The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-04-05

covered who 1T was that was weeping there, all
her mind, and with wild cry, in which love
! and grief and sympathy were mingled, as
only an Irish cry can mix them, she hung her
claimed in Irish, language with which-we
may as well, once for all remark-the proud
lords of the Pale We're quite conversant using
it not only as medium of communication with
their Irish dependents. but by preference to
English, in their familiar intercourse with each
other. For this reason, while We endeavor to give
the old 1ady's conversation verbatim, as tar as
idiOn and ideas are concerned, we have ven
tured to omit all the misprOnunciatiOns and
| bad grammarisms which, whether on the stage
| or in q novel, are rightly or wrongly considered
delineation of the Irish character, whatever
the rank OF education of the individual thus
, put on the scene may happen to be-
woman, almost lifting the girl by main force
ffea.f- the ground seafts-b4oota, a-eashla
machree! what are You doing down there upon
| the damp grass, (sure it will be the death OF
You, it will, with the morning fog wrapping
round you like curtain: Is there anything
wrong up there ut the castle or what is it all,
at all, that brings you down here before the
tree-topss"
80 Granne, Grannie!" sobbed the girl,
have you not heard! do YOU not know
go without it, Grahnie! L never shall see you
agair-perhaps never%
Pity, and love and sympathy, all bean,ing u
moment before upon the lace o olu nag,
changed as instantaneously asst by magic, into
an eXpressiOnNof wild hatred. "'arthy the fca-
lures OF II conquered savage.
ut is true, then" she cried; =" II is true
what ! heard last night what / hr:lal-but
wouldn't believe, Miss Nellie-if Won were not
here to the fore to say it to me YOURSELF 1t is
true that they are for robbing he old master OF
his own; and that then. numbering Cromwell
lians-my black CURSE "n every >an"tnris son of
them
But before she could hiring her tca,nciation
across her mouth, and, with terror written on
every feature OF her face: exclaimed:
Hush, Grannic, hush., For Christ and his
sweet Mothers sake, keep quiet. Remember
such words have cost many an honest man his
life ere now, and God afene can tell who may
or may not he within hearing, Mt this moment.
- She caught the old woman by the arm as sii''
spoke, dragging rather than leading her into
the interior OF the cottage. Once there, how
ever, and with the door carefully closed behind
her. she made no srruple of yielding 10 the 81
guish which old Grannie's lamentations lad
rather sharpciied than allayed. and s.:ti:is.
down upon a low settle, suffered her tears I"
flow in silence: Grannie sqnatted herself down
on the ground at her feet. and swayin:s her
body backward and forward after the fashion
of her people, broke out once more into vociit:r-
GUS lamentations over the fallen fortunes OF
her darling.
"Ochone! ochone! that the Young May morn
ing of my darling's life (Which ought to he as
bright as Gods dear skies above ns) should he
clOuded over this way like black NOvenber's!
Woe is me! woe is me! that 1 should have
lived to see the day when the old stock is to he
rooted out as if it was worthless weed for the
sake of set of beggar1y rapscallions. who
have only come to Ireland, may be, because
their own land (my heavy curse on it, for the
heavy hand it has ever and always laid OH HIS y
wasn't big enough to hold their wickedness."
1t was i'll perfect uncOnsciOusnesS and good
faith that old GraHnie thus spoke OF Nellie and
her family as of the old stock of the country
u favOrite expression to this day among people
of her class i'll Ireland.
The English descendants of reland's first in-
vaders had, in fact, as years rolled by, and even
while proudly asserting their own claims as
selves both by intermarriages and the adoption
of language, dress, and manners with the Celtic
natives of the soil that the latter, ever ready,
too ready for their own interest, perhaps, to be
won by kindness, had ended by transferring to
them the clannish feeling once given to their
own rulers, and fought in the days we speak of
gerald as heartily and bitterly against Crom-
wells soldiers as if an O'Neil or MacNtur-
rough had led them to the combat. To Nellie
Netteryille, therefore, the sympathy and indig-
nation of old Grannie seemed quite much Il
matter of course rs if the blue blood coursing
through her veins had been derived from "a
Celtic chieftain instead of from an old Norman
baron of the days of King Henry. Nellie was,
moreover, connected with the old woman by II
tie in which in tl2Rse days was as strong, and
even stronger, than that of race for the English
of the Pale had adopted in its most comprehen-
sive the Irish system OF fosterage, and
Grannie having acted as foster-mother to
Nellies father, was, to all intents and purposes,
as devoted to the person of his daughter as II
she had been in very deed grandchild OF her
own.
But natural AS such sympathy might have
seemed, and soothing as no doubt it was to her
wounded feelings, it was Yet clothed in such
dangerous language that it had an effect upon
Nellie the very opposite of that which, under
any other circumstances, it might have been
expected to produce. 1t recalled to her the
necessity of self-possession, and conscious that
she must command her own feelings if she
hoped to control those of her warm-hearted
dependent, she deliberately wiped the tears
from her eyes, and rose from the settle on
which sine had flung herself only II few minutes
before, in an uncontrolled agony of grief.
When she felt that she had thoroughly mas
tered her own emotion, she drew old GEannie |
toward her. made her sit down on the stool she |
herself had just vacated, and knceling down |