  It was in June, 1888, that Mrs. Martin became the tenant of Ross House and that she and her daughters returned to Galway, sixteen years, to the very month, since they had left it. It would demand one more skilled than I in the unfathomable depths of Irish Land Legislation to attempt to set forth the precise status of Ross, its house, demesne, and estate, at this time. It is not, after all, a matter of any moment, save to those concerned. Mrs. Martin had been staying in Galway, and had paid a visit to Ross, with the result that she decided to rent the house and gardens from the authorities in whose jurisdiction they then were, and set herself to “build the walls of Jerusalem.” The point which may be dwelt on is the courage that was required to return to a place so fraught with memories of a happiness never to be recaptured, and to take up life again among people in whom, as was only too probable, the ancient friendship was undermined by years of absence, misrepresentation, and misunderstanding. The handling of the estate had been unfortunate; the house and demesne had been either empty, or in the hands of strangers, careless and neglectful of all things, save only of the woodcock shooting, and the rabbit-trapping. When Mrs. Martin The motives that impelled my cousin Nannie to face the enormous difficulties involved can, however, be understood, and that Martin should have sacrificed herself to the Lares and Penates of Ross—Ross, the love of which was rooted in her from her cradle—was no more, I suppose, than was to be expected from her. From her mother had come the initiative, but it was Martin who saved Ross. She hurled herself into the work of restoration with her own peculiar blend of enthusiasm and industry, qualities that, in my experience, are rarely united. Her letters became instantly full of house-paintings, house-cleanings, mendings, repairs of every kind; what was in any degree possible she did with her own hands, what was not, she supervised, inventing, instructing, insisting on the work being done right, in the teeth of the invincible determination of the workmen to adhere to the tradition of the elders, and do it wrong. Looking back on it, it seems something of a waste to have set a razor to cut down trees, and the work that was accomplished by “Martin Ross” that year was small indeed as compared with the manifold activities of “Miss Wilet.” There was everything to be done, inside and outside that old house, and no one to do it but one fragile, indomitable girl. Ireland, now, is full of such places as Ross was then. “Gentry-houses,” places that were once disseminators of light, of the humanities; “The Lion and the Lizard keep The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep; And Bahram, that great Hunter—the Wild Ass Stamps o’er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.” But even more than the laying waste of Ross House and gardens I believe it was the torture of the thought that the Ross people might feel that the Martins had failed them, and that the “Big House” was no longer the City of Refuge for its dependants in the day of trouble, that chiefly spurred Martin on, in her long and gallant fight with every sort of difficulty, that summer, when she and her mother began to face the music again at Ross. In that music, however, there was an undertone of discord that threatened for a while to wreck all the harmony. There are a few words that Martin had written, in continuation of the account of her brother Robert, that explain the matter a little, and I will quote them here. “The white chapel that overlooked the lake and the woods of Ross, heard much, at about this time (i.e. the later years of the ’eighties), that was not of a spiritual tendency. The Land League had been established in the parish; the branch had for its head, in the then Parish Priest, an Apostle of land agitation, a man whose power of bitter animosity, legal insight, and fighting quality, would have made his name in another profession. He made his mark in his own, a grievous one for himself. He rose up against his Bishop, supported by the great majority of his parish, and received the reprimand of his Church. He went with his case to Rome, and after long intrigue Martin’s MS. ceases here. I may add to it a little. I went to Ross not long after Father Z.’s return from Rome. I chanced but once to see him, but the remembrance of that fierce and pallid face, and of the hatred in it, is with me still. He is dead, and I believe that his teaching died with him. The evil that men do does not always live after them. The choice of his successor was a fortunate one for the parish of Rosscahill. Few people out of Ireland realise how much depends on the personality of the parish priest. Father Z. had had it in his power to shake a friendship of centuries, but it was deeply rooted, he could do no more than shake it. His successor had other views of his duty; in him the people of Rosscahill and the House of Ross, alike, found a friend, unfailing in kindness and sympathy, a priest who made it his mission to bring peace to his parish, and not a sword. No one was more sensible of this friendship, or more grateful for it than Martin. What sustained her and made the sacrifice of time, strength, and money in And so she and her mother proved it. It was the intense interest and affection which Martin had in and for the “Ross people” that made enjoyment march with what she believed to be her duty. She had a gift for doing, happily and beautifully, always the right thing, at no matter what cost to herself. A very unusual gift, and one of more value to others than to its possessor. One remembers the Arab steed, who dies at a gallop. It was not only that she was faithful and unselfish, but she so applied her intellect to obliterating all traces of her fidelity and her unselfishness, that their object strode, unconscious, into the soft place that she had prepared, and realised nothing of the self-sacrifice that had gone to its making. With her, it was impossible to say which was the more beautiful, the gentleness of heart, or the brilliance of intellect. I have heard that among the poor people In her first letters to me from Ross, the place it held in her heart is shown, and there is shown also some of the difficulties, the heartrendings, the inconveniences, the absurdities, of those first months of reclamation. No one but Martin herself will ever know what courage and capacity were required to cope with them. She overcame them all. Many times have I been a guest at Ross, and more wholly enjoyable visits seldom fall to anyone’s lot. But the comfort and restored civilisation of the old house had cost a high price. V. F. M. to E. Œ. S. (Ross, July, 1888.) “It is a curious thing to be at Ross. But it does not seem as if we were—not yet. It takes a long time to patch the present Ross, and the one I remember, on to each other. It is, of course, smaller, and was, I think, disappointing, but it is deeply interesting, as you can imagine. It is also heartrending.... Everything looks ragged and unkempt, but it is a fine free feeling to sit up in this window and look abroad. There are plenty of trees left, and there is a wonderful Sleeping-Beauty-Palace air about everything, wildness, and luxuriance, and solitude. As to being lonely, or anything like it, it does not enter my mind. The amount of work to be done would put an end to that pretty fast.... The garden is, as the people told me, ‘the height o’ yerself in weeds,’ not a walk visible. The hot-house, a sloping jungle of vines run wild; the melon pit rears with great care a grove of nettles, the stable-yard is a meadow. We inhabit five rooms in the house, the drawing-room having been made (by the caretakers) a kitchen. I could laugh and I could cry when I think of it. There is a small elderly mare here (belonging to the estate) whom we shall use. A charming creature, with a high character and a hollow back. I spent this morning in having her heels and mane and ears clipped, and it took two men, and myself, to hold her while her ears were being done. Car or conveyance we have none, at present, but we have many offers of cars. I drive Mama on these extraordinary farmers’ cars, and oh! could you but see the harness! Mouldy leather, interludes of twine in the reins—terrific!” There follow particulars of the innumerable repairs required in the house. “My hand is shaking from working on the avenue, I mean cutting the edges of it, which will be my daily occupation for ever, as by the time I get to the end, I shall have to begin again, and both sides mean a mile and a quarter to keep right.... The tenants have been very good about coming and working here for nothing, except their dinners, and a great deal has been done by them. It is, of course, gratifying, but, in a way, very painful. The son of the old carpenter has been making a cupboard for me, also all for love. He is a very smart person and has been to America, but he is still the same ‘Patcheen Lee’—(I have altered most of the names throughout—E.Œ.S.)—“whom Charlie and I used to beat with sticks till he was ‘near dead,’ as he himself says proudly. “We have many visits from the poor people about, and the same compliments, and lamentations, and finding of likenesses goes on. This takes up a lot of time, and exhausts one’s powers of rejoinder. Added to this, I don’t know yet what to make of the people.... Of course some are really devoted, but there is a change, and I can feel it. I wish you had seen Paddy Griffy, a very active little old man, and a beloved of mine, when he came down on Sunday “‘Dance Paddy!’ screamed Nurse Barrett (my foster-mother, now our maid-of-all-work). “And he did dance, and awfully well too, to his own singing. Mama, who was attired in a flowing pink dressing-gown, and a black hat trimmed with lilac, became suddenly emulous, and, with her spade under her arm, joined in the jig. This lasted for about a minute, and was a never-to-be-forgotten sight. They skipped round the hall, they changed sides, they swept up to each other and back again, and finished with the deepest curtseys.... I went down to the Gate-house after dinner, and there discoursed Nurse Griffy for a long time.” (At Ross, and probably elsewhere in the County Galway, the foster-mothers of “the Family” received the courtesy-title of “Nurse,” and retained it for the rest of their lives. I have been at Ross when the three principal domestics were all ceremoniously addressed as “Nurse,” and were alluded to, collectively, as “the Nursies.” After all, at one time or another, there were probably twelve or fourteen ladies who had earned the title.) “I was amused by a little discourse about the badness of the shooting of the tenants here last winter” (i.e. the Englishmen who took the shooting). “Birds were fairly plenty, but the men couldn’t hit them. “‘’Tis no more than one in the score they got!’ says Paddy Griffy, who was one of the beaters, with full-toned contempt. “‘Well, maybe they done their besht,’ says Kitty Hynes, the Gate-house woman, who is always apologetic. “‘You spoke a thrue word,’ says Paddy Griffy, ‘Faith, they done their besht, Mrs. Hynes! I seen a great wisp o’ shnipes going up before them, and the divil a one in it that didn’t go from them! But you may believe they done their besht!’ “This wants the indescribable satisfaction of the speaker, and the ecstasy of Kitty Hynes at finding that she had said something wonderful.” This is a part of her first letter. To those unversed in Ireland and her ways, the latter may appear incredible, “nay, sometimes even terrible,” as Ruskin says of the pine-trees; but as I think that enlightenment is good for the soul, I shall continue to give the history of the renewal of Ross, as set forth in Martin’s letters, and these may present to the English reader (to whom I would specially commend the incident of the children’s tea-party, in all its bearings) a new and not uninteresting facet in the social life of the most paradoxical country in the world. V. F. M. to E. Œ. S. (July ’88. Ross.) “I had not heard of F.’s death. It was a shock. He seemed a thoroughly alive and practical person. I don’t know why it should be touching that he should rave of his hounds to the end, but it is. I suppose any shred of the ordinary interests is precious in a strange unnatural thing, like dying. I think often of a thing that a countrywoman here said to me the other day, apropos of her sons going away from her to America. “‘But what use is it to cry, even if ye dhragged the hair out o’ yer head! Ye might as well be singin’ an’ dancin’.’ “She was crying when she said it, and was a wild-looking creature whom you would like to paint, and “Your letter spent 2 hours after its arrival in Nurse Barrett’s pocket, while I entertained some thirty of the children about here. Tea, and bread and jam, and barm bracks”—(a sort of sweet loaf, made with barm, and “brack” i.e. “spotted,” with currants)—“in the lawn, and races afterwards. I had a very wearying day. Cutting up food in the morning, and then at luncheon I received a great shock. I had asked a girl who teaches a National School to bring 12 of her best scholars, and besides these, we had only invited about half a dozen. At luncheon in comes the teacher’s sister to say that the teacher had gone to Galway ‘on business,’ and that no children were coming. Boycotted, I thought at once. However I thought I would make an effort, even though I was told that the priest must have vetoed the whole thing, and I sent a whip round to the near villages, which are loyal, and away I went myself to two more. I never had such a facer as thinking the children were to be kept away, and with that I nearly cried while I was pelting over the fields. I could only find six children, of whom three were too young to come, and one was a Land Leaguer’s. However two were to be had, and I pelted home again, very anxious. There I found the half dozen I knew would come, and divil another. I waited, and after I had begun to feel very low, I saw a little throng on the back avenue, poor little things, with their best frocks, such as they were. I could have kissed them, but gave them tea instead, and before it was over another bunch of children, including babies in arms, arrived, and there was great hilarity. I never shall understand what was the matter about the teacher. In those bad times this form of stabbing friendship in the back was very popular. I remember how, a few years earlier, a Christmas feast to over a hundred National School children was effectively boycotted, the sole reason being a resolve on the part of the ruling powers to discourage anything so unseasonable as Peace on Earth and good will towards ladies. These dark ages are now, for the most part, past. Possibly, some day, a people naturally friendly and kind-hearted will be permitted to realise that patriotism means loving their country, instead of hating their neighbours. At Ross, happily, the hostile influence had but small strength for evil. Had it been even stronger, I think it would not long have withstood the appeal that was made to the chivalry of the people by the gallant fight to restore the old ways, the old friendship. Martin’s letter continues: “The presents are very touching, but rather embarrassing, and last week there was a great flow of them; they included butter, eggs, a chicken, and a bottle of port; all from different tenants, some very poor. An experience of last week was going to see a party of sisters who are tenants, and work their farm themselves. In the twinkling of an eye I was sitting ‘back in the room,’ with the sisterhood exhausting themselves in praise of my unparalleled beauty, and with a large glass of potheen before me, which I knew had got to be taken somehow. It was much better than I expected, and I got through a respectable amount of it before handing it on with a flourish to one of my hostesses, which was looked on as the height “‘I assure you, Miss Wilet, you are very handsome, I may say beautiful. ‘I often read of beauty in books, but indeed we never seen it till to-day. Indeed you are a perfect creature.’ ‘All the young ladies in Connemara may go to bed now. Sure they’re nothing but upstarts.’ ‘And it’s not only that you’re lovely, but so commanding. Indeed you have an imprettive look!’ This, I believe, means imperative. Then another sister took up the wondrous tale. ‘Sure we’re all enamoured by you!’ “This and much more, and I just sat and laughed weakly and drunkenly. Many other precious things I lost, as all the sisters talked together, yea, they answered one to another. Custom has taken the edge off the admiration now, I am grieved to say, but it still exists, and the friend of my youth, Patcheen Lee, is especially dogmatic in pronouncing upon my loveliness. I am afraid all these flowers of speech will have faded before you get here; they will then begin upon you.” Another extract from the letters of these early days I will give. The sister whose return to Ross is told of was Geraldine, wife of Canon Edward Hewson; “Geraldine felt this place more of a nightmare than I did. The old days were more present with her, naturally, than with me. I pitied her when she came up the steps. She couldn’t say a word for a long time. There was a bonfire at the gate in her honour in the evening, built just as we described it “I can hardly tell you what it felt like to see the bonfire blazing there, just as it used to in my father’s time, when he and the boys and all of us used to come down when someone was being welcomed home, and it was all the most natural thing in the world. It was very different to see Geraldine walk in front of us through the wide open gates, between the tall pillars, with her white face and her black clothes. Thady Connor, the old steward, met her at the gate, and not in any ‘Royal enclosure’ could be surpassed the way he took off his hat, and came silently forward to her, while everyone else kept back, in dead silence too. Of course they had all known her well. What with that glare of the bonfire, and the lit circle of faces, and the welcome killed with memories for her, I wonder how she stood it. It was the attempt at the old times that was painful and wretched, at least I thought it so. Edward was wonderful, in a trying position. In about two minutes he was holding a group of men in deep converse without any apparent effort, and he was much approved of. “‘A fine respectable gentleman’—‘The tallest man on the property’—such were the comments.” There are two poems that were written many years ago, by one of the tenants, one Jimmy X., a noted poet, in praise of the Martins and of Ross, and mysteriously blended with these themes is a eulogy of a ROSS. It is well known through Ireland That Ross it is a fine place The healthiest in climate That ever yet was known. When you get up in the morning Ye’ll hear the thrishes warbling The cuckoo playing most charming Which echoes the place. The birds they join in chorus To hum their notes melodious The bees are humming music All over the demesne. The place it being so holy It is there they live in glory, Honey is flowing And rolling there in sthrames. There follows a panegyric of “Robert Martin Esqur,” the Bard lamenting his inability to “tell the lovely fatures of the noble gentleman. “Indeed,” he continues, “it sprung through nature For this gentleman being famous, The Martins were the bravest That ever were before. “With Colonels and good Majors Who fought with many nations, I’m sure twas them that gained it On the plains of Waterloo.” Thus far the dictation; the following four verses are as they came from the hand of their maker. A song composed for Robirt Martin Esqur and one of his tinants A song composed for Robirt Martin Esqur and one of his tinants 1st varce Its now we have a tradesman The best in any nation, He never met his eaquils, he went to tullamore. He played in Munstereven The tune of Nora Chrena But Garryown delighted the natives of the town. 2nd He can write music Play it and peruse it A man in deep concumption from death he revive But from the first creation There was never yet his eaquels So clever and ingenious with honour and renown. 3rd virce Patrick he resayved them So deacent and so plesant He is as nice a man in features as I ever saw before When they sat to his table with turkeys and bacon With Brandy and good ale he would suplie as many more. He got aninvetation to Dublin with they ladies They brought him in their pheatons he was playing as they were going He is the best fluit player from Cliften to Glasnevan They thought he was inchanted his music was so neat. 4th virce His fluit is above mention It is the best youtencal (utensil) That ever yet was mentioned sunce the race of Man He got it by great intrest as a presant from the gentry It was sent to him by finvarra the rular of Nockma. There are many more varces (or virces) in which the glories of Ross, of “Robirt” Martin, and of his “tinant,” are hymned with equal ardour, but I think these samples suffice. |
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