Leaving for a brief season Glenflesk and its inhabitants, we shall ask
of our readers to accompany us to London, to a scene somewhat different
from that of our last chapter.
In a handsomely furnished drawing-room in St. James's street, where the
appliances of ease and luxury were blended with the evidence of those
tastes so popular among young men of fashion of the period, sat, or
rather lay, in a deep cushioned arm-chair, a young officer, who, even
in the dishabille of the morning, and with the evident traces of fatigue
and dissipation on his brow, was strikingly handsome. Though not more
than three or four-and-twenty, the habits of his life, and the assured
features of his character, made him appear several years older. In
figure he was tall and well-proportioned, while his countenance
bore those lineaments which are pre-eminently distinguished as
Saxon,--massive but well-chiselled features, the harmony of whose
expression is even more striking than their individual excellence,
a look of frank daring, which many were prone to attribute to
superciliousness, was the most marked trait in his face, nor was the
impression lessened by a certain “_hauteur_,” which military men of the
time assumed, and which, he, in particular, somewhat prided himself on.
The gifts of fortune and the graces of person will often seem to invest
their possessor with attributes of insolence and overbearing, which are,
in reality, nothing more than the unbridled buoyancy of youth and power
revelling in its own exercise.
We have no fancy to practise mystery with our reader, and shall at
once introduce him to Frederick Travers, Sir Marmaduke's only son, and
Captain in the first regiment of Guards. Wealth and good looks were
about as popular fifty years ago, as they are in the year we write in,
and Frederick Travers was as universal a favorite in the circles he
frequented as any man of his day. Courtly manners, spirits nothing could
depress, a courage nothing could daunt, expensive tastes, gratified as
rapidly as they were conceived, were all accessaries which won their
way among his acquaintances, and made them proud of his intimacy, and
boastful of his friendship. That circumstances like these should have
rendered a young man self-willed and imperious, is not to be wondered
at, and such was he in reality--less, however, from the unlimited
license of his position, than from an hereditary feature which
distinguished every member of his family, and made them as intolerant of
restraint, as they were wayward in purpose. The motto of their house was
the index of their character, and in every act and thought they seemed
under the influence of their emblazoned inscription, “A tort et à
travers.”
Over his father, Frederick Travers exercised an unlimited influence;
from his boyhood upward he had never met a contradiction, and the
natural goodness of his temper, and the affectionate turn of his
disposition, made the old man believe in the excellence of a system,
whose success lay less in its principle, than in the virtue of him, on
whom it was practised.
Sir Marmaduke felt proud of his son's career in the world, and enjoyed
to the utmost all the flattery which the young man's acceptance in
society conferred; he was proud of him, almost as much as he was fond of
him, and a letter from Frederick had always the effect of restoring his
spirits, no matter how deep their depression the moment before.
The youth returned his father's affection with his whole heart; he
knew and valued all the high and generous principles of his nature; he
estimated with an honest pride those gifts which had won Sir Marmaduke
the esteem and respect of his fellow-citizens; but yet, he thought he
could trace certain weaknesses of character, from which his own more
enlarged sphere of life had freed him.
Fashionable associates, the society of men of wit and pleasure, seem
often to suggest more acute and subtle views of life, than are to be
obtained in less exalted and distinguished company; the smart sayings
and witty epigrams which are current among clever men appear to be so
many texts in the wisdom of the world. Nothing is more common than this
mistake; nothing more frequent than to find, that intercourse with such
people diffuses few, if any, of their distinguishing merits among their
less gifted associates, who rarely learn any thing from the intercourse,
but a hearty contempt for all who are debarred from it. Frederick was of
this school; the set he moved in was his religion--their phrases, their
prejudices, their passions, he regarded as standards for all imitation.
It is not surprising, then, if he conceived many of his father's notions
obsolete and antiquated, and had they not been his, he would have
treated them as ridiculous.
This somewhat tedious explanation of a character with whom we have not
any very lengthened business hereafter, demands some apology from us,
still, without it we should be unable to explain to our reader the
reason of those events to whose narrative we are hastening.
On the table, among the materials of a yet untasted breakfast, lay an
open letter, of which, from time to time, the young man read, and as
often threw from him, with expressions of impatience and anger. A
night of more than ordinary dissipation had made him irritable, and the
contents of the epistle did not seem of a character to calm him.
“I knew it,” said he at last, as he crushed the letter in his hand. “I
knew it, well; my poor father is unfit to cope with those savages; what
could ever have persuaded him to venture among them I know not! the few
hundreds a year the whole estate produces, are not worth as many weeks'
annoyance. Hemsworth knows them well; he is the only man fit to deal
with them. Heigho!” said he, with a sigh, “there is nothing for it
I suppose, but to bring them back again as soon as may be--and this
confounded accident Hemsworth has met with in the Highlands, will lay
him on his back these five weeks--I must e'en go myself. Yet nothing was
ever more ill-timed. The Queen's fête at Frogmore, fixed for Wednesday;
there's the tennis match on Friday,--and Saturday, the first day of the
Stag hounds. It is too bad. Hemsworth is greatly to blame; he should
have been candid about these people, and not have made his Pandemonium
an Arcadia. My father is also to blame; he might have asked my advice
about this trip; and Sybella, too--why didn't she write? She above all
should have warned me about the folly;” and thus did he accuse in
turn all the parties concerned in a calamity, which, after all, he saw
chiefly reflected in the inconvenience it caused himself.
Now, assuredly, Hemsworth requires some vindication at our hands. It had
never entered into that worthy man's most imaginative conceptions, to
believe a visit from Sir Marmaduke to his Irish property within the
reach of possibility; for although, as we have already said, he was in
the constant habit of entreating Sir Marmaduke to bestow this mark of
condescension on his Irish tenants, he ever contrived to accompany the
recommendation with certain casual hints about the habits and customs
of the natives, as might well be supposed sufficient to deter a more
adventurous traveller than the old baronet; and while he pressed him to
come, and see for himself, he at the same time plied him with newspapers
and journals, whose columns were crammed with the fertile theme of
outrage; the editorial comments on which often indicated a barbarism
even deeper than the offence they affected to deplore. The accident
which ultimately led to Sir Marmaduke's hurried journey, was a casualty
which Hemsworth had overlooked, and when he heard that the family were
actually domesticated at “the Lodge,” his regrets were indeed great. It
was only on the day before the intelligence reached him--for the letter
had followed him from place to place for a fortnight--that he had the
misfortune to break his leg, by a fall from a cliff in deer shooting.
Whatever the urgency of the measure, he was totally incapable of
undertaking a journey to Ireland, whither, under other circumstances, he
would have hastened with all speed. Hemsworth's correspondent, of whom
we shall have occasion to speak more, hereafter, was the sub-agent of
the estate,--a creature of his own, in every sense, and far more in his
interest, than in that of his principal. He told him, in forcible terms,
how Sir Marmaduke had commenced his work of Irish reformation; that,
already, both the baronet and his daughter had undertaken the task
of improvement among the tenantry; that rents were to be lowered,
school-houses erected, medical aid provided for the sick and suffering,
more comfortable dwellings built, more liberal wages allowed; he
narrated, how rapidly the people, at first suspicious and distrustful,
were learning to feel confidence in their benefactor, and anxious to
avail themselves of his benevolence; but more than all, he dwelt
upon the conviction, which every hour gained ground among them, that
Hemsworth had misrepresented the landlord, and that, so far from being
himself the instrument of, he had been the obstacle to, their welfare
and happiness. The letter concluded with a pressing entreaty for his
speedy return to “the Lodge,” as, should he be longer absent, the
mischief would become past remedy.
Never did agent receive an epistle more alarming; he saw the game, for
which he had been playing half a lifetime, slip from him at the very
moment of winning. For above twenty years his heart was set upon
becoming the owner of the estate; all his plans, his plots, his
machinations, had no other end or object. From the deepest stroke of his
policy, to the most trivial act of his power, he had held this in view.
By his artful management a veil was intercepted between the landlord and
the people, which no acuteness on either side could penetrate. The very
acts intended as benefits by the owner of the soil, passed through such
a medium, that they diverged from their destined direction, and fell,
less as blessings than inflictions. The landlord was taught to regard
the tenant, as incurably sunk in barbarism, ignorance, and superstition.
The tenant to suppose the landlord, a cruel, unfeeling task-master, with
no care but for his rent; neither sympathy for their sufferings, nor
sorrow for their calamities. Hemsworth played his game like a master;
for while obtaining the smallest amount of rental for his chief, he
exacted the most onerous and impoverishing terms from the people. Thus
diminishing the apparent value of the property, he hoped one day to
be able to purchase, and at the same time preparing it for becoming a
lucrative and valuable possession, for although the rents were nominally
low, the amount of fees and “duty-labor” were enormous. There was
scarcely a man upon the property whose rent was paid to the day and
hour, and for the favour of some brief delay, certain services were
exacted, which virtually reduced the tenants to a vassalage the most
miserable and degrading.
If, then, the eye ranged over a district of a poverty-struck and
starving peasantry, with wretched hovels, naked children, and rude,
unprofitable tillage, let the glance but turn to the farm around “the
Lodge,” and, there, the trim fences, the well-weeded corn, and the
nicely-cultivated fields, were an evidence of what well-directed labour
could effect; and the astounding lesson seemed to say:--Here is an
object for imitation. Look at yonder wheat: see that clover, and the
meadow beyond it. They could all do likewise. Their land is the same,
the climate the same, the rent the same; but yet ignorance and obstinacy
are incurable. They will not be taught--prefer their own barbarous ways
to newer and better methods--in fact, are beyond the lessons of either
precept or example.
Yet what was the real case? To till that model-farm, to make these
fields the perfection you see them, families were starving--age, left
to totter to the grave, uncared-for--manhood, pining in want and misery,
and infancy, to dawn upon suffering, to last a life long. Duty-labour
calls the poor man from the humble care of his own farm, to come, with
his whole house, and toil upon the rich man's fields, the requital for
which is some poor grace of a week's or a month's forbearance, ere he be
called on for that rent these exactions are preventing him from earning.
Duty-labour summons him from his own profitless ground, to behold the
fruits his exertions are raising for another's enjoyment, and of which
he must never taste! Duty-labour calls the days of fair sky and sunshine,
and leaves him the gloomy hours of winter, when, with darkness without,
and despair within, he may brood, as he digs, over the disproportioned
fortunes of his tyrant and himself! Duty-labour is the type of a
slavery, that hardens the heart, by extinguishing all hope, and
uprooting every feeling of self-confidence and reliance, till, in abject
and degraded misery, the wretched man grows reckless of his life, while
his vengeance yearns for that of his task master.
Nor does the system end here;--the agent must be conciliated by presents
of various kinds;--the humble pittance, wrung from misery, and hoarded
up by industry, must be offered to him, as the means of obtaining some
poor and petty favour, most frequently, one, the rightful due of the
asker. A tyranny like this spreads its baneful influence far beyond the
afflictions of mere poverty--it breaks down the spirit, it demoralizes
the heart of a people; for where was black-mail ever extorted, that
it did not engender cruelty on the one hand, and abject slavery on the
other?
So far from regarding those placed above them in rank and station, as
their natural friends and protectors, the peasantry felt the great man
as their oppressor; they knew him not, as their comforter in sickness,
their help in time of trouble--they only saw in him, the rigid exactor
of his rent, the merciless task-master, who cared not for time or
season, save those that brought round the period of repayment; and as,
year by year, poverty and misery ate deeper into their natures, and hope
died out, fearful thoughts of retribution flashed upon minds, on which
no prospect of better days shone; and, in the gloomy desolation of their
dark hours, they wished and prayed for any change, come in what shape,
and surrounded by what danger it might, if only this bondage should
cease.
Men spoke of their light-heartedness, their gaiety of temper, their
flashing and brilliant wit. How little they knew that such qualities,
by some strange incongruity of our natures, are the accompaniments
of deeply-reflective and imaginative minds, overshadowed by lowering
fortune. The glittering fancy, that seems to illumine the path of life,
is often but the wild-fire that dances over the bleak and desolate
heath.
Their apathy and indifference to exertion was made a matter of reproach
to them; yet, was it ever known that toil should be voluntary, when
hopeless, and that labour should be endured without a prospect of
requital?
We have been led, almost unconsciously, into this somewhat lengthened
digression, for which, even did it not bear upon the circumstances of
our story, we would not seek to apologize to our reader. Such we believe
to have been, in great part, the wrongs of Ireland--the fertile source
of those thousand evils under which the land was suffering. From this
one theme have arisen, most, if not all, the calamities of the country.
Happy were it, if we could say that such existed no longer--that such
a state of things was a matter for historical inquiry, or an old man's
memory--and that in our own day these instances were not to be found
among us.
When Hemsworth perceived that the project of his life was in peril, he
bethought him of every means by which the danger could be averted. Deep
and well-founded as was his confidence in the cleverness of his deputy,
his station was an insurmountable barrier to his utility at the present
conjuncture. Sam Wylie, for so this worthy was called, was admirable
as a spy, but never could be employed as minister plenipotentiary: it
needed one, now, who should possess more influence over Sir Marmaduke
himself. For this purpose, Frederick Travers alone seemed the fitting
person; to him, therefore, Hemsworth wrote a letter marked “strictly
confidential,” detailing, with pains-taking accuracy, the inevitable
misfortunes Sir Marmaduke's visit would entail upon a people, whose
demands no benevolence could satisfy, whose expectations no concessions
could content.
He narrated the fearful instances of their vengeance, whenever
disappointment had checked the strong current of their hopes; and told,
with all the semblance of truth, of scenes of bloodshed and murder, no
cause for which could be traced, save in the dark suspicions of a people
long accustomed to regard the Saxon as their tyrant.
The night attack upon “the Lodge” furnished also its theme of terror;
and so artfully did he blend his fact and fiction, his true statement,
and his false inference, that the young man read the epistle with an
anxious and beating heart, and longed for the hour, when he should
recall those he held dearest, from such a land of anarchy and
misfortune.
Not satisfied with the immediate object in view, Hemsworth ingeniously
contrived to instil into Frederick's mind misgivings as to the value of
an estate thus circumstanced, representing, not without some truth on
his side, that the only chance of bettering the condition of a peasantry
so sunk and degraded, was by an actual residence in the midst of them, a
penalty, which to the youth, seemed too dear for any requital whatever.
On a separate slip of paper, marked “to be burned when read,” Frederick
deciphered the following lines:--
“Above all things, I would caution you regarding a family
who, though merely of the rank of farmer, affect a gentility
which had its origin some dozen centuries back, and has had
ample opportunity to leak out in the meantime; these are
the 'O'Donoghues,' a dangerous set, haughty, ill-
conditioned, and scheming. They will endeavour, if they can,
to obtain influence with your father, and I cannot too
strongly represent the hazard of such an event. Do not, I
entreat you, suffer his compassion, or mistaken benevolence,
to be exercised in their behalf. Were they merely unworthy,
I should say nothing on the subject; but they are highly and
eminently dangerous, in a land, where their claims are
regarded as only in abeyance--deferred, but not obliterated,
by confiscation.
“E. H.”
It would in no wise forward the views of our story, were we to detail
to our readers the affecting scenes which preluded Frederick's departure
from London, the explanations he was called on to repeat, as he went
from house to house, for a journey at once so sudden and extraordinary;
for even so late as fifty years ago, a visit to Ireland was a matter of
more moment, and accompanied by more solemn preparation, than many now
bestow on an overland journey to India. The Lady Marys and Bettys of
the fashionable world regarded him pretty much as the damsels of old did
some doughty knight, when setting forth on his way to Palestine. That
filial affection could exact such an instance of devotion, called up
their astonishment, even more than their admiration; and many were
the cautions, many the friendly counsels, given to the youth for his
preservation in a land so rife with danger.
Frederick was a soldier, and a brave one; but still, he was not
entirely divested of those apprehensions which the ignorance of the day
propagated; and although only accompanied by a single servant, they were
both armed to the teeth, and prepared to do valiant battle, if need be,
against the Irish “rogues and rapparrees.”
Here, then, for the present, we shall leave him, having made his last
“adieux” to his friends, and set out on his journey to Ireland.