CHAPTER V.—­Who Robbed Jemmy Burke?

On the second morning after the night described in the last chapter, Bryan M’Mahon had just returned to his father’s house from his farm in Ahadarra, for the purpose of accompanying him to an Emigration auction in the neighborhood.  The two farms of Carriglass and Ahadarra had been in the family of the M’Mahon’s for generations, and were the property of the same landlord.  About three years previous to the period of our narrative, Toal M’Mahon, Bryan’s uncle, died of an inflammatory attack, leaving to his eldest nephew and favorite the stock farm of Ahadarra.  Toal had been a bachelor who lived wildly and extravagantly, and when he died Bryan suceeeded to the farm, then as wild, by the way, and as much neglected as its owner had been, with an arrear of two years’ rent upon it.  In fact the house and offices had gone nearly to wreck, and when Bryan entered into occupation he found that a large sum of money should be expended in necessary improvements ere the place could assume anything like a decent appearance.  As a holding, however, it was reasonable; and we may safely assert that if Toal M’Mahon had been either industrious or careful he might have lived and died a wealthy man upon it.  As Ahadarra lay in the mountain district, it necessarily covered a large space; in fact it constituted a townland in itself.  The greater portion of it, no doubt, was barren mountain, but then there were about three hundred acres of strong rough land that was either reclaimed or capable of being so.  Bryan, who had not only energy and activity, but capital to support both, felt, on becoming master of a separate farm, that peculiar degree of pride which was only natural to a young and enterprising man.  He had now a fair opportunity, he thought, of letting his friends see what skill and persevering exertion could do.  Accordingly he commenced his improvements in a spirit which at least deserved success.  He proceeded upon the best system then known to intelligent agriculturalists, and nothing was left undone that he deemed necessary to work out his purposes.  He drained, reclaimed, made fences, roads, and enclosures.  Nor did he stop here.  We said that the house and offices were in a ruinous state when they came into his possession, and the consequence was that he found it necessary to build a new dwelling house and suitable offices, which he did on a more commodious and eligible site.  Altogether his expenditure on the farm could not have been less than eight hundred pounds at the period of the landlord’s death, which, as the reader knows is that at which we have commenced our narrative.

Thomas M’Mahon’s family consisted of—­first, his father, a grey-haired patriarch, who, though a very old man, was healthy and in the full possession of all his faculties; next, himself; then his wife; Bryan, the proprietor of Ahadarra; two other sons, both younger, and two daughters, the eldest twenty, and the youngest about eighteen.  The name of the latter was Dora, a sweet and gentle girl, with beautiful auburn hair, dark, brilliant eyes, full of intellect and feeling, an exquisite mouth, and a figure which was remarkable for natural grace and great symmetry.