The Martins Of Cro' Martin Volume II Part 56

"Yes, dear, Tuesday," said the old man.

"It was on Thursday my poor uncle died. Could I live till Thursday, doctor?"

The old man tried to speak, but could not.

"You are afraid to shock me," said she, with a faint attempt to smile, "but if you knew how happy I am,--happy even to leave a life I loved so well. It never could have been the same again, though--the spell was breaking, hards.h.i.+p and hunger were maddening them--who knows to what counsels they 'd have listened soon! Tell Harry to be kind to them, won't you? Tell him not to trust to others, but to know them himself; to go, as I have done, amongst them. They 'll love him _so_ for doing it.

He is a man, young, rich, and high-hearted,--how they 'll dote upon him!

Catty used to say it was my father they 'd have wors.h.i.+pped; but that was in flattery to me, Catty, you always said we were so like--"

"Oh dear! oh dear! why won't you tell her?" broke in Catty. But a severe gesture from the old man again checked her words.

"How that wild night at sea dwells in my thoughts! I never sleep but to dream of it. Cousin Harry must not forget those brave fellows. I have nothing to requite them with. I make no will, doctor," said she, smiling, "for my only legacy is that nosegay there. Will you keep it for my sake?"

The old man hid his face, but his strong frame shook and quivered in the agony of the moment.

"Hus.h.!.+" said she, softly; "I hear voices without. Who are they?"

"They're the country-people, darlin', come from Kiltimmon and beyond Kyle-a-Noe, to ax after you. They pa.s.sed the night there, most of them."

"Catty, dear, take care that you look after them; they will be hungry and famished, poor creatures! Oh, how unspeakably grateful to one's heart is this proof of feeling! Doctor, you will tell Harry how _I_ loved _them_ and how _they_ loved _me_. Tell him, too, that this bond of affection is the safest and best of all ties. Tell him that their old love for a Martin still survives in their hearts, and it will be his own fault if he does not transmit it to his children. There's some one sobbing there without. Oh, bid them be of good heart, Catty; there is none who could go with less of loss to those behind. There--there come the great waves again before me! How my courage must have failed me to make this impression so deep! And poor Joan, and that dear fond girl who has been as a sister to me,--so full of gentleness and love,--Kate, where is she? No, do not call her; say that I asked for her--that I blessed her--and sent her this kiss!" She pressed a rose to her hot, parched lips as she spoke, and then closing her eyes seemed to fall off to sleep. Her breathing, at first strong and frequent, grew fainter and fainter, and her color came and went, while her lips slightly moved, and a low, soft murmur came from them.

"She's asleep," muttered Catty, as she crouched down beside the bed.

The old man bent over the bed, and watched the calm features. He sat thus long, for hours, but no change was there; he put his lips to hers, and then a sickly shuddering came over him, and a low, deep groan, that seemed to rend his very heart!

Three days after, the great gateway of Cro' Martin Castle opened to admit a stately hea.r.s.e drawn by six horses, all mournfully caparisoned, shaking with plumes and black-fringed drapery. Two mourning-coaches followed, and then the ma.s.sive gates were closed, and the sad pageant wound its slow course through the demesne. At the same moment another funeral was approaching the churchyard by a different road. It was a coffin borne by men bareheaded and sorrow-struck. An immense mult.i.tude followed, of every rank and age; sobs and sighs broke from them as they went. Not an eye was tearless, not a lip that did not tremble. At the head of this procession walked a small group whose dress and bearing bespoke their cla.s.s. These were Barry Martin, leaning on Repton; Ma.s.singbred and the two Nelligans came behind.

The two coffins entered the churchyard at the same instant The uncle and the niece were laid side by side in the turf! The same sacred words consigned them both to their last bed; the same second of time heard the dank reverberation that p.r.o.nounced "earth" had returned "to earth." A kind of reverential awe pervaded the immense crowd during the ceremony, and if here and there a sob would burst from some overburdened heart, all the rest were silent; respecting, with a deference of true refinement, a sorrow deeper and greater than their own, they never uttered a word, but with bent-down heads stole quietly away. And now by each grave the mourners stood, silently gazing on the little mounds which typify so much of human sorrow!

Barry Martin's bronzed and weather-beaten features were a thought paler, perhaps. There was a dark shade of color round the eyes, but on the whole the expression conveyed far more of sternness than sorrow. Such, indeed, is no uncommon form for grief to take in certain natures. There are men who regard calamity like a foe, and go out to meet it in a spirit of haughty defiance. A poor philosophy! He who accepts it as chastis.e.m.e.nt is both a braver and a better man!

Repton stood for a while beside him, not daring to interrupt his thoughts. At length he whispered a few words in his ear. Barry started suddenly, and his dark brow grew sterner and more resolute.

"Yes, Martin, you must," said Repton, eagerly, "I insist upon it. Good heavens! is it at such a time, in such a place as this, you can harbor a thought that is not forgiveness? Remember he is poor G.o.dfrey's son, the last of the race now." As he spoke, pa.s.sing his arm within the other's, he drew him gently along, and led him to where a solitary mourner was standing beside the other grave.

Barry Martin stood erect and motionless, while Repton spoke to the young man. At first the words seemed to confuse and puzzle him, for he looked vaguely around, and pa.s.sed his hand across his brow in evident difficulty.

"Did you say here, in this country? Do I understand you aright?"

"Here, in this very spot; there, standing now before you!" said Repton, as he pushed young Martin towards his uncle.

Barry held out his hand, which the young man grasped eagerly; and then, as if unable to resist his emotions longer, fell, sobbing violently, into the other's arms.

"Let us leave them for a while," said Repton, hurrying over to where Ma.s.singbred and the Nelligans were yet standing in silent sorrow.

They left the spot together without a word. Grief had its own part for each. It is not for us to say where sorrow eat deepest, or in which heart the desolation was most complete.

"I'd not have known young Martin," whispered Nelligan in Repton's ear; "he looks full twelve years older than when last I saw him."

"The fast men of this age, sir, live their youth rapidly," replied the other. "It is rarely their fortune to survive to be like me, or heaven knows what hearts they would be left with!"

While they thus talked, Ma.s.singbred and Joe Nelligan had strolled away into the wood. Neither spoke. Ma.s.singbred felt the violent trembling of the other's arm as it rested on his own, and saw a gulping effort by which more than once he suppressed his rising emotion. For hours they thus loitered along, and at length, as they issued from the demesne, they found Repton and Mr. Nelligan awaiting them.

"Barry Martin has taken his nephew back with him to the cottage," said Repton, "and we 'll not intrude upon them for the rest of the evening."

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII. REPTON'S LAST CAUSE

We have no right, as little have we the inclination, to inflict our reader with the details by which Barry Martin a.s.serted and obtained his own. A suit in which young Martin a.s.sumed to be the defendant developed the whole history to the world, and proclaimed his t.i.tle to the estate.

It was a memorable case in many ways; it was the last brief Val Repton ever held. Never was his clear and searching intellect more conspicuous; never did he display more logical acuteness, nor trace out a difficult narrative with more easy perspicuity.

"My Lords," said he, as he drew nigh the conclusion of his speech, "it would have been no ordinary satisfaction to me to close a long life of labor in these courts by an effort which restores to an ancient name the n.o.ble heritage it had held for centuries. I should have deemed such an occasion no unfitting close to a career not altogether void of its successes; but the event has still stronger claims upon my grat.i.tude. It enables me in all the unembellished sternness of legal proof to display to an age little credulous of much affection the force of a brother's love,--the high-hearted devotion by which a man encountered a long life of poverty and privation, rather than disturb the peaceful possession of a brother.

"Romance has its own way of treating such themes; but I do not believe romance can add one feature to the simple fact of this man's self-denial.

"We should probably be lost in our speculations as to the n.o.ble motives of this sacrifice, if our attention was not called away to something infinitely finer and more exalted than even this. I mean the glorious life and martyr's death of her who has made a part of this case less like a legal investigation than the page of an affecting story. Story, do I say! Shame on the word! It is in truth and reality alone are such virtues inscribed. Fiction cannot deal with the humble materials that make up such an existence,--the long hours of watching by sickness; the weary care of teaching the young; the trying disappointments to hope bravely met by fresh efforts; the cheery encouragement drawn from a heart exhausting itself to supply others. Think of a young girl--a very child in the world's wisdom, more than a man in heroism and daring, with a heart made for every high ambition, and a station that might command the highest--calmly consenting to be the friend of dest.i.tution, the companion of misery, the daily a.s.sociate of every wretchedness; devoting grace that might have adorned a court to shed happiness in a cabin, and making of beauty that would have shed l.u.s.tre around a palace the suns.h.i.+ne that pierced the gloom of a peasant's misery! Picture to yourself the hand a prince might have knelt to kiss, holding the cup to the lips of fever; fancy the form whose elegance would have fascinated, crouched down beside the embers as she spoke words of consolation or hope to some bereaved mother or some desolate orphan!

"These are not the scenes we are wont to look on here. Our cares are, unhappily, more with the wiles and snares of crafty men than with the sorrows and sufferings of the good! It is not often human nature wears its best colors in this place; the spirit of litigious contest little favors the virtues that are the best adornments of our kind. Thrice happy am I, then, that I end my day where a glorious sunset gilds its last hours; that I close my labors not in reprobating crime or stigmatizing baseness, but with a full heart, thanking G.o.d that my last words are an elegy over the grave of the best of The Martins of Cro'

Martin.'"

The inaccurate record from which we take these pa.s.sages--for the only report of the trial is in a newspaper of the time--adds that the emotion of the speaker had so far pervaded the court that the conclusion was drowned in mingled expressions of applause and sorrow; and when Repton retired, he was followed by the whole bar, eagerly pressing to take their last farewell of its honored father.

The same column of the paper mentions that Mr. Joseph Nelligan was to have made his first motion that day as Solicitor-General, but had left the court from a sudden indisposition, and the cause was consequently deferred.

If Val Repton never again took his place in court, he did not entirely abdicate his functions. Barry Martin had determined on making a conveyance of the estate to his nephew, and the old lawyer was for several weeks busily employed in that duty. Although Merl's claim became extinguished when young Martin's right to the property was annulled, Barry Martin insisted on arrangements being made to repay him all that he had advanced,--a course which Repton, with some little hesitation, at last concurred in. He urged Barry to reserve a life-interest to himself in the property, representing the various duties which more properly would fall to his lot than to that of a young and inexperienced proprietor. But he would not hear of it.

"He cannot abide the place," said Repton, when talking the matter over with Ma.s.singbred. "He is one of those men who never can forgive the locality where they have been miserable, nor the individual who has had a share in their sorrow. When he settles his account with Henderson, then he 'll leave the West forever."

"And will he still leave Henderson in his charge?" asked Jack.

"That is as it may be," said Repton, cautiously. "There is, as I understand, some very serious reckoning between them. It is the only subject on which Martin has kept mystery with me, and I do not like even to advert to it."

Ma.s.singbred pondered long over these words, without being able to make anything of them.

It might be that Henderson's conduct had involved him in some grave charge; and if so, Jack's own intentions with regard to the daughter would be burdened with fresh complications. "The steward" was bad enough; but if he turned out to be the "unjust steward"--"I 'll start for Galway to-night," thought he. "I 'll antic.i.p.ate the discovery, whatever it be. She can no longer refuse to see me on the pretext of recent sorrow. It is now two months and more since this bereavement befell her. I can no longer combat this life of anxiety and doubt.--What can I do for you in the West, sir?" asked he of Repton, suddenly.

"Many things, my young friend," said Repton, "if you will delay your departure two days, since they are matters on which I must instruct you personally."

Ma.s.singbred gave a kind of half-consent, and the other went on to speak of the necessity for some nice diplomacy between the uncle and his nephew. "They know each other but little; they are on the verge of misunderstandings a dozen times a day. Benefits are, after all, but sorry ties between man and man. They may ratify the treaty of affection; they rarely inscribe the contract!"

"Still Martin cannot but feel that to the n.o.blest act of his uncle's generosity he is indebted for all he possesses."

"Of course he knows, and he feels it; but who is to say whether that same consciousness is not a load too oppressive to bear. I know already Barry Martin's suggestions as to certain changes have not been well taken, and he is eager and pressing to leave Ireland, lest anything should disturb the concord, frail as it is, between them."

"By Jove!" exclaimed Ma.s.singbred, pa.s.sionately, "there is wonderfully little real good in this world; wonderfully little that can stand the test of the very basest of all motives,--mere gain."

"Don't say so!" cried Repton. "Men have far better natures than you think; the fault lies in their tempers. Ay, sir, we are always entering into heavy recognizances with our pa.s.sions, to do fifty things we never cared for. We have said this, we have heard the other; somebody sneered at that, and some one else agreed with him; and away we go, pitching all reason behind us, like an old shoe, and only seeking to gratify a whim, or a mere caprice, suggested by temper. Why do people maintain friendly intercourse at a distance for years, who could not pa.s.s twenty-four hours amicably under the same roof? Simply because it is their natures, and not their tempers, are in exercise."