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

CHAPTER III. AN AUTUMN MORNING IN THE WEST

The Osprey’s Nest was, I have said, like a direct challenge hurled at the face of western gales and Atlantic storms. With what success, its aspect of dilapidation and decay but too plainly betrayed. The tangled seaweed that hung in dripping festoons over the porch, the sea-shells that rattled against the window-panes, seemed like an angry denunciation of the attempt to brave the elements by the mere appliances of ease and luxury.

It was better, however, in the inside, where, in a roomy apartment, most comfortably furnished, a lady and gentleman sat at breakfast. The table stood in a little projection of the room, admitting of a wide sea-view over the bay and the distant islands of Lettermullen, but as carefully excluded all prospect of the port, – a locality which held no high place in the esteem of the lady of the house, and which, by ignoring, she half fancied she had annihilated. Wild promontories of rocks, jutting out here and there, broke the coast line, and marked the shore with a foaming stream of white water, as the ever-restless sea dashed over them. The long booming swell of the great ocean bounded into many a rocky cavern, with a loud report like thunder, and issued forth again with a whole cataract of falling stones, that rattled like the crash of small-arms. It was unceasing, deafening clamor in the midst of death-like desolation.

Let me, however, turn once more to the scene within, and present the living elements to my reader. They were both past the prime of life. The lady might still be called handsome; her features were perfectly regular, and finely cut, bearing the impress of a proud and haughty spirit that never quailed beneath the conflict of a long life, and even yet showed a firm front to fortune. Her hair was white as snow; and as she wore it drawn back, after the fashion of a bygone time, it gave her the air of a fine lady of the old French Court, in all the pomp of powder and pomatum. Nor did her dress correct the impression, since the deep falls of lace that covered her hands, the lengthy stomacher, and trailing folds of her heavy brocade gown, all showed a lurking fondness for the distinctive toilette of that era. Lady Dorothea Martin had been a beauty and an earl’s daughter; two facts that not even the seclusion of the wild west could erase from her memory.

Mr. Martin himself was no unworthy “pendant” to this portrait. He was tall and stately, with a lofty forehead, and temples finely and well fashioned; while full, deep-set blue eyes of the very sternest determination, and a mouth, every line of which betrayed firmness, gave the character to a face that also could expand into the most genial good-fellowship, and become at times the symbol of a pleasant and convivial Irish gentleman. In his youth he had been a beau of the Court of Versailles. Scandal had even coupled his name with that of Marie Antoinette; and more truthful narratives connected him with some of the most extravagant adventures of that profligate and brilliant period. After a career of the wildest dissipation and excess, he had married, late in life, the daughter of the Earl of Exmere, one of the proudest and poorest names in the British Peerage. Two or three attempts to shine in the world of London, – not as successful as they were expected to have proved, – an effort at ascendancy in Irish political life, also a failure, coupled with disappointment on the score of an only brother, who had married beneath him, and was reputed to have “lost himself,” seemed to have disgusted Godfrey Martin with the world, and he had retired to his lonely mansion in the west, which now for eighteen years he had scarcely quitted for a single day.

His only son had joined a cavalry regiment in India a few years before the period our story opens, and which, I may now state, dates for about four or five and twenty years back; but his family included a niece, the only child of his brother, and whose mother had died in giving her birth.

Between Mr. Martin and Lady Dorothea, as they sat at breakfast, little conversation passed. He occupied himself with the newly arrived newspapers, and she perused a mass of letters which had just come by that morning’s post; certain scraps of the intelligence gleaned from either of these sources forming the only subjects of conversation between them.

“So they have resolved to have a new Parliament. I knew it would come to that; I always said so; and, as usual, the dissolution finds us unprepared.”

“Plantagenet’s regiment is ordered to Currachee, wherever that may be,” said Lady Dorothea, languidly.

“Call him Harry, and we shall save ourselves some trouble in discussing him,” replied he, pettishly. “At all events, he cannot possibly be here in time for the contest; and we must, I suppose, give our support to Kilmorris again.”

“Do you mean, after his conduct about the harbor, and the shameful way he sneaked out of the Port Martin project?”

“Find anything better, madam; there is the difficulty. Kilmorris is a gentleman, and no Radical; and, as times go, these are rather rare qualities.”

“Lady Sarah Upton’s match is off,” said Lady Dorothea, reading from a note beside her. “Sir Joseph insisted upon the uncontrolled possession of all her Staffordshire property.”

“And perfectly right.”

“Perfectly wrong to give it to him.”

“A fool if he married without it.”

“A mean creature she, to accept him on such terms.”

“The woman is eight-and-thirty, – if not more. I remember her at Tunbridge. Let me see, what year was it?”

“I detest dates, and abhor chronologies. Reach me the marmalade,” said Lady Dorothea, superciliously.

“What’s this balderdash here from the ‘Galway Indicator’? ‘The haughty and insolent, aye, and ignorant aristocracy will have to swallow a bitter draught erelong; and such petty despots as Martin of Cro’ Martin will learn that the day is gone by for their ascendancy in this county.’

“They tell me we have a law of libel in the land; and yet see how this scoundrel can dare to drag me by name before the world; and I ‘ll wager a thousand pounds I ‘d fail to get a verdict against him if I prosecuted him to-morrow,” said Martin, as he dashed the newspaper to the ground, and stamped his foot upon it. “We are constantly reading diatribes about absentee landlords, and the evils of neglected property; but I ask, what inducements are there held out to any gentleman to reside on his estate, if every petty scribbler of the press can thus attack and assail him with impunity?”

“Is that Mary I see yonder?” asked Lady Dorothea, languidly, as she lifted her double eye-glass, and then suffered it to fall from her fingers.

“So it is, by Jove!” cried Martin, springing up, and approaching the window. “I wish she ‘d not venture out in that small boat in this treacherous season. What a swell there is, too! The wind is from the sea.”

“She’s coming in, I fancy,” drawled out Lady Dorothea.

“How is she to do it, though?” exclaimed he, hurriedly; “the sea is breaking clear over the piers of the harbor. I can only see one man in the boat. What rashness! what folly! There, look, they’re standing out to sea again!” And now, throwing open the window, Martin stepped out on the rocks, over which the white foam flashed by like snow. “What are they at, Peter? What are they trying to do?” cried he to an old fisherman, who, with the coil of a net he was just mending on his arm, had now come down to the shore to watch the boat.

“They ‘re doing right, your honor,” said he, touching his cap respectfully. “‘Tis Loony my Lady has in the boat, and there’s no better man in trouble! He’s just going to beat out a bit, and then he ‘ll run in under the shelter of the blue rocks. Faix, she ‘s a fine boat, then, for her size, – look at her now!”

But Martin had covered his eyes with his hand, while his lips murmured and moved rapidly.

“May I never, but they ‘re letting out the reef!” screamed the old man in terror.

“More sail, and in such a sea!” cried Martin, in a voice of horror.

“Aye, and right, too,” said the fisherman, after a pause; “she ‘s rising lighter over the sea, and steers better, besides. It’s Miss Mary has the tiller,” added the old fellow, with a smile. “I ‘ll lay a shilling she ‘s singing this minute.”

“You think so,” said Martin, glad to catch at this gleam of confidence.

“I know it well, your honor. I remember one day, off Lettermullen, it was worse than this. Hurrah!” screamed he out suddenly; “she took in a great sea that time!”

“Get out a boat, Peter, at once; what are we standing here for?” cried Martin, angrily. “Man a boat this instant.”

“Sure no boat could get out to sea with this wind, sir,” remonstrated the old man, mildly; “she’d never leave the surf if she had forty men at her!”

“Then what’s to be done?”

“Just let them alone; themselves two know as well what to do as any pair in Ireland, and are as cool besides. There, now, she ‘s putting her about, as I said, and she ‘ll run for the creek.” The frail boat, a mere speck upon the dark green ocean, seemed now to fly, as with a slackened sheet she darted over the water. Her course was bent for a little cove concealed from view by a rugged promontory of rock, up which the old fisherman now clambered with the alacrity of a younger man. Martin tried to follow; but overcome by emotion, he was unable, and sat down upon a ledge of rock, burying his face within his hands.

By this time the whole fishing population of the little village had gathered on the beach around the cove, to watch the boat as she came in; numbers had gone out to meet her, and stood up to their waists in the white and boiling surf, ready to seize upon the skiff and run her high and dry upon the sand. Even they were obliged to be lashed together by a rope, lest the receding waves should carry them out to sea, or the “under tow” suck them beneath the surface. As the boat came within speaking distance, a wild shout arose from the shore to “down sail” and suffer her to come in on her way alone; but with all the canvas spread, they came flying along, scarce seeming more than to tip the waves as they skipped over them, while a shower of spray appeared to cover them as the sea broke upon the stern. Instead of rendering aid, the utmost the fishermen could do was to clear a path amongst them for the skiff to pass, as with lightning speed she flitted by and drove her bow high up on the hard beach.

A wild, glad cheer of joy and welcome burst from the hearty fishermen as they crowded about the young girl, who stepped out of the boat with a heavy bundle in her arms. Her hair hung in great masses over her neck and shoulders, her cheeks were flushed, and her dark eyes gleamed with all the excitement of peril and triumph.

“Here, Margaret,” said she to a young woman, who, pale with terror and with face streaming in tears, rushed towards her, – “here ‘s your little fellow, all safe and sound; I ‘d not have put back but for his sake.” And with this she placed in his mother’s arms a little boy of about three years of age, sound asleep. “He must wait for better weather if he wants to see his grandmother. And,” added she, laughing, “I scarcely think you ‘ll catch me going to sea again with so precious a cargo. Poor little man!” and she patted his ruddy cheeks; “he behaved so well, like a stout fisherman’s son as he is, – never showed fear for a moment.”

A murmur of delighted hearts ran through the crowd; some thinking of the child, but many more in warm admiration of the brave and beautiful young girl before them. “Loony,” said she to her boatman, “when you ‘ve got the tackle to rights, come up to the house for your breakfast.” And with that, and a few words of grateful recognition as she passed, she clambered up the rock and hastened homeward.

As for her uncle, no sooner had he heard of her safe arrival on shore than he hurried back, anxious to reach the house before her. For a considerable time back Martin had schooled himself into an apparent indifference about his niece’s perils. Lady Dorothea had probably given the initiative to this feeling by constantly asserting that the young lady would incur few risks when they ceased to create alarm.

It was a somewhat ungracious theory, and excited in Martin’s mind, when he first heard it, a sensation the very reverse of agreeable. Without accepting its truth, however, it made a deep impression upon him, and at last, by way of policy, he resolved to feign a degree of callous indifference very foreign to his nature; and, by dint of mere habit, he at length acquired a semblance of calm under circumstances that sorely tested his powers of self-control.

“Has the heroine arrived safe on shore?” asked Lady Dorothea in her own languid drawl. And Martin almost started at the question, and seemed for a moment as if the indignation it excited could not be repressed; then smiling superciliously at the impassive air of her features, he said, —

“Yes, and by rare good luck, too! The sea is a terrific one this morning!”

“Is it ever anything else in this heavenly climate?” said she, sighing. “I have counted two fine days since the 8th of June; and, indeed, it rained a little on one of them.”

Martin winced impatiently under the remark, but never lifted his eyes from the newspaper.

“I had hoped your niece was making arrangements for our return to Cro’ Martin,” said she, querulously, “instead of planning marine excursions. I told her yesterday, or the day before, – I forget which; but who could remember time in such a place? – that I was bored to death here. The observation seems to amuse you, Mr. Martin; but it is a simple fact.”

“And you are bored to death at Cro’ Martin, too, if I mistake not?” said he, with a very significant dryness.

“I should think I was, sir; and nothing very astonishing in the confession, besides.”

“And Dublin, madam?”

“Don’t speak of it. If one must endure prison discipline, at least let us have a cell to ourselves. Good-morning, Miss Martin. I hope you enjoyed your party on the water?”

This speech was addressed to Mary, who now entered the room dressed in a plain morning costume, and in her quiet, almost demure look resembling in nothing the dripping and dishevelled figure that sprung from the boat.

“Good-morning, aunt,” said she, gayly. “Good-morning, uncle,” kissing, as she spoke, his cheek, and patting him fondly on the shoulder. “I saw you out on the rocks as we were coming in.”

“Pooh, pooh!” said he, in affected indifference. “I knew there was no danger – ”

“Yes, but there was, though,” said she, quickly. “If we had n’t set all sail on her, she ‘d have been pooped to a certainty; and I can tell you I was in a rare fright, too.”

“Oh, indeed; you confess to such an ignoble emotion?” said Lady Dorothea, with a sneer.

“That I do, aunt, for I had poor Madge Lennan’s little boy on my lap all the time; and if it came to a swim, I don’t see how he was to be saved.”

“You ‘d not have left him to his fate, I suppose?” said Lady Dorothea.

“I scarcely know what I should have done. I sincerely hope it would have been my best; but in a moment like that, within sight of home, too – ” Her eyes met her uncle’s as she said this; he had raised them from his newspaper, and bent them fully on her. There was that in their expression which appealed so strongly to her heart that instead of finishing her speech she sprung towards him and threw her arms around his neck.

“Quite a scene; and I detest scenes,” said Lady Dorothen, as she arose and swept out of the room contemptuously; but they neither heard the remark nor noticed her departure.

CHAPTER IV. MAURICE SCANLAN, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW

About an hour after the occurrence mentioned in our last chapter, the quiet little village of Kilkieran was startled by the sharp clattering sounds of horses’ feet, as Mr. Scanlan’s tandem came slinging along; and after various little dexterities amid stranded boats, disabled anchors, and broken capstans, drew up at the gate of the Osprey’s Nest. When men devise their own equipage, they invariably impart to it a strong infusion of their own idiosyncrasy. The quiet souls who drag through life in chocolate-colored barouches, with horses indifferently matched, give no clew to their special characteristics; but your men of tax-carts and tandems, your Jehus of four-in-hand teams, write their own biographies in every detail of the “turn-out.”

Maurice Scanlan was a sporting attorney, and from the group of game cocks neatly painted on the hind panel, to the wiry, well-bred, and well-looking screws before him, all was indicative of the man. The conveyance was high and red-wheeled; the nags were a chestnut and a gray; he drove them without winkers or bearing-reins, wearing his white hat a very little on ope side, and gracefully tilting his elbow as he admonished the wheeler with the “crop” of his whip. He was a good-looking, showy, vulgar, self-sufficient kind of fellow, with consummate shrewdness in all business transactions, only marred by one solitary weak point, – an intense desire to be received intimately by persons of a station above his own, and to seem, at least, to be the admitted guest of very fashionable society. It was not a very easy matter to know if this Lord-worship of his was real, or merely affected, since, certainly, the profit he derived from the assumption was very considerable, and Maurice was intrusted with a variety of secret-service transactions, and private affairs for the nobility, which they would never have dreamed of committing to the hands of their more recognized advisers.

If men would have been slow to engage his services in any grave or important suit, he was invaluable in all the ordinary and constantly occurring events of this changeful world. He knew every one’s difficulties and embarrassments. There was not a hitch in a settlement, nor a spavin in your stables, could escape him. He seemed to possess a kind of intuitive appreciation of a flaw; and he pounced upon a defect with a rapidity that counterfeited genius. To these gifts he added a consummate knowledge of his countrymen. He had emerged from the very humblest class of the people, and he knew them thoroughly; with all their moods of habitual distrust and momentary enthusiasm, – with all their phases of sanguine hopefulness he was familiar; and he could mould and fashion and weld them to his will, as passive subjects as the heated bar under the hammer of the smith.

As an electioneering agent he was unequalled. It was precisely the sphere in which his varied abilities were best exercised; and it was, besides, an arena in which he was proud of figuring.

For a while he seemed – at least in his own eyes – to stand on a higher eminence than the candidate he represented, and to be a more prominent and far grander personage than his principal. In fact, it was only under some tacit acknowledgment of this temporary supremacy that his services were obtainable; his invariable stipulation being that he was to have the entire and uncontrolled direction of the election.

Envious tongues and ungenerous talkers did, indeed, say that Maurice insisted upon this condition with very different objects in view, and that his unlimited powers found their pleasantest exercise in the inexplorable realms of secret bribery; however, it is but fair to say that he was eminently successful, and that one failure alone in his whole career occurred to show the proverbial capriciousness of fortune.

With the little borough of Oughterard he had become so identified that his engagement was regarded as one of the first elements of success. Hitherto, indeed, the battle had been always an easy one. The Liberal party – as they pleasantly assumed to style themselves – had gone no further in opposition than an occasional burst of intemperate language, and an effort – usually a failure – at a street row during the election. So little of either energy or organization had marked their endeavors, that the great leader of the day had stigmatized their town with terms of heavy censure, and even pronounced them unworthy of the cause. An emissary, deputed to report upon the political state of the borough, had described the voters as mere dependants on the haughty purse-proud proprietor of Cro’ Martin, who seemed, even without an effort, to nominate the sitting member.

The great measure of the year ‘29 – the Catholic Relief Bill – had now, however, suggested to even more apathetic constituencies the prospect of a successful struggle. The thought of being represented by “one of their own sort” was no mean stimulant to exertion; and the leading spirits of the place had frequently conferred together as to what steps should be taken to rescue the borough from the degrading thraldom of an aristocratic domination. Lord Kilmorris, it is true, was rather popular with them than the reverse. The eldest son of an Earl, who only cared to sit in Parliament on easy terms, till the course of time and events should call him to the Upper House, he never took any very decided political line, but sat on Tory benches and gave an occasional vote to Liberal measures, as though foreshadowing that new school who were to take the field under the middle designation of Conservatives. Some very remote relationship to Lady Dorothea’s family had first introduced him to the Martins’ notice; and partly from this connection, and partly because young Harry Martin was too young to sit in Parliament, they had continued to support him to the present time.

Mr. Martin himself cared very little for politics; had he even cared more, he would not have sacrificed to them one jot of that indolent, lazy, apathetic existence which alone he seemed to prize. He was rather grateful than otherwise to Lord Kilmorris for taking upon him the trouble of a contest, if there should be such a thing. His greatest excuse through life, at least to himself, had ever been that he was “unprepared.” He had been in that unhappy state about everything since he was born, and so, apparently, was he destined to continue to the very last. With large resources, he was never prepared for any sudden demand for money. When called on for any exertion of mind or body, when asked to assist a friend or rescue a relation from difficulty, he was quite unprepared; and so convinced was he that this was a fatality under which he labored, that no sooner had he uttered the expression than he totally absolved himself from every shadow of reproach that might attach to his luke-warmness.

The uncontrolled position he occupied, joined to the solitary isolation in which he lived, had doubtless engendered this cold and heartless theory. There was no one to dispute his will, – none to gainsay his opinions. There was not for him any occasion for the healthful exertion which is evoked by opposition, and he sunk gradually down into a moping, listless, well-meaning, but utterly good-for-nothing gentleman, who would have been marvellously amazed had any one arraigned him for neglect of his station and its great requirements.

That such an insolent possibility could be, was only demonstrated to him in that morning’s newspaper. To be called a despot was bad enough, but a petty despot, – and to be told that such despotism was already doomed – aroused in him a degree of indignation all the more painful that the sensation was one he had not experienced for many a year back. Whose fault was it that such an impertinence had ever been uttered? Doubtless, Kilmorris’s. Some stupid speech, some absurd vote, some ridiculous party move had brought down this attack upon him; or perhaps it was Mary, with her new-fangled ideas about managing the estate, her school-houses, and her model-farms. The ignorant people had possibly revolted against her interference; or it might be Lady Dorothea herself, whose haughty manner had given offence; at all events, he was blameless, and strange to say, either he was not perfectly assured of the fact, or that the assumption was not pleasant, but he seemed very far from being satisfied with the explanation. In the agitated mood these feelings produced, a servant came to inform him that Mr. Scanlan had just arrived.

“Say I ‘m out – I ‘m unwell – I don’t feel quite myself to-day. Call Miss Mary to him.” And with an impatient gesture he motioned the servant away.

“Miss Mary will be down in a few minutes, sir,” said the man, entering the room where Mr. Scanlan stood arranging his whiskers before the chimney-glass, and contemplating with satisfaction his general appearance.