The O'Donoghue: Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago

“I wish to the Blessed Mother it was,” muttered he fervently to himself.

“There’s a man now eatin’ and drinkin’ in the parlour, and the sorra more ye know about him, than if he was the Queen of Sheba.”

“Don’t I, thin – maybe not,” said Kerry, tauntingly, and with a look of such well-affected secrecy, that Mrs. Branagan was completely deceived by it.

“What is he, then? spake it out free this minit,” said she. “Bad cess to you, do you want to trate me like an informer.”

“No, indeed, Mrs. Branagan; its not that same I’d even to you – sure I knew your people – father and mother’s side – two generations back. Miles Buoy – yallow Miles, as they called him – was the finest judge of a horse in Kerry – I wonder now he didn’t make a power of money.”

“And so he did, and spint it after. ‘Twas blackguards, with ould gaiters, and one spur on them, that ate up every shilling he saved.”

“Well, well! think of that, now,” said Kerry, with the sententious-ness of one revolving some strange and curious social anomaly; “and that’s the way it wint.”

“Wasn’t it a likely way enough,” said Mrs. Branagan, with flashing eyes, “feedin’ a set of spalpeens that thought of nothing but chating the world. The sight of a pair of top hoots gives me the heartburn to this day.”

“Mine warms to them, too,” said Kerry, timidly, who ventured on his humble pun with deep humility.

A contemptuous scowl was Mrs. Branagan’s reply, and Kerry resumed.

“Them’s the changes of world – rich yesterday – poor to-day! Don’t I know what poverty is well myself. Augh! sure enough they wor the fine times, when I rode out on a beast worth eighty guineas in goold, wid clothes on my back a lord might envy; and now, look at me!”

Mrs. Branagan, to whom the rhetorical figure seemed a direct appeal, did look; and assuredly the inspection conveyed nothing flattering, for she turned away abruptly, and smoked her pipe with an air of profound disdain.

“Faix ye may say so,” continued Kerry, converting her glance into words. “‘Tis a poor object I am this blessed day. The coat on my back is more like a transparency, and my small clothes, saving your favour, is as hard to get into as a fishing-net; and if I was training for the coorse, I couldn’t be on shorter allowance.”. “What’s that yer saying about yer vittals?” said the cook, turning fiercely towards him. “There’s not your equal for an appetite from this to Cork. It’s little time a Kerry cow would keep you in beef; and it’s an ill skin it goes into. Yer a disgrace to a good family.”

“Well, I am, and there’s no denying it!” ejaculated Kerry, with a sigh that sounded far more like despair than resignation.

“Is it to hang yourself you have that piece of a rope there?” said she, pointing to the end of a stout cord that depended from Kerry’s pocket.

“Maybe it might come to that same yet,” said he, and then putting his hand into his pocket, he drew forth a great coil of rope, to the end of which a leaden weight was fastened. “There, now,” resumed he, “Yer a cute woman – can ye tell me what’s the meanin of that?”

Mrs. Branagan gave one look at the object in question, and then turned away, as though the enquiry was one beneath her dignity to investigate.

“Some would call it a clothes-line, and more would say it was for fishing; but sure there’s no sign of hooks on it at all; and what’s the piece of lead for? – that’s what bothers me out entirely.” These observations were so many devices to induce Mrs. Branagan to offer her own speculations; but they failed utterly – that sage personage not deigning to pay the least attention either to Kerry or the subject of his remarks.

“Well, I’ll just leave it where I found it,” said he, in a half soliloquy, but which had the effect of at least arousing the curiosity of his companion.

“And where was that?” asked she.

“Outside there, before the hall door,” said he, carelessly, “where I got this little paper book too,” and he produced a small pocket almanack, with blank pages interleaved, some of which had short pencil memoranda. “I’ll leave them both there, for, somehow, I don’t like the look of either of them.”

“Read us a bit of it first, anyhow,” said Mrs. Branagan, in a more conciliating tone than she had yet employed.

“‘Tis what I can’t do, then,” said Kerry; “for it’s writ in some outlandish tongue that’s past me altogether.”

“And you found them at the door, ye say?”

“Out there fornint the tower. ‘Twas the chaps that run away from Master Mark that dropped them. Ye’r a dhroll bit of a rope as ever I seen,” added he, as he poised the lead in his hand, “av a body knew only what to make of ye:” then turning to the book, he pored for several minutes over a page, in which there were some lines written with a pencil. “Be my conscience I have it,” said he, at length; “and faix it wasn’t bad of me to make it out. What do you think, now, the rope is for?”

“Sure I tould you afore I didn’t know.”

“Well, then, hear it, and no lie in it – ‘tis for measurin’ the say.”

“Measurin’ the say! What bother you’re talking; isn’t the say thousands and thousands of miles long.”

“And who says it isn’t? – but for measurin’ the depth of it, that’s what it is. Listen to this – ‘Bantry Bay, eleven fathoms at low water inside of Whiddy Island; but the shore current at half ebb makes landing difficult with any wind from the westward;’ and here’s another piece, half rubbed out, about flat-bottomed boats being best for the surf.”

“‘Tis the smugglers again,” chimed in Mrs. Branagan, as though summing up her opinion on the evidence.

“Troth, then, I don’t think so; they never found it hard to land, no matter how it blew. I’m thinking of a way to find it out at last.”

“And what’s that?”

“I’ll just go up to the parlour, wid an innocent face on me, and I’ll lay the rope and the little book down on the table before the strange man there; and I’ll just say, ‘There’s the things your honour dropped at the door outside;’ and maybe ould Archy won’t have the saycrct out of him.”

“Do that, Kerry avich,” said Mrs. Branagan, who at length vouchsafed a hearty approval of his skill in devices. “Do that, and I’ll broil a bit o’ meat for ye agin ye come down.”

“Wid an onion on it, av it’s plazing to ye, ma’am,” said Kerry, insinuatingly.

“Sure I know how ye like it; and if ye have the whole of the say-cret, maybe you’d get a dhrop to wash it down besides.

“And wish you health and happy days, Mrs. Branagan,” added Kerry, with a courteous gallantry he always reserved for the kitchen; so saying, he arose from his chair, and proceeded to arrange his dress in a manner becoming the dignity of his new mission, rehearsing at the same time the mode of his entry.

“‘Tis the rope and the little book, your honour, I’ll say, that ye dropped outside there, and sure it would be a pity to lose it, afther all your trouble measuring the places. That will be enough for ould Archy; let him get a sniff of the game once, and begorra he’ll run him home by himself afterwards.”

With this sensible reflection, Kerry ascended the stairs in high good humour at his own sagacity, and the excellent reward which awaited it on his return. As he neared the door, the voices were loud and boisterous; at least Mark’s was such; and it seemed as if Talbot was endeavouring to moderate the violent tone in which he spoke, and successfully, too; for a loud burst of laughter followed, in which Talbot appeared to join heartily.

“Maybe I’ll spoil your fun,” said Kerry, maliciously, to himself, and he opened the door, and entered.

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE CAPITAL AND ITS PLEASURES

Dublin, at the time we speak of, possessed social attractions of a high order. Rank, beauty, intellect, and wealth, contributed their several influences; and while the tone of society had all the charms of a politeness now bygone, there was an admixture of native kindliness and cordiality, as distinctive as it was fascinating.

Almost every Irishman of rank travelled in those days. It was regarded as the last finishing-touch of education, and few nations possess quicker powers of imitation, or a greater aptitude in adapting foreign habitudes to home usages, than the Irish; for, while vanity with the Frenchman – coldness with the Englishman – and stolid indifference with the German, are insuperable barriers against this acquirement; the natural gaiety of Irish character, the buoyancy, but still more than all, perhaps, the inherent desire to please, suggest a quality, which, when cultivated and improved, becomes that great element of social success – the most precious of all drawing-room gifts – men call tact.

It would be a most unfair criterion of the tastes and pleasures of that day, were we to pronounce, from our experience of what Dublin now is. Provincialism had not then settled down upon the city, with all its petty attendant evils. The character of a metropolis was upheld by a splendid Court, a resident Parliament, a great and titled aristocracy. The foreground figures of the time were men whose names stood high, and whose station was recognized at every Court of Europe. There was wealth more than proportioned to the cheapness of the country; and while ability and talent were the most striking features of every circle, the taste for gorgeous display exhibited within doors and without, threw a glare of splendour over the scene, that served to illustrate, but not eclipse the prouder glories of mind. The comparative narrowness of the circle, and the total absence of English reserve, produced a more intimate admixture of all the ranks which constitute good society here than in London, and the advantages were evident; for while the aristocrat gained immeasurably, from ready intercourse with men whose pursuits were purely intellectual, so the latter acquired a greater expansiveness, and a wider liberality in his views, from being divested of all the trammels of mere professional habit, and threw off his pedantry, as a garment unsuited to his position in society. But what more than all else was the characteristic of the time, was the fact, that social eminence – the “succès de salon” – was an object to every one. From the proud peer, who aspired to rank and influence in the councils of the state, to the rising barrister, ambitious of parliamentary distinction – from the mere fashionable idler of the squares, to the deep plotter of political intrigue – this was alike indispensable. The mere admission into certain circles was nothing – the fact of mixing with the hundred others who are announced, and bow, and smile, and slip away, did not then serve to identify a man as belonging to a distinct class in society; nor would the easy platitudes of the present day, in which the fool or the fop can always have the ascendant, suffice for the absence of conversational ability, ready wit, and sharp intelligence, which were assembled around every dinner-table of the capital.

It is not our duty, still less our inclination, to inquire why have all these goodly attractions left us, nor wherefore is it, that, Uke the art of staining glass, social agreeability should be lost for ever. So it would seem, however; we have fallen upon tiresome times, and he who is old enough to remember pleasanter ones, has the sad solace of knowing that he has seen the last of them.

Crowded as the capital was, with rank, wealth, and influence, the arrival of Sir Marmaduke Travers was not without its “eclat.” His vast fortune was generally known; besides that, there was a singularity in the fact of an Englishman, bound to Ireland by the very slender tie of a small estate, without connexions or friends in the country, coming to reside in Dublin, which gratified native pride as much as it excited public curiosity; and the rapidity with which the most splendid mansion in Stephen’s-green was prepared for his reception, vied in interest with the speculation, as to what possible cause had induced him to come and live there. The rumours of his intended magnificence, and the splendour of his equipage, furnished gossip for the town, and paragraphs for the papers.

It was, indeed, a wondrous change for those two young girls – from the stillness and solitude of Glenflesk, to the gaiety of the capital – from a life of reflection and retirement, to the dazzling scenes and fascinating pleasures of a new world. Upon Sybella the first effect was to increase her natural timidity – to render her more cautious, as she found herself surrounded by influences so novel and so strange; and in this wise there was mingled with her enjoyment, a sense of hesitation and fear, that tinged all her thoughts, and even impressed themselves upon her manner. Not so with Kate: the instinct that made her feel at home in the world, was but the consciousness of her own powers of pleasing. She loved society as the scene, where, however glossed over by conventionalities, human passions and feelings were at work, and where the power of influencing or directing others gave a stimulus to existence, far higher and nobler than all the pleasures of retirement. It was life, in fact. Each day had its own separate interests, dramatizing, as it were, the real, and making of the ordinary events of the world a romance, of which she felt herself a character. As much an actor as spectator, she threw herself into the pleasures of society with a zest which need only have the accompaniments of youth, beauty, and talents, to make it contagious. Thus differing in character, as in appearance, these two young girls at once became the acknowledged beauties of the capital, and each was followed by a troop of admirers, whose enthusiasm exhibited itself in a hundred different ways. Their favourite colours at a ball became the fashionable emblems of the next day on the promenade, and even the ladies caught up the contagion, and enlisted themselves into parties, whose rivalry amused none so much as those, in whom it had its origin.

While the galling enmity of Celt to Saxon was then stirring in secret the hearts of thousands in the country, and fashioning itself into the elements of open insurrection, the city was divided by a more peaceful animosity, and the English and the Irish party were arrayed against each other in the cause of beauty.

It would be impossible to conceive a rivalry from which every ungenerous or unworthy feeling was more perfectly excluded. So far from any jealousy obtruding, every little triumph of one was a source of unalloyed heartfelt pleasure to the other; and while Sybella sympathized with all the delight of Kate’s followers in an Irish success, so Kate, with characteristic feeling, enjoyed nothing so much as the chagrin of her own party, when Sybella was unquestionably in the ascendant. Happily for us, we are not called upon to explain a phenomenon so novel and so pleasing – enough if we record it. Certain it is, the absence of all envy enhanced the fascinations of each, and exalted the objects in the eyes of their admirers. On this point alone opinion was undivided – none claimed any superiority for their idol, by ascribing to her a greater share of this good gift; nor could even malice impute a difference in their mutual affection.

One alone among the circle of their acquaintances stood neutral – unable to divest himself enough of natural partiality, to be a fair and just judge. Sir Marmaduke Travers candidly avowed that he felt himself out of court. The leaders of fashion, the great arbiters of “bon ton,” were happily divided, and if England could boast of a majority among the Castle party, Ireland turned the scale with those who, having enjoyed opportunities of studying foreign manner, pronounced Kate’s the very perfection of French agreeability, united to native loveliness and attraction.