Part 2

At this wedding was a certain buck of the name of Magrah. He was a rake and a spendthrift, but, nevertheless, was artful and designing. He had heard of the beauty of Kate Kavanagh, and knowing that Mr Costigan was a neighbour of hers, he tormented him with questions about her, particularly “if _she had a fortune_?”

For the first time in his life Dennis Costigan told an untruth with an evil intention. He protested that Kate Kavanagh had a fortune, and a good one too; he praised her person and industrious habits; and at last became so zealous in his friendship to his absent neighbours as to give a cordial invitation to Mr Magrah to his house, for the purpose of seeing and being introduced to the “belle o’ the barony,” but never once asking what sort of person this Magrah was, or what was his means of living.

Mr Pat Magrah very eagerly accepted the invitation, returned with Mr Costigan, and was introduced to and charmed with handsome Kate Kavanagh, and he found his quarters so good, and his time pass so agreeably, that instead of a week he remained a month in the neighbourhood of the “flower of Forth,” quite enamoured with her beauty and attractions.

Dennis Costigan was delighted. Like a true friend to one or all of the parties, he encouraged the courtship by every means in his power--even lending money to the suitor to enable him to cut a dash in the eyes of Miles Kavanagh and his daughter.

At length the Bargie hero returned to his home for a short time, protesting that “he was quite confused an’ ashamed ov inthrudin’ so long on Misther Costigan’s hospitality, but that he would sartinly come again to look afther his sweetheart, for none but he should thransplant the ‘flower ov Forth.’”

On the third evening after his departure, as part of the family of the Costigans were seated round the fire, Ned, our friend Dennis’s younger son, ran in all in a hurry, exclaiming, “News, friends, news! there’s a runaway match on the road to-night, for Denny Doran met a couple on horseback, sweepin’ like the win’ into Waxford, an’ he’ll take his oath Pat Magrah was the man, let who will be the woman!”

“An’ Kate Kavanagh was sartinly the woman!” exclaimed Dennis Costigan, in undisguised delight, while his son James turned as pale as death. But the joy of the one and despair of the other was of short duration; for in the next instant Kate Kavanagh herself rushed in breathless, and apparently in much uneasiness. “Where’s Mary Costigan?” cried she anxiously, and examining the group round the fire. All seemed surprised and alarmed at her anxious appearance and inquiry, and Mrs Costigan repeatedly called her daughter, but got no answer.

“Oh! ’tis too true!” said Kate; “an’, Misther Costigan, I’m sorry to have to say it. The scapegrace you brought to this neighbourhood has carried off your own daughter! My father met them on the road to Waxford, an’ knew them.”

It would be impossible to describe the confusion of the family at this announcement. For a time all were stupified with astonishment. Then the brothers, giving vent to their rage in curses, sprang to their feet, and rushed out of the house; while the father, stung by many conflicting feelings, hung his head and remained powerless.

“My child! my tendher dutiful child!” cried the distracted mother, wringing her hands in an agony of weeping. “My child! my child!” “Whisht! woman,” at last roared the farmer in a voice of thunder, unwilling to let his supposed enemy have the satisfaction to see their distress and confusion. “Whisht, I say! what has she done but got a good husband, what they are all strivin’ for, young an’ ould? Whisht, I say! or if ye must lament, lament that ye didn’t keep sitch notions out of her head till she was sixteen, any how.”

“She was full seventeen, Dennis,” interposed the mother, in all her grief, as a woman anxious to defend her sex. “Don’t say the craithur was forward beyant her years, for she was full seventeen last October.”

Up started the farmer. “We’ll soon end that argamint,” said he, seizing a candle, and striding furiously towards the parlour; “I have her age down in black an white, in my pocket-book.”

They could hear him unlock his desk and searching amongst papers; then followed impatient mutterings, and at length a loud groan as if body and soul were parted. All now rushed to the parlour, where they found poor Costigan the image of heart-broken despair. He stood with his eyes fixed and his face as pale as marble: one hand grasped a pocket-book that seemed torn and empty, while the other hung listless by his side.

“Marcy ov Heaven!” exclaimed the trembling wife, clinging to him for support, “what new misforthin’ has befallen us now?”

The farmer groaned heavily ere he replied; and then it was in a broken, sunken voice--“We’re ruined, Alley! an’ robbed, an’ I desarve it! The vilyen has not only taken our child from us, but robbed us of one hundhred pounds! See, here is the desk, bruck open, and the pocket-book empty, an’ she did it at his instigation!”

This was blow on blow! Mrs Costigan was a weak and delicate woman. She fell senseless to the ground, and was borne to her bed, from which she never rose again.

And thus was Dennis Costigan’s treachery rewarded. He had brought a wretch to his house for the purpose of introducing him as an admirer to his honest neighbour’s daughter, without once inquiring into his character or circumstances; and the young fellow had cleverly turned the visit to account; for instead of portionless Kate Kavanagh, he carried off young and pretty Mary Costigan, and her hundred pounds!

It is certain our barony Forth farmer felt this triple blow most severely, and the more so from his consciousness that he deserved it, and prepared the way for his misfortunes himself. But he was doomed to feel his lapse from honour and fair dealing yet more acutely, when on the day of his wife’s death he was accosted by his neighbour Miles Kavanagh, as he was droopingly wandering about his fields, shunning the crowds collected at the wake.

“Misther Costigan,” began Miles abruptly--for the Irish peasant feels too warmly to take time to shape his gratulations or condolences with the go-about refinements of delicacy--“I am sorry for yer thrubble this day, an’ the more so bekase Mrs Costigan was ever the kind and friendly naibur, that never changed from hot to could like others. [Dennis winced.] I also heerd ov yer loss in other respects, but that loss will be soon made up, plaise God. In the main time, Misther Costigan, ye might want a thrifle of ready cash for the expinses ov the wake an’ berrin’; an’ as I’ve scraped together a matther ov a few pounds for the rint, but which is not called for yet, I’d be very glad to lind it to a friend, an’ may be you’d take it, an’ ye may pay me whin you plaise. Faix, sitch poor men as me ought never to keep money long in the house for fear ov the vilyens ov rogues.”

Dennis Costigan was unable to speak, and without accepting the money he motioned his honest neighbour away, and turned off abruptly. But Miles Kavanagh was not a man to be deterred from doing a kind action.

“Hut-tut! Mr Costigan,” he continued, “don’t turn away from an ould naibur an’ friend. You think now that I bear a grudge to ye on account ov that vilyen ye brought down to court my Kate. I know all, ye see; an’ if I do, I freely forgive ye. Fathers, an’ ’specially rich fathers sitch as you, are a little partiklar, I suppose, about who their sons would marry, an’ it’s all right. But Dennis Costigan ought to have known us betther! He ought to have known that neither I nor my child would seek to enther any man’s family against his will, for he never seen any mean or disaivin’ ways in us. But all’s forgiven an’ forgotten now; so don’t be the laist suspicious ov us, but take the money that I freely offer, if you want it, an’ you’ll make a poor man an’ naibur happy. Turn about, man, an’ let us live in paice an’ good will while we’re on the earth together.”

Dennis Costigan stood, perpendicular as a poplar, with his back to Miles Kavanagh while he was speaking, and the latter thought, from the stiffness of the farmer’s air, that he had nerved himself up to break sooner than bend, and that he was determined to retain his sturdy pride to the last, and perhaps to cut with him altogether. To Miles’s surprise, however, when he ceased speaking, portly Dennis wheeled right about, still perpendicular, seized the hand of his honest friend, and, as if the mere touch of a sympathising friend communicated a softness he was unused to, he wept aloud! yes, wept! and they were the first bitter tears he had ever shed.

“But for the sake of human nathur, which I am glad to see so good,” said Dennis Costigan afterwards, “I’d most rather ye’d have abused me; I could have borne it betther!”

Well, months passed over, and still the “belle o’ the barony” was making sad havoc with the hearts of the beaus. She had already all the trades enlisted under her banner, and it was a nice question whether she would spare one bachelor in an entire parish, or not. Fathers and mothers still complained, and the girls prayed that Kate Kavanagh were married, and out of the way. Matters were daily growing worse and worse, “confusion worse confounded,” in the country round.

As a last resource, Dennis Costigan was reminded of his promised mission to Miles Kavanagh, to “coax him to settle his daughter out of hand,” and for the repose of the neighbourhood he agreed to do so. He now felt a warm friendship for both father and daughter, and it would make him really happy if he could be the means of assisting pretty Kate to a husband every way worthy of her. Still he had not brought himself to wish _his_ son married to her, for he had taken it into his head that Jem was entitled to a girl with a couple of hundreds at least, and since his late loss he was more anxious on that score than ever.

At last, deeming himself bound in honour to delay no longer from fulfilling his promise, Mr Costigan gravely proceeded to Miles Kavanagh’s cottage. He found the “flower of Forth” busily engaged in her little kitchen, scouring her deal tables and chairs, and singing merrily as she scoured. The labour had thrown a lovely glow over her fine face, and her smile was really bewitching as she welcomed Mr Costigan, and handed him a chair.

“Is yer father within, Miss Kavanagh?” inquired Dennis, as kindly as the recollection of his son’s untoward situation would permit.

“He is not, Mr Costigan,” Kate replied, “but I think he will be here presently, so you have nothing for it but to sit with a wild girl like me till he comes in.”

Down plumped Mr Costigan, and to look at him one would imagine he had come a-suitoring himself, so awkward and confused did he seem while obliged to continue alone with the beautiful “plague upon earth.” He turned his head away from her, stuck an old pipe in his mouth for employment’s sake, and preserved a dead silence for ten minutes. Kate, perceiving his mood, troubled him with little chat. At length, tired of waiting for the father, the missionary condescended to address the daughter; and she, judging from the contortions of his phiz, thought the effort cost him as much as a spasm of cholera morbus.

“Hem! haw! hum! I wondher very much that you don’t think ov changin’ yer state, Miss Kavanagh. The marriage life is the happiest life ov all, as I know (sighing deeply), an’ I would recommend ye to thry it:” and he launched into a long harangue in praise of the honourable state, its happiness, comfort, and safety, compared to a single life--so full of peril to a female; to all of which our “belle o’ the barony” listened, and assented as demurely as could be wished. After lauding the state, and urging the necessity of it, he next proceeded to point out the most eligible match in his opinion, recommending of all things “an independent man, unburthened by fathers, mothers, sisters, or brothers; a single man in every sense, with whom she could have everything her own way, and no one to interfere;” and he named several whom he considered would be unexceptionable, but to all of whom our Kate had a quick and characteristic objection, as prompt and ready as if she had anticipated the visit of the matrimonial delegate, and guessed his errand. This is a specimen of the colloquy. After mentioning several others,

“Well, what do you think ov long Jem Whalen?”

“Why, that one pair of tongs in one house is enough.”

“Oh, that won’t do! What do ye think ov John Barry? he’s a snug, warm fella.”

“Warm enough, for he’s the dickens for fightin’!”

“Well, Redmond Connors, the carpinther?”

“He’s a close shaver, but not to my taste.”

“Pullilliew! you’ll never be plaised. Have ye anything to say agin Burn, the mason?”

“He’s too great a plastherer to be sincere.”

“An’ what chance has the smith?”

“He won’t forge _my_ fetthers, that’s all.”

“An’ the tailor?”

“Must stitch himself to another.”

Here the dialogue broke off abruptly, for neither the missionary nor the maiden could longer refrain from laughing; the former, though a grave and reverend signior at all times, was perfectly overcome by Kate’s naiveté and archness; and though he was farther than ever from attaining his object, he was in perfect good humour. Miles Kavanagh soon after entered the cottage, and much was he surprised to find his daughter and Mr Costigan tete-a-tete, and on such excellent terms. Nor was the surprise lessened, when he saw the farmer sit it out for two hours longer, still laughing and still joking, as if he and Kate had ever been the best of friends and banterers. At length Mr Costigan heavily arose from his seat, and declaring that he would come again on the same business (he forgot however to speak to Miles Kavanagh about it), he took his leave.

And he did go again and again; and at the third visit Dennis Costigan and Miles Kavanagh retired to an inner apartment. Kate neither knew nor wished to know the subject of their confab; but she observed, that as the farmer was retiring after the last visit, he and her father shook hands as if clenching a bargain. “You’re mighty affectionate!” thought Kate; “I wonder yez didn’t kiss!”

As well as I can remember, it was about a fortnight from the day of our friend Dennis Costigan’s visit to Miles Kavanagh’s cottage, that Watty Colfer (Watty always walks with his head down; mind, his face is an ell longer than any other face, so grave and thoughtful is he!) had just got inside father Tobin’s gate, and closed it after him, when he saw his reverence himself thundering down the avenue on St Patrick, his nag.

“Yer sarvint, sur!” said Watty, very humbly, and hat in hand, and propping himself against the shut gate, “could I make so bould as just to spake one word to yer rivirince?”

“Not one word!” replied the priest hastily, “if you were the bishop! I am in too great a hurry. Lave my way and open the gate.”

“Thin, God help me,” groaned Watty, but still keeping his position, “that am neither priest nor bishop; I haven’t the head-piece for sitch great min; an’ all clargy must have great heads to keep in the larnin’. Now, is it a great weight intirely, sur?”

The priest laughed in spite of his hurry, but as he well knew the man he had to deal with, he checked himself immediately, and assuming as determined a look as possible under the circumstances, he “commanded the slieveen to open the gate for him.”

Watty too knew his man. He knew every variation of the priest’s temper, from its usual lake-like placidity, till it got up to boiling-water heat. He thought it was beginning to “simmer” a little, but far away yet from “bubbling and hissing;” and gratifying his own cool impudence, he continued the process of “heating up.”

“Why, thin, indeed, what I have to say won’t keep ye long, sur.”

“Open the gate this instant!” thundered the priest.

“Sartinly, sur,” quoth Watty, turning quickly round and pretending to be very busy with the gate; “see this boult now! Och! my curse upon the whole corporation ov smiths, includin’ my own dacent uncle who made this same gate, an’ so stiff an’ bad, that all I can do won’t shoot back the boult! A clever workman is a fine thing! An’ so you won’t listen to what I have to say, sur?”

“I can’t, I tell ye. I’m going in all haste to marry a couple.”

“Och! if I knew that, I’d be very sorry to detain your rivirince! What I have to say may well keep for another opportunity. See this curst boult now! Throth the skin is torn off my fingers strivin’ to pull it back, an’ yer rivirince in sitch a disperate hurry! But ye have the patience of Job himself, beyant all doubt. God help the couple that’s expectin’ ye, sur! And who are they, the craithurs?”

The impatient churchman looked at his watch and groaned: but as the inexorable gate would not open to let him pass through, he gratified the newsmonger with the information that “the couple he was about to marry were Dennis Costigan and Catherine, Miles Kavanagh’s daughter.”

“Tunder an’ turf!” exclaimed Mr Colfer, opening his eyes as wide as he could, and raising his hands to express the extremity of astonishment. “Is it ould Dinnis Costigan, father to Jem, that’s goin’ to be married to handsome Kate Kavanagh, the belle o’ the barony?--it’s quite onpossible!”

“It’s not impossible,” said the priest, angrily: “and I see nothing extraordinary in her father preferring to give her to a sensible steady old man, than to a wild young one. But don’t I see the gate open, and you pretending it was bolted? Oh! ye double-dyed slieveen, quit my way this moment, or by all that’s good I’ll let you feel the weight of this,” and he raised his horsewhip.

“Och! wid all the pleasure in life!” quoth Watty, jumping quickly aside; and the gate flew open as if by magic, through which Father Tobin dashed at full speed.

Watty then, sound in wind and limb, shot off through the fields--a short cut to a certain cross-road, about a mile from the priest’s house, and less than a quarter from Miles Kavanagh’s cottage, by which his reverence should pass. Puffing a little, he was just in time to gravely touch his hat as the priest cantered by. Then raising his voice he shouted after him, “Ride aisy, ride aisy, yer rivirince; take things aisy, can’t ye? Young James Costigan an’ Kate Kavanagh ran off together this mornin’, an’ they’re now man an’ wife! Arrah, take things aisy, can’t ye?”

“Oh! ye limb of Satan!” ejaculated the disappointed clergyman, as he pulled up to hear these tidings, “why didn’t you tell me this before, and not send me off on a fool’s errand?”

“How could I, sur?” responded the slieveen, meekly, “when you war in sitch a disperate hurry?--sure ye wouldn’t let me spake at all at all!”

His reverence returned to his home, muttering denunciations upon Watty’s devoted head; and Watty went his way, laughing immoderately at the success of his joke. He had given his spiritual director a ride of a mile or so without his breakfast, which no clerical stomach, Catholic or Protestant, could put up with, unless with a wedding breakfast in prospective. And he told but the truth after all. Young Costigan and handsome Kate had that morning given the knowing old ones the slip, and got married in Wexford; and Dennis, our portly friend Dennis, since he couldn’t have the “belle o’ the barony” for his bride, put a good face on the matter, and received her as his daughter-in-law. Twelve rejected suitors were at the “hauling home;” amongst them Counsellor Shiel of course, who favoured the company with a song made for the occasion, the concluding lines of which we give:

“Now industrious agriculthure transplants the “Flower of Forth,” To a cosy situation all shelthered from the North!”

M. G. R.

ON THE FOLLY OF SOWING BAD SEEDS BECAUSE THEY ARE CHEAP.

BY MARTIN DOYLE.

A few months ago I saw in the shop window of a petty seedsman near Dublin, an advertisement announcing the sale of grass seeds at two shillings and eightpence per barrel of four bushels. I had the curiosity to examine those seeds, which, as may be supposed from their price, were a compound of the germs of weeds, with a small proportion of grass seeds intermixed. I have no doubt that some poor and uncalculating petty farmers were silly enough to purchase this trash on the penny-wise and pound-foolish principle, and I well know that there is no point on which greater ignorance prevails than on that of a proper selection of grass seeds, although they should be sown with an accurate regard to the nature of the soil, the number of years during which the land is to be left in meadow or in pasturage, each of which conditions also requires a different description of seeds.

The successful establishment of grass seeds depends materially, besides the clean and pulverised state of the land, on their adaptation to the soil; and if that be in a state perfectly fit for their reception, a much smaller quantity of seed will be sufficient than under the opposite circumstances; and if the land be in a foul state previously to laying it down, it is clear that the sowing of weed seeds, with a trifling and uncertain admixture of true grass seeds, cannot render it cleaner.

In practical result, the farmer who leaves his field to the generosity of nature is more judicious, because in our humid climate the soil possesses a tendency to generate the indigenous grasses, of which some are really good, and which, from their overpowering qualities, soon dispossess those that may have been sown, and form a close and excellent turf. But to sow _weeds_ is inexpressibly absurd, and this the man does who buys such a compound as that to which I have referred, or who sows them because he happens to have them by some means, and is unwilling to have them lost. Perhaps they have been collected from his own little rick of hay, which he knows to have been of the worst quality, or some stable boy has given him, or stolen for him, the dirty and perhaps fermented sweepings of a nasty hay loft, in which bad hay had been stored, and he is unwilling to throw away what he has so unluckily obtained: his _parkeen_ soon bears testimony to his imprudence: and he admits, though reluctantly, that the grass seeds which he had sown were not of the best quality, though they were procured from a _hay loft_, when he perceives that they have only introduced an artificial increase of bad herbage, which his little stock of animals would unanimously reject, if hunger did not forbid such fastidiousness.

But the deluded purchaser very frequently forgets that though he has a great _bulk_ for his money, he has a bad bargain; he does not consider that the respectable seedsman, though he charges much more for his seeds, gives a far better quality in general, and does not sell _dirt_ and unprolific grass seeds in the compound which he supplies. Petty seedsmen, no doubt, do so frequently; and how can it be otherwise, when their stock is a motley contribution from farmers’ wives, hostlers, and labourers, who collect every variety of good and bad seeds from every description of meadow and soil? It is better to pay a great deal more for the best seed, of which a far lesser proportion will suffice. I can conceive but one case in which a rational farmer could deliberately use such defective seed as that which I saw in the little huckster’s shop, namely, when he is about to surrender his farm (being obligated to lay down his land with grass), and has all that unamiable and inexcusable feeling which so generally prompts men in such circumstances to act in defiance of their great Christian principle of doing unto others as we would have them do unto us.