The Absentee Part 19

'But the sooner the better,' said Mrs. Burke. 'Mr. Evans, I hope you will be so kind, if ever you hear this business talked of--'

'Mr. Evans lives in Wales, my dear.'

But he is travelling through Ireland, my dear, and he said he should return to Dublin, and, you know, there he certainly will hear it talked of; and I hope he will do me the favour to state what he has seen and knows to be the truth.'

'Be a.s.sured that I will do Mr. Burke justice--as far as it is in my power,' said Lord Colambre, restraining himself much, that he might not say more than became his a.s.sumed character. He took leave of this worthy family that night, and, early the next morning, departed.

'Ah!' thought he, as he drove away from this well-regulated and flouris.h.i.+ng place, 'how happy I might be, settled here with such a wife as--her of whom I must think no more.'

He pursued his way to Clonbrony, his father's other estate, which was at a considerable distance from Colambre; he was resolved to know what kind of agent Mr. Nicholas Garraghty might be, who was to supersede Mr.

Burke, and by power of attorney to be immediately ent.i.tled to receive and manage the Colambre as well as the Clonbrony estate.

CHAPTER X

Towards the evening of the second day's journey, the driver of Lord Colambre's hackney chaise stopped, and jumping off the wooden bar, on which he had been seated, exclaimed--

'We're come to the bad step, now. The bad road's beginning upon us, please your honour.'

'Bad road! that is very uncommon in this country. I never saw such fine roads as you have in Ireland.'

'That's true; and G.o.d bless your honour, that's sensible of that same, for it's not what all the foreign quality I drive have the manners to notice. G.o.d bless your honour! I heard you're a Welshman, but whether or no, I am sure you are a gentleman, anyway, Welsh or other.'

Notwithstanding the shabby greatcoat, the shrewd postillion perceived, by our hero's language, that he was a gentleman. After much dragging at the horses' heads, and pus.h.i.+ng and lifting, the carriage was got over what the postillion said was the worst part of THE BAD STEP; but as the road 'was not yet to say good,' he continued walking beside the carriage.

'It's only bad just hereabouts, and that by accident,' said he, 'on account of there being no jantleman resident in it, nor near; but only a bit of an under-agent, a great little rogue, who gets his own turn out of the roads, and of everything else in life. I, Larry Brady, that am telling your honour, have a good right to know, for myself, and my father, and my brother. Pat Brady, the wheelwright, had once a farm under him; but was ruined, horse and foot, all along with him, and cast out, and my brother forced to fly the country, and is now working in some coachmaker's yard, in London; banished he is!--and here am I, forced to be what I am--and now that I'm reduced to drive a hack, the agent's a curse to me still, with these bad roads, killing my horses and wheels and a shame to the country, which I think more of--Bad luck to him!'

'I know your brother; he lives with Mr. Mordicai, in Long Acre, in London.'

'Oh, G.o.d bless you for that!'

They came at this time within view of a range of about four-and-twenty men and boys, sitting astride on four-and-twenty heaps of broken stones, on each side of the road; they were all armed with hammers, with which they began to pound with great diligence and noise as soon as they saw the carriage. The chaise pa.s.sed between these batteries, the stones flying on all sides.

'How are you, Jem?--How are you, Phil?' said Larry. 'But hold your hand, can't ye, while I stop and get the stones out of the horses' FEET. So you're making up the rent, are you, for St. Dennis?'

'Whoos.h.!.+' said one of the pounders, coming close to the postillion, and pointing his thumb back towards the chaise. 'Who have you in it?'

'Oh, you need not scruple, he's a very honest man; he's only a man from North Wales, one Mr. Evans, an innocent jantleman, that's sent over to travel up and down the country, to find is there any copper mines in it.'

'How do you know, Larry?'

'Because I know very well, from one that was tould, and I SEEN him tax the man of the King's Head, with a copper half-crown, at first sight, which was only lead to look at, you'd think, to them that was not skilful in copper. So lend me a knife, till I cut a linch-pin out of the hedge, for this one won't go far.'

Whilst Larry was making the linch-pin, all scruple being removed, his question about St. Dennis and the rent was answered.

'Ay, it's the rint, sure enough, we're pounding out for him; for he sent the driver round last-night-was-eight days, to warn us old Nick would be down a'-Monday, to take a sweep among us; and there's only six clear days, Sat.u.r.day night, before the a.s.sizes, sure; so we must see and get it finished anyway, to clear the presentment again' the swearing day, for he and Paddy Hart is the overseers themselves, and Paddy is to swear to it.'

'St. Dennis, is it? Then you've one great comfort and security--that he won't be PARTICULAR about the swearing; for since ever he had his head on his shoulders, an oath never stuck in St. Dennis's throat, more than in his own brother, old Nick's.'

'His head upon his shoulders!' repeated Lord Colambre. 'Pray, did you ever hear that St. Dennis's head was off his shoulders?'

'It never was, plase your honour, to my knowledge.'

'Did you never, among your saints, hear of St. Dennis carrying his head in his hand?' said Colambre.

'The RAEL saint!' said the postillion, suddenly changing his tone, and looking shocked. 'Oh, don't be talking that way of the saints, plase your honour.'

'Then of what St, Dennis were you talking just now?--Whom do you mean by St. Dennis, and whom do you call old Nick?'

'Old Nick,' answered the postillion, coming close to the side of the carriage, and whispering--'Old Nick, plase your honour, is our nickname for one Nicholas Garraghty, Esq., of College Green, Dublin, and St.

Dennis is his brother Dennis, who is old Nick's brother in all things, and would fain be a saint, only he is a sinner. He lives just by here, in the country, under-agent to Lord Clonbrony, as old Nick is upper-agent--it's only a joke among the people, that are not fond of them at all. Lord Clonbrony himself is a very good jantleman, if he was not an absentee, resident in London, leaving us and everything to the likes of them.'

Lord Colambre listened with all possible composure and attention; but the postillion having now made his linch-pin of wood, and FIXED HIMSELF; he mounted his bar, and drove on, saying to Lord Colambre, as he looked at the road-makers--

'Poor CRATURES! They couldn't keep their cattle out of pound, or themselves out of jail, but by making this road.'

'Is road-making, then, a very profitable business?--Have road-makers higher wages than other men in this part of the country?'

'It is, and it is not--they have, and they have not--plase your honour.'

'I don't understand you.'

'No, becaase you're an Englishman--that is, a Welshman--I beg your honour's pardon. But I'll tell you how that is, and I'll go slow over these broken stones for I can't go fast: it is where there's no jantleman over these under-agents, as here, they do as they plase; and when they have set the land they get rasonable from the head landlords, to poor cratures at a rack-rent, that they can't live and pay the rent, they say--'

'Who says?'

'Them under-agents, that have no conscience at all. Not all--but SOME, like Dennis, says, says he, "I'll get you a road to make up the rent:"

that is, plase your honour, the agent gets them a presentment for so many perches of road from the grand jury, at twice the price that would make the road. And tenants are, by this means, as they take the road by contract, at the price given by the county, able to pay all they get by the job, over and above potatoes and salt, back again to the agent, for the arrear on the land. Do I make your honour SENSIBLE?' [Do I make you understand?]

'You make me much more sensible than I ever was before,' said Lord Colambre; 'but is not this cheating the county?'

'Well, and suppose,' replied Larry, 'is not it all for my good, and yours too, plase your honour?' said Larry, looking very shrewdly.

'My good!' said Lord Colambre, startled. 'What have I to do with it?'

'Haven't you to do with the roads as well as me, when you're travelling upon them, plase your honour? And sure, they'd never be got made at all, if they weren't made this ways; and it's the best way in the wide world, and the finest roads we have. And when the RAEL jantlemen's resident in the country, there's no jobbing can be, because they're then the leading men on the grand jury; and these journeymen jantlemen are then kept in order, and all's right.'

Lord Colambre was much surprised at Larry's knowledge of the manner in which county business is managed, as well as by his shrewd good sense: he did not know that this is not uncommon in his rank of life in Ireland.

Whilst Larry was speaking, Lord Colambre was looking from side to side at the desolation of the prospect.

'So this is Lord Clonbrony's estate, is it?'

'Ay, all you see, and as far and farther than you can see. My Lord Clonbrony wrote, and ordered plantations here, time back; and enough was paid to labourers for ditching and planting. And, what next?--Why, what did the under-agent do, but let the goats in through gaps, left o' purpose, to bark the trees, and then the trees was all banished. And next, the cattle was let in trespa.s.sing, and winked at, till the land was all poached; and then the land was waste, and cried down; and St.

Dennis wrote up to Dublin to old Nick, and he over to the landlord, how none would take it, or bid anything at all for it; so then it fell to him a cheap bargain. Oh, the tricks of them! who knows 'em, if I don't?'

Presently, Lord Colambre's attention was roused again, by seeing a man running, as if for his life, across a bog, near the roadside; he leaped over the ditch, and was upon the road in an instant. He seemed startled at first, at the sight of the carriage; but, looking at the postillion, Larry nodded, and he smiled and said--