THE RELIEF COMMITTEE.
At this time the famine was beginning to be systematised. The
sternest among landlords and masters were driven to acknowledge that
the people had not got food or the means of earning it. The people
themselves were learning that a great national calamity had happened,
and that the work was God's work; and the Government had fully
recognized the necessity of taking the whole matter into its own
hands. They were responsible for the preservation of the people, and
they acknowledged their responsibility.
And then two great rules seemed to get themselves laid down--not by
general consent, for there were many who greatly contested their
wisdom--but by some force strong enough to make itself dominant.
The first was, that the food to be provided should be earned and
not given away. And the second was, that the providing of that
food should be left to private competition, and not in any way be
undertaken by the Government. I make bold to say that both these
rules were wise and good.
But how should the people work? That Government should supply
the wages was of course an understood necessity; and it was also
necessary that on all such work the amount of wages should be
regulated by the price at which provisions might fix themselves.
These points produced questions which were hotly debated by the
Relief Committees of the different districts; but at last it got
itself decided, again by the hands of Government, that all hills
along the country roads should be cut away, and that the people
should be employed on this work. They were so employed,--very little
to the advantage of the roads for that or some following years.
"So you have begun, my men," said Herbert to a gang of labourers whom
he found collected at a certain point on Ballydahan Hill, which lay
on his road from Castle Richmond to Gortnaclough. In saying this
he had certainly paid them an unmerited compliment, for they had
hitherto begun nothing. Some thirty or forty wretched-looking men
were clustered together in the dirt and slop and mud, on the brow
of the hill, armed with such various tools as each was able to
find--with tools, for the most part, which would go but a little
way in making Ballydahan Hill level or accessible. This question of
tools also came to a sort of understood settlement before long; and
within three months of the time of which I am writing legions of
wheelbarrows were to be seen lying near every hill; wheelbarrows in
hundreds and thousands. The fate of those myriads of wheelbarrows has
always been a mystery to me.
"So you have begun, my men," said Herbert, addressing them in a
kindly voice. There was a couple of gangsmen with them, men a
little above the others in appearance, but apparently incapable
of commencing the work in hand, for they also were standing idle,
leaning against a bit of wooden paling. It had, however, been decided
that the works at Ballydahan Hill should begin on this day, and there
were the men assembled. One fact admitted of no doubt, namely, this,
that the wages would begin from this day.
And then the men came and clustered round Herbert's horse. They were
wretched-looking creatures, half-clad, discontented, with hungry
eyes, each having at his heart's core a deep sense of injustice done
personally upon him. They hated this work of cutting hills from the
commencement to the end,--hated it, though it was to bring them wages
and save them and theirs from actual famine and death. They had not
been accustomed to the discomfort of being taken far from their homes
to their daily work. Very many of them had never worked regularly
for wages, day after day, and week after week. Up to this time such
was not the habit of Irish cottiers. They held their own land, and
laboured there for a spell; and then they would work for a spell, as
men do in England, taking wages; and then they would be idle for a
spell. It was not exactly a profitable mode of life, but it had its
comforts; and now these unfortunates who felt themselves to be driven
forth like cattle in droves for the first time, suffered the full
wretchedness of their position. They were not rough and unruly, or
inclined to be troublesome and perhaps violent, as men similarly
circumstanced so often are in England;--as Irishmen are when
collected in gangs out of Ireland. They had no aptitudes for
such roughness, and no spirits for such violence. But they were
melancholy, given to complaint, apathetic, and utterly without
interest in that they were doing.
"Yz, yer honer," said one man who was standing, shaking himself, with
his hands enveloped in the rags of his pockets. He had on no coat,
and the keen north wind seemed to be blowing through his bones; cold,
however, as he was, he would do nothing towards warming himself,
unless that occasional shake can be considered as a doing of
something. "Yz, yer honer; we've begun thin since before daylight
this blessed morning."
It was now eleven o'clock, and a pick-axe had not been put into the
ground, nor the work marked.
"Been here before daylight!" said Herbert. "And has there been nobody
to set you to work?"
"Divil a sowl, yer honer," said another, who was sitting on a
hedge-bank leaning with both his hands on a hoe, which he held
between his legs, "barring Thady Molloy and Shawn Brady; they two do
be over us, but they knows nothin' o' such jobs as this."
Thady Molloy and Shawn Brady had with the others moved up so as
to be close to Herbert's horse, but they said not a word towards
vindicating their own fitness for command.
"And it's mortial cowld standing here thin," said another, "without
a bit to ate or a sup to dhrink since last night, and then only a
lump of the yally mail." And the speaker moved about on his toes and
heels, desirous of keeping his blood in circulation with the smallest
possible amount of trouble.
"I'm telling the boys it's home we'd betther be going," said a
fourth.
"And lose the tizzy they've promised us," said he of the hoe.
"Sorrow a tizzy they'll pay any of yez for standing here all day,"
said an ill-looking little wretch of a fellow, with a black muzzle
and a squinting eye; "ye may all die in the road first." And the man
turned away among the crowd, as an Irishman does who has made his
speech and does not want to be answered.
"You need have no fear about that, my men," said Herbert. "Whether
you be put to work or no you'll receive your wages; you may take my
word for that."
"I've been telling 'em that for the last half-hour," said the man
with the hoe, now rising to his feet. "'Shure an' didn't Mr. Somers
be telling us that we'd have saxpence each day as long we war here
afore daylight?' said I, yer honer; 'an' shure an' wasn't it black
night when we war here this blessed morning, and devil a fear of the
tizzy?' said I. But it's mortial cowld, an' it'd be asier for uz to
be doing a spell of work than crouching about on our hunkers down on
the wet ground."
All this was true. It had been specially enjoined upon them to be
early at their work. An Irishman as a rule will not come regularly to
his task. It is a very difficult thing to secure his services every
morning at six o'clock; but make a special point,--tell him that you
want him very early, and he will come to you in the middle of the
night. Breakfast every morning punctually at eight o'clock is almost
impossible in Ireland; but if you want one special breakfast, so that
you may start by a train at 4 A.M., you are sure to be served. No
irregular effort is distasteful to an Irishman of the lower classes,
not if it entails on him the loss of a day's food and the loss of a
night's rest; the actual pleasure of the irregularity repays him for
all this, and he never tells you that this or that is not his work.
He prefers work that is not his own. Your coachman will have no
objection to turn the mangle, but heaven and earth put together won't
persuade him to take the horses out to exercise every morning at the
same hour. These men had been told to come early, and they had been
there on the road-side since five o'clock. It was not surprising that
they were cold and hungry, listless and unhappy.
And then, as young Fitzgerald was questioning the so-named gangmen
as to the instructions they had received, a jaunting car came up to
the foot of the hill. "We war to wait for the ongineer," Shawn Brady
had said, "an' shure an' we have waited." "An' here's one of Misther
Carroll's cars from Mallow," said Thady Molloy, "and that's the
ongineer hisself." Thady Molloy was right; this was the engineer
himself, who had now arrived from Mallow. From this time forth, and
for the next twelve months, the country was full of engineers, or of
men who were so called. I do not say this in disparagement; but the
engineers were like the yellow meal. When there is an immense demand,
and that a suddenly immense demand, for any article, it is seldom
easy to get it very good. In those days men became engineers with a
short amount of apprenticeship, but, as a rule, they did not do their
work badly. In such days as those, men, if they be men at all, will
put their shoulders to the wheel.
The engineer was driven up to where they were standing, and he
jumped off the car among the men who were to work under him with
rather a pretentious air. He had not observed, or probably had not
known, Herbert Fitzgerald. He was a very young fellow, still under
one-and-twenty, beardless, light-haired, blue-eyed, and fresh from
England. "And what hill is this?" said he to the driver.
"Ballydahan, shure, yer honer. That last war Connick-a-coppul, and
that other, the big un intirely, where the crass road takes away to
Buttevant, that was Glounthauneroughtymore. Faix and that's been the
murthering hill for cattle since first I knew it. Bedad yer honer 'll
make it smooth as a bowling-green."
"Ballydahan," said the young man, taking a paper out of his pocket
and looking up the names in his list, "I've got it. There should be
thirty-seven of them here."
"Shure an' here we are these siven hours," said our friend of the
hoe, "and mighty cowld we are."
"Thady Molloy and Shawn Brady," called out the engineer, managing
thoroughly to Anglicise the pronunciation of the names, though they
were not Celtically composite to any great degree.
"Yez, we's here," said Thady, coming forward. And then Herbert came
up and introduced himself, and the young engineer took off his hat.
"I came away from Mallow before eight," said he apologetically; "but
I have four of these places to look after, and when one gets to one
of them it is impossible to get away again. There was one place where
I was kept two hours before I could get one of the men to understand
what they were to do. What is it you call that big hill?"
"Glounthauneroughtymore, yer honer," said the driver, to whom the
name was as easy and familiar as his own.
"And you are going to set these men to work now?" said Herbert.
"Well, I don't suppose they'll do much to-day, Mr. Fitzgerald. But
I must try and explain to the head men how they are to begin. They
have none of them any tools, you see." And then he called out again.
"Thady Molloy and Shawn Brady."
"We's here," said Thady again; "we did not exactly know whether yer
honer'd be afther beginning at the top or the botthom. That's all
that war staying us."
"Never fear," said Shawn, "but we'll have ould Ballydahan level in
less than no time. We're the boys that can do it, fair and aisy."
It appeared to Herbert that the young engineer seemed to be rather
bewildered by the job of work before him, and therefore he rode on,
not stopping to embarrass him by any inspection of his work. In
process of time no doubt so much of the top of Ballydahan Hill was
carried to the bottom as made the whole road altogether impassable
for many months. But the great object was gained; the men were fed,
and were not fed by charity. What did it matter, that the springs of
every conveyance in the county Cork were shattered by the process,
and that the works resulted in myriads of wheelbarrows?
And then, as he rode on towards Gortnaclough, Herbert was overtaken
by his friend the parson, who was also going to the meeting of the
relief committee. "You have not seen the men at Ballydahan Hill, have
you?" said Herbert.
Mr. Townsend explained that he had not seen them. His road had struck
on to that on which they now were not far from the top of the hill.
"But I knew they were to be there this morning," said Mr. Townsend.
"They have sent quite a lad of a fellow to show them how to work,"
said Herbert. "I fear we shall all come to grief with these
road-cuttings."
"For heaven's sake don't say that at the meeting," said Mr. Townsend,
"or you'll be playing the priests' game out and out. Father Barney
has done all in his power to prevent the works."
"But what if Father Barney be right?" said Herbert.
"But he's not right," said the parson, energetically. "He's
altogether wrong. I never knew one of them right in my life yet in
anything. How can they be right?"
"But I think you are mixing up road-making and Church doctrine, Mr.
Townsend."
"I hope I may never be in danger of mixing up God and the devil.
You cannot touch pitch and not be defiled. Remember that, Herbert
Fitzgerald."
"I will remember nothing of the kind," said Herbert. "Am I to set
myself up as a judge and say that this is pitch and that is pitch? Do
you remember St. Peter on the housetop? Was not he afraid of what was
unclean?"
"The meaning of that was that he was to convert the Gentiles, and
not give way to their errors. He was to contend with them and not
give way an inch till he had driven them from their idolatry." Mr.
Townsend had been specially primed by his wife that morning with
vigorous hostility against Father Barney, and was grieved to his
heart at finding that his young friend was prepared to take the
priest's part in anything. In this matter of the roads Mr. Townsend
was doubtless right, but hardly on the score of the arguments
assigned by him.
"I don't mean to say that there should be no road-making," said
Herbert, after a pause. "The general opinion seems to be that we
can't do better. I only say that we shall come to grief about it.
Those poor fellows there have as much idea of cutting down a hill as
I have; and it seems to me that the young lad whom I left with them
has not much more."
"They'll learn all in good time."
"Let us hope it will be in good time."
"If we once let them have the idea that we are to feed them in
idleness," said Mr. Townsend, "they will want to go on for ever in
the same way. And then, when they receive such immense sums in money
wages, the priests will be sure to get their share. If the matter had
been left to me, I would have paid the men in meal. I would never
have given them money. They should have worked and got their food.
The priest will get a penny out of every shilling; you'll see else."
And so the matter was discussed between them as they went along to
Gortnaclough.
When they reached the room in which the committee was held they found
Mr. Somers already in the chair. Priest McCarthy was there also,
with his coadjutor, the Rev. Columb Creagh--Father Columb as he was
always called; and there was a Mr. O'Leary from Boherbuy, one of the
middlemen as they were formerly named,--though by the way I never
knew that word to be current in Ireland; it is familiar to all, and
was I suppose common some few years since, but I never heard the
peasants calling such persons by that title. He was one of those with
whom the present times were likely to go very hard. He was not a bad
man, unless in so far as this, that he had no idea of owing any duty
to others beyond himself and his family. His doctrine at present
amounted to this, that if you left the people alone and gave them no
false hopes, they would contrive to live somehow. He believed in a
good deal, but he had no belief whatever in starvation,--none as yet.
It was probable enough that some belief in this might come to him
now before long. There were also one or two others; men who had some
stake in the country, but men who hadn't a tithe of the interest
possessed by Sir Thomas Fitzgerald.
Mr. Townsend again went through the ceremony of shaking hands with
his reverend brethren, and, on this occasion, did not seem to be
much the worse for it. Indeed, in looking at the two men cursorily a
stranger might have said that the condescension was all on the other
side. Mr. M'Carthy was dressed quite smartly. His black clothes were
spruce and glossy; his gloves, of which he still kept on one and
showed the other, were quite new; he was clean shaven, and altogether
he had a shiny, bright, ebon appearance about him that quite did
a credit to his side of the church. But our friend the parson was
discreditably shabby. His clothes were all brown, his white neck-tie
could hardly have been clean during the last forty-eight hours, and
was tied in a knot, which had worked itself nearly round to his ear
as he had sat sideways on the car; his boots were ugly and badly
brushed, and his hat was very little better than some of those worn
by the workmen--so called--at Ballydahan Hill. But, nevertheless,
on looking accurately into the faces of both, one might see which
man was the better nurtured and the better born. That operation
with the sow's ear is, one may say, seldom successful with the first
generation.
"A beautiful morning, this," said the coadjutor, addressing Herbert
Fitzgerald, with a very mild voice and an unutterable look of
friendship; as though he might have said, "Here we are in a boat
together, and of course we are all very fond of each other." To
tell the truth, Father Columb was not a nice-looking young man. He
was red-haired, slightly marked with the small-pox, and had a low
forehead and cunning eyes.
"Yes, it is, a nice morning," said Herbert. "We don't expect anybody
else here, do we, Somers?"
"At any rate we won't wait," said Somers. So he sat down in the
arm-chair, and they all went to work.
"I am afraid, Mr. Somers," said Mr. M'Carthy from the other end
of the table, where he had constituted himself a sort of deputy
chairman, "I am afraid we are going on a wrong tack." The priest had
shuffled away his chair as he began to speak, and was now standing
with his hands upon the table. It is singular how strong a propensity
some men have to get upon their legs in this way.
"How so, Mr. M'Carthy?" said Somers. "But shan't we be all more
comfortable if we keep our chairs? There'll be less ceremony, won't
there, Mr. Townsend?"
"Oh! certainly," said Townsend.
"Less liable to interruption, perhaps, on our legs," said Father
Columb, smiling blandly.
But Mr. M'Carthy was far too wise to fight the question, so he sat
down. "Just as you like," said he; "I can talk any way, sitting or
standing, walking or riding; it's all one to me. But I'll tell you
how we are on the wrong tack. We shall never get these men to work in
gangs on the road. Never. They have not been accustomed to be driven
like droves of sheep."
"But droves of sheep don't work on the road," said Mr. Townsend.
"I know that, Mr. Townsend," continued Mr. M'Carthy. "I am quite well
aware of that. But droves of sheep are driven, and these men won't
bear it."
"'Deed an' they won't," said Father Columb, having altogether laid
aside his bland smile now that the time had come, as he thought, to
speak up for the people. "They may bear it in England, but they won't
here." And the sternness of his eye was almost invincible.
"If they are so foolish, they must be taught better manners," said
Mr. Townsend. "But you'll find they'll work just as other men
do--look at the navvies."
"And look at the navvies' wages," said Father Columb.
"Besides the navvies only go if they like it," said the parish
priest.
"And these men need not go unless they like it," said Mr. Somers.
"Only with this proviso, that if they cannot manage for themselves
they must fall into our way of managing for them."
"What I say, is this," said Mr. O'Leary. "Let 'em manage for
'emselves. God bless my sowl! Why we shall be skinned alive if we
have to pay all this money back to Government. If Government chooses
to squander thousands in this way, Government should bear the brunt.
That's what I say." Eventually, Government, that is the whole nation,
did bear the brunt. But it would not have been very wise to promise
this at the time.
"But we need hardly debate all that at the present moment," said Mr.
Somers. "That matter of the roads has already been decided for us,
and we can't alter it if we would."
"Then we may as well shut up shop," said Mr. O'Leary.
"It's all very aisy to talk in that way," said Father Columb; "but
the Government, as you call it, can't make men work. It can't force
eight millions of the finest pisantry on God's earth--," and Father
Columb was, by degrees, pushing away the seat from under him, when he
was cruelly and ruthlessly stopped by his own parish priest.
"I beg your pardon for a moment, Creagh," said he; "but perhaps we
are getting a little out of the track. What Mr. Somers says is very
true. If these men won't work on the road--and I don't think they
will--the responsibility is not on us. That matter has been decided
for us."
"Men will sooner work anywhere than starve," said Mr. Townsend.
"Some men will," said Father Columb, with a great deal of meaning in
his tone. What he intended to convey was this--that Protestants, no
doubt, would do so, under the dominion of the flesh; but that Roman
Catholics, being under the dominion of the Spirit, would perish
first.
"At any rate we must try," said Father M'Carthy.
"Exactly," said Mr. Somers; "and what we have now to do is to see
how we may best enable these workers to live on their wages, and how
those others are to live, who, when all is done, will get no wages."
"I think we had better turn shopkeepers ourselves, and open stores
for them everywhere," said Herbert. "That is what we are doing
already at Berryhill."
"And import our own corn," said the parson.
"And where are we to get the money?" said the priest.
"And why are we to ruin the merchants?" said O'Leary, whose brother
was in the flour-trade, in Cork.
"And shut up all the small shopkeepers," said Father Columb,
whose mother was established in that line in the neighbourhood of
Castleisland.
"We could not do it," said Somers. "The demand upon us would be so
great, that we should certainly break down. And then where would we
be?"
"But for a time, Somers," pleaded Herbert.
"For a time we may do something in that way, till other means present
themselves. But we must refuse all out-door relief. They who cannot
or do not bring money must go into the workhouses."
"You will not get houses in county Cork sufficient to hold them,"
said Father Bernard. And so the debate went on, not altogether
without some sparks of wisdom, with many sparks also of eager
benevolence, and some few passing clouds of fuliginous self-interest.
And then lists were produced, with the names on them of all who
were supposed to be in want--which were about to become, before
long, lists of the whole population of the country. And at last
it was decided among them, that in their district nothing should
be absolutely given away, except to old women and widows,--which
kindhearted clause was speedily neutralised by women becoming widows
while their husbands were still living; and it was decided also, that
as long as their money lasted, the soup-kitchen at Berryhill should
be kept open, and mill kept going, and the little shop maintained, so
that to some extent a check might be maintained on the prices of the
hucksters. And in this way they got through their work, not perhaps
with the sagacity of Solomon, but as I have said, with an average
amount of wisdom, as will always be the case when men set about their
tasks with true hearts and honest minds.
And then, when they parted, the two clergymen of the parish shook
hands with each other again, having perhaps less animosity against
each other than they had ever felt before. There had been a joke or
two over the table, at which both had laughed. The priest had wisely
shown some deference to the parson, and the parson had immediately
returned it, by referring some question to the priest. How often does
it not happen that when we come across those whom we have hated and
avoided all our lives, we find that they are not quite so bad as we
had thought? That old gentleman of whom we wot is never so black as
he has been painted.
The work of the committee took them nearly the whole day, so that
they did not separate till it was nearly dark. When they did so,
Somers and Herbert Fitzgerald rode home together.
"I always live in mortal fear," said Herbert, "that Townsend and the
priests will break out into warfare."
"As they haven't done it yet, they won't do it now," said Somers.
"M'Carthy is not without sense, and Townsend, queer and intolerant as
he is, has good feeling. If he and Father Columb were left together,
I don't know what might happen. Mr. Prendergast is to be with you the
day after to-morrow, is he not?"
"So I understood my father to say."
"Will you let me give you a bit of advice, Herbert?"
"Certainly."
"Then don't be in the house much on the day after he comes. He'll
arrive, probably, to dinner."
"I suppose he will."
"If so, leave Castle Richmond after breakfast the next morning, and
do not return till near dinner-time. It may be that your father will
not wish you to be near him. Whatever this matter may be, you may be
sure that you will know it before Mr. Prendergast leaves the country.
I am very glad that he is coming."
Herbert promised that he would take this advice, and he thought
himself that among other things he might go over to inspect that
Clady boiler, and of course call at Desmond Court on his way. And
then, when they got near to Castle Richmond they parted company, Mr.
Somers stopping at his own place, and Herbert riding home alone.