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                        THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

       NUMBER 32.      SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1841.      VOLUME I.

[Illustration: HANDSOME KATE KAVANAGH.]

In that fertile district of the county Wexford, the barony of Forth,
distinguished for its comfortable cottages and general good husbandry,
lived Dennis Costigan, a rich farmer. His farm was large, well stocked,
and in high condition; his dwelling-house was furnished as a farmer’s
house should be, and it was as cleanly and neat as it was commodious.
His wife was tidy, notable, and good-tempered, and his three children
were such as would please a father--well-formed in person and virtuous
in mind. Then, should not our friend Dennis Costigan have been a happy
man? He would have been so _perhaps_--for there is ever to be a stumbling
block in our road to happiness--_but_ that the first object that glared
upon his eyes in each morning’s sun was the white low cottage of his next
neighbour Miles Kavanagh. Yet that cottage was not an ugly feature in the
landscape. It was small and low, but as white as the whitest lime could
make it; it was neatly thatched too, and its small casements were never
broken or patched. A few honeysuckles and roses crept up its walls, and
it was surrounded by a hedge of hazels and sallows, that lent it an air
of comfort and seclusion. Its owner, at least, thought it a pretty spot,
and that he was a happy man indeed to possess it and its two or three
adjoining acres; and as he trimmed his hedges, and looked pleasantly on
all around--the fruits of his industry and labour--he little thought that
any one could look upon _his_ cot and farm with other eyes than those of
admiration; and least of all that he, or aught of his, was the source
of care or annoyance to his wealthier neighbour. And why did wealthy
Dennis Costigan glance lowringly on this humble tenement? Was it that,
like his betters, he thought a poor man’s dwelling always an unsightly
object? and that, like many a grasping spirit, all land convenient to his
own was misappropriated if not in his possession? It was not so. Dennis
Costigan envied no man his possessions. He was a right specimen of a
farmer, independent, upright, honest, and industrious, contented with
what providence had given him, and willing to help a neighbour with purse
and hand if required. And if he _did_ grumble a little, and turn away his
eyes quickly as if in pain, from the cottage we have mentioned, many
another father with hopeful sons would do the same, for it contained a
gem that would grace the proudest castle in Ireland--beautiful, charming,
innocent Kate Kavanagh, but who had no fortune.

One fine morning in August, farmer Costigan sallied forth at the head
of a regiment of reapers armed for the destruction of a large field of
wheat, but scarcely had he got outside his yard when he missed two of his
most efficient men--his two sons.

“Where can those gorsoons ov mine be, boys?” inquired he of the reapers.
“In the arms ov _Murphy_, to be sure,” answered a little shrill-piped
fellow, the crack orator of the country, which, and the circumstance of
his name being alike, procured him the cognomen of “Counsellor Shiel.”
“In the arms ov Murphy, to be sure, afther thrippin’ it all night on the
light funtastic toe with that flower ov Forth an’ belle ov the barony,
Kate Kavanagh.”

“Arrah, can’t ye speak in plain English, man?” thundered the farmer with
kindling eyes--the name just mentioned always putting him in a passion.
“What the dickens does I know ov funtastic toes or heels?”

“Very little indeed, _litherally_,” quoth the counsellor, laughing, and
glancing sarcastically at the farmer’s large feet, cased in tremendous
brogues shod with hob-nails; “very little _litherally_, but you might
metaphorically, for all that. But you have no more poethry or bells
letthers in ye than a bag ov beans!”

“Nor you more common sense than a goose.”

“Stop!” cried the orator suddenly, in a tone of command enough to arrest
a retreating army, and motioning to the body of reapers. “Stop, one an’
all ov ye, an’ listen! It would be a sin to let this profane ignirince
continue longer.” Then addressing our barony Forth farmer with a
countenance in which pity and ineffable contempt were blended, “Is it in
the nointeenth centhery that you call me a goose, by way ov contimpt? Oh
ignorant of nathral histhry, jography, bells letthers, pelite litherature
altogether! For, know, onforthenate man, that it was the _cackle_ ov that
same illustrious baist, a goose, that saved what?--where do you think?”

“Yer mother’s hen-roost from the fox, is it?”

“No, haithen, but imparial Rome!!!”

The might, the majesty of the “counsellor’s” tones and gestures as he
uttered the words, struck amazement into the hearts of his hearers! They
had considered him a clever fellow, but by no means the great man he then
appeared! Enchanted with his eloquence, not a few of his auditors were
certain that if he were in Parliament, he would do more for Ireland than
Mr O’Connell and all his friends; while the remainder, as much delighted
with his energy, lamented that “the craithur wasn’t two fut higher, for
he had a great spirit intirely!”

The happy “counsellor” perceived the impression he had produced, and in
his altitude was proceeding to tell them when and how “imparial Rome” was
saved, when his attention was arrested by an approaching object, and with
an instantaneous change of attitude and tone he exclaimed,

    “‘But, soft! what light from yonder _meadow_ breaks?
    It is the aist, an’ Cath’rine is the sun!’”

as a tall and very handsome girl, with the finest eyes and brightest
smile imaginable, met them at the entrance of the wheat field.

“A blithe mornin’ to Misther Costigan,” said the maiden, “an’ the same to
all the raipers!”

“Oh! a good morra,” returned Mister Costigan very coldly and with looks
still colder, “an’ I wondher above all things what is it that takes Miss
Kavanagh out of her bed so early?”

“Just what ought to rouse many more ov us, Misther Costigan,” replied
Kate spiritedly--“to help a naibur, an’ I am come to offer ye all the
’sistance in my power to-day, aither as binder or raiper, whichever ye
may want worst.”

“I want neither,” returned the farmer gruffly, and turning on his heel;
“an’, besides, I could not possibly think of puttin’ sitch delicate white
hands to sitch coorse work!”

“The belle o’ the barony” coloured high at the affront couched in this
speech, and she hastily answered that “her hands, sitch as they war,
could earn her bread for her when she required it; an’ if _she_ didn’t
find them too tendher for work, Misther Costigan needn’t find fault with
them. But,” added she more kindly, “you have a rough manner but a kind
heart, Dennis Costigan, an’ I won’t mind what you say to me. Moreover,
I’ll stay with ye to-day, whether you be willin’ or not, aither as binder
or raiper.”

Dennis Costigan, “kind as his heart” was, would have given a sovereign
of “bright goold” that Kate Kavanagh and her bright eyes were a few miles
off at the moment; but as he saw that she carried all before her, he
thought it better not to give her any further offence, and accordingly,
but with a very bad grace, he accepted her services.

“Where be’s Jem and Ned Costigan this mornin’?” whispered Kate to the
counsellor, who was flourishing away gallantly at her side.

The man of eloquence flung himself into an attitude, laid his hand upon
his heart, and looked languishingly, as he “assured her that her charms
were railly too potently enfluential over the hearts ov her admirers,
as she not only deprived thim ov the needful refreshment of nathur,
oblivious slumber, but she also hendhered them from doin’ their daily
manual imploymints. For instance,” said he, “you see _Saul_, the orb ov
day, is high up in his meraydian hemisphare, an’ those inamoured swains
are still pressin’ their beds, or rather cooches, in the arms ov Murphy,
mainin’ sleep or Somnus----”

“An’ what have I to do with that?” said Kate, laughing heartily. “Do ye
think I gave thim a sleepy potion?”

“Ah! my beautiful flower ov Forth!” sighed out the sentimental
counsellor, “any thing but a sleepy potion do you give yer lovers! if
’tis anything, sure I am ’tis a draught to banish sleep for ever! But
consarnin’ those vagrant truints ye spaik ov, I ondherstand that you
kep thim up beyant their ushial hours ov repose last night, admirin’
yer graceful movemints in yer _Turpfiscorian_ revels, mainin’ the dance
at Judy Colfer’s; an’ that man, their father, who is not to be moved
with ‘concord of sweet sounds,’ or any sounds at all but the chink ov
money, almost snapt my head off a while ago bekase I tould him so. Ah!
my Catherine dear, I fear you’ll incounther opposition in that quarther.
But ‘_nel desperantum_,’ say I, which mains in plain English, ‘never
dispair.’”

Catherine said nothing, but instantly began to sing, at the top of her
fine rich voice, a song the counsellor had composed in praise of her, and
shortly afterwards she had the pleasure to see the two sleepy truants
bounding across the yard towards the wheat-field, as if her well-known
notes had awaked them.

While this magical song was thrilling on all hearts, Kate Kavanagh,
the witching Kate! stood apart from the others, singing and laughing
alternately, her reaping-hook resting on one arm, and dressed in the
every-day fashion of the place--the striped linsey short petticoat, and
loose bedgown or wrapper, a dress that would make an ordinary woman
frightful, and straw hat, the leaf of which, turned up before and pinned
to the crown, displayed her sable locks and fair high forehead to
perfection. And many a side-glance the anxious father, Dennis Costigan,
cast at this arrangement of Kate’s headgear, as he broadly hinted that
“for sartin Miss Kavanagh’s complexion would be intirely spiled if she
showed it too much to the sun.”

“Tut!” was Kate’s good-humoured reply, “‘the life ov an ould hat is to
cock it,’ as we say in the counthry. The leaf ov it was flappin’ in
my eyes; the lads couldn’t see me, nor I them, so a pin settled the
bisness;” and nothing could become her fine Spanish face better, though
her toilet was made in perfect carelessness, for dashing Kate had other
charms to depend on besides beauty. Imprimus, she was the first dancer
in the country, outdoing her dancing-master himself at “jigs, reels,
thribbles, doubles