The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent Part 44

'No, I did not.'

'You spoke about an address which you received from the tenants when you were a candidate for Tralee?'

'Yes.'

Then, with the snarl of a wild beast, Mr. Biggar blurted out:--

'Have you any idea whether this was got up by the bailiffs on your property?'

'I am quite certain it was not, because I had no bailiffs on the property. I gave an immense deal of employment, and I believe that had something to do with it.'

Mr. Biggar presently sat down, having made less of me than he and his friends hoped.

On re-examination, the Attorney-General observed:--

'You say one of the bonfires, lighted when you succeeded, was put out. I suppose the Irish people are not very averse to a row at times?'

'Oh no.'

'And bonfires do produce rows at times?'

'Certainly.'

'Your popularity did not depend on one bonfire?'

'No.'

Nor did my life, fortunately, depend on the good will of Messrs.

Parnell, Biggar, and their a.s.sociates.

With reference to my freedom in telling the truth, an application was made against me, in July 1891, for an attachment of the Land Court. It ended abortively, and permitted me to continue with perfect impunity to give in letters to the _Times_ evidence I was debarred from giving in Court.

I certainly did not miss a chance of pointing out the proper path to the Commissioners, and I have taken an even affectionate interest in every department of the Land Commission. Sarcastically, a Home Rule paper politely christened me as the fatherly patron of the Court, and informed me that my own conscience had given up communication with me, in consequence of the many snubs it had received.

The intimate knowledge of my most private affairs that this purports to represent proves the empty-headedness of the writer, and when he added that the strong indictment rebounded off my hide because I had heard myself a hundred times denounced in language equally eloquent, I can only agree that he was a mere lisping babe in comparison with some adjectival denunciators who, to their regret, find I am still alive and equal to them all.

CHAPTER XXIII

LATER DAYS

With advancing years comes a change in the point of view, for antic.i.p.ation contracts even more than retrospect expands. a.s.sociates of early days have pa.s.sed away, and where I was once one of a battalion, to-day I am only a survivor of the old guard. This is not a cause for sadness, but an incentive to take the best of what remains of life, though at times chills and other ills, including doctors, drugs, and income-tax, do their best to depress the survivor. It has been said to be a characteristic of Irish humour that tears are very near the laughter, and sometimes the unshed tears over lost opportunities must be the chief bitterness of age--one which I have been mercifully spared.

After all, youth may round the world away, as Charles Kingsley wrote; but when the wheels are run down, to find at home the face I loved when all was young is the blessing of life, and when, at our golden wedding, our children called us Darby and Joan, I am sure my wife and I were quite willing to answer to the names.

This was happiness very different to that of George IV., who, when the death of Napoleon was announced to him in the words:--

'Sir, your great enemy is dead,' exclaimed:--

'Is she? By Gad!' thinking it was his wife.

I remember an amusing case that occurred in our own family. One of my kith and kin, who had been married in the year of the battle of Waterloo, died at the ripe old age of a hundred and three.

There was a faithful old fellow on the estate who was much attached to her, and this was his view, just before her end:--

'I am sorry to hear the old mistress is dying, very sorry indeed, for she's been a good mistress to us all. Maybe if she had taken snuff she'd have lived to a good old age,' which suggests wonder as to what his conception of longevity really was. Probably the famous Countess of Desmond, who died from the effects of a fall from a cherry-tree in her one hundred and fortieth year, would have satisfied him.

I have already observed that much of my later years has been spent, much against my will, in London, and no portion of this period was so satisfactory to me as my friendship with Mr. J.A. Froude, which I regard as one of the privileges of my life.

My first acquaintance with him was in consequence of reading his _English in Ireland_, which I found so accurate and informative that I wrote to ask him for an interview. I came to like him very much, not only because he was the most gifted writer I have met, but also because he understood Ireland better than any other Englishman.

My first conversation with him was in his house in Onslow Gardens, and there I very frequently sat for hours with him, and he also presented me with copies of all his books, with an autograph letter on the fly-leaf of each. I think the recent Land Purchase Act, having been followed by increased agitation for Home Rule in Ireland, bears out what he said about the folly of trying to reconcile the irreconcilables, and also bears out what Lord Morris called the 'criminal idiotcy' of attempting to satisfy eighty Irish members, forty of whom would have to starve directly they were satisfied.

So far as I am aware, Mr. Froude never contemplated standing for Parliament, which would not have been a congenial atmosphere for him, though I am convinced he would have made more mark at Westminster than his friend Mr. Lecky, whom I never had the pleasure of meeting.

People to-day seem to regard Mr. Froude simply as the Boswell of Carlyle, and, forgetting his own great services to historical literature, degrade him to the mere chronicler of the bilious sage of Chelsea. This is absolutely a distortion of fact, and one calculated to do injury to the memory of both these famous men. Therefore it may be of real utility to state that during my long and very intimate acquaintance with Mr. Froude, he never mentioned the name of Carlyle to me but once, and that was to describe a conversation between Lord Wolseley and Carlyle, which dealt with the contemporary situation in Ireland. There was, therefore, nothing to show me that my friend 'was utterly absorbed in the Carlyles, and had no thought for any one else.' On the contrary, he was a man full of keen interests, of which they were only one, and, as far as I saw, an entirely subordinate one. He was a broad-minded man, who hated petty misconception or a narrow view of anything, and he would have been horrified at the prurient indecency with which the most private affairs of the Carlyles have been exposed and distorted to please a public which really has a higher moral tone than is possessed by those who have gibbeted the defenceless dead.

Mr. Froude was not addicted to talking much about his own works, but I remember his telling me that _Oceana_ had paid him best of them all, and I think his view therein that the colonies will recede from England when they are strong enough, following the example of the United States, is accurate. Just tax Canada as Ireland has been taxed, and see how long the Canadians will be contented. The ministers of George III. tried that policy on the United States with the result that, before many years, George had to receive the Plenipotentiary Minister of dominions over which he himself had once reigned. It is absurd to compare Ireland with Yorkshire, as has been done, for Ireland once had a separate Parliament, and the Union was a matter of agreement, the outcome of which was that Mr. Childers's Commission found she was taxed three millions more than she should have been. The colonies are on the alert, with all the rather irritable uppishness of youth on the verge of manhood, and their younger generations are sure to take full advantage of any tactless conduct of the British Government. Such was Froude's view, and nothing has happened since his death to shake its inherent probability. The waves of Imperial patriotism in war time go for very little, for Ireland is admittedly disloyal, and yet Irish soldiers and Irish regiments were absolutely the most successful in South Africa.

When the Government was introducing some quack measure into Ireland, Froude wrote to me:--

'I see they are putting some fresh sticks under the Irish pot, so it will soon boil over.'

Which it did, with a vengeance.

To the end of his days Froude was a great reader, but his interest in Church affairs and in ecclesiastical differences had completely died away. He told me that the most accurate man of business of any period was Philip of Spain, and that his notes and memoranda were a marvel of practical apt.i.tude. He derived the chief information for his _History of England_ from Spanish despatches, and would to-day have benefited considerably by the translations of Major Martin Hume.

Personally Froude had no cranks; his disposition was most urbane, whilst he was very neat in his appearance and also in his handwriting. It would certainly be of interest to give a few of his racy letters, too often undated, which I have preserved. Unfortunately, his executors firmly refuse the necessary legal consent, so that I am compelled to make my book irreparably the poorer by omitting what should have been one of its most attractive contents. In justice to Froude's memory, I ought to add that there was nothing in his correspondence with me that would have diminished his high repute. I mention this because otherwise busybodies might have misinterpreted the arbitrary action of his executors to the detriment of his fame.

A later friendship than that with Froude also must have a sincere allusion in these pages, for I have derived much pleasure from my a.s.sociation with Sir Henry Howorth, a ripe old lawyer of Portuguese extraction, who has rendered valuable political service by his polemical letters to the _Times_, on which I can pa.s.s a most favourable opinion.

His histories of the Mongols, the Mammoth, and the Flood are possibly more permanent, but they are not of such contemporary note. At any rate, I respect them from a distance, whilst I admire the political effusions as the capital work of a comrade under arms, and one who is not afraid to verbally bludgeon any formidable contemporary Hooligans.

Sir Henry Howorth occasionally breaks out into a story, though he is more frequently a listener to mine. This is one of his that I happen to recall:--

The Mayor of Richmond gave a dinner, at which a distinguished Frenchman sat next the Mayor's son, and on replying for the guests in imperfect English, observed:--

'I am vary happy to be here, and to meet my young friend, who is a sheep of the old bloke,' meaning, of course, a chip of the old block.

I plead guilty to have materially increased the interest felt by Sir Henry in Irish affairs, which is not diminished by the fact that a niece of Lord Ashbourne is married to his son.

I think it was to him that I recommended another panacea for the evils of Ireland, namely, that it would be a good plan to exchange Ireland for Holland, for the Dutch would reclaim Ireland, and the Irish would neglect the banks of Holland, with the eventual result that the living Irish question would be washed away.

Just now I alluded to a mayor, which reminds me of a story about an Irish mayoress. As his Majesty has by this time been entertained at several Corporation luncheons, it is not invidious to give the tale.

The Mayoress, who was the heroine of the festal occasion in question, felt completely overpowered by the royal society in which she found herself, and when seated at the meal next to the King, was absolutely unable to articulate any reply at all to the observations he addressed to her, so eventually he gave her up, and turned his colloquial attentions to the lady on the other side.