The Martins Of Cro' Martin Volume II Part 51

"My dear sir, if you had no other distinction than being the father of Joseph Nelligan, the honor and the pride lie all in the opposite scale.

I am sincerely glad to be your guest, and to know you where every true Irishman is seen to the greatest advantage,--at the head of his own board."

While Nelligan conducted his guest to his room, he mentioned that Ma.s.singbred had ridden over to Cro' Martin early in the morning, but would be certainly back for dinner.

"And what 's the news of Miss Martin? Is she better?"

"They say not, sir. The last accounts are far from favorable."

"Sir Henry Laurie saw her, did n't he?"

"Yes, sir; he pa.s.sed all Sunday here, and only returned to town yesterday. He spoke doubtfully,--I might even say, gloomily. He said, however, that we cannot know anything for certain before Friday or, perhaps, Sat.u.r.day."

"It is fever, then?"

"Yes, he told my wife, the worst character of typhus."

"Brought on, as I've been told, by exposure to wet and cold on that night at sea. Is n't that the case?"

"I believe so. Mrs. Nelligan went over the next morning to the cottage.

She had heard of poor Mr. Martin's death, and thought she might be of some use to Miss Mary; but when she arrived, it was to find her in fever, talking wildly, and insisting that she must be up and away to Kyle-a-Noe to look after a poor sick family there."

"Has Mrs. Nelligan seen her since that?"

"She never left her,--never quitted her. She relieves Henderson's daughter in watching beside her bed; for the old housekeeper is quite too infirm to bear the fatigue."

"What a sad change has come over this little spot, and in so brief a s.p.a.ce too! It seems just like yesterday that I was a guest at Cro'

Martin,--poor Martin himself so happy and light-hearted; his dear girl, as he called her, full of life and spirits. Your son was there the night I speak of. I remember it well, for the madcap girls would make a fool of me, and insisted on my singing them a song; and I shall not readily forget the shame my compliance inflicted on my learned brother's face."

"Joe told me of it afterwards."

"Ah, he told you, did he? He doubtless remarked with asperity on the little sense of my own dignity I possessed?"

"On the contrary, sir, he said, 'Great as are Mr. Rep-ton's gifts, and brilliant as are his acquirements, I envy him more the happy buoyancy of his nature than all his other qualities.'"

"He's a fine fellow, and it was a generous speech; not but I will be vain enough to say he was right,--ay, sir, perfectly right. Of all the blessings that pertain to temperament, there is not one to compare with the spirit that renews in an old man the racy enjoyment of youth, keeps his heart fresh and his mind hopeful. With these, age brings no terrors.

I shall be seventy-five, sir, if I live to the second of next month, and I have not lived long enough to dull the enjoyment life affords me, nor diminish the pleasure my heart derives upon hearing of a n.o.ble action or a generous sentiment."

Nelligan gazed at the speaker in mingled astonishment and admiration.

Somehow, it was not altogether the man he had expected; but he was far from being disappointed at the difference. The Valentine Repton of his imagination was a crafty pleader, a subtle cross-examiner, an ingenious flatterer of juries; but he was not a man whose nature was a.s.sailable by anything "not found in the books."

Now, though Nelligan was himself essentially a worldly man, he was touched by these traits of one whom he had regarded as a hardened old lawyer, distrustful and suspicious.

"Ay, sir," said Repton, as, leaning on the other's arm, he entered the drawing-room, "a wiser man than either of us has left it on record, that after a long life and much experience of the world, he met far more of good and n.o.ble qualities in mankind than of their opposite. Take my word for it, whenever we are inclined to the contrary opinion, the fault lies with ourselves."

While they sat awaiting Ma.s.singbred's return, a servant entered with a note, which Nelligan, having read, handed over to Repton. It was very brief, and ran thus:--

"My dear Mr. Nelligan,--Forgive my not appearing at dinner, and make my excuses to Mr. Repton, if he be with you, for I have just fallen in with Magennis, who insists on carrying me off to Barnagheela. You can understand, I 'm sure, that there are reasons why I could not well decline this invitation. Meanwhile, till to-morrow, at breakfast,

"I am yours,

"Jack Ma.s.singbred."

If there was a little constraint on Nelligan's part at finding himself alone to do the honors to his distinguished guest, the feeling soon wore away, and a frank, hearty confidence was soon established between these two men, who up to the present moment had been following very different roads in life. Apart from a lurking soreness, the remnants of long-past bitterness, Nelligan's political opinions were fair and moderate, and agreed with Repton's now to a great extent. His views as to the people, their habits and their natures, were also strikingly just and true. He was not over-hopeful, nor was he despondent; too acute an observer to refer their faults to any single source, he regarded their complex, intricate characters as the consequence of many causes, the issue of many struggles. There was about all he said the calm judgment of a man desirous of truth; and yet, when he came to speak of the higher cla.s.ses, the great country gentry, he displayed prejudices and mistakes quite incredible in one of his discernment. The old grudge of social disqualification had eaten deep into his heart, and, as Repton saw, it would take at least two generations of men, well-to-do and successful, to eradicate the sentiment.

Nelligan was quick enough to see that these opinions of his were not shared by his guest, and said, "I cannot expect, Mr. Repton, that you will join me in these views; you have seen these people always as an equal, if not their superior; they met _you_ with their best faces and sweetest flatteries. Not so with us. They draw a line, as though to say, go on: make your fortunes; purchase estates; educate your children; send them to the universities with our own; teach them our ways, our instincts, our manners, and yet, at the end of all, you shall remain exactly where you began. You shall never be 'of us.'"

"I am happy to say that I disagree with you," said Repton; "I am a much older man than you, and I can draw, therefore, on a longer experience.

Now the change that I myself have seen come over the tone and temper of the world since I was a boy is far more marvellous to me than all the new-fangled discoveries around us in steam and electricity. Why, sir, the man who now addresses you, born of an ancient stock, as good blood as any unt.i.tled gentleman of the land, was treated once as Jack Cade might be in a London drawing-room. The repute of liberal notions or politics at that day stamped you as a democrat and atheist If you sided with a popular measure, you were deemed capable of all the crimes of a 'Danton.'

"Do I not remember it!--Ay, as a student, young, ardent, and high-hearted, when I was summoned before the visitors of the university, and sternly asked by the dark-browed Lord Chancellor if I belonged to a society called the 'Friends of Ireland,' and on my acknowledging the fact, without inquiry, without examination, deprived of my scholarship, and sent back to my chambers, admonished to be more cautious, and menaced with expulsion. I had very little to live on in those days; my family had suffered great losses in fortune, and I disliked to be a burden to them. I took pupils, therefore, to a.s.sist me in my support.

The Vice-Provost stepped in, however, and interdicted this. 'Young men,'

he said, 'ran a greater chance of coming out of my hands followers of Paine than disciples of Newton.' I starved on till I was called to the bar. There fresh insults and mortifications met me. My name on a brief seemed a signal for a field-day against Jacobinism and infidelity. The very bench forgot its dignity in its zeal. I remember well one day, when, stung and maddened by these outrages, I so far forgot myself as to reply, and the Court of King's Bench was closed against me for twelve long years,--ay, till I came back to it as the first man in my profession. It was a trumpery cause,--I forget what; a suit about some petty bill of exchange. I disputed the evidence, and sought to show its invalidity. The Chief Justice stopped me, and said, 'The Court is aware of the point on which you rely; we have known evidence of this nature admitted in cases of trial for treason,--cases with which Mr. Repton, we know, is very familiar. I stopped; my blood boiled with indignation, my temples throbbed to bursting, to be thus singled out amongst my brethren--before the public--as a mark of scorn and reprobation. 'It is true, my Lord,' said I, with a slow, measured utterance, 'I am familiar with such cases. Who is there in this unhappy land that is not? I am aware, too, that if I stood in that dock arraigned on such a charge, your Lordship would rule that this evidence was admissible; you would charge against me, sentence, and hang me; but the present is an action for eleven pounds ten, and, therefore, I trust to your Lordship's lenity and mercy to reject it.'

"That reply, sir, cost me twelve years of exile from the court wherein I uttered it. Those were times when the brow-beating judge could crush the bar; nor were the jury always safe in the sanctuary of the jury-box.

Now, such abuses are no longer in existence; and if we have made no other stride in progress, even that is considerable."

"In all that regards the law and its administration, I am sure you are correct, sir," said Nelligan, submissively.

"At the period I speak of," resumed Repton, who now was only following out his own thoughts and reminiscences, "the judges were little else than prefects, administering the country through the channel of the penal code, and the jury a set of vulgar partisans, who wielded the power of a verdict with all the caprice of a faction; and as to their ignorance, why, sir, Crookshank, who afterwards sat on the bench, used to tell of a trial for murder at Kells, where the 'murdered man' was two hours under cross-examination on the table! Yes, but that is not all; the jury retired to deliberate, and came out at length with a verdict of 'manslaughter,' as the prisoner was 'a bad fellow, and had once stolen a saddle from the foreman.' You talk of law and civilization; why, I tell you, sir, that the barbaric code of the red man is a higher agent of enlightenment than the boasted inst.i.tutions of England, when thus perverted and degraded. No, no, Mr. Nelligan, it may be a fine theme for declamation, there may be grand descriptive capabilities about the Ireland of sixty or seventy years ago, but be a.s.sured, it was a social chaos of the worst kind; and as a maxim, sir, remember, that the inhabitants of a country are never so much to be pitied as when the aspect of their social condition is picturesque!"

Repton fell into a musing fit when he had finished these observations, and Nelligan felt too much deference for his guest to disturb him, and they sat thus silent for some time, when the old lawyer suddenly arousing himself, said,--"What's all this I hear about disturbances, and attacks on the police, down here?"

"There's nothing political in it," rejoined Nelligan. "It was resistance offered by the people to the service of certain notices on the part of this London Jew--Merl, I think they call him."

"Yes, that's the name," quickly responded Repton. "You are aware of the circ.u.mstances under which he claims the estate?"

"I had it from Brierley, who was told by Scanlan, that he purchased, or rather won at play, the entire and sole reversion."

Repton nodded.

"And such is a legal compact, I presume?" said Nelligan.

"If the immoral obligation be well concealed in the negotiation, I don't see how it is to be broken. The law, sir," added he, solemnly, "never undertakes the charge of fools till a commission be taken out in their behalf! This young fellow's pleasure it was to squander his succession to a princely estate, and he chanced to meet with one who could appreciate his intentions."

"Ma.s.singbred told me, however, that some arrangement, some compromise was in contemplation; that Merl, knowing that to enforce his claim would subject him to a trial and all its disclosures, had shown a disposition to treat; in fact, Ma.s.singbred has already had an interview with him, and but for Scanlan, who desires to push matters to extremity, the affair might possibly be accommodated."

"The Jew possibly sees, too, that an Irish succession is not a bloodless triumph. He has been frightened, I have no doubt."

"I believe so; they say he took to his bed the day he got back here, and has never quitted it since. The people hunted them for four miles across the country, and as Merl couldn't leap his horse over the walls, they were several times nearly caught by the delay in making gaps for him."

"I'd have given fifty pounds to be in at it," broke out Repton.

Then suddenly remembering that the aspiration did not sound as very dignified, he hemmed and corrected himself, saying, "It must, indeed, have been a strange spectacle!"

"They started at Kyle's Wood, and ran them over the low grounds beside Kelly's Mills, and then doubling, brought them along the foot of Barnagheela Mountain, where, it seems, Magennis joined the chase; he was fast closing with them when his gun burst, and rather damaged his hand."

"He fired, then?"