Chapter XXV (2)

Adelaide Anne Procter was born in October, 1825, in Bedford Square, London; the eldest child, the "sweet beloved first-born," of Brian Waller Procter, best known to literature as Barry Cornwall. We have often heard her described as she was at three years old--"the prettiest little fairy ever seen," with fair delicate features and great blue eyes; always frail in health, but exceedingly intelligent. Mr. Dickens tells of a tiny album, made of note-paper, into which her favorite passages of poetry were copied for her by her mother's hand before she herself could write; and she very soon began to acquire foreign languages, and even to learn geometry. One of her early accomplishments was drawing--she composed little figure pieces with grace and facility; and we remember hearing from a loving relative of Miss Procter's, many long years ago, of a certain set of sketches of the Seven Ages of Man, done by her in pencil when she was yet a little girl. Being at the time still younger, we heard of it with a sort of admiring awe, which it is now pathetic to remember; considering in our own mind what a wonderful and even alarming little girl this must be. Some five-and-twenty years later (since her death) those little sketches came to light; the sight of them smiting upon the heart with the memory of that long-ago conversation, so full of fond hope and pride.

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Miss Procter was very thoroughly educated, and from her youth went much into society, possessing in a marked degree the best characteristics of a woman of the world. Mr. Dickens says that she had nothing of the conventional poetess about her; was neither melancholy, nor affected, nor self-absorbed. What she _had_, was the ease, the polish, and the extreme readiness which we are taught to consider the traditionary charm of a Frenchwoman of the old school. To perfect self-possession she added a sort of feminine mastery of those about her. Single out any of the famous Parisians gifted with the power to win and to keep, and imagine this sort of power grafted on to a nature _au fond_ very simple and sterling; and thus the reader will attain to a conception of what she was in social life. She had deep and strong feeling, which she poured out in her poetry; but it did not come uppermost in her conversation. _That_ was always vivid and usually lively, and, moreover, edged with marvellous finesse. "Sweet-briar" one loving friend used to call her.

Her outward life was not very varied; but her conversion to the Catholic faith, which took place when she was about four-and-twenty, gave her a wide circle of intellectual interests beyond those of ordinary English minds. Two years later she went to Piedmont, and passed a year with a relative there. She always recalled this Italian experience with lively pleasure; and it colored many of her poems. Her letters home were very lively and pictorial, showing that she would have excelled in prose composition.

Of her first entrance into literature Mr. Dickens has given an amusing account: how she sent poems to _Household Words_ under the signature of Miss Berwick, and how at the office they all made up their minds she was a governess; and how Miss Berwick turned out, after all, to be the daughter of his old friend Barry Cornwall, who preferred to win her spurs with her visor down. When, some years later, she was with much difficulty induced to collect her poems into a volume, with her name, their success was immediate; both that volume and a second series passed through edition after edition, till she truly became a _household word_ in England.

There is not, alas! very much more to tell. Just when she became famous, and opportunities of literary exertion were opening on every side, her health began to fail. For three or four years before her declared illness she was very delicate, and, with the fatal animation of her peculiar temperament, always overworking herself. But that dread malady, consumption, the scourge of England, can rarely be averted when once it has marked its prey. In November, 1862, her increasing illness first confined her to her room, and very shortly to her bed. For fifteen long months she lay there, wasting gradually away; yet not only was she patient and thoroughly resigned, but up to the very last her bright cheerfulness never quite deserted her. When not actually in pain, she would enter into conversation with all her old zest, taking just the same interest in her friends and their affairs; lively, sympathetic, and helpful to the end. On the very last evening of all, one of her friends, thinking to interest her in the old pursuit, brought her a little poem in proof. It was a Catholic ballad for _The Lamp_, Miss Procter was sitting up in bed, supported by pillows. She was too weak to speak any unnecessary word; but her large blue eyes roused into their wonted intelligence as she listened; and then, with the sweet sympathy which she at all times gave to others, she made a slight applauding motion with those slender wasted fingers, and smiled into the reader's face. It was such a very slight thing, and yet so utterly characteristic--courtesy and kindness and a sort of unselfish readiness surviving to the very end.

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That night, an hour after midnight, on the 2d of February, the summons came. She had been reading a little book--trying to read, rather--and as the clock was on the stroke of one she shut it up, and with some sudden mysterious rush of consciousness, having suffered greatly all the evening from oppressed breathing, she asked quietly of her mother, who was holding her in her arms:

"Do you think I am dying, mamma?"

"I think you are very, very ill tonight, my dear."

"Send for my sister. My feet are so cold--lift me up."

Her sister entering as they raised her, she said: "It has come at last."

And then, with so soft a change that the anxious eyes bent upon those sunken features could hardly detect the moment of her ceasing to breathe, death came to the beloved of so many hearts. The prayers of the Church, of which she was so devoted a child, were audibly uplifted throughout that closing scene; they were the last earthly sounds that can have reached the dulling ear. Opposite to her, as she lay upon her little bed, was a photograph from that loveliest image by Francia of the dead Saviour lying upon his mother's knees. At all times ardently religious, the last days of her frail life were elevated and cheered by the holy rites of her faith. As she lay in her coffin, a crucifix upon her breast, and camellias and violets sprinkled over her fair white garments, she looked the loveliest image of peace which a pure and pious life could bequeath to perishable clay. The delicate face was but little changed. Up to the very last it had retained its bright spiritual expression, just as her voice had retained its musical inflections, and her smile its blended charm of affectionate sympathy and childlike gaiety. In death that smile had vanished for ever, but something of its sweetness still lingered about the brow and mouth. The tapers for which she had asked a little while previously (for the due keeping of Candlemas-day) burnt at the head of the coffin, and shed their soft light down upon that still face. When at length it was covered up from mortal sight, and all that remained of her laid in the grave at St. Mary's Cemetery, the sun shone out with the first cheerfulness of early spring. Coming from behind a little cloud, that sunshine lit up the white vestment of the priest, who, standing by her coffin in the little chapel, spoke of the joyful resurrection of the children of God. There is a little garden upon that simple grave, where fresh flowers bloom every spring; and beside it many prayers are offered up with each returning season of the year.

But we must linger no longer on memories and associations which are almost too sacred for more than a passing word. To the world at large Miss Procter is known through her genius only; but it is, perhaps, not too much to say, that through it she is also endeared in a singular degree to thousands who never looked upon her face. To some consideration of her poems we will therefore address ourselves; the less reluctantly that they were truly so much a revelation of her life.

If canons of criticism be based on something deeper than mere superficial rules in regard to the expression of the sublime and youthful, it must be doubly interesting to trace the causes of a wide-spread popularity attaching to any series of works from the same pen. Such an appreciation cannot be won by a trick of form, or by a deliberate appeal to well-known popular sympathies. It must arise from the touching of universal emotions; from a true correspondence with those thoughts and feelings which are the heritage of the race under its most general conditions, or which have become the common property of a people in all its various grades of culture.

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There are two theories regarding the nature of poetry and of that Genius which creates poetry, whether in literature or in the sphere of any art. They will never be harmonized; for, like many other opinions, doctrines, and theories, of which we are separately forced to acknowledge the truth, they are irreconcilable by any effort of the human understanding. One of these theories says that genius is rare, recondite, unusual; that its creations are, by the very nature of things, little likely to be appreciated; that, indeed, the higher and the deeper it is, the more likelihood there is that it will not be entered into by numbers. Such genius found its embodiment in the phantasmagoria of Blake, in the poetry of Shelley, in the profound insight of this or that thinker. It is the vivid but momentary flash of lightning irradiating a sombre sky; it is the gnarled and solitary pine; the deep still tarn upon the mountain-side; it is the vein of bright ore buried in the darkness of the mine; the electric thrill evoked from inert matter, interesting, delightful, and suggestive from the very strangeness of its apparition. Who shall deny this is _one_ definition of genius, one way of picturing the idea of high art?

But there is another theory, which says that genius is that which possesses the faculty of incarnating universal affections in a type readily and instinctively appropriated by the imagination; that it painted the Huguenots, and wrought out the image of Jeanie Deans; that it sung the simple melody of "Auld Robin Gray," and accumulated the massive choruses of Handel; that--putting aside those greatest men, the Shakespeares, Groethes, and Raphaels, regarding whom criticism or definition are alike exhaustless and for ever inconclusive--the most admirable genius is that which thrills in the ballads, the religions literature, and imitative art of a people, and which a whole nation "will not willingly let die." Such genius, such art, is like the fair sunshine upon corn-fields, the rippling of the running stream, the silver surface of the lake, the profuse luxuriance of spring and autumn woodlands. It embodies light, air, and the song of birds, the solemnity of the universal twilight, and the radiance of the universal dawn. Almost every one can see and feel it in _some_ wise, though the keenness of the appreciation will be in proportion to the sensitiveness of the eye and ear. Who shall deny that this is another and equally true description of the highest genius and the noblest art?

The poems we are now considering, and which have won such general admiration wherever they have become known, belong to the latter class of works of art. Their simple, delicate beauty appeals alike to men and women, and to the soul of the young child; their transparent clearness is that of an unusually lucid intellect; their profoundness is only that of a believing heart. She who wrote them would often say, with a certain characteristic simplicity, "I only write verses--I do not write poetry;" and would fasten upon the products of some powerful and mystic mind as an illustration of what genuine poetry ought to be. But the mis-estimate was great. The absolute absence of claptrap, of any appeal to the passions of the hour or the popular idols of the English people, showed that if these volumes lay on so many tables, and their contents were so often sung and quoted in public and in private, as expressing just that which everybody had wanted to say, the reason lay deeper than the ring of the verse-writer who knows how to play into the fancy of the multitude. They are popular because they are instinct with dainty feminine genius, and reach the hearts of others with the sure precise touch of slender fingers awakening the silver chords of a harp.

Three volumes originally comprised the whole of Miss Procter's writings: a first and second series of legends and lyrics, and one of religious poems, published for a night-refuge {841} kept by Sisters of Mercy. The two former have now been printed in this rich quarto by Messrs. Bell & Daldy; and it may not be amiss to say that the whole _three_ have been republished in America in one small but excellently got-up volume, at once a casket and a shrine (Ticknor & Fields, Boston). Of the secular poems now brought before our English public in so beautiful a dress, we would attempt a slight analysis of contents. There are fourteen legends or stories, long and short--little tales in verse, of which the gist generally lies in some very subtle and pathetic situation of the human heart. Anything like violent wrong or the ravages of unruly passion seemed rarely to cross this gentle imagination; and yet the legends are nearly all sorrowful; but the sorrow seems to spring from nobody's fault and perhaps for that very reason it is all the more sorrowful, for repentance will not wash it away. Little dead children borne to heaven on the bosom of the angels while their mothers weep below; or a dying mother, dying amidst the splendors of an earl's home, and calling to her bedside the son of an earlier and humbler marriage, revealing herself to him at the last; or the history of a stepmother, long loved but late wedded, and who had given up the lover of her own youth to a younger friend, and afterward taken the charge of that friend's jealous and reluctant children; or the pitiful tale, since elaborately wrought out by Tennyson in his "Enoch Arden," of the sailor who returns home to find his wife the wife of another man. In one and all the pathos is wrought out and expressed with the most extraordinary delicacy of touch. The reader says to himself, "Nay, is it so sad after all?" And yet it is; sad and spiritually hopeful too; sad for this earth, hopeful for heaven. This seems the irresistible conclusion of almost every tale; even the story of the stepmother, supposed to come quite right at last, is made inexpressibly plaintive by being told by the first wife's nurse--she who "knew so much," and had lived with her young mistress from childhood, and would not call the cold husband unkind; "but she had been used to love and praise."

In others of these legends the telling of the tale is simpler, the pathos more direct, but almost always strangely subtle. In "Three Evenings of a Life" a sister sacrifices her own hopes of married life that she may devote herself to a young brother who needs her care. But the young brother marries--a catastrophe which she does not seem to have contemplated; and she finds too late that her sacrifice was useless; and, what was worse, that the bride is ill-fitted to sustain him in his life or in his art; and the unhappy sister

"----watched the daily failing
Of all his nobler part;
Low aims, weak purpose, telling
In lower, weaker art.

And now, when he is dying,
The last words she could hear
Must not be hers, but given
The bride of one short year.
The last care is another's;
The last prayer must not be
The one they learnt together
Beside their mother's knee."

Herbert sickens and dies, leaving the poor weak little Dora to Alice's care; and we are told how Alice cherishes her, and bears with her waywardness through sad weeks of depression, till news comes in spring that Leonard--the rejected lover--is returning from India. Now Alice is free! Now she may love Leonard and lean upon his strength. He comes; the little household smiles once more. Summer succeeds to spring; when one twilight hour Alice is aware of the perfume of flowers brought into their London home. She goes out into the passage, and through a half-opened door hears Leonard's voice:

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"His low voice--Dora's answers;
His pleading;--yes, she knew
The tone, the words, the accents;
She once had heard them too.
'Would Alice blame her? Leonard's
Low tender answer came.
'Alice was far too noble
To think or dream of blame.'
'And wishes sure he loved her?'
'Yes, with the one love given
Once in a lifetime only;
With one soul and one heaven?'

Then came a plaintive murmur:
'Dora had once been told
That he and Alice--' 'Dearest,
Alice is far too cold
To love: and I, my Dora,
If once I fancied so,
It was a brief delusion.
And over long ago.'"

Very tender and touching is the description of the forlorn woman's recoil upon her brother's memory:

"Yes, they have once been parted;
But this day shall restore
The long-lost one; she claims him:
'My Herbert--mine once more!'"

One of the most highly finished of the legends is "A Tomb in Ghent," setting forth the life of a humble musician and his young daughter. It contains lovely touches of description both of music and architecture. How the youth knelt prayerfully in St. Bavon--

"While the great organ over all would roll,
Speaking strange secrets to his innocent soul,
Bearing on eagle-wings the great desire
Of all the kneeling throng, and piercing higher
Than aught but love and prayer can reach, until
Only the silence seemed to listen still;
Or, gathering like a sea still more and more.
Break in melodious waves at heaven's door.
And then fall, slow and soft, in tender rain,
Upon the pleading, longing hearts again."

Not only what he heard, but what he saw, is thus exquisitely imaged in words:

"Then he would watch the rosy sunlight glow.
That crept along the marble floor below,
Passing, as life does with the passing hours.
How by a shrine all rich with gems and flowers.
Now on the brazen letters of a tomb;
Then, again, leaving it to shade and gloom,
And creeping on, to show distinct and quaint,
The kneeling figure of some marble saint;
Or lighting up the carvings strange and rare
That told of patient toil and reverent care;
Ivy that trembled on the spray, and ears
Of heavy corn, and slender bulrush-spears.
And all the thousand tangled weeds that grow
In summer where the silver rivers flow:
And demon heads grotesque that seemed to glare
In impotent wrath on all the beauty there.
Then the gold rays up pillared shaft would climb.
And so be drawn to heaven at evening time;
And deeper silence, darker shadows flowed
On all around--only the windows glowed
With blazoned glory, like the shields of light
Archangels bear, who, armed with love and might,
Watch upon heaven's battlements at night."

The second critical division of Miss Procter's poems comprises those beautiful lyrics, many of which have been set to music, and all of which are full of the melody of rhythms--inspired, as it were, by a delicate AEolian harmony, having its source in the fine intangible instinct of the poet's ear. Amidst more than a hundred of such short poems and songs, selection seems nearly impossible to the critic. Many of the little pieces and many of the separate verses are destined to float on the surface of English literature with the same secure buoyancy as Herrick's "Daffodils," or Lyttleton's verses to his fair wife Lucy, or Wordsworth's picture of the maid who dwelt by the banks of Dove. They have that short felicity of expression, that perfect finish in their parts, that cause such poems to abide in the memory, or, as the expression is, to "dwell in the imagination." In the six verses of "The Chain,"

"Which was not forged by mortal hands.
Or clasped with golden bars and bands,

is one--the third--which exemplifies our assertion. It reads like one of those immemorial quotations we have known from infancy:

"Yet what no mortal hand could make.
No mortal power can ever break;
What words or vows could never do.
No words or vows can make untrue;
And if to other hearts unknown,
The dearer and the more our own,
Because too sacred and divine
For other eyes save thine and mine."

Two songs, written in the quaint, irregular metre delighted in by the seventeenth-century poets, seem like forgotten scraps by one of the more elegant contemporaries of Milton; these are, "A Doubting Heart," and "A Lament for the Summer," of which the first and last verses are instinct with the feelings of October days:

"Moan, O ye Autumn winds--
Summer has fled;
The flowers have closed their tender leaves, and die;
The lily's gracious head
All low must lie.
Because the gentle Summer now is dead.

Mourn, mourn, O Autumn winds--
Lament and mourn;
How many half-blown buds must close and die!
Hopes, with the Summer born,
All faded lie,
And leave us desolate and earth forlorn."

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Equally musical, but full of the more personal sentiment of our century, is that lovely song, "A Shadow," beginning,

"What lack the valleys and mountains
That once were green and gay?"

Quite different in tone, full of ringing harmony, is the little poem of "Now?"

"Rise, for the day is passing,
And you lie dreaming on;
The others have buckled their armor,
And forth to the fight are gone.
A place in the ranks awaits you--
Each man has some part to play;
The Past and the Future are nothing
In the face of the stern To-day."

And so on, through four spirited verses. Something in these strikes the ear as peculiarly illustrative of the active pious spirit of her who wrote them, of the voice whose every tone was so dear, and of the smile whose arch intelligence conveyed the same expression of lively decision.

We must now bring our remarks to a close, having tried to indicate the different qualities of Miss Procter's verse. The permanent place which it will retain in English literature it is not for us to decide. She has had the power to strike the heart of her own generation by its simple pathos. That it is purely original of its kind can hardly be denied; but it is hard, if not impossible, so far to separate ourselves from the standard of our own generation as to judge where the limits of the _special_, and therefore the _transient_, elements of fame are passed. But we at least must not be wanting in gratitude to one of the sweetest singers of the day that was hers and our own.

------

From The Sixpenny Magazine.

THE ADVENTURE.

Sir Brian O'Brian McMurrough commenced life as possessor of a _nominal_ rent-roll of twelve thousand pounds sterling per annum, although in reality, between mortgages, and rent-charges, and incumbrances of every possible shape and hue, probably five would represent the net sum received by the proprietor. Still, it was not the age of economical reflection, nor was the young baronet either a financier or a philosopher. He had been cradled in luxury, and bowed down to with slavish senility; he had been educated at Cambridge, and, one way or other, his bills there had been met, though not always pleasantly, by his father. He had travelled over Europe, Asia, and a good part of America, for four years, and at last a letter had caught him at Vienna, telling him that his father, Sir Patrick, had died suddenly, "full of years and honors," and that he was now the representative of one of "the oldest and best families in Ireland," and possessor of its splendid estates, etc. On his return home he was surrounded by troops of friends and hordes of sycophants, and for some years was far too much engaged in pleasure not to let business attend to itself. His fathers had lived "like kings," and he had too much the spirit of an Irish, gentleman to let prudence or economy come "between the wind and his nobility." He married, too, and chose for his wife a far-descended and beautiful pauper, with tastes to the full as reckless and extravagant as his own. This lady had brought him a daughter, who lived, and in four years after {844} a son, who had died a few hours after his birth, and whose death preceded that of his mother by a single day. After her death Sir Brian became more careless and reckless than ever. His spirits sank as his debts mounted; he saw from the first that ruin was inevitable; section after section of his splendid estates were put up for sale and swept away; until at last all that remained to him was a half-ruined building, called "The Black Abbey," which he sometimes used as a shooting and fishing lodge in happier days, and a tract of mountain land, wild, and for the most part sterile and unprofitable, and for part of which he paid rent. In the present gloomy temper of his soul, however, it suited his humor. The building stood halfway up a mountain, the base of which was almost washed by the waters of a broad lake, or lough, and from which it was only separated by a slip of meadow. The lake itself was several miles in extent, and at least three miles and a half broad immediately opposite the abbey, to which the only access from the mainland was by a skiff or boat, except you chose to travel several miles round so as to head the lake. It was a romantic but utterly desolate retreat, made still more so, if possible, by the sullen gloom which had now taken possession of the fallen man. He had secured some remnants of a once splendid library, and sometimes amused himself by teaching his daughter Eva, although there were weeks at one time when a restless and morose spirit beset him, and then with a gun in his hand he wandered idly through the mountains, or with a boy, named Paudreèn, took to his yacht, and was never to be seen on shore, sometimes sleeping on board, or bivouacking on some of the many small islands which dotted the loch.

At such times Eva was left in possession of the abbey, accompanied by old Deb Dermody and her husband Mogue (or Moses), who, of all his followers, had stuck steadily to Sir Brian, and would not be shaken off. Before utter ruin had come upon them, Eva had been for a year, or somewhat better, at a boarding school, the mistress of which had evidently done her duty by the child. The little girl, indeed, "showed blood" in more ways than one: she was small but hardy, and, without being critically beautiful, she was very lovely to look upon: her features were delicate but full of animation. Her temper was lively, but all her instincts were genial and generous, and she had, in a particular manner, the gift of conciliating the affectionate regards of all who came within the sphere of her innocent influence. True it was, her worshippers were neither numerous nor select. A few hands employed by the "steward" (as Mogue was magniloquently called) to till the ground and attend to the "stock," consisting of mountain sheep and Kerry cows, together with stray "cadgers," pedlars, and other wanderers who occasionally visited the neighborhood, and the "neighbors" on both banks of the lough (the hither and thither), consisting for the most part of an amphibious sort of population, who netted fish in the lake, or cultivated patches of ground to keep life and soul together. Beside these, now and then the "agent" of the estate, Mr. Redmond Hennessey, sometimes visited at the abbey, to look for or receive the rents paid by Sir Brian, and another more welcome occasional visitor was Father John Considine, the P.P. of a long, straggling parish, which extended over both sides of the mountain, and whose house and church lay in the valley which separated Ballintopher, on which Sir Brian lived, from Ballinteer, a higher hill which ran beyond. Sir Brian and his daughter belonged to the old faith, and as the priest was a large-minded, liberal man, with a well-cultivated mind, and a good-humored and even jovial temperament, his visits always enlivened the abbey, and sometimes won a smile from its proprietor. His literary tastes and recollections, also, were exceedingly {845} useful to the young girl, particularly as he sometimes ran up to Dublin, or even over to London or Paris, in the summer holidays, from whence he was sure to bring back the gossip for Sir Brian, and a budget of new books, periodicals, and songs for his favorite. Thus matters went on for some years--nothing better, nothing worse, apparently--until Eva was in her eighteenth year. The large estates originally owned by Sir Brian had, in a great measure, fallen into the hands of a single proprietor, Sir Adams Jessop, a rich London merchant and banker, who had purchased them by lots on speculation, because, in the first place, they were sold low (as at first all the Irish estates were under the Incumbered Estates Court), and because he had advanced large sums to the holders of the mortgages, etc., with which they were embarrassed, and thus sought to recoup himself. Since they came into his possession he had been over for a few days twice--once to look over the property, and again to appoint an agent recommended to him by some neighboring proprietors, who all spoke of Mr. Redmond Hennessey as a man of zeal and industry, who always had his employer's interest at heart, and detested a non-paying or dilatory tenant as he did a mad dog. Under this gentleman's supervision the estates put on a new aspect; rents were raised, and covenants insisted on, such as "the oldest inhabitant" had never even dreamed of; and as Mr. Hennessey was a solicitor as well as an agent, processes followed defalcations, and the only sure road to his friendly sympathy was punctuality in payment, and liberality (in the shape of gifts, such as fowl, butter, eggs, fish, socks, flannel, and so forth) from those who had favors to ask or bargains to make. Of course he was a thriving man, but it was remarked that illicit distillation, poaching, and illegal practices of all kinds were greatly on the increase; and when Sir Brian heard of all this, and saw that additional magistrates were sworn in, and a large draft of constabulary and preventive police sent into the new barracks specially constructed for them, he grimly triumphed in the change, and made no secret of his sympathy with the malcontents, since, as he said, "what better could be expected on the estate of an absentee?"

Neither did matters seem to mend when Sir Adams Jessop died somewhat suddenly, and was succeeded by his only son, now Sir William Jessop, who was understood to be a gay young man of indolent habits and roving propensities, and who seemed to have even less sympathy for his Irish tenants than his father--if, indeed, that were possible. Mr. Hennessey's power and authority were now unlimited, and stories were told of his rapacity and impatience of all control which appeared incredible. Whole townships were depopulated by his _fiat_; families were reduced to beggary and desperation by his determination to "make the estate pay;" and some said (for every man has his enemies) that when his new master informed him by letter of appeals being made and of his wish that they should be attended to and the appellants dealt more lightly with, his answer invariably was, that the accusers were established liars, who would be the first to shoot down Sir William himself should he ever be foolish enough to venture amongst them.

II.

Like all inland lakes of considerable extent, that which lay before the windows of the Black Abbey was subject to violent changes of temper on slight and sudden provocation. In the morning it would lie dimpling and smiling before you, as full of placid beauty and as incapable of a wrathful outburst as a ball-room belle; while at noon its aspect would become as terrible as that of a virago, whose whole family and neighborhood tremble and fly from the fearful storm which no submission can allay. On such occasions, considerable danger {846} menaced those who sailed on business or pleasure over the waters of the lake, and it so happened that on the eve of a September day, the yacht of Sir Brian McMurrough was caught in one of those sudden bursts which had swept down from the mountains, accompanied by torrents of rain and violent thunder and lightning, although in the morning, and until after midday, there had been no warning of a gale.

To make matters worse, Miss McMurrough was known to be on board the boat, as she had accompanied her father to a town at the other end of the lake to make household purchases for the coming winter; and the amount of agitation evidenced by a group of men who stood on the banks of the lough and witnessed the fearful struggles of the little craft, amounted gradually to extreme terror as they saw the principal sail give way and flutter in the wind like ribands, while the waves washed over the helpless vessel and threatened speedily to engulf her.

"It will never do, boys," at last said one of the men, "to stand idly by and see the best blood of the country die the death of a drowned dog without putting out a hand or an oar to save him. Run up, Patsy, and tell Mick Mackesy to come down at once, while we launch _Sheelah_, who never turned her back to the whitest horses that ever gallopped over any water that ever ran; and don't let grass grow to your heels, for a life may hang on every step you take. Away with you."

"Has he far to go?" asked another of the group.

"About a mile, sir," replied the man, touching his cap to the questioner, who had been a stranger to him until on hour or two before; "and the worst of it is Mick may be out, or drunk, and then we're done for."

"Don't send for him, then," said the stranger; "I have pulled an oar at college and elsewhere, and am pretty well up to the management of a boat. Where is your craft?"

"Yonder in the cove, sir; but it's a bad business."

"Then the sooner we get rid of it the better, my friend," said the energetic stranger. "Come, boys, I have a sovereign or two to spare, and I promise you that no man shall lose by his humanity. Now, my friend, lead on."

"May I never," said the first speaker, whose name was Andy Monahan, "but you've a stout heart in your bazzom, whoever you are, and it's a pity to baulk you!"

In an incredibly short space of time the boat was launched, and the gentle _Sheelah_ fled on her mission of mercy, impelled by four pair of hands who knew right well how to handle her. By this time the baronet's yacht was a sheer wreck, and although the owner and his boy struggled hard to keep her head to the wind, it was evident that if she did not fill and go down, she would drive bodily on the ragged rocks which shot perpendicularly up on that part of the shore toward which she was drifting. The boat reached her safely, however, and by the excellent management of the volunteer boatman mainly. Miss McMurrough was got into the shore-boat, and her father and the boy followed, while an anchor was let go in the yacht and she was then left to her fate.

In moments of great danger and excitement there is little room for ceremony or introduction, and on the present occasion only a few words, and those of direction, passed on any side. Sir Brian's main care was for his daughter, who, drenched and terrified as she must necessarily be, bore up wonderfully, and even managed to murmur a few words of gratitude to the stranger who so sedulously bore her into the boat, and, so far as he could, protected her. When all was done, the boat's head was again turned to the shore, and "in less than no time," as Andy promised, its wave-worn load was safely landed, wet, weary, and chilled, but otherwise unharmed. After a few words in private {847} with Andy, the boat-owner, Sir Brian turned to the stranger and addressed him.

"I am told by my friend here, sir," he said, "that it is to your dexterity and courage my own preservation and that of my daughter is mainly due. I trust that you will accompany me to my residence, and allow me, when I have regained my presence of mind, more suitably to thank you for the signal service you have done me than I can find words adequately to do now."

"You are very kind, sir," was the prompt and cordial reply, "and I shall be very happy to accept your hospitable offer, as I am altogether a stranger here, and the boatman tells me that I will have to cross the mountain before I can reach an inn."

In the meanwhile, the storm had lulled considerably, and half a score of women had come from the surrounding cottages, some with cloaks, blankets, and shawls for "Miss Eva," and some with "poteen" jars or bottles, to "warm the hearts" of the rescued mariners. But Sir Brian persisted in going home, and refused the proffers of profuse hospitality pressed on him, accepting a "wrap" for his daughter, and sanctioning the attendance of the stranger, on whose offered arm she leaned as they began their walk to the abbey. Before they set off, however, the stranger found time to thrust five sovereigns into Andy's hand, saying to him, in a low voice--

"Divide them among your brave comrades, my good friend, and say nothing to Sir Brian. I only wish I could make it ten times as much, since every man of them is worth--nay, don't refuse them, or I shall say that you are too proud to be obliged by a friend. You and I must become better acquainted hereafter."

He hastened away, and Andy pocketed the gratuity, which he had neither expected nor was at all anxious to receive.

"We'll drink his health anyway," he said, as he pocketed the money; "and if he stays in the country, we'll find a way to pay him back, if not in his own coin, maybe in one that'll please him as well. A brave chap he is, and feathers an oar as well as myself, who was born, I may say, with one in my right hand."

The stranger had requested that a small, neat knapsack, which he had flung down when he stripped for the lake, should be sent after him to the abbey, at which, on arriving at it, he was warmly welcomed by the master, and was ushered to a spare bed-chamber by Deb Dermody herself, who had been advertised of the coming of the party by a "runner," and had everything prepared to receive them.

When the stranger had dried his clothes and changed his linen by the huge turf fire which blazed in the room allotted him, he descended to the "refectory," of general dining and drawing-room, and so called from its use by the monks "lang syne." He found the baronet and his daughter ready to receive him, a large fire in the grate, a table ready laid for dinner, and a fresh arrival in the sturdy person of "Father John," who had come on one of his periodical visitations. Evidently the good priest had heard of the adventure, and of the gallant part which the stranger had performed in it, and, when presenting him his hand, had good-humoredly thanked him for helping to preserve two lives that were so precious to all who knew their worth. The young man, in his turn, found it necessary to introduce himself, and stated that he was an idle rover, with some taste for drawing, literature, and music, and who came on an exploratory expedition to see what he could pick up in the way of old airs or legends, or new scenery, to forward some speculations of his own. His name was Redland, and he considered himself fortunate in having been able to assist Sir Brian and Miss McMurrough in their difficulty, etc.

{848}

The dinner was good. Fish from the lake, game from the mountain, fowl from the stubble, and a capital ham, fed and cured by the "steward," who prided himself on fattening and killing swine. The night sped pleasantly by. Redland was evidently a gentleman, and both the baronet and the priest knew what that meant right well. He was light and cheerful without being frivolous, and seemed more inclined to ask for information from others than to obtrude his own. He spoke well without speaking too much, and greatly pleased Father John by the interest he took in Irish affairs. In the course of the evening the management of the "Jessop property" was spoken of, and incidentally the character of the agent was discussed.

"After all," said Sir Brian, "the devil is not so black as he is painted; Hennessey is not the worst among the bad. I for my own part have always found him civil and obliging, and not at all pressing for the rent of my miserable holding, which, as you well know, Father John, I never ought to be called on to pay a shilling for; but Hennessey's not to blame for that; no more, I dare say, than for other things laid to his charge. He sent Eva a whole chestful of books to read last week, and baskets of fruit from his hot-houses, although I dare say he was the first of his family that had any better sort of house than a mud cabin to rear pigs instead of grapes and peaches in."

"He is a confirmed scoundrel, however, and a curse to the country that holds him," ejaculated the priest, sternly and gravely.

"You ought to blame his absentee master rather than him," said Sir Brian.

"Under your pardon, Sir Brian, I ought to do no such thing," persisted the priest; "his master knows nothing of his doings, of that I am certain, or if he did, as an English merchant, as a man of humanity, he would be the first to reject and put down such intolerable tyranny, which is equally miserable and profitless. In fact, the fellow is true to no one or nothing but his own selfish interests, for he throws the blame of his own cruelties on his employer, and perpetrates enormities sufficient to draw down God's vengeance, under the plea of being driven to it by a man to whom such cheese-parings and petty gains can be of no possible account."

"I should think then, sir," said the stranger, "that it is high time for him to look to his interests and good name, if your account be true, and my only wonder is that he delays it so long."

"Poh! the present proprietor is a gay young fashionable fop, they were called dandies in my day, who well pockets his rents and only thinks of his Irish tenants when his purse runs, dry," said Sir Brian, bitterly.

"Is not that a harsh estimate, papa," said Eva, gently and timidly, "when you can only speak by surmise?"

"Then why is he not here?" asked Sir Brian; "why does he leave his tenantry to be ground to powder or driven to desperation, if he could cure it by his presence?"

"That question may be answered, too," said the priest; "it is Hennessey's interest to keep him away as long as he can, and you may be pretty sure that he has painted us in colors that would not waste a long journey to witness them. I, however, have taken upon myself the liberty of writing to Sir William Jessop, and it will not be my fault if he does not see reason in my statements to come and have a look at us himself."

"You will get into a mess with Hennessey if that comes to his ears," said the baronet, laughing.

"He knows right well I don't care a farthing for either his friendship or his enmity," replied Father John. "'Be just, and fear not,' is my motto, and if it please God to let him injure me, I will bow to the chastisement, since it will be in a good cause."

{849}

"I think that your act was both justifiable and merciful," said the stranger; "and I should say that Sir William will be little better than a heartless fool if he should not respond to your application as he ought."

"He'll never do it," said the obstinate host; "he'll be thinking of his tallow and cotton, and molasses, as matters infinitely superior in his estimation to Irish kernes and their wrongs."

"Ought we not to hope and pray that he will take a more considerate view of Father John's application to him, papa?" said Eva. "He is an English gentleman, and they are always alive to the interests of humanity--at least I have always heard so."

"And you have heard right, my dear Miss Eva, so we'll hope for the best," replied the priest. "So now let us have one cup of tea, and afterward we'll trouble you for 'Love's Young Dream,' or 'The Minstrel Boy,' or 'Silent, O Moyle!' or 'The Young May Moon,' and I'll grumble a bass in 'St. Senanus and the Lady,' if Mr. Redland will help us out."

The tea was drunk, and the songs sung to the accompaniment of a wild Irish harp, which made excellent music in Eva's fair hands. A light supper followed, and then to bed, after various arrangements for the following days, which Sir Brian insisted Redland should give to them; while Father John, whose time was his own, as he had a curate, promised to remain at the abbey also for a few days.

Near to midnight Redland found himself in a very tidy and comfortable room with a blazing fire, and as he undressed his thoughts took the form of soliloquy.

"Pleasant enough all this," he said, as he sat before the fire, "and not a bad beginning, at all events. Sir Brian is a gentleman certainly, although his prejudices--natural, too--master him; the priest, however, is my strong card, and I must stick to him; while as to Eva--Miss McMurrough--who in the world could have thought of finding such a choice and beautiful blossom in such a site? She is equally Rich in blood and beauty, and no mistake, and her soprano has a great deal of the Jenny Lind fine _timbre_ about it. I'm in luck, at any rate, so here goes to enjoy and make the most of it." Thus saying he went to bed.

For the next few days a great deal was done. The yacht was recovered and made available; fish were caught, birds shot, views taken, cottages visited, histories detailed, dinners eaten, songs sung, and conversations enjoyed, in all which the stranger took part, making himself both useful and agreeable; putting Sir Brian in mind of "the good days," charming the priest by his humane and liberal philosophy, and gradually stealing into Eva's good graces so far, that when one evening he said to her he must think of going, she sighed, and said plaintively--

"Yes, that's the worst of your coming, Mr. Redland, for when you leave us how shall we ever get over your loss? Though of course one ought to be always prepared for misfortune, and no one who wished you well would think of detaining you in so dreary a place."

"Dreary! it has been a paradise to me, I assure you. Miss McMurrough, and when duty demands my presence elsewhere, inclination will be sure to draw me back by the hair of the head, and--and by the cords of the heart as well."

The latter part of the sentence was spoken partly to himself and escaped Eva's ear.

It so chanced that, the next morning, Father John left them, after a hearty invitation to Redland to visit his cottage at the side of the mountain; but it was doomed that his place was supplied about mid-day, or rather toward dinner-time, by no less a person than the formidable "agent," Mr. Redmond Hennessey, himself who announced to his "friend," Sir Brian, that, having a day to spare, he came to tax his hospitality.

{850}

"Beside," he said, as he and Sir Brian sat in conclave, while Redland and Eva were wandering on the banks of the lough--"beside, Sir Brian, a report has reached me that a stranger has intruded himself on your hospitality whom I think you ought to beware of."

"He is a fine young fellow, and saved my life," replied the baronet.

"Specious, I dare say; flippant, but anything but safe company, I should say, if my information be correct," said Mr. Hennessey.

"What has he done?" demanded Sir Brian.

"A great deal that he should have left undone," was the reply. "I have heard of the goings on of him and that confounded priest, whose finger is in every man's dish; of their visitings to tenants, and their bribes for information; in point of fact, I look upon him as a dangerous person--one of those English radicals who, driven from their own country, come to ours to plunge it into convulsion and confusion."

"I think you are mistaken in your estimate," replied Sir Brian.

"You will change your opinion by-and-bye," said Hennessey; "the proof of the pudding is the eating of it; I have received three threatening letters since he has been here, short as it is, and I mean, after dinner, to draw him out a bit, and make him show his true colors, if possible."

"You had better not, perhaps," was the reply; "he is an outspoken young fellow, and seems to fear no man, no matter how potential he may think himself. Better let him alone, for your detectives have tracked the wrong man this time, Mr. Hennessey, I assure you."

"We shall see, however," said the agent, made more obstinate by opposition.

The young people did not return until dinner was ready, and then Redland and Hennessey were introduced to each other. The agent was superciliously cold, and Redland hardly civil, so reserved was his demeanor. It seemed to be "hate at first sight on both sides." Under these circumstances, conversation was slow and restrained; Mr. Hennessey talked of himself a good deal; of the improvements in his house, his grounds, and gardens, and of his associations with the aristocracy of the district; while Redland conversed with Eva in a low voice, mercilessly inattentive to the utterings of the great man, which were frequently interrupted by the ill-repressed laughter of Eva at what her companion was saying. At last, however, dinner was done, and when Eva left the room, Mr. Hennessey began his "drawing-out" system by a point-blank question addressed to Redland.

"I understand, Mr. Redland," he said, "that you have been very particularly anxious in your inquiries about the state of Sir William Jessop's extensive property. I presume you are an author, and mean to publish your travels in a neat volume, with wood-cut illustrations?"

"No, no; you are altogether mistaken," was the chilly reply; "I am content to read books, without having the ambition to write them."

"Well, then, the greater compliment to us poor Irish that such an independent inquirer should come amongst us," said Hennessey. "I hope you are satisfied with what you have observed."

"I do not wish to answer your question, sir, since, without intending it, I might give you offence," was the guarded reply.

"Pray don't spare me, young gentleman," sneered the agent, "as I am used to misconstruction, and have shoulders broad enough to bear it. You find fault with my management, of course?"

"Not of course, sir," replied Redland, "but if you insist on having my opinion, I think that Sir William Jessop's estates are very wretchedly managed indeed."

{851}

"Hah! that is candor with a vengeance!" said the agent, startled out of his self-possession; "you must be a disinterested observer to jump at once to so decided a conclusion."