Chapter VIII
After I had been musing a little while, Mistress Bess ran into the room, and cried to some one behind her:
"Nan's friend is here, and she is mine too, for we all played in a garden with her when I was little. Prithee, come and see her." Then turning to me, but yet holding the handle of the door, she said: "Will is so unmannerly, I be ashamed of him. He will not so much as show himself."
"Then, prithee, come alone," I answered. Upon which she came and sat on my knee, with her arm round my neck, and whispered in mine ear:
"Moll is very sick to-day; will you not see her, Mistress Sherwood?"
"Yea, if so be I have license," I answered; and she, taking me by the hand, offered to lead me up the stairs to the room where she lay. I, following her, came to the door of the chamber, but would not enter till Bess fetched the nurse, who was the same had been at Sherwood Hall, and who, knowing my name, was glad to see me, and with a curtsey invited me in. White as a lily was the little face resting on a pillow, with its blue eyes half shut, and a store of golden hair about it, which minded me of the glories round angels' heads in my mother's missal.
"Sweet lamb!" quoth the nurse, as I stooped to kiss the pale forehead. "She be too good for this world. Ofttimes she doth babble in her sleep of heaven, and angels, and saints, and a wreath of white roses wherewith a bright lady will crown her."
"Kiss my lips," the sick child softly whispered, as I bent over her bed. Which when I did, she asked, "What is your name? I mind your face." When I answered, "Constance Sherwood," she smiled, as if remembering where we had met. "I heard my grandam calling me last night," she said; "I be going to her soon." Then a fit of pain came on, and I had to leave her. She did go from this world a few days after; and the nurse then told me her last words had been "Jesu! Mary!"
That day I did converse again alone with my Lady Surrey after dinner, and walked in the garden; and when we came in, before I left, she gave me a purse with some gold pieces in it, which the earl her husband willed to bestow on Catholics in prison for their faith. For she said he had so tender and compassionate a spirit, that if he did but hear of one in distress he would never rest until he had relieved him; and out of the affection he had for Mr. Martin, who was one while his tutor, he was favorably inclined toward Catholics, albeit himself resolved to conform to the queen's religion. When Mistress Ward came for me, the countess would have her shown into her chamber, and would not be contented without she ordered her coach to carry us back to Holborn, that we might take with us the clothes and cordials which she did bestow upon us for our poor clients. She begged Mrs. Ward's prayers for his grace, that he might soon be set at liberty; for she said in a pretty manner, "It must needs be that Almighty God takes most heed of the prayers of {483} such as visit him in his affliction in the person of poor prisoners; and she hoped one day to be free to do so herself." Then she questioned of the wants of those Mistress Ward had at that time knowledge of; and when she heard in what sore plight they stood, it did move her to so great compassion, that she declared it would be now one of her chiefest cares and pleasures in life to provide conveniences for them. And she besought Mistress Ward to be a good friend to her with mine aunt, and procure her to permit of my frequent visits to Howard House, as the Charter House is now often called: which would be the greatest good she could do her; and that she would be most glad also if she herself would likewise favor her sometimes with her company; which, "if it be not for mine own sake, Mistress Ward," she sweetly said, "let it be for his sake who, in the person of his afflicted priests, doth need assistance."
When we reached home, we hid what we had brought under our mantles, and then in Mistress Ward's chamber, where Muriel followed us. When the door was shut we displayed these jewelled stores before her pleased eyes, which did beam with joy at the sight.
"Ah, Muriel," cried Mistress Ward, "we have found an Esther in a palace; and I pray to God there may be other such in this town we ken not of, who in secret do yet bear affection to the ancient faith."
Muriel said in her slow way: "We must needs go to the Clink to-morrow; for there is there a priest whose flesh has fallen off his feet by reason of his long stay in a pestered and infected dungeon. Mr. Roper told my father of him, and he says the gaoler will let us in if he be reasonably dealt with."
"We will essay your ointment, Mistress Sherwood," said Mistress Ward, "if so be you can make it in time."
"I care not if I sit up all night," I cried, "if any one will buy me the herbs I have need of for the compounding thereof." Which Muriel said she would prevail on one of the servants to do.
The bell did then ring for supper; and when we were all seated, Kate was urgent with me for to tell her how my Lady Surrey was dressed; which I declared to her as follows: "She had on a brown juste au corps embroidered, with puffed sleeves, and petticoat braided of a deeper nuance; and on her head a lace cap, and a lace handkerchief on her bosom."
"And, prithee, what jewels had she on, sweet coz?"
"A long double chain of gold and a brooch of pearls," I answered.
"And his grace of Norfolk is once more removed to the Tower," said Mr. Congleton sorrowfully. "'Tis like to kill him soon, and so save her majesty's ministers the pains to bring him to the block. His physician, Dr. Rhuenbeck, says he is afflicted with the dropsy."
Polly said she had been to visit the Countess of Northumberland, who was so grievously afflicted at her husband's death, that it was feared she would fall sick of grief if she had not company to divert her from her sad thoughts.
"Which I warrant none could effect so well as thee, wench," her father said; "for, beshrew me, if thou wouldst not make a man laugh on his way to the scaffold with thy mad talk. And was the poor lady of better cheer for thy company?"
"Yea, for mine," Polly answered; "or else for M. de la Motte's, who came in to pay his devoirs to her, for the first time, I take it, since her lord's death. And after his first speech, which caused her to weep a little, he did carry on so brisk a discourse as I never noticed any but a Frenchman able to do. And she was not the worst pleased with it that the cunning gentleman did interweave it with anecdotes of the queen's majesty; which, albeit he related them with gravity, did carry somewhat of ridicule in them. Such as of her grace's dancing on Sunday before last at Lord Northampton's wedding, and calling him to witness {484} her paces, so that he might let monsieur know how high and disposedly she danced; so that he would not have had cause to complain, in case he had married her, that she was a boiteuse, as had been maliciously reported of her by the friends of the Queen of Scots. And also how, some days since, she had flamed out in great choler when he went to visit her at Hampton Court; and told him, so loud that all her ladies and officers could hear her discourse, that Lord North had let her know the queen-mother and the Duke of Guise had dressed up a buffoon in an English fashion, and called him a Milor du Nord; and that two female dwarfs had been likewise dressed up in that queen's chamber, and invited to mimic her, the queen of England, with great derision and mockery. 'I did assure her,' M. de la Motte said, 'with my hand on my heart, and such an aggrieved visage, that she must needs have accepted my words as true, that Milor North had mistaken the whole intent of what he had witnessed, from his great ignorance of the French tongue, which did render him a bad interpreter between princes; for that the queen-mother did never cease to praise her English majesty's beauty to her son, and all her good qualities, which greatly appeased her grace, who desired to be excused if she, likewise out of ignorance of the French language, had said aught unbecoming touching the queen-mother.' 'Tis a rare dish of fun, fit to set before a king, to hear this Monsieur Ambassador speak of the queen when none are present but such as make an idol of her, as some do."
"For my part," said her father, when she paused in her speech, "I mislike men with double visages and double tongues; and methinks this monseer hath both, and withal a rare art for what courtiers do call diplomacy, and plain men lying. His speeches to her majesty be so fulsome in her praise, as I have heard some say who are at court, and his flattery so palpable, that they have been ashamed to hear it; but behind her back he doth disclose her failings with an admirable slyness."
"If he be sly," answered Polly, "I'll warrant he finds his match in her majesty."
"Yea," cried Kate, "even as poor Madge Arundell experienced to her cost."
"Ay," quoth Polly, "she catcheth many poor fish, who little know what snare is laid for them."
"And how did her highness catch Mistress Arundell?" I asked.
"In this way, coz," quoth Polly: "she doth often ask the ladies round her chamber, 'If they love to think of marriage?' and the wise ones do conceal well their liking thereunto, knowing the queen's judgment in the matter. But pretty, simple Madge Arundell, not knowing so deeply as her fellows, was asked one day hereof, and said, 'She had thought much about marriage, if her father did consent to the man she loved.' 'You seem honest, i' fait said the queen; 'I will sue for you your father.' At which the dam was well pleased; and when father, Sir Robert Arundell, came court, the queen questioned him his daughter's marriage, and pressed him to give consent if the match were discreet. Sir Robert, much astonished, said, 'He never had heard his daughter had liking to any man; but he would give his free consent to what was most pleasing to her highness's will and consent.' Then I will do the rest,' saith the queen. Poor Madge was called in, and told by the queen that her father had given his free consent. 'Then,' replied the simple one, 'I shall be happy, an' it please your grace.' 'So thou shalt; but not to be a fool and marry,' said the queen. 'I have his consent given to me, and I vow thou shalt never get it in thy possession. So go-to about thy business. I see thou art a bold one to own thy foolishness so readily.'"
"Ah me!" cried Kate, "I be glad not to be a maid to her majesty; for I would not know how to answer her {485} grace if she should ask me a like question; for if it be bold to say one hath a reasonable desire to be married, I must needs be bold then, for I would not for two thousand pounds break Mr. Lacy's heart; and he saith he will die if I do not marry him. But, Polly, thou wouldst never be at a loss to answer her majesty."
"No more than Pace her fool," quoth Polly, "who, when she said, as he entered the room, 'Now we shall hear of our faults,' cried out, 'Where is the use of speaking of what all the town doth talk of?'"
"The fool should have been whipped," Mistress Ward said.
"For his wisdom, or for his folly, good Mistress Ward?" asked Polly. "If for wisdom, 'tis hard to beat a man for being wise. If for folly, to whip a fool for that he doth follow his calling, and as I be the licensed fool in this house--which I do take to be the highest exercise of wit in these days, when all is turned upside down--I do wish you all good-night, and to be no wiser than is good for your healths, and no more foolish than suffices to lighten the heart;" and so laughing she ran away, and Kate said in a lamentable voice,
"I would I were foolish, if it lightens the heart."
"Content thee, good Kate," I said; but in so low a voice none did hear. And she went on,
"Mr. Lacy is gone to Yorkshire for three weeks, which doth make me more sad than can be thought of."
I smiled; but Muriel, who had not yet oped her lips whilst the others were talking, rising, kissed her sister, and said, "Thou wilt have, sweet one, so great a contentment in his letters as will give thee patience to bear the loss of his good company."
At the which Kate brightened a little. To live with Muriel was a preachment, as I have often had occasion since to find.
On the first Sunday I was at London, we heard mass at the Portuguese ambassador's house, whither many Catholics of his acquaintance resorted for that purpose from our side of the city. In the afternoon a gentleman, who had travelled day and night from Staffordshire on some urgent business, brought me a letter from my father, writ only four days before it came to hand, and about a week after my departure from home. It was as follows:
"MINE OWN DEAR CHILD,--The bearer of this letter hath promised to do me the good service to deliver it to thee as soon as he shall reach London; which, as he did intend to travel day and night, I compute will be no later than the end of this week, or on Sunday at the furthest. And for this his civility I do stand greatly indebted to him; for in these straitened times 'tis no easy matter to get letters conveyed from one part of the kingdom to another without danger of discovering that which for the present should rather be concealed. I received notice two days ago from Mistress Ward's sister of your good journey and arrival at London; and I thank God, my very good child, that he has had thee in his holy keeping and bestowed thee under the roof of my good sister and brother; so that, with a mind at ease in respect to thee, my dear sole earthly treasure, I may be free to follow whatever course his providence may appoint to me, who, albeit unworthy, do aspire to leave all things to follow him. And indeed he hath already, at the outset of my wanderings, sweetly disposed events in such wise that chance hath proved, as it were, the servant of his providence; and, when I did least look for it, by a divine ordination furnished me, who so short a time back parted from a dear child, with the company of one who doth stand to me in lieu of her who, by reason of her tender sex and age, I am compelled to send from me. For being necessitated, for the preservation of my life, to make seldom any long stay in one place, I had need of a youth to ride with me on those frequent journeys, and keep me company in such places {486} as I may withdraw unto for quietness and study. So being in Stafford some few days back, I inquired of the master of the inn where I did lay for one night, if it were not possible to get in that city a youth to serve me as a page, whom I said I would maintain as a gentleman if he had learning, nurture, and behavior becoming such a person. He said his son, who was a schoolmaster, had a youth for a pupil who carried virtue in his very countenance; but that he was the child of a widow, who, he much feared, would not easily be persuaded to part from him. Thereupon I expressed a great desire to have a sight of this youth and charged him to deal with his master so that he should be sent to my lodgings; which, when he came there, lo and behold, I perceived with no small amazement that he was no other than Edmund Genings, who straightway ran into my arms, and with much ado restrained himself from weeping, so greatly was he moved with conflicting passions of present joy and recollected sorrow at this our unlooked-for meeting; and truly mine own contentment therein was in no wise less than his. He told me that his mother's poverty increasing, she had moved from Lichfield, where it was more bitter to her, by reason of the affluence in which she had before lived in that city, to Stafford, where none did know them; and she dwelt in a mean lodging in a poor sort of manner. And whereas he had desired to accept the offer of a stranger, with a view to relieve his mother from the burden of his support, and maybe yield her some assistance in her straits, he now passionately coveted to throw his fortune with mine, and to be entered as a page in my service. But though she had been willing before, from necessity, albeit averse by inclination, to part with him, when she knew me it seemed awhile impossible to gain her consent. Methinks she was privy to Edmund's secret good opinion of Catholic religion, and feared, if he should live with me, the effect thereof would follow. But her necessities were so sharp, and likewise her regrets that he should lack opportunities for his further advance in learning, which she herself was unable to supply, that at length by long entreaty he prevailed on her to give him license for that which his heart did prompt him to desire for his own sake and hers. And when she had given this consent, but not before, lest it should appear I did seek to bribe her by such offers to so much condescension as she then evinced, I proposed to assist her in any way she wished to the bettering of her fortunes, and said I would do as much whether she suffered her son to abide with me or no: which did greatly work with her to conceive a more favorable opinion of me than she had heretofore held, and to be contented he should remain in my service, as he himself so greatly desired. After some further discourse, it was resolved that I should furnish her with so much money as would pay her debts and carry her to La Rochelle, where her youngest son was with her brother, who albeit he had met with great losses, would nevertheless, she felt assured, assist her in her need. Thus has Edmund become to me less a page than a pupil, less a servant than a son. I will keep a watchful eye over his actions, whom I already perceive to be tractable, capable, willing to learn, and altogether such as his early years did promise he should be. I thank God, who has given me so great a comfort in the midst of so great trials, and to this youth in me a father rather than a master, who will ever deal with him in an honorable and loving manner, both in respect to his own deserts and to her merits, whose prayers have, I doubt not, procured this admirable result of what was in no wise designed, but by God's providence fell out of the asking a simple question in an inn and of a stranger.
"And now, mine only and very dear child, I commend thee to God's holy keeping; and I beseech thee to be as mindful of thy duty to him as thou {487} hast been (and most especially of late) of thine to me; and imprint in thy heart those words of holy writ, 'Not to fear those that kill the body, but cannot destroy the soul;' but withal, in whatever is just and reasonable, and not clearly against Catholic religion, to observe a most exact obedience to such as stand to thee at present in place of thy unworthy father, and who, moreover, are of such virtue and piety as I doubt not would move them rather to give thee an example how to suffer the loss of all things for Christ his sake than to offend him by a contrary disposition. I do write to my good brother by the same convenience to yield him and my sister humble thanks for their great kindness to me in thee, and send this written in haste; for I fear I shall not often have means hereafter. Therefore I desire Almighty God to protect, bless, and establish thee. So in haste, and in visceribus Christi, adieu."
The lively joy I received from this letter was greater than I can rehearse, for I had now no longer before my eyes the sorrowful vision of my dear father with none to tend and comfort him in his wanderings; and no less was my contentment that Edmund, my dearly-loved playmate, was now within reach of his good instructions, and free to follow that which I was persuaded his conscience had been prompting him to seek since he had attained the age of reason.
I note not down in this history the many visits I paid to the Charter House that autumn, except to notice the growing care Lady Surrey did take to supply the needs of prisoners and poor people, and how this brought her into frequent occasions of discourse with Mistress Ward and Muriel, who nevertheless, as I also had care to observe, kept these interviews secret, which might have caused suspicion in those who, albeit Catholic, were ill-disposed to adventure the loss of worldly advantages by the profession of what Protestants do term perverse and open papistry. Kate and Polly were of this way of thinking--prudence was ever the word with them when talk of religion was ministered in their presence; and they would not keep as much as a prayer-book in their chambers for fear of evil results. They were sometimes very urgent with their father for to suffer them to attend Protestant service, which they said would not hinder them from hearing mass at convenient times, and saying such prayers as they listed; and Polly the more so that a young gentleman of good birth and high breeding, who conformed to the times, had become a suitor for her hand, and was very strenuous with her on the necessity of such compliance, which nevertheless her father would not allow of. Much company came to the house, both Protestant and Catholic; for my aunt, who was sick at other times, did greatly mend toward the evening. When I was first in London for some weeks, she kept me with her at such times in the parlor, and encouraged me to discourse with the visitors; for she said I had a forwardness and vivacity of speech which, if practised in conversation, would in time obtain for me as great a reputation of wit as Polly ever enjoyed. I was nothing loth to study in this new school, and not slow to improve in it. At the same time I gave myself greatly to the reading of such books as I found in my cousins' chambers; amongst which were some M. de la Motte had lent to Polly, marvellous witty and entertaining, such as Les Nouvelles de la Reine de Navarre and the Cents Histoires tragiques; and others done in English out of French by Mr. Thomas Fortescue; and a poem, writ by one Mr. Edmund Spenser, very beautiful, and which did so much bewitch me, that I was wont to rise in the night to read it by the light of the moon at my casement window; and the Morte d' Arthur, which Mr. Hubert Rookwood had willed me to read, whom I met at Bedford, and which so filled my head with fantastic images and imagined scenes, that I did, as it were, fall in love with {488} Sir Launcelot, and would blush if his name were but mentioned, and wax as angry if his fame were questioned as if he had been a living man, and I in a foolish manner fond of him.
This continued for some little time, and methinks, had it proceeded further, I should have received much damage from a mode of life with so little of discipline in it, and so great incitements to faults and follies which my nature was prone to, but which my conscience secretly reproved. And among the many reasons I have to be thankful to Mistress "Ward, that never-to-be-forgotten friend, whose care restrained me in these dangerous courses, partly by compulsion through means of her influence with my aunt and her husband, and partly by such admonitions and counsel as she favored me with, I reckon amongst the greatest that, at an age when the will is weak, albeit the impulses be good, she lent a helping hand to the superior part of my soul to surmount the evil tendencies which bad example on the one hand, and weak indulgence on the other, fostered in me, whose virtuous inclinations had been, up to that time, hedged in by the strong safeguards of parental watchfulness. She procured that I should not tarry, save for brief and scanty spaces of time, in my aunt's parlor when she had visitors, and so contrived that it should be when she herself was present, who, by wholesome checks and studied separation from the rest of the company, reduced my forwardness with just restraints such as became my age. And when she discovered what books I read, oh, with what fervent and strenuous speech she drove into my soul the edge of a salutary remorse; with what tearful eyes and pleading voice she brought before me the memory of my mother's care and my father's love, which had ever kept me from drinking such empoisoned draughts from the well-springs of corruption which in our days books of entertainment too often prove, and if not altogether bad, yet be such as vitiate the palate and destroy the appetite for higher and purer kinds of mental sustenance. Sharp was her correction, but withal so seasoned with tenderness, and a grief the keenness of which I could discern was heightened by the thought that my two elder cousins (one time her pupils) should be so drawn aside by the world and its pleasures as to forget their pious habits, and minister to others the means of such injury as their own souls had sustained, that every word she uttered seemed to sink into my heart as if writ with a pen of fire; and mostly when she thus concluded her discourse:
"There hath been times, Constance, when men, yea and women also, might play the fool for a while, without so great danger as now, and dally with idle folly like children who do sport on a smooth lawn nigh to a running stream, under their parents' eyes, who, if their feet do but slip, are prompt to retrieve them. But such days are gone by for the Catholics of this land. I would have thee to bear in mind that 'tis no common virtue--no convenient religion--faces the rack, the dungeon, and the rope; that wanton tales and light verses are no viaticum for a journey beset with such perils. And thou--thou least of all--whose gentle mother, as thou well knowest, died of a broken heart from the fear to betray her faith--thou, whose father doth even now gird himself for a fight, where to win is to die on a scaffold--shouldst scorn to omit such preparation as may befit thee to live, if it so please God, or to die, if such be his will, a true member of his holy Catholic Church. O Constance, it doth grieve me to the heart that thou shouldst so much as once have risen from thy bed at night to feed thy mind with the vain words of profane writers, in place of nurturing thy soul by such reasonable exercises and means as God, through the teaching of his Church, doth provide for the spiritual growth of his children, and by prayer and penance make ready for coming conflicts. Bethink thee of the many holy priests, yea and laymen also, who be in uneasy {489} dungeons at this time, lying on filthy straw, with chains on their bruised limbs, but lately racked and tormented for their religion, whilst thou didst offend God by such wanton conduct. Count up the times thou hast thus offended; and so many times rise in the night, my good child, and say the psalm 'Miserere,' through which we do especially entreat forgiveness for our sins."
I cast myself in her arms, and with many bitter tears lamented my folly; and did promise her then, and, I thank God, ever after did keep that promise, whilst I abode under the same roof with her, to read no books but such as she should warrant me to peruse. Some days after she procured Mr. Congleton's consent, who also went with us, to carry me to the Marshalsea, whither she had free access at that time by reason of her acquaintanceship with the gaoler's wife, who, when a maid, had been a servant in her family, and who, having been once Catholic, did willingly assist such prisoners as came there for their religion. There we saw Mr. Hart, who hath been this long while confined in a dark cell, with nothing but boards to lie on till Mistress Ward gave him a counterpane, which she concealed under her shawl, and the gaoler was prevailed on by his wife not to take from him. He was cruelly tortured some time since, and condemned to die on the same day as Mr. Luke Kirby and some others on a like charge, that he did deny the queen's supremacy in spiritual matters; but he was taken off the sledge and returned to prison. He did take it very quietly and patiently; and when Mr. Congleton expressed a hope he might soon be released from prison, he smiled and said:
"My good friend, my crosses are light and easy; and the being deprived of all earthly comfort affords a heavenly joy, which maketh my prison happy, my confinement merciful, my solitude full of blessings. To God, therefore, be all praise, honor, and glory, for so unspeakable a benefit bestowed upon his poor, wretched, and unworthy servant."
So did he comfort those who were more grieved for him than he for himself; and each in turn we did confess; and after I had disburdened my conscience in such wise that he perceived the temper of my mind, and where to apply remedies to the dangers the nature of which his clearsightedness did foresee, he thus addressed me:
"The world, my dear daughter, soon begins to seem insipid, and all its pleasures grow bitter as gall; all the fine shows and delights it affords appear empty and good for nothing to such as have tasted the happiness of conversing with Christ, though it be amidst torments and tribulations, yea and in the near approach of death itself. This joy so penetrates the soul, so elevates the spirit, so changes the affections, that a prison seems not a prison but a paradise, death a goal long time desired, and the torments which do accompany it jewels of great price. Take with thee these words, which be the greatest treasure and the rarest lesson for these times: 'He that loveth his life in this world shall lose it, and he that hateth it shall find it;' and remember the devil is always upon the watch. Be you also watchful. Pray you for me. I have a great confidence that we shall see one another in heaven, if you keep inviolable the word you have given to God to be true to his Catholic Church and obedient to its precepts, and he gives me the grace to attain unto that same blessed end."
These words, like the sower's seed, fell into a field where thorns oftentimes threatened to choke their effect; but persecution, when it arose, consumed the thorns as with fire, and the plant, which would have withered in stony ground, bore fruit in a prepared soil.
As we left the prison, it did happen that, passing by the gaoler's lodge, I saw him sitting at a table drinking ale with one whose back was to the door. A suspicion came over me, the most unlikely in the world, for it was against all credibility, and I had not seen so much as that person's face; but in the shape of his head and the manner of {490} his sitting, but for a moment observed, there was a resemblance to Edmund Genings, the thought of which I could not shake off. When we were walking home, Mr. Congleton said Mr. Hart had told him that a short time back a gentleman had been seized, and committed to close confinement, whom he believed, though he had not attained to the certainty thereof, to be Mr. Willisden; and if it were so, that much trouble might ensue to many recusants, by reason of that gentleman having dealt in matters of great importance to such persons touching lands and other affairs whereby their fortunes and maybe their lives might be compromised. On hearing of this, I straightway conceived a sudden fear lest it should be my father and not Mr. Willisden was confined in that prison; and the impression I had received touching the youth who was at table with the gaoler grew so strong in consequence, that all sorts of fears founded thereon ran through my mind, for I had often heard how persons did deceive recusants by feigning themselves to be their friends, and then did denounce them to the council, and procured their arrest and oftentimes their condemnation by distorting and false swearing touching the speech they held with them. One Eliot in particular, who was a man of great modesty and ingenuity of countenance, so as to defy suspicion (but a very wicked man in more ways than one, as has been since proved), who pretended to be Catholic, and when he did suspect any to be a Jesuit, or a seminary priest, or only a recusant, he would straightway enter into discourse with him, and in an artful manner cause him to betray himself; whereupon he was not slow to throw off the mask, whereby several had been already brought to the rope. And albeit I would not credit that Edmund should be such a one, the evil of the times was so great that my heart did misgive me concerning him, if indeed he was the youth whom I had espied on such familiar terms with that ruffianly gaoler. I had no rest for some days, lacking the means to discover the truth of that suspicion; for Mrs. Ward, to whom I did impart it, dared not adventure again that week to the Marshalsea, by reason of the gaoler's wife having charged her not to come frequently, for that her husband had suddenly suspected her to be a recusant, and would by no means allow of her visits to the prisoners; but that when he was drunk she could sometimes herself get his keys and let her in, but not too often. Mr. Congleton would have it the prisoner must be Mr. Willisden and no other, and took no heed of my fears, which he said had no reasonable grounds, as I had not so much as seen the features of the youth I took to be my father's page. But I could by no means be satisfied, and wept very much; and I mind me how, in the midst of my tears that evening, my eyes fell on the frontispiece of a volume of the Morte d' Arthur which had been loosened when the book was in my chamber, and in which was picture of Sir Launcelot, the present mirror of my fancy. I had pinned it to my curtain, and jewelled it as a treasure and fund of foolish musings, even after yielding up, with promise to read no more therein, the book which had once held it. And thus were kept alive the fantastic imaginings wherewith I clothed a creature conceived in a writer's brain, whose nobility was the offspring of his thoughts and the continual entertainment of mine own. But, oh, how just did I now find the words of a virtuous friend, and how childish my folly, when the true sharp edge of present fear dispersed these vapory clouds, even as the keen blast of a north wind doth drive away a noxious mist! The sight of the dismal dungeon that day visited, the pallid features of that true confessor therein immured, his soul-piercing words, and the apprehensions which were wringing my heart--banished of a sudden an idle dream engendered by vain readings and vainer musings, and Sir Launcelot held henceforward no higher, or not so high, a {491} place in my esteem as the good Sir Guy of Warwick, or the brave Hector de Valence.
A day or two after, my Lady Surrey sent her coach for me; and I found her in her dressing-room seated on a couch with her waiting-women and Mistress Milicent around her, who were displaying a great store of rich suits and jewels and such-like gear drawn from wardrobes and closets, the doors of which were thrown open, and little Mistress Bess was on tiptoe on a stool afore a mirror with a diamond necklace on, ribbons flaring about her head, and a fan of ostrich-feathers in her hand.
"Ah, sweet one," said my lady, when I came in, "thou must needs be surprised at this show of bravery, which ill consorts with the mourning of our present garb or the grief of our hearts; but, i' faith, Constance, strange things do come to pass, and such as I would fain hinder if I could."
"Make ready thine ears for great news, good Constance," cried Bess, running toward me encumbered with her finery, and tumbling over sundry pieces of head-gear in her way, to the waiting-woman's no small discomfiture. "The queen's majesty doth visit upon next Sunday the Earl and Countess of Surrey; and as her highness cannot endure the sight of dool, they and their household must needs put it off and array themselves in their costliest suits; and Nan is to put on her choicest jewels, and my Lady Bess must be grand too, to salute the queen."
"Hush, Bessy," said my lady; and leading me into the adjoining chamber, "'tis hard," quoth she, holding my hand in hers,--"'tis hard when his grace is in the Tower and in disgrace with her majesty, and only six weeks since our Moll died, that she must needs visit this house, where there be none to entertain her highness but his grace's poor children; 'tis hard, Constance, to be constrained to kiss the hand which threatens his life who gave my lord his, and mostly to smile at the queen's jesting, which my Lord Arundel saith we must of all things take heed to observe, for that she as little can endure dool in the face as in the dress."
A few tears fell from those sweet eyes upon my hand, which she still held, and I said, "Comfort you, my sweet lady. It must needs be that her majesty doth intend favor to his grace through this visit. Her highness would never be minded to do so much honor to the children if she did not purpose mercy to the father."
"I would fain believe it were so," said the countess, thoughtfully; "but my Lord Arundel and my Lady Lumley hold not, I fear, the same opinion. And I do hear from them that his grace is much troubled thereat, and hath written to the Earl of Leicester and my Lord Burleigh to lament the queen's determination to visit his son, who is not of age to receive her." [Footnote 99]
[Footnote 99: Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1547 to 1580: "Duke of Norfolk to the Earl of Leicester and Lord Burleigh; laments the queen's determination to visit his son's house, who is not of age to receive her."]
"And doth my Lord of Surrey take the matter to heart?"
"My lord's disposition doth incline him to conceive hope where others see reason to fear," she replied. "He saith he is glad her majesty should come to this house, and that he will take occasion to petition her grace to release his father from the Tower; and he hath drawn up an address to that effect, which is marvellous well expressed; and, since 'tis written, he makes no more doubt that her majesty will accede to it than if the upshot was not yet to come, but already past. And he hath set himself with a skill beyond his years, and altogether wonderful in one so young, to prepare all things for the queen's reception; so that when his grandfather did depute my Lord Berkeley and my Lady Lumley to assist us (he himself being too sick to go out of his house) in the ordering of the collation in the banqueting-room, and the music wherewith to greet her highness on her arrival, as well as the ceremonial to be observed during her visit, they did find that my lord had so {492} disposedly and with so great taste ordained the rules to be observed, and the proper setting forth of all things, that little remained for them to do. And he will have me to be richly dressed, and to put on the jewels which were his mother's, which, since her death, have not been worn by the two Duchesses of Norfolk which did succeed her. Ah me, Mistress Constance, I often wish my lord and I had been born far from the court, in some quiet country place, where there are no queens to entertain, and no plots which do bring nobles into so great dangers."
"Alack," I cried, "dear lady, 'tis not the highest in the land that be alone to suffer. Their troubles do stand forth in men's eyes; and when a noble head is imperilled all the world doth know of it; but blood is spilt in this land, and torments endured, which no pen doth chronicle, and of which scant mention is made in palaces."
"There is a passion in thy speech," my lady said, "which betrayeth a secret uneasiness of heart. Hast thou had ill news, my Constance?"
"No news," I answered, "but that which my fears do invent and whisper;" and then I related to her the cause of my disturbance, which she sought to allay by kind words, which nevertheless failed to comfort me.
Before I left she did propose I should come to the Charter House on the morning of the queen's visit, and bring Mistress Ward and my cousins also, as it would pleasure them to stand in the gallery and witness the entertainment, and albeit my heart was heavy, methought it was an occasion not to be overpast to feast my eyes with the sight of majesty, and to behold that great queen who doth hold in her hands her subjects' lives, and who, if she do but nod, like the god of the heathen which books do speak of, such terrible effects ensue, greater than can be thought of; and so I gave my lady mine humble thanks, and also for that she did gift me with a dainty hat and a well-embroidered suit to wear on that day; which, when Kate saw, she fell into a wonderful admiration of the pattern, and did set about to get it copied afore the day of the royal visit to Howard House. As I returned to Holborn in my lady's coach there was a great crowd in the Cornhill, and the passage for a while arrested by the number of persons on their way to what is now called the Royal Exchange, which her majesty was to visit in the evening. I sat very quietly with mine eyes fixed on the foot-passengers, not so much looking at their faces as watching their passage, which, like the running of a river, did seem endless. But at last it somewhat slackened, and the coach moved on, when, at the corner of a street, nigh unto a lamp over a shop, which did throw a light on his face, I beheld Edmund Genings. Oh, how my heart did beat, and with what a loud cry I did call to the running footmen to stop! But the noise of the street was so great they did not hear me, and I saw him turn and pursue his way down another street toward the river. My good uncle, when he heard I had verily seen my father's new page in the city, gave more heed to my suspicions, and did promise to go himself unto the Marshalsea on the next day, and seek to verify the name of the prisoner Mr. Hart had made mention of.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
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{493}
From The Cornhill Magazine.
MODERN FALCONRY.
Hunting and hawking were, as every one knows, the great sports of our forefathers. Angling was but little understood before the time of Walton and Cotton, and not thoroughly even by those great masters themselves. In the olden time, the bow and arrow, being scarcely adapted for fowling, were used almost exclusively against large game, such as deer; the crossbow was perhaps not a very efficient weapon; and the art of shooting flying with a fowling-piece may be said to be of recent invention. It is true that, a couple of hundred years ago, men (the sportsmen of those days) might have been seen, armed with a match-lock, or some such wonderful contrivance, crawling toward a covey of basking partridges, with the intention of shooting them on the ground; and Dame Juliana Berners, who wrote upon falconry in the middle of the fifteenth century, invented a fly-rod of such excessive weight that the strongest salmon-fisher in these days would be unwilling to wield it. But this was sorry work, and we can well understand that, of itself, it was very far from satisfying a sport-loving people. They still held by the old sports. Hunting and hawking were in their glory when what we now call "shooting" and "fishing" were scarcely understood at all. Deer were in abundance, and so was other game, especially if we consider the few people privileged to kill it. In those days, though not in these, the most sportsmanlike way was the most profitable; and more quarry could be taken with dogs and hawks than in any other, and perhaps less legitimate, manner.
Hunting we retain, as our great and national sport, though circumstances, rather than choice, have led to our exchanging the stag for the fox. But falconry, the great sport of chivalry, once the national sport of these islands, has been permitted so nearly to die out that but few people are aware of its existence amongst us. That it does still live, however, though under a cloud,--to what extent and in what manner it is carried out,--it is the purport of this paper to show.
The causes of the decrease, and almost the loss, of this sport are obvious enough. Amongst the chief are, the present enclosed state of the country; the perfection--or what is almost perfection--of modern gunnery, and of the marksman's skill, and the desire to make large bags. Add to these, perhaps, the trouble and expense attendant upon keeping hawks. But the links have at no time absolutely been broken which, in England, unite falconry in the time of Ethelbert to falconry of the present day. Lord Orford and Colonel Thornton took them up and strengthened them at the end of the last, and the beginning of the present, century. Later still, the Loo Club in Holland saved falconry from extinction in England, because its English members brought their falcons to this country, and flew them here. The Barrs, first-rate Scotch falconers, and John Pells, of Norfolk, helped the course by training and selling hawks; and a work entitled "Falconry in the British Isles," published in 1855, together with some chapters which appeared rather later in one of the leading sporting newspapers (and were afterward collected in a volume), served to create or encourage a love for falconry.
It was said that the present Duke of St. Albans, the grand falconer, would take to the sport con amore, and not as a mere form; but this is very far indeed from being the case. {494} The Maharajah Dhuleep Singh was perhaps the most considerable falconer of the present day; and last season but one he killed 119 grouse with his young hawks; but he has lately given up the greater part of his hawking establishment. In Ireland there are some good falcons, flown occasionally at herons, and frequently, and with great success, at other quarry; many officers in the army are falconers; and, in the wilds of Cheshire, there lives a poor gentleman who has flown hawks for fifteen years, and contrives, through the courtesy of his friends, to make a bag on the moors with his famous grouse-hawk "The Princess," and one or two others.
Those who have been accustomed to regard falconry as entirely a thing of the past, and the secret of hawk-training as utterly lost as that of Stonehenge or the Pyramids, will be surprised to hear that there are, at the present time, hawks in England of such proved excellence, that it is impossible to conceive even princes in the olden time, notwithstanding the monstrous prices they are said to have paid for some falcons, ever possessing better. When a peregrine falcon will "wait on," as it is called, at the height of a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards above her master, as he beats the moors for her, and, when the birds rise, chase them with almost the speed of an arrow; when she is sure to kill, unless the grouse escapes in cover; when she will not attempt to "carry" her game, even should a dog run by her, and when she is ready to fly two or three times in one morning--it can easily be imagined, even by those who know nothing of falconry, that she has reached excellence.
And so, in heron-hawking. If a cast of falcons, unhooded at a quarter of a mile from a passing heron (especially a "light" heron, i. e., a heron going to feed, and therefore not weighted), capture him in a wind, and after a two-mile flight, it is difficult to suppose, caeteris paribus, that any hawks could possibly be superior to them. And, as such hawks as we have described exist, the inevitable conclusion is, that where falconry is really understood, it is understood as well as it ever was; or, in other words, that modern falconry, as far as the perfection of individual hawks is concerned, is equal to ancient.
Our forefathers, excellent falconers as they were, chose to make a wonderful mystery of their craft; and when they did publish a book on the subject of their great sport, its directions could only avail the gentry of those exclusive times. In examining these books, one is sometimes almost tempted to doubt whether the writers really offered the whole of their contents in a spirit of good faith; at any rate, some of the advice is very startling to modern ears; and no sane man of the present day would dream of following it. Perhaps the reader would like an extract. Here, then, is a recipe for a sick hawk, extracted from The Gentleman's Recreation, published 1677: "Take germander, pelamountain, basil, grummel-seed, and broom-flowers, of each half an ounce; hyssop, sassafras, polypodium, and horse-mints, of each a quarter of an ounce, and the like of nutmegs; cubebs, borage, mummy, mugwort, sage, and the four kinds of mirobolans, of each half an ounce; of aloes soccotrine the fifth part of an ounce, and of saffron one whole ounce. To be put into a hen's gut, tied at both ends." What was supposed to be the effect of this marvellous mixture, it is somewhat hard to divine; but our modern pharmacopoeia would be content with a little rhubarb and a few peppercorns. With regard to food, we are told, in the same work, that cock's flesh is proper for falcons that are "melancholick;" and that "phlegmatick" birds are to be treated in a different way--possibly fed on pullets. Were this paper intended as a notice of ancient, instead of modern falconry, we might multiply instances to show the extreme faddiness of the old falconers.
{495}
Simply to tame a hawk is excessively easy. To train it, up to a certain point, is not at all difficult. But it requires an old and practised hand to produce a bird of first-rate excellence.
The modern routine of training the peregrine falcon is shortly as follows: Young birds are procured, generally from Scotland, either just before they can fly, or just after. They are placed in some straw, on a platform, in an outhouse, which ought to open to the southeast. They are furnished each with a large bell (the size of a very small walnut) for the leg; and each with a couple of jessies (short straps of leather) for both legs. If they are unable to fly, the door of the coach-house (or whatever the outhouse may be) should be left open; but if they have tolerable use of their wings, it will be necessary to close it for the first few days. They are fed twice a day with beefsteak--changed, occasionally, for rabbit, rook, or pigeon; and, if the birds are very young, the food must be cut up small; but it is improper to take them from the nest until the feathers have shown themselves thoroughly through the white down. A lure is then used. This instrument need be nothing more than a forked and somewhat heavy piece of wood (sometimes covered with leather), to which is fastened a strap and a couple of pigeons' wings. To this meat is tied; and the young hawks are encouraged to fly down from their platform, at the stated feeding times, to take their meals from it, the falconer either loudly whistling or shouting to them the while. Presently, and as they become acquainted with the lures, they are permitted to fly at large for a fortnight or three weeks; and, if the feeding-times be kept, the lures well furnished with food, and the shout or whistle employed, the hawks will certainly return when they are due; unless, indeed, they have been injured or destroyed when from home, by accident or malice. This flying at liberty is termed "flying at hack." When the young hawks show any disposition to prey for themselves (though the heavy bells are intended slightly to delay this), they are taken up from "hack," either with a small net, or with the hand. They are then taught to wear the hood, and are carried on the fist. In a few days they are sufficiently tame to be trusted at large, and may be flown at young grouse or pigeons, the heavy bells having been changed for the lightest procurable. At this period great pains are taken by the falconer to prevent his bird "carrying" her game; for it is obvious that, were the hawk to move when he approached her, he would be subject constantly to the greatest trouble and disappointment. The tales told in books about hawks bringing quarry to their master are absurd; the falconer must go to his hawk. Such is a sketch of the training in modern times of the eyas or young bird. Wild-caught hawks, however, called "haggards," are occasionally used. These, though excellent for herons and rooks, are not good for game-hawking, as it is difficult to make them "wait on" about the falconer, and all game must be flown from the air, and not from the hood; i.e., by a hawk from her pitch, and not from the fist of her master. Haggards, of course, are never flown at "hack." The tiercel, or male peregrine, is excellent for partridges and pigeons; but the female bird only can have a chance with herons, and is to be preferred also for grouse and rooks.
We have in this country several trained goshawks, which are flown at rabbits; also sometimes at hares and pheasants. The merlin, too, is occasionally trained: the present writer flew these beautiful little birds at larks for years; but gave them up in 1857, and confined himself entirely to peregrines and goshawks. The sparrow-hawk, the wildest of hawks, is sometimes used for small birds. The hobby is hardly to be procured. The Iceland and Greenland falcons are prized, but are rarely met with.
These large birds are called gerfalcons; and, when very white, and good in the field, fetched extravagant prices in the old times. They may now sometimes be procured untrained for L5 or L6 each; but the peregrine is large enough for the game of this country.
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It may be interesting to know, in something like detail, what a flight at game, rooks, pigeons, or magpies is like how it is conducted, and to what extent the sagacity of hawks may be developed. To this end, we will give a sketch or two of what is being done now, and what will be done in the game season.
At this season of the year, and in this country, falconers are obliged to be content with rook, pigeon, or magpie flying. Such quarry is flown "out of the hood," and not from the air; i.e. the hawk, instead of "waiting on" over the falconer in expectation of quarry being sprung, is unhooded as it rises, and is cast off from the fist. At least the only exception to this is when pigeons are thrown from the hand in order to teach a hawk to "wait on."
It will be understood that, in the following description, the peregrine is supposed to be used, for a long-winged hawk is necessary for the flights about to be described, and the merlin is too small to be depended upon for anything larger than a black-bird, or a young partridge; though the best females are good for pigeons.
Let us go out to-day, then, and try to kill a rook or two on the neighboring common. The hawks are in good condition; not indeed as fat as though they were put up to moult, but with plenty of flesh and muscle, and wind kept good by almost daily exercise. We have a haggard tiercel and a haggard falcon; also two eyas falcons; all are up to their work and have been well entered to rooks. We shall not trouble ourselves to take out the cadge to-day, for our party is quite strong enough to carry the hawks on the fist. Only two of us are mounted, a lady and a gentleman; the rest will run. The lady would carry the little tiercel, but she is afraid lest she should make a blunder in unhooding him, as her mare is rather fresh this morning; but her companion, who has flown many a hawk, willingly takes charge of him.
We are well on the common now; and lo! a black mass on the ground there, with a few black spots floating over. Hark to the distant "caw!" A clerical meeting. "Let us give them a bishop, then," says the bearer of the tiercel, which is called by that name. The wind is from them to us. The horseman and his companion canter onward; we follow at a slow run. The horses approach the flock; the black mass becomes disturbed and rises; the "bishop" is thrown off with a shout of "Hoo, ha! ha!" and rushes amongst his clergy with even more than episcopal energy. There is full enough wind; the rooks are soon into it, and ringing up in a compact body with a pace which, for them, is very good. His lordship, too, is mounting: he rose in a straight line the moment he left the fist, but he is now making a large circle to get above his quarry. He has reached them, but he does not grapple with the first bird he comes near, though he seems exceedingly close to it. But there is something so thoroughly systematic in his movements, something which so suggests a long and deadly experience, that even the uninitiated of the party feel certain that he is doing the right thing. He is nearly above them. A rook has left the flock--the very worst thing he could possibly do for his own sake: he has saved the bishop the trouble of selection. He makes for some trees in the distance, but it is inconceivable that he can reach them. There! and there! Now again! He is clutched at the third stoop, and both birds, in a deadly embrace, flap and twist to the ground together. The rest are high in the air, and a long way off.
It must not be considered that this tiercel did not dash at once into the whole flock because he was afraid to do so. He had no fear whatever; but nature or experience taught him that a stoop from above was worth half-a-dozen attempts to fly level and grapple.
"It's poor work after all," said one of the party, who had run for it notwithstanding; "these brutes can't fly, {497} and it's almost an insult to a first-rate hawk to unhood him at such quarry. Even the hawks don't fly with the same dash that one sees when a strong pigeon is on the wing. Beside, it's spoiling the eyases for game-hawking; when they ought to be 'waiting on' over grouse, they will be starting after the first rook that passes."
"My good fellow," answered another, "you must hawk rooks now, or be content with pigeons, unless you can find magpies (we will try that presently): there are no herons anywhere near (and I don't know that the eyases would fly them if there were); and, as for flying a house-pigeon, which has been brought to the field in a basket, though I grant the goodness of the flight, I don't see the sport. If we could find wood-pigeons far enough from trees, I should like that. As for the game next season, there are not many rooks on the moors; and, as these falcons would fly rooks even if they had not seen them for a year, I don't think we are losing much by what we are doing. It is exercise at any rate; and, beside, I assure you that I have seen an old cock-rook, in a wind like this, live for a mile, before one of the best falcons in the world, where there was not a single tree to shelter him."
We are compelled to go some distance before we can see a black feather; for rooks, once frightened, are very careful; or rather, we should have been so compelled had it not happened that an old carrion-crow, perhaps led near the spot by curiosity, is seen passing at the distance of about two hundred yards. The passage-falcon is instantly unhooded and cast off; and, as we are now in the neighborhood of a few scattered trees, it takes ten minutes to kill him; and a short time, too, for he has "treed" himself some eight or ten times in spite of our efforts to make him take the open.
Our time is short to-day; but let us get a magpie, if possible, before we go home. Our fair companion is fully as anxious for the sport as we are. Only a mile off there is a nice country; large grass fields, small fences, with a bush here and there. We have reached it. A magpie has flown from the top of that single tree in the hedgerow, and is skimming down the field. Off with the young falcons: wait till the first sees him; now unhood the second. Ah! he sees them, and flies along the side of the hedge. Let us ride and run! Get him out of cover as fast as possible, while the hawks "wait on" above. Pray, sir, jump the fence a little lower down, and help to get him out from the other side. Hoo-ha-ha! there he goes. Well stooped, "Vengeance," and nearly clutched, "Guinevere," but he has reached the tree in the hedgerow, and is moving his long tail about in the most absurd manner. A good smack of the whip, and he is off again. And so we go on for a quarter of an hour, riding, running, shouting, till "Guinevere" clutches him just as he is about to enter a clump of trees. Who-whoop!
Such is rook-hawking and magpie-hawking. In an open plain, and on a tolerably still day, a great number of rooks may be killed with good hawks. Either eyas or passage-falcons may be used. Last year, one hundred and fifty-two rooks and two carrion-crows were killed by some officers, on the finest place for rook-flying in England, with some passage-hawks and two eyases. In 1863, ninety rooks were killed, near the same spot, with eyases. Tiercels are better than falcons for magpie-hawking, as they are unquestionably quicker amongst hedgerows, and can turn in a smaller compass. One tiercel has been known to kill eight magpies in a day; but this is extraordinary work.
To prevent confusion, it may be as well to mention here that the term "haggard" and "passage-hawk" both mean a wild-caught hawk; while "eyas" signifies a bird taken from the nest or eyrie.
Heron-hawking requires an open country, with a heronry in the neighborhood. The quarry is flown at generally by passage-hawks; but a few {498} very good eyases have been found equal to the flight.
Game-hawking is conducted in the following manner: Let us suppose, in the first instance, that the falconer is living in the immediate neighborhood of grouse-moors, and that he wishes, on some fine morning at the end of October or the beginning of November, to show his friend a flight or two at grouse, without going very far for the sport. The old pointer is summoned; "The Princess," an eyas falcon in the second plumage, is hooded; and the walk is commenced.
Now, very early in the season on the moors, and through the whole of September with partridges, it is better to wait for a point before the hawk is cast oft, for this saves time, and you know that you have game under you; but at that period of the season which we have named, grouse rise the moment man or dog is seen, and you would have a bad chance indeed were you to fly your hawk out of the hood (i.e., from the fist) at them. The best way is to keep your dog to heel, not to talk, and, just before you show yourself in some likely place, to throw up the falcon. When she has reached her pitch, which she will soon do, hurry the dog on, run, clap your hands, and get the birds up as soon as may be.
The hill is ascended, "The Princess" is at her pitch--where she would remain, following her master and "Shot" the pointer, for ten minutes if necessary. Some minutes pass: an old cock-grouse, put up by a shepherd-dog, rises a couple of hundred yards off. Hoo-ha-ha-ha! "The Princess" vanishes from her post, more rapidly than the knights in "Ivanhoe" left theirs. She does not droop or fly near the ground (she has had too much experience for that), but almost rises as she shoots off after him. Had he risen under her, she would have cut him over; but this is a different affair. They are soon out of sight down the hill; but a marker has been placed that way. "I think she has killed him, sir," he shouts presently; "but it's a long way. No, she's coming back; she must have put him into cover." Up and down hill, it would take us twenty minutes to get there; and see! she is over our heads, "waiting on" again, and telling us, as well as she can, to spring another. A point! how is that?--only that there are some more which dare not rise because they have seen her. "Hi in, 'Shot!'" Again the falconer's shout startles his friend; again "The Princess" passes through the air like an arrow. "All right this time, sir," cries the marker; "I see her with it under yon wall." She has scarcely begun to eat the head as we reach her. One more flight. She is lifted on the grouse; the leash is passed through the jesses, and then she is hooded. Let us rest for ten minutes. Again, she is "waiting on," again she flies; but this time, though we see the flight for three-quarters of a mile, the birds top a hill, and we are an hour in finding them. The grouse, however, is fit for cooking even then; only the head, neck, and some of the back have vanished: it is plucked nearly as well as though it had been in the hands of a cook. That will do, and very good sport, too, considering we had but one hawk. Let us now feed her up on beef, and hood her.
In the very early part of the season, with grouse, and commonly with partridges, it is usual (as we have hinted) to wait for a point; the hawk is then cast off, and the birds are sprung when she has reached her pitch.
Goshawks, which may be occasionally procured from the Regent's Park Zoological Gardens, or directly from Sweden or Germany, are considered by some falconers to be difficult birds to manage. That they are sulkily disposed is certain; but in hands accustomed to them, and when they are constantly at work, they are exceedingly trustworthy, even affectionate, and will take as many as eight or ten rabbits in a day. They are short-winged hawks, and have no chance with anything faster than a rising pheasant; they are {499} excellent for rabbits, and a few large ones will sometimes hold a hare. In modern practice they are never hooded, except in travelling, and are always flown from the fist, or from some tree in which they may have perched after an unsuccessful flight.
There are probably, in these islands, about fifteen practical falconers, three or four of whom are professional; of the latter, John Pells and the Barrs are well worthy of mention.
John Pells was born at Lowestoft in 1815, and went, when he was thirteen, with his father to Valkneswaard to take passage-hawks for the Didlington Subscription Club; so that he was very soon in harness. The elder Pells commenced his career at the age of eleven, and was in every respect a perfect falconer; he was presented by Napoleon I. with a falconer's bag, which is now in possession of the Duke of Leeds. He died in 1838. The present John Pells has had all possible advantages in his calling, and has made every use of them. He was falconer to the Duke of Leeds, to Mr. O'Keeffe, to Mr. E. C. Newcome, to the late Duke of St. Albans, and now attends to the hawks which the present duke is bound, either by etiquette or necessity, to maintain. Pells also sells trained hawks, and gives lessons in the art of falconry. He was at one time an exceedingly active man, and spent six months in Iceland, catching Iceland falcons. After enduring a good deal of cold and fatigue, he brought fifteen of these birds to Brandon, in Norfolk, in November, 1845. He is now too stout and too gouty for strong exercise, but his experience is very valuable.
Too much can hardly be said in raise of John and Robert Barr (brothers). Their father, a gamekeeper in Scotland, taught them, in a rough way, the rudiments of falconry, They are now, and have been for a long time, most accomplished falconers, When in the employment of the Indian prince Dhuleep Singh, John Barr was sent to India to learn the Indian system of falconry. There is some notion now of his being placed at the head of a hawking club about to be established in Paris; and English falconry might well be proud of such a representative. Beside the Pells and the Barrs, we have Paul Moellen, Gibbs, and Bots--and one or two more--all good.
In consequence of the great rage for game-preserving which obtains in the present day, it does not seem unlikely that the peregrine falcon may, in time, be as thoroughly exterminated in Scotland and Ireland as the goshawk has already been. At present, however, falconers find no difficulty in procuring these birds, if they are willing to pay for them. In a selfish point of view, therefore, they have nothing of which to complain. But it might become a question, at least of conscience, whether mankind have the right, though they possibly may have the power, of blotting out from the face of creation--so long as there is no danger to human life and limb--any conspicuous type of strength or of beauty. The kingfisher is sought to be exterminated on our rivers, the eagle and the falcon on our hills; and it is brought forward in justification of this slaughter--at least it is brought forward in effect--that the sportsman's bag and the angler's creel are of much more importance than the wonderful works of God. To all that is selfish in these strict preservers of fish and of game it may be opposed that part of the food of the kingfisher consists in minnows; that the fry of trout and salmon, when not confined in breeding-boxes, are rarely procured by this bird, which constantly feeds upon the larvae of the Dytiscce and Libelluae, the real foes of the fry; that the peregrine falcon, though she undoubtedly kills very many healthy grouse, purges the moors of diseased ones, and drives away the egg-stealing birds. And to all that is generous in these martinets of preservation it may be submitted that true sport has other elements than those of acquisition and slaughter; that the pleasure of a ramble on the hills {500} or by the river is sadly dashed if you have struck out some of the beauty of the landscape; and that the incident of a flight made by a wild hawk, or the flash of a kingfisher near the angler's rod, is as lively and as well worth relating as the fall of an extra grouse to the gun, or the addition of another trout to the basket.
------
From The Lamp.
ALL-HALLOW EVE; OR, THE TEST OF FUTURITY.
BY ROBERT CURTIS.
Chapter I
I could have wished that the incidents which I am about to describe in the following tale had taken place in some locality with a less Celtic, and to English tongues a more pronounceable, name than Boher-na-Milthiogue. I had at first commenced the tale with the word itself, thus: "Boher-na-Milthiogue, though in a wild and remote part of Ireland," etc. But I was afraid that, should an English reader take up and open the book, he would at the very first word slap it together again between the palms of his hands, saying, "Oh, that is quite enough for me!" Now, as my English readers have done me vastly good service on former occasions, I should be sorry to frighten them at the outset of this new tale; and I have therefore endeavored to lead them quietly into it. With my Irish friends no such circumlocution would have been necessary. Perhaps, if I dissever and explain the word, it may enable even my English readers in some degree to approach a successful attempt at its pronunciation. I am aware, however, of the difficulty they experience in this respect, and that their attempts at some of our easiest names of Irish places are really laughable--laughable, at least, to our Celtic familiarity with the correct sound.
Boher is the Irish for "bridge," and milthiogue for a "midge;" Boher-na-Milthiogue, "the midge's bridge."
There now, if my English friends cannot yet pronounce the word properly, which I still doubt, they can at least understand what it means. It were idle, I fear to hope, that they can see any beauty in it; and yet that it is beautiful there can be no Celtic doubt whatever.
Perhaps it might have been well to have written thus far in the shape of a preface; but as nobody nowadays reads prefaces, the matter would have been as bad as ever. I shall therefore continue now as I had intended to have commenced at first.
Boher-na-Milthiogue, though in a wild and remote part of Ireland, is not without a certain degree of natural and romantic beauty, suiting well the features of the scene in which it lies.
Towering above a fertile and well-cultivated plain frown and smile the brother and sister mountains of Slieve-dhu and Slieve-bawn, the solid masonry of whose massive and perpendicular precipices was built by no human architect. The ponderous and scowling rocks of Slieve-dhu, the brother, are dark and indistinct; while, separated from it by a narrow and abrupt ravine, those of Slieve-bawn, the sister, are of a whitish spotted gray, contrasting cheerfully with those of her gloomy brother.
{501}
There is generally a story in Ireland about mountains or rivers or old ruins which present any peculiarity of shape or feature. Now it is an undoubted fact, which any tourist can satisfy himself of, that although from sixty to a hundred yards asunder, there are huge bumps upon the side of Slieve-bawn, corresponding to which in every respect as to size and shape are cavities precisely opposite them in the side of Slieve-dhu. The story in this case is, that although formerly the mountains were, like a loving brother and sister, clasped in each other's arms, they quarrelled one dark night (I believe about the cause of thunder), when Slieve-dhu in a passion struck his sister a blow in the face, and staggered her back to where she now stands, too far for the possibility of reconciliation; and that she, knowing the superiority of her personal appearance, stands her ground, as a proud contrast to her savage and unfeeling relative.
Deep straight gullies, worn by the winter floods, mark the sides of both mountains into compartments, the proportion and regularity of which might almost be a matter of surprise, looking like huge stripes down the white dress of Slieve-bawn, while down that of Slieve-dhu they might be compared to black and purple plaid.
"Far to the north," in the bosom of the minor hills, lies a glittering lake--glittering when the sun shines; dark, sombre, and almost imperceptible when the clouds prevail.
The origin of the beautiful name in which the spot itself rejoices I believe to be this; but why do I say "believe?" It is a self-evident and well-known fact.
Along the base of Slieve-bawn there runs a narrow roadeen, turning almost at right angles through the ravine already mentioned, and leading to the flat and populous portion of the country on the other side of the mountains, and cutting the journey, for any person requiring to go there, into the sixteenth of the distance by the main road. In this instance the proverb would not be fulfilled, that "the longest way round was the shortest way home." Across one of the winter-torrent beds which runs down the mountain side, almost at the entrance of the ravine, is a rough-built rustic bridge, at a considerable elevation from the road below. To those approaching it from the lower level, it forms a conspicuous and exceedingly picturesque object, looking not unlike a sort of castellated defence to the mouth of the narrow pass between the mountains.
This bridge, toward sunset upon a summer's evening, presents a very curious and (except in that spot) an unusual sight. Whether it arises from any peculiarity of the herbage in the vicinity, or the fissures in the mountains, or the crevices in the bridge itself, as calculated to engender them, it would be hard to say; but it would be impossible for any arithmetician to compute at the roughest guess the millions, the billions of small midges which dance in the sunbeams immediately above and around the bridge, but in no other spot for miles within view. The singularity of their movements, and the peculiarity of their distribution in the air, cannot fail to attract the observation of the most careless beholder. In separate and distinct batches of some hundreds of millions each, they rise in almost solid masses until they are lost sight of, as they attain the level of the heathered brow of the mountain behind them, becoming visible again as they descend into the bright sunshine that lies upon the white rocks of Slieve-bawn. In no instance can you perceive individual or scattered midges; each batch is connected and distinct in itself, sometimes oval, sometimes almost square, but most frequently in a perfectly round ball. No two of these batches rise or fall at the same moment. I was fortunate enough to see them myself upon more than one occasion in high perfection. They reminded me of large balls thrown up and caught successively by some distinguished {502} acrobat. During the performance, a tiny little sharp whir of music fills the atmosphere, which would almost set you to sleep as you sit on the battlement of the bridge watching and wondering.
By what law of creation, or what instinct of nature, or, if by neither, by what union of sympathy the movements of these milthiogues are governed--for I am certain there are millions of them at the same work in the same spot this fine summer's evening--would be a curious and proper study for an entomologist; but I have no time here to do more than describe the facts, were I even competent to enter into the inquiry. Fancy say fifty millions of midges in a round ball, so arranged that, under no suddenness or intricacy of movement, any one touches another. There is no saying amongst them, "Keep out of my way, and don't be pushin' me," as Larry Doolan says.
So far, the thing in itself appears miraculous; but when we come to consider that their motions, upward to a certain point, and downward to another, are simultaneous, that the slightest turn of their wings is collectively instantaneous, rendering them at one moment like a black target, and another turn rendering them almost invisible, all their movements being as if guided by a single will--we are not only lost in wonder, but we are perfectly unable to account for or comprehend it. I have often been surprised, and so, no doubt, may many of my readers have been, at the regularity of the evolutions of a flock of stares in the air, where every twist and turn of a few thousand pairs of wings seemed as if moved by some connecting wire; but even this fact, surprising as it is, sinks into insignificance when compared with the movements of these milthiogues.
But putting all these inquiries and considerations aside, the simple facts recorded have been the origin of the name with which this tale commences.
Chapter II
Winifred Cavana was an only daughter, indeed an only child. Her father, old Ned Cavana of Rathcash, had been always a thrifty and industrious man. During the many years he had been able to attend to business--and he was an experienced farmer--he had realized a sum of money, which, in his rank of life and by his less prosperous neighbors, would be called "unbounded wealth," but which, divested of that envious exaggeration, was really a comfortable independence for his declining years, and would one of those days be a handsome inheritance for his handsome daughter. Not that Ned Cavana intended to huxter the whole of it up, so that she should not enjoy any of it until its possession might serve to lighten her grief for his death--no; should Winny marry some "likely boy," of whom her father could in every respect approve, she should have six hundred pounds, R.M.D.; and at his death by which time Ned hoped some of his grandchildren would make the residue more necessary--she should have all that he was able to demise, which was no paltry matter. In the meantime they would live happily and comfortable, not niggardly.
With this view--a distant one, he still hoped--before him, and knowing that he had already sown a good crop, and reaped a sufficient harvest to live liberally, die peacefully, and be berrid dacently, he had set a great portion of his land upon a lease during his own life, at the termination of which it was to revert to his son-in-law, of whose existence, long before that time, he could have no doubt, and for whose name a blank had been left in his will, to be filled up in due time before he died, or, failing that event--not his death, but a son-in-law--it was left solely to his daughter Winifred.
Winny Cavana was, beyond doubt or question, a very handsome girl and she knew it. She knew, too, {503} that she was "a catch;" the only one in that side of the country; and no person wondered at the many admirers she could boast of, though it was a thing she was never known to do; nor did she wonder at it herself. Without her six hundred pounds, Winny could have had scores of "bachelors;" and it was not very surprising if she was hard to be pleased. Indeed, had Winny Cavana been penniless, it is possible she would have had a greater number of open admirers, for her reputed wealth kept many a faint heart at a distance. It was not to be wondered at either, if a wealthy country beauty had the name of a coquette, whether she deserved it or not; nor was it to be expected that she could give unmixed satisfaction to each of her admirers; and we all know what censoriousness unsuccessful admiration is likely to cause in a disappointed heart.
Amongst all those who were said to have entered for the prize of Winny's heart, Thomas Murdock was the favorite--not with herself, but the neighbors. At all events he was the "likely boy" whom Winny's father had in his eye as a husband for his daughter; and in writing his will, he had lifted his pen from the paper at the blank already mentioned, and written the name Thomas Murdock in the air, so that, in case matters turned out as he wished and anticipated, it would fit in to a nicety.
The townlands of Rathcash and Rathcashmore, upon which the Cavanas and Murdocks lived, was rather a thickly populated district, and they had some well-to-do neighbors, beside many who were not quite so well-to-do, but were yet decent and respectable. There were the Boyds, the Beattys, and the Brennans, with the Cahils, the Cartys, and the Clearys beyond them; the Doyles, the Dempseys, and the Dolans not far off; with the Mulveys, the Mooneys, and the Morans quite close. The people seemed to live in alphabetical batches in that district, as if for the convenience of the county cess-collector and his book. Many others lived still further off, but not so far (in Ireland) as not to be called neighbors.
Kate Mulvey, one of the nearest neighbors, was a great friend and companion of Winny's. If Kate had six hundred pounds she could easily have rivalled Winny's good looks, but she had not six hundred pence; and notwithstanding her magnificent eyes, her white teeth, and her glossy brown hair, she could not look within miles as high into the clouds as Winny could. Still Kate had her admirers, some of whom even Winny's fondest glance, with all her money, could not betray into treachery. But it so happened that the person at whom she had thrown her cap had not (as yet, at least) picked it up.
Chapter III
It was toward the end of October, 1826. There had been an early spring, and the crops had been got in favorably, and in good time. There had been "a wet and a windy May;" a warm, bright summer had succeeded it; and the harvest had been now all gathered in, except the potatoes, which were in rapid progress of being dug and pitted. It was a great day for Ireland, let the advocates for "breadstuffs" say what they will, before the blight and yellow meal had either of them become familiar with the poor. There were the Cork reds and the cups, the benefits and the Brown's fancies, for half nothing in every direction, beside many other sorts of potatoes, bulging up the surface of the ridges--there were no drills in those days; mehils in almost every field, with their coats off at the digging-in.
"Bill, don't lane on that boy on the ridge wid you; he's not much more nor a gossoon; give him a start of you."
"Gossoon aniow; be gorra, he's as smart a chap on the face of a ridge as the best of us, Tom."
{504}
"Ay; but don't take it out of him too soon, Bill."
"Work away, boys," said the gossoon in question; "I'll engage I'll shoulder my loy at the end of the ridge as soon as some of ye that's spaking."
"It was wan word for the gossoon, as he calls him, an' two for himself, Bill," chimed in the man on the next ridge. "Don't hurry Tom Nolan; his feet's sore afther all he danced with Nelly Gaffeny last night."
Here there was a loud and general laugh at poor Tom Nolan's expense, and the pickers women and girls, with handkerchiefs tied over their heads looked up with one accord, annoyed that they were too far off to hear the joke. It was well for one of them that they had not heard it, for Nelly Gaffeny was amongst them.
"It's many a day, Pat, since you seen the likes of them turned out of a ridge."
"They bate the world."
"They bang Banagher; and Banagher, they say--"
"Whist, Larry; don't be dhrawing that chap down at all."
"I seen but wan betther the year," said Tim Meaney.
"I say you didn't, nor the sorra take the betther, nor so good."
"Arra, didn't I? I say I did though."
"Where, avic ma cree?"
"Beyant at Tony Kilroy's."
"Ay, ay; Tony always had a pet acre on the side of the hill toward the sun. He has the best bit of land in the parish."
"You may say that, Micky, with your own purty mouth. I led his mehil, come this hollintide will be three years; an' there wasn't a man of forty of us but turned out eight stone of cup off every ten yards a a' four-split ridge. Devil a the like of them I ever seen afore or since."
"Lumpers you mane, Andy; wasn't I there?"
"Is it you, Darby? no, nor the sorra take the foot; we all know where you were that same year."
"Down in the lower part of Cavan, Phil. In throth, it wasn't cup potatoes was throublin' him that time; but cups and saucers. He dhrank a power of tay that harvest, boys."
Here there was another loud laugh, and the women with the handkerchiefs upon their heads looked up again.
"Well, I brought her home dacent, boys; an' what can ye say to her?"
"Be gor, nothing, Darby avic, but that she's an iligant purty crathur, and a credit to them that owns her, an' them that reared her."
"The sorra word of lie in that," echoed every man in the mehil.
Thus the merry chat and laugh went on in every potato-field. The women, finding that they had too much to do to enable them to keep close to the men, and that they were losing the fun, of course got up a chat for themselves, and took good care to have some loud and hearty laughs, which made the men in their turn look up, and lean upon their loys.
Everything about Rathcash and Rathcashmore was prosperous and happy, and the farmers were cheerful and open-hearted.
"That's grand weather, glory be to God, Ned, for the time of year," said Mick Murdock to his neighbor Cavana, who was leaning, with his arms folded, on a field-gate near the mearing of their two farms. The farms lay alongside of each other one in the town-land of Rathcash, and the other in Rathcashmore.
"Couldn't be bet, Mick. I'm upward of forty years stannin' in this spot, an' I never seen the batin' of it."
"Be gorra, you have a right to be tired, Ned; that's a long stannin'."
"The sorra tired, Mick a wochal. You know very well what I mane, an' you needn't be so sharp. I'd never be tired of the same spot."
"Them's a good score of calves, Ned; God bless you an' them!" said Mick, making up for his sharpness.
"An' you too, Mick. They are a fine lot of calves, an' all reared since Candlemas."
{505}
"There's no denying, Ned, but you med the most of that bit of land of yours."
"'Tis about the same as your own, Mick; an' I think you med as good a fist of yours."
"Well, maybe so, indeed; but I doubt it is going into worse hands than what yours will, Ned."
"Why that, Mick?"
"Ah, that Tom of mine is a wild extravagant hero. He doesn't know much about the value of money, and never paid any attention to farming business, only what he was obliged to pick up from being with me. He thinks he'll be rich enough when I'm in my clay, without much work. An' so he will, Ned, so far as that goes; but it's only of book-larnin' an' horse-racin' an' coorsin' he's thinkin', by way of being a sort of gentleman one of those days; but he'll find to his cost, in the lather end, that there's more wantin' to grow good crops than 'The Farmer's Calendar of Operations.'"
"He's young, Mick, an' no doubt he'll mend. I hope you don't discourage him."
"Not at all, Ned. The book-larnin 's all well enough, as far as it goes, if he'd put the practice along with it, an' be studdy."
"So he will, Mick. His wild-oats will soon be all sown, an' then you'll see what a chap he'll be."
"Faix, I'd rather see him sowing a crop of yallow Aberdeens, Ned, next June; an' maybe it's what it's at the Curragh of Kildare he'll be, as I can hear. My advice to him is to get married to some dacent nice girl, that id take the wildness out of him, and lay himself down to business. You know, Ned, he'll have every penny and stick I have in the world; and the lease of my houlding in Rathcashmore is as good as an estate at the rent I pay. If he'd give up his meandherin', and take a dacent liking to them that's fit for him, I'd set him up all at wanst, an' not be keeping him out of it until I was dead an' berrid."
The above was not a bad feeler, nor was it badly put by old Mick Murdock to his neighbor. "Them that's fit for him" could hardly be mistaken; yet there was a certain degree of disparagement of his own son calculated to conceal his object. It elicited nothing, however, but a long thoughtful silence upon old Ned Cavana's part, which Mick was not slow to interpret, and did not wish to interrupt. At last Ned stood up from the gate, and smoothing down the sleeves of his coat, as if he supposed they had contracted some dust, he observed, "I'm afear'd, Mick, you're puttin' the cart before the horse; come until I show you a few ridges of red apples I'm diggin' out to-day. You'd think I actially got them carted in, an' threune them upon the ridges: the like of them I never seen."
And the two old men walked down the lane together.
But Mick Murdock's feeler was not forgotten by either of them. Mick was as well pleased--perhaps better--that no further discussion took place upon the subject at the time. He knew Ned Cavana was not a man to commit himself to a hasty opinion upon any matter, much less upon one of such importance as was so plainly suggested by his observations.
Ned Cavana, too, brooded over the conversation in silence, determined to throw out a feeler of his own to his daughter.
Ned had himself more than once contemplated the possibility as well as the prudence of a match between Tom Murdock and his daughter. The union, not of themselves alone, but of the two farms, would almost make a gentleman of the person holding them. Both farms were held upon unusually long leases, and at less than one-third of their value. If joined, there could be no doubt but, with the careful and industrious management of an experienced man, they would turn in a clear income of between five and six hundred a year; quite sufficient in that part of the world to entitle {506} a person of even tolerably good education to look up to the grand-jury list and a "justice of the pace."
The only question with Ned Cavana was, Did Tom Murdock possess the attributes required for success in all or any of the above respects? Ned, although he had taken his part with his father, feared not. Ay, there was another question, Was Winny inclined for him? He feared not also.
The other old man had not forgotten the feeler he had thrown out either, nor the thoughtful silence with which it had been received; for Mick Murdock could not believe that a man of Ned Cavana's penetration had misunderstood him. Indeed, he was inclined to think that the same matter might have originated in Ned's own mind, from some words he had once or twice dropped about poor Winny's prospects when he was gone, and the suspense it would be to him if she were not settled in life before that day; "snaffled perhaps by some good-for-nothing, extravagant fortune-hunter, with a handsome face, when she had no one to look after her."
There was but one word in the above which Mick thought could be justly applied to Tom; "extravagant" he undoubtedly was, but he was neither handsome--at least not handsome enough to be called so as a matter of course--nor was he good-for-nothing. He was a well-educated sharp fellow, if he would only lay himself down to business. He was not a fortune-hunter, for he did not require it; but idleness and extravagance might make him one in the end. Yet old Mick was by no means certain that the propriety of a match between these only and rich children had not suggested itself to his neighbor Ned as well as to himself. He hoped that if Tom had a "dacent hankerrin' afther" any one, it was for Winny Cavana; but, like her father, he doubted if the girl herself was inclined for him. He knew that she was proud and self-willed. He was determined, however, to follow the matter up, and throw out another feeler upon the subject to his son.
Chapter IV
It was now the 25th of October, just six days from All-Hallow Eve. Mick would ask a few of the neighbors to burn nuts and eat apples, and then, perhaps, he might find out how the wind blew.
"Tom," said he to his son, "I believe this is a good year for nuts."
"Well, father, I met a couple of chaps ere yesterday with their pockets full of fine brown shellers, coming from Clonard Wood."
"I dare say they are not all gone yet, Tom; an' I wish you would set them to get us a few pockets full, and we would ask a few of the neighbors here to burn them on All-Hallow Eve."
"That's easy done, father; I can get three or four quarts by to-morrow night. Those two very chaps would be glad to earn a few pence for them; they wanted me to buy what they had; and if I knew your intentions at the time, I should have done so; but it's not too late. Who do you intend to ask, father?"
"Why, old Cavana and his daughter, of course, and the Mulveys; in short, you know, all the neighbors. I won't leave any of them out, Tom. The Cavanas, you know, are all as wan as ourselves, livin' at the doore with us; and they're much like us too, Tom, in many respects. Old Ned is rich, an' has but one child--a very fine girl. I'm old, an' as rich as what Ned is, and I have but one child; I'll say though you're to the fore, Tom--a very fine young man."
Old Mick paused. He wanted to see if his son's intelligence was on the alert. It must have been very dull indeed had it failed to perceive what his father was driving at; but he was silent.
"That Winny Cavana is a very fine girl, Tom," he continued; "and I often wonder that a handsome young fellow like you doesn't make more of her. She'll have six hundred pounds fortune, as round as a hoop; beside, whoever gets her will fall in for that farm at her {507} father's death. There's ninety-nine years of it, Tom, just like our own."
"She's a conceited proud piece of goods, father; and I suspect she would rather give her six hundred pounds to some skauhawn than to a man of substance like me."
"Maybe not now. Did you ever thry?"
"No, father, I never did. People don't often hold their face up to the hail."
"Na-bockleish, Tom, she'd do a grate dale for her father, for you know she must owe everything to him; an' if she vexes him he can cut her out of her six hundred pounds, and lave the interest in his farm to any one he likes; and I know what he thinks about you, Tom."
"Ay, and he's so fond of that one that she can twist him round her finger. Wait now, father, until you see if I'm not up to every twist and turn of the pair of them."
"But you never seem to spake to her or mind her at all, Tom; and I know, when I was your age, I always found that the girls liked the man best that looked afther them most. I'm purty sure too, Tom, that there's no one afore you there."
"I'm not so sure of that, father. But I'll tell you what it is: I have not been either blind or idle on what you are talking about; but up to this moment she seems to scorn me, father; there's the truth for you. And as for there being no one before me, all I can say is that she manages, somehow or other, to come out of the chapel-door every Sunday at the same moment with that whelp, Edward Lennon, from the mountain; Emon-a-knock, as they call him, and as I have heard her call him herself. Rathcash chapel is not in his parish at all, and I don't know what brings him there."
"Is it that poor penniless pauper, depending on his day's labor? Ah, Tom, she's too proud for that."
"Yes, that very fellow; and there's no getting a word with her where he is."
"Well, Tom, all I can say is this, an' it's to my own son I'm sayin' it--that if you let that fellow pick up that fine girl with her six hundred pounds and fall into that rich farm, an' you livin' at the doore with her, you're not worth staggering-bob broth, with all your book-larnin' an' good looks, to say nothin' of your manners, Tom avic." And he left him, saying to himself, "He may put that in his pocket to balance his knife."
Thus ended what old Murdock commenced as a feeler, but which became very plain speaking in the end. But the All-Hallow Eve party was to come off all the same.
A word or two now of comparison, or perhaps, more properly speaking, of contrast, between these two aspirants to Winny Cavana's favor, though young Lennon was still more hopeless than the other, from his position.
Thomas Murdock was more conspicuous for the manliness of his person than for the beauties of his mind or the amiability of his disposition. Although manifestly well-looking in a group, take him singly, and he could not be called very handsome. There was a suspicious fidgetiness about his green-spotted eyes, as if he feared you could read his thoughts; and at times, if vexed or opposed, a dark scowl upon his heavy brow indicated that these thoughts were not always amiable. This unpleasing peculiarity of expression marred the good looks which the shape of his face and the fit of his curly black whiskers unquestionably gave him. In form he was fully six feet high, and beautifully made. At nineteen years of age he had mastered not only all the learning which could be attained at a neighboring national school, but had actually mastered the master himself in more ways than one, and was considered by the eighty-four youngsters whom he had outstripped as a prodigy of valor as well as learning. But Tom turned his schooling to a bad account; it was too superficial, and served more to set his head astray than to correct his heart; and there were some respectable {508} persons in the neighborhood who were not free from doubts that he had already become a parish-patriot, and joined the Ribbon Society. He was high and overbearing toward his equals, harsh and unkind to his inferiors, while he was cringing and sycophantic toward his superiors. There was nothing manly or straightforward, nothing ingenuous or affectionate, about him. In fact, if ever a man's temper and disposition justified the opinion that he had "the two ways" in him, they were those of Thomas Murdock. His father was a rich farmer, whose land joined that of old Ned Cavana, of whom he was a contemporary in years, and with whom he had kept pace in industry and wealth.
Thomas Murdock was an only son, as Winny Cavana was an only daughter, and the two old men were of the same mind now as regarded the future lot of their children.
A few words now of Edward Lennon, and we can get on.
He was the eldest of five in the family. They lived upon the mountain-side in the parish of Shanvilla, about two "short miles" from the Cavanas and Murdocks. His father and mother were both alive. They were respectable so far as character and conduct can make people respectable who are unquestionably poor. Their marriage was what has been sarcastically, but perhaps not inaptly, called by an English newspaper a "potato marriage;" that is--but no, it will not bear explanation. The result, however, after many years' struggling, may be stated. The Lennons had lived, and were still living, in a small thatched house upon the side of a mountain, with about four acres of reclaimed ground. It had been reclaimed gradually by the father and his two sons--for Emon had a younger brother--and they paid little or no rent for it. The second son and eldest daughter were now at service, "doin' for theirselves;" and those at home consisted of the father, the mother, the eldest son, and two younger daughters, mere children. For the house and garden they paid a small rent, which "a slip of a pig" was always ready to realize in sufficient time; while a couple of goats, staggering through the furze, yoked together by the necks, gave milk to the family.
Edward, though not so well-looking as to the actual cut of his features, nor so tall by an inch and a half, as our friend Murdock, was far more agreeable to look upon. There was a confident good-nature in his countenance which assured you of its reality, and the honesty of his heart. His figure, from his well-shaped head, which was beautifully set upon his shoulders, to his small, well-turned feet, was faultless. In disposition and character young Lennon was a full distance before the man to whom he was a secret rival, while in talent and learning he had nothing to fear by a comparison. He had commenced his education when a mere gossoon at a poor-school with "his turf an' his read-a-ma-daisy," and as he progressed from A-b-e-l, bel, a man's name; A-b-l-e, ble, Able, powerful, strong, until finally he could spell Antitrinitarian pat, he then cut the concern, and was promoted by his parish-priest--"of whom more anon," as they say to Rathcash national school, where he soon stood in the class beside Tom Murdock, and ere a week had passed he "took him down a peg." This, added to his supposed presumptuous thoughts in the quarter which Tom had considered almost his exclusive right, sowed the seed of hatred in Murdock's heart against Lennon, which one day might bear a heavy crop.
That young Lennon was devotedly but secretly attached to Winny Cavana there was no doubt whatever in his own mind, and there were few who did not agree with him, although he had "never told his love;" and as we Irish have leave to say, there was still less that his love was more disinterested than that of his richer rival. There was another point upon which there was still less doubt than either, and that was that Winny Cavana's heart secretly leaned to "Emon-a-knock," as {509} young Lennon was familiarly called by all those who knew and loved him. One exception existed to this cordial recognition of Emon's good qualities, and that was, as may be anticipated, by Thomas Murdock, who always called him "that Lennon," and on one occasion, as we have seen, substituted the word "whelp."
Winny, however, kept her secret in this matter to herself. She knew her father would go "tanterin' tearin' mad, if he suspected such a thing." She conscientiously endeavored to hide her preference from young Lennon himself, knowing that it would only get them both into trouble. Beside, he had never (yet) shown a decided preference for her above Kate Mulvey. Whether she succeeded in her endeavors is another question; women seldom fail where they are in earnest.
It is not considered amongst the class of Irish to which our dramatis persona belong as any undue familiarity, upon even a very short acquaintance, for the young persons of both the sexes to call each other by their Christian names. It is the admitted custom of the country, and Winny Cavana, rich and proud as she was, made no exception to the general rule. She even went further, and sometimes called young Lennon by his pet name. As regarded Tom Murdock, although she could have wished it otherwise, she would not make herself particular by acting differently. The first three letters of his name, coupled with the scowl she had more than once detected on his countenance, sounded unpleasantly upon her ear, Mur-dock. She always thought people were going to say murder before the "dock" was out. She never could think well of him; and although she called him Tom, it was more to be in keeping with the habit of the country, and as a refuge from the other name, than from a friendly feeling.
These were the materials upon which the two old men had to work, to bring about a union of their landed interests and their only children.
Chapter V
The invitations for All-Hallow Eve were forthwith issued in person by old Murdock, who went from house to house in his Sunday clothes, and asked all the respectable neighbors in the politest manner. Edward Lennon, although he could scarcely be called a neighbor, and moreover was not considered as "belonging to their set," was nevertheless asked to be of the party. Old Murdock had his reasons for asking him; although, to tell the truth, he and his son had a difference of opinion upon the subject. Tom thought to "put a spoke in his wheel," but was overruled by the old man, who said it would look as if they were afraid to bring him and Winny Cavana together; that it was much better to let the young fellow see at once that he had no chance, which would no doubt be an easy matter on that night: "it was betther to humiliate him at wanst."
Tom was ashamed not to acquiesce, but wished nevertheless that he might have had his own way. Edward Lennon lived too far from the Murdocks for the old man to go there specifically upon the mission of invitation; and the moment this difficulty was hinted by his father, Tom, who was not in the habit of making such offers, was ready at once to "go over to Shanvilla, and save his father the walk: he would deliver the message."
There was an anxiety in Tom's manner which betrayed itself; and old Mick was not the man to miss a thing of the kind.
"No, Tom a wochal" he observed, "I won't put such a thramp upon you. Sure I'll see him a Sunda'; he always comes to our chapel."
"Fitter for him stick to his own," said Tom.
"It answers well this turn, at all events," replied the old man.
Upon the following Sunday he was as good as his word. He watched young Lennon coming out of the chapel, and asked him, with more cordiality than Tom, who happened to be by, approved of.
{510}
Had nothing else been necessary to secure an acceptance, the fact of Tom Murdock being present would have been sufficient. The look which he caught from under the rim of Tom's hat roused Lennon's pride, and he accepted the old man's invitation with unhesitating civility. Lennon on this, as on all Sunday occasions, "was dressed in all his best;" and that look seemed to say, "I wonder where that fellow got them clothes, and if they're paid for:" he understood the look very well. But the clothed were paid for,--perhaps, too, more promptly than Tom's own; and a better fitting suit, from top to toe, was not to be met with in the whole parish. A "Caroline hat," smooth and new, set a wee taste jauntily upon his well-shaped head; a shirt like the drifted snow, loose at the throat, but buttoned down the breast with tiny blue buttons round as sweet-pea seeds; a bright plaid waistcoat, with ditto buttons to match, but a size larger; a pair of "spic-an'-span" knee-breeches of fine kersey-mere, with unexceptionable steel buttons and blue silk-ribbon strings, tied to perfection at the knee; while closely-fitting lamb's-wool long stockings showed off the shape of a pair of legs which, for symmetry, looked as if they had been turned in a lathe. Of his feet I have already spoken; and on this occasion they did not belie what I said.
Old Mick desired Edward Lennon "to bring Phil M'Dermot the smith's son with him. He was a fine young man, a good dancer, and had mended a couple of ploughs for him in first-rate style, an' very raisonable, for the winther plowing."
Tom Murdock did not want for fine clothes, of course. Two or three suits were at his command; and as this was Sunday, he had one of his best on. It was "given up to him" by most of the girls that he was the handsomest and best-dressed man in the parish of Rathcash, and some would have added Shanvilla; yet he now felt, as he stole envious glances at young Lennon, that his case with Winny Cavana might not be altogether a "walk over." All Tom's comparisons and metaphors had reference to horse-racing.
This little incident, however, cut young Lennon out of his usual few words with Winny; for, as a girl with a well-regulated mind, she could not venture to dawdle on the road until old Murdock had done speaking to Emon: she knew that would be remarked. She had never happened to see old Murdock speaking to Emon before, and her secret wonder now was "Could it be possible that he was asking Edward Lennon for All-Hallow Eve?"
Quite possible, Winny; but you scarcely have time to find out before you meet him there, for another Sunday will not intervene before the party.