KINGSLOUGH IS PLACARDED.
Public opinion is treacherous and unmanageable as the sea. One hour a
man is sitting high and dry watching the waves encircle some far away
object; the next he beholds them hurrying in to engulf himself.
Once the tide sets against any person, it increases in volume and
strength every moment, but there are no precise means of knowing when it
will turn in this manner or of telling why it has done so.
Fast as they could flow the waters of popular dissatisfaction were
running against Mr. Brady.
At a local meeting held at Glenwellan, which he had the courage or the
hardihood to attend, he was hissed, whilst General Riley’s appearance
proved the signal for loud and prolonged applause.
Some who were sufficiently indifferent to both men to be able to observe
accurately, reported that Mr. Brady turned white to the lips at a
display of feeling so decided and so unexpected; and this is
sufficiently probable, since those who are the most ready to defy the
opinion of their fellows are the least willing to put up with the
consequences such defiance usually entails.
Be this as it may, Mr. Brady a few days later was not greatly surprised
when on offering to transfer his business to a more scrupulous firm of
solicitors than those to whom he had previously entrusted the conduct of
his difficulties, the proposal was courteously but firmly declined.
“I shall live it down,” thought Mr. Brady as he strode out of the
office, his hat crushed a little over his brows.
He had said the same thing before, and he had done it; but after all,
each year in a man’s age, each upward step he has climbed, render that
“living down” a more difficult business to perform.
It is impossible to go on having a leg broken and reset without becoming
slightly a cripple, and it is more impossible still that a character
shall go through a blackening process time after time and come out white
in the end.
Mr. Brady had set himself a harder task than he imagined when he talked
of living down the effects of his latest error, and if he did not know
this Nettie did; Nettie who, hearing all that was going on, having read
those ballads which found swift sale at the somewhat high price of one
halfpenny each, having seen the “dour” looks cast on her husband in the
barn-like meeting-house, ventured to ask him if he did not think it
would be better to sell all they possessed and remove to another part of
the country.
Whereupon, he turned with passionate fury, with the mad anger of a
brutal nature, addressing the only person who was completely hopelessly
in his power, and reproached her with having been the curse of his life,
the ruin of his prospects, the sole cause of every misfortune that had
befallen him.
“I wish to God I had never set eyes on you,” he said. “If I must be such
a fool as to marry, I ought to have married some one who would have been
a help instead of a burden, a woman capable of doing something besides
bringing a tribe of fretful, delicate children into the world.”
“You ought to have married a woman, Daniel Brady,” answered Nettie
calmly, “who the first blow you gave her would have had you up before
the magistrate and punished for it.”
“None of your insolence or it will be worse for you,” he interrupted.
“Who,” continued Nettie, shrinking a little with a physical terror which
had become habitual, “would have insisted on having things suitable for
herself and her children, and who, if you had not provided them would
have left you.”
“Perhaps you are thinking of doing something of the kind,” he suggested
with the demon which was in him looking threateningly out of his eyes.
“No,” she said wearily; “I do not care about anything for myself now, it
was only for the children’s sake I spoke; only to get them away from a
place where their father’s sins are sung through the streets, where—”
He did not let her finish the sentence. He struck her down where she
stood, and with a parting piece of advice to “keep a quieter tongue in
her head or it would be worse for her and her brats too,” left the room,
banging the door after him.
There was nothing in this so particularly new as to astonish Nettie. She
was not much hurt, but as she raised herself slowly to a sitting
position, she put her hand to her head with a gesture as of one
suffering some cruel pain.
“How long,” she murmured, “how long can I bear it? God grant me strength
to endure to the end. If mothers could foresee what ‘Deliver us from
evil’ may some day come to mean, they might hope their babies would
never live to learn a prayer.”
Mr. Brady’s mother it may reasonably be supposed had been tempted to
indulge in somewhat similar thoughts before death considerately removed
her from a contemplation of her son’s demerits; and certainly public
opinion had so rapidly discovered all the shortcomings of the owner of
Maryville that it was tacitly admitted (so far as human judgment could
understand), if he had never been born it would have been better for him
and all belonging to him.
One of the effects of this widely-spread prejudice against a man who,
determined to rise by his own efforts, had certainly spared no pains in
the attempt, was that from having his wrongs comparatively speaking
overlooked Amos Scott became at once a popular and distinguished
individual. Letters were sent to certain newspapers on the subject of
tenantright, in which Scott’s case was mentioned. Leaders were written
referring directly to the still unsettled dispute at the Castle Farm,
and indirectly to the attempt of one of the disputants to appropriate
the inheritance of a gentleman of whom the county was deservedly proud.
Mr. Brady threatened to proceed against the proprietor of one of the
Kilcurragh papers unless an apology were inserted, but the proprietor
inserted no apology, and no proceedings were instituted. A man who has a
whole county against him may well be excused for dreading the
cross-examination of an Irish barrister, and this man dreaded it with a
wholesome horror, and was discreet accordingly.
All this time Amos Scott was retailing his grievances to lawyer after
lawyer, walking many miles to “get speech” of gentlemen he thought might
take his part, and get him his rights as he called them.
He would be off early in the morning—a piece of oat-cake, or griddle
bread, in the pocket of his home-spun blue frieze coat, and he would
come home at night foot-sore and weary, having broken his fast with no
other food save that mentioned, washed down by a draught of water from
some way-side brook, too tired to eat, too sick at heart to sleep.
For all men were in the same story. Whether they expressed sorrow for
his misfortunes or told him by their manner his affairs were no concern
of theirs, the result proved identical. Nothing could be done in the
matter. No money—no influence—no lapse of time—no amount of trouble
could undo the evil brought by that promise which the Earl had forgotten
almost as soon as made.
Lawyers of course took a prosaic view of the affair, and simply assured
Scott there was no use in throwing good money after bad; that he had no
case, and they could not make one for him; whilst even those private
individuals who commiserated him most, could not refrain from expressing
wonderment at the utter simplicity which caused him to take no manner of
precaution for his own safety in the transaction.
“What would you have had me do, sir?” he asked one gentleman piteously.
“What more did I want than Th’ Airl’s word? Sure, if I had told him I’d
do a thing, that would have been as good as any bond, and me only a poor
man labouring with my hands to keep me and my wife and the family.
“Says Th’ Airl to me, says he,
“‘The land’s yours for three lives longer, and you can put in one of the
three for yourself.’
“So then I asked him, would I take the money on to the agent, and he
says,
“‘No, you may give it to me.’
“And I counted the notes into his own hand. I mind how the sun shone on
a ring he had on his finger while I was doing it. Then I asked him about
the writings, and he said, they couldn’t he signed till Henry the young
airl came of age, but that if Lady Jane died before he did so, he would
see me safe.
“He was riding off when he turned, and said,
“‘I suppose though, my good fellow, you are on the right side, because
if not, I must give you back your money, and let somebody that have the
renewal.’
“He said it joking like. He was always free and pleasant in his way Th’
Airl.”
A simple enough narrative, which no one who heard it doubted the truth
of for a moment. A narrative which was recited by many a stump orator of
the day, and stirred the hearts of thousands who were or who imagined
themselves to be labouring under injustice as great and as irremediable.
Simple as it was, however, no human being could persuade Amos Scott that
any of his listeners perfectly understood it. Had even one amongst the
number done so, he felt quite satisfied he should hear no more said
about his defiance being worse than useless.
“If I could only make yer honour comprehend it,” he said reproachfully,
though respectfully, to Lord Ardmorne’s agent, who spite of his having,
as he assured Amos over and over again, nothing whatever to do with the
Glendares or their tenants, had been seized upon by the farmer for help
and sympathy, “you would see it as I see it.”
“Mr. Scott,” answered the agent solemnly, “if I could only make you
comprehend it, you would see how hopeless your position is.”
When, however, did argument or assertion convince an obstinate,
uneducated man. If such a miracle were ever wrought by earthly means, it
was not in the case of the poor misguided farmer who wandered about the
country seeking help from this one and that, discoursing about his
wrongs in lonely cabins, telling his grievances to chance companions,
wasting his slender means in feeing such lawyers as would take his
money, and in providing food for such of his family as were still at
home.
David had returned Miss Moffat’s loan to that young lady with a
characteristic note, in which, after thanking her for her goodness and
telling her how troubled in his mind he was to hear of the master’s
death, he went on to say how grateful he should be in case she had no
need of the money if she would lend it to his next oldest brother, who
was mad to join him. And now two of the sons were in America, two of the
daughters in service, and Reuben ready to take a schoolmaster’s place
when the old people could spare him.
“But I can’t leave them yet, Miss Grace,” he wrote. “I am not much use
here, I know; but still I can speak a word to the father when he comes
home at night, and the mother is too heartsore to ask him ‘what luck?’
She is keen on now for us to start for America, but the father won’t
hear talk of it. David sent her home a pound two months ago, and another
last week; a man who went out from these parts twenty years since, and
who has never been in Ireland again till now, brought it, and some odds
and ends of presents, amongst other things a walking-stick that we often
say would have just pleased the master; it is so light, though so big;
it is made from the root of the vine, Mr. Moody says, and seems
wonderful handy for almost any purpose. He tells us America is the poor
man’s country, and it seems like it. He went away with as little as any
of us, and he has come home dressed like a gentleman, with gold studs in
his shirt, and a gold watch and chain, and not a word of Irish in his
tongue. It is just wonderful to hear how like a native-born American he
talks. He tried to persuade my father to leave what he calls the ‘rotten
old ship’ and make for ‘new diggins,’ but my father bid him not talk
about things he has no knowledge of, and the decent man went away,
offended like.”
But in this Reuben Scott chanced to be mistaken; Mr. Moody did not cease
visiting at the Castle Farm because he was offended with its owner. He
only did so as he chanced to remark to an acquaintance, because he never
had cared for society where “pistols and bowie knives were lying about,
and he guessed there would be one or the other at work before Scott
moved away from his clearing.”
Affairs had arrived at this pass when Mr. Brady, finding the law in his
own province slow to assist him, decided on going to Dublin and seeking
counsel there.
Not having confined to his own bosom the purport of this journey, the
Kingslough rabble got hold of it, and decided that an auspicious time
for giving public expression to their feelings had arrived.
A meeting therefore was convened to take place on the day of Mr. Brady’s
departure, when it was decided that gentleman should be hung in effigy,
and a scaffold for this laudable purpose was actually in course of
erection, when an extremely strong hint from the magistrates stopped its
further progress. Not to be defeated, however, within twenty-four hours
Kingslough and its neighbourhood was startled from its propriety by the
sight of monster bills, which occupied every available space where it
was possible to placard the announcement, stating that the body of Mr.
Daniel Brady would be removed from Somerford Street to its place of
interment on the following day, at four o’clock P.M., when the
attendance of friends would be esteemed a favour.
Now Somerford Street—not an inconsiderable thoroughfare in the early
days of Ballylough—had by a not infrequent turn of times’ wheel become
one of the lowest, dirtiest, most disreputable lanes in Kingslough—a
lane where vice and filth caroused in wretched fashion together; where
sin and misery waved their rags in defiance of law and decency; whence
respectability fled as from the plague; where shame, remorse,
repentance, hope, could not exist for an hour, save it might be—and
sometimes God be praised it was—for a few hours in the last extremity.
To condense the whole matter into a sentence, Somerford Street was as
bad a street as could have been found even in the Liberties of Dublin,
and its inhabitants were as little like men, women, and children, as
men, women, and children can ever be. It was a place which, even in its
own small way, need not have been afraid to hold up its head with very
much more notorious courts and lanes London is sufficiently blessed to
reckon within a certain area of Charing Cross at the present day; and it
was from this den, inhabited by vice and misery, that Mr. Brady’s
obsequies were announced to take place.
What did it mean? Kingslough asked itself in a dull, stupid,
inconsequent sort of way.
In a few hours more Kingslough knew, for over the first bills were
pasted a second series so scurrilous, so profane, that nowhere out of
the Isle of Saints could so scandalous a broadsheet have been produced.
They were not torn down. Decent people did not care to be mixed up in
such an affair; the authorities were averse to acting in the matter
without advice and consultation, and perhaps feared, as authorities in
great cities have since unwisely feared, to make mountains out of
molehills by premature interference.
So Kingslough read, and held up its hands, or gravely shook its head, or
passed on without sign, or smiled with grim approval of the atrocious
bill, or expressed its sympathy in drunken words full of significance,
and looks more significant still.
It was the early summer time. Once again the crops were springing and
ripening at the Castle Farm. Crops not sown this time by Amos or one
belonging to him; and it was light in that northern latitude so soon in
the morning, that to get out in the grey dawn almost involved sitting up
during the few hours of the short night.
Nevertheless, in the grey dawn some one was astir tearing down those
disgraceful placards. Slowly and calmly the sea came rippling in on the
shore, closely the blinds were drawn on the Parade and in the houses of
Glendare Terrace, in the east there was still not a glimpse of the
rising sun, whilst rapidly and nervously the flitting figure did its
work.
All at once a burly brute, who, having business far away at an early
hour had risen betimes, turned a corner suddenly, and caught sight of a
dark figure engaged in the work of destruction. With a whoop and a shout
he rushed forward; with a shriek the woman, for it was a woman, fled.
Swift as she was he gained upon her; she left the rough pavement and
sped like a greyhound along the more level road, all in vain. Panting,
sobbing, she heard the thud of his heavy shoes almost at her heels, felt
in imagination his hand on her shoulder, when suddenly turning the
corner of a street to try to escape him, she fell almost into the arms
of a third person, who, in less time than it takes me to write the
words, had planted a good serviceable blow between the eyes of her
pursuer, and sent him sprawling in the gutter.
“Mrs. Brady,” he said, turning to the apparition which had so suddenly
greeted his vision, “what in Heaven’s name has brought you here at this
time of night?”
“I—” she began in a broken husky voice, “I heard of it all and came,” at
which point she gave up trying to explain, and dropped down in a heap on
the nearest doorstep insensible.
“Here is a delightful complication,” thought Mr. Hanlon as he looked
first at the burly brute just gathering himself together, and skulking
off with a look of ineffable hate overspreading his countenance, and
then at Mrs. Brady, whose light figure he supported with one hand while
fumbling for his latch-key with the other.
Had the gift of second sight been vouchsafed to that clever surgeon and
mistaken orator, he would have fled from Kingslough within an hour more
swiftly than Lot did from the Cities of the Plain, to avoid being mixed
up with the evil to come.