A few Sundays ago, I formed one of the congregation assembled in the
chapel of a large metropolitan Workhouse. With the exception of the
clergyman and clerk, and a very few officials, there were none but
paupers present. The children sat in the galleries; the women in the
body of the chapel, and in one of the side aisles; the men in the
remaining aisle. The service was decorously performed, though the sermon
might have been much better adapted to the comprehension and to the
circumstances of the hearers. The usual supplications were offered, with
more than the usual significancy in such a place, for the fatherless
children and widows, for all sick persons and young children, for all
that were desolate and oppressed, for the comforting and helping of the
weak-hearted, for the raising-up of them that had fallen; for all that
were in danger, necessity, and tribulation. The prayers of the
congregation were desired “for several persons in the various wards,
dangerously ill;” and others who were recovering returned their thanks
to Heaven.
Among this congregation, were some evil-looking young women, and
beetle-browed young men; but not many—perhaps that kind of characters
kept away. Generally, the faces (those of the children excepted) were
depressed and subdued, and wanted colour. Aged people were there, in
every variety. Mumbling, blear-eyed, spectacled, stupid, deaf, lame;
vacantly winking in the gleams of sun that now and then crept in through
the open doors, from the paved yard; shading their listening ears, or
blinking eyes, with their withered hands; poring over their books,
leering at nothing, going to sleep, crouching and drooping in corners.
There were weird old women, all skeleton within, all bonnet and cloak
without, continually wiping their eyes with dirty dusters of
pocket-handkerchiefs; and there were ugly old crones, both male and
female, with a ghastly kind of contentment upon them which was not at
all comforting to see. Upon the whole, it was the dragon, Pauperism, in
a very weak and impotent condition; toothless, fangless, drawing his
breath heavily enough, and hardly worth chaining up.
When the service was over, I walked with the humane and conscientious
gentleman whose duty it was to take that walk, that Sunday morning,
through the little world of poverty enclosed within the workhouse walls.
It was inhabited by a population of some fifteen hundred or two thousand
paupers, ranging from the infant newly born or not yet come into the
pauper world, to the old man dying on his bed.
In a room opening from a squalid yard, where a number of listless women
were lounging to and fro, trying to get warm in the ineffectual sunshine
of the tardy May morning—in the “Itch-Ward,” not to compromise the
truth—a woman such as HOGARTH has often drawn, was hurriedly getting on
her gown, before a dusty fire. She was the nurse, or wardswoman, of that
insalubrious department—herself a pauper—flabby, raw-boned,
untidy—unpromising and coarse of aspect as need be. But, on being spoken
to about the patients whom she had in charge, she turned round, with her
shabby gown half on, half off, and fell a crying with all her might. Not
for show, not querulously, not in any mawkish sentiment, but in the deep
grief and affliction of her heart; turning away her dishevelled head:
sobbing most bitterly, wringing her hands, and letting fall abundance of
great tears, that choked her utterance. What was the matter with the
nurse of the itch-ward? Oh, “the dropped child” was dead! Oh, the child
that was found in the street, and she had brought up ever since, had
died an hour ago, and see where the little creature lay, beneath this
cloth! The dear, the pretty dear!
The dropped child seemed too small and poor a thing for Death to be in
earnest with, but Death had taken it; and already its diminutive form
was neatly washed, composed, and stretched as if in sleep upon a box. I
thought I heard a voice from Heaven saying, It shall be well for thee, O
nurse of the itch-ward, when some less gentle pauper does those offices
to thy cold form, that such as the dropped child are the angels who
behold my Father’s face!
In another room, were several ugly old women crouching, witch-like,
round a hearth, and chattering and nodding, after the manner of the
monkies. “All well here? And enough to eat?” A general chattering and
chuckling; at last an answer from a volunteer. “Oh yes gentleman! Bless
you gentleman! Lord bless the parish of St. So-and-So! It feed the
hungry, Sir, and give drink to the thirsty, and it warm them which is
cold, so it do, and good luck to the parish of St. So-and-So, and
thankee gentleman!” Elsewhere, a party of pauper nurses were at dinner.
“How do _you_ get on?” “Oh pretty well Sir! We works hard, and we lives
hard—like the sodgers!”
In another room, a kind of purgatory or place of transition, six or
eight noisy mad-women were gathered together, under the superintendence
of one sane attendant. Among them was a girl of two or three and twenty,
very prettily dressed, of most respectable appearance, and good manners,
who had been brought in from the house where she had lived as domestic
servant (having, I suppose, no friends), on account of being subject to
epileptic fits, and requiring to be removed under the influence of a
very bad one. She was by no means of the same stuff, or the same
breeding, or the same experience, or in the same state of mind, as those
by whom she was surrounded; and she pathetically complained that the
daily association and the nightly noise made her worse, and was driving
her mad—which was perfectly evident. The case was noted for enquiry and
redress, but she said she had already been there for some weeks.
If this girl had stolen her mistress’s watch, I do not hesitate to say
she would, in all probability, have been infinitely better off. Bearing
in mind, in the present brief description of this walk, not only the
facts already stated in this Journal, in reference to the Model Prison
at Pentonville, but the general treatment of convicted prisoners under
the associated silent system too, it must be once more distinctly set
before the reader, that we have come to this absurd, this dangerous,
this monstrous pass, that the dishonest felon is, in respect of
cleanliness, order, diet, and accommodation, better provided for, and
taken care of, than the honest pauper.
And this conveys no special imputation on the workhouse of the parish of
St. So-and-So, where, on the contrary, I saw many things to commend. It
was very agreeable, recollecting that most infamous and atrocious
enormity committed at Tooting—an enormity which, a hundred years hence,
will still be vividly remembered in the bye-ways of English life, and
which has done more to engender a gloomy discontent and suspicion among
many thousands of the people than all the Chartist leaders could have
done in all their lives—to find the pauper children in this workhouse
looking robust and well, and apparently the objects of very great care.
In the Infant School—a large, light, airy room at the top of the
building—the little creatures, being at dinner, and eating their
potatoes heartily, were not cowed by the presence of strange visitors,
but stretched out their small hands to be shaken, with a very pleasant
confidence. And it was comfortable to see two mangey pauper
rocking-horses rampant in a corner. In the girls’ school, where the
dinner was also in progress, everything bore a cheerful and healthy
aspect. The meal was over, in the boys’ school, by the time of our
arrival there and the room was not yet quite re-arranged; but the boys
were roaming unrestrained about a large and airy yard, as any other
schoolboys might have done. Some of them had been drawing large ships
upon the schoolroom wall; and if they had a mast with shrouds and stays
set up for practice (as they have in the Middlesex House of Correction),
it would be so much the better. At present, if a boy should feel a
strong impulse upon him to learn the art of going aloft, he could only
gratify it, I presume, as the men and women paupers gratify their
aspirations after better board and lodging, by smashing as many
workhouse windows as possible, and being promoted to prison.
In one place, the Newgate of the Workhouse, a company of boys and youths
were locked up in a yard alone; their day-room being a kind of kennel
where the casual poor used formerly to be littered down at night. Divers
of them had been there some long time. “Are they never going away?” was
the natural enquiry. “Most of them are crippled, in some form or other,”
said the Wardsman, “and not fit for anything.” They slunk about, like
dispirited wolves or hyænas; and made a pounce at their food when it was
served out, much as those animals do. The big-headed idiot shuffling his
feet along the pavement, in the sunlight outside, was a more agreeable
object everyway.
Groves of babies in arms; groves of mothers and other sick women in bed;
groves of lunatics; jungles of men in stone-paved down-stairs day-rooms,
waiting for their dinners; longer and longer groves of old people, in
upstairs Infirmary wards, wearing out life, God knows how—this was the
scenery through which the walk lay, for two hours. In some of these
latter chambers, there were pictures stuck against the wall, and a neat
display of crockery and pewter on a kind of sideboard; now and then it
was a treat to see a plant or two; in almost every ward, there was a
cat.
In all of these Long Walks of aged and infirm, some old people were
bed-ridden, and had been for a long time; some were sitting on their
beds half-naked; some dying in their beds; some out of bed, and sitting
at a table near the fire. A sullen or lethargic indifference to what was
asked, a blunted sensibility to everything but warmth and food, a moody
absence of complaint as being of no use, a dogged silence and resentful
desire to be left alone again, I thought were generally apparent. On our
walking into the midst of one of these dreary perspectives of old men,
nearly the following little dialogue took place, the nurse not being
immediately at hand:
“All well here?”
No answer. An old man in a Scotch cap sitting among others on a form at
the table, eating out of a tin porringer, pushes back his cap a little
to look at us, claps it down on his forehead again, with the palm of his
hand, and goes on eating.
“All well here?” (repeated.)
No answer. Another old man sitting on his bed, paralytically peeling a
boiled potato, lifts his head, and stares.
“Enough to eat?”
No answer. Another old man, in bed, turns himself and coughs.
“How are _you_ to-day?” To the last old man.
That old man says nothing; but another old man, a tall old man of a very
good address, speaking with perfect correctness, comes forward from
somewhere, and volunteers an answer. The reply almost always proceeds
from a volunteer, and not from the person looked at or spoken to.
“We are very old, Sir,” in a mild, distinct voice. “We can’t expect to
be well, most of us.”
“Are you comfortable?”
“I have no complaint to make, Sir.” With a half shake of his head, a
half shrug of his shoulders, and a kind of apologetic smile.
“Enough to eat?”
“Why, Sir, I have but a poor appetite,” with the same air as before;
“and yet I get through my allowance very easily.”
“But,” showing a porringer with a Sunday dinner in it; “here is a
portion of mutton, and three potatoes. You can’t starve on that?”
“Oh dear no, Sir,” with the same apologetic air. “Not starve.”
“What do you want?”
“We have very little bread, Sir. It’s an exceedingly small quantity of
bread.”
The nurse, who is now rubbing her hands at the questioner’s elbow,
interferes with, “It ain’t much raly, Sir. You see they’ve only six
ounces a day, and when they’ve took their breakfast, there _can_ only be
a little left for night, Sir.”
Another old man, hitherto invisible, rises out of his bedclothes, as out
of a grave, and looks on.
“You have tea at night?” The questioner is still addressing the
well-spoken old man.
“Yes, Sir, we have tea at night.”
“And you save what bread you can from the morning, to eat with it?”
“Yes, Sir—if we can save any.”
“And you want more to eat with it?”
“Yes, Sir.” With a very anxious face.
The questioner, in the kindness of his heart, appears a little
discomposed, and changes the subject.
“What has become of the old man who used to lie in that bed in the
corner?”
The nurse don’t remember what old man is referred to. There has been
such a many old men. The well-spoken old man is doubtful. The spectral
old man who has come to life in bed, says, “Billy Stevens.” Another old
man who has previously had his head in the fireplace, pipes out,
“Charley Walters.”
Something like a feeble interest is awakened. I suppose Charley Walters
had conversation in him.
“He’s dead!” says the piping old man.
Another old man, with one eye screwed up, hastily displaces the piping
old man, and says:
“Yes! Charley Walters died in that bed, and—and—”
“Billy Stevens,” persists the spectral old man.
“No, no! and Johnny Rogers died in that bed, and—and—they’re both on ’em
dead—and Sam’l Bowyer;” this seems very extraordinary to him; “he went
out!”
With this he subsides, and all the old men (having had quite enough of
it) subside, and the spectral old man goes into his grave again, and
takes the shade of Billy Stevens with him.
As we turn to go out at the door, another previously invisible old man,
a hoarse old man in a flannel gown, is standing there, as if he had just
come up through the floor.
“I beg your pardon, Sir, could I take the liberty of saving a word?”
“Yes; what is it?”
“I am greatly better in my health, Sir; but what I want, to get me quite
round,” with his hand on his throat, “is a little fresh air, Sir. It has
always done my complaint so much good, Sir. The regular leave for going
out, comes round so seldom, that if the gentlemen, next Friday, would
give me leave to go out walking, now and then—for only an hour or so,
Sir!—”
Who could wonder, looking through those weary vistas of bed and
infirmity, that it should do him good to meet with some other scenes,
and assure himself that there was something else on earth? Who could
help wondering why the old men lived on as they did; what grasp they had
on life; what crumbs of interest or occupation they could pick up from
its bare board; whether Charley Walters had ever described to them the
days when he kept company with some old pauper woman in the bud, or
Billy Stevens ever told them of the time when he was a dweller in the
far-off foreign land called Home!
The morsel of burnt child, lying in another room, so patiently, in bed,
wrapped in lint, and looking stedfastly at us with his bright quiet eyes
when we spoke to him kindly, looked as if the knowledge of these things,
and of all the tender things there are to think about, might have been
in his mind—as if he thought, with us, that there was a fellow-feeling
in the pauper nurses which appeared to make them more kind to their
charges than the race of common nurses in the hospitals—as if he mused
upon the Future of some older children lying around him in the same
place, and thought it best, perhaps, all things considered, that he
should die—as if he knew, without fear, of those many coffins, made and
unmade, piled up in the store below—and of his unknown friend, “the
dropped child,” calm upon the box-lid covered with a cloth. But there
was something wistful and appealing, too, in his tiny face, as if, in
the midst of all the hard necessities and incongruities he pondered on,
he pleaded, in behalf of the helpless and the aged poor, for a little
more liberty—and a little more bread.
THE “IRISH DIFFICULTY” SOLVED BY CON Mc Nale.
Con Mc Nale would have been summarily repudiated as an Irishman by our
farce-writers and slashing novelists. He neither drank, fought, nor
swore; did not make many blunders; and never addressed a friend either
as his ‘honey’ or his ‘jewel.’ His _cotamore_ was of stout frieze, and
though Con had long attained his full height, the tailor had left him
room to grow. The _caubeen_ was not his head-dress, for Con had arrived
at the dignity of a silk hat, which had been manufactured, as the mark
in the crown declared, by the Saxons in the Borough of Southwark, which
locality Con believed to be in the n_a_ighbourhood of England. The
brogues were also absent, but were favourably represented by shoes of
native manufacture laced with stout thongs. In fact, Mr. Mc Nale was a
fine specimen of the finest _pisantry_ in the world—without the rags.
People have gone to the Highlands and to Switzerland, and perhaps seen
many places not much more grand and picturesque than the district where
Con Mc Nale had made a patch of the desert to smile. A long range of
blue mountains rising irregularly above each other, looked down on an
extensive plain, that lay along the shore of a mighty lake, to the banks
of which thick plantations crowded so near that the old Irish called the
water _Lough-glas_, which signifies waters of green. The districts where
a short but thick and sweet herbage sprung up among the rocks, were
certainly put to the use of feeding cattle, and it was while employed
there as a herd-boy, that Con Mc Nale determined to become a farmer. His
mind was made up. His earnings were hardly enough to keep life in him,
and if he had tried to save the price of a spade out of them to begin
business with, the chances are that he would have died prematurely for
want of food. But that didn’t matter much; he was determined to be a
farmer. This determination was then as likely of fulfilment as that of
Oliver Cromwell to become Protector of the Realm, while tending the vats
at Huntingdon; or that of Aladdin to become a prince, when he was a
ragged boy in the streets of Bagdad. To show, however, what perseverance
will do, when I made acquaintance with Mr. Con Mc Nale he had actually
got possession of a spade, and was making good use of it in a ditch—his
own ditch, on his own land. As he went on, now digging, now resting on
the handle, he told me all about his gradual promotion from a herd-boy
to a country jontleman.
“My father,” said he, “lived under ould Squire Kilkelly, an’ for awhile
tinded his cattle: but the Squire’s gone out iv this part iv the
counthry, to Australia or some furrin part, an’ the mentioned house
(mansion house) an’ the fine propperty was sould, so it was, for little
or nothin’, for the fightin’ was over in furrin parts; Boney was put
down, an’ there was no price for corn or cattle, an’ a jontleman from
Scotland came an’ bought the istate. We were warned by the new man to
go, for he tuk in his own hand all the in-land about the domain, bein’ a
grate farmer. He put nobody in our little place, but pulled it down, an’
he guv father a five guinea note, but my father was ould an’ not able to
face the world agin, an’ he went to the town an’ tuk a room—a poor,
dirty, choky place it was for him, myself, and sisther to live in. The
naighbours were very kind an’ good, though. Sister Bridget got a place
wid a farmer hereabouts, and I tuk the world on my own showlders. I had
nothin’ at all but the rags I stud up in, an’ they were bad enuf. Poor
Biddy got a shillin’ advanced iv her wages that her masther was to giv
her. She guv it me, for I was bent on goin’ towards Belfast to look for
work. All along the road I axed at every place; they could giv it me but
to no good, except when I axed, they’d giv me a bowl iv broth, or a
piece iv bacon, or an oaten bannock, so that I had my shillin’ to the
fore when I got to Belfast.
“Here the heart was near lavin’ me all out intirely. I went wandtherin’
down to the quay among the ships, and what should there be but a ship
goin’ to Scotland that very night, wid pigs. In throth it was fun to see
the sailors at cross-purposes wid ’em, for they didn’t know the natur iv
the bastes. I did. I knew how to coax ’em. I set to an’ I deludhered an’
coaxed the pigs, an’, by pullin’ them by the tail, knowing that if they
took a fancy I wished to pull ’em back out of the ship, they’d run might
and main into her, and so they did. Well, the sailors were mightily
divarted, an’ when the pigs was aboord, I wint down to the place—an’ the
short iv it is that in three days I was in Glasgow town, an’ the captain
an’ the sailors subschribed up tin-shillins an’ guv it into my hand.
Well, I bought a raping hook, an’ away I trudged till I got quite an’
clane into the counthry, an’ the corn was, here and there, fit to cut.
At last I goes an’ ax a farmer for work. He thought I was too wake to be
paid by the day, but one field havin’ one corner fit to cut, an’ the
next not ready, ‘Paddy,’ says he, ‘you may begin in that corner, an’
I’ll pay yees by the work yees do,’ an’ he guv me my breakfast an’ a
pint of beer. Well, I never quit that masther the whole harvest, an’
when the raping was over I had four goolden guineas to carry home,
besides that I was as sthrong as a lion. Yees would wonder how glad the
sailors was to see me back agin, an’ ne’er a farthin’ would they take
back iv their money, but tuk me over agin to Belfast, givin’ me the
hoighth of good thratemint of all kinds. I did not stay an hour in
Belfast, but tuk to the road to look afther the ould man an’ little
Biddy. Well, sorrows the tidins’ I got. The ould man had died, an’ the
grief an’ disthress of poor little Biddy had even touched her head a
little. The dacent people where she was, may the Lord reward ’em, though
they found little use in her, kep her, hoping I would be able to come
home an’ keep her myself, an’ so I was. I brought her away wid me, an’
the sight iv me put new life in her. I was set upon not being idle, an’
I’ll tell yees what I did next.
“When I was little _bouchaleen_ iv a boy I used to be a head on the
mountain face, an’ ’twas often I sheltered myself behind them gray rocks
that’s at the gable iv my house, an’ somehow it came into my head that
the new Squire, being a grate man for improvin’, might let me try to
brake in a bit iv land there, an’ so I goes off to him, an’ one iv the
sarvints bein’ a sort iv cousin iv mine, I got to spake to the Squire,
an’ behould yees he guv me lave at onst. Well, there’s no time like the
prisint, an’ as I passed out iv the back yard of the mentioned (mansion)
house, I sees the sawyers cutting some Norway firs that had been blown
down by the storm, an’ I tells the sawyers that I had got lave to brake
in a bit iv land in the mountains, an’ what would some pieces iv fir
cost. They says they must see what kind of pieces they was that I wished
for, an’ no sooner had I set about looking ’em through than the Squire
himself comes ridin’ out of the stable-yard, an’ says he at onst,
Mc Nale, says he, you may have a load iv cuttins to build your cabin, or
two if you need it. ‘The Heavens be your honour’s bed,’ says I, an’ I
wint off to the room where I an’ Biddy lived, not knowin’ if I was on my
head or my heels. Next day, before sunrise, I was up here five miles up
the face of Slieve-dan, with a spade in my fist, an’ I looked roun’ for
the most shiltered spot I could sit my eyes an. Here I saw, where the
house an’ yard are stan’in, a plot iv about an acre to the south iv that
tall ridge of rocks, well sheltered from the blast from the north an’
from the aste, an’ it was about sunrise an’ a fine morning in October
that I tuk up the first spadeful. There was a spring then drippin’ down
the face iv the rocks, the same you see gushin’ through the crockery
pipe in the farm-yard; an’ I saw at once that it would make the cabin
completely damp, an’ the land about mighty sour an’ water-_slain_; so I
determined to do what I saw done in Scotland. I sunk a deep drain right
under the rock to run all along the back iv the cabin, an’ workin’ that
day all alone by myself, I did a grate dale iv it. At night, it was
close upon dark when I started to go home, so I hid my spade in the
heath an’ trudged off. The next mornin’ I bargined with a farmer to
bring me up a load iv fir cuttins from the Squire’s, an’ by the evenin’
they were thrown down within a quarter iv a mile iv my place,—for there
was no road to it then, an’ I had to carry ’em myself for the remainder
of the way. This occupied me till near nightfall; but I remained that
night till I placed two upright posts of fir, one at each corner iv the
front iv the cabin.
“I was detarmined to get the cabin finished as quickly as possible, that
I might be able to live upon the spot, for much time was lost in goin’
and comin’. The next day I was up betimes, an’ finding a track iv stiff
blue clay, I cut a multitude of thick square sods iv it, an’ having set
up two more posts at the remainin’ two corners iv the cabin, I laid four
rows iv one gable, rising it about three feet high. Havin’ laid the
rows, I sharpind three or four straight pine branches, an’ druv them
down through the sods into the earth, to pin the wall in its place. Next
day I had a whole gable up, each three rows iv sods pinned through to
the three benathe. In about eight days I had put up the four walls,
makin’ a door an’ two windows; an’ now my outlay began, for I had to pay
a thatcher to put on the sthraw an’ to assist me in risin’ the rafthers.
In another week it was covered in, an’ it was a pride to see it with the
new thatch, an’ a wicker chimbley daubed with clay, like a pallis
undernathe the rock. I now got some turf that those who had cut ’em had
not removed, an’ they sould ’em for a thrifle, an’ I made a grate fire
an’ slept on the flure of my own house that night. Next day I got
another load iv fir brought, to make the partitions in the winter, an’
in a day or two after I had got the inside so dhry that I was able to
bring poor Biddy to live there for good and all. The Heavens be praised,
there was not a shower iv rain fell from the time I began the cabin till
I ended it, an’ when the rain did fall, not a drop came through,—all was
carried off by my dhrain into the little river before yees. The moment I
was settled in the house I comminced dhraining about an acre iv bog in
front, an’ the very first winter I sowed a shillin’s worth of cabbidge
seed, an’ sold in the spring a pound’s worth of little cabbidge plants
for the gardins in the town below. When spring came—noticin’ how the
early planted praties did the best, I planted my cabbidge ground with
praties, an’ I had a noble crap, while the ground was next year fit for
the corn. In the mane time, every winther I tuk in more and more ground,
an’ in summer I cut my turf for fewel; where the cuttins could answer,
in winther, for a dhrain; an’ findin’ how good the turf were, I got a
little powney an’ carried ’em to the town to sell, when I was able to
buy lime in exchange, an’ put it on my bog, so as to make it produce
double. As things went on, I got assistance, an’ when I marrid, my wife
had two cows that guv me a grate lift.
“I was always thought to be a handy boy; an’ I could do a turn of
mason-work with any man not riglarly bred to it; so I took one of my
loads of lime, an’ instead of puttin’ it on the land, I made it into
morthar—and indeed the stones being no ways scarce, I set to an’ built a
little kiln, like as I had seen down the counthry. I could then burn my
own lime, an’ the limestone were near to my hand, too many iv ’em. While
all this was goin’ on, I had riz an’ sould a good dale iv oats and
praties, an’ every summer I found ready sale for my turf in the town
from one jontleman that I always charged at an even rate, year by year.
I got the help of a stout boy, a cousin iv my own, who was glad iv a
shilter; an’ when the childher were ould enough, I got some young cattle
that could graze upon the mountain in places where no other use could be
made iv the land, and set the gossoons to herd ’em.
“There was one bit iv ground nigh han’ to the cabin, that puzzled me
intirely. It was very poor and sandy, an’ little better than a rabbit
burrow; an’ telling the Squire’s Scotch steward iv it, he bade me thry
some flax, an’ sure enuf, so I did, an’ a fine crap iv flax I had, as
you might wish to see; an’ the stame-mills being beginnin’ in the
counthry at that time, I sould my flax for a very good price—my wife
having dhried it, beetled it, an’ scutched it with her own two hands. I
should have said before, that the Squire himself came up here with a lot
iv fine ladies and jontlemen to see what I had done; an’ you never in
your life seed a man so well plased as he was, an’ a Mimber of Parlimint
from Scotland was with him, an’ he tould me I was a credit to ould
Ireland; and sure, didn’t Father Connor read upon the papers, how he
tould the whole story in the Parlimint House before all the lords an’
quality: but faix, he didn’t forgit me; for a month or two after he was
here, an’ it coming on the winter, comes word for me an’ the powney to
go down to the mentioned (mansion) house, for the steward wanted me; so
away I wint, an’ there, shure enuf, was an illigant Scotch plough, every
inch of iron, an’ a lot of young Norroway pines—the same you see
shiltering the house an’ yard—an’ all was a free prisint for me from the
Scotch jontleman that was the Mimber of Parliment. ’Twas that plough
that did the meracles iv work hereabouts; for I often lint it to any
that I knew to be a careful hand; an’ it was the manes iv havin’ the
farmers all round send an’ buy ’em. At last I was able to build a brave
snug house; and praised be Providence, I have never had an hour’s ill
health, nor a moment’s grief, but when poor Biddy, the cratur, died from
us. It is thirty years since that morning that I tuk up the first
spadeful from the wild mountain side; an’ twelve acres are good labour
land, an’ fifteen drained, an’ good grazin’. I have been payin’ rint
twinty years, an’ am still, thank God, able to take my own part iv any
day’s work,—plough, spade, or flail.”
“Have you got a lease?” said I.
“No, indeed; not a schrape of a pin; nor I never axed it. Have I not my
_tinnant-rite_?”
From that subject, Mr. Mc Nale diverged slightly into politics, touching
on the state of the _counthry_, and untwisting some entanglements of the
‘Irish difficulty’ that might be usefully made known in the
neighbourhood of Westminster.
“Troth, Sir,” said Con, “you English are mighty grand in all your
doings. You dale wholesale in all sorts iv things; good luck to you—in
charity as well as in pigs, praties, an’ sich like. Well you want to
improve Ireland by wholesale; you set up illigant schames for puttin’ us
all to rights by the million; for clanin’ an’ dranin’ a whole province
at onst; for giving labour to everybody; an’ all mighty purty on paper,
with figures all as round an’ nate as copybooks, with long rigiments of
O’s, after ’em. I’ve heard iv whole stacks of papers piled up an’
handsomely ticketed in tidy big offices—all ‘rules and riglations’ for
labourers, which the boys can’t follow, and the inspectors can’t force.
Why not,” continued Mr. Con, giving his spade a thrust into the ground
that sent it up to the maker’s name, “Why not tache the boys to do as I
have done?”
“But all are not so persevering, so knowing, and so fond of work as
you.”
Whether Mr. Mc Nale was impressed by his own modesty, or by the force of
my suggestion, I know not. But he was silent.