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

“We tried to get up a little news-room,” said Captain Bodkin, “and I went to Martin myself about it, but he hum’d and ha’d, and said, until people subscribed for the Dispensary he thought they needn’t mind newspapers.”

“Just like him,” said Mrs. Cronan; “but, indeed, I think it’s my Lady does it all.”

“I differ from you, ma’am,” said Miss Busk, with a bland smile; “I attribute the inauspicious influence to another.”

“You mean Miss Martin?” said Mrs. Cronan.

“Just so, ma’am; indeed, I have reason to know I am correct. This time two years it was I went over to Cro’ Martin House to propose opening ‘my Emporium’ for the season at the port. I thought it was due to the owners of the estate, and due to myself also,” added Miss Busk, majestically, “to state my views about a measure so intimately associated with the – the – in fact, what I may call the interests of civilization. I had just received my plates of the last fashions from Dublin, – you may remember them, ma’am; I showed them to you at Mrs. Cullenane’s – well, when I was in the very middle of my explanation, who should come into the room but Miss Martin – ”

“Dressed in the old brown riding-habit?” interposed a fat old lady with one eye.

“Yes, Mrs. Few, in the old brown riding-habit. She came up to the table, with a saucy laugh in her face, and said, ‘Why, uncle, are you going to give a fancy ball?’

“‘It is the last arrival from Paris, miss,’ said I; ‘the Orleans mantle, which, though not a “costume de Chasse,” is accounted very becoming.’

“‘Ah, you ‘re laughing at my old habit, Miss Busk,’ said she, seeing how I eyed her; ‘and it really is very shabby, but I intend to give Dan Leary a commission to replace it one of these days.’”

“Dan Leary, of the Cross-roads!” exclaimed Captain Bodkin, laughing.

“I pledge you my word of honor, sir, she said it. ‘And as to all this finery, Miss Busk,’ said she, turning over the plates with her whip, ‘it would be quite unsuitable to our country, our climate, and our habits; not to say, that the Orleans mantle would be worn with an ill grace when our people are going half naked!’”

“Positively indecent! downright indelicate!” shuddered Mrs. Cronan.

“And did Martin agree with her?” asked the Captain.

“I should like to know when he dared to do otherwise. Why, between my lady and the niece he can scarcely call his life his own.”

“They say he has a cruel time of it,” sighed Mr. Clinch, the revenue-officer, who had some personal experience of domestic slavery.

“Tush, – nonsense!” broke in his wife. “I never knew one of those hen-pecked creatures that was n’t a tyrant in his family. I ‘ll engage, if the truth were known, Lady Dorothy has the worst of it.”

“Faith, and he’s much altered from what he was when a boy, if any one rules him,” said the captain. “I was at school with him and his twin-brother Barry. I remember the time when one of them had to wear a bit of red ribbon in his button-hole to distinguish him from the other. They were the born images of each other, – that is, in looks; for in real character they were n’t a bit like. Godfrey was a cautious, quiet, careful chap that looked after his pocket-money, and never got into scrapes; and Barry was a wasteful devil that made the coin fly, and could be led by any one. I think he ‘d have given his life for his brother any day. I remember once when Godfrey would n’t fight a boy, – I forget what it was about; Barry stole the bit of ribbon out of his coat, and went up and fought in his place; and a mighty good thrashing he got, too.”

“I have heard my father speak of that,” said a thin, pale, careworn little man in green spectacles; “for the two boys were taken away at once, and it was the ruin of the school.”

“So it was, doctor; you’re right there,” broke in the Captain; “and they say that Martin bears a grudge against you to this day.”

“That would be hard,” sighed the meek doctor; “for I had nothing to do with it, or my father, either. But it cost him dearly!” added he, mournfully.

“You know best, doctor, whether it is true or not; but he certainly was n’t your friend when you tried for the Fever Hospital.”

“That was because Pat Nelligan was on my committee,” said the doctor.

“And was that sufficient to lose you Mr. Martin’s support, sir?” asked young Nelligan, with a degree of astonishment in his face, that, joined to the innocence of the question, caused a general burst of hearty laughter.

“The young gentleman knows more about cubic sections, it appears, than of what goes on in his own town,” said the Captain. “Why, sir, your father is the most independent man in all Oughterard; and if I know Godfrey Martin, he ‘d give a thousand guineas this night to have him out of it.”

A somewhat animated “rally” followed this speech, in which different speakers gave their various reasons why Martin ought or ought not to make any sacrifice to put down the spirit of which Pat Nelligan was the chief champion. These arguments were neither cogent nor lucid enough to require repeating; nor did they convey to Joseph himself, with all his anxiety for information, the slightest knowledge on the subject discussed. Attention was, however, drawn off the theme by the clattering sound of a horse passing along the shingly shore at a smart gallop; and with eager curiosity two or three rushed to the door to see what it meant. A swooping gust of wind and rain, overturning chairs and extinguishing candles, drove them suddenly back again; and, half laughing at the confusion, half cursing the weather, the party barricaded the door, and returned to their places.

“Of course it was Miss Martin; who else would be out at this time of the night?” said Mrs. Clinch.

“And without a servant!” exclaimed Miss Busk.

“Indeed, you may well make the remark, ma’am,” said Mrs. Cronan. “The young lady was brought up in a fashion that was n’t practised in my time!”

“Where could she have been down that end of the port, I wonder?” said Mrs. Clinch. “She came up from Garra Cliff.”

“Maybe she came round by the strand,” said the doctor; “if she did, I don’t think there ‘s one here would like to have followed her.”

“I would n’t be her horse!” said one; “nor her groom!” muttered another; and thus, gradually lashing themselves into a wild indignation, they opened, at last, a steady fire upon the young lady, – her habits, her manners, and her appearance all coming in for a share of criticism; and although a few modest amendments were put in favor of her horsemanship and her good looks, the motion was carried that no young lady ever took such liberties before, and that the meeting desired to record their strongest censure on the example thus extended to their own young people.

If young Nelligan ventured upon a timid question of what it was she had done, he was met by an eloquent chorus of half a dozen voices, recounting mountain excursions which no young lady had ever made before; distant spots visited, dangers incurred, storms encountered, perils braved, totally unbecoming to her in her rank of life, and showing that she had no personal respect, nor – as Miss Busk styled it – “a proper sense of the dignity of woman!”

“‘T was down at Mrs. Nelligan’s, ma’am, Miss Mary was,” said Mrs. Cronan’s maid, who had been despatched special to make inquiry on the subject.

“At my mother’s!” exclaimed Joseph, reddening, without knowing in the least why. And now a new diversion occurred, while all discussed every possible and impossible reason for this singular fact, since the family at the “Nest” maintained no intercourse whatever with their neighbors, not even seeming, by any act of their lives, to acknowledge their very existence.