Part 1

THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

NUMBER 32. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1841. VOLUME I.

In that fertile district of the county Wexford, the barony of Forth, distinguished for its comfortable cottages and general good husbandry, lived Dennis Costigan, a rich farmer. His farm was large, well stocked, and in high condition; his dwelling-house was furnished as a farmer’s house should be, and it was as cleanly and neat as it was commodious. His wife was tidy, notable, and good-tempered, and his three children were such as would please a father--well-formed in person and virtuous in mind. Then, should not our friend Dennis Costigan have been a happy man? He would have been so _perhaps_--for there is ever to be a stumbling block in our road to happiness--_but_ that the first object that glared upon his eyes in each morning’s sun was the white low cottage of his next neighbour Miles Kavanagh. Yet that cottage was not an ugly feature in the landscape. It was small and low, but as white as the whitest lime could make it; it was neatly thatched too, and its small casements were never broken or patched. A few honeysuckles and roses crept up its walls, and it was surrounded by a hedge of hazels and sallows, that lent it an air of comfort and seclusion. Its owner, at least, thought it a pretty spot, and that he was a happy man indeed to possess it and its two or three adjoining acres; and as he trimmed his hedges, and looked pleasantly on all around--the fruits of his industry and labour--he little thought that any one could look upon _his_ cot and farm with other eyes than those of admiration; and least of all that he, or aught of his, was the source of care or annoyance to his wealthier neighbour. And why did wealthy Dennis Costigan glance lowringly on this humble tenement? Was it that, like his betters, he thought a poor man’s dwelling always an unsightly object? and that, like many a grasping spirit, all land convenient to his own was misappropriated if not in his possession? It was not so. Dennis Costigan envied no man his possessions. He was a right specimen of a farmer, independent, upright, honest, and industrious, contented with what providence had given him, and willing to help a neighbour with purse and hand if required. And if he _did_ grumble a little, and turn away his eyes quickly as if in pain, from the cottage we have mentioned, many another father with hopeful sons would do the same, for it contained a gem that would grace the proudest castle in Ireland--beautiful, charming, innocent Kate Kavanagh, but who had no fortune.

One fine morning in August, farmer Costigan sallied forth at the head of a regiment of reapers armed for the destruction of a large field of wheat, but scarcely had he got outside his yard when he missed two of his most efficient men--his two sons.

“Where can those gorsoons ov mine be, boys?” inquired he of the reapers. “In the arms ov _Murphy_, to be sure,” answered a little shrill-piped fellow, the crack orator of the country, which, and the circumstance of his name being alike, procured him the cognomen of “Counsellor Shiel.” “In the arms ov Murphy, to be sure, afther thrippin’ it all night on the light funtastic toe with that flower ov Forth an’ belle ov the barony, Kate Kavanagh.”

“Arrah, can’t ye speak in plain English, man?” thundered the farmer with kindling eyes--the name just mentioned always putting him in a passion. “What the dickens does I know ov funtastic toes or heels?”

“Very little indeed, _litherally_,” quoth the counsellor, laughing, and glancing sarcastically at the farmer’s large feet, cased in tremendous brogues shod with hob-nails; “very little _litherally_, but you might metaphorically, for all that. But you have no more poethry or bells letthers in ye than a bag ov beans!”

“Nor you more common sense than a goose.”

“Stop!” cried the orator suddenly, in a tone of command enough to arrest a retreating army, and motioning to the body of reapers. “Stop, one an’ all ov ye, an’ listen! It would be a sin to let this profane ignirince continue longer.” Then addressing our barony Forth farmer with a countenance in which pity and ineffable contempt were blended, “Is it in the nointeenth centhery that you call me a goose, by way ov contimpt? Oh ignorant of nathral histhry, jography, bells letthers, pelite litherature altogether! For, know, onforthenate man, that it was the _cackle_ ov that same illustrious baist, a goose, that saved what?--where do you think?”

“Yer mother’s hen-roost from the fox, is it?”

“No, haithen, but imparial Rome!!!”

The might, the majesty of the “counsellor’s” tones and gestures as he uttered the words, struck amazement into the hearts of his hearers! They had considered him a clever fellow, but by no means the great man he then appeared! Enchanted with his eloquence, not a few of his auditors were certain that if he were in Parliament, he would do more for Ireland than Mr O’Connell and all his friends; while the remainder, as much delighted with his energy, lamented that “the craithur wasn’t two fut higher, for he had a great spirit intirely!”

The happy “counsellor” perceived the impression he had produced, and in his altitude was proceeding to tell them when and how “imparial Rome” was saved, when his attention was arrested by an approaching object, and with an instantaneous change of attitude and tone he exclaimed,

“‘But, soft! what light from yonder _meadow_ breaks? It is the aist, an’ Cath’rine is the sun!’”

as a tall and very handsome girl, with the finest eyes and brightest smile imaginable, met them at the entrance of the wheat field.

“A blithe mornin’ to Misther Costigan,” said the maiden, “an’ the same to all the raipers!”

“Oh! a good morra,” returned Mister Costigan very coldly and with looks still colder, “an’ I wondher above all things what is it that takes Miss Kavanagh out of her bed so early?”

“Just what ought to rouse many more ov us, Misther Costigan,” replied Kate spiritedly--“to help a naibur, an’ I am come to offer ye all the ’sistance in my power to-day, aither as binder or raiper, whichever ye may want worst.”

“I want neither,” returned the farmer gruffly, and turning on his heel; “an’, besides, I could not possibly think of puttin’ sitch delicate white hands to sitch coorse work!”

“The belle o’ the barony” coloured high at the affront couched in this speech, and she hastily answered that “her hands, sitch as they war, could earn her bread for her when she required it; an’ if _she_ didn’t find them too tendher for work, Misther Costigan needn’t find fault with them. But,” added she more kindly, “you have a rough manner but a kind heart, Dennis Costigan, an’ I won’t mind what you say to me. Moreover, I’ll stay with ye to-day, whether you be willin’ or not, aither as binder or raiper.”

Dennis Costigan, “kind as his heart” was, would have given a sovereign of “bright goold” that Kate Kavanagh and her bright eyes were a few miles off at the moment; but as he saw that she carried all before her, he thought it better not to give her any further offence, and accordingly, but with a very bad grace, he accepted her services.

“Where be’s Jem and Ned Costigan this mornin’?” whispered Kate to the counsellor, who was flourishing away gallantly at her side.

The man of eloquence flung himself into an attitude, laid his hand upon his heart, and looked languishingly, as he “assured her that her charms were railly too potently enfluential over the hearts ov her admirers, as she not only deprived thim ov the needful refreshment of nathur, oblivious slumber, but she also hendhered them from doin’ their daily manual imploymints. For instance,” said he, “you see _Saul_, the orb ov day, is high up in his meraydian hemisphare, an’ those inamoured swains are still pressin’ their beds, or rather cooches, in the arms ov Murphy, mainin’ sleep or Somnus----”

“An’ what have I to do with that?” said Kate, laughing heartily. “Do ye think I gave thim a sleepy potion?”

“Ah! my beautiful flower ov Forth!” sighed out the sentimental counsellor, “any thing but a sleepy potion do you give yer lovers! if ’tis anything, sure I am ’tis a draught to banish sleep for ever! But consarnin’ those vagrant truints ye spaik ov, I ondherstand that you kep thim up beyant their ushial hours ov repose last night, admirin’ yer graceful movemints in yer _Turpfiscorian_ revels, mainin’ the dance at Judy Colfer’s; an’ that man, their father, who is not to be moved with ‘concord of sweet sounds,’ or any sounds at all but the chink ov money, almost snapt my head off a while ago bekase I tould him so. Ah! my Catherine dear, I fear you’ll incounther opposition in that quarther. But ‘_nel desperantum_,’ say I, which mains in plain English, ‘never dispair.’”

Catherine said nothing, but instantly began to sing, at the top of her fine rich voice, a song the counsellor had composed in praise of her, and shortly afterwards she had the pleasure to see the two sleepy truants bounding across the yard towards the wheat-field, as if her well-known notes had awaked them.

While this magical song was thrilling on all hearts, Kate Kavanagh, the witching Kate! stood apart from the others, singing and laughing alternately, her reaping-hook resting on one arm, and dressed in the every-day fashion of the place--the striped linsey short petticoat, and loose bedgown or wrapper, a dress that would make an ordinary woman frightful, and straw hat, the leaf of which, turned up before and pinned to the crown, displayed her sable locks and fair high forehead to perfection. And many a side-glance the anxious father, Dennis Costigan, cast at this arrangement of Kate’s headgear, as he broadly hinted that “for sartin Miss Kavanagh’s complexion would be intirely spiled if she showed it too much to the sun.”

“Tut!” was Kate’s good-humoured reply, “‘the life ov an ould hat is to cock it,’ as we say in the counthry. The leaf ov it was flappin’ in my eyes; the lads couldn’t see me, nor I them, so a pin settled the bisness;” and nothing could become her fine Spanish face better, though her toilet was made in perfect carelessness, for dashing Kate had other charms to depend on besides beauty. Imprimus, she was the first dancer in the country, outdoing her dancing-master himself at “jigs, reels, thribbles, doubles, hornpipes, and _petticoatees_.” She was a _killing_ dancer in both senses of the word, for no boy or girl could keep it up with the spirit of Kate Kavanagh, and she generally disabled six or eight prime beaus at every “hop” she appeared at, which was nearly every night. The worst of it was (as the sorely annoyed fathers and mothers of the neighbourhood said), “though she fairly kilt all the boys that danced with her, yet sorra one but herself would sarve them for a partner after all!” Then she was, as Orator Shiel said, “Apollyo in petticoats for singin’!” and songs of love, murder, hunting, war, and sea, would charm with double effect, borne on the musical notes of Kate Kavanagh. In short, she was “metal most,” but also too “attractive;” and loud complaints and grievances at last came thundering on her devoted head. “Boys growin’ lazy and crazy--work undone or done badly--time spent an’ mis-spent--messages forgotten and mistaken--girls neglected--matches broken--eternal dancin’, fightin’, black eyes an’ bloody noses”--all, all was laid in a bundle at the door of handsome, animated, dashing, yet very innocent Kate Kavanagh.

“What will be done with her at all at all?” iterated the suffering fathers and mothers all round the country. “What will we do with her at all?”

“I’ll tell ye, naiburs,” responded one of the elders, as a body of them returned from chapel on the Sunday after Mosey Fortune’s great “flare up,” at which three topping bloods fought for the honour of first figuring on the floor with the “belle o’ the barony.” “Let a respectable dacent naibur, sitch as Dennis Costigan here for example, go to her father as a friend to advise him to get his daughther married out ov hand, for fear some harm will happen. An’, throth, harm _will_ happen; for if she’s not the destruction ov herself, she will be the ruination ov others. So, Misther Costigan, let you be the man to spake to Miles Kavanagh.”

“Agreed,” said Dennis Costigan, who was one of the party, and also a suffering father; and on the ensuing Thursday he intended to proceed on the mission.

In the meantime, Kate Kavanagh, never dreaming of the grand hubbub about her, assisted to cut down Mr Costigan’s wheat; and so full of songs, jokes, and attractions was she, that it was observed, even by the farmer himself, that the men, old and young, surpassed themselves at reaping that day. Indeed, Kate set them an excellent pattern; for, notwithstanding that her tongue moved in double-quick time, she took care that her hands should be equally nimble; and at nightfall, thanks to Kate and the influence of her black eyes, sharp and bright as her sickle, the very large field of wheat was cut down, bound, and stooked to the owner’s satisfaction. Yet, after all, the “flower of Forth” bloomed too near Dennis, or rather his sons, to allow him to be perfectly content.

“How yer father squints at me!” observed Kate to James Costigan, her ardent admirer, and to whom, by the way, she contrived to keep close during the day. “He looks at me as if I was a crab apple, an’ he had just taken a bite. Wouldn’t it be the best ov a good joke, now, if I’d make him change his tune in spite ov himself?”

Jem looked at her very tenderly as he replied, “Ye do as you like with _us_, Kate darlin’, but I doubt yer power over my father. He is flent to purty girls, an’ above all to you.”

“We shall see,” said Kate; and that very evening, between coaxing and pulling, she actually brought the portly farmer, albeit in no dancing mood, to dance with her (when Peter Hamilton and his violin _happened_ in after supper), to the amazement and amusement of a kitchen full of spectators, though, as honest Dennis confessed while wiping his broad brows, “he didn’t take sitch a spree for ten years afore!” Handsome Kate at the end of it looked knowingly at Jem Costigan, as much as to say, “You see this, and you’ll see more.”

The next morning an express arrived to Dennis Costigan with the news that his sister’s daughter, Miss Peggy Malone, was about to “change her state,” and that her uncle’s company was required at the wedding.

“Och, murther!” cried the farmer when he had sufficiently expressed his surprise at the news, “this ould brown coat ov mine will never do for a weddin’!--turn it which way I will, it looks shabby enough--pieced at the elbows an’ torn at the cuffs! So, Jem, asthore, take the black mare an’ set off this minnit to Waxford, an’ buy me the makin’s ov a coat an’ waistcoat ov good green cloth; it always became my complexion. An’, Jem, for yer head don’t make any mistake this time. Those three months past you’re full ov mistakes, an’ nothin’ else.”

“Is it me makes mistakes!” quoth Jem indignantly; “that’s what I never did yet, except wanst or twice, an’ I’ll not begin now.” And he mounted the mare, and turned her head towards Wexford. But as he should pass Miles Kavanagh’s cottage, “it would be only right an’ proper to ax if he or Kate had any commands for town.” And--and--when he got to Wexford, he quite forgot the colour his father had ordered, and, thinking of Kate Kavanagh’s hair and eyes, he bought black.

Well, never was man in a greater fume than our friend Dennis Costigan when he saw his son’s purchase. “Black! black!” he repeated again and again, as he held up the cloth and indignantly scowled at it and its purchaser, “black for a weddin’! Oh, ye born nathural! what on earth put it into yer head to buy black for a weddin’? But I see the thruth in yer eyes this minnit! Ye seen that--that--plague upon earth, Kate Kavanagh, afore ye wint to Waxford, an’ she, as ushial, put every wise thought out ov yer head. Black coat at a weddin’!--who ever seen the like afore?”

It was in vain that poor Jem explained that “the cloth was not all out black, but what was called Oxfert-grey--a mighty ginteel colour, an’ sitch as was worn by all fathers ov families.”

“That’s as much as to say that it is worn by all ould min?” said the father, nothing better pleased. “What a judge ye are! But as the cloth is bought, I must keep it I suppose, an’ I’ll take it to the tailor’s myself, for fear ye’d make some other confounded blundher. I wouldn’t wondher if ye’d tell him to make it a spincer-jacket without skirts, ye have sitch a janious for mistakes!” And putting the parcel of cloth under his arm, he set out for Jemmy Nowlan’s domicile.

There he saw no one but the tailor’s old mother sitting very melancholy over the fire.

“Can I see yer son Jemmy, widda Nowlan?” asked the farmer.

“Och, asthore machree, Misther Costigan,” said the widow, setting up a keen, and rocking herself about, “ye may see him an’ welkim, but a quare sight ye’ll see whin ye sees him; an’, linamachree! the worst ov it is, he can’t see ye now.”

“Why, what’s the matther?” demanded Mr Costigan alarmed. “I hope he’s not dead?”

“He’s not dead, but he’s kilt intirely,” sobbed the distressed parent, “wid the lambastin’ he got ere-last night at the dance at Dinny Doran’s.”

“Well, an’ what takes _him_ to dances?” said the farmer in a heat. “Sure the like shred ov him ought to stay at home an’ mind his bisness.”

“Pulliliew! is that the feelin’ ye has for yer fella-craithurs, Misther Costigan. But indeed I often sed that same to him myself. ‘Stay at home, honey,’ I says to him, ‘an’ don’t be losin’ yer sleep an’ flittherin’ yer slippers at them dances.’ ‘Hould yer whisht, mother,’ he’ll say to me thin (for he is a mighty obaydient child), ‘love sthrikes the little as well as the big, an’ I wouldn’t have a sowl above buttons if I wouldn’t take every opportunity ov meetin’ an’ coortin’ Kate Kavanagh.’ So ye see the win’ sits in that quarther, Misther Costigan.”

Mr Costigan actually stamped on the floor with passion when he heard the name of Kate Kavanagh; and as the tailor’s mother perceived unusual anger in his countenance, she flattered herself that it was all sympathy for her “darlint Jemmy,” and she hastened to give him the particulars “ov the murdher” foul and unnatural. “So now, my darlint Misther Costigan,” she concluded, “his poor eyes is black an’ blue, and closed up into the bargain, an’ he couldn’t handle a needle if it was for Misther Grogan Morgan himself--God bless him for the fine lan’lord that he is.”

If poor Mrs Nowlan knew but all, little sympathy had her wealthy visitor for her battered son, when he understood the cause of his woes, and her pathetic touches of tenderness went for nothing. Muttering something about “hanging all fools and mothers of fools,” he took a gruff leave of the widow, and returned home with his cloth. There was no other tailor nearer than Wexford, and it was fated that he should wear his old brown coat at the wedding. But that was not his only annoyance. The evening before he set out on his journey, he found that the horse he intended to ride wanted two shoes; and fearing to trust his sons (both of whom were smitten with the “belle o’ the barony”) in their present plight, he brought the animal to the forge himself. No smith was to be found. “Arrah, where the d----l is he?” cried the farmer, quite exasperated, and addressing a girl standing knitting at the door of a house near the forge.

“Sorra bit ov us knows, Misther Costigan,” replied the damsel; “but we’re guessin’ that he is either at the public house, or at Miles Kavanagh’s, hankerin’ afther his daughther, for betwixt the two places he spinds the most ov his time.”

Dennis Costigan said nothing, but he raised up his hands and eyes--eloquence more expressive than words. Kate Kavanagh again!

As he returned with his unshod horse, he pondered while jogging along. “_What_ should be about that Kate Kavanagh above all girls to set a whole parish astray?” And as he could find no solution of the enigma short of sorcery, he set it down that she was “Ould Nick in petticoats!” “My two hopeful sons is mad afther her.” said he, soliloquising; “the unfortunate counsellor is fairly cracked about her; the smith is grown wild, an’ the tailor knocked stupid; heaven only knows what way the carpinther an’ mason is, for she has all the thrades, I’m thinkin’; an’ now all I pray is that she may charm some thrav’ling tinker, an’ that he may carry her off body an’ bones for the pace ov the counthry!” Ah! little did honest Dennis know who was to be the next victim of merciless Kate Kavanagh!

Well, next morning he set out for Bargie, after taking an affectionate farewell of his good little wife, and after cautioning her repeatedly to have a constant look-out after the “boys and Kate Kavanagh.” Fain would he have persuaded his eldest son to accompany him to the wedding, but Jem pathetically pleaded “pains in his bones an’ headache” (heartache he should have said), and his father very unwillingly set off without him.

Our farmer had only ridden a few miles, when, coming to a village, like a true son of the soil he should stop at the “public” to taste the “mountain dew.” Early as it was in the morning, it appeared there were others as interestingly engaged, and vociferating loudly on some important topic. Whatever it might be, our friend Dennis thought it could be no concern of his, and without making any inquiry he called for his dandy of punch. Overhead the revellers kept up a most astounding debate; presently were heard shouts, curses, hustling, and blows, and the next instant half a dozen combatants came head foremost tumbling down the steep and narrow stairs together!

“Fight it out fair, ye vilyens,” roared the hostess, as her face flamed and her eye fired, “but fight it out ov _my_ house. Into the street with every mother’s son ov ye, or know for what!” and seizing a pewter beer quart, she leaped over the counter, and pummelled the backs and heads of all within her reach, till she actually cleared them out of her house.

“What an uproar they make in a quiet place!” said she, as she returned to Dennis Costigan, who was laughing heartily at the spree.

Now, there is something extraordinary in the blood of an Irishman. A fight is his choicest amusement, and if he is not a principal actor in one, he must be a spectator. Even our sober barony Forth farmer was excited, and eagerly asked “what it was all about?”

“All about nonsinse,” replied Mrs Boniface, “all about nonsinse when it is about a woman. All the uproar was about a naibur ov yours, Misther Costigan, who has turned the heads ov some ov our lads here, an’ many others besides--one Miss Kavanagh. Do you know her?”

“Know her!” exclaimed Dennis, and suddenly set down his glass on the counter, just as he was about to put it to his lips.

“What’s the matther, Mr Costigan?” asked the landlady alarmed; “don’t you like yer punch?”

“Oh, I likes it well,” returned Mr Costigan, in a sickly tone, “but somehow there’s an all-overness over me that makes me very quare at times, but it will wear off. Here’s to yer health, Mrs Roche!” and gulped off the punch at a draught, as if he didn’t know well what he was about. He then proceeded on his journey, inwardly determined not to stop again, lest he might hear the dreaded name before he arrived at his sister’s, and there he trusted he was free from the infliction. Nevertheless, the name was mentioned at the wedding, and our farmer, under the influence of good cheer and hilarity, laughed loud and long as his brain began to whirl while thinking of the strange combination of circumstances that brought Kate Kavanagh for ever before him.