There happened to be stationed at Clonmel a regiment of infantry in which there served a captain named Maurice St. Leger Farmer.  He was a man of some means, but eccentric to a degree.  His temper was so utterly uncontrolled that even his fellow officers could scarcely live with him, and he was given to strange caprices.  It happened that at a ball in Clonmel he met the young daughter of Robert Power, then a mere child of fourteen years.  Captain Farmer was seized with an infatuation for the girl, and he went almost at once to her father, asking for her hand in marriage and proposing to settle a sum of money upon her if she married him.

The hard-riding squireen jumped at the offer.  His own estate was being stripped bare.  Here was a chance to provide for one of his daughters, or, rather, to get rid of her, and he agreed that she should be married out of hand.  Going home, he roughly informed the girl that she was to be the wife of Captain Farmer.  He so bullied his wife that she was compelled to join him in this command.

What was poor little Margaret Power to do?  She was only a child.  She knew nothing of the world.  She was accustomed to obey her father as she would have obeyed some evil genius who had her in his power.  There were tears and lamentations.  She was frightened half to death; yet for her there was no help.  Therefore, while not yet fifteen her marriage took place, and she was the unhappy slave of a half-crazy tyrant.  She had then no beauty whatsoever.  She was wholly undeveloped—­thin and pale, and with rough hair that fell over her frightened eyes; yet Farmer wanted her, and he settled his money on her, just as he would have spent the same amount to gratify any other sudden whim.

The life she led with him for a few months showed him to be more of a devil than a man.  He took a peculiar delight in terrifying her, in subjecting her to every sort of outrage; nor did he refrain even from beating her with his fists.  The girl could stand a great deal, but this was too much.  She returned to her father’s house, where she was received with the bitterest reproaches, but where, at least, she was safe from harm, since her possession of a dowry made her a person of some small importance.

Not long afterward Captain Farmer fell into a dispute with his colonel, Lord Caledon, and in the course of it he drew his sword on his commanding officer.  The court-martial which was convened to try him would probably have had him shot were it not for the very general belief that he was insane.  So he was simply cashiered and obliged to leave the service and betake himself elsewhere.  Thus the girl whom, he had married was quite free—­free to leave her wretched home and even to leave Ireland.