"Two of the most respectable of them," said Dr. Dillon, "went to see Mr.
Brooke in Dublin, and he wouldn"t listen to them. On the contrary, he absolutely put them out of his office without hearing a word they had to say."[22]
I found Dr. Dillon a strong disciple of Mr. Henry George, and a firm believer in the doctrine of the "nationalisation of the land." "It is certain to come," he said, "as certain to come in Great Britain as in Ireland, and the sooner the better. The movement about the sewerage rates in London," he added, "is the first symptom of the land war in London. It is the thin edge of the wedge to break down landlordism in the British metropolis."
He is watching American politics, too, very closely, and inclines to sympathise with President Cleveland. Archbishop Ryan of Philadelphia, he tells me, in his pa.s.sage through Ireland the other day, did not hesitate to express his conviction that President Cleveland would be re-elected.
Dr. Dillon was so earnest and so interesting that the time slipped by very fast, until a casual glance at my watch showed me that we must make great haste to catch the Dublin train.
We left therefore rather hurriedly, but before reaching the station we saw the Dublin train go careering by, its white pennon of smoke and vapour curling away along the valley.
I made the best of it, however, and letting Mr. Holmes depart by a train which took him home, I found a smart jarvey with a car, and drove out to Glenart Castle, the beautiful house of the Earl of Carysfort. This is a very handsome modern house, built in a castellated style of a very good whitish grey marble, with extensive and extremely well-kept terraced gardens and conservatories.
It stands very well on one high bank of the river, a residence of the Earl of Wicklow occupying the other bank. My jarvey called my attention to the excellence of the roads, on which he said Lord Carysfort has spent "a deal of money," as well as upon the gardens of the new Castle.
The head-gardener, an Englishman, told me he found the native labourers very intelligent and willing both to learn and to work. Evidently here is another centre of useful and civilising influences, not managed by an "absentee."[23]
CHAPTER XIV.
DUBLIN, _Friday, March 9th._--At 7.40 this morning I took the train for Athy to visit the Luggacurren estates of Lord Lansdowne. Mr. Lynch, a resident magistrate here, some time ago kindly offered to show me over the place, but I thought it as well to take my chance with the people of Athy who are reported to have been very hot over the whole matter here, and so wrote to Mr. Lynch that I would find him at the Lodge, which is the headquarters of the property.
Athy is a neat, well-built little town, famous of old as a frontier fortress of Kildare. An embattled tower, flanked by small square turrets, guards a picturesque old bridge here over the Barrow, the bridge being known in the country as "Crom-a-boo," from the old war-cry of the Fitz-Geralds. It is a busy place now; and there was quite a bustle at the very pretty little station. I asked a friendly old porter which was the best hotel in the town. "The best? Ah! there"s only one, and it"s not the best--but there are worse--and it"s Kavanagh"s." I found it easily enough, and was ushered by a civil man, who emerged from the shop which occupies part of it, into a sort of reading-room with a green table. A rather slatternly but very active girl soon converted this into a neat breakfast-table, and gave me an excellent breakfast.
The landlord found me a good car, and off I set for the residence of Father Maher, the curate of whom I had heard as one of the most fiery and intractable of the National League priests in this part of Ireland.
My jarvey was rather taciturn at first, but turned out to be something of a politician. He wanted Home Rule, one of his reasons being that then they "wouldn"t let the Americans come and ruin them altogether, driving out the grain from the markets." About this he was very clear and positive. "Oh, it doesn"t matter now whether the land is good or bad, America has just ruined the farmers entirely."
I told him I had always heard this achievement attributed to England.
"Oh! that was quite a mistake! What the English did was to punish the men that stood up for Ireland. There was Mr. O"Brien. But for him there wasn"t a man of Lord Lansdowne"s people would have had the heart to stand up. He did it all; and now, what were they doing to him? They were putting him on a cold plank-bed on a stone floor in a damp cell!"
"But the English put all their prisoners in those cells, don"t they?" I asked.
"And what of it, sir?" he retorted. "They"re good enough for most of them, but not for a gentleman like Mr. O"Brien, that would spill the last drop of his heart"s blood for Ireland!"
"But," I said, "they"re doing just the same thing with Mr. Gilhooly, I hear."
"And who is Mr. Gilhooly, now? And it"s not for the likes of him to complain and be putting on airs as if he was Mr. O"Brien!"
"Yes, it is a fine country for hunting!"
"Was it ever put down here, the hunting?"
"No, indeed! Sure, the people wouldn"t let it be!"
"Not if Mr. O"Brien told them they must?" I queried.
"Mr. O"Brien; ah, he wouldn"t think of such a thing! It brings money all the time to Athy, and sells the horses."
As to the troubles at Luggacurren, he was not very clear. "It was a beautiful place, Mr. Dunne"s; we"d see it presently. And Mr. Dunne, he was a good one for sport. It was that, your honour, that got him into the trouble"--
"And Mr. Kilbride?"
"Oh, Mr. Kilbride"s place was a very good place too, but not like Mr.
Dunne"s. And he was doing very well, Mr. Kilbride. He was getting a good living from the League, and he was a Member of Parliament. Oh, yes, he wasn"t the only one of the tenants that was doing good to himself. There was more of them that was getting more than ever they made out of the land."[24]
"Was the land so bad, then?" I asked.
"No, there was as good land at Luggacurren as any there was in all Ireland; but," and here he pointed off to the crests of the hills in the distance, "there was a deal of land there of the estate on the hills, and it was very poor land, but the tenants had to pay as much for that as for the good property of Dunne and Kilbride."
"Do you know Mr. Lynch, the magistrate?" I asked. "If you do, look out for him, as he has promised to join me and show me the place."
"Oh no, sorr!" the jarvey exclaimed at once; "don"t mind about him. h.e.l.l have his own car, and your honour won"t want to take him on ours."
"Why not?" I persisted, "there"s plenty of room."
"Oh! but indeed, sir, if it wasn"t that you were going to the priest"s, Father Maher, you wouldn"t get a car at Athy--no, not under ten pounds!"
"Not under ten pounds," I replied. "Would I get one then for ten pounds?"
"It"s a deal of money, ten pounds, sorr, and you wouldn"t have a poor man throw away ten pounds?"
"Certainly not, nor ten shillings either. Is it a question of principle, or a question of price?"
The man looked around at me with a droll glimmer in his eye: "Ah, to be sure, your honour"s a great lawyer; but he"ll come pounding along with his big horse in his own car, Mr. Lynch; and sure it"ll be quicker for your honour just driving to Father Maher"s."
There was no resisting this, so I laughed and bade him drive on.
"Whose house is that?" I asked, as we pa.s.sed a house surrounded with trees.
"Oh! that"s the priest, Father Keogh--a very good man, but not so much for the people as Father Maher, who has everything to look after about them."
We came presently within sight of a handsome residence, Lansdowne Lodge, the headquarters of the estate. Many fine cattle were grazing in the fields about it.
"They are Lord Lansdowne"s beasts," said my jarvey; "and it"s the emergency men are looking after them."
Nearly opposite were the Land League huts erected on the holding of an unevicted tenant--a small village of neat wooden "shanties." On the roadway in front of these half-a-dozen men were lounging about. They watched us with much curiosity as we drove up, and whispered eagerly together.
"They"re some of the evicted men, your honour," said my jarvey, with a twinkle in his eye; and then under his breath, "They"ll be thinking your honour"s came down to arrange it all. They think everybody that comes is come about an arrangement."
"Oh, then, they all want it arranged!"
"No; not all, but many of them do. Some of them like it well enough going about like gentlemen with nothing to do, only their hands in their pockets."
We turned out of the highway here and pa.s.sed some very pretty cottages.
"No, they"re not for labourers, your honour," said my jarvey; "the estate built them for mechanics. It"s the tenants look after the labourers, and little it is they do for them."