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

“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.