The old baronet threw up the sash, and as he did so, a general mar-mur of blessings and heavenly invocations met his ears--sounds, that if one were to judge from his brightening eye and beaming countenance, he relished well. No longer, however, as of old, suppliant, and entreating, with tremulous voice and shrinking gaze did they make their advances.
These people were now enlisted in his army of "regenerators"; they were converts to the landlords manifold theories of improved agriculture, neat cottages, pig-styes, dove-cots, bee-hives, and heaven knows what other suggestive absurdity, ease and affluence ever devised to plate over the surface of rude and rugged misery.
"The Lord bless your honour every morning you rise, "tis the iligant little place ye gave me to live in. Musha, "tis happy and comfortable I do be every night, now, barrin" that the slates does be falling betimes--bad luck to them for slates, one of them cut little Joe"s head this morning, and I brought him up for a bit of a plaster."
This was the address of a stout, middle-aged woman, with a man"s great coat around her in lieu of a cloak.
"Slates falling--why doesn"t your husband fasten them on again? he said he was a handy fellow, and could do any thing about a house."
"It was no lie then; Thady Morris is a good warrant for a job any day, and if it was thatch was on it----"
"Thatch--why, woman, I"ll have no thatch; I don"t want the cabins burned down, nor will I have them the filthy hovels they used to be."
"Why would your honour?--sure there"s rayson and sinse agin it," was the chorus of all present, while the woman resumed--
"Well, he tried that same too, your honour, and if he did, by my sowl, it was worse for him, for when he seen the slates going off every minit with the wind, he put the harrow on the top--"
"The harrow--put the harrow on the roof?"
"Just so--wasn"t it natural? But as sure as the wind riz, down came the harrow, and stript every dirty kippeen of a slate away with it."
"So the roof is off," said Sir Marmaduke with stifled rage.
"Tis as clean as my five fingers, the same rafters," said she with unmoved gravity.
"This is too bad--Wylie, do you hear this?" said the old gentleman, with a face dark with pa.s.sion.
"Aye," chorused in some half dozen friends of the woman--"nothing stands the wind like the thatch."
Wylie whispered some words to his master, and by a side gesture, motioned to the woman to take her departure. The hint was at once taken, and her place immediately filled by another. This was a short little old fellow, in yellow rags, his face concealed by a handkerchief, on removing which, he discovered a countenance that bore no earthly resemblance to that of a human being: the eyes were entirely concealed by swollen ma.s.ses of cheek and eye-lid--the nose might have been eight noses--and the round immense lips, and the small aperture between, looked like the opening in a ballot-box.
"Who is this?--what"s the matter here?" said Sir Marmaduke, as he stared in mingled horror and astonishment at the object before him.
"Faix, ye may well ax," said the little man, in a thick guttural voice.
"Sorra one of the neighbours knew me this morning. I"m Tim M"Garrey, of the cross-roads."
"What has happened to you then?" asked Sir Marmaduke, somewhat ruffled by the st.u.r.dy tone of the ragged fellow"s address.
""Tis your own doing, then--divil a less--you may be proud of your work."
"My doing!--how do you dare to say so?"
""Tis no darin" at all--"tis thrue, as I"m here. Them b.l.o.o.d.y beehives you made me take home wid me, I put them in a corner of the house, and by bad luck it was the pig"s corner, and, sorra bit, but she rooted them out, and upset them, and with that, the varmint fell upon us all, and it was two hours before we killed them--divil such a fight ever ye seen: Peggy had the beetle, and I the griddle, for flattening them agin the wall, and maybe we didn"t work hard, while the childer was roarin" and bawlin" for the bare life."
"Gracious mercy, would this be credited?--could any man conceive barbarism like this?" cried Sir Marmaduke, as with uplifted hands he stood overwhelmed with amazement.
Wylie again whispered something, and again telegraphed to the applicant to move off; but the little man stood his ground and continued. ""Twas a heifer you gave Tom Lenahan, and it"s a dhroll day, the M"Garrey"s warn"t as good as the Lenahans, to say we"d have nothing but bees, and them was to get a dacent baste!"
"Stand aside, sir," said Sir Marmaduke; "Wylie has got my orders about you. Who is this?"
"Faix, me, sir--Andrew Maher. I"m come to give your honour the key--I couldn"t stop there any longer."
"What! not stay in that comfortable house, with the neat shop I had built and stocked for you? What does this mean?"
""Tis just that, then, your honour--the house is a nate little place, and barrin" the damp, and the little grate, that won"t burn turf at all, one might do well enough in it; but the shop is the divil entirely."
"How so--what"s wrong about it?"
"Every thing"s wrong about it. First and foremost, your honour, the neighbours has no money; and though they might do mighty well for want of tobacco, and spirits, and bohea, and candles, and soap, and them trifles, as long as they never came near them, throth they couldn"t have them there fornint their noses, without wishing for a taste; and so one comes in for a pound of sugar, and another wants a ha" porth of nails, or a piece of naygar-head, or an ounce of starch--and divil a word they have, but "put it in the book, Andy." By my conscience, it"s a quare book would hould it all."
"But they"ll pay in time--they"ll pay when they sell the crops."
"Bother! I ax yer honour"s pardon--I was manin" they"d see me far enough first. Sure, when they go to market, they"ll have the rint, and the t.i.the, and the taxes; and when that"s done, and they get a sack of seed potatoes for next year, I"d like to know where"s the money that"s to come to me?"
"Is this true, Wylie?--are they as poor as this?" asked Sir Marmaduke.
Wylie"s answer was still a whispered one.
"Well," said Andy, with a sigh, "there"s the key any way. I"d rather be tachin" the gaffers again, than be keeping the same shop."
These complaints were followed by others, differing in kind and complexion, but all, agreeing in the violence with which they were urged, and all, inveighing against "the improvements" Sir Marmaduke was so interested in carrying forward. To hear them, you would suppose that the grievances suggested by poverty and want, were more in unison with comfort and enjoyment, than all the appliances wealth can bestow: and that the privations to which habit has inured us, are sources of greater happiness, than we often feel in the use of unrestricted liberty.
Far from finding any contented, Sir Marmaduke only saw a few among the number, willing to endure his bounties, as the means of obtaining other concessions they desired more ardently. They would keep their cabins clean, if any thing was to be made by it: they"d weed their potatoes, if Sir Marmaduke would only offer a price for the weeds. In fact, they were ready to engage in any arduous pursuit of cleanliness, decency, and propriety, but it must be for a consideration. Otherwise, they saw no reason for encountering labour, which brought no requital; and the _real_ benefits offered to them, came so often a.s.sociated with newfangled and absurd innovations, that, both became involved in the same disgrace, and both sunk in the same ridicule together. These were the refuse of the tenantry; for we have seen that the independent feeling of the better cla.s.s held them aloof from all the schemes of "improvement," which the others, by partic.i.p.ating in, contaminated.
Sir Marmaduke might, then, be pardoned, if he felt some sinking of the heart at his failure; and, although encouraged by his daughter to persevere in his plan to the end, more than once he was on the brink of abandoning the field in discomfiture, and confessing that the game was above his skill. Had he but taken one-half the pains to learn something of national character, that he bestowed on his absurd efforts to fashion it to his liking, his success might have been different. He would, at least, have known how to distinguish between the really deserving, and the unworthy recipients of his bounty--between the honest and independent peasant, earning his bread by the sweat of his brow, and the miserable dependant, only seeking a life of indolence, at any sacrifice of truth or character; and even this knowledge, small as it may seem, will go far in appreciating the difficulties which attend all attempts at Irish social improvement, and explain much of the success or failure observable in different parts of the country. But Sir Marmaduke fell into the invariable error of his countrymen--he first suffered himself to be led captive, by "blarney," and when heartily sick of the deceitfulness and trickery of those who employed it, coolly sat down with the conviction, that there was no truth in the land.
CHAPTER XVI. THE FOREIGN LETTER
The arrival of a post-letter at the O"Donoghue house was an occurrence of sufficient rarity to create some excitement in the household; and many a surmise, as to what new misfortune hung over the family, was hazarded between Mrs. Branagan and Kerry O"Leary, as the latter poised and balanced the epistle in his hand, as though its weight and form might a.s.sist him in his divination.
After having conned over all the different legal processes which he deemed might be conveyed in such a shape, and conjured up in his imagination a whole army of sheriffs, sub-sheriffs, bailiffs, and drivers, of which the ominous letter should prove the forerunner, he heaved a heavy sigh at the gloomy future his forebodings had created, and slowly ascended towards his master"s bed-room.
"How is Herbert?" said the O"Donoghue, as he heard the footsteps beside his bed, for he had been dreaming of the boy a few minutes previous.
"Who is that? Ah! Kerry. Well, how is he to-day?"
"Troth there"s no great change to spake of," said Kerry, who, not having made any inquiry himself, and never expecting to have been questioned on the subject, preferred this safe line of reply, as he deemed it, to a confession of his ignorance.
"Did he sleep well, Kerry?"
"Oh! for the matter of the sleep we won"t boast of it. But here"s a letter for your honour, come by the post."
"Leave it on the bed, and tell me about the boy."
"Faix there"s nothing particular, then, to tell yer honour--sometimes he"d be one way, sometimes another--and more times the same way again.
That"s the way he"d be all the night through."