This child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A lady of my own.'"
At first, after her father's death, when it was known in what a prosperous state she had been left (and rumor, as usual, greatly exaggerated the fact), she had been pestered with the addresses of various persons who would have been happy to obtain a fair bride with her goodly heritage, but it was soon found that she was not matrimonially inclined, so, by degrees, they left her "maiden meditation fancy-free." Among her suitors were a few who really were not influenced by interested motives, and sought to win her, out of their admiration for herself. Gently, but decidedly, they were repulsed, and many of them, who were much above her in wealth and station, were proud to be reckoned among her warm friends at a later period. It seemed as if she could not have made an enemy—as if she could not awaken unkind feelings in any mind. Even scandal never once thought of inventing stories about her,—goodness and innocence were around her, like a panoply.
Mary Mahony remained true to the cherished passion of her youth. It flowed on, a silent and deep stream. None knew what she felt. None were aware of the arrow in her heart, and her pain was the intenser for its concealment. So wholly unsuspected was her secret, that when, immediately after her father's death, she received Remmy Carroll's bed-ridden relative as an inmate at her own residence; people only admired the charity which had led her to succour the helpless. No one appeared to think, for they did not know, that Remmy could ever have awakened an interest in her heart.
The destinies of Europe had been adjusted. The Imperial Eagle of France had been struck down at Waterloo, when Napoleon and Wellington had met and battled. After peace bad been proclaimed, the Ministry of the day proceeded to reduce the war establishment, by disbanding the second battalions of many regiments. The result was that some thousands of ex-soldiers wended home. Very many of them were from Ireland, and came back mere wrecks of manhood—for the casualties of battle, and the certainties of sharp hospital practice, are only too successful in removing such superfluities as arms and legs.
In the spring of 1816, two or three persons might have been seen walking down the main street of Fermoy. If there could have existed any doubt as to what they had been, their measured walk and martial bearing would have promptly removed it. They, indeed, were disabled soldiers. The youngest might have numbered some eight-and-twenty years, and, though he was minus his left arm, few men could be found whose personal appearance was superior to his own.
They passed on, unnoticed, as any other strangers might have passed on, and found "choicest welcome" in a hostelrie, "for the accommodation of man and beast," at the lower end of the town. What creature-comforts they there partook of I am unable to enumerate, for the bill of fare, if such a document ever existed in that neat but humble inn, has not been preserved. The sun had nearly gone down, however, before any of the peripatetic trio manifested any inclination towards locomotion. At last, he, to whom I have more particularly drawn attention, told his companions that he had some business in the town—some inquiries to make—and would rejoin them in an hour or two at the latest. He might as well have spoken to the wind, for they had walked that day from Cork (a trifle of some eighteen Irish miles), and were already fast asleep on the benches. Their companion wrapped himself up in a large military cloak, lined with fur—whilom, in Russia, it had covered the iron-bound shoulders of a captain in Napoleon's Old Guard. This completely concealed his figure, and drawing his hat over his face, so as to shade his features, he sallied forth, like Don Quixote, in search of adventures.
When he reached the Sessions House, at the extremity of the town, instead of pursuing the high road which leads to Lismore, he deviated to the extreme left, crossed the meadow-bound by the papermill, and found himself on the Inch, by that rapid branch of the Blackwater which has been diverted from the main current for the use of the two mills—illegally diverted, I think, for it renders the natural course of the river a mere shallow, and prevents a navigation which might be carried on with success and profit, from Fermoy, by Lismore, down to the sea at Youghall.
Rapidly pressing forward, the Stranger soon came to the chasm which has already been mentioned as that from which, some years since, Remmy Carroll, the piper, had rescued Mary Mahony from drowning. He threw himself, at listless length, on the sward by the gurgling stream, and gazed, in silence, on the fair scene before him.