The next morning opened with all the dark sultry rain and black cloudy
drapery, which had, as we have already stated, characterized the whole
season. Indeed, during the year we are describing, it was known that all
those visible signs which prognosticate any particular description of
weather, had altogether lost their significance. If a fine day came,
for instance, which indeed was a rare case, or a clear and beautiful
evening, it was but natural that after such a dark and dreary course of
weather, the heart should become glad and full of hope, that a permanent
change for the better was about to take place; but alas, all cheerful
hope and expectation were in vain. The morrow's sun rose as before,
dim and gloomy, to wade along his dismal and wintry path, without one
glimpse of enlivening light from his rising to his setting.
We have already mentioned slightly, those outrages, to which the disease
and misery that scourged the country in so many shapes had driven the
unfortunate and perishing multitudes. Indeed, if there be any violation
of the law that can or ought to be looked upon with the most lenient
consideration and forbearance, by the executive authorities, it is
that which takes place under the irresistible pressure of famine. And
singular as it may appear, it is no less true, that this is a subject
concerning which much ignorance prevails, not only throughout other
parts of the empire, but even at home here in Ireland, with ourselves.
Much for instance is said, and has been said, concerning what are
termed “Years of Famine,” but it is not generally known that since the
introduction of the potato in this country, no year has ever past, which
in some remote locality or other, has not been such to the unfortunate
inhabitants. The climate of Ireland is so unsettled, its soil so various
in quality and the potato so liable to injury from excess of either
drought or moisture, that we have no hesitation in stating the startling
fact of this annual famine as one we can vouch for, upon our personal
knowledge, and against the truth of which we challenge contradiction.
Neither does an autumn pass without a complaint peculiar to those who
feed solely upon the new and unripe potato, and which, ever since
the year '32 is known by the people as the potato cholera. With these
circumstances the legislature ought to be acquainted, inasmuch as they
are calamities that will desolate and afflict the country so long as the
potato is permitted to be, as it unfortunately is, the staple food
of the people. That we are subject in consequence of that fact,
to periodical recurrences of dearth and disease, is well known and
admitted; but that every season brings its partial scourge of both these
evils to various remote and neglected districts in Ireland, has not
been, what it ought long since to have been, an acknowledged and
established fact in the sanatory statistics of the country. Indeed, one
would imagine, that after the many terrible visitations which we have
had from destitution and pestilence, a legislature sincerely anxious for
the health and comfort of the people, would have devoted itself, in some
reasonable measure, to the human consideration of such proper sumptuary
and sanatory enactments, as would have provided not only against the
recurrence of these evils, but for a more enlightened system of public
health and cleanliness, and a better and more comfortable provision of
food for the indigent and poor. As it is at present, provision dealers
of all kinds, meal-mongers, forestallers, butchers, bakers, and
hucksters, combine together, and sustain such a general monopoly in
food, as is at variance with the spirit of all law and humanity, and
constitutes a kind of artificial famine in the country; and surely;
these circumstances ought not to be permitted, so long as we have a
deliberative legislature, whose duty it is to watch and guard the health
and morals of the people.
At the present period of our narrative, and especially on the gloomy
morning following the Prophet's unconscious visit to the grave of the
murdered man, the popular outrages had risen to an alarming height. Up
to the present time occasional outbreaks, by small and detached groups
of individuals, had taken place at night or before dawn, and rather in a
timid or fugitive manner, than with the recklessness of men who assemble
in large crowds, and set both law and all consequences at open defiance.
Now, however, destitution and disease had wrought such woeful work among
the general population, that it was difficult to know where or how to
prescribe bounds to the impetuous resentment with which they expressed
themselves against those who held over large quantities of food in order
to procure high prices. At this moment the country, with its waste,
unreaped crops, tying in a state of plashy and fermenting ruin, and its
desolate and wintry aspect, was in frightful keeping with the appearance
of the people when thus congregated together. We can only say, that the
famine crowds of that awful year should have been seen in order to have
been understood and felt. The whole country was in a state of dull
but frantic tumult, and the wild crowds as they came and went in the
perpetration of their melancholy outrages, were worn down by such
starling evidences of general poverty and suffering, as were enough
to fill the heart with fear as well as pity, even to look upon. Their
cadaverous and emaciated aspects had something in them so wild and
wolfish, and the fire of famine blazed so savagely in their hollow eyes,
that many of them looked like creatures changed from their very humanity
by some judicial plague, that had been sent down from Heaven to punish
and desolate the land. And in truth there is no doubt whatsoever, that
the intensity of their sufferings, and the natural panic which was
occasioned by the united ravages of disease and famine, had weakened
the powers of their understanding, and impressed upon their bearing
and features an expression which seemed partly the wild excitement of
temporary frenzy, and partly the dull, hopeless apathy of fatuity--a
state to which it is well known that misery, sickness, and hunger,
all together, had brought down the strong intellect and reason of
the wretched and famishing multitudes. Nor was this state of feeling
confined to those who were goaded by the frightful sufferings that
prevailed. On the contrary, thousands became victims of a quick and
powerful contagion which spread the insane spirit of violence at a rapid
rate, affecting many during the course of the day, who in the early part
of the morning had not partaken of its influence. To no other principle
than this can we attribute the wanton and irrational outrages of many of
the people. Every one acquainted with such awful visitations must know
that their terrific realities cause them, by wild influences that run
through the whole masses, to forget all the decencies and restraints of
ordinary life, until fear and shame, and becoming respect for order,
all of which constitute the moral safety of society--are thrown aside or
resolved into the great tyrannical instinct of self-preservation,
which, when thus stimulated, becomes what may be termed the insanity
of desolation. We know that the most savage animals as well as the most
timid will, when impelled by its ravenous clamors, alike forget every
other appetite but that which is necessary for the sustainment of
life. Urged by it alone, they will sometimes approach and assail the
habitations of man, and, in the fury of the moment, expose themselves to
his power, and dare his resentment; just as a famine mob will do, when
urged by the same instinct, in a year of scarcity.
There is no beast, however, in the deepest jungle of Africa itself, so
wild, savage and ferocious, as a human mob, when left to its own blind
and headlong impulses. On the morning in question, the whole country was
pouring forth its famished hordes to intercept meal-carts and provision
vehicles of all descriptions, on their way to market or to the next
sea-port for shipment; or to attack the granaries of provision dealers,
and all who, having food in large quantities, refused to give it gratis,
or at a nominal price to the poor. Carts and cars, therefore, mostly
the property of unoffending persons, were stopped on the highways, there
broken, and the food which they carried openly taken away, and, in case
of resistance, those who had charge of them were severely beaten. Mills
were also attacked and pillaged, and in many instances large quantities
of flour and grain not only carried off, but wantonly and wickedly
strewn about the streets and destroyed.
In all these acts of violence there was very little shouting; the fact
being that the wretched people were not able to shout; unless on rare
occasions; and sooth to say, their vociferations were then but a faint
and feeble echo of the noisy tumults which in general characterize
the proceedings of excited and angry crowds. Truly, those pitiable
gatherings had their own peculiarities of misery. During the progress
of the pillage, individuals of every age, sex, and condition--so far
as condition can be applied to the lower classes--might be seen behind
ditches, in remote nooks--in porches of houses, and many on the open
highways and streets, eating, or rather gobbling up raw flour, or
oat-meal; others, more fortunate, were tearing and devouring bread,
with a fury, to which only the unnatural appetites of so many famished
maniacs could be compared. As might be expected, most of these
inconsiderate acts of license were punished by the consequences which
followed them. Sickness of various descriptions, giddiness, retchings,
fainting fits, convulsions, and in some cases, death itself, were
induced by this wolfish and frightful gluttony on the part of the
starving people. Others, however, who possessed more sense, and
maintained a greater restraint over their individual sufferings, might
be seen in all directions, hurrying home, loaded with provisions of the
most portable descriptions, under which they tottered and panted,
and sometimes fell utterly prostrate from recent illness or the mere
exhaustion of want. Aged people, grey-haired old men, and old women bent
with age, exhibited a wild and excited alacrity that was grievous to
witness, while hurrying homewards--if they had a home, or if not, to the
first friendly shelter they could get--a kind of dim exulting joy feebly
blazing in their heavy eyes, and a wild sense of unexpected good
fortune working in unnatural play upon the muscles of their wrinkled and
miserable faces. The ghastly impressions of famine, however, were not
confined to those who composed the crowds. Even the children were little
living skeletons, wan and yellow, with a spirit of pain and suffering
legible upon their fleshless but innocent features--while the very dogs,
as was well observed, were not able to bark, unless they stood against
a wall; for indeed, such of them as survived, were nothing but ribs and
skin. At all events, they assisted in making up the terrible picture of
general misery which the country at large presented. Both day and night,
but at night especially, their hungry howlings could be heard over the
country, or mingling with wailings which the people were in the habit of
pouring over those whom the terrible typhus was sweeping away with such
wide and indiscriminate fatality.
Our readers may now perceive, that the sufferings of these unhappy
crowds, before they had been driven to these acts of violence, were
almost beyond belief. At an early period of the season, when the
potatoes could not be dug, miserable women might be seen early in the
morning, and in fact, during all hours of the day, gathering weeds of
various descriptions, in order to sustain life; and happy were they who
could procure a few handfuls of young nettles, chicken-weed, sorrel,
preshagh, buglass, or seaweed, to bring home as food, either for
themselves or their unfortunate children. Others, again, were glad to
creep or totter to stock-farms, at great distances across the country,
in hope of being able to procure a portion of blood, which, on such
melancholy occasions, is taken from the heifers and bullocks that graze
there, in order to prevent the miserable poor from perishing by actual
starvation and death.
Alas! little do our English neighbors know or dream of the horrors which
attend a year of severe famine in this unhappy country. The crowds which
kept perpetual and incessant siege to the houses of wealthy and even of
struggling small farmers, were such! as scarcely any pen could describe.
Neither can we render anything like adequate justice to the benevolence
and charity--nay, we ought to say, the generosity and magnanimity of
this and the middle classes in general, In no country on earth could
such noble instances of self-denial and sublime humanity be witnessed.
It has happened in thousands of instances that the last miserable
morsel, the last mouthful of nourishing liquid, the last potato, or the
last six-pence, has been divided with wretched and desolate beings who
required it more, and this, too, by persons who, when that was gone,
knew not to what quarter they could turn with a hope of replacing for
themselves that which they had just shared in a spirit of such genuine
and exalted piety.*
* It is as well to state here that the season described
in this tale is the dreadful and melancholy one of
1817; and we may add, that in order to avoid the charge
of having exaggerated the almost incredible sufferings
of the people in that year, we have studiously kept our
descriptions of them within the limits of truth. Dr.
Cokkigan, in his able and very sensible pamphlet on
“Fever and Famine as Cause and Effect in Ireland”--a
pamphlet, by the way, which has been the means of
conveying most important truths to statesmen, and which
ought to be looked on as a great public benefit--has
confirmed the accuracy of the gloomy pictures I was
forced to draw. Here follow an extract or two:
“It is scarcely necessary to call to recollection the
summer of 1810, cold and wet--corn uncut in November,
or rotting in the sheaves on the ground--potatoes not
ripened (and when unripe there cannot be worse food),
containing more water than nutriment--straw at such an
extravagant price as to render the obtaining of it for
bedding almost impossible, and when procured, retaining
from its half-fermented state, so much moisture, that
the use was, perhaps, worse than the want of it. The
same agent that destroyed the harvest spoiled the turf.
Seldom had such a multiplication of evils come
together. In some of the former years, although food
and bedding were deficient, the portion saved was of
good quality, and fuel was not wanting: but in 1815
every comfort that might have compensated for partial
want was absent. This description applies to the two
years of 1816 and 1817. In midsummer of 1817, the blaze
of fever was over the entire country. It had burst
forth in almost a thousand different points. Within the
short space of a month, in the summer of 1817, the
epidemic sprung forth in Tramore, Youghal, Kinsale,
Tralee, and Clonmel, in Carrick-on-Suir, Iloscrea,
Ballina, Castlebar, Belfast, Armagh, Omagh,
Londonderry, Monasterevan, Tullamore and Slane. This
simultaneous break-out shows that there must have been
some universal cause.”
Again:
“The poor were deprived of employment and were driven
from the doors where before they had always received
relief, lest they should introduce disease with them.
Thus, destitution and fever continued in a vicious
circle, each impelling the other, while want of
presence of mind aggravated a thousandfold the terrible
infliction. Of the miseries that attend a visitation of
epidemic fever, few can form a conception. The mere
relation of the scenes that occurred in the country,
even in one of its last visitations, makes one shudder
in reading them. As Barker and Cheyne observe in their
report, 'a volume might be filled with instances of the
distress occasioned by the visitation of fever in
1817.'”
“'On the road leading from Cork, within a mile of the
town (Kanturk), I visited a woman laboring under
typhus; on her left lay a child very ill, at the foot
of the bed another child just able to crawl about, and
on her right the corpse of a third child who had died
two days previously, which the unhappy mother could not
get removed.'--Letter from Dr. O'Leary, Kanturk.
“'Ellen Pagan, a young woman, whose husband was
obliged, in order to seek employment, to leave her
almost destitute in a miserable cabin, with three
children, gave the shelter of her roof to a poor beggar
who had fever. She herself caught the disease, and from
the terror created in the neighborhood, was, with her
three children, deserted--except that some person left
a little water and milk at the window for the
children,--one about four, the other about three years
old, and the other an infant at her breast. In this way
she continued for a week, when a neighbor sent her a
loaf of bread, which was left in the window. Four days
after this he grew uneasy about her, and one night
having prepared some tea and bread, he set off to her
ralief. When he arrived, the following scene presented
itself:--In the window lay the loaf, where it had been
deposited four days previously; in one corner of the
cabin, on a little straw, without covering of any kind,
lay the wretched mother, actually dying, and her infant
dead by her side, for the want of that sustenance which
she had not to give; on the floor lay the children, to
all appearance dying also of cold and hunger. At first
they refused to take anything, and he had to pour a
little liquid down their throats--with the cautious
administration of food they gradually recovered. The
woman expired before the visitor quitted the house.'--
Letter from Dr. Mucarthney, Monivae.
“'A man, his wife, and two children lay together in a
fever. The man died in the night; his wife, nearly
convalescent, was so terrified with his corpse in the
same bed with her, that she relapsed, and died in two
days after; the children recovered from fever, but the
eldest lost his reason by the fright. Many other scenes
have I witnessed, which would be too tedious to
relate.'--Barker & Oheyne's Report.
“I know not of any visitation so much to be dreaded as
epidemic fever; it is worse than the plague, for it
lasts throughout all seasons. Cholera may seem more
frightful, but it is in reality less destructive. It
terminates rapidly in death, or in as rapid recovery.
Its visitation, too, is short, and it leaves those who
recover unimpaired in health and strength. Civil war,
were it not for its crimes, would be, as far as regards
the welfare of a country, a visitation less to be
dreaded than epidemic fever.”
*****
“It is not possible, then, to form an exaggerated
picture of the sufferings of a million and a half of
people in these countries, in their convalescence from
fever, deprived of, not only the comforts, but even the
necessaries of life, with scanty food, and fuel, and
covering, only rising from fever to slowly fall victims
to those numerous chronic diseases that are sure to
seize upon enfeebled constitutions. Death would be to
many a more merciful dispensation than such a
recovery.”--Famine and Fever, as Clause and Effect in
Ireland, &a., &o. By D. J. Cohkigan, Esq., M.D.,
M.K.C.S.B. Dublin: J. Fannin & Co., Grafton Street.
It was to such a state of general tumult that the Prophet and his family
arose on the morning of the following day. As usual, he was grim and
sullen, but on this occasion his face had a pallid and sunken look in
it, which apparently added at least ten years to his age. There was
little spoken, and after breakfast he prepared to go out. Sarah, during
the whole morning, watched his looks, and paid a marked attention to
every thing he said. He appeared, however, to be utterly unconscious
of the previous night's adventure, a fact which his daughter easily
perceived, and which occasioned her to feel a kind of vague compassion
for him, in consequence of the advantage it might give Nelly over
him; for of late she began to participate in her father's fears and
suspicions of that stubborn and superstitious personage.
“Father,” said she, as he was about to go out, “is it fair to ax where
you are going?”
“It's neither fair nor foul,” he replied; “but if it's any satisfaction
to you to know, I won't tell you.”
“Have you any objections then, that I should walk a piece of the way
with you?”
“Not if you have come to your senses, as you ought, about what I
mentioned to you.”
“I have something to say to you,” she replied, without noticing the
allusion he had made; “something that you ought to know.”
“An' why not mention it where we are?”
“Bekaise I don't wish her there to know it.”
“Thank you, ma'am,” replied Nelly; “I feel your kindness--an,' dear
me, what a sight o' wisdom I'll lose by bein' kep' out o' the
saicret--saicret indeed! A fig for yourself an' your saicret; maybe I
have my saicret as well as you.”
“Well, then,” replied Sarah, “if you have, do you keep yours as I'll
keep mine, and then we'll be aiquil. Come, father, for I must go from
home too. Indeed I think this is the last day I'll be with either of you
for some time--maybe ever.”
“What do you mane?” said the father.
“Hut!” said the mother, “what a goose you are! Charley Hanlon, to be
sure; I suppose she'll run off wid him. Oh, thin, God pity him or any
other one that's doomed to be blistered wid you!”
Sarah flashed like lightning, and her frame began to work with that
extraordinary energy which always accompanied the manifestation of her
resentment.
“You will,” said she, approaching the other--“you will, after your
escape the other day; you--no, ah! no--I won't now; I forgot myself.
Come, father,--come, come; my last quarrel with her is over.”
“Ay,” returned Nelly, as they went out, “there you go, an' a sweet pair
you are--father and daughter!”
“Now, father,” resumed Sarah, after they had got out of hearing, “will
you tell me if you slep' well last night?”
“Why do you ax?” he replied; “to be sure I did.”
“I'll tell you why I ax,” she answered; “do you know that you went last
night--in the middle of the night--to the murdhered man's grave, in the
glen there?”
It is impossible to express the look of astonishment and dismay which he
turned up on her at these words.
“Sarah!” he said, sternly; but she interrupted him.
“It's thruth,” said she; “an I went with--”
“What are you spakin' about? Me go out, an' not know it! Nonsense!”
“You went in your sleep, she rejoined.
“Did I spake?” said he, with a black and; ghastly look.
“What--what--tell me--eh? What did I say?”
“You talked a good deal, an' said that it was Condy Dalton that
murdhered him, and that you had Red Rody to prove it.”
“That was what I said?--eh, Sarah?”
“That's what you said, an' I thought it was only right to tell you.”
“It was right, Sarah; but at the same time, at the peril of your life,
never folly me there again. Of coorse, you know now that Sullivan is
buried there.”
“I do,” said she; “but that's no great comfort, although it is to know
that you didn't murdher him. At any rate, father, remember what I tould
you about Condy Dalton. Lave him to God; an' jist that you may feel
what you ought to feel on the subject, suppose you were in his
situation--suppose for a minute that it was yourself that murdhered
him--then ask, would you like to be dragged out from us and hanged, in
your ould age, like a dog--a disgrace to all belongin' to you. Father,
I'll believe that Condy Dalton murdhered him, when I hear it from his
own lips, but not till then. Now, Good-bye. You won't find me at home
when you come back, I think.”
“Why, where are you goin'?”
“There's plenty for me to do,” she replied; “there's the sick an' the
dyin' on all hands about me, an' it's a shame for any one that has a
heart in their body, to see their fellow-creatures gaspin' for want of
a dhrop of cowld wather to wet their lips, or a hand to turn them where
they lie. Think of how many poor sthrangers is lyin' in ditches an' in
barns, an' in outhouses, without a livin' bein' a'most to look to them,
or reach them any single thing they want; no, even to bring the priest
to them, that they might die reconciled to the Almighty. Isn't it a
shame, then, for me, an' the likes o' me, that has health an' strength,
an' nothin' to do, to see my fellow-creatures dyin' on all hands about
me, for want of the very assistance that I can afford them. At any rate,
I wouldn't live in the house with that woman, an' you know that, an'
that I oughtn't.”
“But aren't you afeard of catchin' this terrible faver, that's takin'
away so many, if you go among them'?”
“Afeard!” she replied; “no, father, I feel no fear either of that or
anything else. If I die, I lave a world that I never had much happiness
in, an' I know that I'll never be happy again in it. What then have I to
fear from death? Any change for me must now be for the betther; at all
events it can hardly be for the worse. No; my happiness is gone.”
“What in Heaven's name is the matther with you?” asked her father; “an'
what brings the big tears into your eyes that way?”
“Good-bye,” said she; and as she spoke, a melancholy smile--at once sad
and brilliant--irradiated her features. “It's not likely, father, that
ever you'll see me under your roof again. Forgive me all my follies now,
maybe it's the last time ever you'll have an opportunity.”
“Tut, you foolish girl; it's enough to sicken one to hear you spake such
stuff!”
She stood and looked at him for a moment, and the light of her smile
gradually deepened, or rather faded away, until nothing remained but a
face of exquisite beauty, deeply shadowed by anxiety and distress.
The Prophet pursued his way to Dick o' the Grange's, whither, indeed,
he was bent; Sarah, having looked after him for a moment with a troubled
face, proceeded in the direction of old Dalton's, with the sufferings
and pitiable circumstances of whose family she was already but too well
acquainted. Her journey across the country presented her with little
else than records of death, suffering, and outrage. Along the roads the
funerals were so frequent, that, in general, they excited no particular
notice. They could, in fact scarcely be termed funerals, inasmuch as
they were now nothing more than squalid and meagre-looking knots of
those who were immediately related to the deceased, hurrying onward,
with reckless speed and disturbed looks to the churchyard, where their
melancholy burthen was hastily covered up with scarcely any exhibition
of that simple and affecting decorum, or of those sacred and natural
sorrows, which in other circumstances throw their tender but solemn
light over the last offices of death. As she went along, new and more
startling objects of distress attracted her notice. In dry and sheltered
places she observed little temporary sheds, which, in consequence of the
dreadful panic which always accompanies an epidemic in Ireland, had, to
a timid imagination, something fearful about them, especially when it
is considered that death and contagion were then at work in them in such
terrible shapes. To Sarah, however, they had no terrors; so far from
that, a great portion of the day was spent by her in relieving their
wretched, and, in many cases, dying inmates, as well as she could. She
brought them water, lit fires for them, fixed up their shed, and even
begged aid for them from the neighbors around, and, as far as she could,
did everything to ease their pain, or smooth their last moment by the
consolation of her sympathy. If she met a family on the highway, worn
with either illness or fatigue--perhaps an unhappy mother, surrounded
by a helpless brood, bearing, or rather tottering under a couple of sick
children, who were unable to walk--she herself, perhaps, also ill, as
was often the case--she would instantly take one of them out 'of the
poor creature's arms, and carry it in her own as far as she happened
to go in that direction, utterly careless of contagion, or all other
consequences.
In this way was she engaged towards evening when at a turn of the road
she was met by a large crowd of rioters, headed by Red Rody, Tom Dalton,
and many others in the parish who were remarkable only for a tendency to
ruffianism and outrage; for we may remark here, that on occasions such
as we are describing, it is generally those who have suffered least, and
have but little or nothing to complain of, that lead the misguided and
thoughtless people into crime, and ultimately into punishment.
The change that had come over young Dalton was frightful; he was not
half his former size; his clothes were now in rags, his beard grown,
his whole aspect and appearance that of some miscreant, in whom it was
difficult to say whether the ruffian or the idiot predominated the
most. He appeared now in his glory--frantic and destructive; but amidst
all this drivelling impetuosity, it was not difficult to detect some
desperate and unshaken purpose in his heavy but violent and bloodshot
eyes.
Far different from him was Red Rody, who headed his own section of
them with an easy but knowing swagger; now nodding his head with some
wonderful purpose which nobody could understand; or winking at some
acquaintance with an indefinite meaning, that set them a guessing at it
in vain. It was easy to see that he was a knave, but one of those
knaves on whom no earthly reliance could be placed, and who would betray
to-morrow, for good reasons, and without a moment's hesitation, those
whom he had corrupted to-day.
“Come, Tom,” said Rody, “we have scattered a few of the meal-mongin'
vagabonds; weren't you talkin' about that blessed voteen, ould Darby
Skinadre? The villain that allowed Peggy Murtagh an' her child to starve
to death! Aren't we to pay him a visit?”
Dalton coughed several times, to clear his throat; a settled hoarseness
having given a frightful hollowness to his voice. “Ay,” said he--“ha,
ha, ha--by the broken-heart she died of--well--well--eh, Rody, what are
we to do to him?”
Rody looked significantly at the crowd, and grinned, and touched his
forehead, and pointed at Dalton.
“That boy's up to everything,” said he; “he's the man to head us
all--ha, ha!”
“Never mind laughin' at him, anyway,” observed one of his friends;
“maybe if you suffered what he did, poor fellow, an' his family too,
that it's not fun you'd be makin' of him.”
“Why,” asked a new comer; “what's wrong wid him?”
“He's not at himself,” replied the other, “ever since he had the faver;
that, they say, an' the death of a very purty girl he was goin' to be
married to, has put him beside himself, the Lord save us!”
“Come on now,” shouted Tom, in his terrible voice; “here's the greatest
of all before us still. Who wants meal now? Come on, I say--ha, ha, ha!
Is there any of you hungry? Is there any of you goin' to die for want of
food? Now's your time--ho, ho! Now, Peggy, now. Amn't I doin' it? Ay,
am I, an' it's all for your sake, Peggy dear, for, I swore by the broken
heart you died of--ay, an' didn't I tell you that last night on your
grave where I slep'. No, he wouldn't--he wouldn't--but now--now--he'll
see the differ--ay, an' feel it too. Come on,” he shouted, “who-ever's
hungry, folly me! ha, ha, ha!”
This idiotic, but ferocious laugh, echoing such a dreadful purpose, was
appalling; but the people who knew what he had suffered, only felt it as
a more forcible incentive to outrage. Darby's residence was now quite at
hand, and in a few minutes it was surrounded by such a multitude, both
of men and women, as no other occasion could ever bring together. The
people were, in fact, almost lost in their own garments; some were
without coats or waistcoats to protect them from the elements, having
been forced, poor wretches, to part with them for food; others had
nightcaps or handkerchiefs upon their heads instead of hats; a certain
proof that they were only in a state of convalescence from fever--the
women stood with dishevelled hair--some of them half naked, and others
leading their children about, or bearing them in their arms; altogether
they presented such an appearance as was enough to wring the benevolent
heart with compassion and. sorrow for their sufferings.
On arriving at Darby's house, they found it closed, but not deserted.
At first, Tom Dalton knocked, and desired the door to be opened, but the
women who were present, whether with shame or with honor to the sex, we
are at a loss to say, felt so eager on the occasion, probably for
the purpose of avenging Peggy Murtagh, that they lost not a moment
in shivering in the windows, and attacking the house with stones and
missiles of every description. In a few minutes the movement became so
general and simultaneous that the premises were a perfect wreck,
and nothing was to be seen but meal and flour, and food of every
description, either borne off by the hungry crowd, or scattered most
wickedly and wantonly through the streets, while, in the very midst of
the tumult, Tom Dalton was seen dragging poor Darby out by the throat,
and over to the centre of the street.
“Now,” said he, “here I have you at last--ha, ha, ha!”--his voice,
by the way, as he spoke and laughed, had become fearfully deep and
hollow--“now, Peggy dear, didn't I swear it--by the broken heart
you died of, I said, an' I'll keep that sacred oath, darlin'.” While
speaking, the thin fleshless face of the miser was becoming black--his
eyes were getting blood-shot, and, in a very short time, strangulation
must have closed his wretched existence, when a young and tall female
threw herself by a bound upon Dalton, whom she caught by the throat,
precisely as he himself had caught Darby. It was Sarah, who saw that there
was but little time to lose in order to save the wretch's life. Her grip
was so effectual, that Dalton was obliged to relax his hold upon the
other for the purpose of defending himself.
“Who is this?” said he; “let me go, you had better, till I have his
life--let me go, I say.”
“It's one,” she replied, “that's not afeard but ashamed of you. You, a
young man, to go strangle a weak, helpless ould creature, that hasn't
strength or breath to defend himself no more then a child.”
“Didn't he starve Peggy Murtagh?” replied Tom; “ha, ha, ha!--didn't he
starve her and her child?”
“No,” she replied aloud, and with glowing cheeks; “it's false--it wasn't
he but yourself that starved her and her child. Who deserted her--who
brought her to shame, an' to sorrow, in her own heart an' in the eyes
of the world? Who left her to the bitter and vile tongues of the whole
counthry? Who refused to marry her, and kept her so that she couldn't
raise her face before her fellow cratures? Who sent her, without hope,
or any expectation of happiness in this life--this miserable life--to
the glens and lonely ditches about the neighborhood, where she did
nothing but shed blither tears of despair and shame at the heartless
lot you brought her to? An' when she was desarted by the wide world, an'
hadn't a friendly face to look to but God's, an' when one kind word from
your lips would give her hope, an' comfort, an' happiness, where were
you? and where was that kind word that would have saved her? Let the
old man go, you unmanly coward; it wasn't him that starved her--it was
yourself that starved her, and broke her heart!”
“Did yez hear that?” said Dalton; “ha, ha, ha--an' it's all thrue; she
has tould me nothing but the thruth--here, then, take the ould vagabond
away with you, and do what you like with him--”
“'I am a bold and rambling boy,
My lodging's in the isle of Throy;
A rambling boy, although I be,
I'd lave them all an' folly thee.'
Ha, ha, ha!--but come, boys, pull away; we'll finish the wreck of this
house, at any rate.”
“Wreck away,” said Sarah, “I have nothin' to do with that; but I think
them women--man-women I ought to call them--might consider that there's
many a starvin' mouth that would be glad to have a little of what
they're throwin' about so shamefully. Do you come with me, Darby; I'll
save you as far as I can, an' as long as I'm able.”
“I will, achora,” replied Darby, “an' may God bless you, for you have
saved my life; but why should they attack me? Sure the world knows, an'
God knows, that my heart bleeds--”
“Whisht,” she exclaimed, “the world an' God both know it's a lie, if you
say your heart bleeds for any thing but the destruction that you see
on your place. If you had given Peggy Murtagh the meal, she might be a
livin' woman to-day; so no more falsehoods now, or I'll turn you back to
Tom Dalton's clutches.”
“No, then,” replied the trembling wretch, “I won't; but between you
an' me, then,--an' it needn't go farther--troth my heart bleeds for the
severity that's--”
“One word more,” she replied, “an' I lave you to what you'll get.”
Sarah's interference had a singular effect upon the crowd. The
female portion of it having reflected upon her words, soon felt and
acknowledged their truth, because they involved a principle of justice
and affection to their sex; while the men, without annexing any moral
consideration to the matter, felt themselves influenced by her exquisite
figure and great beauty.
“She's the Black Prophet's daughter,” exclaimed the women; “an' if the
devil was in her, she tould Tom Dalton nothing but the truth, at any
rate.”
“An' they say the devil is in her, the Lord save us, if ever he was in
any one--keep away from her--my sowl in Heaven! but she'd think no more
of tearin' your eyes out, or stickin' you wid a case-knife, than you
would of aitin' bread an' butther.”
“Blessed Father!” exclaimed another, “did you see the brightness of her
eyes while she was spakin?”
“No matther what she is,” said a young fellow beside them; “the devil a
purtier crature ever was made; be my soul, I only wish I had a thousand
pounds, I wouldn't be long without a wife at any rate.”
The crowd having wrecked Skinadre's dwelling, and carried off and
destroyed almost his whole stock of provisions, now proceeded in a
different direction, with the intention of paying a similar visit to
some similar character. Sarah and Darby--for he durst not venture, for
the present, towards his own house--now took their way to the cabin
of old Condy Dalton, where they arrived just in time to find the house
surrounded by the officers of justice, and some military.
“Ah,” thought Sarah, on seeing them; “it is done, then, an' you lost but
little time about it. May God forgive you, father.”
They had scarcely entered, when one of the officers pulling out a paper,
looked at it and asked, “Isn't your name Condy or Cornelius Dalton?”--
“That is my name,” said the old man.
“I arrest you, then,” he continued, “for the murder of one Bartholomew
Sullivan.”
“It is the will of God,” replied the old man, while the tears flowed
down his cheeks--“it's God's will, an' I won't consale it any longer;
take me away--I'm guilty--I'm guilty.”
CHAPTEE XXI. -- Condy Datton goes to Prison.
The scene that presented itself in Condy Dalton's miserable cabin was
one, indeed, which might well harrow any heart not utterly callous to
human sympathy. The unhappy old man had been sitting in the armchair we
have alluded to, his chin resting on his breast, and his mind apparently
absorbed in deep and painful reflection, when the officers of justice
entered. Many of our Landlord readers, and all, probably, of our
Absentee ones, will, in the simplicity of their ignorance regarding the
actual state of the lower classes, most likely take it for granted
that the picture we are about to draw exists nowhere but in our own
imagination. Would to God that it were so! Gladly and willingly would we
take to ourselves all the shame; acknowledge all the falsehood; pay
the highest penalty for all the moral guilt of our misrepresentations,
provided only any one acquainted with the country could prove to us
that we are wrong, change our nature, or, in other words, falsify the
evidence of our senses and obliterate our experience of the truths we
are describing.
Old Dalton was sitting, as we have said, in the only memorial of his
former respectability now left him--the old arm-chair--when the men
bearing the warrant for his arrest presented themselves. The rain
was pouring down in that close, dark, and incessant fall, which gives
scarcely any hope of its ending, and throws the heart into that anxious
and gloomy state which every one can feel and perhaps no one describe.
The cabin in which the Daltons now lived was of the poorest description.
When ejected from their large holding by Dick o' the Grange, or in other
words, were auctioned out, they were unhappily at a loss where to find
a place in which they could take a temporary refuge. A kind neighbor who
happened to have the cabin in question lying unoccupied, or rather
waste upon his hands, made them an offer of it; not, as he said, in
the expectation that they could live in it for any length of time, but
merely until they could provide themselves with a more comfortable and
suitable abode.
“He wished,” he added, “it was better for their sakes; and sorry he was
to see such a family brought so low as to live in it at all!”
Alas! he knew not at the time how deeply the unfortunate family in
question were steeped in distress and poverty. They accepted this
miserable cabin; but in spite of every effort to improve their
condition, days, weeks, and months passed, and still found them unable
to make a change for the better.
When Darby and Sarah entered, they found young Con, who had now
relapsed, lying in one corner of the cabin, on a wretched shake-down bed
of damp straw; while on another of the same description lay his amiable
and affectionate sister Nancy. The cabin stood, as we have said, in a
low, moist situation, the floor of it being actually lower--which is a
common case--than the ground about it outside. It served, therefore,
as a receptacle for the damp and under-water which the incessant
down-pouring of rain during the whole season had occasioned. It was
therefore, dangerous to tread upon the floor, it was so soft and
slippery. The rain, which fell heavily, now came down through the roof
in so many places that they were forced to put under it such vessels as
they could spare, not even excepting the beds over each of which were
placed old clothes, doubled up under dishes, pots, and little bowls,
in order, if possible, to keep them dry. The house--if such it could
be called--was almost destitute of furniture, nothing but a few pots,
dishes, wooden noggins, some spoons, and some stools being their
principal furniture, with the exception of one standing short-posted
bed, in a corner, near the fire. There, then, in that low, damp, dark,
pestilential kraal, without chimney or window, sat the old man, who,
notwithstanding its squalid misery, could have looked upon it as a
palace, had he been able to say to his own heart--I am not a murderer.
There, we say, he sat alone, surrounded by pestilence and famine in
their most fearful shapes, listening to the moanings of his sick family,
and the ceaseless dropping of the rain, which fell into the vessels that
were placed to receive it. Mrs. Dalton was “out,” a term which was used
in the bitter misery of the period, to indicate that the person to whom
it applied had been driven to the last resource of mendicancy; and his
other daughter, Mary, had gone to a neighbor's house to beg a little
fire.
As the old man uttered the words, no language could describe the misery
which was depicted on his countenance.
“Take me,” he exclaimed; “ah, no; for then what will become of these?”
pointing to his son and daughter, who were sick.
The very minions of the law felt for him; and the chief of them said, in
a voice of kindness and compassion:
“It's a distressin' case; but if you'll be guided by me, you won't say
anything that may be brought against yourself. I was never engaged,”
said he, looking towards Darby and Sarah, to whom he partly addressed
his discourse, “in anything so painful as this. A man of his age, now
afther so many years! However--well--it can't be helped; we must do our
duty.”
“Where is the rest of your family?” asked another of them; “is this
young woman a daughter of yours?”
“Not at all,” replied a third; “this is a daughter of the Black Prophet
himself; and, by japers, you hardened gipsey, it's a little too bad for
you to come to see how your blasted ould father's work gets on. It's his
evidence that's bringin' this dacent ould man from his family to a gaol,
this miserable evenin'. Be off out o' this, I desire you; I wondher
you're not ashamed to be present here, above all places in the world,
you brazen devil.”
Sarah's whole soul, however, in all its best and noblest sympathies, had
passed into and mingled with the scene of unparalleled misery which was
then before her. She went rapidly to the bed in which young Con was I
stretched; stooped down, and looking closely at him, perceived that he
was in a broken and painful slumber. She then passed to that in which
his sister lay, and saw that she was also asleep. After a glance at
each, she rubbed her hands with a kind of wild satisfaction, and going
up to old Dalton, exclaimed--for she had not heard a syllable of the
language used towards her by the officer of justice--
“Ay,” said she, laying her hand upon his white hairs; “you are to be
pitied this night, poor ould man; but which of you, oh, which of you
is to be pitied most, you or them! an' your wife, too; an' your other
daughter, an' your other son, too; but he's past under-standin' it;
oh, what will they do? At your age, too--at your age! Oh, couldn't you
die?--couldn't you contrive, someway, to die?--couldn't you give one
great struggle, an' then break your heart at wanst, an' forever!”
These words were uttered rapidly, but in a low and cautious voice, for
she still feared to awaken those who slept.
The old man had also been absorbed in, his own misery; for he looked
at her inquiringly, and only replied, “Poor girl, what is it you're
saying?”
“I'm biddin' you to die,” she replied, “if you can, you needn't be
afeard of God--he has punished you enough for the crime you have
committed. Try an' die, if you can--or if you can't--oh,” she exclaimed,
“I pray God that you--that he, there--” and she ran and bent over young
Con's bed for a moment; “that you--that you may never recover, or live
to see what you must see.”
“It's a fact, that between hunger and this sickness,” continued he who
had addressed her last, “they say an' I know that there's great number
of people silly; but I think this lady is downright mad; what do you
mane, you clip?”
Sarah stared at him impatiently, but without any anger.
“He doesn't hear me,” she added, again putting her hand in a distracted
manner upon Dalton's gray hair; “no, no; but since it can't be so,
there's not a minute to be lost. Oh, take him away, now,” she proceeded,
“take him away while they're asleep, an' before his wife and daughter
comes home--take him away, now; and spare him--spare them--spare them
all as much sufferin' as you can.”
“There's not much madness in that, Jack,” returned one of them; “I
think it would be the best thing we could do. Are you ready to come now,
Dalton?” asked the man.
“Who's that,” said the old man, in a voice of indescribable woe
and sorrow; “who's that was talkin' of a broken heart? Oh, God,” he
exclaimed, looking up to Heaven, with a look of intense agony, “support
me--support them; and if it be your blessed will, pity us all; but above
all things, pity them, oh, Heavenly Father, and don't punish them for my
sin!”
“It's false,” exclaimed Sarah, looking on Dalton, and reasoning
apparently with herself; “he never committed a could blooded murdher;
an' the Sullivans are--are--oh--take him away,” she said, still in
a low, rapid voice; “take him away! Come now,” she added, approaching
Dalton again; “come--while they're asleep, an' you'll save them an'
yourself much distress. I'm not afeard of your wife--for she can bear
it if any wife could--but I do your poor daughter, an' she so weak an'
feeble afther her illness; come.”
Dalton looked at her, and said:
“Who is this girl that seems to feel so much for me? but whoever she is,
may God bless her, for I feel that she's right. Take me away before they
waken! oh, she is right in every word she says, for I am not afeard of
my wife--her trust in God is too firm for anything to shake. I'm ready;
but I fear I'll scarcely be able to walk all the way--an' sich an
evenin' too--Young woman, will you break this business to these ones,
and to my wife, as you can?”
“Oh, I will, I will,” she replied; “as well as I can; you did well to
say so,” she added, in a low voice to herself; “an' I'll stay here with
your sick family, an' I'll watch an' attend them. Whatever can be done
by the like o' me for them, I'll do. I'll--I'll not lave them--I'll
nurse them--I'll take care of them--I'll beg for them--oh, what would I
not do for them?” and while speaking she bent over young Con's bed, and
clasping her hands, and wringing them several times, she repeated “oh
what wouldn't I do for you!”
“May God bless you, best of girls, whoever you are! Come, now, I'm
ready.”
“Ay,” said Sarah, running over to him, “that's right--I'll break the
bitter news to them as well as it can be done; come, now.”
The old man stood, in the midst of his desolation, with his hat in his
hand, and he looked towards the beds.
“Poor things!” he exclaimed; “what a change has come over you, for what
you wanst, an' that not long since, wor. Never, my darlin' childhre--oh,
never did one harsh or undutiful word come from your lips to your
unhappy father. In my ould age and misery I'm now lavin' you--may be
forever--never, maybe, to see you again in this world; an' oh, my God,
if we are never to meet in the other; if the innocent and the guilty is
never to meet, then this is my last look at you, for everlastin', for
everlastin'! I can't do it,” he added, weeping bitterly--“I must take my
lave of them; I must kiss their lips.”
Sarah, while he spoke, had uttered two or three convulsive sobs; but she
shed no tears; on the contrary, her eyes were singularly animated and
brilliant. She put her arms about him, and said, in a soothing and
solicitous tone:
“Oh, no, it's all thrue; but if you kiss them, you'll disturb and waken
them; and then, you know, when they see you taken away in this manner,
an' hears what it's for, it may be their death.”
“Thrue, achora; thrue: well, I will only look at them, then. Let me keep
my eyes on them for a little; may be they may go first, an' may be I may
go first; the last time, may be, for everlastin', that I'll see them!”
He went over, as he spoke, Sarah still having her hand upon his arm,
as if to intimate her anxiety to keep him under such control as might
prevent him from awakening them; and, standing first over the miserable
bed where Nancy slept, he looked down upon her.
“Ay,” said he, while the tears showered down his cheeks, “there lies the
child that never vexed a parent's heart or ruffled one of our tempers.
May the blessin', if it is a blessin', or can be a blessin'--”
“It is, it is,” said Sarah, with a quick, short sob; “it is a blessin',
an' a holy blessin'; but bless him--bless him, too!”
“May my blessin' rest upon you, or rather may the blessin' of Almighty
God, rest upon you, daughter of my heart! And you too,” he proceeded,
turning to the other bed; “here is him that among them all I loved the
best; my youngest, an' called afther myself--may my blessin' an' the
blessin' of God and my Saviour rest upon you, my darlin' son; an' if
I never see either of you in this unhappy world, grant, oh, merciful
Father, that we may meet in the glory of Heaven, when that stain will be
taken away from me for that crime that I have repented for so long an'
so bittherly?”
Sarah, while he spoke, had let go his arm, and placing her two hands
over her eyes, her whole breast quivered; and the men, on looking at
her, saw the tears gushing out in torrents from between her finger. She
turned round, however, for a few moments, as if to compose herself;
and, when she again approached the old man, there was a smile--a smile,
brilliant, but agitated, in her eyes and upon her lips.
“There now,” she proceeded; “you have said all you can say; come, go
with them. Ah,” she exclaimed with a start of pain, “all we've done
or tried to do is lost, I doubt. Here's his wife and daughter. Come out
now,” said she addressing him, “say a word or two to them outside.”
Just as she spoke, Mrs. Dalton and the poor invalid, Mary, entered the
house: the one with some scanty supply of food, and the other bearing a
live coal between two turf, one under and the other over it.
“Wait,” said Sarah, “I'll speak to them before they come in.” And, ere
the words were uttered, she met them.
“Come here, Mrs. Dalton,” said she; “stop a minute, speak to this poor
girl, and support her. These sogers, and the constables inside, is come
about Sullivan's business, long ago.”
“I know it,” replied Mrs. Dalton; “I've just heard all about it, there
beyond; but she,” pointing to her daughter, “has only crossed the ditch
from the commons, and joined me this minute.”
“Give me these,” said Sarah to the girl, “and stay here till I come out
again, wet as it is. Your mother will tell you why.”
She took the fire from her as she spoke, and, running in, laid it upon
the hearth, placing, at the same time, two or three turf about in a
hurried manner, but still in a way that argued great presence of mind,
amid all her distraction. On going out again, however, the first object
she saw was one of the soldiers supporting the body of poor Mary, who
had sunk under the intelligence. Mrs. Dalton having entered the
cabin, and laid down the miserable pittance of food which she had been
carrying, now waved her hand with authority and singular calmness, but
at the same time with a face as pallid as death itself.
“This is a solemn hour,” said she, “an' a woful sight in this place of
misery. Keep quiet, all of you. I know what this is about, dear Condy,”
she said; “I know it; but what is the value of our faith, if it doesn't
teach us obedience? Kiss your child, here,” said she, “an' go--or come,
I ought to say, for I will go with you. It's not to be wondhered at that
she couldn't bear it, weak, and worn, and nearly heartbroken as she is.
Bless her, too, before you go. An' this girl,” she said, pointing at
Mary, and addressing Sarah, “you will spake to her, an' support her as
well as you can, and stay with them all for an hour or two. I can't lave
him.”
Dalton, while she spoke, had taken Mary in his arms, kissed her, and, as
in the case of the others, blessed her with a fervor only surpassed by
his sorrow and utter despair.
“I will stay with them,” said Sarah; “don't doubt that--not for an hour
or two, but till they come to either life or death; so I tould him.”
“It's a bitther case,” said Mrs. Dalton; “a bitther case; but then it's
God's gracious will, an' them that He loves He chastises. Blessed be His
name for all He does, and blessed be His name ever for this!”
Mary now recovered in her father's arms; and her mother, in a low but
energetic voice, pointing to the beds, said:
“Think of them, darlin'. There now, part with him. This world, I often
tould you dear, Mary, is not our place, but our passage; an' although
it's painful let us not forget that it is God Himself that is guidin'
and directin' us through it. Come, Con dear, come.”
A long mournful embrace, and another sorrowful but fervent blessing,
and with a feeble effort at consolation, Dalton parted with the weeping
girl; and placing his hat on his white head, he gave one long look--one
indescribable look--upon all that was so dear to him in this scene of
unutterable misery, and departed. He had not gone far, however, when he
returned a step or two towards the door; and Mary, having noticed this,
went to him, and throwing her arms once more about his neck, exclaimed:
“Oh! Father, darlin' an' is it come to this? Oh, did we ever complain or
grumble about all we suffered, while we had you wid us? no, we wouldn't.
What was our sufferins, father, dear--nothing. But, oh, nothing ever
broke our hearts, or troubled us, but to see you in sich sorrow.”
“It's thrue, Mary darlin'; you wor all--all a blessin' to me; but I feel,
threasure of my heart, that my sorrows an' my cares will soon be over.
It's about Tom I come back. Och, sure I didn't care what he or we might
suffer, if it had plased God to lave him in his senses; but maybe now
he's happier than we are. Tell him--if he can understand it, or when he
does understand it--that I lave my blessin' and God's blessin' with him
for evermore--for evermore: an' with you all; an' with you, too, young
woman, for evermore, amen! And now come; I submit myself to the will of
my marciful Saviour.”
He looked up to heaven as he spoke, his two hands raised aloft; after
which he covered his venerable head, and, with this pious and noble
instance of resignation, did the affectionate old man proceed, as well
as his feeble limbs could support him, to the county prison, accompanied
by his pious and truly Christian wife.
As the men were about to go, he who had addressed Sarah so rudely,
approached her with as much regret on his face as its hardened and
habitual indifference to human misery could express, and said, tapping
her on the shoulder:
“I was rather rough to you, jist now, my purty girl--to' be jabers, it'
is you that is the purty girl. I dunna, by the way, how the ould Black
Prophet came by the likes o' you; but, then he was a handsome vagabond
in his day, himself, an' you are like him.”
“What do you want to say?” she asked, impatiently; “but stand outside,
I won't speak to you here--your voice would waken a corpse. Here, now,”
she added, having gone out upon the causeway, “what is it?”
“Why, devil a thing,” he replied; “only you're a betther girl than I
tuck you to be. It's a pitiful case, this--a woful case at his time o'
life. Be heaventhers, but I'd rather a thousand times see Black Boy,
your own precious father, swing, than this poor ould man.”
A moment's temporary fury was visible, but she paused, and it passed
away; after which she returned slowly and thoughtfully into the cabin.
It is unnecessary to say, that almost immediately the general rumor
of Dalton's arrest for the murder had gone through the whole parish,
together with the fact that it was upon the evidence of the Black
Prophet and Red Rody Duncan, that the proof of it had been brought home
to him. Upon the former occasion there had been nothing against him,
but such circumstances of strong suspicion as justified the neighboring
magistrates in having him taken into custody. On this, however, the two
men were ready to point out the identical spot where the body had been
buried, and to identify it as that of Bartholomew Sullivan. Nothing
remained, therefore, now that Dalton was in custody, but to hold an
inquest upon the remains, and to take the usual steps for the trial
of Dalton at the following assizes, which were not very far distant.
Indeed, notwithstanding the desolation that prevailed throughout the
country, and in spite of the care and sorrow which disease and death
brought home to so many in the neighborhood, there was a very general
feeling of compassion experienced for poor old Dalton and his afflicted
family. And among those who sympathized with them, there was scarcely
one who expressed himself more strongly upon the subject than Mr.
Travers, the head agent of the property on which they had lived,
especially upon contrasting the extensive farm and respectable
residence, from which their middleman landlord had so harshly and
unjustly ejected them, with the squalid kennel in which they then
endured such a painful and pitiable existence. This gentleman had come
to the neighborhood, in order to look closely into the condition of the
property which had been entrusted to his management, in consequence of
a great number of leases having expired; some of which had been held
by extensive and wealthy middlemen, among the latter of whom was our
friend, Dick o' the Grange.
The estate was the property of an English, nobleman, who derived an
income of thirty-two or thirty-three thousand a year from it; and who
though, as landlords went, was not, in many respects, a bad one; yet
when called upon to aid in relieving the misery of those from whose toil
he drew so large an income, did actually remit back the munificent sum
of one hundred pounds! [A recent fact.] The agent, himself, was one of
those men who are capable of a just, but not of a generous action. He
could, for instance, sympathize with the frightful condition of the
people--but to contribute to their relief was no part of his duty. Yet
he was not a bad man. In his transactions with his landlord's tenancy,
he was fair, impartial, and considerate. Whenever he could do a good
turn, or render a service, without touching his purse, he would do it.
He had, it is true, very little intercourse with the poorer class of
under tenants, but, whenever circumstances happened to bring them
before him, they found him a hard, just man, who paid attention to their
complaints, but who, in a case of doubt, always preferred the interest
of his employer, or his own, to theirs. He had received many complaints
and statements against the middlemen who resided upon the property, and
he had duly and carefully considered them. His present visit, therefore,
proceeded from a determination to look closely into the state and
condition of the general tenancy, by which he meant as well those who
derived immediately from the head landlord, as those who held under
middlemen. One virtue he possessed, which, in an agent, deserves every
praise; he was inaccessible to bribery on the one hand, or flattery on
the other; and he never permitted his religious or political principles
to degenerate into prejudice, so far as to interfere with the impartial
discharge of his duty. Such was Robert James Travers, Esq., and we only
wish that every agent in the country at large would follow his example.