The Martins Of Cro' Martin Volume II Part 6

CHAPTER V. A LETTER FROM HOME

While this discussion was going on, Martin was seated in his own room, examining the contents of his letter-bag, which the post had just delivered to him. A very casual glance at his features would have discovered that the tidings which met his eye were very rarely of a pleasant character. For the most part the letters were importunate appeals for money, subscriptions, loans, small sums to be repaid when the borrower had risen above his present difficulties, aids to effect some little enterprise on whose very face was failure. Then there were the more formal demands for sums actually due, written in the perfection of coercive courtesy, subjecting the reader to all the tortures of a moral surgical operation, a suffering actually increased by the very dexterity of the manipulator. Then came, in rugged hand and gnarled shape, urgent entreaties for abatements and allowances, pathetic pictures of failing crops, sickness and sorrow! Somewhat in contrast to these in matter--most strikingly unlike them in manner--was a short note from Mr. Maurice Scanlan. Like a reb.u.t.ting witness in a cause, he spoke of everything as going on favorably; prices were fair, the oat crop a reasonable one. There was distress, to be sure, but who ever saw the West without it? The potatoes had partially failed; but as there was a great deal of typhus and a threat of cholera, there would be fewer to eat them. The late storms had done a good deal of mischief, but as the timber thrown down might be sold without any regard to the entail, some thousand pounds would thus be realized; and as the gale had carried away the new pier at Kilkieran, there would be no need to give a bounty to the fishermen who could not venture out to sea. The damage done to the house and the conservatories at Cro' Martin offered an opportunity to congratulate the owner on the happiness of living in a milder climate; while the local squabbles of the borough suggested a pleasant contrast with all the enjoyments of a life abroad.

On the whole, Mr. Scanlan's letter was rather agreeable than the reverse, since he contrived to accompany all the inevitable ills of fortune by some side-wind consolations, and when pushed hard for these, skilfully insinuated in what way "things might have been worse." If the letter did not reflect very favorably on either the heart or brain that conceived it, it well suited him to whom it was addressed. To screen himself from whatever might irritate him, to escape an unpleasant thought or unhappy reflection, to avoid, above all things, the slightest approach of self-censure, was Martin's great philosophy; and he esteemed the man who gave him any aid in this road. Now newspapers might croak their dark predictions about the coming winter, prophesy famine, fever, and pestilence; Scanlan's letter, "written from the spot," by "one who enjoyed every opportunity for forming a correct opinion," was there, and _he_ said matters were pretty much as usual. The West of Ireland had never been a land of milk and honey, and n.o.body expected it ever would be,--the people could live in it, however, and pay rents too; and as Martin felt that he had no undue severity to reproach himself with, he folded up the epistle, saying that "when a man left his house and property for a while, it was a real blessing to have such a fellow as Scanlan to manage for him;" and truly, if one could have his conscience kept for a few hundreds a year, the compact might be a pleasant one. But even to the most self-indulgent this plan is impracticable; and so might it now be seen in Martin's heightened color and fidgety manner, and that even _he_ was not as much at ease within as he wished to persuade himself he was.

Amid the ma.s.s of correspondence, pamphlets and newspapers, one note, very small and neatly folded, had escaped Martin's notice till the very last; and it was only as he heaped up a whole bundle to throw into the fire that he discovered this, in Mary's well-known hand. He held it for some time ere he broke the seal, and his features a.s.sumed a sadder, graver cast than before. His desertion of her--and he had not blinked the word to himself--had never ceased to grieve him; and however disposed he often felt to throw upon others the blame which attached to himself here, he attempted no casuistry, but stood quietly, without one plea in his favor, before his own heart.

The very consciousness of his culpability had prevented him writing to her as he ought; his letters were few, short, and constrained. Not all the generous frankness of hers could restore to him the candid ease of his former intercourse with her; and every chance expression he used was conned over and canva.s.sed by him, lest it might convey some sentiment, or indicate some feeling foreign to his intention. At length so painful had the task become that he had ceased writing altogether, contenting himself with a message through Kate Henderson,--some excuse about his health, fatigue,-and so forth, ever coupled with a promise that he would soon be himself again, and as active a correspondent as she could desire.

To these apologies Mary always replied in a kindly spirit. Whatever sorrow they might have cost her she kept for herself; they never awakened one expression of impatience, not a word of reproach. She understood him thoroughly,--his easy indolence of disposition, his dislike to a task, his avoidance of whatever was possible to defer; more even than all these, his own unforgiveness of himself for his part towards her. To alleviate, so far as she might, the poignancy of the last, was for a while the great object of all her letters; and so she continued to expatiate on the happy life she was leading, her contentment with the choice she had made of remaining there, throwing in little playful sallies of condolence at her uncle's banishment, and jestingly a.s.suring him how much happier he would be at home!

In whatever mood, however, she wrote, there was a striking absence of whatever could fret or grieve her uncle throughout all her letters. She selected every pleasant topic and the favorable side of every theme to tell of. She never forgot any little locality which he had been partial to, or any of the people who were his favorites; and, in fact, it might have seemed that the great object she had in view was to attach him more and more to the home he had left, and strengthen every tie that bound him to his own country. And all this was done lightly and playfully, and with a pleasant promise of the happiness he should feel on the day of his return.

These letters were about the pleasantest incidents in Martin's present life; and the day which brought him one was sure to pa.s.s agreeably, while he made vigorous resolutions about writing a reply, and sometimes got even so far as to open a desk and ruminate over an answer. It so chanced that now a much longer interval had occurred since Mary's last letter, and the appearance of the present note, so unlike the voluminous epistle she usually despatched, struck him with a certain dismay. "Poor Molly," said he, as he broke the seal, "she is growing weary at last; this continued neglect is beginning to tell upon her. A little more, and she 'll believe--as well she may--that we have forgotten her altogether."

The note was even briefer than he had suspected. It was written, too, in what might seem haste, or agitation, and the signature forgotten.

Martin's hand trembled, and his chest heaved heavily as he read the following lines:--

"Cro' Martin, Wednesday Night

"Dearest Uncle,--You will not suffer these few lines to remain unanswered, since they are written in all the pressure of a great emergency. Our worst fears for the harvest are more than realized; a total failure in the potatoes--a great diminution in the oat crop; the incessant rains have flooded all the low meadows, and the cattle are almost without forage, while from the same cause no turf can be cut, and even that already cut and stacked cannot be drawn away from the bogs.

But, worse than all these, typhus is amongst us, and cholera, they say, coming. I might stretch out this dreary catalogue, but here is enough, more than enough, to awaken your sympathies and arouse you to action.

There is a blight on the land; the people are starving--dying. If every sense of duty was dead within us, if we could harden our hearts against every claim of those from whose labor we derive ease, from whose toil we draw wealth and leisure, we might still be recalled to better things by the glorious heroism of these poor people, so n.o.bly courageous, so patient are they in their trials. It is not now that I can speak of the traits I have witnessed of their affection, their charity, their self-denial, and their daring--but now is the moment to show them that we, who have been dealt with more favorably by fortune, are not devoid of the qualities which adorn their nature.

"I feel all the cruelty of narrating these things to you, too far away from the scene of sorrow to aid by your counsel and encourage by your a.s.sistance; but it would be worse than cruelty to conceal from you that a terrible crisis is at hand, which will need all your energy to mitigate.

"Some measures are in your power, and must be adopted at once. There must be a remission of rent almost universally, for the calamity has involved all; and such as are a little richer than their neighbors should be aided, that they may be the more able to help them. Some stores of provisions must be provided to be sold at reduced rates, or even given gratuitously. Medical aid must be had, and an hospital of some sort established. The able-bodied must be employed on some permanent work; and for these, we want power from you and some present moneyed a.s.sistance. I will not harrow your feelings with tales of sufferings. You have seen misery here--enough, I say--you have witnessed nothing like this, and we are at but the beginning.

"Write to me at once yourself--this is no occasion to employ a deputy--and forgive me, dearest uncle, for I know not what faults of presumption I may have here committed. My head is confused; the crash of misfortunes has addled me, and each succeed so rapidly on each other, that remedies are scarcely employed than they have to be abandoned.

When, however, I can tell the people that it is their own old friend and master that sends them help, and bids them to be of good cheer,--when I can show them that, although separated by distance, your heart never ceases to live amongst them,--I know well the magic working of such a spell upon them, and how, with a bravery that the boldest soldier never surpa.s.sed, they will rise up against the stern foes of sickness and famine, and do battle with hard fortune manfully.

"You have often smiled at what you deemed my exaggerated opinion of these poor people,--my over-confidence in their capacity for good.

Oh--take my word for it--I never gave them credit for one half the excellence of their natures. They are on their trial now, and n.o.bly do they sustain it!

"I have no heart to answer all your kind questions about myself,--enough that I am well; as little can I ask you about all your doings in Paris.

I 'm afraid I should but lose temper if I heard that they were pleasant ones; and yet, with my whole soul, I wish you to be happy; and with this,

"Believe me your affectionate

"Mr. Repton has written me the kindest of letters, full of good advice and good sense; he has also enclosed me a check for 100, with an offer of more if wanted. I was low and depressed when his note reached me, but it gave me fresh energy and hope. He proposed to come down here if I wished; but how could I ask such a sacrifice,--how entreat him to face the peril?"

"Tell Captain Martin I wish to speak to him," said Martin, as he finished the perusal of this letter. And in a few minutes after, that gallant personage appeared, not a little surprised at the summons.

"I have got a letter from Mary here," said Martin, vainly endeavoring to conceal his agitation as he spoke, "which I want to show you. Matters are in a sad plight in the West. She never exaggerates a gloomy story, and her account is very afflicting. Read it."

The Captain lounged towards the window, and, leaning listlessly against the wall, opened the epistle.

"You have not written to her lately, then?" asked he, as he perused the opening sentence.

"I am ashamed to say I have not; every day I made a resolution; but somehow--"

"Is all this anything strange or new?" broke in the Captain. "I 'm certain I have forty letters from my mother with exactly the same story.

In fact, before I ever broke the seal, I 'd have wagered an equal fifty that the potatoes had failed, the bogs were flooded, the roads impa.s.sable, and the people dying in thousands; and yet, when spring came round, by some happy miracle they were all alive and merry again!"

"Read on," said Martin, impatiently, and barely able to control himself at this heartless commentary.

"Egad! I 'd have sworn I had read all this before, except these same suggestions about not exacting the rents, building hospitals, and so forth; that _is_ new. And why does she say, 'Don't write by deputy'? Who _was_ your deputy?"

"Kate Henderson has written for me latterly."

"And I should say she 's quite equal to that sort of thing; she dashes off my mother's notes at score, and talks away, too, all the time she 's writing."

"That is not the question before us," said Martin, sternly.

"When I sent for you to read that letter, it was that you might advise and counsel me what course to take."

"If you can afford to give away a year's income in the shape of rent, and about as much more in the shape of a donation, of course you 're quite free to do it. I only wish that your generosity would begin at home, though; for I own to you I 'm very hard-up at this moment." This the Captain spoke with an attempted jocularity which decreased with every word, till it subsided into downright seriousness ere he finished.

"So far from being in a position to do an act of munificence, I am sorely pressed for money," said Martin.

The Captain started; the half-smile with which he had begun to receive this speech died away on his lips as he asked, "Is this really the case?"

"Most truly so," said Martin, solemnly.

"But how, in the name of everything absurd--how is this possible? By what stratagem could you have spent five thousand a year at Cro' Martin, and your estate was worth almost three times as much? Giving a very wide margin for waste and robbery, I 'd say five thousand could not be made away with there in a twelvemonth."

"Your question only shows me how carelessly you must have read my letters to you, in India," said Martin; "otherwise you could not have failed to see the vast improvements we have been carrying out on the property,--the roads, the harbors, the new quarries opened, the extent of ground covered by plantation,--all the plans, in fact, which Mary had matured--"

"Mary! Mary!" exclaimed the Captain. "And do you tell me that all these things were done at the instigation of a young girl of nineteen or twenty, without any knowledge, or even advice--"

"And who said she was deficient in knowledge?" cried Martin. "Take up the map of the estate; see the lands she has reclaimed; look at the swamps you used to shoot snipe over bearing corn crops; see the thriving village, where once the boatmen were starving, for they dared not venture out to sea without a harbor against bad weather."

"Tell me the cost of all this. What's the figure?" said the Captain; "that's the real test of all these matters, for if _your_ income could only feed this outlay, I p.r.o.nounce the whole scheme the maddest thing in Christendom. My mother's taste for carved oak cabinets and historical pictures is the quintessence of wisdom in comparison."

Martin was overwhelmed and silent, and the other went on,--"Half the fellows in 'ours' had the same story to tell,--of estates wasted, and fine fortunes squandered in what are called improvements. If the possession of a good property entails the necessity to spend it all in this fas.h.i.+on, one is very little better than a kind of land-steward to one's own estate; and, for my part, I 'd rather call two thousand a year my own, to do what I pleased with, than have a nominal twenty, of which I must disburse nineteen."

"Am I again to remind you that this is not the question before us?" said Martin, with increased sternness.

"That is exactly the very question," rejoined the Captain. "Mary here coolly asks you, in the spirit of this same improvement-scheme, to relinquish a year's income, and make a present of I know not how much more, simply because things are going badly with them, just as if everybody has n't their turn of ill-fortune. Egad, I can answer for it, _mine_ has n't been flouris.h.i.+ng latterly, and yet I have heard of no benevolent plan on foot to aid or release me!"

To this heartless speech, uttered, however, in most perfect sincerity, Martin made no reply whatever, but sat with folded arms, deep in contemplation. At length, raising his head, he asked, "And have you, then, no counsel to give,--no suggestion to make me?"

"Well," said he, suddenly, "if Mary has not greatly overcharged all this story--"

"That she has not," cried Martin, interrupting him. "There 's not a line, not a word of her letter, I 'd not guarantee with all I 'm worth in the world."

"In that case," resumed the Captain, in the same indolent tone, "they must be in a sorry plight, and _I_ think ought to cut and run as fast as they can. I know that's what _we_ do in India; when the cholera comes, we break up the encampment, and move off somewhere else. Tell Mary, then, to advise them to keep out of 'the jungle,' and make for the hill country.'"