Red Hall, or the Baronet's daughter

Chapter I

A MAIL-COACH BY NIGHT, AND A BIT Of MOONSHINE. It has been long observed, that every season sent by the Almighty has its own peculiar beauties; yet, although this is felt to be universady true — just as we know the sun shines, or that we cannot breathe without air — stdl we are ad certain that even the same seasons have brief periods when these beauties are more sensibly felt, and diffuse a more vivid spirit of enjoyment through ad our faculties. Who has not experienced the gentle and serene influence of a calm spring evening ? and perhaps there is not in the whole cncle of the seasons anything more delightful than the exquisite emotion with which a human heart, not hardened by vice, or contaminated by intercourse with the world, is softened into tender ness and a general love for the works of God, by the pure spirit which breathes of holiness, at the close of a fine evening in the month of March or April.

The season of spring is, in fact, the resunection of nature to hfe and happiness. Who does not remember the delight with which, in early youth, when existence is a living poem, and all our emotions sanctriy the spirit like inspiration — the delight, we VOL. I. b say, with which our eye rested upon a primrose or a daisy for the first time ? And how many a long and anxious look have we ourselves given at the peak of Konckmany, morning after morning, that we might be able to amiounce, with an exulting heart, the gratifying and glorious fact, that the snow had disappeared from it — because we knew that then spring must have come ! And that universal song of the lark, which fids the adwith music ; how can we forget the bounding joy with which our young heart drank it in, as we danced in ecstacy across the fields.

Spring, in fact, is the season dearest to the recoriec tion of man, inasmuch as it is associated with ad that is pure, and innocent, and beautiful, in the transient annals of his early life. There is always a mournful and pathetic spdit mingled with our remembrances of it, which resembles the sonow that we feel for some beloved individual whom death withdrew from our affections at that period of existence when youth had nearly completed its adotted hmits, and the pro mising manifestations of ad that was virtuous and good were filling the parental hearts with the happy hopes which futurity held out to them. As the heart, we repeat, of such a parent goes back to brood over the beloved memory of the early lost, so do our recollections go back, with mingled love and sorrow, to the tender associations of sprdig, which mav, indeed, be said to perish and pass away in its youth.

These reflections have been occasioned ; first, by the fact that its memory and associations are inex pressibly clear to ourselves ; aud, secondly, because it is towards the close of this brief but beautiful period of the year that our chronicles date their commencement. One evening, in the last week of April, a coach called the " Fly," stopped to change horses at a smad vrilage in a certain part of Ireland, which, for the present, shall be nameless. The sun had just sunk behind the western hills ; but those mdd gleams which characterize his setting at the close of April, had com municated to the clouds that peculiarly soft and golden tint, on which the eye loves to rest, but from winch its right vvas now graduady fading. When fresh horses had been put to, a stranger, who had previously seen two large trunks secured on the top, in a few minutes took his place beside the guard, and the coach proceeded.

" Guard," he inquired, after they had gone a couple of miles from the village, " I'm quite ignorant of the age of the moon — when shad we have moonlight ?" " Not tdl it's far in the night, sir." "The coach passes through the town of Bally macruiskeen — does it not r" " It does, sn." " At what hour do we arrive there ?" " About half-past three in the morning, sir." The stranger made no reply, but cast his eyes over the aspect of the surrounding country. The night was calm, warm, and balmy. In the west, where the sun had gone down, there could stdl be noticed the faint traces of that subdued splendour with which he sets in spring. The stars were up, and the whole character of the sky and atmosphere were full of warmth, and softness, and hope. As the eye stretched across a country that seemed to be rich and wed cultivated, it felt that dream-like charm of dim romance, which visible darkness throws over the b face of nature, and which invests her groves, her lordly mansions, her rich campaigns, and her white farm-houses, with a beauty that resembles the imagery of some delicious dream, more than the readties of natural scenery.

On passing along, they could observe the careless looking farmer driving home his cows to be milked and put up for the night; whilst further on they passed half-a-dozen cars returning home, some empty, and some loaded, from a neighbouring fair or market, their drivers in high conversation — a portion of them in friendship, some in enmity, and in general ad equady disposed, in consequence of their previous hbations, to either one or the other. Here they meet a solitary traveder, fatigued and care-worn, carrying a bundle slung over his shoulder on the point of a stick, plod ding Iris weary way to the next vrilage. Anon thev were passed by a couple of gentlemen-farmers or countiy squires, proceeding at a brisk trot upon their stout cobs or bits of had-blood, as the case might be ; and by-and bye, a spanking gig shoots rapidly ahead of triem, driven by a smart-looking senant in murrev coloured livery, who looks back with a sneer of con tempt as he wheels round a corner, mid leaves the plebeian vehicle far belrind lrim.

As for the stranger, he took httle notice of those whom they met, be their rank or position in life vvhat it might ; his eye was seldom off the country on each side of lrim as they went along. It is true when they passed a village or smad market-town, he glanced into the houses, as d anxious to ascertain the habits and comforts of the humbler classes. Some times he could catch a glimpse of them sitting around a basket of potatoes and salt, thed miserable-looking faces lit by the dim light of a rush candle into the ghastly paleness of spectres. Again, he could catch glimpses of greater happiness; and if, on the one hand, the symptoms of poverty and distress were visible, on the other there was the jovial comfort of the wealthy farmer's house, with the loud laughter of its contented inmates.

Nor must we omit the songs which streamed across the fields, in the calm stillness of the hour, intimating that they who sang them were in possession, at ad events, of light, if not of happy hearts. As the night advanced, however, all these sounds began gradually to die away. Nature and labour reqmre the refreshment of rest, and as the coach pro ceeded at its steady pace, the varied evidences of waking hfe became few and far between. One after another the rights, both near and at a distance, disappeared. The roads became silent and solitary, and the vidages, as they passed through them, were sunk in repose, unless, perhaps, where some sorrowing famdy were kept awake by the watchings that were necessary at the bed of sickness or death, as was evident by the melancholy steadiness of the lights, or the slow cautious motion by which they grided from one apartment to another.

The moon had now been for some time up, and the coach had just crossed a bridge that was known to be exactly sixteen miles from the town of winch the stranger had made inquiries. " I think," said the latter, addressing the guard, " we are about sixteen mdes from Ballymacraiskeen." " You appear to know the neighbourhood, sd," replied the guard. " I have asked you a question, sn," replied the other, somewhat sternly, " and instead of answering it you ask me another." " I beg your pardon, sir," rephed the guard, smiling, " it's the custom of the country. Yes, sir, — we're exactly sixteen mries from Bariymacruiskeen ; that bridge is the mark. It's a fine country, sir, from this to that — " " Now, my good fedow," replied the stranger, " I ask it as a particular favour that you wid not open your hps to me until we reach the town, unless I ask you a question.

On that condition, I wid give you half-a-crown when we get there." The fedow put Iris hand to his rips, to hint that he was mute, and nodded, but spoke not a word, and the coach proceeded in sdence. To those who have a temperament fraught with poetry or feeling, there can be httle doubt that to pass, of a calm, delightful spring night, under a clear, starry sky, and a bright moon, through a country eminently picturesque and beautiful, must be one of those enjoyments which fid the heart with a memory that lasts for ever. But when we suppose that a person whose soul is tenderly ahve to the influence of local affections, and who, when absent, has brooded in sonow over the memory of his native hrils and valleys, his lakes and mountains — the rivers, where he hunted the otter and snared the trout, and who has never revisited them, even in his dreams, without such strong emotions as caused him to wake with his eye-lashes steeped in tears — when such a person, full of enthusiastic affection and a strong imagination, returns to his native place after a long absence, under the peculiar crieumstances which we are describing, we need not feel surprised that the heart of the stranger was fided with such a conflicting tumult of feelings and recodections as it is utterly impossible to portray.

From the moment the coach passed the bridge we have alluded to, every hid, mid residence, and river, and lake, and meadow, was famdiar to lrim, and he felt such an individual love and affection for them, as if they had been capable of welcoming and feeling the presence of the light-hearted boy, whom they had so often made happy. In the garish eye of day, the contemplation of this exquisite landscape would have been neither so affecting to the heart, nor so beautiful to the eye. He, the stranger, had not seen it for years, except in his dreams, and now he saw it in reality, invested with that ideal beauty in which fancy had adorned it in those visions of the night. The river, as it gleamed dimly, according as it was lit by the right of the moon, and the lake, as it shone with pale but visionary beauty, possessed an interest which the light of day woidd never have given them.

The right, too, which lay on the sleeping groves, and made the solitary church spnes, as they went along, visible, in dim but distant beauty, and the clear outlines of his own mountains, unchanged and unchangeable — all, ad crowded, from the force of the recodections with which they were associated, upon his heart, and he laid himself back, and, for some minutes, wept tears that were at once both sweet and bitter. In proportion as they advanced towards the town of Badymacruiskeen, the stranger imagined that the moon shed a divine radiance over the sunounding country ; but this impression was occasioned by the fact, that its aspect was becoming, every mrie they proceeded, better and better known to him. At length they came to a long but gradual elevation in the road, and the stranger knew, that on reaching its eminence, he could command a distinct view of the magnificent vadey in which his native parish lay.

He begged of the coachman to stop for half a minute, and the latter did so. The scene was indeed unri valled. Ad that constitutes a rich and cultivated country, with bold mountain scenery in the distance, lay stretched before lrim. To the right wound, in dim but sdver-like beauty, a fine river, which was lost to the eye for a considerable distance in the wood of Gadagh. To the eye of the stranger, every scene and locality was distinct beyond belief, simply because they were lit up not only by the pale right of the moon, but by the purer and stronger right of his own early affections and memory. Now it was, indeed, that his eye caught in at a glance ad those places and objects that had held their ground so strongly and firmly in his heart. The moon, though sinking, was brilliant, and the cloudless expanse of heaven seemed to reflect her light, wlrilst, at the same time, the shadows that projected from the trees, houses, and other elevated objects, were dark and distinct in proportion to the flood of mrid effulgence which pomed down upon them from the firmament.

Let not our readers hesitate to believe us, when we say, that the heart of the stranger felt touched with a kind of melancholy happiness as he passed through their very shadows — proceeding, as they did, from objects that he looked upon as the friends of his youth, before life had opened to him the dark and blotted pages of suffering and sorrow. There, dimly shining to the right below him, was the transparent river in which he had taken many a truant plunge, and a little further on he could see without difficulty the white cascade tumbling down the precipice, and mark its dim scintdlations, that looked, under the right of the moon, hke masses of shivered ice, were it not that such a notion was contradicted by the soft dash and continuous murmur of its waters. But where was the grey mid, and the large white dwelling of the mirier ? and that new looking mansion on the elevation — it was not there in his time, nor several others that he saw around him, and, hold — what sacrilege is this ?

The coach is not upon the old road — not on that with every turn and winding of which the right foot of his boyhood w-as so familiar? What, too ! the school-house down — its very founda tions razed — its light-hearted pupils, some dead, others dispersed, its master in the dust, and its din, bustle, and monotonous murmur — ad banished and gone, like the pageantry of a dream. Such, however, is rife, and he who, on returning to his birth place after an absence of many years, expects to find either the country or its inhabitants as he left them, will experi ence in its most painful sense the bitterness of disap pointment. Let every such individual prepare himself for the consequences of death, change, and desolation. At length the coach drove into Ballymacruiskeen, and in a few minutes the passengers found themselves opposite to the sign of the Mitre, which swung over the door of the principal inn of that remarkable town. b : OR, " Sir," said the guard, addressing the stranger, " I think I have kept my word."

The latter, without making any reply, dropped five shdrings into his hand; but in the course of a few minutes — for the coach changed horses there — he desbed him to cad the waiter or landlord, or any one to whom he could entrust his trunks until morning. " You are going to stop in the ' Mithre/ sir, of course?" said the guard, inquiringly. The traveder nodded assent, and having seen his luggage taken into the inn, and looking for a moment at the town, proceeded along the shadowy side of the main street, and instead of seeking his bed, had, in a short time altogether vanished, and in a manner that was certainly mysterious, nor did he make his appear ance again until noon on the following day. It may be as well to state here that he was a man of about thirty, somewhat above the middle size, and although not clumsy, yet, on being closely scanned, he appeared beyond question to be very compact, closely knit, well-proportioned, and muscular.

Of his dress, however, we must say, that it was somewhat difficult to define, or rather to infer from it whether he was a gentleman or not, or to what rank or station of lde he belonged. His hadwas black and curled ; his features regular ; and his mouth and nose particu larly aristocratic; but that which constituted the most striking feature of his face was a pad' of black eyes, which kindled or became medow according to the emotions by which he happened to be influenced. " My good lad," said he to " boots" after his return, " wid you send me the landlord ?" " I can't, sd," rephed the other, " he's not at home." "Wed then have the goodness to send me the waiter." " I wid, sd," replied the monkey, leaving the room with an evident feeling of confident alacrity. Almost immediately a good-looking grid, with Irish features, brown hair, and pretty blue eyes, presented herself.

" Wed, sn ?" she said, in an intenogative tone. " Why," said the stranger, " I believe it is impos sible to come at any member of this establishment; I wish to see the waiter." " I'm the waiter, sir," she replied, with an unconscious face. " The deuce you are !" he exclaimed ; " however," he added, recovering himsed, " I cannot possibly wish for a better. It is very likely that I may stop with you for some time — perhaps a few months. Wid you see now that a room and bed are prepared for me, and that my trunks are put into my own apartment. Get a fire into my sitting-room and bed-chamber — let my bed be wed aned; and see that everything is done cleanly and comfortably, wid you ?" " Sartinly, sir, an' I hope we won't lave you much to complain of. As for the sheets, wait tid yeu try them. The wdd myrtles of Drumgau, beyant the Demesne 'ithout, is foulded in them ; an' if the smed of them won't make you think yourself in para dise, 'tisn't my fault."

The stranger, on looking at her somewhat more closely, saw that she was an exceedingly neat, tight, clean-looking young woman, fad' and youthful, or, : OR, as the proverb has it, one that was " bursting out of her stays." " Have you been long in the capacity of waiter here ?" he asked. " No, sir," she replied — " about six months." " Do you never keep male waiters in this establishment," he inquired. " Oh, yes, sir ; Paudeen Gair and I generally act week about. This is my week, sir, an' he's at the plough." " And where have you been at service before you came here, my good gnl ?" " In Sd Thomas Gourlay's, sir." The stranger could not prevent himself from starting. " In Sir Thomas Gourlay's !" he exclaimed ; " and pray in what capacity were you there?" " I was own maid to Miss Gourlay, sir." " To Miss Gourlay7 ! and how did you come to leave yrour situation with her?"

" When I find you have a right to ask, sir," she rephed, " I wdl tell you ; but not tdl then." " I stand reproved, my good gnl," he said ; " I have indeed no right to enter into such inquiries; but I trust I have for those that me more to the purpose. What have you for dinner?" " Fish, flesh, and fowl, sn," she rephed, with a peculiar smile, " and a fine fat buck from the deer park." " Wed, now," said he, " that really promises well — indeed it is more than I expected — you had no quarrel, I hope, at parting ? I beg your pardon — a fat buck, you say. Come, I wid have a slice of that." " Very wed, su-," she replied ; " what else would you wish?" " To know, my dear, whether Sir Thomas is as severe upon her as — ahem ! — anything at all you hke — I'm not particular — only don't forget a slice of the buck, out of the haunch, my dear, and, whisper, as you and I are likely to become better acquainted — all in a civil wray, of course — here is a trifle of earnest, as a proof that, d you be attentive, I shall not be ungenerous."

" I don't know," she rephed, shaking her head, and hesitating ; " you're a sly-looking gentleman — and if I thought that you had any " " Design, you would say," he rephed; " no — none, at any rate, that is improper ; it is offered in a spirit of good wdl and honour, and in such you may fariiy accept of it. So," he added, as he dropped the money into her hand, " Sn Thomas insisted that you should go. Hem ! — hem !" The girl started in her turn, and exclaimed, with a good deal of surprise, " Sir Thomas insisted ! How did you come to know that, sd- ? / tould you no such thing." " Certainly, my dear, j7ou — a — a — hem — did you not say something to that effect? Perhaps, how ever," he added, apprehensive lest he might have alarmed, or rather excited her suspicions — " perhaps I was mistaken. I only imagined, I suppose, that you said something to that effect; but it does not matter — I have no intimacy with the Gourlays, I assure j7ou — I think that is vvhat you call them — and none at all with Sir Thomas — is not that his name?

Good bye, now; I shad take a walk tlirough the town. How is this you name it ? Bariymacruiskeen, I think — and return at five, when I trust you wdl have dinner ready." He then put on his hat, and sauntered out, apparently to view the town and its environs, fully satisfied that, in consequence of his having left it when a boy, and of the changes which time and travel had wrought in his appearance, no living individual there could possibly recognise him.

Chapter II. The Town And Its Inhabitants

The town itself contained about six thousand inhabitants, had a church, a chapel, a meeting-house, and also a place of worship for those who belonged to the Methodist connexion. It w-as nearly7 had a mde long, lay nearly due north and south, and ran up an elevation or slight hid, and down again on the other side, where it tapered away into a string of cabins. It is scarcely necessary to say that it contained a main street, three or four with less pretensions, together with a tribe of those vile ariey7s which consist of a double row of beggarly cabins, or huts, facing each other, and lying so closely, that a tad man might almost stand with a foot on the threshold of each, or d in the middle, that is, half way between them, he might, were he so inclined, and without moving to either side, shake hands with the inhabitants on Iris right and left.

To the left, as you went up from the north, and nearly adjoining the cathedral church, which faced you, stood a bishop's palace, behind which lay a magnificent demesne. At that time, it is but just to say that the chimneys of this princely residence were never smokeless, nor its saloons silent and deserted as they are now, and have been for years. No, the din of industry was then incessant in and about the offices of that palace, and the song of many a light heart and happy spirit rang sweetly in the valleys, on the plains and hdls, and over the meadows of that beautiful demesne, with its noble deer-park stretching up to the heathy hdls behind it. Many a time, when a school-boy, have we mounted the demesne wall in question, and contemplated its mea dows, waving under the sunny breeze, together with the long string of happy mowers, the harmonious swing of whose scvthes, associated with the cheerful noise of their whetting, caused the very heart within us to kindle with such a sense of pure and early enjoymient as does yet, and ever will, constitute a por tion of our best and happiest recodections.

At the period of which we write it mattered httle whether the prelate who possessed it resided at home or not. If he did not, his family generady did ; but at all events, during their absence, or dining their residence, constant employment was given, every working-day in the year, to at least one hundred happy aud contented poor from a neighbouring and dependent village, everyone of whom was of the Roman Catholic creed. I have stood, not long ago, upon a beautiful eleva tion in that demesne, aud on looking around me, I saw nothing but a deserted and gloomy country. The happy village was gone — razed to the very foundations — the demesne was a solitude — the songs of the reapers and mowers had vanished, as it were, dito the recesses of memory, and the magnificent palace, duU and lonely, lay as if it were situated in some land of the dead, where human voice or footstep had not been heard for years.

Of this, however, more in the course of our chronicles. The stranger, who had gone out to view the town, found, during that survey, little of this absence of employment, and its consequent destitution, to dis turb him. Many things, it is true, both in the town and suburbs, were liable to objection. Abundance there was ; but, in too many instances, he could see at a glance that it was accompanied by unclean and slovenly habits, and that the processes of husbandry and trilage were disfigured by old usages, that were not only painful to contemplate, but dis graceful to civilization. The stranger was proceeding down the town, when he came in contact with a ragged, dissipated-looking young man, who had, however, about him the evi dences of having seen better day7s. The latter touched his hat to him, and observed, "You seem to be examining our town, sir ?"

" Pray, what is your name ?" inqmred the stranger, without seeming to notice the question. " Why, for the present, sd," he replied, " I beg to insinuate that I am rather under a cloud, and, if you have no objection, would prefer to remain anonymous, or to preserve my incognito, as they say, for some time longer." " Have you no alias, by which you may be known?" " Unquestionably, an alias I have," replied the other ; " for as to passing through life, in the broad anonymous sense, without some token to distinguish you by, the thing, to a man hke me, is impossible. I am consequently known as Frank Fenton, a name I bonowed from a former friend of mine, an old schoolfedow, who, while he lived, was, like myself, a bit of an original in his way. How do you hke our town, sn ?" he added, changing the subject.

" I have seen too httle of it," rephed the stranger, " to judge. Is this your native town, Mr. Fenton ?" he added. " No, sd ; not my native town," rephed Fenton ; " but I have resided here from hand to mouth long enough to know almost every individual in the barony at large." During this dialogue the stranger eyed Fenton, as he caded himself, very closely; in fact, he watched every feature of his with a degree of curiosity and doubt that was exceedingly singular. " Have you, sir, been here before ?" asked Fenton ; " or is this your first visit ?" " It is not my first visit," rephed the other ; " but it is likely I shall reside here for some months." " For the benefit of your health, I presume ?" asked modest Frank. " My good friend," rephed the stranger, " I wish to make an observation. It is possible, I say, that I may remain here for some months; now, pray, attend, and mark me — whenever you and I chance, on any future occasion, to meet, it is to be under stood between us that you me to answer me in any thing I ask which you know, and I to answer you in nothing — unless I wish it."

" Thank you, sir," he rephed, with a low and not ungraceful bow; "that's a compliment all to the one side, hke Clogher." * "Very well," returned the stranger; "I have * The proverb is pretty general throughout Tyrone ; the town of Clogher consists of only a single string of houses. something to add, in order to make this arrangement more palatable to you." " Hold, sir," rephed the other ; " before you pro ceed further you must understand me. I shad pledge myself under no terms — and I care not what they may be — to answer any question that may throw light upon my own personal identity or past history/' " That wdl not be necessary," replied the stranger. "What do you mean, sir?" asked Fenton, starting; " do you mean to hint that you know me?" " Nonsense," said the other ; " how could I know a man whom I never saw before ?