The Martins Of Cro' Martin Volume II Part 16

"We are all at sixes and sevens to-day. Old Martin, shocked by some tidings of Ireland that he chanced upon in the public papers, I believe, has had a stroke of paralysis, or a seizure resembling that malady.

Lady Dorothea is quite helpless from terror, and but for Kate, the whole household would be in utter chaos and disorganization; but she goes about, with her arm in a sling, calm and tranquil, but with the energy and activity of one who feels that all depends upon her guidance and direction. The servants obey her with a prompt.i.tude that proclaims instinct; and even the doctor lays aside the mysterious jargon of his craft, and condescends to talk sense to her. I have not seen her; pa.s.sing rumors only reach me in my solitude, and I sit here writing and brooding alternately.

"P. S. Martin is a little better; no immediate danger to life, but slight hopes of ultimate recovery. I was wrong as to the cause. It was a proclamation of outlawry against his son, the Captain, which he read in the 'Times.' Some implacable creditor or other had pushed his claim so far, as I believe is easy enough to do nowadays; and poor Martin, who connected this stigma with all the disgrace that once accompanied such a sentence, fell senseless to the ground, and was taken up palsied. He is perfectly collected and even tranquil now, and they wheeled me in to sit with him for an hour or so. Lady Dorothea behaves admirably; the first shock overwhelmed her, but that pa.s.sed off, and she is now all that could be imagined of tenderness and zeal.

"Kate I saw but for a second. She asked me to write to Captain Martin, and request him to hasten home. It was no time to trifle with her; so I simply promised to do so, adding,--"'_You,_ I trust, will not leave this at such a moment?'

"'a.s.suredly not,' said she, slightly coloring at what implied my knowledge of her plans.

"'Then all will go on well in that case,' said I.

"'I never knew that I was reckoned what people call lucky,' said she, smiling. 'Indeed, most of those with whom I have been a.s.sociated in life might say the opposite.' And then, without waiting to hear me, she left the room.

"My brain is throbbing and my cheeks burning; some feverish access is upon me. So I send off this ere I grow worse.

"Your faithful friend,

"Jack Ma.s.singbred."

CHAPTER X. HOW ROGUES AGREE!

Leaving the Martins in their quiet retreat at Spa, nor dwelling any longer on a life whose daily monotony was unbroken by an incident, we once more turn our glance westward. Were we a.s.sured that our kind readers' sympathies were with us, the change would be a pleasure to us, since it is there, in that wild mountain tract, that pathless region of fern and wild furze, that we love to linger, rambling half listlessly through silent glens and shady gorges, or sitting pensively on the storm-lashed sh.o.r.e, till sea and sky melt into one, and naught lowers through the gloom save the tall crags above us.

We are once more back again at the little watering-place of Kilkieran, to which we introduced our readers in an early chapter of this narrative; but another change has come over that humble locality.

The Osprey's Nest, the ornamented villa, on which her Ladys.h.i.+p had squandered so lavishly good money and bad taste, was now an inn! A vulgar sign-board, representing a small boat in a heavy sea, hung over the door, with the words "The Corragh" written underneath. The s.p.a.cious saloon, whose bay-windows opened on the Atlantic, was now a coffee-room, and the small boudoir that adjoined it--desecration of desecrations--the bar!

It needs not to have been the friend or favored guest beneath a roof where elegance and refinement have prevailed to feel the shock at seeing them replaced by all that ministers to coa.r.s.e pleasure and vulgar a.s.sociation. The merest stranger cannot but experience a sense of disgust at the contrast. Whichever way you turned, some object met the eye recalling past splendor and present degradation; indeed, Toby Shea, the landlord, seemed to feel as one of his brightest prerogatives the right of insulting the memory of his predecessors, and throwing into stronger ant.i.thesis the "former" and the "now."

"Here ye are now, sir, in my Lady's own parlor; and that's her bedroom, where I left your trunk," said he, as he ushered in a newly arrived traveller, whose wet and road-stained drapery bore traces of an Irish winter's day. "Mr. Scanlan told me that your honor would be here at four o'clock, and he ordered dinner for two, at five, and a good dinner you 'll have."

"There; let them open my traps, and fetch me a pair of slippers and a dressing-gown," broke in the traveller; "and be sure to have a good fire in my bedroom. What an infernal climate! It has rained since the day I landed at Dublin; and now that I have come down here, it has blown a hurricane besides. And how cold this room is!" added he, shuddering.

"That's all by reason of them windows," said Toby,--"French windows they call them; but I'll get real Irish sashes put up next season, if I live.

It was a fancy of that ould woman that built the place to have nothing that was n't foreign."

"They are not popular, then,--the Martins?" asked the stranger.

"Popular!" echoed Toby. "Begorra, they are not. Why would they be? Is it rack-renting, process sarving, extirminating, would make them popular?

Sure we're all ruined on the estate. There isn't a mother's son of us might n't be in jail; and it's not Maurice's fault, either,--Mr.

Scanlan's, I mean. Your honor's a friend of his, I believe," added he, stealthily. The stranger gave a short nod. "Sure he only does what he's ordered; and it's breaking his heart it is to do them cruel things they force him to."

"Was the management of the estate better when they lived at home?" asked the stranger.

"Some say yes, more says no. I never was their tenant myself, for I lived in Oughterard, and kept the 'Goose and Griddle' in John Street; but I believe, if the truth was told, it was always pretty much the same. They were azy and moderate when they did n't want money, but ready to take your skin off your back when they were hard up."

"And is that their present condition?"

"I think it is," said he, with a confident grin. "They 're spending thousands for hundreds since they went abroad; and that chap in the dragoons--the Captain they call him--sells a farm, or a plot of ground, just the way ye 'd tear a leaf out of a book. There 's Mr. Maurice now,--and I 'll go and hurry the dinner, for he 'll give us no peace if we 're a minute late."

The stranger--or, to give him his proper name, Mr. Merl--now approached the window, and watched, not without admiration, the skilful management by which Scanlan skimmed along the strand, zigzagging his smart nag through all the awkward impediments of the way, and wending his tandem through what appeared a labyrinth of confusion.

Men bred and born in great cities are somewhat p.r.o.ne to fancy that certain accomplishments, such as tandem-driving, steeple-chasing, and such like, are the exclusive acquirements of rank and station. They have only witnessed them as the gifts of guardsmen and "young squires of high degree," never suspecting that in the country a very inferior cla.s.s is often endowed with these skilful arts. Mr. Merl felt, therefore, no ordinary reverence for Maurice Scanlan, a sentiment fully reciprocated by the attorney, as he beheld the gorgeous dressing-gown, rich ta.s.selled cap, and Turkish trousers of the other.

"I thought I'd arrive before you, sir," said Scanlan, with a profound bow, as he entered the room; "but I'm glad you got in first. What a shower that was!"

"Shower!" said Merl; "a West India hurricane is a zephyr to it. I 'd not live in this climate if you 'd give me the whole Martin estate!"

"I 'm sure of it, sir; one must be bred in the place, and know no better, to stand it." And although the speech was uttered in all humility, Merl gave the speaker a searching glance, as though to say, "Don't lose your time trying to humbug me; I'm 'York,' too." Indeed, there was species of freemasonry in the looks that now pa.s.sed between the two; each seemed instinctively to feel that he was in the presence of an equal, and that artifice and deceit might be laid aside for the nonce.

"I hope you agree with me," said Scanlan, in a lower and more confidential voice, "that this was the best place to come to. Here you can stay as long as you like, and n.o.body the wiser; but in the town of Oughterard they'd be at you morning, noon, and night, tracking your steps, questioning the waiter, ay, and maybe taking a peep at your letters. I 've known that same before now."

"Well, I suppose you 're right; only this place does look a little dull, I confess."

"It's not the season, to be sure," said Scanlan, apologetically.

"Oh! and there is a season here?"

"Isn't there, by George!" said Maurice, smacking his lips. "I 've seen two heifers killed here of a morning, and not so much as a beefsteak to be got before twelve o'clock. 'T is the height of fas.h.i.+on comes down here in July,--the Rams of Kiltimmon, and the Bodkins of Crossmaglin; and there was talk last year of a lord,--I forget his name; but he ran away from Newmarket, and the story went that he was making for this."

"Any play?" asked Merl.

"Play is it? That there is; whist every night, and backgammon."

Merl threw up his eyebrows with pretty much the same feeling with which the Great Napoleon repeated the words "Bows and Arrows!" as the weapons of a force that offered him alliance.

"If you'd allow me to dine in this trim, Mr. Scanlan," said he, "I'd ask you to order dinner."

"I was only waiting for you to give the word, sir," said Maurice, reverting to the habit of respect at any fresh display of the other's pretensions; and opening the door, he gave a shrill whistle.

The landlord himself answered the summons, and whispered a few words in Scanlan's ear.

"That's it, always," cried Maurice, angrily. "I never came into the house for the last ten days without hearing the same story. I 'd like to know who and what he is, that must always have the best that 's going?"

Then turning to Merl, he added: "It's a lodger he has upstairs; an old fellow that came about a fortnight back; and if there's a fine fish or a fat turkey or a good saddle of mutton to be got, he 'll have it."

"Faix, he pays well," said Toby, "whoever he is."

"And he has secured our salmon, I find, and left us to dine on whiting,"

said Maurice.

"An eighteen-pound fis.h.!.+" echoed Toby; "and it would be as much as my life is worth to cut it in two."

"And he's alone, too?"

"No, sir. Mr. Crow, the painter, is to dine with him. He's making drawings for him of all the wonderful places down the coast."

"Well, give us what we 're to have at once," said Maurice, angrily. "The basket of wine was taken out of the gig?"