The Landleaguers Part 30

Bright to govern it? They're the two very worst men in the whole empire for governing a country. Martial law with a regiment in each county, and a strong colonel to carry it out,--that is the only way of governing left us. I don't pretend to understand politics, but every child can see that. And you should do away with the const.i.tuencies, at any rate for the next five years. What are you to expect with such a set of men as that in Parliament,--men whom no one would speak to if they were to attempt to ride to hounds in County Galway. It makes me sick when I hear of it."

Such were Tom Daly's sad outlooks into the world. And sad as they were, they seemed to be justified by circ.u.mstances as they operated upon him. There could be no hunting in County Galway next session unless things were to change very much for the better. And there was no prospect of any such change. "It's nonsense talking of a poor devil like me being ruined. You ask me what property I have got."

"I don't think I ever asked that," said Frank.

"It don't matter. You're quite welcome. You'll find eight or nine pair of leather breeches in that press in there. And round about the room somewhere there are over a dozen pair of top-boots. They are the only available property I have got. They are paid for, and I can do what I please with them. The four or five hundred acres over there on the road to Tuam are mostly bog, and are strictly entailed so that I cannot touch them. As there is not a tenant will pay the rent since I've been boycotted it doesn't make much matter. I have not had a shilling from them for more than twelve months; and I don't suppose I ever shall see another. The poor hounds are eating their heads off; as fine a pack of hounds as any man ever owned, as far as their number goes. I can't keep them, and who'll buy them? They tell me I must send them over to Tattersall's. But as things are now I don't suppose they'll pay the expense. I don't care who knows it, but I haven't three hundred pounds in the world. And I'm over fifty years of age. What do you think of that as the condition for a man to be brought to?"

Frank Jones had never heard Daly speak at such length before, nor had he given him credit for so much eloquence. Nor, indeed, had anyone in the County of Galway heard him speak so many words till this misfortune had fallen upon him. And he would still be silent and reserved with all except a few hunting men whom he believed to be strongly influenced by the same political feeling as he was himself.

Here was he boycotted most cruelly, but not more cruelly than was Mr.

Jones of Morony Castle. The story of Florian Jones had got about the county, and had caused Mr. Jones to be pitied greatly by such men as Tom Daly. "His own boy to turn against him!" Tom had said. "And to become a Papist! A boy of ten years old to call himself a Papist, as if he would know anything about it. And then to lie,--to lie like that! I feel that his case is almost worse than mine." Therefore he had burst out with his sudden eloquence to Frank Jones, whom he had liked. "Oh, yes! I can send you over to Woodlawn Station. I have got a horse and car left about the place. Here's William Persse of Galway. He's the stanchest man we have in the county, but even he can do nothing."

Then Mr. Persse rode into the yard,--that Mr. Persse who, when the hounds met at Ballytowngal, had so strongly dissuaded Daly from using his pistol. He was a man who was reputed to have a good income, or at any rate a large estate,--though the two things at the present moment were likely to have a very various meaning. But he was a man less despondent in his temperament than Tom Daly, and one that was likely to prevail with Tom by the strength of his character. "Well, Tom,"

said Persse, as he walked into the house, "how are things using you now? How are you, Jones? I'm afraid your father is getting it rather hot at Morony Castle."

"They've boycotted us, that's all."

"So I understand. Is it not odd that some self-appointed individual should send out an edict, and that suddenly all organised modes of living among people should be put a stop to! Here's Tom not allowed to get a packet of greaves into his establishment unless he sends to Dublin for it."

"Nor to have it sent over here," said Tom, "unless I'll send my own horse and cart to fetch it. And every man and boy I have about the place is desired to leave me at the command of some d----d O'Toole, whose father kept a tinker's shop somewhere in County Mayo, and whose mother took in washing."

There was a depth of scorn intended to be conveyed by all this, because in Daly's estimation County Mayo was but a poor county to live in, as it had not for many a year possessed an advertised pack of fox-hounds. And the O'Tooles were not one of the tribes of Galway, or a clan especially esteemed in that most aristocratic of the western counties.

"Have all the helpers gone?"

"I haven't asked them to stay; but unless they have stayed of their own accord I have just shaken hands with them. It's all that one gentleman can do to another when he meets him."

"Mr. Daly is talking of selling the hounds," said Frank Jones.

"Not quite yet, Tom," said Mr. Persse. "You mustn't do anything in a hurry."

"They'll have to starve if they remain here," said the master of hounds.

"I have come over here to say a word about them. I don't suppose this kind of thing will last for ever, you know."

"Can you see any end to it?" said the other.

"Not as yet I can't, except that troubles when they come generally do have an end. We always think that evils will last for ever,--and blessings too. When two-year-old ewes went up to three pound ten at Ballinasloe, we thought that we were to get that price for ever, but they were soon down to two seventeen six; and when we had had two years of the potato famine, we thought that there would never be another potato in County Galway. For the last five years we've had them as fine at Doneraile as ever I saw them. n.o.body is ever quite ruined, or quite has his fortune made."

"I am very near the ruin," said Tom Daly.

"I would struggle to hold on a little longer yet," said the other.

"How many horses have you got here and at Ahaseragh?"

"There are something over a dozen," said Tom. "There may be fifteen in all. I was thinking of sending a draught over to Tattersall's next week. There are some of them would not be worth a five-and-twenty-pound note when you got them there!"

"Well, now I'll tell you what I propose. You shall send over four or five to be summered at Doneraile. There is gra.s.s enough there, and though I can't pay my debts, my credit is good at the corn-chandler's." Black Tom, as he heard this, sat still looking blacker than ever. He was a man who hated to have a favour offered to him. But he could bear the insult better from Persse of Doneraile than from anyone else in the county. "I've talked the matter over with Lynch--"

"D---- Lynch," said Daly. He didn't dislike Sir Jasper, but Sir Jasper did not stand quite so high in his favour as did Mr. Persse of Doneraile.

"You needn't d---- anybody; but just listen to me. Sir Jasper says that he will take three, and Nicholas Bodkin will do the same."

"They are both baronets," said Daly. "I hate a man with a handle to his name; he always seems to me to be stuck-up, as though he demanded something more than other people. There is that Lord Ardrahan--"

"A very good fellow too. Don't you be an a.s.s. Lord Ardrahan has offered to take three more."

"I knew it," said Tom.

"It's not as though any favour were offered or received. Though the horses are your own property, they are kept for the services of the hunt. We all understand very well how things are circ.u.mstanced at present."

"How do you think I am to feed my hounds if you take away the horses which they would eat?" said Daly, with an attempt at a grim joke.

But after the joke Tom became sad again, almost to tears, and he allowed his friend to make almost what arrangements he pleased for distributing both hounds and horses among the gentry of the hunt.

"And when they are gone," said he, "I am to sit here alone with nothing on earth to do. What on earth is to become of me when I have not a hound left to give a dose of physic to?"

"We'll not leave you in such a sad strait as that," said Mr. Persse.

"It will be sad enough. If you had had a pack of hounds to look after for thirty summers, you wouldn't like to get rid of them in a hurry.

I'm like an old nurse who is sending her babies out, or some mother, rather, who is putting her children into the workhouse because she cannot feed them herself. It is sad, though you don't see it in that light."

Frank Jones got home to Castle Morony that night full of sorrow and trouble. The cattle had been got off to Dublin in their starved condition, but he, as he had come back, had been boycotted every yard of the way. He could get in no car, nor yet in all Tuam could he secure the services of a boy to carry his bag for him. He learned in the town that the girls had sent over to purchase a joint of meat, but had been refused at every shop. "Is trade so plentiful?" asked Frank, "that you can afford to do without it?"

"We can't afford to do with it," said the butcher, "if it's to come from Morony Castle."

CHAPTER XXIV.

"FROM THE FULL HEART THE MOUTH SPEAKS."

Ada was making the beds upstairs, and Edith was churning the b.u.t.ter down below in the dairy, when a little bare-footed boy came in with a letter.

"Please, miss, it's from the Captain, and he says I'm not to stir out of this till I come back with an answer."

The letter was delivered to Edith at the dairy door, and she saw that it was addressed to herself. She had never before seen the Captain's handwriting, and she looked at it somewhat curiously. "If he's to write to one of us it should be to Ada," she said to herself, laughing. Then she opened the envelope, which enclosed a large square stout letter. It contained a card and a written note, and on the card was an invitation, as follows: "The Colonel and Officers of the West Bromwich Regiment request the pleasure of the company of Mr. Jones, the Misses Jones, and Mr. Francis Jones to a dance at the Galway Barracks, on the 20th of May, 1881. Dancing to commence at ten o'clock."

Then there was the note, which Edith read before she took the card upstairs.

"My dear Miss Jones," the letter began. Edith again looked at the envelope and perceived that the despatch had been certainly addressed to herself--Miss Edith Jones; but between herself and her sister there could be no jealousy as to the opening of a letter. Letters for one were generally intended for the other also.

I hope you will both come. You ought to do so to show the county that, though you are boycotted, you are not smashed, and to let them understand that you are not afraid to come out of the house although certain persons have made themselves terrible. I send this to you instead of to your sister, because perhaps you have a little higher pluck. But do tell your father from me that I think he ought, as a matter of policy, to insist on your both coming. You could come down by the boat one day and return the next; and I'll meet you, for fear your brother should not be there.--Yours very faithfully,

YORKE CLAYTON.

I have got the fellows of the West Bromwich to entrust the card to me, and have undertaken to see it duly delivered.

I hope you'll approve of my Mercury. Hunter says he doesn't care how often he's shot at.