g< m^. f au^rcA /y.^^PT// " y/^'Arw/a. .■tf> «*• BK^^I^^^&H H |M m H ^ m SbIm In 91 ^^ H m 1^^ ^1 ^^ 1^ m ■'^^Mie^r \f-/a Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Dul — Sf encbr* Early in the nineteenth century, in an autumnal month, a corvette, a hght built Spanish vessel, passed the Bar of Dublin, and, with all her canvass crow^ded, rode gallantly into the bay, after having weathered, for a period of five days, one of those tremendous gales, which occasionally agitate the Irish seas. A southern port of Ireland had been her original destination. Stress of weather had driven her up the Chan- nel ; and the injury she had received in VOL. I. B 2 FLORENCE MACARTHY. her unequal contest with the elements rendered it necessary that she should undergo repair, before she proceeded on her coasting voyage. On her stern she bore the name of " // Librador;'* and, though now unarmed, and the property of a private individual, she had evi- dently been a sloop of war in some fo- reign service. The dawn was breaking in tints of gold and hues of crimson, as the cor- vette cut her way through the bright- ning waves ; and the happiest aspect of the Irish coast presented ^itself to the view of two persons, who stood in si- lence at the helm; — who had stood there since the first pale flush of light had thrown its silvery line along the eastern horizon. The elder of the two \Vlas the master of the vessel. He was still in the very prime of life and flower of manhood ; * The Liberator. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 3 and as each lovely feature of the Irish shore gradually developed itself, and arose bright and fresh from the mists of the morning upon his eager gaze, he presented, in his own person, an image, that denoted the intention of the creator, vv^hen he made man supreme above all, to reign Qver his fair creation. He stood erect, his arms so folded as to give to his square chest and shoulders a peculiar muscularity and breadth of outline. His fine bust, indicating ex- traordinary strength, would have been almost disproportioned to his stature, which rose not much above the middle height, but that the loftiness of his air, and the freedom of his carriage, conferred an artificial elevation on his figure, and corrected what might be deemed imperfect in his actual structure. His large eyes were rather deep set than protuberant; and their glances, rather side-long than direct, flashed from be- neath his dark impending brows, like B 2 4 FLORENCE MACARTHY. the vivid lightnings which fringe the massive vapours of a tropical atmos- phere. His mouth had a physiognomy of its own : it was what the eye is to other faces : and the workings of the nether lip, in moments of emotion, in- dicated the influence of vehement pas- sions, habitually combatted, though rarely subdued. The expression of his countenance was more intellectual than gracious, and calculated to strike, rather than to please. But his rare and sin- gular smile (a smile so bland, it might well have become even a woman's lip) wholly changed its character; and the full displayed teeth, of splendid white- ness, produced perhaps even too strong a contrast v>itli a complexion, which southern suns, and climes of scorching ardw, had bronzed into a dark, deep, but transparent olive. No tint, no hue warmed or varied this gloomy paleness, save when the tide of passion, rushing impetuously from the heart, colcuretl FLORENCE MACARTHY. 5 for a moment, with a burning crimson, the livid cheek, and then, as promptly ebbing back to its source, left all cold, pale, and dark as before. From his accent or manner it would have been ditiicult to assign him to any particular country. He seemed rather to belong to the world; — one of those creatures formed out of the common mould, whom nature and circumstances combine and fit for deeds of general im- port and universal interest. Neither could the term gentility be appropri- ately applied to an appearance which had a character beyond it. Pie might have been above or below heraldic no- tices and genealogical distinctions, but he was evidently independent of them. His mate, an old but hale man, with whom he conversed in Spanish (but who had English enough to work the ship, and sufficient knowledge of the Irish seas to steer it with skill), respect- fully addressed him by the title of ]> 3 b FLORENCE MACARTHY. *' the Commodore ;" and the crew (a few Enghsh sailors, to whom he seemed, even by name, a stranger) adopted the same appellation. But he issued his clear prompt orders with the air and de- cision of one to whom higher titles of command were familiar. He was a good sailor, fearless in danger, calm and self-possessed in difficulty ; and, to the only passenger who accompanied him, (one courteously and accidentally admit- ted on board his ship), he spoke of him- self as a man fond of the sea from boy- hood, making voyages of pleasure when he could, and now uniting an old habit of recreation with the urgency of press- ing business. He was on his way from a West India island, on a secret mission, of importance to himself; but he neither mentioned his own name, nor inquired that of the young passenger he had taken up out of a wherry in Plymouth Sound, the port whence he had last sailed, and where the stranger had FLORENCE MACARTHY. / vainly sought a passage to Ireland, now granted him by the commander of // Lihrador. The appearance of this person, who had voluntarily announced himself by the name of De Vere, was less equi- vocal, and though infinitely interesting, was perhaps less striking than that of the Commodore. It was also of a more definite stamp and character; more as- signable to a class, a cast, a country. Though there was little of conventional mannerism about him, though his ele- gant and thorough bred air was wholly unmarked by the overcharged fashioning of any country, yet, to those acquainted with the first class of British distinc- tion, he was easily cognizable in accent, dress, air, and physiognomy, as an Eng- lishman of rank and fashion, the homme comme il faut of the highest circles. There was, however, in the counte- nance and modes of this distinguished young stranger something more than B 4 8 FLORENCE MACARTHY. the niere characteristics of country and rank:— a sort of fantastic pensiveness, a real or aifected abstraction, a something imaginative and ideal, in his maniere d'etre, that indicated great eccentricity, if not eminent peculiarity of mind. He seemed a compound of fancy and fashion ; a medium between the consciousness of rank, and the assumption and posses- sion of geiiiiis, which placed him out of the common muster-roll of society; something escaped from it by chance, and vain of standing aloof, untractable to its laws, and therefore believing him- self beyond them. In his conversations with the Commodore he spoke in para- dox, had systems out of the common scale, and theories of alembicated re- finement. An ideologist, in the fullest sense of tlie word, in his philosophy he talked as one wlio believed that " nothing is, but thinking makes it so:" and occupied by an ideal presence, he affected to live distinct and independent FLORENCE MACARTHY. 9 of all human interests. — The structure of his fine head was such as physiog- nomists assign to superior intellect ; and the precise arrangement of its glossy auburn curls left it difficult to decide whether its fanciful and fashionable possessor was more fop or philosopher, dandy or poet. His valet de chambre, a Frenchman, presided with invariable punctuality at his toilette twice a-day, when the uncivil elements did not inter- fere with such arrangements ; and the rest of his time was spent in musing, reading Spencers "Fairy Queen," and " State of Ireland,"and occasionally con- versing with the commander of the ves- sel, who seemed to inspire him with sen- timents of curiosity and admiration, not usual to his ordinary habits of feeling. As he now stood beside him at the helm, or rather leaned in a recumbent attitude, with an half-closed book in his hand, his attention seemed not to be given to the beautiful coast scenery, which, cn- B 5 10 FLORKNCE MACARTHY. dowed with at least the charm of novel- ty, was now breaking on his view ; for his up-turned glance, giving him the in- spired air of one " communing with the skies," seemed to pursue the gradual disappearance of the morning star, as an object superiorly attractive in propor- tion as it was remote and fleeting. — After a long silence, mutually preserved, he withdrew his dazzled eyes from the reddening efllilgence of the heavens, and addressed his companion, by observing : " There is ta me a singular attraction in the aspect of an unknown firmament, for it tells of distance from scenes, and objects long marked by sameness, and distinguished only by satiety." " It tells too," replied the Commo- dore, " of remoteness from objects, precious by interest or habit. The cross of the south, first seen in tropical climates, draws tears to the eyes of the Spanish seaman, its image recalling remembrances of his distant country." FLORENCE MACARTHY. 11 " Remembrances of country , how- ever, are usually the finger-posts to ennui. — One wears out every thing in one's own country before one leaves it; and, therefore, it is left. - Country ! all countries areahke: little masses of earth and water; where some swarms of hu- man ants are destined to creep through their span of ephemeral existence; com- ing, they know not whence ; — going, they know not where." '* These little masses of earth and water," said the Commodore, "are there- fore precious and important to the ants that creep on them; and each little hill is dear to the swarm that inhabits it, as much from that very ignorance as from interest." After a short pause^ Mr. De Vere resumed : " Can you not credit then the ex- istence of a creature placed by nature or circumstances beyond the ordinary pale of humanity, shaking off * his poor 12 FLORENCE MACAJITIIV. estate of man,' scarcely looking upon that spot, called earth, with human eyes, nor herding with his species in human sympathy— one so organized, so worked on by events, and thwarted in feelings, so blasted in his bud of life, as to stand alone in creation, matchless, or at least unmatched^ whose joys, whose woes, whose sentiments and passions, are not those of other men, but all his own, beyond the reach of affection, or the delusions of hope ?" ^'^ A being, thus constituted," rejoined the Commodore, " could not be man. He, who wants the appetites and pas- sions common to all men, with the sympathies and affections that spring from them, is sometlnng better or worse, angel or daemon, but he is not man." " You deny then the possibility of such an existence ?" " Nay — madmen may fancy such a combination, poets feign it, or vain men FLORENCE MACARTHY. 13 affect it ; but it has no real existence in nature or society. Man is always man ; and he who pretends to be more, is rarely placed by nature at the head of his species — he is in fact usually less." Before Mr. De Vere could reply, a question from a sailor interrupted the conversation, which was one of many held in the same tone and spirit. The Commodore was the next moment busied in giving orders for tackingl He addressed his mate in pure Spanish, chided the French valet out of his way in good French, and fell foul of a lub- berly sailor in broad nautical English. " There is somewhere," said Mr. De Vere, turning over the pages of Spen- cer s Ireland, and resuming his conver- sation with the commander of the ves- sel, as he returned to his station at the helm— "there is somewhere, through the quaint pages of Spencer, an admi- rable description of the natural advan- 14 FLORENCE MACAllTHY. tages of Ireland, which I cannot find.'* "Look around you," answered the Com- modore : " you will find them here." " I prefer looking through the spec- tacles of books. I like the prismatic hues thrown by authorship upon places and facts." "Indeed! that is strange! but in view- ing Ireland through Spencer s pages, you will see it, as cliildren do an eclipse, through a smoked glass. He was one of those, whose policy it was to revile the country he preyed upon, to spoil, and then to vituperate. No Englishman can fairly estimate this island who comes not unshackled by his own inte- rests. Spencer, the deputy of a deputy, the secretary, whose servile flattery of the viceroy, his master, was rewarded with a principality (soon lost, indeed, but most unfairly won), is no author for impartiality to judge by ; and when he stoops to eulogize the * dreadless inighf FLORENCE MACARTHY. 15 of his ferocious patron, Grey, one of Ireland's Herods, when he defines power to be " The risht hand of Justice truly hight," however he may please as a poet, he is contemptible as an historian, and infa- mous as a politician." " Oh ! as an historian or politician I give him up, because both characters are equally ridiculous : the politician always guided by prejudice and inte- rest, the historian always immersed in ignorance and error. Time discovers and shames both: and thus it is with all that bears upon human facts. The imagination alone is always right ; its visions are alone imperishable. The Fairy Queen of Spencer will thus sur- vive, when his State of Ireland shall be wholly forgotten : and, for my own part, so much do I prefer the visions of his fancy to the historical relations of any period connected with the history of men, that I would go a thousand miles \6 FLORENCE MACARTHY. to visit the ruins of his Irish Kilcolc- man,* where once " He sat. as was his trade, * Under the loot of Mole, that mountain hoar,' W'hfro- ' Allured by his pipe's delight, * Whose pleasing sound y-shrilled far about,' the gallant Raleigh found him. But I am not sure that I would turn one point out of my way to tread upon the spot where legitimate despotism signed tlie fiat of its own destruction, and gave MagnaCharta to an emancipated nation. * Originally the principality of the Macarthies More / afterwards the palatinate of the Fitz- geralds, Earls of Desmond ; forfeited by them, and given to new spoliators, among whom was the thriftless adventurer Raleigh, who in Ireland (*) acted the part of a freebooter. The spoils which fell to the poet Spencer, as secretary to Lord Arthur Grey, (the ' Sir Artigall' of his dreary legend of that name) were three thousand acres of rich land in the County of Cork, with the beautiful Castle of Kilcoleman, the seat of the Earls of Desmond. (* ) See Notes, at the end of this Volume. FLORENCE MACARTPIY. 17 The delicious strains of Spencer are now fresh and true as when they were first breathed ; but where is the spirit that commanded and produced an Eng- Hsh Magna Charta ?" " Suspended, perhaps," interrupted the Commodore, " not extinct. For its essence exists in the temperament ot an Englishman. You must first give him another position on the globe, or employ ages of misrule to change his national character, before you can reconcile him to slavery — circumstances may lull him in false security, or force him to tem- porary acquiescence ; but no combina- tion can ensure his permanent obedience to unequivocal despotism." The vessel at that moment touched the pier. The Commodore had sprung upon land ; and he stood for a moment on the spot that had received the first pres- sure of his footstep. To judge by the darkling of his eye, and the motion of 18 FLORENCE MACARTHY. his lip, some strong and powerful feeling occupied his mind; but it was of brief duration. Emotions unconnected with action seemed not made for him: by the tossing back of his head^ he ap- peared to give thought to the winds, and plunged into all the bustle and ac- tivity of the circumstances in which he was placed. The Holyhead packet was not yet visible ; and the earliness of the hour left the pier still in quietude. The land- waiter had been called to go through the necessary forms, and of him the Commodore asked some questions, with eager curiosity, clearness, and rapidity of utterance, as if life were too short to suffer one moment to pass by unoccu- pied, or uninstructed ; then, as if im- patient of the drawling replies, antici- pated the answers, and started new in- quiries of local reference. Meantime Mr. De Vere had landed ; but wholly abstracted from the noise and activity FLORENCE MACARTHY. 1$ that surrounded him, he stood, turning over the leaves of his Spencer, while the valet was receiving parcels, port- manteaux, and port-folios, from a sailor, who was flinging them on shore, and exclaiming, as he appropriated or re- jected each several article, " Oest a noiis" — " ce nest pas a nous.'' — With the exception of "got dam," the French- man had not yet acquired a single word of English. But with this small por- tion of the language, and his own very- expressive gesticulations, he had suc- ceeded so well, as almost to think with Figaro, that this emphatic imprecation was the basis of the tongue; and that with it " on ne manque de i^ien, nulle part'' ^' Will I step in for a jingle for your honor?" demanded a voice, in the broad languid drawling of the genuine patois of Dublin, addressing the full force of its brogue to the delicate ears of Mr. De Vere. " Will I, plaze your honor. 20 FLORENCE MACARTHt. step in, Sir?" This question, several times repeated, at last obtained notice by its reiteration. The young stranger raised his eyes for a moment to the face of him who thus unceremoniously proffered his services, but he withdrew them again in disgust. The object of this ungracious glance, so little flatter- ing in its expression, had stood its in- quiry with great coolness. He was leaning, and had been leaning since the dawn, against one of the posts of the pier, and had watched the approach of // Librador idly and patiently for more than an hour, partly for the gratification of his curiosity, and partly in the hope of earning some trifle by going for a vehicle, or by carrying into the town some luggage for the passengers. There is scarcely any place so lonely, or hour so unseasonable, at which some one of these genuine lazzaroni of the Irish me- tropolis may not be found lounging away time, between hope and idleness. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 31 in the enjoyment of doing nothing, or the vague expectation of having some- thing to do. Miserably clad, disgustingly filthy, squahd, meagre, and famished, the pe- titioner for employment had yet hu- mour in his eye, and observation in his countenance. Occasionally ready to assist^ and always prompt to flatter, he did neither gratuitously. Taunt and in- vective seemed tiie natural expression of his habit ; for though debasingly acquiescent to a destiny, which left him without motive for industry, in a coun- try where industry is no refuge from dis- tress, he yet preserved the vindictive- ness of conscious degradation ; and there was frequently a deep-seated sin- cerity in his curse, witich was some- times wanting to liis purchased bene- diction. Idleness had become the cus- tom of his necessity; and his wants were so few, that a trifling exertion would supply them. Yet he sought 22 FLORENCE MACARTHY. early and late for employment; for he had probably wants more urgent than his own to satisfy. This unfortunate representative of his class had hitherto lolled on the pier^ a listless spectator of the scene, which was going forward, muttering at intervals a shrewd observation, laughing deridingly as he threw his eyes over the French valet, whose foreign air and dress were peculiarly notable; and again composing his sharp features into a look of respect- ful deference, as he reiterated his ques- tion to him, whom he supposed the master. — " Will I step in for a jingle, your honor? will I, Sir?" " Step in!'* at last repeated Mr. De Vere, struck perhaps by the calm steady perseverance of his intrusion — " step in where, friend ?" " Step into Dublin, plaze your honor, for a jingle, Sir, or a hack- ney." " Is Dublin so near then ?" " It is, plaze your honor, handy bye. FLORENCE MACARTIIY. 23 Sir, quite convanient: yez wont miss me, your honor, till I bees back wid ye." " If Dublin is so near," said Mr. De Vere, closing his book, and address- ing the Commodore, who now, with his rapid step, approached him, after having given his orders to his mate and men— " if Dublin is so near, I should prefer walking, to trusting to any filthy vehicle we may be able to procure at this un- seasonable hour." " I meant to propose it," was the re- ply ; and the active animated speaker, taking a rich pelisse from his mate, which he drew over his ship dress, and exchanging his cap for a round hat, he gave some additional orders in Spanish, and desired the sailor, who stood beside him, with a large valise on his shoulder, and writing case in his hand, to follow him to Dublin. The two gentlemen then proceeded, arm in arm, to town, furnished by the officers of the customs wdth a card of one of the many hotels 24 FLORENCE MACARTHY. which now succeed in the patrician streets of Dubhn to the mansions of the banished nobihty. Mr. De Vere, to whom the vulgar exertions of every-day hfe were all un- known, and even unguessed at, had left every thing to a valet, as helpless as himself. For the first time since he had come into his master's service, h« was deprived of the assistance of a cer- tain Portuguese laquais, one who spoke all languages, performed all services, and united all the intrigue, roguery, and ingenuity of the Pedrillos and Lazarillo* of the Spanish comedy.' This man had been dismissed for mal-practices, at the moment his master was leaving the port of Lisbon for that of Plymouth; and since that period the Frenchman had acted without deputy or interpreter. But as almost the whole of the interval had been passed at sea (for his master had remained but a few hours at Ply- mouth)^ he had but slightly felt the in- FLORENCE MACARTHY. 25, convenience. Now, however, left to act, not only for his master, but for him- self, he remained, standing on the pier, in all the embarrass of endless books, parcels, and the splendid necessaire of the portable toilette. He had alter- nately taken up and laid down a valise, a dressing box, and a pocket edition of Zamora's Spanish Plays; accompanying each movement with a "sacre,"'Wia?z/re," or" Peste de wowame," slowly rolled forth from between his closed teeth; when the English sailor, jerking his own load on his shoulderSj exclaimed, "come,come^ mounseer, know your own mind ; either wait till we sends a coach for you and your trumpery, or get some-un to help you." " Shure I'll carry in them portman- tles to town for you, mounseer, and the leather box, to boot, for a trifle," observed the Irishman ; who, disappointed in the commission he had sought, had remain- ed motionless and silent, till the hope of VOL. I. c 26 FLORENCE MACARTHY. his services being again accepted sug- gested itself; and he repeated his pro- posal three several times, each louder than the other, as if the louder he vo- ciferated, the better chance he had of being understood by the foreigner. " Do you hear me now, mounseer ?" he screamed close in the Frenchman's ear ; who, stamping his feet with anger, exclaimed, " Paix ! paix !" " Pay, pay," reiterated the Irishman. '' I'll engage you will, dear, and well." Then, without further ceremony, hoist- ing the valise on his shoulders, taking a port folio under his arm, and carrying the dressing box by its handle, he nodded his head to the parcel of books, which were inclosed in a leather strap, ob- served, "now, mounseer, I'll trouble you just to take them bits of books in your daddle ; and what would ail us, but we'd take in th' other trifles of things betwixt us aisy enough, plaze God; I'll engage we .will. So now, my lad," (address- FLORENCE MAGARTHY. tf jjig the sailor) " follow me, and I'll shew you the road." The Frenchman comprehended the arrangfements of the Irishman better than his language, grinned applause, muttered a good humoured " got -dam," in token of approbation, and taking up the books, th-ese three singular repre- sentatives of the three nations proceeded towards Dublin, following close on the steps of the gentlemen, who had in- quired their route, and were some paces in advance. The Irish lounger, no lounger now, stepped on lightly with his burthen, in that short quick trot, with which the lower Irish frequently perform journies from one extremity of the kingdom to the other, bare-footed and bare-l«gged. The sailor and the Frenchman, with an appearance much more alert, and bur- thens infinitely lighter, scarcely kppt pace with him, and obhged him fre- quently to stop, while he as frequently c 2 28 FLORENCE MACARTHY. addressed them with a sort of sly in- direct curiosity, which ingeniously sought its gratification, without any obvions efforts to obtain it. " I'll engage, mounseer," he observed, first attacking the Frenchman, " yez were never in ould Ireland afore, far as you've travelled ; and yez ** May travel the wide world all OTcr, And sail from France to Balin-robe," as the song says, afore ye' 11 see the likes of it again, any way." " Bon, bon," re- turned the Frenchman, supposing that he communicated the joyful intelligence of their speedy arrival, " Bon, j'en suis charme." *' Why then it will charmy ye more every step ye take, for there isn't her match, by say, or land, with her beau- tiful eye, there, like a unicorn's, in the front of her forehead ; * and her Hill of * Ireland's eye — a rock at the entrance of the bay. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 29 Hoath, like a mole on her cheek ; and sete there forenent yez, acrass the bay, there, there's the sheds of Clontarf, and the green groves of Marino, the great Earl of Marlemont's sate, and ould Ballybough, the creatur! to the fore this day as when Bryan Borugh lost his crown, and his harp on it, (the sowl), in the Musaum of Trinity."* " Comment done !" demanded the Frenchman, denoting his ignorance of this detailed description by the per- plexity of his looks. " Och bother," returned the Irishman, out of all pa- tience at what appeared to him obsti- nate stupidity. " Bodcre, dodere," reiterated the Frenchman, indignant at what he saw * A harp is shewn in the Museum of Trinity College, said to have belonged to the Irish Mo- narch, and found on the Plains of Clontarf, where he fought his last fanious battle against the Danes, and lost his life. C 3 30 FLaRENCE MACARTHY. was intended for insult. ** Comment done bodere gueux, que tu es !" " Cut away yourself," replied the Irishman, laughing good humouredly, " or troth, you'll be in too late for the fair, honey !'* The Frenchman, supposing that- thesft words, and the conciliating laugh which accompanied them,indicated an apology, took off his hat with great politeness, and accepted the fancied excuses, with " mais voila, mon ami, qui est bien." " Och, your humble servant to com- mand, mounseer," returned the Irishman, dropping his load to make an imitative bow: "troth, you do your dancing master every justice, whoever he was." The English sailor, much amused by this interchange of civility in his two companions, observed, " aye, aye, sirs let the mounseers alone for bowing and scraping, and the likes. Never a danc- ing dog at Bartlemy fair will beat them %t that, I'll warrant." FLORENCE NfACARTHY. 31 ** Why then I'll engage," replied the Irishman, " that yellow, swarthy, portly gentleman there, your captain, wouldn't be a Frenchman, with his eligant sur- tout, for all he has a Frenchified air about him." " What he ! Lord help your heart, not he — no more a Frenchman nor I am, lad." " Och! he'd be very sorry, I'll engiage; though he has an outlandish look with him, for all that." " Why, aye sure, because he corned from the Hindies, d'ye see ; the West Hindies, — or Spanish America. — It's all one for that, come from where he will, he's a hearty true blue, every bit of him.'* " And is yourself come all the ways with him, dear, from the Western Indies ?" " Not I. I was lying in dock, for it is not now all as one as formerly — all goes by luck and fashion now— Some kow,. one hears no more of the Howes^ e 4 32 FLORENCE MACARTHY. and the Hothams, andthe Nelsons, and the wooden walls of old England. — The jacket, the old true blue's worn out, Sir- So this here gem'man, who ovmis that tight bit of timber, every splinter of her himself, it seems, put into our Plymouth Sound, ,three weeks ago, bound from Demerara, and sent back his Spanish crew in a Cadiz merchantman, (except^ ing old Grim Groudy, the mate), and paid 'em like a prince. So then he set sail for London, aloft on the mail ; and when he came back, he manned this little vessel with a handful of us Ply- mouth boys, and we heaved anchor six days agone for Ireland ; and this I'll say for him, a better commander never istepped on forecastle, or walked the quarter-deck." " See that now," replied the Irish- ftian, quietly, " and has 'nt a mild look with him, then, for all that; only mighty stern. He wouldn't be a slave driver from the Western Indies, Sir, I suppose?" FLORENCE MACARTHY. 33 " What he! not he, bless the heart of him; no more nor I bees; not but he's hard enough, sometimes, and hates a lubber as he hates poison; but goes our halves in hard work." " See that, now, Sir: och, he has a iine look with him, and mighty portly; and has a great name upon him, if a body knew it, I'll engage." " Can't tell ye that though," replied the sailor, because why, I don't know it myself. They called 'n the Don at the King's Arms in Plymouth — the Span- ish Don, though he speaks as good English as the best. And then, when one asks a question of Grim Groud}^ who knows all about him, he only an- swers one in his d— d lingo." " And that tall slinder young man, dear, with his head in the clouds, as if he'd snufFthe moon, fairly, he's his comrade, I'll engage ?' * " What, yon fair weather, fresh water bird there ? Mounseers master — Oh, c 5 34: FLORENCE MACARTHY. I. knows nothing of he, nor Commo- dore, nor mate either, for the matter ©'that; he's a bird of passage, lad^ a God send, d'y see. Why, just as we had given Edystone hghthouse the go-bye, out comes old Jack Andrews's wherry, the Shark, rowing at the rate of ten knots an hour; and when it carae along- side the Librador,. yon spark, there, stands bolt upright, and begs a passage for his self and our mounseer, here to Ireland, parlavering about no packets plying from Plymouth to Dublin, and being in haste to get there.. So the Commodore has him hauled up, and gives him the. state cabin ; a cabin fit for an. English admiral;: and so they've gone on well enough,^, yard arm and yard arm^ jawing together fore and aft, first in one lingoj and then in another; and what with mounseer there, that has not a word of English to throw to a dog^ and the Spanish mate, who has bare suffi- cient to work the ship, why the vessefi FLORENCE MACARTHY. 35 like to the town of Babylon. But what's most oddest, is, that for all mounseer and Grim Groudy's gibberishing it so with their own masters, shiver me if they understand one another a bit. Ha! ha! ha!" " Why then," returned the Irishman, " it is mighty odd, and very remark- able ; for if foreigners wont understand one another, who do they expect will, I wonder. — And so yez are all going to fut up in Dublin? Why then yez are in great luck." "Luck! no such luck either; but needs must when the old one drives. Why, Sir, we have been pelted about this little basin of dirty water these five days, and last night were fairly driven up the Channel, blown to shivers, tat- tered to rags, and must now put into dock here, till all's made right and tight ; and then we're under orders to weigh anchor with old Grim Groudy, and sail for Dungarvon." 36 FLORENCE MACARTHY. " Troth, then, if yez will take a fool's advice, yez will stay where ye are ; for yez may go farther and fare worse than stopping in Dublin; only may be, your business does'nt lie here. Sir." '' Why, for business, I dont believe we have much business here; only just a voyage of pleasure, ^^^hj'- that's all ^he go, tiow. The agreeablest trip I ever made was with a young Irish lord to the Mediterranean, just for sport Hke; round the world for sport." " Why, then, its pretty sport that gives a man the say-sickness. But its ill winds blows nobody good; and only for it, sorrow bit of Ringsend yez had seen this day, and here it IS. The two gentlemen in advance had at this moment halted at the entrance of one of the most wretched suburbs that ever deformed or disgraced the me- tropolis of any country ; and the Com- Hiodore, whose quick and often back- FLORENCE MACARTHY. 37 glancing eye had long since discerned the reinforcement obtained to the party, by the addition of the lounger at the pier, now called, and desired him to lead the way. *' I will, plaze your honor," he replied, trotting briskly on, while the wearied Frenchman " toiled after him in vain;' and even the sailor made an exertion to keep pace with him. " I'll only just step in, Sir, by your leave, to get my morning, for I hasn't broke my fast yet. Sir." " BroJ{e his fastV reiterated the Commodore, shrugging his shoulders, as he observed his newly constituted guide step in to a little shop, whose gaudy placard of " licensed to sell spi- rituous liquors'" was further illustrated by a range of glasses on the counter, fill- ed with whiskey. The guide tossed one off, observing to the dirty lazy-looking j^'woman, who stood wiping a jug with ' her apron, " I'll pay you when I come back, Mrs. Hurley, dear." With this 38 FLORENCE MAGA-RTHY. assurance from her wretched, but well known customer, Mrs. Hurley appeared satisfied; aware, from experience, that, in this instance, punctuality was gua- ranteed by self-intcFest. " Break his fast?" repeated the Com- modore: " what a mode of breaking fast!" " As good as any," replied Mr. De Vere: " it all comes to the same thing in the end; Habit and circumstances determine the mode and means without our consent or will; and gin or glory * Leads but to the graTC.' The two travellers now followed their guide with difficulty through collected heaps of mud and filth. The very air they breathed was infected by noxious vapours, which the morning sun drew up from piles of putrid matter. The houses, between which they passed, were in ruins ; the sashless windows were stuffed with straw; the unhinged' FLORENCE MACARTHY. 3^ doors exposed the dark and dirty stairs, which led to densy still more dun and foul. Here,.if " lonely misery retired to die," living wretchedness- could scarcely nd a shelter. Yet many an haggard face, many an attenuated form, marked by the squalor of indigence, and the harshness of vice, even here evinced a crowded and superabundant popula- . tion^ The guide, who, as he proceeded through this disgusting, suburb, saluted several among those whose idle curio^ sity had drawn them from their stie?*, betrayed a courtesy of manner curiousf- ly contrasted with his own appearance, and that of the persons- he addressed. Every body was '* Sir/' or " Madam;" and the children were either "Miss," or ** Master," or were saluted with epithets of endearment and- famili^ arity. " Morrow, Dennis, dear, how is it ♦with you?" " Morrow, kindly, Mrs. Flanagan; I hope I see you well. 40 FLORENCE MACARTHY. ma'am." " Oh, you're up with the day, Mr. Geratty. How's the woman that owns you f" ** Here's a fine morning, Miss Gostello, God bless it : is your mother bravely, miss ?" " Eh ! then Paddy, you little garlagh, why is'nt it after the cockles ye are the day, and the tide on the turn." While, however, he seemed occupied with '^ an unwearied spirit of doing eurtesies," he occasionally threw his shrewd, but sunken eye, over the per- sons he was conducting ; and faithfully translating the expression of the Com- modore's looks, he observed: " Och ! its a poor place. Sir, sure enough ; and no poorer room-keepers, your honor, than the Ringsend's, God help 'em, not even in the vaults. Sir." "The vaults?" " Och ! yes, indeed, the vaults under the fine new streets, Sir, that is'nt built, 'where there's nothing to pay ; only in respect of being mighty moist. Wait a FLORENCE MACARTHY. 41 taste, your honor, till yez get an, Sir, and ycz will sec them swarm out in great style, the craturs !" " And sure it is a most beautiful and sweet country" read aloud Mr. De Vere, who had now found out the passage he had hitherto vainly sought in Spen- cer, and was treading a clear pathway as they left the miserable outlets of Rings- . end ^nd Irishtown behind them. "A most beautiful and sweet country as any under heaveti, being stored throughout with many goodly rivers, icith all sorts of Jish, most abundantly sprinkled with many very sweet islands, and goodly lakes, like little inland seas, that will carry even shippes upon their waters, adorned with goodly woods, even Jit for building houses and shippes, so commodiously, as that if some prin- ces in the world had them, they would soon hope to be lords of all the seas, ^and ere long, of all the world — also full of very good ports and havens. 42 S-LORENCE MACARTHY. opening into England, as inviting us t($ come into them, to see what excellent commodities that countrif can afford. Besides, the sople itself, most fertile. Jit to yield all kind of fruit that shall he committed there unto ; and lastly, the heavens most rnild, though some- tvhat more moist than the parts towards the west.'' '' So much for the Natural State of Ireland^' said the Commodore, as the peripatetic student closed his book, to which the guide had given a very humorous attention^ " So much for the natural state. Behold the first groupings of its social, its political con- dition." As he spoke, they entered one of those long-laid-out streets, whose houses, in the course of many years, have not advanced beyond the founda- tions. From the vaults, the thick smoke of burning straw or rubbish was emitted through holes, perforated in the pave- ment; while hordes of wretched and FLORENCE MACARTHY. 4S ^Ithy creatures crept from beneath the dark roofs of their earthy dwelHngSi to sohcit the charity of those who passed above them. One from among the number, who had been less alert in picking up some scattered small change, flung among them by the gen- tlemen, continued to run beside them^ begging for an " halfpenny to buy bread." It was a little shivering, half- naked girl^ pretty, but filthy and ema- ciated. As the guide came up^ she re- treated, and a significant glance passed between them, which drove her at once back to her den ; but not before she had picked up a silver sixpence flung after her. " God bless your honor," said the guide, in a tremulous voice : " that's a greater charity than you think, Sir." *' This is all very bad," said Mr, De Vere, " disgustingly bad. Short of 'Actual offensive disgust, affecting the health and organs, I have, myself. 44 FLORENCE MACARTHY. no positive objection to suburbian wretchedness. There is sometimes a sort of poetical misery in such scenes, very affective to contemplate j not al- together so coarse and squalid as Crabbe's Borough Scenery, but a spe- cies of picturesque wretchedness, that has its merit — rags well draped, mi- sery well chiselled, affording a study for the painter's pencil, or a model to the poet's eye." " But who," asked the Commodore with emphasis, " can see such wretch- edness as this, with a mans eye, and not feel it with a mans heart. The mind starts beyond the mere impulse of sympathy here ; it rushes at once from the effect to the cause. Indig- nation usurps the seat of pity, and the spirit rests upon those who have af- flicted, not on those who suffer." " Yes, but even so, you go but half-way. All is evil in political insti- tutes ; because all is bad in moral, FLORENCE MACARTHY. 45 as all is disgusting in physical nature. All realities are evil, and the whole system, as we know it, but a fortuitous combination of corrupting particles t the brightest specks, the most lucent points, but the shining glitter of pu- trescency, and even *' The brave o'erhanging firmament, The majestic roof, fretted with golden fires, A foul and pestilent congregation of vapours." " This is Merrion Square, plaze your honor," interrupted the guide, coming forward, " where the quality lives. And there's * Sir John's fountain, your honor. So beautiful! and cost a power! and would'nt get lave to build a taste * Sir J., afterwards Lord de B . It is curious to observe, that the lowest classes of the population of Dublin are perfectly ac- quainted with the jobbing systems, under which all public transactions are effected in that me- ♦tropolis : they also discuss them with a mixture of humour and anger that is extremely charac- teristic. 4$ FLORENCE MACARTHY. ©f them, only he declared to God, and upcm his honour, he never would allow a thimbleful! of water to come out of them, in respect of a sup never going in. And there they are to this day, a ^eat job, by Jagers ; why would'nt they?" The gentlemen, in their way to their hotel, in Sackville Street, now passed through that line of the Irish metropo- lis, which brings within the compass ot a coup d'oeil some of the noblest public edifices and spacious streets to be found in the most leading cities of Europe. All, however, was still, silent, and void. The guide, walking parallel to the tra- vellers, with his eye furtively glancing on them, evidently watched the effect which the beauty of his nativrC city (a beauty of which he was singularly proud) made upon their minds : and when they had reached that imposing area, which includes so much of the architectural elecrance and social bustle . TLORENCE MACARTHY. 4'J joF Dublin, the area flanked by its silent senate-house, and commanded by its venerable university, he paused, as if from Aveariness, leaned his burthen against the college ballustrade, and drew upon the attention of the strangers (who also voluntarily halted to look around them), by observing, as he pointed to the right, " That's the ould parliament-house. Sir. Why, then, there was grate work going on there oncet, quiet and aisy as it stands now, the cratur ! grate work shure enough \ and there's the very lamp-post I climbed up the night of the Union. Och ! then you'd think the miirther of the world was in it ; and so it was, sliAire enough, —that's of Ireland, your honor ; God help her. And there we were, from flight to light, and long after, watching, iiye, and praying too, and grate pelting, %hurely, when they came out, the diieves that sould us fairly. And troth, if we'd have known as jonuch 48 FLORENCE MACARTHV. as we know now, it isn't that a-way they'd have got off. And never throve from that hour, nor cared to cry " the Freeman's", * and the parliament de- bates not in it, nor counsellor Grattan. -Och, the trade was ruined entirely; and from that day to this, never hawked the bit of paper, nor could raise a tin- penny, only just on arrands, long life to your honors ; and that's what the Union has brought us to; and sorrow paper they need print at all, at all, now, only in re- spect of the paving board, and Coun- sellor Gallagher's iligant speeches." " And what use is made of that maff- o nificent building ?" asked Mr. De Vcre, who stood gazing upon it with evident admiration. *' What use is it they make of it ? your honor ; Why then, sorrow a use In life, only a bank, Sir ; the bank of * One of the most spirited, popular, and best conducted papers in the empire. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 49 Ireland ; what less use could they make of it ? And for all that," added the guide, significantly, " it cost a power to make it what it is*' '' It is a beautiful thing of its kind,"" said De Vere, still gazing upon it, and rather apostrophizing the building than addressing his companion, who stood silent, and self-wrapped — '^ Beau^ful, even noiv, entire and perfect in all its parts, what will it be centuries hence, touched by the consecrating hand of time, when its columns shall lie prostrate, its pediments and architraves broken and moss-grown, when all around it is si- lence and desolation? Then haply some strife of elements may conduct the enter- prising spirit of remote philosophy to these coasts ; m ay cast some future Volney of the Ohiho or Susquehanah upon the shores of this little Palmyra, and he may surmise and wonder, may dream his theories, and calculate his probabili- ties ; and, bending over these ruins, see VOL. I. D 50 FLORENCE MACARTHY. the future in the past, and apostrophize the inevitable fate of existing empires." "Or some American freeman," observ- ed the Commodore, "the descendant of some Irish exile, may voluntarily seek the bright green shores of his fathers, and, in this mouldering structure, behold the monument of their former degradation." " Why, then, long life to your ho- nors," added the guide, who, with the subtlety incidental to his class and country, drew ingenious, and some- times exact conclusions, from very scanty premises, and who believed that the strangers were predicting the ruin of Ireland from the event of the Union (an event execrated by all the lower orders of the country). "Why, then, long life to your honors, its true for you, and was said long ago, that after the Union the grass would grow high in Dublin streets ; and would this day, plaze God, only in respect of the paving-board, that he's ripping up the FLORENCE MACARTHY. 5l street'?, and laying down the streets, from June to January, just for the job, byJagurs. " Well, there is ould Trinity," he con-* tinned, turning towards the college, as he again raised his load upon his shoulders : " the boys that used to bate the world before them oncet with their fun and their larning, are now down, like the rest, — and does not know one of them myself now, barring Collagian Bar- rett." "By the bye,'* said Mr. De Vere, " is not this Irish College Smart* ' Temple of Dulness,' in the eyes of whose learned doctors. Swift and Gold- smith could find no favour? I have little respect myself for incorporated learning, or for literature and taste ac- quired by act of parliament." "Intellectual illumination," replied the Commodore, " like other things, would, perhaps, best find its maximum when independent of legislative interference. D 2 52 FLORENCE MACARTHY. There is an education belonging to the spirit of the age, and carried on by its influence, far beyond the rules of these worn-out monastic institutions." "Och! its anowMplace,shure enough," said the guide, " and least said about it is soonest mended. Now, plaze your ho- nors, I'm finely rested, many thanks to yez, and so is mounseer too, and will attind you, and lave ould Nosey there to put an; for they've began to deck the lad, early as it is." As he spoke, he directed the observa- tion of the gentlemen to the equestrian statue of King William the Third, which two men were now busily engaged in decorating with orange and blue rib- bons.* * This ludicrous and offensive spectacle is exhibited at the expense of the civil magistrate, on the anniversary of events connected with the triumph of the revolution party, and the down- fall of the Jacobites. To the Catholics, who behold in this outward sign a token of their FLORENCE MACARTHY. 63 *' What does it mean," demanded Mr. . '^ What does it mane? why it manes to vex the papists sore, your honor, shure that's the ascendency, Sir; only for it, and the Hkes of it, wouldn't we be this day hand and glove, orange and green : sorrow one colour you'd know from the other. Och! but that would not do— where would the ascendency be? — only all h'ishmen then.'^ The gentlemen at length reached their hotel, which might have been taken for, what it had once been, the splendid mansion of a resident nobleman, political annihilatioD, anci an insulting arrogatioa of the supremacy of the minority over the ma- jority, it is a source of hcart.burniogs, and aa incentive to discord. As, however, its continued exhibition is a proof of narrow intellect and bad feeling in the individuals Tvho persist in repeating it, the oppressed party would do well to turn the laugh against their enemies, by ridi- culing the taste, and mocking the vanity which finds pleasure in thus disfiguring the statue, D3 i4 FLORENCE MACARTHV. but for the shew-board, which desig- nated its present pubHc use and object. The capital of Ireland, since the Union, has become a mere stage of pas- sage to such of its great landholders as occasionally visit the kingdom for pur- poses of necessity. They consider this beautiful city only as a pendant to Holy- head; and take up their temporary lodging to await the caprice of wind and tide, in those mansions where a few years ago they spent a large part of their great revenues, drawn from their native soil. The bill that defrays the expense of a dinner at an inn, thus acquits their debt to the country from which they derive their all, which they dislike to visit, and are impatient to quit*. *' It is Tery extraordinary that in this large and populous city (Dublin), there should be such an almost total want of good inns for the ac. commodation of travellers and strangers." — A Letter from Ireland^ by J . Bush, 1764. Thirty years ago there was but one hotel in FLORENCE MACARTHY. 55 Several idle persons stood lounging about the door of the hotel. The only- person whom they wished to see, the master, did not appear ; and they had to wait some time before the head waiter could be found to tell them whe- ther they could be accommodated : for what is called the dead time of the year^ is usually that in which Ireland is most . visited by curious strangers (who choose that period as the best for visiting Kil- larney and the Giant's Causeway), and by necessitous absentees, who, driven to look for their rents, or to canvass their county, take that time for their penance, which they cannot well employ else- where, and make a snatch at Ireland in Dublin ; nor was there occasion for more; The nobility and gentry came from their seats at once to their mansions in the capital. When, how- ever, the seat of honourable ambition, and the tncans of raising a fortune and name were re- DJOTed to another kingdom, it is natural that the rank and talent of the country should emigrate. D 4 56 FLORENCE MACARTHY. the interval between the Londt)n and watering-place seasons. While the gentlemen walked up and down the hall, with every symptom of impatience, the guide applied to the ex- hausted Frenchman for payment, who was now lying full length on a bench, uttering many exclamations of annoy- ance and fatigue. When he under- stood the meaning of the Irishman's extended hand, he gave him what he considered a sufficient reward for his services. But as this sum was barely what the Irishman expected, he re- turned it carelessly, with " Here, moun- seer ! I'll make you a present of it." " Mais, comment done, mon ami qu'est ce que cesf.^^ " What is it, Isai/j is it ? Why then its what I say, I wouldn't dirty my fingers with it." " Then," said one of the waiters, im- patient to get him out of the hall, and snatching the portmanteau out of lii*^ FLORENCE MACARTHY. 67 liand, " / say, that if you wont take that^ I'd give you nothing." " Wouldn't you, Mr. Connolly T he replied coolly. ^' Why then, faith, its often you gave us that. Mister Con- nolly, and will again, plaze God." The laugh which this observation ex« cited in the bye-standers, raised Mr. Connolly's choler, and he now endea- voured to hustle the guide out of the hall ; but he stood his ground firmly, exclaiming with great coolness, *' I wont go till I'm ped, Mr. Connolly; not a foot. Sir, nor wouldn't quit if your master was in it himself." The Commodore now came forward to learn the cause of the scuffle, and having heard both parties, he turned abruptly to the guide, and demanded, *' What employment are you fit for ?'* " What employment am I fit for? Every employment in life, Sir, good or fcad." D 5 58 FLORENCE MACARTHY. '* Would you like to thing more than mere idle curiosity. 64 FLORENCE MACARTHY. In whatever manner their sudden ap- pearance had affected her, they seemed to hold her senses in suspension ; and many minutes had elapsed, and the strangers had travel led, on paper, over the whole province of Munster, before she resumed, with a long drawn sigh, the occupation they had interrupted. In her person this elderly gentlewoman was low and somewhat bulky: her head- dress was a t^te, with side curls, pow- dered, surmounted by a small high crowned beaver hat, laid flat upon the head. She wore a black crape veil, so fastened up in the centre as to expose a very red nose, and a very large pair of dark green spectacles ; her chin was sunk in her cravat, whose long fringed ends belonged to other epochs of fa- shion than tlie present. The immense chitterling of her habit shirt appeared through Irer single-breasted, long-waist- ■ed, brass-buttoned camblet-joseph. Her whole appearance, though most risibly ILORENCE MACARTHT. 6*5 singular, was such as would have been scarcely deemed extraordinary in the remote counties of Ireland twenty or thirty years back, when old fashions and old habits remained in full force among the provincial gentiy, who pre- served the faith, principles, and costume ©f their ancestors alike unchanged. Even still such figures are occasionally seen in the middle ranks of rural life, riding on a pillion to mass on a holiday, or making one of a congregation of ten in some remote and solitary church, whose parish, though it bring a large revenue to its non-resident incumbent, may not consist of as many protestant lamilies. The impatience of the travellers for the refreshment of the toilette and the break- fast table was now considerably abaited by the occupation which the map af- forded them. The Commodore had traced with his pencil the great Mun- «ter road as far as Cashel ; then diverged, 66 FLORENCE MACARTHY. by cross ways, towards the Gaulty Moun- tains, to the towns of Doneraile and Buttevant. From this point he was proceeding towards Kerry, when his companion interrupted liim, by ob- servmg : " I perceive we are proceeding by the same route, as far as Buttevant. I am going to the south, and shall halt at Kilcoleman, the reposoir, where, in the course of my pilgrimage through this island of saints, my imagination will do homage to the memory of Spencer. If you have not any objection, I should like much to accompany ycu so far ; but you will reject the proposal with the same frankness it is made, if it is the least gene to you." " On the contrary, I shall accept it with pleasure, as far as Buttevant ; but from thence my uncertain route, through a wild country, will be passed on horseback ; and the business of an ardent research would leave me no time FLORENCE MACARTHY. 6/ for the enjoyment of your society, from which I have already derived so much. But," he added, after an abrupt pause, and suddenly speaking in Spanish, "you are ignorant of my name and situation. You may dislike this equivocal position, in which I am necessarily thrown ; for it would not suit my views or my conve- nience to reveal either. To the title, how- ever, of Commodore, given me by my crew, I have a right : for the rest, you must take me as I am, and upon trust." *' I take you upon your own terms," was the reply, " and I adopt them as my own : to confess the truth, I like the mystery and romance of our connexion. It is foreign to the established forms of the world's calculated ties : and whether or not, when we part, we ever meet again, I shall look upon the accident which brought me acquainted with the commander of II Librador as among the most pleasant events of my life. I am weary of the stale forms of what is 0*8 FLORENCE MACARTHY. falsely called civilized society ; and he who picks me up unknown, unnamed, in the middle of the ocean, receives me between sky and sea, a wanderer in the elements, gives me the rites of hospi- tality, communicates with me frankly, cherishes no suspicion, seeks no con- fidence, nor obtrudes any, connects him- self, in my imagination, with a state of things, often dreamed of, but rarely rea- lized. Ties, formed under such circum- stances, are precious as they are rare; and by me, at least, are valued accord- ingly." " And I," said the Commodore, with his splendid smile, brightening the severity of his singular countenance, *' have just romance enough to enter into your feelings; for I once made a friend- ship, in swimming down the Oronoko, which influenced the fortune and bent of my future life." They then agreed to leave Dublin in two hours; and Mr. De Vere asked FLORENCE MACARTHY. 69 " What do you do with your servant?'* " I have none but my Spanish mate, vv^hom I leave to take the command of my vessel, when she is ready for sea." " Then I also will leave my ridiculous Frenchman behind me, till I arrive at my place of destination; a period ' still hanging in the stars.' The master of this hotel will take care of him, I suppose, jf well paid; as he would of my grey parrot, green monkey, or any other exotic animal I might consign to him. I have not the least idea, though, how I shall do without a servant; but the situation will be new, and so far good." Here the waiter entered, and en- quired of the elderly gentlewoman, as if merely to make an excuse to get her out of the room^ " Have you any lug- gage, ma'am, to put up ?" — To this question she rephed angrily, and inter- rupting her reassumed letter, which, by the motion of her hand, appeared to consist of characters complex as the ancient Ogham, " Have I any luggage! 70 FLORENCE MACATHY. have I? Then do you take me for a snail, why! with all my goods on my back ?" The rich round Munster brogue in which this question was asked, the guttural accentation of the ^yoii and the 'whif peculiar to that province, and the sharp key in which it was uttered, made the gentlemen start; while the impertinent waiter took no pains to conceal his ready laughter. " You are mighty pert. Sir,'* said the old lady, tossing a black wafer about her mouth, and sealing and soiling her ill-folded letter with it: she then gathered up her papers (some printed tracts which lay on the table), and cork- ing her inkhorn, which she dropped into her capacious pocket, as a peb- ble falls into the bottom of jx deep well, she lowered her veil, resumed a black silk rabbit-skin-lined cardinal cloakj and waddling to the door, turned full round, and made a formal courtesy to the gentlemen: the gentlemen bowed, and she retired. FLORENCE MACAR^HY. 71 The French valet had now prepared the apparatus for the toilette: but before they adjourned to their dressing rooms, the waiter returned, and presented a note, illegibly written upon a dirty card, which Mr. De Vere took between his finger and thumb, and read, first eagerly to himself, and then aloud, with a look of disgust, amounting almost to nausea: it ran as follows : " Mistress Magillicuddy presents her respects, on her way to Munster, would make a third in a chay, as far as Tip- perary town, if agreeable, N.B. No lug- gage to signify, foreby a portmantle and bandbox, also a magpie and cage, would hang outside, if not agreeable within : would prefer the gentlemen if serious : begs your acceptance of a religious tract, and am, gentlemen. Yours, &c. Molly Magillicuddy." The waiter chuckled, and observed : " The lady says she forgot to mention the bird and bandbox are to be taken up 72 FLQRENCK MACARTHY. in Thomas Street."" Mv. De Vcrc tossed the note on the table, and went to his dressing room; and the Commodore, with more good breeding, or rather with more good nature, desired the waiter to say that previous arrangements obhged them to decHne the honour intended them by Mrs. MagilHeuddy. This singular looking lady had come by the Holyhead packet the night be- fore, and had ordered a chaise previous to the arrival of the gentlemen. — ^The freedom,with which they had discussed their route before her, had probably suggested the idea of economising^lier travelling expenses by joining th\;in. She might also have had some more important views,than those which were prudently directed to their purses ; for her enquiry as to their being *' serious" (a technical term in a particular new light,) indicated her calling; and it was possible she believed herself the elected agent of salvation to them, as to many FLOKEhCE MACARTHY. 73 ©thers, the Krudner or Johanna South- cote of some Munster village^ to which she might now be returning, laden with sectarian tracts, and Irish snufi^ bohea tea, and intolerance. When the waiter delivered a nes'ative answer to her card, she shook her head, and said : " In their blindness they know not what they reject why! but the sickle will go forth, and the harvest will yet be reaped." She shortly after set oif for Naas, ac- cusing the waiters of sauciness and ex- travagantcharges, talking Irish with the driver, and lecturing the beggars on the si-, vjf idleness. She accompanied her admonition with some small change; at the same time accounting selfishly for her donation, by observing, " He that giv- cth to the poor lendeth to the Lord. '^ O! I engage," said the vv^aiter as she drove oif, " it's little you'd give, if you didn't expect it back with interest ten- fold — and that's now what tlie likes of E 74i FLORENCE MACARTHY. her calls charity I Its the charity that begins at home, aye, and ends there too. Commend me to the gentleman above stairs that gave his two pound notes, and never canted nor preached about it. That's the real charity, long life to him !" To this ejaculation an " amen'* was repeated by all present, who had wit- nessed the liberality of the Commodore, and heard the departing apostrophe of the " elderly gentlewoman." FLORENCE MAGARTHY. f& CHAPTER II. Oh! quel homme snperieur! quel grand genie, que ce Poco-curante I Riea ne peut lui plaire. Voltaire. . The two distinguished strangers, whom chance had so singularly united, and who had mutually chosen^ fi-om caprice or prudence, to hang the veil of mystery over their respective situations, appeared to touch on the extremes of human character. But there was, not- withstanding, an obvious dove-tailing in their dissimilitudes; and their moral disagreements, like some musical dis* cords, produced a combination more gracious than the utmost perfection of a complete and blended harmony could effect. The one seemed a brilliant il- lustration of physical and intellectual £ 2 76 FLOltENCE MACARTHY. energy, thrown into perpetual activity; the other a personification of moral ab- straction, originating ingenious reveries, which, though sometimes founded in fact, were generally inapplicable in practice. The fortunes of life seemed to have form- ed the one, and to have spoiled the other. The one thought, sympathized, and acted; the other mused, dreamed, and was passive. Their first half-hour's communication, however, on board ship, was a prompt commutation of mutual good will. — Each felt he was associated with a gentleman; and in that confidence had suffered intimacy to grow with a rapidity disproportioned to its duration. But though opinions were freely discuss- ed, and almost always opposed ; though sentiments were broadly debated, and principles vehemently canvassed ; yet in the many and long conversations, held during the silence of calm seas and of slumbering elements, by the midnight moon, or the day's prelusive dawn, na FLORENCE MACARTHY. 77 circumstance of personal communication had ever passed between them : mutu- ally in possession of each other's lead- ing opinions, and features of character, they were ignorant of all else beside. Both gentlemen spoke Spanish and French fluently; but the Commodore had a foreign pronunciation of some particular English words, which denoted him to have been long absent from the countries where English is the verna- cular tongue. The reading of the younger stranger seemed stupendous. It included the classics, ancient and modern, with the whole belles lettres of European and oriental literature. The studies of the Commodore were evidently more confined to the exact sciences; and, with the exception of Shakespeare, Milton, and Ossian, and of some old quaint English prose writers, the chro- niclers of Ireland's hapless stoiy, the Campions, Spencers, and Hanmers, his course of English reading seemed cir- E 3 78 FLO HENCE MACARTHY. cumscribcd. The conversation of the 6ne, therefore, was more elegant, orna- mented, and detailed ; that of the other more original, energetic, and concise. The one spoke in epic, the other in epi- gram. They had both travelled much, and far; the one, it should seem, from choice; the other from necessity: and the result from their conversation ap- peared to be that the one had stored his mind with images, the other strength- ened his judgment by observations. The one had studied forms, the other men. The one had only increased his constitutional tendency to satiety and ennui, by the resources which, young as he was, he had already exhausted; the other had sharpened his appetite for enquiry by the experience he had obtained. Such as they were, they were both evidently " out of the com- mon roll of men" — and ahke distin- guished by personal and mental supe- riority. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 79 The Commodore had dressed, break- fasted, made the necessary arrangements for their journey to Munster, and gone abroad, before his fellow traveller had gotten half way through his toilette, even with the assistance of Monsieur, his valet. Mr. Be Vere had indeed but just sat down to his coiFee, and his " Fairy Queen," when the elder stranger i-eturned, after an absence of near two hours. ** Have you seen much of Dublin ?'* asked the younger traveller, laying down his book. " Yes, I believe I have been half through it." " What impression does it give you upon the whole?" " Why, with its extremes of poverty and splendor, the wretchedness of a great part of its inhabitants, and the magnifi- cence of its buildings, it is to me a Grecian temple turned into a lazzaretto. One-third of its population are in an s 4 so FLORENCE MACARTHY, actual state of pauperism : one-half of its trading streets exhibit as many bank- rupt sales as open shops : the best houses are to be let, and the debtors' prisons are overflowing," " Have you, then, had time to visit the prisons?" " Business brought me to one: busi- ness with the high sheriff of a county, who has delivered himself up for the purpose of a whitewashing under the insolvency act, as he termed it." '' Ha! ha! ha! an high sheriff in pri- son — that's singular enough!" *^ Not so singular in Ireland ; for two other high sheriffs were confined in tlie same room with him, and for the same purposes." "The laws must be well administered! But, doubtless, they are all honorable men'"' " They are loyal men, as my friend the sheriff told me, though under a little present difKcult)\" FLORENCE MACARTHY. 81 '' You have purchased a pocket teles- cope, I perceive." " Yes, and a Httle information from the intelHgent optician from whom I bought it. I went into hi^ shop as the tax-gatherer was carrying out of it se- veral articles which he had seized for non-payment. The owner was looking on calmly, and to some observation of mine, he replied, *I have not the money. Sir: there's no use in talking: when government have got all, we shall be at rest: we cannot be worse.' To my re- mark on the supposed tendency of the Union, so often vaunted in newspapers, and in debate, that it would bring Eng- lish capital into Irish trade ; he answer- ed, * The effect of the Union is ruin to Ireland: since that epoch her debt has increased, her resources diminished, her taxes augmented, her manufactures lan- guishing, her gentry self-exiled, her peasantry turbulent from distress, and her tradesmen, like myself, drained ta E 5 82 FLORENCE MACARTHY. the last farthing, and sighing to remove to that country, where they will not be obliged to pay a large rent to the govern- ment, for leave to live ; to America.* But all cannot do this. — I note these ob- gervatiijns as being curious from one of his class. " It is a pity," said the younger stranger, "that these Americans are so baroque, for they are, politically speak- ing, a great people; they are, however, so prosperous, that they can never be interesting : they are beyond the reach of prose or verse : . we may say of their national, as of Darby and Joan's con- jugal felicity. They eat, and drink, and sleep. — what then ? Why sleep, and drink, and eat again." The waiter now entered, presented the bill, and announced that all was ready for their departure. The land- ..A. — . _ ■ ■ — ■ * America is considered as the land of Canaan by the lower ranks of Irish : the peasantry em- phatically call it " the Land." FLORENCE MACARTHY. 83 lord, who in his communication with Mr. De Vere, on the subject of his valet, had decided at once that he was a man of rank and fashion, now attended, and did the honours of his house in the usual style of Irish hyperbole. " Upon my credit, gentlemen, I'm heartily sorry we're losing the honour of your company so soon ; and think I could make the place plazing to you, if you would do me the honour, on your return from the Lakes (for supposes it is to them you're going), and am sorry you make such a short stay, without seeing the Rotunda, and the College, and the Dublin-Society house, and the statues." '• Statues! what statues," demanded the younger stranger, catching at the sound, and stopping short. "The statues. Sir, at our society house, that's kept in the greatest style, and gets a touch up, whenever the place is painted. That's hy order, as we say, in the society house." — "By what order?" was demanded, with a smila — " By 84 FLOilENCE MACARTUY. order of the committee of line arts; and myself was one^ until business came on me so thick, and took up my atten- tion; and has a brother th^its he lvs at the exhibition every year, a great artist. Indeed, I think you'd be plazed, gentle- men, if you were to stop and see the exhibition this saison, and portrait No. 2, full length of Mr. Roger O'Rafterty, of the Back-lane division auxiliary yeo- manry corps, in full regimentals, stand- ing quite quiet, and a cannon going off in the Phanix;* that's by my brother, Sir." This detailed statement of the cognos- cente landlord to prove the flourishing state of the arts in Ireland, the country which has given to the English school of painting a Barry, a Shee, and a Tres- ham, seemed quite sufficient to satisfy * The PhcEnix Park near Dublin, the scat of reviews, and military evolutions. This beautiful tract, to which Lord Chesterfield gave its epithet of Phoenix, is also the scitc of the Vice Regal Villa, and the residence of the chief officiaJI persons^ FLORENCE MACARTHY. 85 the curiosity of the strangers, who passed on, through files of beggars, to their carriage: they threw some silver among them, and hastily drew up the windows, to exclude the infected air, as they drove away, " Pa!" said the finer gentleman of the two, " this is breathing pestilence." " And witnessing its causes in all their most shocking details: look, what a splendid scene for such a grouping ! what a noble street, and what a mende- cant population!" As they passed through the southern suburb, the Commodore demanded of the postillion the name and purposes of an immense building, on the opposite side the water. " Is it that forenent us, plaze your honor, acrass the Lift'y? Oh! that's the Royal Barracks ; and them there's the Richmond Barracks; and if your honour could see behind you. Sir, you'd see the Porto Bello barracks, and there afore you is Island bridge barracks, and the barracks in the town; and Musha;, 86 FLORENCE MACARTHY. myself does not know the half o' them. You might travel in the county Dublin mountains, rising there on your lift, from barrack to barrack, and never get sight of inn, or house, man or baste, only sogers, Sir." " From this sample," said the Com- modore, addressing his companion, " we might suppose the whole country to be one great fortress ; as it was in Eliza- beth's day, when the population was divided into the English rebel and the Irish enemy. What an expense this army of occupation must prove to an impoverished country !" " I have, myself," returned Mr. De Vere, " no objection to a military go- vernment : 'tis at least a picturesque legislation : it affords something to look at, and to describe. I like military ar- chitecture, battlements and ramparts, watch-towers and bastions. The mili- tare costume, too ! the helm and hau- berk, and warlike sounds " Of trumpets loud, and clarions. " England is hastening fast to thisj FLORENCE MACAKTHY. 8/ but she will always want appropriate scenery." " And I trust an appropriate spirit too ! Look at Turkey." " Why, yes, there is something to look ut. But next to a military, I should prefer an ecclesiastical government, the despotism of some dark bigotry, some religion " Full of pomp and gold, With devils to adore for deities j Familiars and inquisitors for ministers of state, and auto-da-fes for national festivals." " Spain, for example ; for though your fertile imagination invent, as it may, sources of oppression and degra- dation to man, there are still govern- ments in Europe to leave mere fable far behind." " Well, after all, call governments by what name you will, they all equally leave man as they find him, feeble and selfish." 88 FLORENCE MACARTIIY. " Yes, because he is man. But in foilowing the natural order of things, you at least make him all he is capable of being. Nature is the great legisla- tor. In creating man free, she com- manded him to remain so ; and re-action, sooner or later, follows the violation of this her first great edict." ** This is Naas, your honour," ob- sei'ved the postillion, addressing him- self to the Commodore, at the end of more than an hour's silence, interrupted only by occasional questions, addressed to the driver, relative to the surrounding objects—'' and there is more barracks. Sir ;" and he pointed to a handsome square building, in itself almost a town : " and there's the jail. Sir, an iligant fine building, and a croppy's head spiked on the top of it. I'll engage," he added, opening the door (for Naas was their first stage) ; "I'll engage he'll rue the day he saw Vinegar-hill, any how^ wherever he is, poor lad,** FLORENCE MACAHTHY. 8J The Commodore, as he ahghted, raised his eyes to the point at whieh the postiUion's whip was directed, and be- held a human head, bleached and shining in the noon-day sun-beam. Such are the objects still exhibited in Ireland, as monuments of times of ter- ror, to feed the vindictive spirit of an irritated people; announcing triumph to one party, and subjection to another. The Commodore turned away his eyes in disgust, and passed under the fine arch of a ruined monastery of Domini- cans ; as if it were relief to his feelings to associate with less frightful images of death in its retired cemetery, than to behold them connected with such hor- rific associations, exposed in the high road of a public thoroughfare, a frightful iand-mark for an unfortunate country. The travellers proceeded on their journey towards the province of Mun- ster, a province peculiarly interesting for its historical recollections, and foi: 90 FLORENCE MACARTHY. those scenes, alternately wild and pic-- turesque, which attract to its site the foot- steps of taste and curiosity, and furnish to foreign artists so many combinations of scenic loveliness. Conversation had been frequently dropped and renewed; and the travellers had remained silent for some miles, when they overtook a chaise, from which Mrs. Magillicuddy formally saluted them. The elder stranger recognizing the green spectacles and chitterling (the most conspicuous parts of her figure) answered her salu- tation with a bow ; the younger turned away his head in disgust. ^^ An ounce of civet would not sweeten my imagination," he observed, " from the infection communicated to it by that horrible old Irishwoman. Shut up in this chaise with her and her mag- pie !^.— Do you know, this image has haunted me ever since she inade the frightful proposal.'* The smile of his companion indicated FLORENCE MACARTHY. ^i his consciousness of this avowed pre- judice ; and the attention of the tra- vellers became a^ain eng^ased with the passing scene. The various objects which presented themselves to their view, both moral and physical, were seen by each through such mediums as their respective peculiarity of cha- racter, taste, and temperament, were likely to produce. The one, rapid in perception, instinctively just in infer- ence, quick, curious, active, inquiring, directed the whole force of his acute, prompt observation, to the people and their localities, as both appeared upon the surface. He turned his eyes to the peasant's hut : it was the model of the " mere Irishman's" hovel, as it rose amidst scenes of desolation during the civil wars of Elizabeth's reign. It was the same described by William Lithgow, the Scotch pilgrim, the noted traveller of that remote day. " A fabrick erected in a single frame of 92 FLORENCE MACARTHY. smoke-torn straw, green, long-priched turf, and rain-dropping wattles ; where, infoul weather^ its master can scarcely find a dry part to repose his shy -bap- tized head upon." He beheld the tenant of this miserable dwelling working on the roads, toiling in the ditches, labouring in the fields; with an expression of lifeless activity marking his exertions, the result of their deep-felt inadequacy : his gaunt athletic frame was meagre and flesh- less, his colour livid, his features sharpened : his countenance, readily brightening into smiles of gaiety or derision, expressed the habitual in- fluence of strong dark passions. The quick intelligence of his careless glances mingled with the lurking slyness of dis- trust, — the instinctive self-defence of conscious deo;radation. He beheld mul- titudcs of half-naked children, the love- liness of their age disfigured by squalid want, and the filthy drapery of extreme FLORENCE MACARTHY. 93 poverty, idle and joyless, loitering before the cabin door, or following in the train of a mendicant mother, whose partner in misery had gone to seek employment from the English har- vest, where his hire would be paid with the smile of derision; andwhere^ewould be expected to excite laughter by his blunders, who might well command tears by his wretchedness. In the proclaimed districts, the mi- sery of the peasant population was most conspicuous. For he to whom *' The world M'as no frlencl, nor the world's law," might w^ell set both at defiance. The forfeit of life could be deemed but a small penalty to him, who in preserving it " sheweth a greater necessitv he hath to live, than any pleasure he can have in living." 1 he few vehicles, public or private, observable on the high roads, the total absence of a respectable yeomanry, 94- FLOllENCli MACARTHY. marked the scantiness of a resident gentry, and the want of that indepen- dent class,"a country's boast and pride." Yet many stately edifices, the monu- ments of ancient splendor or modem taste, rose along the way ; the former in ruins, the latter almost invariably unfinished. The castle of the ancient chief, and the mansion of the existing landlord, were alike desolated and de- serted. Town succeeding town, marked the influence and power of the great English palatines, who drew their wealth and luxury from a land, to which, like their forefatliers, for gene- rations back, they were strangers ; and the name and arms of the English no- bility, suspended over inns, emblazoned over court-houses, and fixed in the walls of churches, or shining above their altars, marked the extensive territories of these descendants of the undertakers, and grantees of the Elizabeths, the James's, and the Charles's. The surface FLORENCE MACARTHY. 9J of the country, as it appeared, contained the leading facts of its history, and those who ran might read. He who novr read, studied not without a comment the text whose spirit and whose letter were mis-rule and oppression. The young stranger saw with other eyes ; and by the illusory lights of a sleepless imagination. But his phi- losophy, though cynical, was not the cynicism of experience ; it was the satiety of early excited and promptly exhausted sensations, Man, with him, was every where as well oif as he de- served to be, because no where did " man delight" him ; while all refer - ences came home to his own enjoyment, and were appreciated as they extended or curtailed its sphere. He looked only to that which could gratify the domi- nant faculty of his existence; and while he found " Nature wanted stuff, To vie strange forms with fancy," 96 FLORENCE MACARTIIY. he sought in the combinations of art, as formed under various epochs of so- ciety, for such objects and images as embodied events long passed, or con- secrated, and preserved in memory and imagination only. He had induced his companion to lengthen and diverge from their route by visiting the town of Kildarc, once a city of historical and monkish import- ance, because there, his road-book told him, were still visible some remains of the '' Firehouse,' the Christian temple, where the nuns of St. Bridget j^erformed the I'ites of the heathen priestesses of Vesta, and watched over the sacred flame, which the English bii^hop, Henri de Londres, afterwards sacrilegiously extinguished (2). He found a little town, ruinous and wretched, with many symptoms of poverty, and few of anti- quity ; and he hurried from it in disap- ])ointment and dislike. He insisted on >stopping the first night at Kilkenny, FLORENCE MACARTHY. 9/^ for the purpose of viewing the feudal castle of the Butlers, and the splendid ruins of its abbies. But, even here, imagination had got the start of fact; and, though a busy fancy peopled the silent aisles of St. Francis and St. John's with " eremites and friars, White, bldck, and grey, with all their trum* pery;" though he garrisoned the ramparts with '^ Irish kernes and galloglasses," imagi- nation left possibility every where be- hind. Disappointment hung like a noxious vapour upon his steps ; and he every where found reason, or sought it, to scoff at the folly and feebleness of man, who, under all stages of society, is the victim of blindness, beyond his power to dispel ; alternately tyrant or slave, impostor or dupe, and neither by his own free will. But though he saw the evil, he neither felt for its effects, ex- plored its cause, nor suggested its re« ^ OL. I. F 98 FLORENCE MACARTHY. medy ; and the talents of this accom- pHshed ideologist, neither calculated nor exerted to benefit mankind, con- fined their lustre to him, they lighted alike to evil or to good. Views thus opposed, and sentiments thus contrasted, naturally begot fre- quent and long protracted discussions, as fresh objects afforded themes for ob- servation or reflection ; and the travellers had passed the boundaries of the fre- quently proclaimed County of Tippe- rary, without interruption to their de- bate, or any impediment to their jour- ney (such as have been supposed the inevitable concomitants of Irish post- ing) ; when the postillion, alighting to lead his horses over a bad step, startled them, by exclaiming aloud — " Why, then, the curse of the divil on ye, Long- ford-pass, I pray Jasus, for you've joulted the very life out of me, so you have :" then having desired his horses to *' get along out of that,'' he dropped fLORENCE MACARTHY. 99 back, and laying his hand upon the car*, riage window, entered into conversation with the gentlemen, by strongly ad- vising them to give up the iday of making Thurles their sleeping stage : first, becaise it was the same to his em- ployer whether they went a few miles one way or t'other ; and, secondly, be- caise that Thurles town would be full of th' army, in respect of changing quarters ; two regiments marching to Cork and Kerry, to be sprinkled among the towns and mountain-barracks ; and there will be grate biletting the night, and the inn taken up entirely with the officers; and what matter? Shure Holy- cross was but a dony* bit further, and wouldn't make an hour's diifer. There was a new opposition inn in the neigh- bourhood set up against Thurles, kept by the maister's cousin-germain, Mr. * Dontfj small— so used by Spencer. F 2 100 FLORENCE MACARTHY. Dooly, where every thing was nate and clane, and quiet. " Is Holy-cross a town ?" demanded Mr. De Vere, caught by the religious romance of its name (3). " It is, your honor ; that is, it is not a town, Sir, only a township and cha- pelry ; and blessed ground every foot of it, and well may be. Is'nt there a grate big piece of the holy cross itself, the wood of life, buried in the fine ancient ould abbey there, that the travellers be coming to sec far and near? And its that, why, plazc your honors, the saying goes, that of all places in the world round, the devil (Christ save us!) daren't shew the track of his hoof near that township : and troth, gentlemen dear, it would be worth while to go ten mile round any time to see it, only in respect of the lovely fine tomb of th' ould king that's in it, my namesake, Carbrogh O'Brien, King of Limerick. Which FLORENCE MACARTHY. 101 road shall I take, Sir ? There lies the turn to Thurles, and there to Holy-cross, your honor." " I think the quiet inn, the ruined abbey, and O'Brien's tomb, decide it," said the Commodore. " Unquestionably," replied his com- panion ; and the driver received his orders for Holy-cross. As he turned his horses' heads, a chaise passed before them, taking the Thurles road ; and the spectacles, t^te, and high crowned hat of Mrs. Magillicuddy, appeared above the magpie's cage, which was suspended at the side of one of the windows, " Raison de plus," said Mr. De Vef^, sinking back in the carriage. " I would rather fall in with a legion of marching regiments than come in the way of that horrible old woman, and a re/iewal of her terrifying proposition." The Commodore smiled. He was amused to observe, that Mrs. Magilli- cuddy and her magpie had taken pos- F 3 102 FLORENCE MACARTHY. session of his companion's susceptible imagination ; that the idea of an in- timate association with her had be- come as much the chimcera dire of his fancy, as her actual presence would have been the annoyance of his senses, and the destruction of his ease and com- fort : he had more than once alluded to the degout of an atmosphere of Irish snuff and marrow pomatum, to the un- inviting images of spectacles and pocket handkerchiefs, pious tracts, and fusty bird-cages. The accident of her going the same rout, and her being enabled to keep pace with them, by their delay at Kildare and Kilkenny (for till the last stage they had travelled with four horses), were conjured into nothing else than a fatality; and even her inno- cent magpie was considered as an oiseau de mauvais augure. " You are certain," said the younger traveller, addressing the driver, and pointing to the route taken by the old FLORENCE MACARTHY. 103 lady's chaise, " that that road leads to Thurles ?" '^ Shure and sartain, your honor, straight on forenent, and a turn in it to the hft that lades to the nunnery. Sir." " What nunnery ? Are there nunne- ries in this country ?" " Is it nunneries, Sir ? There is plinty : there is one there, off to the lift, between Thurles road and Holy-cross, is the convent of our Lady of the Annunci- ation : they say, your hono.r, that in th' ould times there was subterranies under ground, between the nunnery and th' abbey of Holy-cross ; and there was a story went about a grey abbot, and — troth it makes myself laugh, its so funny, only Father Murphy, Sir, says there no truth in it, and so I don't be- lieve it, for the church knows best al- ways. Sir." — He now jumped upon the wooden bar, which served him as a seat, and giving his horses the whip, pro- ceeded at a rapid pace. F 4 104 FLORENCE MACARTHY. As the travellers approaclied the mi- serable little village of Holy-cross, the sun's last rays had ^vithdrawn from the horizon in ail the mild and melancholy gloom of an autumnal evening. The grey tints of the clouded atmosphere Vi^ere reflected in shadows on the bosom of the Suir, along whose banks arose the stately ruins of the abbey. The inn, recommended by the driver, the only inn, was a small house leading to the vil- lage, and bearing the sign of the Mitre and Crosier, as appropriate to its site. The approach of a chaise was evidently no common event; for the landlord, his wife, a ragged old waiter, with a bare- footed girl (the bar-maid, house-maid, and kitchen-maid of the establishment), had stood at the door for some time, ea- gerly watching its approach. All were instantly in employment, carrying in the portmanteaux, conducting the travellers to their room, and knocking their heads together, in a confusion, increased by FLORENCE MACARTHY. 105 their efforts to do the honours to such unusual guests. The travellers per- ceived that they w^ere also the only guests; and they were not displeased by a circumstance which not only ensured their quietude, but their accommoda- tion ; for in Ireland, inns are good in proportion as they are unfrequented, that is, as they are not patronized by some great man, whose servant or de- pendant obtains the tontine or princi- pal hotel of the town, which his former master rules ; and adds to this situation some office under government, which renders him above his business as an innkeeper, and induces him to act with insolence when called upon in the capa- city he despises. The humble inn- keeper of Holy-cross had recently fitted up a couple of bed-rooms in what had lately been a mere Shehean house, (4) and dignified with the name of inn the little building which had been for half a century a noted baiting-place for foot F 5 106* FLOKENCE MACARTHY. and horse travellers, and of such pious pilgrims as still came (and they were not few) to visit the shrine of the holy relic. A few inquiries, and the ordering of a late dinner, took up a quarter of an hour; after which the travellers proceed- ed to visit the abbey. The twilight was thickening into darkness, but the air was fr-esh and balmy ; and motion and activity were positive enjoyments to those who had for many hours suffered the cramping restraint and fatiguing dislocation of an Irish post-chaise. The inn lay half a mile from the abbey, to which they passed over a bridge, thrown across the river Suir, and forming a communication between the village and the abbey grounds. The ruins covered a considerable tract, and were contrasted in their imposing mag- nitude by a few wretched hovels con- structed out of their fragments. This <'onsecrated pile is among the few in- FLORENCE IAACARTHY. lOf teresting monuments of antiquity now extant in that country, which, according to the statements of the biographer of St. Rumoldi, once contained some of the most magnificent rehgious edifices of Europe. Raised by the piety and power of an Irish provincial prince, Donagh Car- braigh O'Brien, for monks of the Cister- tian order, and consecrated to the holy cross, St. Mary, and St. Benedict, it owed its principal consequence to the relic of the cross incased in gold and pre- cious stones, and given by Pope Paschal II. to Mac Morragh, the predecessor of Carbragh. The charms of the beauti- ful architecture must, in days so rude, have contributed not a little to its fame; and the devotion paid to the relic it en- shrined has been declared by an English minister * to have beenuniversal through- out the island. * See Sir Henry Sidney's State Paper*. 108 FLORENCE MACARTHY. The strangers contemplated for a con- siderable time the broken mass of its dark exterior, and the high steeple, supported by beautiful gothic arches. They entered the broad nave, but, like the rest of the ruin, it was wrapt in one undistinguishing hue ; and the majesty of darkness succeeded to the deeji and misty forms of twilight. "Darkness," said the younger stranger, after a science of some minutes, " is de- cidedly the source of the true. sub« Kme." "And light," replied the Commo- dore, " of beauty: light is life, the source of forms and motions: darkness- is death: I abhor it." " And I love it. I love the uncer- tainty of this mysterious dimness (for instance), where every thing is guessed^ and nothing known; where at every doubtful step^ "Solemn and slow the shadows blacker fall, And all is awful listening gloom around." FLORENCE MACARTHY. 109 A deep sigh, heard near and distinct, answered as he spoke. "Did you sigh?" he asked quickly. "No : did not you?" was the reply. ^' Not I. Yet some one sighed most assuredly." "'Tis the wind among the ruins,'* said the Commodore, carelessly. " No, the air is breathless. It was a human, perhaps a super-human inspi- ration." "That is physically impossible: res- piration is organization: spirits have none. But do you believe in super- human agency?'* " I believe, and I deny nothing. — I resign myself passively to events, moral and physical, as they occur. This, I fancy, was the original intention of pro- vidence with respect to man; which made him dark, and left him so; the child of ignorance, and its victim.*' " Then why endow him with facul- ties;, which impel him to enquiry, and liO FLORENCE MACARTHY. force him into action, which lead him to dispel his darkness, and rise above his nature?'' "Hush! the^e again! I am certain I heard the heavings of a short convulsive respiration. 'Tis most singular!" *'The place affects you. We will return, and view it by daylight." " No,^* said Mr. De Vere, seating himself on a fragment of the ruin : " this is to me positive enjoyment.'* As he spoke, the dispersion of a dense cloud, which had long scowled over the darkened landscape, and which now broke into fleecy vapour, displayed the broad bright moon, rising in splendour above the roofless ruin. A sheet of light fell upon the nave, which the strangers occupied, but left in shadow the lateral aisles, which formed a pil- lared arcade on either side. Parts of the ruin remained black and massive, while the shrine of the holy relic stood illuminated ; and broken rays and silver FLORENCE MACARTHY. Ill points glittered on the projected tracery of the arches and twisted pillars, which supported the canopy of the royal tomb. The imagination of the yomiger tra- veller was busied in conjecturing which part of the building had been the choir, which the refectory, which the dormi- tory, when the Commodore observed : " Fanaticism raised these walls, and fanaticism destroyed them.* Their foundation recalls a degraded epoch of the human mind, when bigotry bribed its way to heaven, and purchased salva- tion with the fruits of that violence and injustice which risked it. These monk- ish potentates, these sanctified violators * What the holy rage of the first reformers left undone, Cromwell's soldiers completed. Even the monument of the Earl of Thomond, ia Queen Elizabeth's time, erected in the Ca- thedral of the city of Limeric, could not escape their fury, though none in this country deserved more from England. Antiqtiities of Ireland, 112 FLORENCE MACARTHY. in all ages and regions, are alikecontemp- tible — their holy alliaices and system of spoliation— their building of churches and breaking of treaties, combine the vices of fraud and hypocrisy, and rob ambition of its glory, and majesty of its respect.'* " Still," said De Vere, " I like a reli- gion of forms, a tangible religion, as I beheld it in Spain, where I was ones half tempted to turn monk ; a religion mingled with intrigue and credulity, passionate and pious, the ready agent of love and devotion.'* He sighed pro- foundly, and asked : " Is not this the twenty-fifth of August ?'* " I believe so," was the reply. " 'Tis a curious coincidence : on this day, at this hour, seven years ago, my birth-day too, the day I came of age, being in Galicia in Spain, chance led me to the site of a Moorish ruin adjoin- ing the cloisters of the church of the celebrated convent of Nuestra Senora de FLORENCE MACARTHY. 113 ias Angustias.* I passed, musing on the course of things, from the frag- ments of Arabic taste, and Mahometan superstition, into the temple of Chris- tian rites. Vespers were just celebrated. A few stragglers, who had remained after service, gradually disappeared. I was still examining monuments, gazing on pictures, and numbering columns, when darkness fell around me : the dif- ferent avenues of entrance were closed, all save one, which led to what had once been a Moorish orangerie: this orangerie formed a part of the pleasure- grounds and cemetery of the adjoining convent. While I looked round for some means of egress, and twilight rendered all objects dim and uncertain, sounds, that seemed to come fix)m heaven, met my ear: the next moment my eye fell upon the minstrel. By the white veil and rosary, it was an unprofessed no- vice: she was seated on the fragment of * Our Lady of Sorrow. Hi FLORENCE MACARTHY. a Moorish bath, leaning her cheek close to the lute, from which she had drawn such enchanting harmony, as if she were childishly, yet prettily, charmed with the sound herself had made. " It is a pretty image altogether," said his auditor, seating himself beside him, among the ruins, " and reminds me of a famous picture of Rosso Fiorentino, of a seraph listening to its own lute/* " The resemblance was so great,*' re- turned the narrator, " that I had that design copied on this box, with the lit- tle alteration of substituting the novice's veil for the wing of the cherub, and the head of a lovely woman for that of a seraph/* As he spoke, he drew from his pocket a superb gold box, surmounted with the picture he had described, done in en- amel. The moonlight fell full upon its surface; and in the position in which the Commodore held it, it was distinctly FLORENCE MACARTHY. 115 visible. "Is this head a portrait?'* he tlemanded. " Not exactly. It was done from the idea I gave the artist; an idea in every sense: for though the form and outline of the fair original, her fairy stepping, her aerial motions, became too soon well known, yet the features which that envious veil concealed were never but dimly seen, half shrouded, half revealed, pale in the moon's uncertain light, dark under the shadows of the monumental cypress. In the stolen and dangerous interviews which followed the first acci- dental meeting, amidst scenes of silence, mystery, and death, that face was never fully revealed. Oh! there was in that sweet, pure, and short lived communion, a fanciful and unearthly charm, which I have often since vainly sought. It was associated with scenes impressive on the imagination: it was pure as a spirit's love : no sordid view or selfish feeling polluted the bright spring of genuine 116 FLORENCE MACARTHY. passion. I was loved for myself; nor knew I the name of my concealed mis- tress, save that which the church had given her — the Sister Benedicta." " Then you wooed, and won this mys- terious saint?" asked the Commodore, impatiently. " Wooed! yes; wooed, and weaned the soul of this consecrated being from her heavenly spouse, ' her spouse in vain;^ but my conquest stopped there. I proposed to carry my young novice to South America; and in some of the Eden clifts of the cloud-embosomed Cordelliras to lead with her that bless- ed life of free unfettered passion, which nature dictated to the first created pair. Pride, bigotry, which she doubtless dig- nified with the name of virtue, triumph- ed over love. We parted : I found her innocent, I left her so ; I found her hap- py too, at least contented and deceived ; and it is not long since I ordered a Spanish friend to raise a cenotaph to her memory, in the cemetery of her FLORENCE MACARTHY. 11/ convent, with this device — A hly fading beneath a sun-beam; and with this motto 'Sic me Phoebus amaf.^* " You know then that she died, and think 'twas of a broken heart?** asked his auditor. " I cannot doubt it; though I have never heard from the friend to whom I trusted my sad commission; and to fell you the truth, the conviction still haunts my imagination, with a melan- choly force, that grows with what it feeds on." "Oh! your imagination!** repeated the Commodore, significantly, as he re- turned the box. " Yes,*' continued the narrator; " and in sketching the story, which I have given to the world anonimously, the de- scription of her death-bed scene almost drove me mad.'* A short wild laugh now rang through the ruins, as if some malignant fiend had formed a part of the audience, and lis FLORENCE MACARTHY. scoffed at the fantastic folly of human vanity, the short-lived influence of hu- man passion. The strangers both started, and re- mained for a moment silent and motion- less. " We have been overheard," said the elder. " I should say by nothing human/ ^ replied his companion. " Look round you : see, we are alone : all is now silence and solitude.'* " Now, perhaps, but not a moment back. — Look there, something is in motion.** They both darted forward. The moon had sunk in clouds, the stars were few, the pavement broken, and their steps uncertain. Still the Com- modore attained the object of his pur- suit. It was an old mule grazing on the scanty herbage which sprang up among the ruins. " This is a most ludicrous adven- FLORENCE MACARTHY. 119 ture V* said the Commodore ; " and we had better terminate it by returning to our inn and our supper." The younger stranger still loitered^ still mused: the elder drew his arm through his : they proceeded in si- lence; and though during their meal they talked of indifferent subjects, it was evident to the quick perception of the latter that the incident of the abbey had deeply affected the imagin- ation of his fanciful companion; he, however, made no allusion to it, and his silence corroborated an inference founded in fact. 120 FLORENCE MACARTHV. CHAPTER IIL Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, And shades of death. All monstrous, All prodigious things ! MlltTON. BuTTEVANT, the Bothoii of Ecclesi- astical books, the Kilnemullagh of Spencer, immortalized by his residence in its neighbourhood, was the last stage which the travellers had agreed to pass together ; and whether a feeling of re- gret attended this conviction, or other causes secretly operated to protract their departure, they left Holy-cross at an hour comparatively late, to begin a journey of some distance through one of the wildest mountain tracts, and least frequented cross roads, in the province of Munster. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 121 Their next stage, however, was excel- lent: it was only to Cashel; and to judge from the group of sturdy fellows, who lurked about the door of the inn to which the travellers were driven, that town was not without its due portion of idlers — a natural circumstance in the capital of a grazing county. As the chaise stopped, the gentlemen were looking over their travelling map. They had marked out their route by the road-book, and had chosen the most picturesque, rather, perhaps, than the best line of progress ; and in crossing the elevated chain of the Galties, they had selected the road by Gaul Bally (the town of the Gauls or Celts), with its monastic ruins, in prefer- ence to the glen of Agherlow, a valley on the opposite side of the mountains, which would have lengthened their route, but would have presented a more beaten track, though in itself sufficiently wild and romantic. Whichever way they took, the driver assured them that they VOL. I. G 122 FLORENCE MACABTHT. would reach Buttevant by sunset, " God willing, and barring accident." As they descended, therefore, from their carriage, they ordered a chaise and horses for Gaul Bally, to be ready against their return from the rock.* " Certainly, Sir," said the landlord,"^ slightly touching his hat, and resuming his conversation with aman^of-business- looking person, who was talking to him at the door. " Barney, a chaise on to Gaul Bally." Barney, having taken due time to con- sume a portion of tobacco, called out in his turn to a driver near him, " Tim, honey, just call out a chay to Gaul-Bally." * The rock of Cashel, the romaotic scite of its cathedral. f As inns, in common with the royal cara. vanseras of the eastern apologue, are subject to a frequent change of masters, it is probable that some such rcrolution has occurred at the inn at Cashel since these events took place : at least, the author has no reason to charge its present occu^ pants with incivility. FLORENCE MACARTMY. 123 Tim, who was seated on the steps of & horse-post, playing with a large dog, ad- dressed himself to a blind beggar, with " step into the yard, and tell Corney Doolin a chay's wanting to Gaul Bally." « What is the distance to Gaul-Bally ?'' asked the Commodore, who, as well as his fellow traveller, had observed the pro- gress of these deputed orders with im- patience and irritation. " What is the distance to Gaul Bally?" returned the landlord with sang- froid, as if he now first observed them, " upon my word and reputation. Sir, I can't say— that is really, — Gaul Bally. Barney, can you answer these gentle- menf " Och, Sir, shure you don't post to Gaul Bally at all at all: there's no post- ing there. Sir, nor wasn't many a-year. If the gentlemen bes going to Doneraile or Buttevant, they'd best go the low road, and take the glen of Agherlow to Mitchels town." "We are resolved not to take any G 2 124 FLORENCE MACARTtiV. toAd but that we've fixed on ; and I suppose we can have a chaise and horses to what stage and place we choose, no matter where, if we pay for them." This observation, made with haughti- nes's and petulance by Mr. De Vere, in- duced the landlord to uncover his head, and to reply: "Certainly, Sir: if you in- tlemnify me, Sir, I can let you have every accommodation in life; up to the top ofMangerton,if you please; only there is no posting, I give you my word, gen- tlemen, on these cross roads in Munster: that is, I don't send out my cattle by the mile ; but you can have them by the Joby or dai/, and welcome." " Why then, job or day," said Barney, with a significant look at his master, " if the chay goes by Gaul Bally, its on a low backed car it will come back." " Shure enough," said Tim, rubbing round his shoulders, " and wouldn't care to be the driver, barring I was well ped, and left my throath behind me, specially FLORENCE MACARTHY. 125 near Kilbalogue, the thieves' wood, down there, below." *' I came that way in my gig from Kilfinnen," said the man of busi^^esSj, ** and found it good enough, and ty^p dragoons with me." " Och, then, it behoves you, and the hkes of you, Mr. Fogarty,*' said Tim, " to look to that, Sir; for the times never ran so hard against the ex- cise as now : in respect of brhiging down the military, and the grate still- himting, and fining the tovyjilands to ruinationi." '' ^ill yoi; take the chay on to But- tevant, gentlemen }** asked the inn- keeper. " To ^uttevant, certainly — perhaps further,^' replied the younger tpveller. " I don't think 1 coujd give it under seven or eight guineas ^-day,^' ^e re- turned, musipg; " but |U J^t yoi:^ kjiQW in 9- Tiiinute ;" and h^ ^?}tei:^4 g3 126 FLORENCE MACARTHY. the house, followed by Tim, Barney, and the exciseman, to hold a council. " Eight guineas a-day ! sorrow send it you, Mr. Collogon ! — eight guineas ! Dioul!!" This apostrophe was made by a per- son who leaned against the back of the stranger's chaise. He was wrapped in a huge frize coat, wore a slouched hat over a grey wig, and stood slashing a long cutting whip against the pave- ment. When, however, he perceived the travellers proceeded towards the rock of Cashel without noticing him, he followed them, touched his hat, and said, " 111 drive your honors to But- tevant, and that to your hearts con- tint, for half the money, and has as iligent a chay, and as nate a pair of mountain cattle, as any in Condon's country ; and keeps myself, your honor, hard bye, convanient to Buttevant, near Kilcolemaiij Sir, and runs my garans FLORENCE MACARTHY. 127 on my own account, and came^ with a fare to Cashel the day before yester- day, and was waiting for a return, your honor, which would sarve me entirely, Sir/* ^^Do you know the route well through the Galties ?'* *' Do I, is it, Sir? Och! may-be I don't I and would go it my lone blind- fold from Galtimore to Misenhead ; and from Knockmell down to the reeks in Killamey ; and that's a brave step. Sir/' *' I should like to disappoint that nonchalant host of the Star, and his imposing driver," said the elder tra- veller. " And this man residing near Kil- coleman," said the younger, " has a classical interest with me. I shall pro- bably engage him while I reside in the neighbourhood of Spencer's fairy ground/' The bargain was instantly made, and G 4 128 FLORENCE MACARTHY. the chaise ordered to be at the inn door in half an hour, the time assigned to visit King Cormac's chapel. Mean- time, the master of the Kilcoleman chaise undertook to inform the host of the Star that his horses would not be wanting ; and when the travellers re- turned from their antiquarian visit, they found all ready for their departure. While the light luggage was removing into the new vehicle, the appearance of that vehicle, its horses, and driver, were a source of affected entertainment to the disappointed landlord and his sa- tellites. " Barney, that's a nate article of a chay,*' observed Tim. " Troth, I would not wonder if it was ould Cormac Mac Coleman's travelling landau, when he went the pilgrimage to Holy-cross.^* *' Faith, Tim, lad, you're not much out, I believe ; for there's a crown on it, shure enough, which shews it be- longed to th* ould kings of Munjster, FLORENCE MACARTpY. 129 any how^ King Flann or Briei^ Borru, may be.'* " Why then, for all that, Barney, I wisht I had all the chickens that ever was hatch'd in it, grand as it is. AncJ look at the garans, * Sir ; Och ! but their grate bastes, and warranted not to draw. I'll engage they'd rather die than run, and no ways skittish, that's certain, any way.^' The owner of this equipage, against which so many sarcasms were launched, was hitherto coolly rubbing down his horses with a whisp of straw ; and singing, or rather humming, *' I am a rake and a rambling boy, My lodging 'tis near Aughnaghcloy." He now paused, however, to observe, '^ The cattle's shurely not so fine as them was shot in the mail, near Kil- worth, Mr. Barney Heffernan, but they are good mountain cattle, for all that, * Poor hack horse*. G 5 130 FLORENCE MACARTBY. and will take the gentlemen better through the Galties, and safer too, than handsomer bastes, plase Jasus !" The former part of this observation had caused a very obvious revulsion in the colour of Mr. Heffernan's face, who, drawing some straws from be- tween the wheels of the chaise, said, in a conciliating voice, " I'm glad to see you about the world again, Owny— when did you set up driver ?'* " A little after the tithe-proctor's business in the murdering glen below, in the county of Waterford,'* replied Owny, significantly. Barney Heffernan slunk away, and no further sarcasm was launched against Owny's set-out y which both the gentle- men stood for some minutes examining with curiosity; the Commodore wiping with his handkerchiefthe dust from the pannel on which the coronet, alluded to by one of the drivers, was visible, -surmounting a defaced crest and armo- FLORENCE MACARTHY. 131 rial bearing. The chaise was indeed of a very singular and antique build ; low, angular, with a projecting roof. The large windows, which once perhaps en- titled it to the appellation of a glass coach, were now partly filled up with wooden pannels ; and through the rents of the coarse check modern lining, remnants of crimson velvet, and rich, but thread-bare livery lace, spoke its former gentility. The travellers had proceeded «ome miles from Cashel, in a silence which the younger seemed little incHned to break, when the falling down of an old green silk blind roused him from his reverie. *' This curious old vehicle," he ob- served, " doubtless belonged to some noble family. Did you perceive a ba- ron's coronet on the side pannel, and a <:rest beneath it?" " Yes, a dexter arm, issuing out of a cloud, and holding a naked sword, all proper, with the motto, Figueur 132 FLORENCE MACARTHY. de dessus-^the cognizance and motto of some Norman adventurer, who for- merly ravaged this country, and who, like more modern victors, took the sanction of heaven for their deeds of violence, and believed, or affected to believe, that " Dieu est toujours pour les gros bataillons" " It is the motto and crest of the Fitzadelm family, of the present Mar- quis of Dunore, the representative of that family,** said De Vere. A silence of a few minutes followed this observation, and the Commodore then carelessly added — ^' The Fitz- adelms! a branch of the far-spreading Geraldines ? Yes, they got their portion of this fair province by grant from Henry the Second, to whom they were sewers, as the Ormond family were butlers; and shared with Harno de Valois, Philip of fVorcester, William deBarri, and other Norman adventurers, the princely palatinate of the Macarthies FLORENCE MACARTHT. 133 More, once chiefs or kings of De9r mond." 1 " It is in the order of things," said D« Vere, coolly. " Oh! exactly; the ' vigueur de dessus,' which maybe translated ' might, not right,' has been the same in all ages; but it is peculiar to the conquest of Ireland, to behold Henry the Second in his camp at Aquitain, distributing to his followers principalities, out of a country he had never seen, a country still in pos- session of its rightful chiefs, and in which his enterprising marshal, Strongbow, had then scarcely left the track of his footstep. It is curious also to behold the pope, consecrating this robbery, the Irish chieftains disdaining the Saxon king and the Roman pontif, defending, losing, recovering, and forfeiting again their ancient territories ; and finally the English lords becoming Irish in feel- in gs, character^ and language, and 134 FLORENCE MACARTHY. avenging the very injuries they had themselves inflicted, because they had become victims of the same bar- barous pohcy by which their ancestors had been influenced. The causes of Ireland's misfortunes are so deep seat- ed, that every page in her history is a paUiation of her faults, and the graver errors of the people will all be found in the misrule of her govern- ment.'* ** Better governed, she would be mor« prosperous," said the younger traveller, ** and less interesting and less amusing. As it is, she is * melancholy and gentle- manlike,' a thing to make one laugh and cry in a breath. Her history, turned into metre, would dramatize into a sort of tragi-comic melo-dram of mirth and misery, ferocity and fun, that would leave the pathetic grotesque of chro- nonhotonthologus far behind." " Them is the Gaulties, plaze your FLORENCE MACAUTHY. 135 honor," said the driver, " among the clouds. There, Sir, not a mountain in the province will bate them, any how, let alone Mangerton." " They are, indeed, truly respectable mountains for this little island," said the younger traveller, directing his glance to a range of bold romantic perpendicu- lar acclivities, whose conic pinnacles were lost in the clouds, and whose dark stupendous range might have form- ed a natural and impregnable boundary between rival and contending states. At the village of Gaul Bally they found only the ruins of some religious houses, a barrack, and a little Shebean house, where the driver stopped for a few minutes to refresh his horses and himself. They soon recommenced their mountain journey, doubling a formida- ble ridge, and ascending a gentle accli- vity, while the driver, almost throwing the reins upon the horses necks, sat with his arms folded, and recommenced 136 FLORENCE MACARTHY. for the twentieth time since they had left Cashel, *' The groves of Blarney, they are so charming." " This will never do," said the Com- modore, letting down the front glass. ^' Why, my friend, your horses seem tired already." ^* They do, plaze your honor," was the cool reply. " And do you know the raison of that same, Sir ? Why, then, it's becaise they're on level ground. Sir. Sorrow a thing else ails them. Cell ! the craturs are kind and lazy like myself, and quite untractable to a smooth level plain ; but wait till yez gets up among the glens and precipices. Its then. Sir, you will see them bate the reglar posters, why! entirely; for they knows the ways of the place, and little fear for the chay being left in smithe- reens,* on the top of a rock, there, or at the bottom of that hollow, down in the divifs glin to your lift, Sir." * Smithereens ; i. e. fragments. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 137 '^ Its very evident," said the Commo- dore, " that this fellow is as untractahle as his horses. There is a dogged indif- ference about him, a good-humoured pertinacity of manner, with which it would clearly be in vain to contend ; it were best, therefore, to leave him to his song and his waywardness." '' Oh! I hold no contention with tra* veiling contingencies," replied de Vere : *^ through life, as through a journey, the ' Laissez-aller is my device. Who would take the trouble of even willing, when a pebble under your chaise-wheel may set volition at nought. Who would contend with accidents and events, un- certain and incalculable as the elements on which they so often depend ?'* " This is a fine road, your honors," said the driver, breaking off his song abruptly, and applying his remark to a rude, rough, narrow acclivity, moss- grown and torrent-worn, and becoming every moment more difficult of ascent. 138 FLORENCE MACARTHY. " Balleagh-na-Tierna *tis called, in re- spect of being cut across the side of the Galties by the Tierna-Dhu, that is the Black Baron, as they named him in his own country here below/* " Black baron!" said De Vere: " that sounds well among these wild scenes. Does the black baron live in these mountains, friend ?" " He does, Sir ; that's he did, but he*s dead. Sir, and doing bravely these twenty years and more, and so is his brother Tierna Ruadh, the red baron, that followed him; whose son is now the Marquis Dunore : devil set his foot after them all, for its little good ever they did the country yet, them Fitz- adelms!" (5) The two travellers, as if moved by the same mechanical impulse, started, leaned forward, and then sunk back in the chaise—" At least," said the elder, " it was doing good to cut a road through this wild region, friend." FLORENCE MACARTHY. 139 " SoiTow much then, Sir, any how ; in respect of never finishing it, no more nor that inn there, foment you to the left/* Here the driver pointed to the ruins of some dreary walls, which add- ed to the desolateness of the scene. " This Balleagh, I heard tell, was to join the low road, and was made in a great hurry to have a short cut for the Lord Lieutenant and the quality that came down in oceans from Dublin to the stage plays at court Fitzadelm ; and the inn was to bait at ; for, barring Lis-na-sleugh, sorrow baiting place in the Galties at all at all; and that was no place for quality to stop in/' " What an heterogenous association of imaoes!" said the Commodore: " mountain regions and private theatri- cals ! A poor Irish lord beginning a work fit for an emperor, and leaving it unfinished, a monument of his uncalcu- lating extravagance, of that wildness and refinement, that uncivilized dissipation. 140 FLORENCE MACARTHY. which characterized the provincial no- bility of Ireland fifty years back, and arose from the degradation in which they were held/^ " Oh, its delicious!" replied De Vere. " I should like to know how the descendant or representative of these noble Fitzadelms would feel, in thus ac- cidentally hearing what we have now heard, and seeing what we see." " If he was a vain man, flattered and spoiled by fortune," replied the Com- modore, emphatically, " he would feel deep mortification; but if he were'* he paused abruptly, and demanded of the driver: " Does Court Fitzadelm lie in the neighbourhood of these mountains?" " It does, Sir, fifteen miles off, in the valley, down below, between the Gal- ties and Gotvoes, and the Balli-Howries, cribbed round with them and the beau- tiful Avon fiorne, the Jair water, run- ning under the castle bawn, that's all FLORENCE MACARTHY* 141 that's left of it, Sir. For shure after the Lord's death it was broken up into smithereens, and scarce a skreed* of it left to the fore.^* " And who has carried it away?" asked De Vere. " Why, Darby Crawley has, Sir, and his father before him, ould Pat; and has'nt left a taste, but what's in their own hands this day. And the chay, your honors driving in, shure it was from him ; 'twas bought at the auction. Troth, and if the young lord that got the title, or his brother was in it, they'd be entirely amazed to see their crown and anus running the road this day, that's the Gal ties. Sir." To this observation the travellers made no rejoinder. The horses now toiled slowly and painfully up a road, which every moment became more steep and laborious. On either side, the mountain scenery opened into in- * Skreed, a rag or morsel. 142 FLORENCE MACARTHY. creasing wildness and sublimity. In- numerable defiles boldly diverged to ascending regions, while altitudes still greater, blue, misty, and cloud-cap'd, terminated these natural vistas. The ascent had now become so steep and dangerous, that the travellers had not only alighted, but were frequently obliged to assist in lifting the chaise over deep ruts, cut by the torrents, but which the driver simply, called ' so7'e hits.' He frequently assured them that a little frirther on, a small quarter of a mile, the lord's Balleagh* would come down upon the Cloghniagh-Cluain, the lurking place of the noisy water (a torrent he affected every moment to hear) and then they would be upon the low road, which would bring them on the high posting road to Doneraile and Buttevant. Obliged to pin their faith upon a guide of whom they now began to en- * Balleagh — a road os way. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 145 tertain some suspicion, the travellers beheld one small quarter of a mile suc- ceed to another, and heard and lost re- peatedly the fall of many dashing tor- rents, until, as they ascended among the romantic elevations of the Galties, they lost sight of the inconvenience and tediousness of their journey in their ad- miration of the scenery. They even permitted the horses to halt in a nar- row glen, while they proceeded to exa- mine regions, where nature reigned in all her wildest magnificence; and they ascended from one commanding alti- tude to another till the whole stupendous chain of mountains broke gradually upon them, spreading far and wide in bold fantastic forms, and in the utmost freedom of outline. As the travellers stood thus occupied at the point of a bold cliff, they suddenly perceived a shadow thrown from their precipitous station, intercepting the blood red beams of the now settling sun^ and turning 144 FLORENCE MACARTHY. quickly round, they observed a man so close to them, that by a single elBbrt he might have hurled the incautious wanderers down the abyss, they had, a moment before, shuddered to contem- plate. He had a bold, strongly defined, but light and flexible figure, not much set ofl^ by a ragged frize jacket: his neck was scarcely covered by a loosely tied red handkerchief. In his counte- nance there was a look of mingled care- lessness and intrepidity, of gaiety and acuteness, which is so often discernible in the Irish physiognomy. His hat, worn gallantly on one side, his light arch blue eye and curly luxuriant hair, gave to his whole appearance something of rustic foppery, mingled with an hardy daring- ness, that was peculiarly characteristic. This unexpected apparition in a scene so lonely amazed without alarming the travellers. When the man asked, with a sort of triumphant laugh, " Doesn't your honors know me then ? Shure, a*nt FLORENCE MACARTHY. 145 I your driver, Sirs, that drove you from Cashel in the Kilcoleman chay, below, in the hollow there.** This information rather increased than lessened the surprise his appear- ance excited. " Only,*' he continued, "that I threw oft my cot amor e,* in re- gard of the heat ; and wishing to climb the mountain after you, I changed my old wig and cauheen for this bit of a straw hat. Sir, that I keeps under the chay sate for warm weather, why.'* " But with such a profusion of hair, why do you wear a wig?*' asked the Commodore. "Och! becaise, your honor, it was my ould father's before me, Sir,-^ — God. * Great coaf. The cotaigh was the upper garment anciently. + This reason the author has often heard as- signed by the young Irish for covering their na« tural locks with an old scratch -wig. Fine hair, however, is a national beauty, and an article of rustic commerce. The females exchange their tresses with pedlars for trinkets and ribbons. VOL. I. H 146 FLORENCE MACARTHY. rest him" — and he crossed himself de- voutly. This mode of accounting for a dis- guise, more of air and manner, even than of dress, amused, but by no means satisfied the travellers; and secretedly convinced that he had some motive for concealing his person in Cashel, they accompanied him in silence back to the spot where he had left the chaise and horses. As they descended the declivi- ties, De Vere observed, " This is what Shakespeare calls * a fine, gay, bold faced villain : * I should like to know his object in bewildering us in these moun- tains." " If he has any," replied the Commo- dore, carelessly, " it must soon discover itself." On reaching the hollow, they were surprised and mortified to find that the daylight, which still lingered in tints of purple and gold on the suin,mits of the mountains, had faded away from their valiies. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 14/ " Yez may step in now, gentlemen/* said the driver: "we have a smooth piece afore us for half a mile, and then we turn into Cloghnaigh-Cluain, and will be on the top of Doneraile in no time." " We are quite aware that is utterly impossible/^ said the Commodore, de- cisively, as he got into the chaise; "but go on as rapidly as possible: we should not like to be benighted in these moun- tains ; indeed, we are resolved not to be so/* " Och! sorrow fear, your honor, any how, of that shure: isn't there an ilegant fine moon? and if the worst goes to the worst, is not there the mountain house Lis-na-sleugh, at the foot of the Galties, and the best of entertainment there for man and baste." " No,*' replied the Commodore in the same tone of cool decision, "we must reach Doneraile or Buttevant to- night, except we ourselves change our minds, as we proceed.'* H 2 148 FLORENCE MACARTIIY. " Which we shall not do/* whispered liis companion, " and yet, perhaps shall be necessitated to take up our night's abode in this mountain-house he talks of." They had in the course of a quarter of an hour reached the long promised turn to Cloghnaigh-Cluain ; but the road, though it was a rapid descent, far from improv- ing, became every moment more imprac- ticable, and the twilight more obscure. The driver, at last, after a violent jolt, which threatened dislocation to the joints of the crazy vehicle, suddenly stopped his horses, and coming up to the chaise window, asked, " Yez would not have such a thing as a crooked nail about ye, plaze your honors?'* The Commodore replied in the nega- tive, half laughingly, though with feel- ings of annoyance, arising partly from suspicion of the man's intentions, and partly from impatience of delay in in such a place, and at such a time. I'LORENCE MACARTHY. 149 "Why then, murther alive, what's this for?" exclaimed the driver, scratch- ing his head : " the fore wheel ofl^ and not a bit of a nail for a linch pin; and the spring broke too, and not a taste of rope to tie it up with." " This is a pleasant adventure,*' said the younger traveller, throwing himself back in the chaise; while the elder, jumping out, examined into the acci- dent : the spring was broken, the wheel was off. " This is no accident,** he said, tum» ing abruptly to the driver : " the linch pin of this wheel has been drawn out purposely.'* " It has. Sir?" he reiterated with sim- plicity. *' 8ee that now! why then, I wonder who would be after doing that same; if it wouldn't be your honors, out of sport, Sir. But sorrow much matter, any how ; I'd as soon drive your honors with three wheels as four, and did from Cork to Kil worth: — that*s father Mur- H 3 150 FLORENCE MACARTHY. phy. Sir; and the wheel will just slip in the front of the chay, fair and aisy, Pll be bound. '' But that's not the worst of it,** he continued coolly, endeavouring to force the wheel into the chaise on one side, while Mr. De Vere jumped out at the other: "^ we've taken the wrong turn, it seems, entirely; for that Cloghnaigh bates the world, in respect of contrari- ness ; and when I thought we were in on it, isn't it here the 'ivolf's trachy we've slipped into? Dioul!'* <« You are to remember,'* said the Commodore, while his companion was en- joying a rapidcombinationof every real, fancied, or possible danger, " you told us you were well acquainted with the road.** " And if I wasn't, your honor, how would I know that this is the wolf's track. OchI musha! the likes of this never happened me before. Ochone! Here's your purse. Sir, dear, dropped in the hay;" and he carelessly threw the FLORENCE MACARTHY. 151 purse, weighty from containing some golden Spanish coin, into the traveller's hand: he then continued his lamenta- tion over his mistake, at the same time endeavouring to thrust the fore wheel of the chaise through one of its doors. From his tone of voice, peculiarity of manner, and the carelessness with which he restored a purse, that in all proba- bility would not have been missed, every suspicion of sinister intention was hush- ed in the mind of the Commodore, The younger traveller, however, saw only in the latter circumstance some ruse beyond the ordinary stratagem of a common robber; and whether he was to be enrolled among a band of Shan- avests, or stripped and plundered for the benefit of the Caravats, were cir- cumstances debated in his mind, under the influence of many romantic associa- tions appropriate to the scene and hour. Meantime,asthe driverassuredthem, that though they had not taken the best or the H 4 ]62 FLORENCE MACARTHY. shortest road, they were still makiiiu their way out of the mountains, they continued to walk in advance of the chaise, without further reproach ; while the driver, leading his horses, recom- menced his song, which he only inter- rupted to point out a stone cross underthe cliiF, that he called the "Hag's bed;" and some other features in the scene, cha- racteristic of its wildness; thus evincing that his boasted acquaintance with the mountains was not an unfounded vaunt. With that sudden change of tem- perature incidental to mountain re- gions, the air had become intensely cold ; and through the increasing dark- ness of the evening, they hailed with pleasure a long level ray of light, which assured them of their approxi- mation to some human abode; perhaps a forge, where they might have their chaise wheel reinstated ; and thev suggested this possibhty to the driver. *' A forge," he replied, " then that's FLORENCE MACARTHY. 153 the great luck, for if there's a forge, ye can put the night over at Lis-na- sleughj for there's not a forge in the Galties round, barring the forge of Lis- na-sleugh, where there's the best of fine entertainment, as I hear tell, that's if the chay can't be mended, and yez don't care to get on by moonlight to Butte- vant, which yez may after all, plazeGod.^* " Freedom of agency," said the younger traveller, with a short laugh, "that may sound very well in a metaphysical argu- ment, but here! — we are all the slaves of circumstance, the puppets of events over which we have no control. Observe, we had pointed outThurlesandTipperary for our stages; we went, we were obliged to £fO, toHoly-cross, andCashel. We propos- ed, we willed, dining in Buttevant, — we are passingthe evening, amidst the savage mountains of the Galties! And now, you may depend upon it, bon gr6, mal- gre, we shall be fated to stop at this Lis— something, some fortress of the H 5 154 FLORENCE MACAIlTHY. Shanavests or Caravats, Whiteboys or Threshers; our boasted freedom of , agency, all reduced to inevitable sub- mission to the intrigues of this masque- rading driver, who, by the bye, has again, you see, assumed his disguise." — "Evi- dently not to deceive us," replied tlie Commodore. As they proceeded, the light had frequently appeared and dis- appeared; but as their descent became less rapid, and they advanced more deeply into the valley, it assumed a more steady beam; and the outline of a small building became visible amidst a mass of darkly defined objects: as they approached they perceived it was a little sash window, which emitted the red light of a blazing turf fire ; and a volume of white curling smoke, issuing from an aperture in the roof, stained the deep dark blue of the atmosphere with fleecy forms. The moon just shewed her edge above the horizon,and more strongly defined the position of the building, FLORENCE MACARTHY. 155 which occupied part of a httle plain, forming a point of termination to four cross roads, that branched off round the base of the mountains. Those they had crossed appeared to rise almost to the clouds behind them ; and of the many waterfalls, which dashed from the neigh* bouring rocks, one fell close to the rear of the cottage, dwindling into a rill, and forming a little horse-pool in its front. A light under a shed at a short distance shewed some horses feeding. A bunch of mountain hether suspended over the door, but above all, a post-chaise drawn up before it, which seemed, by its position, to have recently ar- rived by one of the low roads, de- signated this wild and remote edifice as an inn. This idea was confirmed by a smart crack of the whip, with which the driver brought up his weary horses, and by his taking off his hat to the gentlemen, and exclaiming, with a courteous bow, " Why then, long life to yez ! yez are welcome to Lis-na-sleugh!" 156 FLORENCE MACARTHY. ** So," said De Vere, " I thought so. This, however, is wizzard scenery, and one may compound for a httle incon- venience, or even danger, to enjoy it." The approach of the carriage had brought out from the shed, which served as a stable, a lame beggar, who officiated as hostler, and a ragged boy, who ap peared as the substitute for a waiter. " Here baccah ma vourneen,"* said Ihe driver, who was now once more muffled in his cotamore, his wig, and old caubeen, ^' take off them cattle for me, while I show the gentlemen into the place. Come, my gassoon, lend me the rush," and he snatched the light out of the boy's hand. " This away, your honors ; take care of the sow. Sir: there's a bit of a strame, Sir. Widow Gaffney, ma'am, where are you agrah ? Oh, here's the mistress herself. I'll * Baccah, a cripple. All lame and deformed beggars, arc called baccahs in Ireland. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 15/ trouble, ma'am, to look after the gentle- men, while I give a squint at th' other bastes." The hostess took the light from him, and he joined the driver of the other newly arrived chaise, who was adjourn- ing from the house to the stable. The Widow Gaffnei), with many smiles and courtesies, led the guests from the dark little stone passages which sepa- rated the kitchen, clouded with smoke, from another small room distinguished by its plank flooring ; exclaiming, as she moved before them, " Och I but your honors is welcome. Sirs. Its a sharp night to cross the mountains, and will have a sod kindled in the chwibley^ Sirs, if yez are going stay past the cattle's taking their lock of hay gintlemin.'* As she spoke, she lighted, or endea- voured to light, a miserable candle, which stood in a dirty brass candlestick on a shelf over the " chlmhley." While thus engaged, the yellow flickering 158 FLORENCE MACARTHY. light fell full on her face, and threw her sharp, but handsome features, her deep sallow complexion, and black bright eyes, into strong relief. A red kerchief was tied round her head in the Munster fashion, and the rest of her tall, slight, boney form was hidden in shade.* The strangers withdrew their eyes from the figure of the landlady, to the apartment into which she had ushered them. Its whitewashed walls were partially covered with those pious prints which are hawked about for sale in the remotest parts of Ireland. The history of many a saint, the sufferings of many a martyr, were here detailed in bright vermilion and yellow ochre ; and angels and devils, hymns and homilies, were mingled promiscuously with the amatory history of " Cooleendas^' " Croothe- • The old Irish head-kerchief, is almost universally worn by the female peasantry of Munster. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 159 namoe" the " Connaught daisy," the *^ last dying speech of Captain Dread- nought," bloody and barbarous murders, and a favourite song, called " Ma chere amie,'* as sung by 3If^s. BiUington. A deal table in the centre of the room was still covered with some little pewter vessels, and two glasses with wooden bottoms. The hearth was stuffed with withered heath ; and the atmosphere of the room, from which all ventilation was excluded, breathed the fumes of whiskey. The younger traveller, hold- ing his perfumed handkerchief to his nose, asked if there was no other apart- ment they could occupy, while their horses were feeding, and their chaise mended. " Och ! blessed Virgin," said the hostess, wiping down the table with her apron, " this is the contrariest day ever rose on me ! Weeks we'd be, God help us, and not a chay, or sign of quality come the road ; and now, becaise its l60 FLORENCE MACARTHY. the fair of Kiltish, and the worlds in on upon us, here's two po-chaises, and not a sowl to help me, only the baccah, and my own little garlagh of a boy." " We should be glad to go any where where there's a fire," said the Com- modore, " the kitchin for instance." " Och ! your honor, that would be a poor place for the likes of you ; but if you would demean yourself to step into it, while I kindle a sod here, and ready the place, and takes down these brusheens " As she now began to raise a very un- pleasant dust by removing the bushes from the hearth, the gentlemen walked at once to the kitchen. The little inn of Lis-na-sleugh, or the house of the mountain, was the genuine prototype of all such inns in the re- mote cross-roads, or mountain ways in Ireland ; and the kitchen, as is usual in such places, was equally the recep- tacle of the guest and the beggar ; of FLORENCE MACARTHY. Ifcfl those who could, and those who could not pay for a temporary shelter. The earthen floor of this hospitable apart- ment was undulating and broken : a low mud w all, with an aperture in it to see through, screened the fire-place from the door; and the capacious hearth, lined with a stone bench, afforded a comfortable retreat to the chilled or wearied traveller. It was now occu- pied by a haggard, worn-out looking person, who repeatedly drank from a noggin of water beside him. Above the bright clear fire of mountain turf^ built upon the floor, hung suspended an immense iron cauldron, filled with po- tatoes, not boiling, but boiled and drying (5). In an angle of the kitchen, over a three-legged table, and a little pewter vessel filled with whiskey, sat two travellers; one of them, by the pack which lay at his feet, a pedlar; the other, ill-looking and poorly clad : both earnestly conversing^ in Irish. Beside 1(53 FLORENCE MACARTHY. the fire-placCj on an old settle, were leated two females : one with her long Irish frize cloak, and the hood drawn over her face, exhibited her warmly- mittened hands to the fire, towards which she was turned. The other, stately and erect, her round figure co- vered in an old fashioned travelling cloak, and her head enveloped in that curious coiffure made and called after the head of a French carriage, and not many years back worn in Ireland under the name of a calesh. From the supe- riority of their appearance, they were assigned by the strangers to the chaise, which stood act the door on their arrival, and seemed but just to have preceded them. As the gentlemen stood before the fire conversing in Spanish on the inci- dents of their journey, calculating upon the probabilities of the future, and making observations on all that sur- rounded them, the widow having lighted FLORENCE MACARTHY. l63 a fire in the best room, returned to await the dispersion of the smoke it occasioned. She. leaned indolently over a table, with her hands wrapped in her apron, or as she called it, her praskeen, and cast a glance of curiosity, directed alternately at her guests, in anxious hope that they would call for some re- freshment. None, however, was de- manded until the entrance of Owney, the driver, broke the spell ; for he ad- dressed her with — " You would'nt have such a thing as a cuppan * of parliament in the house, Mrs. Gaffney ?" *' Och ! then, if I would not have that, what would I have, Sir, when I sould the bed from under me to pay the license ; and would be sorry to see the barony fined, after the murther we had in the mountains about ould Sulivan's still, last week, and the waylaying of * Cuppan, a little cnp. — Parliament whiskey, tliat is, licensed. l64 FLORENCE MACARTHY. the exciseman, and two men and one soger kilt in the action. Since the at- tempt at a rescue made for the Rabragh, never was known the Hkes in the pro- vince of Munster, many a day." Mrs. Gaffney was helping the driver to a little vessel of licensed whiskey, which he had termed a cuppan of par- liament, when the ill-looking man, who sate t^te-a-t^te with the pedlar, asked, " What's gone of the Rabragh, I wonder?'* " Och! Sir, he's about the world again, I hear tell," replied the land- lady, " though never saw him, *bove all the boys in the county. They say, the Ban-Tierna * had him released from prison last assizes twelvemonth, and went herself to the judges at Tipperary, in regard of her being his foster-sister." * Ban-Tierna^ the female chief; literally, the woman of the chief, or noblewoman. This epithet is occasionally applied to female repre- sentatives of noble houses. ■FLORENCE MACARTHY. l6b " Long may she reign/^ exclaimed the ill-looking man ; " for she's a fine woman, and the poor man*s friend. — Here*s, may she live a thousand years," and he tossed off a glass of spirits. " Amen,'^ said the driver, moving his hat reverentially as he pledged the toast, in a voice tremulous with emo- tion. " I drink to her in water, wishing it was wine,'' said the poor man in the chimney corner : " for I come from the land where her forefathers reigned. Here's to the Countess of Clancarc.'' " Why then, if this were the last drop I had in the world,'* said the driver, drawing his hat over his face, as he advanced in the light, " you shall go my halves in it;" and he pre- sented what remained in his cuppan to the water-drinker, who swallowing it eagerly, observed, " That's the first bit or sup passed my lips the day, barring a dry potatoe 166 FLORBNCE MACARTHY. and a draught of water ; and came all the ways from the barony of Dun- kerron, district of Clancare in Kerry, over bog and mountain, to sell my little bit of an hobby * at the fair of Kittish, to pay the rent of the shed I break my heart under/* " Why then, is that hobby with the saddle your's, Sir?" asked the driver. *' She is," said the poor man, sigh- ing, " to my sorrow : and a finer bit of a baste for bog or mountain journey doesn't breathe, for all I'm carrying her back with me this night ; and of- fered her for a thirty shilling Cork note and a pair of brogues, to a hawker this morning." "Why then. Sir, see hear," said the driver in a voice full of compassion. * The little hobbies of this country are the most proper to travel through it; and a man must abandon himself entirely to their guidance, ■which will answer much better than if on« should stri?e to manage And direct their steps. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 16/ " If I had the money, myself, I'd take her off your hands the night, if it was only to hire her out by the job to tra- vellers, and to sarve you into the bar- gain, God help you." "Then purchase her for me,'* said the Commodore, who, with his com- panion, had stood listening to this local and desultory conversation, uttered in an accent so strange to their ears as not always to be comprehended. The bargain was soon struck, and the owner of the Jiobhy, with eyes streaming with joy, and a tongue profuse in gratitude, received a small sum over the price he had demanded. " I believe^" said the elder stranger, addressing him as he counted out his money, " at least I have read or heard, that your barony of Dunkerron was famous for this small breed of horses?'^ " And is so, your honor, to this day, and that's all it is famous for now, barring St. Crohan's cell, the patron 168 FLORENCE MACARTHY. saint of the barony, hewn out of the solid rock with his own hands, *'* The Commodore leant his head ea- gerly forward, and in a peculiar tone of voice, said, "And under the hill of Kil- crohan there stands — there did stand, a small ancient building, commanding the bay of Kenmare, once a friar}." "I know it well, your honor; the ehapelry of Glinsky, the school-house of Terence oge OLeary, and is there to this hour, troth.'' "To f/;/.s hour?" repeated the Com- modore in emotion. " That's the ruins of it, your honor. After measter O'Leary quit the place, nobody cared to take up * Smith''s Kerry. — In this hill Antiquarians assert that St. Kicran, the first bishop of Ossory, ■vvrote his rule for monks. The stalactitical exudations of this romantic hermitage are held in great veneration by the country people, who carefully preserve them, in the belief that they derive many virtues from the sanctity of the place that produce's them. FLORENCE MACARTMY. \6^ in it; and somehow, the times doesn't favour larning now in Kerry as former- ly; and besides, there was an odd story went about the school-house. I disre- member me what now ; and was a slip of a boy then, and went higher up into Clancare — that's twenty years ago, aye, faith, twenty- two years, since Terence Oge quit the place." " And more," said the lame beggar, who was filling a sieve with some oats out of a sort of chest near the hearth. *' I've good right to remember it well, for I was the very man that brought the young lord, that would have been, from Court Fitzadelm to Terence Oge 0'Leary's house, who was his foster father, and gave him all the learning he got, now, young gentleraan." "Did you?" said the Commodore, seizing his upraised arm ; then suddenly letting it drop, he asked in an altered tone, "Did you send for a smith to look to our chaise ? VOL. 1. I 1/0 FLORENCE MACARTHY. . " I did, your honor, and is at it this moment; and troth, I didn't see that same chaise drive up the night with a dry eye; for," he added, turning to the Kerryman, " it was in that very chaise, which my lord brought his elegant bride in, that I afterwards carried her son, af- ter her death, down to Dunkerron to measter O'Leary's, from whence he never returned dead or alive." "That's the young lord, was drowned off the Bay of Kenmare, in his own bit of Si corragh, and they say haunts the chapelry of Glensky to this hour," de- manded the Kerryman. " Och! to my heavy sorrow,*' said the mendicant, dropping the vessel he was measuring the corn with, and leaning over the chest, ''that was a sore day for me. Sir, for if he was in it this hour, it isn't in this condition I'd be, ould and lame, poor and desolate, and so I tould Measter O'Leary last week, who dropt salt tears when he saw me.'* FLORENCE MACARTHY. l/l '^'Last week!" reiterated the stranger; then, with a change of voice, he added, "Were you in Kerry last week, in Dunkerron? I am travelHng that way, and should like to know the state of the roads." " I was not. Sir, in Kerry, and never put my foot in it since I left the young gentleman there, that's the honourable De Montenay Fitzadelm." "You said you saw O'Leary there^ I thought." " It was down in the Peninsula I saw Mr. Terence Oge O'Leary, your honor, and am but just come from it this day." " The Peninsula!" repeated the Com- modore, " where is that?" " The Peninsula of Dunore, Sir, on the other side of the Boggra mountains, where the Marquis's castle is, on the sea-side, at the bottom of the country, a lovely fine place." '* I suppose the castle is iu ruins?" I 2 1/2 FLORENCE MACARTHV. observed Mr. De Vere, carelessly— I mean Dunore castle." " Not at all, your honor, but as good as the day it was built, every stone of it; aye, faith, and better: for sure it was get- ting ready two years back for the young mad Marquis ; but the workmen have been stopped si»ce he went beside him- self: and it would have been his cou- sins that was drowned, only for the vil- lainy of the world that banished the cratur to the wilds of Kerry, as Mr. O'Leary says, and no luck could follow them after that, great as they are now." " I remember that O'Leary when he was out of his mind himself," said the landlady, " and I a bit of a slip of a girl; he used to be wandering in the moun- tains here, and bothering the world with the Macarthies and the Fitzadelms, and looking for their ould castles, in lone places." *'Och, then, he's brave and hearty now, Mrs, Gaffney," returned the lame FLOREKCE MACARTKY. 173 hostler, " and has a fine school in the preceptory of Monaster- ni-oriel. Many thanks to friar Dennis O'Suhvan, the superior ; for it was he who took him up, and preached the devil out of him (for they say he was possessed), and set him down there, snug and aisy, in the friary ; and allows him tcr let his own apartment to bathers that come to the salt wather, when himself s not in it : and, troth, you wouldn't think, the day, he had put more than fifty years over his head, that's Mr. O'Leary, though he's sixty right out ; for its thirty-four years since his wife got the nursing at Court Fitzadelm, and Terence was twenty-six good then, and a brave lump of a poor scholar, when he missed his vocation,^* and married Soosheen O'Calaohan." O '* Tliey say it was larning cracked his brain," observed the landlady. * Vocation — to the priesthood. To miss "?o« cation, ahvays means to fall in love, I 3 174 FLORENCE MACARTHY. " No, troth ! but grief for the loss of his foster child ; and to this day, when he isn't going on with his Shanaos of the Macarthies More, its of him he bes talking, in spite of the Crawlcys." The mendicant hostler now raised the sieve of oats on his head, and hobbled back to the stables. " Och ! but it's a pity of him, the cra- tur," said Mrs. Gaffney, whose evident love of gossipry was much gratified by the conversation which had accidentally arisen — ■" poor and lame as he is now, a Baccah, begging his bit through the country, and betimes doing a turn here for us : why, then, he has seen great days formerly, and was whipper-in to Lord Fitz^elm, that's the black baron, and often called in to sing " the hunt of KUruddery' for my lord and the quality in the great parlour after dinner : and at last lent him even his trifle of wages, and sold his bit of a place to raise money for him, and got FLORENCE MACARTHY. l/^ his lameness by being thrown o^in his service ; and there you are now, Fineen Mac Crehan, without a rag to kiver you, or a shed to lay your head under, or a bit of a bed to die on, or as much as would buy a pipe to wake you with, this night. Ah ! then, nothing ever thr'io with them Fitzadelms : they had the hlack drop in them, for all they were the portliest men in the country (though I never see them, barring in pictures), and to this day its a saying in the coun- try, ' comely and wicked like a Fitz- adelm.' Well, there's the last stick and stone of the court to be sold next week. We had orders to stick up the bill. Sirs, here, from Mr. Crawley's land-baily of Dunore, who passed through the mountains yesterday." " Then the devil set his foot after him wherever he goes, and that he may never come back, I pray Christ," said the driver, as he drew his cotamore round him, and went forth to look after the equipage. 17^* FLORENCE MACARTHY. To this pious adjuration a very general " amen" was returned ; wliile both the travellers, as if moved by the same im- pulse of curiosity, advanced to read the advertisement hung over the chimney, by the rush-light which was fastened in a cleft stick near it. This paper indi- cated that the old castle and mansion of Court Fitzadelm, beautifully situate in a valley, watered by the Avon Fienne, and sheltered by the Galties and Bally- howry mountains, were to be put up for sale on a certain day, or might be pur- chased by private contract. The mate- rials were strongly recommended to any gentleman who was building ; and a few acres of meadow land, with the li- berties of a certain portion of the salmon fishery on the Avon-Fienne, were to be sold or leased. References were to be made to Darby Crawley, Esq. New- town, Mount Crawley-Dunore, or at his house, Merrion Square, Dublin. " I should like to see this Court Fitz- adelm,'' said the Commodore, address- FLORENCE MACARTHY. 1^7 ing Mr. De Vere in Spanish. — " Pe^ haps I may be induced to purchase it. The fishery of a fine river is a strong in- ducement^ and my future destiny I hope is to reside in this country." '' I should hke to see it also, and will accompany you. By its vicinity to the Bally ho wry mountains, it can't be far from Buttevant," replied De Vere. On enquiries made from the landlady, and partly answered by the ill-looking man at the three-legged table, they found that Court Fitzadelm lay due south of the Ballyhowry mountains. " Then," said the Conmiodore, " I can take it en chemin faisant to the penin- sula of Dunore." " Dunore!" repeated the younger traveller : " I thought you were pro- ceeding to Kerry?" ^' Not immediately," was the careless reply ; and the next moment the Com- modore, observing that he would en- deavour to expedite their journey, left I 5 l/S FLORENCE MACARTHY. the house. De Vere meantime took out his Spencer, and threw himself upon the settle, in the place of the female in the frize cloak, to whom the landlady was serving out some milk in another part of the kitchen ; when his neigh- bour in the calash, jerking the skirt af her riding cloak forward, which he had incautiously sat upon, observed — " I'd trouble you to move off: you were not so ready to put your coinether^ on me, when you refused me making a third in the chay, why ! from Dublin to Ca- sheh" Startled at this half-remembered ac- cent, De Vere raised his eyes fearfully, and under the yawning cavity of the calash beheld the red nose and green spectacles of Mrs. Magillicuddy. He sprung from his seat and left the house. " For heaven's sake," he exclaimed, as with rapid strides he advanced to his fel- * *' Comether^^ — officious intrusivcness. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 179 low traveller, who stood talking near the door to the Baccah and the Kerry horse- dealer — " for heaven's sake let us be off directly, with or without a wheel. Who do you think one of the two females at the fire may be?" " Not your night-mare, I hope," said the Commodore, smiling — " not Mrs. Magillicuddy." *' My night-mare, indeed!" he re- iterated, shrugging his shoulders: " this is being fairly hag-ridden." " Magillicuddy ! " repeated the driver of the first-arrived chaise, who was put- ting-to his horses. " Is that the ould lady's name, your honor ? Why, then, troth, she's a gentlewoman every taste of her, and pays finely ; and for that same I bate your chay fairly, and got in half an hour before yez." *' Where did you start from," asked Owny, coming forward. " From Cashel ; and came the low road ; and wonders yez would take to 180 FLORENCE MACARTHY. the mountains ; only it's what I be- lieve you lost your way, Sir,'* he re- plied. " And where are you going to now?" asked De Vere, evidently inte- rested in the question. " We are going on to one side of Doneraile, Sir: and if we can't make that before ten o'clock, we are to stop at the New Inn ; for th' ould lady doesn't care to be on the road after the moon goes down, though from this to Done- raile is as beautiful as a bowling-green." " I tliink," said Mr. De Vere, " I should be well contented to remain here to-night if there was a chance of clean beds, or even of fresh hether : we could then proceed to Court Fitzadelm early to-morrow, instead of having to tread back our steps by going to But- tevant first.*' This was addressed to the Commodore. " Och, then, not better beds you'll get in the barony than at the iucle back- FLORJENCE MACARTHY. 181 room at Lis-na-sleugh/' observed Ovvnj^ who appeared to listen with attention ; " and I carried two gentlemen here who slept in them last week, and one of them a priest, that's Friar O'Sullivan, on his way to Cork." " Then we will endeavour to make our arrangements accordingly," said De Vere, turning sharp round, and coming in contact with the whalebone of Mrs. Magillicuddy's calash; for she had stood for the last few minutes behind them. " Why, then, man," she exclaimed to her driver, " will you lave oif your gossip, and not keep us here till mid- night, why !" To this remonstrance, made in a most stentorian voice, the man replied by opening the chaise door, letting down the steps, and letting in the infirm Mrs. Magillicuddy and her more youthful attendant, who sprung lightly into the chaiseafterher: — they immediately drove away. 182 FLORENCE MACARTHY. *^ I told you," said the younger tra- veller, " we were fated to remain at this miserable little mountain inn." " The fatality hes in your preposses- sions," replied the Commodore, " or if you will, in the super-human hifluence of Mrs. Magillicuddy ; for it appears that your motions are retarded or acce- lerated, according to your conjunctions or opposition with that most repelling body. She rules the ascendant." " Well," he replied, shrugging his shoulders, *' In her bright radiance and collateral heat, May I be comforted — not in her sphere.^'' " And yet, "said the Commodore, " she is a woman.^' " A woman ! Sex hath but one age: that passed, there is neither man nor woman. Who would assign to such a thing as that a gender, with her lungs and her bulk, her natural defects and artificial disgusts, her Bardolph's nose, and tower of horse hair. A woman ! FLORENCE MACARTHY. 18J gracious licaven ! compared to the crea- tures one has seen, to the beings one has fancied, who for a moment have flashed their radiance on one's dreary hfe path ! and this a woman ! 'Tis altogether another species, made of other elements, and composed of other orgfins ! ' ' As he thus stood " chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies," in apostro- phizing all that was lovely in. the sex, and all that had ceased to be so, leaning against the door, his eyes fixed upon the silver-lined clouds, that passed in forms various and fantastic as his own thoughts, before the broad bright moon, his m.ore active, more vigilant fellow traveller, was occupied in providing for their night's accommodation. He had also enquired for the driver, to inform him of their new arrangements, and learned from the lame hostler, that he was gone behind the other chaise, as far as the smith's forge, for an iron pin, which was wanting to the compleat re- 184 FLORENCE MACARTHY. instatement of the broken machinery of their o^vn crazy carriage. The circumstance of two such guests remaining for the night at Lis-na-sleugh, produced a business and bustle most un- usual beneath its humble roof Shaneen* the boy, was employed in catching, kill- ing, and plucking a fowl, which had (reckless of the fate that awaited it,) taken up its roost on the rafter of the kitchen. The baccah was occupied in preparing such a table equipage for sup- per as the house afforded ; and the hostess herself gave her attention to the little bed-room. This apartment, which communicated by a few steps with the parlour, con- tained two small, old fashioned bed- steads, with patch-work quilts, the ac- cumulated fi-agments of half a century ; and check curtains of transparent tex- ture. Though poor and mean, it was cleanly and cheerful ; and was just such a sleeping apartment as is to be found * S!K!t!cen~Lin!c John— Jarl?. F LO R fc: iS C E M A C A Ki H Y . 186 in every inn in Ireland, that lies m a road but little frequented. When the strangers returned to the house, from a short refreshing walk among the moonlight glens, the house was cleared of its guests, silent and tran- quil. A clean cloth was spread upon the parlor table, the turf fire blazed brightly; and though there was no wine to be had, and they had not yet mad^ up their palates to what Peter the Great called "Irish wine, "yet the clear spring that gushed from the neighbouring rock was pure falernian to thirsty and temperate travellers. The supper pre- pared by their cordial hostess, though homely, was all Jriandise to appetites sharpened by the mountain air, and placed beyond the delicacy of fastidious- ness by long fast. Owny, who had returned from the forge, enquired carelessly " if they had now the place to themselves, barring the gentlemen," and being answered in the affirmative (for the three guests in 186 FLORENCE MACARTHY. the kitchen, the horse-dealer, the pedlar, and his companion, had all departed under favour of the moonlight), he im- mediately threw off his cotamore, cau- been, and wig. Light, alert, and dili- gent, he now officiated as valet to the gentlemen, and as coadjutor to Mrs. Gaffney's establishment; andhis services added considerably to the little sum of «omfort and accommodation which the travellers could naturally expect, in this improved imitation of a Spanish Posada. Meantime thelrishkeadmillej'altha* shone in every eye, and beamed its wel- come on the strangers. The obvious goodwill of all compensated for the de- ficiency of ability, but too obvious ; and even the younger, and less easily satisfied guest, was led to observe of the little Shebean of Lis-na-sleugh, as the French philosopher did of the world, " si tout n-y est pas bien, tout est passable. * Hundred thousand welcomes. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 187 CHAPTER IV. " This Eden, this demi-paradise This dear dear land is now leased out Like to a tenement, or pelting farm." Shakespeahe, " What harmony is this ? Marvellous, sweet music; Give us kind keepers, heaven." Ibid. ** Were such things here as we do speak about? or have we eaten of the insane root that takes the reason prisoner?" Ibid. There is scarcely any cabaret in the remote parts of Ireland, over whose door is exhibited the usual advertise- ment of " good entertainment for man and beast," where a tolerable breakfast may not be procured; the abundance and freshness of the milk, butter, and eggs usually compensating for the indif- ferent quality of that far-fetched and 188 FLORENCE MACARTHY. vivifying herb, which the widow Gaffney assured her guests was " iligant tay from Cork," as they seated themselves at her breakfast table, after the refresh- ing repose of the night. Luckily they fvere just then in a temper of mind to take much upon faith, and to be pleased on very scanty premises. That, which under the influence of exhaustion and evening gloom, was deemed misadven- ture, to the renovated spirits of morning and sunshine was amusing incident merely, and stimulating variety. There was a novelty, a romantic singularity in their actual position, which lent it a peculiar charm (at least, to the younger traveller, to whom it was evident that whatever was new was good), while it was obvious to both, that even the wildest parts of Ireland afforded security to the strans^ers wanderincj: for it is only the local, official oppressor who has any thing to fear from an ig- norant and suffering population ; a po- FLORENCE M ACARTHY. 189 pulation, which, strangers to the protec- tion ofthe laws, fl}^ for redress to that force, by which alone they and their ancestors have been governed for centuries. The travellers left the inn of Lis-na- sleugh, followed by the blessings of its inhabitants, excited by their liberality. Had the younger of them been capable of observing any thing, in which he was not himself personally concerned, he might have noticed that, previous to their departure, his mysterious com- panion had been engaged in a con- ference with the lame hostler, which lasted for a considerable time: for while Owny was putting-to the horses, and arranging the portmanteaux, the Com- modore, with arms folded, brows com- pressed, and eyes full of eager listening curiosity, remained silently attentive to some narration, which seemed circum- stantially detailed by the baccah. As they both stood under the shadow of an impending cliff, the bold figure of the 1^0 FLOIIENCE MACARTIIY. Commodore in deep shade, and darkly defined, the bending form of the cripple supported by his crutch, and tinged with the Hght of a stragghng sunbeam, they seemed appropriate figures for the wild scenery that surrounded them. In this point of view they were only considered by the tasteful observer, who stood look- ing at them through his half-closed eyes, and who simply noted the effect of their picturesque grouping, without one sur- mise as to its cause. — The mountains the travellers had crossed, and the glcnj in which they had passed the night, soon receded from their view: their journey lay along a comparatively good road, among a long chain of hills, which fenced within their undulating: boundaries many a lovely glen and romantic valley, brightening in the morning sunshine. Acclivity rose above acclivity, lifting their bleak bare heads to the clouds, in wild and savage magnificence — those to the west forming the boundaries of the FLORENCE MACARTHY. I9I county of Kerry ; those to the north and east, the Ballyhowry and Nagle moun- tains, inclosing the classical scenery of Spencer ; liis own Mole, rising conspi- cuously above all. In the bosom of this wild and fantas- tic region, after a journey of twelve miles, the valley of Glenfionne, or the fair valley, was announced by the driver; and the old woods and towers of Court Fitzadelm were discovered in the distance, crowning a rocky summit, which seemed to hang perpendicularly over the winding waters of the Avon Fionne. The demesne of this fine old seat was accessible by many mountain ravines from the south ; but the design of its late lord, who had cut a road across a branch of the Galties, to facili- tate and to shorten the way from Dub- in, though inadequately executed, was judiciously conceived. On that side its situation was inaccessible, remote^ and romantic. The extensive stone wall, which ran round the north of the de- 192 FLORENCE MACARTHY, mesne, forming an opposite barrier tor that made by the winding river, was in many places dismantled and broken down ; and through its frequent breaches, it exhibited the result of that pernicious and exhausting system of farming re- sorted to in such places. The ci-devant agent, now the actual but absent mas- ter, had let out this beautiful demesne in v/hat is called jobbing farms, whose tillage rarely extends beyond the grow- ing of potatoes; for which purpose the ground is uncalculatingly burned, to pro- duce one good crop to its temporary possessor. Here and there vestiges of wretched crops of grass and oats evinced the land utterly exhausted ; and, in many places, it was abandoned to the wild growth of weeds and briars. Al- most every where the old meadow and pasture grounds were covered with furze, broom, and rushes, which, though now yellow and rich to the eye, were still but " unprofitahly gay" The subdivisions of petty property FLORENCE MACARTHY. I95 were marked by rude meerings, and each temporary tenant had secured his own rood of ground with unpl anted mounds, whose occasional gaps were stopped with brambles and heath bushes. This coarse and rude system of farming added much to the desolate and neglected as- pect of a naturally lovely^scene^ which, in its present state, formed an apt epi- tome of the abandoned dwellino-s of the o Irish absentees. The scanty and miserable population which appeared in the neighbourhood of the once princely Court Fitzadelm w^as appropriately wretched and neg- lected. From a few mud-built huts, raised against the park wall, occasionally issued a child or a pig, while the head of its squalid mistress appeared for a moment through the clou J of smoke which streamed from th ^ door, and then suddenly retreated. The lonq and broken road which wound round the wall, seemed to lengthen as the travel* VOL. I. 194 FLORENCE MALARTHY. lers proceeded ; and they stopped to en- quire the way to the nearest approach of a poor man who was driving a lamb with a straw rope round its leg. The man pointed to a winding in the road, and directed them to the ruined gates of the principal entrance : he then took up the wearied lamb on his shoulders, and proceeded sullenly on. " The cratur!'* said the driver, who was now walking beside his horses, as were also the gentlemen: " God help him ! he is now going all the way to Ballinispig fair with that bit of a lamb ; eight good long miles, and may be it won't bring him over three tinpinnies.'* " There is,'' said the Commodore, ** a mixture of indolence and laborious- ness in these miserable people that is singular; they have neither the activity of savages nor the industry of civiliza- tion. They want energy for the one, and motive for the other." " What I should complain of in Ire- FLORENCE MACARTHY. 195 land," replied De Vere, " is, that there is no rural life ; no pastoral manners ; no subjects for the Idyls of Theocritus, nor the Arcadia of Sannazaro.*' " I would rather see it an appropriate subject for the Georgics of Virgil, the native energy of the people practically applied to the natural resources of the land, was the reply. They had now reached the entrance of what had been considered one of the most magnificent demesnes in Ireland, once forming part of the principality of the Maearthies, and successively pass- ing by grants and forfeitures from them to the powerful Desmonds, and again to the favoured Fitzadelms. It was now the ill-managed possessionof an attorney, who had held it partly on mortgage and partly by lease from the elder Baron Fitzadelm, designated in the country by the soubriquet of the " Black Baron." The eyes of both strangers seemed K 2 ig6 FLORENCE MACARTHV. equally anxious in their gaze, which was more expressive of obscure and faded recognition than of mere idle cu- riosity. A long range of iron gate pre- sented itself to their view, much broken, the bars drawn out, and the tracery covered with rust. The massive stone pillars on either side, overgrown with lichens, still exhibited some vestiges of handsome sculpture : the capital of one was surmounted by an headless eagle ; the other shewed the claw and part of the body of a gos-hawk, both natives of the surrounding mountains, and well imitated in black marble, drawn from their once worked quarries. Two lodges mouldered on either side into ab- solute ruin ; and the intended improve- ment of a Grecian portico to one, never finished, was still obvious in the scat- tered fragments of furzes and entabla- tures which lay choaked amidst heaps of nettles, furze-bushes, and long rye- grass. The broad approach was still FLORENCE MACARTHY. 197 visibly marked out^ though now moss- grown and green, winding through beautifully undulating but neglected grounds : and there was a kind of mi- mic forest, richly cloathing the sides of the elevated hights, which rose, like little mountains, from the southern shore of the river, deceiving the eye, and appearing the same luxuriant wood which had once bloomed there. It was now but the sprouting stumps succeeding to the lofty majesty of the full-grown oak, pine, and mountain ash, for which this country was once so celebrated. Frequently and recently as the hatchet had been applied to the towering woods of Court Fitzadelm, a few clumps and clusters of very ancient and noble trees were still left standing ; but the red marks impressed upon their brown barks evinced that they also were de- stined to immediate destruction. While the travellers stood looking upon this fine, but melancholy scene, K 3 198 FLORENCE MACARTHY. the driver thrust his head through the broken bars of the gate, and directing his Yoice towards one of the ruined lodges, whence issued a feeble smoke, cried out, "Alleen ma chree ! Alleen deelish!'* '' Who do you call to ?** asked the Commodore, impatiently endeavouring to open the gate. " To little Ellen, plaze your honor, the daughter of the poor baccah at Lis-na-sleugh, who lives here with her ould granny, that kept the gates in both th'ould lord's time, and is bed-ridden now : that's as the baccah tould me last night, when I was axing him about the way. Alleen ma vourneen." "Che shin,"* answered a shrill voice from within; and the next minute a figure, small, wild, and frightful, bounded over the plank laid before the lodge- door, and stood at the gate. To a few words addressed to her in Irish, she lent a timid but fixed attention ; then * Who's that. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 199 flew back to the lodge, and instantly re- turned with a large massive key, which she applied with extraordinary strength to the rusty lock ; and the heavy gates opened slowly, to admit the unusual visitors. " That's my caen-buy-deelish,"* said Owny, kindly patting a head, to whose thick and matted locks adhered some bearded thistles. The little portress laughed with all the wildness of fa- tuity ; but shrunk, scared, and inti- midated, as she snatched the offered remuneration from the Commodore's hand. Her countenance, however, ex- hibited rather the stupor of unawakened intellect, than a natural deficiency of intelligence. " That's a poor innocent, your ho- nor : the likes of them be always found in lonely places, like the ould court here ; and brings luck with them * My yellow. headed darling* K 4 200 J'LORENCE MACARTHV. they say. But for all that she's a na- tural, her father tells me she's the finest cat-hunter and bird-catcher in the barony round ; and is quite cute at gathering brushneens for the bit of fire, and catering among the neighbours with the cruiskeen * and wallet for her ould bed-ridden granny.** To this account the Commodore made no reply, but shrugged his shoulders; and both gentlemen proceeded in silence through the demesne, while Owny entered the lodge to make some en- quiries from the bed-ridden lodge- keeper relative to the house ; whether it was to be seen, and who occupied it . The grounds were divided into little plots and job-farms, up to the door of the mansion, which stood on a rocky hight over the river. On the opposite shores ascended a range of well wooded acclivities, whose summits mingled with * A little pitcher. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 20l the line of the horizon. Of the ori- ginal building nothing now remained but a square ivy-clad tower, called Des- mond's castle, flanking a less imposing edifice, built by the Fitzadelms in the reign of James the First. This wing was in good preservation : but the modern faqade, raised forty years back by Baron Fitzadelm, the Tierna-Dhu^ was ruinous and mouldering. It had been built by contract, was rapidly got up for a particular purpose, and had been constructed with bad materials, most of which were not even yet paid for. The precipitous declivities which swept down from the rocky foundation of the house to the river had been cut into terrace gardens, a fashion still observ- able at the seats of the ancient nobility of Munster : and it was melancholy to observe the stunted rose-tree, and other once-cultivated, but now degenerate shrubs and flowers, raising their heads^ amongst nettles and briers, and long K 5 202 FLORENCE MACARTIIV. grass, and withered potatoe-stalks. Many fantastic little building's were also seen mouldering on romantic sites along the river's undulating banks; some of shells^ some of rock-work: all alike monu- ments of the bad taste of the day in which they were raised, and of the wanton caprice of the persons who pro- jected them. " It was doubtless from a scene like this," observed Mr. De Vere, plucking an half-perished rose, to which adhered the foliage of the deadly night-shade, *' that Spencer drew his poetical me- taphor of the seeds of vice springing up amidst the scions of virtue :" ** And with their boughs the gentle plants did beat ; But ever more some of the virtuous race Rose up inspired with heroic heat, That cropt the branches of their scient base, And with strong hand their fruitful rankness did deface." ** It is thus, perhaps/' returned the FLORENCE MACARTHY. 203 Commodore, " that the rightful heir of Court Fitzadelm would act, did he behold this place as we now see it." " No," replied De Vere, flinging aw^y together the rose and the night- shade. " It is probable that the repre- sentative of the Fitzadelm family (for the unfortunate and insane Marquis of Dunore cannot be deemed such) would look upon this ancient seat of his an* cestors, as I now view it, with a new feeling of contempt for the species to which he belongs ; and with as little interest for the posterity that is to follow, as to the ancestry that preceded him, he would put it up to the hammer, and fly to enjoy its price in happier regions and more genial climes." " He would, on the contrary, per- haps," said the Commodore, with a vehemence tinctured with irrepressible indignation, '* endeavour to redeem the folly and negligence of his ancestors, wrest his paternal demesne from the 204 FLORENCE MACARTHY. grasp of fraud, or re-purchase it from the gripe of sordidness ; he would then raise its fallen towers, reclaim its neg- lected soil, cherish the miserable popu- lation, and expiate the violence and rapacity by which his distant fore- fathers obtained this still beautiful ter- ritory, by a constant and beneficial resi- dence in the land whence he draws his support and existence." " You know but little of Calista," re- plied De Vere, smiling significantly — "you know but little of Lord Adelm Fitzadelm." "Who is he?'' asked the Commo- dore, quickly. " Why, the only brother of the pre^ sent Marquis of Dunore,heirpresumptive of his title and possessions: not to know him would argue yourself unknown." " Oh true," said the Commodore, with the tone of sudden recollection, " I have heard of such a person." " I suppose so," was the dry reply. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 205 Ovviiy now joined them with the in- formation that the house was to be seen, and that it was inhabited by an old housekeeper, a follower of the Crawley family, nick-named Protestant Moll, the * dli'Ws own saint,' one he had often heard of, but never seen, and so called in regard of her having once been a great Papist and a f'otcen,* and having afterwards become a hedger, (that's a turn-coat), and was made a kiln-dried Protestant, by Miss Crawley, a great preacher, and sister to the Port- rieve of Dunore, Torney Crawley, Esq. a raal slave driver, that had many a poor man's sowl to answer for. While he spoke, he was vainly applying a stone to the folding doors of the great entrance (for the knocker was off), and at last went round to the rear of the building, in search of a more easy in- gress. In a few minutes his head ap- peared through one of the front win- dows; and assuring the gentlemen he * Devotee, 206 FLORENCE MACARTHY. would be down in a crack, and open the hall door for them, he indulged himself in a momentary view of the surrounding scene. He soon, however, descended, and was heard unbarring the long- closed portals, which slowly opened to admit the strangers. A most capacious hall of black marble discovered on either side several doors, half pannelled ; a superb, but dismantled staircase, in the centre, branched off into a corridor which surrounded the hall, and appear- ed to lead to different apartments. The rafters had in many places fallen in; and the plaister of the still crumbling ceiling lay in heaps upon the floor. This ruinous and melanciioly appear- ance gave peculiar force to a motto in gold letters over the folding doors of a private theatre, which opened into the left side of the hall. The motto was " Laugh while we can." " Laugh while we can!" repeated the Commodore, with a shrug, that was al- most a shudder* FLORENCE MACARTHY. 20/ " Oh, its delicious," observed De Vere, ironically, " a thing to moralize a song withall." " Why then, its little of it them gets now that put it up there, why! that's now, God help them, in a place where there's no laughing, but weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth." The strangers turned round at this unexpected address, but not unknown accent, and beheld Mrs. Magillicuddy close behind them. " This is the housekeeper, who will shew your honors the place," said Owny, and then retired to look after his horses. De Vere drew back many paces from the frightful phantom of his imagination. The Commodore stood surprised, and something amused at the effect which this sudden apparition pro- duced on his companion. Mrs. Magilli- cuddy, whose face was partly wrapped up in a worsted stocking, and who was endeavouring to keep a brown paper 208 FLORENCE MACARTHY. steeped in whiskey on her nose, looked at them for a moment through her large green spectacles, and addressed them both in a tone of great familiarity, ob- serving, " Well, who knows but we may meet in heaven yet ; little chance as there seems for some of us now, why! for we v^e met often enough in this world any how, and may again when least ex- pected. And its little yez thought when ye refused me a third in your chay to Tipperary, that Id be shewing you Court Fitzadelm; and is as much mis- tress here as the lady, if she was in it, and will be till it fall into better hands, plaze God. Why then, yez had great luck, gentlemen, not to go in the chay from Dublin ; for its in it, shure, I got one of my rheumatrix fits, all down the face and head of me. And it Was the Lord's will, I should be overturned last night, coming here, and broke my nose, why! Well, what matter? Shure 111 FLORENCE MACARTHY. 209 be worse afore I'm better; for whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. Is my strength the strentfth of stone, or is my flesh of brass ? No, troth ! And so this young man here tells me yez want to see the consarn. Why then, its a sad place now; a watch-tower in a wilder- ness. And little ever I thought to see the likes of yez in it again, though many of yoTir sort frequented it formerly." • " Of our sort? Why what do you take us for?" asked the Commodore in some surprise, tinctured with seem- ing uneasiness. " For two rakes of quality, dear, going about the innocent country, seeking whom yez may devour, like the old one, why I" The gentlemen both smiled ; and even De Vere seemed not displeased at the definition given of his appearance by the formidable Mrs. Magillicuddy, alias " Protestant Molir Still, how- ever, he hung back, and looked upon her with disgust and apprehension. 210 FLORENCE MACARTHY. " I understand," said the Commo- dore, " that this old mansion, with a few acres of the ancient demesne, is to be sold, and I wish to examine the pre- mises, before I apply for the terms to Mr. Crawley, to whose seat I am now proceeding." " As to the house," said Mrs. Magillicuddy, " it is an house of clay now;" and she waddled before them towards the theatre, the door of which she threw open. " An house of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, and which is crushed before the moth. There ! — there's the devil's tabernacle.^' Curiosity now got the better of pre- judice ; and Mr. De Vere approached to examine this monument of former dissipation and refinement, in scenes so inappropriate to its site. Most of the decorations, and nearly all the seats and scenery, had been removed. But fragments of scarlet cloth remained upon a bench, which had not been taken away. A cut wood scene still occupied the stage ; and some orna- FLORENCE MACARTHY. 2 I 1 mental painting and gilding were visible on the ceiling and cornice. " This was a box fitted up for the Lord Lieutenant/' said Mrs. Magilli- cuddy, seating herself on the solitary bench ; " and when the bishop's lady came here to see me, after my wonder- ful conversion (and it was Miss Crawley that delivered me from the workings of iniquity,) and found the Rev. Mr. Scare- *um sitting with me in this veiy place, (for he came to visit this benighted dis- trict, and to take under his protection the perishing sinners of the hill country) says the bishop's lady to me, (for my conversion made a great noise, far and near.) No, says Mr. Scare'um to Miss Crawley, it is curious to see, says he, by what great strides Molly Magillicuddy has made her way out of Babylon. Upon which, the bishop's lady remarked — ." " I cannot stand this," cried De Vere to the Commodore in Spanish. " I will walk down to the river, while you ex- 212 FLORENCE MACARTHY. amine the house, if you really think there is any thing worth seeing." Mrs. Magillicuddy now rose with sur- prising alertness, and observed: " May be yez would like to see the ould family pictures which will go with the house, being worth nothing now, bar- ring the frames, the best being gone." Thejamlli/ pictures seemed to coun- teract the effect of even Mrs. Magilli- cuddy's egotistical jargon, who seemed to trade upon the history of her conver- sion, and to suppose, with pious vanity, that it interested her auditors as much as herself. The gentlemen followed her up the halt, while she continued her recital with " So, as I was saying, the bishop's lady, thinking me a miracle of grace (though, lord help me, I was then but a babe in knowledge, never having listened hardly to Mr. Scare'um, nor lived with the sarioiis), she says to me, ' Molly says she " " This is a curious apartment," inter- FLORENCE MACARTHY. 213 ruptcd the Commodore, as he threw open the door of the room, which Mrs. Magilhcuddy announced as the pre- sence chamber. " Aye, curish enough!" said she. " Here it was that royal idolater, James the Second, held a court in his way through Munster, and was attended by all the papist lords, the ^ recusants,* as Miss Crawley tells me. Oh ! she's a great scholar ; and was here in her way to Dublin just afore I went to England for that legacy left me by the pious Mr. Scare'um two months ago^ for the Fitzadelms," she continued in her digressive way, " was then Romans themselves; until, by abandoning the scarlet lady of Babylon, they se- cured their lands and rights ; and the king, when he looked out at this window (called the king's casement ever since), started back, wondering much at the great hight of the house above the river." 214 FLORENCE MACARTHV. She threw open the window as she spoke; and the precipitous dechvity beneath seemed to justify the royal as- tonishment.* But the strangers were httle attracted by the bold and beauti- ful views without, nor by the fine friezes within, which were painted by the Fran- chinis, two Italian artists, who visited Ireland a centuiy back, and were em- ployed in ornamenting its noble man- sions: the few pictures, which moul- dered in their tarnished frames, upon the oaken w^ainscot, seemed to fix their most earnest attention. They were surprised to find the greater number to be portraits of the most eminent cha- racters of Charles the Second's court. The beauties, the wits, and the war- ♦ A similar apartment and window are shewn at Lismore Castle, one of the Duke of Devon- shire's scats, as distinguished for its romantic beauty, as the inhabitants of its iihmediatc neigh, bourhood are for their courtesy, elogance, arjd hospitality. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 213 riors of that day, were in a large pro- portion Irish ; and while the pictures of the riamiltons, the Butlers, the Vil- larses, the Fitzgeralds, the Talbots, the Muskerries, the Taafcs, the Dongons, and the Burkes, are sketched for im- mortality in the delightful Memoires de Grammont, their less durable portraits by Lilly and Kneller have been copied ad infinitum * in Ireland, and are still to be found in many of the deserted man- sions of the long-absent great. Many of these faded representatives of all that was once lovely and animated lay upon the ground ; and the dilletante traveller soon detected " la plus jolie taille du * Some by Souillard, a French artist, brought to Ireland by Lord Muskerry, to paint his castle of Lixnaw, in Munster, after the cartoons of Raphael ; others by Gandy, who came over with his patron, the great Duke of Ormond, and who seems to have furnished half the great houses in Munster with the royal harem ; and many also by inferior and nameless artists. 2l6 FLORENCE MACARTHY. monde" of the coquettish Countess of Chesterfield,* stopping a broken win- dow. " La Muskerryl- faite comme la plupart des riches heritieres/' skreen- ing out the ungrated hearth of a capa- cious chimney-piece ; while the fair Hamilton, " grande et gracieuse dans les moindres de ses mouvements," hung in a most maudlin state out of her frame; and " la belle Stewart," lay un- distinguished in a corner, with " la blonde Blague," now literally " plus jaune qu un coing." " And are these pictures to go with the rest of the j^remises ?'* asked the Commodore. " Its little matter where they go," returned ]Mrs. Magillicuddy, indignantly, * Lady Elizabeth Butler, daughter of the Duke of Ormond, and second wife of the Earl of Chesterfield: she died 1666. + Lady Margaret Burke, daughter and heiress of Ulic Burke, fifth Earl of Clanrickard, wife t« Charles Lord Tviuskerrv. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 217 *' or if they went with them they liken: — a parcel of rakes and harlots! as Miss Crawley tells me; they are paying for their scarlet and fine linen now, I warrant ; for they that plough iniquity , and sow wickedness, reap the same. Fie upon such shameless Jezebels ! say I, who look full of nought but worldly vanit}'- and fleshly ease/* " Fleshly ease, indeed !'* repeated De Vere, gazing earnestly upon the pic- ture of the beautiful Duchess of Cleve- land.* " There is something in the swimming eyes and thick lips of the * Laily Barbara Villiers, daughter and heiress of William Villlers, Lord Grandison : she was a native of the scenes here described, and spent the innocent and early part of her iif€ in her fa- ther's castle of Droraana, on the lovely banks of the black water. She was afterwards consigned to immortal infamy as the mistress of Charles the Second, under the titles of Countess of Cas- tlemain and Duchess of Cleveland. Part of the summer of 1817 was delightfully spent by the author amidst these delicious scenes. VOL. I. L 218 FLORENCE MACARTHY. beauties of those times, a charming un- idea'd sameness of physiognomy, that is now lost in the female face/' " Mental cultivation most diversifies the countenance," replied the Commo- dore. " In barbarous nations there is but one physiognomy for a tribe : vv^here there is little intellect, there can be but little variety of expression." " I hate intellect in women,'^ saidDe Vere ; " and what is most delicious in the harem of that happy satrap, Charles, is, that they all look such pretty idiots, so fond and foolish, as if they were of that sect which once flourished in Spain, the Embevecidos, whose life and faith were made up of love." " Love, indeed ! love ! when hearts were purchased with French ribbons; and perfumed gloves went on successful embassies to ladies' affections. Oh ! trust me, your royal satraps have more of laziness than of love in their engage- ments ; and nothing is further from FLORENCE MACARTHT. 219 passion than their idk sauntering* ' in ladies chambers.** " 'Tis all abomination! all vanity and vexation of spirit!" said Mrs. Magilli- cuddy, interrupting the Commodore, in- dignantly. " I didn't think so once, God help me ! For I walked in utter darkness till I was thirty; and did not wrestle with the ould one till I was forty good. My conversion made a a great noise far and near. The bishop's lady came to me, and said " Mr. De Vere was again retreating, when the old woman hobbled to a door at the further end of the apartment, and throwing it open, said, " There, that's the drawing-room ;" then flinging herself upon a broken chair, the only ar- ticle of furniture in the room, except an antique japanned chest, she continued, pointing to two pictures — " There, gen- tlemen, there are the pictures of the two brothers ; that is half' brothers by blood, but whole brothers in iniquity. L 2 220 FLORENCE MACARTHY. I always took the dark one in robes to be the Prince of Orange, and the red- headed one to be the Pretender, till Miss Crawley, when she came here for the Indy cabinet, informed me that they were the two last Lord Fitzadelms, the Dhu and the Ruadg, the black and the red. Well, that's all that remains of them now: the ould one had a fine lob of them both. He that would have wrestled for their salvation was not walking this benighted country when they were in it; and so they were left to go to the devil their own way, why!'' During this charitable speech the eyes of the travellers were fixed upon the pictures, pointed out by their pioua Cicerone. The elder brother stood in bis parliamentary robes, by a table, on which his coronet was placed : his coun- tenance expressed haughtiness, some- thing mingled with indecision ; and traces of wild ill-regulated passions, con- kasted with a look of feebleness and FLORENCE MACARTIIY. 221 dependence, gave indication of a mind endowed with some natural strength of character, but which had been spoiled by circumstances and education ; as if the natural force, which might have gone to the strengthening of his in- tellect, served but to irritate his pas- sions and temper. He was of a dark and saturnine complexion ; but intem- perance had so bloated his features, and impurpled his naturally sallow hue, that the beauty, for which he had once been celebrated, even the painter's art could scarcely recal. This picture was done, by the date, above thirty years back : the name of the ar- tist was so obscure, and the execution so inferior, that it was probably the effort of some itinerant painter, who worked by the square foot. The younger brother was a true Geral- dine in colouring and feature; the light curled golden hair, the full blue eye, and fair complexion, which distinguish- L3 222 FLORENCE MACARTHY. ed almost every branch of that illustri- ous family^ particularly the southern Geraldines: but there was an expression of licentiousness and cunning mingled in the countenance of Gerald Fitzadelm, which belonged not to the physiogno- my of his family : he had a foreign air, was habited in a Venetian domino, and held a black mask so near his face, that he seemed but in the very act of removing it: the picture was dated Venice; the name of the artist was Italian; and a label hanging from it, with orders how it was to be laid in the case, which was placed near it, indi- cated that it was about to be removed. On the case, in large letters, was paint- ed " For the most noble the Marchioness Dowager of Dunore, Dunore Castle.'' " Aye," said Mrs. Magillicuddy, reading this address, " aye, to the Mar- chioness Dowager: well, careful as she is of the picture, its little she valued the reality, why! Its from her, they FLORENCE MACARTHY. 223 say, the madness got into the Fitzadelm family. For till the Baron Gerald married that hoity-toity Englishwoman, (though, as I'm tould, they were foolish enough, and wicked enough before) none of them was ever lunatic, until the two young lords, her sons, went mad lately." "What, both mad?" asked the Com- modore; while his companion turned round, and fixed his eyes with a very singular expression on the narrator. " Aye, Sir, both as mad as March hares: the eldest being mad by nature, and t'other chap, from pride, why! But shure the sins of the fathers must be visited on the childer, as Miss Crawley says; affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble come out of the ground, why ! There is the young Marquis in a madhouse, and there is Lord Adelm Fitzadelm, his brother, wandering the world wide, they say, Jooking for something, he does'nt know L 4 224 FLORENCE MACARTHY, wliat, like a prince in a story book^ while his mother, the ould policizing- Marchioness, is setting him up for the borough of Glannacrime, here. But, mark my words, she needn't trouble iierself; it isn't himself will get it, with the Fitzadelm name, and the Dunore interest to boot." " No ?" said the younger traveller, for the first time addressing this formidable person. " No, Sir, its meat for his betters, why." "Indeed!" returned De Verc, with an ironical laugh ; " and who may they be pray ?" "Counsellor Con is, dear," said Mrs. Magillicuddy, coming up close to him, with an air of confidential familiarity, while he retreated before her advances : " that's Counsellor Conway Townsend Crawley, nephew to Miss Crawley, and son to the Portrieve of Dunore. Och ! that's the young man will prosper, why ! FLORENCE MACARTHY. 225 Mark my words, and you'll see them come to pass yet.'* This was said with an oracular nod of the head, and peculiar emphasis of voice : but the countenance of Mrs. Magillicuddy gave no superadded force to her prophetic words. It was indeed pretty well concealed by her broad brimmed hat, her gi-een spectacles, the worsted stocking bound round her rheumatic jaw, and the wet brown paper, that covered her broken nose. While this short dialogue was carrying on^ the eyes of the Commodore were glancing rapidly from the features of the late baron, to the face and figure of his young companion ; but when De Vere turned round to him, he abruptly averted them, and took up a parchment label, which hung from one of the massive brass handles of the antiquated japan chest: the inscription on it was curious, and ran as follows: " This tra- veUing chest was presented by his most L S 226 FLORENCE MACARTHY. sacred Majesty Charles the Second, to Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland, who bequeathed it at her death in 1691 to her kinswoman, the Lady Geraldine Fitzadelm: she married in I70I Tho- mas, Marquis of Dunore, her uterine cousin ; and died, leaving issue an only daughter, 1730." " I wonder this most valuable relic is suffered to remain here," obsei*ved the Commodore. "Och," said Mrs. Magillicuddy, who seemed all care and eye to every thing that was said and looked, " och, when every thing went to sixes and sevens, why ! and all was ruination, the Black Baron dying in a garret in Dublin, and his brother that came to the title, abroad, it was little regard was paid to the likes of that. But it is now to go by favour of Mr. Crawley, who owns all, to Dun- ore, as a present to the Marchioness, whenever she comes over: there's the matting to pack it. They say it was FLORENCE MACARTHY. 22/ in it, that was found the family tree, which proved the ruined Fitzadelms to be the heirs in the female line, in de- fault of male issue, to the title and estate of Dunore; and to this day there is some curious papers in it. Perhaps, gentlemen, yez would like to see them ?" *'Oh very much!" was the instantane- ous reply of both. Mrs. Magillicuddy now foraged to the very bottom of her capacious pockets for the keys, crying, " Weary on them, for keys, they are always missing when wanting;" then suddenly recollecting she had hung them in a closet, she scuded off to fetch them. The strangers again turned their ob- servation to the portraits of the Lords Fitzadelm: but Mrs. Magillicuddy had been scarcely more than two or three minutes gone, when a female voice, with all the flute-like sweetness of the tones of youth, breathed a few clear melo- dious notes ©n their ear, as if some skilful musician was running a prelusive 228 FLORENCE MACARTHCY. division^ with equal taste and judgments but the sounds, prolonged for a minute or two, were as abruptly dropped as begun, and all was silence. The rude war-cry of the Fitzadelms, or the howl of the long extirpated Irisli wolf, would have excited less amazement in the minds of the auditors, than these sweet and most musical strains. By their ex- pressive looks, they seemed almost to doubt their own senses ; and they re- mained for a considerable time silent, and in the attitude of eager and expect- ing attention. Nearly a quarter of an hour thus elapsed, yet all remained silent. '^ Did ever mortal mixture of earth's mould breathe forth such sweet en- chanting harmony ?" asked De Vere, entranced.. " It seemed to come in a direct line behind that fragment of tapestry,** observed the Commodore ; and he im- mediately raised the remains of what Florence macarthy. 22^ once had been a handsome specimen of the Gobehn manufacture. It had, con- cealed, a small iron door, above which .was written, " Evidence chamber." The strangers both looked alternately, and for a considerable time, through the spacious key-hole, and discovered a small rude chamber, dimly lighted by a loop-hole, and perfectly empty. After some time^ they looked out of the win- dow, which Mrs»Magillicuddy had called King James's, and found that this Evi- dence Chamber formed part of the ori- ginal building called Desmond's tower. Their joint thought was to leap out of the window, and to examine this tower, which appeared to lie open, and to be partly in ruins. But the steepness of the rocks rendered such an attempt im- possible. The shortest and surest way to dis- cover the mystery (for a mystery of the most romantic nature it was asserted to be by De Vere), was to make inquiries 230 FLORENCE MACARTHY. of the old housekeeper relative to the sonsrstress of these ruined towers. But Mrs. Magillicuddy, though twenty mi- nutes had elapsed, had not returned j and when they went to seek her, to their amazement and consternation, they found the door locked or bolted, and beyond their power to open or force. De Vere threw himself on the broken chair lately occupied by the house- keeper, in an ecstasy of emotion ; his companion, on the contrary, displeased, annoyed, and irritated, as much as asto- nished, sought round the room for some mode of egress, in impatience and per- turbation. A door on one side opened into a dark closet : two windows oppo- site to the king's casement he tried with considerable strength ; but they were nailed down. A third, more manageable, was opened with difficulty; for the pul- lies were broken. It was, however, opened, and supported by a broken pic- ture-frame. It communicated with one FLORE>JCE MACARTHY. 231 of the ruined terraces hanging over tiie river, and cut out of the rock. The hight, which was inconsiderable, was easily cleared ; but the way to the front of the house vvas intricate, and not easily found. The narrow irregular path was choaked with briars, with the stumps of old trees recently cut down, and lying at full length, and with frag- ments of the original ruined building, which had fallen in abundance. As they proceeded through the en- tangled screen of underwood and briers, they caught a view of a man seated in a cot (6), on the river near a salmon weir; whose curious construction, with the picturesque appearance of the pa- tient fisherman himself, would at any other time have attracted their atten- tion. It was now, however, chiefly given to their obstructed and difficult path-way, by which they at last reached the front of this irregular and stupend- ous mansion. §35 FLORENCE MACARTHY. To their increased amazement, theV found the hall-door again barred up* Every mode of ingress seemed closed, as when they had first approached it. Their chaise and its driver had alike disappeared ; and the little Kerry horse, with the Commodore's valise strapped on his back, was fastened to a tree, and stood peaceably grazing within the length of his bridle ; while the port- manteau of De Vere was placed near it, on a clump of rock. The travellers remained for a moment looking at each other in silence; tillDe Vere burst into a fit of laughter, nothing less than the ebullition of gaiety. It was almost hysterical, and the pure effect of over-excitement : when it had in some degree subsided, he said — " So, this is indeed th^ delightful * land of faery,' which Spencer has de- scribed, in which he wrote, in which he was inspired.— Here his Gloriana seems still to fling about her spells ; and FLORENCE MACARTHY. 233^^ new adventures appear in ready pre- paration for other Sir Calidores and Sir Tristrams, than those of his creation." " Had we not better," said the Com- modore, who for the moment was stunned by the event, which, thouglr not of superhuman agency, appeared in his mind scarcely less comprehensible; — " had we not better go to the porter's lodge, and make some inquiries there ?'* " Oh ! certainly. But you must not be surprised if the lodge, the portress, and the idiot, are all vanished, together with Mrs, Magillicuddy, Mr. Owny, and the chaise and horses." The lodge, the portress, and the idiot, remained, however, as they left them. The old woman was seated up- right in her wretched bed, with a red petticoat over her shoulders, and em- ployed in knitting. To the repeated questions of the travellers, she replied " Nil gaeliga," I have no English,* * Literally, the language of the stranger* '234 FLORENCE MACARTHY. Nor could either of them obtain the least information from her. Either she did not, or would not understand them. The idiot, when they approached her, laughed and fled. Hopeless of information, they walked back to the spot where the horse and their light luggage had been left. They re-examined the exterior of the house ; they went round to the postern door by which the driver had entered, and which with some difficulty they discovered: it was padlocked on the outside; and to their repeated knocks the echoes of the sound alone were returned. There was something peculiarly singular, and al- most laughably pantomimic in this ad- venture, which amused, though almost provoked the Commodore ; while it de- fied conjecture to detect the cause of its occurrence. He had reason to believe that his name, person, and very existence, were unknown in Ireland ; yet the league of the old woman and driver FLORENCE MACARTHY. 235 could not be without object, nor the whole event without motive : it was evidently unconnected with any sordid or dishonest view. The housekeeper had not been remunerated for her trou- ble, nor the driver for his horses or at- tendance. Rapid in his silent cogita- tions, and quick in his decisions, he at once determined that the object of this farcical embrogleo was the fanciful and accomplished ideologist, with whom he was accidentally connected ; and giv- ing fiirther conjecture to the winds, after a few minutes reverie, he proposed that they should hail the fisherman at the weir, engage him to convey the younger traveller down the river, as near as he could to Doneraile or Butte- vant : for himself, as the day advanc- ed, and time pressed, he determined to mount his Kerry steed, and proceed by the mountain route, he had obtained from Owny, to Dunore. To all these arrangements De Vere 236 FLORENCE MACARTHY. passively assented ; and while the Com- modore^ with the activity of boyhood, bounded down the precipitous rocks to beckon the fisherman towards the shore, his companion, with folded arms, and eyes fixed upon vacuity, stood the image of one, in whom *' Function is smothered in surprise, And nothing is but what is not.'* The events of his journey had com- bined themselves in his mind under the influence of the most morbid imagi- nation, and the most inordinate amour- propre. His vanity and his fancy had worked out a series of associations and conjectures most favourable to the cha- racter of both. Every event, every ob- ject, however unimportant in itself, was by him wrought into a miracle, or me- ditated into a mystery, through the me- dium of his singularly organized mind : *^ from trifles, light as air," he had the un- happy power of constructing fabrications of ideal pain and pleasure, of flattering or FLORENCE MACARTHY. 23f mortifying importance; which rendered him the victim of delusion, and covered the prosperous reahties of his life with shadows, ahke illusory and unsubstantial. The perverseness of his journey from Dublin, the counteraction of his inten- tions with respect to his route, the im- pish laugh in the ruins of Holy-cross, his unintentional visit to Court Fitz- adelm, the invisible musician of the Evidence Chamber, his reiterated con- tact with the formidable Mrs. Mag'illi- cuddy, the youthful figure of the female associated with her at Lis-na-sleugh, the masquerading mysteiy of the driver, and, above all, the league evidently sub- sisting between the old woman and Owny, and their sudden disappearance from Court Fitzadelm, unremunerated for their respective services, all these incidents, so strange, so unexpected, combined themselves in his medita- tions, till he believed himself caught in a thraldom, like that, " Dove in dolqe 238 FLORENCE MACARTMY. prigione Rinaldo stassi," the object of some deep-laid project, of some ro- mantic design, in which there would be little to mortify his vanity or to disap- point his feelings. The scenes he now inhabited were to him all fairy-land, and he believed that the Armida was not far distant, whose *' Teneri sdegni, e placide e tranquille Repulse, cari vrzzi, et liete pad Sorrizi, paroletti," were to compensate to him for the dis- gusting agents she had employed in her service, and who had by no means " done their spiriting gently." He had resolved, in his own mind, to take up his residence in some town or villagce in the neiohbourliood of the Court, and there await the issue of an adventure, of which he alone could be the object. Notwithstanding his very ardent admiration for his compagnon de voyage ; the personal distinction, and almost heroical cast of character and FLORENCE MACARTHY. 239 physiognomy of the extraordinary stran- ger, it never once suggested itself that he also might have had some share in this extraordinary event. He was alone the hero of his own thoughts ; and, with the hypochondriacal egotism of Rous- seau, he believed himself an object of occupation, of amity or enmity to the \yhole world. This train of thought was, however, soon broken, by the return of the Com- modore, followed by the fisherman, who took charge of his valise, and stowed it in his little iDoat. He had engaged to row the younger traveller down the river, to its confluence with the Avon- beg, which ran by Doneraile, and which was the oft celebrated Mulla of Spencer, where " On each willow hung a muse's lyre." But the curiosity and interest excited by Kilcoleman, the Mole, and the Mulla, were now absorbed in feelings of a pro- founder emotion; and his approximation ■240 FLORENCE MACARTHV. to the shrine of his pilgrimage no longer awakened transports in the mind of the fanciful pilgrim. As the travellers walked together to the river s side, the elder observed, " I have been making inquiries from the fisherman; and it appears that an old woman, who had the epithet ofprofestant Moll, and kept the mansion, where there is nothing to tempt to depredation, has been dead for some weeks. The house is unoccu- pied, and the approach by which we entered is the least frequented, there being several others, all open : Mrs. Magillicuddy is, therefore, some Ariel * correspondent to command,' of a con- cealed Prospero." *' Ariel!" reiterated De Vere ; " t\iQ foul witch Sycorax, rather." " Now, plaze your honor," said the boatman, as he drew up his boat close to a ruin, which he called the battery. With some difficulty De Vere was placed in the cot^ which was one of th« FLOKENCE MACARTIIY. 241 smallest construction known by that name. The boatman, with his spoon- shaped paddle fixed against a jutting rock, for a point cCappui, was pushing off from the muddy shore: the figure of the Commodore was thrown into muscular exertion, in endeavouring to assist, and the cot was just afloat, as he seized the extended hand of his un- known fellow-traveller. " We part," said De Vere, in a tone of emotion, " almost as we met." " Almost," replied the Commodore, returning the strong pressure of his hand, with a grasp still stronger, but in a tone not firmer. ^' Farewell, farewell !" repeated De V^ere, as the boat cleared the banks; and he moved his hat, with an air of almost affectionate respect, half repressed by liabitual apathy. "Farewell !" returned the Commodore, with a mingled expression of courteous- ness and cordiality, returning the salute. VOL. ]. M 242 FLORENCE MACARTHY. The little bark crlided into the centre o of the sunny stream. He whom it left behind in scenes so dreary ascended the point of a rock, which commanded the winding of the river : his eye pur- sued the cotj as its paddles threw up tlie sparkling waters, and as it appeared and disappeared amongst the projecting clifi's, or glided under the shady alders, whichfringethe lovely shores of theAvon- Fionne. It soon became a black speck in the water, and finally disappeared in a bend of the river. The Commodore, with a short involuntary sigh, turned away his dazzled gaze. The gloomy, desolate demesne of Court Fitzadelm spread around him, — he the sole occupant. *' Alone !" he exclaimed aloud, — " once more alone, and where ?" He glanced eagerly, anxiously, almost wildly round him. His respiration was short: emo- tions, long repressed, seemed to find vent: he threw up his eyes to heaven, and clasped liis hands, almost conviil- FLOKENCE MACARTHY. 245 sively: years and scenes of distance and remoteness passed, in thick coming visions, before his memory; then by a sudden effort of voHtion, as one *' Not framed, upon the torture of the mind To lie in restless ecstasy," lie changed at once his mood of thought, and elevated position, and descending rapidly from the rock, sprung upon his horse, galloped towards the dismantled park wall, cleared it at a leap, and pro- ceeded on his way to the Peninsula of Dunore. Whatever was the mission of this mysterious visitant, to a country for which he evinced so deep an interest, he seemed to forbid time's anticipations of his views; and in all things, and upon all occasions, appeared habitually to act as one who thought "The flighty purpose never is o'ertook, Unless the d«cd go with it." M 2 244 FLORENCE MACARTHY. CHAPTER V. I never may believe those antique fables, These fairy toys. Midsummer'* s Night's Dream. But I have cause to pry into this pedant." Taming of the Shrew. The Commodore pursued his solitary way to the peninsula of Dunore with as much rapidity as the nature of his mountainous road would admit. He had enquired the route both from the baceah and the driver; and to their various, and not always accordant in- structions, clearly arranged in his me- mory, he added his own judgment, and such information as he could occasionally glean from the passengers he accident- ally met.* These, however, were few; * In Ireland, it is extremely difficult, to learn either the way or the distance, in performing a FLORENCE MACARTHV. 245 for as he proceeded among the moun- tains, by roads only passable during the autumn, the population was so scanty^ that in the course of many miles, ambled over by his admirable little steed, he met only with three individuals ; a boy carrying a couple of chickens for sale to a distant market, a woman with a few hanks of yarn, proceeding to the same rustic emporium, and a priest, bearing the viaticum to a dying penitent, vvhose temptations to err, amid scenes of such privation, could not have been very numerous. > The priest courteously joined, and accompanied the lonely traveller on his route ; and might have been deemed an acceptable Cicerone, in a region, whichj however rude and savage, was not journey by the cross-roads, or raouttain paths. In remoie places, it may be literally said, that "the way lengthens as we go," sioce every one, of whom inquiries are made, adds a mile or two to the original distance. M 3 '246 FLORENCE MACARTHY. wholly destitute of something hke classic interest. In the dialect and accent of the province, intermingled with a few French and a few Latin words, he pointed out, here a Cromlech, and there a cairne, a Danish fort, or a monastic ruin, and added such scraps of anti- quarian tradition, as are to be found, even in the remotest places in Ireland; where the superstition of the people lends implicit faith to all that is marked by miracle, and their national vanity to all that is stamped with antiquity. The legend of St. Olan's cap was repeated, as a distant view was caught of St. Olan's abbey. Its miraculous efficacy, still acknowledged by the peasantry, and the belief of its having returned of itself to the spot from whence it had been re- moved (though composed of an im- mense hollow stone), was circumstan- tially recorded. One of the defile castles of the great Macarthies, called The Fairy's Rock, or Carig-na-Souky, was FLORENCE MACARTHY. 247 pointed out, in the distance, on the summit of a cHff, which hung above the ravine it guarded. The ruins of St. Gobnate's church, rather guessed at than clearly distinguished, introduced the legend of that fair saint, with the episode of the history of the stone cross, still extant among its ruins, where a . far-famed rood of the Virgin was once kept, and where still a stone, fixed near it, in the earth, exhibits the im- pression of many a penitent pilgrim's bended knee. For the rest, the com- municative and courteous priest gave the Commodore some excellent instructions as to his fliture route, and lamented that he had not taken a road, which, though more circuitous by nearly a day's journey, was far less intricate than the one he had chosen. This he asserted to be a bird's flight route from the north to the south of the county, a bridle- way or car-track, cut, time immemorial, by the mountaineers, for the purposes M 4 248 FLORENCE MACARTllY. of rural economy, and communicating among the neighbouring districts. At the conjunction of four of these mountain defiles, marked by a large stone cross, placed over a holy-well, hung with ragged offerings, the priest departed, with a cordial benedicite and a bow, learned in his French college, some thirty years before, and not yet forgotten in the wild scenes, where his laborious and ill-requited calling placed him. The traveller, again left alone, pro- ceeded by the direction of the priest to a little mountainous village, called the Town of the Beloved, in Irish, Bally-na- vourna. It was silent and solitary, and seemed to sleep in the noon-tide sun- shine, as if placed there only to form a pretty feature in the romantic scenery. Its inhabitants were all abroad, getting in their scanty harvest in a neighbouring valley. When the Commodore, after resting and bating his horse at a little FLORENCE MACAUTHY. 249 public house, lost sight of its moss- covered roofs and curling smoke, no further vestige of human habitation cheered his sight for many hours. Meantime his road became every mo- ment more rugged, wild, and difficult. The extraordinary instinct of the little animal upon which he was mounted, and which seemed as peculiarly or- ganized for the region it occupied, as the camel for the desert, or the rein-deer for the snows of Lapland, excited an ad- miration not unmixed with gratitude and respect. The traveller, rather abandoning himself to its guidance, than attempting to direct its steps, fearlessly permit- ted it to climb among the rugged rocks, to skim over trembling bogs and sloughy morasses ; and it still preserved its pleasant ambling pace, where other horses would have sunk knee-deep, and was able to proceed where they would have perished. The sun was now hastening to its M 5 230 FLORENCE MACARTHY. goal; the few birds of prey which in- habit these elevated regions were re- turning to their eyries among the rocks. The traveller had still to seek the land- marks which the priest had described as designating his descent to the Peninsula of Dunore. He indeed caught glimpses of the Atlantic ocean, through the inter- stices of the mountains ; but the even- ing shadows were gathering in vapours beneath his feet, as he descended, and yet he approached not the mountain's base. That he had missed his way, and might be benighted in a region so desolate, had suggested itself as a pos- sibility ; and he alighted for the purpose of ascending an high cliff, which seemed to command a vast extent of prospect, to ascertain his exact position. As he was in the act of fastening his horse's bridle to the stump of a furze bush, sounds, measured and mechanical, met his ear, and spoke of human proximity : they came from a little glen, near whose FLORENCE MACARTHY. 251 entrance he stood. A narrow bridle- way, leading through a deep ravine, presented itself: on the summit of a stupendous rock, some fragments of a ruin vere visible ; and beneath, seated in a sort of dry dyke, appeared a man occupied in scraping away with a sharp flint the lichens and mosses which in- crusted a large angular stone, in order to decypher an inscription which he was endeavouring to copy. The cha- racters were Irish, and beneath ap- peared a translation, in not very pure Latin, intimating that " near to this PLACE, AT THE CASTLE OF MACARTHY, THE STRANGER WILL RECEIVE AN HUN- DRED THOUSAND WELCOMES."* The person wh© was engaged in this antiquarian occupation was so intent upon his task, that the approach of the Commodore was unobserved ; who stood * A similar inscription was found in a ditch near the ruined castle of the Macswioes iu Munster. 252 FLORENCE MACARTHY. gazing upon him with a look of sin- gular and marked expression, as if he too was penetrating through the veil of time, and gradually recalling traces, and de- cyphering lineaments, which its moul- dering finger had touched with decay, but not wholly defaced. There was an emotion of tenderness softening his countenance, as he gazed, foreign to its habitual exprcsssion; and when, leaa- ing forward, he read aloud the La- tin, and added the comment of — '^ I believe there is a false concord in that sentence," his full, deep voice, wanted its usual tone of firmness and decision. As he spoke, the flint dropped fi-om the hand of the solitary sage, and he remained for a moment, in the motionless position of surjmse, tinc- tured with apprehension; as if some " airy voice, that syllables men's names," had suddenly addressed his unexpect- ins; ear. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 253 The traveller saw the effect he had produced, and endeavoured to counter- act its consequences, by assuming a careless and familiar tone. " I beg your pardon," he said, " for this intrusion on your learned researches : I am a stranger in this country, and I fear have lost my way : I wish to reach the town of Dunore before night- fall, and you will render me a service in pointing out to me the nearest road." This speech, evidently, recalled cou- rage and confidence in him to whom it was addressed ; and he slowly arose, putting the flint into his pocket, a cork into the ink-horn pendent from his but- ton hole, and fastening a roll of paper and a pen into the cord of his hat, while he repeated, *' A false concord! sure enough; a stranger in the country !" He was now on his feet : the Commodore stood op- posite to him, with his back to the setting sun, his figure cutting darkly 254 FLORENCE MACARTHY. against its brightness; his face and features in deep shadow. The yellow light of the illuminated horizon bronzed the grotesque figure of him on whom he gazed. This person was of a low and clumsy stature; but, though evi- dently passed the middle age of life, was still strong and hale: the deep crim- son of health burned on his slightly- furrowed cheek; and his countenance gave indications of mingled simplicity and acuteness. There was also a certain indescribable quaint, solemn, dogma- tizing importance in his look, and a wandering wildness in his eye, which were curiously and strongly contrasted; while his costume added to the charac- teristic peculiarity of his person. A very small wig of goat's hair surmount- ed a few thick, bushy grey locks, which curled round his short neck, for his shirt collar was thrown open ; and three coats of frize, of various colours, ex- cluded, like the cloak of the fabulist, FLORENCE MACARTHY. 2Sa both wind and sun. As he now stood, affecting to button up these coats, one after the other, he was, in fact, earnestly- engaged in endeavouring to make out the traveller's features, on which his eyes were intently fixed. "It's long," he at lastobserved, "since your honor was in these parts." " I never have been in this district before," was the reply. '* Haven't you. Sir? then I renage* my remark, and requist your honor's pardon. I'll shew you the way to Dun- ore, Sir. I'm going it every rood myself, and lives a donny taste beyont it." As he spoke, he shifted his position, with the intention of obtaining a better view of the stranger's face ; but appa- rently, in order to draw forth a ragged colt from a rocky shed : the Commodore at the same moment shifted his, and led forward his Kerry steed. " That's a reyal asturiones," observ- ed his new companion, "and comes of a * Renage, revoke, recall. 256 FLORENCE MACARTHY. breed of jennets brought over by i(s from Spain, on our way from Phoenicia: they are named Hobillers by Paulus Jovius, and Automates by Tournefort: they are of pace aisy, and in ambling wondrous swift. Its httle the Enj^hsh Edward would have done at the siege of Calais, but for them same Irish Hoblers. Not that we were beholden to the hkes of them ; having our war steeds and our chariots. " Infroenant alii currus aut corpora saltti Subjiciant in eqiios."— — — He was now mounted on the back of his own steed; and his eyes were turned with a fixed look on the Com- modore's marked profile, who rode with his head somewhat averted beside him : the view he thus obtained was dim and uncertain; but still it seemed to fix his attention: there was, as he gazed, an uncertainty in his look; a something of slow, doubtful, vague recognition, as if the faint and indistinct FLORENCE MACARTHY. 25^ resemblance of some features, once known, crossed his apprehension ; now lost, now caught; determined by a light, a shadow, a motion, and flitting as soon as seized. As they descended into the deepening twilight of the glen, the obscurity of half-forgotten traits thick- ened into darkness ; the clue of associa- tion was lost, and the hitherto silent spectator withdrew his eyes, with the simple observation, " I could swear upon my soul's save- tie, that I had seen your honor afore. Sir: I disremembers me where, but that cometh of my memory, which faileth me for present things; forgetting by times that my own name is Terence Oge O'Leary, which is remarkable." "OXeary !" re-echoed the Commo- dore, in a voice of almost boyish softness and extreme emotion. "Who calls?" exclaimed O'Leary, wildly, and suddenly checking his horse: '' Who calls?" he repeated, turning full ■258 FLORENCE MACARTHY. round, and throwing his strained and wandering eye in every direction. " It was I who repeated the name you announced to me, Mr.O'Leary," said the Commodore, in an altered and care- less tone. " Was it your honor?" resumed O'Leary, after a pause, and a deep inspi- ration. " I thought it sounded hke a voice I sometimes hear close in my ear, Sir, when I am alone in the mountains. They tell me 'tis my fetch;* but I have heard it these twenty years, and am to the fore still — its no fetch," he added with a deep sigh : " its only an ould re- membrance." His head sunk upon his breast, and they proceeded in silence to the edge of the glen. It terminated abruptly in a sloping surface of rich and mossy turf, * It is a common superstition in Ireland to be- lieTC that a mysterious voice heard in lonely places gives notice of approaching death — it is called a Jeichc FLORENCE MACARTHY. 259 beyond which the sea-bathed track of land, called the Peninsula of Dunore, spread at the mountain's foot, extending to the ocean, undulating with green slopes, intermingled with rocky ele- vations, and combining many views of maritime and inland scenery, emi- nently beautiful and romantic. The descent, however, was so steep, and so difficult from its smoothness, that the travellers alighted and led their, horses. "There forenent you lieth Dunore, as it is called now" said O'Leary, with emphasis ; " one of the tongues of land on the coast of Munster, so named by one Mr. Camden, a Saxon churl. But its true and ancient name is Dangan- ny-Carthy, the fastness of the Macar-- thies, the kings of the country round, of the Coriandri and the Desmondii, and blood relations to the Tyrian Hercules^ every mother's son of them." " Indeed! that is an illustrious de-" scent!" :^bO FLORENCE MACARTHY. *' Troth, and deed: for was not Ma lech-Cartha, the King of Tyre, says ould Bochart, which manes Malachi Macar- thy; that's plain, I beheve, any how: and defies Geraldus Cambrensis, Dr. Ledwich, , and Sir Richard Musgrave, with ould Saxo Grammaticus to boot, to deny that: and would have been kings of Desmond to this very hour, if rnght was afore might, and only for the en- ticing bates of the English to entrap them in their policies, their plots, and their complots— their playing fast and loose, their English earldoms and Eng lish patents, their grantees, and protec- tees, and governorships, until the Macar- thiesdegendered with the rest, from their ancestors, and never rose to great power from that day forth — that's Florence Macarthy I mane, the fogh-na-gall, the Englishman's hate,* elected to the style and authority of jNIacarthy More, 1^.99? even after he descended to be * The foe of the strancer. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 26l made Earl Clancare, anno 1565, Elizab. reginse six." "Florence?" said the Commodore, dwelling with a peculiar expression on the name. " Florence then is a name given both to the males and females of this illustrious family?" " It is, piaze your honor, and comes from the Spanish name Florianus, which the Macarthies brought with them on their way from Scythia, as also the O' Sullivan Bears." " It is an Italian name also ; and one Florianus del Campo has, I believe, written on thi« country," said the Com- modore. " He has. Sir, belied the land, hke the rest of them," replied O'Leary. " The Macarthies followed the for- tunes of the house of Stuart, I believe, Mr. O'Leary; at least I have some where read so." " They did. Sir, to their great moan. Of all the regiments after the surrender S62 FLORENCE MACARTHY. of Conde, Macarthy's alone refused en- tering the Spanish service, till their co- lonel got his dismissal in France, from the ra'al King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland." " They have, however, pince distin- o-uished themselves in th6 service of Spain ; and even in the popular cause of South America." *' They have. Sir, and every where but at home, God help'em, for a raison they have." " Do any of the family nowjremain in this county?" » "None at all," said O'Leary; and then, after a pause, added, *' baring the Bhan Tierna, who isn't in it at this present." "Ha! I have heard that epithet, ac- companied by blessings in the mountains of the Galties: to whom does it belong ?" " To whom does it belong, is it — why, to whom should it, but to the grate ould ancient Countess of Clancare, FLORENCE MACARTHY. 263 anno 1565, Elizabethce 6. — But sure, what signifies talking about them now. You may see it all in my Genealogical History of the Macarthy More, written in the Phoenician tongue, vulgo-vocato Irish ; it being more precise and copious than the English, and other barbarous dialects; also sharp and sententious, offering great occasion to quick apo- thegm and proper allusion ; the only pure dialect remaining of the seventy-two languages of Babel, introduced into Ireland by Finiusa Tarsa, the son of Magog, King of Scythia, from his own seminary of Magh-Seanair, near Athens; and is to this day the ould language, spoken by Hannibal, Hamilcar, Asdru- bal, and the Macarthies More of county , Cork and Kerry, anciently Desmond — and taught in my seminary, in the ould preceptory of Monaster-ny-oriel, accord- ing to the Bethluisnion-na-Ogma, with Latin and Greek, and other modem dialects." ^64 FLORENCE MACARTHV. "And yet,^' said the Commodore, with an half-repressed smile, "there arc some sceptics of opinion that there has always existed a perfect identity between the Irish and the Anglo-Saxon; that in fact the Irish received their ancient alphabet from the Britons; and that their pretensions to an eastern ori- gin is a groundless notion, generated in ignorance, and idly cherished by a mistaken patriotism, v/hich might be better directed." " Oh mmlherl" exclaimed O'Leary, clasping his hands : " the thieves of the world !" " O tribus Anticyris caput insanabilo I" Then suddenly mounting his horse, with a look of mingled indignation and pity, directed at his unknown com- panion, he added, pointing to a road which wound down a woody hill, " there's your way^ Sir, to Dunore town- If you crass the river at Bally dab bridge, you can't miss it.'* FLORENCE ^UCARTHY. 265 He was trotting off, muttering to himself some broken exclamations in Irish, when the Commodore, who also had resumed his horse, followed him, and said, " In detailing the opinions of others, I do not give them to you, Mr. O'Leary, as my own: you are to observe, I speak not to dictate, but to learn." " Why then. Sir," said O'Leary, soothed by this conciliatory observation, *• I'd be loath to see the likes of you, or any gentleman, enticed by them traitors of the world, who come as espials on the land, and go forth to defame it ; for sorrow one of them English but hate Ireland in their hearts : and there's an ould saying in Irish, which manes, ^ keep clear of an Englishman, for he is on the watch to deceive you.' I wouldn't give a testoon* for the whole boiling'of them, * An old Spanish coin, once current iu Ireland, VOL. I. N 266 FLORENCE MACARTHY. troth, I wouldn't. The Irish not brought over by our Celtic Scytheau ancestors! Bachal essu !* they might as well take St. Patrick from us, and deny that the potatoe is the plant of the soil." " I am afraid, Mr. O'Leary, they would go near to do both." '^ Oh ! very well, Sir : I see you are one of them that would go ould Strabo bn us, and Saxo Grammaticus, and Dr^ Ledwich." " Nay, I speak as one ignorant of the subject, and desirous to obtain informa- tion. If there were now, as formerly, such seminaries to study in as the school of Ross Alethri,-^ or such sages to study under as those sought for by the learned JMonk Ealfrith, who came from Britain for that purpose, I should like to become his disciple." * The name of the celebrated staff of St. Patrick. An usual csclaraation. + The Field of Pilgrimage. FLORENCE MACARTHY. SGf *' To say nothing," said O'Leary, ^^of Agelbert, bishop of the west Saxons, Alfred, king of Northumberland, and the blessed father Egbert, and the saintly brother Wigbert, who for the love of the celestial Isle, quit their kin and country, and retired to Ireland to study." *'Butwhat eell," asked the Commock)re with emphasis, "what preceptory, what academy is there now open to the lover of Irish antiquities, where learning and retirement could for an adequate com- pensation be obtained together, by a stranger who thirsts for both ?" " There is," said O'Leary, after a short pause, and in a voice full of im- portance, as he drew up close to his companion — ^' -there is, plaze your honor, a place called the Monaster-ny- oriei ; an old ruin, but a larned retreat. And if there was a gentleman, who, for the love of Ireland, would put up with homely fare, and be satisfied to be how- N 2 26'8 FLORENCE MACARTHY. sel'd with an oldSENACHY,or genealogist^ why then " *' O'Leary," said the Commodore, laying his hand famiharly on his shoulder, and eagerly interrupting him, " should you receive me as your guest and disciple, you will find me not diffi- cult to accommodate: my ostensible bu- siness in this barony is with a certain Mr. Crawley, but — " " With who ?" asked O'Leaiy, recoil- ing in horror, " with one Crawley, did you say ?" " With Mr. Crawley of Mount Crawley." " With hi?)i! the land pirate! then. Sir, you cannot housel with me, and so I wish you luck." With these words, O'Leary, spurring on his little nag, trotted abruptly down a craggy glen, and disappeared. The Commodore stood looking after him till he was out of sight, and marked the path he had taken. Then with a deep- FLORENCE MACARTHY. §69 drawn inspiration, as one, who after some enforced restraint, breathes freely, and with a smile almost characterized by sadness, he bent his course towards the town of Dunore. As the descent of the mountain softened into an undulating valley, the approach to this town became extremely picturesque. The conjunction of many mountain streams formed a considerable river, which flowed under the single arch of an antique bridge, covered with ivy, which stood at the entrance of a poor, but pretty village, announced by a turf carrier in answer to the Commo- dore's question, to be Ballydab. A rude bleak mountain, which oversha- dowed this village, and projected into the sea, formed a bold head land. At the distance of two Irish miles, the road joined the high road from Cork and Dublin, and wound to the left of a group of new unfinished houses, the embryo of some rising town, haply in- N 3 2^0 FLORENCE MACARTHY. tended to eclipse the fading glory of the decaying and ancient village of Ballydab. Within a mile of Dunore^ the road pro- ceeded by the edge of the bay, at the head of which the town stood, and then appeared to wind along the coast. The town itself (once of note, and of historical interest), was appoached by a stately avenue of trees. Its ancient, but well preserved castle, terminated its narrow street, and presented a striking feature in a scene now tinted by the silvery rays of a cloudless moon. The castle casements were lighted with a fairy illu- mination by its beams ; and the rippling tide, tinged with the same colouring, gave a gentle motion to a few fishing vessels, which alone occupied a port, once of considerable trade with the op- posite shores of Spain, Portugal, and Italy. As the Commodore rode up the street? it was already still and noiseless, save the barking of a dog, which the echo FLORENCE MACARTHY. 271 of the horse's feet had roused. Two lanterns in the front of two opposite houses marked the site of the rival inns. That to the right had a new and gaudy sign flaunting in the breeze; and, under a profusion of gilding, yellow ochre, and whitelead, was written The new Du- NORE Arms. The faded sign of its inferior com- petitor exhibited a dancing bear, scarcely distinguishable, under which was written, in large fresh black letters. This is the real ould Marquis of Dunore. The Commodore chose the real old Marquis ; and a tolerable sup- per, and a clean bed, left him nothing to repent of his election. The next morn- ing, fatigued by his mountain ride, he rose late ; and wais surprised to find upon his breakfast table a note,' directed " To his honour, the gentleman at the ould Bear, ivho arrived last night, these,'' He opened and read as follows : — N 4 2/2 FLORENCE MACAItTHY. Right honorable, According to the advisement of my better judgment, I herein comphe with your requist this tyme, in regard of the lodgement in the Friar s room ; videlicet Fra Denis O'Sullivan, superior of the order, now in Portugal, via Cork, where he bides at this present writing, pending the visitation. He being likely to put the autumn over in foreign parts, the place thereby being vaquent, the floor clean sanded, and the stone belted window giving on the sea-coast, ill be- fitting your honor howsomever, or your likes, being righte worthie of Dunore Castle, which is nothing to nobody, sithe your honor think it fit. Touch- inge the pintion thereof, should your honor consent to housel with me, it shall be left to your honor s liberalities ; the lucre of gain, but little weighing ; and if there be juste cause of com- playnte touchinge ye unruliness of my FLORENCE MACARTHY. 273 Scholars, or any rabblement on the part of them young but larned runagates, they shall, on your honor's so deposing before me, their plagosus Orbihus, un- dergoe chastisement in due austeritie: so praying an answer forthwith, I remaine. With humble commendations. Your honor's dutiful servant, Terentius Oge O'Leary. From my Preceptortfy Monaster-ny.Oriel.^^ Whatever might have caused this sudden revolution in the sentiments of Mr. O'Leary, it evidently excited much pleasure in the person in whose favour it had occurred ; and on learning that one of O'Leary's academicians, or " larn- ed runagates" awaited an answer, he sent back a verbal one, intimating his * intention of riding over immediately to the Preceptoiy of Monaster-ny-Oriel, after he had taken his breakfast. On passing through the town, on his N 5 Sf4 FLORENCE MACARTHY. way to O'Leary's, the Commodore was struck, not only with the antiquity, but with the Spanish character of its archi- tecture. Many of the better sort of houses had stone balconies, with win- dows and door frames of dark marble. The church was dedicated to St. Ja^o de Compostello, and was raised (as an inscription on the gate indicated) by Florence Macarthy, Earl of Clancare, on his return from a pilgrimage to Gali- cia : it was called in Irish the church of the vow, and was afterwards largely en- dowed by a company of Spanish mer- chants, who had settled in Dunore, in the reign of Elizabeth. It was afterwards the protestant parish church, and became much decayed and ruinous. A stone inscription over a little pot-house, with a rose, carved in relief, gave the follow- ing quaint information : •' At the rose is the beste wine." " Anno 1563." The castle, raised on a rocky eleva- FLORENCE MACARTHY. 27^ tion, and looking down upon the town, had, in the course of centuries, lost no- thing of its feudal character. Massive and heavy, this ancient edifice formed a perfect parallelogram, with five flankers : its battlements, beltings, and coignes, were of hewn stone ; and its strength and magnitude were, as far back as Eli- zabeth, so formidable, that the queen was induced to think it too considerable an hold to belong to any Irish subject ; and the lords of the English council transmitted an order to stop the works, which the Macarthy More of that day was carrying on for its completion. Shortly after, the chief of that family, with many of its immediate branches, were placed under the ban of royal dis- pleasure. Forfeitures and deaths fol- lowed: some took refuge in Spain, the usual retreat of the persecuted Irish, and some in the less distinguished castles of their ancestors. The castle, town, and manor of Dunore, were given to 27^ FLORENCE MACARTHY. Hildebrand, first Viscount of Dunore, a connexion of the great Lord Boyle's, by grant of James the First. This Eng- hsh lord completed the ramparts, which, under his jurisdiction, were no longer causes of jealousy. He also planted the ancient bawn,* made a stately ave- nue of trees from the town to its portals, and placed above the arch of its en- trance, in letters cut in the stone, and still perfectly legible— " God's Providence Is my inheritance." He had also, like his great kinsman, Boyle, endeavoured to turn the ancient catholic town of DangOji-na-Cartht/ (now called Dunore, or the " golden fort") into a protestant colony (7). But * The Bawn was an inclosed piece of ground, reserved for purposes of recreation and exer. cise, answering to the modern lawn. SM'ift's Hamilton's bawn was the remains of (his Irish verger. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 277' the inquisitorial zeal with which this attempt was pursued defeated its intent, and persecution produced fanaticism where it meant to effect conversion. He had also expelled the friars of Monaster- ny-Oriel,one of the communities, which, like many others, still subsisting in Ire- land, had never been suppressed, and de- voted its revenue for the pin-money of his daughter-in-law ; * but still, from time to time, some of the order were found congregating among the ruins of the building, in obedience to the rules of the order, which forbid the entire dis- persion of its members. The first Viscount Dunore was the last of his family who had resided in the inheritance bestowed upon them by God's providence. One of his de- scendants, William, second Earl of Du- nore, had visited it in a tour to the * A similar act was committed by Boylcj Earl «f Cork, and for tbe »am6 purpose. 278 FLORENCE RIACARTHY. south, which he made during his vice- regency of Ireland, The present mar- quis, the eldest of two twin brothers, had early in life suffered his susceptible imagination to dwell on some affecting and curious relations of the ancient and actual state of Ireland. Impressions thus received, wrought on his mind with an influence proportioned to the un- happy malady which now first betrayed itself in many symptoms, of which his sympathy for Ireland, and his determi- nation to reside in what he perpetually called " his beautiful castle," were deem- ed by his mother and friends among the strongest. With the uncalculating im- petuosity of his disease, he had ordered immense sums of money to be expended in repairing and fitting what had be- come almost a ruin. Furniture, the most sumptuous and appropriate, had been sent from England ; and even wine and plate had arrived, and been stowed in the long-unused cellars and buttery of TLORENCE MACARTilY. 2/9 the castle. Its lord and suit were daily expected, when his disease declared it- self so unequivocally, that the promising but unfortunate young nobleman was placed in close confinement. Two years had elapsed since that event, and his mother, the Marchioness Dowager of DunOre, his sole guardian, and in whom centred the whole interest and in- fluence of the Dunore property, had re - cently proposed visiting the castle, in order to set up her second son. Lord Adelm, who was abroad, to represent the neighbouring borough of Glanna- crime ; but on some representations from her agent, Mr. Crawley, and her lawyer, counsellor Conwa}^ Townsend Crawley, his son, she had suddenly given up the intention. The castle, therefore, remained in statu quo, antique, superb, and desolate, such as may be found in every province of Ireland; the ancient residence of Irish chiefs, the quondam possession of 280 FLORENCE MACARTHY. English lords of the pale, the propeity of more recent patentees, the inherit- ance of English-Irish absentees, known only by name to the tenants they have never visited. The traveller paused a few moments before its walls, threw his eyes rapidly over the stately edifice, and then proceeded under its once fortified terrace, along the strand, to the monastic retreat of the learned O'Leary. Monaster-ny-Oriel was one of those ecclesiastical ruins, in which the south of Ireland abounds ; it was once of great extent, and was (in the terms of its charter) given to God and to St. John the Evangelist, by one of the chiefs of the Macarthy iamily. The windows and arches, still in preservation, were of beautiful gothic architecture, the walls of the choir remained, but it was roof- less: and in the newly thatched chaun- try of the blessed Virgin O'Leary held his academy, literally imaging Shakespear's description of a pedant keep- FLORENCE MACARTHY. 281 ing a school in a church. A tower on the verge of the ruins (once a small house for novices), hanging over the coast, was now called the Friary of St. John, where the order of the Dominicans was still kept up:* it was also the tenement now at O'Leary's disposal, through the kind- ness of its absent proprietor. Every where among the ruins, the tombs of rival chiefs were .visible through the wild shrubs and furze that half conceal- ed them. Here a '^gloria deo in ex- CELsis,' was raised for an English Boyle or Petty; there a * giste ici. — Dieu DE SON AME AIT MEflCI,' for SOme Norman de Barri, or de Grosse; and above all rose the high grey stone, that in the ancient Irish character pointed to the resting-place of Conal Macarthy More, the swift footed, reposing in the midst of those who had opposed, or those who had betrayed him. * There are raany friaries in Ireland, thus preserved bj the residence of one or two of the order, among tJie ruins of their ancient houses. 282 TLORENCE MACARTHY. This scenCj so solemn, even when tinged with the cheery lustre of the morning light, was most incongruously disturbed by the hum of confused and nasal murmurings, resembling the dis- cord of an ill-tuned bag-pipe. The ear of the traveller seemed to recognize this sound, once, perhaps, well known to him ; and directing his steps to the chauntry of the blessed Virgin, he per- ceived several students stretched upon the rank grass, before its high arched Saxon door-way : thus refreshing the picture of an Irish School, given by Campion in Queen Elizabeth's day. The ardent, but barefooted, disciple of the muses, noiv, as then, " grovelling on the earth, their hooks at their „y> noses, themselves lying prostrate ; and so chaunting out their lessons piece- meal." The breaking up of the academy took place as the Commodore approached it: a bevy of rough-headed students, with books as ragged as the^r habiliments. JLORENCE MACARTHY. 283 rushed forth at the sound of the horse's feet, and with hands shading their unco- vered faces from the sun, stood gazing in earnest surprise at the unexpected visi- tant : last of this singular group, fol- lowed O'Leary himself, in learned dish- abille : ' his customary suit,' an old great coat fastened with a wooden skew* er at his breast, the sleeves hanging unoccupied, Spanish-ivise, as he termed it; his wig laid aside, the shaven crown, of his head resembling the clerical ton- sure; a tattered Homer in one hand, and a slip of sallow in the other, with which he had been lately distributing some well-earned jo«7zc?/6jr to his pupils: thus exhibiting, in appearance, and in the important expression of his coun- tenance, an epitome of that order of persons once so numerous, and still far from extinct in Ireland, the hedge schoolmaster. O'Leary was learned in the antiquities and genealogies of the great Irish families, as an anci* 284 FLORENCE MACARTHY. ent* Senachy; an order, of which he be-= Ueved himself to be the sole representa- tive^credulous of her fables, and jealous of her ancient glory ; ardent in his feelings, fixed in his prejudices; hating the Bo- dei Sassoni or English churls, in pro- portion as he distrusted them; living only in the past, contemptuous of the * The Seanachaiahe* were antiquaries, gene- alogists, and historians ; they recorded remark- able events, and preserved the genealogies of their patron, in a kind of poetical stanza. — Each province prince, or chief, had a senacha; and we will venture to conjecture, that in each province there was a repository, for the collec- tions of the different Seanachaiahe belonging to it, •with the care of which an Ollamh-le-Seanacha was charged ; the ancient college of arms of Ulster is still maintained. Walker'' s Hist, of Irish Bards. * Tlie very common word, says Gen. Vallency, is peculiar to Ireland ; It is, indeed, daily used in the corruption of Shannos. — Och ! he has fine old Skanaos, or gld talk is frequently applied to, and family history, &c. Duald Mac Firbis, who was murdered at Dunslin in Sligo, A. D. 1670, closed the line of the hereditary antiquaries of that province, to whom it may be supposed that for one inspired ten thousand were possessed. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 285 pi'esent, and hopeless of the future; all his national learning, and national vani- ty, were employed on his history of the Macarthies More, to whom he deemed himself hereditary senachy, while all his early associations and affections were occupied with the Fitzadelm family; to an heir of which he had not only been foster father, but, by a singular chain of occurrences, tutor and host. Thus, there existed an incongruity be- tween his prejudices and his affections, that added to the natural incoherence of his wild, unregulated, ideal character. He had as much Greek and Latin as generally falls to the lot of the inferior Irish priesthood, an order to which he had been originally destined: he spoke Irish, as his native tongue, with great fluency; and English, with little varia- tion, as it might have been spoken in the days of James or Elizabeth ; for English was with him acquired by study, at no early period of life, and princi- pally obtained from such books as came 2S6 FLORENCE A5ACARTHY. within the black letter plan of his anti- quarian pursuits. <' Words that wise Bacon and grave Raleigh spoke" M^cre familiarly uttered by O'Leary, conned out of old English tracts, chro- nicles, presidential instructions, copies of patents, memorials, discourses, and translated remonstrances, from the Irish chiefs, of every date since the arrival of the English in the island ; and a few- French words, not unusually heard among the old Irish Catholics, the de- scendants of the faithful followers of the Stuarts, complcated the stoek of his philological riches.* * Several of the obsolete terms of Shakespeare and Spenser are to be found in daily use among the Catholics of Ireland. In the conversation of the higher orders, not unfrequently, " A bold expressive phrase appears, Bright through the rubbish of some hundred years." Tlie strong line of demarkation drawn be- tween the Cafholic and Protestant gentry of the country, and which renders tlK^m a distinct society, explains the fact. Both in thtir speech FLORENCE MACARTHY. 28/ O'Leary now advanced to meet his visitant with a countenance radiant with the expression of complacency and sa- tisfaction, not unmingled with pride and importance, as he threw his eyes round on his numerous disciples. To one of these the Commodore gave his horse ; and drawing his hat over his eyes, as if to shade them from the sun, he placed himself under the shadow of the Saxon arch, observing, " You sec, ]\Ir. O'Leary, I very eagerly avail myself of your invitation : but I fear I have interrupted your learned avocation." " Not a taste, your honor, and am going to give my classes an holiday, in respect of the turf, Sir. What do's yez all crowd round the gentlemen for ?— Did never yez see a raal gentleman and manners the latter are singularly attached to old modes ; and they s(i!l preserve that pe- culiar courteousness of address, "which is now considered as almost exclusively to be found in France, 28S FLORENCE MACARTHY. afore ? I'd trouble yez to consider your- selves as temporary. There's great scholars among them ragged runagates, your honor, poor as they look : for though in these degendered times you won't get the childre, as formerly, to talk the dead languages, afore they can spake, when, says Campion, they had Latin like a vulgar tongue, conning in their schools of leachcraft the aphorisms of Hippocrates, and the civil institutes of the faculties, yet there are as fine scholars, and as good philosophers still. Sir, to be found in my seminary as in Trinity College, Dublin. — Now, step forward here, yoii Homers. " Keklute meuTroes, kai Dardanoi, ed' epikouroi." Half a dozen overgrown boys with bare heads and naked feet, hustled forward. " Them's my first class, plazeyour honor : sorrow one of them gassoons, but would throw you off a page of Homer into Irish while he'd be clamp- ng a turf stack. — Come forward here. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 989 Padreen Mahony, you little mitcher, ye. — Have you no better courtesy than that, Padreen? Fie upon your man- ners. Then for all that, Sir, he's my head philosopher, and am getting him up for Maynooth. Och! then I wouldn't axe better than to pit him against the provost of Trinity College this day, for all his ould small cloathes, Sir, the cratur! troth, he'd puzzle him, great as he is, aye, and bate him top; that's at the humanities. Sir. Padreen, my man, if the pig's sould at Dunore market to-morrow, tell your daddy dear, I'll expect the pintion. Is that your bow, Padreen, with your head under your arm like a roosting hen? Upon my word, I take shame for your man- ners. There, your honor, them's my cordaries, the little Leprehauns,* with their cathah^ heads, and their burned * Leprehauns, one of the inferior order of Irish Demonology. + Cathah — curly, or matted. VOL, I. O 290 FLORENCE MACARTHY. skins: I think your honor would be divarted to hear them parsing a chap- ter — Well now, dismiss, lads, jewel— off with yez, extemplo, like a piper out of a tent; away with yez to the turf; and mind me well, ye Homers ye, I'll expect Hector and Andromach to-morrow with out fail: obsarve me well, I'll take no excuse for the classics barring the bog, in respect of the weather's being dry: dismiss, I say." The learned dis- ciples of this Irish sage, pulling down the front lock of their hair to designate the bow they would have made, if they had possessed hats to move, now scam- pered off, leaping over tomb-stones and clearing rocks ; while O'Leary observed, shaking his head, and looking after them, " Not one of them but is sharp witted, and has a ganius for poethry, if there was any encouragement for lam- ing in these degendered times." Having now gratified his pedagogue pride, and excused the 'looped and win- FLORENCE MACARTHY. S91 dowed raggedness' of his pupils by ex- tolling that which passeth shew, he now turned his whole attention on his guest, who stood shadowed by the deep arched door-case, waiting till the last of the boys had disappeared. O'Leary led the way before him into the interior of the chauntry, which was divided into the school-room, and his own abode; then laying down his Homer and ferule^ and shutting the door almost to the ex- clusion of the light, and wiping down a seat with his wig, which lay on the desk, and which he afterwards placed on his head, he respectfully motioned his visitor to be seated. A silence for a moment nsued ; when O'Leary, fixing his eyes into a look of expressive signi- ficance, observed, in a low cautious tone: " I axe your lordship's pardon for the great liberty I took in calling you. Sir, my lord; thinking it due discretion so to do before my scholars ; in respect O 2 292 FLORENCE MACARTHY. of your intention of biding here in casu incognito.^'' " Indeed!'* said the Commodore, starting on his feet: " for whom then do you take me?" " For who you are — noble by blood, by birth, and by descent; and though no Irishman, but of Norman breed, a true Geraldine. And though the Fitz- adelms are nothing to me now, for I have shook the dust off my feet at their threshold, and threw my ould couran* over the head of the last of the race, that shall ever give my heart a beat, or my eye a tear, yet I'd be sorry that it was to say, that a branch of the ould tree wanted a sheltering place, when I, Terence Oge O'Leary, the last Irish fos- terer of the family, had a shed to housel him under." " For whom, then," repeated the Commodore, in a calmer tone than he * An Irish shoe or brogue, made without heels. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 293 had before asked the question, " for whom do you take me ?" "For LordAdehnFitzadelm/* replied O'Leary, with a respectful bow. " The cadet of the twin sons of Gerald Baron Fitzadelm, commonly called the Red Baron, himself the cadet of the father of the son, and heir that would have been if " O'Leary paused: his voice faltered; and after a moment's silence, the Com- modore observed, " It is strange that you should take me for the Lord Fitzadelm. For what purpose should he come incognito into this neighbourhood?" " For every purpose in life, your honor, and the best of purposes, to cir- cumvent them land pirates, them plot- hunters, them trianglers! them — them Crawley thieves. Bachal Essu ! only let me live to see that day, and then doesn't care how soon I'm earned feet foremost to the herring ground of o 3 ^^4 FLORENCE MACARTHY. the pobble O'Leary, near St. Cro- han's County Kerry: forks little else is leift for me now to live for but to die." " And for this strange tissue of im- probability, what grounds have you, O'Leary? Why should Lord Fitzadelm xome over in disguise to circumvent, as you call it, his mother's agent?" " If you don't believe me, your honor,'' interrupted O'Learj^, losing the supposed identity of the person he was addressing in the incoherency of his al- ways confused ideas, " will you beheve your own eyes, Sir; that's my Lord, I mane? ' He drew forth a letter from his pocket as he spoke^ and the Commodore took it to the little casement, and read as follows; ^'A distinguished looking stranger will shortly present himself to the learned and sagacious Terence Oge O'Leary: should he propose himself as a tenant FLORENCE MACARTHY. !^5 for the Reverend Mr. O'SuUivan s va- cant apartments, he will do well to ac- cept him. Terence Oge O'Leary may have heard that Lord Adelm Fitzadelm will shortly be in the Peninsula of Du- nore, to circumvent the machinations of the Crawley faction, and will there be incognito. None but the well-wishers of the Crawleys would refuse to assist Lord Adelm in a temporary concealment, ne- cessary for the effecting of his laudable purposes." After a frequent and amazed perusal of this billet, the Commodore demand^ ed how this strange letter reached O'Leary. *' I found it," he replied, " after the dawn of day." '' Found it?" " Aye, did I, troth, and marvelled much to see it fixed in the latch of the out-side door of the chauntry ; and was mighty loath to break the sale, and didn't, only just skimmed round it." o 4 2g6 FLORENCE MACARTHY. ' The Commodore, on examining the seal_, found it bore the figure of a child, plucking the thorns from a rose, with the motto: Sou utile ainda que Bricando.* " And have you no idea from whom this letter comes?" asked the Commo- dore, after another pause, and some evident perplexity of idea. " I have, plaze your honor, that's your lordship, I mane ; every iday in life, it comes from the good people: often they do the likes of that kind turn by their pets — that's the fairies, my Lord." " In this instance, however," returned the 'Commodore, smiling, " they have done you an ill turn; for if they mean to impress you with an idea that I am Lord Adelm Fitzadelm, they most cer- tainly deceive you.'* " Oh ! very well. Sir,'* returned O'Leary, with a most obstinate look of incredulity, " as your lordship willeth, * I am useful in sportiveness. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 297 that's your honor, I mane, now, Sir/' if its Sir you plase to be." " Supposing," said the Commodore, that even it were Lord Adelm who sought concealment under your roof, surely you would not defeat his inten- tions, by persisting in giving him a title, which would at once reveal his rank, or at least awaken suspicion." " Is it me ! och ! I'd be very sorry ! and will be bound, I'll never call your lordship my lord, if you was in it till the day of judgment, only when we are alone. Sir, and nobody by, barring our two selves, and can pass you as a tinnant come to bathe in the salt water. Sir, and need never name your honor at all. Sir, only pass you for my lodger." " You will then pass me for what I am anxious to become, O'Leaiy ; I will therefore look at the apartment you mean me to occupy. You shall name your own terms ; and I dare say yoH have some old dame, who is wont to o 5 298 FLORENCE MACARTHY. boil a chicken, and make coifee for Friar O'Sullivan, who would undertake — " " Aye," interrupted O'Leary, eagerly, ** and who can toss up an omelette, and fry a bit of fish on maigre days, your honor, and was taught by Fra Denis himself, who has a mighty pretty taste that way. Och ! I'll engage we'll table your honor well. Here, Moriagh ma chree, throw me the keys of the friary.'* As he spoke, O'Leary rapped at a little blind window in the wall, which was instantly opened, and discovered at once the interior of his kitchen, and an old woman employed in carding. " That's my G'lrleen^* said O'Leary, taking a bunch of keys from her, and opening a door opposite to that which led from the road to the chauntry. The host and his new lodger proceeded across a sort of grass-grown court, sur- rounded by a range of cloister, still in high preservation, and bent their steps towards the friary. An old, and ap- l^tORENCi: MACARtMT. 299 parently very feeble eagle, with a leather collar round his leg, and fastened by a chain to a fragment of the ruin, attracted the stranger's attention. O'Leary paused also, clasped his hands, and sighed, exclaiming, " You are not long for this world, my Cumhal honey, and leaves your bit of food for the sparrows, my poor bird, that daren't come near you oncet, my king of the mountains." " He looks very sick, and I think dying." " Oh I musha, the pity of him ! He's ouH and desolate like myself. Its . twenty years and more since he came home to me in Dunkerron ; and when he came in, with his looks all on fire, as he was wont after being out all day, ^ Terence, my ould lad, says he, for that's a way he had of calling me, that^s he that brought me the eagle, Sir, he that had the eye of the eagle, and the spirit of an eagle; Terence, my old lad, I 300 FLORENCE MACARTHY. have brought you another pet, says he. Do you mindj your honor, marking the word another, and maning himself to be one, the sowl ! Have you, my lord, says I, for though he was then left to perish by his own kin, and was sharing my bit and sup, in the wilds of Kerry, I always called him my lord, as he was, or would have been ; and did so that day 'hove all others, for he had scarcely a skreed of his ould red jacket left on him ; and called him my lord, in regard of the jacket. Have you, my lord, says I ; and Terence, says he, you'll be kind to this eaglet, (and it was fluttering on his left arm, with its blue bill and golden eye) you will be kind to it for my sake, and I'll tell you why, Terence, says he, leaning his right arm on mine, and looking with his smile, his mothers smile in my face. The poor bird has been driven from its pa- rent's nest, says he, I found it fluttering on a bare rock exposed and perishing. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 301 For it is the nature of the eagle to chase away its young, when unable to supply its own wants. For want, Terence^ says he, may overcome even a parent's love. The tears stood in his eyes as he spoke, for it was his own story, plaze your honor, and it wasn't with a dry cheek I heard him. And yet, says he, cheering up and placing the fine young eaglet on the. ground, the eagle is a noble bird, Terence, and even this poor fellow may yet soar high ; though it isn't under a parent's wing he'll imp his flight. Them were his words if I was dying, and that was great speaking for a boy of twelve years old. But he had Homer and Ossian at his finger's ends, to say nothing of Don Bellianus of Greece, the seven wise maisters, and Plae racca na Rourke."* While O'Leary was givingthis history, the Commodore seem'd shaken by some * The celebrated song of the Irish bard, hu- mourously translated by Dean Swift. 302 FLORENCE MACARTHY. deep feeling, which, however, was un- observed by O'Leary, whose attention was wholly occupied in striving to make the bird feed, while he described its first appearance under his roof. At last, by a powerful effort, shaking off his emo- tion, and giving a firm and indifferent tone to his voice, the Commodore asked, " of whom do you speak, O'Leary?" " Of whom do I speak, your honor ?" said O'Leary, raising his head loftily ; " it's of the Honorable de Monteriay Fitzadelm I speak, that would have been Marquis of Dunore if he were in it the day, the only son and heir of Walter Baron Fitzadelm : it's of your father's nephew I speak, my lord," sai i O'Leary, with inveteracy, and raising his voice, " his only nephew. Sir ; and such a nephew ! and nothing to be got by it but a poor bit of a title in distant rever- sion ! not a scrubal in money at the time J not a cantred of land then ; it was FLORENCE MACARTHY. 303 for a sound, a breath, he sowld his sowl. But the curses that fell that day — " added he, closing his hands, and grinding his teeth, while he still seemed to struggle with feelings, which were giving the vehemence of insanity to his voice and its wildness to his look ; when the Commodore, taking off his hat, as if to give coolness to his fervid brow, fixed his eye on him. OXeary tottered back a few steps: his colour faded, his countenance lost its expres- sion of fierceness ; he several times drew his hand across his eyes as if to clear their vision; then stood gazing in silence for many minutes on the face of the stranger, which he now first beheld fairly revealed. *' You do not wish that the crimes of the father should bring curses on his children, O'Leary,'* said the Commo- dore, in a tranquil voice, " if indeed the late Baron Fitzadelm has been guilty of crimes which merit execration?" 304 FLORENCE MACARTHY. O'Leary remained silent : his mind seemed in abeyance : every other sense was condensed in one: his Hps moved, but he uttered no sound : he stood mo- tionless, till his eyes, dazzled by the in- tensity of their gaze, obliged him to press his fingers on their aching lids. ** But," continued the Commodore, putting on his hat, and losing much of the character of his face by concealing its finest features, " but, O'Leary, if you persist in believing me to be Lord Adelm Fitzadelm, say, is the son a well- chosen confidant of his father's mis- deeds ? or if you cannot keep the secret of your own indignant feelings, how may I expect you will keep my secret ? that is, supposing / were the Lord Adelm, or any other person, O'Leary, whose interest it is to keep their real name unknown till certain purposes be eflfected. The absence of discretion, O'Leary, may render even the zeal of affection abortive. But come, time FLORENCE MACARTHY. 305 wears, and time is precious : I will leave the arrangement of the friary to your care : I must now away to Mr. Craw- ley's. My host of Dunore tells me that it will be difficult to obtain an interview withyourpowerfulportrieve aftertwelve: you shall shew me the way to Mount Crawley, and we will talk of the great Macarthies More as we walk along, the descendants of the Tyrian Her- cules, the powerful chiefs of Des- mond." The spirits of O'Leary rallied at this watch-word of the imagination : he looked round as one suddenly awakened from some strange vision of the night, and mechanically followed the stranger across the chauntry into the cemetery of St. John's, where the boy, to whose care he had delivered his horse, was still leading it about. — " Bring your master his hat," said the Commodore, taking the reins of his horse. " You shall walk a mile of the way with me, O'Leary, and then return to your busi- 306 FLORENCE MACARTHY. ness, to which I must and am resolved not to be an hindrance." The boy returned with the hat, which O'Leary suffered him to put over his Httle wig, now all awry. Plunged once more in deep cogitation, he walked silently beside his new tenant, snatch- ing at intervals an eager glance at his person, and then shaking his head, de- bating as it were some point within himself; and at last clasping his hands behind his back, and exclaiming aloud, as he paced on heavily—" Sure kin may liken* kin ; and no marvel in thatf any how : only it all lies in the upper part of the face : and that was his mother's. The dark eyes, Milesian born. The great O'Sullivan Bear s daughter coming horn the Luceai in. Spain, of Scythian origin, and died of a broken heart, in the sorrowful chamber, so called to this day, only fallen to ruin, why wouldn't she, the cratur ! and her own child first turning * ilesemWe. FLORENCE MACARTHY. 307 ©ut to be Judy Laffan's ; and then, when that wouldn't do, the country- being \^'ell insensed* to the contrary, re- ported to be dead, and taken from her: and an hard case it was, as she said to my wife on her death-bed, God rest her : for they'd all desarted the court, barring the bailiff's for the execution, laving her to die with only the child's nurse to wet her lips. ' And a hard case it is to lose one child, Susheen^ said she, as she gave the prayer-book that had the certificate of Mr. De Montenay's birth and marriage in it, that's her own marriage with my lord, thinking, God help her, that it might be of use to the child one day (which it never will), and sending it to the friar Denis O'SuUivan Finn, her own kinsman atDunkerron, for my lady was a Catholic by birth, and — ^* " O'Sulhvan," interrupted the Com- modore, " is still in Cork, I suppose; but the book of course lost, if that were of any consequence noiv.'' * Aware, acquainted. 308 FLORENCE MACARTHY. " He is in Cork, Sir, and will be till the visitation is over, and then will be in Portugal ; and the prayer-book's safe. I saw it with him the day he departed ; but what matter is it ? Sure there is nothing to prove but that he was mur- thered fairly, that's drowned by force, vi et armis. I never will believe that he sunk when his boat was overturned. Is it he, that dived and swam like a duck ? and often saw him, when nobody would venture out, cut his way through the wild waves that bate the grate Skelegs, and his cot overset, and a thou- sand ullalues raised from the shore, and he rise like a barnacle from the waves, and gain the land, and scale the stone of pain, as it's called, and reach the spindle, the pilgrim's last station, a bit of rock projecting over the raging sea, the storm bating wildly round him. Och ! that was a PTcat sig^ht. Above the world he looked, and above his own lot, " Audifque ruentcs Sub pedibus vcntos et rauca tombrua calcat." FLORENCE MACARTHY. 309 " And/ieto be drowned on a fine, calm, moonlight night, when he went out to chase the porpoises ; for that was great sport to him ; and to fight the sea calves in the caves, under the head- lands of Kerry ; for he was never aisy but when he was after the seals and the sat/-dogs, that covered the rocks and slept in the sunshine, or else in the mountains ; sometimes chasing the deer with their beautiful spotted skins, or coming home with a string of curlews on his back, barring when he was read- ing Homer and Ossian, and the Seven Wise Maisters." '^ He paused, and again looked ear- nestly in the Commodore's face ; who, musing, rather than listening to this apostrophe of O'Leary, was v^^alking on with a slackened pace, the reins of his horse rolled round his folded arms, when he suddenly asked — " And where does Mr. O'Sullivan live in Cork ?" 310 FLORENCE MACARTHY. " At the Franciscan Friary," said O'Leary : and then continued, with a deep sigh, " It's marvellous: and does'nt know where the likeness is with the hat on. Only it's the Fitzadelm mouth, any how— why wouldn't it ? and minds, me of the Macarthies More, and Macarthies Reagh of Carberry, who were kin by blood as by descent, mar- rying through other, ever more, and preserving the family mouth al- ways." " Oh ! by the bye," said the Com- modore, abruptly, and throwing off his air of abstraction, " did not this dis- trict of Dunore belong anciently to the Macarthies ?" *' Did it ? Is it Dunore ?- The Ma- carthies, kings of the Coriandri, of the ancient Desmonds, the whole province of Munster, late tyranni! See there, plaze your honor, behind you ; that's Dunore Castle, the Dangan-ni-Carthie, the ancient fortress of the Macarthies ; FLORENCE MACARTHY. 311 now an English pale castle, as I may say : and look there to your left, near the say, at the brow of ould Clotnotty- joy; do you see a fine ancient ould castle ? Well, that's Castle M'Carthy, hanging over its depindency, the village of Ballydab, oncet a bishoprick and borough. The castle on a rock, an elliptical conoid, defended by a bar- bican to the right, and the hall under- neath, where Donagh Macartliy held his last court-baron, and his tributaries resorted to him for suit and service, the pobbleO'Keefe and the pobble O'Leary." " I see nothing but a small square building on the mountain's brow," replied his companion, in vain strain- ing his eyes to view the features of feudal strength described by O'Leary, who saw only in the mind'^ eye, who now with all the associations of me- mory and imagination awakened, and with his wonted incoherence, launched into his favourite theme, for the mo- ment forgetful of every other. S12 FLORENCE MACARTHY. " There is the very gabbion Florence Macarthy stood on, when he saw the cannon planted against his only son, then in the Lord President's power, sending the warder word that they kept him as a fair mark to bestow their shot upon. But the constable returned answer, the fear of the hoys life should not make them abandon their country and its cause. Then the Lord Presi- dent of Munster and his men intrenched themselves between the river here to the left, and the castle forenent you, and planted before it two demi-can- nons, and one sacre. Then, Sir, be- gins the battery to play from the ramparts of the castle ; and a breach is made, by a cave under the great hall, the Enolish forcinsr the warder to the keep; the musketeers, followed by the halberdeers, making their way up the turret stairs, there to the left, the Irish pour down on them heart and hand, hxretpede pes densus queviro vir, man to man, breast to breast. Gal-readh-a FLORENCE MACARTHY. 315 boe,* cries the Fitzadelms, who were in the EngUsh army below, encouraging their men that appeared on the ram- parts above : Lambh-laidre-aboe, -j- shouts Macarthy More, from the pos- tern, hke a flame of fire, bearing down all before him; — the English retreat: the war-horn of the Macarthies is heard through the mountains; the Ma- carthies carry the day. Hurra! Hurra! Hurra!" O'Leary was now waving his hat in the air triumphantly, and transported beyond the present moment, when ''the vile squeaking of a wry-necked fife^" and the roll of a drum, broke the thread of his ideas ; and to the fancied engage - ments of the Irish and English cohorts of Queen Elizabeth's day, the gallow- glasses of the Macartnies, and the bow- * •' The cause of the red stranger ;" the war. cry of many of ihe Norman families in Ireland, + " The cause of the strong hand," the war- cry of the Macartnies. VOL. I. P B14 FLORENCE MACARTHY. tnen of St. Leger, succeeded the New- Town Mount Crawley supplementary auxiliary yeomanry legion, a corps new- ly raiised by Mr. Crawley, which stepp-ed -along the pathway of a very narrow road it nearly occupied, to the tune of '^ the Protestant Boys," that, on the •appearance of O'Leary, was instantly changed to '' Croppies lie down." To judge by the appearance of this evi- dently new raised corps, their leader, like Falstaff, had *' Misused the king's press most d— mnably;" and whether it were, or were not, made up of " revolted tapsters," and " hostlers trade-fallen," its members presented a most unsoldier-Iike appearance. There gleamed, however, through their awk- ward gate, and clumsy carriage, a con- sciousness ot superiority, perhaps, both ^ religious and military, which gave the last tinish of ridicule to their exhibition: take them altog-otliei, ^^ jNo eye had ceea i>uch scarecrov^s/' FLORENCE MACARXHY. 315 The manner in which they had hustled O'Leaiy ofiT the pathway, the well- known tune, and its well-known mean- ing, operated like a ?pell upon his agi- t€tted mind: he stopped short, till they had marched by; and then, wholly disenchanted from his splendid dreams, the Irish Macarthies, and the Norman Fitzadelms, vanished from his thoughts, and a third epoch in the history of his country was recalled to his recollection: this little image of local power,and petty ascendency, chan ,ed the current of his ideas, and with a deep sigh he added, ■*' And now 'tis the reign of the Craw- leys." '•' Then let us hasten to their court baron," returned the Commodore, smil- ing, " or we may be too late for an au- dience, O'Leary." All the circumstances of the immedi- ate moment now flashed full throuffh the mental confusion of O'Leary. The anonymous letter. Lord Fitzadelm incog- p 2 3l6 FLORENCE MACARTHY. nito, the circumventing, the Crawley faction^ were incidents which rapidly arranged themselves in his imagination. Recovering his composure, his spirits, and his vindictiveness, he gradually assumed the shrewd,animated,andimportant look he had worn, ere traces of his former hal- lucination had been awakened by a sup- posed or real resemblance to the object, whose loss had, for a time, bereft him of reason: theideathat the stranger was the brother of the Marquis of Dunore had now taken possession of his mind, with all the pertinacity incidental to his former malady; and persuaded thatthe ruinofthe Crawley faction, as he termed it, was at hand, he neither speculated, nor rea- soned upon tVie probable means by which that event was to be consummated. His hatred of that family had its source in the strongest feelings, and most fixed prejudices of his nature; and, like the rest of his countrymen, of his own class, his revenge was proportionate to hit FLORENCE MACARTHY. 3 If devotion and fidelity. A few words, dropped at intervals, made up the con- versation during the rest of their walkj he spoke of the stranger looking older than he ought, of his being " mighty tanned hy foreign parts ;" he asked if Mr. Crawley had seen him when in London, which being answered in the negative, he expressed his fear that a family likeness might be traced; and his hope that Torney Crawley would be caught by his lordship in all his glory; for this was one of his great days, when people came to him from all parts of the county for law, justice, and money. "There is New-Town Mount Crawley, plaze your honor," said O'Leary, point- ing to a few slightly-built red brick houses : " sorrow call there was, at all at all, for them slips of card buildings, only to crush the ancient city of Bally- dab, handy by. And there's the new barracks and the mail-coach road that is p 3 ^1*^ FLORENCE MACARTIIV. to be. Och ! Miisha, Eii^lisli bairacks and a mail-coach road in Dangan-na- Carthy I When in Florence M'Carthy's time, the English sherift" daren't set his foot in the place, but the country round rose to oppose him ; and all this now in respect of the jobs, and the patronage, and the protectees, taxing the country ; and before that road is finished, which it never will, many a false oath will be sworn, and many a sowl lost, and many a poor man's cattle be driven ; and for all that, I remember me the porti-ieve's father, ould Paddy Crawley, herd to M'Carthy, of Castle M'Carthy, there beyont, that's the late ould titular Earl of Clancarc. And now, there's Mount Crawley, plaze your lordship, ©n the top of that green sod hill, once called the Thane's heap,* in regard of a Macarthy was slain there in an engagement be- tween them and the Fitzadelnis, about *■ Cairne Tlerna, FLORENCE MACARTHY, 31 J) taking a prey of cattle, that's when the Macarthies' greatness overshadowed all the southern chiefs ; and- they made that day an elegant retrait through the pa»9 of Mashanaglass^ there below, to t-heir own castle, as will be seen in my genealogical historj^ Sorrow much the retrait of Xenophon was in comparais- ment to that of Mashanaglass : but now, ©ioul! iis the reign of the Crawleys." At the gates of the principal entrance to Mount Crawley O'Leary took his leave, observing, that' he had made a \i!ow in the year of the rebellion never to cross the threshold of a Crawley, " till they had no longer a threshold to cras^, plaze your Lordship.'* At the word ' Lordship,' the Commodore put his forefinger to his hps, and O'Leary, Tecovering himself, added, " your honor I' mane." He then; retreated, leaving him, whom he persisted in believing Lord Adelm, persuaded, that among his virtues, the " excellent quality, of dis- p 4 320 FLORENCE MACARTHY. cretion" could not be numbered; and that this affectionate^ but inconsiderate person, was the last to be trusted with a secret, in which his own strong and ungoverned feelings had an interest. He had in the course of his desultory and incoherent conversation betrayed circumstances detrimental to the family honour of the Fitzadelms, and which had long slept in oblivion ; that Baron Fitzadelm had been reduced by his dis- tress, and influenced by his brother, to conceal the existence of his son, in order to raise money on the little that was left of his estate ; that he had after- wards yielded to the story suggested by his brother; that this unfortunate boy was not his son, but the substituted child of his first nurse, to whom O'Leary's wife had succeeded ; that the boy had afterwards been sent to the wilds of Kerry, to his foster father, to be kept for some sinister purpose out of the way ; that immediately after his FLORENCE MACARTHY. 321 fathers death he was drowned by accident (though some told a different tale); that the herald s office had for some years after the death of the father and son refused to grant Gerald Fitz- adehn the title of Baron Fitzadelm: all these circumstances, once the common topic* of conversation in the province, had now died away, with the greater part of the generation who had wit- nessed them ; and the details were only known to the few persons interested in their occurrence, and still surviving : these were the superior of the friars of St, John's, the old baccah of Lis-na- sleugh, and, above all, the fosterer of the deserted and persecuted heir of Fitzadelm, Terence Oge O'Leary. P 5 NOTES. Note (1) Page 16. — This may seem harsh language applied to the " gallant Raleigh,''^ who hud rendered himself so iliiisirious in many in- stances, but it is fully jnstifiod by his conduct dining his residence in Ireland, where he was little better than the captain of licensed ban- ditti — the following anecdote is one out of a hundred to be found in the Irish tracts of Queen Elizabeth's day, which illustrates the truth af this iipparcntly severe assertion. *' Soon after this action, Captain Raleigh, af- terwards Sir Walter^ went from Cork to Dub- lin, to his patron, the Lord Grey, who, on the Seventh of September, was made lord deputy of Ireland, with a complaint against the Barrys, (themselves descendants of the English lords who accompanied Henry if. to Ireland) and the Condons, for assisting the rebels." ( These coti»- plaints were easily made, but rarely substan. tiated, and never inquired into) " He obtained a commission to seize o?i ihe castle of Barri/''s courtf and the rest af Lord Barry's Estate, (on S24 NOTES. the strength of this complaint) and had some horse added to his compaii)' to enable him to take possession of it. But Burry having notice of it, set Harry'' s court on fire, and the st ncschal of Imokiliy placed an ambush at Moore Abbey, which the young Raleigh courageously attacked, defeated, and broke through, so that he arrived safely at Cork. While Raleigh lay in this city, he performed several pieces of service against the rebels,* amongst others, Zouch ordered him (Ra- • Tht rebels nf those days were chiefly such men as Lord Barry, who, sooner than give up their families to massacre, and their properly to plunder, set fire to their houses, and took ^lielier in woods and fastnesses, and their strong holds. W ith theexception ol Macarthy-Mure, O'Neil, and (}'' Don- neU almost all the rebels of this day were of l.nglish origin, men nho still inherited from their ancestors some recollection of Mngna-Charta. i hey therefore resisted the effect of such complaints as Captain Raleigh, and either protected or burnt their castle;-, and were consequently " Rebels," The persecution of the illustrious fiimily of the Fitzgeralds, in the persons of the celebrated Harl of Kililare, and the great i.arl of Desmond, whose crime was being tlie richest subject in the empire, are too well known to need comment. The tarl of Uesmond, in an advanced age, was despoiled of all his prupertiy hunted with blood- bounds through the woods and mountains, and discovered in a miserable hut. warming himself over a few fagots. His pursuers seized him by the long g^e^ hairs, and to his appeal, '• my friends, 1 am the oitl I ai! of Desmond," they replied in a very brief and decided manner — they cutoff NOTES. 325 leigh) to take Lord Roche and his lady pri- soners, and bring them to Cork, they being sus^ pected of corresponding with the rebels — the seneschal of Imokilly, and David Barry, having notice of this design, assembled seven or eight hundred men to fall on Raleigh ; either going or on his return. Raleigh quitting Cork, vpith about ninety men, at ten of the clock at night, marched towards Bally, twenty miles from Cork, the house of Lord Roche, a nobleman well-beloved in the country, and arrived there early in the morning. He marched up txi the castle gate ; whereupon ihe townsmen, to the number of five hundred, immediately took up arms. Raleigh having placed his men in order, took with him^ Michael Butler, James Fulford, Nicholas Wright, Arthur Berland, Henry Swane, and Pinkney Huish ; and knocking at the gate, three or four of liOrd Roche's gentlemen demanded the cause of their coming: to whom Raleigh answered, that he came to speak with their lord, which was agreed to, provided he would bring with him only two or three of his followers. However, the gate being opened, he and all the above-mentioned persons entered the castle ; and after he had seen his head. The chief perpetrator was rewarded by the go- Ternment with a coinmiiision and a pension, but was after- awards hung for some less horrible atrocity. For an ac- eoant of this truly romantic tragedy, se« " Smith's Cork." $'■26 NOTE5^ Lord Roche, and spoken to him, by degrees, and by different means, he drew in a considerable number of his men, whom he directed to guard the iron gate of the court lodge, and see that no man should pass in or out, and ordered others into the hall, -with their arms ready. Lord Roche set the best face he could upon the matter, and invited the captain to dine with him. After dinner, Raleigh informed him that he had orders to carry him and his lady to Cork, Lord Roche began to excuse his going, and at length reso- lutely said that he neither zcould nor could go; but c{a,\c]ghls(ti/2g him knozc that if he refused he woidd be taken by force, he found there was •Bo remedy, and, therefore, he and his lady set out on their Journey, in a most rainy and tempes- tuous night, and through a very rocky and dan* gerous way, whereby many soldiers were se- Torely hurt, and others lost their arms. As for I^ord Roche, he acquitted himself honourably of the crimes he was charged with, and afterwards did good service against the Irisi»." Smith's Cork, vol. 2. It is notable,^that " doing good service against the Iriih,^'' was becoming a plunderer in his turriy to avoid being plundered. It was thus the na- tives of the land were plunged into crime in self- defence, by the fatal policy which raised its power upon the dcmoraliza^OQ of the people it NOTES. 227 perfecaled and b rati fie d ; and England now coin- piaiiis of the -vVaat of principle and indvilizatiort of the Irish. Thti Irish, in their tern, may excl liin with Toney Lumpkin to his mother : *' As 1/oit made me, so you have rae." (2) Page 96. — Of the inextingtiishablc 6re heretofore kept by the nuns of St. Bridget at Kildarc, thus Giraldus Cambrensis. At Kil- dare, famous for St. Bridget, arc many miracles ■vTorthy to bo remembered^ among which is St» Bridget's fire, which they call inextiiiguishablc, not that it cannot be extinguished, but because the nuns and holy women, by a continual supply of materials, have preserved it alive for so many- years sii>ee the time of that virgin ; and though so great a quantity of wood has been consumed in it, yet no ashes remain. From hence that nun- nery is commonly called the fire-house^ But this fire was put out by Henry Loundres, Arch, bishop of Dublin, in the year lxi20, says an ano- nymous author, of the order of predicants, who compendiously writ the Annals of Ireland, from the year of our Lord 1163 to 1314, \\ herein he lived. (3> Page 100.— Abbc>y of the Iloly-Cross, by the iliver Suire. This abbey was founded ia 328 NOTES. honour of the holy. cross, for Cistercians, by Donald O'Brian, King of Limerick, about the year 1169, or as others, in 1181. The posses- sions were confirnaed by John, Lord of Ireland and Earl of Moreton, afterwards King of Eng- land. This abbey was afterward, in a general chapter, subjected by the Abbot of Clareyaux to the Abbey of Furness, in England. (4) Page 105 — Shebean — literally a house of concealment. The term is applied from the circumstance of the spirits which are sold in these private pot-houses being unlicensed, and consequently concealed. (5) Page 138. — '* To the proper names of the ancient Irish, sirnames were added, cither from some action, some quality of the mind, co- lour or mark of the body, or from chance, or ironically. So Neal, King of Ireland, was called Vigialac, because he had taken nine hostages from the lesser kings, and had held them for some time in fetters. King Brian was called Boruma, because he had recovered from the people of Lcinster a certain annual tribute so called. Cajnfela was called the Wise. S. Barr, Finbarr, or White Barr. S. Comin, Fada, or Long, and -^d, the Bearded Clerk, from his NOTES. S29 long beard : like as among the Grecians, Seleu- cus III. King of Syria, was called Ccraunus, that is thunder, from his precipitate temper. Ptolomy VII. King of Egypt, Physcon, from his great belly, and (to omit others) Ptolomy, the last save one, Auletes, from his great love to the bagpipe." — Ware. " I return to Ireland, where, it is to be noted, that the ancient Irish, besides these sirnames, had also, after the ancient manner, their fa- thers' names superadded, as Dermot.mac-Cor- mac, Cormac-mac-Donel, Donel-mac-Tirdel- Tac." — Ware. Both these customs are still extant in Ireland ; and even in the families of the provincial gentry, persons of the same name are distinguished by -the colour of their complexions, hair, &c. &c. (*5) Page 161. — This Irish Marmite formerly, and even within these twenty years, was open to anyhand its plentiful contents might tempt. Now, however, the potatoe has risen in value with the increase of wretchedness, and of that, one meal a day is often with difficulty procured. In the summer of 1817, the author being in the coun- try, within twelve miles of Dublin, on a visit at the seat of a person of rank, frequently observed that when the twelve o'clock bell rung to send the labourers home to dinner. 550 ' NOTES. they lay down in the dry ditches. On inqui. ring into the cause of a circvims'ance so un- usual, she was informed, both by the peasants and their overseers, that being unable to procure inore than one meal of potatoes, (taken only with salt and water), they preferred having that meal at night. Even this wretched supper is ex- tremely scanty. Formerly ;)o^a/oe,'J (always the principal, or rather exclusive food) were suiB- ciently abundant in the poorest families. Now the father, or head of the family, is obliged (o portion them out with great precision, lest an excess to-day should produce want to-morrow. Even in the neighbouring counties of the metro- polis the unfortunate wretches arc seen search- ing the ditches for ofi'als or cresses ; and many, to the author's knowledge, when she visited Munster in 1817, supported themselves by living on cabbage stalks thrown out from the great Iwuse of which she v;as guest. To such suf- ferers imprisonment or death can have but few terrors. In Dublin, persons, male and female, have been known lately to commit small depre- dations for the purpose of being sent to jail, Aihcre shelter, with bread and water, was provided for (hem. Two young women, lately brought before a most respc-ctable police magistrate in Diih'in, assigned the above reason for breaking windows. A few days back, July 9rh, 1818, eight hundred pcrfcOiis presented themselves to NOTES. 351 the Mcndicily Society of Dublin, to obtain any labour that could be procured them at the rate of sixpence per day. Such is the " Jloitriahing Uatc of Ireland^''' so often vaunted by English official visitors, who drive rapidly through the country, and are sumptuously entertained by the Irish officials, from whom they learn the little they return to describe. (6) Page 231. — The ancient Irish used wicker boats covered with ox hyde, called corraghs, upon the open sea. Upon lakes and rivers they used another kind of boat, called cotta, made of a hollow tree. Both those boats are still in ge- neral use in Ireland, under the name of corraghs and cots, but are chiefly to be found on the rivers in remote counties, and on the south and west sea- coast. (7) Page 276, — " I admit neither presbyter, papist, independent, nor, as our proclamatioa says, any other sort of fauatick, to plant here, but all good protestants." — Earl of Orrery''^ Leiler to the Duke of Oimonde, 16C2. EXD OF VOL. I, ii. Ci.ARK£, I'riuter, ^^ ell sueet, Loadun. - ^- ,^a. ^ , ■i^ ■jt//. -i.*^ fftt\ ^4- PVX . yh^^ ?^(!}^ "^i^ •y(s ^^k0^' SMi