As we issued from the glen the country became more open; patches of
cultivation presented themselves, and an air of comfort and condition
superior to what we had hitherto seen was observable in the dwellings of
the country-people. The road lead through a broad valley bounded on one
side by a chain of lofty mountains, and on the other separated by
the Shannon from the swelling hills of Munster. Deeply engaged in our
thoughts, we travelled along for some miles without speaking. The scene
we had witnessed was of that kind that seemed to forbid our recurrence
to it, save in our own gloomy reflections. We had not gone far when the
noise of horsemen on the road behind us induced us to turn our heads.
They came along at a sharp trot, and we could soon perceive that
although the two or three foremost were civilians, they who followed
were dragoons. I thought I saw the priest change colour as the clank of
the accoutrements struck upon his ear. I had, however, but little time
for the observation, as the party soon overtook us.
'You are early on the road, gentlemen,' said a strong, powerfully-built
man, who, mounted upon a grey horse of great bone and action, rode close
up beside us.
'Ah, Sir Thomas, is it you?' said the priest, affecting at once his
former easy and indifferent manner. 'I'd rather see the hounds at your
back than those beagles of King George there. Is there anything wrong in
the country?'
'Let me ask you another question,' said the knight in answer. 'How long
have you been in it, and where did you pass the night, not to hear of
what has occurred?'
''Faith, a home question,' said the priest, summoning up a hearty laugh
to conceal his emotion; 'but if the truth must out, we came round by the
priory at Glenduff, as my friend here being an Englishman--may I beg to
present him to you? Mr. Hinton, Sir Thomas Garland--he heard wonders
of the monks' way of living up there, and I wished to let him judge for
himself.'
'Ah, that accounts for it,' said the tall man to himself. 'We have had a
sad affair of it, Father Tom. Poor Tarleton has been murdered.'
'Murdered!' said the priest, with an expression of horror in his
countenance I could scarcely believe feigned.
'Yes, murdered! The house was attacked a little after midnight. The
party must have been a large one, for while they forced in the hall
door, the haggard and the stables were seen in a blaze. Poor George
had just retired to bed, a little later than usual; for his sons had
returned a few hours before from Dublin, where they had been to attend
their college examination. The villains, however, knew the house well,
and made straight for his room. He got up in an instant, and seizing a
sabre that hung beside his bed, defended himself, with the courage of
desperation, against them all. The scuffle and the noise soon brought
his sons to the spot, who, although mere boys, behaved in the most
gallant manner. Overpowered at last by numbers, and covered with wounds,
they dragged poor Tarleton downstairs, shouting out as they went, “Bring
him down to Freney's! Let the bloody villain see the black walls and
the cold hearth he has made, before he dies!” It was their intention to
murder him on the spot where, a few weeks before, a distress for rent
had been executed against some of his tenants. He grasped the banisters
with a despairing clutch, while fixing his eyes upon his servant, who
had lived with him for some years past, he called out to him in his
agony to save him; but the fellow came deliberately forward and held the
flame of a candle beneath the dying man's fingers, until he relaxed his
hold and fell back among his murderers. Yes, yes, father, Henry Tarleton
saw it with his own eyes, for while his brother was stretched senseless
on the floor, he was struggling with the others at the head of the
staircase; and, strange enough too, they never hurt the boys, but when
they had wreaked their vengeance on the father, bound them back to back,
and left them.'
'Can you identify any of them?' said the priest, with intense emotion in
his voice and manner.
'Scarcely, I fear; their faces were blackened, and they wore shirts over
their coats. Henry thinks he could swear to two or three of the number;
but our best chance of discovery lies in the fact that several of them
were badly wounded, and one in particular, whom he saw cut down by
his father's sabre, was carried downstairs by his comrades, bathed in
blood.'
'He didn't recognise him?' said the priest eagerly.
'No; but here comes the poor boy, so I'll wish you good-morning.'
He put spurs to his horse as he spoke and dashed forward, followed by
the dragoons; while at the same moment, on the opposite side of the
road, a young man--pale, with his dress disordered, his arm in a
sling--rode by. He never turned a look aside; his filmy eye was fixed,
as it were, on some far-off object, and he seemed scarce to guide his
horse as he galloped onward over the rugged road.
The priest relaxed his pace to permit the crowd of horsemen to pass
on, while his countenance once more assumed its drooping and despondent
look, and he relapsed into his former silence.
'You see that high mountain to the left there?' said he after a long
pause. 'Well, our road lies around the foot of it; and, please God,
by to-morrow evening we 'll be some five-and-twenty miles on the other
side, in the heart of my own wild country, with the big mountains behind
you, and the great blue Atlantic rearing its frothing waves at your
feet.' He stopped for an instant, and then grasping my arm with his
strong hand, continued in a low, distinct voice: 'Never speak to me nor
question me about what we saw last night, and try only to remember it
as a dream. And now let me tell you how I intend to amuse you in the far
west.'
Here the priest began a spirited and interesting description of the
scenery and the people--their habits, their superstitions, and their
pastimes. He sustained the interest of his account with legend and
story, now grave, now gay--sometimes recalling a trait from the older
history of the land; sometimes detailing an incident of the fair or the
market, but always by his wonderful knowledge of the peasantry,
their modes of thinking and reasoning, and by his imitation of their
figurative and forcible expressions, able to carry me with him, whether
he took the mountain's side for his path, sat beside some cotter's
turf-fire, or skimmed along the surface of the summer sea in the frail
bark of an Achill fisherman. I learned from him that in the wild region
where he lived there were above fifteen thousand persons, scarce one of
whom could speak or understand a word of English. Of these he was not
only the priest, but the ruler and judge. Before him all their disputes
were settled, all their differences reconciled. His word, in the
strongest sense of the phrase, was law--not indeed to be enforced by
bayonets and policemen, by constables and sheriffs' officers, but which
in its moral force demanded obedience, and would have made him who
resisted it an outcast among his fellows.
'We are poor,' said the priest, 'but we are happy. Crime is unknown
among us, and the blood of man has not been shed in strife for fifty
years within the barony. When will ye learn this in England? When will
ye know that these people may be led, but never driven; that they may be
persuaded, but never compelled? When will ye condescend to bend so far
the prerogative of your birth, your riches, and your rank, as to reason
with the poor and humble peasant that looks up to you for protection?
Alas! my young friend, were you to ask me what is the great source of
misery of this unhappy land, I should tell you the superior intelligence
of its people. I see a smile, but hear me out. Unlike the peasantry of
other countries, they are not content. Their characters are mistaken,
their traits misconstrued---partly from indifference, partly from
prejudice, and in a great measure because it is the fashion to recognise
in the tiller of the soil a mere drudge, with scarce more intelligence
than the cattle in his plough or the oxen in his team. But here you
really have a people quick, sharp-sighted, and intelligent, able to
scan your motives with ten times the accuracy you can guess at theirs;
suspicious, because their credulity has been abused; revengeful, because
their wild nature knows no other vindicator than their own right arm;
lawless, for they look upon your institutions as the sources of their
misery and the instruments of your tyranny towards them; reckless, for
they have nothing to lose; indolent, for they have nothing to gain.
Without an effort to win their confidence or secure their good-will,
you overwhelm them with your institutions, cumbrous, complicated,
and unsuitable; and while you neglect or despise all appeal to their
feelings or affections, you place your faith in your soldiery or a
special commission. Heaven help you! you may thin them off by the
gallows and transportation, but the root of the evil is as far from you
as ever. You do not know them, you will not know them. More prone to
punish than prevent, you are satisfied with the working of the law, and
not shocked with the accumulation of crime; and when, broken by poverty
and paralysed by famine, a gloomy desolation spreads over the land, you
meet in terms of congratulation to talk over tranquilised Ireland.'
In this strain did the good priest continue to develop his views
concerning his country--the pivot of his argument being, that, to a
people so essentially different in every respect, English institutions
and English laws were inadequate and unsuitable. Sometimes I could
not only but agree with him. At others I could but dimly perceive his
meaning and dissent from the very little I could catch.
Enough of this, however. In a biography so flimsy as mine, politics
would play but an unseemly part; and even were it otherwise, my
opportunities were too few and my own incapacity too great to make my
opinions of any value on a subject so complicated and so vast. Still,
the topic served to shorten the road, and when towards evening we
found ourselves in the comfortable parlour of the little inn at
Ballyhocsousth,* so far had we both regained our spirits that once more
the priest's jovial good-humour irradiated his happy countenance; and
I myself, hourly improving in health and strength, felt already the
bracing influence of the mountain air, and that strong sense of liberty
never more thoroughly appreciated than when regaining vigour after the
sufferings of a sick-bed.
* Town of the Fight of Flails.
We were seated by an open window, looking out upon the landscape. It was
past sunset, and the tall shadows of the mountains were meeting across
the lake, like spirits who waited for the night-hour to interchange
their embraces. A thin pale crescent of a new moon marked the blue sky,
but did not dim the lustre of the thousand stars that glittered round
it. All was hushed and still, save the deep note of the rail, or the
measured plash of oars heard from a long distance. The rich meadows that
sloped down to the water sent up their delicious odours in the balmy
air, and there stole over the senses a kind of calm and peaceful
pleasure as such a scene at such an hour can alone impart.
'This is beautiful--this is very beautiful, father,' said I.
'So it is, sir,' said the priest. 'Let no Irishman wander for scenery;
he has as much right to go travel in search of wit and good fellowship.
We don't want for blessings; all we need is, to know how to enjoy them.
And, believe me, there is a plentiful feast on the table if gentlemen
would only pass down the dishes. And, now, that reminds me: what are
you drinking--negus? I wouldn't wish it to my greatest enemy. But, to be
sure, I am always forgetting you are not one of ourselves. There, reach
me over that square decanter. It wouldn't have been so full now if we
had had poor Bob here--poor fellow! But one thing is certain---wherever
he is, he is happy. I believe I never told you how he got into his
present scrape.'
'No, father; and that's precisely the very thing I wish to ask you.'
'You shall hear it, and it isn't a bad story in its way. But don't you
think the night-air is a little too much for you? Shall we close the
window?'
'If it depend on me, father, pray leave it open.'
'Ha, ha! I was forgetting again,' said the old fellow, laughing
roguishly--'_Stella sunt amantium oculi_, as Pharis says. There now,
don't be blushing, but listen to me.
'It was somewhere about last November that Bob got a quiet hint from
some one at Daly's that the sooner he got out of Dublin the more
conducive it would be to his personal freedom, as various writs were
flying about the capital after him. He took the hint, and set off the
same night, and reached his beautiful château of Newgate without let
or molestation--which having victualled for the winter, he could, if
necessary, sustain in it a reasonable siege against any force the law
was likely to bring up. The house had an abundant supply of arms. There
were guns that figured in '41, pikes that had done good service a little
later, swords of every shape, from the two-handed weapon of the twelfth
century to a Roman pattern made out of a scythe by a smith in
the neighbourhood; but the grand terror of the country was an old
four-pounder of Cromwell's time, that the Major had mounted on the roof,
and whose effects, if only proportionately injurious to the enemy to the
results nearer home, must indeed have been a formidable engine, for
the only time it was fired--I believe to celebrate Bob's birthday--it
knocked down a chimney with the recoil, blew the gardener and another
man about ten feet into the air, and hurled Bob himself through a
skylight into the housekeeper's room. No matter for that; it had a great
effect in raising the confidence of the country-people, some of whom
verily believed that the ball was rolling for a week after.
'Bob, I say, victualled the fortress; but he did more, for he assembled
all the tenants, and in a short but pithy speech told them the state of
his affairs, explaining with considerable eloquence what a misfortune it
would be for them if by any chance they were to lose him for a landlord.
'“See, now, boys,” said he, “there's no knowing what misfortune wouldn't
happen ye; they'd put a receiver on the property--a spalpeen with
bailiffs and constables after him--that would be making you pay up
the rent, and 'faith I wouldn't say but maybe he 'd ask you for the
arrears.”
'“Oh, murther, murther! did any one ever hear the like!” the people
cried on every side; and Bob, like a clever orator, continued to picture
forth additional miseries and misfortunes to them if such a calamitous
event were to happen, explaining at the same time the contemptible
nature of the persecution practised against him.
'“No, boys,” cried he, “there isn't a man among them all that has the
courage to come down and ask for his money, face to face; but they set
up a pair of fellows they call John Doe and Richard Roe--there's names
for you! Did you ever hear of a gentleman in the country with names like
that? But that's not the worst of it, for you see even these two chaps
can't be found. It's truth I'm telling you, and some people go so far
as to say that there is no such people at all, and it's only a way they
have to worry and annoy country gentlemen with what they call a fiction
of the law; and my own notion is, that the law is nothing but lies and
fiction from beginning to end.”
'A very loud cheer from Bob's audience proclaimed how perfectly they
coincided in his opinion; and a keg of whisky being brought into the
lawn, each man drained a glass to his health, uttering at the same time
a determination with respect to the law-officers of the crown that boded
but little happiness to them when they made a tour in the neighbourhood.
'In about a week after this there was a grand drawing-home: that's, you
understand, what we call in Ireland bringing in the harvest. And sure
enough, the farmyard presented a very comely sight, with ricks of hay,
and stacks of corn and oats and barley, and outhouses full of potatoes,
and in fact everything the country produces, besides cows and horses,
sheep, pigs, goats, and even turkeys; for most of the tenants paid their
rents in kind, and as Bob was an easy landlord, very few came without a
little present--a game-cock, a jackass, a ram, or some amusing beast or
other. Well, the next day--it was a fine dry day with a light frost, and
as the bog was hard, Bob sent them all away to bring in the turf. Why,
then, but it is a beautiful sight, Captain, and I wish you saw it--maybe
two or three hundred cars all going as fast as they can pelt, on a fine
bright day, with a blue sky and a sharp air, the boys standing up in the
kishes driving without rein or halter, always at a gallop--for all the
world like Ajax, Ulysses, and the rest of them that we read of; and the
girls, as pretty craytures as ever you threw an eye upon, with their
short red petticoats, and their hair plaited and fastened up at the back
of their heads: on my conscience the Trojan women was nothing to them!
'But to come back. Bob Mahon was coming home from the bog about five
o'clock in the evening, cantering along on a little dun pony he had,
thinking of nothing at all, except maybe the elegant rick of turf that
he 'd be bringing home in the morning, when what did he see before him
but a troop of dragoons, and at their head old Basset, the sub-sheriff,
and another fellow whose face he had often seen in the Four Courts of
Dublin. “By the mortial,” said Bob, “I am done for!” for he saw in a
moment that Basset had waited until all the country-people were employed
at a distance, to come over and take him. However, he was no ways
discouraged, but brushing his way through the dragoons, he rode up
beside Basset's gig, and taking a long pistol out of the holster, he
began to examine the priming as cool as may be.
“'How are you, Nick Basset?” said Bob; “and where are you going this
evening?”
'“How are you, Major?” said Basset, with his eye all the while upon the
pistol. “It is an unpleasant business, a mighty unpleasant business
to me, Major Bob,” says he; “but the truth is, there is an execution
against you, and my friend here, Mr. Hennessy--Mr. Hennessy, Major
Mahon--asked me to come over with him, because as I knew you----”
'“Well, well,” said Bob, interrupting him. “Have you a writ against me?
Is it me you want?”
'“Nothing of the kind, Major Mahon. God forbid we 'd touch a hair of
your head. It's just a kind of a capias, as I may say, nothing more.”
'“And why did you bring the dragoons with you?” said Bob, looking at him
mighty hard.
'Basset looked very sheepish, and didn't know what to say; but Mahon
soon relieved him---
'“Never mind, Nick, never mind; you can't help your trade. But how would
you look if I was to raise the country on ye?”
'“You wouldn't do the like, Major; but surely, if you did, the
troops----”
'“The troops!” said Bob; “God help you! we'd be twenty, ay, thirty to
one. See now, if I give a whistle, this minute----”
'“Don't distress yourself, Major,” said Basset, “for the decent people
are a good six miles off at the bog, and couldn't hear you if you
whistled ever so loud.”
'The moment he said this Bob saw that the old rogue was up to him, and
he began to wonder within himself what was best to be done.
'“See now, Nick,” said he, “it isn't like a friend to bring up all these
red-coats here upon me, before my tenantry, disgracing me in the face
of my people. Send them back to the town, and go up yourself with Mr.
Hennessy there, and do whatever you have to do.”
'“No, no!” screamed Hennessy, “I'll never part with the soldiers!”
'“Very well,” said Bob, “take your own way, and see what will come of
it.”
'He put spurs to his pony as he said this, and was just striking into
the gallop when Nick called out--
'“Wait a bit, Major! wait a bit! If we leave the dragoons where we are
now, will you give us your word of honour not to hurt or molest us in
the discharge of our duty, nor let any one else do so?”
'“I will,” said Bob, “now that you talk reasonably; I'll treat you
well.”
'After a little parley it was settled that part of the dragoons were
to wait on the road, and the rest of them in the lawn before the house,
while Nick and his friend were to go through the ceremony of seizing
Bob's effects, and make an inventory of everything they could find.
'“A mere matter of form, Major Mahon,” said he. “We 'll make it as short
as possible, and leave a couple of men in possession; and as I know the
affair will be arranged in a few days----”
'“Of course,” says Bob, laughing; “nothing easier. So come along now and
let me show you the way.”
'When they reached the house, Bob ordered up dinner at once, and behaved
as politely as possible, telling them it was early, and they would have
plenty of time for everything in the evening. But whether it was that
they had no appetite just then, or that they were not over-easy in their
minds about Bob himself, they declined everything, and began to set
about their work. To it they went with pen and ink, putting down all the
chairs and tables, the cracked china, the fire-irons, and at last Bob
left them counting over about twenty pairs of old top-boots that stood
along the wall of his dressing-room.
'“Ned,” said Bob to his own man, “get two big padlocks and put them on
the door of the hayloft as fast as you can.”
'“Sure it is empty, sir,” said Ned. “Barrin' the rats, there's nothing
in it.”
'“Don't I know that as well as you?” said Bob; “but can't you do as you
are bid? And when you've done it, take the pony and gallop over to the
bog, and tell the people to throw the turf out of their carts and gallop
up here as fast as they can.”
'He'd scarcely said it when Nick called out, “Now, Major, for the
farmyard, if you please.” And so taking Hennessy's arm, Bob walked out,
followed by the two big bailiffs, that never left them for a moment.
To be sure it was a great sight when they got outside, and saw all
the ricks and stacks as thick as they could stand; and so they began
counting and putting them down on paper, and the devil a thing they
forgot, not even the boneens and the bantams; and at last Nick fixed
his eye upon the little door into the loft, upon which now two great big
padlocks were hanging.
'“I suppose it 's oats you have up there, Major?” said he.
'“No, indeed,” said Bob, looking a little confused.
'“Maybe seed-potatoes?” said Hennessy.
'“Nor it neither,” said he.
'“Barley, it's likely?” cried Nick; “it is a fine dry loft.”
'“No,” said Bob, “it is empty.”
'And with that he endeavoured to turn them away and get them back into
the house; but old Basset turned back, and fixing his eye upon the door,
shook his head for a couple of minutes.
'“Well,” said he, “for an empty loft it has the finest pair of padlocks
I ever looked at. Would there be any objection, Major, to our taking a
peep into it?”
'“None,” said Bob; “but I haven't a ladder that long in the place.”
'“I think this might reach,” said Hennessy, as he touched one with his
foot that lay close along the wall, partly covered with straw.
'“Just the thing,” said Nick; while poor Bob hung down his head and
said nothing. With that they raised the ladder and placed it against the
door.
'“Might I trouble you for the key, Major Mahon?” said Hennessy.
'“I believe it is mislaid,” said Bob, in a kind of sulky way, at which
they both grinned at each other, as much as to say, “We have him now.”
'“You 'll not take it amiss then, Major, if we break the door?” said
Nick.
'“You may break it and be hanged!” said Bob, as he stuck his hands into
his pockets and walked away.
'“This will do,” cried one of the bailiffs, taking up a big stone as he
mounted the ladder, followed by Nick, Hennessy, and the other.
[Illustration: 413]
'It took some time to smash the locks, for they were both strong ones,
and all the while Nick and his friend were talking together in great
glee; but poor Bob stood by himself against a hayrick, looking as
melancholy as might be. At last the locks gave way, and down went the
door with a bang. The bailiffs stepped in, and then Nick and the other
followed. It took them a couple of minutes to satisfy themselves that
the loft was quite empty; but when they came back again to the door,
what was their surprise to discover that Bob was carrying away the
ladder upon his shoulders to a distant part of the yard.
'“Holloa, Major!” cried Basset, “don't forget us up here!”
'“Devil a fear of that,” said Bob; “few that know you ever forget you.”
'“We are quite satisfied, sir,” said Hennessy; “what you said was
perfectly correct.”
'“And why didn't you believe it before, Mr. Hennessy? You see what you
have brought upon yourself.”
'“You are not going to leave us up here, sir,” cried Hennessy; “will you
venture upon false imprisonment?”
“'I'd venture on more than that, if it were needful; but see now, when
you get back, don't be pretending that I didn't offer to treat you well,
little as you deserved it, I asked you to dinner, and would have given
you your skinful of wine afterwards; but you preferred your own dirty
calling, and so take the consequences.”
'While he was speaking a great cheer was heard, and all the
country-people came galloping into the yard with their turf cars.
'“Be alive now, my boys!” cried Bob. “How many cars have you?”
'“Seventy, sir, here; but there is more coming.”
'“That'll do,” said he; “so now set to work and carry away all the oats
and the wheat, the hay, barley, and potatoes. Let some of you take the
calves and the pigs, and drive the bullocks over the mountain to Mr.
Bodkin's. Don't leave a turkey behind you, boys, and make haste; for
these gentlemen have so many engagements I can scarcely prevail on them
to pass more than a day or two amongst us.”
'Bob pointed as he spoke to the four figures that stood trembling at the
hayloft door. A loud cheer, and a roar of laughter to the full as loud,
answered his speech; and at the same moment to it they went, loading
their cars with the harvest or the live-stock as fast as they could.
To be sure, such a scene was never witnessed--the sheep bleating, pigs
grunting, fowls cackling, men and women all running here and there
laughing like mad, and Nick Basset himself swearing like a trooper the
whole time that he'd have them all hanged at the next assizes. Would
you believe, the harvest it took nearly three weeks to bring home was
carried away that night and scattered all over the country at different
farms, where it never could be traced; all the cattle too were taken
away, and before sunrise there wasn't as much as a sheep or a lamb left
to bleat on the lawn.
'The next day Bob set out on a visit to a friend at some distance,
leaving directions with his people to liberate the gentlemen in the
hayloft in the course of the afternoon. The story made a great noise in
the country; but before people were tired laughing at it an action was
entered against Bob for false imprisonment, and heavy damages awarded
against him. So that you may see there was a kind of poetic justice in
the manner of his capture, for after all it was only trick for trick.'
The worthy priest now paused to mix another tumbler, which, when he had
stirred and tasted and stirred again, he pushed gently before him on the
table, and seemed lost in reverie.
'Yes,' said he half aloud, 'it is a droll country we live in; and
there's not one of us doesn't waste more ingenuity and display more
cunning in getting rid of his fortune than the cleverest fellows
elsewhere evince in accumulating theirs. But you are looking a little
pale, I think; these late hours won't suit you, so I 'll just send you
to bed.'
I felt the whole force of my kind friend's advice, and yielding
obedience at once, I shook him by the hand and wished him good-night.