The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. II (of II)

“Ay, but I did, and my ears are older than yours. She’s riding through the river now; I hear the water splashin’.”

Kate tried to catch the sounds, but could not; she walked out upon the lawn to listen, but except the brawling of the stream among the rocks, there was nothing to be heard.

“D’ ye see her comin’?” asked Catty, eagerly.

“No. Your ears must have deceived you. There is no one coming.”

“I heard her voice, as I hear yours now. I heard her spake to the mare, as she always does when she ‘s plungin’ into the river. There, now, don’t you hear that?”

“I hear nothing, I assure you, my dear Mrs. Broon. It is your own anxiety that is misleading you; but if you like, I ‘ll go down towards the river and see.” And without waiting for a reply Kate hastened down the slope. As she went, she could not help reflecting over the superstition which attaches so much importance to these delusions, giving them the character of actual warnings. It was doubtless from the mind dwelling so forcibly on Miss Martin’s perilous life that the old woman’s apprehensions had assumed this palpable form, and thus invented the very images which should react upon her with terror.

“Just as I thought,” cried Kate, as she stood on the bank of the stream; “all silent and deserted, no one within sight.” And slowly she retraced her steps towards the cottage. The old woman stood at the door, pale and trembling; an attempt to smile was on her features, but her heart denied the courage of the effort.

“Where is she now?” cried Catty, wildly. “She rang the bell this minute, and I heerd the mare trottin’ round to the stable by herself, as she always does. But where ‘s Miss Mary?”

“My dear Mrs. Broon,” said Kate, in her kindest accents, “it is just as I told you. Your mind is anxious and uneasy about Miss Martin; you are unhappy at her absence, and you think at every stir you hear her coming; but I have been to the river-side, and there is no one there. I ‘ll go round to the stables, if you wish it.”

“There ‘s no tracks of a hoof on the gravel,” muttered the old woman, in a broken voice; “there was nobody here!”

“So I said,” replied Kate. “It was a mere delusion, – a fancy.”

“A delusion, – a fancy!” cried Catty, scornfully; “that’s the way they always spake of whatever they don’t understand. It’s easier to say that than confess you don’t see how to explain a thing; but I heerd the same sounds before you came to-day; ay, and I went down to see why she was n’t comin’, and at the pool there was bubbles and froth on the water, just as if a baste had passed through, but no livin’ thing to be seen. Was n’t that a delusion, too?”

“An accident, perchance. Only think, what lives of misery we should lead were we ever tracing our own fears, and connecting them with all the changes that go on around us!”

“It’s two days she’s away, now,” muttered the old woman, who only heeded her own thoughts; “she was to be back last night, or early this mornin’.”

“Where had she gone to?” asked Kate, who now saw that the other had lapsed into confidence.

“She’s gone to the islands! – to Innishmore, and maybe, on to Brannock!”

“That’s a long way out to sea,” said Kate, thoughtfully; “but still, the weather is fine, and the day favorable. Had she any other object than pleasure in this excursion?”

“Pleasure is it?” croaked Catty. “‘Tis much pleasure she does be given herself! Her pleasure is to be where there ‘s fever and want, – in the lonely cabin, where the sick is lyin’! It ‘s to find a poor crayture that run away from home she ‘s gone now, – one Joan Landy. She’s missin’ this two months, and nobody knows where she ‘s gone to! and Miss Mary got so uneasy at last that she could n’t sleep by night nor rest by day, – always talkin’ about her, and say in’ as much as it was all her fault; as if she could know why she went, or where?”

“Did she go alone on this errand, then?”

“To be sure she did. Who could she have with her? She towld Loony she ‘d want the boat with four men in it, and maybe to stay out three days, for she ‘d go to all the islands before she came back.”

“Loony ‘s the best sailor on the coast, I ‘ve heard; and with such weather as this there is no cause for alarm.”

Catty did not seem to heed the remark; she felt that within her against which the words of consolation availed but little, and she sat brooding sorrowfully and in silence.

“The night will soon be fallin’ now,” said she, at last. “I hope she’s not at sea!”

In spite of herself, Kate Henderson caught the contagion of the old woman’s terrors, and felt a dreamy, undefined dread of coming evil. As she looked out, however, at the calm and fair landscape, which, as day declined, grew each moment more still, she rallied from the gloomy thoughts, and said, – “I wish I knew how to be of any service to you, Mrs. Broon. If you could think of anything I could do – anywhere I could go – ” She stopped suddenly at a gesture from the old woman, who, lifting her hand to impress silence, stood a perfect picture of eager anxiety to hear. Bending down her head, old Catty stood for several seconds motionless.

“Don’t ye hear it now?” broke she in. “Listen! I thought I heerd something like a wailin’ sound far off, but it is the wind. See how the tree-tops are bendin’! – That’s three times I heerd it now,” said Catty. “If ye live to be as old as me, you ‘ll not think light of a warnin’. You think your hearin’ better because you’re younger; but I tell you that there ‘s sounds that only reach ears that are goin’ to where the voices came from. When eyes grow dim to sights of this world, they are strainin’ to catch a glimpse of them that’s beyond it.” Although no tears rose to her eyes, the withered face trembled in her agony, and her clasped hands shook in the suffering of her sorrow.

Against impressions of this sort, Kate knew well enough how little reasoning availed, and she forbore to press arguments which she was aware would be unsuccessful. She tried, however, to turn the current of the old woman’s thoughts, by leading her to speak of the condition of the country and the state of the people. Catty gave short, abrupt, and unwilling answers to all she asked, and Kate at length arose to take her leave.

“You’re goin’ away, are ye?” said Catty, half angrily.

“I have only just remembered that I have a long way to walk, and it is already growing late.”

“Ay, and ye ‘re impatient to be back again, at home, beside your own fire, with your own people. But she has no home, and her own has deserted her!”

“Mine has not many charms for me!” muttered Kate to herself.

“It’s happy for you that has father and mother,” went on the old woman. “Them ‘s the only ones, after all! – the only ones that never loves the less, the less we desarve it! I don’t wonder ye came back again!” And in a sort of envious bitterness Catty wished her a good-night.

If the distance she had to walk was not shortened by the tenor of her thoughts, as little did she feel impatient to press onward. Dreary and sad enough were her reveries. Of the wild visionary ambitions which once had stirred her heart, there remained nothing but disappointments. She had but passed the threshold of life to find all dreary and desolate; but perhaps the most painful feeling of the moment was the fact that now pressed conviction on her, and told that in the humble career of such a one as Mary Martin there lay a nobler heroism and a higher devotion than in the most soaring path of political ambition, and that all the theorizing as to popular rights made but a sorry figure beside the actual benefits conferred by one true-hearted lover of her kind. “She is right, and I am wrong!” muttered she to herself. “In declining to entertain questions of statecraft she showed herself above, and not beneath, the proud position she had taken. The very lowliness of this task is its glory. Oh, if I could but win her confidence and be associated in such a labor! and yet my very birth denies me the prestige that hers confers.” And then she thought of home, and all the coldness of that cheerless greeting smote upon her heart.

The moon was up ere Kate arrived at her father’s door. She tapped at it gently, almost timidly. Her stepmother, as if expecting her, came quickly, and in a low, cautious whisper told her that she would find her supper ready in her bedroom.

“To-morrow, perhaps, he may be in better humor or better spirits. Good-night.” And so Kate silently stole along to her room, her proud heart swelling painfully, and her tearless eye burning with all the heat of a burning brain.

CHAPTER XXX. “A TEA-PARTY” AT MRS. CRONAN’S

Once more, but for the last time, we are at Kilkieran. To a dreary day of incessant rain succeeded an evening still drearier. Wild gusts swept along the little shore, and shook the frail windows and ill-fitting doors of the cottages, while foam and sea-drift were wafted over the roofs, settling like snow-flakes on the tall cliffs above them. And yet it was midsummer! By the almanac the time was vouched to be the opening of the season; a fact amply corroborated by the fashionable assemblage then enjoying the hospitalities of Mrs. Cronan’s tea-table. There they were, with a single exception, the same goodly company already presented to the reader in an early chapter of our story. We have already mentioned the great changes which time had worked in the appearance of the little watering-place. The fostering care of proprietorship withdrawn, the ornamental villa of the Martins converted into a miserable village inn, the works of the pier and harbor suspended, and presenting in their unfinished aspect the dreary semblance of ruin and decay, – all conspired with the falling fortunes of the people to make the scene a sad one. Little evidence of this decline, however, could be traced in the aspect of that pleasant gathering, animated with all its ancient taste for whist, scandal, and shrimps; their appetite for such luxuries seeming rather to have increased than diminished by years. Not that we presume to say they could claim any immunity against the irrevocable decrees of age. Unhappily, the confession may be deemed not exactly in accordance with gallantry; but it is strictly true, time had no more forgotten the living than the inanimate accessories of the picture. Miss Busk, of the Emporium, had grown more sour and more stately. The vinegar of her temperament was verging upon verjuice, and the ill opinion of mankind experience enforced had written itself very legibly on her features. The world had not improved upon her by acquaintance. Not so Captain Bodkin; fatter and more wheezy than ever, he seemed to relish life rather more than when younger. He had given up, too, that long struggle with himself about bathing, and making up his mind to suffer no “sea-change;” he was, therefore, more cheerful than before.

As for Mrs. Cronan, “the little comforts she was used to” had sorely diminished by the pressure of the times, and, in consequence, she drew unlimited drafts upon the past to fill up the deficiencies of the present. Strange enough is it, that the faults and follies of society are just as adhesive ingredients as its higher qualities! These people had grown so used to each other in all their eccentric ways and oddities, that they had become fond of them; like a pilot long accustomed to rocks and sandbanks, they could only steer their course where there was something to avoid!

The remainder of the goodly company had grown stouter or thinner, jollier or more peevish, as temperament inclined; for it is with human nature as with wine: if the liquor does not get racier with years, it degenerates sadly.

The first act of the whist and backgammon playing was over, and the party now sat, stood, crouched, lounged, or lay, as chance and the state of the furniture permitted, at supper. At the grand table, of course, were the higher dignitaries, such as Father Maher, the Captain, Miss Busk, and Mrs. Clinch; but cockles were eaten, and punch discussed in various very odd quarters; bursts of joyous laughter, too, came from dark pantries, and sounds of merriment mingled with the jangling crash of kitchen utensils. Reputations were roasted and pancakes fried, characters and chickens alike mangled, and all the hubbub of a festival prevailed in a scene where the efforts of the fair hostess were directed to produce an air of unblemished elegance and gentility.

Poor Clinch, the revenue officer, who invariably eat what he called “his bit” in some obscure quarter, alone and companionless, was twice “had up” before the authorities for the row and uproar that prevailed, and underwent a severe cross-examination, “as to where he was when Miss Cullenane was making the salad,” and, indeed, cut a very sorry figure at the conclusion of the inquiry. All the gayeties and gravities of the scene, however, gradually toned down as the serious debate of the evening came on; which was no other than the lamentable condition of the prospects of Kilkieran, and the unanimous opinion of the ruinous consequences that must ensue from the absence of the proprietor.

“We ‘ve little chance of getting up the news-room now,” said the Captain. “The Martins won’t give a sixpence for anything.”

“It is something to give trade an impulse we want, sir,” broke in Miss Busk, – “balls and assemblies; evening reunions of the élite of society, where the elegance of the toilet should rival the distingué air of the company.”

“That’s word for word out of the ‘Intelligence,’” cried the Captain. “It’s unparliamentary to quote the newspapers.”

“I detest the newspapers,” broke in Miss Busk, angrily; “after advertising the Emporium for two seasons in the ‘Galway Celt,’ they gave me a leading article beginning, ‘As the hot weather is now commencing, and the season for fashion approaches, we cannot better serve the interests of our readers than by directing attention to the elegant “Symposium!”’ ‘Symposium!’ – I give you my word of honor that’s what they put it.”

“On my conscience! it might have been worse,” chuckled out the Captain.

“It was young Nelligan explained to me what it was,” resumed Miss Busk; “and Scanlan said, ‘I’d have an action against them for damages.’”

“Keep out of law, my dear! – keep out of law!” sighed Mrs. Cronan. “See to what it has reduced me! I, that used to go out in my own coach, with two men in green and gold; that had my house in town, and my house in the country; that had gems and ornaments such as a queen might wear! And there’s all that’s left me now!” And she pointed to a brooch about the size of a cheese-plate, where a melancholy gentleman in uniform was represented, with a border of mock pearls around him. “The last pledge of affection!” sobbed she.

“Of course you wouldn’t pledge it, my dear,” muttered the deaf old Mrs. Few; “and they’d give you next to nothing on it, besides.”

“We ‘ll have law enough here soon, it seems,” said Mrs. Cronan, angrily; for the laugh this blunder excited was by no means flattering and pleasant. “There ‘s Magennis’s action first for trial at the Assizes.”

“That will be worth hearing,” said Mrs. Clinch. “They ‘ll have the first lawyers from Dublin on each side.”