and kick against human supremacy. He had accepted the challenge scornfully given to the whole world, by Big Brown of Kilworth, to wrestle, and had given him four fair falls out of five, a matter so much taken to heart by the said Big one, that he emigrated to London, where, overcome with liquor and loyalty, he was tempted to enlist in an infantry regiment, and was shot through the head at the storming of Badajoz some short time after.
Remmy Carroll could do, and had done more than defeat Brown. He could swim like a fish, was the only man ever known to dive under that miniature Maëlstrom which eddies at the base of The Nailer's Rock (nearly opposite Barnäan Well), and, before he was one-and-twenty, had saved nine unfortunates from being drowned in the fatal Blackwater.4
No man in the county could beat him at hurly, or foot-ball. He was a crack hand at a faction-fight on a fair day-only, as a natural spirit of generosity sometimes impelled him, with a reckless chivalry, to side with the weaker party, he had, more than once, been found magnanimously battling against his own friends.
Yet more. – Having had the advantage of three years' instruction at Tim Daly's far-famed Academy, Remmy Carroll was master of what a farmer, more alliterative than wise, called "the mystery of the three R's: – Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic." He knew, by the simple taste, when the Potheen was sufficiently "above proof." He had a ten-Irishman power of love-making, and while the maidens (with blushes, smiles, and softly-similated angers) would exclaim, "Ah, then, be done, Remmy! – for a deluder as ye are!" there usually was such a sly intelligence beaming from their bright eyes, as assured him that he was not unwelcome; and then he felt it his duty to kiss them into perfect good-humor and forgiveness. – But I am cataloguing his accomplishments at too much length. Let it suffice to declare, that Remmy Carroll was confessedly the Admirable Crichton of the district.
He was an independent citizen of the world-for he had no particular settled habitation. He was a popular character-for every habitation was open to him, from Tim Mulcahy's, who lived with his wife and pig, in a windowless mud-cabin, at the foot of Corran, to Mr. Bartle Mahony's two-story slated house, on a three hundred acre farm, at Carrigabrick, on the banks of the Blackwater. At the latter abode of wealth, however, Remmy Carroll had not lately called.
Mr. Bartholomew Mahony-familiarly called "Bartle" – was a man of substance. Had he lived now, he might have sported a hunter for himself, and set up a jaunting-car for his daughter. But the honest, well-to-do farmer had at once too much pride and sagacity to sink into the Squireen. He was satisfied with his station in life, and did not aspire beyond it. He was passing rich in the world's eye. Many, even of the worldlings, thought less of his wealth than of his daughter, Mary. Of all who admired, none loved her half so well as poor Remmy Carroll, who loved the more deeply, because very hopelessly, inasmuch as her wealth and his own poverty shut him out from all reasonable prospect of success. He admired-nay, that is by far too weak a word: he almost adored her, scarcely daring to confess, even to his own heart, how closely her image was blended with the very life of his being.
Mary Mahony was an Irish beauty; that most indescribable of all breathing loveliness, with dark hair, fair skin, and violet eyes, a combination to which the brilliant pencil of Maclise has often rendered justice. She had a right to look high, in a matrimonial way, for she was an heiress in her own right. She had £500 left her as a legacy by an old maiden-aunt, near Mitchelstown, who had taken care of her from her twelfth year, when she left the famous Academy of the renowned Tim Daly (where she and Remmy used to write together at the same desk), until some eight months previous to the date of this authentic narrative, when the maiden-aunt died, bequeathing her property, as aforesaid, to Mary Mahony, who then returned to her father.
With all her good fortune, including the actual of the legacy, and the ideal of inheritance to her father's property-with beauty sufficient to have turned the head of any other damsel of eighteen, Mary Mahony was far from pride or conceit. She had the lithest form and the most graceful figure in the world, but many maidens, with far less means, wore much more showy and expensive apparel. Her dark hair was plainly braided off her white brow, in bands, in the simplest and most graceful manner; while, from beneath, gleamed orbs so beautiful, that one might have said to her, in the words of John Ford, the dramatist,
"Once a young lark
Sat on thy hand, and gazing on thine eyes,
Mounted and sung, thinking them moving skies."
The purple stuff gown (it was prior to the invention of merinos and muslins-de-laine), which, in its close fit, exhibited the exquisite beauty of her form, and set off, by contrast, the purity of her complexion, was also a within-doors article of attire: when she went out, she donned a long cloak of fine blue cloth, with the sides and hood neatly lined with pink sarsnet. Young and handsome Irish girls, in her rank of life, were not usually satisfied, at that time, with a dress so quiet and so much the reverse of gay.
But Mary Mahony's beauty required nothing to set it off. I do not exaggerate when I say that it was literally dazzling. I saw her twenty years after the date of this narrative, and was even then struck with admiration of her matured loveliness; – how rich, then, must it have been in the bud!
Mary, as Remmy Carroll said before he knew that he loved her-for then, he never breathed her name to mortal ear, – was "the moral of a darling creature, only t'would be hard to say whether she was most good or handsome." Her hair, as I have said, was dark (light tresses are comparatively rare in Ireland), and her eyes were of so deep a blue that nine out of ten on whom they glanced mistook them for black. Then, too, the long lashes veiling them, and the lovely cheek ("oh, call it fair, not pale"), on which their silky length reposed, – and the lips so red and pouting, and the bust whose gentle heavings were just visible behind the modest kerchief which covered it, – and the brow white as snow (but neither too high nor too prominent), – and the fingers tapering and round, and the form lithe and graceful, – and the feet small and well-shaped, and the nameless air which gave dignity and grace to every motion of this country-girl! Oh, beautiful was Mary Mahony, beautiful as the bright image of a poet's dream, the memory of which shadows he forth in the verse which challenges immortality in the minds of men.
The contour of her face was neither Roman, nor Grecian, nor Gothic; – it was essentially Irish, and I defy you to find a finer. The only drawback (for I must be candid) was that her nose had somewhat-just the slightest-of an upward inclination. This, which sometimes lent a sort of piquancy to what would otherwise have been quite a Madonna-like face, only made her not too handsome; at least, so thought her admirers. Lastly, she had a voice as sweet as ear ever loved to listen to. No doubt, it had the distinguishing accents of her country, but with her, as with Scott's Ellen, they were
"Silvery sounds, so soft, so dear,
The listener held his breath to hear."
CHAPTER II. – WHAT THE PIPER DID
It was in the summer of 1809, that, for the first time since both of them were children and schoolmates, Remmy Carroll spoke to Mary Mahony. Often had he seen her at the dance, which without his aid could not be, but in which, alas, he could not join-a dancing piper being almost as anomalous as a hunting archbishop! Often had he admired the natural grace of her movements. Often had he been struck by the bewitching modesty of mien and motion which had the power of suddenly changing the rakish, rollicking gallantry of her followers (for she was a reigning toast) into a most respectful homage. Often had he noticed her at chapel, whither she came to pray, while others flaunted and gazed as if they had come only to see and to be seen. Often had he followed her very footsteps, at a distance-for the very ground on which she trod was hallowed to this humble lover-but never yet had he dared to hope.
The shortest way from Fermoy to Carrigabrick is by the banks of the Blackwater, and this way, on Whitsunday, 1809, was taken by Mary Mahony and a merry younger cousin of hers on their homeward route. There are stiles to be crossed, and deep drains to be jumped over,
There really was a person named Carroll residing in Fermoy at the date of this story. He was of gigantic stature and strength, with the mildest temper ever possessed by mortal man. He was noted for his excellence in swimming and his remarkable skill as a diver. Whenever any person had been drowned in the Blackwater, (which runs through Fermoy,) Carroll was sent for, and never quitted the river until he had found the body. There is one part considered particularly dangerous, opposite Barnäan Well, in which a large projection, called the Nailer's Rock, shelves out into the water, making an under-current of such peculiar strength and danger, that even expert swimmers avoid it, from a fear of being drawn within the vortex. Many lives have been lost in this fatal eddy, into which Carroll was accustomed to dive, most fearlessly, in search of the bodies. It was calculated that Carroll had actually saved twenty-two persons from being drowned, and had recovered over fifty corpses from the river. When he died, which event happened at the commencement of the bathing season, a general sorrow fell upon all classes in the town of Fermoy, and for several weeks no one ventured into the river. It was as if their guardian and safeguard had departed. In my youth, passed on the banks of the Blackwater, there was a belief that whenever one person was drowned in that river, two others were sure to follow, in the same season.
