One young man who was destined to leave an honoured name for his labours in the cause of Irish music was for many years a member of the McCracken household: Edward Bunting. He came to them in 1785 a young lad of eleven, sent by his brother, Anthony, from Drogheda to become apprentice to Mr. Ware, the organist of St. Anne’s Church, Belfast, and he remained with them for upwards of forty years. This frank hospitality gives us a pleasant insight into the spirit of the McCracken household. They were all intensely musical, and many a delightful evening was spent around “Atty’s” pianoforte when the McCrackens and Joys were reinforced by a numerous troop of Neilsons, Simmses, McTiers, and so on.

Much as Mary loved all her brothers and sisters, she loved Harry best of all. Was it to be wondered at? For the tall lad with his handsome, high-bred face, his graceful person, his charm of manner, exercised a remarkable fascination over all who came in contact with him. While yet a schoolboy his companions adored him for his courage and spirit of adventure, and admired his steadfastness and his unrivalled quickness of perception. As he grew up he became a great favourite in society, for which he possessed a very remarkable equipment of accomplishments. He was a clever mimic, but while delighting his friends with his skill in this direction, never allowed himself to wound the most sensitive feelings. The same considerations governed the exercise of his rich gift of humour.

The first break in “Noah’s Ark” took place when Harry left home to take up his quarters on the Falls Road near the cotton factory. About the same time the female members of the family, Mrs. McCracken, Margaret and Mary Anne, commenced, on a somewhat more extended scale, the business of muslin manufacturers, in which John McCracken had already been interested since 1779.[[86]] Her grandniece informs us that “Mary was the moving spirit of the business, and worked early and late. She has said that so closely confined was she at times that, when going to the post-office before breakfast, she felt inclined to leap and dance with delight in the fresh morning air. Her chief object in trying to make money was that she might have some of her own to give away as she wished. She was of a very sanguine temperament and did not spare herself, and to some extent she succeeded in her object; but, perhaps the times were against her. She had much struggling and anxiety, and the ultimate result was disappointing.”

[86]. An affidavit preserved in the McCracken MSS. proves that “the first piece of muslin ever woven” in Belfast or its vicinage was woven by Thos. Burnside for John McCracken in January, 1779.

Those were stirring times in which Mary McCracken grew to womanhood; and even a duller mind, than that which was housed in the fragile form of this little Belfast girl, must have been stimulated in the atmosphere of great ideas, which was her daily breathing. She was five years old when the Battle of Lexington was fought, and eleven when Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown; and the great battles for liberty that marked the years from 1775 to 1781 were distant in space only from the rising city on the Lagan, which followed their fortunes with an interest so passionate. It was the war of liberation of their own flesh and blood which the Belfast men knew was being waged across the dividing Atlantic. It was the doctrines of civil and political freedom which had been borne in the emigrant ships from Ireland that were vindicated at Bunker’s Hill, at Trenton, at Princeton, at Saratoga. Is it to be wondered at, that, young as she was, Mary McCracken followed the story of the American War with a sympathy and understanding beyond her years? She was nine years old when the “armed men” who had sprung forth on Ireland’s soil from the sowed “dragon’s teeth” of England’s laws, formed in their splendid ranks on the Falls Road—the first Volunteers of Ireland. Her brother Frank was one of those who wore their gallant uniform. She was twelve years old when the Volunteer Convention at Dungannon made certain the granting of Grattan’s demands for the liberty of the Irish Parliament. She was ripe enough to apprehend the lessons contained in the failure of that Parliament and to trace it to its true origin. She was nineteen when the great news came from Paris, and Liberty sprang forth full armed to claim the world, from the mighty ruins of the Bastille.

“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive—

But to be young was very heaven!”

THE CUP TOSSERS
Mary McCracken, as the old Gipsy, and one of the Teeling girls are said to have sat for this picture by Crowley.

In 1790 there came to Belfast, as an officer in the 64th Regiment, a young man who was destined to exercise a memorable influence on the fate of Mary McCracken, and the brother who was so dear to her. She had just completed her teens when Thomas Russell made his appearance in her native city—and won for ever her faithful heart. Alas! that he never suspected the treasure that was his! He himself was eating out his own heart for the beautiful Bess Goddard; and when Miss Goddard married Mr. Kington, Russell fell in love with Miss Simms. When he came to Belfast in 1803 it was Miss Simms of whom he dreamt. Mary McCracken was for him as a sister infinitely dear, a comrade infinitely staunch and true in the great Cause. But she was nothing more; and with an unconscious cruelty which only the blindness caused by his absorption in his own hopeless passion for another can excuse, he made her the confidante of his love for Miss Simms.