The O'Donoghue Part 23

"True, sir, quite true; but you are not bound to forget or forgive him, who would strip it rudely off, even a day or an hour before its time."

"There is na muckle good in drawing inferences from imaginary evils. Shadows are a' bad enough; but they needna hae children and grandchildren; and so I'll even take a cup o' tea to the callant;" and thus, wise in practice and precept, Sir Archibald left the room, while O'Donoghue and Mark, already wearied of the theme, ceased to discuss it further.

CHAPTER XV. SOME OF THE PLEASURES OF PROPERTY.

In the small, but most comfortable apartment of the Lodge, which in virtue of its book-shelves and smartly bound volumes was termed "the Study," sat Sir Marmaduke Travers. Before him was a table covered with writing materials, books, pamphlets, prints, and drawings; his great arm-chair was the very ideal of lounging luxury, and in the soft carpet his slippered feet were almost hidden. Through the window at his right hand, an alley in the beech-wood opened a view of mountain scenery, it would have been difficult to equal in any country of Europe. In a word, it was a very charming little chamber, and might have excited the covetousness of those whose minds must minister to their maintenance, and who rarely pursue their toilsome task, save debarred from every sound and sight that might foster imagination. How almost invariably is this the case! Who has not seen, a hundred times over, some perfect little room, every detail of whose economy seemed devised to sweeten the labour of the mind, teeming with its many appliances for enjoyment, yet encouraging thought more certainly than ministering to luxury--with its cabinet pictures, its carvings, its antique armour, suggestive in turn of some pa.s.sage in history, or some page in fiction;--who has not seen these devoted to the half hour lounge over a newspaper, or the tiresome examination of house expenditure with the steward, while he, whose mental flights were soaring midway 'twixt earth and heaven, looked out from some gloomy and cobwebbed pane upon a forest of chimneys, surrounded by all the evils of poverty, and tortured by the daily conflict with necessity.

Here sat Sir Marmaduke, a great volume like a ledger open before him, in which, from time to time, he employed himself in making short memoranda.

Directly in front of him stood, in an att.i.tude of respectful attention, a man of about five-and-forty years of age, who, although dressed in an humble garb, had yet a look of something above the common; his features were homely, but intelligent, and though a quick sharp glance shot from his grey eye when he spoke, yet in his soft, smooth voice the words came forth with a measured calm, that served to indicate a patient and gentle disposition. His frame betokened strength, while his face was pale and colourless, and without the other indications of active health in his gait and walk, would have implied a delicacy of const.i.tution. This was Sam Wylie the sub-agent--one whose history may be told in a few words:--His father had been a butler in the O'Donoghue house, where he died, leaving his son, a mere child, as a legacy to his master. The boy, however, did not turn out well; delinquencies of various kinds--theft among the number--were discovered against him; and after many, but ineffectual efforts, to reclaim him, he was turned off, and advised, as he wished to escape worse, to leave the county. He took the counsel, and did so; nor for many a year after was he seen or heard of. A report ran that he pa.s.sed fourteen years in transportation; but however that might be, when he next appeared in Kerry, it was in the train of a civil engineer, come to make surveys of the county. His cleverness and skill in this occupation recommended him to the notice of Hemsworth, who soon after appointed him as bailiff, and, subsequently, sub-agent on the estate; and in this capacity he had now served about fifteen years, to the perfect satisfaction, and with the full confidence of his chief. Of his "antecedents," Sir Marmaduke knew nothing; he was only aware of the implicit trust Hemsworth had in him, and his own brief experience perfectly concurred in the justice of the opinion. He certainly found him intelligent, and thoroughly well-informed on all connected with the property. When questioned, his answers were prompt, direct, and to the purpose; and to one of Sir Marmaduke's business habits, this quality possessed merit of the highest order. If he had a fault with him, it was one he could readily pardon--a leniency towards the people--a desire to palliate their errors and extenuate their failings--and always to promise well for the future, even when the present looked least auspicious. His hearty concurrence with all the old baronet's plans for improvement were also highly in his favour; and already Wylie was looked on as "a very acute fellow, and with really wonderful shrewdness for his station;" as if any of that acuteness or that shrewdness, so estimated, could have its growth in a more prolific soil, than in the heart and mind of one bred and reared among the people; who knew their habits, their tone of thinking, their manners, and their motives--not through any false medium of speculation and theory, but practically, innately, instinctively--who had not studied the peasantry like an algebraic formula, or a problem iu Euclid, but read them, as they sat beside their turf fires, in the smoke of their mud hovels, cowering from the cold of winter, and gathering around the scanty meal of potatoes--the only tribute they had not rendered to the landlord.

"Roger Sweeny," said Sir Marmaduke--"Roger Sweeny complains of his distance from the bog; he cannot draw his turf so easily, as when he lived on that swamp below the lake; but I think the change ought to recompense him for the inconvenience."

"He's a Ballyvourney man, your honour," said Sam, placidly, "and if you couldn't bring the turf up to his door, and cut it for him, and stack it, and carry a creel of it inside, to make the fire, he'd not be content."

"Oh, that's it--is it?" said Sir Marmaduke, accepting an explanation he was far from thoroughly understanding. "Then here's Jack Heffernan--what does this fellow mean by saying that a Berkshire pig is no good?"

"He only means, your honour, that he's too good for the place, and wants better food than the rest of the family."

"The man's a fool, and must learn better. Lord Mudford told me that he never saw such an excellent breed, and his swine-herd is one of the most experienced fellows in England. Widow Mul--Mul--what?" said he, endeavouring to spell an unusually long name in the book before him--"Mulla----"

"Mullahedert, your honour," slipped in Wylie, "a very dacent crayture."

"Then why won't she keep those bee-hives; can't she see what an excellent thing honey is in a house--if one of her children was sick, for instance?"

"True for you, sir," said Sam, without the slightest change of feature.

"It is wonderful how your honour can have the mind to think of these things--upon my word, it's surprising."

"Samuel M'Elroy refuses to drain the field--does he?"

"No, sir; but he says the praties isn't worth digging out of dry ground, nor never does grow to any size. He's a Ballyvourney man, too, sir."

"Oh, is he?" said Sir Marmaduke, accepting this as a receipt in full for any degree of eccentricity.

"Shamus M'Gillicuddy--heavens what a name! This Shamus appears a very desperate fellow; he beat a man the other evening, coming back from the market."

"It was only a neighbour, sir; they live fornint each other."

"A neighbour! but bless my heart, that makes it worse."

"Sure, sir, it was nothing to speak of; it was Darby Lenahan said your honour's bull was a pride to the place, and Shamus said the O'Donoghue's was a finer baste any day; and from one word they came to another, and the end of it was, Lenahan got a crack on the scull that laid him Quivering on the daisies."

"Savage ruffian, that Shamus; I'll keep a sharp eye on him."

"Faix, and there's no need--he's a Ballyvourney man."

The old baronet looked up from his large volume, and seemed for a moment undecided whether he should not ask the meaning of a phrase, which, occurring at every moment, appeared most perplexing in signification; but the thought that by doing so, he should confess his ignorance before the sub-agent, deterred him, and he resolved to leave the interpretation to time and his own ingenuity.

"What of this old fellow, who has the mill?--has he consented to have the overshot wheel?"

"He tried it on Tuesday, sir," said Sam, with an almost imperceptible smile, "and the sluice gave way, and carried off the house and the end of the barn into the tail race. He's gone in, to take an action again your honour for the damages."

"Ungrateful rascal! I told him I'd be at the whole expense myself, and I explained the great saving of water the new wheel would ensure him."

"True, indeed, sir; but as the stream never went dry for thirty years, the ould idiot thought it would last his time. Begorra, he had enough of water on Tuesday, anyhow."

"He's a Ballyvourney man, isn't he?"

"He is sir," replied Wylie, with the gravity of a judge.

Another temptation crossed Sir Marmaduke's mind, but he withstood it, and went on--

"The mountain has then been divided as I ordered, has it?"

"Yes, sir; the lines were all marked out before Sat.u.r.day."

"Well, I suppose the people were pleased to know, that they have, each, their own separate pasturage?"

"Indeed, and, sir, I won't tell you a lie--they are not; they'd rather it was the ould way still."

"What, have I taken all this trouble for nothing then?--is it possible that they'd rather have their cattle straying wild about the country, than see them grazing peaceably on their own land?"

"That's just it, sir; for, you see, when they had the mountain among them, they fed on what they could get; one, had maybe a flock of goats, another, maybe a sheep or two, a heifer, an a.s.s, or a bullsheen.

"A what?"

"A little bull, your honour; and they didn't mind if one had more nor another, nor where they went, for the place was their own; but now.

that it is all marked out and divided, begorra, if a beast is got trespa.s.sing, out comes some one with a stick, and wallops him back again, and then the man that owns him, natural enough, would'nt see shame on his cow, or whatever it was, and that leads to a fight; and faix, there's not a day now, but there's blood spilt over the same boundaries."

"They're actually savages!" said Sir Marmaduke, as he threw his spectacles over his forehead, and dropped his pen from his fingers in mute amazement; "I never heard--I never read of such a people."

"They're Ballyvourney men," chimed in Wylie, a.s.sentively.

"D---- d---"

Sir Marmaduke checked himself suddenly, for the idea flashed on him that he ought at least to know what he was cursing, and so he abstained from such a perilous course, and resumed his search in the big volume. Alas!

his pursuit of information was not more successful as he proceeded: every moment disclosed some case, where, in his honest efforts to improve the condition of the people, from ignorance of their habits, from total unconsciousness of the social differences of two nations, essentially unlike, he discovered the failure of his plans, and unhesitatingly ascribed to the prejudices of the peasantry, what with more justice might have been charged against his own unskilfulness. He forgot that a people long neglected cannot at once be won back--that confidence is a plant of slow growth; but more than all, he lost sight of the fact, that to engraft the customs and wants of richer communities, upon a people sunk in poverty and want--to introduce among them new and improved modes of tillage--to inculcate notions which have taken ages to grow up to maturity, in more favoured lands, must be attended with failure and disappointment. On both sides the elements of success were wanting. The peasantry saw--for, however strange it may seem, through every phase of want and wretchedness their intelligence and apprehension suffer no impairment--they saw his anxiety to serve them, they believed him to be kind-hearted and well-wishing, but they knew him to be also wrong-headed and ignorant of the country, and what he gained on the score of good feeling, he lost on the score of good sense; and Paddy, however humble his lot, however hard his condition, has an innate reverence for ability, and can rarely feel attachment to the heart, where he has not felt respect for the head. It is not a pleasant confession to make, yet one might explain it without detriment to the character of the people, but a.s.suredly, popularity in Ireland would seem to depend far more on intellectual resources, than on moral principle and rect.i.tude. Romanism has fostered this feeling, so natural is it to the devotee to regard power and goodness as inseparable, and to a.s.sociate the holiness of religion, with the sway and influence of the priesthood. If the tenantry regarded the landlord as a simple-hearted, crotchety old gentleman with no harm in him, the landlord believed them to be almost incurably sunk in barbarism and superst.i.tion. Their native courtesy in declining to accept suggestions they never meant to adopt, he looked on as duplicity; he could not understand that the matter-of-fact sternness of English expression has no parallel here; that politeness, as they understood it, has a claim, to which truth itself may be sacrificed; and he was ever accepting in a literal sense, what the people intended to be received with its accustomed qualification.

But a more detrimental result followed than even these: the truly well-conducted and respectable portion of the tenantry felt ashamed to adopt plans and notions they knew inapplicable and unsuited to their condition; they therefore stood aloof, and by their honest forbearance incurred the reproach of obstinacy and barbarism; while the idle, the lazy, and the profligate, became converts to any doctrine or cla.s.s of opinion, which promised an easy life and the rich man's favour. These, at first sight, found favour with him, as possessing more intelligence and tractibility than their neighbours, and for them, cottages were built, rents abated, improved stock introduced, and a hundred devices organized to make them an example for all imitation. Unhappily the conditions of the contract were misconceived: the people believed that all the landlord required was a patient endurance of his benevolence; they never reckoned on any reciprocity in duty; they never dreamed that a Swiss cottage cannot be left to the fortunes of a mud cabin; that stagnant pools before the door, weed-grown fields, and broken fences, harmonize ill with rural pailings, drill cultivation, and trim hedges.

They took all they could get, but a.s.suredly they never understood the obligation of repayment. They thought (not very unreasonably perhaps), "it's the old gentleman's hobby that we should adopt a number of habits and customs we were never used to--live in strange houses and work with strange tools. Be it so; we are willing to gratify him," said they, "but let him pay for his whistle."

He, on the other hand, thought they were greedily adopting what they only endured, and deemed all converts to his opinion who lived on his bounty. Hence, each morning presented an array of the most worthless, irreclaimable of the tenantry around his door, all eagerly seeking to be included in some new scheme of regeneration, by which they understood three meals a day and nothing to do.

How to play off these two distinct and very opposite cla.s.ses, Mr. Sam Wylie knew to perfection; and while he made it appear that one portion of the tenantry whose rigid rejection of Sir Marmaduke's doctrines proceeded from a st.u.r.dy spirit of self-confidence and independence, were a set of wild, irreclaimable savages; he softly insinuated his compliments on the success in other quarters, while, in his heart he well knew what results were about to happen.

"They're here now, sir," said Wylie, as he glanced through the window towards the lawn, where, with rigid punctuality Sir Marmaduke each morning held his levee; and where, indeed, a very strange and motley crowd appeared.