The Poor Scholar Part 11

The tattered creature approached him with a gleam of expectation in his eyes that appeared like insanity.

"G.o.d bless your honor for your goodness," exclaimed Paddy. "It's me that's in it, sir!--Paddy Dunn, sir, sure enough; but, indeed, I'm the next thing to my own ghost, sir, now G.o.d help me!"

"What, and for whom are you cooking?"

"Jist the smallest dhrop in life, sir, o' gruel, to keep the sowl in that lonely crathur, sir, the poor scholar."

"Pray how long is it since you have eaten anything yourself?"

The tears burst from the eyes of the miserable creature as he replied--

"Before G.o.d in glory, your honor, an' in the presence of his Lordship here, I only got about what 'ud make betther nor half a male widin the last day, sir. 'Twas a weeshy grain o' male that I got from a friend; an' as Ned Connor here tauld me that this crathur had nothin' to make the gruel for him, why I shared it wid him, bekase he couldn't even beg it, sir, if he wanted it, an' him not able to walk yit."

The worthy pastor's eyes glistened with a moisture that did him honor.

Without a word of observation, he slipped a crown into the hand of Dunn, who looked at it as if he had been paralyzed.

"Oh thin," said he, fervently, "may every hair on your honor's head become a mould-candle to light you into glory! The world's goodness is in your heart, sir; an' may all the blessin's of Heaven rain down upon you an' yours!"

The two gentlemen then gave a.s.sistance to the poor scholar, whom the Bishop addressed in kind and encouraging language:

"Come to me, my good boy," he added, "and if, on further inquiry, I find that your conduct has been such as I believe it to have been, you may rest a.s.sured, provided also you continue worthy of my good opinion, that I shall be a friend and protector to you. Call on me when you got well, and I will speak to you at greater length."

"Well," observed Connor, when they were gone, "the divil's own hard puzzle the Bishop had me in, about stalin' the milk. It went agin' the grain wid me to tell him the lie, so I had to invint a bit o' truth to keep my conscience clear; for sure there was not a man among us that could tell him, barrin' we said that we oughtn't to say. Doesn't all the world know that a man oughtn't to condimn himself? That was thruth, any way; but divil a scruple I'd have in blammin' the other--not but that he's one o' the best of his sort. Paddy Dunn, quit lookin' at that crown, but get the shovel an' give the boy his dhrink--he's wantin' it."

The agitation of spirits produced by Jemmy's cheering interview with the Bishop was, for three days afterwards, somewhat prejudicial to his convalescence. In less than a week, however, he was comfortably settled with Mr. O'Rorke's family, whose kindness proved to him quite as warm as he had expected.

When he had remained with them a few days, he resolved to recommence his studies under his tyrant master. He certainly knew that his future attendance at the school would be penal to him, but he had always looked forward to the accomplishment of his hopes as a task of difficulty and distress. The severity to be expected from the master could not, he thought, be greater than that which he had already suffered; he therefore decided, if possible, to complete his education under him.

The school, when Jemmy appeared in it, had been for more than an hour a.s.sembled, but the thinness of the attendance not only proved the woful prevalence of sickness and distress in the parish, but sharpened the pedagogue's vinegar aspect into an expression of countenance singularly peevish and gloomy. When the lad entered, a murmur of pleasure and welcome ran through the scholars, and joy beamed forth from every countenance but that of his teacher. When the latter noticed this, his irritability rose above restraint, and he exclaimed:--

"Silence! and apply to business, or I shall cause some of you to denude immediately. No school ever can prosper in which that _hirudo_, called a poor scholar, is permitted toleration. I thought, sarra, I told you to nidificate and hatch your wild project undher some other wing than mine."

"I only entrate you," replied our poor hero, "to suffer me to join the cla.s.s I left while I was sick, for about another year. I'll be very quiet and humble, and, as far as I can, will do everything you wish me."

"Ah! you are a crawling reptile," replied the savage, "and, in my opinion, nothing but a chate and impostor. I think you have imposed yourself upon Mr. O'Brien for what you are not; that is, the son of an honest man. I have no doubt, but many of your nearest relations died after having seen their own funerals. Your mother, you runagate, wasn't your father's wife, I'll be bail."

The spirit of the boy could bear this no longer; his eyes flashed, and his sinews stood out in the energy of deep indignation.

"It is false," he exclaimed; "it is as false as your own cruel and cowardly heart, you wicked and unprincipled tyrant! In everything you have said of my father, mother, and friends, and of myself, too, you are' a liar, from the hat on your head to the dirt undher your feet--a liar, a coward, and a villain!"

The fury of the miscreant was ungovernable:--he ran at the still feeble lad, and, by a stroke of his fist, dashed him senseless to the earth.

There were now no large boys in the school to curb his resentment, he therefore kicked him in the back when he fell. Many voices exclaimed in alarm--"Oh, masther! sir; don't kill him! Oh, sir! dear, don't kill him!

Don't kill poor Jemmy, sir, an' him still sick!"

"Kill him!" replied the master; "kill him, indeed! Faith, he'd be no common man who could kill him; he has as many lives in him as a cat!

Sure, he can live behind a ditch, wid the faver on his back, wid-out dying; and he would live if he was stuck on the spire of a steeple."

In the meantime the boy gave no symptoms of returning life, and the master, after desiring a few of the scholars to bring him oat to the air, became pale as death with apprehension. He immediately withdrew to his private apartment, which joined the schoolroom, and sent out his wife to a.s.sist in restoring him to animation. With some difficulty this was accomplished. The unhappy boy at once remembered what had just occurred; and the bitter tears gushed from his eyes, as he knelt down, and exclaimed "Merciful Father of heaven and earth, have pity on me! You see my heart, great G.o.d! and that what I did, I did for the best!"

"Avourneen," said the woman, "he's pa.s.sionate, an' never mind him. Come in an' beg his pardon for callin' him a liar, an' I'll become spokesman for you myself. Come, acushla, an' I'll get lave for you to stay in the school still."

"Oh, I'm hurted!" said the poor youth: "I'm hurted inwardly--somewhere about the back, and about my ribs!" The pain he felt brought the tears down his pale cheeks. "I wish I was at home!" said he. "I'll give up all and go home!" The lonely boy then laid his head upon his hands, as he sat on the ground, and indulged in a long burst of sorrow.

"Well," said a manly-looking little fellow, whilst the tears stood in his eyes, "I'll tell my father this, anyhow. I know he won't let me come to this school any more. Here, Jemmy, is a piece of my bread, maybe it will do you good."

"I couldn't taste it, Frank dear," said Jemmy; "G.o.d bless you; but I couldn't taste it."

"Do," said Frank; "maybe it will bate back the pain."

"Don't ask me, Frank dear," said Jemmy; "I couldn't ate it: I'm hurted inwardly."

"Bad luck to me!" exclaimed the indignant boy, "if ever my ten toes will darken this school door agin. By the livin' farmer, if they ax me at home to do it, I'll run away to my uncle's, so I will. Wait, Jemmy, I'll be big yit; an', be the blessed Gospel that's about my neck, I'll give the same masther a shirtful of sore bones, the holy an' blessed minute I'm able to do it."

Many of the other boys declared that they would acquaint their friends with the master's cruelty to the poor scholar; but Jemmy requested them not to do so, and said that he was determined to return home the moment he should be able to travel.

The affrighted woman could not prevail upon him to seek a reconciliation with her husband, although the expressions of the other scholars induced her to press him to it, even to entreaty. Jemmy arose, and with considerable difficulty reached the Curate's house, found him at home, and, with tears in his eyes, related to him the atrocious conduct of the master.

"Very well," said this excellent man, "I am glad that I can venture to ride as far as Colonel B------'s to-morrow. You must accompany me; for decidedly such brutality cannot be permitted to go unpunished."

Jemmy knew that the curate was his friend; and although he would not himself have thought of summoning the master to answer for his barbarity, yet he acquiesced in the curate's opinion. He stopped that night in the house of the worthy man to whom Mr. O'Brien had recommended him on his first entering the town. It appeared in the morning, however, that he was unable to walk; the blows which he had received were then felt by him to be more dangerous than had been supposed. Mr. O'Brien, on being informed of this, procured a jaunting-car, on which they both sat, and at an easy pace reached the Colonel's residence.

The curate was shown into an ante-room, and Jemmy sat in the hall: the Colonel joined the former in a few minutes. He had been in England and on the continent, accompanied by his family, for nearly the last three years, but had just returned, in order to take possession of a large property in land and money, to which he succeeded at a very critical moment, for his own estates were heavily enc.u.mbered. He was now proprietor of an additional estate, the rent-roll of which was six thousand per annum, and also master of eighty-five thousand pounds in the funds. Mr. O'Brien, after congratulating him upon his good fortune, introduced the case of our hero as one which, in his opinion, called for the Colonel's interposition as a magistrate.

"I have applied to you, sir," he proceeded, "rather than to any other of the neighboring gentlemen, because I think this friendless lad has a peculiar claim upon any good offices you could render him."

"A claim upon me! How is that, Mr. O'Brien?"

"The boy, sir, is not a native of this province. His father was formerly a tenant of yours, a man, as I have reason to believe, remarkable for good conduct and industry. It appears that his circ.u.mstances, so long as he was your tenant, were those of a comfortable independent farmer. If the story which his son relates be true--and I, for one, believe it--his family have been dealt with in a manner unusually cruel and iniquitous.

Your present agent, Colonel, who is known in his own neighborhood by the nickname of Yellow Sam, thrust him out of hia farm, when his wife was sick, for the purpose of putting into it a man who had married his illegitimate daughter. If this be found a correct account of the transaction, I have no hesitation in saying, that you, Colonel B------, as a gentleman of honor and humanity, will investigate the conduct of your agent, and see justice done to an honest man, who must have been oppressed in your name, and under color of your authority."

"If my agent has dared to be unjust to a worthy tenant," said the Colonel, "in order to provide for his b.a.s.t.a.r.d, by my sacred honor, he shall cease to be an agent of mine! I admit, certainly, that from some circ.u.mstances which transpired a few years ago, I have reason to suspect his integrity. That, to be sure, was only so far as he and I were concerned; but, on the other hand, during one or two visits I made to the estate which he manages, I heard the tenants thank and praise him with much grat.i.tude, and all that sort of thing. There was 'Thank your honor!'--'Long may you reign over us, sir!'--and, 'Oh, Colonel, you've a mighty good man to your agent!' and so forth. I do not think, Mr.

O'Brien, that he has acted so harshly, or that he would dare to do it.

Upon my honor, I heard those warm expressions of grat.i.tude from the lips of the tenants themselves."

"If you knew the people in general, Colonel, as well as I do," replied the curate, "you would admit, that such expressions are often either cuttingly ironical, or the result of fear. You will always find, sir, that the independent portion of the people have least of this forced dissimulation among them. A dishonest and inhuman agent has in his own hands the irresponsible power of hara.s.sing and oppressing the tenantry under him. The cla.s.s most hateful to the people are those low wretches who spring up from nothing into wealth, acc.u.mulated by dishonesty and rapacity. They are proud, overbearing, and jealous, even to vindictiveness, of the least want of respect. It is to such upstarts that the poorer cla.s.ses are externally most civil; but it is also such persons whom they most hate and abhor. They flatter them to their faces, 'tis true even to nausea; but they seldom spare them in their absence.

Of this very cla.s.s, I believe, is your agent, Yellow Sam; so that any favorable expressions you may have heard from your tenantry towards him, were most probably the result of dissimulation and fear. Besides, sir, here is a testimonial from M'Evoy's parish priest, in which his father is spoken of as an honest, moral, and industrious man."

"If what you say, Mr. O'Brien, be correct," observed the Colonel, "you know the Irish peasantry much better than I do. Decidedly, I have always thought them in conversation exceedingly candid and sincere. With respect to testimonials from priests to landlords in behalf of their tenants, upon my honor I am sick of them. I actually received, about four years ago, such an excellent character of two tenants, as induced me to suppose them worthy of encouragement. But what was the fact? Why, sir, they were two of the greatest firebrands on my estate, and put both me and my agent to great trouble and expense. No, sir, I wouldn't give a curse for a priest's testimonial upon such an occasion. These fellows were subsequently convicted of arson on the clearest evidence, and transported."

"Well, sir, I grant that you may have been misled in that instance.

However, from what I've observed, the two great faults of Irish landlords are these:--In the first place, they suffer themselves to remain ignorant of their tenantry; so much so, indeed, that they frequently deny them access and redress when the poor people are anxious to acquaint them with their grievances; for it is usual with landlords to refer them to those very agents against whose cruelty and rapacity they are appealing. This is a _carte blanche_ to the agent to trample upon them if he pleases. In the next place, Irish landlords too frequently employ ignorant and needy men to manage their estates; men who have no character, no property, or standing in society, beyond the reputation of being keen shrewd, and active. These persons, sir, make fortunes; and what means can they have of acc.u.mulating wealth, except by cheating either the landlord or his tenants, or both? A history of their conduct would be a black catalogue of dishonesty, oppression, and treachery. Respectable men, resident on or-near the estate, possessing both character and property, should always be selected for this important trust. But, above all things, the curse of a tenantry is a percentage agent. He racks, and drives, and oppresses, without consideration either of market or produce, in order that his receipts may be ample, and his own income large."

"Why, O'Brien, you appear to be better acquainted with all this sort of thing than I, who am a landed proprietor."

"By the by, sir, without meaning you any disrespect, it is the landlords of Ireland who know least about the great ma.s.s of its inhabitants; and I might also add, about its history, its literature, the manners of the people, their customs, and their prejudices. The peasantry know this, and too often practise upon their ignorance. There is a landlord's _Vade mec.u.m_ sadly wanted in Ireland, Colonel."

"Ah! very good, O'Brien, very good! Well, I shall certainly inquire into this case, and if I find that Yellow Ham has been playing the oppressor, out he goes. I am now able to manage him, which I could not readily do before, for, by the by, he had mortgages on my property."

"I would take it, Colonel, as a personal favor, if you would investigate the transaction I have mentioned."