Ireland as It Is Part 11

"Tell me, now, honey, is it Day an' Martin's ye use?"

Ennis (Co. Clare), April 29th.

No. 16.--CIVIL WAR IN COUNTY CLARE.

The name of Bod.y.k.e is famous throughout all lands, but few people know anything about the place or the particulars of the great dispute. The whole district is at present in a state of complete lawlessness. The condition of matters is almost incredible, and is such as might possibly be expected in the heart of Africa, but hardly in a civilised country, especially when that country is under the benignant British rule. The law-breakers seem to have the upper hand, and to be almost, if not quite, masters of the situation. The whole estate is divided into three properties, Fort Ann, Milltown, and Bod.y.k.e, about five thousand acres in all, of which the first two comprise about one thousand five hundred acres, isolated from the Bod.y.k.e lands, which latter may amount to some three thousand five hundred acres. Either by reason of their superior honesty, or, as is sometimes suggested, on account of their inferior strategic position, the tenants of the Fort Ann and Milltown lands pay their rent. The men of Bod.y.k.e are in a state of open rebellion, and resist every process of law both by evasion and open force. The hill-tops are manned by sentries armed with rifles. Bivouac fires blaze nightly on every commanding eminence.

Colonel O'Callaghan's agent is a c.o.c.k-shot from every convenient mound. His rides are made musical by the 'ping' of rifle b.a.l.l.s, and nothing but the dread of his repeating rifle, with which he is known to be handy, prevents the marksmen from coming to close quarters. Mr.

Stannard MacAdam seems to bear a charmed life. He is a fine athletic young man, calm and collected, modest and una.s.suming, and, as he declares, no talker. He has been described as a man of deeds, not words. He said, "I am not a literary man. I have not the skill to describe incident, or to give a clear and detailed account of what has taken place. I have refused to give information to the local journalists. My business is to manage the estate, and that takes me all my time. You must get particulars elsewhere. I would rather not speak of my own affairs or those of Colonel O'Callaghan."

There was nothing for it but to turn my unwilling back on this veritable gold mine. But although Mr. MacAdam could not or would not speak, others were not so reticent, and once in the neighbourhood the state of things was made plainly evident. The road from Ennis to Bod.y.k.e is dull and dreary, and abounds with painful memories.

Half-an-hour out you reach the house, or what remains of it, of Francis Hynes, who was hanged for shooting a man. A little further and you reach the place where Mr. Perry was shot. A wooded spot, "convaynient" for ambush, once screened some would-be murderers who missed their mark. Then comes the house of the Misses Brown, in which on Christmas Eve shots were fired, by way of celebrating the festive season. From a clump of trees some four hundred yards from the road the police on a car were fired upon, the horse being shot dead in his tracks. The tenantry of this sweet district are keeping up their rifle practice, and competent judges say that the Bod.y.k.e men possess not less than fifty rifles, none of which can be found by the police. Said one of the constabulary, "They lack nerve to fire from shorter distances, as they think MacAdam is the better shot, and to miss him would be risky, as he is known to shoot rabbits with ball cartridge.

At the same time, I remember Burke of Loughrea, who was shot, had also a fine reputation as a rifleman, but they settled him neatly enough. I saw him in the Railway Inn, Athenry, just before he was killed, with a repeating rifle slung on his back and a revolver on his hip. I saw him ride away, his servant driving while Burke kept the c.o.c.ked rifle ready, the b.u.t.t under his armpit, the trigger in his hand. He sat with his back to the horse, keeping a good look-out, and yet they shot both him and his servant as they galloped along. The horse and car came in without them. To carry arms is therefore not a complete security, though no doubt it is, to some extent, a deterrent.

But my opinion is that when a man is ordered to be shot he will be shot. Clare swarms with secret societies, and you never know from one moment to another what resolutions they will pa.s.s. I don't know what the end of it will be, but I should think that Home Rule, by giving the murderers a fancied security, would in this district lead to wholesale bloodshed. The whole country would rise, as they do now, to meet the landlord or his agent, but they would then do murder without the smallest hesitation."

His companion said--the police here are never alone--"The first thing Morley did was to rescind the Crimes Act. When we heard of that we said 'Now it's coming.' And we've got it. Every man with a head on him, and not a turnip, knew very well what would happen. The police are shot at till they take no notice of it. Sometimes we charge up the hills to the spot where the firing started, but among the rocks and ravines and hills and holes they run like rabbits, or they hand their arms to some fleet-footed chap to hide, while they stay--aye, they do, they actually stand their ground till we come, and there they are working at a hedge or digging the ground, and looking as innocent and stupid as possible. They never saw anybody, and never heard any firing--or they thought it was the Colonel shooting a hare. We hardly know what to do in doubtful cases, as we know the tenants have the support of the Government, and it is as much as our places are worth to make any mistake under present circ.u.mstances. The tenants know that too, so between them and Morley we feel between two fires."

The trouble has been alive for fifteen years or so, but it was not until 1887 that Bod.y.k.e became a regularly historic place. The tenants had paid no rent for years, and wholesale evictions were tried, but without effect. The people walked in again the next day, and as the gallant Colonel had not an army division at his back he was obliged to confess himself beaten at every point. He went in for arbitration, but before giving details let us first take a bird's eye view of his position. I will endeavour to state the case as fairly as possible, premising that nothing will be given beyond what is freely admitted by both parties to the dispute.

The Colonel, who is a powerfully-built, bronzed, and active man, seemingly over sixty years old, left the service just forty years ago.

Four years before that his father had died, heavily in debt, leaving the estate enc.u.mbered by a mortgage, a jointure to the relict, Mrs.

O'Callaghan, now deceased (the said jointure being at that time several years in arrear), a head rent of a hundred guineas a year to Colonel Patterson, with taxes, t.i.the rent-charges, and heaven knows what besides. In 1846 and 1847 his father had made considerable reductions in the rents of the Bod.y.k.e holdings, but the tenants had contrived to fall into arrears to the respectable tune of 6,000, or thereabouts. Such was the state of things when the heir came into his happy possessions.

A Protestant clergyman said to me--"Land in Ireland is like self-righteousness. The more you have, the worse off you are." Thus was it at Bod.y.k.e.

Something had to be done. To ask the tenants for the 6,000 was mere waste of breath. The young soldier had no agent. He was determined to be the people's friend. Although a Black Protestant, he was ambitious of Catholic good-will. He wanted to have the tenants blessing him. He coveted the good name which is better than rubies. He wished to make things comfortable, to be a general benefactor of his species; if a Protestant landlord and a Roman Catholic tenantry can be said to be of the same species at all, a point which, according to the Nationalist press, is at least doubtful. He called the tenants together, and agreed to accept three hundred pounds for the six thousand pounds legally due, so as to make a fresh start and encourage the people to walk in the paths of righteousness. When times began to mend, the Colonel himself a farmer, commenced to raise the rents until they reached the amount paid during his father's reign. The people stood it quietly enough until 1879, when the Colonel appointed agents. This year was one of agricultural depression. A Mr. Willis succeeded the two first agents, but during the troubles he resigned his charge. The popular opinion leans to the supposition that his administration was ineffective, that is, that he was comparatively unused to field strategy, that he lacked dash and military resource, and that he entertained a const.i.tutional objection to being shot. The rents came under the judicial arrangement, and reductions were made. Still things would not work smoothly, and it was agreed that bad years should be further considered on rent days. This agreement led to reductions on the judicial rent of 25 to 30 per cent., besides which the Colonel, in the arbitration of 1887, had accepted 1,000 in lieu of several thousand pounds of arrears then due. After November, 1891, the tenants ceased to pay rent at all, and that is practically their present position. The Colonel, who being himself an experienced farmer is a competent judge of agricultural affairs, thinks the tenants are able to pay, and even believes that they are willing, were it not for the intimidation of half-a-score village ruffians whose threatened moonlighting exploits, when considered in conjunction with the b.l.o.o.d.y deeds which have characterised the district up to recent times, are sufficient to paralyse the whole force of the British Empire, when that force is directed by the feeble fumblers now in office.

That they can pay if they will, is clearly proved by recent occurrences. Let us abandon ancient history and bring our story down to date. The number of incidents is so great, and the complications arising from local customs and prejudices are so bewildering that only after much inquiry have I been able to sort from the tangled web a few clear and understandable instances, which, however, may be taken as a fair sample of the whole.

New brooms sweep clean. The new agent, Mr. MacAdam, began to negotiate. Pow-wows and palavers all ended in smoke, and as meanwhile the charges on the estate were going on merrily, and no money was coming in to meet them, writs were issued against six of the best-off farmers; writs, not decrees, the writ being a more effective instrument. One Malone was evicted. He was a married man, without enc.u.mbrances, owed several years' arrears, had mismanaged his farm, a really good bit of land, had been forgiven a lot of rent, and still he was not happy. A relative had lent him nearly 200 to carry on, but Malone was a bottomless pit. What he required was a gold mine and a man to shovel up the ore, but unhappily no such thing existed on the farm. The relative offered to take the land, believing that he could soon recoup himself the loan, but Malone held on with iron grip, refusing to listen to the voice of the charmer, charmed he never so wisely. The relative wished to take the place at the judicial rent, and offered to give Malone the house, gra.s.s for a cow, and the use of three acres of land. Malone declined to make any change, and as a last resort it was decided to evict him. On the auspicious day MacAdam arrived from Limerick, accompanied by two men from Dublin, whom he proposed to instal as caretakers in Malone's house. The Sheriff's party were late, and MacAdam, waiting at some distance, was discovered and the alarm given. Horns were blown, the chapel bell was rung, the whole country turned out in force. Antic.i.p.ating seizure, the people drove away their cattle, and shortly no hoof nor horn was visible in the district. A crowd collected and, observing the caretakers, at once divined their mission, and perceived that not seizure, but eviction, was the order of the day. They rushed to Malone's house, and, with his consent and a.s.sistance, tore off the roof, smashed the windows, and demolished the doors. The place was thus rendered uninhabitable.

This having been happily effected, the Sheriff's party arrived an hour or so late, in the Irish fas.h.i.+on. Possession was formally given to the agent, who was now free to revel in the four bare walls, and to enjoy the highly-ventilated condition of the building. The crowd became more and more threatening, and if they could have mustered pluck to run in on the loaded rifles, Sheriff, agent, and escort must have been murdered without mercy. The shouting and threatening were heard two miles away. But the tenants had taken other measures. A firing party was posted on a neighbouring hill, and as the Sheriff left the shelter of the walls a volley was poured in from a clump of trees four hundred yards away, one bullet narrowly missing a man who ducked at the flash. The riflemen were visible among the trees, and the Sheriff returned the fire. Several policemen also fired into the clump, but without effect, and their fire was briskly returned from the hill, this time just missing the head of a policeman covered by a bush, a bullet cutting off a branch close to his ear. The police then prepared to charge up the hill, when the firing party decamped. No arrests were made, although the marksmen must have been dwellers in the neighbourhood. A policeman said, "We know who they are; you can't conceal these things in a country place; but we have no legal evidence, and although we saw them at four hundred yards, who will accept our identification at such a distance? And of course no jury would convict. We have no remedy in this unfortunate country. So long as Gladstone and such folks are bidding for the people's votes so long we shall have lawlessness. But for the change of Government all would long have been settled amicably. But I heard a young priest say to the people, 'Hold on a bit till the new Government goes in.'"

To return to the Malone affair, Mr. MacAdam applied to the police for resident protection not for himself, but for the caretakers, whom he now proposed to instal in a farmhouse in the occupation of one of the Colonel's servants, and from which no one had been evicted. The authorities refused protection on the very remarkable plea that the situation of the aforesaid premises was so dangerous! so that had the place been quite safe, they would have consented to protect it.

MacAdam determined to carry out his plan, with or without protection.

He left Limerick at midnight with an ammunition and provision train of seven cars, with two caretakers and four workmen, with materials to fortify the place. He had previously given the authorities notice that he meant to occupy Knockclare, the house in question, and before he started they sent a police-sergeant from Tulla, a twenty miles drive, to formally warn him off, for that his life would a.s.suredly be taken, and the officer also demanded that he should be permitted to personally warn the caretakers of the risk they ran. This was granted, but the men stuck to their guns. At the eviction a man had funked, frightened out of his seven senses. The police declined all responsibility, but offered to guard the farm for a s.h.i.+lling per man per day. MacAdam thought this proposal without precedent, and left the police to their own devices, driving along the twenty miles of hilly road, with sorry steeds that refused the last hill, so that the loads had to be pushed and carried up by the men. This was at eight or nine in the morning, after many hours' toilsome march. The fun was not over yet. Like the penny show, it was "just a-goin' to begin."

The crowd turned out and with awful threats of instant death menaced the lives of the party, who, with levelled rifles, at last gained the building. The people brought boards, and showed the caretakers their coffins in the rough. They spoke of shooting, and swore they would roast them alive that night by burning the house in which they were sheltered. A shot was fired at MacAdam. A sergeant with one man arrived from Tulla police-barracks and urged the party to leave before they were murdered. MacAdam would hold his post at all risks. Later eight armed policemen arrived, and then two carmen started to go home.

A wall of stones blocked the road. They somehow got over that, and found a second wall a little further on. Here was a menacing crowd, and the police who followed the car drew their revolvers, and with great determination advanced on the mob, saving the carmen's lives, for which they were publicly praised from the Bench. But the jarveys returned, and by a circuitous route reached Limerick via Killaloe, thanking Heaven for their whole skins, and vowing never to so risk them again. The County Inspector who refused the party police protection explained that he did so "out of regard for the safety of his men." He said, "I had more than Mr. MacAdam and his party to consider. I must preserve the lives of the men in my charge."

At present the two caretakers hold the citadel, which is also garrisoned by a force of sixteen policemen regularly relieved by day and by night, every man armed to the teeth. Now and then the foinest pisintry in the wuruld turn out to the neighbouring hills and blaze away with rifles at the doors and windows of the little barn-like structure. The marksmen want a competent instructor. Anyone who knows anything of shooting knows the high art and scientific knowledge required for long-range rifle practice. These men are willing, but they lack science. Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time, has ne'er unrolled. Mr. Gladstone might bring over from the Transvaal a number of the Boers whose shooting impressed him so much to coach these humble Kelts in the mysteries of rifle shooting. Such a measure would perceptibly accelerate the pa.s.sage of the Home Rule Bill.

Such is the state of things in Bod.y.k.e at this moment. Colonel O'Callaghan has had no penny of rent for years--that is, nothing for himself. What has been paid by the tenants of Fort Ann and Milltown has been barely sufficient to meet the charges on the estate. The Colonel thinks that the more he concedes the more his people want. He has had many narrow escapes from shooting, and rather expects to be bagged at last. He seems to be const.i.tutionally unconscious of fear, but the police, against his wish, watch over him. In the few instances in which Mr. MacAdam, his agent, has effected seizures, the people have immediately paid up--have simply walked into their houses, brought out the money, and planked down the rent with all expenses, the latter amounting to some 20 or 25 per cent. They _can_ pay. The Colonel, who lives by farming, having no other source of income, knows their respective positions exactly, and declines to be humbugged. The tenants believe that they will shortly have the land for nothing, and they are content to remain in a state of siege, themselves beleaguering the investing force, lodged in the centre of the position. The fields are desolate, tillage is suspended, and the whole of the cattle are driven out of sight. Armed men watch each other by night and by day, and bloodshed may take place at any moment. The farming operations of the whole region are disorganised and out of joint. Six men have been arrested for threats and violence, but all were discharged--the jury would not convict, although the judge said the evidence for the defence was of itself sufficient to convict the gang. A ruffian sprang on MacAdam with an open knife, swearing he would disembowel him. After a terrible struggle the man was disarmed and secured, brought up before the beak, and the offence proved to the hilt. This gentleman was dismissed without a stain on his character.

MacAdam asked that he should at least be bound over to keep the peace.

This small boon was refused. Comment is needless. How long are the English people going to stand this Morley-Gladstone management?

I have not yet been able to interview Colonel O'Callaghan himself, but my information, backed by my own observation, may be relied on as accurate. The carman who drove me hither said "The Bod.y.k.e boys are dacent fellows, but they must have their sport. Tis their nature to be shootin' folks, an' ye can't find fault with a snipe for havin' a long bill. An' they murther ye in sich a tinder-hearted way that no raisonable landlord could have any objection to it."

I have the honour of again remarking that Ireland is a wonderful country.

Bod.y.k.e (Co. Clare), May 2nd.

No. 17.--RENT AT THE ROOT OF NATIONALISM.

The tenants of the Bod.y.k.e property stigmatise Colonel O'Callaghan as the worst landlord in the world, and declare themselves totally unable to pay the rent demanded, and even in some cases say that they cannot pay any rent at all, a statement which is effectually contradicted by the fact that most of them pay up when fairly out-generalled by the das.h.i.+ng strategy of Mr. Stannard MacAdam, whose experience as a racing bicyclist seems to have stood him in good stead. The country about Bod.y.k.e has an unfertile look, a stony, boggy, barren appearance. Here and there are patches of tolerable land, but the district cannot fairly be called a garden of Eden. Being desirous of hearing both sides of the question, I have conversed with several of the complaining farmers, most of whom have very small holdings, if their size be reckoned by the rent demanded. The farmers' homes are not luxurious, but the rural standard of luxury is in Ireland everywhere far below that of the English cottar, who would hold up his hands in dismay if required to accommodate himself to such surroundings.

Briefly stated, the case of the tenants is based on an alleged agreement on the part of Colonel O'Callaghan to make a reduction of twenty-five per cent. on judicial rents and thirty-seven and a half per cent. on non-judicial rents, whenever the farming season proved unfavourable. This was duly carried out until 1891, when the question arose as to whether that was or was not a bad year. The tenants say that 1891 was abnormally bad for them, but that on attending to pay their rent, believing that the reductions which had formerly been made, and which they had come to regard as invariable, would again take place, they were told that the customary rebate would now cease and determine, and that therefore they were expected to pay their rents in full. This they profess to regard as a flagrant breach of faith, and they at once decided to pay no rent at all. The position became a deadlock, and such it still remains. They affect to believe that the last agent, Mr. Willis, resigned his post out of sheer sympathy, and not because he feared sudden translation to a brighter sphere. They complain that the Colonel's stables are too handsome, and that they themselves live in cabins less luxurious than the lodgings of the landlord's horses. There is no epithet too strong to express their indignation against the devoted Colonel, who was described by one imaginative peasant, who had worked himself up to a sort of descriptive convulsion, as a "Rawhacious Vagabone," a fine instance of extemporaneous word-coining of the ideo-phonetic school, which will doubtless be greedily accepted by Nationalist Parliamentarians who, long ago, exhausted their vocabulary of expletives in dealing with Mr.

Gladstone and each other.

The Bod.y.k.ers have one leading idea, to "wait yet awhile." Home Rule will banish the landlords, and give the people the land for nothing at all. The peasantry are mostly fine-grown men, well-built and well-nourished, bearing no external trace of the hards.h.i.+ps they claim to have endured. They are civil and obliging, and thoroughly inured to the interviewer. They have a peculiar accent, of a sing-song character, which now and then threatens to break down the stranger's gravity. That the present state of things is intolerable, and cannot last much longer, they freely admit, but they claim to have the tacit sympathy of the present Government, and gleefully relate with what unwillingness police protection was granted to the agent and his men.

They disclaim any intention of shooting or otherwise murdering the landlord or his officers, and a.s.sert that the fact that they still live is sufficient evidence in this direction. Said one white-headed man of gentle, deferential manner:--

"The days o' landlord shootin' is gone by. If the Boys wanted to shoot the Colonel what's to hinder them? Would his double-barrel protect him, or the four dogs he has about him, that he sends sniffin' an'

growlin' about the threes an' ditches. If the word wint out he wouldn't live a day, nor his agint nayther. An' his durty emergency men, that's posted like spies at the house beyant, could be potted any time they showed their noses. An' couldn't we starve thim out?

Couldn't we cut off their provisions? Why would we commit murther whin we have only to wait till things turn round, which wid the help of G.o.d will be afore long. We're hara.s.sed an' throubled, always pullin' the divil by the tail, but that won't last for ever. We'll have our own men, that ondershtands Oireland, to put us right, an' then O'Callaghan an' all his durty thribe'll be fired out of the counthry before ye can say black's the white o' my eye; an' black curses go wid thim."

The caretakers are not accessible. Stringent orders forbid the giving of information to any person whatever. This is unfortunate, as a look at their diaries would prove amusing. They must feel like rabbits living in a burrow bored in a sporting district, or the man in the iron mask, or the late respected Damocles, or the gentleman who saw the handwriting on the wall. Their sleep must be troubled. They must have ugly dreams of treasons, stratagems, and spoils, and when they wake, swearing a prayer or two, they doubtless see through the gloom, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN (I quote from memory), in lurid letters on the ceiling of their stronghold. Their waking visions and their daily talk must be of guns and pikes, of graves and coffins, shrouds and skeletons. Perhaps they, like Mr. MacAdam and some others, have received missives sprinkled with blood, and ornamented with skulls and cross-bones, those famous national emblems which the Irish tenant sketches with a rude, untutored art; bold, freehand drawings, done in gore by hereditary instinct. It may be that they see the newspapers, that they learn how the other day the house of a caretaker at Tipperary was, by incendiaries, burned to the ground, the poor fellow at the time suffering from lockjaw, taking his food with difficulty, owing to his having some time previously been shot through the face.

Or they may read of the shooting case at Castleisland, and how Mr.

Magilicuddy suggests that such cases be made public, that the people may know something of the present lawlessness of the country, or of the narrow squeak of Mr. Walshe, a schoolmaster, living just outside Ennis, who barely escaped with his life from two bullets, fired at him, because his wife had been appointed mistress of the girls; or the sad affair of Mr. Blood of the same district, who being an admittedly kind and amiable man, is compelled to be always under the escort of four armed policemen for that he did discharge a herdman without first asking permission from the local patriots. Or they may meditate on the fate of the old man near Clonmel, who was so beaten that he has since died, his daughter, who might have aided him, having first been fastened in her room. These and a hundred similar instances of outrage and attempted murder have crept into print during the last few days.

Red ruin and the breaking-up of laws herald the Home Rule Bill. And if the premonitory symptoms be thus severe, how shall we doctor the disease itself?

The other day I stumbled on Mr. Lynn, of Dublin, whom I first met at the Queen's Hotel, Portadown, County Armagh. He said, "We ought to know what the Home Rule Bill will do. We know the materials of which the dish is composed, we have seen their preparation and mixing, we now have the process of cooking before us, and when we get it it will give us indigestion."

The Bod.y.k.ers have a new grievance, one of most recent date. They had found a delightful means of evasion, which for a time worked well, but the bottom has been knocked out of it, and their legal knowledge has proved of no avail. To pay rent whenever a seizure was effected was voted a bore, a calamitous abandonment of principle, and a loss of money which might be better applied. So that when MacAdam made his latest seizures, say on the land of Brown and Jones, these out-manoeuvred tenants brought forward friends named Smith and Robinson who deeply swore and filed affidavits to the effect that the cattle so seized belonged to them, Smith and Robinson to wit, and not to the afore-mentioned Brown and Jones, on whose land they were found.

Here was a pretty kettle of fish. Colonel O'Callaghan, or his agent, were processed for illegal distraint, and the evidence being dead against the landlord, that fell tyrant had on several occasions to disgorge his prey, whereat there was great rejoicing in Bod.y.k.e. The new agent, however, is a tough customer, and in his quality of Clerk of Petty Sessions dabbles in legal lore. He found an Act which provides that, after due formalities, distraint may be made on any cattle found on the land in respect of which rent is due, no matter to whom the said cattle may belong. The tenants are said to have been arranging an amicable interchange of grazing land, the cows of Smith feeding on the land of Brown, and _vice versa_, so that the affidavit agreement might have some colour of decency. The ancient Act discovered by the ardent MacAdam has rendered null and void this proposed fraternal reciprocity, and the order to conceal every hoof and horn pending discovery of the right answer to this last atrocity has been punctually obeyed, the local papers slanging landlord and agent, but seemingly unable to find the proper countermine. No end of details and of incident might be given, but no substantial increase could be made to the information, given in this and my preceding letter. The tenants say that the landlord perversely refuses the reductions allowed in better times, and the landlord says that as a practical farmer he believes that those upon whom he has distrained or attempted to distrain are able to pay in full. He declares that he has not proceeded against those who from any cause are unable to meet their obligations, but only against the well-to-do men, who, having the money in hand, are deliberately withholding his just and reasonable due, taking advantage of the disturbed state of the country and the weakness of the Government to benefit themselves, regardless of the suffering their selfishness entails on innocent people.

In striking contrast to the turbulence of the Bod.y.k.e men is the peaceful calm of the Castleconnel people. I have had several pleasant interviews with Lady de Burgho, whose territory embraces some sixty thousand acres, and who, during a widowed life of twenty-two years, has borne the stress and strain of Irish estate administration, with its eternal and wearisome chopping and changing of law, its labyrinthine complications, its killing responsibilities. Lady de Burgho is, after all, very far from dead, exhibiting in fact a marvellous vitality, and discoursing of the ins and outs of the various hara.s.sing Land Acts, and the astute diplomacy needful to save something from the wreck, with a light, airy vivacity, and a rich native humour irresistibly charming. The recital of her troubles, losses, and burdens, the dodgery and trickery of legal luminaries, and the total extinction of rent profits is delivered with an easy grace, and with the colour and effervescence of sparkling Burgundy. To be deprived of nine-tenths of your income seems remarkably good fun; to be ruined, an enviable kind of thing. Lady de Burgho commenced her reign with one fixed principle, from which nothing has ever induced her to deviate. Under no conceivable circ.u.mstances would she allow eviction. No agent could induce her to sign a writ. "I could not sleep if I had turned out an Irish family," says Lady de Burgho, adding, with great sagacity, "and besides eviction never does any good." So that this amiable lady has the affections of her people, if she handles not their cash. And who shall estimate the heart's pure feelings? Saith not the wisest of men that a good report maketh the bones fat? Is not the goodwill of the foinest pisintry in the wuruld more to be desired than much fine gold? Is it not sweeter also than honey or the honeycomb?

Certain mortgagees who wished to appropriate certain lands offered liberal terms to Lady de Burgho on condition that she would for three years absent herself from Ireland, holding no communication with her tenants during that period. Lady de Burgho objected. She said, "If I accepted your terms my people on my return would believe, and they would be justified in believing, that I had been for three years incarcerated in a lunatic asylum." Tableau! Three American gentlemen visiting Castleconnel told Lady de Burgho that the success of the present agitation in favour of Home Rule would be the first step towards making Ireland an American dependency, a p.r.o.nouncement which is not without substantial foundation. The feeling of the ma.s.ses is towards America, and away from England. To the New World, where are more Irish than in Ireland (so they say) the poorer cla.s.ses look with steadfast eye. To them America is the chief end of man, the earthly Paradise, the promised land, the El Dorado, a heaven upon earth. Every able-bodied man is saving up to pay his pa.s.sage, every good-looking girl is anxious to give herself a better chance in the States. Nearly all have relatives to give them a start, and glowing letters from fortunate emigrants are the theme of every village. The effect of these epistles is obvious enough. Home Rule, say the Nationalists, will stop emigration. That this is with them a matter of hope, or pious belief, is made clear by their conversation. They give no good reason for their faith. They are cornered with consummate ease. The plausibilities gorged by Gladstonian gulls do not go down in Ireland.

They are not offered to Irishmen. "Made in Ireland for English gabies"

should be branded upon them. The most convincing arguments against the bill are those adduced by Home Rulers in its favour. Here is a faithful statement of reasons for Home Rule, as given by Alderman Downing, of Limerick, and another gentleman then present whose name I know not:--

"When you allow the Irish Legislature to frame its own laws, disorder and outrage will be put down with an iron hand. We have no law at present. Put an Irish Parliament in Dublin, and we would arrange to hang up moonlighters to the nearest tree. Everybody would support the law if imposed from Dublin. They resent it as imposed by Englishmen in London."

"I am not in favour of handing over the government of Ireland to the present leaders of the Irish party. I believe that, once granted Home Rule, they would disappear into private life, and that we should replace them by better men. What reason for believing this? Oh, I think the people would begin to feel their responsibility. Do I think the idea of 'responsibility' is their leading idea? Perhaps not at this moment, but they will improve. You think that the people may be fairly expected to return the same cla.s.s of men? Perhaps so. I hope not. I should think they would see the necessity of sending men of position and property. Why don't they send them now? Simply because they won't come forward; that cla.s.s of men do not believe in Home Rule."

I humbly submitted that this would prevent their coming forward in future, and that if Home Rule were admittedly bad under the present leaders, there was really no case to go to a jury, as there was no evidence before the court to show that the leaders would be dropped.

On the contrary, there was every probability that the victorious promoters of the bill would be returned by acclamation. Further, that if Home Rule be gladly accepted as a pearl of great price, to drop the gainers thereof, to dismiss the men who had borne the burden and heat of the day, would be an act of shabbiness unworthy the proverbial grat.i.tude and generosity of the Irish people.

Alderman Downing would only exclude them from Parliamentary place, and would not exclude all even then. The bulk of them might be found some sort of situation where decent salaries would atone for the dropping.

Would that be jobbery? "Ah, you ask too many questions."

Let it be noted that although the greater part of the Irish Nationalist members are everywhere rejected beforehand by superior Home Rulers, as unfit for an Irish Parliament, they are apparently for that very reason sent to the House of Commons as the best sort to tease the brutal Saxon. The bulldog is not the n.o.blest, nor the handsomest, nor the swiftest, nor the most faithful, nor the most sagacious, nor the most pleasant companion of the canine world, but he is a good 'un to hang on the nose of the bull.