No. 7.

SOME ACCOUNT OF THOMAS BRINDSLEY AND HIS FAMILYFUTURITY IMPENETRABLE UNLESS TO THE INITIATED.

"Truth is strange-stranger than fiction."-BYRON.

In a certain part of the North of Ireland, which for obvious reasons must be nameless, there lived, about thirty years ago, a man, descended from a decent and respectable, but reduced family, on whom it is our pleasure to bestow the name of Brindsley. This individual, whose Christian name was Thomas, had been in very humble circumstances, both before and about the period when we introduce him for a brief space to our readers. His manners, inherited from those habits of integrity and self-respect which were so remarkable in his family, were far above those of any other persons in his position of life. Every one who knew him respected him highly; and although, from a consciousness of what his ancestors had been, he was somewhat proud and distant in his intercourse with the people at large, yet those who were aware of the just grounds upon which he persisted in maintaining a moral position so much above them, never felt nor expressed offence at conduct which in any other would have been termed an unbecoming assumption of superiority, or an offensive exhibition of pride. This man, whose disposition was so reserved and distant, possessed, nevertheless, the materials of a firm and determined character, in which lurked the seeds of a strong but latent ambition. His education-simply an English one had not been neglected; and as his natural intellect was of a higher standard than ordinary, he experienced an anxiety to try his fortune upon the broad stage of life. He could write a good hand, was an expert accountant, and possessed great facility and correctness in committing his sentiments on any subject to paper. His wife, though of humble but decent origin, was a woman of great personal beauty; and nothing could surpass their attachment to each other. He had won her from the rival love of a cousin of his own, a young man in much better circumstances than himself; but who, though handsome and dashing in his manner, was a vindictive profligate, without the slightest element of moral principle to guide him in his intercourse with the world. Thomas Brindsley was unhappy in the early death of his first two children. They died

VOL. II.

1861.

each within a year after their birth, a circumstance which threw an additional tinge of gloom over his character. At length there came a severe season-in fact a year of famine; and as he found himself struggling almost in vain with the pressure and difficulties of the times, he resolved to enter the army; and by the advice of a sergeant, who was recruiting for the India service, he resolved to become a soldier in the army of the East. This, it is true, may seem rather cruel and heartless, as involving the abandonment of his wife; but of this want of feeling the man was altogether guiltless. The recruiting officer had deceived him by stating that he would be at liberty to bring his wife with him, an assertion which involved nothing more than a mere contingency-the first being that only a limited number of married women were allowed to accompany each regiment, and those determined by ballot. He and his wife still hoped that their lot might be an auspicious one, and that the wheel of Fortune might still turn in their favour. In this, however, they were disappointed. When the ballotting day arrived, it is impossible to describe, or even to conceive, their agitation, or the dreadful alternatives of their hopes and fears. The ceremony passed, however, and, alas! the chance was against them. We will not describe their separation, but must leave it to the imagination of our readers. We cannot, however, neglect to record her parting words. Thomas," said she, "I may never again see you in this life, but, with God's aid and grace, you shall see me before the throne of judgment, your true and faithful wife. I will not despair, my husband, but, on the contrary, will place my humble but firm trust in the care of an all-righteous and merciful Providence,"

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"And if this is to be our last separation on earth,” he replied, "I hope you will meet my spirit hereafter, as full of truth and affection as your own."

"You have a tress of my hair," said she, “next your heart; you will never remove it from that spot? "Never," said he, "until I see you again; and if I do not, it will go to the grave with me."

Whether it was their last separation or not, our readers shall ascertain in due time.

When the unhappy Mrs. Brindsley returned to her now desolate hearth, she was within three months of becoming a mother, for the third time. She was, how ever, a person of as much pride and self-respect as her husband, although her manners were more genial and cordial. She was also of a strong and independent mind, and came to the immediate and creditable resolution of leaving nothing undone to maintain herself,

A

without the assistance of her friends, who, indeed, were at best but poorly capable of rendering her any support whatsoever. Her energy and activity soon became a common topic of conversation among her neighbours, who pointed to her as an example of what incessant exertion can accomplish. She was an expert needlewoman, and possessed of great natural skill and taste in making up dresses. By the exercise of this talent she gradually wrought her way into employment as a country mantua-maker, and found her hands amply filled with the resources of beneficial industry.

At length, in due time, she gave birth to a daughter; and in order to enable herself still to pursue her business, she engaged a growing girl, about fourteen, to attend to her baby, and discharge other domestic duties in her cottage. In this manner she went on struggling, not unsuccessfully, in working out the noblest object of human life-an honourable, though, in her case, an humble independence.

We cannot dwell with a minuteness, which we feel would be only tedions to our readers, upon the level and monotonous course of her humble but exemplary life. Still we must not pass over this portion of it without recording her high-minded and faithful attachment to ber absent husband. We have stated that he won her from a profligate cousin of that husband's, This was true, and the task was anything but one of difficulty, where such a pure and virtuous heart as hers was in question. She rejected his cousin's proposals without hesitation, although in a temporal point of view, the choice she made was far inferior, and, indeed, anything but a prudent one. Her husband's cousin was still unmarried; but although, owing to his own extravagance, much reduced in his circumstances, yet still as profligate as ever. In fact, now that her husband was absent, he assailed her with solicitations of the most dishonourable nature, and that with such pertinacity that she was obliged to appeal to the protection of her friends and acquaintances, to whom, as a matter necessary to her own safety, she stated the persecution to which she was perpetually subjected at his hands. Their indignation was so deep, and their determination to avenge the insults he was offering her, so loudly and unequivocally expressed, that the cowardly caitiff fled the country, and never showed his face in it again.

Her firm and resolute conduct under those circumstances, raised her to the highest pitch of admiration amongst every person who heard of it, both high and low.

Business increased so much upon her bands, that in a short time she found herself obliged to take in assistance to enable her to fulfil her engagements.

In this way she not only maintained herself, but was able, by degrees, to put something aside for future contingencies. It was about six months after the departure of her husband for the East, that his ruffian cousin finally disappeared from the country; but six months more elapsed, and still the intelligence came not on which her heart was set. No communication whatsoever reached her for two years; and after many a patient watch and expectation, she almost ceased to enter

tain any hope upon the subject. She knew her hus band's affection for her, and felt absolutely certain, as she was justified in doing, that nothing but death ever could or would have occasioned his silence.

At length, about the commencement, or rather towards the middle, of the third year, a letter reached his uncle, who was then on his death-bed, and father to the profligate cousin, who, it appears, had joined the same service, containing an account of his death. It stated that he died of cholera, after an attack of only a few hours; whilst the writer, at the same time, expressed great contrition for his own conduct, and hoped, as he was now a reformed man, that his cousin Thomas's widow would forgive him for his (poor Thomas's) sake. This dreadful intelligence prostrated her for a time, but though affectionate and faithful, she was, as we have already said, both firm and resolute. Perhaps, after all, the calamity inflicted by the knowledge of his death, was more easily borne than the suspense and uncertainty which would have preyed upon her by the ignorance of his fate. When the worst is known we are able to collect our energies and meet the blow; but to hang in all the agonies of suspense, without being able to avail ourselves of hope and expectation on the one hand, or to combat the apprehended affliction in its worst shape on the other, is, of all conditions of human life and suffering, the most wasting, and the most difficult to sustain. The only source of consolation now, was her child, upon whom her heart turned with a double force of tenderness and affection. She thought that she could have felt the anguish of his death with less poignancy if he could but once have seen her; and on this account she felt it as a sacred duty to love the child with an additional affection, which she looked upon as the inheritance of his heart,

In the meantime, we pass from her and her husband's fate, to a different object. A new character is beginning to develop itself in our pages, and that character resides in the person of the child we speak of, Maria Brindsley. We remember having seen her when she was about eight or nine years of age, and upon another occasion, when she was sixteen; and we solemnly assure our readers, that the impression of the last view we had of her was such as makes us shrink back from the very idea of attempting to describe her, In her case, description can do nothing. The thing is impossible, and for this reason, that neither the force of the most powerful imagination, nor the highest ideal conception of beauty, whether taken from our knowledge of nature or of art, could enable us to reach any notion whatsoever of the standard which she presented, We dare not therefore, attempt a portrait, and we shall not. All we can say is, that the light of youth and beauty seemed to emanate like effulgence from her face, and the glory of her eye to stand alone and unparalleled among women. Horace, indeed, appears to have had some conception of it, when he spoke of the vultus nimium lubricus aspici -a countenance too bright to be looked upon; but, indeed, there are some female faces whose tints are so delicately beautiful, that neither art nor artist can snatch

a grace sufficiently exquisite and ethereal to do them justice. Such was that of Maria Brindsley, when we saw her in her sixteenth year. All we have said, however, is nothing. She must have been seen, and then, indeed, the divine charm of her beauty would have startled, astonished, and entranced the beholder-as it never failed to do.

Martha Brindsley, for such was her mother's Christian name, had now, next to her own salvation, but one object of solicitude upon earth. She devoted herself to the care and comfort of her angelic little daughter, with an anxiety and tenderness that were their own reward. The child was the admiration of all who knew and saw her, and well did it become her mother to love and cherish her as she did, for from the very earliest period of her infancy, never did she occasion even one temporary pang to that mother's heart. She was put to school, where she soon distinguished herself among her little female companions, and surpassed them as much in intellect as she did in natural grace and beauty. Having learned reading, writing, and some smattering of accounts, her education was considered sufficiently advanced for all the purposes of her humble life; and after her withdrawal from school, she devoted herself to the acquisition of her mother's knowledge of dressmaking. From this period until her subsequent removal from her 'mother's roof, there is, with one exception, but little to be recorded of her innocent and affectionate life. The exception, however, which we allude to, we shall now detail.

The scenery

Her mother's cottage to which was attached about half a rood of garden, that stretched longitudinally behind it, stood upon the edge of a beautiful little green, which was considered as a kind of common, for no one ever thought of breaking it up or cultivating it. Indeed, no one would be permitted to do so, as it was considered sacred to the sports and amusements of the youngsters of both sexes in the village; and, besides, possessed what is called the right of commonage. around it, especially in the summer time, was soft, serene, and beautiful. The land was devoted more to pastoral than agricultural pursuits-a circumstance which gave to it an aspect delightfully verdant, of which even winter could not deprive it. It consisted of low undulating hills, graceful in their outlines, with sketches of rich meadow between them, through the latter of which a clear but gentle river wound its serpentine course. Many warm-looking farm-houses, most of them white and comfortable, gave a peculiar spirit of happiness and animation to the landscape.

About a couple of miles above, rose a mass of moun. tain ridges to the east, peaked and covered with the richest heath; and when the crimson light of the setting sun fell upon them, it appeared to the eye as if they had been transfigured by his radiance into a purple glory, which seemed like the operation of some grand and superhuman enchantment, that had turned them into gold. And then again, how many pastoral and rural sounds, peculiar to those remote and happy districts of life, might be heard during the progress and close of a

summer evening. How many youngsters of both sexes were abroad upon the banks of the river, engaged, the males in athletic and amusing sports, and the females in the lower swamps of the meadows in collecting the honey dew, as it hung richly on the tall corn-like grass with which it was loaded. Then come the various sounds of rural life, as they arise in the silence of the approaching twilight-the sweet song of the countrygirl as she milks her cow-the careless song of the labourer as he returns from his toil-the mingling of young and joyful voices in the adjoining meadows, and a thousand other happy sounds with which the memory of early life in the country is always enriched.

On

One Saturday evening, about the middle of summer, there was a dance upon the green we have mentioned, and the youngsters of the village and neighbourhood were, of course, assembled. The fiddler, too, being a resident among them, was, when not elsewhere engaged, in the habit of playing for them. The good-natured man, though blind from his infancy, knew the voice and foot of every one of them, and nothing afforded him greater gratification than thus to contribute occasionally to their innocent and light-hearted amusement. the evening in question, they were all assembled, when a considerable division or drawback from their enjoyment of the dance took place, through the appearance of an individual then, and for a long time previously, of no little celebrity in the North of Ireland. This was Stuart, the far-famed dummy and spaeman, or fortune-teller. These Staarts were absolutely renowned for the prophetic accuracy with which they fed the public appetite for an insight into futurity. It would seem that they must have intermarried within the forbidden degrees, otherwise it is impossible that almost every individual of the family should have been deaf and dumb. 'Tis true we know that this melan. choly privation, like many other maladies, is always hereditary; but be this as it may, almost every mau and woman of the Stuart race seem to have been deaf and dumb from their birth. That much gross imposture may have been practised by them, there is little or no doubt, but the evidences of their privation were too severely tested to allow them to impose upon the public in the matter of speech and hearing. We believe the family is now extinct, for after many inquiries, we have not been able to trace or hear of them for several years. The only man of them we ever saw was the individual of whom we are about to speak. He was tall and thin, and of a weather-beaten, sallow complexion. We were then very young, and looked upon him with a kind of reverence that was strongly imbued with sensations of pain and fear. That, however, which impressed us most disagreeably, was the noise which seemed to proceed from his temples whilst eating his food. It resembled a small dull knocking against an empty vessel, and proceeded evidently from some malformation in the sutures or joinings between the upper jaw-bones and the skull. Something like this must have been the case, because at every mastication they shot out on both sides of the face, in a line with the