eye.”

“And neither are very like that!” said Mary, pointing to a third portrait, which represented a swarthy horseman with a wide sombrero and a jacket all braided and buttoned in Mexican fashion, a rifle at his back, and a long lance in his hand, with the heavy coil of a lasso at his saddle-peak.

“Arrah, that ain’t a bit like him,” said the old woman, querulously, “for all that he said that it was.”

Mary arose at the words, and perused aloud some lines which were written at the foot of the picture, and which many and many a time before she had conned over and repeated. They ran thus: “Aye, Catty, though you won’t believe it, that rough-looking old rider, all bearded and sunburned, is your own wild Barry of former days; and for all that the world has done, wonderfully little altered in the core, though the crust is not very like that cherry-cheeked boy that used to, and mayhap still may, hang over your fireplace. – Guastalla, May, 1808.”

“And has he not written since that?” sighed the girl, over whom the dark shadow of orphanhood passed as she spoke.

“Twice only: the first of the two spoke of his coming home again; but somehow he seemed to be put off it, and the next letter was all about you, as if he did n’t mean to come back! My Lady and Master Barry never was fond of each other,” muttered the old woman, after a pause, and as though giving an explanation to some problem that she was working within her own head.

“But my uncle loved him,” broke in Mary.

“And why wouldn’t he? War n’t they twins? There was only a few minutes between them, – long enough to make one a rich man, and leave the other only his own wits and the wide world for a fortune! Ayeh, ayeh!” grumbled out the old crone, “if they were both born poor, they ‘d be livin’ together like brothers now, under the one roof, – happy and comfortable; and you and your cousin, Master Dick, would be playfellows and companions, instead of his being away in Ingia, or America, or wherever it is!”

The young girl leaned her head on her hand, and appeared to have fallen into a deep train of thought; for she never noticed old Catty’s remarks, nor, indeed, seemed conscious of her presence for some time. “Catty,” said she, at length, and in a voice of unusually calm earnestness, “never talk to me of these things; they only fret me; they set me a thinking of Heaven knows what longings, – for a home that should be more like a real home than this, though God knows my uncle is all that I could wish in kindness and affection; but – but – ”

She stopped, and her lip quivered, and her eyes grew heavy-looking; and then, with a kind of struggle against her emotions, she added gayly, “Come and show me the dairy, Catty. I want to see all those fine things in Wedgewood-ware that you got while we were away, and then we ‘ll have a peep at the calves, and by that time it will be the hour for my levee.”

“Faix, miss,” said the old woman, “they ‘re all here already. The news soon spread that you came over this morning, and you ‘ll have a great assembly.”

“I’ll not keep them waiting, then,” said Mary; and, so saying, she left the room, and proceeding by many passages and corridors, at length reached a remote part of the building which once had formed part of the ancient edifice. A suite of low-ceiled rooms here opened upon a small grassy enclosure, all of which had been appropriated by Mary to her own use. One was a little library or study, neatly but very modestly furnished; adjoining it was her office, where she transacted all business matters; and beyond that again was a large chamber, whose sole furniture consisted in a row of deal presses against the walls, and a long table or counter which occupied the middle of the room. Two large windows opening to the floor lighted the apartment; and no sooner had Mary thrown these wide, than a burst of salutations and greetings arose from a dense and motley crowd assembled on the grass outside, and who stood, sat, or lay in every possible attitude and grouping, their faces all turned towards the window where she was standing.

With true native volubility they poured out not only their welcomings, but a number of interjectional flatteries, supposed not to be audible by her on whom they commented; and thus her hair, her eyes, her teeth, her complexion, even her foot, were praised with an enthusiasm of admiration that might have shamed more polished worshippers.

These muttered eulogies continued as the young girl was occupied unlocking drawers and presses, and placing upon the table several books and papers, as well as a small scale and weights, – preparations all equally the source of fruitful observation.

The company was entirely of the softer sex, – an epithet not perhaps in the strictest accordance with an array of faces that really might have shamed witchcraft. Bronzed, blear-eyed, and weather-beaten, seamed with age and scarred with sickness, shrewd-looking, suspicious, and crafty in every lineament, there was yet one characteristic predominant over all, – an intense and abject submission, an almost slavish deference to every observation addressed to them. Their dress bespoke the very greatest poverty; not only were they clothed in rags of every hue and shape, but all were barefooted, and some of the very oldest wore no other covering to their heads than their own blanched and grizzled locks.

Nor would a follower of Lavater have argued too favorably of the prosperity of Irish regeneration, in beholding that array of faces, – low-browed, treacherous-looking, and almost savagely cruel, as many of them were in expression. There was not, indeed, as often is to be remarked amongst the peasant class of many countries, a look of stupid, stolid indifference; on the contrary, their faces were intensely, powerfully significant, and there was stamped upon them that strange mixture of malignant drollery and sycophancy that no amount of either good or adverse fortune ever entirely subdues in their complex natures.

The expediency of misery had begotten the expediency of morals, and in all the turnings and windings of their shifty natures you could see the suggestions of that abject destitution which had eaten into their very hearts. It would have puzzled a moralist to analyze these “gnarled natures,” wherein some of the best and some of the worst features of humanity warred and struggled together. Who could dare to call them kind-hearted or malevolent, grateful or ungrateful, free-giving or covetous, faithful or capricious, as a people? Why, they were all these, and fifty other things just as opposite besides, every twenty-four hours of their lives! Their moods of mind ranged from one extreme to the other; nothing had any permanency amongst them but their wretchedness. Of all their qualities, however, that which most obstructed their improvement, ate deepest into their natures, and suggested the worst fears for the future, was suspicion. They trusted nothing, – none, – so that every benefit bestowed on them came alloyed with its own share of doubt; and all the ingenuity of their crafty minds found congenial occupation in ascribing this or that motive to every attempt to better their condition.

Mary Martin knew them – understood them – as well as most people; few, indeed, out of their own actual station of life had seen so much of their domesticity. From her very childhood she had been conversant with their habits and their ways. She had seen them patient under the most trying afflictions, manfully braving every ill of life, and submitting with a noble self-devotion to inevitable calamity; and she had also beheld them, with ignorant impatience, resenting the slightest interference when they deemed it uncalled for, and rejecting kindness when it came coupled with the suggestion of a duty.

By considerable skill, and no little patience, she had insinuated a certain small amount of discipline into this disorderly mass. She could not succeed in persuading them to approach her one by one, or wait with any semblance of order while she was yet occupied; but she enforced conformity with at least one rule, which was, that none should speak save in answer to some question put by herself. This may seem a very small matter, and yet to any one who knows the Irish peasant it will appear little short of miraculous. The passion for discursiveness, the tendency to make an effective theme of their misery, whatever particular shape it may assume, is essentially national; and to curb this vent to native eloquence was to oppose at once the strongest impulse of their natures.

Nothing short of actual, tangible benefits could compensate them for what they scrupled not to think was downright cruelty; nor was it till after months of steady perseverance on her part that her system could be said to have attained any success. Many of the most wretched declined to seek relief on the conditions thus imposed. Some went as actual rebels, to show their friends and neighbors how they would resist such intolerance; others, again, professed that they only went out of curiosity. Strange and incomprehensible people, who can brave every ill of poverty, endure famine and fever and want, and yet will not bow the head to a mere matter of form, nor subject themselves to the very least restriction when a passion or a caprice stands opposed to it! After about eighteen months of hard persistence the system began at length to work; the refractory spirits had either refrained from coming or had abandoned the opposition; and now a semblance of order pervaded the motley assemblage. Whenever the slightest deviation from the ritual occurred, a smart tap of a small ivory ruler on the table imposed silence; and they who disregarded the warning were ordered to move by, unattended to. Had a stranger been permitted, therefore, to take a peep at these proceedings, he would have been astonished at the rapidity with which complaints were heard, and wants redressed; for, with an instinct thoroughly native, Mary Martin appreciated the cases which came before her, and rarely or never confounded the appeal of real suffering with the demands of fictitious sorrow. Most of those who came were desirous of tickets for Dispensary aid; for sickness has its permanent home in the Irish cabin, and fever lurks amidst the damp straw and the smoky atmosphere of the poor peasant’s home. Some, however, came for articles of clothing, or for aid to make and repair them; others for some little assistance in diet, barley for a sick man’s drink, a lemon or an orange to moisten the parched lips of fever; others, again, wanted leave to send a grandchild or a niece to the school; and, lastly, a few privileged individuals appeared to claim their weekly rations of snuff or tobacco, – little luxuries accorded to old age, – comforts that solaced many a dreary hour of a joyless existence. Amongst all the crowded mass there was not one whom Mary had not known and visited in their humble homes. Thoroughly conversant with their condition and their necessities, she knew well their real wants; and if one less hopeful than herself might have despaired to render any actual relief to such widespread misery, she was sanguine enough to be encouraged by the results before her, small and few as they were, to think that possibly the good time was yet to come when such efforts would be unneeded, and when Ireland’s industry, employed and rewarded, would more than suffice for all the requirements of her humble poor.

“Jane Maloney,” said Mary, placing a small packet on the table, “give this to Sally Kieran as you pass her door; and here ‘s the order for your own cloak.”

“May the heavens be your bed. May the holy – ”

“Catty Honan,” cried Mary, with a gesture to enforce silence. “Catty, your granddaughter never comes to the school now that she has got leave. What’s the reason of that?”

“Faix, your reverance, miss, ‘tis ashamed she is by ray-son of her clothes. She says Luke Cassidy’s daughters have check aprons.”

“No more of this, Catty. Tell Eliza to come on Monday, and if I ‘m satisfied with her she shall have one too.”

“Two ounces of tea for the Widow Jones.”

“Ayeh,” muttered an old hag. “But it’s weak it makes it without a little green in it!”

“How are the pains, Sarah?” asked Mary, turning to a very feeble-looking old creature with crutches.

“Worse and worse, my Lady. With every change of the weather they come on afresh.”

“The doctor will attend you, Sally, and if he thinks wine good for you, you shall have it.”

“‘T is that same would be the savin’ of me, Miss Mary,” said a cunning-eyed little woman, with a tattered straw bonnet on her head, and a ragged shawl over her.

“I don’t think so, Nancy. Come up to the house on Monday morning and help Mrs. Taafe with the bleaching.”

“So this is the duplicate, Polly?” said she, taking a scrap of paper from an old woman whose countenance indicated a blending of dissipation with actual want.

“One-and-fourpence was all I got on it, and trouble enough it gave me.” These words she uttered with a heavy sigh, and in a tone at once resentful and complaining.

“Were my uncle to know that you had pawned your cloak, Polly, he ‘d never permit you to cross his threshold.”

“Ayeh, it’s a great sin, to be sure,” whined out the hag, half insolently.

“A great shame and a great disgrace it certainly is; and I shall stop all relief to you till the money be paid back.”

“And why not!” “To be sure!” “Miss Mary is right!” “What else could she do?” broke in full twenty sycophant voices, who hoped to prefer their own claims by the cheap expedient of condemning another.

“The Widow Hannigan.”

“Here, miss,” simpered out a smiling little old creature, with a courtesy, as she held up a scroll of paper in her hand.

“What ‘s this, Widow Hannigan?”

“‘T is a picture Mickey made of you, miss, when you was out riding that day with the hounds; he saw you jumping a stone wall.”

Mary smiled at the performance, which certainly did not promise future excellence, and went on, —

“Tell Mickey to mend his writing; his was the worst copy in the class; and here’s a card for your daughter’s admission into the Infirmary. By the way, widow, which of the boys was it I saw dragging the river on Wednesday?”

“Faix, miss, I don’t know. Sure it was none of ours would dare to – ”

“Yes, they would, any one of them; but I ‘ll not permit it; and what’s more, widow, if it occur again, I ‘ll withdraw the leave I gave to fish with a rod.

“Teresa Johnson, your niece is a very good child, and promises to be very handy with her needle. Let her hem these handkerchiefs, and there’s a frock for herself. My uncle says Tom shall have half his wages paid him till he’s able to come to work again.”

But why attempt to follow out what would be but the long, unending catalogue of native misery, – that dreary series of wants and privations to which extreme destitution subjects a long-neglected and helpless people? There was nothing from the cradle to the coffin, from the first wailing wants of infancy to the last requirement of doting old age, that they did not stand in need of.

A melancholy spectacle, indeed, was it to behold an entire population so steeped in misery, so utterly inured to wretchedness, that they felt no shame at its exposure, but rather a sort of self-exultation at any opportunity of displaying a more than ordinary amount of human suffering and sorrow; – to hear them how they caressed their afflictions, how they seemed to fondle their misfortunes, vying with each other in calamity, and bidding higher and higher for a little human sympathy.

Mary Martin set herself stoutly to combat this practice, including, as it does, one of the most hopeless features of the national character. To inculcate habits of self-reliance she was often driven, in violation of her own feelings, to favor those who least needed assistance, but whose efforts to improve their condition might serve as an example. With a people who are such consummate actors she was driven into simulation herself, and paraded sentiments of displeasure and condemnation when her very heart was bursting with pity and compassion. No wonder was it, then, that she rejoiced when this painful task was completed, and she found herself in the more congenial duty of looking over the “young stock,” and listening to old Barny’s predictions about yearlings and two-year-olds.

This young girl, taught to read by a lady’s maid, and to sew by a housekeeper, possessed scarcely any of the resources so usual to those in her own condition, and was of sheer necessity thrown upon herself for occupation and employment. Her intense sympathy with the people, her fondness for them even in their prejudices, had suggested the whole story of her life. Her uncle took little or no interest in the details of his property. The indolence in which he first indulged from liking, became at last a part of his very nature, and he was only too well pleased to see the duty undertaken by another which had no attraction for himself.

“Miss Mary will look to it” – “Tell my niece of it” – “Miss Martin will give her orders,” were the invariable replies by which he escaped all trouble, and suffered the whole weight of labor and responsibility to devolve upon a young girl scarcely out of her teens, until gradually, from the casual care of a flower-garden, or a childish pleasure in giving directions, she had succeeded to the almost unlimited rule of her uncle’s house and his great estate.

Mr. Martin was often alarmed at some of his niece’s measures of reform. The large sums drawn out of bank, the great expenses incurred in weekly wages, the vast plans of building, draining, road-making, and even bridging, terrified him; while the steward, Mr. Henderson, slyly insinuated, that though Miss Mary was a wonderful manager, and the “best head he ever knew, except my Lady’s,” she was dreadfully imposed on by the people – but, to be sure, “how could a young lady be up to them?” But she was up to them, aye, and more still, she was up to Mr. Henderson himself, notwithstanding his mild, douce manner, his cautious reserve, and his unbroken self-possession.

It is very far from my intention to say that Mary Martin was not over and over again the dupe of some artifice or other of the crafty and subtle natures that surrounded her. Mock misery, mock industry, mock enlightenment, mock conviction, even mock submission and resignation, had all their partial successes; and she was entrapped by many a pretence that would have had no chance of imposing on Mr. Henderson. Still there was a credit side to this account, wherein his name would not have figured. There were traits of the people, which he neither could have understood or valued. There were instincts – hard struggling efforts, fighting their way through all the adverse circumstances of their poverty – that he never could have estimated, much less could he have speculated on the future to which they might one day attain.

If Mary was heart and soul devoted to her object, – if she thought of nothing else, – if all her dreams by night and all her daily efforts were in the cause, she was by no means insensible to the flattery which constantly beset her. She accepted it readily and freely, laughing at what she persuaded herself to believe was the mere exuberance of that national taste for praise. Like most warm and impulsive natures, she was greedy of approbation; even failure itself was consoled by a word of encomium on the effort. She liked to be thought active, clever, and energetic. She loved to hear the muttered voices which at any moment of difficulty said, “Faix, Miss Mary will find the way to it;” or, “Sure it won’t baffle her, anyhow.” This confidence in her powers stimulated and encouraged her, often engendering the very resources it imputed.

She might have made many a mistake in the characters of those for whom she was interested, – conceived many a false hope, – nurtured many a delusive expectation; but in the scheme of life she had planned out for herself, the exalting sense of a duty more than recompensed her for every failure: and if any existence could be called happy, it was hers, – the glorious excitement of an open-air life, with all its movements and animation. There was that amount of adventure and enterprise which gave a character of romantic interest to her undertakings, and thus elevated her to a degree of heroism to herself, and then, knowing no fatigue, she was again in the saddle, and, straight as the crow flies, over the county to Kyle’s Wood.

A solitary cabin or two stood in the midst of the wild, bleak plain, and by these she paused for a few minutes. The watchful eyes that followed her as she went, and the muttered blessings that were wafted after her, proclaimed what her mission had been, and showed how she had for a brief space thrown a gleam of sunshine over the darksome gloom of some sad existence.

“God bless her! she’s always cheerful and light-hearted,” said the poor peasant, as he leaned on his spade to look after her; “and one feels better the whole day after the sight of her!”