The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent Part 9

'Yes, Miss, that was it, New Orleans, quite near New York,' he said.

The scoundrelly agent had taken her pa.s.sage money and sent her off absolutely friendless to New Orleans, where she died of a fever in less than a year.

Many of the three million emigrants after the famine must have been as easily duped.

A considerable time ago (but if I were in Kerry I could give the date from my diary, because I met the man at a dinner given at the St.

James's Club by Lord Kenmare's son-in-law, Mr. Douglas) one of the big New World railway companies sent over an emissary to the British Government.

He was charged to offer to take every distressed man in Ireland, with his priest--if he would go--piper, cat, wife, sister, mother, and children, to the land through which the great railway ran. Each man was to be given a log-house with three rooms, one hundred and sixty acres, ten of them under cultivation, and no residence was to be more than ten miles from a railway station. All that was asked in return was a loan for ten years without interest to cover the expenses of transportation.

I rather think Mr. Chichester Fortescue was the Chief Secretary. Anyhow, whoever occupied that post urged the Cabinet to accept the offer. The conclave wavered, but Mr. Gladstone firmly vetoed the idea. He was afraid the plan would be unpopular with the priests, who would see themselves bereft of the favourite members of their congregations.

Instead of this admirable scheme, we have ever since had the pitiable sight of the parents, the sisters, and the sweetheart crooning over the emigration of the best able-bodied young men from Ireland.

No one who has heard the keening and wailing, say at Limerick Junction, over Paddy going over the water will forget the appealing sorrow of the scene, the sound of which rings long in one's ears after the train has gone out of sight.

The emigrant has been the theme of song and story. He has also been one of the finest recruits of the United States, whilst he is a stigma on English politics, and a drain on the land which in all Europe can least afford to spare him.

Mr. Wyndham's new Act will not arrest emigration, indeed it will probably increase it.

At present the landlord is often able to put pressure on his tenants to give employment to respectable men. But the small farmer is certain to use as few men as possible. You can see the a.n.a.logy in contemporary France. Therefore more families will see the pride of their cabins starting for the New World.

Perhaps what I am proudest of, was being called in an address in Kerry 'the poor man's friend,' for it is what I have always striven to be.

But if I were to be a young man to-morrow, instead of a day older than I am to-day, I should be powerless to merit such a t.i.tle in years to come.

And the reason, as I have just indicated, is the fault of the Government.

I sometimes think the canniest man of whom I ever heard was the old Scottish minister who was accustomed to preface his extempore pet.i.tion with the words:--

'My britheren, let us noo pray that the High Court of Parliament winna do ony harm.'

CHAPTER VII

FENIANISM

I am quite aware the opinion I am about to deliver will cause great surprise, but I give it after mature consideration, supported by all my knowledge of Ireland.

It is this:--

The old Fenianism was politically of little account, socially of no danger, except to a few individuals who could be easily protected, and has been grossly exaggerated, either wilfully or through ignorance.

Matters were very different after Mr. Gladstone, by successive acts, of what I maintain were criminal legislation, deliberately fostered treason and encouraged outrage in Ireland.

Irish agitation would never have reached genuine importance unless it had been steadily a.s.sisted in its noisome growth by the so-called Grand Old Man, at whose grave may be laid every calamity which has affected Ireland since it had the misfortune to arouse his interest, and the ill effects of whose demoralising interference will bear fruit for many years to come.

This is set down in sober earnest and in as unprejudiced a spirit as it is possible for any sincerely patriotic--using the word in its true and not in its debased meaning--Irishman to feel when he is thoroughly acquainted with all the niceties of the national history for the past sixty years.

I am far from saying that subsequent British cabinets have always understood the Irish questions, but they are at least only reaping the whirlwind where Mr. Gladstone sowed the wind.

I would broadly characterise as Fenian every Irish outbreak or ebullition in the nineteenth century up to the time of the baneful influence of the man who conducted the Midlothian campaign.

Half the tumultuous efforts of the earlier movements would have been rendered ridiculous had it been possible to have them contemporaneously examined by a few special correspondents. I can imagine the representative of the _Daily Mail_ finding material for very few sensational headlines in the Whiteboys Insurrection.

As for the tales of single-handed terrorism, these in Ireland did nursery duty to alarm imaginative children, just as the adventures of d.i.c.k Turpin and Jack Sheppard or the kidnapping of heirs by gipsies serve as stories to thrill English little ones.

Of course in 1789 to have killed three Protestants was counted a pa.s.sport into heaven in the vicinity of Vinegar Hill. But Father Matthew's temperance crusade was worth more salvation to the nation, and mere threatening letters count for nothing. I have had over one hundred in my time, yet I'll die in my bed for all that.

My father-in-law had a pretty solid contempt for the Whiteboys--not the original breed, but those who a.s.sumed the t.i.tle in Kerry early in the nineteenth century.

He was told that these miscreants had a plan to surround his house that night and to shoot everybody in it, and at that very moment they were confabulating at a certain farmhouse.

Refusing to be escorted or guarded, he made his way to that farm, and walking into the kitchen, rated the lot of them in unmeasured terms.

Cowed and abashed they listened to him as he threatened the law, h.e.l.l, and the devil alone knows what beside. Finally, pistol in hand, he bade them produce their arms and put them in his dog-cart.

This they actually did--for they had imbibed no liquor to give them false pluck--and, with a final curse, he whipped up his horse and drove away 'with all their teeth' to the barracks, where he left a very useful a.r.s.enal, and was never troubled by one of them again.

To thus obtain complete immunity by sheer coolness is as much a matter of personal magnetism as anything else. An instance of this, which impressed me much, occurred in a coiner-ghost story told by Mr. T.P.

O'Connor, which I venture to quote.

'The hero was no less a person than Marshal Saxe. One night, on the march, he bivouacked in a haunted castle, and slept the sleep of the brave until midnight, when he was awakened by hideous howls heralding the approach of the spectre. When it appeared, the Marshal first discharged his pistol point-blank at it without effect, and then struck it with his sabre, which was shivered in his hand. The invulnerable spectre then beckoned the amazed Marshal to follow, and preceded him to a spot where the floor of the gallery suddenly yawned, and they sank together through it to sepulchral depths. Here he was surrounded by a band of desperate coiners who would forthwith have made away with him if the Marshal had not told them who he was, and warned them that if he disappeared his army would dig to the earth's centre to find him, and would infallibly find and finish every one of them.

'"If I am reconducted to my chamber by this steel-clad spectre and allowed to sleep undisturbed until morning, I promise never to relate this adventure while any harm can happen to you by my telling it."

'To this the coiners after consultation agreed. He was led back to bed, and next morning ridiculed all spectral stories to his officers. It was not until the world of coiners was finally broken up that he related his experiences.'

In that story I wonder who went bail for the Marshal's truth. Veracity and gallantry may not have gone hand in hand, or perhaps they were affianced, and therefore took care not to come near one another.

Another sort of gallantry was noteworthy in what was known as Young Ireland, for in 'the set' were several ladies, Eva, Mary, and Speranza, all p.r.o.ne to write seditious verse. Eva was Miss Mary Kelly, daughter of a Galway gentleman, who promised her lover to wait while he underwent ten years penal servitude, and kept her word, marrying him at Kingstown two days after his release. 'Mary' was Miss Ellen Downing, whose lover was also a fugitive after the outbreak; but he proved unfaithful, and she was one of the last I heard of who died of pining away. It used to be much talked of in my young days. Perhaps now that it is not, it more often occurs. 'Speranza' was Lady Wilde, a fluent poet and essayist, who survived her husband the archaeologist. One of her children inherited much of her talent, but bears a chequered fame. I always thought the wit of Oscar Wilde anything but Irish, and was always glad it possessed no national attributes--unless impudence was one.

At one of his own first nights in London (I think it was on the occasion of the production of _An Ideal Husband_ at the Haymarket) he was summoned before the curtain by the customary shouts for 'Author, author.'

He stood there for a moment amid the cheering, and then, in response to cries for a speech, calmly took a cigarette case out of his pocket, selected one of the contents, and, having very deliberately lighted it, said:--

'Ladies and gentlemen, I do not know what you have done, but I have spent a very pleasant evening with my own play. Good night.'

His brother, known as 'Wuffalo Will' among his friends, is the hero of many stories.

Once he went up to a policeman and said:--

'Which is the way to heaven?'

'I don't know, sir; better ask a parson.'