The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II). Lever Charles James
of mind ranged from one extreme to the other; nothing had any permanency amongst them but their wretchedness. Of all their qualities, however, that which most obstructed their improvement, ate deepest into their natures, and suggested the worst fears for the future, was suspicion. They trusted nothing, – none, – so that every benefit bestowed on them came alloyed with its own share of doubt; and all the ingenuity of their crafty minds found congenial occupation in ascribing this or that motive to every attempt to better their condition.
Mary Martin knew them – understood them – as well as most people; few, indeed, out of their own actual station of life had seen so much of their domesticity. From her very childhood she had been conversant with their habits and their ways. She had seen them patient under the most trying afflictions, manfully braving every ill of life, and submitting with a noble self-devotion to inevitable calamity; and she had also beheld them, with ignorant impatience, resenting the slightest interference when they deemed it uncalled for, and rejecting kindness when it came coupled with the suggestion of a duty.
By considerable skill, and no little patience, she had insinuated a certain small amount of discipline into this disorderly mass. She could not succeed in persuading them to approach her one by one, or wait with any semblance of order while she was yet occupied; but she enforced conformity with at least one rule, which was, that none should speak save in answer to some question put by herself. This may seem a very small matter, and yet to any one who knows the Irish peasant it will appear little short of miraculous. The passion for discursiveness, the tendency to make an effective theme of their misery, whatever particular shape it may assume, is essentially national; and to curb this vent to native eloquence was to oppose at once the strongest impulse of their natures.
Nothing short of actual, tangible benefits could compensate them for what they scrupled not to think was downright cruelty; nor was it till after months of steady perseverance on her part that her system could be said to have attained any success. Many of the most wretched declined to seek relief on the conditions thus imposed. Some went as actual rebels, to show their friends and neighbors how they would resist such intolerance; others, again, professed that they only went out of curiosity. Strange and incomprehensible people, who can brave every ill of poverty, endure famine and fever and want, and yet will not bow the head to a mere matter of form, nor subject themselves to the very least restriction when a passion or a caprice stands opposed to it! After about eighteen months of hard persistence the system began at length to work; the refractory spirits had either refrained from coming or had abandoned the opposition; and now a semblance of order pervaded the motley assemblage. Whenever the slightest deviation from the ritual occurred, a smart tap of a small ivory ruler on the table imposed silence; and they who disregarded the warning were ordered to move by, unattended to. Had a stranger been permitted, therefore, to take a peep at these proceedings, he would have been astonished at the rapidity with which complaints were heard, and wants redressed; for, with an instinct thoroughly native, Mary Martin appreciated the cases which came before her, and rarely or never confounded the appeal of real suffering with the demands of fictitious sorrow. Most of those who came were desirous of tickets for Dispensary aid; for sickness has its permanent home in the Irish cabin, and fever lurks amidst the damp straw and the smoky atmosphere of the poor peasant’s home. Some, however, came for articles of clothing, or for aid to make and repair them; others for some little assistance in diet, barley for a sick man’s drink, a lemon or an orange to moisten the parched lips of fever; others, again, wanted leave to send a grandchild or a niece to the school; and, lastly, a few privileged individuals appeared to claim their weekly rations of snuff or tobacco, – little luxuries accorded to old age, – comforts that solaced many a dreary hour of a joyless existence. Amongst all the crowded mass there was not one whom Mary had not known and visited in their humble homes. Thoroughly conversant with their condition and their necessities, she knew well their real wants; and if one less hopeful than herself might have despaired to render any actual relief to such widespread misery, she was sanguine enough to be encouraged by the results before her, small and few as they were, to think that possibly the good time was yet to come when such efforts would be unneeded, and when Ireland’s industry, employed and rewarded, would more than suffice for all the requirements of her humble poor.
“Jane Maloney,” said Mary, placing a small packet on the table, “give this to Sally Kieran as you pass her door; and here ‘s the order for your own cloak.”
“May the heavens be your bed. May the holy – ”
“Catty Honan,” cried Mary, with a gesture to enforce silence. “Catty, your granddaughter never comes to the school now that she has got leave. What’s the reason of that?”
“Faix, your reverance, miss, ‘tis ashamed she is by ray-son of her clothes. She says Luke Cassidy’s daughters have check aprons.”
“No more of this, Catty. Tell Eliza to come on Monday, and if I ‘m satisfied with her she shall have one too.”
“Two ounces of tea for the Widow Jones.”
“Ayeh,” muttered an old hag. “But it’s weak it makes it without a little green in it!”
“How are the pains, Sarah?” asked Mary, turning to a very feeble-looking old creature with crutches.
“Worse and worse, my Lady. With every change of the weather they come on afresh.”
“The doctor will attend you, Sally, and if he thinks wine good for you, you shall have it.”
“‘T is that same would be the savin’ of me, Miss Mary,” said a cunning-eyed little woman, with a tattered straw bonnet on her head, and a ragged shawl over her.
“I don’t think so, Nancy. Come up to the house on Monday morning and help Mrs. Taafe with the bleaching.”
“So this is the duplicate, Polly?” said she, taking a scrap of paper from an old woman whose countenance indicated a blending of dissipation with actual want.
“One-and-fourpence was all I got on it, and trouble enough it gave me.” These words she uttered with a heavy sigh, and in a tone at once resentful and complaining.
“Were my uncle to know that you had pawned your cloak, Polly, he ‘d never permit you to cross his threshold.”
“Ayeh, it’s a great sin, to be sure,” whined out the hag, half insolently.
“A great shame and a great disgrace it certainly is; and I shall stop all relief to you till the money be paid back.”
“And why not!” “To be sure!” “Miss Mary is right!” “What else could she do?” broke in full twenty sycophant voices, who hoped to prefer their own claims by the cheap expedient of condemning another.
“The Widow Hannigan.”
“Here, miss,” simpered out a smiling little old creature, with a courtesy, as she held up a scroll of paper in her hand.
“What ‘s this, Widow Hannigan?”
“‘T is a picture Mickey made of you, miss, when you was out riding that day with the hounds; he saw you jumping a stone wall.”
Mary smiled at the performance, which certainly did not promise future excellence, and went on, —
“Tell Mickey to mend his writing; his was the worst copy in the class; and here’s a card for your daughter’s admission into the Infirmary. By the way, widow, which of the boys was it I saw dragging the river on Wednesday?”
“Faix, miss, I don’t know. Sure it was none of ours would dare to – ”
“Yes, they would, any one of them; but I ‘ll not permit it; and what’s more, widow, if it occur again, I ‘ll withdraw the leave I gave to fish with a rod.
“Teresa Johnson, your niece is a very good child, and promises to be very handy with her needle. Let her hem these handkerchiefs, and there’s a frock for herself. My uncle says Tom shall have half his wages paid him till he’s able to come to work again.”
But why attempt to follow out what would be but the long, unending catalogue of native misery, – that dreary series of wants and privations to which extreme destitution subjects a long-neglected and helpless people?