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ePaper created 2014-04-08, 18:05:31 | version 1.29.01
108 child and her father “well to do” above most of his class, she had received a fair share of such educational advantages as Glenarm could afford at the time, which, though not great according to our modern standards, were sufficient to give her a polish above girls of her rank in the neighbourhood, At the period we write of, she was in her twentieth year and in the full beauty of her developed womanhood, well deserved the name she generally went by – “the rose Glenarm”. Like Byron’s heroine, she belonged to the class of beauties “Whose large blue eyes, fair looks and snowy hands Would shake the saintship of an anchorite” But unlike not a few of this heart-subduing sisterhood she had all the modest unconsciousness of her own attractions which gives to beauty its greatest charm. Leaving Murtough with all the gushing and characteristic fervour of her countrywomen, she was beloved in return with a devotion not less tender and impassioned; and as the time fixed on for the marriage approached, few evening passed in which the stars were not out and the moon shining down upon the lovers from their lonely walk in the sheltered, rocky gorge which led down from the Carroll’s house to the sea. Midsummer had already past and the future plans of the young couple had been settled. Murtough was to go home to the house of his father-in-law and undertake the management of the farm which was ultimately to become his own. The brief interval of a month stood between them and the consummation of their happiness and they had already begun to count the days when the news reached Ulster that Wexford was in arms. This signal for action flew like lightning through the North and an immediate general rising was once resolved by the United Societies of Antrim and Down. Arms and all warlike stores had been long provided and the various districts “told off” to their respective leaders who now issued orders for all speedily to rally round the national standard. On the evening following the issuing of these orders, Murtough Carroll prepared earlier than usual to the customary meeting place with Mary among the rocks and sat down upon a grassy knoll to the base the calm, waveless sea rolled in in long, undulating ripples, as the tide turned upon the flow. The sun had already set behind the hills of Antrim and twilight was stealing in like a changeling spirit amid the glow of day.