at 2s. Tauchnitz then produced it; finally, not very long ago, a friend sent us a copy, bound rather like a manual of devotion, with silver edges to the pages, which she had bought, new, for 4d.; which makes one fear that Ahab’s venture had not turned out too well. It was a story of the Land League, and the actors in it were all of the peasant class. It was very well reviewed, and was, in fact, treated by the Olympians, the Spectator, the Saturday Review, the Times, etc., with a respect and a seriousness that almost alarmed us. It seemed that we had been talking prose without knowing it, and we were so gratified by the discovery that we decided forthwith to abandon all distractions and plunge solemnly, and with single-hearted industry, into the construction of the three-volume novel desired by Messrs. Bentley.
This was not, however, as simple a matter as it seemed, and the way was far from clear. I was doing illustrations for a children’s story (and a very delightful one), “Clear as the Noonday,” by my cousin, Mrs. James Penrose, and I was also illustrating an old Irish song of Crimean times, “The Kerry Recruit,” which has been more attractively brought to the notice of the public by another cousin, Mr. Harry Plunket Greene. Martin was still enmeshed in her World articles and in Ross affairs generally, and though we discussed the “serious novel” intermittently it did not advance.
Ross was by this time restored to the normal condition of Irish country houses, comfortable, hospitable, unconventional, an altogether pleasant place to be in, and with visitors coming and going, it was not as easy as it had been for the daughter in residence to devote herself to literature, especially serious literature.
During one of my many visits there, the honourable and unsolicited office of domestic chaplain had been conferred upon me. Martin has written that “Hymns and Family Prayers are often receptacles for stale metaphor and loose phraseology; out of them comes a religion clothed to suffocation in Sunday clothes and smelling of pew-openers. Tate and Brady had much to answer for in this respect; some of their verses give at once the peculiar feeling of stiff neck produced by a dull sermon and a high pew.”
In this condemnation, however, the family prayers at Ross were not included. When I knew them they took the form of selections from the Morning Service, and included the Psalms for the day; nothing more simple and suitable could be imagined; nevertheless, there were times when they might, indisputably, have been more honoured in the breach than in the observance. I have already alluded to my cousin Nannie’s sense of humour, and its power of overwhelming her in sudden catastrophe. On some forgotten occasion, one of those contretemps peculiar to the moment of household devotion had taken place, and the remembrance of this, recurring, as it did, daily, with the opening of the Prayer-book, rarely failed to render impossible for her a decorous reading of the prayers. This was the more disastrous, because, like very many of “The Chief’s” descendants, she specially enjoyed reading aloud. With much reluctance she deputed her office to Martin, but, unhappily, some aspect of the affair (which had, it may be admitted, some that were sufficiently absurd) would tickle the deputy, and prayers at Ross, which, as I have said, included the Psalms for the day, ended, more than once, at very short notice. I may say that during my tenure of the office, although I could not, like Martin, repeat all the Psalms from memory, I acquitted myself respectably, if quite without distinction. This, as far as I know, has been achieved by but one reader, who will, I trust, forgive me if I abandon, for once, the effort to refrain from mention of existing contemporaries, and quote Martin’s account of her success.
V. F. M. to E. Œ. S. (Ross, 1890.)
“None of us were able to go to church to-day, the weather being detestable and Mama’s eyes much inflamed by gout. So we had prayers at home. Quite early in the morning Mama had strong convulsions at the very thought, and I compelled her to delegate Katie for the office of chaplain. Muriel and her English nurse, Hoskins, were summoned, and before they came Mama stipulated that the Psalms should be read. Katie consented, on condition that Mama should not try to read her verse, and after some resistance, Mama gave in. In came Hoskins, looking the picture of propriety, with a crimson nose, and Muriel, armed with a Child’s Bible, and Katie made a start. Will you believe that Mama could not refrain, but nipped in with the second verse, in a voice of the most majestic gravity. The fourth verse was her next, and in that I detected effort, and prepared for the worst. At the sixth came collapse, and a stifled anguish of laughter. I said in tones of ice,
“‘I’m afraid your eye is hurting you?’
“‘Yes,’ gasped Mama.
“Katie swept on without a stagger, and thus the situation was saved. I think Hoskins would consider laughter of the kind so incredible that she would more easily believe that Mama always did this when her eye hurt her. Katie slew Mama, hip and thigh, afterwards, as indeed, her magnificent handling of the affair entitled her to do.”