Kitabı oku: «The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II)», sayfa 9

CHAPTER X. A DINNER-PARTY

People who live much together in small and secluded districts, grow at length to feel a very great distrust for all strangers. Their own ways and their own topics have become such a perfect world to them, that to feel ignorant of these themes appears like affectation or contempt; and the luckless man who drops down into such a “coterie,” is invariably deemed impertinent or a fool. Jack Massing-bred fully appreciated this difficulty; but it imparted such a piquancy to his “adventure,” as he persisted in calling it to himself, that he would n’t have dispensed with it, had he been able. It was in this temper he entered the room where the guests were now assembled, and, rather impatiently, awaiting his arrival.

It is a very cold, calculating sort of interval, that ten minutes before dinner; and men regard the stranger presented to them with feelings far more critical than kindly. Massingbred did not go through the ordeal unscathed; and it was easy to see in the constraint and reserve of all present, how little his appearance contributed to the promise of future conviviality. He made no effort to dispel this impression, for, after saluting each in turn, he walked to the window, and amused himself with what was passing in the street.

The dinner was announced at last, and passed off drearily enough; none liked to adventure on any topic of local interest, and they knew of little others. Brierley was stiffly polite; the priest blandly tranquil; the host himself uneasy and anxious; and poor old Peter Hayes, of the Priory, downright melancholy.

Massingbred saw the effect he was producing, and saw it with pleasure. His calculation was this: “Had I started ‘at speed’ with these fellows, they would have blown me at once. All my efforts to assimilate myself to their tastes, to join in their habits and adopt their notions, would have been detected in a trice. They must be brought to believe that they have made a convert of me themselves; the wider the space between us at first, the greater will be their merit in making me forget it in the end.”

As the whiskey-punch made its appearance, and the bottle of port was passed up beside the stranger, Massingbred thought the time was come when he might change his tactics, and open the campaign in force. “No,” said he, as the host pushed the wine towards him, “I ‘ve come over here to try and learn something about Ireland, and I must give myself every advantage of judging from a native point of view. This excellent old port may strengthen a man to stand by many an old prejudice, but my object is to lay in a new stock of ideas, and I ‘d rather try a new regimen.”

“That ‘s your bottle, then, sir. Try that,” said Brierley, pushing towards him a small square decanter of a faint greenish fluid.

“That is ‘poteen,’ Mr. Massingbred,” said the host. “It’s the small still that never paid the King a farthing.”

“I like it all the better, for that reason,” said Jack. “There’s something independent in the very thought of a liquor that never submitted to the indignity of a gauger.”

“That’s not a very English sentiment, sir,” said the priest, slyly.

“I don’t know whether it be or not,” rejoined Massingbred; “but I can neither perceive common-sense or justice in a law that will not allow a man to do what he likes with his own. Why, if Parliament declared to-morrow you should n’t boil your potatoes in Ireland, but eat them fried – or that you should n’t make bread of your corn, but eat it with milk as the Neapolitans do – ”

“I wish we could do the same here, with all my heart,” said the priest. “It’s little wheat or even barley-meal one of our poor people ever sees.”

“A wet potato and water is their diet,” said old Hayes, as he sipped his punch.

“I can believe it well,” said Massingbred, with great semblance of feeling. “I witnessed dreadful poverty and destitution as I came along, and I couldn’t help asking myself: What are the gentry about in this country? Do they or do they not see these things? If they do, are they indifferent to them?”

“They are indifferent to them; or even worse, they rejoice in them,” broke in a deep-voiced, energetic-looking man, who sat at the foot of the table, and had, although silent, taken a deep interest in the conversation. “They see, sir, in the destitution of Ireland another rivet in the chains of her bondage. As my ‘august leader’ remarked, it’s the rust on the fetters, though – and if it proclaims the length of the captivity, it suggests the hope of freedom.”

“Mr. Magennis is the dearest friend and trusty agent of Mr. O’Connell,” said Nelligan, in a whisper to Massingbred.

“Here’s his health, whoever said that!” cried Jack, enthusiastically, and as if not hearing the host’s observation.

“That’s a toast; we’ll all drink – and standing, too,” exclaimed Magennis. “‘Daniel O’Connell, gentlemen, hip, hip, hurra! ‘” And the room rang again with the hearty acclamations of the company.

“By Jove! there was something very fine – it was chivalrous – in the way he brought the Catholic question to issue at last. The bold expedient of testing the event by an individual experience was as clever as it was daring,” exclaimed Massingbred.

“You were in favor of the measure then, sir?” said Father Neal, with a bland smile that might mean satisfaction or suspicion.

“I was always an Emancipationist; but I am little satisfied with the terms on which the bill has been passed. I ‘d have had no restrictions, – no reservations. It should, according to me, have been unconditional or nothing.”

“You’ve heard the old proverb about half a loaf, sir?” said Hayes, with a dry laugh.

“And a poor adage it is, in its ordinary acceptation,” said Jack, quickly. “It ‘s the prompting spirit to many a shabby compromise! What disabilities should apply to any of us here, in regard to any post or position in our country’s service, by reason of opinions which are between ourselves and our own hearts – I say any of us, because some here – one I perceive is” – and he bowed to Father Rafferty – “a Catholic; and I for myself avow that, if for no other reason than this proscription, I’d be on this side.”

“You’re not in Parliament, sir, are you?” asked old Peter, with a seriousness that sorely tested the gravity of those at either side of him.

“No,” said Jack, frankly. “My father and I don’t agree on these subjects; and, consequently, though there is a seat in my family, I have not the honor to occupy it.”

“Are you any relation to Colonel Moore Massingbred, sir?” asked Magennis. “His son, sir.”

The questioner bowed, and a brief silence ensued; short as it was, it enabled Jack to decide upon his next move, and take it.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “I ‘m fully aware that my name is not a favorite in Ireland; and shall I own to you, till I came to this country myself, I half believed that this same humble opinion of us was to our credit! I used to hear such narratives of Irish barbarism, Irish brutality, priestcraft, superstition, and Heaven knows what besides, that I fully persuaded myself that our small repute was very nigh to an eulogium on us. Well, I came over to Trinity College strongly impressed with the notion that, because I had gained successes at Oxford, here I should be triumphant. It is in no boastfulness I say that I had acquitted myself well at home; I had attained to rather a reputation. Well, as I said, I came over to Trinity and pitted myself against the best man going, and a very pretty beating he gave me. Yes, gentlemen, he beat me in everything, even in those which we Oxford men fancy our specialties. I soon learned that I had not the shadow of a pretension to stand against him, and I learned, also, that it was no disgrace to me to be thus vanquished, since he was not alone the foremost man of his time, but the best scholar the University had seen for a full century; and shall I add, as unpretending and as modest in the midst of all his triumphs as he was unapproachable by all competitors. And now; gentlemen, I will ask your leave to drink his health; doubtless it has been many a time toasted before over the same table, but none ever more ardently followed the sentiment with his whole heart than do I in proposing to you, ‘Three cheers for Joe Nelligan.’”

The rambling opening of this brief speech was quite forgotten in the enthusiasm that greeted its close. In every respect it was a happy diversion. It relieved the company from a discussion that promised but gloomily. It brought back their minds to a pleasant theme, and enabled them, so to say, to pay off in grateful cheers to their host his own hospitable reception of them. As for Nelligan himself, he was sincerely, deeply affected; and though he twice essayed to speak, he could get no further than “My son Joe” – “my boy” – and sat down murmuring – “Thank you – God bless you for it” – and covered his face with his hands.

Awkward as was the moment, it was relieved by the company filling their glasses and nodding in most friendly fashion to Massingbred as they drank his health; while a low murmur of approbation went round the table, of which he was most unmistakably the object.

“Are you fond of shooting, sir?” asked Brierley. “Well, then, I hope you’ll not leave the country without giving me a day or two up at my little place in the mountains: There’s some snipe left; and, upon my conscience, I’ll be proud to see you at Kilmaccud.”

“And there’s worse quarters, too!” broke in Magennis. “My ‘august leader’ spent a day and a half there.”

“I’ll drive you over there myself,” whispered Father Neal, “if you’ll finish the week at the ‘Rookery,’ – that’s what they call the priest’s house.”

Massingbred accepted everything, and shook hands across the table in ratification of half a dozen engagements.

“You don’t think I’ll let you cheat me out of my guest so easily,” said Nelligan. “No, gentlemen. This must be Mr. Massingbred’s head-quarters as long as he stays here, for, faith, I ‘d not give him up to Mr. Martin himself.”

“And who may he be?” asked Jack.

“Martin of Cro’ Martin.”

“The owner of half the county.”

“Of the town you ‘re in, this minute.”

“The richest proprietor in the West.”

Such were the pattering replies that poured in upon him, while words of intense astonishment at his ignorance were exchanged on all sides.

“I believe I have given you a fair guarantee for my ignorance, gentlemen,” said Jack, “in confessing that I never so much as heard of Martin of Cro’ Martin. Does he reside on his estate here?”

“Yes, sir,” said Nelligan, “he lives at Cro’ Martin Castle, about sixteen miles from this; and certainly, while in this part of the country, you ought to pay the place a visit. I have never been there myself, but I hear the most astonishing accounts of the splendor of the furniture and the magnificence of the whole establishment.”

“There’s pictures there,” said the priest, “that cost the grandfather of the present man a quarter of a million sterling.”

“Why, the three statues in the hall, they say, are worth ten thousand pounds,” said Brierley.

“Be gorra! when a man would give four hundred for a bull, there ‘s no saying what he ‘d stop at,” broke in Peter Hayes. “I went up to see him myself, and indeed he’s a beauty, there ‘s no denying it, – but four hundred pound! Think of four hundred pound!”

“The stable is the best thing in the place,” said Father Neal; “they ‘re mighty nice cattle, there, for every kind of work.”

“Thanks to his niece for that,” cried Magennis; “she knows a horse with any man in the West of Ireland.”

“And can break him, too,” chimed in Brierley; “I don’t care what his temper is. Let Miss Mary get her hand on him, and he ‘ll turn out well.”

“I ‘m driving an old chestnut mare this minute that she trained,” said the priest; “and though she has n’t a good leg amongst the four, and is touched in the wind, she ‘s as neat a stepper, and as easy in the mouth as a five-year-old.”

“She ‘s a fine young woman!” said old Hayes, drinking off his glass as though toasting her to himself, “and not like any Martin ever I seen before.”

“No pride about her!” said Brierley.

“I wouldn’t exactly say that, Matthew,” interposed Father Neal. “But her pride isn’t the common kind.”

“She’s as proud as Lucifer!” broke in Nelligan, almost angrily. “Did you ever see her drive up to a shop-door in this town, and make the people come out to serve her, pointing with her whip to this, that, and t’other, and maybe giving a touch of the lash to the boy if he would n’t be lively enough?”

“Well, I ‘d never call her proud,” rejoined old Hayes, “after seeing her sitting in Catty Honan’s cabin, and turning the bread on the griddle for her, when Catty was ill.”

“Is she handsome?” asked Massingbred, who was rather interested by the very discrepancy in the estimate of the young lady.

“We can agree upon that, I believe, sir,” said the priest; “there ‘s no disputing about her beauty.”

“I never saw her in a room,” said Magennis; “but my ‘august leader’ thought her masculine.”

“No, no,” said Nelligan; “she ‘s not. She has the Martin manner, – overbearing and tyrannical, – if you like; but she can be gentle enough with women and children.”

“You have certainly given me a strong curiosity to see her,” said Massingbred. “Does she always live here?”

“Always. I don’t believe she was ever beyond the bounds of the county in her life!”

“And how does she pass her time?” asked he, with some astonishment.

“She manages the whole estate,” said Nelligan; “her uncle ‘s a conceited old fool, incapable of anything, and lets her do what she likes; and so she drains, and plants, and encloses; makes roads, bridges, and even harbors; has all the new-fangled inventions about farming, and, if what I hear be true, is spending more money on the property than the fee-simple is worth.”

“Yes, sir,” chimed in Magennis; “and she ‘s trying hard to bring back the old feudal devotion to the Chief, which was the bane of Ireland. She wants the tenants to have no will of their own, but just to vote whatever the landlord tells them. She had the impudence to tell my ‘august leader’ that they had no need of him down there, – that the county was too poor to waste its energies in factious squabbles.”

“If she ‘d let the people alone about their religion, I ‘d think better of her,” said Father Neal. “What does she know about controversial points and disputed dogmas?”

“Maybe you ‘re wrong about that,” broke in Peter Hayes. “She came to me the other day for ten shillings for a school, and she said, ‘Come over, Mr. Hayes; come and tell me if there ‘s anything you are dissatisfied with.’”

“And did you go?” asked the priest.

“Faix! I did not,” said Peter, with a dry look. “I thought the visit might cost me ten shillings, and so I stayed at home.”

The manner in which he uttered these words produced a hearty laugh, in which he himself most good-humoredly took part.

“Well, she’s good to the poor, anyhow,” said Brierley; “and it’s a new thing for one of her name to be so!”

“All policy, all scheming!” said Magennis. “She sees how the family influence has declined, and is fast becoming obliterated in this country, by reason of their worthlessness, insolence, and neglect of the people; and she ‘s just shrewd enough to see how far a little cajolery goes with poor Paddy; but, as my ‘august leader’ observed, it is not a frieze coat, nor a pair of brogues, that can compensate for the loss of that freedom that is every man’s birthright; and it is not by an ounce of tea, or a dose of physic, we ‘ll ever see Ireland great, glorious, and free.”

“‘First gem of the earth, and first flower of the sea!’” exclaimed Hayes, with enthusiasm.

Nor in the moment was the blunder of his quotation noticed by any but Massingbred. “You are an admirer of Tommy Moore, I see, sir?” said he, to the old man.

“I am fond of ‘The Meeting of the Waters,’ sir,” said Hayes, meekly, and like a man who was confessing to a weakness.

“And here ‘s the man to sing it!” cried Brierley, clapping the priest familiarly on the shoulder; a proposal that was at once hailed with acclamation.

“‘T is many a long day I have n’t sung a note,” said Father Neal, modestly.

“Come, come, Father Neal; we’ll not let you off that way. It’s not under this roof that you can make such an excuse!”

“He ‘d rather give us something more to his own taste,” said Brierley. “‘To Ladies’ eyes around, boys,’ – eh, Father Rafferty?”

“That’s my favorite of all the songs he sings,” broke in Magennis.

“Let it be, ‘To Ladies’ eyes!’” cried Massingbred; “and we ‘ll drink ‘Miss Martin’s.’ ‘I ‘ll warrant she ‘ll prove an excuse for the glass.’” And he sang the line with such a mellow cadence that the whole table cheered him.

To the priest’s song, given with considerable taste and no mean musical skill, there followed, in due course, others, not exactly so successful, by Brierley and Magennis, and, at last, by old Peter himself, who warbled out a wonderful ditty, in a tone so doleful that two of the company fell fast asleep under it, and Brierley’s nerves were so affected that, to support himself, he got most completely drunk, and in a very peremptory tone told the singer to desist!

“Don’t you perceive,” cried he, “that there ‘s a stranger present, – a young English cub, – come down to laugh at us? Have you no discretion, – have you no decency, Peter Hayes, but you must go on with your stupid old ‘croniawn’ about dimples and the devil knows what?”

“Another tumbler, Mr. Massingbred, – one more?” said the host, with the air, however, of one who did not exact compliance.

“Not for the world,” said Jack, rising from table. “Have I your permission to light a cigar?”

“To do just whatever you please,” said Nelligan, rather astonished at the formal preparations for smoking he now perceived brought forth, and which at the time we tell of were not so popular as in our own day.

The priest alone accepted Massingbred’s offer of a “weed;” and Nelligan, opening a door into an adjoining room where tea was laid, threw also wide a little sash-door that led into the garden, whose cool and fragrant air was perfectly delicious at the moment. Jack strolled down the steps and soon lost himself in the dark alleys, not sorry to be left alone with his own thoughts, after a scene in which his convivial powers had been taxed to no mean extent.

“A clever young fellow! There’s stuff in him,” said the priest, in a whisper to Nelligan.

“And no impudence about him,” said Brierley; “he’s just like one of ourselves.”

“He has a wonderful opinion of Joe!” said Nelligan.

“He’s the very man for my ‘august leader,’” said Magennis. “I ‘d like to bring them together!”

“His father ‘s a Treasury Lord,” said Nelligan, swelling at the thought of his being the host of such company!

“And I ‘ll tell you what, Dan Nelligan,” said the priest, confidentially, “talents won’t do everything, nowadays, without high connections; mark my words, and see if that young man does n’t stand high yet. He has just got every requirement of success. He has good family, good looks, good abilities, and” – here he dropped his voice still lower – “plenty of brass. Ay, Dan, if Joe could borrow a little of his friend’s impudence, it would be telling him something.”

Nelligan nodded assentingly; it was about the only quality in the world which he could have believed Joe stood in any need of getting a loan of.

“Joe beat him out of the field,” said Dan, proudly. “He told me so himself, this morning.”

“No doubt; and he would again, where the contest was a college one; but ‘Life,’ my dear friend, – life demands other gifts beside genius.”

“Ganius!” broke in old Hayes, with an accent of the profoundest contempt, – “Ganius! I never knew a ‘Ganius’ yet that was n’t the ruin of all belonging to him! And whenever I see a young fellow that knows no trade, nor has any livelihood, who’s always borrowing here and begging there, a torment to his family and a burden to his friends, I set him down at once for a ‘Ganius.’”

“It’s not that I was alluding to, Mr. Hayes,” said the priest, in some irritation. “I spoke of real ability, sterling powers of mind and thought, and I hope that they are not to be despised.”

“Like my ‘august leader’s’!” said Magennis, proudly.

“Ay, or like that young gentleman’s there,” said Father Neal, with the tone of a man pronouncing upon what he understood. “I watched him to-day at dinner, and I saw that every remark he made was shrewd and acute, and that whenever the subject was new to him, he fell into it as he went on talking, picking up his facts while he seemed to be discussing them! Take my word for it, gentlemen, he ‘ll do!”

“He does n’t know much about flax, anyhow,” muttered old Hayes.

“He took his punch like a man,” said Brierley, bearing testimony on a point where his evidence was sure to have weight.

“He’ll do!” said Father Neal once more, and still more authoritatively than before.

“Joe carried away every premium from him,” said old Nelligan, with a degree of irritation that proclaimed how little he enjoyed the priest’s eulogy of his guest.

“I know he did, sir; and no man has a higher respect for your son’s great abilities than myself; but here ‘s how it is, Mr. Nelligan,” – and he drew himself up like a man about to deliver a profound opinion, – “here ‘s how it is. The mind that can master abstract science is one thing; the faculties that can deal with fellow-mortals is another. This world is not a University!”

“The Lord be praised for that same!” cried old Hayes, “or I ‘m afraid I ‘d fare badly in it.”

“To unite both descriptions of talent,” resumed the priest, oratorically, “is the gift of but few.”

“My ‘august leader’ has them,” broke in Magennis.

“Show me the man that can deal with men!” said Father Neal, dictatorially.

“Women is twice as hard to deal with!” cried old Hayes. “I ‘ll back Nancy Drake against any man in the barony.”

“Faith, and I remember her a pretty woman,” said Brierley, who would gladly have enticed the conversation out of its graver character. “A prettier girl than Mary Martin herself!” continued the inexorable Brierley, for the company did not appear to approve of his diversion.

“We are now discussing politics, – grave questions of state, sir,” said Father Neal, – “for we have come to times when even the most indifferent and insignificant amongst us cannot refrain feeling an interest in the progress of our country. And when I see a fine young man like that there, as one may say going a-begging for a party, I tell you that we are fools – worse than fools – if we don’t secure him.”

“Do you mean for the borough?” asked Nelligan.

“I do, sir, – I mean for the borough!”

“Not till we have consulted my ‘august leader,’ I hope,” broke in Magennis.

“I’m for managing our own affairs ourselves,” said the priest. “What we want is a man of our own; and if that young gentleman there will take the pledges we should propose, I don’t know that we’d readily get the like of him.”

The silence that now fell upon the party was ominous; it was plain that either the priest’s proposition was not fully acquiesced in, or that the mode of announcing it was too abrupt. Perhaps this latter appeared the case to his own eyes, for he was the first to speak.

“Of course what I have said now is strictly among ourselves, and not to be mentioned outside of this room; for until my friend Dan Nelligan here consents to take the field against the Martin interest, there is no chance of opening the borough. Let him once agree to that, and the member for Oughterard will be his own nominee.”

“Do you really think so?” asked Nelligan, eagerly.

“I know it, sir; and every gentleman at this table knows it.”

A strong chorus in assent murmured around the board.

“It would be a great struggle,” muttered Nelligan.

“And a great victory!” said the priest.

“What a deal of money, too, it would cost!”

“You have the money, Dan Nelligan; and let me tell you one thing,” – here he leaned over his chair and whispered some words in the other’s ear.

Old Nelligan’s face flushed as he listened, and his eyes sparkled with intense excitement.

“If I thought that– if I only thought that, Father Rafferty – I ‘d spend half my fortune on it to-morrow.”

“It’s as true as I’m a living man,” said the priest, solemnly; and then with a motion of his hand gestured caution, for Massingbred was slowly ascending the steps, and about to enter the room.

With an instinctive readiness all his own, he saw in the embarrassed and conscious looks around that he had himself been the object of their discussion, and with the same shrewdness he detected their favorable feeling towards him.

“I have made them my own!” muttered he to himself.

“He ‘ll do our work well!” said the priest in his heart.