Towards the evening of the second day's journey, the driver of Lord Colambre's hackney chaise stopped, and jumping off the wooden bar, on which he had been seated, exclaimed—
'We're come to the bad step, now. The bad road's beginning upon us, please your honour.'
'Bad road! that is very uncommon in this country. I never saw such fine roads as you have in Ireland.'
'That's true; and God bless your honour, that's sensible of that same, for it's not what all the foreign quality I drive have the manners to notice. God bless your honour! I heard you're a Welshman, but whether or no, I am sure you are a gentleman, anyway, Welsh or other.'
Notwithstanding the shabby greatcoat, the shrewd postillion perceived, by our hero's language, that he was a gentleman. After much dragging at the horses' heads, and pushing and lifting, the carriage was got over what the postillion said was the worst part of THE BAD STEP; but as the road 'was not yet to say good,' he continued walking beside the carriage.
'It's only bad just hereabouts, and that by accident,' said he, 'on account of there being no jantleman resident in it, nor near; but only a bit of an under-agent, a great little rogue, who gets his own turn out of the roads, and of everything else in life. I, Larry Brady, that am telling your honour, have a good right to know, for myself, and my father, and my brother. Pat Brady, the wheelwright, had once a farm under him; but was ruined, horse and foot, all along with him, and cast out, and my brother forced to fly the country, and is now working in some coachmaker's yard, in London; banished he is!—and here am I, forced to be what I am—and now that I'm reduced to drive a hack, the agent's a curse to me still, with these bad roads, killing my horses and wheels and a shame to the country, which I think more of—Bad luck to him!'
'I know your brother; he lives with Mr. Mordicai, in Long Acre, in London.'
'Oh, God bless you for that!'
They came at this time within view of a range of about four-and-twenty men and boys, sitting astride on four-and-twenty heaps of broken stones, on each side of the road; they were all armed with hammers, with which they began to pound with great diligence and noise as soon as they saw the carriage. The chaise passed between these batteries, the stones flying on all sides.
'How are you, Jem?—How are you, Phil?' said Larry. 'But hold your hand, can't ye, while I stop and get the stones out of the horses' FEET. So you're making up the rent, are you, for St. Dennis?'
'Whoosh!' said one of the pounders, coming close to the postillion, and pointing his thumb back towards the chaise. 'Who have you in it?'
'Oh, you need not scruple, he's a very honest man; he's only a man from North Wales, one Mr. Evans, an innocent jantleman, that's sent over to travel up and down the country, to find is there any copper mines in it.'
'How do you know, Larry?'
'Because I know very well, from one that was tould, and I SEEN him tax the man of the King's Head, with a copper half-crown, at first sight, which was only lead to look at, you'd think, to them that was not skilful in copper. So lend me a knife, till I cut a linch-pin out of the hedge, for this one won't go far.'
Whilst Larry was making the linch-pin, all scruple being removed, his question about St. Dennis and the rent was answered.
'Ay, it's the rint, sure enough, we're pounding out for him; for he sent the driver round last-night-was-eight days, to warn us old Nick would be down a'-Monday, to take a sweep among us; and there's only six clear days, Saturday night, before the assizes, sure; so we must see and get it finished anyway, to clear the presentment again' the swearing day, for he and Paddy Hart is the overseers themselves, and Paddy is to swear to it.'
'St. Dennis, is it? Then you've one great comfort and security—that he won't be PARTICULAR about the swearing; for since ever he had his head on his shoulders, an oath never stuck in St. Dennis's throat, more than in his own brother, old Nick's.'
'His head upon his shoulders!' repeated Lord Colambre. 'Pray, did you ever hear that St. Dennis's head was off his shoulders?'
'It never was, plase your honour, to my knowledge.'
'Did you never, among your saints, hear of St. Dennis carrying his head in his hand?' said Colambre.
'The RAEL saint!' said the postillion, suddenly changing his tone, and looking shocked. 'Oh, don't be talking that way of the saints, plase your honour.'
'Then of what St, Dennis were you talking just now?—Whom do you mean by St. Dennis, and whom do you call old Nick?'
'Old Nick,' answered the postillion, coming close to the side of the carriage, and whispering—'Old Nick, plase your honour, is our nickname for one Nicholas Garraghty, Esq., of College Green, Dublin, and St. Dennis is his brother Dennis, who is old Nick's brother in all things, and would fain be a saint, only he is a sinner. He lives just by here, in the country, under-agent to Lord Clonbrony, as old Nick is upper-agent—it's only a joke among the people, that are not fond of them at all. Lord Clonbrony himself is a very good jantleman, if he was not an absentee, resident in London, leaving us and everything to the likes of them.'
Lord Colambre listened with all possible composure and attention; but the postillion having now made his linch-pin of wood, and FIXED HIMSELF; he mounted his bar, and drove on, saying to Lord Colambre, as he looked at the road-makers—
'Poor CRATURES! They couldn't keep their cattle out of pound, or themselves out of jail, but by making this road.'
'Is road-making, then, a very profitable business?—Have road-makers higher wages than other men in this part of the country?'
'It is, and it is not—they have, and they have not—plase your honour.'
'I don't understand you.'
'No, becaase you're an Englishman—that is, a Welshman—I beg your honour's pardon. But I'll tell you how that is, and I'll go slow over these broken stones for I can't go fast: it is where there's no jantleman over these under-agents, as here, they do as they plase; and when they have set the land they get rasonable from the head landlords, to poor cratures at a rack-rent, that they can't live and pay the rent, they say—'
'Who says?'
'Them under-agents, that have no conscience at all. Not all—but SOME, like Dennis, says, says he, "I'll get you a road to make up the rent:" that is, plase your honour, the agent gets them a presentment for so many perches of road from the grand jury, at twice the price that would make the road. And tenants are, by this means, as they take the road by contract, at the price given by the county, able to pay all they get by the job, over and above potatoes and salt, back again to the agent, for the arrear on the land. Do I make your honour SENSIBLE?' [Do I make you understand?]
'You make me much more sensible than I ever was before,' said Lord Colambre; 'but is not this cheating the county?'
'Well, and suppose,' replied Larry, 'is not it all for my good, and yours too, plase your honour?' said Larry, looking very shrewdly.
'My good!' said Lord Colambre, startled. 'What have I to do with it?'
'Haven't you to do with the roads as well as me, when you're travelling upon them, plase your honour? And sure, they'd never be got made at all, if they weren't made this ways; and it's the best way in the wide world, and the finest roads we have. And when the RAEL jantlemen's resident in the country, there's no jobbing can be, because they're then the leading men on the grand jury; and these journeymen jantlemen are then kept in order, and all's right.'
Lord Colambre was much surprised at Larry's knowledge of the manner in which county business is managed, as well as by his shrewd good sense: he did not know that this is not uncommon in his rank of life in Ireland.
Whilst Larry was speaking, Lord Colambre was looking from side to side at the desolation of the prospect.
'So this is Lord Clonbrony's estate, is it?'
'Ay, all you see, and as far and farther than you can see. My Lord Clonbrony wrote, and ordered plantations here, time back; and enough was paid to labourers for ditching and planting. And, what next?—Why, what did the under-agent do, but let the goats in through gaps, left o' purpose, to bark the trees, and then the trees was all banished. And next, the cattle was let in trespassing, and winked at, till the land was all poached; and then the land was waste, and cried down; and St. Dennis wrote up to Dublin to old Nick, and he over to the landlord, how none would take it, or bid anything at all for it; so then it fell to him a cheap bargain. Oh, the tricks of them! who knows 'em, if I don't?'
Presently, Lord Colambre's attention was roused again, by seeing a man running, as if for his life, across a bog, near the roadside; he leaped over the ditch, and was upon the road in an instant. He seemed startled at first, at the sight of the carriage; but, looking at the postillion, Larry nodded, and he smiled and said—
'All's safe!'
'Pray, my good friend, may I ask what that is you have on your shoulder?' said Lord Colambre.
PLASE your honour, it is only a private still, which I've just caught out yonder in the bog; and I'm carrying it in with all speed to the gauger, to make a discovery, that the JANTLEMAN may benefit by the reward; I expect he'll make me a compliment.'
'Get up behind, and I'll give you a lift,' said the postillion.
'Thank you kindly—but better my legs!' said the man; and turning down a lane, off he ran again as fast as possible.
'Expect he'll make me a compliment,' repeated Lord Colambre, 'to make a discovery!'
Ay, plase your honour; for the law is,' said Larry, 'that, if an unlawful still, that is, a still without license for whisky, is found, half the benefit of the fine that's put upon the parish goes to him that made the discovery; that's what that man is after, for he's an informer.'
'I should not have thought, from what I see of you,' said Lord Colambre, smiling, 'that you, Larry, would have offered an informer a lift.'
'Oh, plase your honour!' said Larry, smiling archly, 'would not I give the laws a lift, when in my power?'
Scarcely had he uttered these words, and scarcely was the informer out of sight, when across the same bog, and over the ditch, came another man, a half kind of gentleman, with a red silk handkerchief about his neck, and a silver-handled whip in his hand.
'Did you see any man pass the road, friend?' said he to the postillion.
'Oh! who would I see? or why would I tell?' replied Larry, in a sulky tone.
'Came, come, be smart!' said the man with the silver whip, offering to put half a crown into the postillion's hand; 'point me which way he took.'
'I'll have none a' your silver! don't touch me with it!' said Larry. 'But, if you'll take my advice, you'll strike across back, and follow the fields, out to Killogenesawee.'
The exciseman set out again immediately, in an opposite direction to that which the man who carried the still had taken. Lord Colambre now perceived that the pretended informer had been running off to conceal a still of his own.
'The gauger, plase your honour,' said Larry, looking back at Lord Colambre; 'the gauger is a STILL-HUNTING!'
'And you put him on a wrong scent!' said Lord Colambre.
'Sure, I told him no lie; I only said, "If you'll take my advice." And why was he such a fool as to take my advice, when I wouldn't take his fee?'
'So this is the way, Larry, you give a lift to the laws!'
'If the laws would give a lift to me, plase your honour, maybe I'd do as much by them. But it's only these revenue laws I mean; for I never, to my knowledge, broke another commandment; but it's what no honest poor man among his neighbours would scruple to take—a glass of POTSHEEN.'
'A glass of what, in the name of Heaven?' said Lord Colambre.
POTSHEEN, plase your honour;—becaase it's the little whisky that's made in the private still or pot; and SHEEN, becaase it's a fond word for whatsoever we'd like, and for what we have little of, and would make much of: after taking the glass of it, no man could go and inform to ruin the CRATURES, for they all shelter on that estate under favour of them that go shares, and make rent of 'em—but I'd never inform again' 'em. And, after all, if the truth was known, and my Lord Clonbrony should be informed against, and presented, for it's his neglect is the bottom of the nuisance—'
'I find all the blame is thrown upon this poor Lord Clonbrony,' said Lord Colambre.
'Becaase he is absent,' said Larry. 'It would not be so was he PRISINT. But your honour was talking to me about the laws. Your honour's a stranger in this country, and astray about them things. Sure, why would I mind the laws about whisky, more than the quality, or the judge on the bench?'
'What do you mean?'
'Why! was not I PRISINT in the court-house myself, when the JIDGE on the bench judging a still, and across the court came in one with a sly jug of POTSHEEN for the JIDGE himself, who prefarred it, when the right thing, to claret; and when I SEEN that, by the laws! a man might talk himself dumb to me after again' potsheen, or in favour of the revenue, or revenue-officers. And there they may go on, with their gaugers, and their surveyors, and their supervisors, and their WATCHING-OFFICERS, and their coursing-officers, setting 'em one after another, or one over the head of another, or what way they will—we can baffle and laugh at 'em. Didn't I know, next door to our inn, last year, ten WATCHING-OFFICERS set upon one distiller, and he was too cunning for them; and it will always be so, while ever the people think it no sin. No, till then, not all their dockets and permits signify a rush, or a turf. And the gauging rod even! who fears it? They may spare that rod, for it will never mend the child.'
How much longer Larry's dissertation on the distillery laws would have continued, had not his ideas been interrupted, we cannot guess; but he saw he was coming to a town, and he gathered up the reins, and plied the whip, ambitious to make a figure in the eyes of its inhabitants.
This TOWN consisted of one row of miserable huts, sunk beneath the side of the road, the mud walls crooked in every direction; some of them opening in wide cracks, or zigzag fissures, from top to bottom, as if there had just been an earthquake—all the roofs sunk in various places—thatch off, or overgrown with grass—no chimneys, the smoke making its way through a hole in the roof, or rising in clouds from the top of the open door—dunghills before the doors, and green standing puddles—squalid children, with scarcely rags to cover them, gazing at the carriage.
'Nugent's town,' said the postillion, 'once a snug place, when my Lady Clonbrony was at home to whitewash it, and the like.'
As they drove by, some men and women put their heads through the smoke out of the cabins; pale women with long, black, or yellow locks—men with countenances and figures bereft of hope and energy.
'Wretched, wretched people!' said Lord Colambre.
'Then it's not their fault neither,' said Larry; 'for my own uncle's one of them, and as thriving and hard a working man as could be in all Ireland, he was, AFORE he was tramped under foot, and his heart broke. I was at his funeral, this time last year; and for it, may the agent's own heart, if he has any, burn—'
Lord Colambre interrupted this denunciation by touching Larry's shoulder, and asking some question, which, as Larry did not distinctly comprehend, he pulled up the reins, and the various noises of the vehicle stopped suddenly.
I did not hear well, plase your honour.'
'What are those people?' pointing to a man and woman, curious figures, who had come out of a cabin, the door of which the woman, who came out last, locked, and carefully hiding the key in the thatch, turned her back upon the man, and they walked away in different directions: the woman bending under a huge bundle on her back, covered by a yellow petticoat turned over her shoulders; from the top of this bundle the head of an infant appeared; a little boy, almost naked, followed her with a kettle, and two girls, one of whom could but just walk, held her hand and clung to her ragged petticoat; forming, altogether, a complete group of beggars. The woman stopped, and looked back after the man.
The man was a Spanish-looking figure, with gray hair; a wallet hung at the end of a stick over one shoulder, a reaping-hook in the other hand; he walked off stoutly, without ever casting a look behind him.
'A kind harvest to you, John Dolan,' cried the postillion, 'and success to ye, Winny, with the quality. There's a luck-penny for the child to begin with,' added he, throwing the child a penny. 'Your honour, they're only poor CRATURES going up the country to beg, while the man goes over to reap the harvest in England. Nor this would not be, neither, if the lord was in it to give 'em EMPLOY. That man, now, was a good and a willing SLAVE in his day: I mind him working with myself in the shrubberies at Clonbrony Castle, when I was a boy—but I'll not be detaining your honour, now the road's better.'
The postillion drove on at a good rate for some time, till he came to a piece of the road freshly covered with broken stones, where he was obliged again to go slowly.
They overtook a string of cars, on which were piled up high, beds, tables, chairs, trunks, boxes, bandboxes.
'How are you, Finnucan? you've fine loading there—from Dublin, are you?'
'From Bray.'
'And what news?'
'GREAT news and bad, for old Nick, or some belonging to him, thanks be to Heaven! for myself hates him.'
'What's happened him?'
'His sister's husband that's failed, the great grocer that was, the man that had the wife that OW'D [Owned] the fine house near Bray, that they got that time the Parliament FLITTED, and that I seen in her carriage flaming—well, it's all out; they're all DONE UP.
'Tut! is that all? then they'll thrive, and set up again grander than ever, I'll engage; have not they old Nick for an attorney at their back? a good warrant!'
'Oh, trust him for that! he won't go security nor pay a farthing for his SHISTER, nor wouldn't was she his father; I heard him telling her so, which I could not have done in his place at that time, and she crying as if her heart would break, and I standing by in the parlour.'
'The NEGER! [NEGER, quasi negro; meo periculo, NIGGARD] And did he speak that way, and you by?'
'Ay did he; and said, "Mrs. Raffarty," says he, "it's all your own fault; you're an extravagant fool, and ever was, and I wash my hands of you;" that was the word he spoke; and she answered, and said, "And mayn't I send the beds and blankets," said she, "and what I can, by the cars, out of the way of the creditors, to Clonbrony Castle; and won't you let me hide there from the shame, till the bustle's over?"—"You may do that," says he, "for what I care; but remember," says he, "that I've the first claim to them goods;" and that's all he would grant. So they are coming down all o' Monday—them are her bandboxes and all to settle it; and faith it was a pity of her! to hear her sobbing, and to see her own brother speak and look so hard! and she a lady.'
'Sure she's not a lady born, no more than himself,' said Larry; 'but that's no excuse for him. His heart's as hard as that stone,' said Larry; 'and my own people knew that long ago, and now his own know it; and what right have we to complain, since he's as bad to his own flesh and blood as to us?'
With this consolation, and with a 'God speed you,' given to the carman, Larry was driving off; but the carman called to him, and pointed to a house, at the corner of which, on a high pole, was swinging an iron sign of three horse-shoes, set in a crooked frame, and at the window hung an empty bottle, proclaiming whisky within.
'Well, I don't care if I do,' said Larry; 'for I've no other comfort left me in life now. I beg your honour's pardon, sir, for a minute,' added he, throwing the reins into the carriage to Lord Colambre, as he leaped down. All remonstrance and power of lungs to reclaim him vain! He darted into the whisky-house with the carman—reappeared before Lord Colambre could accomplish getting out, remounted his seat, and, taking the reins, 'I thank your honour,' said he; 'and I'll bring you into Clonbrony before it's pitch-dark yet, though it's nightfall, and that's four good miles, but "a spur in the head is worth two in the heel."'
Larry, to demonstrate the truth of his favourite axiom, drove off at such a furious rate over great stones left in the middle of the road by carmen, who had been driving in the gudgeons of their axle-trees to hinder them from lacing, [Opening; perhaps from LACHER, to loosen.] that Lord Colambre thought life and limb in imminent danger; and feeling that at all events the jolting and bumping was past endurance, he had recourse to Larry's shoulder, and shook and pulled, and called to him to go slower, but in vain; at last the wheel struck full against a heap of stones at a turn of the road, the wooden linch-pin came off, and the chaise was overset: Lord Colambre was a little bruised, but glad to escape without fractured bones.
'I beg your honour's pardon,' said Larry, completely sobered; 'I'm as glad as the best pair of boots ever I see, to see your honour nothing the worse for it. It was the linch-pin, and them barrows of loose stones, that ought to be fined anyway, if there was any justice in the country.'
'The pole is broke; how are we to get on?' said Lord Colambre.
'Murder! murder!—and no smith nearer than Clonbrony; nor rope even. It's a folly to talk, we can't get to Clonbrony, nor stir a step backward or forward the night.'
'What, then, do you mean to leave me all night in the middle of the road?' cried Lord Colambre, quite exasperated.
'Is it me! please your honour? I would not use any jantleman so ill, BARRING I could do no other,' replied the postillion, coolly; then, leaping across the ditch, or, as he called it, the GRIPE of the ditch, he scrambled up, and while he was scrambling, said, 'If your honour will lend me your hand till I pull you up the back of the ditch, the horses will stand while we go. I'll find you as pretty a lodging for the night, with a widow of a brother of my shister's husband that was, as ever you slept in your life; for old Nick or St. Dennis has not found 'em out yet; and your honour will be, no compare, snugger than the inn at Clonbrony, which has no roof, the devil a stick. But where will I get your honour's hand; for it's coming on so dark, I can't see rightly. There, you're up now safe. Yonder candle's the house.'
'Go and ask whether they can give us a night's lodging.'
'Is it ASK? when I see the light!—Sure they'd be proud to give the traveller all the beds in the house, let alone one. Take care of the potato furrows, that's all, and follow me straight. I'll go on to meet the dog, who knows me and might be strange to your honour.'
'Kindly welcome,' were the first words Lord Colambre heard when he approached the cottage; and 'kindly welcome' was in the sound of the voice and in the countenance of the old woman who came out, shading her rush-candle from the wind, and holding it so as to light the path. When he entered the cottage, he saw a cheerful fire and a neat pretty young woman making it blaze: she curtsied, put her spinning-wheel out of the way, set a stool by the fire for the stranger, and repeating, in a very low tone of voice, 'Kindly welcome,' retired.
'Put down some eggs, dear, there's plenty in the bowl,' said the old woman, calling to her; 'I'll do the bacon. Was not we lucky to be up—The boy's gone to bed, but waken him,' said she, turning to the postillion; 'and he'll help you with the chay, and put your horses in the bier for the night.'
No; Larry chose to go on to Clonbrony with the horses, that he might get the chaise mended betimes for his honour. The table was set; clean trenchers, hot potatoes, milk, eggs, bacon, and 'kindly welcome to all.'
'Set the salt, dear; and the butter, love; where's your head, Grace, dear!'
'Grace!' repeated Lord Colambre, looking up; and, to apologise for his involuntary exclamation, he added, 'Is Grace a common name in Ireland?'
'I can't say, plase your honour, but it was give her by Lady Clonbrony, from a niece of her own that was her foster-sister, God bless her! and a very kind lady she was to us and to all when she was living in it; but those times are gone past,' said the old woman, with a sigh. The young woman sighed too; and, sitting down by the fire, began to count the notches in a little bit of stick, which she held in her hand; and, after she had counted them, sighed again.
'But don't be sighing, Grace, now,' said the old woman; 'sighs is bad sauce for the traveller's supper; and we won't be troubling him with more,' added she, turning to Lord Colambre with a smile.
'Is your egg done to your liking?'
'Perfectly, thank you.'
'Then I wish it was a chicken for your sake, which it should have been, and roast too, had we time. I wish I could see you eat another egg.'
'No more, thank you, my good lady; I never ate a better supper, nor received a more hospitable welcome.'
'Oh, the welcome is all we have to offer.'
'May I ask what that is?' said Lord Colambre, looking at the notched stick, which the young woman held in her hand, and on which her eyes were still fixed.
It's a TALLY, plase your honour. Oh, you're a foreigner;—it's the way the labourers do keep the account of the day's work with the overseer, the bailiff; a notch for every day the bailiff makes on his stick, and the labourer the like on his stick, to tally; and when we come to make up the account, it's by the notches we go. And there's been a mistake, and is a dispute here between our boy and the overseer; and she was counting the boy's tally, that's in bed, tired, for in troth he's overworked.'
'Would you want anything more from me, mother?' said the girl, rising and turning her head away.
'No, child; get away, for your heart's full.'
She went instantly.
'Is the boy her brother?' said Lord Colambre.
'No; he's her bachelor,' said the old woman, lowering her voice.
'Her bachelor?'
'That is, her sweetheart: for she is not my daughter, though you heard her call me mother. The boy's my son; but I am afeard they must give it up; for they're too poor, and the times is hard, and the agent's harder than the times; there's two of them, the under and the upper; and they grind the substance of one between them, and then blow one away like chaff: but we'll not be talking of that to spoil your honour's night's rest. The room's ready, and here's the rushlight.'
She showed him into a very small but neat room. 'What a comfortable-looking bed!' said Lord Colambre.
'Ah, these red check curtains,' said she, letting them down; 'these have lasted well; they were give me by a good friend, now far away, over the seas—my Lady Clonbrony; and made by the prettiest hands ever you see, her niece's, Miss Grace Nugent's, and she a little child that time; sweet love! all gone!'
The old woman wiped a tear from her eye, and Lord Colambre did what he could to appear indifferent. She set down the candle, and left the room; Lord Colambre went to bed, but he lay awake, 'revolving sweet and bitter thoughts.'
The kettle was on the fire, tea-things set, everything prepared for her guest by the hospitable hostess, who, thinking the gentleman would take tea to his breakfast, had sent off a GOSSOON by the FIRST LIGHT to Clonbrony, for an ounce of tea, a QUARTER OF SUGAR, and a loaf of white bread; and there was on the little table good cream, milk, butter, eggs—all the promise of an excellent breakfast. It was a FRESH morning, and there was a pleasant fire on the hearth, neatly swept up. The old woman was sitting in her chimney corner, behind a little skreen of whitewashed wall, built out into the room, for the purpose of keeping those who sat at the fire from the BLAST OF THE DOOR. There was a loophole in this wall, to let the light in, just at the height of a person's head, who was sitting near the chimney. The rays of the morning sun now came through it, shining across the face of the old woman, as she sat knitting; Lord Colambre thought he had seldom seen a more agreeable countenance, intelligent eyes, benevolent smile, a natural expression of cheerfulness, subdued by age and misfortune.
'A good-morrow to you kindly, sir, and I hope you got the night well?—A fine day for us this Sunday morning; my Grace is gone to early prayers, so your honour will be content with an old woman to make your breakfast. Oh, let me put in plenty, or it will never be good; and if your honour takes stir-about, an old hand will engage to make that to your liking, anyway; for, by great happiness, we have what will just answer for you of the nicest meal the miller made my Grace a compliment of, last time she went to the mill.'
Lord Colambre observed, that this miller had good taste; and his lordship paid some compliment to Grace's beauty, which the old woman received with a smile, but turned off the conversation. 'Then,' said she, looking out of the window, 'is not that there a nice little garden the boy dug for her and me, at his breakfast and dinner hours? Ah! he's a good boy, and a good warrant to work; and the good son DESARVES the good wife, and it's he that will make the good husband; and with my goodwill he, and no other, shall get her, and with her goodwill the same; and I bid 'em keep up their heart, and hope the best, for there's no use in fearing the worst till it comes.'
Lord Colambre wished very much to know the worst.
'If you would not think a stranger impertinent for asking,' said he, 'and if it would not be painful to you to explain.'
'Oh, impertinent, your honour! it's very kind—and, sure, none's a stranger to one's heart, that feels for one. And for myself, I can talk of my troubles without thinking of them. So, I'll tell you all—if the worst comes to the worst—all that is, is, that we must quit, and give up this little snug place, and house, and farm, and all, to the agent—which would be hard on us, and me a widow, when my husband did all that is done to the land; and if your honour was a judge, you could see, if you stepped out, there has been a deal done, and built the house, and all—but it plased Heaven to take him. Well, he was too good for this world, and I'm satisfied—I'm not saying a word again' that—I trust we shall meet in heaven, and be happy, surely. And, meantime, here's my boy, that will make me as happy as ever widow was on earth—if the agent will let him. And I can't think the agent, though they that know him best call him old Nick, would be so wicked to take from us that which he never gave us. The good lord himself granted us the LASE; the life's dropped, and the years is out; but we had a promise of renewal in writing from the landlord. God bless him! if he was not away, he'd be a good gentleman, and we'd be happy and safe.'
'But if you have a promise in writing of a renewal, surely you are safe, whether your landlord is absent or present?'
'Ah, no I that makes a great DIFFER, when there's no eye or hand over the agent. I would not wish to speak or think ill of him or any man; but was he an angel, he could not know to do the tenantry justice, the way he is living always in Dublin, and coming down to the country only the receiving days, to make a sweep among us, and gather up the rents in a hurry, and he in such haste back to town—can just stay to count over our money, and give the receipts. Happy for us, if we get that same!—but can't expect he should have time to see or hear us, or mind our improvements, any more than listen to our complaints! Oh, there's great excuse for the gentleman, if that was any comfort for us,' added she, smiling.
'But, if he does not live amongst you himself, has not he some under-agent, who lives in the country?' said Lord Colambre.
'He has so.'
'And he should know your concerns: does he mind them?'
'He should know—he should know better; but as to minding our concerns, your honour knows,' continued she, smiling again, 'every one in this world must mind their own concerns; and it would be a good world, if it was even so. There's a great deal in all things, that don't appear at first sight. Mr. Dennis wanted Grace for a wife for his bailiff; but she would not have him; and Mr. Dennis was very sweet to her himself—but Grace is rather high with him as proper, and he has a grudge AGAIN' us ever since. Yet, indeed, there,' added she, after another pause, 'as you say, I think we are safe; for we have that memorandum in writing, with a pencil, given under his own hand, on the back of the LASE, to me, by the same token when my good lord had his foot on the step of the coach, going away; and I'll never forget the smile of her that got that good turn done for me, Miss Grace. And just when she was going to England and London, and, young as she was, to have the thought to stop and turn to the likes of me! Oh, then, if you could see her, and know her, as I did! THAT was the comforting angel upon earth—look and voice, and heart and all! Oh, that she was here present, this minute!—But did you scald yourself?' said the widow to Lord Colambre. 'Sure you must have scalded yourself; for you poured the kettle straight over your hand, and it boiling!—O DEEAR! to think of so young a gentleman's hand shaking so like my own.
Luckily, to prevent her pursuing her observations from the hand to the face, which might have betrayed more than Lord Colambre wished she should know, her own Grace came in at this instant.
'There it's for you, safe, mother dear—the LASE!' said Grace, throwing a packet into her lap. The old woman lifted up her hands to heaven, with the lease between them.—'Thanks be to Heaven!' Grace passed on, and sunk down on the first seat she could reach. Her face flushed, and, looking much fatigued, she loosened the strings of her bonnet and cloak—'Then, I'm tired;' but, recollecting herself, she rose, and curtsied to the gentleman.
'What tired ye, dear?'
'Why, after prayers, we had to go—for the agent was not at prayers, nor at home for us, when we called—we had to go all the way up to the castle; and there, by great good luck, we found Mr. Nick Garraghty himself, come from Dublin, and the LASE in his hands; and he sealed it up that way, and handed it to me very civil. I never saw him so good—though he offered me a glass of spirits, which was not manners to a decent young woman, in a morning—as Brian noticed after. Brian would not take any either, nor never does. We met Mr. Dennis and the driver coming home; and he says, the rent must be paid to-morrow, or, instead of renewing, he'll seize and sell all. Mother dear, I would have dropped with the walk, but for Brian's arm.'—'It's a wonder, dear, what makes you so weak, that used to be so strong,'—'But if we can sell the cow for anything at all to Mr. Dennis, since his eye is set upon her, better let him have her, mother dear; and that and my yarn, which Mrs. Garraghty says she'll allow me for, will make up the rent—and Brian need not talk of America. But it must be in golden guineas, the agent will take the rent no other way; and you won't get a guinea for less than five shillings. Well, even so, it's easy selling my new gown to one that covets it, and that will give me in exchange the price of the gold; or, suppose that would not do, add this cloak,—it's handsome, and I know a friend would be glad to take it, and I'd part it as ready as look at it—Any-thing at all, sure, rather than that he should be forced to talk of emigrating; or, oh, worse again, listing for the bounty—to save us from the cant or the jail, by going to the hospital, or his grave, maybe—Oh, mother!'
'Oh, child! This is what makes you weak, fretting. Don't be that way. Sure here's the LASE, and that's good comfort; and the soldiers will be gone out of Clonbrony to-morrow, and then that's off your mind. And as to America, it's only talk—I won't let him, he's dutiful; and would sooner sell my dresser and down to my bed, dear, than see you sell anything of yours, love. Promise me you won't. Why didn't Brian come home all the way with you, Grace?'
'He would have seen me home,' said Grace,' only that he went up a piece of the mountain for some stones or ore for the gentleman—for he had the manners to think of him this morning, though, shame for me, I had not, when I come in, or I would not have told you all this, and he himself by. See, there he is, mother.'
Brian came in very hot, out of breath, with his hat full of stones. 'Good morrow to your honour. I was in bed last night; and sorry they did not call me up to be of SARVICE. Larry was telling us, this morning, your honour's from Wales, and looking for mines in Ireland, and I heard talk that there was one on our mountain—maybe, you'd be CUROUS to see, and so I brought the best I could, but I'm no judge.'
'Nor I, neither,' thought Lord Colambre; but he thanked the young man, and determined to avail himself of Larry's misconception or false report; examined the stones very gravely, and said, 'This promises well. Lapis caliminaris, schist, plum-pudding stone, rhomboidal, crystal, blend, garrawachy,' and all the strange names he could think of, jumbling them together at a venture.
'The LASE!—Is it?' cried the young man, with joy sparkling in his eyes, as his mother held up the packet. 'Then all's safe! and he's an honest man, and shame on me, that could suspect he meant us wrong. Lend me the papers.'
He cracked the seals, and taking off the cover,—'It's the LASE, sure enough. Shame on me!—But stay, where's the memorandum?'
'It's there, sure,' said his mother, 'where my lord's pencil writ it. I don't read.—Grace, dear, look.'
The young man put it into her hands, and stood without power to utter a syllable.
'It's not here! It's gone!—no sign of it.'
'Gracious Heaven! that can't be,' said the old woman, putting on her spectacles; 'let me see—I remember the very spot.'
'It's taken away—it's rubbed clean out!—Oh, wasn't I fool? But who could have thought he'd be the villain!' The young man seemed neither to see nor hear; but to be absorbed in thought.
Grace, with her eyes fixed upon him, grew as pale as death—'He'll go—he's gone.'
'She's gone!' cried Lord Colambre, and the mother just caught her in her arms as she was falling.
'The chaise is ready, PLASE your honour,' said Larry, coming into the room. 'Death! what's here?'
'Air!—she's coming to,' said the young man—'Take a drop of water, my own Grace.'
'Young man, I, promise you,' cried Lord Colambre (speaking in the tone of a master), striking the young man's shoulder, who was kneeling at Grace's feet; but recollecting and restraining himself, he added, in a quiet voice—'I promise you I shall never forget the hospitality I have received in this house, and I am sorry to be obliged to leave you in distress.'
These words uttered with difficulty, he hurried out of the house, and into his carriage. 'Go back to them,' said he to the postillion; 'go back and ask whether, if I should stay a day or two longer in this country, they would let me return at night and lodge with them. And here, man, stay, take this,' putting money into his hands, 'for the good woman of the house.'
The postillion went in, and returned.
'She won't at all—I knew she would not.'
'Well, I am obliged to her for the night's lodging she did give me; I have no right to expect more.'
'What is it?—Sure she bid me tell you—"and welcome to the lodging; for," said she, "he is a kind-hearted gentleman;" but here's the money; it's that I was telling you she would not have at all.'
'Thank you. Now, my good friend Larry, drive me to Clonbrony, and do not say another word, for I'm not in a talking humour.'
Larry nodded, mounted, and drove to Clonbrony. Clonbrony was now a melancholy scene. The houses, which had been built in a better style of architecture than usual, were in a ruinous condition; the dashing was off the walls, no glass in the windows, and many of the roofs without slates. For the stillness of the place Lord Colambre in some measure accounted by considering that it was Sunday; therefore, of course, all the shops were shut up, and all the people at prayers. He alighted at the inn, which completely answered Larry's representation of it. Nobody to be seen but a drunken waiter, who, as well as he could articulate, informed Lord Colambre that 'his mistress was in her bed since Thursday-was-a-week; the hostler at the WASH-WOMAN'S, and the cook at second prayers.'
Lord Colambre walked to the church, but the church gate was locked and broken—a calf, two pigs, and an ass, in the churchyard; and several boys (with more of skin apparent than clothes) were playing at hustlecap upon a tombstone, which, upon nearer observation, he saw was the monument of his own family. One of the boys came to the gate, and told Lord Colambre 'there was no use in going into the church, becaase there was no church there; nor had not been this twelvemonth; becaase there was no curate; and the parson was away always, since the lord was at home—that is, was not at home—he nor the family.'
Lord Colambre returned to the inn, where, after waiting a considerable time, he gave up the point—he could not get any dinner—and in the evening he walked out again into the town. He found several ale-houses, however, open, which were full of people; all of them as busy and as noisy as possible. He observed that the interest was created by an advertisement of several farms on the Clonbrony estate, to be set by Nicholas Garraghty, Esq. He could not help smiling at his being witness incognito to various schemes for outwitting the agents and defrauding the landlord; but, on a sudden, the scene was changed; a boy ran in, crying out, that 'St. Dennis was riding down the hill into the town; and, if you would not have the license,' said the boy, 'take care of yourself.'
'IF YOU WOULDN'T HAVE THE LICENCE,' Lord Colambre perceived, by what followed, meant, 'IF YOU HAVE NOT A LICENCE.' Brannagan immediately snatched an untasted glass of whisky from a customer's lips (who cried, Murder!) gave it and the bottle he held in his hand to his wife, who swallowed the spirits, and ran away with the bottle and glass into some back hole; whilst the bystanders laughed, saying, 'Well thought of, Peggy!'
'Clear out all of you at the back door, for the love of heaven, if you wouldn't be the ruin of me,' said the man of the house, setting a ladder to a corner of the shop. 'Phil, hoist me up the keg to the loft,' added he, running up the ladder; 'and one of YEES step up street, and give Rose M'Givney notice, for she's selling too.'
The keg was hoisted up; the ladder removed; the shop cleared of all the customers; the shutters shut; the door barred; the counter cleaned. 'Lift your stones, sir, if you plase,' said the wife, as she rubbed the counter, 'and say nothing of what you SEEN at all; but that you're a stranger and a traveller seeking a lodging, if you're questioned, or waiting to see Mr. Dennis. There's no smell of whisky in it now, is there, sir?'
Lord Colambre could not flatter her so far as to say this—he could only hope no one would perceive it.
'Oh, and if he would, the smell of whisky was nothing,' as the wife affirmed, 'for it was everywhere in nature, and no proof again' any one, good or bad.'
'Now St. Dennis may come when he will, or old Nick himself!' So she tied up a blue handkerchief over her head, and had the toothache, 'very bad.'
Lord Colambre turned to look for the man of the house.
'He's safe in bed,' said the wife.
'In bed! When?'
'Whilst you turned your head, while I was tying the handkerchief over my face. Within the room, look, he is snug.'
And there he was in bed certainly, and his clothes on the chest.
A knock, a loud knock at the door.
'St. Dennis himself!—Stay, till I unbar the door,' said the woman; and, making a great difficulty, she let him in, groaning, and saying—
'We was all done up for the night, PLASE your honour, and myself with the toothache, very bad—And the lodger, that's going to take an egg only, before he'd go into his bed. My man's in it, and asleep long ago.'
With a magisterial air, though with a look of blank disappointment, Mr. Dennis Garraghty walked on, looked into THE ROOM, saw the good man of the house asleep, heard him snore, and then, returning, asked Lord Colambre 'who he was, and what brought him there?'
Our hero said he was from England, and a traveller; and now, bolder grown as a geologist, he talked of his specimens, and his hopes of finding a mine in the neighbouring mountains; then adopting, as well as he could, the servile tone and abject manner in which he found Mr. Dennis was to be addressed, 'he hoped he might get encouragement from the gentleman at the head of the estate.'
'To bore, is it?—Well, don't BORE me about it. I can't give you any answer now, my good friend; I'm engaged.'
Out he strutted. 'Stick to him up the town, if you have a mind to get your answer,' whispered the woman. Lord Colambre followed, for he wished to see the end of this scene.
'Well, sir, what are you following and sticking to me, like my shadow, for?' said Mr. Dennis, turning suddenly upon Lord Colambre.
His lordship bowed low. 'Waiting for my answer, sir, when you are at leisure.
Or, may I call upon you tomorrow?'
'You seem to be a civil kind of fellow; but, as to boring, I don't know—if you undertake it at your own expense. I dare say there may be minerals in the ground. Well, you may call at the castle to-morrow, and when my brother has done with the tenantry, I'll speak to him FOR you, and we'll consult together, and see what we think. It's too late to-night. In Ireland, nobody speaks to a gentleman about business after dinner—your servant, sir; anybody can show you the way to the castle in the morning.' And, pushing by his lordship, he called to a man on the other side of the street, who had obviously been waiting for him; he went under a gateway with this man, and gave him a bag of guineas. He then called for his horse, which was brought to him by a man whom Colambre had heard declaring that he would bid for the land that was advertised; whilst another, who had the same intentions, most respectfully held St. Dennis's stirrup, whilst he mounted without thanking either of these men. St. Dennis clapped spurs to his steed, and rode away. No thanks, indeed, were deserved; for the moment he was out of hearing, both cursed him after the manner of their country.
'Bad luck go with you, then!—And may you break your neck before you get home, if it was not for the LASE I'm to get, and that's paid for.'
Lord Colambre followed the crowd into a public-house, where a new scene presented itself to his view.
The man to whom St. Dennis gave the bag of gold was now selling this very gold to the tenants, who were to pay their rent next day at the castle.
The agent would take nothing but gold. The same guineas were bought and sold several times over, to the great profit of the agent and loss of the poor tenants; for, as the rents were paid, the guineas were resold to another set, and the remittances made through bankers to the landlord; who, as the poor man who explained the transaction to Lord Colambre expressed it, 'gained nothing by the business, bad or good, but the ill-will of the tenantry.'
The higgling for the price of the gold; the time lost in disputing about the goodness of the notes, among some poor tenants, who could not read or write, and who were at the mercy of the man with the bag in his hand; the vexation, the useless harassing of all who were obliged to submit ultimately—Lord Colambre saw; and all this time he endured the smell of tobacco and whisky, and of the sound of various brogues, the din of men wrangling, brawling, threatening, whining, drawling, cajoling, cursing, and every variety of wretchedness.
'And is this my father's town of Clonbrony?' thought Lord Colambre. 'Is this Ireland?—No, it is not Ireland. Let me not, like most of those who forsake their native country, traduce it. Let me not, even to my own mind, commit the injustice of taking a speck for the whole. What I have just seen is the picture only of that to which an Irish estate and Irish tenantry may be degraded in the absence of those whose duty and interest it is to reside in Ireland, to uphold justice by example and authority; but who, neglecting this duty, commit power to bad hands and bad hearts—abandon their tenantry to oppression, and their property to ruin.'
It was now fine moonlight, and Lord Colambre met with a boy, who said he could show him a short way across the fields to the widow O'Neill's cottage.