Jerry Sullivan's house and place had about them all the marks and tokens of gradual decline. The thatch on the roof had begun to get black, and in some places was sinking into rotten ridges; the yard was untidy and dirty; the walls and hedges were broken and dismantled; and the gates were lying about, or swinging upon single hinges. The whole air of the premises was uncomfortable to the spectator, who could not avoid feeling that there existed in the owner either wilful neglect or unsuccessful struggle. The chimneys, from which the thatch had sank down, stood up with the incrustations of lime that had been trowelled round their bases, projecting uselessly out from them; some of the quoins had fallen from the gable; the plaster came off the walls in several places, and the whitewash was sadly discolored.
Inside, the aspect of everything was fully as bad, if not worse. Tables and chairs, and the general furniture of the house, had all that character of actual cleanliness and apparent want of care which poverty superinduces upon the most strenuous efforts of industry. The floor was beginning to break up into holes; tables and chairs were crazy; the dresser, though clean, had a cold, hungry, unfurnished look; and, what was unquestionably the worst symptom of all, the inside of the chimney brace, where formerly the sides and flitches of deep, fat bacon, grey with salt, were arrayed in goodly rows, now presented nothing but the bare and dust-covered hooks, from which they had depended in happier times. About a dozen of herrings hung at one side of a worn salt-box, and at the other a string of onions that was nearly Stripped, both constituting the principal kitchen, varied, perhaps, with a little buttermilk,—which Sullivan's family were then able to afford themselves with their potatoes.
We cannot close our description here, however; for sorry we are to say, that the severe traces of poverty were as visible upon the inmates themselves as upon the house and its furniture. Sullivan's family consisted of his eldest daughter, aged nineteen, two growing boys, the eldest about sixteen, and several younger children besides. These last were actually ragged—all of them were scantily and poorly clothed; and if any additional proof were wanting that poverty, in one of its most trying shapes, had come among them, it was to be found in their pale, emaciated features, and in that languid look of care and depression, which any diminution in the natural quantity of food for any length of time uniformly impresses upon the countenance. In fact, the whole group had a sickly and wo-worn appearance, as was evident from the unnatural dejection of the young, who, instead of exhibiting the cheerfulness and animation of youth, now moped about without gayety, sat brooding in corners, or struggled for a warm place nearest to the dull and cheerless fire.
“The day was, Donnel,” said Sullivan, whilst he pointed, with a sigh, to the unfurnished chimney, “when we could give you—as I said awhile agone—a betther welcome—in one sense—I mane betther tratement—than we can give you now; but you know the times that is in it, an' you know the down-come we have got, an' that the whole country has got—so you must only take the will for the deed now—to such as we have you're heartily welcome. Get us some dinner, Bridget,” he added, turning to his wife; “but, first and foremost, bring that girl into the room here till she hears what I have to say to her; and, Donnel, as you wor a witness to the disgraceful sight we seen a while agone, come in an' hear, too, what I'm goin' to say to her. I'll have no black thraisin in my own family against my own blood, an' against the blood of my loving brother, that was so traicherously shed by that boy's father.”
The persons he addressed immediately passed into the cold, damp room as he spoke—Mave, the cause of all this anxiety, evidently in such a state of excitement as was pitiable. Her mother, who, as well as every other member of the family, had been ignorant of this extraordinary attachment, seemed perfectly bewildered by the language of her husband, at whom, as at her daughter, she looked with a face on which might be read equal amazement and alarm.
Mave Sullivan was a young creature, shaped with extraordinary symmetry, and possessed of great natural grace. Her stature was tall, and all her motions breathed; unstudied ease and harmony. In color, her long, abundant hair was beautifully fair—precisely of that delightful shade which generally accompanies a pale but exquisitely clear and almost transparent complexion. Her face was oblong, and her features so replete with an expression of innocence and youth, as left on the beholder a conviction that she breathed of utter guilelessness and angelic purity itself. This was principally felt in the bewitching charm of her smile, which was irresistible, and might turn the heart of a demon into love. All her motions were light and elastic, and her whole figure, though not completely developed, was sufficiently rounded by the fulness of health and youth to give promise of a rich and luxurious maturity. On this occasion she became deadly pale, but as she was one of those whose beauty only assumes a new phase of attraction at every change, her paleness now made her appear, if possible, an object of greater interest.
“In God's name, Jerry,” asked her mother, looking from father to daughter in a state of much distress, “what is wrong, or what has happened to put you in such a condition? I see by the anger in your eye an' the whiteness of your cheeks, barrin' the little red spot in the middle, that something out o' the way all out has happened to vex you.”
“You may well say so, Bridget,” he replied; “but when I tell you that I came upon that undutiful daughter of ours coortin' wid the son of the man that murdhered her uncle—my only brother—you won't be surprised at the state you see me in—coortin' wid a fellow that Dan M'Gowan here knows will be hanged yet, for he's jist afther tellin' him so.”
“You're ravin', Jerry,” exclaimed his wife, who appeared to feel the matter as incredible; “you don't mane to tell me that she'd spake to, or know, or make any freedoms whatsomever wid young Condy Dalton, the son of her uncle's murdherer? Hut, no, Jerry, don't say that, at all events—any disgrace but that—death, the grave—or—or anything—but sich an unnatural curse as that would be.”
“I found them together behind the garden not many minutes ago,” replied Sullivan. “Donnel here seen them as well as I did—deny it she can't; an' now let her say what brought her there to meet him, or rather what brought him all the way to meet her? Answer me that, you disgrace to the name—answer me at wanst!”