The Wild Irish Girl: A National Tale Page 10

  _Villa di Marino, Atlantic Ocean_

  Having told Mr. Clendinning, that I should spend a few days inwandering about the country, I mounted my horse. So I determined to roamfree and unrestrained by the presence of a servant, to Mr. Clendinning’sutter amazement, I ordered a few changes of linen, my drawing-book,and pocket escritoire, to be put in a small valice, which, with all duehumility, I had strapped on the back of my steed, whom, by the bye, Iexpect will be as celebrated as the _Rozinante_ of Don Quixote, orthe _Beltenbros L’Amadis de Gaul_; and thus accoutred set off on myperegrination, the most listless knight that ever entered on the listsof errantry.

  You will smile, when I tell you my first point of attraction was the_Lodge_; to which (though with some difficulty) I found my way; forit lies in a most wild and unfrequented direction, but so infinitelysuperior in situation to M------ house, that I no longer wonder at myfather’s preference. Every feature that constitutes either the beautyor sublime of landscape, is here finely combined. Groves druidicallyvenerable--mountains of Alpine elevation--expansive lakes, and theboldest and most romantic sea-coast I ever beheld, alternately diversifyand enrich its scenery; while a number of young and flourishingplantations evince the exertion of taste in my father, he certainly hasnot betrayed in the disposition of his hereditary domains. I found this_Tusculum_ inhabited only by a decent old man and his superannuatedwife. Without informing them who I was, I made a feigning wish to makethe place a pretext for visiting it. The old man smiled at the idea,and shook his head, presuming that I must be indeed a stranger in thecountry, as my accent denoted, for that this spot belonged to a great_English Lord_, whom he verily believed would not resign it for his ownfine place some miles off; but when, with some jesuitical artifice Iendeavoured to trace the cause of this attachment, he said it was hisLordship’s fancy, and that there was no accounting for people’s fancies.

  “That is all very true,” said I, “but is it the house only that seizedon your Lord’s fancy?”

  “Nay, for the matter of that,” said he, “the lands are far more finer;the house, though large, being no great things.” I begged in thisinstance to judge for myself, and a few shillings procured me not onlyfree egress, but the confidence of the ancient _Cicerone_.

  This fancied _harem_, however, I found not only divested of its expectedfair inhabitant, but wholly destitute of furniture, except what filled abedroom occupied by my father, and an apartment which was _locked_.The old man with some tardiness produced the key, and I found thismysterious chamber was only a study; but closer inspection discoveredthat almost all the books related to the language, history, andantiquities of Ireland.

  So you see, in fact, my father’s _Sultana_ is no other than the _IrishMuse_; and never was son so tempted to become the rival of his father,since the days of Antiochus and Stratonice. For, at a moment whenmy taste, like my senses, is flat and palled, nothing can operate sostrongly as an incentive, as novelty. I strongly suspect that my fatherwas aware of this, and that he had despoiled the temple, to prevent mebecoming a worshipper at the same shrine. For the old man said he hadreceived a letter from his Lord, ordering away all the furniture (exceptthat of his own bed-room and study) to the manor house; the study andbed-room, however, will suffice me, and here I shall certainly pitch myhead-quarters until my father’s arrival.

  I have already had some occasions to remark, that the warm susceptiblecharacter of the Irish is open to the least indication of courtesy andkindness.

  My _politesse_ to this old man, opened every sluice of confidence in hisbreast, and, as we walked down the avenue together, having thrown thebridle over my horse’s neck, and offered him my arm, for he was lame, Ienquired how this beautiful farm fell into the hands of Lord M--------,still concealing from him that it was his son who demanded the question.

  “Why, your Honour,” said he, “the farm, though beautiful is small;however, it made the best part of what remained of the patrimony of thePrince, when--------”

  “What Prince?” interrupted I, amazed.

  “Why, the Prince of Inismore, to be sure, jewel, whose great forefathersonce owned the half of the barony, from the Red Bog to the sea-coast.Och! it is a long story, but I heard my grandfather tell it a thousandtimes, how a great Prince of Inismore in the wars of Queen Elizabeth,had here a castle and a great tract of land on the _borders_, of whichhe was deprived, as the story runs, becaise he would neither cut his_glibbs_, shave his upper lip, nor shorten his shirt; * and so he wasdriven, with the rest of us beyond the _pale_. The family, however,after a while, flourished greater nor ever. Och, and it is themselvesthat might, for they were true Milesians bread and born, every mother’ssoul of them. O not a drop of _Strongbonean_ flowed in their Irishveins, agrah!

  * From the earliest settlement of the English in this country, an inquisitorial persecution had been carried on against the national costume. In the reign of Henry V. there was an act passed against even the English colonists wearing a whisker on the upper lip, like the Irish; and in 1616, the Lord Deputy, in his instructions to the Lord President and Council, directed, that such as appeared in the Irish robes or mantles, should be punished by fine and imprisonment.

  “Well, as I was after telling your Honour, the family flourished, andbeat all before them, for they had an army of _galloglasses_ attheir back, * until the Cromwellian wars broke out, and those samecold-hearted Presbyterians, battered the fine _old ancient_ castle ofInismore, and left in the condition it now stands; and what was worsenor that, the poor old Prince was put to death in the arms of his fineyoung son, who tried to save him, and that by one of Cromwell’s EnglishGenerals, who received the town lands of Inismore, which lie nearBally--------, as his reward. Now this English General who murdered thePrince, was no other than the ancestor of my Lord, to whom these estatesdescended from father to son. Ay, you may well start, Sir, it was awoful piece of business; for of all their fine estates, nothing was leftto the Princes of Inismore, but the ruins of their old castle, and therocks that surround it; except this tight little bit of an estate here,on which the father of the present Prince built this house; becaise hisLady, with whom he got a handsome fortune, and who was descended fromthe Kings of Connaught, took a dislike to the castle; the story goingthat it was haunted by the murdered Prince; and what with building ofthis house, and living like an Irish Prince, as he was every inch ofhim, and spending 3000 l. a year out of 300 l., when he died (and thesun never shone on such a funeral; the whiskey ran about like _ditchwater_, and the country was stocked with pipes and tobacco for many along year after. For the present Prince, his son, would not be a bitbehind his father in any thing, and so signs on him, for he is not worthone guinea this blessed day, Christ save him;)--well, as I was saying,when he died, he left things in a sad way, which his son is not the manto mend, for he was the spirit of a king, and lives in as much state asone to this day.”

  * The second order of military in Ireland.

  “But where, where does he live?” interrupted I, with breathlessimpatience.

  “Why,” continued this living chronicle, in the true spirit of Irishreplication, “he did live there in that Lodge, as they call it now, andin that room where my Lord keeps his books, was our young Princess born;her father never had but her, and loves her better than his own heart’sblood, and well he may, the blessing of the Virgin Mary and the TwelveApostles light on her sweet head. Well, the Prince would never let itcome near him, that things were not going on well, and continued to takeat great rents, farms that brought him in little; for being a Prince anda Milesian, it did not become him to look after such matters, and everything was left to stewards and the like, until things coming to theworst, a rich English gentleman, as it was said, come over here andoffered the Prince, through his steward, a good round sum of moneyon this place, which the Prince, being harrassed by his _spalpeen_creditors, and wanting a little ready money more than any other earthlything, consented to receive; the gentleman sending him word he shouldhave his own time; but scarcely was the mortgage
a year old, whenthis same Englishman, (Oh, my curse lie about him, Christ pardon me,)foreclosed it, and the fine old Prince not having as much as a shedto shelter his gray hairs under, was forced to fit up part of the oldruined castle, and open those rooms which it had been said were haunted.Discharging many of his old servants, he was accompanied to the castleby the family steward, the _fosterers_, the _nurse_ * the harper, andFather John, the chaplain.

  * The custom of retaining the nurse who reared the children, has ever been, and is still in force among the most respectable families in Ireland, as it is still in modern, and was formerly in ancient Greece, and they are probably both derived from the same origin. We read, that when Rebecca left her father’s house to marry Isaac at Beersheba, the nurse was sent to accompany her. But in Ireland, not only the nurse herself, but her husband and children are objects of peculiar regard and attention, and are called fosterers. The claims of these fosterers frequently descend from generation to generation, and the tie which unite? them is indissoluble.

  “Och, it was a piteous sight the day he left this: he was leaning on theLady Glorvina’s arm as he walked out to the chaise, ‘James Tyral,’ sayshe to me in Irish, for I caught his eye; ‘James Tyral,’ but he couldsay no more, for the old tenants kept crying about him, and he puthis mantle to his eyes and hurried into the chaise; the Lady Glorvinakissing her hand to us all, and crying bitterly till she was out ofsight. But then, Sir, what would you have of it; the Prince shortlyafter found out that this same Mr. _Mortgagee_, was no other than aspalpeen steward of Lord M--------‘s. It was thought he would have runmad when he found that almost the last acre of his hereditary lands wasin the possession of the servant of his hereditary enemy; for so deadlyis the hatred he bears to my Lord, that upon my conscience, I believethe young Prince who held the bleeding body of his murdered father inhis arms, felt not greater for the murderer, than our Prince does forthat murder’s descendant.

  “Now my Lord is just such a man as God never made better, and wishingwith all the veins in his heart to serve the old Prince, and do away alldifference between them, what does he do, jewel, but writes him a mightypretty letter, offering this house and a part of the lands a present.O! divil a word of lie I’m after telling you; but what would you haveof it, but this offer sets the Prince madder than all; for you know thatthis was an insult on his honour, which warmed every drop of Milesianblood in his body for he would rather starve to death all his life,than have it thought he would be obligated to any body at all at all forwherewithal to support him; so with that the Prince writes him a letter:it was brought by the old steward, who knew every line of the contentsof it, though divil a line in it but two, and that same was but one anda half, as one may say, and this it was, as the old steward told me:

  “The son of the son of the son’s son of Bryan, Prince of Inismore, canreceive no favour from the descendant of his ancestor’s murderer.”

  “Now it was plain enough to be seen, that my Lord took this to heart,as well he might, faith; however, he considered that it came from amisfortunate Prince, he let it drop, and so this was all that everpassed between them; however, he was angry enough with his steward, butMeasther Clendinning put his _comehither_ on him, and convinced him thatthe biggest rogue alive was an honest man.”

  “And the Prince!” I interrupted eagerly.

  “Och, jewel, the prince lives away in the old Irish fashion, only he hasnot a Christian soul now at all at all, most of the old Milesian gentryhaving quit the country; besides, the Prince being in a bad state ofhealth, and having nearly lost the use of his limbs, and his heartbeing heavy, and his purse light; for all that he keeps up the oldIrish customs and dress, letting nobody eat at the same table but hisdaughter, * not even his Lady when she was alive.”

  * M’Dermot, Prince of Coolavin, never suffered his wife to sit at table with him; although his daughter-in-law was permitted to that honour, as she was the descendant from the royal family of the O’Connor.

  “And do you think the son of Lord M-------- would have no chance ofobtaining an audience from the Prince?”

  “What the young gentleman that they say is come to M-------- house? whyabout as much chance as his father, but by my conscience, that’s a badone.”

  “And your young Princess, is she as implacable as her father?”

  “Why, faith! I cannot well tell you what the Lady Glorvina is, for sheis like nothing upon the face of God’s creation but herself. I do notknow how it comes to pass, that every mother’s soul of us loves herbetter nor the Prince; ay, by my conscience, and fear her too; for wellmay they fear her, on the score of her great learning, being brought upby Father John, the chaplain, and spouting Latin faster nor the priestof the parish: and we may well love her, for she is a saint upon earth,and a great _physicianer_ to boot; curing all the sick and maimed fortwenty miles round. Then she is so proud, that divil a one soul of thequality will she visit in the whole barony, though she will sit in asmoky cabin for hours together, to talk to the poor: besides all this,she will sit for hours at her Latin and Greek, after the family are goneto bed, and yet you will see her up with the dawn, running like a doeabout the rocks; her fine yellow hair streaming in the wind, for all theworld like a mermaid.

  “Och! my blessing light on her every day she sees the light, for she isthe jewel of a child.”

  “A child! say you!”

  “Why, to be sure I think her one; for many a time I carried her in thesearms, and taught her to bless herself in Irish; but she is no childeither, for as one of our old Irish songs says, ‘Upon her cheek we seelove’s letter sealed with a damask rose.’ * But if your Honour hasany curiosity you may judge for yourself; for matins and vespers arecelebrated every day in the year, in the old chapel belonging to thecastle, and the whole family attend.”

  * This is a line of a song of one Dignum, who composed in his native language, but could neither read nor write nor spoke any language but his own. “I have seen,” said the celebrated Edmund Burke (who in his boyish days had known him) “some of his effusions translated into English, but was assured, by judges, that they fell far short of the originals; yet they contained some graces, ‘snatched beyond the reach of ark’ “--Vide Life of Burke.

  “And are strangers also permitted?”

  “Faith and it’s themselves that are; but few indeed trouble them, thoughnone are denied. I used to get to mass myself sometimes, but it is nowtoo far to walk for me.”

  This was sufficient, I waited to hear no more, but repaid mycommunicative companion for his information, and rode off, havinginquired the road to Inismore from the first man I met.

  It would be vain, it would be impossible to describe the emotion whichthe simple tale of this old man awakened. The descendant of a murderer!The very scoundrel steward of my father revelling in the property of aman who shelters his aged head beneath the ruins of those walls wherehis ancestors bled under the uplifted sword of mine.

  Why this, you will say, is the romance of a novel-read schoolboy. Are wenot all, the little and the great, descended from assassins; was notthe first born man a fratricide? and still, on the field of unappeasedcontention, does not “man the murderer, meet the murderer, man?”

  Yes, yes, ‘tis all true; humanity acknowledges it and shudders. Butstill I wish _my_ family had never possessed an acre of ground in thiscountry, or possessed it on other terms. I always knew the estate fellinto our family in the civil wars of Cromwell, and, in the world’slanguage, was the well-earned meed of my progenitor’s valour; but Iseemed to hear it now for the first time.

  I am glad, however, that this old Irish chieftain is such a ferocioussavage; that the pity his fate awakens is qualified by aversion forhis implacable, irascible disposition. I am glad his daughter is _redheaded_, a pedant, and a romp; that she spouts Latin like the priestof the parish, and cures sore fingers; that she avoids genteel society,where her ideal rank would procure her no respect, and her unpolishedignorance, by force of contrast, make her feel her real inferiority;that she goss
ips among the poor peasants, over whom she can reign liegeLady; and, that she has been brought up by a jesuitical priest, who hasdoubtlessly rendered her as bigoted and illiberal as himself. All thissoothes my conscientous throes of feeling and compassion for oh! ifthis savage chief was generous and benevolent, as he is independent andspirited; if this daughter was amiable and intelligent, as she mustbe simple and unvitiated! But I dare not pursue the supposition, It isbetter as it is.

  You would certainly never guess that the _Villa di Marino_, from whenceI date the continuation of my letter, was simply a _fisherman’s hut_ onthe seacoast, half way between the Lodge and Castle of Inismore, thatis, seven miles distant from each. Determined on attending vespers atInismore, I was puzzling my brain to think where or how I should passthe night, when this hut caught my eye, and I rode up to it to inquireif there was any inn in the neighbourhood, where a _chevalier errant_could shelter his adventurous head for a night; but I was informedthe nearest inn was fifteen miles distant, so I bespoke a little freshstraw, and a clean blanket which hung airing on some fishing tackleoutside the door of this _marine hotel_, in preference to riding sofar for a bed, at so late an hour as that in which the vespers would beconcluded.

  This mine host of the Atlantic promised me, pointing to a little boardsuspended over the door, on which was written:

  “Good Dry Lodging.”

  My landlord, however, convinced me his hotel afforded something betterthan good dry lodging; for entreating me to alight, till a shower passedover which was beginning to fall, I entered the hut, and found his wife,a sturdy lad their eldest son, and two naked little ones, seated attheir dinner, and enjoying such a feast, as Apicius, who sailed toAfrica from Rome to eat good oysters, would gladly have voyaged fromRome to Ireland to have partaken of; for they were absolutely diningon an immense turbot (whose fellow-sufferers were floundering in a boatthat lay anchored near the door.) A most cordial invitation on theirpart, and a most willing compliance on mine, was the ceremony of amoment; and never did an English alderman on turtle day, or Romanemperor on lampreys and peacocks’ livers, make a more delicious repast,than the chance guest of these good people, on their boiled turbot androasted potatoes, which was quaffed down by the pure phalernian of aneighbouring spring.

  Having learnt that the son was going with the compeers of the demolishedturbot to Bally--------,

  I took out my little escritoire to write you an account of the firstadventure of my chivalrous tour; while one of spring’s most gratefulsunny show ers, is pattering on the leaves of the only tree that shadesthis simple dwelling, and my _Rosinante_ is nibbling a scanty dinnerfrom the patches of vegetation that sprinkle the surrounding cliffs.Adieu! the vesper hour arrives. In all “my orisons thy sins shall beremembered.” The spirit of adventure wholly possesses me, and on thedusky horizon of life, some little glimmering of light begins to dawn.

  Encore adieu.

  H. M.