The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. II (of II)

t his features would have discovered that the tidings which met his eye were very rarely of a pleasant character. For the most part the letters were importunate appeals for mone

s a short note from Mr. Maurice Scanlan. Like a rebutting witness in a cause, he spoke of everything as going on favorably; prices were fair, the oat crop a reasonable one. There was distress, to be sure, but who ever saw the West without it? The potatoes had partially failed; but as there was a great deal of typhus and a threat of cholera, there would be fewer to eat them. The late storms had done a good deal of mischief, but as the timber thrown down might be sold without any regar

of self-censure, was Martin's great philosophy; and he esteemed the man who gave him any aid in this road. Now newspapers might croak their dark predictions about the coming winter, prophesy famine, fever, and pestilence; Scanlan's letter, "written from the spot," by "one who enjoyed every opportunity for forming a correct opinion," was there, and he said matters were pretty much as usual. The West of Ireland had never been a land of milk and honey, and nobody expected it ever would be,-the people could live in it, however, and pay rents too; and as Martin fel

e discovered this, in Mary's well-known hand. He held it for some time ere he broke the seal, and his features assumed a sadder, graver cast than before. His desertion of her-and he had not blinked the word to himself-had n

th her; and every chance expression he used was conned over and canvassed by him, lest it might convey some sentiment, or indicate some feeling foreign to his intention. At length so painful had the task become that he had ceased writing

like to a task, his avoidance of whatever was possible to defer; more even than all these, his own unforgiveness of himself for his part towards her. To alleviate, so far as she might, the poignancy of the last, was for a while the great object of all her letters; and

of. She never forgot any little locality which he had been partial to, or any of the people who were his favorites; and, in fact, it might have seemed that the great object she had in view was to attach him more and mo

n a desk and ruminate over an answer. It so chanced that now a much longer interval had occurred since Mary's last letter, and the appearance of the present note, so unlike the voluminous epistle she usually despatched, struck him with

hat might seem haste, or agitation, and the signature forgotten. Martin's

tin, Wedn

awn away from the bogs. But, worse than all these, typhus is amongst us, and cholera, they say, coming. I might stretch out this dreary catalogue, but here is enough, more than enough, to awaken your sympathies and arouse you to action. There is a blight on the land; the people are starving-dying. If every sense of duty was dead within us, if we could harden our hearts against every claim of those from whose labor we derive ease, from whose toil we dr

to aid by your counsel and encourage by your assistance; but it would be worse than cruelty to

ore able to help them. Some stores of provisions must be provided to be sold at reduced rates, or even given gratuitously. Medical aid must be had, and an hospital of some sort established. The able-bodied must be employed on some permanent wor

r, that remedies are scarcely employed than they have to be abandoned. When, however, I can tell the people that it is their own old friend and master that sends them help, and bids them to be of good cheer,-when I can show them that, although separated by distance, you

confidence in their capacity for good. Oh-take my word for it-I never gave them credit for one

e can I ask you about all your doings in Paris. I 'm afraid I should but lose temper if I heard

me your a

￡100, with an offer of more if wanted. I was low and depressed when his note reached me, but it gave me fresh energy and

nished the perusal of this letter. And in a few minutes after, that

gitation as he spoke, "which I want to show you. Matters are in a sad plight in the We

indow, and, leaning listlessly ag

lately, then?" asked he, as h

ve not; every day I made

. In fact, before I ever broke the seal, I 'd have wagered an equal fifty that the potatoes had failed, the bogs were flooded, the roads i

ly, and barely able to control hi

tions about not exacting the rents, building hospitals, and so forth; that

has written fo

f thing; she dashes off my mother's notes at score,

estion before us,"

etter, it was that you might advise

quite free to do it. I only wish that your generosity would begin at home, though; for I own to you I 'm very hard-up at this moment." This

do an act of munificence, I am sor

e had begun to receive this speech died away on

o," said Mart

ve thousand a year at Cro' Martin, and your estate was worth almost three times as much? Giving a very wid

ou could not have failed to see the vast improvements we have been carrying out on the property,-the roads, the harbor

all these things were done at the instigation of a young girl

has reclaimed; look at the swamps you used to shoot snipe over bearing corn crops; see the thriving village, wh

, for if your income could only feed this outlay, I pronounce the whole scheme the maddest thing in Christendom

re called improvements. If the possession of a good property entails the necessity to spend it all in this fashion, one is very little better than a kind of land-steward t

is not the question before us?" sa

ar's income, and make a present of I know not how much more, simply because things are going badly with them, just as if everybody has n't their turn of

reply whatever, but sat with folded arms, deep in contemplation. At length, raising

"if Mary has not greatly

"There 's not a line, not a word of her letter, I

t and run as fast as they can. I know that's what we do in India; when the cholera comes, we break up the encampment, an

ident how difficult he found it to believe that the words he

nly have not understood it," said he at l

" replied the Captain; "of all things in li

had yet employed. "It is my firm persuasion that when you have re-read and thought over it, your imp

ed him so speedily from a very embarrassing situation,

it within his comprehension to imagine how any one individual could suffice to raise the doubts he was called on to canvass or decide. "Who should he now have recourse to?" was his fi

d he. "Just come in here to this dra

he more marked because his manner indica

ter all, when one has read a letter, that any secret or mystical interpre

asked Kate, as he p

e you are

ential or private in it

he, warmly, "you are one of ourselve

te. "Is it not possible, Captain Martin, that patience may be pushed a little beyond a virtue, and become something very like cowardice,-abject cowardice? And then," cried she impetuously, and not waiting for his reply, "to say that now is the time to show these poor people the saving care and protection that the rich owe them, as if the duty dated from the hour of their being struck down by famine, l

es me to concur in the pleasant project struck out by Mary,

opped, as if to let him f

shot from Kate's eyes towards him,-"I mean that I 'm certain more than half of this account is sheer exaggeration. Mary is frightened,-as well she may

, solemnly. "It may be-as Miss Martin wri

then?" asked he, i

tain what is fact,-the real

t to be accompl

s?" said she, with a scarcely p

annot, except by going

ore boldly, while she fixed her

t to go,-if you advised it

if I

to say truth, neither the journey no

s so, sir, I'd say, 'Go,

the Captain; "and I'll