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Fardorougha, the Miser.

It was on one of those nights in August, when the moon and stars shine through an atmosphere clear and cloudless, with a mildness of lustre almost continental, that a horseman, advancing at a rapid pace, turned off a remote branch of road up a narrow lane, and, dismounting before a neat whitewashed cottage, gave a quick and impatient knock at the door. Almost instantly, out of a small window that opened on hinges, was protruded a broad female face, surrounded, by way of nightcap, with several folds of flannel, that had originally been white.

"Is Mary Moan at home?" said the horseman.

"Why, thin, I'm thinkin' you'll be smilin' whin you hear it," replied the messenger. "The sorra one else than Honor Donovan, that's now marrid upon Fardorougha Donovan to the tune of thirteen years. Bedad, time for her, anyhow,--but, sure it'll be good whin it comes, we're thinkin'."

"Well, betther late than never--the Lord be praised for all His gifts, anyhow. Put your horse down to the mountin'-stone, and I'll be wid you in half a jiffy, acushla."

Having ascended the mounting-stone, and placed herself on the crupper, the guide and she, while passing down the narrow and difficult lane, along which they could proceed but slowly and with caution, entered into the following dialogue, she having first turned up the hood of her cloak over her bonnet, and tied a spotted cotton kerchief round her neck.

"This," said the guide, who was Fardorougha Donovan's servant-man, "is a quare enough business, as some o' the nabors do be sayin--marrid upon one another beyant thirteen year, an' ne'er a sign of a haporth. Why then begad it is quare."

"Whisht, whisht," replied Molly, with an expression of mysterious and superior knowledge; "don't be spakin' about what you don't understand--sure, nuttin's impossible to God, avick--don't you know that?"

"Oh, bedad, sure enough--that we must allow, whether or not, still--"

"Very well; seein' that, what more have we to say, barrin' to hould our tongues. Children sent late always come either for great good or great sarra to their parents--an' God grant that this may be for good to the honest people--for indeed honest people they are, by all accounts. But what myself wonders at is, that Honor Donovan never once opened her lips to me about it. However, God's will be done! The Lord send her safe over all her throubles, poor woman! And, now that we're out o' this thief of a lane, lay an for the bare life, and never heed me. I'm as good a horseman as yourself; and, indeed, I've a good right, for I'm an ould hand at it."

"I'm thinkin'," she added, after a short silence, "it's odd I never was much acquainted with the Donovans. I'm tould they're a hard pack, that loves the money."

"Faix," replied her companion, "Let Fardorougha alone for knowin' the value of a shillin'!--they're not in Europe can hould a harder grip o' one."

His master, in fact, was a hard, frugal man, and his mistress a woman of somewhat similar character; both were strictly honest, but, like many persons to whom God has denied offspring, their hearts had for a considerable time before been placed upon money as their idol; for, in truth, the affections must be fixed upon something, and we generally find that where children are denied, the world comes in and hardens by its influence the best and tenderest sympathies of humanity.

After a journey of two miles they came out on a hay-track, that skirted an extensive and level sweep of meadow, along which they proceeded with as much speed as a pillionless midwife was capable of bearing. At length, on a gentle declivity facing the south, they espied in the distance the low, long, whitewashed farm-house of Fardorougha Donovan. There was little of artificial ornament about the place, but much of the rough, heart-stirring wildness of nature, as it appeared in a strong, vigorous district, well cultivated, but without being tamed down by those finer and more graceful touches, which nowadays mark the skilful hand of the scientific agriculturist.

To the left waved a beautiful hazel glen, which gradually softened away into the meadows above mentioned. Up behind the house stood an ancient plantation of whitethorn, which, during the month of May, diffused its fragrance, its beauty, and its melody, over the whole farm. The plain garden was hedged round by the graceful poplar, whilst here and there were studded over the fields either single trees or small groups of mountain ash, a tree still more beautiful than the former. The small dells about the farm were closely covered with blackthorn and holly, with an occasional oak shooting up from some little cliff, and towering sturdily over its lowly companions. Here grew a thick interwoven mass of dog-tree, and upon a wild hedgerow, leaning like a beautiful wife upon a rugged husband, might be seen, supported by clumps of blackthorn, that most fragrant and exquisite of creepers, the delicious honeysuckle. Add to this the neat appearance of the farm itself, with its meadows and cornfields waving to the soft sunny breeze of summer, and the reader may admit, that without possessing any striking features of pictorial effect, it would, nevertheless, be difficult to find an uplying farm upon which the eye could rest with greater satisfaction.

Ere arriving at the house they were met by Fardorougha himself, a small man, with dark, but well-set features, which being at no time very placid, appeared now to be absolutely gloomy, yet marked by strong and profound, anxiety.

"Thank God!" he exclaimed on meeting them; "is this Mary Moan?"

"It is--it is!" she exclaimed; "how are all within?--am I in time?"

"Only poorly," he returned; "you are, I hope."

The midwife, when they reached the door, got herself dismounted in all haste, and was about entering the house, when Fardorougha, laying his hand upon her shoulder, said in a tone of voice full of deep feeling--

"I need say nothing to you; what you can do, you will do--but one thing I expect--if you see danger, call in assistance."

"It's all in the hands o' God, Fardorougha, acushla; be as aisy in your mind as you can; if there's need for more help you'll hear it; so keep the man an' horse both ready."

She then blessed herself and entered the house, repeating a short prayer, or charm, which was supposed to possess uncommon efficacy in relieving cases of the nature she was then called upon to attend.

Fardorougha Donovan was a man of great good sense, and of strong, but not obvious or flexible feeling; this is to say, on strong occasions he felt accordingly, but exhibited no remarkable symptoms of emotion. In matters of a less important character, he was either deficient in sensibility altogether, or it affected him so slightly as not to be perceptible. What his dispositions and feelings might have been, had his parental affections and domestic sympathies been cultivated by the tender intercourse which subsists between a parent and his children, it is not easy to say. On such occasions many a new and delightful sensation--many a sweet trait of affection previously unknown--and, oh! many, many a fresh impulse of rapturous emotion never before felt gushes out of the heart; all of which, were it not for the existence of ties so delightful, might have there lain sealed up forever. Where is the man who does not remember the strange impression of tumultuous delight which he experienced on finding himself a husband? And who does not recollect that nameless charm, amounting almost to a new sense, which pervaded his whole being with tenderness and transport on kissing the rose-bud lips of his first-born babe? It is, indeed, by the ties of domestic life that the purity and affection and the general character of the human heart are best tried. What is there more beautiful than to see that fountain of tenderness multiplying its affections instead of diminishing them, according as claim after claim arises to make fresh demands upon its love? Love, and especially parental love, like jealousy, increases by what it feeds on. But, oh! from what an unknown world of exquisite enjoyment are they shut out, to whom Providence has not vouchsafed those beloved beings on whom the heart lavishes the whole fulness of its rapture! No wonder that their own affections should wither in the cold gloom of disappointed hope, or their hearts harden into that moody spirit of worldly-mindedness which adopts for its offspring the miser's idol.

Whether Fardorougha felt the want of children acutely or otherwise, could not be inferred from any visible indication of regret on his part by those who knew him. His own wife, whose facilities of observation were so great and so frequent, was only able to suspect in the affirmative. For himself he neither murmured nor repined; but she could perceive that, after a few years had passed, a slight degree of gloom began to settle on him, and an anxiety about his crops, and his few cattle, and the produce of his farm. He also began to calculate the amount of what might be saved from the fruits of their united industry. Sometimes, but indeed upon rare occasions, his temper appeared inclining to be irascible or impatient; but in general it was grave, cold, and inflexible, without any outbreaks of passion, or the slightest disposition to mirth. His wife's mind, however, was by no means so firm as his, nor so free from the traces of that secret regret which preyed upon it. She both murmured and repined, and often in terms which drew from Fardorougha a cool rebuke for her want of resignation to the will of God. As years advanced, however, her disappointment became harassing even to herself, and now that hope began to die away, her heart gradually partook of the cool worldly spirit which had seized upon the disposition of her husband, Though cultivating but a small farm, which they held at a high rent, yet, by the dint of frugality and incessant diligence, they were able to add a little each year to the small stock of money which they had contrived to put together. Still would the unhappy recollection that they were childless steal painfully and heavily over them; the wife would sometimes murmur, and the husband reprove her, but in a tone so cool and indifferent that she could not avoid concluding that his own want of resignation, though not expressed, was at heart equal to her own. Each also became somewhat religious, and both remarkable for a punctual attendance upon the rites of their church, and that in proportion as the love of temporal things overcame them. In this manner they lived upwards of thirteen years, when Mrs. Donovan declared herself to be in that situation which in due time rendered the services of Mary Moan necessary.

Such are the respective states of feeling in which our readers find Fardorougha Donovan and his wife, upon an occasion whose consequences run too far into futurity for us to determine at present whether they are to end in happiness or misery. For a considerable time that evening, before the arrival of Mary Moan, the males of the family had taken up their residence in an inside kiln, where, after having kindled a fire in the draught-hole, or what the Scotch call the "logie," they sat and chatted in that kind of festive spirit which such an event uniformly produces among the servants of a family. Fardorougha himself remained for the most part with them, that is to say except while ascertaining from time to time the situation of his wife. His presence, however, was only a restraint upon their good-humor, and his niggardly habits raised some rather uncomplimentary epithets during his short visits of inquiry. It is customary upon such occasions, as soon as the mistress of the family is taken ill, to ask the servants to drink "an aisy bout to the misthress, sir, an' a speedy recovery, not forgettin' a safe landin' to the youngsther, and, like a Christmas compliment, many of them to you both. Whoo! death alive, but that's fine stuff. Oh, begorra, the misthress can't but thrive wid that in the house. Thank you, sir, an' wishin' her once more safe over her troubles!--divil a betther misthress ever," etc., etc., etc.

Here, however, there was nothing of the kind. Fardorougha's heart, in the first instance, was against the expense, and besides, its present broodings resembled the throes of pain which break out from the stupor that presses so heavily upon the exhausted functions of life in the crisis of a severe fever. He could not, in fact, rest nor remain for any length of time in the same spot. With a slow but troubled step he walked backward and forward, sometimes uttering indistinct ejaculations and broken sentences, such as no one could understand. At length he approached his own servants, and addressed the messenger whose name was Nogher M'Cormick.

"Nogher," said he, "I'm throubled."

"Throubled! dad, Fardorougha, you ought to be a happy and a thankful man this night, that is, if God sinds the misthress safe over it, as I hope He will, plase goodness."

"I'm poor, Nogher, I'm poor, an' here's a family comin'."

"Faith, take care it's not sin you're com-mittin' by spakin' as you're doin'."

"But you know I'm poor, Nogher."

"Nogher," said the other, "it's truth a great dale of what you've sed--maybe all of it."

"Faith, I know," returned Nogher, "that about the whiskey it's parfit gospel."

"In one thing I'll be advised by you, an' that is, I'll go to my knees and pray to God to set my heart right if it's wrong. I feel strange--strange, Nogher--happy, an' not happy."

"You needn't go to your knees at all," replied Nogher, "if you give us the whiskey; or if you do pray, be in earnest, that your heart may be inclined to do it."

"You desarve none for them words," said Fardorougha, who felt that Nogher's buffoonery jarred upon the better feelings that were rising within him--"you desarve none, an' you'll get none--for the present at laste, an' I'm only a fool for spaking to you."

He then retired to the upper part of the kiln, where, in a dark corner, he knelt with a troubled heart, and prayed to God.

We doubt not but such readers as possess feeling will perceive that Fardorougha was not only an object at this particular period of much interest, but also entitled to sincere sympathy. Few men in his circumstances could or probably would so earnestly struggle with a predominant passion as he did, though without education, or such a knowledge of the world as might enable him, by any observation of the human heart in others, to understand the workings in his own. He had not been ten minutes at prayer when the voice of his female servant was heard in loud and exulting tones, calling out, ere she approached the kiln itself--

"Fardorougha, ca woul thu?--Where's my footin', masther? Where's my arles?--Come in--come in, you're a waitin' to kiss your son--the misthress is dyin' till you kiss our son."

The last words were uttered as she entered the kiln.

"Dyin'!" he repeated--"the misthress dyin'--oh Susy, let a thousand childre go before her--dyin'! did you say dyin'?"

"Ay did I, an' it's truth too; but it's wid joy she's dyin' to see you kiss one of the purtiest young boys in all the barony of Lisnamona--myself's over head and ears in love wid him already."

He gave a rapid glance upwards, so much so that it was scarcely perceptible, and immediately accompanied her into the house. The child, in the meantime, had been dressed, and lay on its mother's arm in the bed when its father entered. He approached the bedside and glanced at it--then at the mother who lay smiling beside it--she extended her hand to him, whilst the soft, sweet tears of delight ran quietly down her cheeks. When he seized her hand he stooped to kiss her, but she put up her other hand and said--

"No, no, you must kiss him first."

He instantly stooped over the babe, took it in his arms, looked long and earnestly upon it, put it up near him, again gave it a long, intense gaze, after which he raised its little mouth to his own, and then imprinted the father's first kiss upon the fragrant lips of his beloved first-born. Having gently deposited the precious babe upon its mother's arm, he caught her hand and imprinted upon her lips a kiss;--but to those who understand it, we need not describe it--to those who cannot, we could give no adequate notion of that which we are able in no other way to describe than by saying that it would seem as if the condensed enjoyment of a whole life were concentrated into that embrace of the child and mother.

When this tender scene was over, the midwife commenced--

"Well, if ever a man had raison to be thank--"

"Silence, woman!" he exclaimed in a voice which hushed her almost into terror.

"Let him alone," said the wife, addressing her, "let him alone, I know what he feels."

"No," he replied, "even you, Honora, don't know it--my heart, my heart went astray, and there, undher God and my Saviour, is the being that will be the salvation of his father."

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